Welcome to Saturday's Potluck - April 22, 2023
“Learn the rules like a pro, so you can break them like an artist.”
Pablo Picasso
It seems time to contemplate placing one's hope in the courts to moderate a just society to live, work and maintain a government for the people. One of the methods to change government styles around the world in addition to trade, diplomacy, corporations and military conquest.
In 1644 the Manhattan colony in New Netherlands sent a letter to The Hague court complaining of an incompetent governing official assigned by West India Company and requested authority to create a more liberal form of government - a republic. In 1647 the official answer came with a newly appointed leader and four ships of soldiers to enforce the rules. (The Island at the Center of the World, 2004)
Discuss fracture lines beginning to appear in NATO's Euro-Atlantic family.
Ukraine NATO and the U.S. w/ Alastair Crooke (22:56)
The leak story has shifted significantly during the week. It has highlighted the changes over time of issuing security clearances and handling classified material.
U.S. Justice System Clown Show w/ Larry Johnson (20:59) April 21, 2023.
The article mentioned in the video
Will Jack Teixeira Get the General Petraeus Treatment For Mishandling Classified Intelligence? Sonar21 April 20, 2023
Best discussion I watched this week on the nitty gritty of changing security enviornment was on the Scott Ritter Show. Age of new Psy Ops | Who is behind the US intelligence leaks? | Scott Ritter Show (53:40 min) (hat tip Lookout)
Ukraine & the Globalist War Mongers - Col Doug Macgregor (27:59)
Taiwan may be getting a little nervous about the possible pivot from Ukraine to China.
Taiwan fears China war rumors in US damaging economic interests Taiwan News April 21, 2023
Taiwan has quietly told the United States to tone down talk about the possibility of Chinese military action, Bloomberg News reported Friday (April 21).
Government officials reportedly used “quiet conversations and back-channel warnings” to ask the Biden administration to be more circumspect in commenting about the risk to Taiwan’s semiconductor industry.
...
Repeated public cautions about the tension in the Taiwan Strait were also thought to have played a role in the decision by billionaire investor Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway to slash its holdings in the world’s top contract semiconductor maker, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC), by 86.2% in February.
It will take a little more effort than a change in public statements to reshift public awareness of coordinated United States activities in the pacific theater. Taiwan has less than 24 million people and falling birthrate birth, yet we have economically supported the Republic of China government for nearly a hundred years. It makes one wonder if there are legacy agreements still existing from past centuries for territorial or commercial rights which could be enforced if Republic of China was recognized as a free standing nation.
An Incomplete Report on US Military Activities in the South China Sea in 2022 (6:57 min)
U.S. and China wage war beneath the waves – over internet cables Reuters March 24, 2024
Subsea cables, which carry the world's data, are now central to the U.S.-China tech war. Washington, fearful of Beijing's spies, has thwarted Chinese projects abroad and choked Big Tech's cable routes to Hong Kong, Reuters has learned.
...
But the U.S. government, concerned about the potential for Chinese spying on these sensitive communications cables, ran a successful campaign to flip the contract to SubCom through incentives and pressure on consortium members.Reuters has detailed that effort here for the first time. It’s one of at least six private undersea cable deals in the Asia-Pacific region over the past four years where the U.S. government either intervened to keep HMN Tech from winning that business, or forced the rerouting or abandonment of cables that would have directly linked U.S. and Chinese territories. The story of those interventions by Washington hasn’t been previously reported.
...
Undersea cables are central to U.S.-China technology competition.Across the globe, there are more than 400 cables running along the seafloor, carrying over 95% of all international internet traffic, according to TeleGeography, a Washington-based telecommunications research firm. These data conduits, which transmit everything from emails and banking transactions to military secrets, are vulnerable to sabotage attacks and espionage, a U.S. government official and two security analysts told Reuters.
...
SubCom’s cable coup is part of a wider effort in Washington aimed at reining in China as Beijing strives to become the world's dominant producer of advanced technologies, be it submarines, semiconductor chips, artificial intelligence or drones. China is bulking up its military arsenal with sophisticated armaments. And Beijing has become increasingly assertive about countering U.S. influence worldwide through trade, weapons and infrastructure deals that are drawing wide swaths of the globe into its orbit.The U.S. cable effort has been anchored by a three-year-old interagency task force informally known as Team Telecom.
...
Three companies have dominated the construction and laying of fiber-optic subsea cables for decades: America’s SubCom, Japan’s NEC Corporation and France’s Alcatel Submarine Networks, Inc.But a seismic shift occurred in 2008 when Huawei Marine Networks Co Ltd entered the fray. Owned by Chinese telecom Huawei Technologies, the Tianjin-based company initially built small cable systems in underserved markets such as Papua New Guinea and the Caribbean.
Fast-forward 15 years and the firm, now known as HMN Tech, has become the world’s fastest-growing manufacturer and layer of subsea cables, according to TeleGeography data.
...
HMN Tech expanded its ambitions with the PEACE cable, which came online last year and connects Asia, Africa and Europe. The firm was poised to make another great leap with the Singapore-to-France project before SubCom snatched it away.The following account of how that deal fell apart for the Chinese players is based on interviews with six people directly involved in the SeaMeWe-6 contract. They all asked not to be named as they were not authorized to discuss potential trade secrets or matters of national security
China to launch rival undersea comms network – Reuters Russia Times April 6, 2023
China Telecom, China Mobile Limited and China Unicom are in the planning stages of what is expected to be a $500-million undersea fiber optic project connecting Asia with the Middle East and Europe, the sources said. The sprawling network, known as EMA (Europe-Middle East-Asia), is reportedly intended to compete with another cable system currently under construction by US firm SubCom LLC called SeaMeWe-6 (Southeast Asia-Middle East-Western Europe-6).
Chinese firm HMN Tech (formerly Huawei Marine Networks) was initially selected in 2020 to manufacture the cable for SeaMeWe-6 by a consortium that included the Chinese telecoms now working on EMA. However, a sustained US pressure campaign that included millions of dollars in “training grants” to foreign telecoms in return for switching their votes ultimately pushed the contract to HMN’s US competitor last year, despite significantly higher costs.
...
“The more the US and Chinese disengage from each other in the information technology domain, the more difficult it becomes to carry out global commerce and basic functions,” RAND’s Timothy Heath told Reuters, warning that forcing third countries to choose between the two “sides” would make technologies like GPS satellites and online banking much less reliable.
The most current livestream videos at this link.
Judge Napolitano channel ongoing discussions regarding current Ukraine/Russia conflict and Pentagon Leak from different perspectives. Additional shorts and interviews at this link. Since he asks similar questions to the various guests it is easier to identify the various viewpoints and spin when present.
What is on your mind today?
Comments
Worms on the brain
There is an invasive species of earthworms here in the northeast from
Asia that do the opposite of what we think earth worms are good for.
They eat the nutrients in the soii stripping the ability of plants to grow.
They have a yellow band for identification purposes.
Happy earth (worm) day!
The worms crawl in, the worms crawl out ... n/t
That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --
Good morning...
The war drums are beating in the US. The Ukraine proxy war isn't working out to well, so pivot to China!
Seems like Taiwan could see their province becoming the new Ukraine. Why would any country choose that fate?
Many of us have featured this documentary, and it seem appropriate to do so again.
The Coming War on China, from award winning journalist John Pilger, reveals what the news doesn’t – that the world’s greatest military power, the United States, and the world’s second economic power, China, both nuclear-armed, may well be on the road to war.
Nuclear war is not only imaginable, but planned. The greatest build-up of NATO military forces since the Second World War is under way on the western borders of Russia. On the other side of the world, the rise of China is viewed in Washington as a threat to American dominance.
To counter this, President Obama announced a ‘pivot to Asia’, which meant that almost two-thirds of all US naval forces would be transferred to Asia and the Pacific, their weapons aimed at China. A policy which has been taken up by his successor Donald Trump, who during his election campaign said “We can’t continue to allow China to rape our country and that’s what they’re doing”.
Filmed on five possible front-lines across Asia and the Pacific over two years, the story is told in chapters that connect a secret and ‘forgotten’ past to the rapacious actions of great power today and to a resistance, of which little is known in the West.
Thanks for the OT!
“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
China is Russia, Taiwan is Ukraine
Japan is Poland.....these morons only care about more war and
I'm not sure what can stop them. Has China ever invaded China
before? Didn't Japan once invade China so we should be more
concerned about China's sovereignty more than Japans?
I never knew that the term "Never Again" only pertained to
those born Jewish
"Antisemite used to be someone who didn't like Jews
now it's someone who Jews don't like"
Heard from Margaret Kimberley
Is this Godwin?
I’ve never understood what it meant.
Kunstler on RFK Jr
Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.
Kunstler gets it right
I don't believe that elections can change what
the country has become but if given an equal shot
RFK jr could be the one that actually gives hope and
can change what we've become.....if he lives long enough
I never knew that the term "Never Again" only pertained to
those born Jewish
"Antisemite used to be someone who didn't like Jews
now it's someone who Jews don't like"
Heard from Margaret Kimberley
Not a perfect example, but a definite instance
(Wikipedia)
This whiner didn't wait for discussion or lengthy discourse, but just jumped right out there almost immediately.
BTW, "Godwins" aren't always inappropriate or unapt (unapt/inapt??).
be well and have a good one
That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --
Nothing to see here! /S
The truth hurts but this is where we are at.
2 fers
2 fools are better than one.
Yoon creates makes two more enemies, I guess a nuclear armed North Korea isn't enough.
https://english.hani.co.kr/arti/english_edition/e_editorial/1088736.html
Pissing off China, I think it came from the same Reuters interview with Yoon published April 18.
https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3217883/south-korea-hi...
The Taipei Times however, had the wording of Yoon's gaffe, which SCMP left out-
https://www.taipeitimes.com/News/front/archives/2023/04/20/2003798272
Yes, Yoon is a fool. Worse, he's jeopardizing his own country's national security and economy.
Critics inside South Korea include a former Chair of the National Assembly Committee on National Defense, Jang Yeong-ja who addressed the candlelight demonstration today at the initial rallying point, at Namdaemun, Seoul. Kim Byung-chu, former deputy commander, Combined Forces Command, and current National Assembly Representative, and a former National Intelligence Director, Pak Ji-won have also publicly criticized President Yoon's adoption of policies alienating China and Russia without consultation with the National Assembly and by announcing them in the American press before his summit with President Biden. I guess the recent upsurge in military tensions and maneuvers raising tensions with a nuclear armed North Korea aren't enough of a problem for the diplomatically inexperienced former prosecutor.
So it's a two-fer, I'll add the Taiwan news piece on Maj Gen Vowell's boss-
https://focustaiwan.tw/politics/202304190007
Sounds like the US Forces Korea motto- "fight tonight." Catchy isn't it?
Lyle Goldstein still believes that the Chinese armed forces could carry out an amphibious invasion of Taiwan in spite of armed opposition from them and the US. I've heard other "experts" on China say, they don't need to invade Taiwan, they could just conduct an effective blockade. I don't believe that there is a US military solution to the Taiwan "problem" it is creating.
Lyle's tweet on his Gangnam visit shows that although you may be an expert on China, that doesn't mean you know anything about South Korea.
Why is he shocked? Japan still claims Dokdo is their territory and has done so while "tri-lateral" naval exercises were going on in the East Sea/Sea of Japan. There are claims the subject was even brought up during Yoon's summit with Prime Minister Kishida.
This is typical right wing LDP Japan behavior-
https://koreajoongangdaily.joins.com/2023/04/21/national/diplomacy/korea...
Joongang Ilbo (NY Times partner in South Korea) tries to make Yoon's administration look "tough on Japan" after last month's humiliating summit. Anticipating more flubs at the US-South Korea summit.
A couple of pics of the candlelight demo courtesy of Balgan Agae. The demo started at Namdaemun, proceeded to Gwanghwhamun, passed by the US embassy making their views known, Yoon is a US slave; war mongering Tri-lateral alliance: US criminal wire tapper; topple traitor Yoon, etc. What the demo lacked in size it made up for in quality. I really think the economic conditions in South Korea have deteriorated to such an extent, that it's difficult for people to come out to participate, whether they live in Seoul or elsewhere in South Korea.
"미국의 종노릇하는 윤석열을 몰아내자!" 36차 촛불대행진 / 오후 5시 시청-숭례문 앞 대로 [빨간아재]
빨간아재 Apr 22 youtube
US Embassy Seoul protected by line of police busses on left.
Great links and videos SOF, thanks!
(Edited to correct Maj Gen Vowell's name and rank.)
語必忠信 行必正直
Japan seems to be competing with South Korea as to who
is the better vassal of the US.
the threatened intercept
...of a North Korean missile test has been a concern of mine, when the US and Japan conduct one of their Aegis exercises in the Sea of Japan. The defense minister's statement doesn't make any reference to joint action with the US. This was one of the concerns expressed by Kim Byung-ju and others in the opposition in South Korea, that enhanced GSOMIA real time access would give Japan a potential option to trigger an armed conflict with North Korea in a situation like this, whether South Korea wanted it or not.
However, I don't necessarily follow the Japanese "vassal" theory. Japan has its own reasons to support US policy in the region, ill considered or not. Japan enjoyed economic growth during the Korean and Vietnam wars as a result of those wars. Getting Taiwan within the US-Japanese defense perimeter would be ideal from both countries' points of view. The LDP right wing imo encourages the worst tendencies in the so called US Indo-Pacific policy. In fact, the policy originated with them.
At the same time, the Japanese reasonably see the US as a necessary ally in defense of itself against North Korea, and China. Probably against Russia as well, although, I haven't looked into this in any depth. Russian military cooperation with Chinese armed forces in and around Japan has been going on for a few years. I've also read that Japan encouraged US naval vigilance in the South China Sea, to "widen the anti-China front," away from their Ryukyu chain. There are also competing Japanese v. Chinese EEZ claims in the East Sea. There was Japanese involvement in arranging the 2016 Permanent Court of Arbitration hearing on a claim the Philippines brought against China. The decision essentially eliminated China's claim to an extensive EEZ in the Spratly islands. I think the decision exacerbated the South China Sea conundrum rather than pointing to a solution.
Japan is arming up, improving their military posture, discussing offensive "counterstrike" tactics, etc., because they want to. This is the philosophy or ideology of the ruling right wing LDP party. It isn't that popular with the Japanese public but like the US, Japanese elites don't really care what ordinary Japanese may think, as long as they can maneuver around it politically. They've been taking a salami slicing approach to the constitutional proscription of offensive armed forces. Their real challenge right now, is raising revenues to fund their proposed doubling of Japan's armed forces budget in five years. The Japanese people are already taxed very heavily according to Hosaka Yuji.
Of course, the US wants to "unleash Japan." They've wanted this for a while to counter growing Chinese power. The US has encouraged Japan to arm up. I think its the wrong course for Japan's own security, mostly because I don't trust their leadership now, any more than I trust ours or that of the two Korea's. I think they're all just one step away from a terrible war. Japan got a commitment from Biden to back them militarily if a conflict broke out over the disputed Senkaku Islands near Taiwan. Abe's brother, when he was defense minister, went to Taiwan and promised support if they were attacked by China.
Thanks for your post Humphrey.
(edit) I wanted to add this link which outlines in summary way what the LDP ruling party >is all about by focusing on one of its top ideologists.
Kase Hideaki’s Revisionist Vision for Twenty-First-Century Japan: A Final Interview and Obituary
Rotem Kowner APJIF Jan. 15, 2023
https://apjjf.org/2023/1/Kowner.html
語必忠信 行必正直
This is excellent compilation on South Korea's
...nincompoop leader, President Yoon Suk-yeol.
Trump and Biden were the first 100 percent nincompoop Presidents that the US has experienced in modern history — belligerently unsophisticated, proudly ignorant, or brain damaged leaders who are yanked — by various internal powers, the neocons, the money mafia, the intelligence racketeers — this way and that. They haven't a clue how their own deep state and the geopolitical world operates. And often, their ego-clogged brains are unable to learn. They make expensive and deadly mistakes that shine an ugly light on US. (However, it took the efforts of many administrations, across the better part of a century, to make the US despised throughout the world.)
The US population is completely buried in propaganda. The people cannot think critically about politics, they cannot see the big picture, and they know almost nothing about the ancient trading patterns and relationships between the cultures of the world. The US, as a nation, has no meaningful history to serve as a foundation. The population was literally born yesterday. The People give no thought to the national interests, dreams, and humanity that animates each country in the world. In global matters, they are complacent to repeat the cheap, irrelevant slogans lodged in their brains, which reveals their ignorance. They have a knee-jerk fear and deep hatred of any foreign nation that is not subservient to the US, or does not obey US rules. This is how the American population has been conditioned to consent to- and pay for the US international atrocities and wars of aggression.
The US population is rapidly being conditioned to see protestors and dissenters as criminals, traitors, or enemy combatants. They now allow the nation's militarized police to beat citizens senseless for any reason at all. Most telling: the current Partys' front-running Presidential candidates for the next administration are the very same nincompoops: Trump and Biden! This is what a broken population does.
In what ways is the population different in South Korea? South Korea does have a long history and a very deep culture, yet they seem easily tricked, politically, without the existence of a solid center. Something seems to be hanging over them, weakening them. Or did Korea historically have a troubled identity?
____________________
The political system is what it is because the People are who they are. — Plato
One of the youtube analysts
I follow almost daily (언론 알아야 바꾼다) goes over the South Korean polls often, each time they come out. I think he's a political scientist but I don't really know. There is a solid center, people in their middle years, particularly in their forties and fifties but in the thirties too to a lesser extent. They didn't vote for him.
Yoon was put in office mostly by the younger voters, overwhelmingly male 18 to 30. High real estate prices, lack of job opportunity, no real opportunity for marriage, household formation, etc. It resulted in a backlash to the prior administration, worsened by the deteriorating economy caused by the covid epidemic. This young male demographic often labelled "ilbe" after internet web community of misogynists, held women responsible for their condition. Women got jobs while only young men were drafted, women get job preference, etc. They voted for Yoon out of immense dissatisfaction with their condition. Yoon said he would get rid of the department of children and families (they favor women, he said).
The other pro-Yoon faction are the elderly voters, 60 years of age and older. These voters are more likely to be in the conservative Christian congregations that overtly favored Yoon. They are also more likely to believe in the virtues of the old autocratic values based upon their childhood experiences and conditioning during the dictatorship era. They are sympathetic to the cold war perspective and readily succumb to labeling those who are progressive as pro-communist (balgengi).
The biggest factor in getting a fraud like Yoon in power, was the overwhelming media dominance of very conservative news organizations, Joong, Cho, Dong. Joongang Ilbo, Chosun Ilbo, and Donga media. These 3 organizations have strong ties to the Chaebol ruling elites and South Korea's Public Prosecutors Offices. The prosecutors offices led by Yoon are corrupt. They protect their patrons from prosecution, sometimes the media owners themselves or their family members, and other chaebol (corporate elites) and they politically persecute their political opposition and critics.
For example, Lee Jae-myung, the current democratic party leader, had been accused, investigated and prosecuted over a period of about two years on spurious charges before he was acquitted at a third trial on appeal, just in time to run against Yoon. He lost the election by .7 percent. Now the Yoon controlled prosecutors have again indicted Lee on spurious corruption charges even after a fishing expedition of over 300 warrants failed to turn up anything. Basically, they are inducing accused individuals in the Daejangdong real estate development scandal to change their testimony to incriminate Lee. Lee would be in jail right now, except you can't jail a National Assembly Member during legislative session without approval of a majority of members. They didn't get it. Just barely.
The conservative media and prosecution offices covered Yoon's tracks and the suspected corruption of his offices and family members for years. One thing that gave Yoon credibility was that he was on the investigative team that prepared the impeachment trial of Park Geun-hye. Frankly, this is something of a current controversy in how it came to be that Moon Jae-in brought Yoon into his administration and appointed him Prosecutor General. The prosecution offices are widely regarded as having too much unchecked power, and that in combination with the conservative press eliminates or at least libels and stigmatizes the political opposition as guilty while portraying the PTB as "innocent."
This political affliction of contemporary South Korean society is known as 검언유착 press prosecution collusion. In these politically motivated prosecutions people in the target's family and business network are investigated and threatened. This happened to a former minister of justice in the prior administration Cho Guk, who only lasted in office for one month. The prosecution began with his wife. Cho a former law professor and civil affairs secretary, was charismatic and potentially a presidential candidate. He was supposed to shepherd prosecution reforms through the legislature and implement them. I think his wife got a four and a half year sentence, and his case is still pending on appeal.
Now that the economy is declining even further, prices rising for ordinary staples, fuel and electricity, life has become even harder for young people. Yoon's popularity is down to around 30 percent. Last week it was 27 percent. This is unprecedented so early in the term. So the South Korean public is in the position of you fooled me once, can they be fooled again? I could go on, but I won't I've been studying this problem with Yoon in particular for three years now. I predicted he would become an authoritarian leader of South Korea. In fact, the deeper threat hanging over South Korea is the underlying authoritarianism and the threat of returning to dictatorship that is always present.
I wrote an article over 3 years ago, on the deeper underlying fault line in South Korean politics that leads to authoritarian rule.
Coming to Terms with Japanese Imperialism- Then and Now
https://civilizationdiscontents.blogspot.com/2019/08/coming-to-terms-wit...
語必忠信 行必正直
I went back and looked at Korean history
....once more. This is a very dimly-lit history, as Asian nations go. Did you know it was the last Asian nation that was visited by Westerners? Reminds me of Taiwan before 1945. Isolated and slow to modernize — from 8000BC to WWII — then bam!! Ripped in half by the Cold War. The North embraced by the Russian continent and pulled apart by US intervention in the South. And Cold War is still alive there, playing out like a pageant. War games every year, February to March like clockwork, military showboats pretending to destroy North Korea, freaking everyone out, pseudo nuclear missiles fired by North Korea flying toward Japan, Japan triggering a national evacuation. It's an endless military entanglement between Socialsm and Capitalism. A neocon shitshow that never seems to get old.
Of course, I'm on the outside looking in. Only one brief trip to South Korea. No sign of self-determination. But, then, Americans are in the same boat, bamboozled with phony political choices by the invisible hand of the Elite. It's frustrating to watch The gullibility, Infuriating.
____________________
The political system is what it is because the People are who they are. — Plato
Thanks for your comment
I lived in South Korea for three years, admittedly some time ago. I've been studying Korean history, current events, language, military developments, etc., more intensely, almost every day for the last seven years (since I retired).
I think the perception that Korean exposure to modernization began traumatically with WWII or the Korean conflict is somewhat off. The violent intrusions by Japan began in earnest in 1894-1895 in conjunction with Tonghak rebellion which in itself was an idiosyncratic Korean response to earlier intrusion by Christian missionaries from the west. Japan's excuse for military intervention, conquest, and colonialization was a pan-Asian ideology that putatively would bring Korea and other conquered regions like Taiwan into the modern world without succumbing to western dominance. It was a bs excuse that fooled some Koreans for a time. It was merely a rationalization for Japanese conquest and exploitation. It was accompanied by attempts to stamp out Korean language and culture to make it a subordinate appendage of Japan.
In a way the US simply replaced Japan in August 1945. The cold war ideology is simply another rationalization for subordination of Korea to US geopolitical objectives. South Korea is a part of the US military empire in Asia. The goal is to secure the whole peninsula. The military exercises are virtually continuous at this point. They were pretty much interrupted for five years while Moon Jae-in was in office, while he made overtures to North Korea, that the US establishment basically despised. Now they have another quisling in charge over there, Yoon Seok-yeol, and the military exercises are bigger and more threatening than ever.
語必忠信 行必正直
Good evening soe, had a hell of a day here so far. Just
dropping in to say hi, be well and have a good one. Thanks for the OT and the judging freedom vids.
That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --
I am in a severe storm alert for 40 minutes.
60 mph winds. Baseball sized hail.
Not how I wanted my weekend getaway to end.
I and my Dear One are ok, but our vehicle will take a beating if this comes.
"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981
Let us know how you fared.
____________________
The political system is what it is because the People are who they are. — Plato
Well, thank goodness!
High winds, heavy rain, no hail. I am trying to find info about some towns near the cottage we had rented out in the hills on a cattle ranch.
It was a big and sudden temperature drop, but we brought some warm clothes, just in case.
We are ok, hope you are, as well.
"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981