There’s something curious about China, well… at least in Southern China. You see, all the buildings are stone facing on cement. These are huge mega buildings all of stone and rock. And you know what?
Yeah.
When the weather is right, condensation forms….
The cold and cool buildings hit the mist wet laden air, and condenses. The walls are wet. The windows are wet. The floors are wet. Everything is wet.
I do not mean, every now and then. I mean, that when things condense… everything is like living in a glossy layer of water. Holy cow!
It’s a thing about China. Not a big issue, but rather a curiosity.
Here’s another… for today…
China’s “wacky” dance breaks barriers, unites the world
Yes. This is truly popular here in China. I am just surprised that it is popular in the rest of the world also.
What was your “I am surrounded by idiots” moment?
At my previous workplace, I had a friend who used a wheelchair. He was a normal guy with a great attitude. Everyone was super nice to him and treated him as a special person, except me.
We had alloted workstations. So people usually preferred to use the same stations every day. One day, someone offered him a station that was closer to the washroom. I was there, and the offered workstation was alloted to me.
I immediately objected, and asked the reason for the same. I also asked the guy if he wanted to move there? He clearly denied any such kinda request made to the management by himself. However, it was an over-smart person who wanted to shine and look empathetic in front of the team.
I clearly refused to leave my place. The meeting was over and, while leaving the room, the guy thanked me for treating him like a normal person. But everyone else looked at me like I was standing there wearing just my underpants. We later became friends as he felt normal in my company. He never wanted to be treated like a special person. He never wanted to be helped without asking for it.
Even the manager later advised me to think before I spoke. I just asked her, “is it not okay to treat someone as a normal person?”
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In short, who’s Qian Xuesen?
Qian Xuesen was an exceptionally talented engineer and one of the founding fathers of China’s space industry. He spent much of his early scientific career in the US before being imprisoned on groundless accusations as McCarthyism swept across the country.
After spending four years under subsequent house arrest, Qian returned to China vowing to never step foot in the States again. His departure dealt a significant blow to America’s rocket program and laid the foundations for China’s journey to become a formidable space power.
Today, as Sinophobia is once again on the rise, academics of Chinese descent are leaving the US at record levels. In this light, Qian’s story should be viewed as a warning of the dangers of Cold War Zero-sum-ism.
Kavita Puri, one of the BBC’s less biased journalists, gives a surprisingly fair and detailed account of Qian’s life and his contributions to mankind. She writes:
In Shanghai there is an entire museum containing 70,000 artefacts dedicated to one man, “the people’s scientist” Qian Xuesen.
Qian is the father of China’s missile and space programme. His research helped develop the rockets that fired China’s first satellite into space, and missiles that became part of its nuclear arsenal, and he is revered as a national hero.
But in another superpower, where he studied and worked for more than a decade, his significant contributions are rarely remembered at all.
Qian was born in 1911, as China’s last imperial dynasty was about to be replaced by a republic. His parents were both well-educated and his father, after working in Japan, established China’s national education system. It was evident from an early age that Qian was gifted, and he eventually graduated top of his class at Shanghai Jiao Tong University, winning a rare scholarship to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the US.
In 1935 a trim, well-dressed young man arrived in Boston. Qian may have experienced some xenophobia and racism, says Chris Jespersen, professor of history at the University of North Georgia. But there was “also a sentiment of hope and belief that China [was] changing in fundamentally significant ways”, and he would certainly have been among people who respected his knowledge.
From MIT Qian moved to the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), to study under one of the most influential aeronautical engineers of the day, the Hungarian émigré, Theodore von Karman. There Qian shared an office with another prominent scientist, Frank Malina, who was a key member of a small group of innovators known as the Suicide Squad.
The group had earned this nickname because of their attempts to build a rocket on campus, and because some of their experiments with volatile chemicals went badly wrong, says Fraser Macdonald, author of Escape from Earth: A Secret History of the Space Rocket. Though he adds that no-one died.
One day Qian got drawn into a discussion of a complicated mathematical problem with Malina and other members of the group and before long he was an integral part of it, producing seminal research into rocket propulsion.
At the time, rocket science was the “stuff of cranks and fantasists,” Macdonald says. “No-one is taking it seriously – no mathematically inclined engineer would risk their reputation by saying this is the future.” But that quickly changed with the start of World War II.
The Suicide Squad caught the attention of the US military, which paid for research into jet-assisted take-off, where boosters were attached to the wings of aircraft to enable them to get airborne from short runways. Military funding also helped establish the Jet Propulsion Lab (JPL) in 1943, under the directorship of Theodore von Karman. Qian, along with Frank Malina, was at the heart of the project.
Qian was a Chinese citizen, but the Republic of China was an ally of the US, so there was “no massive suspicion about a Chinese scientist at the heart of American space endeavour”, says Fraser Macdonald. Qian was given security clearance to work on classified weapons research, and even served on the US government’s Science Advisory Board.
By the end of the war he was one of the world’s foremost experts on jet propulsion, and was sent with Theodore von Karman on an extraordinary mission to Germany, holding the temporary rank of lieutenant colonel. Their goal was to interview Nazi engineers, including Wernher von Braun, Germany’s leading rocket scientist; America wanted to find out exactly what the Germans knew.
But by the end of the decade Qian’s glittering career in the US came to a sudden halt, and his life there began to unravel.
In China, Chairman Mao declared the creation of the communist People’s Republic in 1949, and quickly the Chinese came to be seen in the US as “the evil ones”, says Chris Jespersen. “So we go through these periods in the US where we are infatuated with China, then something happens and we revile China,” he says.
Meanwhile, a new director at the JPL came to believe there was a spy ring at the lab, and shared his suspicions about some members of staff with the FBI. “I note that they are all either Chinese or Jewish,” says Fraser Macdonald.
The Cold War was under way, and the anti-communist witch-hunts of the McCarthy era were just around the corner. It was in this atmosphere that the FBI accused Qian, Frank Malina and others of being communists, and a threat to national security.
The charges against Qian were based on a 1938 document of the US Communist Party that showed he had attended a social gathering that the FBI suspected was a meeting of the Pasadena Communist Party. Although Qian denied being a party member, new research suggests he joined at the same time as Frank Malina in 1938.
But this doesn’t necessarily make him a Marxist. To be a communist at this time was a statement of anti-racism, says Fraser Macdonald. The group wanted to highlight the threat of fascism, he says, as well as the horror of racism in the US. They were campaigning, for example, against the segregation of the local Pasadena swimming pool, and used their communist meetings to discuss it.
Zuoyue Wang, professor of history at California State Polytechnic University, Pomona, says there is no evidence that Qian ever spied for China or was an intelligence agent when he was in the US.
He was, however, stripped of his security clearance and put under house arrest. Caltech colleagues, including Theodore von Karman, wrote to the government pleading Qian’s innocence, but in vain.
In 1955, when Qian had spent five years under house arrest, President Eisenhower took the decision to deport him to China. The scientist left by boat with his wife and two US-born children, telling waiting reporters he would never step foot in America again. He kept his promise.
“He was one of the most prominent scientists in America. He had contributed so much and could have contributed much more. So it’s not just humiliation but also a sense of betrayal,” says the journalist and writer, Tianyu Fang.
Qian arrived as a hero in China but was not immediately admitted into the Chinese Communist Party. His record was not impeccable. His wife was the aristocratic daughter of a Nationalist leader, and until Qian’s fall from grace he’d been living happily in America – he’d even taken the first steps towards applying for citizenship.
When he finally became a party member in 1958, he embraced it and always tried to remain on the right side of the regime. He survived purges and the Cultural Revolution, and thus was able to pursue an extraordinary career.
When he had arrived in China there was little understanding of rocket science, but 15 years later he oversaw the launch of the first Chinese satellite into space. Over the decades, he trained a new generation of scientists, and his work laid the foundations for China’s Lunar Exploration Program
Ironically, the missile programme that Qian helped develop in China resulted in weapons which were then fired back on America. Qian’s silkworm missiles were fired at Americans in the 1991 Gulf War, Fraser Macdonald says, and in 2016 against the USS Mason by Huti rebels in Yemen.
“So there’s this odd circularity. The US expelled this expertise, and it has come back to bite them.” In taking a tough line against domestic communism, he suggests, the country deported “the means by which one of their main communist rivals could develop their own missiles and space programme – an extraordinary geopolitical blunder.”
A former US Secretary of the Navy, Dan Kimball – later head of the rocket propulsion company, Aerojet – once said it was “the stupidest thing this country ever did”.
Today, there is once again heightened tension between China and the US. This time it’s not over ideology but trade, concerns over tech security, and China’s failure – as President Donald Trump regards it – to do more to contain Covid-19.
While most Americans have no idea about Qian and his role in America’s space programme, Tianyu Fang says many Chinese Americans and Chinese students in the US, do know about him, and why he had to leave, and they see the parallels with the present day. “US China relations have got so much worse they know they could be under the same suspicions as Qian’s generation,” he says.
In Fraser Macdonald’s view, Qian’s story is a warning about what happens when you expel knowledge. “The whole story of American science is that it is propelled by people coming from outside… but in these conservative times that’s a story that becomes harder to celebrate.”
The JPL’s contribution to the US space programme has, Macdonald believes, been much neglected compared to that of Wernher von Braun and other German scientists, who were taken in secret to the US soon after the visit paid to them by von Karman and Qian.
Braun had been a Nazi, and yet his achievements are recognised in a way that those of Qian and others from the JPL are not, Macdonald says. “The idea that America’s first viable space programme was started by homegrown socialists – whether Jewish or Chinese – is not really a story that the US is able to hear about itself,” he says.
Qian’s life spanned almost a century. In that time China grew from an economic minnow to a superpower on Earth and in space. Qian was part of that transformation. But his story could have been a great American one too – where talent, wherever it is found, could thrive.
Last year, when China made history and landed on the far side of the moon, it did so in the Von Karman crater, named after the aeronautical engineer who was a mentor to Qian. A nod, perhaps, to the fact that American anti-communism helped propel China into space.
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Has a company ever chosen morality over profitability?
SC Johnson made a choice like this, and it’s hurt sales ever since.
Saran Wrap is a product people in the United States know well, and it’s been popular for years… it hit the markets in 1953, and quickly became popular for its utility in storing food. It blocked odors, it microwaved well, and it did a better job of clinging to containers than any other product on the market. (It may have been popular in other countries as well, but I have no frame of reference for that.)
If you’ve used Saran Wrap in the past decade or so, you’ve probably noticed it’s not as effective as it used to be.
Originally created by Dow Chemicals, Saran Wrap came under SC Johnson’s control in 1998. Shortly thereafter, they discovered that one of the chemicals used to manufacture the famous plastic wrap, polyvinylidene chloride, had toxic effects on the environment.
They attempted to find a replacement that would preserve the qualities of Saran Wrap people had come to love, but after a year of effort, SC Johnson made the decision to remove the chemical and release a new formulation. It’s not as effective, but it no longer poisons the environment.
There was no boycott, there was no federal investigation… the company discovered the danger, and then voluntarily gave up its competitive advantage in order to avoid harming the environment.
Source: CEO explains why SC Johnson hobbled Saran Wrap
Have you or anyone you heard of walked out of a job interview, and why?
I’ve walked out of several interviews. Here’s a fun one:
The interviewer tried to shame me for using my phone’s calculator to help solve a complex problem and check my work.
I was interviewing at a solar firm. They had turned a recent issue with a client into a test for the interview process. I thought it was a fun and useful way to see how a candidate thinks and solves problems, so I was on board.
That is, right up until the interviewer decided to cosplay as a junior high school math teacher from 1998.
“Did you just take out your phone and use your calculator?” I can still hear the scoff in her voice and picture the sneer she was grossly failing to hide.
I stared at her, waiting for her to say she was joking. No such luck. I remember thinking “Oh, this lady is serious. She really thinks I should just do all the math 100% in my head.”
I didn’t even bother to respond. I just got up and walked out. Ain’t nobody got time for that shit.
In a world where programmers google more than half of their job every day, me choosing to be prudent about my mental math skills is downright pedestrian.
I regret nothing. Any company culture that thinks a person being resourceful and using all available tools to check their work is some kind of PROBLEM, isn’t a company culture anyone should waste their time with.
All these years later, I can see what a product of the school system she was. Prioritizing resourcefulness and work ethic over book smarts is an entrepreneur’s mindset, not something some recruiter just out of her worthless college degree would value.
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Does a “fake it till you make it” attitude toward life actually work?
Meet Ferdinand Waldo Demara.
The Great Imposter.
Born in 1921, Ferdinand ran away from home at the young age of just 16.
With no qualifications, no money, and no occupation, Fred was essentially a nobody.
A nobody with no hope of a successful future.
A nobody with literally nothing to lose.
A nobody you wouldn’t even look twice at walking on the street.
Until one day, you open the newspaper and see this nobody’s face plastered on the front page.
In the ultimate example of “fake it til you make it,” Ferdinand Demara boarded the HMCS Cayuga, a Canadian Navy destroyer during the Korean War. He was impersonating a naval surgeon.
Ferdinand seemed to have successfully fooled the crewmates.
All was well.
Until numerous soldiers started taking life-threatening injuries.
With no other doctors everyone desperately looked to Ferdinand, the only naval “surgeon” on board.
This is the point where most people would throw up their hands and announce the game was up.
But Demara wasn’t ultimately labeled “the Great Imposter” for nothing.
Despite having absolutely no experience or training Demara told the crewmates to prep the injured for surgery while he quickly retired to his quarters.
Using his photographic memory Demara speed read through a medical textbook to learn how to perform surgery.
He emerged out his of room just a few minutes later, then operated on all 16 badly injured soldiers – including one who required major chest surgery.
The outcome?
Each and every one of the men he operated on walked away with their lives thanks to him.
Throughout his lifetime Demara also had other impersonations including a civil engineer, a sheriff’s deputy, an assistant prison warden, a doctor of applied psychology, a hospital orderly, a lawyer, a child-care expert, a Benedictine monk, a Trappist monk, an editor, a cancer researcher, and a teacher. One teaching job led to six months in prison.
There is no word on which textbook you can read to learn how to perform surgery in just a few minutes, but whichever one it is, it’s totally worth the money.
CONTROVERSIAL (Is it WRONG to tell the TRUTH?)
Italian Baked Chicken
Ingredients
- Boneless, skinless chicken breasts
- 1 bottle Italian dressing
- Garlic powder
- Parmesan cheese
Instructions
- Season Italian dressing with garlic powder (use enough dressing to thoroughly coat chicken).
- Marinate chicken breasts in seasoned Italian dressing several hours or overnight.
- Drain chicken in a strainer to remove extra dressing.
- Place chicken breasts in a baking dish or pan.
- Sprinkle chicken with parsley flakes.
- Bake, uncovered, at 350 degrees F for 20 minutes.
- Cover chicken, reduce temperature to 325 degrees F and continue to bake for 30 minutes.
- Sprinkle with Parmesan cheese before serving.
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Have you ever been taught something in school that was completely incorrect?
When I was seven years old, I was given a Stanford-Binet style intelligence test by the local school authorities. The test was supposed to determine my future aptitude for school work.
The interviewer had a little bushy beard and wire-rimmed glasses. He peered over the desk at me and asked “Who discovered America?”
I answered, “The Indians.” This was 1976, and the term “Native Americans” didn’t exist yet.
He looked at me quizzically. “Are you sure that Indians discovered America?”
I said, “Columbus came to America. The Indians were here first. So the Indians discovered America.”
The interviewer shook his head sadly at me, clearly disappointed, and went onto the next question.
Just for the record, 1976 intelligence-test-giver guy:
The Indians were here first.
So the Indians discovered America.
I knew that.
But the story doesn’t end there.
It continues forty-two years after I got that question in school.
Today, an acquaintance of mine said they were applying for US citizenship. I congratulated them, and they told me there’s a civics test that they have to pass in person in order to become a US citizen. And they showed me the sample study test.
And right there. In black and white. Question number 59 reads as follows:
“Who lived in America before the Europeans arrived?”
And beneath that, were the permissible answers:
- American Indians
- Native Americans
There wasn’t any Columbus to be seen. He didn’t discover America.
He wasn’t even on the test.
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Have you actually ever heard someone say ‘Do you know who I am?’ indignantly?
Frequently. In college, I worked at a metropolitan airport refueling corporate jets. Celebrities usually weren’t bad, but their handlers were beyond obnoxious. I started watching NHL specifically to jeer against the Detroit Red Wings and the New Jersey Devils, simply because of the jerks managing their transportation.
Anyway, during Furniture Market, people fly in from all over the world. Hotels are booked solid for a hundred-mile radius. Aerosmith happened to be playing at the Coliseum. Their pilot was a quiet old man, but the copilot was obnoxious. You could tell he was WAY too young and inexperienced to get a gig as a Gulfstream FO without some sort of family connection, but he admitted it anyway when babbling about his parents’ wealth.
They were there for the entire day. At any point, they could’ve asked for anything they needed, but he waited until the concert ended. By that point, I’m the only person working, because day shift had ended. He demanded fuel right after another pilot placed his order. I told him it’d take about a half hour, and he exasperated, “This is Aerosmith!”
I pointed down the ramp and said, “That’s the owner of the Miami Dolphins, that’s Oprah Winfrey, that’s some sort of Commerce Secretary in Mexico, but the one with the Highway Patrol standing by the plane all night is our state Governor, and he ALWAYS comes first.”
Could France have defeated Germany in WW 2? How?
Definitely yes.
- You have a navy. Use it. Historically, the French navy did next to nothing. An aggressive submarine hunting campaign would have put Kriegsmarine on defensive and prevented the Norwegian campaign. And no, Bearn was not that obsolete for an aircraft carrier.
- Use air force aggressively. The French used air force too passively – they didn’t dare to attack the German airbases – and it became costly. Many of the new fighters were not even assembled off the crates in Spring 1940.
- The Maginot Line works just as intended. Do not become complacent. Check out the Ardennes – it is not as impassable as you think!
- Keep Italy out of war. True, they are not worth of much, but they have a good navy.
- You have radios. Use them. Use encryption if needed. Time-critical communication is much more important than fear of eavesdropping.
- Tank is not a moving artillery bunker. It is the knight of the 20th century. Use tanks as the steel fist of the army, not moving field artillery. Concentrate them – not by dripping but pouring!
- Put Maurice Gamelin to retirement. He is too old to lead the army any more. Maxime Weygand had some good ideas, but listen to that young Charles de Gaulle.
- Evacuate civilians at time. The Blitzkrieg creates traffic jams.
- Read that German manual. I mean, On War by von Clausewitz. It is all there.
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Even if the Chinese economy surpasses the US economy, China will still be less advanced than the USA, won’t it?
This is the composition of U.S. GDP in 2023
The person who asked this question was obviously considering the problem using linear thinking.
In the questioner’s mind, China’s economy is growing linearly, and its total volume will gradually and slowly surpass that of the United States. But since China’s population is four times that of the United States, when China’s economy surpasses that of the United States, its per capita level will only be 1/4 of that of the United States.
It may take another 20 or even 50 years for China to “really” reach the level of the United States.
I have to refute this idea, because in actual competition, there is a “critical effect”. This means that China’s pursuit of the United States is not linear, but will appear as a “cliff” or “avalanche” after reaching a certain critical point.
In order to support this view, we need to analyze how the strong economy of the United States is constructed.
Which brings us back to the picture above, which says a lot about the U.S. economy: Virtualization
In the entire GDP composition, the part that creates real wealth is very small.
What is real wealth? Food, industrial products, energy.
Bread, milk, cars, mobile phones, gasoline, airplanes, semiconductors, clothes, condoms, these things are real wealth.
What is virtual wealth? When you have enough real wealth, you can redistribute it. Services, consulting, lawyers, finance, medical care, house rental, trade. Virtual wealth is not real wealth. They are essentially the secondary distribution of real wealth.
With so little real wealth generated in the United States’ GDP, how do they maintain huge virtual wealth, achieve huge GDP, and maintain world-leading living standards?
There are two key points
1. Technology and innovation
2. Rules and Credit
Technology and Innovation:
The United States is the country with the largest investment in R&D in the world. In 2023, the United States’ investment in innovation and R&D will be 2.5 times that of the second-ranked country (China).
The United States leads the way in innovation capabilities and technological development.
With advanced technology and innovation capabilities, you can get huge wealth at a very small cost. To give a simple example, Americans take away 90% of the profits from an Apple mobile phone, and the remaining 10% is shared by other countries in the production, sales, and service links.
During the entire process, not a single screw was installed on this Apple phone in the United States.
This is the power of technology and innovation in transferring wealth. He can easily transfer real wealth created by other countries into American hands.
However, technology and innovation are not the strongest in the field of transferring wealth. After all, technology and innovation require large amounts of continuous investment and face huge competition. Europe, Japan, and China are all constantly challenging the United States’ position in the field of science and technology. Relying on this alone is not enough.
rules and Credit
The United States has shaped the global financial and trade landscape. They have established the dollar’s global currency status through war and the Cold War, and maintained their status and credibility with hundreds of military bases and huge armies around the world.
They also established many rules to protect their status. For example, patents, environmental protection, carbon emissions, IFS, and WTO. The entire world revolves around these rules.
This means that the United States can realize the transfer of wealth through rules and credit.
The simplest example: When the United States faces a lack of real wealth, they can start the money printing press and exchange green paper for the wealth created by people around the world. It also controls the flow and currency value of the U.S. dollar through operations such as raising and lowering interest rates. This method’s ability to transfer wealth far exceeds that of technology and innovation, and they don’t even have to draw a drawing.
These two keys are the reason why the United States actually creates little real wealth but has a lot of real wealth. It is also the basis for the United States to maintain prosperity and continue to grow even after its economy is hollowed out.
Now let’s go back to the beginning. What will happen if China’s economic aggregate exceeds that of the United States?
1. Changes in innovation capabilities
Innovation capabilities come from the cultivation and investment of talents. Both of these indicators increase with the growth of the economic aggregate. Due to purchasing power parity, China’s R&D investment is currently only one-third of that of the United States, but the number of patents applied for and the number of papers produced each year are already the same as those of the United States. Many technology companies such as Huawei and DJI have emerged that are ahead of their American counterparts. It can be estimated that when China’s R&D investment reaches 1/2 of the United States, their innovation capabilities will completely surpass the United States.
2. Changes in military strength
China’s military strength will gradually surpass that of the United States. Coupled with China’s strong manufacturing power, China’s military hardware growth rate and accumulation will gradually surpass that of the United States. Because of the complete localization of the economic structure, in terms of military assets, the return on China’s investment of 1 yuan and the United States on 1 dollar are close. Other countries will find that the stick in China’s hand is gradually surpassing that of the United States.
3. Changes in confidence
There will be a critical point in the balance of global mentality towards the United States and China. Gradually, all countries will think about a question: If China is the world’s largest customer and the world’s largest businessman, with the most powerful military and the best innovation capabilities, why do we still have to abide by the rules of the United States? Why do we need to continue using dollars?
When the third point starts to happen, it means that the avalanche effect is coming.
The United States will enter a period of rapid decline:
The credibility of the U.S. dollar has declined > the ability to transfer wealth has weakened > actual wealth has decreased > living standards have declined > social conflicts have increased > investment in innovation has decreased > brain drain > innovation capabilities have declined > the ability to transfer wealth continues to weaken > military strength is difficult to maintain > credibility continues to collapse.
At this time, China’s growth curve may still be flat, but the decline curve of the United States may become a “cliff.” The “per capita” level of both sides will change from “chasing with each other” to “one man’s loss is another man’s gain.”
This assumption is disastrous for the status of the United States, and it will frantically maintain its status at all costs.
This is not as easy as the questioner imagined, and may be a disaster for the whole world.
Here Is How The Pentagon Comes Up With Code Words And Secret Project Nicknames
We venture into the dark, fascinating, and often misunderstood world of the Defense Department’s code word and nickname generating processes. by Tim McMillan| UPDATED Dec 1, 2019 5:57 AM EST
If there’s one place one can find plenty of nicknames, it’s within the sprawling landscape of the armed forces. When it comes to the greater civilian world, there’s no historical precedent or agreed upon social norm for how someone or something gains a substitute informal title. However, given the Department of Defense’s fondness of rigid structure, it should be no surprise that when it comes to nicknames, there’s a policy for them, too.
Meet NICKA
Prior to 1975, names for military operations and projects were exclusively chosen at the behest of military commanders. As a result, within the annals of American military history one can find a diverse range of interesting titles from Operation Killer—a major 1951 counter-offensive during the Korean War—to Operation Beaver Cage—a U.S. Marine Corps operation that occurred during the spring of 1967 as part of the Vietnam War.
However, shortly after the close of the Vietnam War, the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) decided it was time to formalize the use of code words and nicknames by unveiling the Code Word Nickname and Exercise Term System, colloquially known as NICKA.
For the Department of Defense (DoD), NICKA is both a set of policies governing the selection of defense monikers and a military-wide computer system that archives and prevents duplication of terms.
Important to note, NICKA is primarily used for Department of Defense-related endeavors. Many operations or programs emerging from within the intelligence community use their own separate naming system.
For example, the Central Intelligence Agency uses the Cryptonym system for developing code words and names. It is also worth noting that the National Security Agency (NSA), National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA), Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), and National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) all use the NICKA system
NICKA outlines three distinctive types of monikers that can be used within the DoD:
- Code Words
- Nicknames
- Exercise Terms
Code Words
In NICKA, acode word is a single word that’s assigned to any program or operational plan that’s classified confidential or higher. Each component agency in the Department of Defense are assigned blocks of code words by the Joint Staff. When needed, the NICKA computer program will randomly select and assign a code word from the originating agency’s allocated block of terms.
For example, in the lead up to the Gulf War, when the Combat Aviation Brigade of the 1st Armored Division needed a code word for their forward assembly area, the NICKA computer system pulled from one of the Army’s predetermined block designations and selected the amusingly mundane code word—LARRY.
Essentially a password for entry in an exclusive club, the preeminent role of code words is to restrict access to sensitive national security information to only those who have a need to know. Assisting security, a code word itself will be safeguarded by being classified by one of the three security classifications—confidential, secret, or top secret—based on the security level of the associated program.
Virtually anything conceivably classified, including programs, projects, locations, operations, objectives, missions, or plans, can be assigned a code word. One particular area code words can be highly prevalent is with Special Access Programs (SAP). As mentioned in The War Zone’s in-depth look at Special Access Programs, multiple components, sub-components, and projects can sprawl out from a single SAP “umbrella.” In this compartmentalized system of security, each of the different appendages of one SAP can potentially be assigned their own specific code word.
Once NICKA assigns a code word, it’s considered active. An active code word will remain unchanged for the life of a program and cannot be altered by its users. The one exception being if there’s a concern a code word had been compromised. In this instance, a new code word would be issued. Equally, in certain situations, an unclassified cover term may get applied to a program for counterintelligence purposes.
In addition to the obvious security and oversight reasons, the principal reason for a code word’s permanence relates to the significant role NICKA serves as an archive of all active and inactive code words. The system uses its database of terms to prevent any potential conflicts that could arise due to similarities or duplication of previous code words.
As a Department of Defense system, NICKA will only assign single-word code words. However, in some instances, the Pentagon may take over a project or program that originated outside of the DoD, such as from the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), Department of Energy (DOE), commercial companies, or even foreign governments. In these instances, already assigned code words may not follow NICKA guidelines. In these occurrences, a program may be reassigned a new NICKA code word or the previous unregulated code name may be maintained.
Regardless, of whether it’s kept or not, the non-NICKA code name may still be added to the program’s database to stem off any future confusion or conflict.
For example, technically before NICKA’s time and not a DoD project, the 1960s A-12 reconnaissance plane was developed and operated under the CIA code word “OXCART”. However, Kelly Johnson and his pioneering team of engineers at Lockheed Skunk Works used the code word “ARCHANGEL” for the A-12. Furthering the spy plane’s eventual identity crisis, flight crews would nickname the A-12 “Cygnus.”
Though OXCART was the only officially assigned government code word, under NICKA, both the contract code word, “ARCHANGEL” and the A-12’s nickname “Cygnus,” would equally be archived to prevent duplicate use.
When it comes to code words. Many real-world military operations and programs, for example, “HAVE BLUE,“ “ACID GAMBIT,” “AUTUMN RETURN,” “SENIOR TREND,” or the infamous “YELLOW FRUIT,” are often reported as being the “code word” for a classified operation or program. However, per DoD and the Joint Chiefs NICKA policy, a code word always consist of just a single word. By NICKA, the above named examples would be “nicknames” and not code words.
This does not mean that multiple code words cannot apply to a certain entity. Any intelligence product that contains Top-Secret NATO information would carry the code word “COSMIC” in addition to any other applicable ones. Certain categories of sensitive activities can even involve code words that become intrinsically linked and enter common usage linked together. “TALENT,” an overarching code word for aerial intelligence-gathering assets, such as the U-2 Dragon Lady and SR-71 Blackbird spy planes, and “KEYHOLE,” which covers intelligence-gathering satellites, are no longer treated as separate from each other officially and one will routinely see documents marked “TALENT KEYHOLE,” or using the abbreviation “TK,” as a single term.
Nicknames
As we briefly mentioned, when it comes to the designation of nicknames, NICKA offers some flexibility and gives military commanders the ability to be a little more creative.
Whereas NICKA only assigns single-word code words, by policy, nicknames must be comprised of two separate words. Similar to the code word process, each DoD component agency is assigned a set of designated numerical block assignments by NICKA. In turn, the agency’s numerical block assignment will correspond to “alphabetical assignment list,” which is a range of two-letter alphabetical sets. The first word of any nickname must come from within an agency’s assigned alphabetical range.
For example, using the now obsolete and unclassified NICKA block assignments, if a program within the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) needed to come up with a nickname, one would start by identifying the four numerical blocks assigned to the DIA (15, 33, 51, and 76).
The next step would be identifying what ranges of two-letter combinations would be associated with an agency’s assigned blocks. Following along with the previous example, based on the alphabetical assignment list, the first word of a DIA program nickname would have to start with:
Block 15 – Letters DM – DR
Block 33 – Letters IA – IF
Block 51 – Letters MM-MR
Block 76 – Letters SS – SZ
When it comes to the second portion of the two-word requirement for nicknames, military planners have the unrestricted ability to get creative, provided phrases are not “improper” or “counterproductive.”
By NICKA guidelines, improper nicknames would be terms that are:
- Inconsistent with traditional American ideals or current foreign policy.
- Offensive to good taste or derogatory to a particular group, sect, or creed.
- Offensive to U.S. allies or other free world nations.
Additionally, NICKA forbids nicknames from being:
- Any two-word combination voice call sign found in the Joint Army Navy Air Force Publication Call Sign Book (JANAP-119).
- Include the words, “Project, Exercise, or Operation.”
- Words that may be used correctly either as a single word or as two words, such as “moonlight.”
- Exotic words, trite expressions or well-known commercial trademarks.
By military standards—where one can often find rules for rules—NICKA guidelines on nicknames are fairly limited and debatably common sense. Thanks to the tempered flexibility NICKA gives to nicknames, the system still affords for some bellicose poetry like “Beast Master”—a 2006 Army operation to clear the Baghdad suburb of Ghazaliya—an area itself (unofficially) nicknamed “IED Alley East,” or “Viking Snatch”—a 2007 counterinsurgency operation in Iraq. Still, especially at lower levels of command and for short-duration operations, one still often sees nicknames that do not comply with NICKA, including ones with single words.
In contrast to code words, nicknames, including their descriptions, meanings, and relationship, are also, by policy, supposed to remain unclassified, though the branches of the U.S. military still routinely classify them on the ground of national security. In addition, NICKA guidelines stipulate nicknames are not required, but can be assigned to actual real-world events, projects, or activities. One caveat to “not required” being with Special Access Programs, which are required to have an unclassified nickname assigned to them.
Exercise Terms
Rounding out NICKA’s trifecta of officially sanctioned phrases, are exercise terms. As the name implies, exercise terms are monikers assigned to tests, drills, or exercises, which are assigned for the purpose of emphasizing the event is not an actual real-world operation. That said, the military has a bad habit of not sticking to DoD rules when it comes to publicizing or describing training exercises, often describing them as “operations.”
For example, “Llama Fury” was a week-long Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) training exercise at Seymour Johnson Air Force Base in late summer of 2015. By NICKA policies, Llama Fury should have carried the “exercise” moniker. However, in press releases, multiple Air Force Public Affairs Offices described the event as “Operation Llama Fury.”
Though technically their own classification, exercise terms are more or less an extension of NICKA nicknames, with their selection and regulation falling under the same agency assigned alphabetical block system as the nicknaming process.
Since some military training evolutions are regularly repeated, certain specific exercises will carry the same name with an added numerical postfix indicating the month or year the event occurs. For example, held annually from 2006 to 2018, some of the largest U.S. military war games ever performed in the Pacific Ocean were all conducted under the exercise term “Valiant Shield.” Since this training event was repeated for twelve-years, a four-digit identifier for the year training maneuvers were performed would accompany the exercise term, producing “Exercise Valiant Shield 2017,” and so on and so forth.
For exercises that occur multiple times in a fiscal year, like “Swift Response,” a large training event between the U.S. and its European allies, the second iteration of the exercise in 2017 would be called “Swift Response 17-2.”
Least ambiguous of NICKA’s trio, code words play an essential role safeguarding extremely sensitive secrets. However, when it comes to nicknames and exercise terms, this aspect of NICKA is arguably more significant.
For example, “Enduring Freedom,” (the U.S. Global War on Terrorism, though often applied solely to operations in Afghanistan), “Iraqi Freedom,” (the 2003 invasion of Iraq and subsequent occupation), or “Inherent Resolve,” (the U.S. military intervention in Iraq and Syria to combat ISIS), are not merely nicknames, these phrases are meant to inspire and express the overarching intent of military involvement.
More than just iconic inscriptions on military ribbons, medals, and service records, the perceptions associated with a few major military nicknames or terms become ingrained in the public’s collective conscious and often end up being enduring aspects of American history.
So, there you have it. All those cool-sounding program nicknames, secretive code words, and intense sounding military exercises you probably heard of over the years, all likely came from a highly structured, yet obscure Department of Defense system puzzlingly named NICKA.
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I Had a Night of Wild(ish) Sex on Horny Goat Weed, aka ‘Nature’s Viagra’
Does the supplement meet all the gas station and corner store hype? I popped a few capsules and fucked my boyfriend to find out
Male enhancement is more important to the marrow of American culture than anything else that makes this country great — like breastaurants or the Claire’s ear piercing kiosk. For those of you who still fuck unenhanced, the deal is: a number of pills, both prescription and not, have become available to boost your boner in recent decades. The gold standard is still Viagra, famously a happy accident in the manufacture of what was meant to be a pill for hypertension. Another famous option is Enzyte, which I know less for its effects than for its creepy-ass commercials featuring Bob, the guy who can’t stop fucking his wife now that he’s on Enzyte.
Then there are unlimited Great Value options for people who can’t or won’t get their boner pills from a doctor. Gas stations and corner stores have long sold pills that claim they can do everything from induce boners to increase your dick size to make you look upon the face of God. Such pills have largely been debunked as quack shit that does much more harm than good, but that’s just for people with dicks, right? Surely I, a humble pussy-haver, am safe from the array of troubling side effects ranging from “pain in dick” to “severe nausea.” (There’s not a self-respecting doctor in the world who would agree with that assessment, but fie on them, I say!)
The plant epimedium, more commonly known as horny goat weed, has sung its siren’s song to me from the Amazon supplement market for a long time. Other dick pills may come from Dr. Strangelove-esque laboratories, but horny goat weed is a humble plant — one that, per Chinese legend, a canny farmer noticed his goats were eating before fucking like crazy. According to the limited experiments that scientists have conducted, it might work, but most products that claim to contain it either don’t or contain only a negligible amount mixed in with numerous other extracts and compounds. Still, that uncertainty is the cost of admission not just with horny goat weed, but with all supplements on the market in the U.S.
Either way, the allure of potentially enjoying some of “nature’s molly” with my boyfriend was too strong to ignore. Sure, it might not work, but also, it might.
I proposed a romantic evening. We’d enjoy a home-cooked dinner for two with a couple glasses of a nice full-bodied Cab Sav. From there, I’d turn off the lights and pour us some after-dinner Madeira to enjoy by candlelight. I would then change into something a little more comfortable. And my lover would take me into his arms so that we could take the last step of our journey together: sex modified by two fistfuls of Dorado’s Maximum Strength Horny Goat Weed capsules, since that was the first brand I could find that didn’t pull up a strongly worded FDA warning when I Googled it.
My boyfriend was on board, but raised an interesting philosophical question: “How do we know it worked? Do we measure?”
I’m not the, ugh, dick-measuring kind of gal, and so, I decided that we’d have to stick with that least reliable of evidence: the self-reported kind. So without further ado, here are my self-reported, only-lightly-tampered-with results from my Evening With Horny Goat Weed… (As with all the experiments I perform on my body for MEL, don’t try this at home.)
The dosage instructions on the bottle were to “take two capsules a day,” and to “take an additional serving 30 minutes prior to activity.” We hadn’t been taking two capsules per day and didn’t know what a sudden jolt of 2,000 milligrams of horny goat weed would do to our systems, so we compromised with three capsules each. I thought it would be romantic to serve the capsules in champagne flutes, but then I remembered I don’t own any. I put them in shot glasses instead, which lent the project an air of, how shall I put it — Jonestown-ishness.
We took our doses together at 8 p.m. My boyfriend rejected the suggestion that we ingest them by wrapping our arms around each other wedding-toast-style, which was fair. He grabbed a beer from the fridge but then put it back, reasoning that “I shouldn’t drink tonight so that we have controlled data.”
“Does that mean I shouldn’t smoke weed tonight?” I asked.
“No,” he said. “You smoking weed is the controlled data.”
We spent the next several episodes of Midnight Mass in full “kids taking acid for the first time” mode: “Do you feel it yet? Do you feel it now? How about now?” Back and forth we went for well over an hour. The instruction to take this stuff a mere 30 minutes prior to Activity was starting to feel like a prank. I did note that I felt particularly horny for the sheriff character on Midnight Mass every time he appeared onscreen, which was an encouraging step in the right direction, until my boyfriend pointed out that I probably just felt that way because he was so handsome.
Finally, at 9:30 p.m., a full 90 minutes after “dosing,” my boyfriend suggested that we go ahead and fuck. “Maybe the horny goat weed doesn’t kick in until the Activity starts,” he said. This sounded insane to me, but I also know nothing whatsoever about pharmacology, so I agreed.
The post-Activity verdict is that I’m not convinced the horny goat weed did anything. But I’m also not convinced that it didn’t! I engage in this stuff with a hearty degree of skepticism. On the one hand, I do believe in the research that tells us most of the salutary effects people claim to experience from their supplements are primarily attributable to the placebo effect, maybe with some lifestyle boosters thrown in if you also believe that the sorts of people who religiously take supplements are more likely than the average person to exercise regularly and forswear heavy smoking and drinking. (I certainly believe this latter hypothesis, based on my highly scientific study of the B-complex-poppin’ broads in a barre class I took once.)
On the other hand, something was going on with the Activity we had after taking horny goat weed. What the experiment lacked in measurable physical effects, it more than made up for in over an hour of wild sex. Maybe the sex was so heightened because we knew we’d taken something that was intended to enhance it, and felt duly enhanced as a result. Or maybe there really is some magic in that old silk hat that is horny goat weed. It’s played its part in Traditional Chinese Medicine for thousands of years. Would people really do the same thing for thousands of years if it didn’t work?
Well, yes, probably, so that line of thinking doesn’t help me conclude this experiment, either.
Nonetheless, the next day, my boyfriend said, “You know, I’d be down to take that stuff again and have more sex.” I agreed. And surely any experiment that ends in me having more sex is a successful experiment, right?
So my conclusion is, horny goat weed: The world is burning, so I guess I might as well.
OMG This New Footage Of Aliens And UFO’s Is Amazing
How To Not Lose Your Cool During An Argument
January 22, 2024
It’s happened to most of us – emotions run high during a disagreement and you end up saying or doing things you later regret. Yelling, accusing, or even worse, can damage trust and connection in relationships.
Maintaining composure during an argument is not just about self-control; it’s about fostering effective communication, respect, and ultimately, stronger relationships. Here’s how you can master the art of keeping your cool during heated moments.
1. Recognize the Signs of Escalation
Before you can prevent a volcano from erupting, you need to recognize its warning signs. Pay attention to your body’s signals. Increased heart rate, a rise in body temperature, or a clenched jaw can all indicate that your emotions are escalating. By recognizing these signs early, you can take proactive steps to remain calm.
2. Pause and Breathe
It sounds simple, but the power of a pause coupled with deep breathing is profound. Our bodies are hardwired for the fight-or-flight response when faced with conflict. This means adrenaline surges, heart rate skyrockets, and rational thought takes a vacation to Mars. But before you launch into a tirade that would make a sailor blush, take a deep breath (or ten). Inhale slowly through your nose, feeling your belly expand. Exhale slowly through your mouth, imagining all the tension whooshing out with each breath. Repeat. This simple act activates your parasympathetic nervous system, the calming counterpoint to fight-or-flight, and brings you back to a more rational state.
3. Listen Actively
In the heat of an argument, we often listen to respond rather than to understand. Shift your focus to truly hearing the other person. This doesn’t mean you have to agree with them, but understanding their perspective can change the tone of the conversation and lead to more constructive outcomes.
Repeat and paraphrase. Restating what you heard shows you’re listening and delays an impulsive response. “I hear you saying I don’t contribute enough, is that correct?”
4. Use “I” Statements
Express your feelings and thoughts without placing blame or judgment on the other person. Statements like “I feel frustrated when…” are less likely to provoke defensiveness than “You always…” This approach keeps the conversation centered on your experience rather than pointing fingers.
Don’t make it personal. Criticize the action, not the person. Say “I wish you had consulted me before deciding” not “You’re so inconsiderate.”
5. Keep the Goal in Mind
Remind yourself of the argument’s objective. Is it to win, to prove a point, or to reach a mutual understanding? Keeping the ultimate goal in mind can help steer the conversation away from unnecessary tangents and personal attacks.
6. Agree to Disagree
Sometimes, the best resolution is to respectfully acknowledge your differences. Not every argument will end with a clear winner or a unified opinion, and that’s okay. Agreeing to disagree can be a mature way to conclude a heated discussion without escalating emotions further.
7. Practice Empathy
Try to see the situation from the other person’s perspective. Empathy doesn’t require you to abandon your stance, but it fosters a more compassionate and understanding environment, making it easier for all parties to keep their cool.
8. Know When to Walk Away
If the argument is spiraling and productive communication is no longer possible, it might be time to step away. If you need to, say “I’m feeling too upset to discuss this calmly” and leave the room. Walk away to decompress before continuing.
Taking a break allows everyone involved to cool down, reflect, and revisit the discussion later with a clearer, calmer mindset
The Takeaway
Arguments are not inherently negative; they can be catalysts for growth, understanding, and change. The key is not to avoid them but to navigate them with composure and respect. By mastering the art of keeping your cool, you transform conflicts into opportunities for strengthening relationships and building mutual respect. Remember, it’s not about suppressing your emotions but about expressing them in a way that is constructive rather than destructive. So, the next time you find yourself in the heat of an argument, take a deep breath, and remember these strategies. Your relationships will thank you for it.
What is the cheapest/most useless thing you’ve sold for a ridiculously great profit?
I was at a yard sale once, and came across a glass jar of large marbles that had funny little figures of animals in them.
A friend of mine collected marbles, so I thought I’d buy them and give them to him to be funny. I think I paid $2 or so.
A week later, I visited my friend, and pulled out the jar, and asked him what he thought of my find. He went nearly white, and started pulling large books down off his shelves. An hour later, he had identified just about every last one. I could see the longing in his eyes. I asked if he wanted them. He looked at his price lists he’d written down, and said he couldn’t afford them. I said I’d just give them to him, but he refused that, too. Finally, I suggested he buy them from me for half price. He was delighted. At the end of the night, after sorting, cleaning, and classifying each one, he offered me $50 . . .
. . . per marble.
EDIT: More than half the comments ask what these were. They were very rare Sulphide Marbles, and they looked a lot nicer than the ones pictured here.
As for the people saying “Some friend you are!” . . . trust me, it was a compromise. He made even more on the deal than I did, and we’re still friends.
Why do computer science people get annoyed when someone asks, “Can you fix my computer?”
It pisses me off, because I love you.
When you give me the “can you fix my computer” call, the call means something different to me than it means to you.
To me, it means I will have to stay up all night, buy and try and swap replacement parts, image and restore your hard drive, remove all the malware, replace the cap on the motherboard that is clearly about to blow, and make your computer work the way you imagine it once did, all while ignoring my other family members, my paying work and life commitments.
At my standard rates I would typically charge around $4,000 to fix your seven year old virus-ridden Dell. Your seven year old virus-ridden Dell isn’t worth $100 on Ebay. Should I tell you that? Will you think I am lying or making the $4,000 number up? I am not. You will think I am insulting you if I tell you I make $4,000 for similar work. You are too cheap and too poor to pay me anywhere near that much though.
Of course I could always send you to Geek Squad. They would of course stupidly and automatically reformat your hard drive and reinstall the OS. If I do that, you will lose all your bank records and baby pictures permanently, to vastly less competent technicians than myself. They would take your money and destroy your data, and they would not even fix the true source of the problem. And you would be very, very, very sad.
And I would know in my heart I could have helped you, but didn’t.
No. I won’t do that to you.
I will take pity on you because you are clearly panicking and unable to eat, sleep or breathe until I save you and your data.
For you, and you alone, I will do a first-rate professional forensic data recovery and reinstallation. I’ll image the non-booting drive, work around all the bad sectors, copy it onto a virtual machine, extract your baby pictures and Quicken data, install a new non-shitty hard drive, reinstall all the apps and operating system and your recovered data (sans viruses and spyware), replace the dying fan, update the BIOS, and I will furthermore provide you with an external drive and teach you how to back up your system regularly with it.
Disappointingly, you will fuck up your computer again in a few years, when you refuse to take my advice and do regular backups on the backup drive that I bought for you, specifically for that purpose.
And when your piece of shit computer fails again, you will call me. Panicking. Again.
And the agonizing cycle will repeat.
Being the computer expert in the family is like being the doctor in the family, except you’re the surgeon and everyone expects you to operate on them constantly, suddenly, perfectly, AND pay for the operating room and sedatives and hospital recovery, AND you still consistently refuse to follow my medical advice.
I do all this, for free, because you are so thankful afterwards.
I do all this, for free, because I love you.
I just wish you weren’t so fucking stupid about computers sometimes.
Single, Childless Men Are Saying A Hard No To Single Mothers Looking For A New Man For Support
This is amazingly great!
What is the worst medical misdiagnosis you have ever had or personally known someone to have had?
My former roommate was experiencing bleeding, although she was several years past menopause. Her PCP refused to do any testing because she was over 65 and suggested that she have a hearing test instead. Next stop was an OB/GYN that told her it couldn’t be the fibroids she had dealt with her whole adult life because those would have disappeared at menopause and sent her home without even checking her. The third, again with no tests, said she must have scratched herself “down there” and also sent her home.
Janet is a private person and didn’t mention any of this to me until the third brush off. I was furious and demanded that she see my PCP. She just went in for an initial consult and my doctor had he on the table for an exam immediately. Then she was sent for an ultrasound that found fibroids equaling a five-month pregnancy. The scheduled a hysterectomy where they found an inflamed fallopian tube. The biopsy of that reveled cancer cells, but only a couple.
Janet opted to go through preventative chemo and is cancer free eight years later. If she had followed the advice of the three prior doctors, the cancer would never have been caught and I doubt she would be alive today.
Ukraine SitRep: No Chance To Win – Zero Democracy – Power Scuffle
There are a few new reports and news bites from Ukraine which are of interest.
Stephen Biddle, a professor who was written on strategy and military power from a realist standpoint, looks at the state of the war In Ukraine.
How Russia Stopped Ukraine’s Momentum – Foreign Affairs, January 29, 2024
Deep Defense Is Hard to Beat
The essence:
By late spring, the Russians had adopted the kind of deep, prepared defenses that have been very difficult for attackers to break through for more than the last century of combat experience. Breakthrough has been—and still is—possible in land warfare. But this has long required permissive conditions that are now absent in Ukraine: a defender, in this case Russia, whose dispositions are shallow, forward, ill prepared, or logistically unsupported or whose troops are unmotivated and unwilling to defend their positions. That was true of Russian forces in Kyiv, Kharkiv, and Kherson in 2022. It is no longer the case.
The implications of this for Ukraine are grim. Without an offensive breakthrough, success in land warfare becomes an attrition struggle. A favorable outcome for Ukraine in a war of attrition is not impossible, but it will require its forces to outlast a numerically superior foe in what could become a very long war.
Biddle does not expand from there.
But we know that the current Russian disposition of waging an ‘active defense’ is delivering day by day some small progress along the whole front.
Ukraine’s artillery losses have become smaller because it simply lacks the munitions to fire. A cannon that can not fire stops to be a priority target.
First Person View (FBV) drones have became a major cause of all losses. Ukraine was first to use those but Russia has since rapidly ramped up their production. Meanwhile Ukraine is still lagging. Each day hundreds of these drones clear Ukrainian positions without causing significant losses for the attacking Russian side.
In the New Yorker Masha Gesses takes a look at the political scene in Kiev:
Ukraine’s Democracy in Darkness – (archived) – The New Yorker
With elections postponed and no end to the war with Russia in sight, Volodymyr Zelensky and his political allies are becoming like the officials they once promised to root out: entrenched.
Gessen finds that democracy in Ukraine, if it still exists, is in a sorry state:
Such was the state of Ukraine as it entered its third consecutive winter at war: still battling the demon of corruption, still defiant, yet visibly reduced, palpably tired. … In the meantime, in Ukraine, democracy is largely suspended. According to the regular order of things, Ukraine should have a Presidential election in March. Up until the end of November—a few weeks before the deadline for scheduling the election—Zelensky’s office seemed open to having one, but ultimately decided against it. “We shouldn’t have elections, because elections always create disunity,” Andriy Zagorodnyuk, a former defense minister who now advises the government, told me. “We need to be unified.”
An estimated four to six million Ukrainians are living under Russian occupation. At least four million are living in E.U. countries, a million more are living in Russia, and at least half a million are living elsewhere outside of Ukraine. Another four million have been internally displaced. These figures include a significant number of people who became adults after the war began and aren’t registered to vote. “Elections are a public discussion,” Oleksandra Romantsova, the executive director of Ukraine’s Center for Civil Liberties, which shared the Nobel Peace Prize in 2022, told me. “But a third of the population is connected with the military. Another third is displaced.” With so many people excluded from the public discussion, what would an election even mean? …”
All power in Ukraine has been concentrated in the President’s office:
At the start of the war, when Russia was bombing Kyiv daily, the parliament had to consider the risks of continuing to hold meetings in its building, which has a glass roof. It decided to do so, but to vote only on bills that a majority wanted to bring to the floor, and to limit discussion of amendments. This effectively shifted the center of legislative work to the President’s office. Among other bills, the parliament approved the declaration of martial law, introduced by Zelensky on the first day of the war, and has regularly renewed it. Martial law enables the cabinet of ministers to control who can enter and leave the country—since the start of the war, men under the age of sixty have been forbidden to leave—and to regulate the work of all media outlets, printing presses, and distribution companies.
Zelensky’s office created the United News TV Marathon, a round-the-clock program of war-related news and talk shows, supplanting what had been a vibrant and varied television news market. The segments appear on six of Ukraine’s major channels and, at any given time, all of them are showing the same thing. Despite its name, United Marathon was clearly designed to be a sprint. In the early months of the war, the programming had a sense of urgency, of novelty and shock. Now even the worst days—when Russia fires a barrage of rockets that kill civilians across the country—are like all the other terrible days, when people are killed in the same way, in more or less the same places. There is little to analyze anymore. “The one thing all Ukrainians agree on is that we need an end to the Marathon,” Romantsova told me.
Other government-controlled media target an international audience.
An example of the power struggle around the presidential office could be witnessed yesterday.
Around noon several reliable political sources in Ukraine reported that President Zelensky had signed a decree to fire the Commander in Chief General Zaluzny. Hours later the Ministry of Defense denied that Zaluzny was fired.
From information gained since we can somewhat reconstruct what had happened.
Zaluzny had been ordered into the President’s office. He was asked to write his resignation. As consolation gift he would receive an ambassadorship in some western European country.
Zaluzny rejected the request and insisted of getting fired or being allowed to stay in place.
Zelenski had planned to promote the Chief of the Main Directorate of Intelligence in Ukraine Kyrylo Budanov as the new Commander in Chief.
Here is where I believe that other high officers, and likely also the U.S. military, stepped in.
Budanov has been in special forces intelligence from the very beginning of his career. He has never commanded anything larger than a group. Not a platoon, not a company, not a battalion, not a brigade, not a division and not a corp. How can someone who has zero experience in leading actual force formations supposed to be the commander of all Ukrainian forces including the army, air-force and navy?
It is impossible.
Budanov seems to be somewhat loyal to Zelenski (though I bet he really isn’t). He is handsome and looks good on camera. He is a smooth talker. He is also a creative and talented terrorist. His actual military operations though, like the ground raids into Belgograd, have mostly been mediocre failures.
I am pretty sure that the Pentagon and even the White House may have called Kiev and stopped Zelenski from implementing such nonsense.
Zaluzny will, for now, stay in his position.
But the whole affair will have diminished the military’s view of Zelenski and his consorts. In just one day a military coup In Kiev has suddenly become much more possible. As further the military situation deteriorates the higher are the chances that it will eventually happen. ———–
Posted by b on January 30, 2024 at 13:18 UTC | Permalink
Man Humbles A Room Full Of Women| You Owe Him BOX If He Pays!
Thinkers OUTSIDE the United States Say “Civil War in U.S. is Inevitable”
World Hal Turner 30 January 2024
Alexander Dugin is a renowned thinker in Russia. He has made remarks about the ongoing events between Texas and the Biden Regime and he thinks Civil War in the USA is now “inevitable.” Here’s his thoughts:
In America, the birthplace of pragmatism, pragmatism has vanished. The globalists, especially under the Biden regime, represent an extreme form of a globalist dictatorship, severing ties with the typically American tradition established by Charles Peirce and William James.
The tradition of pragmatism was based on a complete indifference to the prescription of normative content for both the subject and object. For a true pragmatist, the perceptions of the subject about itself, the object, or another subject are irrelevant — what matters is that everything functions effectively upon interaction.
However, globalists differ significantly, aligning more closely with British positivists and French fervent materialists. They persist with totalitarian brutality, dictating who and what should conform to their prescriptions.
To a pragmatist, it is inconsequential whether one changes their gender or remains the same, as long as it works for them. In contrast, globalists mandate gender changes, enforcing this through law and promoting it as a universal, progressive value. Anyone who opposes this view is labelled a ‘fascist’, or likened to Trump or Putin. They will insist on this approach, irrespective of its efficacy or self-defeating nature. Surprisingly, globalists share many traits with Ukrainians — an unsettling resemblance.
When globalists decide to increase illegal immigration, they relentlessly pursue this agenda, branding those advocating regulated immigration or border control as ‘fascists’, Trump supporters, or Putin agents. They press on with their prescriptive policies to the extreme, even if they prove utterly ineffective. For a globalist, anyone who disagrees with their viewpoint effectively does not — and should not — exist.
Hence, one can be certain that the progressives from the Democratic Party and the neoconservatives from both parties — just as obstinate and disconnected from pragmatism, realism, or traditional conservatism, thus alienating America’s true essence – are steering the country towards an inevitable civil war.
They refuse to engage in meaningful dialogue, disregarding whether their policies work or not. Their focus remains fixated on enforcing their ideals: transgender rights, illegal immigration, pro-choice stances, open borders, green energy, and artificial intelligence.
This represents a profound philosophical contradiction within the American system. Today, America is governed by those deeply out of touch with its identity, and thus, a new civil war in the USA seems inevitable. The globalists are set to ensure its outbreak.
Translated by Constantin von Hoffmeister
JRE | 40 years ago, a KGB defector chillingly predicted modern America
Chicken Parma
Our inspired rendition of the classic Chicken Parmigiana. Tender chicken cutlets, encrusted with Parmesan cheese and seasonings, are topped with marinara sauce and mozzarella.
Ingredients
- 1/4 cup plain dry bread crumbs
- 1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese
- 1/2 teaspoon McCormick® Garlic Powder
- 1/2 teaspoon McCormick® Perfect Pinch® Italian Seasoning
- 1 pound thin-sliced boneless skinless chicken breasts
- 3 tablespoons oil, divided
- 1 cup marinara or spaghetti sauce
- 1 cup shredded mozzarella cheese
Instructions
- Heat oven to 350 degrees F.
- Mix bread crumbs, Parmesan cheese, garlic powder and Italian seasoning on plate.
- Moisten chicken lightly with water. Coat evenly with bread crumb mixture.
- Heat 2 tablespoons of the oil in large nonstick skillet on medium heat.
- Cook 1/2 of the chicken pieces for 3 to 4 minutes per side or until golden brown.
- Transfer chicken to foil-lined 13 x 9 inch baking pan. Repeat with remaining chicken, adding remaining 1 tablespoon oil if necessary. Spoon sauce evenly over chicken. Sprinkle with mozzarella cheese.
- Bake for 5 to 10 minutes or until heated through and cheese is melted.
- Serve with cooked spaghetti, if desired.
Prep: 15 min | Cook: 25 min | Servings: 4
Nutritional information (amount per serving) Total Calories: 398 Sodium: 478mg Fat: 22g Carbohydrates: 13g Cholesterol: 100mg Protein: 37g Fiber: 1g
What was said at a funeral that you will never forget?
We had a patient in our practice who came in with a badly infected tooth that needed a root canal right away. My partner examined him and warned him to start that day. He was unconvinced and said he wanted to wait, even declining his offer for a prescription. That patient was also a friend of my partner’s family and, wouldn’t you know it, there was a death in his family only one day later. I walked into the funeral home chapel and my partner greeted me. Ten minutes later, that patient walked in, with noticeable swelling that had reached to right under his left eye. When he saw us, he quickly walked away from us to the corner of the room. My partner finally went over to him and the man said, “I’m so sorry, doctor, you were right and I deserve what I have”. We called in a prescription for pain meds and antibiotics for him right away a he came in 2 days later.
Wife COMPLAINS The Open Marriage She Wanted Isn’t Fair As Husband Is Treating His GF Better Than Her
Stop Deluding Yourselves! NESARA/GESARA, Like “Q” and “Q Anon” and “Q Storm,” is a Fraud
World Hal Turner 31 January 2024
We’ve all heard about “The White Hats” from “Q”, and “Q Anon” and “Q Storm”, which tell readers a secret group of high level people in the military is going to “save the country.” It’s all lies. Another such lie is the NESARA/GESARA thing. More delusion. Stop deluding yourself!
According to Wikipedia: The National Economic Security and Recovery Act (NESARA) is a set of proposed economic reforms for the United States suggested during the 1990s by private citizen Harvey Francis Barnard. Barnard claimed that the proposals, which included replacing the income tax with a national sales tax, abolishing compound interest on secured loans, and returning to a bimetallic currency, would result in 0% inflation and a more stable economy. The proposals were never introduced before Congress.
Since the early 2000s, NESARA has become better known as the subject of a cult-like conspiracy theory whose original promoter was Internet personality Shaini Candace Goodwin, better known as “Dove of Oneness”. Goodwin, who appropriated the NESARA notions without Barnard’s consent, claimed that the act was actually passed with additional provisions as the National Economic Security and Reformation Act, and then suppressed by the George W. Bush administration and the Supreme Court. Goodwin’s conspiracy emails were translated into several languages and had a large following online.[1] Adherents to the theory have also been using the name GESARA (standing either for Global Economic Security and Recovery Act[2] or Global Economic Security and Reformation Act[3]) in order to extend the proposed NESARA reforms outside the US and to the rest of the world.[3]
Monetary reform proposal
Harvey Francis Barnard (1941–2005), an engineering consultant and teacher with a PhD in systems theory, created the NESARA proposal during the late 1980s and early 1990s.[4] Barnard printed 1,000 copies of his proposal, titled Draining the Swamp: Monetary and Fiscal Policy Reform (1996), and sent copies to members of Congress, believing it would pass quickly on its merits. Based on a theory that debt is the number one economic factor inhibiting the growth of the economy, and compound interest the number one “moral evil” and reason for debt, Barnard made several other attempts during the 1990s to draw political attention to the problems he saw in the US economy, and his suggested economic recovery proposal based on the root causes he determined. After Barnard’s efforts to gain political support did not succeed, he decided in 2000 to release his proposal to the public domain and publish it on the Internet. Barnard established the NESARA Institute in 2001, and published the second edition of his book in 2005, retitling it Draining the Swamp: The NESARA Story – Monetary and Fiscal Policy Reform.[1][5]
Conspiracy theory
Dove of Oneness
Soon after Barnard released NESARA on the Internet, a user known as “Dove of Oneness” began posting about it in forums and eventually created a website devoted to it. “Dove of Oneness” was later identified as Shaini Candace Goodwin, a former student of Ramtha’s School of Enlightenment.[1] Goodwin claimed that the NESARA bill languished in Congress before finally being passed by a secret session in March 2000 and signed by President Bill Clinton. Her theory held that the new law was to be implemented at 10 a.m. on September 11, 2001, but that the computers, and data (of the beneficiaries of the trillions of dollars of “Prosperity funds”) were destroyed on the second floor of one of the World Trade Center towers in New York City during the terrorist attacks. Supposedly an earlier gag order issued by the Supreme Court had prohibited any official or private source from discussing it, under penalty of death.[1] Goodwin referred to “White Knights,” most of them high-ranking military officials, who have since been struggling to have the law implemented despite opposition by President George W. Bush. Goodwin purported that Bush orchestrated the September 11 attacks and the Iraq War as distractions from NESARA.[6][7]
Goodwin’s description of NESARA goes far beyond Barnard’s proposal by cancelling all personal debts, abolishing the Internal Revenue Service, declaring world peace, and requiring new presidential and congressional elections. Goodwin often claimed that Bush officials were attempting to hack into and bring down her web site to prevent her from publicizing the law.[8] She would purport to be connected with powerful authorities and used authoritative language, publishing messages in which she “ordered” the “White Knights” to enforce NESARA.[9]
Goodwin began commenting on NESARA in connection with Omega Trust, a fraudulent investment scheme whose creator, Clyde Hood, was on trial at the time. According to Goodwin, Omega Trust investors would receive their returns after NESARA was announced.[1][10] Goodwin repeatedly predicted that the NESARA announcement would occur in the very near future,[11][12][13] although in later years she became more reserved in these predictions.[14]
Barnard became aware of Goodwin’s description of NESARA before his death in 2005. He denied that NESARA had been enacted into law or even assigned a tracking number, and condemned Goodwin’s allegations as a disinformation campaign.[15]
Goodwin promoted the NESARA theory until her death in 2010.[16]
Further developments
After Goodwin began commenting on NESARA, other Internet-based conspiracy theorists latched onto it. One supporter, Sheldan Nidle, ties the imminent NESARA announcement into his years-old prophecy of an imminent large scale UFO visitation by benevolent aliens (occasionally on his website reports, but more prominently in his videos,[17] seminars and public appearances). Jennifer Lee, who used to publish internet NESARA status reports almost daily[18] on her now defunct site, discussed a host of other-worldly and “interdimensional” beings who are helping behind the scenes to get NESARA announced. Late Internet conspiracy theorist Sherry Shriner, who operated multiple websites, saw NESARA as linked to malevolent reptiloid aliens she asserted long controlled the U.S. government.[19]
Some NESARA supporters also make the claim that otherworldly beings are working to get NESARA announced. These include a “channeled” cosmic being called “Hatonn”[20] (an android Pleiadean), and another named “Sananda”. According to some proponents of Ascended Master Teachings, such as Joshua David Stone, Sheldan Nidle, and Luis Prada, “Sananda” is the “galactic name” of Ascended Master Jesus, which he uses in his role as Commander-in-Chief of the Ashtar Command flying saucer fleet. “Pallas Athena” is regarded as being the Vice-Commander of the saucer fleet. Ashtar (Ashtar Sheran) is regarded in these teachings as being third-in-command.[21] The designation of George W. Bush as a disguised reptilian often co-occurred with this claim.[22] Goodwin has claimed that Ascended Master Saint Germain came down from the etheric plane to physically meet with heads of banks and world leaders regarding the NESARA announcement.[23][24]
Followers of the NESARA conspiracy theory began using the name “GESARA” in the mid-2010s, by referencing the set of reforms as a “Global” – and not “National” – Economic Security and Reformation Act. They notably claimed that several East Asian groups were involved in enforcing the reforms worldwide, including the purported “White Dragon Society” which would benefit from fundings by “the successors of the last Chinese Emperor, Pu Yi“. One prominent advocate of “GESARA” has been a blogger based in the UK and going by the name “Alcuin Bramerton”. In 2020, “Bramerton” asserted that the “NESARA global prosperity programmes” were about to be announced and activated through an entity called the “Saint Germain World Trust” which would provide “one quattuordecillion US dollars” to “zero out (permanently cancel) all personal, corporate and national debts worldwide” and that further money would be provided to the “White Dragon Society” by the “Manchu family syndicate”.[3]
NESARA groups are known for certain to exist and to have attracted press attention in Utah,[25][26] and the Netherlands.[27] Members of these groups get together to discuss the status of NESARA, read the various reports, hold protests, and pass out fliers about NESARA to the public. Goodwin claimed that NESARA groups exist throughout several nations and US states including California, Washington, Arizona, and Texas, and provides hundreds of pieces of photographic evidence of people in public protests holding NESARA banners,[28][29] but it is not clear to what degree the people holding the banners are aware of what NESARA is, or for how long these groups were active. The News Tribune has traced the story behind at least some of these photos (photos of trucks driving around Washington, D.C. bearing the words “NESARA Announcement Now!”), and found that they were part of a $40,000 advertising campaign allegedly paid for by an elderly San Francisco resident who had made donations to Goodwin.[27]
NESARA’s concepts have also been incorporated by other conspiracy theories. In 2022, Bellingcat compared NESARA/GESARA to a “grandfather” of QAnon and reported that as QAnon’s iconography and concepts were declining in popularity, its adherents were becoming more and more invested in NESARA concepts and reviving that older movement.[2] People involved with the sovereign citizen movement have also subscribed to NESARA-related theories.[30]
Comparison to a cult and scam accusations
Critics consider NESARA to be a cult. Pointing to the fact that Goodwin, Lee, and Nidle frequently solicited donations from their readers, they accuse these leaders of being primarily interested in securing a steady stream of income for themselves.[31][32][33] Goodwin, who also asked readers to donate their frequent flyer miles,[34] claimed that she needed and had used the funds to travel to various locations around the world to secretly meet with high-level government officials about getting NESARA announced.[34][35] In 2004, The News Tribune published an article which called Goodwin a “cybercult queen” and described the NESARA phenomenon as a scam.[1]
A June 2006 complaint to the Washington consumer protection division accused Goodwin of using the NESARA story to defraud a 64-year-old San Francisco woman of at least $10,000. The woman’s daughter said the actual amount is much larger, in the hundreds of thousands.[27]
The prominence of failed prophecy also lends support to the cult theory. NESARA supporters often tell their readers that the NESARA announcement is going to happen in a matter of days. According to the documentary Waiting For NESARA, the claim was also made prior to March 2003 that George Bush was planning the war with Iraq only to further delay the NESARA announcement. It was prophesied that spiritual beings and UFOs would intervene with Bush’s plans and prevent the war.[25]
See also
Further reading
- Gulyas, Aaron John (2021). Conspiracy and Triumph: Theories of a Victorious Future for the Faithful. McFarland. ISBN 978-1476680767.
Notes and references
- ^ Jump up to:a b c d e f Robinson, Sean (18 July 2004). “Snared by a Cybercult Queen, Dove of Oneness”. The News Tribune. Retrieved 12 February 2021.
- ^ Jump up to:a b “As QAnon Falters, European Followers Flock to a Financial Conspiracy”. Bellingcat. 21 December 2022. Retrieved 26 December 2022.
- ^ Jump up to:a b c Gulyas 2021, pp. 161–162.
- ^ “Harvey Francis Barnard obituary”. The Advocate. Legacy.com. 24–26 May 2005. Retrieved 21 April 2020.
- ^ “A Legislative Proposal for Monetary and Fiscal Policy Reform (was: The National Economic Stabilization and Recovery Act)”. Archived from the original on 1 December 2014. Retrieved 12 February 2021.
- ^ Goodwin, Shaini (11 September 2006). “NESARA’s Announcement Brings Truth about 9-11 Attacks”. Archived from the original on 3 July 2009. Retrieved 21 April 2020.
- ^ Goodwin, Shaini. “Announcement this Week?—NESARA Update #21”. Archived from the original on 16 April 2003. Retrieved 21 April 2020.
- ^ Robinson, Sean (19 July 2004). “Up against ‘the dark agenda'”. Retrieved 21 April 2020.
- ^ Gulyas 2021, p. 58.
- ^ “NESARA Scam”. Quatloos!. Retrieved 21 April 2020.
- ^ Goodwin, Shaini (4 May 2002). “NESARA: Gov. and U.S. Treasury Currency Info; Pros. Prg Deliveries”. Archived from the original on 18 June 2004. Retrieved 21 April 2020.
- ^ Goodwin, Shaini (8 March 2004). “NESARA Debt Relief in U.S.; Income Taxes End; NESARA Editorial & Confirmations”. Archived from the original on 11 April 2004. Retrieved 21 April 2020.
- ^ Goodwin, Shaini (13 October 2003). “NESARA; Dove Reports Email Improvements; Wild-eyed Currency Stories”. Archived from the original on 27 August 2004. Retrieved 21 April 2020.
- ^ Goodwin, Shaini (23 June 2006). “NESARA Chronicles Parts 4 and 5”. Archived from the original on 25 September 2006. Retrieved 21 April 2020.
- ^ “Rabbits: Rumors – The “Real” NESARA”. The NESARA Institute. Archived from the original on 3 February 2009. Retrieved 21 April 2020.
- ^ Gulyas 2021, p. 46.
- ^ “PAO Products”. Planetary Activation Organization. Retrieved 21 April 2020.
- ^ “Jennifer Lee NESARA Reports”. Quatloos!. Retrieved 21 April 2020.
- ^ Shriner, Sherry. “NESARA Sucks: The Beast Economic Program”. Retrieved 21 April 2020.
- ^ Ward, Suzy (July 18, 2005). “Special NESARA Edition”. The Matthew Books. Retrieved 2007-09-25. Ward claims to write books that are “channeled” from her son, Matthew, who died in April, 1980 at the age of 17. The message cited is claimed to be channeled through a higher level “cosmic being” named “Hatonn”
- ^ Peterson, Ken. “Sananda on NESARA and Compassion”. Retrieved 2007-09-25.
- ^ Icke, David. “The Windsor-Bush Bloodline”. Archived from the original on 2007-03-31. Retrieved 2007-09-25.
- ^ Goodwin, Shaini (April 28, 2007). “Peace Ordered; Corp. Eviction; Ascended Masters Working On Our Behalf”. Retrieved 2007-09-25.
- ^ Goodwin, Shaini (July 28, 2002). “Support NESARA Fully to Receive Full Prosperity”. Retrieved 2007-09-25.
- ^ Jump up to:a b Haradon, Zeb and Elisa. “Waiting for NESARA”. Archived from the original on 2 January 2006. Retrieved 21 April 2020.
- ^ Robinson, Sean (6 August 2004). “Documentary spotlights NESARA cult; Dove’s followers”. The News Tribune. Retrieved 21 April 2020.
- ^ Jump up to:a b c Sean, Robinson (18 June 2006). “Some lucrative ‘New Age hooey'”. The News Tribune. Archived from the original on 30 September 2007. Retrieved 21 April 2020.
- ^ “NESARA— Also called the Reformation Act”. Archived from the original on 10 February 2010. Retrieved 21 April 2020. includes several photo galleries: NTAT in action – July 4th 2005; [1][2]
- ^ Goodwin, Shaini (2 October 2005). “NESARA Finishes Farm Claims Actions; NTAT Report; Canadians Sue Banks”. Archived from the original on 3 July 2009. Retrieved 21 April 2020.
- ^ Sovereign Citizens Movement, Southern Poverty Law Center, retrieved January 6, 2022
- ^ Goodwin, Shaini (February 6, 2007). “NESARA Lights Carry NESARA Forward”. Retrieved 2007-09-25.
- ^ Nidle, Sheldan. “Sheldan Nidle Updates”. Retrieved 2007-09-25.
- ^ Lee, Jennifer (October 7, 2003). “Jennifer Lee NESARA Reports”. Retrieved 2007-09-25.
- ^ Jump up to:a b Goodwin, Shaini (October 24, 2004). “NESARA; Bush Regime Stalls 9-11 Report by CIA Group; NTAT Reports”. Retrieved 2007-09-25.
- ^ Goodwin, Shaini (July 18, 2004). “The Truth About Dove of Oneness: Her Life & Activities”. Retrieved 2007-09-25.
Even if you don’t believe the Wikipedia information and sourced citations beneath it, the whole idea that NESARA is somehow “secretly signed into law by Bill Clinton,” is totally absurd. Here in the United States, there is no such thing as a secret law. There can’t be. If it is secret, how would anyone know to obey it? How would anyone avoid breaking it? The whole notion is stupid.
Yet there are literally thousands of people who buy into this crap on its face. STOP BEING STUPID.
How do felons get jobs if no one hires felons?
My dad was a bricklaying contractor (in the UK), think in the US that would be a stonemason? , He used to get letters from guys in prison saying they were getting out and could they have a job.
My dad consistently hired some of these guys, they were hod carriers, they were dirt workers and they earned good money for a good day’s work.
I remember an argument on site as one guy basically wanted to steal some stuff and one of the ex-cons was arguing with him (and it was about to get ugly) that you steal from others, but not from the guy who has helped you with work when you are out of prison.
As a teenager, I learned a lot from the felons who worked in construction. Every one of them did nothing but tell me to stay in school and go to college and work. One of them showed me the math of how even doing a bank job wouldn’t make you more than having a job for the 20 years you would spend in prison.
I learned not to swear at people, I did it once and one of the felons smacked me so hard I fell over, he helped me up and told me never to lose my temper with people and swear and shout unless I was willing and able to fight.
One of them, in particular, was a bad guy, he made no bones about it, beatings and at least one murder that he was suspected in. He worked harder to make sure I knew to stay in school and go get a real job and if he mentioned drugs once he must have mentioned them a million times.
Some felons should be locked up and have the key thrown away but most of the ones I have met in construction and later when I worked in a bar, knew they had done wrong and didn’t want anyone else going down the same path.
Felons get jobs by convincing someone to give them a chance and then not screwing it up for the next guy.
Have you ever witnessed an office prank that cost someone their job?
I and two other people were hired for the support department of a new financial software product. My job was to work with the developers on enhancements. The other two were software and hardware support. None of us knew UNIX, and that’s all this company used. PCs and MS-DOS were relatively common then, but not at this company. So, we had a sheet of commands to learn and the chief developer was training us.
“What’s this” said the prospective hardware guy when he saw the “wall” command. “That’s Write ALL” said the C.D. It puts a message in the message line of all the terminals on the system. But … don’t use it. That’s only for the System Admin or me, if they want us to broadcast a message to everyone.
Two weeks later, a Friday afternoon around 4:00 PM (office closes at 5:00) we all get a “REPORT TO CONF RM ASAP” followed by “ALL STAFF NO EXCEPTION”. We all come flying out of our offices and into the combined conference/reception area. Four developers, the two QA people, the office manager, the receptionist, myself and I think my two colleagues are behind me. We’re all looking at the CIO’s door, and that comes flying open.
“What’s this all about” he says, turning to the office manager. “No idea,” she says and the C.D. says the same. Next a phone call from corporate in Los Angeles. A very angry chairman is asking the CIO what the F*** is going on. Where did this message come from. He’s headed back to the office right now and there’d better be answers for him when he gets there.
Now we’re all puzzled. You see this was 1990 and we all knew stories of companies firing whole staffs. Often enough it was just like this: call everyone in and group fire them. But if the chairman didn’t know what was going on … ????
Now we’re looking around and it finally dawns on everyone. We’re all there except for the new hardware tech. The CIO is now looking at the software support person and me. We both say “He was here an hour ago. Never said anything to us about leaving.” By this point, the CIO had asked the SysAdmin to trace the message.
Yes … that’s who sent it. He (so we learned) realized he’d made a big mistake as soon as he hit enter. He thought his little prank would give us a nice little jolt for a Friday afternoon. He never thought we’d take it seriously. So when he heard us all scramble for the conference room while one of the QA people said “this is how they fired everyone where I worked before this. Here we go again …” he knew he was in trouble.
He claimed that he hid in the bathroom in the hallway for a few minutes. He figured we’d all go back to our desks a few minutes later, realizing it was just a prank. But when he came back in, he saw we were still in the conference room and he heard some angry voices. He says he grabbed his coffee cup and hat, and left for good.
His plan (after his prank blew over as he thought it would) was to talk to the supervisor privately. He’d admit that he did it, take his talking to and life would go on. He claims he never expected a company wide firestorm. In part, he didn’t realize that this message would pop up on every terminal in corporate HQ.
Modern Women Frustrated About Men Refusing To APPROACH Them “Women Hitting The Wall”
What are some mind blowing life hacks?
- Start every phone call with “My battery is almost dead”. That way you can hang up on them at any time.
- Want to cut into another lane of traffic but nobody will let you in? Cut in front of a Tesla, autopilot will force the car to stop.
- Hit the space bar twice for a full stop, and the next letter will be automatically capitalized too.
- If you can’t think of a word, say “I forget the English word for it”. That way people will think you’re bilingual instead of an idiot.
- If the person sitting in front of you on a flight reclines their seat all the way back and leaves you with no room, turn on the air con above you to full blast and point it at the top of their head.
- The best way to charge your phone faster is by switching it to airplane mode before plugging it in.
- Wet your nail clippers before using them. Your clippings won’t fly everywhere.
- Drive around with broken, expensive items in your car.
- If you’d like to use emojis on your Mac desktop, simply press Control + Command + Spacebar to open the emoji menu.
- Whenever buying something online, try using the coupon code “military”. Many sites have a military discount and don’t require any proof of military service.
How are Chinese automakers able to sell EVs at a much lower price than American counterparts like General Motors?
First China has the complete package.
From being the most effective and efficient manufacturing to having the most reliable and effective batteries to having the world’s biggest market by far, even bigger than the rest of the world’s EV market put together to a government and industry leader that has been farsighted and supportive for generations planning to convert ICE to EV.
China unlike the U.S. is not torn between protecting the oil barons and protecting the environment. China decided to skip investment on ICE all together because it sees EVs as the future. GM’s as well as most major car manufacturers is torn between conserving and protecting their well refined ICE technologies and making the shift to EV.
China even corner the most crucial materials and technologies needed to produce EV’s BYD is the only battery manufacturer cum vehicle producer rolled into one. What is worst is China produces everything at a third of US cost!
Their CEO are paid 1% of US CEO, their workers are paid a fifth of western workers who demand 10 times more rights and benefits but are willing to work half as hard! There is no way on earth that U.S. can compete. Chinese government focus fully on helping its people and build the best infrastructure. The U.S. focus on forever wars!