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.
My mother lived in a large old house that we called “the manor”. Supposedly it was the home of one of the regional governors of the area back in the 1700’s, and it had servant quarters, a large “carriage house”, a barn, and a row of houses that were the quarters for the servants back in the day.
When she bought it (with her second “husband”), my step dad, it was being used a a mobile home park. And so they cleared out the old mobile homes, and the discarded cars, cleaned up the land. Knocked down some buildings, and installed a pool with a pool house, and placed a nice water fountain with a stature in front.
But…
Off to the side was this big spread of land and Lordy, it needed to be mowed. That’s 11 acres you all. Took me a full day to mow all the grass, I’ll tell you what.
But in the middle of that was a flag pole. And my mother would put up a new flag every Memorial Day.
Now, she always bought smaller flags. This is because they gave the impression that the pole was larger, and thus bigger, than it actually was.
Well, one day in 2002, I guess, I went to get a replacement flag and the storekeeper asked me what size that I wanted.
I told her that I did not know.
So he asked me how tall the pole was. And I said about three stories tall, and he gave me a flag.
When I brought it home, my mother was angry.
She said that it was way too large.
But, since it was the end of the day and the holiday was upon us, she gave me the ok to put it up.
And so I did.
Let me tell you that that large flag was GLORIOUS. Simply wonderful.
It moved with strength in the wind, and it was so gosh visually appealing that cars would slow down as they drove by the house.
So people, when ever you put up a flag, select the largest one that would fit on the pole. You will NOT be disappointed.
And as for my mother… well, she changed her mind about what the size of a flag should be, and always insisted on the large size.
You see, everyone.
Size does matter.
This entire post endured a javascript crash, please excuse it, and manually run the video links at the side. Sorry.
Worst. I worked for a family owned business. I was a Sale Rep/Tech. During that year I was Salesman of the Month 10 of 12 months. I sold over $950,000 worth of computers. The closest salesperson was a great friend of mine to this day. She sold $600,000 worth of computers. The Christmas bonus was a $12 ham. Not a coupon, an actual ham.
Best. I worked for a big HVAC company as a Supervisor for their Network Operations Center. There were 16 of us in the office. Our Boss gave us all personal gifts, in my case, (and yes, I’m a Nerd) a replica of the Star Trek phaser. It cost about $125. This was not a bonus directly, this was out of his own pocket. Each person got something that was special to each person. And I am proud to say that even after not working for him for 20 years, we are still good friends. He’s retired, and I’m jealous.
One February my husband and I went on a couples only trip to Jamaica. My oldest daughter was 20 years old at the time and we allowed her to stay in our home in Maine on the promise of her best behavior. I took my younger two children to my mothers house in Philadelphia. We had an oil furnace in the house and had just filled our 350 gallon tank prior to leaving on vacation. Yes
Because we didn’t totally trust our 20 yr. old, I had locked the alcohol into my bedroom closet and had asked our neighbors to keep an eye on the house to make sure there wasn’t any more than 1-2 cars in the driveway at any given time. Feeling that we had covered our bases, my husband and I proceeded to enjoy our time with friends on a beautiful tropical island.
Seven days later when we arrived back at our house, it was to find all the lights on, the doors wide open to the zero degree temperatures and the furnace completely out of oil. There was a note on the kitchen counter written by a friend of my daughter’s reading: “Morgan is in jail, you’ll need to bail her out when you get home.”
Our living room furniture had multiple cigarette burns, as well as the bedroom carpets and some of the beds. The shower had been ripped out of the main bathroom. My closet door had been removed to get at the alcohol I had hidden away. All of us had valuables stolen. The total for the damages totaled $12,000 and THAT didn’t include our lost heating fuel.
For any who may be curious, no I did NOT bail my daughter out of jail. I did however speak to someone at the jail to find out the charge was serving alcohol to her underaged friends.
She had a difficult next couple of months but ended up discovering some real strengths. During that time, she totally turned her life around and when she finally asked if she could come back home, she was told yes but with conditions. Over the years she filled us in on what actually happened and that people she didn’t even know kept coming into the house because they “heard ” there was a party. She tried to stop it but it was far too out of control.
Jerry Seinfeld DESTROYS Woke Insanity in EPIC Video – Hollywood Goes CRAZY!
TSMC has no plans. It’s a slave to the U.S. The U.S. has plans that failed and will never work. They want to make chips in its country and in its slave nations. They thought it could contain China but China did not only buy from other nations. They do it themselves. Hahahaha.
But the person who post this question ought to ask if China has a domestic market that represents 30% of the world’s market and they make 4/5 of everything the rest of the world or another say 40–50% if these 70–80% don’t buy and used your chips, you are left with 20–30% balance!
You barely need a factory let alone 3–4 countries making these chips! Do your simple mathematics. Chinese are superb at maths. They pretend to be up in arms but this chip ban couldn’t be sillier!
Top 10 Unsettling Signs Of Scary Parallel Universes In History
I had lost my wife of almost 30 years 10 months previous. Her best friend invited me to dinner with her sister who incidentally lost her husband at the same time. My deceased wife’s best friend felt sharing our experience would assist in the grieving process. She repeated the process a few weeks later bringing takeout to my place. The friend shortly after dinner stood to leave, my eyes met her sister’s eyes and I could tell there was more to talk about. They left.
Of course I started taking her to dinner alone and quickly bonds formed.
The false pretense part of the story occurs months after, when we announced to her sister we were getting married. My deceased wife’s best friend was absolutely shocked at the idea, no concept what so ever of us being more than consoling friends, hell I was her best friend’s husband and she was her sister. It’s all too early, it’s been only one year. In fact she quietly became scarce, not contacting either of us for months and months. Slowly she adjusted to the idea her best friend’s husband was now married to her sister. It took a while for our dense heads to realize my deceased wife’s best friend also had to go through the grieving process.
All is well now and relationship back to normal.
Faki Soupa (Greek Lentil Soup)
2024 01 22 11 53
Ingredients
3/4 cup brown lentils
1 large onion, sliced
2 cloves garlic, crushed
1 (3 ounce) can tomato puree
8 ounces fresh tomatoes, peeled and seeded
Good pinch of oregano
2 tablespoons olive oil
3 3/4 cups water
Salt, to taste
Pepper, to taste
Instructions
Cover lentils with cold water and bring to boil. Drain lentils and return to the pan with 1 1/2 pints water, garlic, onion, tomato puree, fresh tomatoes, oregano and olive oil. Bring to a boil and simmer until the lentils are soft.
Remove from heat and blend, but stop blending before the mixture gets too smooth.
Season to taste.
UKRAINE LATEST: 5,600 DEAD IN ONE WEEK; Matches a Visitor to Ukraine Report
Ukrainian casualties soar: Kiev loses 5,600 troops in seven days – Widespread use of thermobaric shells by Russian artillery.
Ukrainian losses on the various fronts of the war are increasing dramatically as a result of the lack of ammunition that is now plaguing the Ukrainian Army.
On the contrary, the Russian Army has increased the intensity of the bombardments and above all, the use of thermobaric rockets from TOS-1A systems.
Ukrainian casualties increased – 5,600 dead in seven days!
The Ukrainian army has suffered heavy casualties during front-line fighting where Russian forces have the military initiative in all directions, Moscow said on Friday.
The numbers above are a confirmation of an email I received on January 6 from a woman who had just returned from a trip to Ukraine. While I did not publish that letter when it came, I think the news story above cries out for her letter to be reported. Here is her report:
———-
I just got back from Ukraine, where I was visiting some friends.
Everything we have heard about what’s happening in Ukraine is a lie.
The reality is darker, bleaker, and unequivocally hopeless. There is no such thing as Ukraine “winning” this war.
– By their estimates, they have lost over one million of their sons, fathers and husbands; an entire generation is gone. – Even in the Southwest, where the anti-Russian sentiment is long-standing, citizens are reluctant or straight-up scared to publicly criticize Zelensky; they will go to jail. – In every village and town, the streets, shops, and restaurants are mostly absent of men. – The few men who remain are terrified of leaving their homes for fear of being kidnapped into conscription. Some have resorted to begging friends to break their legs to avoid service. – Army search parties take place early in the morning, when men leave their homes to go to work. They ambush and kidnap them off the streets and within 3-4 hours they get listed in the army and taken away straight to the front lines with minimal or no training at all; it is “a death sentence.” – It’s getting worse every day. Where I was staying, a dentist had just been taken by security forces on his way to work, leaving behind two small children. Every day, 3-5 dead bodies keep arriving from the front lines. – Mothers and wives fight tooth and nail with the armed forces, beg and plead not to have their men taken away. They try bribing, which sometimes works, but most of the time they are met with physical violence and death threats. – The territory celebrated as having been “won back” from Russia has been reduced to rubble and is uninhabitable. Regardless, there is no one left to live there and displaced families will likely never return. – They see the way the war has been reported, at home and abroad. It’s a “joke” and “propaganda.” They say: “Look around: is this winning?”. – Worse, some have been hoaxed into believing that once Ukrainians forces are exhausted, American soldiers will come in to replace them and “win the war”.
There is no ambiguity in these people. The war was for nothing – a travesty. The outcome always was, and is, clear. The people are hopeless, utterly destroyed, and living in an unending nightmare.
They are pleading for an end, any end – most likely the same “peace” that could have been achieved two years ago. In their minds, they have already lost, for their sons, fathers and husbands are gone, and their country has been destroyed. There is no “victory” that can change that.
Make no mistake, they are angry with Putin. But they are also angry with Zelensky and the West. They have lost everything, worst of all, hope and faith, and cannot comprehend why Zelensky wishes to continue the current trajectory, the one of human devastation.
I didn’t witness the war; but what I saw was absolutely heart-breaking.
Shame on the people, regardless of their intentions, who have supported this war. And shame on the media for continuing to lie about it.
Maria Mateiciuc 8:37 AM · Jan 6, 2024
American Woman In Asia Discovered Men Are HAPPY Overseas
I trained in and taught karate for about 20 years yet I wouldn’t want to go up against two or more young punks who were assaulting me on the street. Too many chances they’re carrying a weapon or might get in a lucky punch.
My wife and I walk a lot in the evening at our coastal home. Where we live is safe but you never know who might drive by looking for trouble.
So I added a weapon to my arsenal. And I train with it regularly.
Yet, it’s perfectly legal to carry personally or in your car.
You can carry it into a restaurant or movie theater.
You can have it in the bank or the courthouse.
You can take it on a plane or a bus.
It’s inexpensive to buy and easy to learn how to use effectively.
It’s innocuous looking so it would be a surprise to a bad actor.
Yet, it’s devastatingly effective as a weapon.
You can use it to even the odds of more than one attacker and against a weapon.
It’s a walking cane.
But not just any old ten dollar pine one.
It needs to be hard wood like oak or hickory so it won’t break and has some weight.
The ones I carry are Irish walking sticks and canes made of Blackthorn wood. It’s very dense and is the wood used for traditional Irish fighting sticks.
And you need to learn how to use it effectively and practice regularly to become proficient with it.
You can find lots of videos on line about how to use a cane for defense effectively.
Actually, there is are whole martial arts devoted to cane and walking stick fighting. Watching videos on them you realize how devastating of a weapon it is.
So, you don’t want to spend 20 years learning karate? But you still want to have some means of self defense in this increasingly chaotic world?
You’re in luck. Buy a good cane that can be used effectively for self defense.
Then learn how to use it effectively and practice,
Oh, and try to never need to use it. That’s the best self defense.
I had a relative who wanted to borrow money. His vehicle was towed as he failed to pay on a title loan.
As this relative was bad at money matters, I asked how much he needed and who was the lienholder. I wasn’t going to just give him a sum of money, without proof that he actually needed it, and wasn’t going to: 1. Use it to go gambling. 2. Give it to a woman. 3. Use it go on a drunken spree. (He was an alcoholic).
He threw a tantrum worthy of a toddler, calling me, “a selfish bitch”, among other things. This was at my job. He had already borrowed a few thousand from me that he had never paid back.
Needless to say, he never got the vehicle back, although he later apologized about the name calling.
That was the day I learned that you could divorce your family, love them from a distance and stop buying into their bullshit.
He died in London, UK, 1979. We had no family living there, just mom. I was living in Miami, and my sister was living in NJ. My dad and I had a huge falling out when I married a Roman Catholic, but we’d come back together by that time, and my dad and my wife and her family actually had a good relationship.
We arranged the funeral there. It was just my mom, my sister, and me. And my mom had a hang-up about death and funerals. She literally couldn’t even bear to say the words, “death” or “funeral,” and I had never been to a funeral before, or even a viewing. I was 28 at the time. They had friends, but I think only one person came and that was it. I don’t know if my mom even told any of them.
There was no viewing service, no synagogue service. Just the burial at Rainham Cemetery. My sister and I were waiting for the coffin to be brought out, and it was wheeled out on a cart, The thing had three wheels, one of them had a mostly flat tyre, and the thing squeaked loud enough to wake the dead.
It was so surreal, like something out of Monty Python. could barely keep from laughing out loud.
There was this rumor in middle school about this white, tall, blonde girl. She was really mean and kinda rude but she didn’t bully anyone so I just ignored her. But as you can probably guess a rumor started about her at some point, I first heard it in the girls locker room after she yelled at someone for getting in her way.
The rumor was this: She had gotten pregnant by a 19 year old and later when the baby was born her (or her parents) killed it.
Of course no one knew if the rumor was true and neither did I so I brushed it off as a stupid rumor. But you know what’s worse….the rumor was true!
I didn’t learn this until early high school.
In my history class I had unknowingly sat by the step brother of the girl as I was retelling the rumor to another girl as I was talking about how crazy it was. But the step brother interrupted me to tell me and the other girl that the rumor was true (at least part of it anyway). The girl and I were shocked, he told us that the mean blonde girl had gotten pregnant, gave birth to it, and luckily put the baby up for adoption soon after the birth.
What’s worse is that I don’t know if the mean girl was forced to date the 19 year old or if the guy raped her to get her pregnant, even her step brother (who didn’t like the mean girl either) didn’t and wouldn’t say.
Maybe that’s why the tall, white, blonde girl was so mean.
Everybody had to have a Que (pony tail) to show subservience to the Qing. The Qing / Manchus were the top level of society for a couple centuries.
After that? Nobody cared.
EXCEPT for in Hong Kong which was held by Britain until 1997. The clan wars of Guangdong and Fujian between 1855 and 1867 left DEEP scars and well into the 1980s there was general dislike of mixing between Hakkas and Cantonese.
My grandfather expelled one of his daughters for marrying a Cantonese man.
Also amongst many post WW2 types there’s a mentality of don’t marry Cantonese, this died out in Mainland China decades ago but lingered around in the overseas Chinese community. I still remember in the 1980s in the UK being told by my uncles that I should stay away from Cantonese.
Early 60’s, little tiny farming town … Liz was the subject of nasty gossip and rumors. People said Liz was a slut, a whore, a filthy tramp and lots of other names. Liz never had sex until she got married. She dated four or five boys – one date per boy. She assumed the boys asked her because they liked her. They asked her because they assumed she would have sex anywhere with anyone. Liz was modest in dress and behavior, but still was called a dirty slut … not because of anything she did, but because of her three older sisters. All three of her sisters got married at 16 or 17 because they got pregnant. Shotgun weddings, we called it back then. So …. these guys, who had no ethics, who were as dumb as bricks, asked her for dates. Instead of driving to the movies, they drove out to an isolated area and demanded sex. She refused. The boys threatened to tell everyone they got what they wanted. She still refused. The last boy she went on a date with tried to force her. She managed to get out of the car and begged strangers for a ride home. After that, she refused to date. She got lots of insult, ridicule and some physical harassment, because she came from a family “where all the girls were sluts.” Her last three years of school were awful. She was bullied so badly that she had to take sedating medication to keep from crying, to keep from having a breakdown. Both adults and kids were cruel to her. She toughed it out, went to college and refused to ever go to high school class reunions.
Several years ago, I was at Siegfried & Roy’s Secret Garden at The Mirage in Las Vegas. This was many years after Roy’s tiger accident, but before he passed away. It was Thanksgiving, and we were walking through, looking at the tigers playing and eating melons.
As we walked around, Siegfried himself appeared. Of course, being his exhibit, a number of fans wanted to get pictures and autographs. I’ve been a fan of theirs since I was a kid, so this was a one in a lifetime, completely unexpected occasion.
When he got to me, he did the standard “hi, how are you” nicety that people do without really expecting an answer, but I looked at him and asked, “I’m fine… how are you doing?”
He looked at me through his ubiquitous sunglasses. I could see his eyes measuring me up as he stood about two feet from me. After a long pause, he said “well, Thanksgiving is always a hard time… when you’re an entertainer and everything ends suddenly…” and just talked with me for a few minutes (while everyone else waited patiently). I got the definite feeling like he was rarely asked how HE was doing, surrounded by starstruck fans or associates, and he felt the need to talk.
image 168
Thanksgiving Day, Roy injured (and never recovered), I’m sure he felt the need to be around people. It was a special moment, one that I’ll always remember.
Celebrities are just people, and a lot of people forget that.
I was visiting Mom when she lived a good two hour plus drive from my sister’s family (I live out of state). It was probably 1998 and we were chatting in her kitchen. She was silent for a moment and then she said, “Richard”, (you know the way your mom says your name that you know you gotta pay attention?) My ears birddogged.
“Richard, when I turn 90, I am going to stop driving.” (Mom was still a very good driver, but she didn’t want “someone to hit me and then blame the old lady.”)
“I’m going to stop driving and I’m going to give my car to my grandsons…
“I’m going to stop driving and give my car to JR and Mike and I’m going to sell the house and move to (a retirement facility) closer to Sue and my family.” Such a major decision to give up her house and her car. Then she said something that to this day I carry with me.
“And I plan on liking it”, she said firmly.
Now Mom loved to read (especially her Ellery Queen mysteries) but I don’t think she ever read a personal growth motivational book in her life (except the Bible) and here she is framing one of the biggest major life changes ever with positive expectations.
That gave me a glimpse into how she perceived the world and focused on good rather than bad consequences. What a gift she gave me.
Mom passed in 2019 at 110 years old.
I think Mom was full of good intentions and had a very strong moral compass and truly lived the life of a good person whose influence spread wider and farther than she could have ever imagined, as good a definition of badass as any.
CALLISTO -1940’s Retro Pulp Science Fiction by Skyward, Action, Music, Total Mayhem, Runway Gen-2
Users are almost never right. Go shadow them and get the real story.
Understand 100% of the problem, design to solve 90% of it.
The last 20% effort is 80% of the engineering cost.
When designing, make it survive 3–5 years. You should be rewriting it by then anyways.
Software engineering is a process. Don’t overfit the initial requirements, you need to stay flexible for future readiness.
First pass is to solve it. Second pass is to clean up and learn. Third pass is to deep design using what you’ve learned.
CPU is cheap. Don’t over optimize.
Focus on enabling people to do more. 1 hour of work should become 10 hours of output when you enable humans.
When prioritizing consider the models of (1) attacker (2) defend it (3) bandaid it (4) clean it up. Each one has an associated operational cost, solve permanently cost, and a cost to perform. You need to pick your battles.
If only you can fix it, then only you will babysit it, forever. You can’t move on to more interesting things.
Edit: These are MY golden rules. They do not have to be YOURS. Please share YOUR golden rules. 🙂 We can learn from each other. If there’s one thing I’ve learned in my life, is that I have learned everything, EVERYTHING from others. Mentors, peers, and friends. Some random written article should have zero social pressure on you to conform. My knowledge probably applies between 2007 to 2025? Then some other pattern will take hold.
NOTE: This is a true story, I’m not making it up or taking the piss. The episode I’m about to describe was not tongue in cheek or satirical in anyway.
Before my wife and I moved to Australia from the U.K. I assisted my in-laws in purchasing a laptop computer. The idea being that we’d be able to make skype calls etc to help them stay in touch. As they were both totally computer illiterate I set the laptop up for them and tried to give them an understanding of how to use skype, email & internet explorer (as it was back in the day).
For internet explorer I showed them how to open the program, told them about the “tool bar” and some of the basic functions on it. I explained about search and how they could find any information they required or shop for anything they needed using it. All seemed to be going reasonably well when I popped out to pick my wife up from work for fifteen minutes or so.
At this point I should mention that my father in law is a joiner (carpenter) of many years.
Anyway, I returned after picking my wife up to find my father in law at the laptop with internet explorer open. After a minute or so of watching him staring at the screen in a perplexed manner I asked him if he was having a problem that I could help with. “where are the saws?” he asked me.
“I’m not sure what you mean John, if you’re looking for something you’ll need to type it into google” I explained.
“Yes, I need a new saw. You said I could get whatever I needed on here & I’ve been looking at the tool bar for five minutes and I just can’t find the saws!”….
Fortunately, they were able to get skype working through their sky TV shortly after we left.
I shit you not. This really happened. My father in law couldn’t buy a new saw because he couldn’t find the ‘saw button’ on the ‘tool’ bar.
When I was a senior in high school, I was about the size of Rosie Greer—6’5″ and 250#, and like most people my size, I was extremely patient and gentle with “little people,” but being gentle was perceived by stupid people as being weak or a coward. Horrible mistake.
One day after school, I was walking to my car. That required me to walk between cars full of students waiting to get out. The space that I chose to walk through was in front of a junior who drove three eighth graders to and from school, and he wanted to show the younger kids how tough he was, so as I was walking between his car and the car in front of him, he pulled up and hit my shins with his bumper. And these idiots were laughing.
I walked over to the driver door, and tried to open it, but the stupid child smiled and pointed at the locked door, obviously thinking that he was safe from retribution. He was safely in his 1968 VW Beetle.
I smiled back at him, and put my hands together like a sledge hammer, and starting with the roof, I pounded every piece of sheet metal with my “sledge hammer” fists once—leaving the car covered with dents. Then, I walked to the driver’s door again, still smiling (he wasn’t) and I bent down, grabbing the frame and lifted the left side of his car so that the left tires were eighteen inches off of the ground. (Actually a lot easier to do than it sounds with the help of adrenaline,) and I calmly said, “Idiot, if you ever mess with me again, I will break your f~<#ng neck.” Then, I dropped that side of the car back on the ground.
Word quickly got around about what had happened, and even though I remained a patient and gentle person for the last six months of my senior year, 1973, nobody tried to show how tough they were by messing with me.
And yes, I know that I could have ignored the light tapping of his car and walked away, but I didn’t feel like it that January day.
Did I bully him? Perhaps, but I frankly didn’t and still don’t care.
This one’s about a friend, but it’s worth sharing:
I used to work at a tutoring company, where one of my coworkers (nicknamed “Minty”) used to tell all our students that he was six years old.
The preschool class actually believed him, because those little four- and five-year-olds didn’t have any real concept of age. Minty convinced them that he was just a really big “big kid.” In fact, he pulled this off so successfully that he even became close friends with a couple of the students.
Whenever kids claimed they didn’t believe him, he’d just look at them with indignation and said, “I just drink all my milk and eat ALL my vegetables!”
Once, a kid said suspiciously, “I bet you have a wife!”, and Minty replied, “Will you please tell me what she looks like, then? Because I’m still trying to find her.” (He was 21 and single.)
And so on so forth.
Then, a few months into the school year, he caught one of his favorite students staring at him out of the corner of her eye.
After a while he said, “Hey, what’s up?”
She said, accusingly, “I think you’re a grown-up!”
Turns out he’d forgotten to shave that day, and a little bit of stubble was showing on his chin. So then the whole class started staring and saying, “You’re a grown-up?!” in tones that ranged between awe and betrayal.
After that, the cat was out of the bag, but it was really entertaining while it lasted.
The 17th defense policy coordination talks between China and the United States were held in Washington on Monday and Tuesday, China’s Defense Ministry announced on Wednesday.
In a statement, the ministry said the talks were co-chaired by officials from the Central Military Commission and the US deputy assistant to the secretary of defense.
The Chinese side said in a statement that it is willing to develop healthy and stable military-to-military relations with the US on the basis of equality and respect, and jointly implement the military-related consensus reached by the two heads of the states during their meeting in San Francisco in November.
The statement said that the US should acknowledge China’s concerns and do more to promote the development of bilateral military ties.
China also reiterated its positions on the Taiwan question and the South China Sea issues.
It said it will never make any compromise on the Taiwan question and demanded the US side to abide by the one-China principle, implement its relevant commitments, stop arming Taiwan and oppose “Taiwan independence”, the statement said.
China also urged the US to reduce its military deployment and provocative actions in the South China Sea and stop providing support to certain countries that are infringement on its territory and causing provocations.
The US should fully recognize the root causes of maritime and air security risks, strictly restrain its front-line troops and stop hyping up problems, the ministry said.
China has also made clear its solemn position and major concerns on issues concerning China’s core interests and international hotspot issues, it added.
Time-Traveling with The Jetsons: Futuristic Nostalgia
A few years back I took over running a significant IT project at a bank which used Oracle who had just shafted the bank’s IT director. He had got board level approval to upgrade and unify all the different databases which was serious money. Oracle then decided to double the price, he resisted but facing unsupported systems he gave in. That altered his career somewhat.
I didn’t know that when Oracle turned up to negotiate price for our systems, since I was an interim project manager and quite low in the food chain.
In this situation I never dress to impress vendors, indeed I tend to talk down my understanding of tech as well, to see if they are being straight with me.
I took along the guy I’d just hired as development manager and I ran the conversation. These tend to be one of two patterns. Either the management guy does all the talking and the techie just puts in points or the techie runs it and the manager blesses the outcome..
Oracle wanted more than list price.
I was bemused by this, also the trading system didn’t need very advanced features since it just logged things and ran reports, but the Oracle rep said we would only be allowed to buy the most expensive version because you’re a bank.
To which I responded but it’s the same binary Mary Pat.
Because these reports would be seen by many people in other firms she also demanded that we buy hundreds of client licences.
At the binary remark she looked at my non-great suit and then at my development manager’s and started talking to him, literally ignoring me since she had decided that he was my boss because I was only a techie.
He has dressed up for the meeting, actually put on his tie for it, since he thought that showing Oracle that you had money was good thing. It’s not.
He looked quite bemused, I’m not sure he’d ever bought any software for a firm and certainly wasn’t going to start now. I literally moved myself and stuck my head in the way and said are you going over my head Mary Pat ?
Yes she was and it didn’t stop there. I indicated that I was buying Sybase which was vastly cheaper and did not run the risk of an Oracle punitive licence audit.
Days later the head of the division spoke to me about what happened next. This system would pass billions through it and so the bank was quite keen that it worked well. Oracle had somehow got to a board meeting and demanded that I be fired, that I was damaging the (abusive) relationship they had and that I was buying a cheap and unreliable system which would destroy the firm.
for those not in IT Sybase has been used for decades for banking systems, it may or may not be right for you, but it’s not an insane choice.
The system would go on not just to work, but would end up being used by the British Government to manage their rather large debt mountain.
One version of the meeting which reached me later was that she literally stamped her foot. That was how entitled Oracle was with my firm. This may sound unusual to you. Ask anyone who’s done business with Oracle,
The board were very impressed. Not with her, but with someone in IT standing up to Oracle bullying. So the edict came down find Dominic and give her a job. So I ended up Head of IT for that division.
My first job was working at Woolworths, in the UK. I worked there from the age of around 15 to 18 years old, from 1993 to 1996. I did Saturdays and evening shelf stacking.
Woolworths in Britain famously opened the first self-service shop back in 1955. It was distinctly different from Woolworths in other countries. At the time, it sold household items, like pots, pans and Tupperware, sewing items – the dreaded haberdashery (the hardest thing to do a stock take on in the known world). Its famous pick-and-mix sweets included things like Cadbury’s Roses chocolates, where you could see which ones were everyone’s favourites by what was left in the container*. It also sold children’s clothes, records, CDs, tapes, and lottery tickets.
It closed for good in 2009, unable to survive the financial crisis, and in my opinion, as someone who worked there but hardly ever bought anything, for failing to offer anything unique or better than other lower-cost stores. The quality of many of the products was decidedly average. The Ladybird brand children’s clothes and the pick and mix were good but weren’t enough to keep it afloat.
My first Christmas working in retail was Christmas 1993. That was when the magic of Christmas died.
We, the hard-working, little-paid workers of Woolworths, arrived on Christmas Eve 1993 at 7.30 am, the shop opened at 8 am. We worked until 10 pm. We had four tills, and queues of around 15–20 customers were present at each till the entire day. Once a till had around £5000 in it, we emptied it to the back office. They were each emptied 4–5 times that day. We stood at the tills. Standing for 1–2 hours is tiring, but standing for 12–14 hours is hard work.
At the end of the shift, we are all knackered, it’s 10 pm on Christmas Eve, and the boss brings us each out a bottle of Babycham. For those who have never had “the pleasure”, Babycham looks like this:
A tiny bottle of “sparkling perry” which is a mildly-alcoholic cider made from pears. Named to somewhat pass itself off as baby champagne. Which it tastes nothing like, whatsoever.
Christmas bonus 1993, after a 14-hour shift, where we, as a fairly small store with 7–10 employees, likely took £100,000 (£200,000 today – $250000) was a tiny bottle of pear-cider, worth at the time around 59p (it could have been less, I cannot find out the price of a 75ml bottle of Babycham in 1993).
Merry Christmas.
I still miss it, the people I worked with were a good laugh, and some are still my friends today.
*Talking of the pick and mix, we would refill it with huge bags of sweets. They were 7 kg bags (15 lbs). One memorable incident involved me and a 7kg bag of Smarties (like M&Ms but British), which ended up being spilt and going all over the floor at the front of the shop. It was like a cartoon when the characters spill marbles, and everyone falls over, except we only fell over laughing and ate quite a lot of smarties. Maybe things like this explain the boss’s reluctance to offer a decent bonus.
My wife and I had a friend, an MD, who was having issues with his wife – not sure what they were, but he seemed to be a gentle and meek soul. Perhaps too meek with his wife, I don’t know, but here’s what happened to him;
His wife was seeing a psychologist for help with her depression, completely supported in these visits by her husband. Turns out that, unknown to him, the psych was a lesbian who had started to fall in love, or become infatuated, with the wife. Of course, she should have excluded herself as a therapist at this point, but she developed a better plan.
The psych convinces the wife to bring in the children (2) for additional counseling, separate sessions from the wife. Again, unknown to either our friend or his wife, she starts to place into the mind of the kids, one daughter and one son, that their father has been sexually abusing them. Both kids are young, under 6, and it isn’t difficult for her to place some ideas and then doubts into the minds of these naïve and gullible children. Over a few months of weekly visits, they are slowly coached by the infatuated lesbian psych, into being able to recount some stories of how this non-existent sexual abuse occurred, along with enough details to make their stories believable.
The psych then encourages the kids to tell their Mum some of these coached stories. The Mum, our friend’s wife, is naturally outraged to hear that her kids have been molested by her husband. She confronts her husband who denies it all, but she has fallen under the influence of this demented psych. She discusses the supposed molestation with the psych who encourages her to call Child Protective Services (CPS) to report the abuse.
Naturally now, the wife does so and an investigation is launched. The husband is prevented from seeing his children, has to move out of the house he shared with his family, and is allowed only supervised visits with his kids on every other weekend. Dependent upon the outcome of the inquiry, he now stands to be charged with sexually abusing his kids and quite possibly sent to jail. The kids will tell their coached stories, supported by the wife who now believes that it’s all true, and the final nail in his coffin will be this crazy psychologist who has discovered his “crimes”.
He’s now separated from his wife, and the psych makes her big mistake. Before the completion of the investigation, she is so in lust for his wife, that she successfully seduces her client, and they move into an apartment together as lovers. This is suicidal for her plan. The investigation team is informed of this development which is improper behaviour professionally. She is suspended of her license to practice, the wife leaves her and returns home. Finally, perhaps as long as 9 months later, the kids recant on their coached stories since they are no longer under the influence of the psych, and are finally visiting an impartial therapist.
The story ends wonderfully, the husband forgives the wife and the children are allowed to move back home. But this was hell on earth for the husband who was innocent from start to finish.
Just started putting stuff in the corner of the basement, with the intention of dealing with it later.
and soon , the corner of the basement was full.
and then, another corner.
Then, the work room started filling up.
Then the garage.
Mostly old clothes that the kids had out grown and then there was the stuff that we used to use but didn’t anymore, but couldn’t bear to throw away.
We fully planned to purge all this shit.
Rent a dumpster and get ruthless.
Then my wife got sick.
And sicker….
And then terminally ill.
And that took up all my energy.
And then I was a widower.
And the kids had moved out.
And I was either at work or out with friends or on a trip and the basement became a series of paths around a canyon of old clothes and stuff.
And so it remained for a year or two, slowly increasing.
I thought, “In just don’t have the energy or time to deal with this”
And then…………..Covid.
And my neighbour sold their house and the guy who came in wanted to gut the place, as it hadn’t been looked after in years.
And he brought a big ass dumpster.
And I saw my sign…..
I asked him and said, if I went in halfway with the dumpster rentals, could I use them to dump my shit in as well?
Sure, he said.
So, over the next while, I emptied everything out.
I could have spent hours sorting out the useable from the trash, especially in clothes, but I feared that if I did, I’d get bogged down in decision paralysis.
She died of a heroin overdose a few years ago. It makes me sick when I think about it.
For the purpose of this story, I will refer to my bully as HM.
When we were freshmen in high school, HM and I started off as friends. We were part of the same loosely organized network of friends, and we were in a few of classes together. Everyone said we could pass for twins — we were both short with dark hair, light colored eyes, round faces, and cutesy noses. Our birthdays were even only like a day apart or something. So we became friendly, but we never became super close. This was mostly because of me — I was secretly judgmental of her because she was very promiscuous and not very bright. Maybe she could sense that in me, and maybe that contributed to how she very suddenly started to hate me.
One day, a mutual male friend of ours asked me to go out with him, and I turned him down because I wasn’t interested in him in that way. He was upset that I rejected him, and sought comfort from his other female friends, HM being one of them. This flipped a switch in HM’s brain — she went from being my casual friend to hating me mercilessly.
On the first day, she screamed at me, cursed at me, and called me a slut in front of everyone in our gym class. She harassed me all the way from the gym to the locker room until one of the gym teachers finally told her to knock it off and change.
Initially I didn’t defend myself because a) I was really meek and mild mannered at this point in my life; b) I do not handle confrontation well at all; c) I was a religious catholic at the time, and truly believed in turning the other cheek; d) I was an avid karate student, and I believed it was dishonorable to fight in this way; e) I was kind of nerdy, I was in marching band, and I thought defending myself would make me a bigger target to others; and f) I was honestly shocked by how she was acting. I mean, she was like really in my face screaming with spit flying from her mouth and everything. It didn’t make sense to me that she would be mad about something that had literally zero effect on her life.
Needless to say, I went home that day very upset, but I figured that it was an isolated incident. I figured, ok we’re not friends anymore, and that’s that. But I was wrong.
The next morning, she was waiting for me by the entrance of the school. She never once touched me. She just followed me to my locker cursing at me and calling me names. We were in the same homeroom. She told every person in homeroom that they shouldn’t talk to me because I was such a slut and bitch. Any time a person would talk to me, she would physically insert herself between me and the person and tell them not to talk to me. She also started telling people vicious lies about me sexually.
She followed me from homeroom to my first class cursing at me and calling me names. When I left my first class, she was waiting for me down the hall ready to verbally harass me again. She continued to do this throughout the day. During classes we had together, she took every opportunity she could to alienate me from others. This occurred mostly in gym and english class, both of which were loosely structured by lazy teachers.
At this point, she was being fully aggressive to others in order to keep them from talking to me. Like physically grabbing them and pulling them away from me kind of thing. She did this for weeks. I continued to do nothing. I just walked faster when she was near me, and tried not to look at her. I took advantage of moments where she was distracted, and slipped away from her before she saw me.
Eventually I had basically not a single friend left in my grade. Nobody wanted anything to do with me. In retrospect, I guess they just didn’t want to be involved with the situation. The teachers were also unhelpful. We were in a very crowded school, so many of them possibly didn’t notice, and the ones who did notice were terrible teachers. I was alone, miserable, crying every day, and I didn’t want to go to school anymore.
HM’s torment became a regular part of my life for a couple of months. I was starting to become numb to it. Maybe she sensed that her words weren’t having the same effect that they used to, so she decided to change things up. She started to threaten me with physical violence. It was mostly variations of “I’m gonna kick your ass,” or “I’m gonna f*ck up your ugly face.” One day in english class, the teacher asked HM to lend me her book for the day (there was a shortage of books), and she threw it at me and then snatched it out of my hands when I picked it up (the teacher did nothing because she was also a terrible human). HM also started slamming my locker shut whenever she walked by.
I don’t remember what specifically drove me to my breaking point, but very soon I had had enough of the situation. HM had made my life a living nightmare, and I couldn’t stand it anymore. I had a green belt in karate, so I knew physically I was capable of fighting and that I would probably win. I still had reservations about it because of spiritual/philosophical reasons, but I was at my limit.
One day she came up to me at lunch, and she again threatened to beat me up. So I calmly said, “Ok HM. When and where? I am ready to fight you whenever.”
Well, that was the game changing moment. As I stood there quietly waiting for her to set the date and time, she bounced around like a rabbit, yelling about how she was really gonna let me have it. “I am ready when you are,” I said. She got more and more agitated, and just kept making threats. The bell rang, lunch was over, we went to our next period. I didn’t see her for the rest of the day.
The next day, she started again with the physical threats, this time while we were in the hallway before homeroom. I said, “So just come for me already and let’s fight. I want to get this over with.” She looked at me like I was stupid and said something like, “Pshh not right now I don’t want to embarrass you in front of everyone. But when I do kick your ass, you’re gonna wish you were dead.” In spite of myself, I laughed and said, “Ok fine HM. Let’s do it today.” And then I told her exactly when and where we were gonna fight. She said “OH I’M GONNA BE THERE, YOU’RE GONNA BE SORRY!” before running away from me.
Later that morning, I had a class with HM’s bff. I approached the bff and said, “HM should know that I take karate regularly, and I recently earned my green belt. I’m stronger than I look and can probably seriously hurt her. I am not going to be easy to take down, and honestly I might accidentally kill her. You should tell her that before we fight.” That last part was only a small exaggeration. I did know 2–3 potentially fatal moves but there was no way to do them “accidentally.” Anyway, I didn’t say this as a threat, but as the truth of the matter. I had already thought of several ways to take her down, and I had already anticipated some of what she might do and had an idea of how I would handle those situations. At the end of the day no matter what, she was gonna end up being seriously injured, and I would probably be mostly unscathed.
The day went on. I didn’t see HM at all in the hallways or at lunch, and she skipped the classes we shared. I was starting to feel really pumped, and honestly really powerful. People all day were asking me about the fight, if I was scared, did I really know karate — stuff like that. They were excited, like Romans going to the Coliseum. After months of being a pariah, I ate it up and was loving all the attention. Finally, the last bell of the day rang.
I went to the place we were supposed to fight. A few people were there, waiting for something to happen, but they left after 10 minutes so they could get on their buses. I waited for almost an hour. HM never showed, and I went to marching band practice.
Maybe I should have left it at that, but I couldn’t help myself. The next day, when I saw her in homeroom I (LOUDLY) asked her, “What happened yesterday? You never showed up.” All eyes were on us. She muttered angrily, “We’ll do it today, same time.” I agreed to it, but my gut told me she was gonna be a no-show again.
I went again to the meeting spot. This time, there were a lot more people waiting to see what was gonna happen. But again, HM didn’t come. I waited for a while when finally HM’s bff came up to me and told me that HM went home early because she was sick. I shrugged and said, “Then in that case, I guess we’re done here. Tell her to leave me alone from now on.” HM didn’t come to school for the rest of the week. On the following Monday, she didn’t even cast a glance in my direction.
Life moved on, years rolled by. HM mostly avoided me after that. Sophomore year she tried to rekindle a friendship, to which I was like, are you f*cking serious? With every year that went by, HM became more and more of a social pariah. Finally it was our senior year. HM was pregnant. By the time spring arrived, she had a huge baby belly. Whenever people would ask her about it or ridicule her, she swore up and down that she was just getting fat.
And I took a lot of pleasure in this. Right now as an adult, I am not proud of this, but at the time I was LIVING. She was miserable, everyone made fun of her, and I thought she was just a huge loser. I loved it, I relished in her misery. And then one day when we were all changing after gym class, I took a shot at her.
She was trying to change in a way that her baby belly was covered up at all times. One of the other girls noticed this and was like, “Wtf are you even trying to do?!” HM said something about being self conscious of being fat. I laughed, and said, “HM everybody knows you’re f*cking pregnant so stop pretending like you’re just fat. Do you even know who the father is, ya dumb slut?” And I walked away laughing at her. It took me about 2 years to realize how super messed up it was for me to say that. And now it makes me sick to remember it, to know that I’m the person who said those words. In the end, I was no better than her.
About two years ago, she popped into my head for no reason. I decided to look her up on Facebook, and saw that she had died of a heroin overdose. The weirdest part was that the day that I looked her up was also the anniversary of her death. Chills ran down my spine. She had left behind two children, and before she overdosed she had been sober for 6 months. I have so many weird-sad emotions about it.
First off, by a random coincidence of life I had 2 doppelgangers in high school — her and this other girl who I was friends with, and both of them died from drug overdoses. I know it’s sh*tty for me to make their deaths about me, but their deaths make me feel really weird in a way that I have trouble describing.
Second, HM was obviously a troubled person, and almost everything she did was coming from a place of pain. I feel guilty that I couldn’t see that and instead I played along like a cardboard character in a crappy high school movie.
Third, I hate that the last thing I said to her was something vicious. It makes me upset that my hatred has the power to warp me into such a mean person. I hate that my hatred was so strong back then that the ghost of it reverberates within me to this day. Every now and again, I can taste that dark disgust in the back of my throat. Which leads me to my final weird-sad emotion.
Fourth, even though she has passed, I love retelling this story. It feels like it was the one moment in my youth where I was fierce and powerful. However, I drive myself crazy with guilt about that pleasure. I mean, wtf is wrong with me; she is dead, she left behind children. It’s weird and messed up that I’m here, alive with my whole life in front of me, and instead of trying to make peace with this, I’m enjoying the toxic fumes of an ancient memory because it boosts my self-esteem.
Idk what the moral of this story is. I’m still trying to figure that out.
Another Active Duty NATO Officer KILLED in Ukraine
One of the Active-Duty Officers in a NATO Command has been killed inside Ukraine.
Italian Army Lt. Colonel Claudio Castiglia, who was part of NATO Command structures, has been killed fighting in Ukraine according to the National Association of Bersaliers.
The Bersaglieri, singular Bersagliere, are a troop of marksmen in the Italian Army‘s infantry corps. They were originally created by General Alessandro Ferrero La Marmora on 18 June 1836 to serve in the Royal Sardinian Army, which later became the Royal Italian Army. They can be recognized by their distinctive wide-brimmed hats decorated with black western capercailliefeathers, which is worn with the dress uniform. The feathers are also applied to their combat helmets.
Why was an Active Duty NATO Officer fighting in Ukraine? Are we at war with Russia?
Sh*t happens. Life can be difficult. It can be uncomfortable. Some days I have every reason to feel depressed and give up. Some days I just want to stop, I need a break — yet the difficulties keep on coming and coming.
I used to complain about it. “Why is it so difficult? Why has this happened to me … again? I hate this situation! Why don’t they do something about it?”
One day, I realized that the difficulties of this world will never end. Never! This is when I finally understood that if I wanted to improve the quality of my life, I was the ONLY one who could change it! No one would ever be able to do it for me!
Change is inevitable and never-ending. I used to face change with the wrong attitude. I hated it because it pushed me out of my comfort zone — today I understand that it’s challenges which actually make my life better! I’m growing, I’m improving, and growing and improving are what make life a life worth living.
So, to answer your question: What life goals should you have?
Live outside your comfort zone!
Your comfort zone is the death zone.
Life begins at the end of your comfort zone.
If we don’t change, we don’t grow. If we don’t grow, we aren’t really living.
Here’s a quote from GE’s CEO Jack Welsh that I like to remember.
Yes and it was the best thing that ever happened that I knew in advance, so I was ahead of the game even though I knew it was coming and I couldn’t stop being fired. This is an important lesson for people to learn, be aware of what is going on so you are not caught out.
You know when you are not fitting in or they are downsizing. It is almost impossible to miss the signals if you have your antennas out. Here is what happened to me.
It was 1992, the China market was booming and I had a big job based in Hong Kong. We had a house paid for by the company, American Club, car, kids in private school, annual trip home, highest salary of my life at that point but nothing was going right. (First signal there were ‘anonymous’ complaints about me relayed via HR). No matter what I did I was wrong and I was headhunted away from another job so I know I was doing a good job but I could feel it was probably about ‘fit’.
They kept telling me, accept 7% growth, don’t push for more, I didn’t listen (2nd sign to watch for, not listening and overplaying your hand).
One day I was feeling like things were not going so well, but my position was, hey I was a Director for the Asia Pacific with a US$100 million budget, no way they could fire me without cause. And I was giving them nothing no real cause in my view so I felt safe or perhaps not?
I thought, I need to check this out, so I went in early to the office and the EVP (later CEO of DHL) had a letter right in the middle of his desk about me stamped CONFIDENTIAL.
I will never forget it. It was all about, how can we handle getting rid of Greenfield as while he is doing a good job, we would like to save money and get rid of his package and a couple of people complained about him. The question was, was it enough to fire him for cause.
It was a fax and the answer by the EVP was, he had already thought it through and they could make my severance nil if they could get someone to make a complaint about me which he could arrange.
Armed with this knowledge, I got all my ducks in a row, went in that day before anything else could happen (3rd rule, if you know it is coming, be preemptive as if you wait it will be worse, trust me on this) and said I thought it might be time for a mutual departure as it wasn’t working out as we had hoped, now 3 years into the contract.
They were pleasantly shocked, gave me a good deal which allowed me to start over with another company and a new life without completely crashing my entire life.
My suggestion? Be watchful, if you can do it, get someone on the inside to let you know if things are not going well and you might be cut for whatever reason. At all costs, do not be caught flat footed thinking everything is ok when it is not.
You can feel it, it is what life is all about these days, anticipate, keep informed, don’t be paranoid and always and I mean always have an exit plan or as they say, Plan B in your back pocket. Especially if you have kids a mortgage and a lot of expenses and as in my case, a spouse who was not working but living a very nice lifestyle which she expected to maintain.
She did but I took a lot of pain and pivoting to get out of Dodge before the hammer fell and just in the nick of time.
Exohiko
Exohiko
Yield: 6 servings
Ingredients
2 pounds lamb leg
2 onions, chopped
1 cup butter
1/2 pound kefalograviera cheese
Salt and pepper
6 sheets puff pastry
Instructions
Cut the lamb in portions. Simmer the onion in a frying pan with a little water. Add a teaspoon of butter and brown lightly.
Add the lamb and salt and pepper and brown for a few more minutes. Turn the element off, add the cheese and separate in portions.
Butter each sheet of pastry and use them to wrap each portion. Place in a buttered pan, top with the rest of the butter and bake in medium low oven for 1 1/2 hours.
I went to Best Buy about 10 years ago because my computer monitor had gone out and I needed to replace it. I had a warranty which allowed me a free replacement, but I wanted a larger one and I readily agreed to pay the difference.
As the rep walked me to the front of the store to check out, I heard a man literally screaming at the top of his lungs. Not just yelling. This man must have gone through the dictionary on his way to the store to refresh himself on every profane word and phrase he could find. As I got closer, I could see the middle-aged man yelling at this girl (couldn’t have been more than 18) behind the customer service counter. Apparently, his coupon for a $30 discount on a digital TV antenna was expired (not just expired; expired by months!) and he expected her to honor it anyway. She kept explaining that the coupon was expired and there was nothing she could do. The man continued to scream and pound his fists. I could see that this was going nowhere, so I just said, “Sir, I’m sure this young lady had nothing to do with preventing you from getting to the store before your coupon expired.” He looked up, startled, and before he could start yelling at me, I said, “STOP.” I turned to the girl and said, “Please put that antenna on my card.” I went over to the man, picked up the antenna, placed it in his hands and said, “I really hope that you can enjoy some good TV with this thing. After that, please go out and use the money I just saved you on some good anger management or at least a session of yoga or two.” The man stood there with his mouth hanging open, not knowing what to say. I just waved my hand at him and told him to “run along.” The girl mouthed, “Thank you.” The man “ran along” I completed my purchase, well, purchases!
That most of my undergraduate education didn’t do much if anything to prepare me for medical school. To be honest, My bachelor of science in zoology was far less helpful than being a paramedic for nine years.
That I would make some of the best friends of my life there. I would have cherished them and the experience more I think.
That I was smart enough. I spent a lot of time worrying that my peers were going to be smarter than me. Turns out emotional intelligence is more valuable in the long run anyway.
I would become so good at emotional distance that it would impair me on some level.
That a certain degree of hypochondria is fairly normal. I had classmates that had “leukemia, parasites, heart disease, tumors and aortic dissections.” Of course, they were all just fine. Oh, and I didn’t turn out to have a gastric ulcer either.
A great deal of what I was going to learn would be obsolete prior to ending my medical career. A fair chunk was wrong before I finished residency.
Competition creates problems. There were a fair number of people in my school that we would classify as “gunners”. For them, it was not simply good enough to do better. It was critical that you do worse than they did.
Some of the smartest professors I would have in medical school were the ones with the strangest personalities. A lot of the younger students would tend to blow them off. That was a mistake. They turned out to have a LOT of quirky wisdom.
Just because you got accepted to medical school doesn’t preclude you from having a personality disorder. I trained with some people with some pretty significant impairment. A few were incapable of empathy or even sympathy.
That the experience would fundamentally change me. I had a professor that said fundamental personality change can only happen from experiencing combat, motherhood, psychotherapy or medical school. I have not experienced the first three so I cannot say he is right. However, I can attest to the fact that medical school and especially residency changed me in some profound ways. That was hard to come to terms with early on.
They are everywhere in 800 odd military bases worldwide. To me they are wasting money that they really don’t have. They certainty cannot afford it overtime it will implode their nation and bring misery to its people.
They are there to war monger and trouble make without getting much in return except disdain and hate. This in turn means that they need more resources to defend themselves hence it is really a deep and endless money pit. China and Russia should goad them everywhere to burnt their own house down. Yet many fools think that having many bases is good for them.
It’s all over by 30, and it’s the women not men that are now saying it.
When I was a young boy, perhaps in second grade, we lived in Monroe , CT. It was a housing development that was being carved out of the forests, and was very nice. We only lived there for a year or so, before my father was transferred to Pittsburgh. We sold the place. Bad move, as the house ended up being worth millions of dollars.
2023 11 22 15 27
Anyways, at that time in my life, I loved roaming the woods. All 7 years old, and it was a big part of my childhood.
I would often go into the homes being constructed with wire cutters and rip out the wiring and electronics for fun. Oh, that is, until my father had a talk with a building contractor. LOL.
But, you know what?
Yeah, what I most remember about that time was spending all day hiking and exploring, and then coming home to a nice big “sit down” dinner. These were often improved upon as I got older, but at that time, my mother was just getting into her “stride” and it was simple but delicious fare.
Meatloaf, roasts, soups, chicken, and the like. All very delicious and filling.
Instant Pot Spaghetti 1
One of my fondest memories was the meat-laden spaghetti, with plain “wonder bread” on the side, and a nice large salad. Other popular meals consisted of pork chutney over rice, and submarine sandwich meals.
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But it’s the spaghetti that I miss the most.
one pot spaghetti and meat sauce image 9
I used to take the bread, and butter both sides. Then, I would spoon the spaghetti into the bread, making a fine thick sandwich. Oh, I was so simple and silly then.
I guess the MM audiences would go “ohhh yuck” at this story. But for me, nah. it’s good memories and good times.
I was a young, recently divorced, single mother of a 3 year old and one Christmas my grandmother gave me a HUGE box to open. In that box I found a little bit of everything! It had paper towels. Toilet paper, cleaning supplies, canned goods and many other items that you may want or need for your home and pantry! I was so grateful as it is pretty costly when you run out of everything especially all at the same time and because my Grandmother had no money she said she added everything a little at a time all throughout the year in order to help me the best way she could. My Grandmother was the sweetest, kindest Lady you’d ever know. I loved her with my whole heart!
I made $7.50 per hour for 3 years before I got a sweet .50 raise that catapulted me no where.
And I only got that because the lady was guilted into it.
I was told, as most people are, if you work hard and prove yourself, you will make more in time. Well that never really happened.
When I first started I just answered phones and worked the register. Then I got my vehicle inspectors license and begin inspecting vehicles. And answering phones and the register.
The business was a window tinting business, primarily, and they tinted vehicles, homes and commercial buildings. Soon I was prepping jobs for tint and doing bids for residential and commercial jobs. And doing well, I might add!
Then helping with the books. Opening, closing, picking up and dropping off customers. Driving out of town to pick up materials. And finally tinting commercial windows.
And I worked, often 80 hours per week. For $8 per hour. Which is a problem because at a certain point, over time starts to hurt. The extra would be taken out in taxes and the effort is not worth it.
Let me also mention that I didn’t have a car and used a company truck for company business but my commute to and from work everyday was just over 3 hours. I woke up at 4 to be there at 8:30. (Hitchhiked, rode 2 buses and walked…both ways…yep)
When I inquired about a raise she kept putting me off. She’d think about it. Couldn’t afford it, etc. Finally she said to me…
”It’s not like you need more money. It’s not like you have a family to take care of, house or car. It’s not like you have any bills.”
I will never ever, forget that. Ever.
Apparently it never occurred to her that I didn’t have any of those things because I was poor. And it was totally ok with her if I never had anything because it benefitted her.
And I had other issues with the place like rarely getting a day off and it would be the end of the world if I took a break at work because only smokers are allowed breaks. Twenty breaks, a hundred, doesn’t matter, because you need those cigarette breaks!
“If you don’t like it, then go work somewhere else.”
When she told me that.
I quit.
She was so certain I would come back because I had no prospects. Two weeks later, a friend told me she was looking for me, she wanted me to come back.
Why, you might ask??
Because she can’t find any decent help (read: people who’ll work for nothing!). And she wanted me to come back for…
Wait for it…
$8.50!!
See, I needed to understand that she could not afford more than that.
I told her. “No thanks.”
Then she called me selfish. She was struggling to find help and I didn’t care. Selfish!!
She ended up having to hire 4 other people. And for the next 5 years she contacted me off and on to try to get me to come back.
“Ok, how about $9! Be reasonable!!”
So on and so forth until she got to $12 over time.
I can’t honestly say I was irreplaceable. I can say that she needed a lot more help after I left. I can also say the business did not exist the fifth year after I’d gone.
I learned a very important lesson working for her. I needed to look out for myself. Work hard but only stay so long, based on the rate, frequency and size of raises. And all the while, always keep my ear to the ground for other opportunities.
I need to look out for me with the same ferocity the companies look out for their own interests.
In 100 years 5% of those who use the U.S. dollar will remember how it look. And 15% of the nations who bought weapons in 2023 will still use weapons from the U.S. still! In 100 years US economy will be lying at best a distant 3rd behind China and India by a very long way. China will be roughly 5–6 times the U.S. size and even India will be close to double that of the USA!
The G7 at best is a fifth the size on BRiCS economy. The U.S. will be broken up into some 3–4 nations. And Democrats and Republicans are close to the full scale or outright U.S. civil war 2.0 in 2123! The U.S. and some 4–5 die hard dogs like UK, Australia and Canada will meet and still talk shit. But no one bother, no one even listen.
China has made the world 10 times more prosperous and 20 times more peaceful by then. Talking about the U.S. in 2123 is like talking about the former Yugoslavia today. By 2023 the U.S. would have long collapse and implode it’s economy and a full scale fight between Democrats and Republicans and also between the whites and coloured and also between the rich and poor has destroyed the so call liberal democracy.
In 100 years, China is selling moon and space tourism, become the leader in autonomous vehicles, supersonic planes, biggest ports and airports world wide. China will be in the business of hypersonic weapons, quantum computers. Artificial intelligence, Bio technology and nuclear technologies. A far cry from selling cheap T-shirts and plastic toys in 1980! By 2123. China has built an alternative Panama and Suez Canal 5 times its size! And a bridge to cross Russia to Alaska!
BRICS by that time consist of 50 nations. And gets supports from 190 out of 200 nations. Meanwhile as many as 10 million are living in tents homeless in the U.S. suburbs. Random mass shootings incidents happened at least 50 times a day in the U.S. killing roughly 100 people a day in the U.S. Confederate flag flies more widely than the Stars and Stripes in the U.S. in 2123.
China has just given warnings on visiting certain parts of the USA no different from the warnings of visiting Ethiopia or Yemen in 2000. That is what is likely happening in 2123 a hundred years from now. But the U.S. still scream liberal democracy like a 80 years old lone hippie!
My husband and I are avid cruisers, which means food, food, and more food. That being said, I typically eat what I choose, save the occasional pick of something that is just not good. I usually eat breakfast alone, as he is still sleeping, and I sit and people watch in the buffet. My breakfast is always the same: oatmeal with fruit, some scrambled eggs, and a couple of pieces of ham or Canadian bacon. The same as I eat at home, essentially. I get to witness the Sodom and Gommorah of food sin every day on a cruise, especially at breakfast. Football sized mounds of food get piled on a plate, and a lot of it is eaten. But it pains me to see a muffin with one bite. A bowl of cereal that had one bite, uneaten food galore. Yes, we pay for the food in our cruise fare, but it is as though we have no conscience when it comes to waste. We often stop in Haiti at the cruise line’s resort, and they prepare a barbeque style lunch there. What many don’t know is that the leftovers are given to the locals, and I have watched them pick a piece of discarded watermelon off of the ground and brush off the sand to eat. While people are tossing full plates of food into the trash, these people are desperate for our scraps.
Food waste bothers me. For the farmer that took the time to sow the crops. For the cow kept pregnant to provide milk. For the pig slaughtered to provide us with ribs and bacon. For the countless hours spent preparing the food. We don’t honor what we have. We assume it is there because most of us have not had to go without. I am lucky, I always had a meal to eat, and I don’t waste food. I eat leftovers until they are gone, I cut my own fruit so that I can get the most out of the rind, and I toss produce scraps out for the deer and groundhogs that frequent my backyard.
We don’t appreciate the food we have. That is the sin.
The future of American women
Cajun Chicken Club Sandwich
2023 11 11 20 23
Yield: 4 servings
Ingredients
4 boneless skinless chicken breast halves
1 teaspoon Cajun seasoning
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
4 slices Swiss cheese
1/4 cup Parmesan salad dressing
4 hoagie rolls, split and toasted
8 slices tomato
8 strips bacon, cooked
Instructions
Pound the chicken to 3/8-inch thickness; sprinkle with Cajun seasoning.
In a large skillet, cook the chicken in oil for 5 minutes on each side or until no longer pink.
Place one slice cheese over each chicken piece.
Remove from the heat; cover and let stand for 1 minute or until cheese begins to melt.
Spread dressing over cut sides of rolls.
Place two slices of tomato on bottom of bun, top with chicken and two strips of bacon.
Serve with crispy fries or potato salad on the side.
When I was married to my exhusband, I got a ‘‘bee in my bonnet’ that I wanted to learn how to sew. I’d never sewed a day in my life. So we went to different places, looking at machines. Hubs was a ‘research on Consumer Reports’ kinda guy. He didn’t want to buy something that would fall apart. Who knows though, honestly, if I would suck at this?! I’m not sure if he looked at it that way. He just wanted to get me something good.
So, we kind of narrowed it down to a couple, and tbh, they were ridiculously nice. One was a Singer, the other I don’t remember but it was pricey I think like $800 in like 1990. Crazy, for just wanting to try something. It was going to be a ““surprise” for Christmas… but I sneaked a look in his wallet one night (I KNOW, bad wifey) and saw he bought the $800 wonder. I was SOOO excited!!
Christmas morning comes.
I’m still very excited, because this IS an awesome gift. Knowing did not diminish my excitement. I opened up the wrapping, and inside, it was a different machine.
Tears rolled down my face and I couldn’t speak. The $800 wonder wasn’t there. Apparently, he had exchanged it. For an upgraded, fancy $1100. Wonder.
It was amazing. It did embroidery, a zillion stitches. It was a very high quality name I can’t spell 😂 Husqvarna? But wait, there’s more. There’s another box. Inside that box was a 5 thread Serger, a BabyLoc. I had everything I needed to be successful.
I sewed my butt off for years.
But I’ll never forget that feeling of ““I want to give you the moon” that he gave me that Christmas. That was epic.❤️
If the controls are successful, they could handicap China for a generation; if they fail, they may backfire spectacularly, hastening the very future the United States is trying desperately to avoid. Alex W. Palmer, NYT.
The Chinese cannot understand why we fight with “Fists of Seven Injuries” (七伤拳), inflicting as much harm on ourselves as on our target. The sanctions hit our high-tech companies hard, as they lose not only their biggest market, but also important partners in their supply chain. Qualcomm’s profits fell 23%. Samsung’s dropped 95% . Louise Low. Face-off on the Grand Chessboard.
The year of living vulnerably: 2015
By 2015, when President Xi warned of China’s vulnerability to a chip embargo his team, led by the redoubtable Liu He, had spent two years preparing to create an indigenous chip industry. By 2022, the first fabs were producing commodity chips in high volumes at low cost and China spent $300 billion importing high-end chips.
The first breakthrough came when Huawei quietly released its 7 nm. Kirin 9000 chipsets, and its Mate 60 phone sales quickly surpassed Apple’s – as they were doing when the US embargoed Huawei. While the Kirin CPU was a remarkable achievement, professionals were more impressed by Huawei’s indigenous communications chips, like cellular modems, previously a Qualcomm semi-monopoly.
Three months later, YMTC shipped its 232-layer 3D TLC NAND memory chips. Their huge capacity and speedy 12 GB/s I/O make bleeding-edge drives possible.
But the sexiest market right now is insulated gate bipolar transistors, IGBTs. They’re the CPU ‘brains’ that conduct the orchestra of sensors and inputs and reduce EVs’ power loss and improve reliability. They’re expensive: 7% – 10% of an EVs’ final cost. Back in 2020, BYD supplied IGBTs for 20% of Chinese EVs’ and Infineon supplied 58%. The IGBT market has grown from $5.27 billion then to $8.42 billion this year and expects CAGR of 15.7% for some years.
There’s also money to be made in less sexy chips, like microcontrollers, says TP Huang. “Has anyone heard of Zhixin’s chips? You’ll find SMIC’s 40nm auto grade processor in Zhixin’s MCU microcontroller – domestically designed, fabbed and packaged entirely in China. This has huge implications for STMicro, Texas Instruments, Infineon and TSMC. Few automotive applications will ever need processes beyond 28 or 40nm, which is SMIC’s mass production sweet spot. Why wouldn’t Chinese automakers buy domestically? I bet Wall Street analysts covering TI have never looked into new Chinese competitors and considered what that entails. SMIC will be a monster soon enough”.
I was strung out for about 4 years from shooting up dope. After losing almost everything, I finally snapped out of it. It took, however, losing friends, my career, my therapist, my car, my motorcycle, my musical equipment, my instruments, my tools, my electricity, my water, all my savings which was in the tens of thousands, my sanity, almost my freedom, almost my life, and almost my house. I’m still in danger of losing it bc of unpaid property taxes of 3 years now going on 4. So when I was about 2–3 months sober, I had a friend drive me to Little Caesars to see if they were hiring. The manager was there. I asked. She said yes. Then she asked if I had manager experience. I said no…but I kinda did. I just wasn’t prepared for that gig being that I’m just barely out of a horrific addiction. She asked if I had an ID and a bank account for direct deposit. I said yes to the ID but no to bank account. She told me where I can get one at that moment and as soon as I get it to come back and I can begin to fill out the paperwork. Within 30 mins I was hired & started to fill out the necessary forms for employment. This was at the end of January this year and I’m still there and I’m sober.
I know this is a long story for such a question. My reason for including the other info is strictly for those that are currently where I was at when this happened. If this can help one person snap out of it then I will feel like I did a tremendous good for not just that one person but the world. Drug addiction affects way more than the drug addict. If you’re struggling, don’t give up. Be strong. It may take one time to quit or many times. Just don’t give up on yourself. I now have electricity and water and trash service. My house is still a wreck but it’s come a long way. I rode my bike to and from work which was 8 miles there and 8 miles back. But now I have a vehicle. I’m 6 feet tall and at the height of my addiction I weighed about 155lbs. Now I weigh a plump 210lbs. With time, that will change bc I want to be physically healthy. I am, w/o a doubt, physically healthier now than I was when I was using. And I prefer this to that any day. So if you’re reading this, you have to be strong and committed to this change no matter how tough it gets. It’ll get better. There’ll be shit days but it’ll pass. Keep going. We are made of sterner stuff. We’ve been through hell but now we are returning. And don’t think of it as starting over. You’re continuing your journey w a wealth of knowledge and wisdom. You may have lost everything but you’re not starting over. I wish you luck and lots of love. You’re not alone. I know that feeling of loneliness and despair. I felt lonely all throughout my journey through hell. But I wasn’t. You aren’t. If you need someone to vent w, message me. I’ll listen. I will not judge. If not me, reach out to someone. Anyone. And if you get rejected, fuck them. Move on. Don’t let that deter you. Look at me. I’m still here and am getting better everyday. Sure, we are all different but, in many ways, we are the same. We fuck up, and to fuck up is human.
One more thing: don’t beat yourself up if you quit and then go back to using again. Sometimes it happens. Sometimes it doesn’t. Just don’t let that stop you from quitting again. I have days when I feel so weak. I miss it so much. Coupled w the overwhelming feeling of how far I have to go to get back to where I was before my downfall, it feels hopeless. These moments test me, and I’ve come so close to shooting up again but I haven’t. I hope I don’t. In my journey, I always feel so glad I didn’t give in. Those feelings will wash away but they’ll be back again like waves in the ocean. You just stay afloat. It’ll pass and you’ll admire yourself for not giving in after it flows away. You’ll be proud of how strong you are becoming.
Anyway, there are my 2 cents.
Love yourself.
Love those around you.
Don’t be afraid to say it.
Don’t be afraid to show it.
Amp It The Fuck Up!!!
Antony Blinken Wrecked By Protesters In Congress
Great episode, Lee. Your humor is top dog here.
China and the Chip Wars: a Battle It Cannot Afford to Lose
The race for supremacy in the semiconductor industry is about much more than just technological dominance. It is about shaping the future of civilization.
image 148
“Can China ace the chip wars?” This was the central question that framed my talk at the Future of Finance China Forum held in Beijing on July 28. The forum, run by The Asian Banker, served as a critical platform for thought leaders amid the unpredictable economic and financial landscape of 2023.
While these wide-ranging discussions were informative, my focus was squarely on the place and potential of China in the semiconductor industry. Instead of merely asking if China can win the chip wars, it’s more insightful to consider whether China can afford not to. This reframing provides a sharper understanding of the stakes for China’s economy and its global standing in the semiconductor industry.
Current situation
“Valuation extravaganza” is a phrase I use to describe the surging market caps of companies like Nvidia and AMD. The remarkable value growth of these companies has raised eyebrows and led to questions about whether we’re witnessing a semiconductor bubble. However, the rational ubiquity of semiconductors, essential to various sectors, might justify these high valuations.
In 2021, over 1.1 trillion chips were shipped worldwide, finding their way into everything from cars and consumer electronics to industrial applications. Semiconductors, quietly yet crucially, have become a part of nearly every aspect of modern life. According to a recent survey of industry executives, the industry’s future direction is being steered by emerging sectors like the metaverse, sustainability, mobility, and digital health – each calling for unique semiconductor capabilities.
This importance of semiconductors is reflected in the market’s response. Nvidia’s stock price tripled last year raising its valuation to more than $1 trillion with a Price-to-Earnings (P/E) ratio over 240. AMD’s stock price has also doubled, its P/E ratio almost reaching 500. This valuation growth is partly due to the robust demand for semiconductors, with the global market projected to grow to $1.8 trillion by 2032.
Even with the current chip shortage, some industry observers argue that these high valuations are justified. They view the long-term growth prospects for the industry as strong and believe these valuations are based on the expectation of persistent semiconductor demand.
Despite short-term disruptions like the global chip shortage, the long-term outlook for the semiconductor industry remains bright. Semiconductors play an integral role in the global economy, and their importance will continue to grow in the future, shaping our tech-driven world in ways we’re only beginning to understand.
image 147
Future growth
We must also consider the potential drivers of future chip demand, taking into account the radical changes that advances in artificial intelligence (AI) may bring. A compelling perspective on this comes from Sam Altman, a prominent figure in the tech industry and CEO of OpenAI, in his manifesto “Moore’s Law for Everything”.
Altman applies the principle of Moore’s Law, which traditionally refers to the exponential growth in computing power, to a broader societal context, predicting a future where rapid growth permeates all facets of our lives and economy. Coined by Intel’s co-founder Gordon Moore, the law originally observed that the number of transistors on a microchip double roughly every 18 months. Altman, however, envisions its implications beyond the realm of computing power.
This broader interpretation anticipates an era of abundance, where the ubiquitous adoption of AI causes a steep drop in labor costs that fundamentally transforms society. Altman posits that as automation replaces human tasks from plumbing to R&D, labor costs will plunge, leading to significantly cheaper goods and services. The cost of the essential inputs shifts from labor and raw materials to data, driving prices towards zero and marking the advent of an era of profound abundance.
But abundance here isn’t just about an increase in available goods and services. It’s also about equalizing access to these resources, democratizing what was once the exclusive privilege of the affluent. High-quality healthcare, education, travel experiences, and even a secure standard of living—Altman’s vision suggests these will be accessible to far more people, with the cost of a “great life” approaching zero.
At the core of this transformation is AI, its learning and decision-making abilities propelling us towards this era of abundance. Yet, the manifestation of this AI-driven prosperity depends heavily on a robust, efficient, and advanced computational infrastructure— semiconductors or chips. Semiconductors are the foundation of our digital world, powering everything from personal devices to advanced machinery.
The complexity and scale of AI necessitate more advanced and efficient semiconductors. The AI algorithms promising this era of abundance require enormous computational power to process large volumes of data and make complex calculations. The task of providing this computational power depends on a wide range of semiconductors.
The abundance that Altman predicts will not only be driven by AI but will also critically hinge on the availability and advancement of semiconductors. In the coming era of AI-driven abundance, those countries and companies that can ensure a stable supply of chips will hold the upper hand. Thus, as China strategizes to win the chip wars, the stakes become clear—it’s not just about surviving but thriving in this world of unlimited abundance.
image 146
Domestic politics and geopolitics
In the global context of the race for technological supremacy, the semiconductor industry is emerging as a key battleground. The rise of artificial intelligence (AI), with its potential to usher in an era of unprecedented abundance and revolutionize labor economics, amplifies the national security implications of the semiconductor industry. Indeed, the ‘resilient redesign’ of the global supply chain is becoming an essential facet of national strategies to ensure sustained success in this critical sector.
The complex web of today’s supply chain, spanning continents and countless entities, is inherently vulnerable to geopolitical shocks and pressures. The need for countries to develop resilient domestic capacities is becoming increasingly clear. Governments worldwide are already showing a keen interest in the sector’s growth and security, a trend that is set to heighten as strategic reorientations, regulatory shifts, and a heightened focus on security come into play. The semiconductor industry is becoming a significant geopolitical flashpoint, a field of intense competition for technological dominance.
In the context of China’s domestic politics, this resonates profoundly with President Xi Jinping’s vision of ‘common prosperity’. The potential abundance enabled by AI could pave the way for realizing this vision, democratizing access to what is currently available only to the affluent and creating a more equal society. The era of abundance that Sam Altman envisions could, in fact, help manifest President Xi’s aspiration for the rejuvenation of the Chinese nation.
In this light, China’s broad conception of national security – which encompasses not only traditional military aspects but also economic and even cultural security – becomes particularly relevant. The advancements in AI, underpinned by the semiconductor industry, will be vital for maintaining and enhancing China’s national security in this broad sense.
Therefore, China cannot afford to lose the ‘chip war’. The stakes are beyond high – economic vitality, technological advancement, geopolitical influence and even the future of the human race. The semiconductor industry is not just another industry; it is a cornerstone upon which human civilization may be decided.
In conclusion, the race for supremacy in the semiconductor industry is about much more than just technological dominance. It is about shaping the future of civilization. For China, acing the chip wars is not just a matter of national security in the traditional sense. It is also about securing the future of its society and realizing its vision of prosperity for all.
Before a class room of three hundred 1st year students, I was teaching, and my cell phone started vibrating. And I totally froze.
Just a couple of months earlier, I had become a father for the first time, and my girlfriend and I had agreed not to call during class hours, unless it was an emergency.
Often, I muted my cell phone during class hours, but this time I had forgotten. And this time the phone also rang. My girlfriend was the only person who would ring me at this unearthly hour in the morning. And suddenly it crossed my mind. Something is wrong with the baby.
Instead of two minutes, I had more than fifteen minutes left to cover while my mind blocked my every mathematical thought. So I taught the rest of the class through a true other-worldly out-of-body experience — I literally heard myself talking to the students, explaining things on the blackboard, and answering questions, while I was constantly thinking —
Something is wrong with the baby—Something is wrong with the baby—Something is wrong with the baby—Something is wrong with the baby.
When class was over and questions had been answered, I immediately called my girlfriend. She had forgotten about our agreement.
I’m a landlord and went to renew the lease on one of my rentals once. And when I pulled in to the neighborhood and turned the corner towards the house, the very first thing I saw was the screen door hanging off the front of the house.
I pulled into the driveway, knocked on the door, and while I was waiting for them to answer I looked at the screen door. It was literally ripped off its hinges.
Then they came out and greeted me as if nothing had ever happened.. I asked what happened to the door, and I swear they both looked me straight in the eye and said..
“It was like that when we moved in.” I was absolutely shocked…
I said, “Doug. You two have been here for TWO YEARS. You signed a move-in checklist when you first moved in that said everything was ok. I took and have pictures of everything before you moved in. And last but not least, I was here exactly ONE year ago to renew your lease then! Now, is this seriously your story, and are you sure it’s the one you want to stick to??”
“Yes.. It was like that when we moved in.”
So I called bullshit and told them that I would not renew their lease, and to be out before the end of the week. OR if they wanted to stay then they could fix the door.
They fixed it – reluctantly. Still swearing that it was like that when they moved in.
When I was an administrative assistant to the dean of a department at a 2 year college, there were a couple times during the year that I ate at my desk for various reasons. There was another admin in a different department that took a dislike to me and tried to get me in trouble for only taking 30 mins to eat then leaving 30 mins early. She went to my boss and he said I had his permission to do so. She then went to HR to file a complaint and I got called in. After that, I requested a sit down with HR, my boss, her and her boss which we had. Over several weeks, I had documented everything she had said and done to undermine me and she turned beet red and had no real defense since she documented nothing. A couple of weeks later, she no longer worked there and they hired a woman who became a good friend.
Document everything—day, time, incident, what was said—and keep it in a safe place. I used an old fashioned college notebook and hand wrote everything with just a blank line between each incident. I about filled the notebook in less than a month.
He was the head janitor at my school, a teddy bear of a man, under 5 feet tall with the sweetest little smile and laugh. He had worked at the school since he was a teen and was due to retire.
Da Tuk (not his real name) was gentle, kind and generous, a soft touch for a sob story. He and his family had just enough but always ended with too little because of his ‘kindness.’
A relative had begged him for a large sum, almost all that Da Tuk and his wife had saved for a deposit on a home. He signed over a land deed to Da Tuk and then disappeared into the gambling dens of Klong Tuey.
When Da Tuk took his family to see the land, they found a hilly, barren, nowhere-near-anywhere, unsellable plot. Da Tuk was inconsolable, realizing that he had been duped and had lost almost everything.
Fortunately, the chairman of the school found a way to help the family to buy a small house and deal with the costs of their children’s educations. They never really recovered from the loss.
As the school grew, so did Da Tuk’s staff, to the point where he was overwhelmed. An ‘assistant’ was hired but was, in fact, in charge. However, he always treated Da Tuk as the boss and saw to it that others did as well.
For Da Tuk’s retirement day, the Board had arranged for a huge luncheon, and we were all seated, waiting for Da Tuk.
When he arrived, he looked stunned, which surprised us because everyone had been talking about the party and teasing him for over a month.
Then an equally stunned member of the Board made a shocking announcement.
Da Tuk had just been paid forty million baht (approximately two million U.S. dollars) for that ‘worthless’ land because it was adjacent to the planned eastern seaboard industrial estate.
I got laid off from my work. It’s an awful experience. I just had the yearly performance review and got a raise, I was thinking ‘life is freaking good’, then one fine morning, I woke up to a sudden 1:1 from my boss, and he told me I was let go (together with half of the company).
It’s unexpected, and I was shocked.
I sent my coworkers texts, told them my goodbyes and my wish to stay in touch with them.
All of them offered the same message:
Please let me know how I can help in any way at all!
I was touched seeing those messages, truly.
The only thing I asked from them was: I need to retouch my Linkedin Profile, the job market right now is super tough and competitive, anything can help my profile stands out would mean a great deal and I really appreciate a recommendation from them – if they have a few minutes to write me one. It would be a huge help.
Only 2 out of 10 people offered me the message to help in any way actually did give me a recommendation. And one of them actually referred me everywhere she could trying to help me to get interviews.
I don’t think any less of the 8 people that didn’t give me a recommendation. I understand perfectly that there are millions reasons for that, like I might not worth giving a recommendation, or they just simply forgot to give one, or writing a recommendation is not their cup of tea, etc… I just wish they didn’t tell me that they would help in any way if they didn’t mean it.
And I do admire the ones that offer and live up with their saying “let me know how I can help in any way”
Being a person of their own words is a super power.
Way out in the stick in the north of England there was huge project ongoing to build a dam. A new site manager had been brought in because workers were reportedly lazy, either turning up late or skiving off down the local pub (which I worked in) during working hours. On his first day on the job he grabbed someone from the admin office and headed off round the site looking for a sacrificial lamb. He was going to fire someone as an example to the rest of the staff.
After half an hour or so he came across a young guy sitting behind a building, against a wall, drinking coffee.
“Who are you?” he bellowed. “What’s it got to do you with you?” asked the guy. “I’m the new site manager, who are you, and where do you work?” “Fuck off, leave me alone!”, replied the young guy. “OK, you’ve had your chance, you’re fired!” He turned to the admin guy, “get his details, give him his cards!” The site manager then stormed off thinking this was a good start to his tenure.
Later that day I was serving behind the bar in the pub and the guy came walking in. “Give me a pint of Guinness, I’ve just been fired”. “Oh dear, first one’s on the house!” “Cheers, that’s very nice of you.” he replied. He had his Guinness then asked how much? I said, “no, it’s on the house. Anyone who gets fired from the site gets a free beer.” “No – it’s okay, I’d better pay!” “But you got fired – it’s free!” “I did get fired. I’m just sitting there having a cup of coffee when this idiot appears out of nowhere screaming and shouting at me, and fires me on the spot. He seemed so happy about it I didn’t have the heart to tell him that I didn’t work for him, and I’m just a hiker who had stopped for a coffee.”
Surprised My Cheating Wife With Divorce Papers at Her “Secret” Hotel Getaway Affair.
I nearly hit ENTER on my resignation email. I’d been with the company for 24 years at the time and I was tired of my boss contradicting everything I’d say. Sometimes he was right, usually he wasn’t but of course he only remembered that one out of 10 times he was right come review time.
Most people say I’m too much of a pacifist but he’d ding me as pointlessly argumentative. And, the reason why I was never promoted (he’d tell me year after year) is because I’d said or done “the wrong thing yet again to” and it would always be an unnamed executive. If I asked what I did or said, I’d get “you know I can’t tell you that” and if I asked who’s cage I’d supposedly rattled, it would be another “you know I can’t tell you that.”
This day, he said something that was completely wrong about a field he knew zero about and that I was an expert in. I should have known better but I said something just “in passing.” He erupted and screamed at me. “YOU ARE WRONG and you felt the need to ruin my day. I walked in here this morning feeling okay for the first time in months. You couldn’t let it go. Noooo … not you … you had to correct me and ruin my whole day. And you aren’t even right Mr. Know-it-all. Fine. You ruined my day so now I’m going to ruin yours. I expect a written apology, three copies, and this is going in your file.
I will then have your final written warning for insubordination and disrupting the office ready when you come back with your apology. IF I accept it, you will go on warning. But if I don’t like what you said, I tear that and the warning up and you will be done. You have pretty much just thrown away 24 years of work and any goodwill you might have built up with me because you just always have to say something.
You just can’t let anything go and you always have some story. No matter what anyone says, you were there, did that, had that or something too. Well now I think you can add fired for cause and blacklisted from a whole industry to your awesome list of life experiences. I’m giving you one hour. I’ll see you then or you can spend the time packing up your stuff. I really don’t care which at this point.
And because you are a critical employee with no backup or replacement, I will see to it that you pay for this for a long time to come if I have any say over anything. Now get going. The next time I see you, it will be either carrying your shit to your car or in here with a heart felt written apology.”
I typed out a resignation, just a terse one paragraph indicating only that I resigned effective that day and would agree to make my last day two weeks hence. Dated and my signature typed. I was ready to hit SEND and the email would go to my boss, HR and the Sr VP (who was the department head).
But then I thought: first, I’d be out of a job and it would not be easy for me to get another one. It’s next to impossible to describe what I really do — it’s a bunch of low level tasks where the high level aspect is that I can do them all. I already knew that no one in my industry was interested — had they been, I’d have been contacted at least one of the times where competitors or clients tried to grab employees from us. I was about the only long time employee who’d never been contacted by anyone.
My resume would make even less sense outside my industry. I’d at best have to hope for some small employer looking for a jack of many trades willing to work for next to nothing. Not very appealing.
He was right in one sense about something: whenever someone had a story, I’d often have a counterpart. I’m not a know it all, just a lot older than many of my colleagues and I’ve been around. I’d always thought I was just participating in a conversation but maybe that’s not the way some took it. Perhaps I should sit and listen more even if I did have such an experience myself and even if the teller was way off base.
So I resolved to say a lot less and not correct people unless there could be a serious consequence for letting it go. Even if I’d done whatever 50 times to their 1 and was considered an expert, just let it go. Let them tell their story.
Ruined his day? That was his responsibility. He was going through many personal problems but people other than I were getting tired of his ripping our heads off at work because his personal life was in a tailspin. I know that when I was having many issues one time (many years ago, different boss), my manager came along and told me I needed to straighten myself up.
He knew what I was going through and that’s why nothing had been said for a couple weeks. But now I had to pull myself out of it or he’d have to let me go. That was a couple weeks … but my current boss had been going on that way for months.
So there was wrong on my side and that was on me to handle. But I wasn’t responsible for ruining my boss’ day with an offhand comment of a factual nature. I needed to speak a lot less: not counter a story with one of my own, and don’t correct someone unless there was a vital business need for it. On the other hand, I was not about to take written responsibility for someone else’s life and emotions.
I apologized verbally including indicating where I was wrong and what I planned to do about it. But I made clear what I was apologizing for along with being clear without saying it that it would not be in writing. I also made clear without throwing anything in his face that if he chose to give me a final written warning, I would not sign it but rather resign effective immediately.
Nothing more came of it in large part because by the time I walked in there, the anger was gone. I dealt with this in a clear headed way and that’s the point to this long answer. Anger solves nothing, even if justified or at least partially so. We’ve probably all snapped at work and with what results? If you have sufficient clout, others might respond out of fear. But that never results in a good long term effect. You’re far better off resisting the urge to go off until you’ve had a few minutes to think about the whole situation.
I’m boy, When I was 13 , The principal always checks students’ hair and nails and punishes them if they were long
One day, he came to the line and checked our nails, I had forgotten to trim my nails for a long time, and my nails were long like a girl’s.
When he saw my nails, he asked sarcastically: Am I a girl?
I was embarrassed and lowered my head
The principal sent me to the corner of the wall and I stood facing the wall with my head down
he sent about ten other people to the side of the wall because their nails were too long
When all the students went to class, the manager and the principal came to us with a ruler, the principal said, we have to give them a nice punishment!
Principal said that we should paint their nails to make them girls!
They took us to the manager’s office and forced us to put our hands on the table
Then the manager took out a bottle of red nail polish from his drawer and started painting our nails completely
We felt ashamed and humiliated and our heads were down
They took us to the front of the line in front of all the students and calles us girls!
All the students laughed at us and we cried and felt humiliated
They hit our palms with a ruler to make us cry more!
From that day on, we didn’t have the courage to keep our nails long
1. Successful people don’t leave their life in the hands of luck. Life is too unpredictable to leave it in the hands of luck. Therefore, successful people choose to take control of things rather than sit around and wait for luck to finally smile at them.
2. Successful people take risks at the right place, at the right time. Successful people know that they don’t have the luxury to be taking mindless risks that can do more bad than good. Rather, they wait for that perfect timing and occasion when they can justify taking the risk.
3. Successful people trust their intuition. Many people underestimate the power of gut feeling. But in reality, it’s one of the most efficient and free tools you can utilize profitably. And successful people know how to do just that.
4. Successful people are the masters of their own destiny. Some people believe that one’s destiny is predetermined, and so they decide to simply let things unfold accordingly. But successful people prefer to take charge and carve out the destiny they aim for.
5. Successful people know the importance of having control over their emotions. They understand the impact emotional control or the lack thereof can have on their motivation, perseverance, and overall success. Therefore, they always try to keep their emotions under control so they’ll be the ones having the power over them.
6. Successful people practice positive self-talk. Successful people try not to listen to that negative voice in their head that tells them it is not going to work out. They don’t insult themselves, either. Instead, they train themselves to be compassionate, understanding, and encouraging toward themselves so they never succumb to the destructive effects of negative self-talk.
7. Successful people know that making mistakes is an essential part of the process leading them to ultimate success. They are aware that no matter how many mistakes they make along the way, they can make use of each by learning from them, guiding them toward success they’ve been working hard for.
8. Successful people know how to take constructive criticism well. Not only do they understand the benefits of constructive criticism, but they also appreciate getting it because they see it as a way to improve themselves or get closer to their goals.
9. Successful people have an unshakeable faith in themselves. Even if everyone else around them thinks they are just idealistic dreamers chasing after unrealistic goals, they refuse to see themselves from the same lenses because they know they have what it takes to get the things they are after.
My first thought was to say no but as I was paying for my gas I grabbed the milk. Outside was his girlfriend holding a box of cereal. He thanked me and I started to walk to my car. Something in me made me turn around. I told them I was about to get a car wash but if he wanted to wash it for me I’d pay him $20. We went to the nearest car wash and he had tears in his eyes after I paid him!
He told me that more than anything he appreciated me giving him the opportunity to be a man again in the eyes of his girlfriend and work for the money. The whole time his girlfriend helped him. It’s like she was proud of him. You could tell the love was so real. Real beyond material things and what he could do for her. She told him he did a great job and he couldn’t stop smiling. I had a long talk with him and her and he had a backpack full of paperwork from all of the places he’s been going to get help for them. I drove them to my apartment complex and gave him clothes for interviews and a few outfits and fitted caps. I don’t have much but life is about sharing what you do have.
Be a blessing to someone today because you could be in that situation before you know it! I gave them my number and I plan to take them to any interviews or appointments they have. It’s a great day to be alive no matter what your situation is. Someone has it worse than you! Share this message and inspire others to do good.”
Well it was a older Ford heavy duty truck, a three axle mini dump truck. It came in for brake work and when I opened the hood I discovered that most of the underhood wiring was redone with household electrical wiring cable, Romex and stripped Romex. It ran fine for a truck of the era that it was built and when the guy came to pick it up after the brake work, I had to ask about the wiring. He had the truck sitting unused for several years while he was working for someone and mice or squirrels had gotten in and destroyed the wiring and he had a roll of Romex in his garage and redid the wiring using another very similar truck as reference and got some bits from another truck he found in a junkyard. Mechanically the truck was solid and I was more impressed than anything else with the craftiness.
Woman Demands A Train Ran On Her! This Is Why Men Question The Value Of MW
Lack of purpose. All your young life you are given purpose of passing exams and learning, then all of a sudden you are thrown into the world and told to find your own meaning.
You can stay up as late as you want. But you shouldn’t.
Where did all my friends go?
Didn’t know that other adults have the emotional intelligence of teenagers and its almost impossible to deal with logically.
Getting burnt out.
Having to make dinner every. Fucking. Day.
Not having a lot of free-time or time by myself.
Figuring out what makes you happy. Everyone keeps trying to get you to do things you’re good at, or that makes you money, but never to pursue what you enjoy.
The more life you’ve lived, the faster time seems to go.
I once stopped to help a guy change a tire. He had an arm in a sling and two very young kids in his car. He thanked me saying he didn’t want to hurt his arm any more and wanted to get back to work.
Fast forward three months and I’m in a very ugly motorcycle wreck. One of the EMTs noticed my back was broken. Had they continued I’d have been paralyzed. His quick thinking prevented that.
After I recovered I got to meet the EMT crew that saved my life.
The guy that noticed my back was broken? The guy whose tire I had changed.
About 25 years ago, while living in Tucson Arizona, I received a phone call (bold = caller, non-bold = me):
Hi; Is this David Joseph? Dr. David Joseph?
Yes, who’s this?
Hi David!! It’s Garry Shandling!
Now at that time, Garry Shandling was a pretty well-known comedian, with his own show (“It’s Garry Shandling’s Show”), which was well known for its hilarious opening theme song. I was a big fan of his show, so I assumed a friend was pranking me:
Oh really?? Garry Shandling? Prove it; sing me your opening theme song!
He went ahead and sang me his opening theme song, and then went on:
David, how have you been? It’s been forever — can you believe it’s been over 20 years since we graduated?!
Since we graduated? Graduated what??
High School; Palo Verde??
Wait, I think you have the wrong David Joseph; are you looking for Dr David Joseph, the vet?
Yes; that’s not you? I thought your voice sounded different!
Yeah, that’s not me; I’m a people doc. I think that David Joseph moved away from Tucson a few years ago.
Oh, bummer. OK, I guess I’ll keep trying to find him — we were really close in High School.
Well, if you don’t find him, feel free to call me anytime; I’m happy to be your back-up Dr David Joseph!
Haha! Maybe I will! Thanks!
Good luck!
Then he called back a couple of hours later, explaining that he hadn’t been able to find his high school friend. We chatted a bit more, and then, once every few years, out of the blue, I would get a call from him, wanting to ‘catch-up with his back-up David Joseph.’
After I made a successful (static line) parachute jump – which turned out to be my first ever (and last) jump from a plane – I traveled back to the jump site three more times with Jeff C. to do it again. Various conditions prevented that from happening again, and after the third time that we were unable to jump again, we saw a fire a couple blocks off the interstate that was being fought by a team of professionals. A police officer instructed us to move along, but Jeff chimed in with “Why don’t they just let a good fire burn?” The officer walked to the front of Jeff’s car and wrote down the license plate and village sticker information, then asked Jeff AND me for ID. During the following week, I talked to mutual acquaintances of Jeff and related the aforementioned story to them. From one former coworker of Jeff, I learned that he was suspected of possibly starting two fires at his place of employment, with the second allegation causing him to be let go – I decided not to key ‘fi_ed’ – immediately. I no longer answered any of Jeff’s subsequent telephone calls, and did not answer the door when he came over.
Psychologist Addresses FEMALE DISRESPECT: why this is essential to relationship success
Damn! This is one HELL of a great video! Shit! Amazing video!
What most people don’t understand is that disrespect is a process. The best predictor of overt disrespect is covert disrespect. And this is why it is important to address disrespectful behavior while it is still in its nascent form. Failing to do so will jeopardize your relationship, primarily due to the fact that it is not possible for a woman to love a man she does not respect.
“Seeing how my now ex wife treated me compared to everyone else was an eye opener. I realized why everyone liked her, she treated them with respect and care, while I got the cold, cruel, disrespectful part.”
He beat me with a belt until I would bleed when I was very young and then when I became a teenager he would beat me with his fists. He broke my nose and blacked my eyes a few times. He’s dead now and I’m 69 years old. I have never for forgiven or forgotten. He beat my mom too. They divorced after I left home at 17. May he rot in HELL!
Oh man! I sure have. Often. Up until recently I worked, either with a guy or on my own, doing demolition, kitchen removals and buying/selling used building materials. I also ride a motorcycle. A big-ass noisy motorcycle. And, personally, I think I am a pretty nice person. I am considerate, kind and polite. But sometimes I am covered in drywall or brick dust, insulation, paint or sawdust. I usually carry Handy Wipes to, at least, wipe my face and hands clean. I may be dressed in work clothes and/or motorcycle gear. I am otherwise a well-groomed, clean, and pleasant 54 year old woman. I currently work outside all day and am in and out and crawling around assessing cars and trucks. Again, in work clothes or cover-all’s I am often dusty and wind-blown with dirty, with grease under my nails.
AND I GET TREATED LIKE SHIT.
I get followed, have had rude and disparaging comments made or completely ignored. Some staff treat me like I am invisible and are dismissive, assuming (I think) that I have no money to spend. At other times, they have been openly mistrusting and suspicious.
ALL BECAUSE I WORK FOR A LIVING!
Two of my very worst experiences occurred at places connected to religious institutions. One a church bazaar and the other a faith-based second hand shop. Another time I was speaking, as a counsellor, on a panel about alcoholism and addiction. Independent of each other, the hosts TWICE assumed that I was the newly recovered individual as opposed to the presenting professional.
In NO WAY am I ashamed of what I do or how I look. In fact, I am proud of who I am and the jobs I have done (and still do). I just wish people would judge me on my character or my actions rather than the way I look.
Bought a small place years ago that had a nice shed that could be used for tools, mower, etc and I asked if it conveyed and was told yes. Went to move in after settlement and no shed. Since it was in the contract, I called my realtor and told her the she came back or I would immediately stop the sale. No shed by the next day when promised so I notified the bank again that the sellers were in breach of contract. I was living in the house but had not put my furniture in yet, still in the box trailer belonging to a friend. The sellers had the shed at their new place but moving it damaged it so I refused to accept it and they had to order a brand new shed, same size, for the deal to be completed. The bank held the check, I finished moving in, and 2 weeks later the shed arrived.
Don’t try fast ones when selling since you may seriously regret the expense of fixing it.
Do what my garden-savvy cousin did to keep deer away from her garden. She set up hoses and multiple impact sprinklers with a motion sensor that set them off when deer approached, startling them and soaking them. Very effective, and not mean.
If the neighbor complains your sprinklers got him wet, say “Sorry, I had to do something to keep the deer/bears/monkeys/kids from stealing all my peaches before I can make pies/cobblers/jam from them.
You could even say, if I have a good crop this year, I’ll bring you a bowl of peaches.
In Chinese culture, sharing a meal with friends or family is a time to socialize. It’s actually something I very much enjoy being part of. As a Westerner, growing up in a Western and traditional Southern family, children were “seen and not heard,” and the talking points of a meal were, “Please pass the salt,” or “mind your manners.” The lively, upbeat, excitement that is exuded by Chinese people sharing a meal is something I adore.
When I bought my house the seller told me he had lost a ring a few years prior, and if I ever found it, it would mean the world to him to get it back. Three years later I saw something shiny while I was raking leaves. I picked it up and realized it was a ring encased in mud. I cleaned it off but didn’t think it could possibly be the lost ring. The stones were so large I thought it must be costume jewelry. I phoned the old owner and told him I found a ring but didn’t think it was valuable and asked if he could come take a look. When he saw it he started to cry and said it had great sentimental value. He offered me a reward but I declined. It didn’t seem right to take money for something that belonged to him. What I thought was a cheap ring with glass stones turned out to be $70,000 worth of diamonds.
a friend of ours who at the time was single mother of two, her son is autistic. She complained she had no heat in her mini van and winter in southern Ontario can be bitter cold. Local franchise repair shop quoted her north of $1700 to fix it!
I said let me take it to my trusted repair shop.
After a quick diagnosis he says “is she a teacher?” I’m like “how’d you know?”
He says “I cleaned a pile of papers out of the vents by the the heater core…lots of heat now!”
$75 and she had heat again…and was advised to keep papers off her dash!
Yeah actually… A few years ago I went out on the town for a mates birthday – straight from work. I’m carrying with me a £2.5k laptop and my mates got his full pay packet in cash and a thermos of soup given to him by a friend for his birthday (separate story).
These two kids come up to us and demand all of our worldly belongings. We dismiss them, as the bravery of a nights worth of fairly strong Hazy Pale Ale courses through our veins. As we walk off, the braver of the two pulls out a pretty small knife and demands more of our attention.
With a look from my mate we start off round the corner. Once we’re there we in whispered, quick voices form a plan and we wait for them.
I caught the first guy with a swing of my rucksack right under the chin and all 15” and 2.6kg of my MacBook Pro knocked his head back nearly off his feet. My friend followed with the Thermos on the 2nd. We didn’t hold back on those hits.
Once they recovered enough to speak, the braver one asked the other one if he was bleeding… he was… and the other guy told him.
Angry from the revelation he was bleeding, he said if he ever saw us again we’re dead… My friend, living round the area didn’t take kindly to this and threw the statement back at him. Told him, NO if you ever come back here YOU’RE dead and flew at the guy with the Thermos a second time. He chased them both up the street with that flask, with me laughing in hysterics at the bottom of the road.
In a strange way, being drunk that night changed the whole outcome of that encounter. Doubt we would have stood up to them sober.
He most certainly has a case. One of my neighbors tried to have two of our old silver birches and one 50-years-old Cedar tree cut, and it cost him dearly. It started with a Christmas tree though.
We came back from the United States, and as usual when we are back from holidays, I checked the garden — just to see how the plants, flowers and mushrooms (but also our rabbits and barn owls) were doing.
And then I noticed that one of our beautiful Christmas trees had been cut. The top half was gone, and no higher Mathematics was needed to conclude who had done it. One of our neighbors — I once had a relationship with his youngest daughter Ebba, but he seemed reasonably normal in those days — goes berserk if even only a couple of leaves fall on his property.
This time, he had cut an evergreen conifer, and we were sick of it. We called the neighborhood police man to sort this out, and he reprimanded the neighbor — to no avail. We decided not to go to court for the time being.
Instead, he sued us.
Together with another neighbor friend (who apparently also had problems with leaves and needles without us knowing), he filed a complaint against us in Justice Court. Big goal: having some of our trees (two old birches and an old Cedar) cut.
It did not quite work out that way, though.
Instead, he was forcefully reprimanded by the judge, who explained that leaves and needles are a part of country life, and that there was nothing wrong nor illegal about them falling in his garden.
The judge also dismissed the demand that our trees would be cut —
“It is STRICTLY FORBIDDEN to cut old trees, Mister C., so NO ONE will touch them. And very high maximum penalties would be issued if someone would.”
(Goal not attained.)
Since then, our neighbor had become even more mental than before. He throws all the leaves and needles he can find in our garden, and he has, since recently, started to throw buckets of his own stinking urine in our backyard.
I’m also one of those foreigners who think China is not just good, but a great place to live in! After working in China for the past few years, I have realized so many reasons for loving China.
A quick list of my personal observations about China:
1. Life has been very peaceful in China: I am never worried about my personal safety, or disruption of work. Life has been going quite smoothly.
2. Cost of living: About RMB 5,000/month (~$700). For the quality of life that I have enjoyed in China, it can’t get more affordable.
3. Jobs: my job is going fine. No issues with salaries.
4. Tax holidays: expats from a good number of countries (including US) enjoy tax holidays in China (due to the Double Tax Avoidance Treaty). I have not paid any tax in China so far. 🙂
5. Great food: China offers one of my favorite cuisine (I also love Thai, Vietnamese, Malaysian, and Indian food). You can order from home. RMB 15 for 20 dumplings (饺子, jiaozi). Even if you cook at home, it can’t get cheaper than that.
6. Online shopping: you can buy almost everything online in China. Taobao is probably one of those few sites I visit every day. I buy something every day.
7. Cashless payments: we don’t carry cash in China. We just need to bring a phone, scan QR codes and pay. In fact, you can rent bicycles by just scanning QR codes (first 1hr ride is free).
8. I have a history of diabetes. Going anywhere, including back to the US, puts me at a very high risk of Covid-19 pandemic. There are great medical facility in China. Every Chinese city has a good number of hospitals. It’s very convenient to visit hospital in China (Btw, my city is virtually covid-19 virus free).
9. Learning Chinese: if you want to learn Chinese, China is the best place. The whole atmosphere is warm and welcoming. You’ll learn Chinese fast. This was also a reason for me to move to China.
10. Travel: Lots of nice places in China. Recently I visited Zhouzhuang (周庄), a water town (江南水乡). It was a pleasant experience. Chinese tourist attractions are generally very different from the typical western tourist attractions.
11. No illegal immigration: you can’t enter China illegally. You will be caught if you try. Penalties are heavy. You will be deported, however, only after serving the sentence.
Living in China is a very different experience. It doesn’t make sense to compare China with other countries (or vice versa). Explore what China has to offer, and you’ll love it.
Also, I wish to thank China for taking a good care of me throughout my China stay, especially during my diabetes phase. Otherwise, I couldn’t have survived probably.
The U.K.: much, much more working-class than Americans are raised to assume. It’s a textbook example of American ignorance that we tend to believe Brits are all very sophisticated and “aristocratic.” (And I don’t mean that as an insult, just a reality check.) Britain can be polished and classy, and it can be tougher than a bad neighborhood of Philly.
Ireland: deep beauty, deep gloom, too. Really depends on where you go and when and what you’re up to. One of the friendliest countries I’ve been to. Just don’t expect everything to be rainbows and sentimental fantasy and you’ll be fine. Again, from an American perspective: virtually all Americans need a reality check here.
Mexico: been there multiple times, still haven’t been killed. Haven’t witnessed so much as a mugging let alone a cartel operation. The worst thing I’ve seen is sexual harassment. The worst thing that personally happened to me was an epic case of farts. In general, what I’ve seen of Mexico is more truly cultured and sophisticated than a large chunk of the most hyped places in Europe and certainly more cultured and tasty than significant swathes of the United States. (Some of Mexico is pretty benighted, but the chances of you ending up in those corners of Mexico are next to none.)
The United States: lived here most of my life, still haven’t been shot. A country with places as diametrically different as Vermont and Miami Beach, New York and the Sonora. What’s pretty true about one place isn’t even remotely true about another. And contrary to the stereotype that Americans brook no criticism of our country, I think it’s actually the most hyper-self-critical country I’ve ever personally been to. If you can’t hear copious criticism coming out of the United States, see an ear doctor, your ears are plugged up. (Too much of this criticism is tribal criticism and not enough self-criticism, but Americans love to bitch and moan about the place. How do you not hear this?)
Canada: lovely people, lovely country, but nowhere near as happy or perfect as a big part of the world believes they are. Canadians are aware of their problems, because they’re honest. This isn’t a comment about Canadians. It’s a comment about the mystery of why so many other people aren’t aware of the problems and unhappiness that do exist in Canada.
Colombia: didn’t get killed. Didn’t see any obvious drug deals. Freakishly hot. Got horrifying Montezuma’a Revenge: do not ever ever EVER drink the water. Would I revisit? Yes.
Cuba: very much like the pictures of 1950’s cars and bars would have you believe. Fucking amazing to fly down there from Wisconsin in February: it’s not a long flight at all, but you feel like you’ve gone back 60 years in time and also dropped into what Southern Europe felt like a generation or two ago, not just the Caribbean. Lost worlds, truly. The sanitation will get you, though. The poverty is shocking. The people are wonderful but deserve so much better.
Italy: the only part I really liked was Sicily, where I didn’t killed by the mafia. Sicily was extraordinary.
Greece: incredibly cold when I was there. I think I picked up a minor case of pneumonia. It was March and I was freezing to death.
Turkey: went in 2002 and no Muslims killed me. The waiter brought his kid sister out, maybe 10 years old, to practice English. She giggled and thought Americans were funny. I thought the Turks were friendlier than the Greeks. But I was an asshole kid back then.
Bulgaria: also went in frozen weather in March 2002. Bulgaria was probably the closest to the grim Iron Curtain stereotype I’d sort of been expecting. (You half expected to see Stalin at the train station in Sofia.) But I’ve heard it’s changed a lot for the better. I was there 21 years ago. Would I revisit? Yes. In July.
Spain: didn’t see anybody going to bullfights. Tacos are not the dominant cuisine there. Paella is overrated tourist food. Seville beats Barcelona and Madrid. Go to Lanzarote for surreal quiet time (I was there last April, showed up in a tiny town at night, sat on the balcony watching the moon, and I was like “I’m in Spain and there’s no noise. This is weird.” Also, you’re more likely to see people having big parties than going to a Catholic religious procession. Spain has an exaggerated reputation for being “extremely Catholic.” The American Midwest is 10 times more Catholic.
Sweden: only went to Stockholm. Incredibly empty. Not very exciting. Dirtier than I expected.
Finland: severely underrated people.
Iceland: not as cold as Minnesota. (I’ve been to both in January. Iceland is Ipanema Beach compared to Minnesota.)
Portugal and Slovenia: Europe’s most underrated countries.
Czech Republic, Poland and Croatia: not gray. Everybody who heard I was going there said “that sounds so gray.” These places were bursting with color and life. Ate like a king for the price of a Big Mac meal in the U.S.
Bosnia: didn’t get killed. Contrary to stereotypes, that war ended 30 years ago. Being afraid to go because there had been a war and some bad shit in the past would be like being afraid to go to Germany in 1975, thirty years after WWII. Ridiculous. (I drove on some roads in Bosnia that were better than roads in Michigan. There are other roads where if you’re not paying attention, you’ll drive off a ledge and end up upside down in a cabbage patch.)
I’ve been to a few more countries, but that’s the gist.
One thing I’ve learned from travel is not to put too much stock in other people’s opinions. I’ve been to places they love that I hated. I’ve been to places they bashed or were afraid to visit that I thought were some of the best experiences of my life.
It’s not that I don’t trust anybody. It’s just that I’ve traveled enough to know that I’d rather go somewhere myself and form my own opinion.
Xi knows China needs the US, and of course the US needs China, maybe more so today.
Xi also knows that the world, which is facing more than enough difficulties right now, needs a stable US relationship and can not endure any major conflicts between the two largest economies.
Xi knows he can handle the situation here within China.
Then, looking around, who can help stabilize the bilateral relations? Who have a big say on the US domestic issues to try to calm down the sentiments there?
Is it possible, helpful and practical for him to talk to those big bosses of MICs, the Military Industrial Complex? Not quite possible — they prefer war than peace, they are thirsty for wars.
Is it helpful for him to talk to the US politicians? He has tried. He talked with Trump, and treated him well in Beijing, then what? Trump can tear down any agreements as he likes; He talked with Biden, last year in Bali, Indonesia, then what? Biden can’t even really govern his own administration team, neither the Democratics, let alone those from the GOP. But Xi tried once again, this time, he met Biden in San Francisco. But, again, then what? What if Trump came back after next election? He would again turn everything upside down.
Is it useful and helpful to talk to the general public? Might be of some help, but how many can he talk to? And how much help would that be of? No one really knows.
Then, who are left? The ones with a big say in the US politics, economy and even society — Yes, the business executives.
What they care more about is the market, the profits, the money, where China can offer. And with the money, they can stand with those candidates who are more practical and support a more pragmatic approach towards China, instead of those full of ideologies in their minds and even can’t wait to drum up a war with China.
Thus a comparably virtuous circle is hopefully to be formed to prevent the China-US relations from further spiraling down, which neither can China afford, nor can the US, as well as the whole world.
I joined a ship in Rotterdam and on sailing for Suez, noted that the generator oil temperatures were rather high. On asking the other engineers, they said “They’re always like that” which was often a reason given by those of an idle nature… I investigated and found that they had raised the alarm point to stop the alarms going off instead of actually fixing the problem, which I assumed to be the generator lube oil coolers being fouled. On arrival at Suez and waiting in the anchorage, we opened up the LO coolers but found that they were clear, though with a fine sand lying in the tube bottoms, suggesting a lack of seawater flow-rate. We transited Suez but on meeting the warmer seawater temperatures of the Red Sea, had to reduce the generator load to avoid them tripping out altogether. We put into Aden to fix the problem, blacked out and started working back from the seawater lines into the coolers to the pumps themselves, eventually having to take out just about all the seawater lines until on opening up the main piping from the pumps (some 650mm diameter) we found them to be just about blocked with an aggregate of mud, sand and shellfish, such that only a small diameter of some 250mm was available for passing water to the generator coolers. Out came the main length of piping and we started to shovel out the muck. As we cleared it, a large, Triffid/Hydra-like apparition started to appear, causing the more faint-hearted to jump back in alarm, though it was only moving by virtue of us shovelling out its supporting mussel bed… It turned out to be a submarine tree of surprising length and girth (around 5–6m long and about the diameter of my arm in the main trunk, with lots of squid like leaves on it which had been waving in the ever reducing breeze of seawater passing through the pipe. We eventually removed all the gunk and the “animal” itself and laid it along the plates for a photo opportunity (we only had the ship’s Polaroid instant picture camera in those days so I don’t have a record unfortunately).
How did such a large beast get into the system? Presumably it had entered as a micro-organism and found a handy place to anchor itself in the rubber jointing between flanges (its roots were entwined around the bolts) and then fed itself from the handy warm water stream passing its front door. It gradually grew, causing other marine life such as shellfish to cling on where the water was less turbulent, and then gathering mud and other essential nutrients from its environment. Amazing thing, but fortunately harmless in that it didn’t actually attack us… Being in Aden the temperature in the engineroom without the fans running was around 50C (we had to shut down the generators and rely on emergency lighting), such that we could only work for around 20 minutes each before having to go on deck in the (relatively) cooler air of some 35C Aden night time temperature. It took us most of the night to clear the piping and refit it – a big job indeed.
Final job on restarting everything was to wind the generator LO temperature alarms back to the proper alarm point; I checked back through the ship’s engineroom log books to see where the problem had first started, and it was some 3 years in the making without anyone investigating the slowly rising temperatures.
I was Marketing Director for a major, easily recognized company that manufactured female oriented products. Our President was in over his head, as evidenced by our declining market share and revenue. I was hired to help turn things around given my successful track record at other companies. However, the President couldn’t handle any outside suggestion or strategy unless it was his so I was constantly reprimanded for doing my job.
One day, my timid, suck-up boss sends me an email about a report she needs me to do ASAP. I scoll thru the entire email and at the end, I see it originated with a request from the President. Basically he wanted my boss to assign the report to me and once she had it to fire me. The email also contained some very derogatory & crude & inappropriate comments about my appearance.
I forwarded the entire email to my personal email account, HR and members of the Board. In exchange for me not pursuing legal action or sharing the incident with my press contacts (would have killed any credibility in the female marketplace), I received my bonus, 6 months severance including paying my health insurance, & a strong positive reference letter. I had a new position in 6 weeks.
The President was let go after about 2 months and it took him over 1 year to find a new position at a less prestigious company and lessor salary.
I wasn’t a mechanic, I was a service manager. A guy drove into the lot, he had poked a rod through his block. How the car was still running was a mystery. For some context, this was 1978, he was driving some little 1970 English import, a Vauxhall Viva, possibly. The blue book price was less than $500. He was a recent immigrant, with broken English, and obviously didn’t have much money, from the car he was driving.
I explained that it would cost twice as much to fix the car as it was worth. He didn’t appear to understand. So he called his pastor, who was his sponsor. I talked to the pastor when he arrived, and he called me a racist for refusing to work on an immigrants car. I explained it two different ways, and it didn’t make any difference.
I finally gave up, wrote up a work order, for $1200. Then I ran down the street to a convenience store, and bought an autotrader magazine. I handed him the work order first, and he audibly gasped. Yet it was just what I had verbally told him. Then I flipped the magazine open to a car like his, but in better shape, for sale for $500.
The light switched on. He wasn’t happy, but he now understood why I didn’t want to repair it. Since it was worth more than the car was to repair it, we would have required cash up front. Before starting the job.
My boss wasn’t happy with me, for spending my time driving away a customer.
I have no idea if the guy could have afforded to make the repair.
The next week the pastor started sending other members of his flock to us.
The following is a translation of a recent essay that examines the circumstances of close encounters between Chinese and U.S. militaries in China’s vicinity, explains China’s grievances, and identifies the factors that further heighten risks.
The author of this essay is Hu Bo, Research Professor and Director of the Center for Maritime Strategy Studies, Peking University, and Director of the South China Sea Strategic Situation Probing Initiative.
Full text below.
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Recently, the U.S. DoD “declassified” some of the videos and pictures of aerial encounters with PLA military aircraft in the East China Sea and the South China Sea, accusing China of “risky intercept” and “unprofessional behaviors.”
This is, of course, a one-sided narrative from the United States. The Pentagon has not made it clear where these air encounters took place or why they occurred. As the China-U.S. military competition intensifies, the frequency and intensity of air and sea encounters are increasing, and the risk of possible friction and conflict does exist.
However, the United States is hyping “anxiety”, partly because of real concerns about risks, and partly because it wants to take hold of the “moral high ground” in international public opinion and diplomacy.
In fact, in the waters surrounding China, such as the East China Sea and the South China Sea, despite the growing competition between the China-U.S. militaries as well as air and sea encounters, it is important to emphasize that the vast majority of the air and sea encounters between the China-U.S. militaries, which occur more than a dozen times a day and thousands of times a year, have been conducted in a safe and professional manner.
For example, in a 2022 emailed statement about transit through the Taiwan Strait, US 7th Fleet spokesperson Mark Langford said in an emailed statement that “all interactions with foreign military forces during the transit were consistent with international standards and practices and did not impact the operation.”
In August 2022, Capt. Amy Bauernschmidt told the press after the USS Abraham Lincoln, which she commanded, finished a deployment in the Pacific that “We were operating in the vicinity [of] Chinese warships at times, mostly … that shadowed our ship……It was safe and professional the entire time that we interacted with them. During some flight operations, our aircraft did interact with some of their aircraft, but again it remained safe and professional each and every time we interacted with them.” [1]
Both the U.S. and Chinese militaries have made it clear at the highest levels that they “do not want war” and want to avoid direct military conflict.
While formal communication mechanisms between the two militaries (e.g., the China-U.S. Military Maritime Consultative Agreement meetings, Defense Policy Coordination Talk, and China-U.S. Theater Commanders Talk) were interrupted after Nancy Pelosi’s Visit to Taiwan, there are other channels of communication between frontline commanders, such as the Convention on the International Regulations for Preventing Collisions at Sea, 1972 (COLREGs), and the Code for Unplanned Encounters at Sea (CUES), which was adopted in 2014.
High-level exchanges between the U.S. and Chinese militaries have also been slowly restarting since President Xi Jinping had a meeting with U.S. President Joe Biden in Bali. Overall, the situation of China-U.S. air and sea encounters is not as dire as portrayed by the media and some scholars.
▲ Four scenarios for confrontational encounters between China and the United States
However, under certain circumstances, the risk of conflict could run high. When the United States and China talk about military frictions or dangerous encounters and blame each other, the first thing we should be clear about is where these frictions or encounters are taking place. For both sides, air and sea encounters in different areas have different legal and political implications. Most confrontational encounters between China and U.S. military forces occur under the following four scenarios.
1. When U.S. forces approach the territorial waters and airspace of mainland China or Hainan Island, the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) reacts vigorously, taking such actions as interception or forcing out.
2. U.S. forces enter the territorial waters and airspace of the Xisha Islands to carry out so-called FONOPs and are warned and driven away by the PLA.
3. When the U.S. military conducted FONOPs within 12 nautical miles of China-controlled islands and reefs in the Nansha Islands and Huangyan Island, The PLA warned and drove away the U.S. military. For example, on September 30, 2018, the USS Decatur conducted a so-called FONOP in the waters near Nansha Islands’ Nanxun Reef and had a close encounter with a Chinese warship. The two ships were only 40 meters apart at their closest.
4. Both China and the United States engage in close reconnaissance of each other’s military forces during military exercises, including live ammunition exercises. While mutual tracking and surveillance of military activities are common, the reconnaissance operations conducted by the U.S. military sometimes come dangerously close.
Particularly during the PLA’s live ammunition exercises, the U.S. military often disregards the no-entry notices and unlawfully enters the relevant sea and airspace. For example, in August 2020, a U.S. U-2 high-altitude reconnaissance aircraft intruded into the PLA’s Northern Theater Command’s live ammunition exercise airspace, and an accident was barely avoided.
▲ China has legitimate concerns about the close encounters between Chinese and U.S. naval and air forces
While China is dissatisfied with the U.S. military’s actions in the waters near China and believes that the root cause of the encounters at sea and in the air is the aggressively close reconnaissance and other targeted military operations conducted by the U.S. military, it nevertheless tracks and monitors the U.S. military in accordance with international conventions, which is no different from reciprocal reactions of U.S. and Japan for China.
China only reacts more strongly in the four above-mentioned types of military encounters, which is in line with international common sense. Any country would take all feasible measures to safeguard its territorial, sovereign, and platform security against any actions that attempt to approach its territorial waters and airspace or pose a threat to its training exercises.
Strategically, China opposes the continuous challenges posed by the U.S. to China’s sovereignty over islands and reefs and its national security. Technically or in specific actions, China opposes actions by the U.S. that endanger the safety of personnel onshore at sea and in the air. In addition to strategic and legal differences, China also has three legitimate concerns:
First, some of the U.S. military’s reconnaissance missions are too close to China and overly provocative.
For example, on September 4, 2021, a U.S. RC-135S Cobra Ball missile surveillance aircraft approached Jiaozhou Bay in Shandong Province for close reconnaissance, with its closest point of approach to the Chinese territorial baseline being less than 20 nautical miles. On December 8, 2022, a U.S. P-8A anti-submarine patrol aircraft flew over the Taiwan Strait, at times with a distance of less than 13 nautical miles from the Chinese territorial baseline.
Second, China has reasons to be concerned about frequent accidents involving the U.S. military. In recent years, the high frequency of U.S. military operations and the negative impact on training and proficiency have led to numerous unfortunate accidents (such as the collision incident involving the U.S. Navy’s USS Fitzgerald missile destroyer in 2017).
When the Chinese and American militaries come into close proximity, the possibility of accidental incidents occurring due to a decline in the professionalism of the U.S. military is increasing.
Third, the United States has intensified the public hype and politicization of encounters at sea and in the air and military actions. In recent years, the United States has amplified the political and diplomatic implications of its military actions, with the most iconic examples being the so-called FONOPs carried out by the U.S. military within 12 nautical miles of China-controlled islands in the South China Sea and its transits through the Taiwan Strait.
On October 27, 2015, the U.S. destroyer USS Lassen conducted a highly publicized FONOP in the waters near the Nansha Islands. Although the U.S. had previously conducted such activities in the South China Sea, they were rarely so open and high-profile. The same is true for U.S. transits through the Taiwan Strait. Since 2018, after each transit through the Taiwan Strait, the U.S. Navy would either feed information to the media or directly issue announcements, claiming to “maintain freedom and openness in the Indo-Pacific region”. Such hype and politicization have increased the complexity and difficulty of military communication between China and the U.S. and added to the risks of encounters between Chinese and American naval and aerial forces.
[1]Note: the original essay wrongly attributed the above quote to Rear Adm. J.T. Anderson, this newsletter corrected the inaccuracy.
You smile, bank the check and say thank you! I had a very small role in the Spiderman movie starring Emma Stone. The scene never made it into the final cut. It wasn’t necessary for the story line. But I got paid union rate and residuals and spent a very pleasant afternoon and evening filming a 2 person scene with Emma Stone, who was absolutely delightful and charming. No complaints. And they sent me the specially designed movie baseball cap. I was treated as a professional and my contribution was valued at the time of filming.
In many western nations it fails on both counts. What they have left is an electoral system that goes through the motions. I remember a module on Law I did at UCL. It’s an elected dictatorship mostly. Before you screech but you’re in China, yeah but I was born in the UK. I watche the 1997 election (too young to vote) participated in 2001, 2005, 2010 and sat out 2015. I had left the UK by 2017 and 2019.
We can go through the common failings:
We can vote out those who fail!
We can freely criticise our leaders!
We can vote somebody in new and different!
Western systems ensure the BEST standards of living
Western systems are accountable!
Western systems ensure the most capable people!
We can vote out those who fail!
Except you don’t. The Labour regime of from 1997 to 2010 didn’t really achieve anything. They had some decent literacy programmes with the gremlins campaign but this was dismantled by the late 00s.
We can freely criticise our leaders!
Less so now, the UK has massively restricted free speech since the 80s, it has massively restricted protest. And guess what? Call the current prime minister a bum what happens NOTHING to you and NOTHING to them.
We can vote somebody in new and different!
Except it’s a false choice. You can choose a Neoliberal or a Neoliberal. The policies are a venn diagram that is a circle.
Western systems ensure the BEST standards of living
Maybe in the past 70s, 80s maybe the 90s. But once it got Neoliberalised productivity got disconnected from wages and there’s been a massive stagnation.
Western systems are accountable!
Yeah, they apologise or say let’s draw a line under it and then simply ignore it. I still remember Blunkett UK MP (EDIT) simply saying I don’t accept that to dismiss a well crafted argument against him.
Western systems ensure the most capable people!
No it ensures popular people. The UK’s Johnson for instance. What qualities other than being popular did he have?
Now let’s return to the above:
For the people.
For the people, are your lives REALLY getting better? My life in the UK:
Access to medical care: As a child I remember being able to get appointments with Dr Sharma same day for the times I was ill. As a teenager when I was beaten up, I could be admitted to hospital pretty quickly. Nose operations to put it back were done in as little as week. Into my 20s. It became increasingly difficult. Barriers kept being put up to see my GP. First off it was you had to book a day in advance, then a week in advance. By the early 00s. My GP had a 10 minute window at 8am to book appointments. There were 10 available a day.
My commute times : Each year it took longer and longer. I recall sitting in my dad’s car. To get to the big city nearby it was 20 minutes door to door. We moved a couple miles East but by the mid 00s it was taking 45 minutes and by the 2010s it was taking an hour each way door to door.
Policing There was a small police station in my dad’s town. It was gone and consolidated by the mid 00s. My dad had things smashed and police would attend same day. By the 2010s they wouldn’t attend and simply give you a crime number.
Of the people.
There’s the odd outlier like Mahri Black? The youngest MP ever. But the trend is establishment candidates. Only those backed by the party apparatchik have any chance of success. Tons of people like Lord Binhead try.. or the Monster Raving Loony Party try but always lose their deposits.
Sheltered, to begin with. In elementary school, I thought that friends who lived on Park Avenue were middle class.
One thing, though, that many don’t understand — not all of the students in these schools are rich. The schools generally offer financial aid, and many students are from upper middle class families. Increasingly, they have some poor children as well.
But of course there are lot of rich kids at them — kids who go skiing in the Swiss Alps, kids with household staffs, what have you. This can leave kids from middle class backgrounds thinking that they are poor.
The schools themselves — mine anyway —
Very high standards. You did not skip class, and you were not absent unless you were ill or there was a major crisis like a death in the family.
Very solid, college preparatory curriculum with lots of electives. Math and language classes were tracked by ability. The curriculum was accelerated to the point at which many students went to college after their junior year — there just wasn’t much left to do.
No bad teachers; they ranged from good to superb.
Few bad students. Admission was competitive and those who couldn’t handle the work were asked to leave. All students went to college, any or most to Ivies or similar, and most got advanced degrees.
Small class sizes. Ours were about 15. Teachers had low course loads, and latitude in what and how they taught — no submitting lesson plans. And they could focus on teaching, rather on lunchroom duty and such.
No “teaching to the test.” But then, such a thing didn’t exist when I was in school.
That said, there was good prep for the SAT’s. This can’t make a dramatic difference in scores, less than 100 points, but it can make some.
Beautiful campus, also like a small college. Here’s where I went to school — that’s the library building:
image 144
9. Excellent facilities.
10. No bells, etc. But very high standards of behavior. You didn’t arrive to class late, and there were no fights or anything of the sort.
11. A friend who transferred in from public school told me that he was delighted to be at a school where the teachers actually liked the kids!
12. I recall visiting my cousin’s public school when we were juniors and was appalled at the way the kids were treated by the administration. Obnoxious.
13. Smart kids were admired rather than bullied or looked down upon.
14. Today, there is a lot of pressure on the kids to get into a top college. Less so in my day. In any case, the schools are feeder schools, known to top colleges. At my school, for example, six kids went to Yale every year. Not five, not seven — they had six slots set aside.
15. The quality of the students was remarkable — probably more so at privates that cater specifically to the children of the rich. Out of a class of 100, one of my classmates became the first female editor of The New York Times. One became a philosophy professor at Cambridge, the other at Harvard. Another became a physicist. Most became doctors and lawyers. (Only three of us, I being one of them, became engineers.) One of the lawyers worked for President Obama. Etc.
16. I asked a former teacher why it was that, on a standardized test administered to students in New York City, the public school students did better than the private school students, but that in life, the private schools students did better, and he said it was simple — the private schools taught the students to think. They don’t stuff your head full of facts like a public school, but you can write an essay or prove a theorem.
In retrospect, if there was a downside, it’s that we were so sheltered. But overall, my experience was just about as good as it could be, within our current educational framework and given the requirements set by the colleges. I wish that every student could enjoy a similar experience.
There is no threat to the Chinese political system. 95% of Chinese support China and its government. People live longer, today their life expectancy is 78 years old and the U.S. is 2 full years lower at 76 years old! They live better lives. Their real standard of living less inflation has grown 30 times in 40 years. Meanwhile during the same time. The U.S. real standard of living not only not grow. It deteriorated back 20 years into the 1960 level!
Chinese has full universal healthcare coverage and college education is free of charge if one qualifies for it. All of which is not free in the U.S. and close to a third of Americans are not covered by healthcare and may die if they fall sick! That is the U.S. not China! Kids gets into college debts before they even start life in the world.
So who want to change their political system? Well by trust on government measurement carried out by trusted western research in the west showed Chinese trust their government 95% and only 30% of American’s trust their government!
And your question is what is the biggest threat to the Chinese political establishment? Not what is the biggest threat to the so call US liberal democracy? Why do you not ask the obvious? And why do you worry about a non issue? Where is your intellect? Where is you rationality and sanity?
Ok I get it you are a China and Chinese hater and you term communism as a slur to demonised China. But let me help you. 87% of the world don’t buy your shit. Sure the 13% westerners may be fooled by your media but even that a higher proportion of westerners are smarter than you. They know this is a nonsense question. But I addressed it to call you out. If you can ask this question you don’t amount to much.
What was odd thirty years ago, is my new normal, but here are a few random remembrances from 1990 Germany, 6 months after the fall of the Berlin Wall.
Brutal truth rewarded me when I asked “how are you?”. Replies weren’t always “great”, “awesome” or “just fine thank you.” Germans actually thought I cared (and eventually I learned not to ask if I didn’t).
Germans are direct. They don’t beat around the bush. When they have an opinion they share it with you. And they expect you respect it and deliver honesty in return. Political correctness was non-existent.
Service workers didn’t smile and chirp sugar-coated pleasantries. Shop attendants ignored me unless I asked for help. Restaurant meals were uninterrupted by the obligatory-every-five-minute repetition of “is everything OK?” I learned to ask for the bill rather than wait for it.
Smiling at strangers often seemed to discomfort them. I soon learned to recognize when a smile was welcome and when not.
Football (soccer for me at the time) rules. The 1990 World Cup began soon after I arrived. During games the world stopped. Loud cheers or groans occasionally livened up silent and traffic free downtown streets. As games ended, streets filled with honking cars waving huge flags (Italian, Spanish, Brazilian, Romanian and of course German).
I thought the Super Bowl huge, but the World Cup is much bigger.
Sporting events and television programs were advertising free. Ads appeared only between scheduled programming.
Everything was expensive. A used car with over 80,000 miles cost more than a new Hyundai in the US. A pair of brand name jeans cost 3 times more.
The electronics store salesman spent an hour trying to talk me out of a Toshiba television and a Samsung microwave. He insisted Asian goods broke as soon as the 2 year warranty expired. (The microwave is still going strong 30 years later, and the TV was only replaced because it was no longer smart enough for the digital age).
Nobody ever asked me about my religion or my profession, but damn were they curious about life in America.
Talking about money or charity is taboo.
Alcohol was everywhere. It was common to see people drink beer in the park or walking down the street. Lunch usually included a beer or carafe of wine.
There was no free water in the restaurants. And soft drinks were more expensive than beer. All drinks are served without ice.
Nobody littered! The public waste bins were emptied daily.
Germans pedestrians wait for a red light to turn green even on a deserted street at midnight.
Zebra-striped crosswalks get the same respect as stopped school buses in the US.
I was never asked to show ID to prove myself of legal drinking age. Sixteen-year-olds are allowed to drink wine and beer (even in a bar).
Magazines at the supermarket checkout featured naked breasts (no longer).
Shops closed at 6.30 p.m. on weekdays, 2 p.m. on Saturday and were all closed on Sunday (this has changed).
There were only three types of soda on offer, Coke, Fanta and Sprite (the selection is slightly larger now – but nothing like in the US).
Bagels and donuts were not to be found (that has changed too).
Bread was light on air and heavy on grains. My digestion became like an alarm clock.
Cities and streets are designed for pedestrians, bicycles and public transport – not for cars. Pedestrian zones are everywhere, parking is in expensive garages.
Downtown streets aren’t straight. They wander among the buildings and sites. Highways don’t mention north, south, east or west. They only tell you what towns and cities are ahead on the route.
Restaurant meals took hours not minutes and lack of television in the restaurants forced me to communicate with my friends. Meal portions were smaller and menus much more varied. Chain restaurants were rare. Tipping was optional and the wait staff gets 20 days of paid vacation.
Dogs are allowed in restaurants.
German flags were only displayed during the World Cup.
Everybody took a one hour lunch break and left work promptly before 5.30. People took three or four week vacations and left work behind.
Construction workers drank beer during their morning break. Obesity was unusual, beer bellies were not.
People walked for fun, but nobody seemed to run for fitness.
Some women at the pool sunbathed topless. Young children at the pool often wore nothing.
Public transport was immaculately clean and ran on time.
Brothels are legal.
Nobody ever seemed to get shot (though there were plenty of stabbings in Frankfurt where I lived).
Gas was four to five times more expensive than in the US.
My hour lunch break is over now. I’ll add to this if anything else occurs to me.
Back in the 70s, when smoking was legal almost anywhere except elevators. I stepped into an elevator in an office building with a coworker when another person stepped right in as the doors closed, smoking a cigarette. I pointed out it was illegal to smoke on an elevator and she replied, “what are you going to do, call the police?” My coworker, who happened to be a reserve police officer, pulled out his badge and said, “that won’t be necessary.”
Ah, I still remember her expression.
Varginha UFO Crash: Alien Contact, Government Denial and Coverup
You must be joking!!! I don’t understand how you could be unaware. China has been the target of massive anti-China propaganda in Western media for years.
And not only in mainstream media but in social media like Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and here on Quora.
Curiously, there are very few positive stories about China in Western media. They’re nearly all negative! How can that be?
Can a country that…
built the world’s largest economy from scratch within 40 years
lifted 800 million people out of extreme poverty
created the world’s finest infrastructure of roads, bridges, high-speed rail, airports, etc.
landed on the dark side of the moon
sent an ambitious space mission to Mars
built the spectacular BeiDou navigation satellite system
reforested 34 million acres of land
produces the most renewable energy in the world
created the world’s best 5G technology
sent pandemic aid to dozens of countries around the world
…have practically nothing positive to report on at all?
Well, that’s what the American (Western) narrative is.
China don’t throw innocent people into jail like the how U.S. cook up some shit and throw the Huawei CEO daughter in jail in Canada. The 2 Michael’s are spies and doing things in China to hurt China and the Chinese people to spy for the 5 eyes. These are facts. These are self confessed facts. Canada, do the honourable think and apologise to China and the Chinese people.
Canada you are a hypocrite and a liar. You cohort with all the media to claim that they were innocent. Well they now says in their own free speech that they spied for you! You are lucky China don’t sentence them to death. China ought to. China should do. After all what they do could kill many Chinese.
The time that a white persons life is worth more than another race belongs to the 19th century today. We should sue every media that claims the Michael’s are innocent. We should end every journalist that lied. We should fine the media and politicians so hard the will never dare to lie again. Caucasians do the right thing. Do you like to be lied to? Again and again and again?
I thought that freedom of speech is so vital to you. And surely you want the truth, nothing but the truth? Why the hell are you keeping quiet? CNN and BBC. Why are you quiet as a mouse? Lying News channel?
I raised a young family in the 1970’s as a TV repairman. Made good money. TV’s were so unreliable there was a TV shop on every other street corner. Drug stores had a vacuum tube tester for DIY’ers (You can’t guess how many service calls I made where the customer had a bag of tubes they took out to test but didn’t have brains enough to read the tube layout on the inside of the cabinet to return them in the proper place.) When the RCA XL100 came out as one of the first solid state TV’s, repairs started a slow decline. When integrated circuits became the norm, the bottom opened. Microprocessors blew the bottom away.
Drive down ANY 5 streets and tell me how many TV repair shops you can find. Go ahead, I’ll wait………..
I saw the handwriting on the wall, jumped into early PC repair, became an electronics teacher, saw the build you own PC market crash, got into networking, watched Cisco plummet in the 90’s, did cyber security and retired. Modern TV’s are far superior to any previous generation by my firsthand experience. Not to mention a color tv in 1960 cost $300 – 500 dollars. Do the math with inflation vs any brand of 40″ flat screen. Be amazed.
image 149
This is what fed my wife and daughter for 12 years.
Because I got married and had her very early in my 20s, at that time, none of my friends had kids. My baby was the sweetheart for all the aunties – mom’s three close friends. We threw her a party.
It was fun. Each auntie got her a present. They handed it to her one by one so she opened it and got excited. To the last auntie, before she handed the present to my daughter, she ‘demanded’ my girl, “Say ‘please’ and bow, so auntie will give you the gift!”.
I thought she was joking, so I interrupted and told my daughter, “Auntie got you a present, you say ‘Thank you’ out loud!”.
My daughter exclaimed, “Thank you auntie!”, then opened the present.
It was a Lego Friends set. Needless to say, my daughter was so happy, and jumped up and down with the Lego set.
Then suddenly, the auntie snatched the Lego set from my daughter’s hands again, held it up above her head, and demanded my daughter, “Say ‘please’ and bow, or auntie’s gonna take it back!”.
This time, I knew she wasn’t joking.
I got angry but tried very hard to keep my voice calm, “No one demands my daughter to beg. We’re poor but we are not cheap”. “I was just joking!”, she said. “No, you weren’t.
That’s the second time and I don’t like it”, I told her.
Now she got angry, raised her voice with me, “Even so, this is an expensive toy, what wrong with begging a little?”. “You take the gift back and please leave”, I told her, while getting up and holding the door open.
She left and never came back.
The next day, I took my daughter to the toy store to get that Lego set. My friend was right. It was a damn expensive toy, it cost me a big chunk of my skinny paycheck and a friendship.
Of course it is the U.S. but to be fair the U.S. is the biggest threat to the entire world. China included. And the world. As a whole the world need to jointly and severally stop the U.S. excesses. I dare say for the good of the human race including the Americans.
The U.S. is the only nation that will push human into extinction through an all out nuclear war if uncheck. We humanoids on earth need to be very mindful of this fact and the U.S. powers must be checkmate at every turn and ever aspect. Militarily, politically, financially, economically and strategically.
The U.S. must be brought back into being a member of responsible human society where the common good of humanity must prevail over the selfish interest of the U.S. military industrial complex profiting from wars, chaos and violence worldwide.
China is a very peaceful loving nation and it survived 5000 years because it has a peaceful coexistence between nations as a priority. China don’t want enemies and certainly do not like war. Since 1979 some 44 years has passed since China last fought a war. But during that time China phenomenally grew rich and strong to deter any nation from threatening them.
China wants a peaceful world where we can live peacefully and harmoniously. We can all get prosperous and live better and longer lives. And we trade with each other. Today there are only some 12–15 nations that are part of these war threatening pack. Most of them are either forced into this pack as slave vassal states or coerced or bribed into this grouping. Glued together by the U.S. and the western media, this loosely defined as western powers need to be dismantled for good.
Chinese history
Cajun Beef Po’boy Sandwiches with Red Eye Gravy
For Cajun Beef Po’boy Sandwiches with Red Eye Gravy, sirloin steak is rubbed with espresso coffee powder and pepper, then broiled to perfection. Red Eye Gravy is added to the steak.
cajun beef po boys
Ingredients
Po’boys
1 (1 pound) beef top sirloin steak, cut 1 inch thick
6 teaspoons espresso coffee powder, divided
1/2 teaspoon pepper
4 large French bread rolls, split
8 slices tomato
1 cup shredded lettuce
Redeye Gravy
3 tablespoons butter, divided
2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1/4 cup diced tasso or pancetta ham
1/4 cup diced onion
1 tablespoon Creole Seasoning
1 tablespoon minced garlic
1/3 cup hot water
2 cups beef stock
1 to 2 tablespoons hot pepper sauce (Louisiana-style)
1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
Instructions
Rub beef top sirloin steak with 2 teaspoons espresso powder and pepper.
Heat broiler to HIGH.
Place steak on rack on aluminum foil-lined broiler pan so surface of beef is 3 to 4 inches from heat. Broil for 16 to 21 minutes for medium rare (145 degrees F) doneness, turning once.
Meanwhile, melt 2 tablespoons butter in large skillet over medium heat; whisk in flour. Cook for 8 to 10 minutes until caramel color, whisking often. Remove mixture from pan; set aside.
Melt remaining tablespoon butter in same skillet over medium heat; add tasso, onion, Creole Seasoning and garlic; cook for 10 minutes until onion is translucent.
Dissolve remaining 4 teaspoons espresso powder in hot water; add to skillet and cook for 1 to 2 minutes until browned bits attached to skillet are dissolved and sauce is reduced almost completely.
Whisk in butter mixture until smooth.
Add beef stock, hot sauce and Worcestershire; bring to a boil. Reduce and simmer for 15 to 20 minutes or until sauce is reduced to 1 cup.
Add roast beef to skillet. Cook for 3 to 5 minutes until heated through, stirring often so sauce coats beef.
Divide beef mixture between rolls. Top beef with tomato and lettuce. Close sandwiches.
There is no need to answer such boring questions anymore.
All infrastructure in China, including logistics, communication, power supply, water supply, and gas supply, is very complete.
In 2021, China produced 8.5 petawatt-hour (Pwh) of electricity, approximately 30% of the world’s electricity production.
There are two most advanced transmission technologies in the world, one called “ultra-high voltage transmission” and the other called “flexible direct current transmission“. China is far ahead of other countries in these two top technologies.
Overhead power lines can easily cause fires and can also lead to power outages.
Outdoor power poles and overhead power lines in China have been basically cleaned up during the renovation of old cities, and all cables have been buried underground without any exposed or disorderly phenomena.
If you have traveled to cities in Taiwan, Japan and Chinese Mainland, you will find that only cities in Chinese Mainland rarely see bare overhead power lines.
I haven’t experienced a power outage in China for 40 years.
Young people born in China after 1990 may not even understand what it feels like to have a power outage.
In China, even remote rural areas have stable electricity supply.
The Tibetan village at an altitude of 5000 meters has also been electrified.
But whether it’s India, Vietnam, or the United States or Europe, power outages are frequent.
The machines running in the factory require electricity, while the computers in the office require electricity. If the power supply is unstable, how do you make the enterprise work?
Taiwan’s power system has always had various problems. Taking TSMC as an example, due to a power outage in Tainan City, 30000 wafers on TSMC’s production line were damaged, resulting in a direct loss of US$200 million. No matter how rich TSMC’s finances are, it cannot withstand the losses caused by several major power outages.
Anyway, since you want to attract foreign investment, the first step is to ensure a stable electricity supply.
Otherwise, these enterprises will have to face downtime and production stoppage.
Through the the Belt and Road Project, China will help these countries improve their power systems and will actively transfer some enterprises to countries along the the Belt and Road.
China’s homegrown TP500 unmanned transport plane makes maiden flight, and transportation between Chinese cities will be faster in the future. Goods that originally took 3 days to arrive can be transported in 2-3 hours.
I was a workaholic, working 16 hour weekdays and 8 hour weekends. This was about 20 years ago.
It was Christmas eve, and I still hadn’t done my Christmas shopping, I had my list for everything, most of it specified by my nieces and nephews.
I had been reading how a few malls in our city were in trouble, as everyone was switching to big box stores to shop. They showed pictures of traffic jams in big box store parking lots. I was finally out of time and had to shop, and hope I could get the stuff on my list, at the last minute.
I pulled up to Sears at the local mall, that had been featured in the news, as being in trouble. The parking lot was empty. I was afraid it was closed. I parked in the closest parking spot to the door. I walked in and manager saw me enter, and was on me like glue. I was the only customer in the store, ON Christmas Eve!!
He asked me what I was looking for and I pulled out this long list. He smiled and called someone over to get me a hot chocolate from the mall, he sat me down in a recliner in the furniture section, and called two more workers over, and asked them to get the stuff on the list.
We talked, and I drank my hot chocolate. He was pretty sure Sears wouldn’t last another five years, and he needed it to, to collect his pension.
After about 15 minutes, the workers were back with my presents. I paid for them. They had a gift wrapping service, which normally cost extra, but he said that the staff weren’t doing anything anyway, so it would be free.
In another 10 minutes, they helped me load the wrapped presents in my car.
It was maybe 25 minutes from when I walked into the store, and I was done. Wrapped and everything.
I had almost never shopped at Sears, but after that I was a regular, until they closed the doors. I saw the manager until he successfully retired.
I later read that Sears ended up shorting the pension fund. I hope he made out OK, as I have never had service like that, before or since.
Just read this out to my wife and she burst out laughing. In 1996 I had been widowed over five years when a crazy woman burst through the door of our car sales site with so much enthusiasm and vibrance and chatter and said she wanted to buy a car. It was a quiet time so I stopped playing my guitar and set about helping her. She bought a car and left and I turned to my mate and said, ‘She’s totally bonkers’, he replied, ‘you’re telling me’, I replied, I could do with some of that’. I delivered the car a few days later and took her to the pub for a chat, after a few dates we were driving towards the Mersey tunnel, Merseyside from Wirral to Liverpool and I asked her if she would like to go on an adventure and her answer was yes, just then we entered the tunnel just as the petrol light came on, I said, ‘welcome to the adventure’.
We sold our houses, bought a B & B, called it ‘Firkin House’ and thirteen years later retired to sunny Cyprus and will have been married twenty years next May with lots of fun and laughs along the way.
Oh, boy. I’ll never forget this one as long as I live.
I had been living with my significant other for about four years. He always treated me well … but other people? Not so much. In this case, it was his grandparents, who I adored. They were just the sweetest people. They really loved their grandson, too, even though he rarely gave them the time of day. They wanted him to fly home for Christmas—I’d made plans with my family, so we were going solo that year.
Anyway, this guy refused to buy a plane ticket unless his grandparents paid for it. Here’s the kicker: he had the money to spend on plane fare. He just didn’t want to. A$$hole that he was. So, his grandfather, who was around 90, had said that he’d put the check in the mail. It hadn’t arrived, due to the holiday mail delay.
I bore witness to this guy browbeating his elderly grandpa into Fed-Exing another check over the phone. This was two days before the cut-off date to book the flight. So his grandfolks sent another check, because they wanted their grandson home for the holidays. These were old, frail people who barely got out of the house. Not good drivers. You know, why didn’t my S.O. just pay for the fare and let his grandfather pay him back once he was there?
A day or so after he left on the trip, his grandfather’s original check arrived in the mail. I looked at his spidery handwriting on the signature line, and I felt positively ill.
I ended up breaking up with my significant other because of that, and for countless other times that I’d seen him be really mean to other people who loved him—family members, even. I knew that one day, I could be next in line, and I wasn’t about to wait around for that to happen.
Long before I even heard of a “Chicago pizza”, I would make these pizzas that my brother and I referred to as “swamp pizza”. What I would do is take a “off the shelf” pizza kit and raise the dough extra long. And instead of flattening it out in the standard pizza shape, I would use it to line a deep Pyrex dish.
deep dish pizza aka swamp
I would then fill it with the sauce and cover it up with cheese. Sometimes I would add meat and mushrooms, and always I would cover with lots and lots of cheese.
It’s been decades since I made these little Swamp Pizzas. But every now and then, I get a hankering for a swamp pizza on a lazy afternoon, and a black and white vintage science fiction or film noir movie. I will tell you that it is perfect for spending a snowy Winter day alone.
Today…
Doggie story
“My dog gave her life to save my son.
Cindy, my dog, was six years old and she was the most home-loving and obedient dog. I loved her and she knew it. When my son was born, she was immediately very protective over him. She’d sit beside his pram for hours, popping her front legs up onto the pram every now and then to make sure he was ok.
My son was almost three years old. We lived near a busy road and we were super vigilant at always child-proofing the front door – without exception. My son, as young children can be, was into everything. We’d often find him in the kitchen at 4 am with a concoction of cereal, milk, dry dog food, eggs, etc all mixed up on the kitchen floor. He was that kind of child – into everything. He also watched everything we would do and try to mimic us in his own unique way, often with highly amusing consequences.
One morning, again around 4 am, he somehow managed to ‘escape’ through his bedroom window. To rewind a little, Cindy knew not to go outside (apart from the garden) without us. We could have left the front door open all day (when my son was visiting with grandparents) and she’d never venture out. She also knew that our son wasn’t allowed to go through the front door without us, evidenced by her pushing at him if he fiddled with the front door handle. She didn’t know that it was double locked. This day, she followed my son through the window.
At 5 am, the police woke us knocking on the door. Their words were – “your son was nearly killed but your dog copped it”. They then reiterated what the lorry driver had said…
He told them that he was driving along in the dark and in the distance, he could see something ‘light colored’ moving on the road. As he got closer, he could see a dog at the side of the road barking and barking at the ‘light colored’ something. At the last moment, he realized that this was a child and was about to swerve. He said he could see the dog, still barking and glancing between the truck and the child. While the driver was braking, the dog ran out into the road, jumped at the child’s back and threw him out of the path of the lorry and at the same time, the lorry hit the dog and killed her.
According to the police, the driver said that he’d never believe what he saw unless it was with his own eyes. He said that the dog definitely knew the danger which is why she was barking so anxiously. He said “that dog just saved that kid’s life and it knew what it was doing.”
That was 39 years ago and I still miss Cindy every day. She was a rough collie (a lassie dog) and I can understand why this breed was chosen for the movies.”
School Bus story
“I drive a school bus and have a 6 grader who I would like to talk about.
Last week he was talking about an elderly neighbor not leaving her house for weeks. I tried to explain how hard it could be for her to do things. On Tuesday I pulled up and he wasn’t at the stop waiting. I looked over and saw him shoveling her porch. I was early so I waited for him. The other kids asked why I waited. I said anyone helping someone deserves a few extra minutes. All the kids started asking him questions about his neighbor. The next day 7 children got on the bus with blankets, food and cards for the elderly woman. I delivered them after worked. Now everyday she stands on the porch and the whole bus waves good morning. I am so proud of him for stepping up and doing the right thing. He taught all the children something important. I smile with pride in my heart because of the extraordinary children I have on my bus.” .
A Secret Global Coup Has Happened!
Let’s say there are 10 people. 1 is a sociopath and 2 are brutish thugs. The sociopath will use the two thugs to keep the rest in line using violence. The other 7 people will be forced to work long and hard so that these 3 can live lives of pleasure and privilege. This is the story of human civilization ever since the agricultural revolution. Countries are people farms; most humans have become farm animals and are treated as such.
Army Sgt. 1st Class Matthew Leonard
Matthew Leonard, born on November 26, 1929, in Eutaw, Alabama, embodied the spirit of service from an early age. Raised in a segregated society, Leonard attended Ullman High School in Birmingham, Alabama. He was not only a student but also a Boy Scout, instilling in him the values of honor and duty.
As a teenager, Leonard took on a job at a local drugstore, earning a modest $15 per week. This hard-earned income was dedicated to helping his mother meet the family’s financial needs. Even in his youth, Leonard demonstrated a deep sense of responsibility and commitment to those he cared for.
In 1947, at the age of 18, Matthew Leonard enlisted in the U.S. Army, beginning a remarkable journey that would span nearly two decades. He dedicated himself to a life of service, embracing the challenges and responsibilities that came with it.
Leonard served as a drill sergeant and trained young recruits at Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri. But as the war in Vietnam broke out, Leonard’s wife said he struggled to watch those young recruits, who weren’t much older than his sons, go to war and die. So, even though he was close to retirement, he volunteered to deploy in the hope of making a difference.
On February 28, 1967, in the heart of Vietnam, Sgt. 1st Class Matthew Leonard, serving as the platoon sergeant for Company B of the 1st Battalion, 16th Infantry, 1st Infantry Division, demonstrated unparalleled bravery in the face of overwhelming odds.
Sgt. Leonard’s valorous journey unfolded near Suoi Da, Vietnam, where his platoon suddenly found themselves under a hail of enemy fire. The enemy, armed with small arms, automatic weapons, and hand grenades, vastly outnumbered Leonard’s platoon. Amid the chaos, the platoon’s commander and several key leaders were among the first to be wounded, thrusting Leonard into a position of leadership.
With remarkable composure, Leonard rallied his platoon to repel the initial enemy assault. He swiftly organized a defensive perimeter, redistributed ammunition, and bolstered the morale of his fellow soldiers. Even in the midst of battle, he exemplified unwavering leadership.
As the enemy’s assault intensified, Leonard’s selflessness and bravery shone brighter. When a wounded soldier found himself outside the safety of the defensive perimeter, Leonard risked his life to rescue him. It was during this act of heroism that Leonard himself was struck by a sniper’s bullet, shattering his hand.
Undeterred by his injuries, Leonard refused medical attention and continued to fight. He moved tirelessly from position to position, directing counterfire against the enemy, who had positioned a machine gun that threatened the entire perimeter.
Just as the situation seemed dire, Leonard’s own platoon’s machine gun malfunctioned, adding to the peril. Without hesitation, Leonard crawled to the malfunctioning weapon, determined to get it back into operation. During this critical moment, the enemy machine gun began strafing nearby soldiers, hitting Leonard’s gunner and others.
Summoning every ounce of his strength, Leonard rose to his feet and charged toward the enemy gun. Despite suffering multiple gunshot wounds, he managed to eliminate the enemy machine gun’s crew, silencing the threat.
Sgt. 1st Class Matthew Leonard’s indomitable spirit and unwavering commitment to his comrades and mission endured until the very end. Despite being gravely wounded, he propped himself against a tree and continued to return fire until he could no longer carry on.
His incredible sacrifice and valor were acknowledged with the Medal of Honor, a testament to the extraordinary dedication and courage he displayed in the face of adversity.
Poor Cat Left To Decompose While She Is Alive | Rescue Before And After
Back when I was a young teen (more moons ago than I can count) I worked as a law clerk during the summers at my father’s office in downtown Chicago. Mostly it was busy work, matching mail with files, pulling files for court and some light typing.
On occasion I would go with him to court when he argued cases before the industrial commission (work related accidents).
One of these cases involved an individual who claimed his shoulder injury was so bad he was permanently and totally disabled from working ever again. He was a Russian immigrant and so his lawyer had to use an interpreter to question him during the hearing.
What they didn’t know was that my father had been a Russian Interrogator for the Air Force during the Korean War, and spoke fluent Russian. He had been teaching me conversational Russian while I was growing up, so I was able to follow along for the most part.
When his lawyer asked the question : “Mr. Petrovitch, how high can you lift your right arm” their interpreter actually said “Raise your right hand a small amount and act as if you are in severe pain” to which the man raised his hand a little, groaned and grimaced, squinting his eyes.
On cross-examination, after a laundry list of standard questions (through the interpreter, of course) my dad said in fluent Russian “HANDS UP OR I’LL SHOOT!” The man immediately raised both arms and stretched them towards the ceiling, showing no limitations or pain behavior at all.
Of course the other lawyer started shouting his objections, the interpreter yelled at the petitioner (plaintiff) that he was stupid and the judge covered his face with his hands to try and stop laughing out loud.
Go to the school and demand the phone back immediately. Having a phone is not illegal. If they balk at giving it back and spew some nonsense about not allowing phones at school tell them your child doesn’t have his phone in class but you as his parent require that he carry it with him to be able to track him and reach him as needed. There are many tracking apps now. Calmly, Demand they hand over the phone immediately. If they do not, call the police right there from the school office to report a theft. Get the names and positions of everyone witnessing this. Tell the school that if you don’t get the phone by the next day you will be buying a new phone and your attorney will be in contact with the school regarding the school paying for the new phone plus the old phone plus the attorney’s bill. Ask when the next school board meeting is and suggest you will be attending to discuss the dismissal of all involved, on charges of petty larceny.
You Won’t Βelieve What Τhey Have In Stοre For Us Next..
Let me see if I got this correct. The tax payer now pays for Gov stores and also pays to fill those stores with food and other items again using tax payer money. Then the tax payer goes to buy the food in the Gov store and gets tax on top of that. Crazy times we are living in!
Prison food is not great. It is not served on fine china or plated to be visually pleasing to the eye.
Fresh fruits and vegetables are seldom served.
For five years I went twice a week to spend time with inmates as we worked together on a book project for at risk kids.
We were all volunteers for our community, as we sat on opposite sides of the table.
One evening when I entered the men’s dormitory, where we met, an inmate handed me a small cardboard box.
He said, “We do not have anything to give you to thank you for coming here and treating us with respect. We want you to know we appreciate your giving value to our lives by using our stories to help others.”
I felt humbled and astonished when I saw the contents of the box. It was a red apple, some popcorn, and another small edible item. On the side was a handwritten note with many signatures.
Anyone who has spent time in prison knows fresh fruit is like gold. A thank you in any form is not to be taken lightly.
Inmates sharing their food with an outsider is not common. Sharing food that is fresh and seldom served is momentous.
Their gifts were not only humane. They were risky. Giving gifts was not in the rule book. I looked over at the nearby guards who also chose to be humane that day and let me know they understood the importance of what was happening.
They looked at the hardened faces of the men in my class, whose softened eyes were asking permission. The guards nodded while I fought to keep back the tears.
In all my years of teaching and rendering service to others, I have never felt such gratitude for the priviege as I did that day.
Years later, seeing a red apple stirs my spirit and reminds me, humane and selfless acts still abound.
In unexpected places, gratitude can still civilize us when we least expect it, for both the giver and the recipient.
P.S. The book is available to be borrowed for free through Amazon Kdp select. It is titled, “Redirecting Kids for Success” Prison Prevention…for at risk kids grades 9-12.
Breaking! China just dealt a DEVASTATING blow to U.S. Dollar Dominance
Breaking news on this Monday out of China where we have new data on the dumping of U.S. treasuries and what this means for the U.S. dollar dominance. Saudi Arabia also dumping U.S. treasuries at an increased rate over the past few weeks. What is going on?
Xi changed nothing. You’ve been listening to Western propaganda garbage.
Nearly the entire Global South is behind China. More than 40 countries have expressed a wish to join China-led BRICS and SCO. More than 150 countries have signed up to the BRI and wish to receive Chinese assistance.
China has treated America, Britain and EU with utmost respect. The reverse, unfortunately, has not been true. China is sick and tired of their arrogance and Cold War mentality.
Why did the West change their attitude towards China? Riddle me this.
She’s lying. She has no idea what to do. What she’s trying to selli is the idea that she does.
Here’s the problem. Americans want fentanyl. Enough Americans want fentanyl as to make it worth the enormous risk of smuggling either it, or the raw materials to make it, into the United States. Capitalism 101. And there is no way to stop that. None. Every attempt we’ve ever made to stop drug use by prohibition has been not only an utter failure, but has caused us more trouble than the actual problem we were trying to fix.
There’s a deeper problem. Fentanyl is a symptom, not a cause. And that cause is the utter hopelessness and the lack of resources for the poor in the US. We’ve literally criminalized poverty. We have the weakest social safety net in the industrial world, and we’ve decided that a tax structure that makes it possible for a handful of men to amass fortunes that can buy them freedom from the law, is a good thing even if it leaves 20% of the country living below the poverty line in an information and resource vacuum that leaves most trapped.
Preying on the poor is hugely profitable, and the capitalists have risen to the task. We choose to look away and complain.
HarmonyOS 4.0 reaches over 60 million Huawei devices in less than 2 months
Hauwei unveiled HarmonyOS 4.0, the latest version of its operating system, on August 4. The new iteration brought several changes to the user interface, as well as new features and improvements. Huawei has been quickly rolling out the new software to eligible devices. Earlier this month, we reported that 10 million Huawei smartphones and tablets were already running HarmonyOS 4.0. And today, the company confirmed that the OS has now made its way to over 60 million devices.
Huawei announced 60 million installations of HarmonyOS 4 on Huawei smartphones and tablet devices at its Autumn 2023 Flagship Product Launch event today. The company said it added an average of 1.2 million new users each day. This is just after less than 2 months of the formal announcement of the software.
HarmonyOS 4.0 comes with several notable changes, including a variety of rich theme templates and stylized layout designs. You can select the colors of your app icons and set emoji wallpapers and home screens by choosing your favorite emoji.
It also lets you better manage your notifications by clustering them together and sorting them by importance. The notifications for the same app are now stacked into dynamic cards so you can see more information about each notification without having to open it. HarmonyOS 4.0 also lets you identify text and images by double-clicking and then long-pressing to select them.
Huawei had a busy day today. It launched half a dozen new products in China, including a Huawei Mate 60 RS Ultimate Design smartphone with satellite calling and a ceramic body. In addition, the company unveiled the FreeBuds Pro 3 as well as the Watch GT 4.
U.S Sanctions Failed As China’s Shenzhen Imports Integrated Circuits From All Around the World!
“We see the “US of Amurdikkka is fastly declining in to a third world company/country/corporation.” Fall Babylon fall, youve destroyed so many. Now enjoy the ride down, you’ll never rise again.”
I’ve been wondering whether or not to answer this… The “wrong person” is my daughter (stepdaughter really,but I’m Daddy now and forever so that settles that) and the people doing the “picking a fight”were her ex boyfriend and his father.. I didn’t personally witness this because I was in Iraq at the time,but believe me I sure heard about it.
Daughter is tall and not a delicate flower even though she has all the requisite standard equipment to attract stares and suchlike, including a startling resemblance to Gal Gadot ,and I always emphasized to all my kids the importance of self confidence ,so she carries herself with a certain pride. She has Blackfeet blood along with Irish and Norwegian and who knows what else, girl has a temper too,what can I say..
Anyways,ex boyfriend and father spot her walking down the sidewalk one weekend night and follow her,asking her to get in and go for a cruise.. She says no,but they apparently don’t want to take no for an answer and pull ahead and stop, ex BF Gets out of the car and grabs her elbow and pulls her towards the car,she pulls away and he grabs her again, by this time she is almost in the door. I had taught my kids to avoid punching someone and use their elbows if the person was close enough, which ex BF certainly was unfortunately for his dumb ass, because Daughter proceeds to elbow him repeatedly in the face with backswing strikes on her way away from the car, dislocating ex BF‘S jaw and shattering his eye socket and breaking his nose, and naturally stopped any hostilities on his part, but ex BF’s dad was pushed by this time and ran around the car and accosted Daughter, catching a 50 yard field goal kick in his balls for his troubles..I taught my kids well.
Well, as an American woman, I would recommend that China’s leaders maintain a strong and unyielding stance against the outright bully tactics of my country’s government. To be fair, the US isn’t the only country upping their anti-China sentiments but it is the country I am from so that is what I primarily speak of.
I would say to China, you have more than paid your dues and earned your right as a superpower in world affairs. Hold your heads proudly because you have every right to. There is no need to hide your strength anymore. It is time to let it be on display.
You are one of, if not the oldest country with 5000 years of continuous history. You don’t need to bow to anyone. You don’t need to apologize for being great. You don’t need to sell your technology to the US. You don’t need to accept blame for a virus that was not your fault. You don’t have to back off of your initiatives because other countries don’t approve. You don’t have to take acts of aggression from our spy planes flying in your airspace. You don’t have to tolerate the blatant disrespect to your consulate that was closed in our country. Your people don’t have to accept racism when they come to the US to attend college, work in research, or just visit as tourists.
Please don’t let anyone else push you around anymore. Never again. Let that be your motto from here on out.
Germany Freaks Out – China, PLEASE Buy Our Cars!
“As a European, I am so ashamed of our political class and what they have turned the Eurozone into. If the european project is just a facade for American hegemony, then let it die and this is extremely hard for me to say, because I see the eurozone and union as a great idea but ONLY if we have autonomy both strategically, economic and militarily. These two years have shown we have none of it and this is why I write this. It is mindbuggling/unbelievable stupid what is happening right now.”
Let me tell a story about a Clerk who worked with me who made me believe that The Godfather (Book) theory that The Simplest and most humble man can avenge himself against the most powerful of men with patience
We worked in a Branch where i was temporarily in charge of recovery. The branch was a Scale IV Branch but for some reason a Scale V AGM had been deputed to the branch for a temporary basis due to some shortage or something.
This Asst General Manager who had a chip on his block. You had a good natured thirty something old clerk who worked in the department and who was a pretty good guy. He owned a family business as well and would very often give us discounts. I went on many recovery missions with him and he was always a cheerful and happy go lucky type.
Our Old Branch Manager was a good man but once he retired – until his replacement came- this AGM was posted and he was a PRIG. He was angry at working in a Scale IV post and showed it on people.
Now our Clerk always went from 1:30 PM – 3:00 PM to pick up his daughter, take her to the family business premise, drop her there, have tea and return. The lunch ended at 2:30 so he would always be around 45 minutes late which he would make up by working from 5:30 to 6:15 in the evening. He would help a lot of us.
This arrangement was unofficially agreed upon by the Old Branch Manager. The New Prig did not agree . He believed it was against Bank rules and decided to take the clerk on. Now the clerk requested the AGM to give him the time off but the AGM refused. He decided to run the department efficiently (Instead he made it highly inefficient). He refused to repair a water filter (Back then Aquaguards were rare) and calculated the cost of Pens and White Paper.
One day – the wife of the clerk came. The clerk was away for recovery and the peon took her straight to the AGM. She told the AGM that she had to go to her mother and requested that her husband pick up the child as usual. Back then there were no cellphones or SMS and the lady had come to the office for the first time. The AGM was preoccupied with something and forgot (I believe this. Others say he deliberately did what he did but i believe he was preoccupied)
Bottom line – the message was not conveyed. It was 2:50 PM or so when the Peon told the clerk that his wife had visited. The Clerk was puzzled and walked into the AGMs office but the AGM was not there. The Clerk shrugged and continued on with his work believing that his daughter had picked up the child. It was 4 PM when the brother of the Clerk called the Office and asked where the child was? The Clerk was stunned and believed the child would be with his wife but Myself and few others decided to ask the AGM (Bank Hierarchy especially PSU hierarchy is a big thing. Approaching an AGM when you are a Scale II officer is a scary prospect) but the Clerk was out of the doors.
The Good thing was that the Child was a clever girl and simply sat outside with the Watchman of the School and was relieved when the father picked her up. The Father brought her to the branch and he was hugely relieved.
What happened next was straight out of the Malayalam Movie Drivers License
The AGM who saw a child and commotion – shouted at the top of his voice. He abused the Clerk in the loudest words calling him inefficient and moron. The Clerk also raised his voice and talked about his wifes message and the AGM said “I am not your messenger or Postman”. By the time the others separated them – the Clerk had literally been abused in front of his girl who was watching the whole thing (She was in Class IV i think)
The Clerk silently took his daughter home burning with humiliation. The local association leader told him to stage a Dharna but the clerk refused. He told me “God will take care” and i thought it was the usual sentimental nonsense. He remained on his desk, never asked for any leave from the HC, did his work and we all presumed the issue was finished.
Then An Opportunity came
Back then there was no Core Banking. A Customer came with a Fixed Deposit Receipt for Rs. 6 Lakh and wanted Cash. The Officer in question looked at the register and saw that the FD number was not mentioned (No Computers also. Back then we had Ledgers where FD numbers would be mentioned and recorded). The Customer was known to the AGM though and the AGM told the Officer to go ahead and encash the FD.
However it was after Lunch and the normal officer was gone for the day. I am a law and recovery officer and have no role to play so there were no officers. The AGM promptly asked the Clerk to encash the FD and pay the cash (Highly irregular) and the Clerk said “Sir the FD number is not on the ledger”. The AGM arrogantly told him that the customer could not be made to wait and so the Clerk paid him.
Once the Customer was paid and left, the Officer returned the next day or so and searched in every register but could not find a trace of the FD record. He told the AGM and the AGM called the customer but the customer was gone (It was a honest explanation. The Customer did not cheat etc. He just was away somewhere else). The AGM was now sweating beads. The Clerk shrugged. “I am just a clerk. I follow instructions. You instructed me to encash the FD” – he said and pointed at a few of us as witnesses.
The Officer was told by the AGM to give a few days but the same evening the clerk told him “Sir…if you report this today then you are clear but if you take a few days then they may think you are also involved”. The Officer decided to not take chances and reported it.
What happened next was unbelievable. The Big Boss arrived personally and blasted the AGM. Then some people came to go through the ledgers and found Rs. 6 Lakh shortage (A Huge sum back then) and told the AGM he had to make the amount good or they would report to the cops. The AGM was shivering but nothing could be done. The cops arrived and took him to the station. Now the Clerk was a local and the cops were locals. The AGM was an outsider – so they sweated him, threatened him, took him to his house in a jeep in front of his wife and children, talked to his neighbors etc. I was asked to be there at the station as a lawyer and the cops took iron rods and torture devices in front of me. When i said “What the hell is this ??” – the SI laughed and said “Sir! We are not mad. This is just for getting him to talk”
The poor man stayed the entire day at the Station. The next day the Customer returned. He had presented an FD receipt for another branch of our bank so the number was not in our ledger. He gave the FD receipt of our branch and the ledger confirmed the number and everything was okay.
But the AGM was finished. He was humiliated in every way possible. He took leave for 4–5 days and asked for a Transfer
It was then that the clerk told me “Sir. On that day itself i saw that this FD receipt was from a different branch. Had he been a better man – i would have told him then and there. I would have told the customer itself. None of this would have happened”
I told him he had been too cruel but he said “There is nothing worse than being yelled at in front of your child for no fault of your own”.
The AGM who was destined to become CMD – resigned from the bank unable to bear the humiliation of the incident (Though it lasted exactly for 14 – 15 hours after which it was all over). He joined Madura Courts and his career was never the same. He later began to sell Reuters Screens on a commission basis.
The Moral of the Story is – Humiliation by your boss unjustly will always come back to bite the boss. This Clerk who was such a good man that when i was transfered – he travelled in a lorry with my furniture to ensure that the local packers dont take me for a ride. Yet he never forgot his humiliation and destroyed the life of the AGM.
If you are a Boss – Never humiliate your underlings. Call them separately and tick them off but never in front of others. Easiest way to make enemies.
True for all fields.
Pizzeria Uno Chicago Deep Dish Pizza
This is a clone recipe of the best Chicago-style pizza you will ever eat!
Servings: 8
Pan Dough 1 cup warm tap water (110-115 degrees F) 1/4 ounce active dry yeast 3 1/2 cups flour 1/2 cup course ground cornmeal 1 teaspoon kosher or sea salt 1/4 cup vegetable oil
Pizza Topping 1 pound mozzarella cheese, sliced thin 1 pound Italian sausage, removed from the casing and crumbled 1 (14 1/2 ounce) can diced tomatoes, drained 2 garlic cloves, peeled and minced 5 fresh basil leaves, chopped fine 4 tablespoons grated parmesan cheese
Pour the warm water into a large mixing bowl and dissolve the yeast with a fork.
Add 1 cup of flour, all of the cornmeal, salt, and vegetable oil, and mix well with a spoon.
Continue stirring in the rest of the flour 1/2 cup at a time, until the dough comes away from the sides of the bowl. Flour your hands and the work surface and knead the ball of dough until it is no longer sticky.
Let the dough rise in an oiled bowl, sealed with plastic wrap, for 45-60 minutes in a warm place, until it has doubled in size.
Punch it down and knead it briefly.
Press it into an oiled 15-inch deep dish pizza pan until it comes 2 inches up the sides and is even on the bottom of the pan.
Let the dough rise 15-20 minutes before filling.
Heat the oven to 500 degrees F.
While the dough is rising, prepare the filling.
Cook the sausage until it is no longer pink and drain the excess fat.
When the dough has finished its second rising, lay the cheese over the dough shell.
Distribute the sausage and garlic over the cheese.
Top with the tomatoes.
Sprinkle on the seasonings and Parmesan cheese.
Bake for 15 minutes at 500 degrees F, then lower the temperature to 400 degreesF and finish baking for 25-35 minutes longer.
Lift up a section of the crust from time to time with a spatula to check its color. The crust will be golden brown when done.
Serve immediately.
Cat Sisters Meet After 9 Months Apart – Do They Recognize Each Other?
The Ukraine War was one of the worst miscalculations of the West and the Stupidest
The aim was to
Weaken Russia and destroy it Economically
Weaken Russia Globally and make it a Pariah
Give China a strong message and frighten China into following the Biden Doctrine
What’s happened is:-
A resurgent Russia that has something to fight for at last and has grown stronger every day
A Russo Sino Alliance that is fast becoming a nice power bloc with many nations with resources and heavy sanctions now drifting to them
Loss of Confidence in the West by 80% of the world and belief in a Multipolar world
Waning Western impact of Sanctions
Ensure China knows it’s War and prepare for it instead of catching them off guard
Today, Ukraine has been brutalized badly
It has lost 33.7% of pre SMO population as Refugees or now Russian Citizens in the Donors region and Kherson and Zaprozhye
It has lost its entire production capacity and it’s own weapon reserves have been brutally depleted and it relies on western arms and money which is dwindling every day
The West has spent $ 130 Billion so far on Ukraine and most of this money has been salted away due to severe corruption
Ukraine is sending more and more men to die
Russia meanwhile is happy with it’s grind and move strategy, minimizing casualties and enjoying the growth of their own industries in the MI complex
Scenario 1:-
The West want to FREEZE the conflict
Russia said No
Maybe Russia would be incentivized to do so like say offer to remove sanctions on Russia or maybe persuade China to convince Russia
Bleak chance of this happening
Scenario 2:-
Ukraine is destroyed
Russia decides to move from SMO to war and start hitting and destroying Ukraine like US did to Iraq or Afghanistan
Zelensky would flee and most leaders would flee then and Ukraine would capitulate
Timeline: 2025 March or April
Biden will not be President. He may not even be nominated as the Democratic candidate, so he will vindictively carry this till 19/1/25
Scenario 3:-
Trump is elected
Trump only has one term left and knows once he is elected, he has no more fears and no need to worry about voters again
He may make a deal and force Zelensky to surrender and make a deal with Russia and China
Unlike 2016, he won’t have the fear now because he can’t stand for any more elections
Scenario 4:-
The famous BAKYAN scenario
Poland moves into West Ukraine on invitation from Ukraine and forms a protectorate for West Ukraine
Central & remaining Ukraine is given security guarantees akin to Article V by Poland (Proxy by USA) and formally remains as the NEW UKRAINE
Donbass, Zaprozhye, Kherson are abandoned by Ukraine and Poland but not recognized by the West or UN as part of Russia and only as break away republics
However in reality, those territories will never return to Ukraine again along with Crimea for a long time
Russia will declare a cease fire to avoid clashing with Poland, a Nato power
Zelensky will be mostly arrested due to corruption and replaced by someone else
Timeline :- 30/6/2024 , a clean 4–5 months before the US Elections
The Destruction of Los Angeles | 2012 (John Cusack, Morgan Lily, Liam James)
I have not, but an interesting backfire happened with a close friend’s father, George.
Meet George, he is a PhD Astrophysicist and works in a very specialized field for the United States Department of Defense through a Defense Contractor. He has developed a number of unique solutions over his career that solved some very big problems for some very expensive black projects.
After over 30 years on the job he had moved to the top of his career path, he led a sizable group of physicists and engineers, but was not in management. Following a reorganization, George and his band of merry eggheads found themselves under a manager that had very little experience managing. When budget cuts came down, the green manager started reviewing the personnel files and, unsurprisingly, George was the highest paid person in the department. George was given the option to take an early retirement or be laid off. He was getting close to full retirement age and taking early retirement took a large chunk out of the pension he was counting on. He even offered to give up salary or work part time to address the budget needs. The manager would hear nothing of it.
Once George’s retirement was announced, a number the physicists and engineers approached the manager to warn him that there were solutions that only George fully understood and if there became a need to update or change some of the solutions, they may not be able to do it. George gracefully retired from the company and headed off to teach at the local university. About a year later, he heard from a number of his former team that there had been layoffs and terminations from the team by the same manager. A contract had come in to the company to modify one of George’s unique solutions and the remaining team was unable to make it work. The manager was under the gun to deliver and when it wasn’t working, he was accusing the team of being lazy and incompetent.
Not too long after, the Manager contacted George and asked him if he would come back on a short-term basis, George declined because he was happy teaching at the university. The manager continued to pester George until he finally agreed to come into the office to talk about what it would take to bring him back. George told the manager that he would come with his terms and that the meeting had to include the HR Director and the department Director.
George’s terms:
The company take back his early retirement and bridge his service so he could reach full retirement. (The manager groaned, but grudgingly agreed.)
Any of the team that was fired or forced to resign would be offered the option to come back. (The manager was furious, but George demanded that he had to have his team to be successful, so the manager agreed)
He become the manager of the department. (The manager threw up his hands and said it would never happen, there was only one manager of the department.)
The department director agreed to George’s last term.
We have A guardian Angel his name is Harry Kim.
Kathryn Janeway was a mother figure to almost ALL the crew … the clear exceptions being her first and second officers … but she ESPECIALLY was so to Harry Kim.
Oh my god, no. God, no… no no… I’d rather they stay dead.
Jesus, the mere thought of it gives me anxiety and stress.
My father died very suddenly last year. It was like my aunt talked to him on Friday, and he died of a heart attack on Sunday in his house.
For a few months, I kept thinking if I had any regrets. If I knew he would die, what would I say to him, or what would I want to do with him?
I came up with nothing.
It’s not like I don’t have anything to say. In fact, I have a LOT to say, so much so that I had therapy for years so that I could process and perhaps recover from all that childhood trauma from his abuse and neglect.
Would I say that to him? No. Because he wouldn’t listen. Not only he wouldn’t listen, he would turn it around and make it my fault. He would make me feel that I somehow wronged him, that I should feel guilty and ashamed and beg him for forgiveness and ask him how I can make it better. He’s an emotional manipulator, and he will never change. Not even in death.
He had, in his own domineering kind of way, made some attempt to mend our relationship after his 3rd wife died. But I couldn’t help but think he was doing that not because he genuinely wanted to fix our father-daughter relationship but because he did the mental calculation and realized with his wife dead, I was the only person who would take care of him if he couldn’t care for himself. It’s all about him. Never about me.
After he died, I wondered if he’d come back and haunt me or if he would come visit me in my dreams. Not that I believe in such things, but my aunt said her father (my grandpa) had visited her several times. And I thought, “Oh, you want to come and haunt me? Go ahead. I have something I want to scream at you. So come and haunt me and see how it ends for you, Dad.”
I’ve never even dreamed of him once since he died.
Having him back to life for 24 hours is not going to change anything between us.
The same goes for my mom, who ran off with some artist when I was 18 months old. The same goes for my grandma, who had raised and abused me…
You all better stay the fuck dead because you ain’t gonna like what I have to say to you.
Quit Your Job In 2023, This is my way out
No more 9 to 5 job for me. Do you also struggle with not having time for more valuable things in life than your work, do you spend too much time working for others? Are you feeling frustrated and stressed about not having time to live your life to the fullest, this is my story of how I realized my dream of living a simpler and less stressful life by quitting my job and stopped working for others.
In the ever-evolving landscape of the global smartphone industry, Huawei, the Chinese tech giant, once relied heavily on Qualcomm chips to power its devices. However, recent years have witnessed a significant shift in Huawei’s chipset strategy as it began to develop its own chipsets and reduce its dependence on Qualcomm. This change in course raised questions and curiosity in the tech world. In this comprehensive article, we will delve into the reasons behind Huawei’s decision to distance itself from Qualcomm chips, explore the challenges and opportunities that this shift presents, and assess the implications for both Huawei and the larger smartphone ecosystem.
1: The Historical Nexus
1.1. Qualcomm’s Dominance
A brief overview of Qualcomm’s leading position in the semiconductor industry.
Huawei’s early partnership with Qualcomm and the Snapdragon chipset series.
1.2. Huawei’s Ascendancy
Huawei’s rise to global prominence as a smartphone manufacturer.
The integral role of Qualcomm chips in Huawei’s international success.
2: Huawei’s Push for In-House Chip Development
2.1. The Emergence of HiSilicon
The birth of Huawei’s semiconductor subsidiary, HiSilicon.
The strategic importance of in-house chip development.
2.2. The Rise of the Kirin Chipsets
Introduction to Huawei’s Kirin chipset series.
Technological advancements and innovations in Kirin chips.
2.3. The Competitive Edge
How HiSilicon’s chip development aligns with Huawei’s long-term goals.
The advantages of vertical integration and control over chip design.
3: U.S. Sanctions and Supply Chain Stumbles
3.1. The Unfolding U.S. Sanctions Saga
An examination of the U.S. sanctions imposed on Huawei.
How these sanctions impacted Huawei’s access to critical technologies, including Qualcomm chips.
3.2. Vulnerabilities in the Supply Chain
The precariousness of relying on foreign suppliers for critical components.
The central role of chipsets as a strategic resource in the smartphone industry.
4: HarmonyOS and Huawei’s Ambitious Vision
4.1. Huawei’s Vision for HarmonyOS
Introduction to HarmonyOS, Huawei’s proprietary operating system.
The strategic significance of developing an Android alternative.
4.2. A Unified Ecosystem
How HarmonyOS aims to provide a seamless user experience across devices.
The role of chipset compatibility in achieving the HarmonyOS vision.
5: Implications and Challenges
5.1. Disrupting the Smartphone Market
How Huawei’s departure from Qualcomm chips impacts the competitive landscape.
Implications for consumers, industry players, and market dynamics.
5.2. Pursuing Technological Self-Reliance
The broader implications of Huawei’s commitment to technological self-reliance.
Lessons for other tech giants facing similar geopolitical challenges.
5.3. The Road Ahead
The technological and market challenges Huawei faces in developing its own chipsets.
The importance of innovation, research, and development in overcoming these hurdles.
6: Consumer Perceptions and the Future Outlook
6.1. Consumer Reactions and Preferences
How Huawei’s decision to utilize its chipsets is perceived by consumers.
Factors influencing consumer preferences in the realm of smartphones.
6.2. Shaping the Future of Huawei Smartphones
Prospects for Huawei’s smartphone business in the absence of Qualcomm chips.
The role of design, innovation, software, and competitive pricing in defining Huawei’s future offerings.
Conclusion
The divergence of Huawei from Qualcomm chips signifies a monumental shift in strategy with far-reaching implications. While the impact of U.S. sanctions and supply chain disruptions are undeniable catalysts for this transition, Huawei’s investments in in-house chipset development and the vision of HarmonyOS underscore its unwavering commitment to technological self-sufficiency and innovation. As we conclude this article, we gain a comprehensive understanding of the complex factors influencing Huawei’s strategic decision and what the future holds for one of the world’s foremost smartphone manufacturers.
INDIAN NEWS is Cheap Western Propaganda
The Indian news channels like WION and ANI (Asean News International) have become cheap propaganda outlets for the Western Colonial Masters that have always ruled over the Indian population. This video shows beyond any doubt that India News is part of the Anti China propaganda network set up by American Politicians and Main Stream Media. It is no secret as they admit to it in this video that they have joined this movement of hate against China.
A young German soldier during WWII was ordered to check the house for Jews. After minutes of searching, he declares the house clear.
His commanding officer is unconvinced. “Schauen Sie in den Dachboden,” he orders. Check the attic.
“Die Luke ist offen! Die würden sich nicht dort verstecken!” The young soldier says. The attic door is wide open! Surely they wouldn’t hide there!
His commander shakes his head. “Schauen Sie trotzdem nach.” Go check anyway.
The soldier climbs the ladder. As he peers into the darkness, he sees at least a dozen Jews hiding in the attic. All women and children.
Their terrified faces look back at him. Nobody dares to move. The young soldier turns and shouts to his commander.
“Alles klar!” All clear.
The soldier closes the trapdoor, leaving the Jews in the dark. He will never see them again.
Decades later, one of the young children in the attic will recall the anonymous soldier’s kindness. Every single person in the attic survives the war. Many attribute their lives to the young man.
The Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird was a remarkable aircraft that could fly at speeds over Mach 3.2 and at altitudes up to 85,000 feet. It was the fastest manned aircraft ever flown and still holds many speed, altitude, and distance records for a manned aircraft.
Flying in such an extreme environment required special training and equipment for the pilots. The pilots of the SR-71 wore full-pressure suits that resembled those worn by astronauts. The suits protected them from low pressure, low temperature, and lack of oxygen at high altitudes. They also provided protection in case of an emergency ejection.
The pilots also had to cope with the high g-forces and acceleration that resulted from flying at such high speeds. The SR-71 could accelerate from Mach 1 to Mach 3 in less than 15 minutes, which put a lot of stress on the human body. The pilots had to undergo rigorous physical training and medical examinations to ensure they were fit for the mission. They also had to use special techniques to breathe and move their limbs during high-g maneuvers.
The pilots also experienced a unique sensation of speed when flying the SR-71. They could see the curvature of the Earth and the stars in broad daylight. They could also see the shock waves forming around the aircraft as it broke the sound barrier. The SR-71 flew so fast that it could outrun any missile or enemy aircraft that tried to intercept it. The pilots had to rely on their instruments and their instincts to navigate and control the aircraft.
Hang on, this is VERY strange!
This is the equivalent of China recognizing Puerto Rico as a sovereign nation….
My ex husband and I got married at Gretna Green with just 2 friends for witnesses. On the day after the wedding on the car journey home, we were passing a field of higland cows (ginger and hairy like me apparently) and said in an insulting tone, “oh look Sarah, there’s your relations”. I immediately fired back with “yes, but only through marriage”…. friends were in stitches, he never even cracked a smile. He had no sense of humour and had been trying to belittle me in front of people as he did the entire 9 years I was with him…
Another time when I was about 25 or so, at a neighbours bbq, I approached a small group of people listening to one guy in his late 50′s or so telling sexist joke after sexist joke. At the end of each joke all the men laughed loudly and the women kind of awkwardly. I had always found this guy a bit of a chauvinist and quite ‘sleazy’ so stepped in with my own joke… Mrs Smith went to hospital to give birth. After the baby was born the doctor said to her “I’m really sorry Mrs Smith but your baby is a hermaphrodite”. “A what?” asked Mrs Smith. “A hermaphrodite, it has features of both sexes” said the doctor. Mrs Smith gasps and says “Oh my god….it has a penis AND a brain!”. The women in the group all belly laughed but the sleaze not so much
A well-told lie is worth a thousand facts. The debt-trap narrative is a lie, a powerful one.
There are three main fallacies in the West’s hype about China’s “debt trap theory”: First, in terms of debt causes, countries in debt distress today often fall into debt traps before the launch of the Belt and Road Initiative.
Second, in terms of debt ownership, most of these countries’ debt is owed to Western or pro-Western institutions, not China. Studies show that 80 per cent of Sri Lanka’s external debt, 70 per cent of Pakistan’s and 77 per cent of Zambia’s external debt is owned by Western private and public institutions.
Third, in terms of the nature of debt, Western loans tend to be short-term with high interest rates, leading to unsustainable debt cycles, while Chinese lending to developing countries is long-term, low-interest credit that helps improve infrastructure.
The characteristics of China’s BRI financing is that it breaks through the traditional model, with no political conditions attached, and the forms of financing are pragmatic and diverse; The Export-Import Bank of China and the China Development Bank both emphasize debt sustainability, with commercial needs flexibly integrated with national strategies.
The irresponsible monetary policy of the United States is the real reason for the concentrated outbreak of debt problems in developing countries. The United States first implemented an ultra-loose monetary policy, allowing low-interest dollars to pour into Africa and emerging market countries, and then aggressively raised interest rates to attract dollars back to the United States, resulting in insufficient liquidity in developing countries.
Since China is not the largest creditor of developing countries, why does the West hype the “China debt trap theory”? The answer is that China’s “Belt and Road” initiative helps developing countries improve their economic capability. Once these countries achieve independent economic development, they do not have to rely on borrowing money from Western developed countries to maintain production and life, which is equivalent to cutting off a financial route for Western countries.
How I See the USA After 14 Years of Living Abroad & Expat Life
After 14 years of living abroad and enjoying expat life, I wanted to talk a bit about how I see the US now… This week, we’ll be taking a look at the USA through an Expat lens… Is the U.S. truly the “leader of the free world”, or is that just a perception we’ve grown accustomed to? One of many topics that are worth thinking about is the education system. Does it really prepare us for life, or is it more about scoring high on tests?
What about healthcare access? Is it as straightforward as it seems, or are there nuances we’re missing when comparing American Healthcare with European Healthcare? Another important factor to consider is safety and quality of life, is the U.S. the gold standard, or are there elements of community and culture that we’re overlooking in comparison with overseas?
We’ll also touch on the topic of zoning. Is it just a mundane urban planning concept, or does it have deeper implications for our lifestyle and mobility? Finally, we’ll take a look at the geographical isolation of North America. Is it just a geographical fact, or could it be shaping our understanding of the world in ways we don’t realize? There’s a lot to unpack, and these are the conversations that need to be had.
In this expat podcast episode of Not Your Average Globetrotter, hosted by me, Rafael Di Furia, I’ll share how I view the US and American culture and lifestyle in comparison with the culture and lifestyle in Europe and elsewhere having been abroad for more than 14 years, questioning everything from its global leadership role and education system to healthcare access, safety standards, connections in local communities, cultural rituals, and the implications of its geographical isolation.
My husband and I entered an elevator in a hotel in Vegas, headed to the lobby and extraordinarily tall black man was already in there. I smiled and tried not to stare because he was simply that enormous.
Husband, a sports fanatic, asked the giant of he’d ever played basketball and the giant responded that yeah, he’d played some ball in his day and DH told the giant that if he hadn’t, he would have missed an opportunity. The giant chuckled and sort of shook his head.
When we arrived in the lobby, we all kind of nodded and smiled and went out separate ways. I asked DH what his little exchange was all about.
The giant was Shaquille O’Neill, the Shaq Attack. My husband told Shaq that he would have missed an opportunity if he hadn’t played basketball.
I told a story about a kid threatening to kill himself. Let me explain.
I didn’t think I was going to get the job. Not in a “I don’t believe in myself” kind of way, I mean in a “I have direct evidence” kind of way. A meeting I’d had fell through, so I showed up for my interview super early. This meant I was sitting there in the lobby when the head of the special education department opened the door, profusely shook another woman’s hand, and said:
“You are exactly what we’re looking for. We’ll send out an offer to you as soon as we’re done with today’s interviews.” Then she looked up and saw me waiting. “Oh, you’re here early, come on it.”
So I walked in knowing I was wasting my time, but I was already there and decided to have fun with it. I told jokes. I made fun of the number of people they had in the room to interview me (7!). I was as casual as possible and answered every question off the cuff instead of trying to think of an answer they wanted to hear. Then they asked me one of those awful, super generic questions you always get when you work with kids, something along the lines of “What was your moment when you realized you knew you were supposed to be a teacher?”
I have no patience for those questions, and find them to be really performative and all about showing how generically kind and sensitive you are. For a job I thought I was going to get I might have played along and told an exaggerated story about teaching a kid to read or something. I didn’t do that.
Instead I told them about one of my students in the Emotional Disorder class I was teaching at a middle school. The little guy had a severe anxiety disorder, and we were trying to support him while also ignoring attention seeking behaviors. So when he started yelling I escorted him to the quiet break area. When he started shouting he needed to go to the hospital I assured him I would check in on him to make sure he was ok. And when he started screaming that he was going to kill himself I pointed out there was nothing in the area he could use to do it, and if he decided to bang his head against the wall it would probably just really hurt. Two minutes later he poked his head out and calmly asked if he could do his math work, and I realized that some of the interventions I was using were actually working. It was a pretty cool feeling. Everyone in the room was silent, and more than a few looked really freaked out. No worries, I already knew they gave the job to someone else, and went on my way.
They offered me the job that evening. Apparently they had an elementary school moderate/severe class with a lot of difficult behaviors, and my story had convinced them immediately that I could handle it. Oh, and that other woman I saw getting offered a job? She was a speech therapist, and not a teacher at all. Looks like we both crushed our interviews.
We had 4,000 employees and had been the world leader in our field for about 10 years at this time.
We were not the price setter, though. But we did very well and had a reasonable operating margin, enough to satisfy our corporate owners and shareholders.
Then we got a new president, an American B-school graduate. He came from Stanford, as I recall.
After some time he declared to us in the sales department (about 90 people), operating worldwide.
Raise all prices 15 percent
Go back on all orders in house and negotiate a 15 percent higher price.
I tried.
We all tried.
We suffered, badly.
No new orders for nine (9) months.
The customers with orders in place said a flat “are you out of your fr…..g mind?”
Our build cycle, order to delivery, was about 18 months.
Nine months later the factories started to look empty and were laying off staff, weekly — NO NEW ORDERS.
“Biggest boss” at our owning company got wind of this and came to town.
Our president was fired the same day and we all in sales got new instructions.
“Forget all orders about price increases — go sell as competitively as you can.”
It took about two years for the company to regain its world-leading position.
By that time, I and just about half of our previous sales organization were gone, replaced by eager young souls.
The “American Dream” Is A Big Lie
I talk about how the “American Dream” is a big lie. Too many people around the world are victims to debt, consumerism, and care too much about what other people think. I give my all knowing wisdom via Phnom Penh, Cambodia.
For those of you who are new to MM, please take note.
We provide information, and actual intel not found anywhere else here…
But, we immerse it in a deep salty mix of random (but fun) posts, videos, and food. It is very effective in stopping the “troll bots”, and other internet denizens that everyone assumes are organic, but are actually government-instigated interrupter agents.
Though, I do get an occasional stray bullet or two.
Dumb-fucks.
We do have an above average count of visitors. Many are cloaked, or disguised. Nothing like the millions that Drudge pulls in, or the thousands that MoA gets, but about on par with Remus’s old Woodpile Report (back in the day).
This is an intentionally suppressed and avoided website; it’s not hidden, just “in the grey”. No one (who is smart) “touches it”. It’s “electric” if you know what I mean.
Very few reference it. Ron’s UNZ (with respectful disclaimers), CGTN (with special caveats), and a cross-linked network of bloggers.
So, enjoy.
Lots and lots of odd, unusual, cool and interesting stuff on MM.
The important bits are accumulative. Over time, you see the REAL picture, free of the distortion lens. And that makes it atomic.
You’ll find some stuff here that will go against the main steam “news” and the alternative “news”, but it’s real. Plow through the haystack to find the needle that lies within.
It will take time. So be patient.
We start with this…
Green Acres – Hot Water Soup
A classic.
Punishing Sanctions
Xi to Biden:
Do you really want to hamper our chip producing companies?
China on Monday ordered export restrictions on two technology-critical elements in retaliation for new Western sanctions on its semiconductor industry.
The restrictions, which take effect on August 1, will apply to gallium and germanium metals and several of their compounds, which are key materials for making semiconductors and other electronics.
The Ministry of Commerce said in a statement that the export controls on gallium- and germanium-related items were necessary “to safeguard national security and interests”.
Exporters in China will need to apply for permission from the ministry, with information about the end users and how the materials will be used.
Gallium and germanium are used in lots of electronic components. AESA (active electronically scanned array) radars used on modern warships and fighter airplanes can not be made without those metals. China produces some 95% of those available on the global market.
It will take one or two years until the currently available stocks outside of China are diminished. But it takes much longer to open up new mining and processing facilities for replacement of the Chinese production. The processes used therein are quite dirty. A not-in-my-backyard attitude will make any setup of new facilities difficult to pursue.
The situation will soon become similar to the titanium market where Russia is the biggest global supplier but has restricted access for certain customers.
This is just one of many cards China (and Russia) can play in their anti-sanction games.
The U.S. is reaching the limits of its sanction power.
Over 2022 and 2023 China has intentionally cancelled in excess of USD 100 billion worth of Chips from the U.S.
You see the majority of the chip business like every businesses is highly skewed toward the lower end higher cut throat business with the higher end more profitable being a minute proportion of total business.
Just like 1000–3000 cc automobiles totalling 99.9% of the world’s car market and 4–6000 cc representing 0.1% of the business.
That is where the U.S. chip strategy of the U.S. gets into serious problems. The U.S. thought naively and simplistically that China will suffer if it bans China from buying the high end chips. True China over a 3–5 years range may encounter some inconvenience but in the 5–10 years range China will have developed an alternatives which is faster, better, smaller and cheaper and wrecked the U.S. business all together.
Meanwhile the U.S. is being totally haunted by China cancelling orders of the 99.9% business. Chip companies at that level is imploding and losing a ton of sales. Most companies have collapsed and depending on tax payers subsidies. If you understand today’s technology and production. There are say 100 parts of materials and parts of the chips. China actually is responsible for a good 60–70% of these and say 5% comes from the U.S. China simply replace all the U.S. parts.
Some by Chinese technologies and others by US competitors. Not only has the U.S. lost the entire bread and butter chip business it is now suffering severe shortages in most US industry.
The harm China’s counter action is destroying the U.S. industry while China has a short term pain and long term gain for the higher end chips. Once again the short sighted nature and the hubris of the U.S. government is laughable. Those who really understand the business equate the U.S. action like shooting both its own foot to scratch China’s shine.
By replacing the 99.9% market chips US parts, China could reduce its cost and improves its profit. And with this it focus R&D fully on the 0.1% business to replace the U.S. within 5–10 years.
The United States today has been so diseased, and so damaged, that it resembles a drug addict with dementia shuffling along a street and throwing insults at the normal people walking on the sidewalks.
Experienced people, know that it is important to avoid this madman.
You walk on the other side of the street. You hope that someday, some compassionate person will imprison this ranting lunatic and put them in a place with care and proper treatment. But it is beyond your control. There is nothing you (personally) can do. You accept the madman at face value; useless. A poison inside society, and one that needs to be quarantined.
However, for now, all you can do is ignore his actions.
Gilligan’s Island – The Lie Detector
The “good ol’ days”.
BRI introduces key tenets of Chinese philosophy to wider world
By Martin Jacques Published: Jun 18, 2023 07:57 PM A view of the construction of Peljesac Bridge in Komarna, Croatia on July 28, 2021.Photo:
VCGEditor’s Note:
This year marks the 10th anniversary of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) proposed by Chinese President Xi Jinping. Through the lens of foreign pundits, we take a look at 10 years of the BRI – how it achieves win-win cooperation between China and countries along the Belt and Road and how it increases people’s sense of fulfillment in these countries.
“China became a powerful voice on behalf of the developing countries, not just by word but crucially by deed,” wrote Martin Jacques, a visiting professor at the Institute of Modern International Relations at Tsinghua University and a senior fellow at the China Institute, Fudan University.
This is the first article of the series.
When the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) was first proposed 10 years ago, as well as much anticipation, there was considerable puzzlement. “What is it?” was a widely asked question. And quite reasonably so. Because it was like nothing we had seen before. This was not a plan with fixed dates. There was nothing concrete. There were no boundaries. There was no end date. In every sense it was open-ended. It was an idea, a concept. It was a totally new and original way of thinking about a project. Furthermore, it was on the hugest of scales, encompassing the great majority of the world’s population.
We have never seen anything like this before. The nearest was America’s Marshall Aid plan between 1947 and 1952, but that was puny in comparison. Its inspiration, if anywhere, lay in China’s own past and such extraordinary feats as the Great Wall and the Grand Canal.
The point of departure for the idea of BRI was a reflection on China’s own economic transformation. What lessons might be drawn from this for the developing world? What could the developing countries learn from it? At the heart of China’s transformation was state-led, large-scale investment in infrastructure. If it worked for China, then why not for others? Most of the Eurasian land mass, together with Africa and Latin America, suffered from a disabling shortage of infrastructure. BRI would seek to change that. China would be the hub of the project. It would consist of a multitude of bilateral agreements between China and the developing countries, with China providing the funding, typically in the form of loans. The response has been enormous with 151 countries now participating in BRI.
If many scratched their heads in puzzlement about BRI when it was first announced, this has long ceased to be the case. Everyone now knows in varying degrees what it is about. In 10 short years, it has become part of the global geo-economic firmament, no less than the IMF and the World Bank. Let’s remind ourselves where China was in 2013 when it was first launched. The country was in the process during which the overriding priority had been China’s own economic development; it was quiescent on the global stage, seeking to keep a low profile, a rule-taker not a rule-maker, famous for its extraordinary economic growth rate but not for its international initiatives, which it sought to avoid. Little did we know at the time, but the launch of BRI was to signal a huge shift in China’s relationship with the world. It marked the moment of China’s coming out. And it was to prove remarkably successful. It is not an exaggeration to argue that over the decade of its existence it has changed the world.
In what ways?
First, BRI promoted the question of development to a position of fundamental centrality on the global stage. The West had always paid little more than lip-service to the developing world, which it looked down upon and treated in an exploitative, paternalistic, and authoritarian manner. BRI offered a new kind of solution for the developing countries. And in the process the developing world came to occupy an increasingly important position on the global stage.
Second, BRI forged a new kind of relationship between China and the developing world. China came to be seen as the champion of the developing countries. It became a powerful voice on behalf of the developing countries, not just by word but crucially by deed.
Third, BRI paved the way for a new kind of global alignment and, as a result, a new kind of global politics. The relationship between China and the developing world is not based on a shared view of politics or ideology, nor military alliances, but on the most important issue facing the great majority of the world’s population, that of development. This is entirely different from the West’s approach. BRI has been the agency and stage for this shift, which we see expressed in many different ways. One example is the very independent attitude of the Global South towards the Ukraine war. BRI has heralded the rise of geo-economics as a new force in geo-politics.
Fourth, BRI has introduced, for the first time, key tenets of Chinese philosophy to the wider world. For over two centuries the language and concepts of international relations and politics have been exclusively Western. That era is now well and truly over. With BRI has come new ways of conceptualising: the ability to think in truly global terms because development is quintessentially a global issue; a very different idea of time, with timescales hugely longer – far from being limited to a few years, or at most a decade as in the Western mind, in the case of BRI we must think in terms of half a century, or even without any time limits at all, such is the challenge of development. Then, of course, we have the idea of win-win relationships rather than zero-sum thinking. Then there is China’s concept of a human community with a shared future, with BRI its living embodiment, that encourages us to think beyond the narrow constraints of the nation-state. BRI is like a crash course in Chinese philosophy.
Fifth, BRI is an entirely new kind of international institution. The international system has been dominated by US-style institutions, like the IMF and the World Bank, whose distinctive characteristic is that they represent and speak on behalf of a small minority of humanity. BRI, in contrast, is a new kind of international institution that seeks to represent 85 percent of the world who live in the developing world. In other words, it offers a glimpse of a very different kind of international system in which the interests of the majority rather than the minority predominate.
BRI comprises the great majority of the world’s nations. They are drawn from across Eurasia – including Central Asia, Southeast Asia, South Asia, the Middle East, and parts of Europe – together with Africa and Latin America. China’s non-financial outbound direct investment to countries along the Belt and Road since 2013 had exceeded $140 billion by the end of June, 2022. It is important to see BRI as a dynamic institution, one that is constantly moving and changing as the world itself changes. In the initial phase, the main emphasis was on very large-scale infrastructural projects, but alongside these, SMEs, environmental and climatic needs, digital technology, and green projects have been acquiring growing significance. An obvious example of how BRI can ebb and flow depending on the wider environment was the pandemic which inevitably led to a period of significantly reduced Chinese investment. Or take a very different example. The Ukraine war has necessitated a new emphasis on maritime routes. For the time being some of the rail routes have been affected – most obviously in Ukraine.
What then, finally, of the Western response.
The US initially dismissed BRI as irrelevant. But, as a growing number of countries signed up for BRI, it became impossible to ignore, so the US then shifted its emphasis and sought to undermine it, accusing China of debt diplomacy.
The contrary, in fact, was the case.
China has gone to great lengths to help countries avoid getting into deep debt. What could China gain from seeing countries becoming debt-ridden: it would defeat the whole object of BRI.
With the overwhelming success of BRI, the West has finally come to recognize that it needs to offer an alternative to BRI. But there is little or no sign that the West, be it the US or EU, or the two combined, has the commitment, the resources, or the political conviction to come up with a viable alternative.
It would require a huge shift in the West’s attitude towards the developing world, one which is patently not forthcoming. After 10 years, the West has nothing to offer. BRI is the only show in town. And what an extraordinary show it has been.
My wife and I moved from Texas to Scotland earlier this year. 3 weeks ago we had our first child.
Why am I glad we’re not living in America?
Total medical and dental bills for the birth of our child came out to £0 (that’s $0 when the current exchange rate is applied). The Scottish government even sent us a large baby box with starter supplies and toys, also at no cost to us.
I’m not worried about my daughter being a victim of gun violence here. I grew up 20 minutes from Thousand Oaks in California where there was yet another mass shooting just yesterday. That doesn’t happen here.
I’m not worried about my daughter ever being homeless or not being offered any social resources that she may need to achieve a basic standard of health and life.
Even with Brexit in the cards, I’m not at all worried about the UK becoming a dictatorship. The US could seemingly go either way at this point in time and that scares me.
I’m glad that people here don’t seem to have the keeping up with the Joneses mentality like they do in the US. Here people don’t flaunt wealth, it’s something to be a bit embarrassed about. And that leads to more realistic goals and general focus on what matters in life.
Scotland seems much more to me like the land of the free than where I’m from.
Why, you ask? Basically, I’m tired of getting the occasional troll or angry comment from someone (typically American but not always) who has taken great offense to my answer because they love America and clearly I must not.
For one, the question answered here doesn’t ask me what I miss from America or what I think America does better than other countries. Hint to those trolls – the answer to that is not “everything”. No country does everything the best and anyone who thinks that is deluding themselves.
Secondly, I’ve laid out some fairly clear facts around areas where America falters. There’s no need to continue debating them in the comments. We’re having another example of this right now, sadly, with the mass shooting in New Zealand. Obviously a terrible event, like any mass shooting of any group of people. But at least New Zealand has the wherewithal to take immediate action and start changing their gun laws. They should be praised for this. Contrary to America – where there are now more mass shootings than there are days in a year – and yet sits staunchly on it’s hands and does NOTHING.
Times change. Civilized people evolve. Help yourselves by helping everyone.
Sweet Child O’ Mine by Guns N’ Roses- Reimagined on the Traditional Chinese Guzheng | Moyun
The US is reportedly considering new curbs to hobble China’s semiconductor progress by utilizing long-arm jurisdiction, abusing export rules and coercing allies into further restricting sales of critical high-end chipmaking tools that are key for China’s technological rise.
The latest move underscores the US’ desperation in stepping up efforts to hold back China’s technological ascent after a years-long crackdown did not appear to have much effect, observers noted, while warning that a wider involvement of key firms such as ASML in the industry may deal a further blow to the already fragile global industrial chain.
On Friday, the Dutch government announced a ministerial order restricting exports of certain advanced semiconductor equipment, and though the Netherlands claimed the measures were “country-neutral,” it’s widely believed to have come under accelerated pressure from the US, targeting specific countries like China.
Moreover, the US is expected to go one step further on the Netherlands’ move and use its long reach to withhold even more Dutch equipment from specific Chinese fabs this summer, according to a Reuters report on Friday, which described the measures as “one-two punch” to China’s chipmakers.
This is an intensified siege on China’s semiconductor industry, indicating that the US is now extending its crackdown from advanced process chips to mature ones above 14 nanometers, Ma Jihua, founder of Beijing DARUI Management Consulting Co, told the Global Times on Friday.
At a routine press conference held by the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Friday, spokesperson Mao Ning voiced China’s firm opposition to the US’ reported action, which “overstretches the national security concept and abuses export controls.”
“The US, under various pretexts, is attempting to cajole or coerce other countries into joining its technological blockade against China, and is intervening in normal economic and trade exchanges between companies through administrative means. This behavior seriously undermines market rules and the international economic and trade order, and disrupts the stability of the global industrial and supply chain, which is not in the interests of any party,” Mao said.
China will pay close attention to the relevant developments and resolutely safeguard its legitimate rights and interests.
The United States unilaterally refuses to cooperate with China in the field of space. In 1998, the US Congress passed the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 1999, which stated that “the United States should not export to the People’s Republic of China missile equipment or technology that would improve the missile or space launch capabilities of the People’s Republic of China.” The Wolf Amendment
, enacted in 2011, further explicitly prohibits any form of exchange and cooperation between NASA and any government agency or enterprise in China.
Despite the long-standing technology blockade imposed by the United States, China’s aerospace industry has persisted in independent innovation, overcoming difficulties, and achieving a series of great accomplishments. At the end of last year, China’s space station was fully constructed, becoming the second operational space station in the world, in addition to the International Space Station. The Chinese space station is open to all United Nations member states, and currently, 17 countries including Germany, Italy, France, Spain, and Japan have had their scientific experiments selected, while the United States is unable to participate due to the restrictions of the Wolf Amendment.
China’s aerospace industry has always attached great importance to international exchanges and cooperation. Satellites manufactured in China have been exported to countries such as Nigeria, Venezuela, Pakistan, and Belarus, providing convenient satellite services to the world. At the same time, with the continuous improvement of China’s Beidou Navigation System, China has opened up relevant satellite data to the international community, providing support for global resource survey and monitoring, environmental monitoring and assessment, and Earth science research. In 2017, the European Space Agency even sent two astronauts to participate in the astronaut sea survival training organized by China.
Italian astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti, who participated in the training, carried out a mission on the International Space Station in October last year. When the International Space Station flew over China, she took a series of photos and quoted a famous line from the ancient Chinese text “Preface to the Poems Composed at the Orchid Pavilion”.
To be specific, the working environment and pay schedules are completely different from that of the United States; the self-proclaimed “leader” in freedom and democracy.
I have worked in both the United States and China. And I will use my personal, first-hand, experience to answer this question for you.
…
In this example, we will consider a fictional “white collar” office worker working in a factory. One factory is in the United States, and the other is in China. In general, the base pay for such an office worker is on the lower-tier of the bell-shaped payment graph for both the United States and China. Or, to put it another way, they are equal in social-economic opportunity.
China
Base pay
Minus 5% income tax
Plus one month vacation.
Plus paid medical.
Plus free housing
Plus free breakfast, lunch, dinners
Plus one month off at CNY
Plus 3 weeks of assorted holidays
Plus free daycare for children.
Plus free transportation into town.
Plus company sponsored activities every two months
Plus yearly bonus equaling roughly one month of salary at CNY
Plus discount coupons and awards for movies, and dinners, and KTV trips at neighboring establishments.
Because of this, our fictional Chinese “white collar” worker can save up a significant portion of his / her salary, being from 60% to 95%, for vacations, travel, buying a home, or other projects on their agenda. The Chinese worker, at the end of the year, can opt to stay and continue to save their earnings, or switch to another company, or take their savings and spend it.
United States
Base Pay
Minus 33% income tax
Minus 8% + (8% hidden) Social Security Tax
Minus 3–6% state tax
Minus City Tax
Minus misc taxes
Minus health care deduction(s)
Vacation is 1 week for the first year, and 2 weeks up to 10 years of work experience.
Days off are metered, and require a medical excuse for permission.
7 days of holidays (some of with are “paid”)
Because of this, the fictional American “White Collar” worker lives “paycheck to paycheck”, and any family emergency or lay-off would devastate them. They clutch onto the position in the vain and hopeless attempt that “someday” things will change. But they will not. The only way out of this “rat race” is to leave the farm altogether and go somewhere else. Perhaps a place that has better working conditions.
Like Botswana.
And that is why Chinese workers are (in general) satisfied with their careers, their jobs, and their standard of life, while their American counterparts are popping pills to suppress stress, anxiety and depression, and hold off foreclosures, and divorce.
So to answer why the Chinese don’t have Unions, it’s really very simple. The entire nation of China is one big enormous Union. For that is what a Union is; a social organization formed and run by the workers.
Two kids were arguing furiously near a Crocodile pit
One Kid slipped and fell into the Pit and the Crocodile began to move from the ground where it was resting and move towards the flailing kid
A Chinese tourist rushed and jumped into the Pit and swam desperately and managed to escape just as the Crocodile was inches away from dragging the kid below
The Kid was rescued
The Next Day the most popular question by Quora Prompt Generator :—
WHY IS CHINA KILLING CROCODILES BY STARVING THEM????
BBC Headlines :—
CHINESE TOURIST STEALS LUNCH FROM CROCODILE
CNN Headlines :—
‘STARVING A CROCODILE SHOWS THE EXTENT OF CHINESE DESPERATION' — GORDON CHANG
That’s why
Because everything is blamed on China today
It’s ridiculous of course but that’s how low the Western Media have sunk
in Lebanon (1982–1984), Grenada (1983), Libya (1986), Iran (1987–1988), Panama (1989–1990), Iraq (1990–1991), Bosnia (1992–1995), Somalia (1992–1995, 2007-present), Haiti (1994–1995), Yugoslavia (1998–1999), Afghanistan (2001–2021), Yemen (2002-present), Iraq (2003–2011, 2014–2021), Libya (2011), Syria (2014-present), Libya (2015–2019).
China, on the other hand, has fought no wars at all.
China is assertive about protecting its rights and territory. What, you think the Chinese should knuckle under Western imperialists like they did from 1839 to 1949 (the so-called “century of humiliation”)?
China should protect its interests. China should defend its territories in Taiwan and South China Sea. China should push back on US attempts to smear China’s reputation with lies about genocide, forced labor, etc.
China should voice its disapproval at US military provocations such as conducting naval exercises off the coast of China, and building more military bases in Philippines, and creating military pacts with Australia and Japan.
China should object to US delegations visiting Taipei and violating the One China principle, and to selling arms to Taiwan in direct contravention of the Three Communiqués.
Any nation that isn’t assertive will be stepped on. But being assertive is not the same thing as being aggressive.
Arctic Monkeys – Do I Wanna Know? (Official Video)
Decoupling the global semiconductor supply chain would be “extremely difficult and expensive” if not impossible, a senior executive at ASML, the world’s most valuable chip equipment maker.
Christophe Fouquet, ASML’s executive vice-president and chief business officer, said in an exclusive interview that any single country would struggle to build its own fully self-reliant chip industry.
“We do not believe in ASML that decoupling is possible. We believe this will be extremely difficult and extremely expensive,” Fouquet told Nikkei at the company’s headquarters in Veldhoven in the Netherlands. “It’s a matter of time until people realise that the only way to be successful in semiconductors is through co-operation.
“The idea that we could go back to a little dark corner and do it all alone is most probably a very challenging concept,” Fouquet said.
His remarks came as large economies including the US, Japan, the EU, India and China rush to onshore vital semiconductor production in hopes of achieving self-reliance in chips.
The secret to ASML’s success, according to him, is its longtime collaboration with critical global suppliers such as Zeiss and Cymer and the support from its top chipmaking customers Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company and Intel.
ASML is the world’s exclusive maker of cutting-edge chip equipment known as extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography machines, enabling production of advanced semiconductors below the 7-nanometre level. In chipmaking, the smaller the nanometre size, the more advanced and powerful the chips. The mobile chip in the premium iPhone 14 Pro and Nvidia’s graphic processors are built with 4nm tech, in which ASML’s machines play an indispensable role.
Zeiss of Germany is ASML’s only supplier of precision mirror systems, one of the most critical optical parts for the EUV machine, while San Diego-based Cymer, which ASML acquired in 2013, is the sole provider of the EUV light source.
None of ASML’s smaller peers — Nikon and Canon of Japan and China’s Shanghai Micro Electronics Equipment — can yet match the European supplier’s capabilities in cutting-edge lithography. The US has no domestic makers of chip lithography equipment.
“We prefer to use the very best suppliers [globally] . . . This is a lot more effective. It allows us to move a lot faster,” Fouquet said. “The big difference [in strategy] is Canon and Nikon were trying to do a lot of things by themselves.”
While it is open to cross-border collaborations, however, ASML believes that for some of the most sophisticated components it is best to have only one supplier.
“The investment in Zeiss to get EUV optics is huge. If you make it in two to three places, the cost doesn’t work out any more . . . When it comes to unique technology, we develop partnerships with our suppliers,” Fouquet said. “When it comes to less advanced technology, then we will look at multiple suppliers.”
The bulk of ASML’s production, meanwhile, is done in one place, its headquarters, and Fouquet said it would probably keep the majority — about 80 per cent to 90 per cent — of its production and integration there until at least 2026.
“It’s very important for us to keep R&D and manufacturing together,” the senior executive said. The Netherlands-based company had more than 14,000 R&D employees and a total of 37,643 employees globally as of the end of 2022.
ASML’s headquarters is the tallest building in Veldhoven, an agricultural town in the southern Netherlands, and is about two hours by train from Amsterdam. Surrounded by corn and wheat fields, the building overlooks a vast wind farm at the border with Belgium.
Construction is under way to expand clean-room spaces that will eventually manufacture ASML’s next-generation chipmaking machines, which will use “high-numerical aperture extreme ultraviolet” lithography. The high-NA EUV machines will be essential for Intel, TSMC and Samsung in their race to introduce the most cutting-edge chips after 2025.
Hoàng Thùy Linh – Duyên Âm (Love of Ghost) | Official Music Video
Americans who have spent significant time away/lived abroad, what type of culture shock did you have returning to the US?
For me, the “culture shock” is mostly triggered by our pathetic state of infrastructure and lack of good public transportation.
This is New York:
2023 07 04 06 57
This is Shanghai:
2023 07 04 06 5ggg7
As much as I love New York, every time I land in the JFK airport, I feel that I am in some third-world country.
The airport screams “1950’s” – old, ugly, inefficient, broken down.
The contrast with Beijing and Shanghai airports is truly “shocking”.
The New York City subway, once the crown-jewel of the American cosmopolitanism, is now dirty, smelly, dark, disorganized. In the summer, it is hotter than hell inside the stations, in the winter colder than Siberia.
New York is actually the lucky one compared to the rest of the US – at least they have a public transportation system that works and is somewhat compatible with human life.
Among many causes, the leading one is Biden’s narcissistic buffoonery and stumbling and falling (not only figuratively) along the way starting from the embarrassing Afghanistan retreat fiasco.
His Summit for Democracy flopped twice.
The money pumped into Ukraine is mostly embezzled.
EU economy is in the ICU thanks to the price-gauging of US LNG and blowing up Nord Stream Pipelines.
He affronted China gratuitously, even calling Xi a dictator. Now he is bowing to China’s new ambassador hoping to get Yellen a chance to go borrow some more money. Stubborn inflation still refuses to budge after high interest rate has wiped out a few US banks while Trains keep derailing and bridges are collapsing.
Olaf Scholz is much closer to China than France is, but he ordered (allegedly) color revolution on Macron instead, because the latter showed the balls to praise China and wants to join the BRICS.
Biden gave that disastrous Dylan Mulvaney a photo op in the WH and pissed off Nike and Budweiser loyal customers and almost all straight people. He apparently hangs his hope on fantasized wokeism, just like he does with Summit for Democracy, his one-and-only trick.
And he still hasn’t found his way out of the garage while making it a hobby to shoot himself in the foot, he wants 4 more years to f*ck up more. Maybe he’s got an Ace up his sleeve. Who knows. I frankly can’t think of anything he has done right so far.
Don’t have lawns. Instead, change your lawn to various plants native to your area.
Do you know lawns were designed as a tool of community conformity?
So lawns became popular first in medieval Europe. Originally as a defense structure, make sure areas in front of your gate were flat and open, so you can see whoever came to visit. Later, lawns became a symbol of wealth and prosperity, particularly because of how expensive it was to maintain large areas of lawn.
When nuclear families and Levittown became a thing, the government realized they had an opportunity to regulate families and promote the so-called “American dream.” If you want a government founding house, you need to follow the rules.
Lawns are expensive and labor-intensive to maintain. The government designed the community in such a way that you spend your weekends caring for your front yard and paying a ridiculous amount of money to water it.
2023 07 03 13 37
Ditch the government conformity and grow your front yard with plants native to your area.
2023 07 03 13 38
Nobody will run through your cactus garden.
Unveiling the Intricate Connections and Enduring Strength in Bethany Krull’s Porcelain and Mixed Media Sculptures
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Intertwining the intricate tapestry of humanity, fellow animals, and the vast natural realm, Bethany Krull breathes life into porcelain and mixed media sculptures.
Her art unravels the enigmatic bonds and unyielding strength exhibited by fragile beings. Within her creations, we witness the relentless growth emerging from decay, where the dance of life and death intertwines with resounding harmony. In the face of the ongoing Holocene or sixth extinction, Krull’s masterpieces serve as poignant reminders that each passing moment demands both mourning and celebration, for they are indivisible companions on this ever-evolving journey.
Chinese semiconductor manufacturers expect to raise over $8 billion
Chinese semiconductor manufacturers expect to raise over $8 billion from stock market listings so far this year, looking to expand output capacity to bounce back from a market downturn and U.S. export curbs.
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Hong Kong-listed Hua Hong Semiconductor received approval in early June for a dual listing on Shanghai’s tech-oriented STAR market, where it aims to raise 18 billion yuan ($2.5 billion).
Hua Hong plans to build a $6.7 billion factory in the city of Wuxi, slated to start up in 2025. The state-owned China Integrated Circuit Industry Investment Fund, also known as the “Big Fund,” is investing in the project.
With production facilities in Shanghai and Wuxi, Hua Hong is China’s second-largest contract chipmaker behind Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp. At an exhibit at the Semicon China trade fair, which kicked off Thursday, the company touts itself as a “world-leading foundry.”
Hua Hong and other Chinese chipmakers’ listings come as the U.S. is reportedly considering expanding restrictions it imposed in October on advanced semiconductors for artificial intelligence applications. The move would cover models from companies like Nvidia that fall outside the current bans.
Wei Shaojun, a professor at Tsinghua University who is involved in semiconductor policy, argued at the opening of the trade fair that China should respond by accelerating efforts to build its own supply chain.
Even if more Nvidia chips are added to the ban, that would not be entirely bad news for China, as it would spur further growth in the country’s semiconductor industry, he said.
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In fact, big Chinese chipmakers have been expanding production capacity, focusing on so-called mature-node technology outside the cutting edge to avoid U.S. sanctions. China’s semiconductor market shrank about 5% last year, but sales of domestically made chips grew 14%.
Aggressive expansion requires funding. As of mid-June, 13 semiconductor companies have listed on yuan-denominated exchanges this year, raising 42.2 billion yuan, a quarter of the total for all IPOs over this period, according to China Central Television. Adding Hua Hong’s planned listing brings the total to roughly 60 billion yuan.
Semiconductor Manufacturing Electronics carried out the biggest float so far this year, raising nearly 10 billion yuan on the STAR market. The foundry is backed by SMIC along with government-linked funds. Many of the upper managers came from SMIC.
SMEC will spend at least 20 billion yuan over the next two or three years building new facilities that will produce power semiconductors that fall outside of U.S. restrictions.
The number of chip companies planning stock market debuts still lags behind the 40-plus IPOs seen last year. However, this does not tell the full story, according to an industry analyst.
“The Chinese government is encouraging the construction of semiconductor plants with tax incentives and money through investment funds,” said the analyst. “They’re quickly expanding capacity by procuring equipment ahead of tougher U.S. restrictions.”
SMIC is currently having difficulty bringing in equipment from overseas.
“We need to make the supply chain more resilient,” Han Di, senior vice president of SMIC, said Thursday at Semicon China.
Despite the U.S.-led pressure, global chip companies plan to continue investing in China. The country is the world’s largest market, commanding a roughly 30% share.
“In terms of sustainable growth, we can’t ignore China,” said an executive at a non-Chinese semiconductor company.
Top executives from Qualcomm, Intel and ASML have visited China this year. Although Chinese regulators have banned operators of key infrastructure from purchasing from Micron Technology due to a failed security review, Micron announced it is committed to investing roughly $600 million in a chip packaging facility in Xi’an, China.
Teen Opera Singer Reacts To Rainbow – Stargazer
Tex-Mex Macaroni and Cheese
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Ingredients
1 pound ground pork sausage
1 small onion, chopped
3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
2 cups milk
1 (16 ounce) loaf Mexican pasteurized cheese
1 (4 1/2 ounce) can chopped green chiles, drained
16 ounces macaroni, cooked
8 ounces shredded Southwestern cheese blend
Instructions
Cook sausage and onion in a large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat until sausage crumbles and is no longer pink; drain.
Add flour, cumin and milk, stirring constantly, until thickened.
Add Mexican cheese and chiles, stirring until cheese is melted.
Add macaroni.
Spoon mixture into a lightly greased 9 x 13-inch baking dish.
Bake at 350 degrees F for 25 minutes.
Sprinkle with shredded cheese blend, and serve with salsa.
Over half a trillion more dollars have been dumped into the US government’s debt spiral in the last two weeks alone.
According to the latest numbers from FiscalData, as of June 15th, the US national debt was $32 trillion, a $571 billion rise from June 1st’s recording of $31.46 trillion.
Total US debt is now larger than the total gross domestic product of China, Japan, Germany and the United Kingdom combined, and amounts to $244,000 per American household.
At current interest rates, the US is now paying over $2 billion a day in interest payments, and even if every American household contributed $1,000 a month to pay off the debt, it would take 20 years to pay off.
While the US’ debt issue has received increased attention from both analysts and regular Americans, most experts still expect the problem to intensify over the next decade.
Nigel Green, CEO of global financial advisory firm deVere Group, recently predicted that America’s debt was much more likely to reach the $50 trillion level than to shrink to more reasonable numbers.
“What’s the negative for Americans in particular? Well, the debt is continuing to increase. In other words, right now we’re at $31 trillion. It takes 8% to payback-adjust their debt of the taxes.
And you would say, ‘Well it’s only that percentage.’ Well, you can argue that, yes. But if it continues to increase and there is a downturn at some stage, then of course America is going to struggle to pay its debts.
I ask myself the question: it’s $31 trillion right now, is it more likely to go to $50 trillion or $25 (trillion)?
Ultimately, (the) reality is it’s more likely to go to $50 trillion than it is to go up to $25 trillion. So we’ve got this continuing situation. It’s not a bust right now but (at) some stage in the future, America has to repay its debt.”
Ray Dalio, the creator of the largest hedge fund in the world, Bridgewater Associates, also recently declared the the US was entering what he referred to as a “very classic late big-cycle debt crisis.”
“There’s a lot of debt. It has to be bought. It has to have a high enough interest rate.
If we continue down this path, in terms of what’s likely over the next five and 10 years, then you would reach a point that that balancing act becomes very difficult.”
A group of Chinese scientists has published (PDF) a paper titled “Pushing the Limits of Machine Design: Automated CPU Design with AI.” The paper details the researchers’ work in designing a new industrial-scale RISC-V CPU in under 5 hours. It is claimed this AI-automated feat was about 1000x faster than a human team could have finished a comparable CPU design. However, some may poke fun at the resulting AI-designed CPU performing approximately on par with an i486.
The goal of the Chinese research team was to answer the question of whether machines can design chips like humans. Earlier AI-crafted designs have been relatively small or limited in scope, reckons the team. Thus, to test the boundaries of AI design, the researchers thought they would try and get an AI to automatically design a RISC-V CPU.
Projects like this typically start with a period of machine learning. Training consisted of observing a series of CPU inputs and outputs. The scientists generated a Binary Speculation Diagram (BSD) from this I/O and leveraged principles of Monte Carlo-based expansion and Boolean functions to hone the accuracy and efficiency of the AI-based CPU design. Thus the CPU design was formed “from only external input-output observations instead of formal program code,” explains the scientists. It also boasted an impressive 99.99% accuracy.
Using the above-outlined process, an automated AI design of a CPU was created. The taped-out RISC-V32IA instruction set CPU was fabricated at 65nm and could run at up to 300 MHz. Running the Linux (kernel 5.15) operating system and SPEC CINT 2000 on the AI-generated CPU validated its functionality. In Drystone benchmarks, the AI-generated CPU performed on par with an i486. Interestingly, it appears to be a little bit faster than an Acorn Archimedes A3010 in the same test.
Though some might be unimpressed by the performance of the AI-generated CPU, the scientists also seem quite proud that their generated BSD “discovered the von Neumann architecture from scratch.”
The building a new RISC-V CPU from scratch using AI isn’t just of academic interest, or of potential use for making new CPUs from the ground up. According to the researchers, AI could be used to significantly reduce the design and optimization cycles in the existing semiconductor industry. Moreover, in their conclusion, the scientists even ponder whether this research might be taken further to form the foundation of a self-evolving machine.
Latecomer to semiconductors party, China is catching up faster.
I’ll start with the definite truth of my own life: Leaving the US was, without a doubt, the best decision I ever made.
I have said this out loud and reflected upon it often. In short – it had to do with identity and personal happiness.
I was always an energetic child and a hardworking student. Motivated by accomplishments; incredibly obedient; afraid of getting in trouble – a teacher’s pet type. I was generally nice to people around me; just wanted to do well and get on with my day.
After elementary school, I started going to private school – for a better education and hopefully better access in life. During that time, my Black, middle class background became the center of the world. I still did well in school, but I wasn’t spoken to as if I did well or was capable. I was made to feel inadequate at every turn, even in the face of great accomplishments.
As a teenager, this racial alienation was emphasized through social and dating dynamics. All teens have teen problems, but I wasn’t just a moody, insecure kid – I was a Black kid in a sea of White and there was nothing to be done about that. There was no amount of patience, kindness; weight loss; working out; grooming; hair perming – that would make me less Black. And you can’t talk about that to anyone; no one can relate; you’re unceremoniously accused of “bringing race into everything”. A very lonely reality.
Throughout the entire secondary school process, my intelligence was always doubted and I was constantly insulted. My school offered Chinese – they tried to tell me I wouldn’t do well because it’s “a very difficult language”. Within a year, I had top marks. I once had a teacher tell me my writing was so bad I probably had a learning disability. (I’m about to finish my Masters with distinction in England, and I’ll be starting my PhD in the fall).
By high school, I decided to spend a portion of my senior year in China. It was like night and day from my home school. Suddenly, I was smart again. Without a concerted effort of teachers telling me how stupid I was all the time, I was flourishing. I got straight A’s in AP Calculus – a course, among others, my home school wouldn’t let me take because it would be “too hard for me”. When it came to college lists – I was told I couldn’t get into any of the schools on my list; I shouldn’t aim higher than my State school. Mind, at 17 I was a varsity athlete; president of thespians; worked on a number of school plays; danced on the school team and studied Martha Graham independently; first chair clarinet; played alto sax in Jazz band; fairly skilled in drawing and painting; spoke Chinese and had a high honors GPA. So – what made me less than my peers?
In China, it was the first time anyone (other than my parents) had ever told me I was pretty. Looking back, I was still quite young; so a lot of firsts would be happening around that time anyway – but it was definitely different than in America. In America, I was just ugly. People might not say that to my face – but it was reflected in certain ways.
Beyond that, college was the same for socialization. I tried to be cute, preppy and peppy like my White friends – but I wasn’t. I was sad and defeated. And still had some discernible, inferior, human status.
So again, in college, I went to China. And again, I was able to find normality, humanity and love.
After I graduated college, I went back to China to work. I soon met my current partner and we’ve been together six years. We moved to England together last year so I could continue studying to change careers. I’ve done incredibly well and I’m just happy.
In summary:
I personally felt my intelligence and beauty were never appreciated in the US.
I was suicidally sad; until I could no longer deny that I needed to live life a different way.
My partner is Greek and it feels very freeing to not be a part of the radical, racialized, American fervor. Also, biracial relations aren’t questioned in England the way they are in the US.
Life doesn’t feel so heavy. My days are nice. I have a nice home. A nice partner. My efforts are recognized. I’m just, whole.
Ukraine Jailing American Journalist WITH U.S. PERMISSION!
In China, Pizza Hut had a salad bar policy of only allowing one trip. So Chinese people became very creative and created salad stacking or salad towers to get around this rule. Salad stacking led to Pizza Hut removing self-service salad carts from all of its restaurants in China. This policy introduced in 2009 ended salad towers from being made by customers. Here are some pictures so that you can be amazed by the ingenious art form.
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It cost 28 renminbi ($4.57) for full access to Pizza Hut’s salad bar, but customers would only receive one trip to the salad bar.
This picture takes food hacks to the next level.
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Baby carrots and cucumber slices help make the foundation of the salad stacker.
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The diagram below will teach you how to make a salad tower.
Europe must choose: back US tech war on China or support win-win solutions for all — SCMP
The European Commission made an announcement on June 15 that was widely reported as a ban on Chinese telecommunications firms Huawei and ZTE. Rather, the communication endorsed the actions by some member states to restrict or completely exclude the two firms as being consistent with the European Union “toolbox” on 5G security – a set of guidelines designed to be interpreted and implemented by member states.
Some EU countries have followed the United States in treating Chinese telecommunications companies as security risks while others have not, which suggests political factors could be at play. Despite talk of “de-risking” in current EU circles, the growing trend is for language framing China as a security threat, rather like the US debate. Yet Europe is not the US and could benefit from de-escalating the US-China tech war.
China-EU relations have taken twists and turns over the years, but economic interests have usually driven a pragmatic approach when it comes to trade and investment. Some European countries and their consumers have embraced Chinese technology.
The US, on the other hand, in recent years has embarked on a campaign of wide-ranging sanctions and trade barriers to constrain China’s technology industry, notably banning Huawei, sanctioning supercomputer centres and blocking advanced semiconductors from reaching Chinese industrial customers. The US has long dominated global technology industries but now has a rival in setting the norms and rules for the technological revolution under way.
From 2017 onwards, beginning with the Trump administration, China has been identified as a key security threat and strategic competitor, with Huawei in particular singled out. Some political circles in the EU are now echoing the US position.
Without any evidence – at least on the public record – that Huawei is any greater risk than other firms, the claims of security risks or state influence cannot be disproved. The national security focus of the debate about Huawei risks taking our eye off the ball of where future cybersecurity threats may actually arise, and risks can arise anywhere.
Telecommunications systems have long been known to be at risk of hacking. Espionage or other threats to cybersecurity do not only come from China but from a wide variety of states, as well as from non-state actors such as terrorist groups, criminal gangs and even individual cyberhackers.
In some sectors, China plays a major role in setting global standards, such as in high-speed rail infrastructure and autonomous vehicles. However, there is no agreed-upon global set of rules in relation to new digital communications technologies, with progress frozen by the intensification of US-China competition. In the absence of shared rules, norms and institutional enforcement, technologies are being rolled out ahead of our ability to govern their use in the interests of society.
While politicians talk about security threats, telecommunications industry players are focused on developing the infrastructure, equipment and services for the coming convergence of high-speed communications, artificial intelligence and cloud computing that will transform industries and daily lives in the decade ahead.
Huawei is among the global leaders in these fields. If its innovations can be harnessed and securely governed in Europe, together with innovation by European firms, digital connectivity promises to be a major contributor to not only economic efficiencies but also in achieving the European Green Deal, with digitalisation reducing the environmental footprints of industries and consumers alike.
Europe has a choice.
On the one hand, it can join with the US in its tech war on China, risking splitting the world into two techno-nationalist domains weaponised against each other. In such a scenario, the US will still dominate its sphere of influence but at some stage could be overtaken by China. On the other hand, Europe could work to find rational and pragmatic solutions to the security problems posed by new technologies, taking politics out of the debate.
If Europe can help to build a cybersecurity system that is supplier-blind and operates on best practices which can be implemented by other states around the world, it could play a role in de-escalating the US-China conflict and consequently ensure a more secure future in a globalised tech domain. If consumers can both benefit from accessing Chinese and US technology and have their cybersecurity protected, Europeans can have the best of both worlds.
Tex-Mex Roasted Chicken
e6f81b15 fc8e 4a34 88f0 26b6bf334432
Ingredients
1 teaspoon ground cumin (comino)
1 teaspoon chili powder
1/2 teaspoon basil
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon white wine vinegar
1 (3 pound) broiler, skinned
2 cups coarsely chopped zucchini
1 1/4 cups unpeeled, seeded and coarsely chopped tomatoes
Instructions
Combine first 6 ingredients; stir well and set aside.
Remove neck and giblets from chicken and discard. Rinse chicken and pat dry. Rub outside of chicken with spice mixture. Place chicken, breast side down in a deep 3-quart casserole. Cover with wax paper and microwave on HIGH for 8 to 9 minutes.
Turn chicken breast side up and microwave, covered with wax paper, on HIGH for 8 to 9 minutes.
Remove chicken to a serving platter. Reserve drippings in casserole. Let chicken stand covered for 15 minutes.
Add vegetables to drippings, tossing to coat. Microwave on HIGH for 3 to 4 minutes or until crisp-tender, stirring halfway through cooking.
Arrange vegetables around chicken.
Yield: 5 servings
Moving Back to the USA
I have moved “back” to the USA multiple times. I remember my immediate reactions, though I can’t necessarily say they were the “biggest” shocks.
Return from France, as a student: Why are all these college students saying “I’m a wild and crazy guy?” It turns out that while I was studying outside the USA, a new show called Saturday Night Live became popular. Never heard of it. Also, why does everyone comment on how I hold my silverware?
Return from France again, seven years later, as a professional: Why is cheese so crappy in the USA? Why is bread so crappy in the USA? Why is coffee so crappy in the USA? (This was before those items became at least a wee bit more artisanal in the USA). Why are my friends irked when they ask where I bought that pretty sweater and I answer “Paris?” Hell, I was living there. Do you know how much it would have cost me to travel to the USA so I could buy a sweater in the USA and answer “Costco” or “Walmart?” I’m not being a snob, I’m just answering your question. I lived in Paris so I shopped in Paris. DUH! And, Americans sure are loud. I am too loud, too. But what a massive, gorgeous country to fly over. When did the American West get so vast?!!! This will be a recurring theme – get a window seat! Look down and fall in love all over again with the USA. Never tire of that. Never. Hate those people who have a window seat and just pull down the window shade and sleep during the day. See the Mid-West farms! See the Rockies! See the Sierras!
Return from Colombia, South America: Where are all the submachine guns? None in the US airport. How scary, no protection from guerrillas, sicarios and narcos. For that matter, where are my bodyguards? Also, how odd to see windows without bars on them. And hey, I MISS AJIACO!!!!! Also, when will folks – and coffee shops – in the USA learn to spell Colombia? It’s not Columbia! And, Americans sure are ugly and poorly dressed. I am ugly and poorly dressed, too.
Return from Ecuador, South America (the coast, not the mountains): Dang, it’s cold in the USA. And dark. And when will folks in the USA stop writing “Equador?” But, thank you for driving well in the USA. How nice to have lanes on the road and drivers who respect them. Americans sure are sweet. I hope I never hear the name Abdula Bucaram again or have to see his stupid Hitler mustache. But really, do American grocery stores need to offer us 10 brands of ketchup/catsup, 15 brands of cat food and an entire aisle of toilet paper choices? It’s so exhausting to go shopping here. Too many choices. Ridiculous abundance.
Return from Germany: Why is cheese so crappy in the USA? Why is bread so crappy in the USA? Why is coffee so crappy in the USA? I thought we were going to get better about this in the USA, but NO. And, folks, Starbucks sucks. It is NOT good coffee, it tastes like shit. Delude yourself and pretend you are cool drinking it, but it is junk. Also, what’s with the slow drivers? Move to the right, you turd turtle! I’m flashing my lights, let me pass. Don’t go 50 mph in the fast lane on the freeway. Also, Monica Lewinsky seems kinda cute….I’d only ever seen a print picture of her in the news, never a moving TV news shot. Yeah, she’s cuter than [my future boss] Hillary.
Return from Colombia, South America, again: Finally, most Colombian coffee bean labels are spelled correctly. Still feeling odd to walk around in the USA feeling safe without political assassinations here and there. Oh, whoops, 9/11/2001 happens on my second day back on the job in the USA. I spoke too soon. Silent skies for a week over Washington, punctuated only by the regular swoosh of US Air Force fighter jets circling the city. America feels on edge. I involuntarily start crying as I pass the Pentagon 2x day. Please send me from District of Columbia back to Colombia.
Teen Opera Singer Reacts To Dio – Last In Line
Shock returning to the USA
I wouldn’t call it a “life shock”, but there was a situation that made a lasting impression, for sure.
Back in early 2014, the day I arrived to the U.S, my team’s coach took me for grocery shopping to Walmart. It was a love at the first sight. For an active consumer like me, Walmart seemed like some sort of heaven. I still miss it, sometimes.
So, I bought some food, also some fresh fruits & veggies. Came to the dorm and put everything onto the book shelves, since there was no refrigerator.
Since candy & junk food seemed much more appealing at the time, I did put those on lower shelves. Fruits & veggies on higher shelves, some so high, it was out of my sight.
2 weeks later, an awful realization came to me. There are fruits & veggies on the higher shelves and I haven’t touched them in 2 weeks. They should be dead rotten and must smell awful. Oh NO! (I also hate wasting food)
So I reach to those shelves expecting an awful rotten smelly mess…and what do I see? FRESH fruits & veggies that HAVEN’T CHANGED A BIT! In 2 weeks.
It felt incredibly weird. Being raised on fruits and veg from farmer’s markets, these never last more than a couple days, a week max- in wildest fantasies.
So, for my peace of mind & sanity I decided not to give too much thought about what is done to those poor veggies for them to stay “FRESH” for so long.
My Neighbor Totoro | Multi-Audio Clip: Totoro and the Catbus
Gallium itself is not a semiconductor, but a series of gallium-based compounds formed with arsenic, nitrogen, selenium, tellurium, phosphorus, antimony and the other metals and non-metals are high-quality and important semiconductor materials for the development of microelectronic devices and optoelectronic devices. It can even be said that gallium leads the development direction of semiconductor materials and is the navigator of the electronic information age.
A series of compounds prepared based on gallium metal, such as semiconductor materials, optical electronic materials, special alloys, organic metal materials and new functional materials, are important foundations for high-tech fields such as communications, military industry, aerospace, new energy, and medicine. one of the materials.
The second-generation semiconductor material gallium arsenide, as an example, is widely used in radar, satellite communication, optical fiber communication and other fields.
Germanium resources in the world are relatively poor, but germanium is a strategic optical information material that can be used for solar germanium cells on satellites. Germanium is also gaining more and more attention in healthcare applications.
The application fields of germanium mainly include infrared optics, optical fiber, electronics and solar energy, polymerization catalysts, etc. At first, germanium was mainly used in the military field in infrared optics, but in the past few years, there has been a demand for thermal imaging equipment using germanium lenses in the civilian field Increase. In addition, the addition of germanium to fiber optic materials can improve communication performance, and the addition of germanium-containing silicon compounds to solar panel production can improve energy differentials in solar panel production.
Gallium and germanium are both RARE elements, a key resource to support the technological innovation and move of China towards the commanding heights of the economy.
‘All I know is that Gonzalo was detained on May 1’ says Father
In the History of the World – Only Two Nations have ever dominated an entire Supply Chain at some point of time
A. United Kingdom
B. United States of America
Both these Nations at their times – the 1850–1920 (UK) and 1934–2000 (USA) dominated the Global Supply Chains and Technology and Markets
Its why they were Economic Behemoths
Of course later – the Capitalism caught up with them and forced outsourcing which made other nations richer and reduced the Technological gap and Economic Gap with rival nations.
CHINA
China has one weakness.
Energy!!!
UK had unlimited Energy in its Coal Seams , US has unlimited Energy in Oil/Gas and Fossils and Nuclear Fuel
China despite its rapid discovery of resources is growing too fast for Energy Independence.
Otherwise China has everything else
Super Powerful Domestic Market
Global Supply Chain
Indigeous Hub Culture
Huge Population and Talent Pool
Loads and Loads of Trade Money
So China have to solve for their Energy
If they can crack Alternate Energy and end dependence on Foreign Fossils – They are guaranteed to become the Next Economic Giant.
This of course is a tough ask
Option 2 is Russo – Sino Alliance
2023 07 03 21 15
The Triple Axis World Order?
Definitely
If these Three Sides can continue their Good Relationships into a Firm and Strong Bond – They can collectively Dominate the World in the next 20 years
As of this date (June 2023) China is over 95% self-sufficient in food. The target goal of (near) 100% self-sufficiency in food seems to be on track to be reached by 2025.
This has not been an accident.
The Chinese government has recognized the vulnerability of its food supplies and have embarked on a very aggressive program of self-sufficiency. Not only in the numbers and quantities of food produced, but stability in distribution, farming techniques and sustainability, as well as development of high-yield harvests.
Were the United States foolishly attempts to engage in a “hot war” with China, the food supplies will remain stable, as systems are already in place to assure that no war-time interruptions could impact it.
…
I know that this does against the American narrative that “China would collapse” if “America did XXXXX”. But you all have to realize that any time a Western publication comes up with an idea to somehow “collapse” China, the Chinese takes this affirmation seriously and treats it as a threat. As a threat vector, systems have been put in place for EVERY SINGLE THREAT made in Western publications so that they will never materialize.
Yuppur!
The Chinese watch FOX “news” and “Alex Jones”.
…
The United States, under the leadership of John Bolton (reporting to President Trump) tried to create a famine in China in 2017–2018. It failed. But a study of the actions that China took is very illustrative.
Aggressive screening for imported pests and plagues.
Chinese (for profit) operatives running the virus-spraying drones for the NED became very patriotic and gave full information to the PLA. As well as the drones, and the virus handling protocols.
Rural and farm crews performed search-and-destroy missions to root out “novel and new” crop-specific viruses. With complete and total destruction of any infected crops.
But this is old news.
Were this to happen again, not only would China be ready, but the retaliation would be something quite horrible.
…
Today, China is unassailable.
Any attempt to harm it would be like trying to punch a swimming pool. Your hand goes into the water, and no damage is done.
It’s best that those who are so enamored with war, refocus their intentions towards peace and a “soft landing” for the ongoing collapse of the United States. A “soft landing” is not a bad thing. In fact, its a very good thing, and there will be a sharp increase in the standard of living, and the overall quality of life for most Americans.
But to get there, some fundamental changes NEED to occur inside the United States. Changes that the current “leadership” is unwilling to do.
“SPIDER BABY” Classic, Rare, Dark Comedy, Bizarre scary Cult film 1967 Colorized
We end with this.
This is one heck of a cool, weird, strange movie that is absolutely precious.
How did I ever get through 1967 and not see this. I feel like I have been missing something of great importance. It’s just so…
You’ve got to watch it. Take the time. You will not regret it.
This is the FULL MOVIE for your viewing pleasure.
This film has a 100% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes! Is that even possible?
Watch it in HD.
Very absurd but terrific curiosity from 1967.
The film is apparently a cult film.
I had never seen it before, so it was kind of a revelation.
I tinted it and colorized it for fun. It looked good in B@W but I think it's better this way for the modern age.
Stanley Kubrick eat your heart out.
The full title is "Spider Baby or the Maddest Story Ever Told." and is pretty crazy.
Sick humor., even slapstick.
It is too scary for children and might gross out some adults, but ultimately just a comedy and a parody of horror movies.
Starring Lon Cheney Jr and a bevy of fantastic actors and actresses mostly unknowns.
Cinematography, direction, writing and acting is excellent for a film with a 68 thousand dollar budget.
The movie really is a masterpiece of ridiculousness.
Tell your friends to see it.
Not really about cannibalism as an alternate title had suggested, so not that gross just quirky and deeply hilarious.
Reminds me a little of Rocky Horror Picture Show, Devo the rock band or Todd Browning's, "Freaks"
How I missed seeing this in 1968 is a mystery.
The film is Public Domain, so I took liberties with the tinting. I tried not to get carried away on the tinting. The tinting is my work, nothing else added.
History books will list THIS week as pivotal in when the “Global South” turned to fight the United States led “I make the Rules!” order.
.
Quite appropriately it was Lenin who warned,
“There are decades where nothing happens; and there are weeks where decades happen.”
It seems that we are witnessing such times, and that a huge civilisational war, with probabilities not just of enormous world transformation but of world ending, is advancing toward us, largely courtesy of the degenerate West, which, ever true to its brattish and arrogant nature, will not go quietly into the night.
That’s why this edition packs several posts that focus on this topic.
There’s of course Pres. Putin’s address, further certifying his place as a great statesman of rare abilities and moral fiber at the helm of a uniquely great and brave nation.
And China’s unusually firm and irrefutable declaration, a prosecution’s bill almost, lucidly cataloging Washington’s crimes and depravity.
The world is clearly fed up with the predatory, arch hypocritical Anglo-American model of global governance, revulsion has set in and the tectonic plates are finally in motion.
But, what caused this seemingly sudden unraveling of US prestige and power?
To answer that question we need to ask another question that goes to the core of the problem: what really lies behind the deliberately fatuous American “Rules Based Order”?
That’s were I would suggest you start your reading, with Garland Nixon’s implacable parsing of this pretentious and so typically misleading label.
Garland has the gift of turning ostensibly complicated matters into easily accessible things, without diluting their inherent texture. In this case, he goes straight for the core of the imposture and finds, well, what else, that this hi-falutin’ “Rules Based Order” is nothing but a modern version of feudalism, a feudalism on steroids, granted, as befits a hegemon that is truly a global vampire, but feudalism nontheless.
So my suggestion is start with Garland’s chat. The rest will fall into place smoothly. I guarantee it.—PG
2023 02 24 20 52
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Mediterranean Orange Chicken
Using authentic ingredients such as pine nuts, roasted red peppers and capers, this unique, yet easy-to-prepare, chicken recipe pairs a bold palate of international flavors with simply nutritious 100 percent orange juice. This soon-to-be favorite will help keep your family healthy with key nutrients such as folic acid, potassium and vitamin C!
2023 02 23 19 04
Ingredients
4 teaspoons pine nuts, toasted and chopped
1 pound skinless chicken breast, boned and trimmed
2 tablespoons all-purpose flour, for dusting chicken
Canola Oil Spray
1/4 cup minced shallots, or red onion
1/4 cup chopped roasted red peppers
2 tablespoons chopped capers
2 tablespoons chopped olives
2 tablespoons chopped raisins
3/4 cup 100% Florida orange juice*
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
1 cup low-sodium chicken stock
1/2 teaspoon salt, plus more to taste
1/4 teaspoon black pepper, plus more to taste
2 tablespoons fresh chopped parsley
* May substitute Florida Orange Juice from Concentrate
Instructions
Toast pine nuts in a 350 degree F oven for 3-4 minutes until golden. Remove, cool and chop.
With a meat mallet, pound chicken breasts to 1/2-inch thick and season with salt and pepper.
Dust both sides in flour, and pat so flour stays on.
Heat sauté pan and coat with canola oil spray. Place chicken in hot sauté pan and spray uncooked side of chicken with canola oil in the pan. Sear chicken for one minute on both sides, and remove from pan.
In the same sauté pan, add shallots and sauté briefly. Add roasted red peppers, capers, olives and raisins and sauté briefly until shallots are translucent.
Deglaze pan with orange juice. Add chicken stock and lemon juice and reduce heat slightly when ingredients come to a boil.
Add chicken back to the pan to cook until completely cooked through, and sauce is slightly thickened.
Stir in salt, pepper and parsley.
Top each serving with 1 teaspoon of chopped toasted pine nuts.
Prep: 20 min | Cook: 20 min | Yield: 4 servings
Nutrients per serving: approximately: 250 calories (40% calories from fat), 29 g protein, 21 g carbohydrates, 2 g fiber, 6 g total fat (sat 1 g, mono 2.25 g, poly 1.87 g), 770 mg sodium, Vitamin A 2% DV, Vitamin C 60% DV, Calcium 10% DV, Iron 10% DV
The address, significantly, marked the first anniversary of Russia’s official recognitionof the Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics, only a few hours before 22 February, 2022. In myriad ways, what happened a year ago also marked the birth of the real, 21stcentury multipolar world.
Then two days later, Moscow launched the Special Military Operation (SMO) in Ukraine to defend said republics.
Cool, calm, and collected, without a hint of aggression, Putin’s speech painted Russia as an ancient, independent, and quite distinct civilization – sometimes following a path in concert with other civilizations, sometimes in divergence.
Ukraine, part of Russian civilization, now happens to be occupied by western civilization, which Putin said “became hostile to us,” like in a few instances in the past. So the acute phase of what is essentially a war by proxy of the west against Russia takes place over the body of Russian civilization.
That explains Putin’s clarification that “Russia is an open country, but an independent civilization – we do not consider ourselves superior but we inherited our civilization from our ancestors and we must pass it on.”
A war dilacerating the body of Russian civilization is a serious existential business. Putin also made clear that “Ukraine is being used as a tool and testing ground by the west against Russia.” Thus the inevitable follow-up: “The more long-range weapons are sent to Ukraine, the longer we have to push the threat away from our borders.”
Translation: this war will be long – and painful. There will be no swift victory with minimal loss of blood. The next moves around the Dnieper may take years to solidify. Depending on whether US policy continues to cleave to neo-con and neoliberal objectives, the frontline may be displaced to Lviv. Then German politics may change. Normal trade with France and Germany may be recovered only by the end of the next decade.
Kremlin exasperation: START is finished
All that brings us to the games played by the Empire of Lies. Says Putin: “The promises…of western rulers turned into forgery and cruel lies. The west supplied weapons, trained nationalist battalions. Even before the start of the SMO, there were negotiations…on the supply of air defense systems… We remember Kyiv’s attempts to obtain nuclear weapons.”
Putin made it clear, once again, that the element of trust between Russia and the west, especially the US, is gone. So it’s a natural decision for Russia to “withdraw from the treaty on strategic offensive weapons, but we don’t do it officially. For now we are only halting our participation to the START treaty. No US inspections in our nuclear sites can be allowed.”
As an aside, of the three main US-Russian weapons treaties, Washington abandoned two of these: The Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty was dumped by the administration of former president George W. Bush in 2002, and the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty was nixed by former president Donald Trump in 2019.
This shows the Kremlin’s degree of exasperation. Putin is even prepared to order the Ministry of Defense and Rosatom to get ready to test Russian nuclear weapons if the US goes first along the same road.
If that’s the case, Russia will be forced to completely break parity in the nuclear sphere, and abandon the moratorium on nuclear testing and cooperation with other nations when it comes to the production of nuclear weapons. So far, the US and NATO game consisted in opening a little window allowing them to inspect Russian nuclear sites.
With his judo move, Putin returns the pressure onto the White House.
The US and NATO will not be exactly thrilled when Russia starts testing its new strategic weapons, especially the post-doomsday Poseidon – the largest nuclear-powered torpedo ever deployed, capable of triggering terrifying radioactive ocean swells.
On the economic front: Bypassing the US dollar is the essential play towards multipolarity. During his speech, Putin made a point to extol the resilience of the Russian economy: “Russian GDP in 2022 decreased only by 2.1 percent, estimates of the opposing side did not become reality, they said 15, 20 percent.” That resilience gives Russia enough room to “work with partners to make the system of international settlements independent of the US dollar and other western currencies. The dollar will lose its universal role.”
On geoeconomics: Putin went all out in praise of economic corridors, from West Asia to South Asia: “New corridors, transport routes will be built towards the East, this is the region where we will focus our development, new highways to Kazakhstan and China, new North-South corridor to Pakistan, Iran.”
And those will connect to Russia developing “the ports of the Black and Azov Seas, it’s necessary to build logistics corridors within the country.” The result will be a progressive interconnection with the International North South Transportation Corridor (INSTC) whose principals include Iran and India, and eventually China’s mega-trillion-dollar Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).
China’s plan for global security
It’s inevitable that apart from sketching several state policies geared towards Russia’s internal development – one might even compare them to socialist policies – a great deal of Putin’s address had to focus on the NATO vs. Russia war till-the-last-Ukrainian.
Putin remarked on how “our relations with the west have degraded, and this is entirely the fault of the United States;” how NATO’s goal is to inflict a “strategic defeat” on Russia; and how the warmongering frenzy had forced him, a week ago, to sign a decree “putting new ground-based strategic complexes on combat duty.”
So it’s no accident that the US ambassador was immediately summoned to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs right after Putin’s address.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told Ambassador Lynne Tracey in no uncertain terms that Washington must take concrete measures: among them, to remove all US and NATO military forces and equipment away from Ukraine. In a stunning move, he demanded a detailed explanation of the destruction of the Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines, as well as a halt to US interference in an independent inquiry to identify the responsible parties.
Keeping the momentum in Moscow, top Chinese diplomat Wang Yi met with secretary of Russian Security Council Nikolai Patrushev, before talking to Lavrov and Putin. Patrushev remarked, “the course towards developing a strategic partnership with China is an absolute priority for Russia’s foreign policy.” Wang Yi, not so cryptically, added, “Moscow and Beijing need to synchronize their watches.”
The Americans are doing everything to try and pre-empt the Chinese proposal for a de-escalation in Ukraine. China’s plan should be presented this Friday, and there’s a serious risk Beijing may fall into a trap set by the western plutocracy.
Too many Chinese “concessions” to Russia, and not as many to Ukraine, may be spun to drive a wedge between Moscow and Beijing (Divide and Rule, which is always the US Plan A. There’s no Plan B).
The problem is Beijing still attributes too much clout to a toothless UN, when they refer to“formulating a New Agenda for Peace and other proposals put forth in Our Common Agenda by the UN Secretary-General.”
Same when Beijing upholds the consensus that “a nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought.” Try to explain that to the Straussian neo-con psychos in the Beltway, who know nothing about war, much less nuclear ones.
The Chinese affirm the necessity to “comply with the joint statement on preventing nuclear war and avoiding arms races issued by leaders of the five nuclear-weapon states in January 2022.” And to “strengthen dialogue and cooperation among nuclear-weapon states to reduce the risk of nuclear war.”
Bets can be made that Patrushev explained in detail to Wang Yi how that is just wishful thinking. The “logic “of the current collective western “leadership” has been expressed, among others, by irredeemable mediocrity Jens Stoltenberg, NATO’s secretary-general: even nuclear war is preferable to a Russian victory in Ukraine.
Putin’s measured but firm address has made it clear that the stakes keep getting higher. And it all revolves on how deep Russia’s – and China’s – “strategic ambiguity” are able to petrify a paranoid west flirting with mushroom clouds.
(Republished from The Cradle by permission of author or representative)
“After a huge success that we had with Ugly Birds for Twitter we have decided to continue development of icons that our users could use for Twitter. This time we’ve decided to cover all possible styles and implement them on the same bird’s shape. This is what we’ve come up with so far, but it is work in progress and we would like to extend this list, so if you have ideas for other interesting styles that we haven’t covered yet, do send us a tweet @designcontests and we may include it into the next release.”
“Download these detailed icons of ugly birds and use them on your blog or website to promote your twitter account. These birds have names and characters and you should find one that reflects yours in some way. They are ugly but cute and your visitors will definitely love them. They are not just icons or illustrations, but real mascots for you twitter blog!”
2023 02 24 20 56
Charming Beauties and Warfare Kittens: Illustrations by Kyounghwan Kim
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Kyounghwan Kim is a South Korean freelance artist. He specializes mostly on the concepts for different Asian MMORPGs, but unlike some other artists from this area, Kim can’t be accused of clichéd and stereotypical characters.
First, his characters are colorful, detailed and quite inventive in terms of elaboration, second, Kim draws fantastically charming beauties, and third, his work includes a whole series of fantasy, extremely warfare kittens, for which he can be forgiven anything.
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2023 02 24 20 57
China Just Finished America | The Trade WAR IS ON!
Mediterranean Beef Pitas
2023 02 23 19 06
Ingredients
Pitas
1 pound beef round tip steaks, cut 1/8 to 1/4 inch thick
1 tablespoon lemon pepper
4 pita breads, cut crosswise in half
3/4 cup plain or seasoned hummus
Toppings
Sliced cucumber
Tomatoes
Instructions
Stack beef steaks; cut lengthwise in half, then crosswise into 1-inch wide strips.
Combine beef and lemon pepper in medium bowl.
Heat large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat until hot. Add 1/2 of beef; stir-fry 1 to 3 minutes or until outside surface of beef is no longer pink. (Do not overcook.) Remove from skillet.
Repeat with remaining beef. Season with salt, as desired.
Fill pita pockets with equal amounts of steak, hummus and toppings, as desired.
Nutrition per serving: 368 calories; 10 g fat (2 g saturated fat; 4 g monounsaturated fat); 54 mg cholesterol; 649 mg sodium; 42 g carbohydrate; 4.8 g fiber; 27 g protein; 6.2 mg niacin; 0.4 mg vitamin B6; 0.9 mcg vitamin B12; 4.4 mg iron; 36.9 mcg selenium; 4.5 mg zinc
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Nuclear-Capable B-52’s “Buzz” Tallinn, Estonia (Russia Border)
At least two fully nuclear capable U.S. B-52 Stratofortress’s “Buzzed” the city of Tallinn, Estonia today, about 120 miles from the border of Russia. This show of force was a message to the Russians . . . . Now Russia might have to send a message back.
The brief video below shows it as it took place:
The scalable map below shows where Tallin is, and that it is about 120 from Russia.
The U.S. keeps poking it’s finger in the eye of the Russian Bear. Sooner or later, the bear is going to take a swipe back and rip its face off.
Russia drops next-gen, 1500KG gliding bombs on Ukraine for the first time
The U.S. is now involved in more than 130 wars or none, depending on your definition of ‘war.’ Or it is involved in one worldwide “War Against Terror,” that successive U.S. Administrations, with Congressional support, have used to justify U.S. military operations in at least 134 countries, where they are engaged in direct combat operations, conduct special covert missions, act as military advisers, or train foreign troops or militias.
The problem is that our traditional definition of “war” is outdated, and so is our imagination of what war means.
World War II was the last time Congress officially declared war. Since then, the conflicts we’ve called “wars” — from Vietnam through to the second Iraq War — have actually been congressional “authorizations of military force.”
And more recently, beginning with the War Powers Act of 1973, presidential war powers have expanded so much that, according to the Congressional Research Service, it’s no longer clear whether a president requires congressional authorization at all to engage in war.
The recent US wars in Afghanistan and Iraq will likely be the last time, in the foreseeable future, that the United States wages war in the way that’s most familiar to us: a lot of combat troops on the ground in a foreign country with lots of money and support and an ostensibly achievable objective.
US troop presence in Iraq peaked at 187,900 in 2008. In Afghanistan, it peaked in 2010 at 100,000.
On paper, it looked like the United States was fighting two wars. But the reality was much more complicated, and it’s only gotten more complicated. So how many wars is the US fighting right now?
Somewhere between zero and 134+.
Here’s the rationale:
Total # of wars: 0
Congress hasn’t declared war since 1942 so there is no war right now.
Okay, that makes no sense.
Look at a funding profile over time. It’s very clear.
x
From this graph, we can CLEARLY see that American spending on weapons and military are clearly indicative of America waging active wars.
To ignore that outrageous and obvious “tell tale” is to act the fool.
Total # of wars: 6
This maybe sounds more reasonable.
Consider the definition of war put forth by Linda Bilmes (Harvard Kennedy School) and Michael Intriligator (UCLA), who defined war in a 2013 paper as “conflicts where the US is launching extensive military incursions, including drone attacks, but that are not officially ‘declared.’”
By that definition, the United States is at war in six places right now:
Iraq
Afghanistan
Pakistan
Somalia
Yemen
Ukraine
Total # of wars: 8
If you include nations that have American military, American military uniforms, weapons and systems, and is led with / by American generals. This then, adds two additional nations to the list above.
South Korea
Taiwan
Total # of wars: 134+
Whoa! Surprising, right?
In 2013, the US Special Operations Command (SOCOM) — one of the nine organizational units that make up the Unified Combatant Command — had special operations forces (SOFs) in 134 countries.
The American military were either involved in combat, special missions, or advising and training foreign forces.
Since most of what SOFs do is classified, all we know about them is what we get told about them. Here’s what we’re told by the Joint Chiefs of Staff: What are SOFs?
“Special operations forces (SOF) are small, specially organized units manned by people carefully selected and trained to operate under physically demanding and psychologically stressful conditions to accomplish missions using modified equipment and unconventional applications of tactics against strategic and operational objectives.
The unique capabilities of SOF complement those of conventional forces.”
And what do they do?
“Joint special operations (SO) are conducted by SOF from more than one Service in hostile, denied, or politically sensitive environments to achieve military, diplomatic, informational, and/or economic objectives employing military capabilities for which there is no broad conventional force requirement.
These operations may require low visibility, clandestine, or covert capabilities.
SO are applicable across the range of military operations.
They can be conducted independently or in conjunction with operations of conventional forces or other government agencies and may include operations through, with, or by indigenous or surrogate forces.
SO differ from conventional operations in degree of physical and political risk, operational techniques, use of special equipment, modes of employment, independence from friendly support, and dependence on detailed operational intelligence and indigenous assets.”
Examples: These tasks include;
special reconnaissance (SR),
direct action (DA),
unconventional warfare (UW),
foreign internal defense (FID),
counterterrorism, counterproliferation of weapons of mass destruction (WMD).
SOCOM admited to having forces on the ground in 134 countries around the world (in 2014).
That doesn’t mean its forces are carrying out capture or kill raids in every country, but it’s almost impossible to know where and when different operations are taking place.
That’s especially true when it comes to the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC), an operational command within SOCOM that operates with an enormous amount of autonomy and secrecy — and, some would say, little accountability.
Founded after the failed mission to rescue American hostages in Tehran in 1980 and designed to handle similarly complex operations in the future, JSOC was a classified and little used command on Sept. 11, 2001.
Since then, it’s more than tripled in size, received an ever-increasing share of funding, and has conducted operations in dozens of countries.
(Journalist Jeremy Scahill wrote in depth about JSOC in his 2013 book, “Dirty Wars.” That’s where the following information comes from.)
JSOC was introduced to the world on May 1, 2011, when Navy SEALs killed Osama bin Laden in a nighttime raid on his compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan.
The raid was a collaboration between the CIA and an agency almost nobody had heard of: JSOC. “We’re the dark matter,” a Navy SEAL told the Washington Post of JSOC in 2011. “We’re the force that orders the universe but can’t be seen.”
We know more about JSOC now, thanks to investigative reporters like Scahill and Mark Mazzetti. JSOC’s core is made up of three acknowledged “Special Missions Units” (SMUs).
You know these folks from TV and movies:
Army’s 1st Special Forces Operational Detachment (Delta Force),
the Naval Special Warfare Development Group (DEVRGU or “Seal Team Six”),
the Air Force’s 24th Special Tactics Squadron.
In addition to the SMUs, JSOC has its own intelligence division, the Intelligence Support Activity, and often oversees the 75th Ranger Regiment, the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment (the “Night Stalkers”), and other special operations forces. JSOC, along with the Special Activities Division at the CIA, have been the leading edge of counterterrorism.
Journalists Dana Priest and William Arkin found that JSOC has carried out counterterrorism operations in…
Iraq,
Afghanistan,
Algeria,
Iran,
Malaysia,
Mali,
Nigeria,
Pakistan,
the Philippines,
Somalia,
Syria,
Ukraine,
Taiwan,
Yemen.
An anonymous source with close ties to JSOC gave Scahill an even more expansive list that included those countries along with Indonesia, Thailand, Colombia, Peru, and several countries in Eastern and Central Asia.
“The world is a battlefield and we are at war,”
The source told Scahill of the logic that drives JSOC.
“Therefore the military can go wherever they please and do whatever it is that they want to do, in order to achieve the national security objectives of whichever administration happens to be in power.”
Add such nations of Iran, Bolivia, Kenya and more to the list and it seems really hard to keep track of all the killing, and wars that the United States is involved in.
Total # of wars: 1
“The world is a battlefield” isn’t just a vague, hawkish worldview — it’s a legal understanding of military force in the age of a single, global war: the War on Terror.
The world is a battlefield thanks in large part to the Authorization for Use of Military Force, which Congress passed on Sept. 14, 2001 and which gives the President of the United States broad power to fight terrorism around the world.
It reads in part:
“The President is authorized to use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determined planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2011, or harbored such organizations or persons, in order to prevent any future acts of international terrorism against the United States by such nations, organizations or persons.”
A video that discusses what is next
Yuppur. The USA has Taiwan in it’s sights. Please check out this “must see” video…
Conclusion
So how many wars would you say the United States is now fighting?
Gosh, it’s a strange time. The “news” is so full of bullshit that I really have a difficult time sorting through it. Apparently, there’s going to be a formal “disclosure” on UFOs. Don’t hold your breath. Very little will come out, and what will be presented will be wrapped in a need for more money, and in the importance of secrecy by people who really don’t care about anything other than making money from it. Here, instead, we will concentrate on tidbits, news and local history. I hope you all enjoy this article / post.
Here, Peter is talking about how the news media reported the Ukrainian soldiers evacuated from Azovstal steel plant. A reader would get the impression of Ukrainian victory, not a rout and capture. -MM
There is deliberate ambiguity, particularly about who is doing what.
.
You would get the impression that Ukrainian officials were supervising the operation.
.
There is this note at the beginning:
.
“The Ukrainian military avoided using the term “surrender” to describe the effort to pull out of the steel plant to save as many lives as possible.”
.
Late in the article there is a statement that some terms of surrender may have been negotiated.
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Allowing the word “surrender” to be avoided and “evacuation” to used to describe only what happened after the surrender.
.
But the article just uses the rest of the spin:
.
Beyond hope = “Efforts to rescue”
Accept Surrender = “Rescue”
Surrender = “Pull Out”
Russian Military Command = “Officials”
Combatants Refusing to Surrender = “fighters who stayed behind”
Taken Prisoner = “evacuated to Russian controlled territory”
Prisoner of War = “unclear if.. would be considered prisoners of war”
Ordered to die but eventually surrendered = “Ukraine needs Ukrainian heroes to be alive. It’s our principle,” – Z
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Classic Meatballs
From Betty Crocker.
This homemade meatball recipe is a Betty classic, and for great reason! For generations, home cooks have relied on this hearty meatball recipe to show some skills the kitchen. All it takes to achieve this meaty main dish is eight basic ingredients. Got them? Great! Now, if you have 15 minutes to spare and a foil-lined 13×9 pan, perfectly browned and tender meatballs could be the answer to tonight’s dinner jam. Yes, delicious doesn’t take long! In the meantime, prepare spaghetti or rice, veggies or salad, because this recipe goes with anything!
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Ingredients
1 lb lean (at least 80%) ground beef
1/2 cup Progresso™ Italian-style bread crumbs
1/4 cup milk
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
1/4 teaspoon pepper
1 small onion, finely chopped (1/4 cup)
1 egg
Steps
1
Heat oven to 400°F. Line 13×9-inch pan with foil; spray with cooking spray.
2
In large bowl, mix all ingredients. Shape mixture into 24 (1 1/2-inch) meatballs. Place 1 inch apart in pan.
3
Bake uncovered 18 to 22 minutes or until temperature reaches 160°F and no longer pink in center.
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Baking, instead of pan frying, these meatballs allows you to speed up prep time and work on the rest of the meal while they’re cooking. Use the baking time to create a first-course antipasto platter of meats and cheeses. Then pull together a Caesar salad, warm up garlic bread (right in the oven in which the meatballs are cooking) or steam some fresh vegetables to accompany the meal. When it’s time for dessert, scoop up dishes of Neapolitan ice cream or fruity gelato, and you’ve created your own Italian feast. This baked meatball recipe has been a go-to classic for generations of home cooks, who rely on its precisely perfect proportions of meat, bread crumbs, milk, egg and seasonings. Once you’ve mastered the basics of how to make meatballs, you can try even more time-tested recipes and modern new twists from Betty’s best meatball recipes collection.
1935 Mercedes-Benz 540K Streamline Roadster
Mercedes commissioned Erdmann & Rossi to produce a special show car for the 1935 Barcelona exhibition based upon their 500K. One of the visitors was King Ghazi of Iraq, who expressed his desire to buy the car and MB built another (540K) car powered by a Straight 8-cyl 5018cc supercharged (180hp) engine with a 4/5-speed manual transmission as a special order and the car was shipped to Iraq.
6 32
Unfortunately the reign of the young king was short-lived as he died in a car accident in 1939. The car survived the Gulf war and World War II, and was found in an underground storage facility in Baghdad, but finally ending up in Jordon. In 1986 under the instructions of King Hussein of Jordon the car was shipped to Germany for restoration.
Japan freezes assets of Russia’s Sberbank, Alfa Bank
Orders from the United States, no doubt. This Asian “nation” with zero neighbours as friends (Russia, China, North and South Korea). Ah. It’s playing with fire. Japan has no future…
If you’ve been searching for “the one,” that is a reliably delicious spaghetti sauce that will please the family, freeze well and get better overnight, we humbly suggest this recipe. No hard-to-find ingredients here, just everything you’d expect to be in a basic red sauce. Before stewing to perfection in your slow cooker, this sauce does require a crucial couple minutes of skillet time. Taking the 15 minutes to brown Italian sausage and onions to golden-brown perfection doesn’t just bring out the best in these ingredients, it also leads to a sauce that’s considerably more delicious than it would be otherwise. And after you do it, it’s just a matter of tossing all the ingredients into the pot and letting them simmer together into a rich and savory red gravy!
Ingredients
2 lb bulk Italian pork sausage or ground beef
2 large onions, chopped (2 cups)
2 cups sliced fresh mushrooms (6 oz)
3 cloves garlic, finely chopped
1 can (28 oz) Muir Glen™ organic diced tomatoes, undrained
2 cans (15 oz each) tomato sauce
1 can (6 oz) tomato paste
1 tablespoon dried basil leaves
1 teaspoon dried oregano leaves
1 tablespoon sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon pepper
1/2 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
2022 05 18 13 22
2022 05 18 13 23
Do you have a go-to spaghetti sauce recipe? If not, put this five-star favorite in your recipe box. It turns out meaty, robust and flavorful after cooking for eight hours. All you have to do is carve out 15 minutes in the morning to throw the ingredients in your slow cooker, and you’ll come home to a nearly complete spaghetti dinner.
We also love making a big batch and stashing it in the freezer, so we’re ready for those busy weeks when there’s no time for cooking or grocery shopping. And on the weekend when you have the time, you can make an extra special meal by serving this sauce with fresh pasta — try for yourself with Betty’s step-by-step instructions for making making homemade pasta.
Impressive Unique Art Dolls By Helena Oplakanska
This a World of fantastic dolls. Helena creates very special art dolls for collectors. It is unique and one-of-a-kind.
According to an artist’s sister: “Hi everyone, my name is Elena and I’m posting on behalf of my sister Helena, who is an artist. She has been creating dolls for the past 16 years or so. All of her dolls are handmade and one-of-a-kind. She does everything herself, from the hair itself to creating a hairstyle, shoes, and even dresses. Helena also makes the sculpture itself, so every face she carves out is unique.”
These snapshots taken in the mid-20th Century show us people posing for the camera, smiling in readiness for whoever’s behind the thing to press the button and capture the moment. Others are relaxed, caught off guard, their eyes blinked closed or shut in asleep.
Iran has capacity to double oil exports if market needs more barrels: Official
Iran knows who its enemies are, and will not betray a friend: “capacity issue” is simply a diplomatic language:
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2022 05 17: Iran has capacity to double oil exports if market needs more barrels: Official.
IF YOU COOK spaghetti in a big pot of water, drain it, then toss it with sauce, you are pouring a lot of flavor down the drain, says Vendemmia chef Brian Clevenger.
“The trick to good pasta is cooking it in the sauce,” he says.
It was while working at Delfina in San Francisco that he really started to understand why. “Most places don’t do it because it’s so hard. It’s the most difficult ‘simple thing’ we cook in our kitchen.”
The technique is similar to risotto. After softening the noodles in boiling water, you finish cooking them in a saute pan with the sauce, adding ladles of the pasta water until they are done. “That’s flour, egg, flavor you’re adding,” Clevenger says. Vigorous stirring creates an emulsion that allows the sauce to coat each strand. As with risotto, the tricky part is stopping before the noodles overcook.
Clevenger says the technique works with any dried pasta (he prefers Rusticella brand) and with any sauce. They cook a lot of pasta this way at Vendemmia. “With all the starch that collects at the top of the pasta pot,” he says, “the best pasta of the night is the last one served.”
1935 Mercedes-Benz 540K Streamline Roadster
Mercedes commissioned Erdmann & Rossi to produce a special show car for the 1935 Barcelona exhibition based upon their 500K. One of the visitors was King Ghazi of Iraq, who expressed his desire to buy the car and MB built another (540K) car powered by a Straight 8-cyl 5018cc supercharged (180hp) engine with a 4/5-speed manual transmission as a special order and the car was shipped to Iraq.
5 32
Unfortunately the reign of the young king was short-lived as he died in a car accident in 1939. The car survived the Gulf war and World War II, and was found in an underground storage facility in Baghdad, but finally ending up in Jordon. In 1986 under the instructions of King Hussein of Jordon the car was shipped to Germany for restoration.
MENUDO ROJO | How To Make Menudo With Hominy | Simply Mama Cooks
A very traditional Mexican soup / stew.
Scoring Biden’s ASEAN summit | The Interpreter
This is the thought process out of Washington, DC. -MM
Busy? Just read the highlights in red:
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Good for ties with Southeast Asia, but a so-so agenda suggests US influence in the region will continue to decline.
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US President Joe Biden hosted ASEAN leaders in Washington last week for a special summit to commemorate 45 years of US-ASEAN ties. Such a meeting was long in the making, having been mooted under the Trump administration but deferred due to the Covid pandemic, and then delayed in 2022 due to scheduling difficulties. Five takeaways were evident from the meeting for US engagement with the region.
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1. The Biden administration wants to focus on Southeast Asia.
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That might seem obvious, but hosting the summit was in itself a huge investment of time and resources on Southeast Asia. The meeting’s scheduling shows the Biden administration wants to maintain momentum in its Indo-Pacific strategy, even despite Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
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The summit itself met expectations. Language in the joint statement was relatively strong on issues the US sees as priorities, such as Ukraine, and included a commitment to designate US-ASEAN relations as a “comprehensive strategic partnership” in November (the same level as relations with China and Australia).
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US President Joe Biden hosted ASEAN leaders in Washington last week for a special summit to commemorate 45 years of US-ASEAN ties. Such a meeting was long in the making, having been mooted under the Trump administration but deferred due to the Covid pandemic, and then delayed in 2022 due to scheduling difficulties. Five takeaways were evident from the meeting for US engagement with the region.
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1. The Biden administration wants to focus on Southeast Asia.
That might seem obvious, but hosting the summit was in itself a huge investment of time and resources on Southeast Asia. The meeting’s scheduling shows the Biden administration wants to maintain momentum in its Indo-Pacific strategy, even despite Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
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The summit itself met expectations. Language in the joint statement was relatively strong on issues the US sees as priorities, such as Ukraine, and included a commitment to designate US-ASEAN relations as a “comprehensive strategic partnership” in November (the same level as relations with China and Australia).
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The summit also showed that the Biden administration is alive to the concerns and priorities of Southeast Asian countries. Biden’s nomination of an ambassador to ASEAN – a post left vacant for more than five years – is good. In remarks ahead of the summit at the US Institute of Peace, White House Indo-Pacific Coordinator Kurt Campbell repeatedly underscored that the US valued ASEAN’s role, and wanted to engage Southeast Asia on its own terms, not as a function of competition with China.
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2. But it lacks a coherent narrative or cut through message.
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The White House announced $150 million of new initiatives for ASEAN at the summit. This is only a small slice of the overall assistance provided by the United States to Southeast Asia – by Washington’s reckoning $12.1 billion since 2002, with $800 million in bilateral assistance requested in the 2023 budget.
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A lack of bilateral meetings with the President clearly rankled some, and was especially notable given that Biden has not yet established rapport with many of his counterparts in the region.
And like the $102 million of funding announced at the virtual US-ASEAN summit in 2021, the US is investing small amounts of money in disparate initiatives, few of which will be delivered through ASEAN’s own institutions. Topics range from clean energy to infrastructure, forests, space, and education. While worthy, these disjointed topics, without an over-arching narrative suggest that the US lacks a vision for its partnership with ASEAN. Japan expert Tobias Harris usefully contrasted this with Tokyo’s clearer focus on supporting ASEAN’s economic development.
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It’s not clear whether the weak outcomes are the result of a lack of timely attention to the summit from senior policy-makers, or a misjudgement about what is needed to deliver impact.
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3. The US Indo-Pacific Economic Framework is not landing well in Southeast Asia.
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At least three ASEAN leaders made comments that were to some extent critical of the US proposal to establish an Indo-Pacific Economic Framework (IPEF), and there was no reference to the IPEF in the joint vision statement.
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Speaking ahead of the summit, Vietnam’s Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh said that the United States had identified four pillars of its Indo-Pacific economic framework, “But the concrete elements of that initiative is not yet set in – is not yet clarified.” He said Vietnam was ready to engage with the United States, but needed more time to study the initiative
The comments from the three leaders confirm that IPEF is not landing well in Southeast Asia. The US will need to work harder to ensure regional support before it launches the framework later this month in Tokyo.
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4. US engagement with Southeast Asia still needs time and attention
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ASEAN countries grumbled about a lack of time with the president at the summit. Compared to the 2016 Sunnylands ASEAN Summit hosted by Barack Obama, which comprised two retreat sessions and a dinner, Biden was present at just two of six summit events. A lack of bilateral meetings with the President clearly rankled some, and was especially notable given that Biden has not yet established rapport with many of his counterparts in the region. Since taking office, he’s only held bilateral meetings with Indonesia and Singapore, a sharp contrast to Obama at Sunnylands, who was already well into his second term and had already notched up visits to five ASEAN countries.
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On the plus side, hosting the event in Washington enabled the leaders to have productive meetings with the Vice President, members of Congress and the secretaries of State and Defense.
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5. The summit won’t shift the dial for the US in Southeast Asia.
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In the end, the summit went well. But context matters, and overall, the US continues to lose influence to China in Southeast Asia. The so-so outcomes suggest that the US underestimates just how fast it is losing this competition. Washington needs to accept it will get no credit for its historical investments and contributions when these are seen as being in relative decline. The United States would need to bring more to the table than it did last week to reverse unfavourable regional trends.
We love Kodachromes and we love found photos. Lee Shulman shares those loves, recognising what he calls “the emotional value of these slices of life”. Since 2017, Lee’s collected around 700,000 found photographs, and compiled them into his Anonymous Project.
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These snapshots taken in the mid-20th Century show us people posing for the camera, smiling in readiness for whoever’s behind the thing to press the button and capture the moment. Others are relaxed, caught off guard, their eyes blinked closed or shut in asleep.
EU Weighs Tapping Seized Oligarch Assets for Ukraine Rebuilding
Looting others to rebuild Ukraine? Is this so much EU commitment to rebuild Ukraine?
Scale of effort requires joint new issuance, draft says
Ukraine reconstruction may cost $1.1 trillion, Kuleba tells EU
EU Weighs Tapping Seized Oligarch Assets for Ukraine Rebuilding - Bloomberg
Mercedes commissioned Erdmann & Rossi to produce a special show car for the 1935 Barcelona exhibition based upon their 500K. One of the visitors was King Ghazi of Iraq, who expressed his desire to buy the car and MB built another (540K) car powered by a Straight 8-cyl 5018cc supercharged (180hp) engine with a 4/5-speed manual transmission as a special order and the car was shipped to Iraq.
3 35
Unfortunately the reign of the young king was short-lived as he died in a car accident in 1939. The car survived the Gulf war and World War II, and was found in an underground storage facility in Baghdad, but finally ending up in Jordon. In 1986 under the instructions of King Hussein of Jordon the car was shipped to Germany for restoration.
Not less than 300 militants from Azovstal are being transported by buses.
Not less than 300 militants from Azovstal are being transported by buses.
About 300 militants left Azovstal Approximately 50 of them are wounded. They are being taken to the Central District Hospital of Novoazovsk, where they will receive the necessary medical care. The rest were taken away by buses towards Yelenovka, according to rt.com correspondent Maksim Touri.
The fighters of Azov are being taken to hospitals not just by civilian buses. These are buses for transporting prisoners of the Federal Penitentiary Service. And they will be treated not in civilian hospitals, but in closed hospitals of the Federal Penitentiary Service. Investigators have already started interrogating the prisoners
Kodachrome Stories
This is my FAVORITE!
We love Kodachromes and we love found photos. Lee Shulman shares those loves, recognising what he calls “the emotional value of these slices of life”. Since 2017, Lee’s collected around 700,000 found photographs, and compiled them into his Anonymous Project.
73w 1
These snapshots taken in the mid-20th Century show us people posing for the camera, smiling in readiness for whoever’s behind the thing to press the button and capture the moment. Others are relaxed, caught off guard, their eyes blinked closed or shut in asleep.
Will Russia have enough “Caliber” for a special operation in Ukraine
Will Russia have enough “Caliber” for a special operation in Ukraine
Is it true that Moscow is running out of high-precision cruise missiles and soon it will “have nothing to fight with”? These and other 12 “naive” questions are answered by the military observer of “KP” Colonel Viktor Baranets
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So “Caliber” goes into the sky from the side of the patrol ship “Tatarstan”. But these cruise missiles can be hit both from the ground and from an aircraft.
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The Caliber cruise missile has already become a real hit and a meme.
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To “calibrate” the enemy is almost the most fashionable expression now in the troops. And the fact that this super-precise weapon is capable of reaching any military facility anywhere in the same Ukraine made Caliber one of the main striking forces of the entire ongoing special operation.
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What is there to say! At the “Caliber” in the Russian headquarters and among military analysts, they literally pray.
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And therefore it becomes uncomfortable when, with reference to Western military intelligence, you read that “Russia’s stocks of Caliber are depleted” and they “left for a couple of weeks.” And then “there will be nothing to fight.”
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How about really? How long will we have enough “Caliber”? Who even came up with this miracle weapon? And do we have something else in stock besides him?
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1. Missiles left for a month and then there will be nothing to fight with?
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Recently, indeed, Western and Ukrainian media have been actively throwing in (with reference to their intelligence) “reliable data” that Moscow, due to active fighting in Ukraine, is running out of not only Calibers, but also other modern high-precision missiles. Therefore, they say, the Russian command is already “scraping the bottom of the barrel”, collecting everything that is left in the warehouses.
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Here’s an example for you. As early as March 21, the “knowledgeable” American television channel CNN reported that, according to the Pentagon, Russia would run out of Caliber by March 24, when 1,200 of them would be produced.
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So what?
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The operation has been going on for the third month, and the “Caliber” does not end!
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The fact is that Russia has been producing these missiles (and is producing) for a long time not only on the basis of one local military operation (as in Syria or Ukraine). The Russian General Staff, of course, keep in mind the huge combat potential of the entire NATO bloc. And, of course, in the production of missiles (including Caliber), this factor is taken into account.
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To have enough for everyone.
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The West does not know exactly how many Calibers Russia has. Although his estimates in recent days are beginning to change. Now it is claimed that Russia “has enough” Caliber “, which” will be enough for a long time “…
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2. How do the factories producing these weapons work now?
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The answer to this question is “closed”. In other words, it’s a state secret.
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Foreign intelligence agencies in Russia are actively hunting for her.
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Why?
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To understand how long the military machine of Ukraine will be able to hold out and how the NATO command should plan its actions in this country during our attacks.
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Unfortunately, some citizens do not know how to keep their mouths shut.
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It has already flashed on social networks that some of our military-industrial enterprises that produce cruise and other missiles have allegedly switched to a three-shift mode of operation, and at one of these factories they suddenly announced 500 vacancies at once … Although I also heard from our defense workers: “Work is in full swing! We bake like pies…
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3. How much does one Caliber cost? And is it cheaper or more expensive than NATO missiles?
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Caliber’s main competitor is the American Tomahawk Block IV cruise missile. According to the Pentagon, its price is from $1.5 to $1.7 million (depending on the modification).
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Approximately the same price and other US cruise missiles – “Harpoon”, “Jazm”, “Maverick”, LRASM.
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Our Caliber (3M14) costs much less in mass production. Sometimes a price of $ 500 thousand apiece is called. But this is the cost of the export version of the rocket. The Russian army “Caliber” costs one and a half times cheaper – $ 300 – 350 thousand.
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4. What are the grades of foreign specialists?
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In the American military-analytical magazine The National Interest we read the opinion of local experts: “Caliber missiles have qualities that worry Western countries. First, these missiles fly low, almost skimming over the surface of the water or land, and avoid detection by the enemy. Secondly, Calibers are universal, they can be equipped with even the smallest warships, such as corvettes. US intelligence knows the characteristics of the Caliber. They are able (from the Black and Caspian Seas) to close the radius from France to Kazakhstan.
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The range of “Caliber” – 2.5 thousand kilometers. They were first used against militants in Syria on October 7, 2015 ( see kp.ru website ). Then the missile ship “Dagestan” and small missile ships “Grad Sviyazhsk”, “Veliky Ustyug” and “Uglich” fired 26 cruise missiles from the Caspian Sea. And they all achieved their goal flawlessly.”.
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5. And if you compare it with the American Tomahawks?
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It’s easy to compare. Of the 59 Tomahawks launched by the Americans from the Mediterranean Sea, only 23 reached their targets in Syria.
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They, in fact, did not complete the task of completely disabling Syrian airfields, hitting minor targets. Ammunition depots, taxiways and combat-ready aircraft of the Syrian Air Force remained intact …
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As a result, the millions of dollars invested by the United States in this strike were literally thrown into the wind.
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It is worth remembering the operation “Desert Storm”. American generals boasted there more than once of the “high efficiency of the Tomahawks.”
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However, after the publication in the New York Times and the Washington Post of the report of the US Department of Defense on the results of the Gulf War, this bragging subsided. The report stated that out of 288 missiles fired from US ships and submarines, less than 50% hit their targets.
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And what do American specialists write about the effectiveness of our “Caliber”? In the same military-analytical magazine The National Interest we read: “Our space intelligence monitors the launches of Russian missiles. It is amazing that they are capable of overtaking even moving targets for two thousand kilometers, not to mention stationary ones. It seems that the Russians have perfected the aiming of such weapons at the target. There was not a single case when the “Caliber” hit an empty place. There were only a few episodes when the deviation from the target was more than 10 meters. But for the powerful warhead of this missile (400 kg. – Ed.) This is a mere trifle. The target was hit by the blast.”
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6. What else similar do we use in Ukraine?
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Here we have a whole brood of relatives of “Caliber” – cruise missiles “Malachite”, “Mosquito”, “Onyx”, X-55, X-101. The latter, by the way, has an incredible range – it can be guaranteed to hit targets at 4.5 thousand km.
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Of the other weapons involved in the special operation, it is worth mentioning the Kinzhal hypersonic complex first of all.
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The first combat use of the “Dagger” occurred on March 18, when it was sniper hit in the west of Ukraine by a super-protected enemy ammunition depot (in a missile silo built back in the Soviet Union and designed to withstand a nuclear strike). The “Dagger” reduced this deep reinforced concrete shelter to fine rubble.
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We also have the Iskander high-precision missile system. He is also capable of “falling into the window” hundreds of kilometers away.
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Involved in the operation in Ukraine and “Bastion” – a coastal complex with a missile “Onyx” (“Yakhont”)..
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7. Are Western intelligence agencies hunting for caliber secrets?
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Judging by the testimonies of foreign intelligence agents arrested in Russia (among whom, alas, there were recruited Russians), they were most interested in the secrets of the Caliber guidance systems. And also – the possibility of jamming signals coming from our GLONASS system and drones.
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8. Who created this miracle and what reward did he receive?
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Back in 1983, the Novator Design Bureau (Sverdlovsk) began the creation of a new anti-ship cruise missile (the Turquoise project). This rocket was first shown in 1993. And it was on its basis that the 3M54 rocket was later created, which became the basis for the Caliber complex.
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Many scientists, designers, engineers, technologists are involved in its creation. But there were “intelligent motors” among them – this is the general director, general designer of Novator Pavel Kamnev. He deservedly – Hero of Labor of Russia and twice laureate of the State Prize.
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Among the creators of “Caliber” (or rather, the rocket engine) and the former director of the plant “Saturn” (Rybinsk) Yuri Lastochkin. According to him, Vladimir Putin is also involved in the fate of Caliber.
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Here’s how he talked about it:
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“The work was intense, there was very strong resistance from colleagues from Ukraine, who frankly did not want Russia to have its own engine for cruise missiles, and had strong lobbying positions in the ordering department of the Russian Ministry of Defense at that time. (These “colleagues” were from the Zaporozhye Motor Sich plant, they had fat orders for engines from the Russian military department and did not want to lose them. – Auth.)
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It was clear to us that sooner or later Russia would need its own engine. The case helped. In 2000, Putin came to Saturn, and I reported to him that the creation of a Russian engine for a cruise missile was going slowly, because the main problem was the pro-Ukrainian position in the ordering missile department of our Ministry of Defense. To which Putin replied briefly: “Addresses? Turnouts? Let’s get wet!” I thought he was joking. But by the way the faces of the retinue changed – the profile Deputy Prime Minister Klebanov and the head of the then Roscosmos Koptev – it became clear that the result of this “conversation” would be. And so it happened. Fans of vodka and lard had to vacate their seats – and things got off the ground!
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For solving this problem, the plant received gratitude from the president, and many employees received state awards and titles.
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9. What other “surprises” do we have on the way?
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We have the same accurate and effective weapon as the Caliber, but its development, of course, is kept secret. Although something is already lit.
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These are, for example, the new Zircon hypersonic missiles. Until recently, they were considered sea-based weapons, and are now being transferred to land and aircraft systems.
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They work on targets at a distance of more than 1000 km at a speed of 9 Machs (9 times faster than sound). They overcome any anti-aircraft defense and completely neutralize the superiority of the US Navy. Several Zircons are capable of destroying a $20-30 billion US aircraft carrier strike group in a matter of minutes.
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There is also a cruise missile with a nuclear engine of unlimited action “Petrel” in the stash.
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The missile itself can find gaps in missile defense.
A Russian MiG-31 fighter with an even more formidable weapon under its “belly” than the “Caliber” – the “Dagger” hypersonic missile.
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10. Can you only launch from ships?
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“Caliber” is a universal missile – it can be launched from diesel submarines (of the Varshavyanka type), missile ships, and from aircraft (for example, from a Su-35 attack fighter). There is also a land version of the Caliber (Club-K container missile system).
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11. Is it intercepted by conventional air defense systems?
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During the military special operation, the Ukrainians have never been able to bring down the Caliber.
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Its unique property is its low flight altitude. As the experts say, “Caliber” can be seen, but cannot be shot down.
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The capabilities of this missile allow it to deceive the enemy’s air defenses.
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As for NATO, the United States has such an opportunity. Here is how the American experts themselves assess the situation: “Today, only Russian Kalibr missiles can reach the American military bases in Eastern Syria. Our Patriot systems, at least theoretically, can intercept them.” But there has not yet been a single real interception of the Caliber by the Patriot missile defense systems. If this happened, the Pentagon would happily trumpet it to the whole world..
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12. Can it carry a nuclear charge?
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Yes maybe. The special nuclear warhead created for the Caliber has a “limitedly small” yield of up to 1 kiloton (20 times weaker than the US bomb dropped on Hiroshima). When it explodes, the openly located enemy manpower will be destroyed by a shock wave at a distance of 700 meters.
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Vladimir Putin, by the way, stated that theoretically, the nuclear use of 3M14 is possible. But he noted that “I hope it will not come to this.”
1935 Mercedes-Benz 540K Streamline Roadster
Mercedes commissioned Erdmann & Rossi to produce a special show car for the 1935 Barcelona exhibition based upon their 500K. One of the visitors was King Ghazi of Iraq, who expressed his desire to buy the car and MB built another (540K) car powered by a Straight 8-cyl 5018cc supercharged (180hp) engine with a 4/5-speed manual transmission as a special order and the car was shipped to Iraq.
2 35
Unfortunately the reign of the young king was short-lived as he died in a car accident in 1939. The car survived the Gulf war and World War II, and was found in an underground storage facility in Baghdad, but finally ending up in Jordon. In 1986 under the instructions of King Hussein of Jordon the car was shipped to Germany for restoration.
We love Kodachromes and we love found photos. Lee Shulman shares those loves, recognising what he calls “the emotional value of these slices of life”. Since 2017, Lee’s collected around 700,000 found photographs, and compiled them into his Anonymous Project.
71w 1
These snapshots taken in the mid-20th Century show us people posing for the camera, smiling in readiness for whoever’s behind the thing to press the button and capture the moment. Others are relaxed, caught off guard, their eyes blinked closed or shut in asleep.
1935 Mercedes-Benz 540K Streamline Roadster
Mercedes commissioned Erdmann & Rossi to produce a special show car for the 1935 Barcelona exhibition based upon their 500K. One of the visitors was King Ghazi of Iraq, who expressed his desire to buy the car and MB built another (540K) car powered by a Straight 8-cyl 5018cc supercharged (180hp) engine with a 4/5-speed manual transmission as a special order and the car was shipped to Iraq.
1 37
Unfortunately the reign of the young king was short-lived as he died in a car accident in 1939. The car survived the Gulf war and World War II, and was found in an underground storage facility in Baghdad, but finally ending up in Jordon. In 1986 under the instructions of King Hussein of Jordon the car was shipped to Germany for restoration.
Ultimate Refried Beans – How to Make Refried Beans for Nachos & Burritos
Easy to make, and fundamental to making very cheap and very delicious Mexican food.
Biden Orders US Troops Back to Somalia, Reverses Trump Withdrawal
We love Kodachromes and we love found photos. Lee Shulman shares those loves, recognising what he calls “the emotional value of these slices of life”. Since 2017, Lee’s collected around 700,000 found photographs, and compiled them into his Anonymous Project.
70 1sdf
These snapshots taken in the mid-20th Century show us people posing for the camera, smiling in readiness for whoever’s behind the thing to press the button and capture the moment. Others are relaxed, caught off guard, their eyes blinked closed or shut in asleep.
The Russian Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation publishes footage of the surrender of militants from Azovstal
We love Kodachromes and we love found photos. Lee Shulman shares those loves, recognising what he calls “the emotional value of these slices of life”. Since 2017, Lee’s collected around 700,000 found photographs, and compiled them into his Anonymous Project.
68 1
These snapshots taken in the mid-20th Century show us people posing for the camera, smiling in readiness for whoever’s behind the thing to press the button and capture the moment. Others are relaxed, caught off guard, their eyes blinked closed or shut in asleep.
The Nazis did not apologize, they were not afraid, but they could not look us in the eye. The enemy at Azovstal began to surrender
The Nazis did not apologize, they were not afraid, but they could not look us in the eye. The enemy at Azovstal began to surrender
The KP special correspondent spoke with the Ukrainian military at the underground tunnel at Azovstal for several hours
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Early in the morning, on May 16, the positions under the walls of Azovstal began to stir. A white flag poked out of a tunnel under the railway tracks, followed by people in a strange, dark sandy uniform with blue tape on their sleeves and ammunition. Together with the “factory inmates”, the boy Kolya got out – he looked to be 15-16 years old – for the last month he lived at Azovstal practically on the surface, in one of the factory supply rooms. As you might guess, the teenager testified to good will and readiness for dialogue. This dialogue has been long awaited. Both our negotiating group and the “Azovites” themselves, as the militias called them – “PSE” Azovstal “.
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For a long four hours I sat in positions in some kind of administrative factory building unwound in the trash. It was very quiet, and for the first time I heard the toads yelling in the Kalmius River, they are now in spring love. We were waiting. They were waiting for this whole epic to end and someone to go home, at least for a few days on leave, so that later, if necessary, continue to fight further.
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By one o’clock in the afternoon, the radio spoke clearly and sternly: do not open fire, sappers will start working from 13.00, open the mined passage for those who surrender and dismantle the rubble. Everyone take their positions, triple their vigilance, and prevent provocations. The exit of the first group with the wounded at 15.00.
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It was lunch time, the fighters regretfully set aside or quickly scraped the cans with rations of meat and vegetable canned food. The fighter with the call sign “Borzoy” took the “Bumblebee” flamethrower and, fitting it behind his back, muttered: “You can expect everything from these. The positions will be cleared, our firing points will be copied and how they will go for a breakthrough … “. The place for the exit of the surrendered and the removal of the wounded was chosen wisely – a narrow passage under the tracks, along the embankment along the same narrow corridor between the buildings. Under the full supervision of “Borzoy” …
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Barbecue at Azovstal
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The passage for surrender turned out to be miraculous – a bomb hit between the tracks, throwing out several tons of earth. This hole, the Ukrainian militants threw rusty, bent iron and mined almost three layers. Now, these same people in a strange form, quickly and dexterously dismantled the blockage with shovels, and having disassembled, moved between the embankment and our building. Our fighter, who crouched near the loophole, took aim at the enemies – they were about ten meters away. The “Azov” were walking, sometimes stopping and squatting over some dark green boxes sprinkled with dust. These were improvised mines made of cartridge zinc stuffed with plastid. The calculation is that tankers will not pay attention to the usual military garbage – empty cartridge zinc. But, some mines were connected by wires – their “Azov” sappers cut them without hesitation. And all this happened in complete silence.
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Clearing the way for future evacuation.
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One of ours shouted out: “What, falconers, have you fought? And well, tell me how the stick is right? But no one supported the wit, the fervent cry withered in silence. The strangers were all with weapons, however, machine guns were thrown behind their backs, pistols in buttoned holsters. The “Azovites” reached the exit from the yard and stopped in some confusion. In front of them stretched the floodplain of the River, delightful in its greenery and width. And on the other side of Naberezhny Prospekt, the Sarmat restaurant nestled. Those who left the factory were, without exaggeration, shocked by the view. One of the strangers exhaled: “Oh, now would be a barbecue!”. And I, looking at this cafe long closed because of the war, thought the same thing …
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“Azov” clear mine exit for the wounded, they will all be taken to the hospital
Military correspondent of Komsomolskaya Pravda Dmitry Steshin reports from Mariupol, where an agreement was reached on the removal of the wounded from the Azovstal plant
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Mercy trait
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THEY did not look into the asphalt, but they did not look into our eyes either. All young, up to twenty and a little more. Very cool gear, everyone. But the weapon is the same – our eternal Kalashnikov. They weren’t dirty, they weren’t haggard and scared. Rather tense. So far, they had all the required stripes – from yellow-black flags to “Azov” chevrons. And we, with my comrade, the militia Vlad, did not know how to behave. He held his gun almost at the ready. To be honest, I was ready to hang on Vlad’s shoulders. He lost everything in this war – his house in Poltava, relatives, fellow soldiers, health. Exchanged for the trenches the best years of male maturity.
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I have not been separated from Vlad for the third month already and I know how sometimes fierce, terrible anger boils in him. But Vlad was calm. Probably, something happened to us that always happens to Russian people at the sight of a surrendering enemy. No matter what bestiality and cruelty he does, no matter what bloody battles the day before, there is such an invisible line beyond which mercy turns on. No, of course, prisoners can later be judged, but laying mounds of severed heads right on the battlefield is not in our tradition. Vlad spoke first, very calmly:
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– Why are you so clean? Does that mean there is water?
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The guy with the bushy beard, with Stechkin in his chest holster, seemed to be waiting for this question:
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– There is water. Technical. There – “Azov” pointed with a hand in a tactical glove to the going black pipes – there are tons of it! And even tea can be brewed normally. But food has been a problem for a week now. We found apples here, a box, it was such a simple holiday.
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I couldn’t resist:
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– How many of you are there?
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The guy with Stechkin answered both evasively and with soldier’s ingenuity:
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You’ll be amazed how many of us are out there.
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I took out the camera:
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– This is probably your last chance to tell your relatives that you are alive. I can record videos, I’ll throw them in the evening.
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But, they did not want to act, not one.
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The guy with Stechkin turned out to be my namesake. Almost. Named Dmitro. We talked about the bombings. According to Dmitro, the jamming was terrifying, creepy, and only:
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– To break the bunker, you need to put three FAB-500s in one place. The first collapses the building, the second makes a funnel, the third breaks through to the bomb shelter.
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– And what did you do during the bombings?
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– In “Counter-strike” they were cut along the grid …
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Vlad once again examined the audience and issued a diagnosis:
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– If we were all dressed … well, in tracksuits, and put on a bench in the park, no one would understand who is here for what and for whom …
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There was a pause, and to fill it in, I remarked:
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– It would still be interesting to understand why we are so bloody …
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18-year-old “Azov” Nazar from Lviv broke away from another mine and for the first time in many months I heard the Ukrainian language live:
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– Ztokhnuvshi people with people … (pushed people with people, in Ukrainian)
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Dmitro noticed that “everyone got along just fine” and said that he was from Mariupol. But Vlad did not agree here:
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– I am from Poltava, I left to fight in the fourteenth year, because I understood that I could not get along there. Here we all speak Russian. And they spread rot on the Russian, they adopted a bunch of laws!
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Dmitro squeezed out:
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– Well, yes.
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One of the surrendering Nazis wears the chevron of the SS division “Galicia” on his right hand. The other is a stylization of the emblem of the 3rd SS Panzer Division “Totenkopf”. Denazification as it is. Well, fascism, which is not in Ukraine.
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But he quickly gathered himself, saying that all these were our internal Ukrainian affairs, but why did Russia get into this? I did not expect such malice from Vlad:
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– And what, you wanted you to just kill all of us, and no one would stand up? Now Europe and the USA are for you, and Russia is for us. Are you okay? And we’re fine. That is, it is not normal to ruin youth in the war.
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Dmitro remarked:
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– I, too, have been fighting since I was 14. Also youth … moreover. Has ended already.
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Vlad perked up: “Where did you fight?” I left them to talk, and they talked for an hour.
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Our officer showed up.
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– Let’s move on to defuse mines.
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There were still many mines – half of Naberezhny Prospekt.
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An hour later, the first batch of “zahistniks” left the factory. Before passing under the tracks, they tore off their sweaty armor, threw off their helmets and weapons, and went into captivity. They didn’t feel defeated, more like losers. Lost one battle. And yet, they believed in our mercy and knew for sure that they would not shoot their legs and gouge out their eyes. How did the “Azov” with our prisoners.
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The first party left, and … almost immediately returned – already with a stretcher. They carried the wounded away from the factory. The Azov people told us, they say, “we would sit at the plant until the New Year.” Perhaps, but the wounded, judging by their condition, would not have survived until next Sunday. And as one of our negotiators explained to me informally, “We started the surrender process with an act of mercy.” It was hard to argue with that. In general, I did not want to argue about anything, sitting on the loose earth, under the menacingly creaking exploded rails. An officer from Azov showed up. According to him, the core of the regiment is still in position, waiting for the first day of surrender to pass. They have the Internet, and they greedily catch every message on the Net. But one thing is already clear to everyone – “the evil Kyiv owner of the living” Azov “is not needed.” This is finally understood by everyone.
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In general, by all indications, the war in Mariupol is over. At all!
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Finally, Vlad surprised me:
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– After the war, I would drink with this Dmitro.
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– Did you forgive them?
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– Not. But I liked it, we would have something to talk about.
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– What did you like?
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– He is the only one who has not pretended to be a cook and did not bustle. This is a worthy enemy.
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But we defeated them.
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– Yes. But it was very hard.
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“Azov” clear mine exit for the wounded, they will all be taken to the hospital
Military correspondent of Komsomolskaya Pravda Dmitry Steshin reports from Mariupol, where an agreement was reached on the removal of the wounded from the Azovstal plant
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It is worth noting that earlier information appeared that the wounded of the Armed Forces of Ukraine were being taken out of the basements of Azovstal for treatment in the DPR. Our observer Nikolai Varsegov comments on this news:
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“To tell the truth, I initially had … a misunderstanding of this decision on our part. By accepting enemy wounded, including the Nazis of Azov, we, of course, make life much easier for those who hid under the plant. Now they do not have to share the meager remains of water and food with those who came out of No need to waste physical and moral strength to help them, and therefore the surrender of these basement warriors will drag on for some time, tying down our military over Azovstal.
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I have no doubt that many Russians, who worry about our soldiers and wish for a speedy victory, think the same way.
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But there is another, probably more valuable side of the coin – humanism. Most, I believe, the rescued Ukrainian wounded, as well as their loved ones, will change their minds to everything that is happening. They will turn on the mind, as happens with hundreds of other military Ukrainians who are in our captivity. Every now and then we see on TV screens absolutely adequate people who have surrendered to the Russian army, who sincerely declare that they do not want to fight for the crooks and bandits who have seized power in Ukraine. “The summons came, I was taken to the front. Where was it to go? Otherwise, prison … “.
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One must think that among the wounded at Azrovstal there are a majority of such people. And humanly, and not for the picture, they feel sorry.
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Ukrainian propaganda is trying its best to show the Russian army as barbaric. He calls it a horde that encroached on their exaggerated democracy. But the whole world saw how Ukrainian “democrats” in military uniform mock our prisoners of war with sadistic joy. Nothing like this happens on our side. On the contrary, we feed them normally, treat them, do not humiliate their human dignity. My personal opinion is that mocking prisoners of war is a sign of subhumanity. I am satisfied that in my civilized country, even in a mild form, there is no such disgrace with prisoners as is happening in Ukraine.
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And this humane act of receiving Ukrainian wounded for treatment is important for us too, in order to feel like decent people. And I don’t give a damn what Ukrainian and Western propagandists are talking about us. We Russians are much higher morally than they are, as events show.”
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The Kurtis Sport Car
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It’s Kurtis Sport Car serial number KB003, the actual car that appeared on the cover of the very first edition of the Motor Trend magazine way back in 1949, in a photo taken by Motor Trend founder Robert E. Petersen. More than 62 years ago, this car helped launch the storied automotive media brand.
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The Kurtis Sport Car was a product of the astonishing explosion of automotive creativity that occurred in California after World War II. After enduring a grinding depression and a grueling war, Americans were ready to celebrate as the booming economy provided jobs and prosperity. They’d had enough of cars for hard times — the somber and sensible Depression-era sedans and coupes they’d nursed through the war years on old tires and rationed gas. California was where the party started. And Frank Kurtis, the son of a Croatian blacksmith, was at its epicenter.
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The Kurtis’s combination of easy, American V-8 muscle and European-style chassis tuning must have seemed sensational back in 1949. Frank Kurtis had demonstrated a compelling formula for an all-American sports car: The Kurtis Sport Car was well-engineered, well-detailed, and well-built.
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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.
Preparations and actions are being discussed. Systems are moving into place. Serious people, talking in hushed, serious mannerisms with disgust and determination on their faces are talking about BIG events; horrific events, and dangerous actions. Here, we look at the surface of some of the trivial matters that suggest a deeper level of activity.
I hope you like it.
We start with a reminder…
Describing the $762 billion National Defense Authorization Act of 2022 which received nearly total bipartisan support, analyst Michael Klare observed:
“The gigantic 2022 defense bill — passed with overwhelming support from both parties — provides a detailed blueprint for surrounding China with a potentially suffocating network of U.S. bases, military forces, and increasingly militarized partner states. The goal is to enable Washington to barricade that country’s military inside its own territory and potentially cripple its economy in any future crisis. For China’s leaders, who surely can’t tolerate being encircled in such a fashion, it’s an open invitation to… well, there’s no point in not being blunt… fight their way out of confinement.”
me12052201
Scientists predict three COVID-19 scenarios over next five years
WHO says real COVID-19 death toll is almost 15 million people
Play Video
A “lost generation” of young people with impaired social skills will live in countries where trust in governments and science has plummeted, misinformation is rife and seasonal surges of new COVID-19 variants overwhelm hospitals, according to the worst of three scenarios predicted by a panel of international scientists.
The 110-page study, released today, maps out three potential realities for how humans might live alongside COVID-19 over the next five years, largely determined by how coronavirus evolves and global uptake of effective vaccines.
All three scenarios through to 2027 were “entirely possible”, the paper said, with the most likely future we face characterised by worsening global inequalities and COVID-19 becoming an endemic disease worldwide.
(Please exclude countries (read: China) with a fixed and firm zero Covid tolerance policy and zero use of the Pfizer “vaccine”. )
Streamliners: Locomotives And Bullet Trains In The Age Of Speed And Style
A streamliner is a vehicle incorporating streamlining in a shape providing reduced air resistance. The term is applied to high-speed railway trainsets of the 1930s to 1950s, and to their successor “bullet trains”. Less commonly, the term is applied to fully faired recumbent bicycles.
As part of the Streamline Moderne trend, the term was applied to passenger cars, trucks, and other types of light-, medium-, or heavy-duty vehicles, but now vehicle streamlining is so prevalent that it is not an outstanding characteristic. In land speed racing, it is a term applied to the long, slender, custom built, high-speed vehicles with enclosed wheels.
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Tortang Giniling – Filipino Food
Tortang Giniling is simply ground meat omelet. They can either be in round patty form or folded in half-moon shape.
From Iraq, Sudan, Afghanistan to Libya, Somalia and Syria, the US started 10 wars between 1989 and 2017 and caused 6 million casualties. From the end of World War II in 1945 to 2001, among the 248 armed conflicts that occurred in 153 regions of the world, 201 were initiated by the US.
A report from Brown University revealed that the wars launched by the US in the two decades following the 9/11 terrorist attack killed more than 900,000 people. In June 2018, the US pulled out of the Human Rights Council, calling it a “cesspool of political bias” and “hypocritical body” that “makes a mockery of human rights”.
As it rejoined the council this year, the US not only failed to reflect upon its own human rights record and take concrete steps to improve it, but instead expelled Russia from the body out of political bias and purpose.
Obsessed with its self-conceived “exceptionalism”, the US keeps criticizing others for violating international law while applying international rules selectively or placing its own “house rules” above international law.
The US asks others to follow the “rules-based order”, but tramples on international rules and withdraws from international organizations at will itself, as evidenced by its unilateral military intervention or wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria, as well as its pulling out of UNESCO, JCPOA, and the Paris Agreement.
It also puts domestic law above international law, and has exercised long-arm jurisdiction and imposed economic sanctions against Russia, Iran and the DPRK, which seriously damaged the fair and just international trade environment.
The US is undoing its own credibility and reputation and undermining international order by bringing the world back to the era of a lawless jungle.
Just as Noam Chomsky pointed out, “We’re a rogue state, the leading rogue state by a huge dimension—nobody’s even close. And yet we can call for war crimes trials of others, without batting an eyelash.”
As the conflict in Ukraine continues, negotiation rather than confrontation is the only way out. US unilateral sanctions against Russia are illegal and not authorized by the United Nations.
Excluding Russia, a permanent member of UN Security Council and a nuclear power, from international organizations is by no means a constructive move.
The spokesman for the UN Secretary-General Stephane Dujarric once warned that such a move will set “a dangerous precedent.” After all, there are already enough lessons from the wishful attempts to provoke confrontation and division and preserve hegemony.
Queen of Hearts (Lyrics and Chords) Gregg Allman
A classic to share with all my other old timer friends…
Kodachrome Stories
We love Kodachromes and we love found photos. Lee Shulman shares those loves, recognising what he calls “the emotional value of these slices of life”. Since 2017, Lee’s collected around 700,000 found photographs, and compiled them into his Anonymous Project.
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These snapshots taken in the mid-20th Century show us people posing for the camera, smiling in readiness for whoever’s behind the thing to press the button and capture the moment. Others are relaxed, caught off guard, their eyes blinked closed or shut in asleep.
“Japan Reveals Record Dump of US Treasuries” on YouTube
When an evil empire showing symptoms of dying, everyone including its socalled allies will begin to throw stones while it drowning. The Evil US empire will be like the evil roman empire, once disintegrated, no one will miss it.Cheers, Chua
4 Mar 2021 — TOKYO, March 5 (Reuters) - Japanese investors sold a record amount of foreign bonds late last month, with banks seen dumping U.S. bonds, ...
Japan Reveals Record Dump of US Treasuries – YouTube
Streamliners:
Streamliners were a relatively late era development. The period in which trains ruled interstate transportation, the so-called “Golden Age,” occurred between the 1880’s and World War I. Into the 1920’s there was strong recovery, following federal takeover during the war, which persisted until the Great Depression and subsequent economic downturn of the 1930’s. Alas, that event proved a turning point.
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It is a war
Following on the heels of Lavrov's statement made yesterday (newly published English transcript) at the 30th Assembly of the Council on Foreign and Defence Policy where he stated "The choice we have taken is made easier by the fact that the 'collective West' has declared a total hybrid war against us," today the MFA issued the following PR:
"On May 16, a meeting of the Board of the Russian Foreign Ministry was held, which considered the tasks of Russian foreign policy in the radically changed geopolitical realities that have developed as a result of the hybrid war against our country unleashed by the West – under the pretext of the situation in Ukraine – unprecedented in scale and ferocity, including the revival in Europe of a racist worldview in the form of cave Russophobia, an open course for the "abolition" of Russia and everything Russian. It is stated that Washington, having completely subjugated the "collective West", has passed the point of no return in its obsession at any cost to assert its total dominance in the world and suppress the objective process of forming a multipolar world order. Thus, the United States and its satellites directly violate the principles of the UN Charter, including respect for the sovereign equality of states, demand recognition of the right to interfere in internal affairs and use force anywhere in the world at their discretion.
"The aggressive revisionist course of the West requires a radical revision of Russia's relations with unfriendly states and the comprehensive strengthening of other areas of foreign policy.
"In this context, the issue of preparing a new edition of the Foreign Policy Concept of the Russian Federation in accordance with the instructions of the President of Russia was discussed.
"Following the meeting, a resolution was adopted." [My Emphasis]
Missing is verbiage invoking Article 51 as grounds for Russia to defend itself against this declared hybrid third world war, that's not just declared against Russia but the entire Multipolar world.
Again, Russia has announced that the Outlaw US Empire has de facto and de jure declared war against Russia although the Empire's Congress hasn't formally done so. Russia will in turn revise its overall Foreign Policy Concept given this new reality. I repeat, Russia has announced that a state of war exists between it and the Outlaw US Empire, which would include its NATO vassals. Finland and Sweden might want to consider what that state of affairs means for their interests.
- karlof1
Kodachrome Stories
We love Kodachromes and we love found photos. Lee Shulman shares those loves, recognising what he calls “the emotional value of these slices of life”. Since 2017, Lee’s collected around 700,000 found photographs, and compiled them into his Anonymous Project.
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These snapshots taken in the mid-20th Century show us people posing for the camera, smiling in readiness for whoever’s behind the thing to press the button and capture the moment. Others are relaxed, caught off guard, their eyes blinked closed or shut in asleep.
Russia’s military defense pact with China
Military defense pact with China ought to pretty much put a block on any notion by the West (well, the idiots on the east side of the pond) that it can engage Russia militarily (with or w/o US weapons and or personnel).
As Andrei Martyanov says:
"...if you don't have the ability to win a conventional war you most likely don't have the ability to win a nuclear one (no matter how much you believe is possible). Even radioactive ground will require boots in order to control.."
Russia is on track for a record trade surplus
Imports have collapsed, but exports are holding up.
Within days of Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, Russia’s financial system seemed on the verge of collapse. The West imposed a range of financial sanctions, notably on the Russian central bank’s foreign-exchange reserves, that sent the rouble plunging and led citizens to withdraw cash frantically. Then the central bank raised interest rates, imposed capital controls and injected liquidity into the banking system, and some of these misfortunes reversed. Although a chunk of Russia’s currency reserves remains frozen, the country still generates about $1bn a day from its energy exports.
Russia has stopped publishing detailed monthly trade statistics. But figures from its trading partners can be used to work out what is going on. They suggest that, as imports slide and exports hold up, Russia is running a record trade surplus…. Pay wall:
As John F. Stover notes in “The Routledge Historical Atlas Of The American Railroads” (New York: Routledge, 1999), every year after 1929 the industry posted annual deficits on passenger services and the depression only worsened the situation. In Gregory Schneider’s book, “Rock Island Requiem,” the author points out that by 1936, 70,000 miles were in receivership or roughly 25% of the country’s entire network. As much as railroads tried, nothing slowed Americans from purchasing their very own automobile, an invention made affordable through Henry Ford’s mass-produced Model-T of 1908. To stem the losses, Union Pacific and the Chicago Burlington & Quincy came up with a new concept; the sleek, fast, and colorful train.
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Russian Computer Hacker Group “Killnet” Announces “Global Internet attack”
A group of serious computer hackers, allegedly based in Russia, have publicly announced they will commence a “Global internet attack” against the US, UK, Germany, Italy, Latvia, Romania, Lithuania, Estonia, Poland and Ukraine. It is not yet known WHEN such attack will commence.
The group, known by the name “Killnet” issued a video announcement Monday. The announcement, in the Russian language, is presently being translated to English and when I get the translation, I will update this story.
Readers are advised that THIS web site (HalTurnerRadioShow.com) is based on servers in south America (Brazil) and as such, should not be adversely affected . . . but who knows.
The streaming audio servers for this web site, which carry the live radio show, ARE based in the United States, so depending upon what these Hackers actually do, there COULD be some issues with the streaming audio. It remains to be seen.
It is worth pointing out, that the United States has a long-established policy that a cyber-attack, if it damages property or results in the death of anyone, ___MAY___ be considered “an act of war.”
It is already being widely speculated that THIS may be the “false flag” perpetrated by the CIA or the Deep State” to provide an excuse for the US and NATO to go to actual war with Russia.
2022 05 17 13 53d
Prediction – France Will Veto Sweden / Finland NATO Entry
Preliminary Rationale
Thesis 1 – That Austin, Blinken, and Ritter are all suddenly expressing concern for RF difficulties suggests that there is a reason for all 3 taking the same line. Several posters at MoA have commented on this fact including me. Bemildred May 16 2022 13:08 utc | 392 thinks Mr. Ritter has been talked to. I agree.
Thesis 2 – The stated reason is American concern over the existential nature of the UA conflict for the RF. That recent RF reverses, coupled with the existential nature of the conflict, may cause RF employ nuclear weapons. Austin, Blinken, and Ritter seek to avert this escalation path. One MoA poster raised this as an explanation.
I believe this thesis is false. First the RF has from well prior to the SMO made it abundantly clear the issues were existential for Russia. This is well documented in the copious documents provided by karlof1 (Thanks karl). The RF sought a diplomatic solution ignored by NATO, all the EU states, UK, Canada, and US. Second I can perceive no recent RF reverses requiring nuclear escalation but I am certain if such action were necessary the RF would not hesitate to act in defence of its interests. This has also been made abundantly clear since well before the SMO.
Since this thesis is believed to be false there must be something else provoking near identical initiatives by Austin, Blinken, and Ritter. My interpretation of their conduct is that it is along the lines of “We are concerned for your difficulties. We would like to assist you.”
This thesis is also believed to be false. First, America is already known to be agreement incapable. Only an insane Scheissekopf would think otherwise. Second America never acts to benefit any party other than America. Only an insane Arschloch would think otherwise.
The question now becomes “what American concern would cause America to seeking assist RF?
I believe the answer to this question is that France has made known it will veto the accession of Sweden and Finland to NATO. This would create a significant rift in NATO and undermine US control of European states. This is an outcome to be avoided at all costs and therefore becomes reason to assist RF with its purported difficulties.
Subsequent Rationale
1) France has a history of producing small men whose impact on history is disproportionate to their size. Macron is small man.
2) US & UK are angling to have NATO displace the UN Security Counsel as the enforcement arm of the “democratic rule based order.” NATO is far more malleable and already functions as an agent of US control (see the recent post by lawyer c1ue who noted the use of the conditional “may” as opposed to the imperative “must” in the NATO accession document.) If the French perceive this displacement as likely they will act to avert such an outcome as a reduction in the authority of the UN Security Council would diminish both French prestige and international influence.
3) IF you are resistant to the above rationale you should review the recent US UK AUS submarine deal. This “deal” gave clear sense of the degree of contempt accorded to France and French interests. France viewed this conduct as a “stab in the back.” This snub of France will come at a high price. A French veto would assert French authority in the international system and act to preserve the present role of the UNSC.
4) In January 2013 Mali turned to France, its former colonial ruler for help in facing an armed rebellion emerged out of the war in Libya and the fall of Muammar Gaddafi. This conflict will be remembered for the “We came. We saw. He died.” cackle of the US Secretary of State. France’s nine-year military intervention has proven costly on all fronts: 8 billion euros and the lives of 53 French soldiers. French interests in the Sahel are ignored in favour of US interests in Europe and Asia. This indifference will only increase if the US UK are able to undermine the UNSC and promote NATO as a global enforcement operation.
5) NATO serves as an anti-competitive trade restriction. NATO creates and imposes armament standards to enforce “interoperability.” But this also implies that those inside the club are preferred partners and those outside the club face trade barriers. SAAB is a Swedish producer of an extremely capable and inexpensive fighter aircraft which has the potential to compete with French products. Freezing out Sweden is to the economic benefit of France.
6) Europe’s second largest consumer of energy after Germany is France. France relies on imports to meet almost all of its oil and gas consumption. It will be impossible to immediately substitute for the refused RF supply. World demand for energy will quickly escalate and the price will follow. This will impose significant costs on French consumers largely reliant on NG for domestic heating. France is already facing significant social unrest due to the significant influx of immigrants especially since these can no longer the redirected to Dover. American adventurism in Ukraine will create energy and armaments profits for the US but will likely generate high cost social unrest in France.
7) In November 2019 The Economist French quoted Macron stating: “What we are currently experiencing is the brain death of NATO”. Macron added Europe was on “the edge of a precipice”, and must start thinking strategically as a geopolitical power else “we will no longer be in control of our destiny.”
8) In 1966 De Gaulle took France out of NATO. In 1940 the British abandoned France to the Nazis. In 1841 Churchill invaded the French colony of Syria and then recreated it as an independent state over De Gaulle’s objections. Roosevelt distrusted De Gaulle removed him from the TORCH landings and subsequent operations within colonies. He was excluded from Allied summits and from the planning for post war France. De Gaulle never forgave the Americans for this series of humiliations which included American intervention in the Suez crisis and a failure to assist France in Indochina. De Gaulle was a big man. His boots would be impossible to fill. Napoleon’s are another matter entirely. What leader wants to be recorded in history as an American puppet when he can restore France to its former grandeur in world affairs, a return to an historic ranking most pleasing to the French public.
-Sushi
Kodachrome Stories
We love Kodachromes and we love found photos. Lee Shulman shares those loves, recognising what he calls “the emotional value of these slices of life”. Since 2017, Lee’s collected around 700,000 found photographs, and compiled them into his Anonymous Project.
78a 1
These snapshots taken in the mid-20th Century show us people posing for the camera, smiling in readiness for whoever’s behind the thing to press the button and capture the moment. Others are relaxed, caught off guard, their eyes blinked closed or shut in asleep.
How to make an Authentic bowl of VIETNAMESE PHO
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s remarks at the 30th Assembly of the Council on Foreign and Defence Policy
I am glad to be here again, at this anniversary assembly. Last time, we met in this room on October 2, 2021. But I have an impression that this was in a totally different historical epoch.
I would like to congratulate you on the 30th anniversary of the Council on Foreign and Defence Policy. Its activities are a fine example of Russian expert involvement in the foreign policy process. From the very start, the Council has brought together professionals, including politicians, state officials, journalists, academics, and entrepreneurs. Throughout these years, this has ensured an effective and rewarding combination of practical experience and impeccable knowledge of the subject matter. Therein lies the key to comprehending the most complex international processes, particularly at stages like the present one. Advice, analytical materials, and debates (occasionally heated debates involving a clash of opinions) are of much help to us. We invariably take them into consideration in our foreign policy activities.
It is a cliche to say that this meeting is taking place at a historical turning point. I agree with the experts (Mr Karaganov and Mr Lukyanov have written a lot about this), who say that we again have to choose a historical path, like we did in 1917 and 1991.
The external circumstances have not just changed radically; they are changing ever more profoundly and extensively (though not becoming more elevated, unfortunately) with each passing day. And our country is changing along with them. It is drawing its conclusions. The choice we have taken is made easier by the fact that the “collective West” has declared a total hybrid war against us. It is hard to forecast how long this will last. But it is clear that its consequences will be felt by everyone without exception.
We did everything in our power to avoid a direct conflict. But they issued a challenge and we have accepted it. We are used to sanctions. We have been living under one or another form of sanctions for a long time now. The surprising thing is a surge of rabid Russophobia in almost all “civilised” countries. They have thrown to the wind their political correctness, propriety, rules, and legal norms. They are using the cancel culture against all things Russian. All hostile actions against our country are allowed, including robbery. Russian cultural figures, artists, athletes, academics, businesspeople and just ordinary citizens are exposed to harassment.
This campaign has not bypassed Russian diplomats. They often have to work under extreme conditions, occasionally with a risk to their health or life. We do not remember anything like the current massive and synchronised expulsion of diplomats happening even in the grimmest Cold War years. This is destroying the general atmosphere of relations with the West. On the other hand, this is freeing up energy and human resources for work in the areas with which our country’s future development should be associated.
In accordance with the demands of the times, we are carrying out our professional duties conscientiously and to the fullest extent. There are no traitors among our diplomats, although such attempts have been made from abroad and within the country. We do our best to defend the rights and interests of Russian citizens abroad. When the West hysterically reacted to the beginning of our special military operation and all flights were cancelled, we immediately helped Russians who were abroad at the time to return home. The routine consular services to Russians (of which there have always been many) are provided as always. It is clear that the situation demands that the diplomatic service works in a special regime. This is required by the new tasks set by the country’s leadership to protect national interests.
This is not only and not so much about Ukraine, which is being used as an instrument to contain the peaceful development of the Russian Federation in the context of their course to perpetuate a unipolar world order.
The Americans started preparing the current crisis long ago, right after the end of the Cold War, having decided that the way to global hegemony was then open. NATO’s eastward expansion has been one of the key components of such a course. We tried hard to convince them not to do this. We showed where and why our red lines are drawn. We were flexible, ready to make concessions and look for compromises. All this proved futile. President Vladimir Putin reminded us of this once again in his speech on May 9 on Red Square.
Today Western countries are ready to oppose Russia, as they now say, “to the last Ukrainian”. At first glance, this is a very convenient position, especially for the United States, which is managing these processes from across the ocean. At the same time, they are weakening Europe by clearing its markets for its goods, technologies and military-technical products.
In fact, the situation has many layers. Russia, the United States, China and all others realise that it is being decided today whether the world order will become fair, democratic and polycentric, or whether this small group of countries will be able to impose on the international community a neo-colonial division of the world into those who consider themselves “exceptional” and the rest – those who are destined to do the bidding of the chosen few.
This is the aim of the “rules-based order” concept that they have sought to introduce into general circulation for years. No one has seen, or discussed, or approved these “rules”, but they are being imposed on the international community. As an example, let me quote a recent statement by US Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen, who called for a new Bretton Woods framework and said that the United States would practice “the friend-shoring of supply chains to a large number of trusted countries” that shared “a set of [liberal] norms and values about how to operate in the global economy.” The hint is absolutely clear: the US dollars and the “benefits” of the international financial system are only for those who follow these American “rules.” Dissenters will be punished. Clearly, Russia is not the sole target, all the more so as we will fight back. The attack is aimed at all those capable of conducting an independent policy. Take, for example, Washington’s pet Indo-Pacific strategy, which is directed against China. In parallel, it seeks to firmly and reliably harness India to the US and NATO. In the spirit of the Monroe doctrine, the United States wants to dictate standards to Latin America. The inevitable question is whether the Americans are really able to follow the key principle of the UN Charter, which states: “The Organisation is based on the principle of the sovereign equality of all its Members.”
The “rules-based order” envisions neither democracy, nor pluralism even within the “collective West.” The case in point is the revival of tough bloc discipline and an unconditional submission of the “allies” to Washington’s diktat. The Americans will not stand on ceremony with their “junior partners.” The EU will finally lose all attributes of independence and obediently join the Anglo-Saxon plans to assert the unipolar world order, while sacrificing the Europeans’ quality of life and key interests in order to please the United States. Just recall how Victoria Nuland defined the EU’s place in Washington’s plans to reformat Ukraine in her conversation with the US Ambassador in Kiev in December 2013, at the height of the Maidan riots. Her prediction came true in its entirety. In security matters, the EU is also blending in with NATO, which, in turn, is making increasingly louder claims about its global ambitions. What defensive alliance? We are being told and assured to this day that NATO’s expansion is a defensive process and threatens no one. The Cold War defence line ran along the Berlin Wall – concrete and imagined – between the two military blocs. Since then, it has been moved east five times.
Today, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg, UK Foreign Secretary Liz Truss, and others are telling us that NATO has a global responsibility to solve security problems, primarily in the Indo-Pacific region.
As I understand it, the next defence line will be moved to the South China Sea.
It is being insinuated that NATO as the vanguard of the community of democracies should replace the UN in matters of international politics, or at least bring global affairs under its sway. The G7 should step in to run the global economy and from time to time invite benevolently the extras the West needs at this or that moment.
Western politicians should accept the fact that their efforts to isolate our country are doomed. Many experts have already recognised this, even if quietly and off the record, because saying this openly is “politically incorrect.” But this is happening right now. The non-Western world is coming to see that the world is becoming increasingly more diverse. There is no escaping this fact. More and more countries want to have a real freedom to choose their development ways and integration projects to join. An increasing number of countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America are refusing to abandon their national interests and to pull chestnuts out of the fire for the former parent countries. An overwhelming majority of our partners, who have felt the effects of Western colonialism and racism, have not joined the anti-Russia sanctions. The West, which President Putin described as the “empire of lies,” has not been considered an ideal of democracy, freedom and well-being for a long time. By plundering other countries’ material assets, the Western countries have destroyed their reputation of predictable partners who honour their commitments. Nobody is safe from expropriation and “state piracy” now. Therefore, not just Russia but also many other countries are reducing their reliance on the US dollar and on Western technologies and markets.
I am sure that a gradual de-monopolisation of the global economy is not a distant future.
We have taken note of Fyodor Lukyanov’s article published in the newspaper Kommersant (on April 29, 2022), in which he writes, with good reason, that the West will not listen to us or hear what we have to say. This was a fact of life long ago, before the special military operation, and a “a radical reorientation of assets from the west to other flanks is a natural necessity.” I would like to remind you that Sergey Karaganov has been systematically promoting this philosophy by for many years. It is perfectly clear to everyone that the process has begun and not on our whim – we have always been open to an equal dialogue – but because of an unacceptable and arrogant behaviour of our Western neighbours, who have followed Washington’s prompting to “cancel Russia” in international affairs.
Forging closer ties with the like-minded forces outside of what used to be referred to as the Golden Billion is an absolutely inevitable and mutually driven process. The Russia-China relations are at their all-time high. We are also strengthening our privileged strategic partnerships with India, Algeria, and Egypt. We have taken our relations with the Persian Gulf countries to a whole new level. The same applies to our relations with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, as well as other countries in Asia-Pacific, in the Middle East, Asia, Africa, and Latin America.
We are fully aware of the fact it is at this juncture, which perfectly lends itself to be called a turning point, that the place for Russia and all other countries and forces in the future international architecture will be determined.
We believe the aim of Russia’s diplomacy is, on the one hand, to act with great resolve to fend off all adversarial attacks against us, while, on the other hand, to consistently, calmly and patiently reinforce our positions in order to facilitate Russia’s sustained development from within and improve the quality of life for its people.
There is much to be done, as usual. We always have a packed agenda, but in the current environment we are witnessing a serious shift in the mindsets of many of our comrades in all spheres of Russia’s life.
This makes meetings held by the Council on Foreign and Defence Policy especially useful because they help nurture ideas which make their way into Russia’s foreign policy.
Streamliners:
Pure, magnificent works of massive functional art…
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Kodachrome Stories
We love Kodachromes and we love found photos. Lee Shulman shares those loves, recognising what he calls “the emotional value of these slices of life”. Since 2017, Lee’s collected around 700,000 found photographs, and compiled them into his Anonymous Project.
80 a1
These snapshots taken in the mid-20th Century show us people posing for the camera, smiling in readiness for whoever’s behind the thing to press the button and capture the moment. Others are relaxed, caught off guard, their eyes blinked closed or shut in asleep.
Cynthia Chung on Geopolitics & Empire: The Esoteric & Eugenicist Roots of the Great Reset
I was invited to speak on Geopolitics and Empire about my four part series that dealt with the theme “Who Will Be Brave in Huxley’s New World?”, where I discussed the esoteric roots of the new age and the Great Reset.
The third part of Cynthia Chung’s series discusses how Aldous Huxley’s form of ideological spirituality went on to shape the drug-counter-culture movement.
The relevance of the Esalen Institute’s “revisioning of madness” needs to be acknowledged as having been entirely spear-headed by the Tavistock Institute, and clearly, not for our benefit.
Cynthia Chung is the President of the Rising Tide Foundation and a writer at Strategic Culture Foundation, consider supporting her work by making a donation and subscribing to her substack page.
Streamliners:
Pure, magnificent works of massive functional art…
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And…
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Your (Western) Standard Of Living Is Being Systematically Destroyed
Most Americans didn’t understand that the exceedingly foolish decisions of our leaders would eventually have a major impact on how they live their lives every single day. But there are some of us that did. Many of us literally begged our politicians to stop borrowing and spending trillions upon trillions of dollars that we did not have. But they refused to listen. And many of us literally begged the officials at the Federal Reserve to stop pumping trillions upon trillions of fresh dollars into the financial system. Of course they wouldn’t listen to us either. Now our standard of living is steadily being eviscerated, and most of the population seems quite surprised that this is happening.
Flooding our economy with money was inevitably going to create an inflation crisis, and that is precisely what has happened.
Back in May 2020, the average price of a gallon of gasoline in the United States was $1.96.
One year later, the average price of a gallon of gasoline in the United States was $3.08.
That was more than a 50 percent increase in just 12 months.
Then on Monday it hit another all-time record of $4.48 per gallon.
That means that the price of gasoline has risen almost another 50 percent since May 2021.
Has your paycheck gone up by 50 percent during each of the last two years?
Needless to say, most of you cannot answer that question affirmatively.
Of course some areas of the country are being hit harder than others. In California, the average price of a gallon of gasoline has now reached $5.92.
But just wait until the war in the Middle East starts.
Once that occurs, it won’t be too long before many Americans are paying 10 dollars for a gallon of gasoline.
Meanwhile, food prices in the U.S. are rising at a pace that is unlike anything that I have ever seen before. Just check out these extremely alarming numbers that the government released last week…
Thursday’s report showed a broad-based rise in the cost of food at the wholesale level, with grains up 41.3 percent from a year ago as Russia’s war in Ukraine raises world prices. Both Russia and Ukraine are major grain producers.The cost of eggs skyrocketed 161.3 percent, driven up by a bird flu outbreak that has killed 10 percent of chickens in the US. Processed young chickens were up 24.1 percent from a year ago.Fresh vegetables were up 45.7 percent and fresh fruit rose 17.3 percent.
Eating fresh vegetables is a very good thing to do.
But now they will cost you 45 percent more than they did a year ago.
Has your paycheck gone up by 45 percent over the past year?
Sadly, food prices have been going crazy all over the globe, and this is going to hurt those on the bottom of the economic food chain the hardest.
In fact, the head of the Bank of England is using the word “apocalyptic” to describe the impact that these prices will have on the poor…
The Bank of England governor has blamed the war in Ukraine for the highest inflation in the UK for three decades and warned that “apocalyptic” food prices caused by Russia’s invasion could have a disastrous impact on the world’s poor.
And the head of the UN World Food Program is warning that extremely painful food prices could lead to widespread civil unrest in many areas of the planet…
A perfect storm of war, extreme weather and Covid-19 will drive global food prices to levels that will cause social unrest in some parts of the world, according to David Beasley, head of the United Nations World Food Programme.“If people can’t feed their children and their families, then the politics unsettles,” Beasley told CNN during a conference on Thursday.
If you have been waiting for everything to “go back to normal”, you can stop.
The combination of rising home prices and higher interest rates — driven largely by the Federal Reserve’s more aggressive efforts to curb inflation — hiked monthly mortgage payments on the typical U.S. home by 19.5 percent in the first three months of the year, according to real estate listing service Zillow. Payments are 38 percent higher than a year ago.
Has your paycheck gone up by 38 percent over the past year?
I keep asking questions like that to point out the fact that your standard of living is being systematically destroyed.
It wasn’t just an intellectual exercise when I penned long article after long article about the evils of debasing our currency.
This is real.
I wasn’t joking when I warned that we were committing financial suicide. Now a day of reckoning has arrived, and everyone is expecting the same clowns that got us into this mess to get us out of it.
It ain’t gonna happen.
Once the next major crisis comes along, our leaders in Washington will respond by borrowing and spending even more money, and the “experts” at the Fed will respond by pumping even more fresh cash into the system.
But the American people just kept sending big spenders to Washington, and any political candidates that dared to be critical of the Federal Reserve were considered to be “fringe”.
Now we get to reap what we have sown, and it will not be fun at all.
UAE’s new president calls Russia” his second residence”
UAE’s new president calls Russia “second residence”.
The brand new president of the UAE spoke about his perspective in direction of Russia, recalling his current journey to Moscow:
“I take into account Russia my second residence and I wish to thanks on your hospitality (throughout my go to to Moscow),” stated Mohamed Al Nahyan. We remind you that in this assembly Putin confirmed the prince his limousine “Cortege”.
Russian President Vladimir Putin despatched a message congratulating al-Nahyan on his election as president of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), information companies reported.
“I’m assured that your management will additional strengthen our pleasant relations and mutually helpful cooperation. I stay up for persevering with our constructive dialogue and our joint work on worldwide points,” the assertion stated.
We love Kodachromes and we love found photos. Lee Shulman shares those loves, recognising what he calls “the emotional value of these slices of life”. Since 2017, Lee’s collected around 700,000 found photographs, and compiled them into his Anonymous Project.
81a 1
These snapshots taken in the mid-20th Century show us people posing for the camera, smiling in readiness for whoever’s behind the thing to press the button and capture the moment. Others are relaxed, caught off guard, their eyes blinked closed or shut in asleep.
Death by a thousand cuts: where is the west’s Ukraine strategy?
The pounding, daily western narratives on ‘Ukrainian wins’ and ‘Russian losses’ underpins the lack of an actual, cohesive Grand Strategy against Moscow.
While we are all familiar with Sun Tzu, the Chinese general, military strategist and philosopher who penned the incomparable Art of War, less known is the Strategikon, the Byzantium equivalent on warfare.
Sixth century Byzantium really needed a manual, threatened as it was from the east, successively by Sassanid Persia, Arabs and Turks, and from the north, by waves of steppe invaders, Huns, Avars, Bulgars, semi-nomadic Turkic Pechenegs and Magyars.
Byzantium could not prevail just by following the classic pattern of Roman Empire raw power – they simply didn’t have the means for it.
So military force needed to be subordinate to diplomacy, a less costly means of avoiding or resolving conflict. And here we can make a fascinating connection with today’s Russia, led by President Vladimir Putin and his diplomacy chief Sergei Lavrov.
But when military means became necessary for Byzantium – as in Russia’s Operation Z – it was preferable to use weaponry to contain or punish adversaries, instead of attacking with full force.
Strategic primacy, for Byzantium, more than diplomatic or military, was a psychological affair. The word Strategia itself is derived from the Greek strategos – which does not mean “General” in military terms, as the west believes, but historically corresponds to a managerial politico-military function.
It all starts with si vis pacem para bellum: “If you want peace prepare for war.” Confrontation must develop simultaneously on multiple levels: grand strategy, military strategy, operative, tactical.
But brilliant tactics, excellent operative intel and even massive victories in a larger war theater cannot compensate for a lethal mistake in terms of grand strategy. Just look at the Nazis in WWII.
Those who built up an empire such as the Romans, or maintained one for centuries like the Byzantines, never succeeded without following this logic.
Those clueless Pentagon and CIA ‘experts’
On Operation Z, the Russians revel in total strategic ambiguity, which has the collective west completely discombobulated.
The Pentagon does not have the necessary intellectual firepower to out-smart the Russian General Staff. Only a few outliers understand that this is not a war – since the Ukraine Armed Forces have been irretrievably routed – but actually what Russian military and naval expert Andrei Martyanov calls a “combined arms police operation,” a work-in-progress on demilitarization and denazification.
The US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) is even more abysmal in terms of getting everything wrong, as recently demonstrated by its chief Avril Haines during her questioning on Capitol Hill. History shows that the CIA strategically blew it all the way from Vietnam to Afghanistan and Iraq. Ukraine is no different.
Ukraine was never about a military “win”.
What is being accomplished is the slow, painful destruction of the European Union (EU) economy, coupled with extraordinary weapons profits for the western military-industrial complex and creeping security rule by those nations’ political elites.
The latter, in turn, have been totally baffled by Russia’s C4ISR (Command, Control, Communications, Computers, Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance) capabilities, coupled with the stunning inefficiency of their own constellation of Javelins, NLAWs, Stingers and Turkish Bayraktar drones.
This ignorance reaches way beyond tactics and the operational and strategic realm. As Martyanov delightfully points out, they “wouldn’t know what hit them on the modern battlefield with near-peer, forget about peer.”
The caliber of ‘strategic’ advice from the NATO realm was self-evident in the Serpent Island fiasco – a direct order issued by British ‘consultants’ to Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky. The Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, Valery Zaluzhny, thought the whole thing was suicidal.
All the Russians had to do was launch a few choice anti-ship and surface Onyx missiles from bastions stationed in Crimea on airports south of Odessa. In no time, Serpent Island was back under Russian control – even as high-ranking British and American marine officers ‘disappeared’ during the Ukrainian landing on the island. They were the ‘strategic’ NATO actors on the spot, doling out the lousy advice.
Extra evidence that the Ukraine debacle is predominantly about money laundering – not competent military strategy – is Capitol Hill approving a hefty extra $40 billion in ‘aid’ to Kiev. It’s just another western military-industrial complex bonanza, duly noted by Deputy Chairman of the Security Council of Russia Dmitry Medvedev.
Russian forces, meanwhile, have brought diplomacy to the battlefield, handing over 10 tons of humanitarian assistance to the people of liberated Kherson – with the deputy head of the military-civil administration of the region, Kirill Stremousov, announcing that Kherson wants to become part of the Russian Federation.
In parallel, Georgy Muradov, deputy prime minister of the government of Crimea, has “no doubts that the liberated territories of the south of the former Ukraine will become another region of Russia. This, as we assess from our communication with the inhabitants of the region, is the will of the people themselves, most of whom lived for eight years under conditions of repression and bullying by the Ukronazis.”
Denis Pushilin, the head of the Donetsk People’s Republic, is adamant that the DPR is on the verge of liberating “its territories within constitutional borders,” and then a referendum on joining Russia will take place. When it comes to the Luhansk People’s Republic, the integration process may even come earlier: the only area left to be liberated is the urban region of Lysychansk-Severodonetsk.
The ‘Stalingrad of Donbass’
As much as there’s an energetic debate among the best Russian analysts about the pace of Operation Z, Russian military planning proceeds methodically, as if taking all the time it needs to solidify facts on the ground.
Arguably the best example is the fate of Azov neo-Nazis at Azovstal in Mariupol – the best-equipped unit of the Ukrainians, hands down. In the end they were totally outmatched by anumerically inferior Russian/Chechen Spetsnaz contingent, and in record time for such a big city.
Another example is the advance on Izyum, in the Kharkov region – a key bridgehead in the frontline. The Russian Ministry of Defense follows the pattern of grinding the enemy while slowly advancing; if they face serious resistance, they stop and smash the Ukrainian defensive lines with non-stop missile and artillery strikes.
Popasnaya in Luhansk, dubbed by many Russian analysts as “Mariupol on steroids”, or “the Stalingrad of Donbass,” is now under total control of the Luhansk People’s Republic, after they managed to breach a de facto fortress with linked underground trenches between most civilian houses. Popasnaya is extremely important strategically, as its capture breaks the first, most powerful line of defense of the Ukrainians in Donbass.
That will probably lead to the next stage, with an offensive on Bakhmut along the H-32 highway. The frontline will be aligned, north to south. Bakhmut will be the key to taking control of the M-03 highway, the main route to Slavyansk from the south.
This is just an illustration of the Russian General Staff applying its trademark, methodical, painstaking strategy, where the main imperative could be defined as a personnel-preserving forward drive. With the added benefit of committing just a fraction of overall Russian firepower.
Russian strategy on the battlefield stands in stark contrast with the EU’s obstinacy in being reduced to the status of an American dog’s lunch, with Brussels leading entire national economies to varying degrees of certified collapse and chaos.
Once again it was up to Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov – a diplomatic master – to encapsulate it.
Question: “What do you think of Josep Borrell’s (Lavrov’s EU counterpart) initiative to give Ukraine frozen Russian assets as ‘reparations?’ Can we say that the masks have come off and the west is moving on to open robbery?”
Lavrov: “You could say it is theft, which they are not trying to hide … This is becoming a habit for the west … We may soon see the post of the EU chief diplomat abolished because the EU has virtually no foreign policy of its own and acts entirely in solidarity with the approaches imposed by the United States.”
The EU cannot even come up with a strategy to defend its own economic battlefield – just watching as its energy supply is de facto, incrementally turned off by the US. Here we are at the realm where the US tactically excels: economic/financial blackmail. We can’t call these ‘strategic’ moves because they almost always backfire against US hegemonic interests.
Compare it with Russia reaching its biggest surplus in history, with the rise and rise of commodity prices and the upcoming role of the stronger and stronger ruble as a resource-based currency also backed by gold.
Moscow is spending way less than the NATO contingent in the Ukrainian theater. NATO has already wasted $50 billion – and counting – while the Russians spent $4 billion, give or take, and already conquered Mariupol, Berdyansk, Kherson and Melitopol, created a land corridor to Crimea (and secured its water supply), controls the Sea of Azov and its major port city, and liberated strategically vital Volnovakha and Popasnaya in Donbass, as well as Izyum near Kharkov.
That doesn’t even include Russia hurling the entire, collective west into a level of recession not seen since the 1970s.
The Russian strategic victory, as it stands, is military, economic, and may even coalesce geopolitically. Centuries after the Byzantine Strategikon was penned, the Global South would be very much interested in getting acquainted with the 21st century Russian version of the Art of War.
Streamliners:
Pure, magnificent works of massive functional art…
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And…
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And…
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Kodachrome Stories
We love Kodachromes and we love found photos. Lee Shulman shares those loves, recognising what he calls “the emotional value of these slices of life”. Since 2017, Lee’s collected around 700,000 found photographs, and compiled them into his Anonymous Project.
8a5 1
These snapshots taken in the mid-20th Century show us people posing for the camera, smiling in readiness for whoever’s behind the thing to press the button and capture the moment. Others are relaxed, caught off guard, their eyes blinked closed or shut in asleep.
Streamliners:
Pure, magnificent works of massive functional art…
3 4qqq8
And…
2qqq 48
And…
qqq0 27 1
Pure, magnificent works of massive functional art.
President of Russia Vladimir Putin: Meeting of the heads of state of the Collective Security Treaty Organisation.
Part One – To be continued.
Something BIG is brewing. I expect to see "the other shoe drop", loudly within the year. -MM
Taking part in the meeting, timed to coincide with the 30th anniversary of the Collective Security Treaty and the 20th anniversary of the organisation, were the heads of Russia, Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan.
The main focus of the summit was on key issues of cooperation within the CSTO, topical international and regional problems, and measures to further improve the collective security system.
During the meeting, the leaders signed a Statement of the CSTO Collective Security Council (CSC) in connection with the 30th anniversary of the Collective Security Treaty and the 20th anniversary of the Collective Security Treaty Organisation. They also signed a resolution of the CSTO CSC to award the participants in the CSTO peacekeeping mission in the Republic of Kazakhstan.
* * *
President of Russia Vladimir Putin: Colleagues, good afternoon!
I am glad to welcome you all in Moscow.
At the suggestion of our chairman, and today Armenia chairs the organisation, we gathered in Moscow, because this is where 30 years ago the Collective Security Treaty was signed, and 20 years ago, on the basis of this Treaty, the Collective Security Treaty Organisation was created.
This means we have two anniversaries almost on the same day: on May 14 and 15 in 1992 and 2002, respectively. I congratulate you on this.
I hope that the organisation, which has become a full international structure over the years, will continue to develop, even through difficult times. I would like to note in this context that both 1992 and 2002 were difficult times; they never end.
The organisation plays a very important role in the post-Soviet space – a stabilising role. I hope that in this sense its capabilities and influence on the situation in our area of responsibility will only grow.
Here I would like to finish my welcoming remarks and give the floor to the Chairman [of the CSTO Collective Security Council], the Prime Minister of Armenia.
Prime Minister of the Republic of Armenia Nikol Pashinyan: Thank you, Mr Putin.
Colleagues, I would like to welcome all of you!
I would also like to add my congratulations on the two anniversaries the President of Russia noted. The Treaty on Collective Security was signed on May 15, 1992, and the decision on establishing a Collective Security Treaty Organisation was made on May 14, 2002. We meet today partly in commemoration of both anniversaries.
I suggest we express our views on these anniversaries and on the current situation as always – in alphabetic order. Please hold your comments to 3 to 5 minutes – this is the open section.
Afterwards, we will sign the documents that are ready for signing, and will then continue our discussion behind closed doors.
I give the floor to the President of the Republic of Belarus. Go ahead, please.
President of the Republic of Belarus, Alexander Lukashenko: Mr Pashinyan, dear friends!
I will talk a bit longer than usual since I am the first to speak, and the current situation deserves attention.
Today’s meeting is taking place in a difficult time, as the President of Russia has just said – a time of repartitioning the world; the unipolar international system is irretrievably receding into the past, but the collective West is fiercely fighting to keep its position.
Anything goes, including actions in the zone of responsibility of our organisation: from NATO’s sabre rattling at our western borders to a full-scale hybrid war unleashed against us, primarily against Russia and Belarus.
NATO is aggressively building its muscles, drawing Finland and Sweden into its net, countries that only yesterday were neutral. This is based on the attitude, “those who are not with us are against us,” and, hypocritically, NATO continues to declare its defensive nature. The truly defensive and peace-loving position of the Collective Security Treaty Organisation is in contrast to this background.
The United States is building up its military presence on the western flank of the CSTO, its military infrastructure is being upgraded at an accelerated pace and many NATO exercises are taking place. The large-scale exercise, Defender Europe 2022, the likes of which we have not seen before, are now being held on the territory of 19 European countries, in part, near our borders in Poland. You can guess for yourselves whom they are defending themselves against.
Until now, there is a force of about 15,000 military personnel stationed at the Belarusian-Polish border, which were deployed there last year under the pretext of a migration crisis, in addition to the troops that are stationed there permanently. Last year, 15,000 troops, mostly Americans, were redeployed. The migrants left that area a long time ago, but the troops are still there. The question is why?
Clearly, no country is posing any threat to NATO today. Moreover, an additional force of over 10,000 military troops was brought there to reinforce the alliance’s eastern flank with 15,000 troops already deployed in Poland and the Baltic countries as part of the US armed forces’ Atlantic Resolve and NATO-allied Enhanced Forward Presence. For perspective, seven or so years ago, there were 3,500 troops in this location (addressing the CSTO Secretary General Stanislav Zas) on your watch, now there are about 40,000 troops right on the territory of Poland and the Baltic states. And I am not talking about Ukraine yet.
Our military interaction within the framework of the Union State of Belarus and Russia, and Belarus’ membership in the CSTO, are the very stabilisers that have a certain sobering effect on the hotheads on the other side of the border. This shows that if it were not for this, I am afraid that a hot war would already be underway in Belarus. By the way, they tried to do this in 2020.
Today, there is no more pressing or important issue than the Ukraine conflict. Since 2014, all of us have been assisting in every way possible in resolving it. In principle, all of us sitting at this table are ready to do this even now and in any format.
Clearly, Ukraine was fomented, incited and fed nationalism and Nazism. We saw that in Odessa, when people were burned alive. Ukraine was fed Nazism, Russophobia and weapons. They used every approach to poison it.
After the election in Belarus in August 2020, regarding interaction with us, Belarus, Ukraine completely succumbed to the West. We have constantly experienced unfriendly actions from our southern neighbour for over two years now.
Ukraine proactively imposed sanctions on us even before the West, including the Americans. Ukraine was the first to do so. Remember? Their airspace was closed, then railway service, and then they began to train militants and send them to Belarus and ship weapons across the border. Everyone knows that. Provocative actions were carried out with Ukrainian drones conducting reconnaissance missions in Belarus’ airspace.
The facts indicating a threat to our national security are indisputable. This is exactly why we were absolutely right to activate the support mechanism in the framework of our alliance with Russia.
Belarus paid attention to the unjustified growth of the Western military presence in Ukraine and the region as a whole even before the start of the Russian special military operation. We talked about this more than once and warned that a conflict was looming. We expected the West, primarily the US, to accept Russia’s proposal to enter into talks on security guarantees. This process will start eventually in the foreseeable future but what will remain of Ukraine and our region by this time is a big question.
Right now, we are seeing that the West, including Washington, is only interested in prolonging the conflict as much as possible. This is why Ukraine is being flooded with weapons. The goals are clear: to weaken Russia as much as possible by miring it in this war. The flames may reach beyond it – we are seeing this, too. If this is the idea, likely nobody will be able to sit it out.
Currently the most dangerous trend in Ukraine are the attempts to partition the country. Thousand-strong units have already been formed to enter Ukraine in the guise of peacekeepers to “protect” it.
Unity and solidarity among like-minded people are particularly important at a time when norms and principles of international law are being completely ignored. The CSTO member states displayed such solidarity and support in January of this year in a time of trial: you remember the events in Kazakhstan. By acting rapidly when needed, we graphically demonstrated to the entire world our close allied relations and the capacity of our organisation to ensure the security of its members. Nobody in the West even dared think about interfering in this situation because we are stronger together.
But is it possible to claim today that the members of this organisation are really united and bound by ties of solidarity and support as before? Recent events suggest probably not. This is from our perspective, and I may be wrong. But it is enough to recall the ban imposed by some of our CSTO partners on the flights to their countries by national airlines of other CSTO members.
The concepts of unity and solidarity are not always enough, given the brutal, rabid sanctions pressure by the consolidated West. Unfortunately, this is clear from the voting in international organisations.
With the tacit agreement of our partners, Belarus and Russia are being vilified and expelled from international organisations against all laws of international life, just on a Western whim. Yes, you, CSTO members are subjected to pressure – tough and unprincipled pressure – but this is where collective, mutual support is so helpful. We may not exist tomorrow if we do not unite as soon as possible, if we do not strengthen our political, economic and military ties.
Our enemies and detractors are systematically degrading our strongholds and allied ties, and we ourselves are partially helping the West in this regard. I am sure that if we had acted as a united front right off the bat, the hellish, as they say, sanctions would be out of question.
Look how united the European Union is when it votes or acts, and how strong its intra-bloc discipline is. It applies automatically even to those who disagree with its decisions. This begs the question: What is keeping us from using this bloc resource? We need to follow their example. If divided, we will simply be crushed and torn apart.
Back in January, I said that the main goal of certain external forces is to undermine stability and to disrupt the evolutionary path of development throughout the post-Soviet space. They started with Belarus, then the infection spread to Kazakhstan, and now it is Russia’s turn, as we see, and problems are being created in Armenia as well. Make no mistake, no one will be spared.
It is absolutely clear that, without united pushback from the CSTO allies and other integration associations in the post-Soviet space, the collective West will ratchet up its pressure.
What do we need to do to reinforce the CSTO in this unprecedented situation at hand? Off the top of my head, I can visualise the following top-priority steps, which are many, and the President of Tajikistan covered them at length when he talked about the challenge facing that region.
The first is to strengthen political interaction and coordination of the CSTO member states. It is important to improve the efficiency of the foreign policy and security consultation mechanism. We need to speak more often on behalf of the CSTO on international platforms so that its voice and position can be seen and heard, and this voice and position must be united as they are in the West.
Let our foreign ministers consider how best to go about this, and where. Let them think about our political response to a new wave of NATO expansion in light of the intentions declared by well-known states.
We must work out in advance the CSTO position on this matter and make our interests known to the international community. We must act as one in this. Russia should not be alone in voicing its concern and fighting the attempted NATO enlargement.
The second point is to increase the effectiveness of efforts to counter challenges and threats in the information space, including the fight against fake news and disinformation. It is clear that we are facing a hybrid war, the main part of which is an information war.
In order to counter this, we should make the most of the 2017 CSTO Agreement on Information Security Cooperation and actively promote the CSTO on social media, which our Western opponents intensively use, in order to effectively respond to fake news and planted information. Moreover, we need to think seriously and, perhaps, follow China’s policy in the information confrontation, especially on the internet.
Relevant tasks should be assigned to all foreign ministries, special services and the CSTO Secretariat.
Third, there is a clear need to strengthen the forecasting and analytical component in the CSTO Secretariat’s work. I am sure that there are similar departments in the UN, the European Union and NATO. It might be worth considering creating a unit responsible for analysis and strategic planning at the CSTO Secretariat. I think the Secretary-General needs to study this issue.
Fourth, it is worth thinking about combining the potential of the analytical centres of the CSTO member states and forming a network of these centres to assist in the development of conceptual documents on current issues on the international agenda.
Dear friends,
I am offering such seemingly simple proposals at these extremely difficult times because we may not immediately agree on more complex ones. Therefore, these may be the first steps, but we need to go further and deeper, as we used to say in the past
Colleagues,
Everyone understands that the historical era that existed before is ending, and there will be no return to the previous international order. We cannot allow the creation of a new international architecture without us, while the West is already planting false stories and holding talks about it.
I believe that the CSTO should firmly strengthen its status in the international system of checks and balances. The organisation has a powerful collective potential for further progressive development, but it depends only on us today, it is up to us, how effectively the CSTO will use this potential and whether it will continue to exist in the next 10, 20 or 30 years.
After Armenia, the CSTO chairmanship will rotate to Belarus. In addition to the promising areas of work outlined above, we are already seriously considering new proposals aimed at the further development of our organisation, and you will learn about them in the near future. We hope for maximum support and constructive work from all of you, our colleagues. We have no other choice.
Sorry for such a long speech.
Thank you for your attention.
Nikol Pashinyan: Thank you, Mr Lukashenko.
I will give the floor to President of Kazakhstan Kassym-Jomart Tokayev.
First of all, I would like to express my gratitude to President of Russia Vladimir Putin for organising this anniversary summit of the Collective Security Council. It is true that our summit today is distinct in marking two CSTO anniversaries.
Over the years our organisation has proven to be an effective mechanism of multilateral cooperation with serious potential for further development.
Once the CSTO was established, a reliable system for collective security was built in the vast expanse of Eurasia. The main goals are to strengthen peace and stability as well as international and regional security, and protect the territorial integrity and sovereignty of its member states.
The CSTO’s permanent working bodies operate successfully; there are various formats for close cooperation and interaction. The CSTO’s authority, law enforcement and peacekeeping potential are being strengthened.
We focus on countering international terrorism and extremism, illegal drug and weapons trafficking, and illegal migration. In this context we attach great importance to the developments in Afghanistan. The unstable situation there as well as the unrelenting activity of armed groups on the territory of Afghanistan continue to threaten the security and stability of our states. I believe the CSTO must consider every potential threat while paying even more attention to ensuring the security of the southern borders of Central Asia.
In the mid-term, developing the organisation’s peacekeeping potential is an unconditional priority. Active work is underway in this area. CSTO peacekeeping forces have been created and are being improved every year; a plan is being developed to equip them with modern weapons, equipment and special tools.
As you know, the institute of Special Representative of the CSTO Secretary-General for peacekeeping has been established, at Kazakhstan’s initiative. This means that all the necessary tools have been created, and we suggest that it is time to set the goal of getting the CSTO involved with the United Nations’ peacekeeping activities.
This step would promote the legal status of the CSTO and ensure the organisation’s participation in international peacekeeping operations.
Colleagues,
Our assessments of the CSTO’s development and common view of the current aspects of international and regional security underlie the anniversary statement of the Collective Security Council. I would like to thank Armenia for its productive chairmanship and Russia for its timely initiative to hold this forum.
Thank you for your attention.
Nikol Pashinyan:Thank you, Mr Tokayev.
Next to speak is President of the Kyrgyz Republic. Mr Sadyr Japarov, please, take the floor.
President of the Kyrgyz Republic Sadyr Japarov: Good afternoon.
Mr Putin, Mr Chairman of the CSTO Collective Security Council Nikol Pashinyan, Messrs heads of state,
I am happy to meet with you in hospitable Moscow.
I would like to begin with congratulations. First, I want to extend my congratulations to our fraternal peoples on the 77th anniversary of the Great Victory. On May 9, many thousands of people across Kyrgyzstan took part in the Immortal Regiment march carrying the slogans “Eternal Glory to the Heroes” and “Nobody Is Forgotten, Nothing Is Forgotten.” The republic holds this holiday sacred, as it epitomises the defeat of Nazism and Fascism by the Soviet people and invariably pays a sincere tribute to the memory of the heroic deed of our fathers and grandfathers.
Second, I want to extend my congratulations to all of us on the 30th anniversary of signing the Collective Security Treaty and the 20th anniversary of the Collective Security Treaty Organisation. We fully support the political statement to be adopted today in connection with these two historic dates.
The international events taking place in recent years show that the strategic decisions taken to ensure shared and collective security from Brest to Vladivostok were right.
At the same time, I am pleased to note that throughout its existence the Collective Security Treaty Organisation has fulfilled the responsible mission assigned to it and developed as an institution, with its potential becoming ever stronger. In this connection, I would like to express my gratitude to CSTO Secretary-General Stanislav Zas, all his predecessors in the post and the CSTO Secretariat staff for their loyal service in the interests of the security of the Organisation’s member states.
Colleagues,
The current international situation does not offer cause for optimism, in terms of both global security and the world economy. Threats to security and military and political tensions have come too close to the borders of the CSTO zone of responsibility. Attempts are being made to interfere from the outside in the internal affairs of the CSTO member states.
For example, earlier this year we had to help a CSTO member state get out of a security crisis it had unexpectedly found itself in. Our response was quick and effective. I fully support the decision to award participants in this peacekeeping mission.
The situation at the southern borders of the CSTO remains alarming, primarily due to the unhindered activities of radical religious terrorist groups in some Afghan provinces. The external sponsors of these groups have far-reaching plans for Central Asia. I think we should keep focusing our attention and analysis on the Afghan issue. It is necessary to carry out an entire package of political-diplomatic and military-technical measures to ensure security in this area. At the same time, it is important to provide humanitarian aid for the Afghan people. Our fellow countrymen are among them.
Colleagues,
We are seriously alarmed by the sanctions war. The Kyrgyz economy has not yet recovered from the coronavirus pandemic, and now the sanctions are already creating a threat to food and energy security, macroeconomic sustainability and social stability.
Under the circumstances, we must discuss and draft a common approach to alleviate the consequences of sanctions and prevent the deterioration of the socioeconomic situation in our countries. We will soon have an opportunity to do so at the meeting of the Supreme Eurasian Economic Council and the First Eurasian Economic Forum in the city of Bishkek.
Colleagues, I hope for your personal participation as heads of your delegations, in which I am asking you to include heads of sectoral ministries and business structures.
In conclusion, I would like to congratulate you again on the Day of the Great Victory and the two anniversaries of the Collective Security Treaty.
I sincerely wish you and the friendly nations of the CSTO peace, stability, wellbeing and prosperity.
Thank you for your attention.
Nikol Pashinyan: Thank you, Mr Japarov.
I am giving the floor to President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin.
Mr President, go ahead, please.
Vladimir Putin: Friends and colleagues,
I will agree with the previous speakers – indeed, in the past few decades, the Collective Security Treaty Organisation has become considerably stronger and won a well-deserved reputation as an effective regional defence structure that ensures security and stability in the Eurasian space and reliably protects the sovereignty and territorial integrity of its member countries.
Importantly, cooperation in the CSTO has always been built in the spirit of true allied relations, on the principles of friendship and neighbourliness, respect and consideration of each other’s interests, mutual assistance and support. The same principles guide our cooperation in the current difficult situation.
The CSTO’s successful peacekeeping operation, held in Kazakhstan in January 2022 at the request of its leaders, showed the maturity of our Organisation and its real ability to adequately withstand acute challenges and threats.
The contingent of the collective CSTO forces, sent into Kazakhstan for a limited period of time, prevented extremists, including those directed from abroad, from seizing power and helped to quickly stabilise the internal political situation in the republic.
The use of peacekeeping forces at the request of the Kazakhstan leadership was the first operation of this kind in the CSTO’s history. The operation revealed the strong points of practical cooperation between our military structures and security services, and, at the same time, showed what we should work on to improve it.
Today, we will sign a joint statement reaffirming, taking into account the experience gained, among other things, during the afore-mentioned operation, the resolve of our states to continue acting as partners in different areas of military and defence development, and building up our coordinated actions in the world arena.
At the same time, it is quite logical that our current high-priority task is to further improve and streamline the work of the CSTO and its governing bodies. We will also provide the collective CSTO forces with modern weapons and equipment, we will enhance the interoperability of their troop contingents, and more effectively coordinate the joint actions of our military agencies and secret services.
We streamline the relevant operations all the time during CSTO exercises, and we are set to expand such exercises. This autumn, there are plans to hold an entire series of joint CSTO exercises in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. I am confident that these measures will boost the combat readiness of our states’ military agencies and improve their coordination, as well as increase the entire peacekeeping potential of the CSTO.
We also believe that the CSTO should continue its efforts to counter terrorism, drug trafficking and organised crime. Law enforcement agencies of our countries interact rather effectively in this field, so as to prevent the recruitment of people and to neutralise the resource potential of international terrorist organisations.
Efforts to maintain biological security also require the most serious attention. For a long time, we sounded the alarm about US military biological activity in the post-Soviet space.
It is common knowledge that the Pentagon has established dozens of specialised biological laboratories and centres in our common region, and that they are by no means merely providing practical medical assistance to the population of the countries where they are operating. Their main task is to collect biological materials and to analyse the spread of viruses and dangerous diseases for their own purposes.
Now, during the special operation in Ukraine, documentary evidence was obtained that components of biological weapons were developed in close proximity to our borders, which violates the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention, and possible methods and mechanisms were worked out to destabilise the epidemiological situation in the post-Soviet space.
In this regard, we count on our colleagues supporting the earliest possible implementation of Russia’s initiative to operationalise the designated CSTO council. Once again, I would like to note the importance of close coordination between CSTO members in matters of foreign policy, coordinated actions at the UN and other multilateral platforms, and promotion of common approaches to the multiplying international security issues.
In this context, it is important to build up cooperation with our “natural” partners in the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation and the Commonwealth of Independent States. By the way, we think it would be appropriate and correct – we will discuss this – to grant the CIS observer status in the CSTO.
I would like to highlight our priority task of jointly defending the memory of Victory in the Great Patriotic War, the feat of our peoples who saved the world from Nazism at the cost of enormous and irreparable sacrifices, and to counteract any attempts to whitewash the Nazis, their accomplices and modern followers.
This is extremely important particularly now, when monuments to the heroes liberators are being barbarously demolished in a number of European countries, laying flowers at memorials is forbidden, and cynical attempts are being made to rewrite history, while praising murderers and traitors and insulting their victims, thus crossing out the feats of those who selflessly fought for Victory and won the war.
Unfortunately, in our neighbouring country, Ukraine, neo-Nazism has been on the rise for a long time now, to which some of our partners from the “collective West” turn a blind eye, and thus actually encourage their activities. All this goes hand-in-hand with an unprecedented surge in frenzied Russophobia in the so-called civilised and politically correct Western countries.
Indeed, we hear, and I hear people say that extremists can be found anywhere, which is true. Extremists are everywhere and one way or another they are leaving their underground hideouts and make themselves known. Nowhere, though – I want to underscore this – nowhere are Nazis being glorified at the state level and not a single civilised country’s authorities are encouraging thousands of neo-Nazi torchlight processions with Nazi symbols. This is something that is not practiced anywhere. But unfortunately, this is happening in Ukraine.
The expansion of the North Atlantic Alliance is a problem that, in my view, is being created in an absolutely artificial manner because it is being done in the foreign policy interests of the United States. Generally, NATO is being used, in effect, as the foreign policy tool of a single country, and it is being done persistently, adroitly, and very aggressively. All of this is aggravating the already complex international security situation.
As for the expansion, including the accession of two prospective new members, Finland and Sweden, I would like to inform you, colleagues, that Russia has no problems with these states. No problems at all! In this sense, therefore, there is no direct threat to Russia in connection with NATO’s expansion to these countries. But the expansion of its military infrastructure to these territories will certainly evoke a response on our part. We will see what it will be like based on the threats that are created for us. But generally speaking, problems are being created from nothing. So, we will respond to it in a fitting manner.
Apart from everything else, apart from this interminable policy of expansion, the North Atlantic Alliance is emerging beyond its geographical destination, beyond the Euro-Atlantic area. It is increasingly active in trying to manage international issues and control the international security situation. It wants to wield influence in other regions of the world, but its actual performance leaves much to be desired. This certainly demands additional attention on our part.
In conclusion, I want to reiterate that Russia will continue to contribute to deepening relations of strategic alliance with all CSTO member states. We will do our best to improve and develop effective partner cooperation within the CSTO and, of course, we will support the Armenian chairmanship’s ongoing work in this area.
As for Russia’s special military operation in Ukraine, we will certainly discuss this, and I will inform you in detail about its causes and the current combat effort. But, of course, we will do this behind closed doors.
Thank you for your attention.
Nikol Pashinyan: Thank you, Mr Putin.
President of the Republic of Tajikistan Emomali Rahmon is our next speaker. Please go ahead.
President of the Republic of Tajikistan Emomali Rahmon: Colleagues,
First of all, I would like to congratulate you on the occasion of the 30th anniversary of the signing of the Collective Security Treaty and the 20th anniversary of the creation of the CSTO.
I would like to thank the President of Russia for convening today’s meeting dedicated to these milestone events that are important for all of us. Anniversaries are a good opportunity to reflect on the path traveled and the development of the CSTO and to identify prospects for multilateral cooperation seeking to strengthen the common collective security system in light of new realities.
Over the period under review, the CSTO has established itself as an important factor in strengthening peace and ensuring regional security and stability. The organisation’s successful peacekeeping mission earlier this year clearly showed it.
We have created an extensive legal framework, the necessary working and coordinating bodies, as well as mechanisms aimed at fulfilling the organisation’s goals.
In practice, due attention is paid to strengthening and consolidating mutual trust within the CSTO. The CSTO’s international ties are expanding. Last year, we completed the ratification procedure and launched the institutions of observers under the CSTO and the CSTO partners as part of the Tajik chairmanship.
Field and command-staff exercises are conducted on a permanent basis, and measures are being taken to supply modern weapons and military equipment to the collective security system’s forces and means. All this helps maintain a high degree of combat readiness, mobility, training and skills of command and service personnel for bringing joint solutions to common tasks.
Today, the CSTO is an important platform for equal dialogue and cooperation between member states in all three basic dimensions: political interaction, military cooperation and joint efforts to counter modern challenges and threats.
The CSTO Collective Security Strategy to 2025, which reflects the principles of our interaction in the mid-term, is an important document that is guiding our organisation along its own path of development. Our common assessment of the state and development prospects of the organisation is reflected in a joint statement that we will adopt following the summit.
Notably, today we are facing no less important tasks to strengthen our common security. Given the manifold growth of challenges and threats to security, we will have to step up joint efforts to strengthen the Organisation’s potential and capabilities.
For example, we can see that negative factors have been accumulating in Afghanistan over the past 40 years, and they have worsened the military-political and socioeconomic situation in that country. In this regard, the CSTO needs to be prepared for various scenarios on the southern borders.
Tajikistan plans to continue to actively contribute to ensuring common security in the organisation’s regions of responsibility.
Thank you.
Nikol Pashinyan: Thank you very much.
Colleagues, I will now speak in my national capacity, if I may.
First of all, I would like to thank the President of Russia for hosting the anniversary CSTO summit in Moscow and the warm welcome. Of course, our organisation’s anniversary is also an excellent occasion to sum up the intermediate results and to discuss prospects for the further development of our organisation.
The President of Belarus raised important questions about interaction between the CSTO member countries and touched on, frankly, rather problematic issues. In general, there are a lot of positive developments in the history of the CSTO, because in reality it was, is and will be the most important factor in ensuring security and stability in the region.
But, as we see, we are discussing not only anniversary-related issues at this anniversary summit, because the situation is fairly tense in the CSTO area of responsibility. I want to touch on some of the issues that the President of Belarus mentioned.
Regarding voting by the CSTO member countries, this issue does exist, indeed. Often, our voting is not synchronised, but this is not something new. This has been typical of our organisation for a long time now. Armenia has repeatedly raised this issue, and we have repeatedly discussed it in the regular course of business. Clearly, this issue needs to be further discussed as well.
With regard to interaction as well as response and rapid response mechanisms, this is also a critical issue for Armenia, because, as you are aware, last year on these days, Azerbaijani troops invaded the sovereign territory of Armenia. Armenia turned to the CSTO for it to activate the mechanisms that are provided for in the Regulations governing the CSTO response to crisis situations of December 10, 2010 which is a document approved by the Collective Security Council. Unfortunately, we cannot say that the organisation responded as the Republic of Armenia expected.
For a long time now, we have been raising the issue of sales of weapons by CSTO member countries to a country that is unfriendly to Armenia, which used these weapons against Armenia and the Armenian people. This is also a problem.
Frankly, the CSTO member countries’ response during the 44-day war of 2020 and the post-war period did not make the Republic of Armenia and the Armenian people very happy, but I want to emphasise the special role played by the Russian Federation and President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin personally in halting the war in Nagorno-Karabakh.
I would like to reaffirm that Armenia remains committed to the trilateral statements of November 9, 2020. I am referring to the trilateral statements by the President of the Russian Federation, the President of Azerbaijan and the Prime Minister of Armenia, as well as the trilateral statements of January 11, 2021 and November 26, 2021.
I think it is critically important to sum up the results, but Armenia, as a founding member of the Collective Security Treaty Organisation, is committed to the organisation’s further development and considers it a key contributor to stability and security in the Eurasian region, as well as the security of the Republic of Armenia, and is positive about providing its full support for the organisation’s further development.
BREAKING NEWS: Ukraine “Azov Brigade” (Nazis) Agree to SURRENDER
This is reported in Western media as a successful Ukranian military "breakout" from Russian encirclement. Yeah. Crazy twisting of facts. HERE. -MM
Azov Surrenders 1 large
Ukraine Territory Defense Forces (Azov) Steel Works Regiments in Mariupol, Ukraine, have reached an agreement to surrender 300 seriously wounded Ukraine Solders, so they can get hospital treatment. 2,000 others will surrender tomorrow & lay down their arms.
Literally within MINUTES of the agreement, Azov wounded and sick began being brought out from the catacombs beneath the steel mill:
2022 05 17 13 49
The Russian Army had Ambulances and Red Cross-Type Emergency vehicles at the ready to take the most severely wounded, sick, and injured to nearby field hospitals:
2022 05 17 13 r49
The forces at the Azovstal steel mill in Mariupol, have been surrounded for about a month. Recently, secret tunnel entrances from the catacombs beneath the steel mill, were located and sealed by Russian forces surrounding the mill. This completely cut off those troops from food and water.
Skirmishes between those troops and the surrounding Russian Army forces, depleted Azov ammunition supplies, which could not be refreshed.
Azov repeatedly asked Ukraine leadership in Kiev for permission to surrender, and that permission was repeatedly DENIED.
Today, it appears the NAZI troops, starving and thirsty, have no choice.
It is widely rumored that NATO troops – or “advisors”- are among those 2,000 or so troops, but this has only been rumored for months. Tomorrow, the world finds out if it is true.
UPDATE 6:58 PM EDT —
300 Azovites, 50 of whom are wounded, have now been taken to a hospital in Novoazovsk.
UPDATE 7:03 PM EDT —
Ukrainian government is now CONFIRMING THE SURRENDER OF AZOV.
Ukraine confirmed the evacuation of soldiers from Azovstal According to the General Staff of Ukraine, 53 seriously wounded servicemen were taken to a medical facility in Novoazovsk. Another 211 people were evacuated through the humanitarian corridor to Yelenovka.
Below is the official confirmation:
2022 05 17 13 50
So why did AUSTIN call SHOIGU?
Now confirmed by one of my top intel sources.
The call was a direct consequence of PANIC. The USG by all means wants to scotch the detailed Russian investigation – and accumulation of evidence – on the US bioweapon labs in Ukraine.
As I stressed in a previous post, Shoigu had refused to pick up calls from weapons peddler retrofitted as Pentagon head Lloyd “Raytheon” Austin since the last week of February and the start of Operation Z.
This phone call happened EXACTLY after an official Russian statement to the UN: we will use articles 5 and 6 of the Convention on the Prohibition of Bioweapons to investigate the Pentagon’s biological “experiments” in Ukraine.
Shoigu cold see the call coming eons away.
Reuters, merely quoting the proverbial “ Pentagon official”, spun that the one-hour-long call led to nothing. Nonsense.
Austin allegedly demanded a “ ceasefire” – which must have originated a Siberian cat smirk on Shoigu’s face.
Shoigu knows exactly where the dire facts on the ground – for the Ukros and UkroNazis – are leading. Especially in Donbass: it’s a military disaster the USG cannot possibly spin.
Now, in parallel, we can also expect full exposure – on overdrive – of the Pentagon bioweapon racket.
The only “offer you can’t refuse” left to the USG is to REALLY offer something tangible to the Russians to avoid an investigation.
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.
I hope that you all aren’t getting too tired of these “new beginnings” articles. I know that they are long, and overly detailed. I will eventually phase them out. But for now, please endure along with me.
Sorry about the lack of MM on Sunday and Monday. The server had an “explosion” and the physical server hardware needed to be replaced, and the old server slag hauled off to the dumpster.
Ah something like this…
R.dedc3c4617c81b726a6e6fb5b0192651
If you can believe it!
Sheech!
Meanwhile, the uploads of MM videos on you-tube slowed down to a crawl, and what was posted had mysterious video editing…
…Yeah. No shit…
Key segments were edited out, and no longer exist. For instance, the segment that has the text “In China, military training begins in first grade” is completely edited out of the video. As is the closing segment, “Be part of the community“.
In the future, I will need to be very careful on making sure that things are not omitted from my videos, whether unintentionally, or by design.
We start off with an American truck.
The 1955 GMC L’Universelle Dream Truck
What a beauty!
One of the most popular General Motors design concept models designed under the direction of Harley Earl was the 1955 GMC L’Universelle show van. The name “L’Universelle” is French and means “The Universal.” The model was a part of the Motorama shows during the 1950s, which created a huge buzz among crowds at the time.
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In January of 1955, GM debuted its ’55 L’Universelle show van at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in New York, at the opening of that year’s Motorama. Though not a conventional “dream car” as one would normally find at the Motorama, it nonetheless shared the same level of innovation as the one-offs displayed by the General’s other divisions. Moreover, the bronze-colored van shared many of the same Harley Earl-inspired design elements used on both production and non-production GM cars of the time.
Max Headroom about Censorship
Jesus H. Christ! I simply cannot beleive that we all collectively believed that this guy was “so cool” back in the 1980s. Ugh! It’s a reminder of the mass insanity of the sheeple.
‘Slovakia’s food is for Slovakians,’ Slovakia’s trade restrictions leave EU fuming – TFIGlobal
Another good development for the world.
The Chinese word for “currency” is 货币。货 is stock (products) , 币is money. That means, in Chinese, a currency can only be useful when it can be used to exchange products.
So, when the United States (and their proxy nations) confiscated other nations reserve currency at will, their currency lost the trust of the world. So , Putin is right and proper to declare the US dollar / European currency illegitimate and has since refused to sell Russian products using these fake currencies.
The world also has begun to dump their USD currency treasury debt and reduce holding of the United States currency reserve. This is helping to speed up the collapse of the US and EU currency as world reserve currencies.
As a result, US can no longer continue to print money without causing inflation at home because they world no longer trust their currency.
As a result, all the printed money is now staying inside United States.
As the world biggest trading nation, China is inevitable having huge amount of the US dollars, so in the past decade, China decided to use them for their Belt and Road project, and use them to buy a heck of lot of raw materials such as food and oil and gas from the US, and (in the process) gives the dollar back to the US.
Of course China also canceled export subsidies and imposed export tariffs on certain strategic products with high demand in US.
That is also part of the reason why there is enormous inflation in the United States. And this situation will damage US ability to continue to print money and continue to suck up the world resources at will as it is it’s want.
US is heading straight towards a massive “great depression”.
Now more and more countries have begun to say “no” to the USA.
The latest is Turkey.
And they are using their role within NATO to veto it from accepting Finland and Sweden entering it.
And let’s not forget the Solomon Islands. They, went straight ahead and signed a deal with China despite Australia’s anger, and the threat of US military annihilation.
Meanwhile, the Saudi’s decided not to take a phone call from President Biden, and is maintaining very high oil prices to US and EU but have reduced their prices for Asia.
Very soon, Japan and Germany may want to be a normal country again. And they will accomplish this by asking the US military to leave.
The Roman empire collapsed when it no longer generate enough income to maintain its organizational expenses, the USSR was the same. Now, the US is heading toward such destruction as well.
American actress from the silent movie era, actress Marie Doro, 1902
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Ham & cheese egg toast – Korean street food
Great video.
Liberalism and the Rise of the Self Hating Chinese in China.
Liberalism is an ideology of turncoats.
In any country, everything liberals do is under the guise of freedom, equality, democracy, and human rights, but the ultimate result is the collapse of the state, the annihilation of social cohesion, and the breaking apart of the collective, whether if that was the original intention or not.
In a summary:
1. Liberalism is the belief in the ultimate freedom of the individual over the collective, usually without limits or with little regard for the well-being of the collective society.
2. Liberalism uses the guise of “human rights”, “equality”, “freedom”, “reform”, and “democracy” to mask its ulterior political purposes.
3. Liberalism rigidly forces the majority to show unnecessary and excessive tolerance for behavior that violates the generally accepted norms and rules, even if the majority opinion is against this tolerance. Often this leads to crime and antisocial behavior, the loss of family values, and the loss of cultural roots.
For example, let’s study the forced acceptance of a criminal subculture in the United States. In the United States of America, the criminal subculture has been directly responsible for the wave of anti-Asian hate crimes, looting, and robberies. Within this criminal subculture, Gangster rap music occasionally contains lyrics specifically instructing their listeners to target Asian American families. Make no mistake about it. The existence of this criminal subculture and glorification of crime has consequences. In the city of San Francisco, a burglary crime spree occurred in early 2022. 27 households were burglarized. All homes were Asian households.
Most American people, of all races, are decent people and are opposed to crime. However, liberal politicians, media, and their political machines have been able to support the rise of liberal district attorneys in cities like San Francisco and Los Angeles. These district attorneys refuse to prosecute crimes under the guise of “criminal justice reform”, reinforcing this criminal behavior. Opponents who speak out against this program are labeled as racists or fascists. Isn’t this a forced tolerance of the criminal subculture by the liberals?
The same phenomenon is occurring in Western Europe and even in some parts of China. More and more Chinese people in Asia are becoming attracted to this liberal ideology, which promises a great degree of individual freedom, at the cost of selling the country. Forced tolerance of certain abnormal behavior, like the niangpao phenomena, is becoming more and more apparent.
China is different from the West. Our Chinese civilization is founded on 5,000 years of our own unique tradition and culture. Western liberalism and the imposition of the forced tolerance of abnormal behavior contrary to the norms that are contrary to Chinese values, norms, traditions, and beliefs have no place in the country of China.
Furthermore, Chinese people have to remember that at the geopolitical level, Liberalism has been used as a tool to manufacture consent for wars and imperialism in the developing world.
Western liberal intellectuals, politicians, and media often accuse foreign people and nations in the developing world, who refuse to accept liberal values, of being undemocratic or uncivilized. Westerners ignore the reality that developing countries may have different historic or social circumstances and cannot be compared to their Western values. Consent is then manufactured to conduct regime change.
Who benefits once the regime change is successful? It is not the native people in these developing places, it is the Western mega-corporations and the big business interests who move in and loot the land, labor, and resources of the developing world. No wonder why so many large Western corporations parrot liberal talking points.
How to Spot A Chinese Liberal
“In 100 years of colonialism, Hong Kong has changed to what we see today. With China being so big, of course, it would require 300 years as a colony for it to be able to transform into how Hong Kong is today. I have my doubts as to whether 300 years would be enough”. – Liu Xiaobo
Liu also said in response to criticisms: “‘If you say I’m a traitor, then I’ll betray the country!… I am an unfilial descendant who dug out my ancestor’s graves, I am proud of it”!!! (你要說我叛國，我就叛國！就承認自己是挖祖墳的不孝子孫，且以此為榮)
This man was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
A true Chinese liberal always rejoices at failures in his country and is worried about the success of the country.
A liberal starts giggling happily and rubbing his little hands contentedly, whenever there is bad news of a natural disaster or some kind of emergency in China. Every failure in China is automatically the result of the actions of the “Evil Communist Party”.
A real liberal is upset whenever a new high-speed railroad or a new warship is commissioned. He or she would mumble under his breathe about how long it will take for a train to crash or the ship to sink.
A real liberal always admires the West, the West can do no wrong in their eyes.
Everything is dear to the heart of a Chinese liberal in the West. A liberal always admires Western “democracy”. When a liberal is asked about cases of human rights violations in the United States or the liberal would react furiously.
For example, Chinese liberal Liu Xiaobo once praised the illegal U.S. invasion of Iraq. “Victory to the Anglo-American Alliance” he proudly declared.
A Chinese liberal considers Chinese people to be hopeless cattle
A true Chinese liberal sits and rolls his eyes. He talks about how stupid and hopeless the Chinese people are. That Chinese people are slaves and deserved all the misfortunes that happen to them and happened in the past. “Next life I do not want to be Chinese” the liberal will declare to the entire world.
Socialist Patriotism is the pride and shield of the Chinese nation.
There is and has been no other unifying force that has been more beneficial to the prosperity and unification of China than the ideal of socialist patriotism. Socialist patriotism is and has always been the force that provides a unity of purpose for the masses of Chinese people. Socialist patriotism is the antithesis of liberalism, as it is a force that places the overall collective interest over the individual interest. The two concepts are mutually exclusive after all.
Chinese workers (1958)
During the period from 1949 to 1976, it was socialist patriotism, not liberalism, which inspired the Chinese workers and peasants of our parent’s generation to break their back in the fields, carve roads, and build bridges with nothing but their bare hands. Most people today do not comprehend the extreme poverty which existed in China during that time. In 1949, China was in every sense a medieval country. The nutrition, healthcare, sanitation, social services, and infrastructure of a modern civilization were nonexistent. Life expectancy was 36 years old for the average Chinese person. That’s the same life expectancy as medieval Europe.
So Mao Zedong during this time, mobilized the entire Chinese nation to modernize the country. Every single man and woman, of all occupations, was on duty day and night: Peasants, soldiers, workers, doctors, intellectuals, teachers, and scientists all did their part to build the country. They did their jobs for little or no pay. Even if some money was to be made, there was nothing to buy.
So-called “barefoot doctors” volunteered to live in the rural countryside to treat the residents there. Teachers volunteered to teach children in rural places for free. Peasants and workers plowed the fields and broke their backs. Food was oftentimes scarce and oftentimes there was none to be had.
Millions of lives perished under these austere conditions.
Barefoot doctors traveled to the countryside to treat peasants for no pay.
A modern Chinese liberal would have scoffed and called this an abuse of human rights or a form of slavery. However, the mindset of the Chinese socialist patriot at the time was the complete opposite. The Chinese patriot understood the totality of the circumstances. He knew that his country was poor because it was a victim of 100 years of Western imperialism. That he starved not because his country wanted to use him as a slave, but it was because the material means, the food, the resources, and capital, simply did not exist at the time. China then had just exited one hundred years of colonialism, over thirty years of endless civil wars and foreign occupations. Infrastructure was nonexistent. Faced with such extreme poverty, the Chinese patriot knew that complaining would solve nothing and that only through sheer determination could the foundations of a New China be established.
So the Chinese workers, soldiers, scientists, and peasants all selflessly sacrificed because they had nothing else. Their only dream was to see China become strong enough so that it cannot be colonized again.
And look at what the Chinese socialist patriots created. Life expectancy, literacy rate, and living standards almost doubled from 1949 to 1976. Life expectancy which was at 36 years old in 1949 reached 64 by 1976. This would not have been possible in a country the size of China if improvements to nutrition, social services, infrastructure, and healthcare had not been made on a large scale.
By 1976, China was a nuclear power. China had launched satellites into space, commissioned nuclear submarines, detonated nuclear weapons, and built rockets. This nuclear status guaranteed that China will never again become occupied by foreign powers.
All of these accomplishments were achieved despite China’s poverty and the crippling sanctions imposed on the nation by both the Soviet Union and the United States.
Today, China moves forward as a powerful country that is now on the verge of becoming the world’s largest economy. China’s success story is one of the most epic tales of human history and was achieved completely due to the sacrifices made by the Chinese workers, soldiers, peasants, and patriotic people from all walks of life, who brought life to China. Such people are unconquerable.
Turncoat liberals like Liu Xiaobo are traitors. Liu humiliates 25 generations of his ancestors. God damn him. God damn that man.
Comments by readers:
Our Chinese ancestors were our models and angels. They had nothing, had no food, no clothes, and lived in hardships. But they worked hard anyways, brought life back to a dying China. Chinese workers, soldiers, teachers, scientists and peasants all selflessly sacrificed themselves for the benefits and betterment of the nation and the Chinese people in general.
Barefoot doctors volunteered to heal patients in rural places and teachers to teach children for free or little pay, workers and peasants worked for little pays and foods with their bare hands under the most difficult conditions and hardships.
Their only dreams were to see China rising up and becoming strong again so that she would not be subjugated or colonized by the greedy, aggressive and unmerciful foreigners any longer.
I really admire the courage and determination of our ancestors, grand parents and parents in handling and overcoming their hardships, difficulties, backwardnesses and misfortunes brought about by foreign aggressors.
If Chinese people did not have these courage and determination, China would still be a failed state today.
American actress Ethel Clayton, 1910
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Gregg Allman – These Days
Very appropiate for my current “state of mind”. I hope you all appreciate the music selection in this article.
Modern American women
Not everyone for certain. Only the loudest.
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India announces immediate ban on wheat exports
India wants to keep it’s food for itself. It’s following the Chinese model.
China is the only country with a traditional policy for food security. Since ancient times, the state has routinely stocked up certain crops for emergency use. Then, they released the food to the market with stable prices, as well as to provide assistance to the population whenever there is a nature disaster.
These snapshots taken in the mid-20th Century show us people posing for the camera, smiling in readiness for whoever’s behind the thing to press the button and capture the moment. Others are relaxed, caught off guard, their eyes blinked closed or shut in asleep.
The US wants to keep its status as a superpower at any cost
By Zamir Awan for the Saker Blog
The US is desperate to sustain its hegemony and supremacy. It is taking extreme measures and can go to any extent to keep its hegemony and supremacy. Its Petrodollars policy has been playing a significant role, but, facing challenges recently and the US is getting nervous and crazy.
The petrodollar is any U.S. dollar paid to oil-exporting countries in exchange for oil. The dollar is the preeminent global currency. As a result, most international transactions, including oil, are priced in dollars. Oil-exporting nations receive dollars for their exports, not their own currency.
In addition, most oil-exporting nations own their oil industries. That makes their national income depends on the dollar’s value. If it falls, so does their government’s revenue. As a result, most of these oil exporters also peg their currencies to the dollar. That way, if the dollar’s value falls, so does the price of all their domestic goods and services. That helps these countries avoid wide swings in inflation or deflation.
The petrodollar system is tied to the history of the gold standard. After World War II, the United States held most of the world’s supply of gold. It agreed to redeem any U.S. dollar for its value in gold if the other countries pegged their currencies to the dollar. Other countries signed this deal at the 1944 Bretton Woods conference. It established the U.S. dollar as the world’s reserve currency.
On February 14, 1945, President Franklin D. Roosevelt initiated the alliance with Saudi Arabia.1 He met with Saudi King Abd al-Aziz. The United States built an airfield at Dhahran in return for military and business training. This alliance was so critical that it survived subsequent years of differences of opinion over the Arab-Israeli conflict.
The 1945 agreement between the United States and Saudi Arabia cemented the relationship between the dollar and oil. The petrodollar was born. In 1971, U.S. stagflation prompted runs on the dollar. Many countries asked to redeem their U.S. dollars for gold. To protect the remaining U.S. gold reserves, President Richard Nixon removed the dollar from the gold standard. As a result, the value of the dollar plummeted. That helped the U.S. economy as its export values also decreased, making them more competitive. A falling dollar hurt oil-exporting countries because contracts were priced in U.S. dollars. Their oil revenue dropped along with the dollar. The cost of imports, denominated in other currencies, increased.
In 1973, Nixon asked Congress for military aid to Israel in the Yom Kippur War. The newly-formed Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries halted oil exports to the United States and other Israeli allies. The OPEC oil embargo quadrupled the price of oil in six months. Prices remained high even after the embargo ended. In 1979, the United States and Saudi Arabia negotiated the United States-Saudi Arabian Joint Commission on Economic Cooperation. They agreed to use U.S. dollars for oil contracts. The U.S. dollars would be recycled back to America through contracts with U.S. companies. These companies improve Saudi infrastructure through technology transfer.
The United States uses the power of petrodollars to enforce its foreign policy. But many countries don’t fight back. They are afraid it would mean the collapse of the petrodollar system.
However, there was strong thinking against the Petrodollar concept and few Arab leaders declared to trade oil; in local currencies or any other currency, de-linking from dollars. The leading role was played by President Sadden Hussain, Col. Qaddafi of Libya, and the Syrian President. The US has punished them and changed the regimes in such countries.
China called for a replacement of the U.S. dollar as a global currency. Although, it is one of the largest foreign holders of the dollar. China influences the U.S. dollar by pegging its currency, the yuan, to it. China has signed a currency swap agreement with more than twenty countries and already trading with them in Yuan or local currencies. China is importing oil and gas from a few Arab nations in Yuan.
Russia has demanded to settle Gas bills in Rubles and a few European countries are already agreed to pay in Rubles. EU has also no objections if any member state pays in Rubles instead of Dollars. Russia is trading with few other nations in Rubles or local currencies instead of Dollars.
Russia has slashed the value of the dollar and the euro by 30% in a jiffy by linking the Russian Ruble to the value of gold and declaring to supply oil only against the Russian Ruble. Russia’s move means that now the entire world, especially Western Europe and Japan will buy the Russian Ruble by selling dollars in huge quantities, as the Russian Ruble has become the world’s most stable currency overnight after being linked to gold.
America, which does not mass-produce anything other than weapons and ammunition, is caught in a terrible economic crisis. In the event of a shrinking dollar, the US cannot cover its 306 billion budget deficit. This will cause severe unemployment and adversely affect the social safety net. This is the economic atom bomb that Joe Biden was aware of when he was talking about the removal of Putin in Poland.
Putin orders European countries to make payments of Gas and Oil in terms of Rubble and open the account in Russian banks. It will weaken the American sanctions on Russia. Although Russia has not retaliated against the American sanctions so aggressively, introduced its policies to counter the sanctions successfully.
The rapid decline of the US has made its leadership nervous and crazy. They are taking all possible measures to sustain their hegemony and supremacy. Even, though the Ukraine war is only a phenomenon, the objective is to maintain status-co. unfortunately, the US is not interested in global peace, stability, or saving human lives. The only priority is to maintain its hegemony and supremacy. To achieve this goal, the US can sacrifice Ukraine, Europe, or any heavy price. The US policy in the Ukraine war is to add fuel to fire, there is no will to stop the war, ceasefire, or save human lives. They are providing weapons, and arming civilians to lead toward a prolonged civil war, to bleed Russian and keep many countries over-engaged and let the US maintain its monopoly and the upper hand.
Russia was reluctant to attack Ukraine and has been observing restrains for quite along. Showing its genuine security concerns and alarming the US with serious consequences, but, the US kept its policy to encircle Russia.
The haphazard joining of NATO by Finland and the defense agreement with the UK is also equally a genuine threat to Russia. Russia and Finland share a long common border. Joining NATO, means, the deployment of NATO forces along the Russian border, which is a direct threat. Joining NATO by other Scandinavian nations is also a serious and matter of deep concern for Russia.
It seems the US has only one priority which is to sustain its position in the geopolitics, it ignores the genuine concerns of other nations. We are scared of the future of geopolitics and afraid the days to come may be harsh for humankind.
In history, many nations rose to the status of superpowers and ruled the world for a certain period of time, then, meltdown and passed the status of superpower to other rising nations. Like Roman Empire, Ottoman Empire, Greek Empire, British, and French empires, etc. But, The US is not willing to accept the natural cycle of superpowers and can go to any extent to keep its status of superpower forever, which is not rational nor natural, it might cause irrecoverable loss to humankind. Unfortunate!
The 1955 GMC L’Universelle Dream Truck
One of the most popular General Motors design concept models designed under the direction of Harley Earl was the 1955 GMC L’Universelle show van. The name “L’Universelle” is French and means “The Universal.” The model was a part of the Motorama shows during the 1950s, which created a huge buzz among crowds at the time.
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The L’Universelle concept model was designed under the direction of Charles Jordan, a creative and talented automotive/truck designer. Jordan, who had worked in the GMC studio, became one of GM’s youngest and brightest designers, creating many successful projects during the 1950s. The L’Universelle project started out as a box design with the engine positioned up front followed by a big box interior design for the driver and cargo area. The interior was designed around the engine, which had allowed a certain separation of the cargo area from the driver’s cab area.
American movie and theater actress Maude Fealy, the 1900s
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Modern Woman
Not everyone. But you know, unfortunately, this has become more or less the norm. Damn ugly. Or, in the ‘states we say “fugly”. Which means “fucking ugly”.
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50 billion in Lend and Lease, Or why the US is doomed.
A ‘Word Cartoon’ by F(unny)MAN for the Saker Blog
Today, after some weeks on a Hospital recovering from a severe intoxication that almost killed me (1) and which have keep me between life and dead due to the secondary effects of such event (I mean the intoxication) the doctors found the medical solution to heal me, applied it and… voila 20 minutes later I am at home again reading that the US Government is preparing to give aid under the Lend and Lease Act to the Ukrainian Satrapy (AKA Country 404) in order to maintain it afloat, rebuild its army, and of course launch a counteroffensive that will push Russia beyond the Urals, and surely for 50 billion more, beyond the Kolyma Mountains.
Everybody knows that the Americans do this because they live in a country of abundance, a functional post scarcity society, where money is not an issue, and the Populus in general are only dedicated to their personal advancement thanks to education, philosophical and scientifical research, et cetera. A country where politicians only think on how to improve the wellbeing of their fellow countrymen, and work unstoppable to do it, no matter the costs…
uh oh … looks like another seizure… yes? No? No, false alarm. Just some after effects of the intoxication still.
As I said, 50 Billion Dollars! Any normal country can do quite a lot with that money! If it is only invested in the Army, then Hell! They can have an army as well equipped and efficient as some of the best armies(3) in the World
But, lets ask ourselves: what can a country like 404 do with such amount?
First, we must apply Mathematics to know how much of that 50 billions really get to 404. Yes sorry, it is another Essay with Mathematics, because they never lie.
For this we are going to apply a Formula:
R404 = B*(1-(f1+f2+f3+…+*fn))
Where the Terms are
R404 is the Real amount of MoneyMoneyMoney that the Country 404 really gets
B is the planned Lend and Lease amount to be throw away through the window given
fn are Reality Modifiers Factors such as:
f1 : Us Congressmen racket percentage, which vary between 3 and 50%
f2 : Financial handlers theft Fees; usually not smaller than 10%
f3 : 404 Congressmen bribery salary percentage, usually a Term called ATCS(4)
f4 : 404 Oligarchic shakedown Percentage, usually a Term called ATCSFWL(5)
f5 : Military Industrial Complex CRAP(6)brazen robbery Overpricing Factor
Taking into account the effectivity of such investments in past events (7) after some months the Country 404 should surely muster a 10 men Army, equipped with hundredths of (obsolete) Tanks, APC, Planes, Artillery systems, anti-tank and anti-air rocket launchers (no warranty that any of these functions properly) with millions of tons of ammo (no warranty to be the appropriate ones for the mentioned weapons before). Of these men, half of them in Ironman suits and the other half dressed in Batman suits… that would terrorize the Russian people, Army soldiers, general Shoigu, minister Lavrov and Pres. Putin himself. And that would revert the Tide of Russian Hordes, destroying them in the process, and reach the Urals (and surely for 50 billion more, even reach the Kolyma Mountains as mentioned before)
Meanwhile, in Country 404, elites(8) and whomever can, is trying to leave the country to survive the reckoning in perspective.
In the US… same Shit as every day.
The intoxication was caused accidentally when my television entered in a Zapping Cycle which exposed me to MSM reporting of the Events in Ukraine for about 4 minutes. Watching the News of CNN, BBC, CNBC, and such started a process of severe laughing that combined with the brain seizures were almost mortal.
The medical solution has been around for quite a long time, it is a product that taken in small (or big, it doesn’t really matter) quantities makes you immune to Covid, poisoning, dementia and other maladies. Fact is, it makes you immortal! The Product is the (in)famous NOVICHOK. As all those who have taken it can testify about its efficiency.
Best armies in the world with a budget close to 50 billion annually.
Reader Discretion is advised, this information about the best armies can cause severe laughing, and diarrhea once understood.
La France ca. 56 billion annual budget
Das Germany ca. 56 billion annual budget
Saudi Barbaria ca. 55 billion annual budget
Japan ca. 54 billion annual budget
South Korea ca. 50 billion annual budget
ATCS = All They Can Steal
ATCSFWL= All They Can Steal From What is Left
Please Note that ATCS and ATCSFWL are interchangeable and have a mathematical tendence to be as high as possible percentually, and catch me if you can.
The products of the Military Industrial Complex, also known as CRAP, an Acronym for Concoptions Really Absurdly (over)Priced. As effective as those charlatan potions for hair growing,
Wart removers and various maladies alleviators, et al. Sold in the Far West in the nineteen century.
The 5 Syrian Rebels… yes, those trained for 500 million Dollars.
By elites we all know I am referring to those oligarchs, politicians, and banderites that have done an ATCS or ATCSFWL to improve their personal advancement as exiles in other countries.
These snapshots taken in the mid-20th Century show us people posing for the camera, smiling in readiness for whoever’s behind the thing to press the button and capture the moment. Others are relaxed, caught off guard, their eyes blinked closed or shut in asleep.
The combined positive effects of birds and bees on fruit set, fruit weight, and fruit uniformity — key factors in quality and price — were greater than their individual effects, the study shows. Without birds and bees, the average yield declined nearly 25%, valued at roughly $1,066 per hectare.
Linear, categorical thinking that reflects the perspective of the individual turns out to work OK for manufacturing and laboratories but terrible in more complex environments, where ecosystems — flexible, mutual systems based on natural selection and niche-seeking — consistently enhance quantity and quality of output.
The 1955 GMC L’Universelle Dream Truck
One of the most popular General Motors design concept models designed under the direction of Harley Earl was the 1955 GMC L’Universelle show van. The name “L’Universelle” is French and means “The Universal.” The model was a part of the Motorama shows during the 1950s, which created a huge buzz among crowds at the time.
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Jordan along with many other GM design team employees, created a monospace form with large chrome bumpers and a compact style. Some automotive historians have said that the L’ Universelle show model offered a strong character line wrapped around the front and continuing along the sides before curving down to the rear wheels. The model also offered a panoramic windshield design, which became very popular on many vehicles during the 1950s. The front-end design offered the same look that found on passenger vehicles. The show truck also offered twin side doors which could open in a gullwing design for the driver or passengers.
A Victorian era woman getting photographed for the first time, the 1890s
A real beauty.
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Modern United States woman
Not everyone is fat, but many, many are. Personally this chick is fugly on a new scale.
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Genetic study confirms Sarin Nerve gas as a cause of Gulf War Illness
Dr. Haley’s research group not only discovered that veterans with exposure to sarin were more likely to develop GWI, but also found that the risk was modulated by a gene that normally allows some people’s bodies to better break down the nerve gas. Gulf War veterans with a weak variant of the gene who were exposed to sarin were more likely to develop symptoms of GWI than other exposed veterans who had the strong form of the gene.
“Quite simply, our findings prove that Gulf War illness was caused by sarin, which was released when we bombed Iraqi chemical weapons storage and production facilities,” said Dr. Haley, a medical epidemiologist who has been investigating GWI for 28 years. “There are still more than 100,000 Gulf War veterans who are not getting help for this illness and our hope is that these findings will accelerate the search for better treatment.”
These snapshots taken in the mid-20th Century show us people posing for the camera, smiling in readiness for whoever’s behind the thing to press the button and capture the moment. Others are relaxed, caught off guard, their eyes blinked closed or shut in asleep.
Social Media identifies the clerk behind the Supreme court abortion law leak
As a Yale student, Jain blasted Yale for supporting Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination.
Jain was quoted in a 2017 Politico piece by Josh Gerstein.
Today, Gerstein published the draft SCOTUS opinion on Roe.
If true, it has ominous implications for how the diversity will run a Supreme Court.
“My beautiful grandmother, 1949”
Sweet.
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The 1955 GMC L’Universelle Dream Truck
One of the most popular General Motors design concept models designed under the direction of Harley Earl was the 1955 GMC L’Universelle show van. The name “L’Universelle” is French and means “The Universal.” The model was a part of the Motorama shows during the 1950s, which created a huge buzz among crowds at the time.
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Another person that was a part of the L’Universelle project was Philip Monaghan, the vice president and general manager of the GMC division at the time, who said, “The basic design of the L’Universelle is a panel delivery; minor manufacturing changes can convert it into a small bus, taxi, station wagon, or sportsman’s car.”
Australia says that a “Chinese spy ship” has been hugging the West Coast
He said it was without precedent for a Chinese warship to venture so far south and that authorities were monitoring the ship closely with planes and surveillance techniques. He said he wanted to be open and honest with Australians about the situation.
“I think it is an aggressive act, and I think particularly because it has come so far south,” Dutton said.
If I were China, I’d do the same thing. I’d be monitoring the shit out of the military bases in Western Australia.
Breaking Bad – Half Measures Speech
The television show “Breaking Bad” has many, many lessions and stories of great signifigance; ones that can be taken out and used to illustrate situations. This is one of the best.
It follows the 48 Laws of Power. No half-measures. Go all in, or don’t bother doing anything. Watch this five minute segment.
Kodachrome Stories
We love Kodachromes and we love found photos. Lee Shulman shares those loves, recognising what he calls “the emotional value of these slices of life”. Since 2017, Lee’s collected around 700,000 found photographs, and compiled them into his Anonymous Project.
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These snapshots taken in the mid-20th Century show us people posing for the camera, smiling in readiness for whoever’s behind the thing to press the button and capture the moment. Others are relaxed, caught off guard, their eyes blinked closed or shut in asleep.
Monte Cristo sandwich Recipe
One of my all-time favorite sandwiches. If you have never tried this, then boy-oh-boy are you missing out!
Algerian girl, around 1905
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The 1955 GMC L’Universelle Dream Truck
One of the most popular General Motors design concept models designed under the direction of Harley Earl was the 1955 GMC L’Universelle show van. The name “L’Universelle” is French and means “The Universal.” The model was a part of the Motorama shows during the 1950s, which created a huge buzz among crowds at the time.
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Although the concept truck was unveiled at the Motorama show in 1955, it never saw production. However, the L’Universelle concept did influence other Chevrolet truck designs during the 1960s. For example, the first passenger compact van by Chevrolet, the Greenbriar Corvair model, used a lower interior space design for passenger comfort and safety that came from the L’ Universelle.
These snapshots taken in the mid-20th Century show us people posing for the camera, smiling in readiness for whoever’s behind the thing to press the button and capture the moment. Others are relaxed, caught off guard, their eyes blinked closed or shut in asleep.
Chilling scenes show the United States preparing for nuclear war. The Guardian Response 22 homeland emergency exercise features role-players displaying horrific injuries, as hazmat-suited personnel attempt to handle the fall-out.
Taking place at Muscatatuck Urban Training Center, Indiana, U.S. Army Soldiers are evaluated based on how they apply occupational skills to a notional nuclear event. Sgt. Jermaine Jackson, 300th Mobile Public Affairs Detachment, said: “What are your plans if a 5-ton nuclear device detonates in your city?
“While unlikely, the U.S. Army trains to assist communities in these worst-case scenarios and enhance mission readiness during homeland emergency response exercises such as Guardian Response 22, which is hosted by the U.S. Army Reserve’s 78th Training Division.”
During the exercise, multiple units, which fall within the Defense Chemical, Biological, Radiological, and Nuclear Response Force, such as the 63rd Chemical Company, the 581st Area Support Medical Company, and the 2nd Battalion, 3rd General Support Aviation Battalion, work to test unit readiness and responsiveness.
Staff Sgt. Francisco Vasquez, leader of 4th Squad, 2nd Platoon, 172nd Chemical, Biological, Radiological, and Nuclear Company, participated in Guardian Response for the first time with his unit.
Vasquez and his unit have trained since February to be evaluated on Mass Casualty Decontamination, but he said he is able to use his spare time to ready his soldiers, ensuring they are quicker and more precise when it comes to setting up a decontamination tent.
Vasquez and his team are responsible for decontaminating anyone contaminated in this nuclear scenario. Their hard work made them capable of setting up a decontamination tent within thirty-six minutes which is twenty-eight minutes faster than required.
“The soldiers and I, once we found out our roles, needed to learn how to conduct this (exercise) at one hundred percent. Not cutting corners. We built team cohesion, we worked together real well. They know what’s expected of me, and I know how much I have to give to them,” said Staff Sgt. Vasquez, during the decontamination tent set-up evaluation.
“I’m always drained at the end of this, because I’m always giving them one hundred percent.”
Kodachrome Stories
We love Kodachromes and we love found photos. These young men look great in their “great coats”.
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These snapshots taken in the mid-20th Century show us people posing for the camera, smiling in readiness for whoever’s behind the thing to press the button and capture the moment. Others are relaxed, caught off guard, their eyes blinked closed or shut in asleep.
American actress Julia Marlowe, 1899
Julia Marlowe’s career began fortuitously in 1879. A theatrical manager in Cincinnati, Colonel Robert E.J. Miles, undertook to stage the popular comic opera, Gilbert and Sullivan’s H.M.S. Pinafore, in Vincennes, Ohio, using children from the local public schools in Cincinnati (such children’s productions were very popular at that time).
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The Contrast…
It is disturbing.
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French dancer Cléo de Mérode, 1902
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Disturbing scene from America
Yikes!
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Supertramp – Take The Long Way Home (Audio)
I was in High School when this was a popular song, but it wasn’t until decades later, when I was in my mid-30s, when the lyrics really hit home. I think everyone can relate to what the song is all about.
Middle-life crisis.
Maude Adams, American theater actress, 1890
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Disturbing American “citizen”…
“She” needs a shave.
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Top Russian Official Says NATO Risking ‘Full-Fledged’ Nuclear War
Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, who is now the deputy of Russia’s Security Council, warned Thursday that the US and NATO risk a direct conflict with Russia and a “full-fledged” nuclear war by pouring weapons into Ukraine.
“The pumping of Ukraine by NATO countries with weapons, the training of its troops to use Western equipment, the dispatch of mercenaries and the conduct of exercises by the countries of the Alliance near our borders increase the likelihood of a direct and open conflict between NATO and Russia instead of their ‘war by proxy,’” Medvedev wrote on Telegram.
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“Such a conflict always has the risk of turning into a full-fledged nuclear war,” Medvedev added. “This will be a disastrous scenario for everyone.”
While it’s widely believed that a direct war between the US and Russia could quickly turn nuclear, the risk doesn’t appear to be factored into the Biden administration’s Ukraine policy. Over the past few months, the US has significantly escalated its support to Kyiv in its war against Russia through increased military aid, training, and expanded intelligence sharing.
President Biden has maintained that he won’t send US troops into Ukraine to fight Russia directly, but the proxy war still risks provoking a response from Moscow. Despite the risks, some ultra-hawks in Washington favor a direct conflict with Russia, including Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-IL).
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Kinzinger introduced a bill that would give President Biden war powers if he determined Moscow used chemical, biological, or nuclear weapons in Ukraine, but the legislation failed to gain a single cosponsor.
Kinzinger is also a proponent of the US enforcing a no-fly zone over Ukraine, which would require shooting down Russian warplanes and bombing surface-to-air missiles inside Russia.
The Democrat Party Leader of the United States House of Representatives, Steny Hoyer (D-MD) took to the floor of the US House of Representatives last night and told that body “We are at war.” He was referring to . . . Russia.
Here’s the 30 second video where he complains “I know there’s a lot of politics here, but we are at war:
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This man is the leader of the political party that has actual control over the House of Representatives. As such, his words carry a LOT of weight.
How do you think Russia will interpret this when they calculate whether or not they have to launch a nuclear attack at the United States to put an end to the meddling in Ukraine?
This man and his political party, are sleepwalking directly into world war 3, and he’s going to get you and your family, killed with his comments.
Ione Bright, Broadway actress, 1912
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A United States woman
I’m pretty sure. But, you know, I could be wrong.
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Karate Kid Final Fight. Dre Parker vs Cheng. // Kung fu Fight // Jackie Chan.
A great scene. Worth a rewatch.
Finland defaults on debt for electricity, Russia Shuts them off!
The country of Finland has defaulted on debt for electricity to Russian supplier, RAO.
As of Saturday, May 14, Russia halted electric supply to Finland due to the unpaid debt, reducing Finland’s national electric supply by a full ten percent.
RAO Nordic, a subsidiary of the Russian company Inter RAO, announced its intention to cut off the supply of electricity a day earlier.
(You don’t pay your bill you don’t get the product. -MM)
Bread – The Guitar Man LIVE FULL HD (with lyrics) 1978
I’m entering middle school in the 1970s. And this song is my life. I’m wearing bell-bottom jeans. I have a “choker” collar, and a MIA bracelet.
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.
Well, the captured Canadian NATO general in charge of the bioweapons program in Ukraine has “spilled the beans”, the resulting is a true horror. What the United States has been doing makes Nazi Germany look like amateurs. But first, let’s present some various articles and thoughts designed to throw off the troll-bots, the sniffer bots, the vault 7 DOSA, and other systems that suppress this information and opinions from entering the Western Internet…We have to cut through all the lies.
This is too good not to be credited to Brian Berletic:
The United States (and small collective west) is refusing to choose the option that makes sense. This option is coexistence with the rest of the world. Their objective of maintaining primacy over the rest of the world is no longer attainable.
The bullshit is so very deep in the United States these days. You have to be an absolute moron to actually believe the nonsense.
Gonzalo Lira calculated the current rate of attrition:
At the current rate of attrition, the Armed Forces of Ukraine will see 10,000 soldiers die by the end of this month, another 20,000 dead by the end of June. This war cannot be won by Ukraine—it’s over. The only solution is to sue for peace. But the US won’t allow this.
War in Ukraine map – 14MAY22
It’s pretty good.
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Marshall Tucker Band “Can’t You See” @Epcot 05/10/2019
Here’s a shout out to all the “old timers” here on MM…
Russia To Halt Electricity Exports To Finland On Saturday | OilPrice.com
The crusaders asking for it:
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Following Thursday’s report that Russia threatened to cut the flow of gas to Finland, Russia—through its entity RAO, will suspend imports of electricity to Finland as of 1:00 a.m. on Saturday, May 14, Fingrid said on Friday in a statement on its website.
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The Finnish transmission system operator, Fingrid, claims that the security of Finland’s power supply is not under threat, with 10% of its electricity consumption imported from Russia.
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Reima Paivinen, Senior VP of Power System Operations at Fingrid, said that whatever electricity is typically imported from Russia “will be compensated by importing more electricity from Sweden and by generating more electricity in Finland.”
Turkish President Recypt Erdogan signals his country may VETO entry of Finland and Sweden into NATO. Erdogan claims Finland hosts “terrorist” organizations that are against Turkey . . . .
Erdogan also says Greece return to NATO in 1980 with Turkey’s approval, was a mistake.
Developing . . .
1965 Cadillac Coupe DeVille
Cadillac was “Standard of the World” in motoring pleasure and owner loyalty. “So new, so right, so obviously Cadillac!” This editorial is dedicated to those who regard their motorcars as prized possessions. Once one has been in the driver’s seat of a new Cadillac… it is difficult to become content with any other car.
Here is another classic DeVille encore performance… in the continuing saga of “As the Standard of the World Turns.”
Another body change gave every 1965 Cadillac a longer, lower silhouette. Rear fenders were now planed ruler-flat in profile, though a hint of fin was preserved via a recontoured rear deck. Also new were a straight back bumper and vertical lamp clusters.
Up front for the 1965 Cadillac line, the headlight pairs were switched from horizontal to vertical, making for an even wider grille. Curved side windows appeared, six-window hardtop sedans disappeared, and pillared sedans returned in Calais, DeVille and Sixty Special guise. The Special also reverted to its exclusive 133-inch wheelbase (last used from 1954 to 1958).
The 1965 Cadillac Series 62 was renamed Calais, but its roster was thinned to just two hardtops and a pillared sedan. The convertible moved to the midrange DeVille series, which had been gaining popularity since its 1959 inaugural.
At the top of the 1965 Cadillac line, the Eldorado convertible and Sixty Special sedan officially became Fleetwoods, adopting the “carriage trade” Series 75 models’ nameplates, wreath-and-crest medallions, broad rocker-panel and rear-quarter brightwork, and rectangular-pattern rear appliqués. A new Fleetwood Brougham sedan (actually a Sixty Special trim option) came with a vinyl roof and “Brougham” script on the rear pillars.
Despite an unchanged V-8, the slightly lighter 1965 Cadillac lineup boasted the luxury field’s best power-to-weight ratio. A new “Dual driving range” Turbo Hydra-Matic transmission and full-perimeter frames (replacing the X-type used since ’57) were adopted except on Series 75s, and all 1965 Cadillac models came with a new “sonically balanced” exhaust system. Amazingly, prices weren’t too far above what they’d been back in 1961.
Cadillac had a resounding 1965, producing close to 200,000 cars. But it was a great year for all Detroit, so that volume was only good for 11th place.
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And…
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And…
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And…
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United States Navy Capability 2022
USN amphibious capability is slowly rusting away and not enough Marines can be recruited to staff them. Annually, the Heritage Organization publishes a report on the Outlaw US Empire’s Military Readiness in several very distinct categories that’s widely respected for its objectivity. There’s a large mass of material to wade through from that initial page. Although it says this is the 2022 assessment, you’ll note that most articles and assessments are dated October 2021. There’s one page that sums it all up and this is it.
After the narrative and tables we read the following:
“In the aggregate, the United States’ military posture is rated ‘marginal.’ The 2022 Index concludes that the current U.S. military force is likely capable of meeting the demands of a single major regional conflict while also attending to various presence and engagement activities but that it would be very hard-pressed to do more and certainly would be ill-equipped to handle two nearly simultaneous major regional contingencies.” [Emphasis Original]
What I’ve read over the last 6-7 months since that was published doesn’t provide any facts that would allow for any improvement in the Marginal rating while others would argue a slight worsening, particularly in the Air Force. And when you look at the massive sums of money spent for such mediocre results and more now being thrown at it, there’s very little grounds for improvement by the next assessment.
Travel out of China halted as Xi Jinping doubles down on zero COVID
Saving the lives of Chinese citizens.
"China has banned its citizens from leaving the country for non-essential travel as Xi Jinping ramps up efforts to stamp out COVID-19 despite the rising economic costs..."
Victor Berlemont, a French publican working in an establishment of London’s Soho, circa 1939.
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China making it’s place on the globe
Not only is China trouncing the US in Asia, but also in much of the rest of the world. Picking two areas:
Africa has provided the best fit for and has been the most receptive to China’s development-focused economic diplomacy. China claims a historic solidarity with developing countries in the region, which has bolstered intensified trade, investment, and financial relations.
China’s role in Latin America is mostly defined by commodity trade and investment. Its economic and political influence in Latin America will be only as strong as its commodity-based links to the region. Yet, given that the United States has frequently been a fickle partner for Latin American countries, their government and business leaders will continue to look for alternatives. . .here
Kodachrome Stories
We love Kodachromes and we love found photos. Lee Shulman shares those loves, recognising what he calls “the emotional value of these slices of life”. Since 2017, Lee’s collected around 700,000 found photographs, and compiled them into his Anonymous Project.
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These snapshots taken in the mid-20th Century show us people posing for the camera, smiling in readiness for whoever’s behind the thing to press the button and capture the moment. Others are relaxed, caught off guard, their eyes blinked closed or shut in asleep.
How to Make Butter-Basted Fish Fillets with Garlic and Thyme
This is NOT common knowledge. You all need to learn how to cook fish, especially the fish that you catch yourself.
A Russia State Duma (Parliament) deputy proposed to put “Poland next in line for denazification after Ukraine.”
The Polish leadership’s statements about Russia “as a cancerous tumor” and about indemnities to Ukraine prompt the Russian Federation to “put it in line for denazification,” said Oleg Morozov, chairman of the State Duma Committee on Control.
“By its statements about Russia as a ‘cancer tumor’ and about the ‘indemnity’ that we must pay to Ukraine , Poland encourages us to put it in first place in the queue for denazification after Ukraine,” Morozov wrote in his Telegram channel.
Earlier, Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said in a Telegraph column that he considers the Russian world “a cancer that poses a deadly threat to the whole of Europe.”in his opinion, it needs to be “eradicated.”
Also, Polish President Andrzej Duda said that Russia would be forced to pay indemnity to Ukraine.
Russia launched a military operation in Ukraine on February 24. President Vladimir Putin called its goal “the protection of people who have been subjected to bullying and genocide by the Kiev regime for eight years.”
For this, according to him, it is planned to carry out “demilitarization and denazification of Ukraine”, to bring to justice all war criminals responsible for “bloody crimes against civilians” in Donbass .
Briefing: analysis of documents related to the military biological activities of the United States on the territory of Ukraine May 11, 2022
Ideologues of US military-biological activities in Ukraine are the leaders of the Democratic Party.
▫️Thus, through the US executive branch, a legislative framework for funding military biomedical research directly from the federal budget was formed. Funds were raised under state guarantees from NGOs controlled by the Democratic Party leadership, including the investment funds of the Clintons, Rockefellers, Soros and Biden.
▫️The scheme involves major pharmaceutical companies, including Pfizer, Moderna, Merck and the US military-affiliated company Gilead. U.S. experts are working to test new medicines that circumvent international safety standards. As a result, Western companies are seriously reducing the cost of research programmes and gaining a significant competitive advantage.
▫️The involvement of controlled nongovernmental and biotechnological organisations, and the increase in their revenues, allows the leaders of the Democratic Party to generate additional campaign finance and hide its distribution.
▫️In addition to US pharmaceutical companies and Pentagon contractors, Ukrainian state agencies are involved in military bioweapons activities, whose main tasks are to conceal illegal activities, conduct field and clinical trials and provide the necessary biomaterial.
▫️Thus, the US Department of Defence, using a virtually internationally uncontrolled test site and the high-tech facilities of multinational companies, has greatly expanded its research capabilities, not only in the field of biological weapons, but also in gaining knowledge about antibiotic resistance and the antibodies to specific diseases in populations in specific regions.
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Not only the US, but also a number of its NATO allies are implementing their military-biological projects in Ukraine.
▫️The German government has decided to launch a national biosafety programme independent of Washington, D.C., starting in 2013. Twelve countries, including Ukraine, are involved in the Programme.
▫️On the German side, the programme involves the Institute for Armed Forces Microbiology (Munich), the Robert Koch Institute (Berlin), the Loeffler Institute (Greifswald) and the Nocht Institute for Tropical Medicine (Hamburg).
▫️New documents reveal that between 2016 and 2019 alone, three and a half thousand blood serum samples of citizens living in 25 regions of Ukraine were taken by military epidemiologists from the Bundeswehr Microbiology Institute.
▫️The involvement of institutions subordinate to the Bundeswehr confirms the military orientation of biological research carried out in Ukrainian laboratories and raises questions about the goals pursued by the German armed forces in collecting biomaterials of Ukrainian citizens.
▫️The documents obtained also show the involvement of Poland in Ukrainian biolaboratories. The participation of the Polish Institute of Veterinary Medicine in research aimed at assessing the epidemiological threats and spread of the rabies virus in Ukraine has been confirmed. Characteristically, the research in question was carried out jointly with the US-based Battelle Institute, a key contractor for the Pentagon.
▫️In addition, Polish funding for the Lvov Medical University, which includes a member of US military biology projects, the Institute of Epidemiology and Hygiene, has been documented. The organisation has been running a retraining programme for specialists with experience of working with dual-use materials and technologies since 2002.
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We have received new information revealing details of the Pentagon’s inhuman experiments on Ukrainian citizens in Psychiatric Hospital No 1 (Streleche village, Kharkov region).
◽️The main category of subjects was a group of male patients aged 40-60 years with a high stage of physical exhaustion.
◽️In order to conceal their US affiliation, the biological research experts travelled via third countries. Here is a photograph of Florida native Linda Oporto, who was directly involved in these works.
◽️In January 2022, the foreign nationals conducting the experiments were evacuated in an emergency and the equipment and drugs they were using were taken to western Ukraine.
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Evidence of emergency destruction of documents confirming work with the US military establishment was obtained.
◽️ A preliminary analysis of extant documentation indicates the use of Mariupol as a regional centre for cholera pathogen collection and certification. The selected strains were sent to the Public Health Centre in Kiev, which is responsible for the onward shipment of biomaterials to the United States. These activities have been carried out since 2014, as evidenced by the transfer of strains.
◽️ An act of destruction of the pathogen collection dated February 25, 2022, according to which cholera, tularemia and anthrax pathogens were handled there, was found in the sanitary and epidemiological laboratory.
◽️ Part of the collection of the veterinary laboratory was not destroyed in a hurry. In order to ensure safety and secure storage, 124 strains were exported by Russian specialists and their study was organised.
◽️ The presence in the collection of pathogens that are uncharacteristic of veterinary medicine, such as typhoid, paratyphoid fever and gas gangrene, is a cause for concern. This could indicate the laboratory’s misuse and involvement in a military biological programme.
◽️ We will continue to examine the full volume of material received from the Mariupol biolaboratories and will inform you about the results.
2. Full Briefing
The Russian Defence Ministry continues to study materials on the implementation of military biological programs of the United States and its NATO allies on the territory of Ukraine.
We have already mentioned Robert Pope, director of the Cooperative Threat Reduction Programme and author of the idea of the Central Depository of Highly Dangerous Microorganisms in Kiev.
In his statement of April 10, 2022, Pope said that “…there is no reason to claim that research related to the development of biological weapons is taking place in Ukraine…”. He previously claimed that “…the Americans did not find biological weapons when they first started working with Ukraine, and they still haven’t. In addition, Ukraine lacks the infrastructure to develop and produce biological weapons…”.
I would like to recall that the term “biological weapons” includes biological formulations that contain pathogenic micro-organisms and toxins, as well as the means of delivery and use of said formulations.
While the priority for Ukrainian healthcare is socially significant diseases such as HIV, poliomyelitis, measles and hepatitis, US customers are interested in a completely different nomenclature: cholera, tularemia, plague and hantaviruses.
As a result of the special military operation on the territory of Ukraine, facts of work with the specified pathogens, which are potential agents of biological weapons, have been revealed. At the same time, it was noted that Ukraine had sent a request to the manufacturing company regarding the possibility of equipping the Bayraktar drones with aerosol equipment.
In addition on March 9, three unmanned aerial vehicles equipped with 30-litre containers and equipment for spraying formulations were detected by Russian reconnaissance units in Kherson region. At the end of April, 10 more were found near Kakhovka.
All this information calls into question the statements of American experts.
We have previously provided a scheme for US coordination of biological laboratories and research institutes in Ukraine. Its preliminary analysis suggests that Ukraine is essentially a testing ground for the development of biological weapons components and the testing of new samples of pharmaceuticals.
The Russian Ministry of Defence was able to clarify the said scheme.
It should be noted that the ideologues of US military-biological activities in Ukraine are the leaders of the Democratic Party.
Thus, through the US executive branch, a legislative framework for funding military biomedical research directly from the federal budget was formed. Funds were raised under state guarantees from NGOs controlled by the Democratic Party leadership, including the investment funds of the Clintons, Rockefellers, Soros and Biden.
The scheme involves major pharmaceutical companies, including Pfizer, Moderna, Merck and the US military-affiliated company Gilead. U.S. experts are working to test new medicines that circumvent international safety standards. As a result, Western companies are seriously reducing the cost of research programmes and gaining a significant competitive advantage.
The involvement of controlled nongovernmental and biotechnological organisations, and the increase in their revenues, allows the leaders of the Democratic Party to generate additional campaign finance and hide its distribution.
In addition to US pharmaceutical companies and Pentagon contractors, Ukrainian state agencies are involved in military bioweapons activities, whose main tasks are to conceal illegal activities, conduct field and clinical trials and provide the necessary biomaterial.
Thus, the US Department of Defence, using a virtually internationally uncontrolled test site and the high-tech facilities of multinational companies, has greatly expanded its research capabilities, not only in the field of biological weapons, but also in gaining knowledge about antibiotic resistance and the antibodies to specific diseases in populations in specific regions.
It should be noted that not only the US, but also a number of its NATO allies are implementing their military-biological projects in Ukraine.
The German government has decided to launch a national biosafety programme independent of Washington, D.C., starting in 2013. Twelve countries, including Ukraine, are involved in the Programme.
On the German side, the programme involves the Institute for Armed Forces Microbiology (Munich), the Robert Koch Institute (Berlin), the Loeffler Institute (Greifswald) and the Nocht Institute for Tropical Medicine (Hamburg).
New documents reveal that between 2016 and 2019 alone, three and a half thousand blood serum samples of citizens living in 25 regions of Ukraine were taken by military epidemiologists from the Bundeswehr Microbiology Institute.
The involvement of institutions subordinate to the Bundeswehr confirms the military orientation of biological research carried out in Ukrainian laboratories and raises questions about the goals pursued by the German armed forces in collecting biomaterials of Ukrainian citizens.
The documents obtained also show the involvement of Poland in Ukrainian biolaboratories. The participation of the Polish Institute of Veterinary Medicine in research aimed at assessing the epidemiological threats and spread of the rabies virus in Ukraine has been confirmed. Characteristically, the research in question was carried out jointly with the US-based Battelle Institute, a key contractor for the Pentagon.
In addition, Polish funding for the Lvov Medical University, which includes a member of US military biology projects, the Institute of Epidemiology and Hygiene, has been documented. The organisation has been running a retraining programme for specialists with experience of working with dual-use materials and technologies since 2002.
The special military operation by Russian troops succeeded in obtaining additional information about bio-incidents in Ukraine.
For example, materials indicating the intentional use of a multidrug-resistant tuberculosis pathogen in 2020 to infect the population of the Slavyanoserbsky district of the LPR were examined.
The flyers, made in the form of counterfeit currency notes, were infected with the tuberculosis agent and distributed to minors in Stepovoe village. The organisers of this crime took into account the behaviour of children, who have a habit of “putting everything in their mouths” and taking food with unwashed hands.
The results of bacteriological studies have confirmed the resistance of the isolated bacteria to first- and second-line anti-TB drugs, meaning that the disease caused by them is much more difficult to treat and the cost of treatment is much higher.
According to the conclusion of the Lugansk Republican Sanitary and Epidemiological Station,
“…the contamination of the notes was most likely carried out artificially, as the material contains extremely dangerous strains of the pathogen in concentrations capable of ensuring infection and development of the tuberculosis process…”.
In his conclusion, the chief doctor of the Lugansk Republican TB Dispensary also notes that
“…there are all signs of deliberate, man-made contamination of the flyers with highly pathogenic biomaterial…”.
We previously reported on trials of potentially dangerous biological drugs on one of the least protected categories of people – patients of the Kharkov Regional Clinical Psychiatric Hospital No 3.
We have received new information revealing details of the Pentagon’s inhuman experiments on Ukrainian citizens in Psychiatric Hospital No 1 (Streleche village, Kharkov region). The main category of subjects was a group of male patients aged 40-60 years with a high stage of physical exhaustion.
In order to conceal their US affiliation, the biological research experts travelled via third countries. Here is a photograph of Florida native Linda Oporto, who was directly involved in these works.
In January 2022, the foreign nationals conducting the experiments were evacuated in an emergency and the equipment and drugs they were using were taken to western Ukraine.
Russian Defence Ministry specialists have carried out work directly in two biolaboratories in Mariupol.
Evidence of emergency destruction of documents confirming work with the US military establishment was obtained.
A preliminary analysis of extant documentation indicates the use of Mariupol as a regional centre for cholera pathogen collection and certification. The selected strains were sent to the Public Health Centre in Kiev, which is responsible for the onward shipment of biomaterials to the United States. These activities have been carried out since 2014, as evidenced by the transfer of strains.
An act of destruction of the pathogen collection dated February 25, 2022, according to which cholera, tularemia and anthrax pathogens were handled there, was found in the sanitary and epidemiological laboratory.
Part of the collection of the veterinary laboratory was not destroyed in a hurry. In order to ensure safety and secure storage, 124 strains were exported by Russian specialists and their study was organised.
The presence in the collection of pathogens that are uncharacteristic of veterinary medicine, such as typhoid, paratyphoid fever and gas gangrene, is a cause for concern. This could indicate the laboratory’s misuse and involvement in a military biological programme.
We will continue to examine the full volume of material received from the Mariupol biolaboratories and will inform you about the results.
The Russian Ministry of Defence has information that provocations are being prepared to accuse the Russian Armed Forces of using weapons of mass destruction, followed by a “Syrian scenario” investigation to fabricate the necessary evidence and assign blame.
The high likelihood of such provocations is confirmed by requests from the Kiev administration for personal skin and respiratory protection equipment that provides protection against toxic chemicals and biological contaminating agents. The supply to Ukraine of organophosphorus poisoning antidotes raises concerns. In 2022 alone, more than 220,000 ampoules of atropine, as well as preparations for special treatment and disinfection, were delivered from the USA at the request of the Ukrainian Ministry of Health.
Thus, the information obtained confirms that the United States is implementing an offensive military-biological programme in Ukraine to study the possibility of forming controlled epidemics in specific territories.
The special military operation of the Russian Armed Forces has crossed the US military-biological expansion in Ukraine and stopped criminal experiments on civilians.
MM Comments
This is pure evil.
The information has been shared between Russia, China and the SEO.
You can well expect that there are going to be some very INTERESTING responses to these validations of Chinese and Russian accusations.
Gregg Allman – Laid Back Era
Ah. Such memories. I haven’t heard this song in over 50 years. And yet, still, it resonates with me. I hope you all enjoy it.
These snapshots taken in the mid-20th Century show us people posing for the camera, smiling in readiness for whoever’s behind the thing to press the button and capture the moment. Others are relaxed, caught off guard, their eyes blinked closed or shut in asleep.
The Number Of Rich Americans Buying Second Passports Has Skyrocketed 300% The Last 3 Years
Saturday, May 14, 2022 – 07:20 AM
In another note of optimism for our country, Americans with money are officially starting to stockpile second passports as “Plan B” for their families.
In fact, Americans who are citizenship or residency in foreign countries “has skyrocketed” over the last 3 years, according to a new report from Insider/Yahoo News. The report says that billionaires and entrepreneurs, along with celebrities, are all looking for a backup plan to the red, white and blue, should the proverbial stuff hit the fan.
Among the worries of the rich remain Covid, climate change and political turmoil, the report says.
Hum…
Coronavirus?
Climate Change?
Domestic Political Turmoil?
Yeah. Sure…
There are more than a dozen countries that offer what are called “golden passports” and visas, the report says. These passports allow foreigners to get citizenship solely for investments in the country.
For example, Malta has a program where you can receive citizenship for investing $1.1 million. In Austria, that number is $9.5 million.
Latitude Residency & Citizenship helps guide high net worth individuals through the application process. They say inquires from the U.S. are up 300% between 2019 and 2021. Another firm, Henley & Partners, has said that sales to American nationals were up 327% over the same time period.
One partner at Henley said there are “four C’s” driving his citizenship industry right now: COVID-19, climate change, cryptocurrency, and conflict.
So…
Coronavirus?
Climate Change?
Cryptocurrency?
Conflict?
Hum. Let me help you all out here. It’s Global Thermonuclear War initiated by a lunatic United States.
The executive told Insider:
“In the very strict lockdowns there was a point where if you only had an American passport, you could not enter Europe. I think that made a lot of particularly ultra high net worth individuals realize that they’re potentially a little bit more fragile than they thought.”
Reaz Jafri, CEO of Dasein Advisors, told Insider that he had seen more inquiries from Americans in the last 3 years than he had in the 20 years prior to that, combined.
“We’ve all lived through the past two and a half years. It all just reminded us how vulnerable and frail we are, and people who have means are accepting that it will happen again — and they don’t want to be caught off guard,”
Jafri said.
Ezzedeen Soleiman, a managing partner at Latitude, commented:
“We see these programs as an insurance policy. We’ve had some billionaires approach us and ask what’s the best place to live if there’s a climate catastrophe, or if there’s another storm, or another global pandemic.”
These snapshots taken in the mid-20th Century show us people posing for the camera, smiling in readiness for whoever’s behind the thing to press the button and capture the moment. Others are relaxed, caught off guard, their eyes blinked closed or shut in asleep.
A friend of ours makes these, and OMG, the meat really does fall off the bone. It is so damn delicious. The video is in Chinese, but the subtitles and the actions are very clear, and in no time, you will be able to have the most amazing and delicious chicken wings that you have ever eaten… and I am NOT kidding. So very delicious.
‘An Engine That Does Not Work’: F-35 Program Office Lambasted For Stealth-Jets Poor Performance
Another one of the most advanced and expensive US weapon systems, I wonder what will happen when the American F-35 meets the Chinese J-20in the South China Sea…
‘An Engine That Does Not Work’: F-35 Program Office Lambasted For Stealth Jets Poor Performance
The F-35 Joint Program Office came under fire from US lawmakers who questioned the under-performance of ‘America’s pride’ – the F-35 stealth fighter jets, during the nearly two-hour hearing of the House Armed Service Subcommittee on Readiness on April 28.
From HERE
United States eyes Cambodia
Previously three US senators tore into Cambodia. Senators Romney, Markey, Menendez and Risch introduced a resolution last October, on the 30-year anniversary of the Paris Peace Agreements. The resolution notes that the promise of the Paris Peace Agreements remains unfulfilled due to Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen’s violations of Cambodia’s Constitution and effective one-party rule since 1993.
Back in November: US turns new screws on Cambodia’s Hun Sen Washington imposes new sanctions, threatens to lift GSP privileges and warns US companies against doing business in the kingdom .
For years, US officials have accused Phnom Penh of secretly agreeing to allow Chinese troops access to the strategically situated base. Chinese access to the Ream Naval Base could shift security dynamics in the South China Sea, giving Chinese vessels a new southern flank in the hotly contested waterway.
And lest we forget: Back fifty years ago: Cambodia was bombed with over 500,000 tons of ordnance until August 1973. About 600,000 deaths followed, mostly civilians, helping Khmer Rouge elements gain power in 1975.
Kodachrome Stories
We love Kodachromes and we love found photos. Lee Shulman shares those loves, recognising what he calls “the emotional value of these slices of life”. Since 2017, Lee’s collected around 700,000 found photographs, and compiled them into his Anonymous Project.
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These snapshots taken in the mid-20th Century show us people posing for the camera, smiling in readiness for whoever’s behind the thing to press the button and capture the moment. Others are relaxed, caught off guard, their eyes blinked closed or shut in asleep.
Metals Access
It looks like the Trump trade war with China will continue with all subsequent administrations. Come the revolution…..
Have the geniuses at the Pentagon and Russell Hill, Canberra, noticed that China and Chinese interests are among the top 20 shareholders of many critical mineral ASX miners the Pentagon proposes to finance , like Lynas? [Lynas rare earth are used in the F35]
Or in true neo-liberal/robber baron behaviour on display of late, will they simply seize the Chinese holdings?
“Boost for ASX critical metals players as US Defense Department seeks to fund mining and processing in Australia”….
By Pepe Escobar, posted with the author’s permission and widely cross-posted
What are the roots that clutch, what branches grow / Out of this stony rubbish? Son of man, / You cannot say, or guess, for you know only / A heap of broken images, where the sun beats, / And the dead tree gives no shelter, the cricket no relief, / And the dry stone no sound of water. Only / There is shadow under this red rock, / (Come in under the shadow of this red rock), / And I will show you something different from either / Your shadow at morning striding behind you / Or your shadow at evening rising to meet you; / I will show you fear in a handful of dust.
T.S. Eliot, The Waste Land: I. The Burial of the Dead, 1922
This glimpse of “fear in a handful of dust” already ranks as one the prime breakthroughs of the young 21st century, presented this week by Chief of Russian Radiation, Chemical, and Biological Protection Force Igor Kirillov.
The provisional results of evidence being collected about the work of U.S. bioweapons in Ukraine are simply astonishing. These are the main takeaways.
U.S. bioweapon ideologues comprise the leadership of the Democratic Party. By linking with non-governmental biotechnology organizations, using the investment funds of the Clintons, Rockefellers, Soros and Biden, they profited from additional campaign financing – all duly concealed. In parallel, they assembled the legislative basis for financing the bioweapons program directly from the federal budget.
COVID-19 vaccine manufacturers Pfizer and Moderna, as well as Merck and Gilead – of Donald “known unknowns” fame, and affiliated with the Pentagon – were directly involved.
U.S. specialists tested new drugs in the Ukraine biolabs in circumvention of international safety standards. According to Kirillov, acting this way “Western companies seriously reduce the costs of research programs and gain significant competitive advantages.”
According to Kirillov, “along with U.S. pharmaceutical companies and Pentagon contractors, Ukrainian government agencies are involved in military biotechnology activities, whose main tasks are to conceal illegal activities, conduct field and clinical trials and provide the necessary biomaterial.”
The Pentagon, Kirillov pointed out, expanded its research potential not only in terms of producing biological weapons, but also gathering information on antibiotic resistance and the presence of antibodies to certain diseases among the population in specific regions. The testing ground in Ukraine was practically outside the control of the so-called “international community”.
These findings, amply documented, suggest a vast “legitimized” bioweapon racket reaching the highest levels of the American body politic. There’s no doubt the Russians plan to thoroughly unmask it for the benefit of world public opinion, starting with a War Crimes Tribunal to be set up this summer, most probably in Donetsk.
An ongoing U.S. bioweapons program in Ukraine was one of the Top Three reasons that led to the launch of Operation Z, side by side with preventing an imminent NATO-managed blitzkrieg against Donbass and Kiev’s desire to re-start a nuclear weapons program. These are Top Three red lines for Russia.
The strength of the collected evidence may directly correlate with what was largely interpreted as a carefully measured Victory Day speech by President Putin. The Kremlin does not bluff. It will certainly privilege the meticulous presentation of – bioweapon – facts on the ground over grandstanding rhetoric.
The return of Nord Stream 2
Deputy Permanent Representative to the UN Dmitry Polyaniskiy announced Russia’s demand for an open meeting of the UN Security Council to present further evidence related to U.S. biolabs in Ukraine. Even if the meeting would be vetoed by the U.S., the evidence will be entered by Russia on the UN records.
These developments provide an extra indication there’s absolutely no space left for diplomacy between Russia and the U.S./collective West, as Polyaniskiy himself suggested when commenting the possible accession of Ukraine to the EU: “The situation has changed after Mr. Borrell’s statement that ‘this war should be won on the battleground’ and after the fact that the European Union is the leader in deliveries of arms [to Ukraine].”
It gets worse. The next chapter is Finland’s drive to join NATO.
The Americans gamble that Finland – and Sweden – joining NATO will totally discredit Putin’s Operation Z as having accomplished next to nothing strategically: after all, in the near future, potential U.S. hypersonic missiles stationed in Finland and Sweden will be very close to Saint Petersburg and Moscow.
Meanwhile, Russian unmasking of the bioweapon racket will drive a toxic section of American political elites to turbo-charge their warmongering. It’s all following a carefully calculated script.
First, these bioweapon-supervising “elites” ordered the massive Kiev shelling of Donbas in early February. That forced the Kremlin’s hand, pushing it to launch Operation Z.
We should always remember that the ultimate goal in the U.S. plan of training Ukrainians for war since 2014 was to alienate Germany from Russia – as Germany de facto controls Euroland economically.
Imperial control of the oceans allows the Empire to strangle Germany at will into subservience by cutting them off from Russian energy – as the British did to Germany in WWII when Britannia ruled the waves. The Wehrmacht could not supply their mechanized army with fuel. Now, in theory, Germany and the EU will have to look to the seas – and total U.S. dependency – for their natural resources.
The remote-controlled Kiev regime dominated by SBU fanatics and Azov neo-Nazis is making it even harder – by shutting off all natural gas from Russia through Ukraine into Europe, reducing the flow by more than one third.
That translates as U.S.-enforced blackmail to force the EU to increase the Ukro-weaponizing against Russia. The practical consequences for Germany and the EU will be dire – in terms of shut down industries and cost of home heating and electrical power.
Russia, meanwhile, will rely on a bolstered Pipelineistan maze to China and East Asia as well as high-speed rail to transport all its natural resources.
Blowback against the Americans though is not off limits. Stranger things have happened. If gas transit to Europe via Ukraine is totally cut off, there are no alternatives. And that – assuming there are working IQs in Berlin – would open the way for a renegotiation on the future of Nord Stream 2.
As the head of the Energy Development Center Kirill Melnikov notes, “the Yamal-Europe gas pipeline is practically idle and one of the Nord Stream 2 lines is also ready for operation though the German regulator has not issued permission for its launch yet.”
That prompted Melnikov to a priceless comment: “If purchases remain the same, Germany will probably need to urgently allow the launch of one of the Nord Stream 2 lines in order to replace the Ukrainian transit route.”
No one ever lost money betting on the astonishing stupidity permeating EUrocrat decision levels. Even facing economic suicide, the EU is desperate to “abandon” Russian oil. Yet a full ban is impossible, because of energy-deprived Eastern Europe.
Every impartial energy analyst knows replacing Russian oil is D.O.A., for a number of reasons: the OPEC+ deal; the ghastly divide between Washington and Riyadh; the never-ending JCPOA renegotiation, where the Americans behave like headless chickens; and the crucial fact – beyond the understanding of EUrocrats – that European oil refineries are designed to use oil from the Urals.
So just when we thought we could enjoy the summer by watching Europe commit hara-kiri, it’s time to stock up on those Aperol Spritz. Get ready for a new hit series, season 1: Inside the American bioweapon racket.
Kodachrome Stories
We love Kodachromes and we love found photos. Lee Shulman shares those loves, recognising what he calls “the emotional value of these slices of life”. Since 2017, Lee’s collected around 700,000 found photographs, and compiled them into his Anonymous Project.
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These snapshots taken in the mid-20th Century show us people posing for the camera, smiling in readiness for whoever’s behind the thing to press the button and capture the moment. Others are relaxed, caught off guard, their eyes blinked closed or shut in asleep.
This is the tastiest chicken breast I’ve ever eaten! Simple, cheap and very juicy!
Come on!
Ukraine Tonight: “Most Violent Rocket and Artillery Attacks in 8 years”
Word is coming out of Luhansk, Ukraine tonight that battles between the Independent Luhansk Republic troops along with Russian troops, against Ukrainian troops are so ferocious tonight, the vibrations from the artillery and missile barrages are causing ground trembling 50km away.
A source inside Luhansk tells me
“There are powerful night battles on the front line in the LPR.
50 km away in Lugansk, the earth shudders from terrible explosions.
Fights with the use of artillery of the largest calibers can be heard from the direction of Pervomaisk-Stakhanov.
Something terrible is happening on the front line, you can hear it all the way in Lugansk.
There at the front line, probably, the earth is boiling.
You can also hear heavy work from us, we are hitting them with volleys of MLRS, and the arrivals are thumping, the earth is trembling,”
We are hearing the most violent and intense artillery and rocket attacks that we have ever heard since the start of the conflict 8 years ago!”
Kodachrome Stories
We love Kodachromes and we love found photos. Lee Shulman shares those loves, recognising what he calls “the emotional value of these slices of life”. Since 2017, Lee’s collected around 700,000 found photographs, and compiled them into his Anonymous Project.
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These snapshots taken in the mid-20th Century show us people posing for the camera, smiling in readiness for whoever’s behind the thing to press the button and capture the moment. Others are relaxed, caught off guard, their eyes blinked closed or shut in asleep.
‘Easy Target For Chinese Subs’ – Why China’s New Attack Submarine With VLS Could ‘Deeply Endanger’ IAF Bases
Military experts believe that a vessel spotted in a Chinese shipyard in recently obtained satellite photographs could be a new or upgraded class of nuclear-powered attack submarine. The submarine is seen in a dry dock in Huludao Port in Liaoning province, as per images obtained by Reuters from private satellite imagery supplier Planet Labs and others circulating on social media. However, it is unclear whether the submarine seen in the images is a brand-new design, an improvement of an older vessel, or something entirely different.
How about those sanctions? European Gas Buyers Switch to Ruble Payments – It’s reported another 14 firms – on top of the existing 20 – have requested the paperwork to set up accounts too. Italy and Germany – huge consumers of Russian gas – are among those that have switched. Draghi Says “Most Gas Importers” Have Opened Ruble Accounts With Gazprom
Ukrainian refugees are showing their mettle by knifing and killing a man in Poland who stepped up to defend a young woman that was harassed by the refugees. Other stories are coming out of Europe of refugees refusing to live next to people that are not white and four of them just decided to grab a villa in France, belonging to a Russian, and they moved right in. This trend can only continue.
A further trend: All of the reliable commentators on the SMO indicate that it is soon over. We do not know the shape that it will take though. Martyanov speaks about a definite trend on accelerating demoralization of VSU and the pronounced trend on the collapse of the VSU defenses as we can see from lack of equipment, ammo and very high losses. Ritter in his last video, talks about days or weeks. Larry Johnson talks about a Ukraine headed for defeat.
Glamorous Vintage Camper
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A rare and fully restored ‘Holiday House Geographic’ midcentury trailer is for sale – and it offers a taste of modernist living on the open road. Only seven of the fibreglass caravans – designed by industrial engineer Chuck Pelly in 1962 with an original price tag of $8,500 – were ever made and only two thought to still exist.
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Following its renovation by Oregon-based Flyte Camp, the four-berth Model X trailer is now for sale, priced at $250,000. It features an aluminium and wood frame, in a champagne and moss green colourway. Interiors meanwhile feature walnut surfaces and aluminium details, and moss-coloured upholstery and teak flooring.
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Inside, the trailer features a black walnut skin that gives it a dark, cozy feel. The cabinetry and hardwood floors are also black walnut with custom aluminum detailing and LED strip lighting to add a bit of glamor. A sleek kitchen includes a stainless two-burner cooktop, a stainless-steel fridge, and a shiny sink with a built-in drain board.
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Heading To Scrapyard! US Navy To Discard Its ‘Brand New’ Warships Designed To Hunt Chinese Submarines
Apparently, US latest (so-called) advanced and most expensive war ships promoted years back are total BS in font of the latest PLA submarines and warships.
At a time when the US has acknowledged that it has fewer ships compared to its rival China, America’s naval chief Admiral Michael Gilday told the House Armed Services Committee that approximately nine ships should be scrapped, some of which were commissioned very recently.
Admiral Gilday justified the plans to discard nine relatively new warships in the 2023 fiscal year despite trying to outmatch China’s burgeoning fleet. Three of the littoral combat ships that are proposed to be decommissioned are just three years old.
Admiral Gilday told the House Armed Services Committee that the anti-submarine ships could not perform their primary job.
“I refuse to put an additional dollar against a system that would not be able to track a high-end submarine in today’s environment,”
Gilday said.
According to the Navy’s projected FY23 budget, retiring the ships will save the service about $391 million. However, this would only cover a small portion of the $3.2 billion costs of the nine littoral combat ships.
Having said that, the US Navy intends to decommission the warships to allocate resources for investing in a more robust and combat-ready fleet.
“The US Navy cannot outpace an increasingly capable PRC by retaining platforms that are decreasingly relevant in modern naval warfare.
While some of these platforms may have day-to-day utility in permissive environments, the Navy’s first obligation is to deliver a ready, combat-credible fleet with the funding Congress appropriates. Simply maintaining the capabilities of today’s fleet will be insufficient to both preserve our long-term interests and protect America. Quantity is not synonymous with quality. We must modernize to maintain our maritime edge”, said Admiral Gilday.
The USS Indianapolis, USS Billings, and USS Wichita were all commissioned in 2019, which indicates that ships that are barely halfway through their anticipated service lives are to be sent to the scrap.
Additionally, the US Navy intends to decommission six more littoral combat ships, all of which are single-hull Freedom variants rather than the trimaran Independence variants. Both the variants can reach speeds of more than 40 knots (74 kilometers per hour).
USS Wichita had conducted a bilateral maritime interdiction with the Dominican Republic earlier this month.
The Freedom-class variants were all homeported in Mayport, Florida, according to a 2016 Navy plan, and were mostly used in Atlantic Ocean missions, while the Independence-class ships were based in San Diego and primarily used in the Pacific.
The US Navy describes the Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) as a type of Small Surface Combatant that is meant to enable access to joint forces in the littorals. LCS can operate independently or as part of a networked battle force that comprises larger, multi-mission surface fighters in high-threat settings.
The decision is an embarrassing acknowledgment that some of the Navy’s newest ships aren’t up to the task of contemporary warfare.
Despite the Navy’s plan to demolish the vessels, Congress has the ultimate authority over the military budget and has previously rejected pleas to decommission warships. As politicians focus on countering China’s ever-increasing navy and narrowing the gap between the US and Chinese fleets, scrapping the warships may become even more difficult.
Do You Have Jason Bourne in Custody? | The Bourne Supremacy
Great Hollywood. I never had to do anything like this, but it sure is enjoyable to watch. But, you know, trust me… you all don’t ever want to be in this kind of situation.
Watch “War of the Three Kingdoms Episode 1” on YouTube
"My son told me today he begun to watch the three Kingdom 2 weeks ago, and now get addicted to the history drama series. - <Redacted>"
During the Mao era, all the top leaders read this book. It is a mind opener with a wide range of knowledge that includes war strategies, human phycholgy, HR management, diplomacy, spy and intelligence, targeting individual human weakness etc.
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Total 95 episodes. With English subtitle.
I am sure once you begin, you will have your ass glued on the seat.
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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.
So many of the MM audience are undergoing strife and changes in their lives. This is the direct result of their affirmations. You cannot say that I didn’t warn you. This is what happens, the greater the changes, the greater the discomfort. Sigh. I really hate for my friends to deal with discomfort, but like a painful injection, you need to endure it to move forward in safety. In a like way, we discuss the geopolitics situation at this time…
British cowboys
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Apparently, US has lost a lot of friends. This is just the latest:
Ankara (Turkey) could block the pair (Sweden and Finland) from joining the US-led military alliance, with unanimous agreement needed on new members.
China’s partnership with Russia seen as serious problem for the U.S.
Well, the long-lasting stream of hate from the media is certainly a contributor. -MM
As war rages in Ukraine, Americans are acutely concerned about the partnership between China and Russia. Around nine-in-ten U.S. adults say it’s at least a somewhat serious problem for the United States, and a 62% majority say it’s a very serious problem. Unfavorable views of China are also at a new high – 82% of Americans have unfavorable opinions of the country, a 6-point increase in negative views from 2021, according to a Pew Research Center survey conducted in March.
We love Kodachromes and we love found photos. Lee Shulman shares those loves, recognising what he calls “the emotional value of these slices of life”. Since 2017, Lee’s collected around 700,000 found photographs, and compiled them into his Anonymous Project.
These snapshots taken in the mid-20th Century show us people posing for the camera, smiling in readiness for whoever’s behind the thing to press the button and capture the moment. Others are relaxed, caught off guard, their eyes blinked closed or shut in asleep.
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Americans’ concerns about war in Ukraine: Wider conflict, possible U.S.-Russia clash
Hum. I was under the IMPRESSION that Biden had very LOW polling numbers. I guess that this poll must have obtained polling data elsewhere. -MM
As the conflict between Russia and Ukraine enters its third month, most Americans say they support actions taken by the Biden administration in response to the Russian invasion, such as placing strict economic sanctions on Russia, sending military equipment and weapons to Ukraine and stationing large numbers of U.S. military forces in NATO countries near Ukraine, according to a Pew Research Center survey conducted in late April.
Doorway on Mars? Photo by NASA rover stirs curiosity online
May 12, 2022
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WASHINGTON — Is there a doorway on Mars? That’s the question being asked by conspiracists online after NASA released a new picture taken by NASA Curiosity rover.
Snapped by the explorer’s Mast Camera (Mastcam) on Sol 3466 (May 7), the grainy image appears to show a cleanly-cut hole in a rockface. There has been no official NASA explanation of the sighting, but that hasn’t stop debate online about just what it shows.
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One social media user described the scene as “a formation on Mars which appears to be a portal and a wall nearby that looks artificial,” while another concluded “swear to God, there’s at least 5 Martians camouflaged in there.”
However, others were more practical, with one Reddit user stating, “it’s obviously not a little door, it’s just a flat piece of broken rock.”
The Mars discovery comes at a time that the U.S. Congress is to hold an open hearing next Tuesday about UFOs for the first time in over 50 years. The House Intelligence Committee’s Counterterrorism, Counterintelligence, and Counterproliferation Subcommittee will tackle the subject.
“The American people expect and deserve their leaders in government and intelligence to seriously evaluate and respond to any potential national security risks — especially those we do not fully understand,” said Indiana Democratic Rep. André Carson, chairman of the subcommittee, in a statement this week.
Federal officials released a report on documented cases of so-called “Unidentified Aerial Phenomena” (UAP) in Summer 2021. In it, the Director of National Intelligence examined 144 cases of UFOs, but could explain only one.
On Wednesday, UFO “watchdog” of sorts, “UFO of Interest” appeared to have debunked any talk of alien life. A tweet of theirs instead reveals the “doorway” to be a “little niche” in a much larger rock wall.
Federal officials released a report on documented cases of so-called “Unidentified Aerial Phenomena” (UAP) in Summer 2021. In it, the Director of National Intelligence examined 144 cases of UFOs, but could explain only one.
On Wednesday, UFO “watchdog” of sorts, “UFO of Interest” appeared to have debunked any talk of alien life. A tweet of theirs instead reveals the “doorway” to be a “little niche” in a much larger rock wall.
About this raw image (https://t.co/hZxiepGQXx), what's that? An entrance to a secret underground tunnel? Watching it in context as part of the whole mosaic, we can see that little niche in a rock w/ other blocks, fractures, shapes & other erosive features all over that rock face. pic.twitter.com/ou4Ze941HR— ufoofinterest.org (@ufoofinterest) May 11, 2022
The actor Monica Vitti with the director Michelangelo Antonioni in Rome in 1958.
We love Kodachromes and we love found photos. Lee Shulman shares those loves, recognising what he calls “the emotional value of these slices of life”. Since 2017, Lee’s collected around 700,000 found photographs, and compiled them into his Anonymous Project.
These snapshots taken in the mid-20th Century show us people posing for the camera, smiling in readiness for whoever’s behind the thing to press the button and capture the moment. Others are relaxed, caught off guard, their eyes blinked closed or shut in asleep.
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Fashion is confusing
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Jungbauernkalender 2020
The new Jungbauernkalender 2020 is out and can be ordered now. This time 12 young men and 12 women come from Upper Bavaria, Lower Bavaria, Upper Franconia, Swabia and Upper Palatinate. Six girls come from Austria. The calendar is a joint project of the Bavarian Young Farmers Association and the Austrian Young Farmers Association.
The calendar pictures the different side of farmer’s life: dressing for the wedding, feeding a newborn calf, working in the fields or swimming in the nearby lake. The pictures were taken by the photographer duo “Die Abbilderei” on the farm of the Wunderl family.
It happened: Russia prohibits the export of its raw materials and products to unfriendly countries
May 3
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Russian President Vladimir Putin played ahead of the curve: while the countries of the European Union cannot reach a common opinion on the embargo on oil and gas, Russia prohibits the export of raw materials and products to unfriendly countries. An exact list of all those who fall under these sanctions will be ready in 10 days.
West, what do you say to that? (photo from open sources)
When conducting military operations, the main thing is not the number of blows and the number of shells fired at the enemy, but the strength and accuracy of a single, but crushing blow.
For two months the United States and the European Union were engaged in firing sanctions against Russia. Their number exceeded in general all conceivable scales. In the west, they themselves went astray, counting their number.
Russia did not answer for a long time, maybe even for a very long time. It was only in mid-April that a measure was announced to sell gas for rubles. This single step has sowed serious confusion and vacillation in the ranks of European states – the European Union no longer gives the impression of a single organism, each of its members is trying to pull the blanket over itself.
Today's Putin's decree is akin to a knockout blow against all of Russia's opponents without exception. Almost all resources mined in Russia, as well as all manufactured products, including agricultural products, are subject to a ban on export outside the country.
Russia puts on “stop” the export of its main export goods. How will the West respond?
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Gas, oil, coal, uranium, palladium, titanium, aluminum, diamonds, wheat, corn, sunflower oil become inaccessible to unfriendly countries.
Moreover, if we proceed from the text of the decree, then existing contracts also fall under the ban. They have ten days to live. As soon as the lists of unfriendly and sanctioned persons are announced, their execution will be terminated.
I wonder how the West will react to this step of Russia? In turn, the markets and stock exchanges should already today respond with growth to the entire list of Russian products.
You can bet on how much oil, gas, coal and wheat will rise in price.
Most likely to fall under the sanctions and electricity, which Russia exports to the Baltic countries and Finland. It is worth noting that electricity supplies are quite impressive and occupy a significant share in the total amount of energy consumed.
Perhaps, with this decree of Vladimir Putin, a new era begins in Russia’s relations with the United States and the European Union (photo from open sources)
Here is a brief first impression of Putin’s decree on counter-sanctions. Tomorrow it will become clear how it will be implemented.
Kodachrome Stories
We love Kodachromes and we love found photos. Lee Shulman shares those loves, recognising what he calls “the emotional value of these slices of life”. Since 2017, Lee’s collected around 700,000 found photographs, and compiled them into his Anonymous Project.
These snapshots taken in the mid-20th Century show us people posing for the camera, smiling in readiness for whoever’s behind the thing to press the button and capture the moment. Others are relaxed, caught off guard, their eyes blinked closed or shut in asleep.
Nations come and nations go. And then, forgotten by all.
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The Best Steak in Your Life and The World! – Authentic Picanha Steak from Brazil
Wonderful!
And a special message to the “haters”; if you don’t like the cooking and food sections on my posts / articles, you can read over them. If they “polute the content” so much, as you say, then you can leave. OK?
Check out this video!
Kodachrome Stories
We love Kodachromes and we love found photos. Lee Shulman shares those loves, recognising what he calls “the emotional value of these slices of life”. Since 2017, Lee’s collected around 700,000 found photographs, and compiled them into his Anonymous Project.
These snapshots taken in the mid-20th Century show us people posing for the camera, smiling in readiness for whoever’s behind the thing to press the button and capture the moment. Others are relaxed, caught off guard, their eyes blinked closed or shut in asleep.
The new Jungbauernkalender 2020 is out and can be ordered now. This time 12 young men and 12 women come from Upper Bavaria, Lower Bavaria, Upper Franconia, Swabia and Upper Palatinate. Six girls come from Austria. The calendar is a joint project of the Bavarian Young Farmers Association and the Austrian Young Farmers Association.
The calendar pictures the different side of farmer’s life: dressing for the wedding, feeding a newborn calf, working in the fields or swimming in the nearby lake. The pictures were taken by the photographer duo “Die Abbilderei” on the farm of the Wunderl family.
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Scheer Intelligence
Here is an enlightening discussion between Professor Michael J Brennan & Robert Scheer (host of Scheer Intelligence) on Ukraine, Russia, China, US foreign policies and last but not least, the Sino-Russian partnership.
Biden says White House could drop Trump China tariffs to lower consumer prices
Trump’s–and now Biden’s–trade war with China is a self-inflicted wound, an own goal, and picking up a rock to crush one’s own foot. Meanwhile, despite the tariffs and sanctions, China-US trade and US trade deficit with China nearly doubled.
Trade War is easy, for China, that is.
Since it is a trade war and not a hot war, China obviously has to win without resorting to arms. The principle that China used in this war is to make itself strong and resilient, so that all attacks will be useless, and will blow back with a whirlwind at the attackers. It also comes from Sun Tse: Immovable as a mountain. All China has to do is to stand firm and let the attackers destroy themselves.
The new Jungbauernkalender 2020 is out and can be ordered now. This time 12 young men and 12 women come from Upper Bavaria, Lower Bavaria, Upper Franconia, Swabia and Upper Palatinate. Six girls come from Austria. The calendar is a joint project of the Bavarian Young Farmers Association and the Austrian Young Farmers Association.
The calendar pictures the different side of farmer’s life: dressing for the wedding, feeding a newborn calf, working in the fields or swimming in the nearby lake. The pictures were taken by the photographer duo “Die Abbilderei” on the farm of the Wunderl family.
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Famine Rides a Black Horse
Here’s a report on the situation inside the United States today. It comes from Jack Heart, and it’s a pretty decent enough blog / website. You all might want to consider tossing a subscription his way. -MM
"I heard something like a voice in the center of the four living creatures saying, "A quart of wheat for a denarius, and three quarts of barley for a denarius; but do not damage the oil and the wine"
Tucker Carlsons April 21, 2022, rant about Americas food supply being under attack was met with a furious flurry of fact checks by the usual suspects claiming the fires were minor or didn’t happen at all and this was all just coincidence being overexaggerated. Of course, again, Carlson was unable to follow up, much as he never followed up on his originally sharp criticism of Americas involvement in Ukraine.
If he wasn’t a millionaire working for billionaires, Carlson probably would have done another show around May 2, explaining to his semi-conscious viewers that a mysterious avian flu suspected to be spread by wildfowl has appeared in Pennsylvania and Oklahoma. He would have told them that in Pennsylvania “3,825,800 birds — a combination of egg layers, meat birds and pullets — have died as a result of the infection or, more likely, were depopulated, a term used to describe the quick euthanization of birds in a flock…”
After John Kaminski sent me a chronological list of the carnage inflicted on Americas food supply since the latter part of 2019, I took the opportunity to check into it for my subscribers. It’s actually much worse than Carlson made it sound. There are a few small fires in the list below, of articles mostly linked to the wayback machine, but the vast majority of the fires are described as “massive.” Millions of birds and thousands of milk cows, pigs and cattle have perished in flames. Depots, plants and silos have been utterly destroyed along with the meat and grain they contained.
Some of the fires burned so hot it took days to put them out, causing fire tornados to shoot hundreds of feet up into the night sky. In Ontario Canada the fire marshal just outright refused to investigate one where damages could hit a million dollars and killed 100 cattle. It isn’t only fires. There is a beautiful female pilot who was killed in a kamikaze like crash into a potato processing plant in Idaho. In another incident commando style sabotage was employed on ten thousand acres intended to feed thousands of cattle. Aluminum and metal were affixed to cornstalks but when the farmer ran the stalks through the processor, he heard the metal grinding in the machine, and caught it before he fed the cattle. The mixture would have shredded their stomachs…
More (suggested subscribe to unlock the paywall) HERE.
How To Make: Asopao de Longaniza y Chuleta / Dominican Style Gumbo
This gal is GREAT! OMG! What a wonderful dish!
Kodachrome Stories
We love Kodachromes and we love found photos. Lee Shulman shares those loves, recognising what he calls “the emotional value of these slices of life”. Since 2017, Lee’s collected around 700,000 found photographs, and compiled them into his Anonymous Project.
These snapshots taken in the mid-20th Century show us people posing for the camera, smiling in readiness for whoever’s behind the thing to press the button and capture the moment. Others are relaxed, caught off guard, their eyes blinked closed or shut in asleep.
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Jungbauernkalender 2020
The new Jungbauernkalender 2020 is out and can be ordered now. This time 12 young men and 12 women come from Upper Bavaria, Lower Bavaria, Upper Franconia, Swabia and Upper Palatinate. Six girls come from Austria. The calendar is a joint project of the Bavarian Young Farmers Association and the Austrian Young Farmers Association.
The calendar pictures the different side of farmer’s life: dressing for the wedding, feeding a newborn calf, working in the fields or swimming in the nearby lake. The pictures were taken by the photographer duo “Die Abbilderei” on the farm of the Wunderl family.
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The Ugly Americans
America has become the greatest force for evil that has ever existed
It’s hard to be an American these days. A ministry of truth under an incoherent president supported by a media hellbent on instigating WW III, while the clueless prattle on about abortion issues makes it a very lonely place for a writer. Americans should have revolted the day after they shot John F Kennedy so perhaps everything they’ve gotten since then, starting with Vietnam they deserve. But I can’t help thinking that if America had the free and open discourse envisioned by its founding fathers and enshrined in the first amendment of its constitution none of this would have happened.
Even before the printing press was invented oligarchs controlled the flow of information and in those days all dissention was regulated by the church. It worked somewhat. As Thomas Hobbs noted over four hundred years ago life is nasty, brutal and short but people still had enough time for joy untinged by the fear of being snuffed out without a moment’s notice in a war they had no stake in. It worked then because the oligarchs knew that any war they started amongst themselves would be fought with themselves or their sons at the front of their armies.
But with the dawn of the twentieth century came a new breed of oligarch, spineless and cowardly. Avoiding combat at all costs even as they instigated wars and carnage the likes of which were unimaginable using the technology of the past. Bombs that could incinerate cities and poisons that could be carried by the wind became the weapons of choice. Nothing was spared in the development of anything that could kill or maim their enemy without having to face them on a battlefield. This culminated with the weaponization of pestilence, biological warfare.
Science is not necessary to explain the inherent danger of trying to infect your enemy with a disease that is just as lethal to you as it is to them but with the advent of the Human Genome Project at the end of the twentieth century some felt this risk could negated by tinkering with DNA. Earlier, in the seventies, a world wary of mad scientists under the guidance of their cowardly oligarchs had insisted on coming to a moratorium against such weapons with The Biological Weapons Convention (BWC), or Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention (BTWC).
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Participation in the Biological Weapons Convention as of August 2019 (most recently changed in August 14, 2019). Green is signed and ratified, darker green acceded or succeeded, yellow only signed and the red are those that didn’t sign.
The treaty entered into force in 1975 and agreed upon by practically every nation of the world was quite simple, originally consisting of only 15 articles, the most important of which in summary were:
Article I: Never under any circumstances to develop, produce, stockpile, acquire, or retain biological weapons.[1]
Article II: To destroy or divert to peaceful purposes biological weapons and associated resources prior to joining.[2]
Article III: Not to transfer, or in any way assist, encourage, or induce anyone else to acquire or retain biological weapons.[3]
Article IV: To take any national measures necessary to implement the provisions of the BWC domestically.[4]
Article V: Undertaking to consult bilaterally and multilaterally and cooperate in solving any problems which may arise in relation to the objective, or in the application, of the BWC.[5]
Article VI: Right to request the United Nations Security Council to investigate alleged breaches of the BWC and undertaking to cooperate in carrying out any investigation initiated by the Security Council.[6]
Article VII: To assist States which have been exposed to danger as a result of a violation of the BWC.[7]
Article X: Undertaking to facilitate, and have the right to participate in, the fullest possible exchange of equipment, materials and information for peaceful purposes.[8]
By 2003 the Human Genome Project was declared complete but included only about 85% of the genome.[9] Level “complete genome” was achieved in May 2021, with a remaining only 0.3% bases covered by potential issues.[10][11] The missing Y chromosome was added in January 2022. It’s been an open secret in military intelligence publications for over five years that in complete disregard of the BWC the pentagon has been ringing the Russian border with biological weapon producing facilities, starting in Georgia and working their way into the Ukraine after the 2014 coup. [12) [13] [14]
I am an American born and bred in New York City. I’ve been to every state east of the Mississippi and stayed for a while in more than just a few. From the hard scrabble pecan farmers of southern Georgia to the Texas beach bums of South Padre Island, to the hustlers pulling racks of clothes down Seventh Avenue in NYC I have always loved my people. Nothing pains me more than have to hope they are annihilated at the hands of a country I’ve been taught to hate since birth. But that is exactly what I must do as a man who has any empathy at all for the future of the human race.
I’ve lived in this world for sixty-two years, always a cynic but Vladmir Putin is the closest thing I have ever seen to a hero. He has thrown down the gauntlet and risks it all to quell the madness that the Anglo-American Empire has become. His actions may very well have saved at least half the world from dying horribly from a genetically engineered disease, yet he is lambasted daily in the western media as a psychotic killer.
The New York Times, the Washington Post, CNN, FOX and the BBC are all dens of deranged demons. That should be a given by now for any sentient individual. They have helped tear the West down brick by brick starting with the World Trade Center. Yet most Americans are still listening to them as they shriek their lies. It is hard not to believe that God himself will not be fighting at the side of Vladmir Putin…
Below is an article that is making its way around the internet. It is the truth, just the type of truth that Americas new ministry of truth has been created to stamp out. Try to understand it and understand what must be done if America is to survive. Because I assure you we are no match for God…
Styles of Teenagers in the 1950s
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Russia’s “Special Military Operation”
in Ukraine is a MORAL IMPERATIVE
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Russia was forced to launch its “special military operation” in Ukraine to terminate the raging biowar waged by the US-UK-UA-EU-NATO bioterrorist group — from its secret underground operational headquarters located at the Azovstal Iron and Steel Works in Mariupol, Ukraine — against the people of Donbass and western Russia.
~~~ END OF STORY ~~~
Here’s why Russia was forced to invade Ukraine.
The epic battle for Mariupol really concerned the Russian war on the Pentagon-sponsored bioweapon labs hidden in the bowels of the Azovstal Steel Plant, as well as the many other heretofore secret biolabs scattered across the country.
To date, the Russian military has shut down 30 plus bioweapon laboratories across the Ukraine. However, the main bioweapon lab being systematically used to carry out future bioterrorist operations in Donbass and western Russia is strategically located in Mariupol at the massive Azovstal complex.
KEY POINT: The city of Mariupol is situated less than 40 miles from the Russian border, which is why Azovstal was selected to house one of the largest bioweapon labs in the world. Not only was it based right in Donbass, but Azovstal was the closest biolab from which to launch bio-attacks against Russia.
This is why Russia is so determined not to blow up Avozstal or even neutralize the 1000 plus Azov Nazis holed up there behind human shields—innocent Ukrainian citizens. The women and children, in particular, were likely forced into the sprawling Azovstal plant as a defensive stratagem against an all-out Russian attack. But it’s the US and NATO military leaders, Western intel agents, AFU officers and Ukraine soldiers skulked in Azovstal that Russia really wants and is willing to protect, especially those who are privy to the bioterrorist operations.
Putin knows exactly what the Azovstal biolabs were up to. He also needs to preserve the evidence so he can show the whole world what the US-UK-UA-EU-NATO bioterror group was planning to unleash in both Donbass and Russia.
This is precisely why the Azov Nazis were given such free rein to terrorize the citizens of Mariupol. They were acting on orders from their NATO command, Pentagon masters and CIA overlords to exert absolute control over the Azovstal bioterror crime scene. Isn’t that why these hardcore Neo-Nazis are called the Azov Regiment and Azov Battalion (as in Azovstal)? These battle-hardened mercenaries were put there to provide brutal defensive and protective services for the Zio-Anglo-American bioterrorist operations.
Not only did Putin strike first and hard to terminate the ongoing genocide and future biowar, he has also repeatedly told the world community of nations the purpose of Russia’s “special military operation”.
Kodachrome Stories
We love Kodachromes and we love found photos. Lee Shulman shares those loves, recognising what he calls “the emotional value of these slices of life”. Since 2017, Lee’s collected around 700,000 found photographs, and compiled them into his Anonymous Project.
These snapshots taken in the mid-20th Century show us people posing for the camera, smiling in readiness for whoever’s behind the thing to press the button and capture the moment. Others are relaxed, caught off guard, their eyes blinked closed or shut in asleep.
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Styles of Teenagers in the 1950s
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Any president or prime minster on planet Earth would be fully justified in taking the same military measures to shut down a genocide-in-progress.
The courageous decision made by Putin et al. to invade was most certainly the result of a broad collective agreement across the entire Kremlin leadership. After all, Moscow is only 280 miles from the Ukrainian border as the crow flies, so they knew they were facing dire existential threats of the highest order from NATO’s military expansion, and specifically form the much more dangerous bioterror group.
Extremely aggressive moves and maneuvers by NATO only confirmed Putin’s worst fears, as did the several overtures to expand NATO membership in order to further surround Russia. However, it was the expeditious uncovering of the Ukraine bioweapon labs that really proved Putin right in his mission to shut the whole genocidal enterprise down—FOR GOOD!
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BOTTOM LINE: Russia had no choice but to invade Ukraine to carry out multiple “special military operations” to protect its sovereignty and safeguard it citizenry.
Many Americans might end up experiencing a SECOND “Great Depression”, only this time…
… the “news media” will constantly be telling Americans how great everything is, and will use low unemployment numbers, and a roaring stock market to convince the sheeple otherwise…
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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.
As the West collectively unwinds, the general opinion on the (true) alternative media websites is that the collective Western “leadership” are acting like psychopathic gambling / drug addicts that are high on “their own supply”, and are making grievous mistakes without care, concern or worry. The geopolitical situation is unwinding out of control, and NOT ONE leader in the West is trying to defuse the global situation. Indeed, the opposite is true…
From goading on Ukraine and a hot “military-technical action”, which could erupt into a full-scale hot global war at any minute… to goading China with alterations to the Untied States, state department website. No real leadership is occurring, and that bodes very bad for the rest of us.
Here, we consider the global changes with views of our collective pasts.
$40 Billion in Aid to Ukraine BLOCKED in U.S. Senate
Fiscal conservatives are praising Sen. Rand Paul for blocking a $40 billion aid package to Ukraine – a bill that not a single person on Capitol Hill has been able to read.
Paul objected to a deal offered by Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) that would have set up votes on Thursday afternoon on the funding and on an amendment from Paul, who wanted to include language in the bill to expand an Afghanistan inspector general role to include oversight of the Ukraine funds.
“Our total aid to Ukraine will almost equal the entire military budget of Russia,” Paul said. “The cost of this package we are voting on today is more than the U.S. spent during the first year of the U.S. conflict in Afghanistan. Congress authorized force and the president sent troops into the conflict. The same cannot be said of Ukraine.”
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Kodachrome Stories
We love Kodachromes and we love found photos. Lee Shulman shares those loves, recognising what he calls “the emotional value of these slices of life”. Since 2017, Lee’s collected around 700,000 found photographs, and compiled them into his Anonymous Project.
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These snapshots taken in the mid-20th Century show us people posing for the camera, smiling in readiness for whoever’s behind the thing to press the button and capture the moment. Others are relaxed, caught off guard, their eyes blinked closed or shut in asleep.
A boxing match on board the USS Oregon in 1897
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We Found All the Baby Formula . . . Biden Admin Sent it all to Southern Border for Illegal Alien babies
For over a week, there have been widespread and growing reports of Baby Formula shortages all over the USA. Store shelves are bare of it in many places. Now, we know why: The Biden Administration has grabbed all the formula and sent it to the southern border to accommodate ILLEGAL ALIENS coming into the country with babies.
Here’s a small look at what shoppers in USA supermarkets find when they look for baby formula on store shelves:
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And Here is what is piling-up at US Border Patrol facilities along the southern border:
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According to Congresswoman Pat Cammack, pallets and pallets of baby formula are deluging the southern border.
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So, under the Biden regime, American babies can go hungry, but ILLEGAL ALIEN babies must be fed at taxpayer expense, and the food is taken out of the mouths of American babies to achieve feeding the illegal aliens!
Stolen elections have consequences. THIS is just one more example of what illegitimate President Joe Biden is doing to wreck the country.
The Princely County of Tyrol in 1890
Nations come and nations go. And then, forgotten by all.
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Kodachrome Stories
We love Kodachromes and we love found photos. Lee Shulman shares those loves, recognising what he calls “the emotional value of these slices of life”. Since 2017, Lee’s collected around 700,000 found photographs, and compiled them into his Anonymous Project.
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These snapshots taken in the mid-20th Century show us people posing for the camera, smiling in readiness for whoever’s behind the thing to press the button and capture the moment. Others are relaxed, caught off guard, their eyes blinked closed or shut in asleep.
If the Empire of Lies and Chaos (United States) continues to escalate then nuclear war is inevitable.
How can America’s insistence on escalation be interrupted?
1) America runs out of ways to escalate. Since America has nukes that means nuclear war.
2) Uprising in the US… OK, you can stop laughing now.
3) Russia surrenders.
4) Russia does a significant but limited first strike to remind people in the Empire what the results of a real nuclear attack look like. My recommendation would be to take out NATO bases in Poland, Romania, and other Eastern European states, and perhaps Ramstein too just to drive the point home.
-William Gruff
Jungbauernkalender 2020
The new Jungbauernkalender 2020 is out and can be ordered now. This time 12 young men and 12 women come from Upper Bavaria, Lower Bavaria, Upper Franconia, Swabia and Upper Palatinate. Six girls come from Austria. The calendar is a joint project of the Bavarian Young Farmers Association and the Austrian Young Farmers Association.
The calendar pictures the different side of farmer’s life: dressing for the wedding, feeding a newborn calf, working in the fields or swimming in the nearby lake. The pictures were taken by the photographer duo “Die Abbilderei” on the farm of the Wunderl family.
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Lithuania Breaking Diplomatic Relations with Russia
Lithuania will recall its Ambassador to Russia Eitvydas Bajarunas from Moscow on June 1, 2022.
The Lithuanian government also intends to shut down the consulate general in St. Petersburg on June 7.
(HT REMARK: When Diplomacy ends, wars usually begin. Lithuania is just right next door to Ukraine.)
MORE: Russia is now openly opposed to Ukraine’s accession not only to NATO but also to the EU. The Kremlin also does not currently see a diplomatic way to end the war.
Kodachrome Stories
We love Kodachromes and we love found photos. Lee Shulman shares those loves, recognising what he calls “the emotional value of these slices of life”. Since 2017, Lee’s collected around 700,000 found photographs, and compiled them into his Anonymous Project.
38 7
These snapshots taken in the mid-20th Century show us people posing for the camera, smiling in readiness for whoever’s behind the thing to press the button and capture the moment. Others are relaxed, caught off guard, their eyes blinked closed or shut in asleep.
Samurai warriors taken between 1860 and 1880
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Diplomat: Negotiations for new Iran Nuclear Deal are “dead”
French diplomat: The negotiations on the nuclear agreement with Iran have reached a dead end.
There is little chance of the United States agreeing to remove Iran’s elite security force from its list of foreign terrorist organizations any time soon, a French diplomatic source said on Thursday, casting a further pall over nuclear negotiations.
Talks to revive Iran’s 2015 nuclear deal with world powers have been on hold since March, chiefly over Tehran’s insistence that Washington remove the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps from the list.
“The negotiations are at a dead end,” the source told reporters. “I am pessimistic on the possibility of resolving this subject quickly.”
Dominican Fried Cheese | Mangu Series Ep. 3 | Dominican Recipes | Made To Order | Chef Zee Cooks
Jungbauernkalender 2020
The new Jungbauernkalender 2020 is out and can be ordered now. This time 12 young men and 12 women come from Upper Bavaria, Lower Bavaria, Upper Franconia, Swabia and Upper Palatinate. Six girls come from Austria. The calendar is a joint project of the Bavarian Young Farmers Association and the Austrian Young Farmers Association.
The calendar pictures the different side of farmer’s life: dressing for the wedding, feeding a newborn calf, working in the fields or swimming in the nearby lake. The pictures were taken by the photographer duo “Die Abbilderei” on the farm of the Wunderl family.
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The Princely County of Tyrol in 1890
Nations come and nations go. And then, forgotten by all.
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Biden told officials media reports about U.S. intel sharing with Ukraine are counterproductive
The world now knows that the USA is fighting Russia via proxy. One official said Biden conveyed that the leaks should stop. Apparently, not widely reported :
Nagasaki, 20 minutes after the atomic bombing in 1945
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Biden says White House could drop Trump China tariffs to lower consumer prices
President Joe Biden said that cooling prices are his top domestic priority, even as Wall Street braces for another inflation report north of 8%.
The president also said that the White House is in the middle of a review of tariffs imposed against China during former President Donald Trump’s tenure and could opt to drop them.
Wall Street is eager to read the Labor Department’s upcoming report on April inflation , which the government will publish Wednesday morning at 8:30 a.m. ET.
The joint statement issued by the Finnish leaders said that NATO membership would strengthen Finland’s security. According to the head of government and the president, Finland’s incorporation into NATO will increase the defense capability and strengthen the alliance. They also said that Finland should apply to NATO as a matter of priority.
"We hope that the national steps that are still needed to reach this decision will be taken quickly in the coming days," the joint statement said.
At the same time, Finland will be able to officially apply to NATO after this step is approved at a meeting of the ruling Social Democratic Party, which is to be held on May 15, Ilta-Sanomat publication said.
It was earlier reported that Finland and Sweden wanted to submit their applications to NATO at the same time to thus express solidarity between the new applicants.
Russia responds to Finland’s and Sweden’s NATO plans
"Russia will be forced to take retaliatory steps, both of military and other nature, in order to curtail the threats that arise to its national security in this regard,” the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement commenting on the possible accession of Finland to NATO.
If Finland joins NATO, Russia will view such a move as a violation of international legal obligations, a message posted on the official website of the Russian Foreign Ministry said.
Moscow has always assured Helsinki that Russia’s aggressive actions against Finland would never take place. However, Finland’s desire to join NATO comes in violation of the 1947 Paris Peace Treaty, according to which the parties undertook not to enter into alliances and coalitions directed against one of them.
Styles of Teenagers in the 1950s
ewer
Jungbauernkalender 2020
The new Jungbauernkalender 2020 is out and can be ordered now. This time 12 young men and 12 women come from Upper Bavaria, Lower Bavaria, Upper Franconia, Swabia and Upper Palatinate. Six girls come from Austria. The calendar is a joint project of the Bavarian Young Farmers Association and the Austrian Young Farmers Association.
The calendar pictures the different side of farmer’s life: dressing for the wedding, feeding a newborn calf, working in the fields or swimming in the nearby lake. The pictures were taken by the photographer duo “Die Abbilderei” on the farm of the Wunderl family.
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President of Switzerland: “We are also preparing for an escalation with nuclear bombs”
Switzerland supports the EU sanctions against Russia. Federal President and Foreign Minister Ignazio Cassis answered questions on Tuesday and explained why he is behind the sanctions and why he thinks Switzerland remains neutral.
The Ukraine war keeps Federal President and Foreign Minister Ignazio Cassis busy. Are the sanctions fair and is Switzerland still neutral? What threats exist if the war escalates further?
On May 9, Russia celebrated “Victory Day” against Nazi Germany. How does Federal President Ignazio Cassis interpret the speech? “The most important information was that there were no surprises. There aren’t many positives today, but it’s good that nothing bad happened that day,” says Cassis.
When asked why Switzerland doesn’t remain really neutral? Cassis replied “We remain really neutral.” There are discussions about Switzerland’s neutrality in every war. “This time, however, Russia’s breach of the UN Charter was so great that we could not remain silent. We had to condemn it very loudly and strongly, otherwise the world would not be in order, »says Cassis.
Asked what escalations might occur in the ongoing conflict, Cassis replied “With an escalation of this war there is the possibility of atomic bombs. The Federal Council is also preparing for this case.”
British Add Nuclear Warheads to Submarines
On May 8, the “Express” newspaper in London reported BRITAIN has increased the number of warheads each Trident nuclear missile carries as part of a precautionary measure in the face of growing threats from Russia.
Britain’s continuous at-sea nuclear deterrent uses four Vanguard-class submarines, of which two are always on patrol, while a third is at operational readiness and the fourth undergoes maintenance.
Each armed boat is allowed to carry a maximum of 40 warheads to be distributed unevenly among eight D5 missiles. However, while details are classified, it is believed the V-boats have been carrying considerably fewer of both. Not anymore.
As of this week, British submarines are now fully loaded with at least forty (40) nuclear warheads each. Most of the warheads, which are manufactured in Britain, have a yield of 80-100 kilotons – the equivalent of TNT –five or six times greater than the “Little Boy” atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima.
France Puts THREE Nuclear-Armed subs to sea
Tuesday, France put all three of its nuclear-armed submarines to sea. For the first time in around 30 years, France has put three of its four ballistic missile submarines, or SSBNs, to sea at the same time, according to reports in the local media.
Normally, just one of the Triomphant class SSBNs, each of which can be armed with up to 16 submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs), with multiple warheads, is on patrol at any given time. The significant uptick in French nuclear deterrence activity seems to be intended as a signal to Russia
US Media M.I.A.
Of course, Americans are not hearing about any of this in their mass-media, which appears to be “Missing In Action (M.I.A.)” about the severe and dangerous developments taking place in the world. Americans have no idea at all that WHEN this conflict “goes nuclear” that WE IN THE UNITED STATES will be struck by nuclear bombs.
The reason Russia will very likely attack the US is the amount of interference we have done with the conflict between Russia and Ukraine. The Pentagon issued a report today outlining how extensive our interference has actually been. Here’s the list:
US MilitaryAidToUkraine 05 10 2022
Given that ALL of this gear is being used to KILL RUSSIANS, how much longer do Americans think it will be before Russia puts an end to U.S. meddling by dropping nukes on our east coast port cities to disable such shipments?
We are very likely to be hit and yet the American people are left blissfully unaware by the US media.
Americans have no clue at all they’re about to be vaporized in a nuclear holocaust because the media is simply not reporting the facts.
No one is making plans to evacuate, no one is “prepping” with supplies to survive after such an attack.
When the bright, white flash hits, Americans will be killed en masse because the government interfered in something that was none of our business and had no national security implications for us, and the media covered it all up.
Nice folks, government and the mass media!
Document Orders Ukraine Border Guards to Allow Entry of 10,000 Polish Troops on May 22-24
A document allegedly sent by the defense department of Ukraine to the head of the state border service of the country, orders Border Guards to ensure the passage of the joint Lithuanian-Polish “peacekeeping contingent” from Poland.
The document says that from May 22 to 24, four (4) battalions, including 9,500 military personnel and 279 units of military equipment, must cross the border.
Given the level of intense propaganda coming out of the Russia-Ukraine conflict, we CANNOT RULE OUT the published document could be a fake, but such an order fits perfectly into the plan allegedly adopted by Western countries to enter the war.
People in Ukraine are theorizing that this is an effort to seize and plunder Ukraine. But keen observers in the west say it fits perfectly into the West effort to enter the war, get attacked by Russia, then go to direct war with Russia.
Rumors of a joint Polish-Lithuanian military entry into Ukraine have been circulating for over a week. The Hal Turner Radio Show has not previously published those claims because they could not be verified.
Now, however, with what appears to be an official document to Ukraine’s Border Guards ordering them to allow such entry, and the providing of specific dates, the issue needs to be reported.
This is where things can get really dicey.
Russia has flatly and repeatedly warned that anyone interfering with what Russia is doing in Ukraine, will suffer consequences like they have never seen before. Would the entry of such “peacekeepers” be viewed by Russia as “interfering?”
Mark your calendars: May 22, 2022 seems to be THE date.
UPDATE 3:41 PM EDT —
President of Belarus Alexander Lukashencko stated publicly today “Belarus will enter the war if Polish troops enter Ukraine.”
Ferdinand Porsche (yeah, that Porsche) showing a model of the Volkswagen Beetle to Adolf Hitler in 1935
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Kodachrome Stories
We love Kodachromes and we love found photos. Lee Shulman shares those loves, recognising what he calls “the emotional value of these slices of life”. Since 2017, Lee’s collected around 700,000 found photographs, and compiled them into his Anonymous Project.
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These snapshots taken in the mid-20th Century show us people posing for the camera, smiling in readiness for whoever’s behind the thing to press the button and capture the moment. Others are relaxed, caught off guard, their eyes blinked closed or shut in asleep.
Florence de Changy shows that the official Western story of the missing MH370 airplane is a colossal lie
Always great information. Nothing can be found in the “mainstream media” of course.
One of President Vladimir Putin’s closest allies warned the West on Thursday that the increasing military support given to Ukraine by the United States and its allies risked triggering a conflict between Russia and the NATO military alliance.
Former president Dmitry Medvedev, now deputy chairman of Russia’s security council, said such a conflict with NATO always carried the risk of turning into a full blown nuclear war.
Russia’s Feb. 24 invasion of Ukraine has killed thousands of people, laid waste to swathes of its former Soviet neighbour and raised fears of the gravest confrontation between Russia and the United States since the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis.
“NATO countries pumping weapons into Ukraine, training troops to use Western equipment, sending in mercenaries and the exercises of Alliance countries near our borders increase the likelihood of a direct and open conflict between NATO and Russia,” Medvedev said in a Telegram post.
“Such a conflict always has the risk of turning into a full-fledged nuclear war,” Medvedev said. “This will be a disastrous scenario for everyone.”
Russia and the United States are by far the world’s biggest nuclear powers: Russia has some 6,257 nuclear warheads while NATO’s three nuclear powers – the United States, United Kingdom and France – have about 6,065 warheads combined, according to the Washington-based Arms Control Association.
Putin says the “special military operation” in Ukraine is necessary because the United States was using Ukraine to threaten Russia and Moscow had to defend against the persecution of Russian-speaking people.
Putin, who says Ukraine and Russia are essentially one people, casts the war as an inevitable confrontation with the United States, which he accuses of threatening Russia by meddling in its backyard through NATO eastward enlargement.
Ukraine says it is fighting an imperial-style land grab and that Putin’s claims of genocide are nonsense. Kyiv says Putin’s invasion has only strengthened the Ukrainian people’s wish to turn westwards out of Russia’s orbit.
House Majority Leader Admits it . . .
Steny Hoyer, the House Majority Leader, said Biden wanted the $40 billion funding bill to “provide Ukraine with the type of arms it needs to shift from defensive to offensive operations.”
Hal Turner Editorial Opinion
They’re now openly admitting that the US is orchestrating an “offensive” war against Russia. How much longer do you think Russia will sit back and do nothing, while WE in the USA are orchestrating the killing Russian troops?
How long until Russia has finally “had it” with the United States, and begins bomb us directly?
I suspect, not long at all.
Americans would do well to prepare for being directly BOMBED by the Russian Federation, in response to the offensive war the USA is organizing and supplying, against Russia, in Ukraine.
If you do not prepare, then you are planning to fail.
Your family may not survive without YOU having a “bug-out” plan, to evacuate inland once hostilities start. Contact friends or relatives and arrange for your family to stay with them for awhile once hostilities commence.
Those of you already inland, must have emergency water, food, medicines, a generator for electric, fuel for that generator, communications gear (CB or HAM radio) flashlights, batteries, portable radios for news, a way to cook without electric, and a large first aid kit.
Without these things, you have no chance of surviving once the SHTF.
There is likely very little time left. Precious little time.
Plan now. Prepare now. Your life depends on it.
Jungbauernkalender 2020
The new Jungbauernkalender 2020 is out and can be ordered now. This time 12 young men and 12 women come from Upper Bavaria, Lower Bavaria, Upper Franconia, Swabia and Upper Palatinate. Six girls come from Austria. The calendar is a joint project of the Bavarian Young Farmers Association and the Austrian Young Farmers Association.
The calendar pictures the different side of farmer’s life: dressing for the wedding, feeding a newborn calf, working in the fields or swimming in the nearby lake. The pictures were taken by the photographer duo “Die Abbilderei” on the farm of the Wunderl family.
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How To Make Jamaican Jerk Chicken In The Oven *Homemade Jerk Sauce*
What a great woman! I can almost smell it a cooking from here!
On Monday, Putin delivered the annual “Victory Day” speech celebrating Russia’s victory over Nazi Germany in 1945. The Russian president made none of the hyperbolic pronouncements the media had predicted but, instead, gave a brief recap of the events leading up to the war in Ukraine. There was none of the bravado you’d expect from a leader trying to gin up support for the ongoing war. Putin simply reminded the crowd that he had done everything he could to avoid the bloody conflict in which Russia is currently embroiled. Here’s part of what he said:
“Last December we proposed signing a treaty on security guarantees. Russia urged the West to hold an honest dialogue in search for meaningful and compromising solutions, and to take account of each other’s interests. All in vain. NATO countries did not want to heed us, which means they had totally different plans. And we saw it.”
This is an accurate account of what took place in the months preceding the war. Putin tried to avoid a confrontation by repeatedly asking the US to address Russia’s reasonable security concerns. Unfortunately, the Biden administration brushed off Putin’s demands without even providing a response. The US and NATO insist that Ukraine has every right to choose whatever security arrangement it wants. But that’s clearly not the case. The United States and every nation in NATO have signed treaties (Istanbul in 1999, and Astana in 2010) that stipulate they cannot improve their own security at the expense of others.
The principle underlying these agreements is called “the indivisibility of security”, which means that the security of one state can’t be separated from the security of the others. In practical terms, that means that signatories to these treaties are not free to develop their own military capability to the point where it poses a danger to their neighbors. These terms are especially applicable to Ukraine which is seeking membership in a military alliance that is openly hostile to Russia. NATO membership has always been a “red line” for Putin who has stated repeatedly that he will not allow NATO bases, combat troops and missile sites to be located on Ukrainian soil where they’d be just a stone’s throw from Moscow. As one critic from Texas put it, “You wouldn’t let a rattlesnake make its home on your front porch, would you?” No, you wouldn’t, and neither would Putin. Here’s more from a speech Putin gave in 2007:
“I’m convinced that we have reached the decisive moment when we must seriously think about the architecture of global security. And we must proceed by searching for a reasonable balance between the interests of all participants in the international dialogue.” Munich Security Conference, 2007
For Putin, security has always been the paramount issue. How do we create a world in which ordinary people can feel safe in their homes, their communities and their countries? How do we protect the weaker countries from the constant threat of intervention, invasion or regime change by an impulsive superpower whose behavior is guided by its own material interests and its own insatiable geopolitical ambitions? Concepts like the “indivisibility of security” might appeal to the sensibilities of idealists, but where’s the enforcement mechanism? And, how do we use these grand ideas to rein in an intractable hegemon rampaging across the planet?
These are questions that need to be answered, after all, if the United Nations actually worked the way it is supposed to work, Russia’s demands would have been thoroughly debated at emergency meetings before the first shot was ever fired. But that didn’t happen. International law and global institutions failed again. As everyone knows, most of these institutions have been hijacked by Washington which now uses them to provide a fig leaf of legitimacy for its serial depredations. That’s certainly how they are being used in the current war against Russia.
The western media is also being used as a weapon against Russia. For example, Russia has been universally blamed for starting the war, but Russia did not start the war and everyone on the Security Council knows it. Ukraine started the war, and the Observer Mission of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) has collected evidence to prove it. Check out this excerpt from an interview at the Grayzone with Swiss Intelligence officer and NATO advisor, Jacques Baud:
JACQUES BAUD: “I think we have to understand, as you know, that the war in fact hasn’t started on 24 February this year… what led to the decision to launch an offensive in the Donbas was not what happened since 2014. There was a trigger for that…The first is the decision and the law adopted by Volodymyr Zelensky in March 2021—that means last year—to reconquer Crimea by force…(And,also,) the intensification of the artillery shelling of the Donbas starting on the 16th of February, and this increase in the shelling was observed, in fact, by the Observer Mission of the OSCE [Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe], and t hey recorded this increase of violation, and it’s a massive violation. I mean, we are talking about something that is about 30 times more than what it used to be... On the 16th of February you had a massive increase of violation on the Ukrainian side. So, for the Russians, Vladimir Putin in particular, that was the sign that the operation—the Ukrainian operation—was about to start.And then everything started; I mean, all the events came very quickly. That means that if we look at the figures, you can see that there’s…. a massive increase from the 16th-17th, and then it reached kind of a maximum on the 18th of February, and that was continuing.… And that’s why, on the 24th of February when Vladimir Putin decided to launch the offensive, it could invoke Article 51 of the UN Charter that provides for assistance in case of attack.” (“US, EU sacrificing Ukraine to ‘weaken Russia’: fmr. NATO adviser“, The Grayzone)
You can see that by the time Putin invaded Ukraine, the war had already begun. The shelling of ethnic Russians had already intensified by many orders of magnitude. People were being slaughtered in droves, and tens of thousands of refugees were fleeing across the border into Russia. And, all of this had been going on since the 16th of February, a full week before Russia crossed the border. (Moon of Alabama has compiled the data on the bombardment that took place in the Donbas preceding the invasion: “The February 15 report of the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission to Ukraine recorded some 41 explosions in the ceasefire areas. This increased to 76 explosions on Feb 16, 316 on Feb 17, 654 on Feb 18, 1413 on Feb 19, a total of 2026 of Feb 20 and 21 and 1484 on Feb 22.”)
So, why does the media keep repeating the lie that Russia started the war when it is clearly false?
The fact is, Putin sent in the troops to put out a fire not to start one. If ever there was a situation where the Responsibility To Protect (R2P) could be justified, it’s in east Ukraine prior to the invasion. 14,000 ethnic Russians had been killed before the shelling began. Should Putin have looked the other way and allowed another 14,000-or-so to be slaughtered without lifting a finger?
No, Putin did what he had to do to save lives and defend Russia’s national security. Even so, he has no territorial ambitions and no desire to recreate the Soviet Empire. His “special military operation” is, in fact, a defensive operation designed to remove emerging threats that could no longer be ignored. Putin’s 83% public approval rating proves that the Russian people understand what he is doing and fully support him. (A political leader would never garner that level of support if the people thought he had launched a war of aggression.)
Some readers might remember that –before sending in the tanks– Putin invoked United Nations Article 51 which provides a legal justification for military intervention. Here’s an excerpt from an article by former weapons inspector Scott Ritter who defended the Russian action like this:
“Russian President Vladimir Putin, citing Article 51 as his authority, ordered what he called a “special military operation”….
under Article 51, there can be no doubt as to the legitimacy of Russia’s contention that the Russian-speaking population of the Donbass had been subjected to a brutal eight-year-long bombardment that had killed thousands of people.… Moreover, Russia claims to have documentary proof that the Ukrainian Army was preparing for a massive military incursion into the Donbass which was pre-empted by the Russian-led “special military operation.” [OSCE figures show an increase of government shelling of the area in the days before Russia moved in.]..The bottom line is that Russia has set forth a cognizable claim under the doctrine of anticipatory collective self-defense, devised originally by the U.S. and NATO, as it applies to Article 51 which is predicated on fact, not fiction.While it might be in vogue for people, organizations, and governments in the West to embrace the knee-jerk conclusion that Russia’s military intervention constitutes a wanton violation of the United Nations Charter and, as such, constitutes an illegal war of aggression, the uncomfortable truth is that, of all the claims made regarding the legality of pre-emption under Article 51 of the United Nations Charter, Russia’s justification for invading Ukraine is on solid legal ground.” (“Russia, Ukraine & the Law of War: Crime of Aggression”, Consortium News)
And here’s more on the topic from author Danial Kovalik in his article titled “Why Russia’s intervention in Ukraine is legal under international law”:
“One must begin this discussion by accepting the fact that there was already a war happening in Ukraine for the eight years preceding the Russian military incursion in February 2022. And, this war by the government in Kiev… claimed the lives of around 14,000 people, many of them children, and displaced around 1.5 million more … The government in Kiev, and especially its neo-Nazi battalions, carried out attacks against these peoples … precisely because of their ethnicity. ..To remove any doubt that the destabilization of Russia itself has been the goal of the US in these efforts, one should examine the very telling 2019 report of the Rand Corporation… entitled, ‘Overextending and Unbalancing Russia, Assessing the Impact of Cost-Imposing Options’, one of the many tactics listed is “Providing lethal aid to Ukraine” in order to “exploit Russia’s greatest point of external vulnerability.”…In short, there is no doubt that Russia has been threatened, and in a quite profound way, with concrete destabilizing efforts by the US, NATO and their extremist surrogates in Ukraine….It is hard to conceive of a more pressing case for the need to act in defense of the nation. While the UN Charter prohibits unilateral acts of war, it also provides, in Article 51, that “nothing in the present Charter shall impair the inherent right of individual or collective self-defense… ” And this right of self-defense has been interpreted to permit countries to respond, not only to actual armed attacks, but also to the threat of imminent attack.In light of the above, it is my assessment.. that Russia had a right to act in its own self-defense by intervening in Ukraine, which had become a proxy of the US and NATO for an assault – not only on Russian ethnics within Ukraine – but also upon Russia itself. A contrary conclusion would simply ignore the dire realities facing Russia.” (Why Russia’s intervention in Ukraine is legal under international law”, RT)
Assigning blame for the current conflict is more than just an academic exercise. It is the way that reasonable people weigh the evidence to determine accountability. That might be a way-off, but it’s a goal worth pursuing all the same.
Finally, it should be clear by now, that the war in Ukraine was planned long before the Russian invasion. At every turn, Washington has orchestrated the provocations that were designed to lure Russia into Ukraine, drain its resources and, thus, remove a major obstacle to US strategic objectives in Central Asia. The ultimate goal– as US war planners have candidly admitted– is to “break Russia’s back”, splinter the country into smaller pieces, topple the government, seize its vast energy resources, and reduce the population to a permanent state of colonial dependency. Washington knows that it will not be able to encircle and control China’s explosive growth, unless it crushes Russia first. That is why it has embarked on such a reckless strategy that could end in an unprecedented catastrophe. Our miscreant leaders believe that preserving their grip on global power is worth the risk of nuclear annihilation.
Ukraine – Congress Passes The Bucks, Realism Sneaks In, Poland Plans For More War
After a lot of talk about defeating Russia in the Ukraine and an alleged lack of Russian fighting abilities Congress passed another $40 billion fund for weapons and economic support. That brings the total to some $53 billion for Ukraine.
Most of the money will go to the U.S. weapon industry, the CIA and to various Ukrainian oligarchs. Hardly anything will be received by those in need.
With that packet now passed reality is allowed to sneak into U.S. media reporting on the issue.
Not one but two reports in the New York Times suddenly lament about the huge area of land the Russian troops have taken in east Ukraine:
Nonetheless, the Donbas seizure, combined with the Russian invasion’s early success in seizing parts of southern Ukraine adjoining the Crimean peninsula, which Russia illegally annexed in 2014, gives the Kremlin enormous leverage in any future negotiation to halt the conflict.And the Russians enjoy the added advantage of naval dominance in the Black Sea, the only maritime route for Ukrainian trade, which they have paralyzed with an embargo that could eventually starve Ukraine economically and is already contributing to a global grain shortage.
I have often pointed out that the Ukrainian frontline will have a huge number of casualties from Russian artillery strikes. It is even worse than I had thought:
At the main hospital in Kramatorsk, a city in Donetsk, ambulances stream in day and night, carrying soldiers wounded at the front, who describe being pinned down by near constant shelling.About 80 percent of the patients are wounded by explosives such as mines and artillery shells, said Capt. Eduard Antonovskyy, the deputy commander of the medical unit at the hospital. Because of this, he said, very few patients have serious injuries. Either you’re far enough from an explosion to survive or you aren’t, he said.“We either get moderate injuries or deaths,” Captain Antonovskyy said.
Additional to those more realistic reports the NYT allowed one of it authors to write an opinion piece against the widening of the war:
At first, the Western support for Ukraine was mainly designed to defend against the invasion. It is now set on a far grander ambition: to weaken Russia itself. Presented as a common-sense response to Russian aggression, the shift, in fact, amounts to a significant escalation.By expanding support to Ukraine across the board and shelving any diplomatic effort to stop the fighting, the United States and its allies have greatly increased the danger of an even larger conflict. They are taking a risk far out of step with any realistic strategic gain....When I was in Ukraine during the first weeks of the war, even staunch Ukrainian nationalists expressed views far more pragmatic than those that are routine in America now. Talk of neutral status for Ukraine and internationally monitored plebiscites in Donetsk and Luhansk has been jettisoned in favor of bombast and grandstanding. ...What’s more, the invasion has led directly to greater military spending in second- and third-tier European powers. The number of NATO troops in Eastern Europe has grown tenfold, and a Nordic expansion of the organization is likely. A general rearmament of Europe is taking place, driven not by desire for autonomy from American power but in service to it. For the United States, this should be success enough. It is unclear what more there is to gain by weakening Russia, beyond fantasies of regime change. ...Diplomatic efforts ought to be the centerpiece of a new Ukraine strategy. Instead, the war’s boundaries are being expanded and the war itself recast as a struggle between democracy and autocracy, in which the Donbas is the frontier of freedom. This is not just declamatory extravagance. It is reckless. The risks hardly need to be stated.
Indeed. The current U.S. strategy will end in a catastrophe for Ukraine because it is based on false narratives. Lt.Col. (ret) Daniel Davis has consistently provided a more realist view of the military situation in Ukraine. His latest piece fits that record:
Over the past few days, a flurry of senior leaders in both Ukraine and Washington have issued defiant claims of not merely resisting Russian aggression, but pushing towards outright victory. While such aspirations are entirely understandable, it is unwise to set policy seeking a preferred outcome if there does not exist a rational path by which Ukraine could accomplish that objective. At present, most indicators, fundamentals of war, and current battlefield trendlines support the prospect of a Ukrainian defeat.
Davis correctly describes the current military situation on the ground and concludes:
By continuing to seek a military victory in Ukraine, Ukraine’s troops will continue fighting, no negotiated settlement will be realistically sought, and most likely Russian troops continue making progress. As a result, more Ukrainian civilians and troops will continue to be killed and wounded, more cities destroyed, and the economic and food crises – for both Ukraine and the world – will worsen. The most likely outcome will not change (a negotiated settlement, not a Ukrainian military victory), but the cost to Kyiv will be much, much worse.
Another former military man who has a realist view of the war is Col. Douglas Macgregor (ret). During the first Gulf war he led a unit in the Battle of 73 Easting:
Macgregor was the "squadron operations officer who essentially directed the Battle of 73 Easting" during the Gulf War. Facing an Iraqi Republican Guard opponent, he led a contingent consisting of 19 tanks, 26 Bradley Fighting Vehicles and 4 M1064 mortar carriers through the sandstorm to the 73 Easting at roughly 16:18 hours on 26 February 1991 destroyed almost 70 Iraqi armored vehicles with no U.S. casualties in a 23-minute span of the battle.
The previously quoted Lt.Col. Davis was wounded in the same battle. As both men have seen real mechanized war it is not by chance that they have come to similar conclusions.
Macgregor warns of a widening of the war through a Polish intervention in west Ukraine which would eventually drag NATO into the war:
Why would Poland, with the help of Lithuania, try to take western Ukraine? It is all about history:
The Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, formally known as the Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, and, after 1791, as the Commonwealth of Poland, was a country and bi-federation of Poland and Lithuania ruled by a common monarch in real union, who was both King of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania. It was one of the largest and most populous countries of 16th to 17th-century Europe. At its largest territorial extent, in the early 17th century, the Commonwealth covered almost 1,000,000 km2 (400,000 sq mi) and as of 1618 sustained a multi-ethnic population of almost 12 million.
Here is how that commonwealth looked on a map with current borders:
2022 05 12 13 23
There have been talks for a while that Poland would send a ‘peacekeeping’ force to occupy Galicia in west-Ukraine. I for one predicted it on February 24, at the very onset of the war:
Thanks to Stalin's additions to the Ukraine three countries, Poland, Hungary and Romania, have claims to certain areas in the Ukraine's western regions. If they want to snatch those up again it is now probably the best time to do so. Despite being part of NATO, which likely would not support such moves, those three will have domestic policy difficulties to withstand the urge.
An official looking document now says that a Polish/Lithuanian operation will start on May 22-24.
Lord Of War @lord_of_war____ - 14:46 UTC · May 10, 2022🇺🇦🇵🇱The document was sent to the President of the State Border Service of Ukraine, Serhiy Daynek, stating that it is 22-24. May joint "Lithuanian-Polish peacekeeping contingent" consisting of 4 battalions, 9,500 soldiers and 279 units of military equipment [planned to enter the territory of Ukraine. Another confirmation of the development of plans for the occupation and further division of the country. Even if this particular document turns out to be false (which is not excluded), it does not change the general course of the West in relation to Ukraine.]picture
9.500 soldiers are way more than fit into 4 battalions. A battalion has typically some 400-800 soldiers. These are more like three small brigades with 3-4 battalions each.
A Polish/Lithuanian move is exactly what Col. Macgregor is warning of:
Ten weeks after the conflict began, it is instructive to re-examine the strategic picture. The war against Russia in Ukraine has evolved, but not in the way Western observers predicted. Ukrainian forces look shattered and exhausted. The supplies reaching Ukrainian troops fighting in Eastern Ukraine are a fraction of what is needed. In most cases, replacements and new weapons are destroyed long before they reach the front.Confronted with the unambiguous failure of U.S. assistance and the influx of new weapons to rescue Ukrainian forces from certain destruction, the Biden administration is desperate to reverse the situation and save face. Poland seems to offer a way out. More important, Polish President Andrzej Duda and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky have both expressed the desire to erase the borders between Poland and Ukraine.Unconfirmed reports from Warsaw indicate that after Washington rejected the proposals for a no-fly zone over Ukraine, along with the transfer of Polish MIG-29 aircrafts to Ukrainian pilots, the Polish general staff was quietly instructed to formulate plans for intervention in the Ukrainian conflict by seizing the western part of Ukraine. Naturally, military action of this scale would require Kiev’s approval, but given Washington’s de facto control of the Zelensky government, approval for Polish military intervention should not be a problem.Presumably, the Biden administration may hope that a collision involving Russians and Poles in any form—including air and missile strikes against Polish forces on the Ukrainian side of the border—would potentially call for the NATO council to meet and address Article V of the NATO treaty.
It would mean that NATO, or at least major parts of it, would actively join the Ukrainian proxy war against Russia. While I believe that Russia has withheld forces from the current war to eventually defend against NATO, any entry of it into the war would significantly extend the fighting and the danger of a nuclear exchange would become imminent.
We love Kodachromes and we love found photos. Lee Shulman shares those loves, recognising what he calls “the emotional value of these slices of life”. Since 2017, Lee’s collected around 700,000 found photographs, and compiled them into his Anonymous Project.
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These snapshots taken in the mid-20th Century show us people posing for the camera, smiling in readiness for whoever’s behind the thing to press the button and capture the moment. Others are relaxed, caught off guard, their eyes blinked closed or shut in asleep.
Achieved: Russia introduces a total embargo on the export of goods
2 months after the introduction of restrictions by the West, Russia took appropriate measures. The other day, President Vladimir Putin signed a decree "On the application of retaliatory special economic measures in connection with the unfriendly actions of certain foreign states and international organizations." According to the document, the export of raw materials and products from Russia to such countries has been stopped.
The decree comes into force on May 13
From the very beginning of spring, Western states imposed restrictions against Russia and its citizens. Russia, in turn, only modestly stated that payment for the raw materials needed by these countries should now be made in rubles.
The new decree shows that Russia has decided to act proactively. On May 13, the government will publish two lists: a list of individuals against whom sanctions have been imposed, and a list of goods that will be subject to an export ban. Vladimir Putin did not begin to impose restrictions against a specific country, it was decided to “hit pointwise.”
Explicit and hidden reasons for signing the decree
Some time ago it became known about the ambiguous position of the EU countries and the United States in relation to certain Russian goods. The former openly stated that they planned to impose an embargo on the supply of Russian gas and oil. The second acted differently.
Despite the fact that the United States imposed financial and trade bans on Russia, they were confident that they would receive Russian fertilizers. Therefore, restrictions were removed from fertilizer producers, without which their agriculture is unlikely to do. Moreover, these goods have been added to the list of vital.
Russia expressed its response in a new decree. Now there will be no Russian fertilizers in the US or Europe. The list of prohibited goods will include almost everything that is produced and mined on the territory of the Russian Federation.
The economic confrontation continues
We also recall that the exchange rate has recently been “jumping” against the backdrop of rash steps by Western European countries, and in a favorable direction for the ruble. And at one point, the euro was even cheaper than the dollar.
Economic “battles” continue. For many goods, the demand is growing along with their cost, as people are afraid of rising prices. In such circumstances, Russia was forced to take retaliatory measures. The West, apparently, does not yet realize who is harmed more by economic bans. The market-based pricing mechanisms that the EU has insisted on for decades are subject to speculation.
Chicken Curry with coconut milk/ Easy Chinese Cooking Curry Chicken/ Singapore style curry chicken
One of my all-time favorites. I eat this dish about once a week. I’ll tell you what!
Kodachrome Stories
We love Kodachromes and we love found photos. Lee Shulman shares those loves, recognising what he calls “the emotional value of these slices of life”. Since 2017, Lee’s collected around 700,000 found photographs, and compiled them into his Anonymous Project.
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These snapshots taken in the mid-20th Century show us people posing for the camera, smiling in readiness for whoever’s behind the thing to press the button and capture the moment. Others are relaxed, caught off guard, their eyes blinked closed or shut in asleep.
BIDEN ADMIN ANNOUNCES OIL AND GAS LEASE CANCELLATIONS IN ALASKA AND GULF OF MEXICO
With gas prices soaring to all-time highs, it was announced tonight that the Biden Administration has issued fresh cancellations of oil and gas leases in Alaska and the Gulf of Mexico.
A top official with the American Petroleum Institute, the country’s largest oil and gas trade association, Frank Macchairola, called the cancellation of Alaska’s Cook Inlet lease “another example of the administration’s lack of commitment to oil and gas development in the US.”
Macchairola said that “The President has spoken about the need for additional supplies in the market, but his administration has failed to take action to match that rhetoric.”
“In the kind of price environment that we’re seeing, there are negative consequences to shutting off oil and gas development, both politically and practically,” Macchairola explained.
The Department of the Interior cited a “lack of industry interest in leasing in the area” for the decision to “not move forward” with the Cook Inlet lease sale, but canceling the sale would be in keeping with political promises Joe Biden made in the name of “halting global warming.”
As for the halting of two leases under consideration for the Gulf of Mexico region, the department said it was because of “conflicting court rulings that impacted work on these proposed lease sales.”
Breitbart’s Wendell Husebo suggested that “Gas prices to hit record highs again” once the news reverberates.
According to AAA, the national average price of regular gas hit an all-time high of $4.40 today.
HAL TURNER EDITORIAL OPINION
Gasoline and Diesel fuel have reached prices that are so high, they are unprecedented in American history. The law of supply and demand dictates that when supplies are low, prices are high. So what does Biden and company do? Cut off the drilling thereby keeping supplies low and prices high.
It’s almost as if the Biden people WANT to force high prices, to achieve their “environmentalist” goals of halting fossil fuel use.
This is the same crowd that warned us in the 1970 of “Global cooling” which then morphed in the 1990’s to “Global Warming” which then morphed in the 2010’s to “Climate change. Put simply, these environmentalists don’t know what they’re talking about and make it up as they go.
For all of you worried about “climate change” it may interest you to know that earth’s magnetic field, has moved farther west than ever before in recorded history. It has moved so far, and is moving so fast, that scientists are now wondering aloud if there may be a “pole shift” coming, where magnetic north and magnetic south, actually reverse!
It is the movement of earth’s magnetic field that has altered our climate. NOT fossil fuel emissions. Let that sink in.
Yes, our climate has been changing. It is noticeable. But the environmentalists tell us it is due to man-made activities, and they go on to claim that “greenhouse gases” are to blame.
Carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide, they claim, hold heat and are thus causing climate change.
These claims are fraudulent.
Carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide do not hold any more heat than any other gas. The claim is a lie; the so-called science, is junk.
Now, I ask you: given the size of planet earth, versus the size of your car exhaust pipe, do you think your car exhaust is changing the climate, or is it the unprecedented move of earth’s own magnetic field that is altering the climate?
Most rational people, having just this moment learned that earth’s magnetic field has moved farther west than ever measured before, will instantly realize that the planet’s magnetic field is far more capable of altering our climate than a car tailpipe.
Most rational people will now also realize that these environmentalists, have “snookered” us. They snookered us with their false claims and their deliberately junk science.
Oh, and it wasn’t about preserving the environment, it was about selling their “green” energy.” Bottom line: It was about money.
Politicians jumped onto the bandwagon with their “carbon taxes” — never let a good crisis go to waste, gouge citizens for more money — and environmentalists pushed their “get rid of fossil fuels” mantra til they were blue in the face.
The whole thing was — and is — a fraud.
Civilization functions and prospers with inexpensive energy. Civilization requires inexpensive energy to progress. The environmentalists have lied to so many, for so long, they have ignored the basic fact that without inexpensive energy, civilization fails.
The best is, they want us all in electric cars. But our electric grid is so tightly balanced to supply and demand, that when summer heat extremes, or even winter cold extremes, strike vast areas, the electric grid cannot handle it. There are rolling blackouts and even brownouts.
Where do the environmentalists think all those electric cars will get power to recharge if the power grid can’t handle things now?
Wait, what? “Build more power plants” they say?????? Oh, power plants that use . . . . fossil fuels . . . . to make electric?????? Idiots. They contradict themselves!
And they are such obsessed fanatics about their beliefs, they’ve even convinced a sitting president to cancel oil drilling at a time when the price of energy is causing people to have to choose between driving, and feeding their families.
This environmental insanity must be stopped.
I support clean air, and we can still have clean air using fossil fuels.
It’s time to send the environmentalists packing, and tell them to take their dementia-addled, diaper-wearing, election thieving, illegitimate “President” with them.
The Princely County of Tyrol in 1890
Nations come and nations go. And then, forgotten by all.
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BULLETIN: FINLAND OPENING, INSPECTING AND STOCKING NUCLEAR ATTACK BOMB SHELTERS
The Finland Ministry of Interior and Ministry of Defense have begun to open and inspect, Nuclear War Bomb Shelters around the Country.Finland has one of the most robust and expansive Nuclear Bunker Systems in the World able to shelter nearly the entire Population.
It was announced earlier today that Finland intends to submit an Application to join NATO.
Russia says this is a violation of the 1947 Paris Peace Treaty which both Finland, Russia, and all the World War 2 nations, signed. That Treaty states emphatically “the parties undertakenot to enter into alliances and coalitions directed against one of them.”
Intelligence Sources in Russia say “If the 1947 Peace Treaty is broken, then there is no longer Peace.”
Some of Finland’s Nuclear War Bomb Shelters are incorporated into the country’s subway system. Below is one such bunker, also being inspected, outfitted with food, water, medicine, tools, communications gear, and other supplies.
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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.
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.
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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.
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Pepe Escobar
April 29, 2022
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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
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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
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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
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A True Angel Indeed
good best bosses 121 626108e3c21ef 700
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
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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
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‘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!)
2022 05 10 19 32
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.
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.
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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!
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These drumsticks are incredibly delicious, super easy, and a great dinner party meal since they aren’t fussy and are inexpensive for a group!
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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
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Finian Cunningham
April 9, 2022
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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
good best bosses 208 62503109b6f2a 700
Beautiful Life Of Florida In The 1950s
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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
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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.
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
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?
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.
“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 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.
Matthew Ehret
April 27, 2022
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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?
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.
Boss Being An Absolute Bro Over A Mistake
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My Boss Asked Me If I Play Games And Gave Me This
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Forgotten Architectural Beauty
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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!
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“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.)
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).”
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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.
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.
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
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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
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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
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China Accelerates Nuclear Buildup, Military Modernization; Biden Speeding US To Defeat
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
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“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
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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
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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.
Scott Ritter is on fire. You have to watch the video here and he tears into Finland and Sweden. Yeah. They want to join the death march of the lemmings following the Nazi’s and cheer led by the American neocons drinking their Carmel coffee latte’s in Starbucks. LOL. It’s over, folks.
Let’s continue on the “news” during this period of insanity.
The Anti-China fear-mongering has begun
All from the front page of Zero Hedge this morning (11May22) …
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This week’s “must-read”…
B names Return of the King by Wolfgang Streek as this week’s must-read. I agree: the article is very good on the Ukraine’s recent past, its present predicament, and its likely future.
One sentence really caught my eye:
Rumours have it that the numerous wargames commissioned in recent years from military thinktanks by the American government involving Ukraine, NATO and Russia have one way or other all ended in nuclear Armageddon, at least in Europe.
It’s a rumor but a very plausible one. Nuclear armaggedon, at least in Europe, seems likely if the neocons in Washington keep doubling down, as is their wont. This leads to another thought: the US knows that Europe will probably be destroyed, yet it continues to stoke the conflict. Therefore, the death of a large economic competitor, namely Europe, is what the US — or a least a faction of the US — wants!
To Europeans: is Europe’s death what YOU want? Not importing energy from Russia will destroy your economy, but you won’t need an economy if you are dead.
To the nutcases in Washington DC: How would a dead Europe help you in the fight against China?
I do agree it is worth reading, so would encourage others.
I have a ‘however’ however — would like very much those who would agree with the essay to give me some proof of the veracity of the following statement near the end of the piece:
“…Very likely, what Europe can deliver to the United States would exceed what Russia can deliver to China, so that a loss of Russia to China would be more than compensated by the gains from a tightening of American hegemony over Western Europe…”
I’m not seeing that as ‘very likely’ at this point; but who am I to know?
Forgotten Architectural Beauty
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Greece formally rejects US proposal to supply Ukraine with additional Russian-made weapon systems
The USA wants every nation to throw away their weapons to Ukraine, and then buy fresh new, expensive ones from the United States.
This Sheet Pan Greek Chicken recipe has been one of the most popular recipes on this site for over 3 years, and with good reason! It really couldn’t be any easier to make with less than 10 minutes of hands on prep. It’s a great all in one meal and is loaded with roasted peppers, tomatoes, artichokes and olives, all tossed in a yummy sauce and cooked with pieces of chicken. Whether you are doing a Whole30, Paleo, Gluten Free or just love food, this Greek Chicken Traybake is a great crowd pleasing meal.
-Everylastbite
Sheet pan recipes have become the star of my weeknight dinners. I am all about the low maintenance midweek meals that can be prepared with the absolute minimum amount of effort, taste good, and ideally be eaten as leftovers over the following days. This Sheet Pan Greek Chicken ticks all those boxes and more. It’s packed with beautiful healthy ingredients including red and yellow peppers, cherry tomatoes, red onions, wedges of lemon and loads of garlic and basil.
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WHY YOU ARE GOING TO LOVE THIS SHEET PAN GREEK CHICKEN
It requires just 10 minutes of hands on prep! After that place the tray in the oven and sit back and relax. It really couldn’t be any more low maintenance to make! This is the perfect recipe to try if you are new to cooking, it’s basically impossible to mess up!
I have received so many comments from people who love making this dish for guests, it can all be prepared in advance and guests are always wow’d by how pretty it looks
It’s naturally Gluten Free, Grain Free and Specific Carbohydrate Diet Legal, and with a few modifications you can make it comply with many other diets too (see details below)!
There is so much flavour! The mix of herbs, garlic and oil seems simple but really gives the veggies and chicken a wonderful Greek flavour.
Minimal dishes to wash, need I say more!
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CAN I USE A DIFFERENT CUT OF CHICKEN?
Absolutely! While I prefer using boneless skinless chicken breasts or thighs, bone in also works well. If using bone in cuts of chicken remember to increase the cook time by 15 minutes
I DON’T EAT CHICKEN, ANYTHING ELSE I CAN USE?
Swap the chicken for salmon or a white fish such as cod or halibut. Bake the veggies in the oven for 15 minutes before adding the fish on top and then baking for another 15 minutes until cooked through.
HOW TO MAKE IT DAIRY FREE?
If you are on a dairy free diet such as Paleo or Whole30, skip the feta and add in small slices of potato
CAN I ADD OTHER VEGETABLES?
Definitely! Other vegetables that would be a great addition to this recipe include asparagus, wedges of zucchini, cubed eggplant or baby potatoes.
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WHAT SHOULD I SERVE WITH THIS SHEET PAN GREEK CHICKEN?
I love serving this sheet pan meal with tzatziki, it really ups this meal to the next level. You can use store bought tzatziki, or if you are looking for a dairy free tzatziki, try making this absolutely delicious one which you can quickly whip up with the sheet pan is cooking, and its vegan, whole30 and paleo too!
You can keep things simple and serve this sheet pan meal with a salad for a light meal. Alternatively you can serve it with roast potatoes or rice (or cauliflower rice). The chicken and veggies have so much flavour you can keep everything else simple.
CAN I PREP THIS SHEET PAN GREEK CHICKEN IN ADVANCE?
This Sheet Pan Greek Chicken is a great make ahead dish. You can chop all of the veggies and put them on the tray with the chicken up to a day in advance. 30 minutes before serving simply pour the sauce overtop and bake in the oven, it doesn’t get much easier than that.
WHAT TO DO WITH LEFTOVERS
Leftovers will last for up to 4 days in the fridge. I like to cut up the leftover vegetables and add them into a salad along with the chicken. You can even use any excess sauce from the bottom of the tray as dressing.
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Equipment
1 21x15inch Sheet Pan or Baking Dish
Ingredients
1red peppercut into 2 inch pieces
1yellow peppercut into 2 inch pieces
1red onioncut into eighths
2cupscherry tomatoes
1/2cupartichoke hearts
1lemon
2large chicken breasts, cut in half or 4 chicken thighs
2clovesgarliccrushed
1/4cupolive oil
1 1/2tbspbalsamic vinegar
1/2tspsmoked paprika
1tspdried oregano
1/4tspsalt
1/2tsppepper
2tbspchopped fresh basil
2/3cupkalamata olives
1/4cupchopped feta(omit for Paleo/Whole30)
Instructions
Preheat the oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit (200 degrees Celsius)
In a large baking sheet or roasting tray, add the chopped peppers, red onion slices, artichoke hearts, lemon wedges and tomatoes.
In a bowl whisk together the garlic, olive oil, vinegar, paprika and oregano. Pour 1/3 of the sauce over the veggies, sprinkle with salt and pepper and toss until well coated. Place the chicken pieces on top of the veggies and brush sauce. Bake in the oven for 25 minutes.
After 25 minutes, add in the feta, chopped basil and olives. Pour the remaining sauce over the tray and return to the oven to bake for another 5-10 minutes. Check the chicken to ensure its no longer pink. Sprinkle with basil and serve.
This week, I was invited to speak on the Mel K Show in order to shed some light on the strategic roots of the Pentagon's global bioweapons complex running 320+ biolabs across the world.How did this opaque and dangerous network grow out of the 2001 Anthrax attacks which began on Sept. 18, 2001 and the earlier Dark Winter exercises?
How is this connected to the absorption of General Hiro Ishii's Unit 731 bio terror network into Fort Detrick after WWII? How were plans for a post-war age of win-win cooperation sabotaged by the same machine that funded and directed the rise of fascism both prior to and even during WWII?During the interview, a sober assessment of the growth of the US full spectrum “containment” policy encircling both Russia and China, and the various US military satraps of the Pacific whose sovereignty is in name only. Among those military colonies, we discuss South Korean, Japan, Taiwan, Guam and even increasingly the Philippines.
REPORTS: U.S. Admiral Surrenders to Russia in Mariupol, Ukraine
Numerous reports have been circulating much of today (Sunday, May 15, 2022) claiming that a U.S. Military Commander surrendered to Russian forces from the Azovstal Steel Mill in Mariupol, Ukraine. As of 6:17 PM EDT, a photo purported to be U.S. Navy Admiral Eric Olson, has been released allegedly showing the Admiral under arrest by Russian troops.
The photo, featured above, is claimed to be Admiral Eric T. Olsen.
From Wikipedia:
Eric Thor Olson (born January 24, 1952) is a retired United States Navy admiral who last served as the eighth Commander, U.S. Special Operations Command (USSOCOM) from July 2, 2007 to August 8, 2011.
His official US Military photo (Years old) appears on Wikipedia as shown below:
2022 05 16 13 43
He previously served as Deputy Commander, U.S. Special Operations Command from 2003 to July 2007. Olson was the first Navy SEAL ever to be appointed to three-star and four-star flag rank, as well as the first naval officer to be USSOCOM’s combatant commander.
He took command from Army General Bryan D. Brown in 2007.[1] Brown and Olson had served together at the SOCOM headquarters in Tampa for four years.
He retired from active duty on August 22, 2011 after over 38 years of service. He relinquished command of SOCOM to Admiral William H. McRaven the same day.
Below is a more recent photo of Admiral Olson, taken in March, 2020:
2022 05 16 13 44
Along with U.S. Admiral Olson (Ret’d), British Lieutenant Colonel John Bailey and 4 NATO military instructors also allegedly surrendered to Russia.
There is also news of Canadian, French, and Turkish military officers still hiding inside tunnels beneath the Azovstal Steel Mill in Mariupol.
What these men were allegedly doing there and who sent them there, is not yet known.
If confirmed by the Pentagon, the massive question this raises is why are U.S. military officers, and the military officers from other NATO countries, inside Ukraine at all, and who authorized them to participate in waging undeclared war upon Russia?
UPDATE 7:02 PM EDT —
There is a dispute as to WHERE this photo was taken. There is a claim it was taken in Luhansk, and not in Mariupol. There is also a dispute as to WHEN the photo was taken, with claims that it was taken on April 14.
The “where” and “when” arguments do not take issue with WHO is allegedly shown in the photo.
RELATED: Reports Seven (7) Other Americans KILLED in Ukraine
Seven (7) Americans were killed in Rubizhnoye, who participated in the battles on the side of Kyiv, according to Alaudinov, an assistant to the head of Chechnya,.
He showed a document of one of them with the name Joseph Ward Clark from Washington state.
2022 05 16 13 46
Beautiful Life Of Florida In The 1950s
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Warning to the people of Finland
Scott Ritter has a stark warning for Finland: Join NATO and you will get nuked!
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Brett Eldredge – Raymond (Official Music Video)
A long time favorite.
US State Department site deletes ‘Taiwan is part of China’ | Taiwan News
Saudi Aramco Has Cut Prices From Record Highs for Asia
When the world no longer afraid of the United States, the revenge has begun…
The only difference is that , unlike the West, habitually killing and looting the world at will, the world will simply not going to give the West special prices anymore .
That is enough to keep the Western economies uncompetitive compared to the rest of the world.
The proliferation of advertising in public spaces has long been a controversial issue around Poland, with many referring to it as “reklamoza” (“advertosis”), likening it to a disease eroding the fabric of Polish cities.
Advertising is not free speech; obscenity is not free speech. Being able to express any viewpoint in the correct form in a correct venue is free speech, especially anti-egalitarian ideas because they are always unpopular, and while our society has encouraged a proliferation of advertising and obscenity, it has crushed actual free speech. Democracy has not only failed, but reversed itself.
China orders government, state firms to replace all foreign computers
China has ordered central government agencies and state-backed corporations to replace foreign-branded personal computers with domestic alternatives within two years, marking one of Beijing’s most aggressive efforts so far to eradicate key overseas technology from within its most sensitive organs.
The West will (eventually) do the same, once domestic manufacture of computers returns. However, the difficulties are many. Not just the lack of manufacturing, but unions, selfish and parasitic organizations are fundamental elements that need to be corrected before a change in policy can be implemented. It is, after all, that situation that drove all of Western manufacturing to China in the first place.
Last year, program trustees projected that, beginning in 2033, Social Security’s trust fund will be depleted and insufficient to pay retirement benefits. Medicare faces an even more immediate crisis, with its trust fund projected to run out in 2026.
Neither the US nor Europe can afford these social benefits programs while funding an enormous military. Something must change. What will change is unknown, but it will be a grand “arm wrestle” between the lobby of retired people, against the military-industrial lobby. The outcome will be nasty, and contentious.
Forgotten Architectural Beauty
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STP – Acoustic – Interstate Love Song
Declan Hayes
May 7, 2022
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Russia should ignore Zelensky and the Finnish biker and let the EU know what its choices are.
Although Satan 11, Russia’s latest super‐heavy RS-28 Sarmat intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), packs a lethal punch, it is not of itself a game changer. Because leopards don’t change their spots, NATO won’t stop its war mongering until it is defanged, disarmed and demobbed. Though Satan 11 is necessary to deter NATO’s aggression, it is not nearly sufficient to alter the NATO jingoistic mind set that now has middle aged Swedish and Finnish women clambering to kick start Armageddon.
If these Swedish and Finnish mamasans want Santa’s Lapland to be nuked, fair enough. On the positive side, pre-emptive nuclear strikes would end Sweden’s rampant urban terrorism and enable future entrepreneurs to build back better after Assa Abloy, Electrolux, Ericcson, Essity, H&M, Ikea, Skanska, Spotify, Vattenfall, Volvo, Abba and Greta Thunberg dissolve in palls of nuclear smoke, with Finnish firms Nordia, Nokia, Neste and UPM tagging along for the one-way ride.
Though all sane Swedes and Finns, like all sane Norwegians and Danes, don’t want to be NATO’s sacrificial lambs, they don’t have a vote in this. Scandinavia is not Switzerland. And they are certainly not democracies which are dependent upon large and well-informed electorates which would quickly discern that Sweden’s pretty Prime Minister and Finland’s prettier Prime Minister are just tools of Empire, lipstick on the war pig that is NATO.
NATO membership would mean for Finland and Sweden, as it means for Norway and Denmark, that its more pliable generals would get cushy numbers pushing pens in Brussels and its prettier politicians would get their five minutes of fame talking tough on the international stage against NATO’s latest baddie. But for the ordinary Swedes and Finns, just like for the ordinary Greeks, it would mean huge military expenditures, with nothing but increased American arms’ profits and more Greek-like poverty to show for it. If Finland and Sweden join NATO, then they should pay the penalties worldwide, just as little Lithuania is currently being taught some basic manners by China.
On the subject of manners, it wasn’t very nice of Sweden to pretend to broker peace between Iran and Iraq, even as they sold arms to both sides. Though one can understand Sweden’s need to mob up with NATO to retain its toxic arms exports, Sweden should not be all that surprised if Satan 11 or some gentler messenger of death calls it to account for its duplicity; President Putin keeps saying as much about Sweden and Perfidious Albion.
When one deals with the NATO devil, one needs a very long spoon as global blowback is a given. H&M has already suffered much well earned blowback in China and Bangladesh promises much more of that until Sweden backs off or Satan 11 ends Malmö’s mayhem.
Though Einstein famously quipped that World War 4 would be fought with sticks and stones, that would be fine with NATO’s Nordic pimps if there was money to be made by cudgelling Armageddon’s survivors to death; after all, that is how their ISIS proxies dispatched their victims.
The United States and its British bulldog, the two leeches at the heart of NATO, are its financial command, control and co-ordination centers, far more concerned with profiteering from global supply lines’ disruption than with making their own countries, or any others, at peace with themselves and with others.
England, once the world’s work horse is, beyond its semi-autonomous City of London, a social and economic waste land, whose citizens pay fortunes to watch foreigners kick balls in its foreign-owned football clubs. Its foreign owned media relay those matches to its masses in between informing them how the Queen and the vast cast of her Royal Family, even down to the Queen’s youngest great grand children, are faring and what they are wearing. Kate Middleton, the Queen’s grand daughter in law, is a media staple, Britain’s bonniest Barbie doll if you will. When she is not holding a tennis racket, swinging a cricket bat or throwing a rugby ball, she eyes up squaddies, ogles at natives, smiles at toddlers, and far out-shines Meghan Markle, the Royals’ Chief Witch-in-Exile. In between the endless column inches devoured by these D-Listers, the media, which scoff at North Korea’s leader for doing similar photo shoots, shriek that “Putin must be stopped” before his armies invade England’s drug infested council estates where even England’s own police forces fear to tread. If you want to have a rational argument with those coke heads, Deus vult.
America has its Johnny Depp-Amber Heard defamation trials and its Silicone Valley porno industry, which turns more coin than all of America’s sports’ industries combined. Silicon Valley‘s power brokers, meanwhile, are at the core of America’s, and thus NATO’s, perpetual wars whereas, just an hour’s drive away, homelessness is rife. America, the land of the free, is a land of coke and Botox, celebrity tittle tattle, poverty and endless foreign wars to externalise their own internal contradictions. Europe would be infinitely better off without them both.
Although dropping Satan 11 nuclear calling cards on London, Helsinki and Washington would dampen NATO’s war enthusiasm, it would not extinguish it. That is because both London and Washington are primed for plunder and not for peaceful co-existence. The bankers, industrialists and oligarchs, who are at the heart of those hubs, know no other way.
As their legions ransack Syria, Ukraine, Iraq, Yemen and Libya, their media must forever divert their Barbie doll-buying, sport, Botox and porno fixated citizens to look over there at what Putin, Asma Assad, Xi and the Pakistanis, Venezuelans, Indians and Solomon Islanders are doing to subvert the American way of suppressing life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
Germany is no better. Though Vice Admiral Kay-Achim Schoenbach‘s warning Germany against another Stalingrad by the Dnieper would be heeded in a sane world, to career minded German generals with an eye on future consultancies, it was not what they wanted to hear and so Schoenbach had to fall on his ceremonial sword.
Germany can choose Hitler’s way or Bismarck’s way. They can either choose diplomacy or once again see the world, via Satan 11, thunder down around them. They cannot have both. Bismarck’s way would have been to continue importing Russian oil and exporting German goods that are dependent upon adding German craftsmanship to Russian raw materials. Germany is again opting for Wagner’s Götterdämmerung, the Ragnarök’s Twilight of the Gods, where Odin, Thor, Týr, Freyr, Heimdallr, Loki and billions of us lesser mortals perish.
Russia’s President Putin and Foreign Affairs Minister Lavrov, no trivial men, have repeatedly made it clear that this is where NATO’s rock scissors paper game ends, perhaps even before this year’s mid-term elections where Irish Joe Biden’s war party stands to get a pasting. If Germany and Denmark cannot see that they deserve massive retaliatory blowback for continuing to pour weapons of mass destruction into Ukraine, then their collective mental functions have gone the same way as Biden’s, who cannot even control his bowel movements in front of the Pope.
The end choice is clear. The first is Satan 11, a nuclear High Noon and all that entails for the City of London, Brussels, Copenhagen’s Little Mermaid, the New York and Chicago stock markets, Disneyland and California’s Silicon and Silicone Valleys. The second is for negotiations between Russia, on the one hand and any sane Westerners on the other. As that rules out the Americans, the first priority would be to agree that the seven or so peace treaties that ended World War One and the very many others which followed over the following 100 years have left many territorial related issues unresolved and, even leaving the Second World War’s carnage to one side, that far too many tens of thousands have needlessly died as a result of Europe’s disputes, which must, under option 2, be resolved this side of Armageddon.
Regarding the Ukrainian issue at hand, Russia’s President and Foreign Minister should negotiate with people of equivalent stature on the other side and, as they say, seal a deal. But there is no one of equivalent stature on the other side. Although Ukraine’s President is history’s richest comedian, his propensity to “perform” stark naked, his plagiarized speeches to European Parliaments and his off-shore bank accounts all show he is not his own man. For Finland’s Prime Minister to think dressing up as a biker absolves her from embroiling Finland in nuclear war shows she too has nothing this side of a lunatic asylum to offer.
Once we remove the Ukrainian and Finnish onion layers, we just get more of the same, the same bland politicians serving the EU’s unelected power brokers, who are bumbling us into Armageddon, just as Austro Hungary’s leaders bombardment of Belgrade bumbled us into The Great War, that war to end all wars.
Instead of nth dimensional chess, it is time to get back to basics with simpler strategies. Russia should ignore Zelensky and the Finnish biker and let the EU know what its choices are. In Satan 11, it has a big nuclear stick and in Lavrov, it has the greatest diplomatic voice of our age. If the Belgian, British, Danish, Dutch, Spanish and Swedish Royal Families, the Vatican, the incontinent clowns in the White House and their enforcers at the heart of NATO’s machinations wish to continue in their wanton ways, they should choose one or the other, left hand or right hand, thermo nuclear war or peace with justice, reparations, respect and co-operation. It is time to call time on NATO’s 73 years of thugocracy. Let Germany, which reneged on the Nordstream2 Oil deal and which is always at Russia’s throat or Albion’s feet, choose. Left hand or right hand, Satan 11 or Oktoberfest?
Forgotten Architectural Beauty
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From the Streek article:
"Ukrainian politics apart, an American proxy war for Ukraine may force Russia into a close relationship of dependence on Beijing, securing China a captive Eurasian ally and giving it assured access to Russian resources, at bargain prices as the West would no longer compete for them. Russia, in turn, could benefit from Chinese technology, to the extent that it would be made available."
Is it just me or does this statement sound naive as to the already publicly stated cooperation and special status between China and Russia?
The USA already and long since had anything, zero, zippo to say or do relative to cooperation between China and Russia. All this talk of driving Russia into China’s arms is just more out of touch American exceptionalism, it seems to me.
The author’s conclusions may be right about the EU and USA but I do not think this is a time in history to be banking on the empire’s success anywhere in the world for much longer.
Steak Gaucho-Style with Argentinian Chimichurri Sauce
This recipe is also excellent for grilled fish and chicken.
3/4 cup Vegetable or olive oil (I prefer the latter)
3 tbsp Sherry wine vinegar, or red wine vinegar (I prefer the sherry)
3 tbsp Lemon juice
steak
1 tbsp Cayenne pepper
3 tbsp salt
2 1/2 lb Any grillable Steak. New York Strip, skirt steak, London Broil, etc
1 cup hot water
Directions
Preheat a grill.
Place all chimichurri sauce ingredients in a blender or food processor and pulse until well chopped, but not pureed. Reserve.
Dissolve cayenne pepper and salt in 1 cup hot water. Transfer to a squeeze container.
Place the steak directly over a hot grill, baste with the chimichurri grilling sauce, and grill until the outer portion of the meat reaches the desired degree of doneness. Remove the steak from the grill and slice long strips from the outer edges of the steak. Instruct guests to pick up a steak slice from the cutting board with their fingers, place it on a slice of baguette, and enjoy. Return the remaining steak to the grill, baste, and grill until more of the steak is cooked. Remove and repeat the slicing and serving procedure until steak is consumed. For extra spicy steak, baste 2 or 3 additional times with the cayenne pepper mixture during grilling process. Spoon chimichurri sauce over steak. (Also brilliant on any grilled fish or chicken)
Recommended beverage: Argentinian Malbec (red)
When You Had A Bad Day And Your Boss’s Boss Leaves This On Your Desk
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Sanity Check
"A dead Europe would help the US by] not being part of the Chinese BRI. In effect a dead Europe would not be part of an integrated Eurasia."
A dead Europe would hurt the US far more than China.
At the moment, the US and EU have roughly the same GDP. Let G be that amount. Assume China’s economy grows to 2G, double the size of the US’s present GDP (the Middle Kingdom has already zoomed past G in PPP terms). In the same timeframe, assume the US and EU both grow to 1.2G.
A dead Europe would cost a US+EU alliance 1.2G / (1.2G + 1.2G) = 50% of its potential GDP.
A dead Europe would cost a China+EU alliance 1.2G / (2G + 1.2G) = 37.5% of its potential GDP.
So if Europe died in a nuclear armageddon, the US would be at a greater disadvantage relative to China than if Europe thrived.
Of course, I’m assuming that China’s growth stopped at twice the US’s current GDP. There’s no reason for the Middle Kingdom to stop there. If China’s GDP grew to 3G, the loss of Europe would cost the China+EU alliance only 1.2G / (3G + 1.2G) = 28.6% of its potential GDP.
The US would be even more crippled in comparison.
What I Would Do To Have A Boss Like This
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Pee-wee’s Big Adventure (1/10) Movie CLIP – Pee-wee’s Breakfast (1985) HD
Back to my training days at China Lake NWC. LOL.
The Psychology of Manipulation: 6 Lessons from the Master of Propaganda
1. If you manipulate the leader of a group, the people will follow 2. Words are powerful: the key to influencing a group is the clever use of language 3. Any medium of communication is also a medium for propaganda 4. Reiterating the same idea over and over creates habits and convictions 5. Things are not desired for their intrinsic worth, but rather for the symbols that they represent 6. One can manipulate individual actions by creating circumstances that modify group customs
Beautiful Life Of Florida In The 1950s
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Maps of Destruction
I am also a native of Washington State (Seattle), but I live in Philadelphia.
I remember well a map of Washington we studied in 9th-grade science during the Cuban missile crisis which showed all the projected targets in Washington in a nuclear war; even Aberdeen and Hoquiam (small cities) were targeted, and it looked like most of the population would be killed by blast damage.
The remark I made about Kalaloch was kind of a joke, because, as my father said at the time in declining to build an underground shelter, “Who would want to survive a nuclear war?.”
Still, only the ocean front would not be immediately affected by blast or fallout.
I know that Bangor would be the first target in the state, but the blast would likely be blocked by the Olympic Mountains on the west, and the fallout would also be blown east. That it, assuming that no stray missiles fell west of the Olympics.
I don’t believe longterm survival in any of those places would be easy, and life would become immediately unpleasant and desperate, so that dying earlier of blast or radiation might be preferable.
As production would cease, people surviving underground in shelters or in areas not damaged directly would face starvation when their food ran out.
This would be a main problem.
Growing one’s own food after not knowing how to do it would be hard.
As for radiation, some longterm radiation would spread over the world, but, as it became reduced through radioactive decay, it would not be enough to kill people directly by acute radiation disease in places not irradiated early.
However, longlasting isotopes would probably cause a lot of later cancer, and there would be no medical treatment available.
There is a set of maps showing targets in the US at Modern Survival Blog/ ; if anything, these maps are too conservative in their picture of destruction.
A comment also at that site that I would endorse, after my editing of it, states:
“All 12000 missiles would be launched, many to Europe and other strategic places. Military and possible sources of retaliation would not get one or two but twenty missiles to ensure complete destruction and if at all possible preventing counter launch. Then, the cities, airports and what not are all secondary. The attack…would read like this:…0300 AM while most are asleep and military has less brass awake, cyber attack nationwide. 0301 missiles launch in massive salvo. 0302 massive EMP from orbit. [In US,] nuclear sites pounded with two dozen missiles each, some shot down, some burnt in atmosphere, some just didn’t work, most intended targets annihilated. Minor targets…civilian airports, small to medium cities may escape damage from the random missiles interception. Power out, welcome to primitive living. 200 million dead. 100 million burnt and dying. 20 million lucky sheltered, bunkered, mostly West Texas [except what about El Paso?], Oregon [meaning part of Oregon, mainly ocean front], and a few scattered small towns.
“Meanwhile, in the rest of the world… either by man, or by computer-operation, spoil sport begins. Everything from Germany to Moscow is leveled, burnt, and massive fires consume all to bedrock… China no longer exists either except the high mountains.
So then, as fallout encompasses the globe, the global population falls to a few million in a week, a million in three weeks, and perhaps 100,00 globally in a year. Nuclear winter is very exaggerated, but it does exist. The biggest problem is long lasting strontium [90] or whatever is sprayed about. Thirty to one hundred years later, a few tribes living like American Indians from remote and untouched parts of the globe walk a new world and only the stories of the old world remain.”
The only caveat is that possibly some Southern Hemisphere places might fare better, but they would hurt too and also suffer mass death from starvation.
-Cabe
How Many Nuclear Weapons In The World
The approximate official world score…
12,000 (Russia)
9,400 (USA)
300 (France)
240 to 1000+ (China)
225 (UK)
90 (Pakistan)
80 (India)
80 (Israel)
10 (N. Korea) (More? recent reports say 60)
? (Iran?)
A while ago, for one month, myself and a then work colleague lived money-free—I cut expenses by 100%, pretty much! The job I was in at the time paid for my accommodation and transport, so all I had to worry about was food. On the second day of the experiment, however, we met a ‘freegan’ who regularly collected food thrown out by all the supermarkets in town. So, following her lead, we went along, filled up her truck with perfectly packaged food, including toothpaste and other essentials, and lived money-free for the month.
Now, I’m not suggesting you go and rummage around in supermarket bins for a month to cut expenses, because, for one, I think it’s illegal in many parts of the world! Still, there are many other ways you can cut your expenses and have lots of your monthly income left to spend, save and enjoy.
1. Write down all of your expenses
How many times do you hand over $1 or £1 for something and think, “Oh, it’s only a dollar,” and then repeat the same process every day for a month? Be mindful of where you’re spending your pennies and write down everything you spend for a month—you can then see where to cut costs in the future. Trust me, this one really does work.
2. Cut out the takeaway coffees
Get yourself a nice flask and make your own coffee. If you’re serious about cutting your expenses and you still buy a takeaway coffee every morning, buying a flask will save you at least $80 a month.
3. Cycle or walk to work
I know many of you probably have long train or car commutes, but 10km is still do-able on a bike, right? And if you’re a little on the lazy side, invest in an electric bike to help you up those hills in the morning. Ditching the train or car for a bike is a serious money saver; plus, you’re getting fitter at the same time!
4. Shop in thrift stores (at least some of the time)
You can get designer items for pennies; you can find cheap tat and upcycle it for next to nothing, and find one-off clothes you’d never find on the high street. So, if you’re looking to update your wardrobe or buy new stuff for your home, check out the cheaper alternatives first.
5. Buy the unbranded products in the supermarket
You may only be saving pennies per item, but there really isn’t much difference in the taste—do not be seduced by pretty branding! The only difference, for example with unbranded tinned tomatoes and branded ones, is the lack of salt and sugar and you can add that yourself. Why pay loads extra for it?
6. Take your own lunch to work
Yes, it’ll take up a few extra minutes of your evening, but wouldn’t you prefer to have an extra $100 at the end of each month instead? Over the course of a year, that’s a saving of over $1,000.
7. Bulk cook your meals
Set aside a few hours on Sunday and make a load of different dishes to prepare you for the whole week. Pop them in the freezer and you won’t be tempted with takeaways or packaged meals midweek.
8. Compare gas and electricity prices
Are you really getting the best deal with your gas and electricity? It only takes a few minutes to compare deals on an online comparison site.
9. Cut out the pricey drinks
Perhaps you don’t drink much, but for a lot of people, spending a good proportion of their monthly salary on expensive boozy nights out is part of their monthly regime. If this rings true, try cutting back or going alcohol-free for a month to see how much you save.
10. Keep a penny/cent collection
Throw your loose change into a jar, then count it up at the end of each month and see how much you’ve saved—over time, you’ll be surprised by how much money you’ll make.
11. Use Freecycle
In the UK there’s a scheme called Freecycle, where you can give away your unwanted furniture, or anything else you no longer need, for free. Obviously, in return, if you need any household essentials—kitchen table, bicycle, bookshelf … you can just log on to the site and see what’s available.
12. Ditch the large overdrafts
If you’ve got an overdraft of $1,000, chances are you’ll spend it each month if you’re not careful with your money. If you’re scared to lose the overdraft completely, halve it and see if it makes you any more cautious with your money.
13. Clear out your unwanted stuff
Have a car boot sale, sell your unwanted things on eBay … if you’ve been living in the same house for over a year, chances are that unless you’re super-organized, you’ll have at least a few things that are worth selling to make some extra money.
14. Share car journeys
If you drive to work alone every day, see if there are any other people who live near you so you can share journeys and cut your costs on petrol. It’ll pay off in the long run.
15. Re-evaluate your insurance
Whether it’s life, health, or travel insurance, shop around, compare prices and make sure you’re getting the best deal for the least amount of money. Remember though, that cheapest does not always equal the best.
16. Change your phone deal
Do you really need all those minutes and extras? Is there a cheaper phone deal that will save you money in the long run? Shop around and see what other phone deals are out there.
17. Do not take out any pay day loans
The adverts may be appealing, but the interest rates on pay day loans make these companies no better than con artists!
18. Dry clean at home
If you’re a regular at your dry cleaners, cut costs by buying a home dry cleaning kit and a spot remover pen.
19. Take another look at your internet bills
Can you get a better deal elsewhere? Do you live in an apartment block? If so, perhaps you can share an internet connection with those around you—providing you trust them.
20. Make more gifts for people
Now that we’re coming up to the festive season, rather than splashing out on expensive gifts for people, cut expenses and make your own cards and presents—at least for some people. The gesture won’t be forgotten. Plus, everyone knows the gift of time far outweighs the gift of money.
21. Cut back on expensive cleaning products
There are loads of ways you can make your own cleaning products; for example, vinegar and baking soda work wonders for cleaning your drains; spray lemon juice on surfaces to get rid of stains and streaky grease marks; and use vinegar to scrub up wooden flooring.
22. Simplify your beauty regime
We can all be seduced by fancy creams claiming to minimize pores, get rid of wrinkles and leave our skin looking healthy and plump; but, in reality, all your skin needs is a good diet, plenty of water and hydration. Try ditching expensive creams for almond or coconut oil. It’s really cheap and will leave your skin looking incredible.
23. Cancel your gym membership
Get on your bike, jog round the park, and lift weights at home. You could even organize regular work out sessions for free with others who want to ditch the gym. You don’t need to pay to be fit!
24. Turn your lights off
When you leave a room, flick the switch and cut expenses on your electricity bills. If you live with forgetful people, place little stickers by the switch to give people helpful reminders.
25. Replace bulbs with energy saving ones
Cut expenses and save the environment at the same time. It’s a no-brainer!
26. Pay for things with cash only
Allow yourself a certain amount of money each week and spend only that amount. Unless you’re constantly checking your finances, there’s no way you can keep up-to-date with what you’ve really spent if you keep paying for things with your credit or debit cards.
27. Tell your friends and family that you want to cut expenses
If you’re ever tempted to spend more than you intended, tell everyone you spend time with what you’re doing. Or even better, arrange for a group of you to all cut expenses at the same time.
28. Get savvy with deals
Sign up to Groupon, or get Amazon deals sent straight to your inbox, and save heaps of money on theater tickets, holidays, restaurant meals, and much more.
29. Take care of your teeth
Brush your teeth twice a day and don’t forget to floss. If you don’t take care of your teeth now, you’ll pay the price in expensive dental bills years down the line.
30. Be grateful for the money you have
Change your attitude towards money and be grateful for what you have rather than complaining about not earning enough or having enough of it. You’ll be surprised by how much a simple change of attitude can help you to manifest more money and help you cut expenses.
Beautiful Life Of Florida In The 1950s
17 9
Isaac Hayes performs “Shaft” at the 2002 Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony
Great performance. I love it.
Store Manager Being A Bro
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Mazzy Star – Fade Into You – 10/2/1994 – Shoreline Amphitheatre
Classic. She’s unique and very special.
Creamy Broccoli Cheddar Soup
This hearty broccoli cheddar soup is loaded with mouthwatering flavors, yet uses everyday ingredients, and is ready in about 30 minutes!
No need to go out to a well known bread company, this copycat broccoli cheddar soup is incredibly smooth, rich, and full of great broccoli cheese flavors! The best part, is that it’s made in just 30 minutes on your stovetop!
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I’ve been tweaking this recipe for years you guys. So. Many. Bowls. Of. Soup! Some form of this recipe has been on the blog since 2014, and this version takes the cake! Deliciously creamy, thick and rich, with the perfect mixture of smoothness and texture and loaded with broccoli cheddar flavors. You simply can’t go wrong!
This broccoli cheddar soup is sort of a copycat recipe from Panera Bread, but I honestly haven’t had that soup from there in years, so I can’t say for absolute certain if the flavors are spot on or not.
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HOW CAN YOU MAKE BROCCOLI CHEDDAR SOUP THICKER?
I’ve found this soup thickens up very well with the roux created by the butter and flour, but if you’re wanting to thicken it up even more, you have a few options.
You can mix equal parts butter and flour to form a thick paste, then stir that into the soup.
You can whisk some cornstarch into cold water or broth until the cornstarch is dissolved, and stir that into the soup.
You can add a bit more cheese.
HOW LONG DOES BROCCOLI CHEDDAR SOUP LAST IN THE REFRIGERATOR?
If you have any leftovers, which doesn’t happen to us very often, they’ll keep in the refrigerator about 3 days.
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CAN BROCCOLI CHEESE SOUP BE MADE IN THE SLOW COOKER?
Sure can! You’ll want to wait to add the dairy until the end, to prevent any curdling though. I’ll have the directions below the recipe below. The Instant Pot directions will be there as well.
CAN BROCCOLI CHEDDAR SOUP BE FROZEN?
Yes, but just like with the slow cooker, you’ll want to make this soup without adding the dairy, since dairy doesn’t generally freeze well. Just wait and add the dairy when you’re reheating the soup.
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HOW DO YOU PUREE BROCCOLI CHEESE SOUP?
Honestly you don’t even have to puree the soup if you like it chunkier, but if you like it smoother, again, you have a few options. My personal favorite method is to use an immersion blender, which you can use right in the pot! Or you can transfer some of the soup to a traditional blender, just be careful, since the soup is hot.
PRO TIPS FOR MAKING BROCCOLI CHEDDAR SOUP:
Make sure to chop the broccoli into small florets, otherwise they won’t be tender in time.
Alternatively, you can par-cook the broccoli (and the carrots) in the microwave for a few minutes, which will help them soften in less time in the soup.
To prevent a grainy soup, add the cheese one handful at a time, mixing well between handfuls, and have the heat turned off when you’re adding the cheese.
For best results, shred your own cheese. Not only is it cheaper, it melts SO much better than the pre-shredded kind.
I like to garnish this soup with a sprinkle of black pepper, some extra cheddar cheese and sometimes some crunchy croutons. Sounds weird, but croutons in soup are amazing!
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his hearty broccoli cheddar soup is loaded with mouthwatering flavors, yet uses everyday ingredients and is ready in just 30 minutes!
Ingredients
1Tbspbutter
1mediumyellow onion, finely chopped
1/4cupsalted butter
1/4cupall-purpose flour
2cupschicken broth
2cupshalf and half
12ozfresh broccoli (I use a 12 oz bag of florets), roughly chopped
2carrots, peeled and chopped
1/2tspkosher salt
1/4tsppaprika
1/4tspgarlic powder
1/4tspdry mustard(can substitute with about 1/2 tsp regular mustard)
1/4tsp black pepper
2cupscheddar cheese
Instructions
Add 1 Tbsp butter to dutch oven and heat over MED heat. Add chopped onion and saute until onions are soft and translucent, about 2-3 minutes. Add 1/4 cup butter to dutch oven, still over MED heat. When melted, add flour and whisk together. Cook mixture about 1 minute, whisking often.
Slowly pour in about a cup of chicken broth, whisking as you pour. Continue with remaining chicken broth and half and half, pouring slowly and whisking as your pour.
Let broth/half and half mixture cook for a minute or two, whisking often, making sure no flour lumps remain.
Add broccoli and carrots and stir to combine. Add paprika, garlic powder, dry mustard, salt and pepper, stir. Reduce heat to LOW/MED LOW and simmer about 10-15 minutes or until thickened and broccoli/carrots are fork tender. If soup gets too thick for your liking, add a splash of chicken broth or half and half to loosen it up.
Blend soup until desired texture is reached, using either immersion blender or by transferring soup to traditional blender.
Add grated cheddar cheese a handful at a time, stirring to melt the cheese into the soup after each handful. Taste soup and season with additional salt and pepper if needed.
Serve hot with additional black pepper and shredded cheese on top if desired.
Chef Tips
SLOW COOKER INSTRUCTIONS:
Omit butter from the recipe, add onions, broccoli, carrots, salt, paprika, garlic powder, mustard powder, and black pepper to the slow cooker.
Whisk flour and chicken broth together until no lumps remain, then add to slow cooker and stir to combine all ingredients.
Cover and cook on LOW for 6-8 hours, or HIGH for 3-4 hours.
About 30 minutes before serving, add half and half and cheese, stirring well.
Cover and continue cooking until cheese is melted.
Blend to desired texture and serve.
INSTANT POT INSTRUCTIONS:
Press Saute and cook butter and onion until onions are soft.
Add additional butter and flour, then whisk. Cook about 1 minute.
Add broccoli, carrots, salt, paprika, garlic powder, mustard powder, and black pepper to pot. Pour in chicken broth.
Secure lid and move valve to the sealing position. Set on Manual/Pressure cook on high for 8 minutes.
Let the pressure release naturally, then stir in half and half and cheese until cheese is melted.
Blend to desired texture and serve.
Earth, Wind & Fire (9/16) – Thats the way of the world
One of my faves from my university days. Still love it. The song is so rich, and has so many deep levels of melody. Ugh! I just love it.
I’m A Programmer, And My Boss Handed Me This Piece Of Paper On My First Day At Work
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10 energy-saving life hacks: How to save on electricity bills & more
Are you looking for new answers about how to save on electricity bills? With the general rise in energy prices across much of the globe, it’s easy to feel helpless when faced with incessant expenses. For example, it was recently announced that in April 2022, the U.K. will see an energy bill rise of 54 percent, according to the U.K. Parliament website.
However, there are many ways that you can reduce your energy consumption, make significant monetary savings and benefit the environment too. Fossil fuels are the most common source of energy used for electricity, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. When these fossil fuels are burned, they release greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide, which trap heat in Earth’s atmosphere and contribute to global warming.
Using renewable sources, such as solar and wind power, to supply energy to your home appliances can make you and the planet better off. According to research by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), generating 35 percent of electricity using wind and solar energy in the western U.S. would result in 25-45 percent lower carbon dioxide emissions. It would also reduce fuel costs by 40 percent.
From completely altering your energy sources, to small habit changes around the home, here are ten life hacks to help you save energy, and cut bills.
1. Turn appliances off standby
Taking the time to turn off electrical devices saves energy.
When you leave electrical appliances on but unused, many enter ‘standby mode’. While the device looks like it isn’t using up any energy, it is using electricity in the background — called phantom power — while it prepares to instantly switch back on.
According to gas and electricity supplier Utilita, leaving appliances on standby can increase your energy consumption by 75 percent. This convenient setting can end up costing you $108 (£80) more a year. To prevent increased bills, make sure to check that your appliances and plugs are completely powered off when not in use.
2. Wash clothes efficiently
The process of washing and drying your clothes contributes significantly to your energy bills, but there are ways to lower these costs just by changing the settings on your washing machine. The Energy Saving Trust estimates that you can save $38 (£28) annually just by lowering the temperature of your washing machine’s cycle to around 86 degrees fahrenheit (30 degrees Celsius) and using it once a week.
Tumble dryers should be avoided altogether and replaced with drying racks or washing lines. This can save $75 (£55) a year. According to the Centre for Sustainable Energy, using an iron can to smooth the creases in clothes can cost you around 6.1 cents (4.5 pence) per ten minutes of use. One hack to avoid ironing completely is to hang creased clothes in the bathroom. The air humidity created by the shower will actually smooth the wrinkles in your clothes.
3. Choose energy-saving bulbs
One of the fastest ways to reduce your energy bills is to install energy-efficient lighting, according to the U.S. Department of Energy. 15 percent of a home’s electricity usage goes towards lighting, but your choice of light bulb can determine how much money you spend and carbon dioxide you produce. According to the U.K. Energy Saving Trust, replacing all the bulbs in a home with LED lights can reduce carbon dioxide emissions by around 40kg a year.
Incandescent light bulbs, which are the traditional bulbs that have been in use for over 100 years, only convert five percent of their electricity into visible light. The first energy efficient bulbs made available to purchase were compact fluorescent lamps (CFLs). These last ten times longer and use up to 80 percent less electricity than traditional bulbs. More efficient again are light emitting diodes (LEDs), which display full brightness as soon as they are turned on. It is important to turn lights off when leaving a room to reduce unnecessary energy usage.
4. Insulate your home
You can keep your home warmer for longer, and save money on your heating bill, by using a few techniques to prevent heat from escaping. About one third of escaped heat from an uninsulated home is lost through its walls, while a quarter can be lost through the roof according to the Energy Saving Trust.
Draught-proofing your home is one of the best ways to cut energy costs, blocking cracks, gaps and holes in windows and doors through which heat can escape.
Heat can also easily escape from water tanks and pipes if they are not properly insulated. If you invest in a better-insulated water tank, it will remain hotter for longer, meaning it will need to be reheated less often, saving you money on bills.
5. Harness the Sun’s power
Solar panels can be installed onto roofs and used to convert direct or indirect sunlight into usable energy. When the sun shines on the panels’ semiconducting material, a flow of electricity is produced. In direct sunlight, a single panel can generate 200-350 watts of energy, according to the Energy Saving Trust.
Solar panels will cost you around $6,500 (£4,800) to install, depending on the size of the solar panel array. However, this investment saves money over time. Sunlight is free and sustainable, meaning that you won’t have to pay as much in energy bills after the initial purchase.
There are also additional benefits, as many energy companies will pay for any excess energy your panels produce. In the U.K, the Smart Export Guarantee support mechanism ensures that households are paid by the National Grid for any electricity they export.
6. Take more showers
The popular phrase of “throwing money down the drain” becomes more literal when considering the price of showering. While some people enjoy a long shower, reducing the time of your wash can result in substantial savings. 25 percent of U.K. indoor domestic water is used when showering, according to the Journal of Industrial Ecology.
If you regularly have baths, replacing them with showers has the potential to greatly reduce energy usage. According to the Department of Energy and Climate Change, replacing two baths with two seven minute showers every week could save up to 6,200 gigawatt hours per year (GWh/y). This is a greater saving than reducing shower times by two minutes, four times a week, which has the potential to save 5,400 GWh/y.
7. Reverse your ceiling fan
Ceiling fans are installed in some homes to move the air during warm weather, making people feel cooler. However, it is less commonly known that these systems can be used to warm homes in the winter.
Most fans rotate both clockwise and anticlockwise. When the setting is switched to anticlockwise, the air is moved downwards from the ceiling to the floor. Warm air that has risen can be pushed downwards to make a room feel less cold. As long as the fan is set to a slow setting, no uncomfortable breeze will be generated. According to the University of Arkansas, heating costs can be reduced by 20 to 30 percent using this tip.
8. Watch your water
Water is used for many purposes in the kitchen, from brewing a hot beverage to washing dishes. It may seem convenient to keep your kettle full to limit trips to the tap, but to save energy it is best to only fill the kettle with the volume of water you are going to use immediately. Boiling excess water not only takes longer, but uses more energy in the process– only to cool in the kettle and be reboiled later. According to the BBC, $92 million (£68 million) is wasted across British households due to overfilled kettles.
Other easy ways to reduce excess energy being used to heat water is to first boil water in a kettle before transferring to a pan and then cover pots and pans when water is boiling to trap heat.
9. Pack a full freezer
The more you store in your freezer, the less energy you use, according to the South East Wales Energy Agency. By filling the space, there is less surrounding air that needs to be cooled. In addition, a cool temperature can be maintained for longer in the event of a power cut.
Regularly defrosting your freezer is also worthwhile. The more ice there is built up in a domestic freezer, the more energy it uses, according to the journal Measurement.
10. Tweak your thermostat
Reducing your home’s temperature by 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit (one degree Celsius) may not seem like a lot, but this small amount can produce a great difference in energy prices. Setting your room thermostat one degree higher, could increase your heating bill by ten percent, according to the Energy Saving Trust.
To save money on your heating, set your thermostat to the lowest comfortable temperature. Generally, thermostats save energy because they automatically turn the heating off when the desired temperature is reached.
Boss Bought Burgers To Celebrate Portugal Win Last Week
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Forgotten & Abandoned Architectural Beauty
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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.
There is so much craziness going on inside the United States today it just boggles the mind. And you know, it is so very easy to get all caught up in it. I was amazed to watch an interview by JudgeNapolitano interviewing Scott Ritter about the Ukraine. And he (the Judge) was actually believing the bullshit lies of the mainstream “news” media. I was astounded. You need not be. Here’s a look at what is going on, with a equal dose of our shared pasts. I hope you all enjoy it all.
Make sure that you stick around to the end of the article. The latest in Chinese robotic AI technology is truly a “game changer”.
American “Democracy”…
Caitlin Johnstone, maestra of metaphor and allegory, on American democracy:
"An elephant and a donkey fight in a puppet show and the crowd cheers for one or the other while thieves pick their pockets..." (thieves being the shows sponsors.)
"Democracy is when you get to vote on which oligarchic muppet will ceremonially pardon a turkey on Thanksgiving but not on whether your government should greatly escalate the risk of nuclear war."
France confiscated the money collected for the children of Donbass
French customs officers confiscated the money collected for the children of Donbass
May 14, 2022, 11:20
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In France, customs officers confiscated funds collected for the children of Donbass by the humanitarian association “Save the Children of Donbass”, which were intended for transportation to Russia. The funds were detained under the pretext of a directive banning the import of money into Russia from Europe. This was announced on May 14 by the president of the association, Emmanuel Leroy.
He said that in addition to him, two more representatives of the association were sent to Donbass. French customs detained them at Charles de Gaulle airport. The group was taken to a special unit, where they were held for about 10 hours. According to Leroy, French customs officials charged them with supporting terrorism, as well as financing criminal circles and the terrorist regime.
We love Kodachromes and we love found photos. Lee Shulman shares those loves, recognising what he calls “the emotional value of these slices of life”. Since 2017, Lee’s collected around 700,000 found photographs, and compiled them into his Anonymous Project.
These snapshots taken in the mid-20th Century show us people posing for the camera, smiling in readiness for whoever’s behind the thing to press the button and capture the moment. Others are relaxed, caught off guard, their eyes blinked closed or shut in asleep.
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U.S. Seeks ASEAN Proxy Willing To Poke China
On Wednesday, May 11, the Associated Press published a piece of the election in Philippine which included some dubious editorial assertions:
MANILA, Philippines (AP) — Ferdinand Marcos Jr.’s apparent landslide victory in the Philippine presidential election is raising immediate concerns about a further erosion of democracy in Asia and could complicate American efforts to blunt growing Chinese influence and power in the Pacific.
Marcos, the namesake son of longtime dictator Ferdinand Marcos, captured more than double the votes of his closest challenger in Monday’s election, according to the unofficial results.
If the results stand, he will take office at the end of June for a six-year term with Sara Duterte, the daughter of outgoing President Rodrigo Duterte, as his vice president.
Duterte — who leaves office with a 67% approval rating — nurtured closer ties with China and Russia, while at times railing against the United States.
The whole piece is much longer than the quote. But it nowhere explains why a free and fair election, like the one the Philippines just held, would lead to ‘a further erosion of democracy in Asia’. It also does not explain why anyone might doubt the results when indeed nobody really does.
What it does explain well is why Ferdinand Marcos Jr. will not become a U.S. puppet:
[A] 2011 U.S. District Court ruling in Hawaii finding him and his mother in contempt of an order to furnish information on assets in connection with a 1995 human rights class action suit against Marcos Sr.
The court fined them $353.6 million, which has never been paid and could complicate any potential travel to the U.S.
Marcos has said that he will keep the Philippines on the same neutral foreign policy line as Duterte did. Developing better relations with China is part of that.
That does not fit U.S. plans to use the Philippines as a proxy to poke the Chinese tiger.
Currently Biden is holding a summit with the leaders of countries that belong to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). Members are Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam. Myanmar was not invited to the summit and Duterte did not take part.
The summit, which concludes on Friday, is intended to cover an array of topics, including trade, human rights and climate change. But it is also part of an effort by Mr. Biden’s foreign policy team to highlight one of the president’s primary goals: assembling a united front against China as it increasingly demonstrates its economic and military might around the world.
...
On Thursday evening, the White House announced new investments of about $150 million in the region as part of a series of agreements between the United States and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, or ASEAN.
The investments by the United States include $40 million for clean energy projects in Southeast Asia.
...
The United States also pledged to invest $60 million to deploy additional maritime assets — led by the Coast Guard — to the region, and to perform training and other activities in coordination with other countries aimed at enforcing maritime laws.
And the administration said it would spend $15 million to expand health surveillance programs in Southeast Asia and better detect Covid-19 and other airborne diseases in the region.
These numbers are stingy and will not move anyone to support the U.S. against China which spends billions on infrastructure in those countries.
They also include a Trojan hoarse program none of those countries is really interested in. More on that later.
The program for the summit looks a bit like a snub:
On Thursday, the leaders from the ASEAN countries met with Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other lawmakers before gathering at a Washington hotel to discuss business opportunities with Gina Raimondo, the commerce secretary, and executives from American industries.Mr. Biden welcomed the leaders to the White House on Thursday evening in a brief ceremony on the South Lawn. The group posed for a picture before walking into the White House for dinner.
On Friday, the Asian leaders will meet with Vice President Kamala Harris and Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken in the morning, and then with Mr. Biden at the White House later in the day. According to the administration official, the group will discuss trading opportunities; transit through disputed waterways, including the South China Sea; and other topics.
These are presidents and prime ministers who are not really interested in talking with underlings like Raimondo and Blinken. They want to talk with the boss. But Biden seems to have little interest in making friends with them.
Was this summit intentionally designed to fail?
Anyway. Back to the Trojan horse for which the U.S. will spend $60 million in an attempt to poke the tiger.
A year ago Peter Lee wrote an excellent piece on the Philippine election that took place this week. It explains what the ‘additional maritime assets’ are supposed to do.
For those of you who plan ahead, May 9, 2022 is the big one. Mark your calendars. That’s the date of the Philippine presidential elections.Recapturing the Malacañang Palace for a pro-American president is an obsession of U.S. strategists. And if I’m thinking about it now, they’ve been thinking about it ever since Rodrigo Duterte won the last election in 2016....I expect that the old guard in Manila, in coordination with the United States, will do whatever is necessary to make sure that, no matter who makes it to the Palace, the embarrassment of a Duterte-style balancer presidency is not repeated.A pro-US presidency means turning away from the PRC to deepen the security relationship with the United States and Japan and perfect the “First Island Chain” anti-China picket line.And the Philippines will reassume its place at the center of US plans to confront the PRC in the South China Sea.
As we now know that plan did not work out. But it is interesting how it was supposed to be followed by tackling the People’s Republic of China in the South China Sea:
Post-Duterte I expect there will be continual poking at PRC vulnerabilities in the SCS as they relate to Philippine claims and can be construed to demand US support.These include Reed Bank, an energy play within the Philippines EEZ that the PRC tries to claim as inside its nine-dash line.Then there’s the Scarborough Shoal, a fishing spot now controlled by the PRC but a flashpoint for Philippine nationalism.And there is the aptly-named Mischief Reef.
China has made Mischief Reef into an artificial Chinese island within the Philippine’s economic zone. If the Philippine would reclaim the reef by force the ‘additional maritime assets’ the U.S. sends could come to its help:
If the Mischief Reef op goes down, that backing will probably come from, of all things, the US Coast Guard.The US Coast Guard’s scope of operations, despite its name, is not America’s coasts. It’s a global power projection arm in the realm of law enforcement, not warfare.Or as the head of the Coast Guard himself puts it, the Coast Guard is “a maritime bridge between the Department of Defense’s lethality and the State Department’s diplomacy.”...The Coast Guard is in the process of basing three so-called Fast Response Cutters at Guam. They are armed with 4 machine guns and a cannon and are designed for extended duration patrols of 2500 nautical miles.The stated Pacific mission for the Coast Guard is to offer logistics and escort i.e. armed US backup for the coast guards of friendly states in their enforcement activities in the Pacific in the realms of illegal fishing, drug trafficking, and “the threats these activities bring” mostly, I would think, from China.Stage one is implementing this US-backed enforcement regime on behalf of Palau and the other Polynesian satrapies whose defense and foreign relations are managed by the US government.Then, if conditions permit, you got the South China Sea.Guam is too far from the South China Sea, so to operate in the SCS the US Coast Guard will have to rely on tenders—unless the cutters are permitted to operate out of the Philippines,That’s something I think the US military would dearly love, and is undoubtedly on its wish list for any post-Duterte Philippine administration.
I am pretty sure that Peter Lee had that right. But with Marcos junior at the helm of Philippine that country will not agree to those plans:
Allowing the U.S. to play a role in trying to settle territorial spats with China will be a “recipe for disaster,” Marcos said in an interview with DZRH radio in January. He said Duterte’s policy of diplomatic engagement with China is “really our only option.”
The coast guard cutters to be stationed in Guam are the ‘$60 million additional maritime assets’ Biden promised to the ASEAN leaders.
Maybe some other country can be convinced to proxy-poke China to then ask for armed U.S. coast guard backup.
I doubt though that it is truly in anyone’s interest as China is certain to poke back – harshly.
Wanted:
Asian country to fight a United States proxy war aginst China.
We will make your oligarchs enormously rich and help you fight till your last citizen has been killed.
YouTube
This informed fellow did a youtube video about 9 days ago which explains it very well for anyone more interested…
Yes, the USMC is in turmoil right now, with the current commandant catching static because he got rid of tanks etc, whereas the old-timers would prefer that the USMC continue to be a mini-army and they are not quiet about it. . . .The Corps has no decent amphibious tanks.
They recently formed a “littoral regiment,” littoral meaning “shore,” and they worked out at 29 Palms, Southern California high desert!!
Their new policy is that Marine units will be secretly deploy to some island (somewhere in the western Pacific), nobody will notice, and then when discovered they will secretly transfer to another island…
. . .I’m serious! This is not a joke.
– Don Bacon
The Princely County of Tyrol in 1890
Nations come and nations go. And then, forgotten by all.
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Jungbauernkalender 2020
The new Jungbauernkalender 2020 is out and can be ordered now. This time 12 young men and 12 women come from Upper Bavaria, Lower Bavaria, Upper Franconia, Swabia and Upper Palatinate. Six girls come from Austria. The calendar is a joint project of the Bavarian Young Farmers Association and the Austrian Young Farmers Association.
The calendar pictures the different side of farmer’s life: dressing for the wedding, feeding a newborn calf, working in the fields or swimming in the nearby lake. The pictures were taken by the photographer duo “Die Abbilderei” on the farm of the Wunderl family.
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Accelerated acquisition of Russian citizenship
Deputy of the State Duma Alexander Khinshtein stated…
Compatriots wishing to move to Russia will now be able to do so as quickly as possible. Alexander Gorovoy, First Deputy Minister of the Interior, informed me about this. Starting next week, a round-the-clock center for receiving documents for participation in the state program for the voluntary resettlement of compatriots will begin operating at the Main Directorate for Migration of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia (GUVM). Here they will accept and process applications from people from the CIS, the Baltic states and neighboring countries, for whom Russia is their historical homeland. It is important that applications can be sent not only by e-mail, but also by fax, since in a number of “friendly” countries access to Russian Internet resources, including the State Service portal, is blocked. Applications will be reviewed within 15 days. With a positive decision, compatriots will be able to immediately enter the territory of Russia, to the region of their choice, after which they will be able to apply for citizenship in an expedited manner. Police Colonel-General Gorov has already sent letters to the governors of the regions and the heads of the territorial bodies of the Ministry of Internal Affairs about the priority reception of such compatriots.
I think this decision is very correct, timely and fair. It is essentially about saving people who do not want to give up their origin and are exposed to real threats. The initiative of the Ministry of Internal Affairs is a clear confirmation of the principle “we do not abandon our own”. Earlier, also at the initiative of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the simplified procedure for participation (HERE) in the Compatriots state program was extended to refugees from the DPR and LPR
China’s 075 amphibious assault vessel, helo/VSTOL aircraft-carrier and hovercraft troop launcher, is indeed formidable. It’s fast, heavily armed, technologically advanced, and at 40,000 tons, has more than 3x the displacement of Russia’s lost Moskva. China has been rapidly modernizing it’s military at a pace similar to Russia’s — not coincidentally.
From Radio Free Asia 5/4/22:
"The Chinese Navy only officially started development work on the Type 075 in 2011 but has already launched three ships, two of which are fully operational and the third is on sea trials. A total of eight vessels are said to be on order for the PLAN, reported the Naval News portal.""Chinese state media said the Type 075 'will play vital roles in possible operations on the island of Taiwan, as well as islands and reefs in the South China Sea.'”"Experts said that the commissioning of the three ships will place China in the second rank in terms of global amphibious capabilities, second only to the United States."A U.S. Defense Department report released last November said China has the biggest maritime force on the globe with 355 vessels. The number is projected to increase to 420 ships within the next four years and 460 by 2030.""A future Type 076 vessel could be equipped with electromagnetic catapults, which would enhance its ability to support fixed-wing aircraft, making it more like an aircraft carrier, according to CRS."
I have really been struggling to come up with an accurate way of describing the current state of the U.S. economy, because none of the traditional labels seem to apply. Inflation is out of control, and that normally happens when an economy is overheating. But of course the U.S. economy is not overheating. In fact, if U.S. GDP falls once again during the second quarter, that will officially confirm that we are actually in a recession right now. There are some that have suggested that “stagflation” is a good description of current economic conditions, but the truth is that what we are facing is so much worse than anything that we dealt with during the 1970s.
Let me give you an example. The Bureau of Labor Statistics just informed us that the consumer price index is 8.3 percent higher than it was a year ago…
Inflation rose again in April, continuing a climb that has pushed consumers to the brink and is threatening the economic expansion, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Wednesday.The consumer price index, a broad-based measure of prices for goods and services, increased 8.3% from a year ago, higher than the Dow Jones estimate for an 8.1% gain.
That is a really bad number, but it doesn’t accurately reflect reality.
If inflation was still calculated the way that it was back in 1980, the official rate of inflation would be well over 15 percent right now, and that is far worse than at any point during the Jimmy Carter era.
And if you can believe it, the real rate of inflation is now the highest that it has ever been in the entire modern history of the United States.
The term “meltdown” comes to mind, but I don’t think that completely captures what we are facing either.
Of course Joe Biden says he has a plan, and he insists that reducing inflation is his “top economic priority”…
President Biden, reacting to April’s consumer price index Wednesday, acknowledged that inflation is “unacceptably high,” and maintained that lowering prices for American families is his “top economic priority,” while again blaming the surging numbers on COVID-19 and Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Meanwhile, tens of millions of ordinary Americans continue to deeply suffer as prices spiral out of control.
Earlier today, I was stunned to see that even CNN is admitting that some Americans are “skipping meals” these days in order to make ends meet…
The price of groceries, gas, rent and utilities has marched higher over the past year; but wages have not kept up — and more than half of single parents make less than $15 an hour, according to recent research from Oxfam.That has left many single parents skipping meals so their children have plenty of food, providing less healthy meals for their families, and culling expenses to the point where any unforeseen cost could mean more debt — or worse.
If people are skipping meals already, what will things be like a year from now when economic conditions are even worse?
Most people don’t realize this, but we are extremely vulnerable. When the next major downturn strikes, millions upon millions of Americans will be instantly wiped out.
As of March, close to two-thirds, or 64%, of the U.S. population was living paycheck to paycheck, just shy of the high of 65% in 2020, according to a LendingClub report.“The number of people living paycheck to paycheck today is reminiscent of the early days of the pandemic and it has become the dominant lifestyle across income brackets,” said Anuj Nayar, LendingClub’s financial health officer.
Living on the edge is fine as long as a paycheck keeps coming in like clockwork.
But if things suddenly shift, millions upon millions of Americans could suddenly find themselves plunged into poverty.
Before I end this article, I would be remiss if I did not mention the fact that financial markets were way down yet again today.
In fact, the Nasdaq dropped another 3 percent.
But the big news is what is happening to the cryptocurrency industry. Cryptos are crashing harder than Hunter Biden after a drug-fueled night with a Chinese hooker, and Coinbase is coming apart like a 20 dollar suit…
The cryptocurrency brokerage reported a first-quarter loss late Tuesday and revenue that fell 27% from a year ago, missing Wall Street’s forecasts. Coinbase shares plummeted nearly 25% in early trading Wednesday morning and hit their lowest level ever.Coinbase stock is now down more than 75% this year and is trading nearly 85% below its all-time high price from November. Shares have lost more than half their value in just the past week alone.
Hidden away in Coinbase Global’s disappointing first-quarter earnings report—in which the U.S.’s largest cryptocurrency exchange reported a quarterly loss of $430 million and a 19% drop in monthly users—is an update on the risks of using Coinbase’s service that may come as a surprise to its millions of users.In the event the crypto exchange goes bankrupt, Coinbase says, its users might lose all the cryptocurrency stored in their accounts too.
I was absolutely floored when I first read that.
Right now, Coinbase is holding more than 250 billion dollars worth of assets for its customers, and there is a danger that all of it could become “inaccessible”…
Coinbase said in its earnings report Tuesday that it holds $256 billion in both fiat currencies and cryptocurrencies on behalf of its customers. Yet the exchange noted that in the event it ever declared bankruptcy, “the crypto assets we hold in custody on behalf of our customers could be subject to bankruptcy proceedings.” Coinbase users would become “general unsecured creditors,” meaning they have no right to claim any specific property from the exchange in proceedings. Their funds would become inaccessible.
So there are some people out there that currently believe that they are crypto millionaires that could literally end up with nothing.
At this point, the crypto industry is in the process of melting down.
I would greatly encourage you to protect your assets while you still can.
A rush for the exits has now begun, and you don’t want to be caught holding the bag.
Chinese smart satellite tracks US aircraft carrier in real time, researchers say | South China Morning Post
Chinese smart satellite tracks US aircraft carrier in real time, researchers say.
AI-powered eye in the sky could identify a wide range of tactical or strategic targets, developers say
Previously, a huge amount of raw satellite data had to be analysed on the ground (note: it should be currently, in US, a huge amount of raw satellite data has to be analysed on the ground)
These snapshots taken in the mid-20th Century show us people posing for the camera, smiling in readiness for whoever’s behind the thing to press the button and capture the moment. Others are relaxed, caught off guard, their eyes blinked closed or shut in asleep.
Google begins, 1999
I feel old.
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Jungbauernkalender 2020
The new Jungbauernkalender 2020 is out and can be ordered now. This time 12 young men and 12 women come from Upper Bavaria, Lower Bavaria, Upper Franconia, Swabia and Upper Palatinate. Six girls come from Austria. The calendar is a joint project of the Bavarian Young Farmers Association and the Austrian Young Farmers Association.
The calendar pictures the different side of farmer’s life: dressing for the wedding, feeding a newborn calf, working in the fields or swimming in the nearby lake. The pictures were taken by the photographer duo “Die Abbilderei” on the farm of the Wunderl family.
These snapshots taken in the mid-20th Century show us people posing for the camera, smiling in readiness for whoever’s behind the thing to press the button and capture the moment. Others are relaxed, caught off guard, their eyes blinked closed or shut in asleep.
The new Jungbauernkalender 2020 is out and can be ordered now. This time 12 young men and 12 women come from Upper Bavaria, Lower Bavaria, Upper Franconia, Swabia and Upper Palatinate. Six girls come from Austria. The calendar is a joint project of the Bavarian Young Farmers Association and the Austrian Young Farmers Association.
The calendar pictures the different side of farmer’s life: dressing for the wedding, feeding a newborn calf, working in the fields or swimming in the nearby lake. The pictures were taken by the photographer duo “Die Abbilderei” on the farm of the Wunderl family.
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The Princely County of Tyrol in 1890
Nations come and nations go. And then, forgotten by all.
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United States to setup more bioweapons labs in the pacific
“And the administration said it would spend $15 million to expand health surveillance programs in Southeast Asia and better detect Covid-19 and other airborne diseases in the region.”
According to Russian MoD, they have evidence US used bio warfare against what are now the republics in Ukraine in the form of fake money contaminate with a antibiotic resistant tuberculosis. Russia has another UN meeting scheduled – it may have already occurred – to present more evidence and have it recorded at the UN.
For the US to crap on now about health surveillance programs when the whole world knows that it develops and uses bio weapons…
George S. Patton’s dog mourning his master on the day of his death
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Mischief Reef; some general observations
In 1995 China seized from the Philippines the atoll Mischief Reef in the Spratlys. Mischief Reef was submerged at high tide and lies just 125 nautical miles from Palawan. Today, after massive dredging, Mischief Reef is a 558-hectare artificial island, hosting China’s largest air and naval base in the Spratlys. The Chinese call Mischief Reef their Pearl Harbor in the South China Sea. The arbitral Award ruled that Mischief Reef is part of the EEZ of the Philippines. Mischief Reef image here
PRC vs. Vietnam & ROC
within the Spratly Islands:
Vietnam occupies and/or controls six islands, seventeen reefs and three banks,
ROC occupies and/or controls one island and one reef,
Malaysia occupies and/or controls one artificial island and five reefs, and
PRC occupies and/or controls eight reefs
The anti-China blather about the nine-dash line “that China uses to depict its claims in the SCS” is pure fabricated propaganda.
Here’s a live view of Marine traffic in the area . Most of it is to/from China and the South China Sea bases are needed to safeguard that traffic, especially with US warships’ frequent visits while claiming that they are there to protect a “free and open” western Pacific.
“I am leaving the sea. I shall walk inland with an oar on my shoulder. When someone asks what it is – there I shall bide.”
The ongoing pain in crashing financial asset markets demonstrates the need to diversify portfolios and decorrelated returns. Shipping is one such asset; returns have been boosted by scarcity as a result of the pandemic – the question is: can these returns be maintained?
Yesterday I promised I would look more closely at diversified non-financial assets. This morning I’ve going to start with Shipping… but let me caveat it’s a complex and expert-led market. While Shipping has massive investment potential – recent results from shipping funds have been stellar – I am not a shipping expert. Talk to shipping professionals before you risk anything in the sector.
Writing about subjects I don’t fully comprehend raises a credibility risk – but it’s worth highlighting Shipping and some other areas for the opportunities they present in terms of uncorrelated returns. One way to skip the looming crisis in financial assets will be to differentiate portfolios away from listed stocks and shares – and look to buy the real world; what we call alternative assets.
And, after yesterday’s miserable day in markets, these uncertain times means it’s absolutely necessary for investors to look outside their conventional comfort zones to generate returns. Wearing my day-job hat, I am Head of Alternative Assets at Shard Capital, so feel free to contact me on email (bill.blain@shardcapital.com) to ask questions – and who knows, I may have just the deal for you! (Sorry – qualified professional investors only!)
I remain convinced global stocks and shares are massively overpriced relative to the prospects for the global economy. That’s not just because of the deepening new Covid lockdown crisis in China (which threatens a catastrophic repeat of 2020-21 supply chain breakdowns), energy & food inflation, the Ukraine war, but also unravelling the consequences of 12 years of Monetary experimentation and cheap liquidity distorting markets.
Judging from the talk of capitulation trades I’m hearing, or more miserable tech results to come (Peloton this week), I’m not the only person thinking the crash, bang, wallop “moment” approaches.
For instance, there was a fantastic quote in Grants Interest Rate Observer last night about how DoorDash posted a 35% jump in revenues to $1.46 bln, but still didn’t make a profit – it now carries a $1.7 bln cumulative net loss. Grants’ quoted the former head of Dominos pizza: “In 60 years, we’ve never made a dollar delivering a pizza. We make money on the product, but we don’t make any money on the delivery. So, we’re just not sure how others do it.”
Which is why you should stay away from modern companies who don’t understand why successful companies never did it that way… DoorDash, and many others, will be remembered for inventing the Square Wheel…
Styles of Teenagers in the 1950s
2u0
Another typical Chinese girl
Nice. Thin. No tattoos. Not on drugs. No purple hair. video 37MB
“Z-8 helicopters, Type 05 amphibious armored vehicles and Type 726 air-cushioned landing craft have started training together with the Guangxi, which is also dubbed a helicopter carrier, according to the CCTV.
“As a new-type combat force in the transformation and development of the Navy, the Guangxi is tasked with exploring tactics for maritime multidimensional landing combat and enhancing core amphibious combat capabilities, the report quoted Captain Xu Ce, skipper of the Guangxi, as saying.
“China has started to build and commission the Type 075 amphibious assault ships in numbers, as the ship is technically sophisticated and proven reliable, Wei Dongxu, a Beijing-based military expert, told the Global Times on Thursday.
“The second Type 075 will gain combat capability very fast, as the first ship has gathered many successful experiences, Wei said….
“With more main battle vessels entering service, the PLA Navy’s capabilities to safeguard national sovereignty, territorial integrity, and development interests are growing as well, experts said, noting that China is aiming to build a blue-water navy capable of not only coastal defense but also far sea escort.” [My Emphasis]
Target: Taiwan and Convoy Protection from USN. All that was from the April 12th article. That was updated yesterday with this item:
“Two Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Navy Type 075 amphibious assault ships recently sailed together in a dual ship exercise for the first time, a move analysts said not only showed that the recently commissioned second ship has achieved a high level of combat capability, but also provided the PLA with a powerful new instrument in amphibious landing operations, with the island of Taiwan being a key potential target.”
The article says a video was also released with the Wednesday announcement, but I wasn’t able to find it.
China’s shipyards are also building numerous commercial vessels too at a rate the Outlaw US Empire can’t even come close to matching, nor does it have the ability to rapidly ramp up production for a variety of reasons, most importantly being the lack of a properly trained workforce at all logistical levels.
Shipping is an enormously complex sector. You need to understand what all the different classes of boats do, how their demand patterns work, to understand how the supply of new and old ships will affect prices, while overlaying everything with an understanding of global trade to work out likely returns. And even then, you will be swimming in an investment pool of players who will know far more than you…
Yet, the numbers are enticing. The returns from owning ships have gone skywards – charter rates have risen dramatically, ship values have trebled in some cases, and even the older ships are commanding high resale values. Funds set up to manage vessels have done exceptionally well.
Be warned: shipping can get very messy. In the past it’s been an easy way to lose money quickly – and always there will be some very clever Greeks just waiting to scoop up the bargains. Typically, it’s a boom/bust industry – every time the global economy booms there is a shipping shortage, new vessels are ordered leading a glut of capacity just as the next downturn starts.
But, shipping is absolutely critical to making the global economy function. Take a look at the crisis in supply chains…
Two of most interesting leading indicators of how the global economy is really performing are the Shanghai Export Container Freight Index and the Baltic Dry Index. The first measures the all-important freight rate and volume of Containers being sent from China around the globe, while the Baltic Dry measures the flow and price of transporting raw materials. I’ve been watching the Baltic since I was a tiny wee banker back in the 1980s.
Since May 2000 – when global trade began to anticipate Covid recovery – the Shanghai leapt from a low of 836 to peak in January this year at 5094. Now the container index has fallen to 4163 – suggesting, perhaps, that global container costs are beginning to moderate. The Baltic Dry spiked from a May 2020 Covid low of 350 to over 5500 in Oct 2021 as the global economy re-opened – it fell below 1500 earlier this year but has recovered to 2831 reflecting slowdown in China.
Both indexes correlate to inflation – which is hardly surprising as they are leading indicators of global trade. The fact both are weaker than their peaks might suggest moderating inflation and increasing recessionary conditions. Both are probably better indications of the real economy than stocks. I find it fascinating how the Baltic Dry basically flatlined through the last decade of excessively low interest rates and a raging bull equity market, reflecting the utter detachment of the financial asset universe from the reality of a very slow stuttering real economy.
When I try to understand why shipping values have risen so much since 2020… it’s complex. It’s all been about blockages as the economy reopened. The price of shipping basically depends on the availability of ships. I am told the global fleet of handy-size freighters is over 5000 vessels, but there only 5-6 actually available for charter at present!
I came across an interesting example of cost “friction” while looking at shipping. When freight costs are so high, it infers demand must be high, therefore it’s an inflationary signal – people willing to pay more to get goods.
However, the current energy/oil shock means the price of bunker fuel is pretty much at an all time high. As a result, ships are slowing down. Slow steaming requires considerably less fuel – it’s called the “cube-rule”: slow a boat by half, and it will use 1/8th the fuel it would at full speed. In the past there has been a pretty close correlation between the speed of boats and the cost of freight. When its high, ships slow.
But… things are never that simple. Slowing a boat down means it takes longer to sail from A-B. That means it costs more to hire a ship as the rental is a daily charge – and charter rates have risen between 20-35%. This is where friction comes in; shipping costs have become a compromise between rising demand, the higher cost of fuel and crew, plus the rising costs of hiring ships.
That is great news for ship owners. First it means they get paid more because their boats earn a higher rental on longer voyages. Second, its reckoned for every 1 knot (a knot is the speed of boats, its not quite the same as miles per hour) global shipping slows, about 6% of the global fleet is taken out as not available – meaning slower ships mean fewer ships for hire, further pushing up charter rates. Shipping earns more, but goods reach markets slower, thus generating inflation!
The next problem is global ports. From Shanghai, Long Beach and Harwich global ports were swamped by the post-Covid reopening. This was exacerbated by shortage of lorry drivers, stevedores, and now renewed lockdowns in China. While Western Ports are full of empty containers, there are practically no empty TEUs (Twenty Foot Equivalent Units) anywhere in Asia. The result is massive delays unloading vessels. About 20% of the Global Shipping container fleet is currently queued waiting for entry to the big ports – again creating scarcity and pushing up charter prices.
All of which is great news for the owners of smaller Handysize vessels – we’re even seeing smaller bulk carriers carrying containers to smaller ports (many have their own cranes on board). It’s not particularly efficient, but it solves the immediate transport crisis.
There are other problems – about 3% of the global merchant marine is Russian flagged, but Russian sailors make up 10% of the 2 million odd global merchant sailors. Following the pandemic its clear many sailors have retired or have given up – many were effectively trapped on board for the duration of the crisis. There is a massive shortage of crew and officers building – by 2025 we could be short over 90,000 officers, particularly in engineering – a long term problem for the whole global economy.
The question for investors is this: will the current global supply chain problems which have driven up shipping prices ease, and mean prices, and therefore returns, continue to drive results? Perhaps, but the problems will be solved in the medium term. Its not necessarily bad for shipping – in many shipping classes the ships are getting older and less efficient, and new fuel and environmental regulations mean they need replaced.
The numbers are all out there.. but this is where you need the expert advice on which shipping types are likely to prove most valuable. I’ll be very happy to assist. For instance, I am reliably informed not to buy container ships, but handysize bulkers… and maybe some tankers…
We love Kodachromes and we love found photos. Lee Shulman shares those loves, recognising what he calls “the emotional value of these slices of life”. Since 2017, Lee’s collected around 700,000 found photographs, and compiled them into his Anonymous Project.
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These snapshots taken in the mid-20th Century show us people posing for the camera, smiling in readiness for whoever’s behind the thing to press the button and capture the moment. Others are relaxed, caught off guard, their eyes blinked closed or shut in asleep.
The Race To Break The Russia-China Alliance & The “Ukraine Of The Asia Pacific”
There is a window of opportunity open for the west to recognize the total failure of the unipolar model before the point of no return has passed.
It has become commonplace western media and armadas of geopolitical think tankers to paint today’s Russia-China alliance as a matter of either “momentary convenience”, or as a strained partnership between two competing authoritarian regimes with global imperial aspirations.
However, if one simply looks at the facts as they are without the filter of “experts” telling you how to interpret reality, it becomes extremely clear that those cynical geopolitical assessments painted by geopolitical opinionators are doing little more than trying to analyze life through lenses that only see dead corpses. It isn’t that such analysts aren’t necessarily concerned with the truth (although more than a few aren’t), but due to their fundamental axioms, their limited minds cannot contemplate a system organized by a non-Hobbesian parameters either past, present or future. It is for this reason that such opinionators cannot understand the nature of the Russian-China alliance nor can they see or understand the stark parallels in the asymmetrical war efforts to destroy either Eurasian power.
Due to this intellectual blindness, even among many intelligent experts within the alternative media community, I will take this opportunity to briefly assess some of the key elements of the parallel features of both operations that have been deployed to destroy both Russia and China. We will begin by looking at the color revolutionary tactics, followed by ‘Gladio stay behinds’, military encirclement, biowarfare and finally the use of ‘fifth columns’.
Color Revolutionary Tactics
Over the past decades, both Russia and China have contended with obsessive efforts to carve up and destabilize their governments utilizing “democracy promoting/anti corruption” organizations tied to western intel have fortunately failed to Balkanize them as seen in the tragic case of Yugoslavia.
The late geopolitical guru Zbigniew Brzezinski wrote passionately of his vision of a carved-up Russia in his 1997 Grand Chessboard saying: “A loosely confederated Russia- composed of a European Russia, a Siberian Republic, and a Far Eastern Republic- would find it easier to cultivate closer economic regulations with Europe, with the new states of Central Asia and with East Asia, which would thereby accelerate Russia’s own development.”
Over the years, western funded movements in China have arisen calling openly for breaking up China into no less than five ethno-nationalist micro-states called ‘East Turkestan, The Free State of Tibet, Canton and Manchuria.’
Purged multibillionaire deep state operative Guo Wengui (aka: Miles Guo), now operating from New York, has gone so far as to establish an international insurrectionary organization called ‘The New Federal State of China’ with a shiny new flag, constitution and cheesy anthem for the post-CCP China which will undoubtedly happen any day within Guo’s wildest imagination.
The leaders of both nations have clearly identified “color revolutionary” tactics as an active form of asymmetrical warfare leading both states to ban a wide spectrum of western-funded NGOs (or if permitted to exist within their territories to be forced to register as ‘foreign agents’). While the color revolution financing king George Soros was banned from China back in 1989, Russia took longer to gain the power and confidence to ban the economic hitman’s Open Society operations which finally occurred in 2015.
Gladio-type “stay-behinds” on their borders.
The asymmetrical warfare tool basket doesn’t stop at color revolutionary tactics, but relies upon networks of provocateurs and extremists who often find their roots in the non-punishment of virulent war criminals in the wake of WW2.
This problem is not isolated to Eastern Europe, but persists in China’s own back yard where the American military colony of Japan still maintains a strong tradition of treating WWII fascist war criminals as heroes (much to China’s chagrin).
One of the largest parties occupying 30% of the Japanese parliamentary seats (and headed by former PM Shinzo Abe) is the Nippon Kaigi party which claims openly that “Japan should be applauded for liberating much of East Asia” during WW2.
Despite many anti-fascist impulses in Japan seeking to maintain peaceful coexistence with their Eurasian neighbors, the Nippon Kaigi goes so far as to deny that Japan committed any atrocities to the Chinese during WW2 while trying to maintain the thesis that Japan was on the side of justice by working with Hitler. Keep in mind that this is also the same colony (now hosting over 50,000 US troops) which saw former PM Shinzo Abe call publicly for acquiring US-owned nuclear weapons to defend against China one week after Zelensky made that same call on behalf of Ukraine in Munich on February 19th.
Chinese girl showing her side profile.
I like her. But the background is bland. video 1MB
Full Spectrum Dominance: Atlantic, Arctic and Pacific
Like Russia, who has watched “full spectrum dominance” wrap around her perimeter over the course of 20+ years, China has also been looking at ongoing efforts to create a “NATO of the Pacific” termed “the Quad” in her backyard.
This toxic idea has been championed by NATO-connected think tanks like the Atlantic Council and CFR for years and grows directly out of Obama’s 2012 ‘Asia Pivot’ strategy which saw a broad extension of missile systems, trident-bearing submarines, provocative “freedom of navigation” exercises, military bases and efforts to impose US-controlled governments hostile to China in the Pacific region.
The ABM-aspect of this program (which experts agree can be easily converted from “defensive” into “offensive”) is reflected in the THAAD missile system already stationed in South Korea which currently hosts over 28,000 US troops. Nominally justifying its existence to stop the “North Korean threat”, the reality is that this system has always been aimed at China.
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Describing the $762 billion National Defense Authorization Act of 2022 which received nearly total bipartisan support, analyst Michael Klare observed:
“The gigantic 2022 defense bill — passed with overwhelming support from both parties — provides a detailed blueprint for surrounding China with a potentially suffocating network of U.S. bases, military forces, and increasingly militarized partner states. The goal is to enable Washington to barricade that country’s military inside its own territory and potentially cripple its economy in any future crisis. For China’s leaders, who surely can’t tolerate being encircled in such a fashion, it’s an open invitation to… well, there’s no point in not being blunt… fight their way out of confinement.”
Taiwan as Ukraine of the Pacific
Obviously within this entire mess, Taiwan (which has been an Anglo-American plaything since 1949) is currently acting like the “Ukraine of the Pacific” with many leading agents operating throughout the government calling openly for US military defense of China’s autonomous province from the “evil commie” mainlanders.
Biden himself has pledged that Taiwan can “count on America’s support” were an invasion to break out at any time. These supportive words were backed up with a $750 million deal to provide a Howitzer military system to Taiwan in August 2021, a $100 million deal to supply and upgrade Taiwan’s patriot missile systems on February 8, 2022 and another $95 million missile deal on April 6, 2022. After the second of these three deals, the Taiwanese foreign ministry sounded like it was trying to out-Zelensky Zelensky saying:
“In the face of China’s continued military expansion and provocative actions, our country will maintain its national security with a solid defence, and continue to deepen the close security partnership between Taiwan and the United States.”
China’s concerns over the vast expansion of US efforts to turn Taiwan into a Pacific Ukraine (including a doubling of military officials in the US embassy compound in the past year) are very real.
Biowarfare in the 21st Century
Then there is the serious issue of the Pentagon’s bioweapons infrastructure that has demonstrated an ethnic-targeting feature as outlined in the September 2000 PNAC manifesto “Rebuilding Americas Defenses”. In this bone-chilling neocon manifesto, its authors stated that in the 21st century “combat will likely take place in new dimensions: In space, cyber-space and perhaps the world of microbes… advanced forms of biological warfare that can “target” specific genotypes may transform biological warfare from the realm of terror to a politically useful tool”.
Today over 320 Pentagon-run biolabs are scattered strategically around the world with a very active program titled “Jupitr” and “Centaur” located in in South Korea. This later program has caused grave concern to both the Chinese and many Koreans since Obama launched inaugurated the program in 2010 with an executive order that stated “a robust and productive scientific enterprise that utilizes biological select agents and toxins is essential to national security.”
Work on some of the deadliest toxins in the world has been conducted within the US run biolabs which include work on botulinum, ricin, staphylococcal, anthrax, plague and more. In 2015 the US military was caught illegally shipping samples of live anthrax via FedEx to the US laboratory at the Oran Air base 70 km south of Seoul resulting in civilian protests across the nation although no evidence of any change in policy by the Americans.
Japan’s sordid past is again brought back into the story, as Finian Cunningham’s recent Strategic Culture Foundation study on the origins of US bioweapons complex zeroed in on the Military Industrial Complex’s absorption of the genocidal “Unit 731” under the control of Shiro Ishii. Cunningham wrote:
“Ishii’s Unit 731 is estimated to have caused up to 500,000 deaths during the war from the use of biological warfare by dropping pathogens from airplanes on Chinese cities in Hunan and Zhejiang provinces. The unit also carried out diabolic forced experiments on Chinese and Russian prisoners of war to study the epidemiology of diseases and vaccines. Inmates were infected with pathogens and subjected to horrible agonizing deaths… Shiro Ishii and his criminal network were never brought to trial following the war despite earnest Soviet requests. Instead, the Americans who occupied mainland Japan granted him and his team of doctors immunity from prosecution in exchange for exclusive access to the biological and chemical warfare experiments. The Pentagon assigned its experts from Fort Detrick, Maryland, to tap the Japanese trove of data.”
This list would not be complete without the last consideration…
Fifth Columnists in Russia and China
Leaders within both nations have been contending for years with World Economic Forum fifth columnists like Anatoly Chubais in Russia and WEF Trustee Jack Ma (and more than a few other Shanghai Clique connected technocrats and billionaires) both inside and outside of China. Some observations on those foreign influences still exerting relevant influence within China via Shanghai as a hotbed for international finance was Emanuel Pastreich who wrote:
“Shanghai is riddled with global financial interests, with the head offices (or certainly the major branch) for all major multinational investment banks and multinational corporations located there. Their impact on the Chinese economy remains immense.Shanghai has a history of over a hundred years as a center for global capital with a parasitic relationship to the rest of the nation. It was Shanghai, after all, that offered extraterritoriality to citizens from imperial powers until the 1940s.”
Luckily, since the ousting of Soros, many of the worst elements of China’s deep state have been incrementally de-weeded in bursts starting in 1989, then 1997, and the largest robust purge begun in 2012 and continuing to this day.
Some of the biggest operatives purged by Xi’s crackdown on corruption include Ma Jian (former Deputy Director of China’s National Security Bureau), Zhang Yue (former legal affairs secretary of Hebei), Bo Zilai (former Communist Party Secretary of Chonqing), Xu Caihou (Vice Chair of China’s Military Commission), and billionaire Pony Ma (to name but a few).
There has been an obvious clash between these traitorous forces and genuine patriots in both nations committed to their peoples’ survival in opposition to the religious like commitment to depopulation, cultural mediocrity and global enslavement.
Beyond Simply Survival
Russia and China’s commitment to survival and cooperation goes far beyond utilitarian concerns as outlined by their February 4th joint statement for Cooperation Entering a New Era which called for the further integration of the EAEU and BRI, military intelligence harmonization under the growing SCO and broader international integration of the multipolar system.
Among its many important points, the statement read:
“The sides are seeking to advance their work to link the development plans for the Eurasian Economic Union [EAEU] and the Belt and Road Initiative with a view to intensifying practical cooperation between the EAEU and China in various areas and promoting greater interconnectedness between the Asia Pacific and Eurasian regions.The sides reaffirm their focus on building the Greater Eurasian Partnership in parallel and in coordination with the Belt and Road construction to foster the development of regional associations as well as bilateral and multilateral integration processes for the benefit of the peoples on the Eurasian continent.”
There is still a window of opportunity open for the west to wake up and recognize the total failure of the unipolar model of imperial governance before the point of no return has passed. Whether or not the moral fitness to conduct this exercise in humility still exists remains to be seen.
ASEAN is run by oligarchs, but of late they seem more inclined to not choose sides. China of course is just as able to line their pockets as the US. More likely they’ll take kick backs from both sides and stay uncommitted.
The US now has Australia as its prime puppet, the current fool of a PM gave up decades of avoiding a choice, he dumped the profitable China trade in exchange for spending billions instead on useless US weapons. Reading online comments seems Australians have convinced themselves they are a military power and China and Russia need to be regime changed. Odd,never used to be like that, seems the corrupt media has shaped opinion.
This won’t end well for Australia, glad I left, not the great country it used to be. All its income derives from commodities, the WEF globalists have infected it with the climate change economic suicide as well. 100% locked into the two globalist cons of climate chane and the rules based order. Idiots.
-Organic
How to make Jamaican RICE and PEAS!
This is a MUST TRY!
Lighting The Gas Under European Feet: How Politicians & Journalists Get Energy So Wrong
“We live in a time where few understand how things get made. It is fine to not know where stuff comes from, but it isn’t fine to not know where stuff comes from while dictating to the rest of us how the economy should be run."
- Doomberg
Eighty-five percent of human energy usage comes from burning things. Either plants or trees grown in a geologically recent past or plants or trees (and decomposed animals) from ancient times. Solar, wind, hydro, geothermal, etc.—all the things that occupy a climate-conscious citizen, activist, or politician’s dreams—are frizzles around the edges.
Human civilization is powered by combustion; human beings are a fossil fuel–burning civilization. You can take away the civilization part, which seems to be the end goal for some environmentalists, but bar that, you can’t take away the fossil fuel part.
If we listened only to our energy overlords’ preaching, we would get a very different impression of what the world is like. Wind turbines powering all those electrified vehicles on our roads, solar panels and batteries of immense capacities light and heat our homes. Dirty oil and polluting coal are out; green, clean, and smart machines on the way in.
Nothing could be further from the truth. Renewables don’t power our societies, they’re not about to any time soon, and the fact that they’re not isn’t a policy choice—or “greedy capitalism” preventing this utopian (dystopian) vision.
First, some housekeeping: Energy is not the same as electricity. Electricity is a secondary energy source, derived from primary energy sources through a conversion process—combustion or turbines spinning. The 85 percent figure above is for energy use. The bombastic figures in the press about the massive growth and expanse of renewables are for electricity, which is only a subset of all the world’s energy use (some 20 percent). Oil, coal, and gas for transport, heating, fertilizers, and construction dwarf the symbolic solar panels governments paid people to place on their roof.
Solar panels and wind turbines produce a minor part of the electricity needs, but do nothing to address the larger energy needs. In contrast, fossil fuels are energy-dense, reliable, on-demand sources of either energy or electricity, and we have excelled both at storing and transporting them.
We are a fossil-fueled civilization whose technical and scientific advances, quality of life, and prosperity rest on the combustion of huge quantities of fossil carbon, and we cannot simply walk away from this critical determinant of our fortunes in a few decades, never mind years.
Instead, suddenly facing an adversary rich in raw materials and fossil fuels, the West’s talking heads doubled down on their green dreams. From behind comfortable newspaper desks, heated and electrified by natural gas, it’s remarkably easy to say things like: “The new reality is that we have to go all the way to universal electrification even faster, powered by 100% renewable energy with green hydrogen filling the gaps” (Andreas Kluth, at Bloomberg).
For the New Yorker, John Cassidy recently told us that we must “prevent future Putins from trying to hold the world to energy ransom—at least one worthy outcome of the tragedy that is Ukraine.”
In a powerful speech in the middle of the Russia flurry in March, Isabel Schnabel of the Executive Board at the European Central Bank rallied for renewable power:
Every solar panel installed, every hydropower plant built and every wind turbine added to the grid are taking us a step closer to energy independence and a greener economy….Our dependence on fossil energy sources is not only considered a peril to our planet, it is also increasingly seen as a threat to national security and our values of liberty, freedom and democracy.
Luckily, Schnabel is in control of nothing less than the Eurozone’s printing press. One-upped by a fellow German, the reality-challenged finance minister Christian Lindner taught us that renewable electricity is “the energy of freedom.”
What he failed to understand is that renewable electricity generation in Germany requires boatloads and pipe loads of Russian gas, Russian oil, and Russian commodities: the steel and cement to construct their precious wind towers are made from coal, not even counting the extreme heat needed to shape the steel and iron that makes up its body.
A single wind turbine uses thousands of kilograms of nickel in its shaft and gear, plus some rare earth minerals from some pretty unclean sources. The gigantic structures, hundreds of meters tall and much too clunky to easily transport, are erected and moved there by machines that swallow diesel by the gallon.
Fossil fuels are machine food, as Alex Epstein is fond of saying, and nothing drinks petrol like the machines that power a thirsty wind energy industry. When renewable sources are added to the electricity grid in large quantities, the cost of electricity goes up, not down, because their fickle reliance on weather requires them to be backstopped by thermal plants that run on coal or natural gas. The more renewables you add, the more natural gas you need.
The conclusion from much political and media messaging on climate is the same: burning fossil fuels for energy is a choice, a bad one, and we must choose differently. The moral case against Russia is just a cherry on top.
“Would you rather rely on Mr. Putin’s Russia?” The Economist asked in a recent cover story on energy security.The very same Russia that Bloomberg News described as:“a commodities powerhouse, producing and exporting huge amounts of materials the world uses to build cars, transport people and goods, make bread and keep the lights on.”But the writers at The Economist insist:“As the world weans itself off dirty fuels, it must switch to cleaner energy sources.”
When we listen to the political overlords in Brussels or Berlin, or the intellectual ones in think tanks, political parties, or at influential media outlets, we get the impression that relying on “Mr. Putin’s Russia” can be done away with—as optional and care-free as picking a different ice cream flavor.
To hammer home the “renewable revolutions are impossible” point, let’s use the poster child for renewables, Germany. Here is its energy use over the last half century:
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Let me know if you can spot Germany’s revolutionary Energiewende in the early 2010s. With a microscope, I can detect a little bit of wind crowding out some nuclear—while gas keeps growing and coal continues its fifty-five-year decline. What sort of fairytale must one believe to think that the purple and yellow shares—almost invisible at the top—could in any way supplant the others, preferably before next winter when Putin’s withholding of gas would once again be disastrous for Europeans.
A prominent German think tank, Agora Energiewende, also thinks it’s perfectly possible. Its projections depend, not just on building and installing more wind energy plants than ever before, but raising that rate of construction by about one-third every year for years on end. To describe those plans as “optimistic” somehow doesn’t cut it:
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The International Energy Agency (IEA), staffed with the same sort of reality-resistant dreamers, produced this wonderful graph that plans for the energy production in a net-zero future (NZE):
At great expense and inconvenience, the world can indeed increase its use of solar and wind—but remember: they destabilize grids and constitute a vanishingly small portion of world energy needs. To replace what we need, and accommodate growth for the billions globally who scrape by on a minimum of energy, the IEA says we must add solar and wind capacity at a vertiginous rate, never before achieved, at way faster than their own forecasts.
As Alex Epstein writes in the preface to his future book Fossil Future: a net-zero policy, actually implemented “would certainly be the most significant act of mass murder since the killings of one hundred million people by communist regimes in the twentieth century—and it would likely be far greater.”
If you believe, as so many politicians, activists, and deluded journalists do, that this is a mere policy decision, you are sadly mistaken. The impossibility of renewables is a technical and physical problem—not an economic, financial, moral, or political problem.
Jungbauernkalender 2020
The new Jungbauernkalender 2020 is out and can be ordered now. This time 12 young men and 12 women come from Upper Bavaria, Lower Bavaria, Upper Franconia, Swabia and Upper Palatinate. Six girls come from Austria. The calendar is a joint project of the Bavarian Young Farmers Association and the Austrian Young Farmers Association.
The calendar pictures the different side of farmer’s life: dressing for the wedding, feeding a newborn calf, working in the fields or swimming in the nearby lake. The pictures were taken by the photographer duo “Die Abbilderei” on the farm of the Wunderl family.
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Gaslighting Europeans
According to mental health site VeryWellMind, gaslighting is “a form of manipulation that often occurs in abusive relationships. It is a covert type of emotional abuse where the bully or abuser misleads the target, creating a false narrative and making them question their judgments and reality. Ultimately, the victim of gaslighting starts to feel unsure about their perceptions of the world and even wonder if they are losing their sanity.”
Consider the following combination of expert-led gaslighting:
The entire 2010s and beyond, politicians pooh-poohed nuclear: in words (rallying cries and moral suasion) and actions (strict regulations), they prevented any expansion and shut down capacity.
European environmental regulation and climate activists have stopped as much oil and gas extraction as they could. Most countries have banned or otherwise prevented “fracking,” the natural gas extraction method that turned America into an energy exporter.
For the last decade and more, climate warriors inside and outside governments have hauled boatloads of cash onto “green” energies—everything from wind and solar to experimental forms of tidal energy.
Green electricity sources, because of the unpredictable load that makes them unsuitable for modern civilization, have expanded in consort with natural gas because the dirty secret of the former is that they require rapidly available backup power—for which the latter is the convenient choice.
Because all things “carbon” are considered bad, politicians, journalists, and the Greta Thunbergs of the world have done everything in their power to sway more people into putting solar panels on their roofs and electric vehicles in their garages. That strains an already fragile grid by adding more demand and another variable supply: crucially, it requires lots more nickel, palladium, and silver—with Russia among the world’s largest supplier for those key commodities.
One would suppose that, on the back of the war in Ukraine, the strict Western sanctions on Russia, and energy prices going through the roof, the green-washed politicians and policymakers who rule our lives would offer excuses. Now that the Russian invasion had those very same policymakers cutting commercial ties to that despicable empire-building strongman, and energy prices and access suddenly rose to the forefront of everyone’s mind, we’d expect a bit of humility. Apologies are in order:
Fellow Europeans, against market prices, physics, and sanity, we pushed you into worse forms of electricity generation and endangered our energy security. Instead of doing what we should have done, we relied more and more on the commodities exported from countries like Russia. For making Europeans more beholden to Putin, we apologize.
Instead, we got gaslighting on a remarkable scale.
“Weaning off” Silly
The world isn’t weaning itself off fossil fuels—it can’t, and it shouldn’t. More importantly, “cleaner energy” aren’t options on a shopping menu, available as inconsequential choices the way consumers may choose Doritos over Pringles or a new toothpaste.
It’s becoming increasingly clear, to more and more people, that withdrawing from fossil fuels “for environmental reasons” is not a choice. A society and a world of 8 billion people more advanced than that powered by a horse and buggy, cannot do without the explosive power of fossil fuels.
Watch: US Intel Chief Acts Dumbfounded When Senator Warns Of “Poking The Bear” In Ukraine
Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) warned Tuesday that the US is risking war with Russia by “poking the bear” in Ukraine. Tuberville made the comments during a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing with Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines and the director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, Lt. Gen. Scott Berrier.
Tuberville told Haines and Berrier the US is risking escalating the war by bragging about intelligence sharing with Ukraine. In recent weeks, US officials claimed to the media that US intelligence has helped Ukrainian forces shoot down a plane carrying Russian troops, kill Russian generals, and sink a Russian warship.
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“You know, we’re kind of poking the bear here… We’re bragging about it. Even President Biden said today, ‘Wait a minute. We got to cut back on this,’” Tuberville said. Biden reportedly told senior US officials that the leaks to the media on intelligence-sharing must stop.
Tuberville warned the US is also risking provoking Moscow by sending high-level officials to Kyiv. “We do not want to take that step forward to where we get a lot of our men and women involved in this. It looks like to me that we’re taking way too many chances of sending people over there for a photo op,” he said.
The senator said he favored supporting Ukraine in its war against Russia but warned there was no turning back if things escalated into a direct conflict between Washington and Moscow. “There’s a point of no return here if we cross that line,” he said.
While the US has sent billions in arms to Ukraine, restarted training Ukrainian troops, and expanded intelligence sharing, US officials still deny the idea that Washington is engaged in a proxy war against Moscow. When pressed by Tuberville, Haines said that Russia believes it’s fighting a war against both Ukraine and the West.
“Russia has historically believed that they are in a conflict, in effect, with NATO and the United States on a variety of issues,” Haines said. When asked directly if Russia believes it’s fighting the US, Haines said, “In a sense, their perception.”
Now, don’t you all want to try making this? If you are the kind of person who just ignores the videos, please don’t for this one. Check it out. I hope that you are inspired to go forth and start cooking. OMG! what a darn meal!
The Princely County of Tyrol in 1890
Nations come and nations go. And then, forgotten by all.
Is this the fate of the United States? I wonder…
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The Highlight of this article
This is BY FAR the most important point being made in today’s installment.
The Chinese have been developing many, many technologies, as after all, they lead in AI, and numerous other technologies. All of which have military applications. And while China is a very peaceful nation, they realize that there are very evil, psychopathic, ignorant, dug-addled, “leaders” in the West that desire their destruction, and they have been developing technologies to counter them, and their nefarious activities.
This is one (of many) such technologies.
It’s in mass, mass production. Right now. No shit.
It’s a swarm of small drones that work together and locate, track, surround and (if desired) kill a person. Of course, the Chinese are being very coy about how this technology will be used, saying that it has many civilian applications, but (you know) the United States Military is in hysterics over this.
Imagine each tiny drone held a grenade or a “matchbox” capable of firing bullets…
You just cannot run away from these swarms. If China wants to fuck with China, I can well imagine swarms of these little micro-Terminator- T1000’s swarming up and down Washington DC, on hunt and destroy missions against neocons, American “leadership”, and other targets, all worthy of China’s wrath…
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.
On May 11, 2022, the government of Ukraine stopped all gas supplies to Europe through the Sohranivka station. This station is located in the Luhansk region. (The GTS Operator of Ukraine did not offer additional transit capacity for April through the gas distribution stations Sudzha and Sokhranivka, that action was cancelled.) Thus, in the move, Ukraine declared that Europe needs to seriously think about where it will get gas during the current condition where Nord Stream-2 is blocked for Europe until 2028. Keep in mind that the Yamal-Europe gas pipeline does not pump gas to Germany through Poland, and Ukraine has now begin to blackmail Europe by cutting off gas supplies through its pipelines.
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The problem is not that unexpected, it was strange that Ukraine did not immediately take up this, in the conditions of military operations, continuing to ensure the pumping of gas to Europe.
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They could have raised the question long ago – if you won’t help us, you’ll lose your gas. Force majeure, gentlemen, we have a war, we cannot help you live in warmth and prosperity. War is war for everyone, Ukraine is Europe! Therefore, let’s share not only goodies, but also it’s problems.
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Not reported in the “West”. Very interesting.
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Transforming Subway Passengers Into Renaissance Paintings
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Beautiful Life Of Florida In The 1950s
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How to Reduce Food Costs and Save Money
If you’re an avid cook or baker, you’ve probably noticed how much scrap and waste you produce when crafting your next dinner masterpiece.
The best way to reduce food costs and save money is by planning. By creating a plan for every meal for the week, you’ll know exactly what and how much of each ingredient you need.
The best way to plan your meals is by [1]using a calendar for the week mapping out your meals each day. If there are certain nights you plan to eat out at a restaurant, you can opt to remove these days from your meal plan strategy.
Once you’ve planned your meals, you’ll want to create a grocery list detailing every ingredient needed. To maximize your trip to the grocery, try to find meals that utilize some of the same ingredients.
Create a Shopping List – And Stick to It!
Whenever you visit the grocery store, you are subliminally bombarded with marketing messages encouraging you to spend more money and make unnecessary purchases.
Have you ever noticed that many “essential” items like milk and butter are placed towards the rear of the store? This encourages you to walk through the store, increasing the chances of you grabbing other items like chips, fruit snacks, etc.
By [2] creating a shopping list and only purchasing foods you need, you can cut food waste and save money.
Keep it Simple
Some dishes will require many more ingredients than others. Aim to [3]find meals that are easy to cookand use just a few common ingredients to save money.
For example, a pasta dish that contains chicken and some form of pasta will only require a few ingredients. However, a dish that uses a rare type of produce and seasonings will often lead to more waste.
There is a common misconception that meals requiring fewer ingredients have less flavor than their complex counterparts. This is not always the case. Simple meals can have great flavor and nutrition when prepared the right way. For example, using a smoker griller combo can help you to save space and money!
Buy and Cook in Bulk
[5] Buying ingredients in bulkcan help you to save an additional 15% to 20% on your food costs. But you’ll want to consider the ingredients before buying.
Perishable items should be avoided when purchasing in bulk as many times they will spoil before use. Some perishable items can be frozen to extend their life.
Some common ingredients and foods that you’ll want to consider purchasing in bulk include:
When cooking in bulk, it will also help to reduce the costs to run your appliances. For example, you can reduce the costs to run an air fryer by filling it up instead of using it for just one item.
Make Frequent Trips to the Grocery
Provided that it is nearby and within walking distance.
When buying fresh produce or meats, making frequent trips to the grocery or butcher is an easy way to save money by avoiding throwing away spoiled foods.
Plan to go to the grocery a couple of times per week to purchase fresh produce and meats. You’ll want to plan your cooking around your trips to the grocery so you can cook with the freshest ingredients.
It’s common to visit the grocery once on the weekends and once mid week.
Find Other Ways to Use Scraps
If you have leftover scraps when cooking, see if there are other ways you can use them other than throwing them in the trash.
This might mean using them as food for your pets, other dishes, or a variety of other ways.
If you don’t have any other use for your waste, consider starting a compost pile to reduce the environmental impacts of food waste.
Grind Your Own Meats
[6] Grinding your own meat not only can save you money but it also provides superior taste over meat ground days ago. You’ll need to have a meat grinder to get started, but these can be purchased for less than $100.
Use the Freezer
[7] Freezing leftoversand bulk ingredients is an excellent way to save money when cooking and reducing food waste.
Most foods can be frozen to preserve their life. Meats, vegetables, and fruits are the most common foods that get frozen, but there are other options including bread, bananas, tomato paste, and even coconut milk that freeze well. Check out these other uncommon foods that freeze well.
[8] By purchasing a vacuum sealer, you can extend the life of your frozen goods even longer while simultaneously preserving its flavor. You can find a vacuum sealer for less than $50.
There are many cheap foods that you can store in the freezer to last.
Start a Garden for Fresh and Cheap Vegetables
If you live in an area with a moderate climate, [9] starting a vegetable gardencan be a fun idea to grow your own ingredients. Not only will this help to lower your food costs, but it has a positive environmental impact and it allows you to cook with the freshest ingredients.
You’ll need to consider the types of vegetables you plan to grow when determining the size of your garden.
To get started, you’ll need to have soil that works for your plants. Depending on where you live, you might consider getting your soil tested to ensure it will allow your plants to grow properly.
Next, you’ll need to decide which plants to grow. For moderate climates, here are some ideas on vegetables, fruits, and spices you might consider growing:
Don’t want to start your own garden at home? Consider using a local community garden. These gardens are shared by several members and give you many of the same benefits.
Utilize Local Farmers Markets
If you want to reduce food costs, [10] finding a local farmers marketcan be a fun way to do so.
You’ll have your chance to purchase local eggs, honey, and other common ingredients from local farmers at a discount.
This has many benefits other than saving you money! You’ll also reduce the negative environmental impacts of shopping at a nation grocery chain as well as helping boost your local economy.
Store Foods Appropriately
[11] Knowing how to store foods the right way is critical to reducing food waste and saving money.
Some foods might require airtight storage containers, while others might be capable of being left out in the open air. Research how to store your foods to extend their life and save you money.
Final Thoughts on Reducing Food Waste at Home
There’s a good chance you end up throwing away a nice portion of leftover ingredients when cooking.
By utilizing some of the tips above, you’re sure to reduce your food waste and start saving money in no time.
Between cooking in bulk, visiting the grocery more frequently, planning meals ahead of time, and storing foods the right way, you can easily cut your food waste, save money, and do good for the environment.
Now it’s your turn. Starting avoiding food waste and saving money today!
Forgotten Architectural Beauty
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Star Trek seems to believe that World War III started with Trump
Moussaka has so many delicious layers of flavor in one dish that you’ll want to make an extra for the freezer!
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Moussaka is classic Greek comfort food. It’s one of the most popular dishes in Greece and one of my all-time favorites. You can make it ahead for easy serving at a dinner party or to be frozen for a delicious meal any day you choose.
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The eggplant
Japanese eggplant is perfect for this dish because of its size and shape, but regular eggplant is traditional and the one I can find most often. Make sure the eggplant is soft, not squishy, and the skin is shiny.
Cut into ½ inch thick round slices and layer in a colander. As you layer, generously salt each layer to help draw out the bitter water that’s inside the eggplant. Set aside for 20-30 mintues.
The Potatoes
Traditionally, the potatoes in Greek moussaka are deep-fried, but I like the taste of oven-roasted potatoes much better. Plus, while they’re roasting, I can make the meat sauce. So, cut the potatoes into ¼ – ½ inch thick round slices. Place them all on a baking tray and drizzle with olive oil. Season on both sides with salt, pepper, and oregano, then bake for 20-25 minutes or until fork-tender.
The Meat Sauce
Finely chopped onions
Grated garlic cloves
Olive oil
Lean ground beef –lean ground meat works best, and you can sub any ground meat
Salt
Freshly ground black pepper
Crushed tomatoes
Water
Dried crushed oregano
I make this meat sauce at least once a week, and I usually have a batch or two in the freezer. It freezes for months and can be used in a lot of the dishes on my site.
Traditionally, the meat mixture in Greek moussaka has cinnamon, nutmeg, and sometimes even allspice. I don’t add these to my moussaka because my kids won’t eat it that way. If you’d like to try the traditional meat sauce, add ¼ teaspoon cinnamon and ¼ teaspoon nutmeg when you add salt and pepper.
Use a big enough pot to hold all of the meat and onions. Place the onion in a large skillet with olive oil and sprinkle with a pinch of salt. Cook the onions over medium heat for 10 minutes or until soft and golden. Add the garlic and warm through for a few seconds, then add the ground beef, salt, pepper, and crushed tomatoes. Rinse the can with a cup of water and add it to the skillet. Cover and cook for about 20 minutes or until the sauce is very thick. When it looks ready, taste and adjust the seasoning if needed. Add the oregano and set it aside.
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Why will this become a favorite in your house?
Melt in your mouth eggplant
Hearty Meat sauce
Creamy Cheese sauce
It can be made ahead for easy entertaining!
Back to the Eggplant
While the meat sauce is simmering, it’s time to pan-fry the eggplant. The eggplant should have released the bitter water, so pat the slices with a paper towel to dry them as much as possible. I prefer the pan fry method over roasted eggplant because there are a few issues with the roasted method.
First, it may be a little healthier, but you will have to use so many trays that there’s a lot of clean up. Secondly, the eggplant never gets as soft ad tender as it does when you fry. So make an effort to pan-fry your eggplant.
Make sure your oil is nice and hot so your eggplant doesn’t absorb too much. Cook the eggplant rounds until golden brown on both sides and soft in the center. Then, place them on a paper towel to absorb any excess oil.
The Béchamel sauce:
Whole milk –whole milk works best, but you can use what you have on hand
Olive oil –you can also use the exact same amount of butter
All-purpose flour
Salt and pepper
Nutmeg
Grated parmesan cheese
Whole eggs
Egg yolks
Bechamel sauce is basically a creamy custard, also known as a white cheese sauce that’s so delicious.
Make the béchamel sauce by combining the flour and oil in a saucepan over medium heat. Whisk well while cooking a few minutes until the flour smells toasted. Try not to add the milk all at once because doing so will create lumps. Instead, slowly add the milk in a few batches, whisking to incorporate so that the mixture is smooth and creamy. Cook until it comes to a boil and thickens, then season with salt, pepper, and nutmeg. Remove from heat.
Whisk the eggs together in a bowl, then add a small amount of the hot cream sauce into the eggs while whisking to temper them. Tempering will prevent the eggs from scrambling when added to the cream sauce.
After the eggs have tempered, add them to the cream sauce and whisk well. Then, add the parmesan cheese and stir to combine.
What is Greek moussaka?
Moussaka is a layered Greek casserole-style dish made with layers of vegetables and meat. There are variations of this classic, but my version of moussaka is made with delicious layers of potato, eggplant, cheese, hearty meat sauce, and creamy béchamel sauce.
Moussaka takes a little more work but is absolutely worth every minute. And since it freezes well, you can make two at a time… one to eat and one to freeze.
There are several steps, so let’s break it all down into simple steps for a delicious Moussaka!
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Pulling your Greek moussaka together
Using a 9×13 casserole dish, I like to start by adding a thin layer of unseasoned bread crumbs. It’s a trick I learned to soak up any extra moisture that may make your moussaka watery. Here’s how to layer the dish:
Bread crumbs
Roasted potato slices
Grated cheese
Roasted eggplant slices
Grated cheese
Meat sauce spread evenly
Roasted eggplant slices
Top with béchamel sauce
Sprinkle any remaining cheese over the béchamel sauce if you’d like. Adjust the oven temperature to 400 °F, 200 °C, and bake for 45 minutes – 1 hour. The bechamel sauce will be golden brown on top.
You can let the moussaka cool a bit and scoop it out, but it’s messy. So, allow it to rest for about 45 minutes before slicing. It will be hard to wait, but you’ll be able to cut pieces, and they’ll hold their shape.
Freezing your Greek moussaka
If you’ve made a double batch or want to freeze the one you made for later, the best way is to freeze it before you bake it. It will freeze for up to two months, and you can thaw it the night before you want to serve it. Then bake as usual.
I’m not a fan of freezing the béchamel sauce, so I freeze my moussaka without béchamel. I make a fresh béchamel the day I bake it, and I think it’s the best way to serve it. However, my aunt in Greece freezes the whole thing, so it works! Let me know what you like best.
Serving
Since Greek moussaka can be made ahead, it’s perfect for dinner parties. You can make it earlier in the day, then pre-slice it for the party. It will stay warm for a couple of hours, so you can enjoy your guests as they arrive. Serve it with a nice side salad that you’ve also made ahead, and you’ll have a delicious meal ready whenever your guests are.
Ingredients
3 eggplants, cut into 1/2 inch slices
3 potatoes, peeled and sliced
2 cups parmesan cheese or kefalotiri
olive oil, for brushing on vegetables
salt and black pepper to taste
dried oregano
For the Béchamel sauce:
5 cups whole milk
3/4 cup olive oil
3/4 cup all purpose flour
salt and pepper
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
1 cup grated parmesan cheese
2 whole eggs
2 egg yolks
For the Meat Sauce:
1 onion, finely chopped
5-6 garlic cloves, grated
1/4 cup olive oil
2 pounds lean ground beef
1 teaspoon salt
Freshly ground black pepper to taste
1 (15-ounces) can crushed tomatoes
1 cup water
1 teaspoon dried crushed oregano
Instructions
Preheat the oven to 425°F, 220 °C.
Place the potato slices on a baking tray. Drizzle 3-4 tablespoons of olive oil over them and season both sides with salt, pepper, and oregano.
Bake 20-25 minutes or until fork-tender and golden.
Slice the eggplants and layer them in a colander or on a tray. Sprinkle salt on top of each of the layers of eggplant and set aside for 20-30 minutes.
Prepare the meat sauce: Place the onion in a large skillet along with the olive oil and sprinkle with a pinch of salt. Cook over medium heat for 10 minutes or until soft and golden. Add the garlic and warm through for a few seconds. Add the ground beef, salt, pepper, and crushed tomatoes. Rinse the can with a cup of water and add it to the skillet. Cover and cook for about 20 minutes or until the sauce is very thick. Taste and adjust the seasoning. Add the oregano and set aside.
Cook the eggplant: Pat the eggplant dry with. a paper towel. Heat a large skillet over medium-high heat and add a layer of olive oil to cover the bottom of the pan. Pan-fry the eggplant slices until soft and golden on all sides. Drain them on a tray that has been lined with paper towels.
Make the béchamel sauce by combining the flour and oil in a saucepan over medium heat. Whisk well while cooking a few minutes until toasted.
Slowly add the milk in a few batches, whisking to incorporate so that it is smooth and creamy. Adding the milk all at once will create lumps.
Cook until it comes to a boil and thickens. Season with salt, pepper and nutmeg. Remove from heat.
Whisk the eggs together in a bowl. Add some of the hot milk mixture into the eggs and whisk to temper them so that they don’t scramble when added to the cream sauce.
Add the eggs to the sauce and whisk well.
Add the parmesan cheese and mix to combine.
Place the roasted potato slices on the bottom of a 9 x 13 inch baking pan. Use a deep pan. Sprinkle grated cheese over the potatoes.
Top with a layer of roasted eggplant slices and sprinkle grated cheese over them.
Top with the meat sauce and spread.
Make a final layer of roasted eggplant over the meat sauce and top with the béchamel sauce.
Sprinkle any remaining cheese over the sauce if desired.
Adjust oven temperature to 400 °F, 200 °C.
Bake 45 minutes – 1 hour until the cream is golden brown on top.
Allow to rest for about 45 minutes before slicing so that the pieces hold their shape.
Serve with a nice salad and enjoy!
Forgotten Architectural Beauty
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POPA CHUBBY – “LITTLE WING”
I love his rendition of the Jimi Hendrix song. One of the best blues guitarists alive.
April 29, 2022
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Our enemy is the Western system of U.S.-led imperialism, its capitalist elite, and their political flunkies like Joe Biden and Ursula von der Leyen.
The United States and its NATO and European Union allies have imposed unprecedented economic sanctions on Russia that amount to economic warfare. This warfare has been going on, discernibly, since the CIA-backed coup in Ukraine in 2014 on the back of allegations of Russian wrongdoing, for example, the alleged annexation of Crimea. It’s the logic of a poacher posing as the gamekeeper.
For eight years, the U.S.-led economic war against Russia has been pursued without relent. The self-professed “exceptional nation” presumes the privileged, exclusive use of economic terrorism against others who do not bend the knee. In hock to its Washington master, the European Union has imposed round after round of restrictions on trade with Russia in full compliance with American orders. The European compliance to self-inflict damage is astounding especially given that the U.S. economy is not as reliant on Russia as the EU’s and therefore has not been impacted as badly, at least not directly. But the presumed American “free lunch” is beginning to change, as our columnist Declan Hayes cogently surveyed this week.
Now that the proxy war against Russia has escalated into “Total War” – the historically sinister phrase used by France’s economy minister Bruno Le Maire – the full nefarious scope of the Western objective has become even more explicit. The U.S. and its NATO partners want to achieve the complete collapse of the Russian economy leading to regime change in Moscow. The eruption of violence in Ukraine following Russia’s military intervention on February 24 is but the opportunity to ramp up the U.S.-led war campaign against Russia.
The explicitly stated objective of cutting off Russia’s vital energy trade and the theft of the country’s foreign monetary reserves can only be interpreted as part of a wider imperial plan to crush the Russian nation, subjugate it and conquer its vast natural wealth.
Eight years of NATO-backed military aggression by the Neo-fascist Kiev regime against Russian-speaking populations has gone hand-in-hand with the installation of U.S. strategic weapons across Europe, including Dark Eagle hypersonic missiles in Germany and biological weapons of mass destruction in Ukraine. The military threat to Russia has been in tandem with the relentless economic warfare from sanctions. In addition, there is the intransigence by the U.S. and its NATO partners to engage with Moscow in resolving security concerns through diplomacy. All of this culminated in the present war in Ukraine. The concerted and rapid imposition of further draconian sanctions on the Russian economy from the blockade on virtually its entire banking system as well as the extreme censorship of Russian international media – all of that indicates that the U.S. and its partners were already on a war footing and ready to escalate hostilities.
In this context, ominously, Ukraine is resembling Bosnia-Herzegovina and the pre-World War One assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand as a fatal flashpoint.
The reckless flooding of weapons into Ukraine over recent weeks by the United States, NATO, and the European Union is also proof of a premeditated pent-up war agenda. This week, U.S. President Joe Biden is calling for his Congress to release $33 billion in “emergency aid” for Ukraine to “defend against Russian aggression”. This represents a tenfold increase in the record military support that the Biden administration has already plowed into the Kiev regime. This is tantamount to stoking a powder-keg.
The ludicrous, bitter laugh about this is that when Russia seeks to defend itself and Russian-speaking people, then Moscow is accused of “aggression”.
The latest twist in this Western duplicity and rank hypocrisy comes with the accusations that Russia is using “blackmail” by warning it will cut off its prodigious gas supplies to Europe. Moscow has simply and reasonably demanded that all European importers must henceforth pay for their gas supplies in the Russian currency, the ruble, as opposed to dollars or euros. The move was prompted in part because the Western countries had seized Russia’s foreign reserves and have banned most Russian banks from the international payment system. In other words, it is they who have politicized their currencies as weapons. So what is Russia supposed to do? Give away its vast natural gas wealth for free? To countries that are waging an economic war and increasingly a military proxy war against it?
This week, Russia’s state-owned energy industry Gazprom announced it was suspending the supply of gas to Poland and Bulgaria. The two EU and NATO member states had bluntly refused to pay for their vital energy needs in Russian currency. In that case, Russia has the right to withhold the selling of its commodity.
The move to mandate payment for gas in ruble was an essential counter-measure that has succeeded in defending the Russian currency and economy from collapse. That collapse was being deliberately orchestrated by Western sanctions aimed at strangling Russia. And yet when Russia acts to defend its vital existential interests it is accused of using “blackmail”. One of the shrill voices was that of European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen. The former German defense minister is a rabid Russophobe. Her logic of accusing Russia of wrongdoing is like a Third Reich minister lambasting the Warsaw Ghetto uprising as an insolent insurrection.
Von der Leyen and her elite, unelected Brussels bureaucracy are calling for all EU members to refuse payments to Russia. They are effectively endorsing the theft of Russia’s wealth. Their arrogance is not surprising. But that arrogance is leading to rebellion across Europe from the economic damage and unbearable cost-of-living crisis hitting the majority of the EU’s 500 million population. Bulgarian and Polish workers are demanding their governments resume trade with Russia to prevent a crash to their livelihoods.
A further mockery in this absurd scenario is that anti-Russia hawks in the United States and Europe have been vociferously jeering for all energy and other trade with Russia to be cancelled. Of course, this mania is all about propping up U.S. capitalism, hegemony over Europe, the weapons industry, and the transatlantic feeding trough for effete European lackeys.
Then, when Russia cuts off the energy supplies because of non-payment, there is an uproar about Moscow “weaponizing trade”.
The Western accusations of economic blackmail are analogous to perverse claims of military blackmail. The criminally reckless aggression that the United States and its NATO partners have pursued against Russia has escalated into war in Ukraine. As a British government minister demonstrated this week, the NATO powers are now directing their proxy Kiev regime to launch attacks on Russian territory. Yet when Russia warns of the dangerous risks of world war veering into a nuclear conflagration, the Western powers and their dutiful media turn around and accuse Russia of using “nuclear blackmail”.
America and Europe’s dubious political “leadership” is exposing itself as delusional, duplicitous, and criminally insane. They are insanely willing to push the world into a catastrophic war. And when Russia stands up to their madness, it is accused of being a reprobate.
In a funny sort of way, such farcical Western leadership is good. For it only further exposes how utterly unhinged and corrupt the Western elite rulers are in the eyes of their increasingly restive, angry populations.
It is Western callous, sociopathic leaders who are the ones blackmailing their own citizens and indeed the rest of the world. Their ultimatum is: destroy Russia or we will destroy everything. This is the mindset of totalitarianism.
The Western public’s enemy is not Russia, and it’s not China nor Iran, Syria, Venezuela, North Korea, Cuba, or some other designated foreign foe. All our enemy is the Western system of U.S.-led imperialism, its capitalist elite, and their political flunkies like Joe Biden and Ursula von der Leyen.
Jacksonville Mother: I “Cannot Feed My Son” Due To Baby Formula Shortages
Food shortages are starting. Here is baby formula. It’s a breakdown in supply line management, and engineered shortages. here in China, there are no shortages.
Meanwhile in Russia
"Real men and women here teaching kids about pride in country, nothing wrong with that, at least they are not grooming the kids in mental illness to believe they are what they are not or have drag queen clowns bouncing kids on their boners, or teaching the boys to think they have a period or to get B-hole pap-smears."
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Transforming Subway Passengers Into Renaissance Paintings
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Rory Gallagher – Tattoo’d Lady (Live At Montreux)
This has to be one of the best “jams” between a lead guitarist and a fella on keyboard that I have ever seen. Outstanding.
Wholesome
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Spinach & Feta Stuffed Chicken Breast
This dish tastes like juicy chicken stuffed with spanakopita (Greek spinach pie) and is ready in under an hour. I love recipes like this one that are quick and easy, can be made ahead, and are good for a busy weeknight yet, elegant enough for a dinner party. What could be better?
This recipe is a great one for your Thanksgiving table. Maybe for a dinner for 2 or if you’re just not a fan of turkey. When I was recipe testing, I couldn’t decide between the tomato sauce or the lemon caper sauce so, I made both. They were both flavorful yet different. The tomato sauce added a hint of sweetness and the lemon caper sauce brightened everything up and added another layer of flavor. Both of the sauces are listed. Enjoy!
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Ingredients
5 chicken breasts, boneless skinless
Salt
Pepper
Cumin
Dried oregano
For the filling:
1-pound baby spinach leaves, roughly chopped
¼ cup olive oil
4-5 scallions, finely chopped
2-3 garlic cloves, grated
Salt and pepper, to taste
6 ounces feta cheese
4 ounces ricotta cheese
2 tablespoons finely chopped mint
For the tomato sauce:
1 jar of your favorite marinara sauce
For Homemade Marinara Sauce:
1 small onion
2 garlic cloves, grated
28 ounces canned tomatoes, pureed
½ teaspoon sugar or honey
1 teaspoon dried oregano
Salt and pepper, to taste
Pinch of crushed red pepper flakes
For the Lemon-Caper Sauce:
Pan drippings
2 tablespoons of butter
2 garlic cloves, grated
2-4 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
2-3 cups chicken broth
2 tablespoons capers, or less
Instructions
Preheat the oven to 475 °F, 250 °C.
Cut a pocket into each chicken breast. Season the chicken all around and inside the pocket with salt, pepper, a dusting of cumin, and oregano. Set aside in a baking tray.
Place the scallions with the olive oil in a pan over medium-high heat and cook until they soften. About 3 minutes.
Add the garlic and warm through about 30 seconds.
Add the spinach and cook until wilted and the liquid is mostly evaporated. About 8 minutes.
Place the feta in a large mixing bowl and mash it with a fork. Add the ricotta cheese and mix together. Season with some black pepper and add the mint along with the spinach mixture and mix well. Taste and adjust seasoning, if needed.
Stuff each breast with about a half cup of the filling.
To make your own homemade marinara sauce heat the olive oil with the onions over medium heat and cook until soft and golden. Add the garlic and warm through. Add all of the remaining ingredients and simmer for 10 minutes. Taste and adjust seasoning if needed.
Place the chicken in an ovenproof pan such as a cast-iron skillet and cook over medium-high heat for 5 minutes. Flip the chicken over and remove from the heat.
If you are making this dish with the tomato sauce, pour as much of the marinara sauce as desired into the pan. It should cover the chicken 1/3-1/2 of the way up from the bottom of the pan.
Bake in the preheated oven until the internal temperature of the chicken reaches 165 °F. Time depends on the thickness of the chicken cutlets. Thicker chicken takes about 18 minutes to bake.
Remove from the oven and allow to rest 5 minutes before serving.
If you are serving these with the lemon-caper sauce, just bake them in the oven without any sauce and as soon as they are ready, take them out of the oven, transfer the chicken to a plate and cover with foil.
Make the lemon caper sauce: Place the skillet that the chicken baked in over medium heat and add the butter. Once it melts add the garlic and immediately add the lemon juice. Pour the chicken broth into the skillet and bring to a boil. Add the capers and simmer for 3-5 minutes until the sauce reduces a bit. Pour the sauce over the chicken and serve.
To make this ahead:
Assemble and fill the chicken and place the tray in the refrigerator covered in plastic wrap. This can be done a day ahead.
Allow the chicken to come to room temperature before cooking. About 1-2 hours.
If you’re making a big batch (8-12, or more) you may skip the step of pan-frying one side of the chicken and just bake it in a large pan (or 2) until the internal temperature of the chicken reaches 165 °F.
Serve this with some toasted bread, pasta, or roasted vegetables. Enjoy!
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Luigi, The Boss Of Bosses
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Squeeze * Last Time Forever
Takes me back to the 1980s. I had this album. I love the transitions and that jazzy keyboard work is just precious. This is a real treat. I am so very glad that I rediscovered this tune…
I Didnt Have Thanksgiving With My Family This Year So My Boss Made Me A Plate And Said That I’m Part Of Her Family
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VICTORIA, AUSTRALIA: Premier Dan Andrews is passing a bill that prohibits people from growing their own food.
Unbelievable. But Australia seems to be the cutting edge of the totalitarian thrust threatening to engulf us all. This thrust is the big story right now, far bigger than what's happening in Ukraine. I still can't shake off the suspicion that Russia and China are on board with this thrust somehow. Or maybe the rest of the multipolar world will be relatively free and open but the wicked West will be a gulag archipelago for a while until we've learned our collective lesson?
-Scorpion
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Beautiful Life Of Florida In The 1950s
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Finian Cunningham
April 14, 2022
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The corporate-dominated media (that lied us into the 2003 “shock and awe” attack on Iraq over non-existent WMD) is trotting out the same strategy again to sell war and deceive the public
American peace activist, documentary filmmaker and author Bruce Gagnon analyses the current war in Ukraine with a critical bigger picture of political and strategic context that is so woefully – and deliberately – missing in Western media.
In the following interview, Gagnon points out that the Russian military intervention in Ukraine that began on February 24 can only be properly understood by viewing it as a response to eight years of relentless military assault by the NATO-backed Kiev regime against the ethnic Russian population of the Donbass region. Nearly 14,000 people were killed by the NATO-backed Kiev regime and its Russian-hating Nazi regiments. Where were Western government and media condemnations?
The current expansion of the war, he contends, is really just the front line in a bigger war that the United States and its NATO-European allies are waging against Russia. The ultimate objective is regime change in Moscow. This objective is to satisfy Western corporate interests and includes the eventual targeting of China. In this way, the U.S. and its imperialist allies are trying to thwart the emergence of a multipolar world and to offset the historic decline of Western corporate power. As he says: “China is also on the regime-change list of the West, and due to the new economic and military pact between Russia and China, it becomes essential to take out Russia first before going after China. The United States is currently using Taiwan in a similar way to how it has used Ukraine as a tool of destabilization.”
Therefore, the stakes are profoundly vested in the outcome of the war in Ukraine. The U.S. and NATO want this war to continue in order to sap, destroy and subjugate Russia. Hence the reckless, criminal flow of weaponry from the NATO bloc into Ukraine to derail any political settlement. Gagnon also points out that the U.S.-NATO-Kiev axis is likely to resort to more false-flag atrocities in order to win the information war against Russia – a war that the Western so-called news media are openly waging under the conceited and deceptive guise of “journalism”.
Bruce Gagnon is based in Maine, United States of America. He is founder and coordinator of the Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space. He also publishes incisive commentaries on international developments in his Organizing Notes blog. Gagnon is a Vietnam War-era veteran, has worked as a labor rights activist, and has traveled to dozens of countries to give public speeches and seminars to peace, anti-war, and justice organizations.
Interview
Question: The U.S. Congress is set to pass a Lend-Lease Act that will greatly increase the supply of weapons to Ukraine purportedly to help defend that country from “Russian aggression”. This is while negotiations are underway between Ukraine and Russia to find a peace settlement to the conflict. Is Washington trying to strengthen Kiev’s negotiating hand or is the United States aiming to prolong the war?
Bruce Gagnon: Using the 2019 Rand Corp study called ‘Overextending and Unbalancing Russia’ as a guide, the U.S.-NATO obviously do not want negotiations between Ukraine and Russia to flourish. Their interest is in creating a festering sore along Russia’s border forcing Moscow to spend more of its national treasury on the military and on rebuilding the massively destroyed Russian-ethnic Donbass region in eastern Ukraine. The Donbass destruction was largely due to Ukrainian army shelling for over eight years since the U.S.-orchestrated coup in Kiev in 2014.
Question: In passing the Lend-Lease Act, the U.S. Senate cited allegations of genocide and the massacre of civilians in the Ukrainian city of Bucha by Russian troops as justification for the legislative go-ahead for more American weapons to Ukraine. Russia categorically denies the allegations while several independent analysts have pointed to evidence that the gruesome killings were a false-flag provocation carried out by Ukrainian forces in order to incriminate Russia. What is your view of the Western media reports on the Bucha massacre?
Bruce Gagnon: I have studied the Bucha story quite closely and it is more than obvious that this was one more false flag by the U.S.-NATO-Ukrainian axis. The timelines point to this being such. Russian troops left Bucha on March 30. On March 31, the mayor of Bucha put out a video where he excitedly and proudly proclaimed that Russian troops had left. On April 1, a woman who serves as a Bucha City Council Deputy made a similar video proclaiming victory over the Russians. Neither of those two city leaders made any reference to a massacre or bodies in the streets which would have been more than obvious at that point. On April 2, Ukrainian forces retook control of Bucha. On April 3, Western media began reporting on the alleged massacre.
There have been repeated attempts by the U.S.-NATO-Ukrainian side to claim that Russia was killing civilians but each story has turned out to be lacking a factual basis. The latest attempt was the Ukrainian army shelling Kramatorsk using a Tochka-U missile on April 8. Dozens of civilians were killed and up to 100 wounded. Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky was quick to blame Russia although the Tochka-U missile is an outdated technology that is no longer used by Russia and ample evidence shows that it has been a favorite weapon used by the Nazi-led Kiev regime’s army to repeatedly shell the Donbass region.
Additionally, Kramatorsk is in the Russian-ethnic region of eastern Ukraine that Russia is trying to liberate from the Nazi-led army of Kiev. It makes no sense that Russia would kill their own people.
It is said that every criminal has a Modus Operandi (MO) – a way of repeating their bad behavior. I think it is safe to say that Ukraine is losing this war and has resorted to an MO to create false flags in order to turn public opinion against Russia with hopes that U.S.-NATO will then fully enter the war on the Kiev regime’s side. So Ukraine has replaced actual offensive military operations (which they are no longer really capable of) with false-flag events as their primary strategy to vilify and defeat Russia.
Question: You have said that the war in Ukraine is not merely about Ukraine and Russia in isolation, but rather represents a front line in a bigger confrontation between the U.S.-led NATO bloc on one hand and Russia and China on the other. Are you saying this is a proxy war?
Bruce Gagnon: There can be no doubt that this war is being waged on behalf of a larger mission – regime change in Russia that the West hopes would allow for the breaking up of Russia into smaller nations similar to what U.S.-NATO did to Yugoslavia following the 1999 American-led attack on Belgrade. The goal is for Western resource extraction corporations to take control of Russia’s vast landmass and most importantly its huge resource base that includes natural gas, oil, timber, agricultural lands and vital mineral deposits. With the melting of the Arctic ice, it will increasingly become possible to “drill-baby-drill” for offshore resources under the sea that has long been covered in thick layers of ice. It’s no coincidence that at the same time this war started, the U.S.-NATO began holding a war game called ‘Cold Response’ in the north of Norway which borders Russia’s Arctic region.
U.S. President Joe Biden, in one of his confused moments, blurted out in a recent speech in Warsaw that “Putin had to go”. I am more than certain that during many of the National Security Council meetings in Washington this has long been a key agenda item.
In the past 500 years, Russia has been invaded several times from the West. The Poles came across the European Plain in 1605, followed by the Swedes under Charles XII in 1707, the French under Napoleon in 1812, and the Germans twice, in both world wars, in 1914 and 1941. Every 100 years, the West makes its move and fails.
China is also on the regime-change list of the West, and due to the new economic and military pact between Russia and China, it becomes essential to take out Russia first before going after China. The United States is currently using Taiwan in a similar way to how it has used Ukraine as a tool of destabilization.
Question: Russia has said it hopes that the war in Ukraine will be finished soon. But from what you are saying, there is a real danger that the conflict could be spun out for much longer due to U.S., British and NATO arms being supplied to Ukraine. Is this prolongation of the war what galvanizes Washington and London’s calculus and policies?
Bruce Gagnon: The vested interests inside the U.S.-EU military-industrial complex stand to make massive profits if this war can be extended for months, or even years. I believe that this is the intent of Washington-Brussels. By getting NATO members to ship outdated military hardware to Ukraine, the Western military manufacturers are salivating as they imagine replacing those stocks of weapons with the latest technologies that must be “interoperable” with Pentagon space-directed war-fighting capabilities. What this translates to over time is a vast high-tech global war machine. Don’t forget that NATO is also going international as they sign up “partners” in Australia, New Zealand, South Korea, Japan and others in the Asia-Pacific. In this “mission vision”, the U.S. would be in charge of the “tip of the spear” and will have had NATO members and partners help pay for it all. NATO’s job is to ultimately force submission to Western corporate demands. They declare they are a “peace alliance” yet their history is nothing but endless war.
Question: Do you think there is an even bigger picture to the U.S.-led NATO confrontation with Russia? That is, the bigger battle is to stave off the historic decline in the American-dominated Western economic system? Russia and China have consistently hailed the advent of a multipolar world based on cooperation and partnership. The United States seems deeply opposed to this vision, claiming that Moscow and Beijing undermine a so-called “rules-based global order”. Why does Washington object to a multipolar vision? What is it about American power that demands unipolar dominance, fealty, or war?
Bruce Gagnon: The U.S. and NATO are an insecure and desperate military war machine. They are the muscle for the Western-run corporate globalization syndicate. They know their days are numbered as the dominant Western imperial powers that have ruled most of the world for hundreds of years.
It reminds me of a drunken riverboat gambler rolling the dice – knowing that he has lost everything but still going for broke one last time. Washington and the EU clearly understand that the rising multipolar world is unstoppable – when you add up the population numbers this rising tide is the vast majority of the world’s population. So the U.S.-NATO know this is their last-ditch chance to try to remain in control of the planet. Washington-London-Paris-Berlin-Brussels want total power and control and are willing to burn any nations to the ground that stand in their way.
Obviously, China, Russia, Iran, India, and others across the global South understand all of this. They have suffered at the hands of the U.S.-Europe long enough. They are moving to help create this multipolar world – what one Russian leader recently called a “Fair World Order” not run by Wall Street, the Bank of England, the IMF and World Bank. The question for all of us is: will the U.S.-NATO be willing to take this drive to remain in control to World World III that could then quite possibly turn nuclear? Those so-called “peaceniks” out in the streets waving Ukrainian flags ought to ask themselves if they are in fact inadvertently helping to push things in that horrific direction.
Question: In the reporting on the Ukraine war and the prelude to it, would you agree that Western news media seem to have more openly embraced the function of a propaganda system, peddling intelligence disinformation to distort the nature of the conflict with Russia?
Bruce Gagnon: The Western media is all in when it comes to demonizing Russia and helping to escalate this war. Just days ago while driving, I turned on NPR (National Public Radio) and heard one “correspondent” claim that Russian troops had raped young girls in Bucha.
Have we forgotten the groundbreaking U.S. Senate committee hearings in 1975 on the CIA’s control of the media? Those hearings were led by Senator Frank Church (D-ID). At the time, it was disclosed that 400 journalists worldwide were submitting news stories on behalf of the CIA. Operation Mockingbird it was called. Look it up on the internet. I don’t think the videos from those congressional hearings have been removed yet on YouTube. I’d bet my life that the so-called “Bucha rape story” was produced by the agency.
Just last week we learned from an NBC-TV report that U.S. intelligence agencies were putting out false stories about Russia in order to “preempt” Moscow “from doing something bad”. The corporate-dominated media (that lied us into the 2003 “shock and awe” attack on Iraq over non-existent WMD) is trotting out the same strategy again to sell war and deceive the public. And when you factor in all the efforts of corporate-owned social media outlets to take down alternative views on the Ukraine war it becomes clear that the Number One goal is the brainwashing of the public. Modus Operandi – every criminal syndicate has one.
My Old Boss Has Been 3D-Printing Reusable Masks And Delivering Them To Medical Facilities Amidst A Shortage
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Forgotten Architectural Beauty
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UKRAINE SHUTS-OFF 1/3rd of **ALL* EUROPEAN NATURAL GAS
UKRAINE IS SHUTTING OFF THE FLOW OF ALL NATURAL GAS TO EUROPE, claiming a “force majeure” due to the presence of “Russian Occupiers.”
Russian gas conglomerate Gazprom has received no confirmation of force majeure or any obstacles to continued transit of gas through a junction in Lugansk Region, the company said on Tuesday, after Ukraine’s operator OGTSU announced it would halt further deliveries starting May 11, due to the presence of “Russian occupiers.”
Gas Transit Services of Ukraine (OGTSU) declared force majeure on Tuesday, saying that it was impossible to continue the transit of gas through a connection point and compressor station located in the Lugansk area. As OGTSU personnel “cannot carry out operational and technological control” over the Sokhranovka connector point and Novopskov compressor station, the company cannot continue to fulfill its contract obligations, it said.
Gas from this connection will not be accepted into the transit system of Ukraine starting at 7 am on Wednesday, OGTSU said. Sokhrankovka accounts for almost a third of the Russian gas that transits through Ukraine to Europe – up to 32.6 million cubic meters per day – according to the operators.
Gazprom has received no confirmation of force majeure or disruption of operations at Sokhranovka or Novopskov, company spokesman Sergey Kupriyanov said on Tuesday. He added that Ukrainian specialists have had full access to both facilities all along, and there had been no complaints about it previously.
Kupriyanov also said that Gazprom has been notified by Ukraine’s gas company Naftogaz that if Russia continues to supply gas through Sokhranovka, Kiev will reduce the volume at the point of exit by the same amount, effectively confiscating the gas.
While OGTSU has proposed to reroute the gas to Sudzha, a connector located in the Sumy region and controlled by the Ukrainian government, Kupriyanov said this was “technologically impossible.”
“The distribution of volumes is clearly spelled out in the cooperation agreement dated December 30, 2019, and the Ukrainian side is well aware of this,” he said.
Gazprom is fulfilling all of its obligations to its European customers, with all the transit services in accordance with the terms of the contract and paid in full, Kupriyanov pointed out. Moscow has continued gas deliveries to Europe, including transit through Ukraine, regardless of the ongoing military operation and the embargoes against Russia imposed by the US and its allies in the EU.
HAL TURNER COMMENTARY
Why Ukraine is doing this is beyond my understanding. On its face, it doesn’t seem to make any sense at all. In fact, it’s literally ABSURD! You can’t even make up shit like this!
The Ukrainians are cutting their own throats; shutting off gas to the very countries keeping them afloat.
But one thing appears instantly clear: Any support Ukraine has from Europe, will likely dry-up as fast as the gas flow.
Europe will collapse economically without Russian gas, and the fact that Ukraine is the reason the gas flow is being halted will not be well received by its European “partners.”
If Europe is smart, they will tell Ukraine, no more weapons, no more money, no more military intel. Europe and the USA should then tell Russia “We’re very sorry that this whole thing happened, we had no idea Ukrainians were so crazy. We’re ending all sanctions immediately, returning all seized funds and property, turning back on your access to SWIFT. As for Ukraine, go ahead and have-at them, it’s not our concern anymore. Oh, and by the way, can you start turning on the Nordstream 2 pipeline, we need to get that up and running as fast a s possible.”
Russia will grind the Ukraine into dust within days.
The Ukrainian government won’t exist anymore.
This whole debacle will be over and the grown-ups in the room can start to rebuild relations that have been so soured over this thing.
This is a gigantic development for Europe, and very bad, too.
Could Ukraine being twisting European arms for more money and more weapons? Could Ukraine actually be blackmailing Europe, maybe withholding gas flows until Ukraine gets the money and weapons they want? Only time will tell.
Strange Happenings in North Korea – Immediate National Lockdown!
Something is going on in Pyongyang, North Korea.
Multiple sources are reporting that people have been ordered indoors IMMEDIATELY due to a “national problem.”
Large lines of people seen suddenly rushing home at around 2pm local time this afternoon.
It is not yet known what this “national problem” might be which would require the whole country to go home and remain inside.
Nonprofit Watchdog Uncovers $350 Million In Secret Payments To Fauci, Collins, Others At NIH
An estimated $350 million in undisclosed royalties were paid to the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and hundreds of its scientists, including the agency’s recently departed director, Dr. Francis Collins, and Dr. Anthony Fauci, according to a nonprofit government watchdog.
“We estimate that up to $350 million in royalties from third parties were paid to NIH scientists during the fiscal years between 2010 and 2020,” Open the Books CEO Adam Andrzejewski told reporters in a telephone news conference on May 9.
“We draw that conclusion because, in the first five years, there has been $134 million that we have been able to quantify of top-line numbers that flowed from third-party payers, meaning pharmaceutical companies or other payers, to NIH scientists.”
The first five years, from 2010 to 2014, constitute 40 percent of the total, he said.
“We now know that there are 1,675 scientists that received payments during that period, at least one payment. In fiscal year 2014, for instance, $36 million was paid out and that is on average $21,100 per scientist,” Andrzejewski said.
“We also find that during this period, leadership at NIH was involved in receiving third-party payments. For instance, Francis Collins, the immediate past director of NIH, received 14 payments. Dr. Anthony Fauci received 23 payments and his deputy, Clifford Lane, received eight payments.”
Collins resigned as NIH director in December 2021 after 12 years of leading the world’s largest public health agency. Fauci is the longtime head of NIH’s National Institute for Allergies and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), as well as chief medical adviser to President Joe Biden. Lane is the deputy director of NIAID, under Fauci.
(HT Remark: So Fauci and company PUSHING the "COVID vaccines" now seems to have a very real profit motive for Fauci personally! Isn't THAT interesting?)
GATES: “Low Fatality Rate”
On May 5, no less than Bill Gates, was interviewed about COVID Vaccines and made this utterly shocking admission: “We didn’t understand that it’s a fairly low fatality rate & that it’s a disease mainly in the elderly, kind of like flu is, although a bit different than that.”
WHOA! “Low fatality rate?” Wasn’t it people like Bill Gates telling the whole world they HAD to get the COVID Vax or they would get sick and die? Wasn’t the world repeatedly told this was like the 1918 Spanish FLu Pandemic and that “Millions will die” unless they vaccinated everyone?
Beautiful Life Of Florida In The 1950s
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Transforming Subway Passengers Into Renaissance Paintings
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My Boss Is Unreal. He Knows I’ve Been Trying To Get A 3080 And We’ve Had Them In Stocks For Systems We Build
Today he walked up to me and said, “it’s yours, Merry Christmas”.
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The Letterheads on Lemonman -“It’s a Shame About Ray”
A classic. This WAS the 1990s. Ah, it takes me back.
Last week, sources leaked to The New York Times that, in Ukraine’s targeting and killing of Russian generals and the sinking of Russia’s Black Sea flagship, the Moskva, U.S. intelligence played an indispensable role.
Apparently, our intel people identified and located for the Ukrainian forces what became the targets of their deadly attacks.
Why U.S. intelligence would do this seems inexplicable.
By claiming credit for Ukraine’s most visible military successes, we diminish the achievements of that country’s own forces.
By bragging publicly that we helped engineer the killing of Russian generals and the sinking of the cruiser Moskva, we taunt Russian President Vladimir Putin. We provoke him into retaliating in kind against us, thereby raising the possibility of a wider U.S.-Russia war that could escalate into World War III.
Moreover, U.S. boasting like this plays right into Putin’s narrative that Russia is facing and fighting in Ukraine a U.S.-led alliance that is out to crush Russia.
Indeed, why are we going beyond assistance to the Ukrainians in defending themselves, into making this American’s war?
When Speaker Nancy Pelosi arrived in Poland following her visit to Kyiv, she virtually embraced the idea of the Ukraine-Russia war as now being America’s war, declaring, “America stands with Ukraine. We stand with Ukraine until victory is won.”
Accompanying Pelosi to Kyiv was a delegation of House Democrats, one of whom, Rep. Jason Crow of Colorado, echoed Pelosi in Poland:
“The United States of America is in this to win.”
Their visit followed that of Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, who came out of Kyiv and declared the U.S. strategic goals in Ukraine’s war:
“We want to see Russia weakened to the degree that it can’t do the kind of things it has done in invading Ukraine.”
These statements by U.S. leaders reinforce Putin’s line that Russia is besieged by a U.S.-led Western alliance that fears and detests Mother Russia and wishes to see her defeated and diminished.
Our enemies in the West who seek to destroy Russia are like those we fought in the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945, Putin now claims. And intervention in Ukraine was necessary to prevent today’s neo-Nazis from dragging Ukraine into their larger conspiracy to destroy Russia.
Consider Putin’s words of a week ago:
“The forces that have always pursued a policy of containing Russia … do not want such a huge and independent country that is too big for their ideas … They believe it endangers them simply by the fact of its existence, although this is far from reality. It is they who endanger the world.”
We are hated for who and what we are, says Putin. And our military operation is an act of legitimate self-defense against the same kind of “Nazi filth” we fought in the Great Patriotic War.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov describes the recent surge in heavy Western weapons shipments to Ukraine as “NATO … going to war with Russia through a proxy and arming that proxy.”
By cutting Republicans out of her delegation to Kyiv, Pelosi appears to want to make the war not only America’s war, but her party’s cause.
That seems to be a motive as well behind Biden’s consciously exceeding any Western leader in the language he uses on Putin, calling him a “killer,” a “murderous dictator,” a “pure thug,” a “butcher,” a “war criminal,” guilty of “genocide,” who “for God’s sake … cannot remain in power.”
Such language is designed to showcase Biden as the world’s leading anti-Putinist and the most morally outraged of all the world’s leaders at what Russia is doing in Ukraine.
But, again, like the public boasting of U.S. intel agents over our role in the sinking of the Moskva and killing of the Russian generals, the effect is to disqualify the U.S. president from any role in negotiating a truce or an end to this war.
How do we benefit from having no leader-to-leader communication with the Kremlin, which President John F. Kennedy retained in the Cuban missile crisis to end it?
NATO Europe, which is supporting the Ukrainian resistance, is not on board with the U.S. plans to cripple Russia permanently.
America needs to recognize that our objectives in this war are not the same as Ukraine’s.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy would like to have the U.S. plunge in and fight alongside Kyiv, devastate and defeat the Russian army, and expel Russia not only from the regions invaded this year but also from Crimea, which Putin annexed in 2014 .
America’s vital interests in this war, however, are to prevent it from becoming a U.S.-Russia war or a third world war or a nuclear war.
The U.S. goal of imposing a crushing defeat of Russian aggression is secondary to our far more vital interest in avoiding a U.S.-Russia war.
America’s interests are best served by an early and negotiated peace. Such a goal rules out imposing humiliating terms on Russia, which cause Moscow and Putin to escalate militarily — to survive politically.
…
But that is not going to happen. – MM
Transforming Subway Passengers Into Renaissance Paintings
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Taco Bell Goes Woke: Launches ‘Drag Brunch’ Events At US Locations
Taco Bell is the latest company to embrace woke activism by rolling out “Taco Bell Drag Brunch” at select Taco Bell Cantinas across the US.
"Each show will be hosted by the fabulous drag performer and taco extraordinaire, Kay Sedia, and feature performances from local queens and kings that will transform any morning from Mild to Fire!" according to a recent press release from the largest fast-food Tex-Mex restaurant chain. "As a brand that brings people together, the Taco Bell Drag Brunch experience is rooted in celebrating the LGBTQIA+ community and creating safe and welcoming spaces for all," the press release continued.
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The first drag event was held at a Taco Bell Cantinas in Las Vegas on May 1. Here are the upcoming events:
Chicago, Wrigleyville Cantina: Sunday, May 22
Nashville Cantina: Sunday, May 29
New York, Times Square Cantina: Sunday, June 12
Fort Lauderdale Cantina: Sunday, June 26
“We understand the importance of creating safe spaces for the LGBTQIA+ community and are thrilled to provide a unique experience that spotlights and celebrates the wonderful artform of drag and its influence in culture with their chosen families,” Taco Bell global chief brand officer Sean Tresvant said in a statement.
"Taco Bell Drag Brunch was concepted by Live Más Pride, Taco Bell's LGBTQIA+ Employee Resource Group, which has played a major role in driving awareness of and meaningfully supporting LGBTQIA+ communities both within Taco Bell and the communities we serve and operate in," Tresvant added.
Taco Bell’s drive to create “spaces for the LGBTQIA+ community” is another example of woke corporations meddling in divisive political issues and risk sparking a backlash.
If CEOs learned anything so far in 2022, it’s that woke corporate America is getting push-back for the promotion of this narrative. The latest example was Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-Fla.) signed a bill that strips Disney of its special tax status in Florida after defaming the governor’s “Don’t Say Gay” bill.
Corporations diving into woke activism can result in severe consequences — if that’s losing special tax status or even a customer base.
Some Taco Bell customers lost their appetite over the announcement of taco drag brunches.
Beautiful Life Of Florida In The 1950s
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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.
I watched a recent video by Gonzalo Lira today, and of course, I completely agree with it. You can watch this video here…
Now, that you have watched this, my statement is what I have always said, but there is a a REAL urgency right now.
Transportation
You need to provide ways to cut your dependence on expensive means of transportation, realizing that walking is often impractical.
Get a bicycle. Walking sucks. Bicycle isn’t so bad. Don’t be so damn dependent on gas vehicles for transportation. Make sure the bike has a basket, and a lock. Use it to cut your gasoline expense. It will work! A used bike is fine. You can get them really cheap. Don’t wait. do it NOW.
Electric Charging. If you have an electric vehicle, expect charging rates to increase. Figure on setting up your own charging station. Solar panels will take a long time, but it’s free. Using a gas generator uses gas, but it will work to charge up your car. There’s wind and hydro methods as well. You want to find ways to cut dependency on public utilities.
Conversion kits. You can add a small electric motor or gas motor to your bicycle that will enable you to travel huge distances for pennies. Consider having a handiman install one of these on your bicycle. Go HERE.
Heating
Sure Summer is coming. Now is the time to prepare for Winter. Do not hesitate. To to antique stores and all the rest and find old wood or coal stoves. make sure you have one and install it. Go "old school".
Get a wood burning stove. They can be small. Used ones are cheap. You can heat up your house for pennies using it. Place it in the room that is central to your home. With it, you need two (2x) “cords” or wood. One cord of wood is one pickup truck full of cut up wood. It will last all winter, and will cost from $50 to $150. Imagine only paying $50 for heat all Winter, eh? Don’t wait. Do it NOW.
Get some coal. If you live in a coal-bearing region, get some coal. Just find the old local mines, and drive your car over, and pick up some chunks. They are everywhere alongside the road, and in open coal licks. Coal lasts much longer than wood, and burns much hotter. Use it to suppliment your wood burning stove. Do it NOW, if you live in a coal-bearning area.
Food
Just some basic notes. It doesn't hurt to have extra.
Bags of rice. Lasts near forever. Is cheap (right now). Stock up with a minimum of five bags. You all don’t want to have to carry them over 30 Km in your arms from the store to the house. Do it NOW.
Bags of flour. Same thing. You’ll need to strain out the mill worms, but make sure that you have a couple of boxes of yeast to go along with it. without yeast, you’ll be stuck with flat breads. You need yeast. You cannot have too much flour. Just make sure that you store it properly. Do it NOW.
Potatoes. Bags of potates can last up to 9 months. What you cannot eat, you can plant. they are healthy, full of starch and minerals.
Canned Tuna. Cases. Get as many cases as you can. Get other canned vegitables as well. But having tuna, or other canned meats will be important.
Cooking oil. Get a lot. It’s a heavy buttle to carry, and much comes from Ukraine.
Garden
You need to start a garden. Tomatoes, lettice, onions, cucumbers, zuccini, carrots, potatoes. It can be small, a mini-tomato bush with keep you well supplied with daily tomatoes.
Beware of night raids. Those that are unprepaired can raid your garden. If you cannot put up a fence, or keep it hidden, take steps to make it secure. Nothing is worse than spending the time and effort to make a garden, only to have some lazy people steal everything.
Potatoes. This is a basic and simple plant that is easy to grow, lies hidden from view, and full of easy nutrition. Plant potatoes away from the main garden, and remember, most people don’t know what potato plants look like.
Chickens
Get some chickens. Three chickens will keep a family of four well fed daily. Select egg layers. Not decorative, or meat hens.
Build a chicken coop. Have a handiman do it if you cannot, or buy one. They are not expensive. Small ones are the size of a dog house.
Get some chicken food. Don’t rely on rice to feed chickens. You need special seed or bird seed.
Fishing
Learn to fish. Yes, you can get a pole and try to fish. I advise geting a fish trap and let the fish enter the trap and then take them home. It’s easier, less work and you get more fish that way.
Shellfish. If you live near an ocean, learn how to harvest shellfish. It’s not hard, you just need a small hammer, and a pick.
Guard Dogs and Cats
Guard Dogs. They scare bandits, theves, and criminals away. They are worth their weight in gold.
Cats. They get rid of mice, rodents and cockroaches that feed on your stored dry goods. They are a great investment.
Cost Cutting Measures
Clothes Line. Use of a clothes dryer in your home is a major contributor to your energy expenses. Start using a clothes line instead. Start with it to suppliment your load requirements, and then eventually use it entirely. Especially in the Summer.
Expenses. I do not advocate that you completely change your lifestyle. I only suggest that you cut back. Instead of three starbucks coffee a week, reduce it to once a week. Just start to be moderate in your actions, and mindful of your expenses.
Let’s continue on geopolitics…
Australia to threaten China with the United States
Australia will work with its allies to ensure China does not set up a military base in the Solomon Islands, Prime Minister Scott Morrison has pledged during a heated pre-election debate.
Scott Morrison has responded to a leaked draft MoU between China and the Solomon Islands outlining how they will further deepen ties including cooperation on building wharves and ship yards.
Those investments are set to include “port wharves, submarine optimal cable construction, shipbuilding and ship repair and ocean transportation”, as well as “exploration and development of offshore oil, gas and mineral resources”.
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In Chicago
Chicago still has a few wooden water mains. Worse than that, they are busy terminating for cause all the old guys who know how to work on those mains, or slightly newer and important mains, because the old guys have pensions coming that can’t be paid. As it becomes plain to everyone it is a fools errand to work for Chicago Water more than a few years there is not much hope for keeping that infrastructure alive. And no way to pay for full replacement. Feels to many of us the plan is to flush the whole city. Even ten years ago I was in the civic frame of mind that thought this was the worlds greatest city. No one is planning for this place to be here another ten years.
- Oldhippie
A Chart Illustrating Gerrymandering In Its Most Basic Form
The way financial markets puked this week, they must have started reading the news. Let’s face it, the headlines are a little short of reassuring. The $6.49 price on a gallon of diesel is enough alone to tell you that the nation can’t do business the way it’s set up to do, and there isn’t a new model for running things ready to launch — not even Klaus Schwab’s utopia of robots and eunuchs.
What’s out there, rather, is a model of breakdown and collapse which the Woked-up, globalist neo-Jacobins are doing everything possible to hasten. US-inspired sanctions on Russia have quickly blown-up in America’s face. How’s that ban on Russian oil working?
Do you understand that US shale oil — the bulk of our production — is exceptionally light in composition, meaning it contains not much of the heavier distillates like diesel and aviation fuel? ‘Tis so, alas. Truckers just won’t truck at $6.49-a-gallon, and before long they’ll be out of business altogether, especially the independents who have whopping mortgages on their rigs that won’t be paid. The equation is tearfully simple: no trucks = no US economy.
Europe, the old original homeland of Western Civ, isn’t just losing face, it’s blowing its head clean off going along with “Joe Biden’s” economic war. Are Germany, France, and the rest of that bunch really so dead-set on jamming Ukraine into NATO that they’re willing to go full medieval for it? By which I mean sitting in the cold and dark with empty plates. That’s a hard way to go just to prove somebody else’s point.
The war in Ukraine itself was apparently losing its sex appeal for the click-hungry news media. No matter which way The New York Timesand friends tried to spin it, they failed to grok both Russia’s determination to neutralize Ukraine and its ability to get the job done, even if it takes a longer-than-expected grind to finish.
That’s how important it was to Russia that Ukraine not become a forward missile base and bio-weapons lab for its adversaries.
When that operation concludes, the West will be left economically crippled and humiliated — which are conditions that historically portend regime change. Will America cough up “Joe Biden” like a hairball to get those trucks running again? Might the Dems themselves resort to releasing the kraken known as Hunter’s laptop just to send the old grifter packing?
In the meantime, the leaked Roe v Wade cancellation ruling shoved the Ukraine fiasco offstage so as to provoke more useful histrionics for the dreaded midterm elections upcoming. The poorly-understood truth is that said ruling will only send the abortion question back to the individual states.
But let’s get real: places like New York, Massachusetts, Maryland, and California are not going to enact any new anti-abortion laws, and that’s where most of the people having hebephrenic breakdowns over the issue live. Which is to say there’s little danger that the shrieking denizens of these Blue states will lack abortions. So, how much has the party only been pretending that Roe v Wade is its primal touchstone?
The strange parallel question has been raised: might laissez-fair abortion be a cover for the evident new problem that Covid-19 vaccines have made a shocking number of birthing people incapable of reproducing?
There’s a buzz about it, anyway.
It’s a fact that Pfizer excluded pregnant and breastfeeding women from all phases of its mRNA trials. Among the various harms now ascribed to the mRNA shots are infertility, miscarriage, and newborn abnormalities. But, of course, that sort of rumor — here coming from cases among vaccinated military personnel and not so easily hushed up — is just what the many lurking censors want to slap down in any forum where ideas could be exchanged. It’s misinformation!
And so, the derangement volume knob over Twitter changing ownership stays up at eleven. Imagine what will happen if the supposedly 70-odd percent of Americans who got vaxxed learn in a re-liberated Twitter Zone that the Covid-19 vaccines are not “safe and effective.”
According to Zero Hedge, twenty-six globalist NGOs with ties to George Soros signed a letter saying,
“Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter will further toxify our information ecosystem and be a direct threat to public safety, especially among those already most vulnerable and marginalized.”
They are, as usual, projecting — since what is a greater threat to public safety than inducing tens of millions of frightened citizens to accept multiple shots of a poorly-tested pharmaceutical cocktail that can kill you six ways to Sunday? The folks in-charge (and others who would like to be the boss-of-you) don’t want you to know any of this. The pharma companies, the doctors, the hospital administrators, and the politicians must be frantic with terror of being found out.
Altogether, the scene looks like a multi-dimensional nightmare. Broken economy… sinking Western Civ… police state tyranny… vaccine death and injury… starvation…. So, there it is. Oh, look, those markets… they’re puking again!
The Many Flags Inside Norway’s Flag
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True story
Has actually happened.
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If you think that things are bad now, just wait until we get into the second half of this year. Global food supplies have already gotten very tight, but it is the food that won’t be produced during this current growing season in the northern hemisphere that will be the real problem. Worldwide fertilizer prices have doubled or tripled, the war in Ukraine has greatly reduced exports from one of the key breadbaskets of the world, a nightmarish bird flu pandemic is wiping out millions of chickens and turkeys, and bizarre weather patterns are absolutely hammering agricultural production all over the planet. I have often used the phrase “a perfect storm” to describe what we are facing, but even that phrase really doesn’t seem to do justice to the crisis that we will be dealing with in the months ahead. The following are 18 signs that food shortages will get a lot worse as we head into the second half of 2022…
#1 The largest fertilizer company on the entire planet is publicly warning that severe supply disruptions “could last well beyond 2022”…
The world’s largest fertilizer company warned supply disruptions could extend into 2023. A bulk of the world’s supply has been taken offline due to the invasion of Ukraine by Russia. This has sparked soaring prices and shortages of crop nutrients in top growing areas worldwide; an early indication of a global food crisis could be in the beginning innings.Bloomberg reports Canada-based Nutrien Ltd.’s CEO Ken Seitz told investors on Tuesday during a conference call that he expects to increase potash production following supply disruptions in Russia and Ukraine (both major fertilizer suppliers). Seitz expects disruptions “could last well beyond 2022.”
#3 It is being reported that global grain reserves have dropped to “extremely low” levels…
“Global grains stocks remain extremely low, an issue that has become amplified because of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
“We think it will take at least 2-3 years to replenish global grains stocks,” Illinois-based CF Industries Holdings Inc.’s president and chief executive officer Tony Will said in a statement in Wednesday’s earnings report.
#4 Due to the war, agricultural exports from Ukraine have been completely paralyzed…
Nearly 25 million tonnes of grains are stuck in Ukraine and unable to leave the country due to infrastructure challenges and blocked Black Sea ports including Mariupol, a U.N. food agency official said on Friday.The blockages are seen as a factor behind high food prices which hit a record high in March in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, before easing slightly in April, the FAO said on Friday.
#5 The out-of-stock rate for baby formula in the United States has now reached 40 percent…
The out-of-stock rate for baby formula hovered between 2% and 8% in the first half of 2021, but began rising sharply last July. Between November 2021 and early April 2022, the out-of-stock rate jumped to 31%, data from Datasembly showed.That rate increased another 9 percentage points in just three weeks in April, and now stands at 40%, the statistics show. In six states — Iowa, South Dakota, North Dakota, Missouri, Texas and Tennessee — more than half of baby formula was completely sold out during the week starting April 24, Datasembly said.
#6 In six U.S. states, the out-of-stock rate for baby formula has actually risen to 50 percent or greater.
#7 Searches for the phrase “how to make homemade formula for babies” on Google have spiked 120 percent.
#8 We are being told that this is a “perfect storm” as shelves become increasingly bare at food banks all around the nation.
#9 In Canada, more than 1.7 million chickens and turkeys have already been lost in recent months due to the global bird flu pandemic.
#10 In the United States, more than 37 million chickens and turkeys have already been wiped out due to the global bird flu pandemic.
#11 The two largest reservoirs in California, Shasta Lake and Lake Oroville, have both fallen to “critically low levels”.
#12 Some communities in southern California won’t be able to make it through the coming summer months without “significantly cutting back” on their water usage.
#13 Many of the largest lakes around the world are currently in the process of disappearing because they are rapidly drying up.
#14 Wildfires continue to absolutely devastate agricultural land all across the western half of the United States. This weekend, it was New Mexico’s turn to be hit the hardest…
After a few days of calm that allowed some families who had fled wildfires raging in northeast New Mexico to return to their homes, dangerous winds picked up again Sunday, threatening to spread spot fires and complicate work for firefighters.More than 1,500 firefighters were on the fire lines at the biggest blaze east and northeast of Santa Fe, which grew another 8 square miles (20 square kilometers) overnight to an area more than twice as large as the city of Philadelphia.
#15 We are being told that steak prices in the United States will “keep rising” in the days ahead.
#16 Due to hail and frost, the Spanish apricot crop is going to be way below expectations…
In Spain, the latest forecasts suggest production will not reach 60,000 tonnes, compared with 110,000 tonnes in 2019 and 100,000 tonnes in 2020 and 90,000 tonnes in 2021.In Murcia, where around two-thirds of Spain’s apricot production is located, farmers in the Mula River and northwest regions have been forced to write off the entire season following a severe hailstorm on Monday which not only resulted in the loss of the fruit, but also caused widespread damage to trees.
#17 Overall, Spanish fruit production is expected to drop to the lowest level in 40 years.
#18 Kansas Senator Roger Marshall is openly warning that a horrifying worldwide famine is coming…
The war in Ukraine will lead to a worldwide famine in the next two years, warned Sen. Roger Marshall (R-Ky.), who serves on the Senate Agriculture Committee, warned on Tuesday.“You know I’m a big agriculture guy. Twelve, 15 percent of the agriculture products – corn and wheat, sunflower oil – come through that Black Sea, so— and fertilizers come from that area as well, so there actually is going to be a famine one to two years from now. I think two years from now will be even worse,” he told Fox Business’s “Mornings with Maria Bartiromo” on Tuesday.
The alarm bells are ringing.
Are you listening?
In all of the years that I have been writing, I have never seen anything even close to this, and this crisis is only going to intensify as the months roll along.
MM Comments
As I have often said, and I will repeat, Americans and those in the West seem to think that if inflation, shortages, or tax increases happen inside America that they will ALSO happen globally. That is not true.
Keep that in mind.
Teenagers in the 1960s
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PLAY THE FORBIDDEN NOTE!
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Supply Chains
Fragile supply chains are facing a new headwind amid Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and a new COVID-19 lockdown in one of China’s manufacturing hubs.
Shipping giants including Switzerland-based MSC, Denmark’s Maersk, and France’s CMA CGM announced this month that they would halt cargo bookings to and from Russia until further notice, joining the growing list of companies to shun Moscow over its invasion of Ukraine.
And on Tuesday, after Russia signed a law enabling domestic airlines to keep planes leased from foreign companies, Maersk announced that it’s trying to retrieve tens of thousands of shipping containers from the country.
“We have about 50,000 of our containers in Russia today,” Maersk Chief Executive Soren Skou said. “Most of them are empty, they are our property. We need them, and we are very reluctant to leave them in Russia. For this reason, we still have some port calls in Russia.”
Former US Marine and UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter:
2022-04-28 – How to End the War Now – UN Chief Weapons Inspector Scott Ritter – 2 MINUTES LINK
2022-04-11 – Scott Ritter and the Battle of the Donbas (with Gonzolo Lira) – 1hr 17min LINK
2022-04-08 – SCOTT RITTER with Gerald Celente – Ukraine War Could Have Been Avoided but Here’s Why Putin Will Achieve His Goals – 54 min LINK
Col. Douglas Macgregor on Tucker Carlson – The American Military is in Trouble: MacGregor – 4 min LINK
Col. Richard Black – After serving 31 years in the Marines and in the Army, Black then served in the Virginia House of Delegates from 1998 to 2006, and in the Virginia Senate from 2012 to 2020. U.S. Leading World to Nuclear War – 1hr 10 min LINK
LIVE COVERAGE FROM UKRAINE
Gonzalo Lira – A Chilean citizen married to a Ukrainian who’s been reporting live from Kyiv and Karkhiv since the beginning of the war.
Gonzalo started live reporting from his hotel in Kiev at the beginning of the invasion. He relocated to Kharkiv after the first week. This is his original channel, with videos from March 3 to April 12 (his videos from Feb 26 to March 1 have been deleted). LINK
Gonzolo Lira II – After being detained by Ukrainian secret police, he lost access to his original channel. He’s now posting short daily updates here: LINK
INDEPENDENT JOURNALISTS
Alex Christoforou – Daily updates and news commentary from Athens, Greece LINK
The Duran – Panel discussions of current events with Alexander Mercouris, Alex Christoforou, and Gonzolo Lira, plus guests like Scott Ritter: LINK
iEarlGrey – LIVE IN Saint Petersburg, Russia. News from the ‘other side’ from an English ExPat. LINK
Diner in New York in 1960s
new york 1966 1967 kodachrome 09
Update those damned spam filters (pun intended)
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China ‘Deeply Alarmed’ By SpaceX’s Starlink Capabilities That Is Helping US Military Achieve Total Space Dominance
China doesn’t simple hold it’s collective dick in it’s hands. China takes action. I am sure that things are in process.
A recent commentary in the official newspaper of the Chinese armed forces suggested that the international community should be on high alert for the risks associated with the Starlink satellite internet system, as the US military could potentially use it for dominating outer space.
The commentary came one day ahead of SpaceX’s launch of the Falcon 9 rocket that took off on May 6 from Launch Complex 39A at Kennedy Space Center, carrying 53 Starlink internet satellites to the low-earth orbit (LEO).
“SpaceX has decided to increase the number of Starlink satellites from 12,000 to 42,000 – the program’s unchecked expansion and the company’s ambition to use it for military purposes should put the international community on high alert,” said the article on China Military Online, the official news website affiliated with the Central Military Commission (CMC), China’s highest national defense organization headed by President Xi Jinping himself.
Speech by the President of Russia at the military paradeVladimir Putin: Dear citizens of Russia!
Dear veterans!
Comrade soldiers and sailors, sergeants and foremen, midshipmen and ensigns!
Comrade officers, generals and admirals!
I congratulate you on the Great Victory Day!
The defense of the Motherland, when its fate was being decided, has always been sacred. With such feelings of genuine patriotism, the militia of Minin and Pozharsky rose for the Fatherland, went on the attack on the Borodino field, fought the enemy near Moscow and Leningrad, Kyiv and Minsk, Stalingrad and Kursk, Sevastopol and Kharkov.
So now, these days you are fighting for our people in the Donbass. For the security of our Motherland - Russia.
May 9, 1945 is forever inscribed in world history as a triumph of our united Soviet people, their unity and spiritual power, an unparalleled feat at the front and in the rear.
Victory Day is near and dear to each of us. There is no family in Russia that was not scorched by the Great Patriotic War. Her memory never fades. On this day, in the endless stream of the "Immortal Regiment" - children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren of the heroes of the Great Patriotic War. They carry photographs of their relatives, fallen soldiers who have remained forever young, and veterans who have already left us.
We are proud of the unconquered, valiant generation of victors, that we are their heirs, and it is our duty to keep the memory of those who crushed Nazism, who bequeathed us to be vigilant and do everything so that the horror of a global war does not happen again.
And therefore, despite all the disagreements in international relations, Russia has always advocated the creation of a system of equal and indivisible security, a system that is vital for the entire world community.
In December last year, we proposed to conclude an agreement on security guarantees. Russia called on the West to an honest dialogue, to search for reasonable, compromise solutions, to take into account each other's interests. All in vain. The NATO countries did not want to hear us, which means that in fact they had completely different plans. And we saw it.
Openly, preparations were underway for another punitive operation in the Donbass, for an invasion of our historical lands, including Crimea. In Kyiv, they announced the possible acquisition of nuclear weapons. The NATO bloc has begun active military development of the territories adjacent to us.
Thus, a threat that is absolutely unacceptable to us was systematically created, moreover, directly at our borders. Everything indicated that a clash with neo-Nazis, Bandera, on whom the United States and their younger partners staked, would be inevitable.
I repeat, we have seen how the military infrastructure is unfolding, how hundreds of foreign advisers began to work, there were regular deliveries of the most modern weapons from NATO countries. The danger grew every day.
Russia gave a preemptive rebuff to aggression. It was a forced, timely and only right decision. The decision of a sovereign, strong, independent country.
The United States of America, especially after the collapse of the Soviet Union, started talking about its exclusivity, thereby humiliating not only the whole world, but also its satellites, who have to pretend that they do not notice anything and meekly swallow it all.
But we are a different country. Russia has a different character. We will never give up love for the Motherland, faith and traditional values, the customs of our ancestors, respect for all peoples and cultures.
And in the West, these thousand-year-old values, apparently, have decided to cancel. Such moral degradation became the basis for cynical falsifications of the history of the Second World War, inciting Russophobia, praising traitors, mocking the memory of their victims, erasing the courage of those who won and suffered the Victory.
We know that American veterans who wanted to come to the parade in Moscow were effectively banned from doing so. But I want them to know that we are proud of your exploits, your contribution to the common Victory.
We honor all the soldiers of the allied armies - Americans, British, French - participants in the Resistance, brave soldiers and partisans of China - all who defeated Nazism and militarism.
Dear comrades!
Today, the militiamen of Donbass, together with the fighters of the Russian Army, are fighting on their own land, where the combatants of Svyatoslav and Vladimir Monomakh, the soldiers of Rumyantsev and Potemkin, Suvorov and Brusilov, fought the enemy, where the heroes of the Great Patriotic War - Nikolai Vatutin, Sidor Kovpak, Lyudmila Pavlichenko fought to the death.
I am now addressing our Armed Forces and the Donbass militia. You are fighting for the Motherland, for its future, so that no one forgets the lessons of the Second World War. So that there is no place in the world for executioners, punishers and Nazis.
Today we bow our heads before the blessed memory of all whose lives were taken by the Great Patriotic War, before the memory of sons, daughters, fathers, mothers, grandfathers, husbands, wives, brothers, sisters, relatives, friends.
We bow our heads before the memory of the martyrs of Odessa, who were burned alive in the House of Trade Unions in May 2014. Before the memory of the elderly, women and children of Donbass, civilians who died from ruthless shelling, barbaric strikes of neo-Nazis. We bow our heads before our comrades-in-arms, who died the death of the brave in a righteous battle - for Russia.
A moment of silence is announced.
(Moment of silence.)
The death of each of our soldiers and officers is a grief for all of us and an irreparable loss for relatives and friends. The state, regions, enterprises, public organizations will do everything to provide such families with care and help them. We will give special support to the children of the dead and wounded comrades. The Presidential Decree on this was signed today.
I wish the wounded soldiers and officers a speedy recovery. And I thank the doctors, paramedics, nurses, medical staff of military hospitals for their selfless work. A low bow to you for fighting for every life - often under fire, on the front line, not sparing yourself.
Dear comrades!
Now here, on Red Square, soldiers and officers from many regions of our vast Motherland stand shoulder to shoulder, including those who arrived directly from the Donbass, directly from the combat zone.
We remember how Russia's enemies tried to use bands of international terrorists against us, tried to sow national and religious enmity in order to weaken and split us from within. Nothing succeeded.
Today, our fighters of different nationalities are together in battle, covering each other from bullets and shrapnel like brothers.
And this is the strength of Russia, the great, indestructible strength of our united multinational people.
Today you are defending what your fathers and grandfathers, great-grandfathers fought for. For them, the highest meaning of life has always been the well-being and security of the Motherland. And for us, their heirs, devotion to the Fatherland is the main value, a reliable support for the independence of Russia.
Those who crushed Nazism during the Great Patriotic War showed us an example of heroism for all time. This generation of winners, and we will always look up to them.
Glory to our valiant Armed Forces!
For Russia! For victory!
Hooray!
A victim of the telephone
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A Misty English Wood
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Beef Pasties (Esfiha fechada)
This is the Brazilian version of “meat pies”. OMG! Unique taste. Nice size. Yum! This recipe doesn’t seem to be anything more than a basic meat pie… plain. You can consider this to be the basics for future meat pie exploations. And this version is very compatable with Western diets; read “American tastes”.
Anyone doing this in 2015…
Artist Makes His Characters Have Unexpected Twists And It Works Very Well 626a39ba8e81b 880
“US watched its colonies slipping away.”
The US gains nothing from holding Europe captive but loses EVERYTHING from losing Europe. Largest EU trading partner is China. Trains run from Shanghai and Wuhan into Germany every week carrying laptops and other goods across Russia. It is far faster than by ship.That is now halted.That is the whole purpose of the Ukraine War. Now China intends to use Mariupol as a port at the end of the train line and avoid Malucca Straits and Suez Canal.Merkel signed an Investment Treaty with China during German presidency of European Council and US was incandescent under Trump. Conte as PM in Italy signed wide-ranging treaties with China including Yellow Brick Road Treaty -US watched its colonies slipping away.-Paul Greenwood
Rome right after world war II
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The atmosphere and photographic challenge of the English forest…
2 3zzz1
Brazilian Pastel – Easy Meat Pie Recipe
But, yeah. This is even BETTER! Note the VERY UNIQUE ingredients that really KICK the flavors and uniqueness! I especially love the green olives and hard boiled eggs mixed with the ground hamburger.
The Devil made Him do it!
Artist Makes His Characters Have Unexpected Twists And It Works Very Well 626a39d360d2d 880
"Unlike the Germans, the Russian people don’t forget.
"Sadly, I cannot say the same thing about the American people. There will be no Victory in Europe celebration in the United States this year, just as there hasn’t been for years past. We have forgotten our “Greatest Generation” and the sacrifices they made for our future. There is no American “Immortal Regiment” of family members marching proudly down the main streets of US towns and cities honoring the cause for which these young men and women served.
"We have forgotten what they even fought for....
"Instead, the United States is providing succor to the present-day adherents of Bandera, and by extension, Hitler; their hateful ideology disguised as Ukrainian nationalism. American military personnel, whose traditions are born from the heroic sacrifices made by hundreds of thousands of their fellow soldiers, sailors, and airmen who gave their lives to defeat Nazi Germany, are today providing weapons and training to Ukrainians whose bodies and banners bear the markings of Hitler’s Third Reich.
"On May 9, Russia will celebrate Victory Day, marking the 77th anniversary of the defeat of Nazi Germany. Unfortunately, the struggle against Nazi ideology continues to this day and, sadly, the United States finds itself on the wrong side of history, supporting those whom we once were sworn to defeat, while fighting against those whom we once called allies."
The Deep, Dark history documenting decades of such “succor” Ritter omits although he knows it, but I don’t condemn him for the omission as very few of those his letter addresses will be provided an opportunity to read it since Free Speech and Press are cancelled. Perhaps barflies might share his letter with those still able to appreciate its contents since standing up for your country–in my case the USA–means being very much opposed to those aiding Fascists & Nazis while destroying their own people and lying about it all every step of the way.
It’s not just Russia. It’s China as well.
They HAVEN’T forgotten.
So very stunning!
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How to Make Beef Shawarma at Home
A Middle Eastern classic street food, shawarma can be made with beef, chicken, lamb or a combination, but it is all about the spice mix to give the authentic flavor.
MurderBOT
Artist Makes His Characters Have Unexpected Twists And It Works Very Well 626a39cc120b6 880
The deep, dark and moist misty forest
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The Stock Market Carnage That You Have Been Waiting For Is Here
A lot of people out there have been waiting for this stock market bubble to implode for a really long time. Well, the wait is now over. Stock prices have been falling for months, but what we have witnessed within the past couple of weeks has been absolutely breathtaking. Trillions upon trillions of dollars worth of paper wealth has been suddenly wiped out, and many investors are panic selling in a desperate attempt to lock in profits before the market completely collapses.
On Monday, the Dow lost another 600 points, but the really big news continues to be the staggering declines for both the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq…
The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 653.67 points to 32,245.70, or 1.99%. The S&P 500 fell 3.2% to settle at 3,991.24, while the Nasdaq Composite lost 4.29% to 11,623.25.
It has been stunning to see these sorts of numbers day after day.
One long-time market veteran actually used the word “violent” to describe what we have been witnessing…
“I’ve been in the markets for 25 years and I’ve never seen anything like this,” said Danielle DiMartino Booth, CEO and chief strategist for Quill Intelligence, a Wall Street and Federal Reserve research firm. “It’s violent not just volatile.”
Sadly, she is right on target. Things have already gotten really crazy, but many believe that the most chaotic chapters of this market implosion are still ahead of us.
The S&P 500 just dropped below 4,000 for the first time in more than a year, and I am already seeing people talk about what will happen when it falls to 3,000.
As for the Nasdaq, it has already plummeted 27 percent from the all-time record high.
Needless to say, that puts the Nasdaq well into bear market territory.
Tech stocks were crushed once again to begin the week, with some of the biggest names leading the way…
Rising rates continued to crush technology names such as Meta Platforms and Alphabet, which lost 3.7% and 2.8%, respectively. Amazon, Apple and Netflix all fell more than 5%, 3% and 4%, respectively, while Tesla and Nvidia plunged more than 9% each.
Ouch!
And check out these numbers for all of 2022 so far…
Palantir Technologies, which went public in September 2020 via a direct listing amid enormous hype and hoopla, has now earned a much coveted spot in my Imploded Stocks column.Today, Palantir reported another huge loss, this time $101 million, on $446 million in revenues, bringing its total loss over the past four years, to $2.86 billion. Its revenue outlook for Q2 was below what Wall Street expected. Shares [PLTR] kathoomphed 22% so far today, and 84% from the peak in January 2021, to $7.40 a new all-time low.
Investors are starting to figure out that trendy “tech companies” that regularly lose hundreds of millions of dollars are not actually good investments.
Cryptocurrencies have been falling dramatically as well.
Bitcoin and other cryptos were hammered really hard once again on Monday, and at this point Bitcoin is down almost 55 percent from the all-time high…
Bitcoin is off nearly 55% from its November peak, and 40% of holders are now underwater on their investments, according to new data from Glassnode.That percentage is even higher when you isolate for the short-term holders who got skin in the game in the last six months when the price of bitcoin peaked at around $69,000.
Those that bought Bitcoin low and got out in time ended up making a killing.
But those that got in at or near the top of the market and just kept holding on are going to get absolutely eviscerated.
Of course that is how the market works. You either eat or you get eaten.
As for what is ahead, many of the experts are fearing the worst. Here is just one example…
“We expect markets to remain volatile, with risks skewed to the downside as stagflation risks continue to increase,” wrote Barclays’ Maneesh Deshpande. “While we cannot discount sharp bear market rallies, we think upside is limited.”
In the short-term, you would think that things should stabilize at some point.
The fact that the Fed recklessly raised interest rates last week really shook a lot of people up, but that wave of panic should soon subside.
The much bigger issue is the outlook for the U.S. economy moving forward. Interestingly, even corporate media outlets are now adopting a very negative tone about what is coming…
Inflation is at a 40-year high. Stock prices are sinking. The Federal Reserve is making borrowing much costlier. And the economy actually shrank in the first three months of this year.Is the United States at risk of enduring another recession, just two years after emerging from the last one?
Even without another unexpected “trigger event”, the U.S. economy should get progressively worse throughout the remainder of 2022.
But as I have detailed in my last couple of books, I believe that we have entered a time in history when unexpected “trigger events” will come fast and furious.
Keep a close eye on the Middle East for the rest of this year, and we will all want to carefully watch how the global food crisis develops.
When people don’t have enough food, violence tends to erupt. We saw this during the Arab Spring of 2011, and we will undoubtedly see similar eruptions in the months ahead.
Only this time around, the food shortages that we are facing threaten to develop into a long-term phenomenon.
In all my years of writing, I have never been more concerned about what is in front of us.
We have already been hit by crisis after crisis so far in 2022, but it looks like the second half of this year is going to be even crazier than the first half.
Last week, sources leaked to The New York Times that, in Ukraine’s targeting and killing of Russian generals and the sinking of Russia’s Black Sea flagship, the Moskva, U.S. intelligence played an indispensable role.
Apparently, our intel people identified and located for the Ukrainian forces what became the targets of their deadly attacks.
Why U.S. intelligence would do this seems inexplicable.
By claiming credit for Ukraine’s most visible military successes, we diminish the achievements of that country’s own forces.
By bragging publicly that we helped engineer the killing of Russian generals and the sinking of the cruiser Moskva, we taunt Russian President Vladimir Putin. We provoke him into retaliating in kind against us, thereby raising the possibility of a wider U.S.-Russia war that could escalate into World War III.
Moreover, U.S. boasting like this plays right into Putin’s narrative that Russia is facing and fighting in Ukraine a U.S.-led alliance that is out to crush Russia.
Indeed, why are we going beyond assistance to the Ukrainians in defending themselves, into making this American’s war?
When Speaker Nancy Pelosi arrived in Poland following her visit to Kyiv, she virtually embraced the idea of the Ukraine-Russia war as now being America’s war, declaring, “America stands with Ukraine. We stand with Ukraine until victory is won.”
Accompanying Pelosi to Kyiv was a delegation of House Democrats, one of whom, Rep. Jason Crow of Colorado, echoed Pelosi in Poland:
“The United States of America is in this to win.”
Their visit followed that of Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, who came out of Kyiv and declared the U.S. strategic goals in Ukraine’s war:
“We want to see Russia weakened to the degree that it can’t do the kind of things it has done in invading Ukraine.”
These statements by U.S. leaders reinforce Putin’s line that Russia is besieged by a U.S.-led Western alliance that fears and detests Mother Russia and wishes to see her defeated and diminished.
Our enemies in the West who seek to destroy Russia are like those we fought in the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945, Putin now claims. And intervention in Ukraine was necessary to prevent today’s neo-Nazis from dragging Ukraine into their larger conspiracy to destroy Russia.
Consider Putin’s words of a week ago:
“The forces that have always pursued a policy of containing Russia … do not want such a huge and independent country that is too big for their ideas … They believe it endangers them simply by the fact of its existence, although this is far from reality. It is they who endanger the world.”
We are hated for who and what we are, says Putin. And our military operation is an act of legitimate self-defense against the same kind of “Nazi filth” we fought in the Great Patriotic War.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov describes the recent surge in heavy Western weapons shipments to Ukraine as “NATO … going to war with Russia through a proxy and arming that proxy.”
By cutting Republicans out of her delegation to Kyiv, Pelosi appears to want to make the war not only America’s war, but her party’s cause.
That seems to be a motive as well behind Biden’s consciously exceeding any Western leader in the language he uses on Putin, calling him a “killer,” a “murderous dictator,” a “pure thug,” a “butcher,” a “war criminal,” guilty of “genocide,” who “for God’s sake … cannot remain in power.”
Such language is designed to showcase Biden as the world’s leading anti-Putinist and the most morally outraged of all the world’s leaders at what Russia is doing in Ukraine.
But, again, like the public boasting of U.S. intel agents over our role in the sinking of the Moskva and killing of the Russian generals, the effect is to disqualify the U.S. president from any role in negotiating a truce or an end to this war.
How do we benefit from having no leader-to-leader communication with the Kremlin, which President John F. Kennedy retained in the Cuban missile crisis to end it?
NATO Europe, which is supporting the Ukrainian resistance, is not on board with the U.S. plans to cripple Russia permanently.
America needs to recognize that our objectives in this war are not the same as Ukraine’s.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy would like to have the U.S. plunge in and fight alongside Kyiv, devastate and defeat the Russian army, and expel Russia not only from the regions invaded this year but also from Crimea, which Putin annexed in 2014 .
America’s vital interests in this war, however, are to prevent it from becoming a U.S.-Russia war or a third world war or a nuclear war.
The U.S. goal of imposing a crushing defeat of Russian aggression is secondary to our far more vital interest in avoiding a U.S.-Russia war.
America’s interests are best served by an early and negotiated peace. Such a goal rules out imposing humiliating terms on Russia, which cause Moscow and Putin to escalate militarily — to survive politically.
Patrick J. Buchanan is the author of “Nixon’s White House Wars: The Battles That Made and Broke a President and Divided America Forever.”
Sergey Glazyev: For those who still don’t understand
Machine Translation and then checked and finessed by the Saker Blog Translators
I will try to briefly explain and justify the necessary measures to achieve Victory
A special military operation (SVO) revealed a plan prepared in advance by the US power and financial elite to seize power in Russia. It includes the following components and stages.
1. Wear out the Russian armed forces in a war with well-trained and directly controlled by the Pentagon fighters of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, “stitched” by the Nazis with a vertical of officers appointed by the US and British special services. Turn the population of Ukraine into zombies infected with Russophobia. At the same time, incite the international community against Russia, making accusations of war crimes and genocide against its leadership. On this basis, confiscate Russia’s foreign currency assets and impose total sanctions against it, causing the maximum possible damage. This stage is actually completed.
2. Terrorize the Russian population with shelling of border settlements and military infrastructure, sabotage of transport, and hacker attacks. Hit the public consciousness with a flood of negative fake news and anti-government propaganda through social networks. To impose, through their agents of influence in the financial and economic authorities, an economic policy that blocks the mobilization of resources, including: inflating interest rates, continuing the export of capital, encouraging currency and financial speculation, manipulating the ruble exchange rate, and inflating prices. Thus, the sanctions can be repeatedly aggravated and provoke a collapse in production and a decline in living standards. This stage is in full swing.
3. Provoking protest moods and destructive socio-political actions aimed at overthrowing the legitimate authorities against the background of falling living standards and losses in the course of their activities. The use of the entire arsenal of methods for organizing “color revolutions” financed by the Comprador oligarchy under the promise of unfreezing assets seized in the US-European jurisdiction. At the same time, we are preparing the organizational and ideological foundations for separatist actions in the regions. This stage is under active development.
This plan also provides for the following tasks::
consolidation of US control over the European Union and NATO countries;
use of the armed forces of Poland, Romania and the Baltic states, as well as mercenaries from the West, the Middle East and the Middle East in combat operations against Russia;
the destruction of the male population and the actual enslavement of women and children of Ukraine for the subsequent development of this territory in the interests of the power and financial elite of the United States, Britain and Israel.
The implementation of this plan, in fact, is aimed at destroying the Russian world, followed by the American “deep state” plans to destroy Iran and block China.
Due to the objective laws of global economic development, this plan is doomed to failure. The United States will not be able to win the global hybrid war it has unleashed to maintain its global hegemony. They are irrevocably losing it to China, which is rapidly strengthening as a result of anti-Russian sanctions.
Washington, London, and Brussels played their main trump cards in an effort to inflict maximum possible damage on Russia: a monopoly on the issue of world currencies, an image of an exemplary legal democratic state, and a belief in the “sacred” right of private property. Thus, they have put all independent countries in front of the need to find new global currency instruments, risk insurance mechanisms, restore the norms of international law and create their own economic security systems.
Anti-Russian sanctions did not strengthen, but, on the contrary, undermined the global dominance of the United States and the EU, which the rest of the world began to treat with distrust and apprehension. They dramatically accelerated the transition to a new world economic order and the shift of the center of the world economy to Southeast Asia. Russia needs to stand up to the United States and NATO in its confrontation, bringing IT to its logical conclusion, so as not to be torn between them and China, which is irrevocably becoming the leader of the world economy.
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.
Gosh. It’s a really crazy world right now, eh? I’ve really been shaken by some of the writings by the United States neocons. They are advocating limited nuclear strikes to “put China in line, and in its place”. Jesus. H. Christ. They have absolutely no idea of what they advocating. It’s horrific.
I’m convinced, now more than ever, that these people have NEVER actually ever been in a situation where they had to deal with blood-thirsty, dead-ass serious, lethal, killers with their back to the wall…
…they are fixing to discover what it is like.
‘Ghost of Kyiv’ hero fighter pilot was myth, Ukraine admits
Of course.
But, it’s nice to know that some one in the many thousands of writers for the big mainsteam media has dusted off their journalistic diplomas and doing some actual “reporting”, for a change.
Vladimir Putin has officially declared a state of emergency in the Belgorod region for 60 days. Reason: The Russian Federation is “under attack” from either foreign military, mercenaries of that foreign military, or terrorists.” Key point: Russia is “under attack.”
Machine auto-translated from image, so font size and scaling is “off.”
2022 05 02 15 03
It isn’t hard to see where this is leading. If Russia is “under attack” they have a right to defend themselves, right? A formal declaration of war, perhaps?
Two days after Russia attacked Ukraine and the day before Vladimir Putin put Russia on nuclear alert, I wrote a little article whose first sentence was: “Not wanting to sound hyperbolic, but I am starting to conclude that the nuclear madmen running the U.S./NATO New Cold War they started decades ago are itching to start a nuclear war with Russia.”
It was an intuition based on my knowledge of U.S./Russia history, including the U.S engineered coup in Ukraine in 2014, and a reading of current events. I refer to it as intuition, yet it is based on a lifetime’s study and teaching of political sociology and writing against war. I am not a Russian scholar, simply a writer with a sociological, historical, and artistic imagination, although my first graduate academic study in the late 1960s was a thesis on nuclear weapons and why they might be someday used again.
It no longer sounds hyperbolic to me that madmen in the declining U.S. Empire might resort, like rats in a sinking ship, to first strike use of nuclear weapons, which is official U.S. policy. My stomach is churning at the thought, despite what most experts say: that the chances of a nuclear war are slight. And despite what others say about the Ukraine war: that it is an intentional diversion from the Covid propaganda and the Great Reset (although I agree it achieves that goal).
My gut tells me no; it is very real, sui generis, and very, very dangerous now.
The eminent scholar Michel Chossudovsky of Global Research agrees that we are very close to the unthinkable. In a recent historical analysis of U.S.-Russia relations and nuclear weapons, he writes the following before quoting Vladimir Putin’s recent statement on the matter. “Vladimir Putin’s statement on February 21st, 2022 was a response to U.S. threats to use nuclear weapons on a preemptive basis against Russia, despite Joe Biden’s “reassurance” that the U.S. would not be resorting to ‘A first strike’ nuclear attack against an enemy of America”:
Let me [Putin] explain that U.S. strategic planning documents contain the possibility of a so-called preemptive strike against enemy missile systems. And who is the main enemy for the U.S. and NATO? We know that too. It’s Russia. In NATO documents, our country is officially and directly declared the main threat to North Atlantic security. And Ukraine will serve as a forward springboard for the strike.” (Putin Speech, February 21, 2022, emphasis added)
Putin is absolutely correct. It is why he put Russia’s nuclear forces on full alert. Only those ignorant of history, which sadly includes most U.S. Americans, don’t know this.
I believe that today we are in the greatest danger of a nuclear war since the Cuban Missile Crisis of October 1962, something I vividly remember as a teenager. The same feelings return. Dread. Anxiety. Breathlessness. I do not think these feelings are misplaced nor they are simply an emotional response. I try to continue writing on other projects that I have started but feel stymied. The possibility of nuclear war, whether intentional or accidental, obsesses me.
In order to grasp this stomach-churning possibility within the context of Ukraine, we need to put aside all talk of morality, rights, international law, and think in terms of great power politics, as John Mearsheimer has so clearly articulated. As he says, when a great power feels its existence is threatened, might makes right. You simply can’t understand world politics without thinking at this level. Doing so does not mean justifying the use of might; it is a means of clarifying the causes of wars, which start long before the first shots are fired.
In the present crisis over Ukraine, Russia clearly feels existentially threatened by U.S./NATO military moves in Ukraine and in eastern Europe where they have positioned missiles that can be very quickly converted to nuclear and are within a few minutes range of Russia. (And of course there are U.S./NATO nuclear missiles throughout western and southern Europe.) Vladimir Putin has been talking about this for many years and is factually correct. He has reiterated that this is unacceptable to Russia and must stop. He has pushed for negotiations to end this situation.
The United States, despite its own Monroe Doctrine that prohibits another great power from putting weapons or military forces close to its borders, has blocked its ears and kept upping the ante, provoking Russian fears. This fact is not in dispute but is shrugged off by U.S./NATO as of little consequence. Such an attitude is pure provocation as anyone with a smidgeon of historical awareness knows.
The world was very lucky sixty years ago this October when JFK and Nikita Khrushchev negotiated the end of the Cuban Missile Crisis before the world was incinerated. Kennedy, of course, was intensely pressured by the military and CIA to bomb Cuba, but he resisted. He also rejected the insane military desire to nuke the Soviet Union, calling such people crazy; at a National Security Council meeting on September 12, 1963, when the Joint Chiefs of Staff presented a report about a nuclear first strike against the Soviet Union which they wanted for that fall, he said, “Preemption is not possible for us.”
Such leadership, together with the nuclear test ban treaty he negotiated with the USSR that month, inter alia (such treaties have now been abrogated by the U.S. government), assured his assassination organized by the CIA. These days, the U.S. is led by deluded men who espouse a nuclear first strike policy, which tells one all one needs to know about the danger the world is in. The U.S. has been very sick with Russia hatred for a long time.
After the terror of the Cuban Missile Crisis, many more people took the threat of nuclear war seriously. Today very few do. It has receded into the ”unimaginable.” In 1962, however, as James W. Douglass writes in JFK and the Unspeakable:
Kennedy saw that, at least outside Washington, D.C., people were living with a deeper awareness of the ultimate choice they faced. Nuclear weapons were real. So, too, was the prospect of peace. Shocked by the Cuban Missile Crisis into recognizing a real choice, people preferred peace to annihilation.
Today the reality of nuclear annihilation has receded into unconsciousness. This despite the recent statements by U.S. generals and the U.S. Ukrainian puppet Zelensky about nuclear weapons and their use that have extremely inflamed Russia’s fears, which clearly is intentional. The game is to have some officials say it and then deny it while having a policy that contradicts your denial. Keep pushing the envelope is U.S. policy. Obama-Biden reigned over the U.S. 2014 coup in Ukraine, Trump increased weapon sales to Ukraine in 2017, and Biden has picked up the baton from his partner (not his enemy) in this most deadly game. It is a bi-partisan Cold War 2, getting very hot. And it is the reason why Russia, its back to the wall, attacked Ukraine. It is obvious that this is exactly what the U.S. wanted or it would have acted very differently in the leadup to this tragedy. All the current ringing of hands is pure hypocrisy, the nihilism of a nuclear power never for one moment threatened but whose designs were calculated to threaten Russia at its borders.
The media propaganda against Russia and Putin is the most extreme and extensive propaganda in my lifetime. Patrick Lawrence has astutely examined this in a recent essay, where he writes the same is true for him:
Many people of many different ages have remarked in recent days that they cannot recall in their lifetimes a more pervasive, suffocating barrage of propaganda than what has engulfed us since the months that preceded Russia’s intervention. In my case it has come to supersede the worst of what I remember from the Cold War decades.
Engulfed is an appropriate word. Lawrence rightly points to this propaganda as cognitive warfare directed at the U.S. population (and the rest of the world) and notes its connection to the January 2021 final draft of a “diabolic” NATO study called “Cognitive Warfare.” He quotes it thus: “The brain will be the battlefield of the 21st century,” . . . “Humans are the contested domain. Cognitive warfare’s objective is to make everyone a weapon.”
This cognitive warfare, however, has a longer history in cutting edge science. For each successive decade beginning with the 1990s and a declaration from President (and ex-Director of the CIA) George H. W. Bush that the 1990s would be the Decade of Brain Research, presidents have announced additional decades long projects involving the brain, with 2000-2010 being the Decade of Behavior Project, followed by mapping of the brain, artificial intelligence, etc. all organized and funded through the Office of Science and Technology Project (OSTP) and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). This medical, military, and scientific research has been part of a long range plan to extend MK-Ultra’s mind control to the population at large under the cover of medical science, and it has been simultaneously connected to the development and funding of the pharmaceutical industries research and development of new brain-altering drugs. RFK, Jr. has documented the CIA’s extensive connection to germ and mind research and promotion in his book, The Real Anthony Fauci: Bill Gates, Big Pharma, and the Global War on Democracy and Public Health. It is why his book is banned from the mainstream media, who do the prime work of cognitive warfare for the government. To put it clearly: these media are the CIA. And the issue of U.S. bio-weapons research and development is central to these many matters, including in Ukraine.
In other words, the cognitive warfare we are now being subjected to has many tentacles connected to much more than today’s fanatical anti-Russian propaganda over Ukraine. All the U.S. wars of aggression have been promoted under its aegis, as have the lies about the attacks of September 11, 2001, the economic warfare by the elites, the COVID crisis, etc. It’s one piece.
Take, for example, a book written in 2010 by David Ray Griffin, a renown theologian who has written more than a dozen books about 9/11. The book is Cognitive Infiltration: An Obama Appointee’s Plan to Undermine the 9/11 Conspiracy Theory. It is a critique of law professor Cass Sunstein, appointed by Obama to be the Administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs. Sunstein had written an article with a plan for the government to prevent the spread of anti-government “conspiracy theories” in which he promoted the use of anonymous government agents to use secret “cognitive infiltration” of these groups in order to break them up; to use media plants to disparage their arguments. He was particularly referring to those who questioned the official 9/11 narrative but his point obviously extended much further. He was working in the tradition of the great propagandists. Griffin took a scalpel to this call for cognitive warfare and was of course a victim of it as well. Sunstein has since worked for the World Health Organization (WHO) on COVID psychological responses and other COVID committees. It’s all one piece.
Sunstein’s wife is Samantha Power, Obama’s Ambassador to the United Nations and war hawk extraordinaire. She gleefully promoted the U.S. destruction of Libya under the appellation of the “responsibility to protect,” a “humane” cover for imperialism. Now she is Biden’s Administrator of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), an arm of the CIA throughout the world. It’s all one piece.
The merry-go-round goes round and round.
I have gone off on this slight tangent to emphasize how vast and interconnected are the players and groups on Team Cognitive Warfare. They have been leading the league for quite some time and are hoping their game plan against Team Russia will keep them there. So far they are winning, as Patrick Lawrence says:
Look at what has become of us. Most Americans seem to approve of these things, or at least are unstirred to object. We have lost all sense of decency, of ordinary morality, of proportion. Can anyone listen to the din of the past couple of weeks without wondering if we have made of ourselves a nation of grotesques?It is common to observe that in war the enemy is always dehumanized. We are now face to face with another reality: Those who dehumanize others dehumanize themselves more profoundly.
Perhaps people are too ignorant to see through the propaganda. To have some group to hate is always “uplifting.” But we are all responsible for the consequences of our actions, even when those actions are just buying the propaganda and hating those one is told to hate. It is very hard to accept that the leaders of your own country commit and contemplate unspeakable evil deeds and that they wish to control your mind. To contemplate that they might once again use nuclear weapons is unspeakable but necessary if we are to prevent it.
I hope my fears are unfounded. I agree with Gilbert Doctorow that the Ukraine-Russia war separates the sheep from the goats, that there is no middle ground. This is not to celebrate war and the death of innocent people, but it does demand placing the blame squarely where it belongs and not trying to have it both ways. People like him, John Mearsheimer, the late badly missed Stephen Cohen, Ray McGovern, Scott Ritter, Pepe Escobar, Patrick Lawrence, Jack Matlock, Ted Postol, et al. are all cutting through the propaganda and delivering truth in opposition to all the lies. They go gentile with fears of nuclear war, however, as if it is somewhat possible but highly unlikely, as if their deepest thoughts are unspeakable, for to utter them would be an act of despondency.
The consensus of the experts tends to be that the U.S. wishes to draw the Russians into a long protracted guerrilla war along the lines of its secret use of mujahideen in Afghanistan in 1979 and after. There is evidence that this is already happening. But I think the U.S. strategists know that the Russians are too smart for that; that they have learned their lesson; and that they will withdraw once they feel they have accomplished their goals. Therefore, from the U.S./NATO perspective, time is reasonably short and they must act quickly, perhaps by doing a false flag operation that will justify a drastic response, or upping the tempo in some other way that would seem to justify the use of nuclear weapons, perhaps tactical at first.
I appreciate the input of the Russia experts I mentioned above. Their expertise dwarfs mine, but I disagree. Perhaps I am an excitable sort; perhaps I am one of those Patrick Lawrence refers to, quoting Carl Jung, as too emotional and therefore incapable of clear thinking. (I will leave the issue of this long held but erroneous western philosophical belief in the division of emotions and thoughts for another day.) Perhaps I can’t see the obvious that a nuclear war will profit no one and therefore it cannot happen. Yet Ted Postol, MIT professor of technology and international security, while perhaps agreeing that an intentional nuclear war is very unlikely, has been warning of an accidental one for many years. He is surely right on that score and well worth listening to.
But either way, I am sorry to say, perhaps because my perspective is that of a generalist, not an expert, and my thinking is informed by art as much as social science and history, my antennae pick up a very disturbing message. A voice tells me that the danger is very, very real today. It says:
The Axis powers, including Germany and Japan, were the foes of the United States and other Allied powers in World War II. Decades later, President George W. Bush chose to term some other nations — Iraq, Iran, and North Korea — as a new “axis of evil.” That was followed by a US invasion and overthrow in Iraq. Decades later, US troops remain in Iraq, and US sanctions and hostility directed at the other two nations continue.
This week, the United States House of Representatives is set to bring the Axis designation back to the big time — seeking to lump China in with Russia as the new Axis powers the US should be devoted to opposing. The movement toward a new world war — the first one with nuclear powers on both sides — grows stronger.
The House is scheduled to consider the AXIS Act (HR 7314) this week. “AXIS” in the title is the kind of ridiculous acronym that has become common in US legislation. It stands for “Assessing Xi’s Interference and Subversion.” “Xi” is Xi Jinping, the leader of China’s government.
The AXIS Act is being considered under suspension of the rules. Legislation deemed noncontroversial by House leadership can be considered under suspension of the rules in which there is usually a relatively brief House floor debate. Suspension legislation is also often passed by voice vote on a nearly empty house floor. Pressing forward toward World War III is not controversial? For many oblivious House members that probably is the case.
The AXIS Act starts off with a series of findings attempting to paint China as an aider of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The accusations included are underwhelming: China and Russia made a strategic partnership announcement a few weeks before the invasion; China abstained from voting on resolutions condemning the invasion in the United Nations Security Council and General Assembly; China has not publicly condemned the invasion.
That’s it. The resolution implicitly admits its backers cannot really tie China to supporting the invasion of Ukraine. Still the resolution proceeds, in what it states is the “sense of Congress,” to bluster that …
“the People’s Republic of China’s disinformation efforts relating to the Russian Federation’s war against Ukraine make it culpable in whitewashing Russia’s war crimes, which include the indiscriminate killing of countless Ukrainian men, women, and children.”
It is the second and final listed “sense of Congress” that is the heart of the resolution and that holds the threat of increased animosity toward China and the potential eruption of World War III. It states that it is the sense of Congress that,
“if China is found to be materially supporting Russia in its war against Ukraine, there should be swift and stringent consequences for China.”
Swift and stringent consequences have already been imposed against Russia. They amount to nearly everything short of US troops fighting against the Russian military, though, with US history as a guide, it should be suspected that US troops are engaged covertly in some military actions against Russians. The US has established expansive sanctions on Russia, extensively blocked investment in and commerce with Russia, and excluded Russia from financial systems including SWIFT that facilitate participation in international trade. The US has also been funding, supplying, and training Ukraine military forces that are fighting against Russians.
In an apparent effort to justify the US treating China similarly, the AXIS Act requires the real experts at depicting other nations as enemies — the Department of State — to…
“submit to the appropriate congressional committees” within 30 days and then every 90 days thereafter “a report on whether and how the People’s Republic of China, including the Government of the People’s Republic of China, the Chinese Communist Party, any Chinese state-owned enterprise, and any other Chinese entity, has provided support to the Russian Federation with respect to its unprovoked invasion of and full-scale war against Ukraine.”
These reports will provide House members keen on ramping up hostilities against China with the steady stream of pro-war propaganda they desire. And have no doubt that the executive branch will be happy to provide such. The Biden administration’s interests are in the same direction as the House members raging at China. President Joe Biden has already been out using the Ukraine War as a reason for threatening China. Indeed, the AXIS Act notes one example of this:
“In his call with Xi Jinping on March 18, 25 2022, President Joe Biden communicated that there would be ‘implications and consequences if China provides material support to Russia as it conducts brutal attacks against Ukrainian cities and civilians’.”
The AXIS Act is a significant step in the effort by Congress members and the Biden administration, using the Ukraine War as an excuse, to direct against China hostilities already directed against Russia, and maybe more.
Most of the backers of this effort probably expect that such actions will not lead to World War III. Hopefully, they are correct in that assessment.
Even if they are correct that the most dire consequences will be avoided, the toll of expanding hostilities against China will still be harsh for people across the world.
For what gain? None is clear.
What is clear is that there is much potential danger ahead and that US politicians are propelling Americans and the world toward it.
Chinese brainstorming…
Think about the implications of this, big picture. The stock market and economy are shaky. China may have to dump everything they own in the US, along with Treasuries. All triggered by the sanctions on Russia from Ukraine.
Chinese state regulators held an emergency conference with major domestic and foreign banks to discuss means to protect the People’s Republic’s assets should the US impose sanctions similar to those it slapped on Russia in February, the Financial Times reports, citing people said to be familiar with the situation.
The meeting, said to have taken place on 22 April, reportedly involved officials from the People’s Bank of China, the country’s powerful central bank, as well as the Finance Ministry. Representatives from every major national bank took part, as did major foreign lenders operating in the Asian nation, such as HSBC, according to the paper’s sources.
An unnamed "senior finance ministry official" was said to have kicked off the meeting by saying Beijing had been "put on alert" of the West’s ability to seize foreign assets by observing what the US and its allies did to Russia.
In March, officials from the Russian Central Bank and the Ministry of Finance reported that the United States and its allies had seized "about $300 billion" of the country’s estimated $642 billion reserve cushion, with the US alone accounting for roughly $100 billion of that. In recent weeks, officials and lawmakers in Washington and Brussels have threatened to confiscate these assets, or transfer them to Ukraine.
Yes. If China disengages from US, the US is without a prayer.
We need them far more than they need us.
For decades they sent us manufactured goods, we gave them pieces of paper called Treasury Bills. That is over.
Then they started taking businesses and land. If they can’t operate a business or make use of the land there is no reason for them to play with us.In theory US could do what it used to do and make stuff.
Before such an adjustment is made the largest part of the population would be dead.
Only reason for China or Russia to engage with US at all is to preserve stability.
When US policy amounts to throwing all the cards in the air and kicking over the table they can’t much help us with stability.-oldhippie
So the Chinese have received a wake up call- they watched as the US/UK walked away with Afghani bank assets, with Venezuelan Gold (Guido seems happy), with Libyan, and Serbian Gold, with Iranian Assets, and of late with Russian bank assets to the tune of $300 Billion.So what can be a rational game plan for the Chinese who have ? $1.5 Trillion in Assets/T bills tied up in the US.
How does one back out of this predicament, and reclaim their value, before the US preys on them???
-AParadiseLost
Caught RED-HANDED!
China recently introduced a new law and policy that discloses the IP address of all Internet users.
Now, as a result of this, many people claiming to be inside of Shanghai and upset about the Coronavirus restrictions have been unmasked.
This policy resulted in the discovery of “Shanghai residents” who have been vocally complaining about their dissatisfaction with China, actually being outside of China, and constructing narratives that paints China in a horrible light.
There are many, many “Chinese accounts” originating out of Taiwan, a handful out of Australia and Japan, and a large group from both the UK, and Canada. All of which pretend to be Chinese residents inside of Shanghai.
This has forced Chinese social media, as well as foreign social media (operating inside of China) to suspend many of these fake accounts. As a result, many of these individuals are suddenly stopping their Internet activities using China social media.
So anyone on wechat etc, will now notice that there are suddenly less rubbish materials and postings critical of China.
One such “caught” faux-Shanghai “resident”…
An Dong, an IT support staffer for the EU delegation, often expressed candid political takes and spoke in favor of democratic principles on WeChat. His account has previously been suspended “likely as a result of his political views,”per the Wall Street Journal.
Ten countries open accounts to pay for gas from Russia, Hungary says – The Frontier Post
MOSCOW (RIA Novosti): In addition to Hungary, nine European countries have opened Russian bank accounts to pay for natural gas under the scheme proposed by Moscow, Gergely Gouyash, head of Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s office, told Rádió Kossuth.
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“Hungary has opened a euro account, to which the price of gas in euros is credited, and then the bank converts it into rubles… In addition to us, nine other countries do this, but they do not say that they do the same, simply because in Europe now “being good for Europe” means that the leadership of the country does not speak honestly with its people and in international life,” he said.
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The politician once again reminded that the European Union has not adopted any sanctions that make it impossible to pay for Russian gas in rubles, this is regulated by a civil law agreement between states and companies.
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Earlier, Hungarian Foreign Minister Szijjarto also emphasized that some European companies importing natural gas from Russia agreed to the payment scheme proposed by Russia, but they do not talk about it honestly and spread false information about the position of Hungary with the help of Western media.
In turn, Orban noted that the country is ready to pay for Russian gas in rubles, and Szijjártó pointed out that the cessation of supplies to Bulgaria will not affect transit to Hungary.
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On March 23, Russian President Putin announced the transfer of payment for natural gas supplies to the EU countries and other states that have introduced restrictive measures against Russia into rubles in order to abandon the use of dollars and euros in calculations. Then the president si-gned a corresponding dec-ree and said that if unfriendly countries did not pay in rubles from April 1, then Russia would consider this a default on gas contracts.
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According to the new scheme, Gazprombank will open special currency and ruble accounts for foreign buyers to pay for gas. The buyer will be able to transfer funds to the first acc-ount in the currency specified in the contract for the supply of “blue fuel”, the b-ank will sell it on the Mos-cow Exchange, after which it will credit rubles to the account of the buyer of gas and from this account settlements will be made with gas supplier – Gazprom”.ARTICLE
German energy firm Uniper ready to meet Russian pay demand – BBC News
Question: What do you think is at the root of the Ukrainian crisis? What can the international community do to solve this problem?
Sergey Lavrov: When we talk about the Ukrainian crisis, first of all we need to look at the destructive policy of the Western states conducted over many years and led by the United States, which set a course to knock together a unipolar world order after the end of the Cold War. NATO’s reckless expansion to the East was a key component of those actions, despite the political obligations to the Soviet leadership on the non-expansion of the Alliance. As you know, those promises were just empty words. All these years, NATO infrastructure has been moving closer and closer to the Russian borders.
The West was never concerned about the fact that their actions grossly violated their international obligations not to strengthen their own security at the expense of the security of others. In particular, Washington and Brussels arrogantly rejected the initiatives put forward by Russia in December 2021 to ensure our country’s security guarantees in the west: to stop the expansion of NATO, not to deploy armaments that pose a threat to Russia in Ukraine and to return the Alliance’s military infrastructure to the 1997 configuration, when the NATO-Russia Founding Act was signed.
It is well-known that the United States and NATO member states have always viewed Ukraine as a tool to contain Russia. Over the years, they have actively fuelled anti-Russia sentiments there, forcing Kiev to make an artificial and false choice: to be either with the West or with Moscow.
It was the collective West that first provoked and then supported the anti-constitutional coup d’etat in Kiev in February 2014. Nationalists came to power in Ukraine and immediately unleashed a bloody massacre in Donbass, and set the course on the destruction of everything Russian in the rest of the country. Let me remind you that it was precisely because of this threat that the people of Crimea voted in a referendum for the reunification with Russia in 2014.
Over these past years, the United States and its allies have done nothing to stop the intra-Ukrainian conflict. Instead of encouraging Kiev to settle it politically based on the Minsk Complex of Measures, they sent weapons, trained and armed the Ukrainian army and nationalist battalions, and generally carried out the military-political development of Ukraine’s territory. They encouraged the aggressive anti-Russia course pursued by the Kiev authorities. In fact, they pushed the Ukrainian nationalists to undermine the negotiating process and resolve the Donbass issue by force.
We were deeply concerned about the undeclared biological programmes implemented in Ukraine with Pentagon’s support in close proximity to the Russian borders. And, of course, we could not disregard the Kiev leadership’s undisguised intentions to acquire a military nuclear potential, which would create an unacceptable threat to Russia’s national security.
In these conditions, we had no other choice but to recognise the Donetsk and Lugansk people’s republics and launch the special military operation. Its aim is to protect people from genocide by the neo-Nazis, as well as to demilitarise and denazify Ukraine. I would like to stress that Russia is acting to fulfil its obligations under bilateral agreements on cooperation and mutual assistance with the DPR and LPR, at the official request of Donetsk and Lugansk under Article 51 of the UN Charter on the right to self-defence.
The special military operation launched on February 24 is progressing strictly in accordance with the plan. All its goals will be achieved in spite of our opponents’ counteractions. At the moment we are witnessing a classic case of double standards and hypocrisy of the Western establishment. By publicly supporting the Kiev regime, NATO member states are doing everything in their power to prevent the completion of the operation by reaching political agreements. Various weapons are flowing endlessly into Ukraine through Poland and other NATO countries. All of this is being done under the pretext of “fighting the invasion”, but in fact the United States and the European Union intend to fight Russia “to the last Ukrainian.” They do not care at all about the fate of Ukraine as an independent subject of international relations.
The West is ready to jeopardise the energy and food security of entire regions of the globe to satisfy its own geopolitical ambitions.What ither explanation is there for the unrestrained flywheel of anti-Russian sanctions launched by the West with the start of the operation and which they aren’t thinking of stopping?
If the United States and NATO are truly interested in settling the Ukrainian crisis, then, first, they must come to their senses and stop supplying weapons and ammunition to Kiev. The Ukrainian people do not need Stingers and Javelins; what they need is a solution to urgent humanitarian issues.Russia has been doing this since 2014. During this time, tens of thousands of tonnes of humanitarian cargo have been delivered to Donbass, and about 15,000 tonnes of humanitarian aid have already arrived in the part of Ukraine liberated from the Kiev regime, the DPR and the LPR, since the launch of the special military operation.
Second, it is essential that the Kiev regime stops cynical provocations, including in the information space. Ukrainian armed formations are barbarically shelling cities using civilians as living shields. We saw examples of this in Donetsk and Kramatorsk. Captured Russian servicemen are being abused with animal cruelty, and these atrocities are being posted online. At the same time, they use their Western patrons and global media controlled by the West to accuse the Russian army of war crimes. As they say, laying the blame at somebody else’s door.
It is high time for the West to stop unconditionally whitewashing and covering up for Kiev. Otherwise, … Washington, Brussels and other Western capitals should consider their responsibility for complicity in the bloody crimes perpetrated by the Ukrainian nationalists.
Question: What measures has Russia taken to protect the lives and property of civilians? What efforts has it made to establish humanitarian corridors?
Sergey Lavrov: As I mentioned earlier, the special military operation is proceeding according to plan. Under this plan, the Russian military personnel are doing everything in their power to avoid victims among civilians. Blows are carried out with high-precision weapons, first of all at military infrastructure facilities and places where armoured vehicles are concentrated. Unlike the Ukrainian army and nationalist armed groups that use people as living shields, the Russian army provides the locals with all kinds of assistance and support.
Humanitarian corridors open daily from Kharkov and Mariupol to evacuate people from dangerous districts, but the Kiev regime demands that the “national battalions” in control of those areas do not release the civilians. Nevertheless, many are able to leave with the assistance of Russian, DPR and LPR servicemen. During the special military operation, the hotline of the Interdepartmental Coordination Headquarters of the Russian Federation for Humanitarian Response in Ukraine has received requests for assistance in evacuating 2.8 million people to Russia, including 16,000 foreign citizens and employees of UN and OSCE international missions. In total, 1.02 million people have been evacuated from Ukraine, the DPR and LPR, of which over 120,000 are citizens of third countries, including over 300 Chinese nationals. There are over 9,500 temporary accommodation facilities operating in Russian regions. They have space for rest and hot meals, and everything that may be necessary. Newly arrived refugees are provided with qualified medical and psychological assistance.
Russia is taking measures to ensure civilian navigation in the Black and Azov seas. A humanitarian corridor opens daily, a safe lane for ships. However, Ukraine continues to block foreign ships, creating a threat of shelling in its internal waters and territorial sea. Moreover, Ukrainian naval units have mined the shore, the ports and territorial waters. These explosive devices disconnect from their anchor lines and drift into the open sea, so they pose a serious danger to both the fleets and the port infrastructure of the Black Sea countries.
Question: Since the special military operation was launched in Ukraine, Western counties have adopted a large number of unprecedented sanctions against Moscow. How do you think these sanctions will affect Russia? What are the main countermeasures taken by Russia? Some say that a new Cold War has begun. How would you comment on that?
Sergey Lavrov: It is true that the special military operation was used by the collective West as a pretext to unleash numerous restrictions against Russia, as well as its legal entities and individuals. The United States, Great Britain, Canada and EU countries do not conceal that their goal is to strangle our economy by undermining its competitiveness and blocking Russia’s progressive development. At the same time, the Western ruling circles are not embarrassed by the fact that anti-Russian sanctions are already beginning to harm ordinary people in their own countries. I mean the declining economic trends in the United States and many European countries, including growing inflation and unemployment.
It is clear that there can be no excuse for this anti-Russian line and it has no future. As President Vladimir Putin said, Russia has withstood this unprecedented pressure. Now the situation is stabilising, though, of course, not all risks are behind us.
In any case, they will not succeed in weakening us. I am confident that we will restructure the economy and protect ourselves from our opponents’ possible illegitimate and hostile actions in the future. We will continue to give a fitting and adequate response to the imposed restrictions, guided by the goal of maintaining the stability of the Russian economy and its financial system, as well as the interests of domestic businesses and the entire nation. We will focus our efforts on de-dollarisation, de-offshorisation, import substitution, and promotion of technological independence.We will continue to adapt to external challenges and step up development programmes for promising and competitive industries.
During the period of turbulence, our retaliatory special economic measures needed to ensure the normal functioning of the Russian economy will be continued and expanded. As a responsible player on the international market, Russia intends to continue scrupulously fulfilling its obligations under international contracts on export deliveries of agricultural products, fertilisers, energy carriers and other critical products. We are deeply concerned about a possible food crisis provoked by the anti-Russian sanctions, and we are well aware how important the deliveries of essential goods, such as food, are for the socioeconomic development of Asian, African, Latin American, and Middle Eastern countries.
I will be brief as regards the second part of your question. Today we are not talking about a new “cold war,” but, as I said earlier, about the persistent desire to impose a US-centric model of the world order coming from Washington and its satellites, who imagine themselves to be “arbiters of humankind’s fate.” It has reached the point where the … Western minority is trying to replace the UN-centric architecture and international law formed after World War II with their own “rule-based order.” These rules are written by Washington and its allies and then imposed on the international community as binding.
We must realise that the United States has been carrying out this destructive policy for several decades now. It is enough to recall NATO’s aggression against Yugoslavia, attacks on Iraq and Libya, attempts to destroy Syria, as well as the colour revolutions that Western capitals staged in a number of countries, including Ukraine. All of this came at the cost of hundreds of thousands of lives and resulted in chaos in various regions of the planet.
The West tries to crudely suppress those who carry out an independent course in their domestic and foreign policy. Not just Russia. We can see how bloc thinking is being imposed in the Asian-Pacific Region. We can recall the Indo-Pacific strategy promoted by the United States, which has a pronounced anti-China tendency. The US seeks to dictate the standards according to which Latin America should live, in the spirit of the outdated Monroe Doctrine. This explains many years of the illegal trade embargo on Cuba, sanctions against Venezuela, as well as attempts to undermine stability in Nicaragua and other countries. The pressure on Belarus continues in the same context. This list can go on.
It is clear that the collective West’s efforts to oppose the natural course of history and solve its problems at the expense of others are doomed. Today the world has several decision-making centres; it is multipolar. We can see how quickly Asian, African, and Latin American countries are developing. Everyone is getting a real freedom of choice, including where it comes to choosing their development models and participation in integration projects. Our special military operation in Ukraine also contributes to the process of freeing the world from the West’s neocolonial oppression heavily mixed with racism and a complex of exceptionalism.
The faster the West accepts the new geopolitical situation, the better it will be for the West itself and for the entire international community.
As President Xi Jinping said at the Boao Forum for Asia, “We need to uphold the principle of indivisible security, build a balanced, effective and sustainable security architecture, and oppose the pursuit of one’s own security at the cost of others’ security.”
Question: Russian-Ukrainian talks have attracted close attention of the international community. What are the main obstacles to the talks today? How do you regard the prospects of a peace treaty between the two parties? What kind of bilateral relations does Russia intend to have with Ukraine in the future?
Sergey Lavrov: At present the Russian and Ukrainian delegations are holding discussions on the possible draft almost daily, via videoconference. This document should contain such elements of the post-conflict situation as permanent neutrality, the non-nuclear, non-bloc and demilitarised status of Ukraine, as well as guarantees of its security. The agenda of the talks also includes denazification, recognition of the new geopolitical reality, the lifting of sanctions and the status of the Russian language, among other things. Settling the situation in Ukraine will make a significant contribution to the de-escalation of the military and political tensions in Europe and the world in general. The establishment of an institution of guarantor states is envisaged as a possible option. First of all, they will be the permanent members of the UN Security Council, including Russia and China. We share information on the progress in the talks with Chinese diplomats. We are grateful to Beijing and other BRICS partners for their balanced position on the Ukrainian issue.
We are in favour of continuing the talks, although the process is difficult.
You are right to ask about the obstacles. For example, they include the militant rhetoric and incendiary actions of Kiev’s Western patrons. They are actually encouraging Kiev to “fight to the last Ukrainian,” pumping the country with weapons and sending mercenaries there. Let me note that the Ukrainian security services staged a crude bloody provocation in Bucha with the help of the West, to complicate the negotiation process among other things.
I am confident that agreements can only be reached when Kiev starts to be guided by the interests of the Ukrainian people, and not the advisors from far away.
Speaking about Russian-Ukrainian relations, Russia is interested in a peaceful, free, neutral, prosperous and friendly Ukraine. Despite the current administration’s anti-Russian course, we remember the many centuries of all-embracing cultural, spiritual, economic and family ties between Russians and Ukrainians. We will definitely restore these ties.
Simple Cajun Seasoning
Here is a simple way to make Cajun seasoning using normal kitchen spices.
seasoning mix
Ingredients
Original recipe yields 20 servings
Directions
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Poland and NATO: Sneaking Troops Around; Forbids Public Photos/Videos!
The Polish Government has announced that Large-Scale Military Exercises will be taking place across the Country beginning today involving the Polish Military and multiple NATO Member States. Heavy Military Equipment is expected to be seen on Highways and roads around the Country.
This, the world already knew about. What’s very different this time is as follows:
The Polish State Security Service has requested that people refrain from Photographing or Posting about Military Movements including Aircraft landings and take-offs, people who do continue to publicly document Allied Military Movements are subject to prosecution.
The Polish State Security Ministry has threatened Fines and Jail Time for posting pictures and announcing Force Movements over Social Media since the Russian Invasion of Ukraine began, though so far no Polish Citizens have been prosecuted.
There has been covert intelligence coming out of Poland which CLAIMS (not yet confirmed) that Poland and perhaps other nations are planning to put armed troops into western Ukraine as “peace keepers.” HOWEVER, along with such rumors are other CLAIMS (also not verified) that Poland intends a land grab f western Ukraine; to reincorporate what was once actual Polish territory before World War 2, back into Poland. These claims are Furiously DENIED by the Poland government.
Yet, given the announcement by Polish security services, that the public must not take photos, video or make troop movement postings on social media, one has to wonder why all the secrecy? If Poland is not going to send troops into Ukraine, why the secrecy?
It is widely believed by many seasoned observers that if Poland tries to insert troops into Ukraine, they would be immediately engaged by Russian armed forces, regardless of Poland’s stated purposes.
American Georgetown professor advocates doubling the United States defense spending so as to have a war with both China and Russia simultaneously
Current spending; United States budget is…
2022 05 02 15 09
So it’s not enough. More military spending must occur! Double the spending. Is this even possible?
Ok. I knew that the United States was run by idiots, but this is over the top.
2022 05 02 14 16
Russia’s chip technology is backward, why is its weaponry advanced?
2022-05-02 13:08 HKT
As we all know, chips are the soul of information-based weapons and equipment. A country’s chip level directly determines the advanced level of weapons and equipment. If the ranking is based on revenue, in 2020, the United States will account for 6 of the world’s top ten semiconductor manufacturers. , South Korea accounted for 2, Japan accounted for 1, Xiaowan accounted for 1.
2022 05 02 14 39
If the ranking is based on R&D expenditure, personnel size, etc., the ranking is different, but without exception, no Russian company can make the list.
From the current point of view, Russia’s chip research capabilities are not strong. Compared with the United States and Europe, its chip level is at least 10 years different.
Due to this, you can’t see any popular mobile phones, cars and household appliances in Russia. Many civilian products in Russia are subject to chip technology, and there are almost no sales in the world, and of course there is no sense of existence.
Although Russia’s chip technology is not strong, its weapons and equipment are extremely advanced. This is also an important reason why Russia’s arms trade has been ranked second in the world for many years.
According to Western media reports, in 2019, the GPS system of the United States covering the Middle East was suppressed by the interference of mysterious electromagnetic waves, and it was completely paralyzed in a period of time, which interrupted civil and military communications in Israel and other countries. reached thousands of square kilometers.
The U.S. military immediately analyzed it and believed that the electronic interference was carried out by Russia, because Russia has a Khomeimim air base in Syria, which contains the Russian electronic warfare system. The U.S. military judged the distance and believed that the interference signal was the Khomemim airbase. Sent from Memim Air Force Base.
The Russian army was able to use the electronic warfare system to effectively interfere with the GPS of the US military, causing many of the US military’s precision-guided weapons to fail under the interference of the Russian army. This also shows that the Russian military’s electronic warfare equipment is still extremely advanced.
Russian weapons and equipment have always given people the impression of being stupid and clumsy, and it is difficult to create very small and delicate electronic warfare equipment.
Chip technology is listed as a key technology by the United States. The United States and other Western countries not only block chip technology from Russia, but also impose embargoes on high-performance chips. Russia’s chip technology is backward, and Russia, which does not have high-performance chips, why is its weaponry so advanced?
To figure this out, we have to figure out why Russia’s chip technology lags behind?
Russia’s chip technology and foundation were inherited from the Soviet Union, which implemented a planned economic system, and the Soviet Union divided labor among countries and regions, such as East Germany producing precision instruments, Vietnam planting rice, Ukraine farming and raising cattle, and Kazakhstan picking cotton. Belarus-made trucks, etc.
At that time, microelectronics was an absolute high-tech, and all the republics wanted to develop. In order to balance the interests of the various republics, the Soviet Union split and distributed the production of microelectronics to the republics. This led to the disintegration of the Soviet Union. The electronics industry is very fragmented in various republics and cannot form a complete industrial chain.
Because the Soviet Union implemented a planned economic system, all microelectronics units and enterprises belong to the state, and of course they all eat financially, so it doesn’t matter if they make money or not. The key microelectronics products must be able to ensure national defense and security, because there is no market competition. , so the efficiency is not high.
At the beginning of the Cold War, integrated circuit technology was just emerging, and integrated circuits had two development routes, namely the transistor route and the electron tube route.
As far as electronic tubes and transistors are concerned, transistors are small in size, low in power consumption and long in service life, and have obvious advantages over electronic tubes. It can be said that transistors are a more advanced form of electronic tubes.
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But also because transistors are small and advanced, there are many failures, and the anti-interference and anti-radiation capabilities are weak. Under the conditions of nuclear war, the anti-radiation capabilities of electron tubes are much stronger than that of transistors. At that time, in terms of volume, transistors were smaller than electron tubes, but The technology back then was not much smaller.
Although the technology of electron tubes and transistors has developed, the development of transistor technology is faster, especially the miniaturization of transistors, and later it has developed to the nanometer level, which is probably not expected by the Russians.
The disintegration of the Soviet Union has left Russia with a mess. The development of light and heavy industries is uneven, and the semiconductor industry is lagging behind, especially in chip technology. Russia wants to catch up, but it has more than enough energy.
Compared with other industries, the semiconductor industry requires continuous technological iteration. It is not only a technology-intensive industry, but also a capital-intensive industry. It not only requires a large amount of investment, but also requires a certain market scale, and requires a long period of accumulation.
When Russia was first established, shock therapy was implemented. As a result, the economy was seriously regressed, and private enterprises were even more backward. In addition to the troubles in Chechnya, Russia was forced to launch two Chechnya wars in 1994 and 1999. Although Chechnya was eventually conquered by Russia, it also cost a fortune. Russia’s treasury is empty.
After 2000, Russia’s economy began to recover, but in 2008, it fought a war in Georgia. In 2011, the economy just turned a few years ago. In 2014, the Crimea crisis occurred again. emptied the treasury.
Coupled with the constant sanctions by the United States, a large number of scientific and technological talents have been lost, and without capital injection, most of the budding private enterprises have died prematurely.
For example, there is a Yoga Devices mobile phone company in Russia, which produces the YotaPhone series of smartphones, and its YotaPhone 3 mobile phone also won the 2018 German iF Design Award.
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But the company went bankrupt in 2019. Because the Russian domestic market is limited, mobile phones from China, the United States and South Korea are very competitive, and there is not much capital injection, the Russian mobile phone company eventually went bankrupt.
The premature death of this Russian mobile phone company is just a microcosm of the development of the Russian electronics industry.
Because Russia does not have many civilian electronic products, there is not much demand for chips. Today’s Russian civilian consumer electronics market only accounts for less than 2% of the global share.
The American Semiconductor Industry Association released a research report in which Americans estimated that Russia’s semiconductor purchases accounted for less than one thousandth of the global total.
Most of today’s consumer goods require chips, such as mobile phones, automobiles, home appliances, computers, etc. It is precisely because Russia’s chip technology is backward and the United States has imposed a strict blockade on high-performance chips, which has led to the development of civilian products that require chips in Russia. If it fails, Russia’s economy can only be supported by energy and military industries.
This creates a vicious circle, and it is expected that Russia’s economy will become increasingly difficult due to chip technology.
Russia’s chip technology is backward, but why is the military industry developed? This is related to Russia’s anti-sky system engineering capabilities.
What is systems engineering capability? To use an analogy, with the same stack of wood, ordinary people can build houses, but experts can build warships, planes, and cannons. This is the ability of systems engineering.
Anyone who has watched Romance of the Three Kingdoms knows that Zhuge Liang can use ordinary wood to create a wooden cow and a horse. This wooden cow and horse can be used to transport military rations and is a means of transportation that surpasses the level of technology at the same time. Zhuge Liang’s ability to create a wooden cow and a horse depends on the system engineering ability.
We can compare the phased array radars of the United States and Russia. The signal processing part of the American Patriot phased array radar uses advanced digital chips, so the flight speed of the detection target can be quickly calculated.
Russia does not have high-end chips at all, so it replaced the chip with an “other-excited crystal oscillator”. This “other-excited crystal oscillator” is an outdated analog circuit design. Integrated circuits are smaller.
Therefore, Russia’s air defense missile phased array radar is larger than that of the United States, and it looks a bit stupid and bulky, but from the perspective of core indicators, it is at the same level as the United States, and its anti-jamming performance is stronger than that of the United States.
Americans have specially studied the Russian S300 radar, and they are full of praise for the performance of this radar. They believe that this radar is “high-performance, low-cost, and low-power consumption”, and they evaluate the Russians’ ability to innovate independently.
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That is to say, Americans use the most advanced components and advanced assembly technology to create advanced equipment, while Russian components are not advanced, but relying on the system engineering capabilities against the sky, they can also create advanced equipment.
Russian equipment can be said to be cheap and not beautiful, but it is very easy to use.
Some people say that if you give the Russians a pile of scrap metal, the Americans can only sell it as scrap iron, but the Russians can become a big killer that sweeps away thousands of troops.
On September 6, 1976, Belenko, a pilot of the Soviet Air Defense Air Force, flew a MiG-25 fighter through Japan’s tight air defense network and stopped at Hakodate Airport in Japan, which surprised Japan and the United States. In front of 25 fighters, Japan’s air defense system is useless.
After the Americans got the news, they immediately sent technicians to Japan to study the MiG-25 fighter plane. The plane was disassembled and transported to the Baili Air Force Base in central Japan.
As a result, the American technicians were very surprised that the material of this fighter was very common, mainly made of stainless steel, only a little titanium alloy was used for the key parts, and the welding was done by hand, and the workmanship was relatively rough.
The radar of the aircraft has a huge power of 600 kilowatts, but the main components are outdated vacuum tube components, not advanced solid-state electronic components, so the radar volume is large, but it is more suitable for extreme high temperature, and also reduces the avionics equipment compartment. cooling requirements.
Americans looked at these backward technology and rough parts, but they couldn’t figure out how the Soviets turned it into a fighter with excellent performance. The Americans adjusted the performance parameters of the next-generation heavy fighter based on the performance of the MiG-25, and finally gave birth to the F-15 fighter.
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There are two main reasons why the Russians have such incredible systems engineering capabilities:
One is that Russia’s high-end manufacturing industry is underdeveloped, and it cannot make the most advanced weapons with the most advanced chips like the Americans. Instead, it can only use less advanced chips to make weapons and equipment that can compete with the West.
This dilemma of “smart women can’t cook without rice” made the Russians have to improve their systems engineering capabilities to solve the problems, and the Russians’ systems engineering capabilities were also forced out.
Today’s Russia can make low-end chips, mainly to meet the needs of the military, because the military’s demand is small and cannot be produced on a large scale, and of course it cannot be industrialized.
Practice has proved that it is feasible to solve a specific problem with super system engineering capabilities, but after all, this is not a long-term solution. For any industry, the return on investment must be considered. Can not increase R & D investment, is not conducive to long-term development.
China’s early chip development also encountered this problem. To solve this problem, marketization can only be implemented under the guidance of the state.
Second, Russia’s super-strong systems engineering capabilities benefit from Russia’s solid level of basic theoretical research, because only by mastering basic theoretical knowledge can we support the ideas and assumptions of systems engineering.
For example, the Italian painter Leonardo da Vinci, the teacher always asked him to repeat the painting of eggs. In fact, the teacher asked him to do basic skills, and Da Vinci felt very tired at first.
The teacher told Da Vinci that eggs in the world are not absolutely the same. Even if it is the same egg, standing at different angles, the projected light is different, and the drawing is also different. Therefore, painting eggs is a basic skill. Once you have mastered it, you can draw anything.
Da Vinci, who was very intelligent, listened to the teacher’s words, and began to paint eggs carefully and patiently. Eventually, he laid a good foundation for painting and became a world-renowned painter.
The author is an engineering graduate. The author has a feeling that if you want to find a paper with a certain degree of mathematical foundation, then you can find references in the paper, and then find the references in the paper. Within five steps of iteration, it must be Russian. Literature.
Don’t look at American higher education, but when it comes to basic education, especially basic mathematics education, Russia is stronger, and basic education in the United States cannot even (?) keep up with China.
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If the basic theory is regarded as the starting point and the product is regarded as the end point, only by thoroughly understanding the basic theory can we design the best route from the starting point to the end point of the product.
Russia has its own unique features in this regard, which are worthy of our study and reference, and also worthy of our deep reflection.
America Wants War with China – Why This American is Saying No!
Pretty damn good.
Cheeseburger Buns
My mom stuffs soft homemade yeast rolls with ground beef, tomato sauce and cheese to make these tasty sandwiches. They’re great leftovers, too. My son takes them in his lunch the next day. —Nancy Holland, Morgan Hill, California
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Ingredients
2 packages (1/4 ounce each) active dry yeast
1/2 cup warm water (110° to 115°)
3/4 cup warm whole milk (110° to 115°)
1/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup shortening
1 large egg
1 teaspoon salt
3-1/2 to 4 cups all-purpose flour
1-1/2 pounds ground beef
1/4 cup chopped onion
1 can (8 ounces) tomato sauce
8 slices process American cheese, quartered
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Directions
In a large bowl, dissolve yeast in warm water. Add the milk, sugar, shortening, egg, salt and 2 cups flour; beat until smooth. Stir in enough remaining flour to form a soft dough.
Turn onto a floured surface; knead until smooth and elastic, about 4-6 minutes. Place in a greased bowl, turning once to grease top. Cover and let rise in a warm place until doubled, about 30 minutes.
In a large skillet, cook beef and onion over medium heat until meat is no longer pink; drain. Stir in tomato sauce. Remove from the heat; set aside.
Punch dough down; divide into 16 pieces. On a lightly floured surface, gently roll out and stretch each piece into a 5-in. circle. Top each circle with two pieces of cheese and about 3 tablespoons beef mixture. Bring dough over filling to center; pinch edges to seal.
Place seam side down on a greased baking sheet. Cover and let rise in a warm place until doubled, about 20 minutes. Bake at 400° for 8-12 minutes or until golden brown. Serve warm. Refrigerate leftovers.
American neocon leadership advocate nuclear war with China to “put them in their place”
That will trigger a MASSIVE bludgeoning of the United States by both Russia and China simultaneously.
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An e-mail from You-Tube explaining things…
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RUSSIAN TV
Tonight (Sunday) Russian television broadcast a simulation of Russia launching a SARMAT missile, with its fifteen nuclear warheads, against Britain! The TV commentator says the UK – their little island – will be wiped out. Here, look:
Not only did the Russian Television network show this to the entire country, but they went even farther . . . finally admitting what has long been rumored about Russia having developed a 100 MEGA-ton nuclear drone torpedo. Look at what the Russian people were told on their TV’s tonight: Plunge Britain into the sea by Tsunami from a nuclear torpedo drone!
In the U.S., perhaps one of the most useful idiots in Congress, Representative Adam Kinzinger of Illinois, a complete political moron the best part of whom likely dripped down his father’s leg, has introduced a Joint Resolution in Congress authorizing the Use of military force (AUMF) inside Ukraine “if Russia uses chemical, biological, or nuclear weapons.”
In my opinion, that Joint Resolution would _really_ be a US declaration of war on Russia. Let’s not fool ourselves with the diplomatic language.
By the time that law is passed, the USA will likely already be at war with Russia, everything else is diplomatic trifles.
A Giant Statue From Old Trash Movies Is Now Rests In Someone’s Backyard
According to a Tumblr user trulyunpleasant:
“This statue is a couple miles from where I live, just sitting in someones backyard. It was in two crappy Atlantis sword-and-sandal movies back in the 50′s/60′s. Then it sat on top of a bar (or club) for a few years, and then someone bought it for their house.”
It’s a Hell of a thing to have lying around.
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Video: Col. Richard Black: U.S. Leading World to Nuclear War
Mike Billington of the Schiller Institute interviewed (former) Senator and Col. (ret) Richard Black, who served 31 years in the US Marines and Army.
Sen. Black talked about his military service in Syria, how and why Russia got involved in the war militarily, and how such involvement contrasts with the US’ and NATO’s justification for military intervention in the said war.
Sen. Black also addresses the recent Russian military invasion of Ukraine and the failure to dissolve NATO.
40.12: Colonel Black focusses on the risk of World War III.
“The decision of Peace or War is made in Washington DC,
As long as we [US government] want the war to continue, we will fight using the Ukrainians as proxies, and we will fight it to last Urainian death”
*
Good New Orleans Creole Gumbo
This is a fine Creole gumbo recipe.
"I learned to cook from my mother and grandmother who were born and raised in New Orleans and really knew how to cook. Most of the time, you could not get them to write down their recipes because they used a 'pinch' of this and 'just enough of that' and 'two fingers of water,' and so on. This recipe is a combination of both of their recipes which I have added to over the years. Serve over hot cooked rice. The gumbo can be frozen or refrigerated and many people like it better the next day. Bon appetit!"
A delicious gumbo.
New Orleans-style gumbo is a true taste of Southern tradition. This boldly flavored stew is bursting with fresh, filling ingredients like bell pepper, sausage, stewed tomatoes, and crabmeat. Hot sauce ad Cajun seasonings add a kick that makes this Lousiana dish a favorite amongst our community of home cooks. Learn how to make the best homestyle gumbo right here.
What Is Gumbo?
Gumbo is one of the most famous dishes to result from Louisiana’s shared Creole-Cajun heritage. Gumbo falls somewhere between a thick stew and a hearty soup and can contain ingredients such as chicken, sausage, ham, seafood, okra, tomatoes, and greens.
As varied as the recipes can be, there are a few ingredients that all gumbos have in common: homemade stock; the “holy trinity” of celery, onions, and green peppers; and roux.
New Orleans Creole Gumbo
How to Make Gumbo
Boldly delicious New Orleans-style gumbo is surprisingly easy to make at home. You’ll find the full recipe below with step-by-step instructions, but here’s what you can expect when you make this top-rated recipe:
Great gumbo starts with roux, a flavorful thickening agent made from equal parts fat and flour. Once the roux is a deep golden color, add diced veggies and sausage to the mix. Then, incorporate beef bouillon, hot sauce, tomatoes, and seasonings to intensify the flavor.
Let the gumbo simmer for 45 minutes before adding file powder, okra, and seafood. The result will be a lusciously hearty stew packed with Creole spice.
What Is Gumbo File?
Gumbo file, or file powder, is made from dried sassafras leaves. This ingredient was first used by Choctaw Indians and was later adopted by Acadians (Cajuns) when they arrived in the American South.
Gumbo file has a deep, earthy flavor similar to thyme and should be added to gumbo in the last minutes of cooking — it helps to thicken and enrich the stew for an authentic taste of New Orleans.
Serving suggestions
You serve it with rice.
New Orleans Creole Gumbo.
How to Store Leftover Gumbo
Leftover gumbo can be stored safely in the refrigerator for three to four days. Let the dish come to room temperature before placing it in an airtight container to enjoy later. Gently reheat on the stovetop for best results.
Community Tips and Praise
“This is one of the best gumbos I’ve ever had and my family is from the South so that is saying a lot — just don’t tell my mother or grandmother,” shares reviewer mellie18_99. “I added shrimp, sausage, chicken, and crab meat.”
“This recipe is the real deal,” raves home cook Pat. “Don’t forget the file gumbo at the very end, it makes a big difference. You will know when the roux is done when it has the color of a Hershey’s milk chocolate bar.”
“This was my very first time making gumbo and my guests who had come over for a King Party loved it!” says Shaw Kitty. “Some of these guests were born and raised Louisianans and they gave their approval as well!”
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Serve with rice!
Ingredients
Original recipe yields 20 servings
Directions
German gas contract with Russia
Even if German stop buying from Russia, German has the contracted obligation to pay $140b through to 2030 independent of Force Majure.
Apparently, the United States neocons have targeted Russia in the belief that she is an easy target to defeat. Then, once “suppressed”, the full weight of combined efforts can then move on to China…
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That is my thought also.
Russia without China is endangered and vice versa.
I heard a saying on The Duran Channel on YouTube which has the knowledgeable and wise Alexander Mercouris as main speaker.
"Russia and China do not stand so much shoulder to shoulder but back to back."
p.s. My piece on CounterPunch and Asia Times today has drawn a lot of commentary. Many said that they felt alone and isolated in their opinion on the US proxy war on Russia in Ukraine. They felt better on reading the piece, because they did not feel alone. I think these people are a little bit more likely to speak their opinions and spread them. I feel good about the essay for that reason.
-John V. Walsh
Russian TV Is Talking Very Frankly About Nuclear War (While America Stands with Ukranus)
The Americans will push until there is a disaster.
-Leander
There are two popular clips going around on social media this week of Russians talking about the inevitability of nuclear war. They are both from Russia 1, which is state television.
Remember that RT is also Russian state media, and not really very well-edited, in terms of promoting a consistent agenda, so given the “shrug” mentality of Russians when it comes to narrative control, I don’t think it’s fair to assume that every talking point is overseen directly by the Kremlin. It seems to be more of a “just follow along with what we’re saying” situation. I am not certain of the situation, as my Russian is not good enough to just sit and watch Russian political talk shows, but I imagine there is quite a bit of leeway in terms of the editorial control of the producers and the commentariat. Certainly, they are much less restrained than analogous Western state propaganda – the BBC or CDC (or for that matter NPR, or for that matter CNN).
However, the fact that “we’re probably going to have a nuclear war lol” is now a major talking point probably means that the Russian government told them to start talking about this. Both clips do it in a sort of “lol ok” manner, which was probably also an idea from the state.
In the first clip, a Russian Duma member starts talking about the time it takes for nukes to hit different targets, and jokes about how there is nothing that Berlin, Paris, or London could do to stop a strike from Kaliningrad. As that bitch Julia Davis notes, the host does kind of push back and say that everyone would die in such a war, but the Senator goes into physical comedy and the host chuckles sensibly.
Again, it is just this kind of “hahahaha – LOL” attitude.
I don’t really know why Westerners are spamming these clips – “look – Russia doesn’t even care about nuclear war and they think it’s funny” does not seem like a good argument in support of pressing for war with Russia.
It’s like if you were trying to get someone to fight someone else and you were like “just go start shit talking that guy – he’s got a gun and he’s not at all afraid of dying or going to prison.”
That’s probably the purpose of these segments – to have them disseminated in the West and show that Russians are really blasé about nuclear war. Julia Davis and many others can’t help but do the thing.
Domestically, telling people “nuclear war is lolz” is just hilarious and intelligent. Having a population that responds to “we’re all going to die in a massive war” with “ikr, roflmao” is extremely advantageous. While the US is talking about “our values of who we are in a democracy rules based order of stolen yachts,” Russia is saying “well, we’re all going to die some day anyway.”
For the record, there is zero evidence or reason to believe that a nuclear war would “kill everyone on earth.” Primarily, this is because of the gibberish surrounding the idea of “nuclear fallout,” and even more goofy stuff like “nuclear winter.”
I like the Fallout video games series, but this isn’t real life. As the Russians say – and this is true – there is not even any evidence that if Russia started firing nukes, the West would even respond. They would more likely just start crying and looking for a safe space for their snowflakes.
American B61 Mini-nukes Deployed in Western Europe
The latest B61-12 “mini nuke” is slated to be deployed in Western Europe, aimed at Russia and the Middle East (replacing the existing of B61 nuclear bombs).
B-61-12 is portrayed as a “more usable” “low yield” “humanitarian bomb” “‘harmless to civilians”. That’s the ideology. The reality is “Mutual Assured Destruction” (MAD).
The B61-12 has a maximum yield of 50 kilotons which is more than three times that of a Hiroshima bomb (15 kilotons) which resulted in excess of 100,000 deaths in matter of minutes.
If a preemptive attack using a so-called mini nuke were to succeed, targeted against Russia or Iran, this could potentially lead humanity into a WW III scenario. Of course these details are not highlighted in mainstream media reports.
F-15E Eagle Strike Eagle Fighter for the Delivery of the B-61-12
Low Yield Nukes: Humanitarian Warfare Goes Live
And when the characteristics of this “harmless” low yield nuclear bomb are inserted into the military manuals, “humanitarian warfare” goes live: “It’s low yield and safe for civilians, let’s use it” [paraphrase].
The US arsenal of B61 nuclear bombs directed against the Russian Federation are currently under the national command of 5 non-nuclear states (Italy, Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, Turkey). The command structure pertaining to the B61-12 is yet to be confirmed. The situation with regard to Turkey’s Incirlik base is unclear.
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The Prodigal.
Yeah. This is the name of the movie that the statue comes from.
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This movie’s title is The Prodigal.
The Prodigal is a 1955 Biblical epic film made by MGM starring Edmund Purdom and Lana Turner. It was based on the New Testament parable about a selfish son who leaves his family to pursue a life of pleasure. The film also features James Mitchell, Louis Calhern, Joseph Wiseman, Cecil Kellaway and Walter Hampden. The dancer Taina Elg made her film debut.
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The story is loosely based on Jesus Christ’s parable of the prodigal son, from the Biblical New Testament Gospels, although considerable liberties are taken with the source material, chief among them being the addition of a female lead in the form of the high priestess of Astarte, Samarra.
With the start of World War III by the United States “declaring” war against Russia by its actions in Ukraine, we have entered a time when the end of time has become very possible. I am speaking of nuclear annihilation.
I look down at my great-uncle’s gold Elgin pocket watch from the 19th century. His name was John Patrick Whalen, an Irish immigrant to the U.S. who fled England’s colonialist created famine in Ireland. It tells me it is 5:15 PM on April 21, 2022, a date, coincidentally, with a history. No doubt John looked at his watch on this date in 1898 when the United States, after the USS Maine exploded from within in Havana harbor (a possible false flag attack), declared war on Spain in order to confiscate Spanish territories – Cuba, Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippines. One colonial power replaced another and then proceeded over the long decades to wage war and slaughter these island peoples. Imperialism never dies. It is timeless.
One hundred-and twenty-four years go by in a flash and it’s still the same old story. In 1898 the yellow press screamed Spanish devils and today it screams Russian devils. Then and now the press called for war. If the human race is still here in another 124 years, time and the corporate media will no doubt have told the same story – war and propaganda’s lies to an insouciant and ignorant population too hypnotized by propaganda to oppose them. This despite the apocalyptic sense that permeates our lives because of demonic technology and its use to transform humans into machines who can’t think clearly enough to perceive reality and realize the threat posed by that quintessential technological invention – nuclear weapons.
This is not uplifting, but it’s true. The nuclear weapons are primed and ready to fly. The U.S. insists on its first-strike right to launch them. It openly declares it is seeking the overthrow of the Russian government. Russia says it will use nuclear weapons only if its existence is threatened, which has become increasingly so because of U.S. provocations over a long time period and its current expanding arming of Ukraine’s government and its neo-Nazi forces.
The Russian President Vladimir Putin and its Foreign Secretary Sergei Lavrov have just warned the U.S. that such involvement has made nuclear war a “serious” and “real” risk, in Lavrov’s words “we must not underestimate it,” which is a mild form of diplomatic speech. Putin said that Russia has made all the preparations to respond if it senses a strategic threat to Russia and that response will be “instant, it will be quick.” The U.S. response is to shrug these statements off, just as it has done so for many years with Putin’s complaints about NATO forces moving up to its border. Incredibly, Biden has said, “For God’s sake, this man (Putin) cannot remain in power.”
Despite endless media/intelligence anti-Russian propaganda – “a vast tapestry of lies,” to use Harold Pinter’s phrase – many fine writers have provided the historical details to confirm the truth that the U.S. has purposely provoked the Russian war in Ukraine by its actions there and throughout Eastern Europe, which the mainstream media avoid completely. This U.S. aggressive history against Russia is part of a much larger history of imperial hubris extending back to the 19th century. I will therefore here follow Thoreau’s advice – “If you are acquainted with the principle, what do you care for a myriad instances and applications?” – since how many times do people need to hear lies such as “Iraq has weapons of mass destruction” in order to justify wars of aggression around the world. The historical facts are very clear, but facts and history don’t seem to matter to many people. Pinter again, in his Nobel Address, bluntly told the truth about the U.S.’s history of systematic and remorseless war crimes: “Nothing ever happened. Even while it was happening it wasn’t happening. It didn’t matter. It was of no interest.” Which is still the case.
So time is my focus, for the last days have arrived unless there occurs a radical awakening to the obvious truth that the U.S. government is pushing the world to the brink of disaster in full awareness of the consequences. Its actions are insane, yet insanity has become the norm. Insane leaders and a catatonic, hypnotized public lead to disaster.
I write these words with an old fountain pen, a high school graduation gift, to somehow comfort and remind myself that when we were this close once before in October 1962, Kennedy and Khrushchev miraculously found a solution to the Cuban Missile Crisis; and to find hope now, and that when my time is up and I join John Patrick in the other world, things will have changed for my children and grand-children. It is admittedly the hope of a desperado.
The last few years of the Covid-19 propaganda have served to further distort people’s sense of time, a distortion years in the making through the introduction of digital technology with its accompanying numerical time clicks and its severing of our natural sense of time that is tied to the rising and falling of the tides and the turning of the days and seasons, a feeling that is being lost. Such felt sense of time’s texture could be slow or faster, but it had limits. We now live in a world without limits, which, as the ancient Greeks knew, demands payback.
For years before Covid-19, the sense of speed time was dominant, supported by the politically-introduced state of a constant emergency after September 11, 2001 with the urgency to hurry and keep up or one would fall behind. Keep up with what was never explained. Hurry why? Fast and faster was the rule with constant busyness that served the very useful social function of leaving no time for thinking, which was the point, but it made many feel as though they were engaged. And constantly alert for “terrorists” to come knocking. Thus the long wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Yemen, etc., all of which continue via various subterfuges.
Then, presto, all this frenzied time sense came to a stop with the 2020 lockdowns, when time got very slow, but not slow in the natural sense but an enforced slowness. People were locked up. Not only was it stupefying but stultifying and an existential drag. This went on for two years with the prisoners allowed short respites only to be rounded back up and locked down again. Jabbed and jolted was the plan. When will it ever end? was the common cry, as despair and depression spread and scrambled minds led to suicides and mindless screen entertainment. This was planned education for a trans-human future in which the cell phone will be central to totalitarian control if people do not rebel.
Those behind the Covid-19 and war propaganda are fanatical technocrats who seek total control of the world’s population through digital technology. Now they have temporarily let the people out of one type of cell and dramatically sped up time with frantic war propaganda against Russia. The great English writer John Berger said it perfectly:
Every ruling minority needs to numb, and, if possible, to kill the time-sense of those whom it exploits. This is the authoritarian secret of all methods of imprisonment.
Everyone is now doing time while scrolling messages on the walls of their cell phones. A twisted, convoluted, distorted, mechanical time in which it seems that there is no history and the future is an endless road of more of the same.
Some say we have all the time in the world. I say no, that we have entered a new time, perhaps the end-time, when the world’s end is a very real possibility. Hypnotized people can agree to anything, even mass-suicide, unless they snap out of it. This can only happen with a return to slowness in the old sense, when people once felt time in their hearts’ rhythms attuned to the rising and falling of nature’s reality. Time to think and contemplate the fate of the earth when nuclear war is contemplated. Yes, “We must not underestimate it.”
It’s about time.
Isn’t it always?
Chinese Style Meat Buns
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If you’ve ever been to a Chinese bakery, you have seen this type of meat buns among many other delicious goodies. These buns are also called pork buns, or Char Siu Bao which basically is a barbecued pork filled bun. They can be either steamed or baked, as in this write-up.
I love both versions, and here in Southern China the steamed buns are the most common. Up North and to the West, the baked buns are very common.
These buns are pretty easy to make. You should love them and they will turn out amazing, and they were gone in no time.
The dough is quite a simple dough with simple ingredients.
In a small bowl, mix the warm water, sugar and yeast and let it sit until it starts foaming, for about 15 minutes. In a large bowl add the flour and to it add the egg, oil, salt and the yeast mixture.
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Mix it all together using your hands, if you find the dough too sticky just add more flour. Knead the dough on a floured surface for a few more minutes, until it becomes elastic. Â Place the dough in a lightly oiled bowl and let it rise until doubled in size, in a warm spot.
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While the dough is resting we can make the filling. I used one pork loin that was about 1 1/2 lb in weight. To make the marinade, is simple as well. Cut up the pork loin in small pieces and set aside. In a medium sized bowl, add the garlic and ginger paste, vegetable oil, honey, Hoisin sauce, soy sauce, wine, pepper, salt, five spice powder, and sesame oil. Whisk everything all together and add the pork to it. Let the pork marinate for about 1 hour, or until the dough is almost ready.
char siu 1 3 750×422 1
Heat a skillet, over medium heat and add a tablespoon of vegetable oil to it. When the oil is hot add the pork mixture including the marinade to it and cook until the pork is cooked thoroughly, for about 5 minutes. Before removing it from heat, add the green onions to it and mix well.
char siu 1 4 750×422 1
After all this is said and done the dough should have doubled in size nicely.
char siu 1 5 750×422 1
Divide the dough into 12 equal pieces. Roll each piece into a ball.
char siu 1 6 750×422 1
Using a rolling pin, roll out each ball into a disc, so that it’s about 4 or 5 inches in diameter. Place heaping tablespoon of the meat mixture in the middle of it.
char siu 1 7 750×422 1
Seal the bun by gathering up the edges of the disc.
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Place the sealed side down bun, on an ungreased baking sheet. Repeat with remaining balls and meat mixture.
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Brush the buns with egg wash and bake in a preheated oven at 350 F degrees for about 15 to 20 minutes or until the buns are nice and golden brown.
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They look so good and are so delicious, you will love them.
char siu 1 12 750×422 1
These Chinese Style Meat Buns also known as Char Siu Bao are delicious pork filled buns, made incredibly easy and so delicious!
In a small bowl, mix the warm water, sugar and yeast and let it sit until it starts foaming, for about 15 minutes. In a large bowl add the flour and to it add the egg, oil, salt and the yeast mixture.
Mix it all together using your hands, if you find the dough too sticky just add more flour. Knead the dough on a floured surface for a few more minutes, until it becomes elastic. Place the dough in a lightly oiled bowl and let it rise until doubled in size, in a warm spot.
Cut up the pork loin in small pieces and set aside. In a medium sized bowl, add the garlic and ginger paste, vegetable oil, honey, Hoisin sauce, soy sauce, wine, pepper, salt, five spice powder, and sesame oil. Whisk everything all together and add the pork to it. Let the pork marinate for about 1 hour, or until the dough is almost ready.
eat a skillet, over medium heat and add a tablespoon of vegetable oil to it. When the oil is hot add the pork mixture including the marinade to it and cook until the pork is cooked thoroughly, for about 5 minutes. Before removing it from heat, add the green onions to it and mix well.
Preheat oven to 350 F degrees.
Divide the dough into 12 equal pieces. Roll each piece into a ball.
Using a rolling pin, roll out each ball into a disc, so that it’s about 4 or 5 inches in diameter. Place heaping tablespoon of the meat mixture in the middle of it.
Seal the bun by gathering up the edges of the disc.
Place the sealed side down bun, on an ungreased baking sheet. Repeat with remaining balls and meat mixture.
Brush the buns with egg wash and bake for about 15 to 20 minutes or until the buns are nice and golden brown.
These were FANTASTIC and I only used ground beef, onion, red pepper flakes, salt and extra monterey jack and mozzarella cheese. The roll is very light and not heavy on the bread like other recipes I've seen. These could be stuffed with pretty much anything. Next time I'm trying chicken and mushroom. I baked an extra 5 minutes to get the right golden color. HIGHLY recommended! YUM.
- Kristi
3 54
Clash of Christianities: Why Europe cannot understand Russia
By Pepe Escobar, posted with the Author’s permission and cross-posted with The Cradle
Under an ubiquitous, toxic atmosphere of cognitive dissonance drenched in Russophobia, it’s absolutely impossible to have a meaningful discussion on finer points of Russian history and culture across the NATO space – a phenomenon I’m experiencing back in Paris right now, fresh from a long stint in Istanbul.
At best, in a semblance of civilized dialogue, Russia is pigeonholed in the reductionist view of a threatening, irrational, ever-expanding empire – a way more wicked version of Ancient Rome, Achaemenid Persia, Ottoman Turkey or Mughal India.
The fall of the USSR a little over three decades ago did hurl Russia back three centuries – to its borders in the 17th century. Russia, historically, had been interpreted as a secular empire – immense, multiple and multinational. This is all informed by history, very much alive even today in the Russian collective unconscious.
When Operation Z started I was in Istanbul – the Second Rome. I spent a considerable time of my late night walks around Hagia Sophia reflecting on the historical correlations of the Second Rome with the Third Rome – which happens to be Moscow, since the concept was first enounced at the start of the 16th century.
Later, back in Paris, banishment to soliloquy territory seemed inevitable until an academic pointed me to some substance, although heavily distorted by political correctness, available in the French magazine Historia.
There’s at least an attempt to discuss the Third Rome. The significance of the concept was initially religious before becoming political – encapsulating the Russian drive to become the leader of the Orthodox world in contrast with Catholicism. This has to be understood also in the context of pan-Slavic theories springing up under the first Romanov and then reaching their apogee in the 19th century.
Eurasianism – and its several declinations – treats the complex Russian identity as double-faced, between east and west. Western liberal democracies simply can’t understand that these ideas – infusing varied brands of Russian nationalism – do not imply hostility to “enlightened” Europe, but an affirmation of Difference (they could learn a bit from reading more Gilles Deleuze for that matter). Eurasianism also weighs on closer relations with Central Asia and necessary alliances, in various degrees, with China and Turkey.
A perplexed liberal west remains hostage to a vortex of Russian images which it can’t properly decode – from the two-headed eagle, which is the symbol of the Russian state since Peter the Great, to the Kremlin cathedrals, the St. Petersburg citadel, the Red Army entering Berlin in 1945, the May 9 parades (the next one will be particularly meaningful), and historical figures from Ivan the Terrible to Peter the Great. At best – and we’re talking academic level ‘experts’ – they identify all of the above as “flamboyant and confused” imagery.
The Christian/Orthodox divide
The apparently monolithic liberal west itself also cannot be understood if we forget how, historically, Europe is also a two-headed beast: one head may be tracked from Charlemagne all the way to the awful Brussels Eurocrat machine; and the other one comes from Athens and Rome, and via Byzantium/Constantinople (the Second Rome) reaches all the way to Moscow (the Third Rome).
Latin Europe, for the Orthodox, is seen as a hybrid usurper, preaching a distorted Christianity which only refers to St. Augustine, practicing absurd rites and neglecting the very important Holy Ghost. The Europe of Christian Popes invented what is considered a historical hydra – Byzantium – where Byzantines were actually Greeks living under the Roman Empire.
Western Europeans for their part see the Orthodox and the Christians from the East (see how they were abandoned by the west in Syria under ISIS and Al Qaeda) as satraps and a bunch of smugglers – while the Orthodox regard the Crusaders, the Teutonic chevaliers and the Jesuits – correctly, we must say – as barbarian usurpers bent on world conquest.
In the Orthodox canon, a major trauma is the fourth Crusade in 1204 which utterly destroyed Constantinople. The Frankish chevaliers happened to eviscerate the most dazzling metropolis in the world, which congregated at the time all the riches from Asia.
That was the definition of cultural genocide. The Frankish also happened to be aligned with some notorious serial plunderers: the Venetians. No wonder, from that historical juncture onwards, a slogan was born: “Better the Sultan’s turban than the Pope’s tiara.”
So since the 8th century, Carolingian and Byzantine Europe were de facto at war across an Iron Curtain from the Baltics to the Mediterranean (compare it with the emerging New Iron Curtain of Cold War 2.0). After the barbarian invasions, they neither spoke the same language nor practiced the same writing, rites or theology.
This fracture, significantly, also trespassed Kiev. The west was Catholic – 15% of Greek catholics and 3% of Latins – and in the center and the east, 70% Orthodox, who became hegemonic in the 20th century after the elimination of Jewish minorities by mainly the Waffen-SS of the Galicia division, the precursors of Ukraine’s Azov batallion.
Constantinople, even in decline, managed to pull off a sophisticated geo-strategic game to seduce the Slavs, betting on Muscovy against the Catholic Polish-Lithuanian combo. The fall of Constantinople in 1453 allowed Muscovy to denounce the treason of Greeks and Byzantine Armenians who rallied around the Roman Pope, who badly wanted a reunified Christianity.
Afterward, Russia ends up constituting itself as the only Orthodox nation that did not fall under Ottoman domination. Moscow regards itself – as Byzantium – as a unique symphony between spiritual and temporal powers.
Third Rome becomes a political concept only in the 19th century – after Peter the Great and Catherine the Great had vastly expanded Russian power. The key concepts of Russia, Empire and Orthodoxy are fused. That always implies Russia needs a ‘near abroad’ – and that bears similarities with Russian President Vladimir Putin’s vision (which, significantly, is not imperial, but cultural).
As the vast Russian space has been in constant flow for centuries, that also implies the central role of the concept of encirclement. Every Russian is very much aware of territorial vulnerability (remember, for starters, Napoleon and Hitler). Once the western borderland is trespassed, it’s an easy ride all the way to Moscow. Thus, this very unstable line must be protected; the current correlation is the real threat of Ukraine made to host NATO bases.
Onward to Odessa
With the fall of the USSR, Russia found itself in a geopolitical situation last encountered in the 17th century. The slow and painful reconstruction was spearheaded from two fronts: the KGB – later FSB – and the Orthodox church. The highest-level interaction between the Orthodox clergy and the Kremlin was conducted by Patriarch Kirill – who later became Putin’s minister of religious affairs.
Ukraine for its part had become a de facto Moscow protectorate way back in 1654 under the Treaty of Pereyaslav: much more than a strategic alliance, it was a natural fusion, in progress for ages by two Orthodox Slav nations.
Ukraine then falls under the Russian orbit. Russian domination expands until 1764, when the last Ukrainian hetman (commander-in-chief) is officially deposed by Catherine the Great: that’s when Ukraine becomes a province of the Russian empire.
As Putin made it quite clear this week: “Russia cannot allow the creation of anti-Russian territories around the country.” Operation Z will inevitably encompass Odessa, founded in 1794 by Catherine the Great.
The Russians at the time had just expelled the Ottomans from the northwest of the Black Sea, which had been successively run by Goths, Bulgars, Hungarians and then Turkish peoples – all the way to the Tatars. Odessa at the start was peopled, believe it or not, by Romanians who were encouraged to settle there after the 16th century by the Ottoman sultans.
Catherine chose a Greek name for the city – which at the start was not Slav at all. And very much like St. Petersburg, founded a century earlier by Peter the Great, Odessa never stopped flirting with the west.
Tsar Alexander I, in the early 19th century, decides to turn Odessa into a great trading port – developed by a Frenchman, the Duke of Richelieu. It was from the port of Odessa that Ukrainian wheat started to reach Europe. By the turn of the 20th century, Odessa is truly multinational – after having attracted, among others, the genius of Pushkin.
Odessa is not Ukrainian: it’s an intrinsic part of the Russian soul. And soon the trials and tribulations of history will make it so again: as an independent republic; as part of a Novorossiya confederation; or attached to the Russian Federation. The people of Odessa will decide.
Louisiana Crawfish Étouffée
In Louisiana, there’s nothing better than this classic during crawfish season. This recipe is easy and can be substituted with shrimp when crawfish are out of season. Even better when served with hot garlic French bread! Start cooking the rice first since this is a quick and easy dish.
Louisiana Crawfish Étouffée.
Ingredients
Original recipe yields 6 servings
Directions
Pretty Chinese Girl
She’s advertising clothes on a a treadmill. video 3MB
America is Preparing for Something Bigger than Russia Ukraine…
Yes. It is VERY disturbing. Especially, as I know how China will react.
Do you want more?
I have more articles like this one in my Art Index here…
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.
You’ll not find any big banners or popups here talking about cookies and privacy notices. There are no ads on this site (aside from the hosting ads – a necessary evil). Functionally and fundamentally, I just don’t make money off of this blog. It is NOT monetized. Finally, I don’t track you because I just don’t care to.
We continue our stroll though this very strange and surreal period of time. Here we cover various “buried” news items, and mix it up with various other subjects used to shake off the troll armies, the robo-‘bots, and the SJW shrills. It works.
We start with some delicious food…
Beef & Rice Stuffed Cabbage Rolls
Just like your parents, and grandparents made. All completely awesome! It’s a fine taste of home. And it fills the house up with a most wonderful aroma.
Beef & Rice Stuffed Cabbage Rolls.
2022 04 22 17 57
Directions
In batches, cook cabbage in boiling water 3-5 minutes or until crisp-tender. Drain; cool slightly. Trim the thick vein from the bottom of each cabbage leaf, making a V-shaped cut.
In a large bowl, combine rice, onion, egg, milk, salt and pepper. Add beef; mix lightly but thoroughly. Place about 1/4 cup beef mixture on each cabbage leaf. Pull together cut edges of leaf to overlap; fold over filling. Fold in sides and roll up.
Place 6 rolls in a 4- or 5-qt. slow cooker, seam side down. In a bowl, mix sauce ingredients; pour half of the sauce over cabbage rolls. Top with remaining rolls and sauce. Cook, covered, on low 6-8 hours or until a thermometer inserted in beef reads 160° and cabbage is tender.
Life as an American
If you are an American, you will understand this. However, if you are Chinese, where there are laws against this sort of thing, it NEVER happens, and so you will remain clueless…
2022 04 22 15 03 1
China is almost ready with Fusion Energy
China has finished researching and developing more than 80 percent of the key technology in fusion energy, and is expected to use the fusion power in 30 to 50 years, a Chinese scientist told the Global Times in an exclusive interview.China is constructing a new grand research facility for fusion technology, the Comprehensive Research Facility for Fusion Technology (CRAFT), which is expected to be completed by 2025. Based on the CRAFT and experimental advanced superconducting tokamak (EAST), or the Chinese "artificial sun," we are planning to build a compact fusion energy experimental reactor to realize the burning of plasma and produce fusion energy, laying a solid foundation for future fusion reactor construction, Hu Jiansheng, deputy director of Institute of Plasma Physics at Hefei Institutes of Physical Science, told the Global Times.After the compact experimental reactor, Hu said he hopes the construction of Chinese Fusion Engineering Test Reactor (CFETR) could be started as soon as possible aiming at future fusion development and application."With all these years of development all over the world, the scientific feasibility of fusion power has been proved. So far China has finished more than 80 percent of the key technology research and development. If the construction of CFETR gets a 'green light,' it's expected that we could achieve the application of fusion energy in about 30 to 50 years," Hu said.
Yes, I know. The cat-callers will say “That’s what they’ve been saying about fusion for the last 50 years, that it will become available 30-50 years hence.” And while that’s true, there was never the experimental successes to back that prognosis; now there are. Just imagine the materials breakthroughs required that weren’t at all possible 10-30 years ago. And with CRAFT, their pace will increase.
With Russian, Chinese and South Korean scientists and engineers doing the primary work on the project, I know it will continue moving forward as the bankrupt and corrupt West can’t afford it nor does it have the technical expertise anymore.
Notice how everything is planned, and then China goes in with force. This is how the Chinese operates. There is no gradual build up of hostilities. They plan. Then they come in in FORCE…This is how it is done!
Information is leaking out of the United Kingdom that the US Navy used its new marine surveillance aircraft to provide accurate targeting data to Ukrainian forces to sink the Russian Black Sea flag ship Moskva on April 13.
Ukraine claimed it fired two Neptune missiles at the Russian warship which was patrolling south of Odesa.
Russia initially claimed the vessel, which had more than 500 crew on board had blown up after a fire onboard.
Later, the Kremlin was forced to admit the vessel – named in honour of the Russian capital – had been taken out by hostile action.
According to information coming out through the British press, a US surveillance P-8 “Poseidon” aircraft, was tracking Moskva in the hours before it was attacked before supplying its location to the Ukrainian military.
The Boeing-made aircraft is based upon the Boeing 737-800 jet – which is widely used by airlines such as Ryanair.
However, instead of passengers, the Poseidon is packed with state-of-the-art surveillance equipment which can track surface vessels and submarines at ranges of more than 100 miles.
According to the claims in British media outlets, the P-8 took off from Italy and took up station on the Romanian Black Sea coast where it attempted to locate the position of the Russian Black Sea fleet.
The P-8 left US Naval Air Station Sigonella in Sicily on April 13, hours before the attack.
Before reaching the Black Sea coastline, the Poseidon turned off its trackers, so it could no longer be followed online.
The aircraft was ‘hidden’ for almost three hours before it returned to Flight Radar 24.
Aviation data analysis Amelia Smith says there were slightly more US aircraft covering the Black Sea coast on the day of the attack.
However, the US Navy refused to confirm if they assisted Ukraine with the attack by providing intelligence data.
A Defense source added: ‘In keeping with our support to NATO’s eastern flank, we have been conducting some limited air patrols off the coast of Romania. But we will not speak to the details of operational matters.’
A fine watch
I really do like this wrist watch.
A fine watch.
If You Can’t Take the Heat, Get Out of the Shower
Taking a shower together can be a very romantic end to the evening, but not everyone has the same water temperature preference. Women tend to prefer hotter showers or baths, and Maya is no exception. She invited Yehuda to join her for a romantic shower, but he didn’t find it as seductive as she did.
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image 71Qle4vEIkIxJ73d
He felt like he was being boiled alive while Maya basked in the scorching water. It seems like women tend to have a higher threshold for pain.
Know your hand signals
9706aad3a8aca4715b17ec604402efd0
Hallstatt, Austria
It certainly looks like a fine place to visit. Don’t you think?
After a preamble dealing with the Covid pandemic, Xi digs into the interrelated issues of security, peace and development:
We need to work together to maintain peace and stability in the world. An ancient Chinese philosopher observed, "Stability brings a country prosperity while instability leads a country to poverty." Security is the precondition for development. We humanity are living in an indivisible security community. It has been proven time and again that the Cold War mentality would only wreck the global peace framework, that hegemonism and power politics would only endanger world peace and that bloc confrontation would only exacerbate security challenges in the 21st century. To promote security for all in the world, China would like to propose a Global Security Initiative as follows:It is important that we stay committed to the vision of common, comprehensive, cooperative and sustainable security, and work together to maintain world peace and security; stay committed to respecting the sovereignty and territorial integrity of all countries, uphold non-interference in internal affairs, and respect the independent choices of development paths and social systems made by people in different countries; stay committed to abiding by the purposes and principles of the UN Charter, reject the Cold War mentality, oppose unilateralism, and say no to group politics and bloc confrontation; stay committed to taking the legitimate security concerns of all countries seriously, uphold the principle of indivisible security, build a balanced, effective and sustainable security architecture, and oppose the pursuit of one's own security at the cost of others' security; stay committed to peacefully resolving differences and disputes between countries through dialogue and consultation, support all efforts conducive to the peaceful settlement of crises, reject double standards, and oppose the wanton use of unilateral sanctions and long-arm jurisdiction; stay committed to maintaining security in both traditional and non-traditional domains, and work together on regional disputes and global challenges such as terrorism, climate change, cybersecurity and biosecurity.We need to work together to tackle global governance challenges. Countries around the world are like passengers aboard the same ship who share the same destiny. For the ship to navigate the storm and sail toward a bright future, all passengers must pull together. The thought of throwing anyone overboard is simply not acceptable. In this day and age, the international community has evolved so much that it has become a sophisticated and integrated apparatus. Acts to remove any single part will cause serious problems to its operation. When that happens, both the victims and the initiators of such acts will stand to lose. In today's world, unilateralism and excessive pursuit of self-interest are doomed to fail, so are the practices of decoupling, supply disruption and maximum pressure and the attempts to forge "small circles" or to stoke conflict and confrontation along ideological lines. Instead, we need to embrace a global governance philosophy that emphasizes extensive consultation, joint contribution and shared benefits, promotes the common values of humanity, and advocates exchanges and mutual learning between civilizations. We need to uphold true multilateralism and firmly safeguard the international system with the UN at its core and the international order underpinned by international law. It is particularly important for major countries to lead by example in honoring equality, cooperation, good faith and the rule of law and act in a way befitting their status.
The rest of the speech is tailored to his audience and speaks of China’s development and how China will contribute to humanity’s progress. It’s only seven more paragraphs after the above passage, so it’s not nearly as long as the Joint Declaration.
IMO, the speech is very timely and needed, and ought to soothe the Global South and Eurasia’s mind. Of course, the Outlaw US Empire and its NATO vassals won’t like it since they’re called out as the main problem facing humanity–which of course is 100% correct.
I didn’t give it emphasis, but do take note that China’s security proposal for the world is based on Russia’s security proposal for Europe. And that global governance must be based on the primacy of the equal sovereignty of all nations, which is the primary UN Charter principle and foundation for International Law.
“Cancel culture is inbuilt in the techno-feudalist project: conform to the hegemonic narrative, or else. Journalism that does not conform must be taken down.”
He asks that it be made viral. Just this portion ought to be reason enough:
Every silicon fragment in the valley connects Facebook as a direct extension of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA)’s LifeLog project, a Pentagon attempt to “build a database tracking a person’s entire existence.” Facebook launched its website exactly on the same day – Feb. 4, 2004 – that DARPA and the Pentagon shuttered LifeLog.No explanation by DARPA was ever provided. The MIT’s David Karger, at the time, remarked, “I am sure that such research will continue to be funded under some other title. I can’t imagine DARPA ‘dropping out’ of such a key research area.”Of course a smokin’ gun directly connecting Facebook to DARPA will never be allowed to surface. But occasionally some key players speak out, such as Douglas Gage, none other than LifeLog’s conceptualizer: “Facebook is the real face of pseudo-LifeLog at this point (…) We have ended up providing the same kind of detailed personal information to advertisers and data brokers and without arousing the kind of opposition that LifeLog provoked.”So Facebook has absolutely nothing to do with journalism. Not to mention pontificating over a journalist’s work, or assuming it’s entitled to cancel him or her. Facebook is an “ecosystem” built to sell private data at a huge profit, offering a public service as a private enterprise, but most of all sharing the accumulated data of its billions of users with the U.S. national security state.
IMO it’s safe to assume Twitter has similar genetics. And of course, there’s more. I don’t plug VK as much as I might, but I’ve found it helpful in my pursuit. Telegram now seems essential as Twitter’s usefulness implodes. Fear of other nations doing the same as the Outlaw US Empire used as reasons to not drop Meta or Twitter are stupifidic.
Secrets of various ketchups
Make your own.
USA targeting of Moskva ship is Russia’s “Pearl Harbor”, retaliation is next
It has now been revealed that the US military ran the entire operation to sink the Moskva, including running the tracking of the ship via a P-8 Poseidon surveillance aircraft, which then handed off fire solutions to the Ukrainians who were all trained by the US military as well. Thus, the United States provided the weapons, the training, the tracking and the fire solution to sink the Moskva.
By sinking the Moskva, the US just handed Putin something akin to “Russia’s Pearl Harbor moment,” in which Putin can claim to his people that the USA initiated an attack on the Russian Navy, sinking one of their ships and killing hundreds of their people. This news has, of course, been paraded all across Russian media, driving domestic support for Putin even higher than before.
Just like with Pearl Harbor in the United States, the people of Russia are now demanding “payback” from the aggressors, whom they see as the United States. In effect, the USA just handed Putin the final piece of the puzzle that he needs to launch retaliatory nuclear strikes against the West.
I remember watching this movie back in the 1960s. Now as a much older adult, it just is curiously charming. Check out these few minutes of colorful dialog.
Catalan
A view from a BnB. Everything shown is local and under $10 combined.
Catalan
Meanwhile in Hong Kong
Hong Kong is electing new Chief of SAR on May 8, 2022 and there is only one candidate on the ballot. He is viewed as being pro-China. Sure enough his Twitter account was sanctioned right after he was nominated as a candidate.
The Empire acts in ways very petty these days. It reflects on the quality of their leadership.
Chinese-Australians and their influence
An excellent article that sums up the feelings of Chinese Australians, the China/Australia relationship and the current Australian elections. By Teow Loon Ti . (Teow Loon Ti was a researcher in aquaculture; and a teacher. Teow Loon Ti has a BSc.(Hon) in Zoology, an MA(Lit. & Comm.) and a PhD in Education. )
I noticed the many Asian and Chinese – Australian people at the massive anti Iraq war demonstrations in 2003. One really had to be there to appreciate the broad cross section of society represented and its size and scope. A member of parliament’s spouse told me the demonstrations were, “the largest gathering of people ever in Sydney, including the 2000 Sydney olympic games”. Of course the numbers were downplayed by the MSM.
People are sick of cynical and endless wars of choice then and more so now. Political parties ignore this at their peril.
There was a large Kaliber missile strike on Lyvov and we are now seeing confirmations from several places of what was struck:
“A stockpile of American, German and British anti-tank missiles was destroyed at a military depot in Lvov. According to our source in the SBU, the attack on the logistics base in Lvov was a complete surprise. Several tens of tons of various anti-tank weapons were destroyed at the facility, including German PanzerFausts, British NLAWs and American Javelins. It was expected that these funds should be enough for a month of active hostilities against Russian troops. According to our source, the plant was carried out secretly on commercial and civilian vehicles. Therefore, an investigation is now underway as to how the Russians were able to figure out all three storage sites.”
Poland
“Poland is secretly preparing a “liberation campaign” against Ukraine. For this purpose, a set of measures is being carried out – the supply of weapons, equipment and mercenaries across the Polish-Ukrainian border. Several formations of the Polish Army – the 18th motorized rifle division and the 6th airborne brigade – are preparing for a “peacekeeping mission”
BULLETIN — Russia Informs Citizens to Prepare for NATO Retaliatory Nuclear Attack, THIS SUNDAY
This content was previously for Subscribers only but is now UNLOCKED for the general public.
As of 7:00 AM Moscow time TODAY (Thursday), the Russian Ministry of Emergencies published information on their web site instructing Russian citizens to prepare for a NATO Retaliatory NUCLEAR Attack this Sunday, 24 April 2022.
As any thinking person is aware, the only way NATO would make a “RETALIATORY” nuclear strike, is if Russia launched a First Strike. So what does that tell you about this coming weekend?
The official notice placed on the Russian Ministry of Emergencies web site.
What it is like to be arrested in China
This is the real deal and what it is actually like. video 10MB
3-Ingredient Chocolate Cherry Dump Cake
“I have made this several times for potlucks or family dinners. It is always a hit. Like eating a brownie with cherries. Tastes almost like the cherry chocolates you buy around Christmas.”
3-Ingredient Chocolate Cherry Dump Cake
From Betty Crocker, and so easy to make and so VERY delicious.
Our Chocolate Cherry Dump Cake brings together the dream team – sweet cherries and rich chocolate. This cherry dump cake recipe calls for only three ingredients and is best served warm with a scoop (or two!) of vanilla ice cream. While this cake is easy to make, the flavor is out-of-this-world and sure to become a family favorite. Whip up this cherry dump cake recipe for an ooey, gooey weekday dessert or for a special occasion!
Migratory birds of mass destruction and US bio labs around the globe, some nuggets:
“The UN Security Council held an extraordinary event on April 6 under the rubric Arria Formula Meeting on Biological Security regarding the biological activities in countries including Ukraine. Predictably, the US and UK representatives didn’t show up at the event and the western media also blacked out the proceeding.”“A mind-boggling “discovery” that Russian forces in Ukraine stumbled upon is the use of numbered birds by the Pentagon-funded labs. This almost falls out of science fiction and Sir Alfred Hitchcock could have made an epic movie out of it where deception mixes with innocence and man’s cruelty to nature becomes unbearably grotesque. The project works like this…”“…the US has so far point-blank refused to accept any supervision and verification of such incriminatory evidences and has stonewalled the demand for a verification mechanism. It is unlikely that the US will permit an international verification process that holds the potential to expose it as indulging in crimes against humanity…”
It would be a grand place to visit. But you know, it’s terribly expensive.
Norway
Volodimir Zelensky nominated for the Nobel Prize
The European Parliament has nominated the president for his heroic bravery in the face of unleashed evil agression.
Although we are aware that this is a break with procedure, we believe that this break is justified by the current unprecedented situation. It is our democratic duty to confront authoritarianism and support a people fighting for democracy and their right to self-government.The veneer of civilization is paper thin, we are its guardians and we can never rest."
Thirty year US treasury bond reached today the highest yield in last fifty years, indicating a huge sell off ahead of expected FEDs three quarter point increase. For me, this by itself is the most important news today.
What’s gonna happen with tens of trillions of printed fiat money?
Only applies to women
I suppose that men can try this technique as well.
2022 04 22 15 10
Europe to deepen military ties with the US.
Duh.
“The pact would allow routine interactions between American and EU institutions on defense issues and open the door for U.S. defense contractors to participate in the bloc’s growing defense spending under certain conditions.”
Can anyone explain why absolutely massive fires just keep erupting again and again at critical facilities all over America? The tragic destruction by fire of the headquarters of Azure Standard in Oregon shocked millions of people, and since that news broke quite a few readers have been reaching out to me about the long string of unusual blazes that we have been witnessing from coast to coast in recent months.
I decided to look into this phenomenon for myself, and I am sharing what I have discovered so far in this article. Dr. Benjamin Braddock and others had already been digging into this, and their research proved quite valuable as I began my investigation. Some of the incidents that people have reported I was not able to independently verify, and others I felt were too minor to be put on this list. With all that being said, the following is a list of 16 major fires that have occurred at key food industry facilities in the U.S. since the start of 2022…
As the smoke settles near Taylor Farms, questions remain on the future of the business and the roughly 1,000 people employed at the Abbott Street facility.There is little to nothing left of the processing facility due to fire and smoke damages caused by Wednesday night’s blaze, according to Deputy Fire Chief Sam Klemek.“About 85% to 95% of the building is a total loss,” he said.
Multiple workers are hospitalized following an explosion at a food processing facility that has nearby residents on alert for possible evacuation.The explosion occurred Tuesday evening at Shearer’s Foods in Hermiston, a city in agriculturally rich eastern Oregon. No deaths have been reported from the blast, but the extent of the damage to the plant and its future were not clear. City officials are concerned what the fire could mean for the community and local economy.
Neighbors banded together to support crews as they battled a fire in Conway for about 16 hours Monday night.More than 12 departments and agencies worked together to put out the fire at East Conway Beef and Pork.
“The situation at our Jonesboro factory is under control and we are looking into the cause of the fire,” a Nestle spokesperson said. “Thankfully, no employees were injured and all are safe. We appreciate the quick response of the Jonesboro Fire Department and emergency response teams. The factory will remain closed as we assess the damage and return the factory to full operation. We plan to continue to support our employees financially during this time.”Nestle opened the plant in 2002 and in December 2020 the company unveiled plans to invest more than $100 million to expand the frozen foods plant, including the addition of 90,000 square feet and a new production line for Hot Pockets frozen sandwiches. In addition to Hot Pockets, Nestle makes products under the Stouffer’s, Lean Cuisine, DiGiorno, Tombstone and Sweet Earth brands at the plant.
A portion of Mauston’s Wisconsin River Meats burnt down during an overnight fire Feb. 2-3, with the cause of the fire still under investigation.“The old portion of the plant is a total loss,” Wisconsin River Meats said in a Facebook post about the fire. “We humbly ask that you be patient and please give us some time to sort out the cause of the fire and for us to transition some of our business and invoicing to our warehouse.”
Operating from what company officials referred to as the command center at Deli Star Corp.’s St. Louis Innovation Center, the Siegel family-led operations and executive team have spent the week scrambling to fulfill customers’ orders and work with local officials investigating a Jan. 11 fire that destroyed its 75,000-square-foot processing plant in Fayetteville, about 40 miles southeast of them.
Fire crews from several towns have been battling a fire at the Penobscot McCrum potato processing plant in Belfast. Crews were called to the scene at 28 Pierce Street around 3:30 a.m., according to Maine Department of Public Safety spokesperson Shannon Moss.
A fire at a fertilizer company in western Kansas prompted evacuations Tuesday afternoon because hazardous materials were involved, officials said.The Ford County Regional Hazardous Materials Team deployed to Leoti for the fire and was fighting the blaze and removing hazardous material, Wichita County Clerk Lynda Goodrich said.
Louis Dreyfus Company (LDC) said on Wednesday a fire had broken out in a bag house at its Claypool, Indiana, soybean processing and biodiesel plant on Tuesday and the affected systems had been suspended.No employees were injured and the fire was put out by 9:15 p.m. central time on Tuesday, LDC said in a statement. LDC’s website said soybean deliveries were suspended at the plant on Wednesday. LDC says Claypool is the largest fully integrated soybean processing and biodiesel plant in the United States.
An uncontrolled fire at a fertilizer plant in North Carolina forced thousands of people to evacuate as firefighters stood back Tuesday because of the danger of a large explosion.Authorities drove through neighborhoods and knocked on doors asking residents to leave within a one-mile radius (1.6 km) of the Winston Weaver Company fertilizer plant on the north side of Winston-Salem, where the fire started Monday night. Overnight, bright orange flames and thick plumes of smoke could be seen shooting into the sky. No injuries were reported.
A smoldering pile of sulfur quickly became a raging chemical fire just after 1 p.m. Monday at Nutrien Ag Solutions, 1101 Midvale Road, Sunnyside Fire Chief Ken Anderson said.The fire destroyed one storage building on the southeast corner of the fertilizer storage facility in the Port of Sunnyside and damaged others, but adjacent Nutrien buildings and storage tanks containing hazardous chemicals were spared, Anderson said Monday evening.
A fire started at the Cargill-Nutrena feed mill in Lecompte, LA in the early hours of Thursday morning and burned for 12 hours, coverage by local television news station KALB said. An explosion reportedly occurred as firefighters were working the scene.
It’s a long road to recovery for Maricopa Food Pantry after a fire destroyed around 50,000 lb of food. The fire happened just 15 minutes after their food bank closed on Monday morning. Smoke was still coming from the rubble 24 hours later. “It had to be 40-50 feet in the air, just pure black smoke. It engulfed the entire neighborhood,” said Maricopa Food Pantry President Mike Connelly. “The heat we could feel down at the corner.”
The headquarters of Azure Standard, the nation’s premier independent distributor of organic and healthy food, was destroyed by fire overnight. There were no injuries. The cause of the fire is unknown and under investigation. The loss of the facility and the impact on companywide operations is being assessed and expected to be limited and temporary. No other Azure Standard facilities were affected.
Investigators from the ATF’s National Response Team began its on-scene investigation on Friday into the massive fire at a Walmart facility in Plainfield.The team, led by Supervisor Christopher Forkner, is working with the Plainfield Fire Territory, Indiana State Fire Marshal’s Office and the Plainfield Police Department, according to a press release. ATF special agents from the Indianapolis Offices of the Columbus Field Division will also be assisting.
Of course it is not unusual for there to be fires at food industry facilities, and fire departments are accustomed to responding to such fires and putting them out.
But in many of these cases, we are talking about absolutely uncontrollable fires that seemed to erupt very suddenly.
And in many of these cases the firefighters that responded were not able to save the structures because the fires were so enormous.
Needless to say, the collective loss of all of these facilities will make the coming food shortages that I have extensively written about quite a bit worse.
MM Comment
Remember that the Trump administration, under the direction of John Bolton, was active in trying to create mind-numbing famine inside of China from 2017 through 2019. That is a full two to three years.
Chinese always respond “tit for tat”.
China different boxing technique
The Chinese have many differnt ways to box and fight. Here’s one. video 3MB
I like this picture. You got a cat, good food, pouring coffee and a killer view. I hardly think life could be any better than this.
Appreciate what you have.
Record-setting cold snap hits Europe, France
A historically intense April cold snap has descended on Europe, with temperatures plummeting to 20 to 30 degrees (11 to 18 degrees Celsius) below normal. The record-breaking cold has triggered harsh frosts, shocking early-blooming plants and crops in several countries.
Slovak minister says paying in roubles an option, country needs gas
PRAGUE, April 3 (Reuters) – The economy minister of Slovakia, which relies on Russian gas for around 85% of its demand, said the country could not be cut off from Russian gas flows and if it had to pay in roubles it would, although it backed taking a common European Union stance.
“That’s what makes mornings so tricky. Getting out of bed and ready for work is already a challenging task, but having to leave your significant other behind is much worse. So trying to squeeze in just 5 more minutes is totally worth being a little late for work.”
Waking up…
Blueberry Cobbler
“I love this recipe! I made a few changes such as using triple berry’s and so I had to add a little more auger over the top but Oh My God it’s delicious!”
Blueberry Cobbler.
Make the most of summer's fresh fruit and mix up an easy Blueberry Cobbler. With a tender topping and a berry filling, this easy Blueberry Cobbler with Bisquick™ Original Pancake & Baking Mix is a dessert you'll be asked to make again and again. If you don't have fresh blueberries on hand, frozen blueberries achieve the same, great taste. For this Blueberry Cobbler recipe, just make sure the total volume of fruit remains the same if using frozen blueberries. Spoons up and enjoy.
Pour melted butter into 8 or 9-inch square baking dish.
In medium bowl, whisk together Bisquick™ mix, sugar, and milk; pour over melted butter.
Sprinkle blueberries evenly over Bisquick™ batter.
Bake 42 to 47 minutes, or until golden brown. Serve warm.
Tips
Kitty playing with an HO scale railroad
Kitty at play.
Kung Fu Clowns
Enjoy this old television commerical. It’s a hoot!
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.
I often remember the embarrassing events in my life. I suppose that all of us have these memories. Mine are deep scars. The memories are just painful. Sorry. And though from time to time, I feel a need to tell my story (s) I find it difficult to do so. The embarrasment is just too severe.
But you know… I learned form them. As we all have.
We are going to continue on our mish mash of articles here today to describe a world in turmoil and one on fire with hidden wars, secretive plans, mind control, bioweapons, and a total luntic-ruled Western society.
We start with Truth
2022 04 21 21 05
Mistakes in judgement part 1
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Chinese media: 2 British fighting for Ukraine captured by Russia
One is widely available on the Saker Website, and Graham Phillips Youtube channel. The other is at the RT.com website, posted as “interview”.
I’ve seen both. The critical question was not asked: Did you kill anyone? As mercenaries, both know that they could be subject to the death penalty and aren’t protected by international prisoner of war law….a bit of an oversight when looking for employment…
They don’t seem to be Azov Nazi types, just soldier of fortune types who didn’t think hard enough about what they were doing in Ukraine. But they don’t seem much stupider than most Western supporters of the coup regime.
If you live in most any Western country, your government’s support for Ukraine, including sending weapons and imposing sanctions on Russia, can give the impression of a united global response to President Vladimir Putin’s invasion.
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But that isn’t the case. Most of the world’s 195 countries have not shipped aid to Ukraine or joined in sanctions. A handful have actively supported Russia. Far more occupy the “messy middle,” as Carisa Nietsche of the Centre for a New American Security calls it, taking neither Ukraine’s nor Russia’s side.
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“We live (Americans) in a bubble, here in the US and Europe, where we think the very stark moral and geopolitical stakes, and framework of what we’re seeing unfolding, is a universal cause,” Barry Pavel, a senior vice president at the Atlantic Council, told me. “Actually, most of the governments of the world are not with us.”
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India and Israel are prominent democracies that ally with the United States on many issues, particularly security. But they rely on Russia for security as well and have avoided arming Ukraine or imposing sanctions on Moscow. “In both cases, the key factor isn’t ideology but national interests,” says my New York Times colleague Max Fisher, who has written about Russia’s invasion.
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India is the world’s largest buyer of Russian weapons, seeking to protect itself from Pakistan and China. India joined 34 other countries in abstaining from a United Nations vote that condemned Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. And India appears to be rebuffing Western pleas to take a harder line.
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Israel coordinates with Russia on Iran, its chief adversary, and in neighboring Syria (with which Russia has a strong relationship). Russian-speaking émigrés from the former Soviet Union also make up a sizable chunk of the Israeli electorate. Israel’s prime minister has avoided directly criticising Putin, and although its government has mediated between Ukraine and Russia, little has come out of the effort.
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Several Latin American, Southeast Asian and African countries have made similar choices. Bolivia, Vietnam and almost half of Africa’s 54 countries declined to support the UN resolution condemning Russia. Some rely on Russian military assistance, said Bruce Jones, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. Others don’t want to risk jeopardising trade relations with China, which has parroted Russian propaganda about the war.
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Those countries “might be more accurately described as disinterested,” Fisher says, unwilling to risk their security or economies “for the sake of a struggle that they see as mostly irrelevant.”
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Some countries, citing the West’s history of imperialism and past failures to respect human rights, have justified opposing its response to Ukraine. South Africa’s president blamed NATO for Russia’s invasion, and its UN ambassador criticized the US invasion of Iraq during a debate last month about Ukraine’s humanitarian crisis.
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Other countries, including some that voted to condemn Russia’s invasion, accuse the West of acting counterproductively. Brazil’s UN ambassador has suggested that arming Ukraine and imposing sanctions on Russia risk escalating the war.
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“There’s nothing intellectually incoherent between viewing Russia’s actions as outrageous and not necessarily fully siding with the West’s reaction to it,” Jones told me.
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Autocratic leaders — including in the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Nicaragua — may also feel threatened by Ukraine’s resistance and the West’s framing of the invasion as a struggle between democracy and authoritarianism, experts said. “They’re concerned that this could inspire opposition movements in their own countries,” Nietsche said.
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China, with all its economic and military might, has seen the war as a chance to enhance its own geopolitical standing as a counterweight to the United States while still maintaining ties to Russia. The countries recently issued a joint statement proclaiming a friendship with “no limits.” But China has struggled with the delicate balancing act of honoring that commitment without fully endorsing Russia’s invasion: Beijing has denounced Western sanctions but has not appeared to have given Russia weapons or economic aid.
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“China’s support for Russia, while very important, is also carefully hedged and measured,” Fisher says.
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Four countries — North Korea, Eritrea, Syria and Belarus — outright voted with Russia against the UN resolution condemning the invasion of Ukraine. Belarus is a former Soviet state whose autocratic leader asked Putin to help suppress protests in 2020 and allowed Russia to launch part of its invasion from within Belarus.
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Russia intervened in Syria’s civil war on behalf of the Moscow-aligned government there, and Syria is sending fighters who may aid Russian forces in Ukraine.
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It’s not unusual for countries to avoid picking sides on big global issues. Several stayed neutral during World War II; dozens sought to remain free of both United States and Soviet influence during the Cold War.
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But if the war in Ukraine drags on, Jones said, neutral countries could come under stronger international pressure to condemn Moscow. And for countries with close ties to Russia, even neutrality can be an act of courage.
Mistakes in judgement part 2
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The Russian military says it has successfully performed the first test of a new intercontinental ballistic missile.
President Vladimir Putin said the weapon would make the West “think twice” before harbouring any aggressive intentions against Russia.
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(note: Sunzi: the art of war 不战而屈人之兵，crippled the enemy war intention without war is the highest form of war strategy. China often opening released new weapons whenever she perceived a possible US aggression, apparently, putin is doing the same thing. )
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The test launch of the Sarmat missile came amid soaring tensions between Moscow and the West over the Russian invasion of Ukraine and underlined the Kremlin’s emphasis on the country’s nuclear forces.
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The RS-28 Sarmat, colloquially known to the West as the “Satan II”, is a Russian liquid-fueled, MIRV-equipped super-heavy intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) under development by the Makeyev Rocket Design Bureau since 2009. It is intended to replace the R-36M ICBM (SS-18 ‘Satan’) in Russia’s arsenal.
The Sarmat is one of the six new Russian strategic weapons unveiled by Russian President Vladimir Putin on 1 March 2018. The RS-28 Sarmat was expected to make its first test flight in 2022, and enter service later this year.
The RS-28 Sarmat is capable of carrying about 10 tons of payload for either up to 10 heavy, or 15 light, MIRV warheads, as well as an unspecified number of Avangard hypersonic glide vehicles (HGVs) or a combination of warheads. It also carries several countermeasures against anti-ballistic missile systems. The Russian ministry of Defense said that the missile is Russia’s response to the U.S. Prompt Global Strike system.
Sarmat has a short boost phase, which shortens the interval when it can be tracked by satellites with infrared sensors, such as the U.S. Space-Based Infrared System, making it more difficult to intercept. It is speculated that the Sarmat could fly a trajectory over the South Pole, completely immune to any current missile defense system, and that it has the Fractional Orbital Bombardment (FOBS) capability.
According to various sources, RS-28’s launch sites are to be equipped with the “Mozyr” active protection system, designed to negate potential adversary’s first strike advantage by kinetically destroying incoming bombs, cruise missiles and ICBM warheads at altitudes of up to 6 km.
Russian President Vladimir Putin remarked today “The missile will provide food for thought for those who try to threaten Russia.”
UPDATE:
Russia SAYS THE TEST WAS SUCCESSFUL.
“All calculated characteristics are confirmed. Training warheads arrived in a given area in Kamchatka” according to the Ministry of Defense.
The agency recalls that the Sarmat is the most powerful missile in the world with the longest range of targets. It will greatly enhance the military power of the country.
Japan approves ban on luxury car exports to Russia
Japan approved Tuesday a ban on exports of luxury cars and other items to Russia as part of economic sanctions over its invasion of Ukraine. The Cabinet of Prime Minister Fumio Kishida revised a relevant ordinance to implement the embargo on April 5 that will also cover jewelry and artworks.
Do you want something good, quick and tasty for your family? Try this.
2022 04 20 20 34
2022 04 20 20 3a4
Directions
In a bowl, combine the cornstarch, brown sugar, ginger and garlic powder. Stir in broth until smooth. Add soy sauce and molasses; set aside.
In a nonstick skillet or wok, stir-fry steak in oil for 4-5 minutes; remove and keep warm. Stir-fry peppers, celery and onions until crisp-tender, about 5 minutes. Stir broth mixture and add to the vegetables. Return meat to the pan. Bring to a boil; cook and stir until thickened, about 2 minutes. Stir in lemon juice. Serve over noodles if desired.
Germany says Serbia should align with EU policies if it wants to join bloc | Reuters
It’s from Reuters. It’s hard to tell if this is actual reporting or just another narrative out of the West.
It looks like Ukrainian officials are not blowing smoke on this. During the past 24 hours Russian military operations in the Donbas and in Western Ukraine have increased markedly.
I want to share with you some videos from the Intel Slava Z channel on Telegram. While there always is the possibility these are staged propaganda pieces, they appear legitimate.
First up is the shootdown of a Ukrainian combat jet. Thermal footage shows Ukrainian Su-25 attack jet firing flares, in vain, trying to escape an incoming Russian missile. The jet was shot down on 15th of April by Russian Air Defense units.
The second video shows a Chechen in Mariupol inside one of the buildings at Ilyich plant where elements of the Azov battalion hid. This is probably from Saturday, 16 April. It did not turn out well for the Azov thugs:
Chechens Inspect bodies of AZOV battalion in Ilyich Plant in Mariupol
The Russians are busy on several fronts. Let’s start on the southern coast of Ukraine:
Mariupol is under the control of Russia, only a small element of the AZOV battalion is holed up in the Avostol steel plant with their backs to the sea.
The Russians have secured Berdyansk, which is 60 miles west of Mariupol.
There are explosions in Kherson, which is 220 miles west of Berdyansk.
The night sky over Nikolaev (aka Mykolaiv) is on fire with a barrage of airborne explosives. From Nikolaev it is only 80 miles to Odesa.
At present, Russia is controlling the southern coast of Ukraine with a combination of naval and ground forces. Once Odesa falls (and it will fall), Russia will have completely cut off Ukraine from its southern ports. (There is no commercial activity now because it is a war zone.)
Then there is the action in the west along the border with Poland. Russia is destroying the military equipment that the United States and NATO are sending to Ukraine. Here is a remarkable video showing three weapon collection sites being hit in Lviv (I do not think this is from a video game because even Fox News reported the strikes). According to Intel Slava Z:
Aviation strikes with high-precision missiles at the 124th Joint Logistics Support Center of the Logistics Command of the Armed Forces of Ukraine near Lviv, – Defense Ministry
The logistics center and the large consignments of foreign weapons that were delivered to Ukraine over the past 6 days from the United States and European countries were destroyed.
But center stage for Russian military operations is to the east in Donbas. Popasnaya sits halfway between Luhansk and Kramatorsk (the site of the missile that killed civilians at the train station a week ago). Russian tanks reportedly are bombarding Ukrainian positions:
If the Ukrainian Army still had intact artillery it would be firing counter-battery rounds at the Russian tanks. That is not happening. When you are fighting a comparable force, doctrine dictates that the tanks fire and then move. (Counter battery fire means that the unit being shelled can fire back and hit the position where the shell originated.) I add the caveat that this video could be an elaborate propaganda production, but comments from Zelensky and his toadies indicate the offensive is underway.
There also are press reports that Russian artillery is firing on Ukrainian units around Kharkov (which is a 160 miles northwest of Popasnaya). The limited ability of the Ukrainian forces to respond in kind means the units are hunkered down and taking a brutal beating. If they poke their heads out of their bunkers they are likely to lose their noggin.
Besides physically killing the Ukrainian soldiers, the Russian sustained bombardments are also killing the will to fight among some of the units. Significant numbers are surrendering to Russian units. The first video shows more than 80 Ukrainians who are now under Russian control:
Here is another group of more than 300 Ukrainian soldiers who gave up:
If Ukraine was succeeding on the ground I am sure we would be seeing daily briefings from the Ukrainian generals touting their latest triumph over Russian forces. The absence of such reports is not the product of some clever Ukrainian plot to deceive the Russians into complacency. The inability to maintain robust lines of communication with the front line units and ensure they are fully supplied with ammunition, weapons and food is a death spiral for any military organization.
Recent new reports in the west state that there are limitations on what the United States and NATO can supply. Here is Bloombergs “rosy” picture:
America is following an “arsenal of democracy” strategy in Ukraine: It has avoided direct intervention against the Russian invaders, while working with allies and partners to provide the Kyiv government with money and guns. . . .Yet as the war reaches a critical stage, with the Russians preparing to consolidate their grip on eastern Ukraine, the arsenal of democracy is being depleted. . . .General Mark Milley, the chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, told Congress that the West has delivered 60,000 antitank weapons and 25,000 anti-aircraft weapons to Kyiv. The Pentagon is now laying plans to rush additional artillery, coastal defense drones and other materiel to Ukraine. The White House on Wednesday announced a new $800 million package including helicopters and armored personnel carriers. . . .Pentagon officials say that Kyiv is blowing through a week’s worth of deliveries of antitank munitions every day. It is also running short of usable aircraft as Russian airstrikes and combat losses take their toll. Ammunition has become scarce in Mariupol and other areas. This is presenting Western countries with a stark choice between pouring more supplies into Ukraine or husbanding finite capabilities they may need for their own defense.
What the Bloomberg reporter forgot to mention is that Russia is blowing up many of those munitions in western Ukraine even before they can be sent to the front.
In writing this hard truth I am frequently accused of simply passing on Russian propaganda. Not true. If you have the videos of the Ukrainians wreaking havoc on the Russians please let me know. I have not seen it.
And as I noted above, I do not doubt for a minute that U.S. news media would be showing these videos if they existed. This may be a decisive week for the continued existence of organized Ukrainian military operations. The Russian military appears to be following Putin’s directive–demilitarize Ukraine.
Australia among biggest new Cold War economic losers
By Rod Tyers and Yixiao Zhou
If tensions between the Western world and China and Russia led to a split into two separate financial and trading systems, Australia would be among the countries most hurt. Proportionately, the hypothetical negative effect on Australia would be larger than on the world as a whole, due to Australia’s relative affluence and dependence on trade
Today it appears that the triumph of our adversaries is total. I want to post this column saying that I don’t believe for one second that this is true. All I want to do today is explain why. Thus, just to make clear to those alternatively gifted, this is not a comprehensive analysis and I will be leaving many things out.
So, here we go:
First, notice how totally paranoid our adversaries are! Depending on how you count and whom you ask, they had 25k to 65k folks in arms “defending” them. Of course, the primary goal of this nonsense is to make it appear as if there was a terrible domestic terrorist force out there, ready to take over DC and open Gulags for minorities. This, in turn, will make it easier to sell a massive crackdown on civil liberties under the guise of “protecting” the (supposed but, in reality, already defunct) “democracy”. But the fact that they had to engage into a witch hunt even to carefully vet every national guardsman (and probably even more people) shows that they are truly afraid. I think that they are wrong, there is no credible domestic terrorist threat in the USA, other than the government itself, of course. But what matters here is not what I think, but what they think, and they seem to have developed a serious case of paranoia.
Second, while I don’t believe in the existence of US domestic terrorists, I do believe that millions of US citizens are convinced that the vote was stolen. These people are understandably disgusted and angry. Many might be desperate or even despondent. Let’s call them the “deplorables” and consider it a badge of honor. Well, these deporables won’t take DC by force, but they will never trust a Dem or GOP politician again, and neither will they ever trust the corporate media. One of the blessings in disguise of this stolen election is that the GOP and Fox News have shown their true faces, and their faces are evil, stupid and ugly. 4 years ago millions of US citizens did not so much vote for Trump as much as they voted against Hillary whom they (correctly) saw as a symbol and metaphor for the entire “deep state”, or “swamp” or “ZOG” or whatever other expression you prefer. These deplorables first trusted Obama (“change we can believe in”) and, later, Trump (MAGA). Now they know that both sides are equally evil and false.
In the past, both factions of the Big Money Party had safety valves (Tea Party, Occupy Wall Street, Rand Paul, Tulsi Gabbard, Bernie Sanders, etc.). I think that now the two parties are literally standing naked and boy is that an ugly sight!
Third, and this point I primarily address to my readers in the USA and that will force me to make a sidebar primarily directed at them:
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[Sidebar: the planet can be divided into 2 rough parts: ZONE A full controlled by the AngloZionist Empire (Unipolar United States led and it’s proxy naitons) and, ZONE B, which includes everybody else. The vast majority of US Americans are only really aware of Zone A.
Zone A = The West – USA and it’s proxy nations.
Zone B = The East – Russia / China / India / Africa, South America, Middle East
Why? For the following reasons:
Most US Americans have never traveled outside Zone A.
Those US Americans who have traveled outside Zone A typically did so without speaking the local language, thus cutting themselves off the locals and the local media.
Most US Americans get their news from US-based outlets, often combined with a few from elsewhere in the Anglosphere (UK, AUS).
US media outlets lie even more about what happens in Zone B than they lie about Zone A.
US schools have pretty much stopped teaching history, and when they do, it is all propaganda about the “city on the hill” and all the rest of the imperialist claptrap about how exceptional the US is. As a result, when most US Americans are exposed to factoids about Zone B they are not equipped to understand their meaning or importance.
Most US Americans simply assume that people in Zone B are very similar to those in Zone A. Most US Americans also assume that most governments in Zone B are even more evil than Uncle Shmuel.
Most US Americans also believe in what I call the “immigration fallacy”: the belief that people come to the USA from all over the planet because they prefer the USA to their home country and people. Anybody living in the USA and speaking Spanish knows that totally false this belief is, of course. But few non-Hispanic US Americans ever speak in Spanish to the Hispanics in the USA (FYI – I do). Anglos generally seem to have a hard time with languages…
Sadly, most US Americans are not educated by their parents, their religious leaders, their communities, or their schools. Most US Americans get most of their education from watching TV. Since all the US TV channels offer almost the exact same mix of vulgar entertainment, propaganda and commercials, this “education” resulted in a huge amount of massively dysfunctional families and communities. This addiction to a flickering screen (be it the Idiot Tube or You Tube – same difference) gives them a very short attention span and a limited ability to process large amounts of written information, which is what is needed to be able to analyze a situation]
As a direct consequence of these factors, most US Americans live in a “mental space” where Zone B simply does not exist, and when it is mentioned, it is invariable in the “same old clichés” mode.
Finally, considering all of the above, it is truly a miracle that the deplorables completely ignored a massive brainwashing campaign (waaaay worse than anything the Commies or the Nazis ever came up with!) against “Trump the New Hitler” and still voted for him twice, both in 2016 and 2020! It really goes to show that most US Americans quietly but passionately hate the regime in DC and that they use every opportunity they get to at least to try to change their country and their lives by means of voting. Makes you wonder what these “disobedient” deplorables will do the next time around now that voting became clearly a waste of time, don’t it?]
Now here is the good news: Zone B does exist! In fact, it is huge, rich, truly diverse and it has long figured out that both the AngloZionist Empire and even the USA as we knew them have basically died, all that’s left from it is some residual momentum and many bad habits by ignorant, arrogant and delusional US politicians.
Why is that so important?
Because if we allow the Great Satan (actually a very good and exact expression, I think that it fits the new regime perfectly, I will use it more often) to convince us that reality is all contained in Zone A, we could really fall into despair. Yeah, the USA is screwed, and so is all of the EU.
As for US colonies like AUS or NZ, not only are they screwed (say by siding with the USA against a much, MUCH more powerful China), they also seem to have a morbid desire to outstupid even the USA in terms of crazy laws and insane ideological positions (say on COVID, for example).
But all this in ONLY true inside Zone A. Very few people in Zone B still believe that the USA matters a great deal. Most of them already know otherwise, even if this is never reported by Zone A media.
There is even more good news: neither the (rump) AngloZionist Empire nor the (rump) USA represent any credible threat to most countries in Zone B.
Oh sure, US politicians can call Russia a “gas station masquerading as a country” or a “regional power”, the truth is that the united West has completely failed to break, or even meaningfully hurt Russia, despite 46 sanction packages (that’s just by Trump, not counting the “change we can believe in” crook).
Heck, even COVID only marginally hurt Russia (which, unlike the flag-waving pseudo-patriotic crap spewed by western politicians took COVID seriously, very seriously in fact, as early as March and prepared the country for no less than two major outbreaks, both which happened, and both which Russia successfully dealt with; this is why the EU is now in full COVID-hysteria mode, while Russia does not bother to impose any lockdowns at all!).
Now let’s place two US propaganda items side by side and take a look, ok?
The USA has the most powerful economy on the planet.
Russia is the #1 adversary of the USA (at least according to the Dems, the GOP places China as #1 and Russia only as #2)
Do you see the problem?
If the USA is so powerful, how is it that it failed to crush Russia? What about Iran? Or, in extremis, Venezuela? Yet, even the the last case, the “best” this supposed World Hegemon did was send a few clueless ex-special ops to get caught and give case of hysterical laughter to the entire Latin American continent!
And these folks want to take on China or Russia?!
Peuhleeze!
So here is the other very good news: Zone A presents no real threat to Zone B!!!
Yes, of course, the USA can still nuke China, Russia, Iran, Venezuela or some other country. But let’s look at the consequences of such a strike:
Against Russia: the USA simply vanishes as a country. Completely and forever.
Against China: the USA as a society completely collapses for a very, very, VERY long time.
And then we have…
Against Iran: the USA gets stuck in a major regional war it can only lose with massive geostrategic consequences (still, the new regime might try to pull this one off, never say never, no matter how stupid this idea can seem to you – always remember that the ignoramuses in DC are as delusional as they are ignorant!)
Against North Korea: the USA gets stuck in a major regional war it can only lose with massive geostrategic consequences.
Against Venezuela: the USA gets stuck in a counter-insurgency war it can only lose. The comprador regime in Bogota will not survive such a war and Colombia will also “fall”.
Against any other Zone B country: the US successfully nukes this/these country/countries only to find itself being treated like a pariah by the entire planet (including quite a few US colonies), including the real military powers. NATO and the EU will also collapse is that happens (the US being their cornerstone).
The bottom line is that while the US triad is still fully functional and capable of waging a full-scale nuclear war against any adversary (including Russia and, even more so, China), the truth is that all this triad really achieves is making it impossible for another nuclear power to use nukes against the USA.
Which is not minor or irrelevant, the problem here being that the US nuclear triad provides with exactly zero help when trying to deal with any adversary not using nukes (either because this adversary choose not to use nukes due to the effective deterrence of the US nuclear triad or simply because it has no nukes in the first place).
As I have mentioned in the past, the US submarine force is, along with the nuclear triad, the other truly effective and powerful force which the US can count on in case of war.
However, other than launching large numbers of outdated and, therefore, easily countered cruise missiles there is little this force can do to assist a US ground (or, for that matter) air operation against anything but a very weak adversary.
The problem with so-called “sub-peer” adversaries is that they have relatively few lucrative targets to strike with cruise missiles (think Venezuela here). Most of these subpeer adversaries do not have the air defenses needed to deal with any halfway determined US missile and bomb attack and the US can quickly destroy whatever air defenses such “sub-peer” countries have.
So yes, I admit it.
If tomorrow the USA wants a “short and triumphant war”, say to boost morale or distract from internal problems, they could still attack countries like, say, Antigua and Barbuda or Santa Lucia, but such a farce will hardly would qualify as “brilliant victory” of the “best armed forces in the galaxy”, now would it?
Or maybe would, who knows?
If the united propaganda machine wants to present that as a triumph for US forces, like they did with the Grenada invasion (one of the worst military operation in history!) they can do that, of course.
But that would only serve to further ridicule that propaganda machine since 2021 is not 1983, there are now millions of deplorables out there who will never buy this kind of silly nonsense.
Besides, considering how the joint efforts of the USA, Israel and Saudi Arabia (the “Axis of Kindness”) completely failed to deal with the Houthis, my money would not be on any US invasion force in the Caribbean (with the possible exception of a re-invasion of Haiti or the Dominican Republic, but these are already US protectorates, what would be the point?!).
Why does all that matter so much?
Because the Democrats are clearly up to no good.
Next, not only will we see a wave of repression against free speech internally, but the Dems are already making noises about, you guessed it, China and Russia (again!) and, when that inevitably yield exactly zero results, they will turn to “hate on” Iran and Venezuela again.
But even these comparatively weaker countries are now very much capable of making Uncle Shmuel pay an immense price in blood and hell to pay in terms of political blowback on too many fronts to count.
The “power” of a nation (or a coalition of nations) can be measured using very many different type of metrics, but the three most common ones would probably be: economic power, military power and political power. If we use those three to compare Zone A to Zone B, it would be reasonable to posit the following:
Economic power: more more or less equal, with Zone A quickly going down and Zone B quickly rising. Zone A still has A LOT of comprador regimes willing to defend it not only at the UN, but in most international bodies (including non-government ones like the IOC for example, or WADA).
Military power: Zone Avery much weaker than Zone B (just think RU+CN+IN for starters!)
Political power: Zone A still stronger, but that is also changing fast. You can say that most world rulers are still serfs for Zone A, but most people worldwide have long switched their support for Zone B countries. The recent triumph of the people of Bolivia over their oppressors is a very telling sign of this trend.
And here is the key factor to keep in mind: there is nothing, absolutely nothing, the Biden/Harris Admin can do to change these trends. It is simply too late and when the initiation of the internal collapse of the USA, these trends will only accelerate.
===>In other words, there is hope!<===
Yes, the bad guys did win, but only over Trump and his clueless pseudo-allies (did they betray him faster than he betrayed them, or was it the other way around?), but they only won one a battle against the deplorables and they have won exactly nothing against Zone B.
They also relish in humiliating Trump and those who dared to support him. This is the political equivalent of torturing people in basements, not winning glorious battles. But they don’t realize that, they are too vain, too ideologically hateful, and too cowardly to understand that.
Still, brainwashing, like torture (including mental torture!), is real.
In this case, this is a battle for the minds of the deplorables who now have to be beaten down into a catatonic state of total submission and compliance. The Dems are using lies, their favorite weapon, but their assault is real, nonetheless. And this is the battle which we, those who opposed imperialism, have to fight – the battle for the minds of the people in Zone A: we need to show them that the pseudo-reality of Zone A has no real existence outside the Idiot Box and the vapid rhetoric of US decision makers.
We have to mentally prepare for a sharp increase in the amount and scope of the lies the US propaganda machine will be telling us (if you thought the last 4 years were bad, prepare for much, much worse; good example here).
And, of course, expect LOTS of false flags, especially to demonstrate the reality of the alleged danger coming from the “domestic terrorists”. That will all go down against a background of a full-spectrum attack on free speech, dissent and any form of actual (as opposed to pretend) thought, really.
The irony is, of course, that the coming witch hunt (it will be way worse than Salem or McCarthy) will be waged in the name of diversity and ostensibly against “hate”. In reality, of course, what the regime wants is to crush real diversity because the leaders of the US Nomenklatura absolutely hate everything besides their sorry selves.
Like all ideologues, what these folks want is 1) total power and 2) total uniformity. All those rejecting these modern dogmas will be branded as criminals, terrorists, heretics, racist and, of course, Russian and Chinese agents.
And that is why this regime will also fail.
Conclusion: diversity WILL win. The REAL diversity, of course!
Our planet is wonderfully diverse, especially outside the uniformity sector of Zone A. There IS a Zone Bout there, and the leaders of Zone A will be defeated by our real common and shared humanity (and their hatred for us!).
Somewhere between Obama and Trump, the world has moved on, and it is now very busy dealing with the immense challenges and opportunities facing it in Zone B.
And no, neither Russia nor China is busy trying to sabotage or undermine the USA – US leaders are doing that much better job of that than any Russian or Chinese ever could. So why even bother (and nevermind the risks!)?
We cannot predict what will happen next, there are simply too many variables to do that. But what we can do is predict with a great degree of confidence that the new regime in power in DC will do no better than all the other regimes which came to power by means of color revolutions in the past couple of decades.
There is no hope left for the Empire.
As for the USA people, there will be plenty of hope left for them, but only after a long and painful process of collapse and rebirth (both of which are inevitable by now).
The truth is that US is not that unique as empires go.
Sorry, it is just your typical arrogant and narcissistic empire. An empire which will collapse just as all the other arrogant and narcissistic empires in history have collapsed. That being, mostly under their own obscene weight.
And those poor souls who sincerely believe that China (or Russia) want to replace the USA simply don’t understand that these two countries already have been empires, it was a disaster, thank you very much, and they have no desire to repeat their past mistakes.
This desire for non-exceptionalism and normalcy will, with time, also become the object of a large social consensus in the USA.
And, with time, the USA will finally be welcomed into a truly free Zone B or, should I say, a Zone-free world.
The Saker
Mistakes in judgement part 4
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Britain’s elite SAS reported back “on the ground” in Kyiv
British Special Air Service (SAS) troops have reportedly been on the ground in Kyiv for the first time since the war with Russia began, Ukrainian commanders have told The Times.
Officers from two Ukrainian battalions stationed in and around the capital said they had undergone military training from serving British special forces, one last week and the other the week before.
Captain Yuriy Myronenko, whose battalion is stationed in Obolon on the northern outskirts of Kyiv, said that military trainers had come to instruct new and returning military recruits to use Next generation Light Anti-tank Weapons( NLAWs) British-supplied anti-tank missiles that were delivered in February as the invasion was beginning.
Since February, the United Kingdom has delivered more than 3,600 NLAWs to Ukraine, with Kyiv requesting more following reports that they had proven highly effective against Russian armour.
The United States announced this week that it would also resume training by American troops, however the Pentagon said explicitly that the training would not be conducted on Ukrainian territory.
German Industry Fears Immediate Russian Gas Ban | OilPrice.com
Moron leadership is a threat not only to world peace but to the wellbeing of its own economy and people.
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One way thinking and zero sum mentality resulted in Europe being the most war monger, aggressive continent in human history. EU and NATO is nothing more than a mafia organisation designs to bully the world and smaller European nation member state. Such organisations should be dismantled for the well being of the world.
This landed on my desk from <redacted> sources. Content is detailed and extensive. I’d suggest downloading it and keeping it in a safe place. It’s heavy with names, dates and activity.
How about a nice and special meal for the family this Sunday. Try this…
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Directions
Mix first six ingredients. Cut roast in half; sprinkle with salt and pepper. In a large skillet, heat oil over medium heat; brown roast on all sides.
Transfer to a 5-qt. slow cooker. Pour pineapple mixture over top. Cook, covered, until a thermometer inserted in roast reads at least 145°, 3-4 hours.
Remove roast from slow cooker; keep warm. Transfer cooking juices to a saucepan; bring to a boil. Mix cornstarch and water until smooth; stir into cooking juices. Return to a boil; cook and stir until thickened, 1-2 minutes. Serve with roast.
Mistakes in judgement part 5
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Americans; Things Are Bad Now, But You Ain’t Seen Nothing Yet
At this moment, food prices all over America are at incredibly low levels. I know what many of you must be thinking. You must be thinking that I have lost my mind, because food prices have been rising at a very rapid rate all over the country. But when I say that food prices are at “incredibly low levels”, I am not comparing them to where they were in the past. Rather, I am comparing current prices to where they will be in the future. Yes, things are bad now, but food prices will be much higher a year or two from now.
The global fertilizer crisis certainly isn’t going anywhere. If anything, it is only going to intensify.
The same thing could be said about the war in Ukraine. Peace talks are absolutely dead, and so it looks like fighting between two of the most critical breadbaskets in the world will continue for months to come.
Meanwhile, the bird flu pandemic continues to wipe out millions of chickens and turkeys all over the globe all over the United States.
We have never seen a “perfect storm” quite like this, but of course some of the factors that will be driving up food prices are entirely self-inflicted.
For example, the Chinese government didn’t need to lock down nearly 400 million people in a desperate attempt to prevent the spread of COVID. The past two years have provided ample evidence that such lockdowns are quite foolish, but the Chinese went ahead anyway.
China is participating in the decoupling from the United States, and that includes food, and farming materials.
As a result, there are now hundreds of commercial ships waiting impatiently off the coast of Shanghai.
Shanghai is one of the largest manufacturing centers in China, with heavy concentrations of automotive and electronics suppliers. It is home to the largest container port in the world and a major airport that serves inbound and outbound air cargo. Exports produced in Shanghai account for 7.2% of China’s total volume and about 20% of China’s export container throughput moves through the port there, according to the BBVA report.Most warehouses and plants are closed, nine out of 10 trucks are sidelined, the port and airport have limited function, shipping units are stranded in the wrong places, and freight is piling up.
Needless to say, many of our major retailers simply could not operate without the goods that they import from China.
So we better hope that this potential nightmare gets resolved very soon.
Here in the United States, food prices have been moving higher for months. Just check out these numbers…
The average price of butter grew 11.9% in the last year.
Meat has been especially affected by supply chain issues, with 100% meat frankfurters jumping 35.2% since March of 2021 to an average price of $5.18 per pound.
Ground chuck, pork chops, and whole chicken showed year-over-year price increases of 11.3%, 15%, and 11.7%, respectively.
Those figures may look bad to you, but the truth is that they only represent the very early chapters of this crisis.
Things are going to get much worse, and here in April anecdotal reports seem to indicate that food price increases seem to be accelerating.
Earlier today, my attention was drawn to a thread on a popular Internet forum where people were discussing recent price increases that they had seen at their local stores. The following are a few examples that I pulled out of that thread…
-“$10. for 1 lb. Bacon”
-“5.19 for one pound of land o lakes butter”
-“a 34 oz can of coffee was $6.99 now is $9.99”
-“$1.09 for a single avocado”
-“$2.31 for a head of iceberg lettuce”
-“I shop for my elderly parents they buy Butterscotch Krimpets every week. Were 2.49 a box now 4.49.”
-“I saw 15.99 per pound for ribeye steak at a grocery store in northeast Tennessee.”
-“Paid $12.95 for a pack of raw chicken thighs a few days ago. Normally they are $3.00 – $4.00”
And thanks to the horrifying bird flu pandemic which is sweeping the nation, the price of eggs is going completely nuts…
The losses to egg-laying flocks have led to producers desperately racing to meet market demands for eggs and egg products, with egg prices increasing as a result. The average price of a dozen eggs is now close to $3.00, up from $1.60 at the beginning of the year, according to the USDA’s national egg report.
If you think that these prices are wild, just wait until they double from their current levels.
All over the world the United States, a great battle for food resources has begun. The Chinese saw this coming in advance, and so they have been engaged in the largest stockpiling program that any of us have ever seen. I wrote about this back in December, but back then most people didn’t understand the true significance of that article.
At that time, the amount of food that the Chinese had already accumulated was already extremely impressive…
Less than 20% of the world’s population has managed to stockpile more than half of the globe’s maize and other grains, leading to steep price increases across the planet and dropping more countries into famine.The hoarding is taking place in China.
Has the U.S. been doing something similar?
Of course not.
When things get really bad in this country, you will be on your own.
So I hope that you have been preparing for that.
Since the war in Ukraine started, nation after nation has started to implement export restrictions, and a global scramble for agricultural commodities has steadily pushed up prices.
Nobody wants to be caught empty-handed when the music stops, and so there is a race to secure precious supplies while it is still possible to do so.
Sadly, the poorest parts of the world will end up suffering the most as the wealthy countries grab what they can. The dramatic spike that we will soon see in global hunger will be absolutely heartbreaking.
But nobody can say that we weren’t warned in advance. This sort of collapse has been coming for a long time, and now it has arrived.
I would encourage you to stockpile food at these “relatively low prices” while you have the opportunity to do so, because they are only going to go higher from here.
Build a Woodworker’s Toolbox
Build a Woodworker’s Toolbox: If you’re a mechanic, finding a toolbox is no problem – there are dozens on the market, from huge roll-around shop cases to small metal boxes. Framers, plumbers and electricians are well served, too, with everything from pickup-truck storage to tool…
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Be the Rufus
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Mistakes in judgement part 6
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Russia says Kiev regime employed 6,824 foreign mercenaries since special operation started – Military & Defense – TASS
Most mercenaries came from Poland, Russian Defense Ministry Spokesman Major General Igor Konashenkov said
MOSCOW, April 17. /TASS/. Russian Defense Ministry Spokesman Major General Igor Konashenkov on Sunday said Kiev employed more than 6,800 foreign mercenaries from 63 countries since Russia started its special operation.
"The Kiev nationalist regime has employed a total of 6,824 foreign mercenaries from 63 countries since the start of the special military operation," he said.
Most mercenaries - 1,717 people - came from Poland, about 1,500 from the US, Canada and Romania, the spokesman said. Up to 300 people arrived from the UK and Georgia each while 193 people came from the areas of Syria that are controlled by Turkey, Konashenkov said.
As a mother who works full-time, I’m always looking for quick, easy meals to prepare. This is a timeless recipe. —Lorie VanHorn, Waddell, Arizona
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Directions
In a large skillet, cook beef and onion over medium heat until meat is no longer pink; crumble meat; drain. Stir in the pasta, contents of seasoning packet, salsa, water, chili powder, salt and cayenne.
Bring to a boil. Reduce heat; cover and simmer until pasta is tender, about 15 minutes, adding more water if necessary. Stir in tomatoes; sprinkle with olives and cheese. Cover and simmer until heated through, 3-4 minutes. Serve with sour cream if desired.
Duck Duck Go gone with the wind..
“Can we not just have ONE thing that isn’t actively working against us?”
Restore your old doors into a beautiful DIY headboard. Recondition your old door, like remove the hardware from it, gunk and ugly scratches, and simply add it up with a top mantle. Paint it in your favorite color and install the hardware to fix it as the decorative head of your bed. Full guide and tutorial here infarrantlycreative.
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How to decorate your cubicle
Done with style.
Russia’s military is on full display in Google Maps satellite view
The satellite images may be a boon to open source intelligence analysts.
The ex-deputy of the Rada showed Zelensky’s Russian passport. Screen
Marina Fedorovskikh
April 20, 2022 at 12:23 pm
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Former deputy of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine Ilya Kiva showed the Russian passport of the President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky. Kiva believes that this should help in initiating a criminal case against him.
“The Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation should prosecute and put on the wanted list a citizen of Russia – Zelensky V.A. For his terrorist activities and as a suspect in committing terrorist attacks and killing thousands of citizens of Russia and Ukraine,” he said in his telegram channel.
Kiva also mentioned the possible dual citizenship of the Ukrainian leader. “Zelensky had no right to be admitted to the presidential elections with dual citizenship and his tenure as president is illegal,” the ex-deputy added.
The Investigative Committee of Russia has already begun checking against the Ukrainian president . The reason was the words of the latter about preparing for a war with Russia. Zelensky himself gave the interview to the American television channel CNN. During the conversation, he made a number of controversial statements. thus, Zelensky abandoned his promises about the status of Donbass. Kiev does not want to recognize the DPR and LPR as independent territories in the eastern part of the country in order to put an end to disputes with Russia, Nation News notes . In his opinion, the chances of successful negotiations with Russia are declining “every day,” the Federal News Agency adds .
Russian President Vladimir Putin announced a special operation on the territory of Ukraine on February 24 . The actions of the Russian troops are aimed at the demilitarization and denazification of the territory, as well as the protection of the civilian population, including those living in the DPR and LPR. The military hit the objects of the military infrastructure, equipment and weapons of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and the national battalions with high-precision means.
Greens say China isn’t a threat | Sky News Australia
The Greens do not see China as a threat to Australia and have no reservations over its security pact with the Solomon Islands. The party’s Peace and Disarmament spokesperson Jordon Steele-John told The Australian newspaper the government’s concerns over the Solomon Islands-China deal were racist…
China’s space station first to be open to all UN member states
China is implementing its first batch of international cooperation programs on board the Tiangong space station, and will hopefully upload those experiments by the end of the year. Foreign astronauts are welcome to Tiangong to make greater contributions to the shared future of mankind, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin said on Monday.
The Shenzhou-13 crew safely returned to Earth on Saturday after staying 183 days in orbit, doubling the previous record set by Shenzhou-12 to become the country’s longest single-flight space mission.
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Wang said that the mission was a breakthrough journey with many highlights and firsts. These achievements suggest that China’s space station has completed its key technology verification stage, laying a solid foundation for the next phase of in-orbit construction.
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During their six-month stay, the Shenzhou-13 crew for the first time carried out a radial rendezvous and docking with the space station’s Tianhe core cabin that verified the station’s capability to receive visiting spaceships in different positions.
We all sense the global order has cracked. The existing order is breaking down on multiple fronts.
Those who have benefited from this arrangement are doing everything in their power to patch the cracks, while those who chafed under the old order’s chains seek a new order that suits their interests.
The task now is to make sense of this complex inflection point in history. Two statements summarize the transition from the existing global order to the next iteration:
1. Finance dominated resources in the old order. Now the roles will reverse and real-world resources will dominate finance. We can’t “print our way” out of scarcities.2. Reshuffling currencies and credit will not stop the breakdown of the global order’s “waste is growth” Landfill Economy Model.
Playing financial tricks has extended the life of an unsustainable economic model that glorified “growth” from wasting resources. By expanding credit “money,” the current global order fueled unsustainable consumption driven by unsustainable speculation.
Stop expanding “money” and credit and the global order of “growth” implodes.
Unfortunately for all those who benefited from soaring wealth and income inequality, the trick of expanding “money” and credit has reached systemic limits. The dam holding all the toxic debt, leverage and fraud is finally cracking.
The dominance of resources over finance leads to a multipolar global order, an order that has the potential to be far more stable and sustainable than the unsustainable, destabilizing “waste is growth” model that depends on financial fraud to maintain the illusion of “growth.”
As I explain in my book Global Crisis, National Renewal, scarcity leads to either social disorder or rationing. This article explains how government’s role will shift from boosting demand (the Keynesian Cargo Cult) to limiting demand in ways that maintain the social contract.
Nations that fail to adapt to the end of financialization and globalization will unravel. Every nation has a choice which path it takes:
Cling on to the doomed existing order of financialization, globalization and the “waste is growth” Landfill Economy or embrace a multipolar world and a degrowth model of doing more with less and incentivizing efficiency and durability rather than the shoddy planned obsolescence of the debt-dependent Landfill Economy.
Free Money Is the Solution
Under various guises, labels and rationalizations, “free money” has now been established as the default policy fix for any problem. Stock market falters? The solution: free money! Economy falters? The solution: free money! Bankers face collapse from ruinously risky bets? The solution: free money! Infrastructure crumbling?
The solution: free money!
Inflation raging? The solution: free money! Ruh-roh. We have a problem free money won’t fix. Instead, free money accelerates the conflagration. Dang, this is inconvenient; the solution to every problem makes this problem worse. Now what do we do?
Despite the apparent surprise of the policy-makers, pundits and apologists, this was common sense. Create trillions of dollars out of thin air and spread the money around indiscriminately (fraudsters and scammers getting more than the honest, of course) after global supply chains were disrupted and shelves were bare, then open the floodgates of speculative gambling in stocks, cryptos, housing, used cars, bat guano, quatloos, etc., and what do you think will happen?
Supply can’t catch up with free-money-boosted demand, prices rise, people instinctively over-order and over-buy, and “don’t fight the Fed” speculative betting begets more betting: the inflation rocket booster ignites, wages soar as workers try to keep pace with rising expenses, speculative bubbles inflate to unprecedented extremes, and all this “wealth without work or productivity” gooses spending and gross domestic product (GDP).
“Once the Bubbles Pop, GDP Crashes and the Ratio Blows Out”
Forty years ago, the total debt-to-GDP ratio was 1.6: debt was $4.8 trillion and GDP was $3 trillion. Then the policy solutions of fiscal “borrow and spend” and Federal Reserve “balance sheet expansion.” a.k.a. free money, became the policy default.
The ratio rose to 2.76 in 2000 and has wobbled around 3.7 for the past decade, a decade that just so happened to see the stock market quadruple and the housing bubble reinflate to new heights as the Federal Reserve kept interest rates near zero as part of the “free money” policy:
If we’re going to borrow tens of trillions of dollars to squander, we need near-zero interest rates to keep costs of borrowing down.
Though no one in a position of power or influence dares admit it, the ratio of debt to GDP hasn’t blown out for one reason: speculative bubbles have pushed GDP higher in a massive, sustained distortion of “wealth effect” and winner take most gains for those who knew how to extract the majority of gains from the bubbles.
Once the bubbles pop, GDP crashes and the ratio blows out. The belief that adding trillions in debt magically adds GDP will be revealed as delusional fantasy.
Two Paths
Completely forgotten in the era of Free money as the solution to all problems is the discipline of frugality, which can best be defined as discipline over spending as a means of building long-term financial stability and general well-being.
Financial discipline (frugality) has been set aside as a needless discomfort: why make difficult tradeoffs and sacrifices when the solution is just to borrow/create more free money? Indeed. Along the same lines, why bother with all the hassles of healthy food and fitness? Just pig out and swallow a couple handfuls of “free” (heh) meds.
Discipline isn’t just about limiting waste. It’s about investing capital and labor wisely to secure future gains in productivity which is the only real source of income and wealth. Creating “money” out of thin air and spreading it around to satisfy every constituency doesn’t increase productivity. It destroys productivity by incentivizing waste – the waste is growth Landfill Economy – and speculative bets on bubbles never popping.
Alas, all bubbles pop, and now that creating free money only makes costs rise faster, there is no solution other than – oh, dear, dear, dear – the unforgiving discipline of frugality and investing for productivity gains rather than for speculative bubble “wealth.”
Which path leads to doom? Free money. Which path leads to revival? Frugality and discipline.
That’s not what everyone wants to hear, but clinging to delusional fantasies of “free wealth” won’t lead to positive outcomes, any more than swallowing handfuls of meds leads to “free health.”
Be the Rufus
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Document reveals $14 billion backlog of US defense transfers to Taiwan
Pandemic-related acquisition issues have sparked a backlog in the U.S. delivering $14.2 billion worth of military equipment to Taiwan that the island has purchased since 2019.
With much of Washington’s attention focused on how to rapidly deploy a steady stream of military aid to Ukraine, some lawmakers are concerned the Taiwan delay is undermining its ability to deter a potential Chinese invasion….
Russia says it will no longer disclose the names of organizations that use its alternative to the SWIFT payment system
Russia’s central bank will stop disclosing the names of those participating in its alternative to the SWIFT payment system, according to Reuters.
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Russia has been touting its alternative payment system — the System for Transfer of Financial Messages (SPFS), which was set up in 2014.
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Most Russian banks, as well as 52 foreign organizations from 12 countries, have access to SPFS, Russian Central Bank governor Elvira Nabiullina said on Monday, per Reuters.
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Banks from the Germany, Switzerland, France, Japan, Sweden, Turkey, and Cuba were among those connected to SPFS, according to a March report from Coface, a French credit insurer.
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“Until there was such a threat of being cut off from SWIFT, foreign partners weren’t in much of a rush to join, but now we expect their readiness to be greater,” Nabiullina said of SPFS, according to Bloomberg.
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The Indian government was considering a Russian proposal to use the SPFS for payments in rubles, Bloomberg reported in March. India has been buying cargoes of cheap Russian oil amid international sanctions and boycotts of products from the energy powerhouse. Russian oil accounted for just 2% of India’s total imports in 2021.
Biden made sanction demands on G-20 nations. He hit a BRIC+ wall.
Map of G-20 countries.
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G-20 Pressure Failing
The G-20 members are Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Republic of Korea, Mexico, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Turkey, the United Kingdom, the United States, and the European Union. Spain is also invited as a permanent guest.
The Biden administration wants to increase pressure on Russia, but finds increasing resistance to do more.
Brazil, Russia, India, and China widely known as BRICs have not bowed to US pressure. Nor have Mexico, Saudi Arabia, or South Africa.
The 2022 G-20 meets in November but those nations are also at an IMF summit right now.
Treasury secretary Janet Yellen plans to avoid Russian officials at meetings this week, while engaging with countries that haven’t joined in sanctions.
Janet Yellen Faces Challenge to Keep Pressure on Russia, While Addressing Global Consequences
Hanging over gatherings of finance ministers from around the world at the International Monetary Fund and World Bank meetings in Washington this week will be Russia’s war in Ukraine, as well as the sanctions campaign the U.S. and its allies have waged in response. As those sanctions efforts have brought the U.S. and its allies closer together, they are also laying bare deep differences in the broader Group of 20 major economies, which includes Russia, China and India, as well as European allies.Ms. Yellen is expected to boycott some G-20 meetings this week that include Russian officials, and she last week warned countries against deepening their economic ties with Russia after the sanctions, singling out China.In addition, Ms Yellen’s attempts to build support for an international tax agreement that was the focus of international economic diplomacy last year may not gain traction. Agreement on the deal still faces hurdles both in Congress and among European countries.
US Boycott
Yellen will IMF boycott meetings this week that include Russia. But what does that say about the G-20 summit in November. Will the US even go?
On March 22, Biden proposed booting Russia from the G-20. Reuters comments on the difficulty.
"It's impossible to remove Russia from G20" unless Moscow makes such a decision on its own, said an official of a G20 member country in Asia.
"There's simply no procedure to deprive Russia of G20 membership."
With Spain there are 21 G-20 nations so a US boycott would get the group size correct.
Pretty Chinese girl
I guess that I am offending people by posting attractive ladies of China. Tough titties. If you don’t like it … LEAVE.
Brent crude, the international benchmark for crude oil prices, rose to $130 a barrel on Tuesday, after the U.S. and U.K. announced a ban on Russian oil imports and the EU said it would cut its dependency on Russian gas by two-thirds this year. West Texas Intermediate crude futures, the U.S. marker, rose to around $125 a barrel.
Global oil prices have risen 58% since the beginning of the year, initially amid concerns about inflation. Russia is the world’s third-largest oil producer, supplying about 7% of global demand. Europe is Russia’s main market for oil and natural gas and bought roughly 25% of its oil from Russia in 2021. Gas prices in the EU have already risen by more than 70% since the last week of February. About 8% of U.S. oil imports came from Russia last year.
The International Energy Agency agreed to release 60 million barrels of oil from its members’ strategic reserves, which is equal to the amount of oil the U.S. consumes in three days. Large Western oil companies like BP, ExxonMobil, and Shell have halted operations in Russia. European refiners are also looking elsewhere for supply, in places like Saudi Arabia. To compensate, Russia is trying to sell crude oil to refineries in China and other Asian countries at a discount.
Chinese girl
She has a very beautiful face. I love how the eyes complement her hair. This would be a wonderful face to paint, as the proportions are all there, and the color contrasts are stark. video
This week is the deadline for millions of U.S. taxpayers to pay their taxes. According to IRS data on income taxes in 2019, U.S. taxpayers paid $1.6 trillion in income taxes — and 96.9% of the taxes were paid by half of American taxpayers. The top one percent — Americans who earn $546,434 or more — earned one-fifth of all total adjusted gross income and paid 38.8% of all federal income taxes.
The share of income taxes paid by the high-income earners (the 1%) has increased over time. From 2001 to 2019, the 1% share rose from 33% to 38.8%. Over the same time period, their share of adjusted gross income also increased, from 17.4% to 20.1%.
The top 50% of taxpayers paid 97% of all income taxes, while the bottom 50% paid the remaining 3%. The bottom half of taxpayers — who earn below $44,269 a year — paid 3%, or slightly over $48 billion, of all federal individual income taxes. Their share of reported income decreased from 2001 to 2019, from 14.4% to 11.5%.
Sixty-eight percent of Americans approve of labor unions, the highest level of approval in over 57 years, according to Gallup’s annual Work and Education poll. Americans’ approval of unions has been increasing over the last few years and is now at its highest point in more than half a century.
Gallup has been conducting surveys on labor unions since 1936; this year, Gallup measured the highest level of support since 1965 (71%). On average, more Americans approve of unions than disapprove — 2009 was the only year that approval for unions fell below majority level (48%).
Support for unions is highest among Democrats (90%), union members (86%), younger Americans between the ages of 18-34 (77%), and people with incomes under $40,000 a year (72%). Over half of Independents favor unions (66%), and Republicans are least likely to approve of them (47%).
Despite this approval rating, only 9% of U.S. adults report they are part of a union. Another 8% of U.S. adults say they live with a union member. Union members are more likely to have higher incomes than non-union workers: one in 10 adults with household incomes of $40,000 or more are union members.
Like night and day
Some people argue that wearing makeup is deceptive and a big lie. But I do not. I think that it is like having two different women. One is warm and loving, and the other is cool and tough. video
Ukrainian officials took Germany to task this week for not leveling an energy embargo on Russia, six weeks into Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The EU has leveled sanctions against Russia in response to the conflict, but it has yet to sanction Russian oil and gas, which comprised 45% of the EU’s gas imports last year. Since the start of the conflict, the EU has paid Russia about 20 billion euros ($22 billion) for gas, according to German economic adviser Veronika Grimm.
Germany is one of Russia’s main energy consumers; last year, one-third of its gas imports came from Russia. Other sources estimate that 55% of the country’s gas came from Russia in 2021. Russia also supplied Germany with 34% of its crude oil and 53% of its hard coal last year.
The German government has already implemented a national gas emergency plan that could lead to the rationing of natural gas. Gas is primarily used in industry (36%), by households (31%), and by trade and commerce (13%). Industry will be the first to feel rationing, followed by households, and lastly, hospitals and other public sector institutions.
France’s sitting president Emmanuel Macron won the first round of the French presidential elections, with 28% of the vote. However, right-wing candidate Marine Le Pen came in a close second with 23%. Left-wing candidate Jean-Luc Mélenchon came in third with a surprisingly strong 22% of the vote, but not enough to qualify for the runoff. Since no candidate won the majority of the vote in the first round, the elections will head to a runoff on April 24.
The results from Sunday night set up a repeat of the 2017 runoff between Macron and Le Pen, when Macron won the presidency. But opinion polls show that Le Pen is closer to Macron in this election, with only a few percentage points difference between the two candidates. The two traditional French political parties, the Socialists and the Republicans, got less than 10% of the vote, showing the continuing rise in the popularity of more extreme parties on the left and the right.
The French presidential election results will have a significant impact on European politics, as EU leaders respond to Russia’s continued attacks on Ukraine. Macron has backed sanctions against Russia, while Le Pen has raised the impact they have on the rising cost of living.
Pathetic Chinese Apparently Cannot Even THINK, Nevermind Question What’s Being Done to their kids
This is what happens when American writers believe the narrative that Covid is a hoax, and are completely unaware that China is under bioweapon assault. Read this article to see, how ignorance, plus distortions fuel a narrative. - MM
We here in the West have finally come to the realization that the whole “COVID” thing was a gigantic scam. Much ado was made of a virus that turned out to be not much worse than a nasty Flu. COVID has a 99.7% survival rate. It was not and is not a “Pandemic.”
Entire countries were shut down over the fuss about this illness. People were literally locked in their homes. Some businesses were deemed “non-essential” and forced to close on the mere speculation that someone, somewhere, MIGHT spread COVID by visiting those businesses.
The economic destruction from such government over-reach has destroyed countless businesses and ruined the income of many families.
People were encouraged to wear masks when out in public, even though masks are completely, totally, unable to prevent the spread of a virus. The pores on even the finest masks are four microns wide for air to get through the mask. The novel coronavirus which causes COVID-19, is only 0.04 microns in size; one hundred times smaller than the pores on the masks. As such, they are totally incapable of reducing or halting the spread of this virus.
Did those facts matter? No.
Government told people to do it anyway, and most obeyed, like good little drones.
Citizens in western nations, still slightly anchored to the reality of individual liberty, started questioning what was being demanded by government. They started suing in court. Worse for the government, people started ignoring the ridiculous demands by so-called public health officials. Lo and behold, COVID went away.
Not in China.
Look at what the Communist Party government is requiring of school children in that slave-state-nation, and observe how parents do not even question the absurdity:
2022 04 21 11 27
The people in China, appear to be insane.
…
So says Hal Turner.
Obviously he is unaware of the bioweapon carpetbombing of China because the USA warned China; “You WILL sanction Russia, or face the consequences!”
China said no.
Two days later, all up and down China were major outbreaks of COVID. The worst hit areas were those with the highest percentages of expats. Curious fact.
Jack!
…
Ah, that’s it for now. I hope that you enjoyed this little mix of contemporaneous life. Now go back to what you all have been doing, and remember… always be the Rufus.
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.
As I have discussed on my you-tube video, the United States assaults on the united Asia continues. All you need to do is see the big picture, and look at the overviews. It’s really crystal clear.
The United States provoked a Russian military action in Ukraine.
The United States failed at a color revolution in Pakastan.
The United States failed at a color revolution in Kazakhstan.
The United States is provoking a Chinese military action in Taiwan.
The United States failed at a color revolution in Belarus.
This article collects a host of loose-end articles associated with this particular time event sequence. Just hop on in and wander around. I hope that you find one or two things of interest.
Updated on
Finland has seized more than 42 million euros ($46 million) worth of art en route to Russia under European Union sanctions after President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.
The art was being returned from museums in Italy and Japan where the works had been on loan, the Finnish Customs told reporters in Helsinki on Wednesday. They arrived in three shipments and were taken into custody at the Finnish-Russian border on April 2 and 3.
I was born into a normal family. I wasn’t abused. I wasn’t dirt poor, I didn’t grow up devoid of opportunities.
Physically I am a perfectly average man, around six feet tall, normal physique. I have all my hair still, got all my teeth and everything.
You could walk past me on the street and you wouldn’t have a clue that I’m a lonely man. You wouldn’t know I’m miserable.
You wouldn’t know I’m deathly shy, because if you talked to me, I could make some small talk, but if you never approached me, I’d never dare to speak up.
For all my life I have been so terribly scared of making mistakes, that I tried desperately to avoid making any, ever. I didn’t want to make any form of social faux pas, I didn’t want to do anything I would be ashamed of remembering.
The only times I could ever let go, was when I was intoxicated… that’s when I would feel human. It’s when I go the courage to actually make jokes, be funny, be friendly, be an actual person for a moment until I sobered up.
I’ve only approached very few women in my life with romantic intentions, and when I did, I would fail inevitably.
I did not even manage to befriend any, not really anyway… I had a female friend, once, who I drifted away from. She was married and her husband was also my friend, also briefly. He was a seaman and a great guy. We had some drinks together when both of us were in our twenties.
It now seems like a lifetime away, but I remember how I envied his life… he had a wife who was an intelligent and charming young woman, he himself was a handsome, tall, robust fellow. They had a lovely young daughter who was mildly disabled intellectually due to a lack of air at birth, but who was so sweet and wonderful and ended up largely growing over her issues.
Eventually this couple, my only two friends, moved far away. After five years of working for a foreign shipping company as an officer, my friend was able to relocate to another country where he moved his wife and daughter. We tried to meet several more times. But it never materialized. Just two days ago I received the news that my only friend has died. It’s been almost twenty-five years since we last had a beer together in his backyard… I loved that man and I miss him.
That’s my entire social life of sixty-four years right there. Besides my brother and his family, there is no one I interact with anymore. Co-workers and I were always cordial at best, distant, professional but reserved.
That’s my entire life… reserved. Controlled. Never let my emotions show.
Three decades ago my friend and I, we drank and talked of the good things in life… but we never let go of our emotions. I never shed a tear. I never gave him a manly hug. I wish I did. I wish I had shed a tear. I wish I had let go of my emotions. But I never did.
As I am writing this I am realizing that I really loved my friend. He was a great man and a wonderful man and he was sweet. He was the only one, in my life, who was truly sweet… his wife didn’t treat him right. I remember my friend would come to my apartment and bring food he had made.
He would prepare fish, meat, delicious dishes. The barbeque gatherings we had in his backyard were always wonderful. I wish on that one last night we shared in the house of his in-laws, when the other guests had left and it was just the two of us sitting there… I wish I had told him, right there and then, as he told me in tears of his father’s mistreatment of him and the rejection he felt, that I loved him. Because I realize now did I did.
I married at the age of fifty. I was a virgin when I married. And perhaps underuse of equipment causes malfunction, because I was unable to have a child with her. Which is why she decided to leave me. I understand it. I was broken, truly, and she saw it. I’ve been alone for too long to be with anyone, really.
And besides, to be completely honest, I did not love her and I am pretty sure she did not love me either. She loved the idea of me. Of what I could, in theory, have offered her. A house. Family. Stability and a future. But the family part was important, too important for her to give up on. She would have resented me had she stayed with me. So she didn’t.
I never loved my wife. She left me within two years, and I have never been with another soul since. Never tried, either. The will to try has left me long ago. The only one I think I ever truly loved was my friend. But he was a married man and he moved away to Europe.
Now I just want to die in peace. But my health is decent and I am not suicidal so I will have to wait a little while longer.
When I do, I hope I will see my friend again. I find the idea of an afterlife soothing, although I am not fully sold on it, I would love it to be true, so I could actually tell him what I have always felt and never could bring myself to say.
The fact that I never did will always haunt me forever. But if I had told him and he felt it too, what good would it have been for me to end a marriage? His daughter deserved better. She is married now and has a family. She never knew. And she never will. But now you do.
Don’t do what I did. Don’t be so scared to be yourself. Don’t be so terrified to take risks. Don’t wait endlessly for life to put something good on your path, because life won’t do any such thing.
Please do not grow old and let the years pass by uneventfully. Don’t wait for golden years to arrive without effort, without risk, without ups and downs and struggles.
I tried so hard to avoid struggles out of that crippling fear and anxiety I always felt, and it got me nowhere.
Gordon if you can read this from wherever you are now, I love you and I am sorry I was such a coward.
First grade military training
China first grade. I think the kids are enjoying it. video 9MB
The world needs people who act like Rufus’s
You must make the world a better place. Don’t allow the perpetually ill, selfish and mean to be part of your reality. You ahve the power of changing things. So make it so.
People Acting Like Jerks
Shanghai Residents Rebel As Cases Surge, Lockdown Extended ‘Indefinitely’
This article is so typical of the lies that spew out of the West regarding China. It’s so much bullshit. It’s amazing.
"To be sure, the surge in cases is partially a factor of the latest mass-testing regime, but that hasn't stopped the CCP from imposing the most draconian lockdown since Wuhan (as we explained earlier, backing down would be an intolerable capitulation for President Xi and local authorities, whose careers are now in jeopardy due to factors that are completely out of their control).Following an unceasing torrent of scandals, including separating COVID positive children from their parents, covering up nursing home deaths and failing to address shortages of food and medicine, the population of Shanghai has reached its breaking point."
I never imagined that I would be writing so much about fertilizer in 2022. When I was growing up, there were only two things that I knew about fertilizer. I knew that it helped stuff grow and I knew that it smelled bad. But these days, experts are telling us that a global shortage of fertilizer could result in horrifying famines all over the world. Right now, to a very large degree we are still eating food that was produced in 2021. But by the end of the year, to a very large degree we will be eating food that was produced in 2022. Unfortunately for all of us, it appears that a lack of fertilizer will mean that far less food is grown in 2022 than originally anticipated.
Thanks to an unprecedented explosion in energy prices, we were already facing a fertilizer crisis even before the war in Ukraine, but now that war has definitely taken things to the next level.
A fertilizer shortage has added to growing concerns about the Ukraine war’s impact on the price and scarcity of certain basic foods.Combined, Russia and Belarus had provided about 40% of the world’s exports of potash, according to Morgan Stanley. Russia’s exports were hit by sanctions. Further, in February, a major Belarus producer declared force majeure — a statement that it wouldn’t be able to uphold its contracts due to forces beyond its control.Russia also exported 11% of the world’s urea, and 48% of the ammonium nitrate. Russia and Ukraine together export 28% of fertilizers made from nitrogen and phosphorous, as well as potassium, according to Morgan Stanley.
Global hunger rose significantly in both 2020 and 2021, but what we are going to be dealing with in the months ahead is going to be completely unlike anything that we have dealt with in the past.
“All of this is a double whammy, if not a triple whammy,” said Bart Melek, global head of commodity strategy at TD Securities. “We have geopolitical risk, higher input costs and basically shortages.”
We have never seen anything like this before.
Since the beginning of 2021, some fertilizer prices have “more than doubled”, and some fertilizer prices have more than tripled…
Some fertilizers have more than doubled in price. For instance, Melek said potash traded in Vancouver was priced at about $210 per metric tons at the beginning of 2021, and it’s now valued at $565. He added that urea for delivery to the Middle East was trading at $268 per metric ton on the Chicago Board of Trade in early 2021 and was valued at $887.50 on Tuesday.
The global fertilizer squeeze exacerbated by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is imperiling rice production in Peru, where the seed is a staple for tens of millions of people.Prices of the crop nutrient urea have surged almost fourfold amid supply scarcities, adding to cost inflation for growers, according to the Peruvian Association of Rice Producers.
That same article goes on to explain that many farmers in Peru won’t be able to afford to plant crops at all this year.
If that sounds familiar, that is because this is something that I have been warning about for months.
In particular, here in the United States it simply is not going to be profitable for many farmers to grow corn this year, because corn needs a high amount of fertilizer.
All over the world, far less fertilizer will be used in 2022, and that means that far less food will be grown.
“We’re talking about an erosion of food security on a scale we have not seen for a long time, and I think it will touch people in the lower income distribution in North America,” he added.
But as long as you have a decent income, you will still be able to go to the store and buy food in the months ahead.
It just might cost you a lot more.
During a recent interview with Tucker Carlson, farmer Ben Riensche warned that Americans could soon be paying a thousand dollars more a month for their groceries…
“Soaring fertilizer prices are likely to bring spiked food prices. If you’re upset that gas is up a dollar or two a gallon, wait until your grocery bill is up $1,000.00 a month, and it might not just manifest itself in terms of price. It could be quantity as well. Empty Shelf syndrome may be starting.”
Can you afford to pay $1,000 more for groceries every month?
If not, you better stock up now while prices are still relatively reasonable.
Of course there are certain things that you will not be able to stock up on because they simply aren’t there.
Shortages are intensifying all over the country, and in particular we have seen an alarming shortage of pasta begin to happen in certain stores. The following comes from an article that was just posted on All News Pipeline…
First, it was Eggs and now it’s also Pasta.The eggs have been missing for well over a week now and yesterday morning I was surprised to see the pasta was also mostly bare. Also, some of the shelves have the old COVID trick of pushing everything together and up to the front of the shelf!This is Sioux Fall SD!No eggs for over a week!Very little pasta left!
Of course the shortage of eggs is related to the shortage of pasta, because eggs are used in making pasta.
I have been trying to explain to my readers that this new bird flu pandemic is going to be a really, really big deal. As I mentioned yesterday, 28 million chickens and turkeys are already dead in less than two months, and things are already so bad that pasta is starting to disappear from our store shelves.
If things are this crazy already, what will conditions be like six months from now?
Global food riots have already started, but what we have seen so far is just the tip of the iceberg.
Like I said at the top of this article, for now we are still eating food that was produced last year to a large degree.
Just wait until we get to the end of this year and beyond.
It won’t be pretty.
Unprecedented times call for unprecedented measures, and I hope that this article will give you a sense of urgency to take action.
Unfortunately, most people still assume that everything will turn out just fine somehow, and so they won’t do anything to get prepared until it is far too late.
Behaviors of Service-to-self people
They don’t care, and they make it difficult for the rest of society. It’s all me-me-me like spoiled three year old children.
People Acting Like Jerks
Rest stop in China
This is how China does highway Rest-stops. Pretty typical. Soak it in. video 40MB
For years, there was a great debate about what the future of our society would look like. The irrational optimists kept assuring us that we would never suffer any serious consequences for decades of incredibly foolish decisions, and they kept promising that a new golden age of peace and prosperity for humanity was just around the corner. Meanwhile, others were warning that humanity would soon be plunging into an abyss filled with endless nightmares. Instead of a utopian new chapter in our history, we were warned that war, hunger, pestilence and relentless economic problems were on the horizon.
Prior to 2020, to a lot of people it seemed like the irrational optimists might be right after all.
Yes, there were lots of serious problems simmering in the background, but overall life seemed to be rolling along pretty good for most of the population.
But then 2020 came along, and everything started to change.
As I write this article in April 2022, war, hunger, pestilence and relentless economic problems have all materialized. In fact, things are already so bad in Europe that rationing has now been instituted in some areas…
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has threatened the supply of critical commodities in Europe and thrown global supply chains, which were already struggling amid COVID-19, into complete chaos.As a result, the prices of everything from wheat to oil have soared, leading to multi-decade high inflation rates in places like Germany and Spain. The supply crunch in Europe is now so bad it’s causing governments to begin laying the groundwork for rationing, with some stores already limiting supplies.
This isn’t Africa that we are talking about.
If rationing is already taking place in Europe, how bad is it going to be for the poorer nations in the months ahead?
Well, UN Secretary-General António Guterres is telling us that “the world’s most vulnerable people and countries” are heading into a “hurricane of hunger”…
UN Secretary-General António Guterres warned urgently of the global consequences of the war as early as mid-March. The breadbasket is being bombed and a “hurricane of hunger” is threatening, he stated. Given Ukraine’s great importance as a food exporter, the invasion was “also an attack on the world’s most vulnerable people and countries.”
Sadly, he is not exaggerating one bit.
As I discussed yesterday, at this point even Joe Biden is admitting that the coming food shortages are “going to be real”.
But even though global leaders are openly telling us that things are going to get really bad, most people still don’t seem very alarmed.
This greatly frustrates me, because this is not a false alarm.
The world’s 45 least developed countries import at least one-third of their wheat from Ukraine or Russia, and 18 countries among them import more than 50 percent. These include Egypt, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen. These are all countries that are already dependent on humanitarian aid and food supplies because millions of people are currently suffering from massive hunger.
How are all of those countries supposed to feed their people without that wheat?
I keep asking that question, and not a single person has been able to answer it.
Just look at the crisis that has erupted in Lebanon. They normally get approximately 75 percent of their wheat from either Russia or Ukraine, and so far they have been unable to procure supplies from alternate sources…
Lebanon, which obtains 75 percent of its wheat from Russia and especially Ukraine, is also desperately seeking other wheat exporters, but so far without success. The government turned to the international community with a call for help. There are now fears of rationing and sharp price increases, which will hit the already hard-pressed population hard.
Meanwhile, the global bird flu plague just continues to intensify.
The new cases mean that across the nation, farmers have had to kill about 22 million egg-laying chickens, 1.8 million broiler chickens, 1.9 million pullet and other commercial chickens, and 1.9 million turkeys.
It has taken less than two months to go from the first confirmed case in the U.S. to nearly 28 million dead.
So what will the death toll look like six months from now?
And can you imagine what this will do to food prices?
It is being reported that the price of a dozen eggs has already risen 52 percent since the start of this new pandemic…
Egg prices are skyrocketing as a bird-flu outbreak ravages commercial chicken flocks in the U.S., with the price of a dozen large eggs spiking more than 52% in just under two months.
For much more on this crisis, please see the article that I posted yesterday entitled “20 Facts About The Emerging Global Food Shortage That Should Chill You To The Core”. I wish that I had sufficient words to properly convey the urgency that we should all be feeling in this hour. We are heading into a complete and total nightmare, and I wish that I could get more people to understand this.
Mike Adams is sounding the alarm too. The following comes from an article that was published a few days ago in the Epoch Times…
Food scarcity. Food vouchers. Food riots and flash mobs.All of that’s coming—and soon, says Texas-based food scientist and “Health Ranger” podcaster Mike Adams, who sees dire events unfolding in America in the short term.His advice: people need to get prepared now.
If there’s one place one can find plenty of nicknames, it’s within the sprawling landscape of the armed forces. When it comes to the greater civilian world, there’s no historical precedent or agreed upon social norm for how someone or something gains a substitute informal title. However, given the Department of Defense’s fondness of rigid structure, it should be no surprise that when it comes to nicknames, there’s a policy for them, too.
Meet NICKA
Prior to 1975, names for military operations and projects were exclusively chosen at the behest of military commanders. As a result, within the annals of American military history one can find a diverse range of interesting titles from Operation Killer—a major 1951 counter-offensive during the Korean War—to Operation Beaver Cage—a U.S. Marine Corps operation that occurred during the spring of 1967 as part of the Vietnam War.
However, shortly after the close of the Vietnam War, the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) decided it was time to formalize the use of code words and nicknames by unveiling the Code Word Nickname and Exercise Term System, colloquially known as NICKA.
For the Department of Defense (DoD), NICKA is both a set of policies governing the selection of defense monikers and a military-wide computer system that archives and prevents duplication of terms.
Important to note, NICKA is primarily used for Department of Defense-related endeavors. Many operations or programs emerging from within the intelligence community use their own separate naming system.
For example, the Central Intelligence Agency uses the Cryptonym system for developing code words and names. It is also worth noting that the National Security Agency (NSA), National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA), Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), and National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) all use the NICKA system
NICKA outlines three distinctive types of monikers that can be used within the DoD:
Code Words
Nicknames
Exercise Terms
Code Words
In NICKA, acode word is a single word that’s assigned to any program or operational plan that’s classified confidential or higher. Each component agency in the Department of Defense are assigned blocks of code words by the Joint Staff. When needed, the NICKA computer program will randomly select and assign a code word from the originating agency’s allocated block of terms.
For example, in the lead up to the Gulf War, when the Combat Aviation Brigade of the 1st Armored Division needed a code word for their forward assembly area, the NICKA computer system pulled from one of the Army’s predetermined block designations and selected the amusingly mundane code word—LARRY.
Essentially a password for entry in an exclusive club, the preeminent role of code words is to restrict access to sensitive national security information to only those who have a need to know. Assisting security, a code word itself will be safeguarded by being classified by one of the three security classifications—confidential, secret, or top secret—based on the security level of the associated program.
Virtually anything conceivably classified, including programs, projects, locations, operations, objectives, missions, or plans, can be assigned a code word. One particular area code words can be highly prevalent is with Special Access Programs (SAP). As mentioned in The War Zone’s in-depth look at Special Access Programs, multiple components, sub-components, and projects can sprawl out from a single SAP “umbrella.” In this compartmentalized system of security, each of the different appendages of one SAP can potentially be assigned their own specific code word.
Once NICKA assigns a code word, it’s considered active. An active code word will remain unchanged for the life of a program and cannot be altered by its users. The one exception being if there’s a concern a code word had been compromised. In this instance, a new code word would be issued. Equally, in certain situations, an unclassified cover term may get applied to a program for counterintelligence purposes.
In addition to the obvious security and oversight reasons, the principal reason for a code word’s permanence relates to the significant role NICKA serves as an archive of all active and inactive code words. The system uses its database of terms to prevent any potential conflicts that could arise due to similarities or duplication of previous code words.
As a Department of Defense system, NICKA will only assign single-word code words. However, in some instances, the Pentagon may take over a project or program that originated outside of the DoD, such as from the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), Department of Energy (DOE), commercial companies, or even foreign governments. In these instances, already assigned code words may not follow NICKA guidelines. In these occurrences, a program may be reassigned a new NICKA code word or the previous unregulated code name may be maintained.
Regardless, of whether it’s kept or not, the non-NICKA code name may still be added to the program’s database to stem off any future confusion or conflict.
For example, technically before NICKA’s time and not a DoD project, the 1960s A-12 reconnaissance plane was developed and operated under the CIA code word “OXCART”. However, Kelly Johnson and his pioneering team of engineers at Lockheed Skunk Works used the code word “ARCHANGEL” for the A-12. Furthering the spy plane’s eventual identity crisis, flight crews would nickname the A-12 “Cygnus.”
Though OXCART was the only officially assigned government code word, under NICKA, both the contract code word, “ARCHANGEL” and the A-12’s nickname “Cygnus,” would equally be archived to prevent duplicate use.
When it comes to code words. Many real-world military operations and programs, for example, “HAVE BLUE,“ “ACID GAMBIT,” “AUTUMN RETURN,” “SENIOR TREND,” or the infamous “YELLOW FRUIT,” are often reported as being the “code word” for a classified operation or program. However, per DoD and the Joint Chiefs NICKA policy, a code word always consist of just a single word. By NICKA, the above named examples would be “nicknames” and not code words.
This does not mean that multiple code words cannot apply to a certain entity. Any intelligence product that contains Top-Secret NATO information would carry the code word “COSMIC” in addition to any other applicable ones. Certain categories of sensitive activities can even involve code words that become intrinsically linked and enter common usage linked together. “TALENT,” an overarching code word for aerial intelligence-gathering assets, such as the U-2 Dragon Lady and SR-71 Blackbird spy planes, and “KEYHOLE,” which covers intelligence-gathering satellites, are no longer treated as separate from each other officially and one will routinely see documents marked “TALENT KEYHOLE,” or using the abbreviation “TK,” as a single term.
Nicknames
As we briefly mentioned, when it comes to the designation of nicknames, NICKA offers some flexibility and gives military commanders the ability to be a little more creative.
Whereas NICKA only assigns single-word code words, by policy, nicknames must be comprised of two separate words. Similar to the code word process, each DoD component agency is assigned a set of designated numerical block assignments by NICKA. In turn, the agency’s numerical block assignment will correspond to “alphabetical assignment list,” which is a range of two-letter alphabetical sets. The first word of any nickname must come from within an agency’s assigned alphabetical range.
For example, using the now obsolete and unclassified NICKA block assignments, if a program within the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) needed to come up with a nickname, one would start by identifying the four numerical blocks assigned to the DIA (15, 33, 51, and 76).
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The next step would be identifying what ranges of two-letter combinations would be associated with an agency’s assigned blocks. Following along with the previous example, based on the alphabetical assignment list, the first word of a DIA program nickname would have to start with:
Block 15 – Letters DM – DR
Block 33 – Letters IA – IF
Block 51 – Letters MM-MR
Block 76 – Letters SS – SZ
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Once the alphabetical block assignments are determined, for military commanders, the process then becomes a word-search of sorts in order to come up with an appropriate first word for a nickname that fits within the designated letter combinations. In our example, the words “DOOM,” “IDEAL,” “MOON,” or “STEREO” would all fit the criteria as being acceptable first words for a DIA nickname.
Below is a more specific set of examples straight from the U.S. Central Command’s (CENTCOM) regulation regarding NICKA:
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When it comes to the second portion of the two-word requirement for nicknames, military planners have the unrestricted ability to get creative, provided phrases are not “improper” or “counterproductive.”
By NICKA guidelines, improper nicknames would be terms that are:
Inconsistent with traditional American ideals or current foreign policy.
Offensive to good taste or derogatory to a particular group, sect, or creed.
Offensive to U.S. allies or other free world nations.
Additionally, NICKA forbids nicknames from being:
Any two-word combination voice call sign found in the Joint Army Navy Air Force Publication Call Sign Book (JANAP-119).
Include the words, “Project, Exercise, or Operation.”
Words that may be used correctly either as a single word or as two words, such as “moonlight.”
Exotic words, trite expressions or well-known commercial trademarks.
By military standards—where one can often find rules for rules—NICKA guidelines on nicknames are fairly limited and debatably common sense. Thanks to the tempered flexibility NICKA gives to nicknames, the system still affords for some bellicose poetry like “Beast Master”—a 2006 Army operation to clear the Baghdad suburb of Ghazaliya—an area itself (unofficially) nicknamed “IED Alley East,” or “Viking Snatch”—a 2007 counterinsurgency operation in Iraq. Still, especially at lower levels of command and for short-duration operations, one still often sees nicknames that do not comply with NICKA, including ones with single words.
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In contrast to code words, nicknames, including their descriptions, meanings, and relationship, are also, by policy, supposed to remain unclassified, though the branches of the U.S. military still routinely classify them on the ground of national security. In addition, NICKA guidelines stipulate nicknames are not required, but can be assigned to actual real-world events, projects, or activities. One caveat to “not required” being with Special Access Programs, which are required to have an unclassified nickname assigned to them.
Exercise Terms
Rounding out NICKA’s trifecta of officially sanctioned phrases, are exercise terms. As the name implies, exercise terms are monikers assigned to tests, drills, or exercises, which are assigned for the purpose of emphasizing the event is not an actual real-world operation. That said, the military has a bad habit of not sticking to DoD rules when it comes to publicizing or describing training exercises, often describing them as “operations.”
For example, “Llama Fury” was a week-long Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) training exercise at Seymour Johnson Air Force Base in late summer of 2015. By NICKA policies, Llama Fury should have carried the “exercise” moniker. However, in press releases, multiple Air Force Public Affairs Offices described the event as “Operation Llama Fury.”
Though technically their own classification, exercise terms are more or less an extension of NICKA nicknames, with their selection and regulation falling under the same agency assigned alphabetical block system as the nicknaming process.
Since some military training evolutions are regularly repeated, certain specific exercises will carry the same name with an added numerical postfix indicating the month or year the event occurs. For example, held annually from 2006 to 2018, some of the largest U.S. military war games ever performed in the Pacific Ocean were all conducted under the exercise term “Valiant Shield.” Since this training event was repeated for twelve-years, a four-digit identifier for the year training maneuvers were performed would accompany the exercise term, producing “Exercise Valiant Shield 2017,” and so on and so forth.
For exercises that occur multiple times in a fiscal year, like “Swift Response,” a large training event between the U.S. and its European allies, the second iteration of the exercise in 2017 would be called “Swift Response 17-2.”
Least ambiguous of NICKA’s trio, code words play an essential role safeguarding extremely sensitive secrets. However, when it comes to nicknames and exercise terms, this aspect of NICKA is arguably more significant.
For example, “Enduring Freedom,” (the U.S. Global War on Terrorism, though often applied solely to operations in Afghanistan), “Iraqi Freedom,” (the 2003 invasion of Iraq and subsequent occupation), or “Inherent Resolve,” (the U.S. military intervention in Iraq and Syria to combat ISIS), are not merely nicknames, these phrases are meant to inspire and express the overarching intent of military involvement.
More than just iconic inscriptions on military ribbons, medals, and service records, the perceptions associated with a few major military nicknames or terms become ingrained in the public’s collective conscious and often end up being enduring aspects of American history.
So, there you have it. All those cool-sounding program nicknames, secretive code words, and intense sounding military exercises you probably heard of over the years, all likely came from a highly structured, yet obscure Department of Defense system puzzlingly named NICKA.
Rufus police rescues a little baby
He helps those in need like a real Rufus. video 3MB
If you only get your news from the mainstream media, you would be tempted to believe that global conditions are relatively stable right now. Yes, there is a war between Russia and Ukraine, but the mainstream media is assuring us that Ukraine is winning that war. Other than that, the mainstream media seems to think that everything is just fine. Of course the truth is that our planet is facing a whole host of extremely challenging problems at the moment. The UN has warned that we are entering the worst global food crisis since World War II, inflation has started to spiral out of control all over the world, the war in Ukraine is making our supply chain nightmares even worse and an absolutely horrifying bird flu plague is killing millions upon millions of chickens and turkeys.
But if you flip on one of the corporate news channels tonight, they will be focusing on other things.
And you probably won’t even hear them talk about the food riots that have suddenly begun erupting around the world at all.
Peruvian President Pedro Castillo announced a curfew for Tuesday in the capital Lima and neighboring port city Callao, after demonstrations across the country over fuel prices caused roadblocks and “acts of violence”.Protests had erupted across Peru in recent days due to a hike in fuel prices and tolls, during a time of rising food prices.
Is this the first time that you have heard about this?
For many of you it will be, and that is because the mainstream media in the U.S. is largely ignoring this.
In Sri Lanka, severe shortages of “food, medicine and fuel” have caused a full-blown economic collapse and tremendous chaos in the streets…
In Sri Lanka, where an economic crisis is growing, more than 40 lawmakers walked out of the ruling coalition today. That leaves the government of President Gotabaya Rajapaksa in the minority in Parliament. There have been new calls today for both the president and prime minister to step down after the entire Cabinet resigned on Sunday. Shortages of food, medicine and fuel have sparked countrywide protests, and security forces have fired tear gas and water cannons at protesters marching on the president’s home.
Most of you have probably not heard about that either, and that is because our largest news outlets are being really quiet about it.
More than ever before, our perception of the world around us is shaped by the corporate elite. Americans get more than 90 percent of the “television news” that they consume from just five giant media corporations, and so that gives those corporations an incredible amount of influence over how our society views reality.
For example, far more Americans are talking about “the slap” at the Academy Awards than about the fact that North Korea just threatened South Korea with nuclear war…
North Korea opposes war but would use nuclear weapons if South Korea attacked, Kim Yo Jong, the powerful sister of leader Kim Jong Un, said on Tuesday, in a warning that analysts said is probably aimed at the South’s incoming conservative president.Kim Yo Jong, a senior official in the government and ruling party, said it was a “very big mistake” for South Korea’s minister of defence to make recent remarks discussing attacks on the North, state news agency KCNA reported.
The war in Ukraine is not going to be the last war that erupts. I believe that China is very strongly considering an invasion of Taiwan in the not too distant future, and a major war between Israel and Iran could literally start at any time.
I suppose that we should be thankful to CNN, because I probably never would have heard about that new flavor unless they ran that story.
Meanwhile, the number of poultry flocks in Minnesota that have been hit by the new bird flu pandemic just doubled…
The Minnesota Board of Animal Health on Tuesday reported the latest outbreak of highly pathogenic avian influenza in the state is now affecting a total of 15 poultry flocks — up from seven last Friday.
Minnesota is the number one state for turkey production, and so this is a really big deal.
Overall, the national death toll just continues to climb. The first case at a commercial facility in the United States was confirmed less than two months ago, and now the death toll has risen to nearly 28 million…
The new cases mean that across the nation, farmers have had to kill about 22 million egg-laying chickens, 1.8 million broiler chickens, 1.9 million pullet and other commercial chickens, and 1.9 million turkeys.
I am so grateful for the alternative media, because they often cover stories that the mainstream media never talks about.
For example, our friends at Zero Hedge have informed us that the price of jet fuel in New York has risen “more than 162% since mid-March”…
Wholesale jet fuel prices in New York have risen more than 162% since mid-March, as buyers at some of the world’s busiest airports, located on the US East Coast, anticipate dwindling supplies as Western sanctions shun Russian energy exports.On Monday, jet fuel prices jumped 93 cents to $7.61 a gallon, a new record high, according to Bloomberg data going back to 1988.
That is crazy.
We are seeing so much inflation all throughout the system right now. A few hours ago, I came across a post by a supermarket employee on a very popular Internet forum that really got my attention. According to this employee, workers at this particular store were given 52 pages of price changes just this week…
Tyson Chicken strip jumped up $3Eggs went up to $3.50 they were 2.2532 pack of water went to $5.50 originally 3.75There was 35 pages of price changes on the dry side and 17 pages in freezer and cooler they are planning to have that many pages or more next week also
A trip to the grocery store is going to become very, very painful in the months ahead.
But just be thankful that you don’t live in one of the poorest countries on the planet.
At this point, even Vladimir Putin is telling us that the food shortages that we are now witnessing are going to get even worse…
Putin said higher energy prices and fertilizer shortages would mean Western nations would have to print more money to buy supplies, which would cause food shortages in poorer countries.“They will inevitably exacerbate food shortages in the poorest regions of the world, spur new waves of migration, and, in general, drive food prices even higher,” Putin said in a meeting on developing food production, Reuters reported.
A full-blown global meltdown has now begun, and it is going to go to an entirely new level in the months ahead.
But the mainstream media will try to distract you with stories about Will Smith, Kourtney Kardashian and other celebrities for as long as they can.
Personally, I don’t really care that Kourtney Kardashian just married Travis Barker in Las Vegas. What I do care about is the fact that our society is coming apart at the seams all around us.
The news that you get from the corporate media has been carefully designed to promote certain narratives, and these days much of it is wildly inaccurate.
But most of the population will continue to blindly believe whatever they are told to believe by our “professional journalists”, and that is extremely unfortunate.
Video in front of MM office
This is what it is like on the road right in front of my office. video 14MB
Confessions of a Woman Who Suffers From Dissociative Identity Disorder (Multiple Personality)
When did you first learn or suspect that you had DID?
The first signs that something was wrong were that she was losing track of big chunks of time, people were telling her that she had said or done things that she couldn’t remember doing, people she didn’t know were acting like they knew her, and she was finding journals, poetry, and art that she didn’t recognize.
The first signs that something was wrong were that she was losing track of big chunks of time, people were telling her that she had said or done things that she couldn’t remember doing, people she didn’t know were acting like they knew her, and she was finding journals, poetry, and art that she didn’t recognize.
What causes someone to have DID?
DID is a trauma-based disorder.
The most popular explanation for the etiology of DID is that when a child experiences truly horrific trauma, they invent other identities to cope with that trauma. The child essentially says to themselves, “That didn’t happen to me. That happened to another little girl. It wasn’t me.”
Dissociation during traumatic events is fairly common. You’ll hear survivors of car crashes say that it all felt surreal, like it was in slow motion, like they remember it as if they were detached from their body or viewing it from a detached perspective. Now imagine being in a car crash over and over, every single day. If you enter that detached state over and over again at a young age when your sense of self and your concept of identity is being formed, you develop a fragmented sense of self. Being a child, you give names to those fragments. Over time, the fragments develop their own sense of self.
Have you been diagnosed by a professional? What was that process like?
I feel really fortunate that the diagnosis process for us was shorter than most. DID is a very stigmatized disorder so it can be a slow process for most people.
At 14 we were referred to therapy because of problems at school. Our initial diagnosis was PTSD, but our therapist quickly began to suspect a dissociative disorder. Because of our young age, she chose to formally diagnose us with Dissociative Disorder Not Otherwise Specified rather than DID. She wanted to take a “wait and see” approach to diagnosis. Unfortunately, we weren’t able to continue therapy with her for long because we lost our insurance.
In college we were formally diagnosed, but by that point it was not a surprise at all. By then, we were very aware of each other and had been working on improving our communication and working together.
How do you feel about the fact that you have DID?
I guess acceptance is the best way to describe it. I don’t know anything else, so this is normal for me.
How many alters do you have? Are you comfortable describing them or any of their traits? How are they different from you?
I’ll start with myself. My name is Quin. I am not the original identity, but I think I have been around the longest. I currently do most of the fronting. I keep everyone organized and try to keep this system running smoothly.
Morgan is our original identity. Until we moved away from our family of origin, she was the one fronting most of the time. Ever since we moved away, she stopped fronting. Right now we don’t know if that’s a temporary thing or if it’s permanent, but it seems like the best decision for everyone.
Emma is a childlike alter who will tell you that she is four years old. She likes to play with toys and play Facebook games like Candy Crush.
Hailey is our other childlike alter. We think that she is emotionally about eight. She likes to watch Disney movies, but also likes to watch upsetting TV shows that are way too mature for her.
Storm has the emotional maturity of a teenager. I have previously joked about her being a little edgelord with a name to match, but that’s a bit mean. I honestly don’t know what she’s into at the moment.
Caden is a little ball of sunshine, according to one of our friends. I don’t actually know how old Caden is? He gets along with everyone. He’s silly and friendly and impossible to dislike, even when he’s being a bit of a jerk. I think he does it so that he can get away with doing whatever he wants to do.
Zoe is creative and smart. I’ve previously said she wasn’t very friendly, but that’s not very accurate. She’s not very friendly to me and she’s not very trusting, but she’s actually very social and more interested in socializing than I am. Zoe is very emotional and a little hot-headed.
Hannah is one of the most mature alters in our group. For a long time I couldn’t get a read on her and I didn’t know what was going on with her. She kept herself closed off from me for some reason, but I’ve gotten to know her more recently. She holds a lot of our memories and seems to be trying to figure out what to do with them. When she fronts, she takes care of lots of self-care type tasks and household things. She seems kind of like the mom of the group.
Carrie is an alter that I know exists, but I haven’t interacted with in a long time. I don’t really know much about her.
Arlo is one of our newest alters. They still haven’t told us if they are are a boy or a girl, but maybe they aren’t either? Arlo fronts when we are overwhelmed. They like to play video games. Arlo is extremely stubborn.
We also have an unnamed alter who exists mainly to harass and persecute us, but since they don’t front, I won’t go into detail about them.
Describe your relationship with your alters.
Our relationships with each other vary quite a bit, but I think we are a lot like a family. There’s some occasional friction and tension, but everyone has the same goal. We’re all just trying to survive.
What does it feel like to switch to another alter?
I absolutely hate answering this question every time it’s asked, so I’m going to skip it.
Do you always change clothes/hair/makeup/hats when you switch?
No, that’s really more of a media thing. I think it’s done in film and tv so that the audience can tell which alter is present. In reality, it would be exhausting to run to our closet for a wardrobe change every time there was a switch.
That said, we do have some different clothing preferences. If Zoe is planning on being in control all day long, she might dress more feminine than I would normally dress. If Arlo is fronting, they are almost always wearing their favorite hoodie. But it’s not like wearing that hoodie is a for sure indication that Arlo is currently fronting.
Do you have any abilities or skills that your alters don’t, or vice versa?
Only myself and a few others are able to do our work tasks. Hannah is a better cook than most. Only Hailey knows how to play the flute. Zoe is a creative writer.
Do different alters have different physical conditions or traits (for example, different eyesight, allergies or hand preference)?
No, and others may disagree with me on this but I personally believe that this is (for the most part) a media myth. The physical body is the physical body. The only physical differences that you can have between alters are the ones that can be impacted by emotional/psychological state, like placebo and conversion disorders. It’s not like the movie Split where one alter can be diabetic when the others aren’t. However, if the body has diabetes then different alters could have different blood sugar levels because your stress levels can cause your blood sugar to go up and down.
How frequently do you experience gaps in your memory? What is that like? How do you cope with it on a daily basis?
This really depends on how well we are coping with our current life stress. When we’re doing well, memories are shared and co-consciousness is common. When the stress level rises and we’re struggling to cope, amnesia and memory gaps become more common.
Amnesia can be really frightening, especially “waking up” some place you don’t expect to be. It’s not so bad if I’m just at home and I’ve lost a few hours, but if I’m suddenly at the grocery store and the last thing I remember is being at home in bed, it’s pretty alarming.
I cope with it by trying to stick to a schedule, journaling, using notes and calendars to keep track of everything. I try to stay really organized to compensate for everything.
How do you communicate with your alters?
This sounds ridiculous, but internal communication is as simple as “thinking at” the other alters. When internal communication breaks down, we use journals and things like Google Keep to talk to each other.
Do your alters have different relationships, i.e. friendships or romantic partners? If you’re married or in a relationship, how do your alters feel about your SO?
We basically have the same friends, but we have different relationships with those friends.
All of us have a good relationship with our SO.
Are you co-conscious with any/all of your alters? What does co-consciousness feel like?
Most of us are able to experience co-consciousness with each other. Not all of us are “drift compatible” with each other, to borrow a term from Pacific Rim.
Are you aware of an internal world or inside space?
No, we have never experienced an internal world.
Have you told friends/family about your diagnosis? Why or why not?
When we were in our early 20s we were more open about our diagnosis, but we experienced some real negative consequences because of that. People tend to see us only as our diagnosis. It’s very difficult for people to understand. It’s hard to live a normal life when people know. We much prefer that people don’t know.
What do you wish everyone without DID knew or understood better about you?
It’s nothing like (most of) the media depictions. When it’s what you’ve lived with your whole life, it just feels normal.
What is the worst or most embarrassing thing to ever happen to you as the result of an alter’s actions?
I won’t embarrass myself by going into details, but it can be hard having childlike alters. It was a bigger problem when we were younger, and things are much better controlled now, but there were some embarrassing moments.
Describe a time when one of your alters saved your ass.
I don’t give her enough credit, so I’ll use this opportunity to talk about Storm. We’ve been joking lately about how Storm is a “fire alarm” that goes off when something isn’t right, but she’s kind of a shitty fire alarm because if you don’t pay attention to her fast enough she’ll just spray gasoline in the whole building and burn the whole place down (metaphorically, of course) to make sure you are really aware of the fire.
But the truth is, Storm probably has saved my ass dozens of times and she would have saved my ass dozens more if I had just listened to her more. She’s really good at knowing when situations are unsafe and knowing when something is wrong. She’s one of the few of us who is brave enough to use her voice and really scream and stand up for herself. I’m sure that at least a few of the times she’s screamed “Get the fuck away from me!” could have turned out really badly if she hadn’t.
Has an alter ever done something illegal or immoral?
Illegal? No. Immoral? Depending on your standards of morality, absolutely. We have disagreements about moral behavior all the time. Zoe constantly does things that I find unacceptable.
Have you experienced bullying, discrimination or stigma because of your DID?
When we were open about it, yes. That’s why we have chosen not to tell most people.
Does DID interfere with your ability to have a family, a career, or to achieve the kind of life you want?
This isn’t the feel good answer people probably want, but yes.
We are childfree mostly because of DID. There are alters in our system who wanted children very badly, but we felt that having children was the wrong choice for us because of our condition.
DID also interfered with our education throughout high school and college. We were able to finish our undergraduate degree, but ultimately it did stop us from completing our masters program and working in the field that we intended to work in.
At our current level of functioning, I don’t think we could hold down a traditional 9 to 5 job. We currently work from home and are really happy with our career, but we are lucky that this is an option for us.
I don’t know if this is the case for everyone else with DID, but we choose not to drive because of the severity of our dissociation. The risk of dissociating while driving is just too much for us, so we are reliant on other people for transportation.
What are your biggest challenges living with DID?
Honestly, it’s not the DID itself, it’s working through the underlying issues that caused the DID. Unpacking all of that trauma can be exhausting and disruptive. Just when you think you’ve found homeostasis with your system, someone finds a bunch of new baggage to unpack.
What are some of the positives that have come out of having DID?
We survived.
A cat sized couch…
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Places where birthright Citizenship is based on land and places where it is based on blood
Very interesting.
iu80ec4rcx171
Pretty Chinese Girl
Very nice desert scene. China has some very large and beautiful deserts.
Warning: A NATO/Internet wide National Security Letter has been issued blocking all reporting of the alleged capture of an American general in Mariupol.
Our sources on the ground report that the last two helicopters trying to evacuate foreign VIPs from Mariupol were shot down this morning. They were sent on a suicide mission to collect Lt.General Coultier, who was, we are told, hiding in a huge industrial complex with some Special Forces staffers and about 30 Ukrainian Army, not Azov, soldiers. This hours old story from Tass is below.
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From KP.Ru:
On the morning of April 5, another attempt by the Kiev regime to evacuate the leaders of the Azov nationalist battalion and “others” was thwarted near Mariupol. Two Ukrainian Mi-8 helicopters, which tried to break through to the city from the sea, were shot down from man-portable anti-aircraft missile systems, Igor Konashenkov, spokesman for the Russian Defense Ministry, said at a briefing.
Note that this is the third attempt by Kyiv to pull its war criminals from the crime scene. But it ended the same as the previous ones: the helicopters did not reach Mariupol.
Читайте на WWW.KP.RU: https://www.kp.ru/daily/27375/4568448/
Reports from our friends in the Pentagon say “something’s up” and panic has set in at the White House.
Minutes ago, the general showed up on his Linkdin account and we are told that the ranks of retirees and crisis actors (yes they exist) are being scoured for fat bald types that can be green-screened into a show and tell with Zelensky, believed to be hiding in Poland.
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Twitter, YouTube and Facebook are busy erasing all posts tied to this, even faster than usual. We await broader confirmation but, if Russia is holding him, they are unlikely to announce it but rather use it as a secret bargaining chip to hold over Biden’s head.
Based on this, and having seen similar issues where an Israeli general was captured in Syria (confirmed, they sent us his ID card)…and VT helped negotiate his return to his family (for millions paid to Shiite militias).
We have sources that claim Cloutier had been in and out of Syria through Turkey, working with ISIS and al Qaeda there as well and with terrorist groups in Africa.
We say “no denial can be believed…we are now in ‘new territory’”
There are numerous reports currently circulating claiming that U.S. Army Lieutenant General Roger L. Cloutier was captured by Russian forces in or near Mariupol, Ukraine, where reports claim he was assisting the Azov battalion, which is the official Nazi unit of Ukraine.
Confirmation that as early as March 7, US Lieutenant General Roger Cloutier was in Ukraine. pic.twitter.com/0eiJYrAcHZ— TheRepublic (@_TheRepublic_) April 5, 2022
According to Wikipedia, Lt. Gen. Roger L. Cloutier:
Roger L. Cloutier Jr. is a lieutenant general in the U.S. Army and commander of Allied Land Command . He previously served as commander of the United States Army in Africa.
Allied Land Command (LANDCOM) formerly Allied Land Forces South East Europe
Oh boy. US General Roger Cloutier was most definitely involved in training Ukrainian soldiers, as this photo attests.Two days ago, a Bulgarian news source claimed he was visiting Bulgaria — pic.twitter.com/gOMBDRgmTQ— OldGuyOnTheMove (@old_move) April 5, 2022
(LANDSOUTHEAST) is a permanent headquarters for NATO land forces that can be appointed as needed. The commander of LANDCOM is the Alliance’s chief ground warfare advisor. When directed by the Supreme Allied Commander Europe, he provides the core of the headquarters responsible for ground operations.
The command is based at Shirinya (Buka), Izmir in Turkey.
Unconfirmed sources from #Russia Military:
The #Russian army captured the U.S Major General Roger L. Cloutier Jr. Maj. Gen. Roger L. Cloutier, the #USA Africa Command HQ Chief of Staff in the besieged Ukrainian Azov camp in Mariupol !https://t.co/7Y8Jd2qU9X— Su-57 5th Gen Fighter (@5thSu) April 5, 2022
A letter to the Pentagon sent a few hours ago went unanswered, which, from a media perspective, is very unusual. If the message had been false, the Pentagon would have denied it immediately. They did NOT deny it. But there has been no official response from the Pentagon as of 6:10 p.m. EDT on Monday.
Links:
Lieutenant General Roger L. Cloutier Jr. assumed command of Allied Land Command in August 2020. Prior to this he served as the commander of U.S. Army Africa / Southern European Task Force. https://lc.nato.int/about-us/biographies/commander
Russian Defense Ministry: two more Mi-8s sent to evacuate Azov leaders were shot down near Mariupol
According to the department, this happened on the morning of April 5.
MOSCOW, 5 April. /TASS/. Two Ukrainian Mi-8 helicopters sent to evacuate the leaders of the Azov nationalist battalion were shot down near Mariupol on Tuesday morning.
Igor Konashenkov, official representative of the Russian Defense Ministry, told reporters about this.
“On the morning of April 5, another attempt by the Kiev regime to evacuate the leaders of the Azov nationalist battalion was thwarted in the Mariupol region. Two Ukrainian Mi-8 helicopters that tried to break through to the city from the sea were shot down from man-portable anti-aircraft missile systems,”
I worked at a Juvenile Detention Facility in New Mexico. The absolute scariest thing I ever saw was a young boy, 9 years old, booked in for murdering both of his parents. There was nothing there. I fail to call this thing even human. I looked into this child’s eyes and felt more fear than I ever have to this day. This was no child, it was a monster. Pure evil, condensed and given human form.
And to clarify: I have booked and looked after murder suspects before, it was nothing new. But this kid was different. Very different. He never broke any rules and always followed commands but never, ever spoke unless directly asked something. And then it was curt, short. Just to answer a question. He never cried, either. Which is highly unusual for a 9 year old kid in jail. He was eventually tried and transferred to mental facility. But I’ll never forget the kid’s eyes. It haunts me to this day.
High school track meet
1960s obviously. But that hair! Can you just imagine?
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For those who want to contribute to their community
I always tell everyone to become part of their community. Volunteer. Smile. Contribute and to have a skill or a resource that they can contribute to the rest of the community when times get hard. Like being a handiman, or a medical tech. Well, how about a home craft beer beermeister?
That could be a great skill…
Make your own home craft beer.
An image for inspiration
What is stopping you?
6rl4w6l2ifn81
A Flock Of Seagulls – Space Age Love Song
The scenes are from one of my long-forgotten mid-1990s movies. Brings back a flood of memories. Jennifer Connelly was 20 years old in this video, and it’s been 30 years since. But, yes, she was absolutely stunning here. Falling in love with her would have been the easiest thing in the world. The Flock of Seagulls song was perfect.
Scenes are from the movie Career Opportunities (1991). At that time, she was one of the most beautiful young woman on the planet and this movie captures her innocence in a very beautiful manner. She mesmerizes with her raw charm and superb natural talent throughout the film.
Conclusions
There’s a higher than average prevalence of “ready to leave” this prison complex than in the general human population. This need,; this desire, is very strong, but it is most especially difficult at this point of time of great change.
Nothing is guaranteed. Remember that the things that you desire are a function of your thoughts. COntrol your thoughts and you can control your reality. This is true whether you are in the physical reality or elsewhere.
Control your thoughts. You will control your life.
The world seems to be going down the drain. Seems to… Maybe so. Maybe not. But it’s all a perception. You must change that perception to achieve your goals.
So, just be good. Be calm. And maybe go to a yard sale or thrift store and find a treasure or two. It’s time, don’t you think?
“The Perfect Yardsale Find $13.00 In Kerrville Tx .. Beetlejuice meets Mary Poppins”
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.
International relations can be likened to a game of 3D chess.
In this great game Putin, in the finest Russian tradition, or like Mr. Spock in Star Trek, is a grand master.
I don’t believe the chess players in the U.S. State Department, such as Victoria Nuland (wife of the Robert Kagan mentioned above) and the other neocons who are at the helm, are quite at Putin’s level, but they had the great advantage of being able to make a series of aggressive moves (e.g., the series of NATO expansions and the 2014 Ukraine coup) before Putin was able (i.e., was strong enough) to make a counterplay in response.
By comparison, the general run of media journalists, commentators and even supposed analysts are tiddlywinks players.
-UNZ "Russia is back"
Ok, the peak of the event sequences for this phase of “bumpiness” has passed. We are an a momentary adjustment period. See? It wasn’t all that bad. just your fears screeching towards you, eh? Well, you will be fine. Just stay calm.
Let’s go this array of odds and ends at this particular point in time.
Spaceballs – They’ve gone into plaid
We start with a funny clip of a parody of Star Wars known as “Spaceballs”. It’s a Mel Brooks classic. I hope to remind everyone not to get too serious. It’s really cramping our happiness, don’t you know.
North Korean news agency Yonhap quoted on Monday sources as saying that US nuclear-powered aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln will access the international waters of the East Sea this week as a "show of force" movement to fend off any possible North Korean provocations.
The aircraft carrier along with a strike group will stay in the sea for about 5 days, Yonhap reported, adding that it will be the first incident of its kind since November 2017.
The news agency quoted the spokesman for US Forces Korea, Lee Peters, as saying that "as a matter of operational security," he refuses to comment on the matter.
Local man and father of a 5-year-old trans pterodactyl Bradley Mingastank is struggling to find the medical care his young dinosaur son needs, as it is very difficult to find species-affirming care in the United States.
2022 04 12 21 35
“Seriously, it’s 2022, and we still haven’t figured out how to provide adequate medical care to children who think they’re extinct flying lizards,” said Mingastank. “I do my best to raise my son Madison as a pterodactyl per his wishes, which is important for his self-esteem. I only communicate to him in ear-piercing dinosaur screeches, I feed him small rodents and fish, and every once in a while I push him off the roof of the garage so he can try flying. But no other doctors seem to be willing to help him get the ultraviolet heat lamps and lizard medicine his pterodactyl body desperately needs.”
According to sources within the family, Madison first discovered his true pterodactyl identity when he put on a Halloween costume and then refused to take it off. It was then his parents knew he was a dinosaur trapped in a human child’s body.
“According to science, If someone thinks they are something, then they are automatically that thing, and the whole world must pretend they are that thing or they’ll die. That’s just proven science,” said Mingastank as he called a veterinarian to set up an appointment for his son.
UPDATE: Madison has changed his mind and has decided he is now a sea lion. His parents are currently looking for a giant aquarium to keep him in.
Dracula meets Lucy Westenra – “Dracula: Dead and Loving It”
One of my favorite scenes. Funny but sensual. I really like those old 1960s style vampires and their attractive female companions.
How To Make 1950’s good wife’s guide
I found this. It's really very dated. I found it interesting, but I do not recommend that anyone follow the guidelines. Never the less, I do think that this is good advice for either mean or women in regards to talking to strangers, friends, or family.
Don't shoot the messenger. -MM
Food – Dinner
Have dinner ready. Plan ahead, even the night before, to have a delicious meal ready on time for his return. This is a way of letting him know that you have be thinking about him and are concerned about his needs. Most men are hungry when they get home and the prospect of a good meal is part of the warm welcome needed.
Prep
Prepare yourself. Take 15 minutes to rest so you'll be refreshed when he arrives. Touch up your make-up, put a ribbon in your hair and be fresh-looking. He has just been with a lot of work-weary people.
Be interesting and happy
Be a little gay and a little more interesting for him. His boring day may need a lift and one of your duties is to provide it.
No clutter
Clear away the clutter. Make one last trip through the main part of the house just before your husband arrives. Run a dustcloth over the tables.
Fire
During the cooler months of the year you should prepare and light a fire for him to unwind by. Your husband will feel he has reached a haven of rest and order, and it will give you a lift too. After all, catering to his comfort will provide you with immense personal satisfaction.
Peace and quiet
Minimize all noise. At the time of his arrival, eliminate all noise of the washer, dryer or vacuum. Encourage the children to be quiet.
Welcoming
Be happy to see him.
Smile
Greet him with a warm smile and show sincerity in your desire to please him.
Listen
Listen to him. You may have a dozen important things to tell him, but the moment of his arrival is not the time. Let him talk first - remember, his topics of conversation are more important than yours.
Be positive
Don't greet him with complaints and problems.
No complaining
Don't complain if he's late for dinner or even if he stays out all night. Count this as minor compared to what he might have gone through at work.
Comfort
Make him comfortable. Have him lean back in a comfortable chair or lie him down in the bedroom. Have a cool or warm drink ready for him.
Shoes and pillow
Arrange his pillow and offer to take off his shoes. Speak in a low, soothing and pleasant voice.
No questions
Don't ask him questions about his actions or question his judgment or integrity. Remember, he is the master of the house and as such will always exercise his will with fairness and truthfulness. You have no right to question him.
Yes, it’s dated advice.
.
But if you look at it closely, just about all of the advice pertains to cats and their “owners”.
.
And you know, both of my grandparents were happy folk and had functioning families. Perhaps they knew something that we have forgotten over the years.
A very strange find
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Reports: Chemical Weapons Dropped in Mariupol (False Flag???)
Numerous reports are coming in claiming an unmanned aerial vehicle dropped some type of chemical or nerve agent against a target in Mariupol, Ukraine, killing several and injuring 100’s.
We have no OFFICIAL confirmation, but the reports are flooding-in anyway.
This could be the exact, precise, FALSE FLAG that the USA and NATO have been “warning” the Russians “might use” which could spark a formal NATO military response into Ukraine.
It was back on March 24 that NATO publicly stated a Chemical attack would prompt their intervention (Story HERE)
The headline to that story looked like this:
2022 04 12 21 54
More info as it becomes available. Check back.
UPDATE 4:59 PM EDT —
One (a single, isolated report) claims the following:
"Russian forces used a poisonous substance of unknown origin against Ukrainian military & civilians in the city of Mariupol, which was dropped from an UAV. The victims have respiratory failure and vestibulo-atactic syndrome."
Now, there are real problems with this report.
1) It does not say WHERE in Mariupol the attack allegedly took place.
The _only_ major fight zone where any type of chemical weapon would prove useful, is at Asovstal Steel Mill, where thousands of AZOV nazis are scattered through vast catacombs beneath the sprawling plant. It is in these catacombs, where a reported Biolab exists, consisting of allegedly 8 full floors deep, all beneath the plant, and initial rumors (not confirmed) claim this lab was working on genetic-specific bioweapons in violation of treaties.
2) The decision to FLOOD those underground catacombs by using fire trucks to pump water into the air shafts, to force out the Nazis, was already publicly reported (Story HERE)
Thus, it makes no sense at all to turn around and use a chemical weapon or nerve agent against the very target they intend to flood-out.
3) NATO has been itching for an excuse to enter the war inside Ukraine, and has, on more than one occasion, said the use of chemical weapons would meet that excuse.
Interesting timing now that a Biolab has been proved to be under that steel mill, and if Russia successfully takes over that Biolab, they will find PROOF that the US and others were working on Biological weapons in violation of Treaties. Or, worse, that they were working on race-specific bioweapons, designed to wipe out . . . only . . . . Russians.
4) The report cites “vestibulo-atactic syndrome”
Pathogenesis
In the practice of a neuropathologist, the vestibulo-atactic syndrome is most often observed in patients with cerebral ischemia, when the brain receives insufficient oxygen because of a violation of blood flow.
The pathogenesis of this pathology includes the lack of blood flow in the vertebro-basilar system, which unites the vertebral and central (base) arteries of the brain, the violation of blood circulation in the brain stem structures, as a result of which their energy supply and connections with other parts of the central nervous system (CNS) are disrupted.
Stem brain formations are sensitive to hypoxia (oxygen starvation of systems and organs), which causes a large prevalence of vestibular-ataxic syndrome and also the variety of forms and manifestations of this pathology in cerebral ischemia.
The clinical picture can vary depending on the cause of the disease, age and condition of the patient. For example, in elderly patients, the disruption of the central part of the vestibular analyzer is often combined with the lesion of its peripheral part, which forms a peculiar picture of the pathological disorder.
This pathology – a combination of motor and vestibular disorders due to violations of the general and cerebral circulation. It is quite common, many of its symptoms have been noticed in itself, without giving them much importance. If, when walking, a person begins to feel dizzy, he throws from side to side, coordination of movements is disturbed – this is an occasion to immediately consult a doctor.
What constitutes a vestibulo-atactic syndrome and what are its causes we have figured out. What are the signs and complaints of patients that enable the neurologist to diagnose ataxia?
Ischemic disorders in the work of the brain are dangerous because in the early stages they can simply not be noticed, since the first symptoms that appear can correspond to various disorders of the patient’s health and condition. A person can simply not pay attention to individual cases of malaise. This makes it difficult to timely diagnose and treat diseases that are the companions of the vestibulo-atactic syndrome.
The first signs of the initial stage of the disease are:
If NATO officially asserts that chemical weapons WERE used (and that’s a big “if”) and that NATO is entering the war, Russia has already said publicly it will use its nuclear missiles.
UPDATE 5:28 PM EDT —
Kira Rudik, a member of the Ukrainian Parliament, confirms recent reports about Mariupol attack: “The unknown substance was sprayed by Russians in Mariupol. People are suffocating.”
UPDATE 5:42 PM EDT —
The mass-media is starting to “run” with the story of a “Chemical attack” in Mariupol. They would only be running with it if their government masters told them to. And Government would only tell them to, if the plan is for NATO to announce they are intervening. Here, from the London “Mirror” newspaper (Link)
This is getting worse by the hour.
UH OH . . . 5:46 PM EDT — Now NEWSWEEK in the USA is carrying the story . . . . (Link)
5:49 PM EDT — Microsoft Network (MSN) now carrying the story too . . . (Link)
Whatever and whomever is in that lab is worth potentially destroying the world to them.
UPDATE 6:08 PM EDT —
UK'S FOREIGN MINISTER TRUSS TWEETS: REPORTS THAT RUSSIAN FORCES MAY HAVE USED CHEMICAL AGENTS IN AN ATTACK ON THE PEOPLE OF MARIUPOL. ANY USE OF SUCH WEAPONS WOULD BE A CALLOUS ESCALATION IN THIS CONFLICT AND WE WILL HOLD PUTIN AND HIS REGIME TO ACCOUNT.
6:52 PM EDT –
All the latest info TONIGHT at 9:00 PM Eastern (8:00 Central, 7:00 Mountain, 6:00 Pacific, 5:00 Alaska, 4:00 Hawaii) on the Hal Turner Radio Show. Set a REMINDER in your cell phone!
NOTE: This link does not go active until about one hour BEFORE showtime. During that hour, it streams commercial-free music until the show begins.
FINAL UPDATE —
It turns out that the “reports” of this “Chemical attack” originated from . . . . wait for it . . . . the Azov Battalion which is stuck in the Asovstal Steel Mill, and under siege from Russian forces. It appears to have been a blatantly fraudulent claim, designed to instigate the entry of NATO into the Ukraine situation.
The claim was repeated and re-circulated by the press and PR machine backing Ukraine. That’s why reports “flooded-in.”
Here’s the “rub.” If NATO, which appears to be run by sociopaths and psychotics, CHOOSES to treat this report as legitimate and CHOOSES to enter Ukraine, then it’s war with Russia and the nuclear missile will fly.
None of us knows right now if NATO sociopaths and psychotics will try to put lipstick on this pig of a report, and treat it as legitimate. Until we know, there is very real danger that this will be the match that ignites world war.
Isn’t the Iraq/Saddam trick with the “chemical weapons” a little out of date?
Or they are hoping that we don’t remember how the fake war started over there?
Well, some of us remember.
A decent thrift store find
A thrift shop find.
INTEL: U.S. Delta Forces and U.K. “SAS” Fighting inside Ukraine since February!
A source in the French intelligence community reportedly informed a Le Figaro reporter last week that elite special forces from the UK and the US have been deployed in Ukraine since the start of hostilities with Russia in late February.
The claim was made public by the newspaper’s senior international journalist Georges Malbrunot on Saturday, the same day that British Prime Minister Boris Johnson paid an unexpected visit to Kiev. Although this information has not been officially confirmed, the British leader was reportedly accompanied by special SAS guards.
SAS units “have been present in Ukraine since the beginning of the war, as did [sic] the American Deltas,” Malbrunot tweeted, citing a French intelligence source. He went on to say that Russia was well aware of the “secret war” waged against its troops by foreign commandos, according to the source. His information was mentioned in Le Figaro’s Ukraine updates.
The French journalist who returned from Ukraine after arriving with volunteer fighters told broadcaster CNews that “Americans are directly “in charge” of the war on the ground.”
The United Kingdom and the United States have been among Kiev’s most ardent military supports. Johnson is said to have personally urged his Ukrainian colleague, Volodymyr Zelensky, to continue fighting Russia until better terms are presented.
It seems that the United States and Europe lost their bet on Ukraine and Zelensky. They will not receive anything for the supplied weapons
Something tells me, dear readers, that, in the end, the Anglo-Saxons will get nothing from Ukraine but losses.
These losses will become the operating costs of the West.
There are several reasons for Western operating losses:
- the current power of the Nazis is illegitimate, even if the state of Ukraine will exist due to the succession of the DPR and LPR;
- it is not a fact that the state of Ukraine will exist after the completion of the special military operation of the Russian Armed Forces;
- to save the Nazi regime in Ukraine, Russia must suffer a military defeat and disappear as a state. This is the "wet" dream of the West, which is not destined to come true. From the word "never".
With a probability of up to 97%, in my opinion, instead of the state of Ukraine, the Southwestern Federal District of Russia may appear on the map.
Variants of names - Little Russia, Malorossia
After the victorious completion, of course, of the special military operation of the Russian Armed Forces on the territory of Ukraine.
All the enslaving "rights" of the West, to the best of my understanding, exist exactly until the moment when, instead of today's illegitimate government, legitimate successors come to govern Ukraine - the DPR and LPR.
That's when the United States and the rest of the West will get a "donut hole", nothing more.
All their costs will become their sunk costs.
Similar to the Nazis, who armed the collaborators, during the war with the USSR.
I don’t remember that in the history of the wars of the West against Russia, the Republic of Ingushetia, the USSR, such issues were resolved somehow differently.
And this will happen after the cleansing of the current Nazi regime in Ukraine.
With a high degree of probability, even shameful for the part of the Russian people living there, the name "Ukraine", invented by the Poles, will cease to exist.
Unfortunately, or fortunately, "soon the fairy tale is told, but the deed is not done soon."
Social processes, in comparison with the life expectancy of people, are slow.
For them, 100-300 years is not a period.
But, to the best of my understanding, this time. all the main events that cleanse the part of the Russian people living there from Nazism (constituting, somewhere, at least 80% of the total population), will occur much faster.
It will work out the social law of three generations, at least there are signs of this.
In addition, dear readers, as far as I know, Ukraine did not find time to register the 1991 treaty borders with the UN.
It directly follows from this that the entire territory of Ukraine was and is, from the point of view of the UN and international law, under the administrative control of Russia, as the legal successor of the USSR.
(The Pridnestrovian Moldavian Republic, inhabited mainly by Russians, having not agreed to become part of Romania, has a similar legal status, similar to that of the DPR and LPR.)
This explains why Russia, in this case, legally, is not at war with another state.
This fact legally confirms that civilians who are not at war with the Russian Armed Forces are OWN for Russia.
Which he confirmed with his order of the Supreme Command of Russia.
Russia, in its own right, conducts a special military operation on the territory that is legally one of the administrative units of Russia.
Yes, a few specific units, but nothing more.
It should also be borne in mind that there can be no war, other than a civil one, between territories under common administrative control.
As well as no annexations, etc., etc.
But, administrative reforms on the territory of Ukraine, in my understanding, can and, perhaps, should be in the future.
Moreover, Russia has the right to carry out administrative and other reforms at its own discretion, and, of course, in its own interest.
On the above basis, there is the only internationally recognized state western border of the USSR with the countries of Eastern Europe.
The rights of Russia, as the successor of the USSR, are registered with the UN.
So, Russia paid the debts of the USSR for all the republics, including for Ukraine, in accordance with international law.
Thus, from the point of view of international law, no one has any grounds for a dispute with Russia about the territorial affiliation of Ukraine.
Author – Gennady Tsybanev
Cool thrift shop find…
thrift shops 34
Dr Lexus!
One of the best Scenes. Dr. Lexus! Idiocracy 2006 comedy film, directed by Mike Judge. Starring Luke Wilson and Maya Rudolph.
British Mercenary “CossackGundi” Surrenders To Russian Forces in Mariupol Ukraine
We have received reports that British “volunteer” Aiden Aslin, better known as “CossackGundi”, and other international “volunteers” in the Ukrainian Marines, have chosen to lay down their arms to Russian forces around Mariupol, Ukraine, after running out of food and ammunition.
A source close to Aiden, who previously served with him in the YPG (Syria) spoke with him by phone and told us “I just spoke with Aiden. His unit is out of food and ammo. They have no other option but to surrender. He said he loves you all.”
He is surrendering to Russians which is only slightly better than surrendering to Chechyns.
He’s upset. Likely he knows he’s going to spend the rest of his life in some Russian prison. Worse, for him, is that once Russia tells the world they have him, the country of Syria is likely to issue an arrest warrant for the mercenary role he played in THAT country. This likely translates to life in prison not only in Russia, but in Syria as well.
Hal Turner Analysis
THIS is what happens to British forces who actually believe the mentally retarded British government. The people inserted into government positions are such incredible fools, and such blatant liars, they will fabricate just about __any__ story to get people to go do things for them. And when those things go bad . . . . the government fools who caused it all, are nowhere to be found.
British officials like Liz Truss are unimaginable liars; they deliberately falsify information to the public – and likely in private as well – to cause people to do things that are not in the interests of others. Those others fight back and whoever volunteers to help the British, gets the consequences. Just like CossackGundi is getting right now.
Same thing with the Americans. Look at what they did to Afghans. Pulled out of Kabul, and simply LEFT all the Afghans who helped them. Those Afghans – what few were allowed to live — were dealt with by the Taliban.
DO NOT FIGHT FOR THE UK OR FOR THE USA. If you choose to believe the lies of those government nitwits, liars, and sociopaths, you will likely get what CossackGundi is getting right now.
For what its worth, Ukraine is losing this conflict and is going to lose. Period. Full stop.
Ukraine never had a chance against Russia. Only an idiot would think otherwise.
Ukraine lost when they decided to accept western money to overthrow the Democratically elected President, Viktor Yanukovich, in 2014.
They lost again when they elected a west-financed puppet government in Kiev.
They lost again when the people of Crimea voted in a referendum, to leave Ukraine and return to Russia.
They lost again when the people of Luhansk and DOnetsk decided they, too, were leaving Ukraine for Russia – but Ukraine said “no” and sent the Ukraine Army to bomb them.
Ukraine lost again when their army in Luhansk and Donetsk was confronted by “Little Green men” sent in by Russia to protect the civilians in Luhansk and Donetsk.
Ukraine lost again when they signed the Minsk Agreements, then did absolutely NOTHING to implement them for five years, and instead continued to bomb civilians in Luhansk and Donetsk.
Ukraine lost again when they openly incorporated actual NAZIS into their government, police, and military.
Ukraine lost again when Luhansk and Donetsk declared Independence and invited Russia in to protect them.
Ukraine lost again when the Kremlin called on February 23, and gave Ukraine five hours to accept the terms of the Minsk Agreement, accept that Crimea was now Russian territory, and allow Luhansk and Donetsk to be free, then IGNORED the Kremlin ultimatum at the behest of the British and Americans. Once that five hour window expired, the Russian Army entered Ukraine.
Ukraine’s public relations machine would have people think that Ukraine is the victim; they are not. They are the perpetrators . . . they brought all this upon themselves and they are losing.
Discovery 1
2022 04 13 19 37
The United States Begs China to help them deal with the American economic crisis
Translated from Chinese. This is from an article out of Hong Kong. I don’t know how accurate it is. While my factories and logistics carriers are seriously nervious about shipping to the USA, none of them has actually refused making products for Americans. -MM
2022-04-12 18:23 HKT
.
The trade war between China and the United States has been fought for several years, but judging from the current overall situation, it is clear that the outcome has been divided. The United States has fallen into a serious economic crisis, while China will enter a new round of golden age of economic development. Even when the United States has been forced to do nothing, it has repeatedly released goodwill hopes to China to soften China and get China's help to get out of the crisis..According to a New York Times report, in mid-May, the U.S. Trade Representative made two requests for dialogue with senior leaders of the Chinese commerce sector, but both were rejected by China..The current US economic crisis is indeed very serious.. In 2020, the coronavirus pandemic has brought a huge blow to the US economic order, because the US government at that time did not consider to achieve effective control of the coronavirus, and in response to the 2020 election. ..The Trump administration's policy of only focusing on economic data has directly led to the loss of control and raging of the domestic epidemic in the United States, which also caused headaches for the Biden administration, which had just taken office only a few months ago..Although the Biden administration has adopted a relatively clear epidemic prevention and control policy after taking office, it has also vaccinated the people on a large scale, hoping to achieve herd immunity. .However, the epidemic in the United States cannot be completely controlled in just a few months. Under the influence of the epidemic, the unemployment rate in the United States has reached about 10%, and it is difficult for many Americans to maintain their basic survival. .Moreover, the coronavirus pandemic is after all spreading throughout the world, which has also had a huge impact on the overall world trade. It is already difficult for the United States to export its goods to all parts of the world without hindrance as before, and the world It is still unknown when the economy can be fully restarted..What's more terrible is that in order to restore the instability of the economic order, the Biden administration unilaterally began to seek economic recovery after taking office. The Biden administration proposed a trillion-dollar infrastructure construction plan, but the current U.S. finances clearly cannot support it. According to data released by the U.S. Department of Finance, the U.S. government debt ratio reached 137% in fiscal year 2020, which is a historic high..If the US government wants to pay back the money, it will take at least 20 years, so the Biden administration can also be said to have completely abandoned its control of the inflation rate. The Biden administration implemented monetary easing and fiscal stimulus plans, requiring the Fed to step up printing trillions of dollars into the market to revitalize the US economy. From the perspective of existing economic indicators, this is indeed useful..The U.S. government has given the people a lot of money for consumption, thereby promoting the stability of the U.S. economic order. Therefore, in the first few months of this year, U.S. economic growth has at least returned to a normal track, but what this has brought is The domestic inflation rate in the United States has increased as never before. (note : when the world stop buying US treasury debt and begin to sales those in hand, US lost its power of printing money without domestic inflation) .In May of this year, the U.S. consumer price index rose to 5%, and the inflation rate was as high as 53%. This will bring more serious obstacles to the future economic development of the United States, and even now the United States is overdrafting its global economic hegemony. And the US dollar hegemony to temporarily stabilize the economic order..The high inflation rate means that the domestic price level in the United States is rising rapidly, but the average salary of American residents has not followed up, and even has declined to a certain extent. After all, the coronavirus pandemic still exists, and various American companies want to guarantee themselves. The business interests of the United States have carried out large-scale layoffs and reduced employee salaries. Therefore, the economic harm caused by inflation to the United States has actually been hit on ordinary Americans, while the rich in the United States have entered the rotation of leeks. Carnival..Because these wealthy people can also receive government financial subsidies, they have invested all the financial subsidies they received in the stock market to plunder the wealth of the American middle class. Therefore, we can clearly see that in the last half of the year, the top 10 wealthy individuals in the United States have completed their own rapid accumulation of capital, and their average asset ratio has increased by nearly 40%. Therefore, under the influence of the coronavirus pandemic, the inflation rate in the United States is rising rapidly, and the gap between the rich and the poor in the United States is becoming wider and wider..The U.S. government must be responsible for all this. After the end of World War II, the U.S., as a capitalist country, has encountered economic crises more than once, but because of the existence of the Bretton Woods system and subsequent U.S. dollar hegemony and economic hegemony, the U.S. When suffering from an economic crisis, it is possible to transfer the crisis to the entire international community by investing a large amount of US dollars in the market. The facts have proved that such measures are indeed effective. The US economy protected by the international economic order has guaranteed its long-term prosperity, but now the US dollar hegemony has been challenged unprecedentedly..The first point is that the global de-dollarization process is constantly being promoted. According to the data released by the IMF, the proportion of the US dollar in the world trade orientation system has dropped from 85% at its peak to 57%. Although it still has an advantage, But the advantage is far from what it used to be..Moreover, in 2020, the entire world will be severely affected by the epidemic. ..The United States can indeed ensure its own economic order by transferring the economic crisis, but this has a premise that the world trade market must be stable, and all countries must buy American products. Products, or export products to the United States, but now obviously there is no such condition..Because most countries are unable to maintain their trade stability under the influence of the epidemic. Vietnam, India and other well-known markets in the international community have begun to reduce their product imports. .It is no longer possible for them to import products from the United States on a large scale. As the world's largest and most dynamic market, China is of course also It is impossible to allow American products to enter the Chinese market on a large scale. After all, the Sino-US trade war has not completely ended until now..But for the current U.S. government, there is not much that can be found. The U.S. needs China. As we have mentioned above, the inflation rate in the United States is very huge, which has even reached a historic high. The domestic price level in the United States has risen by 31% in just three months.(note : apparently, China stop export subsidies and imposed export tariff on certain strategic products such as steel help to keep the domestic prices stable, while making US cost rise to counter US irresponsible money printing.).In order to quell domestic prices in the United States, they must obtain goods from China, because China's industrial output is huge, and because we have the advantage of the entire industrial chain, Chinese goods are characterized by good quality and low prices. .Once Chinese goods are acquired, the domestic price level in the United States will inevitably fall. Therefore, many American companies have begun to place orders with Chinese factories, but most Chinese factories have rejected orders from the United States. There are two main reasons for China's rejection of orders..The first point is because of the coronavirus pandemic. Although the overall domestic epidemic in China has been brought under control, China's economic recovery level and factory resumption rate rank first in the world. However, the impact of the coronavirus pandemic on us still exists. Unhindered large-scale industrial production as before is obviously unrealistic, which is not conducive to our overall epidemic prevention and control..Therefore, the main purpose of China's industrial operation is to ensure its own market demand, not to save the United States. It is obvious that the rejection of US orders by Chinese companies is understandable. After all, the catastrophe is imminent. .Even if China is a responsible country, the first consideration is its own national interests and market needs. (note: still remember last winter, in the name of energy shortage and prices, China deliberately cut certain factory output? I believe it is deliberately cutting those output so that they can reject US order to avoid the dollar they received become useless in a foreseeable future. ).The second is that Sino-US relations have not yet returned to normal. .Before, the United States initiated a full-scale trade war against China, but now the United States has taken the initiative to show its favor to China, hoping that Chinese goods will enter the United States and quell American inflation. .How can this be possible? .The initiative in the relationship between China and the United States is in China's hands. It is impossible for us to maintain the economic order of the United States by harming our own commercial and corporate interests..And if Chinese factories do not accept US orders, US inflation may fall into an endless loop, because the US's own industrial manufacturing obviously cannot meet the needs of the market. .The U.S. has a population of hundreds of millions, and the U.S. economy is also the world's No. 1, but we can see that in the total U.S. economy, manufacturing accounts for only 10% of the total, while U.S. manufacturing and industry are only about 27% of China's. , It is simply impossible to meet the domestic market demand in the United States..Not to mention that most of the US manufacturing and industry are concentrated in military weapons and high-end information industry. .These industrial categories and product categories can bring huge commercial benefits to the United States in peacetime, but they are severely affected in global trade. Under the circumstances, this does not have any positive effect on the United States' current idea of consolidating economic order. After all, Americans can't eat bullets. It's not realistic to let them eat mobile phones..Although the Biden administration has put forward a large-scale infrastructure construction plan and a US secondary industry plan since it came to power, it takes time and money. So now the US needs China to help. If there is no China, the US inflation rate will only be Progress expands..And the economic crisis in the United States really tells us that the economy of this country is mainly based on manufacturing and industry. About 80% of the total US economy comes from the tertiary industry, and about 7% of the total US economy is created by the lawyer industry. .That is to say, the total output value of the US manufacturing and industry is only more than that of the lawyer industry. The created GDP is 3% higher, and the US economy can be said to be built on castles in the air.In the past, the US economy was able to stabilize because the US possessed global hegemony and dollar hegemony. However, when US hegemony was challenged, their economic order did not have a solid foundation. China can certainly help the United States, but the premise is that the United States must respect our national sovereignty and give up unrealistic suppression and blockade of China. China is no longer an object that the United States can suppress at will.
China’s top offshore oil and gas producer CNOOC Ltd. is preparing to exit its operations in Britain, Canada, and the United States, because of concerns in Beijing the assets could become subject to Western sanctions, industry sources said.
All in a Day’s Work
From <redacted> a fine MM follower…
Back when we were supposed to be locked down for some unknown period of weeks or months, Wifeyand I stocked up on some barterable and essential slop that we both could tolerate in an emergency.
Booze, beans and bullets.
Yesterday I came in for lunch from my yardwork tasks in the swampy bitch that is our backyard; muddy,but wet enough that the soles of my boots were pretty clean. Wifey was rotating out some of the A-Bombsupplies and a large can (12oz) of tuna + greenery was my awaiting meal. The can said that it had expired over a year ago–like I give a shit what those lying planned-obsolescence assholes say. I pound down thatmound of an enhanced salad in about fifteen minutes. I suited back up and headed to the quagmire todistribute Wifey’s latest “all natural” cure upon our weed farm that the neighbors love so. About fifteen minutes into the task, I felt something gurgling down deep in my processing plant.
Article 9 of the South Korea-US Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) stipulates that a custom’s examination “shall not be made” in case of “military cargo consigned to the US armed forces,” according to a document posted by the South Korean Foreign Ministry.
“According to the SOFA, the US military cargo is exempt from customs inspection, allowing (the USFK) to bring in whatever it wants … (South) Korea is a very friendly country for the United States to import germs and conduct tests,” Lee Jang-hie, emeritus professor at law school of Hankuk University of Foreign Studies, told Xinhua.
This is the recipe we used in Home Economics in the l950’s. It’s very moist and chewy, a super rich brownie. It goes great with pudding, ice cream, or fudge toppings.
And a fine brandy or hot coffee.
So yummy!
Here’s the recipe:
1 cup softened butter
2 cups sugar
3 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
4 ounces semi-sweet bakingchocolate bar
1 1/4 cups of sifted all-purpose flour
(measure flour after sifting)
1/2 teaspoon salt
Optional: add 1 cup of chopped pecans or walnuts.
dark chocolate can be used
Preheat oven to 350 degrees
Use 13″ x 9″ pan, greased and floured
Bake 40-45 minutes until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean.
Allow to cool in pan before slicing.
These brownies freeze very well, they will keep for months.
A few days ago—and I’m not sure it was the first time—Polish uniformed personnel “attacked” a Belarus border post.
In the short video clip below, one Polish serviceman shoots a slingshot (see around 0:27) and another one shines a stroboscopic lamp, towards the Belarussian position.
You might think this is not serious.
It is serious. This is an international border. Unless you think the Polish border guard (or army, or whoever this is) is a hooligan rabble, they would not be doing this without orders.
Imagine if Mexico’s army did this to the U.S. Border Guard, how would Americans feel? (We know the cartels do much worse, but they’re not the government, so Mexico gets a pass.)
Next, the Poles may deploy a watermelon catapult, or sound warfare, or tear gas, or whatever, and someone on the Belarussian side will get hurt, or worse.
Poland will say, “It’s just a catapult!”, but if it breaks someone’s neck, Belarus would have to respond…..
…..And then it’s “NATO Article 5”, and the 10,000-plus U.S. military personnel in Poland, most located within 30 miles of the Ukrainian or Belarussian borders (for just such an eventuality), get drawn into it. Not to mention, just now I got video of this U.S. or German (these are not in the Polish arsenal) howitzer train—at least two batteries’ worth—moving into Poland.
In short, the border actions are a provocation.
This is one step in a campaign of escalation.
Poland has been trying to pull off a regime change in Belarus since 2020.
Claims that Uncle Sam is directly behind the regime change efforts are mostly false. It’s Poland, with Lithuania and Germany in second place.
In response, Belarus had been facilitating a wave of chaotic illegal migration of Iraqis and others into Poland, however, that more or less stopped, many months ago.
Recently, a team of railway saboteurs was arrested in Belarus; one of the three resisted and was shot (not killed.) They were found to have a pistol and some professional radio gear. I have videos of their apprehension and the damage they caused, but it’s not that interesting.
It’s likely they were operating under pay and orders from Polish intelligence. The railway is a target because it moves Russian army gear.
Poland’s intelligence service has set up a virtual “front group” called BYPOL, allegedly consisting of Belarussian security personnel who want to see a democratic Belarus blah blah.
BYPOL might have some uniformed collaborators in its employ. (We don’t know, because no one is identified—it’s made out like it’s an undercover network inside Belarus, probably imaginary.)
Even if it’s not 100-percent fake, it’s a front. You know who is writing the checks and pulling the strings.
BYPOL “exists” so that any sabotage inside Belarus can be “plausibly denied” by Poland. “It wasn’t us, it was BYPOL.”
BYPOL’s English-language website is here. It’s ridiculously slick, probably made in the USA, or with the help of an American PR firm.
Poland has been looking to expand its influence over its neighbors.
Much of Belarus and the Ukraine were controlled by Poland from the 1400s to the early 1700s, and then western Belarus and northwest Ukraine were occupied by Poland again from 1919 to 1939.
Now, Poland wants it back.
Don’t just take my word for it. Polish-American tweeter Jack Posobiec—1.7 million followers, and a regular on Steve Bannon’s show—has been calling for a renewed Polish empire for over a year.
A retired commander of Polish ground forces recently told Poland’s leading tabloid that Russia’s Kaliningrad province (taken from Germany in 1945) is rightfully Polish and must be conquered.
That’s the sort of crap that is going around in their media space. Their public is being primed for intervention and expansion.
In recent weeks, Poland has mobilized an entire infantry division (with the help of U.S. trainers) to move into northwest Ukraine, to “protect” the Ukrainians, even though the Ukraine-Russia fighting is hundreds of miles away.
A few military targets in this part of the Ukraine have been bombed, but no one seriously thinks Russia wants—or would be able to—move its ground forces into the area anytime soon. If the war comes here, unlikely as that is, it is still months away.
So far, the European Union and NATO Command have told Poland, “No!”
That may change if something heats up on the Poland-Belarus border.
If Poland and Belarus start fighting, that would be bad enough, it would involve NATO and possibly nuclear weapons. But (if we’re still here), Poland would also have some pretext and political cover to move into northwest Ukraine and establish a long-term protectorate there.
(This “expeditionary force” would be supported by NATO Patriot missile batteries now deployed in Slovakia.)
That’s their goal. That’s what this Belarus border drama is about.
Everyone must understand now, if the Russia-Ukraine war gets “out of control”, and turns into a broader Russia-NATO war, or a nuclear war, it won’t be thanks to Brandon.
It would be thanks to Poland.
It’s a common enough problem.
2022 04 13 20 25
FLASH TRAFFIC: RUSSIA TO CONSIDER US/NATO VEHICLES BRINGING WEAPONS TO UKRAINE AS LEGITIMATE MILITARY TARGETS
Russia will consider US and NATO vehicles that transport weapons to Ukraine as legitimate military targets, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Ryabkov said.
He did not elaborate on WHERE such vehicles would be treated as legitimate military targets. While it may be normal to treat them as such INSIDE Ukraine, the statement seems deliberately ambiguous on that point.
In other news, however, there was no ambiguity:
The Russian Ministry of Defense today publicly warned Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenski that if Ukraine continues to attack targets inside Russia, then Russia will commence targeting the “centers of decision making” in Ukraine. Read that to mean, government buildings in the national capital, Kiev.
Earlier, the governor of the Kursk region in Russia reported several attacks at border crossings perpetrated on the Ukrainian side of the crossing. The attacks with mortars and small firearms have not yet caused any casualties, the governor said.
Russia’s Defense Ministry has warned that Russian armed forces will launch strikes on Ukrainian “decision-making centers”, including Kiev, if Ukraine doesn’t stop trying to hit objects on Russian territory. The ministry added that, so far, Moscow had avoided hitting these centers, but this policy might change.
Russia announced its decision drastically to scale down its military activities near Kiev after making such progress in the last in-person bilateral talks with Ukraine, which took place in Istanbul on 29 March. Moscow explained that key decision-makers, who can make the final call in peace talks, live in Kiev and hence the city should be spared any hostilities in the near future.
The defense ministry’s announcement comes in the wake of several incidents, in which the Ukrainian Armed Forces carried out attacks on Russian territory. Governor of the Kursk region, Roman Starovoit reported that a border crossing was shelled from the Ukraine side on 9 April and that the mortar position was suppressed when the Russian side returned fire. Starovoit also said that a group of Russian border guards came under small arms fire from the Ukrainian side on 13 April. There were no casualties among Russians in both incidents.
Discovery 3
2022 04 13 19 40
4 Checkmate – Patrick McGoohan’s The Prisoner
This show should be watched in its entirity. This is a classic 1960s show about the retirement of “secret agents”. This is a really nice segment, and you really should watch the ENTIRE clip. It’s just… precious.
I hope you enjoy it. It seems very bizzare, but as you watch it you can see the beauty in the entire production.
The Social Democrat party leadership in Sweden has allegedly decided on the NATO issue. Party Leader Magdalena Andersson‘s goal is for Sweden to join NATO in June this year, say sources in the party.
Magdalena Andersson
The application is planned to be submitted at the NATO meeting in Madrid on June 29-30.
The official neutrality of both Sweden and nearby Finland, has kept the peace with Russia for decades.
It is not yet known what Russia’s reaction might be to such a decision by Sweden, but the reaction by Russia over Finland joining is not in question: Russia has publicly stated that the only thing Finland would achieve by joining NATO would be the destruction of their country.
The America Competes Act of 2022
The America Competes Act of 2022 contains a proposal for a new outbound review process that would screen investments in offshore supply chains, notably in China
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Though there is bipartisan political support for the investment regime, it is not yet clear what shape it will take or how it will impact US firms in China, say experts
So you lift up this crappy old rug, and you find a crappy owld wooden floor. On closer inspection, you see that it is real hardwood, and so you fix the holes and sand and clean it up then a fine layer of acrylic. Look at the transformation!
2022 04 13 19 41
Russia’s role in space program is irreplaceable, Roscosmos boss says as EU suspends cooperation on Mars mission
Western countries are heavily sanctioning Russia’s space program. The European Union has decided to suspend cooperation with Russia on exploring Mars. But the head of Russia’s space program, known as “Roscosmos” told CGTN that Moscow’s role in space exploration is indispensable.
LI JIANHUA CGTN Reporter “Mr. Rogozin, thank you for accepting our interview. The EU has halted cooperation with Russia on ExoMars. How has this affected the Russian Space Agency and what is the impact on manned space exploration?”
DMITRY ROGOZIN Director General, Roscosmos “It’s a cooperative mission. If Russia doesn’t join, Europe won’t go ahead with the mission, because Russia’s contribution to the mission is huge. It is not only about the heavy rockets that send these instruments into orbit and to Mars. It’s also about the landing vehicles. These vehicles must help achieve a soft landing on Mars or the research rovers. The module itself is a research station. We have been waiting so long to realize this mission. If it is delayed, it will never happen. They may change Russia’s landing module, but that decision could take a lot of time and money.”
LI JIANHUA CGTN Reporter “Without international cooperation, will Russia be able to conduct the expedition research on its own?”
DMITRY ROGOZIN Director General, Roscosmos “The problem is when someone does it on their own, it costs a lot of money. It will be a huge burden on the budget. In the construction of ExoMars, the main element is the landing module. The Mars research rover is not the essential element. I think we can make this mission happen with another partner like China or someone else.”
LI JIANHUA CGTN Reporter “How about the International Space Station? NASA has said the Russia-US cooperation on the ISS will not be affected by the new sanctions. What’s your take on that?”
DMITRY ROGOZIN Director General, Roscosmos “The sanctions have been imposed on Russia to make our economy and high-tech companies suffer, to make our people’s lives more difficult, and to bring Russia to its knees. Clearly, it’s not possible because of the strength and will of our people and country.”
LI JIANHUA CGTN “So let’s say there are more sanctions on Russia and Russia decides to withdraw from the ISS programme. You previously warned that the ISS could collapse as a result of the sanctions. I’m quoting you as saying ‘if you stop cooperation with us, who will save the 500-ton ISS from going out of control, derailing and falling on Earth.’ What’s your take on that?”
DMITRY ROGOZIN Director General, Roscosmos “Russia’s role is vital. Only Russia’s Soyuz spacecraft can transport American, European, Canadian, Japanese astronauts and their guests. Soyuz is irreplaceable, because America doesn’t have any spacecraft. Russia helps the international space station avoid space rubbish and maintain orbital correction. The ISS is in a low earth orbit. It helps deliver fuels to the station. These are the main contributions from Russia and Roscomos in particular. So working without Russia is impossible, just like working without America. If they pull us out of this, the ISS wouldn’t exist anymore.”
LI JIANHUA CGTN Reporter “China’s Shenzhou-13 crew are set to come back to Earth in mid-April. What’s your comment on their mission? What do you think of China’s promise of international cooperation in the future?”
DMITRY ROGOZIN Director General, Roscosmos “We work well with our Chinese friends. We have Glonass, and China’s Beidou system was built in orbit not long ago. They are compatible, very compatible. The second project is interesting, which is the International Lunar Research Station. We have signed all the necessary documents with our Chinese friends. Regarding China’s space station, we can talk about creating new modules. To be friends in space, we must be friends on Earth. Russia and China are friends on Earth. I think China and Russia can work together in manned cosmonautics.”
Most Americans don’t realize this, but we truly have entered historic territory. As you will see below, the inflation crisis of 2022 has now escalated to a level that is beyond anything that we experienced during the horrible Jimmy Carter era of the 1970s. If you are old enough to have been alive back then, you probably remember the constant headlines about inflation. And you also probably remember that it seemed like the impotent administration in power in Washington was powerless to do anything about it. In other words, it was a lot like what we are going through today. Unfortunately for us, this new economic crisis is still only in the very early chapters.
Of course the mainstream media would like us to believe that what we are experiencing today is not even close to what Americans went through in the late 1970s and early 1980s. According to CNN, the U.S. inflation rate hit a peak of 14.6 percent in the first half of 1980…
The inflation rate hit a record high of 14.6% in March and April of 1980. It helped to lead to Carter’s defeat in that fall’s election. It also led to some significant changes in the US economy.
Compared to that, the numbers we have been given in early 2022 seem rather tame. On Tuesday, we learned that the official rate of inflation in the U.S. hit 8.5 percent in the month of March…
Prices that consumers pay for everyday items surged in March to their highest levels since the early days of the Reagan administration, according to Labor Department data released Tuesday.The consumer price index, which measures a wide-ranging basket of goods and services, jumped 8.5% from a year ago on an unadjusted basis, above even the already elevated Dow Jones estimate for 8.4%.
8.5 percent is much lower than 14.6 percent, and so to most people it would seem logical to conclude that we are still a long way from the kind of nightmarish crisis that our nation endured during the waning days of the Carter administration.
But is that the truth?
In reality, we can’t make a straight comparison between the official rate of inflation in 2022 and the official rate of inflation in 1980. The way that the inflation rate is calculated has been changed more than 20 times since 1980, and every time it was changed the goal was to make the official rate of inflation appear to be lower.
What we really need is an apples to apples comparison, and fortunately John Williams over at shadowstats.com has done the math for us.
According to Williams, if the inflation rate was still calculated the way that it was back in 1980, the official rate of inflation would be somewhere around 17 percent right now.
17 percent!
That means that the inflation that we are seeing now is even worse than anything that Americans went through during the Jimmy Carter era.
And government figures for individual categories seem to confirm that inflation is now wildly out of control. For example, the price of gasoline has risen by 48 percent over the past year…
The price of gasoline rose by 48.0 percent from March 2021 to March 2022, according to numbers released today by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.In just one month—from February to March—the seasonally adjusted price of gasoline went up 18.3 percent.
Vehicle prices have escalated to absurd levels as well. If you can believe it, the average retail selling price of a used vehicle at CarMax has risen by 39.7 percent in just 12 months…
CarMax experienced a slowdown in fourth-quarter used car sales volume as its average retail selling price jumped 39.7% year-over-year to $29,312, an increase of approximately $8,300 per unit.
And I discussed yesterday, home prices in the United States have jumped 32.6 percent over the past two years.
We have entered a full-blown inflationary nightmare, and the Biden administration is trying to blame Vladimir Putin for it.
Needless to say, that is extremely disingenuous of Biden, because prices were already skyrocketing even before the war in Ukraine started.
But it is true that the war is making economic problems even worse all over the globe, and that isn’t going to end any time soon.
A couple of weeks ago there was a bit of optimism that some sort of a ceasefire agreement could be reached, but now there appears to be no hope that there will be one any time soon.
On Tuesday, Putin told the press that peace talks have reached “a dead end”…
Talks with Ukraine have reached “a dead end,” Russian President Vladimir Putin said in fresh Tuesday remarks. “We will not stop military operations in Ukraine until they succeed.” He explained that Ukraine has “deviated” from agreements and any possible prior progress reached during the Istanbul meetings, according to state-run RIA.The strong remarks aimed at both Kiev and the West were given during a joint presser with his Belarusian counterpart Alexander Lukashenko. He further hailed that the military operations is still going “according to plan,” Bloomberg reports, however while admitting to the domestic population that “Russian logistics and payment systems remain a weakness and the long-term impact of western measures could be more painful.” But he also said the county has withstood the economic “blitzkrieg” from the West.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky named recognition of the annexation of the Crimea region as one of his red lines for Moscow in any potential peace talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin to end war between the two countries.Russia annexed the southern region of Crimea in 2014. Russian-backed separatists and forces, as well Ukrainian soldiers, have since been fighting in the eastern region of Ukraine.
Russia will never, ever willingly give Crimea back to Ukraine.
Anyone that thinks otherwise is simply being delusional.
So unless someone changes their tune, this war between Russia and Ukraine is going to keep going until someone achieves total victory.
And that could take a really long time.
Meanwhile, global food supplies will get tighter and tighter, and global economic conditions will continue to rapidly deteriorate.
And so what happens if another “black swan event” or two hits us later in 2022?
We are so vulnerable right now, and it wouldn’t take much at all to push us over the edge and into an unprecedented worldwide crisis of epic proportions.
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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.
It’s an easy question, actually. Over the last few weeks, the World has polarized into two halves.
One side “The West” is uni-polar. They want the world ruled by the United States; a “rules based order”; it’s a world where the United States makes the rules and the changes them as it sees fit. Those in this camp consist of North America, Europe, and Australia / Japan.
The other side; “The East” is multi-polar. It follows the rules set forth by the UN; the community of nations. Russia, China, India, and most of Asia, including Africa, and South America fall into this camp. They believe that all nations, and all societies are equal, and that no singular nation, or block of nations, should determine the course of human societal evolution.
This situation could well exist for some time.
The only way for it to end would be for the complete collapse and annihilation of the United States. That’s probably not going to happen. (Well, unless the American leadership are so absolutely incompetent that they allow it to happen. Which is, after all, a realistic possibility.)
So we have a world divided into two halves, and a mighty “cold war” is starting to emerge. This currently includes energy, soon to include currency. but should eventually result in trade as well. And at that, the West, will probably suffer dearly.
As everything that The Westuses and consumes comes from The East.
The West, ruled by the United States, will continue to make and break rules as it deems fit. The fact is that the United States has been flaunting the resolutions by the UN for many decades. And this codification into a formalized “The West” will be the death blow to that organization; the UN. It will become superannuated by the nations of the West. For, after all, all the member states in the West are proxy nations.
Out of practicality, aside from eventual necessity, the UN will need to move in one of the geographical regions of The East. It is, after all, a most logical conclusion. In fact, the 4FEB22 joint declaration of Russia and China during the Winter Olympics precisely alluded to exactly this; a New reborn UN.
This article discusses that.
But before we get too involved here in these details, let’s throw in some contemporaneous pockets of “news”, some pretty girls, some cats, food, and other subjects as well. A fine smorgasbord of topics. They all really do a fine, fine job in messing up the computer algorithms that assign trolls, ‘bots, and attacks on the MM website. I’ve got to tell youse guys, I mean, it drops to ZERO.
My life has never been so easy.
I’ll tell you what.
Peter has some things to say…
Russia has the world’s largest land mass with all the wealth in the ground and all the water they need who can grow more food than they can ever eat and armed to the teeth to repel any brain-f*cked dickweed that thinks they can dictate their will to Mother Russia because of economic sanctions.
What a joke! Why would a country like Russia need paper lies from the Empire of Lies to prove that they have a good economy?
If China had what Russia has, China would have told the Empire to go stick their head up their butt long ago. But that day is coming sooner than later. When the Dollar Hegemony goes, the world will have peace.
By the way, I don’t see any pundits noting that the current geopolitical situation is highly favorable to China.
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1. China is “hands off”. While the fight with Russia is ongoing, no one wants to start a second front with China, empty threats notwithstanding. Hence, all quiet on the eastern front.
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2. Lies will be exposed. The lies of the Western politicians and Western mainstream media will be exposed when Putin’s boys burn the Neo-Nazis as an offering to the souls of those who had died in the struggle against the German Nazis. That’s when the lapdogs realize they better not pin their hopes on the Empire of Lies.
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3. New Economic structures. Any country with a foreign reserve needs to figure out how to protect its assets from being taken by a lawless overlord. People should learn by now if they hadn’t known before that you do not own anything you cannot defend or hide. By this time, almost everyone must realize that the USD will be going down. It’s time to get on a lifeboat. Thanks to the Empire, which is exposing its own lies.
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4. A lesson for Taiwan. The destruction of Ukraine, as unfortunate as it will be unless a surrender is forthcoming, is an object lesson for the Taiwanese authorities. While China would not want to, nor would it need to take such a drastic military action in Taiwan, the threat of doing so is very potent. Taiwan is also an island; people have nowhere to go. China is in a very advantageous position to press for unification negotiations. There are more and more people in Taiwan wanting to start unification negotiations.
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5. China and India are together. Wonders of wonders, China and India find themselves on the same front, defending Russia against the Empire of Lies. All those virulently anti-China channels from India have turned around and directed their vitriol against the Empire. Sure is fun to watch.
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6. China the peacemaker. Eventually, China will have to be a guarantor of peace for the Russia-Ukraine conflict. The Empire of Lies and its lapdogs have shot their wad. Why should anyone trust them?
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7. China will help rebuild Ukraine. The West, seeing that they won’t be selling weapons to Ukraine, will walk away. Good riddance!
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PM
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Princess Bride – Battle of Wits
This classic scene is from the 1980s movie “The Princess Bride”. It is well worth watching.
Stuffed Peppers
One of my all-time favorites. It’s also something that can only come from the household kitchens. Yum! Stuffed peppers with ground beef and rice are topped with a seasoned tomato sauce. Making classic stuffed bell peppers is easier than you think. You’ll find the full recipe below, but here’s a brief overview of what you can expect:
Stuffed Peppers.
Prepare the Rice and Beef
Cook rice until tender in a covered saucepan. Meanwhile, cook ground beef in a skillet until browned and crumbly.
Stuff the Peppers
Hollow the bell peppers by cutting off the tops and scooping out the seeds and membranes. Arrange the peppers in a single layer in a baking dish. Stuff the peppers with a prepared filling of rice, ground beef, tomato sauce, Worcestershire sauce, garlic powder, onion powder, salt, and pepper. Top each filled pepper with a mixture of tomato sauce and Italian seasoning.
Bake
Bake until the peppers are tender, basting with sauce every 15 minutes.
How Long to Cook Stuffed Peppers
These stuffed peppers use cooked ground beef, so they should be fully baked within an hour. You’ll know they’re done when the peppers are tender. The whole recipe, including prep time, should come together in about 90 minutes.
How to Store Stuffed Peppers
Store leftover stuffed peppers in an airtight container in the fridge for three to five days. Make sure they’re completely cooled before storing to slow bacteria growth.
Can You Freeze Stuffed Pepper?
Yes! You can freeze stuffed peppers — and you should if you don’t plan to eat them within five days. Frozen stuffed peppers taste great when thawed and reheated, so this is a great way to meal prep. To freeze baked stuffed peppers: Wrap each completely-cooled stuffed pepper individually in storage wrap, then follow it with a layer of aluminum foil. Store the peppers in the freezer for up to three months.
Thaw frozen stuffed peppers in the fridge overnight. Reheat them in the oven at 350 degrees F for 15 to 20 minutes, or until heated through.
2022 04 11 11 30
Japan pushes India to denounce Russia — RT World News
India has come under increased Western pressure to distance itself from Moscow and sever its economic ties, after it abstained from a United Nations General Assembly resolution condemning Russia's military action in Ukraine, choosing instead to remain neutral alongside China, Pakistan, South Africa, and 30 other countries.
India is also facing criticism for buying Russian oil, available at discounted prices as some countries have been avoiding it in fear of retaliatory sanctions from the US. The Indian government, however, has reportedly adopted a pragmatic approach and was “exploring all possibilities” to ensure the country's own energy security.
Russian President Vladimir Putin announced a “special military operation” in Ukraine on February 24, with a stated goal to “demilitarize and denazify” its government, ensuring that its NATO membership aspirations no longer pose a threat to either Russia or the newly recognized Donbass republics, which have suffered seven years of siege by Kiev forces. The US and its allies have accused Russia of starting an “unprovoked” invasion to occupy Ukraine.
It should be located inside one of the major nations of The East. That goes without saying. If you look at things from this perspective, a number of candidates present themselves…
China (Manufacturing & Technology hub)
Russia (Resource hub)
India (Population and technology hub)
Iran (Oil and Energy hub)
Kazakhstan (BRI hub)
Brazil (South American hub)
South Africa (African hub)
Most people would “knee-jerk response that China would be the location, but I argue “not so fast”. If there was one singular location, then yes, China makes sense. However, the impression that I am getting is that United Nations Part Two might be more “mobile”. Perhaps periodically cycling between hosing nations. Much like the Olympics are today.
Yes. Indeed, it’s a new world that is evolving and manifesting. And the ways of the old are falling away to the wayside like the skin of a dinosaur-sized snake.
How old are you?
limewire laffy taffy kids dont get
TWICE “SCIENTIST” Choreography Video (Moving Ver.)
Yes. The West is undergoing collapse. But the East is doing just fine. Here is the latest video that my little daughter is learning the dance moves to. It’s pretty representative of the mood in Asia these days.
China makes semi-secret delivery of missiles to Serbia
BELGRADE, Serbia (AP) — Russian ally Serbia took the delivery of a sophisticated Chinese anti-aircraft system in a veiled operation this weekend, amid Western concerns that an arms buildup in the Balkans at the time of the war in Ukraine could threaten the fragile peace in the region.
Media and military experts said Sunday that six Chinese Air Force Y-20 transport planes landed at Belgrade’s civilian airport early Saturday, reportedly carrying HQ-22 surface-to-air missile systems for the Serbian military.
The Chinese cargo planes with military markings were pictured at Belgrade’s Nikola Tesla airport. Serbia’s defense ministry did not immediately respond to AP’s request for comment.
The arms delivery over the territory of at least two NATO member states, Turkey and Bulgaria, was seen by experts as a demonstration of China’s growing global reach.
“The Y-20s’ appearance raised eyebrows because they flew en masse as opposed to a series of single-aircraft flights,” wrote The Warzone online magazine. “The Y-20′s presence in Europe in any numbers is also still a fairly new development.”
Serbian military analyst Aleksandar Radic said that “the Chinese carried out their demonstration of force.”
By Pepe Escobar, posted with the author’s permission and widely cross-posted
Vast swathes of NATOstan have been corralled into behaving like a Russophobic lynch mob. No dissent is tolerated.
By now it’s abundantly clear that the neo-Orwellian “Two Minute Hate” Russophobic campaign launched by the Empire of Lies after the start of Operation Z is actually “24/7 Hate”.
Vast swathes of NATOstan have been corralled into behaving like a Russophobic lynch mob. No dissent is tolerated. The full psyops has de facto upgraded the Empire of Lies to the status of Empire of Hate in a Total War – hybrid and otherwise – to cancel Russia.
Hate, after all, packs way more punch than mere lies, which are now veering into abject ridiculousness, as in U.S. “intelligence” resorting to – what else – lies to fight the info war against Russia.
If the propaganda overdrive has been lethally effective amidst the zombified Western masses – call it a “win” in the P.R. war – in the front where it really matters, inside Russia, it’s a major fail.
Public opinion support for both Operation Z and President Putin is unprecedented. After videos of torture of Russian POWs that caused widespread revulsion, Russian civil society is even bracing for a “Long War” lasting months, not weeks, as long as the targets of the Russian High Command – actually a military secret – are met.
The stated aims are “demilitarization” and “denazification” of a future neutral Ukraine – but geopolitically reach way beyond: the aim is to turn the post-1945 European collective security arrangement upside down, forcing NATO to understand and come to terms with the concept of “indivisible security”. This is an extremely complex process that will reach the next decade.
The NATOstan sphere simply cannot admit in public a series of facts that a military analyst of the caliber of Andrei Martyanov has been explaining for years. And that adds to their collective pain.
Russia can take on NATO and smash it to bits in 48 hours. It may employ advanced strategic deterrence systems unmatched across the West. Its southern axis – from the Caucasus and West Asia to Central Asia – is fully stabilized. And if the going gets really tough, Mr. Zircon can deliver his hypersonic nuclear business card with the other side not even knowing what hit it.
“Europe has chosen its fate”
It may be enlightening to see how these complex processes are interpreted by Russians – whose points of view are now completely blocked across NATOstan.
Let’s take two examples. The first is Lieutenant General L.P. Reshetnikov, in an analytical note examining facts of the ground war.
Some key takeaways:
– “Over Romania and Poland there are airborne early warning aircraft of NATO with experienced crews, there are U.S. intelligence satellites in the sky all the time. I remind you that just in terms of budgets for our Roscosmos we allocated $2.5 billion a year, the civil budget of NASA is $25 billion, the civil budget of SpaceX alone is equal to Roscosmos – and that is not counting the tens of billions of dollars annually for the entire U.S. feverishly unfolding the control system of the entire planet.”
– The war is unfolding according to “NATO’s eyes and brains. The Ukronazis are nothing but free controlled zombies. And the Ukrainian army is a remotely controlled zombie organism.”
– “The tactics and strategy of this war will be the subject of textbooks for military academies around the world. Once again: the Russian army is smashing a Nazi zombie organism, fully integrated with the eyes and brain of NATO.”
Now let’s switch to Oleg Makarenko, who focuses on the Big Picture.
– “The West considers itself ‘the whole world’ only because it has not yet received a sufficiently sensitive punch on the nose. It just so happened that Russia is now giving him this click: with the rear support of Asia, Africa and Latin America. And the West can do absolutely nothing with us, since it also lags behind us in terms of the number of nuclear warheads.”
– “Europe has chosen its fate. And chose fate for Russia. What you are seeing now is the death of Europe. Even if it does not come to nuclear strikes on industrial centers, Europe is doomed. In a situation where European industry is left without cheap Russian energy sources and raw materials – and China will begin to receive these same energy carriers and raw materials at a discount, there can be no talk of any real competition with China from Europe. As a result, literally everything will collapse there – after industry, agriculture will collapse, welfare and social security will collapse, hunger, banditry and chaos will begin.”
It’s fair to consider Reshetnikov and Makarenko as faithfully representing the overall Russian sentiment, which interprets the crude Bucha false flag as a cover to obscure the Ukrainian army torture of Russian POWs.
And, deeper still, Bucha allowed the disappearance of Pentagon bioweapon labs from the Western mediasphere, complete with its ramifications: evidence of a concerted American drive to ultimately deploy real weapons of mass destruction against Russia.
The multi-level Bucha hoax had to include the Brit presidency of the UN Security Council actually blocking a serious discussion, a day before the Russian Ministry of Defense struggled to present to the UN – predictably minus the U.S. and the UK – all the bioweapon facts they have unearthed in Ukraine. The Chinese were horrified by the findings.
The Russian Investigative Committee at least persists in its work, with 100 researchers unearthing evidence of war crimes across Donbass to be presented at a tribunal in the near future, most probably set up in Donetsk.
And that brings us back to the facts on the ground. There’s a lot of analytical discussion on the possible endgame of Operation Z. A fair assessment would include the liberation of all of Novorossiya and total control of the Black Sea coastline that currently is part of Ukraine.
“Ukraine” in fact was never a state; it was always an annex to another state or empire such as Poland, Austria-Hungary, Turkey, and crucially Russia.
The landmark Russian state was Kievan Rus. “Ukraine”, in old Russian, means “border region”. In the past, it referred to the westernmost regions of the Russian Empire. When the Empire started expanding south, the new regions annexed mostly from Turkish rule were called Novorossiya (“New Russia”) and the northeastern regions, Malorossiya (“Little Russia”).
It was up to the USSR in the early 1920s to jumble it all together and name it “Ukraine” – adding Galicia in the west, which was historically non-Russian.
Yet the key development is when the USSR broke up in 1991. As the Empire of Lies de facto controlled post-Soviet Russia, they could never have possibly allowed the real Russian regions of the USSR – that is, Novorossiya and Malorossiya – to be again incorporated to the Russian Federation.
Russia is now re-incorporating them – in an “I Did It, My Way” manner.
Vamos a bailar in European Puerto Rico
By now it’s also quite clear to any serious geopolitical analysis that Operation Z opened a Pandora’s box. And the supreme historical victim of all the toxicity finally let loose is bound to be Europe.
The indispensable Michael Hudson, in a new essay on the U.S. dollar devouring the euro, argues half in jest that Europe might as well surrender its currency, and go on like “a somewhat larger version of Puerto Rico.”
After all, Europe “has pretty much ceased to be a politically independent state, it is beginning to look more like Panama and Liberia – ‘flag of convenience’ offshore banking centers that are not real ‘states’ because they don’t issue their own currency, but use the U.S. dollar.”
In synch with quite a few Russian, Chinese and Iranian analysts, Hudson advances that the war in Ukraine – actually in its “full-blown version as the New Cold War” – is likely to last “at least a decade, perhaps two as the U.S. extends the fight between neoliberalism and socialism [meaning the Chinese system] to encompass a worldwide conflict.”
What may be seriously in dispute is whether the U.S., after “the economic conquest of Europe”, will be able to “lock in African, South American and Asian countries”. The Eurasia integration process, rolling in earnest for 10 years now, conducted by the Russia-China strategic partnership and expanding to most of the Global South, will go no holds barred to prevent it.
There’s no question, as Hudson states, that “the world economy is being enflamed” – with the U.S. weaponizing trade. Yet on the Right Side of History we have the Rublegas, the petroyuan, the new monetary/financial system being designed in a partnership between the Eurasia Economic Union (EAEU) and China.
And that’s something no puny Cancel Culture War can erase.
Let’s see how old you actually are…
cassette tape pen pencil
China calls for ‘objective’ analysis of Russia’s claims about US biolabs in Ukraine
A “fair, objective and professional” assessment is needed for the materials Moscow has provided, the Chinese Foreign Ministry says
The international community should provide a “fair, objective and professional” assessment of Russia’s allegations regarding alleged US military laboratories in Ukraine, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said.
In March, Russia shared evidence obtained from laboratories across Ukraine that apparently confirms that Pentagon-funded labs were working on “biological weapons components,” and may have been connected to suspicious outbreaks of dirofilariasis, tuberculosis, and avian flu over the past several years.
According to the latest data revealed by military spokesman Major General Igor Konashenkov on March 30, Kiev was planning to use drones to deploy pathogens against the Donbass republics, as well as Russia itself.
Speaking at a regular press briefing on Friday, Zhao said the US has still not come up with a “constructive response” to Russia’s statements, and called on the international community to give serious consideration to Moscow’s claims.
He said, as quoted by TASS, that China
“would welcome a fair, objective and professional assessment by the international community of the documents provided by Russia on the basis of the UN mechanisms and the Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production and Stockpiling of Bacteriological (Biological) and Toxin Weapons and on Their Destruction.”
China has consistently encouraged the US to make public all information about its biolabs. Two weeks ago, China’s permanent representative to the UN, Zhang Jun, told the UN Security Council that following the revelation by Russia of the newly discovered documents,
“the party concerned should respond to questions, and offer timely and comprehensive clarifications to remove the doubts of the international community.”
Several days prior to that, Beijing disclosed for the first time the alleged number of US-controlled biolabs.
Saying that laboratories in Ukraine are just the
“tip of an iceberg,” Zhao revealed that the Pentagon “controls 336 biological laboratories in 30 countries around the world.”
Noting that the US
“has been exclusively obstructing”
the establishment of an independent verification mechanism, the Foreign Ministry spokesman called on the US to
“publish the relevant details as soon as possible, including which viruses are stored and which research has been carried out.”
The US has long claimed that allegations about military-funded biolaboratories in Ukraine are ‘Russian disinformation’.
In March, however, US diplomat Victoria Nuland testified before the Senate that
“biological research laboratories in Ukraine”
did exist, and that Washington was working with Kiev
“to ensure that the materials of biological research do not fall into the hands of Russian forces.”
How you know you are getting old…
home alone mortgage kids dont get
John Lear In Memoriam, 1942-2022 (80 yrs)
John Lear died this year. He was an active member of the UFO community, and was instrumental in providing substance to a story, that was up until then, was peopled with Grade B science-fiction fantasies. He got many things wrong, but he was spot on in regards to United States involvement in the extraterrestial “issue”.
Lear passed away in his sleep Tuesday night [March 29, 2022] at his Las Vegas home, according to his daughter Allison. Lear is the son of Bill Lear, who developed the Lear Jet.
Here is an interview that he had that I was able to collect. Please enjoy.
John Lear, a distinguished pilot and ufologist, discusses specific encounters with UFOs in an interview with investigative journalist George Knapp. Lear discusses alleged abductions by UFOs and government coverups of UFO encounters. This is an episode of On The Record, a 30 minute TV show broadcast on KLAS TV in Las Vegas in 1987.
George Knapp: Hello and welcome to On The Record. Flying saucers, extraterrestrials, monsters from outer space. The government has been telling us for years that they’re not real. They’re weather balloons or swamp gas or reflections from the sun or the ravings of lunatics. But serious UFO researchers say a breakthrough may be very close. Some of the government scientists who worked on the top-secret Project Blue Book are ready to talk. What’s more, a series of revealing government documents have trickled out of the federal files, documents that paint a much different picture of the UFO phenomenon. One of the most dedicated UFO researchers lives right here in Las Vegas. His name is John Lear, and he is my guest today. Mr. Lear, thanks for being here.
John Lear: Okay George.
Knapp: To begin with, you’re a pilot, an airline pilot, captain, you have held 17 different world speed records at one time or another. You’re a member of the famous Lear family that all Nevadans are pretty much familiar with, a former State Senate candidate. You don’t sound like the kind of guy who would get hooked up in something that a lot of people would say as a bunch of nonsense.
Lear: No, it’s just by coincidence that I got really interested in this about two years ago. My father saw a UFO and my brother did, and they were very interested, but there was really no proof as far as I was concerned to really look into it until about two years ago.
Knapp: Your father and brother saw them. Can you give details?
Lear: My brother saw one when he was flying a P-38 from Phoenix to Los Angeles at night. It just appeared in front of them. He made two turns, 90 degree turns, it stayed in front of him and then disappeared, and my father was flying at night, I believe over the Arizona desert and saw one too.
Knapp: So you started, you got an interest because of the other members of your family. How did you start out?
Lear: I had an interest but there was really nothing I could put my finger on. And like I say, two years ago, a friend of mine came through town, we had flown in Southeast Asia together and he was retiring from the Air Force. He came over and we started talking about where he had been for the last 15 years and he mentioned that he had been stationed at Bentwaters (Royal Air Force Base) and I said, oh, Bentwaters, that’s where the flying saucer supposedly was in 1980. He said, “No, John, not supposedly. It was,” he said. “I don’t care if you believe me or not, it landed. I didn’t see it because we were confined to quarters. But I know people who did and I’ll give you the names and if you ever see them, tell them you know me, and they’ll tell you the whole story.” Since then, I ran into one of the security police, who was within 10 feet of the saucer and actually saw the three aliens get out and go up to General Gordon Williams, who was the Wing Commander at that time.
Knapp: There was quite a bit of documentation regarding this Bentwater incident. Why don’t you go into that a little bit?
Lear: There’s the Colonel (Charles) Halt memo that came out under the Freedom of Information Act, and it told about the mysterious lights and beaming down and everything that happened in the forest, except the actual alien landings, that wasn’t in the memo. There was also the tape Colonel Halt tape, forest tape, that he made over a period of eight hours. And there’s a 20-minute segment that we’ve been able to get a hold of that you can hear him running through the forest and, and being worried saying the thing’s after us.
Knapp: Now why do you suppose that hasn’t come out? I mean, this particular incident. Why hasn’t it come out if so many people, and you’ve told me about this before, have seen it, or seen these aliens? Why haven’t some of them come forward?
Lear: A lot of them have come forward, but they’re just not getting any press. It’s something that people just don’t want to deal with. The press doesn’t want to deal with and people aren’t going to listen to something unless Dan Rather or any of your big press people are going to tell them about it and they’re just too spooked. The Air Force has made an art form of ridiculing people who have talked about this thing. They’ve done an excellent job of covering it up for the last 40 years. George basically what we’re dealing with here is, I’ll give you the bottom line.
Knapp: Okay, I want to hear your thesis.
Lear: I’m not trying to sell a book and then trying to promote a lecture. This is based on what I’ve come across after intense research in the last year. And I have found out that the government has retrieved between 10 and 15 actual flying saucers, three of which have been in perfect condition, one of which they tried to fly. They have between 30 and 50 alien bodies in cryogenic storage. We even have the name of the person whose job it is to show these bodies to the heads of state and the people who are authorized to see them. They represent at least five different civilizations.
Knapp: I can’t imagine Dan Rather or Tom Brokaw, if that were to come to their attention, a story of that magnitude, that they wouldn’t do something with it.
Lear: Well, I can’t I can’t answer that question. I don’t know why they don’t do it. There certainly is enough evidence based on what I’ve looked at. For instance, the Linda Moulton Howe documentary in Denver for the CBS affiliate there called A Strange Harvest. Since 1975 to 1980 when she made the documentary, there’s at least 9,000 cattle mutilations. Now, the government said that the mutilations were normal, your desert predator did these. But they weren’t. They were mutilations.
Knapp: I think we have a picture of these somewhere. Maybe we can see that as you’re talking. Well, that’s the next picture. There we are.
Lear: This is the mutilation New Mexico State Police did the research, or the investigation on, and they cut out certain parts. The cut was made with a laser beam far sharper than anything we have. As a matter of fact, they were able to determine that they cut between the cells and didn’t cut the cells themselves. We presently don’t have this kind of technology.
Knapp: Well, we don’t know that we have this kind of technology, or you and I don’t know that we don’t, but that doesn’t prove necessarily that it’s ET.
Lear: No, except that there’s usually a visual sighting of a flying saucer or a light, a strange light, at each one of these sightings.
Knapp: Okay, you mentioned the saucers and the bodies. Now what kind of proof do you have that that is true? How do you know that?
Lear: Well, let me take a look. Let me read to your first what the Air Force says about the bodies. First of all, I’m going to read from the introductory space science Volume Two Department of Physics, United States Air Force. This is Chapter 13, Unidentified Flying Objects. Now this is what the Air Force has the students at the Air Force Academy read and it says, “The most commonly described alien is about three and a half feet tall, has a round head, arms reaching to or below his knees and is wearing a silvery spacesuit or coveralls. Other aliens appear to be essentially the same as Earth men, while still others have particularly wide wraparound eyes, and mouths with very thin lips. And there was a rare group reported to be about four feet tall, weight of around 35 pounds and covered with thick hair for clothing. Members of this last group are described as being extremely strong.” Now I’m not making this up. This is an Air Force, you can pick out an Air Force physics book and read this stuff. At the end of the chapter, they go on to say, this leads us to believe in the unpleasant possibility of alien visitors to our planet or at least of alien-controlled UFOs. Now the picture that we have of the big head that the Air Force describes, this picture was drawn by an army surgeon. These are one of the bodies that was recovered in the famous Roswell incident of 1947.
Knapp: Tell us about that.
Lear: It was the first flying saucer that crashed and was recovered by the Army. It was covered up. There have been several books about it, they recovered four beings, and one of the surgeons that was responsible for the autopsy drew that picture and came up with some of these interesting things in the autopsy. I’ll just read a couple lines; three and a half to four and a half feet tall, two round eyes without pupils, no ear lobes, nose is vague, neck described as being thin, arms described long and thin reaching down to the knee section, you can see that there’s a web portion in the hands, no teeth, no apparently reproductive organs. Brain capacity unknown, colorless liquid prevalent in the body without red cells, no lymphocytes. And there’s more in that particular report.
Knapp: This is an autopsy report and you said the government goes to great lengths, the Air Force in particular, to discredit this kind of stuff. Where did this come from? How did you get this?
Lear: That came in the private, that came from the private collection of Leonard Springfield, who was one of the premier researchers. He worked for the Air Force in the early ‘50s in a secret project reporting UFOs, then as a civilian he continued his private research, and this is out of his collection.
Knapp: Why does the government want to hide this? Why doesn’t the Air Force just come forward? What doesn’t, you know, why don’t they level with us if this is all true?
Lear: Well, there’s not really much they can say based on what I’ve been able to find out. George, they’re really … you know, what could they say about it? They’ve been researching it for many, many years. And based on my information, let’s say that the president decided to make an announcement. This is if he made it today, this is what I think that he would say: “My fellow Americans, I come before you tonight with an announcement of great importance. Despite all our denials, flying saucers do, in fact exist, where they come from we do not know, who is in them we do not know, where they are from we do not know, nor do we know how they got here or what they want. We are unable to duplicate any of the metals found on the several craft we have recovered, nor are we able to figure out how they are propelled. We have hidden these facts from you over the past 40 years, in hopes that we could give you more answers. Unfortunately, we are no closer to answers today than we were 40 years ago. God bless you all.”
Knapp: In other words, you find it highly unlikely that the president would ever make a statement anything like that.
Lear: No, it’s just, it’s too big, it’s massive. The problem is not only just the fact that there are five and as many as 10 different civilizations visiting us. Apparently, and this is from the research that I’ve done, at least 90% of them are hostile. And when I say hostile, if not hostile, they have a completely different set of morals than we do.
Knapp: Okay, I’ll tell you what, we’re going to come back to the president and aliens because there have been some statements made by presidents including President Reagan. We’ll be right back.
Knapp: Welcome back. UFOs, are they real? We’re talking with John Lear on the subject. Mr. Lear mentioned a couple of minutes ago about what the president might say about UFOs. Do you believe that various presidents have been informed about what you believe to be the truth on UFOs?
Lear: Each president has been informed up to and including President Reagan. I’m not sure to the extent they are informed. Privately, I don’t believe they are given the full briefing. The people that control this information is an organization that we know of as MJ-12. They’re a top group of military and scientists. I do know that when the president becomes president, it takes at least three or four months before he actually gets the clearance to know everything there is. And that doesn’t mean they tell him, but it does take three or four months to get it. Now talking the president … let’s talk about what the president has actually said, has he mentioned anything about aliens?
Knapp: President Reagan?
Lear: President Reagan on Dec. 4, 1985. This is a copy of the speech from the White House, just before he went over to Iceland. He says, “I couldn’t but one point in our discussions privately with Secretary General Gorbachev, when you stop to think that we’re all God’s children, wherever we may live in this world, I couldn’t help but say to him, just think how easy his task and mine might be in these meetings that we held, if suddenly there was a threat to this world, from some other species from another planet outside in the universe. We’d forget all our local differences that we have between our countries and we would find out once for all, that we really are all human beings here on this earth together.”
Knapp: He couldn’t be just making a supposition for purpose of making a point? You’re saying he’s trying to tell us something?
Lear: Well here, one week ago at the 42nd General Assembly in front of the UN, Sept. 21. He says, “In our obsession with the antagonism of the moment, we often forget how much unites all the members of humanity. Perhaps we need some outside universal threat to make us recognize this common bond. I occasionally think how quickly our differences worldwide would vanish if we were facing an alien threat from outside this world and yet, I ask you, is not an alien force not already among us?” Now, this is right out of a White House speech. I’m not making this up.
Knapp: What did he mean by this alien force? I mean, does it say, does he go on to say something?
Lear: Yeah, he says, what could be more alien to the universal aspirations of our people than war and the threat of war. But the point is, why would he even bring up aliens? I mean, it’s pretty far out for the president of the United States to mention threats from outer space.
Knapp: Okay, what about President Carter?
Lear: President Carter, we have the quote from Carter when he was during his election campaign. If I become president, I’ll make every piece of information this country has about UFO sightings available to the public and the scientists. I am convinced that UFOs exist because I have seen one.
Knapp: Jimmy Carter says he saw one?
Lear: That’s Jimmy Carter. He saw one in 1973
Knapp: But he didn’t, he didn’t tell us, did he?
Lear: He didn’t. The pressure is enormous on these people to cover this stuff up.
Knapp: How can that be? Are they afraid of a panic, that people would panic?
Lear: There’s the panic problem and there’s also the problem that, in fact, in Cro-Magnon Man, there may have been some tinkering to make us what we are today. That’s been borne out by several researchers, that we couldn’t have developed, exactly, there’s the missing link. Something had to happen to get us going. Between 4,000 and 8,000 BC, we had just been going along and for hundreds of thousand years not doing anything. All of a sudden, bang, we started making pottery, invented the wheel, invented fire, and everything took off. What was the key that did that? I don’t know. But it causes one to think.
Knapp: You mentioned a couple of minutes ago before the break that you think 90% of these visitors are hostile. What makes you think that? That doesn’t fit with what we think of as ET, you know.
Lear: If you read some of these books that are on the newsstands, one is called Intruders, one is called Communion. They apparently come down, and when I say apparently, this is taken from 300 hypnosis cases. A friend of mine has done 140 of them. And the people are abducted, they’re taken up into a saucer, usually lasts about an hour. They do all kinds of experiments, they give them shots, they poke them, they cut them, they do all kinds of things and wipe out their memory and send them back. Only after several months of some psychological problems do they end up going to a psychiatrist. The psychiatrist on trying to find out what the problem is, in the use of hypnosis, finds out that this person has been abducted.
Knapp: What’s the reason for that? What are they trying to learn?
Lear: There’s three things that they’re trying to do with these abductions. The first thing is they’re trying to monitor us. It started in the early ‘40s and they’d put a little unit, very small bb type object way up in the back side of the brain and they’d leave it there for about 18 years. They’d pick them up and put it in about 4 years old. 12 years old, they would pick them up and monitor it, then about 18, they’d take it out. The second thing they did is they put a post hypnotic suggestion, according to many of the people that have been hypnotized, and we found out what they’ve told them, apparently, within the next two to five years, there is going to be a big event, something enormous is going to happen and these people who have been abducted, and there’s probably over 100,000 of them, have been given some place to go and something to do but under our best hypnotic techniques, we cannot find out what it is.
Knapp: So how do we know that that’s true?
Lear: Because they said where they’re going to do something, they know that they’re going to do something, but under the hypnosis, they can’t find out exactly what it is. The third thing that they do is genetic experiments. They’ve been cross breeding. There’s a very good book out now called Intruders written by Budd Hopkins and it’s about a cross breeding experiment with a girl in Indianapolis. They actually, the big head, which we call the big head in research, the little three and a half foot tall with a big head. They cross breed that with this girl in Indianapolis, and there were seven children. Just last fall, before the book was published, they brought the oldest and the youngest to show to her, and they let her name all seven. Now this book has been thoroughly researched by Budd Hopkins and although it sounds strange, believe me when I tell you, you may not find out in a month, a year, five years or 10 years. But you’ll look back at what I’m telling you now, and you’ll say to yourself, “Oh, my gosh, the son of a gun was right. “
Knapp: Well, where’s this girl? Now, she’s just living?
Lear: She lives in Indianapolis. She lives in town, or just outside of town. She just got married. Budd went to her wedding. We all know who she is. She gets along, you know, just fine. It doesn’t mean just because she was abducted and gave them children doesn’t mean it was the end of the world. It was just a part of her life.
Knapp: Why don’t we see a lot of photographic evidence as many cameras and video gear. Why don’t we see a lot of that?
Lear: There are a lot of …
Knapp: Before you go on, the pictures that we showed in the beginning of this program, you say they’re baloney, they’re phony.
Lear: That’s right. The pictures you showed at the beginning were called the Meiers Incident. It’s called the visitors from Pleiades, and any ufologist worth his salt knows, and who has researched that case, knows that he cannot back it up with the negatives and the essential information to prove that something like that happened, so we look at that as suspect.
Knapp: So in other words, you run into your share phonies as well in your research.
Lear: Absolutely, there’s not that many, but there are a few out there. There are so many people that have real stories to tell that we’re just so busy with those. For instance, let’s take the November 17 Japan Airlines incident.
Knapp: I’ll tell you what, we’re going to take another break and we’ll do that when we come back. Stay with us.
Knapp: Welcome back. We have a few minutes left with John Lear. We’re talking about UFOs. You’re about to tell me about the Japanese Airline Incident. It’s probably something that’s still in the memory of our viewers.
Lear: Yeah, the Japanese Airline Incident was a cargo 747 that had taken off from Iceland flying to Anchorage. And as he passed over the United States border and the northern part of Anchorage, he was intercepted by a UFO that was twice the size of an aircraft carrier. And he was followed about 40 minutes. He made a complete 360-degree right turn, he made a descent of 5,000 feet and the thing stayed with him. Regardless of what you hear, the FAA did have him on radar and so did the Air Force. If you have a picture there. This is a 26-page document made by Bruce Maccabee who’s a physicist employed by the Naval Surface weapons laboratory and one of the most respected figures in ufology.
Knapp: I don’t think we have that picture. So go ahead.
Lear: Okay, I’m just going to hold it up here and you can see the size of the 747 to the UFO. Now the UFO was not brightly lit like that. It’s just made like that for reference. It was dark, but this is what he saw beside him.
Knapp: Whose rendition is this?
Lear: This is the captain’s. This is from the captain’s rendition when he was debriefed by the FAA. Now, certain UFO de-bunkers have said what he saw was the planet Jupiter. Well, this is an insult to all transport category captains around the world. I mean, the guy knows a difference between something that’s twice as big as an aircraft carrier and the planet Jupiter.
Knapp: I’ve also heard that it’s the reflection of his own plane.
Lear: What the, the radar?
Knapp: Yeah.
Lear: That was an attempt to describe it. You can’t imagine what pressure these people are under to cover this stuff. It’s tremendous pressure. It really is.
Knapp: Okay. You’re going to tell me that the church, did you want to go further into the JAL Incident?
Lear: No, that’s it. I just want to say it has a 26-page report, it had the captain and the ATC conversation. It had the radar plots, and it had the Air Force plots and the FAA radar plot. There was no question about it. The thing followed him.
Knapp: The church, what do they think about UFOs?
Lear: Well, here’s a copy from the London Evening News, July 21, 1987, and says, “Prepare to meet thine aliens. Vatican theologians have acknowledged that there could be life on other planets. Now they plan to train missionaries capable of working in space and meeting aliens. Jesuit scientists at the Vatican Observatory in Prescotti near Rome have reported moving lights and other identified phenomena in the sky. Starting in September, the Vatican university will have a special UFO section.”
Knapp: You’ve said before you thought that a lot of their intentions were hostile and you’ve mentioned before that a lot of the sightings around the military bases. Why don’t we see them here? Las Vegas, we’ve got a lot of military bases here.
Lear: Well, the in fact there have been a lot of a lot of reports of UFOs in around Las Vegas, not specifically over the Air Force bases. We have the Test Site and of course, we don’t know what’s going on there, and we have Nellis Air Force Base. But there have not really been a lot of sightings over there. The main Air Force sightings were in 1975. And the UFOs descended on every Strategic Air Command base guarding the perimeter of the northern United States. They hovered over the nuclear weapons storage area and they stayed there with impunity for up to two and three hours over a period of three days.
Knapp: And nobody heard about it?
Lear: Well, there were a few reports, but you really don’t, I have a I have a report 150 pages long of the F-106s that were sent out to chase them. And the helicopters, and notifying the Canadian authorities and the security patrolman that were sent down to actually see what was going on and they’d come up on these things and they’d say, “I’m not going any further.”
Knapp: You think maybe it’s a top-secret area if the Air Force actually does have them, maybe they’ve got them here?
Lear: I’m certain they do. Up at the Test Site there’s a report that of the three that they’ve got in perfectly good condition, at least one is up at the Test Site and has flown and one was being flown as of 1981.
Knapp: By us?
Lear: By us.
Knapp: We mentioned at the top of the show that perhaps a breakthrough might be coming. That some of these people from MJ-12 or from the Project Blue Book who are in on the government’s research and saw some of the stuff might be ready to talk we got about a minute left. Why don’t you tell me about that?
Lear: It’s our information that half of, part of MJ-12 wants to release it, part of it doesn’t. We’re hoping that we can do this but of course, as researchers we’re not aware of all the ramifications, we just know of what we’re looking at, so we would like to see them release it but we really don’t know if they are.
Knapp: Okay. John Lear. It’s been very interesting. You keep us posted.
Lear: Sure will.
Knapp: Thank you. We’ll see you next week with more of On The Record.
Now I know that I am getting old…
floppy disc kids dont get
China ‘Decodes’ An Orbiting US Satellite
To protect its space assets, China has devised a new cyber defense.
China has developed a new cyber defense infrastructure that can automatically detect security flaws in orbiting satellites, according to military experts participating in the project
There are thousands of satellites in orbit, each with hundreds of components that could be vulnerable to hackers due to software or hardware flaws.
As launch prices have decreased, there are now more satellites rotating in low earth orbits in 2022, opening the frontier of space to big private sector launch projects. According to the Union of Concerned Scientists, there were 4,852 satellites in orbit at the start of 2022.
We have all felt the pangs of hunger. Going for a few hours or most of a day without food, we are aware of the keen signal that our body gives our mind that we are hungry–a sharp ache or pang that can drive out most other thoughts. But what is severe hunger like over a longer period?
This is really unknown to most of us.
Detailed information about people that have to go without food for long periods due to causes such as conflict and drought is not readily available. Yet it is important to get some idea of what long term hunger is like to help us understand people whose hunger is more acute and gone on much longer than that which we have experienced.
I can tell you that I and my wife experienced severe hunger for weeks at a time, and the longest that we went without food was five weeks.
You all have no idea how desperate and angry a hungry person can get. Do not underestimate this situation.
To help us understand hunger existing not for a day, but many weeks, we present, in abridged form, a description provided by Tony Hall (formerly a Congressman from Dayton, Ohio and ambassador to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization) in his 2006 book, Changing the Face of Hunger (pp. 74–89). He undertook this fast to protest an action of Congress. He fasted from April 4 to April 26, 1993–three weeks and one day.
Being hungry for three weeks, in Hall’s words:
Physically and psychologically, the first week of the fast was the hardest. I was horribly hungry–I could say ‘in agony’ –and getting weaker by the day. I thought constantly about what I would like to eat–that last meal of fried chicken, mashed potatoes, and Caesar salad; some future meals with some of my favorite foods, such as steak, roast beef, and key lime pie….
Family mealtimes were the worst.
I couldn’t go to the table because the food would be too tempting, and not being able to eat it would be agonizing. Janet, Matt, and Jyl would try to hide from me when they snacked between meals….. I followed Dick Gregory’s advice to fill up on water. I really poured it down. Since it was the only thing I was consuming, I paid a great deal more attention to it than I ever had before. I really noticed the difference in taste when drunk from the tap at home, the office, or someplace else. My sense of smell also heightened throughout the fast. I could tell what people had eaten because their bodies gave off aromas that I had never noticed before….
The hardest day of the fast came on Easter, which was my seventh day without eating. Janet and I had gone on a retreat in Maryland with some friends, and our friends prepared a typical big American holiday dinner–turkey, potatoes, dressing, pie, cake. It drove me nuts. I had to leave them, go outside and take a walk, to get away from those wonderful aromas. I decided that if I could get through this day, I would be over the hump.
I did, and I was.
Just as Dick Gregory said, the sensation of hunger faded in about a week. It’s as if the body gives up on getting food and stops demanding it. From then on, I could join my family at mealtimes and not be bothered a bit . It was a revelation about the poor and the hungry, to whom I came to feel exceptionally close as the fast went on. I now fully understood, in a way I never had before, a strange phenomenon I had witnessed during famines: starving children who refused to eat when food was finally offered to them.
The absence of hunger pangs did not mean I wasn’t feeling the physical effects of the fast, however. I’d wake up in the morning feeling fine. My head would be clear. I would think I had lots of energy.
But after noon, I would fade.
The energy would desert me and weakness would take over. I’d need to nap. Then, when I woke from the nap, I’d feel like I couldn’t get up because I was so tired. Lacking the fuel of food, my body temperature apparently dropped, and I felt cold all the time. It also seemed my brain slowed down in the afternoon; I felt “dull.” I thought of poor children who don’t do well in school, who fall asleep in the afternoon, who become poor students because of poor nutrition. Remarkably, some of my vital signs–blood pressure, the results of blood tests–actually improved.
[On April 26, Hall ended his fast.] Because the fast had been a very public endeavor, I thought the breaking of it should be as well. I invited some reporters to my office…and had a V-8. I hadn’t eaten for twenty-two days, and that thick, salty vegetable juice tasted exceptionally good…Unfortunately I could only sip a little bit. Because my stomach had essentially been shut down for three weeks, I would have to coax it gradually back to use, maybe not being able to enjoy a full meal till the end of the week. I had lost twenty-three pounds–dropping from a robust 180 to a gaunt 157….
Now imagine some very large urban youth with guns and a fierce hunger. How would you be able to deal with them?
Food storage tips: Stock up on foods in gallon buckets
More stuff for my friends in the United States. Now is not the time to buy a new car. Now is the time to change your eating habits, and start being more conservative; grandparent-like in the creation of a larder. -MM
In a long-term survival scenario, storing food in gallon buckets is a good way to stock up on beans and rice, which can be used to make different dishes. These ingredients also pair well with other items you may have in your stockpile, such as canned meat and vegetables.
If you don’t have buckets yet, look for five-gallon buckets that are also food grade. If you can’t find food-grade buckets in stores near your area, line the buckets with Mylar bags instead to keep the food clean.
If you prefer something lighter, ask for four-gallon buckets from the nearest bakery. These buckets will be lighter and easier to carry. As a bonus, four-gallon buckets are often free, or only a couple of bucks.
If you can’t decide between the four- and five-gallon buckets, get whatever’s easier for you to lift and move around your stockpile.
What to store in gallon buckets
While bulk foods go well with gallon buckets, other items suit different storage methods like cans or Mylar bags. These items include more expensive foods that spoil quickly with exposure to air or moisture, or items that you don’t use often.
Keep items like dehydrated and dried foods, freeze-dried foods, milk and powdered eggs in cans or their original packaging.
Foods like beans, flour, pasta, rice, sugar and wheat go well with gallon buckets. Generally, each bucket will hold about 25 pounds of food. This will vary slightly depending on the shape of the food you want to store.
Most buckets are usually 12 inches wide and are HDPE (#2) buckets. You can also use PP (#5), which also have gasketed lids like the HDPE buckets.
When filling buckets, tap the sides to help the contents settle down so that you can fit more in. You need to pack the food compactly and get as much air space out as possible so the oxygen absorbers can work properly.
You can only pack 25 pounds of food in a bucket, even if the bucket isn’t filled completely. However, it’s better to fill the bucket completely before adding the oxygen absorbers so that all the oxygen can be removed once the buckets go into storage.
For optimal long-term storage, line the buckets with Mylar bags. Next, fill the Mylar bags with food, add the appropriate number of oxygen absorbers, then seal.
You can skip the Mylar bags if you regularly rotate your food supplies, you’re using food-grade buckets and if you plan on using up your beans, oats, rice and wheat within five years. (Related: Food supply 101: How to store rice properly.)
Here are some tips on how much food you can store in five-gallon buckets and the oxygen absorber capacity needed. Note that the data below provides estimates for the amount of food that will fit in each bucket.
The actual results may vary depending on how much you are able to tap your buckets and settle the contents.
Black beans – 37 pounds (lbs.) of food, (3,000 oxygen absorber capacity)
Once you have buckets of food, you have to figure out a way to store them in your stockpile. Since the buckets won’t last forever, you need to keep them away from sunlight.
Putting excessive weight on the buckets will deteriorate plastic buckets. Note that 5 gallon buckets should only be stacked three to four buckets high, with the heaviest buckets on the bottom.
You can stack buckets higher only if those on top contain very light items like medical supplies. At most, the buckets on top of your pile should not exceed two pounds.
While there are other ways to store bulk foods, buckets are one of the most efficient methods to use because they can keep out moths and are rodent-resistant. Buckets are also waterproof.
Note that since plastic is not completely impermeable, buckets should not be stored directly on concrete. Just place some 2×4 boards underneath the buckets so they’re above the concrete.
Get food-grade buckets and stock up on bulk foods like beans and grains before SHTF.
So… Beijing’s Dynamic Zero Policy Does Not Work Fighting Omicron Variant? Eh?
A pretty good video. Well worth watching.
High Value kitty
Just another day at the job.
Notice the guy in the orange vest. He is NOT the owner of the ship. he is the community government health official. He employs a “ratter”; a kitty cat, to go forth and secure the premises from rats and mice. China; it does not play.
An oldie, but goodie. Placed here for my friends in the United States. These are 'round out your storage items, and most are extremely cheap. For instance, we bought a load of 100 disposible lighters for under USD $3. -MM
Stockpiling necessary supplies is at the very core of prepping. Most of us start out by trying to build a stockpile of food to see us through an emergency and will probably still be stockpiling food when the SHTF. But stockpiling food isn’t all there is to be ready for a disaster. There are many other things we need and use on a day-to-day basis.
Stockpiling food, without bothering to stockpile these other necessary items might not guarantee our death, but it will sure make our lives more uncomfortable. Too much of that discomfort could lead to death; perhaps not directly, but by permitting weakness and disease to bring us to an end.
There are literally hundreds of things that we could use in a post-disaster world; more than can fit in this list. But the items I’ve listed below are probably the most important things to include in your stockpile, either for your own personal use or to use as barter goods.
Disposable Butane Lighters – Fire is one of the things we use the most in a survival situation. Even though it is not considered one of the top three survival needs, it is useful for all three of them. It’s much easier for people who aren’t skilled at starting fires to start them with a disposable lighter than to try and do it any other way.
Waterproof Matches – The waterproof match is the standard fire starter for use in a survival situation. While many people have switched over to butane lighters, matches are still useful. Be sure to get the strike anywhere kind.
Fire Accelerants – Commonly referred to as “fire starters,” chemical fire accelerants or tinders work to get the fire from your matches or lighter into the larger kindling, so that your fire can keep burning. Make sure you have a good stock, as this is essential with damp wood.
Water Filters – Water purification is essential to survival, as water that has microscopic pathogens can spread disease and even kill us. If you use a filter for purifying water, be sure to have plenty of them.
Firewood – Many preppers are planning on heating their homes and cook with a wood fire in a post-disaster world; but few have enough firewood to do that. It takes four to six cords of firewood to heat a home through the winter.
Salt – Salt is not only essential for survival, it’s nature’s number one food preservative. Yet it can be extremely hard to come by. if you’re going to preserve food in a post-disaster world, you’d a better plan on having plenty of salt on hand.
Canning Jar Lids – I’m assuming you have canning jars; but how many lids do you have? They’re not considered reusable, so you’d better have plenty.
Batteries – Ok, batteries aren’t really a survival necessity; but we’ve got lots of things we use every day, which are battery operated. Stocking batteries, especially AA and AAA sizes, will make your life in a post-disaster world much better.
Toilet Paper – If you want to see something that people will kill for in a post-disaster world, I think this is it… especially women. Do you have any idea how much TP your family goes through?
Personal Hygiene Supplies – While we’re talking about TP, we don’t want to forget things like soap, toothpaste, and shampoo. Cleanliness in a post-disaster world is important as a means to help combat the spread of disease.
Plastic Bags – Nobody is going to be making plastic, let alone plastic bags in a post-disaster world. Yet they are something we use all the time. If you are planning on using a bucket toilet, you’re going to need a lot of bags just for that. But you’re going to need them for a lot of other things too.
Ammunition – This is probably one you’ve already thought of, but it’s so important, it bears mentioning. Make sure you’ve got enough for all the calibers you use, as well as the most common calibers out there. Ammo Storage Tips Every Prepper Should Know
Alcohol – Probably the best barter item there is.
Tobacco –The second-best barter item there is.
Antibiotics – If you want to keep your family healthy, I’d recommend putting in a good stock of the most common antibiotics. You can buy these over the counter in Mexico, without a prescription. Make sure you print out information on dosages and to tell you which antibiotics are the best to use in different situations.
Over the Counter Medicines – Self-diagnosis and treatment is dangerous; but sometimes it’s all we have available to us. Having a good assortment of over the counter medicines will make it possible to treat at least the symptoms of common ailments.
Prescription Medicines – If you have family members that need maintenance doses of prescription medicines for chronic conditions, you need to have a stock of those on hand for them. If you can’t get that stock, then look for natural alternatives which will keep them going.
First-aid Supplies – If you ever want to see an environment ripe for injuries, just look at any place that has been hit by a disaster. You and your family will be doing things you normally wouldn’t do, many of which can lead to serious injuries. Be prepared for more than scraped knees and cut fingers; be prepared for treating major injuries. DIY Dollar Store First Aid Kit
Seed – If the situation continues, you’re going to have to start producing your own food. That means growing a vegetable garden, amongst other things. Have lots of seed on hand, so that you can plant a big garden.
Gardening Chemicals and Fertilizer – There are a number of common chemicals used for gardening, as well as common fertilizers. You’ll need all of that if you’re hoping to get a bountiful harvest.
Fishing Gear – Fishing is probably the easiest way of harvesting food from nature. There’s just one problem with it, I have yet to meet a fisherman who doesn’t lose hooks, lures and other gear on a regular basis. So that means you’d better have plenty, so that you can keep on fishing, even after losing your favorites.
Fuel – Ok, this one is a bit tricky, as gasoline doesn’t store easily. It tends to lose its potency pretty quickly. But then, even less potent gasoline is better than no gasoline. And there are additives you can get, which will help that gasoline to last longer.
Repair Parts – If you’ve got gear that you are going to use to survive, you had better have some way of repairing it. That includes parts for just about anything you are planning on using as part of your survival. For example: If you’ve got some of those old Coleman lamps, which can burn gasoline, you should have rebuilt kits for the air pump.
Hand Tools – We are so used to using power tools for just about everything, that many people don’t have hand tools anymore. Do you have a crosscut saw? How about a hand-crank drill? You’re going to need them, if you can’t connect your power tools.
Honing Stones – To keep knives and other sharp tools sharp.
Rope – Always useful. We tend to stock paracord, which is excellent; but you might want some heavier rope as well.
Sewing Supplies – There probably won’t be any shortage of clothing lying around in a post-disaster world, but there will be of sewing supplies. You’re going to need to be able to fix clothing, as well as taking it in as you lose weight.
Sturdy Shoes – Good shoes are important, and by good I mean something that is rugged and will hold up, giving your ankles support. Most of the shoes we wear today won’t do that; they’re more decorative than anything else.
Rugged Clothing – Rugged jeans, flannel shirts and other work clothing are going to be useful as well. The stuff you wear to the office just isn’t going to make it when you’re chopping wood.
Work Gloves – This is one thing you don’t want to try sewing yourself. Nor do you want cheap work gloves to try and do hard work in. Get several pair for each member of the family, especially those who do the hard physical work of survival.
Vitamins – Your diet probably won’t be well-balanced in a post-disaster world. It will be mostly carbohydrates and fats, with a little bit of protein thrown in. The micronutrients that nutritionists tell us we need will be notoriously absent. Good vitamins can help overcome this problem, helping you to remain healthy.
Reading Glasses – Even if you don’t wear glasses now, that doesn’t mean you never will. Keeping a variety of reading glasses around, in different magnifications, may help you to be able to do things as you age, that you wouldn’t otherwise be able to do. (You can get a wide selection really cheap at a Dollar Store or other such bargain place.)
Antibacterial Hand Cleaner – This is a good one to help prevent the spread of disease. Clean hands aren’t going to contaminate food or contaminate other people.
Spices – One of the best ways of getting the most out of the food that you do have available to you is to change its flavor. This can be especially good when you have children, who can be notoriously difficult when it comes to unfamiliar foods. Disguising what it is and making it taste similar to something they like is one of your best ways of dealing with this.
Bullion (also known as soup stock) – Anything can be turned into a soup or a casserole, if you have soup stock to go with it. Generally speaking, having beef and chicken flavors is enough, as they go with everything else. (Stock up on lots and lots of chicken bullion.)
Flashlights – There’s no such thing as enough flashlights. They don’t last forever and you really can’t fix them.
Leather and Leather Stitching Supplies – Our ancestors used leather for a wide variety of things, like making shoes and harnesses. We’ll need it for making a variety of repairs, like resoling shoes.
Lime – This is one of those things that people forget about. Lime is used in outhouses to help keep the odors down, as well as reducing the population of insects.
Wicking – If you’re going to make candles, you’re going to need wicks for them. While just about any cotton string can be used for that, a cotton string isn’t all that common anymore. A few yards of wicking doesn’t cost all that much and it will allow you to make your own candles.
Candles – Speaking of that wicking, it would be a good idea to have a bunch of candles, already made, on hand.
Oil-burning Lamps – A good oil-burning lamp will work off of just about any flammable liquid, providing you with light. The best is oil, of any sort; but if you have something else, they’ll burn that too. Just try it outside first, to make sure it’s not going to blow up the lamp.
Insect Repellant – Nobody likes becoming the mosquito’s dinner. Yet there are more of them in the world than there are of us. Good idea to be ready to deal with them and keep them off your body.
Pest Control – Speaking of dealing with insects, it’s a good idea to be able to kill them too, as well as trapping mice and other pests. Don’t skimp, as you won’t be able to run back to the local store for more.
Cleaning Supplies – Yeah, who thinks about stockpiling cleaning supplies? But if you want to keep the cockroaches and ants out of your home, you’re going to want to have the necessary cleaning supplies to keep your home clean. This is important for fighting disease as well.
Aluminum Foil – We talk about using aluminum foil for cooking in a survival situation and most people include it in their survival kit. But how many of us have extra aluminum foil back home, to use for cooking food in the wake of a disaster?
Charcoal or Propane – Whatever fuel your barbecue grille runs on, be sure to have plenty on hand. That grille is going to be your first alternate stove. You may move to a fire pit later; but in the first month of surviving in the post-disaster world, that grille is it. Medicinal Uses for Activated Charcoal
Cast-iron Pots – Okay, this really isn’t a supply; it’s more like gear. But if you’re going to cook on your barbecue grille, it would be a good idea to have cast-iron cookware on hand. That grille is going to be a bit rough on your Teflon cookware.
Wind-up Mechanical Clock – Maybe you won’t care about what time it is in a post-disaster world and maybe you will. Either way, it might be a good idea to have a clock that you can count on running when there aren’t any batteries to run it.
Chlorine Bleach – Not only is bleach good for cleaning, it’s the easiest means of purifying water. Just add 8 drops of standard (non-scented, non-color safe) bleach to a gallon of water, stir it and allow it to sit for 20 minutes. That will kill all the microscopic pathogens, making it safe to drink.
Hard Candy – Everyone likes something sweet; but unless you’re keeping bees, that’s going to be pretty scarce in a post-disaster world. Hard candies will keep for a long time, can be eaten slowly, extending the enjoyment and can also be used to soothe a sore throat.
So, there you have it; my “top 50” list. However, much you think you need, try to stockpile more; lots more. If you don’t use it yourself, you can use it as barter goods, getting things that you need.
Nuclear War Between U.S. and Russia (2019 Simulation)
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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.
I can't remember a time when war propaganda has been this intense.-dwp
Crappy title regarding a strange period of time.
Well, the world is quickly switching from one uni-polar governmental operation to a multi-polar one. And we are watching it in real time. Oh, sure, the “West” is kicking up a fuss, and the United States is in hysterics, but that will fade in time.
Sometime, hopefuly sooner than later, the United States will decide to scrap the decades old RAND plans and accept a new reality.
However, that will have to be forced by necessity, and the rest of the world is waiting for that moment to come. Hopefully sooner than later, as the longer it is delayed, the larger the risk of catastrophic fiasco.
Here, we continue on our menu of current events, and toss in views of what we all used to have. It is a lfiestyle that predates the neocon monsters that have corrupted the United States government so badly. I hope you enjoy this article.
Been there. Done that.
Been there.
Young boy picks out a girl
This video has been making it’s arounds. A boy is in a Business KTV, and when the girls come out in the lineup, he runs up and picks a girl immediately. LOL video 8MB
The “news” about China
China is falling apart. Andy day now… any day now… the people will “rise up” and accept democracy™ and freedom™. That’s the narrative, don’t you know. Of course the idiots regurigating this bullshit have exactly zero experience with China. They are fine “cannon fodder”. LOL!
From Drudge Report 8APR22.
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The fiction is “off the charts”.
On the domestic side
You will only get it if you are married .
Singapore abstains from UN vote on Russia: MFA says awaiting probe on human rights violation in Ukraine
Singapore suddenly adjusted her pro US foreign policy, they now are not so trigger-happy against Russia. Abstention in UN vote: MFA says Singapore is awaiting findings on human rights violation in Ukraine
This has everything. Meat pie. Beef. beans, and taste! The key is the unique set of ingredients. But all are commonly available.
Spicy Bean and Beef Pie.
Ingredients
1 pound ground beef
2 to 3 garlic cloves, minced
1 can (11-1/2 ounces) condensed bean with bacon soup, undiluted
1 jar (16 ounces) thick and chunky picante sauce, divided
1/4 cup cornstarch
1 tablespoon chopped fresh parsley
1 teaspoon paprika
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon pepper
1 can (16 ounces) kidney beans, rinsed and drained
1 can (15 ounces) black beans, rinsed and drained
2 cups shredded cheddar cheese, divided
3/4 cup sliced green onions, divided
Dough for double-crust deep-dish pie
1 cup sour cream
1 can (2-1/4 ounces) sliced ripe olives, drained
Directions
Preheat oven to 425°. In a large skillet, cook beef over medium heat until beef is no longer pink. Add garlic; cook 1 minute longer. Drain. In a large bowl, combine soup, 1 cup picante sauce, cornstarch, parsley, paprika, salt and pepper. Fold in beans, 1-1/2 cups cheese, 1/2 cup onions and beef mixture.
On a lightly floured surface, roll half the dough to a 1/8-in.-thick circle; transfer to a 9-in. deep-dish pie plate. Trim even with rim. Add filling. Roll remaining dough to a 1/8-in.-thick circle. Place over filling. Trim, seal and flute edge. Cut slits in top.
Bake until crust is lightly browned, 30-35 minutes. Let stand for 5 minutes before cutting. Serve with sour cream, olives and remaining picante sauce, cheese and onions.
Once the go-to hangout spot for American teens and a symbol of opportunity for small business owners, diners are one of the most beloved remnants of mid-century America.
Scattered across the country, diners come in many shapes and forms, from roadside railcar-style establishments to tiny hole-in-the-wall restaurants in the country’s biggest cities.
Here’s what diners looked like during their heyday...
American Diner.
Republica – Ready to Go (Official Video)
Big British group from the 1990s. They made a splash on the music scene and then faded away. They maintained domestic signifigance for some time, but most of the world remains unaware of them.
Good Map ever of Ukraine.
It’s from the Western leadership. So it’s really not all that accurate. But it’s a good map never the less. You can zoom in, and all that. The actual military territories and Russian locations are entirely deceptive. It seems that Russia has made no gains. But that’s not the intention. This is not World War I. Don’t “pull a Hitler” and maintain 19th century thinking.
Beijing warns of ‘forceful measures’ if Nancy Pelosi visits Taiwan
It is possible that China may declare Taiwan airspace a “no fly zone”. If so, in this senario, they will shoot down any Taiwan jet and destroy Taiwan military bases that dare to fire the first shot.
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It’s possible, but not probable.
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Imagine if “Xi the great” follows “Putin the great” to declare a ban on accepting US currency. What will happen to the Western economies, their cost of living, manufacturing supply chain, currency value, and world confident in Holding US treasury debt?
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The truth is that the United States is playing a zero sum game, and blindly believe in its might with nary a second thought.
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US House Speaker is expected to arrive in Taipei on Sunday, according to media reports
Beijing says Washington ‘must be fully responsible for the consequences’ if it goes ahead
Nancy Pelosi postpones Asia trip after testing positive for Covid-19
Imagine that. What “bad luck”.
A US Congressional delegation to Asia has been postponed after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi tested positive for Covid-19.
The announcement followed a warning by China that it would take strong measures if the trip included a visit to Taiwan, as media reports in the region had claimed.
Pelosi's deputy communications director Drew Hammill said in a tweet on Thursday that the planned Congressional delegation to Asia, to be led by Pelosi over the two-week Congressional break, "will be postponed to a later date."
"After testing negative this week, Speaker Pelosi received a positive test result for Covid-19 and is currently asymptomatic. The Speaker is fully vaccinated and boosted, and is thankful for the robust protection the vaccine has provided. The Speaker will quarantine consistent with CDC guidance, and encourages everyone to get vaccinated, boosted and test regularly," Hammill tweeted.
Railcar-style diners were modeled after rail carriages or sometimes converted from the original train cars into stand-alone eateries. Diners were constructed in factories and then shipped to their destinations, much like mobile homes, and were relatively affordable to purchase at just $1,000.
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Once they arrived, the utilities simply had to be connected. Since diners, or “lunch cars,” had to be shipped using a truck or railcar, they were designed to be narrow.
AUKUS is “Anglo-Saxon small bloc” to serve U.S. hegemony: Chinese FM spokesperson-Xinhua
It’s pretty obvious, and if you tabulate all the public speeches from the USA and from Australia, you can clearly see that the Chinese spokesperson is just stating facts. Why this is signifigant is that the Chinese government is officially recognizing that a military build up prior to an American invasion / war upon China is the purpose of AUKUS.
Until the Great Depression, most diners could be found in the Northeast.
After World War II ended and the suburbs began to boom, more and more people began opening diners nationwide.
Typical diner interior.
The small businesses could prove extremely profitable for owners. Since the restaurants themselves were so small, and the kitchens so narrow, not many employees were required.
Sneaker Pimps 6 Underground/Lyrics/Kelli Ali
A top charter in the mid-1990s. I wonder if anyone remembers this song. I think it kind of defined what it was like in those years.
Chinese democracy seems to work pretty good.
In a comparative sense. But America has “American” democracy™. That’s superior Right?
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With the implementation of cross-country highways in the 1960s, diners continued to grow in popularity.
Travelers along the new highways could stop off and grab a quick bite at the roadside establishments.
Interior of a roadside diner.
Many diners featured a row of bar stools along a counter, allowing many people to be served without much effort from the diner’s staff.
Sophie B. Hawkins – Damn I Wish I Was Your Lover
Here’s a “blast from the past”. This song was pretty famous back in the 1990s. It is about… well, you know… there is a person, a certain someone… that you really like. But, you know, there are taboos and you cannot have a relationship with that person.
I don’t think you people understand how big of a deal all this economic stuff that is happening actually is. It’s very difficult even for me to watch it all playing out in real time.
Basically, the whole world had agreed to a US-run financial system that was outside of the realm of politics. Then, the United States decided to violate international law and ban Russia from the global financial system, ostensibly because they believed that Vladimir Putin is a very mean person.
Global economies will be rethinking how safe it is to rely on the US dollar in their foreign currency holdings, the deputy head of the International Monetary Fund, Gita Gopinath, said on Tuesday.The statement comes after half of Russia’s forex holdings were effectively confiscated by international financial institutions amid sanctions placed on Moscow following the launch of its military operation in Ukraine.“We are likely to see some countries reconsidering how much they hold of certain currencies in their reserves,” she stated in an interview with Foreign Policy magazine.Gopinath said the IMF sees “increasing fragmentation” in global payments systems as one of the consequences of the current events. However, she stated that the US dollar, traditionally considered the world reserve currency, is not likely to suffer an “imminent demise.”Still, depending on how long the crisis in Ukraine lasts, there could be larger effects, Gopinath said.
I don’t know how many hardline “everything is a conspiracy” people read this website.
Personally, I’m a moderate conspiracy guy. As a rule, I only publish conspiracies that can be proved beyond a reasonable doubt. In terms of my personal mind, I believe some conspiracies that I wouldn’t publish, because I understand they can’t be proved beyond a reasonable doubt.
There is some gray area, of course. You can use deductive logic to conclude something without necessarily having all of the facts documented. For example: when the CIA (or one of its tentacles) releases documents admitting to doing some dastardly thing decades earlier, and then says “yeah, but we stopped doing that,” you can deduce that they are almost certainly still doing it.
The logic is:
They lied about doing it in the first place while they were doing it
They have a history of saying they stopped doing things and then getting caught still doing them
If they were doing it in the first place, and nothing has changed, they still view it as worth doing
Everything they want to do in secret is done in secret, under the guise of national security
They’ve repeatedly demonstrated that there is no consideration of any type of morality in their secret deeds
etc.
So, with for example any of the human experiments that the CIA was involved in – whether it be testing chemical weapons on the public or doing mind control techniques on patients in psych wards – you can assume with very high confidence that, given that they’ve admitted to doing these things in the past, they are still doing them now.
Viewing Everything That Happens as a Conspiracy Can Lead to Tangled-Up, Nonsensical Thinking
I am the first person to admit “conspiracies are real.” I am not some rabid person who goes around condemning people as “conspiracy theorists.” I’m always interested in hearing people out. I think I’m about as open-minded as a person can be without having a gaping hole in my head. I like engaging people in discussion of every kind of idea.
The World Economic Forum’s Great Reset is the most obvious conspiracy of the current year. I don’t “believe” in this – I know it is real, because I’ve read their publications, and seen their policies enacted around the world. However, you have to match your beliefs with facts with reality, or you end up getting sucked into a void.
There is a sect of people who think everything is a conspiracy, and use backward logic to explain anything that happens as part of the conspiracy. Again, I don’t know how many of these people there are, and I know that these people tend to be much more vocal on the internet than people who are not in this subculture. But I have seen a lot of people claim some version of “the West is using the Russia conflict to destroy its own economic system on purpose.”
These people are correct in stating that the US and the rest of the West have a plan – this “Great Reset” thing – to make basically everyone poor, jobless, living in state housing and eating state food, ultimately reducing the population so that the elite can dominate the limited resources remaining on earth. (If you follow the WEF documents and presentations, they are very big into the idea that they are going to use emerging technology to basically become immortal, extending their lives through gene therapy and bionic implants and such, so they believe they will need these resources to build an empire in outer space. They literally believe that and you can read it on their website. It’s not a “theory.”)
So, when you see them destroying the global economic system, it is easy to say “see, this is that thing.”
And indeed: they are clearly spinning this stuff in that direction. You see US officials coming out and saying that it’s time to start riding the bus if you can’t afford an \$80,000 Tesla.
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Earlier this month Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg told American families to buy electric vehicles if they desire gas savings, now he’s telling them to take the bus.https://t.co/r5Iw6UA9cBpic.twitter.com/CKqrviNwDA— MRCTV (@mrctv) March 22, 2022
This is clearly part of the program, and they’re exploiting the Ukraine situation to push this agenda.
Meanwhile in France, their dictator just came out and said that he’s going to start issuing food rations when everyone starts starving because of a border skirmish in the former USSR.
However, “everything is going according to plan” just doesn’t work, because ultimately, these big decisions on the geopolitical stage regarding the dollar as reserve currency only serve to empower China.
China can’t be sanctioned because they produce too much of what America uses. China has also formed a global trade network that they could use to blockade the United States.
Diners became popular due to their large menus featuring American food staples like hamburgers, fries, and club sandwiches.
Diners were popular.
Most diners had galley kitchens that made it easier for cooks to move from one dish to another, making service quicker than in a traditional restaurant.
Do you think that I am giving enough airtime to the humble American hamburger, or is more time needed?
Here’s an accurate meme posted by a Chinese official:
It is a truth universally acknowledged, that when the West talks about the "int'l community", they mean: pic.twitter.com/RZNOwDymX2— Lijian Zhao 赵立坚 (@zlj517) March 17, 2022
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Saudi Arabia is going to start trading oil in yuan.
Countries are going to start dumping dollar reserves.
America is going to be a third world country, while China becomes the dominant world power.
So then, if you are going to say that this is all going according to plan, you have to say that the US leadership wants to transfer all of its global power to the Chinese.
But why?
That’s where the hang-up is. It doesn’t make any sense why the US and Western establishment would be interested in transferring power to China.
In order to square that circle, you have to really start going into nutty type conspiracies. And when I say “nutty,” I’m saying that not as an insult, but as an objective descriptor. You would have to come up with an explanation as to how China is secretly on-board with the global Western (frankly, primarily Jewish) agenda.
There is no indicator of that, really at all. In fact, China’s culture is virtually the diametric opposite of Western Jewish culture.
To make it make sense, you are forced into a few necessary assertions, all of which are fantastical:
China has a secret deal with Western powers to implement a feminist-anal-tranny-Jewish slave grid
China purposefully did the reverse of the feminist-anal-tranny-Jewish agenda instead of a push for democracy (I guess as some kind of fake-out)
For some reason, China has refused all Western attempts to “democratize” (another fake-out?)
The Taiwan occupation, the Western-backed Hong Kong riots, and every other thing that the US has done to try to undermine Chinese society was part of a massive fake-out (who are they faking out? People on internet forums?)
The West has some kind of secret mechanism through which to ensure that China upholds this theoretical secret agreement, which is why they are willing to surrender all global power to China upfront, without any visible guarantees that China will uphold the secret agreement
None of this, to me, is serious in any way. People try to work backwards from what they see happening, then they hit the brick wall of these fantastical and possibly outright nonsensical assertions which are necessary to uphold the logic train they are riding.
There is no way to say this is all part of the plan without saying the plan is to transfer all power to China, and there is no explanation of why that would be the plan.
The hardline conspiracy people will then start listing off a series of allegedly unexplainable questions, rather than confront the underlying hard wall their logic has hit.
For example:
Why would the US transfer its manufacturing base to China in the 1990s?
Why would the US implode its own economy and status as a world power?
Why are the Chinese allowed to invest in Western infrastructure?
These are fair questions and worth considering. But to claim that the only possible explanation is “a secret deal with the Chinese,” despite the stated problems with that theory, is absurd.
My explanations for these questions are simpler: in general, I would answer those questions with “the West made bad decisions.” I would attribute these bad decisions by a decadent and decaying elite feebly attempting to manage complex systems they don’t understand.
With the first question – the issue of transferring the manufacturing base – this was well documented at the time. Western think-tanks explained in a virtually infinite number of white papers and books that when the Chinese quality of living was escalated, they would “democratize” and integrate with the West. Needless to say, that did not happen. Instead, China installed a new Emperor who organized a wide-ranging program to promote ultranationalism and reinforce traditional Chinese cultural values.
Samuel P. Huntington, who died in 2008 at the age of 81, is one of the globalist thinkers who disagreed with the consensus, arguing that China could, unlike Western countries, modernize and still maintain traditional culturally conservative values, which would then make it “unintegratable” into the Western order, which is based on modernist ideas.
If anyone wants to understand Huntington’s predictions further, they can read his book “Clash of Civilizations.” It’s kind of boring if you don’t have all the background knowledge, but not particularly difficult for someone with high school level reading skills.
This is the map he gave of the different civilizations that were to “clash” in the modern world:
You can overlay that with the above Chinese meme about the “international community.”
Meanwhile, China has spent the last two decades reaching out to these various other civilizations, and most of them get along very well with the Chinese. During the same two decades, the West has been engaged in brutal, pointless, and very expensive wars, serving no clear purpose anyone can explain beyond “Israeli security interests.” (Those countries could have been conquered a lot easier with Netflix and pornography, but the Jews wanted war. That’s the theme of all of this – the globalist agenda is continually undermined by bizarre Jewish psychology.)
The Chinese have also peddled a lot of influence in the West, primarily through being productive and exploiting the transnational ideology of the West.
Finally, to be clear: I don’t doubt that Western politicians have been bribed or that the Democrat Party in particular has a fair number of Chinese intelligence operatives and assets. The story of Fang-Fang the Chinese spy going around having sex with American politicians seems to be true, and that has probably happened a lot without the spies getting identified. But espionage and intelligence operations fit into my paradigm, rather than the “everything that happens wouldn’t happen unless it was a conspiracy” paradigm.
As well as being quicker to make, dishes served at diners were cheaper, too.
Items like pancakes, sausages, meatloaf, burgers, and sandwiches were typically served in the restaurants and still are in diners today.
Good cheap food was available at diners.
The meals were low-priced, making diners popular even before their rise in the 1950s. During the Great Depression, diners provided an inexpensive way for families to go out to eat.
It’s the Same with Russia
These same kinds of issues come up when talking about how Putin is secretly working for Klaus Schwab – but those arguments aren’t even really important enough to address, because at this point, Russia is a de facto proxy state of China. To elaborate: China and Russia are in a binding alliance, and China is a much more powerful country than Russia, therefore: de facto proxy state – at least as regards Russia’s moves on the geopolitical stage. If China was allied with America, Russia would already be crushed (that’s why so many people tried to warn American planners that they had to choose one or the other).
Putin and the Russians obviously have their own objectives and so on; I don’t think they are a vassal state of the Chinese. But it is clear that Putin made sure the Ukrainian intervention was approved by China, and they would not have approved it if they didn’t think it served their interests. As we’ve seen, it has very much served their interests. Frankly, I am virtually positive that the Chinese knew how the US would react and did the math on how this would play out, ultimately resulting in the collapse of the dollar, and thereby the American Empire.
Meanwhile, by every single fact we are able to observe, the decadent leaders of the West are acting as though Russia and China are Iraq and Libya. It appears that they genuinely believe they can use brute force and threats of brute force to come out on top in this conflict. (It’s also worth mentioning that the West, due to the ultra-low moral character of its leaders and the utter lack of any unifying ideal beyond anal sex, has lost the ability to cooperate cohesively as a single body in the way that the Chinese do.)
Please note: Unlike the theoretical secret deals between the West and the Chinese (or Russia), the deals between China and Russia are very much visible and are largely committed to paper.
The West started this conflict, of course. I don’t know when they realized Russia was going to move into the Ukraine, but they had ample opportunity to prevent it by simply agreeing to the previous status quo. They appear to believe that they can create a protracted conflict in the Ukraine like they did when Russia invaded Afghanistan in the 1980s. That shows a fundamental lack of understanding of the situation. Ukraine has historically been a part of Russia. There is not really any such thing as a “Ukrainian identity” outside of being a vassal state. In the west of the country, they tend to feel closer to Poland, and there is some bad blood all around with regards to the USSR. But none of this is in any way similar to fanatical Islam. The US has backed neo-Nazism as a kind of “Ukrainian ISIS,” but you can’t rally a country around cartoonish neo-Nazism (particularly while the entire leadership of the country is Jewish).
The idea of using neo-Nazis as rebels against a Russian occupation or a Russia-backed government in the Ukraine is nonsensical, and reeks of the kind of stupid thinking that led to America’s Afghan debacle. The US government pays people to lie to them, and when people tell the truth, they get fired and end up on obscure livestream interviews answering superchats. These liars are telling the decision-makers that the Ukraine is Afghanistan and a protracted conflict can be used to drain Russia, which will ultimately result in the collapse of the Putin government.
The fact that they have no idea what they’re doing is blatant in the fact that they are sanctioning the entire Russian race. Putin’s support is going up rapidly among the people, many of whom didn’t like his policies before but now feel compelled to rally around him since they are being attacked personally for their race by the West.
Diners typically operate around the clock, allowing patrons to stop by at any time for a meal.
Since diners are open all night long, many pop culture depictions of diners involve a feeling of loneliness and isolation.
Diners were open 24 hours.
Edward Hopper’s 1942 painting “Nighthawks” shows a diner and its few occupants late at night. The painting is based on a diner in New York City’s Greenwich Village.
So, China Ruling the World, Huh?
We are clearly facing down a world ruled by the Chinese. A lot of people are uncomfortable with that. But most of the discomfort comes from the idea that the Chinese are somehow going to rule us in the same fashion that the US has ruled the world since World War II. They have no such plans for us. The Chinese have a vision of conquering the world through commerce, rather than war, threats of war, and geopolitical maneuvering.
We started out on the issue of the economic dominance of the US, and that economic dominance is indeed the key to everything. However, US economic dominance was entirely a result of US military might.
The reigning US philosophy for global economic dominance has been: “we will literally bomb you.”
Conversely, the Chinese philosophy has been: “we will sell you high quality products at reasonable prices.”
Chinese people do not really even understand what white people are, and they don’t have very much interest in learning. If a Chinese person outside of the major urban centers sees a white person, they don’t register them as a person, but rather as some kind of weird exotic creature that has popped up in their environment for mysterious reasons. The reaction is similar to if you were walking down the street, and saw Doraemon float in on a cloud.
Doraemon float in on a cloud.
You might stop and look at him in awe, you might take out your phone and take a selfie, you might just ignore him completely because your brain cannot register the existence of a Doraemon floating around.
This is to say: it’s a purely insular culture, which Westerners do not understand any more than they understand us. As an example: instead of trying to trace their origins as a people, the Chinese believe – and teach children in school – that China has always existed. In their thinking, China is the “Middle Kingdom” that sits between Heaven and a mass of strange barbarians who may be interested in buying products.
When the Mongols consistently raided them, stealing their women and wealth on horseback and riding off with the booty, they said “cannot allow.” Instead of mounting an army to crush the Mongols, they built a gigantic wall, and told the Mongols that if they wanted Chinese products, they would have to buy them at the wall.
It is precisely the same logic as a Chinese immigrant family setting up a store in an all black neighborhood and covering the counter, cash register, and expensive items with bulletproof glass.
China has always been, fundamentally, a merchant empire, and that hasn’t changed. If it were not for the belligerence of the West, they wouldn’t have bothered to build up a large military at all. Historically, virtually every war the Chinese have fought has been a civil war, as they don’t look at the rest of the world as enemies or friends, but rather customers and potential customers.
China has de facto economic dominance over most of Southeast Asia and a lot of Africa. They’ve not interfered with any of these countries’ political processes, and they’ve shown no interest in doing so. I’ve repeatedly pointed out that they should have sent advisors to Burma during their (still ongoing) political crisis, given that they’ve got such a large stake in the Burmese economy, but they did not. Even when it is obviously to their benefit, and the problem would not be difficult to mediate, they stick to a policy of non-interference.
Similarly, they had huge investments in Vietnam, but made no attempt to interfere with the politics there. The locals started to resent Chinese being richer than locals. This ended up in massive pogroms of Chinese businesses in 2014. It didn’t get a lot of media attention in the West of course, but it was a pretty big deal. They burned more than a dozen factories, and were just smashing anything with Chinese characters on it (they can’t visibly tell the difference between each other, because Vietnamese people are really just Southern Chinese). They ended up accidentally smashing or burning a bunch of Taiwanese and even Japanese businesses (I guess they didn’t attack Korean businesses, because Korean characters have that circle thing that makes them really obvious).
Several people were killed. China’s response was basically “this is very disrespectful behavior. We cannot continue doing business with you.” They didn’t threaten them with a war, or try to do regime change. The Vietnamese government said they would secure Chinese investments, and then only arrested two people. (The Wikipedia page on these “protests” is not very good, but might be a starting point for people who want to look into it more.)
China pulled most of their investment, and Vietnam continued to pivot towards America, a country that they had relatively recently had a relatively brutal war with. Some Western-owned factories moved to Vietnam from China, but mostly the result of the pogroms and lack of action by the government to the pogroms just meant more money for Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, Sri Lanka, Malaysia, and Indonesia – countries where the local barbarians are more amenable to gentlemanly business practices.
Vietnam has effectively been cut out of the One Belt, One Road project, while the Chinese are doing expensive infrastructure projects and building factories everywhere else. Instead of using Vietnamese ports, China is going through neighboring Laos, Burma, Thailand, and Cambodia, then running a waterway shipping line past Vietnam.
This is why they’re going crying to the US State Department about fishing waters. I guess we’ll see how that gamble works out for them. (Obviously, at some point, they’re going to end up begging for the Chinese to come back – assuming they don’t end up being used in some kind of Western military operation.)
Note this: America still has military in Thailand. However, when push comes to shove, Thais are going to side with the Chinese, because dumping money into a country works a lot better for building stable relations than putting your military inside a country.
This little variation on Pork Chops is very, very delicious and so easy to make!
Baked Saucy Pork Chops
Ingredients
2 tablespoons butter
2 bone-in pork loin chops (3/4 inch thick)
1/4 cup chopped onion
1/4 cup maple syrup
2 tablespoons water
1 tablespoon cider vinegar
2 teaspoons Worcestershire sauce
1 teaspoon chili powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon pepper
1/8 teaspoon garlic powder
Directions
Preheat oven to 350°. In a large skillet, heat butter over medium heat. Brown pork chops on both sides. Transfer to a greased 11×7-in. baking dish; sprinkle with onion.
In a bowl, mix remaining ingredients; pour over chops. Bake, covered, until a thermometer inserted in pork reads 145°, 15-20 minutes. Let stand 5 minutes before serving.
Pay attention to this;
If the West wants to fight a bioweapons war, the East can do the same thing.
Two COVID Variants Just Combined Into a ‘Frankenstein’ Virus
The first subvariant of Omicron, the latest major variant of the novel coronavirus, was bad. BA.1 drove record cases and hospitalizations in many countries starting last fall.
The second subvariant, BA.2, was worse in some countries—setting new records for daily cases across China and parts of Europe.
After Biden and Blinkedin warned China that serious consequences would occur if China failed to sanction Russia, there have been outbreaks up and down China with this second subvariant BA.2. No other actions occured (aside fromt he mysterious mid-air breakup of a domestic airliner).
Now BA.1 and BA.2 have combined to create a third subvariant. XE, as it’s known, is a “recombinant”—the product of two viruses interacting “Frankenstein”-style in a single host.
With its long list of mutations, XE could be the most contagious form of the coronavirus yet. “From the WHO reports, it does appear to have a bit more of an edge in terms of transmissibility,” Stephanie James, the head of a COVID testing lab at Regis University in Colorado, told The Daily Beast.
But don’t panic just yet. The same mix of subvariants that produced XE might also protect us from it. Coming so quickly after the surge of BA.1 and BA.2 cases, XE is on track to hit a wall of natural immunity—the antibodies left over from past infection in hundreds of millions of people.
Those natural antibodies, plus the additional protection afforded by the various COVID vaccines, could blunt XE’s impact. For that reason, many experts worry less about XE and more about whatever variant or subvariant might come after XE.
Now, it appears that a deadly variant of the BA.2 has been detected in the USA. It's now known as XE.
The subvariant hasn’t shown up in U.S. tests yet. But that doesn’t mean it hasn’t reached U.S. shores. “It might not be detected by the standard analysis pipeline,” Rob Knight, the head of a genetic-computation lab at the University of California, San Diego, told The Daily Beast. Major new forms of SARS-CoV-2 can require tweaks to testing methods.
XE is a nasty bug, owing to potentially dozens of mutations to its spike protein, the part of the virus that helps it grab onto and infect our cells. And it’s a strong reminder that the pandemic isn’t over. Even with widespread natural immunity and highly effective and safe vaccines, SARS-CoV-2 keeps finding pockets of unprotected people—and opportunities to evolve.
Diners have appeared in pop culture favorites like “Grease,” “Seinfeld,” “Gilmore Girls,” and “Twin Peaks.”
“In the movies, the diner is a special kind of space, a mythic place, a zone of escape,” film critic John Patterson told the BBC.
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Suzanne Vega, who wrote the ’80s hit song “Tom’s Diner,” said, “The attraction of the diner is that it’s a sort of a midway point between the street and home.”
Trade is Better Than War
Frankly, if you read Thomas Jefferson – who was not an Orientalist – his vision for America was not dissimilar from that of the “Middle Kingdom” of China. He thought America should base its relationships with other countries on trade, rather than military or political antagonism (let alone moral lecturing).
This thinking was based primarily on the fact that the US had been a colony, and so understood the complexities of running an empire, which requires you to rule over people in foreign lands. Most all of the original American thinkers thought trade was a better way to interact with and influence the world than direct military rule.
Basically, this thinking ended with the Spanish-American war. Before that, America had wars, but they were all basically necessary (the Civil War is obviously complicated, but it was not a foreign war so doesn’t apply here). Because of the alleged sinking of the USS Maine by the Spanish – which turned out to be a fake news hoax – the US did an “intervention” in Cuba, and then “intervened” in the Philippines.
Irony of all ironies, however, the actual first “intervention” in a dumb foreign conflict was the support for the British during the Second Opium War.
The short story is: The US initially refused to get involved, and then were talked into sending a small number of troops by the British. After a few brief skirmishes, the US signed a neutrality agreement with China, effectively abandoning the British to their stupid adventure in global Jewish drug-peddling (the opium racket was run by the Jewish Sassoon family, and the entire scheme of conquering the Chinese by getting all the peasants addicted to drugs was a Jewish plan that the British went along with – the British have a proud history stretching back to Cromwell of cooperating with maniacal Jewish schemes). Then a US Navy commander went rogue and attacked the Chinese in defense of the British, claiming it was a race war, and “blood is thicker than water.” I agree with the sentiment, of course, but not in the context of a Jewish drug scheme on the other side of the planet.
So: our nation’s first stupid foreign adventure was against the Chinese as a part of a Jewish plot – and thus will be our last foreign adventure.
The Dragon’s Breath blows away the Empire of Dust.
Diners brought together people from different economic levels
Michael C. Gabriele, who wrote “The History of Diners in New Jersey,” told the Telegraph that “diners are the state’s ultimate gathering places — at any moment, high school students, CEOs, construction workers, and tourists might be found at a counter chatting with the waitresses and line cooks.”
American diner.
During the civil rights movement, diners became a popular place for activists to hold “sit-ins” in restaurants that refused to seat black people, despite many of them employing black people to work there.
In 1964, Congress outlawed segregation through the Civil Rights Act, but many diners in the South continued to segregate their establishments, afraid that “seating blacks would drive away white patrons.”
Worse Things Have Happened to Better People
It goes without saying: no Chinaman ever tried to convince my son to cut his dick off. No Chinaman ever flooded my country with immigrants and pornography. No Chinaman ever called me “goy.”
China is not going to invade America. They are going to allow it to commit suicide. Over time, a new order will be established in America, and that new order will have the option of trading with China. Probably, during the chaos of this collapse, China will buy up a lot of the resources in America, and this will mean that a new emerging order will be tied in to the global economic order run by the Chinese. That’s unfortunate, but hey – your son gets to keep his dick.
A world with China as the central global superpower will be peaceful and based on independent countries engaging in voluntary commerce. It’s sad to see people getting so fussy over it.
I get that it’s also sad that the white man is not going to be the dominant force on the planet anymore. But in truth, we haven’t been for a long time. Everything that we associate with Western dominance in the modern age is really Jewish dominance.
Basically, 80 years ago, white people had a big war with each other and the good guys lost. Everything that’s happened since then has been effectively predetermined – a series of chaotic and revolutionary events driven by the chaotic and revolutionary spirit of the Jewish race. The Jews ultimately destroy everything. They can’t help themselves.
So, here we are.
Railcar-style diners are still manufactured in factories today, but they’re much more expensive to purchase and ship.
New diners can reportedly cost more than $1 million to produce, and restoring or renovating old ones can be extremely pricey as well. Instead, many ’50s-style diners in operation today are built on-site to cut costs.
American diner.
US oil imports from Russia increase by 43%
If you are confused, well; welcome to the club.
In the past week, the US administration has increased its imports of Russian oil by 43%, reaching 100,000 barrels a day.
I have so much information to share with you today, and I will do my best to be brief. But be warned that this article is going to be longer than usual. Global events are moving so quickly now, and I believe that they are going to move even more rapidly in the months ahead. Sadly, the changes that we are witnessing will have a very real impact on the daily lives of every man, woman and child on the entire planet. As I discussed yesterday, a global food shortage has arrived. In fact, members of Congress are now using words like “famine” and “starvation” to describe what conditions will soon be like all over the world.
For example, U.S. Senator Joni Ernst just told Fox Business that our planet is facing “impending famine”…
About 40 to 45 percent of the production in Ukraine will be decreased this year because of the war and the scarcity of supplies that go into the planting season. And we know that Ukraine also supports about 400 million people around the world with its food products. So we do see that we have an impending famine. And I’ve heard from David Beasley at the World Food Bank that he’s now going to have to take from the hungry to feed the starving.
And U.S. Senator Cory Booker has previously warned that we could soon see tens of millions of people “dying of starvation”…
“Democrats and Republicans in Congress need to quickly come together and approve emergency global food aid in order to prevent tens of millions of people, including millions of children, from dying of starvation,” Senator Cory Booker, a Democrat from New Jersey, told Reuters.
They aren’t exaggerating.
Even Joe Biden recently admitted that food shortages are “going to be real”.
The one thing that could provide a ray of hope would be an end to the war in Ukraine.
But it appears that isn’t going to happen any time soon. In an interview with Fox News on Friday, Volodymyr Zelenskyy stated that his nation will not accept anything less than “victory” in the war…
Special Report’s Bret Baier interviewed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Friday evening, touching on a wide variety of topics, including what a victory looks like for Ukraine and what Putin is hoping to achieve.Baier asked the Ukrainian leader at the start of the interview how he believes the “war will end” prompting an explanation from Zelenskyy that only “victory” will be acceptable to his country.
Good luck with all that.
Now that the Russians have pulled their forces away from Kiev to focus on the eastern front, there is a lot less pressure on Zelenskyy to compromise on a peace deal.
And the fact that this conflict has made him one of the biggest celebrities on the entire planet actually gives him an incentive to keep it going.
Meanwhile, millions upon millions of people are already deeply suffering. In Somalia, we are being warned that an “impending famine” is at the door…
What we are now seeing is impending famine similar to that which occurred in 2010/2011 in which more than a quarter of a million people died – including 133,000 children under the age of five. Although some donors have committed to fund Somalia’s Humanitarian Response Plan (HRP) which seeks US$1.5 billion, not even 4% of funding required to meet Somalia’s humanitarian needs have been allocated. Like the novel coronavirus, which had impacted many of Somali households, the Ukraine crisis has driven inflation and rising costs in Somalia, particularly for food and energy, at a time when families are already incredibly desperate.
The reason why the situation in Somalia has become so desperate is because that nation normally gets more than 90 percent of its wheat from either Russia or Ukraine…
Finally, in the Horn of Africa 13 million people are already suffering from hunger. Ethiopia imports around 40 percent of its wheat from Russia and Ukraine, Kenya 30 percent, and Somalia over 90 percent.
Meanwhile, the food crisis in Yemen just continues to escalate. One man that was recently interviewed admitted that he and his family “live like ants”…
Experts are warning that the world faces a historic famine. The war in Ukraine is only one of many problems plaguing the global distribution of food.In Yemen, Ghalib al-Najjar skips meals so that his children have enough food. He says he and his family “live like ants or fish…we eat what we can find.”
An ongoing wave of violent protests in Peru shows how the Russian invasion of Ukraine is affecting markets around the world, sparking unrest and deepening political divides.Rising fuel costs originally triggered the protests, which started last week, but quickly intensified into large anti-government demonstrations with marches and road blockades.
So far at least six people have died in the chaos, and protesters continue to block at least nine major roads.
In Afghanistan, it is being estimated that 95 percent of the entire population does not have enough food to eat right now…
Afghanistan has faced grave hunger crises before. Two decades ago, people in the country were so hungry they resorted to eating wild grass.But the situation in the country now is unprecedented.Exacerbated by an unusually cold winter and the worst drought in decades, the economic upheaval that came with the Taliban takeover has left 95% of Afghans without enough food.
We haven’t seen anything like this in a really long time.
The World Food Program estimates that 285 million people face starvation.The head of the World Food Program, former South Carolina Governor David Beasley, says the world food supply already faced a catastrophe before the war in Ukraine.“We’re so short of funds already, and now with Ukraine, we’ve got 50-percent rations for people, for example, in Yemen, I’ve just cut 50 percent rations for eight million people. Niger, 50 percent rations, Chad 50 percent rations. And 50 percent don’t have anything, those who are in extreme need,” Beasley said.
Of course this is just the beginning. As I specifically warned in Lost Prophecies and 7 Year Apocalypse, conditions will eventually become far more severe than they are at this moment.
Here in the United States, nobody is starving just yet, but the cost of living is escalating at a frightening pace.
According to a Bloomberg report, the average U.S. household will need to spend 5,200 dollars more just to have the same standard of living as last year…
“Inflation will mean the average U.S. household has to spend an extra $5,200 this year ($433 per month) compared to last year for the same consumption basket,” Bloomberg Economics reports.Having to spend an extra $433 per month to get the same is a hefty, even gargantuan ask for anyone — especially parents who are already struggling to keep a roof over their kid’s heads and food on the table.
And our historic supply chain crisis just continues to get even worse.
The wait times for semiconductor deliveries rose slightly in March, reaching a new high, after lockdowns in China and an earthquake in Japan further hampered supply.Lead times — the lag between when a chip is ordered and delivered — increased by two days to 26.6 weeks last month, according to research by Susquehanna Financial Group.
The system is crumbling all around us, and we really are in the early stages of a full-blown economic implosion.
Initially, it will be the poorest nations that suffer the most.
Millions upon millions of innocent people don’t have enough to eat right now, and that number will rise with each passing day.
Normally, most Americans don’t pay too much attention to what is happening on the other side of the world, but food scarcity is growing in the United States too.
So if you and your family have enough food to eat tonight, you should be very grateful, because at least for now you are one of the lucky ones.
What Chinese houses look like
You know, you can easily see glimpses of China by looking at the backgrounds in the Douxing videos. here, we have a girl dancing in the front of her home, and in her living room. I can tell you that this is normal. This is what China is like, and to all those people who mistakenly believe that the Chinese nation is going to collapse any day, well… don’t hold your breath. video 2MB
Quick Chicken and Dumplings
Using precooked chicken and ready-made biscuits, this hearty dish is comfort food made simple. It’s the perfect way to warm up on chilly nights.
1 can (4 ounces) mushroom stems and pieces, drained
1 teaspoon chicken bouillon granules
1 teaspoon minced fresh parsley
1/2 teaspoon dried sage leaves
1/4 teaspoon dried rosemary, crushed
1/4 teaspoon pepper
Directions
Cut each biscuit into fourths; set aside. In a large saucepan, saute onion and green pepper in oil until tender. Stir in the chicken, broth, mushrooms, bouillon granules, parsley, sage, rosemary and pepper.
Bring to a boil. Reduce heat; add biscuits for dumplings. Cover and simmer (do not lift cover while simmering) 10 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center of a dumpling comes out clean.
By the 1970s, the rise in fast-food restaurants led to a decline in the popularity of traditional diners.
As McDonald’s, Wendy’s, and Burger King restaurants continued to pop up nationwide, it became difficult for small business owners to compete with the huge corporations also selling cheap, convenient food.
American diner.
While there were reportedly over 1,000 diners in New York City around 30 years ago, just 398 remained in 2015, according to a Crain’s New York Business article citing the city’s Department of Health records at the time.
One way to view civilization collapse is to say that every nation dies when its marginal costs exceed potential profits. This means that each action is so encumbered — red tape, taxes, unions, corruption — that none of them are worth doing.
At that point, people stop trying to improve things and simply make do with what they have or stop using it. In this way, even technological civilizations revert to third world subsistence agriculture.
The Soviets went out hard because they imposed the burden of socialism on every action. The West has done the same with insurance, unions, high taxes, regulations, and diversity costs.
Individual industries do it too. You may notice that every software product you own is blighted with constant trivial updates, and that almost every company wants to sell you a “service” instead of a product.
For example, why own a software package like Microsoft Office when you can pay a monthly fee to use an online service “in the Cloud” (translation: on servers owned by someone else)? Makes sense, until you realize you are re-buying the software every ten years.
Microsoft realized it had a problem with Windows XP, Windows 7, and Office 2007: if you do something right enough, people will never buy another product unless forced. That means you need to downsize your company.
In other words, the end result of Microsoft would be to make a really good operating system and software, then fire everyone but five guys who answer the emails and keep selling the stuff.
Businesses need to find new horizons in order to stay ahead of this, just like societies constantly need new goals to avoid stagnation, but with all of the regulatory, tax, and affirmative action costs, they cannot afford to do that.
Instead they become rent-seekers, having built something great and now trying to extract as much money out of it as possible. Consequently they want you to pay them fifty bucks a month, however they have to justify it, so they can count on consistent profits and limit their size accordingly.
These are signs of a sick economy, and that usually means a sick society, since it has made crazy-stupid decisions to the point that it no longer operates as an economy but as a tax and rent-seeking cash cow.
All of that is extracted from the average wagie, which means that he pushes his employer to find ways to make more money in the world outside of his borders, at which point globalism — effectively created by unions driving labor offshore at the same time that democracy decided that with the Soviets out of the way, it might as well complete what it started in WW1 and take over the world — becomes a ruthless profit-seeking activity.
We saw this starting two decades ago when grocery stores began offering those little customer loyalty cards. If you got the card, you got better prices and enough coupons to keep you coming back.
As long as they got their $50 a month out of you, life was easy for them. Multiply that amount times their number of consumers times twelve and they know their baseline revenues, which enables them to keep hiring their friends and other bloat.
Software updates are another variation on this. They ship you “free” updates every month that eventually require you to upgrade your gadget because it cannot handle the bloat and waste of the new updates.
When margins overwhelm profit potential, everyone turns into a rent-seeker. “I have this title or ownership, therefore hand me things.”
Entropy wins at that point. No one can act to improve anything, and everyone forms a little hugbox dedicated to preserving the gimmedats of the status quo.
A civilization avoids this state by doing two things: first, it cuts external costs so that margins do not overwhelm profit potential, and second, it socializes mature products by granting monopolies that then cut staff.
If, for example, we decided that Microsoft Office 2019 was the best that an office suite could ever get and had no flaws, it would make sense to transfer it to another authority which would be five guys in an office with a monopoly and no interest in expanding it.
That would force Microsoft to find new fields to till, new mountains to climb, and new visions to dream instead of milking the past in a rent-seeking pattern that ends with everyone paying them a subscription fee just to enjoy normal tools.
We know that tech is grinding to a halt because it has invented nothing new for a long time. The grand visions of Google sputtered and died; Facebook has turned into Second Life; Twitter now seems like a good place to go get state propaganda but not much else.
This means that transition is on the wind. The old ways no longer work. Every time you see a service fee or update, console yourself with the knowledge that this is simply a grave being dug for worldwide democracy and the NWO.
In New York City, few original diners remain. However, the recent embracing of nostalgia — think, the rise in speakeasies — has also revitalized the typical American diner.
American Diner.
A recent addition to New York’s Soho neighborhood is the trendy ’50s-style Soho Diner, part of the Soho Grand Hotel. Other New York diners, like the Waverly Diner and the Empire Diner, have managed to keep their doors open despite changing tastes.
.
CIA tries to import insects that devistate crops
China inspects all packages. It’s a 100% full scan policy. This is because for decades, the United States has been busy introducing plagues, insects, and viruses to destroy China via destruction of it’s food base, and in any and all forms. This is known as “hybrid war”.
China has not retaliated…yet.
But if and when they do, the United States will collapse like the house of cards that it is.
This is typical, and apparently it’s a common enough event. Once discovered, the Chinese then send the packages on (minus the insects) and watch who gets the packages. Then the person just disappears after their mandatory interview with the PLA. video 3MB
Unfortunately, the sanctions the US put on Russia do not appear to be harming Russia at all, even as they are furthering the destruction of the economy of the West, and setting the stage for a collapse of the dollar as reserve currency.
Russia has just announced that if Europe wants its oil, they’re going to have to pay in rubles. This will heavily reenforce the ruble, of course. Presumably, it will make up for most or all of the damage that the sanctions have caused.
Russia will now accept payment for gas exports to “unfriendly countries” in rubles only, President Vladimir Putin said at a meeting with the government on Wednesday.The president explained that Russia plans to abandon all “compromised” currencies in payment settlements. He added that illegitimate decisions by a number of Western countries to freeze Russia’s assets destroyed all confidence in their currencies.“I have decided to implement in the shortest possible time a set of measures to change the payments for – yes let’s start with this – for our natural gas supplied to the so-called unfriendly countries in Russian rubles, that is to stop using all compromised currencies for transactions,” the Russian president said.“It doesn’t make sense to deliver our goods to the EU and the US and get paid in dollars and euros,” he added.
For those who don’t know the details: it is impossible for Europe to shut off Russian gas any time soon. They will literally freeze to death, or have to figure out some kind of wooden steam system.
People were saying Russian might just shut off the gas and let Europe deal with the situation, but this is much better.
The ruble bottomed out on March 7, and has been largely recovering. It’s only down 13% over the month of war.
If you consider that Russia is currently under the most severe economic sanctions in history by the most powerful economic entity in history – it’s not looking too bad.
That 13% isn’t going to affect anyone’s life in Russia, it only affects international trade. Not a big deal. No one in Russia is suffering from this, unless you consider being denied PornHub, Netflix, and McDonald’s as “suffering.”
This ultimatum to Europe will give it its 13% back.
Meanwhile, the Russian stock market, which was closed on the day of the incursion into the Ukraine, was reopened and is doing fine.
Russia’s stocks continued to rise sharply on Thursday as the Moscow Exchange reopened for limited trading this week, after suspending most of its transactions on February 28.The ruble-based MOEX benchmark went up more than 11% to 2,743 points. The dollar-denominated RTS index of leading Russian stocks was down slightly, to 888.59 points.The Moscow Exchange resumed trading in 33 Russian equities, including shares of Gazprom, Sberbank, Aeroflot, and other domestic firms. Oil majors Rosneft and Lukoil were both up by 20% and 16%, respectively. Aluminum company Rusal rose more than 14%, while Norilsk Nickel jumped more than 22%.
So, basically, the US operation against Russia has been like a situation where a guy breaks into your house and is waving around a gun at your family, then he goes ahead and puts the gun in his mouth and blows his own brains out. You’re going to have to clean the brains off the wall, and repair the locks on the door, but otherwise you’re going to be good. The intruder, however, is not so good. He’s just blown his own brains out.
This is all happening very quickly.
It’s hard to keep up with.
But the US has effectively committed a very public suicide in the name of a bizarre moral signaling campaign about how they are very good people and so oppose the very bad Russians.
It now looks to me as though this thing was planned over a very long period of time. Since the Maidan, Russia, presumably working with China, has set a trap for the United States in the Ukraine. They knew that after the revolution, the West wouldn’t be able to help itself, and would move NATO forces into the country, and NATOize the country, and so they planned the response – and understood the US response.
There had to be an invasion, because they had to get the US to act in this deranged way, which is the result of both unfathomable hubris and the general degrading of the culture into a state of nonstop moral panic.
The US has already lost.
Putin has demonstrated hypersonic missiles in the Ukraine. These cannot be shot down by any of NATO’s missile defense systems, meaning if NATO tries to attack Russia conventionally, Russia can strike targets across Western Europe. Moreover, there is just no way to invade Russia.
The only remaining options are to back off or start a nuclear war.
It is looking like they will do some kind of chemical attack false flag hoax in the Ukraine, but I don’t even understand what purpose that serves. The only people who will believe that are the “international Community,” which America is already dragging down to hell with them.
There are other theories. Alex Jones and others are saying that Western intelligence is planning to assassinate Joe Biden and blame Russia. That seems a bit outlandish, but I guess you never know. Still, I don’t really see what purpose that would serve. Russia can just say they didn’t do it. Then what changes?
The wheel is already turning.
The jig is up.
The Church – Under The Milky Way
Continuing with the 1990s theme, perhaps a reader or two might remember this little gem…
Family. Rufus. It’s all about a greater purpose. video 1MB
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.
I made the mistake just this moment of looking at the Sydney Morning Herald (smh.com.au) to see what it was saying. There's not enough soap in the world to wash out my eyes.
Stay away from the MSM if you don't want an anger management issue.-Patroklos
Lots of things going on right now. We continue with a sitrep on the various points of confusion, and various other matters. And we highlight this article with a claim from the Bit Chute venue.
This claim argues that a false flag attack in New York City will occur on the 18th of April 2022. And it will be used to trigger a hot kinetic war between the USA and Russia.
That’s what? A week away.
Ah. Such spicy subjects we have today!
We begin with some articles that are easy on the eyes.
Russian Defense Ministry on the attempted breakthrough by the Apache dry cargo ship to Mariupol.
At 22:38 Moscow time, 30 km southeast of Mariupol, the dry cargo ship abruptly changed its course and tried to break through to the Mariupol seaport blocked from the sea by the Black Sea Fleet.
The Ukrainian dry cargo ship did not respond to the demands of the Russian border ships to contact them through the international channel and continued moving in the direction of the port of MARIUPOL.
Warning artillery fire from two border guard ships towards the ship didn’t change the course of the ship and slowed her down.
While moving to the port of MARIUPOL, the vessel was engaged in radio communication, transmitting the message “I am Maniak, coming to you. At the same time, signal fires were observed on shore.
To block the movement of the intruder ship, the ship of the Black Sea Fleet and the Border Patrol ships opened artillery fire at the Apache dry cargo ship from 22:53 to 23:30.
As a result of the direct hit, a fire broke out on the stern of the ship.
After that, the Ukrainian cargo ship went adrift and the crew communicated with the border guard ships with a request to cease fire and confirmed their readiness to comply with all the demands of the Russian sailors.
The fire did not cause any casualties among the crew of the ship. The fire was extinguished by the ship’s crew on their own.
After the inspection, the Ukrainian dry cargo ship and its crew are escorted to the port of Yeysk.
Creamed Onions and Peas
This is a wonderful recipe which calls for fresh pearl onions and fresh or frozen peas. Quick and tasty.
Peas and onions.
Dust off those old skills
It’s looking like this, eh?
vintage bomb shelter 1950s cold war
The Coming Resource Wars
The second Cold War is already a struggle among systems as well, pitting countries that focus on manufacturing (China) and resources (Russia) in the physical world against an alliance led by the United States, which for the last generation has sacrificed much of its own manufacturing and mining to specialize in global leadership in finance, services, and entertainment.
The West sacrificed manufacturing because of the destructive effect of unions. The future belongs to those who are self-sufficient.
Several dozen active NATO officers were surrounded in Mariupol.
During the ongoing assault on Mariupol, several dozen active officers of NATO and European countries, who are not officially present on the territory of Ukraine, fell into a dense encirclement. As it turned out, among the surrounded officers are soldiers from France, Germany, Great Britain, Poland, the USA and Sweden (not a NATO member – ed.).
If the US goal is to crush Russia’s economy with sanctions and isolation, why is Europe in an economic free fall instead?
The stunning spectacle of the EU committing slow motion hara-kiri is something for the ages… Like a cheap Kurosawa remake the movie is actually about the Empire of Lies-detonated demolition of the EU, complete with subsequent rerouting of some key Russian commodities exports to the US at the expense of the Europeans.
It helps to have a 5th columnist actress strategically placed, in this case astonishingly incompetent European Commission head Ursula von der Lugen, with a brand new vociferous announcement of an extra sanctions package: Russian ships banned from EU ports; road transportation companies from Russia and Belarus prohibited from entering the EU; no more coal imports (over 4.4 billion euros a year).
That translates in practice into the Empire of Lies shaking down its wealthiest – Western – clients/puppets. Russia of course is too powerful militarily. The Empire badly needs some of its key exports – especially minerals. Mission Accomplished in this case amounts to nudging the EU into imposing more and more sanctions and willfully collapsing their national economies, allowing the US to scoop everything up.
Cue to the coming catastrophic economic consequences felt by Europeans in their daily life (but not by the wealthiest 5%): inflation devouring salaries and savings; next winter energy bills packing a mean punch; products disappearing from supermarkets; holiday bookings almost frozen; Le Petit Roi Macron in France – maybe up to a nasty electoral surprise – announcing “food stamps like in WWII are possible”.
We have Germany facing the returning ghost of Weimar hyperinflation; BlackRock President Rob Kapito saying, in Texas, “for the first time, this generation is going to go into a store and not be able to get what they want”; farmers in Africa not able to afford fertilizer at all this year, reducing agricultural production by an amount capable of feeding 100 million people.
Zoltan Poszar, former NY Fed and US Treasury guru, current Credit Suisse grand vizir, has been on a streak, stressing how commodity reserves – and here Russia is unrivaled – will be an essential feature of what he calls Bretton Woods III (yet, in fact, what’s being designed by Russia, China, Iran and the Eurasia Economic Union is a post-Bretton Woods).
Poszar remarks that wars, historically, are won by those who have more food and energy supplies, in the past to power horses and soldiers, today to feed soldiers and fuel tanks and fighter jets.
China, incidentally, has amassed large stocks of virtually everything.
Poszar notes how our current Bretton Woods II system has a deflationary impulse (globalization, open trade, just-in-time supply chains) while Bretton Woods III will provide an inflationary impulse (de-globalization, autarky, hoarding of raw materials) of supply chains and extra military spending to be able to protect what will remain of seaborne trade.
The implications are of course overwhelming. What’s implicit, ominously, is that this state of affairs may even lead to WWIII.
It’s all about Marketing
Don’t you know.
kid promise hit quarter funny
Rublegas or American LNG?
The Valdai Club has conducted an essential expert discussion on what we at The Cradle have defined as Rublegas – the real geoeconomic game-changer at the heart of the post-petrodollar era. Alexander Losev, a member of the Russian Council for Foreign and Defense Policy, offered the contours of the Big Picture. But it was up to Alexey Gromov, Chief Energy Director of the Institute of Energy and Finance, to come up with crucial nitty gritty details.
Russia so far was selling gas to Europe to the amount of 155 billion cubic meters a year. The EU rhetorically promises to get rid of it by 2027, and reduce supply by the end of 2022 by 100 billion cubic meters. Gromov asked “how”, and remarked, “any expert has no answer. Most of Russia’s natural gas is shipped over pipelines. This cannot simply be replaced by LNG.”
The risible European answer has been “start saving”, as in “prepare to be worse off. Reduce the temperature in households”. Gromov noted how, in Russia, “22 to 25 degrees in winter is the norm. Europe is promoting 16 degrees as ‘healthy’, and wearing sweaters at night.”
The EU won’t be able to get the gas it needs from Norway or Algeria (which is privileging domestic consumption). Azerbaijan would be able to provide at best 10 billion cubic meters a year, but “that will take 2 or 3 years” to happen.
Gromov stressed how “there’s no surplus in the market today for US and Qatar LNG.” And how prices for Asian customers are always higher. The bottom line is that “by end of 2022, Europe won’t be able to significantly reduce” what is buys from Russia: “they might cut by 50 billion cubic meters, maximum.” And prices in the spot market will be higher – at least $1,300 per cubic meter.
An important development is that “Russia changed the logistical supply chains to Asia already”. That applies for gas and oil as well:
“You can impose sanctions if there’s a surplus in the market. Now there’s a shortage of at least 1.5 million barrels of oil a day. We’ll be sending our supplies to Asia – with a discount.” As it stands, Asia is already paying a premium, from 3 to 5 dollars more per barrel of oil.
On oil shipments, Gromov also commented on the key issue of insurance:
“Insurance premiums are higher. Before Ukraine, it was all based on the FOB system. Now buyers are saying ‘we don’t want to take the risk of taking your cargo to our ports’. So they are applying the CIF system, where the seller has to insure and transport the cargo. That of course impacts revenues.”
An absolutely key issue for Russia is how to make the transition to China as its key gas customer. It’s all about Power of Siberia 2 – which will reach full capacity only in 2024. And first the interconnector through Mongolia must be built – “we need 3 years to build this pipeline” – so everything will be in place only around 2025.
On the Yamal pipeline, “most of the gas goes to Asia. If the Europeans don’t buy anymore we can redirect.” And then there’s the Arctic LNG 2 – which is larger than Yamal: “the first phase should be finished soon, it’s 80% ready.” An extra problem may be posed by the Russian “Unfriendlies” in Asia: Japan and South Korea. LNG infrastructure produced in Russia still depends on foreign technologies.
That’s what leads Gromov to note that, “the model of mobilization- based economy is not so good.” But that’s what Russia needs to deal with at least in the short to medium term.
The positives are that the new paradigm will allow “more cooperation within the BRICS”; the expansion of the International North South Transportation Corridor (INSTC); and more interaction and integration with “Pakistan, India, Afghanistan and Iran”.
Only in terms of Iran and Russia, swaps in the Caspian are already in the works, as Iran produces more than it needs, and is set to increase cooperation with Russia in the framework of the strenghtened strategic partnership.
Boobie Check – Nazi Style
Those were the days.
Some nazi women boob check
Hypersonic geoeconomics
It was up to Chinese energy expert Fu Chengyu to offer a concise explanation of why the EU drive of replacing Russian gas with American LNG is, well, a pipe dream. Essentially the US offer is “too limited and too costly”.
Fu Chengyu showed how a lengthy, tricky process depends on four contracts: between the gas developer and the LNG company; between the LNG company and the buyer company; between the LNG buyer and the cargo company (which builds vessels); and between the buyer and the end user.
“Each contract”, he pointed out, “takes a long time to finish. Without all these signed contracts no party will invest – be it investment on infrastructure or gas field development.” So actual delivery of American LNG to Europe assumes all these interconnected resources are available – and moving like clockwork.
Fu Chengyu’s verdict is stark: this EU obsession on ditching Russian gas will provoke “an impact on global economic growth, and recession. They are pushing their own people – and the world. In the energy sector, we will all be harmed.”
It was quite enlightening to juxtapose the coming geoeconomic turbulence – the EU obsession in bypassing Russian gas and the onset of Rublegas – with the real reasons behind Operation Z in Ukraine, completely obscured by Western media psyops.
So I submitted a few questions to a US Deep State old pro, now retired, and quite familiar with the inner workings of the old OSS, the CIA precursor, all the way to the neocon dementia.
His answers were quite sobering. He started by pointing out, “the whole Ukraine issue is over hypersonic missiles that can reach Moscow in less than four minutes. The US wants them there, in Poland, Romania, Baltic States, Sweden, Finland.This is in direct violation of the agreements in 1991 that NATO will not expand in Eastern Europe. The US does not have hypersonic missiles now but should – in a year or two. This is an existential threat to Russia. So they had to go into the Ukraine to stop this. Next will be Poland and Romania where launchers have been built in Romania and are being built in Poland.”
From a completely different geopolitical perspective, what’s really telling is that his analysis happens to dovetail with Zoltan Poszar’s geoeconomics:
“The US and NATO are totally belligerent.
This presents a real danger to Russia.
The idea that nuclear war is unthinkable is a myth.
If you look at the firebombing of Tokyo against Hiroshima and Nagasaki, more people died in Tokyo than Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
These cities were rebuilt.
The radiation goes away and life can restart.
The difference between firebombing and nuclear bombing is only efficiency.
NATO provocations are so extreme Russia had to place their nuclear missiles on standby alert.
This is a gravely serious matter. But the US ignored it.”
The German authorities have begun to work on strengthening the bunker infrastructure in the country, Minister of Internal Affairs Nancy Feather, said in an interview with Welt am Sonntag.
“Currently, there are 599 public bomb shelters in Germany. We will check if we can upgrade more of these systems.
In any case, the dismantling has stopped,”” the interior minister said.
Hal Turner Remarks
Those of you who somehow think that World War 3 is **not** coming, would do well to open your eyes. Countries all over Europe are taking similar steps with bomb shelters, and bunkers.
Just the other day, the European Union publicly announced they are allocating hundreds of millions of EUROS for war preps, specifically, NUCLEAR war preps. (Story HERE)
The situation right now is very, VERY, bad. If a wider war breaks out in Europe, and it appears quite clearly that it will as we already see Chinese troops being deployed Saturday morning into Serbia (Story HERE), then people in the USA should EXPECT that our nation will be attacked. We will very likely face missile strikes upon OUR military bases, upon OUR ports and port cities, and upon OUR infrastructure.
Water, electric, communications, are all vulnerable to attack, and losing them would cripple society for weeks or months.
I earnestly hope YOU are prepared with emergency food, water, medicines, communications gear (CB and HAM radio), First-Aid kits, flashlights, a way to cook without electric or municipal gas supplies, a way to keep warm in the remaining months of cold weather, and so forth. Have a generator to supply electric. Have fuel for that generator. Keep your cars gassed-up at all times and have reserve fuel for each vehicle.
HAVE A BUGOUT PLAN. If you live near a military base, a port or port city, have a plan on where you will go if hostilities erupt. Know in advance how to get there. Have actual MAPS . . . . NOT GPS which will likely be attacked and unavailable. Have MAPS you can actually read; this way if the route you planned to take for bugout is blocked, you can figure out, on the fly, how to get where you planned to go.
Make plans with distant family or friends where you will go if your area is being bombed.
Don’t wait until the last minute like so many others; because if you FAIL TO PLAN, then by default, you are PLANNING TO FAIL.
I'm not quite sure that this report is accurate. But I have included it here never the less.
Serbia is very friendly with China, and the relationship between the two nations are storng.
It is entirely possible that the USA / NATO are trying to "strong-arm" Serbia into some kind of action. This action by China zeros out the possibility of that request (by the USA / NATO0 from manifesting.
-MM
2022 04 10 08 27
It began late Friday night (US east coast time) when a series of four(4) China People’s Liberation Army Y-20 Troop transport aircraft, were observed flying toward southeastern Europe. Those planes began landing in Serbia.
Shortly thereafter, the original four planes were joined by at least two additional Y-20 transport planes.
The identification numbers of the planes are as follows:
4287
427F
428A
4281
4282
4285
According to public sources, each plane is capable of carrying either three-hundred (300) troops or 110 paratroopers, each.
Flight radar shows the first four:
2022 04 10 08 28
These four planes landed in the Capital.
The final two were also seen doing “zig-zag” maneuvers at 3500 feet northwest of the Capital; exactly the type of maneuvers and altitude one might expect to see from planes deploying paratroopers.
2022 04 10 08 29
For the first time in a long time, the world is now seeing China Communist Party (CCP) force projection.
It is not known yet, why the troops have been sent, or what their purpose is.
Initial SPECULATION is that they are being sent to secure the vast Lithium deposits in Serbia, but that is just a wild guess.
Whatever is going on, the possibility of World War 3 just expanded greatly.
UPDATE 7:55 AM EDT —
Intel Circuits are blaring with UNCONFIRMED and UNCORROBORATED reports Chinese military aircraft under the guise of a joint military exercise with Serbia may be transporting Russian troops into an area (Serbia) where said troops with equipment can move into Romania and into Poland on a “Thunder Run” to raise hell and create chaos from the west. Again, this is UNCONFIRMED AND UNCORROBORATED.
ANALYSIS
This isn’t good at all.
During the Balkan war in the 90's China stated that it considered invading and taking over Serbia as a jumping point into all of Europe.
The only reason it didn't happen was that Russian troops swooped in to stop it from happening because Serbia got word that it was going to happen, so they requested Russian troops to fly in and take control of all of their airports for a certain amount of time.
If the same scenario is playing out now, then its really bad. If China is swooping into Serbia to take control and create a military jump point into Europe, it means they expect NATO to attack Russia and that China is moving in to provide backup support to Russia.
NATO bombed the shit out of Belgrade Serbia in 1999….The great people of Serbia hate NATO with a passion…
We are closer to WW3 than some realize.
There are now over 100,000 US Troops in Europe, this is unprecedented in recent times.
US/NATO Special operations have been directly assisting Ukraine forces on the ground in Ukraine helping them kill Russians. I have heard stories of US Special Forces, and British SAS killing Russians dressed as Ukrainian forces. Obviously you have to treat all this kind of stuff with suspicion, this could be propaganda. At this point would any of us really be surprised ? In the White House we have a senile dementia patient living in a Truman Show/Wag the Dog Movie.
The MSM will have us all believe it is Russia. The reality is regardless of whether you personally agree with Russia actions in Ukraine or not, US/NATO badly want a hot war with Russia.
Hence this on going information war showing Civilians allegedly killed by Russians in Ukraine. They are providing the narrative to justifiably attack Russia. If you can not see this, then you are blind.
To this backdrop we have the West/US/EU/UK overtly supplying the latest lethal weaponry to kill Russians. We Americans are already defacto declared war on Russia.
No idea what is going on with those Chinese Troops. The fact their flight path is erratic suggests they think US/NATO is capable of anything.
UPDATE 8:10 AM EDT —
Minutes ago, at 7:48 AM, the Russian Ambassador to the US warned that “The West’s actions may lead to a military confrontation between Moscow and Washington.”
Anatoli Antonov, Russian Ambassador to the USA:
2022 04 10 08 31
UPDATE 1:21 PM EDT —
Intel just received saying trains along the Trans-Siberian Railroad are loaded with “hundreds of Chinese Main Battle Tanks and other vehicles” headed northwest toward Russia/Europe Borders. Trains are said to be traveling full speed, with stops only for scheduled refueling and no other delays. The map below show the Trans-Siberian Railroad:
2022 04 10 08 31 1
Look at things as they are, not as you want them to be…
By Pepe Escobar, posted with the author’s permission and widely cross-posted
Vast swathes of NATOstan have been corralled into behaving like a Russophobic lynch mob. No dissent is tolerated.
By now it’s abundantly clear that the neo-Orwellian “Two Minute Hate” Russophobic campaign launched by the Empire of Lies after the start of Operation Z is actually “24/7 Hate”.
Vast swathes of NATOstan have been corralled into behaving like a Russophobic lynch mob. No dissent is tolerated. The full psyops has de facto upgraded the Empire of Lies to the status of Empire of Hate in a Total War – hybrid and otherwise – to cancel Russia.
Hate, after all, packs way more punch than mere lies, which are now veering into abject ridiculousness, as in U.S. “intelligence” resorting to – what else – lies to fight the info war against Russia.
If the propaganda overdrive has been lethally effective amidst the zombified Western masses – call it a “win” in the P.R. war – in the front where it really matters, inside Russia, it’s a major fail.
Public opinion support for both Operation Z and President Putin is unprecedented. After videos of torture of Russian POWs that caused widespread revulsion, Russian civil society is even bracing for a “Long War” lasting months, not weeks, as long as the targets of the Russian High Command – actually a military secret – are met.
The stated aims are “demilitarization” and “denazification” of a future neutral Ukraine – but geopolitically reach way beyond: the aim is to turn the post-1945 European collective security arrangement upside down, forcing NATO to understand and come to terms with the concept of “indivisible security”. This is an extremely complex process that will reach the next decade.
The NATOstan sphere simply cannot admit in public a series of facts that a military analyst of the caliber of Andrei Martyanov has been explaining for years. And that adds to their collective pain.
Russia can take on NATO and smash it to bits in 48 hours. It may employ advanced strategic deterrence systems unmatched across the West. Its southern axis – from the Caucasus and West Asia to Central Asia – is fully stabilized. And if the going gets really tough, Mr. Zircon can deliver his hypersonic nuclear business card with the other side not even knowing what hit it.
Be the Rufus
Be the Rufus.
“Europe has chosen its fate”
It may be enlightening to see how these complex processes are interpreted by Russians – whose points of view are now completely blocked across NATOstan.
Let’s take two examples. The first is Lieutenant General L.P. Reshetnikov, in an analytical note examining facts of the ground war.
Some key takeaways:
– “Over Romania and Poland there are airborne early warning aircraft of NATO with experienced crews, there are U.S. intelligence satellites in the sky all the time. I remind you that just in terms of budgets for our Roscosmos we allocated $2.5 billion a year, the civil budget of NASA is $25 billion, the civil budget of SpaceX alone is equal to Roscosmos – and that is not counting the tens of billions of dollars annually for the entire U.S. feverishly unfolding the control system of the entire planet.”
– The war is unfolding according to “NATO’s eyes and brains. The Ukronazis are nothing but free controlled zombies. And the Ukrainian army is a remotely controlled zombie organism.”
– “The tactics and strategy of this war will be the subject of textbooks for military academies around the world. Once again: the Russian army is smashing a Nazi zombie organism, fully integrated with the eyes and brain of NATO.”
Now let’s switch to Oleg Makarenko, who focuses on the Big Picture.
– “The West considers itself ‘the whole world’ only because it has not yet received a sufficiently sensitive punch on the nose. It just so happened that Russia is now giving him this click: with the rear support of Asia, Africa and Latin America. And the West can do absolutely nothing with us, since it also lags behind us in terms of the number of nuclear warheads.”
– “Europe has chosen its fate. And chose fate for Russia. What you are seeing now is the death of Europe. Even if it does not come to nuclear strikes on industrial centers, Europe is doomed. In a situation where European industry is left without cheap Russian energy sources and raw materials – and China will begin to receive these same energy carriers and raw materials at a discount, there can be no talk of any real competition with China from Europe. As a result, literally everything will collapse there – after industry, agriculture will collapse, welfare and social security will collapse, hunger, banditry and chaos will begin.”
It’s fair to consider Reshetnikov and Makarenko as faithfully representing the overall Russian sentiment, which interprets the crude Bucha false flag as a cover to obscure the Ukrainian army torture of Russian POWs.
And, deeper still, Bucha allowed the disappearance of Pentagon bioweapon labs from the Western mediasphere, complete with its ramifications: evidence of a concerted American drive to ultimately deploy real weapons of mass destruction against Russia.
The multi-level Bucha hoax had to include the Brit presidency of the UN Security Council actually blocking a serious discussion, a day before the Russian Ministry of Defense struggled to present to the UN – predictably minus the U.S. and the UK – all the bioweapon facts they have unearthed in Ukraine. The Chinese were horrified by the findings.
The Russian Investigative Committee at least persists in its work, with 100 researchers unearthing evidence of war crimes across Donbass to be presented at a tribunal in the near future, most probably set up in Donetsk.
And that brings us back to the facts on the ground. There’s a lot of analytical discussion on the possible endgame of Operation Z. A fair assessment would include the liberation of all of Novorossiya and total control of the Black Sea coastline that currently is part of Ukraine.
“Ukraine” in fact was never a state; it was always an annex to another state or empire such as Poland, Austria-Hungary, Turkey, and crucially Russia.
The landmark Russian state was Kievan Rus. “Ukraine”, in old Russian, means “border region”. In the past, it referred to the westernmost regions of the Russian Empire. When the Empire started expanding south, the new regions annexed mostly from Turkish rule were called Novorossiya (“New Russia”) and the northeastern regions, Malorossiya (“Little Russia”).
It was up to the USSR in the early 1920s to jumble it all together and name it “Ukraine” – adding Galicia in the west, which was historically non-Russian.
Yet the key development is when the USSR broke up in 1991. As the Empire of Lies de facto controlled post-Soviet Russia, they could never have possibly allowed the real Russian regions of the USSR – that is, Novorossiya and Malorossiya – to be again incorporated to the Russian Federation.
Russia is now re-incorporating them – in an “I Did It, My Way” manner.
Sigh. Americans.
2022 04 11 07 00
Everyone is believing this bullshit.
Shanghai is NOT starving! Sheech! People. I know. My family lives in Shanghai. Food is delivered by a very well established network organized by the local governments at all levels. It is policed. People are motivated and it is a very patriotic thing to participate in.
If you want to see what is going on, please down load the Douxing application (the parent to Tiktoc) and see for yourself. Video after video is of people helping each other throughout China. Not jsut Shanghai.
China is dealing with the Big MAJOR bioweapons attack that happened just a few days when Biden ORDERED Xi Peng to sanction Russia. He told Xi Peng, that there would be awful consequences; serious and immediate if China did not do as he said.
What were the immediate consequences?
Serious coronavirus outbreaks in all of the major Chinese cities up and down the coast with HK, Shenzhen, and Shanghai the worst. Today, in tiny, tiny Zhuhai, we go through everyother day swabs. It’s not a big deal.
It’s not a big deal.
Rufus performs random acts of kindness
Be the Rufus.
Vamos a bailar in European Puerto Rico
By now it’s also quite clear to any serious geopolitical analysis that Operation Z opened a Pandora’s box. And the supreme historical victim of all the toxicity finally let loose is bound to be Europe.
The indispensable Michael Hudson, in a new essay on the U.S. dollar devouring the euro, argues half in jest that Europe might as well surrender its currency, and go on like “a somewhat larger version of Puerto Rico.”
After all, Europe “has pretty much ceased to be a politically independent state, it is beginning to look more like Panama and Liberia – ‘flag of convenience’ offshore banking centers that are not real ‘states’ because they don’t issue their own currency, but use the U.S. dollar.”
In synch with quite a few Russian, Chinese and Iranian analysts, Hudson advances that the war in Ukraine – actually in its “full-blown version as the New Cold War” – is likely to last “at least a decade, perhaps two as the U.S. extends the fight between neoliberalism and socialism [meaning the Chinese system] to encompass a worldwide conflict.”
What may be seriously in dispute is whether the U.S., after “the economic conquest of Europe”, will be able to “lock in African, South American and Asian countries”. The Eurasia integration process, rolling in earnest for 10 years now, conducted by the Russia-China strategic partnership and expanding to most of the Global South, will go no holds barred to prevent it.
There’s no question, as Hudson states, that “the world economy is being enflamed” – with the U.S. weaponizing trade. Yet on the Right Side of History we have the Rublegas, the petroyuan, the new monetary/financial system being designed in a partnership between the Eurasia Economic Union (EAEU) and China.
And that’s something no puny Cancel Culture War can erase.
Young Rufus
Young Rufus.
Phil now has something to say…
The next article piece comes from Busted Knuckles. It accurately reflects how the American population feel about things right now. No. It’s not about the Ukraine. It’s not about Russia. It’s not about China. It’s about everything.
It’s about Americans being sick and tired about what the Hell is going on, and the pure insanity of it all. They want a govenrment that cares about THEM. They want a government that focuses on THEM. They want a functioning and working government that allows people; THEM, to affort food, clothing, gas, housing. They want a functional government that doesn’t fuck around with jobs, incomes, or social diversity. They want a government that is concerned about THEIR NEEDS.
We are Americans.
We don’t take shit from anybody.
The New World Order assholes are going to learn this the hard way just like the Nazis and the Japanese did.
BFYTW.
Americans are some of the most honest, hard working, innovative and compassionate people on this planet.
History has proven this time and time again.
We are also the most vicious sonsabitches this Earth has ever seen when pissed off collectively.
Also proven time and time again.
These rat clever bastards who have been yanking our chains for the last few years are just that, rat clever.
They aren’t actually all that smart.
If they were, they would have thought twice about enraging a hundred million heavily armed people who have no problems burning entire countries to the fucking ground.
They think they have this all figured out.
They haven’t bothered to take note that we literally haven’t even BEGUN to fight back.
When that switch gets flipped there will be no place on or under this Earth that they will be safe.
It will be Seek And Destroy, Terminate With Extreme Prejudice, until there aren’t enough of them left to try this shit again for a thousand years.
They have been begging for it and By God’s Grace, they are going to get it.
Remember what it is to be an American and pass that down.
The Media has already jumped the shark, they are going to be very high on the list of those who must pay for their transgressions.
The Medical system is also full of those who must pay.
The crooked politicians however are going to be Enemy Number One.
It is coming. As sure as the Sun rises in the East, the pendulum is going to swing back.
It has already swung as Far Left as it is going to and has started it’s return trip.
The signs are everywhere.
Keep you head held high and keep your damn wits about you.
They have been goading us because they think they have some clever plan to neutralize us.
I am here to tell you that unless they plan to kill us En Mass that they have very seriously underestimated just who they are fucking with.
It isn’t any coincidence that they have been testing their tyrannical ways on other countries to see what they can get away with.
The Canadians surprised everyone when they stood up and said ENOUGH EH?
These cretins behind this are acutely aware of the fact that we have enough firepower to take on Russia, without the military stepping off a base, by ourselves.
They have been walking a tightrope because of that fact and that is why they are so desperately trying to infringe on our Second Amendment at every opportunity.
Passing stupid laws that make criminals out of law abiding citizens and turning their heads when their favored Thugs mow innocent people down.
I have some news for these idiots.
Pass all the laws you want. Outlaw guns completely. Put it all on paper and send your goons to come get them.
I double dog dare you.
They might even get a few.
However, the minute that news of these raids gets out, your days are numbered from then on.
We aren’t going to take that shit for one fucking second and you damn well know that clear to the bottom of your rubbery spine.
Flap your gums and make your threats.
You ain’t seen nuthin’ yet.
That, I guarantee you.
Because we are Americans.
Cream of Celery Soup
2022 04 10 11 42
Rufus Husband
Rufus Husband.
Tears For Fears – Shout (Official Music Video)
The 1980s was very big on telling you what to do…
This was a big hit back in the day. Maybe you all might remember this tune.
Meat flowers
Meat flowers.
Frankie Goes To Hollywood – Relax (Official Video)
I’ll say it tow times; the 1980s was very big on telling you what to do…
Very big in the 1980s. This is what was playing on the radio with wall-to-wall coverage right before I was “found” by MAJestic and sent off to NAS China Lake NWC for my probe calibration and “training”.
Rufus cat
Rufus cat.
And now for something really different…
This little gem was placed on my desk. Much of the intel rings true except the idea of a singular shared world-line. But if you don’t know better, it would be easy to confuse a shared template with a collection of world-lines.
The big “alarm bell” is the DONATE FOR MORE that is up there. As DM has so succently put it…
"...Looking glass shit is almost definitely a scam, as you thought. Asked them if i need any money to join, and you need to send bitcoin which they will "apparently" turn into more money for you. Pretty ingenius idea really. Gotta give them credit for their ingenuity..."
Anyways, this person claims a 18APR22 false flag attack in New York CIty that will be used to trigger a kinetic HOT war between the USA and Russia.
I don’t know what to think, though many of the specifics that he mentions are quite true. I am placing this here, becuase the date of “infamy” is only a week away. So yeah. Either this is all correct, or it’s all bullshit. We shall see. Won’t we?
Full Video. Available on their web page on Bit Chute.
Written transcript;
We are the Guardians of the Looking Glass. We are a group of former intelligence officers and military officials, who have come together to release classified information about future events to come.
Our knowledge comes from our work on the looking glass artifact, first discovered in Iraq, along with other discoveries in the 1990s.
During this time, the artifact was activated by the US military and connected to computers. We were able to see dozens of future timelines, and the convergence, or singularities, that led to two possible outcomes by the year 2030.
In one outcome, humanity awakens, and the current order is dismantled. An event then occurs, and instead of this event being negative, it is a positive one.
In the other outcome, the current structure remains in place, a nuclear war takes place, along with many horrible events. Then the event occurs, and instead of being a positive event, it is a negative one.
You may wonder how one event can either be positive or negative. You will learn, and it will make perfect sense to you, once it is explained.
This event is a cosmic event, something that happens in our solar system. Without the intervention by the current power structure, this event would be incredibly positive.
But due to the vaccines and a secondary plan being developed, the event will instead be turned into a nightmare.
We will explain more in a secondary video, which is being released soon, titled, "2030 and The Event," if you want to learn more about it.
Now, let's move on to the current timelines we are facing, and how we must act to change these outcomes.
Based on what we learned from the looking glass artifact, we concluded that we must release these videos at this time, so that the horrifying events that are about to unfold can be changed.
Each week, we will release a new video. Each week, you will learn of new, specific timeline changes so that you can work to change the future outcome.
We have been waiting many, many years to finally release this information.
Our video releases are specifically timed based on what the looking glass artifact revealed about how to change future events.
What we were able to see was that our videos must be released now.
Not in the past, not in the future, but on these specific dates, starting in March, 2022.
We were also able to see that the events can only be changed by the actions of those watching these videos. If these videos are spread and shared by thousands of people, the events can be changed.
If the videos are not spread and shared, then the events cannot be changed, and the most negative timeline is then solidified and set in stone.
The looking glass artifact showed this to us, that it is dependent on the actions of others to change the outcomes.
Your work and help to spread this message then becomes vital.
It will be up to you what happens.
For our first video, we will start with one future date. Future videos we will post will deal with new dates and new events.
What follows is the most recent, most important event we must act to change. The date of the first event is April 18, 2022.
On this date, a false flag attack will occur in New York City.
A bomb will be set off, killing 2000 Americans instantly and injuring thousands.
The bomb will be housed in a large van, and set off on or near Times Square, during a busy time.
This bomb has been planted by interests aligned with the West, and their agenda.
The media wants to blame Russia, so does President Biden.
They will present some evidence false, that points to Russia being the culprit, and much of the world will be convinced.
The condemnations will be swift, and then there will be military action.
Biden will order an all out attack of every Russian outpost and asset outside of her borders.
This will include all assets in Ukraine, and any Russian military naval vessel not at port. Russia's response is restrained.
Russia attacks some US assets in Europe, but avoids many casualties.
Russia manages to only kill a few US military service people, while the United States has just killed thousands of Russian military service people.
This leads to conflicting narratives.
Some say Russia looks weak and defeated.
While others rush to Russia's side, including India and China.
By this time, many begin to doubt Russia was behind the truck bombing attack. Many also see the US's response as too hasty, and too severe.
Seeing that the first false flag was a general failure, and the narrative is turning against them, the West prepares a second false flag.
This plan involves the release of anthrax all over Washington DC.
The plan will use strain 836 of anthrax, the most potent and deadly ever created.
It is a strain created by Russia in the past, and later destroyed by Russia.
However, unknown to the Russians, the strain was smuggled out of Russia by Western assets many years ago and developed in US bio laboratories.
Once it is confirmed that it is strain 836, all blame will land at Russia's feet.
It is a well-known creation of Russia.
Many will believe Russia must be behind it.
The attack will kill over 100,000 people within a few days, and spread to outlying areas.
The attack is so severe that it begins to spread to many large Eastern cities, and within a week millions are dead, and millions more a severely ill.
The military-grade anthrax is so potent, its spread cannot be contained.
Much of the Eastern US is closed off, based on wind patterns, mostly impacting New England.
The Biden Administration is moved out of DC before the attack, as they had knowledge of it.
They are moved to Denver.
Here, the United States blames Russia for the attack, and a nuclear war starts off.
The US launches an all-out nuclear attack at Russia, at every Russian city and asset.
But only 30% of the nukes reach Russia or impact. Russia's air defenses are more robust than previously suspected.
Russia's response is not forgiving this time, but rather ruthless and brutal.
She responds within minutes by targeting all US military installations and nuclear sites, but also launches nukes at 20 large American cities, and 18 make impact.
25 million Americans are vaporized instantly, as Russia decides to use its more powerful nukes.
Another 50 million suffer injuries, and another 70 million are at risk of mild radiation poisoning.
Due to false science and misunderstandings about nuclear weapons, the fallout is not nearly as severe as many believed it would be.
Both the US and Russia were aware of this for many years, but decided not to correct this false information, leading many to believe a nuclear war would lead to a nuclear winter.
This turns out not to be the case, as the radiation is mild and dissipates quickly.
However, the devastation caused by the blasts themselves is significantly more severe than the nukes used on Japan.
The weapons are now so powerful that a radius up to 20 miles by 20 miles can be vaporized.
America's defenses are not strong enough to stop all of the nukes.
The US reads her most advanced flying machine, the TR-3B, but it is not able to track the missiles due to a technology Russia developed.
The technology is a cloaking and holographic type, never before seen, and not something the US was ready for.
The TR-3Bs can track the nukes, and even fly along side them, but targeting systems fail at every attempt to destroy them.
The pilots of the TR-3Bs become so desperate they attempt to fly into the nukes with the aircraft, but even these attempts fail.
Between the nuclear exchanges, Russia survives, and the United States is completely annihilated.
Canada does not receive a nuclear strike, but instead receives countless conventional strikes, disabling her small military and devastating her infrastructure.
All commerce ceases in both the US and Canada, and a total break down of society occurs.
The world is shocked.
Many criticize Russia for the brutality of the attack, but many also note that the United States attacked first. Many also doubt Russia was behind the truck bombing or the anthrax attack at this point, as the United States evidence and claims appeared rushed and dubious upon closer examination.
Whatever the moral qualms the world feels, the world comes to recognize Russia as the victor in the battle.
From this point, Russia is able to recover, and launch more attacks on the US.
Russia stops using nuclear weapons, and instead fires thousands of conventional weapons, delivered by her hypersonic missiles, to key military infrastructure targets, to ensure the US response is eliminated.
Russia threatens Europe, and destroys some of her targets.
Europe capitulates quickly, and surrenders, to avoid further damage.
At this point, seventeen days after the first nuclear weapon is fired, the war is over, and Russia and China are now the defacto world powers.
Russia and China agree to help the United States and a cease-fire is agreed upon.
A clean up and rescue effort takes place.
One week into the cease fire, the last remaining American military officials plot to fire some of her last available cruise missiles and munitions at ships crossing the sea from China and Europe.
The attack takes place, and most of the missiles are shot out of the sky by a ready and alert Russian and Chinese military, but two reach their targets, destroying two large ships, and further preventing a rescue effort and souring sympathies toward the US.
The US and Canada fall into total chaos.
Millions cross into Mexico, creating a humanitarian crisis. Many of the cartels that control the northern part of Mexico start defending their land, and countless gun battles take place.
Americans find Mexico cannot help or house them at all, and total bedlam and chaos consumes the Northern Hemisphere.
The Mexican and Central American armies gather to create a defensive wall, between Culiacan, to Chihuahua, to Monterrey, to stop the oncoming hordes.
Many South American countries rally to join, realizing millions of desperate Americans may reach South America eventually.
The world's remaining powers continue to attempt humanitarian aid, but later conclude a military effort must take place, as the entire region has become lawless.
Chinese and Russian troops then land on American soil, and a brutal campaign of order and enforcement begins.
Both countries split the US up into regions they agree to jointly or fully control.
Many Americans, armed to the teeth with guns, stage small resistances and skirmishes.
This goes on for many years, leading up to 2030.
During this time, a new plot is underway, a plot hashed by the elites in Europe, one the Russians and Chinese share no involvement in.
The plot is to release a new pathogen to justify a new vaccine.
The vaccine is designed to interact with the existing vaccines, and graphene oxide, now coursing through the bodies of billions of people.
It is also designed to be introduced to the second and third world, through a new campaign, that will dose the rest of the planet that did not get vaccinated.
The graphene oxide is not designed to kill, but rather death is a side effect, in some.
Its true purpose is to interact with the solar event, the event to occur in 2030.
The graphene oxide will cause this event to be a horrifying one, rather than a positive one.
If one is vaccinated at all, they will experience not only a physical but also a multidimensional annihilation when the event takes place, to a point their souls, or extra-dimensional essences, will be severely damaged, and vibrational frequencies reattuned so that they align with the most negative, dark energies existing within the realm of Earth.
The positive outcome is one also revealed by the looking glass, one seen by each member of Guardians of the Looking Glass.
We were shown that as humanity steps in to stop all of these horrific events, one by one, through the help of our work, that a future emerges leading up to 2030 whereby humanity ascends to a higher consciousness, one more loving, one more aware, one more understanding.
Each individual begins to see the world as it is, rather than how it is filtered through the media, Hollywood and government.
An unveiling takes place.
The vaccines are rejected.
A cure is found for those poisoned by the graphene oxide, who regret their decision.
Each horrific event is stopped.
Then, the event takes place, and the human body, free from the vaccine toxins, is transformed through a cosmic energy burst, one that invigorates every human with new life, vitality and youthfulness, as well as higher-dimensional abilities and powers.
Each person reverts in age to about the appearance of being in their mid to late 20s.
All disease is eliminated.
The human body can live off of energy, light and water, and has no need for food, but food can still be consumed.
A new renewal and connection with the Earth occurs.
Small community governments take hold, and large international power structures and monopolies die off.
Humans can now live up to 1000 years.
New inventions come about that clean up the Earth, such as bacteria that eat plastic.
From 2030, the entire world is transformed. Old, corrupt governments are dismantled, the European elites lose all of their power, to the point some end up in the streets as beggars.
There is no campaign of revenge at all.
Humanity simply stops feeding the negative forces energy, and without that energy, they wither and fade away.
They have no power, without the power fed to them by billions of people, and once billions decide to remove that power, they are left with nothing.
This is how they are defeated, and this is how they end up, simply as beggars, or left alone with nothing.
Many of them go mad at this point, as their wealth and power is stripped away.
This is a glimpse of the positive outcome, one we will share more of in upcoming videos.
Now, to stop these events, we must first stop the attack on April 18th.
If this event is not stopped, then the timeline cannot be reversed from the negative outcome.
If it can be stopped, additional videos will describe other events that must then be prevented, over the course of the years 2022 to 2029.
The attack on April 18th is only the beginning of a series of horrific events that are to come, that one by one, must be prevented.
Over 70 events have been identified that must be changed, or the outcome will be that of the negative one in 2030.
In addition to this, around fifty or so special individuals were also identified, as being necessary in helping change the outcome.
These people will play a key role to stop the April 18th attack and all other future events that must be altered and changed.
Some of them we already have contacted, to let them know how important they are, and others will be led to us, to contact us.
Each will be given special instructions from us, actions they must take, to bring about the positive timeline and outcome.
The looking glass showed us we would come under severe attack, from the European elites and their countless minions, and we must be prepared to defend those attacks.
These attacks will range from our videos being removed, our credibility being questioned, and attempts to reveal our real identities that would lead to our murder.
We need everyone who wants to stop the negative outcome to help defend us, as these attacks take place, otherwise we will not succeed.
We are asking those of you who wish to join us to identify yourselves as Guardians.
You must then share each video, and millions must see them, or these events will not be changed, and the positive outcome of the event in 2030 will not happen.
It bears repeating, that even if the April 18th attack is stopped, there are as many as 70 additional events in the coming days, months and years that must also be stopped, each and every one of them.
We cannot succeed without your attention, dedication and help.
It’s a wait and see situation. If the event arrives and something happens, then my opinion of this effort will be enhanced substantially. If nothing happens, then I will consider it an absolute and complete hoax. There’s no grey area in this matter.
I think Baba Beijing knows it is being Western bio-attacked, likely with Han-specific variants, and as I explained, has to keep tongue-tied.
My understanding is that there were five variants in 2019: two in the US, one for China, one for Italy and one for Iran.
As far as bringing the perps to justice, I suggest constantly reminding everyone about the ICC Covid complaint,
"Seemingly, the goal is a unipolar world based on gangsterism. No one can afford to allow this."
This is an outstanding article. I strongly recommend everyone read it.
The utter insanity of the Western Media at the outset of the Ukraine War, name-calling, using video game footage to prove atrocities, ploys that grew up during the War on Terror, have created a real shift that cannot be easily corrected.
Today, tens of millions of Americans and similar numbers from NATO countries including Turkey and Canada, know there is absolutely no limit in how utterly childish and unbelievable the kind of lies their governments spread have become.
Then the truth, a terrifying truth begins to take hold.
Without Trump’s relatively successful and certainly needed debunking of US media, this door may well not be open.
American scholars can no longer state where the lying began, how far it goes and to what extent long-accepted “facts” written into the history books may well be not just “biased” but utterly fabricated.
Thus, unknowingly, the corrupt NATO-controlled media of 2022 has begun to resemble science fiction. Even armies of fake “fact-checkers” aided by warmongering Google and social media allies haven’t been able to put yesterday’s fake reality back together.
Historians have long questioned what may have been behind World War One. Reanalysis begins to support hypotheses involving secret cabals, an analysis that not only carried through to today but traces back into the Middle Ages as well.
These cabals are mentioned behind closed doors with regularity but those referencing them in the media face smears and worse.
The nightmare is this; scholars can no longer trust their own work. Accepted “facts” are no longer reliable. No document should be trusted as, with today, no photograph or video should be trusted either.
Some key takeaways. The most important being that the U.S. army admits to the following:
Russian air-defense is not only superior, but shockingly the army admits that by the time of a confrontation between Russia/U.S., “technology to overcome Russian ADA will unlikely to be available”. So they are counting on the fact that even in the distant future, they will not be able to innovate anything that can pierce Russian ADA.
Russian EW (electronic warfare) is superior and will likely disrupt American C2 (command & control).
Several other Russian systems are superior to anything U.S. has, in particular here they are referring to what I already mentioned earlier: Russia’s artillery systems are superior in every way to that of the U.S. This goes for both self-propelled units like the 2S19 Msta which is far superior to the M109, to the tube rocket and MLRS systems like BM-27 Uragon, etc. Also in my opinion Russian light IFVs are superior (though this is a more controversial view, while the others are widely accepted) due to the fact that BMP-2s and BTR-82s have much stronger 30mm cannons than American Bradley / Strykers which have 12.7’s and 25mm’s, and with higher RPMs as well. But that’s for another time.
Russian artillery outranges and outguns U.S. equivalent (see above)
In any upcoming conflict, U.S. army is to presume as a given that its C2 will be disrupted AND its fires (artillery) batteries will be neutralized (i.e. blown up by superior Russian counter-battery fire etc)
Now, of course they prescribe all sorts of antidotes on how they may still tactically overcome Russian units. But who can for a moment imagine that Ukrainian forces stand a chance in full frontal, non-asymmetric confrontation given these admissions by the U.S. Army itself about its own forces?
Also to add, this report was from 2017 and many of the weaknesses it attributes to Russian units have long been corrected or improved upon. And it’s quite ominously prophetic that they foresaw a confrontation between the super powers happening by 2025. Seems we’re ahead of schedule.
Electric traditional Chinese instruments on a Jay Chou cover done in Europe. Pretty impressive, I’ll tell you what.
Be the Rufus
Little things make big impressions.
Rufus sister.
Fresh Tomato Soup
I grew up with tomato soup from a can. However, I will tell youse guys that there is absolutely NOTHING like a fine home-made tomato soup. This simple, quick and easy recipe for homemade fresh tomato soup is perfect to make when tomatoes are ripe in gardens and farmers’ markets for a delicious summertime treat.
Fresh Tomato Soup.
One spoonful of tomato soup has the power to automatically transport you back to your childhood. The tasty soup is the ultimate comfort food, especially when it’s homemade.
This tomato soup recipe uses fresh tomatoes and will remind you of times long forgotten. It is super kid friendly in taste, and if canned tomato soup is the only kind you have ever had, you are in for a treat.
Open up your pantry and check out the label on your tomato soup. Most likely you’ll find a load of sugar or high fructose corn syrup, along with other additives. And you just can get homemade bone broth in those cans! You only need a handful of simple ingredients to make the most delcious soup!
Sure the can of tomato soup works in a time crunch, but nothing beats the delicious flavors of a soup you made from scratch with fresh ingredients. So say goodbye to canned soup forever and hello to your new favorite tomato soup recipe.
How to Make Tomato Soup
Sometimes we’re so hung up on the ease of using canned soup, that we forget making homemade soup is actually easy too. You’ll find the full recipe below, but here’s a brief idea of what you can expect from this tomato soup recipe:
Boil the Tomatoes, Onion, Cloves, and Chicken Broth
In a large stockpot, boil the tomatoes, onion, garlic cloves, and chicken broth until the flavors blend together, about 20 minutes. Run the mixture through a food mill into a large bowl. This will separate any big chunks, plus the tomato skins.
In the original stockpot, mix melted butter and flour to create a roux.
Add the Tomato Mixture
Gradually add the tomato mixture to the stockpot, whisking continuously so no lumps form. Season with salt and sugar to taste.
What to Serve With Tomato Soup
Of course, tomato soup’s best friend is a Grilled Cheese Sandwich. But if you want to mix it up, you can try a BLT, a chicken sandwich, or a ham anc cheese grilled sandwich.
How to Store Tomato Soup
Store (completely cooled) tomato soup in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to four days.
How to Freeze Tomato Soup
This recipe makes six servings, so if you need to freeze leftovers, that’s okay! Simply ladle individual portions of (completely cooled) tomato soup into zip-top bags and squeeze out the excess air. Label and date them, then freeze for up to three months.
Community Tips and Praise
"Loved the recipe. I did add fresh garlic at the beginning and fresh basil at the end. served with open faced baguettes topped with cheese. This recipe is easily multiplied and canned if you have a bunch of tomatoes ready for processing," says girlslovetoeat.
"I had several roma tomatoes that were getting soft in the fridge, so this was the perfect recipe to use them up. It was sooo tasty, and I liked that the recipe does not have heavy cream. I added basil and black pepper to the tomato mixture instead of cloves," according to hokiebetty.
"Delicious soup! The fresh tomato taste is wonderful. I love that there are only a few ingredients, preserves the garden fresh taste of the tomatoes," raves Kolackygirl.
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Be the Rufus
Be the Rufus.
Crash Positions
This is a pretty good write up. Oh, it's all extreme SHTF porn. But he is talking about soemthing that Americans needs to face. He's obviously hasn't been out of the United States. If he had, his opinions that the rest of the world is going to have an equally difficult time as the USA is way off-base. To underline / highlight areas that I strongly believe that he is "talking out of his ass in ignorance", I am highlighting that part with a cross out font. -MM
Over the past decade I’ve written a few essays on the coming economic collapse of the USA. I noted in 2013 that the on-book national debt was an estimated $16 Trillion. The actual debt using Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP), which includes all off-book obligations (promises of future payments such as Social Security, government retirement accounts, Medicare A & B, et.al.) was $238 Trillion. Today the on-book debt is $30.3 Trillion, not quite double what it was when I last wrote about this. We can reasonably assume the total debt according to GAAP is similarly doubled, all in at $450 Trillion.
The rest of the world loaned us such vast sums, merely because the dollar was the worlds’ reserve currency. And that worked, when the USA produced things of inherent value. Oil and gas, manufactured goods, electronics, software, infrastructure products, even textiles. These days we manufacture dollar bills (or digital currency), and shoot anyone who rejects them. But these strong-arm tactics have worked up until now because we basically slapped around weak countries to keep them in line. Anyone who attempted to “de-dollarise” has had economic sanctions put against them, or invaded, or “revolutions” fomented to facilitate the execution of such leaders who would dare to challenge the dollar hegemony. THIS is the real reason for US troops in Iraq, the desire to go to war with Iran, the NATO attacks of Libya, the attempts to start a war in Syria, the destabilization efforts in Turkey. In every single example listed, the leaders of those countries had announced their intentions to bypass the dollar. Even now, when Saudi Arabia announced they were negotiating with China to sell oil in Chinese Yuan, a missile was mysteriously launched from Yemen somewhere that wiped out a huge refinery in Saudi Arabia within a few days; quite the coincidence.
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Speaking of Saudi Arabia, the country is now run by the Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, since the King is apparently an invalid. A source told me last year that Prince Salman had openly demanded of his generals, to buy Chinese or Russian military gear; he was told this wouldn’t be possible, due to losing support from the USA. I don’t understand the dynamics of the situation of the time, but the Afghanistan withdrawal debacle has demonstrated that the USA is a paper tiger, and undependable as an ally.
No surprise, considering our “woke” military generals, decrepit and fraudulently “elected leaders” like pedo-Joe and his sidekick “ho,” whose only apparent core skill is the ability to suck-start a J-58 jet engine. Oh, and don’t forget Nancy “box-wine” Pelosi and stolen-valor Senator “Dick” Blumenthal. Yeah, good luck in the next election. But I digress…
The point is, the Bretton-Woods-2 agreement was already on death’s door, and the intentional actions of the Deep State (who use Biden as a puppet) are destroying the credibility of the United States, have pulled the last vestiges of support for the dollar as the worlds’ reserve currency status by forcing Russia and China together… and now here we are.
BACKGROUND
I’ll be honest, I fucking HATE it when someone brags about their resume, “I’m a mechanical engineer, and I know this (*stupid*) idea will work…” But I need to give you a quick thumbnail of my background, so you understand the basis for my conclusions. It’s not because I’m bragging, because nobody really gives two shits about such things in my line of work, anyway… If you boiled it down, I’m an over-educated gearhead with a knack for crunching numbers and trying to make sense of the whole economic system as a personal hobby.
In short, I was a nuke reactor operator on fast-attack boats in the Navy, and stayed in the engineering field while I went back to school, boot-strapped my way through a Bach. Science in Managerial Economics (a “super” finance degree), an MBA and then a Doctorate of Science in Information Systems… basically data analysis.
Next… I typically hyperlink my data points so you can go look for yourself, but not this time. A lot of bloggers who make money off the “hits” to their sites often repackage the same old shit 20 times, never saying anything new. I’m not one of those bloggers; I have a job (so far) that pays well enough I don’t have to whore myself out with doom-porn.
My motives for writing this stuff are, first of all, to keep myself sane. Having studied this shit for so long, in an academic manner and predicting what’s coming, is one thing; now I’m watching it happen in real-time, and it’s freaking the shit out of me. Next reason is simply the hope that, by providing real, actionable intelligence, you can better position yourself and your loved ones to survive what’s coming. While I’m a published author in another field, I don’t make a dime off of this work, and at this point in time, I really don’t give a shit about money.
(P)REVIEW
Since I’ve laid out a lot of what matters already, I’ll ask you to PLEASE review these three posts which I’ve written over the years, and then we’ll go on…
To begin with, the shitty, corrupt system that’s been in place since 1913, which is the ultimate Ponzi scheme- is finished.
In 2015 I listed several scenarios which could torpedo the dollar:
–China announces the yuan will be a gold-backed currency
–China announces they will no longer accept dollars for international commerce
–Saudi Arabia (now heavily backed by China) announces they will no longer accept dollars for oil
–China and Russia announce they’re dumping all US debt instruments
I was wrong; our leaders created a situation where bullets 2-4 have happened, or will soon. And ironically enough, Russia just backed the ruble with gold, so bullet one is somewhat covered.
In short order, our phony leaders have basically forced China, Russia, India and even Pakistan to join up, and permanently yank the carpet from under the fiat-money banking system that the globalists base their power on.
No bullshit, that’s just the truth. You can debate about the whys, but that doesn’t have any practical value for me, so we’ll move on to what that means, what’s coming, when, and give my recommendations of what you can do to best prepare, in the very short time we have left. And yes, I’m following my own advice on all of the things listed, as my funds and circumstances allow…
DOLLAR CRASH
When the USA and its vassal states kicked Russia out of the SWIFT system, those same European countries, at the direction of the USA, also confiscated $300 BILLION worth of reserves that Russia had, violating the fiduciary trust of those same countries, AND made it so that those countries could no longer pay Russia in euros or dollars. Putin basically said, ‘you cut off our access to your currencies, you STOLE our money, and yet insist we accept your euros or dollars, through a system we can’t even access…? NO. You need natural gas, you need oil? Fine, you pay for it with either OUR rubles, or gold. We don’t run a fucking charity around here, ok?”
The net result is that Russia has been pushed straight into China’s arms, with the MIR financial system Russia has built over the last decade (they could see where this was going, and got ready). China is now using the MIR system, along with India and Pakistan. It won’t take long until poodle countries of Europe are forced to dump their euros and dollars, to buy gold or rubles, to keep their countries from literally running out of gas…
Combined with Operation Sandman, where 130+ countries are all lined up to repudiate the dollar simultaneously, it means that the rest of the world is going for a little payback for all the shit the US government has pulled since… oh, 1913? Yeah, they’re all lining up to give us a swift kick in the teeth.
What this means is that our paper currency will quickly become as desirable as Marks in Weimar Germany. And if you think that’s an exaggeration, you might want to check out the amount of money printed by the US government in the last couple of years… that grey spikey thing on the right? Yeah, that’s hard cash printed out… remember those pallets of $100 bills which were carried on C-130 planes to Iran? Yeah.
And forgive me for quoting myself, but I still stand by me earlier predictions:
“When that happens- and it will- the price of imported goods will go through the roof almost overnight, as every country will attempt to get rid of their dollars while they still can, and use some other currency for international trade.
The dollar will be dumped as the worlds’ reserve currency, in a cascade as other countries holding dollars run for the exits. When this happens, the price of products that are imported will go up by 4-5 times, almost overnight (my best guess). This is the logical result of the Cloward-Piven strategy writ large.
The price of oil- when no longer priced in dollars- will have ripple effects that will cause suffering on a scale never before seen in America. Consider the trucking industry, in a very real way, feeds the country. The food you eat, the clothes you wear, the furniture in your house… even the building materials for the house itself, were all delivered by truck. As the price of fuel skyrockets, trucking companies will attempt to pass on the costs to their customers (stores like Wal-Mart, for example), who will in turn pass it on to the consumer. Will the consumers pay so much more?
Consider that while those desperate people who live on the dole might still get their checks (or “deposits” on their EBT cards), it will no longer be able to buy anything, because the prices of everything have gone up 500% overnight. What will happen in the inner cities, when people realize they can’t put food on the table, much less put gas in their cars? Gerald Celente summarized it best: “when people lose everything, and they have nothing left to lose, they lose it.” And they will.”
Notice, I said above, that the non-productive welfare citizens might get their payments, but there’s historical precedence which indicates this might not be the case. A very close friend told me about her experiences in Russia, during the collapse of the Soviet Union.
“One night, we went to bed, and everything was fine. You had, say, 2000 rubles in the bank- enough to buy a car. We woke up in the morning, all the banks were frozen, no transactions allowed. This stays for about two months, while they devalued the currency. When they finally opened and allowed us to get our money out, 2000 rubles was enough to buy a T-shirt.”
I believe that is EXACTLY what will happen to us. It’s not question of if, only when. And I don’t think it’s going to be long, at all… In the Soviet Union, they didn’t announce it (of course, the high-up politicians knew)’ it was a sneak attack. Even the crooks- who we now call “oligarchs”- didn’t know.
In effect, the initial devaluation made the cost for everything go up by 100x. Try to imagine buying a loaf of bread for $500; how long before you run out of money to feed your family?
Later, the government switched to a new ruble to replace the old one, again devalued. Every family was allowed to convert, say, $10,000 worth of currency. Any excess of the limit they set, which couldn’t be converted, automatically became worthless after a certain date. I remember seeing photos of pallets of cash dumped in the woods, rubles that couldn’t be converted… My Russian friend predicts that the USA will do the same here, to prevent the trillions of cash dollars used to bribe people all over the world from returning to the USA and exacerbating the hyperinflationary collapse we’re already in.
It’s also important to keep in mind, there are laws now on the books where the banks can- and will- confiscate your money, during a financial crisis, to keep themselves afloat. Legally, when you put your money into a checking or savings account, it’s not your money anymore; you’re an “unsecured creditor.” And if they want to, they’ll take your money, and the FDIC will not cover the loss, because your money wasn’t stolen, as it wasn’t your money anyway. See how that works?
And do you see why Biden signed an executive order to facilitate digital currencies? If your money is digital, it can be confiscated or they can at least stop you from transacting any more (cryptos).
It’s actually quite simple; anything you don’t have in your physical possession, you don’t own. If it isn’t physical cash in your hand (or under your mattress, or whatever) you don’t own it, and it can be stolen from you in the blink of an eye (think of everyone who donated to the Canadian truckers).
How to maintain your wealth, or whatever purchasing power you have saved up? Buy gold or silver, as much as you can, as FAST as you can. If that’s not available to you, store up extra food for trade/barter, later, as everyone needs to eat. Buy chickens, build a coop out of an old shed or any scrap building materials you can get your hands on (but make sure you can protect them from thieves of the four (or two)-legged variety. Buy a few 100# bags of chicken feed from your local farm supply or co-op. Eggs will be worth a LOT. Anything physical is better than the paper notes which will soon be worth nothing.
FOOD
Due to the Russia-Ukraine conflict which NATO incited (and exacerbates to this day), Russia was kicked out of the SWIFT financial transaction system by all of America’s poodle countries. As a result, there will be no potash shipped out to most of the world- a necessary ingredient for high crop yields around the world. Food shortages, famines and starving to death are now a foregone conclusion, as the prices of food go up beyond what literally hundreds of millions will be able to pay.
Russia has been stockpiling food, and last week Putin announced to his people on Russian TV that the country had five years of food stockpiled, so they need nothing from the USA- or frankly, anyone else. China has stockpiled 18 months of wheat to feed their people, but their agents are busily moving around America buying any stored wheat they can get their hands on- by the trainload, at whatever price they have to pay- and sending it on cargo ships back to China.
The results here will be food prices going steadily up in the USA for the foreseeable future. I’m seeing 15-20% increases in the grocery stores, on a month-to-month basis, right now, and those increases will get much steeper. With no potash and already exorbitant prices for natural gas- both absolutely required to produce fertilizer for high crop yields- we’re going into a period of not just “food shortages,” like Brandon said, we’re going to be facing our own version of the Holodomor famine of 1933. Think of this starving woman with her son…
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Or this family starving in their own yard:
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Food prices will eventually go exponential, and finally won’t be available at any price, since fuel won’t be available for trucks, there simply won’t be any food available and even if there was, nobody wants to make a delivery to a place where there as likely to get shot as paid with the worthless money. The blue cities- hives of humanity more parasitical than productive- will face escalations of violence, famine, starvation and eventually cannibalism, as a result.
Keep in mind, this is going global. The only countries that’ll make it through reasonably “ok” will be Russia and- maybe- China. But I’m not holding my breath about the latter. The 2nd and 3rd-world countries will be the leading edge of the misery, as their populations live closest to poverty, and any significant price swings of food automatically mean they starve to death. But it will still hit here, HARD, and if you aren’t ready, there’s a good chance you’ll be relying on Brandon to save you… and then you’ll become a statistic.
My advice is to get as much food as you can get your hands on immediately. Understand, it really doesn’t matter how much food you have in your pantry, it ain’t enough. Make sure to get things that you and your kin will really eat, not stuff that will technically keep you alive, but your kids will refuse to consume because it doesn’t taste perfect. If you can get a YEAR of food stored away, you’ll be ahead of 95% of the crowd, who doesn’t have more than a weeks’ worth of food in their whole house. If you’re on city water, find a way to store it (plenty of videos on this sort of thing out there). If you have an electric well, find a way to power it if the utilities go off, or get a hand-pump if possible.
VIOLENCE
After the food completely runs out, the city parasites will start foraging out into the countryside, basically as far as the remaining gas in their cars will carry them. And with deteriorating mental capacity brought about by hunger, they’ll have lost their inhibitions about killing you for a can of Dinty Moore beef stew.
Police will too busy with attempting to “maintain order” of millions of hungry people, to worry about minor annoyances like rapists and murderers; they’ll roam freely among the weak and the desperate, predators amongst prey.
Which leads into our next subject…
WEAPONS
If you have no weapons at this point, it’s almost too late for you. Find weapons in common calibers. This means .38 Special for revolver, 9mm for semi-auto pistol, 5.56mm AR-15 rifle, .30-30 lever gun or a .30-06 bolt gun if you can find it. Stick with common calibers, get as much ammunition as you can. Even a good hunting rifle is better than nothing. Be familiar with it, know how to use it, understand gun safety protocols so you don’t accidentally shoot a loved one.
Another aspect that people don’t think about, is edged weapons. Amazon has some amazing deals on Wakizashi-type swords (like miniature samurai swords) made of 9260 spring steel, which can be wielded one-handed by an adult or two-handed by kids, if needed. They can be made razor sharp, don’t require ammo, and are quiet. Finally, they don’t require background checks. Check out K-bar knives, as well. A good knife is useful not only as a weapon, but a tool. Get one, get used to carrying it all the time.
COMMUNITY
I’ll keep this short and sweet: The old cliché remains true; no man is an island. You’re NOT going to stand watch over your home 24×7 forever, you’ll need help and a community to work with, for mutual defense. The Civil Defense Manual by Jack Lawson will help you get started on this aspect, and you need to move with a purpose, right now. (And no, I don’t make any money mentioning the manual.) Move quickly, because if you don’t, there’s a very real possibility that you won’t survive this.
CONCLUSION
An old Japanese proverb applies: “preparation does not guarantee success, but the lack of preparation guarantees failure.”
I will tell you straight up, the global famine is coming, there’s no way to stop it. It WILL happen, I am 100% certain of this. Do you remember when COVID hit, everyone finally realized they needed to hit the local CostCo or Walmart or whatever, and stock up on food and toilet paper? People punching each other out for a bottle of hand-sanitizer or a 4-roll package of butt-wipe? Or even better, the buyer behavior of people trying to get ‘deals’ on Black Friday, right after Thanksgiving? Riots, shootings, the whole shebang of crazy behavior…? Multiply that by 100, for everyone wanting to get FOOD. I figure the crowds will start to figure it out by mid-May… earlier if we’re unlucky, later if we are lucky… but the mob-mentality of people trying to buy food before the shit hits the fan, will cause the shit to hit the fan… Food riots, all of it.
I also will state with absolute certainty, that the dollar collapse in imminent. It may be within days, weeks or within a few months. I seriously doubt we’ll make it to the November elections before it really kicks off. IF the dollar collapse happens more or less at the same time people are scrambling to stock up on food, it will get to a level of ugliness that people haven’t seen since at least WW2. And not just Americans, but everyone in the Western world- having lived a life of relative prosperity- are in for a brutal awakening to reality.
Do whatever you can to prepare, while you still have time. Food, water, storing your purchasing power, and weapons to defend your loved ones. Remember, your mental fortitude will be the biggest determinant on whether you make it or not. MENTALLY prepare yourself.
This useless activity is destroying our best people and explains why the first world is collapsing inward:
Rich, college-educated people—especially men—work more than they did many decades ago. They are reared from their teenage years to make their passion their career and, if they don’t have a calling, told not to yield until they find one.What is workism? It is the belief that work is not only necessary to economic production, but also the centerpiece of one’s identity and life’s purpose; and the belief that any policy to promote human welfare must always encourage more work.In 1980, the highest-earning men actually worked fewer hours per week than middle-class and low-income men, according to a survey by the Minneapolis Fed. But that’s changed. By 2005, the richest 10 percent of married men had the longest average workweek.
No wonder they have few children. Then again, what else did you expect from worker revolutions? We are all workers now, and work is our only religion or culture. Much of this is driven by high taxes and fear of instability.
Many people in the United States are of the view that the situation between Russia and Ukraine “will never go nuclear” because, they think, “Russia would be destroyed.” Turns out, that’s not true. At all. In fact, in a nuclear simulation, because it takes so long for U.S. missiles to launch (4m 30s from the launch order) with Russia’s new hypersonic missiles, our missiles wouldn’t even get out of their silos. Put simply, we lose.
The ten minute video below was made in 1979, BEFORE the advent of Russia’s new hypersonic missiles.
It demonstrates how the US, with its safety systems designed to prevent any one man from launching a nuclear weapon, actually CAUSE our demise in a conflict with Russia. Our missiles are far too slow to come out of their silos after a launch order.
Meanwhile, submarine-launched Russian missiles, can come from either the Pacific Ocean or the Arctic Ocean, and cover so much ground, so fast, that our weapons get destroyed in the ground and on the ground.
And all that was BEFORE the creation of Russia’s hypersonic missiles.
SPOILER: We lose in less than 34 minutes.
So if you are of the delusion that the US is the most powerful nation on earth, and that Russia wouldn’t dare “go nuclear” over Ukraine or a wider war in Europe, you had better get your head out of your ass.
Ten minute version:
Full 38 minute version:
A great meme that all can relate to…
Welcome!
Be the Rufus!
Rufus actions.
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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.
The Ukraine invasion has set forth a domino effect; a chain of events that is reshaping the globe. And it is all to plan. It’s a plan made by China, Russia, India and Iran.
The (so called) petro-dollar; the USD is starting to fall apart, and with it, the economies of those that have been propped up by this fiat “currency”.
Whether or not Russia is “losing” or “winning” in the Ukraine is of no concern.
What is of concern, and what is actually happening is that a new world order has arisen from the ashes of the old. It’s an East and a West. And the West is collapsing in real time, while the East is rising.
Here, in this article we will cover a section of topics that cover these events in chunks. Not comprehensive, but enough to give you all an idea of what is actually going on.
Key Points
As you read this article, you need to keep in mind a few key points…
The world is undergoing a geopolitical realignment.
This alignment is dividing into two separate entities (East and West).
The two sides have a very different view of how the world should be.
The West is trying to maintain a uni-polar single world government ruled by the United States.
The East is trying to maintain a multi-polar world of equals of various unique social structures.
Key to this manifestation is the control of the currency of exchange.
The West is trying to maintain the USD, or an electronic version of it.
The East is trying to use commodity-based currency by labor, materials and products.
Issues about Ukraine or Taiwan are simply the desperate plans of the West in a plan to maintain a uni-polar world.
Do not get sidetracked from what is REALLY going on.
The technical definition of money is “something generally accepted as a medium of exchange, a measure of value, or a means of payment.”
For most people this has always meant the legal tender of their homeland.
Until fairly recently, this was a coin with the face of the king on it.
Thus, the better the reputation of the king, the more valuable his coin, because traders were more likely to accept it. A good king made sure his coins had a consistent amount of gold or silver in it.
The reason for that is precious metals like gold and silver were always the world’s reserve currency.
Everyone in the world would accept gold and silver for payment, even in places that restricted the use of the metals. You could always take the metal to the king’s mint and exchange it for his coins.
Granted, he took a fee for himself and you were charged the cost of minting the coins, but that was predictable.
In the end, all currency was measured in gold and silver.
…
But, we no longer use gold coin for money.
Every country in the world uses what the economist call fiat currency.
This is a government-issued currency that is not backed by a physical commodity, such as gold or silver.
Instead, it is backed by the “full faith and credit” of the issuing government.
That dollar = faith in the government issuing the paper.
Money is now an expression of the government power behind it.
The US dollar is the reserve currency of the world largely due to the fact the American government was the most trusted.
…
Hard money enthusiasts assume this means the United States can print as much money as it needs, but this is not exactly true.
The international monetary system that evolved after the collapse of the Bretton Woods system in the 1970’s is a framework that controls the exchange rate of the major currencies.
Every major currency is based on the dollar, just as oil and gas are priced in dollars.
The petrodollar was created in the 1970’s when the Bretton Woods system collapsed.
The dollar was replaced by the Petro-dollar.
What the current system does, in effect, is link currencies to the supply of crude oil through the dollar.
How much oil you can buy with your home currency is dependent upon how many dollars you can buy with it.
It is not a direct link, as oil production rises and falls and the supply of dollars rises and falls, relative to other major currencies like the Euro or Chinese Yuan.
In effect, America controls the world by controlling the price of commodities like crude oil and natural gas.
American dollar = global use of oil and gas commodities.
…
In the old days, minting coins was a profit center for the king.
A strong king would restrict the use of other coins in his domain.
His people had to take their foreign coins, gold and silver to his mint for conversion to his coin.
In addition to the cost of production, he tacked on a profit for himself. This is called seigniorage and it works the same for fiat money as it does hard money.
This profit from controlling the global currency is one way the United States has grown so rich.
The USA uses this petro-dollar as a mechanism to make debt.
One of the consequences of this system is the world has an insatiable appetite for US government debt.
Because it is denominated in dollars and considered the safest of financial bets, it makes the ideal collateral.
This has allowed the United States and other Western countries to run massive trade and spending deficits.
The world wants the debt and the world wants to sell the West their products.
US debt was 30% of GDP in 1980 and now it is 127% of GDP.
…
This is the subtext of the Russo-Ukrainian war.
Russia and China, especially China, are tired of this arrangement.
They correctly see it as to the advantage of Washington at their expense.
This is (partially) why China is backing Russia’s play to demand rubles for its energy and agricultural products.
This would pave the way for China demanding yuan for its products and the right to pay for energy in yuan.
India is also quietly supporting what the Russians are doing for the same reasons.
…
This is (partially) why Washington is in no mood to strike a deal over Ukraine.
It is not the only reason, but it is a big part of the plan to protect the dollar.
It is believed that if Washington can break the Putin government through financial war, China and India will drop their plans to buck the dollar in the global economy.
A century after the Great War, the new global war is being mainly fought in finance.
The West, led by America, is now at war with the world over control of the global currency system.
…
…
It is probably a war that the West cannot win.
…
…
The reason is the same reason the king would put his face on his coins.
Money is the physical expression of power.
The strong king could enforce his monetary policy in his domain and his money had a predictable amount of gold and silver.
In effect, his money was the representation of his people and the cultural that defined them.
The legal tender of a country is the measure of that country’s wealth and power relative to the world.
…
The West no longer makes or invents anything useful.
The power of the West is the legacy power to control the financial system.
It is a system arranged by Mercurian people in order to control the Apollonians.
The former are the people who operate as middlemen and service providers, while the latter are the people who grow the food, make the goods and keep the gears properly lubricated.
The former operates in the West, while the latter exist in the East.
…
Reality is the thing that does not go away when you stop believing in it.
And reality says that growing and making things counts for more than thinking about things.
The reason Washington has not crushed the Russian economy is the world needs the stuff Russia pulled out of the earth.
In this economic war of attrition, Russian can feed itself and keep its homes warm, while Europe will have to hope America can provide the food and energy at a reasonable fee.
…
The most likely outcome of this global conflict is something people have suspected for quite some time.
The global currency will become a basket of commodities like natural gas and crude oil.
Maybe agricultural products will be in the mix.
The reason for this is the world runs on energy and food.
Bretton Woods III, as some are calling it, will be a new set of currency arrangements whereby money is based on its purchasing power for the agreed upon basket of products.
…
What this means in the short run is that the West is about to get poorer as governments are forced to cut spending and debase the currency to get out from under domestic debt obligations like pension payments.
It also means the end of globalism as has been defined by Washington for three decades.
Trade will continue, but between countries rather than independent global enterprises.
Thirty years after the Cold War the world is about to start healing and return to something close to normal.
The Emotions “Don’t Ask my Neighbor”
Yeah. By mixing up topics such as food, hobbies, movies and pretty girls in my articles I have completely ZEROED out all the trolls, ‘bots and DDos attacks. Man, I’m telling you. It friggin’ works!
About this song…
Throughout my Senior year in High School I fell in love with soul and funk. I added it alongside my love of hard rock, and it greatly shaped my absorption of the culture of the 1970s at that time.
One of my favorites (in regards to soul) at that time was this group that has passed into obscurity known as “The Emotions”. It’s a trio of three attractive ladies with real heart.
Here’s one of their classic songs.
What is a “Blue Blood”?
This term has come to define the ruling oligarchy that operate the United States from behind the veil. But from whence did this term originate?
The blue bloods... arises from eating from a silver spoon and drinking from a silver cup. Silver accumulates in the system and turns the skin blue. Literally. No doubt the blue blood class have moved to gold these days for their eating utensils though the Americans seem to like their grow light suntans.
Ukrainians to use American weapons, and American tactics.
It’s a core principle behind the RAND operational study.
"Since the US-engineered 2013-14 coup in Ukraine, American forces have taught Ukrainians, including neo-Nazi units, how to fight in urban and other civilian areas. Weaponizing Ukraine is part of Washington’s quest for what the Pentagon calls “full spectrum dominance.”
Chinese scientists at the Xian Institute of Optics and Precision Mechanics have developed a fully functioning prototype of the “ZKZM-500 laser assault rifle.”
The 15mm caliber weapon is being compared to an AK-47 because of its similar 6.6-lb weight, but it’s firepower capabilities sound like something straight out of a sci-fi movie.
According to researchers who wish to remain anonymous, the ZKZM-500 fires an energy beam undetectable to the human eye that can pass through glass and cause the “instant carbonization” of human flesh from half a mile away.
“The pain will be beyond endurance,” one researcher said. “[It can] burn through clothes in a split second. If the fabric is flammable, the whole person will be set on fire”.
“Nobody will know where the attack came from,” another anonymous researcher added. “It will look like an accident.”
2022 04 05 08 25
Each will cost $15,000 to manufacture at large-scale production and can fire 1,000 “shots” on a single charge from a lithium ion battery.
In the event of a hostage situation it could be used to fire through windows at targets and temporarily disable the kidnappers while other units move in to rescue their captives.It could also be used in covert military operations. The beam is powerful enough to burn through a gas tank and ignite the fuel storage facility in a military airport.The lasers cannot kill a target with a single shot, but if fired at a person for long enough the weapons would start to burn a hole in their body, cutting through them like a surgical knife.
Anti-terrorism squads in the Chinese Armed Police will likely be the first to test these laser guns in the field.
Frank Black – Headache
This is from sometime in the 1990s. I love it because the video is done in retro 1940s theme and the subject matter was meaningful to me back then. In those days, I worked in cubicle farms as engineering drones.
Do you remember this one?
Americans should budget an extra $5,200 this year to cover rising prices, Bloomberg economists estimate
“Americans haven’t had to worry too much about factoring inflation into their budget for the past four decades. That’s changing in 2022.
The red-hot inflation expected to last throughout the year will leave the average US household spending $5,200 more compared to the year prior, Bloomberg economists Andrew Husby and Anna Wong said in a Tuesday article. That boils down to an extra $433 per month on the same goods and services as last year.”
The S.O.S. Band | Just Be Good To Me (1983) | Extended HQ version
Another of the songs that was big right after I joined MAJestic and was set loose on the world on my own. Actually, this song was very big in the dance club scene at that time. Not so much on the music charts then, but in the clubs, well yeah.
And this singer. Well, wow! So hot! Look at her smile. Her moves. Her hair. She’s so, so chocolate fudge on waffle topped with whipped creame. And brandy. In a glass with ice. Big cubes, not little ones.
She’s such a treat.
Events Like These Only Happen Once Every Century (Sergey Glazyev)
“Events like these only happen once every century”: Sergei Glazyev on the breaking of an epoch and the change of ways.
Is it possible to stabilize the ruble in three days? And why are the Ukrainian ‘zombies’ not giving up?
“After failing to weaken the People’s Republic of China head-on through a trade war, the Americans shifted the main blow to Russia, which they see as a weak link in world geopolitics and economics.
The Anglo-Saxons are striving to realize their age-old Russophobic ideas of destroying our country, and at the same time weakening China, because the strategic alliance of the Russian Federation and China is too tough for the United States.
They have neither the economic nor military power to destroy us together, and not separately,”
- Sergey Glazyev, Academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences, former adviser to the President of the Russian Federation.
About what opportunities are now opening up for the Russian economy, whether the Central Bank panders to the enemy and whether a new world currency will replace the dollar, Glazyev spoke in an interview with BUSINESS Online.
The new world economic order is socialist in ideology
“The new world economic order is socialist in ideology”
– Sergey Yuryevich, commenting on today’s tragic events.
Q: Sergey wrote in your Telegram channel that we should have read your book about the “last world war”, written about 6 years ago. How did you manage to predict everything so accurately?
A:The fact is that there are long-term patterns of economic development, the analysis and understanding of which makes it possible to predict the events that are taking place at the present time.
We are now experiencing a simultaneous change in the technological and world economic structures, while the technological basis of the economy is changing, there is a transition to fundamentally new technologies, and the management system is also changing.
Events like this happen about once a century.
However, technological structures change about once every 50 years, and their change is usually accompanied by a technological revolution, depression and an arms race.
And world economic structures change once every 100 years, and their change is accompanied by world wars and social revolutions.
This is due to the fact that the ruling elite of the countries of the core of the old world economic order impedes changes, does not take into account the emergence of more effective management systems, tries to block the development of new world leaders using them, and tries to maintain its hegemony and its monopoly position by any means, including military and revolutionary ones.
Say, 100 years ago, the British Empire was trying to maintain its hegemony in the world.
When it was already losing economically to the combined resources of the Russian Empire and Germany, the First World War, provoked by British intelligence, was unleashed, during which all three European empires self-liquidated.
I am talking about the collapse of tsarist Russia, the German and Austro-Hungarian empires, but here we can even put a fourth – the Ottoman Port.
As for Britain, for some time it retained global dominance and even became the largest empire on the planet. But due to the inexorable laws of socio-economic development, the colonial world economic structure, based in fact on slave labor, could no longer ensure economic growth.
The two fundamentally new political models that emerged – the Soviet and the American ones – demonstrated a much greater efficiency of production.
This is since they were already organized on other principles: not on private family capitalism.
They were organized on the strength of large transnational corporations with centralized structures for regulating the economy and with limitless monetary emission of credit through fiat money (paper or electronic means – ed. note).
They enabled the mass production of products much more efficiently than the administrative systems of the colonial empires of the XIX century.
The emergence of social states in the USSR and the USA with centralized control systems made it possible for a sharp jump in their economic development.
In Europe, the corporate governance system was formed, unfortunately, according to the Nazi model in Germany, and also not without the help of British intelligence.
Hitler, relying on the support of the British intelligence services and American capital, quite quickly deployed a centralized corporate management system in Germany, which allowed the Third Reich to very quickly capture the whole of Europe.
With God’s help, we defeated this German (more precisely, European – taking into account today’s realities) fascism.
After that, two models remained in the world.
Which I attribute to the imperial world economic structure: Soviet and Western (with the center in the USA).
Soviet model
Western model
After the collapse of the Soviet Union, (which could not withstand global competition due to the fact that the directive system of government was not flexible enough to meet the needs of technological progress), the United States seized global dominance for a while.
Better-Than-Ever Meatloaf
American meatloaf.
Meatloaf is an American favorite, right up there with Mom’s freshly baked apple pie. And while we know that everyone has a favorite way they like to make their meatloaf, we think our Better-than-Ever Meatloaf is sure worth a try.
What You’ll Need
2 pounds ground beef
1 1/2 cups fresh bread crumbs
2 eggs
3/4 cup water
2/3 cup ketchup, divided
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
What to Do
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Coat a large baking pan with cooking spray.
In a large bowl, combine all ingredients except 1/3 cup ketchup; mix well.
Place mixture into prepared baking pan and shape into a loaf. Spread remaining 1/3 cup ketchup over top.
Bake 1 hour or until done.
Notes
If you want to cook this in the microwave, simply combine the ingredients as above, then place the mixture in a 2-quart oblong microwaveable baking dish and shape into a loaf. Microwave, uncovered, on High (full power), turning the dish occasionally, for 25 minutes or until done. Remove from the baking dish and let stand, covered, for 5 minutes before serving.
Want to try a lighter version of this meatloaf recipe? You can use very lean ground turkey or chicken instead of ground beef!
The end of the unipolar moment
Q:But now this period of “American unipolar loneliness” is already ending, and, probably, not only thanks to Russia, but primarily to China and the Asian regions as such. Is it not?
A:Indeed, the hierarchical vertical structures characteristic of the imperial world economy turned out to be too rigid to ensure continuous innovation processes.
They lost their comparative effectiveness in ensuring the growth of the world economy.
On its periphery, a new world economic order has been formed.
It was one, which is based on flexible management models.
As well as a network organization of production, where the state works as an integrator, uniting the interests of various social groups around achieving one goal – raising the public welfare.
The most impressive example of such an integral world economic structure today is China, which for more than 30 years has outpaced the growth rate of the American economy by three times.
At the moment, China is already surpassing the United States in terms of [1] output, [2] exports of high-tech goods, and [3] growth rates.
Another example of a model of a new world economic order, which we called integral (due to the fact that the state in it unites all social groups of different interests), is India.
It has a different political system, but it also has the primacy of public interests over private ones, and the state seeks to maximize growth rates in order to fight poverty.
In this sense, the new world economic order is socialist in ideology.
At the same time, it uses market mechanisms of competition, which makes it possible to provide the highest concentration of resources for making a technological revolution with goals to ensure economic leaps based on a new advanced technological order.
If we look at growth rates after 1995, we see that the Chinese economy has grown 10 times, while the US economy has grown by only 15 percent.
Thus, it is already obvious to everyone that at present the pace of world economic development is shifting to Asia: China, India and the countries of Southeast Asia already produce more products than the US and the EU.
If we add to them Japan or Korea, in which the management system is similar in its principles to the integration of society around the goal of increasing public welfare.
Then we can say that today this new world economic structure already dominates the world, and the center of reproduction of the world economy has moved to Southeast Asia.
Of course, the American ruling elite cannot agree with this.
Q:To come to terms with it, I would say…
A:Yes. They, like the British Empire once, seek to maintain their hegemony in the world.
The events taking place today are a manifestation of how the US financial and powerful oligarchic elite are trying to maintain world domination.
It can be said that for the past 15 years it has been waging a world hybrid war, seeking to chaoticize countries beyond its control and restrain the development of the People’s Republic of China.
But due to the already archaic system of governance, they cannot do this.
The financial crisis of 2008 was such a transitional moment when the life cycle of the outgoing technological order actually ended.
And the process of massive redistribution of capital into a new technological order began.
The core of which is a complex of nanobioengineering and information communication technologies.
All countries began to pump up their economies with money.
The simplest thing a modern government can do is to give all businesses access to cheap long-term money so they can adopt new technologies.
But, in America and Europe such funds went mainly into financial bubbles and covered the budget deficit.
While, in China this colossal money emission was completely directed to the growth of production and the development of new technologies.
There were no Chinese financial bubbles.
And the ultra-high monetization of the Chinese economy did not result in inflation either.
Instead, the growth of the money supply was accompanied by [1] an increase in the production of goods, [2] the introduction of new advanced technologies and [3] an increase in public welfare.
Today, economic competition has already led to the fact that the United States has lost its leadership.
If you remember, Donald Trump tried to contain the development of China through a trade war, but nothing came out of it.
Man-Eating Sex Queen of Great Neck, New York, Dorothea Matthews
201 Clent Rd Great Neck NY
This English Tudor house, located at 201 Clent Road, Great Neck, New York, may not look like much of a love nest. But in 1948, its chief female resident, Mrs. Dorothea Matthews turned this house into something approaching the Playboy Mansion, East. It wasn’t until Mrs. Matthews’ divorce proceedings from her husband Mark Matthews in 1948 that we began to see that wanton sexual escapades did not begin in the groovy Sixties. According to court documents, Mrs. Matthews racked up a large number of sexual partners.
Mrs. Dorothea Matthews 1948
As a slim, shapely 28 year-old woman with plenty of time on her hands, Dorothea had many sexual options beyond her husband Mark, and she took advantage of so many of them. Mrs. Matthews was a very forthright individual; or, to put it in the words of the New York Daily News , she was “socially minded.” Mrs. Matthews managed to bed down a good number of men and women in Great Neck, Upstate New York, trains in transit to Florida, Manhattan, and probably lots of other places.
Mrs. Dorothea Matthews January 7 1950
Yet her taste in sexual partners was not indiscriminate. A doctor, art historian, student, actor, secretary, and her husband, who was a Ping-Pong champion and owned a messenger service, filled her sexual roster, and those are only the ones we know about. And of course, a murderer would be one of her conquests.
All in all, I would say that she lived a FULL life.
“The Americans have opened a biological front of war by launching the coronavirus in China”
Q:Why? Did Trump, accustomed to taking risks and going all-in, lack the determination?
A: And even Trump (of all people) couldn’t get (the United States) out (of it’s situation), because China has a more efficient management system that allows you to concentrate the available production resources to the fullest.
At the same time, effective money management keeps money emission in the contour of expanded reproduction of the real sector of the economy, focusing on financing investments in development.
China has the highest savings rate of any country, with about 45 percent of GDP invested, compared with 20 percent in the United States or Russia. This, in fact, ensures the ultra-high growth rates of the Chinese economy.
In short, the US was doomed to lose this trade war because China could produce more efficiently and finance development cheaper.
The entire banking system in China is state-owned, it works as a single development institution, directing cash flows to expand production and master new technologies.
In the United States, the emission of money goes to finance the budget deficit and is redistributed into financial bubbles.
As a result, the efficiency of the US financial and economic system is 20 percent – there only every fifth dollar reaches the real sector, and in China almost 90 percent (that is, almost all the yuan that is created by the Central Bank of the PRC) feeds the contours of the expansion of production and ensures ultra-high economic growth.
Trump’s attempts to limit China’s development through trade war methods have failed.
At the same time, they boomeranged at the United States itself.
Then the Americans opened a biological war front by launching the coronavirus in China, hoping that the Chinese leadership would not cope with this epidemic and chaos would arise in China.
However, the epidemic has demonstrated the low efficiency of healthcare and has created chaos in the United States itself.
The Chinese system of government has shown much greater efficiency here as well.
In the Celestial Empire, the mortality rate is significantly lower, and the pandemic was dealt with much faster there.
Already in 2020, they even reached economic growth of 2 percent, while in the United States there was a decline of 10 percent of GDP (analysts noted the largest drop since the Second World War – ed. note).
Now the Chinese have restored the growth rate of about 7 percent per year, and there is no doubt that the PRC will continue to develop confidently, expanding the production of a new technological order.
In parallel with the trade war against China, American intelligence services were preparing a war against Russia.
This was because the Anglo-Saxon geopolitical tradition considers our country the main obstacle to establishing world domination of the US and British power and financial elite.
It must be said that the war against the Russian Federation unfolded immediately after the annexation of Crimea and after the American special services organized a coup d’état in Ukraine.
It can be said that they tricked Russia into agreeing to the American occupation of Ukraine, considering it as a temporary phenomenon.
However, the Americans took root on ‘Ukrainian Independence’, created not only [1] strongholds, growing Nazis under their wing, but also [2] trained the Nazi armed forces.
This gave the Nazis the opportunity to receive a military education, trained them in their academies, ‘sewed together’ all the Armed Forces of Ukraine with them.
And for 8 years they have been preparing the Armed Forces of Ukraine for the fight against the only enemy – Russia.
While the mass media, which in Ukraine are also completely controlled by the Americans, formed the image of the enemy in the public mind.
In addition, the United States used the monetary and financial front of the hybrid war against the Russian Federation.
Already in 2014, they introduced the first financial sanctions and knocked out a significant part of Western loans from the Russian economy.
Now we are witnessing the next phase, when they have actually disconnected Russia from the world monetary and financial system, which they dominate.
However, I predicted all this 10 years ago.
I did so based on the theory of changing world economic structures and the specific logic of the US ruling elite.
A logic which was focused on world domination.
Anglo-Saxon geopolitics is traditionally oriented against the Russian Empire and its successors, the USSR and the Russian Federation.
This is because, since the days of the British Empire, Russia has been seen as the main opponent of the Anglo-Saxons.
All the so-called geopolitical science that was being written in London came down, in fact, to a set of recommendations on how to destroy Russia as the dominant force in Eurasia. I mean all sorts of speculative constructions like “countries of the sea against countries of the land” and so on.
Q: How did Russia get in the way of the ‘sea countries’ that much? After all, geographically with the UK, we have never bordered.
A: In this regard, a formula was invented: whoever controls Eurasia controls the whole world.
Actually, applied developments have already gone further.
Zbigniew Brzezinski’s theorem is known that in order to defeat Russia as a superpower, Ukraine must be torn off from it.
All this political dogma, which, it would seem, has long gone down in history, is nevertheless reproduced today in the thinking of the American political elite.
I must say that there are still courses in geopolitics of the past 19th century at Harvard and Yale University, sharpening the brains of future American politicians against Russia.
So they, in fact, jumped on this old and time-tested Russophobic stream, which has always been characteristic of Anglo-Saxon geopolitics.
And, considering Russia as the main opponent of their dominance in the world, in accordance with the proposal of Brzezinski.
Thus, they used Ukraine as an outpost, more precisely, as a tool to undermine Russia, weaken it and, in the long run, destroy it as a sovereign state.
So, what is happening today was easily predicted based on a combination of long-term patterns of economic development.
This, actually doomed the world to a hybrid war, and the traditional Russophobia of the Anglo-Saxon political elite.
After the weakening of the PRC did not work out through a trade war, the Americans transferred the main blow of their military and political power to Russia.
It was a logical step as they consider to be a weak link in world geopolitics and economics.
In addition, the Anglo-Saxons seek to establish dominance over Russia in order to realize their age-old Russophobic ideas of destroying our country, and at the same time weakening China, because the strategic alliance of the Russian Federation and China is too tough for the United States.
They have neither the economic nor the military power to destroy us together, neither separately, which is why the United States initially sought to quarrel us with China.
That didn’t work for them.
But they, using our, I would say, placidity, and seized control over Ukraine.
And thus today they are using our fraternal republic as a weapon of war to destroy Russia, and then to seize control of our resources in order.
I repeat, to strengthen their position and weaken China’s position.
In general, this is all obvious, like two plus two equals four.
Q: “The Americans will not be able to win, just as the British did not succeed in their time”
A: Probably, this is obvious, but not for everyone. Among the Russian elite there are many opponents of an alliance with China. At least, before the special operation in Ukraine, it seemed to these people that American and Western culture is more understandable and closer to us than hieroglyphic Chinese wisdom, and that we will always find a common language with our “Western partners”.
You know, back in 2015 I wrote the book “The Last World War. The USA is Starting and Losing”, which you mentioned at the beginning of the conversation everything was thought out and justified there.
The United States embarked on a worldwide hybrid war.
It started with the Orange Revolutions to disrupt regions of the world it did not control.
It did this in order to strengthen its position and weaken the position of geopolitical rivals.
After the famous Munich speech of President Putin (February 2007 – ed. Note), they realized that they had lost control over Yeltsin’s Russia, and this seriously worried them.
In 2008, the financial crisis broke out and it became clear that the transition to a new technological order was beginning.
And with this, the old world economic order and the previous management system no longer ensured sustainable economic development.
China was now leading the way.
Well, then afterwards the logic of deploying of a world war happens, only not in the forms that existed 100 years ago, but on three conditional fronts…
monetary-financial (where the United States still dominates the world),
trade-economic (where they have already lost superiority to China) and
information-cognitive (where the Americans also have technologies that are superior to ours).
They use all three of these fronts in an attempt to keep the initiative and maintain the hegemony of their corporations.
Well and finally, the fourth front is the biological one, which opened with the advent of the coronavirus from the US-Chinese laboratory in Wuhan.
Today we see that a whole network of biological laboratories existed in Ukraine.
So the United States has long been preparing to open the biological front of the world war.
The fifth, and most obvious, front is, in fact, the front of combat fighting – as the last tool for forcing the states that they control into unquestioning obedience.
Today, the situation on this front is also escalating.
That is, active operations are underway on all five fronts of the world hybrid war, and the result can be predicted.
The Americans will not be able to win, just as the British did not succeed in their time.
Although Britain formally won World War II, they lost politically and economically.
The British lost their entire empire, losing more than 90 percent of the territory and 95 percent of the population.
Two years after World War II, where they were the winners, their empire collapsed like a house of cards, because the other two winners – the USSR and the USA – did not need this empire and viewed it as an anachronism.
Now today, the world will not need American transnational corporations.
They will not need the American dollar.
They will not need the American monetary and financial technologies and financial pyramids.
All this will be a thing of the past in the near future.
Southeast Asia will become the obvious leader in world economic development, and a new world economic order will be formed before our very eyes.
Q:To paraphrase [Erich] Remarque, we can say that changes have finally come on the western front. But what signs do you see of this powerful global system soon becoming a thing of the past?
A: After the Americans seized first [1] the Venezuelan foreign exchange reserves and handed them over to the opposition, then [2] the Afghan foreign exchange reserves, before that [3] the Iranian ones, and now [4] the Russian ones, it became completely clear that the dollar ceased to be the world currency.
Following the Americans, the Europeans also committed this stupidity – the euro and the pound ceased to be world currencies.
Therefore, the old monetary and financial system is living its last days.
After American dollars that no one needs are sent back to America from Asian countries, the collapse of the world monetary and financial system based on dollars and euros is inevitable.
Leading countries are switching to national currencies, and the euro and the dollar are ceasing to be foreign exchange reserves.
Q:How do you see the world after the disappearance of the dollar monopoly?
A: We are currently working on a project for an international treaty on the introduction of a new world settlement currency.
It will be pegged to the national currencies of the participating countries and to exchange commodities that determine real values.
We won’t need American and European banks.
A new payment system based on modern digital technologies with blockchain is developing in the world, where banks lose their importance.
Classical capitalism based on private banks is fading away.
International law is being restored.
All key international relations, including the issuance of world currency circulation, begin to form on the basis of agreements.
At the same time, the significance of national sovereignty is being restored, because sovereign countries are coming to an agreement.
The basis of global economic cooperation is joint investment in order to improve the well-being of peoples.
Trade liberalization ceases to be some kind of priority, national priorities are respected, each state builds such a system for protecting the internal market and its economic space that it considers necessary.
That is, the era of liberal globalization is over.
Before our eyes, a new world economic structure is being formed – an integral one, in which some states and private banks lose their private monopoly on the issue of money, on the use of military force, and so on.
Pretty Chinese girl
I just cannot let a post go without a pretty Chinese girl, don’t you know. video 4MB
Sergei Lavrov: Russian FM hails China as part of emerging ‘just world order’ – The Economic Times
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrovon Wednesday said Moscow and Beijing are leading the way towards a fairer world order, as he makes his first visit to the key ally since Russialaunched its invasion of Ukraine last month.
“The third scenario is catastrophic. Destruction of mankind”
Q: Why did you call your book “The Last World War”? What feeds your hope that this global war is really the last one?
A: I called this world war the last one, because we see that there are several scenarios of movement out of today’s crisis.
The first scenario, which I have already talked about, is calm and prosperous.
It consists in overcoming the US monopoly.
In order to do this in the financial sector, you need to abandon the dollar.
In order to overcome the monopoly in the information and cognitive sphere, it is necessary to isolate our information space from the American one and switch to our own information technologies.
Creating their own contours of the reproduction of the economy, but without the US dollar and the euro and relying on their information technologies for managing money, the countries of the new world economic order ensure high rates of economic development.
They do this while the Western world is collapsing.
There they have a situation of collapse of financial pyramids, disorganization and a growing economic crisis, aggravated by growing inflation due to the uncontrolled issue of money over the past 12 years.
The second scenario of a possible development of events is similar to the one that Hitler wanted to realize during the period of the change of previous world economic structures.
This is an attempt to create a world government with a superhuman ideology.
If Hitler conceived the German nation as superhumans, then the current ideologists of world domination impose on humanity the transition to a post-humanoid state.
In contrast to the post-humanism of the West, the core countries of the new world economic order are characterized by a socialist ideology.
This means respect for private interests, protection of private property and the use of market mechanisms.
In China, India, Japan, and Korea, socialist ideology dominates.
Or rather, a mixture of socialist ideology, national interests, and market competition.
It is this mixture that forms a fundamentally new power-political elite, focused on economic development and the growth of the well-being of nations.
It is very different for Western politicians, intellectuals and businessmen.
What we see today in the West is an attempt to form a certain image of a new world order with a world government at the head.
And, where people are driven into an electronic concentration camp.
You can see by the example of restrictions during the pandemic how it happened: all people are given tags, access to public goods is regulated through QR codes, everyone is forced to walk in formation.
By the way, in the scenario of the Rockefeller Foundation back in 2009, the pandemic and, in fact, everything that happened in connection with it, was amazingly sorted into pieces – they actually predicted the future.
This scenario was called Lock Step, that is, “Walk in formation”, and the Western world followed it.
Sacrificing their own democratic values, they try to force people to obey commands.
International organizations, including the World Health Organization, are used as a kind of stronghold for assembling a world government that would be subordinate to private capital.
But, I must say, Donald Trump greatly interfered with these plans.
This is because he stopped the signing of agreements on Transatlantic and Trans-Pacific partnerships.
In those partnerships, where all countries participating in the agreements sacrificed national sovereignty in all disputes with big business.
And you need to understand that today any transnational corporation can act as a foreign investor, including in the United States.
According to these agreements, if there is foreign capital in the business, then in a dispute with the national government, some kind of international arbitration court is formed, it is not clear how and by whom it was drawn up.
And these unelected judges, appointed, in fact, by big international business, these disputes are resolved.
In fact, it was about the fact that the state was losing all sovereignty in regulating relations with big business.
However, Trump stopped the agreement – the United States never signed it.
Thus, the process of forming a world government was stopped.
This is the second alternative, and it is now in crisis due to the collapse of the idea of globalization and the gradual abandonment of ‘pandemic’ restrictions.
It must be understood that the option of a world government is incompatible with sovereign Russia, with our independence and role in the world.
Within the framework of the globalist scenario, the Russian Federation is viewed as a territory that is intended for exploitation by Western transnational corporations.
The “indigenous population” must serve their interests.
Under such a scenario, Russia disappears as an independent entity, just like China, by the way.
The Western world government may incorporate some of our oligarchs into its version of the future, but only in second and third-rate roles.
Another pretty Chinese Girl
They are everywhere in China, don’t you know. video 2MB
The third scenario is catastrophic. The destruction of humanity…
Q:That same apocalypse which everybody talks about?
A:Well, not everyone… But everyone, of course, is afraid.
By the way, about the American biological laboratories that are engaged in the synthesis of dangerous viruses, it was mentioned in my other book, which was published a little later: “Plague of the XXI century: how to avoid disaster and overcome the crisis?”
I remember back in 1996, when I had to work in the UN Security Council, I proposed to develop the concept of national biological security.
Because even then, almost 30 years ago, genetics was a sufficiently developed science to synthesize viruses directed against people of a certain race or a certain gender, a certain age.
This has been possible for a long time.
It is possible to make a virus that will only work against whites, or vice versa, only against blacks, only against men, or only against women.
Now the Americans are going further – you see that, data which agrees with our Ministry of Defense, they announced the day before, that American biological laboratories were developing viruses targeted against the Slavs.
Apparently, it is possible today – to make a virus against some ethnic group that has its own genetic code.
What is happening in Ukraine today is an echo of the agony of the US power elite, which cannot come to terms with the fact that they will no longer be a world leader.
This becomes clear to everyone – at least to those who are not connected with the Americans by their own interests and are not subject to their cognitive influence.
I’ll give you an example.
When the US imposed sanctions on Russia in 2014, I asked my Chinese colleagues: “Do you think the Americans can impose sanctions with regards to China?”
They were certain that they can’t.
They said that it was impossible, because the US depends on China just as strongly as China depends on the US.
That is, America will be more expensive for itself.
Two years had passed, and Trump launched a trade war against China.
And Beijing now understood that America is an enemy that will drown the Chinese economic miracle by any and all means.
Prior to this, my reasonings with my Chinese colleagues were not very convincing, just as, however, my book you mentioned did not greatly influence our political and economic elite.
My arguments were dismissed.
Although we have been saying for many, many years that the dollar should be refused.
Foreign exchange reserves should have been removed from dollar instruments, from the euros-to-gold.
It is necessary to switch to ones own monetary and financial systems.
Nations should have developed our own settlements in national currencies with partners.
We have been offering all this since the 2000s, when it was already clear what the world economic development was leading to. And now, finally, everyone has seen the light.
Another Pretty Chinese girl
Here we have yet another view inside of China. video 10MB
“The Americans zombified Ukrainians and turned 150-200 thousand people into a fighting machine that works without thinking”
Q: Judging by the heart-rending howl that comes from the camp of the liberals, as well as the events in Ukraine, not everyone has seen the light yet.
A: Yes, we are faced with the fact that in 8 years the Americans have managed to fool the Ukrainian people so much that the people who resist the Russian army, the so-called Armed Forces of Ukraine, look simply zombified.
They are manipulated like puppets.
It is not Zelensky who commands the Ukrainian Army, not even the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine and the General Staff – but the Pentagon.
It commands very effectively from the point of view in the fight of “to the last Ukrainian soldier”, because these zombie guys do not give up.
But they are in an absolutely hopeless situation.
All experts have already acknowledged that Russia won the military special operation, that the Ukraine has no chance of resistance, that the entire military infrastructure has been destroyed…
The Armed Forces of Ukraine is only left with surrendering in order to minimize human losses.
However, Ukrainian officers (and especially, of course, nationalists) act like zombies controlled from the outside – they follow instructions from the Pentagon that come to their personal computers and special tablets.
Moreover, the Americans command their marionettes from the Armed Forces of Ukraine, breaking them into the appropriate units.
Each unit is assigned a number, and every number is given artificial ‘military intelligence’ with tasks every day.
They really turned 150-200 thousand people into a fighting machine that works without thinking, only stupidly follows all their orders.
For 8 years, they have achieved that they forced a significant part of the youth of Ukraine not only to stand up against Russia, but through brainwashing made them their weak-willed tools.
Not just cannon fodder, but controlled cannon fodder.
Being in an absolutely hopeless situation, surrounded, deprived of any supply at all, they still continue the senseless war, dooming themselves to death, and dragging the surrounding civilians with them to the grave.
This is a clear example of how modern American technology works.
We must understand that in front of us, we have a very powerful force.
You know, before [the war], we have heard from Russian experts and politicians that the Ukrainians themselves will suffocate economically and then crawl to us, and in general where will Ukraine go without us?
After all, it will not be able to ensure the reproduction of the economy without our resources and cooperation with us.
Indeed, Ukraine has entered a state of economic catastrophe, as we expected, as we explained to our Ukrainian colleagues.
The Ukrainian republic has become the poorest state in Europe along with Moldova.
Due to the fact that Ukraine has terminated ties with Russia, its losses amount to more than 100 billion dollars.
Nevertheless, this did not prevent American and British political strategists and instructors from forming a 200,000-strong army of thugs and murderers who completely inadequately imagine reality and are an obedient instrument of American interests.
Q: Aren’t there equally obedient American marionettes in Russia? Is it only Ukrainians who were zombified?
A: Yes, and here it should be noted that practically the same thing is happening with the Central Bank, but only on other issues.
Q: Before we move on to the Central Bank, let me clarify. You said that you are working on introducing a new currency. And in what format and with what team?
A: We have been doing this for a long time as a group of scholars. 10 years ago, at the Astana Economic Forum.
We presented the report “Toward sustainable growth through a fair world economic order” with a project for the transition to a new world financial and monetary system.
There, we proposed to reform the IMF system based on the so-called special drawing rights, and on the basis of a modified IMF system – to create a worldwide accounting currency.
By the way, this idea aroused great interest then: our project was recognized as the best international economic project.
But in a practical sense, none of the states, represented by the official monetary authorities, was interested in this project.
Although it was followed by Nursultan Nazarbayev’s publications, which proposed a new currency. If I remember correctly, he offered Altyn.
Q: Altyn? That is interesting.
A: Yes, the publication of his article on this topic even took place in Izvestia.
But the matter did not come to negotiations and political decisions, and to this day it is rather a proposal of experts.
But I am sure that the current situation is forcing us to create new payment-settlement instruments very quickly.
This is because the dollar will practically be impossible to use.
And the ruble, due to the incompetent policy of the Central Bank, which, in fact, acts in the interests of international speculators, cannot find sustainability.
Objectively, the ruble could become a reserve currency along with the yuan and the rupee.
It would be possible to move to a multi-currency system based on national currencies.
But we still need some equivalent for pricing…
Now we are working on the concept of the exchange space of the Eurasian Economic Union, where one of the tasks is the formation of new pricing criteria.
That is, if we want metal prices to be formed not in London, but here in Russia, just like oil prices.
Then this implies the emergence of some other currency.
This is especially true if we want to act not only within the Eurasian Economic Union, and in Eurasia in a broad sense.
Were Eurasia would be at the center of a new world economic order, to which I include China, India, Indochina, Japan, Korea and Iran.
These are large countries, all of which have their own fundamental national interests.
After the current stories with the confiscation of [Russia’s] dollar reserves, I think no country will want to use another country’s currency as a reserve.
So a new tool is needed.
And from my point of view, such a tool, for a start, can become some kind of synthetic settlement currency, which would be built as such an aggregated index.
Q:Can I have some examples? What it is?
A: Well, let’s say, ECU ₠ (European Currency Unit) – there was such an experience in the European Union.
It was built like a basket of currencies.
All countries that participate in the creation of a new accounting currency should be entitled to the presence of their national currency in this basket.
And the common currency is formed as an index, as a weighted average component of these national currencies.
Well, to this we must add, from my point of view, commodities: not only gold, but also oil, and metal, and grain, and water.
Its a sort of commodity harness, which, according to our estimates, should include about 20 goods.
They, in fact, form world price proportions and therefore must participate in the basket for the formation of a new accounting currency.
And an international treaty is needed, which will determine the rules for the circulation of this currency and create an organization like the International Monetary Fund.
By the way, 15 years ago we proposed reforming the IMF, but now it is already obvious that a new monetary financial system will have to be built without the West.
Perhaps someday Europe will join it and the US will also be forced to admit it.
But so far it is clear that we will have to build without them.
For example, on the basis of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization.
However, these are just expert developments, which we will submit to the authorities in the coming month.
Q: And at the level of the government or at the level of the president?
A: We will first send it to the departments that are responsible for these issues. We will hold discussions, develop some kind of common understanding, and then go to the political level.
Russia abandons the ISS space station
Without Russian rocket engines, there is no American/EU space station. No space X. So it really doesn’t matter. My guess is an earlier than planned retirement of the space station for “fiscal reasons” (wink. Wink.)
One of the many reasons why I love living inside of China. Beauty abounds. So sexy cooking food. video 4MB
“The Central Bank continues the policy of pandering to the enemy”
Q:In your Telegram channel, you write that all that remains is to nationalize the Bank of Russia. Why hasn’t it been done yet? For example, there is a point of view that Elvira Nabiullina remains at her post as a screen, but will no longer manages anything serious. Can you refute or confirm this?
A: You know, I don’t want to engage in conspiracy theories.
Q:This is a conspiracy theory?
A: Yes, we can talk about the American Deep State in conspiracy terms.
In this case, conspiracy theories are a very appropriate direction of thought, because in America, behind the screen of presidents and congressmen, there are some deep forces – special services.
And in our Fatherland, everything is simple.
We have a president, a head of state who has built a vertical form of power.
It is absolutely clear in our country how the parliament and the judiciary are formed.
Here, no conspiracy theory, in general, can be applied.
The same goes for the Central Bank.
Let me remind you that, according to the law on the Central Bank, all its property is federal property.
Therefore, the Central Bank is a state structure, there is not the slightest doubt about it.
Q:And they always said that the Central Bank was separated, as if on the sidelines.
A: The Board of Directors of the Central Bank is appointed by the State Duma on the proposal of the President.
I served for many years as its representative on the national banking board, which oversees the activities of the Central Bank.
I can say that there is no doubt that the Central Bank is the state body for regulating monetary circulation, and it is also the main financial regulator in the country.
But there are nuances.
The Constitution stipulates that the Central Bank conducts its policy independently, that is, it is independent of the government.
But this does not mean that it is independent of the state.
This is a state-owned agency.
Here the judicial system in our country is also officially independent of the government.
Therefore, being an independent body, the Central Bank is nevertheless formed as a state regulatory body and must perform the tasks that are necessary for the development of our economy.
To do this, it is necessary to involve the Central Bank in strategic planning.
The classics of monetary circulation stipulates that the main goal of the monetary authorities, that is, the Central Bank, should be to create conditions for maximizing investment.
That is what the banking system should be doing – maximizing investment.
Because the more investments, the more production, the higher the technical level, the lower the costs and the lower the inflation, the more stable the economy.
It is possible to achieve macroeconomic stabilization in the modern economy only on the basis of accelerated scientific and technological progress.
Attempts to target inflation (such a buzzword), which the Central Bank has been practically imitating for the past 10 years, by manipulating the key interest rate against the backdrop of a freely floating ruble, is short-sighted, primitive and counterproductive.
Usually these measures are recommended by the IMF for underdeveloped countries that themselves do not know how to think.
What is inflation targeting in practice?
This is an extremely primitive and internally contradictory set of measures, the application of which drives the economy into a stagflation trap.
The Central Bank threw the ruble into free float, which is absurd from the point of view of inflation targeting in an open economy, where the exchange rate directly affects prices.
And we see how the devaluation of the ruble periodically accelerates prices.
In addition, they reduced monetary policy to only one absolutely primitive tool – the manipulation of the key interest rate.
But the key rate is the percentage at which the Central Bank lends money to the economy and withdraws money from the economy.
Its attempts to suppress inflation by raising the interest rate cannot succeed in today’s economy, because the higher the interest rate, the less credit, the less investment, the lower the technical level and competitiveness.
The decrease in the latter entails the devaluation of the ruble in 3-4 years, after they raise the interest rate, supposedly to fight inflation.
Having let the ruble exchange rate float freely, they, in fact, gave it at the mercy of currency speculators.
The Americans really like these politics, so they praise the leadership of our Central Bank and the Ministry of Finance in every possible way.
After all, what is important to them?
So that everything is tied to the dollar, so that the ruble is a ‘junk’ currency that is unstable.
And this is a paradox, because the amount of foreign exchange reserves of the Russian Federation has recently been 3 times more than the ruble money supply!
This means that the Central Bank could have stabilized the exchange rate at any level. But it didn’t do that.
And who are the speculators to whom the Central Bank actually threw the ruble to be torn to pieces?
The main speculators are American hedge funds, which actually shape the ruble exchange rate by manipulating the market.
But the Central Bank does not notice this, or rather, pretends to not notice.
In order to keep them in the foreign exchange market by raising the interest rate, the Central Bank kills credit and makes our economy dependent on foreign sources of credit, and the foreign exchange financial system dependent on the interests of speculators.
This is in whose interests the Central Bank works, hiding behind cool buzzwords like ‘inflation targeting’, which has shamefully failed in these past years in terms of real price dynamics.
So in our country the weakest point of the entire national security system in general is the Central Bank.
Its leadership is hit by the enemy’s cognitive-weapon, in other words, zombified by it. In fact, our monetary authorities are doing what the enemy needs.
By the way, I proved mathematically and chronologically that the first wave of sanctions was imposed against Russia only after the Central Bank prepared the ground for this.
Namely, it let the ruble exchange rate float freely and announced that it would raise the interest rate, if inflation would start in the country.
As soon as the Central Bank moved to this strange policy, the Americans immediately imposed sanctions.
Their speculators ensured the collapse of the ruble exchange rate, this caused an inflationary wave, and the Central Bank, on the instructions of the IMF, raised the interest rate, which completely paralyzed our economy.
The total damage from this policy today has already reached 50 trillion rubles of non-produced products and about 20 trillion rubles of unfinished investments.
Now you have to add to this the 300 billion dollars invested in foreign assets, which are now frozen – that’s the damage.
Therefore, when we talk about the nationalization of the Central Bank, we are not talking about formally nationalizing it (it has already been nationalized), but about bringing it into a policy of conformity with national interests.
Right now, its policy is contrary to national interests.
And there is no conspiracy here.
We see in whose interests such a policy is pursued.
The Central Bank raised interest rates to 20 percent, giving the bankers a dominant position in the economy.
Possessing the most expensive and scarce resource, money, they determine which enterprise will survive, and which enterprise will die, go bankrupt, and so on.
Rising interest rates are holding the entire Russian economy hostage to a handful of bankers.
This is the first.
Secondly, the leadership of the Central Bank allowed another collapse of the ruble exchange rate and closed the currency exchange.
As a result, today banks have become the main currency speculators: they buy currency for about 90 rubles per dollar, and sell it for 125. The difference settles down for them as excess profit.
Q:But why, in your opinion, does the Central Bank of the Russian Federation pursue a policy in the interests of the enemy?
A:As I said, it does this on the recommendation of the International Monetary Fund.
But its interests are also shared by our large banks, which objectively like this policy, as well as our monetary and financial structures, which are also involved in manipulating the ruble exchange rate.
Therefore, an influential lobby is formed around this policy, which supports this policy based on its own private interests.
These interests run counter to the interests of the country, they are directly opposite to them.
And, if you look at what the Central Bank is doing today, I have no doubts that it continues the policy of actually pandering to the enemy.
It undermines macroeconomic stability by allowing international speculators to manipulate the ruble exchange rate and does not control the foreign exchange position of banks that have become currency speculators.
Although the Central Bank could easily withdraw banks from the foreign exchange market by fixing their foreign exchange position, forbidding banks to buy foreign currency.
And secondly – by raising the interest rate, the Central Bank actually killed investments in the development of the Russian economy.
Which are very much needed right now.
Primarily for import substitution and for the restoration of economic sovereignty.
While our leadership says that we should not be afraid of sanctions, because they create conditions for economic growth, for import substitutions…
Look, about a third of EU imports have left our market. These are huge opportunities for import substitution.
If we assume that our enterprises begin to develop these markets, then we will develop at a rate of 15 percent per year.
But this requires loans.
Import substitution cannot arise without loans.
We need loans to set up production facilities, to master new technologies, to load idle production capacities.
We have long developed such a strategy of advanced development at the Academy of Sciences, and we are promoting it.
But, unfortunately, the insane, from our point of view, policy of the Central Bank has quite specific influential structures which it likes and supports. That is why the policy is so stable.
Veteran diplomat warns against Australia being a US proxy in war against China
Watch “CITIZENS INSIGHT – Veteran Australian diplomat speaks out against war danger – John Lander” on YouTube
Here’s another fine Chinese girl. I think that pretty girls are everywhere, but you know, there are a lot of them inside of China. video 2MB
“It is possible to stabilize the ruble in three days”
Q: Sergey Yuryevich, if this is not conspiracy theory, then why does the Central Bank continue to pursue such a policy? Only based on the interests of lobbyists?
A: To whom is the war, and to whom is the mother dear.
Commercial banks earn a 40% profit on currency speculation.
You bought 90 rubles per dollar – sold it for 125. 35 rubles – nothing is easier!
As a result, we have inflation, imports are becoming more expensive, everyone sees this insane rate.
Prices for all goods are rising, but the banks are making super profits.
Again, a very influential lobby has formed around this policy, and admitting the failure of such a strategy for many people means, in fact, admitting their incompetence and even sabotage.
And speculators with large banks are quite influential structures in our country that influence decision-making.
Q:Well and what, does this information not reach the first person (Putin), is it blocked?
A: When I was an adviser, I communicated this information.
Q:Were you listened to?
A: Yes, there were discussions, discussed at the Economic Council, then it was closed so as not to irritate the officials.
Now I don’t want to comment on it.
We see today that if we do not change the monetary policy, then it will simply be impossible for us to survive in this hybrid war.
We now need to counter economic sanctions with a serious increase in domestic production.
There are production facilities for this, people, raw materials, brains – too, but there is no money.
Right now, the simplest thing that the state can give people is money.
Q:What is your feeling? Is there an understanding at the top?
A: I think that you need to directly address this question to them.
Q:But many people call you almost the Number 1 person in the current situation – a public figure who can save Russia.
A: Thank you for this review. I try my best.
Q: I just want to understand: if before there was no prophet in our Fatherland, now has he appeared? Is this a temporary situation with the Central Bank?
A: It is so protracted, I would say, for 30 years.
If we had carried out a competent monetary policy in accordance with the requirements of the new world economic order, the integral system, we would have developed like China – by 10 percent a year.
There were such possibilities.
And we basically been stomping in the same spot for these past 30 years.
So the point is not even whether they listen or not, you just need to look objectively and see how China and India are developing and how we are developing.
What prevented us from developing in exactly the same way?
Moreover, the control system of the new world economic order, which I describe in my books, is universal.
She worked successfully in Japan before the Americans broke the Japanese economic growth.
And even in Ethiopia, where they also began to form this management model (and achieved growth by several times).
That is, this universal management model of the modern economy, focused on the growth of social welfare through investment in a new technological order, needs to be implemented.
At the same time, of course, the targeted use of money implies a high responsibility.
Throwing money from a helicopter – is not our thing.
Q: It’s not our path.
A: We are talking about targeted credit emission based on modern digital tools with a strict control system focused on investments in new technologies.
We know how to do this, how to minimize the human factor through the introduction of digital technologies, including the digital ruble.
But this is disadvantageous for those who still adhere to the old strategies.
They made a cash cow out of Russia, they sucked out 100 billion dollars from it abroad to offshore companies.But now the Americans have closed offshorization for us. There is a real opportunity, we must use it.
Q: What would you advise people? Now the main query on the Internet search engines is where to invest money in an era of turbulence. What should people do?
A: First of all, do not make sudden movements, I would say that.
In any case, what certainly is not necessary – to run after dollars or euros.
Because we do not know what will happen next with these currencies.
If our system is disconnected from the Western system, then our banks cannot effectively invest dollars and euros anywhere except in currency speculation.
But I hope that our authorities will still curb the foreign exchange market.
In this context, what the banks did, raising the interest rate on foreign currency deposits sharply, turned out to be a clear overkill, which spurred panic.
I think the ruble will stabilize if, of course, speculators are removed from the foreign exchange market and foreign currency is sold only for importers and people who transfer money abroad within reasonable limits to relatives or are going on a business trip in accordance with the regulations.
The rest is to block the channels of currency leakage.
Then our foreign exchange inflow will normalize again.
You know, we have a very positive trade balance.
Mandatory sale of 80% of foreign exchange earnings has been introduced.
If this revenue is sold on the stock exchange, then the amount of currency will be more than what importers need.
We will have a surplus of currency.
This means that the ruble will strengthen, that is, it will return to the old indicators – 80 or even 70 rubles per dollar.
But until the Central Bank removes speculators from the market and allows commercial banks to become such, the ruble exchange rate will not stabilize.
So, unfortunately, the monetary authorities have not yet come to their senses and have not begun to implement the correct policy of macroeconomic stabilization, I can’t give any advice other than investing in gold if possible (especially since the government removed VAT from gold).
There are no other real assets and no safe haven.
Q:So, buy gold?
A: Buy the essentials.
Or invest in real estate, in something reliable.
As for investments in dollars and euros… They have ceased to be a currency for us.
This is no longer a currency, but some obligations of other countries that may or may not be fulfilled.
So we need to look for other possibilities.
But I would like to emphasize once again that with the right policies, we can very quickly stabilize the ruble and even restore its purchasing power.
Q: And in what perspective, after all?
A:It can be done even tomorrow, you understand? The Primakov government and [Viktor] Gerashchenko did it in one week.
Q:Is the government capable of doing this?
A: Of course it can.
To do this, in general, two decisions need to be made: to fix the currency position of commercial banks and introduce the norms for the sale of foreign currency for non-trading operations, to keep the freely convertible foreign exchange market only for trading operations.
That’s all.
This can be written in 15 minutes and announced within a day, introduced within three days – and the ruble will stabilize.
Now the USA is trying to “Strong Arm” Pakastan
After a recently failed NGO backed coup.
Statecraft | Pakistan PM Imran Khan Insists on Foreign Conspiracy With Alleged Threat Letter .
US seek to overthrown Pakistan PM:
Olivia Newton John – Magic (live on the midnight special)
After I left the Navy, but before I was sent a searching, I was in this “in-between” funk. I was between two worlds and perhaps a bit lost. It was a phase that I had to grow though. And I did, don’t you know.
I believe that everyone goes through this period of “void”. Where they feel out of sorts, and without aim, direction, purpose or meaning. For me, it was a new experience, and very uncomfortable.
I was, though events, able to regroup and seek out my next phase in life. We all do. But when you are in this funk, it’s a road and path that is difficult to define and impossible to get help with.
I will tell you that this is the song that was topping the radio tops at that time, and the song that I exercised to the most. I well remember doing arm curls and sit-ups to this song. To you readers it is just an old song. But to me… well, it represents that strange period of time that I went though; a time of great uncertainity and confusion about who I was, and what my purpose in life was.
Give the song a spin…
Blinken says Russia has already seen a ‘strategic defeat’
Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Sunday said Russia has already experienced a “strategic defeat” in its invasion of Ukraine.
“If you step back and look at this, this has already been a dramatic strategic setback for Russia, and I would say a strategic defeat,” Blinken told co-anchor Dana Bash on CNN’s “State of the Union” when asked about additional sanctions the U.S. may impose on Russia.
Blinken said Russia has already failed in the three main goals it had at the start of its invasion of Ukraine.
“They had three aims going into this. One was to subjugate Ukraine to Russia’s will, to take away its sovereignty and independence. The second was to assert Russian power. The third was to divide the west and NATO. On all three fronts, its already lost,” Blinken said.
Actually, those three things were not the Russian objectives. The objectives were all clearly stated by Putin himself.
So either [1] Biden is lying, [2] he is being advised by idiots, or [3] he's confused Ukraine with another nation. -MM
Cinnamon-Raisin Bread Pudding
All that I can say is yum!
Who doesn’t love making bread pudding in the slow cooker, and this Cinnamon-Raisin Bread Pudding is no exception! Butterscotch chips and pecans add an extra-special touch that’s sure to please. It’s fast. It’s easy. It’s tasty. Just why aren’t you making it?
What You’ll Need
3 large eggs
1/2 cup packed light brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1 cup milk
1 cup whipping cream
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 cup butter, melted
1 (1-pound) cinnamon-raisin bread loaf, cut into 1-inch cubes
1/2 cup butterscotch chips (see Note)
1/2 cup chopped pecans, toasted
Sweetened whipped cream (optional)
What to Do
Whisk together first 3 ingredients in a large bowl; stir in milk and next 3 ingredients. Add bread cubes, stirring until moistened. Stir in butterscotch chips and pecans. Pour into a lightly greased 4-quart round slow cooker.
Cover and cook on LOW setting 2 hours or until center is set. Carefully remove slow cooker insert from heat element. Let stand, covered, 30 minutes. Serve pudding warm with whipped cream, if desired.
Notes
For more cinnamon flavor, you can substitute an equal amount of cinnamon chips for the butterscotch chips. Cinnamon chips tend to be a seasonal item — available only during the holiday months — so, if you love ’em, stock up.
20 Facts About The Emerging Global Food Shortage That Should Chill You To The Core
A very alarming global food shortage has already begun, and it is only going to get worse in the months ahead. I realize that this is not good news, but I would encourage you to share the information in this article with everyone that you can. People deserve to understand what is happening, and they deserve an opportunity to get prepared. The pace at which things are changing around the globe right now is absolutely breathtaking, but most people assume that life will just continue to carry on as it normally does. Unfortunately, the truth is that a very real planetary emergency is developing right in front of our eyes. The following are 20 facts about the emerging global food shortage that should chill you to the core…
#1 One of France’s most important government officials is telling us that we should brace ourselves for an “extremely serious” global food crisis…
France’s Foreign Affairs Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said the EU must get to grips with the prospect that the war in Ukraine could prompt an “extremely serious” global food crisis.
#2 Joe Biden recently admitted that food shortages are “going to be real”, and his administration is now openly using the word “famine” to describe what is coming…
The Biden administration is worried Russia’s invasion of Ukraine will cause famine in parts of the world, White House Council of Economic Advisers Chair Cecilia Rouse told CNBC on Friday.
#3 It is being reported that food prices at German supermarkets will soon go up between 20 and 50 percent…
Just days after Germany reported the highest inflation in generation (with February headline CPI soaring at a 7.6% annual pace and blowing away all expectations), giving locals a distinctly unpleasant deja vu feeling even before the Russian invasion of Ukraine broke what few supply chains remained and sent prices even higher into the stratosphere…… on Monday, Germany will take one step toward a return of the dreaded Weimar hyperinflation, when according to the German Retail Association (HDE), consumers should prepare for another wave of price hikes for everyday goods and groceries with Reuters reporting that prices at German retail chains will explode between 20 and 50%
In Spain, the country started experiencing sporadic shortages of different products like eggs, milk and other dairy products almost immediately following the outbreak of the war in Ukraine. In early March, major supermarkets like Mercadona and Makro began rationing sunflower oil.
In Greece, at least four national supermarket chains have started rationing food products like flour and sunflower oil due to critically low supplies caused by the crippled supply chains coming out of Russia and Ukraine.
On Tuesday, BlackRock Inc. President Rob Kapito told an audience in Austin, Texas, hosted by the Texas Independent Producers and Royalty Owners Association, that an entire younger generation is quickly finding out what it means to suffer from shortages, according to Bloomberg.“For the first time, this generation is going to go into a store and not be able to get what they want,” Kapito said. “And we have a very entitled generation that has never had to sacrifice.”
#7 Since this time last year, some fertilizer prices have gone up by as much as 300 percent.
#8 Many farmers in Africa will not be able to afford fertilizer at all this year, and it is being projected that this will reduce agricultural production by an amount capable of feeding “100 million people”…
With prices tripling over the past 18 months, many farmers are considering whether to forgo purchases of fertilizers this year. That leaves a market long touted for its growth potential set to shrink by almost a third, according to Sebastian Nduva, program manager at researcher group AfricaFertilizer.Org.That could potentially curb cereals output by 30 million tons, enough to feed 100 million people, he said.
Russia is a key global player in natural gas, a major input to fertilizer production. Higher gas prices, and supply cuts, will further drive fertilizer prices higher. Russia is one of the biggest exporters of the three major groups of fertilizers (nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium). Physical supply cuts could further inflate fertilizer prices.
#10 In a typical year, Russia and Ukraine collectively account for approximately 30 percent of all global wheat exports.
Armenia, Mongolia, Kazakhstan and Eritrea have imported virtually all of their wheat from Russia and Ukraine and must find new sources. But they are competing against much larger buyers, including Turkey, Egypt, Bangladesh and Iran, which have obtained more than 60 percent of their wheat from the two warring countries.
#13 One Russian official is warning that his nation may soon only export food to “friendly nations”…
A Russian government official has threatened that Russia will limit its vital food exports to only nations it considers “friendly”.Dmitry Medvedev, a senior Russian security official who previously served as the nation’s president, has threatened that Russia may soon cut off the West from food exports.
#15 The death toll from the bird flu in Iowa alone will be pushed beyond 13 million as a result of this latest incident.
#16 Overall, this is what the total national death toll from the bird flu currently looks like: “22 million egg-laying chickens, 1.8 million broiler chickens, 1.9 million pullet and other commercial chickens, and 1.9 million turkeys”.
#17 China’s agricultural minister has announced that the winter wheat harvest in China could be “the worst in history”.
#18 We are being warned that the winter wheat harvest in the United States will be “disastrous” due to severe drought.
#20 The head of the UN World Food program says that what the planet is now facing is unlike anything that we have seen since World War II…
“Ukraine has only compounded a catastrophe on top of a catastrophe,” said David M. Beasley, the executive director of the World Food Program, the United Nations agency that feeds 125 million people a day. “There is no precedent even close to this since World War II.”
Like I said at the beginning of this article, I hope that you will share this information with as many people as possible, because this crisis really is going to affect every man, woman and child on the entire planet.
In my entire lifetime, I have never seen anything like this, and conditions are getting worse with each passing day.
Stomu Yamashta – Go (Full Album)
I came across this album in the discount bin at the local music store in Butler Pennsylvania when I was a Junior / Senior in High School. I think that I bought it for a dollar. Which was a good deal, as at that time a single album of maybe fifteen songs cost $20.
Crazh huh?
Aside from just loving the high quality artwork of the artists eating at a table with bread and wine, the music itself was haunting and melodic. It really stood apart from the funk, soul, rock, and country and western music that i was getting into at that period in my life.
I suggest you all give it a spin…
Stomu Yamashta’s supergroup Go, and their self titled album. This album shows such great musicianship and I wanted to share it with everyone. This album is legendary, and I believe it should be listened to in it’s entirety.
Good news for the world: the United States led Western DNA countries are beginning to feel the pain after bullying, threatening, and looting Russians foreign reserve, bank account, investment, and private assets.
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There are mass protests across Europe against inflation. Germany is just an example of how sanctioning of Putin the great affect food prices:
Paper models are cheap and fun. You pay perhaps a few dollars, and you down load a PDF file. Then you print out the PDF. Once printed, you cut out the patterns and glue or tape together.
62BD6C5C BFF1 442D B7E9 6C649311549A scaled 1
There are all sorts of these operations on the internt. Some a just fun with silly little items, while others are quite serious and very detailed. How about a 440 automotive engine, perhaps?
This operation; AXM Paper Models, specializes in modern and contemporaneous spacecraft. They are serious with scale and detailed drawing and patterns. In this installment, I am just going to provide a gate way to their inexpensive models of Chinese space station components. It’s all pretty nice.
All in all, no matter what the “news” says, you need to keep in mind a few key points…
The world is undergoing a geopolitical realignment.
This alignment is dividing into two separate entities (East and West).
The two sides have a very different view of how the world should be. That should be quite clear by now, and everyone seems to agree on these points. Including the leadership of the two sides.
The West is trying to maintain a uni-polar single world government ruled by the United States. It wants the work to choose sides. You are either freinds or you are enemies. There is no in-between.
The East is trying to maintain a multi-polar world of equals of various unique social structures. They want to strengthen the UN charter, and empower it, and cut out and gut the legacy corruption that was built internally to it.
Some people, as the articles above state, consider a five point plan. WHile others jsut consider the plan to be some kind of “hybrid war”. I argue that a war is a war, irregardless as to what you call it.
But everything, right now, boils down to the purchase of energy and how that purchase comes about. Key to this manifestation is the control of the currency of exchange.
The West is trying to maintain the USD, or an electronic version of it.
The East is trying to use commodity-based currency by labor, materials and products.
Issues about Ukraine or Taiwan are simply the desperate plans of the West in a plan to maintain a uni-polar world. Sure they are important, but nto as important as the “news” would lead you to believe.
Do not get sidetracked from what is REALLY going on.
Keep clear headed. Keep focused. Keep frosty. I believe in you.
.
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.
I remember when I was a little child. Would you believe that I would climb out of my crib and stand on the edge, and then stand there for a moment or two before I fell and landed on my head?
Yeah. Good times.
I was normal. Not an exception.
In this post we will continue with the onslaught of major global changes that are all in full swing RIGHT here and RIGHT now. Whoa! Things are moving hot heavy.
China to restrict visas for US officials
The tit-for-tat move comes after Washington placed similar restrictions on the Chinese, citing “human rights abuses”
China has decided to restrict visas for a number of US officials in response to similar measures introduced by Washington earlier this month over alleged human rights abuses.
"The Chinese side decided to impose retaliatory visa restrictions on certain US officials who spread lies on the issue of human rights, imposed sanctions against China and harmed China's interests," stated Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin on Thursday. Wang said the move was made "to protect the sovereignty, security and development interests of the PRC.
The spokesperson claims that the US used, what he called, the false pretext of human rights issues to [1] interfere in the internal affairs of China, [2] discredit Beijing, and [3] put pressure on Chinese officials. Wang stated that such actions are a serious violation of the basic principles of international law and international relations.
China’s foreign ministry has so far not confirmed which exact officials will fall under these new restrictions, but the spokesperson said that those who invented the “lies” surrounding the issue of human rights and harmed China’s national interests already know who they are themselves.
The announcement comes after The US State Department imposed visa restrictions on Chinese officials who Washington claims are responsible for the intimidation and harassment of human rights activists and dissidents in China and around the world.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken cited the alleged “genocide” of Uighur muslims and repression of dissidents in Hong Kong and Tibet, saying the US …
“rejects efforts by [People’s Republic of China] officials to harass, intimidate, surveil and abduct members of ethnic and religious minority groups, including those who seek safety abroad, and US citizens, who speak out on behalf of these vulnerable populations."
The US urged China to…
“end its ongoing genocide and crimes against humanity in Xinjiang, repressive policies in Tibet, crackdown on fundamental freedoms in Kong Kong,” and other abuses elsewhere.
Do you take ownership, and responsibility for your community? Or, are you going to stand by and do nothing? The future belongs to the unselfish, the members of a community that participate. video 3MB
Singapore appears to embrace the West
Remark by a Singapore friend :
Lee Hsien Loong is that piece of shit who betrayed his father and his siblings by colluding with the enemy — racist UMNO — which gleefully kicked Singapore (the little red dot on the map) out of the Malaysian Federation and caused LKY so much tears and grief!
When LKY was Singapore’s PM, he made it clear to Washington that US troops will never be allowed to make use of Singapore as a military base or a staging post in the event of a war between America and China.
Yet, the spineless HS Loong is now running head over heels to lick Yankee Joe Biden’s boots before the world press! How low and despicable can anybody get?
Poland wants to cut-up Ukraine and sever ties with Russia
Medvedev for more than the past week has leveled consistent criticism that Washington is a “puppeteer” behind modern Poland.
Earlier in the month The Washington Examiner related Medvedev’s words as posted in an essay to social media channels as follows:
The essay, posted on Medvedev's Telegram channel, claimed that Poland and Russia have a long and "common history" that destines them to work together but that the Poles had been led astray by the U.S., "their puppeteers from across the ocean with clear signs of senile insanity."
This had been followed by Russian Ambassador to Poland Sergei Andreev just days ago saying it’s a possibility that Moscow might be forced to shutter its embassy in Warsaw in response to Polish authorities moving to expel 45 Russian diplomats who stand accused of spying, or are at least under suspicion, with the Ukraine war ongoing.
In particular Medvedev’s newest comments take aim at Poland’s reneging on crucial gas contracts…
“In 2020, Warsaw imported up to 10 billion cubic meters of Russian gas, but now it intends to abandon previous contracts. The volume of gas supplies from Russia to Poland this year has already decreased by 13% compared to last year,” Medvedev explained. “Reverse supplies of the same Russian gas have been proposed as a replacement from Germany, as well as imports of LNG from Qatar, Norway and the United States. Economic benefits have fallen victim to bad political decisions.”
They keep promising us that things will start getting better. When will that actually happen? Once winter was over, the supply chain crisis was supposed to be on the way out. Instead, as you will see below, even CNN is being forced to admit that it is getting even worse. The war in Ukraine and a new wave of COVID lockdowns in China are being blamed, but those are only two pieces of the puzzle. The truth is that we are now in the third year of this epic supply chain crisis, and there is no end in sight.
‘You go to a store, you don’t have bread. We’re like a third world country. They don’t have things. You go to buy something at Tiffany, you go to buy something at a hardware store — high, low — they don’t have product.’
Of course Trump is 100 percent correct.
Throughout our entire economy, there are shortages, delays and backlogs.
Trump himself has been personally affected by this. In fact, in the interview he appeared to refer to a wait of “nine months” for something that he had ordered…
‘They say — even me, when I order things, like for furnishings, for a building or something — they say it’s going to take nine months to get it,’ Trump said. ‘Used to be like, same day service.’
Prior to 2020, most Americans never would have imagined that this sort of supply chain crisis could be possible.
But here we are.
And according to CNN, experts are openly admitting that our supply chain problems are now “getting worse”…
Problems with global supply chains were supposed to be getting better by now. Instead, experts say they are getting worse.Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which cut off exports from Ukraine and put Russian businesses under sanction, has set off a series of new supply-chain bottlenecks. So has a surge in Covid cases in China, which has led to temporary lockdowns in parts of the country.
So when will things finally start getting better?
When the war in Ukraine ends?
I wouldn’t hold my breath on that one.
When the COVID pandemic is over?
If you are waiting for that to happen, you are going to be waiting for an awfully long time.
And what is going to happen if another major “black swan event” comes along?
We are so vulnerable right now, and we should have never allowed ourselves to become so deeply dependent on other nations.
For example, once upon a time the U.S. had a dominant position in global computer chip manufacturing. But now the vast majority of our chips come from overseas, and the war in Ukraine is threatening to take the chip shortage to an entirely new level…
Ukraine and Russia don’t produce computer chips used by global automakers. But Ukraine is the world’s leading source of neon, a gas needed for the lasers used in the chip-making process. While some chipmakers have stockpiled neon ahead of the fighting, there are concerns about the long-term availability of the gas.“People expected the semiconductor shortage to continue. But nobody predicted Ukraine,” said Bernard Swiecki, director of research at the Center for Automotive Research, a Michigan think tank.
The chip shortage is already affecting almost every industry in America to at least a certain degree, and now we are being told that it could get a lot worse in the months ahead.
That is really bad news.
As shortages intensify, that is going to make our raging inflation crisis even more severe as well. There is way too much money chasing way too few goods and services, and that will remain the case for the foreseeable future.
Meanwhile, economists with Bloomberg are warning that the average American should budget an extra $5,200 this year for higher prices – or an extra $433 every month.Economists Andrew Husby and Anna Wong write that households can expect to pay thousands more in 2022 for the same basket of goods and services they used last year.
And with each passing month, money will just get tighter and tighter for hard working American families. In fact, one survey has found that 20 percent of all U.S. workers are now completely running out of money between paychecks…
Now, workers are running out of money faster, Salary Finance found.Roughly 20% of employees regularly run out of money between paychecks, up from 15% last year, according to the survey of more than 3,000 working adults in February.
Making ends meet is going to become increasingly painful, and the shortages and the price hikes are just going to intensify in the months ahead.
Some of the things that we will soon see will be absolutely unprecedented. For example, one of Steve Quayle’s readers says that the price of eggs is about to double at her local store…
I know I sent an email out to you both in regard to the warnings I was given by several different store managers. Well I have another one. Yesterday the store manager at Price Less Foods told me that the price of eggs will be doubling and there will be a massive shortage of eggs. I am lucky to live in an area where I can purchase fresh eggs from several different people who have chickens, not everyone can.
We are being hit by so many things at once, and the American people are becoming quite restless.
Just this week, a new survey found that just 33 percent of Americans approve of Biden’s handling of the economy.
In April 2021, 52 percent of Americans approved of his handling of the economy.
So much has changed over the past year, and a lot of people out there think that things can’t possibly get any worse than they are right now.
But they will, because the truth is that we are only in the very early chapters of this nightmare.
Vicki says…
The shooting war has been won by Russia.The economic war is reaching the same ending, at a bit slower pace.Not that any of this is apparent in the US news reporting.
China in Africa
Business, factories, labor and economy are far better than selling F-35 fighter jets and bombs to African dictators. Don’t you think? video 81MB
Sanctionistas go shopping for rubles
2022-03-26
As the situation stands today:
1. Russia has announced that since the US and the EU have defaulted on their US dollar and euro obligations, respectively, by freezing Russian reserves, Russia will now only sell natural gas for rubles.
2. There is no other source of sufficient quantities of natural gas available; thus, the EU has no choice but to continue importing natural gas from Russia.
3. The EU has to keep the gas flowing or it will be unable to make it through next winter without shutting down all industrial production or letting the housing stock go unheated.
How will the EU get the required quantities of rubles? Good question!
The following comprehensive analysis (credit: “adventurist”) answers it pretty well.
So cute, but true. Show some appreciation for all sides and help others as only you know how. Let others laugh and make fun. You are unique. Be the best that you can be and always be the Rufus. video 8MB
Lots of startling changes yesterday. Russia announced, apparently, a gold-backed or gold-related ruble. I haven’t had time to think about all the implications. Information is hard to come by, because the US blocks Russian news in order to control the Ukraine narrative and war propaganda. The Bretton Woods system collapsed when the West seized Russian central bank reserves, and it seems that the gold ruble adds to the end of the US dollar as world reserve currency under Bretton Woods. The implications could be vast, and the Washington idiots might very well wish they had left the Russians alone. I told them over and over that Russia had had enough of them, but the arrogant idiots didn’t listen. The sanctions, it seems, have brought about regime change in the West, reducing its power and influence.
Another big development is that apparently Ukraine has agreed to be a neutral country, no NATO, no foreign bases, no nuclear weapons, and accepts eastern Ukraine gong its own way. We will see if US puppet Zelensky is permitted to sign what Ukraine has agreed. Meanwhile, Russia has stopped its assault on Kiev, and is focused on clearing the remaining Nazi militias out of the Donbass region. I think the low-intelligence governments in Poland and Romania will get the message, and the US missile bases in those countries will be closed before too long.
These are major developments with many large implications. The World Economic Forum’s “reset” has likely been replaced by a Russian-Chinese reset.
The US ran on arrogance for so long that it has hollowed itself out. The Western world’s fate is unclear. It seems no one in intellectual, business, or political leadership positions believes in freedom and civil liberty. The US certainly is busy at work cancelling itself:
Present generations of Americans will not recognize their country. Rivers, mountains, streets, schools, public spaces, even towns are losing their names and acquiring new politically correct names. Normally, this is what outside conquerors do to a country, but we are doing it to ourselves. A country that destroys its own monuments and history is lost.
My conclusion is that the days of the West are over. The West is drowning in accumulated mistakes and degeneracy. The moral fiber in the leadership ranks is gone
MM describes a local BBQ / Seafood place
Good place for some cheap food. You can eat your fill for under $15 USD. I go though the show and tell here. Enjoy video 110MB
Ukraine: US Biowarfare Labs Developed Disease Delivering Drones (DDD?)
It’s not just used in China, apparently.
Documents and other evidence from US funded laboratories in Ukraine suggest that Kiev was planning to use drones to deploy pathogens against the Donbass as well as Russia, the Russian Defense Ministry said on Wednesday.
Moscow has also identified specific US officials involved in the development of bioweapons in Ukraine.
Of particular interest to Russian investigators are “documents testifying to the plans of the Kiev regime to use unmanned aerial vehicles capable of carrying and spraying deadly substances,” military spokesman Major General Igor Konashenkov said during a briefing.
Facts in the possession of the Russian military “prove that the Kiev regime was seriously considering the possibility of using biological weapons against the population of the Donbass and the Russian Federation,” Konashenkov added.
Russia has also identified “specific officials who took part in the creation of components of biological weapons,” the general added. He did not name any of them, however, saying only they were “the heads of divisions and employees of the US Department of Defense, as well as its main contractors.”
Een US biolab met een vreemde verzameling, Rusisch DNA.Drones om muggen die besmet zijn los te laten.https://t.co/iEcQu7TrhG— Petr@ (@Nomediocre_P) March 1, 2022
These campaigns were “directly related to the son of the current US president, Hunter Biden,” Konashenkov added, citing investigations in the Western media. Last week, the Daily Mail published emails showing Biden’s ties to the Pentagon contractor Metabiota, which specialized in researching pandemic causing pathogens that could be used as bioweapons.
Among other things, 🧵reports Ukraine documents on drones transporting biolab substances:"Regarding biological weapons laboratories, the documents that reveal the plans of the Ukrainian regime to use drones to transport and disperse substances are particularly interesting."— Pipers Creek (@piperscreekway) March 30, 2022
Hunter Biden’s involvement in the US funding of Ukrainian biolabs was brought up by Lieutenant General Igor Kirillov, commander of the Russian Nuclear, Biological and Chemical Protection Forces, in a briefing last Thursday.
The results of the further analysis of documents and other evidence obtained from Ukrainian biolabs will be shared in more detail “in the near future at a special briefing,” Konashenkov promised.
Highly Pathogenic Avian Flu Detected In Five More US States
An outbreak of the deadly strain of bird flu is quickly spreading across the U.S. The risk to humans is low, but bird flu could wreak havoc in the nation’s poultry industry ahead of Easter.
The United States Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) announced on Wednesday that highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) was detected in five new states.
A non-commercial, mixed-species backyard flock (non-poultry) in Berkshire County, Massachusetts;
A non-commercial, mixed-species backyard flock (non-poultry) in Johnson County, Wyoming;
A commercial poultry flock in Johnston County, North Carolina;
A non-commercial, backyard chicken flock (non-poultry) in Franklin County, Ohio;
And a backyard chicken flock (poultry) in Kidder County, North Dakota.
According to Bloomberg, USDA data shows the bird flu has been found in 23 states in flocks totaling about 17 million birds up and down Mid-Atlantic and Northeast and across the Midwest.
Russia’s independent sociological research organization Levada Center’s poll conducted between March 24-30 showed that Russian public’s support for the actions of their president rose by more than 10% compared to the figures in January or February. It was 69% in January and 71% in February.
It happened to me also. But I did elict a ton load of sympathy from all the attractive chicks in the jewlery store when I returned the ring. Don’t you know.
Regime-ology is a new field of study so the practitioners are still working out the tools and methods for interpreting regime activity. Unlike Kremlinology, on which regime-ology is modeled, the focus is not on a hierarchical structure. The Soviet empire was run by a vertical organization that operated like a corporation. The American empire is a horizontal organization modeled on the Mafia. It is a collection of elite gangster organizations jostling for power within the elite.
With Kremlinology, events could be interpreted as either a signal from the party elite or representing internal party changes. If someone disappeared from the public eye, it meant he had fallen out of favor with the party leaders. If party media reported something hanky about a party member, it was assumed to have been done with the permission of the party leaders to prepare the public for a change. The target was being shaped as a scoundrel so he could be denounced.
Regime-ology is a bit more complicated. If someone disappears for a while, it could mean nothing more than he is having a blood transfusion at one of Google’s secret rejuvenation centers. On the other hand, disparaging information about an oligarch in regime media could simply mean that one mob family is unhappy with another mob family and this is how they are communicating it. Using the media promotes the interests of the gangster class and delivers the message.
That is probably how to interpret the sudden interest by regime media in the famous Hunter Biden laptop from two years ago. For those not interested, this was the laptop that President Biden’s drug-addled son abandoned at a Delaware computer shop, which contained a trove of embarrassing information about the family. In addition to thousands of naked selfies and pics of Hunter smoking crack and meth with prostitutes, it had details of the Biden family criminal dealings.
Regime media dutifully covered this up by declaring it Russian propaganda and going as far as to imply it was a Trump campaign dirty trick. The New York Post, which was the first to report the laptop story, came under withering assault from the Silicon Valley crime families until they dropped the story. Facebook started banning people from their site for mentioning the story. Like the people air brushed from official photos in the Soviet Union, this story was erased from public view.
This is nothing new. The power of regime media is in what they can make the public ignore and this was a typical example. They do this by framing the issue as good guys versus bad guys, which is catnip for the American moralizer. Then they declare the thing to be ignored as the black hat and let the moralizers do the rest. Anyone mentioning the laptop on-line or even in private conversation was declared a crazy QAnon conspiracy theorist by others in their circle.
For no reason at all, the laptop story is back. First the intel community told the New York Times to admit they lied two years ago about it being fake. They did not mention that it was the intel community that lied, of course. Then the Washington Post was told to write about the Biden family’s criminal dealings that were on the laptop. The Post is the official organ of the intelligence community. You will recall that the Post was instrumental in the Russian collusion hoax in 2016.
Even more interesting, the scandal ridden outlet CNN has been given the green light to unleash their nutters on the story. This is a story posted by Dean Obeidallah, a former circus clown and far-left conspiracy theorist. In addition to being a conspiracy hub, CNN is also a popular landing spot for disgraced members of the intel community. Andrew McCabe and Josh Campbell landed there after being forced out of their jobs. The FBI uses CNN to control the Antifa/BLM community.
Taken together, this new interest in the Hunter Biden laptop story suggests the intel community is unhappy with the Biden crime family. It could be a warning shot about the recent rantings by Biden in Poland. This has created huge problems for the foreign policy gangsters running the war with Russia. They have been forced to spend their time telling European leaders that Biden should be ignored. This is not a good look for the Global American Empire in the middle of a crisis.
One way to look at this is that they are preparing the way for Biden to be removed from office this year. The plan was for him to pretend to be in charge through the midterm then hand things off to strong diverse female. Team Biden has been making plans for him to run again in 2024, while he is clearly in rapid decline. The Hunter Biden story could be the leverage to force Team Biden to stick to the deal. He takes the blame for the midterms, retires for health reasons and the laptop disappears.
On the other hand, this could be the start of a plot to hang the Ukraine debacle on Biden and his crooked son. The regime media is being told to sell the Ukraine war as a smashing success, but that can only go on for another month. Reality in the ground says the Russians are slowly grinding up the Ukrainian army. In a month, there will be little of it left in the east. Whether it is by force or by negotiations, the Russians will get the terms they laid out last month.
Then there are the economic sanctions. This is proving to be a disaster for the Global American Empire. The Germans just cut a deal with the Russians to buy gas in rubles, even through both sides are pretending otherwise. The Germans will buy the gas in Euros from Gazprom, which will then convert them immediately into rubles at the agreed upon exchange rate. This is de facto acceptance by Germany that they will buy gas from Russia in rubles. The rest of Europe will now follow.
What we could be seeing here is Afghanistan 2.0. The military industrial complex, the intel community and the foreign policy establishment opposed the withdraw from Afghanistan, but team Biden insisted on it. They let Afghanistan collapse and then let Team Biden take the blame for it. Notice that no one actually responsible in the military, intelligence of foreign policy realm was fired. We could be seeing the same thing afoot with the looming Ukraine disaster.
Again, regime-ology is a new field. We do not know what we do not know, so we are left to our imaginations. Maybe Hunter Biden is so mobbed up that even the thoroughly corrupt FBI has to acknowledge it. Maybe this is a feint to distract from something much worse that is in the wind. All we can know is that Hunter Biden will never be charged and we will never know the truth about the Biden family corruption. In a gangster state like America, those things are handled internally.
Margaret Flowers: You’re listening to Clearing the FOG, speaking truth to expose the forces of greed, with Margaret Flowers. And now I turn to my guest, Michael Hudson. Michael is the president of the Institute for the Study of Long-term, Economic Trends, ISLET. He’s a Wall Street financial analyst and a distinguished research professor of Economics at the University of Missouri, in Kansas City. He’s also the author of numerous books and recently updated his book, “Super Imperialism: The economic strategy of American Empire.” Thank you for taking time to speak with me today, Michael.
Michael Hudson: Well, thanks for having me on Margaret.
MF: You’ve talked a lot and written a lot about dollar hegemony and what’s happening now with de-dollarization. Can you start out by explaining to my listeners what dollar hegemony is and how it has benefited the wealthy class in the United States?
MH: Dollar hegemony seems to be the position that has just ended as of this week very abruptly. Dollar hegemony was when America’s war in Vietnam and the military spending of the 1960s and 70s drove the United States off gold. The entire US balance of payments deficit was military spending, and it began to run down the gold supply. So, in 1971, President Nixon took the dollar off gold. Well, everybody thought America has been controlling the world economy since World War I by having most of the gold and by being the creditor to the world. And they thought what is going to happen now that the United States is running a deficit, instead of being a creditor.
Well, what happened was that, as I’ve described in Super Imperialism, when the United States went off gold, foreign central banks didn’t have anything to buy with their dollars that were flowing into their countries – again, mainly from the US military deficit but also from the investment takeovers. And they found that these dollars came in, the only thing they could do would be to recycle them to the United States. And what do central banks hold? They don’t buy property, usually, back then they didn’t. They buy Treasury bonds. And so, the United States would be spending dollars abroad and foreign central banks didn’t really have anything to do but send it right back to buy treasury bonds to finance not only the balance of payments deficit, but also the budget deficit that was largely military in character. So, dollar hegemony was the system where foreign central banks keep their monetary and international savings reserves in dollars and the dollars are used to finance the military bases around the world, almost eight hundred military bases surrounding them. So, basically central banks have to keep their savings by weaponizing them, by militarizing them, by lending them to the United States, to keep spending abroad.
This gave America a free ride. Imagine if you went to the grocery store and you just paid by giving them an IOU. And then the next week you want to buy more groceries and you give them another IOU. And they say, wait a minute, you have an IOU before and you say, well just use the IOU to pay the milk company that delivers, or the farmers that deliver. You can use this as your money and just you’ll as a customer, keep writing IOU’s and you never have to pay anything because your IOU is other people’s money. Well, that’s what dollar hegemony was, and it was a free ride. And it all ended last Wednesday when the United States grabbed Russia’s reserves having grabbed Afghanistan’s foreign reserves and Venezuela’s foreign reserves and those of other countries.
And all of a sudden, this means that other countries can no longer safely hold their reserves by sending their money back, depositing them in US banks or buying US Treasury Securities, or having other US investments because they could simply be grabbed as happened to Russia. So, all of a sudden this last week, you’re seeing the world economy fracture into two parts, a dollarized part and other countries that do not follow the neoliberal policies that the United States insists that its allies follow. We’re seeing the birth of a new dual World economy.
MF: Wow, there’s a lot to unpack there. So, are we seeing then other countries starting to disinvest in US dollars? You’ve written about how the treasury bonds that these central banks buy up have been basically funding our domestic economy. Are they starting to shed those bonds or what’s happening?
MH: No, they haven’t been funding our domestic economy because the Federal Reserve can create its own money to fund the domestic economy. We don’t need to borrow from foreign countries to fund our economy. We can print it ourselves. What the dollar hegemony does is fund the balance of payments deficit. It funds our spending in other economies, our spending abroad. It doesn’t help our economy, but it does help us get a free ride from other countries. The more dollars we spend in making a military base, all these military expenditures get turned over to the local Central Bank that turns and sends them back to the Federal Reserve or deposits them in US bank accounts. So, it’s the international free ride we get, not a domestic free ride.
MF: Okay. So are we seeing countries now, since this past week, starting to move their assets back to repatriate them because I know for Afghanistan, a big problem is that most of the government’s money was outside of the country and that has been used as a weapon against Afghanistan by seizing those assets and not allowing the Central Bank of Afghanistan to have them. Are we starting to see other countries repatriating their money and gold?
MH: Well, figures are only available at the end of each month, reported at the end of each month and then there’s a two-month delay, so we don’t have any idea what’s happening. But I’ve been talking to people all over the world in the last few days and the consensus is that everybody is now deciding the only place, certainly if you’re China or Russia or Kazakhstan or you’re in the Eurasian orbit, South Asia, East Asia, you realize, wait a minute, if all we have to do is something like Allende did in Chile or all we have to do is refuse to sell off our industry to American investors and they can treat us like they’ve treated Venezuela. So you can imagine that everybody’s watching this and there’s an expectation that as a result of the war in Ukraine, that’s really America’s NATO war, that this is going to create a balance-of-payments crisis throughout the whole Global South as their energy prices go up, oil prices soar, food prices are going to soar and this is going to make it impossible for them to pay their foreign debts unless they go without food and energy. Obviously, this is a political crisis. That is, the only result can be to split the world in two.
MF: You’ve been writing about this happening. You’ve written that the de-dollarization has been happening relatively quickly in recent years. So, are we now we’re now just seeing the end result of that? I mean, people said it could happen quickly. Is that exactly what we’re seeing right now?
MH: Yes, and nobody expected that it would happen this quickly. Nobody expected that it would be the United States itself that ends de-dollarization. People thought that, well, most of the sales of my book describing this super imperialism were bought by the Defense Department and they looked at it as a how -to-do-it book. And I was brought down to the White House and the Defense Department to explain to them how imperialism works.
I had expected that maybe China, Russia, and other countries would say, “We don’t want to give America free rides.” And yet it was the United States itself that broke all of this, by grabbing Russia’s reserves right after it grabbed Afghanistan’s and Venezuela’s reserves.
Nothing like this has happened in modern history, even in the 19th century wars. In the Crimean War in the mid-19th century, Russia, England and Germany, everybody kept paying the debts to the countries they were fighting against because the idea is that debts were sacrosanct. And now, all of a sudden, not only are debts are not sacrosanct, but countries can just grab foreign savings. I guess the problem began after the Shah of Iran fell and the United States grabbed Iran’s money and refused to let it pay its bond holders and started the whole war against Iran for trying to take control of its own oil resources. So, all of a sudden, the United States grabbing this has ended what everybody thought was an immutable morality.
MF: So that was in 1979 that the Shah fell in Iran and, and over the last number of decades, the United States has been increasingly using economic warfare against countries through what people call sanctions, but they’re actually, illegal unilateral coercive measures, has that been kind of driving and setting the stage for what is happening today?
MH: Yes, the International Monetary Fund has operated, basically, as an arm of the Defense Department. It’s been bailing out dictatorships, bailing out Ukraine, lending money to countries whose client oligarchies America wants to support, and not lending any money to countries that America doesn’t want to support, like Venezuela. So, its job is basically to promote neoliberal policies, and to insist that other countries balance their payments by undergoing a class war against labor.
The conditionality that the IMF insists upon for foreign borrowing is that countries devalue their currency and lower their wage rates and pass anti-labor legislation. Well, when you lower the currency’s exchange rate, what do you really lower? Food prices are set in dollars internationally, raw materials prices are, and prices for machinery and many goods. The only economic variable devalued is domestic labor (and domestic rents). The IMF has been using this kind of junk-economic free-trade policy as a means of keeping the wage rates in the Global South down. You could say it’s a financialization of an ultimately military conflict to promote neoliberal ideology.
MF: And you mentioned the lowering wages and things like that. And this is actually done because it’s favorable to US investors and US business, right? I mean, the World Bank actually has an index, the cost of doing business index, that helps inform large corporations about laws that countries pass that make them more favorable to businesses to come in.
MH: It’s even worse than that. The central aim of the World Bank is to prevent other countries from growing their own food. That is the prime directive. It will only make loans for countries to earn foreign currency and it has insisted ever since about 1950 that countries that borrow from it must shift their agriculture to plantation export crops to grow tropical crops that cannot be grown in the United States for environmental and weather reasons. And the countries must not grow their own food and must not undertake Land Reform or small family-based farming. So, it insisted on foreign-owned agribusiness in large plantation agriculture. And what that means is that countries that have borrowed for agricultural loans have not been loans to produce their own food. It’s been to compete with each other producing tropical export crops while being increasingly dependent on the United States for their food supplies, and for their grain. And that’s part of the corner they painted them into that is going to be creating such a world famine this summer.
MF: I definitely want to get into that as well as the energy situation and the climate crisis, but before we do that, I just want you to comment quickly on how this has also been driving countries to seek alternatives. The United States removed Russia from the SWIFT system, which is the international mechanism for doing trading and finance. It threatened China if they didn’t denounce what was happening with Russia and Ukraine to kick them out of the SWIFT system. So, this hubris of the United States is also kind of driving countries away to seek other alternatives, right?
MH: That’s the whole point. Well, fortunately they’ve been threatening to kick Russia out of SWIFT for the last two years. And so, Russia and China have been putting in place an alternative system. So, they almost pretty smoothly are shifting over to using their own currency with each other instead of using the dollar. And that’s part of what has ended the dollar standard and ended dollar hegemony.
If the way you have dollar hegemony is to have other countries deposit your money in your banks and handle their oil trade with each other by financing it in dollars, but all of a sudden you grab all their dollars and you don’t let them use US banks to pay for their oil and their trade with each other, then they’re going to shift to a different system. And that’s exactly what has ended the dollar hegemony, as you just pointed out.
MF: So, let’s get a little bit into where things are headed with this new situation, a rapidly changing situation. It may be hard to say what’s happening, but you talked about a food crisis this summer. Can you talk a little bit about more about that and does the conflict in Ukraine feed into that?
MH: Well, as President Putin and Lavrov have said, the fighting in Ukraine isn’t really over Ukraine at all. It’s a fight over what shape the world will take and whether the world will be unipolar or, as it now appears, multipolar. The US, for the last year before it began to escalate attacks on the Russian-speaking Ukraine, was trying to block Europe from, and especially Germany, from buying Russia gas and oil.
There are three pillars of American foreign policy that base American power. The first pillar is the oil industry. That’s the most powerful industry next to banking in the United States. And United States throughout the 20th century, along with Britain and France, have controlled the world oil trade.
That has benefited the United States in two ways. Number one, we are a major oil exporter because we have a big oil and gas industry. But, number two, our US companies control the foreign oil trade. So that if some country, say Chile or Venezuela, does something that the United States doesn’t like, like growing their own food or pursuing a socialist policy, the United States can simply cut off their oil and sanction them. Without oil, they don’t have energy to drive the cars or power their factories or drive their GDP.
So, the American war in Ukraine is really a war against Germany. Russia is not the enemy. Germany and Europe are the enemy and the United States made it very clear. This is a war to lock in our allies so they cannot trade with Russia. They cannot buy Russian oil. They must be dependent on American oil for which they will have to pay three or four times as much. They will have to be dependent on American liquefied natural gas for fertilizer. If they don’t buy American gas for fertilizer, and we don’t let them buy from Russia, then they cannot put fertilizer on the land and the crop yield will fall by about 50% without fertilizer.
So, the, the war in Ukraine was to make Russia look so bad by defending itself against the attacks by the Ukrainian right wing in the Russian-speaking areas that the US has said, look at how bad Russia is. You’ve got to forego buying oil and gas or grain or titanium or palladium or anything else from Russia.
And so, the effect of this war has been to lock the NATO countries into dependency on the United States because the great fear of the United States in the last few years is that as America is de-industrializing, these countries are looking to the part of the world that’s growing, China, Central Asia, Russia, South Asia. And the United States feared losing control of its satellites mainly in NATO, but also in South America. So, it sanctioned and blocked their ability to buy non-US energy. They’re blocking their ability to buy non-US food, blocking their ability to invest in or use their surplus to get prosperous by investing in China, Russia, or Eurasia.
So, this is basically a war of America to lock in its allies. Well, the result is that oil prices, now that you can’t get Russian oil, are going to go way, way up, and that is going to create a crisis for many of the Global South countries that are oil deficit countries. The fertilizer companies in Germany have already been closing down because they say, without Russian gas, we make our fertilizer out of gas, and if we can’t get Russian gas, we can’t produce the fertilizer that. So, world fertilizer prices are going way up.
Russia is the largest grain exporter. And now that grain exports are being blocked by the sanctions, the question is, what are North Africa and the Near East going to do that have been depending very largely on Russian grain exports? Their food prices are going to go way up.
You can imagine just from seeing what’s happening in the United States when gas prices go up here, food prices go up here, not only does it put a squeeze on individual family budgets, but throughout the world, it puts the squeeze on the balance of payments of other countries. And so, they’re desperate. How are they going to pay the higher prices unless they borrow even more money from US banks? And of course, that’s another arm of US policy. The US banks hope to make a killing in making loans at rising interest rates to third world countries.
And of course, arms exports. NATO in the last few days has agreed to make American arms exports to increase their purchase of arms. So, the stock market has been soaring in the last few days. They say this, the world famine, the world crisis is a bonanza for Wall Street. The oil company stocks are going way up, the military, industrial stocks, Boeing Raytheon way up, the bank stocks. This is America’s great power grab, and it realizes, when it can create a crisis and tell the Global South or poor countries your money or your life. This is how most of the great property grabs and conquests have been made throughout history.
MF: And just this week at the NATO meetings, President Biden basically said food prices are going to go up in the United States and Europe as a result of what’s happening. And that’s just the price we have to pay.
MH: Well, what he should have said, this is the price they have to pay us. That’s how the stock market took it. When he said this is the price we have to pay, this is the price consumers have to pay to the American oil companies, to the American Agricultural food distribution companies. It’s the price other countries have to pay to the United States.
This is to say to the rest of the world, you know, we’ve got you completely, I don’t know how to put it, what phrase to use, but you don’t have any choice, your money or your life. We’ve got you trapped. And he’s crowing over the fact that this resulting inflation is exactly what was intended by the war in Ukraine that has led to the isolation of Russia and other countries following a non-US policy.
MF: But more and more countries in Latin America, in Africa, are turning to countries like China for partnerships, for investment. Do you see a point coming where there is just this real shunning of the United States and turning to these alternatives?
MH: That is exactly what’s going to happen. What’s going to happen is, China’s investment is very different from US investment. US and European investment will give financial investments to countries at interest that the whole country is liable for to repay. China’s investment is taking place by means of the Belt and Road Initiative and direct capital investment in developing ports, infrastructure and railways. And instead of having a general financial claim against these countries, China has an equity claim, a property claim backed by the physical means of production that it puts in place.
Well, this summer, when countries say they cannot afford to pay their foreign debts, the United States has as a backup plan, okay, let’s write down everybody’s debts, government debts, to each other so that governments can pay the private bond holders and the banks. And they’re going to try to, essentially the US will forgive its debts so that Latin America can pay Chase Manhattan Bank and Citibank and the bondholders. And China is going to say, wait a minute, we don’t have any financial claim against these countries. We didn’t lend them dollars. We didn’t lend them our foreign currency at all. We built assets there and the assets are still in place. There’s no problem there.
So, the question is, whose debts are going to be written down to whom? And all of this is going to lead to, as you can imagine, destabilization. The United States is probably going to try to push regime change on countries that try to trade with China as it’s already threatened China with. And the more sanctions the United States imposes on Latin America, Africa and the Near East and South Asia, they will be creating a crisis, but the crisis will lead the rest of the world to treat the United States in the same way that Russia and China are treating the United States as just the enemy threatening the entire world with their neoliberal power grab. So, the United States in a way is isolating itself from the rest of the world by declaring war on it.
MF: And I think that’s not going to be good for us here at home in the United States. You’ve talked about the way that the current economy has been structured. You’ve also raised a lot of concern about the climate crisis. And of course, we have the recent IPCC report basically saying that we’re way behind in taking action to even adapt to the climate crisis or the warming that we’re going to be experiencing. So now in this new situation, how do you see that impacting the climate crisis?
MH: Here’s what Biden said, in effect: “We’re way behind in the pace of global warming.” American policy is based on increasing and accelerating global warming. That has been a central point of US policy ever since I joined the Hudson Institute in the 1970s. The United States is opposing any attempt at trying to prevent global warming because you can imagine what would happen if other countries go to solar energy and renewable energy. That will reduce their dependency on the US oil industry. If you look at American policy, it is being run basically by the oil industry to establish dependence of other countries on oil. Then obviously the last thing the United States is ever going to do is prevent global warming. So, if we’re behind in global warming, it’s that the sea level is not rising fast enough. The world is not getting hot fast enough not to lock in foreign reliance on America’s oil.
And I think you’ve seen what in the last few weeks, what President Biden has said, the fuel of the future is coal and oil. Right now, he’s in Poland. I think he’s suggesting that Polish coal, which is one of its major products, should be used in Europe instead of Russian gas. So, American foreign policy is based on the accelerated use of coal and oil, not renewable energy.
Now, that’s why I think the environmental movement should become an anti-war movement and the movement against this neoliberal dollar hegemony. You’re not going to avoid global warming unless you stop the dominance of American foreign policy by the oil industry.
MF: I think we’ve been seeing that shift over the last few years where the climate movement is starting to understand we can’t address this crisis without addressing the US military. So just in the last minutes that I have with you, what do you have to say to the listeners about where this is going for us materially as people living in the United States, a country that has been showing itself to be a failing state? The Covid-19 pandemic, I think, has really exposed that in so many ways, the financial insecurity that people are facing, housing, education, health care, all of the failures of the government to meet the basic needs of the people. How do you think that’s going to change with this new situation?
MH: Well, the United States has been getting a free ride internationally. So, much of the prosperity here has been the result of our not having to pay for our own military spending, not having to pay for many of the foreign investments that we’ve got that supply the US with low priced foreign raw materials. All that is being ended by President Biden’s policy, which, of course, the Republicans support just as much as the Democrats.
So, there’s really a political movement that is ending up impoverishing, I’d say, 99% of Americans. While the Federal Reserve saves the stock and bond market for the 1%, there’s going to be a huge squeeze that’s going to force, I think, most American families into debt leading to probably a close down of a lot of businesses just as you had the Covid crisis closing down a lot of businesses. You’re going to have the rising fuel prices, the rising food prices utterly force families into default and an inability to be self-supporting without either running into debt or selling their homes and becoming renters.
MF: And that’s a whole other problem with the buying up of the housing in the United States by these investment corporations so that they can then control those rent prices. It sounds like difficult days are ahead.
MH: Yes. Well, and nobody can really ,it’s really Uncharted Territory because nobody thought there was an alternative. The economic view was as Margaret Thatcher said, “There is no alternative.” Well, now, America’s forced the world to find its own alternative.
MF: Well, thank you for sharing that wisdom with me. I encourage people to continue to follow you and read your books and follow your writing. Where’s the best place to find you?
MH: I have a website: Michael-Hudson.com. And I’m on Patreon. I post my articles on the website and on Patreon.
MF: Well, thank you so much for taking time to speak with me today, and for the important work that you’re doing.
MH: Well, I’m awfully glad we had to talk about this, Margaret.
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Crushed ideas and hopes
It happens to the best made plans of mice and men.
It is not going to happen.
The ISS Space Station
A highly anticipated change of command ceremony between the United States and Russia has taken place on the International Space Station.
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Despite mounting tensions between the two countries, NASA has repeatedly reaffirmed that it continues to work closely with Russian space agency Roscosmos.
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Eyes have been on the ISS since war broke out in Ukraine but tensions on the earth did not reach into space.
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Russian cosmonaut Anton Shkaplerov in his handover address affirmed those on the space station were “one crew”.
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“I think ISS is like (a) symbol of the friendship and cooperations and like symbol of future of exploration of space,” he said.
The Media Is The Number One Cause Of War Since 1898
In 1895, a 32-year old entrepreneur in New York City bought a failing newspaper and hatched a bold plan to turn it around.
The newspaper industry was cutthroat, especially in New York. There were at least 16 other daily newspapers in circulation, and there was fierce competition for readers’ attention.
But the young entrepreneur had an idea: thrill readers with tales of death, destruction, and brutality in the Cuban War for Independence against Spain.
Cuba was a Spanish colony at the time, but revolutionary forces had been fighting for independence for several years. Few people in the US really cared about Cuba. But the new publisher vowed to make them care.
His name was William Randolph Hearst. And his paper, the New York Morning Journal, constantly thrust Cuba in his readers’ faces.
Their stories were full-blown sensationalism. By early 1898, Hearst’s Journal was printing outright fabrications of atrocities committed by Spanish troops in Cuba, in an effort to whip up public support for the United States to join the war.
The government played along. While ‘war crimes’ did not yet exist, US President William McKinley escalated tensions by accusing Spain of atrocities, saying in a speech that “the civilized code of warfare has been disregarded.”
Then, on February 15, 1898, a US naval vessel known as the Maine exploded and sank in Havana Harbor off the coast of Cuba. 268 sailors died.
Several investigations were conducted, and to this day there is still nothing conclusive explaining how the explosion took place. It’s entirely possible that the explosion was caused by the Maine’s on-board fuel.
But Hearst (along with many other papers) jumped to publish stories claiming the Maine was sunk by a Spanish torpedo, and they continued agitating for the US to join the war.
Thanks to the effective media propaganda, most Americans were in favor of war. The newspapers had cast Spain as the evil aggressor, and its commanding general, Valeriano Weyler, was routinely called a “butcher”.
The newspapers told Americans that the fight against Spain was a necessary one… that it was a matter of moral righteousness— a crusade of good against evil.
They finally got their wish in April 1898 when the Spanish-American War broke out.
There are a lot of similarities with the media today.
The level of trust in the media is already laughably low. There was the obvious Hunter Biden laptop coverup, which most mainstream media refused to even mention during the US Presidential election in 2020.
Then there were the outright lies in the Russia collusion hoax, for which the New York Times was even awarded the ‘esteemed’ Pulitzer Prize.
(Coincidentally, the Pulitzer is named after Joseph Pulitzer, a newspaper publisher who also fabricated lies in the late 1800s and agitated for war against Spain.)
Then there’s the case of Biden appointee Tracy Stone-Manning, who was nominated last year to head up the federal government’s Bureau of Land Management.
Stone-Manning is a former eco-terrorist who participated in violent campaigns against forestry workers in her youth.
This isn’t some wild conspiracy theory; Stone-Manning has admitted to wrongdoing, including sending violent threats to the US federal Forestry Service. She ultimately avoided prosecution and saved herself by ratting out her associates.
But a recent Freedom of Information Act request revealed that NBC News colluded with the Biden Administration to go easy on Tracy Stone-Manning during her confirmation hearing, and whitewash over her terrorist history.
This is pretty incredible…
Think about the media circus a few years ago when US Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh was accused of sexually assaulting someone when he was a teenager.
There was no promise from NBC News (and other mainstream propagandists) to go easy on the allegations against Justice Kavanaugh that went back 30+ years.
Instead, they smeared his name and deemed him guilty.
It’s also noteworthy that, during Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearing, several protestors stormed the Capital and physically accosted United States Senators in order to prevent the Constitutional voting process from occurring.
Yet NBC News declined to label those protestors ‘domestic terrorists’, or to claim that democracy was ‘under attack’ because they had criminally trespassed into the Capitol.
This is the same media which acted as the government mouthpiece during COVID, justifying the public health dictatorship that took over the world.
This is the same media which watched cities burn in 2020 and said the protests were “mostly peaceful”.
And, yes, this is the same media that has routinely pushed America into war. It wasn’t just Spain in 1898.
The United States joined the Vietnam War based on a Gulf of Tonkin skirmish with the North Vietnamese which never actually occurred. But the Johnson administration and intelligence sources said it happened, so the media reported it as fact.
Then there were those supposed Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq, which the media dutifully reported without question and helped push the US into war back in 2003.
Today many in the media are calling for an escalation against Russia. They want a no-fly zone. They cheer the President’s dementia-ridden foreign policy and praise him for impromptu comments that only escalate tensions.
Most of all, they force feed the war in Ukraine, 24/7, as if that’s supposed to be our #1 priority.
Forget about the economy, rising prices, and supply chain dysfunction… and forget about conflict anywhere else in the world. We’re only allowed to care about Ukraine and Putin.
Historically speaking, it is not far-fetched to think the media could help push the world into a major war… and one with potential nuclear ramifications.
It’s not inevitable, but we are closer today than any other time since at least 1962— and certainly closer than even a week ago.
That’s why it is more important than ever to be prepared for whatever the world has in store for us.
And that means crafting a rock solid Plan B to make sure you can respond from a position of strength, whatever crisis comes next.
Washington’s top diplomat in Taipei attacks Beijing for “destabilizing” the region and threatening “all democracies”
The head of the de facto US embassy in Taiwan has accused China of “provocative” military moves near the island. Sandra Oudkirk claimed that Beijing has undermined regional peace while vowing to “strengthen” security ties with Taipei.
Oudkirk – who directs the American Institute in Taiwan, the unofficial US embassy – castigated Beijing during a speech at the local American Chamber of Commerce, on Wednesday, singling out its policies toward Taipei.
“The [People’s Republic of China’s] increasingly aggressive behavior is nowhere more evident than in relation to Taiwan, where the PRC has continued to exert military, diplomatic, and economic pressure,” she said, adding that “provocative military activities” near Taiwan are “destabilizing, risk miscalculation, and undermine regional peace and stability.”
Continued efforts by Beijing to choke Taiwan’s international space, pressure its friends, and interfere in Taiwan’s democratic system represent a threat to all democracies.
With Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen in attendance at the event, Oudkirk went on to voice “deep concerns” over “China’s alignment with Russia” following Moscow’s attack on Ukraine, appearing to draw parallels between the conflict in Eastern Europe and tensions between Taiwan and the mainland.
“China is already on the wrong side of history when it comes to Ukraine and the aggression being committed by Russia,” she said, echoing previous comments from Secretary of State Antony Blinken.
Though US officials have pressured Beijing to sever its ties with Russia and join a punitive sanctions campaign, China has so far refused to budge, maintaining a neutral stance toward the conflict while urging for diplomacy and an end to the fighting.
Oudkirk said Washington would continue to “strengthen Taiwan’s role as a regional security partner” – part of the Joe Biden administration’s increased outreach to the island. Late last year, the president declared that the US is “committed” to defending Taiwan from any potential Chinese attack, in what appeared to be a break with a long-standing policy of ‘strategic ambiguity.’ White House officials soon walked back his comments, however.
The United States has also approved a number of arms sales to Taiwan in recent months, and continues to sail warships through the contested Taiwan Strait on a near-monthly basis despite repeated warnings from Beijing to stay out of its “internal affairs.” China considers Taiwan to be its sovereign territory, though the island has long been self-governed and refers to itself as the Republic of China.
Founded as a non-profit corporation, the American Institute in Taiwan now serves as the informal US embassy and has received most of its funding from the State Department since the United States ended diplomatic recognition of Taipei with the Taiwan Relations Act of 1979. Currently, only a handful of nations recognize Taiwan as a sovereign country, among them Guatemala, Honduras, Haiti and the Vatican City.
How America is viewed by the rest of the world
pay attention. This is what the next 100 years will be like… video 6MB
TRAPPED!!! AMERICAN AND UK MILITARY “ADVISORS”, PLUS FRANCE INTEL OPERATIVES WITH AZOV NAZIS IN MARIUPOL – NOW TRAPPED BY RUSSIAN FORCES
Shot down. Americans, UK, and French “advisors” were killed. The Help was brought down by an American supplied anti-aircraft missile.
At present, whatever remains of Ukrainian Army AZOV Regiment (the Actual NAZI Regiment) is holed-up inside the vast Azovstal Industrial Area in Mariupol, Ukraine. The group totaling 20 — of US andUK military advisors as well as several Ukrainian SBU (secret police) advisors—is holed up, together with Azov fighters.
Despite being offered several prior chances to evacuate Mariupol, they chose to stay. Now, they are too late to evacuate as Russian forces pummel that area to De-Nazify it.
Overnight, Ukraine sent two military helicopters to Mariupol to try to rescue the trapped US, UK, and Ukrainian Secret Police persons. Both those helicopters landed without incident, but when they took off, both were SHOT DOWN.
One of those helicopters had 17 aboard, 15 of whom died when the chopper was hit and crashed into the earth. The two survivors have been taken prisoner by Russian forces.
The second helicopter was hit several kilometers off the coast of Mariupol, and fell into the Sea of Azov. Rescue craft were sent, but no word yet on finding anything or anyone in the water.
One of the Mi-8 helicopters was shot down by . . . . . . . An American STINGER anti-aircraft, man-launched missile, supplied to Ukraine by the United States and later captured from the Ukrainian forces by Russian forces.
MORE!
From the helicopter that crashed into the earth, COVERT INTEL SOURCES now tell me, the bodies of two French Intelligence operatives, allegedly with DGSE credentials, were also said to have been recovered.
If true, this would explain French President Macron’s desperate attempts to have a French-led evacuation out of Mariupol last week! Macron’s requests to Putin were declined. If French Intelligence Agents were embedded with AZOV NAZI troops, then this is a massive PR problem for both France and for NATO.
HAL TURNER EDITORIAL OPINION
At some point, the presence of foreign military “Advisors” and foreign Intelligence “operatives” is going to transform this from a Ukraine-Russia conflict, to a NATO-Russia conflict. Once that threshold is officially crossed (and it is solely up to Russia to decide) then war is upon us all.
A bunch of US and British military men being present right on the front line would confirm not only how intricately involved with Azov the NATO countries are, but the fact that Ukraine is a US puppet state being used to wage a proxy war on Russia.
.
Grandma’s Favorite Cabbage Rolls
Cabbage Rolls
No one knows good old-fashioned home cooking like Grandma, which is why this recipe for cabbage rolls is one of the best there is, period. Made with ground beef, onion, white rice and seasonings, Grandma’s Favorite Cabbage Rolls are sure to make your mouth water.
Top ’em off with a homemade sauce of tomato, brown sugar, lemon juice and Worcestershire sauce and you’ll have yourself a winning dinner the whole family will love.
Even the pickiest of eaters will gobble up these delicious old fashioned cabbage rolls! Plus, this recipe is a favorite of Grandma’s because it only costs a few dollars to make. It’s one of our favorite budget-friendly recipes, and we think it will be one of yours, too.
Core head of cabbage by cutting around the core and removing as much as possible. Boil large pot of water (fill pot only 1/4 or 1/2 full — when boiling put cabbage into water and cover with top. Leave cabbage in water and every so often as leaves loosen up remove leaves and place in collander in sink to cool — when all leaves are removed turn off water and throw away — (if you have any little pieces of cabbage left at end of core, you can save them to place on top of leaves if you would like.
In a large bowl mix cooked rice, ground meat, onion, garlic, raw eggs 1/2 can tomato sauce and oregano and a little pinch of kosher salt. Mix well with your hands –.
Spray 9 X 13 inch pans with Pam. Take cabbage leaves and fill with 1/4 to 1/2 cup meat mixture (depending on how big hour leaves are). Place with seam side down in pans — Turn oven on 350 degrees. Make up sauce (depending on how many rolls you get from your cabbage and how much sauce you want,you can use between 4 to 6 cans of diced or stewed tomatoes for your sauce), if you like cabbage rolls to have more sauce, you can add a little tomato juice to your sauce. Pour sauce over top of rolls. Sprinkle with kosher salt over top of rolls.
Bake uncovered to 2 1/2 hours or until browned on top, you may need to add a tomato juice to them once in a while so they do not dry out –.
Freezes well.
Vaccine Schedule for the United States
Interesting.
Covid Vaccine schedule for American children
Fine Chinese Girl
Here’s yet another fine Chinese woman. They are all over China, don’t you know. Of course, if you believe the Western narrative, China has no girls or women. They have been all killed as the result of the one-baby policy. LOL. Only an idiot would believe that bullshit. What bullshit are you believing out of the American / UK “news” today? Eh? Video 2MB
China warns of ‘worst consequences’ over Taiwan
Beijing says nothing will stand in the way of “national reunification” with Taipei
China has warned that no foreign powers or militaries will succeed in interfering with Taiwan, cautioning that any country attempting to offer military support to Taipei will face “consequences.”
“The Taiwan question is a purely internal affair of China,” Defense Ministry spokesman Senior Colonel Tan Kefei told reporters on Friday.
“No one and no force can stop” Beijing from a “complete national reunification” with Taiwan, Tan said, adding that anyone who tries to do so, “will suffer the worst consequences in the end.”
Tan said the Chinese military stood ready to thwart any outside interference on the matter. His statement came days after Australia’s defense minister, Peter Dutton, argued that it would be “inconceivable” for Canberra not to join with the US should Washington decide to defend Taiwan.
Kiev claims NATO will defend arms convoys to Ukraine against Russia
Dutton later softened his language, saying on Sunday that the Australian response would be based on “our country’s best interests.”
Last month, Australia accused a Chinese warship of pointing a laser at one of its surveillance planes. Beijing said the allegation was “false.”
While the government in Beijing insists Taiwan is part of China’s territory, the US has typically taken a non-committal position, unofficially supporting Taiwanese independence and supplying weapons to Taipei, while at the same time acknowledging China’s claim to the island.
Here’s the official U.S. narrative as echoed by the mainstream media: Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was unprovoked, Putin’s three-day blitzkrieg of Kyiv has failed, Russian forces are bogged down and valiant Ukrainian troops are putting up a powerful defense and regaining lost ground with the help of weapons from NATO.
In this version, President Zelenskyy is the new Churchill rallying patriots against an evil dictator. All of that is either entirely or mostly false.
Here’s the real story: Russia’s invasion is the end result of 14 years of provocation by the West, including repeated declarations that Ukraine will join NATO and a U.S.-backed coup d’état in 2014 that displaced a pro-Russian president.
Russia never planned a blitzkrieg on Kyiv. That’s a Western invention intended to make Putin look like a failure. In fact, Russia is slowly and methodically taking territory in the south and east of Ukraine in order to control the seacoasts, eliminate pro-fascist elements in Mariupol and establish pro-Russian autonomous zones in Donbas.
1/ Big Arrow War—a primer. For all those scratching their heads in confusion, or dusting off their dress uniforms for the Ukrainian victory parade in Kiev, over the news about Russia’s “strategic shift”, you might want to re-familiarize yourself with basic military concepts.2/ Maneuver warfare is a good place to start. Understand Russia started its “special military operation” with a severe manpower deficit—200,000 attackers to some 600,000 defenders (or more). Classic attritional conflict was never an option. Russian victory required maneuver.
3/ Maneuver war is more psychological than physical and focuses more on the operational than on the tactical level. Maneuver is relational movement—how you deploy and move your forces in relation to your opponent. Russian maneuver in the first phase of its operation support this.4/ The Russians needed to shape the battlefield to their advantage. In order to do this, they needed to control how Ukraine employed it’s numerically superior forces, while distributing their own smaller combat power to best accomplish this objective.5/ Land Bridge. Strategically, to facilitate the ability to maneuver between the southern, central, and northern fronts, Russia needed to secure a land bridge between Crimea and Russia. The seizure of the coastal city of Mariupol was critical to this effort. Russia has accomplished this task.6/ Control. While this complex operation unfolded, Russia needed to keep Ukraine from maneuvering its numerically superior forces in a manner that disrupted the Mariupol operation. This entailed the use of several strategic supporting operations—feints, fixing operations, and deep attack.7/ Feint warfare. The concept of a feint is simple—a military force either is seen as preparing to attack a given location, or actually conducts an attack, for the purpose of deceiving an opponent into committing resources in response to the perceived or actual actions.8/ Example of use. The use of the feint played a major role in Desert Storm, where Marine Amphibious forces threatened the Kuwaiti coast, forcing Iraq to defend against an attack that never came, and where the 1st Cavalry Division actually attacked Wadi Al Batin to pin down the Republican Guard.9/ Ukraine use of a feint. The Russians made extensive use of the feint in Ukraine, with Amphibious forces off Odessa freezing Ukrainian forces there, and a major feint attack toward Kiev compelling Ukraine to reinforce their forces there. Ukraine was never able to reinforce their forces in the east.10/ Fixing operations were also critical. Ukraine had assembled some 60,000-100,000 troops in the east, opposite Donbas. Russia carried out a broad fixing attack designed to keep these forces fully engaged and unable to maneuver in respect to other Russian operations.11/ History. During Desert Storm, two Marine Divisions were ordered to carry out similar fixing attacks against Iraqi forces deployed along the Kuwaiti-Saudi border, tying down significant numbers of men and material that could not be used to counter the main US attack out west.12/ Pinned Down. The Russian fixing attack pinned the main Ukrainian concentration of forces in the east, and drove them away from Mariupol, which was invested and reduced. Supporting operations out of Crimea against Kherson expanded the Russian land bridge. This phase is now complete.13/ Strategic Deep Attacks. Russia also engaged in a campaign of strategic deep attack designed to disrupt and destroy Ukrainian logistics, command & control, and air power and long-range fire support. Ukraine is running out of fuel and ammo, cannot coordinate maneuver, and has no meaningful Air Force.14/ Redeployments. Russia is redeploying some of its premier units from where they had been engaged in feint operations in northern Kiev to where they can support the next phase of the operation, namely the liberation of the Donbas and the destruction of the main Ukrainian force in the east.15/ This is classic maneuver warfare. Russia will now hold Ukraine in the north and south while its main forces, reinforced by the northern units, Marines, and forces freed up by the capture of Mariupol, seek to envelope and destroy 60,000 Ukrainian forces in the east.16/ This is Big Arrow War at its finest, something Americans used to know but forgot in the deserts and mountains of Afghanistan and Iraq. It also explains how 200,000 Russians have been able to defeat 600,000 Ukrainians. Thus ends the primer on maneuver warfare, Russian style.
Rufus Kind action
When the time comes, what are you going to do? Be a spectator, or take action. Your actions determine your sentience. Service-to-yourself, or service-for-others. And please don’t be a NPC service-to-another. Your actions, in this life, are a reflection of who you are. It’s binary. White or black. There is no gray area. video 3MB
Chinese community in action
This would never happen in the United States. In the USA, most people whould be inside their cars watching on as spectators. Maybe taking videos. With some slamming on their horns making noises. video 3MB
Rufus Immediate action
You don’t know when there will be a calling, but it will happen. Are your ready for it? Or will you pretend that nothing is going on? Will you sit by passively and allow others to become service-to-others sentience, while you are firmly and affixed as a service-to-self selfish, alone, greedy and “independent” asshole? video 9MB
How a Rufus Community Operates
Everyone in the community works together as one organism. If they “feel” something is wrong, they talk to others, they investigate, and they get help. In this case, we have gas station attendents, bus drivers, and construction workers working with the polcie to prevent a child abduction. video 14MB
Rufus reminder
When the world is treating others unkindly, it is YOUR RESPONSIBILITY to reset things. Do not wait for others to take action. Do not wait for the police, fire or medical care to come. Do not wait for others, or watch while doing nothing. You were not born to be a spectator. You were born to be a participant. So act the part. God damn it! video 13MB
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Scene From By Dawns Early Light – HBO – Nuclear War – World War 3 Movie
An end of the world movie that involves nuclear launches. This is a 30-minute segment, and it is chilling how much it matches what is going on RIGHT NOW.
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.
The United States is poised to hit the most horrific economic collapse in history. It will be stunning and absolute. This video discusses that reality. Buckle up.
All of it. From the educational system, to society, to economic, Geo-political, economic, in very easy and clear terms. It’s easy to understand. It makes sense, and it’s probably the best description ever as to the horror that is unfolding before our very eyes today.
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.
" ...the idiots running Finland... seem to have chosen the moment before the fall of the US Empire to join up with NATO, presumably in order to enjoy the descent. Its like ski jumping for politicians."
-MoA commenter on the decision of the Findland Leadership to join NATO after Russia used military-technical measures to secure it's borders from NATO
When I was a young boy growing up inside the United States in the 1960s it was a different time, and a different place. People all worked, and felt good about themselves. Families were almost all single-earner housholds, and everyone had hpe for the future. Sure, it was in the midst of the cold war, but we all trusted our government, and believed in our leaders. We viewed our lives as being special and exceptional and righeous. We would eat good and healthy meals with meats and fresh vegitables daily. The father, as the head of the family would sit at the head of the table. We participated in sports, and games, and we watched television shows that reflected out hopes and dreams for the future. Here is a fine example. You don’t have to watch the entire episode, perhaps maybe the first ten minutes, but you should all get a big kick out of this episode of “Voyage to the bottom of the sea”.
Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea S02E13 The Monster from Outer Space
It was pretty much standard fare for me and my siblings. My brother and I would watch these shows while we played with our erector sets, our chemistry sets, and toy guns. Maybe we too would be a hero and fight those pesky communists in the jungles of far away Vietnam. Oh, you know, we needed to do it. For democracy™ don’t you know. My mom spent most of her free time in the kitchen or the laundry room. She was always washing, cleaning or cooking. She was a machine! I only wish that I could tell her now, today, how much I appreciated what she did, and how her actions really influenced my early years in school. In the early 1960s we had a station wagon. It’s sort of like a low-ceiling mini-van, for those of you who were unaware. Us kids would love to sit in the flat back. We could spread out and stretch our legs back there. It probably would have also made a great place to make out with our (ten years later) girl friends. Alas, they went out of fashion and style. For most of my elementary school years I had this terrible crush on this really thin girl named Nancy P. I thought that she was beautiful, but I was so shy and every time I tried to talk to her I froze up. My sister didn’t help either, always constantly berating me, and embarrassing me when I started to talk to the girls in school. But times change, we age, and grow and experience life. I can positively say that the life I have led, and the experiences that I have had, bore absolutely no resemblence to the news, predictions, and movies of that time and place. And with that in mind, please remember that what you read, and experience today in the media “news” probably has very little resemblance to the actual reality that will influence your life in your future. Never the less, let’s go over some articles during this most signifigant and historical time…
MF: You’ve talked a lot and written a lot about dollar hegemony and what’s happening now with de-dollarization. Can you start out by explaining to my listeners what dollar hegemony is and how it has benefited the wealthy class in the United States?
MH: Dollar hegemony seems to be the position that has just ended as of this week very abruptly.
Dollar hegemony was when America’s war in Vietnam and the military spending of the 1960s and 70s drove the United States off gold. The entire US balance of payments deficit was military spending, and it began to run down the gold supply. So, in 1971, President Nixon took the dollar off gold.
Well, everybody thought America has been controlling the world economy since World War I by having most of the gold and by being the creditor to the world. And they thought what is going to happen now that the United States is running a deficit, instead of being a creditor.
Well, what happened was that, as I’ve described in Super Imperialism, when the United States went off gold, foreign central banks didn’t have anything to buy with their dollars that were flowing into their countries – again, mainly from the US military deficit but also from the investment takeovers.
And they found that these dollars came in, the only thing they could do would be to recycle them to the United States.
And what do central banks hold? They don’t buy property, usually, back then they didn’t. They buy Treasury bonds. And so, the United States would be spending dollars abroad and foreign central banks didn’t really have anything to do but send it right back to buy treasury bonds to finance not only the balance of payments deficit, but also the budget deficit that was largely military in character.
So, dollar hegemony was the system where foreign central banks keep their monetary and international savings reserves in dollars and the dollars are used to finance the military bases around the world, almost eight hundred military bases surrounding them.
So, basically central banks have to keep their savings by weaponizing them, by militarizing them, by lending them to the United States, to keep spending abroad.
This gave America a free ride.
Imagine if you went to the grocery store and you just paid by giving them an IOU. And then the next week you want to buy more groceries and you give them another IOU. And they say, wait a minute, you have an IOU before and you say, well just use the IOU to pay the milk company that delivers, or the farmers that deliver.
You can use this as your money and just you’ll as a customer, keep writing IOU’s and you never have to pay anything because your IOU is other people’s money.
Well, that’s what dollar hegemony was, and it was a free ride.
And it all ended last Wednesday when the United States grabbed Russia’s reserves having grabbed Afghanistan’s foreign reserves and Venezuela’s foreign reserves and those of other countries as well.
And all of a sudden, this means that other countries can no longer safely hold their reserves by sending their money back, depositing them in US banks or buying US Treasury Securities, or having other US investments because they could simply be grabbed as happened to Russia.
So, all of a sudden this last week, you’re seeing the world economy fracture into two parts, a dollarized part…
…and other countries that do not follow the neoliberal policies that the United States insists that its allies follow.
We’re seeing the birth of a new dual World economy.
MF: Wow, there’s a lot to unpack there. So, are we seeing then other countries starting to disinvest in US dollars? You’ve written about how the treasury bonds that these central banks buy up have been basically funding our domestic economy. Are they starting to shed those bonds or what’s happening?
MH: No, they haven’t been funding our domestic economy because the Federal Reserve can create its own money to fund the domestic economy. We don’t need to borrow from foreign countries to fund our economy. We can print it ourselves.
What the dollar hegemony does is fund the balance of payments deficit.
It funds our spending in other economies, our spending abroad.
It doesn’t help our economy, but it does help us get a free ride from other countries.
The more dollars we spend in making a military base, all these military expenditures get turned over to the local Central Bank that turns and sends them back to the Federal Reserve or deposits them in US bank accounts.
So, it’s the international free ride we get, not a domestic free ride.
Growing up though the 1960s and 1970s was a tale of (mostly) good eating. I must admit, however, that my mother tended to over rely on canned foods, and often used prepackaged mixes to make quick and easy meals for us kids. For sloppy joes, my mother would use a can of sloppy joe mix, and that was my sole experience with home-made sloppy joe sandwiches. Then, one day, I tried some made “from scratch” at a friends house. And, I have to tell you all, things haven’t been the same since. Give this recipe a try and see what you think. Homestyle Sloppy Joes
This classic all-American favorite tastes so much better when made with your own fresh ingredients. This homemade or homestyle Sloppy Joes are sink-your-teeth into ’em good!
What You’ll Need
2 to 2-1/2 pounds ground beef
1 onion, chopped
1 green bell pepper, chopped
2 (15-ounce) cans tomato sauce
2 tablespoons brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
6 sandwich rolls or hamburger buns, split, buttered, and toasted
What to Do
In a large skillet over medium-high heat, brown ground beef, onion, and green bell pepper 7 to 9 minutes, or until no pink remains in beef; drain off excess liquid.
Add remaining ingredients except sandwich rolls; mix well. Reduce heat to low and simmer 8 to 10 minutes, or until heated through, stirring occasionally. Serve sandwich-style spooned into buns.
This month will decide world politics for next 30+ years
What happens here (and how it happens) will determine the fate of Russia, the Ukraine, Europe, and U.S. global military hegemony (to include on the Pacific Rim) for decades to come.
If Russia is able to complete its Donbass mission by the end of April as I have predicted, then Uncle Sam’s Ukraine project is basically over—we’ll have to find another stick to poke in Russia’s side, and to keep our military-industrial lobby in the bonbons.
When I was growing up I lived in a small town of East Brady on the Allegheny river in Western Pennsylvania. It was a tiny town with perhaps 6000 residents. When I was in fifth grade I used to go forth and hike in the woods and along the railroad tracks. There, I would discover old trash dumps from a hundred years ago. And well, being young kids, we would go and dig in those dumps searching for old bottles to clean and collect. The most prized were whittle-marked bitters. A prized treasure. In the single ravine in the town was a viaduct, and at the bottom of that ravine was this old boarded up building. It was the size of a small house, and painted an off yellow. It’s painted letters were faded, but still readable. It was an old blacksmiths shop. And of course, being kids we would wiggle our way inside that old decrept structure to scrounge around for treasures and curiosities. Inside the walls were covered with one hundred year old newspapers, placards and advertisements. There were some old moldy leather pistol hosters on the walls, as well as a bunch of big crock-pots. Dust and stacks of old news papers lay everywhere. Oh, sure we hand picked a few “treasures”, at that time we knew it was wrong, but you see, we felt that we (collectors of old bottles) appreciated the treasures that we found. Not the actual owners of the objects. Of course, we learned over time that this was wrong. But maybe we were the exception. After all, look at who is running the United States and the rest of the West today. They obviously are unable to tell right from wrong…
Ukraine Bioweapons labs
Interesting. Now, the official U.S. semantics have changed. All references to the bio-labs in Ukraine has been revised.
The initial spin was firm denial that the labs produced “bioweapons” (i.e. they were public health laboratories).
That has now been corrected and updated with an additional qualifier (“offensive”):
Pentagon official: “I can say to you unequivocally there are no offensive biologic weapons in the Ukraine laboratories that the United States has been involved with.” US Defence Department $200 million program since 2005 for 44 labs in Ukraine. USA says... .
Speaking of the bioweapons labs, look what was found by the Russians…
(both were shown on the Russian MOD slides a couple of days ago). You cannot patent an idea, but you can patent an implementation. However, as soon as you implement something like the above two, you are possibly in violation of the various international treaties. Mosquitoes carrying “smallpox / aids / coronavirus” franken-viruses… You know, now that the United States is openly advancing war against Russia and China in every way except in open kenetic fighting, what do you think would happen if Asia decides to put an end once and for all to the horrible out-of-control United States monster?
Submarine 667-A Navaga scale model
Submarine 667-A Navaga scale model The model is made in the scale of 50:1, with internally illuminated compartments, and breakdown view, like all previous submarine projects. Building the model took two years by 6 people, part by part (nose, aft), collection of information and photographs took about 4 months more. The model is very large, it is 2,700 mm long. It was therefore decided to make it from two parts. Otherwise, it would be impossible neither to take it out of the room, nor to transport it. The body is made of laminated fiberglass. The materials used ranged from plastic and Plexiglas to metal, paper, and (new) sewer pipes. Next, you will find many photos and little text Figures of sailors were made of sets of pilots and airfield staff made by various companies in the scale of 48:1. They show all the flaws and shortcomings, but it is sometimes useful for work. Right in the model, one can fail to see them. The model was finished in 2013. Some “boxmakers” could see the aft part of the submarine at the Championship of Russia in 2013 at the Crocus Expo in Moscow. 0 ad15f cde0a782 orig 1 . 0 ad160 3392ecb6 orig . 0 ad162 9997c804 orig . 0 ad165 344cc3d4 orig . 0 ad16d bc8ca460 orig . 0 ad16e 57dd6e30 orig . 0 ad16f 4b9b7a23 orig . 0 ad170 98655d84 orig . 0 ad171 b63c725c orig . 0 ad172 9f7d1b69 orig . 0 ad173 88aad9bf orig . 0 ad174 e25110bf orig . 0 ad175 d4c5c166 orig . 0 ad176 7ae24345 orig . 0 ad177 96b17b4d orig . 0000 1q . 0 ad179 115b2a9c orig . 0 ad17a e992068e orig . 0 ad17b ca910974 orig . 0 ad17c 9c40ba3b orig . 0 ad17d 80e9de4c orig . 0 ad15e bd365315 orig . 0 ad17e 3960a8f7 orig . 0 ad17f 8258ac23 orig . 0 ad180 72c39f5c orig . 1111111a . 0 ad182 6d83ac47 orig . 0 ad183 db74b838 orig . 0 ad184 74f667c0 orig . 0 ad185 61e1fba1 orig . 0 ad186 6c3e70eb orig . 0 ad187 1ad34524 orig . 0 ad188 873144a7 orig . 0 ad189 409b681a orig
All this stuff about submarines…
It appears to be a subconscious theme running though MM this 4APR22. usually when MM picks up on these subconscious patterns it means that something is going on… …. be advised.
Day 36 of the Russian SMO in the Ukraine – a look at Ukrainian military
Map on April first Today, I want to comment on a topic I did not address yet: the quality of the Ukrainian armed forces. Over night, two Ukrainian helicopters flying at very low altitude and high speed flew across the Russian Ukrainian border, and in only six minutes of flight time found themselves next to a fuel storage facility near the Russian city of Belgorod. They both fired, one missed, but the second one hit perfectly and the entire fuel storage facility ignited. Not a big deal, the fire has been contained, but very embarrassing nonetheless 🙁 Another case: the night before yesterday a group of 5 Ukrainian helicopters took off from Nikolaev, flew 7 meters above the waves and landed in Mariupol. Their mission was to evacuate the leadership of the Azov force still hiding inside the Azovstal industrial facility. After they took off, two helicopters were shot down, but another three flew away, with a possible 3 helicopter ditching in the waters off the coast (unclear at this time). Why do I consider these two events very telling? Because it shows that the Ukrainian soldiers have A LOT of VERY REAL courage. Not only that, in both of these operations, a great deal of careful planning went into the preparations of these missions. So they are not only courageous, they are SMART. Yes, the Ukie Volkssturm is a joke, but not the entire Ukrainian military and most definitely not the Nazis of the Azov “battalion” (it is not really a battalion, but rather a regiment or a small brigade, but spread out in key sectors of the Ukrainian defenses). Why is that so important to realize? Because a HUGE battle is preparing in the Donbass. Quick reminder: While nobody knows the true size of the Ukrainian force surrounded in the Donbass, most observers place that force at about 60-80 thousand men. They are VERY well armed, courtesy of 7 years of mass delivery of weapons by the Empire of Lies. Their defenses are very solid, since they have been preparing them also for seven years. Furthermore, the Ukrainians are reportedly trying to bring in another major force from the central Ukraine to either reinforce their forces in the Donbass, or to help it to escape from their cauldron. On the other side, nobody really knows how many Russian/LDNR forces are being concentrated around the Donbass either. There are reports of “immense” columns of Russian forces moving towards the Donbass, including some the Russian forces which were deployed near Kiev to pin down Ukrainian forces away from the Donbass. The same feint was used by the Black Sea Fleet off the coast of Odessa. There are two ways to control a road: you can stand on the road, place a roadblock, maybe lay mines and generally by physically on top of that road. Or you can do that remotely, without stepping on the road but by being able to fire (small arms, RPG, artillery, CAS) at any vehicle driving on that road. The Russian “encirclement” of the Ukrainian force in the Donbass into 2 small cauldrons which themselves are locked in a bigger cauldron are a mix of these two techniques. In other words, the Ukrainians still have retained *some* ability to move on the ground. But only at VERY high risk. Keep in mind that the Donbass is pretty flat terrain and that the Russians have air supremacy. But, with enough luck, immense courage and determination, some APC or cars could try to move out, or reinforcements move in. Let’s look at these two options: Moving out: for a FEW vehicles, and with a lot of luck, that could still be doable. But for the overwhelming majority of the Ukrainian force on the Donbass, this not an option. Not only do they lack fuel, any big force would attract the attention of the Russians (which a 4 passenger car going at full speed in the dark might not) resulting in immediate strikes. Moving in: here the Ukrainian would still have fuel (or they would not even try, which they apparently are), but the problem is that it is impossible to hide any significant force from the Russians which could then use their long range artillery and close air support to destroy that force. I am personally very dubious as to the chances of any Ukrainian subunit to make it to the Donbass. And yet. The Ukrainian propaganda is beyond ridiculous, but we should NOT assume that if Ukie propagandists are clowns, so are the Ukrainian soldiers. The fact is that the Ukrainians never had the initiative, and they still don’t, and all their counter-attacks, including the airstrike on Belgorod, only had a limited and local effect. But that does not mean that they would not fight very hard for their lives, even when surrounded, even without air cover, with no ability to rotate forces and not enough fuel to engage in maneuver warfare. Here is what the map of the area of operations looks like today: Map on April first
The yellow circle is roughly the area where the outcome of this battle will be decided.
The small black arrow represents the likely Ukrainian effort to send in reinforcements
The big black arrow represents the move away from Kiev and towards the Donbass by Russian forces
Speaking about maps: while they do, more or less, show the military reality on the ground, they do not show the political realities the same way. The truth is that there are plenty of towns and cities which are blocked/surrounded by Russian forces, but which are still run by the “old”, Nazi, authorities. Yes, the Russians could go in and denazify these town and cities manu militari, but that would take time, results in casualties on both sides and ruin the civilian infrastructure. And the Russians sure don’t want, say, Kharkov to become a 2nd Mariupol.
[Sidebar: some of you must have heard that canard about the Russians “running out of ammo”, right? Well, local residents near the Ukrainian positions in the Donbass report that for three days the Russian artillery has been shelling the Ukrainian positions nonstop. In reality, anybody who has studied the Soviet and, later, Russian military knows that with the exception of some very modern systems which have just been deployed, Russia has huge stores of ammunition. In fact, when the Russians prepare a military offensive the expenditures in ammo, POL, and any other form of logistics required are carefully calculated. If not, then the order to attack will not be given. And, with a few exceptions, the kind of hardware and supplies the Russians are using in the Ukraine is both modern and plentiful. By the way, there are signs that the Ukrainian forces are running out of ammo, most of their shelling is directed at LDNR cities and result in scores of death and injured civilians on a daily basis]
One possible option would be to warn the Nazi authorities that while the Russian military won’t invade their city, the Russian can use special forces and means to target “just” these Nazi authorities. Yes, the Nazi will set up traps, like, say, placing the cellphone of a Nazi leader right on top of a Kindergarten, so the Russian intelligence services will have to do a lot of careful preparations and planning, or just make the threat and then wait for the Nazis to freak out and wonder where the promised missile will be aimed at. All this means the following:
The Russians need to take the Ukrainians much more seriously and if that means having early warning aircraft and interceptors on combat air patrol 24/7 – then that is what the Russians should do. A pair of MiG-31BM on constant high altitude CAP over the central Ukraine would be a good start.
While the outcome is not in doubt, the Russians need to be very careful and assume that the Ukrainians will fight with skills and courage.
I don’t like making predictions, even less so, time-related ones, but I think that we need to prepare ourselves for a major battle lasting several weeks, possibly even a month.
Have have to assume that the PSYOPs of the Empire of Lies will go in full attack mode, and since it will be very hard to make sense of what will be going on, we have to ready for a major attack on our minds.
Once that Ukrainian force in the Donbass is defeated this will basically mean the end of the 2nd phase of this Special Military Operation (SMO) and the very best and combat capable Ukrainian will have disappeared and a 3rd phase will begin, probably by an attack on the Nikolaev and Odessa regions.
Still, we need to remember that all wars are political in nature and that while the military “pain dial” is turned up quite high for the Ukrainians, the US PSYOPs are still telling the Ukrainians that they are winning and soon the first Ukie tanks will enter Moscow. The de facto fall of Mariupol (as evidenced by the desperate attempts to evacuate the Azov leaders by helicopter) is already a major blow for the Ukrainian narrative. But this blow pales in comparison to what will happen when the best forces the Ukraine has will simply disappear from the maps of the Donbass. At that point, no amount of hot air, grand statements or other lies will make a difference – such a defeat is impossible to conceal, it will make the news. Furthermore, we need to keep another thing always present in our minds: while in actual combat the Russians are facing Ukrainians, in the war itself Russia is not fighting the Nazis in Kiev, but the US/NATO/EU and their vassal states. It is also certain that the “Biden” administration does not want peace but, instead, they want that war to last as long as possible and to destroy as much of the Ukrainian population and civilian infrastructure as possible. And, of course, the Russians are not negotiating with the Nazis, they are negotiating with Uncle Shmuel via the Nazis. Big difference. Right now, some Ukrainians might be willing to look at reality and surrender just to save lives and the Ukrainian infrastructure. But they know that the Nazis will kill them or kidnap their family members (as has happened to one Ukrainian mayor). And these Nazis are taking orders only from many western “advisors” in Kiev who tell them “fight down to the last solider, then we will evacuate you“. You could say that the hardcore Ukronazis act like political commissars did during the Russian civil war. The Russians fought phase one of the SMO with a force which was deliberately kept smaller than the opposing Ukrainian force. But against an elite Ukrainian force deeply dug in in the heavily fortified defenses Russia will have to to do some combination of two things: more man and more firepower. And, by all accounts, that seems to be exactly what they are gearing up for. As many others have already pointed out, the chances of a false flag are extremely high, most likely some chemical attack, possibly in Kiev or Kharkov. Such an attack, while fake, will result in the usual hysterics of the Empire of Lies, so we all need to prepare ourselves for this too. The Empire of lies is so desperate now, that US PSYOPs claim that the Russian generals are afraid of telling Putin the “horrible truth” and that Shoigu is preparing a coup against Putin. Right now, the Ukronazis say that the Russians are on the run, but even the US Pentagon admits that the forces moved away from Kiev are only regrouping. Remember, in maneuver warfare you do not “hold terrain” anymore than you do in naval warfare, and that is what the first phase of the SMO was all about. But in the Donbass, holding terrain will become much more important and since both sides are very skilled and courageous, do NOT expect big movements on the map. Instead, expect several weeks of very severe “grinding down” of Ukrainian defenses followed by slow and deliberate movements, mostly short distance – from a few hundred meters to a few clicks. I hope that the above will be helpful once the 2nd phase is fully launched. One more thing: western military aid to the Ukraine. Most of it is in Poland. True, there is A LOT of western kit found in Mariupol or the Donbass, but that stuff was brought in long ago. Just look at the map, look at where the Polish-Ukrainian border is and then look at where the yellow circle is. In order to make a difference, western weapon systems need to get across the entire Ukraine and enter into a highly contested and dangerous area. How can such a delivery be made? Three options:
Road
Train
Air
In all three cases, if the force is tiny, say a few cars fill with MANPADs, there is a chance to make it, albeit a small one and such a “delivery” would be fantastically dangerous. But the Ukrainians have now PROVEN that they can be very tough and very smart. But such tiny reinforcements won’t make any difference. Now a bigger force might, but it would be instantly detected and attacked by Russians standoff weapons, close air support and long range artillery. So all this stuff about sending weapons to the Ukrainians really is a load of crap. It’s just irrelevant fake news. So far the Russians did not consider such a possibility as significant, hence the fact that they did not blow up any bridges, remotely mined any roads or destroyed any train tracks (that I am aware of). But if the risk of a significant reinforcements from the western Ukraine become a real threat, you can rest assured that the Russians will do all of the above, especially since there are very few towns and civilians in some parts of this track to the East. So far the Russian policy was to let the (covert) NATO forces to gather in an assembly area and only then hit them really hard. This is a very effective strategy which the NATO forces have found no way to counter (if only because NATO air defenses are a joke, even against trans-sonic and subsonic missiles and drone). Finally, the Ukrainians don’t have any air force left, and no navy, but they have proven that they still can use helicopters flying very low and fast, especially at night when local air defense operators might mistake them for a Russian helicopter (friendly fire is always a major risk in warfare). BTW – a helicopter is a hard target, not only do they fly very low, they can fly both fast (say to avoid a MANPAD) or very slow, to hide for fighters and interceptors. A slowly moving and low flying helicopter is a difficult target for fighter aircraft’s radar and infrared search and track system. A hilly or mountainous terrain makes detection even harder. Russian attack helicopters all have air to air capabilities, both gun and missile, and so they can be very effectively used against Ukrainian helicopters (which are a full generation behind modern Russian helicopters) but you need to have them ready and you need to have them fly under air cover. So that is doable, it just takes time.
Conclusion:
Phase one, pure maneuver warfare is over and it was a military success. Politically, it was pretty close to a failure, not only did the PSYOPS of the Empire of Lies totally crush the rather clumsy and primitive Russian counter-propaganda efforts, the Russians also failed to realize that they could not count on the local civilians authorities to simply do their job under a new flag. Which means that Russia failed to properly denazify even the towns and cities which were deep in the Russian rear. Now that miscalculation will have to be fixed the hard way: with more men and more firepower. Phase two of this war will be the liquidation of the Donbass cauldron and it will decide the outcome of this war (not that this outcome was ever in doubt). On a personal note, I will only add that the past month has convinced me that Russia should NOT permanently occupy more of the Ukraine than the “full” LDNR plus the entire Ukrainian Black Sea coast. But neither can Russia leave a the Ukraine like a Petri dish for Nazi toxins, so it seems to me that the optimal solution would be a breakup of the country into several successor states: neutral, with only police forces and light arms and with a clear understanding that Russia has the means to militarily intervene at any minute should the successor states attempt to violate their neutral, unarmed and denazified status. Will that happen? I don’t know, Putin has already surprised me twice with very risky operations which I would have recommended against (Syria and that “big” SMO in lieu of a “small” liberation of “just” the LDNR). Considering that Russia has used only a small fraction of her armed forces, it is impossible for me to predict what Putin and the Russian General Staff will decide after the second phase of this SMO is over. Finally, I am going to take the next two days off, barring some major developments, of course. So until Monday, then, God willing. Andrei
Japan Blindly followed the United States to Sanction Russia ending with self infected injuries:
14 Japan Power Retailers Exiting Business as Energy Crunch Worsens . The war in Ukraine is making a bad situation worse for Japanese power providers struggling with the energy crisis, forcing more companies to quit the business. In the last month, at least four companies halted power retail operations, as a surge in wholesale electricity prices makes it challenging to procure stable supply and turn a profit. At least seven temporarily halted taking on new customer
Zhao Condemns “Insane Actions” of West, Banning Russian Art and Literature, Stealing Private Property
Zhao Lijian (China) on Friday made some rather poignant statements about the behavior of the West in response to the ongoing border skirmish in the former USSR, calling it “insane.”
Zhao said:
I heard that Russian conductors were fired by orchastras in certain Western countries for refusing to condemn their motherland, and Russian movies were excluded from certain film awards. In university, the works of Dostoyevsky were banned. The display of the letter “Z” was banned in certain countries.Western politicians often talk about how literature and art transcend borders, and the same goes for music. They also say “private property is inviolable.” So, what have these writers and musicians done wrong? Meanwhile, the private property of so many Russians has been frozen or confiscated.Let’s hope that Western politicians will reflect on these principles they keep talking about. Their insane actions are not going to do anything good, and they’re not going to deescalate this situation. I hope that all parties can just calm down, and start working on peace talks, instead of escalating sanctions and tensions.
Whatever you think of either side of this conflict, there cannot be any claim that the West has not consistently violated its own supposed “values,” and it’s important to point that out.
We seriously underestimated Russia and our own propaganda is killing us.
Remember when American analysts painted a very specific picture of the Russian armed forces, and it was proven completely wrong? The media seems to have memory-holed literally everything we’ve said about Russia for the past eight years, but I remember. The Russians (according to NATO) before Feb. 24:
Only capable of defensive and limited offensive operations
Transport limited and heavily dependent on railways
Logistical problems. Any large-scale offensive would need to be paused after three days due to logistical limitations.
A hypothetical Russian invasion could be defeated by a combination of air power and guerrilla warfare.
Here’s a [quoted] segment written by Alex Vershinin for War on the Rocks last November. This is the example I chose, and almost every other NATO analysis I read more or less matches up with this one – they were all based on the same wargames and studies by RAND. RAND. Eh? The same people who laid out the Ukraine, Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Taiwan “pivots”, as well as the Hong Kong, Tibet, and Uighur (Xinjiang) operations. Brilliant. They have a near perfect recod of FAILURE. Well Duh! .
Comment from “Don”
Im 61, ex military (r we eva ex?).
Never seen so much media control, like a heavy fog, hence this site is valuable.
My 2 cents worth.
Never underestimate Russia, esp when run by team Putin.
Dot points.
Threat to north / Kiev brilliant magnet for drawing in UA resources away from South East.
Divide and conquor, as Ceaser did, then destroy them piecemeal.
Social meadia western armchair warriors will look more foolish as time moves on.
Western fake news will increasingly reduce western credibility as the reality on the ground emerges.
UA morale will fall rapidly like coming off two weeks of meth with only tabacco and vodka availiable.
The UA is becoming a broken failed state.
This tactic is detroying UA.
Identify troop barracks in use, destroy with precision strikes overnight.
Same therapy for fuel ammo, bases, supplies, defence industry transit routes i.e. railways.
Rinse repeat.
Let social media hype the underdog. That merely strengthens Russian resolve.
Dont they understand Russians even a little?
Meanwhile USA leadership weakness is a real eye opener.
The US empire is disintegrating before it ever became civilized.
Negotiations?
Russia will be seen to be giving them a go.
But UA will be broken up and lucky if it keeps Odessa.
Biden let it out that US troops and Poland have a contingency.
That is the west gets western UA as a neutered proxy with Nazis and Kiev.
It will be kinda like West / East Germany.
How this comes about I dont know.
With Russian permission for starters and Russias security buffer intact.
Bad ending predicted for Zel.
Thats my take.
Thats if we survive till then. No guarantees esp with team dementia, moron, dementia. 1,2,3 Biden Harris Pelosi.
Prediction?
Shit always goes down around Easter for some reason.
We'll see...
Posted by: Dom
‘Rublegas:’ the world’s new resource-based reserve currency
Rublegas is the commodity currency du jour and it isn’t nearly as complicated as NATO pretends. If Europe wants gas, all it needs to do is send its Euros to a Russian account inside Russia.
By Pepe Escobar, posted with the author’s permission and cross-posted with The Cradle
Saddam, Gaddafi, Iran, Venezuela – they all tried but couldn’t do it. But Russia is on a different level altogether. The beauty of the game-changing, gas-for-rubles, geoeconomic jujitsu applied by Moscow is its stark simplicity. Russian President Vladimir Putin’s presidential decree on new payment terms for energy products, predictably, was misunderstood by the collective west. The Russian government is not exactly demanding straightforward payment for gas in rubles. What Moscow wants is to be paid at Gazprombank in Russia, in its currency of choice, and not at a Gazprom account in any banking institution in western capitals. That’s the essence of less-is-more sophistication. Gazprombank will sell the foreign currency – dollars or euros – deposited by their customers on the Moscow Stock Exchange and credit it to different accounts in rubles within Gazprombank. What this means in practice is that foreign currency should be sent directly to Russia, and not accumulated in a foreign bank – where it can easily be held hostage, or frozen, for that matter. All these transactions from now on should be transferred to a Russian jurisdiction – thus eliminating the risk of payments being interrupted or outright blocked. It’s no wonder the subservient European Union (EU) apparatus – actively engaged in destroying their own national economies on behalf of Washington’s interests – is intellectually unequipped to understand the complex matter of exchanging euros into rubles. Gazprom made things easier this Friday, sending official notifications to its counterparts in the west and Japan. Putin himself was forced to explain in writing to German Chancellor Olaf Scholz how it all works. Once again, very simple: Customers open an account with Gazprombank in Russia. Payments are made in foreign currency – dollars or euros – converted into rubles according to the current exchange rate, and transferred to different Gazprom accounts. Thus it is 100 percent guaranteed that Gazprom will be paid. That’s in stark contrast to what the United States was forcing the Europeans to do: pay for Russian gas in Gazprom accounts in Europe, which would then be instantly frozen. These accounts would only be unblocked with the end of Operation Z, Russia’s military ops in Ukraine. Yet the Americans want the war to go on indefinitely, to “bog down” Moscow as if this was Afghanistan in the 1980s, and have strictly forbidden the Ukrainian Comedian in front of a green screen somewhere – certainly not Kiev – to accept any ceasefire or peace deal. So Gazprom accounts in Europe would continue to be frozen. As Scholz was still trying to understand the obvious, his economic minions went berserk, floating the idea of nationalizing Gazprom’s subsidiaries – Gazprom Germania and Wingas – in case Russia decides to halt the gas flow. This is ridiculous. It’s as if Berlin functionaries believe that Gazprom subsidiaries produce natural gas in centrally heated offices across Germany. The new rubles-for-gas mechanism does not in any way violate existing contracts. Yet, as Putin warned, existing contracts may indeed be stopped: “If such [ruble] payments are not made, we will consider this to be the buyers’ failure to perform commitments with all ensuing implications.” Kremlin spokesman Dmitri Peskov was adamant that the mechanism will not be reversed under the current, dire circumstances. Still that does not mean that the gas flow would be instantly cut off. Payment in rubles will be expected from ‘The Unfriendlies’ – a list of hostile states that includes mostly the US, Canada, Japan and the EU – in the second half of April and early May. For the overwhelming majority of the Global South, the overarching Big Picture is crystal clear: an Atlanticist oligarchy is refusing to buy the Russian gas essential to the wellbeing of the population of Europe, while fully engaged in the weaponization of toxic inflation rates against the same population. Beyond Rublegas This gas-for-rubles mechanism – call it Rublegas – is just the first concrete building block in the construction of an alternative financial/monetary system, in tandem with many other mechanisms: ruble-rupee trade; the Saudi petroyuan; the Iran-Russia SWIFT- bypassing mechanism; and the most important of all, the China-Eurasia Economic Union (EAEU) design of a comprehensive financial/monetary system, with the first draft to be presented in the next few days. And all of the above is directly linked to the stunning emergence of the ruble as a new, resource-based reserve currency. After the predictable initial stages of denial, the EU – actually, Germany – must face reality. The EU depends on steady supplies of Russian gas (40 percent) and oil (25 percent). The sanction hysteria has already engineered certified blowback. Natural gas accounts for 50 percent of the needs of Germany’s chemical and pharmaceutical industries. There’s no feasible replacement, be it from Algeria, Norway, Qatar or Turkmenistan. Germany is the EU’s industrial powerhouse. Only Russian gas is capable of keeping the German – and European – industrial base humming and at very affordable prices in case of long-term contracts. Disrupt this set up and you have horrifying turbulence across the EU and beyond. The inimitable Andrei Martyanov has summed it up this way: “Only two things define the world: the actual physical economy, and military power, which is its first derivative. Everything else are derivatives but you cannot live on derivatives.” The American turbo-capitalist casino believes its own derivative “narrative” – which has nothing to do with the real economy. The EU will eventually be forced by reality to move from denial to acceptance. Meanwhile, the Global South will be fast adapting to the new paradigm: the Davos Great Reset has been shattered by the Russian Reset.
Its importance comes due to the fact that its author, Jacques Baud, a retired colonel in the Swiss intelligence service, was variously a highly placed, major participant in NATO training operations in Ukraine.
A literal translation appeared at The Postil (April 1, 2022). I have gone back to the original French and edited the article down some and rendered it, I hope, in more idiomatic English. I do not think in editing it I have damaged Baud’s fascinating account. For in a real sense, what he has done is “to let the cat out of the bag.”
In the past I’ve read accounts and reports that either confirm or in some way match the narrative that he offers. Some of these that I’ve written about or cited are by: Dr. John Mearsheimer, Archbishop Carlo Vigano, Glenn Greenwald, Sohrab Ahmari, Colonel Douglas Macgregor, Mike Whitney, and others. But none of these writers has offered the first-hand, in depth, and comprehensive account as Colonel Baud, clearly and knowledgeably, has done.
It is still a bit lengthy, despite my editing.
But I urge you to read and ponder Baud’s commentary. Along with the historical accounts of historian John Mearsheimer, it should be required reading for those zealous policy hawks, both in the GOP and the Democratic Party, who are pushing us into World War III:
For years, from Mali to Afghanistan, I have worked for peace and risked my life for it. It is therefore not a question of justifying war, but of understanding what led us to it. [….]
Let’s try to examine the roots of the [Ukrainian] conflict. It starts with those who for the last eight years have been talking about “separatists” or “independentists” from Donbass. This is a misnomer. The referendums conducted by the two self-proclaimed Republics of Donetsk and Lugansk in May 2014, were not referendums of “independence” (независимость), as some unscrupulous journalists have claimed, but referendums of “self-determination” or “autonomy” (самостоятельность). The qualifier “pro-Russian” suggests that Russia was a party to the conflict, which was not the case, and the term “Russian speakers” would have been more honest. Moreover, these referendums were conducted against the advice of Vladimir Putin.
In fact, these Republics were not seeking to separate from Ukraine, but to have a status of autonomy, guaranteeing them the use of the Russian language as an official language–because the first legislative act of the new government resulting from the American-sponsored overthrow of [the democratically-elected] President Yanukovych, was the abolition, on February 23, 2014, of the Kivalov-Kolesnichenko law of 2012 that made Russian an official language in Ukraine. A bit like if German putschists decided that French and Italian would no longer be official languages in Switzerland.
This decision caused a storm in the Russian-speaking population. The result was fierce repression against the Russian-speaking regions (Odessa, Dnepropetrovsk, Kharkov, Lugansk and Donetsk) which was carried out beginning in February 2014 and led to a militarization of the situation and some horrific massacres of the Russian population (in Odessa and Mariupol, the most notable).
At this stage, too rigid and engrossed in a doctrinaire approach to operations, the Ukrainian general staff subdued the enemy but without managing to actually prevail. The war waged by the autonomists [consisted in].… highly mobile operations conducted with light means. With a more flexible and less doctrinaire approach, the rebels were able to exploit the inertia of Ukrainian forces to repeatedly “trap” them.
In 2014, when I was at NATO, I was responsible for the fight against the proliferation of small arms, and we were trying to detect Russian arms deliveries to the rebels, to see if Moscow was involved. The information we received then came almost entirely from Polish intelligence services and did not “fit” with the information coming from the OSCE [Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe]—and despite rather crude allegations, there were no deliveries of weapons and military equipment from Russia.
The rebels were armed thanks to the defection of Russian-speaking Ukrainian units that went over to the rebel side. As Ukrainian failures continued, tank, artillery and anti-aircraft battalions swelled the ranks of the autonomists. This is what pushed the Ukrainians to commit to the Minsk Agreements.
But just after signing the Minsk 1 Agreements, the Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko launched a massive “anti-terrorist operation” (ATO/Антитерористична операція) against the Donbass. Poorly advised by NATO officers, the Ukrainians suffered a crushing defeat in Debaltsevo, which forced them to engage in the Minsk 2 Agreements.
It is essential to recall here that Minsk 1 (September 2014) and Minsk 2 (February 2015) Agreements did not provide for the separation or independence of the Republics, but their autonomy within the framework of Ukraine. Those who have read the Agreements (there are very few who actually have) will note that it is written that the status of the Republics was to be negotiated between Kiev and the representatives of the Republics, for an internal solution within Ukraine.
That is why since 2014, Russia has systematically demanded the implementation of the Minsk Agreements while refusing to be a party to the negotiations, because it was an internal matter of Ukraine. On the other side, the West—led by France—systematically tried to replace Minsk Agreements with the “Normandy format,” which put Russians and Ukrainians face-to-face. However, let us remember that there were never any Russian troops in the Donbass before 23-24 February 2022. Moreover, OSCE observers have never observed the slightest trace of Russian units operating in the Donbass before then. For example, the U.S. intelligence map published by the Washington Post on December 3, 2021 does not show Russian troops in the Donbass.
In October 2015, Vasyl Hrytsak, director of the Ukrainian Security Service (SBU), confessed that only 56 Russian fighters had been observed in the Donbass. This was exactly comparable to the Swiss who went to fight in Bosnia on weekends, in the 1990s, or the French who go to fight in Ukraine today.
The Ukrainian army was then in a deplorable state. In October 2018, after four years of war, the chief Ukrainian military prosecutor, Anatoly Matios, stated that Ukraine had lost 2,700 men in the Donbass: 891 from illnesses, 318 from road accidents, 177 from other accidents, 175 from poisonings (alcohol, drugs), 172 from careless handling of weapons, 101 from breaches of security regulations, 228 from murders and 615 from suicides.
In fact, the Ukrainian army was undermined by the corruption of its cadres and no longer enjoyed the support of the population. According to a British Home Office report, in the March/April 2014 recall of reservists, 70 percent did not show up for the first session, 80 percent for the second, 90 percent for the third, and 95 percent for the fourth. In October/November 2017, 70% of conscripts did not show up for the “Fall 2017” recall campaign. This is not counting suicides and desertions (often over to the autonomists), which reached up to 30 percent of the workforce in the ATO area. Young Ukrainians refused to go and fight in the Donbass and preferred emigration, which also explains, at least partially, the demographic deficit of the country.
The Ukrainian Ministry of Defense then turned to NATO to help make its armed forces more “attractive.” Having already worked on similar projects within the framework of the United Nations, I was asked by NATO to participate in a program to restore the image of the Ukrainian armed forces. But this is a long-term process and the Ukrainians wanted to move quickly.
So, to compensate for the lack of soldiers, the Ukrainian government resorted to paramilitary militias…. In 2020, they constituted about 40 percent of the Ukrainian forces and numbered about 102,000 men, according to Reuters. They were armed, financed and trained by the United States, Great Britain, Canada and France. There were more than 19 nationalities.
These militias had been operating in the Donbass since 2014, with Western support. Even if one can argue about the term “Nazi,” the fact remains that these militias are violent, convey a nauseating ideology and are virulently anti-Semitic…[and] are composed of fanatical and brutal individuals. The best known of these is the Azov Regiment, whose emblem is reminiscent of the 2nd SS Das Reich Panzer Division, which is revered in the Ukraine for liberating Kharkov from the Soviets in 1943, before carrying out the 1944 Oradour-sur-Glane massacre in France. [….]
So, the West supported and continued to arm militias that have been guilty of numerous crimes against civilian populations since 2014: rape, torture and massacres….
The integration of these paramilitary forces into the Ukrainian National Guard was not at all accompanied by a “denazification,” as some claim.
Among the many examples, that of the Azov Regiment’s insignia is instructive:
2022 04 03 11 00
In 2022, very schematically, the Ukrainian armed forces fighting the Russian offensive were organized as:
The Army, subordinated to the Ministry of Defense. It is organized into 3 army corps and composed of maneuver formations (tanks, heavy artillery, missiles, etc.).
The National Guard, which depends on the Ministry of the Interior and is organized into 5 territorial commands.
The National Guard is therefore a territorial defense force that is not part of the Ukrainian army. It includes paramilitary militias, called “volunteer battalions” (добровольчі батальйоні), also known by the evocative name of “reprisal battalions,” and composed of infantry. Primarily trained for urban combat, they now defend cities such as Kharkov, Mariupol, Odessa, Kiev, etc.
Part Two: The War
As a former head of analysis of Warsaw Pact forces in the Swiss strategic intelligence service, I observe with sadness—but not astonishment—that our services are no longer able to understand the military situation in Ukraine. The self-proclaimed “experts” who parade on our TV screens tirelessly relay the same information modulated by the claim that Russia—and Vladimir Putin—is irrational. Let’s take a step back.
The Outbreak Of War
Since November 2021, the Americans have been constantly threatening a Russian invasion of Ukraine. However, the Ukrainians at first did not seem to agree. Why not?
We have to go back to March 24, 2021. On that day, Volodymyr Zelensky issued a decree for the recapture of the Crimea, and began to deploy his forces to the south of the country. At the same time, several NATO exercises were conducted between the Black Sea and the Baltic Sea, accompanied by a significant increase in reconnaissance flights along the Russian border. Russia then conducted several exercises to test the operational readiness of its troops and to show that it was following the evolution of the situation.
Things calmed down until October-November with the end of the ZAPAD 21 exercises, whose troop movements were interpreted as a reinforcement for an offensive against Ukraine. However, even the Ukrainian authorities refuted the idea of Russian preparations for a war, and Oleksiy Reznikov, Ukrainian Minister of Defense, states that there had been no change on its border since the spring.
In violation of the Minsk Agreements, Ukraine was conducting air operations in Donbass using drones, including at least one strike against a fuel depot in Donetsk in October 2021. The American press noted this, but not the Europeans; and no one condemned these violations.
In February 2022, events came to a head. On February 7, during his visit to Moscow, Emmanuel Macron reaffirmed to Vladimir Putin his commitment to the Minsk Agreements, a commitment he would repeat after his meeting with Volodymyr Zelensky the next day. But on February 11, in Berlin, after nine hours of work, the meeting of political advisors to the leaders of the “Normandy format” ended without any concrete result: the Ukrainians still refused to apply the Minsk Agreements, apparently under pressure from the United States. Vladimir Putin noted that Macron had made empty promises and that the West was not ready to enforce the agreements, the same opposition to a settlement it had exhibited for eight years.
Ukrainian preparations in the contact zone continued. The Russian Parliament became alarmed; and on February 15 it asked Vladimir Putin to recognize the independence of the Republics, which he initially refused to do.
On 17 February, President Joe Biden announced that Russia would attack Ukraine in the next few days. How did he know this? It is a mystery. But since the 16th, the artillery shelling of the population of Donbass had increased dramatically, as the daily reports of the OSCE observers show. Naturally, neither the media, nor the European Union, nor NATO, nor any Western government reacted or intervened. It would be said later that this was Russian disinformation. In fact, it seems that the European Union and some countries have deliberately kept silent about the massacre of the Donbass population, knowing that this would provoke a Russian intervention.
At the same time, there were reports of sabotage in the Donbass. On 18 January, Donbass fighters intercepted saboteurs, who spoke Polish and were equipped with Western equipment and who were seeking to create chemical incidents in Gorlivka. They could have been CIA mercenaries, led or “advised” by Americans and composed of Ukrainian or European fighters, to carry out sabotage actions in the Donbass Republics.
In fact, as early as February 16, Joe Biden knew that the Ukrainians had begun intense shelling the civilian population of Donbass, forcing Vladimir Putin to make a difficult choice: to help Donbass militarily and create an international problem, or to stand by and watch the Russian-speaking people of Donbass being crushed.
If he decided to intervene, Putin could invoke the international obligation of “Responsibility To Protect” (R2P). But he knew that whatever its nature or scale, the intervention would trigger a storm of sanctions. Therefore, whether Russian intervention were limited to the Donbass or went further to put pressure on the West over the status of the Ukraine, the price to pay would be the same. This is what he explained in his speech on February 21. On that day, he agreed to the request of the Duma and recognized the independence of the two Donbass Republics and, at the same time, he signed friendship and assistance treaties with them.
The Ukrainian artillery bombardment of the Donbass population continued, and, on 23 February, the two Republics asked for military assistance from Russia. On 24 February, Vladimir Putin invoked Article 51 of the United Nations Charter, which provides for mutual military assistance in the framework of a defensive alliance.
In order to make the Russian intervention seem totally illegal in the eyes of the public, Western powers deliberately hid the fact that the war actually started on February 16. The Ukrainian army was preparing to attack the Donbass as early as 2021, as some Russian and European intelligence services were well aware.
In his speech of February 24, Vladimir Putin stated the two objectives of his operation: “demilitarize” and “denazify” the Ukraine. So, it was not a question of taking over Ukraine, nor even, presumably, of occupying it; and certainly not of destroying it.
From then on, our knowledge of the course of the operation is limited: the Russians have excellent security for their operations (OPSEC) and the details of their planning are not known. But fairly quickly, the course of the operation allows us to understand how the strategic objectives were translated on the operational level.
Demilitarization:
ground destruction of Ukrainian aviation, air defense systems and reconnaissance assets;
neutralization of command and intelligence structures (C3I), as well as the main logistical routes in the depth of the territory;
encirclement of the bulk of the Ukrainian army massed in the southeast of the country.
Denazification:
destruction or neutralization of volunteer battalions operating in the cities of Odessa, Kharkov, and Mariupol, as well as in various facilities in the territory.
Demilitarization
The Russian offensive was carried out in a very “classic” manner. Initially—as the Israelis had done in 1967—with the destruction on the ground of the air force in the very first hours. Then, we witnessed a simultaneous progression along several axes according to the principle of “flowing water”: advance everywhere where resistance was weak and leave the cities (very demanding in terms of troops) for later. In the north, the Chernobyl power plant was occupied immediately to prevent acts of sabotage. The images of Ukrainian and Russian soldiers guarding the plant together are of course not shown.
The idea that Russia is trying to take over Kiev, the capital, to eliminate Zelensky, comes typically from the West…. But Vladimir Putin never intended to shoot or topple Zelensky. Instead, Russia seeks to keep him in power by pushing him to negotiate, by surrounding Kiev. The Russians want to obtain the neutrality of Ukraine.
Many Western commentators were surprised that the Russians continued to seek a negotiated solution while conducting military operations. The explanation lies in the Russian strategic outlook since the Soviet era. For the West, war begins when politics ends. However, the Russian approach follows a Clausewitzian inspiration: war is the continuity of politics and one can move fluidly from one to the other, even during combat. This allows one to create pressure on the adversary and push him to negotiate.
From an operational point of view, the Russian offensive was an example of previous military action and planning: in six days, the Russians seized a territory as large as the United Kingdom, with a speed of advance greater than what the Wehrmacht had achieved in 1940.
The bulk of the Ukrainian army was deployed in the south of the country in preparation for a major operation against the Donbass. This is why Russian forces were able to encircle it from the beginning of March in the “cauldron” between Slavyansk, Kramatorsk and Severodonetsk, with a thrust from the East through Kharkov and another from the South from Crimea. Troops from the Donetsk (DPR) and Lugansk (LPR) Republics are complementing the Russian forces with a push from the East.
At this stage, Russian forces are slowly tightening the noose, but are no longer under any time pressure or schedule. Their demilitarization goal is all but achieved and the remaining Ukrainian forces no longer have an operational and strategic command structure.
The “slowdown” that our “experts” attribute to poor logistics is only the consequence of having achieved their objectives. Russia does not want to engage in an occupation of the entire Ukrainian territory. In fact, it appears that Russia is trying to limit its advance to the linguistic border of the country.
Our media speak of indiscriminate bombardments against the civilian population, especially in Kharkov, and horrific images are widely broadcast. However, Gonzalo Lira, a Latin American correspondent who lives there, presents us with a calm city on March 10 and March 11. It is true that it is a large city and we do not see everything—but this seems to indicate that we are not in the total war that we are served continuously on our TV screens. As for the Donbass Republics, they have “liberated” their own territories and are fighting in the city of Mariupol.
Denazification
In cities like Kharkov, Mariupol and Odessa, the Ukrainian defense is provided by the paramilitary militias. They know that the objective of “denazification” is aimed primarily at them. For an attacker in an urbanized area, civilians are a problem. This is why Russia is seeking to create humanitarian corridors to empty cities of civilians and leave only the militias, to fight them more easily.
Conversely, these militias seek to keep civilians in the cities from evacuating in order to dissuade the Russian army from fighting there. This is why they are reluctant to implement these corridors and do everything to ensure that Russian efforts are unsuccessful—they use the civilian population as “human shields.” Videos showing civilians trying to leave Mariupol and beaten up by fighters of the Azov regiment are of course carefully censored by the Western media.
On Facebook, the Azov group was considered in the same category as the Islamic State [ISIS] and subject to the platform’s “policy on dangerous individuals and organizations.” It was therefore forbidden to glorify its activities, and “posts” that were favorable to it were systematically banned. But on February 24, Facebook changed its policy and allowed posts favorable to the militia. In the same spirit, in March, the platform authorized, in the former Eastern countries, calls for the murder of Russian soldiers and leaders. So much for the values that inspire our leaders.
Our media propagate a romantic image of popular resistance by the Ukrainian people. It is this image that led the European Union to finance the distribution of arms to the civilian population. In my capacity as head of peacekeeping at the UN, I worked on the issue of civilian protection. We found that violence against civilians occurred in very specific contexts. In particular, when weapons are abundant and there are no command structures.
These command structures are the essence of armies: their function is to channel the use of force towards an objective. By arming citizens in a haphazard manner, as is currently the case, the EU is turning them into combatants, with the consequential effect of making them potential targets. Moreover, without command, without operational goals, the distribution of arms leads inevitably to settling of scores, banditry and actions that are more deadly than effective. War becomes a matter of emotions. Force becomes violence. This is what happened in Tawarga (Libya) from 11 to 13 August 2011, where 30,000 black Africans were massacred with weapons parachuted (illegally) by France. By the way, the British Royal Institute for Strategic Studies (RUSI) does not see any added value in these arms deliveries.
Moreover, by delivering arms to a country at war, one exposes oneself to being considered a belligerent. The Russian strikes of March 13, 2022, against the Mykolayev air base follow Russian warnings that arms shipments would be treated as hostile targets.
The EU is repeating the disastrous experience of the Third Reich in the final hours of the Battle of Berlin. War must be left to the military and when one side has lost, it must be admitted. And if there is to be resistance, it must be led and structured. But we are doing exactly the opposite—we are pushing citizens to go and fight, and at the same time, Facebook authorizes calls for the murder of Russian soldiers and leaders. So much for the values that inspire us.
Some intelligence services see this irresponsible decision as a way to use the Ukrainian population as cannon fodder to fight Vladimir Putin’s Russia…. It would have been better to engage in negotiations and thus obtain guarantees for the civilian population than to add fuel to the fire. It is easy to be combative with the blood of others.
The Maternity Hospital At Mariupol
It is important to understand beforehand that it is not the Ukrainian army that is defending Mariupol, but the Azov militia, composed of foreign mercenaries.
In its March 7, 2022 summary of the situation, the Russian UN mission in New York stated that “Residents report that Ukrainian armed forces expelled staff from the Mariupol city birth hospital No. 1 and set up a firing post inside the facility.” On March 8, the independent Russian media Lenta.ru, published the testimony of civilians from Mariupol who told that the maternity hospital was taken over by the militia of the Azov regiment, and who drove out the civilian occupants by threatening them with their weapons. They confirmed the statements of the Russian ambassador a few hours earlier.
The hospital in Mariupol occupies a dominant position, perfectly suited for the installation of anti-tank weapons and for observation. On 9 March, Russian forces struck the building. According to CNN, 17 people were wounded, but the images do not show any casualties in the building and there is no evidence that the victims mentioned are related to this strike. There is talk of children, but in reality, there is nothing. This does not prevent the leaders of the EU from seeing this as a war crime. And this allows Zelensky to call for a no-fly zone over Ukraine.
In reality, we do not know exactly what happened. But the sequence of events tends to confirm that Russian forces struck a position of the Azov regiment and that the maternity ward was then free of civilians.
The problem is that the paramilitary militias that defend the cities are encouraged by the international community not to respect the rules of war. It seems that the Ukrainians have replayed the scenario of the Kuwait City maternity hospital in 1990, which was totally staged by the firm Hill & Knowlton for $10.7 million in order to convince the United Nations Security Council to intervene in Iraq for Operation Desert Shield/Storm.
Western politicians have accepted civilian strikes in the Donbass for eight years without adopting any sanctions against the Ukrainian government. We have long since entered a dynamic where Western politicians have agreed to sacrifice international law towards their goal of weakening Russia.
Part Three: Conclusions
As an ex-intelligence professional, the first thing that strikes me is the total absence of Western intelligence services in accurately representing the situation over the past year…. In fact, it seems that throughout the Western world intelligence services have been overwhelmed by the politicians. The problem is that it is the politicians who decide—the best intelligence service in the world is useless if the decision-maker does not listen. This is what has happened during this crisis.
That said, while a few intelligence services had a very accurate and rational picture of the situation, others clearly had the same picture as that propagated by our media… The problem is that, from experience, I have found them to be extremely bad at the analytical level—doctrinaire, they lack the intellectual and political independence necessary to assess a situation with military “quality.”
Second, it seems that in some European countries, politicians have deliberately responded ideologically to the situation. That is why this crisis has been irrational from the beginning. It should be noted that all the documents that were presented to the public during this crisis were presented by politicians based on commercial sources.
Some Western politicians obviously wanted there to be a conflict. In the United States, the attack scenarios presented by Anthony Blinken to the UN Security Council were only the product of the imagination of a Tiger Team working for him—he did exactly as Donald Rumsfeld did in 2002, who “bypassed” the CIA and other intelligence services that were much less assertive about Iraqi chemical weapons.
The dramatic developments we are witnessing today have causes that we knew about but refused to see:
on the strategic level, the expansion of NATO (which we have not dealt with here);
on the political level, the Western refusal to implement the Minsk Agreements;
and operationally, the continuous and repeated attacks on the civilian population of the Donbass over the past years and the dramatic increase in late February 2022.
In other words, we can naturally deplore and condemn the Russian attack. But WE (that is: the United States, France and the European Union in the lead) have created the conditions for a conflict to break out. We show compassion for the Ukrainian people and the two million refugees. That is fine. But if we had had a modicum of compassion for the same number of refugees from the Ukrainian populations of Donbass massacred by their own government and who sought refuge in Russia for eight years, none of this would probably have happened.
[….]
Whether the term “genocide” applies to the abuses suffered by the people of Donbass is an open question. The term is generally reserved for cases of greater magnitude (Holocaust, etc.). But the definition given by the Genocide Convention is probably broad enough to apply to this case.
Clearly, this conflict has led us into hysteria. Sanctions seem to have become the preferred tool of our foreign policies. If we had insisted that Ukraine abide by the Minsk Agreements, which we had negotiated and endorsed, none of this would have happened. Vladimir Putin’s condemnation is also ours. There is no point in whining afterwards—we should have acted earlier. However, neither Emmanuel Macron (as guarantor and member of the UN Security Council), nor Olaf Scholz, nor Volodymyr Zelensky have respected their commitments. In the end, the real defeat is that of those who have no voice.
The European Union was unable to promote the implementation of the Minsk agreements—on the contrary, it did not react when Ukraine was bombing its own population in the Donbass. Had it done so, Vladimir Putin would not have needed to react. Absent from the diplomatic phase, the EU distinguished itself by fueling the conflict. On February 27, the Ukrainian government agreed to enter into negotiations with Russia. But a few hours later, the European Union voted a budget of 450 million euros to supply arms to the Ukraine, adding fuel to the fire. From then on, the Ukrainians felt that they did not need to reach an agreement. The resistance of the Azov militia in Mariupol even led to a boost of 500 million euros for weapons.
In Ukraine, with the blessing of the Western countries, those who are in favor of a negotiation have been eliminated. This is the case of Denis Kireyev, one of the Ukrainian negotiators, assassinated on March 5 by the Ukrainian secret service (SBU) because he was too favorable to Russia and was considered a traitor. The same fate befell Dmitry Demyanenko, former deputy head of the SBU’s main directorate for Kiev and its region, who was assassinated on March 10 because he was too favorable to an agreement with Russia—he was shot by the Mirotvorets (“Peacemaker”) militia. This militia is associated with the Mirotvorets website, which lists the “enemies of Ukraine,” with their personal data, addresses and telephone numbers, so that they can be harassed or even eliminated; a practice that is punishable in many countries, but not in the Ukraine. The UN and some European countries have demanded the closure of this site—but that demand was refused by the Rada [Ukrainian parliament].
In the end, the price will be high, but Vladimir Putin will likely achieve the goals he set for himself. We have pushed him into the arms of China. His ties with Beijing have solidified. China is emerging as a mediator in the conflict…. The Americans have to ask Venezuela and Iran for oil to get out of the energy impasse they have put themselves in—and the United States has to piteously backtrack on the sanctions imposed on its enemies.
Western ministers who seek to collapse the Russian economy and make the Russian people suffer, or even call for the assassination of Putin, show (even if they have partially reversed the form of their words, but not the substance!) that our leaders are no better than those we hate—sanctioning Russian athletes in the Para-Olympic Games or Russian artists has nothing to do with fighting Putin. [….]
What makes the conflict in Ukraine more blameworthy than our wars in Iraq, Afghanistan or Libya? What sanctions have we adopted against those who deliberately lied to the international community in order to wage unjust, unjustified and murderous wars?….Have we adopted a single sanction against the countries, companies or politicians who are supplying weapons to the conflict in Yemen, considered to be the “worst humanitarian disaster in the world?”
To ask the question is to answer it… and the answer is not pretty.
Jacques Baud is a former colonel of the General Staff, ex-member of the Swiss strategic intelligence, specialist on Eastern countries. He was trained in the American and British intelligence services. He has served as Policy Chief for United Nations Peace Operations. As a UN expert on rule of law and security institutions, he designed and led the first multidimensional UN intelligence unit in the Sudan. He has worked for the African Union and was for 5 years responsible for the fight, at NATO, against the proliferation of small arms. He was involved in discussions with the highest Russian military and intelligence officials just after the fall of the USSR. Within NATO, he followed the 2014 Ukrainian crisis and later participated in programs to assist the Ukraine. He is the author of several books on intelligence, war and terrorism, in particular Le Détournement published by SIGEST, Gouverner par les fake news , L’affaire Navalny . His latest book is Poutine, maître du jeu? published by Max Milo.
Richie Blackmore / Ronnie James Dio “Catch the Rainbow (Live)”
Now this is a real treat. When I was in my Senior Year in High School, we must have worn down this album by playing it over, and over, and over again. Today, as an older man, with a great deal of “life experience” I have a completely different mindset, and when I listen to this music it affects me quite differently. Today, I view it as a work of art; an entertaining distraction, and one that showcases the brilliance of the singer Ronnie James Dio, the great drum work of Cozy Powell, and of course, the ease at which Richie Blackmore belted out those guitar solos. While when I was younger, it reflected struggle, passion and ambition. Ah. It’s amazing how one changes as they age. Anyways, I present it here as just that. A fine historical view and fun entertainment for youse guys to enjoy. Part 1
Part 2
Funeral Directors, Embalmers Alarmed by Unusual Blood Clots in Vaccinated Bodies
Normally I do not post these kinds of articles, but this is a mainstream America media article. It is signifigant. -MM
Board-certified funeral directors and embalmers are coming forward to tell tales of horror featuring vaccinated bodies with veins and arteries clogged with strange, rubbery, worm-like clots. Richard Hirschman, a funeral director and embalmer from Alabama, with over twenty years of experience in the field, has said in recent interviews that he had never seen anything like it until around the middle of 2021, after the mass injections of the experimental COVID vaccines began. He says his colleagues in the field are seeing the same thing, and the numbers are increasing. Earlier this month, Hirschman told Steve Kirsch, the Executive Director of the Vaccine Research Center, that in Jan 2022, 37 out of 57 bodies (65 percent) had these suspicious clots. Prior to the vaccines, Hirschman said blood clots in patients who died of COVID were seen, but they appeared to be more typical, and not in the alarming numbers he’s seeing now. Since Hirschman has gone public, Cary D. Watkins, a colleague from Alabama with over 50 years experience as a funeral director and embalmer, has come forward to corroborate his story, and Anna Foster, an embalmer from Missouri with 11 years of experience, has revealed in an interview that 93 percent of her last 30 cases died due to unusual clots completely filling their vascular systems. Funeral director John O’Looney of Milton Keynes, England, is also blowing the whistle on the alarming increase in number of thrombosis deaths. O’Looney said in an interview that it’s not just “a two or three-fold increase—it’s around a 500 or 600 percent increase,” and nine out of ten of these cases were vaccinated. . Much more... .
You don’t drive by slowly and film people in distress, you get off your fucking ass and help them. What’s you God damn malfunction? video 4MB
Life is too short not to be a Rufus
You can be a hero, or you can be a selfish greedy psycopathic loner. It’s your choice. video 1MB
Be the Rufus and change your life
Change your thoughts, and you will change your behaviors. That in turn will change your life. Don’t be afraid. make the changes that you so very much need. video. 3MB
Be the Rufus and make the world worth living in
Sure. You have heard this over and over and over again. Yet you still come back to MM for more. Why? WHy do you visit MM instead of Fox “news”, CNN, the BBC, or any of thousands of for-profit “news”? Perhaps it is becuase you are different. Yes. Maybe you are different; and maybe you are special. So, and if so, perhaps you are here at this place at this time to make a difference. Are you up to the challenge? It doesn’t matter what your role is, or what your job is. Do it with passion; with gusto, and with a big happy smile. You WILL CHANGE the world around you. video 4MB
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 3 .
Lots of stuff going on. Generally, the world feels strange. Like it’s the “calm before the storm”, or that there is some kind of huge under-current going on that we all can feel, but cannot vocalize. Yeah. In all of this unusualness, I am throwing out some articles, thoughts, impressions and stuff that should assist one in treading water during this great period of geopolitical upheaval.
US General
The big news is the capture of an American army general leading the Nazi Asov batallion in Ukraine. Obviously this nation was a NATO outpost in all ways and forms except “official”. We will cover this and the implications that it has for everyone later on in the body of this article.
Music, Girls, China, and other stuff
I mix up content in these articles. If I do not, then the articles and the venure is flagged for interruption, shadow banning, and other internet manipulations. Tired of trolls, add some food-related content to your articles. Watch them flee!
Trolls thwarted by content mixing
I will continue to proceed tracing the changes along with a mish-mash of other subjects. Why you might ask. Well, guys, I can positively affirm that I have 100% success in throwing off the trolls and DDOS attacks, and ‘bots since I have incorporated this methodology.
It breaks apart whatever system is in place. Whether it is a computer algorithm that matches trolls with targets, or whether it just the simple minds of trolls, is unknown. All I know is that it works. And that is just hunky-dory for me.
I hope you enjoy this article. Have fun.
Why US’ ‘sanctions threat’ to India is counter-productive on the China front
Not just against Russia, but it’s China as well. It’s not in India’s best interests.
Large scale models are simply diabolical. Models of any scale can play with your imagination, but you always know what’s real and what’s fake. When that train, plane, or car model is, say, 14 inches long–normal scale model size, more or less–your mind quickly adapts to the concept because it knows this is a model. And your mind deposits what you’re seeing into its familiar, convenient file folder called “scale models.”
But when the scale is large, your cognition wavers on the real vs. fake question. When your logical mind and eye look at a 1:2 (or 1/2, half) scale model, it will register the model as fake–but not as rapidly as with smaller scale models. It takes a second, and in that second your mind falls into an uncanny valley of questioning.
Half scale models of large objects like tanks, trucks, and cars are not common, as Fred Heim himself admits. Full scale (1:1) is common, but only with small items like guns.
Check this out…
Fred Heim Scale Model
This half-scale Peterbilt truck was Fred Heim’s first large scale model. Frame is aluminum, sides are powder coated mahogany. Since half-sized truck parts are in short supply (as in: non-existent), Heim had to make practically everything by scratch.
Without Heim and the garage acting as measuring devices, this Peterbilt could easily be mistaken for the real thing.
Pretty Chinese girl
Robust with an EMORMOUS and inviting smile. (I tell you over and over. It’s your SMILE that opens up opportunities for you.) What’s not to love? And her outfit is nice, eh? video 5MB
Sanctions against Russia hit a brick wall
A country with huge natural resources and agriculture sector with the military ability to deter the temptation of the United States preemptive strike will be the last man stand in this NATO expansionism saga.
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Putin should have realised by now his power to sanction the west is more powerful than western ability to sanction his country.
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2022 will be remembered as a historic turning point of the United States losing their notorious sanction power against Russia, and suffered greatly from their victim (Russia) counter sanction policy.
Yes. Mongolia is a very nice, if cold area. Nice people, and a beautiful landscape. video 5MB
Meet Nancy Kovack, Forgotten Siren of the Sixties
Nancy Kovack
Nancy Kovack is long retired, no need to act anymore, and firmly married to conductor Zubin Mehta. But in her day, she graced both the big screen and the cathode ray screen with her elegantly sleek looks reminiscent of Honor Blackman.
Nancy Kovack is also the one who got away. With big-star quality looks and acting chops, she was destined for greatness. Instead, she chose a different path.
The first the world saw of Nancy Kovack was in 1955, as the 19-year-old Queen of the Romeo Peach Pie Festival, in Michigan. She was tasked with distributing 50 peach pies around the U.S. to various luminaries. One pie that she delivered went to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
After that, Kovack made the usual round of Sixties-era TV shows: Love, American Style, Bewitched, Mannix, I Spy. If a casting director ever needed a beautiful face and a refined look, Kovack led the way in their Rolodex.
To compound matters–and it’s here where the faint-of-heart should clutch their pearls and avert their gaze–Miss Kovack owned a fantastically voluptuous body.
Nancy Kovack
Directly or indirectly, it’s Mehta we have to blame for taking Nancy off the screen and out of circulation. After her marriage to him in 1969, her filmography drops off to only five or six more credits before disappearing altogether in 1976.
While it seems crazy that Zubie would cheat on Kovack, cheat he did. In 1991, when Mehta was 55 years old (and Kovack about the same age), Mehta fathered a child in Israel.
An article in the Jewish Telegraphic Agency relates the rumor of “a smattering of illegitimate children from various affairs.” Mehta admits to just that one boy.
Now 86, Nancy Kovack-Mehta and her husband Zubin Mehta live in Los Angeles, where he is Conductor Emeritus of the Los Angeles Philharmonic.
Nancy Kovack
No choice but to pay in rubber, rmb or gold.
Meanwhile on the geopolitical scene we have the USA sanctioning the entire globe (except for itself and its toadies).
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There are few options. Not many choices. German politician warns that boycotting Russian gas could lead to mass poverty.
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The right mentality is a win-win mentality. The world should move away from the United States desire to control and make easy money from being a parasites to all none western nations resources, labours, and low end economy (allowed by the crusaders) .
Everybody needs to learn to work hard, study hard and trade with each other from a win win, mutual prosperity economic model.
Life is not that difficult if capitalism with Western characteristics that allow 0.1% to control the livelihood of the 99.9% are destroyed.
Basic human rights such as housing, public transport, water, electricity, Internet, food, Medicare etc should become affordable that ensure every citizen with a job are able to enjoy.
The aging, and young, and the sick and handicap should be taken care of.
Notorious Capitalism with looting DNA is coming to an end.
-A Chinese perspective from <redacted>
Springtime as painted by a few unknown Russian Painters
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This next one really appeals to me…
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And this one … well, you can just smell the fresh spring air…
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Robin Trower “Too Rolling Stoned”
Robin Trower is a blues guitarist who came into the public light in the 1970s. He’s still going strong and has many followers.
Trower is 75 and still touring. And still playin' smokin' guitar. One of the greats, and under appreciated. His original bass man James Dewar had such a great voice. Sadly he's gone. You have to check out several of his other tracks. Bridge of Sighs is so good. (Most people have no idea what the song is about.) And of course Day of the Eagle.
-Zabbo Daborba
I (MM, don’t you know) was introduced to him back in 1976 when I smoked a joint of “Thai-stick” in the High School parking lot with a friend. We got high, and my first exposure to Robin Trower was the song “Too Rolling Stoned”. I’ve been a fan ever since.
Honestly, I really don’t listen to him very much these days. As I prefer Chinese pop music, and American Country and Western music. But that’s just me.
Anyways, here’s two You-tube videos of the song “Too Rolling Stoned”.
All the theory in the world doesn’t prevent you from being schooled by one of the great masters... Robin is about the most underrated rock guitarists ever.
-Eddie
The first is the entire song observed by a music critic. He is now a Robin Trower fan. The look on his face, as he jams to the music is priceless.
The second, is a breakdown of his musical style (of the exact same song in a different video clip). Very interesting. You do not need to know the technical details to appreciate what he has to say. This study is done by someone who has never listened to Robin Trower before. Indeed, it seems like Michael has just turned into a fan, and Robin Trower is growing a fan base just by being alive.
Michael, Welcome to the land of Trower.
I'm 62 years old and a guitar player. I'm self-taught and first picked up the guitar and started teaching myself from cheat books and 45 records when I was around 8 years old.
my first live performance was 1966/67 in front of my class in 4th grade with two other friends.
I've played in cover bands all my life. Still do.
I've covered Trower on and off over the years since the mid-'70s when I first heard him myself.
I learned his "Day of the Eagle" classic hit from a 33rpm album (Live from Winterland} around 1974/75. Watching and learning from guitarist is just part of my DNA.
I love watching you and learning, watching you unpack "Too Rolling Stone" from Trower on video was a treat for me, Trower in the wild no less, (Live), this has truly made my day.
Your expressions in this video at times are priceless.
You kind of started with a mild approach towards the whole "Trower" thing at the beginning, and I giggled at that. and as you listened and dissected not only the song but his body movements, the Wha Wha approach, then Robin hits what I call his Jazz "Drop dead chords", modulates up a half step, then the typical shifting of gears into "Trower mode" I call it, and drops the tempo of the song to a slow blues groove that he's typically and noted for.
Such phrasings are his signature style, the look on your face and reaction was better than that first cup of coffee I was drinking for this morning.
I said out loud with a big belly laugh, "Welcome to the land of Trower teacher". my wife wanted to know who the heck I was talking to. hahha.
I say all this as someone who has done the same thing while learning Trower songs, only without YouTube video's which are worth their weight in gold themselves.
Starting and stopping a song on a vinyl record over and over is something you just have had to live through to get.
Anyway. Thank you for staying with us and continuing in sharing your passion which is also our passion. and for exploring Robin Trower. I hope you look into other great songs of his like: "Day of the Eagle" or Bridge of Sighs". any of his tunes are worthy of time.
- Charles Harshbarger
What do you think of Robin Trowers blues?
Vietnam girls drinking beer during a factory lunch
A common enough scene all over South-East Asia. It’s nice to see people enjoying freedom, instead of that pretend socially-acceptable corporate-system freedom™ that is so prevalent in the West. video 5MB
Why Propaganda is Vital In Upholding The Illusion of a Democracy
“Whenever the government of the United States shall break up, it will probably be in consequence of a false direction having been given to public opinion. This is the weak point of our defenses, and the part to which the enemies of the system will direct all their attacks. Opinion can be so perverted as to cause the false to seem true; the enemy, a friend, and the friend, an enemy; the best interests of the nation to appear insignificant, and the trifles of moment; in a word, the right the wrong, the wrong the right. In a country where opinion has sway, to seize upon it, is to seize upon power. As it is a rule of humanity that the upright and well-intentioned are comparatively passive, while the designing, dishonest, and selfish are the most untiring in their efforts, the danger of public opinion’s getting a false direction is four-fold, since few men think for themselves.”
-James Fenimore Cooper
Democracy is something that has been completely taken for granted here in the West. There is an ongoing triumph over past laurels, without paying heed to the road we have strayed from.
We criticize others for failing to uphold a standard we consider ourselves the leaders of, but democracy is not something simply “acquired” and subsequently “retained,” it is not a “possession.” This is because a system of democracy is at every moment of its existence defined by the character of its citizenry. Democracy only exists if it is upheld, and if a citizenry fails to do so, it renders itself defenseless to an ever-creeping tyranny.
For such a “creeping tyranny,” control is conditional to whether the citizenry is satisfied with an ever-growing “illusion of democracy.” Such a construct needs to give its subjects the impression that they have “free choice” in what shapes their future and their way of life, including: who will be their “friends” and who will be their “foes.”
And thus, War has always depended on a reliable system to spread its propaganda.
The Arthashastra written by Chankya (350-283 BCE) who was chief advisor to the Emperor Chandragupta (the first ruler of the Mauryan Empire) discusses propaganda and how to disperse and apply it in warfare. It is one of the oldest accounts of the essentialism of propaganda in warfare.
Propaganda is vital in times of war because it is absolutely imperative that the people, who often need to make the greatest sacrifices and suffer the most, believe that such a war is justified.
Security
As such, they will believe that such a war will provide them security. To the degree that they believe this to be true, the greater the degree of sacrifice and suffering they are willing to submit themselves for said “promised security”.
Enemy is not human
It is crucial that when the people look at the “enemy” they see something sub-human, for if they recognise that said “enemy” has in fact humanity, the jig is up so to speak.
And thus we are bombarded day after day, hour after hour of reminders as to why the “enemy” is not human like us, not compassionate like us, not patient, just and wise like us.
No doubt, war has been a necessary response when tyranny has formed an army to fight for its cause, but I would put forth that most wars have been rather unnecessary and downright manipulated for the design of a small group of people.
During WWI, on Dec 25th 1914, something rather unexpected occurred and a series of widespread unofficial ceasefires along the Western Front took place between the French/British soldiers and the German soldiers. Some even ventured into “no man’s land”, given its name since none left it alive, to mingle with the “enemy” and exchange food and souvenirs. There were joint burial ceremonies and prisoner swaps. A game of football took place as well. It is said that these truces were not unique to the Christmas period but that they were much more widespread during the holiday season.
These fraternisations would understandably make it quite difficult to return to combat against one another…for no apparently good reason. Some units needed to be relocated since they had developed friendships with the opposing side and now refused to fight them.
The lesson was quickly learned and propaganda was heavily pumped down the throats of the Allied countries, and by the course of just a few years, they no longer viewed the Germans as human.
American infrastructure
This is not one isolated incident. It’s everywhere. The money is being used in wars, and in the wallets of the wealthy. Not on the American citizenry. video 1MB
A beautiful girl in Hong Kong
Beautiful girls are everywhere. I have to tell you that I really like how clean and crisp that this girl looks as she hangs out in Mong Kok. video 5MB
The Battle For Your Mind
“Politicians, Priests, and psychiatrists often face the same problem: how to find the most rapid and permanent means of changing a man’s belief…The problem of the doctor and his nervously ill patient, and that of the religious leader who sets out to gain and hold new converts, has now become the problem of whole groups of nations, who wish not only to confirm certain political beliefs within their boundaries, but to proselytize the outside world.”
– William Sargant “Battle of the Mind”
Mass propaganda is the very reason why in this so-called “age of information”, we are more confused and divided from each other than ever…
It had been commonly thought in the past, and not without basis, that tyranny could only exist on the condition that the people were kept illiterate and ignorant of their oppression. To recognise that one was “oppressed” meant they must first have an idea of what was “freedom”, and if one were allowed the “privilege” to learn how to read, this discovery was inevitable.
If education of the masses could turn the majority of a population literate, it was thought that the higher ideas, the sort of “dangerous ideas” that Mustapha Mond for instance expresses in “The Brave New World”, would quickly organise the masses and revolution against their “controllers” would be inevitable. In other words, knowledge is freedom, and you cannot enslave those who learn how to “think”.
However, it hasn’t exactly played out that way has it?
The greater majority of us are free to read whatever we wish to, in terms of the once “forbidden books”, such as those listed by The Index Librorum Prohibitorum. We can read any of the writings that were banned in “The Brave New World”, notably the works of Shakespeare which were named as absolutely dangerous forms of “knowledge”.
We are now very much free to “educate” ourselves on the very “ideas” that were recognised by tyrants of the past as the “antidote” to a life of slavery. And yet, today, there is a fear of that very thing, that to “know” will label you an outcast from a “healthy” society. That the simple desire to know is the beginning of rebellion.
It is recognised, albeit superficially, that who controls the past, controls the present and thereby the future. George Orwell’s book “1984”, hammers this as the essential feature that allows the Big Brother apparatus to maintain absolute control over fear, perception and loyalty to the Party cause, and yet despite its popularity, there still remains today a lack of interest in actually informing oneself about the past.
What does it matter anyway, if the past is controlled and rewritten to suit the present? As the Big Brother interrogator O’Brien states to Winston, “We, the Party, control all records, and we control all memories. Then we control the past, do we not? [And thus, are free to rewrite it as we choose…]”
Of course, we are not in the same situation as Winston…we are much better off. We can study and learn about the “past” if we so desire, unfortunately, it is a choice that many take for granted. And thus, by our failure to ask the right questions and seek the appropriate answers, we find ourselves increasingly in the unsettling position of a Winston…we are enslaved by the very lack of our own will.
In Orwell’s “1984”, there are three main super states in the world: Oceania, Eurasia and Eastasia that are in one combination or another constantly at war with each other and have been so for the last 25 years.
In the case of Winston, he has only known Oceania (the British commonwealths and U.S.), he knows essentially nothing of either Eurasia or Eastasia, except that sometimes Oceania is at war with Eurasia and sometimes it is at war with Eastasia. In fact, even this memory, that the enemy is not constant, is not something Winston is supposed to recollect or acknowledge. Just by doing this very thing, he is committing a “thoughtcrime”.
Winston’s experience begs the questions, if one were born into a fascist, totalitarian state would they know it? Of course, the state itself would not describe itself as such. How would you be able to compare your “freedom” with the “oppression” of the enemy, when all you were given was what the state chose to give to you?
How do you know that what has come to shape your convictions, your beliefs, your fears really belong to you, and were not placed there by another?
We are all very sensitive to this unsettling question because ironically, that has also been placed in us. It was what started this whole business of “mind control”, you see, it had to be done…for our “protection”.
Chinese girl inside of her apartment
Yeah. This is all pretty typical. The homes are clean cool, spotless. If they have pets, they might keep them locked up in their cages for a while while the owners are busy doing other things. And dancing in the living room is normal. video 4MB
Warfare in the 21st Century
For to win one hundred victories in one hundred battles is not the pinnacle of skill. To subdue the enemy without fighting is the pinnacle of skill.
– Sun Tzu
There are many different forms of warfare, but namely there is warfare that exists in the physical domain of aggression vs defense and warfare that exists in the mental domain of ideas.
The majority of tyrants from the ancient times to present day, have always had a network of powerful people behind them (whether they were aware of it or not) that opened up a path for them to sit on the throne so to speak. For example, we now know that there was a very direct support of Hitler coming from the Bank of England amongst other very influential institutions. That is, Hitler did not arise to power ‘naturally’ or by his mere merit.
The desperation of that economic environment in Germany was predictably formulated as a direct consequence of the Treaty of Versailles which was essentially a death sentence to the German people. And Hitler who had started to make a small name for himself was selected and endorsed as the ‘face’ of what had already been decided would be the fate of Germany.
Wars have almost always been the result of funding and organising from powerful groups with geopolitical interests, often of empire, who create an environment of disinformation and desperation amongst the people through economic and military warfare along with color revolutions.
However, once there was the creation of nuclear bombs, geopolitical warfare was changed forever.
Though we still use much of the same old strategies today, war is ever more located on the plane of ideas, and along with this the ever increasing focus on the manipulation of information and the populace’s perspective of who is good and who is bad.
The war that needs to be fought against the present tyranny is thus increasingly a mental war. In the case of the populace, all together they hold more power than they realise. The real crisis of today’s western thinking is that the people have forgotten how to think. Attention spans have gone down drastically along with a functional vocabulary. People are becoming more and more dominated by image based messages rather than content that requires more than a 10 minute attention span. Articles in the news keep getting shorter and shorter because people seemingly cannot be bothered with too much reading. Along with the serious decline in reading in replacement for quick entertainment (more successful than any book burning in history), people no longer bother to work for a comprehensive viewpoint. Information becomes an annoying barrage of ad campaigns, each yelling louder and more frequently than the other.
The solutions to our problems such as the oncoming economic collapse (in case you haven’t noticed we are doing everything the same as pre-2008), have their solutions in what Russia and China are presenting.
The initiation of war has almost always been presented as a false ‘necessity’, that is in response to the dominating geopolitical ‘balance’, which is basically meant to service the present system of empire, and the erroneous belief in zero sum game.
However, the idea that humans exist in a zero sum game, doomed to battle forever over a diminishing return of resources, was disproven time and again in modern history through the application of successful principles of national political economy. Notable examples of which include Colbert’s dirigisme of France’s 17th century (later revived during the presidency of Charles De Gaulle), the Hamiltonian system of America as exemplified by Abraham Lincoln’s Greenbacks, FDR’s New Deal, and JFK’s space program as well as its most recent expression of China’s Belt and Road Initiative.
This system understands that fast money is parasitical and acts in direct opposition to the long-term investments required for projects that will revolutionise a nation’s infrastructure, including science-driver programs.
That debt for such long-term projects is not qualitatively the same as the present debt we see accruing today, and that debt towards investing for the future will always yield a higher return than the cost over time. This is why debt towards long-term investment on infrastructure and science driver projects, such as space exploration, will always be sustainable with a massive return quantitatively and qualitatively. Whereas, the gambling of fast money will very predictably lead to a collapse as was clearly indicated by the 2008 financial crisis, and which insanely has yet to be addressed with a serious bank reform.
The higher battle ground is being fought on the plane of ideas and which proposed ‘new system’ will replace the current collapsing one we are presently in. On the one side the hegemonic rule of a one world government who thinks that they can use force and oppression to rule and on the other side a multi-polar system of cooperating nation states committed to progress that will offer a real qualitative return for the future.
Little girl wants a father
Her mother is a single mom. She doesn’t have a father. She wants a photo with this stranger on the bus as she thinks that this is what her father must look like. video 5MB
Chinese girl getting ready to cook
Pretty girl. Food. Cooking…. Sheech! Oh so sexy. video 2MB
Speaking of cooking and food, let’s talk about some Chicken Fried Steak. Personally, I love it with two over-easy eggs and rye toast (with a freshly brewed cup of coffee) don’t you know…
Chicken Fried Steak with Creamy Gravy Recipe
Chicken Fried Steak
Steaks are a familiar dish on the dining table. Some people prefer their steaks roasted, and others prefer it prepared inside the oven like the classic oven-baked steak and potatoes. However, to some, steaks are a traditional culinary staple. The Southerners in America have a secret recipe, the chicken fried steak recipe. In this Southern cuisine, the steaks are deep-fried in a pan and served with creamy gravy.
But why is it called chicken fried steak when there’s no chicken? Well, the steak is cooked in a similar way to fried chicken, hence the dish’s name. This dish is made with a piece of tender beef steak that’s breaded with eggs, pan-fried, then topped with some creamy gravy.
There is nothing like this steak. People love serving it, and everyone loves to eat it! The best chicken fried steak is the one that’s cooked to golden perfection and topped with the most flavorful and creamy gravy. Using this recipe, the only difficult thing that comes is deciding whether to prepare it for lunch or dinner.
Skip the usual roasted steak. Prepare a fried steak that’s topped with creamy and flavorful gravy instead.
Use a meat mallet, rubber mallet, or rolling pin to flatten and thin out the steaks until they are less than ¼ inches thick. Season each steak with a pinch of salt.
Heat the oven to 200 degrees F.
Put a wire rack over a baking sheet, and set it aside. Prepare two shallow baking dishes.
In a bowl, whisk the eggs and milk together. In another bowl, mix the salt, garlic powder, cayenne, and flour.
Dredge the steak in the flour mix one by one. Using your hands, press each side of the steak onto the flour mix.
Shake off the excess and dip the steak in the egg wash, coating every side. Repeat the process until all sides are well covered and coated. Set aside.
In a large pan, pour oil until it reaches ¼ inches deep for frying. Heat the oil until the oil sizzles when flour is dropped into it.
Lay the prepared steak one by one into the oil and cover the steak with oil. Fry for about 2 minutes until the edges turn golden brown.
When done, remove the steaks using a slotted spatula, and place them on the wire rack in the oven to keep warm.
Strain off any excess oil to get the drippings.
Gravy
Turn off the heat in the pan and pour out all but 3 tablespoons of oil and fat from the pan.
Whisk in 3 tablespoons of flour and stir constantly on medium heat for 4 to 5 minutes, or until the mixture turns light brown.
Slowly add the cream and milk, whisking continuously until the desired consistency is reached.
Season the gravy with a pinch of salt and pepper. Adjust accordingly.
Serve over the steak with eggs and mixed vegetables. Garnish.
Chicken Fried Steak
The Art of Doublethink
“WAR IS PEACE, FREEDOM IS SLAVERY, IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH”
George Orwell’s “1984” (Big Brother Mantra)
A truly immersive system of propaganda, which necessarily will be full of contradictions to the truth, absolutely requires that its subjects are compliant with “doublethink,” that is, the ability to accept two contradictory thoughts in your mind without acknowledging that they are in fact opposites.
Orwell identifies this under two forms of “doublethink”, which are “crimestop” and “blackwhite”. “Crimestop” meaning the faculty of stopping short, as though by instinct, at the threshold of a dangerous thought.
Orwell further states
“It includes the power of not grasping analogies, of failing to perceive logical errors, of misunderstanding the simplest arguments…and of being bored or repelled by any train of thought which is capable of leading in a heretical direction. Crimestop in short, means protective stupidity.”
“Blackwhite”, is the act of contradiction of plain facts, applied to an opponent. And when applied to the Party, it is the willingness to say black is white when the Party discipline demands it so.
As Orwell describes it
“it means the ability to believe that black is white, and more, to know that black is white, and to forget that one has ever believed the contrary. This demands a continuous alteration of the past…The alteration of the past is necessary for two reasons…The subsidiary reason is that…he must be cut off from the past, just as he must be cut off from foreign countries, because it is necessary for him to believe that he is better off… [the precautionary reason] by far the more important reason for the readjustment of the past is the need to safeguard the infallibility of the Party.”
Orwell continues
“The splitting of the intelligence which the Party requires of its members, and which is more easily achieved in an atmosphere of war, is now almost universal, but the higher up the ranks one goes, the more marked it becomes. It is precisely in the Inner Party that war hysteria and hatred of the enemy are strongest.”
That is, it is the Inner Party members who are the most indoctrinated, the best at inducing “mind control” or “doublethink” on themselves, and at the same time believe that it is the best and right thing to do.
Orwell describes “doublethink” thus:
“The process has to be conscious , or it would not be carried out with sufficient precision, but it also has to be unconscious, or it would bring with it a feeling of falsity and hence guilt…To tell deliberate lies while genuinely believing them, to forget any fact that has become inconvenient, and then, when it becomes necessary again, to draw it back from oblivion for just so long as it is needed, to deny the existence of objective reality and all the while to take account of the reality which one denies – all this is indispensably necessary. Even in using the word doublethink it is necessary to exercise doublethink.”
What many fail to grasp when reading “1984” is that Orwell is not only the character Winston, he is also the character O’Brien. He is the Outer Party member-turned-revolutionary, and he is the Inner Party disciplinarian.
He is simultaneously the tormentor-programmer as well as the tormented-programmed.
Winston eventually breaks and releases the one thing that kept him human, his love and loyalty to Julia. In the end, an announcement is made that Oceania is ever nearer to winning the war and Winston looks up at a large poster of Big Brother and cries gin-filled tears of joy and relief, for he had finally come to love Big Brother.
He had become O’Brien.
Chinese girl in a Japanese sushi restaurant
These restaurants are very popular in China. Asian people do love their seafood. And China is no exception. You can see the little sushi dishes going round and round on the railroad tracks behind her. If you ever decide to go, might I suggest the warm saki with it. Yum! video 3MB
Thailand / Cambodia lunch time
A great view of a normal day in the rural inland areas outside of China and in the more impovershed South East Asian nations. The United States wants to give billions of dollars to the rulers of these nations to build American miltiary bases, and start importing all sort of weapons there.
These nations said “No!”.
Instead, the nations elected to go with China who are building trains, roads, hospitals, clinics, and setting up industry in these remote and tranquil rural areas. Sure, the Western propaganda is promoting the idea of “you’ll be sorry” for building those hopsitals, high speed trains, roads, tunnels, bridges, social and community centers, and communication infrastructure. But you know, it sure beats having the wealthy get wealthier while the people live in poverty next to American bases ready to shoot up villages, sheep and cabbage patches.
Our most base fears, desires and obsessions. The voice that whispers in our ears telling us not to believe in anything genuine or honest, that the world we live in will ultimately destroy itself and thus it is all about looking out for number one. That it is our fate to be the playthings of higher powers.
This is the voice of a prisoner of Plato’s cave, neck shackled and looking at only shadows on a wall. This is not reality. This is the voice of someone who has been enslaved for most of their life. The voice of someone who has become so disempowered that they wholly accept whatever ugly condition is imposed upon them and will even work to defend it as necessary.
There is a way out of all of this, but you will have to become an optimist in order to see the solution.
“We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory will swell when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.”
– Abraham Lincoln
Chinese girl on the street
Thin. Leggy with a nice Guicci purse. Very typical. video 3MB
Rural girls on a boat somewhere on the Laos-China border
It’s poor right now, but these times are changing. The Chinese BRI are bringing money, health and education to millions of people in South East Asia. video
China 1973
As strange as it seems, this is how many Americans and their leadership believe what China is today.
Yeah. It’s strange. But there you have it. Look at the pictures from fifty years ago, and you can easily see that this is the image that the Main Stram Media are busy promoting as to what China is. video 5MB
Rainbow – L. A. Connection (Live) HD
When I was attending university, I took a heavy course load. Seriously, 21 credits of all technical subjects is rough. Aerospace-Mechanical Engineering. And while my friends would half-heartedly attend class, and then party on, I would tromp through the Syracuse snow to go to class, and then study in the Law Library until it closed at 2am.
I had a grueling schedule. Up at six in the morning. Then, 200 push-ups, and a three-mile run, then to the house where I lived. Then it’s a nice Northern European breakfast of toast and coffee, followed by a bus ride to the campus where I would attend school. (When I wasn’t riding my motorcycle, that is.)
And even at that, I had my failures. For instance, I completely failed my “mechanics of deformable bodies” class and had to take it two times. Though, on the second time, I aced the class.
It’s called life.
You move forward, and fall on your face. Then you get up. You dust yourself off, and then try again.
If you are thick-headed like MM here, you might have to go through twenty or thirty times before you get it right.
Anyway, it was stressful. Aside from my weight-lifting, and drinking with my close group of friends, I didn’t really have much in the way of escape. I think all of us fall into this routine cycle from time to time. We work towards a goal, and we sacrifice other things to make it there. It doesn’t matter what it is, really. We push ourselves. And, you know, it’s stressful.
This video is one of the songs that I used to listen to, and do push-ups to, when I was a student attending university. I hope you enjoy my little snapshot into my life at that time.
Warning, it’s 70s era hard rock and the video is of 1970s quality. Just imagine me doing push-ups to this music, getting ready to be a Naval Aviator in a few months. Totally motivated. I had a nice body when I was in my early 20’s. I should have been using it in more sexual persuits, but at that time, I was a goal-oriented fellow, and sex with pretty girls was not on the agenda.
I missed out on a lot of fun. I’ll tell you what.
Again. Such is life.
Girl in white halter
She’s made a big impression on Douxing. Partly becuase of her following and partly for her fish shaped body. video 3MB
Be the Rufus
The answer to help you go through this period of change is to always be the Rufus. video 243MB
Western society controls us by fear
Its fear of change. It’s fear of the unknown. It’s fear of what others think. It’s fear of rejection. Don’t be afraid. Make your move. If they don’t like it, let them howl.
Numerous reports are now circulating claiming that United States Army Major General Roger L. Cloutier has been CAPTURED by Russian forces in or around Mariupol, Ukraine where, the reports claim, he was helping the AZOV Battalion which is Ukraine’s official NAZI unit.
US Army General captured leading Nazis against Russians in Ukraine.
According to Wikipedia, Major General Roger L. Cloutier:
Roger L. Cloutier Jr. is a United States Armylieutenant general who serves as the Commander of the Allied Land Command. Previously, he served as the Commander of the United States Army Africa.Allied Land Command (LANDCOM) formerly Allied Land Forces South-Eastern Europe (LANDSOUTHEAST) is the standing headquarters for NATO land forces which may be assigned as necessary. The Commander LANDCOM is the prime land warfare advisor to the Alliance. When directed by the Supreme Allied Commander Europe, it provides the core of the headquarters responsible for the conduct of land operations. The command is based at Şirinyer (Buca), İzmir in Turkey.
Email to the Pentagon sent several HOURS ago, has gone unanswered which, from a media perspective, is very unusual. If this report was false, the Pentagon would deny it immediately. They have NOT denied it. But no official answer has come from the Pentagon either way as of 6:10 PM EDT Monday.
UPDATE 10:49 PM EDT, TUESDAY APRIL 5 —
I received an email tonight after my radio show, telling me that the Wikipedia page for General Roger L. Cloutier has been changed to say he DIED on March 28. The images below were sent to me with that email:
Screenshot 20220405 004924
And…
Screenshot 20220405 001125
MM Notes
Everything that the Russians have dealt with in Ukraine, and all the systems that they are encountering is now present in Taiwan. Taiwan is a carbon copy of Ukraine.
All of this is going to create some very NASTY lashback from Asia.
Do not be afraid of change!
All the Western news is so filled with fear, and of course, here on MM, I also point out the various directions where the world can turn. But know this;
The primary driver for the world collapse are elites in the West (United States).
Their plans negate the influence of the collective East because their egos cannot admit that they are large, powerful, and smart.
This is dangerous as all their actions are now hurting the West, and we are just now collectively “watching the boat fill with water” in real time.
The East are lead with merit driven leaders who are determined and serious.
The East also has the backing of The Domain.
While there could be WMB detonations (keep in mind that The Domain did NOT stop any of the multiple bioweapon attacks), it will be geographically limited. It will not go full-on MAD.
The Deagal Report of the remote viewing of 2025 is approaching 100% validity.
The impression that I am getting from The Commander, is that in ten years, we all will collectively look back on this time and say “Phew! We just narrowly missed THE BIG ONE.” That’s the impression that I have, but I can be wrong.
And I want to tell everyone, the glimpses that I have of the future are not distopian.
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.
There’s quite a bit going on in the world today. And if you listen to the “news”, well, it’s all very frightening. It just seems like the entire world is going to shit. Well, it seems that way, but don’t be so sure that that is the case. Actually, the people in control are actually very smart, and they live in Asia.
But the USA, well, it’s going to Hell in a handbasket.
Here we are just going to throw out some representative articles about the global Geo-political situation mixed up with other tidbits of a MM interest. I hope that you enjoy this adventure.
Rufus gets wet
You have to stop being a spectator and start participating in life. Stop watching and start doing. Here is what happens when you make that change. you become a Rufus, and your entire life changes. video 2MB
American Consumers Ditch Brand Names For Generic Food As Inflation, Shortages Hit Supermarkets
U.S. consumers’ loyalty to brand names at supermarkets is quickly evolving as they try new grocery products amid snarled supply chains and high inflation.
Top food companies like Kraft Heinz Co. and Kellogg Co. are at dire risk of losing market share as supermarket operators grapple with shortages and fill empty store shelves with lower-cost brands, industry insiders told WSJ.
American households are money-conscious more than ever as inflation hits four-decade highs and takes a bite out of their monthly spending budgets. Some consumers have broken ranks of years and years of brand loyalty only to buy whatever is on the shelf, often generic brands.
“We see people make more choices on items because they are available,” said Tony Sarsam, chief executive officer of grocery chain SpartanNash Co.
Sarsam said SpartanNash had reduced shelf space for food products from major brands because of shortages, allowing it to expand room for local brands, which had more dependable supply.
Private-label consulting company Daymon Worldwide Inc. conducted a survey between May 2020 and August 2021 and found 70% of U.S. consumers bought new or tried different brands in a post-pandemic world. This means brand loyalty could be collapsing as consumers buy what is available and the cheapest.
Even though consumers generally buy familiar brands, industry analysts show high inflation and belt-tightening by households have forced many to find a better deal to make their dollars go further, even if that means buying generic brands.
84.51 LLC, a data analysis business of supermarket giant Kroger Co., also confirms consumers are switching to low-cost brands.
Kroger’s 84.51 said that 90% of consumers are willing to try another brand if their primary brand is unavailable.
WSJ spoke with one consumer in Fort Lauderdale who has been, like many other Americans, trying out new brands because the ones they wanted were out of stock or because prices were too high.
The days of supermarkets carrying only top-shelf brands could be over as shortages and inflation open new opportunities for food companies that can deliver low-cost products.
The shift in shopping behavior is a significant warning for major brands as supermarkets are desperately trying to fill shelf space amid shortages. People are more inclined to try new brands, and many seek low-cost ones.
“There hasn’t been a lot of customer resistance,” said Jonathan Weis, chief executive of Weis Markets Inc., referring to consumers trying generic brands. “They’d rather get orange juice than no orange juice,” he added.
Your comments please.
Old-Fashioned Tangy Cabbage
Here’s something fun and super easy to make.
When was the last time that you had a side of cabbage with your meal? Probably in ages. I’ll tell you what, you are not going to get this in a restrurant as you will have to make it yourself. There is not a single fast-food establishment that will serve this great dish. But don’t worry. It’s delicious and easy to make.
Old Fashioned Tangy Cabbage
Old-Fashioned Tangy Cabbage is the perfect go-along for almost any main dish. It’s a simply delicious combination of cabbage and apples, simmered in cider and a few other great seasonings, too!
Your comments please.
What You’ll Need
1 green cabbage, shredded (about 12 cups)
2 red apples, cored, seeds removed, and cut into 1-inch chunks
1/2 cup light brown sugar
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup apple juice
1/4 cup apple cider vinegar
What to Do
In a soup pot, combine all ingredients.
Bring to a boil over high heat, reduce heat to medium, and cook 25 to 30 minutes, or until liquid is absorbed and cabbage is tender.
People have hardships
Oh, yes they do, and a Rufus is aware of them. This is becuase a Rufus has experienced them himor herself. We know. We understand, and we are there to help. Be the helping-hand Rufus. Show empathy and understanding. video
Your comments please.
The United States should have heeded Lee Hsien Loong’s advice.
By Global Times Published: Apr 01, 2022 12:21 AM
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Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong is on an eight-day visit to the US. Lee mentioned many times the solidarity and cooperation of the international community.
He reminded Washington that if the US cuts off China, “the price is very high.”
He also emphasized that the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework should be built “on a win-win basis,” and “as a way to engage the region and not just on strategic or security and potentially hostile basis.”
This is not the first time that Lee raised kind reminder to Washington.
He has expressed similar views many times before, including describing the two superpowers, China and the US, as “conjoined twins,” and warning that clash between the two powers would be a disaster for the world.
In addition, Lee has many times expressed the attitude that Singapore cannot take sides.
Singapore is one of the US’ closest partners in Southeast Asia, though not a formal treaty ally. Former US president Barack Obama once said Singapore is an anchor for the US presence in the region. At the same time, Singapore has significant influence in ASEAN. Therefore, Lee’s remarks are sincere to Washington and representative and symbolic in ASEAN.
“When elephants fight, it is the grass that suffers.” This phrase is being brought up more and more frequently today, which reflects a sense of realistic anxiety. ASEAN countries are reluctant to be forced to take sides between China and the US, and they are more worried about becoming a wrestling ring in the game of major powers.
Singapore can be regarded as one of the countries that have achieved a relatively good balance between China and the US.
But with the promotion of the US’ strategic containment against China, it has become more and more difficult to maintain this balance. It is noticeable that when Lee made objective remarks on China-US ties this time, he was labeled a “Beijing whisperer.”
But in any case, even if the US covers its ears, wears a blindfold and exerts brute force, it still cannot change the reality that the US’ Indo-Pacific strategy is unpopular in the region.
Indonesian Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi recently said publicly that the US needs a stronger economic agenda for the Asia-Pacific region, as opposed to its current focus on security issues. “What the people want is prosperity, not only security… our people will ask what is the meaning of developing the concept if [‘the Indo-Pacific strategy’] doesn’t bring economic benefits for the people,” she noted. ASEAN countries are generally aware that the US only wants to create a “bridgehead” against China in the region.
For a while in the past, some countries believed that if they made enough concessions, the US could provide enough support to them. However, it has been proven time and again that US promises are like window paper.
Washington’s “America First” agenda, which only cares about itself and not others, has made some countries suffer and made others more alert. Singapore had actively embraced the US-sponsored Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), but it ended in vain, with the US withdrawing from the agreement. Today, the US is trying to promote another NATO in the Asia-Pacific and expand NATO to the region, embedding more risks of conflict in the region.
As a country embedded in globalization, Singapore cannot afford a geopolitical confrontation between major powers and attaches particular importance to the security and stability of its surrounding environment. Thus, it is extraordinarily sensitive to geopolitical risks and has a forward-looking judgment on the situation. In the past two years, Singaporean politicians have warned on various occasions that the Asia-Pacific region is moving in a very dangerous direction and have repeatedly expressed their call for the US to accept China’s rise, and that they “don’t wish to be forced into making invidious choices,” while stressing that this is also in the fundamental interests of the US. Such voices of reason, however, are often ignored by Washington.
An unavoidable reality is that though the US wants to weave a tight net to besiege China, the net cannot withstand scrutiny. Be it the Five Eyes alliance, Quad or AUKUS, none of the members are ASEAN countries. Public opinion has noticed that at the press conference after US President Joe Biden met with Lee Hsien Loong, Biden mentioned the Indo-Pacific six times, but Lee hardly used this term which is an American concept that carries strong bloc politics, and chose “Asia Pacific,” a clear indication of a gap with the US’ stance.
A just cause has many helpers while an unjust one finds few followers. No force can run counter to the trends and hearts and minds. Even though Washington can continue to fool the public opinion, it cannot fill up the hollowing out of the Indo-Pacific strategy. If Washington cannot even listen to the advice of Singapore, a close ally, reality will teach it a profound lesson.
Barry White
He has been such an inspiration in my life. Seriously. Most especially his later stuff. And unfortunately he died young. Be that kind of inspiration.
Learning about China by looking at the Chinese girls here
This is a great and a fun way to get a snapshot of another nation. You take a look at the society, and in this case, you look at the women and girls there. Of course, if all you do is watch American “mainstream media” you might think that Chinese girls are flat-chested, thin waifs that tremble becuse they are overwhelmed by the great mass of horny menfolk (due to the one child policy). Of course, it’s a massive lie, but heck. If you want to be stupid, stay that way. I just don’t give a fuck. Here’s what Chinese girls really look like. Video.
Do these girls look like they are downtrodden, helpless, thin, look like little girls desirous of American democracy?
Model Trains
About twenty five years ago I subscribed to a HO scale catalog. This was sort of my dream book. There, I would leaf through the pages in this 30mm thick (one inch think… telephone sized book) catalog with all sorts of glossy images of toy trains and homes, and buildings.
Farm supply building.
Its not that I actively had a HO layout or was involved in this hobby. Instead, it was a fantasy that I employed to relax with.
I would go to the bathroom, and take a nice dump while I would leaf though the pages. There, I would imagine the model layouts that I could construct, were I to have thousands of dollars in disposible income. Alas, it never happened, but it was a nice escape.
Though, for me, instead of visualizing trains, and train lines, I actually visualized building towns, bridges, farms, and tiny, tiny communities. All peopled with tiny, tiny people.
Used Book Store.
You can visit their web page here, and get lost in the latest in cool minitures and tiny, tiny people.
Barber Shop.
Of course, there are locomotives and train cars galore.
Box car.
Did you ever have a train set growing up? How old were you and what kind was it?
Chinese patriotism
The big lie parroted and regurgitated thoughout the Western media is that the Chinese are downtrodden, unhappy and yearning for democracy. All that needs to happen is a “regime change” and then the United States can come on into China and fix things the “American Way”. It’s a big bunch of sloppy, juicy bullshit. The Chinese approval ratings for the Communist Party are around 98%.
Here’s some glimpses of just how overwhelmingly patriotic the Chinese are about their Communist Government. video 74MB
The United States is supposed to be the beacon for the world. Why isn’t this level of patriotism experienced inside the ‘States?
Inside Info: Israeli Pay Sheet for Internet TROLLS
Israel pays people to be Internet TROLLS, and to intentionally “steer” Internet conversations and information in a pro-Israel direction. The pay sheet below shows what these TROLLS are being paid to do:
Paid Troll.
So while YOU are out on the net, perusing public opinion about issues and news, these folks seem to be out there intentionally steering content to achieve THEIR goals.
They don’t have to tell the truth. They don’t have to actually believe what they’re posting. They get paid to post.
Remember that as you peruse the Internet. There are people and groups and entities deliberately manipulating what you read to manipulate YOUR opinion and views.
As I have clearly stated, the algorithms that decide which websites to harrass are totally flummoxed by the MM systems of multiple subjects covering a wide variety of topics.
Australia’s big new move on China: Major announcement expected
A major announcement is expected to be made in response to a controversial decision involving China and a crucial Australian site. It appears the Australia is going to place a massive American logistics base near Darwin port, or break their contract with the Chinese. Why would they do such a thing?
The door has been left open to building a new port facility in Darwin port amid concerns over a Chinese company leasing the existing port.
A Defence review found there was no national security grounds to recommend the Morrison government to overturn the port’s 99-year agreement with China’s Landbridge Group.
Buried in a media release from Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce was the inclusion of $1.5bn for “new port infrastructure” in Darwin.
Asked if it was for a new Darwin port, to be announced as an election commitment, Defence Minister Peter Dutton did not rule it out.
“There's a massive commitment from the government into the Northern Territory and that does look at port development and ways in which we might be able to look at support through contracts in defence for example,” Mr Dutton told reporters in Canberra.
It seems “new” and fancy. When really, it’s a flavor experiment that is really a fun thing to make up on a nice lazy weekend.
Italian Style Sourdough Melt
Sourdough bread adds a special artisan touch to this easy Italian Style Sourdough Melt. Inspired by a famous San Francisco sourdough bread, this sandwich is easily made at home.
What You’ll Need
2 tablespoons pesto
4 slices sourdough bread
1/4 pound sliced deli ham
1/4 pound sliced deli salami
1 tomato, sliced
4 slices provolone cheese
What to Do
Spread pesto evenly over one side of each bread slice. Equally divide the ham, salami, tomato, and provolone cheese on two slices of the bread.
Heat sandwiches open-faced in a toaster oven, or on a baking sheet in a 350 degree F. oven for 5 to 7 minutes, or until cheese is melted.
Top with remaining 2 slices of bread, and serve.
MM discusses public services
It’s a nice walk around near my house. I just chat some about public services, streets, easy transportation access. Maintenance. Public toilets. Trash pickup. Etc.
Do you like my walk abouts? If so, then tell me your thoughts.
The Euro-weenies to order China to sanction Russia
The European Union and China will hold a virtual summit today. Before the summit started Brussels has strewn rumors that it would pressure China to not support Russia. That’s not going to happen. As of 4FED22, Russia and China are one single nation; a United Asia.
China is of course rejecting any pressure and retaliates by pointing out Europe’s weak strategic autonomy:
Hours before the China-EU leaders' meetings on Friday, Chinese analysts warned that China-EU relations cannot be kidnapped by the Ukraine crisis, and Europe should no longer be abducted by the US in foreign policy, as it will greatly undermine the EU's own interests, making it difficult to ensure economic recovery and people's livelihood, and runs counter to Europe's aim of pursuing strategic independence. ...As the Russia-Ukraine conflict stretches to over a month, Europe has sustained great pressure resulting from sanctions against Russia and its over-reliance on US-led NATO security structure."The EU is now kidnapped by the US on security, but that does not conform to the strategic independence EU has pursued," [Cui Hongjian, director of the Department of European Studies at the China Institute of International Studies] said.To avoid being caught in hot water again, the EU must take control of its own destiny. And developing ties with China provides the EU an opportunity to develop in a more balanced and comprehensive way in the long term, he said.
Its reliance on the U.S./NATO is Europe’s core strategic weakness. The U.S. has used it to infiltrate Europe’s decision making structures.
How could EU possibly consider that they have any persuasive power to dictate to China? The truth is easy to see. China shall satisfy its national interests. Nothing more, and nothing less. Meanwhile, the EU will satisfy its master’s interests; The Unittied States.
These bucco’s are all a bunch of hallucinating fruit-cases.
I am not at all exaggerating. This is the absolute definition of insanity. When you have repeatable experiences that has time and time again, proven a repeatable result, and yet, a person (or organization) insists on a different result. Sheech! Didn’t China reject Europe’s requests of abandoning Russia multiple times in the past?
>The recent failed attempt by 3 Ukrainian helicopters to evacuate troops from Mariupol was a desperate mission with very low chances of success. This raises the question why would Ukraine risk what little is left of its airforce for something so suicidal?
>Macron started spamming Putin with calls, demanding permission to carry out a "humanitarian evacuation" in Mariupol with the help of French, Greek forces.
>The head of the French military intelligence is getting fired for "failures" to "proper assess" the situation in Ukraine.So we have:
>.ua suicide mission to evacuate someone>Macron shitting bricks and begging Putin>Head of French military intelligence getting sacked
Further sources indicate the presence of two #France intelligence #DGSE operatives (both said to be dead) on board the crashed helicopter. This would explain #Macron's desperate please to #Putin as of late to organize a French-led evacuation from #Mariupol#MARIUPOL—With respect to the 2nd chopper shot down, it fell several kilometres off the coast of Mariupol, in the #Azov sea. The location is currently being investigated.#MARIUPOL—Sources indicate that, at #Azovstal, a group totaling 20—of #US (#American) & #UK (#British) military advisors of #Azov defenders, as well as several UK #SBU (#Ukraine|ian secrete police) advisors—is holed up, together with Azov fighters. They were too late to evacuate.
You get this great item of clothing on the internet, and you can’t wait until it arrives. You check the size and and put it on, and this is what happens…
Not quite ideal.
Women can add their thoughts.
Secrets
Everyone has a story to tell. Some are good, and some are not so good. But that’s life. It’s what makes us human. Here’s a story from a man that holds a secret inside that he can never let out.
A while back, I was cheating on my wife with a coworker. It went on for months, and I never really cared for the woman I was cheating with. She was super hot, though.
After a while my coworker started getting really crazy and threatening to tell my wife (whom I had a child with and a baby on the way) about everything. Obviously, I kept trying to cut things off because I realized I was making a mistake.
She lost it one night and was freaking out and texting me telling me she was going to come to my house, and a drunk driver hit her. She died instantly.
No one knows I was having an affair, and my family went to her funeral.
Some secrets are left buried. There’s no need to tell anyone about this, and there’s no justifiable reason to do so.
Oh Hell no!
Yikes!
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Your comments.
Why Chinese audiences don’t love Hollywood blockbusters any more?
A new change By Chen XiPublished: Mar 30, 2022 07:24 PM
March is coming to an end, but the three highly anticipated foreign language films The Batman, Moonfall and Uncharted have failed to inject new life into the current stagnant Chinese mainland box office.
As of Wednesday, the total box office of the three films has not been able to surpass the 300 million yuan ($47 million) mark, with The Batman, Moonfall and Uncharted grossing 117 million yuan, 74.68 million yuan and 90.31 million yuan respectively, according to China’s ticketing platform Maoyan.
The current surge in COVID-19 cases nationally has probably been a large barrier preventing them from maximizing their box office as Maoyan shows that as of Tuesday only 46.8 percent of mainland theaters are open.
Pessimistic outlook
China’s Qingming Festival holiday is set to kick off in the beginning of April. In recent years, more small and medium-budget domestic films have chosen to debut during this time because, unlike the Spring Festival, they do not have to worry about competing against big blockbusters.
For example, Sister took home 860 million yuan when it was released during the Qingming Festival period in 2021, driving the overall box office of this period to a record high.
However, due to the current COVID-19 outbreak in China, four domestic films that were set to debut during the Qingming Festival have delayed their release dates. This has allowed two foreign language films Escape Room: Tournament of Champions and Hotel Transylvania 4: Transformania to take the lead in the schedule, although they may find the Chinese film market a tough nut to crack, according to a report from Maoyan on Wednesday.
The report noted that more domestic films are likely to be released in April only after the outbreak is brought under control.
Looking at the overall schedule, only one to two foreign language movies are set to be released each week throughout April in the mainland film market, including the highly anticipated The Secrets of Dumbledore, US action thriller film Ambulance and Indian blockbuster Drishyam.
Inevitable trend
Chinese film observers, however, say that the COVID-19 pandemic has only been a “catalyst” and that it is inevitable for Chinese audiences to eventually lose interest in Hollywood movies.
According to industry insiders, there are many reasons behind this trend.
First of all, Hollywood has been producing fewer original stories in recent years as the industrialization of Hollywood has caused it to focus more on movie franchises, comic book adaptations and visual effects blockbusters, Shi Wenxue, a film critic based in Beijing, told the Global Times on Wednesday.
“Whether it is The Batman or Spider-Man, Hollywood only captivates audiences through nostalgia without any creative expression about the current international situation and the impact of the pandemic on human beings,” he added.
Shi is not the only one to think this way.
The hashtag “Why does the Chinese audience dislike watching Hollywood movies?” began trending on China’s Twitter-like Sina Weibo recently. Some netizens said they feel the main reason is that Hollywood has indeed become too commercialized, producing routine “fast-food”-like movies without any innovation by assembly line, and that the current Hollywood output is incomparable with past classics such as The Godfather, Forrest Gump and Avatar.
Shi Chuan, vice chairman of the Shanghai Film Association, told the Global Times on Wednesday that films from other countries, especially those made in Japan, South Korea and India, also pose a threat to Hollywood movies in China.
“Movies like Japanese film Shoplifters and Indian blockbuster Dangal achieved huge success in the Chinese film market, as the stories from neighboring countries resonate more with Chinese audiences. This shows that only good stories can hit people’s hearts,” he said.
He added that in the past, when the China’s economy was lagging behind the rest of the world, people only had access to simple means of entertainment, and so were naturally attracted to the technology and culture of economically developed regions. However, now that Chinese audiences are more open-minded and confident, their taste in movies has improved.
The huge successes of Wolf Warrior 2, The Wandering Earth and The Battle at Lake Changjin prove that the Chinese film market has been rapidly developing.
“We create our own heroes and most of them are adapted from real historical stories, which makes them more convincing.”
In 2020, China surpassed North America to become the world’s largest film market in terms of box office.
Shi pointed out that a deeply rooted reason for the decline may also stem from Chinese audiences questioning the US-centric ideology on display in Hollywood films, which tend to be about the American Dream or portray the ideological embodiment of US hegemony.
“Chinese no longer believe in US heroes in their stories. In the current international context, we don’t seem to need this kind of salvation, let alone fully identify with what they value,” he said.
The policy was adopted by NFL owners during their annual meeting on March 28 and requires all 32 NFL teams to hire an offensive assistant coach who is “a female or a member of an ethnic or racial minority,” regardless of whether or not the team already has a coach who satisfies those requirements among their staff.
In the Clinton 1990s, the wisdom circulated that White America was getting replaced and therefore, business needed to cater to the New Americans.
Various comically condescending attempts followed, after which point they finally hit on a solution of sorts: continue affirmative action but through private industry.
To be part of the goodthinker club in the coastal cosmopolitan metroplexes where the executives, publicists, journalists, and investors live, therefore, it seemed like a logical rationalization from precedent to start with more of these programs, even though it is steadily driving away their core audience.
It is one hell of a piss-boor business model.
The curse of the white cat.
The curse of the white cat.
White cat owners please chime in.
Why it is important to not use cheap measuring tapes
This is shocking!
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It gives “China” a bad name. Though, actually the white tape looks to be from Vietnam.
My son was very troubled. VERY troubled. If you have seen the movie “We Need To Talk About Kevin”, it will really help to understand what I’m talking about, because I swear to God when I watched that film I thought I was watching a documentary of my life, I felt like the writer must have had cameras hidden in my damn house, that’s how accurate it was. The only difference is that in the movie, the boy appears normal to his father and only reveals his true nature to his mother, with my son he didn’t have that mask. His insane behavior was the same with everyone.
From the day he was born, my son just came out wrong. He was planned, my wife and I tried to get pregnant and were ecstatic when he was born. He was wanted and loved. We showered affection on him and really tried to give him a happy childhood. But from the day we brought him home from the hospital, he was miserable. He cried for 13 months straight. I’m not exaggerating, 13 months without a break, he cried until he had no voice left and kept crying, you could see his little face scrunched up and no sound coming out, totally hoarse. There were times he would literally be crying in his sleep, I’ve never seen or heard of any other kid able to do that. We brought him to doctors, specialists, tried changing his diet, held him, rocked him, toys, swaddling, music, mobiles, everything we could think of. Nothing worked. 13 months of grating, grinding, no sleep hell.
Once he got over the crying stage, we thought we were out of the woods. But it quickly became clear that for some unknown reason, he was just angry at being alive. I never saw that kid have a genuine, joyous smile once in the time I knew him. I saw him grin a vicious, horrible grin many times, taking a perverse pleasure from causing pain or suffering or breaking a rule, but a smile from real pleasure at something nice? No, never. Not once. He had no interest in anything positive; he was fueled by hate, and everything he did was bent toward that.
As soon as he could walk, his mission in life was to destroy things. He would break or try to break anything that came in his range, smash it, chew it, throw it in the toilet, whatever he could. After a while he figured out how to get his diaper off and took great pleasure in shitting and pissing anywhere he could. After a while he figured out he could hide it, and started pissing and shitting in places we wouldn’t find right away, grinding it into carpets making it even more of a problem to clean and making the house stink. When he got older, (ages 9-15) he would piss and shit in our bed, until we got a lock on our door and he wasn’t able to get in anymore; then he’d just take a dump in the hallway in front of our room. That biological warfare started around a 2 and a half years old and he never grew out of it.
I’ll try to speed it up as I could literally go on for days about this stuff, but as he grew older, he became more and more unmanageable. He would bite, kick, scream, scratch and spit at anyone trying to do anything with him. He was kicked out of school twice before he was 9, then let him back in and then kicked him out for good, he had to change schools. The next one put him in a special class that kept him away from the other students. We had to install a door and lock on the kitchen because he would steal knives and use them to gouge the walls/furniture or chase people with them. When he was 10, he stabbed me pretty good in the hip and ass, I still have the scars. As he grew older, he grew darker. He moved into setting things on fire, and torturing local animals. There was a stray dog that hung out around the park near our house, my son blinded it in one eye with a BBQ fork. He would dip cat’s tails in gasoline and light them on fire. He became a violent, stinking, vicious beast that lived in our house. We couldn’t do anything with him.
YES, we had the kid in fucking therapy. He saw a psychiatrist twice a week, and had god knows how many different medications prescribed to him over the years. Nothing worked. Therapy didn’t work. Meds didn’t work. Nothing fucking worked. He was like a poison cloud of hate and fury lashing out at anything in his reach.
When my son was 16, my wife got pregnant again. I can’t tell you how different our reaction was. Instead of joy, we felt horror. This pregnancy had not been planned, and we really were at a loss over what to do. My son had been such an unending nightmare for 16 years, we couldn’t take the idea of starting again from the beginning. We talked a lot about terminating, but a) access to abortion was not as easy in those days as it is now, and b) my wife was very against it. We talked about many options. In the end, we decided that my wife would have the baby, and if it turned out evil we would put it up for adoption. We knew we just couldn’t do it again with another child like our son.
We had a daughter. She was normal. Suddenly we saw what our lives should have been like the whole time, how things would have been had our son not been himself. She laughed at things. She breast fed without biting (she didn’t have teeth yet anyway, but you could tell she was just trying to eat, not tear her mom’s breast off). After 4 months she was sleeping through the night. She was happy. She was NORMAL. I can’t describe the relief and happiness that we both felt, I don’t have the words for it.
This where I believe I may have started really pulling back from my son. Up until that time, whatever mistakes I made, I had always tried to do the best for my son, I am convinced of that. I tried to help him and love him and care for him, I really tried. But when my daughter was born, my wife and I both instinctively just turned toward her. She became our focus, not from malice, but just because she was so much EASIER. She was so happy and sweet, every moment we were with her was like magic. I understand this was wrong, but we honestly couldn’t help it. I don’t have a better explanation than that.
My son hadn’t given a shit about my wife being pregnant, I honestly don’t know if he really understood it, but when we brought our daughter home he started acting out even more. I didn’t think it was possible, but he took it up another notch. At this time he was 17, and we were having blow-out screaming matches daily. Usually after we fought, he would storm out of the house and disappear for hours at a time, or come back the next morning. It was a relief. I started to actually look forward to our fights because it would get him away from us for a while.
After the birth of our daughter, my relationship with my son was almost entirely gone, our only real interactions were screaming at each other. My wife was even worse with him, she just had nothing left. By that time, if our son even came in to the same room as her, she would just stop whatever she was doing and start screaming “GET THE FUCK AWAY FROM ME! GET AWAY! GET THE FUCK OUT!” until he left. He started spending more and more time out of the house, which was a blessing for us. I have no idea what he got up to out in the world, but we were just happy it wasn’t being inflicted on us.
As a consequence of our son’s behavior, we had invested heavily in locks around our house. All of the cheap, thin interior doors in our home had been replaced with think, dense wood doors that couldn’t be kicked through, equipped with keyed locks that my wife and I carried keys to. I know it sounds extreme, but locks and heavy doors were the best way we had found to create safe spaces from him. I was not locking my son in rooms like a prisoner, he had free reign of the house and could come and go as he pleased. My wife and I would lock OURSELVES in rooms to protect ourselves from him, if anything WE were the prisoners in our own home.
On the day in question, I had fought with my son in the morning and he had left the house in a rage. My wife and I were enjoying some peace and quiet in the kitchen while our daughter napped in our bedroom. And then my daughter began crying. Any parent who has young children can tell you, you get used to your child’s cries and you can tell after a while what they need, they cry differently if they are hungry, or need changing, or are just restless and want to be held. Babies can communicate pretty well before they can speak. This cry was none of those things. This cry was terror. The second we heard it my wife and I were both up out of our chairs and running to the room. The door was locked of course, and it took a few seconds to get the right key and get it open.
My son was in the room. We lived in a bungalow, and the bastard had climbed in the window to get to her. He was standing over her crib with a steak knife in his hand. I have no idea where he got it, it wasn’t one of ours; we controlled our knives very carefully and always kept them in locked drawers. I think he may have stolen it from one of our neighbor’s houses. He had broken her skin twice already, once in the belly area and once on her arm. I could see blood running down. When I entered the room he was dragging the back of the knife down her face, not cutting, almost tickling her with it, teasing her while she screamed. He looked up at us and smiled.
Before I knew what I was doing, I was already moving, running to put myself between them. I didn’t think about it, I just moved instinctively. Even with that, my wife got there faster, it was like a movie on fast forward, she got to our son and bashed his hand away, knocking the knife across the room and then shoved him with her whole body weight, so hard that he flew away from the crib and bounced off the wall. I picked up my daughter and held her while my wife screened us. I could see her shaking, almost convulsing. I can remember the smell of the room, the sound of my daughter screaming and wailing. The look on my son’s face as he stood there. Just nothing. Blank, dead, there was nothing in his eyes, no emotion. He looked like an alien to me. I watched my wife take a step toward him. I could have reached out and stopped her, but I didn’t. She stepped forward again, very close to him. I could have stopped her again. But I didn’t. She waited, looking at him for maybe 3 to 5 seconds without moving. And then she punched him in the face.
Now until this point, you may have been picturing my wife as a typical woman, small frame, dainty, delicate. This is not the case. My wife does have a small frame, but dainty and delicate she is not, never has been since I’ve known her. Since her early teens, my wife has been a boxer. MMA didn’t exist back then, but karate and boxing were big in those days, and my wife was a VERY talented amateur. She was about 130 pounds, she carried a lot of muscle and she knew how to punch. I had 70 pounds on her back then, and I have no doubt that in a real fight between me and her she could have and would have pounded me flat. Neither of us had ever laid a hand on our son in anger before, but something broke in her that day, and all the years of anger and pain and sorrow and frustration just came pouring out. When she hit him his head snapped back and blood started pouring out of his nose. He hardly reacted, he just looked at her with this shocked expression like he didn’t know how to process what had just happened. She waited another second. And then she hit him again.
I could have reached out and stopped her. I could have dragged her out of the room, taken her away, calmed her. I didn’t. I just stood there and watched while she systematically started to pound him to a pulp. Every time he brought his hands to cover one part she would blast him somewhere else, body, head, body, head, over and over. He started screaming, crying out, yelling for her to stop. It’s the most genuine reaction I’d ever seen him have to anything in his whole life. But she wasn’t stopping. I watched her ramping up, hitting harder, faster, working him like a heavy bag. He tried to swing at her and she slipped him easily. She was on auto pilot, sinking down into her training. I stood there watching for a minute. Then I turned my back on them and took my daughter out of the room.
I brought my daughter to the kitchen and gave her a bath in the sink. I found that he had cut her a third time on the sole of her foot. All the cuts were superficial. I cleaned her up and held her until she calmed. I put Polysporin and Band-Aids on her cuts. In our bedroom, I could hear my son screaming, calling my wife horrible names, telling her he would cut her head off and fuck her corpse. After a while, I didn’t hear him saying anything anymore, didn’t even hear him crying out. I assumed that he must have been knocked out. But I could still hear her beating him.
That went on for a long time. Long enough for my daughter to drift off to sleep in my arms. I just sat at the kitchen table waiting for her to finish. Finally she came out and sat down across from me. Her hands were swollen and red. Her face and arms were splattered with blood. Her chest was heaving. We just stared at each other without saying anything. After a while I asked her “Is he dead?” She looked back at me and answered “I fucking hope so”. I nodded. That was all there was to say about that. I understood how she felt perfectly. I felt the same. I didn’t know what to do, so we just sat there waiting silently. Eventually my wife started crying and went to go take a shower. I just stayed where I was holding our daughter.
After a long while, I heard moaning and sobbing coming from our room. It turned out that my son wasn’t dead. I went in to see how bad it was, and it was… pretty bad. I’ve never seen a more merciless beating laid onto anyone, before or since. He was lying on the floor, rolling around with blood leaking out of his face, lying in a pool of vomit. His nose was squashed flat out across his face, both of his eyes were completely swollen shut and starting to blacken already. I could see that a couple of his fingers were bent out at weird angles and he had pissed his pants. I think he must have been missing teeth, but I couldn’t see any on the floor and I couldn’t see inside his mouth, his lips were all puffed up and swollen. From talking to my wife about it later, I know now that she had systematically beaten every part of his body, focusing heavily on his legs. She told me she kicked him in the groin repeatedly until her legs got tired, and had kept beating his body long after he had passed out.
When my wife came out of the shower, I still didn’t know what to do about our son. I didn’t know whether to call the police or an ambulance, take him to the hospital myself, I honestly didn’t have any idea what to do. After a while I realized that I simply didn’t care what happened to him anymore, and we decided to just let him live or die on his own. There was an in-law suite in the basement that we had never really used, and my wife, my daughter and I just moved down there. We simply ceded the top floor of the house to my son and locked everything down, separated our lives entirely. There was plenty of food in the upstairs cabinets, enough for a couple weeks or more, he had a washroom and bedrooms to use. We had a washroom in the basement, a small kitchenette, and a separate entrance so we just stopped going upstairs. We just decided we were done with him. I figured we’d let his food run out and see what happened.
Over the next week we could hear him moving around upstairs sometimes. I think he just spent most of time lying in bed recovering. I went to work, watching on high alert in case he attacked me in the driveway, but he never did. My wife stayed home with our daughter. She was never out of our sight. One night we heard him going ballistic, smashing things and banging. We didn’t respond. He never tried to get downstairs or get near us though. I think he was afraid that if he got near us again, my wife might finish the job on him. After three weeks down in the basement, we hadn’t heard anything from up above for a few days, and I ventured upstairs to the main floor of the house.
The place was demolished, and there was no sign of my son. He was gone. It took months to repair the damage he had done and get the main floor back to normal again. There was food and shit smeared all over the walls and broken glass on the floor, big holes in the dry wall, he had ripped the place apart. He tore up the linoleum in a corner of the kitchen and emptied an entire foam fire extinguisher into the living room. I feel thankful that he didn’t burn the house down with us in it, I’m honestly not sure why he didn’t, the kid wasn’t shy about lighting things on fire. After that, I lived in fear every day that he would come back, that he would ambush us out of the blue and try to kill us. We moved house about 3 years later and I finally stopped being afraid that he would show up again, as now he had no idea where we were. I finally felt safe from him.
All this happened a long time ago. My son was born in the spring of 1971, my daughter was born in ’88. I’m an old man now, I’ll be 70 this year and my wife passed from cancer in 2016. My daughter is 31 now, I moved in with her and her husband after my wife passed. I’ve got two granddaughters and they are the joy of my life. I see a therapist a couple times a month to talk about all this. I don’t know where my son is. The last time I saw him was when he was lying on the floor of our bedroom, bleeding and smashed. I haven’t heard from him since he left, more than 30 years now. I don’t want to.
I carry a lot of guilt from that time, and a lot of conflicted emotions. I didn’t beat him myself, but I allowed him to be beaten, and I thought he deserved it. I was happy it happened. I didn’t try to kill him, but I would have been happy if he died. I will say that I do hope he was able to overcome his demons and go live a normal life somewhere. If he wasn’t able to do that, if he stayed the way he was, then I truly do hope someone out there killed him. When I knew him he was a rabid dog, and whichever way it went I just hope he isn’t still out there hurting anyone else.
…
This entire write up has shooken me. As someone who was married to a mentally ill person, I could very much relate to the situation that I found myself in when her personality went Dr Jekkle and Mr Hyde. Comments?
MM commentary
I’m sure that he moved into politics, and is probably in a great position of power inside Washington DC today.
A great deal on a “fixer Upper”.
A great deal on a “fixer Upper”.
It looks like a lot of work, don’t you know.
‘Tattooed Lady”, Rory Gallagher performs live at Rockpalast (1977)
When asked how it felt to be the greatest guitar player in the world, Jimi Hendrex responded “Ask Rory Gallagher”. Please enjoy this section of one of the guitar greats from my youth.
This ornament has a hole for a light to poke through so it mimics the lit lighter from Die Hard.
Die Hard is a classic Christmas movie. Don’t you think?
Die Hard Christmas.
Remember to be the Rufus
It defines your sentience. When the going gets tough, the survivors are those that are members in a community. The idea that the lone-wolf can win and survive is just a Hollysood fantasy. History celarly tells us otherwise. Be that Rufus. video.
The alarm bells are ringing. Are you going to step up to the plate and participate in life, or are you going to still stand by and be a spectator? Be a Rufus. video 2MB
“Russia is Succeeding Wildly in its Objectives!” Scott Ritter on the War in Ukraine
Outstanding interview! Read this and get a fresh perspective. -MM
Transcript – Interview with Scott Ritter, March 23, 2022
Global Research: The last time you were on the show, about a month before Russia authorized a military incursion into Ukraine you mentioned that if it did happen it would not be trying to occupy the country. It would be in your words “lancing the boil.” An attempt to demilitarize and destroy Ukraine as a modern nation-state. It seems based on mainstream media coverage that it is in fact trying to occupy the country. Millions of Ukrainians are literally leaving the country as we speak, and this is not an operation that would end in days. It’s now approaching a month. Several Russian soldiers have been killed. They seem to be bogged down outside of cities. Certainly NATO is not yet going to engage them it’s true. Russia isn’t succeeding, no doubt due in part, it seems, to the resistance of the Ukrainian soldiers.
So let me ask you if you’ve changed your mind about what you said two months ago. I mean, did you err in your assessment of the Russian logistics in the situation?
Scott Ritter: NO! I’m a hundred percent correct! I mean, the fact of the matter is Russia isn’t occupying Ukraine!
Ukraine is a nation of forty one million people. Now, they say ten million of those are displaced, some internally some have fled. That still leaves thirty million people occupying expansive areas of terrain, including cities such as Kiev where you have over three million people. Russia came in with two hundred thousand troops. Military math just simply says no, you’re not occupying Ukraine with two hundred thousand troops!
So, let’s just stop that kind of nonsense right off the bat! This is politicized rhetoric, what people say, that Russia is trying to occu – because what you’ve done now is create a straw man that says therefore Russia has failed in its objectives!
Russia is succeeding wildly in its objectives! I don’t have to speculate. Russia has stated what its objectives are! There are two military objectives that will lead to one political objective.
The first military objective is de-Nazification. That is, the absolute destruction, liquidation, annihilation of the neo-Nazi and ultra-right wing nationalist military formations and the political parties that sustain them, along with any legislation that empowers them.
For instance, legislation passed in January of 2021 which made Stepan Bandera, a right wing Nazi supporting, Jew killing Ukrainian nationalist, elevated him to the status of national hero! And then went around – they passed additional legislation which named streets after him, named boulevards, named places, raised monuments and then also brought back into the mainstream people of his ilk. Nazis, people who had enlisted and served in Waffen SS units during World War II. People who had served in Einsatzgruppen that killed Jews during World War II. These people are now rehabilitated, and their names are put up in places of honour!
The Russians want to eliminate this. They want legislation passed in Ukraine which de-legitimizes Nazis instead of praising Nazis.
The Russians are doing very well on this front! They’re in the process of finishing off the last Nazi defenders of the city of Mariupol. This is where the Azov battalion, now a regiment, was headquartered. These are right-wing neo-Nazi extremists, many of whom have swastikas and other Nazi symbols tattooed on their bodies. This is where they tormented the Russian speaking population for the past eight years! They are now in the process of being killed, or captured by the Russians.
That is what de-Nazification looks like. Similar de-Nazification processes are taking place elsewhere in Ukraine anywhere where the Russian forces find a neo-Nazi national unit of Ukrainian army. So anybody who thinks that the Nazis are doing well against the Russians, think again!
The second is de-militarization! This means that Russia is going to dismantle the NATO army that had been built in Ukraine. A lot of people don’t realize that there were 260,000 active duty Ukrainian military personnel, most of whom have been trained by NATO in the past eight years to NATO standards. That means that Ukrainian military units were inter-operable with the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. You could take a battalion, a NATO trained Ukrainian troops, and place them under NATO command and they would perform well.
This isn’t theory. This is reality. Ukrainian troops participated in numerous NATO-led operations around the world and in Europe. So, Russia has said that this – the existence of a NATO proxy-force is unacceptable, and that its goal is to de-militarize Ukraine.
Now, this could be done peacefully with Ukrainian soldiers staying in their barracks, while the Russians dismantled and removed from Ukraine all NATO provided equipment and oversaw the reorganization of Ukrainian military in a manner which made it no longer a de-facto proxy of NATO. Or if they wanted to resist, Russia would destroy them.
Now Russia came in a little soft handed early on. They didn’t bomb the barracks. They went out of their way to avoid unnecessary deaths among the Ukrainian troops. But the Ukrainians decided to fight!
Lets be clear here. This is a big army: 260,000 active duty, 310,000 reservists and security forces. Normally in the military if you want to launch an offensive operation, you want a three-to-one advantage. That is, for every single defender, you want three of your own troops. Russia went into Ukraine with a three to one disadvantage! Meaning for every single Russian, there were three Ukrainians. And yet, Russia is winning on the battlefield. They are advancing at a rate faster than the German army advanced during the Blitzkrieg of World War II! They are engaging the Ukrainian forces on large scale combat operations the likes of which have not been seen in Europe since World War II. And they are prevailing.
They are in the process of entrapping 60-100 thousand Ukrainian troops in Eastern Ukraine, one of the largest bedlam development cauldron type operations seen since World War II. They are doing the same around Kiev. And they are doing the same in the area of Odessa.
A lot of people will look at video-tapes that have been put out on YouTube and elsewhere showing destroyed Russian columns, dead Russian troops. This is war on a scale that people can’t imagine! It’s well beyond anything the United States and its allies undertook in Iraq and Afghanistan. When you have war on this level, there will be tactical setbacks.
Ukrainians who are extremely hard fighting, well-trained, well equipped groups are capable of limited combat success. And they are enjoying limited combat success on the battlefield. There is multiple occasions where they had defeated the Russians. Where they have inflicted serious casualties on the Russians. But from an operational and strategic stand-point, the Russians are winning and winning decisively. Ukrainians cannot sustain their defence. They lacked a logistical depth. They’re running out of gas. They’re running out of ammunition. They’re running out of food and water. Their troops are worn out, worn down, and are rapidly disintegrating as we speak. As we speak!
The Ukrainian defences in Eastern Ukraine are collapsing. They’re starting a panicked retreat westward. They’re going to be cut off by the Russians, and probably killed by the Russians if they don’t surrender to the Russians. So no, the Russians are doing quite well. People are…
GR: Did you say the Russians, I mean, put on your military and analyst glasses for a moment. Is Russia going to prevail? And how far away is the victory? IS it weeks away, or…
SR: Russia will prevail. And I believe that Russia is closer to victory than they were starting this conflict. Meaning that Ukrainian military is collapsing as we speak, and the ability for Ukraine to sustain large scale resistance is diminishing if not being eliminated.
This war’s over! It’s all over but the shouting! That’s all just a statement of fact.
GR: If you’re right about this, then what do you make of the role of Zelensky in this situation? Because he’s been speaking to governments around the world, and he’s a national hero and everything. But dies he think that he can still win this? The forces will, you know, “close the sky” and all the other things? Or is there something more going on in terms of seeing the writing on the wall as it were?
SR: Well, Zelensky knows what the outcome of this will be.
Think about it for a second. Every time he says, “if you just close the skies, if you just give us a no-fly-zone, we can win!” But what’s he really saying? That the Russians are winning the war! Okay? I mean there’s no other way of interpreting that!
GR: Yeah…
SR: He’s not saying, “hey, don’t worry about not closing the skies because we’re doing pretty well on the battlefield. We’re going to win this thing!” He’s saying that if you don’t close the skies, we have lost this war!
GR: Ahhh! Okay…
SR: And that’s exactly what’s happening. Because NATO is not going to close down the skies, and Ukraine is losing the war. He knows this. His generals know this. His troops know this. This is why at every single chance, everybody involved in the Ukrainian resistance is demanding a no-fly-zone because without this, they’re doomed, and they know it!
GR: What about the sanctions aspect of it. I mean, are they going to wear down the Russian public over time? Or will the boomerang effect of the sanctions wear down the US, Canada, and the EU first? How do you see that the sanctions aspect playing out?
SR: Well, let’s look at this strategically for a second. Joe Biden looked Vladimir Putin in the eye last June and threatened him with massive sanctions should he act on Ukraine. Sanctions like you’ve never seen before! Alright, now Putin as soon as he got done changing his pants and everything because I’m sure that just scared him to death. He had months to sit down with his inner circle and say, “how do we prepare for this?” Nothing the U.S. and its allies are doing has taken the Russians by surprise. NOTHING! They anticipated EVERYTHING! And they have a plan in response.
As for instance today, when the sanctions came out, remember Russia had 650 billion dollars in sovereign fund in reserves – foreign reserves, gold reserves – and half of that was dispersed in banks around the world. And people went, “why would you do that?” Because the West is going to freeze them, which the West did. And the answer is because Russia was setting the West up for a trap, which was sprung today.
2022 04 02 18 41
Today, Vladimir Putin gave a speech in which he said the following: “Because you froze our assets illegally, you have defaulted on every obligation you have in regard to Russia. Therefore, Russia will not only never again accept foreign currency, you know, for payment for Russian services or goods, we are going to demand from this moment on that all nations that are on the non-friendly list that is everybody who sanctioned them must now pay in Russian Rubles for natural gas.
Okay Europe cannot survive! One of the big things that came out of this economic sanctions was that the United States had been promising Europe, “Don’t worry about Russia gas! We have a plan B! We will be able to bring together resources and make sure that you have the gas you need!”
Well, there is no plan B. There aren’t the resources available. There’s not enough gas. And Europe will shut down immediately.
Now, Russia hasn’t shut off the pipelines. Because Russia was laying a trap. Russia now has confirmed that Europe is addicted. Germany has admitted right now that if Russia turns off the gas pipelines, Germany won’t have any gas for next winter. It’s over! All she wrote! Their economy will collapse! The French economy will collapse! Every economy in Europe will collapse! And there will be a rebounding effect in Canada and the United States.
So now, Europe is in the difficult position of if they want to keep the gas going, that they must keep going in order to survive, they’ve got to pay in Russian Rubles. Take a look at what’s happened to the Russian Ruble just today! IT’s rebounding! Everbody said the Ruble is collapsing. No! It’s the dollar that’s collapsing right now! Because the Russians have laid a trap. They set the trap. And this is just the first of many! The Russians have many other traps out there that they have set, and they can initiate at a time of their choosing. So, the notion that the sanctions…
Look, the sanctions are hurting Russians right now. There’s no doubt about that. But the sanctions also liberated Putin for the first time since he took power to be able to divorce Russia from the Western economy. And in doing so, eliminate in totality any leverage the West had over Russian domestic political affairs. The West used to be able to threaten sanctions. And the Russians are saying, “gosh, maybe we don’t want to do that so we’ll…” The West no longer has – the West has sanctioned everything. It’s over!
Putin has said, “thank you very much! Thank you! You’ve done me a big favour! The first thing you’ve done by freezing all the assets is that you have disembowelled the oligarchs!” You know that corrupt class of Russian businessmen that came to life during Boris Yeltsin’s ten years as a president. That Putin inherited!
Putin was able to neuter them politically by telling them that if they get involved in domestic politics he will destroy them, and he did. Several of them have been forced to flee to London and elsewhere because Putin will put them in jail for life.
The others that remained were able to retain their riches and continue to get rich, but they were not allowed to be involved in politics. But their existence has always been a thorn in Putin’s side. He doesn’t like them. He doesn’t want them. And he hates the fact that he needed them.
But now that the West has gone in and seized all their assets, they’re bankrupt and broke! And guess what! Putin doesn’t want them now! He’s told them to get the heck out of Russia! HE has no use for them! Go live where you wanted to live over there! You’re no longer welcome here!
The other thing that’s happened is about 20 percent of the Russian population that was relatively apolitical, who tended to vote for the status quo, meaning vote for Putin would have turned on Putin had Putin initiated a divorce with the West. These are the Russian middle class whose economic well-being had become so intertwined with the West that there could be no thought of breaking with the West. If any move by Russia, by Putin, by anybody, to do so would have caused a backlash that any democracy, and Russia is a democracy, would have cost the incumbent the vote. Putin would have been voted out.
But now that the West has sanctioned Russia, it is not Putin that has made the divorce, it’s the West!
Putin is now applying shock therapy to these people, seeking to rapidly reinstate their middle class status, by pivoting eastward to China, to India, to elsewhere, to recapitalize the Russian economy. And now that he has made gas based upon the Ruble standard, those Rubles that these Russians had in the bank that last week were worth nothing, they’re worth twice as much today! And this time next week, they’ll double in value again! And the middle class is going to forget the West ever existed.
GR: Amazing analysis! Scott Ritter, it’s been a pleasure hearing your unique take on this situation. We thank you so much for your time!
SR: Thanks for having me!
Do you think that Scott is right?
The United States spending tax dollars
So true.
Don’t Rely on fate
It is up to YOU, no one else, to adjust to change, and make and forge a great wonderful life to live in. That means control of your thoughts, and control over your actions. Don’t rely on others. Don’t rely on fate. Don’t pretend that somehow space aliens are going to come down and prevent a nuclear war. (They sure as fuck didn’t stop any of the bioweapons attacks, and pretending that Bioweapon World War III isn’t in process; it’s a “pandemic”, is just a childhood fantasy.) Stop living childish dreams. Now is your time. NOW IS YOUR TIME. Make a difference today.
You have to do kind, just and maningful things. Sure, it’s nice to watch heroes in action, but just smiling, buying a cup of coffee for a co-worker, inviditng a co-worker to your home for cards, or volunteering at an animal shelter are all fine Rufus actions. Make a difference. Now is that time. video 6MB
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.
You just cannot deny it. The collective West (led by the United States) are making the absolute worst decisions possible, and observers (outside the manipulative “news” media) are absolutely horrified.
All of it. From the educational system, to society, to economic, Geo-political, economic, in very easy and clear terms. It’s easy to understand. It makes sense, and it’s probably the best description ever as to the horror that is unfolding before our very eyes today.
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.
It’s just not feasible to have a government, or any large institution, that is so totally based on lies as the current Western system to last very long.
Right now, the West is running on fumes.
A machine was built by serious people, and it is now being managed by unhinged lunatics, morons, and unrepentant fiends.
They are crashing the ship.
-The UNZ
No. Ukraine and Taiwan are not really identical. They are two different situations. But there actually is a similarity between the two. And that similarity is the United States.
The US involvement in both is identical.
The systems employed by the control and manipulation are identical.
Color revolutions took control of both at the same time, identically.
The ruling government is owned and controlled by the United States with the same, identical systems.
And both are used to “suppress” the giant nation next to them identically.
This is obvious.
Now, I am not going to go through all the background, others have. Instead, I am presenting a fine video for your review, and then we will go from there.
Yeah, unhinged America is torching what took a century to build: the global economy, global finance, international trade, international relations, international law, et al. There is no coming back from where things are now. Best case scenario is total clusterfuck. Worst is thermonuclear war and end of Western civilization. I’m better on the latter.
-Anonymous
There are many, many, MANY similarities between what is going on in Taiwan and Ukraine. So let’s cut the bullshit.
The systems used to engage Russia are identical to the systems that will be used to engage China.
So, yes, the United States will cross a Chinese RED LINE and start a war
It’s not if. It’s when.
Putin looks clinical and professional.
Kim looks unsure.
And Xi should be avoided at all costs.
-<redacted>
Remember…
The United States (and it’s proxy nations) are proceeding in their plans to “suppress” Russia and then “pivot to Asia” to “suppress” China.
The United States (leading the West) are still following the same tired-old “take over the world” script written decades ago, and implementing the plans set forth. (Follow the links for the RAND plans to initiate war. When you read them, you will discover that the US government has been following them exactly, word for word, precisely to the letter.)
These plans have been telegraphed, and well understood by the Russian and Chinese leadership. And since the United States is following that old script, they are easy to anticipate and handle.
And they will use Japan and Australia to make it happen. How do we know? Well, the RAND report on how to suppress China clearly makes this point.
Australia’s defense spending tops $500b
That’s a lot of money. Money that could end all poverty in Australia and cut the prices of food, gas and rent by 35% for everyone! But no. It’s going towards American-manufactured weapons and weapons systems. Sheech!
Dominic Giannini
More than half a trillion dollars will go towards Australia's defence forces by the end of the decade to combat "a period of profound uncertainty and disruption", according to the 2022/23 budget papers.
Almost half of the $575 billion spend will be pumped into defence capabilities, including $38 billion to boost the workforce by 18,500 personnel, $50 billion for frigates and destroyers, and $10 billion for naval infrastructure.
There is also $6.4 billion for Collins class submarines, $3.5 billion for up to 75 Abrams tanks and armoured vehicles and $1 billion for howitzers and resupply vehicles…
But the “news” is being wishy-washy on everything. There’s “no proof” don’t you know. It’s all opinion and alleged. Everything is suspect. Nothing is real, and it’s an onslaught of lies that work to avoid the simple truth of matters, and disguise them in vague terms.
Consider Russia.
Is the United States at war with Russia?
Easy question. Easy answer.
Yes it is.
It is also at war with China. Call it economic war, hybrid-war, cyber-war, social war, color-revolution war, proxy war… but a war is a war. Stop pretending that it isn’t. You all should be ashamed. Really, really ashamed of yourselves.
A war, is a war.
Stop pretending that it is not.
Finian Cunningham
March 23, 2022
The Pentagon has admitted it is providing the Ukrainian military with “actionable intelligence” in combat operations against Russian forces. If that is confirmed then the United States is at war with Russia. The implications are grave for two nuclear powers.
The admission came last week during congressional testimony by Ronald Moultrie, the Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence and Security. He was speaking to the House Armed Services Committee, proudly telling Congress members how the Pentagon was helping the Ukrainian military fight Russian forces: “We are making a difference in accurate, actionable, and timely intel.”
That indicates the Americans are involved in providing information to the Ukrainians for lethal targeting of Russian troops.
It is an incredibly sensitive admission. Only two weeks before Moultrie’s testimony, a senior member of the House Armed Services Committee had reportedly sought to downplay any such informational exchange between American and Ukrainian forces. “We are providing some intelligence” to Ukraine, but we’re “not providing the kind of real-time targeting,” said Representative Adam Smith who chairs the committee. The downplaying is understandable because such intelligence-sharing implies that the U.S. is a direct participant in the conflict.
One possible area where the Pentagon is “making a difference” is the reported high number of senior Russian commanders who have been killed on the battlefield. Since the Russian intervention in Ukraine on February 24, it is claimed in Western media reports that up to six top-ranking officers have been killed.
The latest reported victim was the deputy commander of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet, Andrey Paliy. The governor of Sevastopol, Crimea, was quoted by Reuters as acknowledging the death of the naval chief on Sunday. He was apparently killed during the battle for the port city of Mariupol.
Yes, The United States is at war. It is fighting both Russia and China right now, and the battles are a raging all over. But, in this article, I want to discuss the idea that all three nations fight wars differently.
United States
It follows plans made by think-tanks. it employs figurehead puppets to seduce the people, while the actual decisions ae mde behind closed doors in corporate offices, and smoking private rooms.
In action, the United States acts as a crazed lunatic, and uses mass resources to destroy everything. It is like a plague of locusts. Destroy everything, then come in and take what you want, and salt the earth beahind.
Russia
While Russia might be strong, powerful and nuclear, they are careful and humane.They have the power to destroy the world fifteen times over, but refrain from doing so. They still hope that some day, they will be respected in the East. So they try to be proper, kind and modest. But, if they are backed in a corner, they will be absolutely ruthless. They are like hard-core bikers on meth.
China
China, on the other hand…
… are lethal and nasty. Merit driven. Work together as one singular organism, and utilize cutting edge technology in massive numbers. They are like a cat after a rat. It’ll be over in seconds.
Why?
Well, the Chinese don’t think like Europeans, Westerners, or Russians. They are different.
It was some twenty years after the end of the Vietnam war that a security conference was held between leading military figures from both America and Vietnam. Following the conference a U.S. Air Force General approached a Vietnamese General.
The American had been a fighter pilot captain during the conflict, the Vietnamese general had been a Colonel in the N.V.A. The American asked (paraphrasing): “You have to tell me, we knew your Army was continually crossing the Mekong, we flew sorties up and down the river and could never find your bridges.” “I know,” said the Vietnamese, “we built them three feet under water.”
In that instant the American understood why America lost the war. His “Road to Damascus” moment was informed by how the different combatants approached problems. Had that been an American problem, how an Army crosses a wide, deep and fast flowing river, they would have solved the problem differently. They would have built a suspension bridge, they would have had bases on either side to protect it. They would have had Bowling alleys and Burger Kings and would have been flying in Bob Hope to entertain the troops. Why? Because they could, when you have resources they become the answer to every problem. The Vietnamese didn’t have resources, so they were resourceful.
And that, as the American realized, was why the Vietnamese won, and America lost.
The general may have learned a lesson, but if he told anyone, no one listened. Many of the same mistakes were repeated in Afghanistan, with the same results. Resources are not the answer to every problem. As with Americas war on drugs, war on crime, war on poverty, all resources do is obscure the underlying problem and present false, ineffective solutions.
-Strategic Culture
Both Russia and China have formed a new nation. It is a united Asia. They share trade, technology and intelligence.
Both Russia and China are being attacked by the United States.
It is on a host of levels and avenues, and as much as possible, proxy nations and entities are being used to disguise the United States from culpibility. That’s the situation. The entire world knows this, it’s just that (for some reason) it’s taboo to speak the truth.
I argue that World War III is being fought right now.
I argue that it has been going on, at least since 2008.
I argue that China and Russia are aware of this.
I also argue that they have waited until after their 4FEB22 agreement to take the necessary actions…
So what is next?
Offensive actions.
We’ve been on the road to perdition for a long time, but we came to a peak on that highway in 2019 and the path has been straight down since, with our chariot of fire accelerating at breakneck speed towards its final destination with catastrophe and ruin.
The rise and fall of the American Empire will be far more rapid than the rise and fall of the Roman Empire.
With the inept and reckless leadership in place presently, I only hope we still have a nation after they successfully provoke World War 3.
-Burning Platform
Both China and Russia, are not “punching bags”. They can only take so much bullshit before they decide to “turn the tables” and go on the offensive.
No. I am not really talking about Ukraine. That’s a military-technical measure that occurred on the border of Russia. What I am talking about is offensive actions against the source of the conflict.
The source of the conflict is the United States.
And it has to be within a near-by timetable. It cannot be delayed. The United States is building a large number of Aircraft Carriers, building and setting up a Pacific-NATO known as the QUAD, and the longer this action is delayed, the greater the rist of a massive, and horrific Mutual Assured Destruction fiasco.
Both Russia and China have to be smart; be timely, and be proactive in their actions.
Bioweapons labs in the Ukraine
Russia has lost all of it’s biological weapons, research and systems upon the fall of the Soviet Union. The ONLY nation that maintains the technology, the labs, and the systems to inject them into societies is the Untied States.
And they have hundreds of these labs, and bases all around the world.
During the invasion of the Ukraine, the Russians have been able to capture, and secure a large number of the labs and study them…
Igor Kirillov, Head of the Radiological, Chemical and Biological Defense Forces of the Russian Armed Forces, explained this week the results of the analysis of documents found in Ukrainian military biolabs:
The U.S. funded biolabs in Kiev, Odessa, Lvov and Kharkov, awarding $32 million, in order to “study” pathogens of Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever, leptospirosis and hantaviruses. Their use can be disguised as natural disease outbreaks.
Six families of viruses (including coronaviruses) and three types of pathogenic bacteria (causative agents of plague, brucellosis and leptospirosis) have been identified as having characteristics suitable for infecting humans from animals.Research has even been carried out on the transmission of diseases through bats.
There are a number of documents confirming the transfer of biological samples taken in Ukraine to the territory of third countries, including Germany, Great Britain and Georgia.
The transmission of highly pathogenic avian influenza by wild birds was studied at the Kharkiv Institute of Veterinary Medicine.
The transfer of 5,000 blood serum samples taken from Ukrainian residents to the Pentagon-supported Richard Lugar Center in Tbilisi, Georgia, was confirmed.
Another 773 assays were transferred to the United Kingdom, while an agreement was signed to transfer “unlimited quantities” of infectious supplies to the Friedrich Loeffler Institute, Germany’s leading animal disease center.
The findings of these biolabs cannot be ignored.
Ukraine as one of the satellite states of the United States served as a space for biological weapons to start gaining ground in the new forms of warfare against Russia (and the world, looking at it in perspective).
It is suspicious that the Ukrainian-US biolabs are located along the perimeter of the Russian border, considering that these facilities were also reported to have used samples from people of different ethnicities living in the Russian Federation and other Eurasian countries. It should be considered to be an attack vector, and very nefarious one at that.
If you were a responsible leader, you would recognize the reality of this threat vector. Obtain the materials and technology, and add it to your arsenal of weaponary.
History of using Bioweapons to “suppress” China, Russia and Iran.
I have covered this elsewhere. I have discussed this on multible levels, and in various media. Including video interviews, television, radio, and my articles on MM.
The United States waged biowarfare on China starting (maybe longer, but I did not go that far back) in 2017. This was by direction of John Bolton, and under the permission of President Donald Trump.
There were eight bioweapons (min) that were used against livestock. The goal was to create a famine inside of China. They were dispersed in a selection of ways and means, with the use of drones to contaminate and infect the widely spread out pig farms of great interest. As the drone componentry had tooling marks indicative of United States or UK manufacture.
Sloppy. Very sloppy guys.
When these did not work, three bioweapons were used to “suppress” the Chinese people. The first was COVID on CNY. I suppose you could argue that it was the “crown jewel”. As the “B strain” that hit China was particuliarly lethal and really caused a mess. While the “A strain” was released inside the United States and it’s allies six months early so that those nations would obtain “herd immunity”.
The other two bioweapons were really very bad.
They were two really nasty lethal viruses that both caused your internal organs to liquify and forced the compromised to vomit them out, or shit them out. The first was a mutiated tick virus with HIV inserts that broke out in Beijing; a city that has no ticks what so ever. And the second a modification of a swine flu but was airborne, also had HIV inserts, and high transmissibility.
But of course, China was at DEFCON 1.
China found the bioweapons, tracked them to their sources, and went full lock-down. And as soon as they were discovered, well…
…Donald Trump was evacuated, and the USA went to DEFCON 1. As the “news” said, “as a precaution” and “the President had contacted coronavirus.”
When nothing happened by China, three days later, Donald Trump left from his bunker, and declared that he was “cured” or coronavirus within three days. And nothing was presented to the public in the “news” media.
But China… heh, heh…
…China does things on it’s own timetable, and at it’s own pace for it’s own advantage. And they never forget.
They MIGHT forgive, but they will not forget.
Lethal Chicken virus
And right now, things are still in process. The United States is all in alarm and proceeding in their attacks against China, and Russia. It’s active. It’s full-spectrum. It’s everything (except the kitchen sink) full spectrum (minus overt kintetic fighting USA to Asia) and very active on all levels.
So, if you watch the Western “news” you won’t be aware of any of this. (There’s) Thousands of articles investigating every single nuiance about how Russia is losing the war in the Ukraine, the effect of how great the sanctions against Russia are, and how evil and villainous China is.
But NOTHING about China and Russia making offensive moves against the “bright and shiny house on the Hill”; Washington DC and the United States.
But there is some UNRELATED NEWS.
News about chickens. News about Turkeys. News about Pigeons.
Odd news. Seemingly unimportant news.
From the CDC…
March 7, 2022—To date, highly pathogenic avian influenza A(H5N1) viruses (“H5N1 bird flu viruses”) have been detected in U.S. wild birds in 14 states and in commercial and backyard poultry in 13 states, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Animal and Plant Health Inspective Service (APHIS).
Based on available epidemiologic and virologic information about these viruses, CDC believes that the risk to the general public’s health from current H5N1 bird flu viruses is low, however some people may have job-related or recreational exposures to birds that put them at higher risk of infection.
CDC is watching this situation closely and taking routine preparedness and prevention measures in case this virus changes to pose a greater human health risk.
Right now, the H5N1 bird flu situation is primarily an animal health issue. The U.S. Department of Interior and USDA APHIS are the lead federal agencies for this situation.
They are respectively responsible for outbreak investigation and control of bird flu in wild birds and in domestic birds (poultry). USDA has publicly posted the genetic sequences of several of the recently detected U.S. H5N1 bird flu viruses. These viruses are from clade 2.3.4.4b, which is the most common H5N1 bird flu virus worldwide at this time. Comparing information about these newer viruses to previously circulating H5N1 bird flu viruses helps inform the human health risk assessment.
Background on H5N1
Ancestors of the H5N1 bird flu viruses infecting wild birds and poultry in the U.S. beginning in 2021 first emerged in southern China in 1996 and caused large poultry outbreaks in Hong Kong in 1997, which resulted in 18 human infections.
The bird outbreak was controlled, but H5N1 bird flu viruses re-surfaced in 2003 to spread widely in birds throughout Asia, and later in Africa, Europe, and the Middle East, causing poultry outbreaks and sporadic human infections.
Related H5N1 bird flu viruses were even found in wild birds and poultry in the U.S. and Canada during 2014 and 2015, causing large poultry outbreaks, but then they disappeared. Since 2003, the World Health Organization (WHO) external icon, has received reports from 19 countries of more than 860 human infections with H5N1 bird flu viruses, with about 53 percent of those resulting in death. CDC has spent many years studying the properties of H5N1 viruses over the years.
Once detected in polutry, the entire farm must be killed off. There is no way to stop the virus. Once infected, the entire population becomes infected and dies.
It has a very high rate of transmissibly. It is quick and infects the entire bird population within days.
The outbreak is in 13 states within the United States. The CDC says that there is nothing to be concerned about.
The death rate for those unfortunate humans who have contacted this virus is 53%
Roughly 53% of people diagnosed with H5N1 and 50% of people diagnosed with H7N9 have died.
-Avian Flu
Daegal report review
I do not know what lies in the future. But I do know that the future has been remote viewed. And the results were presented in The Deagal Report.
The Deagel corporation is a minor branch of US military intelligence, one of the many secretive organizations which collects data for high-level decision-making purposes and prepares confidential briefing documents for agencies like the National Security Agency, the United Nations, and the World Bank.
It’s a work of “love” from some retired intelligence assets, and like most of us ex-spooks, it’s hosted outside of the United States. Just like MM here. We have VERY good reasons to do so. Reasons that are far too complex to get involved in right this moment. But we DO KNOW what we are doing. Never doubt that.
Deagel is known, for example, to have contributed to a Stratfor report on North Korea. With this kind of pedigree, Deagel should be seen as a legitimate player in the intelligence community and not merely a disinformation asset.
If so, then it must be assumed that its population predictions for 2025, as well as its industrial output predictions on a nation-by-nation basis, are based on strategic assumptions which are shared and well understood by other players in the intelligence community.
Deagel predictions.
Until the start of the Covid ‘pandemic’ many commentators were perplexed by the Deagel spreadsheets.
Perhaps they were part of a psychological operation?
However, in light of recent events, we are obliged to consider a possible connection between the projected massive reduction in the population of certain countries, forecast by Deagel, and other trends going on right now.
Trends?
What trends?
Devaluation of the Dollar with an out of control American Congress.
Strange insistence in using a mRNA vaccine instead of a traditional “dead host” vaccine.
A global pandemic that America is just fucking up royally.
Desire for a war with China.
Desire for a war with Russia.
Desire for a war with Iran.
China, Russia and Iran forming a unified Asian block.
Race war in the United States.
Progressive onslaught and control of all electronic media.
Looming bubbles in just about every facet of American life.
And so on and so forth…
And then, theres the nuclear angle
Russia is on full nuclear alert. China is on full nuclear alert, and the United States is moving it’s nuclear weapons all around Asia. Just like it was depicted in the movie Threads (2.5 minutes)
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The Deagel scenario
The Deagel corporation was asked to explain the thinking behind its strange set of population and output figures. While we cannot take its response at face value, it nonetheless paints a picture that is very similar to the world we now see. And this is not an exaggeration at all.
Consider…
[1] A fake American GDP
In short, they argued that the US government has greatly over-stated the real level of US GDP. This means the country will be fatally exposed when the next economic crisis strikes. And an economic crisis is striking.
They also take into account a “pandemic scenario” – their term – caused by Ebola or a similar pathogen. This, they say, would cause an exceptionally high death rate, placing extreme pressure on healthcare providers across America and greatly reducing economic output.
[3] A financial crisis with the US Dollar
This pandemic could quickly spiral out of control and create an international financial crisis:
“The collapse of the Western financial system will wipe out the standard of living of its population while ending Ponzi schemes such as the Stock Exchange and the pension funds.”
Trying to figure it out…
They try to explain the predicted dramatic fall in the population of the US by reference to a massive outward migration of millions of Americans seeking economic relief in other countries, but this is unconvincing.
They seem to concede this themselves when they add a further explanatory factor – widespread suicide in response to economic distress. But this too is unsatisfactory.
Their primary reason for predicting a colossal drop in the population of the US by 2025 – a fall of up to 70 percent – is the scale and severity of the alleged pandemic.
As they put it,
“the death toll will be horrible.”
Map
Here’s a map showing the predictions made in the forecast. You see that Asia is unscathed, while America and the West suffer horribly.
Japan will lose 1/5th of it’s population!
Australia will lose a full 1/3rd of it’s population!
Canada will lose 1/4th of it’s population!
The United States will lose almost 3/4ths of it’s population!
Timing
By all accounts, historically, the massive drop in population at this time is validated by the “Fourth Turning” predictions. The date and timing all agree with the Strauss and Howe model for America.
This model is United States centrist, and acknowledges that different societies and different cultures have different “turnings” and generational changes.
Casualty Figures
The casualty figures are gargantuan. And they are all centered around the Western block.
United States
Europe / NATO
QUAD (minus India that opted out)
What a coincidence!
This 2012 remote viewing would associate such an enormous death toll with a bi-polar world, and that the East (Asia) would be unscathed, while the West (The USA) would have massive casualties.
It’s an American centered fiasco
USA Leadership = 70% drop in population
Europe / NATO = 50 – 70% drop in population
QUAD = 20 – 35% drop in population
Based on historical precedents, and the Deagel predictions, these kinds of numbers and figures can only be associated with an American centered disaster. Not really a global one. Because if it was a global disaster, then the causality figures would be more uniform.
.
Europe
The countries that will suffer the greatest reduction in population, according to Deagel (as per 2014), are:
Aside from massive devistation in Europe, you have to admit… the numbers are horrific. They are pretty darn specific. Don’t you know.
In 2020, Deagel revised their assessment of the 2012 forecast. They did not change the data nor the results. They reviewed the possible causes as things developed…
Deagel 2020 revision to the original 2012 Deagel Forecast
BlueNarwhal:
Forecast disclaimer revision in 2020:
In 2014 we published a disclaimer about the forecast. In six years the scenario has changed dramatically.
This new disclaimer is meant to single out the situation from 2020 on-wards.
Talking about the United States and the European Union as separated entities no longer makes sense. Both are the Western block, keep printing money and will share the same fate.
After COVID we can draw two major conclusions:
[1] The Western world success model has been built over societies with no resilience that can barely withstand any hardship, even a low intensity one. It was assumed but now we’ve got the full hard confirmation beyond any doubt.
[2] The COVID crisis will be used to extend the life of this dying economic system through the so called “Great Reset.”
The Great Reset; like the climate change, extinction rebellion, planetary crisis, green revolution, shale oil (…) hoaxes promoted by the system; is another attempt to slow down dramatically the consumption of natural resources and therefore extend the lifetime of the current system.
It can be effective for awhile but finally won’t address the bottom-line problem and will only delay the inevitable.
The core ruling elites hope to stay in power which is in effect the only thing that really worries them.
The collapse of the Western financial system – and ultimately the Western civilization – has been the major driver in the 2012 forecast along with a confluence of crisis with a devastating outcome.
As COVID has proven Western societies embracing multiculturalism and extreme liberalism are unable to deal with any real hardship.
The Spanish flu one century ago represented the death of 40-50 million people.
Today the world’s population is four times greater with air travel in full swing which is by definition a super spreader.
The death casualties in today’s World would represent 160 to 200 million in relative terms but more likely 300-400 million taking into consideration the air travel factor that did not exist one century ago.
So far, COVID death toll is roughly 1 million people.
It is quite likely that the economic crisis due to the lock-downs will cause more deaths than the virus worldwide.
The Soviet system was less able to deliver goodies to the people than the Western one. Nevertheless Soviet society was more compact and resilient under an authoritarian regime. That in mind, the collapse of the Soviet system wiped out 10 percent of the population.
The stark reality of diverse and multicultural Western societies is that a collapse will have a toll of 50 to 80 percent depending on several factors.
But in general terms the most diverse, multicultural, indebted and wealthy (highest standard of living) will suffer the highest toll.
The only glue that keeps united such aberrant collage from falling apart is over-consumption with heavy doses of bottomless degeneracy disguised as virtue.
Nevertheless the widespread censorship, hate laws and contradictory signals mean that even that glue is not working any more.
Not everybody has to die.
Migration can also play a positive role in this.
The formerly (known as) second and third world nations are an unknown at this point. Their fate will depend upon the decisions they take in the future.
Western powers are not going to take over them as they did in the past because these (Western) countries won’t be able to control their very own cities let alone those countries that are far away.
If they remain tied to the former World Order they will go down along with the Western powers. However, they won’t experience the same kind of brutal decline that the Western powers will experience so brazenly. This is partially because they are poorer and (obviously) not diverse enough. Instead they are stronger than the Western powers because they are actually quite homogeneous. This is their advantage. And that they are used to deal with some sort of hardship. Though, not precisely the one that is coming.
If they switch to China they can get a chance to stabilize but will need to depend upon the management of their own resources.
We expected this situation to unfold and actually is unfolding right now.
With the November election triggering a major bomb if Trump is re-elected. (Did not happen.)
If Biden is elected there will very bad consequences as well.
There is a lot of bad blood in the Western societies and the protests, demonstrations, rioting and looting are only the first symptoms of what is coming.
However a new trend is taking place overshadowing this one.
The situation between the three great powers has changed dramatically.
The only relevant achievement of the Western powers during the past decade has been the formation of a strategic alliance, both military and economic, between Russia and China.
Right now the potential partnership between Russia and the European Union (EU) is dead with Russia turning definitively towards China. That was from the beginning the most likely outcome.
Airbus never tried to establish a real partnership but rather a strategy to fade away the Russian aerospace industry.
Actually Russia and China have formed a new alliance to build a long haul airliner.
Western Europe (not to mention the United States) was never interested in the development of Russia or forming anything other than a master slave relationship with Russia providing raw materials and toeing the line of the West.
It was clear then and today is a fact.
Russia has been preparing for a major war since 2008 and China has been increasing her military capabilities for the last 20 years. Today China is not a second tier power compared with the United States. Both in military and economic terms China is at the same level and in some specific areas are far ahead.
In the domain of high-tech 5G has been a success in the commercial realm but the Type 055 destroyer is also another breakthrough with the US gaining a similar capability (DDG 51 Flight IIII) by mid of this decade (more likely by 2030).
Nanchang, the lead ship of the Type 055 class, was commissioned amid the pandemic and lockdown in China.
Six years ago the likelihood of a major war was tiny.
Since then it has grown steadily and dramatically and today is by far the most likely major event in the 2020s.
The ultimate conflict can come from two ways.
[1] A conventional conflict involving at least two major powers that escalates into an open nuclear war.
[2] A second scenario is possible in the 2025-2030 time-frame. A Russian sneak first strike against the United States and its allies with the new S-500, strategic missile defenses, Yasen-M submarines, INF Zircon and Kalibr missiles and some new space asset playing the key role.
The sneaky first strike would involve all Russian missile strategic forces branches (bombers and ground-based missiles) at the different stages of such attack that would be strategic translation of what was seen in Syria in November 2015.
There was no report that the Russian had such a capability of launching a high precision, multiple, combined arms attack at targets 2,000+ kilometers away.
Western intelligence had no clue.
The irony is that since the end of the Cold War the United States has been maneuvering through NATO to achieve a position to be able to execute a first strike (nuclear) over Russia and now it seems that the first strike may still occur but the country finished would be the United States.
Another particularity of the Western system is that its individuals have been brainwashed to the point that the majority accept their moral high ground and technological edge as a given.
This has given the rise of the supremacy of the emotional arguments over the rational ones which are ignored or deprecated.
That mindset can play a key role in the upcoming catastrophic events.
At least in the Soviet system the silent majority of the people were aware of the fallacies they were fed up.
We can see the United States claims about 5G being stolen from them by China or hypersonic technology being stolen by Russia as the evidence that the Western elites are also infected by that hubris.
Over the next decade it will become obvious that the West is falling behind the Russia-China block and the malaise might grow into desperation.
Going to war might seem a quick and easy solution to restore the lost hegemony to finally find them into a France 1940 moment. Back then France did not have nuclear weapons to turn a defeat into a victory. The West might try that swap because the unpleasant prospect of not being Mars and Venus but rather a bully and his dirty bitch running away in fear while the rest of the world is laughing at them.
If there is not a dramatic change of course the world is going to witness the first nuclear war.
The Western block collapse may come before, during or after the war.
It does not matter.
A nuclear war is a game with billions of casualties and the collapse plays in the hundreds of millions.
Spinach and Cheese Stromboli
Spinach and Cheese Stromboli
Need something that’s classically Italian? Try a Spinach and Cheese Stromboli. Refrigerated pizza dough is our shortcut to making this tasty meal in less than 15 minutes. It’s a quick and easy vegetarian stromboli recipe that’s guaranteed to fill you up. We’re sure you’ll agree, this simple Italian dinner is unquestionably tasty.
What You’ll Need
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 (10-ounce) package frozen chopped spinach, thawed and well drained
4 cloves garlic, minced
1 cup ricotta cheese
1 cup (4 ounces) shredded mozzarella cheese
1/2 teaspoon dried oregano
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 (13.8-ounce) package refrigerated pizza dough
What to Do
Preheat oven to 425 degrees F. Coat a baking sheet with cooking spray.
In a large skillet over medium-high heat, heat oil. Add spinach and garlic and sauté 3 to 5 minutes, or until garlic is golden. Remove from heat and allow to cool slightly.
In a large bowl, combine ricotta and mozzarella cheeses, the oregano, and salt. Add spinach mixture and stir until well blended.
Unroll pizza dough and with your fingertips or the heel of your hand, spread dough out to a 10- x 15-inch rectangle. Cut in half lengthwise to make two 5- x 15-inch rectangles. Spread half the spinach mixture onto each piece of dough, leaving a 1/2-inch border around the edge. Fold each piece of dough over and pinch the edges to seal securely. Place on prepared baking sheet.
Bake 10 to 12 minutes, or until golden brown.
Statements of prediction
Including remote viewing into the calculus, and taking into account all the knowns…
The American leadership class does not contain diplomatic professionals. Instead there are unskilled political donors who are making life and death decisions.
The mRNA vaccination is a real mystery, and there HAS to be a reason behind using it instead of the traditional “Dead Host” vaccination.
The approved 2021 Federal budget includes an enormous military funding outlay that is obviously in preparation for a major war.
The American government, and their media are all talking about an upcoming major war with China.
American military is retreating from Afghanistan, and four bases in Korea, while making QUAD arrangements with Australia and Japan.
Red Line violations with Russia provoking a war in Ukraine.
Red Line posturing with China concerning Taiwan.
The end of the USD.
Sanction-crazy United States and threatening the entire world with “consequences”.
A unified Asian block to include Russia, China, India and Iran.
All of this is very disturbing, and considered alone would be cause enough to suggest that a major war is just on the horizon.
But…
America (The United States) is crumbling from rot from within…
Racial hate.
Proliferation of firearms, and the establishment of armed groups.
Balkanization.
Economic bubbles.
Social bubbles.
The wealth gap is enormous.
Infrastructure funding is too late.
Rules, regulations and laws are all off the charts.
Couple that with a failed bio-weapons attack on China, and the fiasco which was the Trump neocon administration, followed by the bumbling Biden administration… and hard-core neocon Religious extremists, and industry interests desiring of conflict, war and strife (all for various reasons), and you have a poisonous stew.
The “Genie is out of the bottle”, and I do not think that the looming “mountains” on the horizon can be avoided. The inertia associated with the clustering of world-lines is way too strong. So my guess (and I hope that I am wrong) is that the United States will sleep-walk into a war with Asia, and then before it happens, Asia will strike preemptively.
No matter what the details are, the remote viewing forecast is quite clear.
The United States Military Empire is going to start another major war. It is intended to be a distraction from the domestic failures, and regardless as to how much money President Biden is plowing into the economy, it’s not going to make any difference.
America is toast.
Burnt to a crisp; blackened, burned toast.
America today.
And it’s only a matter of time…
And then when the moron, presses the button, flicks the switch, or twists the knob, all Hell will break loose.
Engage Russia in warfare via proxy.
Engage China in warfare via proxy.
All in all, the USA will suffer horribly, and the combination of everything else will only turn a fiasco into an Hellish nightmare.
Ooey-Gooey Bacon Grilled Cheese
Ooey Gooey Bacon Grilled Cheese
A classic grilled cheese sandwich is good, but a grilled cheese sandwich that’s made with three different kinds of cheeses, and a creamy, bacony dip is even better. This Ooey-Gooey Bacon Grilled Cheese is going to blow you away with its incredible taste. Once you’ve had a taste of it this way, you’ll find it hard to go back to the old way!
What You’ll Need
1/2 cup refrigerated cheddar and bacon dip
1 (3-ounce) package cream cheese, softened
1 cup shredded cheddar cheese
1 cup shredded mozzarella cheese
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
8 slices homestyle white bread
4 tablespoons (1/2 stick) butter, softened
Senario Flush Out
It appears, assuming that…
Degal remote viewing is correct (and it appears to be)
The USA continues on the Ukraine proxy attack. (Certainly appears that way.)
The USA continues with the Taiwan proxy attacks… (All evidence confirm…)
Then, we can expect a confluence of a number of calamity vectors. Economic, Medical and Military.
Economic
Economic; Loss of USD as a global currency.
Economic; Deshrouding of the fake GDP towards it’s actual value.
Economic; Collapse of the Western trade / logistic systems. (I hope not.)
Economic; Sanction blowback. (The US cannot sanction the world.)
Economic; Energy strangulation. (And the domino effect…)
Medical
Bioweapon / pandemic effects. (Not just Covid.)
Lack of serious quarantine and containment procedures. (It’s binary.)
A decrease in the access to medicines (because of trade / sanctions).
Overwhelmed medical care facilities. (Largest contributor.)
Military
Nuclear strikes. (Actual or threat vectors.)
Shipping blockages. (Part of the USA plan, but sanctions can enable.)
Regional conflicts and revolutions.
I argue that we are looking at the confluence of these three vectors and they center like a target reticle cross-hair on the United States and it’s allies. All of them can contribute synergistically towards a regional catastrophic result.
But… Keep in mind.
You can control YOUR reality. And maybe this mountain of turmoil is sitting off somewhere on your world-line template, you can still navigate around it. Remember, after all, for all the turmoil and strife during World War II, Canada, South America, and Africa was relatively left alone.
Maybe you don’t want to move to Greenland, Patagonia, or Zambia. But you don’t really need to. All you need to do is control your little bit of reality. And if you do that, then everything will work out just fine.
Some final thoughts
Keep in mind that the Deagel remote viewed the future correctly. They printed their results in 2012.
They PREDICTED a bio-warfare induced pandemic.
They PREDICTED an Australian military alliance with the United States.
They PREDICTED that America would start entering a period of "popping" of the various economic bubbles.
They PREDICTED a bio-polar world separated into East and West.
All of which came true by 2020.
Deagel did NOT change their forecast for 2025. It still stands. They just changed their thinking on how it would come about.
They remote viewed 2025 in great detail.
There will be [1] a massive die off of people in America, and Australia. The rest of the world will fare much better. And, most importantly, a [2] bio-weapon or pandemic figured predominantly in their calculus.
In 2012, they believed that there would be some kind of bio-weapon or pandemicthat would kill off so many Americans. But they couldn’t (for the life of them) answer why Australia of all places would also have a large die-off. At that time they never could of imagined the QUAD set up by Mike Pompeo, and that the Morrison government would wholeheartedly want to declare war on China. Instead, they figured that it must be a very serious pandemic with some other mystery event that complicated things in a negative manner.
In 2020, in the midst of the (three agent) bio-weapon attacks on China, and the absolute failure of America in securing it’s homeland, as well as the strong alignment of the Australian Morrison government to the war-loving neocons in Washington DC, the revised reasoning became one of nuclear war. Thus they reasoned that since the 2020 pandemic wasn’t that bad (being in the United States, and getting the “safe” bioweapon), and the drums of war were beating so loudly, that it must be nuclear war with bio-weapons used simultaneously.
Whether there is a nuclear event, or a bio-weapon event, no matter who caused it, or who instigated it, America will be absolutely and totally devastated. A 70% kill off implies that America would indeed be thrown back to the bronze age.
My advice?
You cannot change what is going to happen. It is pretty much set in stone. The only thing that you can do is to save yourself.
Flee the United States as fast as you can.
Go to a nation with a safer rating on the Deagel scale.
Consider fleeing any nation that is allied with the United States as well. The UK, and those European nations that are part of NATO perform very poorly. Though you will probably have an easier time of it than being the United States, it will still be a very rough life in those places.
It will be a scene out of the movie “Threads“, and you all should get a copy of this movie and watch it right now.
Threads Nuclear Detonation Scene
And when you watch it, keep in mind that what it portrays is EXACTLY what Deagal predicts will happen to America and it’s allies. Watch it and realize that you have two to three short years to save yourself and your family.
Bugging out.
A final comment
Everyone is aware that nuclear war is horrible and undesirable. However, the American leadership are making ZERO efforts to deescalate tensions in the Ukraine. Instead they are throwing weapons there. They are making ZERO efforts to deescalate tensions around Taiwan.
Russia and China have formed a major block. THEY DO NOT PLAY.
I cannot predict the future.
But others have.
This is what they predicted… 10 minute video. It is well worth viewing.
.
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.
It’s now three weeks since both Blinkedin and Biden held face-to-face meetings DEMANDING that China needs to immediately start sanctioning Russia and stop being their friend, or else immediate and severe consequences would occur.
China refused and said NO!
And as far as I can see, there are only two events that occured that could be considered as “immediate and severe” repercussions.
[1] Coronavirus outbreaks. Simultaneous COVID outbreaks hitting major cities throughout China. Resulting in lock-downs and quarantine measures.
[2] The crash of a Chinese domestic airliner. It was an American Boeing craft and it drove straight towards the ground with throttles set at full.
Let’s look at the big picture…
There are events going on that are CLEAR. The United States has provoked Russia, and is now engaging in war against Russia in all ways; including kinetic via proxy.
What is also CLEAR is that the clock is ticking, and the timetable is in place. First, one Asian nation and then the other. First it is Russia, then China. Everything is following towards the strategies mapped out by RAND. This is publically known as a “pivot to Asia” (once Russia is suppressed.)
The RAND plan specifies a 2025 conflict conclusion with China.
It will be initiated by a provocation (a “Red Line” crossing) with Taiwan. And America will benefit substantially while China will be a quivering wreck, and ripe for CIA sponsored “regime change” via “color revolution”.
RAND details a 1-2 year war with China aimed at [1] destroying its trade network, [2] destroying its resource access, [3] collapsing its economy, and of course, [4] regime change.
The United States still seems to be following this plan. I see no evidence otherwise.
The window of opportunity for realizing these 2016 plans was originally given as ending in 2025; that may be much sooner now. Perhaps moved up to just before the November midterm elections, for the added “rally around the President” domestic effect.
I am not at all saying the US is destined to succeed, but it would be foolish not to note their telegraphed plans, and foolish to dismiss either their destructive power or their desperation.
What we can note is that both China and Russia have taken these telegraphed plans to heart, and have substantially and systemically disassembled all their components.
Let’s take a look at what has transpired since Obama funded this plan, four years of Trump, and now into the second year of the Biden administration…
[1] Destroying China’s trade network.
The Chinese BRI is continuing to plan.
The interruptions in SE Asia have all failed.
The “Color Revolutions” in Kazakhstan were prevented.
The “Color Revolutions” in Belarus were prevented.
The USD is substantially weakened and there are now other trade currencies.
There ARE interruptions in American domestic trade.
[2] Destroying China’s resource access.
Agreements between Russia for resources.
Agreements with South America and Latin America for resources.
Agreements with Africa for resources.
They are interruptions for America, and the EU for resource access.
[3] Collapsing China’s economy.
After attempts at inducing famine in China, China recovered.
New rules and controls have been implemented.
China is at DEFCON 2, and carefully monitoring everything.
USD entry into China is tightly controlled.
Both the American and EU economy is under collapse.
[4] Regime change inside of China.
COVID bioweapon attack failed.
Color revolutions in HK were suppressed.
Color revolutions in Tibet were suppressed.
Color revolutions in Xinjiang (Uighur) were suppressed.
The Chinese are more patriotic than ever. With near 95% approval.
Unrest in the United States is growing, with massive inflation.
Obviously, the plans to seize and destroy China have failed.
However, this fact appears to be ignored by the American “leadership”. In fact, President Biden has “doubled down” and is proceeding as if everything is still on track and to plan
So what is also CLEAR is that the United States is not adjusting its strategy in regard to it’s plans for global domination, given its failures. That is suggestive of many things. But most notably, that “no one is at the helm”. The leadership; the Captain is absent.
Instead of adjusting leadership strategies as events change (known as “structural leadership”), it appears that the actual “Leadership” are continuing to follow the previously approved script in every detail. They are doing so mindlessly, or (as we used to say in the United States) “on automatic pilot”.
This is unusual, disturbing, and problematic.
On one hand, it means that the actions of the United States are easily predicted. Russia and China can well anticipate, plan, and modify the events, in effect, tailoring the outcomes.
On the other hand, it means that the worst case scenarios as defined by the RAND study will manifest. Now, the RAND study assumed that political realities would limit nuclear MAD responses, what I see at this time is that the nuclear MAD reality is a real objective outcome.
Bummer.
Ok, as is my preference, we will provide elements of Geo-political news, interspersed with other subjects. I have to tell you all, troll attacks, and ‘bot attacks have dropped to zero. It works like a charm.
Chinese Girl in a store
Yes. This is pretty much how girls in China are, and what stores in China look like. video 3.6MB
She’s really nice. Don’t you think?
A Polish general has an eye on Kaliningrad.
“Warsaw should seek to “claim” the Kaliningrad region from Russia, General Waldemar Skrzypczak has said.
The region has been “under Russian occupation since 1945,” the ex-commander of the Polish Land Forces claimed on the TV show ‘Super Express’ on Friday.
“It might be worth asking for it, as it used to be with the Regained Territories,” Skrzypczak said, referring to the Eastern German territories incorporated into Poland after the defeat of Nazi Germany. “It might be worth asking for this Kaliningrad region, which, in my opinion, is part of the territory of Poland.””
That would be pretty difficult, as the United States has sanctioned Russia and is waging war with them. Poland is one of the proxies involved in this effort.
The United States DEMANDS that China obey sanctions against Russia
I came across this excellent TASS article summarizing the 4 February 2022 Russia/China Joint Declaration. It’s a helpful reminder, on just how far-reaching the Declaration is and the principles it’s based upon. These are some the many, many key paragraphs, although there are more:
"This declaration formalizes the de facto established union of Russia and China. We have been talking a great deal about strategic interaction. This is a real embodiment of this interaction," Maslov said.He stressed that in their joint statement Russia and China described the principles they would rely on in developing global cooperation."These principles are absolutely not new ones," he remarked. "In fact, the statement heralds a return to the original UN principles that were laid down back in the 1940s and 1950s."The expert believes that the document is a clear sign the countries "share common values, a common understanding of democracy and the idea of the national nature of this democracy, pool together many international projects, the EAEU and the One Belt-One Road and also discuss interaction in the Arctic."Maslov stressed that the security issues mentioned in the statement were the most important of all. "A whole list of new types of security was determined there, including cybersecurity, on which the countries will cooperate," he said.
Given the rejection by the West of everything Russian and Chinese, it actually seems probable that the Declaration went unread by American “high officials”, meaning Blinken, Austin and Sullivan, since they already had formalized their escalation plans.
They are still following their check-lists and scripts.
But the reality is something very different. Russia and China have unified. They are as one singular nation, and they coordinate as one singular nation.
It’s not just a treaty. It is the de facto union of Russia and China together.
It is the formation of a new POWER BLOCK.
It is equivalent to when the 13 American states formed the “United States” of America in 1776. It is equivalent to when the European Union was formed, and NATO was created. It is really, really BIG news.
Therefore…
Sanction demands by the United States is an automatic NO!
This new arrangement renders the RAND plans out-of-date and inert.
The lack of strategy, reaction, or modification to this change is, as I have stated early, suggestive of brainless abeyance to decade-old obsolete plans, goals and strategies.
Zhuhai, China
This is where MM lives. Morning near my home. Zhuhai, China. video 6 MB
The world doesn’t understand.
The reality is that there is a massive block that has formed.
An Asian block.
Now you can also include India to this block. This is substantive. As just about the entire Asian group is now unified.
Don’t allow the nation’s shown in white fool you. They are all aligned by one of the major powers in Asia on multiple levels.
President Biden told the 82nd airborne that they’re going to Ukraine
"... and you're going to see when you're there (Ukraine)...."
Imagine President Trump had inexplicably told U.S. troops they were deploying to fight Russia. Really imagine it! All we’d be hearing is that he’s mentally unfit and must be removed under the 25th Amendment.
Joe Biden did exactly that (same thing) today.
Are you being the best you can be?
Rufus is all about being the best that you can be to your own standards. You don’t blame others. You take control over your life. You adapt. You see things as they are, and not as you want them to be. Be the Rufus. Make your parents proud. video 10MB
China and Russia announcement
Rumor has it that Russia and China are going to make a ‘religious announcement’ for the markets, sometime around Monday 28-3, to the 1st of April.
This link to a ruble/gold/oil based currency system may explain why the Saudis, etc, have been so detached from the US of late, not taking phone calls, etc.
There is huge panic going on in the West, at the moment, this cannot be denied.
This girl lives in my town. She’s nice and fun. Yeah, and this is what China is like. video 3MB
Cheese Ball
Do you remember seeing a cheese ball on your grandparents’ Thanksgiving table and wondering what it was? We have good news: Cheese balls are delicious, easy to make, and perfectly delicious all season long, not just at the holidays.
Delicious Cheese Ball
Here’s what you do; you by some crackers, make a cheese ball, and get a case of beer. Then you get on your phone and call folks over to chat, play cards, or a board game, or watch a movie. What’s not to love?
Chinese second grade military training
Cool video. Everyone in China participates. Everyone has a role, and many skills are learned early on. video 11MB
City Chicken
City Chicken (aka, Fake Chicken) is a traditional Polish-American dish that is beloved by many. The most curious thing about this dish is that it doesn’t actually contain any chicken. Rather, your featured protein here is actually pork and/or veal. So, why is it be called a “City Chicken” in the first place?
City Chicken 1
What is City Chicken?
City Chicken is a traditional dish of Polish-American heritage and it has a very interesting story of origin.
Apparently, during the time of the Great Depression, the chicken was scarce and way more expensive than other cuts of meat, like pork or veal.
It’s believed that this dish originated among Polish immigrants who decided to place pieces of pork and veal on skewers and then bread and fry them so it would resemble chicken legs (leave it to my people). This dish is also known as ‘fake chicken’ for obvious reasons, and it has been very popular in many states throughout the US.
In fact, a lot of Polish restaurants carry it on their menu. Being born and raised in Pittsburgh, I can assure you that this dish didn’t come from the old land. Actually, its a United States creation found in the Polish-AMerican communities in the Great Lakes region.
I beleive that it is now the time to embrace this tradition and on occasion serve fake chicken to your friends and family.
City Chicken 4
What Kind of Meat is Best for City Chicken
Traditionally City Chicken involves pork and veal. You can put 2 cubes of each on a skewer or two pork pieces and one veal in the middle or vice versa (get creative).
Nowadays the veal is more expensive than pork and chicken, and it can be difficult to find cut into cubes. So, if you choose to just use pork, rest assured that your city chicken will still be super delicious.
I highly recommend to use pork tenderloin and cut it into cubes. It’s very tender and cooks super quick. Any other cut of pork could become dry or chewy.
What else is needed to make this dish
This is a very simple dish. To make city chicken you’ll need:
Pork and/or veal;
Wooden skewers;
Ingredients for breading:
Flour,
Egg,
Bread Crumbs;
Seasoning:
Ideally seasoned salt (but if you don’t have it, just use regular kosher salt),
Pepper; and
Cooking (light) oil for frying.
How to Make “Fake Chicken”
To make the City Chicken you’ll need to follow a few simple steps. For exact measurements and instructions please scroll down to the printable recipe card.
Assemble the skewers: cut your meat into 1.5-inch squares and add 2 or 3 pieces onto a wooden skewer (cut off the skewers to fit the meat); season the meat on each side and prepare for breading.
Breading: prepare 3 prep-dishes: one for flour, one for beaten eggs and one for breadcrumbs. Starting with the flour, cover the meat on each side (shaking off the excess), then place it into the egg mixture and cover on each side. Then finish it up by rolling it in breadcrumbs, on each side. Continue with all the remaining skewers.
Frying: heat up your cast iron (or another heavy pan) skillet. Add cooking oil. Once the oil is hot, add breaded skewers into the skillet (don’t overcrowd them, cook in batches if needed). Fry the skewers on each side until golden brown and then transfer to a 350 F hot oven to finish up cooking (covered for 20 minutes and uncovered for 5 minutes). Serve and enjoy!
2022 03 27 12 32
2022 03 27 12 33
What to serve with City Chicken
Some people prefer to eat City Chicken without any additions but some have their toppings preferences. Among the most popular is a homemade gravy. If this is you, check this recipe for a super easy gravy.
Here are some online suggestions for what to serve Fake Chicken with:
Look at the picture. The tablecloth, the purse on the credenza; the style of the credenza. Look at the jars of condiments. The solid panel door, the off white walls, with the white trim. Look at the kitchen. How many of these images and scenes can be found in a modern home.
A beautiful Chinese girl
Chinese people, men and women, tend to be slim due to the diet and living within an active society. Dancing, singing and social activities are normal, and encouraged. Thus, they treasure their bodies and they tream them well. Such as with this woman. video 4MB
Australia gives “cold shoulder” to China
Prime Minister Scott Morrison has flatly rejected suggestions he should have met with China’s new ambassador to Australia, Xiao Qian, arguing that doing so would have been a “demonstration of weakness”.
And Mr Morrison said there was great concern across the “Pacific family” about a security agreement between China and the Solomon Islands that could lead to a potential base for Chinese naval vessels on Australia’s doorstep, over which Canberra, Washington and Wellington have all expressed concern.
He pointedly noted that Australia respected the Pacific islands’ sovereignty and that Australia “haven’t sought to influence them, or interfere with them in any way”.
I have constantly stated that (by law) EVERYONE inside of China MUST take military training. There are NO exceptions.
It starts in Kindergarden, with marching and basic disipline taught in first and second grade. Weapon assembly and dissassembly and mortar training by third grade. Small arms and squad tactics perfected by sixth grade.
Fine and dandy. But I haven’t spent much time discussing Middle School.
While many operations are coed, there are “fast track” programs for exceptional students. These are usually “Pioneers”, but there are others as well. Here’s a group of 9th grade GIRLS undergoing training in small arms training in live-fire environments.
It’s from Ebony. You can shake your “groove thang” right here.
OIP C.4rWOmQOXJA WNJTxd9KJzwHaEB
This link is indian punchline from today… a quote
"The takeaway from the US President Joe Biden’s European tour on March 25-26 is measly. Dissenting voices are rising in Europe as western sanctions against Russia start backfiring with price hikes and shortages of fuel and electricity. And this is only the beginning, as Moscow is yet to announce any retaliatory measures as such.
SIMPLETON’S PRIMER ON THE LONG WAR THE US AIMS TO WAGE AGAINST RUSSIA
“National Security Adviser Sullivan (above) said: “The president will join our partners in imposing further sanctions on Russia and tightening the existing sanctions to crack down on evasion and ensure robust enforcement… This war will not end easily or rapidly…[Biden’s trip] will send a powerful message that we are prepared and committed to this for as long as it takes”.
The US declaration that “this war will not end easily or rapidly”, and that the US and its allies “are prepared and committed to this for as long as it takes” cancels whatever negotiations or terms Zelensky claims to have announced on Ukrainian television for an end to the war.”
Personally, I find this girl to be a fine looking woman, and would most certainly make a fine girlfriend. video 7MB
She’s a nice girl, don’t you think?
China says everyone knows who is to blame for the Ukraine war
The US and UK planned the Ukrainian war for years, while simultaneously trying to force a “quagmire” for Russia in Syria (another war deliberately created by NATO countries: the US, UK, and France). But it’s looking like NATO’s planned proxy war in Ukraine is backfiring on the West spectacularly, with the West, not Russia, becoming ostracized from the international community as a result.
Over the years leading up to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the West pre-emptively applied wave after wave of sanctions on Russia, to make Russia as weak and vulnerable as possible in preparation for this eventuality. Western governments and media worked hard to pre-condition Western publics into assuming that any of the very-true reports of rampant Nazism in Ukraine, including in Ukraine’s government that’s led by a Jew, were “Russian disinformation”, when that narrative was actually the West’s disinformation against Russia to conceal the Nazi problem in Ukraine, while Western governments were training and arming Ukraine’s Nazis.
Western governments also planned 1,001 false stories to feed through our media, and ways to cynically frame Russia not accomplishing in 30 days in Ukraine what NATO collectively couldn’t after 20 years in Afghanistan, which was and is a far, far weaker, worse-equipped, worse-trained country than Ukraine (not to mention NATO is flooding advanced arms to Ukraine). The West even tried to frame war in Ukraine as unique atrocious on the basis that it was blonde-haired, blue-eyed white people who were being killed, instead of those apparently-lesser Afghans, Iraqis, Syrians, Libyans, and Palestinians, and Yemenis.
The West plotted ways to threaten and incentivise key international market players to pressure them to conform to Western demands of solidarity against Russia. They planned a mountain of the most extreme sanctions against Russia with the aim being to completely destroy its economy and topple Putin. The West also prepared how they would apply widespread collective punishment (which is illegal under international law) against Russians in sporting, music, video gaming, and in seizing their assets in Western countries.
But what they didn’t plan for was the world to see through the charade, lay significant blame for the war in Ukraine on NATO, and refuse to support the West’s measures against Russia but instead stick by Russia, resulting in the West itself becoming isolated from the international community in a way that hasn’t happened before, despite the West’s many previous much more destructive wars.
A lot can still change, and the West is going to become more desperate, apply more pressure, and become more aggressive as its goals behind creating the Ukraine war fail to materialize. But, at least so far, things have very much not been going according to NATO’s plan.
Best Tweet ever
2022 03 27 20 05
The Narrative is that China is just an army of conscripts…
Untrained, poor, poorly motivated, starving and using cheap poor quality hand-me-down Russian weapon systems.
All bullshit.
China is a heavy and serious military force. video 2MB
Seven girls a dancing
Welcome to China. You see these kinds of things going on all the time. video 11MB
1983 Movie “The Day After” Shows How Fast a War with Russia can Escalate to ICBM Nukes – Watch it free in the story below
This two hour made-for-TV-movie was produced by the ABC Television Network and broadcast in 1983. I well remember when it came on. It scared the living daylights out of me.
To put the time period in perspective, in the early 1980’s Ronald Reagan had become President and he wasn’t taking any shit from the Soviets. He referred to them as “An Evil Empire” (Here) and joked publicly during a radio show “mic check” that “I have just signed Legislation outlawing the Soviet Union, We begin bombing in five minutes.”(Here)
The left-wing went absolutely nuts over Reagan dealing so forcefully with them and many feared the tough stance would result in actual nuclear war.
When ABC-TV made this movie, the special effects were not nearly what they have become nowadays. Frankly, the special effects wouldn’t even make it into a “b” horror movie nowadays. But back then, it was horrifying to the general public.
In the first 32 minutes, you get to see regular Americans living regular lives, while TV news broadcasts report escalating tensions between the US/NATO and the Soviet Union.
Large numbers of Soviet Troops began massing on the border of East Germany. The next half hour sees the borders of the Soviet Union sealed, aircraft strikes by the Soviets upon western targets, and then-within hours (in the show) invasion troops cross into NATO terrirtory.
Tactical nukes had to be used to try to slow down the Soviets. They failed.
As a result of tactical nukes being used, NATO HQ in Brussels takes a Soviet Nuke hit, and within a few more minutes, the ICBM’s are coming out of their silos. In movie time, the whole thing kicked off within 48 hours!
That’s the takeaway you should pay attention to — how fast it all escalated.
Because right now, the way things are going with Ukraine, NATO’s meddling is taking us in precisely the same direction and when it goes, it’s gonna go off FAST. People will be utterly blind-sided.
So watch and see the very real similarities between the movie version of events, and wht is actually taking place right now.
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.
Not reported that way in the West, eh? But, yeah. That’s exactly what has happened.
This article is VERY IMPORTANT.
I am configuring it using my MM "huge smorgasbord technique". Thus, it includes food, girls, and other things. It's fun, interesting, and it absolutely stops Trolls and 'Bots. You will find these little green comment boxes throughout the article, and I welcome you all to comment using them. Because if you wait until the end of the article, you will have forgotten much of the various, diverse content provided.
The comment boxes look like this...
…
Warning: A lot of videos here. To watch them either reload the embedded video (most are under one minute long) or click on the link above the video. They are well worth the time to watch.
I came across this excellent TASS article summarizing the 4 February 2022 Russia/China Joint Declaration. It’s a helpful reminder, on just how far-reaching the Declaration is and the principles it’s based upon.
These are some the many, many key paragraphs, although there are more:
"This declaration formalizes the de facto established union of Russia and China. We have been talking a great deal about strategic interaction. This is a real embodiment of this interaction," Maslov said.
Given the rejection by the West of everything Russian and Chinese, it actually seems probable that the Declaration went unread by American “high officials”, meaning Blinken, Austin and Sullivan, since they already had formalized their escalation plans.
The American “leadership” are still following their check-lists and scripts.
But the reality is something very different. Russia and China have unified. They are as one singular nation, and they coordinate as one singular nation.
It’s not just a treaty. It is the de facto union of Russia and China together.
It is the formation of a new POWER BLOCK.
It is equivalent to when the 13 American states formed the “United States” of America in 1776. It is equivalent to when the European Union was formed, and NATO was created. It is really, really BIG news.
Yet…
The entire West is pretending, or unaware, of the reality. They still are treating Asia as separate nations. They think there’s Russia. They deal deal with Russia. Then once dealt with, they “pivot” to China. Then they deal with China. Then once, Russia and China are done with, they take on India. Then, once India is finished, the “mop up” with Iran.
That’s the plan.
And it relies on a world that does not exist any longer.
Let’s look at how important this unification of Asia is. We will do so through the lens of history.
The formation of the United States
The 13 colonies were the group of colonies that rebelled against Great Britain, fought in the Revolutionary War, and founded the United States of America. Here’s the 13 colonies list:
Connecticut
Delaware
Georgia
Maryland
Massachusetts Bay
New Hampshire
New Jersey
New York
North Carolina
Pennsylvania
Rhode Island
South Carolina
Virginia
In late 1774, a group of Patriot leaders at the Continental Congress meeting set up their own government to resist Great Britain, and, on April 19, 1775, the first battles of the Revolutionary War were fought at Lexington and Concord. During the war, each of the 13 colonies formed a Provincial Congress to lead them, now that they no longer accepted the laws of Great Britain.
On July 4, 1776, the thirteen colonies declared themselves free and independent states at the Second Continental Congress by signing the Declaration of Independence. This document unified the thirteen colonies into one nation known as “The United States of America”.
In many ways, this is exactly what has just occurred in Asia.
There are two nations;
Russia
China
On February 4, 2022, a very signifigant document was signed that unified the two nations into one solid singular nation. The treaty and agreements are tighter and stronger, and more substantive that the US Constitution that binds the United States together. The agreement if far stronger than the EU that bonds Europe together. It is a new kind of agreement. Better. Stronger. More detailed, than anything ever seen on this planet previously.
Russia-China Partnership Agreement
On February 4, 2022, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping have signed a joint statement in Beijing before the Winter Olympics opening ceremony held in China.
This statement was accepted as a bold declaration of the “New World Order” and the partnership between the two states without any limitations.
The statement can be divided into four parts:
the manifest on the new world order,
Grand Eurasian Partnership,
the United States (US) aggression, and
cooperation against US aggression.
It should be noted that it is much more than just an inclusive agreement and it will change the balance of power in world politics.
About the New World Order, the sides believed that a new period has started in international relations, and global society demands a new international order based on development in a multi-polar world. Also, the sides suggested that multi-lateral ties have been quite significant in foreign policy and aimed at developing global governance. In addition to that, they offered a powerful United Nations is needed to provide multi-polar in international relations. In addition to that, the G20 format was supported instead of G7 since it is much more inclusive. Also, China and Russia believed that they played and will play an active role in the WTO.
On Grand Eurasian Partnership, the sides have declared that the relations between the two countries are much stronger than it was in the Cold War Period. Also, China’s continuing economic and political project is known as the “Belt and Road” Initiative (BRI). In the statement, it was claimed that following the BRI, a new Grand Eurasian Partnership would be established, contributing to cultural, economic, political, and historical relations of the region.
Russa and China against NATO. China and Russia have declared that they are against the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) as it approached the Black Sea region and started to try to contain Russia in the latest Ukraine-Russia conflict. The sides believe that NATO is following the mentality of the Cold War period; however, as mentioned before, the world order is changing, as they suggested. Besides NATO, the sides indicated that the policies of the US in the India-Pacific region are dangerous and threatening the peace-building attempts in the Asia-Pacific region. They claimed that Russia and China are concerned about the trilateral security partnership between Australia, the United States, and the United Kingdom (AUKUS), which provides for deeper cooperation between its members in areas involving strategic stability, in particular their decision to initiate collaboration in the field of nuclear-powered submarines.
Against the United States. On the other hand, the most crucial element of the joint declaration was the alliance against the US. The sides declared that the US could escalate the colorful revolutions in the region and stand against that. Also, the sides have put their views on contrasting against terrorism, that they will not let politicization of terrorism, and using terrorism as a tool of interrupting the domestic politics of any country. The two countries highlighted that they would stand against the sanctions of the US by struggling with economic inequality.
Responses
Some responses were given after the declaration of that Joint Statement.
United States. It says (paraphrasing) “It’s a trivial attempt to circumvent our power and influence.” The US officials stated that, with the Joint Statement, that it was of no real consequence. They said that, China’s Xi Jinping could not protect Russia from sanctions. That, in their mind, was the sole purpose of the agreement.
Australia. The Australian Minister of Foreign Affairs Marise Payne criticized the Agreement. Australia stated,
“The joint statement lays out a vision of the world that differs from Australia’s and our allies’ and partners’, and I’m convinced it includes all of our Quad partners.”
Also, in an interview with the ABC on Wednesday, she claimed that the tight security situation at the Russia-Ukraine border did not overshadow the importance the US places on the Indo-Pacific region. Further, Russia and China have slammed the United States’ Indo-Pacific Strategy, rejecting the establishment of closed bloc structures and opposing camps in the Asia-Pacific region. She said Australia is very worried about the Russian military build-up along the Ukraine border and called for a reciprocal conversation to de-escalate the situation.
United Kingdom. The chair of the UK’s parliamentary defense committee, Tobias Ellwood, also claimed that “Russia provides oil, gas and military hardware. China, in return, provides advanced technology,” he wrote, adding that:
“Today, we are seeing the birth of a potent anti-democratic alliance. It is on track to see the world shear into two spheres of competing influence. And we have let it happen.”
Which has me scratching my head. has this Bozo Tobias Ellwood actually read the document. It actually clearly states…
"The sides believe that democracy is a means of citizens' participation in the government of their country with the view to improving the well-being of population and implementing the principle of popular government."
Joint statement by Russia, China formalizes bilateral alliance — analyst
"This declaration formalizes the de facto established union of Russia and China."-Maslov
In their joint statement two countries described the principles they would rely on in developing global cooperation, Alexey Maslov notes
MOSCOW, February 4. /TASS/. The joint statement Russia and China adopted on Friday outlines the principles of new global cooperation and formalizes their bilateral alliance, the director of the Moscow State University’s Asia and Africa Institute, expert of the discussion club Valdai, Alexey Maslov, told TASS on Friday.
“This declaration formalizes the de facto established union of Russia and China. We have been talking a great deal about strategic interaction. This is a real embodiment of this interaction,” Maslov said.
He stressed that in their joint statement Russia and China described the principles they would rely on in developing global cooperation.
“These principles are absolutely not new ones,” he remarked. “In fact, the statement heralds a return to the original UN principles that were laid down back in the 1940s and 1950s.”
The expert believes that the document is a clear sign the countries “share common values, a common understanding of democracy and the idea of the national nature of this democracy, pool together many international projects, the EAEU and the One Belt-One Road and also discuss interaction in the Arctic.”
Maslov stressed that the security issues mentioned in the statement were the most important of all. “A whole list of new types of security was determined there, including cybersecurity, on which the countries will cooperate,” he said.
The analyst stressed that the countries respected each other’s positions. “China does not threaten the interests of Russia and avoids intervention in Russian affairs. Likewise, Russia does not meddle in China’s affairs,” Maslov said.
New era of international relations
"This declaration formalizes the de facto established union of Russia and China."-Maslov
Maslov explained that the “new era” of cooperation was characterized by the need to restore trust in the broadest sense: in world trade, in the military field, in the economy and so on.
“The countries propose if not a program, then at least a declaration of principles a future world is to be based on,” he added.
The expert stressed that this statement “formalizes polarization of forces, and not a confrontation,” because the countries merely declare the principles they rely upon. Maslov stated that other countries were free to join in.
“If some other countries, not necessarily Western ones, for instance, countries in Southeast Asia are prepared for joining the statement or beginning discussions, they will find that this declaration as such is not a closed one for the simple reason other countries may pledge to adhere to the same principles,” he stated.
Maslov sees no risk this statement might cause an escalation of tensions in relations with the West, because it concerns an absolutely parallel process.
“In this respect the document will by no means trigger an escalation. On the contrary, it will rather show that the issue has another side to it. At least, the fact that Russia and China adhere to a different stance,” Maslov concluded.
Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday arrived in Beijing and held a meeting with his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping. This is Putin’s first visit to China since the beginning of the novel coronavirus pandemic. The Russian-Chinese summit level negotiations ended with the adoption of a joint statement on international relations that were entering a new era and on global sustainable development…
…
This massive document outlines a framework for unity between Russia and China. It does the EXACT SAME THING as what the document which unified the thirteen colonies into one nation known as “The United States of America”.
Old-Fashioned Patty Melts
Sure everyone has eaten a thousand hamburgers, but how many patty melts have you eaten?
Patty Melt done properly.
Everything about these Old-Fashioned Patty Melts is perfect, from the beef patty smothered in cheesy, oniony goodness, to the toasted and buttery rye bread. This sandwich is sure to have you saying “Ooh, it’s so GOUDA!”
What You’ll Need
2 tablespoons butter, divided
1 small onion, thinly sliced
3/4 pound ground beef
Salt to taste
Pepper to taste
4 slices rye bread
4 slices Gouda cheese
1/4 cup Thousand Island salad dressing
What to Do
In a large skillet or grill pan over medium-high heat, melt 1 tablespoon butter; saute onion 6 to 8 minutes, or until it starts to brown. Remove to a bowl and cover.
Shape beef into 2 oval patties; sprinkle with salt and pepper to taste.
In the same skillet over medium heat, cook patties 5 to 7 minutes per side, or until no longer pink in center. Remove from skillet and keep warm.
Spread remaining butter over one side of each slice of bread. Place in skillet buttered side down, and toast until lightly browned.
To assemble a sandwich, place a slice of cheese on a piece of toast, top with a beef patty, half the onion slices, and half the salad dressing. Top with another slice of cheese and piece of toast; repeat with second sandwich, then serve immediately.
Notes
We love some coleslaw as a go-along to this delicious sandwich, so why not make your own by whipping up a batch of some delicious Country Coleslaw!
.
Read this. This is the actual document and translated…
Joint Statement of the Russian Federation and the People’s Republic of China on the International Relations Entering a New Era and the Global Sustainable Development
February 4, 2022
Background
At the invitation of President of the People’s Republic of China Xi Jinping, President of the Russian Federation Vladimir V. Putin visited China on 4 February 2022. The Heads of State held talks in Beijing and took part in the opening ceremony of the XXIV Olympic Winter Games.
The Russian Federation and the People’s Republic of China, hereinafter referred to as the sides, state as follows.
The Statement on the New Union
Today, the world is going through momentous changes, and humanity is entering a new era of rapid development and profound transformation.
It sees the development of such processes and phenomena as
multipolarity,
economic globalization,
the advent of information society,
cultural diversity,
transformation of the global governance architecture
and world order;
there is increasing interrelation and interdependence between the States;
a trend has emerged towards redistribution of power in the world;
and the international community is showing a growing demand for the leadership aiming at peaceful and gradual development.
At the same time, as the pandemic of the new coronavirus infection continues, the international and regional security situation is complicating and the number of global challenges and threats is growing from day to day.
Some actors representing but the minority (on the international scale) continue to advocate unilateral approaches to addressing international issues and resort to force;
they interfere in the internal affairs of other states,
infringing their legitimate rights and interests,
and incite contradictions, differences and confrontation,
thus hampering the development and progress of mankind, against the opposition from the international community.
The sides call on all States to pursue well-being for all and, with these ends, to
build dialogue and mutual trust,
strengthen mutual understanding,
champion such universal human values as
peace,
development,
equality,
justice,
democracy and freedom,
respect the rights of peoples to independently determine the development paths of their countries
and the sovereignty and the security and development interests of States,
to protect the United Nations-driven international architecture
and the international law-based world order,
seek genuine multipolarity with the United Nations
and its Security Council playing a central and coordinating role,
promote more democratic international relations,
and ensure peace, stability and sustainable development across the world.
I
The sides share the understanding that democracy is a universal human value, rather than a privilege of a limited number of States, and that its promotion and protection is a common responsibility of the entire world community.
The sides believe that democracy is a means of citizens’ participation in the government of their country with the view to improving the well-being of population and implementing the principle of popular government.
Democracy is exercised in all spheres of public life as part of a nation-wide process and reflects the interests of all the people, its will, guarantees its rights, meets its needs and protects its interests.
There is no one-size-fits-all template to guide countries in establishing democracy.
A nation can choose such forms and methods of implementing democracy that would best suit its particular state, based on
its social and political system,
its historical background,
traditions and unique cultural characteristics.
It is only up to the people of the country to decide whether their State is a democratic one.
The sides note that Russia and China as world powers with rich cultural and historical heritage have long-standing traditions of democracy, which rely on
thousand-years of experience of development,
broad popular support and
consideration of the needs and interests of citizens.
Russia and China guarantee their people the right to take part through various means and in various forms in the administration of the State and public life in accordance with the law.
The people of both countries are certain of the way they have chosen and respect the democratic systems and traditions of other States.
The sides note that democratic principles are implemented at the global level, as well as in administration of State.
Certain States’ attempts to impose their own ”democratic standards“ on other countries,
to monopolize the right to assess the level of compliance with democratic criteria,
to draw dividing lines based on the grounds of ideology,
including by establishing exclusive blocs and alliances of convenience,
prove to be nothing but flouting of democracy and go against the spirit and true values of democracy.
Such attempts at hegemony pose serious threats to global and regional peace and stability and undermine the stability of the world order.
The sides believe that the advocacy of democracy and human rights must not be used to put pressure on other countries.
They oppose the abuse of democratic values and interference in the internal affairs of sovereign states under the pretext of protecting democracy and human rights, and any attempts to incite divisions and confrontation in the world.
The sides call on the international community to respect cultural and civilizational diversity and the rights of peoples of different countries to self-determination.
They stand ready to work together with all the interested partners to promote genuine democracy.
The sides note that the Charter of the United Nations and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights set noble goals in the area of universal human rights, set forth fundamental principles, which all the States must comply with and observe in deeds.
At the same time, as every nation has its own unique national features, history, culture, social system and level of social and economic development, universal nature of human rights should be seen through the prism of the real situation in every particular country, and human rights should be protected in accordance with the specific situation in each country and the needs of its population.
Promotion and protection of human rights is a shared responsibility of the international community.
The states should equally prioritize all categories of human rights and promote them in a systemic manner.
The international human rights cooperation should be carried out as a dialogue between the equals involving all countries.
All States must have equal access to the right to development. Interaction and cooperation on human rights matters should be based on the principle of equality of all countries and mutual respect for the sake of strengthening the international human rights architecture.
II
The sides believe that peace, development and cooperation lie at the core of the modern international system.
Development is a key driver in ensuring the prosperity of the nations.
The ongoing pandemic of the new coronavirus infection poses a serious challenge to the fulfilment of the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
It is vital to enhance partnership relations for the sake of global development and make sure that the new stage of global development is defined by balance, harmony and inclusiveness.
The sides are seeking to advance their work to link the development plans for the Eurasian Economic Union and the Belt and Road Initiative with a view to intensifying practical cooperation between the EAEU and China in various areas and promoting greater interconnectedness between the Asia Pacific and Eurasian regions.
The sides reaffirm their focus on building the Greater Eurasian Partnership in parallel and in coordination with the Belt and Road construction to foster the development of regional associations as well as bilateral and multilateral integration processes for the benefit of the peoples on the Eurasian continent.
The sides agreed to continue consistently intensifying practical cooperation for the sustainable development of the Arctic.
The sides will strengthen cooperation within multilateral mechanisms, including the United Nations, and encourage the international community to prioritize development issues in the global macro-policy coordination.
They call on the developed countries to implement in good faith their formal commitments on
development assistance,
provide more resources to developing countries,
address the uneven development of States,
work to offset such imbalances within States, and advance global and international development cooperation.
The Russian side confirms its readiness to continue working on the China-proposed Global Development Initiative, including participation in the activities of the Group of Friends of the Global Development Initiative under the UN auspices.
In order to accelerate the implementation of the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, the sides call on the international community to take practical steps in key areas of
cooperation such as poverty reduction,
food security,
vaccines and epidemics control,
financing for development,
climate change,
sustainable development,
including green development,
industrialization,
digital economy, and
infrastructure connectivity.
The sides call on the international community to
create open, equal, fair and non-discriminatory conditions for scientific and technological development,
to step up practical implementation of scientific and technological advances in order to identify new drivers of economic growth.
The sides call upon all countries to strengthen cooperation in
sustainable transport,
actively build contacts and share knowledge in the construction of transport facilities,
including smart transport and sustainable transport,
development and use of Arctic routes,
as well as to develop other areas to support global post-epidemic recovery.
The sides are taking serious action and making an important contribution to the fight against climate change.
Jointly celebrating the 30th anniversary of the adoption of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, they reaffirm their commitment to this Convention as well as to the goals, principles and provisions of the Paris Agreement, including the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities.
The sides work together to ensure the full and effective implementation of the Paris Agreement, remain committed to fulfilling the obligations they have undertaken and expect that developed countries will actually ensure the annual provision of $100 billion of climate finance to developing states. The sides oppose setting up new barriers in international trade under the pretext of fighting climate change.
The sides strongly support the development of international cooperation and exchanges in the field of biological diversity, actively participating in the relevant global governance process, and intend to jointly promote the harmonious development of humankind and nature as well as green transformation to ensure sustainable global development.
The Heads of State positively assess the effective interaction between Russia and China in the bilateral and multilateral formats focusing on
the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic,
protection of life and health of the population of the two countries and the peoples of the world.
They will further increase cooperation in the development and manufacture of vaccines against the new coronavirus infection,
as well as medical drugs for its treatment,
and enhance collaboration in public health and modern medicine.
The sides plan to strengthen coordination on epidemiological measures to ensure strong protection of health, safety and order in contacts between citizens of the two countries.
The sides have commended the work of the competent authorities and regions of the two countries on implementing quarantine measures in the border areas and ensuring the stable operation of the border crossing points, and intend to consider establishing a joint mechanism for epidemic control and prevention in the border areas to jointly plan anti-epidemic measures to be taken at the border checkpoints, share information, build infrastructure and improve the efficiency of customs clearance of goods.
The sides emphasize that ascertaining the origin of the new coronavirus infection is a matter of science.
Research on this topic must be based on global knowledge, and that requires cooperation among scientists from all over the world.
The sides oppose politicization of this issue. The Russian side welcomes the work carried out jointly by China and WHO to identify the source of the new coronavirus infection and supports the China – WHO joint report on the matter. The sides call on the global community to jointly promote a serious scientific approach to the study of the coronavirus origin.
The Russian side supports a successful hosting by the Chinese side of the Winter Olympic and Paralympic Games in Beijing in 2022.
The sides highly appreciate the level of bilateral cooperation in sports and the Olympic movement and express their readiness to contribute to its further progressive development.
III
The sides are gravely concerned about serious international security challenges and believe that the fates of all nations are interconnected.
No State can or should ensure its own security separately from the security of the rest of the world and at the expense of the security of other States. The international community should actively engage in global governance to ensure universal, comprehensive, indivisible and lasting security.
The sides reaffirm their strong mutual support for the protection
of their core interests,
state sovereignty and territorial integrity,
and oppose interference by external forces in their internal affairs.
The Russian side reaffirms its support for the One-China principle, confirms that Taiwan is an inalienable part of China, and opposes any forms of independence of Taiwan.
Russia and China stand against attempts by external forces to
undermine security and stability in their common adjacent regions,
intend to counter interference by outside forces in the internal affairs of sovereign countries under any pretext,
oppose colour revolutions, and
will increase cooperation in the aforementioned areas.
The sides condemn terrorism in all its manifestations, promote the idea of creating a single global anti-terrorism front, with the United Nations playing a central role, advocate stronger political coordination and constructive engagement in multilateral counterterrorism efforts.
The sides oppose politicization of the issues of combating terrorism and their use as instruments of policy of double standards, condemn the practice of interference in the internal affairs of other States for geopolitical purposes through the use of terrorist and extremist groups as well as under the guise of combating international terrorism and extremism.
The sides believe that certain States, military and political alliances and coalitions seek to obtain, directly or indirectly, unilateral military advantages to the detriment of the security of others, including
by employing unfair competition practices,
intensify geopolitical rivalry,
fuel antagonism and confrontation, and
seriously undermine the international security order and global strategic stability.
The sides oppose further enlargement of NATO and call on the North Atlantic Alliance to abandon its ideologized cold war approaches, to respect the sovereignty, security and interests of other countries, the diversity of their civilizational, cultural and historical backgrounds, and to exercise a fair and objective attitude towards the peaceful development of other States.
The sides stand against the formation of closed bloc structures and opposing camps in the Asia-Pacific region and remain highly vigilant about the negative impact of the United States’ Indo-Pacific strategy on peace and stability in the region. Russia and China have made consistent efforts to build an equitable, open and inclusive security system in the Asia-Pacific Region (APR) that is not directed against third countries and that promotes peace, stability and prosperity.
The sides welcome the Joint Statement of the Leaders of the Five Nuclear-Weapons States on Preventing Nuclear War and Avoiding Arms Races.
And believe that all nuclear-weapons States should abandon the cold war mentality and zero-sum games, reduce the role of nuclear weapons in their national security policies, withdraw nuclear weapons deployed abroad, eliminate the unrestricted development of global anti-ballistic missile defense (ABM) system, and take effective steps to reduce the risks of nuclear wars and any armed conflicts between countries with military nuclear capabilities.
The sides reaffirm that the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons is the cornerstone of the international disarmament and nuclear non-proliferation system, an important part of the post-war international security system, and plays an indispensable role in world peace and development. The international community should promote the balanced implementation of the three pillars of the Treaty and work together to protect the credibility, effectiveness and the universal nature of the instrument.
The sides are seriously concerned about the trilateral security partnership between Australia, the United States, and the United Kingdom (AUKUS), which provides for deeper cooperation between its members in areas involving strategic stability, in particular their decision to initiate cooperation in the field of nuclear-powered submarines.
Russia and China believe that such actions are
contrary to the objectives of security and sustainable development of the Asia-Pacific region,
increase the danger of an arms race in the region, and
pose serious risks of nuclear proliferation.
The sides strongly condemn such moves and call on AUKUS participants to fulfil their nuclear and missile non-proliferation commitments in good faith and to work together to safeguard peace, stability, and development in the region.
Japan’s plans to release nuclear contaminated water from the destroyed Fukushima nuclear plant into the ocean and the potential environmental impact of such actions are of deep concern to the sides.
The sides emphasize that the disposal of nuclear contaminated water should be handled with responsibility and carried out in a proper manner based on arrangements between the Japanese side and neighbouring States, other interested parties, and relevant international agencies while ensuring transparency, scientific reasoning, and in accordance with international law.
The sides believethat
the U.S. withdrawal from the Treaty on the Elimination of Intermediate-Range and Shorter-Range Missiles,
the acceleration of research and the development of intermediate-range and shorter-range ground-based missiles
and the desire to deploy them in the Asia-Pacific and European regions,
as well as their transfer to the allies,
…entail an increase in tension and distrust, increase risks to international and regional security, lead to the weakening of international non-proliferation and arms control system, undermining global strategic stability.
The sides call on the United States to respond positively to the Russian initiative and abandon its plans to deploy intermediate-range and shorter-range ground-based missiles in the Asia-Pacific region and Europe.
The sides will continue to maintain contacts and strengthen coordination on this issue.
The Chinese side is sympathetic to and supports the proposals put forward by the Russian Federation to create long-term legally binding security guarantees in Europe.
The sides note that the denunciation by the United States of a number of important international arms control agreements has an extremely negative impact on international and regional security and stability.
The sides express concern over the advancement of U.S. plans to develop global missile defence and deploy its elements in various regions of the world, combined with capacity building of high-precision non-nuclear weapons for disarming strikes and other strategic objectives.
The sides stress the importance of the peaceful uses of outer space, strongly support the central role of the UN Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space in promoting international cooperation, maintaining and developing international space law and regulation in the field of space activities. Russia and China will continue to increase cooperation on such matters of mutual interest as the long-term sustainability of space activities and the development and use of space resources.
The sides oppose attempts by some States to turn outer space into an arena of armed confrontation and reiterate their intention to make all necessary efforts to prevent the weaponization of space and an arms race in outer space. They will counteract activities aimed at achieving military superiority in space and using it for combat operations.
The sides affirm the need for the early launch of negotiations to conclude a legally binding multilateral instrument based on the Russian-Chinese draft treaty on the prevention of placement of weapons in outer space and the use or threat of force against space objects that would provide fundamental and reliable guarantees against an arms race and the weaponization of outer space.
Russia and China emphasize that appropriate transparency and confidence-building measures, including an international initiative/political commitment not to be the first to place weapons in space, can also contribute to the goal of preventing an arms race in outer space, but such measures should complement and not substitute the effective legally binding regime governing space activities.
The sides reaffirm their belief that the Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production and Stockpiling of Bacteriological (Biological) and Toxin Weapons and on their Destruction (BWC) is an essential pillar of international peace and security. Russia and China underscore their determination to preserve the credibility and effectiveness of the Convention.
The sides affirm the need to fully respect and further strengthen the BWC, including by institutionalizing it, strengthening its mechanisms, and adopting a legally binding Protocol to the Convention with an effective verification mechanism, as well as through regular consultation and cooperation in addressing any issues related to the implementation of the Convention.
The sides emphasize that domestic and foreign bioweapons activities by the United States and its allies raise serious concerns and questions for the international community regarding their compliance with the BWC.
The sides share the view that such activities pose a serious threat to the national security of the Russian Federation and China and are detrimental to the security of the respective regions.
The sides call on the U.S. and its allies to act in an open, transparent, and responsible manner by properly reporting on their military biological activities conducted overseas and on their national territory, and by supporting the resumption of negotiations on a legally binding BWC Protocol with an effective verification mechanism.
The sides, reaffirming their commitment to the goal of a world free of chemical weapons, call upon all parties to the Chemical Weapons Convention to work together to uphold its credibility and effectiveness.
Russia and China are deeply concerned about the politicization of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons and call on all of its members to strengthen solidarity and cooperation and protect the tradition of consensual decision-making.
Russia and China insist that the United States, as the sole State Party to the Convention that has not yet completed the process of eliminating chemical weapons, accelerate the elimination of its stockpiles of chemical weapons.
The sides emphasize the importance of balancing the non-proliferation obligations of states with the interests of legitimate international cooperation in the use of advanced technology and related materials and equipment for peaceful purposes.
The sides note the resolution entitled ”Promoting international Cooperation on Peaceful Uses in the Context of International Security“ adopted at the 76th session of the UN General Assembly on the initiative of China and co‑sponsored by Russia, and look forward to its consistent implementation in accordance with the goals set forth therein.
The sides attach great importance to the issues of governance in the field of artificial intelligence. The sides are ready to strengthen dialogue and contacts on artificial intelligence.
The sides reiterate their readiness to deepen cooperation in the field of international information security and to contribute to building an open, secure, sustainable and accessible ICT environment.
The sides emphasize that the principles of the non-use of force, respect for national sovereignty and fundamental human rights and freedoms, and non-interference in the internal affairs of other States, as enshrined in the UN Charter, are applicable to the information space.
Russia and China reaffirm the key role of the UN in responding to threats to international information security and express their support for the Organization in developing new norms of conduct of states in this area.
The sides welcome the implementation of the global negotiation process on international information security within a single mechanism and support in this context the work of the UN Open-ended Working Group on security of and in the use of information and communication technologies (ICTs) 2021–2025 (OEWG) and express their willingness to speak with one voice within it.
The sides consider it necessary to consolidate the efforts of the international community to develop new norms of responsible behaviour of States, including legal ones, as well as a universal international legal instrument regulating the activities of States in the field of ICT.
The sides believe that the Global Initiative on Data Security, proposed by the Chinese side and supported, in principle, by the Russian side, provides a basis for the Working Group to discuss and elaborate responses to data security threats and other threats to international information security.
The sides reiterate their support of United Nations General Assembly resolutions 74/247 and 75/282, support the work of the relevant Ad Hoc Committee of Governmental Experts, facilitate the negotiations within the United Nations for the elaboration of an international convention on countering the use of ICTs for criminal purposes.
The sides encourage constructive participation of all sides in the negotiations in order to agree as soon as possible on a credible, universal, and comprehensive convention and provide it to the United Nations General Assembly at its 78th session in strict compliance with resolution 75/282. For these purposes, Russia and China have presented a joint draft convention as a basis for negotiations.
The sides support the internationalization of Internet governance, advocate equal rights to its governance, believe that any attempts to limit their sovereign right to regulate national segments of the Internet and ensure their security are unacceptable, are interested in greater participation of the International Telecommunication Union in addressing these issues.
The sides intend to deepen bilateral cooperation in international information security on the basis of the relevant 2015 intergovernmental agreement. To this end, the sides have agreed to adopt in the near future a plan for cooperation between Russia and China in this area.
IV
The sides underline that Russia and China, as world powers and permanent members of the United Nations Security Council, intend to
firmly adhere to moral principles and accept their responsibility,
strongly advocate the international system with the central coordinating role of the United Nations in international affairs,
defend the world order based on international law,
including the purposes and principles of the Charter of the United Nations,
advance multipolarity and
promote the democratization of international relations, together create an even more prospering, stable, and just world, jointly build international relations of a new type.
The Russian side notes the significance of the concept of constructing a ”community of common destiny for mankind“ proposed by the Chinese side to ensure greater solidarity of the international community and consolidation of efforts in responding to common challenges.
The Chinese side notes the significance of the efforts taken by the Russian side to establish a just multipolar system of international relations.
The sides intend to strongly uphold the outcomes of the Second World War and the existing post-war world order, defend the authority of the United Nations and justice in international relations, resist attempts to deny, distort, and falsify the history of the Second World War.
In order to prevent the recurrence of the tragedy of the world war, the sides will strongly condemn actions aimed at denying the responsibility for atrocities of Nazi aggressors, militarist invaders, and their accomplices, besmirch and tarnish the honour of the victorious countries.
The sides call for the establishment of a new kind of relationships between world powers on the basis of mutual respect, peaceful coexistence and mutually beneficial cooperation.
They reaffirm that the new inter-State relations between Russia and China are superior to political and military alliances of the Cold War era.
Friendship between the two States has no limits.
There are no ”forbidden“ areas of cooperation, strengthening of bilateral strategic cooperation is neither aimed against third countries nor affected by the changing international environment and circumstantial changes in third countries.
The sides reiterate the need for consolidation, not division of the international community, the need for cooperation, not confrontation.
The sides oppose the return of international relations to the state of confrontation between major powers, when the weak fall prey to the strong.
The sides intend to resist attempts to substitute universally recognized formats and mechanisms that are consistent with international law for rules elaborated in private by certain nations or blocs of nations, and are against addressing international problems indirectly and without consensus, oppose power politics, bullying, unilateral sanctions, and extraterritorial application of jurisdiction, as well as the abuse of export control policies, and support trade facilitation in line with the rules of the World Trade Organization (WTO).
The sides reaffirmed their intention to strengthen foreign policy coordination, pursue true multilateralism, strengthen cooperation on multilateral platforms, defend common interests, support the international and regional balance of power, and improve global governance.
The sides support and defend the multilateral trade system based on the central role of the World Trade Organization (WTO), take an active part in the WTO reform, opposing unilateral approaches and protectionism. The sides are ready to strengthen dialogue between partners and coordinate positions on trade and economic issues of common concern, contribute to ensuring the sustainable and stable operation of global and regional value chains, promote a more open, inclusive, transparent, non-discriminatory system of international trade and economic rules.
The sides support the G20 format as an important forum for discussing international economic cooperation issues and anti-crisis response measures, jointly promote the invigorated spirit of solidarity and cooperation within the G20, support the leading role of the association in such areas as the international fight against epidemics, world economic recovery, inclusive sustainable development, improving the global economic governance system in a fair and rational manner to collectively address global challenges.
The sides support the deepened strategic partnership within BRICS, promote the expanded cooperation in three main areas: politics and security, economy and finance, and humanitarian exchanges.
In particular, Russia and China intend to encourage interaction in the fields of
public health,
digital economy,
science,
innovation and technology,
including artificial intelligence technologies,
as well as the increased coordination between BRICS countries on international platforms.
The sides strive to further strengthen the BRICS Plus/Outreach format as an effective mechanism of dialogue with regional integration associations and organizations of developing countries and States with emerging markets.
The Russian side will fully support the Chinese side chairing the association in 2022, and assist in the fruitful holding of the XIV BRICS summit.
Russia and China aim to comprehensively strengthen the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) and further enhance its role in shaping a polycentric world order based on the universally recognized principles of international law, multilateralism, equal, joint, indivisible, comprehensive and sustainable security.
They consider it important to consistently implement the agreements on improved mechanisms to counter challenges and threats to the security of SCO member states and, in the context of addressing this task, advocate expanded functionality of the SCO Regional Anti-Terrorist Structure.
The sides will contribute to imparting a new quality and dynamics to the economic interaction between the SCO member States in the fields of
trade,
manufacturing,
transport,
energy,
finance,
investment,
agriculture,
customs,
telecommunications,
innovation and
other areas of mutual interest, including through the use of advanced, resource-saving, energy efficient and ”green“ technologies.
The sides note the fruitful interaction within the SCO under the 2009 Agreement between the Governments of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization member States on cooperation in the field of international information security, as well as within the specialized Group of Experts. In this context, they welcome the adoption of the SCO Joint Action Plan on Ensuring International Information Security for 2022–2023 by the Council of Heads of State of SCO Member States on September 17, 2021 in Dushanbe.
Russia and China proceed from the ever-increasing importance of cultural and humanitarian cooperation for the progressive development of the SCO. In order to strengthen mutual understanding between the people of the SCO member States, they will continue to effectively foster interaction in such areas as cultural ties, education, science and technology, healthcare, environmental protection, tourism, people-to-people contacts, sports.
Russia and China will continue to work to strengthen the role of APEC as the leading platform for multilateral dialogue on economic issues in the Asia-Pacific region.
The sides intend to step up coordinated action to successfully implement the ”Putrajaya guidelines for the development of APEC until 2040“ with a focus on creating a free, open, fair, non-discriminatory, transparent and predictable trade and investment environment in the region. Particular emphasis will be placed on the fight against the novel coronavirus infection pandemic and economic recovery, digitalization of a wide range of different spheres of life, economic growth in remote territories and the establishment of interaction between APEC and other regional multilateral associations with a similar agenda.
The sides intend to develop cooperation within the ”Russia-India-China“ format, as well as to
strengthen interaction on such venues as the East Asia Summit,
ASEAN Regional Forum on Security,
Meeting of Defense Ministers of the ASEAN Member States and Dialogue Partners.
Russia and China support ASEAN’s central role in developing cooperation in East Asia, continue to increase coordination on deepened cooperation with ASEAN, and jointly promote cooperation in the areas of public health, sustainable development, combating terrorism and countering transnational crime.
The sides intend to continue to work in the interest of a strengthened role of ASEAN as a key element of the regional architecture.
…
It’s very straight-forward. This document lays out the actions and behaviors of the two nations (Russia and China), their interaction with the rest of the work, how the two nations interact with each other, and areas where they will jointly work together.
It is, a de facto. constitution for a unified Asia.
Now, let’s see how this document was presented to Americans. My guess is that they are far too stupid to understand what is going on.
My guess is that they will interject the article with boilerplate negatives, distortions of the text, and gloss over the actual content and meaning behind it.
They will also include disparaging comments, and attempt to detrail the content.
Russia and China Unveil a Pact Against America and the West
In a sweeping long-term agreement, Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping, the two most powerful autocrats, challenge the current political and military order.
In their matching mauve ties, Russia’s Vladimir Putin and China’s Xi Jinping last week declared a “new era” in the global order and, at least in the short term, endorsed their respective territorial ambitions in Ukraine and Taiwan. The world’s two most powerful autocrats unveiled a sweeping long-term agreement that also challenges the United States as a global power, NATO as a cornerstone of international security, and liberal democracy as a model for the world. “Friendship between the two States has no limits,” they vowed in the communiqué, released after the two leaders met on the eve of the Beijing Winter Olympics. “There are no ‘forbidden’ areas of cooperation.”
Agreements between Moscow and Beijing, including the Treaty of Friendship of 2001, have traditionally been laden with lofty, if vague, rhetoric that faded into forgotten history. But the new and detailed five-thousand-word agreement is more than a collection of the usual tropes, Robert Daly, the director of the Kissinger Institute on China and the United States, at the Wilson Center, in Washington, told me.
Although it falls short of a formal alliance, like NATO, the agreement reflects a more elaborate show of solidarity than anytime in the past. “This is a pledge to stand shoulder to shoulder against America and the West, ideologically as well as militarily,” Daly said. “This statement might be looked back on as the beginning of Cold War Two.” The timing and clarity of the communiqué—amid tensions on Russia’s border with Europe and China’s aggression around Taiwan—will “give historians the kind of specific event that they often focus on.”
Beyond security, the declaration also pledged collaboration on space, climate change, the Internet, and artificial intelligence. Politically, the document claimed that there is “no one-size-fits-all” type of democracy, and heralded both forms of authoritarian rule in Moscow and Beijing as successful democracies. “It’s a pretty striking step closer to an alliance and shows that they’re very much aligned in their vision of the world order in the twenty-first century,” Alexander Vershbow, a former U.S. Ambassador to Russia, told me.
Putin described the broader strategic partnership with China as “unprecedented.”
Xi said that their joint strategy would have a “far-reaching influence on China, Russia, and the world.”
U.S. experts described the lengthy statement, which was riddled with false and accusatory language, as startling. “I’ve never seen a joint statement from both leaders using this kind of language.
She described the communiqué as “quite Orwellian” and called it an “inflection point” in which Russia and China are challenging the balance of power that has defined the global order since the Cold War ended, three decades ago. “We could be at the beginning of a new era as the Russian relationship with the West deteriorates and China’s does as well.”
The agreement puts Washington and its key allies “in a terrible bind,” she added. “The fact is, whatever we do to counter what Russia is doing only reinforces its reliance on China.”
The joint statement is, at least for the moment, a diplomatic boon for Putin amid his showdown with the United States and Europe over Ukraine. For the first time in any of Russia’s recent aggressions, Putin has won the open support of China’s leader. China did not back Russia’s war in Georgia in 2008, or its invasion of Ukraine in 2014, nor has it recognized Russia’s annexation of Crimea. Now Moscow and Beijing, which both have the ability to veto any resolution at the United Nations, have declared their opposition to further enlargement of NATO and to the formation of other regional security alliances. “Russia and China stand against attempts by external forces to undermine security and stability in their common adjacent regions, intend to counter interference by outside forces in the internal affairs of sovereign countries under any pretext, oppose colour revolutions, and will increase cooperation,” the often unwieldy statement declared. “This is where they pledge their troth,” Daly said.
Washington had been pressuring Beijing, including in a call last month between Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, in an attempt to keep China neutral or out of the Ukraine crisis. Now, at least on paper and in public voice, it has budged, Andrew Weiss, a former National Security Council official who is currently at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, told me. “Russia now has China as an endorser of the egregious and inflammatory position that Putin has staked out on Ukraine.”
Hints of China’s shift have been emerging in the past two weeks, as the Ukraine crisis began spilling over onto already tense U.S.-China relations. President Biden’s foreign policy had hoped to steer relations with Beijing toward stable and manageable competition.
Instead, China, which is normally discreet in its diplomacy, is visibly pushing back.
After his conversation with Blinken last month, the Chinese foreign minister said publicly that Russia’s security concern about NATO expansion is legitimate and must be addressed. The Biden Administration countered last week with an admonition. The State Department warned that the West has “an array of tools” to deploy against foreign companies—including in China—that help Russia evade punitive sanctions.
In the new agreement, Russia, in turn, reaffirmed its support for Beijing’s One China policy that Taiwan is “an inalienable part of China, and opposes any forms of independence.” The joint communiqué also supported Beijing’s ruthless crackdown on dissidents in Hong Kong in the past two years. The bold assertions in the joint statement follow deepening military ties between the two nations in the past decade, Weiss noted. Russia and China have conducted dozens of joint exercises and war games that have involved as many as ten thousand troops to hone tactical and operational capabilities.
Russian officials have boasted that the growing defense partnership was designed to warn the United States and NATO not to pressure Moscow. The naval operations have included mock seizures of islands, patrols by long-range bombers over the Sea of Japan and the East China Sea, and surface-to-air missile targeting.
Last summer, Putin and Xi both witnessed military exercises in China. In October, they held joint naval exercises off Russia’s far-eastern coast. “The frequency, complexity, and geographic scope has steadily increased, reflecting the growth in the overall bilateral defense relationship,” the U.S. Naval Institute reported last year. As two nuclear-armed countries that span Europe and Asia, the more muscular alignment between Russia and China could be a game changer militarily and diplomatically. “They want this to be as threatening as a formal alliance to the West, but don’t want to formally commit to mutual defense,” Daly said. “They don’t have to. The spectre of their mutual aid will serve as a deterrent.”
The joint announcement reflects a shift in the balance of power between Russia and China as well. “The Russians for the longest time were condescending in their view of China as an uninteresting rural society,” Weiss said. “Now China looks at Russia and says, ‘What are you good for?’
China’s ambitions do not run through Moscow.” China has become “canny” in exploiting Russia’s neediness, he said. “It uses Russia as a cat’s paw to disrupt the U.S. pivot to Asia. The fact that we have to keep coming back to Putin, as the neighborhood bully, is beneficial to China.”
Putin was the highest-profile leader to show up for the opening of the Winter Olympics in Beijing. The U.S. and other major powers opted not to send high-profile delegations, to protest China’s human-rights abuses, particularly against its Uyghur minority. Russia had received a two-year ban from officially sending teams to the Olympics after conducting a years-long, state-sponsored doping scheme. Russian athletes—who are not supposed to carry their nation’s flag, wear the Russian insignia, or play the national anthem—instead compete as part of the Russian Olympic Committee. After his meeting with Xi, Putin applauded the team during the opening ceremony’s Parade of Nations on Friday. But his visit clearly had another purpose.
The question now is how far Russia and China will take their agreement. “Words are one thing,” Vershbow, the former Ambassador, said. “We still have to see if the statement will translate into greater tangible Chinese support for Russia’s aggressive behavior—or whether they’ll say, ‘We’re with you, good luck,’ and then turn the other way.” The Chinese have different and sometimes more pragmatic interests in their relations with the U.S. and Europe, which are vital to their economy. “They don’t want to burn all bridges for the sake of a relationship with Russia.”
Oh, fine and dandy, but…
Let’s stop playing around.
The United States set up identical conditions for war in both Ukraine and Taiwan simultaneously.
This began in 2014 under President Obama.
This action was planned long before that. Perhaps as early as 2004.
The USA set up pro-United States governments in 2014 by NED sponsored activity.
The USA has since poured billions of dollars in weapons to those areas.
And has established bioweapons labs in both areas.
Both governments possess a hatred of their larger neighbor.
And both will try to provoke their neighbor according to the RAND directions.
The United States WILL create a contexual reason to drag China into a terrible and long-duration conventional war on the border of China identically to what has occurred in Ukraine.
So stop pretending.
Right now Russia is in complete control of the Ukraine situation, no matter what the Western “news” says, and a “false flag” event is scheduled to drag the USA and NATO into the conflict. With NATO being a light-weight serrogate for the USA battle forces.
Then the USA will “pivot to Asia” and take out China.
So the conflict in Taiwan will be similiar.
It is planned to be a long drawn out conventional war, and a “false flag” will be a justification for invasion by Japanese, Australian and United States forces.
…
Now, I’m not too swift a Geo-Political strategist. However, if I can see this, then you can well expect that China and Russia see this as well.
Do you think that they have plans, and are aware of the big and larger plans that are in place and the systems that are set in motion?
.
And with that understood, please keep in mind that…
"This declaration formalizes the de facto established union of Russia and China."-Maslov
With this understood, now let’s see what is going on today.
The United States demands that China sever economic ties with Russia or else!
Now, consider the reality about the domestic situation inside of America right now…
A White House account of the call on Friday said that the US president “described the implications and consequences if China provides material support to Russia as it conducts brutal attacks against Ukrainian cities and civilians”.A senior administration official said there would be consequences “not just for China’s relationship with the United States, but for the wider world”, but would not give more details on whether Biden had gone into specifics on possible sanctions, other than to point out what had happened to Russia as an example.
There was nothing specific. Just warnings of “serious consequences” if China and Russia maintain their close relationship.
Obviously, the United States is acting like a pentulant child that is hold his ears and shutting his eyes and screaming as he tries to force the world to go away.
It appears that the United States does not recognize the agreement just forged last month between Russia and China.
Just a reminder to the reader that you now understand thngs far better than the American “leadership” does;
"This declaration formalizes the de facto established union of Russia and China."-Maslov
China is READY
China and Russia are BOTH aware what is going on. They know that the United States plans to destroy both nations and then pick over the carcass like vultures. It’s very clear. It’s very plain. So let’s stop playing games. Let’s stop pretending.
The United States and its allies are getting ready to go full-spectrum war when they are ready to “pivot to Asia”.
It will begin [1] with crossing one of China’s “RED LINES”, just like the USA did with Ukraine. [2] China will react, then [3] a “False Flag” will be tripped, and (of course, to plan, [4] the United States will use it as an excuse to engage in a full war on Chinese soil. Becuase, after all, Taiwan is de facto Chinese soil. No matter what propagandized narrative the West wishes to create.
But… you know…
China is ready.
Video 1– China knows that America wants a war. – Adults
The pretext will be Taiwan. Just like it was with Ukraine. And China considers it an American invasion of it’s land. They will fight to the death, and employ great weapons of mass, mass, destruction.
You all had wish you were not on the recieving side of this onslaught of rage. I can tell you, and so can other expats inside of China, the Chinese are very quiet and studious, but when they get angry… when they get angry… they will unleash a rage that is indescribable. They will unleash… slaughter.
Video 2 -First grade military training – 5 / 6 year olds
Inside of China, very first grade, and many Kindergardens begin their day with roll-call, and reporting. Such as this. video 5 MB
Video 3 – Elementary school training – 9 year olds
Hey! Do you notice that these are not cheap AK-47 clones. They do not exist in China. REAL GUNS exist in China.
These are real deal full-auto Chinese military weapons. These are fourth grade kids. Nope. They probably couldn’t take on American SEALs or Green Berets. But that is not the point. The point is everyone in China is trained to fight. It is the law. And they are merit driven and they work together as one. Everyone in a town or villiage acts as a fully managed army unit. Let that soak in. All 1.4 billion of them.
That’s 1,400,000,000,000,000 people.
How many military forces do you think that the United States can throw together to invade China? 60,000? 90,000? Even including Japan and Australia? Watch the video. This is all over China. video 31MB
Video 4 – EVERYONE in China has combat training – 17 year olds
Oh, you don’t beleive me, eh? What, you think that this is basic training, huh? No. It isn’t. It’s High School drills. High School drills. Let that sink in.
While the United States has “pepe rallies”, diversity training, ebonics, and soft subjects like fund-raising, China teaches basics, drills and trains over and over and over. They train with real weapons with real live ammo. video a must watch. Know the context. Filmed at their High School complex. video 11MB
Video 5 – Middle School exercises. 14 year old kids
Every Summer, the middle school students go on training exercises. Some resemble “Boot Camp”, while others are “actual maneuvres” and “War Games”. Here’s one such event.
Sure, they cannot take an American Green Beret one-on-one or an SAS fighter. But what about 20-to-1, or 200-to-1, or maybe 2000-to-1. How do you think the United States invasion of Taiwan will work out?
Video 6 – Middle school (14 year old) target practice
Using real government issued weapons, and ammo. Tell me about the firearm training that the United States, the UK, or Australia provides in middle school. I would like to hear it.
Video 7 – China hasn’t forgotten, and they haven’t forgiven.
All of China remembers the “great humiliation” inflicted on them by Europe and America, and they well remember the atrocities of Japan, as this video clearly show.
I can tell you truthfully, if Japan engages China, Japan will become radioactive waste.
Video 8 – What the start of world war III might look like
You know, Hollywood has been glorifying war for decades. And China is always considered an enemy and an easy target. Ever watch the latest “Red Dawn” remake?
Here we see a mashup with Hollywood movies, and Chinese movies trying to suggest what the start of world war III looks like when the United States places a Naval Battle Group between the mainland and Taiwan.
What we are witnessing is truly the beginning of the end. In recent months I have focused a lot on the economic implosion that is now taking place, but what we are facing is so much broader than that.
Our society is literally falling to pieces all around us, and now World War 3 has begun. Many regard the war that has erupted on the other side of the globe as just a conflict between Ukraine and Russia, but the truth is that it is really a proxy war between the United States and Russia. And since neither side seems much interested in diplomacy at this point, this proxy war could eventually become a shooting war between the two greatest nuclear powers on the entire planet.
Before the war started, events were already starting to accelerate substantially. Inflation was out of control, a new energy crisis had flared up, and global food supplies were getting tighter and tighter. But now we are truly in unprecedented territory. If you doubt this, just look at what is happening to the price of fertilizer.
2022 03 28 09 47
That chart should chill you to the core, because it clearly tells us that food shortages are coming.
In fact, even Joe Biden is now publicly admitting that food shortages are coming. On his show the other night, Tucker Carlson broke this down in a way that only Tucker Carlson can…
Before the war, some fertilizers had doubled in price and some had tripled in price.
In the video that you just watched, we are told that some fertilizer prices are now four to five times higher than they were a year ago.
Here in the western world, most farmers will simply bite the bullet and pay the higher prices. In turn, we will pay higher prices for food at the grocery store.
But in poorer parts of the globe, many farmers will use a whole lot less fertilizer or none at all. As a result, global food production will be way down in the months ahead.
To turn this crisis around, what we really need is for the proxy war in Ukraine to end. Unfortunately, both sides just continue to escalate matters instead.
For example, on Saturday Joe Biden shocked the entire world when he stated that Vladimir Putin “cannot remain in power”…
President Joe Biden on Saturday said Russian leader Vladimir Putin “cannot remain in power,” ratcheting up international pressure and further uniting NATO allies against Putin over his invasion of Ukraine.“A dictator, bent on rebuilding an empire, will never erase the people’s love for liberty,” Biden said at the end of a sweeping speech in Poland. “Ukraine will never be a victory for Russia, for free people refuse to live in a world of hopelessness and darkness.”
That was a call for regime change in Russia.
Russian leaders were already paranoid about western intentions before, and now their paranoia is going to be off the charts.
Biden administration officials are trying to walk back Biden’s comments, but the damage has already been done.
Meanwhile, we just learned that U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov have not spoken at all since February 15th…
Secretary of State Antony Blinken and his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov have not spoken since February 15, over a week before Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine on February 24, the State Department told Antiwar.com on Friday.Earlier this week The Washington Post cited US officials who said Blinken hasn’t attempted to speak with Lavrov since the start of the conflict. When asked to confirm the story, a State Department spokesperson said, “We can confirm that the last time Secretary Blinken and Foreign Minister Lavrov spoke was on February 15.”
Even during the darkest days of the Cuban missile crisis, U.S. officials always kept talking to the Russians.
So this is something that should alarm all of us greatly.
On top of everything else, Joe Biden just told U.S. troops in Poland that they will see what conditions in Ukraine are like “when you’re there”…
According to The Associated Press, Biden’s remarks were given in front of U.S. troops who “had been sent near Poland’s border [with Ukraine] to assist with the humanitarian emergency and to bolster the U.S. military presence on the eastern flank of NATO.” The words, “and you’re gonna see when you’re there,” were spoken right after the president mentioned the bravery of Ukrainian citizens. Later, the White House once again told reporters that U.S. troops would not be deployed to fight in the war in Ukraine.
Every time Biden opens his mouth, he makes things even worse.
President Joe Biden is abandoning a campaign vow to alter longstanding US nuclear doctrine, and will instead embrace existing policy that reserves America’s right to use nukes in a first-strike scenario, according to multiple reports.As Russian forces continue their bloody assault on Ukraine, Biden is under pressure from NATO allies not to abandon the right to use nuclear weapons to deter conventional attacks.
Many had thought that the war in Ukraine would help to unite America and would provide a boost to Biden’s extremely poor approval ratings.
And in the initial days of the war, that seemed to happen.
President Joe Biden’s job approval ratings keep falling in his second year in the White House, with just 40% of Americans approving of the job that he is doing, a new NBC News survey finds.That is the lowest rating Biden has seen in his presidency.
We were warned that 2022 would be a very troubled year, and we are still in the very early chapters.
If the Biden administration continues with all of this insanity, things are going to get a whole lot worse. I really like how Gerald Celente summarized matters during his recent interview with Greg Hunter…
“We are headed for an economic calamity the likes of which we have never seen in our lifetime. They are getting our minds off it with the war in Ukraine. . . . You know, I wrote in the magazine in the beginning of the year, we said that the Covid war would wind down by late March and mid-April. It’s winding down. . . . So, now, as we said in the magazine, we went from the Covid war to the Ukraine war, and now to world war. We are headed to World War III. . . . There is not a peep about a cease-fire. Biden is only bragging about more weapons being sent in. Biden says we are going to defeat the Russians. We are not backing down. No one is talking about a cease-fire, and no one is talking about peace. If we don’t unite for peace, we are all going to die in war.”
But right now Biden administration officials apparently don’t even see any point in talking with the Russians.
We are steamrolling down a road that leads to nuclear war, and meanwhile the global economy is starting to implode at frightening speed.
If you are still delusional enough to believe that everything will work out “just fine” somehow, then I really feel sorry for you.
Taiwan
Keep in mind again…
Taiwan is part of China. China thinks so, The UN thinks so, and even Taiwan thinks so.
But that does not matter.
The Untied States NEEDS a war and is going to have one. They are going to “pull a Ukraine” on China, and they are almost ready. And you know what? Just like Russia, China is going to move befor the United States can “make its move”. It’s probably going to be undercover, and hidden, but I’m not sure.
One thing that we are learning right now is that the “government” of the Ukraine is just a robot entity. It is a bought-for, and paid-for actor that the Untied State put in charge of things so that it could move it’s military, and it’s forces, and it’s systems onto the border of Russia. It is NOT an independent, democratically elected, goverment. It is a proxy puppet; bought and owned by the United States.
We have to assume that that exact thing is going on in Taiwan.
There is no “government in Taiwan”. There are instead American robots who do whatever Washington DC tells them to do.
So stop all the nonsense and fact the facts.
And China knows this.
Maybe not exactly as I have described, but yeah, they get the picture. In fact, I would arge that they understand the nuiances far better than MM here.
Of course, you would NEVER hear about this in the Western “news” media. China has a military force that is peer-capable, and lethal. And if you are Japanese or a cocky Australian American-lover they will decapitate you. The Chinese DO NOT PLAY.
The Chinese have two things that are found nowhere else in the world; [1] Social unity. They work in groups together as one organism, and [2] They are merit-dren and always do their best.
If you take those two things, and then organize it towards military action. From an early age, then the formation of military actions; defensive actions all become automatic. That is China.
Video – More Chinese elementary schools students video 8MB
Video – Rifle disipline.
Taught with “training weapons”. Lighter, and firing a low recoil projectile instead of a full cartridge. Second and third grade students. China. video 6MB
Video -They fight for family. They fight for survival.
Unlike the American and British “soy-boys” that went to the Ukraine to plink at Russians, and ran home crying after one simple missile barriage, the youth of China are disiplined, and prepared. They will fight to the death. All for their family; their parents and their friends. video 4MB
Video – Chinese youth training
Resembles American Green Beret and SEAL training. Yeah. They get it starting in first grade.
Because the flat slobs in the West, in their easy-chairs, coffered hair, riding their nice cars, and making royal decrees like some kind of bloted evil and corrupt spoiled brat are planning on causing hardship, hurt, turmoil to THESE PEOPLE. And I am here to tell you that is will not work. Instead, it will make them very, very, VERY angry.
There is a reason why China is considered THE DRAGON. And no, it’s not just public relations. China will slice you up and spit you all out. Do not poke the dragon. video 7MB
Video – But it’s the military that China has that is peer capable and lethal
You do not want to fuck with them. All state of the art. Peer capable, or better than what the United States fields, and they love, just love their AI-guided missiles and rockets. Do NOT FUCK with them. video 3MB
Now keep in mind that if it comes down to the Chinese having to use these systems, they will do so with their enemies cites in radioactive rubble. The Chinese do not play around. They are lethal and they will go after enemies with everything they have.
You don’t want to poke the dragon.
Why does the United States want to anger the dragon?
Why?
Because the American “leadership” are psychopaths. They have no understanding of the world, and ideological monsters that are following a dangerous script that will eventually result in the absolute shredding of the Untied States, and a tumble into poverty for all the the West. video 7MB
Ok. Enough of this. Let’s calm down a tad.
Cute Chinese Girl
I think that she is pretty. Nice girl with an umbrella. Video 2MB
Fake UFO video
It’s fun to check out UFO videos. You find them all over the internet, and many are very interesting, but most have no context and thus provide zero information.
The following video is filmed near the “fisher girl” statue here in Zhuhai next to my house where I live. It takes me about seven minutes to walk to it from my front door.
Nothing beats Old-Fashioned Roast Beef the way mama used to make it!
With this roast beef recipe you can bet there’ll be lots of good eatin’. Just remember to let it rest, slice it thinly across the grain, and finish it off with the pan drippings – that’s what makes it absolutely perfect. Oh, and add some potatoes and gravy.
What You’ll Need
1 (4-pound) beef bottom round roast
1 teaspoon paprika
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
1/2 teaspoon onion powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
A beef bottom round roast.
What to Do
Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Place roasting rack in large roasting pan and coat with cooking spray. Place roast on rack, fat side up.
In small bowl, combine remaining ingredients; mix well. Rub spice mixture over entire roast, covering completely.
Roast 30 minutes. Reduce oven to 300 degrees and continue roasting beef 70 to 75 minutes, or until a meat thermometer registers 135 degrees for medium-rare, or until desired doneness beyond that. Let stand 15 to 20 minutes before slicing.
Notes
To make a tasty sauce for your roast beef, just add 1 cup beef broth to roasting pan and heat over high heat, scraping the bottom to loosen any brown bits.
And sandwiches…
Open Faced Reuben Sandwiches
It’s an awfully delicious sandwich.
Ever find yourself wondering how to make a Reuben sandwich with some style? Some of the biggest and best delis serve their Reubens open-faced, just like in this recipe that we got from a deli in Central New York. We loved these Open Faced Reuben Sandwiches and we had to pass along the recipe for you to enjoy! There’s something about this sandwich that just makes your mouth water.
What You’ll Need
1/2 cup mayonnaise
2 tablespoons ketchup
2 tablespoons sweet pickle relish
1/8 teaspoon garlic powder
1/8 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon black pepper
8 slices rye bread
1 pound sliced deli corned beef
2 (14-ounce) cans sauerkraut, rinsed and well drained
8 slices (6 ounces) Swiss cheese
What to Do
Preheat the oven to 450 degrees F.
In a medium bowl, combine the mayonnaise, ketchup, relish, garlic powder, salt, and pepper; mix well.
Arrange the bread on two baking sheets. Spread dressing mixture on each slice. Top each with corned beef, sauerkraut, and a slice of Swiss cheese.
Bake for 6 to 8 minutes, or until heated through, and the cheese is melted. Place 2 pieces on each plate and serve open-faced.
Test Kitchen Tips
You might want to use only half of the Thousand Island dressing on the sandwiches before baking them. Then just top each slice with a dollop of dressing before serving. Our mouths are already watering!
China is a major force
If you are in the West, it’s easy to get overwhelmed in the lies and bullshit about China.
China is advanced, a manufacturing powerhouse, run on merit and disipline. They are successful and they “ain’t stopping for shit”. If you take them on, they WILL FUCKING SLAUGHTER YOU.
The rest of the world appears lazy in comparison. Chinese are hard drivers. video 4MB
China military. Don’t be so sure that they would be an easy nation to conquer. video 4MB
And this fool, in Hong Kong, obviously influenced by the Pro-Democracy NED “color revolution” decided to harass the Chinese guards. The Chinese DON’T PLAY. Down and drawn in 1.5 seconds. video 3MB
China is fighting to exist. Just like Russia. And if you think , and believe that they are not taking the THREATs from the United States seriously, you are deluded. It’s no mistake that they have a mass production of hyper-velocity nuclear missiles all with the United States targets plastered on them.
Oh, you think that I am kidding? Oh, you think that I am being alarmist? Look at this quote out of the Kremlin directly from President Putin…
PUTIN:
"I am now instructing our 4 combat regions that if USA and NATO dare to provoke us (around the Black Sea) and try to hit us with even ONE guided missile then you must hit them back as hard as possible.
Hit them fiercely until they kneel down for mercy.
If they retaliate, I command you to use nuclear weaponsto hit their countries.
No need to think about the consequences.
I will be solely responsible.
Your duty is just to hit them hard until they kneel down begging for mercy.
Once the war has started I expect you to subdue Europe within 5 days.
No need to think... just take over the 8 capitals of Europe.
From now on our Air, Land and Navy armed forces are on full alert.
I want the world to know who is the leader of the world.
What is USA... I am telling them they will be trembling in front of us.
They have been belittling and making fun of many countries but don't they dare to try us.
Go to hell.
My view is that if the Russians have to live under USA's mercy then what good is there left in this world!!"
-Kremlin
[This link is blocked in the usa, france, hungary, serbia, moldova, switzerland, and singapore. Heck, even the russian language website is blocked.]
.
In June 2020, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a decree stating,
“The Russian Federation reserves the right to use nuclear weapons in response to the use of nuclear weapons or other weapons of mass destruction against it and/or its allies…
...and also in the case of aggression against the Russian Federation with the use of conventional weapons, when the very existence of the state is put under threat.”
Clearly, the United States has pushed Russia to a state where they beleive this is the case.
Clearly, though not reported in the Western media, both Russia and China are at a high state of military readiness.
Russia is at the highest state; DEFCON 1. (Open Warfare)
China is at second highest state DEFCON 2. (Full readiness; no open warfare).
No American pre-emptive nuclear strikes are possible without immediate unleashing of MAD upon the entirety of the West.
Out of necessity, Russia and China have banded together and created a new nation. It’s a United Asia. Other nations are drifiting towards it. For now, you can consider it to be similiar to the USA, or the EU in unity.
Presently, the comprehensive document is only between Russia and China. However, Iran is interested in generating similiar agreements, and India is working towards joining the block as well.
That’s 70% of the world’s population.
85% of the world’s manufacturing.
65-70% of the world’s energy resources.
All of the rest of the nations in Asia are moving towards this group.
It’s a new nation.
And the Untied States (and it’s proxy nations) are pretending that this is not the case. They are pretending that they can treat China separately from Russia, India from Russia, Iran from China, and so on and so forth.
They cannot face the reality; the truth.
So, without plans and “expert” guidance from RAND, the United States (leading the West) are still following the same tired-old “take over the world” script written decades ago, and implementing the plans set forth. (Follow the links for the RAND plans to initiate war. When you read them, you will discover that the US government has been following them to the letter.)
These plans have been telegraphed, and well understood by the Russian and Chinese leadership. And since the United States is following that old script, they are easy to anticipate and handle.
However, the unifed Russia and China block was unexpected, and it doesn not fit in with the plan. So the way that the United States has decided to handle this issue is to IGNORE IT and pretend that this reality does not exist.
They will continue their assaults and probing actions.
Now it’s Russia. Russia has issued strike orders, and telegraphed them to the West, but you know, eventually they will engage China, and when that happens, China WILL ENGAGE THEM RIGHT BACK. Unlike Russia, China will not telegraph any warning.
It will be on American soil, by the way. It will not be so nice.
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.
It’s all a “mop up” exercise at this point. Contrary to what the main stream “news” media has to say, nope… Russia is not running out of bullets. Nope, Russia is not stalled. Nope, the Ukrainians are not inflicting huge casualties. Nope, it’s not going to be a long drawn-out war. But, rather it’s all coming to a conclusion. It will probably be all wrapped up by May 2022. And a new reality will manifest on the Geo-Political landscape. Here, we talk about this for a spell.
I suppose that you, the reader, might be confused.
As all the Western media is all hot and bothered about the great fiasco that Russia has got itself involved with. Of course, it’s a fiction. But, man oh, man, it’s a mighty fiction. I’ve never seen such insane levels of lies and distortions.
I will not spend too much time on the lies.
If you are unaware of the lies, then this is not the place to be. Others have devoted all sorts of time and effort to unpack all the nonsense. Personally, I consider it a waste of time. It’s like trying to dig a hole in the sand. It just keeps getting filled in.
Russia had it’s “back to the wall”, and had to stop an encroaching nuclear armed power from being on it’s borders. It waited. It asked nicely. It laid out the consequences if NATO and the United States continued to violate their treaties, and then when they said “No!”, Russia took action.
It’s all pretty simple.
Ok. Let’s check out what’s going on with the final stages of the Russian Invasion of the Ukraine….
Larry C. Johnson: “The Ukrainian Army Has Been Defeated. What’s Left Is Mop-Up”
Question 1–Can you explain to me why you think Russia is winning the war in Ukraine?
Larry C. Johnson– Within the first 24 hours of the Russian military operation in Ukraine, all Ukrainian Ground Radar Intercept capabilities were wiped out. Without those radars, the Ukrainian Air Force lost its ability to do air to air intercept.
In the intervening three weeks, Russia has established a de facto No Fly Zone over Ukraine. While still vulnerable to shoulder fired Surface to Air Missiles supplied by the U.S. and NATO to the Ukrainians, there is no evidence that Russia has had to curtail Combat Air Operations.
Russia’s arrival in Kiev within three days of the invasion also caught my attention. I recalled that the Nazi’s in Operation Barbarossa took seven weeks to reach Kiev and the required 7 more weeks to subdue the city. The Nazis had the advantage of not pulling punches to avoid civilian casualties and were eager to destroy critical infrastructure. Yet many so-called American military experts claimed that Russia was bogged down.
When a 24 mile (or 40 mile, depends on the news source) was positioned north of Kiev for more than a week, it was clear that Ukraine’s ability to launch significant military operations had been eliminated. If their artillery was intact, then that column was easy pickings for massive destruction.
That did not happen.
Alternatively, if the Ukrainian’s had a viable fixed wing or rotary wing capability they should have destroyed that column from the air.
That did not happen.
Or, if they had a viable cruise missile capability they should have rained down hell on the supposedly stalled Russian column.
That did not happen.
The Ukrainians did not even mount a significant infantry ambush of the column with their newly supplied U.S. Javelins.
The scale and scope of the Russian attack is remarkable.
They captured territory in three weeks that is larger than the land mass of the United Kingdom. They then proceeded to carry out targeted attacks on key cities and military installations. We have not seen a single instance of a Ukrainian regiment or brigade size unit attacking and defeating a comparable Russian unit. Instead, the Russians have split the Ukrainian Army into fragments and cut their lines of communication.
The Russians are consolidating their control of Mariupol and have secured all approaches on the Black Sea. Ukraine is now cut off in the South and the North.
I would note that the U.S. had a tougher time capturing this much territory in Iraq in 2003 while fighting against a far inferior, less capable military force. If anything, this Russian operation should scare the hell out of U.S. military and political leaders.
The really big news came this week with the Russian missile strikes on what are de facto NATO bases in Yavoriv and Zhytomyr.
NATO conducted cyber security training at Zhytomyr in September 2018 and described Ukraine as a “NATO partner.”
Zhytomyr was destroyed with hypersonic missiles on Saturday.
Yavoriv suffered a similar fate last Sunday.
It was the primary training and logistics center that NATO and EUCOM used to supply fighters and weapons to Ukraine. A large number of the military and civilian personnel at that base became casualties.
Not only is Russia striking and destroying bases used by NATO regularly since 2015, but there was no air raid warning and there was no shutdown of the attacking missiles.
Question 2– Why is the media trying to convince the Ukrainian people that they can prevail in their war against Russia? If what you say is correct, then all the civilians that are being sent to fight the Russian army, are dying in a war they can’t win. I don’t understand why the media would want to mislead people on something so serious. What are your thoughts on the matter?
Larry C. Johnson– This is a combination of ignorance and laziness. Rather than do real reporting, the vast majority of the media (print and electronic) as well as Big Tech are supporting a massive propaganda campaign.
I remember when George W. Bush was Hitler.
I remember when Donald Trump was Hitler.
And now we have a new Hitler, Vladimir Putin.
This is a tired, failed playbook. Anyone who dares to raise legitimate questions about is immediately tarred as a Putin puppet or a Russia stooge. When you cannot argue facts the only recourse is name calling.
Question 3– Last week, Colonel Douglas MacGregor was a guest on the Tucker Carlson Show. His views on the war are strikingly similar to your own. Here’s what he said in the interview:
“The war is really over for the Ukrainians. They have been ground into bits, there is no question about that despite what we hear from our mainstream media. So, the real question for us at this stage is, Tucker, are we going to live with the Russian people and their government or we going to continue to pursue this sort of regime change dressed up as a Ukrainian war? Are we going to stop using Ukraine as a battering ram against Moscow, which is effectively what we’ve done.”
(Tucker Carlson– MacGregor Interview)
Do you agree with MacGregor that the real purpose of goading Russia into a war in Ukraine was “regime change”? Second, do you agree that Ukraine is being used as a staging ground for the US to carry out a proxy-war on Russia?
Larry C. Johnson– Doug is great analyst but I disagree with him—I don’t think there is anyone in the Biden Administration that is smart enough to think and plan in those strategic terms.
In my view the last 7 years have been the inertia of the NATO status quo. What I mean by that is that NATO and Washington, believed they could continue to creep east on Russia’s borders without provoking a reaction.
NATO and EUCOM regularly carried out exercises—including providing “offensive” training—and supplied equipment. I believe reports in the United States that the CIA was providing paramilitary training to Ukrainian units operating in the Donbass are credible. But I have trouble believing that after our debacles in Iraq and Afghanistan, we suddenly have Sun Tzu level strategists pulling the strings in Washington.
There is an air of desperation in Washington.
Besides trying ban all things Russian, the Biden Administration is trying to bully China, India and Saudi Arabia. I do not see any of those countries falling into line. I believe the Biden crew made a fatal mistake by trying to demonize all things and all people Russian. If anything, this is uniting the Russian people behind Putin and they are ready to dig in for a long struggle.
I am shocked at the miscalculation in thinking economic sanctions on Russia would bring them to their knees. The opposite is true. Russia is self-sufficient and is not dependent on imports. Its exports are critical to the economic well-being of the West.
If they withhold wheat, potash, gas, oil, palladium, finished nickel and other key minerals from the West, the European and U.S. economies will be savaged. And this attempt to coerce Russia with sanctions has now made it very likely that the U.S. dollar’s role as the international reserve currency will show up in the dustbin of history.
Question 4– Ever since he delivered his famous speech in Munich in 2007, Putin has been complaining about the “architecture of global security”. In Ukraine we can see how these nagging security issues can evolve into a full-blown war. As you know, in December Putin made a number of demands related to Russian security, but the Biden administration shrugged them off and never responded. Putin wanted written assurances that NATO expansion would not include Ukraine (membership) and that nuclear missile systems would not be deployed to Romania or Poland. Do you think Putin’s demands are unreasonable?
Larry C. Johnson– I think Putin’s demands are quite reasonable. The problem is that 99% of Americans have no idea of the kind of military provocation that NATO and the U.S. have carried out over the last 7 years.
The public was always told the military exercises were “defensive.”
That simply is not true.
Now we have news that DTRA was funding biolabs in Ukraine. I guess Putin could agree to allow U.S. nuclear missile systems in Poland and Romania if Biden agrees to allow comparable Russian systems to be deployed in Cuba, Venezuela and Mexico. When we look at it in those terms we can begin to understand that Putin’s demands are not crazy nor unreasonable.
Question 5– Russian media reports that Russian “high precision, air-launched” missiles struck a facility in west Ukraine “killing more than 100 local troops and foreign mercenaries.” Apparently, the Special Operations training center was located near the town of Ovruch which is just 15 miles from the Polish border. What can you tell us about this incident? Was Russia trying to send a message to NATO?
Larry C. Johnson– Short answer—YES!
Russian military strikes in Western Ukraine during the past week have shocked and alarmed NATO officials. The first blow came on Sunday, March 13 at Yavoriv, Ukraine. Russia hit the base with several missiles, some reportedly hypersonic. Over 200 personnel were killed, which included American and British military and intelligence personnel, and hundreds more wounded. Many suffered catastrophic wounds, such as amputations, and are in hospital.
Yet, NATO and the western media have shown little interest in reporting on this disaster.
Yavoriv was an important forward base for NATO (see here). Until February (prior to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine), the U.S. 7th Army Training Command was operating from Yavoriv as late as mid-February.
Russia has not stopped there.
ASB Military news reports Russia hit another site, Delyatyn, which is 60 miles southeast of Yavoriv (on Thursday I believe).
Yesterday, Russia hit Zytomyr, another site where NATO previously had a presence. Putin has sent a very clear message—NATO forces in Ukraine will be viewed and treated as combatants. Period.
Question 6– Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has been lionized in the western media as a “wartime leader” and a modern-day “Winston Churchill”. What the media fails to tell its readers is that Zelensky has taken a number of steps to strengthen his grip on power while damaging fragile democratic institutions in Ukraine. For example, Zelensky has “banned eleven opposition-owned news organizations” and tried to bar the head of Ukraine’s largest opposition party, Viktor Medvedchuk, from running for office on a bogus “terrorist financing” charge. This is not the behavior of a leader that is seriously committed to democracy. What’s your take on Zelensky? Is he really the “patriotic leader” the media makes him out to be?
Larry C. Johnson– Zelensky is a comedian and an actor. Not a very good one at that in my view.
The West is cynically using the fact he is Jewish as a diversion from the size-able contingent of Neo-Nazis (and I mean genuine Nazis who still celebrate the Ukrainian Waffen SS unit’s accomplishments while fighting with the Nazis in WW II).
The facts are clear—he is banning opposition political parties and shutting down opposition media. I guess that is the new definition of “democracy.”
Question 7– How does this end? There’s an excellent post at the Moon of Alabama site titled “What Will Be The Geographic End State Of The War In Ukraine“. The author of the post, Bernard, seems to think that Ukraine will eventually be partitioned along the Dnieper River “and south along the coast that holds a majority ethnic Russian population.” He also says this:
“This would eliminate Ukrainian access to the Black Sea and create a land bridge towards the Moldavian breakaway Transnistria which is under Russian protection. The rest of the Ukraine would be a land confined, mostly agricultural state, disarmed and too poor to be build up to a new threat to Russia anytime soon. Politically it would be dominated by fascists from Galicia which would then become a major problem for the European Union.”
What do you think? Will Putin impose his own territorial settlement on Ukraine in order to reinforce Russian security and bring the hostilities to an end or is a different scenario more likely?
Larry C. Johnson– I agree with MoA. Putin’s primary objective is to secure Russia from foreign threats and effect a divorce with the West. Russia has the physical resources to be an independent sovereign and is in the process of making that vision come true.
Bio– Larry C Johnson is a veteran of the CIA and the State Department’s Office of Counter Terrorism. He is the founder and managing partner of BERG Associates, which was established in 1998. Larry provided training to the US Military’s Special Operations community for 24 years. He has been vilified by the right and the left, which means he must be doing something right. His analysis and commentary can be found at his blog, https://sonar21.com/
Russian troops are being told that war has to be over by 9 May | Ukrayinska Pravda
The Armed Forces of the Russian Federation are being told that the war with Ukraine has to be over by 9 May 2022. [9 May – Victory Day – is culturally very significant in Russia and is celebrated every year with a military parade, which in recent years has become more and more imposing and grand.]
Source: General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine
Whew! Yes, we are in a civilization war and one side has negative morals to the point of sociopathy.
I continue to be in awe of the China/Russia axis moves that are bringing this sick form of social organization we live under to a pause/stop/surrender/capitulation or some sort of change to the social structure/contract which I have been screaming about the need for over the past 50+ years.
I hope we get there.....
-psychohistorian
Some Likely Longterm Effects Of The War In Ukraine
Arnaud Bertrand @RnaudBertrand - 4:44 UTC · Mar 26, 2022What are the biggest game-changers of the Ukraine war so far?I see three:1) The freezing of Russia's central bank assets2) China and India's rapprochement3) The cementation of the EU's vassalage to the U.S.Small 🧵
I agree with these but would add that it is also likely to lead to 4) the long term demise of NATO and 5) a shrinking role for the U.S. in the Middle East will also shrink as a consequence of the war.
1) The freezing of Russia’s (and Iran’s, Venezuela’s, Afghanistan’s) assets will have severe consequences for the U.S. dollar. The U.S. essentially defaulted by holding back Russian assets that it had the fiduciary duty to give back. China and everyone else will move its reserves to countries or into commodities that are not under U.S. control. See the Michael Hudson’s interviews here and here:
[T]hat means that other countries all of a sudden see what they thought was their flight to security, what they thought was their most secure savings, their holdings in U.S. banks, US treasury bill, all of a sudden, is holding them hostage and is a high risk. Even the Financial Times of London has been writing about this, saying, how can the United States that was getting a free ride off the dollar standard for the last 50 years, ever since 1971, when foreign countries held dollars instead of gold and basically holding dollars means you buy U.S. Treasury bonds to finance the US budget deficit and the balance of payments deficit. How can the United States kill the goose that’s giving it the free ride? Well, the answer is that other countries can only move into gold and there’s an alternative to the dollar because that’s something that all the countries of the world have agreed upon is an asset, not a liability. If you hold any foreign currency, that currency is a liability of a foreign country, and if you hold gold, it’s a pure asset.
2) China’s and India’s rapprochement has been coming for some time. The border squabble over a few thousand square meters of mountain rocks in recent years never made much sense. The Ukraine crisis has shown that India and China have common interests. Some solution for the border will be worked out and full cooperation will return. This means the end for the Quad, the U.S. made anti-China coalition of Australia, India, Japan and the U.S. itself.
3) The cementation of the EU’s vassalage to the U.S. will only be temporarily. European companies have their own interests and they will press their politicians into more realist positions:
It is a long haul for Europe to dispense with Russian gas. Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic said yesterday: “There are gas shortages, and that is why we need to talk to Russians. Europe will move towards reducing its dependence on the Russian gas, but can this happen in the coming years? This is very difficult.”“Europe consumes 500 billion cubic meters of gas, while America and Qatar can offer 15 billion, up to the last molecule… That is why German and Austrian politicians told me: “We cannot just destroy ourselves. If we impose sanctions on Russia in the oil and gas domain, we will destroy ourselves. It’s like shooting yourself in the foot before rushing into a fight.” This is how certain rational people in the West see it today.”
4) As for NATO: As soon as Russia has finished its operation in the Ukraine it will become clear that it has absolutely no interest in attacking any NATO country.The coming period of high inflation will lead to shrinking defense budgets. A NATO that makes promises, like it did to Ukraine, but has neither will nor means to fulfill them has lost its way and serves no serious purpose. It will wither away.
5) In the Middle East the U.S. has proven to be an unreliably ally. The Saudis and others need someone else to protect their security:
The Russian intervention in the Ukraine took Gulf governments by surprise and caused a great deal of anxiety. Here were governments that have tried in recent years to balance their primary loyalty to the U.S. with a new attempt to improve relations with China and Russia.While Putin intervened in Syria against the wishes of Gulf regimes, which were trying to unseat the Syrian ruler, Bashar al-Asad, the Gulf acknowledged the resolve and determination of the Russian government. Brutality in Russian or American intervention in Syria is of no concern to Gulf despots. They value first and foremost the willingness of the Putin administration to stand by his ally in Damascus in comparison to what they see as a lack of resolve on the part of the U.S. towards its clients in the Gulf.The Gulf regimes feel Putin is more loyal than the U.S., and the mischievous behavior of UAE and Saudi Arabia in the last few weeks is an expression of their frustration with U.S. role in the region. (Riyadh, for instance, is in talks with China to trade some of its oil in yuan, which would deal a blow to the U.S. dollar that is used in 80 percent of world oil sales. Until now, the Saudis have exclusively used the dollar. And Emirati and Saudi leaders have refused to take Biden’s phone calls.)
China and Russia will likely cooperate to build some new security architecture in the Middle East.
As all the above plays out it may well turn out that the U.S. policy of overextending and unbalancing Russia did not work but has created a backlash that has severely damaged its own strategic position.
Posted by b on March 26, 2022 at 16:52 UTC | Permalink
A Robbery
"First off I am ok. . . I was a little shaken up this morning as I was robbed at the neighborhood gas station. After my hands stopped trembling I managed to call the police. They were quick to respond and calmed me down. My money is all gone. The police asked me if I knew who did it. I said yes...It was pump number 3."-Don Bacon
Plane Carrying President of Poland Makes EMERGENCY Landing
The airplane carrying Polish President Andrzej Duda to meet U.S. President Joe Biden in eastern Poland has made an emergency landing after returning to Warsaw, Duda’s advisor Jakub Kumoch was cited as saying by state-run news agency PAP on Friday.
The head of Duda’s office, Pawel Szrot, said that the Polish president did not face any danger; other than the fact the plane had to make an emergency landing . . . .
China and Solomon Islands Draft Secret Security Pact, Raising Alarm in the Pacific
A leaked document has revealed that China and the Solomon Islands are close to signing a security agreement that could open the door to Chinese troops and naval warships flowing into a Pacific Island nation that played a pivotal role in World War II.
The agreement, kept secret until now, was shared online Thursday night by opponents of the deal and verified as legitimate by the Australian government. Though it is marked as a draft and cites a need for “social order” as a justification for sending Chinese forces, it has set off alarms throughout the Pacific, where concerns about China’s intentions have been growing for years.
“This is deeply problematic for the United States and a real cause of concern for our allies and partners,” Charles Edel, the inaugural Australia chair at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said on Friday.
“The establishment of a base in the Solomon Islands by a strategic adversary would significantly degrade Australia and New Zealand’s security, increase the chances of local corruption and heighten the chances of resource exploitation.”
It is not clear which side initiated the agreement, but if signed, the deal would give Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare of the Solomon Islands the ability to call on China for protection of his own government while granting China a base of operations between the United States and Australia that could be used to block shipping traffic across the South Pacific.
Five months ago, protesters unhappy with Beijing’s secretive influence (CIA began a color revolution on the islands) attacked the prime minister’s residence, burned businesses in the capital’s Chinatown and left three people dead. Now the worst-case scenario some Solomon Islanders envision would be a breakdown of democracy before or during next year’s election, with more unrest and the threat of China moving in to maintain the status quo.
Everyone gets military training. It all begins in Kindergarden. Little warriors. video 177MB
Do you think that it is wrong to cram so much military training to all the school children?
Mariupol, Kadyrovites and a pregnant cat
In general, it is not welcome to give interviews to the military during this special operation. But the SP correspondent, on condition of anonymity, wrote downstory by Marine Sergei S. Contractor Sergei, along with his company, works in the western part of the besieged Mariupol.
– The work is hard. Cleaning up a city is hard, exhausting work. You’re in a wild state of tension all day long. You perfectly understand that you can become an easy prey for a sniper, so you run between the houses, bending over and putting your head on your shoulders. Such is the cat-and-mouse game of death. And you are wearing a Kevlar helmet, armor, ammunition. Each of us is thin as a washboard. And everyone’s legs are like weightlifters. You feel more or less calm under the cover of a tank or other armor. Before you cross the street, you “scan” all the skyscrapers.
Everything is shot here. There is a constant counter-sniper war going on. They have a sniper climber. Works on the fifth or sixth floors. And then he quickly descends the rope and runs away until he is covered by a tank, mortar or artillery fire. Grenade launchers from the AGS got the hang of sending grenades directly into specific windows. Address.
We have guys who acted in the Middle East. Igilovtsev * were driven. There is a million-plus city in Iraq – Mosul. ISIS made it a fortified area. So the Americans pounded him into the asphalt with artillery fire. A hundred civilians could be put on one ISIS. We are working on a targeted basis. That’s why it’s so hard. Of the tanks, we only work on identified sniper points – if we don’t hit, then we’ll bury the shooter under the rubble.
Therefore, they change their beds constantly. Several groups of Buryats and Tuvinian snipers were attached to us. There was even one Khanty from the Khanty-Mansiysk Okrug. Legacy hunters. Many have gone through Chechnya, Ossetia, Syria…
But they say that Mariupol is something special. It is extremely difficult to see a sniper in a window or attic of a destroyed high-rise building. They peer at houses for hours – both through binoculars, and through a thermal imager, and with their own eyes. After two or three days, the eyes become inflamed, the faces become red – as if from constant lack of sleep. They smear them with some kind of deer fat. SSO snipers work with them. Their rifles punch through walls. In the wall after the hit – a hole the size of a basin …
In general, a third of the boys in our platoon have Ukrainian surnames. They say that we clean our country from evil spirits. There are children of the Soviet Union – those who were born in Ukraine, Moldova, Kazakhstan. The militias in general are completely international.
Russians, Ukrainians, Abkhazians, Dagestanis. There are many Caucasians. Fights are their element. During the war, we constantly cross paths with Kadyrov’s Chechens. Then they insure us, then we insure them. At first they showed a brave contempt for death.
Then they became more careful. The war is positional. There is no dagger fight here, dashing cavalry attacks do not work. You can become easy prey for snipers or mortars. Bandera, by the way, also have Chechens. But ours call them “Chechen-speaking shaitans.” Contacted them. Come out, they say, once at a time, we will not shoot – we will fight with daggers like men. They didn’t come out.
Among the highlanders there are age – those who fought in the first Chechen war. And now we are beating Bandera together with them. Brothers in Arms. Our hatred for Bandera is mutual and absolute. We would cover them all with artillery in an hour. But they hide behind the backs of civilians.
They do not let people out into the humanitarian corridors we have opened and scream to the whole world that civilians are suffering from the occupiers. There is no logic, no sense, no high idea in their actions. Everything is built on a lie – both for the clown Zelensky and for themselves. They constantly accuse us of doing things themselves. Lies, lies, lies.
The Chechens are also ready to break loose.
It was the Chechens who figured out the most Nazis who tried to leave the city along with the civilians along the gum corridor. They first checked the shoulders – there were bruises on them from the recoil of the butt. There could be traces of knee pads on the knees. And the helmet leaves a red stripe on the head. Some were even sniffed. If a person shoots a lot, he smells of gunpowder and gun oil. A military man who runs a lot on his feet has traces of berets. There may be a callus on the thumb from reloading the magazine with ammo. They are all, as a rule, slightly stooped.
Ammunition hangs constantly on the chest. And this is sometimes over a thousand rounds. And he rubs his shoulders too. There are many nuances. In general, the highlanders have some kind of bestial intuition for the enemy. They feel it with their skin. They glare at a person with their key and wait for him to look away. And the Bandera people do not look in the eyes. They generally do not like a direct look. And by the way he takes him away, they feel the enemy. Many were given tattoos on the shoulder. Or a trace of an acid-etched pattern.
When civilians were taken out of the city, they did not even have the strength to rejoice. Complete desolation. Almost like a zombie. The eyes of many are black, devastated. You look there, as in the abyss. It seems to me that the prisoners of the concentration camps did not have the strength when they were liberated by our people. Many are on the verge of insanity or a nervous breakdown. The old people, who had all sorts of sores, as soon as they leave the basements, die from stress. They are buried right in the city. Neighbors usually bury. Mariupol is dotted with these mass graves.
After continuous running around the city and shooting, you come to the unit just killed. You think that this bad dream is over for today. Tomorrow we will start to nightmare reptiles again.
And here we are waiting for whole flocks of abandoned dogs and cats. They will surround, sit and wait for the fighters to share their dry rations. We share. Still God’s creature.
One of these days one pregnant cat has appeared. It crawls, trembles, scratches the ground with its claws and screams. Cat food is desperately needed. I gave her stew. All the other dogs and cats who were nearby did not even budge. Though hungry no less than her. Even the beast understands that a pregnant woman cannot be offended. She “grind off” all the stew and began to lick my dusty boot. Thanks so. We made her a “prone” in a box of cartridges. The pea jacket was laid. Such is the field cat maternity hospital. Let her give birth to her kittens.
We really need support and understanding here that all of Russia is behind us. And when the guys sent us the song “We bite into Mariupol” – our wings just grew. Well done who wrote the song. This is about us. After it, a halo over my head shone right over my head. We are doing great work here. Together, with the whole world – Christians, Muslims, Buddhists. We save Russia. Only this thought keeps us in good shape and does not let us relax. The Lord respects us.
That’s how we do things here. I will die – I will remember how we took Mariupol.
* The Islamic State Movement (ISIS), by the decision of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation of December 29, 2014, was recognized as a terrorist organization, its activities in Russia are prohibited.
I just did our weekly shopping and whole chickens that were $1/lb are now $1.50/lb.
18 oz pack of 5 sausages that was $4 on sale and $5 regular is now $6.
Untrimmed tri-tip, a favorite meat cut here was $6/lb and is now $8/lb.
30oz jug of mayonnaise was $3 is now $5, but I got some on sale at $4.
Milk being subsidized remains cheap on sale at $.75/1/2 gal. I but my dry goods in bulk and make many staples myself and haven't needed to buy any recently.
Fresh produce remains about the same.
I paid $1.30/lb for broccoli and $1.47/lb for honeybee apples.
Overall, we're seeing some food inflation that I'm sure will rise going forward. Gasoline was $4.50/gal and diesel $5/.10. Currently its Spring Break and the traffic seems about the same as in previous years. (I live on the Oregon Coast, which is a tourist mecca.)
- karlof1
Chinese are SHOCKED at the homeless in the USA
This is a great video. Read the subtitles. You have to understand that there are NO homelss people inside of China. There are NO starving people in China, and everyone in China HAS a job. Nope, it’s not what the Untied States media says, but you all do know that it is just a lie generation mechanism with little semblence to reality. This video is great as it accurately reflects the feelings and thoughts of Chinese that I meet and talk with regarding America.
Pay attention to the last part of the video. She describes how homeless are taken cared for inside of China. It is no wonder why the Chinese wonder how Americans can be so hard-hearted, evil and selfish. video 100MB
What do you think about homeless people?
Tiki Culture. The Tiki Lifestyle. Island Living. Retro Life. What is it all about?
I suppose you all are probably wondering what this Tiki stuff is all about.
Well, it’s pretty simple.
It’s all about living the good life the way the cocktail set did back in the day; listening to the sounds of Exotica music and waves crashing on an island shore while sipping an exotic cocktail under a palm tree, and taking it nice and easy, even if you’re a thousand miles away from the nearest tropical island. That’s Tiki Culture.
People who are into Tiki Culture, or the “Tiki Lifestyle” crave an escape from the fast-paced lives we live. We want to know we have a special place, whether physical or in our minds, where we can go to get away from it all.
Martin Lindsay and Di Lovely at the Headhunter San Diego.0
For many of us, it’s our own little Tiki Bar set somewhere in the corner of our home. For some of us, it’s the Tiki Bar down town or on the beach. For a lucky few, our entire lives (including our homes and businesses) are 100% Tiki with that distinct mid-century retro look and feel.
What is Tiki?
Historically and geographically, Tiki is defined by Polynesian culture – specifically, Tiki was the first man on Earth, according to most cultures. But that’s not what 20th & 21st Century Tiki Culture in America (and most of the world) is about now. (There are a lot of great websites that can give you the history of Tiki and Moai better than I can here).
Being in a Tiki frame of mind.
As for Tiki Culture today, you’ll get different answers depending on who you talk to, and from what part of the states they hail. Tiki purists will tell you that Tiki is the genre inspired by 1930s to 1950s Hawaiian and Polynesian pop styles, blending these cultures with specific types of drinks, food and décor.
Dark woods, thatch, rattan and bamboo make up the basic building blocks of the décor and furniture. Tropical plants, waterfalls, hand-carved Tiki gods and Moai, along with nautical accents arranged in a somewhat mysterious display reminiscent of foreign lands make up an atmosphere of true Tiki.
Dancing Hula girls and fire-eating island men provide the exotic entertainment, set to jazz-influenced, drum-heavy island music. Food is an Americanized combination of South Pacific and Asian cuisine; drinks are mostly rum-based, complex, fairly strong and are not really supposed to be sweet.
Tropical Cocktails are at the center of the movement, and are served as a ritual – not just a drink – involving chunks of exotic fruits and even real flowers as garnish, exciting swizzle sticks, and occasionally even flames.
A home Tiki bar.
Very special drinks are served in large bowls with extra long straws for a party of four; at places like the world famous Mai-Kai in Fort Lauderdale, FL they are served by a Mystery Girl dancing seductively to a gong.
Anything made of plastic, with the exception of swizzle sticks, is taboo.
If it wasn’t in a Tiki bar in the ’50s, it’s not authentic. However unless you are a true purist, a few fun plastic Tiki cups and paper cut outs from the party store can transform any room into your own Tiki haven without blowing the kids’ college fund on bamboo furniture and ceramic mugs.
Swing down to Key West and the “Tiki Bar” takes on a whole new meaning. One of the few places in the country that welcomed Tiki bars through the ’70s, ’80s and ’90s, Tiki bars in the Keys evolved with the times and took on an area-specific life of their own. Bright, vivid colors replaced the dark jungle themes.
Vintage Tiki
Like everything else in the Keys, Tiki Bars became open-air, welcoming in the cool ocean breezes.
Shorts, bikinis and flip-flops replaced party dresses and tailored suits for the dress code, and the music swayed away from Poly pop to Caribbean Island sounds, incorporating Cuban, Reggae, Calypso, and South American styles.
Tiki bars can be a great escape.
Eventually a laid back kat named Jimmy Buffet made his way to Key West, and his music fit in perfectly with the Island’s philosophies. A Margarita or Cuba Libre are right at home next to the Mai Tai or Singapore Sling at the Tiki Bars in the Keys, and even though you won’t usually find a carved Tiki or a Polynesian show, they can still be a hell of a lot of fun.
Today, we have a wonderful bunch of krazy kats and kittens who refer to themselves as Tikiphiles. (Hell, you might be one of them yourself if you’re reading this!) These swingers love Tiki culture, in many forms. They might be purists, they might be Parrot Heads, or they might be into the Retro Scene where Tiki can be a big part. Some of the hard-core Tikiphiles follow Tiki events across the country – mainly the Big Three – Tiki Oasis in California, Ohana on the Lake in Lake George New York, and the Hukilau in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. They find each other on the internet, at Tiki bars and Tiki events. You won’t find a kooler bunch of kids. As the saying goes, they’re money, and they don’t even know it.
Tiki Culture 101: How it all started
There are some great books and a few other websites that can give you an in-depth history of Tiki Culture in America. I’m going to give it to you in a nutshell, so you can get the basics down before you finish your Mai Tai.
Sand Bar; a fine Tiki themed bar on the Ocean.
The common theory is that Tiki Bars started popping up in America after World War II, when soldiers returning from the South Pacific started spreading the word of how wonderful the beautiful tropical islands were with their hula girls and swaying palms. Well, that’s not really true; the first Tiki Bars in America, by most accounts, were started in the 1930s by a couple of guys who had spent time in the islands and thought it would be fun to theme their bars with a tropical flavor.
Don the Beachcomber (Donn Beach) is generally credited as the first swanky kat to open a specifically Tiki/Polynesian-themed restaurant and lounge in Hollywood, CA in 1934. About three years later Trader Vic’s (Vic Bergeron) opened in Oakland, CA with a similar theme, and Tikiness in America took off from there. Both proprietors got popular concocting strong but tasty cocktails, and soon became known for the exotic décor, laid back atmosphere and strong libations. Bamboo and wicker galore, hand-carved Tikis, palms, pretty girls in sarongs. Hawaiian music set the standard for the blossoming era.
How to go Tiki.
As air travel helped bring the world closer in the ’30s and ’40s, Hawaiian and Polynesian music, food and décor became more popular in the states. WW2 brought these cultures to the forefront, and Americans – who were sick of the war – focused on the beauty of these worlds, the tropical flowers and orange sunsets, the magic, the exotic women, the cool breezes and sweet fruits.
MM meal
I filmed this video a few weeks ago. It’s some some great and delicious food. This is authentic Chinese sichuan food inside of China (duh!). The hot bubbling dish is eggplant, and man oh man, is it delicious. video 32MB
The Tiki formula
Main Tiki Bar Elements (around 50 %)
Carvings and art from Polynesia like Tiki statues, posters, mugs, weapons, masks, Tiki utensils, ashtrays, Tiki lighters, menus, matches, and other objects and art that depict Tiki (Polynesian ancestor figures). Also: Artefacts from Melanesia (Papua New Guinea) and Micronesia. Architecture like A-Frame meeting houses.
All these elements can show the influences of three additional stylistic forces. In the pie chart, you see three triangles that influence original mid-century Tiki art as well as today’s revival Tiki style.
They are: 1.) Original Pacific art 2.) Modernism & Picasso and 3.) Cartoons
Supporting Tiki Elements
(10 – 20 % each, depending on your preferences)
These are split into four categories. Exotica, Pre-Tiki, Nautical and Mid-Century Pop.
EXOTICA – Explorers, Headhunters, voodoo, African and Asian souvenirs.
PRE-TIKI – Hawaiiana, South Sea movies, Hula girls, Luau imagery, Palm trees, rattan, and tapa.
NAUTICAL – Trader and Beachcomber style, ship models, ship wheels, anchors, fishnet floats, shells, pufferfish, nets, travel, and adventure objects and Kon-Tiki related stuff.
MID-CENTURY POP – Surf, Beach, Lounge and Bar elements, Rumpus Room items.
The focus on the main elements is important, with a nice mix of the supporting ideas. On the borders, but outside of Tiki style, are personal preferences like Pirates, Shriners, Rock-a-billy, Monsters, or Star Wars décor. You find these things in modern Tiki bars, even if they are obviously not authentic. To each his own: The Tiki genre is very creative, open, and playful, yet it does have its heritage and history.
After the war, those returning soldiers did want forget the bloodshed, but they certainly wanted to remember the good times. Tiki Bars sprang up all over the states, moving from the California coast clear over to the Atlantic. New Tiki Bar owners combined elements of Hawaii, Tahiti, the Philippines and other Pacific cultures to decorate their lounges. Bamboo, thatch and carved hardwoods became the building materials of choice. Tiki idols and masks adorned the walls and bar.
Tiki foundation
Nautical props, from fishnets to lanterns made from blowfish, found their way into the design. Chinese and Japanese cuisine infiltrated the menus. Swinging Hawaiian music was combined with jazz and exotic sounds of the far east and south Pacific to create “Exotica”, the soundtrack to Tiki. Polynesian Pop was born.
The 1950s saw an explosion in pop culture that wouldn’t be matched until the advent of the World Wide Web. Tiki bars flourished in the ’50s, giving the cocktail set a new place to mingle as well as providing a nice, close-to-home adventure for the thriving middle class.
Visiting a Tiki Bar with a live Polynesian music and dance floorshow was like taking a mini vacation.
Dining in fine Tiki.
Drinks were served in coconuts, hollowed pineapples, and eventually artistically created ceramic Tiki mugs. Patrons could buy souvenirs to take home, just like on vacation, and soon these souvenirs became collectibles. Those who loved the themed lounges took it upon themselves to re-create the atmosphere at home, and the home Tiki Bar was born.
Although it had been hip for years with the cocktail set to have a home bar (usually anything from a hideaway bar to a corner set-up with all the frills), suddenly Tiki Bars in the home became the “in” thing.
Bachelor pads were re-worked with the Tiki Theme in mind, sporting curious Moai art sculptures and black velvet paintings of Tahitian women laying naked on the beach. Swingin’ couples transformed their mid-century modern apartments to include bamboo furniture, palm plants and floral wallpaper. Basement rec-rooms across the country were turned into little Tiki islands, with fishnets hanging from the rafters and rum-stocked bamboo bars as the focal point. America loved Tiki.
Dancing the Hula at a Tiki Bar
Then the 1960s came along. The happy days of the ’50s began to decay under the rebellion of the hippy generation (who of course had their own ideas of ‘cool’), the problems America faced with civil rights, assassinations, corrupt government and the Vietnam war.
Once again palm trees and thatch huts were shown on the 11 o’clock news as the center of war and death.
Even Gilligan’s Island couldn’t distract people from the darkness. America was beginning to focus more on what was “real” and less on the fantasy, and much of the fun stuff we enjoyed in the old days were abandoned, washed away by a tide of indifference.
By the 1970s, Tiki culture had been worn down to ‘kitsch’. It was no longer considered a fun, exciting escape; it was considered an old, out-dated and corny style that belonged to the old generation. Disco took over, and Tiki Bars around the country began closing their doors for good.
But something strange happened. Something wonderful. Tiki started popping up again in the strangest places.
TV shows like “Hawaii 5-0”, “Fantasy Island” and “Magnum P.I.” brought the tropics back into our homes, in a very groovy way.
Vintage Tiki drinks
A few of the old Tiki Bars continued to succeed, managing to push on in spite of the times. Places like Key West and San Francisco somehow managed to keep the culture quietly alive, adapting to new trends.
The Florida Keys branched out with its own Tiki culture, breaking from tradition and incorporating vivid colors, open-air bars and Parrot Head music with Jimmy Buffet at the musical wheel.
Pirate culture, which is a hairline away from Tiki Culture, gained popularity, and the two started to overlap in a wonderfully adventurous way. A couple of authentic, mid-century Tiki bars, such as the Mai Kai in Fort Lauderdale, FL managed to maintain the original, traditional Tiki Culture with Polynesian shows and exotic drinks served in original-style Tiki mugs.
They pressed on, and by the early 1990s more and more Americans started opening their eyes to the wonders of Tiki. Tiki culture was rediscovered!
Tiki Bar in LA
Where is Tiki?
You don’t have to live in the tropics to enjoy the Tiki life, but it helps. Having year-round warm temperatures, green grass and palm trees in your back yard is something I don’t ever want to give up. But some of the best Tiki Bars I’ve been to have been in places like Portland, Oregon – so it’s really a state of mind, more than a place. You can live in Alaska, as long as you have your bamboo and thatch setup and a good heater, you’re golden.
It was guys like me (and maybe you too) who kept the Tiki torches burning through the last few decades. My uncle loved the whole Tiki thing, and built his middle son a complete Tiki Hut to play in back in the ’70s, along with a Pirate Ship and a Tiki/Pirate-themed bedroom.
By that time, Tiki Culture was making its way back into the hearts of many Americans, not just us crazy few. Books on the allure of Tiki were published. Tropical themes became “in” again. More TV shows and movies were set in tropical settings. And the Internet helped propel the good word of the Tiki good life around the world. (That’s why you’re reading this, right? Dig it!)
Tiki bars are fun.
Now, at the beginning of the new century, we’re realizing once again the fun of Tiki and the importance of preserving the original places, ideals and philosophies that make Tiki Culture so great. From hard-core traditionalists to new-wave Parrot heads, people all over the world are enjoying tropical drinks under indoor palm trees, swaying to music by Martin Denny and The Martini Kings. There are Tikiphiles who love and live everything Tiki, and everyday people who think it’s just kinda kool to have a Tiki mask hanging in their bedroom and bamboo furniture on the lanai.
Some people prefer to stick to one era and are true to it, and that is very kool. Others are all about original Tiki, basically Poly pop of the 1950s, and won’t stray from it. That is kool too because they are the kids who keep the traditional stuff going and that is very important. And many are all about back-yard Tiki, having a luau party with the fun, colorful decorations you can pick up cheap at the party store, lighting the Tiki torches and barbecuing sweet and sour chicken kabobs while the kids do the limbo.
Arnold’s Tiki bar
To me, it’s all fantastic. Tiki culture is all about living the good life, having fun, and enjoying the tropical splendor it offers. So sit back in your bamboo chair, sip your Piña Colada with the little paper umbrella, and dig in to the fun of living Tiki!
Wait, there’s more! Here’s a fun little thing…What is NOT Tiki…
• Carribbean, South American, Mexican or African cultures. Although elements of these cultures make their way into the Tiki lifestyle occasionally, they are their own cultures and don’t really represent Tiki.
• Anything with folk music. Oof. If there’s a guy with a guitar singing Simon and Garfunkel tunes, no matter what the joint has hanging on the walls, it ain’t a Tiki Bar.
• Art Deco, palm tree & pastel decor, i.e. Miami Modern. Just because there are palm trees doesn’t make it Tiki. That’s a whole other thing. A very kool thing, but a whole other thing.
• Chinese or other oriental decor, although Tiki borrows from those styles (especially for the food!). Chinese and Japanese elements worked into the overall Tiki theme is good.
• Friday night Beef & Beer at the American Legion Hall (unless they decorate it with Tiki stuff, of course).
• Sears.
• “Idaho. I have never heard of a Tiki Bar in Idaho. If anyone knows of one, please send info right away.” Well guess what? I was just told about a Tiki Bar in Idaho! And that is amazing, and fantastic. The more Tiki bars, the better!
• People who wear Hawaiian shirts with shorts, black socks and sandals. No.
• Martini bars, even of they have a neon palm tree in the window.
• And for Tiki purists, anything made of cheap plastic and bought at the local party store, neon-colored Tiki stuff, smiling Tikis, and misuse of Tiki gods (like Ku holding up a cheese platter) are unacceptable.
Trader Sams Enchanted Tiki Room
America is a nation of Rulers not laws
Yet after COVID-19, it’s obvious our democratic system of lawmaking is, as Winston Churchill put it, “the worst form of government, except for all the others.” Given the choice between a system resembling a Rube Goldberg cartoon (with his bizarre and overly complex contraptions designed to complete simple tasks) and one that’s streamlined and efficient, I’ll take Goldberg’s vision any day.
As we saw throughout the country but in California in particular, governors were happy to dispense with the usual checks and balances and impose rules by executive order and fiat. Some initial rules were defensible during a public-health crisis, but it wasn’t long before elected officials operated like czars—imposing illogical and contradictory restrictions that made no rhyme or reason.
They kept moving the goalposts. One day, counties were on lockdown based on such and such infection rates, but the next day standards changed. In September 2020, for instance, Gov. Gavin Newsom issued a re-opening blueprint based on COVID cases per 100,000 population, but then he refused to let counties that met the standard to loosen up their rules.
Do schools teach you to be independent thinkers, or cogs in a vast huge nameless machine?
Russian Roubles for gasoline
Yves Smith has a post up about Putin’s roubles-for-gas declaration. This is in her wheelhouse and worth a read. She also discusses the Dallas Fed’s new paper on the impacts of sanctions on the oil market. Conclusion: at least as severe an impact as OPEC in the 70s.
The United States to establish “Red Lines” upon China
In the use of “Red Lines”, both Russia and China defined them as unalterable, and uncrossible events that violate their national sovereignty.
The United States is now set to define their “Red Lines”.
Only instead of American sovereignty, it is really a set of limitations placed upon China. And if China, instead, acts as an independent nation and refuses American demands, this will be considered “cossing the red lines”.
Silly and highly volatile.
These are not actual “Red Lines” on American sovereignty, but rather a list of demands and limits on what America allows China to do. If China crosses those limits, America will impose punishments.
Oh yes, China backing Russia is really pissing off Uncle Shmuel. How dare China! And the noise has been a daily ritual. Additionally, the Eurolemmings are very upset:
But guys, you all know that this is an expected reaction. It has been planned and expected a long, long time ago. China and Russia are playing a very advanced game of Chess, while the United States are just infants scribbling on the walls with crayons.
.
The USA has to be told over and over…
China’s bank regulator says the nation will not join Western sanctions imposed on Russia over Ukraine invasion – ABC News
Mainstream media drum-beat for war is frightening the DOD
Joe Lauria reports this morning there were two leaks by MoD providing facts to fight against the MSM hysteria.
There is currently a fight between DoD, the President, the Congress and the MSM over the next actions to take over Ukraine. Maybe I am exagerating a bit but they feel the dangers of escalating this any further.
SEOUL, March 24 (Reuters) - North Korea conducted what is thought to be its largest intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) test ever on Thursday, the South Korean and Japanese militaries said, marking a dramatic end to a self-imposed moratorium on long-range testing.It would be the first full-capability launch of the nuclear-armed state's largest missiles since 2017, and represents a major step in the North's development of weapons that might be able to deliver nuclear warheads anywhere in the United States.
Compare to how the people react when there is an accident. In America, everyone sits in their car. No one gets out. No one helps anyone, and they wait until the polic eand others come. At most, they might honk their horns or film the carnage.
Inside China, a nation of Rufus, everyone leaves their car and gets out to help. It’s all about community. It’s about responsibility, and it’s about purpose. video 22MB
A reminder to the maniacs and neo-con interventionists in the West
Head of Roskosmos:
"I want to confirm, knowing the technical side of the matter, that the Russian Federation is capable of physically destroying any aggressor or any group of aggressors at any distance, globally, in a matter of minutes,"
He said this on Channel One television.
The head of Roskosmos also expressed hope that Russia wouldn’t have to use the missiles that the state corporation builds because they are “the last resort.”
"Our machines are for the last resort, I think that’s what President [of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin] was talking about when he warned the countries that would try to intervene in this special military operation, including NATO countries, that no one should forget that Russia has a very reliable nuclear strategic potential and means of its delivery.
The means of delivery are intercontinental ballistic missiles, as well as operational-tactical missile systems, and so on,"
China Crash Mystery Deepens As Evidence Suggests Mid-Air Breakup
China Plane Crash: If investigators confirm that the part found 10 km away came from the jet, it could offer clues about what led to Monday's crash or at least shed light on the flight's final seconds.
2022 03 26 14 35
At least one piece of the Boeing Co. 737-800 that crashed in China appears to have broken loose well before impact, a finding that adds mystery to the plane’s fatal dive.
The piece suspected to have come from the China Eastern Airlines Corp. Ltd. jet was found about 10 kilometers (6 miles) from the main wreckage area, Chinese officials said at a briefing Thursday.
If investigators confirm that the part came from the jet, it would indicate the plane suffered some kind of midair breakup, which could offer clues about what led to Monday’s crash or at least shed light on the flight’s final seconds.
“The questions are: exactly what piece was it and when did it come off?” said Jeff Guzzetti, the former chief of accident investigations at the US Federal Aviation Administration.
Flight 5735 from Kunming to Guangzhou went down without an emergency radio call from pilots, slamming into a forested hillside about 100 miles from its destination, according to the Civil Aviation Administration of China. There were 132 people aboard.
The highly unusual dive has baffled crash investigators and safety experts. Aircraft such as the 737-800 are designed not to dive so aggressively, so some kind of aircraft failure or pilot action would be required to keep its nose pointed down for so long.
A piece about 1.3 meters (4.3 feet) long and 10 centimeters (4 inches) wide believed to be from the plane was found on farmland, Zheng Xi, head of the Guangxi fire-fighting rescue team, said at a briefing.
It’s impossible to know at this early stage in the investigation whether the piece came loose as a result of stresses during the high-speed plunge or broke off before the sudden descent.
Guzzetti said it most likely occurred as the plane plummeted from a cruising altitude of about 29,000 feet in about 1 minute and 35 seconds.
“In my view, that’s the aircraft shedding parts as it’s coming down,” he said.
If that’s the case, it would provide clues about the plane’s speed and possible pilot maneuvers.
Still Transmitting
The aircraft didn’t break apart completely. It continued to transmit its position until it reached 3,225 feet, according to data collected by the Flightradar24 tracking service, suggesting the main structure remained intact.
A Bloomberg News review of Flightradar24 data showed the jet was flying well above normal speeds during the dive, possibly nearing the speed of sound.
Going that fast on a jetliner that’s not designed for such speeds could cause relatively light-weight components on wings and tail sections to break loose, according to an investigation into the Dec. 19, 1997 crash of a SilkAir 737-300 in Indonesia.
That jet was traveling close to the speed of sound as it dove into a river, investigators concluded. The Indonesian National Transportation Safety Committee said there wasn’t enough evidence to say what caused the crash, but the (The United States representative) NTSB dissented, saying that the captain most likely did it intentionally in a murder-suicide.
Almost 22,000 Feet in 72 Seconds: Plunge of China Eastern Plane Puzzles Experts
Boeing 737 crash in southern China was among the fastest jetliner descents ever recorded
It was one of the fastest descents of a commercial aviation jetliner in history.
China Eastern Airlines Flight MU5735 had been flying normally for just over an hour on Monday when it suddenly nosedived, plummeting more than 21,000 feet in 72 seconds. After the fall appeared to be briefly arrested, the plane stopped transmitting data, crashing into green mountains in southern China.
Video footage captured by a mining company’s surveillance camera showed the aircraft almost perpendicular to the ground in its final moments before it crashed, while attempts by air-traffic controllers and other nearby jetliners to contact the pilots after the aircraft started hurtling to the ground went unanswered.
It is “extremely unusual to see an aircraft in a full nose dive,” one industry safety official in the U.S. said. “Many of us are scratching our heads.”
The vertical speed of the descent reached almost 31,000 feet a minute at one point, according to data from tracking provider Flightradar24, mystifying experts. With very limited information available so far, it leaves open a range of possibilities as to how the Boeing 737-800 carrying 132 passengers and crew met its fate.
The Aviation Safety Network, operated by the independent safety advocacy group, the Flight Safety Foundation, and which maintains a flight accident database going back to 1919, said it identified eight examples of accidents since 1985 where a plane quickly descended in an abnormally steep way or fell out of the sky at high speed.
China Eastern Airlines has grounded its entire fleet of Boeing 737-800 aircraft – a move that came after the same widely-used plane model plummeted from the sky with 132 passengers on board earlier this week.An airline spokesperson said China Eastern and its subsidiaries have temporarily paused use of a total of 223 Boeing 737-800s. The planes will undergo safety checks and maintenance during the grounding.China Eastern Airlines is also planning an overhaul of its plane safety protocols following the incident, CNN reported.Authorities have yet to determine what caused China Eastern Airlines Flight 5735 to crash with no apparent survivors. The plane appeared to nosedive from a cruising altitude of approximately 30,000 feet.Flight tracking service FlightRadar24 said the plane “started to lose altitude very fast,” with a vertical descent of 31,000 feet per minute. Authorities recovered the plane’s black box from the crash site on Wednesday, which could provide clues about what happened.
I filmed this in one of my local restaurants. Fine authentic Chinese pepper beef. It’s served on a hot platter right out of the oven. It goes great with alcohol, as that’s how all the Chinese eat it. Yum. video 23MB
Both China and Russia have declared Soros a “terrorist”.
“The Russian govt announces an arrest warrant against the billionaire Georges Soros, the main promoter of the war in Ukraine.
She’s got nice curves, and I really do like her dress. video 4MB
I think that she looks great in blue. Love the soft curves.
Germany Spokesperson: No big new sanctions package expected at EU summit on Russia
A spokesperson for the German government said on Wednesday that they were not expecting a “big new sanctions package” on Russia to be announced at the EU summit, as reported by Reuters.
Solomon Islands reportedly close to signing security partnership with China. My guess it is becuse of the NGO “color revolution” activities that the CIA has been sponsoring the last few years.
A draft white paper that surfaced on social media today sets out a framework that could allow Beijing to deploy forces to "protect the safety of Chinese personnel and major projects in the Solomon Islands."
The agreement says that the Solomon Islands can "request China to send police, armed police, military personnel and other law enforcement and military forces to the country."
It’s not only the boarded-up store fronts. It’s the office space throughout the urban areas.
Blackstone walks away from Midtown Manhattan building, CMBS holders left holding the bag. Yah. This is how it is going in the US.SF: 26% of total office space for lease. Occupancy rates still down 70%.
"The revolutionary technology, expected to be 10-100 times faster than 5G in terms of data transmission speed, will integrate with advanced computing, big data, artificial intelligence (AI) and blockchain, set to make up for desired applications that fall short of expectations in the 5G era...."In January, a high-tech lab in Nanjing, capital of East China's Jiangsu Province, announced a major achievement related to 6G-oriented terahertz 100/200Gbps (gigabits per second) real-time wireless communication, which led to the world's fastest real-time transmission for terahertz real-time wireless communication that's been publicly reported...."China, the world's biggest internet and smartphone market, granted 5G licenses for commercial use and started 6G R&D in 2019. It has built the largest 5G mobile infrastructure in the industry, with 1.43 million 5G base stations rolled out as of the end of 2021, accounting for over 60 percent of the global total."
I laugh at US telecom 5G commercials touting their superiority when they’re so totally outclassed by China. China’s telecoms will dominate the Eurasian Bloc’s market and aid in the region’s rapid developmental transformation.
I think she has a really nice tummy and fine womanly hips. Do you think that she’s too thin, as some American friends have suggested to me?
Russians captured a Ukrainian Control Complex
LATEST NEWS FLASH YOU’LL NEVER HEAR IN THE MSM: On Monday night, Russian forces released news of their capture of a Soviet-era nuclear bunker near Kiev, which was being used by the Ukrainian army as a command complex. 60-some prisoners were taken, reportedly half of them being officers at the rank of Major or above.
When will Putin realize that Russian default on loans is the proper response to the seizure of Russian assets? Russia would have to be extremely foolish to borrow another cent from the West. Therefore, why protect access to foreign borrowing by continuing to service foreign debt? As the West has already stolen Russia’s money, Russia should walk away from the debt, which it was a strategic blunder of the highest order for Russia to have contracted. https://www.rt.com/business/552511-imf-us-dollar-reserve-currency
Lavrov is catching on
“This all is about removing the obstacle in the form of Russia on the way to building a unipolar world… This is not about Ukraine, this is about a world order in which the United States wants to be the sole sovereign and dominate.”
“Our Polish colleagues have already stated that there will be a NATO summit, and peacekeepers should be sent. I hope they understand what they are talking about. This will be the very direct clash between the Russian and NATO armed forces, which everyone wants to avoid.”
“The Americans proceed from the fact that it is unprofitable for them if this process is completed quickly. They expect to continue pumping weapons into Ukraine.”
Sanctions are destroying dollar as world currency
IMF says Washington’s illegal seizure of Russia’s reserves is causing “increasing fragmentation” in the global payments system, causing some countries to move away from the dollar.
Sanctions destroying influence of Washington’s Russian allies
Anatoly Chubais, Atlanticist Integrationist excrement, has resigned his position as presidential aide for sustainable development and fled Russia.
Good riddence says Russia.
Chubais is the Russian traitor who sold out Russia to the West during the Yeltsin years. He plunged millions into poverty while helping a few oligarchs and the West seize Russia’s assets. For reasons no one understands, Putin kept him on in lesser positions instead of having him shot.
The “Victorious Ukrainian Forces” sre trying to escape by dressing up as women
Here are the Ukrainian Nazis that, according to US Secretary of Defense, are on the verge of Defeating the Russian army. It doesn’t look that way. Not really.
The Supreme Court is already a joke. Now they want to make it a laughing stock. Discrediting the court is their way of removing judicial restraint on the executive branch. Another leap into tyranny.
US Secretary of Defense Sees Russian Defeat in Ukraine
The incompetent fool Biden appointed Secretary of Defense said that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was stalled by valiant Ukrainian forces and that Russia was feeding its troops into a wood chipper and would soon run out of soldiers. The Defense Secretary’s statement is 100% fantasy.
Ukraine is a no-fly zone, one established by Russia. Before Russian troops arrived, Ukrainian radar, air fields, and military infrastructure was destroyed along with the navy and air force.
The remains of the Ukrainian army are isolated and surrounded. The units have no communication and are incapable of offensive action.
The US-supported and armed neo-Nazi militias are ensconced in population centers where they are using the civilians that Putin intended to spare as shields and are blowing up the towns and cities for the Western presstitutes to blame on Russia. As the population centers are being destroyed and civilians killed by the neo-Nazis , there is no reason for the Russians to keep to their policy of avoiding the risk to civilians of heavy weapon use.
Ukraine is cut off from the Black Sea. It remains to be seen whether Putin, in another of those fruitless Russian good will gestures, will give the territory back to Ukraine. Indeed, at this time no effective Ukraine government exists. Russia is wasting its time negotiating with a non-government.
NATO bases in Western Ukraine where Russian troops are not operating have been destroyed.by precision weapons. Among the casualties are US and UK military and intelligence personnel who were training Ukrainians in the use of the weapons supplied by the West. Russia has made it clear what awaits NATO members if they get involved in the conflict.
The real puzzle is what do Western government officials and presstitute media think they are accomplishing with fantasy news reports? Has the West reached the point in George Orwell’s 1984 where victories are claimed in a war that doesn’t exist?
Only a portion of the assembled Russian troops have been committed to the conflict. The rest are on hand to deal with any NATO intervention.
In recent years, many people have become accustomed to thinking about the term “deep state” as something that only applies to the United States. While it is certainly clear that a fifth column has become increasingly embedded across all levels of America’s military, intelligence, bureaucratic, corporate, media and academic influence- very few westerners have any clear idea how this same structure has expressed itself in the nations of Eurasia.
Most relevant for the topic of this present report, we can take as an example the vast western-leaning hive of vipers, oligarchs and liberal technocrats which rose to power under the direction of the CIA during the dark years of shock therapy of the 1990s. Of course, since taking over from Yeltsin in 1999, President Vladimir Putin has gone far to purging many of those treacherous agencies that looted Russia during Perestroika, regaining control of vital institutions, bringing Russia’s military, scientific and intelligence powers back into national hands.
“In the early 2000s, I’ve cleaned all of them out, but in mid-1990s, we had Central Intelligence Agency employees as advisors and even official employees of the government of the Russian Federation, as we learned later… There were American specialists sitting at our nuclear weapons complex sites, they went to work there, from morning to late night – they had a table and an American flag. They lived there and worked there. They did not need any fine instruments to interfere in our life, because they had control over everything already.”
Putin went on to describe the new CIA-run strategy of asymmetrical warfare utilizing foreign NGOs and rabble-rousing proxies (see: Navalny) within the vast “civil society” apparatus embedded within his nation:
“As soon as Russia started claiming its interests, started to raise its sovereignty, economy and armed forces’ capability, new instruments of influence on our internal political life became needed, including rather fine instruments via various organizations, funded from abroad.”
Of course while these operations have lit many weaker nations on fire in earlier days, the color revolutionary techniques used by the CIA-funded NED, or Open Society Foundations have resulted in very limited successes in Russia where saner heads have cut off many of these operations of funding while illegalizing Soros’ entire organization in 2015 declaring them to be “threats to state security”. Although Russia was 25 years behind schedule on this matter, banning Soros put them into the special club of nations that got their acts together led by China who had the wits to ban Soros in 1989, illegalizing his Open Society operations and arresting its agents (including CPC General Secretary and Soros agent extraordinaire Zhao Ziyang).
After recapturing key strategic interests from private clutches during his early years in power, Putin established a new set of ultimatums that he expected the liberal technocrats and oligarchs to adhere to: play by the rules set out by him or face the consequences. Some went to jail, and many went to London for sanctuary (often buying mansions with their ill-begotten gains in an area that came to be known as “Moscow on the Thames”). Still others stayed behind to play by the rules. Perhaps some did adapt to this new reality, but other forces continued to act as a fifth column- often keeping their claws firmly sunk into the levers of finance in Russia’s IMF-influenced central banking architecture and local regional power centers.
It was to these fifth columnists that Putin addressed his remarks on March 15 of this year saying:
“Yes, of course they [the West] will bet on the so-called Fifth Column. Our national traitors. On those who earn money here, with us, but live there. And they live not even in the geographical sense of the word but according to their thoughts. According to their slavish consciousness… many of these people, by their very nature, are mentally located exactly there, and not here. Not with our people. Not with Russia. This is, in their opinion, a sign of belonging to a higher caste, to a higher race. Such people are ready to sell their own mothers if only they were allowed to sit in the hallway of this very highest caste… They do not understand at all that if they are needed by this so-called “higher caste”, then they are needed only as expendable material in order to use them to inflict maximum damage on our people.”
The myopic habit of looking only at the USA or European fifth columnists undermining the sovereignty of nation states over the past decades while ignoring Eurasia, has caused many well-meaning people to presume falsely that nations like Russia or China can be treated as monolithic institutions with either a “good” or “bad” label attached to them. Such oversimplifications unfortunately result in minds susceptible to much misinformation, which there is no shortage to be found amidst our age of psychological warfare operations, media spin and narrative reframing.
Ignorance of the battle currently being waged between genuine nationalists surrounding Putin vs this other western-directed fifth column will ensure fatal errors in judgement and a misdiagnosis of our current crisis. Even worse, vital opportunities for broader policy solutions requisite to empower sovereign nation states will be lost and with this loss, any capacity to engage in proper combat with an emerging totalitarian world order will be destroyed.
Chubais Jumps Ship
One of the most blatant examples of leading Fifth Columnists who “sell their own mothers to sit in the hallway of this very highest caste” has been the figure of Anatoly Chubais who has recently announced his departure from Russia (hopefully permanently) in order to seek safer terrain in Turkey. In this leap into safer sanctuary, Chubais has abandoned his role as ‘Special Representative for Relations with International Organizations to Achieve Sustainable Development Goals’ at the UN.
Chubais played one of the most destructive roles of any living politician while working with the CIA-run Yeltsin government as a “Soros-young reformer” alongside Yegor Gaidar and other western tools who were recruited by the west to run the sacking and disintegration of Russia during the 1990s. Acting as Deputy Prime Minister for Economic and Financial Policy between 1992-96, Chubais oversaw the privatization of all strategic sectors of the Russian economy alongside Harvard’s Jeffrey Sachs, Rhodes Scholar Strobe Talbott, a coterie of sociopathic oligarchs like Mikhail Khodorkovsy, Platon Lebedev and Boris Berezovsky (many of whom formed Chubais’ ‘Group of 7’ in 1996).
Chubais and Geidar pioneered the infamous “voucher system” which underpinned the multi-phased looting operation dubbed Operation Hammer by Bush Sr’s CIA starting in 1991. William Engdahl rigorously documented this dense period of privatizations which saw over 15,000 firms privatized between 1992-1994. New oligarchs like Berezovsky were able to use these vouchers purchased from starving Russians, to buy the oil giant Sibnet (worth $3 billion) for only $100 million and Khodorkovsky bought 78% of the shares in Yukos (a $5 billion value) for only $310 million. Soros himself bragged that he dropped over two billion dollars into Russia during this looting period.
Chubais had been an early founder of Perestroika clubs in St. Petersburg alongside such figures as Yegor Gaidar (future Prime Minister), Vladimir Kogan (future St Petersburg Bank President) and Alexei Kudrin (future Finance Minister). Upon Gaidar’s death in 2009, Chubais spearheaded the creation of the Gaidar Forum which was designed to take place one week prior to the annual World Economic Forum in Davos and served as a coordinating body of the deep state between the Schwabian technocrats and their Russian soulmates.
In 2013, Putin said of Chubais and his CIA handlers:
“We learned today that officers of the United States’ CIA operated as consultants to Anatoly Chubais. But it is even funnier that upon returning to the U.S., they were prosecuted for violating their country’s laws and illegally enriching themselves in the course of privatization in the Russian Federation.”
Despite Putin having clearly identified Chubais as a CIA asset, evidence of something very powerful protecting the financier was seen as he not only avoided being purged as so many others during Putin’s tenure, but even regained a large degree of influence as chairman of the executive board of the state-run technology company Rusnano from 2008 until 2020. During this time, Chubais also found himself serving as advisory council member of JP Morgan Chase, and the leading force behind decarbonization schemes in Russia driven by green alternative energy boondoggles which serve as a major component of the World Economic Forum’s Great Reset.
During his 12 year tenure, Chubais used Rusnano as an instrument to fund and seed windmill and solar power development, provided $400 million to Hevek Solar (Russia’s biggest solar energy company) and created a $520 million Wind Energy Development Fund.
Although Chubais’ offices at Rusnano were raided the day following the arrest of Russian finance minister (and fellow swamp creature Alexei Ulyokaev on November 16, 2021), his protectors ensured that while his days at the company would come to an end, he would avoid arrest, and go onto new destructive endeavors. What was his next assignment?
By the end of December 2021, it was announced that Chubais was made Russian Presidential envoy to the United Nations to coordinate Sustainable Development Goals. In this position, Chubais had shamelessly called for adapting Russia’s economy to the UN’s climate market and fully submitting to the dictates of the IMF and World Bank saying on January 8, 2022:
“I am convinced that the Russian climate market will be extremely attractive for international investment. So it is necessary to facilitate the access of Russian entrepreneurs to receive funding from abroad for alternate projects. To do this, it is necessary to achieve harmonization of the basic rules of the Russian Market being created in this area with leading international organizations- the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development”.
Not only has Chubais spearheaded the “greening of Russian energy” according to the Great Reset Agenda (which unites the two-fold manufactured crises of climate change and covid-19 into one package), but Chubais also used Rusnano to fund the growth of a foreign directed pharmaceutical complex within the heart of Russia. One major scandal emerged recently as Russian pharmaceutical giant and COVID-19 vaccine manufacturer Nanolek received billions of rubles from Rusnano in 2020 and 2021 enriching the husband-wife duo of Tatyana Golikova and Viktor Khristenko (whose son is a major shareholder in the company).
While much can be said about other fifth columnists still embedded within Russia’s civil service and private sector, the smell of new purges is certainly in the air.
A Sea Change Now Underway
Powerful western forces representing the “higher castes” have severed ties with Russia and with those lost ties goes lost protection for many figures who have slept soundly at night despite their treacherous hearts. The World Economic Forum broke off ties on March 8 along with a multitude of foreign WEF partner corporations like Goldman Sachs, Deutschebank, Amazon, Visa, Paypal, Mastercard, Apple, IBM, Unilever, and Pepsico (to name a few).
Moves are quickly being made to empower nationalist forces to take increased control over Russia’s economy led by Sergey Glaziev’s new project to create a China-EAEU alternative financial/monetary system with increased national controls over finance and long-term planning. Gaining control of the financial sector which has long been under the strong influence of western oligarchical interests is vital if Russia is going to be able to not only weather the coming storm but come out of it with the economic sovereignty and power to build those large-scale projects needed for Putin’s aspirations for a Far Eastern and Arctic civilizational growth paradigm.
Although Chubais only represents but one large rat who has chosen this current moment to jump ship, others will certainly follow, and perhaps a new fear of god might awaken in the hearts of others who chose this moment of crisis to walk a more noble path as patriots of Russia as the world enters a new more multipolar future.
I think it is here fitting to end with a few remarks by President Putin who stated …
“the Russian people will be able to distinguish true patriots frьфкьфеom scum and traitors and simply spit them out like a midge that accidentally flew into their mouths. I am convinced that such a natural and necessary self-purification of society will only strengthen our country, our solidarity, cohesion and readiness to respond to any challenges”.
Chinese girl bouncing down the street
I really do like how these boobies bounce. It’s hypnotic. video 21MB
I happen to like bouncy boobies. Most women think it’s simply distracting, maybe silly. What do you think?
Since the Russian action in Ukraine began, provoked by Washington’s cold shoulder to Russian security concerns, Washington, in addition to doing all possible to keep the conflict going, has also dumped three more provocations on the Kremlin: an attempted coup or “color revolution” in the former Russian province of Kazakhstan, NATO military maneuvers currently under way in the former Russian province of Georgia which is not a NATO member, and NATO maneuvers in Poland on the Border of Belarus, a former Russian province and current Russian ally. https://avia-pro.net/news/bronetehnika-nato-zamechena-v-3-kilometrah-ot-granicy-s-belorussiey
The signal Washington consistently sends to the Kremlin is aggression. Why has no member of any government in the Western world, no presstitute in the Western media pointed this out? It is difficult to fathom the irresponsibility of Washington adding to the Ukraine provocation three more provocations simultaneously. Why provoke a country already concerned with its security with more security concerns unless you are trying to widen the war?
The US Treasury is working with Congress to prevent Russia’s use of her gold reserves that she kept in her own hands, with the bulk of Russian reserves having been seized, a theft made easy by the stupid fool that Putin keeps as head of the Russian central bank. It is extraordinary that the Russian central bank kept Russia’s reserves in Western hands while Russia intervened militarily in Ukraine. The Russian central bank must have wanted Russia to lose her reserves.
Now the remaining reserves are to be targeted by Washington in this way. Sanctions will be applied to every country that permits or facilitates Russian payments in gold or the buying and selling of gold by Russia. This, the US senator, Angus King, said, will collapse the Russian economy, leaving Russia no means of payment.
Senator King and the US Treasury are overlooking that all acts of war are not military, and what the senator is sponsoring is an act of war. Putin recognizes it as such. He declared it to be “a total undisguised aggression” and “a war waged by economic, political, and informational means.”
So what is Russia doing in response to the declared intent of the West to destroy her? She is enabling her own destruction. She distributes her foreign exchange reserves among Western banks where they can be seized. She keeps the economies of her enemies alive by continuing to supply them with energy and minerals–all because her moronic central bank thinks Russia needs foreign exchange, which will be seized regardless.
She continues with a go-slow war that gives her enemies more time to demonize Russia and create permanent hatred of Russia in the Western populations, that gives Western idiots more time to blunder into a wider war, such as the Western plan to deploy NATO peacekeepers in Ukraine.
In short, the Kremlin’s response to the sanctions is mindless. Here for example is Germany’s own assessment of the impact on Germany if Russia stops sustaining Germany’s existence with Russian energy: “A 2018 stress test run by the German civil defense agency, the BBK, found that all crucial services will be impacted by a gas supply shortage.
The two-day crisis management exercise Lukex 18, which involved several states in southern Germany, found that the shortage of gas supply will have ‘a drastic effect on public life,’ including the closure of public and private facilities. The disruption of supply will also lead to ‘far-reaching, difficult-to-predict consequences for the service sector and the production of goods,’ according to the BBK.”
If Russia turned off the energy, Germany would force an end to the sanctions on Russia or Germany would leave NATO despite Germany’s occupation by US troops. But apparently the Kremlin would rather risk Russia’s destruction than to violate a contract or forego foreign exchange earnings that it cannot use. The Kremlin seems destined to forego the opportunity to crush the sanctions and continue selling energy to Germany until Germany has had time to locate and construct the facilities for an alternative means of supply.
The West’s naked aggression and the Kremlin’s insouciance guarantee a wider war ending in world destruction. Can no one in leadership position see it coming? Do Western politicians believe Russia will allow herself to be defeated by non-military means? Does the Kremlin believe that resolving the Ukrainian situation will end the West’s attacks on Russia? As always in human affairs, stupidity prevails.
That Washington and its despicable puppet states parade around like goody two shoes, shouting accusations at Russia when it is Washington and its puppets who are provoking war, and everyone falls for it tells me that Washington has the world on the road to nuclear armageddon.
Girl black dress and ice cream
Another cute Chiense girl outside eating ice cream. Looks delicious. I think I will neet to get a scoop later on. video 2MB
What do you think? Wouldn’t you like to share a cone with this lass? Or, even not her…just a nice ice cream cone outside on a nice weekend afternoon?
Russian Foreign Minister: “All-Out War Has Been Declared Against Russia”
An all-out war has been declared against Russia. The West does not conceal that the goals of its policy are aimed at suffocating and devastating the Russian economy, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Friday.
“Today, a genuine hybrid war, a ‘total war’ has been declared against us. This term, which was exploited by Hitler’s Germany, is now pronounced by many European politicians when talking about what they want to do with Russia. The goals are not concealed, they are publicly announced, that is to destroy, devastate, ruin, and suffocate the Russian economy and Russia as a whole,” Lavrov stressed.
The foreign minister lashed out at this “sanctions spree”, pointing out that it is becoming clear that all values that those in the West have been preaching to Russia, like freedom of expression, a market economy, the sanctity of private property and the presumption of innocence, are not worth a red cent.
Russian President Vladimir Putin on February 24 launched a special military operation in Ukraine in response to a request for help from the Donbass republics. He said Moscow had no plans for an occupation of Ukraine. After that the United States, the European Union and Britain, as well as a number of other countries said they were imposing sanctions on Russian individuals and legal entities.
Hal Turner Editorial Opinion
I have often told readers of this website and listeners to my radio show how much I admire Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, for his precise language, his level-headedness and maturity, his mental discipline, and his candor. He is a man, I think, worth listening to because in his words can be found the precise position of the Russian Federation.
Today, his words ought to send shivers down the spine. He spoke the words “All-out war has been declared against Russia.”
Lavrov is not some talk-show host, or news channel prognosticator; he is the Foreign Minister of the second most powerful nation on earth. Actually, based on their nuclear arsenal, Russia is THE most powerful nation on earth!
His words convey how Russia sees things. And right now, they see that “all-out war has been declared against Russia.”
Stop for a moment and think about the implications of what he just said.
When a country sees/believes that “all-out war” is being waged against it, what is that country then obligated by survival instinct, to do? It seems to me the logical answer is: Wage war back.
And THAT, ladies and gentlemen, is where this situation is heading. Right now. Today. This minute.
As we sit here at our computers, all snug and comfy at home, sipping our morning coffee, the economic sanctions imposed by the West are literally tearing Russia apart. We sit here reading the news, watching the morning TV shows, or listening to music on the radio, and Russia is being systematically wrecked.
The damage to Russia is real. The effects upon the Russian people, are real.
Yet we see and feel none of it because Russia has not chosen to attack back . . . yet.
I am of the opinion they will. Not just economically, but kinetically.
Now, some of you think “they can’t” — or worse, “they wouldn’t dare.” That judgment is in error.
I think Russia will attack back because Russia MUST. They are being killed. They must attack back to stop the ongoing attack against them.
So those of us in the West, would be well advised to get our heads out of our collective ass, and see things as they truly are. The west is attacking Russia in a way that is resulting in Russia’s destruction. Unless we cease what we’re doing, and begin negotiating with Russia for their security, (Which is what Russia sought Diplomatically in December and in January) I believe Russia will have no choice but to attack us back.
They are being destroyed. I truly believe they will destroy us in response.
Stop the Sanctions against Russia now, before it is too late. Return the Foreign Currency Reserves that were “seized/frozen.” Return the Gold Bullion which was seized. Return the assets of Russian citizens that have been (and are being) seized.
Stop this Sanctions madness before Russia comes to the decision to PUT a stop to it, by force.
Sure, a nuclear war is a war that no one can win. But Russia is already losing everything. Their only choice is to deprive us of everything as well.
Is that what we want? Over Ukraine???????
I say “no.” I say Ukraine is not worth it.
I also say, we in the West brought this trouble upon the world by breaking our promises in the 1990’s that NATO “would not move one inch east.” We violated that promise time after time until now, NATO countries are right at Russia’s front porch.
This mess is OUR doing. We ought to be honorable and undo it. Before it gets undone anyway, through nuclear horror.
About the Ukraine “Invasion”
Let’s keep things clear and simple.
The Ukraine “issue” was planned for decades and set in motion by the United States. It’s objective has been to engage Russia in war by proxie, suppress it, and then “pivot to Asia” where a similiar event will engage China.
Russia, as predicted, used “military technical” means to suppress a dangerous situation in Ukraine.
The United States expected war, but not like what is actually going on. They expected an American-style war; full devistation, with ground forces performing policing afterwards. Instead they have an elimination of their Nazi proxy forces, destruction of their equipment, and soon, complete capture of the nation by Russia.
At this stage, the Western propaganda is thick with painting an illusion that Russia is losing and desperate, and that it will make dangerous and irrational moves.
This is a tried, and true technique that launched American involvment in World War I, World War II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the War in Panama, The war in Kwait, and so on…
What follows is some kind of “False Flag” event. It will probably involve something nasty. Perhaps a nuke, biological weapons or chemical weapons. Since the “news” media are already discussing “Russia and chemical weapons” we can expect that to be the trigger.
Since America already has 90,000 troops inside of Poland TODAY, we can expect a “false flag” event soon, followed by a NATO assault counter-invasion.
I can tell you that both Russia and China expect this senario to occur.
How it will play out and advance is unknown, except to say that the answer to this event has been war-gamed (by Asia) for years now, and it will be brutal, far-reaching, and will absolutely not go the way the United States / NATO believe; it will NOT be a “long drawn out” conventional war slug-fest. It will be something else.
Something surprising.
Remember, the Putin has admitted that [1] Russia is unable to fight NATO and the United States in a conventional war, and that [2] Russia has publically announced that it feels trapped, that it’s back is at the wall, and that the very existence of Russia and Russians are at stake.
Keep that in mind.
Maybe (and this is MM personal opinion) something that [1] hits American and Europeans directly, [2] silently, and quietly; [3] something not reported at all, and [4] something that won’t be noticed until months afterwards. Things are about to get really UGLY.
Let’s close with some 1960s images of Bachelor pads
I will wrap up all the “news” going on with a retro look at what was once very common. Men’s bachelor pads.
Playboy.
Some inspiration…
I like how she is wearing one of his white shirts. It’s sexy.
One part “Mad Men”, and one part bad Acid Trip.
One part “Mad Men”, and one part bad Acid Trip.
I wonder, have you ever had a bachelor pad?
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.
This guy, Gonzalo Lirahas laid it all out. All of it. Economic, Geo-political, economic, in very easy and clear terms. This video of his (in two parts – sorry about that) really tells you what is going on and why, and talks about what is going to happen.
MM agrees 100% with his assessment.
Outstanding video.
It’s in two parts due to some technical issues, but I have to tell youse guys, it’s brilliant. Man, oh man, does it set you up for a real understanding of what is going on in the Geo-Political scene right now.
Please watch both videos.
Hopefully they will stay up before the MSM takes them down. Outstanding. You need to watch both of these videos. Watch it to the very end. The best part is in the second video at 45:00:00 min to the end.
Part 1
2022 03 25 21 36
Part 2
Wow.
2022 03 25 21 22
Outstanding
Pay attention to what is happening with Sanctions and Taiwan. You will start to realize the full extent what is going on.
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.
Meanwhile, by every single fact we are able to observe, the decadent leaders of the West are acting as though Russia and China are Iraq and Libya.
It appears that they genuinely believe they can use brute force and threats of brute force to come out on top in this conflict.
(It’s also worth mentioning that the West, due to the ultra-low moral character of its leaders and the utter lack of any unifying ideal beyond anal sex, has lost the ability to cooperate cohesively as a single body in the way that the Chinese do.)
-UNZ
What do all these things have in common? They all are attributes of a period of time that is going though change. Some people might refer to it as an unravelling, while others might consider it the “second coming”. I think that it’s darn uncomfortable, and bothersome. It’s a period of change and it is nearing it’s peak.
Sheech!
I need a drink.
What? I’m already drinking. Oh, well. Color me silly.
This article has a bunch of videos. Most are small, but depending on your internet connection, they may or may not load. Just click on the link and watch them open up in another window. Most are really quick.
Strange stuff guys…
Strange and unusual things going on.
In China, a passenger aircraft took a highly unusual nose dive. Engines went full throttle, and the plane dove straight into the ground. It’s almost like the plane decided to commit suicide by ramming itself into the ground at full speed.
It’s not normal airplane behavior.
Don’t you know.
The unusual nature of this crash has everyone scratching their heads, and MM is no exception. Since this is Boeing plane that openly admits that the plane’s computer can override the pilot and fly itself…
So, and I do mean it … the software can take the input, decide the pilot is in error, and take over…
… so why have a pilot then?
Hum?
…
It is very concerning.
The opinions sent to me privately are running near 100% that the United States government / CIA are somehow involved in this fiasco. I would not be surprised if this is the case, but the truth is that I really do not know.
But…
You do know that we are going to flush out this issue.
Right here.
Right now.
MM style.
What I do know is that this entire event has shaken the Chinese people to the core. No one. And I do mean NO ONE wants to fly. Airline prices are now less than $5 USD to fly round-trip to Beijing from Zhuahi. It’s insane.
Just like the crash of the Hindenburg completely ended commercial travel by dirigible, it seems that this even will seriously impact commercial aviation inside of China. There will be far greater use of the High Speed Trains, and far less use of domestic air transport.
In 1936, the future looked bright for rigid airships, the hydrogen-filled, lighter-than-air behemoths also known as dirigibles or zeppelins.
The Hindenburg, Nazi Germany’s pride and joy, spent one glorious season ferrying passengers across the Atlantic in its luxurious belly. The following year, the airship era screeched to a spectacular halt when the Hindenburg burst into flames while landing in Lakehurst, New Jersey. The disaster claimed the lives of 36 people and received an unprecedented amount of media coverage.
The Hindenburg was a 245-metre- (804-foot-) long airship of conventional zeppelin design that was launched at Friedrichshafen, Germany, in March 1936. It had a maximum speed of 135 km (84 miles) per hour and a cruising speed of 126 km (78 miles) per hour. Though it was designed to be filled with helium gas, the airship was filled with highly flammable hydrogen owing to export restrictions by the United States against Nazi Germany. In 1936 the Hindenburg inaugurated commercial air service across the North Atlantic by carrying 1,002 passengers on 10 scheduled round trips between Germany and the United States.
On May 6, 1937, while landing at Lakehurst, N.J., on the first of its scheduled 1937 trans-Atlantic crossings, the Hindenburg burst into flames and was completely destroyed. Thirty-six of the 97 persons aboard were killed.
The fire was officially attributed to a discharge of atmospheric electricity in the vicinity of a hydrogen gas leak from the airship, though it was speculated that the dirigible was the victim of an anti-Nazi act of sabotage.
The Hindenburg disaster marked the end of the use of rigid airships in commercial air transportation.
Forever.
Grasshopper Pie
A staple among southern desserts in the 1950s and 1960s, this creamy mint pie sports an Oreo crust, all of which makes it strange that it hasn’t remained as popular as it once was.
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Grasshopper Pie
This American retro dessert was inspired by the popular 1950’s chocolate-mint cocktail, and it was a favorite of Southern hostesses in the 1950s and 1960s. Originally, grasshopper pie always had a crust of either cookies or graham cracker crumbs, but today it is most often made with a base of Oreos, desiccated coconut, and butter, while the gelatine-set cream filling mainly consists of heavy cream flavored with crème de menthe—a sweet, mint-flavored liqueur—and melted marshmallows.
Grasshopper pie is usually so named because of its green color, though modern recipes may omit coloring the pie green. It was likely invented in the 1950s in the United States, and may have been inspired by a drink called the grasshopper developed at about the same time. It is a chiffon pie usually made with a cookie crust.
There is an earlier grasshopper pie type dating back to the beginning of the 20th century. Some versions of this pie from the Philippines used real grasshoppers. These insects are eaten in many cultures, and they can be used in various desserts, where they may be sugared and baked, providing a crunchy, and to some very appetizing, confection. The 1950s grasshopper pie bears little resemblance to versions produced that have insects as a primary ingredient.
Chiffon pies in the 1950s were often a combination of whipping cream, gelatin, sugar, eggs, and flavoring. In the case of the grasshopper pie, common flavoring used was alcohol in the form of crème de menthe, and sometimes other alcohols like crème de cacao.
For teetotalers, mint flavoring could be achieved by using mint extracts instead, though these might still contain a tiny amount of alcohol. Green food coloring was a frequent addition to give the pie a light green color.
Most often the cookie crust is made with chocolate wafers, so that the pie has a chocolate and mint flavor. The crust is baked for few moments and then chilled. When the chiffon is prepared, usually over a double boiler, it is chilled and then spooned over the crust. The pie tends to be served cold and many love its refreshing mint taste.
There may be very large differences between classic recipes for grasshopper pie and modern ones. Since gelatin can be somewhat annoying to work with, many people now prepare the pie by melting marshmallows and blending them with milk or whipping cream, and sometimes cream cheese. Green food coloring can be optional, and when not used the pie could be called “mint patty pie” instead. Some people may prefer using a graham cracker crust, and other recipes advocate the use of specific cookies like Oreos®.
In the US, grasshopper pie tends to be most popular in the South, but other parts of the country enjoy it too. The pie rose in popularity especially up until the 1970s, but it is now served with less frequency. Many ice cream stores capitalized on the flavor of this pie by producing their own version with mint or mint chocolate chip ice cream and a cookie crust. Some ice cream stores are particularly known for their grasshopper pie variants.
-Delighted Cooking
The pie is traditionally served well chilled, topped with dollops of whipped cream, and decorated with dark chocolate shavings.
In American terms, we would refer to this “body shape
or “Body build” as “built like a Brick House”. It’s generally a nice compliment for a fine robust woman. In this case, a Chinese woman. video. 5MB
Th Saker has reproduced the transcript of a talk Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergej Lavrov has given three days ago. It is quite long with a Q&A at the end but it is a very good history lesson on how we got to the point that Russia felt it had to intervene in the Ukraine.
Here are just a few graphs of it. I recommend to read it all of it:
This meeting takes place against the backdrop of events now occurring in Ukraine. Russian President Vladimir Putin has repeatedly spoken at length about the origins of this crisis. I would like to briefly reiterate: this is not about Ukraine. This is the end-result of a policy that the West has carried out since the early 1990s. It was clear back then that Russia was not going to be docile and that it was going to have a say in international matters. This is not because Russia wants to be a bully. Russia has its history, its tradition, its own understanding of the history of its peoples and a vision on how it can ensure its security and interests in this world.This became clear in the late 1990s-early 2000s. The West has repeatedly attempted to stall the independent and autonomous development of Russia. This is rather unfortunate. From the start of President Vladimir Putin’s “rule” in the early 2000s, we were open to the idea of working with the West in various ways, even in a form similar to that of an alliance, as the President has said. Sadly, we were unable to do this. We repeatedly suggested that we should conclude treaties and base our security on equal rights, rejecting the idea of strengthening one’s security at the expense of another.Neither were we able to promote economic cooperation. The European Union, which back then showed some signs of independent decision-making, has now devolved toward being completely dependent on the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation and the US. The story of Nord Stream 2 was the highlight of this change. Even Germany, which defended its interests in the project to the very end, was persuaded that the “project was not in its interests.” Germany and its people were told what their interests were by people on the other side of the Atlantic. Many other international areas were blocked despite our commitment to close cooperation on an equal basis.
Germany’s traitorous role towards Russia, especially under chancellor Angela Merkel, is laid out throughout the piece. The current chancellor Olaf Scholz, never a smart man, capitulated to U.S. demands to sanction Russia and thereby committed Germany to economic suicide.
2022 03 23 13 14
That spells death for Germany’s machine industry. It is said to see my country come down like this.
Hey Olaf, when the U.S. illegally invaded Iraq for absolutely no good reason how many sanctions did Germany apply to it?
Russia has at least cited sound and understandable, if not fully legal, reasons for its current acts. It was by the way you, Olaf, and your predecessor who have let it come to this. Why didn’t you write a letter to Putin that declared that Germany will veto NATO membership for the Ukraine. That might have solved the whole problem.
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There is some talk that Russia has screwed up its campaign and some even hope that it might be losing the war. That’s nuts.
Back when I was a military officer we ran yearly large scale ‘free running’ maneuvers. Over nearly four weeks my tank company had to switch positions several times a day and march and ‘fight’ in between. The first week was cumbersome with lots of errors made by everyone. The second week was worse. Everyone was sleep deprived and folks screamed at each other. We had several accidents and twice parts of the company missed turns and got lost at night. During the third week things became gradually better and more routine. The drivers knew where to put their tanks without much command. The camouflaging done by the loaders and gunners was fast. The food that found its way to us was still hot and maintenance was done in no time. In the fourth week it was all pure fun.
The reason behind it was that people needed to learn by doing. Before the maneuvers everyone had been ‘fully trained’. But a few days on the training range do not give the experience one needs in the real world. Driving and ‘fighting’ through real villages and cities, real camouflaging against an ‘enemy’ airforce, real dueling in the open landscape day after day are different than training range time.
Russia’s forces are now in their routine mode. They will now grind down what is left of the Ukrainian forces.
According to the Pentagon the Russian airforce yesterday flew 300 sorties over Ukraine, mostly at night. That are 50% more per day than last week. That means 300 Ukrainian weapon factories, ammunition depots, convoys and fighting position get destroyed every day, day after day. How long will it take until there are no more targets?
Andrew Milburn, a former Marine colonel, is in the Ukraine from where he reports for Task and Purpose:
The Russians are already adapting, and by doing so are narrowing the Ukrainians’ tactical edge. The one-sided culling of Russian armored columns that characterized the opening days of the war, and kept YouTube subscribers around the world happy, are a thing of the past. The Russians now lead their formations with electronic attack, drones, lasers and good-old-fashioned reconnaissance by fire. They are using cruise missiles and saboteur teams to target logistics routes, manufacturing plants, and training bases in western Ukraine. Realizing that the Ukrainians lack thermal sights for their stinger missile launchers, the Russians have switched all air operations to after dark. It may be for this same reason that Russian cruise missile strikes in western and southern Ukraine have also been at nighttime.The Russians have learned to play to their strengths. While Ukrainian soldiers mock their Russian counterparts, they are deeply respectful of Russian artillery, an asset that the Russians are using more frequently to compensate for their infantry’s deficiencies. Several snipers I spoke with recently agreed that the Russians’ indirect fire capability was the most concerning — a result of sheer reckless mass rather than technical skill. They told some hair-raising stories to illustrate their point, and one amusing one: Ukrainian soldiers defending Kyiv commute to the battle in their own vehicles. After a recent three-day insertion, the sniper teams returned to their extraction site to find their cars all flattened by Russian artillery – a contingency apparently not covered by their insurance plans.Overconfidence may obscure for the Ukrainians one salient fact about this conflict: Time is not on their side.
Posted by b on March 22, 2022 at 17:55 UTC | Permalink
Hilarious Prank Gift Packages To Surprise Your Friends This Christmas
How will you wrap your Christmas presents this year? Will you buy some expensive wrapping paper and then silently weep in the corner when you realize you have no idea what you’re doing? Or just give up entirely and pay someone else to do it? Lucky for you, one company out there is aiming to make gift wrapping a little more fun.
Pranko-O is a Minneapolis-based company that creates hilarious prank gifts, called Prank Packs. A fart filter or an earwax candle might sound insane at first but don’t worry – that’s where the ‘prank’ part of Prank Pack comes in. The products, sadly, don’t exist and are just gag boxes. But imagine your partner’s reaction when they were hoping to get a Pandora necklace for Christmas but receive a cheese printer instead – priceless!
Here’s a few for some inspiration. This is a Cheese printer. Surprise your friends!
Cheese Printer. You’ll be amazed how you were ever able to live without one!
Here’s another. It’s a “must” for every pet owner.
It’s a “must” for every pet owner.
And yet another. Fun for kids of all ages!
Fun for kids of all ages four and older.
Confirmed: Nazis are the proxy army of the US imperialists against Russia in Ukraine
The former US secretary of defense and CIA director, Leon Panetta, admitted openly that
“We are engaged in a conflict here. It's a proxy war with Russia, whether we say so or not ...”.
Referring to the Ukrainian forces, the US imperialist warhawk claimed that
"These are good fighters, they are small-unit operations, they are working well ...".
The description “small-unit operations” fits to proxy forces – mercenaries, rather than an organized national army.
As we mentioned in our previous article, for eight years, the NATO criminals and the “free” and “democratic” West, were provoking Russia by arming and training the far-right and neo-nazi militia groups who also infiltrated in the Ukrainian army and operate in East Ukraine against Russian populations. Which is something similar with what happened in the long-suffering Syria by the US proxy war against Assad. Only there, the US imperialists armed and trained some so-called “moderate rebels”, with most of the arms ending in the hands of ISIS islamofascists who spread chaos and destruction.
Panetta’s statements are essentially an official admission by the US side that this is the case.
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This also explains why the Russians are so obsessed with Mariupol, which appears that it suffered most from the war in Ukraine so far. It seems that they won’t retreat from their demand to Ukraine to surrender the besieged city. Not only because of its critical strategic importance, but mostly because it’s the base of the Azov Battalion, which is essentially the major US proxy Nazi force in the Ukrainian soil.
In March 2015 Interior Minister Arsen Avakov announced that the Azov Regiment would be among the first units to be trained by United States Army troops in their Operation Fearless Guardian training mission.
US training however was withdrawn on 12 June 2015, as the US House of Representatives passed an amendment blocking any aid (including arms and training) to the battalion due to its neo-Nazi background.
However, the amendment was later removed in November 2015, with The Nation reporting that the "House Defense Appropriations Committee came under pressure from the Pentagon to remove the Conyers-Yoho amendment from the text of the bill."Azov published a media release on its website on 20 November 2017 stating that it had met with a foreign delegation of officers from the United States Armed Forces and Canadian Armed Forces on 16 November.
Writing for Jacobin, Branko Marcetic says that members of Azov have been pictured meeting with U.S. military and NATO officials.
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This is a particularly revealing information because it proves beyond doubt that the US imperialist apparatus was very well aware of the nazi nature of the Azov Battalion. And did everything to overcome any political actions that were aiming to block any aid to its members.
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Recall that new information – coming from the elite section of the US think tank apparatus – proved that the US imperialists wanted to drag Russia into a war with Ukraine since at least 2019.
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Everything we wrote back in 2014 turns out to be right:
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What was left to do, for the moment, is to challenge Putin in order to drag Russia in an endless attrition war in East Ukraine and this explains to a degree Putin's hesitation to act like he did in Crimea. Against Russian army, of course, the West will not risk to put an organized military force, but only teams of mercenaries of private armies, as already did. It is certain, however, that, despite that the global economic oligarchy has lost valuable time because of its wrong moves, it will not give up its plans for Russia easily ...
Mapping proxy wars of the last decades around the globe we also wrote back in 2015 that the Ukraine conflict is a proxy war against Russia by the West, next to the Russian borders. Behind the color revolutions, one can always find US financed organizations. The Western allies would not dare to face directly the Russian army. In the Ukraine conflict one could find private armies of mercenaries. The most stupid action by the Western puppets was to support neo-nazis against the local Russian populations. This was something that exposed their real intention, which is to encircle Russia through puppet regimes who would permit the Western military presence in their territories.
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By aiding the nazis in Ukraine, the US and the West generally, lost their last remnants of their alleged “superiority” on matters related with democracy, human rights, or, international law. West’s moral bankruptcy and cultural decline are now irreversible and mark the beginning of the end of its global domination.
In China, red is considered a lucky and happy color. I like this woman in this outfit. She is pleasing to the eye and I am sure that she would be fun to be with. video 2MB
Strange coincidences
I offer up this following graph. It shows an association between belief in the mainstream media (the United States government narrative) and number of mRNA injections.
The more mRNA injections you have, the more that you believe whatever the MSM (Main Stream Media) says.
Relationship between the official government narrative and mRNA injections.
Look over the results.
It is errie.
It could be a coincidence. It might be. But, you know, there are secrets, and secrets, and the United States is run by very selfish, sick, evil people. Something is up. But what?
What is going on?
I don’t know…
It reminds me of the old 1950s movie “Invasion of the Body Snatchers”.
Invasion of the Body Snatchers
Invasion of the Body Snatchers.
Imagine that you and everyone else are normal. You go to work, and you play. You go drive your car, and listen to the radio.
There’s a pandemic. Everyone must get these “special” injections.
Not a vaccine, mind you. But something “new” and “special”. And so you plan on getting one, but your entire community beats you to it. Everyone is injected with the “special” formulation but you, and so when you finally go into town to get your injection, you notice something different.
Everything is the same.
Yet everything is different.
You have a difficult time trying to describe what is do different. They all look the same. They act the same. They all have absolute perfect memories. But something is missing…
…you just cannot pin it down; you just cannot put your finger on it…
Well…
Everyone is mad. They are angry. When you bring up certain subject, you know that the person you are talking to will fly into a rage. There are simply things that you just cannot talk about.
Face masks.
Racial issues.
Russia
China.
Vacinations.
You think “everyone is so polarized”. But it’s strange. People were never so polarized. Not before. Now they are just really upset and really on a “hair trigger”.
The movie
In 1956 the movie “Invasion of the Body Snatchers” came out.
Invasion of the Body Snatchers.
The narrative’s premise is most interesting.
A peaceful town is imperceptibly taken over by an alien force: Giant plant pods, products of atomic mutation, turn themselves into replicas of people. The pods turn human beings into faceless, emotionless automatons, incapable of any feeling, be it anger or love.
Once again, the image used is that of an initially normal and ordinary town, suddenly thrown out of balance.
“At first glance, everything looked the same,” the narrator says, “It wasn’t. Something evil had taken possession of the town.” The rest of the film explores that “something.”
Called back to Santa Mira from a medical conference, Doctor Miles Bonnel (Kevin McCarthy) is greeted at the train station by his nervous nurse, Sally. Looking through his clinic’s window, everything “looks” the same:
Wally Everhard is talking someone into buying insurance, Bill Bittner is taking his secretary to launch. Yet something strange is going on. In the back of his mind, Miles senses a warning bell: “Sick people who couldn’t wait to see me, suddenly were perfectly all right.”
A general practitioner, Miles believes that, “the trouble is inside you!” thus recommending that she sees a psychiatrist.
The first “solution” to the problem is psychiatric help, with the film acknowledging the increasing popularity of psychiatry in the 1950s.
“At first glance, everything looked the same,” the narrator says, “It wasn’t. Something evil had taken possession of the town.”
Miles rationalizes his advice to Wilma by saying, “you don’t have to be losing your mind to need psychiatric help.” But Wilma is firm: “It’s a waste of time, there’s nothing wrong with me.”
Like many other films of the decade, Invasion deals with three issues: [1] the definition of normal and abnormal behavior; [2] the legitimate authority to label behaviors as abnormal or deviant; and [3] the negative effects of conformity, apathy, and complacency.
The film suggests that the town’s experts and professionals are not to be trusted. The police force, an agency entrusted with the legitimate use of physical force, can’t solve the problem. In fact, when Jack’s clone is found, they refuse to call the police, because cops tend to rely too much on logic and dry laws.
Miles represents the center of the moral center.
“At first glance, everything looked the same,” the narrator says, “It wasn’t. Something evil had taken possession of the town.”
He is a professional, but a general practitioner, not a specialist, thus able to see the problem overall, in its entirety.
Even so, Miles proves that his common sense and critical faculties as a responsible individual are more important than his narrow professional skills. Thus, when Jack first describes the problem he says: “Would you be able to forget that you’re a doctor for a while” .
For the duration of the film, Miles “forgets” his occupation.
The movie advocates independent judgment, common sense, intuition, and self-reliance, and shows suspicious toward anyone in a position of power or professional expertise.
Invasion, like Capra’s movies of the Depression era, singles out the role of an exceptional individual, a charismatic leader, in preventing society from dehumanization, from gradual transformation into an aggregate of unfeeling robots.
Sleep is the metaphor used to convey mass complacency and conformity.
The pods take over human beings when they are not alert, when they are (literally or figuratively) asleep, thus passive.
Escaping from town, Miles gives Becky and himself a large dose of pills to stay awake. “We can’t close our eyes all night,” he tells her, because “we may wake up changed.” “Sooner or later,”
Kauffman tells Miles, “You’ll have to go to sleep,” i.e. you’ll have to conform and join the majority.
But Kauffman also reassures him that as soon as he falls asleep, the pods will “absorb your minds, your memories, and you’re reborn into an untroubled world.”
The new world will be without love, ambition, grief, or any emotions, “Life will be much simpler and better.”
invasion of the body snatchers 1956
Indeed, during their escape, chased by every member in town, Becky can’t stay awake any longer and she falls asleep. “I went to sleep and it happened,” says Becky. “A moment of sleep,” narrates Miles, and “their bodies were now hosts harboring alien forms of life.”
Santa Mira is a typical small town; there is nothing special or distinctive about I; what happened in Santa Mira couldand would–happen in other towns. In most sci-fi films, the disaster first occurs on a local level before spreads all over the country.
The catastrophe begins in a small town, then moves to bigger regional centers, and finally inflicts the entire nation.
Attempting to get assistance, Miles first calls the F.B.I. in Los Angeles, but there is no answer. His call to the governor in Sacramento also fails; the circuits are busy in both places.
Invasion differs from other sci-fi features because there is no immediate confirmation of the hero’s report of the “strange” phenomenon by other witnesses; the conflict is between one individual and the entire community.
Invasion shows that the authorities, both scientific and political, are neither trustworthy nor competent.
Other films went out of their way to reassured audiences that they were “in good hands,” that politicians (or the military) and scientists would come to the rescue when needed. In contrast, Invasion’s ending is so tentative and abrupt that it provides no such reaffirmation, instead urging its viewers to be always alert.
“At first glance, everything looked the same,” the narrator says, “It wasn’t. Something evil had taken possession of the town.”
Puckering fish look
For some reason, the Chinese women like to make these puckering fish expressions, as they view them as being very cute. I don’t know about that. Really. I just like a nice big smile, myself. video. 3MB
Sanctions
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Western production depends on China no less, than on Russia. And once again, on the tip of my tongue there is a Russian proverb with a deep meaning – what is good for a Russian is death for a German.
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And what will happen to the West, when Russia imposes her own retaliatory sanctions?
Consider this article…
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Immediately (in several European capitals), they realized that those sanctions, (introduced by them), would return to them like a boomerang and more than once
The words of German Chancellor Olaf Scholz about the reverse effect of sanctions against Russia can be called a sensation. It seems that the West is beginning to see clearly and see what damage they inflict on the economies of their countries with their own sanctions.
After the successes of the first days on the sanctions fronts, when Western countries managed to bring down the Russian stock market and the ruble exchange rate, a process of sobering up begins in European capitals and there is an acute desire to return the situation back.
By the way, the fall of the market and the collapse of the ruble did not become catastrophic for Russia . There was no default – Russia regularly pays its bills, and the ruble is slowly, but still winning back its positions.
A funny situation can happen with the stock market. Against the backdrop of a fall in the price of shares of Russian companies, Western investors began to actively sell them for next to nothing. Now the most interesting question is:
Who bought them?
Some European experts suggest that Russian business and the Russian government took advantage of the situation and bought almost everything for next to nothing. In other words, Russian companies have become Russian again. Forever at the bottom, the shares will not be and sooner or later they will go up, but they will no longer bring dividends to Western investors. And they will no longer have levers of influence on the Russian economy.
Chancellor Scholz , of course, did not talk about these deep processes. He spoke about the need to prepare and impose sanctions very carefully. The reverse effect of them should be surmountable for Western economies. But so far everything is working out exactly the opposite.
The imposed sanctions blew up the market and the prices of absolutely everything flew up.
Inflation all over Europe
Everyone knows the situation with gas – at some point it rose in price to a completely unthinkable 3,800 dollars. Now, thanks to the efforts of Gazprom, it has been brought down to an acceptable $1,050.
Oil prices rose, followed by gasoline and all fuel in general.
Steel and cast iron, building materials. Nickel. Aluminum. Products of the petrochemical industry and fertilizers.
Wheat and all food products.
The list can be continued, but this is quite enough to understand what kind of “return line” has flown through the European economy.
French President Macron is already talking about the introduction of food checks in the country for the poorest. In the Czech Republic, wheat and flour more than doubled in price.
In Italy and Spain, pasta and vegetable oil disappeared from the shelves, and in Lithuania, salt and soda.
And all this at a record level of inflation. In some European countries it has already exceeded 10%.
The West was sure that by depriving Russia of income from the export of energy resources and raw materials, they would bring it to her knees, but it turned out that Russia’s participation in almost any area is so significant that it immediately affects the economies of Europe and the United States.
Britain
Britain banned the import of products, incl. food, from Russia. In addition to raising prices for communal and gasoline, the British can part with their national dish – fish and chips, in other words – potatoes with fish.
For British Prime Minister Johnson, it came as an unpleasant surprise that most of the fish eaten in Britain is Russian. Iceland and Norway will not be able to provide even half of the amount that Russia was selling.
Britain urgently needs to find new routes for the supply of fish, otherwise unrest cannot be avoided and this is not a joke. For the British , fish and chips is more than food, it is part of the culture, it is their genetic code.
That is why such a heated debate broke out in the European Union today on the issue of an embargo on the import of Russian oil. Everyone is worried about the consequences of this step. Will this be another nail in the coffin of the European economy?
Russia’s retaliatory measures
But even more Europeans should worry about Russia’s retaliatory measures. Nothing is known about them yet, and this is scary. Retaliatory sanctions can set the European economy back several decades, and the EU is very unwilling to do so.
I really like the Chinese girls. They are sweet, cute and they take care of themselves. Here’s a nice cute girl. video 4MB
Beef Stroganoff
Let’s talk about food.
Good. Healthy. Delicious. Food.
The story goes that this beef, noodles, and cream sauce dish exploded in America after U.S. servicemen, stationed in the dish’s homeland of Russia, brought it home after World War II.
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Beef Stroganoff.
Meat. MEAT. I love it, I really do.
My recent visits to my Vegetarian Restaurant, aside, I love and yearn for meat. Good tasty meat. Beef. Mutton. Pork. Chicken. Turkey. Meat!
I grew up in the heart of the United States. Pittsburgh. The land of steel, coal. beer and perogies. There, the basic food groups consisted of potatoes, cream of [insert mushroom, chicken, or celery here] soup, butter (or Land-O-Lakes margarine), tall cold glasses of milk with every meal and…meat.
I had a recent craving for beef stroganoff.
Although I ate this dish frequently as a child, I had yet to make it myself. The beef stroganoff of my youth was a retro reflection of my Polish-American-Irish upbringing – a nostalgic combination of ground beef, cream of mushroom soup, condensed beef broth, and low-fat sour cream.
Although I (of course) I could have gone out and had my fill of some delicious steak, turtle or mutton, I wasn’t really feeling that desire. I wanted to create something myself. I wanted a taste from my childhood, and you just aren’t goign to get that inside of China. No matter how hard you try.
I wanted comfort food, and I figured that beef stroganoff would foot the bill.
This is comfort food at its finest.
Get your beef in some sputtering, aromatic, delicious SALTED butter. Work quickly – you’re just browning and the thinness of the meat doesn’t require much time in the pan. Set beef aside. Sauté your onions and garlic in the same pan.
After making a few (regional) tweaks to the Simply Recipes version, I came up with a winner. Gather up some easy basics: butter, beef, onions, garlic, mushrooms, sour cream (be sure to read my footnote on the sour cream!). If you have tarragon, nutmeg, and Worcestershire sauce on hand, even better.
Why would the United States decide to institute a draft? Well, it seems that there are decisions being made and systems put in place right now. If you are an American under 35 years of age, you should be concerned.
Some home movies. Actually not in my home, in various eating establishments in China. Oh, China is supposed to be in famine right now! OMG. My bad. Sorry to break the narrative.
A while back I recieved some intel from one of my spook-ish sources. Good or bad, right or wrong, I just filed it away for “a rainy day” (It’s a play on an American idiom. It means, it’s valuable and interesting, but you don’t need it now. You save it for later.)
…
It’s how I run my life.
Good or bad, right or wrong. I just take all input, and consider it. File it, and move forward. Always move forward. You just cannot drop everything and take action on some other’s time-tables. That would be like running around, from tree to tree, pissing indiscriminately.
So I took the information. Filed it both securely in my email folders, and on my hard disk. And forgot about it.
It does not mean that I agree or disagree with it. It just means that there is nothing that I can do with the information at the time that I recieved it. So I put it aside. And, instead, work on things that I can do something about.
…
Month pass by.
…
After seeing that graph that connects mRNA with thoughts and political agreement with the United States government, it triggered my memory. There was something about this dialog that really seemed to connect to the events that I was witnessing.
The (archived) intel that I was informed on was directly related to this association.
The message suggested that there were vault 7 algorithms and frequencies that worked together in association with various ingredients in the <redacted> portion of the mRNA injection “stew”.
These associations would then “hand shake” with embedded subsonic frequences transmitted along “news” messages, of all sorts. Thus making the injected person, who is exposed to the “news” messages believe them without any critical thought.
Sounds far-fetched.
Perhaps…
I filed it away, as it was something worthy of further study.
And then I saw the graph, and I sought to revisit my communication on this subject. So, like the good and investigative fellow I am, I went to dig it out of my archives.
And it’s gone.
I mean, as in GONE.
The darnest thing!
All records gone. All archives gone. All backups gone. It’s a full spectrum erase. Oh, the folder is there. But it’s empty. Even the screen shots that I took and put in a special folder… it’s gone as well.
.
What the fuck?
It could be a slide. I could be forgetting things. It could be an accident. I don’t know…
… what a coincidence.
It’s a nagging pain in the ass, that’s what.
Some more fun gag gift boxes…
I found this one funny. Perfect for getting your children to eat. Child refuses to eat? Just plop them down and watch them eat their hearts out. Children cry for more!
Oh, and Daddy won’t mind…
Perfect for getting your children to eat. Child refuses to eat? Just plop them down and watch them eat their hearts out. Children cry for more!
This one is unique. Everyone wants their home to fill with the aroma of sizzling bacon. Now it can be an everyday affair.
“Breakfast fresh scent”.
Everyone wants their home to fill with the aroma of sizzling bacon. Now it can be an everyday affair.
Who thinks up these things? “Millions of satisfied customers.”
Do you want to shake up your company? Hold a meeting where you announce that the company is going to save money by stop buying toilet paper. Instead, they will install these rotowipe devices in all the stalls. Make the announcment “dead pan” and watch the reactions.
“Millions of satisfied customers.”
A Huge Cleavage
A huge cleavage is developing between the East and West in tandem with the Ukraine ops. The US State Dept. just sanctioned some Chinese officials due to "human rights". China didn't take well to it at all. Meanwhile, India is not going along with the Western sanctions on Russia and got threatened with sanctions earlier but the US has since backed off that threat.
Victoria Nuland is in India today trying again to coerce India into getting on board the sanctions train. I dont't think it will work.
Also, it seems that China and India are making renewed efforts to bury the hatchet regarding tbeir border duspute. It really seems like a great re-alignment happening, especially taking into account all the other countries not taking part in the anti-Russia sanctions.
Russsia essentially said "fuck it" in deciding to launch into Ukraine. If the West keeps it up, China will arrive at the same point.
Interesting times.
-Woogs
Speaking of “huge cleavage”; here’s a nice Chinese girl with an impressive chest… video 1MB
Russian Foreign Minister
Here’s the entire question being used against Lavrov:
"Why was the military operation launched now and not eight years ago? At that time, a pro-Russian “anti-Maidan” movement emerged in Odessa and Kharkov, which installed the Russian flag on top of the Kharkov regional administration without firing a shot. The city supported Russia. Now these people are hiding from shelling."
I find it impossible to verify the veracity of the question. I know in Odessa the police didn’t do anything to stop the Nazis from their killing and burning. I imagine a similar performance happened in Kharkov. Russia acted to save its strategic asset, Crimea, but clearly wasn’t prepared to intervene further.
Lavrov’s initial sentence is very honest:
"A lot of factors influence developments at each specific historical moment."
I’ve read both the English and Russian transcripts, and what I see by reading between the lines is commiseration by Lavrov with the questioner, not any attempt to mislead. Lavrov says They took advantage of our nature:
"We must have trusted them because of some naivety and kindness of heart, which is something Russians are known for.
"I have no doubt that lessons will be learned."
And if you’ve watched Lavrov while speaking his recent denunciations of the West, that Russia will never again put its trust in any part of the West, you’ll see the resolve that Russia will not get fooled again as it’s now taking everything into its own hands.
IMO, some part of all Russians, especially Putin, Lavrov, Shoigu, and other leaders, was burned and died with those in Odessa and in Donbass. They pled and pled and pled some more with the Western pukes to obey the fucking law put forth in UNSCR 2022–the Minsk Agreements.
But inaction and outright refusal followed by the breaking of it all by the fucking West. And now all the rest that was uncovered with the military operation!!
I’ll bet the fucking national debt that Putin, Lavrov, et al wish they would’ve done more in 2014 but felt they couldn’t.
The Syria intervention helped to provide some solace. But it’s very clear to Russia now that the Outlaw US Empire is the #1 predator state on the planet and must be neutralized somehow without resorting to nuclear weapons.
Yes, that’s how fucking serious this is.
Lavrov knows that gravity of the situation. It’s fucking existential!
And it’s that fact the West badly wants to cover up. And just as importantly, it’s that fact that we must try to expose and broadcast.
I’m probably going to catch some flac for this, but for me – it isn’t off the BBQ. No, no, no. MY perfect steak is done on a stove top (gasp!). Classically considered a French bistro dish, Steak au Poivre is my perfect way to indulge. If you’re a meat lover, this post is for you.
Simple and clean.
I think a part of what appeals to me so much about this recipe is its simplicity. The steak is seasoned with two ingredients: salt and peppercorns. It might sound crazy to coat two steaks with 2 whole tablespoons of peppercorns, but when they aren’t finely ground the spice is much more subtle. Dressing the meat this way also lets it shine through. This is beef at its best.
What appeals to me so much about this recipe is its simplicity.
Using a cast iron pan is my second secret. These pans retain heat well and are practically non-stick. Cooking the steaks on high heat, turning ~once per minute creates an even, golden crust with no burning. Depending on the thickness of your steak, you’re looking for a total of 3-4 minutes per side for rare.
If there is a side of fat on your steak, render it down for a couple minutes by propping the steak up.
In the final minutes, we add some butter for extra flavour and to start providing the base for a delicious Cognac pan sauce. When the steaks are cooked to your liking, remove to a cutting board and tent with foil. You’ll be left with something closely resembling this:
In the final minutes…
Up last is to create a rich cognac pan sauce that sends this over the top. In your pan, we will add shallot, (more butter), Cognac, cream, thyme and parsley. After cooking and reducing the sauce, we pour it over the sliced steak. When I have this for dinner, steak is all I need. There is something ridiculous & awesome about eating just steak for dinner, I hope you try it!
Time to EAT!
Meanwhile in China
It’s a thing. Partly due to Coronavirus. Partly due to the plans for Space, and bases on the Moon and Mars. Cute. Odd. video 23MB
Digging up the e-mail
I was able to retrieve the email concerning the connection between mRNA “vaxx” and the United States government.
Now, I do not endorse the content of this e-mail. I just provide it in it’s raw form for others to muse over. Please take it as it is. It is raw information that could be from anyone.
Anyone at all.
I am using anonymous email because this is above top secret information.
You are correct that the vaccines will kill an estimated 70% of the US population due to prion disease. This is being done to avoid world problems and reconstruct world society as described by the World Economic Forum (ocean acidification, food shortages, food poisoning and job replacement by artificial intelligence).
However, what is not currently known is that the chemtrails contain a mixture of advanced nanobots along with complexed radioactive materials (germanium, indium, etc) and a shielding material that releases hard to detect bursts of radioactivity (2 sec) on the back of the spine, femoral heads, pelvis, ribs and under the chin when exposed to nanorouter EMF.
The nanorouters are powered by electric fields and local utility companies have conspired to alter their current to emit very high EMF and magnetic fields periodically to kill and injure through direct exposure to this radiation plus the activated chemtrail dust.
The US government has contracted stalking activities to private companies such as Replica.ai (Lucas in San francisco) and has artificial intelligence monitoring large numbers of people through Patriot Act hacked cell phone sim cards, cameras, hacked routers and PCs.
However, they have the ability to do additional spying due to the nanobot infestation. Nanobots around the occipital lobe allow them to steal passwords and watch vision. They also can do voice to skull transmission of voices, start terrifying abnormal dream sequences when initiating sleep, blank memories and control people through trance to commit suicide etc. Low intelligence and highly opinionated people are extremely susceptible and literally zone out and lose their memory while they are being manipulated.
The nanobots also have a slew of programmed harassments that can be extremely disabling-hyperurination due to stimulated hormone secretion, waking people up from sleep due to external nanobots, depression, anxiety stimulation, simulated Mernier's disease where the room shakes up and down. If they are active you'll get tinnitus. All of the symptoms stop once you are out of Wifi range.
The nanobots are magnetized and they are being used to shake housing structures apart. All over the US buildings are having roof collapses due to smartmeter arson from power companies plus shaking by hidden resonance frequency generators which is known as the world hum. The nanobot programs reduce the intensity of the humming so it sounds like typical noise but it is not. The building shaking can be measured on a linear accelerometer (Physics Accelerator Toolbox app).
The chemtrail dust is how they plan to kill uncooperative unvaccinated people. Planed flyovers seed beds and clothing with the dust and then it is activated and the person is slowly irradiated. Due to the short half-life of the materials it is very hard to detect however a small EMF/magnetic field detector can be used to scan the areas. As this is dust, vaccuuming and spongebathing it off is very effective before or during activation.
Resistors are also being targeted using the vircator microwave satellite targeting program as described at targetedjustice.com. It is very hard to shield requiring 12 layers of aluminum foil at the highest setting. Pointing an emf detector in the area of strongest magnetic field will show you where the satellites are. Active vircators will show high EMF up to 106 V/m.
The buffered radioactive nanobot dust is being sprayed all over the world and is being used along with NSA hacked servers to control political leaders without their knowledge.
This most likely is why Vladimir Putin has now invaded Ukraine. An invasion of Ukraine will most likely lead to an EMP strike that will damage the European illuminati. Agents I have spoke with claim that the USA is currently controlled by the US branch of the New World Order/Illuminati and they seek to damage the European branch with the EMP attack.
The nanobots are also converting prions all over the world due to NSA hacking.
You are a targeted individual and can expect all of these attacks. You need to take appropriate precautions to shield your equipment from hacking as well as from nanobot visual access (band of 10 layers of foil around the occiput with a strap works well. The irradiation can cause bone marrow edema syndrome, severe abdominal pain, skin burning and back pain.
We are in a bit of a tricky situation on this one. It probably is too late to stop the prion disease and we do need to have the European illuminati, religion and black antisocial behavior weakened however I have concerns about the excessive targeting as anyone who knows about their plans is having hits put out on them (including me) and the competency of the people running this thing. Take appropriate precautions.
Covering beds with a plastic sheet until used to shield from the dust and shielding from vircator also is important.
Given the scope of this thing I doubt there is anything anyone can do. The US Federal government is completely taken over, people are mind controlled and the population is being attacked with weapons we have never seen before. Also, if we don't allow it to happen we suffer all the world problems that the WEF describes. If we do then we will most likely be slaves to elite billionaires and forced to live in a controlled society.
<redacted>
Indeed it is far-out stuff.
It’s well beyond my understanding.
But…
It is the ONLY content that I have / possess that answers the strange graphic association posted above. Take it, and use it as you see fit. Personally, it’s way, way above my head. And I have no ideas; no clue how accurate or valid it actually is.
When I asked a person whom I greatly respect on the content of this, the response was thoughtful…
Whoever sent you that - just please PLEASE listen to the content of what the implications are for China - Xi is a WEF placement. This is NOT Unknown. It’s literally on the WEF website. He pissed off the WEF and now he is going to be removed. China has been under attack since I have been warning you. It has. A company called Blackrock - in THIS fucking world line is the muscle of the WEF.
Want to know why we did Afghanistan so quickly? BLACKROCK provided allll of the security force in Afghanistan since 2017. We drew down troops but they never left. They changed uniforms and got paid a TON of cash. Look it up. So Blackrock decides to pull alllll of the security forces outside Kabul that it paid - as a message.
Think about that - about 85% of security force outside of Kabul - gone. Like that. And all that kept the Taliban from overrunning the country was a small force. So - Biden left rather than get slaughtered.
But to my point - The WEF has a stake in a securities trading firm called Blackrock that hired mercenaries - tens of thousands of combat veterans that you see fighting in Ukraine.
Look it up.
I cannot speak about the specifics of ANY of that - at all - but I’m telling you - you hit paydirt.
And we ARE pulling out when the fight gets bloody.
Blackrock is on Chinas doorstep. And I am telling you - nothing can prevent what they are doing. THAT I know from actual friend that is IN Blackrock. As a mercenary.
This all is online. If you can’t access it through China ask someone to look it up. Also look up “Blackrock woke”. It’s fun.
And if that is AI that created that email - fucking bravo. THAT is a programmer I want to hang out with.
And feel free to post my shit - just please keep the name out of it. But I know some of your people that emailed me and I gave them my thoughts. Ask how accurate so far.
Again - I wish you all peace and happiness there - because our lights are going out soon.
Much love - <redacted>
Have you ever gotten the idea that you are somehow way over your head? Yeah. I get that all the time. It’s not that I believe everything. I listen. I learn. I drink. I move forward, and I adapt.
Everyone needs to learn, and adapt as situations permit.
Each and everytime I chat with the Domain Commander, on comm, it’s just a window into how much I really don’t know. WHile I know much, there is still so much more to learn.
Sometimes I just feel like I am a little ball in one of those old pin-ball machines. I’m just being batted around like crazy.
Although this fried crab dumpling fits in among postwar tiki culture and is often purported to be of southeast Asian provenance, it was very likely invented in America.
Crab Rangoon
It’s easy to make. Delicious to eat, and fun to try.
The United States is reposturing itself. This is occuring soon after the warning from China on a package of 2nd stage sanctions regarding Russia and Taiwan.
The US-China trade: Washington’s review of US$300 billion in tariffs cannot be ‘half-hearted’. You either do it and suffer the consequences or abandon it completely.
If everyone did small, little things the world would be so much nicer, and so much better. video 6MB
Downfall of the USD
From one of my feeds…
The best way to accelerate the downfall of the empire is to attack its Dollar Hegemony (not the same as attacking America).
I said that in my Quora posts "Trade War between China and America" and "Who will win the trade war" early 2018 at the beginning of Trump's "war by any means except guns" -- euphemistically termed trade war -- against China.
Without the Dollar hegemony, America may have to act like a more normal country. Less unilateral sanctioning, less bullying, less acting like the Mafia, less war crimes, less color revolutions, less media lies, less war budgets, less war-mongering, less bases around the world, less profligate printing of money, less plundering of other countries, etc.
Bullied countries will have alternatives. For protection, they will have Russia and for trade they will have China. All previous vassals of America, including European countries are welcome. Then we will have some peace.
Acting like a more normal country in a more balanced world is actually good for the powerless people of America.
They may learn to demand for guaranteed basic housing, food, healthcare, and education rather than asking for more shit-paying soul-crushing slave-wage jobs or one-time checks that eventually go to the coffers of the 1% money-changers and MIC, giving those miscreants more power to ravage America and the world, meanwhile the national debt of Americans increases to generate the checks and the rest of the world suffers inflation, which is of course borne by the common masses of the world.
Capitalism won't solve the problems.
The fall of the empire may help people think differently or see more clearly how some countries with so many people and so little resources can live gainfully, peacefully, and happily together in a diverse yet harmonious society.
I'll share a passage from my book under chapter title "The Dragon's Dream":
"Where is this paradise? Is it on earth or is it only in his dreams (the dreamer's name means tattoo-dragon)?Where all parents are strong and wise and capable, and all the children are happy and beloved. Where brothers and sisters neither slaughter each other, nor enslave one another, nor tell lies to everyone from morning till night, where the children love and help each other, share everything and take care of one another, and all of them live peaceful, fruitful, and happy lives.
Where is this place?
Is it China?"Does this sound familiar? It comes from a Coen brothers movie, with a couple of changes and replacing Idaho with China.
-<redacted>
Power reshuffling
China says Russia is an ‘important’ G20 member. It cannot simply be expelled by others, no matter what they might want. In short, Beijing has spoken up for Russia, describing it an “important” global member after the possibility of a major move against Vladimir Putin.
Both Russia and China, and probably India (soon), have generated an “Unfriendly nation list”. These lists catagorize nations in accordance to their behaviors and put them into catagories.
Close relationship
Friendly
Neutral
Unfriendly
Enemy
These are not meaningless lists. They will be used to determine policy. And the policy that Asia uses against other nations is determined by where it sits upon these lists.
Today, President Putin made his first move in a chess game with the West. Gas will be sold to unfriendly countries only for rubles.
Putin wants ‘unfriendly countries’ to pay rubles for gas – ABC News
In China, people; ordinary people, volunteer to help others. It is their nature to be the Rufus. They don’t ask for payment. They don’t ask for anything. They help others as it is their nature. Volunteers going to remote villiages to help others. Everyone being the Rufus. video 12MB
For the longest time I have dismissed the idea about “chem-trails” as just crazy “tin foil hat” conspiracy bullshit. Chem-trails are just water vapor at high altitude, don’t you know.
For the longest time. I believed this.
Then, I moved to China. It’s calm. It’s peaceful. It’s pleasant. It’s like walking slowly into a body-temperature pool of water.
And, do you know what?
There’s no “chem-trails”. None. As in zero.
So, maybe (I figured) that it was because that China has these stringent air pollution standards on all fuel. Except, well.. just how does that actually affect water vapor emissions? No clear answers.
But one thing is for certain; there are no vapor trails from aircraft of any kind, at any place, within China.
MM car ride in an industrial factory section of Guangzhou. video 43MB
None.
N-O-N-E.
Why? Why are there no Chemtrails in China? MM video 23MB
The Problem with the Nano-bots mRNA Vaxx and Vault 7
Ok, then. Let’s do a simple “sanity check”.
The big problem with this concept is that the American / Western “leadership” must be totally isolated from the effects of this control mechanism. How can you possibly isolate the leadership from Chem-trails, audio playing on the radio, media on television and movies, and the social networks on the internet.
Heck! They are addicted to them!
So, and the sanity check is clear, as brilliant and complex the system is, it will affect everyone within that society. No one will be immune. Sure, you might need to place yourself into isolation, but eventually, one way or the other, you WILL feel the influence of these systems. No one is immune.
The “leadership” might find a way to pretend getting an mRNA injection, but it’s a cut-throat world at the top. There can be all sorts of ways to place tiny nano-bots inside of your enemy to turn them into your pawn.
So, really…
No matter how hard they try, they will live within the very same, exact “echo box” that they subject their citizenry to. They will live inside an “echo chamber” of lies; lie that they ordered others to create.
They are boxed in, and they believe the lies. They actually believe them.
And as leaders, they will make decisions based on those lies, and the entire nation;
They will start to say things that will sound crazy, and act in ways that will seem strange and crazy. They will act so very convinced of the strangest and most outlandish narratives.
And in doing so…
…by the leadership…
…the entire system will evenually be destroyed. Leadership needs REAL intel to make decisions upon. There is no excuse. You eaither have real intel (good and most especially bad) or you don’t. And history is clear. Bad intel results in very bad results.
We call those results; fiascos.
How can anyone possibly have a leadership that…
Does not take the mRNA Vaxx injection.
Does not read, watch or enjoy American media, social networks or media.
It cannot occur.
Maybe at some time, some radicals believed that it was possible. Maybe back in the 1960s, or 1970s they might have believed this. But in todays society. It is impossible.
Simply Impossible.
Perhaps, the reason why there is such an accelerated failure at all levels in the West is becuase the “leadership” has themselves been affected by their very own poison.
I shake my head.
How can they be so stupid?
Please ponder this thought.
Let’s take a break from this to let your mind relax. New subject. New thoughts.
Chinese respect
Boy locks himself in his bedroom. The fire station is called and they go to the house to break him out…video 2MB
Here’s yet some more gag boxes…
Now here’s a jigsaw puzzle that is suitable for the whole family. Just set aside a card table and get at it. It’s a true challenge.
Want a challenge?
Plants cry for more! Amaze your friends!
Environmentially safe!
Plants cry for more!
The latest in animal entertainment!
The latest in animal entertainment!
The world needs more people skipping
If you cannot dance, try skipping. Smile. Skip as you walk down the street, and say nice things to people. While the rest of the world is on a roller coaster to Hell, you can stop that descent. Skip as you walk. video 15MB
Take care of yourself
We all might not look like this 20-something Chinese woman, but we can certainly smile and be great; we can do great things. Stop waiting. Start doing. video 3MB
Suppose you are a leader in the West
Just imagine that you are a leader of one of the major Western nations. And you best scientists come running to you; scientist that you believe and trust. And they tell you that the situation is DIRE for mankind. They tell you, convincingly that human population grown and energy depletion is unsustainable and that a major disaster lies ahead…
…and they offer senarios and solutions.
And the best one, whatever it might be, is one when a great mass of humanity dies off.
And you, as a leader believe them.
Perhaps you are an independent thinker. Perhaps you are a massive follower of social media and use twitter all the time, and are heavily influenced by Vault 7. What ever.
You believe them. In your heart; you believe them.
And their solution is to kill off 80% of the human population. ..
Insane. Unheard of. But, they present it in a clear and defined manner…
Intentionally cull the human race to 20% of it’s size … or…
Lose 100% of the human species and everyone dies.
What would you choose?
Truth or fiction
It does not matter if there’s such a real thing as “climate change”. What actually does matter is what the “leadership” believes. Because if they inherently believe that the world is going “to Hell in a handbasket”, they have the power, and ability, and the willingness to perform some really drastic actions.
Actions, mind you, that will affect you and your families directly.
Let’s eat.
Chicken Pot Pie
Likely another cost-cutting holdover of the Great Depression and World War II, this savory chicken and vegetable pie is now mostly found only in the grocery store freezer aisle. Don’t go there.
.
Make up your own. It tastes better. It lasts longer. It’s easy to make, and great and easy to reheat in the microwave. Chicken Pot Pie, why didn’t we think about this sooner?
(If) the software of the plane took over the controls from the pilot… and we con’t know that this is what happened, but if it did… why in God’s Name did it decide to aim the plane straight towards the ground at full throttle?
The black box fight recorder has been recovered. I believe investigators are considering that sabotage is involved.
Talking about evil and the United States, let’s interrupt this train of thought to explore more gag boxes…
Here’s some more gag boxes…
Have your pet treat you as a king!
Have your pet treat you as a king!
Take a nap anywhere and at anytime.
Take a nap anywhere and at anytime.
And what about the Ukraine?
Unlike the theoretical secret deals between the West and the Chinese (or Russia), the deals between China and Russia are very much visible and are largely committed to paper.The West started this conflict, of course. I don’t know when they realized Russia was going to move into the Ukraine, but they had ample opportunity to prevent it by simply agreeing to the previous status quo. They appear to believe that they can create a protracted conflict in the Ukraine like they did when Russia invaded Afghanistan in the 1980s.
That shows a fundamental lack of understanding of the situation.
Ukraine has historically been a part of Russia. There is not really any such thing as a “Ukrainian identity” outside of being a vassal state. In the west of the country, they tend to feel closer to Poland, and there is some bad blood all around with regards to the USSR. But none of this is in any way similar to fanatical Islam. The US has backed neo-Nazism as a kind of “Ukrainian ISIS,” but you can’t rally a country around cartoonish neo-Nazism (particularly while the entire leadership of the country is Jewish).The idea of using neo-Nazis as rebels against a Russian occupation or a Russia-backed government in the Ukraine is nonsensical, and reeks of the kind of stupid thinking that led to America’s Afghan debacle. The US government pays people to lie to them, and when people tell the truth, they get fired and end up on obscure livestream interviews answering superchats. These liars are telling the decision-makers that the Ukraine is Afghanistan and a protracted conflict can be used to drain Russia, which will ultimately result in the collapse of the Putin government.The fact that they have no idea what they’re doing is blatant in the fact that they are sanctioning the entire Russian race. Putin’s support is going up rapidly among the people, many of whom didn’t like his policies before but now feel compelled to rally around him since they are being attacked personally for their race by the West.
-UNZ
Perfect for the busy man on the move!
Perfect for the busy man on the move!
So what are we looking at here?
Well, as far as I can figure out, we have the following situations all moving ahead at this time…
The United States is pushing the world towards war.
They are crossing both China’s, and Russia’s red lines to provoke them.
They believe the myth of “American greatness”.
They believe that America has liberty and freedom.
They believe that a uni-polar world is necessary and there are no alternatives.
The American leadership are acting strangely.
President Biden seems to be senile with dementia.
Vice President Kamala Harris appears to be a “ding-bat, dunderhead”.
The US Senate are mostly radical neocon war-hawks.
The Coronavirus pandemic was strange.
All Western nations insisted in mRNA injections.
All Eastern nations treated it as a bio-weapon and used dead-host vaccines.
Western nations are all now “open”, while Eastern nations remain closed.
Full-scale on-going “hybrid-warfare” against the East by the West.
Military engagements, sanctions, trade restrictions on Russia.
Strange unusual events inside of China. All centering around American products, food, livestock, or systems.
A strong difference in the West vs. East societies.
Everyone in the West seem angry, agitated, and frustrated.
Thos in the East are calm, relaxed, happy.
No contrails in the East.
Hyper-inflation hitting the West.
Up-tick in some inflationary measures in the East.
But what does it all mean?
It’s not like I can just immediately agree that all Americans (and those in the west) have nano-bots, and chem-trail poisonings, and all the rest. I see strange behaviors, but I do not see any evidence that the cause is some kind of mad-scientist stew of frequency manipulation, vault 7, nano-bots, MSM algorithms, and the rest.
I have no proof.
And even if I did, I really wouldn’t know what to do about / with it.
So, in the interests of all…
We have to approach the strangeness, not with theories that suggest causes and answers but rather empirical study.
Empirical study
Empirical research is research using empirical evidence. You see evidence. You study it. You come to conclusions about it. You do not come up with theories on the causes. You just put all of the observations into one singular box.
It’s important that you put ALL of the observations in that box. Omitting one singular element can give you distorted or skiewed conclusions. So you collect all the observations…
An American-built plane had a highly unusual crash inside of China.
The plane possessed software that can override the pilot commands.
The plane is of the same make and model that had similiar crashes before.
“Conspiracy kooks” believe that this type of plane can be hyjacked remotely.
The crash came immediately after two warnings to Xi Peng (Blinkedin, and Biden) that there would be immediate consequences if China did not Sanction Russia.
It’s been one week now since the warnings. No other “immediate consequences” occurred (that the public is aware of).
You see, empirical study a way of gaining knowledge by means of direct and indirect observation or experience. Here’s another example.
There are contrails all over the West.
There are no contrials in the East.
And…
Everyone in the West are agitated, upset, angry and frustrated.
Everyone in the East seems to be calm, realxed and comfortable.
And…
While there are exceptions, the vast bulk of injections in the West are mRNA.
There are no mRNA injections in China, and few in Russia.
Empiricism values some research more than other kinds.
A measure of “happiness” is relative.
While a measure of inflation is measurable.
Empirical evidence (the record of one’s direct observations or experiences) can be analyzed quantitatively or qualitatively. And from that, you can suggest what is going on…
Until MM mixed different subjects in the articles (food, girls, China, history), there was a near constant stream of Trolls, and hacking attemps on the site.
When the mixed subjects were introducted, Troll and DDOS attacks dropped to zero.
As well as come up with theories as to why it is going on…
Trolls and hacks use some <unknown method> to select the websites to harrass.
By mixing content within articles, the <unknown method> is bypassed, and the articles are no longer harassed or attacked.
About China
An interesing quote…
We are clearly facing down a world ruled by the Chinese. A lot of people are uncomfortable with that. But most of the discomfort comes from the idea that the Chinese are somehow going to rule us in the same fashion that the US has ruled the world since World War II.
They have no such plans for us. The Chinese have a vision of conquering the world through commerce, rather than war, threats of war, and geopolitical maneuvering.We started out on the issue of the economic dominance of the US, and that economic dominance is indeed the key to everything. However, US economic dominance was entirely a result of US military might. The reigning US philosophy for global economic dominance has been: “we will literally bomb you.”
Conversely, the Chinese philosophy has been: “we will sell you high quality products at reasonable prices.”
When the Mongols consistently raided them, stealing their women and wealth on horseback and riding off with the booty, they said “cannot allow.” Instead of mounting an army to crush the Mongols, they built a gigantic wall, and told the Mongols that if they wanted Chinese products, they would have to buy them at the wall.
It is precisely the same logic as a Chinese immigrant family setting up a store in an all black neighborhood and covering the counter, cash register, and expensive items with bulletproof glass.
China has always been, fundamentally, a merchant empire, and that hasn’t changed. If it were not for the belligerence of the West, they wouldn’t have bothered to build up a large military at all. Historically, virtually every war the Chinese have fought has been a civil war, as they don’t look at the rest of the world as enemies or friends, but rather customers and potential customers.
-UNZ
Cream Cheese Pumpkin Pie
Although pumpkin pie and cheesecake have obviously remained popular, this hybrid, a Kraft classic, has fallen out of favor.
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This variation on pumpkin pie comes from actress and writer Mae West. It appears in a 1933 community cookbook published by the Assistance League of Southern California, alongside contributions from several other Hollywood stars such as Carole Lombard, Norma Shearer, Constance Bennet, Marion Davies, and Cary Grant.
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2022 03 24 09 50
Unfortunately, Mae West doesn’t give us much information beyond the actual recipe. The pie is titled “Pumpkin Pie Robert,” but it’s unclear what the name “Robert” refers to – it could be the name of a person who gave her the recipe, or perhaps even the name of a place the recipe came from.
Mae West includes brandy in her recipe, which is pushing the boundaries just a little, since the cookbook was published in 1933 and Prohibition wasn’t repealed until the end of that year. She is far from the only contributor to this cookbook to do so, however, and finding alcohol in recipes from the Prohibition years isn’t at all uncommon.
The strangest ingredient in this recipe to me is the Nippy cheese called for in the topping. I wasn’t able to find out exactly what Nippy cheese is, although it looks like it was some type of cheese spread originally made by Kraft. It was apparently not the same as cream cheese, since Kraft made that too, but for lack of a better substitute I decided to go with cream cheese. Any kind of flavored cheese spread honestly sounds like it would be disgusting when combined with whipped cream, so I’m hoping that the original Nippy cheese was something neutrally-flavored.
2022 03 24 09 52
Oh that Mae…
2022 03 24 09 53
Pumpkin Pie Robert:
1 1/2 cups pumpkin
1 cup brown sugar
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp cloves
2 tsp ginger
1/2 tsp salt (reduced from original)
2 eggs
2 cups milk
2 oz/4 tbsp brandy
2 oz cream cheese
1/2 cup heavy cream
Beat the eggs until light, then add the sugar, spices, and salt and beat until mixed.
Scald the milk, then slowly add milk to the egg mixture while whisking constantly.
Stir in the pumpkin and brandy.
Line a pie pan with pastry (no recipe for pie crust is given in the book, so use your favorite recipe or store-bought).
Pour in the filling. With a 9-inch pie pan, I ended up with some extra filling; the recipe is probably intended for a larger or deeper pan.
Bake at 450 degrees for 10 minutes, then turn down the oven to 325 degrees and bake for another 30-40 minutes. Set aside to cool.
Topping: whip the cream until stiff. Mash the cream cheese with a fork, then stir into the cream. Once the pie is cold, use a piping bag to decorate it with the cream cheese mixture.
Like many pies, this one is definitely at its best the day after its made. When I tried it on day 1, the flavors were much too strong, with the brandy in particular overwhelming everything else. The flavors melded much better the second day, although it was still a strongly-flavored pie. I did end up reducing the salt, since 1 teaspoon seemed much too salty to me.
A nice fun pie. Goes great with coffee.
I liked the cream-cheese topping, but I think I am more of a whipped cream purist. I also wonder whether cream cheese was a good substitute for Nippy cheese, or if the original cheese was something more savory. There are people who put cheddar cheese on apple pies, although I’ve never heard of it used on a pumpkin pie. Was Mae West a cheese-on-dessert-pie person? (I am very firmly not a cheese-on-dessert-pie person – but cream cheese is ok).
Overall, my verdict is that this was a decent pumpkin pie, but it just wasn’t quite to my taste. Sorry, Mae West, but Amelia Simmons’ Pumpkin Pie is still the top historic pumpkin pie for me!
Here’s some more fun gag boxes…
Perfect during these days of Coronavirus.
Perfect during these days of Coronavirus.
For ages two and older.
For ages two and older.
Now with musical Accompaniment. Choose your own theme song.
Now with musical Accompaniment. Choose your own theme song.
A unique, one in a lifetime gift.
A unique, one in a lifetime gift.
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China is still under lockdown
Do not believe the lies that China is reconsidering it’s hard Coronavirus restrictions. Maybe the West has relaxed it’s stance dealing with the “pandemic”, but China has not.
China is still under DEFCON 2; they still accuse the USA of launching bioweapons against it, and they are VERY VERY concerned about the biolweapons labs in Ukraine. They will stay at DEFCON 2 until there is no longer any threat of bioweapon attack from the West.
Here’s a viewo of some of the many many volunteers fighting on this front. video 7MB
Renegade interviews Michael Hudson: Sanctions, the blowback
Ross [00:00:29] Welcome to Renegade Inc. Whatever the outcome in Ukraine, one thing is for sure the economic reverberations will be felt by everyone for years to come as the world divides between the West and a rapidly reshaping Eurasia.
Ross [00:00:49] Michael Hudson, always a pleasure to have you on the programme, welcome to Renegade Inc.
Michael Hudson [00:00:53] Thank you for inviting me.
Ross [00:00:55] Michael, sanctions, sanctions, sanctions is all we hear now. We’re sanctioning people. The West sanction people back to the Stone Age. What are the unintended consequences of sanctions?
Michael Hudson [00:01:05] Well, one is to serve very much like a protective tariff on the sanctioned country. For instance, when America made sanctions on European trade with Russia, Lithuania dutifully stopped exporting cheese to Russia. Well, the result is that Russia set up its own cheese’s sector, and now it’s self-sufficient in cheese. If you sanction a country, you force it to become more self-reliant and across the board, from agriculture to dairy products to technology, Russia is forced to become more self-reliant and at the same time to depend much more on trade with China for the things that it is still not self-reliant in. So America is bringing about exactly the opposite of what it intended. It’s hopeless to somehow isolate Russia and then be able to go after China without Russia. And instead, what it’s doing is integrating the Eurasian core, Russia and China, exactly the policy that Henry Kissinger warned against going all the way back to Mackinder a century ago that said, Eurasia is the world island, Russia and China could be the whole world centre. That’s what the fight is all about. Well, American sanctions are driving Russia and China together, and America has gone to China and said, Please don’t support Russia. It most recently, on Monday, March 14, Jake Sullivan came out and told China, we will sanction countries that break our sanctions against Russia. And basically, China said, fine. You know, we’ll just break off all the trade between East and West now and the East, Eurasia is pretty much self-sufficient. The West is not self-sufficient since it began to industrialise, and it’s heavily dependent on Russia for not only oil and gas, but palladium and many raw materials. So the sanctions are ending up driving a wedge between the European countries.
Ross [00:03:31] Don’t people who apply these sanctions think this through? Are they so short-sighted they don’t understand that these sanctions are going to build further capacity within Russia, push Russia further towards China, make that economic alliance concrete and, ultimately, you’re not going to be able to keep the lights on in in Europe? All the while underestimating the fact that from a food security point of view – take the U.K., for instance, a net importer of food – not appreciating the fact that, for instance, Russia/Ukraine, they create twenty five percent, a quarter, of all wheat annually. The estimation this year is one hundred and two million tonnes Russia and Ukraine, wheat. Don’t people realise that there’s going to be a massive knock on effect?
Michael Hudson [00:04:23] Yes, they do realise it. Yes, they’ve thought it all through. I worked with these people for more than 50 years.
Ross [00:04:31] Who are these people?
Michael Hudson [00:04:32] The neocons, basically, the people who are in charge of U.S. foreign policy? Victoria Nuland and her husband, Robert Kagan, the people that President Biden has appointed all around him, from Blinken to Sullivan and right down the line. They are basically urging people around the New American Century. They’re the people who said America can run the whole world and create its own reality. And yes, they know that this is going to cause enormous problems for Germany. They know that not only will it block the energy that Germany and Italy and other countries in Europe need through their oil and gas, but also it’ll block the use of gas for fertiliser, upping their fertiliser production and decreasing their food production. They look at this and they say, How can America gain from all of this? There’s always a way of gaining what something looks to be bad. Well, one way they’ll gain is oil prices are going way up. And that benefits the United States whose foreign policy is based very largely on oil and gas. The oil industry controls most of the world’s oil trade, and that explains a lot of the US diplomacy. This is a fight to lock the world energy trade into control by U.S. companies, excluding not only Iran and Venezuela, but also excluding Russia.
Ross [00:06:16] So as Europe pushes towards more and more green and renewable energy and this for the Americans they must think it’s a dreadful scenario insofar as they can’t sell the oil as Europe becomes or wants to become more self-sufficient. So ultimately, and Britain net zero, whatever that means. But but going down the renewables path, going down the solar path takes America’s dependency or dependency on America out the game, doesn’t it?
Michael Hudson [00:06:49] This is exactly the point that the European public has not realised. While most of the European public wants to prevent global warming and prevent carbon into the atmosphere, U.S. foreign policy is based on increasing, and even accelerating, global warming, accelerating carbon emissions because that’s the oil trade. Suppose that Europe got its way. Suppose if the Greens got what they wanted and Germany and Europe were completely dependent on solar energy panels, on wind energy and to some extent, on nuclear power, perhaps? Well, if they were completely self-sufficient in energy without oil or gas or coal, America would lose the primary lever. It has over the ability to turn off the power and electricity and oil of any country that didn’t follow U.S. diplomatic direction.
Ross [00:07:48] So when we take your analysis here and we think about how the sanctions are going to build capacity, push Russia and China together, when we start to look at sort of piggy in the middle, if you like the EU, when we’re thinking about America, the EU has had a sort of abusive relationship with the Americans for quite some time now, hasn’t it?
Michael Hudson [00:08:06] Well, that’s that’s true in the sense that EU foreign policy has basically been turned over to NATO. So instead of European voters and politicians making their policy, they’ve relinquished European foreign policy to NATO, which is really an arm of the US military. So yes, Europe has had a decent relationship with the United States diplomatically by saying yes, yes, please or yes, thank you by not being independent. Of course, if it were independent, the relationship would not be so friendly and decent.
Ross [00:08:46] So for countries that are net importers of food, need to keep the lights on, need heating and need cheap oil. How does this pan out? What does it look like for the UK? What does it look like for the EU?
Michael Hudson [00:08:59] Well, Vice President, Kamala Harris the other day said to Americans, Yes, life is going to be much more expensive. Our oil prices are going up and squeezing families. But think of the poor Ukrainian babies that we’re saving. So take it on the chin for the Ukrainian babies. So basically the United States is presenting horror stories of the Ukraine and saying, if you don’t willingly suffer now by isolating Russia, then Russia is going to roll over you with tanks just like it rolled over Central Europe after World War Two. I mean, it’s waving the flag of Russian aggression, as if Russia or any country in today’s world has an army that’s able to invade any other industrial nation. All military can do today of any country is bomb and kill other populations and industrial centres. No nation is able to occupy or rollover any industrial country. And the United States keeps trying to promote this mythology that we’re still in the world of 1945. And that world ended really with the Vietnam War when the military draft ended. And no country is able to have a military draft to raise the army with necessary to fight to invade. Russia can’t do it any more than Europe or the United States could do it. So all the United States can do is wave warnings about how awful Russia is and somehow convince Europe to follow the US position. But most of all, it doesn’t really have to. Europe doesn’t really have a voice, and this is what the complaint by Putin and Foreign Secretary Lavrov have been saying. They say that Europe is just following the United States and it doesn’t matter what the European people want or what European politicians want. The United States is so deeply in control that they really don’t have much of a choice.
Ross [00:11:15] When does the consumer start to feel this? When does the European or British consumer start to feel the pinch when these sanctions are enacted? And what does that look like?
Michael Hudson [00:11:25] Well, it depends on how fast the sanctions work. The United States said Well, in another year and a half, we’ll be able to provide Europe with liquefied natural gas. Well, the problem is, first of all, they’re not the ports to handle the liquefied natural gas to go into Europe. Secondly, there are not enough ships and tankers to carry all of this gas to Europe. So unless there are very warm winters, Europe is not going to have a very easy time for the next few years. And that’s only for oil and gas. It’s dependent on raw materials that Russia produces. For instance, palladium is necessary for catalytic converters. Titanium is necessary to make the screws that are especially used on aeroplanes that are strong enough not to buckle and break when winds go up and down and when they’re full. Russia even produces the neon and the crypton that are necessary for making some kind of electronic uses and also for many components that go into computers and information technology. There’s a whole range of exports that Europe is highly dependent on, and the United States has provided Putin with a whole list of these exports, saying, Well, OK, we’re going to fight against Europe buying your oil and gas but you can certainly sell us your heavy oil that we need since we’re not buying it from Venezuela. We certainly need the following list of critical materials that we need, like helium and crypton. These are our pressure points. Please don’t press on them. Well, you can imagine what Putin and his advisers are saying. Thank you for giving us this list of the pressure points that you’re exempting from the trade sanctions. I think if you really want a break in the unilateral, unipolar world, I think we should break now and see whether you really want to get along without trading.
Ross [00:13:51] Michael Hudson, welcome back, second half, Renegade Inc. Wonderful to have you. In that first half we followed the money, if you like. We talked about sanctions and the unintended consequences. I just want to pull back a little further if we can and just talk about the sort of tectonic shifts that are going on in the world. I spoke to somebody from Russia recently and what he said was very straightforward. He said, now what we have to do is begin to learn to live without the West. Do you think that that sentiment is proliferating across Russia now? Is that the mindset?
Michael Hudson [00:14:22] Well, if you read President Putin’s speeches, that’s exactly what’s happening. And Secretary Lavrov has voiced exactly the same feeling. There’s almost a disgust with the West and a feeling from Putin, Lavrov and the other Russian spokesmen, how could we everhave hoped to have an integration with Europe after 1991? Europe really was not on our side at all, and we didn’t realise that Europe is really part of the U.S. diplomatic sphere. It’s like all of Europe is now backing the attack on Russia. The best to do is reorient our economy towards China, Asia and Eurasia and become our own self-sufficient, independent centre
Ross [00:15:15] De-dollarisation and the amassing of plenty of gold by both the Russians and the Chinese. Just talk us through that.
Michael Hudson [00:15:21] Well, Ross, you asked in the first half of this interview how has American sanctions worked against it? I should have mentioned what you just mentioned, the dollar. The United States just grabbed all of Russia’s foreign exchange reserves, just as England a few months ago grabbed all of Venezuela’s gold that was held in the Bank of England when Venezuela tried to spend this gold on buying medical supplies to cope with the COVID virus. So basically, the United States have said, if any foreign country holds its reserves in the United States or accounts in U.S. banks. If a country in the global south tries to pay its foreign debt by holding its reserves in US banks in order to be the paying agent on the interest on its foreign debt. And if that foreign country does something we don’t like, like trade with Russia or permit more labour unionisation or try to become independent in food, we’re just going to do what we did to Venezuela, what we did to Iran when we grabbed its foreign exchange reserves or what we did to Russia. And that means that other countries all of a sudden see what they thought was their flight to security, what they thought was their most secure savings, their holdings in U.S. banks, US treasury bill, all of a sudden, is holding them hostage and is a high risk. Even the Financial Times of London has been writing about this, saying, how can the United States that was getting a free ride off the dollar standard for the last 50 years, ever since 1971, when foreign countries held dollars instead of gold and basically holding dollars means you buy U.S. Treasury bonds to finance the US budget deficit and the balance of payments deficit. How can the United States kill the goose that’s giving it the free ride? Well, the answer is that other countries can only move into gold and there’s an alternative to the dollar because that’s something that all the countries of the world have agreed upon is an asset, not a liability. If you hold any foreign currency, that currency is a liability of a foreign country, and if you hold gold, it’s a pure asset. There’s no country that can cancel it, the Americans can’t cancel Russia’s gold supply that’s held in Russia, although it can grab Russian gold supply if it were to hold it in the New York Federal Reserve Bank or the Bank of England. So other countries are not only moving to gold, Germany is bringing its gold back from New York, the Federal Reserve, in aeroplanes back to Germany, so it’ll have its own gold just in case German politicians would do something the United States didn’t like and the United States would simply grab Germany’s gold. The United States sanctions, and it’s especially it’s grabbing on foreign reserve, has started a war that is dividing the world between the West and Eurasia.
Ross [00:18:40] A technical part to all of this because let’s face it, it is an information war and it’s also an economic war. Is it the FIRE sector that you point out – the financial, insurance and real estate sector. Is it that they want to continue the exorbitant privilege of credit creation, because ultimately, if you think about gold, there’s no counterparty risk. Gold is gold and it has been for millennia. Far from being a barbarous relic, by the way now, people are starting to realise the intrinsic value, especially as crypto falls apart. Can you just talk a little bit about this, the FIRE sector wanting the exorbitant privilege of creating credit?
Michael Hudson [00:19:19] This is really what the new world division and global fracture is all about. You’re right, Ross. If you look at after World War One, the American fight against Soviet communism, was basically a fight of industrial capitalism against the threat of socialism. But after 1991, and especially in the last two decades, America deindustrialised. So the fight is not by industrial capitalism against countries pushing their labour up. It’s a fight of neoliberalism against industrial capitalism or socialism abroad. It’s against industrial capitalism evolving into socialism. It’s a belief that, well, now that America’s be industrialised, how is it going to control the world economy? Well, it’ll control it through a financial means by being the creditor and foreign countries debt payments to America will enable it to make its military payments abroad and finance its trade deficit. But also, America’s purchase of key natural resources will give it natural resources when its purchase of takeover of real estate is going to essentially make the United States the landlord class and monopoly class, that mediaeval Europe had to hold the rest of the population in serfdom. That basically is the American strategy of neoliberalism fighting against countries that reject privatisation and financialization of their economy, and specifically financialization under the control of U.S. banks, U.S. private capital and allied satellite banks and capital from England or France or Germany. This is exactly the fight. Will banking and finance control the world economy or will other countries try to build up their own economies through labour and tangible capital formation?
Ross [00:21:27] Where do you stand on that? And I’m only asking you to predict the future, Michael. How do you think this plays out? Because the way you’ve depicted it is the rent seekers, the neoliberal rent seekers on one hand, and there are value creators on the other. And by the way, those two things don’t sit very well together, as we know. How does that play out?
Michael Hudson [00:21:51] Even though the United States is the largest debtor economy in the world, it’s a creditor vis-a-vis the global south and other countries and it uses its creditor position to take over their natural resources, real estate, oil and gas, mineral rights and public utilities and natural monopolies and that are being privatised in government infrastructure. It’s becoming basically the landlord monopoly class of the entire world. That’s the U.S. strategy, and that’s the key to why the world is fracturing globally. And in the past, the global south countries were unable to fight against this tendency in the 70s and 80s with the Vendome conference on. But now that China and Russia threatened to be a self-sufficient core in Eurasia, this is the great threat to the American dream of becoming a landlord and financier of the world.
Ross [00:22:50] How do you think this pans out?
Michael Hudson [00:22:52] Well, the question is whether the United States is if we can control the world, who wants to live in a world like that, let’s blow it up. The question is whether the United States will actually go to war. The only lever that it has left is to drop bombs and to destroy and make the world look like Ukraine. So from the U.S. point of view, Europe’s future and Eurasia’s future is the Ukraine. Look at what we will do to you if you don’t follow our policy. America has just moved al Qaeda very heavily in the Ukraine to sort of repeat in Ukraine and Europe what it was doing in Syria and Libya. And the United States says this is what we can do. What are you going to do about it? Do you really want to fight. But the rest of the world, certainly China and Russia says, Well, we’re ready to fight. So there is no telling what you. And it comes down to personalities. Putin has said, well, do we really want to live in a world without Russia? If the United States is to attack us, we might as well end the world. The United States says, Do we really want to live in a world that we can’t control? If we’re not completely in control, we feel very insecure and we’re going to blow up the world. So you have this countervailing position in a world where all the arms control has been dismantled by the United States in the last few years. The United States has withdrawn from all of the agreements that Russia and China have tried to promote. And Europe is standing by and apparently is willing to be the sacrificial lamb in all of this as Ukraine is being the sacrificial lamb. So the United States and Russia say, let’s fight to the last European. And Russia initially didn’t want that because it was hoping that Europe and Russia would have a mutual gain in trade and investment relationships. But now it doesn’t feel that way. And there may be a proxy war between the United States over the European economy, not necessarily bombing Europe, but trade sanctions, energy sanctions, the kind of disruption that Europe is going to be seeing in the next year is if it loses Russian oil and gas and minerals and also, I think Chinese exports.
Ross [00:25:25] Is there a moment where cooler heads prevail and suddenly the West and other places realise that they’re dependent from a food security point of view, from an energy security point of view that we are dependent? And is there a moment at that point that you can thaw a frozen conflict by saying, actually, if we both meet, we just take a step toward each other, actually, we can do something in a collaborative way? Now I get what you’ve said throughout the rest of the programme, and I give this a percentage possibility of about three percent, but isn’t there a strategy to say, actually, we’ve had all the grandstanding, we’ve had all the brinksmanship, we should now sit around the table and try and work something out?
Michael Hudson [00:26:03] I don’t see any cooler heads in the United States. The surprising thing is that here it’s the right wing channel, the Republican Fox Channel, is the only channel that’s taking the anti-war stand and is saying we shouldn’t be at war in Ukraine. It’s the only channel that’s talking about here is how Russia sees the world. Do we really want to take a one sided perspective or do we want to see the actual dynamics at work? So it was the Republicans and the right wing that is now primarily against the NATO war in the Ukraine. The left wing seems to be all for it, but the left wing of the Democratic Party is in office and I don’t see any cooler heads in the Democratic Party at all. And I’ve known many of these people for many decades, and they are willing to go to war for a death. There are still back in the world of World War Two when the fight was against the Nazis and anti-Semitism. They’re still living in a kind of mythology world, not in the real world. And the thought that the world can come to an end either doesn’t have a reality to them or as Herman Cain said, Well, somebody is going to survive.
Ross [00:27:29] Michael Hudson always a pleasure, a great insight. And, you know, it’s just refreshing to hear. Thank you very much for your time.
Michael Hudson [00:27:38] Well, thank you very much for having me, Ross.
On February 21 Russia announced that it would recognize the Donbas republics. A day later it did so. The ‘west’ immediately announced sanctions which in fact had been prepared in advance. On February 24 Russian troops crossed the border into Ukraine.
The Russian ruble immediately took a big hit. It has since recovered a bit.
oday’s news will bring the ruble to a new heights.
Putin instructed to convert gas contracts with unfriendly countries into rublesPresident Vladimir Putin instructed to issue a directive to Gazprom to convert contracts into rubles for unfriendly countries. In his opinion, supplying Russian goods to the EU, the USA and receiving payment in dollars and euros "does not make any sense for us." Against this background, the ruble moved to growth on the Moscow Exchange.“Both the US and the EU have basically defaulted on their obligations to Russia. And now everyone in the world knows that obligations in dollars and euros may not be fulfilled. <...> It is quite obvious that in this regard, it makes no sense for us to supply our goods to both the EU and the USA and receive payment in dollars, euros and a number of other currencies. Therefore, I have decided to implement in the shortest possible time a set of measures to transfer payments for our natural gas supplied to unfriendly countries to Russian rubles,” Mr. Putin said at a meeting with the government.The President instructed the Central Bank and the government to determine within a week the order of operations for the purchase of rubles on the domestic market by buyers of Russian gas. He claims that Russia will continue to supply gas "in accordance with the volumes and according to the pricing principles concluded in the contracts."The dollar exchange rate on the Moscow Exchange fell below 100 rubles. for the first time since March 3rd. As of 15:37, the US currency is trading at 101.55 rubles. (-2 rubles). The euro exchange rate fell by 2.85 rubles to 111.65 rubles. The maximum dollar fell to 94.99 rubles, the euro - to 109.7 rubles.The European Union, the United States, Great Britain and a number of other countries have imposed sanctions against Russia in response to the military operation in Ukraine, which has been carried out since February 24 on the orders of Mr. Putin. One of the measures was the freezing of about half of the Central Bank's gold and foreign exchange reserves ($300 billion).
To pay in ruble one first has to buy rubles. With higher demand for rubles and no change in supplies the price for the Russian currency will go up. As Russia is selling hydrocarbons and other resources for billions of dollars per day the ruble is likely to soon reach record heights.
On February 28 another round of sanctions hit Russia. The part of the Russian central bank reserves that were stored in the ‘west’ were frozen. The central bank immediately pushed its interest rate from 9% to 20% to prevent a flight from the ruble. This helped to lessen the damage but made credit expensive and has hit the future growth potential in Russia.
But with a high new rubles demand from the outside of Russia the central bank will soon be able to lower its interest rate to more normal levels. Credit conditions will ease and investment in Russia, to replace products that had so far been imported, will rise again.
Today’s move to demand rubles for hydrocarbons is only on of the many steps Russia can, and likely will take, to retaliate for sanctions from the ‘west’.
All energy consumption in the U.S. and EU will now come at a premium price. This will push the EU and the U.S. into a recession. As Russia will increase the prices for exports of goods in which it has market power - gas, oil, wheat, potassium, titanium, aluminum, palladium, neon etc - the rise in inflation all around the world will become significant.
As he heads to Europe, President Biden will press U.S. allies to help impose even more aggressive sanctions on Russia.
Biden demands that Europe suicides itself while he is protecting the U.S. industry. I hope that some people in the European capitals are still able to think clear enough to recognize the racket the U.S. is trying to run here:
Together with the economic devastation that U.S. and European sanctions on Russia are causing in their own economies this will end in regime-changes in several European countries. The U.S. is of course again protecting itself from as much as it can at the cost of others.
The question remains, why did all those who for so long foretold this war do so little to stop it, and so much to hasten the disaster Russia has now set in motion?
Indeed. Why didn’t the government of Germany guarantee in writing that it would veto any additional NATO membership? It would have solved at least half of the problem. Why didn’t any other NATO government do so?
And what are they doing now? Where are their initiatives for peace?
Wake up. Otherwise this will end in disaster. Not for Russia but for the rest of Europe.
Kids and cats
Ah. This is funny. Poor kitties, but they know that the big stupid humans can’t be helped. video 124MB
NATO'S STOLTENBERG SAYS ANY USE OF NUCLEAR WEAPONS WILL CHANGE NATURE OF CONFLICT, RUSSIA MUST UNDERSTAND THAT IT CAN NEVER WIN A NUCLEAR WAR.
UPDATE 5:10 PM EDT —
NATO Secretary-General Stoltenberg said that NATO has plans in place to protect all allies from nuclear threat, and that there should be no doubt about its readiness.
MORE:
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has warned of a “direct clash” between Moscow and NATO forces if peacekeepers from the military alliance are deployed to Ukraine.
Lavrov made the remarks on Wednesday while speaking to students and staff at the Moscow State Institute of International Relations (MGIMO) in response to Polish proposals for a NATO and international “peace mission.”
“Our Polish colleagues have already stated that there will be a NATO summit now, we need to send peacekeepers. I hope they understand what is at stake,” Lavrov said, according to Russian state-owned news agency TASS.
STILL MORE:
Russian lawmaker Alexei Zhuravlyov on state TV threatens nuclear strike on Warsaw, Poland and NATO forces or any peacekeeping contingent that might try to enter Ukraine.
Hal Turner Editorial Opinion
This issue has been surfacing far too frequently of late, and there’s a very good reason for it: The West has attacked Russia economically over the Ukraine situation, and has done it so badly that Russia is in actual danger of collapsing as a country.
The West seems to think that Russia’s only option is to sit back and take the sanctions, or change its behavior with Ukraine to abide what NATO and the west wants.
The Russian’s don’t see it that way.
The West PROMISED Russia, after the fall of the Soviet Union, that they would “not move one inch eastward from the Re-unified East-West Germany” (1997). Yet NATO did precisely that in the ensuing years, to the point were NATO nations are now directly bordering Russia.
Those NATO nations have NATO troops rotating in and out of them. The West lies about it by saying they’re only there “temporarily” when in fact, as thousands leave after a few months duty, thousands more come to replace them. The result: An ever-present NATO conventional force.
Then too, there’s the missiles. US Missile Defense systems . . . now in several of the former Soviet Block nations, all aimed directly at Russia.
Ukraine was simply the latest Domino to fall in the long line of NATO expansion. The reason NATO wanted Ukraine has to do with its proximity to Moscow and to Russia’s Strategic Nuclear missile silos. If American missile defenses can be placed on Ukraine soil, they will have a flight time of only 5 minutes to Moscow, and less than ten minutes to Russia’s nuclear silos. Russia cannot defend against missiles that are so close and can travel so far and fast.
Worse, the technology of missiles has evolved and now, the very same “conventional” missiles claimed to be “defensive” can be re-fitted with OFFENSIVE NUCLEAR WARHEADS within an hour. And the re-fit can be done while the missiles remain in their launchers, so no one would know the missiles had been converted from conventional to nuclear.
These facts pose an existential threat to Russia, the very same way that Soviet nuclear missiles in Cuba posed an existential threat to the USA under President John F. Kennedy in 1963.
What did Kennedy do? He told the Soviets either those missiles had to go, or . . . . the US would invade Cuba to destroy those missiles. (Gee, the exact same cause for invasion that is now seeing Russia inside Ukraine!)
Yet no one screeched to President Kennedy about Cuba being a sovereign country that could align itself however they liked. No one even questioned Kennedy’s decision that either those missiles go, or Cuba gets invaded. The reason no one questioned it is because every RATIONAL person knew Kennedy was right.
Well, guess what? Today, with the situation in Ukraine, Russian President Putin is . . . . right. He is doing in Ukraine what then-US-President Kennedy was preparing to do with Cuba. It’s no different.
NUKES
Russia knows – and has said publicly – that its conventional military forces cannot compete against the collective force of NATO. But Russia ALSO said (publicly) that they have the largest nuclear arsenal, and their hypersonic missile technology is far superior to all of NATO.
So the Russians, from the start, have made clear they fully understood what they were getting themselves into with Ukraine and the possibility of NATO involvement. Russia would be forced to use nukes. Period.
They knew this. They still know it.
NATO knows it too.
So why then, is NATO’s nitwit, Jens Stoltenberg saying today “ANY USE OF NUCLEAR WEAPONS WILL CHANGE NATURE OF CONFLICT, RUSSIA MUST UNDERSTAND THAT IT CAN NEVER WIN A NUCLEAR WAR.” ?????
One possibility is that Stoltenberg knows that NATO has actual plans to get involved. The latest iteration of those plans is for NATO countries to “enter” Ukraine as a “Peace keeping force.” Russia has made it explicitly clear that if NATO tries such a move, Russia will engage NATO Troops in battle. War will be the result.
Period End.
And since it is already established that Russia cannot win against NATO conventional forces, Russia would have to “go nuclear.” Stoltenberg and the west think Russia wouldn’t dare.
Stoltenberg and the West are wrong.
Russia would.
They’ve said it publicly.
Several times.
The soyboys of the West think they can talk their way out of anything they do. This time, they cannot.
The message from Russia seems to me to be very simple: NATO cannot have Ukraine as a member. Period.
American missile defenses cannot be placed on the territory of former Soviet Block nations. Period.
If my assessment of this Russian Position is correct, then either NATO accepts that these facts are real and stops what it has been doing since 1997 by adding former Soviet Bloc Nations and withdraws NATO troops and missiles from those nations, or NATO refuses to take “no” for an answer, enters Ukraine, and it is World War 3, with nuclear weapons, VERY VERY SOON.
Those appear to me to be the facts.
That no mass-media outlets in the West are bothering to report them to the general public, will leave their citizens blissfully ignorant, until the bright, white, flashes start.
Thankfully, YOU are not being left blissfully ignorant. YOU have chosen to avail yourself of this web site and radio show and as such, YOU know what’s really going on. We are being marched directly into a (NUCLEAR) World War 3.
MAYOR OF KYIV: "WORLD WAR III HAS ALREADY BEGUN AND UKRAINE IS THE BEGINNING"
She is very, very fine. Really nice build and look at that fantastic smile! My goodness, I could just eat her up, I’ll tell you what! video 3MB
Dream griddle and alarm clock.
Wake up on the right side of bed!
Wake up on the right side of bed!
Joe Biden Speech
Interesting stuff…
“We’re at an inflection point [in] not just the world economy [but] the world that occurs every three or four generations,” the president said.“[A general told me that] 60 million people died between 1900 and 1946 and since then we’ve established a liberal world order, and it hasn’t happened in a long while.”“Now is the time when things are shifting and there’s going to be a new world order out there, and we’ve got to lead it. We’ve got to unite the rest of the free world in doing it.”
Here’s what Russia thinks…
Biden says US must lead ‘new world order’
The 46th president highlighted the role Washington would have among the “free” states.US President Joe Biden raised eyebrows on Monday after he claimed a “new world order” would soon be established and that it was up to the United States to lead it.
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During a speech at Business Roundtable’s CEO Quarterly Meeting, Biden claimed the world was at “an inflection point” which “occurs every three or four generations” and that it was up to the US to determine the outcome.
“As one of the top military people said to me in a security meeting the other day, 60 million people died between 1900 and 1946, and since then we’ve established a liberal world order and that hadn’t happened in a long while,” the president said.
The comment raised eyebrows in both the US and around the world and resulted in ‘New World Order’ becoming one of Twitter’s trending topics on Monday.
The term ‘new world order’ has historically been used to refer to an era of great global change and has been used by politicians such as former US President George H. W. Bush, former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, and former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair.
For decades, however, the phrase has also been the subject of a major conspiracy theory which alleges a secret, elitist plot to form an oppressive global government.
Politicians and government officials have previously received criticism for using the term – most recently Dr. Kerry Chant, the chief health officer of the Australian state of New South Wales.
“We will be looking at what contact tracing looks like in the new world order,” said Chant during a September Covid-19 press conference, prompting the term to trend on social media.
Journalists and other social media users criticized Chant for using the term, with former journalist Chris Urquhart writing that “government officials would be well advised to avoid phrases like ‘the new world order’ when they’re talking at press conferences about massive limitations on people’s freedoms.”
Some comments…
2022 03 24 19 39
A Rufus has understanding
If you are not making the world a better place, you are contributing to it’s destruction. For God’s sake, be good, and kind. If you cannot. Then be neutral. But do not make others sad or hurtful. video 8MB
While the United States goes into hyper-inflation, China is stable
“They’re flying blind, and are too little, too late,” Steve Hanke says in disbelief, an Applied Economics professor of John Hopkins University. “It’s utter rubbish and nonsense” that Fed Chairman Jerome Powell sees supply chain issues as a root cause for inflation, he tells me, as we decipher the Federal Reserve’s latest official statements on the shape of the U.S. economy.“The money supply in excess causes inflation, and the Federal Reserve appears to be almost clueless,”
Hanke shares with me as we discuss last week’s conversation between U.S. President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping.
“Obviously the Chinese know this,” which is why their inflation rating is less than 1%, the former Senior Economist on President Reagan’s Council of Economic Advisers articulates to me.
Inflation is always destructive.
I can confirm that while prices have been rising inside of China, it is in no way resembling the kinds of inflation that is being seen in America, Europe or the rest of the West. The reason is simple. China has been managing the flow of USD for payments for decades. THis managment is intentional and it insulates China from inflationary effects of the USD due to poor management of debt by the United States.
United States Inflation Rate Annual inflation rate in the US accelerated to 7.9% in February of 2022, the highest since January of 1982, matching market expectations. Energy remained the biggest contributor (25.6% vs 27% in January), with gasoline prices surging 38% (40% in January).
What happens when your QR goes orange
Everyone must take regular swab tests, and be up to date on their injections. IF you are not, your status goes from green to orange. This video shows what happens when you try to go though a tollbooth with an orange QR code in China. video 3MB
I got this easy recipe from my daughter, who lives in France. It’s become my go-to fondue, and I make it often for our family.
—Betty A. Mangas, Toledo, Ohio
What are you waiting for?
Three Cheese Fondue.
Crib Dribbler.
Perfect for hot soups, milkshakes, and energy drinks.
Perfect for hot soups, milkshakes, and energy drinks.
Europe’s LARGEST Natural Gas Storage Facility: EMPTY
Empty.
The largest natural gas storage facility in northern Europe is now EMPTY of gas.
The facility, run by (Russia’s) GAZPROM, dropped like a rock once Europe instituted economic sanctions against Russia.
With this largest facility now empty, industry will have to shut down for lack of fuel for heating and generation of electric.
With the largest storage facility now empty, the draw-down from all the smaller facilities will speed up by orders of magnitude, emptying them with ten days to two weeks.
What will Europe do when it has no gas to generate electric or to heat buildings?
Of course, all of this trouble has to do with Europe sticking its nose into the affairs of Russia-Ukraine.
Now that Europe is demonstrably running out of natural gas, watch for things between Russia-Ukraine-NATO to get VERY VERY VERY much worse, very fast.
My savvy grandmother whipped up recipes like this homey cinnamon-scented apple pudding in the Depression years. Many of us still make them today.
—Holly Sharp, Warren, Ontario
Grandma Davidson’s Baked Apple Pudding
China is FAST
So President Biden thinks that it will be easy to compete against China. Americans think that it will be no problem, because America is exceptional, and great? This echo chamber in the Untied States that gives this illustion that China is dark, dingy, dirty and backwards, while America is so wonderful is a lie. It amazes me. Becuase this is what China is like… video 21MB
Chinese weddings
The Chinese have heart. Real, honest to goodness heart. video 22MB
China rebukes US as ‘world’s biggest human rights violator’
Beijing has promised “countermeasures” if Washington doesn’t revoke sanctions over Uyghurs
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Beijing has promised to respond in kind unless the US revokes the blacklisting of Chinese officials it said were guilty of human rights violations.
Speaking at a regular press conference on Tuesday, Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin accused the US of “smearing China, oppressing Chinese officials for no reason, violating international law… and grossly interfering in China’s domestic affairs.”
Wang said Beijing will respond with “reciprocal countermeasures” if the US does not immediately revoke its sanctions.
The statement came after US Secretary of State Antony Blinken accused the Chinese government of committing “genocide and crimes against humanity” against the Uyghurs, a Muslim ethnic minority living predominately in China’s northwestern Xinjiang Region. He added that Washington has blacklisted Chinese officials who it said were guilty of human rights violations.
Wang responded in kind, calling the US “the biggest human rights violator in the world,” whose historical treatment of Native Americans “constitutes de facto genocide.” He also criticized Washington for the “long-lasting systemic racial discrimination” of black Americans.
Multiple global human rights groups have long accused China of oppressing the Uyghurs and forcing them to work in labor camps. Beijing has denied the allegations, insisting that the Uyghurs are studying in vocational education and training centers as part of state integration and deradicalization programs.
My friends and I have been getting together for "ladies lunches" for years. These vol-au-vents are the perfect no-fuss fancy food; they look complicated, but are actually simple and fun to make. Whenever I think of good friends and good company, I think of these savory pastries.
—Shauna Havey, Roy, Utah
Creamy Chicken Vol-au-Vent.
China can build
OMG! It’s insane how fast and efficiently that China can build things. You all just wait and see what happens when China and Russia build their Moon and Mars cities. video 23MB
A 737 crashed in China.
A Boeing 737 carrying 132 people crashed early Monday in China. Although Boeing’s 737 has faced extraordinarily high-profile safety concerns over the past three years, the plane that crashed Monday was a different version of the aircraft than the embattled 737 Max that shook Boeing to its core.
The cause of Monday’s crash has yet to be determined. The plane had been in service since 2015. The flight, operated by China Eastern Airlines, was flying from the southwestern Chinese city of Kunming to Guangzhou when it crashed.
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It’s crash profile; being a full-throttle nose-dive directly to the ground is highly unusual.
.
Evidence suggests any of the following;
.
Intentional Pilot (and co-pilot) action to destroy the plane.
Software override of the pilot commands.
Remote operation of the software to override the pilot.
The manufacturer of the aircraft has had problems with the software. Other crashes of similiar planes has been the result of software overrides of the pilot.
We do not know (as of yet) the real cause for this crash. But one thing seems clear, somehow the plane overrode the directions of the pilot. It put the plane in a nose dive straight towards the ground and set the engines on full-throttle, full speed, as it plunged towards the ground.
Why it did so, is unknown.
Yet, the United States government black operations regarding taking control of the software should NOT be ruled out.
This reminds me of HAL in the 1969 movie; “2001; A Space odyssey”.
2001 A Space odyssey
So, Boeing makes aircraft that can override the pilot. Brilliant! Why do you need pilots? How about having full robotic planes?
Maybe it’s because no one will fly in them.
…
Isn’t technology wonderful. Remember when fully automatic self-driving cars were crashing left and right? Yeah, I do. Well, somehow Boeing things that this would be a good thing to implement in passenger planes. Who would doubt it?
Anyways, I have to ask the moronic question of the day…
"Well, with fully robotic planes, then why still have pilots, when the airplane can override the pilot?"
Well, perhaps its because you keep the illusion of human control, when the truth is that the software is in full control…
… as well as the “authorized” owner of that software who can control the plane and tell it to do whatever he/it wants. Like the United States. Hum?
Let’s talk about HAL. Specifically what it did.
HAL
HAL
From the 1969 movie…
HAL is a computer system. And it is built into the Discovery One spacecraft, and is in charge of maintaining all mechanical and life support systems on board.
HAL also has several “eyes” placed periodically around the spacecraft.
About three weeks into the flight, Hal picks up a fault in the AE-35 unit, the system responsible for keeping the satellite dish antenna aligned with the Earth, and states that it will go one-hundred percent failure within 72 hours.
He suggests that they go EVA and replace the faulty unit with a new one.
Dr. David Bowman goes out and retrieves the unit. But when he brings it back and runs it through diagnostics, they can find no problem with the AE-35.
They radio Mission Control about the problem, and Mission Control says that Hal is in error predicting the fault.
HAL
This is a bit of a surprise, as the 9000 series has a perfect operational record.
Noting that this kind of thing has always been because of human error when it has occurred before, Hal suggests that they go out and “replace the malfunctioning unit and allow it to fail.
Then it should be a simple matter to track down the problem.”
But by this time, both Dr. Frank Poole and Bowman are becoming suspicious of Hal’s behaviour. They climb into one of the EVA pods, out of earshot of Hal. Poole states that he has “a bad feeling about him”. Bowman and Poole suggest disconnecting Hal if he is wrong about predicting the fault.
Bowman and Poole suggest disconnecting Hal if he is wrong about predicting the fault.
Unbeknownst to them, Hal read their lips through the window of the spacepod.
Translating their lip motions, Hal learns of their plans for his disconnection; according to Clarke, “he (will) be deprived of all his inputs, and thrown into an unimaginable state of unconsciousness. To Hal, this (is) the equivalent of death. For he (has) never slept, and therefore he (does) not know that one (can) wake again.”
Poole goes out to replace the supposedly malfunctioning AE-35 unit.
As he drifts through space to the satellite dish, Hal takes control of the pod and rams it into Poole, disconnecting his oxygen hose and venting the air in his suit, killing him.
Bowman, obviously distraught by the loss of his friend, goes out to retrieve Poole’s body.
However, while Bowman is out on his excursion, Hal shuts off the life support systems on the three astronauts in hibernation, which kills them all.
Bowman in a pod.
After Bowman returns to the Discovery I, Hal denies him reentry into the pod bay. So Bowman has to maneuver the pod over to the emergency airlock. Unfortunately, in his haste to retrieve his friend, Bowman had not bothered to don the helmet of his life-support suit because he had not believed he would need it, making it very difficult to enter the emergency airlock, as he would have to travel through the vacuum of space in order to do so.
This, however, does not stop Bowman.
Risking the hazards of explosive decompression, he eventually gets inside, grabs a space helmet, and goes to Hal’s logic memory center to erase his memory.
There he pulls out the memory tablets that control Hal’s higher functions.
Disconnecting HAL.
As his memory degrades, Hal begins to give off information programmed very early in his life, such as the date he became operational. When all his logic is gone, he begins to sing the song “Daisy Bell.”
His final act of consciousness is to play a briefing that Dr. Heywood R. Floyd pre-recorded about the Tycho Monolith before their departure, and the real purpose of the Discovery One’s mission. As well that the insane idea that the owner / designers of HAL programmed it to lie.
Now…
Please consider that any systems; any devices; any mechanisms designed by man should NEVER have the capability to override human input.
This is well descried by the move, with the HAL computer system, and it seriously seems to be the case with all these Boeing aircraft crashes.
I can POSITIVELY tell you that one singular event resulting is one singular death would ABSOLUTELY stop the adoption of that system in other industires. It doesn’t matter what industry it is. Ceiling fans. Clothes irons. Motorcycles. Chainsaws. Rifles. One fatality, and the system is gone and will NEVER be revisited.
But somehow these systems in airplanes and automobiles are exceptions. At least in American products.
One cannot help thinking, especially if you ARE an American, that the United States is involved and WANTS the ability of the software to override the driver / pilot in the vehicle.
If you accept that notion…
…then many of the software related “accidents” of planes and automobiles with these systems are used as mechanisms of control by the United States “leadership”.
…
Remember boys and girls…
… REAL secrets are secret.
Every evidence is that this is exactly what is happening. While there might be some debate on the nuiances of implementation, the technologies and the systems involved, one thing is unmistakable…
The seriously ODD behaviors of the United States government is best explained by this exact senario.
…
Think about it.
Break.
Animal death and spirits visiting
All this talk about plunging planes, nuclear weapons, bio-weapons and everything all initiated by the Untied States government is disturbing to me. They obviously have never experienced sorry and grief.
Here are some really great examples of how much fun you can have with your cat friends. video 100MB
Amazing Cats
Cats areally are amazing. Just some great cat adventures. They are truly very special creatures. video 16MB
Happy times
Treasure the times that you have. Make them happy and share them with your friends. Cat love video 18MB
We all need each other now
Now, more than any other time in our lives, we need others. Make friends. SHare your time. Appreciate what you have. Make your life a good one. Be a Rufus. Show friendship. Show love. Show care. video 90MB
Be the Rufus
Take part in society. Stop being a spectator, and stop thinking that everything is someone else’s problem. The future depends on YOU. Take an active role in it. In every way, every day. Be the best you can be and help others. make the world a better place to live in. I believe in your. video 11MB
Make those around you smile
You will bring happiness to your environment. Smile. Say good things. Even if they are lies. Make your environment better. It’s quantum physics 101. video 120MB
Conclusions
I cannot say that one thing or the other is happening, and the causes and reasons for them. Later, I will ask the Domain Commander for some insight. However, right now, I know nothing.
Sure there might be all sorts of reasons for the observed behaviors, the strange actions by the USA and the West, and all the craziness. There’s really no way to really know the actual causes. So don’t worry about it. And believe me, as much as I want to know, the fact is, I don’t NEED to know.
I don’t know anything about chem-trails, nano-bots, or anything like that. I do know that everyone in the United States and the West are acting really, really weird. It’s like they are all having some kind of mass insanity.
After 30 years of glue sniffing euphoria, the US is now crashing.
And when it realizes it is cutting off its limbs to keep its jaundiced organs alive, it will have to make major, and costly, changes in living arrangements.
Mass transit in lieu of suburban sprawl. No more bloated military. A return to local industry and farming. Far more labor intensive cooperatives that actually do things and make stuff. Regional cultural and quasi-sufficiency. The end to industrial entertainment and woke academia. A resurgence of a proletariat based religion of hard work and respect. A return to classical literature and art.
Oh, how to pay for it all on NO budget?
America is in shambles, but the leadership doesn’t realize it yet. It’s like a family living off maxed-out credit, the family is stunned then the credit cards no longer work at the register.
That’s where the USA, and the EU are at right now.
Oh, they still have their shopping list, and two shopping carts filled with expensive steaks, groceries and all sorts of pricy items. But the cashier is there looking impatient, stamping her foot, and ready to call her manager. Oh, you have to pay in cash. She says.
Soon, very soon, the situation will accelerate to something bad.
It’s just really, really fucked up.
FUTURE
Evidence strongly suggests that the remote viewing of the 2025 by the Deagal Report is correct. It also validates the theory of Generational Turnings and the rise and fall of nations.
You will see many more strange things occur in the future.
We are not anywhere near the peak inflection point. But it is moving forward and I hope to be out of it’s way. I hope you all are as well.
BASIC PREP
Hyper-inflation is starting to hit the West. Be prudent.
Make sure that you have a garden, and a larder with lots of basics. Rice. Flour. Canned goods. Powdered milk.
Remember that one Burger King extra value meal is the same price as a massive bag of rice. Remember that one Starbucks coffee is the same prices as a massive bag of flour; and make sure that you have the tools to strain out the flour.
Learn to fish.
Own a bicycle, and use it. If you use it to ride to work one day a week, you will cut your commute expenses by 20%.
Have a solar panel to charge your phone with.
ADVANCED PREP
Have a good supply of your medicines, and lots of antibiodics. Set up a medical kit. Tell your doctor that you are equipping a sailboat for a long sea cruse, and give him a list of medicines for the first aid box. Get the prescriptions and fill it out.
It’s never too late to start. Do not plan on trying to go to the woods and forests. Those places will be crowded with the unprepaired. Your best solution is to “bug out in place”. Be mobile within your well-established community.
If you think that you can survive being alone, I’ve got news for you; that’s a fiction. Survivors are those that band together into groups. There’s strength in community. Read your history.
FUNDAMENTALS
For God’s sakes, turn off that bullshit “news”. It’s all screeching lies.
Have a skill, asset, ability, or feature that you can provide to your community that is beneficial to the community.
If you don’t have one. Get one. Learn, make, create or establish. Volunteer. Network locally.
Handiman skills.
Welding, plumbing, machining, autorepair.
Medical.
Farming, fishing, harvesting, growing.
It doesn’t mean that you will need to endure a post-nuclear fiasco. But in whatever changes that might hit your own individual communities, you will have the skills, networking and abilites to make you locally valuable.
Don’t believe me?
Ask PL. He’s doing this, and is very busy. Maybe too busy for MM here, but it’s the future. Participate. Make a difference. Smile. Socialize. stick to the fundamental basics.
Don’t get caught up in what you cannot change. It’s stressful, don’t you know.
Don’t get all wrapped up in the causes or the reasons, or the people behind the curtains. They won’t be revealed until the history books are written.
Be kind, calm and adaptable. Do your verbal affirmations. Be the Rufus. I beleive in you all.
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.
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.
Comment of the day: "The wreckage would be awesome."
It’s a cool morning. Very humid. It’s a spring day and the humidity is so thick that it is like walking in a humidity milkshake. As you walk down the street you can smell the thickness of the scented flowers and trees lining the roads, and the thickly laden ocean air.
it’s really nice.
I went out this morning to get my long loaves of French / Italian crusty bread. Bagettes, actually. (I ran out at the house.) What I do is slice them, and put real salted butter on them, and pop them into the oven for a few minutes. Then, I place some slices of tomato with salt and olive oil that I lay on top of them. It’s a favorite and simple food that I enjoy.
bruschetta chopped tomatoes basil herbs grilled cru italian olive oil crusty bread italian cuisine concept close up 96050796
Today, as I walked into the local supermarket, it was crowded. The new truck load of fresh produce came in and everyone was getting their fix of fresh vegitables. I myself, snagged a huge bag of tomatoes. Two yuan. Roughly thirty tomatoes for twenty-five cents. Whoa!
R C.f0b785c2827b31982fb1b782ea4a8f3d
I’m smunching on the bread-tomato-pleasure right now. Good stuff. I’ll tell you what. Washing it down with a minty flower tea or some curious blend. As the “Baron Cat” says in the Japanese animated movie “The Cat Returns” (2002); “It’s my own special blend. It’s a different taste every time you drink it.”
The cat returns.
Of course, we are still in a “yellow” lockdown.
All of Zhuhai are in various stages of lockdown.
Everyone is monitored in and out of the various complexes in Zhuhai. The latest American bioweapon attack hit China hard, but China is dealing with it absolutely, and the people go about their normal lives.
Not a big deal.
You get used to it. Don’t you know.
Zhuhai, China.
For those of you who are new to MM, this latest bioweapons attack occurred immediately after the USA-China meeting in Rome, Italy. The USA (Jake Sullivan) “warned” China of “immediate bad consequences” if China did not sanction Russia. China said no. And within hours China was hit in multiple locations with a very nasty stain of coronavirus.
Sigh.
Not reported in the Western “news”. At all.
As an aside. Perhaps it good that the West is kept so absolutely ignorant. Let them make their strategic decisions while in a bubble of absolute lies. Let them. And if they believe the “news” and volunteer to participate as a mercenary in the “rout of the collapsing Russian invasion force” let them.
Below, I’e got three stories of the first hand experience that these mercenaries experienced. These are not third world goatherders with old AK-47s, you imbeciles. You are not going to hang out in air conditioned barracks and plink at an occasional illiterate shepard or their donkey.
You will experience real war. Real, honest to goodness, pissing in your pants war.
Nothing like the hard bitch slap of reality to perform a reset of attitude.
200 bitch slap
The very last paragraph in this article describes what it’s really like.
The base we came from was struck by rockets in the early morning hours. People we lived with for a couple days are confirmed dead. It is only a matter of time before our location is targeted. We are about to be cut off by a Russian tank column any day now.”“Food, water, and ammunition dwindle slowly. The mood is somber, people are sending their last messages to friends and family.”
Those that rely on bad intel will die.
Not just in a war zone, but in a peaceful area like I am in.
To believe that the Coronavirus is a “hoax” and that it’s not part of a very systematic and intelligent way to wage war is dangerous. It will get you killed.
So we need good and real intel.
Not lies.
Anyways, let me chat about regarding my walk from the grocery stores.
Bag of tomatoes.
Most people do not realize just how Chinese society is laid out. They think that it’s flat and open like their home nations. Like America. Like Europe. Like Japan. Like Australia.
They think that you can just walk down the road and go into what ever suburb that you want. Go into any business complex you desire. Park where ever you want. Enter any apartment building that you want. Nope.
Not like that. At all.
Everything in China is surrounded by walls. There are buildings inside of housing complexes. That’s two sets of walls and guards. Then that sits within a city block. That’s another set of walls and guards. Those blocks sit within a “community region”. That is another set of walls and guards.
Walls are big and popular in China.
To go forth an (say) buy some groceries, you need to pass through five or six checkpoints and guarded gates. It’s more stringent than what it was like at China Lake Naval Weapons Center.
For me to travel and get my groceries today, I passed through five walls with check points and guards. Each time scanning my three QR codes. Facial recognition, temperature checks and bioscans.
You get used to it. It’s not a big deal.
It’s like Americans are so used to the idea that they have to get a fishing license, a dog license, a motocycle license, just to be able to fish with your dog and ride the motorcycle to the local pond.
You get used to it.
And you don’t think about it being an infringement on your “Rights”. You just accept it.
A PA fishing license.
Of course, in China’s case it’s DEFCON 2. It’s a war-situation, and the agressor is the United States. That’s the reality. And you woud be aware of this if you lived in China.
I’ll tell you when DEFCON 2 is lifted. Though, it doesn’t look like that is going to happen anyday soon.
I had a customer who contacted me and wanted me to set up a trip itinery to visit some factories. He figured that since New Zealand has lifted the coronavirus restrictions, that everyone has. Nope. Everyone in China are still wearing masks, and taking these bioweapons attacks seriously.
And NO!
There are no thoughts of lifting the restrictions or having any second thoughts about how China deals with COVID. That’s Western bullshit.
Coins
Do you know what I haven’t seen in a long time? Yeah. Coins.
A “coin” is a flat (usually round) token that is used as a currency. You can use it to buy things. In the old days before inflation, most people used coins to conduct commerce. In America, a cup of coffee cost a dime. A lunch would cost under fifty cents, and a weeks’ groceries would run a few dollars.
You don’t see them very much today though.
Chinese currency.
China has been using QR codes and e-yuan payments systems for years now. Oh, some fo the older folk still use bills and coinage, but they are the only ones doing so.
Them and foreigners.
Not that there’s many foreign faces here any longer. We’ve got a handful of long-term expats that I see every now and then. They are in upper management positions in Western companies located in China. They have nice expat packages, live in exclusive housing complexes, and venture out from time to time.
They stick out like a sore thumb.
Expats in China stick out like a sore thumb.
I’m one of those grizzily old expats that went to seed and gone native. I wear Chinese clothes, eat Chinese food, enjoy Chinese lifestyle, and go to local Chinese restrurants. The foreigners see me. They look at me and automatically classify me.
Drunk in the night.
Hungover in the day.
Burping, and farting and generally being anti-social. (Well, maybe not THAT bad. Lol.)
Old grizzily long-timer. Gone native. Hopeless.
Expat Defined:
An expatriate (in abbreviated form, expat) is a person temporarily or permanently residing in a country and culture other than that of the person's upbringing or legal residence. The word comes from the Latin term expatriates from ex ("out of") and patriâ the ablative case of patria ("country, fatherland").
Background;
In its broadest sense, an expatriate is any person living in a different country from where he or she is a citizen.
In common usage, the term is often used in the context of professionals sent abroad by their companies, as opposed to locally hired staff (who can also be foreigners). The differentiation found in common usage usually comes down to socio-economic factors, so skilled professionals working in another country are described as expatriates, whereas a manual labourer who has moved to another country to earn more money might be labelled an 'immigrant'. There is no set definition and usage does vary depending on context and individual preferences and prejudices.
In the 19th century, Americans, numbering perhaps in the thousands, were drawn to Europe—especially to Munich and Paris—to study the art of painting. Henry James, for instance, was a famous expatriate American writer from the 1870s, who adopted England as his home.
The term 'expatriate' in some countries also has a legal context used for tax purposes. An expatriate living in a country can receive a favorable tax treatment. In this context a person can only be an expatriate if they move to a country other than their own to work with the intent of returning to their home country within a period of no more than 5 fiscal years. This number of years can vary per tax jurisdiction, but 5 years is the most commonly used maximum period.
Unless you are an American. If you are an American, you are always an American and you are treated as someone who is trying to avoid direct taxiation laws. Under United States law, geographical location only defines your tax schedule. It does not protect you from American taxiation.
Expatriate is sometimes also spelled 'ex-patriot.'
I’m too old to look like an English teacher. Mostly those folk are in their 20s and 30s. They are on a cultural adventure, and then they will move on in their lives.
I don’t look like a traveller, a backpacker or an adventurer. Not at all.
I’m certainly not equal to the other expats. I don’t dress like them, and I’m at an age that is more compatable with the executive directors of their companies. LOL. I don’t know what they think. Maybe they don’t want to think, eh?
The teacher
This is the biggest employer of expats in China. You see them, mostly in their twenties. The older ones that used to teach have been displaced by mostly young folk, as the cut-off is at 55, and you must have demonstrated prior experience and pass a very rigorous government approval process.
Back around 2013, there were numerous crimes committed by foreign teachers that shocked the Chinese. Since then, things have mellowed out considerably.
The business expat
They got a nice gig. usually two to three years as an upper-level executive in a foreign land. They make expat salaries, plus bonus, and a full expat package. You can see them in where they eat, their kids attending foreign expat schools, and in the clothing that they dress. They keep to themselves, and rarely go “slumming” with the natives.
The digital nomad
He has a beard, a beater, a battered Apple Mac and plays songs about his new hometown at local acoustic nights. Everyone’s an entrepreneur these days and the digital nomad is making a killing coding, marketing or writing all from the comfort of a coffee shop.
Ask at your own peril how he made the step to go freelance and move abroad, he’ll direct you to his catchily named blog: ‘I work one day a year and the rest of the time I’m on the beach, here’s how you can do it too.’
It’s all a lie of course. Big words, little to show for it. In China they are shunned. Mostly they go to places like Thailand to impress others. In China, locals really don’t want to have anythign to do with them.
The NGO-er
All wise eyes and copper bracelets, the charity worker had big dreams. Always the most interesting person at the party, this guy’s seen the parts of the world no one else gets to. They are often funded one way or the others through the “five eyes”.
You won’t find them in China any longer. There was a mass round up and deportations of these folk during the Hong Kong “color revolution”. Those with direct involvement were killed. The rest were scattered elsewhere.
The pilot
Recognisable by his cock-pit pics on Tinder, this guy swipes right in every port. You’ll find him holed up in a gated expat community with imported whiskeys decorating his executive pad. He may have physically been all over the world, but it’s unlikely he’s seen it.
The retired couple
Most people do not retire to China. The rap that China gets scares the Dejesus out of most folk. Pollution, factories, communism, authorian. Yikes! The retired folk say.
Most will hit Thailand or Mexico as soon as their pensions kicked in to make the most of the hot weather, cheap massages and excellent golf facilities.
Thanks to their new cool exotic location, they’ve never been more popular with the grandkids who love to visit (if in part for the relaxed drinking laws). You can spot them in their matching khaki shorts, nursing a Bloody Mary over lunch saying: ‘We should have done this years ago.’
So, here I am, minding my own business, carrying my groceries home. I pass some expats with their (obviously European) children in Starbucks having breakfast, and I just continue on my way. Smunching a warm baozi, groceries in my one hand, and the other (holding a baozi) ready to flash (my preset QR) to the baoans (security guards) at the various checkpoints.
All I need is my Chinese wife, my Chinese kids, my Chinese dog next to me. LOL.
But nope. Not today.
I’m on a mission alone. Sheech! It just doesn’t feel right.
And there, as I enter my “short cut” (I cross though a nearby housing complex) and go through it, I spy what appears to be a coin on the road.
A coin!
Do they still make these things in the ‘States?
A truly rare event I’ll tell you what.
The coin turned out to be a token for one of those mechanical children rides. You pay ten yuan and you get ten coins. Woo! Woo!
Easy peasy, lemon squeezy.
Then you use the coins to ride the electro-mechanical contraptions. Just like in America. Same.
See we are not all that different.
Amusement tokens.
I wonder if they still have these things. There used to be a few in front of Woolworths, and CVS drugs. My guess is that they were replaced by soda machines.
Bigger profits is my guess.
Let’s go and chat about the Geo-Political sitrep for the World entering April 2022. Here’s a collection of various articles. Mostly summaries and links. I hope you all like them.
In fact, if the US/NATO do decide to attack Russia, this will be the final, nuclear, end for the western civilization as such. After 1000 years of genocidal imperialism, one could be forgiven for thinking that this could be a fitting, just, end” in the “chicken coming home to roost” kind of karmic justice. Now it is in the hands of the US ruling elites.
-The Saker
About the Russian Invasion
It’s pretty straightforward. Yet vault 7 has seized the minds of most in the West.
“We have seen 5 waves of NATO expansion.
Now NATO is in Romania and Poland and they are deploying their missile-attack systems there.
That’s what we are talking about.
You need to understand, we are not threatening anyone.
Russia did not come to the US borders or the UK borders. No.
You came to our borders and now you are saying, ‘Ukraine will join NATO and will deploy their systems there. They will deploy their military bases and their attack-systems.’
We are concerned about our security.
Do you understand what that means?”
- Vladimir Putin, press conference, You Tube
A Russian Hamburger Chain
Ham-bur-ger. Three syllables.
A budding burger chain in Russia called Uncle Vanya is looking to grab business that has been left on the table by McDonald’s – revealing a logo that looks strikingly similar to the Golden Arches.
.
Or so they say.
.
Uncle Vanya.
.
Personally, anyone who are confused by the logos and cannot tell them apart is an idiot.
.
A March 12 trademark filing with the Russian government showed an image that closely resembles the McDonald’s logo turned on its side. The sketchy filing shows a Cyrillic letter “B,” which references the “V” in “Uncle Vanya,” cast in yellow against a red background.
You can learn a lot about culture, society and family by looking at the education that it provides it’s children. Here is a daily flag cermony in China. This is a kindergarden. Typical. And it’s impressive as all get out. They are three and four year old children.
Everyday. Every school.
We, when I lived in the Untied States, used to “salute the flag” and say the “pledge of allegence” every day. They no longer do that in the USA. I hear that it’s becuase it is racist. video 3MB
Putin on independence from the West
"We will solve this problem so that we will never again depend on Western partners in any way, be it governments or companies that are not guided by the interests of their business, but have become instruments of political aggression, which Russia is now experiencing from the West. We will make sure that we never find ourselves in a similar situation again. And so that no uncle - neither Sam, nor anyone else - could destroy our economy"
-Alexander Putin
Chinese girl
These are not evil nasty filthy people, like what is being portrayed in the Western “news”. They are just regular people. Like me. Like you. video 3MB
I love the kitty.
No, I am not going to make a joke about a pussy. That’s so “Low brow”.
British Ex-Army Contractor Goes to War in Ukraine, Experiences Helicopter Fire, Runs Scared Into the Woods…
…is tortured by the Ukrainians thinking he’s a Russian spy, is released, leaves for the UK immediately.
One of the first British fighters in Ukraine told yesterday of his ferocious battle with Russian troops at the Battle of Antonov.
Ex-Army medic Jason Haigh, 34, exchanged gunfire with the Red Army as it sought to seize an airport and was later beaten by guards in terrifying interrogations.
Jason, who served two tours of Iraq, told The Sun:
“The Ukrainians fought like lions and I’m proud I was alongside them. What Putin is doing is terrorism. He’s bombing kids and families for nothing. He’s a war criminal.”
He flew to Ukraine at the start of last month. He recalled:
“When I told my mates they were like, ‘What, are you mad?’. I’m a qualified combat medic and have done seven years working as a private military contractor. I wanted to go and do some good.”
He set up home in Kyiv and linked up with foreign fighters ahead of the invasion.
“The world just blew up. You could hear rockets coming over the buildings.
“In the distance there were bright lights flashing all over the city from the Russian bombardment. It was completely surreal.”
Jason dashed out of his city centre flat in full body armour and carrying an AK-47.
2022 03 20 12 46
His unit quickly joined a detachment of Ukrainian troops heading to defend Hostomel Airport.
Jason recalled:
“It was a very confusing situation. No one really knew what was going on.
“As we headed into the dark I think it’s fair to say I was scared.
“Anyone who goes into that position that isn’t scared is a liar.
“When we arrived it was very quiet. But all of a sudden the gates of hell opened up on us.”
A squadron of Russian jets fired down rockets before a fleet of attack choppers joined in.
Jason and ten soldiers from the Georgian Legion took cover in woodland. Jason, who served with the Mercian Regiment, added:
“We got very close to getting whacked. I’ve never experienced firepower like that, I don’t think anyone of this generation ever has.
“Iraq and Afghanistan was totally different. The Russians are a conventional modern army.”
Reinforcements then arrived with Stinger missiles to pick off the Russian choppers in a brave show of Ukrainian resistance.
However, Jason and an American pal were later arrested by Ukraine agents looking for Russian saboteurs. He said:
“My mate and I had a day sack with two walkie talkies and a small pistol.
“We had them for genuine reasons such as if the comms network went down but they got suspicious.”
They were taken to a security service base and interrogated for three hours. Jason said:
“My head was slammed down by one of the guards.
“A different guy came in and I could tell by his kit that he was in an elite unit. He had cable ties and two hoods and I thought ‘S***, this is real’.
“They kept shouting Russian at me but obviously I said I was English. They whacked me around eight or nine times. I had quite a bad concussion and was bleeding heavily.”
“They looked at my phone and my messages which was a really scary moment.
“I wasn’t scared of dying but I was scared about putting my family and friends through the pain of knowing I was in that situation.”
Eventually, they were released and Jason joined hundreds of thousands on trains to Lviv. He then fled to the Polish border before getting a train to Warsaw.
From there he flew to the UK and arrived home in Kidderminster last Friday. He said:
“I didn’t go there to die. I obviously thought about it but I had a job to do.”
The Battle of Antonov — also known as the Battle of Hostomel — was among the first major skirmishes of the war, with Russian attack helicopters and jets aiming to dampen early resistance.
Putin’s forces were successful but at huge cost — as Ukrainian forces downed several choppers. Jason said: “The Ukrainian people are heroes. They’re all great blokes who have the heart of lions and are defending their country.”
Operation Z, the Russian name for the invasion, and identified with the big “Z” marks on all Russian vehicles, is proceeding as planned.
All those videos (from the Western "news") that show buring "Russian tanks and trucks", but that DON'T have the "Z" on them, are not Russian vehicles. They are Ukranian vehicles destroyed by the Russians.
Only an idiot would believe Western / American "news" any longer.
The map is starting to flush out and look like this. You cannot clearly make out the borders of Ukraine, as they are faint gray. You need to squint. But it is clear that Russia has substantive (not absolute) military control of around 65% to 70% of the nation.
Ah. It’s a good time for Zelenskyy to broker a peace deal. It is too bad that his American handlers will not allow him; instead desiring a long-drawn-out war.
I find it interesting,the capture of the international Airport at Lviv. See the map below. Lviv is on the Polish border. Is this the start of full Russian capture of western Ukraine?
Russian controlled areas in the Ukraine.
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Chinese girl
These are not evil nasty filthy people, like what is being portrayed in the Western “news”. They are just regular people. Like me. Like you. video 3MB
Exports to Russia Blocked by U.S. and Its Allies
A typical Western anti-China article.
Yes. Nations that trade in USD, and that use sealanes to trade are under the influence of the United States and the West.
But…
Most of Asia use land transports; rail. And are thus immune to the sanctions backed up with the threat and enforcement of a naval blocade.
These are not evil nasty filthy people, like what is being portrayed in the Western “news”. They are just regular people. Like me. Like you. video 1MB
Turn on the sound to truly appreciate this video.
Weapons Transporters May Be Declared “Military Targets” by Russia
Russia’s Foreign Minister Lavrov threatens that all transporters that may bring weapons to Ukraine will be declared military targets.
Aircraft.
Ships.
Trains.
Trucks / Lorries.
The wording of this announcement leaves open the very real possibility that such modes of transport MAY be in other countries. So on its face, it appears that aircraft or ships bringing weapons into places like Poland, which **MAY** be carrying weapons for Ukraine, could be targeted.
Washington rushes to hide its ‘octopus’ NED funding in Ukraine
Many sections of the corporate media and a legion of propaganda agencies are openly and secretly funded by the US.
As Russia finally invaded Ukraine – on a rationale similar to that of the US invasion of Iraq, but with greater substance – Washington rushed to delete funding details of Ukraine groups through its Congress-funded ‘National Endowment for Democracy’ (NED).
As US Professor John Mearsheimer said, Washington created the crisis in Ukraine, hoping to surround and fragment Russia, using NATO expansion and its Neo-Nazi allies. Instead, it seems that Russia will dismantle Ukraine. In the meantime, the U.S. in decline uses financial assets and networks to subvert most of the world.
Despite the attempt to hide this sponsorship, an 80-page document showing US government NED funding for hundreds of Ukraine groups has been leaked. Now posted on several sites this document allows us a window into some of the internal U.S. influence since the CIA orchestrated Kiev coup of 2014. Many of the allocations have to do with anti-Russian propaganda, usually in the name of ‘transparency’, human rights, ‘independent journalism’, monitoring and so on.
For example, the list shows us that a Ukraine group ‘InformNapalm’, set up “to debunk myths and expose secrets of the Russian hybrid war” and which claims to be “a purely volunteer endeavor which does not have any financial support from any government or donor”, is actually US Government funded. The group publishes anti-Russian propaganda on its website in 31 languages.
Other sources show us that the U.S. Government funds Ukraine's Neo-Nazi linked Confederation of Free Trade Unions of Ukraine (the KVPU), through its NED funded partner the AFL-CIO’s ‘Solidarity Center’. There are few sectors which the NED has not penetrated.
In Ukraine, this has meant that, especially since 2014, the anti-Russian feeling already embedded in Ukraine nationalism and ultra-nationalism, has been inflamed, setting the country on a collision source with its Russian-speaking minority and with its big eastern neighbor. The NED has culturally reinforced NATO’s drive to war.
Blockbuster: ‘Drag Queen’ Zelensky found a billion dollars and a villa in Miami – Veterans Today | Military Foreign Affairs Policy Journal for Clandestine Services
Zelensky $35 million Florida mansion and $1.2 billion cash in offshore Costa Rican bank account. The American deep-state pays well. All you need to do is betray your oath of office, and sacrifice your countrymen.
China is buidling high speed trains throughout Africa. While America is still discussing how to finish the first attempt in California. Still a rail line to nowhere. Not so in Africa. video. 8.2MB
Nickel Surges 90% to Record With Threat of Shortages Mounting
The “rules-based international order” – as in “our way or the highway” – is unraveling much faster than anyone could have predicted.
By Pepe Escobar, posted with the author’s permission and widely cross-posted
The Eurasia Economic Union (EAEU) and China are starting to design a new monetary and financial system bypassing the U.S. dollar, supervised by Sergei Glazyev and intended to compete with the Bretton Woods system.
Saudi Arabia – perpetrator of bombing, famine and genocide in Yemen, weaponized by U.S., UK and EU – is advancing the coming of the petroyuan.
India – third largest importer of oil in the world – is about to sign a mega-contract to buy oil from Russia with a huge discount and using a ruble-rupee mechanism.
Riyadh’s oil exports amount to roughly $170 billion a year. China buys 17% of it, compared to 21% for Japan, 15% for the U.S., 12% for India and roughly 10% for the EU. The U.S. and its vassals – Japan, South Korea, EU – will remain within the petrodollar sphere. India, just like China, may not.
Sanction blowback is on the offense. Even a market/casino capitalism darling such as uber-nerd Credit Suisse strategist Zoltan Poznar, formerly with the NY Fed, IMF and Treasury Dept., has been forced to admit, in an analytical note: “If you think that the West can develop sanctions that will maximize the pain for Russia by minimizing the risks of financial stability and price stability for the West, then you can also trust unicorns.”
Unicorns are a trademark of the massive NATOstan psyops apparatus, lavishly illustrated by the staged, completely fake “summit” in Kiev between Comedian Ze and the Prime Ministers of Poland, Slovenia and the Czech Republic, thoroughly debunked by John Helmer and Polish sources.
Poznar, a realist, hinted in fact at the ritual burial of the financial chapter of the “rules-based international order” in place since the early Cold War years: “After the end of this war [in Ukraine], ‘money’ will never be the same.” Especially when the Hegemon demonstrates its “rules” by encroaching on other people’s money.
And that configures the central tenet of 21st century martial geopolitics as monetary/ideological. The world, especially the Global South, will have to decide whether “money” is represented by the virtual, turbo-charged casino privileged by the Americans or by real, tangible assets such as energy sources. A bipolar financial world – U.S. dollar vs. yuan – is at hand.
There’s no surefire evidence – yet. But the Kremlin may have certainly gamed that by using Russia’s foreign reserves as bait, likely to be frozen by sanctions, the end result could be the smashing of the petrodollar. After all the overwhelming majority of the Global South by now has fully understood that the backed-by-nothing U.S. dollar as “money” – according to Poznar – is absolutely untrustworthy.
If that’s the case, talk about a Putin ippon from hell.
It’s gold robbery time
As I outlined the emergence of the new paradigm, from the new monetary system to be designed by a cooperation between the EAEU and China to the advent of the petroyuan, a serious informed discussion erupted about a crucial part of the puzzle: the fate of the Russian gold reserves.
Doubts swirled around the Russian Central Bank’s arguably suicidal policy of keeping assets in foreign securities or in banks vulnerable to Western sanctions.
Of course there’s always the possibility Moscow calculated that nations holding Russian reserves – such as Germany and France – have assets in Russia that can be easily nationalized. And that the total debt of the state plus Russian companies even exceeds the amount of frozen reserves.
But what about the gold?
As of February 1, three weeks before the start of Operation Z, the Russian Central Bank held $630.2 billion in reserves. Almost half –
$311.2 billion – were placed in foreign securities, and a quarter – $151.9 billion – on deposits with foreign commercial and Central Banks. Not exactly a brilliant strategy. As of June last year, strategic partner China held 13.8% of Russia’s reserves, in gold and foreign currency.
As for the physical gold, $132.2 billion – 21% of total reserves – remains in vaults in Moscow (two-thirds) and St. Petersburg (one-third).
So no Russian gold has been frozen? Well, it’s complicated.
The key problem is that more than 75% of Russian Central Bank reserves are in foreign currency. Half of these are securities, like government bonds: they never leave the nation that issued them. Roughly 25% of the reserves are linked to foreign banks, mostly private, as well as the BIS and the IMF.
Once again it’s essential to remember Sergei Glazyev in his groundbreaking essay Sanctions and Sovereignty: “It is necessary to complete the de-dollarization of our foreign exchange reserves, replacing the dollar, euro and pound with gold. In the current conditions of the expected explosive growth in the price of gold, its mass export abroad is akin to treason and it is high time for the regulator to stop it.”
This is a powerful indictment of the Russian Central Bank – which was borrowing against gold and exporting it. For all practical purposes, the Central Bank could be accused of perpetrating an inside job. And subsequently they were caught flat-footed by the devastating American sanctions.
As a Moscow analyst puts it, the Central Bank “had delivered some volumes of gold to London in 2020-2021. This decision was motivated by a high price of gold at that time (near $2000 per ounce) and could hardly be initiated by Putin. If so, this decision can be qualified as very stupid, or even part of a diversionist tactic (…) Most of the gold delivered to London was not stored but sold and transferred into foreign currency reserves (in euro or pounds) which were frozen later.”
No wonder a lot of people in Russia are livid. A quick flashback is in order. In June last year, Putin signed a law canceling requirements for the repatriation of foreign exchange earnings from gold exports. Five months later, Russia’s gold miners were exporting like crazy. A month later, the Duma wanted to know why the Central Bank had stopped buying gold. No wonder Russia media erupted with accusations of “an unprecedented [gold] robbery”.
Now it’s way more dramatic: RIA Novosti described the American-dictated freeze as – what else – a “robbery” and duly predicted global economic chaos. As for the Central Bank, it’s back on the gold buying business.
None of the above though explains some “missing” gold that de facto is not under the possession of the Russian Central Bank. And that’s where a somewhat shady character such as Herman Gref comes in.
“This process has been going on for the past year. Exported, according to some estimates, 600 tons. [Head of Russian Central Bank] Nabiullina said – whoever wants to sell gold to get cash, or if you mine gold and trade it, keep in mind that the state, in my person, will not buy gold from you at a market price. We will take it at a big discount. If you want to get honest money for it, please export it. The world center of gold trading is London. Accordingly, everyone began to export and sell gold there. Including Mr. [Herman] Gref. The head of the formally state-owned Sberbank sold a huge part of his gold reserves.”
Look here for fascinating details about Sberbank’s Gref shenanigans.
Watch for the gold-backed ruble
It may be a case of too little too late, but at least the Kremlin has now established a committee – with authority over the Central Bank nerds – to handle the serious stuff.
It boggles the mind that the Russian Central Bank does not answer to the Russian constitution as well as to the judicial system, but in fact is subordinated to the IMF. A case can be made that this cartel-designed financial system – implying zero sovereignty – simply cannot be tackled head on by any nation on the planet, and Putin has been trying to undermine it step by step. That includes, of course, keeping Elvira Nabiullina on the job even as she duly follows the Washington consensus to the letter.
And that brings us back to the ultra high stakes possibility that the Kremlin may have wanted from the start to go no holds barred, forcing the Atlanticists to reveal their true hand, and exposing their system in a “The King is Naked” spectacular for a worldwide audience.
And that’s where the EAEU/China new monetary/financial system comes in, under Glazyev supervision. We can certainly envision Russia, China and vast swathes of Eurasia progressively divorcing from casino capitalism; the ruble reconverted to a gold-backed currency; and Russia focused on self-sufficiency, productive domestic investment and trade connectivity with most of the Global South.
Way beyond its confiscated foreign reserves and tons of gold sold in London, what matters is that Russia remains the ultimate natural resource powerhouse. Shortages? A little austerity for a little while will take care of it: nothing as dramatic as the national impoverishment under the neoliberal 1990s. And extra boost would come from exporting natural resources at premium discount prices to other BRICS and most of Eurasia and the Global South.
The collective West has just fabricated a new, tawdry East-West divide. Russia is turning it upside down, to its own profit: after all the multipolar world is rising in the East.
The Empire of Lies won’t back down, because it does not have a Plan B. Plan A is to “cancel” Russia across the – Western – spectrum. So what? Russophobia, racism, 24/7 psyops, propaganda overdrive, cancel culture online mobs, that don’t mean a thing.
Facts matter: the Bear has enough nuclear/hypersonic hardware to shatter NATO in a few minutes before breakfast and teach a lesson to the collective West before pre-dinner cocktails. There will come a time when some exceptionalist with a decent IQ will finally understand the meaning of “indivisibility of security”.
South African president blames NATO for Russia-Ukraine war – The Jerusalem Post
These are not evil nasty filthy people, like what is being portrayed in the Western “news”. They are just regular people. Like me. Like you. video 3MB
The Best Lasagna
It’s Spring in most of the world. That means that it’s too warm to make hot dishes, and too cold to make cold Summer dishes. But nothing quite fits the bill than a fine lasagna meal that you cook on a lazy weekend, because you don’t need to cut the grass, and you don’t need to shovel the sidewalks.
This is a great piece of inspiration. I hope that you all like it, and maybe you too will be as inspired as I am…
There’s something really great about layers of ground beef, pasta, delicious ricotta cheese mixture, a fine easy homemade marinara sauce, and more cheese in every hot and tasty bite.
There are a few classic Italian dishes that are popular with just about everyone in the ‘States. It’s a perfect sit-down dinner dish to share with family and friends. Or, just to scarf down while you are watching your favorite sitcom.
Comforting flavors of homemade tomato sauce, pasta, cheese, and beef makes every bite a delight. It’s a wonderful weekend dinner. And it’s a perfect thing to cook on the weekend as well.
This lasagna is amazing. It’s easy to make. Tastes great and really fills your belly deliciously.
Lasagna.
Lasagna Tips:
This is just the opening salvo in moving the global "balance of power" from a Uni-polar one to a Multi-polar one.The U$A has had it's way for decades, time for a change, and man o man, are they freaking out.
Noodles. When choosing pasta noodles, I recommend using oven-ready ones. It will be much easier and cut down on cooking steps and time.
No Cook or Instant Noodles can be used without pre-boiling (check the packet instructions first). You can assemble as normal. To ensure the pasta has enough liquid to cook through while the lasagna is baking, we normally add about 1/2 cup of water to our sauce when using INSTANT.
Pre Boil Or Pre Cook Pasta Sheets need to be boiled first before assembly. Follow the instructions on the packet. Add a couple of tablespoons of olive oil into the water to prevent the sheets from sticking together and stir them occasionally with a wooden spoon. Transfer each cooked lasagna sheet carefully into a large bowl or pot filled with cool water to help stop the cooking process. Leave them in there until ready to use. This helps prevent them from sticking together or drying out. You can do this while the meat sauce is gently simmering away so all elements are ready at the same time.
Layering. While layering pasta, have the sheets overlap by 1/2 to 1/4 inch. Remember, you can also break apart some pasta sheets in you need to cover small corners and gaps.
White Sauce. This is where things go from yeah, it’s okay TO oh-my-god-this-is-so-good! Some people just don’t use any ricotta cheese in their lasagna. Not because they don’t like ricotta, but because white sauce makes it so much more flavourful. You need only 4 ingredients to make this Béchamel happen:
Butter
Flour
Milk
Parmesan cheese. If you don’t like parmesan, replace it with Gruyere, Romano, Asiago, Manchego, or more Mozzarella.
Fat in the meat. Choose 85/15 meat to fat ratio of ground beef. It will result in a juicier and more tender beef layer. In the case of lasagna, the more fat the better. Let it cook long and hard. The fat will flavor the dish.
Sauce. When possible, make your own marinara sauce. It’s easy and it will make the world of difference in the taste. Marinara sauce can be made ahead of time or even frozen. Like all Italian – American dishes; make the components in batches and freeze for later use.
Oil the pan. Make sure to spray one side of aluminum foil with some spray cooking oil and cover the baking pan oiled side down. That will prevent cheese from sticking to the foil when you pull it off. I’ll tell you that it’s a real pain in the ass to scrub away cheese sticking to pans. You all don’t want that to happen.
These are not evil nasty filthy people, like what is being portrayed in the Western “news”. They are just regular people. Like me. Like you. video 2MB
Can I freeze lasagna?
Yes, lasagna can absolutely be frozen and here is how to freeze lasagna.
If you are planning on freezing your lasagna, use an aluminum baking pan to prepare it. Use one 9×13 baking pan or two half the size.
Cook your ingredients and put it together in the pan right up until the baking step. Instead of baking it, freeze it.
Make sure to wrap the container as tightly as possible.
Properly stored, lasagna can last up to 6 months in the freezer.
To thaw lasagna, pull it from the freezer into the refrigerator and slow-thaw it there for 10-12 hours.
Lasagna.
Bake as directed in the recipe but increase baking time under foil by 15-20 minutes since the lasagna will be cold going into the oven.
Ingredients
4 1/2cupsmarinara sauce(homemade or store-bought) divided
8-10ozoven ready lasagna sheets
1 1/2cupsshredded Italian cheese mixtopping
1/2tspdry oreganotopping
Lots and lots of mozzarella cheese.
Beef layer:
2tbspolive oil
1yellow oniondiced
1 1/2lbsground beef(85/15 or 90/10 meat to fat ratio)
1/2tspdry oregano
1/3cupfreshly grated Parmesan cheese
salt
fresh cracked black pepper
1 1/2 cupsshredded Italian cheese mix
Ricotta layer:
20ozwhole milk ricotta
1cupshredded Italian cheese mix
1/2cupfreshly grated Parmesan cheese
1tbspminced fresh Italian parsley(or regular parsley)
2tbspminced fresh basil
1tspdry oregano
1egg
salt
Instructions
Preheat oven to 350 and grease 9×13 casserole dish.
Beef:
Preheat a medium cooking pan over medium heat.
Add oil and saute diced onion until transparent.
Add ground beef and cook, breaking up all the lumps, until just done. Season with salt, pepper, and oregano.
Once the meat is just done. Mix in 1 1/2 cups of marinara sauce and 1/3 cup grated Parmesan cheese. Set aside.
Ricotta:
Combine all ingredients for the ricotta layer in a mixing bowl and mix very well. Set aside.
Lasagna:
Spread 1 cup of marinara sauce over the bottom of the casserole dish. Make sure it’s spread evenly.
Layer lasagna noodles in one even layer. I like to overlap the pasta sheets just a little bit, 1/2 to 1/4 inch or so.
Spread beef mixture over the pasta sheets evenly. Spread 1 1/2 cups of shredded Italian cheese mix.
Layer lasagna noodles in one even layer. Again, you can overlap the pasta sheets just a little bit, 1/2 to 1/4 inch or so.
Spread 1 cup of marinara sauce over pasta sheets evenly.
Spread ricotta mixture evenly. Drop spoonfuls of ricotta mixture all over and use your hands to spread it in one even layer. (Of course, make sure your hands are clean.)
Layer lasagna noodles in one even layer. Overlap the pasta sheets just a little bit, 1/2 to 1/4 inch or so.
Spread 1 cup of marinara sauce over pasta sheets, evenly.
Spread 1 1/2 cups of shredded Italian cheese mix over the sauce evenly.
Sprinkle some oregano over the top.
Spray one side of aluminum foil sheet with cooking spray and cover the casserole dish with foil, oiled side down.
Bake covered for about 35 minutes.
Take off the foil and bake for another 10 minutes with it completely layered in mozzarella cheese.
Chinese girl
These are not evil nasty filthy people, like what is being portrayed in the Western “news”. They are just regular people. Like me. Like you. video 2MB
US F-35 and Chinese J-20 fighter jets had a close encounter over East China Sea: US general
These are not evil nasty filthy people, like what is being portrayed in the Western “news”. They are just regular people. Like me. Like you. video 3MB
Medvedev: Russia Has The Might To Put You In Your Place
Russia warned the United States on Thursday that Moscow had the might to put the world’s pre-eminent superpower in its place and accused the West of stoking a wild Russophobic plot to tear Russia apart.
Dmitry Medvedev, who served as president from 2008 to 2012 and is now deputy secretary of Russia’s Security Council, said the United States had stoked “disgusting” Russophobia in an attempt to force Russia to its knees.
“It will not work – Russia has the might to put all of our brash enemies in their place,” Medvedev said.
Since Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24, the United States and its European and Asian allies have slapped sanctions on Russian leaders, companies and businessmen, cutting off Russia from much of the world economy.
President Vladimir Putin says that what he calls the special military operation in Ukraine was necessary because the United States was using Ukraine to threaten Russia and Russia had to defend against the “genocide” of Russian-speaking people by Ukraine.
Translation:YEREVAN, March 14 – Sputnik. The member states of the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) and China will develop a project for an independent international monetary and financial system. This was agreed upon by the participants in the economic dialogue “A New Stage of Monetary, Financial and Economic Cooperation between the EAEU and the PRC. Global Transformations: Challenges and Solutions”, which was held on March 11 via videoconference. It is envisaged that the system will be based on a new international currency, which will be calculated as an index of the national currencies of the participating countries and commodity prices. The first draft will be submitted for discussion by the end of March. As Sergei Glazyev, Minister for Integration and Macroeconomics of the EEC, emphasized, China was the first in the world to move to the stage of national economic recovery.
The background here is bigger. This was noted by Godfree Roberts:
In two weeks, China, Russia, Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan will reveal a new, independent, international monetary and financial system.
It will be based on a new international currency, calculated from an index of national currencies of the participating countries and international commodity prices. [Mar. 14, 2022, Sputnik News].
Russia and China will also reveal their Unfriendly Nation Lists.
Reliable links are still hard to come by in general.
Tucker: The standard of living is plummeting
The buildup for civil collapse inside the United States is building. Prices are changing every three days. Americans are unhappy. Major changes in American lifestyle are happening switftly and the American government is oblivious. Their solution is to take the bus. Fine. If there were busses. Most of America is not serviced by bus lines.
This is hyper-inflation. This is what brings down nations.
Now, to be sure, inflation is a global issue, but it is ONLY the nations that rely on the USD that are building up towards an explosion. Only those nations. This includes all of the West, with America being the worst affected.
The pther nations in the world aren’t doing so bad.
Sure there’s inflation. But other nations monitor and controls the use of the USD in their global inports.There are strict laws and controls in bringing in and using the USD. Thus the rest of the world can control the adverse influences of the USD to their nations.
So hyper-inflation?
Not so in China. Not so in Russia. Not so in India.
Only in the West. And it is outrageous. It’s an excellent video. A great video. Check it out.
2022 03 19 10 04
US Army veteran fighting in Ukraine says he went AWOL because it was a ‘trap’
...28-year-old Henry Hoeft, who served in the US Army Infantry before becoming a steelworker in Ohio, left earlier this month to fight in Ukraine.
...Hoeft described the situation for foreign volunteers, who are effectively used as poorly-equipped cannon fodder in order to draw Russians into ambushes carried out by Ukrainian forces.
...In addition, Russia does not consider the foreign volunteers to be lawful combatants, instead classifying them as “mercenaries.”
...Hoeft went on to discuss how his base was “f**ed up” by a Russian attack and that members of his unit were told to “get the f**k out” after they refused an order to defend Kiev with partially-filled magazines and inferior equipment.
...“Foreign mercenaries who were wounded in the #Volnovakha hospital were shot by their own before leaving the city so that they could not tell anything.
..."All shot in the temple or the back of the head.
...According to The Intelligencer, many of the foreign volunteers are American, Canadian, and British.
Burger King in Russia will stay open
Burger King is trying to suspend its operations in Russia, but that’s proving difficult. A business partner controlling 800 restaurants has “refused” to close them, the company said.
The burger chain, owned by Restaurant Brands International (RBI), has a joint venture partnership with businessman Alexander Kolobov in Russia.
RBI controls just 15 per cent of its Russian Burger King business, and Kolobov is responsible for the "day-to-day operations and oversight" of its locations in the country.
This video is concerning. Six nukes were tracked and seen moving on open highways in Glasgow last night by people who seem to be in the intelligence loop and have been tracking them for while.
He’s pretty good. He’s my go-to guy on the Russian point of view, and offer great military insight and sitrep on the Ukraine invasion. This particular video covers the Russian-China alliance, and a hard look at the United States “end game”.
The United States has NO idea what they are dealing with. It’s a great video that underlines what I have been saying for years.
2022 03 19 08 16
Africa
Most members of the South African parliament, when asked to support NATO agaist Russia, responded by saying that they have never forgiven NATO for the bombing of Libya and killing President Ghadafi.
They also pointed out that during Africa’s independence liberation struggle to get rid of NATO colonisers, it was the USSR (Russia) that gave African freedom fighters, unwavering support.
Samora Macheal led a Russian supported revolt against the Portuguese in Mozambique, Robert Mugabe and Joshua Nkomo, led the Zimbabwe liberation war against the British supported by Russia, Sam Nujoma in Namibia fought against the British, Germans and USA supported by Russia and Cuba, Edwardos Do Santos fought a brutal war against Portugal supported by Russia and Cuba, Patrice Lumumba against, America, Beligian and the French supported by Russia and so did Kwame Nkuruma, Thomas Sankara, and many other examples.
Africa cannot forsake Russia what so ever.
I must point out that RT News which is broadcast by some government channels in Africa does not give a detailed coverage of Russia’s Special Operation. It gives scanty stories and does not counter western media propaganda.
There is a massive support for Russia in Africa.
African leaders are scrapping around to find positive news about Russia’s progress. How can Russia not have its own communication satelite to carry its own television channels around the world?
History Lesson
History teaches that when you obliterate an enemy, they become your best friend.
The US firebombed and nuked the Japs, and they are the most enthusiastic ass-kissers of the US.
The Russians flattened Grozny, and the Chechens are their best buddies.
Just herd all the wannabe-Polak Russia-hating Ukrainians into Lvov, and the survivors–if any–will be fighting for Russia forever.
Weapons system surprises
The war has been a test of weapons systems, with some unexpected outcomes, Notably the deadly effectiveness of Swedish-designed anti-tank missiles.
NLAWs
“Ukraine Is Wrecking Russian Tanks With a Gift From Britain…“The green tubes are called NLAWs, for Next Generation Light Anti-Tank Weapons. They are the result of decades of weapons research dedicated to building small lightweight guided missiles that may have evened the balance of power in combat between the fearsome tank and the soldier.“Compared to the American-made Javelin antitank weapon, which has been hailed by officials at the Pentagon and the White House and sent to Ukraine by the thousands, the NLAW weighs about half as much, costs far less, can be easily discarded, and is optimized for use in the relatively short-range fights Ukrainian soldiers are getting into with the invading Russian forces.“The NLAW is a product of the Swedish company Saab and has been sold to a number of NATO countries — including Britain, which assembles the missiles at a factory in Belfast, Northern Ireland, for the British Army. And although the British Army also has the Javelin, it began purchasing NLAWs about 10 years ago and has been sending them to Ukraine in ever greater numbers.”
-Ukraine Is Wrecking Russian Tanks With a Gift From Britain
Boris returns from Saudi mission without pledge to boost oil supplies | Daily Mail Online
Boris Johnson visited Abu Dhabi and Saudi Arabia urging states to boost oil supplies to bring down prices.
The Gulf states will not increase their production to help the West.
The PM insisted he raised the issue of "human rights abuses" during talks with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
Bulgaria said No. And citizens rallied…NATO Out” [with Videos]
US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin traveled to Bulgaria on Saturday, where he met with Prime Minister Kiril Petkov to discuss the Ukrainian crisis and apparently asked Sofia to provide military aid to Kiev. The Bulgarian PM said no.
Bulgarian citizens rallied on Saturday against giving its “few remaining weapons” to Ukraine and demanded the withdrawal of NATO from the country.
Demonstrators gathered in front of the Bulgarian Ministry of Defense, where Austin and Petkov met for a joint press conference, waving Bulgarian and Russian flags. They were heard chanting, “NATO Out.”
Similar protests took place in Rome and Piza, Italy, where activists of a major Italian trade union, USB, opposed sending weapons to Ukraine and called on the government to ditch NATO.[.]
$400 million worth of Western supplied weaponry destroyed in a single russian strike on the military base near Lvov — radio intercepted comms suggest that 267 foreign mercenaries have been killed in the strike.
50 year old Peter from Austria who fought alongside the “international legion of Ukraine” said that 800 to 1000 foreign mercenaries were present during the strike.
Around 400 mercenaries were evacuated to Poland, many of whom have suffered severe burns & torn limbs from the Kalibr strike.
There’s a high number of missing individuals still under the rubble which includes a high number of Americans, Poles and Romanians. Former NATO officers are Amongst the dead.
Question– Is there a justification for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine?
Answer– Yes, there is. Russia was being threatened by developments in Ukraine, so it told Ukraine to either stop what it was doing or suffer the consequences. Ukraine chose to ignore those warnings, so Russia invaded. That is basically what happened.
Chinese reaction to Russia
Chinese netizens have bought basically everthing (chocolate candies, vodka, Russian sausages and bread, etc.) out from the Russia’s official online shop on one of China’s biggest e-coomerce platforms.
The Russian manager of the online shop has to tell the enthusiastic Chinese customers to “shop rationally”.
Interesting chat.
“Most people don’t know this. The SWIFT system when it was created was a way for you to settle things – an international protocol, secure bank to bank how you send money, AND IT WAS PROMISED AT THAT TIME, THE US SAID: “WE WILL NEVER USE THIS FOR POLITICAL PURPOSES”.
“The old world order is trembling as the Russians march across the Ukrainian border. Is Putin just another time bomb that has lost his mind, or it’s because NATO pushed the Russians too hard?
Thousands of miles away from the battlefield, some cast their sights on China, pressuring it [to contain] its neighbor in the north. Dr Charles Liu [talks to] his friend, Einar Tangen. They might have spoken softly, but the points they carry [should] never [be missed].”
They cover, inter-alia:
◉ the NATO eastward expansion despite earlier guarantees given to the contrary by Howard Baker (then Secretary of State of the US);
◉ Putin speaking in 1991 in the German language in Berlin, addressing everybody and saying Russia wants to be part of Europe, and then 6 years later in 1997, he gets up at the Munich Security Conference saying: “You’ve cheated us, you’ve humiliated us, you expanded;
◉ how Western press is parroting that “China is providing support for Russia” by buying Russian gas and oil but ignores how Germany and Europe buy it;
◉ how the US / EU has held back a big block of conditions vis-à-vis the sanctions on Russia because they need to buy the oil and gas of Russia; sanctions on 12 out of 230 banks in Russia;
◉ the Ukraine situation before the war, where in the 1990’s and in a span of less than 7 years, the country lost 60% of their GDP, corruption was rife; the hypocrisy in the democratic practices where there was interference in the election of the new government in Ukraine;
◉ how “THE US IS LAYING THE GROUNDWORK FOR THE NEXT ROUND, AND THE NEXT ROUND IS GOING TO BE FOCUSED ON CHINA, beating up Russia is one thing but if Russia is weakened through this conflict, the next target is of course China”
◉ China’s support for Russia stems from China’s need for energy; Russia is part of the Eurasian landmass in line with the Belt & Road Initiative and the Eurasian growth objectives; the strategic assessment of China that Putin is unlikely to bow down to America.
◉ The efforts by the US to stymy the growth of the semiconductor industry in China, how the US accuses the Chinese of being autocratic but yet it is the US that holds on to “might is right” including invading countries, etc.. – “all a matter of big your fist is”.
“I do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.”
And when the issue arose as to whether he, as president and commander in chief, would transfer MiG-29s to Ukrainians fighting Russians for their independence and freedom, Joe Biden said no.
“The idea that we’re going to send in offensive equipment and have planes and tanks and trains going in with American pilots and American crews — just understand, don’t kid yourself, no matter what y’all say, that’s called World War III,” Biden told House Democrats in Philadelphia.
Biden was saying that, no matter how noble the cause or how just the war Ukrainians are fighting, his first duty is to America. And as president of the United States, he will put U.S. national interests first and not risk a war with the largest nuclear power on earth.
Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich’s reaction:
Biden runs “the most timid, cowardly and pathetic administration in modern American history.”If our “enormous capacity” and “very competent people … were unleashed,” said Gingrich, “we would…end up defeating Putin, and he would end up being ousted from power by his own government. But instead, we are intimidated by him. We allow him to get away with war crimes.”
In this Ukraine war, Gingrich is the interventionist, and Biden is putting his own country, America, first. On this one, put me down with Joe.
GOP Sen. Marco Rubio has also spoken out for America First:
A no-fly zone “means flying AWACS (Airborne Warning and Control Systems) 24 hours a day.
That means the willingness to shoot down and engage Russian airplanes in the sky.
That means, frankly, you can’t put those planes up there unless they’re willing to knock out the anti-aircraft systems that the Russians have deployed, and not just in Ukraine, but in Russia and also in Belarus.“So basically a no-fly zone … means World War III.
It means starting World War III.
It’s not some rule you pass that everybody has to oblige by.
It’s the willingness to shoot down the aircrafts of the Russian Federation, which is basically the beginning of World War III.”
While the threat to the independence and territorial integrity of Ukraine may be an existential one for that nation, it is no such peril to our nation.
35 percent of Americans support nuclear war with Russia…
Amid crime concerns, wealthy homeowners seek to install panic rooms, with some steel-encased versions running up to $1 million to build while one Malibu project included a secret tunnel out to the beach. From HERE.
Our influx of inquiries has increased more than 1,000 percent over the past three months,” says Dean Cryer, vp international operations at Building Consensus/Panic Room Builders, a firm specializing in the building of safe rooms. “It’s gone insane.”
2022 03 21 10 19
Because of the perceived increase in crime in metropolitan areas and high-profile murders and robberies in high-net-worth neighborhoods like Beverly Hills, “hidden rooms are definitely trending right now,” says Cryer.
In the L.A. area, some houses selling for as low as $4 million or $5 million are being kitted out, particularly spec homes. “I think they are not something that, in an immediate sense, increases value,” says Douglas Elliman real estate agent Greg Holcomb. “But when a buyer is interested in the house anyway, I think it does help [boost interest].”
Real estate agents, though, can never tell casual buyers or appraisers the exact location of a safe room. Often, they can’t mention its existence at all until the property is under contract. “You never know who’s potentially casing a house. The last thing you want to do is show them, ‘Here’s the panic room, and here’s how you access it,’ ” says Jon Grauman of The Agency.
2022 03 21 10 29 6
Holcomb likewise has had to keep mum. “We once had a property and an appraiser come and was measuring the home, and they could not figure out why there was this kind of dead space,” he says. “And we weren’t allowed to tell them what it was. They just had to assume it was dead space, when in fact behind a secret panel was a safe room.”
Secret lifting staircase. Right out of the television show “The Addams Family”…
2022 03 21 10 25
In business for 25 years, Building Consensus/Panic Room (which consulted on the 2002 movie Panic Room) builds various safe spaces ranging in security levels from one through eight. Safe rooms at level three may be protected with Kevlar, while a level eight is encased in thick steel.
2022 03 21 10 28 5
“Just the doors can be 2,000 to 3,000 pounds,” says Cryer. “And then we’re installing steel within the room. So, we’re generating up to 10,000 pounds in a room.”
2022 03 21 10 20
Prices range greatly. “You could kit out a small closet for about $100,000, $150,000. And then it’s north of there. We’ve done one in London that had two rooms, full suites … and that was over a million dollars,” says Cryer, who says the company’s client base consists mostly of billionaires.
2022 03 21 10 28 4
Most rooms are opened with biometrics, usually a finger or retina scan secreted behind a bookcase or hidden wall, and come equipped with panic buttons that automatically call security services.
large Covert Interiors IMG 02012
Cryer says the firm collaborates with security guards and former officials in law enforcement to constantly improve impregnability.
2022 03 21 10 21
There also is an emphasis on comfort. “It’s gone from a steel, cold room where it’s a bunch of cameras,” Cryer says. “Now it’s more of a serene feeling.
Safe room.
We say it’s an everyday use room, which when needed can be turned into a safe haven. So, you wouldn’t know what room in the house was the safe room. You wouldn’t have a clue.”
2022 03 21 10 24
Some safe rooms are designed with all the benefits of an upscale den. “We’ve seen some of them be fitted with a bathroom, some with outlets for cable TV [and] surround sound,” says The Agency’s Emil Hartoonian.
Safe tent for a bioweapon attack.
Some also are used as storage rooms for valuables, and the fanciest safe rooms have toilets and HVAC systems separate from the rest of the house.
2022 03 21 10 28 3
“Within the room itself, you could be in there for up to 24 hours. I mean, it depends where you are in the world. And in most of L.A., you could be waiting a couple of hours before the police get to you,” Cryer says.
2022 03 21 10 22
Some panic room owners are not waiting on the police to arrive, instead taking matters into their own hands. Hartoonian recalls one house he saw in Hidden Hills. “I think there was more artillery in there than probably one of the bunkers of the U.S. Army,” he says. “There were packs of food that wouldn’t go bad for two years.
2022 03 21 10 50
Television, microwave, small bathroom … I mean, it was like a little self-sufficient, almost studio apartment, if you will. Ready to take on the zombie apocalypse.”
2022 03 21 10 27 2
Other buyers are not just interested in staying safe within their homes — they are intent on being able to get out. “We’ve even done bunkers and tunnels. We’ve done a project out in Malibu.
1213981 022216 panicrooms
They wanted a secret tunnel out to the beach. So they could escape, like a secret bunker,” Cryer says.
2022 03 21 10 23
Currently on the market in Pacific Palisades is a six-bedroom, 9,100-square-foot home, listed for $6.995 million with Farah Levi of The Agency, with a safe room that was converted into a screening room. The safe room was installed by a previous owner who was a legal arms dealer.
2022 03 21 10 27
Says Levi, “Our current sellers are the ones who converted the safe room into the theater. My client is in the entertainment business and wanted a great theater in their home, and they felt this was the perfect solution. They spent approximately $150,000 on the theater conversion.”
A safe room from Gaffco
The room has 3-inch-thick steel doors that can close automatically. That feature is still possible should it be necessary at some point. The Retina scan is still operational and can be used to close and open doors; it is no longer registered with the FBI.”
2022 03 21 10 2d3
No one sees the trend in luxe safe rooms ending anytime soon, as security concerns increase and the focus on amenities becomes more important. As Grauman notes, particularly in spec development, the “name of the game is differentiation,” he says. “Panic rooms are just going to be one of those amenities that gets tacked on to every list of, ‘OK, every new home moving forward above x price point must have this.’ “
…
Hum.
Very interesting points of view from both the buyers, and the salespeople. No one is looking at the real SHTF, or REAL crime. You won’t be a waiting some 12 hours for the police to arrive, so much as hoping that your home isn’t burned to the ground, or that a squad of Hell Angels bikers don’t take it over.
Chinese working together
Firemen ask for help. Everyone leaves their homes and goes forth to contribute. Rufus. There is nothing like this is America. video 3MB
Shaken Foreign Volunteers Flee Ukraine After Base Hit by Russian Cruise Missiles — Ex-Marine Reports
“Bro I had fucking thirteen cruise missiles drop on me this morning. We were at the mercy of Russian warplanes.”
“Bro I had fucking thirteen cruise missiles drop on me this morning. We were at the mercy of Russian warplanes.”
“Those of us who left are simply risk-mitigating. No one wants to die in an unfair fight.”
“You quickly realize the preciousness and desire of life compared to the.” meaninglessness of being hit by a a fucking Russian missile.”
“I was laying on the ground this morning praying to a god I don’t believe in that the next one didn’t have my name on it.”
“Being absolutely defenseless and in the open with three aircraft just shitting all over you with such heavy ordinance was a whole new level of helplessness.”
The Ukrainian training center near Lviv where NATO instructors used to train Ukrainian troops is now where Ukrainians are training foreign volunteers (for up to 14 days) before they are sent into battle.
Yesterday the Russians struck the base with cruise missiles. About 35 people were killed. According to an American volunteer and ex-Marine who was there this caused another 60 foreigners to leave immediately.
The witness, who himself fled Ukraine after the strike, reports:
This is where all the foreign legion troops are, the 35 killed were all Ukrainian mostly due to a direct hit on their barracks next to mine.
The base is destroyed, the weapons depot destroyed, possibly the end of the legion. About 60 people with their heads on straight including myself left after the attack. They’re sending untrained guys to the front with little ammo and shit AKs and they’re getting killed. The guys who stayed got bombed again in the afternoon and casualties aren’t clear.If you still want to to join them I’m not sure what the process will be since literally all the infrastructure supporting the training/assignments of volunteers is all destroyed.The guys who are there now will all be going to Kyiv and many will die, the legion is totally outgunned and has a few crazy Ukrainian leaders. After the attack one officer wanted to march everyone to Kyiv and fight. Absolute insanity. Stay home.
He had this to say about the missile strike he experienced. The first in his life despite having served in 2 other wars:
Bro I had fucking thirteen cruise missiles drop on me this morning I am not fucking around. I saw them pulling bodies from the wreckage, I was blown on my ass, I can tell you that the air raid siren did not go off meaning the legion has little to no radar support and absolutely no AA capability. We were at the mercy of Russian warplanes.
Go ahead and join the legion, by all means, but be very aware of how bad Kyiv is going to get and be aware that Russians have warplanes and you will have next to nothing.
Be very acceptant of the possibility of death.
Those of us who left, including SF operators from multiple countries, are simply risk-mitigating. No one wants to die in an unfair fight, and after getting absolutely fucking pummeled by massive cruise missiles today – yeah I kind of want people to think twice before turning their life upside down to go and volunteer.
I’m fucking elated to be alive, we all are. I just wanted to give people a legitimate warning about the what to expect but some people just want to believe things are jacked up.
Morale was pretty good until today. No one thought the base would get bombed due to its proximity to Poland, but after not having any warning of inbound missiles (there’s alarm systems all around the base for that), no effort of anti-aircraft measures, and then no issuing of weapons when the base was potentially under threat for an attack a lot of people were really just left feeling like no one stands a fucking chance, especially when things get real bad in Kyiv.
I spent an hour and a half laying in the mud with my head down expecting a second attack.
Some sirens from another part of base went off at 3:30 am for a short period. But the attack occurred at just about 545 with no warning, and they were in fighter jets so it should have been picked up.
Yeah, it was mostly to kill volunteers or “mercenaries” in Russian media, and to blow up the ammo depot with donated weapons. It was a probe though for sure because they came back in the afternoon and basically finished the job. That’s part of why I left, the base was clearly compromised.
We are all shaken honestly, those fucking missiles were not expected by anyone. And essentially, it’s just a really, really tough fight with little to no truthfulness from either side. It’s so hard to tell what will come of all this and there’s only really room for speculation. I caught a glimpse of the reality and still don’t feel like I understand anything.
This is not my video, nor do I know the volunteer who took it. But it’s the only video I know that exists of the attack, since it was at 545 am and most people ran outside barely wearing clothes. But it does show the absolute terror and force of warplane munitions. Luckily this guy was a good distance away, many people including myself were in close proximity to these blasts. I just want people to know what they’re facing.
I’ll admit I was a little naive myself even having seen some combat previously. I did not expect to be attacked by jets while sleeping in a barracks room on a training base 10 miles from Poland
Luckily they didn’t hit at 7 because we would have been at chow and the chow hall took a direct hit.
I am in Poland! With many other volunteers. I’m man enough to walk away from a situation when my gut tells me so. A lot of us are likely going to assist refugees at the border, because most of us really did come here to help.
Yes morale is pretty bad I mean the whole damn base was destroyed and now the legion is just kind of shoving guys with little training to the front.
Like a lot of dudes there have experience and really wanted to shape the battlefield and impact their advance, but ultimately they’re manning frontline positions that are going to get hammered with artillery and airstrikes, buried under rubble and your family never gets your body. That’s when alot of guys say yeah this isn’t our fight, not like this.
I realized that when I was laying on the ground this morning praying to a god I don’t believe in that the next one didn’t have my name on it. You quickly realize the preciousness and desire of life compared to the meaninglessness of being hit by a a fucking Russian missile
Yeah man I had been mortared before and thought that was pretty gnarly because it’s out of your control ya know, but being absolutely defenseless and in the open with three aircraft just shitting all over you with such heavy ordinance was a whole new level of helplessness.
This is my third war anyways, I think I learned I don’t have that young mentality of being so willing to sacrifice myself. I’ve definitely grown from the experience.
The general consensus was that they wouldn’t drop bombs so close to Poland – I guess we underestimated Putins aggressiveness and willingness to poke the bear.
Also, who really expects a jet to attack them?
That’s part of being naive, of course I knew it was a possibility I was just really fucking hoping it wouldn’t happen to me.
I can say that some dudes were definitely gaslight. I went to be a medic wherever needed and decided to check out if I could contribute to the legion. Got my shit pushed in and decided it wasn’t worth it, not where I can contribute so I left. I feel bad for the fellas whose pride is keeping them there.
The Ukrainian officers would really downplay the possibility of a bombing and I guess I just wanted to believe them,
Haha yeah dude GWOT (Global War On Terror) was definitely it’s own simpler animal than full-scale warfare, no way to get the experience of this shit in Iraq or Afghan!
Like yeaaaap I’ve got a family now maybe I shouldn’t be dodging bombs anymore.
Lesson learned!
After the bombing we spent a couple hours hiding in the woods because of that. They’re stepping things up for sure!
The volunteers talk man. Everyone knows what’s going on, what’s fucked, who’s dying.
Dudes come back from the front for rest and such and tell everyone.No, the legion does not share casualties for shit, they leave the dead at the front and do not make news of it.Nobody I have met were really running headfirst into it, except maybe guys with no experience. The legion was actually amazingly well-put together in some ways, uniforms were great, armor provided, good food.
This made a lot of experienced people expect a legitimate military operation out of the unit, but it’s not like that at all. The actual frontlines operational side is just sloppy and dangerous.Left the legion.
Some are staying to help refugees – some going home.
But it is clear that going to Kyiv with the legion is nearly a fucking death sentence.
A medic died the day after he got to the front, another guy tried shooting an AK at an APC and was killed immediately, a 10 man team was nearly wiped out – 8 killed and 2 crawled away. Your body will not be retrieved from the frontlines either.That was what a lot of people were saying, that they were pushing the legion up to Kyiv as cannon fodder. And how can you argue that when guys are given no training, and AK with no butt stock, and one magazine?
When guys were asking for more ammo a Ukrainian officer said “take it off dead russians”A lot of the guys who left have combat experience because we know better.
The ones who stayed are either completely fucking crazy or are stubborn and don’t want to feel like they wasted their time and money.The cannon fodder term is what was coming out of a lot of volunteers mouths that’s why I mentioned it.
There was a real shift in peoples expectations of being utilized as a unit with operational capabilities vs. the reality of basically being bodies in front of the advancing Russians.The training was apparently 2 weeks, then 10 days and now I think they’re just sending everyone to the front since the base is demolished.
However, when they were training it was dry fire drills, classroom work and obviously some training on whatever specialty they give you.As long as you’re not a complete idiot (one guy showed up drunk and got the boot) yes you can come from 10 years in prison and join.
They don’t take that too serious, and yes there is a contract but it’s meaningless and you can leave at anytime even though it says your contracted to stay for the duration of the conflictThey make you sign a contract that states you’ll serve until the end of the conflict, but if you want to leave an hour later they totally respect that.
The Redditor reporting this is legit. He has a long posting history before this, including about coming over before he did so.
Aftermath footage from the missile attack on barracks of some of the volunteers. Looks like some Redditors got made into chutney pic.twitter.com/DK4EvZCmVP— EnochPowell (@MogTheUrbanite) March 14, 2022
.
This is the Foreign Legion training and accommodation area at the Yavoriv International Center for Peacekeeping and Security just 25 kms/15.53 mph from Polish (NATO) border, that the Russians bombed this morning. #Ukraine#україни#ForeignLegionpic.twitter.com/nrsmX5k5vR— Flaco (@deltoro_flaco) March 13, 2022
For what it's worth . . .
1.) ALL pennies 1982 or older (obviously wheat, and Indian Head pennies have a greater numismatic value), but an average 1982 or older are 95% copper and 5% zinc. TRASH anything after '82 because it's close to the opposite amalgamation (copper coated zinc).
Those '82 pennies are worth $.0307 EACH! Imagine a penny being worth 3 cents! SAVE 'EM FOLKS!
2.) ALL Nickels 2014 and older, because of the increase in the price of nickel recently are worth almost TWICE their face value.
$1.00 of these are currently worth $1.73!
I find it funny that MOST stores currently have a "change shortage".
I think the government is culling as many of these coins as possible, artificially creating this "shortage" while they replace the valuable coins with worthless pieces of SHIT.
NOTE: There are only 2 US coins that are not allowed to be melted down. 1 is the penny, the other is the nickel. (I smell a rat here.)
The ONLY saving grace is you're allowed to melt them down for scientific purposes or demonstrations.
I will personally be SCIENCING the SHIT out of my neighborhood!
Hope this helps if even a bit.
Reference: www.coinflation.com (base metal melt value calculation)
China Tells US They Don’t Care About the Ukraine, Don’t Want to be Badgered with Moral Lectures
Andrew Anglin • March 18, 2022 (Edited to remove racial text.)
Dear Elitists: China is not Andrew Anglin, and they’re not Alex Jones.
You can’t just declare a media war against them, organize a social media moral panic against them, and have them silenced.
Sorry!
It doesn’t work that way.
Attempting to implement domestic moral shaming techniques against the Chinese government actually just makes you look pathetic and weird. I mean, the Distinguished Mr. Jones and myself both believe your moral crusades against us were pathetic and weird, but hey – they worked. You had the ability to unilaterally sanction Anglin and Jones.
But unlike Anglin and Jones, China is a global superpower. You’re going to have to do more than launch a moral shaming campaign in the media.
After weeks of badgering, China just told the US government that they don’t care about the Ukraine, and that US officials are welcome to cry about it.
Beijing maintains an “independent” stance on the Ukraine crisis, a spokesperson for China’s foreign ministry, Zhao Lijian, said during a press conference on Friday. The remark came in response to threats made by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who warned China on Thursday that Washington would “impose costs” on it should Beijing choose to support Moscow.Lijian stated that “on the Ukraine issue, China has always acted objectively and impartially and made independent judgments based on the merits of the matter itself.”
Most Chinese statement ever?
The Chinese diplomat also stressed that pressure from Washington would not make Beijing change its stance. He added that some US officials were still trying to spread disinformation regarding China’s position – something Lijian described as irresponsible and not conducive to the resolution of the crisis.In China’s view, the US ought to “seriously reflect on its role in the Ukraine crisis,” as well as “earnestly assume its due responsibilities.” Lijian also called on Washington to “take practical actions to ease the situation and solve the problem, rather than continue to add fuel to the fire.”
Yeah.
Why did you throw that revolution in the country in 2014? Then why did you encourage leaders in the Ukraine to disregard the Minsk agreements and continue to bombard Russians living in the Ukraine?
Why did you continue to send munitions to those neo-Nazi groups doing the bombarding?
Furthermore, to Lijian’s second point: why are you continuing to refuse to even discuss diplomacy, and instead shipping billions in weaponry to the Ukraine?
It is a truth universally acknowledged, that when the West talks about the "int'l community", they mean: pic.twitter.com/RZNOwDymX2— Lijian Zhao 赵立坚 (@zlj517) March 17, 2022
He’s not some dumbass writer for Salon.
The government/media have this massive censorship machine domestically, which they can use to claim that Putin invaded Ukraine because he is pure evil. They can refuse to mention the fact that Putin has offered to completely withdraw the military and let Zelensky remain in power if he agrees to neutrality. But the rest of the world is not the captive audience of CNN, Fox News, and Twitter.
On Friday, US President Joe Biden and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping will hold talks via telephone, with the Ukraine crisis high on the agenda. Biden is expected to repeat warnings made earlier by Blinken regarding any possible actions China may take to “support Russia’s aggression.”On Thursday, China’s Commerce Ministry spokesperson, Gao Feng, made it clear that China opposed “any form of unilateral sanctions that have no basis in international law.” According to the official, such punitive measures “not only fail to resolve security issues, but also harm the lives of ordinary people, disrupt global markets, and make the world’s already slowing economy even worse.”
The Chinese are officially the adults in the room, due to their autistic like ability to simply state the obvious.
The statement came hard on the heels of Jake Sullivan’s warning to China on Sunday, in which Joe Biden’s national security adviser cautioned that Beijing would “absolutely” face consequences should it help Moscow evade Western sanctions.
What do these threats even mean?
Is the US going to attempt to implement the same sanctions they’ve put against Russia on China?
How does everyone think that would work out – banning all Western import of Chinese goods?
Then, according to this new Russian model, they would have to sanction every country that continues to do business with China, which is the whole world.
It is not hyperbolic to state that the current path of the US appears to be towards building an Iron Curtain around America and EU/NATO countries. Because these people in Washington believe they have the ability to totally dominate every country on earth with bullying – they think every country on earth is Iraq – they are setting the stage for them to be completely isolated on the world stage.
At some point, even EU/NATO countries are going to be looking for the exit, as it is clear that this ship is absolutely sinking.
Russia just did tit-for-tat sanctions.
This is from various press releases as the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs site is down, and so far this cannot be confirmed at source :
Appearing at the top of the 13-name list is President Biden, followed by Blinken and Austin. Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Mark Milley, National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan, CIA Director William Burns, and White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki are also named. Further down the list, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Biden’s son Hunter – whose dealings with a Ukrainian energy firm have previously been questioned and criticized – are also included.
Inclusion on the list denies any of these people entry into the Russian Federation. However, the Kremlin’s statement said that Moscow would not rule out contact with American officials “if they meet our national interests.”
More names will be added to the list “in the near future,” the statement continued, warning that “top US officials, military officials, lawmakers, businessmen, experts and media personalities who are Russophobic or contribute to inciting hatred towards Russia” will also be blacklisted.
Update on Sanctions:
Canadian Prime Minister Trudeau
and
Russia has officially withdrawn from the Council of Europe.
2nd Update on Sanctions from the Russian Foreign Ministry
15 March 202217:37
Foreign Ministry statement concerning personal sanctions on US senior officials and affiliated persons
513-15-03-2022
In response to a series of unprecedented sanctions that prohibit, among other things, entry to the United States for top officials of the Russian Federation, starting March 15, the Russian stop list includes, on the basis of reciprocity, President Joe Biden, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Secretary of Defence Lloyd Austin and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley, as well as several agency heads and other prominent US figures.
This step, taken as a response measure, is the inevitable result of the extreme Russophobic policy of the current US Administration.
Obviously, it is an attempt to maintain American global leadership.
As such, it has abandoned any sense of decorum and placed its bets on the head-on containment of Russia.
The list of US citizens included in the stop list is as follows:
1. Joseph Robinette Biden;
2. Antony John Blinken;
3. Lloyd James Austin III;
4. Mark Alexander Milley;
5. Jacob Jeremiah Sullivan, National Security Advisor;
6. William Joseph Burns, Director of the CIA;
7. Jennifer Rene Psaki, White House Press Secretary;
8. Daleep Singh, Deputy National Security Advisor;
9. Samantha Jane Power, Administrator of the United States Agency for International Development;
10. Robert Hunter Biden, son of the US President;
11. Hillary Diane Rodham Clinton, former US presidential candidate;
12. Adewale Adeyemo, US Deputy Secretary of the Treasury;
13. Reta Jo Lewis, President and Chair of the Board of Directors of the Export-Import Bank of the United States.
More announcements will be made soon concerning the expansion of the sanctions list to include other top US officials, military leaders, lawmakers, business executives, experts and media personalities who promote Russophobia or contribute to inciting hatred of Russia or imposing restrictive measures.
These actions will be taken in harmony with the major decisions of the Government of the Russian Federation in finance, banking and other areas to protect the Russian economy and ensure its stable development.
US Space Foundation
A report by Elijah Magnier:
The level of idiocy is beyond any limit:
Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin, the first person in space, has been stripped of his honours by the #US Space Foundation “in light of current world events".
Proof: The US Created and Weaponized COVID in Ukraine and Georgia as a ‘First Step’
️An analysis of the information received indicates that Ukrainian specialists are not aware of the potential risks of transferring biomaterials.
Here is a document dated March 6, 2015, confirming the Pentagon’s direct participation in the financing of military biological projects in Ukraine.
️According to established practice, American projects in the field of sanitation in third countries, including in Africa and Asia, are funded through national health authorities.
I would like to draw your attention to the fact that the agreement on joint biological activities was concluded between the US Military Department and the Ministry of Health of Ukraine. However, the real recipient of funds are the laboratories of the Ukrainian Ministry of Defence located in Kiev, Odessa, Lvov and Kharkov. The total funding amounted to $32 million.
️It is no coincidence that these biolabs were chosen by the US Defence Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) and the contractor company Black & Veatch as the executors of the UP-8 project aimed at studying the pathogens of the Congo-Crimean hemorrhagic fever, leptospirosis and hantaviruses.
Not at all reported in the Western “news”. China is helping and rebuilding Africa. Cities and ports going up full and complete. Video
Here comes China (and they don’t stop for shit!)
By Amarynth for the Saker Blog and collaborating with Godfree Roberts’ Newsletter, Here Comes China
Biden / Xi Summit.
In perfect Chinese diplomatic terms, it looks like business as usual. Taken outside of the perfect diplomatic terms, it is a true spanking.
Let’s take one paragraph only and remember a few things first:
Washington, as usual, threatened and danced something like the haka and warned Xi not to support Russia in any way or the consequences would be dire for China.
Washington threatened with equally applied sanctions and other dire unmentionables.
Apparently, Washington can support who it wants, but China is in some form prohibited from exactly that.
Hypocritically they want it both ways. That era is over.
A few hours before the ‘summit’, China had a perfectly normal sail-by through the Taiwan Straits of their aircraft carrier Shandong. Yes, this is ‘likely routine’ says their spox. Sure, it was highly likely just routine. It must have been a wonderful day for the Shandong to take a little sail through the Taiwan Straits.
A few hours before the ‘summit’ Global times had an interview with an unnamed official. (Is China playing the US game here by not naming the official?).
This is the take-away:
“The international community can fairly judge who is frank and open and who is up to something, who is easing the situation and who is aggravating tension, who is promoting peace talks and who is pouring fuel on the fire, and who is maintaining peace and stability and who is provoking confrontations between blocs.”
Xi Jinping made a pre-summit statement:
Countries should not come to the point of meeting on the battlefield.
Conflict and confrontation are not in anyone’s interest.
Peace and security are what the international community should treasure the most.
So, this is the milieu that Biden walked into at the online summit. We must know by now what this is all about.
None of the boring line-up of US representatives could bend China to their will to support sanctions against Russia, so, time for a Presidential Summit to yet again attempt to split China and Russia.
This is how perfectly ridiculous this attempt is:
Can you help me fight your friend so that I can concentrate on fighting you later?
Here is how it went:
President Biden expounded on the US position and expressed readiness for communication with China to prevent the situation from exacerbating.
Simply said:
How can we make a deal so that the US/Nato alliance remains a unipolar world and all others (including you) must be subservient.
President Xi pointed out that China does not want to see the situation in Ukraine to come to this. China stands for peace and opposes war. This is embedded in China’s history and culture.
Simply said:
Hey Biden, mistake number one! You do not know who you are talking to, but now I’m going to tell you...
[1] China makes a conclusion independently based on the merits of each matter.
[2] China advocates upholding international law and universally recognized norms governing international relations.
[3] China adheres to the UN Charter and promotes the vision of common, comprehensive, cooperative and sustainable security. These are the major principles that underpin China’s approach to the Ukraine crisis.
[4] China has put forward a six-point initiative on the humanitarian situation in Ukraine, and is ready to provide further humanitarian assistance to Ukraine and other affected countries.
[5] All sides need to jointly support Russia and Ukraine in having dialogue and negotiation that will produce results and lead to peace.
Simply stated:
This is the crux of the matter and seemingly you are unable to grasp it!
The continue…
The US and NATO should also have dialogue with Russia to address the crux of the Ukraine crisis and ease the security concerns of both Russia and Ukraine.
Message:
Go away and take your position and money with you!
You had your opportunity and you became a warmaker, coercing others to your will.
Enough is enough!
We have principles, law and morals and ethical standards.
You hold on to ‘positions’ favorable to you only.
China is active in the EU as well and the discussion does not remain dry and diplomatically correct.
China is playing into its strengths, saying what is correct in terms of its own national interest and it happens to co-incide with that of the non-insane world.
The spokespeople are highly educated, clear, exceptionally well-spoken, and smart. They also mercilessly dig in the knife when opportunity shows. In a recent press conference. CCTV:
US State Department Spokesperson Ned Price said that the US is concerned about Russian attacks on Ukrainian infrastructure which caused civilian casualties.
However, China has yet to state its position explicitly.
How does the foreign ministry view such criticism from other countries on China?
Zhao Lijian:
Human lives are precious.
Civilian casualties under all circumstances are heart-rending and lamentable.
China has all along called for every effort to avoid civilian casualties.
We still remember that in March 1999, the US-led NATO, without the Security Council’s mandate, flagrantly unleashed a ruthless bombing campaign against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia for 78 days, killing at least 2,500 innocent civilians and injuring around 10,000 people, most of them civilians.
Over the past two decades or so, the US conducted tens of thousands of air strikes in places like Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan and Somalia.
The number of innocent civilians killed can be anywhere between 22,000 and 48,000.
When professing its concern for the welfare of the Ukrainian people, shouldn’t the US first express concern over the civilian casualties caused by all these military operations?
I particularly enjoyed this vignette:
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said that any support to Russia, military or any other type of support, would actually help Russia conduct a brutal war against an independent sovereign nation, Ukraine, and help them to continue to wage war which is causing death, suffering and an enormous amount of destruction.
This was the comment of the Chinese spokesperson:
Chinese people can fully relate to the pains and sufferings of other countries because we will never forget who bombed our embassy in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.
China does not need a lecture on justice from the abuser of international law.
As a Cold War remnant and the world’s largest military alliance, NATO continues to expand its geographical scope and range of operations.
What kind of role has it played in world peace and stability?
NATO needs to have a good reflection.
Currency
Against this backdrop, the news filtered out about The Eurasia Economic Union (EAEU) and China designing a new monetary and financial system bypassing the U.S. dollar.
It is being supervised by Sergei Glazyev and intended to compete with the Bretton Woods system which is now less than 50% of the currency flow in the world.
While news is still very scarce on this front, it fulfilled the purpose of telling Biden once again to go away if US/NATO cannot be a serious contender to building a peaceful and prosperous world.
Godfree Roberts, in his last newsletter, did an overview of the major historical milestones. I am not sure if the concept of a special drawing rights fiat currency revaluated regularly against a basket of currencies will be the way this rolls out. Stand by! Much more incoming! We will see.
DOLLAR’S END – Farewell, Inordinate Privilege
Goodbye USD.
Credit Suisse analyst Zoltan Pozsar says Ukraine triggered a perfect storm in commodities that could weaken the Eurodollar system, contribute to inflation in Western economies, and threaten their financial stability. Pozsar said China’s central bank is uniquely placed to backstop such crisis, paving the way for a much stronger yuan. Reuters, Mar. 13, 2022.
Saudi Arabia Considers Accepting Yuan Instead of Dollars for Chinese Oil Sales: Talks between Riyadh and Beijing have accelerated as the Saudi unhappiness grows with Washington. WSJ, Mar. 14, 2022
–o0o–
In 2009, after helping to rescue the US from the GFC, Zhou Xiaochuan, Governor of the Peoples Bank of China, said,
“The world needs an international reserve currency that is disconnected from individual nations and able to remain stable in the long run, removing the inherent deficiencies caused by using credit-based national currencies.”
After helping rescue America from the GFC, PBOC Governor Zhou Xiaochuan observed,
“The world needs an international reserve currency that is disconnected from individual nations and able to remain stable in the long run, removing the inherent deficiencies caused by using credit-based national currencies.”
Zhou proposed SDRs, Special Drawing Rights, a synthetic reserve currency dynamically revalued against a basket of trading currencies and commodities. Broad, deep, stable, and impossible to manipulate.
Nobelists Fred Bergsten, Robert Mundell, and Joseph Stieglitz approved:
“The creation of a global currency would restore a needed coherence to the international monetary system, give the IMF a function that would help it to promote stability and be a catalyst for international harmony”.
Here’s what’s happened since:
2012: Beijing began valuing the yuan against a currency/commodity basket
2014: The IMF issued the first SDR loan
2016: The World Bank issued the first SDR bond
2017: Standard Chartered Bank issued the first commercial SDR notes.
2019: All central banks began stating currency reserves in SDRs
Mar. 14, 2022:
“In two weeks, China and the Eurasian Economic Union – Russia, Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan – will reveal an independent international monetary and financial system. It will be based on a new international currency, calculated from an index of national currencies of the participating countries and international commodity prices”.
The currency resembles Keynes’ invention Special Drawing Rights.
SDRs are a synthetic currency which derives its value from a global, publicly traded basket of currencies and commodities. Immense beyond imaging, and stable as the Pyramids. Everyone gets a seat at the table and a vote. It may eventually be administered by an arm of the UN.
SDRs pose a serious alternative to the US dollar, both for the EAEU, the BRI’s 145 member states, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), ASEAN, and the RCEP.
Middle East countries, including Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, are keenly interested.
Less well known is that the EAEU, the BRI, the SCO, ASEAN, and the RCEP were discussing a merger before the currency news hit.
It is reasonable to expect them to join this new, cooperatively managed, stable reserve currency regime in which they can settle their trades in stable, neutral, predictable SDRs.
Biological labs
China is not losing any opportunity to bring this front and center. This is their last list of questions:
If the concerns are “disinformation”, why doesn’t the U.S. release detailed materials to prove its innocence? – Question by Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Zhao Lijian on U.S.-funded biolabs in Ukraine.
What did the U.S. spend the $200 million on? – Question by Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Zhao Lijian on U.S.-funded biolabs in Ukraine.
What kind of research has the U.S. conducted on which pathogens? – Question by Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Zhao Lijian on U.S.-funded biolabs in Ukraine.
What is it trying to hide when the U.S. Embassy in Ukraine deleted all relevant documents on its website? – Question by Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Zhao Lijian on U.S.-funded biolabs in Ukraine.
Why does the U.S. insist on being the only country in the world to oppose the establishment of a multilateral verification mechanism though it claims to abide by the Biological Weapons Convention? – Question by Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Zhao Lijian on U.S.-funded biolabs in Ukraine.
On January 21, 2022, the Chinese Ministry of Commerce (MOFCOM) released its data for “China’s investments and cooperation in countries along the Belt and Road” covering the period of January to December 2021.
According to these data, Chinese enterprises invested about US$20.3 billion in non-financial direct investments in countries “along the Belt and Road”.
Furthermore, there were 560 newly signed projects with a contract value of over US$100 million.
For this report, the definition of BRI countries includes 142 countries that had signed a cooperation agreement with China to work under the framework of the Belt and Road Initiative by the end of 2021.
To analyze investments in these countries, we base our data on the China Global Investment Tracker and our own data research at the Green Finance & Development Center affiliated with Fudan University, Shanghai. As with most data, they tend to be imperfect.
Chinese joke
On a somewhat of a lighter note:
The Chinese Netizens are in the majority siding with Russia so completely and so enthusiastically, that China’s WeChat and Douyin had to crack down on vulgar jokes and netizens were told in no uncertain terms that they cannot make fun of international news events. The very high support for Russia is becoming a clear talking point despite the somewhat muted and correct Chinese diplomatic statements.
So, here is a joke for you.
Bear and Dragon take a walk in the gardens.
Bear is a little overcome with his serious responsibilities in the world and presents emotionally somewhat tired and despondent.
As the walk proceeds, Dragon says to Bear .. Out with it! What has you so despondent?
Bear thinks a moment and says: We’ve been friends for a long time. So, if I need a very large amount of money very quickly, will you give it to me?
Dragon, known for taking time to ponder the imponderables, walks on for a while and then comes to a firm stop.
NO, says Dragon, I will not give it to you!Bear’s shoulders fall .. but Dragon continues:
I will lend it to you. 1.5 trillion the moment you ask for it, no interest, no repayment terms, pay me back when you can.
Another China-Russia joke
Bear walks into Dragon’s fabulous temple of goods.
Bear is overwhelmed, and asks, timidly,
“I need some of you wonderful items. All I have is rubles. Can you sell me some?”
Rubles!” cries Dragon.
“Your rubles are no good here! And I will turn my back on you for asking such an absurd thing and NOT turn around until you have left the temple. The Shopping carts are over there.”
From Russian MOD.
During a special military operation, an employee of the Security Service of Ukraine (SSU) Main Directorate for Donetsk and Lugansk regions voluntarily surrendered to Russian servicemen.
▫️This officer was directly involved in organizing the training of sabotage and terrorist groups to work in areas liberated from the nationalists.
▫️The SSU officer provided detailed information regarding all persons involved in conducting sabotage activities on the territory of Donbass.
▫️I bring to the attention of all persons recruited by the SSU that voluntary renunciation of criminal activity and timely notification of it to law enforcement agencies releases from criminal liability.
▫️In addition, the SSU officer reported on terrorist acts planned by militants of the nationalist Azov battalion in Lvov against employees and facilities of diplomatic missions of the United States and other Western countries.
▫️I want to emphasize that the leadership of the Kiev regime is aware of the plans of the nationalists, but does not take any action to prevent their implementation.
▫️The Kiev nationalist regime plans to present attacks on diplomatic facilities of the United States and Western countries as an alleged targeted attack by the Russian Armed Forces.
▫️The main purpose of the provocation is to increase pressure on NATO countries to introduce a no-fly zone over Ukraine and provide additional weapons.
Chinese girl
These are not evil nasty filthy people, like what is being portrayed in the Western “news”. They are just regular people. Like me. Like you. video 4MB
Bio-World War 3! Has It Already Started?
Kevin Barrett interviews Ron Unz.
Russia and China have accused the US of riddling Ukraine—and the world—with biological weapons. Both nations are echoing (between the lines) Iran’s charge that the US unleashed the COVID-19 pandemic in a botched biological attack on Wuhan and Qom. Are we already in the middle of BioWW3?!
Russia uses a Hyper-velocity missile to destory a Ukraine warehouse
Kinzhal, which means ‘dagger’ in English, was used by the Russian military for the first time since the start of the Ukrainian conflict on February 24.
Those munitions are said to be able to penetrate any existing air defenses by traveling at a whopping speed of up to Mach 10 and constantly maneuvering during their flight.
Kinzhal missiles are carried by MiG-31K supersonic interceptor aircraft, which NATO calls ‘Foxhound’.
The hardware is one of several hypersonic systems prepared for the country’s military in recent years, together with the Avangard glider, which is fitted on silo-based ICBMs, and Zircon (Tsirkon) missiles, developed for the navy.
2022 03 20 19 35
This warehouse was full of the latest high-technology weapons delivered by NATO and the United States to attack Russia.
This was a high-value target of great importance.
Because it was so well defended with American anti-aircraft and misslile defenses, the Russians used the Kinzhal aviation missile system (Hyper-velocity missile) that is immune to Western air defenses.
At about 2:45 this morning, nestled all comfy in bed with my wife, we were woken up by the beeping sounds of the Uninterruptible Power Supplies (UPS) going off in the house. The electric went out.
Now for me, it’s no big deal. For my wife . . . she uses an oxygen concentrator, and it was shut down.
Mind you, she was breathing just fine, but for some reason known only to God, the fact that the electric was off, and the Oxygen concentrator was off, made my wife start to get nervous. “What if I can’t breathe????” she asked. (Having been married 30 years, I understood this as “wife talk” meaning “do something about this right now.”)
So I stumble outta bed, grab a little flashlight from the dresser and make my way out to the kitchen/dining room, grab a lighter and light a candle on the dining room table.
At my suggestion, my mom had long ago purchased oil lanterns and I grabbed one off the mantle over the wood burning stove, and lit it. Then I took another and lit it, placing it in the living room, which helped give a glimmer of light to all the downstairs rooms.
Next step, get dressed. If I’m going to fix this, I __have__ to hook up the generator outside. So I get dressed, grab the keys to the shed and a larger flashlight, and out I go. It’s raining. Thunderstorm. Probably the reason the lights went out.
I get over to the shed, unlock it, and have to lug this 300+ pound Westinghouse 15KW generator, across the yard, over gravel, to the area of the house where the generator inlet is mounted. I get there, take the cover off the generator, and see the little yellow “BATTERY” light is on. The main switch must have tuned on when we unloaded it from my pick up truck a couple weeks ago. I figured “Oh great, watch it has a dead battery.”
This generator is electric start ONLY, there is no pull to manually start it.
So I go in the house, turn off the main circuit breaker, and then each of all the other breakers, and then I turn ON the breaker the generator is wired into from the outside. (The reason for shutting off the main breaker is to disconnect the whole house from the power grid. If a person fails to do that, then tries to start the generator, it will try to power the whole power grid as it’s trying to start, and will not start. The reason I choose to turn off all the individual circuit breakers is to ease the generator into powering the whole house. I don’t want it subjected to everything trying to grab power at the same time.)
I go back outside and connect the big 50 amp power wire to the house then to the generator, and go inside and press the start button on the generator’s remote control. It cranks, stops. I press start again, it cranks, and kicks-over into running mode! I read the gauges: 120 Volts and 240 volts at 60 hertz. YEEEE HAAAAA!
I go back in the house and, one at a time, turn each of the individual circuit breakers (But NOT the main) back on. Full power available to everything.
So I put my cell phone on charge. I had failed to do that when I went to sleep and it only had 39% charge. As I put the phone on charge I see two missed calls. One from ADT Burglar Alarm, the other from the Pennsylvania State Police. OH SHIT, I forgot to disarm the silent alarm when I opened the back door to go outside for the generator ! ! ! ! ! I feel like a total idiot.
So I call the State Troopers, and they said “You will have to call the alarm company and give them the pass code and they will call to cancel us.” I call ADT and get them to cancel the cops.
I microwave a cup of coffee that was still in the pot from yesterday, and sit down at this computer to do this personal “adventure” article . . . and the generator shuts off. The whole house goes dark. UH OH.
It turned out that my son and I only put enough gasoline in it to test it out when the generator first arrived at my condo in North Bergen, NJ. I never fully gassed it up. So I grab a five gallon gas can and put the whole thing in. I come inside, shut off all the individual circuit breakers again and press start on the remote. It cranks and stops. I press it again, it cranks and stops. Third time, it kicks-over and runs.
All is good again.
As a side note, when I went outside to fill the gas, I heard some animal in the distance screech out a death-type screech. I thought to myself, “Wow, something just got killed.” It was THAT type of screech.
Out there somewhere in the dark woods, one thing attacked another thing, probably to eat it. And nothing cared. No one came running to save it. No other creature intervened.
Something lived and ate, while something else died suddenly and brutally, to become food for the attacker.
Nature. It does not give a shit about me, you, or anything else. Survival of the fittest. Period end.
And THAT . . . that right there . . . is why I prep. It’s why I tell my readers and my radio audience to prep. Because in the final analysis, nature does not give a shit if ANY of us live or die. Nature does not care if I or my family eat or go hungry. Nature does not care if I have electric or not. Nature does not give a shit at all.
It is up to ME to plan. I . . . have to be ready. If not for myself, then for my family.
Because only those who prepare for what we all see coming, will even have a CHANCE at surviving.
More movement of nukes in the UK
Nuclear convoy ‘carrying several warheads’ travels 400 miles to UK arms depot – Mirror Online
From an American volunteer on the front lines outside of Kyiv:
“Sitting close to the frontline, the last safe mode of transportation leaves for greener pastures. A core group of about 30 foreign fighters remains out of around 200 people who were here just minutes ago. The base we came from was struck by rockets in the early morning hours. People we lived with for a couple days are confirmed dead. It is only a matter of time before our location is targeted. We are about to be cut off by a Russian tank column any day now.”“Food, water, and ammunition dwindle slowly. The mood is somber, people are sending their last messages to friends and family.”“Where is NATO? Where is the supposed good of western civilization?”
An important note: this American is a special ops veteran who completed combat deployments to Afghanistan. [The perfect person to tell Russians it’s wrong to occupy countries.]
He came to Ukraine before Russia’s full-scale war on Feb. 24.
He is an experienced, well-trained soldier who gave up his lucrative career in the US in order to help Ukraine
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.
The State Department is trying to get us into a war and the Pentagon is trying to keep us out.
- Ron Paul
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War sucks. I’m not going to be nice about it. It honestly, and really sucks. People get hurt and die. Innocents are maimed. Bad things happen. The wealthy that create the conditions for war flee, and the poor that work for them are sacrificed on the alter of ideology. What ever it might be.
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There is nothing valiant about war.
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Wars are fought by young men precisely because they don’t know any better. They cannot imagine themselves spending the rest of their lives in a retirement home without arms or legs. Or having their homes blown to bits and pieces.
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And most especially for Americans. As well as for Candians, Australians and Britions. They cannot imagine it’s THEIR famies dying, and their neighborhoods being blown to smithereens and destroyed. Safe and isolated. That’s the way it’s always been.
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Right?
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And ideology… well, that’s the medium on how you can control others.
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In the United States, the ideology is democracy. In Syria the ideology is in religion. In the Ukraine, the ideology is pure Nazism. Ideology gets people killed. Or worse. Don’t you know.
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I’m really not a fan of ideologs. I know that from time to time I have moved about the political spectrum, but when you get my age, you just no longer can zip back from one point of view to the other. It makes you dizzy.
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So you just are happy with simple things.
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Simple things, like a beloved cat. A pet dog that is happy as can be to see you. A fine book, and a glass of nice tasty wine. A delicious steak, hamburger, or tasty thick soup. A roaring fire on a cold snowy night. A warm dry bedroom while it pours rain outside…
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Simple things.
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Simple things.
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You know, my social media feeds are all clogged up with the mindless hordes that reguritates the NSA talking points. You don’t have to get too involved in the termonology. It’s all the same and predictable.
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The callouts are the same “stooge for Putin”, “Russia is evil”, “crushing democracy in Ukraine”. Sigh.
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You can easily replace the word “Russia” with “5G radiation”, and the meaning would be the same.
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Replace it with “China”, and the meaning would be the same.
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It could be “vaxx”, or “Swine Flue”, or “Y2K” it’s all the same.
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5G and Coronavirus.
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If you do not agree with the United States official narrative, you are a traitor!
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That’s exactly how all this works. Whatever the government says, must must agree with it. When the Trump administration was at war with China over technology, it was all about “evil Huawei”, and “arrest the evil CEO”, and “5G radiation destroys brain cells”.
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I try to tell them that they are victims of Vault 7. But they are oblivious. Vault 7 is what is going on. Vault 7. If you don’t know what this is, then you are in a truly sad state indeed.
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It’s not just controling your opinions. These algorithms control your thoughts.
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As such they alter your body chemistry.
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Once altered, you will NEED to take medicine to maintain your sanity, and your health. Your body chemistry changes. You start experiencing problems. You get anxiety. You suffer aches and pains. You get eating disorders, and start having helth problems with your liver, your kidnes, your stomach, and your heart.
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Ask any one who is regurigating the American narrative if they are taking medicine. Any medicine, for any reason. Just ask.
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So far, I have found 100% of the people who I asked say “yes” in the affirmative. America has become; seriously, a nation of zombies.
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Americans today.
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It’s stuff to think about.
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Once I started to carefully vet what I read and watch, my life has really, substantially calmed down. That’s a fact.
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Anyways. I tire of arguing with NPCs. So I penned this article. It winds the clock back in time to one month before the invasion of the Ukraine. By reading it, you can easily see how and why the war in the Ukraine started.
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And NO, it’s not “Putin’s fault”.
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It was planned to occur. And the planners were the United States Senate. And it’s all well known, and well understood. All you need to do is watch the historical archives from CSPAN.
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I mean, come on, it’s all very damning.
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They tell you right then and there. “America needs to start a war elsewhere. Not on American soil. And the Ukraine is the best place to have that war.”
This is an absolutely great article by Paul Craig Roberts. He’s a major conservative voice in American politics. He’s pretty good, and I have been following him for a long time. He tends to discuss American domestic issues with detailed and thoughtful analysis, and takes a hard, critical look at American international issues.
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This article was written one month before Russia invaded Ukraine. And during that time, in January 2022, the big news was about how the United States refused to take Russia seriously. This is that article. It’s truly poignant now, as we see what an absolute clusterfuck the United States has created for itself. And because of the enormity of that fuck-up, this article is even more valuable.
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I am presenting it here, right now, to help us all have a better contextual understanding on what the Hell is going on in the Ukraine and in the Geo-Political circles.
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Does Russia Understand She Is Dealing with Lunatics?
In advance of the January 10 meeting, Secretary of State Blinken and NATO functionary Stoltenberg stupidly reduced Russia’s Options to Two: Surrender or Use Force.
If these idiotic accusations were not enough, Blinken accused Putin of intending to restore the Soviet Union. It is impossible to understand how a person this stupid was confirmed by the US Senate as Secretary of State.
The last thing the Kremlin wants is all the problems of all of these countries. All the Kremlin wants is that they be independent countries, not US puppet states armed against Russia.
My take on the situation is that from foolish statements such as the above by Blinken and Stoltenberg and other ill-considered remarks from the White House and media, the Kremlin has concluded prior to Monday’s meeting (January 10) that Washington will not take seriously Russia’s security concerns.
I think the Russians have come to the conclusion that the West will not take them seriously until the Kremlin demonstrates forceful action.
The Russians are just giving diplomacy one last chance before they destroy the military installations that the US has built in Ukraine.
I came across this report from pravda.ru dated about a month ago (November 26) that Russian nuclear submarines were urgently sent to sea in a state of combat readiness.
This does not mean that the Kremlin is preparing a nuclear strike.
It is meant to forestall any stupid Washington response to Russian removal of perceived threats, just as the Israelis do routinely in their attacks on Iraqi, Syrian, and Lebanese territory.
As I have reported on occasion, the Russians have had their fill of Washington and are not going to take anymore.
The Russians have concluded that only decisive action on their part has any chance of sobering up Washington from its hubris and restoring a sense of responsibility in Washington at least equal to the sense of responsibility that kept a lid on Cold War tensions. If Washington is unable to recover a sense of responsibility, the possibility of Armageddon will again hang over our heads.
My concern is that there is no one in the Biden regime or the decimated officer ranks of the US military that has five cents worth of intelligence.
The people with their hands on US foreign policy are Russophobes with delusions of American omnipotence.
Moreover, they believe their own propaganda, which prevents them from understanding the Russian view.
I don’t know if the Kremlin is capable of imagining a government as lunatic as the American one.
If the Kremlin does not understand they they are dealing with lunatics, the situation could quickly get out of hand.
And he was correct… absolutely correct.
One month later, Russia invaded the Ukraine, preventing a Ukrainian assault on the LDR and the DDR.
And the Western press were all ready with a flood of anti-Russian “news”, and sanctions, and all the rest. It was all perfectly timed and implemented.
Everybody and his goat are talking about the Ukraine. Why not me? You might ask, But Fred, what do you know about it? To which I would respond, Look, this is journalism. You don’t need to know anything, just wing it, preferably using words you can spell. Admittedly this is more of a limitation than it used to be. Anyway, here goes:
Why did Russia invade the Ukraine?
Contrary to American media, the invasion was not unprovoked. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, America has been pushing NATO, which is a US sepoy operation, ever closer to Russian borders in what, to anyone who took fifth-grade geography, is an obvious program of military encirclement. Of the five countries other than Russia littoral to the Black Sea, three, Turkey, Romania, and Bulgaria, are now in NATO. America has been moving toward bringing in the Ukraine and Georgia. After Georgia would have come Azerbaijan, putting American forces on the Caspian with access to Iran and Kazakhstan. This is calculated aggression over the long term, obvious to the—what? Ten percent? Fifteen percent?—of Americans who know what the Caucasus is.
Putin has said, over and over, that Russia could not allow hostile military forces on its border any more than the US would allow Chinese military bases in Mexico and China or missile forces in Cuba. Washington kept pushing. Russia said, no more. In short, America brought on the war.
Among people who follow such things, there are two ways of looking at the invasion. First, that Washington thought Putin was bluffing, and he wasn’t. Second, that America intentionally forced Russia to choose between allowing NATO into the Ukraine, a major success for Washington’s world empire; or fighting, also a success for Washington as it would cause the results it has caused.
From the latter understanding, America pulled off, at least at first glance, an astonishing geopolitical victory over Russia. Nordstream II blocked, crippling sanctions placed on Russia, many of its banks kicked out of SWIFT, economic integration of Europe and Asia slowed or reversed, Germany to spend 113 billion on rearming (largely meaning buying American costume-jewelry weaponry), Europe forced to buy expensive American LNG, and Europe made dependent on America for energy. All this in a few days without loss of a single American soldier. This presumably at least in part engineered by Virginia Newland who, though she looks like a fireplug with leprosy, seems effectively Machiavellian.
Next victim, China.
Divide and conquer. Or at least that’s the theory. At the same time reinstate the JCPOA and use economic baubles to try to pry Iran away from Beijing.
Here we need some context. Everything Washington does internationally aims at maintaining America’s largely military near-hegemony over the world. This involves several elements:
First, military dominance.
This includes the many hundreds of bases around the world, naval supremacy, and the huge military expenditure. Thy latter will be maintained at any cost to domestic needs, and apparently it is going to be increased.
Second, control of the world’s supply of energy.
Washington is trying to starve Venezuela, with its vast reserves of petroleum, into submission. Submission means letting American-dominated oil majors exploit the country’s oil. Washington is doing the same with Iran and its enormous reserves. It has troops in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, has confiscated Syria’s oil lands, crushed Libya, and so on. Keeping the European vassals from buying more Russian gas through Nordstream II is part of this energy control and an important part.
Third, and crucial, keep the EU from coalescing into a vast continent-spanning trade zone.
This is exactly what China contemplates in its BRI, Belt and Road initiative. This is too much subject for a few paragraphs, but some thoughts: China is a manufacturing juggernaut in explosive growth. Economic power is the basis of all power. China has the advantage of inner lines of communication: it can build rail, fiber optics, highway,s and pipelines in Asia, where America has little access. China has money because it has a for-profit economy, and America doesn’t. The pull of China’s gigantic market and manufactures was beginning to loosen America’s control of Europe. Eurasian integration had to be stopped.
Fourth, the dollar.
Washington controls the dollar, the IMF, SWIFT, and in general the international financial system. It uses this control brutally as a weapon to impose sanctions, crippling the economies of such countries as Venezuela, Iran, Cuba, North Korea, and now Russia. Seeing this intimidates other countries. Washington may have gone too often to this well. Having made England, its chief bootlicker, confiscate Venezuela’s gold reserves, and now freezing Russia’s reserves, Washington has served notice that no country is secure from this treatment. Here I speculate freely, but this may prove America’s worst mistake since 1619 as it may greatly accelerate the search for other payment systems—CIPS from China, SPFS from Russia, and the upcoming digital yuan. Washington, methinks, is betting the farm.
So much for the world…
Meanwhile, America seems to be sinking into irreversible decadence that must eventually—I would say soon—affect its international position. As the world’s economic and, laggingly, technological center of gravity moves east to Asia, an internally collapsing America will be less able to maintain the empire.
Consider:
[1] Printing of money out of nothing.
Washington’s printing of money, equivalent to the debasing of the coinage characteristic of failing societies, has resulted in high inflation and a potentially catastrophic national debt. This will cause political perturbation as voters seek to find which of the two essentially identical parties will not behave like the other one. Unrest will grow. Trust abroad in the dollar will decrease.
[2] Enormous Trade Deficit.
America suffers from a massive and growing trade deficit, largely with China, about which nothing can be done, certainly not soon, because America no longer makes things it needs. Manufacturing cannot be brought back, excep perhaps in niche markets like semiconductors, because the US no longer has the necessary engineers and trained work force, and American labor costs more than Chinese, so reshoring would increase inflation. The importation of cheap Chinese products keeps inflation down,.
[3] Wall Street / Military seizing all the money.
The heavy flow of national wealth into Wall Street and the military in addition to offshoring has led to real poverty in Appalachia, the Rust Belt, and the rural Deep South. This has produced some 100,000 opioid deaths annually in despairing populations. Simultaneously large and growing homeless aggregations appear in LA, Seattle, San Francisco, Austin, St. Louis, on and on, estimated at 60,000 in LA and 50,000 in New York, making the subways dangerous. Bush world conditions presumably do not make for political stability, as neither does the governmental inattention to them.
[4] Massive Crime
Crime is out of control, not a sign of a healthy polity. Some 700 homicides annually in Chicago, 300 in Baltimore, and similar numbers elsewhere are now routine, almost all of the killers and killed being black. To countries like Japan and South Korea this must seem barbaric. The situation is not First World.
[5] Racial Problems
America’s racial problem is grave. The southern border is open, the southwestern states either majority Latino or soon to be. This is not as bad as it could be as the races seem to get along, but it imposes heavy economic and other costs. At the same time across the country cities have huge black ghettos with appalling semiliteracy, no prospects for the young, all of this apparently irremediable. Racial attacks on whites and Asians grow in number and so, almost everywhere, do racial killings, mostly by blacks. Governments at all levels fear blacks who they know will burn cities if provoked, which leads tax bases to flee from cities, making things worse.
This adds to potentially explosive resentment. There is a substantial White Nationalist movement, that wants no non-whites in America (a bit late for this), Republican Chambers of Commerce, that want more illegal Latinos for the cheap labor but won’t say so, and the high-tech sector, which wants more East Asian and Indian immigrants on which America, with a failing educational system, increasingly depends.
The Overall Prognosis is Poor
Overall, government is weak, unable to prevent crime, riots, and looting.
Washington does not control, but is controlled, being a storefront operation for special interests.
Elections do not change policy but only the division of the spoils.
Presidents perform their three essential duties, protecting Wall Street, Israel, and the military budget, but not much else.
Schooling is being dumbed down in stark contrast with China.
Excellence everywhere is discouraged in the name of equity. Native white talent dwindles in the elite schools, from high-end high schools through CalTech, as Asian majorities predominate.
Measures of talent, such as SATs and Medcats, are dropped or downplayed. English grammar and arithmetic are dropped as racist.
None of this seems likely to improve America’s future competitiveness.
Finally, the media are controlled.
This allows Washington freedom of action abroad as enough of the public will believe anything they are told by television (The Russians are coming, the Chinese are coming, the Iranians are coming, the Guatemalans….)
Internally censorship may keep the lid on, for now anyway, by keeping enough of the population from knowing what is going on.
By preventing discussion of problems, or their mention, it assures that nothing will be done.
I suspect this is having the effect of winding a spring.
Where is all of this leading?
Biden is playing as if this were 1960 and the US enjoyed rock solid military and economic superiority and the population were firmly behind him.
This is the world he remembers, being an aging cold warrior. He seems to believe that he consequently can do what he pleases with no repercussions for America. This may be true, or true enough. Perhaps he believes that Russia will collapse in domestic rebellion or simply surrender to the US.
It is not how I would bet.
But—and this is sheer speculation—it is not clear what would happen if Russia cut off gas and petroleum and wheat and such things as neon gas from Europe.
The West is accustomed to bombing remote countries, not to going without.
Would Russia collapse under privation before Europe decided it wanted to trade with Moscow after all?
If Biden and the hawks decide to play hardball with China, they may realize that America is an economic dependency of Beijing. If—again, very hypothetically—China cut off all trade with America, the US economy would die instantly.
Almost everything on American shelves is made in China.
An American public already very unhappy would explode, which it is on the point of doing for various reasons.
Reflect on the Floyd riots.
China would be hurt, but it has other markets and a nationalistic population more united than the American.
Them’s my thoughts, probably worth what you pay for them.
Speaking of China…
Declining empires and their ‘forever wars’? “As the US and NATO struggle to deal with the unfolding crisis in Ukraine, China’s Foreign Minister, Wang Yi, has issued a warning to the Biden administration not to repeat the mistakes made in Europe by attempting to create a Pacific version of NATO to contain and constrain China.
He’s talking about the QUAD.
He’s talking about AUKUS.
Calling such plans “perverse actions” that “run counter to the common aspiration of the region for peace, development, cooperation and win-win outcomes,” Wang declared that if they were implemented by the US, “they are doomed to fail.”
– https://lnkd.in/eAJKmwJG
More excerpts:
◉ The Chinese concerns are not imaginary, but rather drawn from a direct reading of the guidance published by the Biden administration in the Spring of 2021.
◉ A plain reading of that text clearly shows that the US was pursuing a NATO-like alliance in the Pacific solely focused on the issue of “holding China to account.”
It is in this light that one must view partnerships such as the “QUAD”, a military partnership between the US, Japan, India, and Australia, and the newly constituted AUKUS alliance composed of Australia, the United Kingdom, and the US.
Both the QUAD, and AUKUS organizations exist solely to coordinate a military response to China’s presence in the Pacific region.
◉ “Wang also criticized the US for expanding its ties, including military cooperation and weapons sales, with Taiwan.
◉ Such policies, Wang warned, “not only push Taiwan into a precarious situation, but will also bring unbearable consequences for the US side,”
◉ Wang clearly stated, “Taiwan will eventually return to the embrace of the motherland.”
◉ Many experts and observers were surprised by Russia’s decision to intervene militarily in Ukraine. When it comes to China’s readiness to go to war over Taiwan, there should be no such uncertainty.
◉ “The Russian side reaffirms its support for the One-China principle, confirms that Taiwan is an inalienable part of China, and opposes any forms of independence of Taiwan,” it reads.
The fact that Russia signed on to such a statement knowing full well that China had committed to the use of military force to defend its claims regarding Taiwan underscores the seriousness of the Russian-Sino joint statement.
◉ China knows that any military action against Taiwan would bring with it economic retaliation on the part of the US and its allies.
◉ Like Russia, however, China holds significant cards in its hand, and any Western effort to punish it with economic sanctions would bring about a response which could cripple the economies of those targeted.
◉China has already developed an anti-sanction law, that automatically goes into action once a sanction is imposed. It was specifically written with the United States in mind.
Moreover, any military action against Taiwan would, in and of itself, have dire economic consequences for the United States, especially in the field of semiconductor manufacturing.
Any military conflict involving Taiwan would have a crippling impact on the American military electronics market, dependent as it is on the computer chips produced by Taiwan.
This is simply becuase ALL of the American military and high-technology IC chips have been outsourced to Taiwan. It is the sole and only source of supply for American military integrated electronics.
How will a war in Taiwan affect the global consumer market? The effect would be negligible. The vast majority of IC chips are already produced in the Chinese mainland.
What about the USD?
The movement to de-dollarize will be unstoppable and one of the lasting impacts of this war, not just rogue states, but US allies will also join in.
This must-read article in Foreign Affairs is a sobering read on de-dollarization as is this supporting article on sanctions in Quartz (https://bit.ly/3pN9Rfb)
When I started writing about de-dollarization almost three years ago I was widely considered a “Cassandra.”
I now have good company believing this, but admit that I take no joy in writing about a process artificially accelerated by the inhumanity of war.
So here’s what is at risk, from FA:
“These punitive sanctions may also backfire in another way. Biden’s flexing of American economic muscle will only embolden Russia and other US rivals, notably China, to deprive the US of the very power that makes sanctions so devastating.”
“Russia and China will expedite initiatives to “de-dollarize” their economies, building alternative financial institutions and structures that both protect themselves from sanctions and threaten the US dollar’s status as the world’s dominant currency.”
What is driving this is sanction fatigue, from Quartz:
“[Sanctions are] economic warfare at an unprecedented level. It’s true that, over the past decade, the global use of sanctions has exploded to the point of making them routine.”
With sanctions now “routine” nations are questioning their commitment to the dollar. It isn’t because they bear ill-will toward America but see reducing dollar dependence as “risk management.” They also see it as a way to bolster the use of their own currencies so are creating CBDCs.
Pushing the issue will be the global impact on food and energy prices from the unprecedented size of Russian sanctions (Quartz):
“But most of the time, [sanctions] are much narrower—aimed at certain individuals, institutions, or industries—or applied over a much longer timeline, or against a much smaller economy, as in the case of Iran. The speed, scale, and sweeping nature of the Russian sanctions make them the equivalent of an economic blitzkrieg.”
Now a stunning admission from the FA:
“Deteriorating U.S.-Chinese relations incentivize Beijing to join with Moscow in building a -credible- global financial system that excludes the US. Such a system will attract countries under US sanctions. It would even appeal to major US allies who hope to promote their own currencies to the detriment of the dollar.”
And that is the part that is inevitable, this new bi-polar financial system will appeal to US allies!
It should not be seen as a litmus test of friend or foe but instead “whose money offers the better deal?”
The US cannot reverse this change, and it will lead to a weakening of its global standing.
The collapse of the USD as a “reserve currency” is nearing the end. It is collapsing vry fast. And will collapse even faster once the hyper inflation of the $30 trillion dollar bubble manifests, on top of the sanctions.
This will spell out many changes to the lifestyles of those that live in the West, and the nations that maintain trade and use of the USD.
The lifestyle of those in the West is about to change…
Now, you cannot say that you have been warned. But, Jeeze! You were. You all should have listened to Mr. Putin when he said “if you put your fucking nukes on my border, I will be forced to use military-technical measures”.
Sheech!
So when you are paying your $54 / gallon of gas to drive to the fast food resturant to buy your $200 hamburger (minus cheese), don’t go a calling me a “Putin Puppet”. You all brought this fiasco upon yourselves. Suck it up with a big toothy smile, your wishes came true, you mindless oafs.
The true and real actual United States GDP is about to come crashing down, and Americans will start living like trailer park trash in the rural hills of Kentucky. And that’s just the way it is.
I stand by my belief that theres more things down the pipe. Never forget about who you are all dealing with…
America vs China.
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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.
A complete separation from Western predatory economics, using the vast creativity and devotion to Mother Russia of the people there, and Russia will succeed beyond anyone's expectations. It will become a beacon for what is possible.-John
It is unmistakable. The United States has successfully brought about a global realignment in accordance with their obvious plans. And it looks, right now, that everything is going forward to plan. Much to our (most informed) observations.
Here, I just want to review some of these victories.
War with Russia.
Take over of the levers- of-power in Korea.
A major military presence in Australia.
A major rearming of Japan.
Complete control of the narrative.
America to rule the world and, in the darkness, bind them.
Why did Russia invade the Ukraine?
Contrary to American media, the invasion was not unprovoked. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, America has been pushing NATO, which is a US sepoy operation, ever closer to Russian borders in what, to anyone who took fifth-grade geography, is an obvious program of military encirclement. Of the five countries other than Russia littoral to the Black Sea, three, Turkey, Romania, and Bulgaria, are now in NATO. America has been moving toward bringing in the Ukraine and Georgia. After Georgia would have come Azerbaijan, putting American forces on the Caspian with access to Iran and Kazakhstan. This is calculated aggression over the long term, obvious to the—what? Ten percent? Fifteen percent?—of Americans who know what the Caucasus is.
Putin has said, over and over, that Russia could not allow hostile military forces on its border any more than the US would allow Chinese military bases in Mexico and China or missile forces in Cuba. Washington kept pushing. Russia said, no more. In short, America brought on the war.
Among people who follow such things, there are two ways of looking at the invasion. First, that Washington thought Putin was bluffing, and he wasn’t. Second, that America intentionally forced Russia to choose between allowing NATO into the Ukraine, a major success for Washington’s world empire; or fighting, also a success for Washington as it would cause the results it has caused.
From the latter understanding, America pulled off, at least at first glance, an astonishing geopolitical victory over Russia. Nordstream II blocked, crippling sanctions placed on Russia, many of its banks kicked out of SWIFT, economic integration of Europe and Asia slowed or reversed, Germany to spend 113 billion on rearming (largely meaning buying American costume-jewelry weaponry), Europe forced to buy expensive American LNG, and Europe made dependent on America for energy. All this in a few days without loss of a single American soldier. This presumably at least in part engineered by Virginia Newland who, though she looks like a fireplug with leprosy, seems effectively Machiavellian.
So The United States got itself a war with Russia.
As a result, an already subservient NATO and EU is now gleefully submitted to American dominance. Russia, they believe, is globally isolated, and the first stage is set.
Russia is isolated and alone, and “tied up” in a “quagmire” in Ukraine that the United States controls. It’s NATO group is working that front.
Next up…
China.
The QUAD to start a war with China..
This means that a QUAD must be put in place and strengthened. The QUAD is an NATO of the Pacific to “counter” China. So while NATO will counter Russia, QUAD will counter China.
To “counter China” means “a war with China”.
Sorry, I just plow though all the bullshit and rhetoric. I call it as it is. It makes life a lot easier, don’t you know.
The closest to China that America can get to is Taiwan, but if it goes any further, YOU WILL SEE Washington DC, New York City, and San Francisco all reduced to radioactive rubble. So Washington DC, is trying to dance around and sing it’s songs.
The USA tried to gain “footholds” in Xinjiang (with the Uighur Muslims), in Hong Kong (with the “pro-democracy” color revolutions), in Tibet (with a color revolution there), and all failed. So, then it tried to launch “color revolutions” in the nations bordering China. This included Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Thailand and Myanmar (Burma). All have pretty much failed to one degree or the other.
So what is left? The QUAD.
Already American surrogates…
South Korea
Australia
Japan / India
Let’s take a look at these three “victories”.
Change in the levers- of-power in Korea.
Victory 2.
So right now, by less than a 1% margin, a USA-backed conservative took over the leadership of South Korea. He pledges [1] a harsher stance against North Korea aggression, [2] a relook at the Korean relations with China, and [3] much closer ties to the United States.
Honestly, we don’t know what will come of all this.
What we do know is that he has no political experience. Much like Trump has none, and Volodymyr Zelensky (Ukraine) had none. Previous recent events suggest easy manipulation by others. Namely, the United States deep-state.
But we really don’t know the true and real situation.
What I can tell you is that the American neocons in K-street in Washington, DC are joyful with glee.
For the last four years, they watched in horror as South Korea became friendlier with China, and less friendly with the United States. South Korea wanted to reunify with North Korea, and wanted the denuclearization of Korea. All of which horrified the American neocons.
But…
Their plans included a war in Korea. This friendliness was unacceptable.
This is what The Diplomat had to say about how unhappy the USA was with South Korea.
There are deep diplomatic differences between President Joe Biden of the United States and President Moon Jae-in of South Korea.
Biden wants Moon to abandon his peace-oriented policy toward North Korea, but Moon insists on continuing to try, despite the underwhelming results so far achieved. Can the next president of South Korea make any better progress?
Another point of contention between Seoul and Washington is Biden’s desire for the South Korean military to take a more active role in the wider region, in particular by participating in various U.S.-led multilateral military exercises. The incoming South Korean president will need to finesse this issue carefully if relations with China are to remain cordial.
Can the next president of South Korea initiate any new policies toward the United States, China, and North Korea? The truth is that South Korea’s policies toward these countries are interdependent in many different ways. If there are any solutions to be found for this Gordian Knot, then the ROK-U.S. alliance is the best hope we have. So how should we envisage the future of the long-standing alliance between the ROK and the United States?
Moon’s Promises to China: The Three Noes
When the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) missile defense system was deployed on South Korean soil, China objected vigorously and used its commercial leverage to punish South Korea. As a consequence, Moon was obliged to placate China by making three promises. Will these “three noes” cause difficulties for the next president?
The first promise was that the United States will not deploy additional THAAD systems in South Korea. The U.S. budget for fiscal year 2021 has no funding for additional THAAD systems, but there are some funds allocated for upgrading the existing one to integrate it into a remote networked command and control system, together with Patriot and other systems deployed near the Korean Peninsula. This is a third and final phase based on the U.S. adoption of the Joint All Domain Command and Control system which U.S. Forces Korea (USFK) plans to adopt shortly.
The second promise is that trilateral security cooperation between the U.S., Japan, and South Korea will not develop into a military alliance. Given the dire state of relations with Japan, this promise is easy to keep for any South Korean president.
The third promise is that South Korea will not participate in the U.S. Missile Defense Agency’s (MDA) regional missile defense system. In practice the THAAD system deployed at Seongju has already been integrated into the MDA’s regional architecture. Staff at the South Korean Ministry of National Defense (MND) have implicitly acknowledged the fact. As for any further cooperation with the MDA, the MND has made clear that it prefers to develop its own missile defense system.
It seems, then, that Moon’s “three noes” will not seriously constrain the next president.
Hypersonic Weapons on South Korean Soil?
At the recent Biden-Moon summit, South Korea agreed to become more actively involved with the U.S. Indo-Pacific strategy. Following the takeover of Afghanistan by the Taliban in August 2021, it is appropriate to discuss the future of the ROK-U.S. military alliance.
China is continuing its military buildup, and seeking to extend and strengthen its diplomatic influence across the region. Against this background, it is time for the United States to increase its military resources to counter Chinese adventurism.
Several nations are developing hypersonic ballistic and cruise missiles, either medium-range (following Trump’s withdrawal from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty) or long-range. Chinese and Russian weapons systems are well advanced, and the United States has initiated or reactivated several hypersonic missile development projects under various names: the U.S. Navy’s Prompt Global Strike (PGS); U.S. Army’s Long Range Hypersonic Weapon; U.S. Air Force’s AGM-183 Air-launched Rapid Response Weapon and Hypersonic Attack Cruise Missile; and DARPA’s Tactical Boost Glide and Operational Fires and Hypersonic Air-breathing Weapon Concept.
As commentators have noted, though, the U.S. would have to find a place to deploy its missiles.
Indeed, former U.S. Secretary of Defense Mark Esper explicitly suggested that U.S. allies, including Australia, Japan, and South Korea, should allow the United States to deploy hypersonic weapons to assist in the strategic deterrence of Chinese threats.
Any deployment of such U.S.-developed hypersonic missiles on South Korea soil would inevitably be strenuously resisted by China, much like THAAD in 2017, and could seriously unbalance South Korean foreign policy. Recently, however, Australia has categorically rejected any such deployment, and with none of the other regional allies happy to accept them, it seems that South Korea is off the hook.
There is no particular reason why the United States needs to deploy hypersonic weapons on South Korean territory. There are no specific high-value targets in China’s northeastern provinces, and other U.S. allies seem better placed for the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command to manage Chinese threats, such as Japan and the Philippines, not the mention the U.S. territory of Guam.
Nuclear ballistic missiles can be identified, tracked, and classified as incoming threats by missile defense systems, for example those established by the MDA, but PGS and medium-range hypersonic missiles equipped with conventional warheads cannot be intercepted by any missile defense system. It is unclear whether the U.S. prefers hypersonic-capable and conventional PGS weapons to the existing medium-range ballistic missiles with nuclear capability. This uncertainty opens an opportunity for South Korea, now that limitations on its indigenous missile development have been lifted. New South Korean medium-range ballistic missiles would supplement U.S. capability in countering Chinese military threats to Northeast Asian security, as well as deterring the North Korean military threat.
Other Issues Affecting the Future of the ROK-U.S. Alliance
Some of the frontrunners to be the next president of South Korea have spoken about making changes to the ROK military and to the command-and-control structure of the ROK-U.S. Combined Forces Command (CFC), but they have said very little about the future of the ROK-U.S. alliance. Some military commentators argue that South Korea should pay more attention to operational and tactical matters than to political and strategic issues. In that regard, there are a variety of topics to be considered.
An Expanding AllianceFirst, from the U.S. perspective, rebuilding the alliance is a priority. During the Trump era, his transactional and populist approach opened up some deep divisions between South Korea and the United States. Biden is now working to repair the damage. More than that, however, he also wants to extend the scope of the alliance beyond its historic focus on threats to the Korean Peninsula by involving Seoul in the U.S. Indo-Pacific Strategy, a thinly-veiled project to contain China.
A related initiative targets common domain awareness, with the ROK military trying to up its game by taking new responsibility for space, electronic, information, and cyberwarfare. To this end, the first meeting of a newly established ROK-U.S. ICT cooperation committee was held on August 5. Also, the ROK Air Force has reorganized its combat development group into an air and space combat research group, so that it can share a Common Operational Picture with the U.S. Space Force. The ROK Army and the ROK Navy are also getting more involved with space; for example the Cheonro-an satellite now monitors the surrounding seas of the Korean Peninsula, including the East China Sea.
In addition, now that South Korea is explicitly committed to more involvement in regional security, including potentially acting with the USFK to contingencies in the South China Sea and Taiwan Strait, the scope of the ROK-U.S. alliance has broadened. Future roles and missions for the ROK-U.S. CFC will be hampered by disparities between the two militaries unless a combined combat development group is established. The Japan-U.S. alliance has benefitted from bilateral joint research and development projects, and something similar is needed for the ROK-U.S. alliance.
Changing DoctrinesSecond, there is widespread agreement that attempts to strengthen the capacity of the ROK-U.S. alliance should focus on doctrinal standardization. The United States is currently undergoing a great transformation of its expeditionary forces. Thus, the U.S. Army is establishing three Multi-Domain Task Forces, for the Indo-Pacific, Europe, and the Arctic. The U.S. Marine Corps also has a new mobile, agile, and flexible force, the Marine Littoral Regiment, designed to fight in a contested maritime environment. Likewise, the U.S. Navy has its Expeditionary Advanced Base Operations concept, for which it wants to build light amphibious ships, rather than large LHDs or LHAs.
These changes to U.S. forces mean that South Korea’s military will also need to change to ensure the future success of the ROK-U.S. alliance. Specifically, South Korean forces must pursue both technological and doctrinal interoperability, so that they can effectively interface with the new operational concepts of the United States. An integrated ROK Army, Navy Air Force, and Marine Corps force has been suggested, which could then operate in combined units between the ROK and U.S. militaries at the squadron and battalion level. And perhaps the United States should be invited to serve as an advisor in developing the concepts and frameworks of Defense Reform 2050, currently under development by the MND.
New Platforms, New Cooperation Third, now that South Korea is building an aircraft carrier, close liaison with the U.S. Navy and Japanese Maritime Self-Defense Force (JMSDF) is needed. With the navies of South Korea and Japan both building or refitting light aircraft carriers, close cooperation is essential to ensure maximum interoperability. The U.S.-U.K. agreement on cooperative CV operation is the obvious model to follow. A considerable degree of interoperability has already been established, due to the F-35B take-off and landing system, which is the same on the U.S. Navy’s CVs, but much more is possible. The U.S. Navy has built up a vast repertoire of skills and know-how, which should be shared with South Korea and Japan for mutual benefit in the operation of CVs.
Fourth, some operational and tactical improvements are necessary. For example, South Korea and the United States need to better coordinate their strategic assets with the JMSDF, specifically: intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance assets such as Global Hawk UAVs; airborne early warning and control assets; air refueling tankers and heavy lift aircraft; aircraft carriers; and amphibious assets. Also, the U.S. Navy needs a permanent presence in the form of destroyers at South Korean naval bases; the current arrangements with a one-star admiral are inadequate to deter potential threats from North Korea and China. And the South Korean Agency for Defense Development should be working on more research and development projects together with the U.S. DARPA, such as how to operate Manned-Unmanned Teaming between the two fleets. NATO has a variety of cooperative arrangements between multiple countries, and some of these could be usefully emulated by the ROK-U.S. alliance.
In short, the ROK-U.S. alliance is at a time of transition, and a lot of changes will be required to maintain the strength and effectiveness of the alliance into the future. The next South Korean president will have plenty of work to do.
Conclusion
Most of South Korea’s presidential candidates are proposing policies toward the United States, China, and North Korea that simply rehash previous ideas from the left or right, and in any case are based on outdated and obsolete scenarios.
The world has moved on, and the ROK-U.S. alliance needs to acknowledge the fact.
When the next president of South Korea is inaugurated in May 2022, he or she will have a very full inbox: the continuing COVID-19 pandemic, ever worsening climate change, the regional impact of the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, growing doubts about the dependability of Pax Americana, and uncertainty over the future of the global economy.
Some candidates have flirted with populism during the campaign, but South Korea’s foreign and security policy needs someone grounded in reality. Thus, it is greatly to be hoped that the next president of South Korea will have the necessary experience and qualifications in these areas, and that they will choose the very best people for the relevant cabinet appointments. It would also be helpful if he or she has clearly articulated their approach to the United States, China, and North Korea so that there is a mandate for change – because change is coming to the ROK-U.S. alliance, like it or not.
This article was written one year ago.
Since that time, the United States government lavishly funded the USA-friendly candidate who now won the election. Whether or not he will pay-back the billions of dollars that he owes the United States is up in the air.
My assumptive guess is that he will.
Though, to what extent is unknown.
My other guess is that some very contentious events will take place on the Korean pennsula in the next two years. Perhaps diplomatic. Perhaps economic. Perhaps trade. Perhaps posturing. Perhaps social. Perhaps military. But there will be some changing of various alignments on the Geo-Political sphere.
It all depends on the power of the personality of the new leadership.
If he is weak, it will be like Morrison in Australia, or like Volodymyr Oleksandrovych Zelenskyy of the Ukraine. He will end up becoming fantastically wealthy (Zelenskkyy became a multi-billionaire in a few years), but at the cost of the economic strength of his nation. As what has happened to Australia.
If he is strong, he might be like Ou Ratana of Cambodia. He would forge new alliances, strengthen existing ones, and bridge the various differences in opinion that seem to be at everyones’ throat.
Weak nations paint huge “bullseyes” on their country. Whether Korea is one such nation, we have yet to see.
A major USA military presence in Australia.
Victory 3
The Morrison administartion is solidly pro-neocon. Yes. You read that correct. Not pro-America. He’s pro-neocon.
Any moment now, Australians are going to line up for their spicy “Kool-Aide”. And start wearing shiny new sneakers to reach Heaven via Comet Nirvana.
Neocons believe in the Rapture. I mean, they really, REALLY believe.
In other words, destroy the world to make it better. God will protect the worthy and “smite” the evil.
Its sort of like burning your house to the ground to protect it from fire.
Morrison allowed his trade with China to collapse, and the economy of Australia to take a complete nose-dive all for the betterment of the United States. He broke long-term trade deals with France and other nations in favor of having American nuclear sub basing, and American nuclear weapon basing inside of Australia.
It’s America-first.
As long as he gets his reserved ticket to Heaven, he doesn’t give a flying fuck about Australians. In his mind, he has them “covered”.
Covered in shit, that is.
It’s Australians last; back of the bus. Last in line. With their own water drinking fountains, and their own isolated schools.
He’s such a crazed fanatic, that Mike Pompeo looks like a moderate.
He [1] openly calls China an enemy, and [2] is busy setting up Australia on a war-footing for a major war in the Pacific. This includes [3] servicing and supplying American and British nuclear vessels, and [4] placing nuclear weapons and support structures on Australian soil. All the time, [5] breaking trade with China, [6] and engaging in racist actions against Chinese.
It’s hard to imagine a more bellicose and dangerous posture. But that’s the way it is. Australia and it’s people will all now gladly die for Washington DC, and America.
Of course, Morrison will fondle his jewels, and swim with his champaigne and caviar in his plush mansions. Now well funded by the United States printing presses.
Japan forming a status quo fence.
Victory 4
The greatest fear that the United States has is a two-front war; where the United States must fight both Russia and China simultaneously. The overall plan seems to be clear enough. Attack Russia, and then China, one by one. Not simultaneously.
So the plan is to prevent a two front assault. Dealing with Russia alone is already taxing the United States in many ways. Tack on the fiasco that China would crate, and it must be avoided at all costs.
One week after the invasion of the Ukraine by Russia, the QUAD held a video meeting and discussed what to do to “contain China”. For after all, that is the purpose of the QUAD after all.
Now Japan wants to host American nuclear missiles and bombs.
Leaders from Japan, the United States, Australia and India agreed [1]during their virtual meeting Thursday that they oppose any unilateral use of force to change the status quo in their region.
This was reported by the Japanese government.
This meeting took place, as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine brings renewed concerns over China’s assertiveness in the Indo-Pacific.
The four major Indo-Pacific democracies (the QUAD) also agreed [2]to launch a new humanitarian assistance and disaster relief mechanism. This mechanism will “provide a channel for communication” as they each address and respond to the crisis in Ukraine.
In Tokyo, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said he agreed [3]with his counterparts (QUAD members; Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and U.S. President Joe Biden) to hold an in-person summit in the Japanese capital “in a few months.”
"We agreed that we should not allow any unilateral change to the status quo by force in the Indo-Pacific region like the latest case (in Ukraine) and we need to step up efforts to promote a free and open Indo-Pacific in times like this,"
-he told reporters at his office.
The four countries of the Quad group have been deepening their ties and cooperation in the Indo-Pacific region, where China is boosting its military and economic clout. Japan is planning to host a Quad summit in the first half of this year.
Among the Quad members, India’s lack of response to Russia’s aggression against Ukraine has been in focus, given its traditionally close ties with Moscow. India abstained from voting on a nonbinding resolution at the U.N. General Assembly condemning the invasion by Russia and demanding its troops withdraw immediately from Ukraine.
The joint statement did not explicitly criticize Russia for the invasion, over which Moscow has faced sharp condemnation and economic sanctions from countries including the United States, Japan and Australia.
"The Quad leaders discussed the ongoing conflict and humanitarian crisis in Ukraine and assessed its broader implications,"
But in their commitment to a “free and open Indo-Pacific,” they emphasized it means that “the sovereignty and territorial integrity of all states is respected” and “countries are free from military, economic, and political coercion.”
Before the Quad meeting, Kishida said the Indo-Pacific region, especially East Asia, should not allow any unilateral attempt to alter the status quo by force.
Chinese ships have been repeatedly spotted in waters near the Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea, a group of uninhabited islets controlled by Japan and claimed by China. China-Taiwan tensions remain high as Beijing considers the island as a renegade province to be reunified with the mainland by force if necessary.
Keep in mind that Taiwan is not a nation. It is a territory of China. So, the “out” in this posture is whether or not the QUAD wants to get involved in a Chiense civil war.
Because if they do, China will nuke the living shit out of them.
Complete control of the narrative.
Victory 5
It’s not even bothering commenting on. It’s all hate-Russia-24-7. It’s everywhere, and there are ZERO alternative voices. If you try to say anything positive about Russia, you are unplugged.
The United States has authored this situation and it is in place
And it appears that yet again, the United States will emerge victorious. It certainly is victorious right now. Everything is falling into place.
Europe is now economically dependent upon the USA.
The BRI connecting China to Europe has been interrupted.
Russia is economically isolated from the West.
A strong QUAD “fence” is in place and will be used to “contain” China.
Some side effects
Now, there are some side-effects of all of this.
Whether or not these elements are part of a grander scheme or plan is unknown. What is known is that these elements will influence the United States, and it’s allies in both Europe and in the QUAD.
These elements are…
Rampaging inflation for all nations that trade using the USD.
Resulting in massive price increases in all things imported.
A villianized Russia.
Seizure of all Russan assets; money, accounts, boats, and businesses.
A partitioning / slicing up of the globe to one side or the other.
Now; a view from the other side
But what we do know, for those of us paying attention, that both Russia and China view these turn of events as expected. None of the events that are transpiring are a surprise.
As such I suppose …
Inflation of the USD is welcomed.
This inflation will further weaken the USD and the US economy.
SWIFT is being displaced by CIPS.
CIPS is backed by gold, resources, and manufacturing capability.
SWIFT is backed by American debt. Now at $30 trillion dollars.
The key for a united Asia is to allow the USA (and it’s serrogates) to collapse internally without nuclear war.
To do this, they are holding a (figurative) nuclear shotgun to the head of the United States and telling it to “mind it’s manners”. One twitch, one wrong move, and it’s “adios muchachos“.
To this end, they have maintained a very lethal stance against the West, threatening complete and absolute destruction.
It used to be that just having a few nuclear weaons was enough. But no. The American “leadership” are so stupid and ignorant that they had to be told directly; We have nuclear weapons and we WILL use them. Stop violating our “red lines”.
This in turn, is forcing the West to resort to [1] bioweapons and other systems, namely [2] economic, to wage war. Things that are not so obvious to a horrifically dumbed down nation.
Bioweapon warfare
In the grand scheme this methodology is (apparently) failing.
The 8 bioweapons against Chinese livestock did not create famine.
The three bioweapons against China did very little damage to China. Instead it made it very resilient against bioweapons.
Now the R&D; Biolabs and biowarfare are both in the open. Russia and China are making an issue of it.
The need for mRNA injections is collapsing. Which leaves America and the West particuliarly open to a bioweapon attack.
The population will simply ignore the warnings from the US government for isolation and masking. Thinking it’s more of the same nonsense.
The public will ignore all bioweapons protection measures.
So what’s left?
Economic Warfare
Economic warfare. But, contrary to the “news” reports…
Russia is not collapsing.
China is not collapsing.
But the USA and the West are starting to.
At this stage, anything can happen.
Anything can happen
The USA might still have some “tricks up its sleeve”, but from my point of view, it’s truly a dying empire; rotten to the core, and weakly and meakly thrashing about dangerously, while young, fresh and talented Kungfu masters watch on in alert readiness.
But all that is only my speculation.
American neocons see the world differently than I do…
The score card, that we visibly see, is 5-0 with the United States taking the lead in all victories and in all arenas.
But you know. I don’t count battles on a score card. I don’t say “yay! My guys sunk this ship. Boo! They did this!”. I look at the big picture.
And you should too.
I look at the basic strengths of society. A strong society, one that has a unified and intelligent population that is making things, and performing meaningful industry is going to overtake a weaker one who counts beads, argues with each other over trivalities, and who points blame at others instead of rolling up its sleeve and making changes to things that are not working.
2022 03 15 10 34
In the table above, I greatly simplified a number of points. Now, before you howl in anger, consider what I am trying to convey.
Yes. The USA does export. It exports expensive military equipment, and some wheat. It says it exports a lot of grains, but when you look at the actual numbers you find the exports are not comparatively large. The vast bulk of the monetary value of exports is military and aviation. These are trivial. Without a war, and with trade embargoes, there are no markets. While Asia exports everything.
Yes. The USA has farms. However, they are mostly corporate, big business entities that dependent upon imported fertilizer, and a working power grid to operate. Remove those two things, and you end up with a dust bowl. Not so in Russia and China. They have thousands of small, versitle, and adaptable farms.
Yes. The USA has industry. But it’s industry, not manufacturing. An office building staffed with accountants, logistics and warehouses, marketing people, diversity officers, HR, and lawyers do not make things. You need manufacturing facilities. Not just warehouses.
Yes. The USA has a military. It has over 800+ bases all over the world and very advanced high-tech equipment. But sitting in a office building pushing buttons on drones, and using a military that are unable to do more than five push ups is not a military force to be afraid of. It is something that looks good on paper, but not what you want to defend your life with.
So over all, in a big picture, Asia (in a one-to-one) head-to-head conflict will overtake the collective West.
As in this quote from my e-mail…
All we need to do is to rid our head of the USD-based capitalist miasma, USD-based dividends included.
Why does anyone need the USD showing a fake USD-based GDP to demonstrate that they have a good economy?
Why would Russia collapse with the closing of McDonalds, Starbucks, and the casino-stock market?
Russia has the world's largest land mass.
It has abundant clean water and agricultural land.
It has only one-tenth of China's population. No one will ever starve or lack water in Russia.
But even better is that they have huge stores of energy and minerals in the ground. They will never lack anything that is necessary for the advancement of their society.
More importantly, they also have the brains to develop technology and they have a strong army to defend themselves against anyone, including worthy foes such as Napoleon and Hitler, who were almost invincible before they attacked Russia.
Should Putin be afraid of sleepy Biden, dopey Bojo, dogfaced Stoltenberg, maleficent Ursula, and funny Zelensky?
I rest my case.
In geopolitics, you do not own anything that you cannot defend. The rest is bullshit and balderdash. Even cavemen knew that. In economics, Russia and China have a perfect fit.
China has too many people for not enough agricultural land and clean water. It does not have enough energy or minerals in the ground.
Russia gives China what it needs, and China will make whatever Russia needs. Everyone will live happy fruitful lives in peace and harmony without the need to ever see a single dollar.
America wants to whip the G7 to sanction China, what a delusional dying empire!
The destruction comes in many forms…
“In two weeks, China, Russia, Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan will reveal an independent international monetary and financial system. It will be based on a new international currency, calculated from an index of national currencies of the participating countries and international commodity prices”
-Sputnik News, Mar. 14, 2022.
Along with the new currency, Russia and China will also reveal their Unfriendly Nation Lists.
So I stand by my belief that theres more things down the pipe. Never forget about who you are all dealing with…
America vs China.
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.
This is my podcast on war! Particularly the Russian invasion of Ukraine and how it affects all of us strapped to the roller-coaster ride which it entails. It’s not really a streaming podcast as I had hoped, but rather a downloadable 6-minute movie. I explain it all in the video.
The Podcast
2022 03 14 09 5aaa0
You can watch the video HERE, or download the ZIP HERE and watch it later on.
Americans and Westerners (The United States, the EU, Canada, Japan, Australia, and Korea = the collective “West”) have been mandated to take an mRNA “vaccination” to fight Coronavirus. This, most people know.
What they don’t know is this…
The mRNA is not a vaccination. It’s an injection of a content-secret chemical.
Russia, China, and the rest of the world use traditional “dead host” vaccines.
Both Russia and China accused the USA of unleashing Coronavirus on the world.
They claim that it is a bioweapon. One of 11 total. (8 against livestock, 3 against people.)
If the reader is aware of those four points, then good for you. If you are unaware, then you REALLY need to change your “news” sources.
Now, that being said, many in the (collective) West are openly critical of these mRNA “vaccinations”. They don’t understand why they need to take it for a chest cold weaker than the seasonal flu. As such, many refuse to take it, with Americans being the most agressive about this.
To force compliance, the West have set up systems where you MUST get this mRNA injection or be “black listed”. Being “black listed” has many negative attributes, such as loss of job, income, ability to bank, financial investments and others too numerous to list.
When pressed, they (the government) argue that “the rest of the world is doing this, so we must as well”.
Not true.
Only the collective West is doing this.
Not the East.
China and Russia are very serious about this, true, but they use “dead-host” (actual) vaccines. They do not use mRNA injections becuase the studies have shown severe side effects within the injected population over time.
In fact, (unreported in the West), China is still at DEFCON 2 right now and has been at that point since 2020 when they accused the United States for unleasing the three bioweapons attacks against their civilian population.
Good luck visiting and arriving in China.
It’s still locked down. You have to apply for a visa under the “special authorizations” clause, and then endure two weeks in a quarantine hotel (with daily multiple swabs) and another two weeks at your destination under lock-down. That’s a total of four weeks under lock-down. Obviously, there aren’t many people visiting China right now.
Remember the Winter Olympics? The entire area was one big “clean room”.
So here you have the situation.
Polorized Globe
The earth is now divided into two haves.
On one side you have the “The First World”, also known as the “Collective West”. It consists of the United States led unipolar order. The nations are the United States and all of it’s toadies; it’s “allies”.
On the other side, you have a China-led order. With Russia, all of Africa, the Middle East, and most of South America.
The West vs. the East.
The “West” in blue. The “East” in gray.
One side wants it all
This shouldn’t be news to anyone. The collective West demands a unipolar global order led by the United States; one that can make the rules as it moves forward, and break and ignore the rules it doesn’t like.
The East wants a world of equals working together as needed per the UN charter. They beleive that much can be gained for the bulk of humanity if everyone participates in wealth generating activities. Not just the super wealthy.
Again, this shouldn’t be news to anyone.
If you are not aware of this, then I posit that you have been living under a rock, and your “news” sources are pathetic.
How can the USA take it all, once and for all?
The West wants it all, but they are impotent.
The United States might have the largest military in the world, and bases everywhere, but they have major liabilities. Culturially, socially, physically, and substantively on every level, the West is approaching “senile, old age, riddled with dementia”.
For the last fifty years, it lost every war that it fought (with the notible exceptions of Grenada, and Panama), all the time while fighting multiple wars all over the globe. Right now it is involved in eight simultaneous hot kinetic wars, and numerous “color revolutions”. It’s been a busy, busy nation.
But the rest of the world has risen. It’s awake. And it’s aware.
Don’t piss it off.
Any war with a major Eastern nation will be collective. Meaning, if you fight China, the rest of the world will engage you. If you fight Russia, the rest of the world will engage you. As we are just now starting to witness.
Uh oh.
Nuclear weapons are out. Well for now, at least.
Yes. America (and it’s surrogates) has an enormous nuclear arsenal. But the delivery systems have been rendered obsolete by the Eastern block. Not only does the East have very advanced hyper-velocity missiles, but they have AI, internal ability to evade, plot course changes, and stealth.
In addition, all of Asia has the ability to shoot down incoming nuclear missiles on any form or shape. America and Europe does not have this. They never saw the need. They are exceptional, the shining house on the hill; the nations where everyone wants to become part of. Don’t you know!
So, if nuclear destruction is out of the calculus, then what’s left?
Biowarfare
Now, it is well documented that the United States under Trump / John Bolton / Mike Pompeo launched a two-phase bioweapons assault on the East in 2019.
Again, if you are unaware of this, I have to shake you up with the “Rule number one of being a spook”. Look for what is NOT being reported in the “news”.
So, yeah. China was intentionally “suppressed”. It’s all part of that “hybrid-warfare” onslaught package. Don’t you know.
And it was genius.
It truly was.
The “lite” version, the one that only caused a sore thoat was given to Americans and Europeans in June 2019. This was to innoculate the population with the COVID-19A “safe” virus. You know “herd immunity”. And it has worked.
While the nasty bad momba-jamba COVID-19B rampaged though Iran and China in December that year.
China went DEFCON 1, and full lockdown and suppressed the bioweapon attack. Irans, had some real serious dings and lost most of it’s leadership.
I argue that the attack failed. Then when the modified strains started to circle the globe, and hit the USA, everyone started running the “wear a mask” gambit, and hurry up and get inoculated…
But…
But…
Something just doesn’t add up.
The United States Bioweapon facilities
The United States is the ONLY nation developing bioweapons in the world. In fact, it has held this role for at least fourty years since the fall of the former Soviet Union.
Yet, why all the many, many, many bioweapons facilities?
There’s over 330+ of them, and they are all over the globe. Why?
Let, me spell it out to you all. Why so many development labs all regionally located thoughtout the world? These are top secret facilities. Why are there so many, and why so regional?
Think about it.
Well, let’s “cut to the chase”. All you need to do is look at a map of human DNA variations by geographical region to see the answer.
2022 03 10 10 40
They have been developing DNA targeting viruses to target specific geographical population clusters.
And it has been going on for a long time.
But, you know, there’s no way to know for certain. The facities are all locked down, with up-most secrecy. No one is ever going to discover what the United States government is up to.
Russian invasion of the Ukraine
Then the invasion of the Ukraine occured, and the Russians seized some of these bioweapons facilities, and their findings were truly worrisome.
U.S. Nailed to the Wall on Illicit Biological Weapons Labs in Ukraine
For the world to survive and have peace, US generals have to kick the imperialist addiction, and the ruling political classes of the US and EU thoroughly renovated.
A couple of days ago, when I presented a summary of the dramatic information and warnings conveyed in the latest televised briefing by the spokesman for the Russian military, Igor Konoshenkov, I received back from some readers the comment that this was all just Russian propaganda, similar to the kind of propaganda we hear regularly coming from the Pentagon and State Department.
The allegations of biological weapons banned under international convention being produced in experimental laboratories in Kharkiv and other Ukrainian towns under programs paid for and supervised by Americans had to be fake news, these skeptics and cynics maintained.
The same had to be true of Konoshenkov’s asserting that the Ukrainians were working on dirty nuclear bombs at their Zaporozhye nuclear power stations, which had just been captured by Russian forces.
However, yesterday the story about biological weapons labs received convincing confirmation from the U.S. State Department, when Victoria Nuland, Under Secretary for Political Affairs, said publicly before microphones that the USA fears that its biological labs in Ukraine will “fall into the wrong hands.”
That is a very convoluted admission that the Russians’ allegations are perfectly true.
The U.S. is battening down the hatches against the coming storm of international indignation, at the same time trying to divert attention away from itself by suggesting that the Russians might do something dastardly with what they find.
Enter China
American evasion and attempted dissimulation were stymied however when, also yesterday, the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs demanded an explanation from the United States.
He demanded what exactly Americans have been doing not only in their Ukrainian labs, which were situated in cities across the Ukraine from Kharkiv to Lviv, but also in a further 130 such labs spread out across the world.
Intense Chinese concern is understandable since one such laboratory was in Wuhan, the point of origin of Covid19.
The subtext is that the U.S. Chiefs of Staff have taken with the utmost seriousness the warnings of retaliation from Konoshenkov, against NATO, Article 5 or no Article 5 pledges of ‘one for all and all for one.’
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Meanwhile, the general public in the United States is clueless because virtually nothing about this appeared in major media.
Remember the MM spook rule #1;
"Look for what is NOT being reported".
Leaks from these labs – Intentional or unintentional?
Still on the subject of biological weapons being prepared in Ukraine under United States funding and guidance, Russian experts were on television this morning explaining how leaks from these labs have been monitored over the past few years.
2022 03 10 11 23
In one such case, 450 Ukrainian civilians were said to have died from biological agents that contaminated their residential block.
This number, you will note, is higher than the total number of civilian deaths in the ongoing “barbaric” Russian in Ukraine.
As reported in The Financial times (characterization as “barbaric” by Andrew Bacevich, Chairman of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, a self-described American think tank for peace).
The Russians are now examining whether outbreaks of swine flu and avian flu that caused havoc with their livestock in farming areas close to the Ukrainian border may not have been artificially induced by saboteurs coming from Ukraine.
Work on viruses transmissible from animals to humans was also reportedly being done in the Ukrainian facilities.
And nuclear weapons too?
Let us now turn to the question of Ukraine’s program to produce nuclear weapons, which Konoshenkov also mentioned in his briefing. Today Russian news is saying that they possess more than just documentary proof of such development, which contravenes the Budapest Memorandum of 1994 and the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, to which Ukraine is a signatory. The Russians now claim to have found sample “baby bombs” which will prove beyond doubt the nuclear ambitions of Kiev for which the United States was a guiding force.
All of the foregoing points to what may be expected when the Russians finish their demilitarization and denazification campaign in Ukraine in the next several weeks.
They may well convene an international tribunal to try the Ukrainians who were responsible for the illicit programs involving weapons of mass destruction.
We may expect the Chinese to join them in running the tribunal, as well as other closely interested countries.
It is also reasonable to expect that this tribunal will identify and seek to extradite their American handlers.
This may be difficult, because Moscow has already said today that the Americans on the ground in Ukraine overseeing the biological weapons laboratories all carried diplomatic passports.
However, the Russians, like the Americans, can be very resourceful in cases like this.
Well U.S. Biolabs in Ukraine must be true because Twitter suspended @::::war::::clandestine account. Someone out there got post on video. Here it is. pic.twitter.com/S5418JOQbj— Secret Squirel (@cbcool2532) February 24, 2022
Geo-Political “games”
Finally, before closing today’s bulletin of latest developments in the Russia-Ukraine war at the political level, I direct attention to the question of Poland’s turning over its fleet of Soviet-era MIG jet fighters to Ukraine, which has been a hot issue on Western news these past few days.
The Poles had been in discussions over this possibility with U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken last week, and Blinken seemed to be approving.
For the Poles, the proposed “donation” to support Ukraine would be a godsend. They would get rid of their fleet of old Soviet planes and would receive in exchange from the United States F-16 fighters, thereby better integrating Poland into the standard equipment of NATO fully at the charge of Uncle Sam.
Let us assume the transaction would come to half a billion to one billion dollars to the benefit of Warsaw and to the cost of U.S. taxpayers.
Is it any wonder that several other former Warsaw Pact countries, now NATO member states yesterday said they too were ready to help the comrades in Ukraine by turning their old MIGs over to Kiev and taking in exchange United States fighter planes.
Warsaw announced yesterday that it intended to fly its MIGs to the Ramstein airbase in southwestern Germany for the hand-over.
This news release apparently took the U.S Government by surprise.
At her testimony before the Senate a little later in the day, Victoria Nuland said she had no pre-warning of the announcement and would not comment till she got back to her office and studied the matter further.
This announcement was indeed remarkable.
Ramstein is the headquarters of the United States Air Forces in Europe and also of the NATO Allied Air Command.
If the MIGs had simply been transferred to Ukrainian pilots on Polish territory and then flown into combat in Ukraine, then they would bring down on the dispatching airport in Poland the instant retribution that General Konoshenkov stated explicitly two days ago.
Russia would bomb Poland.
By sending the planes to Ramstein for the hand-over to the Ukrainians, the Russian response, cruise or hypersonic missile attack, would go instead against the United States airbase.
Russia would bomb the United States.
Dear promoters of Poland as the defense shield of Europe in Washington: pay close attention to what your friends would do to you.
2022 03 10 10 03
However, none of this will come to pass, as we may conclude by today’s announcement from the Pentagon that the deal is unacceptable and is outside the competence of Poland to offer.
Today the Pentagon spokesmen say plainly that the issue at hand concerns all of NATO and can be taken only by NATO collectively, not by one member, Poland.
This is a nice formally correct explanation from the Pentagon.
The subtext is that the U.S. Chiefs of Staff have taken with the utmost seriousness the warnings of retaliation from Konoshenkov, against NATO, Article 5 or no Article 5 pledges of ‘one for all and all for one.’
Meanwhile, the general public in the United States is clueless because virtually nothing about this appeared in major media.
2022 03 10 08 06
When the war started, President Putin was hopeful to come to a quick understanding with the leading officers of the Ukrainian armed forces regarding capitulation and regime change.
However, in a matter of days it became clear that the Ukrainian military has been thoroughly infiltrated by radical nationalists and is unable to act in the interests of the nation independently.
It now appears that this type of analysis would be better applied to the United States of America.
Only the senior generals in the Pentagon have their eyes and ears wide open to the Russian capabilities and intentions.
The political classes, both Democrats and Republicans on The Hill, are lost in their own virtual world of unlimited United States power.
That alone explains the potentially suicidal demand from Democrats yesterday that Biden now impose a ‘no-fly zone’ over Ukraine.
It may be that the war will end when the Pentagon generals and their Russian counterparts sit down and talk about revising the European architecture of security, leaving Blinken and his associates to look on through the windows.
A real possibility.
But what about the mRNA vaccines?
Let’s back track right now and look at some bullet points…
The USA is the sole nation running bioweapons development.
The USA is leading the “West” and needs to destroy the “East” to achieve dominance.
The USA has located bioweapons falicilites all over the globe and evidence in Ukraine suggests viruses that target regional populations by DNA.
And we know, from published mRNA data (far too detailed to present here)…
Content of the mRNA “stew” injected into Westerners is secret.
This is not “corporate confidential”, but rather “government military secret”.
All of the collective West must get the injections.
Putting the first group of bullet-points with the second group of bullet-points we see an association.
The plan
It appears (as the most obvious conclusion possible) that [1] the United States plans (in some way) to release regionally-targeted bioweapons globally, and [2] use it’s mRNA injection protocols to protect itself.
As different bioweapons are released, booster updates will be given to the civilian population to protect them from the bioweapons.
It’s pretty fucking evil.
Yikes! It’s a new way to fight wars
Yes it is.
What had happened is that when Russia invaded the Ukraine they were able to seize these facilities. And they were able to identify what they were doing and why. And one of the most obvious tasks was to develop bioweapons for United States use that was released to civilian populations locally. Then cover up the release as an “accident”. All as a cover for the development of regional DNA-targetted bioweapons.
And the way for the United States to protect itself is to inject it’s people with a cure. This would be a mRNA “milkshake”.
In Ukraine, under the leadership of the United States, a real biological weapon was developed
Alexander GRISHIN
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The Russian Defense Ministry has published a new document on the intentions of the leadership and directly the military command of Ukraine in relation to the Donbass. This is the original secret order of the Commander of the National Guard of Ukraine Mykola (Nikolay) Balan, signed by him on January 22, 2022. Once again – not copies, but the original document with all the authentic signatures of those responsible.
What is special about this document?
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This is not yet an order to attack the Donbass (the time will come, and such will appear at our disposal), but an order on the preparation and combat coordination of a separate battalion-tactical group of the 4th operational brigade of the National Guard to carry out combat (special) tasks in the so-called operation Joint forces in the Donbass region.
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Coordination exercises were held in the Lviv region at the Yavoriv training ground, the very one where most of the Javelins and other modern weapons transferred from the USA to the Armed Forces of Ukraine were stored.
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The exercises were supposed to pass according to the “NATO standards” program and prepare the fighters of the group psychologically, physically, teach them combat tactics and skills in handling foreign weapons. Further, this BTG was to operate as part of the 80th separate airborne assault brigade of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. From the name of which it is already clear what tasks this connection performs. At the same time, a separate paragraph of the order forbade sending those National Guardsmen who would show “unsatisfactory results of psychological testing” to perform tasks in the Donbass. “Psychological stability” is a very important indicator for punishers,
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All preparations for solving the tasks set by the command were ordered to be completed by February 28th. We throw in another week to transfer the group directly to combat positions in the Donbass, a couple of days to line up, as they say, battle formations, and we get the start of an active offensive after receiving a combat order from the command today or tomorrow.
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By all logic, by all accounts, the military-political special operation launched by Russia on February 24 to denazify and demilitarize Ukraine averted a new tragedy in Donbass. Let’s face it, it’s much bigger than anything he’s done before. Ukraine was preparing for this.
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But besides this, as it turned out, there were other reasons for precisely such actions of Moscow, which we are now observing.
“WHY WILL BATTLE VIRUSES?”
Dmitry Peskov – about biological laboratories in Ukraine: “Measures are being taken. You will know about the results in a timely manner”
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Official China asked when the US would give clarifications on the 336 biological laboratories that Washington manages and finances around the world. However, rather, not Washington, but the Pentagon, the US Department of Defense. 30 of them are in Ukraine.
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From the documents cited earlier by the same Russian Ministry of Defense, it became clear that in Ukraine, under the leadership of the United States , a real biological weapon was being developed .
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In the order received from the Ministry of Health of Ukraine, the leadership of the laboratories was ordered to destroy all research materials and the viruses themselves and other pathogens as early as the day the Russian special operation began.
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The next day, February 25, they all reported on the work done and the irretrievable destruction of the pathogens of diphtheria, salmonellosis, anthrax, ulcers, plague and other deadly diseases.
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Despite a chorus of ridicule from Russian liberals about this report by the Russian Defense Ministry, the veracity of this information was confirmed not by anyone, but by the United States itself.
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"There are biological research laboratories in Ukraine. At the moment, we are concerned that the Russian military may be trying to take control of them, was forced to admit at a hearing in the US Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs, Deputy Secretary of State Victoria Nuland (the same one who gladly handed out cookies and buns on the Maidan in Kyiv). - We are working with the Ukrainian side to ensure that biological research materials do not fall into the hands of Russian forces."
This in itself is a recognition that they did not develop flu drops there. After all, if everything is harmless, then why destroy the samples and strive so hard that they “do not fall into the hands of the Russians.”
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By the way, the Americans were very interested in the Bayraktara drones in terms of whether it is technically possible to spray aerosols from them during the flight, which is also confirmed, this time by other documents.
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"They probably just wanted to help the Ukrainians with fertilizers during the farming season."
- The head of the troops of the RKhBZ of Russia on military biological programs in Ukraine
If for someone this is not enough. Then here’s something even scarier.
“WHO SAID ‘DIRTY’ BOMB? I SWEAR CLEAN I WASHED IT MYSELF”
Let’s remember that at a security conference in Munich this year, Zelensky said that in case of refusal of assistance to ensure the security of Ukraine, Kyiv could withdraw from the Budapest Memorandum.
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Which approves the non-nuclear status of Ukraine.
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No, Ukrainian politicians have repeatedly spoken about the need to revive the nuclear program in the country, but such a promise was made by the current head of state for the first time.
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Keep in mind that the Ukraine, since the CIA backed "color revolution" in 2014 is a wholly owned and controlled serrogate state, with a puppet leader. -MM
And this, judging by a whole range of evidence, was neither a bluff nor an empty threat. As follows from a number of reliable sources, the SVR and the GRU have documented evidence that such a program has already been implemented. Moreover, two types of charges were developed: plutonium and uranium.
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The key role in the project was assigned to the National Center “Kharkov Institute of Physics and Technology”, which had an experimental base, in principle, for obtaining weapons-grade plutonium from spent reactor thermal assemblies. The work was also carried out in the zone of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, where the increased radiation background hid their work. Both the Institute for Nuclear Research in Kyiv and the Institute of Organic Chemistry were involved in the work on the project.
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Documents from Kyiv and Kharkov are still waiting to be made available, but Zaporizhzhya NPP personnel have already confirmed that such work was carried out at the plant, and IAEA inspectors from among the recruited local personnel did not reflect them in their reports.
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According to various estimates, a nuclear explosive device could be created in Ukraine within a period of several months to a couple of years. Ukraine also has carriers that would allow the charge to be carried, if not to Moscow and St. Petersburg, but to at least Belgorod, Kursk, Voronezh, Rostov-on-Don, albeit in very limited quantities.
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As for the so-called “Dirty” bomb , which is used to infect the area through the explosion of a conventional munition, Ukraine already has such a possibility, given the presence of a giant repository of spent nuclear fuel and waste in the Chernobyl nuclear power plant zone. Precisely to prevent such sabotage, which can be compared with the terrorist attack on the Chernobyl nuclear power plant and the Zaporizhzhya nuclear power plant (where the Americans supplied plutonium), units of the National Guard were introduced, which, by the way, are on duty there together with the National Guard of Ukraine.
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In general, both the GRU and the SVR do not eat their bread in vain, since information about all this was brought to the attention of the President of Russia in a timely manner.
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Probably, it may even seem like some kind of blasphemy now, but in a good way, the world should be grateful to Russia for the fact that it launched its military operation so on time. Imagine the detonation of a nuclear warhead on the territory of Russia and what the consequences of this would be.
Conclusion
And there you have it. There is a grand scheme of massive depopulation / war initiated by the United States via bioweapons globally.
If you believe the World Economic Forum, 80% of the population of the globe must be killed off to initiate a new “utopia”. One that is led by an American unipolar world-order.
The idea is to have the globe ruled with Service-to-self entities, and serviced by servie-to-another (NPC) entities. The service-for-others sentience will be killed off.
They plan to do this within the next two years.
There is a “bump in the road with both Russia and China” not wanting to have anything to do with it. But no matter. The United States is on “autopilot”. The systems are in place and the plan is in process.
How this will evolve over time is anyone’s guess.
But at least there’s a lone voice in Ireland speaking out…
2022 03 10 11 39
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.
The first part went out, and I was deluged by a bunch of gung-ho ‘Merica types accusing me of all sorts of things. Sheech! My thoughts are what is going on between Russia and the Ukraine / USA / NATO is very simple;
Obey the agreements that you signed.
If you don't, you risk war.
It’s not just me who believe this.
It’s EVERY FUCKING NATION on the planet except for the USA, UK, Australia, and NATO believes it.
And you cannot talk your way out of it, not matter how solidly you control the narrative. Your narrative is restricted to a very small “echo chamber” centered in the United States.
It is meaningless outside of it.
Ah.
2022 03 08 08 27 From Moon Over Alabama.
Sigh. The sheeple have been vault 7 programmed to NPC status. Angry; very, VERY angry. Mindless. Devoid of the ability to understand fundamentals. Sigh.
2022 03 08 23 01
About this article
Like the earlier article, we are going to go bullet point by bullet point in this one. Only the points will be a little better flushed out. But first; a map. This is day ten of the “invasion” (if you use the terminology of the United States), or the “special operation” (if you use the terminology of Asia.).
2022 03 08 09 45
Now for the points…
[1] Ukraine / Russia conflict is a different kind of war
The "gloves are off". No playing nice. Fight Russia at your own risk.
The Russians are calling this a “special operation”. This is in opposition to the United States and Western termonology. They refer to it as an invasion.
I would argue that this is a type of operation which has never been seen before. Ever.
Andrei Martyanov coined a very good term, he called it a “combined arms police operation”.
The term “combined arms” is, in the Russian military terminology, the “the main form of combat of modern armies, in which the efforts of formations, units and units of various types of ground forces are combined and coordinated with the actions of other types of armed forces“.
This type of warfare can only be conducted by combined arms units and implies an operational-level dimension. In other words, a combined arms operation has nothing in common with a police operation.
In this case, Andrei Martyanov is right.
What we are seeing here is a police operation whose aim is to disarm and apprehend/neutralize a criminal force, which itself is so big that it is capable of operational-level warfare. But not strategic nor tactical level warfare.
Normally, police operations are always on the low end of the tactical level spectrum (division, brigade, regiment, battalion, company, platoon) and rarely involve more than maybe a few APCs. This is clearly not the case today in the Ukraine where combat operations are clearly reaching operational and even strategic levels.
The United States set up a puppet government in Ukraine with the CIA / NGO “color revolution” of 2014. They gained support from nationalists who adopted a fierce neo-Nazi stance, and who even reactivated the Asov SS Division. The official AZOV emblem is the ‘Wolfsangel‘.
During World War II, various units of the German Nazi army used this symbol, including the SS Panzer Division.
The USA then funded the Ukraine president lavishly with nearly 2 billion dollars in off-shore accounts. He, in return for that enormous wealth, allowed the USA to dictate his actions. NATO was set up operationally, and in every manner, bioweapons facilities and nuclear launch sites were all set in motion.
Ukraine became the fourth largest recipient of American military weapons and equipment. Russia found this unacceptable.
And, as such, demanded the expansion of NATO stop, and the removal of nuclear systems for its borders. Russia, after the resounding “no” from both NATO and the United States carried out it’s ultimatum.
Right now, what we are witnessing is a total gutting of the United States puppet government and neo-Nazi elements, and a return to Ukraine independence and sovereignty.
This differs from an invasion. Where one nation invades another to seize it’s cities, land, people and resources.
[2] Incorrigable Criminal Elements
Taking point [1] to heart, the Nazi elements wearing Ukrainian uniforms, and firing American produced heavy weapons are considered to be criminal elements.
Those that join and support this band of criminals will be considered incorrigible foreign proxies desirous of prolonging criminal activity and will be hunted and killed.
It's not just me pointing out this fact.
Any one helping these criminals will themselves be treated as criminals.
Russia warns pro-Ukraine foreign fighters will be treated as criminals, not prisoner of war. And are treated appropiately.
Ukrainian President Zelensky says that already 16,000 foreigners have volunteered to fight for Ukraine against Russia. Websites are up to recruit, and the United States has set up training camps in Poland for them.
I hope that they made their peace with their families. This is not going to be a Yemen, Afganastan, Libya, or Syria.
The soldiers of the Chechen special forces have an order not to take mercenaries prisoner.
They WILL be killed after information is extracted.
You may disagree with their decision process, and operational orders, but you have to face reality. You must accept things as they are, not as you want them to be.
[3] NATO Planned to Launch a “first strike” Against Russia
The movement of nuclear forces on the Russian border was intended to zero out the advantage of Russia’s hyper-velocity nuclear arment. That’s what this entire conflict is all about.
And Russia said NO!
"The Russian government decided to stop this situation and restore order in Ukraine,” wrote Nikolai Azarov, who served as Ukrainian Prime Minister three times.
Through a message posted on Facebook on Friday, Former Ukrainian Prime Minister Nikolai Azarov claimed that the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) planned a nuclear attack against Russia, taking advantage of the existence of geopolitical problems with Ukraine. And that Russia was forced to preempt that attack.
This was necessitated as a means to offset the offensive nuclear hyper-missile and SAM capability of Russia.
Anyone who cannot see that Russia was forced to lay down their "red lines", and respond to them being crossed, is an ignorant fool.
[4] Offensive Nuclear Warfare So… why piss around using conventional warfare in Ukraine?
Russia and China have formidable nuclear, city destroying capabilities.
Both the Russians and the Chinese possess hyper-velocity weapons that are able to [1] fly independently using AI, [2] evade and change course, [3] fire projectiles and vehicles, [4] are undetectable by radar, and [5] carry nuclear weapons.
These are generations beyond anything that the United States (and the West) have. It will take decades for the United States to reach parity.
[5] Defensive Nuclear Warfare So what? The United States Military Empire is the largest in history, and armed with massive impressive weapons. There should be nothing to be afraid of.
Right?
America and its allies lie defenseless.
Both the Russians and the Chinese possess advanced ABM shields that are able to [1] track, [2] decloak, [3] intercept, and [4] render inert / destroy incoming missiles, systems, or aircraft.
These systems are perfected and generations in advance of anything that the United States possess.
[6] Bioweapons What about other forms of weapons? Such as bioweapons…
They were put in play in 2017 under John Bolton, and backfired.
The United States is the undisputed leader in the development and manufacture of biological weapons. This continues in defiance of UN treaties. In fact, all of the new and novel viruses that plagued the world since the 1970s have been patented by the United States.
[5.1] Further, both the Chinese and the Russians have accused the United States for unleashing the Coronavirus B in China, Iran and North Korea in 2020. While inoculating the US and it's allies with Coronavirus A.
[5.2] China has accused the United States of using drones to destroy food and livestock from 2017 though 2021.
[5.3] Russia has accused the United States of setting up 15 bioweapons facilities on the Ukraine to Russian border.
[5.4] "Fact Checker" Snopes says that Bioweapons in use is a lie, that the United States would never do such a thing. Of course, they have been proven to be a propiganda outlet for the US government.
[5.5] Russia has acquired documents and supporting evidence from the captured bioweapons labs inside of the Ukraine. It's all over Chiense and Russian media. Nothing in Western Media.
This discovery of a laptop “smoking gun”, coupled by the likely shipment of Turkish drones modified for the delivery of toxic aerosols or other bio-toxins (identical to those that spread the swine flu to devistate the Chinese pork industy in 2017) immediately prior to the launch of the Special Operation serves to explain the RF attack.
The modified drones are unconfirmed as of yet, but two Turkish Airbus freighters were tracked landing in Ukraine immediately prior to the attack.
The laptop is physical evidence of a close association between NATO and the Nazis. This association pre-dates the Special Operation and indicates NATO complicity in an attack on both Donbass and Crimea. Ref HERE.
[7] Russia is not isolated and alone
The full spectrum propaganda onslaught consists of article after article about how isolated Russia is becoming. The average ill-informed person would easily come to the conclusion that Russia is a pariah and isolated and alone.
This is the desired effect, but not what is actually happening.
There is NOT one single thing that Europe, or America, or any of its allies provide to Russia that cannot be acquired from China. And China and Russia are joined at the hip. They are, and act as one.
Or, haven't you all been paying attention. Remember the massive document that they both signed during the Beijing Olmpics last month? You know the one; where MSNBC, Politico, and FOX "news" refered to it as "wordy gibberish".
In the future months or years, the American war-machine will ontinue to try to separte the two nations. They will propigandize a "mistake" and "fractures in the alliance". It will fail. They will then steer directly towards China, and try to isolate a united Russia and China alliance.
[8] China
The USA (and it's Western pawns) are decoupling from a world that will not accept its leadership.
Decoupling is not the end goal. It is the first step in establishing a return to a unipolar status quo.
The interm goal (in this process) is to destroy the rest of the world and have the United States be the sole remaining power. In effect, the lone "superpower" once again.
It sounds really bad. That is becuase it is.
To this end, the plan is for China to be isolated, and then destroyed. Leaving only the United States and it's proxies remaining.
This is a pretty obvious plan. Again, it's only the ignorant who see otherwise. All the scattered "puzzle pieces" fit into a picture that describes this agenda.
[9] Chinese “Red Lines”
This action, to initiate a war with China, will necessitate that the Chinese "red lines" be crossed. China clearly defined those "red lines". Just like Russia did.
When that happens, there will be a short and very nasty war.
"Red Lines" are absolute.
When the smoke clears, Taiwan will be integrated with the mainland, all American naval bases in the Pacific will be gone, as will be any carrier flotillas as well. You can expect the Hawaiian islands, and all the stateside naval facilities erased.
I recon that it will probably be the "spark" that launches nuclear destruction of the United States mainland.
There will be mass casualties on both sides.
The magnitude of which will depend on the skills of the leadership of the nations involved. Biden and NATO vs. Xi Peng and Putin.
It is up to the reader to determine, for themselves, who are stronger and better leaders. Then come to your own opinions.
[10] The United States is NOT READY for a defeat
Most of the Western people; Americans, Europeans, Australians, and Japanese are of the strong belief that America (as the greatest military force in all history) can never be defeated.
Never, as in absolutely, positively inconceivable.
The loss of every carrier in the Navy, the nuclear destruction of the top thirty American cites, and the ensuing chaos will absolutely crush the United States psyche. It's so absoltuely weak now that a feather could push it over. Imagine what would happen when the largest remaining intact American city would be Des Moines, Iowa.
Both Russia or China could do it right now, and the United States could not stop it at all. The only thing that the USA can do is to try to launch it's SLBMs from the remaining active boomer submarines.
To quote a scene from the movie "The Princess Bride"; It's inconceivable.
It’s inconceivable.
[11] The anti-Russia narrative of “a big Russian mistake” will end
The current US PSYOP narrative about the Russians being defeated and on full retreat will not survive this weekend.
It will now change. It will now shift to “Putin’s rape camps and torture of poor suffering Ukraine”.
Remember all the accusations of genocide against the Serbs in Bosnia, Croatia and Kosovo? This is what will happen to Russia next – a massive wave of accusations of atrocities and genocide.
The (so-called) “free and democratic press” will now switch to the fabricated lies pushing the American people towards more War! War! War!
[12] The United States is running Ukraine
[11.1] Former UkrainePresident Volodymyr Zelensky is living in the United States embassy in Poland.
[11.2] The orders for the remaining Ukrainian military forces come out of the American Embassy in Ukraine.
These two points clearly show that the United States is "running the show" and is in charge of everything in the Ukraine right now.
[13] New Global Transaction System
Discussed earlier. SWIFT is obsolete. But what does that mean?
Gold is an alternative. Both Russia and China barter directly in raw materials, physical products or gold / precious metals.
Any nation not able to do so, whether they have no factories, no resources, or no valuable metals, will be forced to rely on coercion to manage their trade. Already, much of the world is unwilling to accept this state much longer.
Keep in mind that not only is China the manufacturer for the world, China’s $3.2 trillion of foreign exchange reserves is greater than the $2.3 trillion value of ALL the world’s central bank gold reserves.
The ability for nations to conduct trade will be polarized. Either [12.1] continue to use SWIFT backed with worthless paper, or [12.2] deal with a united Russia-China alliance backed by gold, material resources, and manufactured products.
There are no other options. The choice will depend on the level of independence over coercion by the United States.
It's not just CIPS. It's not just a switch from one system to the other. The exchange rate in the system is tied to the value of the monetary unit in use. If most of the world transacts in gold, and the remaining few transacts in American-backed paper, the exchange rate will reflect that.
Expect a plunge in the value of the USD globally, and with that will come geometric and even exponential increases in American (but not global) inflation.
The inflation will be directly tied to the nations that continue to use the USD.
So, in the future, inflation will NOT be a global experience, as all the alternative websites out of the USA are predicting. No. it will be a localized one based on the form of financial transfer.
[14] Putin’s popularity is not collapsing
The Western narrative is that the war in Ukraine is going to bring about the "fall of Putin". That's just PSYOPS.
The truth is that his popularity is soaring. Western readers will be unaware of that, as all news from Russia and China are banned.
I have tons of videos that refect this. All you need to do is crawl out from the isolation net of the West.
[15] First World vs. Third World
I have documented the severe disconnect between what the West (especially Americans) believe and what is actually occurring.
For instance, the term "First World" is used to describe the United States and Europe, while "Third World" is used to describe Russia, China and Africa.
That is wildly innacurate.
China is definitely, and certainly, First World.
This is not simply my personal opinion, it's backed by just every measurable statistic. While the United States has fallen way, way, WAY behind. It is approaching third class world.
No new parks, infrastructure, advanced crime control. No energy friendly infrastructure, nor merit driven initatives. No high-speed public transportation, and crime and homelessness abound. Heck! Americans still use paper money. I'm not at all exaggerating.
[16] Sweden and Finland
The idea that either Sweden or Finland would enter the fray by joining NATO should send shivers up everyone's spine.
Russia's "red lines" are fixed and immovable.
Thus, were Sweden or Finland opt to become members of NATO, they would be crossing the Russian "Red Lines". The Russian reaction to it will be harsh and direct.
From the point of view of Russia these are non-negotiable "red lines" and crossing them is an act of war.
If forced, Russia will take on any country, including any NATO member country, which will assist the Ukrainians militarily.
If forced, Russia will even fight all of NATO and the USA together and, if forced, she will use all her weapons, including nuclear ones.
And if that means that the entire planet is nuked then, as Putin said, “we have no need for a planet without Russia”.
All this is to say that Russia is not bluffing, Putin will not back down and that there is no price which Russia would not be willing to pay to prevail in this existential war.
Russia will not stop until her existence is made safe again.
[17] Nazi hardliners in Ukraine
You just cannot make this stuff up, but hard-line Ukraine nationalists have adopted the Nazi Germany regalia, systems, history and organization from the former Nazi Germany. And they are fanatic and radical in their beliefs.
HERE and HERE.
For instance, they killed one of their own negotiators with the Russians for not taking an absolute to-the-death stance.
[18] Why defend the United States?
My personal opinions. But sheech! people. When you live in a place where the streets are clean, radicals of every kind (SJW, BLM, and KKK) are put in mental hospitals, the people are happy, and parks are everywhere… the USA really, REALLY looks like a steaming pile of dog shit.
In watching all the "news" and opinions flying about, I am just stunned. The individuals all talk that it is necessary to defend the values and democracy-based freedoms of the United States and those of Western Europe.
What freedoms?
What democracy?
The mere fact that American and Western access to Russian and Chinese news is banned is a sign FOR CERTAIN that there is no freedom. In both China and RUssia you can easily get Western news. Not so, the other way around.
In fact, you cannot name one Right (in the Bill of Rights) that does not have exceptions.
For instance, the second amendment has an entire agency (the ATF) whose entire purpose is to infringe on it and limit its use and application. The ninth amendment has the FDA. The first amendment has the FCC, and technocrats. But I will stop here. I have written many an article on this.
The USA is an oligarchy-ruled Military Empire. It is not a "democracy".
2022 03 08 09 02
[19] The Ukraine war has already resulted in thousands of money-making for-profit corportations
Wow. That was quick! Eh?
2022 03 07 09 00
[20] The United States “approves” or “will …”
I read articles all of the world, and they are disturbing to me.
US Tells Germany To Stop Using Huawei Equipment OrUS allows S. KoreaUS allows NATO allies ...US has allowed Poland to supply jets...
Let me remind everyone, that in a true democratically led world, no one nation would be able to tell another what to do. All nations would be souvern. But that is not so under a unipolar global kingdom such as the United States demands.
People should really reflect on the reality.
The United States is a Military Empire and all those "Western democracies" are but proxy governments for use by the USA to do with as it pleases. And it chooses them to fight the wars it starts, while the war-mongering neocons sit safe and sound inside their plush mansions in the United States.
[21] Russia has already switched to Chinese banking
Instead of thinking that it "might happen", remember that you are dealing with a unified Russia / Chinese alliance. It "has happened".
Russian banks are fully on board with CIPS.
It has been confirmed that Russia is switching its whole system to China's UnionPay.
UnionPay, an international payment system founded in 2002, received international status in 2005. Headquartered in Shanghai, the company reportedly operates in more than 180 countries across the globe, including Switzerland, Greece, Italy, Spain, Germany, Mexico, Cyprus, Thailand, India, Israel, Portugal, Croatia, Poland, Serbia, Hungary and Austria.
In the future, you will see more and more of these "well, it could, but..." things changed to "...is in place.".
[22] India has joined the Russian / China alliance.
It's not well publicized. But the alliance is really firming up. The majority of the world is sticking with Asia.
Andrei has a very good video on this subject HERE.
Aside from the casting of diplomatic votes, however, the response from Southeast Asian governments has been diverse — and, some say, muted. Singapore made the rare decision to impose sanctions on Russia, and Indonesia quickly criticized the actions of Russian President Vladimir Putin. The Philippines, a US treaty ally, flip-flopped and described itself as neutral. Meanwhile, Thailand and Malaysia have remained quiet.
[24] Gas to Europe has been cut
Sure you all know that. Right?
Westbound gas flows from Russia to Germany via the Yamal-Europe pipeline stopped on Thursday, while bids remained for supplies in both directions, according to data tracked by the pipeline operator Gascade. Russia covers nearly 40% of European gas demand with the Yamal-Europe route accounting for nearly 15% of the country’s westbound supply.
This will SUBSTANTIALLY affect the quality of life, and manufacturing inside of Europe. You cannot put a good spin on this. It will cause an increase in all prices for everything, as well as factory shutdowns and slow downs with will result in layoffs and unemployment.
[25] American and European PSYOPS have fled Russia
All the standard "news" media operations have fled Russia.
Why? Well, Russia passed a law that if you publish provable fake or false information, you WILL be held personally responsible and you WILL be treated as a military combatant, in disguise; fighting Russia.
All those desk-jockeys regurgitating NSA psyops informtion for the five-eyes are now looking at capture, torture and death. No wonder they are scared shitless and scurrying off like rats off a sinking ship.
Interesting, but I believe that this is a policy that is a copy of what Xi Peng implemented in China.
That Chinese policy sure as fuck cleaned out the various CIA and NGO "rats nests" and stopped all the color revolutions in HK, Xinjiang, Tibet, and Shanghai. I've got tons of vieos showing the CIA assets rounded up. It's impressive as all Hell.
On a somber note. Most of the captured were interrogated and then killed. China does not play.
[26] This is a REAL war
Listen up people!
This is not Vietnam, or Afganastan, or Syria. This is a serious war; being conducted by serious, serious people. They have serious objectives and are fighting for their very existence.
Russia is fighting against a United States backed, proxy, Nazi fanatical organization that is well armed, and who's role is to prolong the fighting until death.
This is not a sports event.
Russia is trying to avoid mass destruction and civilian casualities. However, if that is not possible, then cities will be absolutely and positively flattened to rubble.
[27] Outside of the United States and NATO, billions of people root for Russia
Not the impression that you would get from Western "news" eh?
Well it is true. China, and India are both cheering for Russia. Together that is 2 billion people.
As well as almost all of Africa. That's another 2 billion people.
All told, just by that rough estimation we are looking at 4 billion people in favor of Russians action, and perhaps a half a billion from the USA and Europe.
HERE and HERE.
.
And I might add the enormous Middle East. Who do you think that they are rooting for?
[28] Consequences of Sanctioning Russia
In the big scheme of things, everything will adjust to a "new normal". However, many Western corporations will be adversely affected.
.
For example, the EU demanded that all Russian leases on Airbus jets—over 500 of them—be cancelled. It also blocked the sale of Airbus parts to Russia and forbade Russian planes from being serviced. It also closed its airspace to Russian planes and Russia closed its airspace to EU planes in response. The EU also blocked the SWIFT payment system. This means the following things:
• The European leasing companies will have to pay Russia huge fines for canceling the leases but can’t because SWIFT isn’t working.
• The European leasing companies have to get their planes out of Russian territory but can’t because their flight crews can’t get into Russia and once they take possession of the planes the planes won’t be allowed to take off (airspace is closed).
• The planes can no longer be serviced according to the maintenance schedule, which means that in a couple of months they won’t be able to fly at all.
• Given that this is a force majeur circumstance, the Russian government can very easily nationalize these planes, including all of the intellectual property and patent rights contained therein, and start making their own parts and providing their own service.
• There are around 600 airplanes and helicopters stranded in Russia. Stock price of both Boing and Eurobus is not reflecting this fact. One leased plane makes between 50k to 100k per month. On top of that loss, these planes can be confiscated in case Russian property is taken.
• Given all of the above, the obvious choice for the European leasing companies to declare bankruptcy and cease operations. Company representatives have said as much.
[29] Numerous “War Hawk” American neocons want direct military conflict with Russia
A true “Death wish” fueled by ego and ignorance.
It's true, and very dangerous.
.
The Russians have the capability to launch an absolutely devastating first strike from their super quiet “black hole” nuclear submarines.
From positions just off the American coasts, those submarines could potentially reduce much of the United States defenses to ashes in just a matter of minutes.
Most Americans don’t understand how serious this threat is.
A nuclear war with Russia must be avoided, because the consequences would be unimaginable.
Thankfully, the federal government has issued some updated guidelines for how ordinary Americans should respond if a nuclear attack does actually happen…
Stay inside for 24 hours unless local authorities provide other instructions. Continue to practice social distancing by wearing a mask and by keeping a distance of at least six feet between yourself and people who not part of your household.Family should stay where they are inside. Reunite later to avoid exposure to dangerous radiation.Keep your pets inside.
You may not last very long after such an attack happens, but at least you can help prevent the spread of COVID by practicing social distancing and by wearing a mask.
[30] Fertilizer catastrophie
Russia stopped all it's exports of fertilizer to the West. The West will now be forced to acquire it from secondary sources. Such as Bolivia.
Ollie Vargas reports from Bolivia:
Bolivia was exporting fertilizer (urea) for $300 per tonne until last week. International price is now $900 per tonne since sanctions on Russia started and Russia stopped loading fertilizer for export. Bolivia built its own nationalized fertilizer factory. Brazil closed theirs after the neoliberal turn. Now, the price of urea and ammonium is going through the roof due to Ukraine conflict. Those who import it will be hit with severe inflation on foodstuffs.
I argue that it might result in a combination of inflation plus scarcity.
[31] An interesting video on a Urkaine Military Base
The narrator walks around the hastily abandoned based. It was an obvious rout. They discuss that routs tend to happen when the operational leadership flees, leaving the rank and file soldiers to fend for themselves.
RT vid on abandon ukraine army camp. They left everything. .
[32] Nice summary about the Geo-political ramifications
Best Sitrep channel with on map analysis I have seen so far.
Frequent updates, and long impartial, detailed and accurate analyses of the situation. Definitely deserve much more publicity. Some gentleman from Singapore as I understand. Well worth it:
Defence Politics Asia .
[35] The goal is a long-duration war
This Video exposes the provocations of neo-Nazis who, by bombing and killing their own people, create a "pretty" picture for the Western media.
This is once again showing the fact that the main goal of the West in Ukraine is to turn it into a second Afghanistan.
https://youtu.be/yIS5Wik2r0E .
[36] British BBC instructs how everyone can attack Russan armor
BBC personnel now posting on Twitter how and where to throw a Molotov cocktail for Ukrainians who want to attack Russian vehicles. The BBC employee is telling them to throw the Molotov cocktails through the viewing hatches, and the air inlets of Russian military vehicles.
https://twitter.com/BowenBBC/status/1499668674940133378?cxt=HHwWhICzqdut8s8pAAAA .
[37] Pakastan
Pakistan actually has a real leader, not afraid to speak the truth. So refreshing... if I was a Pakistani, I would be very proud... HERE. .
Latvia citizens would see fines up to 700 EUR for "using illegal content services". "Not only rights of protected service providers [may be violated by use of illegal systems] but also customers might obtain services, which are illegal in Latvia". So, in other words, don't read any news out of Russia.
EuroUnion runs amok...HERE.
[40] NATO evidence seized
The Ukraine was acting as a NATO member and taking orders fromt he United States, even though not formally part of NATO. This came just in from a german journalist living in Donezk, needs verification. Quick translation via Deepl:
Premier of the Donetsk People's Republic, Denis Pushilin gives emergency press conference. Detailed explanation and translation will follow tonight by Thomas Röper. The content of the speech in brief:
🔺A laptop was found on a hastily abandoned military base in Ukraine - which is registered with NATO
🔺 On it are data of American reconnaissance flights carried out over the Donbass and Crimea with unmanned drones in recent years (officially confirmed)
🔺This means that the Americans have passed on their data to the Ukrainian army, i.e. they support them.
🔺 Military strategic objects of Russia and the Donbass were marked on the maps created with these data
🔺 AND THERE ARE SAID TO BE NATO ATTACK PLANS INTO RUSSIA FOR MARCH 8 ON THE LAPTOP.
If this is true, then this is proof that NATO is supporting Ukraine in taking back the Donbass and Crimea by force.
NATO Laptop is now on sputniknews.com
NATO-Labelled Laptop With Intelligence Found at Ukrainian Nationalists' HQ, DPR Head Says
[41] Ukraine was a de-facto NATO military state
Not officially, of course. But militairily yes.
The fact is that the Ukrainian army is already de facto NATO army in everything related to Command and Control.
[42] News machines creating an illusion
The illusions created by the American (Western “news”) are off the charts. And yet, you know, people believe these lies. Meanwhile the United States is going to shit. Check out these screen captures…
First one…
Putin continues with the deaths of many a Russion while the valiant Ukrainians hold on bravely. 1000 Russians dead per day! Russian victory is NOT INEVITABLE! Don’t you know. And of course, the Russians hate him. That’s why protests are everywhere. Uh huh…
2022 03 08 08 13
Second one…
Russian mistakes. Ukraine is “decimating” the invading Russians! Russian officer pleads for mercy! Russia now faces a quagmire… Uh huh.
2022 03 08 08 1a3
Third one…
“Shows Putin is on the way out…” Yah. The Russian Ruble is on the way out, it’s collapsing every which way… Uh huh.
If you read this post, Russia should be about finished and USA and NATO can just take a leisurely drive to Moscow to remove the current management and install new management.
I really don’t know who would believe this, because the actions the RF is currently undertaking does not even remotely match what is being said (i.e. not much escalation or change in plan of the RF nor new weapons systems coming on board at the moment)
2022 03 08 08 15
.[43] Enemies of Russia The Russians have now officially declared all the following countries as “hostile”: from HERE.
All EU member States,
The USA
Australia
Albania
Andorra
Czech Republic
Great Britain (including Jersey, Anguilla, British Virgin Islands and Gibraltar)
Iceland
Canada
Liechtenstein
Micronesia
Monaco
New Zealand
Norway
Republic of Korea
San Marino
North Macedonia
Singapore
Taiwan
Ukraine
Montenegro
Switzerland
Japan
What does this mean? At the time of writing (14:00 EST) all the Russians are saying is that there will be “financial and diplomatic consequences”.
I expect both diplomatic and economic sanctions to be announced in the coming days. And they will hurt like hell. The two geo-political blocs are shaping up. These nations seem to be all part of the “uni-polar, United States led, Western block”. Those highlighted in red are the most signifigant members.
[44] Andrei predictions Here is how I see it and PLEASE tell me I am wrong!
The Ukraine has lost the war, she will be disarmed and denazified
The West is waging total informational and economic war against Russia and believing much of its own propaganda (which is fantastically dangerous!)
The western public has been sold nonsense about the Ukies being at the gates of Moscow and Russia being ready to surrender. Which means that when the reality will become undeniable there will be A LOT of VERY butthurt folks out there pointing fingers.
Even much worse will be the folks who will try to still overturn this outcome. I am talking about the true nutcases in NATO (and in some sections of the USA ruling elites) which simply cannot even *imagine* that Russia holds all the cards, including the military one.
I can easily imagine, say, a Polish column with weapons and mercenaries crossing into the Ukraine and being wiped out by Russian missiles. I ask you this: what will NATO do next?
In fact, let me rephrase my question this way:
Is it at all possible that this war can end without a direct military confrontation between NATO and Russia, keeping in mind that NATO cannot win and NATO cannot accept defeat?
Sadly, I don’t think so anymore, that kind of folly is a direct consequence of the Western PSYOPs which have convinced the folks in the West of two crucial things:
1) Russia cannot win and
2) Putin is bluffing.
I think that the folks in the Pentagon are smart enough to know that this is all bull, but what of the Eurorodents inside NATO and the EU?
[45] Details on the fighting As a reminder…
The Ukronazi armed forces are down to less than 25% of its original size.
Almost all the remaining forces are in some type or another of cauldrons.
Russia has full air supremacy
The Ukronazi fleet does not exist anymore
In spite of all the propaganda, no help from abroad will affect the outcome of this war
It appears that Russia will surround Odessa and eventually take control of the entire Ukrainian Black Sea coast
In other words, what seems to be shaping up is that Russia will soon have control over the entire Ukraine except for the western provinces (west of Vinnitsa and Zhitomir). In other words, the war is over, at least militarily.
[46] The FINAL “nail in the coffin” of Russian use of the USD
[48] Australia formally demounces China and is building a military base to house forces to fight China
Australian PM denounces China and announces $10 billion nuclear submarine base
Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison yesterday exploited the Russian invasion of Ukraine to launch another major military buildup, starting with building a $10 billion base for US, UK and Australian nuclear-powered submarines on Australia’s east coast, clearly directed at preparing for war against China.
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2022/03/08/morr-m08.html
[49] No resistence from Bandera
According to the head of Chechnya, Ramzan Kadyrov, the special forces of the republic, which are taking part in the operation on the territory of Ukraine, continue to move into the country without meeting resistance from Bandera.
Kadyrov explained that the fighters regularly send him video reports on the execution of the order of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief.
"The cleansing of the territory from the criminal elements of Bandera is proceeding according to the schedule. Our soldiers are not meeting fierce resistance from Bandera," Kadyrov said.
https://www.mk.ru/politics/2022/03/08/kadyrov-chechenskiy-specnaz-ne-vstrechaet-soprotivleniya-banderovcev.html?from=article_mi_b
[50] Italy seizes $156 million worth of yachts and villas belonging to Russian oligarchs
[52] Guidance on how to write Hit-Pieces against China
Global business journalism program in China open [Worldwide] | International Journalists' Network
Each and everyone of your are super qualify for the program, is an opportunity to experience first hand how this western propaganda machine operating inside China work,
https://ijnet.org/en/opportunity/global-business-journalism-program-china-open-worldwide
He told the Chinese deligation that the USA had talked with Taiwan. They had changed their position from "Go ahead and be independent, we will support you", to "No, do not even try to break away".
The Chinese reaction was "Thank you, but your words have zero value. You repeatedly lie and break treaties.".
[58] A captured “Russian Officer”
From MoA.
Russian soldiers are CLEAN SHAVEN.
2022 03 09 08 12
[59] Others are finally starting to agree with MM…
Efforts to decimate Russia’s economy to punish Moscow for its invasion of Ukraine could have serious and unpredictable implications at home for the U.S. and its allies….Energy and food prices are the quickest way Americans could feel shockwaves from Russia’s decline, particularly if Biden takes action against Russian oil imports.Crude oil prices are up roughly 20 percent over the past two weeks, enough to knock 0.2 percentage points from U.S. gross domestic product, according to economists at Goldman Sachs.They also expect inflation as measured by the personal consumption expenditures price index to 0.2 percentage points thanks to “higher food prices, increased production costs due to rising commodity prices and increased transport costs due to shipping disruptions.”[Rachel] Ziemba [founder of macroeconomic advisory firm Ziemba Insights] said a ban on Russian oil imports would largely be “symbolic” and simply send barrels to other markets.“When we’re thinking of the cost-benefit analysis, it’s not clear to me that the pain here justifies the pain to Russia,” she said.
Michael Hudson gives an overview of the broader implications for the US.
By Michael Hudson, a research professor of Economics at University of Missouri, Kansas City, and a research associate at the Levy Economics Institute of Bard College.
Empires often follow the course of a Greek tragedy, bringing about precisely the fate that they sought to avoid. That certainly is the case with the American Empire as it dismantles itself in not-so-slow motion.
The basic of assumption of economic and diplomatic forecasting is that every country will act in its own self-interest.
Such reasoning is of no help in today’s world.
Observers across the political spectrum are using phrases like “shooting themselves in their own foot” to describe U.S. diplomatic confrontation with Russia and allies alike.
For more than a generation the most prominent U.S. diplomats have warned about what they thought would represent the ultimate external threat: an alliance of Russia and China dominating Eurasia.
America’s economic sanctions and military confrontation has driven them together, and is driving other countries into their emerging Eurasian orbit. American economic and financial power was expected to avert this fate.
During the half-century since the United States went off gold in 1971, the world’s central banks have operated on the dollar standard, holding their international monetary reserves in the form of U.S. Treasury securities, U.S. bank deposits and U.S. stocks and bonds.
The resulting Treasury-bill standard has enabled America to finance its foreign military spending and support its deindustrialization-driven chronic trade deficits by creating dollar IOUs that other countries accept. U.S. balance-of-payments deficits end up in the central banks of payments-surplus countries as their reserves, while Global South debtors need dollars to pay their bondholders and conduct their foreign trade.
This monetary privilege – dollar seignorage – has enabled U.S. diplomacy to impose neoliberal policies on the rest of the world, without having to use much military force of its own except to grab Middle Eastern oil.
The recent escalation of U.S. sanctions blocking Europe, Asia and other countries from trade and investment with Russia, Iran and China has imposed enormous opportunity costs – the cost of lost opportunities – on U.S. allies.
And the recent confiscation of the gold and foreign reserves of Venezuela, Afghanistan and now Russia, along the targeted grabbing of bank accounts of wealthy foreigners (hoping to win their hearts and minds, along with recovery of their sequestered accounts), has ended the idea that dollar holdings or those in its sterling and euro NATO satellites are a safe investment haven when world economic conditions become shaky.
So I am somewhat chagrined as I watch the speed at which this U.S.-centered financialized system has de-dollarized over the span of just a year or two.
The basic theme of my Super Imperialism has been how, for the past fifty years, the U.S. Treasury-bill standard has channeled foreign savings to U.S. financial markets and banks, giving dollar diplomacy a free ride.
I thought that de-dollarization would be led by China and Russia moving to take control of their economies to avoid the kind of financial polarization that is imposing austerity on the United States.
But U.S. officials are forcing them to overcome whatever hesitancy they had to de-dollarize.
I had expected that the end of the dollarized imperial economy would come about by other countries breaking away.
But that is not what has happened. U.S. diplomats themselves have chosen to end international dollarization themselves, while helping Russia build up its own means of self-reliant agricultural and industrial production.
This global fracture process actually has been going on for some years now, starting with the sanctions blocking America’s NATO allies and other economic satellites from trading with Russia.
For Russia, these sanctions had the same effect that protective tariffs would have had. Russia had remained too enthralled by free-market ideology to take steps to protect its own agriculture or industry.
The United States provided the help that was needed by imposing domestic self-reliance on Russia.
When the Baltic states lost the Russian market for cheese and other farm products, Russia quickly created its own cheese and dairy sector – while becoming the world’s leading grain exporter.
Russia is discovering (or is on the verge of discovering) that it does not need U.S. dollars as backing for the ruble’s exchange rate.
Its central bank can create the rubles needed to pay domestic wages and finance capital formation.
The U.S. confiscations thus may finally lead Russia to end of neoliberal monetary philosophy, as Sergei Glaziev has long been advocating in favor of MMT.
The same dynamic undercutting ostensible U.S aims has occurred with U.S. sanctions against the leading Russian billionaires.
The neoliberal shock therapy and privatizations of the 1990s left Russian kleptocrats with only one way to cash out on the assets they had grabbed from the public domain.
That was to incorporate their takings and sell their shares in London and New York. As a result, domestic savings had been wiped out, and U.S. advisors persuaded Russia’s central bank not to create its own ruble money.
The final result was that Russia’s national oil, gas and mineral patrimony was not used to finance a rationalization of Russian industry and housing.
Instead of the revenue from privatization being invested to create new Russian means of protection, it was burned up on nouveau-riche acquisitions of luxury British real estate, yachts and other global flight-capital assets.
But the effect of making Russian dollar, sterling and euro holdings hostage has been to make the City of London too risky a venue in which to hold their assets.
By imposing sanctions on richest Russians closest to Putin, U.S. officials hoped to induce them to oppose his breakaway from the West, and thus to serve effectively as NATO agents-of-influence.
But for the Russian billionaires, their own country is starting to look safest.
For many decades now, the Federal Reserve and Treasury have fought against gold recovering its role in international reserves.
But how will India and Saudi Arabia view their dollar holdings as Biden and Blinken try to strong-arm them into following the U.S. “rules-based order” instead of their own national self-interest?
The recent U.S. dictates have left little alternative but to start protecting their own political autonomy by converting dollar and euro holdings into gold as an asset free of political liability of being held hostage to the increasingly costly and disruptive U.S. demands.
U.S. diplomacy has rubbed Europe’s nose in its abject subservience by telling its governments to have their companies dump the Russian assets for pennies on the dollar after Russia’s foreign reserves were blocked and the ruble’s exchange rate plunged.
Blackstone, Goldman Sachs and other U.S. investors moved quickly to buy up what Shell Oil and other foreign companies were unloading.
Nobody thought that the postwar 1945-2020 world order would give way this fast. A truly new international economic order is emerging, although it is not yet clear just what form it will take.
But “prodding the Bear” with the U.S./NATO confrontation with Russia has passed critical-mass level.
It no longer is just about Ukraine.
That is merely the trigger, a catalyst for driving much of the world away from the US/NATO orbit.
The next showdown may come within Europe itself as nationalist politicians seek to lead a break-away from the over-reaching U.S. power-grab over its European and other Allies to keep them dependent on U.S.-based trade and investment.
The price of their continuing obedience is to impose cost-inflation on their industry while relinquishing their democratic electoral politics to subordination to America’s NATO proconsuls.
These consequences cannot really be deemed “unintended.” Too many observers have pointed out exactly what would happen – headed by President Putin and Foreign Secretary Lavrov explaining just what their response would be if NATO insisted in backing them into a corner while attacking Eastern Ukrainian Russian-speakers and moving heavy weaponry to Russia’s Western border.
The consequences were anticipated.
The neocons in control of U.S. foreign policy simply didn’t care.
Recognizing its concerns was deemed to make one a Putinversteher. What foreign countries have not done for themselves to replace the IMF, World Bank and other arms of U.S. diplomacy, American politicians are forcing them to do.
Instead of European, Near Eastern and Global South countries breaking away out of their own calculation of their long-term economic interests, America is driving them away, as it has done with Russia and China.
More politicians are seeking voter support by asking whether they would be better served by new monetary arrangements to replace dollarized trade, investment and even foreign debt service.
The energy and food price squeeze is hitting Global South countries especially hard, coinciding with their own Covid-19 problems and the looming dollarized debt service coming due. Something must give.
How long will these countries impose austerity to pay foreign bondholders? Well? How will the U.S. and European economies cope in the face of their sanctions against imports of Russian gas and oil, cobalt, aluminum, palladium and other basic materials?
Any ideas?
American diplomats have made a list of raw materials that their economy desperately needs and which therefore are exempt from the trade sanctions being imposed.
This provides Mr. Putin a handy list of our pressure points to use in reshaping world diplomacy and help European and other countries break away from the Iron Curtain that America has imposed to lock its satellites into dependence on high-priced U.S. supplies.
But the final breakaway from NATO’s adventurism must come from within the United States itself.
As this year’s midterm elections approach,
Republicans are likely to harp on price inflation led by gasoline and energy as a Biden failure.
It’s not clear if the pro-Ukraine propaganda will have lost its effectiveness due to over-exposure.
But if Russia wins the war in short order, the Republicans could hammer on Biden for relying on costly, arguably ill thought out, and ineffective economic sanctions America needs Russian oil and gas exports.
Gas is necessary not only for heating and energy production, but to make fertilizer, of which there already is a world shortage.
That has been exacerbated by blocking Russian and Ukrainian grain exports to send U.S. and European food prices soaring.
Trying to force Russia to respond militarily and thereby look bad to the rest of the world is turning out to be a stunt aimed simply at demonstrating Europe’s need to contribute more to NATO, buy more U.S. military hardware and lock itself deeper into trade and monetary dependence on the United States.
The instability that this has caused could have the effect of making the United States look as threatening as Russia used to be.
European officials did not feel uncomfortable in telling the world about their worries that Donald Trump was crazy and upsetting the apple cart of international diplomacy.
But they seem to have been blindsided at the Biden Administration’s resurgence of visceral Russia-hatred by Secretary of State Blinken and Victoria Nuland-Kagan.
Trump’s mode of expression and mannerisms may have been uncouth, but America’s neocon gang has much more globally threatening confrontation obsessions.
For them, it was a question of whose reality would emerge victorious:
The “reality” that they believed they could create,
or,
The actual economic reality that lies outside of U.S. control.
Conclusion
It’s what it is.
It’s the start of the big pivot to a new global order; one where the United States is a minor “player”, and it’s proxy nations (NATO, the QUAD), become third world, poverty stricken, cesspools.
More changes to come, however the end result will be the same. There is no fucking way in Hell that American can maintain a unipolar command status. No bloody way.
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.
There’s no way to say things nicely. And while I want you all to remain calm, the situation is devolving. It’s horrible to see. I am sorry to announce this. Here, we present some developing events.
The collective West is on a runaway train. They are galloping towards a bridge that no longer exists, and they are carrying carloads of mad, angry, frustrated people whao are starting to kill each other in abject frustration of their hopeless condition.
But…
It’s not random.
This entire reaction from Russia was planned years ago. Yes. It was planned by people now long dead, and being carried out by idiots who have no concept about what REAL life and death are all about.
Planned yes.
But not as they think.
The Asian nations are merit driven, desperate and angry. There will not be any mercy. They are ready to kill the “mad dogs” once and for all.
And they have a counter-plan.
Keep in mind, that every situation that we are witnessing has been planned out and war-gamed to every detail. The Asian nations know what they are doing. And I just hope that the Domain Commander can maintain “little bads instead of big bads”. Because the picture, as I see it, is truly frightening.
I will not spend too much on the details on what is going on in the Ukraine. Just a little bit. That has and is being covered by others in various ways. Much of it is disinformation. This article concerns itself with NATO deciding to get involved, and thus the United States getting involved as well.
Keep in mind that Asia is fighting for their very existence; they are very, very serious. ANd when they try to communicate theri concerns they are treated horribly and ignored by appatent imbeciles.
As a result, the country was not prepared to counter the invasion by Nazi Germany, which attacked our Motherland on June 22, 1941, without declaring war.
The country stopped the enemy and went on to defeat it, but this came at a tremendous cost.
The attempt to appease the aggressor ahead of the Great Patriotic War proved to be a mistake which came at a high cost for our people.
In the first months after the hostilities broke out, we lost vast territories of strategic importance, as well as millions of lives.
We will not make this mistake the second time.
We have no right to do so.Those who aspire to global dominance have publicly designated Russia as their enemy.
They did so with impunity.
Make no mistake, they had no reason to act this way.
It is true that they have considerable financial, scientific, technological, and military capabilities.
We are aware of this and have an objective view of the economic threats we have been hearing, just as our ability to counter this brash and never-ending blackmail.
Let me reiterate that we have no illusions in this regard and are extremely realistic in our assessments.
-Putin 26FEB22
It’s pretty obvious, as long as you trun off those screeching propaganda shrills. When you do, things become crystal clear.
We start with a review of what is going on…
Today, and throughout the Western press are articles about what is going on in the Ukraine. Most are treating it like some kind of spectator sport. With much Rah! Rah! for their side. However, the lethality and devastation of war must not be downplayed as a game.
On top of it all, there is a massive psyops going on that has convinced everyone that old grandmothers are shooting down Russian jets and Russia will surrender any day now. Sheech!
The latest political maneuver by Russian president Vladimir Putin was a game-changing masterstroke to avoid the American war trap. At every step in the build-up of tensions surrounding Ukraine, Russia has foiled US enticements to attack. To understand it all, one needs to start further back in time.
9 February 1990 — US secretary-of-state James Baker promised USSR president Mikhail Gorbachev that NATO would “not [move] one inch eastward” in exchange for allowing German unification.
1999 — Czech Republic, Hungary, and Poland join NATO and move several inches nearer the dissolved USSR.
February 2014 — A US-backed coup in Ukraine results in a Nazi-friendly government coming to power.
March 2014 — Crimeans vote overwhelmingly in a referendum to secede from Ukraine and become part of Russia.
September 2014 — The Minsk I Agreement is signed by Ukraine, Russia, the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) calling for an immediate ceasefire, withdrawal of heavy weapons, and prisoner exchanges.
February 2015 — The Minsk II Agreement calls again for a ceasefire, the withdrawal of weapons, ceasefire monitoring by the OSCE, and the holding of local elections in the Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics on their future status in Ukraine. Differing interpretations have led to major disagreements over Minsk II.
2017 — Montenegro joins NATO.
2020 — North Macedonia joins NATO. It is apparent that there is an increasing eastward crawl, and Ukraine is also seeking membership.
18 November 2021 — Russia reiterates its red lines.
17 December 2021 — Russia presents its concerns about security in proposals to the US.
16 January 2022 — Putin identifies Ukraine’s membership in NATO as a red line in Russia-NATO relations that impinge upon Russian security. US secretary-of-state Antony Blinken dismissed Russian security concerns: “I can’t be more clear — NATO’s door is open, remains open, and that is our commitment.”
26 January 2022 — Russia received a written response from the US to its security proposals. Russia would not be pleased.
16 February 2022 — According to national-security adviser Jake Sullivan, based on credible US intelligence, this was the date that Russia would invade Ukraine. The date came and went without any invasion.
17 February 2022 — Russia responds to US and NATO proposals about Ukraine and European security.
There have been many provocations leading up to the Russian recognition of the independence of the Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics. Among them are NATO expansion, not taking Russian security concerns seriously, the arming of Ukraine, and demonizing Russia via the western monopoly media. The final nail was the shelling from Ukraine into Donbass causing the evacuation of its civilians into Russia.
It appears to be a foolhardy act by Ukraine. If Ukraine had adhered to the Minsk Agreements, Donetsk and Luhansk would still be a part of Ukraine, autonomous though they may be. Autonomy is not uncommon within countries. Guangxi, Inner Mongolia, Ningxia, Tibet, Xinjiang are autonomous provinces in China. Russia also has one autonomous region and 10 autonomous areas. Nonetheless, the lure of war and playing with fire has caused Ukraine to shrink a little bit more.
As I have repeatedly stated, Russia (and China) are NOT being reactionary, no matter what anyone thinks. They are following a master grand plan, just like the United States is. It’s just that the United States plan is obsolete, easily replicated, and there no longer are leaders to set a new direction.
So don’t worry too much.
Today, I am including some minor reports that I have acquired regarding some key events inside the Ukraine.
[Item 0] Why Russia is acting this way
President Putin said so very clearly in his speech on 26FEB22;
For the United States and its allies, it is a policy of containing Russia, with obvious geopolitical dividends.
For our country, it is a matter of life and death, a matter of our historical future as a nation.This is not an exaggeration; this is a fact.
It is not only a very real threat to our interests but to the very existence of our state and to its sovereignty.
It is the red line which we have spoken about on numerous occasions.
They have crossed it.
[Item 1] US to impose sanctions on Putin personally
The immediate reaction from Scott Ritter on this development does not bode well.
[Item 2] Reaction from Moscow on this development
Russia will fully break diplomatic relations with all countries that are going to sanction president Putin or members of the Russian govt. Breaking diplomatic relations with a nation is equivalent to declaring war.
Russian Foreign Ministry on new Personal sanctions on assets of Putin and Lavrov: “Neither Putin nor Lavrov have accounts either in Britain or anywhere else abroad.”
The United Arab Emerates will now fly Chiense trainers
The UAE will purchase a dozen of advanced Chinese jet trainers, a move that reflects a significant strategic shift in the country’s long-standing policy of obtaining solely Western military aircraft.
The UAE Defense Ministry will sign a contract with China National Aero-Technology Import & Export Corporation (CATIC) to procure the L15 training and light combat aircraft, with the possibility of purchasing another 36 planes later, the official Emirati news agency WAM reported.
For the first time in history, the NATO RAPID REACTION FORCE has been activated and deployed. 40,000 NATO troops now moving into NATO member countries along the eastern border of Russia. It certainly is a clear signal that NATO is going to engage Russia
These IDIOTS are simply verifying Putin's greatest fears and cementing why he had to attack Ukraine in order to at least try to maintain peace.
NATO and the US are ramping things up in both rhetoric and deed.
They are mobilizing 40,000 troops to the Eastern bloc of NATO countries...in other words, WE are massing troops on RUSSIA'S Border just as we witnessed Russia do to Ukraine.
WE saw that as a provocation, why the HELL wouldn't Russia see OUR movements in the same way?)
-Hal Turner
Worse, “NATO” has just sent it’s first convoy of what they call “LETHAL AID” across the Ukraine border from Poland. Poland’s Minister of Defense Mariusz Błaszczak shared this picture.
This is staggeringly bad on every level. Look, Putin has said something, which was very clear. He said, to not get involved, or else you and us will regret it in the end.
It was a simple message . . .
…and they managed to ignore it.
Out of their stupidity and ego.
By doing this, they are forcing Putin to stand up for what was said, otherwise he will look weak.
This just dragged the United States into a direct, hot kinetic shooting war with Russia. Now, none of us is safe. Honestly, I think this is the spark that sets the world on fire.
If we look at the history of all this, the real problem is actually NATO.
It was NATO”s broken promise of “not expanding one inch to the east” that set this in motion decades ago.
"I have felt for 30 years ever since the fall of the Berlin Wall that we have made a huge geopolitical error. We absolutely promised the Russians that we would not extend NATO to the east. But we did,"
-Nigel_Farage.
After all, it was NATO trying to bring Ukraine into itself, to position US missiles on Ukraine soil.
And now it is NATO doing precisely what Putin warned EVERYONE not to do: interfere.
How to separate and herd your cats.
You know it’s really difficult to herd cats and get them to do anything. But, you know, the Chinese have a solution to this problem.
[Item 5] Russian seizure of the Ukraine CIA / SBU building
Shootings inside a building in Melitopol, Ukraine after being captured by Russian forces.
Some report of executions taking place.
FURTHER INFORMATION: This building is the Ukraine SBU Intelligence Building and yes, there is torture and execution of Ukraine Intelligence officers taking place inside this building.
War is an ugly business.
Enjoy our differences
We have been ramrodded the idea that in a “democracy” that everyone must accept diversity, but that once accepted you must conform to the approved norm. I disagree. You should embrace the differences in the world. Like this fella (bloke?) from Australia. Yeah. This video is so Australian that it drips with Aussie.
[Item 6] Central Banks Risk Being Hit With Missiles if they Cut Russia from SWIFT Banking System
Central Banks around the world risk having their main banking offices hit with Russian missiles if they cut Russia off from the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT) Banking system, as some countries are endeavoring to do.
Such is information LEAKING out of Russia Saturday and is NOT yet “official.”
Says one Russian,
"If the Banks want to wage war against Russia, they should expect war to be waged back upon them - personally - in the buildings where they work."
Russia has plans to make war as personal and “in your face” as possible. All those people sitting behind their safe borders, and seas are going to experience real, FUCKING, war!
Cutting Russia off from SWIFT is a “matter of days”, according to a central bank within the eurozone according to a report from Reuters.
Inside Russia, plans are being reviewed as to what response the nation might make if the West “attacks” Russia economically.
Russian President Vladimir Putin was explicitly clear during his speech wherein he announced Russia would be moving to de-militarize and de-nazify Ukraine:
"Anyone who interferes will have consequences the likes of which they have never seen in history."
Hitting central bank buildings with precision missiles would likely fit that description.
President Putin’s exact quote was
“I would now like to say something very important for those who may be tempted to interfere in these developments from the outside.
No matter who tries to stand in our way or all the more so create threats for our country and our people, they must know that Russia will respond immediately, and the consequences will be such as you have never seen in your entire history.
No matter how the events unfold, we are ready.
All the necessary decisions in this regard have been taken.
I hope that my words will be heard.”
Such action by Russia would, of course, be considered an act of war by the nations wherein the banks are actually hit.
However, a war breaking out between NATO and Russia has been a foregone conclusion since the Russian operation began.
Putin, in an earlier speech after a 6-hour meeting with French President Macron made clear:
"The military capability of Russia to NATO is incomparable. (Meaning NATO is superior)
We know that.
But Russia is also a nuclear power.
And our capability is superior to many others in this area.
If the West engages Article 5 (NATO mutual defense), you will be drawn into a war with Russia without your consent.
It will be a war that no one will win (Meaning an actual nuclear war, which is the only war that most everyone agrees "cannot be won and must never be fought.").
President Macron doesn't want that.
I don't want that."
So Putin has already laid out the cards for the whole world to see. If the West persists in interfering with what Russia is doing, it not only may trigger a direct response with missile strikes against the Banks, it may unleash actual nuclear war.
MM tries to improve the readership’s overall health
Well, at least according to this video, anyway. video 1.5MB
Last night, Russian TOPOL-M intercontinental ballistic missiles – nuclear missiles – were moving on Truck Launchers around Moscow and on highways moving toward Europe.
Terrifying new photos and video have came out of interior Russia showing road-launchable TOPOL-M intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBM’s). The TOPOL-M is a nuclear missile with a single warhead of 800 kilotons (800kt) and a range of about ten thousand kilometers (10,000km)
This is not what you deploy inside of a city, or near a city. It’s something that is deployed in the countryside. Something is up.
The fact that these missiles are OUT IN PUBLIC, and moving, should be all you need to know about where this Ukraine/NATO trouble is actually heading.
As we saw with the Russian troop build-up around Ukraine, Russia does not bluff. When they move military gear, they intend to use it.
The entire world is now in grave danger from the shenanigans our governments are pulling with Ukraine.
I also want to remind everyone that both Russia and China have anti-missile systems that can shoot the ICBMs down. The West, including the United States does not.
Meanwhile, night life in Japan
Yeah. This is sort of what it can be like in ceratin areas at certain times.
From the Russian Foreign Ministry Friday night:Russia is approaching the point in its relations with the US beyond which there is no return.
Whether this converts into Russia firing missiles into the Central Banks that ban it from SWIFT, remains to be seen. Clearly they wouldn’t have to do that to ALL central banks, just to enough of them that the rest decide living is more important to them.
And if they start to see their Banker pals blown up, many people think the rest would choose life rather than choose making economic war on Russia. It’s just a matter of how many Bankers have to get killed before the rest stop their economic war.
There is no question in my mind that the complete financial “house of cards” that has artificially existed is going to be destroyed and eventually rebuilt into something different after this period of climax occurs. How it will collapse, is unknown.
[Item 9] The United States is busy deleting all information about it’s bioweapons operations in the Ukraine
The US Embassy in Ukraine has just deleted from its website all documents about 11 Pentagon-funded biolaboratories in Ukraine. They are retained on the internet by bloogers, and published all them (now deleted by the Embassy) here;
The US Embassy in #Ukraine has just deleted from its website all documents about 11 Pentagon-funded biolaboratories in Ukraine. I have published all these documents (now deleted by the Embassy) here https://t.co/Odc0ermmZe and in the thread below pic.twitter.com/benFmDwguI
SF: The Russian military special operation in Ukraine coincided with the planned launch of U.S. military biolaboratories in Kiev and Odessa. On February 26, the US Embassy in Ukraine rushed to delete all documents about 11 Pentagon-funded bio-laboratories in Ukraine from its website. All these documents (now deleted by the Embassy), you can read HERE.
In October 2021, the U.S. Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) of the U.S. Department of Defense published on the U.S. government procurement website an additional agreement on “combating highly dangerous pathogens. The document concerns the final stage of work on the launch of two bio-laboratories in Ukraine: in Kiev and Odessa.
The additional agreement covers the equipping and training of personnel and commissioning of the facilities. The cost of the work is 3.6 million dollars, but some figures in the document are hidden for reasons of secrecy. According to the document, the laboratories were more than 90 per cent ready. However, the projects’ completion was delayed up to seven months from the date of signing the document (July 2021), thus to the end of February 2022:
The laboratories in Ukraine were built within the U.S. Cooperative Threat Reduction Program, which was launched in 1991 and was aimed against Russia and the former Soviet Union. They were funded in frame of the Biological Threat Reduction Program. Cooperation between Ukraine and the United States in this field intensified after the first Maidan revolution in Ukraine in 2005.
You can read more on the U.S. bio-laboratories, including in Ukraine: HERE, HERE, HERE.
Two new laboratories are being created on the basis of the Kiev State Research Institute for Laboratory Diagnostics and Veterinary and Sanitary Expertise and the Odessa division of the State Service of Ukraine for Food Safety and Consumer Protection. The main part of the Ukrainian collection of endemic strains of dangerous disease agents is stored in Odessa. The buildings of the new biolaboratories in Kiev and Odessa were built back in 2019, but were not put into operation.
The document above notice makes it clear that this project is important and urgent for the U.S. government: further potential delays are called unacceptable, and “DTRA requires the urgent completion and surrender of both laboratories to ensure the active and safe execution of the DTRA mission.”
Both facilities are owned and secured by the Government of Ukraine, but neither facility is currently performing active biological work because DTRA has asked the Ukrainian authorities not to begin work until acceptance and completion is complete, the procurement materials said.
Moscow has claimed its concern over the developing biological weapons near Russia’s borders. Russian President Vladimir Putin worried about the “purposeful and professional” collection of biomaterials of Russians by foreigners.
The on-going Russian military operation in Ukraine may stop the DTRA program in Ukraine. Anyway, the projects in Kiev and Odessa will be postponed if not cancelled. The U.S. has already spent over 2 billion dollars on such programs in Ukraine alone, and there are more in Georgia, Kazakhstan, Armenia, Azerbaijan and Uzbekistan.
Now, as Russian forces are advancing in Ukraine, Kiev seems to be in a rush to hide the evidence that the USA violates the convention on non-proliferation of biological weapons. The end of the Russian operation will show.
…
Ok. Let’s chat a little about the Ukraine operation…
[Item 10] Day 3 of the Russian operation in the Ukraine
I found pretty decent maps on the YouTube channel of Iurii Podoliaka and I will do something ugly but, I hope, effective: add a few things to his maps with my thick black marker.
But first, this: it appears that yesterday Putin had ordered a temporary stop to the Russian offensive while talking with “Ze” but when the latter stop talking, Putin gave a “full ahead” order.
I will begin with an older (by a few hours) map of this:
The ugly think black lines are from me.
Starting at the top left and going clockwise here is what is important:
Kiev will soon be encircled
The Ukie forces in the Donbass are fleeing hoping to avoid being surrounded, or “cauldroned” if you wish, (look how long and narrow the red lines are around the Ukies!)
Mariupol is almost surrounded
Nikolaev is under attack
Now, another of these maps, but updated.
Again, going clockwise can clearly see the race between the evacuating Ukie forces from the Donbass and the attempt by Russian forces to envelop them in an “operational cauldron”, exactly as predicted.
Next, Nikolaev is either fully surrounded or will be very soon.
So, what does all that mean?
It means that we are coming to some kind of informational climax here. So far, in the West, that information is suppressed (even Sputnik and RT are under regular DDoS attack). I won’t even bother on the 500 foot high wave of disinformation produced by western PSYOPs in the social media. The bottom line is this, pretty soon I expect
The operational cauldron in the Donbass to lock in the Ukie forces which did not have time to evacuate
The entire coast from roughly Nikolaev to Mariupol will be liberated
Kiev will be if not physically surrounded, then at least “surrounded by fire”, which means that main axes of evacuation will come under steady Russian fire control
Notice something else. In the 2nd map, some cities in the Russian rear are circled in blue: Chernigov, Konotop, Sumy, Kharkov and Kherson. I would add Mariupol to that list. These are all cities which were cut of from the rest of the Ukie forces, but which still have pockets of resistance inside, that is especially true of Mariupol where a large Nazi contingent appears to be ready to take its last stand.
All this is to say that the mopping up operations inside bigger cities might take a while. That is normal and won’t affect any outcome.
So right now the western PYSOPs can still throw out as many claims as it wants, but pretty soon the entire narrative will collapse, at which point the Russia-hating-and-bashing hysteria will reach a new feverish pitch.
Be mentally prepared for that.
I will conclude with something quite typical: remember how yesteryear tons of weapons were distributed in Kiev? Well, overnight, various gangs have been engaged in firefights, but not against Russians (who have still not entered the city), but against each other. Some of the wannabe Ukie Volkssturm even took a group of SBU officers prisoners. Some rumors report 60 dead or so just overnight.
Let’s hope that this crazy nonsense stops and that some Ukrainian commanders will restore law and order before their entire country turns into a “Mad Max Zone”. If such commanders are found, I am sure that the Russians will not only not engage them, but will even offer some degree of collaboration.
Putin tried to reason with Ze. Predictably, this did not work.
Now the Russians badly need to find somebody to talk to on the other side. If they don’t, Russia will have to continue to take unilateral actions and turn up the pain dial on both Banderastan and the West.
I hope to be back with a summary of the day later.
Andrei
Brutal Honesty
Well, yeah. I think all of us have been there at one stage of our life or the other. video
[Item 11] Intel Drop
Great Stuff from one of my must-read blogs. HERE.
Putin, Ukraine and the Perfect Burger, an Intel Drop (updating)
VT Senior Editor Gordon Duff drops mad truth on the world about Putin and Ukraine; a must-read.
Grass fed ground beef looks like this. Smell it. .
VT: We have taken the bull by the horns here. We have entered a bitter controversy over ‘the burger’…Our suggestion…as to our ‘burger hack’… Try it. We have and have run it against the best. We used a mix of ‘Triple D’ experiences, a touch of Gordon Ramsey and apply it to available materials which can be done by anyone…in ten minutes. The results will stand against anything but a Houston based Fuddrucker…..as their meat is beyond anything in the Midwest
We should have called this ‘The Burger War in Ukraine’
…by the Senior Editor
With so much talk about Ukraine, time an expert speaks out. In the absence of an expert…I will do my best.
.
Listen to no one…the bullshit is drowning us all. Some facts:
.
– Russia was promised secure borders. I was privy to what is in the agreement that paid $365 million to Gorby. The accords have been gone over dozens of times for other reasons.
– Among those reasons was the coup in Georgia, replacing the government there, and the immediate move against South Ossetia. Our CIA director and his chief of staff explained it all to me while they were getting a flight for Tbilisi. I remember every word of it…which is a warning to some.
– The overthrow of the Russian puppet government in Ukraine was not unexpected. Russia really got blindsided there. The move, used as cover facilities in Poland for torturing innocent kidnapped fake terrorists is also a major training facility for Gladio, alive and well.
– Ah…Gladio. The new version was sold to the Bush administration…with tons of Gulf Cartel cash paid out to sweeten the pot, banked from Cuba, secret accounts in the Caymans. It is all in the recording of that FBI agent that came to us in 2012…laundering the cash…though banks tied to major US families….like those who own all those stores. We have it all…every single word.
– Running Gladio this time is “Ukrainians” and “Turks.” All are Israeli citizens. They used Gladio/Freemason trained snipers, part of the teams that trained Breivik, same place.
– Then they got their lists…and began hunting down not only Russian speakers but anyone who threatened totalitarian rule. This means eliminating media, killing off political rivals, and destroying trade unions. Remember Odessa…this was about wiping out trade unions.
– Then they stole everything in the country…and turned it over to Israelis…like the one who ran the TV network that had a show about a mindless clown.
– Then they made him Prime Minister.
– Russia was always going to move into Donbass…and the reason is simple. Ukraine has totally ignored the Minsk accords…and the US has been silent. Silence by the Israel lobby that seeks both Ukraine and Crimea as homelands and plays both…Russia and Ukraine against one another…a game they are teaching to the Turks and Saudis as well.
– There is nothing whatsoever wrong with the Ukrainian people. That they have been victimized here…by everyone…including the Soviet Union and Russia is very real. Putin lost Ukraine because he was lazy and distracted…
– Then Ukraine was used as a power base by the Kosher Nostra to put Donald Trump into office. The Russians were able to gain 100 percent control over Trump through in-place agents around him…dozens…many of whom are still working for Russia and safe to a degree under Trump pardons.
– But are they really working for Russia or are Kosher Nostra oligarchs vying for power against Putin? Spent a couple of days going over this with our intelligence officials. This is a top concern but…never spoken of.
– Russia didn’t need this and Putin doesn’t want Ukraine. He wants to stop Erdogan. Erdogan and Netanyahu first tried to go after Iran…setting up bases in Azerbaijan together, bringing in weapons through Georgia…where they make bio-weapons and poison gas for the White Helmets.
– Then they destroyed Armenia.
– What Zelensky did with the Minsk accords, Erdogan is going with Russia over his agreements to end terrorism in Idlib and to leave Syria. Instead…he has cut deals with key families in Kurdish Iraq (all people I know personally…).
– One of those deals, going back a few years, was to set ISIS on Iraq with full Turkish backing…full Kurdish backing…and the full backing of the key Sunni families in Baghdad.
– In January 2014, I led a team to Baghdad to discuss ISIS and the defense of Iraq. I met the leaders working with ISIS and told them they were making a mistake. By June, with the fall of Mosul, 9 of the Sunni leaders I met with had been executed by ISIS. ‘Told ya so.’
I could go on forever…but time to discuss something more important. I have always been displeased at the burgers I make at home. Going to local restaurants, and burgers are a $45 lunch now with tip and NO drinks…An important thing with VT…several of us are foodies.
Burgers are about prep. If you want…list any favorite food and I will do the prep to make it. If I don’t know…Mike Chester will. Mike and I have been cooking together since…well since Kennedy was still alive.
Meat Selection
When cooking at home fat can be a problem. It spatters…and though fat might make a burger…pass.
Look for a small meat store that accesses local grass-fed cattle. Use a chuck or ground beef. Hold off on those briskety (I just invented that word) blends.
If you are frying…make sure you have tons of ventilation. I have a 1200 CFM Italian thing that can lift the paper off a counter. It helps.
Tools
I use one of two things…based on factors…mostly laziness…the only real factor.
One is a 12 inch…large…even 14 Silverstone frying pan with lid. I also use a cast iron grill…which sits on two burners. I have a built-in grill…I have never used it…it confuses me. (commercial range)
Prep work
Everything is about prep.
Decide how big burgers need to be…how hungry? How old? How messy?
Lots of choices.
Prep begins with bacon…I fry 4 pieces to medium crisp for 3 burgers.
Campari tomatoes…they sell them everywhere…pricey…buy them. Use two …they are small…slice them carefully and set them aside.
Onions…if you only have cooking onions, consider frying them down with a bit of sugar….like with a “slider.”
But..currently available are Peruvian sweet onions. Pick the flattest ones. Slice half of one of these…carefully…and set aside.
Velveeta. Yes….about 3/4ths of a cup microwaved to melt…and this is VERY DIFFICULT to Time. Get someone to help you..lots of stirring.
Buns are vital. To put us on common ground here, pick up a package of Pepperidge Farm buns…Sour Dough or similar. They are pricey but hold up.
I suggest steaming the buns…and that has to be done carefully…not too much…just to “release.” No toasting. No microwaves.
Or you can use fresh and go from there.
Pickle slices are optional.
Sauce
Ah..secret sauce. A trick from Smokey Bones.
Make some BBQ sauce…
Small saucepan. Add vinegar…half a cup. Use malt vinegar if you have it. Then 1/4th cup molasses. Then one tablespoon Wrights smoke. I buy the quarts…but you can get a small bottle for about a buck.
You will need about a third of a cup of catsup/ketchup for the body. Sorry.
Oh…brown sugar…about 2/3rds of a cup. heat on low…set aside…it lasts forever…
Technique
Ah…now you are playing restaurant…but “good” restaurant.
Go to about a third of a pound for burgers…using the PF buns. Get the steamer going.
You can make a fake steamer with a medium saucepan, crumpled foil…a lid…water, and heat. YouTube probably shows you how. Buy a real one at the Salvation Army.
Make someone else do the side dishes…or buy them in cans.
High heat…season burgers with McCormick’s Montreal Steak seasoning…my choice.
Put bacon in the pan on medium heat…10 minutes there remove and set aside. Retain some fat in the pan. Heat to smoking…the put-in burgers…
Two flips and a minute or two with the lid…then check to see if they are done.
While this is going down…steam the buns…and watch them very carefully.
Don’t forget the Velveeta.
Hot buns out of the steamer on plates…then spoon hot Velveeta on each…generously
place burger on top…
drizzle a small amount of bbq sauce on the burger….you will see why
slice on onion..optional
mustard on the top bun…spoon it over the cheese.
Tomato slices…4 small ones usually.
Hold off on hot peppers and other stuff.
Now the bacon.
The final step
Eat immediately.
Compare to the best restaurant burger. Note that these cost about $4 each to make at home.
Forget about Ukraine.
How you act defines your sentience
Scenes from ambulences inside of China. AI records all videos, and license plates and knows who contributes to society and who does not. video. 117MB
[Item 11] My most popular article on MM right now
I wonder why?
Percentage drop in population in 2025. The USA has a 70% drop in population. Australia has a 35% drop. Japan has an 18% drop. While Russia and China have no significant losses.
Here’s the article for all the great juicy details…
There’s obviously a bunch of idiots running the West right now, and they have opened up a Pandora’s box that is going to change everything that we know and have come accustomed to.
Yet, how it might influence us on a personal level will vary greatly from person to person.
I will tell you that there is no doubt in my mind that all of this has been “gamed out” and planned to every detail. Things are NOT unwinding to an elaborate plan concocted inside Washington DC. Instead, a counter operation is in play. And I will never forget that feeling that I got when Xi Peng and Putin signed the joint memorandum last January during the Winter Olympics 2022.
Look at them.
Looks like both cats ate the canary.
Putin and Xi Peng in Beijing during the WInter Olympics 2022.
They completely know what they have been doing and are doing now.
Now, let’s have a look at who is leading the West right now…
Now look at who is running the EU right now…
God, they both look like gouls.
I suggest…
If you all want to be safe, and have your families safe, move to either Russia or China. They know what they are up against and how to deal with it. Look at the Deagal Forecast.
Europe is not safe.
The United States is not safe.
In general, whether it’s nuclear missiles flying, more bioweapons released, or a financial collapse, the West is going to have a hard time of it. Seriously.
Have you seen America lately?
And I will advise good prudent measures that you all must do and conduct religiously.
Be part of your community. Meet people. Talk to people. Be helpful. Volunteer.
Stock up your larder. Have supplies.
Stock up on some cheap trade goods.
Disposible cigarette lighters.
Small bottles of very cheap hard alcohol.
Duck-tape.
Antibiotics.
Vitamins.
Learn to fish.
No. Your lives will NOT be destroyed.
But everything will change around you. You will need to be firmly grounded. You will need to take up a kind, quiet strength while all the rest of the world completely goes down the toilet. Be the strength that reinforces confidence.
You will need to start eating better. That’s a start.
There’s nothing so satisfying than eating a good home-cooked delicious meal and then relaxing with freinds and family. May I suggest…
Chili Con Carne Bread Pie
Chili Con Carne was an exciting twist on classic chili taste that fell to the wayside years ago. This recipe unearths the classic and finds a way to serve it up as a casserole that leaves you stuffed. Smokey paprika, peppers, and cumin all combine to make this a knockout recipe that both you and your grandparents can get behind.
What are you waiting for? It goes great with beer (wink. wink.)
Now, being happy and well fed, let’s look at some reminders that life is not all doom and gloom. You all can omit these next few videos and entries if you want to really get all wrapped up in the “news”.
Chinese traditional clothing
This woman dons the Han Clothing fashion that is so popular in China these days, and walks around Europe and the United States wearing it. The looks on other peoples faces are precious. Now, THIS is what real “diversity” is all about.
Rufus stands up for the cleaning woman from a troll
Internet trolls are no different from cronic malcreants, litters or evil psychopaths. It’s up to the community to work together to protect ourselves from the bad behaviors of others who only desire to hurt, harm and cause grief. video
It’s programmed into humans on this eath. SO you have to ride it out. I can tell you that when the radioactive dust settles, and people crawl out of their habitats that the new world will be a much better one.
Remember; A Rufus is always there when you need help
Here, the staffing at a hospital runs to setup a testing clinic for Coronavirus when an outbreak was discovered. video 3MB
One last thing
Don’t over think.
If the SHTF goes down, the first thing that you might notice is no internet. Do not freak out. If that happens, things might be dark for a while. Take care of yourself and your loved ones. And if the very worst happens, well… I’ll see you all on the other side.
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.
Ok, so the Russians make a move that they were forced into by the United States. Of course the USA knew what it was doing. Every American knows about the “Cuban Missile Crisis”.
To pretend that it doesn’t is ridiculous.
If you place, or threaten to place, nuclear weapons on the border of a major nation, you can expect CERTAINLY a series of responses.
This is exactly what happened, but of course, it’s not being reported this way in the American / British “news”. According to that “news”, the Russians are taking a beating by the proud and brave Ukranians.
So, I go on LinkedIN, and other other mainstream media, and Lordy! It’s all about the brave Ukranians fighting the evil communists. Sheech! Talk about spinning a narrative! So here, we are going to put some perspectives in place and then resume business as usual.
This is a fine meandering article hosting a wide selection of rambling thoughts and interests. Remember, don’t look at one singular issue and study it. Look at the big picture, as that is how everything is actually connected.
First, a look at a map…
Did you know that the Ukraine is the fourth-largest recipient of American equipment and weapons in the world? Imagine that.
Why? Why in Good God’s name, why?
Now, we begin with a statement that The Domain Commander made; “We are striving for little bads, so we can avoid the Big Bads”…
Andrew Korybko One World
Thu, 24 Feb 2022 20:56 UTC
.
A much larger war that could dangerously escalate into World War III was averted by Russia’s preemptive special operation in Ukraine aimed at neutralizing the US and NATO’s latent, imminent, and hot threats emanating from that country. This makes Moscow’s military mission truly a peacemaking one since the Eurasian Great Power responsibly sought to prevent World War III, not spark it. Russia truly had no choice but to act now.
In short, the US and its anti-Russian NATO allies were secretly establishing military facilities in Ukraine for launching their own impending war against that neighboring nuclear power. First, however, Washington wanted to neutralize Moscow’s nuclear second-strike capabilities through the regional deployment of “anti-missile systems” and strike weapons, including one day hypersonic missiles and even eventually to Ukraine itself too. This coincided with the US’ withdrawal from strategic arms pacts such as the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty, the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, and the Open Skies Treaty, all of which destabilized European security by making America’s military intentions all the more ambiguous to Russia.
President Putin’s speech from Monday evening when he announced his country’s recognition oftheDonbassRepublics saw him meticulously detail the existential nature of the threat that the US and NATO’s secret military infrastructure in Ukraine poses to Russia. He described their airfields, bases, and ports in the country that he warned will soon be used to strike his own, albeit after first presumably neutralizing its nuclear second-strike capabilities. Thursday morning’s speech compared post-Soviet Russia’s three-decade-long appeasement of US-led NATO to Stalin’s pre-World War II appeasement of Nazi Germany, declaring that “We will not make this mistake the second time. We have no right to do so. Those who aspire to global dominance have publicly designated Russia as their enemy.”
According to Russian intelligence, “If we look at the sequence of events and the incoming reports, the showdown between Russia and these forces cannot be avoided. It is only a matter of time. They are getting ready and waiting for the right moment.” “They did not leave us any other option for defending Russia and our people, other than the one we are forced to use today”, President Putin revealed, which is why “In these circumstances, we have to take bold and immediate action.” He then issued what’s widely interpreted as a nuclear warning to NATO: “No matter who tries to stand in our way or all the more so create threats for our country and our people, they must know that Russia will respond immediately, and the consequences will be such as you have never seen in your entire history.”
It’s for all of these reasons that Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova clarified that “It’s not a beginning of war, it is prevention of a situation that could lead to global military confrontation.” What she meant was exactly what President Putin himself had said, namely that a much larger war that could dangerously escalate into World War III was averted by Russia’s preemptive special operation in Ukraine aimed at neutralizing the US and NATO’s latent, imminent, and hot threats emanating from that country. This makes Moscow’s military mission truly a peacemaking one since the Eurasian Great Power responsibly sought to prevent World War III, not spark it. Russia truly had no choice but to act now.
That’s because President Putin also revealed on Thursday morning that “Even now, with NATO’s eastward expansion the situation for Russia has been becoming worse and more dangerous by the year.” As he put it, “It is a fact that over the past 30 years we have been patiently trying to come to an agreement with the leading NATO countries regarding the principles of equal and indivisible security in Europe. In response to our proposals, we invariably faced either cynical deception and lies or attempts at pressure and blackmail, while the North Atlantic alliance continued to expand despite our protests and concerns. Its military machine is moving and, as I said, is approaching our very border.” It’s therefore understandable why Russia finally had to act.
After all, President Putin already made his back-up plan known on 21 December when speaking at an “Expanded Meeting Of The Defense Ministry Board“. At that time, he said that “what they are doing, or trying or planning to do in Ukraine, is not happening thousands of kilometres away from our national border. It is on the doorstep of our house. They must understand that we simply have nowhere further to retreat to.” That event coincided with Russia’s publication of its security guarantee requests to the US and NATO for ensuring the integrity of its national security red lines. Moscow asked for legal guarantees halting the bloc’s continual eastward expansion, the removal of strike weapons from Russia’s borders, and a return to the continental military status quo enshrined in the now-defunct 1997 Russian-NATO Founding Act. Regrettably, the US-led West rebuffed the last chance for a diplomatic solution.
Had Russia not acted when it did on Thursday, it’s very likely that the US would have used the pretext of the third round of civil war hostilities that it encouraged Kiev to provoke last weekend in Eastern Ukraine to deploy strikes to that country on an emergency basis under the false pretext of “defending” it when in reality it would all be about clandestinely seeking to worsen Russia’s security as explained. President Putin therefore had no choice but to commence his military’s special operation in Ukraine on Thursday morning, which arguably averted the Third World War that would have inevitably followed with time had Russia continued to appease the US, seeing as how that nuclear superpower was never sincere about respecting its counterpart’s national security red lines.
And now time for a pretty girl
I really like her top with the chain metal fringes on the sleeves. Pretty hot.
The threat of expulsion from SWIFT as a deterrent to war is a “paper tiger” and fintech helped.
The nightmare of another European war is upon us and the non-military deterrent of being cut off from the SWIFT currency transfer system seems toothless. A paper tiger.
Ever since Iran’s SWIFT cut-off in 2012 US and EU policymakers have wielded the threat of a SWIFT cut-off like a sword. Now it seems throwing Russia’s 1.7% of global GDP off of SWIFT is unpalatable.
Let’s look at why. The biggest reason is energy but the others are tech-based:
1️⃣ G7 officials made it clear that they were reluctant to expel Russia because it would make it impossible to pay for Russian energy, leaving Europe in the dark and paying more. This is the clearest and most compelling reason not to cut off Russia.
2️⃣ SWIFT expulsion is not guaranteed to stop cash flows. SWIFT is merely a messaging system, it doesn’t move money. Anyone following China-Iran trade can attest that a cut-off doesn’t stop trade, so much as make it more expensive. Iran has perfected barter and international digital goods trading off of SWIFT.
3️⃣ China’s “Cross-Border International Payment System (CIPS) started in 2015 as a SWIFT alternative. It now has 1,186 financial institutions in 100 countries signed up. Russia has access to CIPS and while not ideal there is nothing preventing Russia from using the system and RMB in lieu of dollars. China built CIPS, following Iran’s cut-off for exactly this purpose. Russia’s equivalent SPFS system is simply too small.
4️⃣ Crypto is not yet ready to take over a meaningful amount of Russia’s $670+ bn in combined imports and exports but it doesn’t have to. If CIPS and other options above are put to use crypto can likely help small businesses move money across borders to keep things running.
Stablecoin tether was already illegally used in trade between China and Russia in 2019 with flows of up to $10-30mn a day. This is new territory, but I think we should not underestimate crypto’s capabilities. They may surprise us.
5️⃣ The digital Ruble, is in testing and perhaps within a few months, it could be rushed into production. Digital yuan-ruble trade is already in discussion. Russia may convince other countries to accept a digital ruble in trade. The recipients won’t need a CBDC themselves, just a digital ledger at the central bank to avoid SWIFT.
War causes change at a shocking pace. All of these SWIFT alternatives shift money out of dollars. De-dollarization is a trend the US doesn’t want to accelerate and why the US will not push in earnest for a SWIFT cut-off.
Fintech is now a pawn in the great geopolitical game. Its role in turning the SWIFT deterrent into a paper tiger is no small feat.
A great discussion about the Ukraine on You-tube…
It’s pretty good, and it goes in great deal about the history about what is going on.
Yeah. I get it. Too many cute and beautiful girls. Well, I am in China. I can’t help it. I am surrounded by them. To understand China, is to understand beauty.
Social media users will be given new powers to control who can interact with them under a major crackdown on hate-filled internet trolls.
Platforms like Facebook and Twitter will by law have to give users the tools to block anonymous unverified accounts.
Users will also be given the option to verify themselves. The onus will be on the firms to find a suitable verification method, but it could range from taking a selfie to providing proof of a passport or driving licence.
The new measures have been added to the upcoming Online Safety Bill, which will impose a duty of care on tech companies to protect users.
However, individuals will be allowed to choose whether to join the verification process – despite calls from some campaigners to make it a requirement.
Ministers were concerned it could jeopardise the safety of vulnerable users. Online anonymity can be crucial for domestic abuse victims, activists living in authoritarian countries and young people exploring their sexuality.
The Government has also announced a measure that will force platforms to provide adult users with tools to block ‘legal but harmful content’ such as racist abuse and Covid disinformation.
This could include allowing users to turn on settings that would stop them receiving recommendations on certain topics or place sensitivity screens over that content.
The Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) said the new measures would ‘put more power in the hands’ of social media users by giving them more choice over who they communicate with.
Digital Secretary Nadine Dorries said: ‘Tech firms have a responsibility to stop anonymous trolls polluting their platforms.
‘We have listened to calls for us to strengthen our new online safety laws and are announcing new measures to put greater power in the hands of social media users themselves.
‘People will now have more control over who can contact them and be able to stop the tidal wave of hate served up to them by rogue algorithms.’
It comes after calls from MPs, footballers and celebrities to take action on internet trolls after highlighting the horrific abuse they suffered.
The Government has already announced tougher punishments for trolls, with those found guilty of the worst abuse facing up to five years in prison under the new Bill.
The latest measures will only apply to the biggest social media platforms deemed ‘category one’ such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram as they pose the severest risk.
Watchdog Ofcom will be given the power to fine them up to 10 per cent of annual global turnover for any breach or even block the sites from being used in the UK.
A DCMS spokesman said of the new measures: ‘While this will not prevent anonymous trolls posting abusive content in the first place – providing it is legal and does not contravene the platform’s terms and conditions – it will stop victims being exposed to it and give them more control over their online experience.’
The Bill will also force social media giants to remove illegal content such as child sexual abuse imagery, the promotion of suicide, hate crimes and incitement to terrorism.
But there is a growing list of toxic content and behaviour on social media which falls below the threshold of a criminal offence which still causes significant harm.
The spokesman added: ‘Much of this is already expressly forbidden in social networks’ terms and conditions, but too often it is allowed to stay up.’ Firms will have to make tools available that will allow users to block this on news feeds.
Three ways to crack down on hate
New measures added to the Online Safety Bill today will force social media giants like Facebook, Twitter and Instagram to ensure users can:
VERIFY THEMSELVES
Users must be given the option of verification. It will be up to the platforms what methods they use, but this could range from uploading a selfie to match their profile picture or providing proof of Government-issued ID like a passport.
BAR ANONYMOUS TROLLS
Tools must be provided to enable individuals to block other users who choose to remain anonymous. These could include ticking a box within settings that allows direct messages or replies to posts to be sent only by verified accounts.
FILTER HARMFUL CONTENT
Users must also be given a way to block content that falls below the criminal threshold but still causes significant harm, such as racist abuse. Tools could include allowing users to alter settings so the site does not recommend certain topics or placing sensitivity screens over such content.
And for MM here…
I am SERIOUSLY considering making everyone apply to comment. I have to verify their email, and I am considering interviewing everyone via skype as well. This should seriously, seriously CUT down on trolls.
And don’t give me that “free speech” speil. There is no “free speech” in MM land. You join a community, and we police that community. If you disfunctional, or sociopathic, we kill you off.
It’s really simple.
Here, we operate like the social clubs of yore. Like the “Polish Falcons”, “The Elks”, “The grand woodsmen”, and others. You apply to join, and you pay membership dues. And the community polices itself.
You are NOT alone. This is a community. And as members of that community, we all work together as one. Like they do in China. As this video clearly shows what happens to sociopaths and other people with strange mental illnesses.
Participation in your community is what a Rufus is all about. It is the heart beat a thumping that makes the community, safe, calm, kind, happy and secure. As this next video clearly shows…
A Rufus is not a spectator. It is not a bystander. It is not a passive consumer. A Rufus is a participant in the community. Watch how this Rufus leave the pack of bystanders and actually does something. What a Rufus!
I know this mall. It’s Coco park in Shenzhen. Some great restrurants, bars, and clothings shops. She’s nice. One of my favorites. She’s wearing a nice sweater. You can be very sexy and attractive without showing skin, don’t you know. All you need to do is feel relaxed and comfortable, and wear a big massive smile on your face.
This is war, and it is in flux. There are going to be losses on all sides. Whether one side recaptures this, or shoots down that, has no meaning. The end result is what happens when the dust settles.
However, there are those that are trying to keep score. As if war is a tabulated war game. Here is a decent enough site in a flood of websites.
Keep in mind, though, that much of the digital evidence you see online is faked by amateurs. From Gizmodo:
Gizmodo has found at least ten viral photos and videos currently being spread on social media that are completely fake. In some cases, the videos and photos are years old. In others, the images are clearly not from Ukraine. There are even two examples of videos on Twitter today that are actually from war-themed video games.
But it hilariously lists Bellingcat, the Atlantic Council’s cut-out to the Intertubes, which is a lot like putting the American Council of Pork Producers in charge of censoring fact-checking information on swine fever.
This is a community. If you are a Rufus, then you participate in it. You just cannot sit by and do nothing. We take action. For we are part of something greater. And for those who have volunteered to the Domain, know exactly what I am talking about.
Today was only day two of the Russian military operation. And yet, what a day it was!!!
First, a quick update on the progress of Russian forces. Here is a bulletpoint summary for today:
Kherson: liberated
Nikolaev: fighting taking pace in outskirts
Konotop: taken by Russians
Chernigov: blocked by all sides by Russian forces
Melitopol: surrounded
Mariupol: is under attack, street fighting
Severodonetsk: under attack
Kharkov: very heavy mopping up operation
Suma: mopping up operations
Kiev: blocked from the West and under attack, the authorities are distributing weapons
Gostomel airport has been captured by Russian forces
Zaporozhie: Russian forces expected there tomorrow
A land corridor from Crimea to Russia should be opened by tomorrow.
Odessa: big question mark – so far, not Russian attacks reported (that I know of!)
Now about Donetsk and Lugansk:
Both cities are still under fire, and that goes to show that the advance of the LDNR forces has been slow, which is hardly surprising considering that the Ukronazis had 7 years to prepare their defenses. Still, things ARE getting better. Not only that, but the LDNR air defenses shot down a Ukie Tochka-U missile aimed at Donetsk. So it sure looks like the long awaited A2/AA “protective cupola” is being extended over the LDNR.
That being said, the LDNR forces did break through in at least two directions today, which means that the life left for the Ukie artillery shelling the LDNR will soon come to an end.
But that does not really tell the full story. So I will try to clarify things a little.
A typical battalion has about 400-600 men, depending on the type. Let’s also assume that that battalion has 3-4 companies with APCs, a mortar battery, an air defense platoon, an automatic grenade launcher platoon, a signal platoon, supply platoon, and a few smaller more specialized subunits. If that battalion loses its APCs it has basically lost its most important source of firepower. If its communications are down (destroyed or jammed), then that battalion cannot operate as part of a bigger force and if its supply routes are cut, then its ability to operate (more or fire) will rapidly dwindle down. So, on paper this battalion will remain combat capable, but in reality it will have broken up and cannot be considered a truly combat capable battalion anymore.
So, to destroy/incapacitate a battalion only a few precision strikes are needed. Such strikes though, will leave most of the soldiers alive and quite capable of resistance, but not as a battalion anymore, but more like a typical infantry company or even squads armed with small arms, machine guns, PRG, mines, etc.. They cannot maneuver very much, but they can conduct small hit and run operations against the enemy force. Which means that specialized infantry/police forces must now be send to find these small forces and deal with them in potentially bloody mopping up operations.
Of course, rather than a few precision strikes, it is much more effective to strike the entire battalion with, say, MLRS strikes which will not only destroy most of the hardware, but which will kill most of the soldiers, especially if they did not prepare and seek cover. But that means 400-500 dead in one single strike. That is if this battalion is somewhere in the steppe. But if it is in downtown Mariupol such a strike will inevitably result in even more scores of dead civilians, especially since the Ukies are very careful to always position their artillery near or even on top of buildings.
Does Russia want that?
Not if there is ANY other option left.
Please keep in mind that Russia has the reconnaissance-fire complexes needed obliterate an entire battalion anywhere in the eastern Ukraine in one single salvo. They have deliberately NOT done so today (with one possible exception during the very heavy battle for the Gostomel airport, which was taken by Russian special forces and is now secured as a safe bridgehead for Russian Military-Transport aviation right next to Kiev).
Something similar can be seen in urban offensive operations. It is one thing to get to a city or town’s outskirts, and quite another to penetrate inside the city or town. If the city is lightly defended by small arms fire, that is one thing, but if the city is well defended, in specially engineered defensive circles, with minefield, IEDs, very strong building used as command posts and if the city’s houses and basements have been prepared by combat engineers, then it is much harder to take. Again, one option is to send it dedicated urban combat groups while the other is flatten any building which is used by the defenders as a fortress.
The Russian forces have the means to flatten any building anywhere in the Ukraine, including by cruise missiles, ballistic missiles, MLRS with cluster or fuel-air munition or by using howitzers, heavy mortars and even the TOS-1/TOS-1A heavy flamethrower multi-barrel rocket launch systems.
But, again, that can only be done at a major cost in human lives. Russians won’t hesitate to obliterate some Nazi deathsquads, but to massacre hundreds of regular Ukrainians, irrespective of their personal views, is only and truly a last resort option.
There is a lot of evidence that the Russian forces have moved into the outskirts of many Ukrainian towns, including Kiev, Mariupol and others. Here is how Russian military practice works:
First, approach and try to block or surrender the city
Second, suppress the main enemy firing positions
Third, make sure that the city is truly blocked (except for a few special corridors, see below)
Fourth, hold your position and reconnoiter the outermost enemy lines (by fire when appropriate)
Fifth, send in special reconnaissance groups inside the city to observe and coordinate attacks
Sixth, once the city is surrounded/blocked and once you get a pretty decent picture of what is inside you take the next decisions which might include any of the following: open corridors for civilians to flee and for military personnel to surrender and cross over, determine the main axes of attack and begin slowly grinding down the opposition with heavy firepower (artillery, air, missiles).
Seventh, once the city’s defenses have been sufficiently disorganized, begin a house to house mopping up operation by specialized forces.
Before I go further, I want to remind you that during WWII the Soviet Military freed a whopping 1’200 (one thousand two hundred!) cities from the Nazi forces. Russians know how to do this better than anybody else.
Furthermore, during both Chechen wars, the Russians always managed to take Grozny, which was extremely heavily fortified and defended by some of the toughest fighters on the planet in spite of the fact that at that time the Russian army was it its lowest and badly disorganized, especially during the first Chechen war! But even in the first Chechen, the Russian did seize Grozny, twice, admittedly a huge cost (on both sides), but they did.
That was almost three decades ago.
Speaking of the Chechen war, in the first one the Russian military lost a big part of an entire brigade which had quickly entered the city, moved into the city center only to find itself surrounded and cut off, with terrible communications, quasi-non existing reconnaissance capabilities. That debacle left a very painful memory in the Russian collective memory and if somebody was expecting Russian APCs to reach the Mariupol or Kharkov at full speed with flags and screams of “hurrah!” – they don’t understand what is taking place: the (truly criminal) mistake made by Eltin’s generals during that first Chechen war will never be repeated by modern Russian commanders.
Any defeat is always a terrible tragedy, the only and best thing anybody can do after a defeat is to understand why and how it happened, and never repeat such a (criminal) mistake again.
That is the true reason why today Russians stopped on the outskirts of so many cities.
The bottom line is this. These are things which the Russians are trying to achieve
Destroy the Ukie armed forces but kill the absolute minimum number of Ukrainian soldiers (real Nazi will probably be destroyed no questions asked). Why? Because these surviving Ukrainian soldiers and officers are the ones who will play the main role in finally cleaning the Ukraine from the Nazi scum.
Get to the outskirts of as many major Ukrainian cities and gradually begin the steps I outlined above.
Convince civilians to flee and convince Ukrainian solders to lay down arms
Delay any Russian penetration inside the cities until the moment is “just right” (not too early, not too late)
Why?
Because Russia has ZERO intention of occupying or, even less so, rebuild or police the Ukraine, that’s why. The LDNR (in its legal borders) is as far as the Russians will go (with only a few possible exceptions).
The Kremlin decided that the goal of the operation was to 1) disarm and 2) to denazify the Ukraine. As soon as these goals are reached, the Russian want to get the hell out of the Ukraine and back into the LDNR and let the Ukrainians fight their own anti-Nazi civil war. That means that:
The Russians now must identify reasonable Ukrainian commanders and/or politicians to negotiate with
That Russia needs to offer the leftover Ukrainian ground forces the same deal which the Ukrainian forces which were tasked with the control of the Chernobyl nuclear planet were given today by the Russian forces: let’s secure this facility together and keep it secure together, with no combats of any kind. The Ukrainians gladly accepted, by the way, and now they are jointly patrolling area.
The Russian might also try something which worked well in Chechnia: tell the local town/city authorities that if they guarantee that not a single bullet will be fire from that town/city not a single Russian bullet will fly back and not a single Russian solider will enter the city, unless accompanied by locals and in order to ascertain the reality of the situation. But if a city is declared “open and peaceful” and then is used to attack Russian forces, it will be simply flattened with artillery. I call that the “Shamanov ultimatum” and, after a few false starts (and subsequently flattened towns) it worked very well.
The crucial factor is this: during the two Chechen wars or during 08.08.08 the Russians never saw the local people as their enemy and, if anything, they were hoping that the locals would start their own “housecleaning operation” which was a bad joke in the first Chechen war, but worked very well in the second Chechen war, and failed again during 08.08.08.
In military/combat terms the Ukies are much more similar to the Georgians than to the Chechens, so there is a good chance Russia might have to leave unconditionally and let the locals slug it at between each other for as much as they want (which is what Russia did in 08.08.08 even though Russia Airborne units were at the outskirts of Tbilissi).
Which brings me to THE QUESTION for tomorrow: how will the Ukrainian soldiers and civilians behave?
Right now, Ukrainian losses have been minimal (considering the undeniable fact that this is a fullscale strategic offensive), the Russian forces have reached their positions on the outskirts of many towns and tomorrow or the day after will be “decision time”.
I hope and pray that Russian and Ukrainian soldiers find a common language in as many locations as possible. Those who will chose a heroic stance (hardcore Nazis mostly) will be offered the possibility to die for their ideas.
In that context, “Ze” released a video in which he offered to negotiate directly and unconditionally, even about neutrality and any other topic. The Russian reply was simple and to the point:
Russia is immediately ready to start negotiations after the Armed Forces of Ukraine lay down their arms.
The Ukraine must be demilitarized and declared neutral.
The Ukraine must be denazified.
Russia will no longer allow the Nazis to rule in Ukraine. Ever.
After that reply, “Ze” and his aides stopped communicating.
I personally doubt that he has any control over anything. And the fact that a huge amount of weapons has been distributed to whomever wanted one today in Kiev shows that “Ze”‘s handlers have given him the order to make the biggest possible mess and bloodbath before he is evacuated.
This is very sad, and utterly immoral, but there is nothing Russia can do about that: the Ukraine will be flooded by well armed criminals gangs and Nazi insurgents for years to come.
Putin today made a speech in which he suggested that Russia’s beef was only with the Nazis and their deathsquads but that Russia would seek to cooperate with the Ukrainian armed forces (well, what’s left of them, really) should they overthrow the Nazis. See his full message here.
So, today was “we get to our staging positions” day.
So what did not happen (yet)?
The operational envelopment of the Ukrainian forces along the LOC with the LDNR forces has not happened yet, there is still a corridor by which these forces can withdraw. The Russian could have shut it down already “by maneuver by fire” but, apparently, they want to keep it open for a little longer.
The Russian Black Sea fleet has not engaged in any major combat activities (that I know off, so take that with a grain of salt).
Will that happen tomorrow? Maybe, it all really depends on whether the regular Ukrainian units will agree to surrender or whether they will fight to their last solider. It also depends on how the Ukrainian civilians will react at the sight of approaching Russian forces.
So what to look for tomorrow?
A further penetration of Russian forces deeper inside Ukie territory, with cities bypassed.
The gradual penetration of Russian forces into blocked/surrounded cities
The intervention of the Black Sea Fleet in combat operations (with maybe Odessa as a strategic target, not necessarily to take, but at least to threaten and weaken).
A western false flag (some “Russian atrocity” no doubt)
One more thing:
Western PSYOPs are in “max attack mode” and they are being helped by Russian 5th columnist websites. For example, I was trying to find a halfway decent map of the combat operations today, and ALL the Russian websites which offered such maps were hardcore 5th element. Okay, I get it – 5th columnists don’t need any real facts to make their maps, while the real patriots are afraid of both getting it wrong and leaking info. Still, I remember during the first two wars in the Donbass, there were some pretty decent maps available out there.
Today I see such zero. If anybody can recommend semi-decent military maps of the combat operations I would be most grateful.
The fact that the Russian 5th column is allowed to continue to operate the way it does really frustrates me. Could the Kremlin not tell them to “zip it” at least during active combat operations?
I did not even bother checking the output of the 6th column today, I fully expect it to be indistinguishable from the output of the 5th, and so I have no interest in it.
What is certain are two things: the joint efforts 5th and 6th column efforts have had some success, especially in locations where Putin his hated and pro-western views more common than in most of Russia. The best poll I have seen says “Three-quarters of the respondents rather support the decision of the President of Russia to recognize the independent Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics (73%), rather do not support – 16%, and every tenth Russian found it difficult to answer (11%).The majority of Russians – 78% – expressed support for the President’s decision to sign an agreement on friendship, cooperation and mutual assistance between Russia and the Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics.Rather, 14% of respondents do not support this decision“. Putin personal rating is at 67,2%.
My guesstimate that no more than 5% of Russian support the 5th column and not more than 15% support the 6th column. Toss in another 5-10% which is afraid and on the fence. This is only a guess following my readings of the Russian social media, not a precise figure or even one based on serious research!
Next, the main thesis of US PSYOPs today was “the Russian movement is very slow, much slower than expected” hinting at some formidable Ukrainian defense operations. I hope that while I did not post any maps today, the above will tell you all you need to know to identify this thesis for what it is: western information operations, nothing more. The problem is that there is no “smartphone confirmation” of any of that, and by tomorrow I expect the main western PSYOPs thesis to change from “no/slow advance” to “Russian atrocities” (the smartphone coverage for that will, of course, be provided by the western press corps).
So, in conclusion, and once more – the “fog of war” is real, and to read through it takes both time and experience. By tomorrow, I only expect this “fog of war” (powerfully augmented by PSYOPs) to drown us all in all sorts of nonsense, rumors and wild claims. Again, please don’t post panicked questions such as “is it true that the Ukrainian forces are already on the Red Square in Moscow” or something equally insipid.
Two quick ones just in, then I need to crash (sorry, I am exhausted).
The US decided to impose personal sanctions personally on Putin (and others) which will result in a full termination of any diplomatic relations (as Russians warned the US many times). Note: such sanctions are entirely symbolic but maximally offensive, so a full break with Russia is what the US wants.
Twelve thousand Chechens will be sent to the LDNR if needed, so promised Ramzan Kadyrov, the President of Chechnia. Actually, I think that this is a very good idea, like in Syria, the Chechens should get involved in policing and public security operations. FYI – when the “toughest” and “NATO trained and equipped” Georgian brigade heard that the Chechen battalion Vostok was approaching, they all ran abandoning all their fancy (and secret) equipment. Russia then organized exhibits of all that NATO kit.
Today, the LDNR authorities report the seizure of large Ukie weapons depots including the famous Javelins and NLAWs. This is all very good news.
MM video
I took this video from inside a DD (Chinese version of Uber). It depicts where I live in JiDa in Zhuhai, China. Sure it’s sideways, but well, not too much I can do about that now.
Russia’s Foreign Ministry says it wants to end the 8-year bloodbath in Donbass that both Ukraine and the West turned a blind eye to.
The West spent eight years ignoring the “sea of blood” in Donbass while arming Ukraine, and now claims Moscow is the aggressor when it stepped in to end the conflict, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova told RT on Thursday.
Russian President Vladimir Putin announced a military operation in Ukraine in the early hours of Thursday, claiming it was necessary to “demilitarize and de-nazify” the neighbor. Kiev accused Russia of aggression, while the US, EU and NATO have called it an “unprovoked” invasion. Moscow insists this is not the case.
In announcing the operation, Putin said the “main objective is to stop the escalation of the war that’s been going on for eight years, and to stop the war,” Zakharova told RT in an exclusive interview.
“Russia did not commit aggression of any kind,” Zakharova insisted. “This did not start yesterday. There’s a sea of blood that’s appeared over the past 8 years,” she added, referring to the conflict in the Donetsk and Lugansk regions, which Russia on Monday recognized as independent states.
The main aim is to stop the escalation of the war that's been going on for eight years, to stop this war
Donetsk and Lugansk broke away from Ukraine in 2014, after the West-backed coup ousted the democratically elected government in Kiev. Zakharova noted that the two self-proclaimed republics held a referendum eight years ago, saying they did not want to remain in Ukraine, but both Moscow and the West rejected this and tried to put the “broken” country back together.
When asked about President Volodymyr Zelensky’s statement that Ukraine wanted peace, Zakharova wondered why Ukraine was arming itself and refusing to negotiate with the Donbass.
“If Ukraine wanted peace, why did they get all these weapons” from all over the world, the Foreign Ministry spokeswoman told RT, adding, “It was clear that these were offensive weapons. Who were they fighting? Their own people in southeast Ukraine, and spoke often about seizing Crimea.”
The peninsula voted to rejoin Russia in March 2014, but Ukraine and its Western backers have refused to recognize this, calling it an “annexation.”
Zakharova also noted that the top Ukrainian officials have openly and publicly brought up the idea of obtaining nuclear weapons in recent weeks, pointing out this was a fact and not something claimed by Russian intelligence.
Divisions in Ukraine go beyond Donetsk and Lugansk, Zakharova added, accusing armed groups with Nazi-era symbols – such as the notorious Azov Battalion – of having influence over much of the country.
For years, she said, Western media so concerned over human rights in places like South Sudan and Myanmar kept silent on all this, ignoring that more than 13,000 people have died in the Donbass – many of them civilians. While Russia provided them with humanitarian aid, Kiev besieged them by cutting off trade, finance, and even utilities. Zakharova noted that the water canal towards Crimea is now once again operational after Ukraine “criminally” shut it off years ago.
Community
It’s not about individual “freedom” and allowing the sick, evil and malovent to hijack a forum. It’s about community. Community. You have a choice. you can sit behind your computer in a grey cubicle and shout your opinions anomously, or you can participate in a community as an accepted member. It your choice.
Not in his entire life has President Vladimir Putin made a speech like Monday’s Donbass address to the Russian people.
Nor has he ever named the Americans to be Russia’s national enemy in such unequivocal Russian terms – American promises worthless, American intentions deadly, American speeches lies, American actions intimidation, extortion, blackmail.
“So I want to ask”, Putin said: “why, why all this, for what? Okay, you don’t want to see us as a friend and ally, but why make us an enemy? There is only one answer: it’s not about our political regime, it’s not about anything else, they just don’t need such a large independent country as Russia. That’s the answer to all the questions. This is the source of traditional American policy towards Russia.”
“The pretext for another sanctions attack will always be found or simply fabricated, regardless of the situation in Ukraine. There is only one goal – to restrain the development of Russia. And they will do it as they did before, even without any formal pretext at all, just because we are and will never give up our sovereignty, national interests and our values.”
Unlike the most famous of English and American mobilization speeches against French, German and Confederate enemies – King Henry’s Agincourt, Winston Churchill’s Dunkirk, and Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg speeches – Putin didn’t wave his arms or move significantly his head, neck, shoulders, or right hand. Putin’s right hand is the operational one.
Watch and listen. The stillness of the body language, the pauses for breathing, the speech pitch, pace and modulation – these mean to all Russians: Do or die — now we do for ourselves or else the Americans will kill us.
Putin spoke for 55 minutes, 48 seconds – Shakespeare’s Henry V spoke for just over two minutes; Lincoln for less than that; Churchill for 20 minutes.
The Pentagon has been using body language and voice techniques to spy on Putin for years. Timothy Colton, the US Naval War College agent doubling as a Harvard professor, was exposed in 2015 after several years of paid secret work; read the details here.
Colton has also been the biographer of Boris Yeltsin, a work celebrated as a “masterpiece” by the US officials who once controlled Yeltsin. Yeltsin was unnamed in Putin’s speech, but all Russian listeners understand that he was meant in Putin’s accusations of “historic, strategic mistakes”, “pandering to the ambitions of the nationalist elites”; “injustices, lies and outright pillage.”
“Against the backdrop of the superficial and populist rhetoric about democracy and a bright future based either on a market or a planned economy, but amid a true impoverishment of people and widespread shortages, no one among the powers that be was thinking about the inevitable tragic consequences for the country… The collapse of the historical Russia known as the USSR is on their conscience.” For “market” Putin means the Yeltsin group, the two ranking officials who belong to it – Anatoly Chubais and Alexei Kudrin — are still alive, along with the oligarchs they created. For “planned economy” Putin refers to Mikhail Gorbachev whom he has condemned as well. For “conscience” Putin means hypocrisy.
The qualifier: “Of course, we cannot change past events, but we must at least admit them openly and honestly, without any reservations or politicking. Personally, I can add that no political factors, however impressive or profitable they may seem at any given moment, can or may be used as the fundamental principles of statehood. I am not trying to put the blame on anyone.”
Analysis of Putin’s body language and verbal cues on behalf of the secret services by Colton and his colleagues has not discouraged the hospitality which has been shown to Colton by the Valdai Club, the Kremlin-financed platform. The reason Putin has just announced openly. For the traditional American reason the Russian command believes Colton’s capacity to threaten is limited by his incapacity to comprehend.
Count Putin’s head, neck, and shoulder movements and measure them against the vertical and horizontal axes. Head movements left and right are restricted within 5 degrees of the vertical; there is almost no kinesis of the head forward or back; no neck rotation; and apart from a couple of left shrugs, Putin’s shoulders remain immobile and at rest on the horizontal for all 55 minutes. This is an unusually long time.
Movement psychologists diagnose these features as indicating on the one hand a combination of internal control and confidence in what is being said; on the other hand, the commitment to reassure the listener.
Putin does not stumble in speech, mispronounce or misread his teleprompter lines. Speaking without a glass of water for an hour, he clears his throat very rarely. His breathing intakes are short, regular, and without the diaphragmatic discipline of the Stanislavsky stage method; in short, natural. The pitch and modulation of his voice remain steady without many peaks of emphasis or emotion. But the president does something he has exhibited very rarely — he breathes out in audible sighs. This is a display of regret, sadness. For the Russian audience this is attractive because it is human.
For his emphases Putin employs as few of his moving parts as he can. This signifies a high degree of self-control without nervousness. Instead, he uses his hands, the right more than the left, to anchor his body. When he wants to underline a verbal point, there is no agitation of the arms nor tension in the fingers on the table. His gestures – either single-handed or double-handed – illustrate the military threats Putin is discussing from the US, the NATO alliance, and from Ukrainian territory.
Left: “a truly fatal document, the so-called ethnic policy of the party in modern conditions”. 2nd from left: “blackmailing the West to secure preferences by claiming that otherwise Russia would have a bigger influence in Ukraine”. 3rd from left: “we got five waves of NATO enlargement one after another….” 4th from left: “It’s called, rightly, ‘the knife to the throat’”. Right: “they are trying to blackmail us, again threatening us with sanctions, which, by the way, they will still introduce as Russia’s sovereignty strengthens”.
The last time the United States faced an enemy as calm, unmoving, disciplined, and confident was in the Vietnam War. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and deputy Victoria Nuland were less than eight years old at the time; National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan had not been born.
Oh, and speaking about Taiwan…
And about China’s defenses regarding Taiwan…
AI controlled Chinese Robotic bombs are swimming independently all over the South China Sea. Collecting info, and ready to detonate upon command. Video 6MB
Chinese Naval Aviation. I wonder if CNN, BBC, or FOX “news” would ever show these kinds of videos. Video 7MB
How community works
This is what happens inside of China. It is a nation that values community, and that does not tolerate social misfits. And Trolls are mentally ill social misfits. That’s WHY they hide their true names, faces, appearance, and location.
Then (supposedly) hidden they cause saddness, interruptions and sow disgust.
This is unaccceptable inside of China, and China is very strict about putting these misfits out of society. Instead they provide them with meaningful labor, in well structured environments where their social skills are allowed to gorw and mature until one day then can return back into that community.
Community. Without it, you are just a loney, solitary misfit.
When was the last time you ate this delicious dish?
My guess is that you must have eaten at least 300 buckets of KFC chicken since then. So much, that you (and the rest of society) has forgotten that there as so many ways to cook chicken, and deep frying it is only one such way.
Chicken a la King took the United States by storm in the middle of the 20th century. But if you try to find it on a dinner menu these days, you probably won’t have much luck.
By embracing this dish, featuring cubed chicken with a cream sauce served over your favorite grain (rice, noodles or bread), you’ll get to taste what made this chicken recipe such a classic and maybe even discover your next favorite meal.
Remember the onslaught of lies trying to pin Coronavirus on the Chinaese because of unhealthy habits, filth and dirt at a Wet Market. Yet, no one ever showed images of what a Wet Market looks like. Well, here is what it looks like.
Despite possible sanctions and their hard-hitting economic consequences, the hunted Russian bear has got out of the den and is going after the hunters. Until recently, Russians, Ukrainians, and Europeans believed that there would be no war.
What we see now, however, is a full-scale Russian intervention and quite a successful one too. Where are the Russian troops going, and most importantly, why? And where will they stop?
Strengthened since the breakup of the Soviet Union, Russia was quite content with its new status of a leading regional power, and only verbally recalled its glorious imperial past. During the early 2000s, Russia even mulled the possibility of integrating into NATO and the EU, only to see its natural and legitimate interests repeatedly and shamelessly ignored. Millions of Russian-speakers living in the post-Soviet republics were deprived of their right to use their native language, while the Baltic countries and Ukraine profited from the transit of gas, oil, and raw materials. There was even a new “policy of gas pipelines,” when Russia was pressured into make concessions in exchange for being allowed to build a gas pipeline or simply put a stop to the syphoning off of its pipeline gas.
In fact, a resurgent Russia was gradually being presented as a “potential enemy” for the sake of reiterating NATO’s role as a defender against the imagined Russian threat. All this resulted in the 2013 events in Ukraine where nationalists came to power not without outside help, flatly refusing to safeguard the interests of the country’s Russian-speaking population, primarily in eastern Ukraine. Facing the risk of losing its naval base in Sevastopol (existing there since the 18th century) and wishing to protect the Russian-speaking people living in Ukraine, Russia, with the full support of the local population, re-absorbed Crimea and supported the separatists of Donbass. This was followed by Kiev’s ban on the use of the Russian language in the country (not entirely successful, though, since it was the main spoken language of Ukraine) and police persecution of those who advocated a dialogue with Moscow. In its effort to support Ukraine, the West introduced a series of anti-Russian sanctions, which seriously damaged the Russian economy. Still, for the past eight years, Russia was ready for dialogue. In exchange for autonomy for Russian-speakers and guarantees of non-deployment of a NATO infrastructure in eastern Ukraine, Moscow was prepared to roll back its support for the separatists and, possibly, even hold a new referendum in Crimea on its reunification with Russia.
However, during all these eight years, people continued to die along the disengagement line in Donbass, separating Kiev’s armed forces and the separatists (at the rate of more than 100 a year). Meanwhile, Russia was officially branded by Kiev as an “aggressor,” and those in power in Ukraine started to busily prepare for a big war, demanding military and financial assistance from the EU and Washington. And while President Zelensky’s predecessor, the millionaire Petro Poroshenko, was still able to maintain a dialogue with Moscow with the help of the oligarchs, the current president, who came to power on the strength of promises to seek peace and reconciliation, was trying hard to enter NATO and was threatening Russia with missiles deployed near Chernigov (750 km from Moscow). As for the Kremlin, it has spent the past six months trying to negotiate with Brussels, Washington and Zelensky himself. All that Putin was asking for were security guarantees for Russia. In fact, Moscow never really threatened Ukraine but was still being systematically pushed towards a military solution.
It should be noted that prior to the intervention, Putin explained in great detail to his compatriots what was going on, recalling how the borders of the Soviet republics had been cut and how Russian-speaking territories had been handed over to Ukraine. He also made it clear that one cannot talk about a violation of international law after the invasion of Iraq, the bombing of Serbia, the recognition of Kosovo and NATO’s move to the Russian borders.
Let’s be honest: a bear sleeping peacefully in its den was smoked out of there by being poked with a stick, and now they are wondering why it is chasing those who did that. Moscow has been pushed into a corner and is now demonstrating its strength and standing up for its interests. Now Putin will at best be satisfied with a change of guard in Kiev, and at worst, Ukraine as a state will disappear from the map of Europe. Is it possible to justify an aggression that has been provoked for a long time? This is a matter of a lengthy discussion. One thing is clear: 20 years ago, Russia could and wanted to join NATO and united Europe. However, the latter chose to make Russia an enemy…
Pick a side
I have recounted how various “experts” are advising Washington DC to sanction China along with Russia. They argue that since the USA controls the money supply and debt that countries would “of course” choose America over China. I argue otherwise. Where are people going to get things?
And concerning China…
A reminder that China DOES NOT PLAY
Like Russia, China has a ferocious military. Military training starts in first grade, however, certain kindergarden schools also start the tykes early as well. Marching, rules of organization are taught in first grade. Third grade you have field stripping of firearms, small arms training, and mortar fire.
China has a population of merit driven, determined soldiers of 1.6 billion people. Someone should slap the American neocons ont he side of the head and remind them that both China and Russia are decendents of Genghis Khan.
Today is a major day in the Russian military operation. Why?
Because Russian forces are now on the outskirts of many major Ukrainian cities. If yesterday was “standoff weapons” day, today is the first day when Russian forces can now begin to degrade Ukrainian artillery dispositions, engage Ukie armor and break through Ukrainian fortifications. Today is also the last day for US PSYOPs to try to present a counter-narrative (Ukies heroically resisting, Russian dying in huge numbers, effective counter-attacks, etc.).
Yet we live in the smartphone with camera era and picture like this one tell the full story:
What you see in this picture are immense traffic jams of folks fleeing not Mariupol or Kramatorsk, but Kiev, the capital.
Here is a quick machine translated news update from Col. Cassad:
1. LDNR – the positional nature of the fighting remains, with attempts by the LDNR armies to advance to the borders of the territories occupied by the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
2. The southern direction – the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation retained control over the bridge over the Dnieper at Kherson, repulsing attempts of counterattacks by the Armed Forces of Ukraine.. Fighting in the Antonovsky Bridge area continues.
A New Kakhovka is also being held. Melitopol was taken this morning and the advance towards Berdyansk began.
3. Kharkiv direction – fighting continues on the near approaches to Kharkov. Both sides are suffering losses in people and equipment.
4. Sumy direction – the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation took Putivl and passing through Sumy (the battle at the airport continued there today), advanced to Konotop, surrounding the city. Today, attempts to take Akhtyrka continued in order to reach Kharkov from the west. There are Russian roadblocks on the Sumy-Kiev highway. There is an advance to Kiev and Chernihiv. (The APU repelled the attack of the Russian Armed Forces in the Chernihiv direction).
5. Kiev – Gostomel airfield is held by paratroopers. The APU could not dislodge them from there. This morning, tank columns of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation broke through to the near approaches to Kiev and are close to establishing direct communication with the landing. The AFU is preparing a counterattack, stating that another landing will be thrown out in the Gostomel area today. The Pentagon says that Kiev will fall in the coming days. After 10 o’clock shooting was heard in the city. Also, according to the statement of the Armed Forces of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, the landing was thrown to the west of Zhytomyr. The Armed Forces of Ukraine are actively undermining bridges on the approaches, trying to slow down the advance of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation,
6. In the morning, strikes continued on military facilities of the Armed Forces of Ukraine throughout the territory of Ukraine. A Su-27 of the Ukrainian Air Force was shot down over Kiev – according to one version by the Russian air defense system, according to another – by the Ukrainian ones. The downed “Caliber” fell on a residential building in Kiev, but there were no casualties. During the shelling of Gorlovka, a school was hit – 2 teachers were killed.
7. The AFU launched a missile attack on the Millerovo airfield on the territory of the Russian Federation. Damage is reported at the airfield, but there are no losses in aircraft.
What a Chinese home is like
Yeah. It’s pretty much like this. Only, her house is not nearly as messy and cluttered up as mine. You know, having young kids is a real way to “decorate” your home. Video
And in Taiwan, a lesson for everyone
Ukraine’s crisis comic: note the flags, the texts, and the last picture : how US, UK, and EU farewell the stupid Ukraine president after giving him the weapons.
I love this Taiwan TV current affair channel. The current Taiwan regime ban them, so they go on social media.
It’s a tad too technical, on my side. You all can skim over the article if you want. Essentially, China’s AI systems detected the behavior of the USA’s NSA hacking tool. It mapped it out, and then algorithims figured it all out. The part that is NOT reported in this article is that the Chinese were able to do so as the enire system is transparent. It’s like trying to find a glass stature submerged in ice cube water.
Researchers from China’s Pangu Lab have disclosed details of a “top-tier” backdoor put to use by the Equation Group, an advanced persistent threat (APT) with alleged ties to the cyber-warfare intelligence-gathering unit of the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA).
Dubbed “Bvp47” owing to numerous references to the string “Bvp” and the numerical value “0x47” used in the encryption algorithm, the backdoor was extracted from Linux systems “during an in-depth forensic investigation of a host in a key domestic department” in 2013.
The defense research group codenamed the attacks involving the deployment of Bvp47 “Operation Telescreen,” with the implant featuring an “advanced covert channel behavior based on TCP SYN packets, code obfuscation, system hiding, and self-destruction design.”
Bvp47 is said to have been used on more than 287 targets in the academia, economic development, military, science, and telecom sectors located in 45 countries, mainly in China, Korea, Japan, Germany, Spain, India, and Mexico, all the while going largely undetected for over a decade.
The elusive backdoor is also equipped with a remote control function that’s protected using an encryption algorithm, activating which requires the attacker’s private key – something the researchers said they found in the leaks published by the Shadow Brokers hacker group in 2016.
Pangu Lab is a research project of Pangu Team, which has a history of jailbreaking Apple iPhones dating all the way back to 2014. At the Tianfu Cup hacking contest last year, the white hat hacking team demonstrated several security flaws that allowed for remotely jailbreaking a fully patched iPhone 13 Pro running iOS 15.
The Shadow Brokers leaks
Equation Group, designated as the “crown creator of cyber espionage” by Russian security firm Kaspersky, is the name assigned to a sophisticated adversary that’s been active since at least 2001 and has used previously undisclosed zero-day exploits to “infect victims, retrieve data and hide activity in an outstandingly professional way,” some of which were later incorporated into Stuxnet.
The attacks have targeted a variety of sectors in no less than 42 countries, counting governments, telecom, aerospace, energy, nuclear research, oil and gas, military, nanotechnology, Islamic activists and scholars, media, transportation, financial institutions, and companies developing encryption technologies.
The group is believed to be linked to the NSA’s Tailored Access Operations (TAO) unit, while intrusion activities pertaining to a second collective known as Longhorn (aka The Lamberts) have been attributed to the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).
Equation Group’s malware toolset became public knowledge in 2016 when a group calling itself the Shadow Brokers leaked the entire tranche of exploits used by the elite hacking team, with Kaspersky uncovering code-level similarities between the stolen files and that of samples identified as used by the threat actor.
Bvp47 as a covert backdoor
The incident analyzed by Pangu Lab comprises two internally compromised servers, an email and an enterprise server named V1 and V2 respectively, and an external domain (identified as A), sporting a novel two-way communication mechanism to exfiltrate sensitive data from the systems.
“There is abnormal communication between external host A and the V1 server,” the researchers said. “Specifically, A first sends a SYN packet with a 264-byte payload to port 80 of the V1 server, and then the V1 server immediately initiates an external connection to the high-end port of the A machine and maintains a large amount of exchange data.”
Simultaneously, V1 connects to V2 via the SMB service to perform a number of operations, including logging in to the latter with an administrator account, trying to open terminal services, enumerating directories, and executing PowerShell scripts through scheduled tasks.
V2, for its part, also connects to V1 to retrieve a PowerShell script and an encrypted second-stage payload, the encrypted execution results of which are sent back to V1, which, according to the researchers, “acts as a data transfer between the A machine and the V2 server.”
The Bvp47 backdoor installed on the servers consists of two parts, a loader which is responsible for decoding and loading the actual payload into memory. “Bvp47 generally lives in the Linux operating system in the demilitarized zone that communicates with the Internet,” the researchers said. “It mainly assumes the core control bridge communication role in the overall attack.”
Links to the Equation Group
Pangu Lab’s attribution to Equation Group stems from overlaps with exploits contained in a GPG-encrypted archive file published by the Shadow Brokers – “eqgrp-auction-file.tar.xz.gpg” – as part of a failedauction of the cyber weapons in August 2016.
“In the process of analyzing the ‘eqgrp-auction-file.tar.xz.gpg’ file, it was found that Bvp47 and the attacking tools in the compressed package were technically deterministic, mainly including ‘dewdrops,’ ‘suctionchar_agents,’ ‘tipoffs,’ ‘StoicSurgeon,’ ‘incision’ and other directories,” the researchers explained.
“The ‘tipoffs’ directory contains the RSA asymmetric algorithm private key used in the Bvp47 covert channel [for] command execution and other operations. On this basis, it can be confirmed that Bvp47 is from [the] Equation group.”
The findings mark the second time hitherto undocumented malware developed by the Equation Group has come to light in as many months. In late December 2021, Check Point Research disclosed details of a diagnostic utility called “DoubleFeature” that’s used in conjunction with the DanderSpritz malware framework.
“Judging from the attack tools related to the organization, including Bvp47, Equation group is indeed a first-class hacking group,” the researchers concluded.
“The tool is well-designed, powerful, and widely adapted. Its network attack capability equipped by zero-day vulnerabilities was unstoppable, and its data acquisition under covert control was with little effort. The Equation Group is in a dominant position in national-level cyberspace confrontation.”
A most outstanding Interview
It truly is. Man, oh man. No holding back. This is THE Scott Ritter that was sent to Iraq to find WMD’s and got in all sorts of trouble by the Bush Administration when he couldn’t find any. Man, he lets loose!
This link with Scott Ritter just popped up on moa a little while ago.
I’ve had to listen twice — highly recommended.
I think he is correct — NATO is dead and gone, bar for the funeral.
The European defence process will need to rebuild a less costly, more effective framework for peaceful co-existance with the Slavic world.
And this is a key point about re-alignments at a higher level than simply nation state.
It is at Chinese; Slavic; European; Anglo-American scales — everything else is just “loose ends” from the 20th century past.
Time to wake up, folks, and smell the roses (or the rubbish in the streets) and blame our local political representitives — after all, they ARE our ‘leaders’ (so they keep saying).
Accountability is a bitch ….Lol.
“NATO Too Weak to Face Russia: Scott Ritter on Russian Offensive
17,097 views • Feb 25, 2022 ” [38min]
https://youtu.be/3GkmdCaBECs
This kind of scene is fairly common when you go to a Business KTV. The girls will dance, and feed your food like grapes, strawberries, and drinks. They will hold your arm and be playful with you. video
“We’ve seen this picture show before, ahem,” claimed Archduke Peter Von Fishburn-Waldrop III, of County Hampshire, as he took snuff. “Whenever a world war is about to break out, one of us is inevitably assassinated, ahem.”
Archdukes are contracting mercenaries, hirelings, sell-swords, adventurers-about-town, and various other soldiers of fortune to round out their security details.
“Aye, it be good for business, make no mistake. Surely none of us wish to see an Archduke what with his life-force pourin’ out of his noggin, but we got bills to pay too, mind you,” said Captain John Ninefingers, leader of the famed Free Company.
Students of history will remember that the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand precipitated World War I, called The Great War at the time, fought by various European powers. Archdukes fear that with the Ukrainian crisis, it’s only a matter of time before history repeats itself.
“One day you’re collecting rent from peasants, ahem, or getting promoted in the military despite no accomplishments, and the next day, ahem, you get assassinated by a young upstart who wants freedom from your imperial empire,” muttered Archduke Yannis Belagrovstad, of the Gutenberg Province. “What nerve! What cheek!”
The motley collection of heirs-apparent is leaving nothing to chance. The finest technologies have been employed to ensure the safety of the Archduke corps throughout Europe.
“We attempted to develop a motorcar that was consistently surrounded by a moat as it traveled, ahem, but the peasants complained that it was too much digging,” mused Archduke Johannes Reberg, of the Kaiserschoten Kaserne. “And isn’t that just like a peasant?”
When asked for comment, Ursula Gertrud von der Leyen, the current leader of the European Commission, said, “The safety of the Archdukes remains our number one priority. That’s why we’ve diverted troops from Ukraine to stand guard around their four-post beds throughout the night.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin issued a press release Tuesday morning regarding the safety of the Archdukes.
“When it comes to the assassination of Archdukes, it appalls me to think that anyone could be considering such an action,” said Putin, “without me having first ordered it”.
Checkered sweater for the tropics
Here, in the tropics, it’s HOT. Then there’s the “rainy season” which is HOT and STEAMY. So how do these Chinese girls get around wearing sweaters? Is it becuase they stay inside the air conditioning all day? Well, maybe so, but also the clothes in China are designed for the environment. Here is a sweater for the tropics. Cool, eh?
The Russian operations in the Ukraine continue at a moderate pace. Some more troops were committed today. In all the Russian military may have now introduced some 20-40% of its prepared forces.
The Ukrainian military is not so much holding a line but concentrating in and around its bigger cities. It has destroyed some bridges north of Kiev to make an approach more difficult. That will slow down the Russian moves but will not prevent them. Russia’s military is famously good at setting up combat bridges.
So far the Russians have used their artillery sparsely. An exception was last night near Kharkiv in the northeast of Ukraine where a strike by multiple launcher artillery systems (MLRS) hit some area target with yet unknown results.
A 13 minutes long video from a highway drive near Kherson, a city north of Crimea, shows nearly 100 destroyed Ukrainian trucks and tanks. These are likely victims of air attacks.
If this map from a Turkish think tank source is correct the Russian troops did not attempt much deeper strikes today but mostly consolidated their frontline.
This map from Janes shows less progress. But it also has not marked the Donbas area in the southeast which is held by pro-Russian forces.
Russia’s President has called on the Ukrainian military to overthrow its government. I do not think he believes that will happen but it is a possibility so why not call for it.
Facebook now allows to praise Ukrainian Nazi groups like the Azov battalion. This was prohibited with Azov previously being in the same category as ISIS. Now these are ‘our guys’.
There are a lot of discussions of sanctions against Russia and every western country is trying to get as much exemptions for its industries as possible . The U.S. has for example exempted everything that has to do with hydrocarbons from its own sanction package. It will still buy Russian oil and will continue to sell drilling equipment to Russia.
The EU countries are still negotiating with themselves. They should be careful with what they do.
Britain has had the stupidity of sanctioning the Russian air carrier Aeroflot. In a counter move Russia prohibited British Airways from flying over Russian territory. Normally all flights from Britain to the Far East cross Russian airspace. These will now have to be redirected to other routes which will significantly increase their flight time and fuel burn.
Russia has threatened ‘inconvenient’ counter-sanctions to those who sanction it. Overflight rights are only one of the tools it can use.
NATO has said it will continue to deliver weapons, including air defenses, to the Ukraine. NATO does not have any weapons but some NATO countries seem to strive for a larger war. The U.S. seem willing to sacrifice the Ukraine to create a quagmire for Russia.
Syria was also supposed to become a quagmire for Russia when Russia came to its help. It didn’t turn out that way.
Finally, this is how we handle Trolls here on MM
"Once you cut through the bullshit and understand what's going on, it's easy to predict what will happen.
These people and countries acting as attack dogs for the empire must therefore be taught an unforgettable lesson. If you don't put down the rabid dogs, they will get up and bite you again.
Therefore, Russia will not take half measures.
They will not stop unless the surrender is total, and punishment for the miscreants dealt out accordingly. Otherwise, this operation will be for naught."
If you don’t understand this video, you must have a mental illness. Truth this.
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.
Putin and Xi Peng has made some HUGE decisions, and the “leadership” in the West are very, very worried. This is the best summary of the current state of Geo-political affairs; United States centered, that describes what is going on and why. It’s amazing in its simplicity and depth of understanding. Andrei has outdone himself here.
I discovered this video via email. Which read…
This is one of the more powerful presentations I have seen. I commented as follows:
Andre, many of us who have watched helplessly as all these crimes have been committed IN OUR NAME, would feel --as Martin Luther King said--the Arc of Justice is long,-- relieved of the karmic burden.
When all these people are finally held accountable, after decades (centuries?) of horror they perpetrated. I am sure that many Germans felt the same way after WWII.
https://youtu.be/JbNVIbAgJ1Q
Putin raises hackles when he talks about genocide in relation to the Donbass crisis.
It’s a very great video, and it covers some points that are omitted by the American “news” media, and overlooked by alternative media, and he ties it all together, thus effectively painting a picture of what the China-Russian alliance end-game actually is.
Watch it on you-tube. Click to open up in a new tab.
Think about what he has to say.
I think that many, many MM readers will easily see how the reported articles in “New Beginnings” are all tied together. After watching this video, this is how I actually feel…
New changes, and new alignments.
But that’s just me.
It’s not that I am not happy about it. In fact, I see this future as long in coming. And, as you all are aware, welcome it. But still, like a serious drunk psychopath driving a bus-load of children on a twisty and turny highway going as fast as they can; the American “leadership” are going to hurt a lot of good, kind, and just Americans.
I lament that.
And thus, the shocking reality, and the slap in the face of what is coming down the pipe for everyone involved will not be pleasant. Such as this…
Lament for America.
It’s a good summary of what is going on and why certain words were used.
But even though, you have strengths.
Never forget that. The crazy drunk psychopaths are driving the car left and right on and off the road, but you don’t need to grab the steering wheel. You can buckle up your seatbelt. You can tell the driver to pull over so that you can vomit, and then once he does, you run for the hills.
There are many things that you can do.
You are not helpless.
Find an ally. Someone like you. Don’t try to deal with the changes all alone.
Find an ally. Someone like you.
There’s this big plan, and it is unfolding. Sit tight. Conduct your basic strategies to ride out this period of turmoil, and most especially if you are in the West….
Have a skill that you can use in your community.
Have a larder and supplies.
Network in your community. Be known.
Be kind, helpful and a Rufus.
Conduct prayer affirmation campaigns.
Make sure that you have a formal Fate Forecast prepared for you and follow it.
Center your mind with Hemi-Sync.
You will be just fine.
Remember; do not be alone. There is strength in numbers.
Do not be alone.
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.
Yeah, if you go on to the Western “news” it’s all bullshit. I really cannot believe that anyone believe anything from these people anymore. They lie so much that their lies are lies of lies regarding lies.
The alternative sites, many of which are not the neocon conservative “gung ho! for ‘Merica” sites, show a great healthy respect for Russia, and some for China. Here’s we are going to throw out some stuff as the fluid situation unfolds.
Keep in mind that this is war. It’s chaotic and confusing, and there are all sorts of misinformation out there.
You can find many such websites that have collected blow-by-blow pictures, videos, and opinions / reports as they come in. I’m not going to do that except, maybe put a few interesting elements in place.
To quote DM…
"...the reposts I am hearing have me absolutely bewildred at the ruthless efficiency of the Russian army. I mean MM hinted at it, but its not until you see it in full swing you can really appreciate it."
In summary, in 24 hours, Russia took over the Ukraine. All the fancy and expensive munitions, weapons, ships, planes (supplied by the USA and NATO) were destroyed. There are some very interesting videos out there regarding this. Paratroop drops, jets blowing up the house that you are in, and the “leadership” scurrying away for safety under the great protective arms of the United States and NATO.
Right now, it’s a mop up operation, while the United States and NATO are still arguing what kind of “tough sanctions” that they will impose… or, more likely, what kind of emotionally driven (by manipulated polls) action that they could take.
My guess, could be a very BAD action, resulting in VERY BAD consequences.
But as it stands today, 25FEB22, most (but not all) of the Ukraine is under Russian control. The vast majority of American-trained (since 2014) Neo-Nazi troops laid down their arms and entered the protective corridors to their families to wait out the situation in peace. So now, we are talking about phase two…
We start with this…
Russia is ready to sit down and talk now that the Ukraine has been suppressed.
Objective and accurate report of the Russian objectives:
However, in the eyes of Putin and most Russians, the latest move serves as a counterstrike against the Western squeezing of Russia’s security room with extreme measures and a relatively large-scale showdown in wrestling with the US, a view that is also shared by the majority of Chinese.
“Circumstances require us to take decisive and immediate action,” Putin’s order read. In an address to the public, the Russian president said he wanted to “demilitarize” and “de-Nazify” Ukraine, Russia Today said. Putin further said, “We have no plans to occupy Ukrainian territory.”
“Demilitarize” could be understood to be putting down arms and surrendering, which can also be understood as incapacitating the opponent and rendering them unable to form a threat in a broader sense, Song Zhongping, a Chinese military expert and TV commentator, told the Global Times on Thursday.
“As a result, Russia will completely destroy the heavy weapons of Ukrainian troops, including warplanes, tanks and armored troops as well as defense forces, such as air defense missile forces and the navy,” Song said.
Russia announced it has destroyed Ukraine’s airfields, air defenses and control systems just a few hours after it launched the military operations.
“And as we take the measures announced by the president to ensure the security of the country and the Russian people, we will certainly always be ready for a dialogue that will return us to justice and the principles of the UN Charter,” Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said late on Thursday.
Yury Tavrovsky, head of the “Russian Dream-Chinese Dream” analytics center of the Izborsk Club, told the Global Times that Russia’s military operations in Ukraine are “completely legal.”
Both chambers of Russia’s Duma (parliament) had earlier approved recognition of Donetsk and Lugansk as “independent states.” The Upper Chamber (the Senate) later approved use of armed forces outside the national borders, Tavrovsky explained.
The military operation was launched just one day after the US and Europe unveiled what is believed to be just the first round of sanctions against Russian individuals and institutions in response to Putin’s signing of two decrees recognizing Lugansk and Donetskas independent and sovereign states.
As global markets tumbled steeply over the Ukraine-Russia crisis, some raised questions as to why Russia took this step, how the situation will evolve and whether the US will engage in a direct war with Russia.
Moscow’s motivation
In a phone call with Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi on Thursday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov explained the development of the Ukraine situation and Russia’s position, saying that the US and NATO violated their commitments by expanding east, refused to implement the new Minsk Agreements, and violated UN Security Council Resolution 2202, forcing Russia to take necessary measures to safeguard its own rights and interests.
Noting that China has always respected the sovereignty and territorial integrity of all countries, Wang said that China recognizes the complex and special historical context of the Ukraine issue and understands Russia’s legitimate security concerns.
China maintains that the Cold War mentality should be completely abandoned and a balanced, effective and sustainable European security mechanism should be finally established through dialogue and negotiation, Wang said.
“China believes there should be mutual cooperation and sustainable security, and the reasonable security concerns of all parties concerned should be respected and solved,” Hua Chunying, spokesperson of the Chinese Foreign Ministry, said during a press conference on Thursday.
Some Chinese observers said the US has continued its intensive containment of Russia, for example, by implementing more sanctions, finally forcing Russia to try to realize its security demands in this drastic way.
Russian elites such as Putin and Deputy Chairman of Russian Security Council Dmitry Medvedev believe that the Ukraine issue has reached the point where it must be resolved.
“I believe Russia’s military operation is a reaction by Moscow to Western countries’ exertion of pressure on Russia for a long time, showing that Moscow can’t tolerate it anymore,” Yang Jin, an associate research fellow at the Institute of Russian, Eastern European, and Central Asian Studies under the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, told the Global Times on Thursday.
“As to how the situation will evolve, I think we need to spend more time to observe it. First thing first, we need to focus on the attitude of the US, on whether Washington will launch a direct war against Russia,” he said, noting that everything depends on how NATO and the US will react.
If the entire military operation goes smoothly, Russia could reach its target of fully controlling Ukraine, and what worries NATO most is whether Russia will then carry out further operations again the three Baltic countries, namely Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, Li Haidong, a professor from the Institute of International Relations of China Foreign Affairs University, told the Global Times on Thursday.
The US and NATO are now observing how the situation evolves. The US and NATO have been training Ukraine troops since 2014, and it’s time to see if they will confront Russian troops and for how long they will fight them. “As long as Russia does not engage in military conflicts with NATO members, there won’t be direct confrontation between NATO and US [on one side] and Russia [on the other],” Li said.
Now, keep in mind that this is directly after the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing. You know, that one that the United States, the UK, and the Australians decided to sit out of for one concocted reason or the other…
The entire opening ceremony for the 2022 Winter Olympics
At 2:11:01 is the meaningful symbolic embrace performance that made all the Chinese and some Taiwanese get all emotional. It’s about community and family and inclusion.
Nice hyper-cute Chinese girl
I think that it would be a nice spot to include this fine Chinese lass. My oh my! Look at that terrible communist regime! Look how dirty and polluted it is! Look at how thin she is, it’s obvious that the regime starves her. She must be pining away for freedom™ and democracy™, don’t you know!
That is not all that unlike America in the early 1950s. Here’s a winter scene. It’s in front of a neighborhood gas station. I wonder if they still have these things back in the ‘states. Notice the smiling and happy woman, and the rag-top (or convertible) in the back. Calm. Easy. Fun.
Like China is today.
Calm and fun United States in the 1950s.
From the Black Sea to the East Med, do not poke The Russian Bear
This is what happens when a bunch of ragged hyenas, jackals and tiny rodents poke The Bear: a new geopolitical order is born in breathtaking speed.
From a dramatic meeting of the Russian Security Council to a history lesson delivered by President Putin and the subsequent birth of the Baby Twins – the People’s Republics of Donetsk and Luhansk – all the way to their appeal to President Putin to intervene militarily to expel the NATO-backed Ukrainian bombing-and-shelling forces from Donbass, it was a seamless process.
The (nuclear) straw that (nearly) broke the Bear’s back – and forced its paws to pounce – was Zelensky the Comedian, back from the Russophobia-drenched Munich Security Conference where he was hailed like a Messiah, saying that the 1994 Budapest memorandum should be revised and Ukraine should be nuclear-rearmed.
That would be the equivalent of a nuclear Mexico south of the Hegemon.
Putin immediately turned Responsibility to Protect (R2P) upside down: an American concept invented to launch wars in MENA (remember Libya?) was retrofitted to stop a slow-motion genocide in Donbass.
First came the recognition of the Baby Twins – Putin’s most important foreign policy decision since going to Syria in 2015.
That was the preamble for the next game-changer: a “special military operation (…) aimed at demilitarization and denazification of Ukraine”, as Putin defined it.
Up to the last minute, the Kremlin was trying to rely on diplomacy, explaining to Kiev the necessary imperatives to prevent heavy metal thunder:
recognition of Crimea as Russian;
abandon any plans to join NATO;
negotiate directly with the Baby Twins – an anathema for the Americans since 2015;
finally, demilitarize and declare Ukraine as neutral.
Kiev’s handlers, predictably, would never accept the package – as they didn’t accept the Master Package that really matters: the Russian demand for “indivisible security”.
The sequence, then, became inevitable.
In a flash, all Ukrainian forces between the so-called line of contact and the original borders of Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts were boxed in as the occupying force of territories of two Russian allies that Moscow had just sworn to protect.
So it was Get Out – Or Else.
“Or else” came as rolling thunder: the Kremlin and the Russian Ministry of Defense were not bluffing.
Timed to the end of Putin’s speech announcing the operation, the Russians decapitated with precision missiles everything that mattered in terms of the Ukrainian military in just one hour: Air Force, Navy, airfields, bridges, command and control centers, the whole Turkish Bayraktar drone fleet.
And it was not only Russian raw power.
It was the artillery of one of the Baby Twins, the DPR, that hit the HQ of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in Donbass, which actually housed the entire Ukrainian military command.
This means that the Ukrainian General Staff instantly lost control of all its troops.
This was Shock and Awe against Iraq, 19 years ago, in reverse: not for conquest, not as a prelude for an invasion and occupation.
The political-military leadership in Kiev did not even have time to declare war.
They froze.
Demoralized troops started deserting.
Total defeat – in one hour.
The water supply to Crimea was instantly re-established.
Humanitarian corridors were set up for the deserters.
“Remnants” now include mostly surviving Azov batallion Nazis, mercenaries trained by the usual Blackwater/Academi suspects, and a bunch of Salafi-jihadis.
Predictably, Western corporate media has already gone totally berserk branding it as the much-awaited Russian “invasion”. (A reminder: when Israel routinely bombs Syria and when the House of One Saudi routinely bombs Yemeni civilians, there is never any peep in NATOstan media.)
As it stands, realpolitik spells out a possible endgame (see Donetsk’s head, Denis Pushilin: “The special operation in Donbass will soon be over and all the cities will be liberated.”)
We could soon witness the birth of an independent Novorossiya – east of the Dnieper, south along Sea of Azov/Black Sea, the way it was when attached to Ukraine by Lenin in 1922. But now totally aligned with Russia, and providing a land bridge to Transnistria.
Ukraine, of course, would lose any access to the Black Sea.
History loves playing tricks: what was a “gift” to Ukraine in 1922 may become a parting gift a hundred years later.
It’s creative destruction time
It will be fascinating to watch what Prof. Sergey Karaganov masterfully described, in detail, as the new Putin doctrine of constructive destruction , and how it will interconnect with West Asia, the Eastern Mediterranean and further on down the Global South road.
President Erdogan, the ceremonial NATO Sultan, branded the recognition of the Baby Twins as “unacceptable”.
No wonder: that definitely smashed all his elaborate plans to pose as privileged mediator between Moscow and Kiev during Putin’s upcoming visit to Ankara. The Kremlin – as well as the Foreign Ministry – don’t waste time talking to NATO minions.
Lavrov, for his part, had a recent, very productive entente with Syrian Foreign Minister Faysal Mekdad. Russia, this past weekend, has staged a spectacular strategic missile display, hypersonic and otherwise, featuring Khinzal, Zircon, Kalibr, Yars ICBMs, Iskander and Sineva – irony of ironies, in synch with the Russophobia-fest in Munich.
In parallel, Russian Navy ships of the Pacific, Northern and Black Sea fleets performed a series of submarine search drills in the Mediterranean.
The Putin doctrine privileges the asymmetrical – and that applies to the near abroad and beyond.
Putin’s body language, in his last two crucial interventions, spell out nearly maximum exasperation.
As in realizing, not auspiciously, but rather in resignation, that the only language those neo-con and “humanitarian” imperialist psychos in the Beltway understand is heavy meal thunder (they are definitely deaf, dumb and blind to History, Geography and Diplomacy, for that matter. Not to mention they never accepted their defeat in Syria.)
So we can always game the Russian military, for instance, imposing a no-fly zone in Syria to conduct a series of visits by Mr. Khinzal not only to the Turk-protected shady jihadist umbrella in Idlib but also the jihadists protected by the Americans in Al-Tanf base, near the Syria-Jordan border. After all these specimens are all NATO proxies.
The United States government barks non-stop about “territorial sovereignty”.
So let’s game the Kremlin asking the White House for a road map on getting out of Syria: after all the Americans are illegally occupying a section of Syrian territory and most of all adding extra disaster to the Syrian economy by stealing their oil.
NATO’s stultifying Stoltenberg has announced the alliance is dusting off its “defense plans”: that may include little more than hide behind their expensive Brussels desks. They are as inconsequential in the Black Sea as in the East Med – as the Empire remains quite vulnerable in Syria.
There are now four Russian TU-22M3 strategic bombers in Hymeimim base, each capable of carrying three S-32 anti-ship missiles that fly at supersonic Mach 4.3 with a range of 1,000 km. No Aegis system is able to handle them.
Russian TU-22M3 strategic bomber.
Russia in Syria also has stationed a few Mig-31Ks in Latakia equipped with hypersonic Khinzals – more than enough to sink any kind of US surface group, including aircraft carriers, in the East Med. The US has no air defense mechanism whatsoever with even a minimal chance of intercepting them.
Mig-31K equipped with hypersonic Khinzal missile.
So the rules have changed.
Drastically.
The Hegemon is naked.
The new deal starts with turning the post-Cold War set-up in Eastern Europe completely upside down.
The East Med will be next.
The Bear is back, baby.
Hear him roar.
Well, what about the ruthless, moronic, idiots running the “West”?
And how will the USA respond?
The Americans are obviously in a state of apoplectic rage and anxiety right now.
The American Overlord will likely descend further into insanity and violence, as its sense of imperial entitlement to rule the world just got pimp slapped by the Russian bear.
Oh, no. You can be sure that they do not like what is going on, and you can be sure that they are ready to just toss the boardgame up in the air in defiant frustration.
What is next is anyones guess, but it just cannot be good.
The collective West will be seething – no Black Sea base near Crimea – their dreams up in smoke again.
So impotent with rage – they get out their sanctions manuals and try and find the worst they can possibly find to hurt Russia and have a fleeting feeling of satisfaction and power until they realise inflation is going through the roof, they have no energy to make anything, their industries start failing, can’t grow anything and they can’t heat their homes. And the glutinous fat cats in the EU have nothing to do and wonder how long their jobs will be around as it was their so clever idea to sanction their main energy supplier and now have no fertilizer to grow anything. The peasants will be bellowing outside wanting their pound of flesh.
You would think that they would just do their pontificating, but I would think that the evil “it’s time for the rapture! Let’s bring on MAD nuclear engagement now!” neocon crowd is pressing for a full scale nuclear “response”.
If that happens, the USA will be completely destroyed.
Bad news. You bet.
But, you know, the Commander did say “little bads, not big bads”. So we will see. One thing is for certain; Imperial hubris meets Karma. And it’s a bitch.
I didn’t copy the whole thing. I just shake my head. Can they actually BELIEVE what they write? Or is their opinion of American people so so that they think that they will believe it?
"...unprovoked invasion."
Nice small cute and adorable girl
Somehow, she reminds me of a very cute little mouse. Maybe it’s the outfit. Anyways, it’s pretty awesome and what a nice tight little outfit she is wearing. I’ll get that she has all the boys chasing her!
A classic of 1950s Americana, Cheeseburger Pie is the most comforting of weeknight casseroles: sautéed onion and ground beef, baked under a simple batter of flour, baking powder, eggs, and milk and a rich topping of cheddar cheese. Serve it in thick wedges with an easy celery and romaine heart salad.
Cheeseburger pie. Why not?
Cheeseburger pie slice.
US Foreign Policy Is a Cruel Sport
Bear baiting was long ago banned as inhumane. Yet today, a version is being practiced every day against whole nations on a gigantic international scale.
From HERE at the Greenville Post. Another excellent article.
In the time of the first Queen Elizabeth, British royal circles enjoyed watching fierce dogs torment a captive bear for the fun of it. The bear had done no harm to anyone, but the dogs were trained to provoke the imprisoned beast and goad it into fighting back. Blood flowing from the excited animals delighted the spectators.
This cruel practice has long since been banned as inhumane.
And yet today, a version of bear baiting is being practiced every day against whole nations on a gigantic international scale. It is called United States foreign policy. It has become the regular practice of the absurd international sports club called NATO.
United States leaders, secure in their arrogance as “the indispensable nation,” have no more respect for other countries than the Elizabethans had for the animals they tormented. The list is long of targets of U.S. bear baiting, but Russia stands out as prime example of constant harassment. And this is no accident. The baiting is deliberately and elaborately planned.
As evidence, I call attention to a 2019 report by the RAND corporation to the U.S. Army chief of staff entitled “Extending Russia.” Actually, the RAND study itself is fairly cautious in its recommendations and warns that many perfidious tricks might not work. However, I consider the very existence of this report scandalous, not so much for its content as for the fact that this is what the Pentagon pays its top intellectuals to do: figure out ways to lure other nations into troubles U.S. leaders hope to exploit.
The official U.S. line is that the Kremlin threatens Europe by its aggressive expansionism, but when the strategists talk among themselves the story is very different. Their goal is to use sanctions, propaganda and other measures to provoke Russia into taking the very sort of negative measures (“over-extension”) that the U.S. can exploit to Russia’s detriment.
The RAND study explains its goals:
“We examine a range of nonviolent measures that could exploit Russia’s actual vulnerabilities and anxieties as a way of stressing Russia’s military and economy and the regime’s political standing at home and abroad.
The steps we examine would not have either defense or deterrence as their prime purpose, although they might contribute to both.
Rather, these steps are conceived of as elements in a campaign designed to unbalance the adversary, leading Russia to compete in domains or regions where the United States has a competitive advantage, and causing Russia to overextend itself militarily or economically or causing the regime to lose domestic and/or international prestige and influence.”
Clearly, in U.S. ruling circles, this is considered “normal” behavior, just as teasing is normal behavior for the schoolyard bully, and sting operations are normal for corrupt FBI agents.
This description perfectly fits U.S. operations in Ukraine, intended to “exploit Russia’s vulnerabilities and anxieties” by advancing a hostile military alliance onto its doorstep, while describing Russia’s totally predictable reactions as gratuitous aggression.
Diplomacy involves understanding the position of the other party.
But verbal bear baiting requires total refusal to understand the other, and constant deliberate misinterpretation of whatever the other party says or does.
What is truly diabolical is that, while constantly accusing the Russian bear of plotting to expand, the whole policy is directed at goading it into expanding!
Because then we can issue punishing sanctions, raise the Pentagon budget a few notches higher and tighten the NATO Protection Racket noose tighter around our precious European “allies.”
For a generation, Russian leaders have made extraordinary efforts to build a peaceful partnership with “the West,” institutionalized as the European Union and above all, NATO.
They truly believed that the end of the artificial Cold War could produce a peace-loving European neighborhood.
But arrogant United States leaders, despite contrary advice from their best experts, rejected treating Russia as the great nation it is, and preferred to treat it as the harassed bear in a circus.
The expansion of NATO was a form of bear-baiting, the clear way to transform a potential friend into an enemy. That was the way chosen by former U.S. President Bill Clinton and following administrations. Moscow had accepted the independence of former members of the Soviet Union. Bear-baiting involved constantly accusing Moscow of plotting to take them back by force.
Russia’s Borderland
Ukraine is a word meaning borderlands, essentially the borderlands between Russia and the territories to the West that were sometimes part of Poland, or Lithuania, or Habsburg lands.
As a part of the U.S.S.R., Ukraine was expanded to include large swaths of both. History had created very contrasting identities on the two extremities, with the result that the independent nation of Ukraine, which came into existence only in 1991, was deeply divided from the start.
And from the start, Washington strategies, in cahoots with a large, hyperactive anti-communist anti-Russian diaspora in the U.S. and Canada, contrived to use the bitterness of Ukraine’s divisions to weaken first the U.S.S.R. and then Russia. Billions of dollars were invested in order to “strengthen democracy” – meaning the pro-Western west of Ukraine against its semi-Russian east.
The 2014 U.S.-backed coup that overthrew President Viktor Yukanovych, solidly supported by the east of the country, brought to power pro-West forces determined to bring Ukraine into NATO, whose designation of Russia as prime enemy had become ever more blatant.
This caused the prospect of an eventual NATO capture of Russia’s major naval base at Sebastopol, on the Crimean peninsula.
Since the Crimean population had never wanted to be part of Ukraine, the peril was averted by organizing a referendum in which an overwhelming majority of Crimeans voted to return to Russia, from which they had been severed by an autocratic Khrushchev ruling in 1954.
Western propagandists relentlessly denounced this act of self-determination as a “Russian invasion” foreshadowing a program of Russian military conquest of its Western neighbors – a fantasy supported by neither facts nor motivation.
Appalled by the coup overthrowing the president they had voted for, by nationalists threatening to outlaw the Russian language they spoke, the people of the eastern provinces of Donetsk and Lugansk declared their independence.
Russia did not support this move, but instead supported the Minsk agreement, signed in February 2015 and endorsed by a UN Security Council resolution.
The gist of the accord was to preserve the territorial integrity of Ukraine by a federalization process that would return the breakaway republics in return for their local autonomy.
The Minsk agreement set out a few steps to end the internal Ukrainian crisis.
First, Ukraine was supposed to immediately adopt a law granting self-government to eastern regions (in March 2015).
Next, Kiev would negotiate with eastern territories over guidelines for local elections to be held that year under OSCE supervision.
Then Kiev would implement a constitutional reform guaranteeing eastern right.
After the elections, Kiev would take full control of Donetsk and Lugansk, including border with Russia. A general amnesty would cover soldiers on both sides.
However, although it signed the agreement, Kiev has never implemented any of these points and refuses to negotiate with the eastern rebels.
Under the so-called Normandy agreement, France and Germany were expected to put pressure on Kiev to accept this peaceful settlement, but nothing happened.
Instead, the West has accused Russia of failing to implement the agreement, which makes no sense inasmuch as the obligations to implement fall on Kiev, not on Moscow.
Kiev officials regularly reiterate their refusal to negotiate with the rebels, while demanding more and more weaponry from NATO powers in order to deal with the problem in their own way.
Meanwhile, major parties in the Russian Duma and public opinion have long expressed concern for the Russian-speaking population of the eastern provinces, suffering from privations and military attack from the central government for eight years.
This concern is naturally interpreted in the West as a remake of Hitler’s drive to conquest neighboring countries.
However, as usual the inevitable Hitler analogy is baseless. For one thing, Russia is too large to need to conquer Lebensraum.
You Want an Enemy? Now You’ve Got One
Germany has found the perfect formula for Western relations with Russia: Are you or are you not a “Putinversteher,” a “Putin understander?” By Putin they mean Russia, since the standard Western propaganda ploy is to personify the targeted country with the name of its president, Vladimir Putin, necessarily a dictatorial autocrat. If you “understand” Putin, or Russia, then you are under deep suspicion of disloyalty to the West. So, all together now, let us make sure that we DO NOT UNDERSTAND Russia!
Russian leaders claim to feel threatened by members of a huge hostile alliance, holding regular military manoeuvers on their doorstep? They feel uneasy about nuclear missiles aimed at their territory from nearby NATO member states? Why, that’s just paranoia, or a sign of sly, aggressive intentions. There is nothing to understand.
So, the West has treated Russia like a baited bear.
And what it’s getting is a nuclear-armed, militarily powerful adversary nation led by people vastly more thoughtful and intelligent than the mediocre politicians in office in Washington, London and a few other places.
U.S. President Joe Biden and his Deep State never wanted a peaceful solution in Ukraine, because troubled Ukraine acts as a permanent barrier between Russia and Western Europe, ensuring U.S. control over the latter.
They have spent years treating Russia as an adversary, and Russia is now drawing the inevitable conclusion that the West will accept it only as an adversary.
The patience is at an end. And this is a game changer.
First reaction: the West will punish the bear with sanctions! Germany is stopping certification of the Nordstream 2 natural gas pipeline. Germany thus refuses to buy the Russian gas it needs in order to make sure Russia won’t be able to cut off the gas it needs sometime in the future. Now that’s a clever trick, isn’t it! And meanwhile, with a growing gas shortage and rising prices, Russia will have no trouble selling its gas somewhere else in Asia.
When “our values” include refusal to understand, there is no limit to how much we can fail to understand.
The Fall Of Utopia: Absolutely Amazing Digital Art Works Of Quin Wu
This brutalist interpretation of a McDonald’s in Russia forms part of architect Quin Wu’s artwork series “Big Mac in Snow”, which bridges the gap between two confrontational ideologies—Soviet Russia and the ultra-capitalist fast food franchise.
In his work, Quin Wu gives us a clear understanding of how fragile the balance is in today’s society. And how easy it is today to fall into the abyss between good and evil.
“All images posted here are my personal work. They are computer generated renderings. The architectural themes range from house designs to environment scenes to social critiques.
During the peak of Covid-19 on 2020, I gave it a try to learn some programs that are commonly used in the game industry.
I am a believer that tools are extension of the mind. Gradually polishing skills in modeling, texturing, compositing, rendering etc., I am able to materialize some of my thoughts into actual images. It has been a very fun journey,” he writes.
Here’s another.
And yet another.
Some nonsense from the Western Press
China has lifted restrictions on Russian wheat and barley as of yesterday, the day Russia invaded Ukraine.
Australia’s Prime Minister, Scott Morrison, is criticising the move
.
Meanwhile, Defence Minister Peter Dutton says China could persuade Russian President Vladimir Putin to end the invasion
RUSSIAN economic sanctions in response to the “Sanctions from Hell” from Biden / NATO
The United States imposed a series of economic sanctions upon Russia this week (last week of February 2022) in response to the recognition by Russia of Luhansk and Donetsk as “Independent states.”
In response, the Russian Foreign Ministry said today “new US sanctions will be met by a ‘strong response’, ‘sensitive for the American side.’
NATO / US sanctions:
The EU imposed sanctions against 351 State Duma deputies who voted for the recognition of the DPR and LPR, as well as against 27 individuals and organizations. Then, EU EXEC. VP DOMBROVSKIS ANNOUNCED: “IF RUSSIAN SOLDIERS ENTER UKRAINE BEYOND SEPARATIST-CONTROLLED, SELF-PROCLAIMED REPUBLICS, THE EU IS PREPARED TO IMPOSE A SECOND SET OF SANCTIONS ON MOSCOW.”
RUSSIAN retalitory sanctions;
Secretary of the General Council of United Russia and Deputy Chairman of the Federation Council Andrey Turchak said that Russia is indifferent to the sanctions imposed by the West and their consequences.
When asked what options the Russians might employ against such Sanctions, an Intelligence Analyst source responded in a general manner…
Russia could close airspace to civil airlines of the countries that sanction Russia. That would be hugely disruptive to international flights.
Russia could declare that Russian exports must now be paid for in Rubles, gold, etc.
Russia could stop all sales of anything to USA (space rocket motors and oil especially).
Russia could break all contracts with countries that sanction Russia on the grounds that a state of hostility exists. That is, all oil and gas deliveries stop immediately.
Russia could announce that no more gas will be shipped to or through Ukraine on the grounds that a state of hostility exists. Russia won’t sanction anyone. They don’t play with gloves. They will stop the natural gas deliveries to Europe, and the entire world economy collapses.
Assuming a fantasy best case scenario (fantasy, because it will NEVER happen), Europe’s LNG terminal unloading capacity, even working 100%, 24/7, assuming a non-stop stream of tankers, can only match under 17% of what Russia delivers. Needless to say, European economy goes belly up the next day, and the WESTERN world will follow.
And when that happens, countries automatically pivot direct to war. A lot, including the US, get granted war powers that allow the state…
to seize the means of production and distribution,
set price controls,
require civilians to operate and maintain critical infrastructure
being drafted/forced into service,
set curfew and movement restrictions,
suspend constitutions and civil rights,, etc.
It can get very draconian very quickly. But will not change the outcome : full economical collapse.
Add to that the pure mad-max SHTF when the is no food in the cities. There isn’t much a government can do, TODAY, that can avoid the worst case scenario.
We’re NOT in 1916 or 1940, when most of the world lived on country-side, and produced food.
We’re not in 1916 or 1940, when the supply chains were extremely short (hell, you could use carriages then to supply the economy and the people).
We’re in 2022, after 2 years of constant economic decline, millions of companies that went bankrupt, an inflation that needs just a nudge to go up faster then an hyper-sonic missile, and supply chains that are thousands of miles long. Maters not what government do, it’s going to be the biggest SHTF ever. Most likely the last SHTF.
Russia and China would roll out their counter-SWIFT. It’s already in prototype stage, and ready to “turnkey” into operation.
They could abandon the “petrodollar” too. That would FUCK everyone in the WEST. Most especially those in Europe and the Untied States because they don’t have any gold. All they have is paper.
Nice Chinese girl with a filter
I guess it is a generational thing, but a lot of the Chiense girls like to use these “filters” and decorate their videos with them. They are really quite awesome, and some are jsut silly while others are funny. Check out the filters on this woman. Watch how they follow her face and movment. The tracting and positioning are exceptional!
I am getting emails from all types of sources about Ukrainian cities already being liberated. The problem is that there are, as predicted, A LOT of fakes out there, including from anti-Putin Russian interests. So rather than risk getting it wrong and list those cities, I will just offer a few comments and then take a break.
Enormous Operation
I was expecting an operational-level Russian operation, but what I see today this is clearly a strategic operation. This is way bigger than what I expected.
In the eary phases
We are in the very early phases of the operation, but I see all the usual signs of a Ukrainian strategic collapse. By tomorrow morning we should know a lot more.
The initial strke was very successful
The first strike phase of the operation has been extremely successful and the Ukrainian ground forces are now not only without any kind of cover or support (the Ukie Air Force and Navy passed away today), they are also without orders: not only has the Ukronazi HQ in the Donbass been totally destroyed, the Russians are, no doubt, putting down their EW blanket on the full area of operations.
Operational envelopment to be completed soon
I think that by tomorrow evening the operational envelopment of the Ukie forces in the eastern Ukraine will be completed. After that, only two types of Ukie soldiers will be left: those who surrendered and the dead.
Major cities are secured
The Russians have either approached or even surrounded several major Ukrainian cities. I won’t list them now. Why? Because by tomorrow we will have that list confirmed.
Belarus
Belarus is fully backing Russia (Lukashenko was very emphatic about that today), as does Iran. Our Chinese friends have been rather restrained and proffered only well-intended generalities, let’s see if that changes in the future.
Narrative is out of control
I also suspect that tomorrow will be the last day for the US PSYOPs to try to control the narrative, after that there will be too many cellphones with cameras to conceal the magnitude of the disaster.
For this reason, I still expect a major false flag.
Refugees
The Poles and Hungarians have declared that they fear a massive influx of refugees and that they are therefore deploying more forces to the border to “control the situation”. These forces could be easily and quickly moved inside the Western Ukraine to seize the Lvov and Ivano-Frankovsk regions. Best of all (for them) is that they can be pretty sure that the Russians won’t object. And with all the NATO facilities in the Ukraine being destroyed right now, the Russians can toss this (mostly Nazi) and faraway bone to whoever in the EU who wants it (The Hungarians are probably too smart for that, but the Poles???). Whatever may be the case, I expect a minor NATO operation into the western Ukraine in the next couple of days. Frankly, I couldn’t care less.
Major Risks
Another MAJOR risk is the presence in the Ukraine of A LOT of very dangerous part of the civilian infrastructure (including 15 nuclear reactors which barely function) The Ukies have already blown up at least one (pretty small) damn near Lugansk. I hope that the Russian and Belarusian special forces will secure these facilities as soon as humanely possible.
Russian Black Sea fleet
Next: watch the Russian Black Sea fleet. Something tells me that tomorrow we will see it A LOT and, probably, along the entire Ukie coast.
No long-term occupancy
Last but not least. Iraq has shown that it is one thing to destroy an army, and quite another to deal with an insurgency, even one armed with only small arms and RPGs. I remain categorically opposed to any Russian mid/long occupation of the Ukraine. I am confident that Putin will soon declare the end of major combat operations (if only because there won’t be many enemies left) and that many Russian forces will begin a pullback.
But the nightmare of having hundreds of thousands of assault rifles distributed to “the population” but which, in reality, armed what NATO will want to see as a “stay behind insurgency” will begin. And I want the Ukrainians to fight that battle by themselves, with some Russian help if needed, but not by hiding behind Russian forces.
So A LOT really depends on the people of the Ukraine: the coming days will show us who and what they are. Now is the time for them to do the right thing.
That’s it. I wish we had more info, but here we need to stop and wait.
By tomorrow we will know A LOT more.
Goodnight everybody
Andrei
A new American political party…
Here is the statement from the newest political party in the States – The National Justice Party:
The National Justice Party hopes that the situation can be resolved with as little bloodshed as possible on all sides and considers the spilling of any Russian or Ukrainian blood a tragedy. We reject the false and childish narratives about the conflict that are being promoted in Western media and place the lion’s share of blame for the escalation on the shoulders of the US and NATO, who have instigated this crisis from the beginning and cynically lied to their own citizens.President Biden has vowed to make Russia pay a steep price, but the only people he is capable of making pay anything are Americans and European citizens. Oil and natural gas prices are expected to spike even further as a result of the conflict, placing the burden for US/NATO geopolitical games on ordinary Americans and Europeans who have no interest in a hostile relationship with Russia. On February 22nd the German government, under orders from NATO, revoked the certification for the Nordstream 2 gas pipeline from Russia to Germany, thus putting the project that would alleviate the energy bills of millions of Germans in further jeopardy.
Nice Chinese girl in her home
And she is nice. Why not enjoy a fine cup of coffee while sitting down and listening to mellow jazz?
China has blamed the US for creating the tensions which led to Thursday’s Russian attack on Ukraine. Beijing further called on the international community to avoid “stoking panic” over the situation.
During a press briefing, China’s Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said the key question was the role played by the Americans, whom she branded “the [main] culprit of current tensions.”
“If someone keeps pouring oil on the flames while accusing others of not doing their best to put out the fire, such kind of behavior is clearly irresponsible and immoral,” Hua said. China objects to “any action that hypes up war,” she added.
Chunying accused the US of hypocrisy, asking whether Washington had respected the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Iraq and Afghanistan, where she said it had “wantonly killed innocent people.” She called on the US to “take these questions seriously and abandon double standards.”
.
Describing the unfolding events as “complex,” the spokeswoman confirmed that Beijing was not providing military support to Russia, and said China was not “jumping to any conclusions” over the situation.
She called on all sides to “work for peace instead of increasing tensions” or “stoking panic.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin launched a military attack on Ukraine on Thursday, which he said was aimed at demilitarizing and “denazifying” the country. He accused the West of flooding Ukraine with advanced weaponry and ramping up the NATO presence in the country, arguing that the Russian “special operation” was necessary to protect the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics, which Moscow has recognized as sovereign states.
Russia’s military action has prompted an international outcry and threats of new, large-scale sanctions. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky announced on Thursday that Kiev had cut diplomatic ties with Moscow.
Nice Caddy
Now, this is one dream car that I would be just proud to drive about in. I love everything about this scene. From the burgandy color of the car, to the fine slacks on that cute blonde next to that lucky man.
Washington, DC
Nice Chinese girl
Well, here in China, you won’t see too many natural blondes, but you will see a lot of fine attractive women. Like this gal, for instance…
I parsed some info source and I can offer a few quick reactions to what is taking place. The operation is bigger than what I had predicted. However, I STILL don’t believe that Russia wants to invade the Ukraine.
Let’s first see what Russia has already done using ONLY HER STANDOFF WEAPONS:
The Ukrainian air defenses have ceased to exist
The Ukrainian air force has ceased to exist
The Ukrainian navy has ceased to exist
The Ukrainian command and control are severely disrupted with many command posts destroyed
All the military airfields in the Ukraine are now not operational
Numerous supply dumps of ammo, petroleum and lubricants have been destroyed.
Russia controls the entire Ukie airspace and all the Ukie coastal waters in the Black and Azov seas.
Next, let’s see what LDNR and Russian forces are, apparently, doing right now:
The LDNR forces have broken through the Ukie defenses in two locations and have penetrated 7-10km behind the LOC.
These forces advanced with fire support from Russia
The Ukie forces have built fortifications for 8 years, so the progress against the bulk of the Ukie ground forces is slow. HOWEVER
It appears that the Russian have decided to encircle the entire Ukronazi force on the Donbass by a pincer movement from the north and south
It is my opinion that Russia will encircle the Ukie forces, the entire Ukrainian force along the LOC and then wait for them to surrender thereby minimizing losses on both sides. In other words, the Russians are trying to lock the Ukies in an operational cauldron and basically remove these forces from the equation.
Second, Putin has clearly stated the Russian goals: demilitarize and denazify the Ukraine.
The first element, disarmament, is already well under way.
The denazification implies some kind of regime change. There are reports of Russian forces near Kiev and I believe that a “hunt for Nazis” will be conducted in one way or another.
Interestingly, the Russians have totally surrounded the city of Kharkov, but have not moved in (yet). This makes perfect military sense, but it also signals, or so it seems to me, that Russia wants to avoid as much as can be to get involved in offensive combat operations in big cities and also wants to avoid killing civilians. Mind you, the military which could take Grozny in 2000 can *easily* and *quickly* storm any Ukie city (if only because Ukies and Chechens are almost polar opposites in terms of their combat abilities). But why do through the bother?
When possible, the Russian will surround the Ukie cities, blockade them and wait for the white flags to appear.
Whether that is possible or not I can’t tell, and what will happen to Mariupol next will be interesting: this time, yes, the city shall be liberated, but it will be interesting to see how much resistance the LDNR/Russian forces will encounter.
BTW – does anybody now about any webcams/geocams for Mariupol?
Intermediate conclusions:
Basically, this 08.08.08 on a much larger scale: move in, disarm, withdraw.
My guesses (not more, it is waaaay too early to tell!) is that:
The Ukie forces along the LOC will be surrounded and neutralized. Once that goal in achieved, most of the Ukrainian ground threat will simply disappear. True Nazis will be shot, the rest disarmed and sent home. Their weapons will go to the LDNR.
LDNR and Russia forces will advance deep inside the Ukraine, but only to execute specific missions, after which they will be pulled back to the legal border of the LDNR (with a few exception possible for specific, local reasons).
The Ukronazi leadership will run away and Kabul like scenes are possible. Some will be caught.
The Nazi regime in Kiev will be regime changed to some other regime which will accept a Russian ceasefire and the opening of direct negotiations with both the LDNR and Russia. Eventually, a general ceasefire will be proclaimed.
I still think that a NATO (Polish?) ground operation into the Lvov and Ivano-Frankovsk regions is likely. Officially to “protect our allies and friends” but in reality with two goals:
Save face
Establish a mini-Banderastan under Polish control in western Ukraine
Feed the hyena of Europe
The Kremlin might think otherwise, but I don’t have a problem with that as long as a semi-civilized and semi-sane regime is put in power in Kiev.
There will be elections, of course, which nobody in the West will initially recognize. That’s fine. Nobody in Russia cares about Uncle Shmuel or his Euro-rodents.
Now Biden (I forced myself to listen to him, again!) is aping Obama and promises that sanctions from hell will cripple Russia. Bernhard, at Moon of Alabama, made an interesting comment today: “The Russian stock market is down but gold, oil and gas are up and Russia has so far lost zero money“. I am sure that he is correct.
And, yes, in the short to mid term, sanctions will also have some negative effects on some sectors of the Russian economy. However, in the mid to long term I think that energy costs will provide Russia with a real windfall of money. At the Russian SC meeting, Mishustin appeared to be fully relaxed, focused and calm.
Besides, as I mentioned yesterday, the recent surge in energy prices over the past month have already refunded Russia all the money invested into NS2, and that is BEFORE the (inevitably upcoming) lawsuits against Germany 🙂
In a recent post I “recognized” both President Biden and Chancellor Scholtz for doing everything in their power to force Russia to intervene.
Today I want to recognize the truly immense contribution of “Ze” himself, and the Nazi nutcases around him. He was the first to mention that Banderastan wanted to acquire nuclear weapons. The Nazi nutcases in the Ukie regime and social media immediately picked up this truly “brilliant” idea.
I want to sincerely thank “Ze” specifically for:
Forcing the Russian to intervene (Nazi and nukes are a bad combo in any Russian’s mind!)
Frankly, “Ze” did a lot for Russia, and I think that Putin should let him flee to the West. But the one guy I want to see in handcuffs and tried in Odessa is Aleksei Goncharenko.
Yeah, I did say in Odessa, didn’t I?
Which brings me to one more possibility: Russia cannot leave the Ukie Black Sea coast under any kind of Nazi or pro-NATO control. Hopefully, the next regime in power in Kiev can deal with that, and Russia can help if needed. But if not, I think that the Black Sea Fleet might have to conduct the operations needed to make sure that no part of the Black Sea coast is ever used to threaten Russia again.
I would MUCH prefer if the Ukrainian people themselves cleaned their own house. But if they can’t, then, okay, Russia can help as long as her intervention is temporary.
In fact, I would categorically oppose any longterm Russian intervention in the Ukraine beyond the LDNR. I don’t think that it will happen anyway. But a short term denazification operation might be unavoidable and I accept that.
Putin had no good option left. Russia, as a nation, had no good options left. So they chose the “least bad option” possible. So far, I like what I see very much.
But while the initial standoff strikes are now mostly over, it will take time to liberate, disarm and stabilize the LDNR and the Ukrainian territories adjacent to it.
Also, I can’t imagine the CIA/MI6/Bellincat/CNN and the rest of them not executing at least ONE major false flag of some kind. Not because that will change anything, but because that is what they are (kinda) good at.
Last, and very deliberately least, its over for the EU. The EU was always a US colony, but now it will sink to a new low with Europeans losing any remnants, however tiny, of self-respect they might have retained. From now on, the EU is Uncle Shmuel’s punkass bitch (forgive the profanity, but that is what fits best in my opinion). All I can say about that is this: those who have no self-respect cannot expect to be respected by others.
That’s it on my end.
Your turn now.
Cheers
Andrei
American Biolabs in the Ukraine
The US biowarfare labs have been i the back of my mind for a while now. Since they (mostly) seem to be located next to Russian borders (I wonder why?), would it be better to use standoff weapons to incinerate these labs and all the materials inside of them, or capture them and remove or destroy the biowarfare agents very carefully? No easy answers.
Other info was provided.
Apparently Putin is targeting all the bioweapons sites with direct missile hits and destruction.
And now, the Chinese are stepping up to the plate with their own warnings for the out-of-control moronic United States…
PLA general warn US over Taiwan… With the words “or else… “
“The special military operation in Donbass will soon be over and all the cities will be liberated.”
Russian Defense Ministry
“According to intelligence, the Ukrainian Armed Forces’ troops and service members are leaving their positions in large numbers, dropping their weapons. No strikes are being carried out on the positions of the Ukrainian Armed Forces’ units that have laid down their arms.”
China FM spox accuses US of ‘inciting war’ in Ukraine
Hua Chunying has said the Russia-Ukraine situation reflects a “complex historical background,” after Moscow implemented a “military operation” in Donbass.The FM spox accused Western media of using the word “invasion” but did not when US military decided to initiate ‘armed actions in Afghanistan and Iraq.’She continued to lambast Washington for its role – condemning America for ‘hyping up tensions and inciting war, while selling over $1.5BN worth of weapons.’
Peskov
The demilitarization of Ukraine, which is one of the goals of the Russian military operation, means the neutralization of its military potential
Nice Chinese girl
Let’s wrap this all up on a positive note…
Some fine “eye candy”. Keep in mind that according to the American and UK press “news” that the Chinese are terribly malnourshed, starving waif in need of freedom™ and democracy™. They jsut cannot wait to adopt the “American way of life”, become a transexual and shart a showing some enormous booty!
Wrapping everything up in my concluding statements
This is a time of enormous change. The balance has recentered and the fulcrum is now in the favor of Asia. The Western “leaders” are scrambling, and theya re in Check Mate. No matter what they do will cause hardship for them. All they can do is quite limited.
Flip the table and destroy the world in a MAD nuclear senario.
Try to minimize the damage as much as possible.
My guess is the idiots will do something terribly irrational, erratic, and dangerous. (As if they haven’t already.)
Buckle up.
Remain calm.
It’s like jumping into a pool of icy cold water. Once you get over the shock, it becomes rather nice there.
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.
First, "President" Zelensky was widely reported to have FLED Ukraine, now we have VIDEO PROOF of Speaker of the House FLEEING too! Real "men" these guys! You see, folks, when I talked about "soy-boy cucks on the radio last night . . . THIS is exactly what I meant. All these government types are real bad-asses when they talk, but when they get a punch in the face, they run like little girls.
- Hal Turner Radio Show "WAR" edition
The chess pieces have been moving into place for years now. But the global realignments have been taking place. They have rarely been reported on, and in stealth mode for some time. All the while, American Presidents came and went. Each one adding their own flavor of insanity to the mix as the United States undergoes collapse.
Here, right now, the visible face of “check” leading toward the inevitable “check mate” has roared forth. And we are going to talk about it here.
The United States had a plan.
And has been following that plan for a long time. It has been doing so religiously. Elements of that plan were established early on, back when George Bush Senior was President. And followed in planned stages over the last forty some years.
The architects of that plan are now long dead.
Those that have taken on their reins or responsibilities are simply not capable, and extraordinary inadequate, for realistic and substantive planning and operations of a strategic nature.
And we are all observing this clusterfuck of great incompetence, silliness, danger and extraordinarily folly.
Not just in the United States, but in all their minions, and proxy nations.
But you know, and should realize, that regardless of who the American President has been, and what they have done, both Russia and China have been planning for the eventual collapse of the United States, and how to manage it globally.
Of course, it’s not reported upon.
Real secrets are kept really secret.
So all the time that America; the United States postured itself globally, and ran this project, or that project, the plans by Russia and China have been moving and being implemented. And while the current crop of American “leadership” worries about LGBT fairness, diversity justice, and increasing its military capability…
… a united Asia is unveiling the final touches to a massive and brilliant execution of Global Geo-politics for a global national power realignment.
No. “Check mate” hasn’t been reached yet.
But, it’s close. Only two to three steps away.
Close to Check Mate.
We are going to discuss that. Because these are historical times, and a very risky period where a crazy, insane, out of control thrashing American Military Empire ruled and controlled by egotistic idiots is capable of any, and the most heinous, acts of madness.
America is gone
The first thing that everyone must realize is that America; the United States, is gone.
It no longer exists.
It hasn’t for decades. It is dead. And like the movie “Weekend at Bernie’s” everyone believes that it is still functional, capable, and healthy. Nothing can be further from the truth.
It is dead.
Weekend at Bernie’s.
But, the thing is, that the illusion of power, control and health is being painstakingly maintained by a ruthless and well-funded media megaphone. It has reached a point, that America has become; turned into, a giant “echo chamber”, and Americans, and the Leadership actually believe their illusions.
It’s terrible, actually.
So, yeah. America is thrashing about wildly and acting absolutely insane. And it’s “allies”, it’s surrogates, are in suicidal lock-step as America marches straight into the “check mate” positioning by a united Asia.
The build up towards the final positioning has been accelerating over the last few months. It’s now out in the open and happening fast.
The non-ultimatum sent to the United States
China and Russia alignment at the 2022 Olympics.
Russia recognizing the breakaway regions of the Ukraine.
And America following their long-established road map…
A road map that both Russia and China have copies of, and of which they know exactly what America plans to do, when and how.
The birth of the baby twins: Russia’s strategic swing drives NATOstan nuts
Soy-Boy, Beta-Male, Cucks -- that is what serves in government! And the ones here in the USA are just like this too! Remember Jan. 6 how they hid in their offices in the Capital, barred the doors with office furniture, and now can't stop whining about the so-called "insurrection?" Government officials are beta-male, soy-boy, cucks and the sooner we start treating them that way, the sooner we will get our country back under our control.
-Hal Turner
(Written this morning in Istanbul, BEFORE Putin buried the Minsk agreements. Everything else – and beyond – stands.)
History will register that the birth of the baby twins – Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics – only a few hours before 2/22/22, was simultaneous to the birth of the real, 21st century multipolar world.
Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR)
Luhansk People’s Republic (LPR)
As my columns have stressed for a few years now, Vladimir Putin has been carefully nurturing his inner Sun Tzu.
And now it’s all in the open:
“Let your plans be dark and impenetrable as night, and when you move, fall like a thunderbolt.”
The thunderbolt was months in the process of being meticulously polished.
To paraphrase Lenin, who “created Ukraine” (copyright Putin), we did live many decades in only these past few days.
It all started with the detailed demands of security guarantees sent to the Americans, which Moscow knew would be rejected. (The so called “non-ultimatum”.)
Then there was the Russia-China joint statement at the start of the Winter Olympics – which codifies not only the strategic partnership but also the key tenets of the multipolar world.
The culmination was a stunning, nearly one hour-long address to the nation by Putin shortly after the Russian Security Council live session deliberating on the request for independence by the DPR and the LPR (here is a condensed version.)
A few hours later, at an emergency UN Security Council meeting, Russian Permanent Representative Vasily Nebenzya precisely outlined why the recognition of the baby twins does not bury the Minsk agreements.
The baby twins (DPR & LPR) actually declared their independence in May 2014.
In 2015 they signed the Minsk agreements as one of the interested parties.
Theoretically they could even be back within Ukraine if Kiev would ever decide to respect the agreements, (which will never happen because the US has vetoed it since 2015).
Moreover, the people of Donbass do not want to be subjected to a regime harboring neo-Nazis.
As Nebenzya outlined,
“I would like to remind you that at the time of the conclusion of the Minsk agreements, the LPR and DPR had already declared independence.
The fact that Russia today recognized it does not change the composition of the parties to the Minsk agreements, since Russia is not one (…)
Another thing is that the Minsk agreements have long been openly sabotaged by Ukraine under the auspices of our Western colleagues.
Now we see that many colleagues want to sign that the Minsk agreements are dead.
But this is not the case (…)
We are still open to diplomacy, but we do not intend to allow a new bloody massacre in the Donbass.”
And here’s the clincher, directly addressing imperial support for the killing of ethnic Russians in Donbass:
“The main task of our decision [on recognizing independence] was to preserve and protect these lives.
This is more important than all your threats.”
There you go: Responsibility to Protect (R2P), a concept invented by the Americans to launch wars, used by Russia for preventing one.
That certified nullity, German chancellor Scholz, deriding Putin’s characterization of a genocide in Donbass as “laughable”, was a decisive factor in the birth of the baby wins.
Putin, in his address to the nation, especially took time to detail the Odessa massacre:
“We cannot but shudder when we remember about the situation in Odessa, when people were burned alive (…)
And those criminals who did this, they are not punished (…)
But we know their names, and we will do everything to punish them (…) and to bring them to justice.”
What about China?
Geopolitically, in Eurasian terms, two huge questions stand out: [1] the role of the CSTO and [2] the response from China.
If we look at the Article 19, Chapter VI of the CSTO charter, we learn that,
“any state sharing the goals and principles of the Organization and being ready to undertake the obligations containing in this Charter and other international treaties and resolutions effective within the framework of the Organization may become a member of the Organization.”
That would open the door for the baby twins, as soon as they have finalized all the bureaucratic endeavors pertaining to new, independent nations, to request CSTO membership.
Incidentally, CSTO secretary-general Pashinian has already gone to Moscow to discuss this exact issue.
China is a way more complex proposition.
One of the key tenets of Beijing’s foreign policy is the fight against separatism – embedded in the foundation of the SCO.
So Beijing cannot possibly recognize the baby twins, or what would amount to Novorossiya – yes, Putin did pronounce the magic word – before Kiev itself does or, a serious possibility, completely disintegrates.
The Chinese Foreign Ministry so far has been extremely cautious.
Wang Yi has reiterated;
“China’s long-standing position that the legitimate security concerns of all countries must be respected, and the purposes & principles of the UN Charter must be upheld.”
Further on down the road, presumably after some serious exchanges between Wang Yi and Lavrov, China can always find myriad ways to unofficially help the baby twins – including advancing BRI-related connectivity and sustainable development projects.
As for Kiev disintegration, that’s directly linked to Moscow demanding the immediate stop of the mini-blitzkrieg against Donbass, otherwise they will bear full responsibility.
Yes, regime stalwarts will be hunted and punished – complete with a possible War Crimes Tribunal.
Its no wonder all sorts of oligarchic/political rats, big and small, are scurrying away, to Lviv, Poland and the UK.
The Munich effect
The intervention of all 12 members at the Security Council session, combined with Putin’s address to the nation was the stuff of gripping geopolitical drama.
Putin’s body language and the look in his eyes testified to the immense gravity of the moment – and it all came to the forefront when he embarked in a concise history lesson spanning a century.
Barely containing his anger at the countless ways Russia has been vilified by the West, and taking no prisoners when referring to communism, what mostly stood out was the clear-cut rendition of the insurmountable antagonism between the Anglo-American islands and the civilizational Heartland – or the clash between maritime powers and land powers.
That Eurasia classic was the bulk of his exposition: the recognition of the baby twins took less than three minutes.
Munich, as terrifying as it was in terms of a congregation of headless chickens posing as eagles, at least confirmed everything is in the open.
The enemy is Russia.
NATO infinite expansion – to outer space – is against Russia.
And then we had a parade of add-on threats:
no disarmament in Eastern Europe,
cutting off the Russian economy from the EU,
end of Nord Stream 2,
Ukraine in NATO,
world order built on “universal liberal values”.
Munich spelled out No Compromise Whatsoever – which was exactly what Putin, Lavrov, Patrushev and co. expected.
The warmongering rhetoric burying any meaningful discussion of migration, inflation, cyber wars, the European energy crisis.
And, of course, the only thing that matters for the MICIMATT (military-industrial-congressional-intelligence-media-academia-think tank complex, as defined by Ray McGovern):
Let’s milk this Eurotrash lot for untold billions in new contracts.
Let’s isolate Russia.
Let’s destroy Nord Stream 2 to sell them our ultra expensive LNG.
Let’s keep them on a leash – forever.
So actually it’s not even war against Russia: the $30 trillion-indebted Empire with a woke military attached simply could not afford it.
Not to mention the certified freak out in case they receive a phone call from Mr. Khinzal and Mr. Zircon : cue to the spectacular Russian display of “military and technical” superiority, hypersonic and otherwise – staged, irony of ironies, in synch with the circus in Munich.
What we have here is so lame: just a lowlife offer-you-can’t-refuse racket to be inflicted on the EU.
The Indivisible Security dance
The rabid Munich “No Compromise” show; the imperially-ordered Ukro crypto-blitzkrieg against Donbass; and the role of the US Lack of Intelligence Community – an Andrei Martyanov-coined howler – altogether sealed the deal for the Security Council deliberations and Putin’s decision.
Considering the ideological stupidity of the current Brussels gang – Stoltenberg, von der Leyen, Borrell –, incapable of understanding even basic economics, the fact remains that the EU without Russian energy is doomed.
Martyanov stresses the algorithm: Russia can afford the break up with Europe. Europe cannot.
The US just wants to collect.
And we’re not even talking about the dire, incoming ramifications of the systemic crisis across NATOstan.
Even as Moscow plays a very long, calculated game, as it stands that does not necessarily mean that Russia will be “winning” the baby twins while “losing” Europe.
Russia’s strategic swing repeatedly baffles the Atlanticist combo.
The US lack of intelligence community was predicting a Russian “aggression” every other day – and still is.
Instead they got the baby twins as the latest independent republics of the Global South.
Even before Munich, the Ukro crypto-blitzkrieg, and the recognition of the baby twins, Moscow had again warned it may respond with “military and technical measures” to ensure its own security after the US and NATO blatantly ignored key points from its proposal for a long-term European security architecture, and instead “cherry-picked” issues from a package deal.
Putin, addressing the Stavka, had already warned …
“we are in a situation (…) where we are forced to resolve it.”
Which bring us to what John Helmer niftly qualified as Russia’s black box defense.
The beauty is no one knows what’s inside the black box.
Enter, once again, the “military-technical measures” that will be “reciprocal” (Putin) to what US and NATOstan are already deploying against Russia.
They won’t necessarily be implemented in the Black Sea, the Sea of Azov, in the airspace above Donbass, even in cyberspace.
It could be anywhere – from the Syrian theater to Latin America. From Brussels to New York City.
Surprise!
That’s what strategic ambivalence, ambiguity, or – let’s get down to the rhythm – swing is all about.
You don’t believe in the principle of indivisible security?
Fine.
Now we dictate the security rhythm.
You’re not gonna stop deploying nuclear weapons outside your territory?
Fine.
Here’s some reciprocity.
You’re not gonna accept legally binding guarantees of our security?
Fine.
Meet our “military-technical” measures.
Now dance, suckers.
Scenes from the Ukraine
Russian President Vladimir Putin authorized a military operation in Ukraine on Thursday 24FEB22 in what appeared to be the start of war in Europe. The reason for this war is that Russia demanded that NATO and the United States agreed to the treaties that they signed. These treaties pledges no NATO’s eastward expansion, and no nuclear weapons placed near Russian boarders.
He’s sending the Russian army into LNR/DNR, or rather a “Special army operation aimed at demilitarization and denazification of Ukraine to protect people against genocide.
His goal is the demilitarization of Ukraine as well as putting those responsible for attacks upon Donetsk and Luhansk on trial.
In his speech, Putin also said…
"I must appeal to the military of Ukraine, you swore an oath to the people, not the junta, I urge you to immediately lay down your arms and go home. All Ukrainian servicemen who lay down their arms will be able to return to their families.”
There are reports that entire groups are following this advice, and putting their weapons down on the spot and fleeing in droves.
Shortly after Putin spoke in a special televised address on Russian state TV, explosions could be heard in the pre-dawn quiet of the Ukrainian capital of Kiev. Gunfire rattled near the capital’s main airport, the Interfax news agency said.
Explosions also rocked the breakaway eastern Ukrainian city of Donetsk and civilian aircraft were warned away as the United States said a major attack by Russia on its neighbor was imminent.
Putin said he had authorized a special military operation in breakaway areas of eastern Ukraine and clashes between Russian and Ukrainian forces were only a matter of time.
Hours earlier, pro-Russian separatists issued a plea to Moscow for help to stop alleged Ukrainian aggression. This was dismissed by the United States as Russian propaganda.
Putin said he had ordered Russian forces to protect the people and demanded Ukrainian forces lay down their arms.
"All responsibility for bloodshed will be on the conscience of the ruling regime in Ukraine," .
He repeated his position that NATO expansion to include Ukraine was unacceptable and said Russia had been left with no choice but to defend itself against what he said were threats emanating from Ukraine.
He ended his speech with remarks that seems to be aimed directly at the US and NATO:
"To anyone who would consider interfering from the outside: if you do, you will face consequences greater than any you have faced in history. All relevant decisions have been taken. I hope you hear me."
The scope of the Russian military operation was not immediately clear. However, Russian Strategic Bombers are in the air right now.
Russian Strategic Bomber Voice HF active on 8131 Kilohertz USB at 0215 GMT.
Aircraft are passing short figure messages to ground control. Very busy!
You can monitor the frequency online at the following receiver in Europe. Type in 8131 and click on USB. http://websdr.ewi.utwente.nl:8901 Choose USB (Upper Side Band)
Moscow has long denied that it has plans to invade despite massing tens of thousands of troops near its neighbor.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Wednesday that Moscow had approved an offensive and had not replied to an invitation for talks.
"Today I initiated a telephone conversation with the President of the Russian Federation. The result was silence,"
U.S. President Joe Biden said his prayers were with the people of Ukraine.
In the hours to come Russia will…
-conduct strikes on air defense systems
– move to cut off Kiev from eastern Ukraine
-move to cut off Ukraine’s military forces on the line of contact in the east to prevent them from falling back to defend Kiev.
Sent: Thursday, February 24, 2022 14:53 Subject: Ukraine News Update
Russia has destroyed Ukraine’s air force and air defenses. Ukraine’s airports have cars and tractors parked on the runways to prevent Russian transport planes from landing. So Russian VDV (airborn) troops will soon parachute in and remove blocking vehicles. CONFIRMED AND VDV TROOPS HAVE LANDED IN MULTIPLE CITIES.
I have seen messages and photos purportedly from Kiev saying Russian missiles have landed on specific targets there. CONFIRMED
It was reported yesterday that Zelensky has a secret account in a German bank in Latin America totalling $1.2 billion. He was reportedly getting between $12 and $35 million monthly from ukrop billionaire oligarchs Akmetov, Pinchuk and Kolomoisky.
LATEST NEWS FROM HIGHLY RELIABLE SOURCES –
Good morning! There is a total coercion of Ukraine to the WORLD! The morons twitched on the offensive at night on the LDNR. Get it. Sign!
The first video footage from Odessa
According to preliminary data, Mariupol was liberated
Losses of the neo-Nazi regiment “Azov” as a result of a missile and bomb attack reach HUNDREDS of people
The footage shows the arrivals of MLRS missiles near Kharkov
Units of the LPR began to liberate the Ukrainian-controlled city of Shchastia
Zelensky introduces coniferous situation throughout Ukraine
ALL Ukrainian Navy destroyed or rendered unusable
Russian armed forces seized several checkpoints on the Ukrainian-Russian border in the Sumy region.
Missile strikes are carried out on the targets of the tactical aviation brigade near Vasilkov, the main air defense aviation of Ukraine.
Russian strategic aviation in the air.
Throughout Ukraine, cruise and ballistic missiles are destroying military infrastructure and strategically important facilities.
ALL Ukrainian Navy destroyed or rendered unusable
Russian armed forces seized several checkpoints on the Ukrainian-Russian border in the Sumy region.
Missile strikes are carried out on the targets of the tactical aviation brigade near Vasilkov, the main air defense aviation of Ukraine.
Russian strategic aviation in the air.
Throughout Ukraine, cruise and ballistic missiles are destroying military infrastructure and strategically important facilities.
Explosions near Boryspil airport.
A military unit was covered in Kharkov. Just now two explosions were also heard in the vicinity of Dnepropetrovsk.
Grads are working along the entire front
They report the beginning of landing operations of the Black Sea Fleet in the Sea of Azov.
It is reported about the downing of bayraktars located in the sky
Land units go to the Dnieper, Mariupol and Kharkov
Access to the maritime borders of the Black and Azov Seas is cut off. In the Odessa region, a landing took place from the BDK and helicopter aviation
In Dnepropetrovsk, cannonade and battle near the airport
CNN correspondent live from Kiev said he heard a series of explosions.
The lanes at all closed airports are blocked by tractors to prevent a possible landing of aircraft with troops – information from the field.
Attacks on military depots in Odessa are reported. Explosions one after another
Ukrop Army fired on central Donetsk during the night, but all is quiet here now.
This is just the beginning of the full liberation and de-nazification of Ukraine, at least as far as Kiev.
Things are unfolding just exactly like I said they would.
I just listened to Biden (here if you have the stomach). Oh he is pissed, badly. Putin totally and comprehensively ignored him or the USA (one sign of that is that Putin did warn Scholz and Macron but, apparently, nobody told the White House).
Scholz truly scared the Kremlin when he told that he pulled back the certification of NS2 “jetzt” that is “now”.
Okay, he probably misspoke, he meant “no NS2 forever!”.
Scholz is one tough cookie!
I love it when petty flaccid Eurognomes try to scare Russia.
With sanctions, of all things.
This is RUSSIA we are talking about.
Of all people, the Germans ought to know better.
I guess they don’t.
Fine, I wish the Germans lots of fun!
Speaking of NS2, two small factoids:
gas prices are already up by 10% in the spot markets.
Thanks to the increase of the energy prices Gazprom has already paid for the construction of NS2 with that extra windfall (that according to a senior Duma member, Petr Tolstoy).
Where do you think this is headed?
Exactly, me too!
Biden also said something two really interesting in his otherwise totally vapid speed.
First, he asked who the hell Putin thought he was to recognize states in other sovereign nations?
Second, he warned Russia: we shall judge you by your actions.
I think I can help Biden and give him two very simple replies:
Putin is the President of Russia and he does ask for anybody’s approval, least of all – the USA’s.
You don’t get to judge Russia. That ship has sailed. If anything, the day will come when Zone B will judge you on a 21st century of the Nuremberg Tribunal. As Putin said “we have all their names”.
But I also know this: in the minds of the leaders of Zone A both of these replies are literally *unthinkable*. Ok.
Hence, they will have to be shown that which they currently cannot fathom.
Today the Russian Duma and Federation Council have ratified all the needed documents and given Putin the right to engage Russian forces abroad.
Where exactly was not specified.
Putin was asked about where he would engage the Russian forces and he basically reply “wait and see, we will use them wherever needed and to comply with all our obligations”.
Putin loves to make the western Tabaki-jackals guess his next move. He is now openly trolling them 🙂
Western Crusaders attacking Russia is nothing new.
But in the past, the Crusaders were at least a credible threat (at times, even a very credible one).
But the modern Crusaders are a joke.
Their threats are a joke, their armed forces are a joke and their leaders are a joke.
A good example is Biden sending more of this invincible military forces to the Baltic statelets.
Will the people of the USA find out, for the very first time, that the actions of their rulers can actually directly impact them personally?
God willing, they will learn fast and act accordingly.
What about the Ukros?
So far, they have mostly ignored Putin’s warnings to “immediately cease the attacks against the LDNR”.
I don’t know if they are amazingly courageous, very dumb or suicidal.
Either way, I would recommend they heed Putin’s warning, there shall be no more warnings.
True, the know that their western masters don’t give a damn about Russian lives, mass graves, thousands of kidnapped “separatists”, numerous torture centers or open calls to murder.
Fine. So for 8 years the Ukronazis have murdered the Russian by the tens of thousands.
But don’t they understand that their lives will be the next one?
Or do they really think that the western “advisors” will protect them?
Oh well, I guest that, again, they will have to be shown that which they currently cannot fathom.
By the way,
From a legal point of view, until now Russia has insisted that this was an internal Ukrainian civil war and not an international conflict.
Now this has changed.
Now, from the point of view of the Kremlin, this is now an international conflict directly involving Russia.
Here I want to use the occasion to congratulate the United West and, especially, the Ukronazis. For seven years you dreamed about a war involving Russia.
BRAVO! Congrats – now you got what you fought so hard for: the Russian bear has *officially* placed a paw on the LDNR.
Now I want to see who you all will volunteer to make move first to make him remove that paw 🙂
Maybe the US forces in the Baltics?
Or the Poles?
Maybe the Czechs or even the Brits?
Something tells me that “super-pooper sanctions from hell” and hurricanes of hot air are more likely.
Crusaders are not like they used to be.
Good.
Andrei
So what are we actually talking about here?
We are talking about SERIOUS consequences made by idiots who have no concept about what kind of deep-shit that they are in now. They simply do not realize that they are in deep, deep shit.
We are talking about a cocky know-it-all little punk bully threatening a group of big, burly, mean and nasty hard-core bikers.
I do not know how it will happen, nor, what will happen. I do not know when it will happen, or any of the particulars. But I do know THAT it will happen.
It will be very bad.
Certainly the American media are hyping up war. But they are just treating it like some kind of Baseball game, and not the threat of massive nuclear destruction of the host cities (American, British, NATO) promoting this danger.
To imagine that the United States would remain unscathed after all this provication (not to mention their color revolution that set up the current Neo-Nazi regime in 2014) is unfathonable.
But there you have it. Spin the narrative…
Others, including myself, have suggested that it might include a nuclear first strike. Maybe or maybe not. As I see things, the USA is already half destroyed as it is. Why use a cannon when a slingshot will do?
But seriously, and cautiously, realize that Asia is defining the rules right now. And the expectations of the collective West might as well be thrown out the window. They are as obsolete as a buggy whip.
Putin goes to Siberia
Whoa!
Russia Fires “Warning Shots” at American Navy
Russian ship “Admiral Essen” fires warning shots in front of US ships in the Black Sea.
Russian ship “Admiral Essen”.
The Russians report that the frigate “Admiral Essen” fired warning shots in front of American ships in the Black Sea.
"The appearance of three US Navy ships has forced Russia to show strength to the US military and use radical methods to reassure them of the protection of its borders."
That is why the frigate “Admiral Essen” fired Kalibr cruise missiles in front of American ships.
At the moment we are talking about a practical training ” the Russian media report and emphasize the” for now “while adding:
"All the targets were successfully hit by the Russian cruise missiles, although the exact area and the distance they traveled were not known."
"Russia has successfully completed the launch of the missiles and has shown its readiness to use these weapons against anyone who threatens Russia,"
Many of the nuclear strike maps were made before Russia and China developed systems to shoot down ICBMs and SLBM missiles. They also reflected an industrial base that disappeared in the 1980s.
In the map below, it suggests that the Russians would hit the underground ICBM silos, knock out Pittsburgh, and Syracuse. My guess that it would be a quite different target map.
And here in this map, the strikes as triangles are most accurate. Though you wouldn’t need to launch all those nuclear bombs to take out the coastal cities. Just generate a huge tidal wave with the Satan 2 standoff weapon.
And here we see that FEMA still ignores the Satan 2, and the irrelevance of the Underground Minuteman silos.
Not a joke
The United States has grown accustomed to picking on nations, sanctioning them, starting “color revolutions”, sabotaging their food supplies and all the rest. Now, both Russia and China told the United States to STOP.
And the United States said no.
And it’s allies agreed with the United States, and also said no
And I really don’t think thay are ready for the consequences of dealing with a very angry and pissed off Asia. As the consequences can end up being most lethal…
Conclusions
There’s a major realignment of global power taking place. The fulcrum is now directly under us. And as such the balance of power is now tipping and changing. And like all changes in equilibrium, once the tipping point has been reached, the changes come quick, fast and sudden.
Look at all the things that happened since three months ago. Things are moving fast, and swift.
No need to panic, that is unless you are an avid consumer of Western “news” or are a technology billionaire of some pedigree.
Just stay calm and let the changes manifest. Things will be fine in the afterwards. They really will.
In the meantime, appreciate what you have. Worrying about a future that might not materialize is fruitless. It has been my experience that our fears never happen, but change does.
So enjoy what you have…
A Nice Chinese girl
She looks like she could really use a nice delicious meal. Along with a nice light wine, and some delicious salad.
Don’t worry too much. Spend time with people, pets and your loves. Food should never be an afterthought, and if you have been putting off drinking because of some health reason, then stop. Start enjoying life while you still can.
Good thoughts.
Good actions, words of kindness and support, and being a contributor to the betterment of your community are the tickets out of the cage of fear that the medica has created for you.
Kick that damn door down.
Get the hell out.
Grab a partner and live life.
Cuddle on the beach.
What are you waiting for?
An invitation?
Tracking the Ukraine offensive
You can follow the Russian suppression of the US-installed puppet regime in the Ukraine here…
Hal Turner has a great blow-by-blow real-time running thread HERE.
GodLikeProductions has a pretty decent forum HERE.
Victoria has a nice Facebook page in great detail HERE.
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.
Well, it is the big sequence of long overdue change. And this time, it’s not unwinding due to emotion, or traps or public opinion. No. Instead, it is being orchestrated by talented merit-driven leaders with strong consensus and direction from very powerful entities.
No. They are not like this fella…
Florida, 1956
So what we are going to do here is ramble on and discuss s series and sequence of events on the global stage.
And no. It’s not going to be like what is being reported. As what President Putin did is unexpected. He did not invade the Ukraine. But rather recognized that it fractured into separate nations and is supporting the separation via policing it.
All American “news” is now on PAUSE as they figure out how to “spin” these events and concoct a new narrative.
Today’s date, commonly written out as 22.02.2022, will be an easy one for future schoolchildren to remember. Various people will remember it in various ways. The residents of Donetsk and Lugansk, the two formerly Ukrainian, now once again Russian cities that have been subjected to conditions bordering on genocide since the US-instigated government overthrow of 2014 will remember jubilantly dancing in the streets, shooting off lots of fireworks, waving Russian flags and hollering the Russian national anthem. For them, this is the day on which new hope arrived that their eight-year nightmare would soon be over and life would finally return to normal.
The badly informed new German chancellor inadvertently helped to resolve the situation by saying that the idea of a Ukrainian-caused genocide in the Donbass is ridiculous. Given the history of the region, the public spectacle of a German leader using the words “genocide” and “ridiculous” in the same sentence made the moment pregnant with possibilities. Here is the information the seemingly rather dim-witted chancellor was missing. There were 9,282 dead on the Donbass side (70% of them civilians) and 114 children. The dead on the Ukrainian side (the Ukrainian troops and various assorted mercenaries that had been attacking and laying siege to the Donbass since 2014) numbered 20,186. This was prior to the renewed Ukrainian shelling of recent days. There were also over two million Donbass refugees in Russia, more than one million in the Ukraine and around 50 thousand in Belarus.
Most Russians will also remember this day with relief as the day their government finally—finally! after eight literally bloody years!—determined that a negotiated settlement in the Ukraine would simply never happen and that there was no point in waiting any further before going ahead and cleaning it up.
The following is BIG news. Real news. Not the fake “manufactured narrative” out of the United States media mills. Pay attention. This is the English translation form the Russian ministry website HERE.
Address by the President of the Russian Federation
The Kremlin, Moscow
.
President of Russia Vladimir Putin: Citizens of Russia, friends,
My address concerns the events in Ukraine and why this is so important for us, for Russia. Of course, my message is also addressed to our compatriots in Ukraine.
The matter is very serious and needs to be discussed in depth.
The situation in Donbass has reached a critical, acute stage. I am speaking to you directly today not only to explain what is happening but also to inform you of the decisions being made as well as potential further steps.
I would like to emphasise again that Ukraine is not just a neighbouring country for us. It is an inalienable part of our own history, culture and spiritual space. These are our comrades, those dearest to us – not only colleagues, friends and people who once served together, but also relatives, people bound by blood, by family ties.
Since time immemorial, the people living in the south-west of what has historically been Russian land have called themselves Russians and Orthodox Christians. This was the case before the 17th century, when a portion of this territory rejoined the Russian state, and after.
It seems to us that, generally speaking, we all know these facts, that this is common knowledge. Still, it is necessary to say at least a few words about the history of this issue in order to understand what is happening today, to explain the motives behind Russia’s actions and what we aim to achieve.
So, I will start with the fact that modern Ukraine was entirely created by Russia or, to be more precise, by Bolshevik, Communist Russia. This process started practically right after the 1917 revolution, and Lenin and his associates did it in a way that was extremely harsh on Russia – by separating, severing what is historically Russian land. Nobody asked the millions of people living there what they thought.
Then, both before and after the Great Patriotic War, Stalin incorporated in the USSR and transferred to Ukraine some lands that previously belonged to Poland, Romania and Hungary. In the process, he gave Poland part of what was traditionally German land as compensation, and in 1954, Khrushchev took Crimea away from Russia for some reason and also gave it to Ukraine. In effect, this is how the territory of modern Ukraine was formed.
But now I would like to focus attention on the initial period of the USSR’s formation. I believe this is extremely important for us. I will have to approach it from a distance, so to speak.
I will remind you that after the 1917 October Revolution and the subsequent Civil War, the Bolsheviks set about creating a new statehood. They had rather serious disagreements among themselves on this point. In 1922, Stalin occupied the positions of both the General Secretary of the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks) and the People’s Commissar for Ethnic Affairs. He suggested building the country on the principles of autonomisation that is, giving the republics – the future administrative and territorial entities – broad powers upon joining a unified state.
Lenin criticised this plan and suggested making concessions to the nationalists, whom he called “independents” at that time. Lenin’s ideas of what amounted in essence to a confederative state arrangement and a slogan about the right of nations to self-determination, up to secession, were laid in the foundation of Soviet statehood. Initially they were confirmed in the Declaration on the Formation of the USSR in 1922, and later on, after Lenin’s death, were enshrined in the 1924 Soviet Constitution.
This immediately raises many questions. The first is really the main one: why was it necessary to appease the nationalists, to satisfy the ceaselessly growing nationalist ambitions on the outskirts of the former empire? What was the point of transferring to the newly, often arbitrarily formed administrative units – the union republics – vast territories that had nothing to do with them? Let me repeat that these territories were transferred along with the population of what was historically Russia.
Moreover, these administrative units were de facto given the status and form of national state entities. That raises another question: why was it necessary to make such generous gifts, beyond the wildest dreams of the most zealous nationalists and, on top of all that, give the republics the right to secede from the unified state without any conditions?
At first glance, this looks absolutely incomprehensible, even crazy. But only at first glance. There is an explanation. After the revolution, the Bolsheviks’ main goal was to stay in power at all costs, absolutely at all costs. They did everything for this purpose: accepted the humiliating Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, although the military and economic situation in Kaiser Germany and its allies was dramatic and the outcome of the First World War was a foregone conclusion, and satisfied any demands and wishes of the nationalists within the country.
When it comes to the historical destiny of Russia and its peoples, Lenin’s principles of state development were not just a mistake; they were worse than a mistake, as the saying goes. This became patently clear after the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991.
Of course, we cannot change past events, but we must at least admit them openly and honestly, without any reservations or politicking. Personally, I can add that no political factors, however impressive or profitable they may seem at any given moment, can or may be used as the fundamental principles of statehood.
I am not trying to put the blame on anyone. The situation in the country at that time, both before and after the Civil War, was extremely complicated; it was critical. The only thing I would like to say today is that this is exactly how it was. It is a historical fact. Actually, as I have already said, Soviet Ukraine is the result of the Bolsheviks’ policy and can be rightfully called “Vladimir Lenin’s Ukraine.” He was its creator and architect. This is fully and comprehensively corroborated by archival documents, including Lenin’s harsh instructions regarding Donbass, which was actually shoved into Ukraine. And today the “grateful progeny” has overturned monuments to Lenin in Ukraine. They call it decommunization.
You want decommunization? Very well, this suits us just fine. But why stop halfway? We are ready to show what real decommunizations would mean for Ukraine.
Going back to history, I would like to repeat that the Soviet Union was established in the place of the former Russian Empire in 1922. But practice showed immediately that it was impossible to preserve or govern such a vast and complex territory on the amorphous principles that amounted to confederation. They were far removed from reality and the historical tradition.
It is logical that the Red Terror and a rapid slide into Stalin’s dictatorship, the domination of the communist ideology and the Communist Party’s monopoly on power, nationalisation and the planned economy – all this transformed the formally declared but ineffective principles of government into a mere declaration. In reality, the union republics did not have any sovereign rights, none at all. The practical result was the creation of a tightly centralised and absolutely unitary state.
In fact, what Stalin fully implemented was not Lenin’s but his own principles of government. But he did not make the relevant amendments to the cornerstone documents, to the Constitution, and he did not formally revise Lenin’s principles underlying the Soviet Union. From the look of it, there seemed to be no need for that, because everything seemed to be working well in conditions of the totalitarian regime, and outwardly it looked wonderful, attractive and even super-democratic.
And yet, it is a great pity that the fundamental and formally legal foundations of our state were not promptly cleansed of the odious and utopian fantasies inspired by the revolution, which are absolutely destructive for any normal state. As it often happened in our country before, nobody gave any thought to the future.
It seems that the Communist Party leaders were convinced that they had created a solid system of government and that their policies had settled the ethnic issue for good. But falsification, misconception, and tampering with public opinion have a high cost. The virus of nationalist ambitions is still with us, and the mine laid at the initial stage to destroy state immunity to the disease of nationalism was ticking. As I have already said, the mine was the right of secession from the Soviet Union.
In the mid-1980s, the increasing socioeconomic problems and the apparent crisis of the planned economy aggravated the ethnic issue, which essentially was not based on any expectations or unfulfilled dreams of the Soviet peoples but primarily the growing appetites of the local elites.
However, instead of analysing the situation, taking appropriate measures, first of all in the economy, and gradually transforming the political system and government in a well-considered and balanced manner, the Communist Party leadership only engaged in open doubletalk about the revival of the Leninist principle of national self-determination.
Moreover, in the course of power struggle within the Communist Party itself, each of the opposing sides, in a bid to expand its support base, started to thoughtlessly incite and encourage nationalist sentiments, manipulating them and promising their potential supporters whatever they wished. Against the backdrop of the superficial and populist rhetoric about democracy and a bright future based either on a market or a planned economy, but amid a true impoverishment of people and widespread shortages, no one among the powers that be was thinking about the inevitable tragic consequences for the country.
Next, they entirely embarked on the track beaten at the inception of the USSR and pandering to the ambitions of the nationalist elites nurtured within their own party ranks. But in so doing, they forgot that the CPSU no longer had – thank God – the tools for retaining power and the country itself, tools such as state terror and a Stalinist-type dictatorship, and that the notorious guiding role of the party was disappearing without a trace, like a morning mist, right before their eyes.
And then, the September 1989 plenary session of the CPSU Central Committee approved a truly fatal document, the so-called ethnic policy of the party in modern conditions, the CPSU platform. It included the following provisions, I quote: “The republics of the USSR shall possess all the rights appropriate to their status as sovereign socialist states.”
The next point: “The supreme representative bodies of power of the USSR republics can challenge and suspend the operation of the USSR Government’s resolutions and directives in their territory.”
And finally: “Each republic of the USSR shall have citizenship of its own, which shall apply to all of its residents.”
Wasn’t it clear what these formulas and decisions would lead to?
Now is not the time or place to go into matters pertaining to state or constitutional law, or define the concept of citizenship. But one may wonder: why was it necessary to rock the country even more in that already complicated situation? The facts remain.
Even two years before the collapse of the USSR, its fate was actually predetermined. It is now that radicals and nationalists, including and primarily those in Ukraine, are taking credit for having gained independence. As we can see, this is absolutely wrong. The disintegration of our united country was brought about by the historic, strategic mistakes on the part of the Bolshevik leaders and the CPSU leadership, mistakes committed at different times in state-building and in economic and ethnic policies. The collapse of the historical Russia known as the USSR is on their conscience.
Despite all these injustices, lies and outright pillage of Russia, it was our people who accepted the new geopolitical reality that took shape after the dissolution of the USSR, and recognised the new independent states. Not only did Russia recognise these countries, but helped its CIS partners, even though it faced a very dire situation itself. This included our Ukrainian colleagues, who turned to us for financial support many times from the very moment they declared independence. Our country provided this assistance while respecting Ukraine’s dignity and sovereignty.
According to expert assessments, confirmed by a simple calculation of our energy prices, the subsidised loans Russia provided to Ukraine along with economic and trade preferences, the overall benefit for the Ukrainian budget in the period from 1991 to 2013 amounted to $250 billion.
However, there was more to it than that. By the end of 1991, the USSR owed some $100 billion to other countries and international funds. Initially, there was this idea that all former Soviet republics will pay back these loans together, in the spirit of solidarity and proportionally to their economic potential. However, Russia undertook to pay back all Soviet debts and delivered on this promise by completing this process in 2017.
In exchange for that, the newly independent states had to hand over to Russia part of the Soviet foreign assets. An agreement to this effect was reached with Ukraine in December 1994. However, Kiev failed to ratify these agreements and later simply refused to honour them by making demands for a share of the Diamond Treasury, gold reserves, as well as former USSR property and other assets abroad.
Nevertheless, despite all these challenges, Russia always worked with Ukraine in an open and honest manner and, as I have already said, with respect for its interests. We developed our ties in multiple fields. Thus, in 2011, bilateral trade exceeded $50 billion. Let me note that in 2019, that is before the pandemic, Ukraine’s trade with all EU countries combined was below this indicator.
At the same time, it was striking how the Ukrainian authorities always preferred dealing with Russia in a way that ensured that they enjoy all the rights and privileges while remaining free from any obligations.
The officials in Kiev replaced partnership with a parasitic attitude acting at times in an extremely brash manner. Suffice it to recall the continuous blackmail on energy transits and the fact that they literally stole gas.
I can add that Kiev tried to use dialogue with Russia as a bargaining chip in its relations with the West, using the threat of closer ties with Russia for blackmailing the West to secure preferences by claiming that otherwise Russia would have a bigger influence in Ukraine.
To be continued.
Breaking News Feb 21, 4pm US Central Time: Today the World Changed
I listened to Putin’s address to the Russian people, indeed, to the entire world, following his meeting with the Security Council. He expressed his sadness that negotiating with the West has taught him complete distrust of Washington, and Putin made it clear that Russia would be prepared for the war that Washington is intent to bring to Russia.
Putin said that for 8 years he had tried to bring peace to the Ukraine situation in a way that would keep the breakaway republics as part of Ukraine, but had been frustrated by Washington. Consequently, he has no alternative but to announce Russia’s recognition of the two republics, something he says should have been done years ago. He signed mutual aid treaties with both republics.
Andrei Martyanov provides in Russian and in English translation Moscow’s demand to Ukraine:
Президент подчеркнул, что Москва требует от киевских властей “незамедлительно прекратить боевые действия, <…> в противном случае, вся ответственность за возможное продолжение кровопролития будет целиком и полностью на совести правящего на территории Украины режима”.
Translation: Moscow demands from Kiev to immediately stop all hostilities, otherwise all responsibility for possible continuation of the bloodshed will be fully on the consciousness of the regime ruling in Ukraine.
Russian armed forces have been issued orders to ensure provision of peace on the territory of the Independent Republics.
Of course, this will be described by the presstitutes as a Russian invasion, and the fool in the White House will highlight US impotence by imposing sanctions.
From this time forward, provocations of Russia will become increasingly dangerous.
Russian military systems
Just a review of things that are not reported in the West..
This gal is showing how to pick tea leaves to make the best tea. You know, China is a great land of tea, and there are so many kinds and types of tea to drink and choose from. This great video illustrates her technique and you can easily see the time and effort that goes into making the best blend of tea.
Watching all these tumultuous changes really builds up an appetite.
This is the kind of food that my mother used to make for me. It’s not made at restrurants. No. You have to make it at home with talent and love. Look at it. It’s awesome.
Beef Bourguignon.
Beef Bourguignon traces its roots back for centuries, and this crockpot version guarantees you can fix up this classic dish with minimum hassle. This rich stew of beef, carrots, onions, and more will make you long for the old country and times past, even if you’ve never tasted it before.
Now, for an escape to the 1960s. There was a brief time when Americans focused on going into Space instead of fighting wars. And even though there was a Vietnam war, most people just wanted to make love instead of war.
As I said; it was a brief period of time.
This was a toy that I used to play with when I was a boy in the 1960s. I had the white-suited Major Matt Mason, and his basic accessory kit, as well as the Space Station. In truth I was enviouos of my friends who had the tractor, and the other vehicle kits.
I would imagine myself going into space and meeting space aliens and working with them for the good of all humanity.
LOL.
"Major Matt Mason. He was a great astronaut: a full-on, lifelike astronaut, made with rubber and wire, kind of like Gumby. He was bendable and poseable, and I went through a few of them because after a while the wires get all twisted."
-Tom Hanks, when asked "What was your favorite toy as a kid?" by Disney Adventures magazine
1967 was not a good year for America. The military was beginning to get bogged down in the quagmire that was Southeast Asia, though the disastrous Tet Offensive was still a year away.
Hot on the heels of the successful Project Gemini, NASA was dealt a crushing blow on January 27th, 1967, when the crew of Apollo 1 burned alive on a launch pad at Cape Canaveral.
President Lyndon B. Johnson was so disgusted with his role in the whole state of affairs that he eventually chose not to run for reelection.
Despite troubles at home and abroad, a toy line emerged that hinted at happier, more imaginative times ahead. The toy was Major Matt Mason, “Mattel’s Man in Space”.
Major Matt Mason was a rubber astronaut who stood six inches tall, wore a white space suit and came with a removable space helmet and visor.
His internal wire skeleton allowed him to bend at any joint, and his space suit was based on an actual NASA prototype. The space program was quickly making a comeback from Apollo 1, and with a real lunar landing a mere two years away, Mattel could not have asked for a better time to market a toy based on exploring the moon.
Initially, Mattel had intended to make a simple line of space toys centered on a single astronaut. Major Matt Mason, “the bravest astronaut yet”, was rolled out in the summer of 1967 and gave Mattel a huge hit in the Christmas season of that year.
That first year’s offerings consisted of a carded accessory pack known as the Flight Set, which featured a Major Matt Mason figure, the Jet Pack, the Space Sled, and the flamethrower-like Decontamination Gun.
The Jet Pack could be strapped to a figure and made to travel along a string, giving the illusion of flight. When attached to the Space Sled, that toy could “fly”, too.
Also available were the Space Crawler, the two-story Space Station, and a clunky bell-shaped Moon Suit.
One of the major selling points for the toys was Mattel’s claim that they were based on actual NASA designs, and for the very first toys, this was at least partially true.
Mattel’s Moon Suit toy is a carbon copy of the prototype seen on the cover of the April 27th, 1962 issue of LIFE Magazine, right down to the red stripes and large “3” emblazoned on the front.
Photos have surfaced of an early space suit that features bellows-like joints, just like the space suits of Mattel’s astronauts.
The public’s early naiveté towards lunar conditions carried through to Matt’s tools. Among other items, the Flight Set came with binoculars and a flare gun, two items that would’ve been completely useless on the moon.
Of course, the toys were designed at a time when one of NASA’s prototype lunar landers had astronauts descending to the moon’s surface by way of a knotted rope. (Yes, really.)
Impressed by the line’s sales, Mattel quickly sent more vehicles, astronauts, and aliens to join the lonely Major on the moon.
The Astronauts
First and foremost in the line was Major Matt Mason, who could be purchased individually or on a blister card with various accessories, such as the Talking Rocket Pack or Moon Suit.
Sergeant Storm landed in 1968 clad in a red space suit and was available alone or combined with other toys, just like Matt. Astronauts Doug Davis (wearing a yellow space suit) and Jeff Long (in blue) followed in 1969.
The figures’ packaging denoted Davis as a radiation expert, while Long, in addition to being the only astronaut who’s last name doesn’t form an alliteration with his first, scouted out rocket landing sites.
Unlike Mason and Storm, who could be purchased in a plethora of other sets, Davis was only available by himself or with two other sets, both of them rare. Long, an African-American, was only sold individually and is the least common of the human figures.
The Aliens
Any line of space toys worth its stardust will have an interesting array of aliens; Mattel made no exception with Major Matt Mason’s extraterrestrial friends.
Captain Lazer
I don’t care what anyone says. This was not part of the Major Matt Mason world.
Many collectors speculate that Captain Lazer, a humanoid Martian released in 1968, was actually intended for another toy line altogether.
Besides standing twice the height of the other astronauts, Captain Lazer was made of hard plastic instead of flexible rubber and was so large that he was only compatible with one of the line’s vehicles.
Not that Captain Lazer wanted for cool features…by pressing buttons on the figure’s backpack, his eyes, chest emblem, and lazer gun attachments could all be lit up. Although the Captain Lazer figure is fairly common, his accessories are frequently missing, driving up the cost of loose, complete figures. (A decade later, Captain Lazer’s mold was recycled by Mattel for the large figures in the Battlestar Galactica line.)
Callisto
My brother got this character, but really didn’t like to play with it. So, I acquired it. I thought that it was stupid and ugly, but what are you going to do, eh?
Callisto, the mysterious alien from Jupiter, came out in 1969. Callisto’s translucent green head coincided with his “advanced mental powers”, while his accessory, The Space Sensor, could fire and retract a yellow string to gather samples. Despite his somewhat ominous appearance, the back of the toy’s package made it known that Callisto was an ally and personal friend of the Major’s.
Scorpio
Scorpio, a pink and purple insect-like creature, was released in 1970 and is the rarest of the aliens. Hailing from a desert planet in the Scorpio star cluster, Scorpio realized he had the ability to read minds moments after his hatching and quickly blasted off into space, where he later landed on the moon and met Major Matt Mason.
Scorpio came with snap-on arm and leg shields, as well as a device that strapped onto his chest and fired “search globes”. Although the market has cooled off somewhat in recent years, mint-in-package Scorpio figures have been known to sell for as much as $1,500.
Or from Orion
A fourth alien, dubbed Or from Orion, was to be a tiny blue creature who flew inside the Orbiter, a yellow Frisbee-like disc that could be vertically launched with Or inside. Although Or appeared in Mattel’s 1970 catalog (both as a stand-alone toy and as part of the unproduced “Voyage to Galaxy III” play set), there is no hard evidence to suggest that this toy made it out of the prototype stage.
The Vehicles
The vehicles in Major Matt Mason’s universe were very innovative for the time and nearly all of them featured working lights or motorized features of some type. It is beyond the scope of this node to describe each and every mode of transportation used by the Major and his friends on the moon, but these are some of the more notable ones…
The most distinctive vehicle produced was the Space Crawler, one of the first toys released. The Crawler’s large, four-spoked wheels could conquer any terrain, although the astronaut in the driver’s seat was in for a rather bumpy ride. A winch protruding from the back of the Space Crawler could tow accessories and acted as a crane when the Crawler was attached to the top of the Space Station.
The Firebolt Space Cannon was the only vehicle that could be operated by the oversized Captain Lazer. Basically a large laser cannon mounted on a wheeled platform, the Firebolt’s rotating barrel and control panel flashed as it moved forward. As many as three astronauts (or one Captain Lazer) could operate the Firebolt at once, and it is the only vehicle in the line that could light up and move at the same time.
An especially interesting vehicle was the Star Seeker, which could hold one astronaut under its blue, semi-transparent dome. Beneath the cockpit was a primitive mechanical computer, operated by a series of orange plugs. Inserting (or removing) the plugs in various combinations programmed the Star Seeker to take a specific path; a paper solar system was included so kids could make a spacey obstacle course for the toy.
Owing to the simplicity of 1960’s electronics, many of the Major’s rides can be easily found in working condition today.
The Accessories
Mattel kept their astronauts busy by releasing a number of interesting accessory “paks”, which were relatively inexpensive and were most often packaged on blister cards. Though far too numerous to be systematically described here, the plethora of accessories had many high points.
The largest and most expensive accessory was the somewhat misnamed Space Station. Standing two feet tall when fully assembled and complete with a flashing beacon, large blue windows, and a light-up computer console, the Space Station was Major Matt Mason’s lunar command post.
The Space Station’s interchangeable nature made for hours of play with endless combinations of girders, windows, and the Station’s white honeycomb platforms. The toy’s possibilities were only limited by a child’s imagination, and today the Space Station is fondly remembered.
Due to the abundance of loose Space Station parts floating around, many collectors will assemble a Space Station for their collections by simply buying enough individual parts to piece one together. The Station contained several small, fragile pieces, making original, mint Space Stations somewhat pricey.
Mattel made three different carry cases so kids could take their astronauts on the go. The most common is the Satellite Locker, a colorful vinyl case with three compartments for storing figures or gear.
Coveted by collectors today is the Talking Command Console, which could be opened to resemble the control panel of a space ship, complete with an illuminated star field and chairs for the figures.
Although it was intended as a carry case, the toy also included a pull-string talking mechanism, which said one of five “authentic space sound tracks”. The Rocket Ship Case, a stubby Titan V-like space ship, rounded out the selection of carry cases and is the most uncommon today. Noted for its simple yet fragile construction, this case is usually found in pretty lousy shape.
From 1967 to 1970, Mattel did a fantastic job on a series of “Launcher” accessories. The Satellite Launcher, Rocket Launcher, Space Probe, and Gamma Ray Gard added greatly to the toy line’s playability and were so well built that they’re usually found in working shape today.
The Satellite Launcher sent plastic whirlybird “satellites” spinning into orbit and used Mattel’s Greenie Stik-M-Caps to simulate the mighty roar of liftoff. The Rocket Launcher hurled a single, large projectile into space and also made use of caps for blastoff pyrotechnics. (This is known as the most fragile of the launchers and is usually found with parts broken or missing.)
The Space Probe Launcher fired smaller missile-like probes, while the Gamma Ray Gard launched golden Mylar bolts by way of an ingenious firing mechanism.
Since the Gamma Ray Gard relied on the springy properties of the projectiles to launch themselves, the cannon itself has few moving parts and rarely turns up in nonworking condition these days. The slender, conical torpedoes it fires, however, are easily broken and often missing.
Themes
Even a casual inspection of the toys turns up something interesting: as 1960’s playthings go, they’re pretty liberal.
Aside from the Firebolt Space Cannon, the ray guns included in some early accessory paks, and Captain Lazer’s pistol, there are no weapons for the characters to use. (Although accessories such as the Rocket Launcher and Gamma Ray Gard could be used as weapons, their packaging clearly states they’re meant for zapping dangerous asteroids and repelling harmful gamma rays, respectively.) At a time when many folks looked toward the militarization of space, the astronauts in Major Matt Mason’s universe had an agenda of peaceful exploration.
The human characters work alongside the aliens, all of whom are bizarre-looking, yet friendly. Jeff Long, the blue-suited African-American spaceman, was released at a time when black G.I. Joes came in boxes with a bold NEGRO label. Long’s packaging simply denotes him as a rocketry expert and Major Matt Mason’s “space buddy”. These toys are a product of their times in more ways than one.
Today, forty years after his release, nostalgia buffs, toy collectors, and many children of the era speak fondly of Major Matt Mason, his friends, and equipment.
With collectors of everything from space toys to lunchboxes actively pursuing the line, there is little chance of these unique toys being forgotten anytime soon. The Major’s enduring popularity can probably be attributed to the feelings many people get from the toys.
After all, they hearken back to a different age, a time when the first lunar landing was still in the future, colonizing outer space seemed viable and inevitable, and children across the world could live out their dreams of spaceflight through a diminutive rubber astronaut.
Shepherd’s Pie
Gosh! This all makes me so hungry.
My mother sometimes made this, as well as the school cafeteria. I really loved it, but alas no one cooks it these days. Such a shame.
Shepherd’s Pie.
Shepherd’s pie was once a go-to meal that every family would clamor for. But with such involved preparation, this dish was an easy candidate for falling to the wayside.
These days, it’s easier than ever to whip up this classic casserole, which has found a massive fanbase for good reason. If you’ve never tasted this scrumptious combination of beef and potatoes, now is the time.
Glastonbury is a small town in Somerset, England, where a very important hill exists known as the Glastonbury Tor. On top of the Tor stands the remains of St. Michael’s Tower, with a strange system of terraces around its sides. In legend, these terraces are said to form a maze with magical symbolism.
The Tor rises to an elevation of 518 feet (158 meters) and is clearly visible from many miles around. It is formed from rocks dating to the early Jurassic Period. The low-lying ground is known to produce a visual illusion known as Fata Morgana, where the hill appears to rise out of the mist. It occurs due to the bending of rays of light as they pass through layers of air of varying temperatures.
A Rich History
The recovery of Neolithic flint tools from the top of the Tor has revealed that the site has been visited since prehistory. Archaeological investigations show that there was an Iron Age settlement there in about 300-200 BC. Roman pottery, 6 th century Mediterranean amphorae, a Saxon staff, medieval burials and a metalworker’s forge show repeated occupation of the Tor throughout the centuries.
Glastonbury Tor.
During the late Saxon and early medieval period, there were at least four buildings on the summit, which may have been a hermitage. In the 11 th or 12 th century, a timber church dedicated to St Michael was built atop the Tor. It was destroyed by an earthquake in 1275 AD and rebuilt out of sandstone in the 14 th century by the Abbot Adam of Sodbury.
St Michael’s Church survived until the Dissolution of the Monasteries in 1539 when it was demolished, except for the three-storey tower which remains on the Tor today.
St Michael’s Tower at the top of Glastonbury Tor.
The Legends of Glastonbury Tor
There are many myths associated with Glastonbury that go back thousands of years to figures like Joseph of Arimathea and King Arthur . Myths about the Tor claim that it was a ‘land of the dead’, a portal, a magic mountain, and a glass hill among many others.
One of the legends mentions that more than two thousand years ago, the Tor was in the middle of the sea, which later became a lake. The old Celtic name of the Tor, according to this legend, was the ‘ Island of Glass’ , known in Welsh as ‘Ynys Gutrin’. During the Roman Empire there are references mentioning the Tor as an island. At this time, the plain was flooded, the isle becoming a peninsula at low tide.
Avalon, Meeting Place for the Dead
One legend attributes the name Avalon to the Tor, linking it to the Avalon of Arthurian legend. The 12 th century historian Gerald of Wales recounted the discovery of King Arthur’s and Queen Guinevere’s labelled coffins in 1191, which were later moved.
The myths say that Avalon was a meeting place for the dead and that the Tor was the home of the Lord of the Underworld. In these legends, the Tor is the gateway into the land of the dead (Avalon).
The Holy Grail
There is also a Christian legend which mentions that Joseph of Arimathea brought a young Jesus to Glastonbury Tor.
When Joseph came to England, it is said that he established the first Church of England at Glastonbury. Indeed, according to archaeological studies, there may have been a very early Christian Church at Glastonbury .
Another Christian legend claims the Holy Grail is buried in Glastonbury. Author Christopher Hodapp asserts that the Tor is one possible location of the grail due to its close proximity to the monastery that housed the Nanteos Cup, a wooden bowl believed to offer a supernatural healing ability, allegedly due it being fashioned from a piece of the True Cross.
Mystery of the Terraces
The sides of the Tor have seven deep, roughly symmetrical terraces, their origins of which remains a mystery to this day. One explanation is that they were made during the Middle Ages to make ploughing for crops easier.
However, this has been largely discounted due to terracing also being on the north side, which would have provided little benefit.
Another explanation includes the construction of defensive ramparts, possibly linked to Ponter’s Ball Dyke, a linear earthwork about 1 mile (1.6 km) east of the Tor. Some historians have alternatively proposed that they are the remains of a “spiral walkway” or labyrinth created for pilgrims to reach the summit.
The terraces that circle the Tor seven times would lead the pilgrim to the church of St Michael. But Celtic legends would say that this maze is the path that would lead you to the entrance of Annwn, the Celtic underworld.
The terraced hillside of Glastonbury Tor.
Glastonbury is immersed in extremely interesting mythology and fascinating legends and is a very special place that is worth a visit.
Now to China…
Nice Chinese girl in a nice yellow miniskirt
That’s one thing that I really love about China. So many people go out and socialize. They love to go out and dress up and have fun. Such as this gal. I really like the cute little outfit, and the environment.
The unexplained UFO sighting in Chicago, Illinois left mum Aiyana “creeped out” and is just one of several reported in the US in recent weeks.
A woman was left in “total confusion” and “creeped out” after she saw a strange black shape floating in the skies.
Aiyana, who asked that her second name be withheld, recorded the surreal footage from the roof of her home in Chicago, Illinois.
The video shows a long black wishbone shape hanging in the air, with both its wings ending in some sort of sphere.
She said:
"I literally have no idea what it was. There is nothing comparable.
"It was a ball of some sort with two long strings or belts hanging from it. The strings had knobs in the middle and bottom."
Aiyana and her son said neither of them “had any idea what we were seeing”. She said she stayed watching it until it disappeared from view.
It seemed to just float slowly south east without any other major movement," she said. "It covered a few miles in about 20 minutes. I felt total confusion and a bit creeped out,"
Hoping to find answers, a friend shared Aiyana’s footage with UFO watchers online but no one was able to explain how an object could float so calmly above the famously “windy city”.
One person wrote: “I’ve never seen a balloon just hang still in the open air like that. It should bob, even if just a little. There must be absolutely zero wind there.”
Another person described the sighting as “bizarre”, adding:
"I have no explanation. It looks like something hanging from a helicopter, except there is no helicopter. The shape is too weird for it being a balloon, and I think I can also exclude it being an antenna on top of a building in cloud cover - for this, it is way too clearly defined. I have no idea!"
A third said:
"A balloon usually has some movement. I live in Chicago. Even on a still, calm day, Chicago and the surrounding areas have wind of some sort and would move something in the air."
The unexplained sighting is just one of several in the US in recent weeks.
Another video, captured in Baltimore, Maryland, attracted a deluge of comments revealing identical sightings in numerous states.
In September, a man spotted what appeared to be glowing orange UFOs “flying in formation” when returning home.
When he posted the footage online, social media users recalled similar sightings in Washington DC, Las Vegas, St Louis and Detroit.
Meanwhile in the UK, a woman was left baffled after capturing an image of a possible UFO hovering in the evening sky over St Helens, Merseyside while taking a friend on a late-night drive.
"I couldn't see any lights around it or anything, you can just see the blue thing in the sky. I was just taking a picture of the Moon while we were out because I thought it looked nice."
She added:
"We were just like oh, my god, it does look like a UFO. It does look like a ship, it doesn't look like a plane or a light, it looks like a UFO. I sort of believe in them. I'm not a strong believer but I do believe there are aliens out there and stuff like that. It's interesting. You can see it but it was strange. I believe more now I can see it."
Maybe it’s swamp gas, eh?
Nice Chinese girl – Amazingly beautiful
I think that she really is pretty. She reminds me of something tasty and wonderful. Like a real special dish. You know, like beef wellington.
This is a great dish that housewives used to prepare for their families in the 1950s and 1960s. As the value of the US dollar collapsed due to the constant military adventures, the household unity fell apart. Couples both had to work. And people resorted to easy to cook, fast to make and eat food.
They stopped eating well.
They became machines.
And as machinese, they became easily manipulated.
Beef Wellington.
WWII Redux: the Endpoint of U.S. Policy, from Ukraine to Taiwan
The Threatened Peoples of East Asia and Europe Can Stop the U.S. Drive to Restore its Global Domination.
"This is not going to be a war of Ukraine and Russia. This is going to be a European war, a full-fledged war.” So spoke Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky just days after berating the U.S. for beating the drums of war.
It is not hard to imagine how Zelensky’s words must have fallen on those European ears that were attentive. His warning surely conjured up images of World War II when tens of millions of Europeans and Russians perished.
Zelensky’s words echoed those of Philippine’s President Rodrigo Duterte on the other side of the world at the Eastern edge of the great Eurasian land mass: “When elephants fight, it is the grass that gets trampled flat.” We can be sure that Duterte, like Zelensky, had in mind WWII which also consumed tens of millions of lives in East Asia.
The United States is stoking tensions in both Europe and East Asia, with Ukraine and Taiwan as the current flashpoints on the doorsteps of Russia and China which are the targeted nations. Let us be clear at the outset. As we shall see, the endpoint of this process is not for the U.S. to do battle with Russia or China but to watch China and Russia fight it out with the neighbors to the ruin of both sides. The US is to “lead from behind’ – as safely and remotely as can be arranged.
To make sense of this and react properly, we must be very clear-eyed about the goal of the U.S. Neither Russia nor China has attacked or even threatened the U.S. Nor are they in a position to do so – unless one believes that either is ready to embark on a suicidal nuclear war.
Why should the U.S. Elite and its media pour out a steady stream of anti-China and anti-Russia invective? Why the steady eastward march of NATO since the end of the first Cold War? The goal of the U.S. is crystal clear – it regards itself as the Exceptional Nation and entitled to be the number one power on the planet, eclipsing all others.
This goal is most explicitly stated in the well-known Wolfowitz Doctrine drawn shortly after the end of the first Cold War in 1992. It proclaimed that the U.S.’s “first objective is to prevent the re-emergence of a new rival, either on the territory of the former Soviet union or elsewhere….” It stated that no regional power must be allowed to emerge with the power and resources “sufficient to generate global power.” It stated frankly “we must maintain the mechanism for deterring potential competitors from even aspiring to a larger regional or global power.” (Emphasis, jw)
The Wolfowitz Doctrine is but the latest in a series of such proclamations that have proclaimed global domination as the goal of U.S. foreign policy since 1941 the year before the U.S. entered WWII. This lineage is documented clearly in the book by the Quicny Institute’s Stephen Wertheim “Tomorrow, The World: The Birth of US Global Supremacy.”
Let us consider China first and then Russia, the foremost target of the U.S., first. China’s economy is number one in terms of PPP-GDP according to the IMF and has been since November, 2014. It is growing faster than the U.S. economy and shows no signs of slowing down. In a sense China has already won by this metric since economic power is the ultimate basis of all power.
But what about a military defeat of China? Can the U.S. with its present vastly superior armed forces bring that about? The historian, Alfred McCoy, answers that question in the way most do these days, with a clear “no”:
“The most volatile flashpoint In Beijing’s grand strategy for breaking Washington’s geopolitical grip over Eurasia lies in the contested waters between China’s coast and the Pacific littoral, which the Chinese call “the first island chain.”
“But China’s clear advantage in any struggle over that first Pacific island chain is simply distance. …The tyranny of distance, in other words, means that the U.S. loss of that first island chain, along with its axial anchor on Eurasia’s Pacific littoral, should only be a matter of time.”
Certainly the U.S. Elite recognizes this problem. Do they have a solution?
Moreover, that is not the end of the “problem” for the U.S. There are other powerful countries, like Japan, or rapidly rising economies in East Asia, easily the most dynamic economic region in the world. These too will become peer competitors, and in the case of Japan, it already has been a competitor both before WWII and during the 1980s.
If we hop over to the Western edge of Eurasia, we see that the U.S. has a similar “problem” when it comes to Russia. Here too the U.S. cannot defeat Russia in a conventional conflict nor have U.S. sanctions been able to bring it down. How can the U.S. surmount this obstacle? And as in the case of East Asia the U.S. faces another economic competitor, Germany, or more accurately, the EU, with Germany at its core. How is the U.S. to deal with this dual threat?
One clue comes in the response of Joe Biden to both the tension over Taiwan and that over Ukraine. Biden has said repeatedly that he will not send U.S. combat troops to fight Russia over Ukraine or to fight China over Taiwan. But it will send materiel and weapons and also “advisors.” And here too the U.S. has other peer competitors most notably Germany which has been the target of U.S. tariffs. The economist Michael Hudson puts it succinctly in a penetrating essay, “America’s real adversaries are its European and other allies: The U.S. aim is to keep them from trading with China and Russia.”
Such “difficulties for the U.S. were solved once before – in WWII. One way of looking at WWII is that it was a combination of two great regional wars, one in East Asia and one in Europe. In Europe the U.S. was minimally involved as Russia, the core of the USSR, battled it out with Germany, sustaining great damage to life and economy. Both Germany and Russia were economic basket cases when the war was over, two countries lying in ruins.
The US provided weapons and materiel to Russia but was minimally involved militarily, only entering late in the game. The same happened in East Asia with Japan in the role of Germany and China in the role of Russia. Both Japan and China were devastated in the same way as were Russia and Europe. This was not an unconscious strategy on the part of the United States. As Harry Truman, then a Senator, declared in 1941: “If we see that Germany is winning the war, we ought to help Russia; and if that Russia is winning, we ought to help Germany, and in that way let them kill as many as possible.. . ”
At the end of it all the U.S. emerged as the most powerful economic and military power on the planet. McCoy spells it out:
“Like all past imperial hegemons, U.S. global power has similarly rested on geopolitical dominance over Eurasia, now home to 70% of the world’s population and productivity. After the Axis alliance of Germany, Italy, and Japan failed to conquer that vast land mass, the Allied victory in World War II allowed Washington, as historian John Darwin put it, to build its “colossal imperium… on an unprecedented scale,” becoming the first power in history to control the strategic axial points “at both ends of Eurasia.”
“As a critical first step, the U.S. formed the NATO alliance in 1949, establishing major military installations in Germany and naval bases in Italy to ensure control of the western side of Eurasia. After its defeat of Japan, as the new overlord of the world’s largest ocean, the Pacific, Washington dictated the terms of four key mutual-defense pacts in the region with Japan, South Korea, the Philippines, and Australia and so acquired a vast range of military bases along the Pacific littoral that would secure the eastern end of Eurasia. To tie the two axial ends of that vast land mass into a strategic perimeter, Washington ringed the continent’s southern rim with successive chains of steel, including three navy fleets, hundreds of combat aircraft, and most recently, a string of 60 drone bases stretching from Sicily to the Pacific island of Guam.”
The U.S. was able to become the dominant power on the planet because all peer competitors were left in ruins by the two great regional wars in Europe and East Asia, wars which are grouped under the heading of WWII.
If Europe is plunged into a war of Russia against the EU powers with the U.S. “leading from behind,” with material and weapons, who will benefit? And if East Asia is plunged into a war of China against Japan and and whatever allies it can drum up, with the U.S. “leading from behind,” who will benefit?
It is pretty clear that such a replay of WWII will benefit the U.S. In WWII while Eurasia suffered tens of millions of deaths, the US suffered about 400,000 – a terrible toll certainly but nothing like that seen in Eurasia. And with the economies and territories of Eurasia, East and West, in ruins, the U.S. will emerge on top, in the catbird seat, and able to dictate terms to the world. WWII redux.
But what about the danger of nuclear war growing out of such conflicts? The U.S. has a history of nuclear “brinksmanship,” going back to the earliest post-WWII days. It is a country that has shown itself willing to risk nuclear holocaust.
Are there U.S. policy makers criminal enough to see this policy of provocation through to the end? I will leave that to the reader to answer.
The Peoples of East and West Eurasia are the ones who will suffer most in this scenario. And they are the ones who can stop the madness by living peacefully with Russia and China rather than serving as cannon fodder for the U.S. There are clear signs of dissent from the European “allies” of the U.S., especially Germany but the influence of the U.S. remains powerful. Germany and many other countries are after all occupied by tens of thousands of U.S. troops, their media heavily influenced by the U.S. and with the organization that commands European troops, NATO, under U.S. command. Which way will it go?
In East Asia the situation is the same. Japan is the key but the hatred of China among the Elite is intense. Will the Japanese people and the other peoples of East Asia be able to put the brakes on the drive to war?
Some say that a two-front conflict like this is U.S. overreach. But certainly, if war is raging on or near the territories of both Russia and China, there is little likelihood that one can aid the other.
Given the power of modern weaponry, this impending world war will be much more damaging than WWII by far. The criminality that is on the way to unleashing it is almost beyond comprehension.
Nice Chinese girl
This girl looks like a nice big blue fish. A dlicious and yummy fish, that is.
What the so-called Russian experts and politicians all forget is that the US does not have troops scattered about in Poland, Romania, the Baltic states and other Eastern European late comers to NATO because Washington cares about these countries and feels morally obliged to protect them from Russia, which does not want them. In truth, Washington doesn’t care a hoot about Ukraine, Poland, Romania and neither do Americans.
The reasons for Washington’s presence in Eastern Europe are entirely different. One reason is that Washington wants the countries as locations for missile bases such as Washington has placed in Poland and Romania. These bases are on Russia’s borders leaving no response time to nuclear missiles launched from them. The bases give Washington the advantage in a confrontation to back down Russia.
Another reason is that the NATO countries provide customers for the US armaments industry. Washington keeps pressure on NATO members to “do their part” and spend more on their own defense. So much of the analysis and commentary about the current situation in Ukraine presents Washington and NATO as rescuers on white horses riding to the defense of states threatened by Russia. If Russia really were a threat, Washington and NATO would not be so aggressive.
The Soviet Union had Eastern Europe as a buffer.
Most Russian experts at the time concluded that the Warsaw Pact was a net drain on Soviet resources. Responsibility for these countries today is the last thing Russia wants.
All Russia wants is for the US to get military bases off her doorstep. This is a reasonable demand, and compliance with it would relieve the tensions that otherwise could break out in war. Washington’s aggressive policy seems designed for one reason only: to cause a war.
Few people understand that the US sanctions against Russia are based entirely on lies and are in effect acts of war. That Russia has tolerated them is interpreted by Washington as Russian weakness. The reason Russia gets so much abuse is that she doesn’t do anything about it.
The narrative is that Russia invaded Ukraine by accepting the vote in Crimea to be reunited with Russia. Until 1991, Crimea had been part of Russia since 1783. The vast majority of the people who live there are Russian. Between 1991 and 2014 when the US overthrew the Ukrainian government in a coup, Crimea was occupied by Russia as Russia’s Black Sea naval base is there. The Russian forces were already there, because Russia had a long term lease on the area.
It was the US that invaded Ukraine while the Kremlin was preoccupied with the Sochi Olympics. The US plan was for the puppet government it installed to revoke the lease and kick the Russians out of their naval base. It was an audacious plan that had no chance of success. To prevent Americans from understanding the situation, the narrative was started that Russia invaded Crimea.
There are Americans who pose as Russian experts who maintain that Putin has territorial ambitions to restore the Soviet empire. These people are not experts. They are liars. If Putin has territorial ambitions, why did he not reincorporate Georgia into Russia? Why has he refused for 8 years to honor the vote of the Donbass Russians to be returned to Russia? The Donbass area, like Crimea, is historically part of Russia. Both were transferred to the Ukrainian province of the Soviet Union by the Soviet government, but Russians, not Ukrainians live there.
In US universities and think tanks, researchers’ analyses come to conclusions consistent with the views of those who fund their research. This is why there are no more Stephen Cohens who give an independent objective analysis of the real situation. Indeed, in the US today an objective analysis is considered to be pro-Russian and the author is said to be a Russian agent.
As a result, we get a one-sided story.
The problem with one-sided stories is that the implication is the other side is entirely to blame and hasn’t a leg to stand on. This is the position that Russia finds herself in, and it is the reason that the West doesn’t listen to a word she says. It is very dangerous to ignore Russia when she says she finds the situation intolerable.
Russia seems at times to be masochistic, but sooner or later she will bite back.
As I sit down to write Tass has not yet announced Putin’s decision about Russia’s recognization of the Donetsk and Luhansk republics, formerly Russian territory that the Soviet government attached to Ukraine. However, as the decision of the Russian Security Council was unanimous, supported even by the pro-American Atlanticist Integrationist member, Putin will not go against the position of the Security Council. Putin himself was of the same opinion as his statements and questions indicated.
Understand that this is not about reabsorbing Donbass into Russia like Crimea, but merely recognizing the republics as independent countries.
This will give the protection of international law to the republics, and Russia being a stickler for international law, unlike the West, will see that law defends the republics.
I listened to the one hour, 35 minute Security Council meeting during which the various members discussed their eight years of frustrations with negotiating with the US, NATO, EU that never went anywhere. During these eight years many Donbass Russians were killed by Ukrainian forces which have succeeded in occupying some of the territory of the republics.
What is not clear at this point is whether the recognition of the Donbass republics includes all of the territory including those areas occupied by Ukrainian forces and neo-Nazi militias.
If you watch the video of the meeting, which has English translation, you will see for yourself that Russia has tried for eight years to resolve the situation by keeping the Donbass in Ukraine but protected by the Minsk Agreement signed by Ukraine and guaranteed by Germany and France. It is impossible not to admire the patience of the Russians, although it was patience at the expense of the lives of Donbass Russians.
Today the Russian government ran out of patience, and I don’t think they will have much patience with the West in the future.
This is a good thing because it will make Europe less an enabler of Washington’s trouble-making for Russia.
Every European government knows that it is impossible for Washington/NATO to protect them without recourse to nuclear weapons, which of course means their destruction, not their protection. Europe will be more interested in having good relations with Russia.
I would bet that Ukraine President Zelensky, whatever he says, is also relieved. Zelensky has not been able to function as president, because he is caught between Washington and the CIA controlled neo-Nazi militias and is up for reelection. Now that Russia has given recognition to the republics, Zelensky can resist Washington’s push to use Ukraine’s military to attack the Donbass Russians. Zelensky will gain authority from the Kremlin’s decision as the decision will make it more difficult for Washington to use Ukraine against Russia. Of course, Washington won’t stop trying.
We know how this will play out in Washington and in the whore media. The New York Times will be handed a “news report” from the CIA. It will say that the recognition of the republics is a prelude to a Russian invasion. Washington, which is always for “self-determination” but only if “self-determination” is the result of a Washington led coup, will not recognize Donbass independence and will try to foment war between Ukraine and Russia. The New York Times and the rest of the whores will continue to predict “Russian invasion.”
But Europe is now wary, whatever is said publicly, and Ukrainians know that no one is coming to their aid if they are shoved into a war with Russia.
There is a good chance that Washington will lose control of the narrative. If not, it will be Ukraine and Europe that pay the price.
Night time in China.
Oh yeah. This is pretty much what it is like. I’ll tell youse guys that China is day and night, meaning that there’s a entirely different “vibe” at night than there is in the daytime. You see, most people in China are active. They don’t hide inside their homes watching the “news”. Instead they go out and socialize.
Here’s my fine nice cinnamon toast girl. Isn’t she lovely, and look at the day. Can you believe that I have wasted so many beautiful days by sitting infront of a computer monitor working in cubicles all my life, when instead I could have been frolicing with fine attractive and cute ladies like this. Sheech!
In my dreams, of course, it might resemble something more like this…
Remember, boys and girls, life is what you make of it. Stop dreaming. Start doing. And you start, mind you, with the people near by you that you say “hi” to.
Nice Chinese girl super in the Fall
Or perhaps, something a little different maybe. Like this woman in the crisp air of Fall.
Instead, all we see are glimpses, and if you live inside the United States, those glimpses will be terrible distortions of reality.
There are all sorts of people, organizations, companies, and special interests that intentionally distort the visible part of what is going on to manipulate others. Resulting in this bastardization.
And thus, you “feel things”, but it’s impossible to put all the pieces together. This is because your observations do not match your “gut feelings”. They do not fit together, and thus things appear frightening and confusing.
But don’t worry about it too much.
Remember; You cannot control the world. You can only control your little part of it.
Be the Rufus.
Be prudent and conservative on household supplies and food.
Center your mind with Hemi-Sync.
Be good, say nothing bad.
Consume less.
Turn off the “news”.
Surround yourself with pets, cats and dogs.
Conduct your affirmation campaigns.
Monitor your fate forecast daily, follow the advice no matter how strange it might seem.
And that means observe the rambling and chaotic article herein. Individually each item is coherent and sensible, but as a whole they seem disjointed. They seem unconnected. They seem like the ravings of a madman.
They seem…
Yes.
They seem, they appear, it all looks… disjointed.
But…
Quantum physics teaches us that all things are interconnected, and entanglement occurs over impossibly great distances.
Stop THINKING. Listen to your inherent GUT FEELINGS more.
The “news” manipulates your thoughts and emotions, but you have full control over your gut feelings and intuition. Listen to them instead.
A pretty girl, in China, smiling and being nice is more important than any screeching “news” out of your media feeds. And yes, things ARE going on. But the observed actions are only the “tip of the iceberg” of an event train that has been years (if not decades) in planning.
You do not know the entire story, so don’t worry about it.
Stop THINKING. Listen to your inherent GUT FEELINGS more.
It’s important at this time. Very important.
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.
This is a topical subject. It is something that is going on right now, and the outcome is not determined. The situation is indeterminate.
It is “funny” how the evil regime / military empire operates. Five months of “A war in Taiwan, A war in Taiwan”, followed by three months of non-stop “A war in the Ukraine, A war in the Ukraine”. China didn’t do anything. Russia didn’t do anything. But the facts don’t matter.
Today, the Ukraine started to attack it’s “breakaway” Eastern provinces. The United States fully expects that Russia will get involved, and they are so Hell Bent that Russia would do something, that they can then slap their “sanctions” on Russia and force Germany to abandon the Nordstrom Gas pipeline from Russia.
Why am I so confident that this is what the plan is?
Well, the CIA mouthpiece said so…
Yeah. So this one little article says…
USA LP gas exports will increase in 2022…
Due to the Northstrom gas pipeline from Russia stopped…
Because Germany will adhere to American sanctions…
Against Russia …
Because Russia invaded the Ukraine.
And that Russia will invade because TODAY the Ukranians started to kill their separatist groups in the LDR.
Except that…
Russia is not budging. It’s not making any military moves.
The Ukrainians must sort out their own issues.
Thus, there’s no excuse to sanction Russia.
And thus the entire American plot to seize control of energy into Europe has (so far) failed. I’m sure that they have a “trick or two up their sleeve“, so you cannot say that the situation is fixed in place. It isn’t. The United States evil empire is pushing and pushing and pushing for control of the world. It is flailing and failing everywhere. But it’s still in the ring fighting.
Just after I published my first long article on the likely origins of the Covid outbreak in April 2020, our alternative media website was suddenly deplatformed, being banned from Facebook and with all our pages completely deranked by Google. For almost a decade, my article The Myth of Hispanic Crime had regularly been ranked #2 of some 200 million Google search results on that topic, but it now suddenly disappeared from the public discussion, a development that deeply rankled me.
Being blocked by the two primary gatekeepers of the global Internet has obviously had a serious impact upon our ability to reach potential readers, especially new ones. Nonetheless, our articles do still occasionally strike a spark and go viral, racking up many tens of thousands of pageviews, an encouraging situation. But the massive current media propaganda-bubble promoting an imminent Russian invasion of Ukraine, which seems to be a ridiculous hoax, has apparently shifted that landscape, creating a huge demand for contrary perspectives.
Last weekend I published Mike Whitney’s piece arguing that the motive behind the sudden war-hysteria was actually to prevent the opening of the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline between Russia and Germany, which would have fostered their mutually-beneficial economic cooperation. Such peaceful Eurasian integration might be viewed as a major geopolitical threat by some American strategists, who thereby provoked the sudden war-scare.
The Ukrainian crisis has nothing to do with Ukraine. It’s about Germany and, in particular, a pipeline that connects Germany to Russia called Nord Stream 2.
Washington sees the pipeline as a threat to its primacy in Europe and has tried to sabotage the project at every turn.
Even so, Nord Stream has pushed ahead and is now fully-operational and ready-to-go.
Once German regulators provide the final certification, the gas deliveries will begin.
German homeowners and businesses will have a reliable source of clean and inexpensive energy while Russia will see a significant boost to their gas revenues.
It’s a win-win situation for both parties.The US Foreign Policy establishment is not happy about these developments.
They don’t want Germany to become more dependent on Russian gas because commerce builds trust and trust leads to the expansion of trade.
As relations grow warmer, more trade barriers are lifted, regulations are eased, travel and tourism increase, and a new security architecture evolves.
In a world where Germany and Russia are friends and trading partners, there is no need for US military bases, no need for expensive US-made weapons and missile systems, and no need for NATO.
There’s also no need to transact energy deals in US Dollars or to stockpile US Treasuries to balance accounts.
Transactions between business partners can be conducted in their own currencies which is bound to precipitate a sharp decline in the value of the dollar and a dramatic shift in economic power.
This is why the Biden administration opposes Nord Stream.
It’s not just a pipeline, it’s a window into the future; a future in which Europe and Asia are drawn closer together into a massive free trade zone that increases their mutual power and prosperity while leaving the US on the outside looking in.
Warmer relations between Germany and Russia signal an end to the “unipolar” world order the US has overseen for the last 75 years.
A German-Russo alliance threatens to hasten the decline of the Superpower that is presently inching closer to the abyss.
This is why Washington is determined to do everything it can to sabotage Nord Stream and keep Germany within its orbit. It’s a matter of survival
Strange American actions
It seems so straight forward, right?
Not so fast.
Biden cancelled the US pipeline his first week in office.
Now he’s cancelled the Israeli pipeline.
But he approved the Russia pipeline, through the Ukraine (no less).
Biden Abandons Israeli Pipeline In Favor Of Russian Gas Via Ukraine
President Biden is withdrawing U.S. support for the EastMed pipeline that would bring natural gas from Israel to the European continent.
Europe is currently in an energy crisis with record prices for natural gas and electricity, potential rolling blackouts, low supplies of natural gas, millions of citizens in energy poverty and increasing coal consumption, which the continent has wanted to end.
Increasing reliance on intermittent renewable sources that have not produced to their potential has put pressure on other sources the Europeans have discouraged.
The result of Biden’s most recent decision is making Europe even more dependent on Russia for its natural gas.
Currently, Western Europe gets over 40 percent of its natural gas from Russia via a pipeline that runs through Ukraine.
Russia wants to activate its Nord Stream 2 pipeline that runs under the Baltic so that it can avoid the current route through Ukraine.
Biden gave Russia the go-ahead in July 2021 for the continued construction of Nord Stream 2, which Russia predicted could go on-line by the end of the year. It is now completed.
Rather than helping an ally, Biden is helping Russia dominate Europe’s energy system and gain economic strength in doing so.
The only explanation that Biden’s administration has given to withdrawing support is: “Washington’s interest is now switching to renewable energy sources.”
While the White House is using its dogged support for the switch to renewable energy to justify its decision, the European Commission drafted legal text that pronounces natural gas and nuclear power as “transitional” green energy sources to be used to bridge countries away from coal toward technologies like wind and solar.
EastMed Gas Pipeline
The EastMed Gas pipeline is a 1,180-mile undersea pipeline project from Israel to southern Europe, set to be completed by 2025, which, when completed will ease Europe’s dependence on Russia and Turkey, which serves as a hub for oil and natural gas.
Construction of the pipeline is expected to cost approximately €6 billion ($6.86 billion).
The pipeline is being developed by IGI Poseidon S.A., a 50-50 joint venture between the Greek gas utility DEPA and the Italian gas utility Edison.
The EastMed Pipeline accord was signed in Athens by the leaders of Greece, Cyprus, and Israel on January 2, 2020.
Biden’s Political Decision
Biden is not only catering to Russia regarding the EastMed pipeline decision but also to Turkey, who is offended that it was left out of the EastMed pipeline accord.
Turkey believes that it should be part of the pipeline project amid claims over natural gas in the east Mediterranean.
This business cannot be done without Turkey. Because if [gas] is to be transferred to Europe from here, it will only happen through Turkey.”
According to an expert, the Biden administration is “attributing huge significance to Turkey,” and its future after Erdogan.
Biden’s Inconsistencies
MedEast is the second major pipeline that the Biden administration has put a damper on: the first being the Keystone XL pipeline that would bring oil from Canada and North Dakota to the Gulf States.
Canadian oil is heavy oil needed for U.S. refineries that retooled decades ago when U.S. light oil production was declining.
Keystone XL would also provide more oil to the United States from an ally rather than being dependent on OPEC and Russia for oil.
For several months since the pandemic began, Russia was the number 2 supplier of oil to the United States, competing with Mexico for that distinction.
When Biden blocked the Keystone XL pipeline by canceling its Presidential permit, he blocked a project that went over and above existing standards to address issues such as carbon emissions, safety standards, and cooperation with indigenous people impacted by the pipeline.
Biden’s Keystone XL and MedEast pronouncements both overturn decisions made by President Trump.
When Joe Biden agreed to set aside U.S. objections to the controversial Russian undersea Nord Stream 2 pipeline, he reversed former President Trump’s policy of opposing the project due to security concerns.
The 760-mile Baltic Sea pipeline allows direct Russian natural gas supply to Germany and other western European countries and allows Russia to dominate the European energy market, making Putin a power player in continental Europe, where Russia already supplies over 40 percent of its natural gas.
Conclusion
President Biden continues to overturn decisions made by President Trump regarding energy policy.
In the most recent case, he has withdrawn U.S. support for the EastMed gas pipeline project, which would transport natural gas from Israel to Europe via the Mediterranean Sea when completed in 2025.
The project would remove some of the continent’s dependency on Russia for natural gas supplies that Russia has used as a geopolitical tool at times in the past. Biden’s announced reasoning is that the focus in Washington is now on renewable energy, despite the European Commission seeing the necessity to allow natural gas to be deemed a “transitional green energy source”.
Biden has shown huge inconsistency on his pipeline decisions, with one major exception—they all overturn decisions made by President Trump.
What’s going on
It appears that Geo-political concerns and domestic green energy concerns are at odds. Alliances are at odds, and there are competing interests all backed by powerful corportations and individuals with competing interests. Thus making the United States a schizophrenic entity.
Oh, Great! A schizophrenic bully with the largest arsenal of nuclear and bioweapons in the world. What could go wrong?
It seems, to me at least, that the United States is desparately trying to control Europe, and Israel by energy. If you control access to energy, you can control them, and by dishing out access in measured doses, you can use them as pawns to do your bidding.
And that is what I think is going on.
An Evil Empire
Though it does seem rather mish-mash. Does the hand on the left know what the hand on the right is doing?
Do you want to know why the rest of the world calls it an evil empire?
The big fear right now is that sanctions against Russia will be ineffective. You slap sanctions on Russia and they will not work. Russia is pretty much autonomus.
So what are the American / UK “experts” saying?
Check out this horror…
Argument
An expert's point of view on a current event.
If Russia Invades Ukraine, Sanction China
Putin has found an economic lifeline in Beijing that only Washington can destroy.
By Aaron Arnold, a senior associate fellow at the Royal United Services Institute’s Centre for Financial Crime and Security Studies.
.
Faced with the threat of further Western sanctions against Russia if it invades Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin has been seeking shelter in China.
On Feb. 4, the opening day of the Beijing Winter Olympics, Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping announced a new strategic partnership between their two countries.
A joint statement described the Chinese-Russian relationship as a “friendship” with “no ‘forbidden’ areas of cooperation.”
Putin expressed support for China’s opposition to Taiwanese independence, and Xi seconded Russia’s demand that NATO end its eastward expansion.
They also unveiled plans for broader economic cooperation, particularly in the oil and gas sectors.
The timing is no coincidence: At least in the short term, strengthened Chinese-Russian ties provide Putin an opportunity to lessen the blow from potential Western sanctions.
This puts the United States in a serious bind.
If Washington expects to convey a credible deterrent against a Russian invasion of Ukraine using financial and economic sanctions, it will need to signal its resolve to impose secondary sanctions against China in the same breath.
The problem is that the United Kingdom and the European Union, key U.S. allies, do not have the same legal or regulatory frameworks to impose secondary sanctions against Chinese banks or state-owned enterprises.
U.S. secondary sanctions, which target a third-party entity or country for conducting business with the primary subject of sanctions, rely on broad interpretations of jurisdiction.
To put it nicely; a very broad and liberal interpetation of the law; or to put it better; to make up the rules as you see fit. -MM
Most countries adopt some form of a territorial or nationality standard, meaning that its national borders define its jurisdictional reach.
The United States, however, considers its citizens, companies, and property as falling under its jurisdiction even if located abroad.
The United States considers the world to be it's territory. Not its borders. -MM
Because the U.K. and EU lack this framework to apply secondary sanctions, it leaves Washington alone to flex its extraterritorial muscle against China.
And though the United States is unlikely to suffer any significant domestic economic blowback from imposing broad financial and economic sanctions against Russia, it is a different story with China.
At a Feb. 7 press conference following his meeting with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, U.S. President Joe Biden said the United States was coordinating “a strong package of sanctions that are going to clearly demonstrate international resolve and impose swift and severe consequences if Russia violates Ukraine’s sovereignty and its territorial integrity.”
Democratic Sen. Bob Menendez, the chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and a key architect of the U.S. sanctions regime against Iran, is also working on a bipartisan bill that would apply what he described as the “mother of all sanctions” on Russia.
There are still significant disagreements in Washington on when to apply sanctions against the Nord Stream 2 natural gas pipeline linking Russia and Germany.
Well, you must realize that this is a project between Russia and Germany. The USA is not involved in it in any way, shape or means. -MM
The pipeline is owned by the Russian state-backed energy corporation Gazprom and has become a focal point among NATO allies because of its role in increasing Germany’s energy dependence on Russia.
Democrats, including Menendez and Biden, prefer to wait for Russia to invade Ukraine before putting sanctions in place, while Republicans are in favor of imposing sanctions on the pipeline immediately.
Republicans want to sanction Russia without reason. The Democrats are waiting for an excuse. -MM
Nevertheless, Menendez’s proposed legislation is sweeping and includes options to target Russia’s energy and finance sectors as well as key Russian government officials and even to boot Russia from SWIFT, the global financial messaging system that connects banks around the world.
The pieces for a broader, multilateral approach to sanctions are finally coming together.
This should scare Putin.
Responding to criticism that Germany was not doing enough to bolster Ukraine’s defenses, Scholz provided reassurances during his visit to Washington that Berlin is committed to imposing costs on Russia if it invades Ukraine.
It remains to be seen, however, whether that includes ditching Nord Stream 2.
That is the plan. Do not fool yourselves. -MM
Although Scholz has been vague about the pipeline’s fate if push comes to shove, he did note that Germany was prepared to take “all necessary steps” in the event of a Russian invasion of Ukraine, noting the need for strategic ambiguity to head off an attempt by Russia to preemptively fortify itself against Western sanctions.
European leaders are fearful that an all-out barrage of sanctions against Russia could result in severe economic pain for their own economies.
Sanctions against Russia, whether with Russia alone or with China, will REALLY harm the EU. But the insane psychopaths in Washington DC do not care. -MM
Unlike the United States, many large European banks have close ties to Russia.
Europe’s energy sector is particularly at risk—relying on Russia for more than 40 percent of its imported natural gas.
The United States is trying to prevent a potential energy crisis in Europe should Putin weaponize Russia’s oil and gas exports. Amid already rising energy prices, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken has been working to assure European leaders that the Biden administration is committed to easing “any disruptions to Europe’s energy supply.”
And so they believe him? -MM
Specifically, he pointed to discussions with governments and major global suppliers of liquefied natural gas (LNG) to shore up supply.
The United States has ramped up its LNG exports to Europe as an alternative to Russian gas.
As of January, some 75 percent of U.S. LNG exports were bound for Europe. Last year, that figure stood at only 23 percent.
The terms of the 30-year contract call for Russia to supply an additional 10 billion cubic meters of gas to China per year via a new pipeline.
The implication is that deepening economic cooperation with China would help Russia absorb some of the shock if the West did impose severe sanctions against its banking and energy sectors. Russia is one of China’s largest oil and gas suppliers.
Russia is nearly and firmly isolated and sanctions of any types will not really affect it. -MM
But although these deepening economic ties might dampen the blow of U.S. sanctions, they are not completely out of reach of secondary U.S. sanctions.
To ensure its threats of sanctions remain credible, Washington needs to pressure Putin’s emerging economic lifelines by signaling that it is prepared to go beyond its standard sanctions package to impose secondary sanctions against Chinese banks and state-owned enterprises if Russia invades Ukraine.
There is precedent for such a move, but times have changed. China has become wise to the reach of U.S. extraterritorial sanctions and developed its own legal frameworks to push back.
In July 2012, the U.S. Treasury Department levied secondary sanctions against China’s Bank of Kunlun for knowingly facilitating transactions on behalf of designated Iranian banks.
This designation caught many experts and industry insiders by surprise, as it was an unprecedented escalation in the use of extraterritorial sanctions against a third party.
Under international UN laws, this action is ILLEGAL. Trust me, the Chinese will not forgive and forget. -MM
A Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson chided the United States for “invoking its domestic laws to impose sanctions against the Chinese financial institution” and urged the United States to reverse the sanctions.
The argument is valid. Chinese businesses, citizens, and entities do not full under United States law. Further, neither does their trading partners. -MM
While the designation ruffled Beijing, the two countries avoided any substantial political or economic fallout, with China opting to isolate the small bank from broader financial markets.
Later, in 2017, the United States imposed a $1.19 billion fine against another Chinese entity for violating U.S. sanctions against Iran: China’s largest telecommunications company, ZTE.
In addition to paying the fine, ZTE would also be required to develop internal policies to avoid future sanctions violations and undergo a corporate restructuring, according to a settlement reached with company.
The company settled out of court, even though the pressure was illegally applied. -MM
To force ZTE to comply with the settlement terms, the U.S. Commerce Department threatened to place the company on its Entity List—effectively shutting the company out of U.S. markets.
When ZTE did violate the terms of its settlement, though, the Trump administration opted to issue a waiver despite objections from senior advisors, thereby tossing the company a lifeline and preventing it from going under.
Senior officials means John Bolton and Mike Pompeo. -MM
Although there are differing theories as to why then-President Donald Trump reversed the designation—whether for personal political gain or to entice China to remain engaged in trade negotiations—the cases show the reach of U.S. extraterritorial sanctions policy.
The U.S. dollar accounts for nearly 60 percent of global foreign currency reserves—and the Chinese renminbi does not.
That is true for NOW. And the Chinese realize that. But, as I have reported elsewhere, one day they are going to flick a switch and suddenly a staged withdrawl from the USD will occur and the USD will collapse in value. Like I said, the Chinese do not forget. -MM
China, however, has started to push back against foreign extraterritorial sanctions.
Last year, the country established an anti-sanctions law—similar to the EU’s “blocking statute,” which attempts to curb the extraterritorial application of third-party sanctions by prohibiting compliance with extraterritorial laws.
China’s law notes that the country explicitly opposes “hegemonism and power politics” and “opposes any country’s interference in China’s internal affairs under any pretext and by any means,” giving authorities broad powers to impose penalties against Chinese businesses that adhere to U.S. sanctions policies.
These penalties could include fines and even confiscation of assets.
The Chinese do not play. They could single handly destory the American automotive industry by sanctioning all of their factories inside of China and nationalizing them. Flick of a switch. -MM
Many see the law as putting multinational banks in a quagmire: caught in a legal limbo between violating U.S. sanctions and being held liable for adhering to them.
Large multinational banks comply with U.S. sanctions due to the hegemony of the U.S. dollar in the global financial system.
But that's the only reason. -MM
In 2014, for example, U.S. authorities levied a record $9 billion fine against the French bank BNP Paribas for violating U.S. sanctions against Iran, among others.
Although China has yet to use its new anti-sanctions laws against U.S. interests, the opportunity will undoubtedly arise if Washington aims secondary sanctions at China.
In this case, banks may be forced to choose between U.S. fines for violating sanctions and Chinese fines for adhering to them.
So, if Washington is going to impose secondary sanctions against Chinese institutions, it must be prepared for retaliation.
In addition to the potential for putting scores of multinational entities in legal limbo, perhaps even forcing them to choose sides, more than $615 billion worth of bilateral trade will also be put in jeopardy. (China accounts for nearly 19 percent of all U.S. imports.)
By VALUE. Not by volume.
90 - 95% of all medicines come from CHina. Are you ready to live without aspirin or antibiotics? How do you think your parents and grandparents will do when their blood pressure medicine and heart medicine is no longer available? -MM
Thus far, there have been no indications that Washington is considering specific secondary sanctions against China, beyond mere posturing.
U.S. State Department spokesperson Ned Price recently told reporters: “We have an array of tools that we can deploy if we see foreign companies, including those in China, doing their best to backfill U.S. export control actions, to evade them, to get around them.”
Deploying these tools against China will have repercussions for U.S. businesses and economic interests—a burden Washington has thus far not had to grapple with and has instead asked its European allies to bear.
Nonetheless, the United States must be prepared to cut off all avenues for Russia to escape Western sanctions.
This includes preparing to wield secondary sanctions against Chinese institutions as well as working to limit blowback to U.S. interests.
The simple truth is that the U.S. dollar accounts for nearly 60 percent of global foreign currency reserves—and the Chinese renminbi does not. That is a big stick to wield.
So what is this “expert” saying?
Well, the USA has its tenticles in just about every country. They are all in debt to the USA.
That gives the United States power.
Just like in prison. If you owe another inmate something, you must pay it back of become indentured. This technique has been used with great effect by the United States in controlling the world.
If the USA sanctions China, the nations will be forced to choose between [1] China or [2] their debt owed to the United States.
Of course, he argues, they would choose the United States over the “Worlds factory”. Right?
Ah.
Don’t be so sure.
The USA is dependent upon China for everything. And what it does not get directly out of China, it gets from countries that are / do.
90% of medicines come from China. What happens when there are no antibiodics? What about heart medicine? Pain killers?
99% of computers come from China. This includes monitors, IC chips (don’t let the Korean / Taiwan medi fool you otherwise), and all preferials.
80% of the world cellphones and much of their inner workings come from China.
95% of all household items, goods, and appliances come from China.
95% of automotive parts come from China. It doesn’t matter what car you are driving. All the spare parts are made in China.
Sanctioning China would be the most stupid blunder, of all the many stupid blunders to choose from, in all of history.
So let’s talk about China.
Now, China is really not like anyone in the “West” thinks. It’s really something different, and as time moves forward, it looks more and more like a sompletely different society that comes from another galaxy.
Let’s start with a few girls.
Chinese girl in a gym
Take a look at the screens on the wall behind her. Yes, this is normal. You can watch media while you exerise and your exercise stats are projected onto the screens as you exercise.
No wonder that the Chinese women are healthy, thin and free of ugly tattoos.
You know, I come from the United States.
Seriously, today, the ideas of beauty in the United States are different than from that inside of China. Darker skin, chubbier and shorter build, bigger asses, and tattoo decorations make for an attractive American woman…
An American beauty.
…or so I have been told.
Personally, I like all women. Short, tall, robust, cute, athletic, big and small. But the ones that I favor all are [1] great talkers with [2] interesting thoughts and opinions, a [3] strong personality, and [4] great personal confidence and a [5] real pride in their actions and apperance.
Which is why, perhaps, I love China so much.
Robust Chinese girl in brown
I do admire a fine “robust” woman. That’s me, and I don’t expect anyone to share my tastes. Here we have a fine woman. This gal is a real “head turner”, and I find her very aluring. Most especially in this dress.
Here’s a clip from the violent anti-China “news” network FOX. They are so very anti-China that they have to preface this report with a disclaimer that they are going to say something positive about China, and that people should not think bad about them for doing so.
The segment is spot on. And yes, China is doing the right thing. Don’t you know.
Women do not realize just how attractive they are when they are calm, comfortable and confident. Look at the expression on this woman. See the confidence? Man, oh man. What a sexy girl.
In many of the upper-class Business KTVs the girls are expected to buy their display uniforms. Many of which are traditional such as what this woman is wearing.
There’s no question about this. She is a stunner. Actually, I really love her neck and shoulders. I almost want to get a pencil and a sketch pad and start sketching it out with a light orange wash and some white inking overlay.
This video shows the front common area / yard in front of the housing complex individual buildings. Many areas a paved like this, while others are manicured trees, shrubs and flowers.
Note how the Huawei camera negates the handheld jitter while jogging and keeps the face and eyes absolutely centered throughout the video. Pretty cool technology.
In the cities, one of the fashion items is to wear a light topper sweater that fits over the tops of the boobies so that when you walk it accentuates the jiggle movement of the breasts. Personally I like it, but it does look a little bit strange to my older gentlemen sensibilities. Check out the style…
Russian FM site inaccessible, hacked or truly overwhelmed by the fact that the reply to the US reply has been published? In any case Cassad has it in Russian.
https://colonelcassad.livejournal.com/7446905.html
Posted by: Paco | Feb 17 2022 17:27 utc | 82
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Yandex translation:
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February 17, 17:46
The Russian Foreign Ministry has published a written response to the American written response to Russian claims on security guarantees in Europe.
Response to response
On February 17, 2022, US Ambassador John Sullivan, invited to the Russian Foreign Ministry, was given the following reaction to the previously received American response on the Russian draft treaty between the Russian Federation and the United States of America on security guarantees.
TASS publishes the full text of the statement.
General characteristics
We state that the American side did not give a constructive response to the basic elements of the draft security guarantees agreement prepared by the Russian side with the United States.
We are talking about [1] the rejection of further expansion of NATO, [2] the withdrawal of the “Bucharest formula” that [3] “Ukraine and Georgia will become members of NATO”, and [4] the refusal to create military bases on the territory of states that were previously part of the USSR and are not members of the alliance, including [5] the use of their infrastructure for conducting any military activity, as well as [6] the return of military capabilities, including shock, and NATO infrastructure to the state of 1997, when the Founding Act of Russia — NATO was signed.
These provisions are of fundamental importance for the Russian Federation.
The package nature of Russian proposals has been ignored, from which “convenient” topics have been deliberately chosen, which, in turn, are “twisted” in the direction of creating advantages for the United States and its allies.
This approach, as well as the accompanying rhetoric of American officials, reinforces reasonable doubts that Washington is really committed to correcting the situation in the field of Euro-security.
The growing military activity of the United States and NATO directly at the Russian borders is alarming, while our “red lines” and fundamental security interests, as well as Russia’s sovereign right to protect them, continue to be ignored.
Ultimatum demands to withdraw troops from certain areas on Russian territory, accompanied by threats of tougher sanctions, are unacceptable and undermine the prospects of reaching real agreements.
In the absence of the readiness of the American side to agree on firm, legally binding guarantees of ensuring our security by the United States and its allies, Russia will be forced to respond, including through the implementation of military-technical measures.
In Ukraine
There is no “Russian invasion” of Ukraine, as the United States and its allies have been officially declaring since last autumn, and there are no plans, therefore, statements about “Russia’s responsibility for escalation” cannot be regarded otherwise than as an attempt to exert pressure and devalue Russia’s proposals for security guarantees.
The mention in this context of Russian obligations under the Budapest Memorandum of 1994 has nothing to do with the internal Ukrainian conflict and does not apply to the circumstances resulting from the actions of internal factors there.
The loss of territorial integrity by the Ukrainian state is the result of the processes that took place inside it.
The accusations of Russia contained in the American response that it “occupied Crimea” also do not stand up to any criticism.
In 2014, a coup took place in Kiev, the initiators of which, with the support of the United States and their allies, set a course for the creation of a nationalist state that infringes on the rights of the Russian and Russian-speaking population, as well as other “non-titular” ethnic groups.
It is not surprising that in such a situation, Crimeans voted for reunification with Russia.
The decision of the people of Crimea and Sevastopol to return to the Russian Federation was made by free expression of will in the exercise of the right to self-determination enshrined in the UN Charter.
Force or threat of force was not used. The question of Crimea’s ownership is closed.
If Ukraine is accepted into NATO, there will be a real threat that the regime in Kiev will try to “return” Crimea by force, dragging the United States and its allies, in accordance with Article 5 of the Washington Treaty, into a direct armed conflict with Russia with all the ensuing consequences.
The thesis repeated in the US response that Russia allegedly “ignited the conflict in the Donbas” is untenable.
Its reasons are purely intra-Ukrainian in nature.
The settlement is possible only through the implementation of the Minsk agreements and a set of measures, the priority and responsibility for the implementation of which are clearly spelled out and unanimously confirmed by UN Security Council resolution 2202, including the United States, France and the United Kingdom.
In paragraph 2 of this resolution, Kiev, Donetsk and Lugansk are named as parties.
None of these documents mention Russia’s responsibility for the conflict in the Donbas.
Russia, together with the OSCE, plays the role of mediator in the main negotiating format – the contact group – and together with Berlin and Paris – in the “Normandy format”, which formulates recommendations to the parties to the conflict and monitors their implementation.
To de-escalate the situation around Ukraine, it is fundamentally important to take the following steps.
This is forcing Kiev to implement a set of measures, stopping the supply of weapons to Ukraine, withdrawing all Western advisers and instructors from there, the refusal of NATO countries from any joint exercises with the Armed Forces of Ukraine and the withdrawal of all foreign weapons previously supplied to Kiev outside Ukrainian territory.
In this regard, we draw attention to the fact that Russian President Vladimir Putin, at a press conference following talks in Moscow with French President Emmanuel Macron on February 7, 2022, stressed that we are open to dialogue and urge “to think about stable security conditions for everyone, equal for all participants in international life.”
Force configuration
We note that in their response to the Russian proposals, the United States insists that progress in improving the situation in the field of European security “can only be achieved in terms of de-escalation in relation to Russia’s threatening actions directed against Ukraine,” which, as we understand, implies the requirement to withdraw Russian troops from the borders of Ukraine.
At the same time, the United States is ready to talk only about “mutual obligations … to refrain from deploying permanent-based forces with combat missions on the territory of Ukraine” and “consider discussing the problem of conventional armed forces.”
For the rest, the American side remains silent about our proposals contained in paragraphs 2 of Article 4 and paragraph 1 of Article 5 of the draft bilateral treaty and declares that “the current configuration of the US and NATO forces is limited, proportional and fully complies with the obligations under the NATO-Russia Founding Act.”
We proceed from the fact that the deployment of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation on its territory does not and cannot affect the fundamental interests of the United States. We would like to remind you that there are no our forces on the territory of Ukraine.
At the same time, the United States and its allies were advancing their military infrastructure to the east, deploying contingents in the territories of new members.
They circumvented the limitations of the CFE Treaty and interpreted very loosely the provisions of the Russia—NATO Founding Act on the rejection of “additional permanent deployment of substantial combat forces.”
The situation that has developed as a result of these actions is unacceptable.
We insist on the withdrawal of all US armed forces and weapons stationed in CEE, SEE and the Baltic States.
We are convinced that there are quite enough national potentials in these zones.
We are ready to discuss this topic on the basis of art. 4 and 5 of the Russian draft agreement.
The principle of indivisibility of security
We did not see any evidence in the US response that the American side is fully committed to observing the immutable principle of indivisibility of security.
The general statements about the consideration of this postulate by the American side are in direct contradiction with Washington’s unwillingness to abandon a counterproductive and destabilizing course to create advantages for itself and its allies at the expense of Russia’s security interests.
This is precisely what is happening as a result of the unrestrained implementation by the North Atlantic Alliance, with the leading role of the United States, of the policy of unlimited geostrategic and military development of the post-Soviet space, including the territory of Ukraine, which is particularly sensitive for us.
All this is happening directly on the Russian borders.
Thus, our “red lines” and fundamental security interests are ignored, and Russia’s inalienable right to ensure them is rejected.
For us, of course, this is unacceptable.
Additionally, we remind you that this principle is enshrined in the [1] preamble of the Treaty between the Russian Federation and the United States of America on [2] “Measures for Further Reduction and Limitation of Strategic Offensive Arms of 2011”, the [3] extension of which for five years [4] without any exceptions was [5] agreed by the parties in February last year, as well as [6] in a number of OSCE and Russia—[7] NATO basic documents adopted at the highest level: [8] in the preamble of the Helsinki Final Act of 1975, [9] in the Charter of Paris for a New Europe of 1990, [10] the Founding Act of Russia — [11] NATO of 1997, [12] the Istanbul Charter for European Security of the OSCE of 1999, [13] the Rome Declaration of Russia-[14] NATO of 2002 and the Astana Declaration of the OSCE Summit of 2010.
We note that the response received mentions Washington’s commitment to the concept of indivisibility of security.
But in the text, it boils down to the right of states “to freely choose or change ways to ensure their security, including union treaties.”
This freedom is not absolute and is only half of the well-known formula fixed in the Charter of European Security.
Its second part requires that, when exercising this right, not “… strengthen one’s security at the expense of the security of other States.”
We cannot consider the letter received from NATO dated February 10, 2022 as a response to the message sent by Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on January 28, 2022 to US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken on this issue.
We asked for an answer in a national capacity.
Conclusion
The United States is playing a very dangerous game, and using everything in its power to wrest control of the energy through Europe. The battlefield is the Ukraine, and they are sponsoring the entire fighting and trying and forcing the blame upon Russia.
Russia will not have any of this.
President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday endorsed Russia’s nuclear deterrent policy, which allows him to use nuclear weapons in response to a conventional strike targeting the nation’s critical government and military infrastructure.By including a non-nuclear attack as a possible trigger for Russian nuclear retaliation, the document appears to send a warning signal to the United States.
The new expanded wording reflects Russian concerns about the development of prospective weapons that could give Washington the capability to knock out key military assets and government facilities without resorting to atomic weapons.In line with Russian military doctrine, the new document reaffirms that the country could use nuclear weapons in response to a nuclear attack or an aggression involving conventional weapons that “threatens the very existence of the state.”But the policy document now also offers a detailed description of situations that could trigger the use of nuclear weapons. They include the use of nuclear weapons or other weapons of mass destruction against Russia or its allies and an enemy attack with conventional weapons that threatens the country's existence.In addition to that, the document now states that Russia could use its nuclear arsenals if it gets “reliable information” about the launch of ballistic missiles targeting its territory or its allies and also in the case of ”enemy impact on critically important government or military facilities of the Russian Federation, the incapacitation of which could result in the failure of retaliatory action of nuclear forces."
-Defense News
As a justification, the minions and toadies, and appratus inside the United States “news” are busily justifying their militaristic actions in order to gain popular and military advantage thought the region and now there are “experts” that are arguing that the United States seize the initative that this time, and take out both Russia and China at the same time.
China has warned the United States that it would “strike back” in response to any “reckless” actions, urging Washington to withdraw its recent passing of sanctions targeting people and entities tied to human rights abuses committed by Beijing.
-MSN
This is extraordinarily DANGEROUS.
All sorts of bad things can come of it. As I have stated earlier, of all the blunder-headed, stupid, ignorant, and dangerous foolhardy actions that the American dying empire could perform, this single action could be it’s worst.
But turhtfully, the “leadership” are so ignorant and stupid that they have no idea what the fuck they are doing nor dealing with.
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.
Above Photo: Digging youselves out from under all the lies and bullshit.
Are you getting tired of this geo-political stuff? I sure am.
Sorry to keep bringing it up, but these are historical times that we are living in. It’s exciting, dangerous, fearful and exciting. It’s new, novel and strange. And also everything in between. So please forgive me this latest article.
Ok already!
The United States is a shambles and it’s falling apart. Just die off, and leave me alone.
Will you? Please?
"...Making thing worst, western fake democracy produce low quality, corrupt, and know no consequences politicians who care for no one except their own personal wellbeing."
This article continues with a selction of snapshots of the world relate to the United States. We discuss the rise of Asia, of course. We discuss the fall of the United States. And we also discuss the strange, strange behaviors that it seems to be taking on.
We do this instead of talking about things that matter. Like cats, cheese, wine, and cars. Sheech!
We start with this article.
Where the author is stunned that the American “leadership” and their minions / toadies believe that wars can and will be fought on the same basis as was done one hundred years ago. Let me tell youse guys something, the world is a far different place today.
Yesterday, the press secretary of the Foreign Ministry, Mariya Zakharova, made such a post on FB.
"A request to the US and British disinformation media Bloomberg, The New York Times, The Sun, etc. - announce the schedule of our "invasions" for the coming year. I would like to plan a vacation."
Here, in the flood of “any day now”, “any hour now” is this churning out nonsesne about Russia invading the Ukraine. Not one is discussing the “why, in the Hell woud they want to do such an idiotic thing?”
And you know, you DO know, that the Internet is an erasible whiteboard. Things come and then in a few years they are gone. Poof! Well, here’s what I am talking about for all youse guys who are reading this in 2030.
Two months of “any day now”. From December 2021 to February 2022. Just about every major headline was about “The Ukraine”. For me, it was a welcome respite from the “any day now China will invade Taiwan” nonsense.
But still, it is tiring…
Um. Sure.
What ever you say Jake.
Here’s another. Thousands of these bullshit articles. All clogging up my media feeds.
Invasion 1 am on Monday.
There are literally thousands of these kinds of articles and they are flooding my feed just like the Anti-China narrative doused me back last year.
All lies.
All distortions.
All fearmongering. All bullshit.
Here’s on at 3am on Wednesday.
The days come and go. The times come and go.
The lies just plow forward.
It’s all been bullshit.
It’s all shrilling nonsense.
Who are these editors? Jane LGBQ diversity-hire; spending time at a nail salon, or a perpetual evil sociopath without a brain, just doing what they are told by some kind of Reptilian evil overlord?
Which pretty much makes people scratch their heads and wonder. Like this article points out…
Next part.
I’m scratching my noggin, don’t you know.
Here’s a bunch of articles that pretty round out the massive and timultious changes that the world is going through right now. If you live inside of the United States, you will probably be only aware of eight out of the ten articles. And you know why, right?
The infernal danger is that Washington and London are pushing Europe and the world towards the abyss of a nuclear with Russia.
The Anglo-Americans are running a modern-day reworking of Operation Overlord, the June 1944 military invasion plan billed to liberate Western Europe from Nazi Germany.
This time around, the billed objective is to “liberate” the European Union from its “tyrannical” dependency on Russian natural gas.
In reality, the unspoken objective is to maintain U.S. tyrannical control over Europe.
That control is essential for upholding American hegemony and global power.
The ultimate price is economic devastation and even war for Europe which the “noble” American hegemon is all too willing for its peons to pay.
This week, U.S. President Joe Biden showed off his overlord status when he arrogantly spoke for German Chancellor Olaf Scholz at a White House press conference.
Biden was asked about the fate of the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline from Russia to Germany in the hypothetical event of an invasion of Ukraine by Russia. Biden didn’t skip a beat to consult with the German leader. He peremptorily asserted the gas project would be terminated.
“There will be no longer a Nord Stream 2,” said Biden without hesitation. “We will bring an end to it.”
The American president was asked how this could be done given that the functioning of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline is nominally under the control of Germany, not the United States.
“We will — I promise you, we’ll be able to do it,” asserted Biden without so much as a hint of seeking any kind of agreement from the German chancellor.
The assuredness of Washington’s presumed ability to over-ride European sovereignty was a revealing and disturbing display of American imperial arrogance.
It was also an excruciating display of American contempt for supposed European “allies”. Scholz, Germany, Europe, was made to look like a nonentity by Biden.
Washington and London have led the ramping up of geopolitical tensions with relentless accusations that Russia is about to invade Ukraine and jeopardize European security.
From the way the Anglo-American propaganda has contrived it, one would think that the scenario is a re-run of Nazi aggression threatening Europe for which they alone are the noble defenders.
Putin is Hitler, the Kremlin is the Third Reich, and diplomacy is appeasement, so the preposterous propaganda goes.
Moscow has repeatedly said it has no intention to invade Ukraine and that in fact it is Russia that is being threatened by the U.S.-led NATO military alliance after year-on-year expansion of the bloc all the way to Russia’s borders.
Ratcheting up the tensions further, Washington and London are demanding that Europe must adopt draconian sanctions against Moscow including the commitment to abandon the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline from Russia to Germany.
That pipeline took five years and a €10-billion investment to complete despite constant American objections.
The crisis over Ukraine contrived by Washington and its British flunkey have ensured that the gas supply has been suspended for the past six months despite an energy crunch in Europe.
What the Anglo-American overlords want to see finally is the entire gas project being scrapped. That’s the end-game even if it means European households freezing from un-payable gas bills.
The American overlords don’t care.
That’s why the Americans and the Brits are doing their best to scupper any diplomatic effort to calm the inordinate crisis with Russia over Ukraine.
Hence, Washington and London are funneling weapons to Ukraine and deploying paratroopers to Eastern Europe in a reckless bid to escalate the confrontation.
While visiting the White House this week, Chancellor Scholz was peppered with petulant demands to explicitly state that the Nord Stream 2 project would be axed “if Russia invaded Ukraine”.
Scholz refused to state that, although in an apparent attempt to offer a sop he claimed that Germany and the United States were united in their resolve.
There is a palpable peeved sense among the Americans and British that Berlin is not being sufficiently hostile towards Russia.
Likewise, when French President Emmanuel Macron went to Moscow this week for diplomatic talks with Russia’s Vladimir Putin there was also an unmistakable sense of rancor from Washington and London that their militaristic “unanimity” was being undermined.
There’s little doubt that Berlin and Paris know that the Anglo-American bravado is a cynical provocation that is “nobly” signing a suicide note on behalf of Europe in the event of a war with Russia.
Macron’s bitter experience of France being shafted last year by the U.S., Britain and Australia over the €50 billion AUKUS submarine contract has probably helped engender a bit of healthy skepticism too. He’s also got an eye on French presidential elections in April.
The bottomline is that Washington wants to sabotage the strategic partnership between Europe and Russia for energy trade and the general normalization of relations. The objectives are maintaining U.S. hegemony, selling its own more expensive gas to Europe and of course endless sales of weapons for NATO members in a perennially agitated state of insecurity. The Brits as ever are in it for ingratiating with Uncle Sam and serving their usual function of being the geopolitical butler to U.S. imperial power.
Energy analysts know that Germany and Europe cannot survive economically without Russia gas, which accounts for at least 40 percent of the continent’s consumption. Even Biden at the White House press conference could not pretend that the U.S. was able replace Russia’s supply. If Russia’s gas trade to Europe was to be disrupted by conflict or deeper sanctions the repercussions for the European Union’s economies would be devastating. There is no way that Germany, France and the EU could survive without Russian oil and gas. For the U.S. and Britain to demand that Berlin make definitive statements about cancelling Nord Stream 2 is a form of coercion and blackmail. Operation Overlord II.
But the infernal danger is that Washington and London are pushing Europe and the world towards the abyss of a nuclear with Russia. That’s how demonic the failing Anglo-American imperium is.
…
So, we start off realizing that the entire “song and dance” about the “War in the Ukraine” is to scare Europe into compliance wiht the United States, and stop Germany from trading with Russia (and China).
It’s not successful.
So why is the United States doing this?
Well. It needs a war. It REALLY needs a war.
Every single state, all 50 of them, have enormous military-industrial factories cherning out bombs, guns, and battle gear. They employ millions of people, and without a war, there will be layoffs. And layoff right now, in this economic condition would be devistating.
What economic condition you might ask?
Article 2
The USA is a real fiasco. Sorry to say.
Make sure that your larder is well stocked and that you are part of your community. And when you have a change, just go to the local diner and eat a nice fine pie. Not that it’s the end of the world or anything like that, but rather to enjoy the little things in life.
Delicious cherry pie. Oh, and don’t forget a nice HOT cup of fresh brewed coffee to go with it.
5 New Numbers That Prove That America’s Horrifying Inflation Crisis Is Getting Even Worse
If you are less than 40 years old, you have never seen inflation like this in the United States. Despite all the warnings, our politicians in Washington just kept borrowing and spending trillions upon trillions of dollars that we did not have. And despite all the warnings, the Federal Reserve just kept pumping trillions of fresh dollars into the financial system. Now we have a giant mess on our hands, and anyone that believes that this is going to be easily fixed is simply being delusional.
Of course most Americans weren’t going to start paying attention to all of this until it started to affect them personally.
Now it is affecting all of us personally, and there are millions of people out there that are becoming increasingly frustrated about the current state of affairs.
Unfortunately, this crisis appears to be just in the early stages. The following are 5 numbers that indicate that the inflation crisis in the United States continues to get even worse…
#1 The producer price index has risen at a rate of 9.7 percent over the previous 12 months. According to CNBC, that is close to a brand new record…
The producer price index, which measures final demand goods and services, increased 1% for the month, against the Dow Jones estimate for 0.5%. Over the past 12 months the gauge rose an unadjusted 9.7%, close to a record in data going back to 2010.
Last week we learned that the consumer price index has risen by 7.5 percent over the previous 12 months. Of course if the consumer price index was still calculated the way that it was back in 1980, the real number would actually be more than double the official number that we were just given.
#2Truck trailer prices in January 2022 were 29.6 percent higher than they were in January 2021…
A shortage of parts and labor has sent the prices of truck trailers through the roof.Truck trailer prices jumped 3.1 percent in January, data from the Department of Labor showed Tuesday. That followed a 3.8 percent increase in December. Compared with 12-months ago, trailer prices are up 29.6 percent, by far the biggest one-year jump in records going back to 1980.
#3 The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics is telling us that the price of used vehicles rose by an astounding 40.5 percent from January 2021 to January 2022…
According to data released by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics on Thursday, the consumer price index for used cars and trucks jumped up by 40.5% from January 2021 to January 2022. That means within a year, the average price of used cars and trucks for urban consumers has gone up by 40.5%.
#4 You may have noticed that you are paying a lot more at the pump these days. If you can believe it, the price of gasoline has actually shot up 40.8 percentsince Joe Biden first entered the White House…
Between January 2021 and January 2022–President Joe Biden’s first year in office–the price of unleaded gasoline increased 40.8 percent, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
That is adding to the cost of both building a new home and remodeling an older one. The National Association of Home Builders estimated the recent price jump added more than $18,600 to the price of a newly built home. It also added nearly $7,300 to the cost of the average new multifamily home, which translates into households paying $67 a month more to rent a new apartment.
Ouch.
I sure wouldn’t want to be trying to build a new home in this environment.
Pressure has been building on the Federal Reserve to take action, and it is being anticipated that the “geniuses” at the Federal Reserve could raise interest rates by 50 basis points next month…
The hot inflation readings led financial markets to price in a better-than-even chance of a 50 basis points interest rate hike from the Federal Reserve next month.Inflation is running well above the U.S. central bank’s 2 percent target. Economists are expecting as many as seven rate hikes this year.
Just recently, a reader sent me an email which pointed out that we shouldn’t have a system where an unelected group of bureaucrats gets together and determines what our interest rates are going to be.
And he is exactly right.
In a free market system, interest rates would be determined by the free market.
But we don’t have a free market system anymore.
In fact, we haven’t had one for a long time.
Of course when it comes to the economy, the guy in the White House is going to get more of the credit or more of the blame for what is going on than anyone else.
And a brand new poll that was just released has Joe Biden’s approval rating sitting at just 34 percent…
The president’s approval rating nationally sits around 40 percent, according to several tracking averages, but a new CIVIQS poll showed it sitting at 34 percent from the 165,786 respondents surveyed.
That is a shockingly bad number, and what should alarm Democrats even more is how bad Biden’s numbers are in the most important swing states…
Swing states of Georgia, Arizona, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin all voted narrowly blue in the 2020 election, but the new poll shows their approval of Biden sits in the low 30 percentages.
Arizona has the biggest split with 32 percent approval to 61 percent disapproval. Georgia sits in second with 31 percent approval to 59 percent disapproval; Pennsylvania’s split is 36 percent to 57 percent; Michigan is 33 percent to 59 percent; and Wisconsin has 36 percent approval and 56 percent disapproval of Biden.
Unfortunately, Biden isn’t going to resign no matter how low his numbers go.
That means that we are going to have at least three more years of either Joe Biden or Kamala Harris running the country.
So we shouldn’t expect any dramatic policy shifts from Washington.
And the “geniuses” at the Fed are undoubtedly going to find even more ways to really mess things up. They are the ones that are more responsible than anyone else for getting us into this mess, and now many Americans are desperately hoping that they can get us out of it.
If you are waiting for them to fix the economy, you are going to be waiting a really, really long time.
I have been warning for years that the decisions that were being made would have severe consequences, and now those consequences have started to arrive.
We are on a road to national ruin, and those that are running things are even more blind than those that they are supposed to be leading.
…
Ok so the United States has high inflation. So what?
It’s more than just the price of food and a decrease in the standard of living. It’s a total collapse of everything and a President that is a bumbling puppet. The Americans are distraught, frustrated, and are waking up that they do not like the govnerment that they have right now, and thus a war of distraction is really needed…
For those of you who are unawares, the United States has been pushing and pushing for a war in the Ukraine, and Russia and the Ukraine said No.
They continued. And still nothing happened.
Now today, President Biden is declaring a “victory” by “forcing” Russia to back down and not invade the Ukraine. Silly. Can’t they see that the United States is now the laughingstock for the entire world?
Article 3
Yes, the United States is acting like a colleciton of ignoarant, mentally deranged jackasses, and has lost all global respect, but you are not part of the USA leadership. So don’t fret. No one, and I do mean NO ONE, is blaming the American people for the faults of the USA federal government. Instead they blame the fact the United States is trapped in an obsolete model of governance that has been taken over by evil and corrput wealthy individuals.
… I would think that this is some anti-US spoof, based on listening to the most discredited cliches about the USA and the kind of people who run it. It had everything, frantic flagwaving, hilarious hyperbole, Biden trying to look like Dubya who, himself, was always squinting his yes à la John Wayne hoping to look like some Sheriff at OK Corral. It also had all the mantric repetition of mind-numbing concepts like “democracy” and “freedom”, etc.
The best part was when Biden raised his voice and sternly looked at the screen.
I am sure that Putin hid under his bed, to hug a pillow and sob in abject terror before The Great American Sheriff!
Here is the deal. It’s not just Biden who is brain dead. Its also the collective “Biden”: all the do is “traffic in hot air” as Lavrov aptly mentioned it today. What we heard tonight is not just the rambling of a senile, delusional, narcissist. What we heard was the voice of the US deep state: that is what they “think” and this is how they “think”.
It does not really matter anymore how/why such individuals as Clinton, Dubya, Obama, Trump or Biden came to power or what they promised. What matters is that these are the type of folks who run the USA (well, not them personally, of course, but the interests they represent). The same kind of non-entities run the UK, by the way, just in a even more pompous and ridiculous way.
The clueless fellow below, ladies and gentlemen, is the current Commander in Chief of the most powerful military in history, this is the Leader of the Free World and his so-called “values” are shared by millions worldwide. Or so he thinks (maybe).
Here is a scary thought: there is a good chance that the next clown in the White House might even be worse! There is zero chance that anybody who could fix this awful mess will be “elected”. If the past is the best indicator for the future, then we must realize that there is only one way this will ever end: in ridicule, violence and infamy.
That also fully applies to Ze and his “European Banderastan”.
Does anybody still doubt the outcome of this abject slo-mo train wreck?
Yes?
What’s next?
Once this fiasco dies down, the focus with be a war in Taiwan “any day now”. It’s all so silly and so very predictable. I just don’t know when. A few days or a few months, but as sure as the sun rises, a “war” in Taiwan will be next on the United States agenda.
It’s all so very predictable.
It makes me yearn to chill out with a cat, drink a fine relaxing drink and eat something delicious. You know, like this…
Needs a little salt me thinks.
It makes me yearn for a simpler time, and a simpler lifestyle.
It makes me yearn for a time when a man would work, then go home, eat a great home cooked meal of pot roast and mashed potatoes, and drink his cocktail.
A delicious pot roast.
Good times. Times of substance.
City tour bus, San Francisco, California, 1956
Times when a cup of coffee costs ten cents, and was about double the cost of a five cent newspaper. Good times.
Times when there were real, goodness to gracious, families.
Times when the “news” actually reported events, and not based their operations off of payments from the government.
But that’s all changed.
And it changed into something much worse. But do not fear, it’s still changing and still evolving. There are still “adults in the room”, and many of them live in Asia. And they have a plan…
“Joint Statement of the Russian Federation and the People’s Republic of China on International Relations Entering a New Era and lobal Sustainable Development” 4 February 2022. (English) (Russian).
This document is the grand strategic manifesto of a new world order and there is much more to be said about it than what follows. I believe that 4 February 2022 will be remembered as the proclamation of a new disposition of world power and relationships.
It is a truly new order of things, not the old “new world order” which was based on US supremacy. And it is most certainly not the so-called Rules-Based International Order in which one side makes up the rules, breaks them when it wants to and orders everyone else to obey. (A perfect example of the mutability of the “rules” is that gay rights are very important in Russia but not at all in Washington’s new “major ally” of Qatar.)
The Russian-Chinese document speaks much of “democracy” but it’s a different vision than the one common in the West. The West today is focussed on the process of democracy – was the voting up to acceptable standards?
Did the opposition have a fair chance? were there enough candidates? was the advertising even-handed? were “administrative resources” used to shift the vote? and like questions.
Now it may well be that fifty or sixty years ago concentrating on the process of democracy was appropriate but it is very questionable whether it is today. This one graph, showing the relationship between productivity and wages and compensation shows that all is not well. Up until the late 1970s, the two curves kept step with each other – the “rising tide” was indeed lifting all boats. Afterwards, however, they diverge until today there is a considerable gap between the two “Productivity has grown 3.5x as much as pay”.
The rising tide is floating only a few super yachts.
The Russian-Chinese document speaks of the results of democracy.
The sides believe that democracy is a means of citizens’ participation in the government of their country with the view to improving the well-being of population and implementing the principle of popular government.
Note the purpose: “improving the well-being of population”. Whatever one may say about the process of the governance of China or Russia, no one can doubt that the well-being of the population has mightily improved in both countries.
We shall see for the future how this holds up but the document describes a different approach to democracy: don’t concentrate on the process and assume the results will follow – which they are not doing in the USA in particular and the West in general – but instead never mind the process, ask whether the are results desirable? Throughout the document – fifty times – we see the word “development” (“развитие” in the Russian version).
The sides believe that peace, development and cooperation lie at the core of the modern international system.
A world in which everyone has a chance to get rich. And who can doubt that the government in Beijing knows how to do that? We will see, in the coming world competition of ideas, which approach is more attractive and successful.
A second theme, repeated throughout the document is that all countries are equal and they have their own ways of doing things, it is their right to do this, no one may preach to them and no one may interfere with them.
The sides call for the establishment of a new kind of relationship between world powers on the basis of mutual respect, peaceful coexistence and mutually beneficial cooperation.
This is what might be called a descriptive take on the world rather than the prescriptive take more common in the West. To explain what I mean, let us consider Soviet-Polish relations.
Poland suffered terribly, losing 20-25% of its population and was liberated by the Soviet Army after immense destruction. Stalin then designed a Poland which, for the first time in its long history, included all of the historical Polish lands and no irredentist minorities.
Then imposed the blessing – or so Moscow saw it – of socialism and transformed Poland into a loyal ally of the USSR. Except that, the moment it became clear that the tanks weren’t coming, Poland quit the alliance, threw off socialism and turned to NATO and the EU.
All the “fraternal, socialist, ally” rhetoric turned out to be empty declarations of people compelled to say them.
In other words, the lesson is that you can’t change a country except temporarily by force or very slowly over a very long time. Moscow has learned this lesson.
Hence my use of the world “descriptive” – countries, quite simply, are what they are and outsiders can’t change them; therefore outsiders have to live with them.
It’s that simple: the prescriptive notion – we have the truth and you should follow it (we must make Beijing follow the “US-led liberal international order”) simply can’t be done.
Therefore, the emphasis throughout the document that countries are as they are and are to be treated as equals is firmly based on reality. You can’t make a particular country go along with your notions of propriety but you still have to deal with it: treat it as it is.
The West has long lost sight of this despite its numerous failures of prescription: even if the Western ideas actually were “better”, you can’t bomb Afghans into accepting them.
Therefore, this position in the document is quite simply realistic and practical.
They then regarded themselves as a pattern for others to follow – a pattern that others should follow – and the USSR imposed that pattern on many of its neighbours.
Both Beijing and Moscow have learned that exceptionalism is a route to failure. Therefore, what I am calling a “descriptive” approach to world variety is the result of the failure of trying a prescriptive approach.
This is not, therefore, a point of view adopted to gull people into acquiescence, it is one that is based on cold, bitter experience. It is a lesson that Washington has not yet learned: exceptionalism is a road to a blind alley, as Putin put it a quarter century ago.
It is, in fact, something the West should remember: “Westphalianism” is the principle of cuius regio, eius religio adopted after Europeans had torn themselves apart trying to impose religion on each other.
Not uniformity, but variety. The China-Russia manifesto is rooted on a truth that not only they, but Europe as a whole, have learned the hard way.
The Chinese-Russia relationship is described as follows:
They reaffirm that the new inter-State relations between Russia and China are superior to political and military alliances of the Cold War era. Friendship between the two States has no limits, there are no ”forbidden“ areas of cooperation, strengthening of bilateral strategic cooperation is neither aimed against third countries nor affected by the changing international environment and circumstantial changes in third countries.
Time will show just what is meant by this but it is clear that it is a relationship both deep and wide.
A complete commonality of interest which is not uniformity of interest. (It will be amusing to watch Western “experts” fail to get that distinction.) And not one to be easily split apart as some naïve people in Washington think. They trust each other and neither trusts Washington.
Finally, the new world order that they are calling for is described as:
The sides reiterate the need for consolidation, not division of the international community, the need for cooperation, not confrontation. The sides oppose the return of international relations to the state of confrontation between major powers, when the weak fall prey to the strong. The sides intend to resist attempts to substitute universally recognized formats and mechanisms that are consistent with international law for rules elaborated in private by certain nations or blocs of nations…
A new world order for all, not just those who accept “the better way”.
I would expect, as details are filled in at the “strategic” and “operational” level, that this “grand strategic vision” will prove to be widely attractive across the globe. Washington and its allies will, no doubt, concentrate on the many criticisms of its behaviour, but the manifesto is positive in tone.
People are attracted to success and the West doesn’t project that any more.
Remember who you are and whence you came from. It’s important. We all have to keep grounded as the world changes around us.
Don’t get caught up in all the bullshit.
Never forget who you are.
Firefighters in Princeton, New Jersey, 1956
Never forget who you are and where you came from.
We are all unique and we are all special. We really are. We all have stories to tell. Some are fun, some are cute. Some are romantic, and some are terribly embarrassing. But, you know, that’s life.
Don’t worry, though.
There’s always wine, and cheese.
Article 4
Here we take a look at what the Chinese government is economically. In this next article, they call it “Red Capitalism” as there is nothing like it anywhere else in the world. As such it deserves a study, as it is truly very efficient, and a light-year improvement over the best of the West.
This paper is mainly about the Chinese economy, but includes discussion of the Russian and United States (US) economies in order to provide a clearer explanation.
Comparisons
The Chinese economy is the largest in the world according to the latest CIA Fact Book, based on the Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) method.
The CIA claims that the PPP is a better method to use than the nominal method (GDP) based on conversion to US dollars.
Many analysts and politicians still use the nominal method, however, which shows the US in first place and China second. (As it is their preference. They msut keep America lookign great and perfect; the “shining house on the hill”.)
China has been continually careful to claim only second place, presumably as part of its long-term strategic decision to keep its head down and not make unnecessary waves.
Second place also fits better with the significantly lower per-capita income in China and the Chinese aim to keep the status of a “developing country” for purposes of climate change response and funding.
Economic Systems
There are many labels used to describe the various economic systems around the world, most ending in “ism.”
Different authors use the same label to describe different systems, making it hard to understand what they are really referring to in real life.
In reality, most economies appear to be a mixture of various systems, as these are defined in the dictionary.
The Chinese economy is no exception.
So for the purpose of this article, it is simply called “Red Capitalism” for want of a better term.
Red Capitalism is an amalgam of many different systems combined with the so-called “Chinese characteristics.”
The first section of this article provides background information about how the various economic systems are defined by Webster’s. These definitions can be kept in mind while reading the rest of the article.
The second section describes the rivalry between two different methods of explaining and managing a national economy, using either engineering or economics, and how this rivalry plays out in practice. The discussion also touches upon issues with computer models and simulations.
The third section deals with booms and busts. These economic and financial events are a notorious problem that seems to defy a long-term solution. Even the cause(s) of economic and financial instability are lacking any agreement. Some suggested readings are provided for those who wish to delve further into the topic.
The fourth section mentions some aspects of national security which are important for analysis, such as culture and economics. The importance of these two factors in the demise of the USSR is touched upon, and whether China can avoid a similar fate.
The fifth section covers competition and monopoly in China and the US, and how the two countries have tried to deal with these issues. It incorporates many of the topics addressed in the preceding sections and applies them to the evolving situation.
Finally, a sixth concluding section points out some of the difficulties in describing a national economy using the common “isms.” National economies contain elements of various systems, as well as varieties within systems. China is no exception.
I. ECONOMIC “ISMS”
A great deal of discussion in various media concerns differing economic structures, including capitalism and socialism.
The problem with these discussions is that these terms are not defined and other types of economic organization, such as mercantilism and imperialism, are overlooked. For example, there are state capitalism, finance capitalism, crony capitalism, and numerous others.
To assure that both readers and authors were clear about what structure was being addressed, for example, the first page of such articles or books could provide a detailed definition of which capitalism is being discussed.
The Merriam-Webster dictionary states that capitalism is composed of private ownership and private investment decisions, and that prices, production, and distribution are determined by the market.
But there need to be much more detailed descriptions in view of the many different varieties of capitalism.
As for socialism, there is a similar problem of variety.
The dictionary states that socialism is the government ownership and control of the means of production and distribution. That is a start, but what if it is control, but not ownership? Or vice versa?
What about market socialism as promoted by the Swedes versus command socialism theoretically practiced in the USSR?
We could even invent a few new terms: Bankers’ capitalism and bankers’ socialism for a start.
After all, China claims to be socialist but has a central bank and numerous other banks, as do most other countries, including the US. China appears to be following the same economic advice as the US, leading to the same asset bubbles and too-big-to-fail enterprises.
As another example, the dictionary defines mercantilism as the attempt to increase the power and monetary wealth of a nation by government regulation of the economy, usually trying to accumulate gold and promoting a favorable balance of trade.
Mercantilism also supports manufacturing and agricultural development, as well as foreign trading monopolies. The campaign for “Made in China 2025” may be partly viewed in this light.
It is a national strategic plan along the lines of industrial policy to promote manufacturing.
According to some reports, China is the number one gold-producing nation in the world and all the gold produced is purchased by the Chinese government. Imperialism is defined as extending the dominion of a nation by territorial acquisitions or by gaining indirect control over the political or economic life of other territory.
Imperialism and mercantilism support each other, especially in terms of foreign trade, protecting domestic manufacturing and collecting gold and other rare commodities.
Communism is defined in one version as “a system in which goods are owned in common and are available to all as needed.” This definition requires considerable finesse when talking about the Chinese Communist Party.
II. ENGINEERING VS ECONOMICS
Chairman Mao eventually found that he had a problem in keeping control of Chinese politics due to the development of wealthier businessmen and the growing size of the market economy.
His solution was an attempt to return to some of the features of the wartime economy.
These included a semi-drafting of civilians into the army, where they were housed in barracks, clothed in uniform outfits, put on work details in the countryside, fed in the mess hall, and moved about on public transportation.
This was in line with Mao’s experience as a general commanding the Red Army for many years during the civil war in China. This is wartime mobilization, where the generals decide on the final outputs of the economy and the engineers work out the methods to achieve such results.
During war, the civilians are put on rationing and the central plan determines which and what civilian goods will be produced and distributed.
Sort of like Henry Ford’s old adage concerning the some of the Model T cars : “Any customer can have a car painted any colour [sic] so long as it is black.”
Of course, rationing soon becomes unpopular in peacetime.
Mao’s death created a crisis in the Communist Party, with the so-called “Gang of Four” trying to continue his policies, while other officials, led by Deng Xiaoping, called for a different system.
In this system, the economists are supposed to work out the methods to achieve results.
This system could be described as part “market” and part “market socialism” and part “socialism.”
The market part involved privately owned factories and stores producing and selling civilian goods to the public.
The market socialism part involved the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) using army-owned factories to produce civilian goods for sale to the public.
In the socialism part, the PLA-owned factories continued to produce weapons for the military.
The engineering vs economics issue came up in the West at the time of the 1972 Club of Rome report, The Limits to Growth.
This document was based on computer simulations of economic growth which were very pessimistic.
The book was very popular around the world, and it and subsequent reports have been extremely influential in the debates over global warming, climate change, and other policy issues.
The critics, however, claimed the report was based on simplistic scenarios and amateur scholarship.
In essence, the critics said that the report was produced by engineers trying to model the economy without understanding economics.
In addition, the critics pointed out that the computer models did not take into account the changes in price that would come about with scarcity.
The criticism did not seem to deter the Club of Rome in its efforts to remake the world.
Perhaps the members had more confidence in engineers practicing economics, than in economists practicing engineering.
In any event, the same controversy continues to this day concerning the degree to which public policy should rely on computer simulations and models that are sensitive to a few key assumptions.
Computer simulations are well known always to be subject to the “garbage in, garbage out” phenomena, but less well known is that even with good input data, the output can be drastically different with just a few little tweaks in the assumptions.
III. MONEY & CREDIT
China has a problem with asset bubbles and potential busts, as does the US.
China has “ghost cities” and other investments that are symptomatic of malinvestment and too much easy credit.
In the US it was the ill-considered financial enthusiasms of the roaring twenties, the dotcom bubble, the housing bubble, and now the so-called “everything bubble” that have led to recessions and depressions.
There have been scholarly attempts to explain why these episodes keep happening. For example, 100% Money by professor Irving Fisher back in the 1930’s, detailed the problems with fractional reserve banking.
Fisher wrote this with the benefit of hindsight after losing his fortune in the Great Depression.
The book, however, fell on deaf ears.
Much later, in 1983, another book on the subject was published, The Mystery of Banking by Murray N. Rothbard. It had no better success.
In 2016, the former head of the Bank of England, Mervyn King, wrote a book called The End of Alchemy, about the same problem and proposed some solutions.
Nothing much was done.
The gist of these books is that fractional reserve banking is inherently unstable.
Yet this is the system used all over the world.
The national security agencies of China, the US, Russia, and others might benefit from some serious study of these books and the issues with money and banking that they explain, as these issues may be more likely to determine their nations’ economic fate.
In the US, other isolated prophets have explained the mistakes in money and banking policies, yet, again, nothing much has been done, resulting in potentially grim future prospects.
If these books are correct in their analyses of the situation, then the first country to adopt a proper solution would gain significant advantages over other countries.
IV. NATIONAL SECURITY
National security studies and analyses spend a lot of time and effort on competing weapon systems, elections, coups, revolutions, as well as on culture, space, cyber, energy, and psychological warfare.
The studies appear to spend much less effort on education and economic security issues.
Out of all these types of warfare, the USSR turned out to be grossly deficient in two important areas: Culture and economics.
Western commercial culture was simply more attractive to the Soviet public than what they had at home.
As more and more Soviets learned about the difference, the more trouble Moscow had in getting the public to believe in the Soviet system.
The question is whether China will experience the same problem.
It appears that China has plenty of Western commercial culture and its own adaptations, as well as conducting a re-invigoration of its traditional culture that goes back thousands of years.
This may help to immunize China against this aspect of the Soviet problem.
As for economics, the USSR followed a less desirable path.
There are many competing schools of thought concerning what happened, but a basic view is that the planned sector of the USSR economy got into a fight with the unplanned sector and they knocked each other out.
The USSR was not able to come up with a solution to the command vs. market problem that worked.
China studied the USSR disaster and decided to follow a different path.
V. COMPETITION & MONOPOLY
It appears that China is ahead of the US in realizing that certain policies favored by the oligarchs could be dangerous to the economy and the State.
However late to take action, China has recently cracked down on the chiefs of many giant enterprises in a move to curtail their power and influence.
They were beginning to rival the authority of the Communist Party.
There is always a potential for oligarchs to find common cause with oligarchs in other parts of the world and joining in schemes such as the New World Order, thus possibly escaping control by the national governments.
This power struggle in China will have ramifications throughout the world.
In the US, it is not even a struggle—the oligarchs are generally considered to be on the top of the heap and nothing much is even considered in the way of curtailing their power.
Considering former President Trump’s experience with them, they are way ahead in the power game and are also alleged to be behind the curtain as far as President Biden is concerned.
In the past, the US came up with the Sherman Act and the Clayton Act in order to help control monopoly power.
President Theodore Roosevelt campaigned as a trust-buster and the laws were used to break up the Standard Oil Company.
Later on when President Franklin Roosevelt was in office, the US instituted the Glass-Steagall Act to address problems which were said to have contributed to the Great Depression.
The act separated commercial banking from investment banking.
At that time, brokerage houses were a separate feature of the US economy.
These laws were also used to break up some of the concentration in the telephone industry.
However, things went into reverse during the President Clinton era, when the Glass-Steagall Act was repealed and banks could combine all forms of banking and brokerage into a single enterprise.
It was not surprising when the resulting conglomerates grew so large that they were termed “too big to fail” and had to be bailed out by the government.
In addition, the anti-trust laws did not seem very useful in controlling the very large tech companies of recent times.
Thus to call the US a “capitalist” or “free market” economy is not very helpful since the economy has had very different features at different times, as well as differing degrees of competition.
Thus a question in analyzing the Chinese economy might be to ask if China has the equivalent of the Sherman, Clayton, and Glass-Seagall Acts, and are they actually used or enforced?
Does China have other laws and regulations that promote competition or manage monopolies in the public interest?
When the Chinese first opened up the economy after Mao, there was relatively little in the way of funding for the military to pay for modernization.
The solution was to allow the military to go into producing civilian goods for sale to the public and then keep the profits to help pay for military goods.
Analysts would need to research whether the military eventually stopped producing its own weapons and purchased them from commercial industrial companies.
How is the military-industrial complex actually structured in modern China?
Who owns the armaments factories?
More recently in China, the central government has encouraged the military to get out of the civilian goods business and stick to the military side.
Again, much more detail is needed in order to comment on the Chinese economic system than to only use the generic terms “capitalism” and “socialism.”
It is even more ineffective to toss about the word “communism.”
Another example of the difficulty in pasting labels on different economies: In Russia it appears that the armament-producing factories and companies are owned by the government.
In early US times, the military arsenals and navy shipyards were also owned by the government.
Pretty much the embodiment of “socialism” in both cases.
Now, however, weapons in the US are produced in factories owned by private or non-government companies.
However, there seems to be very little real or practical competition in much of the US military-industrial complex, so maybe it would be better described as part “mercantilist” or with some other term?
Some experts have claimed that the US has already lost the arms race with Russia, so perhaps the US should try a different tack and return to having the military set up its own factories to produce the exotic weapons needed to compete with Russia?
The US has approximately six arsenals currently operating, but they do not produce the types of weapons that are made in Russia.
Would this partial return to a variety of “socialism” help the generals to get the weapons they really want, instead of the weapons that produce the most profits?
The US Army went back a century to find a design for its latest uniform, maybe the army could consider a return to the old-fashioned arsenals of a century ago.
VI. CONCLUSION
Any discussion of “isms” such as capitalism and socialism cannot shed much light unless more rigorous and detailed definitions are employed, since both “isms” have many varieties.
In addition, any serious discussion should address the extent to which mercantilism and imperialism are part of the mix.
All this gets very complex very rapidly, so it is not surprising that such is seldom done.
In addition, there is little evidence of any current investigation concerning the command versus market issue in national economies, despite its historical importance in China and Russia.
The problems with computer modeling and simulation are well known, but continue to arise in studies of economic growth, climate change, and spread of disease.
This difficulty has serious implications for China as the nation is faced with vast disagreement between engineers and economists in designing computer simulation models.
Finally, the “skeleton in the closet” that almost no one wants to address is the design of the money and credit system for a nation.
Such a look would impinge on the currently politically correct belief in the proper role and nature of commercial banks, investment banks, and central banks.
It is interesting from a national security standpoint that China has seemingly adopted much of the US and UK system of banking, despite centuries of having panics, booms and busts, recessions and depressions in the latter countries.
“Red Capitalism” is an amalgam of many “isms,” with Chinese characteristics. So far, it appears to be relatively successful, certainly more so than the system employed in India.
However, one can see the same maladies creeping into China that currently beset the US: Malinvestment, stock market excesses, interest rate manipulation, real estate speculation, and increasing concentration of wealth.
The question for the world is which country will be the first to find and implement a cure for these maladies.
…
The point herein is that anyone who refers to China as a “regime”, and that possesses a “Communist” for of governance DOES NOT UNDERSTAND modern, contemporaneous China and their article and opinions whould be ignored as noise of the ignorant.
You can quote me on that.
A rainy evening in New York’s Times Square under the neon lights of the “Black Widow” marquee.
Article 5
Now, that we know that China has developed and improving on their greatly improved model of governance, and has aligned with the Russian powerhouse, what of the United States? Is it just sitting by the sidelines, or is it in great distress, as the “house of cards” collapses all around it?
Things are turning, indeed, out there… out in the truck stops and the households fending off repossession and the small businesses struggling desperately for survivial — even in the degenerate halls of government….
Clusterfuck Nation
If the ads on the Superbowl each year are like a Rorschach test for the nation’s mental condition, then this year’s ad-roll was a cavalcade of frantic hallucinations suggesting a near-complete detachment from reality for an audience of ADD-disabled cell phone slaves locked into a Big Tech induced consensus trance. You could barely tell what these advertisers were trying to sell in their commercials, the psychotic dazzle of half-second jump-cuts was so ferocious. One interesting note, though: people of non-color (PONCs) seem to have been magically sucked out of the universe. There, that fixed things for everybody else.
Snoop Dog’s half-time house party — Hollywood’s G-rated version of a BLM riot — heralded a real riot later on in downtown LA after the Rams’ victory. Fans lit-up a metro bus and tagged it with spray-paint. The police moved in… objects were thrown at them. I’m just sorry that Snoop didn’t bring out his friend and sometime co-star Martha Stewart to twerk for the multitudes — while, say, whipping up a pumpkin mousse. That might have brought the country together after all these months of rancor. But, like I said, sorry, PONCs need not apply. Nor did Da Dawg invite onstage my favorite new pop star, Ski Mask the Slump God, composer of the hits “Faucet Failure” and “Foot Fungus.” Maybe next year… if there is a next year….
All this hearty good fellowship marks the journey of our country from a convocation of be-wigged founding fathers wielding quill pens in defense of liberty to a security-and-surveillance state of hebephrenic zombies lurching to a kind of failure that will make the fall of the Roman Empire look like a lawn sale of someone’s dead uncle’s chattels and effects. The drain-pipe beckons… but will America answer that call… or take a different turn?
Things are turning, indeed, out there… out in the truck stops and the households fending off repossession and the small businesses struggling desperately for survival — even in the degenerate halls of government, state-by-state. The armature of Covid-19 tyranny is getting rapidly dismantled by politicians close to running for their very lives. The home-folks have had enough of their insolence and they’re sharpening the tines of their pitchforks. Events also conspire to put the schnitz on the alleged Globalists’ dream of digital tyranny — if there even is such a cabal of Globalists, which I’m not sure about, or just a coterie of feckless hacks swept along by a malefic zeitgeist, Canada’s Justin Trudeau being the poster-boy for that breed.
The timing has gone all awry on them. The Covid-19 hysteria draws to a close against their wishes to drag it on forever. Even the triple-vaccinated are sick of it — and not a few of them are sick because of it. Governments and the corrupt medical establishment won’t touch this info with a stick, but the morticians and insurance execs are hopping up and down about what looks like a supernatural die-off of folks between 18 and 60 generally not susceptible to early death. Kind of worrisome, a little bit. Anybody with half-a-brain left is declining the offer of yet another booster — though Dr. Fauci was still tirelessly selling them last week.
Mainly, though, the window-of-opportunity has closed, in the USA, anyway, for anymore vaccine passport nonsense, and with that goes the dream of roping every last citizen into a corral of total social control, including central bank digital currencies that would turn everyone into a yo-yo to be jerked-around by government.
“Joe Biden” has so far failed to deliver that war with Russia over Ukraine he promised us — which would be like two Craig’s List customers fighting over a twenty-year-old Jeep Wrangler up on blocks with the engine missing. Ukraine president Zelensky is a professional comedian, of course, so one must admire his gag of inviting “Joe Biden” to visit his country, the Gem of Eurasia, “in the coming days,” Mr. Zelensky said, “which will be a powerful signal and contribute to de-escalation.” Plus, all the pierogi and cabbage the US president can eat. All this made National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan gnash his teeth for the trouble he has gone to in prepping the sore-beset American people for World War Three.
But Mr. Sullivan has, perhaps, other things to think about. Like… what are all these offstage noises Special Counsel John Durham is making in the grand jury chambers? Something about Hillary Clinton, and the helpmeets surrounding her in the 2016 election (including especially Jake Sullivan), alleged to have fabricated the Russian collusion whopper that deranged the nation for four years and disabled a sitting president. They even managed to enlist the FBI and the CIA in that task. How’d that happen? Could Hillary have been that peevish? Anyway, it looks kind of bad for the National Security Advisor to “Joe Biden” having such an epic political fraud tacked onto his resume, with perhaps an indictment to follow. Standing by on his resignation….
Our NATO allies must be enjoying the rise of natgas prices beyond the level that many middle-class households in Euroland can afford to keep the heat on in the dead middle of winter, since they have to get so much of the stuff from Russia. Maybe jamming Ukraine into NATO, as America’s Deep State has been wishing and hoping to do, wasn’t such a great idea after all. Maybe NATO itself isn’t such a great idea anymore.
If World War Three doesn’t pan out for “JB,” there’s always a global meltdown of financial markets, banks, and currencies waiting in the wings to amuse and distract everybody from the post-Covid call for a long, hard look at what the pandemic was actually about. The story, in all its multiple, gruesome levels, has gotten away from them. So many public officials are standing naked that Washington looks like a nudist colony.
…
Do You Know, In the year 1951, Libya was the world’s poorest country. Gaddafi made it Africa’s most developed country with $150 billion foreign reserves And zero debt. Under Muammar Gaddafi, Libya had one of the world’s strongest currencies.
1 Libyan Dinar equalled $0.82781 in 2011. Gaddafi wanted to give all African countries the Dinar to strengthen their economies. He also had more than 140 Tonnes of Gold and similar amounts in silver which he wanted to distribute across Africa to be used in trading.
▪️Libya under Gaddafi.
-Free health care
-Free Electricity
-Free housing, owning a house was considered a human right in Libya
-Free medicine
-Free Education in the country including for all Libyan students who were studying abroad.
-Free water, he built a river.
-Interest Free loans
-Newly weds received $50,000
-Mothers received $5,000 on birth on child.
-All citizens received a percentage of all oil sales
-Petrol was $ 0.14 per liter
-Government paid 50% of the price of your car
-Unemployed Libyans received the average salary of their profession.
▪️These were the reasons why so many individuals wanted to travel to Libya for greener pastures, but now, reverse is the case. Thanks to America bombing it into dust…
America used to be a land with so much potential. A “melting pot” of cultures, and of freedom. Why, you could have “bunnies” serving men in the open at bars, and massage parlors and no one said anything. Not today. Try that today. It will never happen.
Bunny Girls taking an order in a club restaurant in London, 11th February 1963.
Yeah. Look at those prices!
I jsut cannot control myself. I really must stare hard to see the prices and the food items in the menu.
> The U.S. intelligence briefing included specific reference to next Wednesday, February 16, as a start date for the ground invasion, three officials — based in Washington, London and Ukraine — told POLITICO. <
And 200,000 troops? Yesterday there were only 100,000. How can those have doubled over night?
There is also the question of why.
Why has the Biden administration created an artificial ‘crisis’ about a Russian invasion of Ukraine when such an invasion is neither planned nor likely to happen? Why is it claiming that a Russian invasion of the Ukraine is ‘imminent’ when Russia as well as the Ukraine deny that any will be coming.
Why does it distribute misleading satellite pictures of allegedly deployed tanks when those are directly next to the barracks where they belong? Why does it hype a ‘Russian buildup’ when that is something that is claimed each and every year?
Jack Matlock, the last U.S. ambassador to the USSR, has one answer:
Maybe I am wrong – tragically wrong – but I cannot dismiss the suspicion that we are witnessing an elaborate charade, grossly magnified by prominent elements of the American media, to serve a domestic political end. Facing rising inflation, the ravages of Omicron, blame (for the most part unfair) for the withdrawal from Afghanistan, plus the failure to get the full support of his own party for the Build Back Better legislation, the Biden administration is staggering under sagging approval ratings just as it gears up for this year’s congressional elections.Since clear "victories" on the domestic woes seem increasingly unlikely, why not fabricate one by posing as if he prevented the invasion of Ukraine by "standing up to Vladimir Putin"?Actually, it seems most likely that President Putin’s goals are what he says they are – and as he has been saying since his speech in Munich in 2007. To simplify and paraphrase, I would sum them up as: "Treat us with at least a modicum of respect. We do not threaten you or your allies, why do you refuse us the security you insist for yourself?"
The authoritative Global Times in an editorial warns that the U.S. is instigating conflict in Ukraine in order to tighten bloc discipline – to corral European States back into the U.S.-led fold. No doubt, China makes the connection that Ukraine provides the perfect pivot for shepherding Europe towards America’s next stage of requiring a united front with the U.S. for the later task of barricading-in China, behind her borders.In play, therefore, are key decisions that will define Europe for the future. On the one hand, (as Pepe Escobar noted some two years ago), “the goal of Russian and Chinese policy is to recruit Germany into a triple alliance locking together the Eurasian land mass à la Mackinder into the greatest geopolitical alliance in history – switching world power in favour of these three great powers, and against Anglo-Saxon sea power”.And on the other hand, NATO was conceived, from the outset, as a means of Anglo-American control over Europe and more precisely for keeping Germany ‘down’, and Russia ‘out’ (in that old axiom of western strategists). Lord Hastings (Lionel Ismay), NATO’s first Secretary General, famously said that NATO was created to “keep the Soviet Union out, the Americans in, and the Germans down”.This mindset lingers on, but the formula has acquired today a greater import, and a new twist: To keep Germany ‘down and price uncompetitive’ versus U.S. goods; to keep Russia ‘out’ from being Europe’s source of cheap energy; and to keep China ‘fenced out’ from EU–U.S. trade. The aim is to contain Europe firmly within America’s narrowly defined economic orbit and compelled to forgo the benefits of Chinese and Russian technology, finance and trade – thus helping towards achieving the aim of barricading China within its borders.
I find both explanations, the domestic one and the foreign policy one, very plausible and a combination of them is the most likely motive behind the plan for is affair.
The Washington Post explains how the campaign was hashed out and directed from the White House. Its headline though is misleading:
Inside the White House preparations for a Russian invasion A “Tiger Team” of administration officials has spent the past several months preparing a clear series of responses, gaming out scenarios from cyberattacks and limited intervention to an invasion of Ukraine.
A more correct headline would have been “Inside the White House preparations of the ‘Russian invasion’ scam”.
Lets look into that:
As fears grow of potential Russian aggression against Ukraine, a “Tiger Team” led by the White House is quietly gaming out how the United States would respond to a range of jarring scenarios, from a limited show of force to a full-scale, mass-casualty invasion.The White House team has staged two multihour tabletop exercises — including one with Cabinet officials — to bring the scenarios to life and assembled a playbook that outlines an array of swift potential responses, starting with Day One and extending through the first two weeks of an envisioned Russian invasion.The effort, senior administration officials said, has not only helped them anticipate possible complications, but has also prompted them to take actions ahead of time, such as exposing Russian information warfare before it’s carried out to blunt its propaganda power.
The team preplanned their daily propaganda releases step by step:
The “Tiger Team” — a term referring to a diverse group of experts who are tackling a specific problem and that suggests alertness and a readiness to pounce — was created after National Security Council officials last October detected troubling signs of a massive Russian troop buildup on the Ukrainian border.NSC officials readily admit they may be unable to precisely anticipate the moves of Russian President Vladimir Putin and his military leaders. But the exercise and robust planning is still worth it, they said.“The reality is that what the Russians may end up doing is not likely to be a 100 percent match for any of these scenarios,” [Jonathan Finer, deputy national security adviser to President Biden,] said. “But the goal is for them to be a close enough facsimile of what they end up doing that the plans are useful in terms of reducing the amount of time we need in order to respond effectively. That’s really the whole goal.”
The ‘massive Russian troop buildup on the Ukrainian border’ has never happened in real life. Most of the Russian troops are hundreds of miles away from Ukraine.
It was the Washington Post which on October 30 2021 was the first to publish the claims by ‘anonymous officials’ of a ‘Russian buildup’.
(Side remark: The name ‘Tiger team’ or ‘Tiger squad’ was also used for the Saudi group that killed and hacked up a Washington Post opinion writer Jamal Khashoggi. Funny that the Washington Post piece does not mention that fact.)
The Tiger Team was officially born in November, when national security adviser Jake Sullivan asked Alex Bick, the NSC director for strategic planning, to lead a planning effort across multiple agencies. Bick has brought in the Departments of Defense, State, Energy, Treasury and Homeland Security, along with the U.S. Agency for International Development to look at a possible humanitarian crisis.The intelligence community is also involved, gaming out various courses of action the Russians might pursue and the risks and advantages of each, officials said.
While the official launch of the ‘Tiger team’ might have been in November it is clear that the whole operation started earlier when the Ukrainians were asked to take part in the sham:
Simon Shuster @Shustry - 8:29 PM · Feb 14, 2022Source close to Zelensky told me the U.S. first warned his team of a Russian invasion last fall, putting the chances at 80%. The Ukrainians didn't buy it, but they saw an opportunity -- "more aid, more attention" -- and played along. Now they have regrets. Too much attention.
The CIA has flown paramilitaries from Ukrainian Nazi groups to the U.S. to train them:
While the covert program, run by paramilitaries working for the CIA’s Ground Branch — now officially known as Ground Department — was established by the Obama administration after Russia’s invasion and annexation of Crimea in 2014, and expanded under the Trump administration, the Biden administration has further augmented it, said a former senior intelligence official in touch with colleagues in government.By 2015, as part of this expanded anti-Russia effort, CIA Ground Branch paramilitaries also started traveling to the front in eastern Ukraine to advise their counterparts there, according to a half-dozen former officials.The multiweek, U.S.-based CIA program has included training in firearms, camouflage techniques, land navigation, tactics like “cover and move,” intelligence and other areas, according to former officials.
These groups will be the forces to use when the U.S. decides to launch some false flag ‘Russian attacks’ on Ukrainian civilians.
As you watch it consider that every move in this is preplanned:
The playbook itself goes far beyond battlefield scenarios, looking at questions like how to address Ukrainian refugees who might stream into Poland and Romania, how to secure the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv, exactly what sort of sanctions to impose on Moscow, and how to fight back against a sophisticated cyberattack.The playbook — which synthesizes nearly three dozen papers and intelligence assessments commissioned by the team from various agencies — has been distributed to the various officials, including military and civilian leaders at the Pentagon.The playbook also considers “second order” consequences, such as Russian retaliation for any penalties.
Those ‘sophisticated cyberattacks’ will most likely come from the National Security Agency which is part of the Pentagon. When the White House will claim that it has evidence of a ‘Russian cyberattack’ on Ukraine, which it is likely to do, keep in mind that anyone who claims to be able to find the real source of such an attack is selling snake oil.
Along the playbook the White House also released disinformation which claims that Russia will use such:
Among the Tiger Team’s top concerns is a Russian effort to promote the false narrative that it is Ukraine, aided by the West, that is preparing to launch an offensive in eastern Ukraine, and that Russia is the victim.In recent weeks, the U.S. government has declassified intelligence about such efforts, including a potential “false flag” plot in which Moscow would stage an explosion that kills ethnic Russians in Ukraine or in Russia itself, and then blame it on Kyiv as a possible pretext for an invasion.
The White House has declassified nothing that anyone was allowed to see. As the NYT correctly remarked:
For all the disclosures, the Biden administration has provided no evidence of the disinformation plots they say they have uncovered.
In December, the Tiger Team held two virtual tabletop exercises to road-test various scenarios and responses. The first brought together deputy secretaries and the second involved Cabinet officials. Biden has reviewed the playbook and was briefed on the results, officials said.“It’s one thing to consider each of these problems — energy, sanctions, military posture — in isolation. It’s quite another to put them all together and execute a plan on all of them,” the NSC official said. “What I saw over the course of this planning exercise was, including at the most senior levels, lightbulbs go on about the way the pieces fit together.”
The plan is integrated enough to allow for aims and achievements in multiple fields.
That is why I believe that both, Matlock and Crooke, are right in their guesses of the motives behind the ‘Russian invasion’ scam.
There are domestic aims and there are foreign policy aims and the pieces of the plan fit them together.
But that is only so if the whole thing does not unravel. In real life no battle plan survives the first contact with the enemy.
Zelensky’s much criticized unwillingness to play his part of the show may just be one of the elements that will let it all fall apart.
Then there is Russia which is always good at creating real surprises. I bet that its security demands and the draft treaties it provided where not foreseen in the playbook. They already succeeded in pressing Biden into concessions the U.S. had previously been unwilling to make. More surprises in different areas will follow. As soon as the Olympics are over China may also come to play a role in this.
Big plans make for big failures.
…
So here we are, eh?
Asia has their shit together and the USA is run by “old dinosaurs” that cannot change as they fear that if they do they will lose everythign and have to accept a new lifestyle. So they ae off threatening war…
…everywhere.
I’ll tell you, it make me yearn for the days when America used to stand for something; when it used to represent something. When families mattered.
When people… mattered.
When pets… mattered.
When food… mattered.
When life, family and friends…mattered.
Where has it gone? Well, I tell you that it’s due to the American leadership. And what evil monsters that they have become. Maybe they would act and behave a little bit differently if they had regular, and normal lifestyles. If they acted and behaved normally, and if they participated within their own open and free communities, instead of living like robber barrons on methamphetamines.
Baseball.
Yeah.
I miss the “good old days”…
When you could pull over and have a picnic without have a police car “investigate” what you are doing…
Article 7
I truly need to spend more time with cats.
I miss Leonardo. He was a good kitty.
What does Russia think about all this?
Tim Kirby
February 15, 2022
No progress can be made until the West either sees the Russians as equals or at least fears them enough to create respect like they did in the Cold War, Tim Kirby writes.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s particular take on politics has created many memes on the Russian Internet. His personal frustrations having to negotiate and deal with the West are very relatable to the Russian masses who also want to normalize relations. His crestfallen yet visibly angered words “F’n Morons” have become the stuff of meme legend throughout Russia, although few realize that it was actually said during discussions with the Saudis and not America or Britain as most would assume. But this statement so resonated with the pure frustration that Russians have been feeling, that the populace just sort of shifted the target of his words to the ultimate source of their dismay that started the Maidan Color Revolution in 2014, which has been spiraling downwards ever since. Foreign Minister Lavrov has proved not to be a one hit wonder and his recent trolling of his British counterpart Liz Truss exploded over the Russian internet. This interesting strange moment in the endless and pointless battle of The West vs. Russia is a real microcosm of the nature of how both sides see themselves and the other and demands a full breakdown.
So the situation looks like this, again an annoyed and worn down Lavrov tried to prove a point about how little the West actually understands about the Ukrainian Crisis with some verbal fencing…
MOSCOW, February 10. /TASS/. British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss refused to recognize Russia’s sovereignty over the Voronezh and Rostov Regions at talks with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on Thursday, a source close to the negotiations told TASS.After Truss’ statements urging Moscow to move its forces, located on Russia’s soil, away from the border with Ukraine, Lavrov asked his British counterpart if she recognized Russia’s sovereignty over the Voronezh and Rostov Regions.According to the source, Truss insisted that the UK would never recognize Russia’s sovereignty over these regions.
Although the Russian internet was smugly proud of this quippy achievement there is a level of pure honesty in the reaction from the British that most Russians simply are incapable of seeing. The Russians are all laughing at her answer taking it as a literal reaction, but metaphorically she told the God’s honest truth from an Anglo-Saxon perspective.
Truss clearly refused to recognize two regions of Russia as being part of Russia out of willful ignorance. There are fine lines between idiocy, ignorance and willful ignorance, but behind the latter of the three there can often be a very crafty and hateful intelligence. No truth pith-helmeted British colonizer would dare to learn anything about her barbaric adversaries, and in this display of pure willful ignorance she perfectly articulated the view of the West towards Russia – they don’t recognize any of Russia’s concerns, demands, leadership or even statehood as legitimate, nor do they need to justify their positions with facts and knowledge when dealing with Untermenschen.
The reaction of the British Foreign Secretary was an unintended act of pure and total dominance. Can you imagine, just how low she and her colleagues must view the Russians as to be charged with dealing with them and yet know absolutely nothing about their country, their geography and the nature of the Ukrainian Crisis? Discussing a situation that has killed thousands of people yet choosing to learn zero basic information is “alpha-chad” to say the least.
Truss answered like a Roman general forced to lower himself to speaking to unwashed Barbarians, who has zero concern for any details about these subhuman animals and their pathetic pseudoculture. All the Roman needs to know is that the allied Barbarians in Ukraine are right and the enemy ones in Russia are wrong. What town or river is where doesn’t make any difference. This Roman attitude of seeing the world as one of civility vs. barbarity hasn’t gone anywhere, and a true sign of a “civilized person” is having zero knowledge or tolerance for the ways of the backwards.
Although Russians may find tricking Anglo-Saxon counterparts into revealing how ignorant they are as a coping mechanism for losing the Cold War, they forget that the supposedly 80 IQ gender-queer limp-wristed twits on the other side of the line have beaten them time and again. My Russian children, living in Russia, have already asked me numerous LGBT-related questions yet have not once asked anything about Multipolarity, Traditional Values or Orthodox Christianity. Russians may find narcissistic joy in mocking the English-speaking world for being ignorant, but apparently being able to quote Pushkin doesn’t win 21st century info wars now, does it? When you’ve got Hollywood, the entire Mainstream Media, Big Tech and so on, you don’t need to know where anything is on a map. The Anglo-Saxons have plenty of knowledge, they just feel they don’t need to know a damn thing about you Russians. That is the nuance the Russians cannot perceive on their mental radar.
This trolling by Lavrov really shows that the joke is actually on Russia. The Russians continue, after years of failing, to try to reason with those who see them as subhuman animals. Perhaps we are moving towards a Multipolar World due to economics, geography and the West shooting itself in the foot, but as far as cultural/info wars are going if you look at the youth around Moscow you can clearly see who is winning.
Perhaps it is actually Lavrov’s side who is ignorant as to how to deal with the Romans from a Barbarian standpoint, and simply cannot wrap their brains around the fact that no progress can be made until the West either sees the Russians as equals or at least fears them enough to create respect like they did in the Cold War. It would also help if the Russians would wake up to the fact that they are considered Barbarians, the fact that Hitler killed millions of them due to his belief that they are racially inferior, just won’t sink in for some reason.
Russia continues to step on the same rake over and over again by seeing itself as equal to the West and believing that the stress between both sides is caused by some sort of cultural misunderstanding. The real intellectual question the Russians should be asking themselves is by what means could a Germanic Barbarian chief convince a Roman general that they are equals?
How could they make him see the villages and culture of the Rhine as just as human and glorious as Rome? This first step to this particular negotiation is really the necessity for the Russians to hack through layer-upon-layer of Anglo-Saxon cultural superiority that creates the type of willful ignorance displayed unabashedly by Liz Truss. Although it is hard to formulate a winning strategy for this problem, it surely lies in the fact that deep down the Civilized man will always secretly envy the freedom and uncastrated status of the Barbarian, but that is a topic for another day.
…
Behind all the intensifying huffing and puffing of the US in the geopolitical arena. “More than 60% of all foreign currency reserves in the world are in USD – but there are big changes on the horizon … some of the biggest economies on earth have been making agreements with each other to move away from using the USD in international trade (Image: https://lnkd.in/eAP8tF3B) … [this shift is] going to have massive implications for the US economy.
10 reasons why the reign of the dollar as the world reserve currency [may] come to an end:
#1: China And Japan To Use Own Currencies In Bilateral Trade
The 2nd largest economy (China) and 3rd largest economy (Japan) struck a deal [to] use of their own currencies. This was an incredibly important agreement that was virtually totally ignored by the US media. [Read an extract of the BBC in the article].
#2: The BRICS Plan To Use Own Currencies When Trading
A new agreement will promote the use of their own national currencies when trading with each other. [An extract from a news source in India is in the article].
#3: China and Russia Use Own Currencies In Bilateral Trade
[In fact,] Russia and China have been using their own national currencies when trading with each other for more than a year now.
#4: Use Of Chinese Currency Growing In Africa
In 2009, China became Africa’s biggest trading partner, and is aggressively seeking to expand the use of Chinese currency. At this point, approx. 70,000 Chinese companies are using Yuan in cross-border transactions.
#5: China and UAE To Use Own Currencies In Bilateral Trade
– in oil transactions with each other. The UAE is a fairly small player, but this is definitely a threat to the petrodollar system.
#6: India To Use Gold To Buy Oil From Iran
Iran has been one of the most aggressive nations when it comes to moving away from the USD in international trade.
#7: Saudi Arabia Likely to Abandon Use of Petrodollar in Dealings With China
[China] imports the most oil from Saudi Arabia. [They] have teamed up to construct a massive new oil refinery in Saudi.
#8: The UN Continues to Push For A New World Reserve Currency
#9: The IMF Has Been Pushing For A New World Reserve Currency
– published a series of reports calling for the USD to be replaced.
#10: Most Of The Rest Of The World Hates The US
Global sentiment toward the US has dramatically shifted, and this should not be underestimated.
What will happen if the USD’s reign as the world reserve currency comes to an end? It will bring very undesirable changes to the American lifestyle through:
1. massive inflation,
2. high interest rates on mortgages and cars,
3. substantial increases in the cost of food, clothing and gasoline; and
4. a much harder time financing its debt [$30 trillion and counting].
Under the right conditions, a shift in momentum can become a landslide.”
So stop with cruel sanctions and printing of new US dollars to fund senseless wars.
Life in Florida when things were affordable, and people could raise families on a single income without having to ascribe to “systems” and pay “fees” in support of “taxes” all to go to a “government” to generate more “wars of distraction”.
Ford Fairlane, 1956
Article 8
I see all of this as late-stage decay, and the beginnigns of a rebirth. Whether or not it will be catastrophic has yet to be seen, but I do remain hopeful.
As Plato observed, democracy runs through a life cycle from good feelings at having escaped oligarchy to a semi-oligarchic period until it reaches its final stage, narcissistic mob rule under protection by tyrants.
Then the tyrants import diversity to vote against the majority interest so the tyrants can rule, and then the society collapses into a third world ruin.
Modern people, who understand nothing other than human social intentions, thought the cycle did not apply to them, not realizing that it accurately diagnosed the cause/effect relationships that occur as people react to the precedent of equality.
When democracy enters its endgame, the destroyers have a leg up because they have taken over the institutions that formerly worked for the population and are now seeking to destroy that population so the foreigners can enthrone the tyrant.
As some have mentioned, tyranny is rule for its own sake, or people seeking power for their own benefit at the expense of the interests of the society. Tyrants would rather rule over ashes than be normal people in a healthy society.
Liberalization — the political arm of individualism, or the same “me first at the expense of all else” bourgeois pathology that underscores tyranny — creates inversion that eventually destroys the society.
It begins with liberating individuals by relaxing rules. These rules, derived from reality and culture, restrain individuals from selfishness and self-destructive pathologies. When they are removed, selfishness takes over.
After some time, this proves destructive, so people speak out. The inversion begins: the society bans any criticism of some liberalization, since the critics will upend the “progress” toward a Utopia of equality.
The more time passes, the worse things get and the louder the critics whine, so more stuff gets demonized, made taboo, or outright banned until all that is left are terms that praise the system as it is.
Language has become inverted at that point, as has meaning. Nothing can be said but praise of the inevitable march from Enlightenment™ to Communism, and anyone who wants to be allowed to speak in public must affirm that the “arc of history” leads toward this progress.
Eventually, however, this order inverts. The things that people praise become seen as failing or failed. The terms that were once positive become handy shorthand for describing things which do not work so well. The inverted is in turn inverted.
These civilizations die from disinterest in a wave of combined apathy and anarchy. The system sucks, but no one who says this will be allowed to be anything but desperately poor, so the “experts” form an echo chamber that agrees that things are not failing, but better than ever before!
Then things fall apart. Those who thought they were running a successful society start to see that they are running a failure. They rush to implement their tyranny before the population bails out.
Unfortunately for them, however, they think in terms of enemies only when the real threat to them is lack of belief. Conjectural, messianic, and Utopian (CMU) systems like liberalization require people to believe that things are getting better.
When anyone succeeds without them, people realize belatedly that the whole liberalization project was never needed, and life is in fact better without that overhead of management, bureaucracy, administration, regulation, and wealth transfer taxes.
At this point, no one in the real world believes in the system, but those who depend on it — celebrities, media, minorities, government employees, regulations lawyers, and academics — defend it, fooling most of the people for some time.
Then at some point, that time ends, and the average person starts to see the system as the parasite that it always was. They do not oppose it so much as withdraw their support, sort of like how people stopped watching the NFL or Netflix shows.
Those who know that the system sucks but rationalize it so that they can continue to act out positions that were once important (here, we are speaking of post-Buckley “conservatives”) keep trying to explain the bad as good and failing.
People turn away. They turn toward their homes. They cheat aggressively on taxes and buy everything through the black market. They hide any wealth they have, and most importantly, do only a perfunctory job of their work role.
The would-be tyrants, in response to this loss of faith, crack down on those who visibly protest, in doing so revealing how they have been inverted. The defenders of equality and freedom have now become favoritists and authoritarians.
“These blockades are illegal, and if you are still participating the time to go home is now,” Trudeau declared after meeting virtually with leaders of the country’s provinces.Invoking the Emergencies Act would allow the government to declare the Ottawa protest illegal and clear it out by such means as towing vehicles, Wark said. It would also enable the government to make greater use of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, the federal police agency.Over the past weeks, authorities have hesitated to move against the protesters. Local officials cited a lack of police manpower and fears of violence, while provincial and federal authorities disagreed over who had responsibility for quelling the unrest.
If you blow off a summer of burning cities and violence in the name of egalitarian causes, but then crack down on those who merely want you to slow your acceleration of transfer of wealth, power, and status from the naturally talented to the rest of the “equals,” then you reveal that you have been inverted.
The good guys, who made bad=good so that society could liberalize, now have become the bad guys.
Even the numb and slumbering voters realize at this point that now they are in an authoritarian regime. You either obey the dogma and read another “The Conservative Case for Pre-K Transsexual Sodomy” article, or you become an enemy of the State.
Following the collapse of its erswhile allies in freedom with the fall of the Soviet Union, modernity expanded according to precedent, increasing each one of these things through a world financial network known as globalism.
Now it has become clear that this New World Order has collapsed from within as disorder breaks out across the globe:
Looking back at the past 14 years, it is with some consternation that Wolfgang Ischinger “cannot recall a time when there were so many overlapping crises.” That’s a reference to the challenges posed by Iran, China and the evolving Euro-Atlantic security architecture. A long list that could still encompass many other global hot spots.Indeed, the extraordinary profusion of unresolved crises is itself the central topic in this year’s MSR.The report describes a mood of “collective helplessness.” In the same way as ordinary individuals, whole societies can be overcome by a sense that they simply have no answer to the challenges they face.
In other words, people have lost faith in the system and now are reverting to pre-civilization behaviors by acting toward their own personal and civilizational interests without regard to other groups.
This means that not only has democracy failed, but the underlying belief in equality, altruism, pluralism, utilitarianism, and socially-accepted individualism has faded away.
We are seeing a crisis of confidence in that no one is betting on democracy being around much longer. The collapse of American government shows us how little people believe in the goodness of modernity anymore:
In a poll last month, 66 percent of Democrats wanted Clinton questioned, a whopping 22 percentage points higher than how many in her party demanded a probe last October, according to TechnoMetrica Institute of Policy and Politics (TIPP) research.The amount of Republicans demanding answers is also swelling, rising to 91 percent in January from 80 percent last October. Among the independent crowd, those wanting the former secretary of state probed rose to 74 percent from 65 percent.Clinton, 74, is being accused of hiring a tech term to ‘infiltrate’ servers at Trump Tower and the White House during the 2016 campaign.
Previous generations would have been shocked at this abuse of power, but in the current time, less care for the shared space of civilization seems evident. This seems to be changing.
In particular, for Democrats to know about Clintonian abuses of power — something essentially embargoed by the Left-leaning media and social media — requires them to be reading non-Left leaning sources.
This in turn means that they have already lost faith, even in their own party. The supposedly “good guys” inverted into the “bad guys,” leading people to see this as a systemic problem with the modern system.
…
I’ll tell youse guys. It all makes me yearn for a simpler time…
Playboy-style “bunny girls” serving a customer with a champagne lunch at Paul Raymond’s Bal Tabarin nightclub in Hanover Square, London, 11th February 1963.
Maybe our grandparents and our parents really knew better than us, with all of our new “progressive” ideas on life and relationships. Eh?
I’ll tell you what, they certainly ate better.
Steak Devine.
And they certainly dressed better. Not only the very attractive women…
Stunners!
But men did as well…
In style.
Sigh.
Article 9
One day, maybe twenty years from now, the United States government will rewrite the narrative and concoct some kind of illusion as to what really is going on now. But let this article stand as a reminder of this historical period of time of great change and the threat of great terror.
You may be aware of the fact that things aren’t going very well for the United States, but you may not know that things are going quite well for the Russian Federation.
You may also think that Russia is an evil force that needs to be contained, or that it is ruled by an evil dictator, or any number of such things while the US is a prosperous democracy and a superpower (whatever that means) but this makes no difference.
If you’ve been following recent events, you may be aware that Russia has recently presented the US with something like an ultimatum—demanding that the US provide it with certain security guarantees.
But you will probably be quite surprised to learn that the granting of these security guarantees will be automatic as the US continues to collapse and retreat into its hollowed-out, bankrupt shell, its rout from Afghanistan being by no means its last.
Nor would you be able to appreciate the fact that the security demands are designed to make America’s retreat from Eurasia maximally humiliating: not only will it retreat, but it will retreat because the Russians ordered it to do so.
Once that retreat takes place, Russia will no doubt be immensely, effusively grateful that America has finally faced up to its responsibilities and did the right thing by getting the hell out of Eurasia, gleefully rubbing salt into America’s wounds.
Russia will then joyfully make mincemeat of the Monroe Doctrine, spreading its influence, hand in hand with China, over the American continent, from Argentina to Mexico, leaving the US (whatever remains of it) sulking in its corner eating a pot of glue.
But there is a lot more gratitude that’s due for what’s already transpired. In fact, Russia should be thanking the US for all it’s done to make Russia a winner and the US a loser at every opportunity.
If it was a full scale war, there would not be any picures, cell phones or anything. Russia would be saturation bombing the living Hell out of the Ukraine. And, the NATO forces, and American bases would be under fire as well.
Some people want war so badly. Go to the link (opens in a new tab) and read al the great screeching details about the end-of-the-world, and Russian agression. It’s like a FOX “news” wet dream.
They have no idea what a REAL war is like.
I don’t believe it.
Some glimpses of the future
Let’s take a peek at what the world has in store for all of us if we adapt and embrace the Chinese model…
Spend time with friends and family. Don’t take your cats and dogs for granted. They need you and love you. That is precious, and their thoughts WILL influence your life.
Yes they will.
These are historic times. These are serious times, and these are times of opportunity. Do not allow yourself to be boxed in by the fear-generation mechanisms used to control, but rather rise up from them.
Carve out your own life.
Live it well.
This is a message we need to hear. Gut out the programming, and the rush-rush-rush. Hurry is the enemy of deep work, excellence, health, relationships, and the spiritual life. Period!
Live life well.
And, well, be the best that you can be within it. I beleive in you.
Do you want more?
I have more posts in my “New Beginnings 3” Index here…
Apparently, the United States, and the rest of the Western bloc, was so positive that they could goad Russia into a war in the Ukraine that they produced tons of videos of an invasion. Of course, these were to be broadcast to the American sheeple and the European sheeple as proof of Russian aggression and the brave Ukraine fighters. It’s all part of the “grand scheme”. Nothing happened. Russia didn’t fall for the bait, or allow the tricks to manifest, and now all these videos are unused. Nevertheless, many are now leaked and available on the internet. Here we discuss these videos.
The United States NEEDS a war. It does.
Not the people, of course. The oligarchy does, and the military-industrial complex does. And they are pushing and pushing and pushing for one.
This time, they are pushing against a very dangerous, capable and talented people that are bigger, stronger, tougher, and nastier than anything America has ever experienced before.
Yet, it’s the same old script.
Goad a nation into a military response. Push and push, and push and push, until they snap back. The United States has been hitting two tender areas. One against China against it’s Taiwan break-away province, and one against Russia by the placement of nuclear weapons on the Russian border there in the Ukraine.
If the nation doesn’t fight back, then the “false flag” playbook comes out.
False Flag
A “false flag” scenario occurs when a group deliberately misrepresents affiliation and hides its true identity.
It is used widely during war and covert operations.
It is a deceptive move undertaken by a country or an organization to set up an attack.
Pirate ships often used “false flags” of nations to deceive merchant ships while undertaking an attack under a “false flag“.
There are numerous examples throughout history of military troops stealing uniforms from their enemy to take part in covert operations in order to carry out a clandestine military campaign.
The “false flag” tactic is often used to start a war.
False Flag operations CIA had reportedly carried a false flag operation in 1953 against Iran’s former PM Mohammad Mosaddeq in order to successfully launch operation TPAJAX as it conducted bombing campaigns which were blamed on communist sympathisers. A declassified report claimed Britain’s MI6 and the CIA jointly undertook the operations.
The Ukraine Events
Numerous “False Flag” events were planned and thwarted in the Ukraine.
It appears that Russia were expecting numerous false flag events, and had sympathizers and agents on the ground in the Ukraine that stopped the events. As far as I can determine, these were two separate attempts at trying to release a chemical warfare event to be blamed on Russia.
They are on the Internet, I won’t dwell too much about them here.
Russian President Vladimir Putin today told his military officers that Moscow will deliver a technical-military response to NATO. President Putin made remarks to the Collegium of the Ministry of Defense. Russia’s Defense Ministry is managed by a council chaired by the Defense Minister, deputy defense ministers, the heads of the Main Defense Ministry and General Staff Directorates, the commanders of the Joint Strategic Commands, and the three services of the armed forces.Defense Minister Segei Shogu also spoke to the defense council.
Gen. Shogiu accused the United States of sending private military contractors to Ukraine to plot a false flag event involving chemical weapons that could be blamed on Russia.
Rick Wiles, Doc Burkhart. Airdate 12/21/21
Once they were prevented, and the CIA / Mi6 / 5eye assets were interrogated and killed. In a panic, the collective West flooded the internet with garbage about Putin planning false flag attacks. So it’s now very difficult to find any information at all about what really happened; The United States false-flag attacks. All you see is the flooded propigana about Russia planning false-flag attacks. Not the actual CIA false-flag events.
The real truth is now all buried and hidden under a thick layer of nonsense.
Why the Hell would Russia want to attack the Ukraine?
Seriously. All this war talk, and no one is discussing the big “why?”.
The Ukraine is laughingly called the “404 nation”. It is a completely collapsed, poverty-stricken wasteland. The Western section is hard-core fascist and has a LGBQ American-backed government of boot-licking egotistical psychopathic personalities.
Yes, the Eastern section speak Russian and are more democratic and wealthier, however any movies to embrace and take over even a portion of the country would become a serious burden on Russia itself. The GDP might take a hit of a good 25% of it’s GDP and stifle any growth that Russia is experiencing for decades.
Simply put, any military adventures into the Ukraine by Russia would hurt and damage Russia.
That is why the idea that Russia is going to invade the Ukraine is just silly, stupid and insane. Only a couch-potato chip munching fat slob American sheeple would believe such a ridiculous narrative.
Now, about those pesky movies…
Everything is set up. Everything is funded. The Mainstream media are out there a howling away. They are screeching and yelling and stamping their feet about war! War! War! The American sheeple are getting tired of the constantly blaring of noise, and the Europeans are no longer amused.
Russia is doing nothing.
So the media has resorted to outright lies. These are becoming more and more numerous on all issues on all fronts.
The latest lie is that China warned Russia not to attack the Ukraine or else.
Of course, this completely infuriated the Chinese who not only denied that anything like this happened, but they told the American news media pushing these lies (Bloomberg, CNN, Yahoo, and others) that if they continue to push such lies they will be banned from China. Not that it would matter much, but the Chinese have a strong belief that actions require consequences.
China is very supportive of Russia. All Russia needs to do is ask, and China will accomidate.
Anyway…
So there’s this major effort to false-flag the Hell out of the Ukraine, and this includes a hard-core hyper media onslaught, manipulation of the EU, and all sorts of pressures and justifications.
Eventually cumulating in the angering of Russia, resulting in a non-ultimatum demaning an answer. It is unique in that it specifically wanted guarantees in written English that America would abide to the documents that it has already signed and agreed to, and stop its provocations aimed at Russia.
The USA gave its response.
The answer was NO.
Bloomberg.
And United States continued to incite, narrate and create a war in the Ukraine. A war that all the participants do not want. But the wealthy oligarchy in New York, and Washington, and Virginia absolutely do.
UPDATE: This article has been finished and ready to be emailed to The Saker, when the news coming from the government of Donetsk and Lugansk people’s republics confirmed my observations expressed here.
In my extensive library of e-books, there is a book by Reese Erlich titled Inside Syria: The Backstory of Their Civil War and What the World Can Expect. The book outlines the situation developed in Syria by 2014 that was pushed, sponsored, narrated, and propagated by the United States.
In Chapter 11 of the book, “United States, Russia, and Outside Powers” Reese Erlich writes: “Meanwhile, the Obama administration was pursuing a secret military track. The CIA began overseeing arms shipments to the Free Syrian Army no later than June 2012 when it leaked the story to the New York Times. The CIA began directly arming and training rebels in early 2013 (see chapter 5). Proclaiming support for nonviolent resistance while arming rebels was not seen as a contradiction, according to State Department critic Kathy. She said the State was populated with ‘humanitarian interventionists,’ people who favor one or another form of military intervention by claiming it will, in the end, protect civilians. ‘But we never discuss the legality of such attacks, let alone the morality,’ she told me. Controversial policies are sent to the legal department for review. ‘They’ll always find a way to justify whatever policy is decided.’”
The Biden administration was soaked to the brim by Obama’s people and their “expertise.” Let’s say, they are unparalleled in inflicting “pain” on people of targeted nations.
“State Department officials insisted that Syrians would benefit from US policy in the long run. The spokesperson acknowledged that ordinary Syrians were hurt by American economic sanctions, which had caused a massive drop in their standard of living. But, as if admonishing naughty children, the spokesperson told me Uncle Sam would make it up to them. ‘Once the behavior changes, once we have the Assad regime step down, we will make sure this is an environment where Americans can do business.’ There’s an interesting logic here. He assumed that the solution for economic collapse is American business investment. What’s good for American business, apparently, is good for the Syrian people. Similarly, the State Department saw no contradiction between criticizing Assad’s human-rights record and supporting pro-US regimes elsewhere in the region also committing abuse, such as Saudi Arabia and Bahrain. The State Department simply assumed that US allies can and will change while enemies will not. The spokesperson explained that allies may abuse human rights, ‘but we work with them.’”
Recalling the standard disclaimer on investment products. “Past performance does not guarantee future results,” with the political operatives teams only one thing is certain. The results for Ukraine will be very different, but the methods are the same.
In the beginning of December, Russia’s Ministry of Defense issued an unheard of warning about the possibility of the false flag attack in Ukraine with someone impersonating the Russian military.
A couple of days later, Russia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced that it had handed the Biden administration demands for the security guarantees, and in another two days the rest of the document was posted on the ministry website. The demand for the security guarantees for Russia from the US and NATO acted as a giant monkey wrench thrown into the spinning wheel of the Western propaganda of the “invasion of Ukraine.”
Claims of “invasion” have been circulating on and off for the past 8 years, and started sounding louder in April of 2021. In November, Zelensky announced that Russia wants to topple his regime. In December, the Russian government published warnings about upcoming false flag attacks and made the diplomatic moves that somewhat confused and wobbled the “invasion” proponents. They only gained some ground by now, which is the end of January.
On Friday, January 28, the DOD and Biden administration announced the “imminent” invasion of Ukraine during a Biden/Zelensky phone conversation. Zelensky disagreed and, counterintuitively, insisted that there wasn’t much proof that the Russian army was going to “invade Ukraine.” According to CNN, the conversation “did not go well.” Zelensky and Biden disagreed about the immediacy of the threat of a “Russian attack on Ukraine.” The White House and Pentagon has been emphatic that they believe the attack could be “imminent.”
The Zerohedge article collected a hilarious confusion of the warmongering CNN coming with war propaganda and then removing it after a few hours and claiming that they were deceived by their source in the Zelensky administration.
So, the cover fall out and we witnessed a giant mix of fear, greed, hatred, russophobia,incompetence, bloodlust, and pure clinical insanity, which constitute the modern American policy-making. Many right, exact, deep and very funny things have been said and written since, but there was something else that I wouldn’t want to go unnoticed.
During his Friday press briefing, Zelensky said something that holds the golden key to the mystery of an “invasion.”
Tucker Carlson included this important segment into his Friday night monologue.
Tucker: This is a slow motion disaster
Here is a short description.
Zelensky sits in a chair on some podium in front of a room full of journalists. The White House says that the conversation between Biden and Zelensky came down to “Russian invasion is imminent,” “Kiev will be sacked,” and “prepare for impact,” and insists that Zelensky asking Biden to stop fear mongering and to turn down the rhetoric never happened.
Zelensky, however, says it did happen:
“We talked to the president. We talked about the same things, about the media and that there has to be a balanced approach. I’m not saying that he is influencing the American media, they are independent, but media policy has to be more balanced. If they want to know what the situation is here in Ukraine they should come to Kiev. Do we have tanks on the streets? No! The image that the mass media creates is that we have troops on the roads, we have mobilization, people are leaving for places. That’s not the case. We don’t need this panic!”
Prior, Jen Psaki claimed that the Biden administration had 18 scenarios of “Russian invasion of Ukraine.” Sergey Lavrov responded by saying that 17 scenarios were written by 17 intelligence agencies and one by the DOS staff.
The only thing was certain, it would be a false flag attack, because Russia didn’t have any plans to take over Ukraine.
It’s very expensive, since we would have to feed their population, solve its problems, and ensure its general well-being. All this would be an enormous injustice to us, Russians, since it’s only recently that we started to live better. The economy is growing the fastest ever. Good and fair energy prices in Europe and great prices for our other exports like wheat and fertilizers pay higher pensions and paychecks of doctors, teachers, military and law enforcement, and other federal employees.The government just recently undertook gigantic investments into mega infrastructure projects and mega oil and gas processing plants (source).
It’s beyond stupid and evil to think that after trillions rubles in new investments Russian government should decides it wants to occupy and feed the failed state of Ukraine.
So, the whole thing is just a Biden admin manufactured pretext to impose new illegal trade restrictions that would per their design crush our economy and make us all poor, again.
But, going back to the gold key to the mystery that fell out of Zelensky’s mouth. What scenario will the US use to stage a false flag attack to blame it on Russia?
Here is a spoiler alert.
At 2:37 on the Tacker Carlson video, the image allegedly from Ukraine looks like the black-and-white WWII footage.
Fake war footage
Zelensky said during his interview, “Do we have tanks on the streets? No! The image that the mass media creates is that we have troops on the roads, we have mobilization, people are leaving for places. That’s not the case!”
And that’s our Oscar winning scenario of virtual invasion. It was staged and prerecorded and was supposed to be broadcast all over the world.
Last week, some British news channel aired an interview with Ukrainian general Oleksandr Pavliuk who famously said that he has half a million veterans who are ready “to tear Russians apart with their bare hands.” (source)
I couldn’t find this footage again, but if you happen to come across it you will notice a middle aged overweight man in khaki looking like a stuffed sausage or the Michelin Man. He slowly runs across the snowy field,and then appears behind the general, while someone on the background shouting and shooting aimlessly, and a smoke machine in the snow emits dense vapor covering the whole scene with a couple of military trucks and a couple of men hiding behind them. The whole scene is a movie set, and they are filming scenes of a virtual “Russian invasion.”
In Zelensky’s own words: Do we have tanks on the streets? No! The image that the mass media creates is that we have troops on the roads, we have mobilization, people are leaving for places. That’s not the case!
So, when we see news on tanks on the streets in Ukraine, troops on the roads, mass mobilization and people in khaki leaving for places – it’s an image of the “Russian invasion” that western media have created.
Newsweek image of alleged middle-aged “Ukrainian soldiers”.
Borrowed from here:
Ukraine is a very poor country. People there would do anything for money, especially act in a movie.
On Monday, January 31, The head of the People’s Militia Department, Yan Leshchenko, announced that Kiev is preparing staged and filmed stories about the military actions allegedly unleashed by the republics of Donbass and Russia against Ukraine (source)
“Our intelligence obtained reliable information about the development and implementation by Ukrainian special services with the support of Western intelligence agencies of a special information campaign codenamed Crushing Sword. The purpose of this campaign is to mislead the world community and accuse the People’s Republics of Donbass and the Russian Federation of aggression against Ukraine,” Leshchenko quotes the Telegram channel of the People’s Militia of the LPR (source)
Lugansk now has reliable information that Kiev is preparing professionally acted and staged TV stories as part of the campaign. “At the first stage of the information campaign with the beginning of aggression by the Ukrainian Armed Forces the Kiev regime planned to broadcast pre-prepared staged videos on the alleged beginning of military operations against Ukraine by the People’s republics and the Russian Federation,” Leshchenko said.
The Ukrainian authorities organized videos about the residents of Donbass, who allegedly ask “to free them from Russian oppression.” “Kiev is ready to release staged videos on television in which specially trained citizens on behalf of our people will talk about the “horrors of war” and ask “to free them from Russian oppression,” the head of the People’s Militia department informed.
TASS reported that according to Leshchenko, Kiev propagandists want to convince the world community of the legitimacy of the actions of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, allegedly liberating Donbass from terrorists. “Ukrainian propagandists intend to demonstrate the successes of the Ukrainian army in allegedly successfully repelling the imaginary aggression of the people’s republics, as well as conducting an offensive on Donbass. According to the plan, the international community and the population of Ukraine will have to make sure of the legality of the actions of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, allegedly liberating Donbass from terrorists. The death of civilians in the people’s republics will be presented as the destruction of terrorists,” he said in a statement.
Final Thoughts
The United States War Machine is on auto-pilot and running at full-throttle. It is just plowing ahead and is Hell-bent on creating a war with Asia one way or the other.
False-flag events are set up to start a popping up everwhere, and the American Navy and military forces are all moving about all over the globe surrounding Asia trying to instigate a war.
This week at the Olympics, Putin and Xi Peng will hold a joint statement. It will be optomistic and promising. It will be hopeful. But within that statement, whatever how nice and hopeful it will sound, will be a message that will put a bone-chilling terror down the spines of the Colelctive West. I don’t know what it is, but I am sure that we will find out soon enough.
Just realize that the positive news will have a component that will “blow off” the knee-caps of the United States military empire and it’s EU enablers.
I can’t wait to hear what it is.
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.
Ok, it is the weekend before CNY January 30, 2022. There is a ton load of things happening right now. A real enormous pile of shit.
On top of the USA rout in Afghanistan, the failed color revolution in Belarus, and Kazakhstan, the death of the CIA assets in Tibet, and the multiple submarine events in the South Pacific Sea (One “crash into a mountain”, and another missing sub and recovery effort with the cover of “recovery of an F-35C in the ocean”) things are not going well for the USA.
The ramp up for a war in the Ukraine did not happen, and now the USA is trying to sabotage the Olympic Games in China. Geeze! Can’t these assholes give it a rest?
There’s so much that one can say about an uncertain future, but one thing is for sure, that the harder the United States try to drag the world into a global war, the greater it’s losses mount.
Everyone by now should realize that both China and Russia told the United States to stop putting nuclear weapons in their borders, trying to instigate “color revolutions” and hybrid-wars, and all the rest. But the “red lines”, the requests for “white tent” peace, and cooperation are going nowhere.
The United States, like a snotty assed brat, said no. NO! And you can’t make me! Nah. Nah, Nah, nah.
There are no “positive things” in the American response. The response is a flagrant and contemptible rejection of Moscow’s core demands on NATO expansion and the deployment of nuclear missiles to locations on Russia’s border.
Obviously, they believe that they can goad Asia into a fight where the United States would emerge the Victor.
Both Putin and Xi have plans for how to deal with what comes next.
China Sitrep: Cookies, Lil’Blinky and The Pain Dial
Victoria Nuland (affectionately known as Cookies), jumped the shark.
She called her counterpart in China and demanded, (asked, petulantly begged?): China Do Something!. Influence the Russians!. We need a concession from them. Just Do Something! There were the requisite attempts to deliver soft threats: “if there is a conflict in Ukraine it is not going to be good for China either,” as “there will be a significant impact on the global economy”
The Chinese Foreign Ministry responded:
Stop interfering in the Olympics
Pay attention to Russia’s Security Guarantees which are valid
Give up your zero-sum game and the Cold War mentality and use the correct method to put out the fires you started.
On the very same day, this past Thursday, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken (affectionately known as Lil’Blinky) had a telephone conversation with China’s State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi. Lil’Blinky talked about the risks posed by “further Russian aggression against Ukraine” and conveyed that “de-escalation and diplomacy are the responsible way forward.”
Wang Yi responded:
Stop interfering in the Olympics
Pay attention to Russia’s Security Guarantees as this is valid and important
Give up your zero-sum game and the Cold War mentality and use the correct method to put out the fires you started.
And what about those Minsk accords? You understand they have to be implemented, don’t you?
Global Times wrote an op-ed about all of this, explaining: “The root cause of the Ukraine issue is that the US has promoted NATO’s eastward expansion unrestrainedly, thus pushing Russia into a corner where there is no way to retreat.
Washington is the culprit of the crisis.
The US now hopes China will “persuade” Russia. In essence, it wants China to urge Moscow to make a concession. The perfect plan Washington desires is that Moscow will cooperate unconditionally with the US’ geopolitical ambitions. How absurd and ridiculous its logic is!”
So both Cookies and Lil’Blinky struck out on the highest levels of the diplomatic circles in Beijing.
What?
More interference in the Beijing Winter Olympics?
Yes.
That would be the new plot to encourage athletes to create chaos and to cause trouble everywhere.
Sources said the plan includes encouraging athletes to express dissatisfaction with China for various reasons, not to compete or even not to participate in the games.
The US has also pledged to offer generous rewards to athletes who join the program and to mobilize global resources to “protect the personal reputations” of athletes who choose to play negatively. (Is this what the 47 state department officials for security only wanted visas for)?
The US is also blowing smoke of withdrawing their diplomats from China during the course of the Olympics. Can you connect the dots in terms of what is being planned here?
And then they want China to help with concessions?
How perfectly arrogant.
And oh BTW, China is also not interested in the US’ F-35C stealth fighter that recently crashed in the South China Sea, says the Foreign Ministry.
It was left to the new Chinese Ambassador to the US to ratchet up the final pain dial one more click. In an interview with NPR, to a US Audience, his first public interview since taking the post as Chinese Ambassador, he states:
“If the Taiwanese authorities, emboldened by the United States, keep going down the road for independence, it most likely will involve China and the United States, the two big countries, in a military conflict.”
This has caused shockwaves in the United States.
Duh? I mean, how stupid can people be? But then again, I am talking about the United States, after all -MM
China simply says that the US must take its warning with all seriousness and Washington’s strategic arrogance will only drag the US into more tense strategic unpreparedness.
In addition, this exacting expression is used:
If Washington provokes either China or Russia, the other one will not be indifferent.
Seems to me Lil’Blinky and Cookies have just been wack-a-moled. Apparently, Blinken was so curtly dealt with, that he could not get to the litany of human rights abuses and the Uyghurs and whatever else. He was cut off smartly before he could rattle off that old litany of nonsense.
Ambassador to the US Qin Gang has succeeded in raising the stakes and turning the tables.
Indeed, like a little kid.
The pot of water is boiling on the stove, and the moronic United States, like little children, are trying to reach up and grab the handle.
Things are really hot right now.
So what is next…?
In this example, I will use a scene from the American television series “Breaking Bad”. In this scene, there is a fight / conflict between two gangs over some drug territory.
The guy in white represents the local (well established) drug boss in the town. The others are hungry, mean and aggressive Mexican cartel members who are moving in and taking over his territory.
We get the idea, in watching this scene, that the guy (and his gang) in white clothes believes that he is “untouchable” and that his local, well established reputation will be enough to protect him. And that is anything happens, it will be something like what you see in the movies or in television.
But reality is not like that.
The cartel uses strategy.
When you watch this scene, keep that in mind. Consider the United States to be fat guy guzzling a super-sized coke and acting haughty on “his turf”. And the Mexican cartel guys to be Asia (China, Russia and Iran).
Watch and learn. Strategy.
That’s what is coming next. MARK MY WORDS. Please watch this little video. Click on the link if your internet isn’t that functional.
Obviously, whoever, or whatever is running the United States and the Western Block today, are seriously disconnected from reality.
I am not saying that Russia or China will engage in a hot kinetic war, but you can bet your sweet bippy that they are going to take action in a well-planned, well-coordinated, and thorough effort.
…
Again, don’t get too hot and bothered about anything. Again, follow my age-old grandfatherly advice…
Don’t get so caught up in all the fearmongering talk.
Follow the basic MM precepts. You will be fine.
Affirmation prayers.
Stable world-line templates and controlled slides.
Fate forecasting.
Be the Rufus.
Participate in your local community.
Be prudent, traditional and have a larder.
You all will be fine.
…
Now go forth and call up a friend. Invite him over. What the Hell are you waiting for?
Then, place a tray of chicken wings in the oven and have a case of beer on hand. Then just hang out with friends and family, eat the chicken legs, wings or whatever, and drink beer together. Maybe play some cards.
Just share your time.
Maybe even play an old board game. Risk. Monopoly. Chess, or checkers. Possibly Trivial Pursuit.
Baked Chicken.
Oh, expert tip…
After taking the chicken out of the over, pour honey over all of them, and then have some blue cheese salad dressing nearby and place it in a bowl for dipping purposes.
It will look something like this…
Enjoy your time.
Now…
Picture the scene.
Friends. Beer. Delicious food. It’s called “Heaven”.
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.
Ok, for all of you actually aware of the latest Geo-Political issues of the day, Russia appealed to the USA to move the nuclear weapons away from it’s borders. This is for the Ukraine nuclear placements, in case you are unaware. (Of course, the media is in full engagement about defending the Ukraine from Russian encroachment. Yada. yada. Yada. If you beleive that, then you are a moron.)
After the ultimation, the USA paused and much speculation has resulted from the delay in response.
But there should not be any confusion, actually. It’s all pretty historical
Whether war or terror, or attack, the systems are all simple boilerplate.
The classic terrorist tactic is the massacre of prisoners, or the sacking of a city which has refused to negotiate, surrender, or consider paying tribute. The execution of a conquered garrison or the sacking of a city has no immediate tactical advantage. But the act is intended to serve as a warning to other cities of the terrible consequences of resistance.
Genghis Khan was famous for his use of terror. During the Mongol conquest of China, his forces would arrive at a Chinese city and erect a large white tent for Genghis. If the city submitted to his rule, it might be looted, but the lives of the inhabitants would be spared.
Now, if there was no response to the white tent, then a red tent was erected in its place. If the city now fell the soldiers and male inhabitants of the city would be executed, but the women and children would be spared.
If the city continued to resist, a black tent would be put up – signifying that when the city fell, all of it’s inhabitants would be executed. And they were. It’s difficult to calculate numbers 800 years after the fact, but rough estimates indicate that 30 million people were killed in China by Genghis and the Mongols.
Terrorism worked.
Genghis’s grandson, Hulagu Khan (brother to Kublai Khan) used precisely these tactics in his conquest of the Middle East in 1258. He besieged Baghdad, and when it fell after a one-month siege, the Mongols executed almost the entire population of the city. Estimates range from 100,000 to one million. In 1260, Damascus surrendered to the Mongols rather than suffer the same fate.
Now, pay attention.
The notion that individual human lives have immense value is a western ideal.
It is not exclusively Christian, but the notion is certainly central to Christianity. It is historically true that the influence of Christianity had the effect of setting limits in warfare. It is a western, Christian, notion that civilian, non-combatants should not be targetted or deliberately killed.
It’s an artifical construct.
As the Christian consensus has evaporated in the west, the less likely the culture has become to value or protect individual human life. Pragmatism is antithetical to natural law.
So buckle up.
Terrorists are quite prepared to take innocent human life, because in their calculation this helps to achieve their ultimate objective (though this probably ascribes more rational analysis to terrorists than they deserve).
You are dealing with two differnt cultures. There is the “West” and there is the “East”. In the “Western Bloc” there is supposedly reason, and rules of war and society, and the entire rest of the world must obey them or suffer the consequences.
But in the “East”, this is just nonsense. And the blustering, and the posturing is ignored as some kind of crazy talk by lunitics.
The East (Russia and China) agree with dealing with the collective “Western Bloc”. They have come to (accurately) believe that thay cannot reason with the West. They cannot persuade them to abandon war and war-like ambitions. You can only defeat them.
Peace is never achieved by negotiation – only temporary cease-fires. Peace is achieved when one side is victorious over the other. It is something that they do not like, but are now fcing the facts.
…
After decades of encroaching war-mongering, Russia and China has decided to tell the United States and their allies (the collective West) to STOP.
This has been reported in the media in various bits and pieces, all of a haphazard nature, and completely omitting the signifigance of the events as they transpire. Those that read the “Western media” are completely ignorant of the gravity of the situation.
It’s extremely serious.
The world order must change or the United States and it’s European cronies will be vaporized.
That’s pretty fucking serious..
I searched the Washington Post, Bloomberg and Reuters earlier this morning and there was not one peep about yesterday´s meeting. Something happened.
-John
So let’s not get too caught up.
Just let me say the following…
Russia and China can decloak all stealth aircraft.
Russia and China can decloak all stealth submarines.
Russia and China and turn off all Western communication and targeting electronics.
Russia and China can launch hyper-velocity nuclear swarm missiles to the American and European nations and destroy everything without a single defensive measure implemented.
The Western Bloc has none of this.
Now, they do not want to do this.
However, the American nuclear missiles being placed in the Ukraine, Australia, Japan and planned in Taiwan will not be permitted.
Not. Going. To. Happen.
So…
So… What is the American and NATO response to the polite ultimation offered by Asia?
There are no official results from the meeting in Geneva yet. The US has promised to give the Russians an official answer in writing within a week. The Russians have declared that they have explained the Russian position to their US counterparts in minute details leaving no ambiguity. According to Russian sources, the US position was a “diehard/stubborn” one.
Clearly, the War Party in the USA is, at least so far, prevailing. When I listen to the delusional statements of the likes of Blinken, Psaki, Kirby & Co I get the strong feeling that for these people everything is a zero-sum game and that to them an agreement with Russia, any agreement, is simply unthinkable.
If so, then this is all good news. Frankly, it is pretty clear that the War Party has won the day, at least so far, which leaves Russia no other option that to take further unilateral actions which is, I believe, the only way left for Russia to bring the leaders of the West back into the real world.
There are still further talks planned, with the Russia-NATO council and the OSCE. Never say never and maybe a last minute breakthrough is possible, but I personally don’t see how that could happen, not when one of the two parties is absolutely, maniacally, determined to treat the other as some kind of semi-savage inferior race with whom no civilized western leaders will ever negotiate. The western diplomatic toolkit is has shrunk to basically the following:
Exceptionalism, messianism, racism and self-worship.
Threats and imposition of sanctions for “bad behavior” like a teacher would punish a grade-school kid for being rowdy and not listening to the teacher.
A total belief in both the West invincibility and invulnerability no matter what the “real reality” actually is.
A total categorical refusal to admit, even by implication, that the world has profoundly changed and that the Anglosphere does not “rule the waves” anymore.
There is only one thing Russia can do to bring the leaders of the West back to reality: to turn up what I call the “pain dial”.
In the meantime, the Russian military has declared that it hopes to leave Kazakhstan within a week, but only if/when the situation in this country is fully stabilized.
President Tokaev has said that the CSTO forces withdrawal will being in 48 hours and will last no more than 10 days. I hope that he is right.
However, it will take months for Kazakhstan and Russia to deal with the insurgents, especially in the West and South of Kazakhstan. But that would already be a mopping-up operation which Russia and Kazakhstan can coordinate on a bilateral basis without any need to involve the CSTO.
For the time, we have to wait and see what actually happens in the next few days, things should become much clearer.
Andrei
…
Well, MoA covered the events.
With No Progress In Talks Russia Will Have To React
Monday’s negotiations over Russian security demands between the U.S. and Russia were, as predicted, a failure.
Russia’s core demand, to end the NATO drive to its borders by excluding membership for the Ukraine and Georgia, was rejected. A for once realistic NYT piece did not even try to hide the disaster:
Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei A. Ryabkov, Russia’s lead negotiator, insisted after the meeting that it was “absolutely mandatory” that Ukraine “never, never, ever” become a NATO member.His American counterpart, Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman, reiterated that the United States could never make such a pledge because “we will not allow anyone to slam closed NATO’s open door policy,” and she said that the United States and its allies would not stand by if Russia sought to change international borders “by force."
Today’s talk between all NATO members and Russia in Brussels had similar results. Russia’s core requests were rejected and a bunch of stuff with which NATO would like to restrict Russian advantages was thrown up to divert the attention from the core issues.
As NATO’s Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg summarized it:
Today Russia raised the proposals that they published in December, aimed at addressing their security concerns.These include demands to stop admitting any new members to NATO. And to withdraw forces from eastern Allies.Allies on their side reaffirmed NATO’s Open Door policy. And the right for each nation to choose its own security arrangements.
Okay then. Russia will certainly choose its own security arrangements. And NATO will not like to see them.
The NATO wishlist for future talk includes these items:
Allies would like to discuss concrete ways to increase the transparency of military exercises, to prevent dangerous military incidents, and reduce space and cyber threats.Allies have also offered to look at arms control, disarmament and non-proliferation. Including to address reciprocal limitations on missiles, and to address nuclear policies.On lines of communications, NATO Allies are interested in looking at ways to improve civil and military communications channels, and the possibility of re-establishing our respective offices in Moscow and Brussels.
None of those have any priority for Russia and, as it will surely point out, it was NATO which in October initiated the breaking off of civil and military communications channels by expelling 8 members of Russia’s NATO mission in Brussels
The alliance has also halved the size of the Russian mission to NATO, headquartered in Brussels, from twenty to ten accredited positions -- the eight expelled Russian officials plus two other positions that will now be abolished.
Russia reacted to that outrageous behavior by closing its outpost in Brussels.
After the meeting today Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman added a new U.S. demand to her list:
Sherman, the number two State Department official who is leading the U.S. delegation in separate meetings in Europe this week, said the NATO-Russia meeting ended with "a sober challenge" for Russia "to de escalate tensions, choose the path of diplomacy, to continue to engage in honest and reciprocal dialogue so that together we can identify solutions that enhance the security of all."The deputy secretary said that the Russian delegation did not commit, nor reject, NATO offers for follow-up discussions. The delegation further made no commitment to de-escalate, Sherman said, but added that they did not reject de-escalation."Russia's actions have caused this crisis and it is on Russia to de-escalate tensions and give diplomacy the chance to succeed... There was no commitment to de-escalate. Nor was there a statement that there would not be."
There is nothing to de-escalate. A number of Russian troops stationed within Russia are training to guard Russian borders. They have always done so and will continue to do that. It is the U.S., not Russia, which is exaggerating their number, today with ‘additional helicopters‘ which no one has seen:
While troop movements have slowed, there are still 100,000 military personnel near the border and now the Russians have positioned additional attack aircraft there, American officials said. Attack and transport helicopters, along with ground attack fighter jets, would be a critical Russian advantage, should Mr. Putin decide to invade Ukraine.
Alexander Mercouris points out (vid) that the U.S. started the current affair when it, in March 2021, pushed the Ukraine to restart a war against it rebellious eastern Donbas provinces. Russia responded by quickly building up and showing off a force large enough to destroy the Ukrainian army.
That calmed down the Ukrainian issue for a while but the U.S. and NATO continued to pressure Russia with bomber flights near Russia’s borders and warships in the Black Sea. What did they expect but a Russian response?
There is nothing the U.S. can do about troop positioning within Russia. Exaggerating their numbers only builds more pressure. The constant false lamenting about ‘Russian military build-ups’ don’t help to calm things down.
The ‘de-escalation’ has to happen on the U.S. side. Otherwise it will be Russia which has to escalate. That is the warning Russia’s President Vladimir Putin has given to U.S. President Joe Biden. But it does not seem that the U.S. has come to understand that.
The talks will fail as the ‘western’ side is rejecting the main requests Russia has. The promised ‘military-technical measures’ will be implemented in Europe, Asia and probably also in Latin America. Given that Russia has throughout the last decade presented a number of revolutionary weapon designs we can expect some new surprises which the U.S. will be unable to match.
Fact is that Russia is capable to defend itself and its allies from military attacks and U.S. instigated color revolution attempts like in Belarus and Kazakhstan.
That the U.S. does not like that is not Russia’s problem.
Comments 1 – Economic not a hot war
“When I listen to the delusional statements of the likes of Blinken, Psaki, Kirby & Co I get the strong feeling that for these people everything is a zero-sum game and that to them an agreement with Russia, any agreement, is simply unthinkable.”
Agree completely.
When Ryabkov told the press conference that he had patiently explained to the US team that “Russia has no intention of invading Ukraine” my immediate reaction was ‘Oh no, why is Russia on the back foot, having to defend its position from criticism again?’
But then I realized, he must have been totally exasperated, he was talking to brainwashed muppets, utterly filled with hubris and Hollywood’s propaganda. At that moment I knew the talks were simply for Russia a “going through the motions” exercise.
Putin and his Kremlin know that they must force the hand of the deep state and its oligarchs who control the western powers that it does not pay to ignore Russia’s proposals/demands.
I do not expect a short military war, rather a lengthy economic war of attrition, with Russia and China applying an ever tighter squeeze.
Europe will freeze this winter, and next. Russian airspace will become either more expensive, or closed to western airlines altogether. The digital yuan will become more ubiquitous, the BRI will continue to grow apace, etc.
We are seeing the final fruits of decades of deterioration in western education and focus. It’s going to be a very bumpy ride.
WT
Comments 2 – A war to rally the country
My concern is that the US may be looking for another “Pearl Harbor” attack to rally the country, and there could be a major conflict that starts in Ukraine and eventually also involve the Chinese.
Seems Russia is being drawn in like the Japanese were in WW2, but this one will be much more difficult for the USA. Back then, the USSR did the heavy lifting against Germany, and US citizenship was offered to natives in Asia to get them to fight with the US military against Japan.
This time, the US will be pretty much alone.
But the mentality in the US is that it was the main force for victory in WW2, and I think they genuinely falsely believe that a hot WW3 would turn out the “same”.
-Red1chief
Comments 3 – Sink a Carrier and World War III erupts
That is extremely dangerous thinking. How many aircraft carriers to sink? One, and then the world dies.
I am a veteran of the empire’s 1st foreign adventure, Operation Desert Storm. I’ve watched our shenanigans ever since. One absolutely indisputable fact of the US military and US civilians view of the military: they positively cannot STAND casualties. The sinking of a carrier would cause more losses than the entire 20 year “war” in Afghanistan did. More than died in the Normandy landings. The public would not allow peace after such a heinous act as sinking an invincible aircraft carrier!
I live in Florida. People around here wanted to “nuke” Iran for having the audacity to launch missiles at our Iraqi base. They also saw no problem in the murder of the Solimani “terrorist.”
The loss of a carrier would elicit a nuclear reply, I am certain.
-Cold War Kid
Comment 4 – The American Leadership is not crazy
"The loss of a carrier would elicit a nuclear reply, I am certain."
It absolutely would not. The American public may be politically uneducated but they do know the outcome of a nuclear war with Russia. Even the most uninformed of them say things such as, “Russia is a gas station with nukes.” So they know it will be ugly for America.
The thing about entitlement is that it demands respect it does not deserve. Entitlement will make demands until it meets a pushback it recognizes as detrimental to its existence.
At that point it will start becoming rational since there is very little that brings clarity to a coddled, entitled people like the possibility of annihilation.
At that point, the divisions in America will become apparent.
The Reps will blame the Dems for such a situation and vice versa. Regardless both parties will recognize the need to negotiate with Russia whilst blaming each other.
It will not go nuclear.
–Joao Lima
Comment 5 – Russia’s response
Russia’s response will be military-technical, asymmetrical, effective and unexpected. The Western side will pray Russia to return to the negotiating table. If there will be a Western side at all. This is a game where Russia has all the cards.
-Andreas
Comment 6 – NATO High Noon Shootout
They agreed that nuclear war is a loser.
They also agreed that they need to talk about nuclear weapons.
They have a tacit understanding that if Russia disarms Ukraine, the US will punish them with sanctions.
There is also another unspoken understanding that Ukraine exists solely as a potential threat for NATO to use at its pleasure with or without Ukraine being part of NATO.
Notice Georgia is never spoken about. Georgia is off the table, because the US can’t use it like it uses Ukraine.
As for NATO taking its missiles and B-61 nuclear bombs and going back to 1997 lines, that is a natural fallback line that will be in effect as soon as missiles fly.
What we have is a classic Western showdown, High Noon, OK Corral, Tombstone.
We just don’t know which is the white hat and which is the black hat in the shootout.
But as the sequence goes, somebody is going to get killed.
NATO (the Alliance absolutely necessary for the US hegemony to exist) versus Russia (absolutely necessary for China and Eurasia to exist) are in a showdown.
This is not a showdown of the US versus Russia. The reason for that is China and Russia don’t want to destroy the US, if they don’t have to. And they don’t have to.
Russia has to break NATO. That’s the showdown.
–Larchmonter445
Comment 7 – The USA must go!
I agree with your thoughtful post, except for this small part.
The USA in its current form must be destroyed because:
A united USA still commands enough resources to threaten the civilized world
A united USA is too bigoted to sincerely get along with the rest of the civilized world
A united USA in its current form has never known peace
The USA needs to be broken up into a minimum 3+ separate republics.
In exchange for full international recognition and legitimacy, each republic would need complete removal of its nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons. War criminals (e.g. Bush, Trump, AIPAC, Soros, etc) will need to be extradited and tried. The other “weapons” like Hollywood or FAANGs can be tamed (or killed) by market forces.
–Dick Lenning
Comment 8 – USA is insane
The US simply needs a complete overhaul of its elite class. US elites are corrupt and/or insane. Many Americans see this.
Correcting this state of affairs will be the work of a generation or more, if it happens at all.
Right now, the war that matters to me and many Americans is the war against the totalitarian leftists. And, they are everywhere.
When you hear a US President name a big governmental takeover bill, ‘Build back Better’ … a phrase repeated everywhere in the West, and straight from the World Economic Forum Technocrats, you know the mask is off.
–SteveK9
Comment 9 – Go after the leadership
The “totalitarian lefties” are just a tool of the owners of the US/UK and EU. The west’s insane policies in education, policing, immigration, as well as the selection of blatantly incompetent people for high administrative positions, pursue the usual goal of Divide et Impera.
The owners are Banksters. Next are the war-profiteering MIC and supranational mega-corporations.
The masses are stripped of all mechanisms of control over western governments that function as the ‘representatives’ of the owners.
In the absence of homeostatic adjustments, western society has fallen victim to various parasites (Jewish Lobby, the MIC, et al) and dangerous diseases that appear as cancerous and gangrenous processes affecting societal structures. By destroying the vital mechanisms of feedback, the owners have ensured the death of western society.
Russia needs to target the ‘owners’ and the rotten upper echelon of the MIC and supranational mega-corporations. Make them shiver.
-Anna
Comment 10 – What about the rest of the world?
Who would have expected that the USA “swallow the toad” and fulfill Russia’s demands in the first negotiations and rush to pronounce it? If we didn’t take the statements of DC and Stoltenberg serious in the past, why now? The last say will of course be with the US-military and intelligence agencies because only they have the ability to assess Russia’s capabilities and decisiveness.
These are serious people who do not gamble with a thirld world war and they don’t boast in public in order to win elections. As I have been reading here many times the outcome of a US-Russia war is securely in Russia’s favour. And what would China and Iran do in such a case?
Are the European politicians and media people ready for disaster out of spite? I do not believe it. Have we heard Macron and Scholz cheering on the Americans? Even the Poles and the Baltic are strangely silent since the ultimatum. The fear of god has gripped them.
So let’s be optimistic that the war will be postponed ad calendas graecas.
–Thomas
Comment 11 – An accelerating decline
Terrific piece. The ‘results’ (or lack thereof) from the meeting in Geneva, need to be considered within the context of the current state of the American Empire. Consider-
1) None of the structural problems giving rise to the Global Financial crisis (GFC) of 2007-2008 have been resolved. Instead, the FED has used the Treasury as a de facto taxpayer-supported ‘piggy bank’ (the FED cannot print money) to provide > $40 trillion of ultra-cheap money to prop up equities, bonds and over-priced real estate (creating the ‘everything bubble’); the FED is currently spending $120 billion/month buying toxic corporate debt. In 2019, the FED provided circa $4.5 trillion in loans to large Wall St banks to cover the repo market which locked up (See: https://wallstreetonparade.com/2022/01/mainstream-media-has-morphed-from-battling-the-fed-in-court-in-2008-to-groveling-at-its-feet-today/). To put this in perspective, since Mar, 2020, US government debt has hemorrhaged circa $6 trillion; total US debt exceeds $28.5 trillion (See- Federal Debt: Total Public Debt (GFDEBTN); Link: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/GFDEBTN).
2) US taxpayers have spent more than $21 trillion on post-911 militarization. Despite this taxpayer largess, the Pentagon confronts a repeat of the $2 trillion Afghanistan debacle in Iraq, Libya, Syria and Yemen, poorest country in the ME (See- https://www.nationalpriorities.org/cost-of/war/; https://watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/). Not to be deterred, Biden’s 2022 military appropriation (approved by 88-12 vote in the Senate) is a record $770 billion.
3) The US ruling elite view the Russia-China-Iran axis as an intolerable obstacle to US global power. They have responded in a predicable way- with an increasingly reckless, aggressive, bellicose and astronomically expensive military response in Ukraine/Black Sea- to confront Russia, Persian Gulf- Iran and Taiwan Strait/S China Sea- China. Unfortunately, the Empire does not have sufficient force projection to prevail in any of these theaters.
Bottom line– We are seeing the accelerating decline of late-stage American capitalism which has progressed to the point where its very survival is contingent upon constant debt monetization (aka money printing) to prop up financial markets and the military. This is becoming increasingly tenuous as this orgy of money printing and debt has created gigantic bubbles in every asset class- ‘everything bubble’, increasing inflation and threatening to derail the dollar’s role as world reserve currency. Starting new wars with the Russia-China-Iran axis is only going to accelerate the Empires decline.
The NY Fed, 2 years ago gave the Big Four Wall Street firms 11.23 TRILLION in secret Repo loans…..
The NY Fed waited the maximum 8 quarters before they had to own up.
The presstitute MSM has blacked out this kinda shocking/ sickening wrinkle.
This was one of the reasons for the Covid con job/ distraction.
One can only wonder what truth will be told about the following quarters.
The Empire is plummeting into an economic abyss that is almost unimaginable.
The Sh#tshow continues until it doesn’t
Blessings to All
–Lauren
Comment 14 – Russia must hit the American mainland
The United States must give in front of Russian ultimatum, if we want this world to go to hell. Otherwise, I predict that the whole of Europe will burn again. If that happens, Russia has to hit where the best is: to the American mainland. Maybe that immoral, stupid people will finally understand all the horrors of war then when several of their cities burn.
–Nemirni
Comment 15 – Nuclear war will occur
Any larger military conflict between US and Russia would involve the use of nuclear weapons. Thinking that they will not be used is naive. How useful is a weapon you cannot use in battle?
Why else are countries competing to produce a low yield warhead,which can be used as a more powerful version of a conventional weapon? How can you prove it’s a nuclear weapon if it does not produce waste and has a limited EMP blast? You cannot.
–Nemirni
Comment 16 – Russia is playing things smart
Unfortunately that dog don’t hunt – Russians have clearly asked for explicit, written, official, signed and notarised safety guarantees. No leeway for sloppy half jobs.
– Jacob’s Ladder
Final MM Comments
This is a historical time.
The Collective West is in a terrible state of disarray and at a serious disadvantage. It is very easy fro them to back out from it; Just pull back their military forces and leave Asia. Unfortunately the egos of the collective “leadership” has repeatedly rejected these appeals.
The next step will not be so kind.
So far, both Russia and China have put up “white tents”. All have been rejected. The next stage is the “red tent”.
This will NOT be comfortable. In fact it will be slightly horrific. There will be econmic and social pressures placed on the collective West. Inflation will go ballistic, access to food, medicine and energy will be curtailed, and that will have a domino effect ont he societies so impaced.
If this is not successful, then what is next is the “black tent”.
That will be horrific. Let’s see just how intelligent the collecitve West actually is.
The US-led NATO military bloc has reverted to full Cold War strategy of “containment” towards Russia and seeks “full spectrum dominance,” Moscow's Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Grushko told reporters on Wednesday.
The diplomat added that Moscow believes NATO’s behavior is creating a “unacceptable” threat to Russia that it will have to counter.
Grushko also alleged that the bloc is responsible for ending any and all cooperation with Russia on key common security issues such as the fight against terrorism, drug trafficking and piracy. He called out the US over the “collapse” of the arms control agreements, bringing up Washington’s exit from the INF and Open Skies treaties and dragging its feet on extending New START.
-RT
Forget about all you have read.
The system in place follow the standard “Old Domain” format. A “white Tent” opportunity was presented and it was rejected. Next up is a “red tent”. There will be pressures applied. In general, given the condition fo the “West” this will not be comfortable. Most of the population would generally agree to a calming fo the situation, but the leadership is completely oblivious. My guess is that they will create a situation promoting the establishment of black tents. This will not be good for anyone.
Sorry.
Do you want more?
You can find more articles related to this in my latest index; A New Beginning 2. And in it are elements of the old, some elements regarding the transition, and some elements that look towards the future.
So the big questions are:
Can Russia deter the US by reacting below the threshold of an open military clash? My personal reply is that it is still possible but, sadly, this is becoming less and less likely with every passing day.
Does that mean that this conflict can turn into WWIII with nukes and all? My personal reply is that that this scenario is becoming more and more likely with every passing day.
Bottom line: thank you again, “Biden” -voting Dem doubleplusgoodthinkers! Thanks to you only 100+ days into the new admin we are back on the edge of a nuclear precipice! In the words of Putin “you did not listen to us then, listen to us now!”. But, of course you won’t. Nothing short of a nuclear mushroom will wake you up from your delusions… If that happens, only blame yourselves!
So these are my thoughts for the day.
Now I invite you to share yours!
Kind regards
The Saker
I once encountered a homeless man in California, near Stockton. He tried to sell me a discarded plastic model that he obviously found in a trash bin. He was scruffy, dirty, and unkempt. His hair was long and matted, and his clothes were unwashed and tattered.
We, my wife and I, were walking down the side of the road, and we were going to go under a road near this sort of walk-way viaduct. He was to our right, sitting on the raised pavement. He shouted at us, but not irritatingly so. He just wanted to get our attention. And he did just that.
Now this plastic model was (in it’s self interesting), it was a discarded model of an American world war II half-track personnel carrier. I would guess that about half the pieces were gone and missing. The rest were still attached to the sprues that held them.
He was very adamant about selling it to me. He said that he would give me a good price. Only $20 he said.Keep in mind that this was in the late 1980’s when plastic models could be bought for under $5.
He told me that it was going to become valuable. His reasoning was that it represented the fundamental makeup of God before Satan took over people’s mind through computer modems. Damn! Those pesky demon signals sent via telephone modem…
…!
After that encounter, I became convinced that everyone inside of California were about five bottles short of a six pack of beer. I actually wondered whether there was something in the water…
And while I continued to do business, work and live in California, I made it a point to get the heck out of there as soon as I could. I reasoned that if I could encounter such a fruit case, that there must be many others, and as such, I didn’t want to have anything to do with them, and the area.
This little event, that happened so very long ago, reminds me of America today.
Every now and then you come across these little glimmers of clarity. You are exposed to these little events, or encounters. They make you pause and think. And as such, they pretty much “spell it all out” to you “as plain as day”, that things are more than just a little amiss.
These events cause you to stop. To think. To make reappraisals.
The best analogy I’ve seen is they’re like a monkey with a hand grenade. You can’t reason with it and it’s dangerous.
One such “red flag” moment is “The Longer Telegram”.
Which brings me to this next article. Completely reprinted, and all credit to the author. It was edited to fit this venue.
By Martin Sieff. Written on April 1, 2021.
The Longer Telegram reflects the intellectual, moral and emotional bankruptcy of what passes for “thought” inside the Washington Beltway, Martin Sieff writes.
The now famous – and ludicrous – Atlantic Council “Longer Telegram” on China, unintentionally has made a global laughing stock of the Atlantic Council.
But it still deserves careful consideration as an example.
An example of the pathetic (and infantile) intellectual pretensions of Washington’s geo-political supposed “elite.”
And their ever-fresh infantile wonk need to be “tougher”, “bigger” and “better” than their childhood heroes such as George Kennan and George Marshall.
Francois-Marie Arouet – Voltaire – shredded the remaining pretensions of the thousand-year-obsolete Holy Roman Empire in his day (the 18th century Enlightenment) by pointing out that it was not Holy, nor Roman nor even an Empire.
Similarly, the “Longer Telegram” that purported to lay out a new US National Strategy towards China is not a telegram at all.
The title of course comes from George Kennan’s now revered (as secular American Scripture) “Long Telegram” of 1946 to Secretary of State James Byrnes. And as such, it was eagerly seized upon as the blueprint for the containment of the Soviet Union throughout the Cold War.
Kennan in fact condemned US global policies of confrontation, militarization and destruction of democracies around the world from the 1950s on as a travesty of what he had advocated. He lived long enough to condemn the US expansion of NATO throughout Central Europe in the 1990s as the greatest catastrophic US policy decision of the post Cold War world, as I heard him say in person.
But no matter.
The Atlantic Council…
…part of the heart and soul of the US neoconservative/neoliberal think tank foreign policy establishment in its age of infantile regression…
… must have its Pacifier or Baby Comforter to reassure itself that it will still Run the World (at least in its own imagination) half a century from now: And that is the purpose of the “Longer Telegram.”
For the Longer Telegram of course is not a telegram at all.
Telegrams are ludicrously obsolete in our modern high tech world of the 21st century. We Veteran Foreign Correspondents have never bothered to use them for 30 or 40 years or so.
The very Executive Summary of the Longer Telegram gives that aspect of the game away.
Since when has anyone ever heard of any telegram having an “Executive Summary”?
The entire point of telegrams for the 150 years of their practical existence from around 1840 to 1990 was that they were terse and succinct to save money on the cost and speed of transmission.
The Longer Telegram is not only not a Telegram: It is not terse or succinct at all.
It ponderously, pompously and slowly lays out a policy for a [1] generations-long [2] global-wide [3] confrontation with China.
With eventual aim of imploding China.
As well as destroying China’s unity, prosperity and industrial power.
Its ultimate aim in fact is to do what the British and French Empires…
That war unleashed a nightmare century of slavery, drug addiction enslavement, humiliation, misery, massacre and death on the Chinese people.
Chinese leaders are understandably enraged at “The Longer Telegram”.
Whose neocon/neolib authors coyly elected to remain anonymous.
Again childishly trying to echo Kennan’s initial anonymity as “X”.
A reminder of his later 1947 article on Soviet foreign policy published in “Foreign Affairs” magazine.
In fact, the 2021 Longer Telegram bears all the marks of a misshapen monster designed by committee.
However, Beijing should not fear the Longer Telegram for its most crucial and salient characteristic is that is delusional, worthless nonsense.
The global unified alliance of the United States and the nations of Europe and Asia against Big Bad China is never going to happen.
The United States in the Golden Age of Joe Biden (and Kamala Harris) is too chaotic, too confused, too divided and its leaders too ludicrous to ever bring it about.
The Longer Telegram is a misshaped Frankenstein baby born of the inbred Washington Deep State Establishment.
America’s insane 18 main (of course there are hundreds of others) so-called “intelligence ” agencies (an obvious oxymoron but let that pass) are embracing it.
So are the bipartisan performing baboons of Congress…
…and their multiple thousands of staffers…
…and so of course are the enormous defense contractor corporations from whom all greenback blessings ultimately flow.
Most revealing of all, the Longer Telegram reflects the intellectual, moral and emotional bankruptcy of what passes for “thought” inside the Washington Beltway.
The Beltway Establishment can no longer even manufacture any plausible new justifications, myths or downright lies…
Lies to con the American people into pouring out the remains of their rapidly disappearing and stolen wealth…
…and sending their precious children off for more to die and have their limbs blown off …
…in yet more decades of needless, meaningless global wars.
Instead, the rotting skeletons of arguments made in a different place…
… for a different world…
… three quarters of a century ago must be dusted off and pulled off their dust-covered shelves to be recycled …
Yes. recycled for the totally different circumstances of the 21st century world.
Since Washington, as I have previously pointed out, is now run by Liberal Zombies whose ideas really died 50 years ago.
Thererfore, it should be no surprise that the apologies for “ideas” and “strategies” they frantically reach out for should be pacifiers for babies and zombie ideas exhumed from their long-forgotten graves as well.
Ouch!
Is the greater public ever going to get a clear view of the difference behind the "rules based order" of the West (we own the money system and make the rules) and the negotiated International law based order?Posted by: psychohistorian | Apr 20 2021 17:05 utc | 4
So yeah. Washington DC has embraced a make lots-and-lots of war mentality. The entire Washington bureaucratic machine is gearing up for a nice long… generations long… conflict. And they are “chomping at the bit” to make it happen. They want it to happen to China. But they will accept a war with Russia. And they want it to happen soon.
Are they crazy or what?
The globe is changing, and what does America want to do?
They want to press the “reset button”, throw the world into chaos, and then use the enormous American military to “straighten things out” so that America will emerge from a global conflict as the sole remaining super-power.
This belief that it is possible is borne out of ignorance, wishful thinking, and decades of echo-chamber activities. It WILL NOT end up well.
Check out this article. All credit to the author. Reprinted as found and edited to fit this venue.
US diplomat George F. Kennan wrote a “Long Telegram” from Moscow in February 1946, which was the basis for the US containment strategy toward the former Soviet Union during the Cold War. Now in 2021, the Washington-based think tank Atlantic Council released “The Longer Telegram” to suggest a “new American China strategy” which is full of Cold War mentality and smearing of China.
“The Longer Telegram” was written by “Anonymous,” or “a former senior government official with deep expertise and experience dealing with China.”
The report can be regarded as the remnants of the Trump administration trying to seek confrontation with China. The core ideas of the report are in line with the Trump administration’s China policy.
However, it is very inappropriate to release it anonymously.
Chinese people, the Communist Party of China (CPC) and Chinese leaders share common interests.
The US attempt to separate Chinese people from the CPC is doomed to fail.
If the US wants to justify itself by attacking Chinese leaders, it would be harming Chinese people’s interests as well. In the end, the US’ overall interests will be harmed.
The anonymous report’s core ideology and methods are seriously misleading.
The author, whoever he or she is, lacks a deep understanding of China’s current situation. Such people claim to be “China experts,” but they lack an understanding of China’s national conditions.
They can only talk about China through imagination.
The report’s policy recommendations are obviously distorted.
US anti-China forces are still instigating a new Cold War and ideological confrontation, trying their best to contain China as well as to engage in a “color revolution” against China.
Is the US trying to take external intervention measures to shake the CPC’s rule and change China’s political system? This would be exactly “self-defeating.” A “color revolution” against China would never succeed.
The Atlantic Council is an establishment think tank, but it has proposed an outdated cliché.
Some of the US elites have realized the previous US policy toward China was not successful, and they may want to make some adjustments.
However, they are like a drowning man desperately clutching at a straw.
They have completely misunderstood the current major interests of the US.
They also failed to learn from the failure of the US’ China policy in history.
This is a tragedy.
What is surprising is that there is a market even for such a “new American China strategy.”
This shows the extent to which the US policy circle has been poisoned.
The report is a collection of lies.
It is against the times.
The fact is that Chinese people share common interests with the CPC and Chinese leaders.
From a semi-colonial and semi-feudal society to the second largest economy today, which achievement was not reached under the leadership of the CPC?
Can the US achieve poverty alleviation the way China did?
Without the decision of the CPC and Chinese leaders as well as Chinese people’s support, how can China perform outstandingly in the COVID-19 fight?
The improvement of Chinese people’s lives and the promotion of China’s international status are due to the CPC’s leadership.
This is generally accepted by the Chinese people, but is also exactly what Westerners cannot understand.
For another example, during the financial crisis, China’s 4-trillion-yuan stimulus package was also due to Chinese leaders’ decision. The US cannot understand why China has the ability to make such a bold move. Neither can the US understand the unity between Chinese people, the CPC and Chinese leaders.
If these American political elites can make an objective comparison between China and the US with a rational and balanced mind-set, they would understand that ordinary Chinese people share common interests with the CPC and the country’s leaders.
In the US, however, this is not the case.
The interests of American leaders and people are not always consistent. We hope the Biden administration can formulate a relatively healthy overall foreign policy, instead of being led by the distortion and misjudgement of the report’s anonymous author.
The report attacked the CPC, but it has no right to do so.
Just take a look at Trump during the COVID-19 fight – where did he lead the US to?
Thus, many US political elites have a malicious starting point and intent.
They hope China will eventually be thrown into chaos.
And this is exactly what the Chinese people will never agree to.
Many American political elites’ mentality is still stuck in the so-called threat of Communism.
This is very unhealthy.
The world has long entered the 21st century and they should not stay in ideological opposition as it is a stupid, dangerous and short-sighted behavior.
These people have completely misread the times and China.
Opinions like “The Longer Telegram” will completely ruin the positive and constructive hopes of the new US administration’s China policy and overall global policies.
Yet, the “Longer Telegram” is the American policy paper.
Yes. It is the De Facto policy of the Untied States against China today. And as such it is provocative and dangerous. For it establishes the ideas that…
The Chinese province of 台湾 is an American protectorate.
That China has no authority over it’s city of 香港城市.
That America can send military troops, NGO’s and “humanitarian aid” to the Chinese province of 新疆.
That sponsoring a “color revolution” in the Chinese province of 西藏 will not have consequences.
American military warships, battle carriers, and nuclear armed aircraft can travel freely along the Chinese coast, and it will not be provocative.
Like I have said before…
What kind of Kool Aide are these morons in Washington DC drinking? Do they actually think that the rest of the world would ACCEPT this nasty, disgusting and belligerent attitude?
The Biden Administration is committed to accelerating the worst elements of the “hard imperial” practices of military encirclement of China while also advancing the “soft imperial” practices, Matt Ehret writes.
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Going into the March 18 diplomatic talks between U.S. and Chinese delegates to discuss the long-term strategic interests of the two nations, China projected a largely positive hope …
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…that the days of military aggression, trade wars, sanctions and interference into China’s affairs which characterized much of the past 8 years…
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…might finally be coming to an end.
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They had some reason to make their hopeful assumptions.
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After all, the U.S. State Department press releases announced that the meetings would …
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“highlight cooperation that promotes peace, security and cooperation in the Indo-Pacific region and around the world.”
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And so, the Chinese certainly hoped that the sanctions imposed under Trump’s watch might be rolled back by the new administration.
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And that the new team might respect China’s sovereign right to pursue its economic interests.
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All without being seen as an opponent to the decaying western empire.
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They have understandably gotten quite tired of dealing with the constant unipolar intimidation…
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…as has been so common since Obama’s Asia Pivot was first announced in 2012.
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In response to the pressure of a dying empire attempting to insecurely impose its will on a growing nation which will soon find itself as the economic leader of the world…
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China has responded consistently with class and restraint calling for cooperation and dialogue.
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At various times over recent years, China has offered the USA and other western nations (desperately in need of real economic development), opportunities to cooperate…
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…on the Belt and Road Initiative,
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…space research
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… and other sectors of win-win cooperation citing these domains as being inclusive of all and beneficial to all participants.
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The fact that the Chinese have made these offers isn’t surprising.
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The USA is economically bankrupt.
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It is sitting upon a derivatives-fueled hyperinflationary bubble ripe to blow.
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America is devoid of any significant manufacturing capacities it once enjoyed.
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And it is militarily over-extended beyond belief.
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So it isn’t as if cooperating on the BRI isn’t in the interests of the USA… as a sovereign nation.
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But the USA isn’t really a sovereign nation state these days.
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It’s something else.
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This sad fact slapped the Chinese delegation across the face.
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The moment U.S. representatives Anthony Blinken and Andrew Sullivan opened their mouths during the keynote remarks and spewed nothing but belligerent poison at their Asian counterparts.
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Blinken began his condescending chastisements of China’s disruptive influence to “international rules-based order”.
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He condemned China for its alleged cyber-attacks.
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Read about how the CIA is able to fake the origin of malware and cyber attacks in the Snowden Vault 7 Release. HERE.
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As well as the apparently vicious treatment of Uyghurs…
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… Hong Kong…
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… Tibetans….
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…and Taiwan.
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Sullivan followed suit promoting the importance of the anti-Chinese “Quad” (often dubbed the “NATO of the Pacific) …
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… and then virtue signaled “American ingenuity” and leadership.
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Virtue signaling is the conspicuous communication of moral values and gooddeeds. The term has negative connotations as it is commonly used to denote virtuousactions and statements are motivated by a desire for social status and self-satisfaction. Virtual signaling is often used as a form of persuasion.-12 Examples of Virtue Signaling - Simplicable
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Using the best newspeak available to an American diplomat these days, Blinken condemned the “might makes right” outlook which has caused so much injustice over the years and which apparently guides China thinking, saying:
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“The alternative to a rules-based order is a world in which might makes right and winners take all, and that would be a far more violent and unstable world for all of us.”
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Of course, one might be confused by this claim since China has only one foreign military base in Djibouti.
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And has started no new wars in generations…
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As well as has lifted nearly a billion people out of poverty…
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… but that’s only because you don’t receive quality CIA briefings like Blinken and Sullivan do.
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Yang Jiechi and Wang Yi’s responses provided a sobering sledgehammer of reality…
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…as both statesmen took the opportunity to spend 42 minutes laying out in stark terms the scale of hypocritical poison in extolling democracy abroad while not being able to win the support of its own population citing BLM.
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Jiechi also contrasted the USA’s obsessive use of regime changes and wars across the world in defense of the Washington-run “rules based order” …
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…with China’s track record in [1] ending extreme poverty, [2] winning the support of its citizens and [3] building great infrastructure projects abroad.
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Calling out the disingenuous intention behind the U.S. delegation’s organization of the talks, Jiechi stated:
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“isn’t this the intention of the United States – judging from what, or the way that you have made your opening remarks – that it wants to speak to China in a condescending way from a position of strength?
So was this carefully all planned and was it carefully orchestrated with all the preparations in place?
Is that the way that you had hoped to conduct this dialogue?
Well, I think we thought too well of the United States.
We thought that the U.S. side will follow the necessary diplomatic protocols.”
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Jiechi continued:
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“So let me say here that, in front of the Chinese side, the United States does not have the qualification to say that it wants to speak to China from a position of strength.
The U.S. side was not even qualified to say such things even 20 years or 30 years back, because this is not the way to deal with the Chinese people.
If the United States wants to deal properly with the Chinese side, then let’s follow the necessary protocols and do things the right way.”
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In the ensuing days of meetings, it should not come as a surprise that very little in the way of serious conflict resolution occurred.
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In fact, the only solid points of agreement which the U.S. side would permit involved two joint protocols.
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Protocols that fall perfectly into alignment with the Malthusian closed system objectives of the Great Reset agenda attempting to reign in a post-nation state world order in the wake of the oncoming economic meltdown.
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These included 1) a joint program to coordinate more closely on fighting global warming via green finance and green energy grids and 2) coordinating on COVID-19 vaccination programs.
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Nothing which China is doing that relates to [1] actual scientific and [2] technological growth, [3] long term conditionality-free banking or [4] poverty extermination was permitted by the U.S.-side for reasons which should be obvious to the informed reader by now.
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While Blinken did announce in the post-conference press release that space cooperation between the two powers was discussed…
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… it is a fact as true as gravity that the imperial technocrats running the Biden White House are so ideologically opposed to the sort of open-system programs which space cooperation creates that Blinken’s remarks are sure to remain dead words.
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What is clear coming out of the Alaska meeting is that the Biden Administration is committed to accelerating the worst elements of the “hard imperial” practices of military encirclement of China…
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…while building up the QUAD military alliance on the one hand…
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…while also advancing the “soft imperial” practices of pulling China into unbreakable de-carbonization treaties and medical health regimes controlled by supranational technocrats on behalf of the Anglo-American oligarchy.
Shortly after Mr.Biden characterizing Mr.Putin as a killer and more, Mr.Putin invited Biden for a public and live online discussion, saying that it would be beneficial for both the N.American as well as the Russian people.
This morning we find this bluntly devastating shot across the bows from the Russian Foreign Affairs ministry.
The final sentence, not included in the image, reads as follows: “Responsibility for this lies entirely with the United States.”
Setting this in context, the contrast between Mr.Lavov’s ongoing visit to China, and the so-called ‘strategic’ meeting between the United States and China at the end of last week, cannot be more stark.
At the very same time, Mr.Putin and Mr Shoigu are taking the air on the Taiga in Siberia. I wonder if the western governments have figured out why now?
“ Vladimir #Putin is spending the weekend in #Siberia. The President together with Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu enjoys walking in the #taiga forest and riding an all-terrain vehicle. Also, Sergei Shoigu showed the President his workshop.”
In the next few hours we will receive Mr.Lavrov’s translated speeches from his China visit. Some of it is already published.
Take a look at what Mr.Lavrov described as ‘dynamic cooperation“:
“We regard the new era of Russian-Chinese relations, which you have mentioned, primarily in the context of the broader situation on the international stage.
It is undergoing a very deep transformation and the strengthening of the new centres of economic growth, financial might and political influence.
Regrettably, the objective trend for a rise of a truly multipolar democratic world is being hindered by some Western countries led by the United States...
... which would like to preserve their domination of the global economy and international politics at all costs and to force their will and their demands on each and all.
In response to this, Russia and China are promoting a constructive unification agenda.
We want the architecture of international relations to be fair, democratic, capable of ensuring stability and based on broad interaction of states and their integration associations, just as we are doing together with our Chinese friends by promoting integration in Eurasia.China is a truly strategic partner and a like-minded country for us.
Our cooperation on the international stage is having a stabilizing effect on the global and regional situation.
Russia believes that our dialogue with China based on trust and mutual respect should provide an example for other countries, including those that are trying to develop ties with Russia and China on different principles that are not based on equality.
This is not acceptable to us or our Chinese friends.
We will continue developing our foreign policy constructively and flexibly, showing readiness for compromise but exclusively on the basis of mutual respect and a balance of interests.”
There is however a twist in this lovely tale and it is the one of economic influence and we know now which direction both Russia and China (and a host of other countries) will take in the short term.
They will remove the sanctions weapon from the hands of the United States including Europe.
Let’s take a look at a few more of Mr.Lavrov’s comments.
“The US sanctions risks need to be alleviated by switching to alternative currencies and moving away from using the dollar, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said.”
“The minister said the US is aiming to limit the technological development of Russia and China, so the two countries need to strengthen their independence.”
“According to the Russian Foreign Minister, the US and other western countries are no longer capable of using classical diplomacy and only resort to one tool on the international arena: sanctions.”“We must form the widest possible coalition of countries that will fundamentally oppose this illegal practice,” the Russian Foreign Minister concluded.”
As geopolitical watchers and analysts, we’re always looking for the signals that frequently just go up in smoke. This time however the signals from Russia and China are not going up in smoke but being presented in pictures in photo essays, and in clear language.
From the last few days we can learn a few things:
China and Russia are friends and will remain friends and will work together where their interests coalesce. Their interests coalesce right here in Lavrov’s words: “….. architecture of international relations to be fair, democratic, capable of ensuring stability and based on broad interaction of states.” If that statement confuses you, in short, it means right across our world.
Sanctions will be removed as a weapon.
The petrodollar is on its last legs.
The clock for the final battle is ringing. The only weapons remaining that will be allowed to the failing hegemon will be NATO (which, according to many of our serious analysts, is a paper tiger) and the ability to use nuclear and conventional weapons. I will not comment on that as I am not qualified in the field.
The ability of the current and failing hegemon to do damage economically, is being curtailed. We can look forward to a different economic reset, with countries taking their power back using their own currencies and other alternatives. (This is not the reset from the WEF). Then we will see what happens to the sphere of weapons because they may become a last resort.
On a humorous note, it looks like the Russian Foreign Affairs ministry has resorted to photos with captions, hoping they can reach the failing hegemon with pictures, because there is such a great problem to reach them with diplomatic words. The growth of the adult coloring book industry in the West may have been the deciding factor lol.
It is fascinating to compare the recent Biden comments to President Putin and Putin’s response, to what is happening in Alaska between the US and China.
It cannot be a coincidence that the messaging from both Russia and China, is the same. And it is clearly, deal with us on fair terms or Go Pound Sand.
There is a seeming coordination of messaging.
If you consider President Putin’s comments translated in this video, you will hear Putin say with nuance of course, that the US was founded first in an experience of direct genocide on Indian tribes and then they continued with a cruel period of slavery.
He says that to this day these early formative experiences accompany the zeitgeist, both internal and external, of the United States.
Mr.Putin goes further to say that the US is the only country that ever attacked another with nuclear weapons, citing Japan being a non-nuclear state.
He calls it clearly an extermination of a local population that had no military sense.
Mr Putin ends with saying that the US will have to deal with Russia and Russia will only deal in those aspects that have benefit for Russia herself, and the US will have to reckon with it.
Subtext:
You have no moral standing in the world any longer.
Your history is brutal.
You are still operating in this brutal historical context.
Go pound sand as this will not be allowed any longer.
From the Chinese side, after Blinken tried the usual litany of US complaints against China (cyber attacks, Hong Kong, Xinjiang, Taiwan, and China is threatening global stability), Yang Jiechi for a whole 15 minutes called the US racists at home and warmongers abroad.
He said in front of the Chinese side, the US side is not qualified to speak to China from a position of strength.
He told in no uncertain terms that the US actions harm the interests of the peoples of the two countries as well as world stability and development and “should not be continued.”
The U.S. side made unreasonable accusations, which was not in line with diplomatic protocol, therefore China made the required response.
There is no acceptance of the newly minted ‘rules-based international order’ among the Chinese diplomats.
Subtext:
You should not be allowed to continue with your meddling.
This is because you have no more moral standing.
This is in the eyes of anyone.
Your purported ‘strength’ is dissipating in your hypocrisy.
An interesting issue of course, that went mainly under the radar, is that at the moment that the Chinese/US so-called ‘strategic’ discussion started in Alaska, the Russian Foreign Ministry announced that Mr Lavrov will be visiting China, specifically their delegates to the Alaska meeting, the Chinese diplomats Yang Jiechi and Wang Yi, a day or two after conclusion of the meetings.
This short sitrep should convince you that the AngloZionist empire is being told in no uncertain terms to get on with pounding sand to dig the imperial grave with evidence that this message is being coordinated.
It is a message from Russia and from China simultaneously.
Shortly after penning this short piece, some commentators are already noticing that the empire is now going to have to deal with ‘sledgehammer diplomacy’.
They have established a firm foundation for an alternative system which is open for anyone to join and which respects all participating nations.
China and Russia have made it absolutely clear that they recognize the sad fact that…
…the oligarchy in firm control of the western alliance…
…is adamantly intent on burning all possible diplomatic avenues of cooperation and dialogue…
…as the Hindenburg of the western financial system continues to careen towards a fiery oblivion.
It didn’t take long for the behaviorist zombies and NATO-philes managing the recent U.S. color revolution to undo any remnant of hope that some form of sane foreign policy might emerge from the U.S. establishment.
All hope is gone.
Nothing could be worse than the neocons running much of Trump’s foreign policy thought many of the leading members of both Chinese and Russian intelligentsias in recent months.
However, with the recent barrage of sanctions launched upon both Russia and China this week…
…in coordinated fashion by Canada, the USA and EU…
… preceded by accusations by America’s leading geriatric hologram that Putin is a soulless killer…
… it has become clear that unless a great systemic change occurs in the west, there is no hope for dialogue or cooperation.
This was made absolutely clear in the malicious ambush set up by the U.S. State Department which attempted to publicly attack and shame the Chinese in Alaska on March 18.
The fact that the results of the March 23 meeting between Foreign Ministers Sergei Lavrov and Wang Yi in the South China Guanxi Zhuang Autonomous Region resulted in a renewed joint statement on Global Governance should come as no surprise.
Calling for a tightened bond of brotherhood between the two nations, Yi stated that Russia and China must
“act as guarantors of justice in international affairs”
and stated that
“China is ready to promote the international system established by the United Nations, protect the world order based on international law and abide by universal values such as peace, development, justice, democracy, equality and freedom.”
While the Five Eyes and other NATO-phile lap dogs of war sing the praises of the “rules-based order”…
… China and Russia have made the point repeatedly this week that the only international order they will adhere to…
…is the one that involves all nations and not merely the handful of imperial hypocrites among the Trans Atlantic pushing for a unilateral world government.
While these same self-righteous unipolarists self-adulate each other in their echo chambers…
… the victims of IMF-World Bank debt slavery…
… humanitarian bombings…
… drone assassinations…
… CIA-MI6 run regime changes…
… and color revolutionary conspiracies directed ultimately at Russia and China look hopefully towards the multipolar alliance as the only pathway to a future worth living in.
While praise for the UN Charter has confused some who naively believe the world body itself to have been the product of the unipolar world government agenda 76 years ago…
… there is a more nuanced reality to be discovered.
When one actually takes the time to read the charter and study the battles waged during the time of the UN’s creation, it becomes clear that the leaders of Russia and China know exactly what they are doing.
The UN charter which they defend firmly establishes respect for the sovereign of each nation state as a primary objective of the world organization…
…and grants members of the Security Council on whose body both Russia and China sit, power to veto any military decision.
Additionally, the charter mandates economic justice for all and mutual interest as primary goals of the organization.
All of these things stand in direct opposition to the sort of thinking coming out of the dystopic minds of Davos luminaries and “rules-based orderists” trying to manage the new world order today like gods of Olympus.
This during the meeting, Lavrov and Yi added the important component of economic liberation from the U.S. dollar hegemony…
…to the discussion…
…and made scientific and technological cooperation the driving force…
…of the new economic/security system that needs to be brought online in short order.
On these points Lavrov stated:
“In addition to strengthening cooperation under the UN framework on the immediate end to unilateral coercive measures, China and Russia should also take the opportunity to enhance their scientific and technological innovation and improve their national strength in response to the sanction.”
Lavrov alluded to the necessary new financial architecture that needs to arise out of the multipolar alliance by
“promoting settlement by local and other international currencies that can replace the U.S. dollar so as to gradually move away from the western controlled payment system”.
This last point reflects a process that has already been well underway for some years…
…implicitly as both Russia and China have begun managing their payment systems increasingly outside of the U.S.-controlled SWIFT system…
In his speech, Lavrov made the point that today China has become Russia’s largest trading partner, and after the Power of Siberia is completed, Russia will become the #1 supplier of energy to China.
As of 2020, $107 billion of trade occurred between the two nations with 25% of that total occurring in local currencies.
This is a huge step up from the mere 2% in 2014-16.
While the western governments are locked under the control of a Malthusian-minded priesthood ideologically committed to the deconstruction of civilization under a green financial dictatorship, the China-Russian alliance is founded upon sturdier stuff.
Premising their self-interest not upon the projection of power, and intimidation of the weak…
… China and Russia have recognized that the only pathway to a viable future is located in the power of creation (aka: breaking free of zero-sum thinking).
The leaders of these nations know that if resource scarcity press upon the potential to sustain the lives of people…
… it is better to inspire creative ideas, and unleash new discoveries under a dynamic of scientific progress…
…rather than cut down the population to adapt to those limits which computer models attest is our carrying capacity.
Already both Russia and China have established a firm foundation for an alternative system which is open for anyone to join…
…and which respects the developmental pathways, political systems and cultures of all diverse participating nations.
This harmony of the parts with the greater good of the whole is possible because the practice is founded upon a discoverable principle of Natural Law.
A law which has found the human species in a living universe where both freedom, law and duty all co-exist.
This coherence of the whole and the parts once animated the minds of statesmen of the west who authored such foundational documents as the Treaty of Westphalia (1648), Declaration of Independence (1776), the U.S. Constitution (1787) and UN Charter (1945).
This principle of statecraft was invoked by such great men as Abraham Lincoln, Franklin Roosevelt, Charles DeGaulle and John Kennedy (to name a few) who each in their own way defended the General Welfare…
…while simultaneously upholding the unalienable rights of the individual to the chagrin of the financier oligarchy.
These men did this via the use of strong federal power to [1] build great projects, [2] regulate private finance all while [3] amplifying the power of private enterprise and [4] individual rights of each citizen.
Before the bipolar days of the Cold War brainwashed the majority of citizens into believing they had to plug themselves into either a “communist” or “free market capitalist” cage, this system was known around the world as “The American System of Political Economy”.
Sadly, this pre-condition for human survival has long been forgotten in the west.
It is now Russia and China who are leading the “guarantors of justice in world affairs”…
…as both nations have united in co-constructing the first lunar base together,
…advance asteroid defense systems (which deal with an actual threat to our planet unlike those fake crises advocated by fear mongers at Davos and London),
…and are working on overtime to extend the New Silk Road across Africa, Asia, Latin America …
…as well as the Arctic in the form of the Polar Silk Road.
Whether or not the west is capable of rediscoveries its lost better traditions at this late date remains to be seen.
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Interior of a roadside diner.
American burgers.
to use drones to transport and disperse substances are particularly interesting."
— Pipers Creek (@piperscreekway) 
Fred Heim Scale Model
![What’s next between Russia and the United States; a video illustration [1]](https://metallicman.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/2022-01-30_13-52BIG-825x510.jpg)
Vladimir #Putin is spending the weekend in #Siberia. The President together with Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu enjoys walking in the #taiga forest and riding an all-terrain vehicle. Also, Sergei Shoigu showed the President his workshop.”
