This is what happened to the CIA assets, the NED organizers and the participants in the Shanghai Covid protests

Let it be well understood that I covered (in great detail) what happened, and who was involved and why. As well as the final results and the various trends going on in China. However, this article summarizes the events related to the four participating groups. Now that China has secured them, arrested them, sentenced or sentencing them, and cleaning up the mess that they created;
The NED / CIA trained saboteurs.
The NED / CIA associated "news" reporters.
The local student Leaders.
The student pawns.

The trained saboteurs

These were the Taiwanese and Hong Kong “leaders” that directed the local leaders’ actions.

In Sichuan, Four Hongkongers who disclosed false information and bogus addresses, have already been charged with ‘Falsification for Entry’ which carries 3–10 years.

The sentencing will be next week.

Given the seriousness of their actions they will probably obtain a sentence on the “high side”. This is especially true if they are tied to any previous Hong Kong color revolution activity.

The student participants (Pawns)

Yesterday a total of 91 students apologized for their mistake with the protests.

Using AI obtained data, and 5G remote face scanning (though paper, and masks) the police compiled detailed photo evidence against everyone who was at the “protests”.

Using this photo evidence, every student who participated was visited by the police at their dorms and homes, and the leaders clearly identified.

They were made to sign an Oath that [1] they didn’t get any money and [2] that the protests were because of frustration that they could not go home for the CNY holidays (which now they can).

They also apologized [3] for sending the messages to Reuters & BBC.

The student leaders (Led the protests)

In addition, the leaders, have tougher penalties placed upon them.

There were 14 leaders, or “ring leaders”.

Those Students identified as leaders can no longer join the Civil Service. Which means that they cannot join the CPC, volunteer, or take the basic tests for advancement within Chinese society. They will never vote, or ever become a citizen inside of China.

They will require Security clearance level I for a passport (In short they are unlikely to ever leave China until maybe 2050).

All their social media accounts have been suspended for 3 years. Meaning their internet use is ZERO for the next three years.

  • No Wechat.
    • Unable to QR scan.
    • Unable to buy or purchase things via QR.
    • Unable to register APPs
  • No QQ
    • Unable to listen to music.
    • Unable to create and publish music.
    • Unable to use e-mail
  • No Douxing
    • Unable to play games
    • Unable to watch videos
    • Unable to create videos

The others will not be punished. They were warned and let off. They were visibly relieved.


Western Reporters (Choreographed and directed the protests)

8 Reporters were charged with Degree Three Incitement and Degree One Public Misinformation without evidence.These charges result in prison time.

Lucky for them that the charges were suspended pending deportation.

If they ever come back to China again, they face 6–14 years imprisonment and 200K Yuan fine

They have been deported

1 Reporter has been released on a 50K Yuan Bond. That he posted. I am sure that his every movement is recorded and watched as we walks the long slow path out of China.

Their Laptops, Phones are all in Security Service custody.

All lists and names, and addresses on the computers were obtained, and deep-deep-DEEP AI scanning of the electronic uncovered a “treasure trove” of information.

Let’s just simply say that any Chinese on any of those lists is finished


This so far was the Security Services… now some words about the dark-arm of China. The dreaded…

Political Corruption Police

Then the Political Corruption Police was involved and they made a number of stops which aren’t covered in any Chinese Daily. Nothing is reported about those events.

On Duoxing and Zhihu they say, many Taiwanese who were spotted have been detained and are questioned.

One must wonder how serious it must be for them as the Political Corruption Police handled their cases instead of the regular police.

They may be charged with spying in which case they may spend the next 20 years in a Chinese Cell. And it will be absolute. China does not have parole or negotiated settlements like in the West. Twenty years is twenty years to the second.

Or they may be killed. As is the historical norm.

Exactly.

Life over. Full stop.


By God the Crackdown was Swift

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main qimg 8eec948a6fb6bb51d31837d509161988 lq

It’s like Machines and Robots

The Authorities knew who the brains were and who the unwitting pawns were in seconds.

The Pawns were mostly poor students who were let go with a warning.

The Pawns were a handful of people who didn’t even understand what they were protesting against. They came to protest against Covid 19 lockdowns and were aghast to know that the protests called for Xi Jing pings resignation and overthrow of the CPC.

They admitted to being paid (by the United States government) agents.

They were ordered between 60–200 hours community service and they were visibly relieved. Grateful, even.

The Western reporters were deported. No sense jailing them and causing a major diplomatic incident.

Maybe Mengs charges being dismissed was a quid pro quo?

However the perpetrators from HK and Taiwan are finished. They paid for protests where overthrow of Xi was mentioned. It’s far better for them to simply  end their lives now.

Their own personal lives are going to be very dark.

About the student leaders…

The student leaders could face more serious charges if they find money was exchanged and even a Harvard or Yale admission is considered money exchange.  So if a letter, or voice message promising easy entry into a Western university is obtained, they will be facing very serious charges.

Then instead of Yale, the poor guy faces 15 years prison


The Overthrow of CPC and Xi

That was the only thing that was regarded serious enough.

The Authorities once again demonstrating their brutal efficiency

Many pro-DPP Taiwanese in Taiwan may no longer dare visit the mainland. They would be picked up within ten seconds and likely never see the light of day again.

Ukraine war, 1935 Mercedes-Benz 540K Streamline Roadster, Kodachrome Stories, UFOs, The Government, Russia, and other related nonsense

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.

Reading the paper this morning.

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.
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You would get the impression that Ukrainian officials were supervising the operation.
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There is this note at the beginning:
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“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.”
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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.
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But the article just uses the rest of the spin:
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      • 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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2022 05 18 13 16

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.

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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…
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From HERE

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And four additional banks…
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From HERE

Japan froze the assets of 398 Russian citizens, including President Vladimir Putin’s daughters – Infobae

My goodness.

The “looting civilisation” of Asia:

From HERE

Slow-Cooker Meaty Italian Spaghetti Sauce

From Betty Crocker.

2022 05 18 13 39
2022 05 18 13 39

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 22
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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.”

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Kodachrome Stories

We love Kodachromes and we love found photos.

54 2
54 2

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.
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2022 03 Iran’s Oil and Gas Exports Could Benefit From Russia’s International Isolation.

The secret to great spaghetti? It’s all in the sauce

From HERE

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
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.
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Even so, the new initiatives were underwhelming. As regional experts pointed out, the $60 million of funding for maritime cooperation compares unfavourably with funding allocated under the earlier $425 million Southeast Asia Maritime Security Initiative.
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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
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Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong also implied that US engagement on this front had been lacking, saying publicly that while Singapore welcomed the initiative, it encouraged “greater ASEAN participation in the IPEF and we hope the US will directly invite and engage ASEAN member states in this endeavour.”
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And Malaysia’s Prime Minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob called for Washington to adopt a “more active” trade and investment agenda. His trade minister said that Malaysia still needed to decide which of the IPEF’s pillars Kuala Lumpur would join.
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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.
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From 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.

46 4
46 4

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

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.

3 35
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
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.

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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.

Ukraine Is in Worse Shape than You Think | Time

From 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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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.

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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

Democrat party is the party of war.

From 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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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

Yup. Surrender. No question about it.

From 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.

68 1
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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2 8r9

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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3 86

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.

New Beginnings 4

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Articles & Links

Master Index

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It’s a time of Ukraine war, Streamliners, Kodachromes, hushed voices, slow and careful movements, and serious thoughts.

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.”
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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”. )

From HERE

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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1vvvv9 1

And…

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qqq0 27

And…

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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.

Time to put an end to US hypocrisy – Opinion

Time to put an end to US hypocrisy – Opinion – Chinadaily.com.cn
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From HERE

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.

49 4
49 4

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, ...

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.

1vvv7 1
1vvv7 1

And…

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16v 1

And…

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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.

45 6
45 6

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:

From HERE

Streamliners:

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.

14 1 d1
14 1 d1

And…

14 22d
14 22d

And…

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1dddddd3 1

And…

12 d1
12 d1

The streamliner was born.

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11dd 1

Russian Computer Hacker Group “Killnet” Announces “Global Internet attack”

2022 05 17 13 53
2022 05 17 13 53

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
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
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

Moscow, May 14, 2022

Mr Lukyanov,

Mr Karaganov,

Colleagues,

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…

9qqq 1
9qqq 1

And…

9 3qqq2
9 3qqq2

And…

8 1q
8 1q

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
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.

You can find my four part series here:

Part one

Who Will Be Brave in Huxley’s New World?

No wonder that the Tavistock Institute and the CIA became involved in looking at the effects of LSD and how to influence and control the mind.

Part two

The War on Science and the 20th Century Descent of Man

Huxley makes it crystal clear that he considers the world to be overpopulated, and that science and progress cannot be free to advance without limits.

Part three

The Origins of the Counterculture Movement: A Gathering of Anarchists, Occultists and Psychoanalysts for a New Age

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.

Part four

Huxley’s Ultimate Revolution: The Battle for Your Mind and the Relativity of Madness

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…

8 qq33
8 qq33

And…

7qqq 1
7qqq 1

And…

6qqq 1
6qqq 1

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.

But that wasn’t the end of the story.

On Sunday, the average price of a gallon of gasoline in the United States hit an all-time record of $4.47.

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.

Because it isn’t going to happen.

Homes are becoming a lot less affordable too.

As a result of a “combination of rising home prices and higher interest rates”, the average payment on a new mortgage is now 38 percent higher than it was 12 months ago in the United States…

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.

And ultimately we will have the kind of horrific inflationary meltdown that I have been warning about for years.

Things didn’t have to turn out this way.

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.

From 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.

81a 1
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.
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May 16 2022

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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.

He was proven right.

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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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
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…

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3 4qqq8

And…

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And…

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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

CSTO summit

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.

President of Kazakhstan Kassym-Jomart Tokayev: Mr Pashinyan, colleagues!

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
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
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:

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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:

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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.

Not gonna happen.

Sorry USA… All will be revealed.

From 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.

New Beginnings 4

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Articles & Links

Master Index

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  • You can start reading the articles by going HERE.
  • You can visit the Index Page HERE to explore by article subject.
  • You can also ask the author some questions. You can go HERE to find out how to go about this.
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Ukraine war, Russia, 1955 GMC L’Universelle Dream Truck, 1950s Kodachromes, and beautiful girls from the past

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
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) , 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.

From HERE

American actress from the silent movie era, actress Marie Doro, 1902

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1 13

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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QQQ85291357

India announces immediate ban on wheat exports

India wants to keep it’s food for itself. It’s following the Chinese model.

From HERE

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.

Kodachrome Stories

We love Kodachromes and we love found photos.

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58 2

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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pQW85291362

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

when the Formula is worked

R404 = 50.000.000.000*(1-(0,5*0,1*0,14*0,14*0,1) = 1000.000.000

R404 = 1 billion Dollars.

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.

      1. 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.
      2. 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.
      3. 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
  1. ATCS = All They Can Steal
  2. 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.

  1. 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.
  2. The 5 Syrian Rebels… yes, those trained for 500 million Dollars.
  3. 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.

Kodachrome Stories

We love Kodachromes and we love found photos.

Nice.

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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 Secret for better Coffee – Birds and bees

From HERE

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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85291f364

Genetic study confirms Sarin Nerve gas as a cause of Gulf War Illness

From HERE

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.”

So much for the “there were no WMD” trope.

Kodachrome Stories

We love Kodachromes and we love found photos.

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80 e1

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

From HERE

  • 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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6 q16

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

From HERE

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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7 1q5

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.

“My great-great-grandmother, late 1910s”

I love her dress.

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Glen Campbell – Wichita Lineman (Live Goodtime Hour)

I hope that this brings back memories. Happy ones.

Kodachrome Stories

We love Kodachromes and we love found photos.

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7w5 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.

U.S. Begins Nuclear War Exercises

Nation Hal Turner

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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74 1w

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

Saturday, May 14, 2022 – 01:25 AM

Authored by Dave DeCamp via AntiWar.com,

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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2022 05 16 14 13

“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).

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.

Minnie Ashley, American actress, 1896

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16 7

Another very disturbing American “person”…

A true “it”.

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85291401

Democrat Majority Leader: “We are at war”

2022 05 16 14 08
2022 05 16 14 08

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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2022 05 16 14 09

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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18 6

A United States woman

I’m pretty sure. But, you know, I could be wrong.

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85291415

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.

New Beginnings 4

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Articles & Links

Master Index

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  • You can start reading the articles by going HERE.
  • You can visit the Index Page HERE to explore by article subject.
  • You can also ask the author some questions. You can go HERE to find out how to go about this.
  • You can find out more about the author HERE.
  • If you have concerns or complaints, you can go HERE.
  • If you want to make a donation, you can go HERE.

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The full extent of biological weapons use by the United States in Ukraine, with 1965 Cadillac Coupe DeVille, Kodachromes, Glamorous Vintage Camper, the death of both Xi Peng and Putin.

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.

I cracked open the “Drudge Report” for shits and giggles! Did you know that Russian President Putin is going to die of blood cancer, any day now? Oh, yeah! Oh, and Chinese leader Xi Peng is going to die of a brain aneurysm! Yes! What do you know…?

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2022 05 14 20 34
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2022 05 14 20 33

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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word image 1 2

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.”
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From HERE

BREAKING NEWS: TURKEY MAY **VETO** ENTRY OF FINLAND & SWEDEN INTO NATO

World Hal Turner Hits: 9042

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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1 333358

And…

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3 5t6

And…

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6 5y1

And…

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7r 49

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.

karlof1

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..."
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Economic costs? China is doing great. Sheech!

From HERE

Victor Berlemont, a French publican working in an establishment of London’s Soho, circa 1939.

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11 50

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.

48 4
48 4

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.

“POLAND NEXT?”

World Hal Turner Hits: 10976

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

From HERE.
photo 2022 05 11 17 45 24
photo 2022 05 11 17 45 24

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.

photo 2022 05 11 17 49 14
photo 2022 05 11 17 49 14

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.

photo 2022 05 11 09 04 12 2
photo 2022 05 11 09 04 12 2

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.

photo 2022 05 11 09 08 36 2
photo 2022 05 11 09 08 36 2

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.

Kodachrome Stories

We love Kodachromes and we love found photos.

52 2
52 2

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.”

LOL.

Gimme Shelter – Apocalypse Now Music Video

Pretty darn well done. Check it oout.

Kodachrome Stories

We love Kodachromes and we love found photos.

53 2
53 2

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, Fall-off-the-Bone Chicken Wings Dinner | 鸡翅这样做太香了,全程小技巧

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-20 in 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”….

From HERE

It looks like neoliberalism carries the seed of its own destruction.

Empire of Bioweapon Lies

12373 Views May 13, 2022 50 Comments

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.

    1. 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.
    2. 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.
    3. 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.”
    4. 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.”
    5. 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”

World Hal Turner Hits: 1066

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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61 2

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.

From HERE.

Comments: 

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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And…

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And…

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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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And…

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And…

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And…

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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.

New Beginnings 4

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Articles & Links

Master Index

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  • You can start reading the articles by going HERE.
  • You can visit the Index Page HERE to explore by article subject.
  • You can also ask the author some questions. You can go HERE to find out how to go about this.
  • You can find out more about the author HERE.
  • If you have concerns or complaints, you can go HERE.
  • If you want to make a donation, you can go HERE.

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British cowboys, life in the 1950s, sexy Chinese girls, delicious food, geopolitical madness and Kodachromes

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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2022 05 14 11 12

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.

From 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.

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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9 43

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.

From HERE.

Doorway on Mars? Photo by NASA rover stirs curiosity online

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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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2022 05 13 19 50

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.

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Chinese girls chosen randomly

By request. At random. 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.

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7 47

Fashion is confusing

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2022 05 14 11 35

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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Chinese girls chosen randomly

By request. At random. video

The Princely County of Tyrol in 1890

Nations come and nations go.

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It happened: Russia prohibits the export of its raw materials and products to unfriendly countries

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.

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4 56

Chinese girls chosen randomly

By request. At random. video

The Microsoft staff in 1978

I feel old.

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7 140

The Princely County of Tyrol in 1890

Nations come and nations go. And then, forgotten by all.

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4 58

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.

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3 57

Chinese girls chosen randomly

By request. At random. video

Disneyland employee cafeteria in 1961

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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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17 2w5

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.

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Chinese girls chosen randomly

By request. At random. video

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.

From HERE.

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.

13 3q5
13 3q5

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"

From HERE.

2022 05 12 15 20
2022 05 12 15 20

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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1 67

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.

15 2w7
15 2w7

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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2022 05 12 15 38

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

10w
10w

Russia’s “Special Military Operation”
in Ukraine is a MORAL IMPERATIVE

2022 05 12 15 39
2022 05 12 15 39

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.

See: Massive Bioweapon Lab at Azovstal Steel Works in Mariupol Exposed by Russian Military (Video)


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.

What was the Kremlin to do?

Permit this bioterror group to continue their slow-motion genocide of the Donbass citizenry?! See: HARD PROOF that Zelensky’s Azov Neo-Nazis are committing genocide against the Ukraine citizenry (Video)

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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0 27

Styles of Teenagers in the 1950s

11 1w
11 1w

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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2022 05 12 15 42

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.


Not only that, but Russia’s intervention in Ukraine is [PERFECTLY] legal under international law.

Citations for The Ugly Americans

    1. Article I, Biological Weapons Convention. Wikisource.
    2. Article II, Biological Weapons Convention. Wikisource.
    3. Article III, Biological Weapons Convention. Wikisource.
    4. Article IV, Biological Weapons Convention. Wikisource.
    5. Article V, Biological Weapons Convention. Wikisource.
    6. Article VI, Biological Weapons Convention. Wikisource.
    7. Article VII, Biological Weapons Convention. Wikisource.
    8. Article X, Biological Weapons Convention. Wikisource.

9 – “Human Genome Project Completion: Frequently Asked Questions”. National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI).

10 – “CHM13 T2T v1.1 – Genome – Assembly – NCBI”. www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov. Retrieved 16 June 2021.

11 – “Genome List – Genome – NCBI”. www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov. Retrieved 16 June 2021.

12 – Dean, J. (2016, January 21). Veterans Today. NEO – Bio lab in Tbilisi top suspect in weaponizing new diseases. Retrieved from https://www.veteranstoday.com/2016/01/31/neo-lugar-bio-laboratory-in-tbilisi-latest-its-getting-worse-by-the-day/

13 – E.S. (2017, November 23). Veterans Today. Pentagon Setting Biological Bombs Against Europe? https://www.veteranstoday.com/2017/11/23/pentagon-setting-biological-bombs-against-europe/

14 – E.S. (2017, August 20). Veterans Today. Pentagon’s biological bomb to target Russia, Iran and China. Retrieved from https://www.veteranstoday.com/2017/08/20/pentagons-biological-bomb-to-target-russia-iran-and-china/

Styles of Teenagers in the 1950s

1ww2
1ww2

How To Make Cuban Beef Stew/Carne Con Papas Receta Cubana

Makes me hungry! Come on, do you want to try something a little different? Try this!

The Princely County of Tyrol in 1890

Nations come and nations go. And then, forgotten by all.

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20 23

Styles of Teenagers in the 1950s

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00 2

The crew of Apollo 1 practicing their water landing in 1966. Unfortunately, all of them were killed on the launch pad in a fire.

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49 6

Styles of Teenagers in the 1950s

1www3
1www3

Chinese girls chosen randomly

By request. At random. video

Bread and soup during the Great Depression

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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27 13

Do you want more?

You can find more articles related to this in my latest index; A New Beginning. And in it are elements of the old, some elements regarding the transition, and some elements that look towards the future.

New Beginnings 4

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Articles & Links

Master Index

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  • You can start reading the articles by going HERE.
  • You can visit the Index Page HERE to explore by article subject.
  • You can also ask the author some questions. You can go HERE to find out how to go about this.
  • You can find out more about the author HERE.
  • If you have concerns or complaints, you can go HERE.
  • If you want to make a donation, you can go HERE.

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The Princely County of Tyrol, missing baby formula turning up in the hands of illegals, Ukraine, Russia, Nuclear war and Kodachrome Stories

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

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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.”

2022 05 13 14 52
2022 05 13 14 52

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.

41 6
41 6

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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1 188

We Found All the Baby Formula . . . Biden Admin Sent it all to Southern Border for Illegal Alien babies

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2022 05 13 15 08
2022 05 13 15 08

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:

2022 05 13 15 09
2022 05 13 15 09

And Here is what is piling-up at US Border Patrol facilities along the southern border:

2022 05 13 15 10
2022 05 13 15 10

According to Congresswoman Pat Cammack, pallets and pallets of baby formula are deluging the southern border.

2022 05 13 15 1rrr0
2022 05 13 15 1rrr0

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.

5 56
5 56

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.

39 7
39 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.

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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5 58

Lithuania Breaking Diplomatic Relations with Russia

2022 05 13 14 56
2022 05 13 14 56

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
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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3 172

Diplomat: Negotiations for new Iran Nuclear Deal are “dead”

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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.

24 17
24 17

The Princely County of Tyrol in 1890

Nations come and nations go. And then, forgotten by all.

1 60
1 60

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 :

From HERE

Nagasaki, 20 minutes after the atomic bombing in 1945

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14 68

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.

From HERE

Steamboats on the Mississippi River in 1907

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31 12

Finland to Breach 1947 Paris Peace Treaty by Joining NATO – Russia says Military Action Results

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2022 05 13 15 01
2022 05 13 15 01

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
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.

23 17
23 17

President of Switzerland: “We are also preparing for an escalation with nuclear bombs”

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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
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

2022 05 13 15 03
2022 05 13 15 03

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

46 6
46 6

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.

35 8
35 8

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.

From HERE

Styles of Teenagers in the 1950s

2 2
2 2

American democrats and bioweapons

Dem Party Leaders, Pfizer, Moderna Involved in US Biological Activities in Ukraine: Russian MoD – 11.05.2022, Sputnik International

From HERE

Medvedev: NATO Supplying Weapons to Ukraine Risks OPEN CONFLICT with Russia; Maybe Nuclear”

2022 05 13 15 05
2022 05 13 15 05

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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20 20

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!

Styles of Teenagers in the 1950s

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9 1

‘Russia Started the War’ and Other Fallacies

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:

From the later:

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
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.

Posted by b at 15:43 UTC

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.

31 11
31 11

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.

From HERE.

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.

26 14
26 14

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.

17 26
17 26

BULLETIN: FINLAND OPENING, INSPECTING AND STOCKING NUCLEAR ATTACK BOMB SHELTERS

2022 05 13 14 54
2022 05 13 14 54

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 undertake not 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.

2022 05 13 14 55
2022 05 13 14 55

Do you want more?

You can find more articles related to this in my latest index; A New Beginning. And in it are elements of the old, some elements regarding the transition, and some elements that look towards the future.

New Beginnings 4

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Articles & Links

Master Index

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  • You can start reading the articles by going HERE.
  • You can visit the Index Page HERE to explore by article subject.
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Chinese swarm drone hand-grenades of the micro-Terminator T1000 series. Yikes!

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.

From 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.

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.

24 15
24 15

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:

Marcos presidency complicates US efforts to counter China

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 agenda of the summit is astonishingly thin:

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.

Will a New Philippine President Work with the US Coast Guard to Light Off World War III in the South China Sea?

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…

US Can’t Find Indo-Pacific Nations to Host Anti-China Missiles

Ah.  The youtube channel – the new atlas… check it out if you want to understand this dynamic the usa is working on more fully..

Marcello Mastroianni sips coffee in an undated image.

18
18

Kodachrome Stories

We love Kodachromes and we love found photos.

22 16
22 16

United States Marine Corp

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.

6 5sss1
6 5sss1

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.

6 52
6 52

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

Kodachrome Stories

We love Kodachromes and we love found photos.

21 16
21 16

China’s 075

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."

From HERE

Styles of Teenagers in the 1950s

I like it.

1a5
1a5

Is “Meltdown” The Correct Term To Describe The Current State Of The U.S. Economy?

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.

According to a report that was just released, almost two-thirds of all Americans are currently living paycheck to paycheck

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.

If you have money with Coinbase, you may want to consider your options, because it is being reported that “users might lose all the cryptocurrency stored in their accounts” if Coinbase actually goes bankrupt…

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.

But so are the financial markets.

And so is the overall economy.

The great unraveling that we have been warned about is here, and we are still only in the early chapters.

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)

From HERE

Chinese girl

Most certainly looks like she’s ready for a nice evening, some talk, some great food, and a nice evening walk in the city. video 2MB

Kodachrome Stories

We love Kodachromes and we love found photos.

20 18
20 18

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.

13 7s5
13 7s5

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.

11 q42
11 q42

Chinese girl in a nice white top

I like her. Video 4MB

How to Cook Brazilian Feijoada: Traditional Black Bean and Pork Stew [ Legendas PT]

Now this is one great meal. Please check it out.

”]

Kodachrome Stories

We love Kodachromes and we love found photos.

16 24
16 24

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.

Styles of Teenagers in the 1950s

I like it.

aaa16
aaa16

Chinese girl in two-tone jeans

I like this look. Video 2MB

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.

10 4w4
10 4w4

The Princely County of Tyrol in 1890

Nations come and nations go. And then, forgotten by all.

2 58
2 58

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…

-Peter AU1

Chinese Girl “Brickhouse” version

Yup. We’ve got ’em. video 3MB

George S. Patton’s dog mourning his master on the day of his death

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24 18

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.

-Don Bacon

Styles of Teenagers in the 1950s

saaa18
saaa18

Shipping: A Real-World Asset-Class… But Complex!

Authored by Bill Blain via MorningPorridge.com,

“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

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2u0

Another typical Chinese girl

Nice. Thin. No tattoos. Not on drugs. No purple hair. video 37MB

Some thoughts on the Chinese Navy (PLAN)

here’s an update on the PLA’s Navy as its “second Type 075 amphibious assault ship” begins its first FTX. Here’s some commentary:

“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.

karlof1

 

Back to Shipping…

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…

Bouncy Chinese Girl

I’m a big fan of “the bounce”. video 11MB

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.

The Race To Break The Russia-China Alliance & The “Ukraine Of The Asia Pacific”

Saturday, May 14, 2022 – 11:40 AM

Authored by Matthew Ehret,

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.

Those second and third generation fascist stay-behinds who were incorporated into western intelligence under the helm of NATO after WW2 remains one of the most uncomfortable and dangerous secrets of the modern age.

Weaponized ideological groups carefully groomed by Anglo-American intelligence since WWII and who continued to glorify Nazi-collaborators as “great heroes” played a major role both during the Cold War, and also today’s Banderite-filled age with neo-Nazi battalions driven obsessively to carry out jihad against Russia as their spiritual forefathers had done during 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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2022 05 14 13 31

 

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.”

This was the same team that brought us the Obama-Lugar partnership that established a vast bio-laboratory infrastructure in Georgia while Obama was still just another Soros-controlled Senator with Presidential ambitions.

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.

Chinese Girl with a tattoo!

It is a truly rare thing. Video 4MB

Styles of Teenagers in the 1950s

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Australian thoughts

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

Thursday, May 12, 2022 – 02:00 PM

Authored by Joakim Book via The Mises Institute,

“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.

Dreams of a green revolution, per the energy theorist Vaclav Smil, were always mirages:

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.

Styles of Teenagers in the 1950s

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Chinese girl fresh and clean

I just love the look. video 3MB

Actually, Fossil Fuels Aren’t Optional

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:

2022 05 12 16 01
2022 05 12 16 01

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:

2022 05 12 16 02
2022 05 12 16 02

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.

9 w45
9 w45

Gaslighting Europeans

According to mental health site VeryWellMindgaslighting 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

Thursday, May 12, 2022 – 07:00 AM

Authored by Dave DeCamp via AntiWar.com,

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.

2022 05 12 16 08
2022 05 12 16 08

“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.”

2022 05 12 16 13
2022 05 12 16 13

During the hearing, Berrier and Haines described the war in Ukraine as a “stalemate” and said Russian President Vladimir Putin was preparing for a long-term conflict. Haines said over the next few months, the war could “see us moving along a more unpredictable and potentially escalatory trajectory.”

Ropa Vieja (Cuban Braised Beef) – Food Wishes

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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18 25

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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.

New Beginnings 4

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Articles & Links

Master Index

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  • You can start reading the articles by going HERE.
  • You can visit the Index Page HERE to explore by article subject.
  • You can also ask the author some questions. You can go HERE to find out how to go about this.
  • You can find out more about the author HERE.
  • If you have concerns or complaints, you can go HERE.
  • If you want to make a donation, you can go HERE.

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A sitrep on geopolitical events regarding global world changes April 2022

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.

daily picdump 58 3
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.

2022 04 08 16 05
2022 04 08 16 05

The fiction is “off the charts”.

On the domestic side

you will only get it if you are married to a man 11
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

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President Biden tells us what defines America

The joke is on democrazy.

NATO is mobilized to confront China

Orders from the USA.
Ukraine-Russia war: China needs to condemn Moscow’s invasion says NATO boss

Apparently, NATOs intention is to control the world, not self defence :

  • NATO to deepen ties with Asian partners amid China’s refusal to condemn Russia – World – TASS
  • Unreasonable, sinister for NATO to push China to condemn Russia – Global Times

Spicy Bean and Beef Pie

This has everything. Meat pie. Beef. beans, and taste! The key is the unique set of ingredients. But all are commonly available.

exps4622 FM153592D03 18 1b 2
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

  1. 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.
  2. 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.
  3. 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.

Serbia says it was blackmailed over UN vote

I am not really surprised.

Article

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American Diner

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...

2022 04 08 15 17
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.

2022 04 10 21 48
2022 04 10 21 48

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ok Map

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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
Article

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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.
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Article What terrible luck, eh?

Railcar style diner

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.

2022 04 08 15 19
2022 04 08 15 19

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.

Listen to the video full content:

Listen

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New Jersey Diners

At one point, nearly 95% of the shippable restaurants were manufactured in New Jersey.

2022 04 08 15 20
New Jersey Diner.

New Jersey’s oldest diner, the Summit Diner, opened in 1929, was rebuilt in 1938, and is still open today.

China and Russian Trade in Yuan

China is buying Russian energy with its own currency, marking the first commodities paid for in yuan since Western sanctions hit Moscow.

Here…

Article 1

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And Here…

Article 2

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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.

2022 04 08 15 22
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?

2022 04 08 14 43
2022 04 08 14 43

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.

2022 04 08 15 24Interior 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.

The way the world works

Yeah. This guy has it all figured out. video 14MB

I Don’t Know Who’s Great Resetting Who Anymore

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.

This is not smart. There is no strategy here.

RT:

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.

2022 04 08 10 52
2022 04 08 10 52
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/r5Iw6UA9cB pic.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.

2022 04 08 15 26
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.

An American couple adopts a Chinese orphan

Heartwarming. video 34MB

Speaking of hamburgers…

awesome photos 2American burgers.

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
2022 04 08 10 50
2022 04 08 10 50

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.

I wrote about this in some detail: What About China, Then?

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.

A glimpse of Japan

So cute. video 11MB

Chinese girl in a furry top

She almost looks like a doll. Sheech! video 2MB

“Does China have running water?”

A typical dumb-ass American viewpoint. video 8MB

‘Til Tuesday – Voices Carry

A blast from the past!

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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

Chinese girlfriend material

I call’s ’em as I see’s ’em. video 7MB

Baked Saucy Pork Chops

This little variation on Pork Chops is very, very delicious and so easy to make!

Baked Saucy Pork Chops EXPS SDDJ17 17351 B08 03 2b 31
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

  1. 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.
  2. 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.

Article

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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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2022 04 08 15 31

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.”

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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.

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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.
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Members Of Congress Are Now Using Words Like “Famine” And “Starvation” To Describe What Is Coming

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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.”

In Peru, rapidly rising prices for fuel and food have sparked massive nationwide protests

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.

Overall, the World Food Program is warning us that “285 million people face starvation”

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.

In fact, the wait times for computer chips just hit another all-time record high

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.

Quick Chicken and Dumplings EXPS CHKBZ18 45977 B10 19 2bC 6
Quick Chicken and Dumplings

Ingredients

  • 6 individually frozen biscuits
  • 1/4 cup chopped onion
  • 1/4 cup chopped green pepper
  • 1 tablespoon olive oil
  • 4 cups shredded rotisserie chicken
  • 3 cans (14-1/2 ounces each) reduced-sodium chicken broth
  • 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

  1. 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.
  2. 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.

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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.

England talks. China does.

video 4MB

Indonesia, Australia face limits in coal exports to Europe ahead of Russian ban

First Australia took a hit in coal exports to China, now their remaining market of Russia is also disappearing. <Insert snide remark here.> Article

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How You Know Tech is Grinding to a Halt

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.

Having a really bad day

daily picdump 36 3
A bad day.

“I wish I could buy property in China”

video 7MB

Diners today face an uncertain future.

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.

2022 04 08 15 36
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

Meanwhile in India

daily picdump 25 3
Meanwhile in India.

How Are Those Sanctions Working Out, Guys?

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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.

RT:

 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.

RT:

 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…

Meanwhile in America

daily picdump 50 3
The American way.

Rufus respects his flag

Inside of China. video 3MB

Rufus protects his sister

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.

New Beginnings 3

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Articles & Links

Master Index

.

  • You can start reading the articles by going HERE.
  • You can visit the Index Page HERE to explore by article subject.
  • You can also ask the author some questions. You can go HERE to find out how to go about this.
  • You can find out more about the author HERE.
  • If you have concerns or complaints, you can go HERE.
  • If you want to make a donation, you can go HERE.

.

 

About the 18APR22 false flag attack in New York City that will be used to trigger a kinetic HOT war between the USA and Russia.

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.

The United States is tipping at the edge of a cliff. It’s fall will be soon, sudden, and absolute.

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.

This guy, Gonzalo Lira has laid it all out.

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.

MM agrees 100% with his assessment.

Outstanding video.

The Video

Found on You-Tube.

2022 03 26 13 08
Gonzalo Lira

 

 

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

.

Articles & Links

Master Index

.

  • You can start reading the articles by going HERE.
  • You can visit the Index Page HERE to explore by article subject.
  • You can also ask the author some questions. You can go HERE to find out how to go about this.
  • You can find out more about the author HERE.
  • If you have concerns or complaints, you can go HERE.
  • If you want to make a donation, you can go HERE.

 

Why the Western leadership are making amazingly bad decisions

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.

This guy, Gonzalo Lira has laid it all out.

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.

MM agrees 100% with his assessment.

Outstanding video.

The Video

Found on You-Tube.

2022 03 26 13 08
Gonzalo Lira

 

 

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

.

Articles & Links

Master Index

.

  • You can start reading the articles by going HERE.
  • You can visit the Index Page HERE to explore by article subject.
  • You can also ask the author some questions. You can go HERE to find out how to go about this.
  • You can find out more about the author HERE.
  • If you have concerns or complaints, you can go HERE.
  • If you want to make a donation, you can go HERE.

 

The USA Is Committing Suicide

This is the year. It’s happening. It’s peaking.

This guy, Gonzalo Lira has 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
2022 03 25 21 36

Part 2

Wow.

2022 03 25 21 22
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.

New Beginnings 3

.

Articles & Links

Master Index

.

  • You can start reading the articles by going HERE.
  • You can visit the Index Page HERE to explore by article subject.
  • You can also ask the author some questions. You can go HERE to find out how to go about this.
  • You can find out more about the author HERE.
  • If you have concerns or complaints, you can go HERE.
  • If you want to make a donation, you can go HERE.

 

Plunging aircraft, apple cakes, treasury printing presses on overdrive, Rufus , ‘Ol Remus, GPS, and the Bi-atch of Ukraine.

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
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.

2022 03 22 07 5xx6
2022 03 22 07 5xx6

Today’s Mythmaking

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.”

It is time.

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“Russia & China, Together at Last”: Historian Al McCoy Predicts Ukraine War to Birth New World Order

YouTube. Pretty good.

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.

THIS IS A MUST WATCH.

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2022 03 22 15 35

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America has something to say…

You-tube

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2022 03 22 20 04

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.

Crash Video

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From MM comment section;

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."

You-tube. Descent to crash is less than two minutes.

2022 03 22 16 16
2022 03 22 16 16

The plane crash resembles the Nazi Ukrainian symbol

It is of a bird flying straight down to the ground.

6d4bab5f9b7432df89ac668c6265e587
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
Strange vertical speed value during the horizontal flight.#B1791 #MU5735 #B737 #ChinaEastern #crash pic.twitter.com/gNanhEDUDx

— 🇦‌🇻‌🇮‌🇦‌🇸‌🇪‌🇷‌🇻‌🇪‌🇷‌ (@aviaserver) 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.
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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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R C.339cc2a7cea34f1516af6c01f2ef5035
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.
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Now for some delicious food; Porcupine Meatballs

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.

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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

Instructions Checklist
  • In a medium mixing bowl, combine the tomato soup and the water. Mix thoroughly and set aside.

  • In a large mixing bowl, combine the ground beef, instant rice, onion, salt, pepper and 1/2 cup of the soup mixture. Mix thoroughly, and shape into 1 inch balls.

  • Place meatballs in a large skillet over medium heat. Pour in the remaining soup mixture and bring to a boil. Simmer for 15 to 20 minutes or until meatballs are thoroughly browned and rice is cooked.

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.

2022 03 22 14 09
Coffee.

Republican Congressman Tiffany maps out aggression towards China

One step at a time.

GettyImages 1213959790
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.”

P. Lawrence .

For Americans war is normal

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..."
Free Republic

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The U.S. attempt to destroy the e-yuan

Great stuff from Richard Turrin.

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.
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‘Unfair fight’: Foreign legion volunteers flee Ukraine after Russian missile strike on training base

Foreigners who travelled to Ukraine to fight against the Russians have fled the country after a devastating missile strike on their training base.
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Chinese girl

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.
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Chinese girl

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.

Russia Briefing

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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
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
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

This is cute and funny.

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.

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Chinese girl reminds me of goldfinger

Nice. Love the outfit. video 2.4MB

Apple Cake

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.

2022 03 22 17 01
Apple Cake.
Apple Cake

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Current trajectory of World War III

Here’s an audio from Rense. It’s an American opinion.  It’s interesting.

2022 03 22 16 34
2022 03 22 16 34

Tunnel Of Fudge

Given its name, there’s no confusion about what it is. The only confusion is as to why we stopped making this.

2022 03 22 10 41
Tunnel of fudge cake.

Recipe out this way…

Tunnel o' Fudge

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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.

Be an adult

Fake News

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.

Fake News

The United States is considering disconnecting Russia from GPS

Just like they did to China. So China built their own system.

Russia can use China’s or their own GLONASS. There are many work-arounds on this issue.

Disconnect GPS

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MM riding home in my neighborhood

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.

Capture

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Russia caught her March 16 as she was trying to get out of Mariupol with a medical team, here’s a video after her capture (must watch)

Fein innocence

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caption:

"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"

Scott Ritter comments “The trial will be interesting

Secretive American Stocks Of Soviet Air Defense Systems Are Headed To Ukraine: Report

The US has captured, snatched, or otherwise acquired various Russian-made air defense systems over the years, and now they could fight in Ukraine.

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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 Zone laid 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 Zone had 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.

OIP C.OaRqKLexrCVsyfXsIjue3AHaE6
The SA-8.
Skullduggery

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So, the United States is planning to cross the Chinese Red Lines in the future…

Thousands of Marines deployed to Australia in preparation for a possible war with CHINA

(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.”
War Prep!

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Ol’ Remus Revisited

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.

Simply titled, Woodpile Reports.

2022 03 22 14 14

 

THE COMING UNPLEASANTNESS – OL’ REMUS

from HERE

THE COMING UNPLEASANTNESS – OL’ REMUS

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?

2022 03 22 16 57
2022 03 22 16 57
Cheesecake Cookie

China is about HEART

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.

New Beginnings 3

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Articles & Links

Master Index

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  • You can start reading the articles by going HERE.
  • You can visit the Index Page HERE to explore by article subject.
  • You can also ask the author some questions. You can go HERE to find out how to go about this.
  • You can find out more about the author HERE.
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The specific Chinese counter-sanctions (that will occur) as a result of American sanctions against China

Yeah. So America is debating sanctioning China.

Good luck Fuckers!

Only people with SHIT FOR BRAINS would ever think of sanctioning China. What are you? A moron, an idiot, a deranged sadist? An ignorant doo-doo head (Bill Crosby reference) a psychopath with delusions of grandeur? What?

Just fucking stupid. That’s what.

You must be in some kind of absolute echo-chamber talking over and over again just how God-damn great you are to believe such horse manure.

You’re not great.

You are not exceptional.

You are a piece of shit that is farmed for your labor. That’s it and the ONLY reason that you don’t revolt is because you are too fat and happy with the crumbs that the government gives you to sustain your pitiful existence.

Still here?

Paint me “surprised”.

I tried posting this article a couple of times, and found it automatically blocked, shadowbanned, and de-listed from Google. I then rewrote it to includes food, and other items. Ai yah. But,  you know, personal MM experience has shown this methodology to be very effective in getting around the Google censorship engines, and the NSA troll armies.

What do you know, eh?

Who would figure?

It works. If you are so childish that you cannot handle multible subjects in a singular article, you can leave. Go. No skin off my back. I don’t give a fuck.

Before we get to the “meat” of the article; Chinese reverse sanctions on American sanctions, we will talk about something fun. That will throw off the American censor engines.

We start with food.

For those of you who are new to MM, please let it be understood that MM content is banned in the West. If you can find it, you are truly lucky. And our workaround here is to mix politically-charged subjects with other common everyday subjects that tend to confuse the censorship engines.

Oh, man. Do they hate it.

It just messes with the algorithms. It cannot handle it.

Maybe you might not like it, but it does work. It works spectacularly.

Actually.

We are going to really freak out the gung-ho American “ready to die” for freedom™ cadre with a Russian dish of quite delicious food. Buckle up. This post is gonna be FUN.

Russian posikunchiki

Can you pronounce it? I can’t.

Look at this. Come on. Doesn’t it look delicious? You eat it with whipped creme cheese. And wash it down with vodka. Good tasty vodka. Or beer. Icy, frosty, cold beer. Good stuff too. Nothing less than 5% (which you cannot get in the USA. Banned “for the children, don’t you know”)…

Most Americans cannot drink alcohol. If they are in a corporate environment, and their diversity officer, or HR, finds out that they smoked or drank at home, they could easily lose their job.

Fact.

Jack.

It’s called “American freedom” don’t you know. Woo Woo!

Freedom™.

2022 03 19 18 00
Russian posikunchiki

Yum.

Smunch. Crunch. Eat ’em all up. Happiness and tummy satisfaction.
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These small juicy meat pies are the first thing tourists are advised to try in the Perm Region around the Urals. But you can make them wherever you are.
The region of the Ural is well-known for its harsh, cold winters and continental climate. Traditionally, meat, thick solid soups, and nourishing pies were cooked there. One of the most outstanding dishes is posikunchiki.

Posikunchiki are an old dish of the Ural cuisine, mainly of the Perm and the north-west of the Sverdlovsk regions. The name was given to small fried pies, whose size is approximately equal to a luscious fat dumpling. They are made from unleavened dough and fried in a large amount of oil.

The key thing that distinguishes posikunchiki from other pastries is an incredibly juicy filling. In many ways, this notable trait and the cooking method makes them similar to chebureki.

Posikunchiki comes from the Russian verb “sicat’” (“to splash”) – because the pie splashes juice while you take a bite of it. They are also called posekunchiki – from the Russian verb “sech’” (“to dice/slice/shred”), because the filling for them is finely chopped, but not mixed in a meat grinder. But whatever the etymology, the popularity of these little cute pies has long transcended the boundaries of their historical homeland, and spread to other Russian regions.

The stuffing consists of lamb, beef or pork.

In general, there are a lot of different variations. At the same time, in every Ural city or village, you will surely be told that their posikunchiki represent the most authentic and correct variant, and all the other recipes are fake or just new.

Maybe.

I’ll just have to go visit a bunch of them and try for myself.

No one can remember exactly when this dish appeared. But many people remember that their grandmothers often cooked these mini-pies. And who, really who, can doubt a darn kindly old grandmother? Eh?

The locals remember the peculiar taste of fresh meat (often of wild animals, such as elks) grinded in a mincer from childhood, but many residents of Russia can’t even imagine what it is.

Today, I suggest we cook this dish with minced meat from a local shop. It will take us about four hours.

If you are an American, you use “hamburger”. If you are British or Australian, you use “mince”.

Ingredients (for eight portions):

2022 03 19 18 04
Ingredients (for eight portions).

Yeah.

For the dough:

  • Flour – 600-700 g
  • Milk – 250 ml
  • Egg – 1 piece
  • Salt – 1 teaspoon
  • Sugar – 1 tbsp

For the filling:

  • Minced meat (pork and beef)- 600 g
  • Onion – 1 piece
  • Salt – 1 teaspoon
  • Black pepper – 1/2 teaspoon
  • Water – 200 ml
  • Vegetable oil for frying

Preparation:

1. To begin, we’ll prepare the dough, as it needs to rest 30 minutes before we start working with it. Combine the egg with sugar and salt. Mix well.

2022 03 19 18 15
Make the dough.

2. Gradually add warm milk to that mass and mix again.

2022 03 19 18 1dd4
Add milk gradually.

3. Portionwise, add flour to the mass and knead the dough carefully and meticulously with your hands until it turns into an elastic ball. Knead it at least for 10 minutes, then put in a bag for 20-30 minutes, and into the refrigerator.

2022 03 19 18 14
Make the dough.

4. While the dough is resting, we’ll prepare the filling. Chop the onion into small cubes, then add to the minced meat.

2022 03 19 18 1x2 1
Dough Ball.

5. Season the meat with salt and pepper. Mix well. Add some water. Minced meat should resemble thick sour cream in consistency, but it shouldn’t be liquid. Note that the minced meat must be juicy so that there is broth in the posikunchiki. During the preparation, the minced meat gradually thickens, so if necessary, add water and salt to the minced meat to taste.

2022 03 19 18 12
Season the meat with salt and pepper.

6. Roll the dough and cut it into 28-30 pieces. Roll each into a small bun, and then roll out into a diameter of 10 cm. Put 1 tablespoon of the filling on one half of the rolled-out bun, cover with the other half.

2022 03 19 18 11
Mostly meat inside a thin shell.

7. Pinch well with a fork on one side so that the broth does not leak while frying.

2022 03 19 18 10
Pinch with a fork.

Fry in a skillet.

2022 03 19 18 09
Fry.

8. Fry each posikunchik on each side for 2-3 minutes until golden brown.

2022 03 19 18 08
Fry in a skillet.

9. Posikunchiki are ready to be served at the festive table.

10. Enjoy!

2022 03 19 18 17
Ural posikunchiki.

Oh, and lets not forget the alcohol.

Beer. Wine. Vodka.

It’s all GOOD!

OIP C.h6a9uuW0xj24Iqp MSNOggHaEK
A time for smunch! is a time to eat!

Now let’s talk about Chinese anti-sanction systems designed to counter American sanctions

I watched a FOX “news” segment this morning. There, an “expert” was advocating that America (United States) put sanctions on China for being friends with Russia. And in reading the comments, the vast majority agreed with him.

We ought to make China pay for this relationship with Russia...”

2022 03 19 22 08
2022 03 19 22 08

All the time, I am thinking…

…”fools”, you all deserve what will happen. China is really, really READY for this. They have been for over a year now. They say, “let it happen”, and I agree with them.

Go for it, you idiotic morons.

Although it contains only 16 articles, the Anti-Foreign Sanctions Law establishes, for the first time, a wide-ranging legal infrastructure and legislative base aimed at retaliating against sanctions imposed by foreign governments. 

Specifically the United States.

However, even before the enactment of the Anti-Foreign Sanctions Law as legal basis, the Ministry of Commerce (hereinafter “MOFCOM”) inter alia issued two measures as tools against possible effects by foreign laws and sanctions.

These are;

[1] The MOFCOM Decree No. 4 [2020] on Provisions on the List of Unreliable Entities and 

[2] The MOFCOM Decree No. 1 [2021] on Rules on Counteracting Unjustified Extraterritorial Application of Foreign Legislation and Other Measures (hereinafter “Blocking Statute”). 

Thus, the Anti-Foreign Sanctions Law confirms the legislative authority for existing measures and creates room for expanded measures in the future.

Background: I watched a short clip from FOX “news”.

As above.

In that clip, “experts”, “political pundits” and “knowledgeable advisers” are strongly urging that President Biden enact sanctions against China for being friendly to Russia. While many Americans agree with this point of view, the consequences are never addressed. Here, we will address the consequences of such a move.

Let it be well understood that China has long prepared for this moment.

Two to three years ago, they passed the anti-sanction retaliation law. It is directly custom tailored to addressing the day when the United States starts sanctioning China (for one reason or the other).

Specifically, it is designed to inflict the most [1] economic damage, [2] social damage, [3] personal damage, and [4] Geopolitical damage possible upon the United States and it’s (poor excuse) for “leadership”.

The most damage.

      • Economic.
      • Personal.
      • Social.
      • Geopolitical.

Upon the United States, and the individuals involved in the sanction effort against China.

What most people do not realize is how absolutely economically tethered to China, that the United States is.

They think, erroneously, that American can trade, instead, with Germany, Korea, Japan, or any other nation. Forgetting, of course, that those nations simply take Chinese products and slap their name-brands on them.

But if they sanction China, all that trade will end.

Not just trade with the USA, but all the trade with it’s alternative sources of supply.

No more manufactured products.

None.

Bye bye.

No more electonics.

None. Bye bye.

No more medicine.

None. Bye bye.

The Chinese anti-sanction law is specifically designed to counter AMERICAN sanctions. It is designed to automatically go, and be engaged immediate upon the implementation of sanctions, and noone, not even Xi Peng, can stop the tidal wave of repercussions.

You can read the details here, but really, I’m just going to lay out the visceral facts.

Yeah. It's dry with translations of wordly Chinese leagalese, and all that. But just skim over the presentation. 

Learn something for a change.

On a Personal Level… on individuals

You all had best hope to NEVER leave the United States. Once you cross the protected shores, the  Chinese will fucking hunt you down. 

They will, with client nation help, extract you from your aircraft, and haul you into China for justice and punishment. 

Sentencing is a foregone conclusion and the judicial process is mostly a formality. 

Punishment will consist of [1] dealing with organ harvesting, and [2] hard labor in deep, dark salt mines. 

They are not evil. You will be able to have at least a six-hour rest a night, and be able to eat basic(but healthy) meals of rice, and chicken-feet if you work hard enough. 

Sentencing involves death or life in this environment. 

This includes you and everyone in your family as well. Including little children. They go to kiddie labor camps.

On June 10, 2021, the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress of China enacted the Anti-foreign Sanctions Law (“AFSL”), which came into effect as of the date of enactment.

OIP C.bAX5vsS4s6t07O XU3pUygAAAA
For the last fifteen years, they have been tracking down criminals all over the world. No one is immune. These guys are from Indonesia.

As China’s latest legislative countermeasure against economic sanctions of the U.S., E.U., U.K, and other jurisdictions, AFSL will have significant impact on Chinese subsidiaries and branches of foreign enterprises.

OIP C.5b909 T4rMhb1qGxXOtDkwEyDM
For the last fifteen years, they have been tracking down criminals all over the world. No one is immune. These people are from Mexico.

As well as foreign persons (entities and individuals) doing business in China or with Chinese individuals and companies.

OIP C.LXy7bgZGl3 rt fXMPCQAHaE7
For the last fifteen years, they have been tracking down criminals all over the world. No one is immune. This man is from Scotland.

I. Overview of the AFSL

A. Who will be listed in the Countermeasures List?

R C.899e3e4d30fe0890687f47515361109d
For the last fifteen years, they have been tracking down criminals all over the world. No one is immune. This man is from Bolivia. He must have spilt some taco sauce on his shirt. Careless fellow.

The relevant departments of the State Council may decide to include in the Countermeasures List (the “List”) the individuals and organizations that have directly or indirectly participated in the formulation, decision on or implementation of discriminatory restrictive measures of foreign governments.

OIP C.UwKqOx5lveKxGw4abzFL2QHaE
For the last fifteen years, they have been tracking down criminals all over the world. No one is immune. This man is from England. Billionaire oligarch.

In addition, the relating parties of persons in the List may also face countermeasures, including:

  • The spouse and lineal relatives of the individuals included in the List
  •  Senior executives or actual controllers of the organizations included in the List;
  • Organizations that have individuals included in the List acting as senior executives; and
  • Organizations actually controlled by individuals or organizations that are included in the List or have participated in the establishment and operation thereof.
R C.3d2e6572cb01ea05c2168be04f93797a
For the last fifteen years, they have been tracking down criminals all over the world. No one is immune. This chick is from France. She doesn’t look too happy. But she should be. She’s alive, isn’t she?

B. What are the countermeasures?

R C.79e882db1fc6dbeec756a009e247236f
For the last fifteen years, they have been tracking down criminals all over the world. No one is immune. These people are from Australia.

The relevant departments of the State Council of China may, depending on the actual situation, take one or more of the following measures against persons included in the List.

R C.72593e2ff1784145d7fb938c861bf930
For the last fifteen years, they have been tracking down criminals all over the world. No one is immune. These people are from the Phillippines.

Here’s a selection of just some of the measures;

  • Denial of visa issuance, denial of entry, deregistration of visa or deportation;
  • Seizure, distraining or freezing of movable property, immovable property and other types of property within the territory of China;
  • Prohibiting or restricting the organizations or individuals within the territory of China from conducting relevant transactions, cooperation or other activities with them; and
  • Other necessary measures not listed.
R C.6cd4d22df3ec81346bdcf777e2ff764d
For the last fifteen years, China has been tracking down criminals all over the world. No one is immune. This guy is from America.

China does not play. They will track you down, and they will work with the regional authorties to secure you and haul ou to China for organ harvesting, rehabilitation, and hard labor punishment.

R C.7ff3711fc322e7666ee02850cccfea54
For the last fifteen years, they have been tracking down criminals all over the world. No one is immune. These people are from Brazil.

C. What are the legal consequences for violating the AFSL?

The organizations and individuals within the territory of China shall carry out the countermeasures taken by the relevant departments of the State Council.

OIP C.CVDxbXujnzSihn1 QsJRYAHaEj
Organ harvesting is a mature procedure in Chinese prisons. It’s fast, quick, and routine.

Any organization or individual failing to do so will be punished by the relevant departments of the State Council in accordance with the law, and such organization or individual will be restricted or prohibited from engaging in the relevant activities.

If a Chinese entity fails to enforce these laws, they will be punished harshly.
OIP C.1d oiXGXmGp hoTXdVFKegHaEo
For the last fifteen years, they have been tracking down criminals all over the world. No one is immune. Unknown where these guys were from.

Where any organization or individual implements or assists in implementing the discriminatory restrictive measures taken by any foreign state against Chinese citizens or organizations and infringes upon the legitimate rights and interests of any citizen or organization of China, the Chinese citizen or organization may bring a lawsuit, seeking cessation of the infringement and compensation for the losses.

Any Chinese citizen can, under any pretense, ask for compensation against any person or their family targeted by this law.

Where any organization or individual fails to implement or cooperate in implementing the countermeasures, it/he will be subject to legal liability in accordance with the law.

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Captured in Cambodia, these criminals are going back to China for organ harvesting and hard labor. They are just happy to be alive.

Oh, and in case you think that you can avoid the long-arm of China if you patiently hide long enough. Think again.

II. The Impact of the AFSL on Foreign Companies

A. Foreign companies participating in sanctions against China might endure countermeasures imposed by the Chinese government.

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Boss of a multi-billion dollar company, arrested, and sentenced to hard labor and then death. He accepts his fate as a man. This is the Chinese way.

Foreign companies directly or indirectly involved in the formulation, decision on, or implementation of discriminatory sanctions against Chinese persons may be added to the List. The main effects on foreign companies on the List will be as follows:

Firstly, senior executives or actual controllers of foreign companies on the List may not be allowed to enter China for business trips to perform their duties.

Secondly, assets of foreign companies on the List and foreign companies with individuals on the List acting as their senior executives or actual controllers will likely be blocked.

Thirdly, foreign companies on the List and foreign companies with individuals on the List acting as their senior executives or actual controllers might be prohibited from dealing with individuals and entities in China.

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Boss of a multi-billion dollar company, arrested, and sentenced to hard labor and then death. Secured from his office, he is not permitted to have a tie or a suit jacket.

B. Foreign companies might be caught in a compliance dilemma between AFSL and foreign sanctions.

After the implementation of the AFSL, foreign companies are subject to both the obligation to comply with discriminatory sanctions imposed by other countries, and the requirement not to enforce foreign discriminatory sanctions and to enforce China’s countermeasures under the AFSL.

image
Boss of a multi-billion dollar company, arrested, and sentenced to hard labor and then death.

Complying with the discriminatory sanctions against China may violate the AFSL, while complying with the AFSL may violate the discriminatory sanction regulations of other countries as well.

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Boss of a multi-billion dollar company, arrested, and sentenced to hard labor and then death.

This will probably put foreign companies in a compliance dilemma and substantially increase their compliance difficulties and costs.

EU Blocking Statute

The aim of the EU Blocking Statute is to counteract the unlawful effects of extraterritorial sanctions of third countries on ‘EU persons’, which term is generally understood to include EU nationals, EU-incorporated companies (including EU subsidiaries of U.S. companies but not branches of U.S. companies as these have no distinct legal personality) and non-EU nationals residing or doing business in the EU.

It's not just the United States that is targeted, bt the European Union is targeted specifically as well.

The list of extraterritorial legislation to which the EU Blocking Statute applies is given in the Annex and currently consists of U.S. measures concerning Cuba and Iran.

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No one is immune. This man was living in Laos.

Article 2 of the EU Blocking Statute requires EU persons to notify the European Commission of any effect on their economic and/or financial interests caused by a measure that is listed as blocked in the Annex. Article 4 of the EU Blocking Statute prevents any judgment or administrative decision outside the EU which gives effect, directly or indirectly, to a blocked measure from being recognised or enforced in the EU in any manner.

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Money won’t protect you. Nor will your “connections” to the US government. Here’s Jimmy Lai after being sentenced to hard labor. The USA just stood by and watched him be sentenced to organ harvesting and hard labor. So much for his connection to the US Senate. LOL!

Article 5 of the EU Blocking Statute prohibits EU persons (either directly or through a subsidiary or other intermediary) from complying with any requirement or prohibition based on or resulting, directly or indirectly, from a blocked measure.

If the United States places sanctions on China, and a European nation obeys the sanctions, the entire body of the law would then also apply to the aforesaid nation.

However, pursuant to articles 7 and 8 of the EU Blocking Statute, EU persons may apply for authorisation from the European Commission to comply with such requirement or prohibition if non-compliance would seriously damage their interests or the wider interests of the EU.

You can apply.

You can.

But whether or not mercy will be granted will depend on your association with the United States government.

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Here’s an arrest in the EU. The EU are cowards and would do absolutely nothing and they have a long history of allowing the Chinese to come and seize anyone they fucking want out of the EU.

If an EU person has suffered any damages caused by the application of a blocked measure or by actions based thereon or resulting therefrom, article 6 of the EU Blocking Statute allows such EU person to recover the damages, including legal costs.

Provided that there are no sanctions on China.

Get it?

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CEOs and other businessmen will be hunted down by the Chinese, and incarcerated in a humane, but uncomfortable period, as per the law.

A basic understanding of the EU Blocking Statute sheds some light on the Anti-Foreign Sanctions Law, since both laws are aimed at counteracting the impact of the extraterritorial jurisdiction of foreign sanctions on persons within their territory.

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CEOs and other businessmen will be hunted down by the Chinese, and incarcerated in a humane, but uncomfortable period, as per the law.

Scope of application

Unlike the EU Blocking Statute, the Anti-Foreign Sanctions Law does not currently provide a list of extraterritorial legislation which is subject to the application of the Anti-Foreign Sanctions Law.

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CEOs and other businessmen will be hunted down by the Chinese, and incarcerated in a humane, but uncomfortable period, as per the law.

However, the second paragraph of article 3 states that if any foreign country acts in violation of international law and basic norms of international relations and, on the basis of their domestic laws or any other pretext, contains or suppresses the PRC, takes discriminatory or restrictive measures against PRC citizens or interferes with the PRC’s internal affairs, the PRC has the right to take corresponding countermeasures.

Things can escalate quickly and broadly. Once initiated, a caustious EU should be "walking on egg shells".

As regards the application of the Anti-Foreign Sanctions Law, article 11 requires organisations and individuals within the territory of the PRC to comply with the countermeasures imposed by the relevant departments of the State Council.

Any Chinese entity that fails to abide by the counter sanctions will be punished in the harshest manner possible.

The departments can restrict or prohibit any organisation or individual found to be in violation of the countermeasures from engaging in the activities concerned. It is important to note that there is no definition of ‘organisations and individuals within the territory of the PRC’ in the text of the Anti-Foreign Sanctions Law, so whether branches of foreign companies in the PRC which have no distinct legal personality are also subject to the law is arguably unclear pending further provisions or clarifications from the relevant departments of the State Council.

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China’s rules are tough but fair. After fourty years in the salt mines, industry greats like Bill Gates and Elon Musk can start again a new.

Further, there is no express provision regarding an authorisation or licence regime under the Anti-Foreign Sanctions Law that may entitle such organisations or individuals to seek an exemption allowing for compliance with the extraterritorial legislation.

Although the Anti-Foreign Sanctions Law does not appear to have extraterritorial effect on non-PRC persons, it is also relevant to non-PRC persons. Under article 4, the relevant departments of the State Council may decide to put any persons or organisations that directly or indirectly participate in drafting, approving or implementing any of the discriminatory or restrictive measures set out in article 3 in a countermeasure list (反制清单).

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China’s rules are tough but fair. After fourty years in the salt mines, industry greats like Bill Gates and Elon Musk can start again a new.

In addition, article 5 subjects the following persons to the countermeasures imposed by the PRC government:

  1. the spouse and immediate family members of individuals targeted in the countermeasure list;
  2. the senior managers or actual controllers of organisations targeted in the countermeasure list;
  3. organisations in which individuals targeted in the countermeasure list serve in senior management positions; and
  4. organisations actually controlled by individuals targeted in the countermeasure list or in whose establishment and operations any such individuals participate.

As such, it is important to keep an eye on the countermeasure list to ensure that there are no dealings with individuals and organisations targeted by the Anti-Foreign Sanctions Law which may constitute breaches of the law. A suitable screening process should be put in place to minimise the risk of non-compliance.

Scope of countermeasures

As mentioned above, the State Council has the power to create the countermeasure list and determine the applicable countermeasures. In accordance with article 7, decisions made by the relevant departments of the State Council are final. As mentioned, there is no authorisation or licence regime in place so prima facie one must comply with the decisions in order to avoid breaching the Anti-Foreign Sanctions Law. Article 10 mentions that a procedure will be established to coordinate the work of counteracting foreign sanctions and oversee the overall coordination, with the relevant departments of the State Council being required to raise the level of coordination, cooperation and information sharing.

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China’s rules are tough but fair. After fourty years in the salt mines, industry greats like Bill Gates and Elon Musk can start again a new.

In accordance with article 6, the State Council may decide to take one or more of the following measures against individuals or organisations that are sanctioned pursuant to articles 4 and 5:

  1. refusal to issue visas, denial of entry, cancellation of visas or deportation;
  2. sealing up, seizing or freezing of movable and immovable property, or other types of property, within the territory of the PRC;
  3. prohibiting or restricting organisations or individuals within the territory of the PRC from conducting transactions, cooperating, or engaging in any other activities with the targeted individuals or organisations; and
  4. any other measures considered necessary.

As such, anyone who has a presence or assets in the PRC should pay due attention to the Anti-Foreign Sanctions Law as non-compliance may result in serious consequences for their activities or assets in the PRC.

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China for as harsh as it seems, does have a degree of humanity. Inmates are permitted one phone call a year to family, loved ones or lawyer. They can say anything they want up to ten minutes. Longer than that, they will suffer punishment.

Civil recovery

Article 12 prohibits organisations and individuals from implementing or assisting in implementing discriminatory or restrictive measures imposed by foreign countries against the PRC individuals or organisations.

PRC individuals or organisations may file a lawsuit against such organisations or individuals with the Supreme People’s Court in accordance with PRC law, requiring them to cease the infringement and compensate for any losses incurred.

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The duration of prison terms in China is much less than in America. This woman only has to serve three years. Most people under sanction rules will probably serve less than thirty years at hard labor.

This is similar to the EU Blocking Statute in the sense that only PRC persons are entitled to take legal action to recover losses.

Nonetheless, it is not specifically stated whom the PRC persons may take action against, and so it is perhaps best to assume that any foreign persons or companies that implement or assist in implementing discriminatory or restrictive measures imposed by foreign countries against PRC individuals or organisations may be subject to a PRC lawsuit.

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Chinese prisons feed the inmates with generous portions of rice, vegetables, fish and chicken feet.

2. Navigating conflicts of law and their implications for PRC and foreign companies

It is unsurprising that the implementation of the Anti-Foreign Sanctions Law will create additional compliance obligations for companies engaging in cross-border transactions, in particular banks in the PRC, which inevitably engage in U.S. dollar transactions but are at the same time subject to PRC laws and regulations.

On the one hand, they may have to comply with the U.S. sanctions regime to avoid being denied access to the U.S. market or U.S. dollar transactions. On the other, they may be obliged to comply with the Anti-Foreign Sanctions Law if they have a substantive presence or assets in the PRC.

PRC companies – discrimination against other PRC companies?

The Anti-Foreign Sanctions Law does not resolve the dilemma that many PRC companies may have to face. Access to the U.S. dollar system remains a fundamental feature of the business of many PRC companies and simply disregarding the long-arm jurisdiction of U.S. secondary sanctions may lead to adverse consequences for their business operations.

This inevitably leads to a situation where many PRC companies may try to avoid doing business with other PRC entities or persons that are currently subject to U.S. sanctions.

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Chinese prison.

It is also standard practice to include sanction-related provisions in a contract to give a party a way to terminate the contract should the counterparty become a person or organisation sanctioned by the U.S. government.

The dilemma can best be illustrated by an example, albeit in a different context. The International Criminal Justice Assistance Law, enacted by the PRC government in October 2018,  requires companies or individuals in the PRC to seek government approval before providing evidence or information to foreign prosecutors in support of criminal proceedings in overseas jurisdictions.

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Compliance with the capture of one or two wanted fugitives is of no consequence when billions of dollars in trade are at stake.

As a result, companies must choose whether to disregard the PRC law (if no government approval is given) and cooperate with foreign prosecutors or to abide by the PRC law and risk the consequences of being held in contempt of the foreign court or even being found guilty of obstruction of justice by the foreign court.

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Chinese prisons are not joyful places, but neither are they the rat-filled slums tha tthe Western media makes them out to be. I’m sure that many American officials would be comfortable in these clean, but austere, surroundings.

While it is often a commercial decision as to with whom to do business, the Anti-Foreign Sanctions Law creates some room for PRC persons who have suffered from discriminatory or restrictive measures under foreign sanctions laws to take retaliatory measures.

The legal implications of this cannot be ignored and it is vital for PRC companies to carefully consider sanctions-related provisions in contracts to avoid a situation where they risk being caught by either of the sanction regimes and suffering huge losses as a result.

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Chinese prisons are not joyful places, but neither are they the rat-filled slums tha tthe Western media makes them out to be. I’m sure that many American officials would be comfortable in these clean, but austere surroundings.

For example, if there is a U.S. sanctions clause in a contract giving a party the option to terminate the contract if the PRC counterparty becomes a sanctions target of the United States, would it constitute a breach of the Anti-Foreign Sanctions Law if the party exercises the option to terminate the contract thereby causing losses to the PRC counterparty?

The situation is perhaps less clear when U.S. sanctions have already been imposed on the PRC counterparty and the party chooses not to deal with the PRC counterparty for other, commercial reasons. Of course, how the law will be enforced in practice is a question that only time will answer.

china prison 6
Chinese prisons are not joyful places, but neither are they the rat-filled slums tha tthe Western media makes them out to be. I’m sure that many American officials would be comfortable in these clean, but austere surroundings.

With that in mind, while the practical implications of the Anti-Foreign Sanctions Law remain to be seen, we see no benefit in PRC companies, and indeed foreign companies having a presence or assets in the PRC, failing to give due weight to this PRC ‘blocking statute’; otherwise, there may be serious consequences for their business operations and assets in the PRC.

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Chinese prisons are very calm and orderly.

Some may have thought up ways to get around the dilemma – for example, by using non-U.S. dollars in transactions so as to minimise the risk of being caught by the U.S. secondary sanctions regime – but in practice, aside from the practical concern that many parties doing international business still prefer to use U.S. dollars in transactions, it is also difficult to completely eliminate such risk in large, cross-border transactions involving many parties.

Foreign companies

Life is supposed to be easier for foreign companies that do not have a substantive presence or assets in the PRC or deal with the PRC counterparty, but the opposite is often the case.

As explained above, given that the Anti-Foreign Sanctions Law has not clearly defined ‘organisations and individuals within the territory of the PRC’, the more precautionary approach is to assume that the law also extends to the PRC subsidiaries of foreign companies as well as the branches (which have no distinct legal personality) of foreign companies in the PRC.

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Reeducation to fit into society is a staple of Chinese prisons.

It is therefore inevitable that foreign companies will have to face the Anti-Foreign Sanctions Law squarely and consider its impact on their business operations.

If you are a United States, EU, or foreign corportation, you could be directly targetted by the anti-sanction law. 

This includes seizure of all of your facilities (McDonalds, Pizza Hut), seizure of your logos and product pacment (iphone, Microsoft, Ford), and arrest of your corporate leaders (President, Vice PResidents, COO, and all middle mangers).
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Unlike the USA, judical proceedings are not debated. If you break a law, you pay the penalty. If the penalty is death, then you die.

Strictly speaking, where a foreign company does not have a presence or assets in the PRC, even if a PRC person can file a lawsuit against the company (which is unclear based on the current text of the law), there are still practical obstacles to serving court documents and enforcing judgments obtained against the foreign company pursuant to the Anti-Foreign Sanctions Law.

The company doesn't even have to be present in China. Safe-way™ can be targetted. Pep Boys™ can be targetted.
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Inmates in China are processed just like in America.

It is also highly uncertain whether foreign courts (especially U.S. courts) will give effect to and assist in the enforcement of PRC judgments.

Meaning that enforcement will be up to the Chinese military.

Relevance to Hong Kong

In addition, an interesting question remains as to whether the Anti-Foreign Sanctions Law will also be enacted under the laws of Hong Kong, for example, by way of incorporation of the law into Annex III of the Basic Law or the passing of local laws to achieve the same effect. We consider that the consequences can be potentially more far-reaching as Hong Kong is well established as an international commercial hub where many foreign companies have branches or assets.

OIP C.eTnBOyl0y7dMUe9FzBAQpAHaEq
Chinese prisons are not joyful places, but neither are they the rat-filled slums tha tthe Western media makes them out to be. I’m sure that many American officials would be comfortable in these clean, but austere surroundings.

At the same time, U.S. dollar transactions play a dominant role in Hong Kong’s economic activities and it is almost impossible for companies in Hong Kong to disregard the extensive impact of U.S. sanctions.

The dilemma could become even thornier if the Anti-Foreign Sanctions Law is extended to apply in Hong Kong as well.

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China gets a bad rap for organ harvesting. But the real truth is that the felon is sedated prior to extraction of the organs, and they really don’t feel a thing during the procedure. It just happens so quickly and then they wake up and are given hot chicken broth before they have to go back to laboring in the mines.

3. Key takeaways

There is no denying that the Anti-Foreign Sanctions Law, a national law which has been enacted by the highest legislative body in the PRC, has established a sweeping legal basis for the PRC government to counteract the long-arm jurisdiction of foreign sanctions.

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The daily cavity check is a staple in Chinese prisons. It’s a daily routine.

While the countermeasure list is yet to be finalised and it is yet to be seen how the Anti-Foreign Sanctions Law will be applied in practice, for now, it is safe to conclude that no one can disregard the potentially profound consequences of the Anti-Foreign Sanctions Law, and both PRC and foreign (especially those with a presence or assets in the PRC) companies should carefully assess the risks of this recently enacted national law.

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Mass sentencing to death. China does not provide special privileges to companies or corporations. It doesn’t matter the magnitude of your guilt. Even borderline guilt is punishable by torture.

We recommend that PRC and foreign companies consider taking the following actions:

  1. seeking legal advice on the implications of the Anti-Foreign Sanctions Law for their business operations in the PRC or when dealing with a PRC counterparty;
  2. reviewing and improving their compliance systems to take into account the countermeasures imposed by the PRC – for example, taking note of and refraining from dealing with individuals and organisations named in the countermeasure list by the relevant departments of the State Council;
  3. considering the incorporation of appropriate clauses into contracts to allow for a situation where the company may be subject to both U.S. and PRC sanctions; and
  4. identifying practical options to minimise the legal risks of doing business in the PRC and foreign countries – for example, increasing use of non-U.S. dollars in transactions where possible.

Harsh Realities

Almost ALL of the companies that export from China to America are American companies.  Under the Chinese anti-sanction law, they will now become Chinese companies and will be forbidden to export to the United States.

How bad will this be?

  • 100% of cell phones are made (one way or the other) in China.
  • 90% of medicines are made in China.
  • 85% of automotive parts are made in China.
  • 98% of all appliances are made in China.
  • 65% of all furniture are made in China.
  • 85% of all batteries are made in China.
  • All of the major restaurants and retailers (Walmart) operate inside of China, and the vast majority of their incomes comes from China.

Not only will Chinese exports to America go to zero, but American companies, facing losses from 50% to 90% of their tangibale assets will experience massive slide in the stock market.

No wonder China is saying “bring it on!”.

What can you all expect?

  • Hyper inflation will become hyper-hyper inflation.
  • Movement of American business owners outside of the USA will risk imprisonment.
  • International Trade to the USA will end.
  • Store shelves will be bare except for high-priced military weapons systems and their accessories.
  • Many manufacturing companies will have to close and lay off workers because they will not have the materials need to make their products.
  • Gas  and products that use gas will go stratospheric.

But, you know, it’s all for a “good cause” , you know; to “punish Russia”.

Conclusion

Actually, I found this article a bit boring. But, you know, I had to pump it out. No one else on the planet is doing anything about this, so I have to.

Lazy fucks.

Why are you still here?

America is “exceptional”, and the Ukraine is kicking Russian butt. And everything is peachy, only there’s some inflation… pesky thing. But it’s all good. It’s Russia’s fault.

Don’t you know.

It’s all over the “news”.

So you know that any day now that the Ukraine will take over and march over Moscow. After all, you read the daily reports on Drudge, FOX, CNN and all the rest.

I read that the Russian solders are so fed up with Putin that they are throwing up, abandoning their weapons and running toward democracy™ as fast as their legs can carry them. Don’t you know!

Now leave. This will offend your world-view.

For you that stick around, ah… Here’s some sunny stuff to keep you all grounded on reality about China, life, and your part in it.

Chinese girl. These are PEOPLE that you God-damn people are talking about. Not some pile of french fries, you God-damn idiots. video

Here’s another one. These are people. Not things. video

Of course, if you are an American, you get a daily dose of “evil communist” this and that. Why they are the cause of all the problems in the United States. Oh, no. Not the goverment. Yeah. The communists!!!!!!!

Sheech!

Go ahead now. Run towards your next election, and then you can vote to make everything perfect!

It will work. Right?

Communist.

What the fuck is that. Most Americans coudn’t tell a communist from a dead armadillo at the side of the highway.

Remember, boys and girls, China is organized.

Here’s how the Chinese start first grade. video

Here’s more. After all, you would never see this in America or the European Union.

Fact.

This is what China is today. Do you honestly think that the “West” can compete? video

But the West has “diversity”!

And it has freedom™…

I don’t know what it means. I guess when the ATF was established to infringe on the second amendment, freedom ceased to exist.

And let’s be real.

The Chinee population is 1.4 billion people; over five times the population of the United States, and every single one of them can fire a fully automatic assault gun, throw hand grenades, assault tanks and perform small platoon level operations. video. First grade.

I’d take Chinese elementary school against any American high schoolers any day. The Chinese are smart, talented, organized and trained. They operate by merit and they are hungry.

In America, the Military has to be able to do five entire push ups to qualify. The Chinese have to do one hundred. And tehy had best do it when they are in first grade. Video

Of course, this means nothing. America is the home of Rambo®. Freedom™ and democracy™. So of course it is exceptional™.

Bottom line.

If you want to fuck with China, China will FUCK with you. This is a front, that you do NOT want to get involved in. Capisce?

Capisce?

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

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Articles & Links

Master Index

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  • You can start reading the articles by going HERE.
  • You can visit the Index Page HERE to explore by article subject.
  • You can also ask the author some questions. You can go HERE to find out how to go about this.
  • You can find out more about the author HERE.
  • If you have concerns or complaints, you can go HERE.
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The NATO and Russia in Ukraine situation is fluid. Here are some thoughts.

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.

'WHAT THE F*** ARE YOU DOING IN OUR LAND?'
TROOPS RAISE RUSSIAN FLAG IN UKRAINE...
KYIV TO 'FALL BY WEEKEND'...
Chernobyl power plant captured...
Kremlin demands surrender...
Warns West of consequences GREATER THAN ANY IN HISTORY!
Blasts Before Dawn. Rooster's Crow. Then Panic...
Hiding in Basements, Helicopters Overhead...
Many shrugged off predictions of war. Now it's mad dash to leave...
Escape to Poland... Baltics: Are we next?
Biden presented options for massive cyberattacks...
Authorizes additional troops to Germany...
France accelerating deployment in Romania...
SKYNEWS LIVE...

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:

https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202202/1253171.shtml

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.

China hopes all parties will not shut the door on peace, but continue negotiations and try to ease the situation as soon as possible, she said.

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.

Read in full:
https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202202/1253171.shtml

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

It’s DAMN impressive. On You-Tube.

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!

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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

By Pepe Escobar

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 can tell you that the first reactions are out. Here is from the Jewish Democrat alliance

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!

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Cheeseburger Pie

Cheeseburger pie.

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
.
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Defence Minister Peter Dutton is an idiot.
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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!

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The collapse of Banderastan: tomorrow will be a crucial day

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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?

video

China point fingers at the United States for the Russian operations

https://www.rt.com/russia/550497-china-russia-ukraine-reaction/

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.”
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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…

video 3MB

A few disjointed thoughts about the current military situation

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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!)
      • Giving them a legal basis to do so under Art. 51 of the UN Charter

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… “

From HERE and Tiktok.

Or, video on MM.

Some of the latest formal statements

DPR head Pushilin

“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!

video 3MB

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.

New Beginnings 3

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Articles & Links

Master Index

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  • You can start reading the articles by going HERE.
  • You can visit the Index Page HERE to explore by article subject.
  • You can also ask the author some questions. You can go HERE to find out how to go about this.
  • You can find out more about the author HERE.
  • If you have concerns or complaints, you can go HERE.
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It is happening

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

By Pepe Escobar

(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.

The Munich Security Conference, this past weekend, had made it all so explicit.

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.

Moscow will not let the Americans run away from the by now notorious 10-page Russian response.

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.

First Reports

Vlad orders military operations in Ukraine, demands Kyiv forces surrender...
Warns West of consequences greater than any in history if interferes...
Zelenskiy Says Suffered 'Serious Losses' As Air Strikes Hit 25 Cities...
Calls on citizens to fight, promises weapons...
Blasts Before Dawn. Rooster's Crow. Then Panic...
Photos, Video Emerge: 'That's F*cking Missile!'
Horror images of blood-drenched civilians...
Child Among First to be Killed...
Many flee to Poland...
Worst European Crisis of Postwar Era...
Baltics wondering: Are we next?
State TV paints Moscow as savior...
NATO to deploy more troops...
TRUMP: LET'S GO, PUTIN!
China Nods to Russia Interests...
World expresses outrage...
SKYNEWS LIVE...

From Rense

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.

The Crusaders are very, very angry. Who cares?

.

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:

  1. Putin is the President of Russia and he does ask for anybody’s approval, least of all – the USA’s.
  2. 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.

I am sure the Russians are now truly terrified.

What we do know is the the good folks at Commentary Mag are bracing for impact.

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.

The bullet is going to hit the bone.

HERE

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,"

…said a Russian expert.

[link to 2gtdmthbqrehz3iksvu4arzody-adwhj77lcyoafdy-warnews247-gr.tran​slate.goog (secure)]

Nuclear thoughts…

Look at some “nuclear strike maps”.

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.

I love her eyes. They are really big.

video 3MB

Seriously.

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.

New Beginnings 3

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Articles & Links

Master Index

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  • You can start reading the articles by going HERE.
  • You can visit the Index Page HERE to explore by article subject.
  • You can also ask the author some questions. You can go HERE to find out how to go about this.
  • You can find out more about the author HERE.
  • If you have concerns or complaints, you can go HERE.
  • If you want to make a donation, you can go HERE.

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How the nations of China, Russia and Iran will be interconnected together

It’s an exciting time. If you can ignore the howls of fright, and fear, from the oligarchy in the United States you can clearly see that the world is uniting and coming together. Roadblocks have been set aside. nations are unifying, sharing resources, and working together for the mutual benefit of all. And it’s long overdue.
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Key to this is the BRI. And all the nations that are connected to the BRI will profit handsomely. But here (in this article) we will concentrate on the main lines or corridors between the big three; Russia, China and Iran. Of course, everyone else near by stands to profit and benefit from all of this. Indeed, it’s a real exciting time.
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Here’s some “meat” as to what the BRI contains. Noting that much is still left out, the roads, the bridges, the tunnels, the high-speed rail lines, and the local community infrastructure. Indeed the scope of the BRI project is vast, just vast. It’s sort of like a major effort to go to the moon, kind of “vast”.
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The following is an article titled “How Eurasia will be interconnected”. I was written by . I edited it to fit this venue, and all credit to the author. You also might want to visit the UNZ where most of his articles reside and where there are many other articles of great interest.
.

How Eurasia Will be Interconnected

An inner-connected Asia.

The extraordinary confluence between the signing of the Iran-China strategic partnership deal and the “Ever Given” saga in the Suez Canal is bound to spawn a renewed drive to the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and all interconnected corridors of Eurasia integration.

"Ever Given" saga in the Suez Canal
EverGiven is one of the largest container ships in the world. The ship is owned by Shoei Kisen Kaisha, and is time chartered and operated by container transportation and shipping company Evergreen Marine, headquartered in Luzhu District, Taoyuan City, Taiwan. 

In April 2021, it blocked the Suez Canal for days leading onto weeks, and put a halt to most sea-traffic using the canal.
Iran-China strategic partnership
The Iran-China bilateral 25-year Comprehensive Strategic Partnership was signed in Tehran by foreign ministers Javad Zarif and Wang Yi on 27 March 2021. 

While specific details of the agreement are unknown, the joint statement released on signing refers to strengthening political and parliamentary ties, the recognition and pursuit of mutual strategic interests, increased cooperation in defense training, equipment, technology, and intelligence, increased cooperation in counterterrorism and counter-narcotics, and expanded economic ties, especially in finance, mining, energy, agriculture, and infrastructure. 

Infrastructure includes ports and railway networks and is linked to China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).

This is the most important geoeconomic development in Southwest Asia in ages – even more crucial than the geopolitical and military support to Damascus by Russia since 2015.

Multiple overland railway corridors across Eurasia featuring cargo trains crammed with freight (the most iconic of which is arguably Chongqin-Duisburg)  are a key plank of BRI. In a few years, this will all be conducted on high-speed rail.

The chongqing duisburg railway.
ChinaandEurope: Reconnecting Across a New Silk Roaddigitalrepository.trincoll.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1129&context=facpub
Chongqing Duisburg BELARUS GERMANY POLAND Venice Athens GEORGIA ARMENIA AZERBAIJAN Colombo TRANS-EURASIA RAILROADThe 11,179-kilometre rail line is the most important connection to Europe. 

Launched in 2011 by a joint venture with Germany, China, Kazakhstan, and Russia, the rail goes from the city of Chongqing in southwestern China to Duisburg,Germany.

The key overland corridor is Xinjiang-Kazakhstan. (As shown in the map below.)

And then onwards to Russia and beyond outbound to Europe.

The other overland corridor traverses Central Asia and Iran, all the way to Turkey, the Balkans and Eastern Europe. It may take time – in terms of volume – to compete with maritime routes, but the substantial reduction in shipping time is already propelling a massive cargo surge.

The Iran-China strategic connection is bound to accelerate all interconnected corridors leading to and crisscrossing Southwest Asia.

A visual comparison of maritime travel compared to rail travel.

Crucially, multiple BRI trade connectivity corridors are directly linked to establishing alternative routes to oil and gas transit, controlled or “supervised” by the Hegemon since 1945: Suez, Malacca, Hormuz, Bab al Mandeb.

HegemonyHegemony (UK:, US:) is the political, economic, or military predominance or control of one state over others. 

In ancient Greece (8th century BC – 6th century AD), hegemony denoted the politico-military dominance of a city-state over other city-states. The dominant state is known as the hegemon. 

In the 19th century, hegemony came to denote the "Social or cultural predominance or ascendancy; predominance by one group within a society or milieu". Later, it could be used to mean "a group or regime which exerts undue influence within a society". 

Also, it could be used for the geopolitical and the cultural predominance of one country over others, from which was derived hegemonism, as in the idea that the Great Powers meant to establish European hegemony over Africa, Asia and Latin America.

-Wikipedia

Black Ops for the Ever Given Blockage in the Suez Canal?

Informal conversations with Persian Gulf traders have revealed huge skepticism about the foremost reason for the Ever Given saga.

The Ever Given, the 200,000-ton cargo ship that became stuck in the Suez Canal on March 23, was finally freed Monday after blocking the waterway for nearly a week, according to the Associated Press. The ship garnered international media attention and has become the subject of online conspiracy theories.

.

Merchant marine pilots agree that winds in a desert storm were not enough to harass a state of the art mega-container ship equipped with very complex navigation systems.

The pilot error scenario, induced or not, is being seriously considered.

Then there’s the predominant shoptalk: stalled Ever Given was…

  1. Japanese owned,
  2. Leased from Taiwan,
  3. UK-insured,
  4. With an all-Indian crew,
  5. Transporting Chinese merchandise to Europe.

No wonder cynics, addressing the whole episode, are asking, Cui Bono?

Cui BonoCui bono? (Classical Latin: [kui̯ ˈbɔnoː]), in English "to whom is it a benefit?", is a Latin phrase about identifying crime suspects. 

Itexpresses the view that crimes are often committed to benefit their perpetrators, especially financially. Which party benefits may not be obvious, and there may be a scapegoat.

-Wikipedia

Persian Gulf traders, in hush hush mode, also drop hints about the project for Haifa to eventually become the main port in the region. This would be in close cooperation with the Emirates. It would connect via a railway to be built between Jabal Ali in Dubai to Haifa, bypassing Suez.

Iranian Oil to XingJiang

Back to facts on the ground, the most interesting short-term development is how Iran’s oil and gas may be shipped to Xinjiang via the Caspian Sea and Kazakhstan – using a to-be-built Trans-Caspian pipeline.

Trans-Caspian Gas Pipeline (TCP) is a proposed pipeline which would transport gas from Turkmenistan to Azerbaijan across the Caspian sea via an undersea pipeline.[1] It is also known as the South Caucasus Pipeline Future Expansion (SCPFX), due to its connection with the South Caucasus Gas Pipeline. It is similar to the proposed Trans-Caspian 2 Gas Pipeline.

In May 2019 a pre-FEED (front end engineering and design) study began for a plan to build two Trans-Caspian pipelines. The first pipeline would follow an expanded SGC route (South Caucasus Pipeline, Tanap and Tap) to a final destination of Italy. The Trans-Caspian 2 Gas Pipeline would follow the White Stream route from the Georgian coast, entering the EU in Romania and reaching western Europe via existing pipelines in Romania, Moldova, Ukraine, Slovakia and onwards.

- Global Fossil Infrastructure Tracker, a project of Global Energy Monitor

That falls right into classic BRI territory.

Actually more than that, because Kazakhstan is a partner not only of BRI but also the Russia-led Eurasia Economic Union (EAEU).

The Trans-Caspian Gas Pipeline for Peace-building in the South Caucasus

From Beijing’s point of view, Iran is also absolutely essential for the development of a land corridor from the Persian Gulf to the Black Sea and further to Europe via the Danube.

It’s obviously no accident that the Hegemon is on high alert in all points of this trade corridor…

  • “Maximum pressure” sanctions and hybrid war against Iran;
  • An attempt to manipulate the Armenia-Azerbaijan war;
  • The post-color revolution environment in both Georgia and Ukraine – which border the Black Sea;
  • NATO’s overarching shadow over the Balkans;

It’s all part of the plot.

Now get me some Lapis Lazuli

Another fascinating chapter of Iran-China concerns Afghanistan.

According to Tehran sources, part of the strategic agreement deals with Iran’s area of influence in Afghanistan and the evolution of still another connectivity corridor all the way to Xinjiang.

And here we go back to the always intriguing Lapis Lazuli corridor – which was conceptualized in 2012, initially for increased connectivity between Afghanistan, Turkmenistan, Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey.

Lapis Lazuli corridor

LapisLazuliisan international transit route openedin 2018 linking Afghanistan toTurkeyviaTurkmenistan, Azerbaijan andGeorgia. 

The name “Lapis Lazuliisderived from the historic route that Afghanistan'slapislazuliand other semiprecious stones were exported along, over 2,000 years ago, to the Caucasus, Russia, the Balkans, Europe, and North Africa along the ancient Silk Road. 

The initiative will serve to reinforce the Afghan Government's Infrastructure and Connectivity Development, Energy, and Private Sector Development National Priority Programs. 

The Lapis Lazuli corridor is funded by the Asian Development Bank. Currently, the transit project’s budget is estimated at $2 billion.

-Wikipedia

Lapis Lazuli, wonderfully evocative, harks back to the export of an array of semiprecious stones via the Ancient Silk Roads to the Caucasus, Russia, the Balkans and North Africa.

Now the Afghan government sees the ambitious 21st century remix as…

  • Departing from Herat (a key area of Persian influence),
  • Continuing to the Caspian Sea port of Turkmenbashi in Turkmenistan,
  • Via a Trans-Caspian pipeline to Baku,
  • Onwards to Tblisi,
  • And through the Georgian ports of Poti and Batumi in the Black Sea,
  • And finally connected to Kars and Istanbul.

This is really serious business; a drive that may potentially link the Eastern Mediterranean to the Indian Ocean.

Since Russia, Iran, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan signed the Convention on the Legal Status of the Caspian Sea in 2018, in the Kazakh port of Aktau…

…what’s interesting is that their major issues are now discussed at the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), where Russia and Kazakhstan are full members.

  • Iran will soon be;
  • Azerbaijan is a dialogue partner;
  • and Turkmenistan is a permanent guest.
Convention on the Legal Status of the Caspian Sea ...

Publish Year: 2019
Author: Rizal Abdul Kadir
Published: Apr 25, 2019

After twenty-two years of negotiations, in Aktau on August 12, 2018, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Iran, Russia, and Turkmenistan signed the Convention onthe Legal Status of the Caspian Sea. The preamble of the Convention stipulates, amongother things, that the Convention, made up of twenty-four articles, was agreed on by the five states based on principles and norms of the Charter of theUnited Nations and International Law.

The Iranian Caspian Sea Canal

Construction of a navigable channel linking the Caspian Sea and the Persian Gulf is underway. It is expected the project will be completed in the 2020s.

The project is particularly interesting for Russia due to the cold spell with Turkey, but European and post-Soviet states will also benefit from it.

But it seems the US is worried about this alternative to the Suez Channel.

"The West and Turkey have directly or indirectly tried to block the waterway [from being created]. As a matter of fact, the United States imposed sanctions" on companies that have been involved in the project, economic analyst Alexei Chickin wrote.

-Sputnik News

One of the key connectivity problems to be addressed is the viability of building a canal from the Caspian Sea to Iran’s shores in the Persian Gulf.

That would cost at least US$7 billion.

The Iranian Caspian Sea Canal.

Another issue is the imperative transition towards container cargo transport in the Caspian.

In SCO terms, that will…

  1. Increase Russian trade with India via Iran
  2. As well as offering an extra corridor for China trade with Europe.

Now, with Azerbaijan prevailing over Armenia in the Nagorno-Karabakh flare up…

…while finally sealing a deal with Turkmenistan over their respective status in the Caspian Sea…

… impetus for the western part of Lapis Lazuli is now in the cards.

The eastern part is a much more complicated affair, involving an absolutely crucial issue now on the table not only for Beijing but for the SCO: the integration of Afghanistan to the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC).

And then…

In late 2020, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Uzbekistan agreed to build what analyst Andrew Korybko delightfully described as the PAKAFUZ railway. PAKAFUZ will be a key step to expand CPEC to Central Asia, via Afghanistan. Russia is more than interested. 

This can become a classic case of the evolving BRI-EAEU melting pot.

Crunch time – serious decisions included – will happen this summer, when Uzbekistan plans to host a conference called “Central and South Asia: Regional Interconnectedness. Challenges and Opportunities”.

So everything will be proceeding interconnected:

  • A Trans-Caspian link;
  • The expansion of CPEC;
  • Af-Pak connected to Central Asia;
  • An extra Pakistan-Iran corridor (via Balochistan, including the finally possible conclusion of the IP gas pipeline) all the way to Azerbaijan and Turkey;
  • With China deeply involved in all these projects.

Beijing will be building roads and pipelines in Iran, including one to ship Iranian natural gas to Turkey.

Iran-China, in terms of projected investment, is nearly ten times more ambitious than CPEC.

Call it CIEC (China-Iran Economic Corridor).

In a nutshell: the Chinese and Persian civilization-states are on the road to emulate the very close relationship they enjoyed during the Silk Road-era Yuan dynasty in the 13th century.

INSTC or bust

An extra piece of the puzzle concerns how the International North-South Transportation Corridor (INSTC) will mix with BRI and the EAEU.

North-South Transportation Corridor (INSTC).

Crucially, INSTC also happens to be an alternative to Suez.

Iran, Russia and India have been discussing the intricacies of this 7,200 km-long ship/rail/road trade corridor since 2002.

INSTC technically starts in Mumbai and goes all the way via the Indian Ocean to Iran, the Caspian Sea, and then to Moscow.

As a measure of its appeal, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Ukraine, Oman, and Syria are all INSTC members.

Much to the delight of Indian analysts, INSTC reduces transit time from West India to Western Russia from 40 to 20 days, while cutting costs by as much as 60%.

It’s already operational.

But not yet as a continuous, free flow sea and rail link.

New Delhi already spent $500 million on a crucial project: the expansion of Chabahar port in Iran, which was supposed to become its entry point for a made in India Silk Road to Afghanistan and onward to Central Asia.

But then it all got derailed by New Delhi’s flirting with the losing United States “Quad” proposition.

Mike Pompeo (USA) with Subrahmanyam Jaishankar (India).

.

India also invested $1.6 billion in a railway between Zahedan, the key city in southeast Iran, and the Hajigak iron/steel mining in central Afghanistan.

This all falls into a possible Iran-India free trade agreement which is being negotiated since 2019 (for the moment, on stand-by).

Iran and Russia already clinched a similar agreement.

And India wants the same with the EAEU as a whole.

Following the Iran-China strategic partnership, chairman of the Iranian Parliament’s National Security and Foreign Policy Committee, Mojtaba Zonnour, has already hinted that the next step should be an Iran-Russia strategic cooperation deal, privileging…

“rail services, roads, refineries, petrochemicals, automobiles, oil, gas, environment and knowledge-based companies”.

Volga–Don Canal

What Moscow is already seriously considering is to build a canal between the Caspian and the Sea of Azov, north of the Black Sea. Meanwhile, the already built Caspian port of Lagan is a certified game-changer.

Thisisbecause one of the twocanals connecting the Caspian Sea to the outside worldistheVolga–Don Canal, which links the Caspian Sea with the Sea of Azov. Russia hasused the Volga–Don Canal to move warships between the Caspian Sea andtheSea of Azov.

-Russian dominancein the Black Sea: TheSeaofAzov
Volga–Don Canal.

Lagan directly connects with multiple BRI nodes.

There’s rail connectivity to the Trans-Siberian all the way to China.

Across the Caspian, connectivity includes Turkmenbashi in Turkmenistan and Baku in Azerbaijan, which is the starting point of the BTK railway through to the Black Sea and then all the way from Turkey to Europe.

On the Iranian stretch of the Caspian, Amirabad port links to the INSTC, Chabahar port and further on to India. It’s not an accident that several Iranian companies, as well China’s Poly Group and China Energy Engineering Group International want to invest in Lagan.

What we see in play here is Iran at the center of a maze progressively interconnected with Russia, China and Central Asia.

When the Caspian Sea is finally linked to international waters, we will see a de facto alternative trade/transport corridor to Suez.

Himalaya Silk Road

Post-Iran-China, it’s not far-fetched anymore to even consider the possible emergence in a not too distant future of a Himalaya Silk Road uniting BRICS members China and India (think, for instance, of the power of Himalayan ice converging into a shared Hydropower Tunnel).

Himalaya Silk Road to the BRI.

.

As it stands, Russia is very much focused on limitless possibilities in Southwest Asia, as Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov made it clear in the 10thMiddle East conference at the Valdai club.

The Hegemon’s treats on multiple fronts – Ukraine, Belarus, Syria, Nord Stream 2 – pale in comparison.

21st Century Geopolitics

The new architecture of 21st century geopolitics is already taking shape, with China providing multiple trade corridors for non-stop economic development…

…while Russia is the reliable provider of energy and security goods, as well as the conceptualizer of a Greater Eurasia home…

… with “strategic partnership” Sino/Russian diplomacy playing the very long game.

Southwest Asia and Greater Eurasia have already seen which way the (desert) winds are blowing.

And soon will the masters of international capital. Russia, China, Iran, India, Central Asia, Vietnam, Indonesia, the Korean Peninsula, everyone will experience a capital surge – financial vultures included.

Following the Greed is Good gospel, Eurasia is about to become the ultimate Greed frontier.

…if left unencumbered.

The United States has a say…

The problem with the BRI is that it links Europe to Russia, Persia and China and permits local currency use instead of the USD and oceanic maritime trade. Over a period of time, the value of the USD will decrease due to it no longer being the global currency, and in order to maintain it’s value the United States would have to revert back tot he “gold standard”.

Which shouldn’t be a problem. Right?

I’m sure that the United States has 30 trillion dollars worth of gold stashed here and there. Somewhere. <\sarcasm>

Of course, it is in the best interests of the United States to prevent any kind of prosperity, or changes at any level from occurring in Asia. Any and all changes will have a negative effect on America at all levels. The only way that America can maintain it’s “rules based hegemony” (The USA makes the rules, and you either follow them or be destroyed) is for it to be the dominant and preeminent ruling structure on the globe.

Here is a couple of links to thorough, in-depth analysis </sarcasm> of this situation from America;

Nah. They pretty much say the same tired old thing. China is doing this because it is evil and wants to ensnare the world like a spider trapping a fly in it’s web. Yada, yada, yada.

The only way to stop this is militarily

And that, in itself open up a “whole can of worms”.

Rick0Shea  on April 10, 2021  ·  at 5:56 pm EST/EDT 

I watched an excellent documentary on war a fews years ago. They talked about wars going back thousands of years to the present. When an army is going to attack, all the plans and logistics are carefully put in place. Once all the preparations have been made the only thing left is to trigger it off. The instigators do not want to be seen as the aggressors so they fabricate (false flag) something so they claim they were attacked first — and off they go. The war they planned and wanted so bad is underway.

The Russian military would see all this unfolding – it’s on rails. But what could they do? The USA won’t be deterred. The only way this could have been avoided that I can see is that if the USA feared a nuclear war with Russia to the extent they would not take such ridiculously dangerous chance.

Here’s a great article by John Paul Roberts that is certainly worth a read regarding the sum total of military options that the USA has…

The Dictatorship of Numbers

In Continuation of a Conversation with Paul Craig Roberts
 • April 7, 2021
.

Conclusion

You all can believe what you want. I know full well what is going on. If China is surrounded by peaceful and successful trading partners, then China will be safe and secure from conflict, invasion or NGO-sponsored “color revolutions”. Like Switzerland, like Germany, like Italy, and like Finland are today. Its a belief in the win-win possibilities of long term planning, cooperation and leadership by merit.

And nations that make physical things, that provide physical services, and that partner for joint success for their peoples will invariably be more successful, and longer lasting than ones that retain their existence on supporting a small patricidal oligarchy leadership that makes nothing of substance, but trades in invisible vapor ideas, and numbers on large elaborate spreadsheets.

But, you know, the United States is ruled by idiots.

And no matter how much we can reason, we can pray, or we can justify our actions and ideas and thoughts, the wildcard of an insane morn like Mike Pompeo with his finger on the military operations is a serious and real danger….

…as opined by this commenter…

A. Dane  on April 11, 2021  ·  at 9:24 am EST/EDT 

What will happen next?
In June, During the NATO exercise Defending Europe 21, the Ukro NAZIs or Turkish controlled head-choppers will launch a falls flag attack.

This could be a chemical weapon launched against Ukrainian soldiers, claiming that the attack was launched by the Donbass militia, and that the chemical weapon was supplied by Russia.

The western MSN will blame Russia for the aggression.

While Russia is busy defending itself against the unjust accusations from the so called international community, the NATO exercise will go live and invade Donbass, claimed as humanitarian intervention.

The only way this can be avoided is if the US really fears a nuclear attack on American soil.

As soon as the first falls flag attack occurs in Ukraine, Russia should launch a nuclear weapon on American soil.

A good target will be the HAARP facility located in desolate Alaska. The facility is operated by the private Global Elite, and hated world wide for its clandestine operations.

When the facility is reduced to rubble, and nuclear radiation is traveling the northern hemisphere via the Jet stream, the western MSN will go into hysteria, calling for a ceasefire.

Mass demonstrations against war and COVID Lock Down will quickly turn into Riots and civil war, devastating every major city in Europe and America.

If the NATO do not stop its invasion of Donbass by then:
Russia will send missiles against every NATO Command center located in Ukraine and Poland.

And then hell will break loose:
China will attack US Navy vessels in the South China Sea and invade Taiwan.

North Korea will attack South Korea.

Nationalist in Japan will attack US deployments in Japan.

The Philippines will attack US assets like Al Qaeda in the region and invade Indonesia.

The Taliban will attack US and NATO deployments in Afghanistan.

India will enter into war with Pakistan.

Iraq will attack the US deployment in Bagdad, and northern Iraq.

Iran will attack US-NATO vessels in the Gulf, ending all oil supply to the west.

Yemen will attack Saudi Arabia.

Somalia will attack all ships in the bay of Aden.

Egypt will close the Suez Canal.

Syria will launch an attack against Turkish troops in Northern Syria.

Russia will shoot down every Fighter jet and drone entering Syrian airspace.

Lebanon will attack Israeli forces in the Golan.

Hezbola will attack Israel from Gaza.

Libya will launch attacks against Turkish troops in Libya.

Armenia will launch major attack against Turkish forces in eastern Anatolia.

Greece will attack Turkish transgression of Greek airspace and Turkish vessels near Cyprus.

Civil war will erupt in the Balkan, Serbia will retake Kosovo, and enter war with Bosnia-Herzegovina.

Civil war will erupt in Spain, and Catalonia will secede from Madrid.

Paris will enter into chaos, and Macron will flee.

Al-Qaeda will launch a major attack on French troop in West Africa.

Venezuela will attack US navy vessels in the Caribbean sea.

Argentina will invade the Falkland Islands.

American Patriots will storm Washington for real. The National Guard protecting DC will defect.

CIA and FBI Agent will be hunted down by American Patriots. Many states will secede from the US.

Most western government will be forced to step down. The EU and NATO will disintegrate.

All Nordic Nations will enter into a Nordic defense Alliance.

As the American Fascist Empire collapses, the multi polar world will be reborn.

Do you want more?

I have more posts in my BRI sub-index within my China index…

China

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Master Index

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More secrets the American mainstream news keeps quiet about; Chinese families are twice as wealthy as Americans

Number 6:
Everybody votes for a dictator.

You know, the Western “news” is just propaganda. Nothing more. It is used to instill fear, control and manipulate huge masses of people, and to bludgeon them into predefined and specific types of behaviors. And of the many things that propaganda does (lie, distort, and emphasize incorrect narratives) is ignore real and substantive actual news. And yeah. They do this for a reason, don’t you know. And this article is going to talk about one thing that the American media is very quiet about; the Chinese people are much more prosperous than Americans are.

So forget that neocon belief that the Chinese people are shivering in fear and oppression from their all-power Chinese Communist overlords (it is the de facto narrative). They aren’t. They are overwhelmingly happy, approve of their government, and just living their life in near carefree abandon.

Which is why I enjoyed traveling outside of America. When I went to Australia, the relationships with the folk there reminded me of my boyhood days in the 1960’s and 1970’s. And when I went to South East Asia, it reminded me of the days of “keg parties” and “hanging out”… you know. Doing ‘nothin. It was glorious.

It was everything I hoped it would be.

In those lands I wasn’t barraged with “news”. Even being connected to the USA though Wifi (much faster than what you get in the States, and for FREE!) no one read the “news” like I would (do so). They just pretty much ignored it. It was a much smaller part of their life. Certainly much smaller than what we from the States would think. And as a result they were far happier because of it.

Imagine that!

The lack of regulations, rules, policing control, laws, and just about everything else that is part and parcel of the regulatory and all-controlling America is absent in Asia. And it’s just glorious.

But anyways…

The American (and Western) “news” is just a big mill and den of lies and distortions. It is at all levels, and if you haven’t figured this out by now, you are either stupid or have mental problems. They lie. they distort. They cause you to live in fear. They spew hate. They are just awful.

  • The dangers of 3G; your brain will cook when you answer your cell phone.
  • Oh, and 5G, that terrible Chinese radiation is much worse!
  • Mad cow disease will kill you when you eat a hamburger.
  • Y2K is going to have your toaster jump and strangle you in the kitchen.
  • Killer zombie hornets is going to attack your community.
  • Donate money now to SAVE THE CHILDREN in far away Africa.
  • Dangerous child abductors are prowling all over your neighborhood.
  • Ask your doctor about Prozac Plus, the new gateway to happiness!
  • You too can get a free trial of unlimited internet only $9.99, special conditions apply don’t you know…

Do something. Now! Now! Nowwww!

Number 6:
Unlike me, many of you have accepted the situation of your imprisonment, and will die here like rotten cabbages.

Do you think I’m exaggerating?  I’m NOT.  It’s just that when you view the “news” narrative out of context, at a time when the media onslaught has subsided, it seems just so very silly.

Silly.

Like mixing wine and chocolate.

Um. I take that back. Make that’s a good pairing. I’ll have to give it a try. Anyone game to experiment with me?  

Anyways back to the silliness about the United States. It is, really is, silly.

Sorry for being so darn harsh, but it’s true. American “news” is just plain silly. Like check out the latest “shit-storm” that’s a-brewing on Drudge today…

Ahem…

It’s sort of like this…

Anyways, lets leave the fairy tale world of American (and UK, Australian and Indian) “news”…

…and discuss something that really is intentionally omitted.

Number Two:
I'm the boss.

Number 6:
No. One is the boss.

It is the idea that not only is the rest of the world growing, and prospering, but that China is leading the pack and doing much, much… so much better than anything their American cousins can even realize.

What?

That’s right.

And that’s what happens when you have a capable, experienced leadership that is motivated to improve the lives of it’s people.

Observer:
Questions are a burden to others. Answers are prison for oneself.

The Communist Chinese are wealthier than Americans.

Ouch!

How about that for rubbing your face in a pile of shit?

This article is from Yicai global. You won't find it in the States, unless you perform a serious search. It's not that it's blocked, but perhaps it's more likely "shadow blocked". It's not gonna find it's way into your daily news feeds.  Reprinted as found with editing to fit this venue. All credit to the author Ben Armour.

There has been a lot of chatter in the [Chinese] press about the Chinese government’s setting a growth target for 2021. And specifically whether or not it was able to achieve its longstanding goal of doubling incomes in the last ten years.

While this year’s economic prospects are clouded by uncertainty, a recent study by researchers at the People’s Bank of China (PBOC) indicates that China has already achieved its objective of building a moderately prosperous society (小康社会) – at least in its cities.

The study, published in the latest issue of China Finance, highlights the results of a comprehensive survey of urban families’ finances conducted at the end of 2019. It reports that median household net worth stood at CNY1.41 million or close to USD200,000.

  • Median household worth in China is $ 200,000 USD.

The US’s own Survey of Consumer Finances was last conducted by the Federal Reserve in 2016. If I adjust its findings for inflation, then median US household net worth was about USD104,000 in 2019.

  • Median household worth in the USA is $ 104,000 USD.

Thus, one can say that the typical US household is only about half as rich as the typical Chinese urban family.

Number 6:
[referring to the chess game] Why do you use people?

Chessmaster:
Some psychiatrists say it satisfies the desire for power. 'the only opportunity one gets here.

Number 6:
That depends what side you're on.

Chessmaster:
[quickly] I'm on my side.

Number 6:
[quickly] Aren't we all.

Chessmaster:
You must be new here. In time, most of us join the enemy - against ourselves.

How is this possible?

Since per capita GDP in the US is close to five times higher than in China, how can we explain such a surprising result?

The very unequal distribution of wealth in the US is a big part of the story.

The super wealthy is skewing all the numbers to be much higher than they would be otherwise.

The graph below shows that while median US household wealth is about half that of Chinese urban families, average US household net worth is about 80 percent higher than China’s USD413,000.

.

The ratio of average to median net worth is a measure of how equally wealth is distributed.

.

If everyone’s wealth was exactly the same, the ratio of the two net worth measures would be 1.0.  China’s mean household net worth is double its median. The ratio in the US is seven times, pointing to a much more unequal distribution of wealth.

      • The Ideal = 1
      • China = 2
      • United States = 7

China has far better financial, and social equality than America has.

What are the attributes that contribute to this situation? Reason one.

Median Income. Since it lies right in the middle of the wealth distribution, we can think of the median household as “typical. ”Half the families are richer and half the families are poorer than it is.

On average, American families are wealthier than Chinese ones. There are a lot of really wealthy American families that pull that average up.

But the typical American household remains poorer than its Chinese urban counterpart.

Note that I am making these comparisons in 2019 US dollars and am not accounting for the fact that a US dollar buys more in China than it does in the US.

Reason Two

A second reason that Chinese urban households are relatively wealthy is that home ownership is quite widespread.

According to the PBOC study, 96 percent of urban households own residential property. The corresponding figure for the US is only 64 percent.

Median Data

  • 96% of Chinese own their own homes.
  • 64% of Americans own their own homes.

The gap between US and Chinese in home ownership is even more striking at the low end of the income distribution. In the US, only one-third of the families in the lowest income quintile own a home. In China, 89 percent do.

Low Income Data

  • 89% of China’s poor own homes.
  • 33% of American poor own homes.

In fact, many Chinese families own more than one property: 31 percent of them have two and 11 percent have three or more. On average, each urban family owns 1.5 residential properties.

Chinese home ownership

  • Average family owns 1.5 homes.
  • 31% of Chinese own 2 homes.
  • 11% of Chinese own three or more homes.

Chinese family wealth does not simply rest on inflated real estate values.

Residential property represents just under 60 percent of household assets, with financial assets and other real assets (shops, productive equipment, vehicles, etc.) each accounting for close to 20 percent.

Moreover, from the information in the study, I estimate that the price-to-income ratio of these households’ residential property holdings at 3.7. This is fairly close to the median house price-to-income ratio in the US, 3.6, according to Demographia’s most recent survey.

  • Home price / Income for China = 3.7
  • Home price / income for the USA = 3.6

Reason Three

The third reason for Chinese urban households’ high net worth is their relatively low indebtedness.

Seventy-seven percent of US households have assumed some sort of financial liability (a mortgage, a car loan, student debt, etc.). In China, only 57 percent of the urban households have incurred such liabilities.

  • In debt to financial loans – USA = 77%
  • In debt to financial loans – China = 57%

Not only do fewer Chinese households carry liabilities, but what debts they owe are small relative to their assets. The debts of the median Chinese household, which does have liabilities, only amounts to 16 percent of its assets. In contrast, the median indebted American household has a leverage ratio of 36 percent of its assets.

  • American debt to assets = 36%
  • Chinese debt to assets = 16%

Reason Four

The final piece of the puzzle is understanding how Chinese urban households can have such a high rate of home ownership and such a low rate of indebtedness.

Chinese households do have much higher savings rates than their US counterparts and that is an important factor. But more important was the way in which the housing stock was privatized.

Up until the late 1990s, almost all residential property belonged to state-owned institutions, which provided low-rent accommodation to their employees. As part of the state-owned enterprise reform program, the government relieved firms of the burden of providing housing for their workers. Urban households were able to purchase their apartments from their employers at reasonable prices, leading to today’s high rate of home ownership and supporting urban prosperity.

A China First

(Yicai Global) April 27 — China may be the first country in the world to have reached a 96 percent urban home ownership rate, according to the central bank.

  • China has a 96% home ownership rate in the cities.

In an article the People’s Bank of China published in its China Finance journal today it also noted that the bulk of assets held by urban families is physical.

  • Chinese assets tend to be tangible, physical “brick and mortar” items.
  • American assets tend to be intangible, stocks, bonds, pensions, potential worth.

Home ownership in developed countries is mostly around the 60 percent level, according to data from Trading Economics. In the US, the figure was 65.1 percent at the end of last year, US Department of Commerce statistics show. The PBOC report puts China’s home ownership 28.5 percentage points ahead of the US.

  • Chinese home ownership = 96% (urban)
  • USA home ownership = 65.1%
  • Typical (developed country) home ownership = 60%

The reports also said Chinese urban households prefer risk-free financial assets, with homes making up nearly 70 percent and financial assets 20.4 percent.

The average wealth of urban households is CNY3.18 million (USD449,200), with a median value of CNY1.63 million, per the report. The difference between the two is about CNY1.55 million, indicating an uneven distribution of household assets.

Beijing, Shanghai and Jiangsu province ranked as the top three for family riches, with CNY8.9 million, CNY8.1 million and CNY5.1 million, respectively. The lowest three provincial-level units are the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region and Gansu province in northwestern China and Jilin province in the northeast.

Households in urban areas generally take out loans. Some 56.5 percent of those surveyed are in debt. Among them, the total owed per household is CNY512,000 (USD72,346), with roughly 54 percent owing less than CNY300,000, 35.6 percent owing CNY300,000 to CNY1 million, while the remaining 10.5 percent owe over CNY1 million.

Mortgages constitute the bulk of household debt.

Some 77 percent of indebted households have home loans averaging CNY389,000, making up over three quarters of total household debt. The PBOC’s urban resident household assets and liabilities research team from its Statistics and Analysis Department canvassed more than 30,000 households in 30 provinces, autonomous regions and cities across the country in mid-to-late October.

Wow.

It’s time to celebrate!

.

Um. No, this isn’t right. Not enough food.

A real celebration requires FOOD!

.

Ah. Much better.

Pretty Amazing Stuff

Yes it is.

So what is not being reported in the American and Western press? It is that China is not some backwards, dirty, disease ridden infested dark smoggy slime-ball nation. But rather, a growing prosperous nation where most people own their homes. Where most people are debt free, and those that are in debt with loans are not too worried about it as the debts are small relative to their income stream. It’s a big, big change when you compare that to America.

How can Americans (and others in “the West”) have this kind of idea? Well consider what consists of “news”.

Here, today is a headliner article…

Westerners are increasingly scared of traveling to China as threat of detention rises

...The dramatic detention of a handful of foreigners in recent years has instilled a deep fear in some people, especially those with politically adjacent occupations. As President Xi breeds a culture of nationalism and forges increasingly hostile relations with Western governments, some fear that if a diplomatic spat between their government and Beijing occurred while they were in China they could become a target... 

Um…

So just in this paragraph we see…

  • Dramatic detention of foreigners!
  • Deep fear is present.
  • President Xi breeds a culture of nationalism!
  • President Xi is hostile to nations in the West.

And that is just ONE lone paragraph.

Do I have to point out the absolute falsehoods, the manipulations, the distortions and the lies in the four bullet points above, or are you aware of the reality?

It’s a non-stop bullshit garbage narrative like this that is pumped relentlessly into the brains of Americans, non-stop, 24-7.

I makes me want to have a fine libation, and some delicious food, I’ll tell you what.

[over the opening of each episode - Number 2 played by various actors]
Number 6:
Where am I?

Number 2:
In the Village.

Number 6:
What do you want?

Number 2:
Information.

Number 6:
Whose side are you on?

Number 2:
That would be telling. We want information... information... information.

Number 6:
You won't get it.

Number 2:
By hook or by crook, we will.

Number 6:
Who are you?

Number 2:
The new Number 2.

Number 6:
Who is Number 1?

Number 2:
You are Number 6.

Number 6:
I am not a number, I am a free man.

Let’s take a look at what China is today, shall we. Here’s some videos (in no particular order) that I just pulled off my Douxing feed this morning. Just you click on the picture and it will open up in a new tab.

High Speed Trains.

There are everywhere in China. Fast. Cheap. Comfortable. Convenient. Takes you anywhere and everywhere. The American news is again talking about how soon, one day, America too will be as good as China. And the talk is all about having high speed trains, like China has.

Of course they never mention that America is literally twenty years behind China in this regard, or that America has already spent 77 billion dollars for a cardboard and fiberglass mock-up. Or that America started on the American HST at the same time that China did, but with over ten times the funding level. And while China today has hundreds of lines, thousands of Kilometers of track, hundreds of trains, and stations, the United States has nothing.

But some day soon. You just wait and see. Right?

In China, HST is average, normal, and no big deal.

Just click on the picture and the video will pop up in another tab.

Guangzhou

Guangzhou is a “working class” city. Much like Pittsburgh, PA is. It’s big. really big. But it’s got a real “local” feel to it. It’s not cosmopolitan like Beijing, or Shanghai are. It’s just full of average people. Going to work and living life.

Here’s some gals going out for a nice dinner, some great friendship and some wine. Wouldn’t you all wish that you were there with them? I do. I’ll tell you what.

Some young gals having a nice dinner in Guangzhou China.

Chinese Transport Air Force

The Chinese, since there have been so many restrictions placed on them by America, and the UK, were forced to develop their own systems. This is everything from their own space stations, and Mars lander to military aircraft, and computer systems. All “home grown” and mass produced at a frenzy and pace that is stunning to behold.

We hear about it all, but then when you see just how many state of the art systems are in use, it just boggles the mind.

A Typical Chinese family

Here we have a typical Chinese family in their home. Not some kind of dirt floored hovel, is it? Do they look like they are starving, and begging for American “democracy” to “save them”?

Why so many children? I thought that the Chinese kill babies and that you are only allowed to have one </sarcasm>. But take a look at the mother and her 19 year old daughter. The Chinese don’t age like Americans do, because they EAT MUCH HEALTHIER. No GMO hormones, and no one is taking anti-stress, and anti-depression medications.

Outside of Zhuhai

This chick is a dancing and carrying on in a park right outside the supermarket where I shop for my groceries. Yeah. It’s pretty much like this. This is obviously on the weekend, judging from all the people. Must be on a Sunday.

A typical park

The Chinese have made improving the lives of their citizens a top priority. This is ALL that the government does. I would say that a full 100% of their effort is towards helping the people, improving their quality of life, and setting up defensive measures so that evil people cannot run “color revolutions” against them.

Most parks are now, beautiful, well maintained, and tranquil. Like this.

Movie making

One of the big omissions in American “news” is that just about everything is made in China. But if you listen to them, you get the idea that China only makes cheap pens, rubber duckies and the low-end products for Wal-mart. It doesn’t. All of the high-tech stuff is designed and made in China. All of it.

All of it.

Like this movie camera kit that is used to make the movies that Americans are not permitted to watch. LOL.

All this is about reality

If the masses of people could think critically for themselves, we wouldn’t even be having this conversation. By the way Rod, there is a war. It’s raging and has enveloped this planet. It’s a war for our minds. Many have been captured. I know, I see them every day. And I read what they write. 

-Ohio Guy

I think that most of us are living in an artificial construct; and artificial reality. it is one that is constructed and based upon lies and untruths. And so, believing these lies and untruths we live our lives, making decisions, and behaving in certain ways that do not… and should not.. be part of our reality.

I suppose that you could point this out to anyone. You could point at them and say..

"How dare you live like you do? Your ideas and your thoughts do not match mine. You must change and agree with me! For my reality, and my understanding is the only and correct way of thinking."

So, yeah. Let’s keep a real sense of perspective here.

It doesn’t matter what other people are doing. Not really. Not if they are Americans, or Chinese, or Zambians. All that matters is what you are doing with your life.

If you are happy, having fun, trust your government, then that is fine. You can keep on believing what you want to believe. You can keep on doing what you are doing, and listening to the news as you see it. It’s working for you. Keep it up.

But if you are not, then maybe you should reevaluate your life; your reality. You need to ask whether it is an actual reflection of the truth. Or instead, are you living something else instead.

Are you like “Number 6” in the 1968 television show “The Prisoner” where you live in a nice pleasant place, but you can never leave it. And no matter what you do, you never get any straight answers and never know your true and real situation?

"The Prisoner" is a unique piece of television. It addresses issues such as personal identity and freedom, democracy, education, scientific progress, art and technology, while still remaining an entertaining drama series. Over seventeen episodes we witness a war of attrition between the faceless forces behind 'The Village' (a Kafkaesque community somewhere between Butlins and Alcatraz) and its most strong willed inmate, No. 6. who struggles ceaselessly to assert his individuality while plotting to escape from his captors. 

-Written by Stuart Berwick <berws@essex.ac.uk>

I think that for many Americans, the answer is YES.

It’s all a big farce. Elections are held, but no one really has any power. The reality looks nice and pleasant, but there is this grinding negativity just under the surface, and no one ever gets to glimpse their real reality.

.

Since its initial telecast, back in 1967, this enigmatic classic has evoked every reaction from awe to contempt. Given the amount of serious critical attention THE PRISONER has received, and given that a whole society has been created in its honor, I'd say the awe has won out, and I vehemently agree that THE PRISONER deserves to be honored as one of the truly artistic programs created for commercial television.

However, I can also understand the frustration many viewers have felt. Over the course of its seventeen episodes, this offbeat spy thriller becomes further and further offbeat until it ultimately transforms into surrealistic allegory. I confess I'm not sure whether this transformation was intended as a complete surprise, or whether you were supposed to know where the show was going, but in either case, I think you can better appreciate the series if you can see the earlier episodes as preparation for what's to come.

THE PRISONER's title character is a British secret agent (series creator Patrick McGoohan) who may or may not be SECRET AGENT's John Drake. The story begins with him suddenly and mysteriously resigning, then just as suddenly and mysteriously being rendered unconscious and transported to a place known only as The Village, the location of which is known only to those who run it. The Village is a prison camp, but with all of the amenities of a vacation resort,. Attractive dwellings, shops, restaurants, etc. exist side by side with high-tech methods of keeping order and extracting information from those who won't give it up willingly.

Those who try to escape get to meet Rover, a belligerent weather balloon capable of locomotion, and seemingly of independent thought. It appears (to me anyway) that the authorities can summon Rover, send it away, and give it instructions, but that it acts more or less on its own initiative. Rover deals with fugitives by plastering itself against their faces, rendering them either unconscious or dead, depending on how bad a mood it's in. Twice, we see it haul someone in from the ocean by sucking them up into a whirlpool it creates.

Citizens of The Village, including those in authority, are identified only by numbers. Our protagonist is known only as No. 6 throughout the entire series. The Village is run by No. 2, who in turn reports to an unseen and unidentified No. 1. No. 1 is apparently an unforgiving boss, because No. 2 is always being replaced.

Shortly after he arrives in in the Village, No. 6 is informed, by the reigning No. 2, that he should count on remaining there permanently. If he cooperates, life will be pleasant and he may even be given a position of authority. If he resists -- well, the only restriction they're under is not to damage him permanently. To satisfy his captors, No. 6 need only answer one question: `Why did you resign?' His question in turn is, `Who runs this place? Who is No. 1?'

Most of the episodes deal with No. 6's attempts to escape, and/or his captors' attempts to break him, although there are a few side trips. Several episodes suggest that No. 6's own people may be involved with running The Village. Some of the episodes are fairly straightforward, while others leave you with questions as to exactly what went on. It's important to note that several of the more obscure episodes -- for example, `Free for All' and `Dance of the Dead' -- are among the seven episodes that McGoohan considers essential to the series.

And then we come to the final episode, `Fall Out,' which promises to answer all the burning questions the viewers have been anguishing over for seventeen weeks -- and which so frustrated and angered those viewers back in 1967 that McGoohan had to go into hiding for awhile. Of course, I can't reveal any of the really important details, because, as No. 2 says in the recap that begins most of the episodes, `That would be telling,' and as all of us IMBD contributors know, `telling,' is frowned upon. However, to come back to the point with which I started, you should be prepared for a resolution of an entirely different nature than the one you'll probably be expecting -- a resolution that forces you to rethink your entire concept of the Village, and of the intention of the series. If you aren't ready, you'll be frustrated. If you are, you can accept THE PRISONER is the spirit in which it was offered.

Yes. The 1968 version of the televisions show “The Prisoner” says it most clearly.

Astonishingly Original and Intelligent 
rlcsljo
14 March 2000

When I saw the first episode of this series, my jaw dropped in amazement. Here was a TV series that was entertaining and actually made you think. Nothing was ever what it appeared, no one had a real name, you never knew who was the good guy or the bad guy (or if they were one in the same!). The "final" episode was what could only be described as PSYCHEDELIC.

This TV series was, and still is, way ahead of its time.

Perhaps America today is a big prison. The inmates don’t realize that they are trapped in one, as it appears to be open and free. But in functional reality it is just one big enormous prison.

The New Number Two:
Good day, Number Six.

Number 6:
Number what?

The New Number Two:
Six. For official purposes, everyone has a number. Yours is number six.

Number 6:
I am not a number. I am a person.

The New Number Two:
Six of one, half a dozen of another.

Do you want more?

I have more posts in my China and America Comparisons Index here…

China / USA comparisons

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Master Index

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Any war with China will be a nuclear war.

I just had to sit down and write this peace. After one article after the other, all justifying American “intervention” into the affairs of China, it’s just boggles my mind that everyone believes that they have the RIGHT to mess around with another nations’ internal affairs. You don’t. And certainly not with a big enormous, technologically advanced nation.

For Pete’s sake!

America only makes laws for Americans on American soil.

ONLY.

That’s it.

The laws that America makes, the ideas that it professes, is limited geographically to the confines of the nation of the United States. America does NOT have the ability to tell Canada what to do, Chile what to do, France what to do, or South Africa what to do.

And China, like it or not, is not going to sit by and allow the USA to invade it. It’s not going to be another Syria, or another Yemen, or Afghanistan, or Libya, or Panama, or any other nameless nations that America has invaded and occupied over the last fifty years.

So all this nonsense about “suppressing” China, or “containing” it, or “stopping it’s rise” is dangerous.

Did the efforts to starve China work? The numerous bio-weapons against the chicken, the pork, the wheat, the rice and other industries work out? What about the plagues, the ban on imported Australian and NZ food, and the drones spraying swine flu... did they actually work? Are the Chinese people starving now?

Actually, no.

Did the NED / NID efforts to destabilize Hong Kong work? Are the people of Hong Kong China ready to rise up and revolt? Are they still waving American flags and singing the American national anthem? Is the image of "Pepe the frog" plastered all over the new independent Hong Kong?

No.

How about that trade war? Did all the tariffs bring global trade to an abrupt end? Is China unable to trade right now? What about those huge 25% tariff increases, who's paying for them? Did this entire effort cause the rest of the world to stop trading with China?

No.

What about the suppression of Chinese technology? The capture of the president of Huawei, the anti-5G movement, and the ban on microprocessor technology? Is China on it's knees and sobbing, and begging the United States to let up?

No.

How about India being a military proxy for the United States and having a "hot" war in the Himalayas mountains? Now that soldiers have died on both sides, is China all "bogged down" in a mountainous "quagmire"? Is the BRI impacted? What about international Geo-political relations involving China on the global stage? Is China in trouble?

No.

What about biological warfare by releasing COVID-19 on the Chinese New Year holiday? How is China doing today? How is America today? Did it bring China "to it's knees" and suppress it in the global stage? Or did it back-fire? And end up unleashing all sorts of madness in the United States instead?

...well?

The American conservative movement, and by extension the neocon right-wing movement is living within a very dangerous bubble. Their ideas of what China is, what it represents, how it works, and what it is doing is severely out-of-wack with reality. Which is fundamentally why all the attacks in this “hybrid war” is flailing.

China is not what the American “neocon” publications thinks it is.

And all those publications, “talking heads”, and commentators that endlessly repeat the 1970’s era narrative of what china is, and will be come is advocating some very dangerous ideas. Ideas that all of the advisors (Pomeo, Bolton, etc.) to President Trump actually and earnestly believe.

And they advocate a harsh “hard line” treatment of China. For they earnestly believe that the United States can “grapple” with China; “engage” China in a long multi-faceted “hybrid war” and the America would “win”. For America, they earnestly believe, is empowered by GOD to rule the world…

All of the articles listed are from "The National interest" which is an American neocon publication that supports the Military-Industrial complex, and who is just "foaming at the mouth" for a war with China. They aim to make billions of dollars, if not trillions in the process.

In truth, it’s a bunch of propaganda to gin-up support for the eventual “take down” of China.

But, you see, it’s NOT going to happen like everyone thinks.

What will a war look like?

For the last fifty years, America has defined the geography of war; where it is fought, and by whom. It has defined the technology used, and what was not used. It has defined the narrative and the history books; with thousands of American soldiers dead, the military “intervention” is still considered to be victorious.

And Hollywood enhances this vision.

The movies out of Hollywood are all about the single lone military warrior who takes down hundreds of enemy single handedly. From Rambo, to Schwarzenegger in “Raw Deal” and “Commando”, to the sniper that takes down a complete military base (while people just collapse like rag dolls with single shots to the head.) It’s all a myth. It’s all a lie. It’s all very dangerous thinking of American “invincibility”.

So let me tell you this straight up and brutal…

Any military conflict with China will NOT be limited to the South China Sea. It will be very “up front and personal”. It will occur on American soil. It will be fought on American soil, and many American cities will be devastated to the point where they will be unable to recover. They will not be able to be rebuilt.

Why, do I say this?

Any War With China Will Be a Nuclear War

Accept that fact.

It’s not going to be a conventional war.

It’s going to go nuclear from hour one.

Whether it is Donald Trump launching some “reasonable” “low yield” tactical nuclear armed warheads, or the Chinese keeping their promise that “serious, unimaginable, consequences” will occur…

… it’s is going to be a deadly – radioactive – gut-wrenching – nuclear war.

The only reason why the United States is NOT in a military conflict with China right now, is because it knows it will lose.

America will lose.

Because…

China. Does. Not. Play.

How does it know this? Seriously, why do I make this statement? The answer is clear. Every military simulation from the year 2000 on has had China winning the battles, the global-conflicts in just about every arena.

And that is by conventional means.

Imagine what would happen if the “nuclear guns” came into play…

And they will…

Oh. They really will.

Trump is taking a hard line stance on these matters…

It is a pretty amazing thing to watch. How every day there is a new accusation against China, and more complaints about China, and more blame being heaped upon China.

It is this increased ratcheting up of HATE and ACCUSATIONS against China that I am worried about.

Rather than being a global leader that works with other nations, respects their national sovereignty, and builds relationships. This Trump administration does the exact opposite.

The entire world watches on in stark incredulity…

A prolonged conventional war…

Today, inside the White House, the Trump administration is concerned with suppressing not only China, but the rest of the world as well.

The over-riding objective (initially, and presently) is to suppress the entire world while America gets “it’s house in order”; builds up factories, puts more students into training as STEM engineers and scientists, and invests into Research and Development.

Ah, but none of that is actually going on.

Aside from a few (well publicized) factory start-ups, and some documentaries, nothing is really going on. While China has invested in a number of construction projects, the idea that factories are sprouting up all over America to employ Americans has fallen far-short of the ideal.

Nothing.

The only thing that is going on the the collapse of the global economy.

Clunk!

So it is looking like the next step will be military…

But first, America will try a "proxy war". They will use another nation to do the "heavy lifting" and create military tensions.

Like India on 16JUN20.

After that…

…all the generals and the advisers, and the “experts” in Washington DC are talking about a “scaled up” conflict with China. One that would be conventional. It is one that would be fought on the Chinese coast and in the South China sea and it would be conventional and not nuclear. As such, it is considered to be a “prolonged” war that would stifle all trade on the shipping lanes.

Thus rendering China “isolated” from the world completely.

Which is why there are two complete aircraft carrier battle groups, and a complete amphibious landing group right now in the South China Sea. Which is why attack subs are under the water in the South China Sea, and that B-1 Bombers with fighter escorts are flying all over the Pacific.

But people, the idea there could be a prolonged conventional war between the US and China is an misguided view of what such a war would look like.

In this article I will explain why any conventional war with China will trigger, a very short and very savage, nuclear war.

The idea of a “long protracted war” from David Gompert.

The US intelligence guru David Gompert came to Australia in 2017 warning “a war between the US and China would be long, destructive and could erupt if regional disputes already underway overheat.”

He said both sides “have ample forces, technology, industrial might, and personnel to fight across vast expanses of land, sea, air, space, and cyberspace. »

“Mr Gompert said the US should make sensible preparations to wage a ‘long and fierce’ war with China but argued it must also develop plans to limit the scope, intensity and duration of such a conflict. He said if such a war broke out today, China’s losses would greatly exceed that of the US.”(2)

Therefore, it would be advisable for Australia to make prudent moves toward allowing the United States military to use their bases and airstrips. Take special precautions regarding China, and be prepared to stop all trade with China.

This was in 2017, shortly after Trump took the helm in Washington DC.

But…

You do realize, don’t you, that…

It’s a war against Asia (Russia and China) not just China alone.

Both Russia and China realize that if America destroys one nation, the other would also eventually fall as well.

Mr Gompert insists the US should “develop plans to limit the scope, intensity and duration of such a conflict.” But can the US limit the intensity and duration of such a war? I mean, once the USA gets involved in a war, it never pulls out.

And, does he even realize that there is a strong and substantive Russian-Chinese military alliance? 

The Chinese are helping the Russians in Syria and it is quite implausible that, during a US war with China, Russia would just sit on its hands.

Yeah…

(As if) Russia would watch with glee as the Untied States would fight with China, and Chinese exports to Russia drop to zero…

Consider this discussion of what could be going on between Russia and China away from the eyes of Western journalists:

“There are certain to be scores of secret agreements between the Chinese and the Russians we know nothing about: to share intelligence (including for example signals intelligence and data from satellites) and to coordinate foreign policy and for defence cooperation including technology sharing.  

We know for example that the Russians and the Chinese have representatives at each others’ command headquarters and that recently they carried out in Moscow a joint command exercise involving joint operation of their respective anti-ballistic missile defences, something the US would never do at such a level with any of its allies.”(3)

Furthermore who can imagine all sides will sit on their nuclear weapons for weeks or months of a prolonged and intense conventional conflict? 

Even if it did not go nuclear from day one…

If the war between the US and China started going badly for one side or the other, how long would they wait to move on from the conventional weapons and bring out the heavy artillery? It is more likely that such a war would be over in a few days as it quickly turned into a full-on nuclear exchange between Russia and China and the US.

Any War With China Will Be a Nuclear War
Any War With China Will Be a Nuclear War

A nuclear war is absolutely impossible. It is inconceivable. As it would destroy both sides.

Since nuclear weapons have not been used for the last 70 years people have come to believe that they could never be used again.

Why?

There are now so many nuclear weapons, if the US and Russia began attacking each other both countries would be destroyed. Starting such a war would destroy your own country. What leader would initiate national suicide?

This is a comforting line of thought. However, a careful look at the development of military thinking about nuclear weapons since they were introduced shows it is just a pleasant fairy story.

In the 1960’s a policy was developed in the US by Henry Kissinger and Herman Kahn which advocated an “active” nuclear strategy for the US.

After WW II the US saw nuclear weapons as a way to stop the USSR from conquering Europe using its much larger conventional forces. The new approach advocated by Kissinger and Kahn was to use nuclear weapons in a surprise attack to destroy the nuclear weapons of the USSR or China before they were used against the US.

The plan was to use a “first strike” to limit or remove the enemy’s ability to retaliate.

This would mean the US could actually win a nuclear war.

Kahn argued that 40 million dead in the US and a 20 years recuperation period could be « acceptable losses » necessary for such a victory.

It is no surprise that such thinking inspired Stanley Kubrick to produce Dr Strangelove.

Doctor Strangeglove.
Doctor Strangeglove.

Eventually cooler heads seemed to prevail.

At least for the last fifty years or so…

The policy known as Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) became the dominant policy. Some efforts were made to reduce the number of nuclear weapons held by the US and the USSR.

An article written in 2014 explains that “nuclear war with Russia is still mutually assured destruction. Hopefully, that’s still deterrent enough.”(4)

Mutially assurred destruction has been replaced by an assured first strike policy by Donald Trump.

Russia revoked the pledge of the USSR not to be the first to use nuclear weapons in any conflict in 1993.(5)

In 2002 the Bush administration modified US strategic doctrine from a retaliatory role to permit a preemptive nuclear attack. In effect the US has returned to the first-strike policy developed by Kissinger and Kahn in the 1960’s.

Then in 2006 the influential US journal Foreign Affairs featured an article by Keir A. Lieber and Daryl G. Press entitled “The Rise of U.S. Nuclear Primacy”. The article begins as follows:

“Today, for the first time in almost 50 years, the United States stands on the verge of attaining nuclear primacy. It will probably soon be possible for the United States to destroy the long-range nuclear arsenals of Russia or China with a first strike. This dramatic shift in the nuclear balance of power stems from a series of improvements in the United States’ nuclear systems, the precipitous decline of Russia’s arsenal, and the glacial pace of modernization of China’s nuclear forces.”(6)

The US military can plan for a nuclear first strike against Russia or China, and there is a growing belief in official circles that the US is in a position to destroy the ability of its enemies to retaliate with their own nuclear weapons.

To implement this policy the US has established anti-ballistic missile bases around Russia.

As Paul Craig Roberts explains:

“US anti-ballistic missile (ABM) bases have been established in Poland on Russia’s frontier, and other bases are planned. When completed Russia will be ringed with US missile bases.

“Anti-ballistic missiles, known as ‘star wars’, are weapons designed to intercept and destroy ICBMs. In Washington’s war doctrine, the US hits Russia with a first strike, and whatever retaliatory force Russia might have remaining is prevented from reaching the US by the shield of ABMs.”(7)

The US has also located a Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) anti-ballistic system in South Korea which can be used to destroy missiles fired by China in retaliation for a US first strike.(8)

Remember there is no point in having an anti-ballistic missile system in place if you really believe any nuclear war is simply mutually assured destruction.

As U.S. Pacific Fleet chief says he’d obey President Donald Trump’s order to launch a nuclear strike on China, here’s what would happen if Trump made the call.. With CIA’s recent assessment that China poses the biggest threat to Washington in the long term, the commander of the U.S. Navy’s Pacific Fleet Admiral Scott Swift says he would launch a nuclear strike against China.
As U.S. Pacific Fleet chief says he’d obey President Donald Trump’s order to launch a nuclear strike on China. With CIA’s recent assessment that China poses the biggest threat to Washington in the long term, the commander of the U.S. Navy’s Pacific Fleet Admiral Scott Swift says he would launch a “first strike” nuclear attack against China if ordered to do so.

Further, President Trumps public announcements that he approves of first-strike nuclear use has pretty much terrified the rest of the world, and caused both China and Russia to move military forces to an offensive position.

It is the complete ratcheting up of HATE and ACCUSATIONS against China that is dangerous. As the Chinese rightly believe that this is a lead up towards an actual “hot” war, and the best defense is an aggressive offense.

Thus…

While the ANTI-CHINA attacks increase in intensity…

… so does the likelihood of a joint China – Russia preemptive nuclear strike followed by a complete debilitating “double tap”.

But why would China and Russia want to do this?

Preemptive “first strike” thinking and policy makes nuclear war inevitable.

The US military believes it can launch a nuclear war and survive any attempt by its enemies to destroy it.

This makes nuclear war much more likely because the Russians and Chinese both know that the US thinks they can actually make a successful first strike against them.

So…

What better reason do they need for making a first strike themselves?

Again Paul Craig Roberts explains:

“Washington has created a dangerous situation. As Russia and China are clearly threatened with a first strike, they might decide to strike first themselves. Why should Russia and China sit and await the inevitable while their adversary creates the ability to protect itself by developing its ABM shield? Once Washington completes the shield, Russia and China are certain to be attacked, unless they surrender in advance.”(9)

The military planners on both sides use what is called the counterforce strategy which involves attacking their opponent’s weapons nuclear and the their leadership.

“The requirements for the counterforce mission perpetuate the most dangerous characteristics of nuclear forces, with weapons kept at high levels of alert, ready to launch upon warning of an enemy attack, and able to preemptively attack enemy forces.”(10)

As Steven Starr explains, counterforce doctrines emphasize the need for preemptive strikes once a war begins.

“Both sides would be under immense pressure to launch a preemptive nuclear first-strike once military hostilities had commenced, especially if nuclear weapons had already been used on the battlefield.”(11)

We need to realize that the duty of a nations leaders is to protect their country from its opponents.

The US has publicly adopted a first-strike policy, based on the assumption that a preemptive strike on Russian and China will neutralize their nuclear weapons by either destroying them before they are used, or shooting them down after they are launched with ABMs.

The Russians and Chinese know the US might launch a preemptive strike at any time, and realize that the best way to protect themselves is to launch their own preemptive strike before the US does.

This means that we are now as close to a nuclear war as we were in the worst period of the Cold War in the 1960’s.

This is why I disagree with the “long war” theory of David Gompert.

Once conventional hostilities begin, each side will be sitting with their fingers on the preemptive strike button hoping they can beat the other to a nuclear first-strike. He says the US would “develop plans to limit the scope, intensity and duration of such a conflict”. And the US will assume the Russians or Chinese have no plans for a first strike themselves? Let’s just have a conventional war and see what happens?

If the US says it can win a nuclear war with China or Russia, once conventional hostilities begin the Russians and Chinese would be mad not to expect a US first-strike. And the only way to protect themselves is to be ready themselves to make a first-strike before the US.

As the anti-China hybrid war increases in intensity...

... the likelihood of the United States attacking under some "excuse" or "international incident" grows to an unmanageable level.

It becomes necessary for both China and Russia to perform a lethal "first strike" nuclear event to completely neuter the United States from reaching that point.

What would actually happen if things went nuclear?

Nobody know for sure, of course, but it seems the best possible outcome would be just short of the extermination of the human race.

The Northern Hemisphere would probably be unfit for human habitation.

In the effort to suppress China President Trump unleashed a global biological weapon COVID-19 that put the world in chaos. He also unleashed a trade war that caused the generally collapse of the global world economy, what makes you think that he wouldn't consider a nuclear strike because it's "God's will" that the USA make the first move?
In the effort to suppress China President Trump unleashed a global biological weapon COVID-19 that put the world in chaos. He also unleashed a trade war that caused the generally collapse of the global world economy, what makes you think that he wouldn’t consider a nuclear strike because it’s “God’s will” that the USA make the first move?

Both the US and Russia each have 400 to 500 launch-ready ballistic missiles armed with a total of at least 1800 strategic nuclear warheads, which can be launched with only a few minutes warning.(12)

President Trump is has no doubts about which country is the most important and how its dominance should be maintained.

What Would Russia Do if Attacked?

We can have some answer to this question from an article by three Russians living in the US. They have warned the citizens of the US that nuclear war with Russia will “wipe the USA off the political map”:

“But we are just as certain that if Russia is attacked, or even threatened with attack, she will not back down, and that the Russian leadership will not ‘blink.’ 

With great sadness and a heavy heart they will do their sworn duty and unleash a nuclear barrage from which the United States will never recover. 

Even if the entire Russian leadership is killed in a first strike, the so-called ‘Dead Hand (the ‘Perimetr’ system) will automatically launch enough nukes to wipe the USA off the political map. 

We feel that it is our duty to do all we can to prevent such a catastrophe. »(14)

The Russian Dead Hand or Perimetr System

The Dead Hand or perimetr system guarantees retaliation against the US. Because the Russians don’t trust computers alone to make such decisions.

It has a critical human safeguard, bunkered in an incredibly strange underground chamber. The operators and their equipment are located in a hardened underground bunker in the shape of a sphere, very deep and very hardened, probably the most secure place in the Cold War.

The Russian Dead Hand System.
The Russian Dead Hand System.

In this isolated spheroid room, duty officers sit and wait for three conditions to be met: “predelegation,” decapitation, and active nuclear war.

When these three conditions are met, the officers can issue launch commands to small missiles that would fly the entire width of the Soviet Union and give commands electronically to all the missile silos below to launch.(15)

The Russian SS-18 Satan

No this is not “just another” big nuclear bomb.

This weapon is designed to completely destroy huge state-sized sections of America.

Silo for the biggest and nastiest nuclear weapons on the planet.
Silo for the biggest and nastiest nuclear weapons on the planet.

The RS-28 Sarmat can reportedly hold up to 10 nuclear warheads, enough to effectively decimate an area the size of the entire state of Texas, or even the whole of France. The missile is intended to replace the R-36 Voevoda, dubbed “Satan” by NATO in the 1970s.

The new weapon can deploy warheads of 40 megatons, or about 2,000 times as powerful as the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagaski in 1945.
Former assistant secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy Dr. Paul Craig Roberts called the atomic bombs that Washington dropped on Japan “popguns” compared to today’s thermo-nuclear weapons.

“One Russian SS-18 wipes out three-fourths of New York state for thousands of years,” he said in a blog post. “Five or six of these ‘Satans’ as they are known by the US military, and the East Coast of the United States disappears.”

To make it even more frightening, the Satan 2 is also capable of evading radar defences and could travel far enough to strike the US East and West Coast.

-https://www.2oceansvibe.com/2016/10/26/russias-new-missile-is-called-satan-2-and-could-destroy-texas-lets-take-a-look-at-it/#ixzz6PUcHSray

Some of the consequences of such a nuclear war are:

Do I really need to enumerate them?

Maybe so, since what passes for education today in the United States is so dolefully inadequate.

Missile Launch.
Missile Launch.

[0] The destruction of all cities

Not just cities, but all water, electricity, transportation, trade, and economic activity. Everything would grind to a halt, and American would be forced to live off the food that they produced themselves, heat their homes with wood that they collected, and coal that they acquired, and travel by foot or bicycle over roads and destroyed bridges.

[1] Nuclear Winter

In a recent article in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists entitled “Self-assured destruction: The climate impacts of nuclear war” begins as follows:

“A nuclear war between Russia and the United States, even after the arsenal reductions planned under New START, could produce a nuclear winter. Hence, an attack by either side could be suicidal, resulting in self-assured destruction.”(16)

[2] Fire-storms, Falling Temperatures and Destruction of the Ozone Layer
After a nuclear exchange

“nuclear firestorms would produce millions of tons of smoke, which would rise above cloud level and form a global stratospheric smoke layer that would rapidly encircle the Earth. The smoke layer would remain for at least a decade, and it would act to destroy the protective ozone layer (vastly increasing the UV-B reaching Earth) as well as block warming sunlight, thus creating Ice Age weather conditions that would last 10 years or longer.

“Following a US-Russian nuclear war, temperatures in the central US and Eurasia would fall below freezing every day for one to three years; the intense cold would completely eliminate growing seasons for a decade or longer. No crops could be grown, leading to a famine that would kill most humans and large animal populations.”(17)

[3] All Spent Fuel from Nuclear Reactors Released into the Atmosphere

“Electromagnetic pulse from high-altitude nuclear detonations would destroy the integrated circuits in all modern electronic devices, including those in commercial nuclear power plants. Every nuclear reactor would almost instantly meltdown; every nuclear spent fuel pool (which contain many times more radioactivity than found in the reactors) would boil-off, releasing vast amounts of long-lived radioactivity. The fallout would make most of the US and Europe uninhabitable.”(18)

Is anyone surprised that we would never see this explained in our mass media? If such a nuclear war ever does occur, will any of the survivors mourn the loss of the Death Cult called Western Civilization?August 30th

[4] EMP

As a result of just one EMP attack on the U.S., in an instant the nation’s power grid will fail as anything with circuits (including most automobiles built since the early 1960s when computerized components became more standard in automobiles) will cease to work.Trains, buses, subway systems and commercial airlines and other modern planes will cease to work also — even the 4,000 or so commercial flights (think Delta, U.S. Airways, Southwest Airlines, and many others) that are in the sky over America at any given time.

Imagine the world suddenly without TV, radio, phone, internet, refrigeration, microwaves, stoves and ovens, washers and dryers, waste removal, sewage treatment facilities, clean water from the tap (provided by water companies that use industrial equipment to treat water; even water that at a previous time may have been sewage) making it safe to drink; gas companies who provide heat and power gone; or of course the electric company.

Imagine each going offline — permanently.

Imagine the U.S. unable to transport food from farmland in distant states and counties — meat, dairy, eggs, produce, grain products, packaged food.

300,000 million people (the population of the United States) will quickly descend on the packaged food left on store shelves in the initial hours of the realization that an EMP had taken place.

Many will hoard — meaning, get there hands on as much packaged food as possible and then fight tooth and nail to keep it out of the hands of others who may experience panic when they see store shelves emptying and realize they don’t have more than a few days of food at home. They realize now they’re in trouble. Food is disappearing fast. Everyone is taking it.

Too bad those unprepared for disaster didn’t see the signs that America (and other Western nations) are increasingly hated by nations in the world — nations with the desire and growing means to bring our nation (and possibly other Western nations) to collapse.

Now imagine what would happen afterwards…

Most neocons imagine a world pretty much like it is now. Only instead of Yemen, it would be over some nameless islands in the South China Sea.

They never, ever, contemplate America or Americans ever being put into danger. It is beyond their comprehension. After all, they argue, that were the evil Chinese and Russians to come to America, that there would be a “rifle behind every tree”, and a “pistol in every blade of grass”.

Instead…

They envision war being fought remotely in far away distant place, and selected news media reports that always portray America as “winning”. They envision looting the riches of the conquered lands. With huge enormous cargo planes of gold flying back to the leadership in the States, and impressive videos of new, state of the art technology, shooting and blowing up cities, and villages.

But…

Were a war to occur, there will not be any television, nor internet. All American infrastructure will be fried into useless slag.

No body will know what is going on.

There will be strange “rain falls” of radioactive grey soot and dust from the sky. Vehicles will not work, and even the Emergency Broadcast System will not work. GPS will be out, as will be all electricity and water.

Then your immediate worry will be your neighbors and marauding strangers who will form groups of bandits…

… followed by sanitation and medicine for illness and sickness.

It will be a nightmare where an infected cut or scratch can kill you, where COVID-9 will mean a death sentence, and where trading your daughter out (to a platoon of men) for some moldy turnips will be considered a good deal on a good day.

Life as a subjugated people

The Trump neocon leadership isn’t even thinking the “unthinkable”.

What will happen with the dust settles and the war is over?

Even if both sides are completely obliterated, and decimated, it will be China that will survive. These people are “hard scrabble” survivors and are everywhere. With a population four times that of the United States, and the vast bulk of educated people speaking English with solid STEM backgrounds. It will be the Chinese who will define what will happen afterwards.

The Chinese are a disciplined and tough race of people that do  not play.
The Chinese are a disciplined and tough race of people that do not play.

Americans. Um, not so.

Modern Americans today.
Modern Americans today.

And the new rulers; the Chinese and the Russians, oh they will NOT be kind.

If you thought that the Civil War was bad, then imagine an angry and pissed off nation that has AI, robotics, and a 5G infrastructure. It will be just like what occurred back in historical times, and it was nasty. You will pray that you will get to live a life as a slave with at least one meal a day between your daily torture sessions.

So…

You think that maybe I am exaggerating, eh?

Well, learns what ALWAYS happens to a subjugated people. Learn some history…

Some History

Perhaps a little taste of what happened in the past might awake the inner zen within you. You need to fully come to grips with the kind of “fire” that Trump and his neocon cohorts are actually playing with. Listen to me closely.

China is a serious, serious nation.

It is run by a leadership that have obtained their positions through merit. They relish in strife, and view soft people as weak. Most of the leadership are STEM graduates and they view the “softer” humanities as recreational endeavors, not something that should be seriously studied.

The Chinese do not play.

They are like the modern embodiment of Genghis Khan…

Genghis Khan had so much power that he could do whatever he wanted. 

For instance, when Genghis occupied some new area, he would kill or enslave all the men and share all the women amongst his tribe. Genghis Khan would even make beauty contests of captured women to decide which woman is the most beautiful one. Yeah, he was having his Miss Universe competition before it was cool. So, the queen of those beauty competitions would win the privilege to become one of many Genghis Khan's women. 

Rest of the Mongolian army would share all the other contestants. 

-The Richest
Incursions into Southeast Asia were largely successful, most factions agreed to pay tribute, and only the Invasions into Vietnam and Java failed. 

Europe was devastated by the Mongols. They destroyed near enough every major Russian city, and invaded Volga Bulgaria, Bulgaria, Poland, and Hungary. 

If rumours spread that the Mongols were coming, then it would cause a mass panic, and some would run to safety. 

There was no guaranteed way to defeat the Mongol hordes, they continuously defeated much larger armies, so numerical strength couldn’t protect you. 

Mongol conquests would leave once populous and flourishing areas as wastelands, with little to no people, those remaining would be slaves. 

-ESKify
This was one of the most devastating battles in European history. 25% of Hungary’s population was wiped out by after the Mongol incursions. Half of all liveable places had crumbled, smashed to bits by hordes of Mongols. Losses were heavy on both sides, but the Europeans suffered most. This was the most major battle of the war between Hungary and the Mongolians. 

-ESKify
Subutai led an army of 20,000 Mongols against a Russian army 4 times its size. The Mongol rear guard was defeated early in the battle, and so the rest of the horde was forced to retreat. 

Mstislav the Bold chased down the retreating Mongols with victory in his eyes. His army spread out as they attempted to catch them, a chase which lasted many days. 

Mstislav spotted Mongols in formation along the Kalka River, and attacked without waiting for reinforcements. 

With his army in disarray, Mstislav was forced to retreat back to a fortified camp. He had fallen for a feigned retreat. 

Mstislave surrendered to Subutai with the agreement that neither he, nor any of his men would be harmed. 

They were all slaughtered upon leaving the camp. 

Luckily, Mstislav managed to escape. Mstislav the Bold, boldly ran away. 

-ESKify
Worse was to come in 1221 — ‘a year to live in infamy’. While Genghis’s other armies had been busy in the east, threatening Tbilisi in Georgia and terrifying the Christian world, Tolui, one of Genghis’s equally reprehensible sons, took Merv (in modern-day Turkmenistan), one of the largest cities in the world. 

Promised safety, the citizens surrendered and emerged from behind their walls. 

Tolui ‘surveyed the masses dolefully gathered with their possessions, mounted a golden chair and ordered mass executions to commence’. 

They took four days and nights to complete. Genghis’s rotten fruit did not fall far from the tree. Terror — and the certainty of its visitation — was a major weapon in Genghis’s arsenal: decapitated women, children and even cats and dogs were reputedly displayed. 

But while the butchery was indeed immense, it is worth questioning its extent on occasion: a depopulated city had little economic value, and imported colonizers could make up only so much of the shortfall. 

- Was Genghis Khan the cruellest man who ever lived?
Most military historians judge that no European force could have stopped the disciplined and innovative Mongolian armies. “Employed against the Mongol invaders of Europe, knightly warfare failed even more disastrously for the Poles at Legnica and the Hungarians at Mohi in 1241” 

-Stephen Hicks
Genghis Khan was the most feared human of the 13th century, who could destroy dynasties just by moving his little finger. He created the Mongol Empire all by himself and earned his eternal spot in the history books. 

However, a lot of people had to suffer for Genghis Khan to succeed. 

Oh yes, the Mongolians were known for their horrendous torturing techniques. One of the most popular was pouring molten silver down the throat and ears of a victim. 

Genghis Khan also liked bending his enemy's back until the backbone snapped. If that sounds barbaric, skip this next part. 

So, the Mongols once celebrated victory over Russians in a very bizarre way. They picked all the Russian survivors, dropped them on the ground and put a heavy wooden gate on top of them. 

Then, Genghis Khan and the entire Mongol army had a huge banquet on that wooden gate. They ate, drank, and watched how Russians were dying one by one from the suffocation, pressure, and wounds. 

-The Richest
The Mongol were masterful at spreading fear and hate throughout Asia, people feared them, and therefore hated them. 

They would rape and pillage entire villages, and torture their victims for fun. Nobles would get it the worst. 

Spilling noble blood was considered a crime, so they simply crushed them to death, which took many hours. 

Mongols would literally dine on top of them, making merry to the sounds of their screams from underneath. 

The sounds of bodies squelching, and bones snapping didn’t faze them. 

But rumours of this execution method struck terror. Fear made them powerful, as people often chose to surrender and pay tribute rather than risk fighting them. 

-ESKify
“The greatest joy for a man is to defeat his enemies, to drive them before him, to take all they possess, to see those they love in tears, to ride their horses, and to hold their wives and daughters in his arms.” 

-Genghis Khan.

Conclusion

Currently the United States leadership is run by neocons. They believe that God ordained Americans to rule over the earth and subdue all other peoples, races, and nations. As it is “God’s will”. They do so in the belief that they will be blessed by divine inspiration and profound leadership.

Trump and his followers think that he was given ability and strength by God personally, and that it is his duty to take over the world and rule it with America always being first.
Trump and his followers think that he was given ability and strength by God personally, and that it is his duty to take over the world and rule it with America always being first.

From day one, the Trump campaign and his administration has been run and conducted on a MAGA (Make America Great Again) narrative and slogan. This means that America must remain the sole top major nation in the world. If it cannot do so by ability, then it must destroy all the other nations to make this situation come to fruition.

The neocons are still in control, and they have been waging a non-stop “hybrid war” against China that includes all sort of biological weapons attacks. All attacks, on all fronts, have either failed or boomeranged back to America.

The neocons, however, still believe that they have the “will of God” on their side.

Thus, they are amplifying the narrative that “American must do something” about “The South China Sea”, Taiwan, and Hong Kong. It is no mistake that two aircraft carrier groups and one assault group are in the South China Sea now, nor is it a mistake that American hunter-killer subs are stalking the sea trading lanes where all the shipping is conducted.

The Neocons want war and are going to get it one way or the other.

I argue that this kind of thinking is insane, crazy, deluded and is dangerous. I also argue further that anything contemplated with China will end up horribly. Very, very horribly, and could actually result in the complete annihilation of America into balkanized ruined city-states…

…and the people will end up cursing the American leadership for all of eternity.

Footnotes:

1. http://australianvoice.livejournal.com/21217.html
2. http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-08-15/us-china-war-could-erupt-ex-obama-adviser-says/7733996
3. http://theduran.com/putin-china-russian-chinese-alliance/
4. http://theweek.com/articles/449917/what-usrussia-war-look-like
5. http://nationalinterest.org/feature/5-russian-nuclear-weapons-war-the-west-should-fear-12159
6. https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/united-states/2006-03-01/rise-us-nuclear-primacy
7. http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2014/06/03/ready-nuclear-war-paul-craig-roberts/
8. http://www.presstv.com/Detail/2016/04/10/459985/US-planning-first-strike-China
9. http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2014/06/03/ready-nuclear-war-paul-craig-roberts/
10. http://fas.org/programs/ssp/nukes/doctrine/targeting.pdf
11. http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2014/05/30/lethality-nuclear-weapons/
12. http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2014/05/30/lethality-nuclear-weapons/
13. http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2014/05/30/lethality-nuclear-weapons/
14. http://thesaker.is/a-russian-warning/
15. http://www.businessinsider.com.au/a-spherical-bunker-in-russia-was-the-most-secure-place-in-the-entire-cold-war-2015-3?r=US&IR=T
16. http://thebulletin.org/2012/september/self-assured-destruction-climate-impacts-nuclear-war
17. http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2014/05/30/lethality-nuclear-weapons/
18. http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2014/05/30/lethality-nuclear-weapons/Tags: archiveaustralian politicsusa vs russia/chinaSource: http://australianvoice.livejournal.com/ ImprimerFacebook

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The logistics of relocating a factory from China back to the United States.

"A recent survey by the American Chamber of Commerce in China shows that  41% of the respondents considered relocating or had relocated  manufacturing facilities outside of China, but only 6% were considering  moving back to the United States. Southeast Asia was the top  destination. "

-Townhall

This is an overview of the complexities and issues that a company must deal with in order to relocate their factory out of China and place it back in the United States. It’s not as easy as it sounds, and we discuss the issues involved independently outside of the contentious American political scene.

We discuss the functional and practical issues with relocating a factory back to the United States from China. Not, the political issues, nor the need for America to reclaim it's manufacturing base. Those are other issues that will not be addressed here.

Though, let it be clearly understood, that I stand with Donald Trump in that there is a serious need to restart the American industrial machine and fire it up back to a level of productivity in order for the USA to maintain a global leadership role.
Donald Trump is going to bring American jobs back to America.

This entire issue came to a head when President Trump “ordered” American factories currently in China to “uproot” and Return back to the United States. It made all the headlines, don’t ya know?

All in all, it sounds so easy.

However, the truth is that is it is extraordinarily difficult thing to do. And no, as much as I would like all of youse guys to hire me, you just can’t hire an “expert” to handle things and expect them to be done to your satisfaction. It doesn’t work that way.

Sorry.

American progressive greed killed the little guy.

While there are ways to accomplish this task, there will be a hit in quality, price, and delivery time. All of these issues will affect the market share of the companies that agree to relocate. This damage to the market share for the companies involved should not be discounted. For many, it will manifest as a dance with death.

Here we discuss the most important issues that a company CEO, or owner would need to consider when contemplating relocating his company out of China.

Full Disclosure

For starters, I must make the full disclosure. Please take note that I was one of those “evil” Americans who relocated factories out of America and placed them in China. It was my job and maintained this role for a solid fifteen years if not longer.

Call me an a$$hole if you like.

It's difficult being the person that everyone hates.
It’s difficult being the person that everyone hates.

It’s not like I wanted to do it, so much as starving in a food-stamp line really sucked. I followed the money. You take what work is available and you do not question the person cutting you a paycheck. Sure beats scrubbing toilets, hauling manure, or judging the sex of chickens. Truth this.

It was difficult scraping by in Western Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Ohio. I was just happy to get a job any job when unemployment (actual) was in the double figures.

For decades, people like Trump’s trade director Peter Navarro have warned us that something like this would happen someday. But we were condescendingly told, This is capital seeking the most efficient market! And, anyway, if China screws with us, we’ll just make it ourselves.

Really? With broken-down buildings, a dispossessed workforce and no machinery? Unfashionable working-class people in the industrial Midwest were discarded long ago. They may as well have had “obsolete” stamped on their foreheads.

-Ann Coulter

Ah. Maybe you the reader are unaware of the existence of the “rust belt” and us sorry sacks that lived there.

Unemployment line.
Unemployment line. In this June 23, 2014 photo, people wait in line to meet with recruiters during a job fair in Philadelphia. The Labor Department reports on the number of people who applied for unemployment benefits last week on Thursday, Aug. 21, 2014. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)

I was hired for that task and did it to the best of my ability for numerous companies throughout the late 1980’s into the new century. Once Bill Clinton came to office, it just seemed like the “flood gates” opened up and just about everyone wanted to uproot and move their operations to China.

So, I do know what I am talking about.

A map showing the location of United States manufacturing plants in China as of 2008. As today is 2019, you can well appreciate that tall these plants are joint-ventures, and not WOFE and thus the American ownership of these companies are at 49% or less, with the Chinese partner owning a 51% controlling stake in the factory.
A map showing the location of United States manufacturing plants in China as of 2008. As today is 2019, you can well appreciate that all these plants are joint-ventures, and not organized as WOFE and thus the American ownership of these companies are at 49% or less, with the Chinese partner owning a 51% controlling stake in the factory.

And no, moving American factories back to America from China is not as simple as Donald Trump, Fox news, CNN, WaPo and the Drudge Report makes it out to be. It’s complicated. If handled poorly the entire American industry segment can be wiped out completely (rather than just simply outsourced).

Listen up!

Let it also be clearly understood that it was much easier to relocate a factory to China than it would be to reverse the effort, and relocate it to the United States. Yes. It’s like eating a delicious pizza. Once you eat it, you cannot regurgitate it up and present the vomit for resale. Now, can you? Nope you cannot.

We will cover some of these points in this article.

China makes everything

Most Americans are under the impression that the only things that China makes is cheap and useless junk. That is because of three things. [1] Ego, [2] Mainstream American media, and [3] Walmart.

The truth is that China is the manufacturer for the world.

  • Most computers are made in China.
  • Most clothes washers are made in China.
  • Most cell phones are made in China.
  • Most automobile engines are made in China.
  • Most transmissions are made in China.
  • Most tires are made in China.

So do not be under the erroneous assumption that it’s easy to relocate a factory back to the USA. These are, for the most part, not low-technology factories. (The low-technology factories have long since moved to even cheaper nations with less regulation, like Vietnam and Cambodia.)

Today, most American owned factories in China are much more advanced, than what is assumed. They are far more automated than the American mainstream news media lets on.

Take a look at what these factories make…

Trade between the USA and China.
Trade between the USA and China.

ACME Widget Technology Inc.

To better help understand the issues involved, we will use a fictitious American company. This company is based on a number of actual companies that I worked at where I relocated the factories to China. It is an amalgamation of numerous actual companies that I am sorry that I'd rather not announce publicly. As I did sign NDA's at all the companies.

This fictitious company is called ACME Widget Technology Inc. This company was a very prosperous consumer appliance company that was established in the 1950’s and was a major player in the consumer market during the 1960’s into the 1970’s.

They manufactured a wide selection of consumer appliances ranging from “white goods” (washing machines, stoves, and other large appliances), to “kitchen appliances” (microwave ovens, toasters, coffee makers) to “Lawn and Garden” appliances (weed-wackers, lawn-mowers and chainsaws).

White goods and other large appliances on display in a well known appliance store.
White goods and other large appliances on display in a well known appliance store.

At their peak they employed over 10,000 American workers.

They operated numerous individual specialized factories, each one customized for a specific product line. As such there was one factory for personal scales, a different factory for heated cooking appliances, a factory for outdoor grills, and another one for washing machines. For all the various product lines, there was, perhaps, 30 to 45 factories at the middle of the 1990’s.

Most of these factories were in the Southern states, with the bulk of the factories in Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Tennessee.

(They were initially in the North in the Great Lakes region, but relocated during the 1970's to the South East. They did so for lower wages (1/4 the rate) and the ability to skirt the onerous regulatory and union requirements.)
The ACME Catalog.
The ACME Catalog.

While the factories were in the Southern states to take advantage of the low labor rates, and “friendly” (at that time) business climate, the corporate offices were elsewhere. Marketing, Sales and the Commercial management offices were located in a suburb of Chicago. Perhaps you heard of it, Schaumburg Illinois?

While Engineering, Quality, Tooling and Test facilities were located within a days drive of any of the specialized factories in the deep South. Their offices were in the town center of one of the many numerous small Southern towns. Hattiesburg, Mississippi, perhaps you have heard of it?

Local engineering and related quality offices in small town America in the Deep South.
Local engineering and related quality offices in small town America in the Deep South.

A 1980’s Hostile Takeover

In the 1980’s a group of investors seized control of the company. It was hostile, and thus the term “hostile takeover” become commonly used. (Remember the movies “The secret of my success”, and “Other people’s money”.) They laid off a significant percentage of the workers, shut down and sold off various factories and divisions (Remember the movie “Pretty Woman”?) and “Chainsaw” Al Dunlap?

It was a “bloodbath”.

Their goal was to strip-mine the company for personal profit. They felt that they could do with the company as they wished as they held controlling interest in it. And, since no one was doing anything to stop them from this (terribly unethical) activity, they were correct.

Without enforcement of the laws, or the selective application of laws... they functionally do not exist.

Given the crimes of the Washington oligarchy, this should be painfully obvious to everyone in America today.
After laying off thousands of people, Al Dunlap retired to a life of luxary and ease, playing golf and smoking cigars.
After laying off thousands of people, Al Dunlap retired to a life of luxury and ease, playing golf and smoking cigars. Meanwhile the workers that he laid off ended up destitute, many lost their homes, and went into bankruptcy. Today, many live in mobile homes, and are employed in low-paying unskilled labor employment.

I was hired to move companies to China.

Within this contentious environment, where the wealthy and successful were guzzling XO and cavorting with high-paid hookers, (while us working “normals” were discarded as “useless riff raff”), they hired me to do three things;

  • Relocate specific factories to China
  • Create Joint Ventures with existing Chinese factories
  • “Farm out” specific product lines to existing Chinese factories and create a partnership whereas we would purchase complete products from them though our Purchasing organization.

They wanted to move the plants to China for the simple reason that the wages were far less, the rate of exchange USD to Yuan was in the favor of the United States ownership, and that regulations, laws, and controls were lax, or in many cases, not present at all.

The operational costs American facility vs Chinese facility + Logistics costs were like "night and day". It was absolutely mind blowing how much cheaper it was to manufacture products in China compared to the USA.

Not to mention, of course, that the Chinese were actively courting American businessmen to “sell their soul”, “sell out their countrymen”, for a life of ease, prostitutes and a never-ending supply of recreational drugs.

 First, they hired slick American marketing firms and convinced giant  U.S. companies to relocate manufacturing to China by providing $1 leases  for comparable plants and abundant cheap labor. Wall Street fell for  it.

Secondly, state-subsidized Chinese companies flooded U.S.  markets with products at one-third the prevailing price. The result: In  short order, most American manufacturers had to file for bankruptcy.  Then, these same Chinese firms shamelessly swept in and bought up our  manufacturers’ now-unused equipment for pennies on the dollar.We were asleep.  Sure, it cost China some money in the early stages, but per their  long-term plan, China became the world’s top manufacturer and resource  for such fire-sale buy-outs at the same time. The plan was masterful,  the U.S. and American stakeholders fell for it hook, line and sinker.

I personally observed this wholesale takeover up close from 1990 to 2010. 

-Townhall

Note on the quote above: No American citizen can lease under the terms mentioned in the quote. Only the Chinese partner can take advantage of that lease arrangement. While the quote is a good one, it is very deceptive.

But moving into China was not as straight forward as it appeared. You just don’t hop on a plane with a suitcase full of cash, point to a factory and say “I want that one”. To operate in China (up until around 2008 or so) you needed to create a joint-venture partnership with an existing Chinese factory. So that is what ACME did. They partnered up with existing Chinese factories.

The primary advantages in having a joint venture in china was labor rates, regulations, and favorable trade terms. Anything else is speculative.

A comparison in hourly wages for manufacturing workers in the United States as compared to China.
A comparison in hourly wages for manufacturing workers in the United States as compared to China.

The Dismantling of American Industry

These actions took place throughout the 1990’s and by the tail end of the decade, almost the entire product line for ACME was manufactured in China.

All in all, it took nearly a decade to move operations off shore without seriously affecting market share and the confidence of our customers. Our name brands remained intact. Commercial campaigns for the sales of ACME products were given top spots on television and through newspapers.

The Design, and Quality staff remained in the United States.

However, that too began to be outsourced as well. With Engineers from India, and China working alongside American Engineers. Eventually, the complete Engineering and Quality groups were wholly outsourced to China.

None remained in America.

Customer Service Staff at a CS operations room in India.
Customer Service Staff at a CS operations room in India.

Customer Service activity was outsourced to India. None remained in America.

This remained true even after a flood of complaints about the quality of the customer service. They worked for a fraction of the cost of Americans, and with that pittance lived a upper-middle class lifestyle in India. The company savings went directly into the pockets of the owners of ACME.

Thus the resultant reorganization of the company resulted in very competitive prices that appealed to the major retailers. Walmart, Target, Sears, Home Depot, Walgreens and others all placed ACME Widget products in key SKU (Stock Keeping Unit) locations in their stores.

In other words, displayed predominantly, at eye-level on shelves, and in high visibility locations within stores.
A graph of the decline in American manufacturing employment (and conversely ability) in order to meet the profit targets of Wall Street, the globalst cabal that runs Washington, DC, and the progressive political leadership in America.
A graph of the decline in American manufacturing employment (and conversely ability) in order to meet the profit targets of Wall Street, the globalist cabal that runs Washington, DC, and the progressive political leadership in America.

Product Placement in Stores

The complexity of product placement in stores is unknown to most Americans, but it shouldn’t be. The largest profits from the sale of ACME products went to the “Box Retailers”, not to the manufacturer. They made a profit margin of around 30% on each appliance, compared to the paltry 2-3% that the factory earned for making it.

  • Walmart
  • Sears
  • Target
  • JC Penny
  • Walgreens
  • K-Mart

Additionally, these stores placed pricing pressure on ACME to lower the price every year. Walmart had a policy of price reduction that equated to 1.5% off each model, each year.

Now this price reduction was not passed on to the consumers. Nope. The store kept the savings.

Though the price to the “Box Store” would decrease, the sales price would not. Thus resulting in a net gain in profits for the local stores of 1.5% each year for each existing product. This was important, as Walmart maintained a solid 30% mark-up over the factory cost. (The the factory cost mark-up was rarely more than 3%.)

That $100 vacuum cleaner cost $67 to make and ship. The store that you bought it from made $30, the factory made $3.

Globalism was fantastic for the wealthy. Their profits were never larger.

Though, not so good for the local, “Joe Blow” who had a family and needed to work to earn enough to meet the basics of a roof from the rain, cheap food to feed the family, and some beer to dull the senses.

Power Tool Isle in Home Depot in the United States.
Power Tool Isle in Home Depot in the United States. All of which are made in China and rebranded with American-friendly names.

As such, the profits were enormous for the company, and the owners (the ones that conducted the “hostile takeover”) rolled in the cash in mind-boggling amounts.

The amounts of profits were truly mind-boggling.

They used that money to “diversify” their company portfolio. They bought hotels, cruise liners, travel agencies, and were getting involved in Savings and Loan banking. Such was the high-flying life in the 1990’s. (Anyone remember the movie “The Wolf of Wall Street”.)

President Obama represented the Global Interests of a global socialistic community. He did not care for local Americans, as he viewed them as a part of an "old order" that must be discarded in favor of a new, more "enlightened" progressive way of doing things.
President Obama represented the Global Interests of a global socialistic community. He did not care for local Americans, as he viewed them as a part of an “old order” that must be discarded in favor of a new, more “enlightened” progressive way of doing things.

Unfortunately, many of these side ventures failed. Thus additional rounds of layoffs, and downsizing’s continued a pace.

This continued to be the story throughout the industry as the competition to ACME also implemented their modus operandi.

Then came the election of Donald Trump.

President Trump starts a “Trade War”

Donald Trump and Xi Peng.
Donald Trump and Xi Peng.

In 2016 though 2019 he raised tariffs on Chinese made products. With the percentage of tariffs constantly increasing. This continued until late Summer of 2019 when he demanded that American companies working and trading with China return their operations back to America.

It most certainly shook the will of most nations around the world.

I know it shook Wall Street, and afterwards, globally all consumers and manufacturers started to slow down operations to take a slower more conservative bent on the matters at hand. They slowed everything way… way down.

It started in 2016, and over the next three years, the global economy started to slow down and cool off. Orders out of America limped forward hesitantly, while orders from Europe kept pace, but were more cautious than before.

Nothing “crashed” as predicted by the “screeching heads” on the “blue panel” debates on television. (All actors reading scripts, and playing roles, don’t ya know.) But things slowed down. Things cooled off. Investors became cautious.

I get a phone call.

Walking the dog on the beach.
Walking the dog on the beach.

In September 2019, I was walking my dog along the beach near my house when my cell phone rang.

I normally don't keep my cell phone with me. But, for reasons related to habit, I had it in my satchel with me.

An old boss of mine, from my ACME days, tracked me down (How he was able to do so, I do not know.) and wanted to know if I would be willing to help them sort out the issues related to relocating their factories back to the United States.

I should have said no.

After all, our history was contentious. For, as soon as I completed my tasks with ACME, they immediately fired me, and made me sign a NDA in order to guarantee that I could get food stamps. No back pay, no severance package nothing. I couldn’t even go back to my office to get my personal effects. Pretty harsh, especially when you consider my very own personal situation…

… I had a wife with a very serious mental illness. And I was splitting my time between dealing with insanity of work issues and visiting her at the hospital. The layoff, at a time when my wife was suicidal, was a severe hardship. Well, for me at least.

Maybe you can handle an hysterical deranged wife painting the bathroom mirror with fingernail polish, while you are trying to “hit the streets” looking for new employment. I could not.

But that’s life. No one gives a rat’s ass about you.

Dilbert comic. It's so funny because it is (sort of) true. LOL.
Dilbert comic. It’s so funny because it is (sort of) true. LOL

It’s (as they say in America) “just business”. It’s the “American Way”, don’t you know. And you, as an American, should know. This is the truth, and this is the way it is. This is the real deal.

In America… it’s “just” business.

Being laid off without notice, or severence really blows. But that's the story of being an American worker during the last three decades.
Being laid off without notice, or severance really blows. But that’s the story of being an American worker during the last three decades. It’s the American way.

As was true through most of the 1990’s, treating employees as disposable paper cups often resulted in some bloody events.

But, in this case I said “yes” to my old boss. I asked a (relatively) enormous sum of money (expecting them to decline), and they agreed. Imagine that! I guess they were desperate.

After about two weeks of sorting out my personal affairs, we had a meeting in the conference room in one of their plush offices. It was on the 16th floor in this really nice (curtain wall) glass and steel structure that resided in Florida. What a life. They had really been doing well. Everything was new, and polished. It was a big change from the “hand me down” desks and cubicle walls that I dealt with back in the 1990’s.

Yeah. It looked something a little like this…

Corporate Headquarters
Corporate Headquarters

After the initial pleasantries and handshakes (You know, how was the flight, and did I like the hotel, etc.) , they asked me what was involved in moving the factories back to the United States, and so I put together some bullet points and made a PPT presentation to the upper management.

Making a PPT presentation.
Making a PPT presentation.

Capital Expenditures

The first point raised, of course, was costs. If you are going to move operations from one physical location to another, you will incur costs. What would those costs be?

The costs incurred would fall under numerous general categories;

  • Relocating heavy machinery and equipment (or the purchase of the replacements thereof).
  • Rules, fees, taxes and the costs associated with agency regulations that one must pay in the United States to operate a factory there. Do not be under the impression that you can just cut down a tree, install a power line, pave a road, and start putting up a pole building without having American government regulation at all levels involved.
  • Fees, charges, and associated bribes that you must pay when you are dealing with local American government. Make no mistake this is a very real issue and one that is kept quite hidden. After all it is quite illegal, and you all don’t want the pristine agencies of the FBI and DOJ putting their retainers on your efforts.
  • Rent or construction of new facilities.
  • The hiring of new staff to replace the Chinese staff. This will include all benefits as well as the various associated taxes, fees and social security benefits.
  • Associated relocation costs.
  • Associated tariffs in moving product inventory, and equipment from China to the USA.

It’s not so simple.

If you want to do something, it will cost money. Imagine that you are moving your house from Illinois to Los Angles. There will be costs. There will be the costs for the movers, the gas, the rental of the vehicle and the employment of the moving crew. The same is true for a business. There will be costs.

Some Key Points

Now, I would like to make some relatively important key points regarding moving a factory to China as compared to moving it back to China.

Firstly, consider what ACME did when the relocated the factory from America to China.

  • In the mid 1990’s, ACME formed a joint partnership / joint-venture with a Chinese company. ACME would take 70% of the profits, and the Chinese partner would take 30% of the profits.
  • ACME then shipped all their heavy manufacturing equipment from America to China. They physically removed it from the American factories, and shipped it to China. Then at the factory, they utilized both American and Chinese labor to set the equipment up, debug it, and shim the mechanisms into working condition.
  • However, it was well understood that once you set up a factory within China, you MUST have partial Chinese ownership. You absolutely cannot operate any factory in China without significant Chinese ownership. At that, let it be well understood that the Chinese co-owners MUST have at least 51% ownership in the company. The American owners will NEVER have more than 49% ownership of anything that they own and bring to China. It is Chinese Law (at least back in the 1990’s it was).
Also, let it be well understood that the upper management at ACME knew full well that this was the case. But they did not care. 

Their focus was on the short term profits, as was their charge. They fully expected that the company would eventually collapse long before there would ever be the need to relocate the factories back to the United States.
Semi-automated production line typically used in appliance assembly.
Semi-automated production line typically used in the appliance assembly. Picture is of a Bosch line prior to export to a Chinese assembly line.
  • Thus, any equipment brought into China will now require the co-owner’s (Chinese national) approval to remove from the Chinese factory and ship elsewhere.
  • In practice, this is often a big “NO!” There are some cases where the Chinese owner will permit the removal of old or antiquated equipment at a price. Often the price will be at market value or higher.
  • So, when ACME moved the equipment into China it was very simple. They moved it, and used their inherent labor to set it up and debug.

Yes, so when ACME relocated entire factories to China, it was a simple matter of firing all the American employees, boxing up the equipment, and handing it over to a Chinese partner. They, in turn, would own the equipment, train and staff the Chinese workers to use the equipment and ship the products back to America.

It was a model that worked well from the 1990’s up to around 2019. Everyone was doing it. American industry, as was Wall-Street, were all focused on quarterly profits. They could not see further than a few years in the future. The Chinese, on the other hand, think in terms of centuries.

  • However, to remove the equipment, they will NOW need the Chinese co-owner’s approval. This will often not be easy and it will come at a price. For they will be asking permission from their (now wealthy) Chinese partner to give up all of the capital equipment that resides in his factory. (And make no mistake, at 51% ownership, it is his factory.)
  • Please keep in mind that the cost of these manufacturing and assembly machinery are in the millions of dollars. As an example, an automated “brake” used to cut and bend aluminum sheet will equal the cost of a Lamborghini. Now, figure that each factory might have ten such machines at minimum. That is a lot of money.
Factories utilize so many different types of automation, that it is difficult to quantify exacly which ones are critial to the production end line goal, and which ones can be replaced by American manual labor.
Factories utilize so many different types of automation, that it is difficult to quantify exactly which ones are critical to the production end line goal, and which ones can be replaced by American manual labor. Photo is of an actual American joint-venture factory within China.

In short, what all this means is that American ownership of a Chinese factory is, at best, at 49%. As such removal of the equipment to America is problematic and will probably NOT occur. The Chinese business partner would keep the equipment, dissolve the partnership once the sales dissolve (easy enough under Chinese law) and end up owning the complete factory himself.

Thus the American partner is then forced to purchase all brand new assembly equipment from scratch and start off all over again. Only this time, due to the ravaging effects of inflation, the cost of the equipment is much more expensive than the initial purchase in the 1980’s and 1990’s. Thus capital equipment expenditures would seriously end up in the hundreds of millions of dollars alone.

Relocating a factory from China back to the United States is a prohibitively expensive exercise that costs an enormous amount of money. The only way around these costs are to emply Americans in an entirely manual assembly role and cut out all automation, quality checks and basic assembly standards.
Relocating a factory from China back to the United States is a prohibitively expensive exercise that costs an enormous amount of money. The only way around these costs are to employ Americans in an entirely manual assembly role and cut out all automation, quality checks and basic assembly standards.
Quick summary;
American manufacturing capital equipment is 100% American company owned when shipped to China.

American manufacturing capital equipment is only 49% American owned when shipping out of China. 

The difference in ownership will result in serious costs regarding the purchase of new capital equipment equipment for use within a factory in the United States. 

If the American management wants to go the legal route to resolve any issues with the Chinese partner, the Chinese legal system will rule in favor of the Chinese national. They ALWAYS rule in favor of the Chinese national. This is the way it works.

To put this in another way; to purchase new automation equipment for an American factory will entail enormous costs.

The only way that a business can purchase replacement capital equipment is with favorable banking and loan arrangements, but even with that, the amortization costs on most typical appliances will be on the order of an increase in 30% to 55% increase in the costs of the appliance.

Bill Clinton was quite satisfied with the trade arrangments with China, and supported it whole heartedly.
Bill Clinton was quite satisfied with the trade arrangements with China, and supported it whole heartedly.

Is it fair? No. But that is the situation that President’s Clinton, Bush and Obama were all quite satisfied with.

Technically Skilled Leadership

Another issue is the technical staff.

This is something that is given quite a bit of “lip service” in the industry, but is actually just a big smoke screen. If talented technical staff were actually important they would never be laid off. Right?

Well… Right?

Right?

Yet we know, by salary and HR surveys that the average duration for a technical (American) degreed professional (in America) at a singular job is less than two years. And, at that, the vast reason for their egress from the company was through firings, layoffs, right-sizing or what ever euphemism that might be popular at the time of the layoff.

Like I said. It’s a lot of words with no substance.

How to fire someone in America. Soften the blow so they don't go postal on you.
How to fire someone in America. Soften the blow so they don’t go postal on you.

Well, that is all just fine and day, except when you are talking about relocating a factory.

For you NEED these people, and you NEED their expertise. Otherwise, you will have all sorts of problems in production, resulting in quality disasters, and severe production delays.

Production Engineers are critical to the smooth operation of the production lines in a factory.
Production Engineers are critical to the smooth operation of the production lines in a factory.

No we are not talking about line supervisors, and accounting clerks. We are talking about the engineers that maintain and operate the complex automated machinery. We are talking about the design, industrial, manufacturing, and mechanical engineers that make the production lines hum efficiently.

Oh, yeah.

They used to be plentiful in the United States, but over the last three decades they have become a dying breed. Most, once laid off, could not find other similar work and so they migrated into other occupations.

When our nation’s coal miners found themselves out of work, the  left-media gleefully told them that they need to “learn to code.”  After  all, they were dinosaurs working, literally, with dinosaur fuels and  needed to be reeducated for the global, technological economy.  

The condescending chant that rained down from the privileged ivory towers of the leftist eliteLearn. To. Code. 

-Legal Insurrection

Some became bakers, while other ended up delivering mail for the Post Office. Some became teachers, while others became Bus Drivers. Maybe some even “learned to code”, as the Mainstream News Media laughingly taunted the unemployed professionals.

Design, production, manufacturing, industrial, quality and maintenance engineers are key talents that all factories require. Though over the last three decades, most of them have been Chinse, not American.
Design, production, manufacturing, industrial, quality and maintenance engineers are key talents that all factories require. Though over the last three decades, most of them have been Chinese, not American.

They, like myself, were forced to migrate to where the work is. If you are lucky, you never need to change and swap jobs. But during the 1990’s this was a near impossibility.

There are very few active technical factory experts in the United States today that are able and willing to relocate to a new post-China startup. They exist, but are decidedly no longer as plentiful as they once were. As such, once you find them, you will need to pay them a premium salary for their knowledge and experience.

Manufacturing engineers make sure that the process is set in place and the the workers can best manufacture complex and high quality products. WIthout them, the facotry will be plagued with all sort os quality problems, arguments, failures and delays.
Manufacturing engineers make sure that the process is set in place and the the workers can best manufacture complex and high quality products. Without them, the factory will be plagued with all sort of quality problems, arguments, failures and delays.

Now, that does not mean that they cannot be found.

They exist and are available in America. However you will need to pay them American salaries, and American benefits. Often with a benefit package that is ten times that of what the companies have been accustomed to paying their Chinese technical staff.

Process Engineers have an important role in the successful operation of any factory, especially those involving chemical and treatment processes.
Process Engineers have an important role in the successful operation of any factory, especially those involving chemical and treatment processes.

So ,yes there are technical staff that can be hired within America to work and maintain the factories. However, the cost to employ them will require a budget at lest ten times larger than the budget that is already allocated for the staff at a comparative Chinese factory. This cost will be added on to the cost of the product manufactured at the factory.

Training of staff

Compared to the two previous issues, this one is not as serious. It simply means that all those American workers that ACME must hire to work in the newly relocated factory must be trained. You would think that it wouldn’t be too much of an issue. We have been training workers to work in factories in America for many, many decades.

Only one problem though.

Factory manufacturing techniques have changed drastically since the mid 1990s. The Chinese staff will need to train unskilled American workers to operate the relocated equipment, and learn the process parameters.
Factory manufacturing techniques have changed drastically since the mid 1990s. The Chinese staff will need to train unskilled American workers to operate the relocated equipment, and learn the process parameters.

The people who know how to make the specialized products that ACME makes no longer exist in the USA. The Americans that used to know are all gone. Either they found new work when they were fired back in the 1990’s, or are now retired.

The ones that know how to operate the (new and improved) machinery, check the quality of the product, and are knowledgeable to quickly debug the process when things go wrong are all Chinese.

Which means, of course, to train your new workers, you must use existing skilled Chinese workers to do so.

Chinese supervisory staff training an American worker on site in America.
Chinese supervisory staff training an American worker on site in America.

You have two options;

  • Obtain a H1-B visa for the Chinese staff and use them to train and supervise the new American workers.
  • Ship all the new American workers to China for hands-on training at the Chinese factory prior to shipping the equipment back to the United States.

Both options have been used by various companies over the last few years. Each option has some pros and cons associated with it.

Chinese management training Americans on site in the factory inside China.
Chinese management training Americans on site in the factory inside China.

However, the reader should note that due to the availability of the H1-B visa in the United States, the ACME leadership discovered that they would have to wait a year to apply for new visas, as all the existing visas were taken by software engineers out of India. Thus forcing the more expensive route to ship Americans to China to train how to use the equipment.

Training of Americans to work in the returned factory from China will necessitate the training by Chinese nationals. This will be conducted either in China or in the United States depending on the availability of visa access.

Breakup of Global Relationships

Of course, in order to return an American factory out of China and back to the United States, there will have to be a period of contentious negotiation between the owners.

PPT on the key points in negotiating with the Chinese.
PPT on the key points in negotiating with the Chinese.

After all, and I hope that I made this clear, an “American” company residing in China is NOT 100% American owned. No. Instead it is a joint venture / partnership with the Chinese partner owning controlling interest of the entire factory, technical skills, intellectual property and capital equipment.

For any American company to do this will create a period of discomfort and strife, as most Chinese owners will not want to relinquish any controlling interest, nor deplete their internal resource pool. He would fight, aggressively, any attempts to dissolve the relationship, ship components back to the United States and have access to stock and supplier interests.

Trade negotiations between Xi Peng and Donald Trump. The Chinese are tough negotiators. Do not think for a minute that they will not take full advantage of any situation.
Trade negotiations between Xi Peng and Donald Trump. The Chinese are tough negotiators. Do not think for a minute that they will not take full advantage of any situation.

This entire matter would be contentious. As a result, most American corporate executives would refer the entire matter to their American legal branch to handle. But, and you all should know and realize this, American law has no jurisdiction in China. Chinese law is what is followed, and the courts will almost always rule in favor of the Chinese nationals.

The Chinese legal system will ALWAYS rule in favor of the Chinese national.

When ACME tried to dissolve their partnership with the joint venture, and went the Chinese legal route, the courts ruled that not only did the American firm not have any legal standing, but they then awarded the American 49% legal controlling interest to the Chinese factory owner as punitive punishment.

Thus as a result, the ACME American company ended up with 0% ownership of the company, with their Chinese partner ended up with 100% ownership.

China is a serious, serious nation. They do not fool around, and they have laws that protect Chinese nationals. Americans should realize this and consider alternative solutions to any legal issues instead of going through the “proper” legal avenues.

Loss of Market Share in China

How things have changed. I’ve since returned to China many times, and  I’ve watched its economy grow to become the second-largest in the world.  

Based on purchasing power parity (PPP), it’s the largest. And according to Credit Suisse,  the size of China’s middle class has for the first time overtaken the  U.S. to become the world’s most populous—109 million Chinese compared to  92 million Americans. 

-Frank Talk

It might surprise many typical Americans, but China is a POTENTIALLY much larger consumer market than America is.

Presently the United States is the world leader in consumer product purchases, but that will change in the future. Most projections place China in the leadership role in the early to middle 2030’s.

China is growing, and the amount of growth just boggles the mind, and Americans are absolutely oblivious to this fact.
China is growing, and the amount of growth just boggles the mind, and Americans are absolutely oblivious to this fact.

Thus, if you want to have a global “slice of the pie” for what ever products you make, you will need to sell them in China.

Now, in order to sell products in China, you will need a Chinese “presence”. This can be a regional headquarters, a partner factory, or some other kind of legal entity to “open the door” for your products to be sold in China.

China is a huge market that can be exploited by American factories and businesses. However, they must be free to be able to sell their products to Chiese consumers. Were China to implement Trump-style tariffs, this will not occur, and Germany, Japan and Korea will capture those markets.
China is a huge market that can be exploited by American factories and businesses. However, they must be free to be able to sell their products to Chinese consumers. Were China to implement Trump-style tariffs, this will not occur, and Germany, Japan and Korea will capture those markets.

Do not be under the erroneous assumption that you can just carry some of your products to China and then just sell them openly. Nope.

All products must meet Chinese regulatory requirements.

It is similar to that in the USA. (Remember the Billionaire Boys Club where they were having a difficult time importing Mercedes Benz automobiles into the USA because they would not meet the emissions requirements?)

Now, it is far, far easier to sell American made, or American sourced (out of a Chinese joint-venture, or a WOFE) than trying to exporting the product directly to China. There is already a legal presence within China.

An opportunity exists for American companies to sell to China. However, they must do so carefully and maintain their name recognition.
An opportunity exists for American companies to sell to China. However, they must do so carefully and maintain their name recognition.

Corporate Identity

What ever you do, you must maintain your logo and trademark or else you would no longer have any kind of “product identity” associated with your products. However, if you have partnered with a Chinese factory to make your products, then THEY, not you, own the registration and trademarks within China.

By relocating the “American” factory to America out of China, ACME ran the risk of totally closing off the Chinese Market. This is because their Chinese partner OWNED all royalties, Logos, Copyright, and trademarks for the ACME brand. Under Chinese law, as practiced, the Chinese person who first manufactures a logo, or uses a symbol automatically owns the rights to it. Once ACME leaves, they can never return back to China and use their brand. If they did so they would be in violation of Chinese law.

Long Term Consequences

 I long ago concluded that the world will eventually essentially  divide into two spheres: China and the United States. But what I have  not been able to figure out is what that will mean overall nor what that  will mean for particular regions and countries. In particular, I get  stuck when trying to figure out which countries will go to which side.

 I have always believed some countries will essentially be required to  choose between the United States and China, some countries will want to  choose between the United States and China, and some countries will  want to straddle between the United States and China. 

-China Law Blog

China is growing and it appears that the United States does not appreciate competition. The USA wants to maintain it’s role as a global superpower, fighting and policing the globe by taxation of it’s citizenry. While China is looking for economic dominance through cooperation with national partnerships.

Non-American Factory Sites

You know, you do not need to relocate the factory back to America. you can relocate it to another nation with similar conditions to China. Here, you can make a joint venture partnership between the Chinese factory and a local factory, say in Cambodia, Vietnam, or Laos.

Pass-Through Trade Logistics

There are work-arounds. Products made in China, can be shipped to a nation that does not have Trump-level tariffs against it. The shipping container would then go to this second “pass through” nation, the documents would then specify that it was made and originated out of the third nation. Then shipped to the United States.

 Of course, it is possible that the economic pain China is feeling  from the trade war has been mitigated by some businesses trying to “work  around” the tariffs. This is typically done by exporting to an  unsanctioned country where some “value added” is created before being  shipped onto the final destination – thus avoiding the tariff.

 This is a tried and tested formula with one of the more extreme  examples being Russia. It takes time to find alternative suppliers from  different countries or to develop domestic ones. When sanctions were  first imposed on imports from the EU, Russia companies used business  relationships to import EU products via 3rd party countries, including  Belarus. This put up costs, but ensured supply chains could continue  functioning until alternatives were found.

 If that has indeed been happening as a result of the US-China  stand-off, the most likely avenue is Vietnam. While US imports from  Korea, Malaysia and Taiwan have certainly increased, it is from Vietnam  that they have surged. ...

... It is difficult for an economy to build extra production capacity and  related supply chains in a short period of time to substitute even part  of the production from China. Vietnam’s manufacturing production growth  was quite flat at around 10% year-on-year in 2019. It was even slower  in 2018. It is hard to believe that the surge in Vietnam’s exports to  the US (in US dollar terms, remember) has all come from production  within Vietnam.
 The obvious response is that it hasn't. Chinese exports to Vietnam  have displayed a strong upward growth trend in 2019, which is in  contrast to the slowdown in 2018, and also in contrast to the moderately  flattish growth of Vietnam’s production. 

-ING

This is a mature solution. Many of the products that American believe are made in Germany, Japan and Korea are actually made in China. They are made in China and then shipped and stored in the respective warehouses for later shipment to the United States.

Pass-through trade option.
Pass-through trade option.

This option might increase the price of the products from 1% to 5%. This is a viable solution as opposed to the 30% to 40% tariffs that Donald Trump is talking about.

Some Really Good Links

Conclusion

"The Trump administration made a very serious miscalculation in launching the ‘trade war’ with China. It believed that either, or both, the leadership of China would submit to the Trump administrations threats or the Chinese population would not be prepared for a serious struggle with the US. Both calculations have proved entirely wrong. China’s leadership did not surrender to but hit back against the US attacks. Furthermore anyone who follows China’s domestic discussion, on what is now by far the world’s largest internet community, knows that this line was strongly supported by the Chinese population."

- China prepares for economic ‘prolonged war’ with Trump 

There are many considerations that a company must take into account when faced with a Presidential decree that the company relocate from China to the United States. It’s a complex issue with many facets.

When discussing relocation of American factories back to America you must also include the contentious corporate history over the last four decades that led up to the situation that exists today. Nothing happens in isolation. It is all the result of society, and corporate behaviors that are nurtured by the political class in Washington D.C..

In any event, it is up to each individual company to determine what actions would be in their own corporate interests. I would advise obtaining knowledgeable legal representation, and employment of experienced “old hand” expats residing in China, rather than some “expert” out of an “ivory tower” in Los Angles.

Other great articles

Here’s some articles by others in the business. They pretty much say the same things as what I am presenting here. Only they are better written. LOL.

Links about China

Here are some links about my observations on China. I think that you, the reader, might find them to be of interest. Please kindly enjoy.

Chinese reaction to the Trump Tariff Wars.
Popular Music of China
Chinese weapons systems
Chinese motor sports
End of the Day Potato
Dog Shit
Dancing Grandmothers
Dance Craze
When the SJW movement took control of China
Family Meal
Freedom & Liberty in China
Why are Americans so angry?
Evolution of the USA and China.
Ben Ming Nian
Beware the Expat
Fake Wine
Fat China
Business KTV
How I got married in China.
Chinese apartment houses
Chinese Culture Snapshots
Rural China
Chinese New Year

China and America Comparisons

As an American, I cannot help but compare what my life was in the United States with what it is like living in China. Here we discuss that.

SJW
Playground Comparisons
The Last Straw
Leaving the USA
Diversity Initatives
Democracy
Travel outside
10 Misconceptions about China
Top Ten Misconceptions

The Chinese Business KTV Experience

This is the real deal. Forget about all that nonsense that you find in the British tabloids and an occasional write up in the American liberal press. This is the reality. Read or not.

KTV1
KTV2
KTV3
KTV4
KTV5
KTV6
KTV7
KTV8
KTV9
KTV10
KTV11
KTV12
KTV13
KTV14
KTV15
KTV16
KTV17
KTV18
KTV19
KTV20

Learning About China

Who doesn’t like to look at pretty girls? Ugly girls? Here we discuss what China is like by looking at videos of pretty girls doing things in China.

Pretty Girls 1
Pretty Girls 2
Pretty Girls 3
Pretty Girls 4
Pretty Girls 5

Contemporaneous Chinese Music

This is a series of posts that discuss contemporaneous popular music in China. It is a wide ranging and broad spectrum of travel, and at that, all that I am able to provide is the flimsiest of overviews. However, this series of posts should serve as a great starting place for investigation and enjoyment.

Part 1 - Popular Music of China
Part 3 -Popular music of China.
Part 3 - The contemporaneous music of China.
part 3B - The contemporaneous music of China.
Part 4 - The contemporaneous popular music of China.
Part 5 - The contemporaneous music of China.
Part 5B - The popular music of China.
Part 5C - The music of contemporary China.
Part D - The popular music of China.
Part 5E - A happy Joe.
Part 5F - The contemporaneous music of China.
Part 5F - The popular music of China.
Post 6 - The contemporaneous music of China.
Post 7 - The contemporaneous music of China.
Post 8 - The contemporaneous music of China.
Part 9 - The contemporaneous music of China.
Part 10 - Music of China.
Post 11 - The contemporaneous music of China.

Parks in China

The parks in China are very unique. They are enormous and tend to be very mountainous. Here we take a look at this most interesting of subjects.

Parks in China - 1
Pars in China - 2
Parks in China - 3
Visiting a park in China - 4
High Speed Rail in China
Visiting a park in China - 5
Beautiful China part 6
Parks in China - 7
Visiting a park in China - 8

Really Strange China

Here are some posts that discuss a number of things about China that might seem odd, or strange to Westerners. Some of the things are everyday events, while others are just representative of the differences in culture.

Really Strange China 1
Really Strange China 2
Rally Strange China 3
Really Strange China 4
Really Odd China 5
Really Strange China 6
Really Strange China 7
Really Strange China 8
Really Strange China 9
Really Strange China 10
Really Strange China 11
Really Strange China 12
Really strange China 13
Really strange China 14

What is China like?

The purpose of this post is to illustrate that the rest of the world, outside of America, has moved on with their lives. That while they might not be as great as America is, they are doing just fine thank you.

And while America has been squandering it’s money, decimating it’s resources, and just being cavalier with it’s military, the rest of the world has done the opposite. They have husbanded their day to day fortunes, and you can see this in their day-to-day lives.

What is China like - 1
What is China like - 2
What is China Like - 3
What is China like - 4
What is China like - 5
What is China like - 6
What is China like - 8
What is China like - 8
What is China like - 9

Summer in Asia

Let’s take a moment to explore Asia. That includes China, but also includes such places as Vietnam, Thailand, Japan and others…

Summer Snapshots 1
Summer Snapshots 2
Summer Snapshots 3
Summer Snapshots 4
Snapshots Summer 5
Summer Snapshots 6
Summer Snapshot 7
Summer Snapshots 8
Summer Snapshots 9
Summer Snapshots 10
Summer Snapshots 11
Summer Snapshot 12

Some Fun Videos

Here’s a collection of some fun videos taken all over Asia. While there are many videos taken in China, we also have some taken in Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, Korea and Japan as well. It’s all in fun.

Some fun videos of China - 1
Fun Videos of Asia - 2
Fun videos of Asia - 3
Fun videos of Asia - 4
Fun Videos of Asia - 5
Fun videos of Asia - 6
Fun videos of Asia - 7
Fun videos of Asia - 8
Fun videos of Asia - 9
Fun videos of Asia - 10
Fun videos of Asia - 11
Fun videos of Asia - 12
Fun videos of Asia - 13
Fun videos of Asia - 14
Fun Videos of Asia - 15
Fun videos of Asia -16
The best way to cook marshmallows.

Articles & Links

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.

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Chinese reaction to Donald Trump tariff wars…

Not, that I want to get too political, but this video that is playing all across China pretty much says it all. It’s all about the Trump Trade War. And it shows how the Chinese feel about it.

This post is about a movie that is playing all over China this Summer. It is allegorical. While it is a story about a British Boxing champion, and his involvement within China, there are very CLEAR parallels about what is going on in the Trump Tariff situation.

China has this alligorical movie about the Trump USA trade war with China that has been playing all over CHina during the Summer of 2019.
China has this allegorical movie about the Trump USA trade war with China that has been playing all over China during the Summer of 2019. It’s well worth the watch, and it says quite a bit if you only just listen.

Viewing it garners mixed feelings from the precious few Americans who have watched it. There are two types of reactions;

  • [1] On one hand, Yeah! They don’t like the tariffs and trade situation. Great! Well, tough cookies! Suffer! See what we care. We can wait this out. You must play by our rules. If you don’t like it, well then too bad! We can always find other trading partners.
  • [2] On the other hand, well… um… maybe China would be a far better friend than an enemy. Who knows what they are really capable of or have planned.

Rush Limbaugh comments

To understand the situation let’s look at Rush Limbaugh. He’s a major voice in Conservative circles in America, and perhaps one of the few Republicans that haven’t sold out the American people for some song and dance. You know, like Jeff Sessions, Jeb Bush, and John McCain has. He’s still a trooper, slogging through the Washington swamp, and enduring the slings and missiles from the American mainstream media.

Here’s what Rush (El’ Rush-bo) has to say on the “Trump Chinese Tariff issue”…

RUSH: 
So the president started here with China. He is dead set on winning  this trade war with the ChiComs. 

Now, the thing about this that I think will go over a lot of people’s heads unless there’s somebody like me  explaining this, is he takes what to most people is a complex issue: The China trade deals. 

I mean, it is a miasma to a lot of people. 

It’s so  convoluted and confusing that nobody knows really what the stakes are.  

Why is it happening? 

What’s it all about? 

Trump takes this complex issue that nobody has even paid attention to for decades and does his best to make it understandable and important, and here is how that sounded.
THE PRESIDENT: 
We’re talking to China. We’re not ready to make a  deal. But we’ll see what happens. 

But, you know, we’ve been hurt by  China for 25, 30 years. Nobody’s done anything about it, and we have no choice but to do what we’re doing. 

We called them on manipulation, and they brought their numbers back, and they brought ’em back rapidly. 

We have an open dialogue. 

We’ll see whether or not we keep our meeting in September. If we do, that’s fine; if we don’t, that’s fine. But it’s time that somebody does what we are doing.
RUSH: 
When he talks about “the numbers,” he’s talking about their  currency manipulation. They tried to deflate their currency on  Wednesday, and it worked to the point of rocking our stock market down  900-some-odd points, and then Trump had some harsh words for ’em and  they revalued the next night, and the stock market rebounded. 

Of course,  the panic that ensued on that one day when the market dropped 900  points was typical of the kind of reporting we get in the media today.

Rush is correct. This is exactly what has happened. (More or less.)

Though, the truth is closer to the fact that China has been keeping the USD-to-Yuan rate artificial for the last twenty years or so. Not, as you might have the impression, naturally at 6.3:1 and then suddenly changed. So yes. They stopped propping up the rate, and it fell like a brick and messed up the USA stocks.

However, how it is being reported is a bit of a lie and a manipulation.

As reported; The USD to Yuan rate has been normal for the last twenty years. Suddenly China manipulated it’s currency to hurt the USD.

But that is a partial truth, equating to an outright lie. The last twenty years has been anything but normal. Here’s a better picture…

The True Situation: China has been artificially propping up the USD – Yuan exchange rate to slow down it’s hyper-active business section for the last twenty years. It has done this for selfish reasons, and the USA has benefited with this exchange rate. When the Trump Tariff wars hit a “road bump” the Chinese stopped propping up the exchange rate. They did so purposefully, (I personally believe) in order to aid in their tariff negotiations with President Trump. They did this to achieve negotiation advantage.

The trade wars initiated by Donald Trump has had an effect on China, though it is not as severe as the mainstream America makes it out to be.
The trade wars initiated by Donald Trump has had an effect on China, though it is not as severe as the mainstream America makes it out to be.

So yeah. The exchange rate was artificial.

And yeah, China affected it, causing a drop in the USA stock exchange.

However, the details on this event and this exchange are not being reported accurately at all. Instead it is being reported in such a way as to make it appear that China is manipulating the currency exchange rate for their benefit. When the exact opposite occurred. They STOPPED manipulating their currency rate.

Want to know more?

Confusion in America.

So even El’ Rush-bo is confused. He’s sitting pretty in the USA. He’s never been to China. Knows nothing about China except what he’s read from “experts”. Most of whom haven’t been to China in years.

Hey! If I am going to talk about golfing (for example). I sure as heck better know the difference between a driver and a putter. What a slice is, and how it differs from a hook. As well as to know what a "slow green" is.

I just can't watch a baseball game, eat a hotdog and chat about golf, when I have never been on a golf course. Played a round. Or owned any clubs.

Rush calls them “Chi-Coms”, Chinese Communists. Which they actually call themselves, but which means something totally different when heard by a Chinese compared to an American.

American Person;
"Chinese Communism" means hard-core tyrannical Marxist government. Similar to what is present in North Korea, and Cuba.
Chinese Person;
"Chinese Communism" is socialism with Chinese characteristics. 

There are no political parties as all of the Chinese people want the same thing; a traditional life that is safe from interference. Free Market Reaganomics implemented by Mr. Deng in the 1980's led to the "great recovery" resulting in what China is today.

I would say that the problem with American media is that no one ever really … I mean… really reports. They just put their own individual “spin” on the day’s events. Their popularity within America is determined whether their audience agrees or disagrees with what they have to say.

Even if it is completely and totally wrong.

How the American mainstream media reports the effect of the Trump Tariffs on China as a while. Absolutely not accurate at all. Bloodied, but in no way knocked out of the going.
How the American mainstream media reports the effect of the Trump Tariffs on China as a whole. Absolutely not accurate at all. Bloodied, but in no way knocked out of the going.

The goal of the American mainstream media is to manipulate the people. This manipulation serves a purpose. It keeps Americans living in a constant state of fear and anxiety, from which they can be easily manipulated. Much like sheep, cattle, or chickens. They have been doing so for decades.

American mainstream media manipulation of reported content to invoke fear and mob-behaviors in the public by controlling the dialog.
American mainstream media manipulation of reported content to invoke fear and mob-behaviors in the public by controlling the dialog.

The Movie

Now, this here is the Chinese response to the Donald Trump “Trade War” with China. It is a (sort of) friendly warning (China to President Trump) that is playing in all the movie theaters in China this Summer.

Bet you all weren’t aware of that!

I wonder why? Where’s all those “Chinese experts” and “China policy planners”, aren’t they aware of this? What about all those “talking heads” on the mainstream news, and the conservative political commentators?

No where to be found.

That is simply because they are all actors playing a role. Which, of course, is to manipulate. They tell you what YOU WANT TO HEAR, or arouse a fear to manipulate you to take some kind of action.

Nah. They have about as much awareness about China, as you the reader does about the block buster Pop hit 芒种. Which is absolutely zilch.

News reporting in America is dead. It only took about twenty years for the people to start realizing it. Today, it’s all just actors and actresses reading scripted lines. Those rare few that remain genuine to their beliefs, such as Rush Limbaugh, are only as good as their experiences. Without personal first-hand experiences, they are just fellow strangers espousing opinions.

Anyways…

This micro video runs for 1.47 minutes. It’s short but sweet and is a message straight from Beijing to Washington. I do think that it is worth a watch, even if you don’t like China, Chinese people, or Chinese food.

Watch it for the reasons why other Americans have watched it… to either gloat and feel superior, or to sit back and ponder the enormity of the situation.

I think it is well worth the watch, and so here it is…

Please kindly note that this post has multiple embedded videos. It is important to view them. If they fail to load, all you need to do is to reload your browser.

—– Video Start

—- Video End

WISE UP!

The “old rules” of global politics will no longer work.

Oh, you don’t think that it has anything to do with trade? Watch the clip again, and pay attention to the English dialog…

Who do you think you are?

You collect money from me. You don't share it.

Do as I say.

You are not qualified to make deals with me.

And the discussion continues…

If you quit, you can take this business too. I can get anybody to take care of it.

And then, the sheer arrogance of the Westerners reaches an explosion point when he says…

Will somebody get this yellow piece of fat to get out of here!

After that we see how the Westerner battles and demolishes the Chinese man. It’s strong. It’s vicious, and he dies.

He’s dead. The Westerner has won.

Then, it’s payback time.

That's the clip and that's the message. The point is that Westerners misunderstand politeness for strength and advantage. It takes merit, skill and ability to defeat arrogance, bravado and strength.

Now, let me tell you my take…

America is a global power on the decline.

China is a rising global power.

China would prefer to work with America for their own benefit. While America would like to use China to advance their social-economical standing.

Well… duh!

You might not want to hear this, but it is true. Compare the stats. How many new parks were built in the USA compared to China? How many skyscrapers? How many bridges? How many High Speed Trains? How many hospitals? How many new schools.

Of course, the statist would simply point and say “ah, well… China is a third world nation, it doesn’t take much to move it forward“. Except that it isn’t, and wasn’t. The tyranny of communism devastated it. It took up until 1976 until it was finally vanquished, and Reaganomics was instituted by Mr. Deng that turned the nation around.

Don't thank Mr. Deng. Yes, he introduced it, but it was the Great Ronald Reagan that introduced the technique to the world. Too bad that the Bush dynasty made fun of it, and allowed progressive politics under the guise of RINO activists to force America to become what it is today.

Meanwhile, [1] China is growing. That is simply not mistakable.

And [2] America, held down with the burden of progressive Marxism, a swamp-like government filled with crooks and swindlers, is on the decline.

But don’t believe me. Look at the charts why don’t ya…

Why there is a trade tariff war between the USA and China now.
Whether you believe me or not, this chart tells the entire story quite succinctly. The “trade wars” is happening and reaching a peak in 2019 simply because the United States wants to remain the dominant economic leader in the world. It’s all really that simple.

These kind of charts abound, and while they might differ by a few months one way or the other, the message is all quite clear. The USA is in decline, and China is ascendant.

Chart of real GDP comparing the United States with China. Check out the dates. Now compare the dates with the implementation of the Trump Tariff Wars.
Chart of real GDP comparing the United States with China. Check out the dates. Now compare the dates with the implementation of the Trump Tariff Wars.

Americans don’t want either of these two things to occur. They want the status quo. They want inflation to stop, and for the march of progressiveness to end, and for them to get back just a few of the freedoms that they have lost over the years. Nothing too demanding. Just a few things…

Some things to ponder

It’s pretty difficult to “bring back American industry” to America when all the manufacturing talent is Chinese. Yeah. That’s right. Who the heck do you all think has been making those products that you have been buying for the last 20 to 30 years? Elves? Dwarfs?

Here, Manufacturing Talent represents skilled and educated factory professionals. Process engineers, manufacturing engineers, build planners, tool and die makers, test and quality experts and other similarly skilled people.

America used to have them. But spending twenty years in soup kitchen lines has caused many of them to change careers and take up other occupations. Most especially during the Obama presidency.

It’s going to be pretty difficult to disassemble the manufacturing equipment, and process tanks when they are now the property of Chinese nationals. When a non-Chinese company wants to operate in China they must create a joint-venture with a Chinese national. This person will, by law, own 51% of the company and if forbidden by law to give controlling interest to a non-Chinese person. (Which is why WOFE business structures were created in China.)

Just to put this in perspective, a single automated "break"... the machine that cuts and folds sheet metal panels is the cost of an Lamborghini. A company is not going to start from scratch and order up five or six of these units without passing on the costs to the consumer.

It’s going to be pretty difficult to train American workers to work in the (brought back) factories. American can do the work. Though it will be at roughly 10x the rate of the Chinese worker, and maybe 20x if it is a union factory.

You see the only people that can train them will be denied the required H1-B or Q1 visas (as all are now in the hands of software engineers out of India).

Even if everything went well, it will take a minimum of two years to “bring a factory back” to the United States. There are regulations to meet, people to pay off (and yes, boys and girls, capital-project bribery is common in the United States), and agency approvals to meet. After all, consider the difficulties and hurtles one must go through to make sure that the tiger-striped bo-bo fly isn’t endangered.

These are all HARD and REAL issues that no one is addressing.

At that, the company owners will need to make a strong business decision.

China does not mess around. They are a serious, serious nation that deserves respect.
China does not mess around. They are a serious, serious nation that deserves respect. Do not poke the dragon. They have read the 48 Laws of Power by Robert Greene, and they well know Law 15: Crush Your Enemy Totally .

This decision is, “what is the easiest and most cost effective solution to the Trump Tariff Wars with China?”

  • Leave the factory in China. Allow the USD-Yuan exchange rate to plummet, and charge American consumers for the difference.
  • Relocate the factory to the United States. Retrain staff from scratch. Order brand new processing equipment all over again, from non-Chinese sources. Have the equipment paid for out of the capital budget (somehow). Wait until it is made, debugged, and then start trial production in two years. In the mean time, work out other temporary “work around” solutions.
  • Relocate the factory to a cheap labor nation other than China. Here there would be the same issues as with relocating the factory to the United States. However, it will cost less to do, have far less regulation to deal with, and will have substantially reduced labor costs.

The answer is clear.

So, if American companies start to do this, how will it benefit America and Americans?

The Bigger Picture

Both the IMF and the World Bank now rate China as the world’s largest economy  based on Purchasing Power Parity (PPP), a measure that adjusts  countries’ GDPs for differences in prices. In simple terms, this means  that because your money stretches further in China than it would in the  US, China’s GDP is adjusted upwards. 
 
And it won’t be too long before China’s economy surpasses the  US’s by other measures, too. The Centre for Economics and Business  Research (Cebr) predicts it will happen in 2029. 

- The World Economic Forum

Every world leader can see the trends and using the forecasts as a kind of crystal ball, they can see where to “place their bets” for long term trading and economic policy. It’s not with the United States.

Ah. You don’t believe me? Well, check out the data…

Europe views China as the world's leading economic partner. Not the USA, and long term strategies and alliances will increasingly indicate that fact.
Europe views China as the world’s leading economic partner. Not the USA, and long term strategies and alliances will increasingly indicate that fact.

And while there are all sort of other factors that might enter the picture, and alter the outcome to some degree or the other, the fact is quite clear…

The USA can no longer afford to conduct business as usual. The world is changing. And like the contentious business climate (1980’s through 2010) that forced companies to down-size, up-size, re-size, re-structure and go though all sorts of gyrations (while the bloated US government just got bigger and bigger), the US government will have to go through that as well.

  • Requires a serious downsizing of the military and the scope of it’s use. America can no longer afford fighting eight nations simultaneously, policing the globe, operating thousands of military bases on foreign lands and being the proxy fighting force for the global oligarchy.
  • America requires a serious downsizing, or elimination, of numerous agencies. They are too large. Far too bloated. Filled and staffed with inefficient workers that take in far too much operational costs compared to their output.
  • Requires “Business Level” staff cuts, and budget cuts all across the Federal Government.
  • Requires a serious replacement for the Federal Reserve. (Of course!)

None of this will be easy, and it will be fought aggressively by the progressive cabal.

Group photo of the American Senate in 2019.
Group photo of the American Senate in 2019.

Knowing this, and the reader must agree, these steps must be taken immediately to sustain and continued American economic dominance in the global arena.

Oh, and about 芒种…

Now, here’s your opportunity to “get a leg up” on all those “experts” pontificating on China and the Trump “trade war”. Learns something that these “experts” haven’t a clue about, why don’t ya.

Yeah, 芒种 is a very popular song all over China, and everyone is singing and dancing to it. It’s sort of a Austin, Texas version of a Korean pop song, done to Chinese traditional beat.

Look, all that I am saying is that unless you open your eyes to see things AS THEY REALLY ARE, and stop listen to the news that tells you what you want to hear you will follow the pied piper to a very dark place.

Most Americans haven’t a clue as to what China is, how it operates, and how formidable it is. They think it is a backward, but huge, version of Mexico, North Korea, or Cuba.

They are convinced that the ONLY things China makes is cheap and inexpensive junk products. Not realizing that China has been supplying most of the world’s electronics for decades and designing and manufacturing the engines, mechanisms, and equipment used in high end cars and jet aircraft for years as well.

Americans pontificate on this false narrative, carrying on and on about the “junk” that “China floods” the USA with. Not at all giving credit to the American retailers that are actually the ones doing it. Factually, China manufactures just about everything. But most of the low-quality and cheap products end up in the USA simply because the American retailers want it that way.

Which is really strange when you think about it. The disconnect between reality and perception is so amazing and so stark that it is mind-blowing to me.

"OMG! What my friends and family think about China is so... so... off the wall, and nonsensical that it blows my mind. China is really, really, REALLY not what everyone thinks. They seriously have no idea, and they are wrong... really wrong about everything."

-My intern Aijia (from London) discussing the perceptions her friends have of China compared to her experiences after spending one month in China.

As far as all that “freedom” that everyone talks about having in America…

The USA hasn’t been a Republic since the 12th amendment.

It hasn’t been for small government since the American Civil War, and the citizens haven’t had any Rights since President Wilson and FDR changed the Constitution. Not to mention given Congressional power to the Judicial courts, and Federal agencies.

What Rights do you have if you have to pee in a cup to work?

Today America is a progressive Marxist “utopia” and it is only a few short years away from full implementation of hard-line Stalinist controls. Yes. It is. It really, really is.

How democracy ends.
How democracy ends.

Just follow all the “bread crumbs” from President Wilson , through FDR up to and including Clinton and Obama. America today looks nothing like the 1789 Constitution. (1776 Constitution + 1789 Bill of Rights.)

Point of no return.
Point of no return.

America is not what everyone thinks it is.

With that being plainly understood take note. China is not what everyone thinks it is either.

The fastest trains are in China.
The fastest trains are in China.

Ya all, best open up your eyes before it’s too late.

Trade wars are dangerous things to get involved in.
Trade wars are dangerous things to get involved in. Ultimately you want a win-win situation where every party gets some advantage.

While I do appreciate what Donald Trump is trying to do with the Chinese, he’d best stop listening to the moron (deep state RINO plants) that are advising him. They are only going to get the USA backed into situations that will be very uncomfortable.

Tariff wars with China.

How America handles this ascendancy of China at this time, will determine the future relationship with the largest and (will be) the most important nation on the planet. I do think it would be a very good idea to keep on their good side.

For our children.

Just sayin’ you all.

Links about China

Here are some links about my observations on China. I think that you, the reader, might find them to be of interest. Please kindly enjoy.

Popular Music of China
Chinese weapons systems
Chinese motor sports
End of the Day Potato
Dog Shit
Dancing Grandmothers
Dance Craze
When the SJW movement took control of China
Family Meal
Freedom & Liberty in China
Why are Americans so angry?
Evolution of the USA and China.
Ben Ming Nian
Beware the Expat
Fake Wine
Fat China
Business KTV
How I got married in China.
Chinese apartment houses
Chinese Culture Snapshots
Rural China
Chinese New Year

China and America Comparisons

As an American, I cannot help but compare what my life was in the United States with what it is like living in China. Here we discuss that.

SJW
Playground Comparisons
The Last Straw
Leaving the USA
Diversity Initatives
Democracy
Travel outside
10 Misconceptions about China
Top Ten Misconceptions

The Chinese Business KTV Experience

This is the real deal. Forget about all that nonsense that you find in the British tabloids and an occasional write up in the American liberal press. This is the reality. Read or not.

KTV1
KTV2
KTV3
KTV4
KTV5
KTV6
KTV7
KTV8
KTV9
KTV10
KTV11
KTV12
KTV13
KTV14
KTV15
KTV16
KTV17
KTV18
KTV19
KTV20

Learning About China

Who doesn’t like to look at pretty girls? Ugly girls? Here we discuss what China is like by looking at videos of pretty girls doing things in China.

Pretty Girls 1
Pretty Girls 2
Pretty Girls 3
Pretty Girls 4
Pretty Girls 5

Contemporaneous Chinese Music

This is a series of posts that discuss contemporaneous popular music in China. It is a wide ranging and broad spectrum of travel, and at that, all that I am able to provide is the flimsiest of overviews. However, this series of posts should serve as a great starting place for investigation and enjoyment.

Part 1 - Popular Music of China
Part 3 -Popular music of China.
Part 3 - The contemporaneous music of China.
part 3B - The contemporaneous music of China.
Part 4 - The contemporaneous popular music of China.
Part 5 - The contemporaneous music of China.
Part 5B - The popular music of China.
Part 5C - The music of contemporary China.
Part D - The popular music of China.
Part 5E - A happy Joe.
Part 5F - The contemporaneous music of China.
Part 5F - The popular music of China.
Post 6 - The contemporaneous music of China.
Post 7 - The contemporaneous music of China.
Post 8 - The contemporaneous music of China.
Part 9 - The contemporaneous music of China.
Part 10 - Music of China.
Post 11 - The contemporaneous music of China.

Parks in China

The parks in China are very unique. They are enormous and tend to be very mountainous. Here we take a look at this most interesting of subjects.

Parks in China - 1
Pars in China - 2
Parks in China - 3
Visiting a park in China - 4
High Speed Rail in China
Visiting a park in China - 5
Beautiful China part 6
Parks in China - 7
Visiting a park in China - 8

Really Strange China

Here are some posts that discuss a number of things about China that might seem odd, or strange to Westerners. Some of the things are everyday events, while others are just representative of the differences in culture.

Really Strange China 1
Really Strange China 2
Rally Strange China 3
Really Strange China 4
Really Odd China 5
Really Strange China 6
Really Strange China 7
Really Strange China 8
Really Strange China 9
Really Strange China 10
Really Strange China 11
Really Strange China 12
Really strange China 13
Really strange China 14

What is China like?

The purpose of this post is to illustrate that the rest of the world, outside of America, has moved on with their lives. That while they might not be as great as America is, they are doing just fine thank you.

And while America has been squandering it’s money, decimating it’s resources, and just being cavalier with it’s military, the rest of the world has done the opposite. They have husbanded their day to day fortunes, and you can see this in their day-to-day lives.

What is China like - 1
What is China like - 2
What is China Like - 3
What is China like - 4
What is China like - 5
What is China like - 6
What is China like - 8
What is China like - 8
What is China like - 9

Summer in Asia

Let’s take a moment to explore Asia. That includes China, but also includes such places as Vietnam, Thailand, Japan and others…

Summer Snapshots 1
Summer Snapshots 2
Summer Snapshots 3
Summer Snapshots 4
Snapshots Summer 5
Summer Snapshots 6
Summer Snapshot 7
Summer Snapshots 8
Summer Snapshots 9
Summer Snapshots 10
Summer Snapshots 11
Summer Snapshot 12

Some Fun Videos

Here’s a collection of some fun videos taken all over Asia. While there are many videos taken in China, we also have some taken in Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, Korea and Japan as well. It’s all in fun.

Some fun videos of China - 1
Fun Videos of Asia - 2
Fun videos of Asia - 3
Fun videos of Asia - 4
Fun Videos of Asia - 5
Fun videos of Asia - 6
Fun videos of Asia - 7
Fun videos of Asia - 8
Fun videos of Asia - 9
Fun videos of Asia - 10
Fun videos of Asia - 11
Fun videos of Asia - 12
Fun videos of Asia - 13
Fun videos of Asia - 14
Fun Videos of Asia - 15
Fun videos of Asia -16
The best way to cook marshmallows.

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