the slavic snow kingdom
sparkling and silent
in its glacial cap,
the potato fields
shining and sweet
in the sun-drenched south.
as the day arrived
with all its Antipodean birthday blessings
what we will become
waits in us like an smile.
~ IRREPLACEABLE LyDIA
"A billionaire can only exist when markets fail, when they're able to rip consumers off, taking a larger slice of the pie," "A million seconds is 11.5 days. A billion seconds is 31.5 YEARS. It's a massive amount of money." said @MattGrudnoff on @tickerNEWSco
And a Trillion seconds is thirty one THOUSAND YEARS
Richness Behind Trillion of seconds
Behind every great fortune is …
As Stewart Stafford noted corruption has been the source for the demise of every great civilization.
“Society must show that blue-collar crime never pays. Insidious white-collar crime pays very well, and nothing is declared. It's the same reason why Financial Education, probably the most important subject of all, is absent from the general school curriculum - to keep the have-nots ignorant and the establishment's riches safe.”
You don't need visual effects if you have steel balls.
THE IMPORTANT THING IS THAT BEIJING GOT THE MONEY: WHO Squanders Cash on Shoddy Chinese Vaccines.
Malcolm and Lucy Turnbull investors behind US company providing police tech
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The intoxicating garden: Michael Pollan on growing psychoactive plants FT
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The Pandemic Opportunity Project Syndicate
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GOVERNMENTS GOING AFTER JOURNO TWEETS: Reuters reports that Twitter has received 26 percent more government requests to take down tweets by journalists in the last half of 2020. Bet you’re not surprised to hear that bureaucrats go to Twitter with such requests. India was the top requester, beating the U.S. for the first time in the Twitter compilation.
Twitter restricts account of expert who mocked China leader.
A New Zealand academic says Twitter temporarily restricted her account after she mocked Chinese President Xi Jinping.
University of Canterbury Professor Anne-Marie Brady is an expert on China’s attempts to exert political influence around the world and has been an outspoken critic of its ruling Communist Party. Last week, she sent tweets poking fun at the party’s 100th anniversary celebrations.
She said two of those tweets were temporarily marked “unavailable” by Twitter and her account was temporarily restricted over the weekend, before it was restored on Monday.
Twitter did not say what prompted its actions.
Edward Lucas, a columnist for The Times newspaper in Britain, wrote that it probably resulted from an online campaign of complaints by Communist Party agents which would have triggered an automatic response from Twitter while it investigated.
“After I had stoked a furor on Twitter and sent umpteen complaints, her account was restored,” Lucas wrote. “Less prominent victims of Chinese censorship would have scantier chances of redress.”
“Nothing can make our life, or the lives of other people, more beautiful than perpetual kindness.”
– Leo Tolstoy
COLD WAR II: China Is Preparing for Nuclear War.
Nuclear analyst Jeffrey Lewis revealed that China is building what appears to be 119 missile silos across more than 700 square miles in the Gansu desert. Construction began in February.
The silos suggest Beijing no longer seeks to maintain only a “minimal deterrent.” The Chinese military may even be building a nuclear “war-fighting” capability.
Lewis, the director of the East Asia Nonproliferation Program of the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies, has also identified another 26 silos in China.
“It’s really a startling pace of construction,” he said to CNN. “It’s much larger than anything we expected to see.”
The silos appear designed to take the DF-41 missile, which has a maximum range of 9,300 miles and can carry 10 warheads apiece. The 145 silos, if fully stocked, would pack a punch against continental American targets.