What Vladimir Putin, and Xi Jinping Want For Christmas.

This is going to be an ugly thought for a lot of people.

I’m going to start with some obvious questions.

1. Would Vladimir Putin, and Russia, like full access to every last bit of technology from Space X? How about Xi Jinping, and China? Would they like full access to all of Space X’s technology?

2. Would Vladimir Putin, and Russia, like full access to every last shred of Quantum Mechanical technology at NVIDIA, IBM, D-Wave systems, Microsoft, Intel, and all the rest? Would Xi Jinping like that same kind of access?

3. What would happen if the US Military wasn’t there to protect Taiwan? How long would Taiwan exist as an independent nation, free from China, if the US Military wasn’t a threat?

4. What would happen if the US Military wasn’t there to protect Ukraine? Without the US Military threat, how long do you think Putin, and Russia, would let Ukraine exist as a separate nation?

5. If the only threat to Iran was Israel, and the threat of US Military action against Iran wasn’t there, do you think Iran would leave things as they are in the Middle East, or would Iran try to redecorate the Middle East, including removing Israel from existence?

I’ve asked five (5) questions. Only 5 questions. Each of those questions are centered on one topic. The United States Military and its power. Take your time, and answer those questions in  your own mind. I don’t want to know your answers. I don’t need to know your answers.

What I will say is:

If I was Vladimir Putin, or Xi Jinping, I’d be doing everything possible to disable the United States Military. To reduce the US Military into a politically splintered, chaotic organization. I’d do everything I could to accomplish this. I’d finance ransomware companies. I’d finance fake news organizations. I’d do anything I could to make the people of the United States want to break up their country. Anything I could to make those people enter into a Civil War with themselves. Anything that removed the presence of the United States Military from the world, and allowed, and enabled, me to do what I want to do.

Without the United States Military, I’d have access to all the semiconductor technology available at places like TSMC, Intel, Qualcomm, AMD, NVIDIA, Apple, and ARM. I’d have unlimited access to every last bit of technology from Space X, Tesla, Blue Origin, Boeing, Northrop Grumman, Lockheed Martin, General Dynamics, and every other major corporation, and their technology portfolios.

Without the United States Military, I’d have unlimited access to Linux, Windows, MacOS, everybody’s augmented reality research, and developments, Steam’s Virtual Reality technology, everything 5G, everything in every Cell Phone.

I’d love it if the United States Military was not able to stop me from doing anything I wanted to do.

I’ll close with this thought, in the form of another question.

6. If I was Vladimir Putin, or Xi Jinping, would I love the US political divide to become insurmountable? Would I get excited at the very thought of conservative Americans, like Marjorie Taylor Green, speaking of splitting up the United States? Would I sleep soundly at night, with dreams of supermodels sleeping with me, and doing everything I could imagine, knowing that Texas wants to secede from the United States, and become its own nation? Would I get excited at the idea of conservatives in Michigan planning to kidnap, and execute the governor of their state?

I know, if I was Putin, or Xi, I certainly would.

Wouldn’t you?

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#ThursThreads Week 492 : Any Volunteers To Put Him Out Of His Misery?

There I was, standing in my backyard, reciprocating saw with a nine inch wood cutting blade in my hands. I’d plugged it into the 200 foot long extension cord that ran from the house.

It started 27 years ago, when the tree sprouted from the ground. She told me not to cut it. “Wait and see what it does.” Six months later, she declared it was a mimosa tree, and she liked it, and we were going to let it grow.

The years went by, and it grew like a weed. Must have reached 30 feet tall. Had three main branches from the trunk, and those had several branches of their own. For the first twenty years, it grew, and each year, it leafed out, and it filled the back yard with pink mimosa flowers, and hundreds of seed pods.

Until the year it stopped. That’s it. It just stopped. No leaves. No flowers. No seed pods. Nothing. The leaves all fell off for the winter, and they never came back.

I left it alone for years, because she’d told me not to cut it down all those years ago. But, finally, she decided it was dead, and needed to go.

Which was why I was standing there. Looking at that dead tree. And why I looked at the saw in my hands, and asked, “Any volunteers to put him out of his misery?”

The saw happily ripped that dead tree down.

243 Words
@mysoulstears

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It’s Week 492 of #ThursThreads, hosted by Siobhan Muir. Please go read all the stories in this week’s #ThursThreads. They are always fun to read. And there are some great writers who show up every week.

#ThursThreads Week 491 : They’d Become Like Stone

“Their hearts. They’d become like stone.” It was depressing to admit that, though it was true. “Can you understand why? Or at least partially why?”

My daughter shook her head, “No. I can’t. I can’t understand why anyone would do that. Turn their hearts to stone. It’s like they’re not alive anymore.”

“It’s their response to confusion. To complexity. To the feeling they have no control over anything.”

I could see the rage in her eyes, the fire that burned in her blood. The same fire I had. “Then explain their stupidity!”

“I can’t explain it all. It’s too broad, too deep. But I can hint at it. I can illustrate some of what I’ve learned of them, and the way they live in lies, believing they live in the truth, no longer knowing one from the other.”

She glared at me.

“Start with this news headline. ‘A Massive 8-year effort finds that much cancer research can’t be replicated.’”

She didn’t say anything.

“You know how people interpret that. The simple way. Without reading beyond the headline, simply declaring cancer research is useless.” I wondered if she understood, or if her anger had overwhelmed her ability to hear me, “They never get to the part that explains the complexities of the research, and how unique humans are. You can’t repeat specific, detailed tests with different starting points.” I was certain she was too angry to understand. “They’re two different tests.”

She did respond. “People are stupid.” I already knew that.

250 Words
@mysoulstears

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It’s Week 491 of #ThursThreads, hosted by Siobhan Muir. Please go read all the stories in this week’s #ThursThreads. They are always fun to read. And there are some great writers who show up every week.