Ivankiv District is a beautiful region of Kyiv Oblast bordering Belarus. It bore the brunt of the Rashist invasion in 2022, torn by the invaders for 36 days. The Memory of the Soul, Ivankiv Region documents true stories told by 34 ordinary Ukrainians who endured the horror. It shows their life under Rashist occupation. It provides a realistic picture of the suffering, resilience and patriotism of ordinary Ukrainians and the brutality of Rashists. Here are a few samples: A youngster was casually shot in front of his younger brother, who later managed to escape with tied hands. Civilians with kids silenced walked through forests to reach the area protected by their soldiers. "her family and friends decided to leave the Russian-occupied territory. On the way, they came under fire from cluster bombs. 18 people were seriously injured, and some of them died". This is something I usually see only in movies with Jews escaping Nazis. "My daughter and I have just had Covid. She h...

A fraudster withdrew cash from my Discover debit card account 11 times (7 in NH and 4 in RI, all at Shaws stores) within an hour or so until the account was largely depleted. I have never lost the debit card or left it unattended outside my home. The following is one of the eleven transactions: I use the card only twice or thrice a year for the only purpose of cash withdrawal. I rarely touch cash nowadays. I never enter the card number online. The card number does not exist online anywhere. My two frequently used credit cards have no issues, so I do not see the possibility of identity theft.  I strongly suspect the fraud was done either by a Shaws employee or with the assistance of a Shaws employee so he could bypass as many checks as possible.  Discover's customer service is superb. I received the replacement card, and they credited all the fraudulent transactions within 48 hours of the report. I hope they catch the fraudsters with the help of the exact times and locations of...

I have always had serious doubts about the commercial viability of HSR in the US. I understand Acela is an exception for bullet trains. It takes 3 hours and 50 minutes to travel 372 km from Boston to NYC (98 KPH on average), but it illustrates the challenge of building HSR in the US. In the PRC, everything effectively belongs to the CCP, so the government can use the best route and erase any residential or business properties at will (they do need to make some payments). In the US, acquiring land for HSR can be a very lengthy and expensive process.  The Acela route between Boston and DC is probably the most densely populated area in the US. A true Boston-DC HSR can get a healthy ridership but is very expensive to build.  The California HSR's current estimated cost is $128B/1280 km ($100M/km vs $20M/km in the PRC). You could have much lower costs in states such as Wyoming or New Mexico, but you would have very limited ridership.  Acela currently uses old rails with frequen...

This viral thread on Twitter is a classic case of confirmation bias - one starts with a narrative,  finds confirmation evidence, and then presents it as the whole picture. I can provide more evidence to support this dysfunctional US narrative, but the country overall is not remotely as shitty as pictured in this thread. I have no doubt Japan is a very nice country even though I have been there only via flight layovers, but I have had so many Japanese friends and used so many Japanese products (including 3 Japanese cars) that I know their culture of detail-oriented perfectionism. The US is diverse in every sense. There are 3rd-world areas in the US, but the country is in the 1st world overall. I say this with unshakable confidence based on my visits to numerous places. These are the places I have visited since Google Maps started to track me in 2020: The only escalator turned off I can recall in the past few years was one at South Station at midnight when I was the only person besid...

  Trump Cabinet Nominees ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Marco Rubio , Secretary of State. Long track record of clear understanding of the new Axis of Evil. Robert Lighthizer , TBD. Brilliant trade representative with a solid track record. Mike Waltz , NSA.  Good track record of clear understanding of the new Axis of Evil. Strong pragmatic supporter of slaughtered Ukraine. Scott Bessent , Treasury Secretary. Widely praised for his tough stance on global cheaters. Doug Burgum , Interior Secretary. Principled and pragmatic governor. John Ratcliffe , CIA Director. Widely praised from different segments of the political spectrum. ⭐⭐⭐⭐ Tom Homan , Border Czar.  Exceptionally tough on illegals. Probably the right person to reverse the massive southern border invasion. Mike Huckabee , Ambassador to Israel. Articulate with conviction. Elise Stefanik , UN ambassador. Probably the right person to deal with the corrupt, largely useless UN. Peter Navarro , trade counselor. A bit crazy, but with an i...

I hope Bluesky will finally be on par with and rivaling Twitter. It should have 18M users by now (2011-11-17). We have had Gettr, Truth Social, Threads, Mastodon all of which have limited relevance. Threads reached 100M users quickly but Zuckerburg failed to ride the momentum.  Bluesky needs superb TRANSPARENT algorithms to succeed. If Bluesky can create a community mirroring the physical free world, it will likely succeed. In the physical world, there are no massive trolls harassing people and spewing out trash, and no constant promotion of grifters, haters, or jerks.  The imminent risk for Bluesky is becoming another echo chamber like Truth Social and Gettr, but for the left. Twitter has a lot of good things. Ideally, Bluesky should have all the good stuff of Twitter and avoid its bad stuff.  The best thing of Twitter is its community notes. It also has many other good technical features. The bad things brought to Twitter by Musk: 1. Removing the gov label for accounts ...

Within 48 hours, probably 30M to 50M Americans will experience post-election stress disorder, many will attempt suicide and some will start to plan emigration. I will not. I actually look forward to it regardless of the winner.  Here is my glass-half-full thought:  To me, either T or H will be an upgrade to B. Here is why: If T wins, the southern border invasion concerning 96% of Americans will finally be stopped to allow us to focus on other important issues.  Deportation will accelerate to deter illegals but mass deportation costing over $100B/yr will not happen.  The main downside of T is primarily long-term. The US is such a mature democracy that T would need to rule for two or three decades to turn the US into Sinophile Orban's Hungary to control the media, and education institutions and merge the state with family business.  T's admiration of the dictators of the new axis of evil is nothing new. It has been the case since 2016 and he is very candid about i...

My view of the Trump administration being the most effective one that I have witnessed since Regan has never changed. If anything, the current administration affirms it. Now, I seriously doubt we will have the same luck with Trump 2.0. I gave a lot of thought about the counterintuitive effectiveness of the Trump administration considering he is mainly a salesperson (to put it mildly). The most intuitive explanation is that he had a star team: Pompeo: the most effective State Secretary. Lighthizer: the best TR. Healy: the best articulate UN ambassador. McMaster, O'Brien, Pottinger: outstanding security advisors. Mattis, Esper, outstanding and principled defense secretary. Pence: a wonderful person with true convictions. Birx: outstanding passionate public servant dealing with a very complicated pandemic in a very difficult environment.  Sanders: incredible lady and spokesperson handling bigotry and vitriol with unbelievable grace and calm. Gen. Kelly: a solid rock in turbulent water...

President Pavel's comment on possible post-ceasefire temporary Russian control of some Ukrainian territories caused a stir. His support for Ukraine has been strong and consistent. I think he could express his thoughts better or perhaps he has been misunderstood. Even if the free world were only partially mobilized to support Ukraine in defeating fascists, Russia would be crushed in months. Unfortunately, the reality is different: The US does not want Ukraine to fully utilize its weapons to defeat the enemy and Mr. Jake De-escalation Guru Sullivan has set clear limits to protect Russia to achieve de-escalation. Neither do some European countries such as Germany. The biggest manufacturing powerhouse the PRC strongly backs its Russia province and helps its economy grow. The US offers nothing but begging and toothless sanctions to deal with the PRC. Many European countries continue to fund Russia by purchasing large amounts of its fossil fuels and exporting to it through third countrie...