#but ballister has always been Asian

[1eatboys]

I keep seeing the odd post here and there mentioning that Ballister Blackheart is white in the Nimona comic and it hurts my heart a little each time I see somebody say that bc he’s actually not! Ballister Blackheart is canonically Asian in the comic, he is East Asian and simply has light skin.

I just find it saddening and wrong (granted I’m white myself so maybe it’s not my place to have an opinion on) to erase a character who is canonically a poc just because they have light skin :/

This is not a diss to people who didn’t know or people that were mistaken, that’s sort of the reason I’m making this post, so more people can know the truth rather than be misinformed or assume incorrectly.

(Context of the photo attached is that it is from a QnA Nate did on the Nimona comic years ago)

Edit: added alt text of everything written in the photo

#ig ppl default to the idea that a character who had an ethnicity change resulting in them being a poc means they were originally white #and not possibly a different ethnicity that is also nonwhite #but ballister has always been Asian #his ethnicity was just changed so he is East Asian in the comic and South Asian in the movie #(most likely to better resemble his va riz ahmed who is Pakistani) #ig ppl see movie ballister who has darker skin and then assume comic ballister with lighter skin is white #also possibly bc ethnic features are more obscured with the simpler comic artstyle #there were points in the book where he was paper light so I understand the assumption to some extent ig #but there’s still something so…. weird abt assuming that he’s white since some poc have lighter skin #also the more recent the art you can see nates style better develop his skin tone #nimona #nimona movie #nimona comic #nimona book #nimona graphic novel #ballister blackheart #ballister boldheart #nimona ballister #nd stevenson #nate stevenson #when will my boy beat the white allegations #also lmk if you think anything I’ve said is out of line lol I was debating even posting abt this bc it’s not really my conversation #also pls read the graphic novel if you haven’t already it’s so good !! ok gn

[somehowmags]

i’ve seen a lot of posts talking about nimona’s queer messages which is great! but ive not seen as many posts talking analyzing how both ballister and ambrosius were changed to be asian, which is a shame because i genuinely think its one of the most important parts of the film! a huge part of it is a deconstruction of the model minority myth and respectability politics, both of which are big issues in the asian american community. both of them represent each side of the spectrum, with ambrosius expected to be superhuman with very little support and ballister being seen as less than human, no matter how hard he tries- a monster.

ambrosius (who is now east asian, like his voice actor eugene lee yang, who is korean with chinese and japanese ancestry), despite being in a seemingly powerful position as head of the knights and a descendant of gloreth, he isn’t really given the kind of support that this position needs- he’s constantly undermined and belittled by todd, the face of the other knights, and when asked about his emotional state by the director, represses his emotions rather than talk to her about his true feelings. this is very similar to how asian american students in schools aren’t given the support they need academically by teachers and administration, as the model minority myth leads to them being perceived as more intelligent and competent than their fellow students and therefore not needing support. he’s also held to a higher standard than any of the other knights, being immediately placed into a position of power despite just being knighted, again a reflection of the model minority myth, since asian americans are held to higher standards unfairly. despite being technically better off than ballister, he has no support, no friends, no way to seek help for his problems, and, just like ballister, is immediately thrown away the moment the director thinks he’s served his use.

ballister is now pakistani, like his voice actor riz ahmed (no, not like pedro pascal. where did this come from lol), and i’d go as far as to say that he is also, if not explicitly muslim, heavily muslim coded as well. he’s framed as a terrorist by the white, christian institution, and from then on, it doesn’t matter how good he tries to be- everyone else sees him as a monster. he’s also from a lower socioeconomic class than ambrosius and the rest of the knights- while this is initially used to frame him as a success story, after he’s framed, it’s used to cast suspicion on him. almost immediately he’s othered, with posters casting him as a foreign invader sent to destabilize the city, much in the same way that muslim immigrants are seen in real life. even when he tries to be peaceful and good, it’s always twisted so that he’s the monster of the story. while ambrosius is held to too high of a standard, ballister will never be enough for the institution to accept.

which is why both of their arcs culminate in them breaking out of the system, learning to accept what they’d been taught was monstrous, and leaving behind respectability. it’s a genuinely great commentary, and i can definitely see why riz ahmed and eugene lee yang were chosen for this, as they’ve both done activist work for their communities.

#nimona #chatters #another analysis post i made at two am and then put in my drafts and forgot about LMAO #anyways i forgot to actually write a conclusion but shut up this isn't school i don't have to conclude SHIT #ballister boldheart #ambrosius goldenloin

[stormflower8]

take some south asian!ballister headcanons

okay so ballister is, at least partially, based off of his va, Riz Ahmed, who is south asian/pakistani (like me!) and speaks Urdu (like me!), so I think I have some stuff to throw in the Headcanon Pot

when ballister was in the orphanage before he did his whole Jump The Gate Out Of Spite And Desire To Become A Knight, he primarily spoke Urdu and was in the process of learning english

also, when people learn english in countries that don't speak english, they typically learn british english, which ties in nicely to ballister's canon accent

this means that he had to learn a fair amount of english at the institute

he might've also been bullied for his questionable grammar and accent by todd and the other knights

ambrosius did his best to help in teaching ballister english and mostly helped in his grammar and vocabulary. they went through a little phase where ballister would pick up more obscure objects and ambrosius would say the english word for them.

ambrosius has only heard ballister speak urdu a handful of times, but every time it happens, he swears he falls a little more in love with him

after he was regarded as completely fluent in english, he didn't speak much urdu, but he never forgot it

post-canon, he once went on a tangent in urdu and nimona heard him and her jaw just DROPPED

"you're bilingual?? why didn't you tell me??" "you never brought it up...?" (doesn't think it's a big deal)

she thinks it's the coolest thing ever and went through a phase where she tried to piss off ballister JUST to hear him talk in urdu

eventually, he realized what was going on and had to sit her down and explain "you don't have to do all that, all you have to do is ask and I'll talk to you in urdu."

she definitely exploited that eagerly, but she still occasionally does the whole "piss him off just to hear the rambling of Words She Doesn't Understand" for fun

ballister has absolutely no idea that both ambrosius and nimona love how he speaks urdu or he would talk way more in it

honestly I love the concept of ballister speaking urdu, but almost always when I'm speaking urdu it's for a joke, so I've kinda ruined that language for myself LMAO

also, about the south asian thing of eating pretty much everything with one's hands,

first day in the mess hall. ballister grabs the food that looks the most familiar to him- rice

sits down at a table alone and starts to eat with his hands (or is it "eat with his hand"? he's only using one hand to eat but it feels strange to have hand in singular here)

immediately todd, who was going to go pick on him anyways, notices and makes a huge deal about it

the next day, ballister did his best to work with the fork, but it was an adjustment and he stuck out like a sore thumb with his clumsiness with the utensils

when he was befriended by ambrosius, they would sit together in the mess hall

at first, ambrosius tried to help ballister become more comfortable using utensils, and ballister was eager to learn

until one day he just thinks to himself "what am I doing? the same thing as todd but nicer?"

that's when he starts sneaking meals into his room so he and ballister can eat in there together- alone, peacefully, and with whatever damn utensils (or lack thereof) they want

ballister would eat with his hands, ambrosius used chopsticks, they would chill and vibe and, when they got older, slowly fall in love (or quickly, if you're ambrosius simp goldenlion)

ballister also teaches ambrosius how to eat with his hands there, and in turn, ambrosius teaches him how to use chopsticks

they continue to eat together in that room all the way until the knighting ceremony, and it was one of their favorite routines

post-canon, the trio had rice for a meal, and nimona saw ballister eat with his hands (probably his flesh hand- even though, culturally, you're supposed to eat with your right hand, I think a prosthetic is a pretty damn good exception)

she stared in shock for a few moments, then slowly dropped her fork and attempted to mimic his motions

ballister noticed and was flattered beyond measure, and was more than happy to help her out

rice is the ONE AND ONLY thing ballister can (and is allowed to) cook, so he makes it whenever he can

and when he makes it, everyone eats it however the hell they want, society standards be damned

I have more south asian related headcanons, but this is long enough already, so I'll do a part two later! :D

-Storm

#nimona 2023 #nimona #ballister boldheart #riz ahmed #ambrosius goldenloin #ballister x ambrosius #south asian #desi #don't you just love projecting your culture on cartoon men #cause I do

[xandriagreat]

Modern Nimona

Chapter 1: The Beginning of Hurt

First Chapter | Next Chapter

Summary: When a college graduate is framed for a crime that he didn’t do and the only people who are helping him is a science friend from college and a shapeshifting lab rat named Nimona.

Author’s note: This story/fic is a modern day au of Nimora (both book and movie). Also this fic/story is a two person writing, the co-writer is @vanessafangirl13

Notice/warnings: kissing, rudeness, death, decapitating

▪▪▪

June 15th, 2013,

It was graduation day at the University Institute Of Gloreth.

A young 21-year-old man with dark brown skin, a beginning of a short mustache and goatee, and short, dark hair, was in his usual plain white t-shirt, brown sweatpants, and black army boots, looking at the screens as he was packing the last of his stuff from his dorm.

He was a young man who showed promise ever since he was a kid. He worked his way up into the university but not meant it with the controversy of his college and schools knowing he was the only one who was born poor at the university that only accepted famous and rich people.

He was about to finish the last box when he heard a familiar voice ask, “You excited?”

"Yeah." He said with nervousness in his voice, looking a bit down before looking at the person.

The voice revealed to be his boyfriend, Ambrosius Goldenloin, an East Asian man with short, blonde hair curled over the left side of his head in a pompadours style, with the rest of his hair shaved close to his scalp, and dark and short, dark beard over his chin.

Ambrosius walked over to him, wanting to make sure his boyfriend was ok. “Want to talk about it, Bal?” he asked as he got to him.

"Yeah, it's just-" Bal tried to speak, "I can't believe it, 4 years have passed by so fast, and now we're graduating and going to the real world."

They begin sitting down on the bed, which is now just a mattress and bed frame.

Ambrosius nodded and held his hand, gently rubbing it. “There is more, isn't there?” he asked, looking at him. “Ballister, I see that you’re scared. ”

Ballister was quiet for a bit as he looked down. “What if… what if they hate me?”

His boyfriend is understanding why Ballister was scared. “You’ve worked so hard for this,” Ambrosius said, putting a gentle hand on his cheek. “They’ll love you.”

"You think so?" Ballister asked with hope in his voice as he looked at Ambrosius. “Yes,” Ambrosius answered, nodding softly.

Ballister begins to smile warmly and kisses him on the lips.

☆Later☆

Everyone was getting ready for the day of the graduation

Some were taking pictures, some were excited about the next chapter in their lives, and others talking with their families 

Bal was getting his graduation gown ready which is unique, while most of the university's graduation wear only had white gold and silver, his was different having a more black accent into his suit while his boyfriend had more gold in his as well.

"Well, we finally made it after 4 years," said Meredith Blitzmeyer, a tall Romani woman, with warm brown skin, long gray hair tied back in a ponytail, and rounded gold frame glasses over her gorgeous blue eyes. "The future has come."

“Oh, hey Meredith.” Ballister said, looking at her with a smile.

"Well, Ballister, future graduate of the era." Meredith jokes. She has been a bit of a jokester since high school. But at least her jokes were appropriate, unlike another classmate that was also graduating who happens to be a bully.

"More like a loser." A man named Thaddeus Sureblade jokes, he's the one with short brown hair, pale skin, and green eyes. He had always been a bully to the three, mostly to Ballister.

"Ugh! Not you again." Meredith ground, crossing her arms, knowing he was her ex-boyfriend. They broke up a month ago after finding out that he was a jerk, trying to make him his trophy wife, and almost a bad manly macho after dating for a year. She already moved on but Thaddeus was a bit still in the denial stage of a breakup.

“Hey, I was just coming over to talk with Ballister.” Thaddeus started, smiling his best prize smile.

"Well, then, go ahead." Meredith said, glaring at him.

Thaddeus put an arm around Ballister’s shoulders and said, “Look, when I first saw you at the Institute, I thought that you were just a nobody.”

Ballister looked at him like he was going to say more. “And?”

Meredith began putting her hands on her hips and raise her eyebrow, tapping her foot, waiting for an answer 

Thaddeus noticed that and didn’t want to get her too mad. “I’m not going to answer that.” he said, popping his lips. Thaddeus got his arm off of Ballister and shoved him a bit as he walked away.

Meredith and Ambrosius caught Ballister before he fell on the floor and helped him stand up.

“Thanks.” Ballister said to them. 

Ambrosius nodded to him and smiled. “No problem.”

“I still can’t believe that I dated him.” Meredith muttered under her breath.

Just then, The Director of the University opened the doors, smiling at the graduating class of 2013.

Everyone began to line up as the Director entered the room.

It was revealed to be a tall and thin woman with pale skin, a long neck. her blonde hair in a long braided ponytail, black eyes. She wore a yellow business coat over a white blouse, matching yellow ankle-length long skirt, brown stockings, and black 3-inch high heels. She's a serious and kind woman.

“Everyone,” the Director started as she looked at the soon to be graduating students, “today is an important day. Not only are you all graduating but we have our first rise to the top student graduating.”

She smiled at Ballister, who nodded to her. “Thank you, Director.” Ballister said, smiling.

Then the Director clapped her hands together and said, “Now, everyone needs to finish up and get to the stage.” 

Everyone did as they were told. 

Ambrosius got his scabbard on his belt before getting his family’s sword from his locker.

It was traditional of the Goldenloin family to carry the sword that Glorth carried throughout the war for special occasions, like today.

Ambrosius looked at Ballister and smiled softly. “You ready?” he asked.

“I will be. I just need to wait for my ring.” Ballister said. “You can go ahead.”

"Ok. We will be waiting for you." Meredith said, fixing her cap.

Ambrosius and Meredith went out as Diego, a man with light brown skin, brown eyes, and blonde hair styled in a short mohawk, came in.

Diego was the Jeweler of Ballister’s ring.

“Hi.” Ballister said, smiling at him.

"Hi. Sorry about that, I was just finding the ring which took a while." Diego said, giving him the ring

“It’s alright.” Ballister reassured as he got the ring from him.

The University ring was a silver ring. It had some gems all around it, with the top gem being a beautiful red. There was gold writing on the inside of the ring. The writing said, ‘Send the darkness back into the shadows to see the light’.

It’s the main motto of the university and of the city in case there is danger of any kind that comes in.

Ballister smiled softly as he put it on his right ring finger. It felt different than before when he wore it last time but he didn’t mind it.

Before Ballister went out, Diago stopped him for a moment. "Umm, sir." Diago started, about to get out of his phone. "I-"

“Ballister.” the Director said, walking back in. Both Ballister and Diago looked at her as the Director said, “It’s almost time. You need to get with the other students.”

Ballister nodded as he went out with everyone.

☆

They went outside just in time for the graduation ceremony. As the music began to play, the three friends already imagined their future like everyone else.

The mayor is the special guest for the graduation. 

The mayor was a woman with brown skin, black eyes, and long white hair tied in a tight bun, wearing a white blouse and blue pantsuit with gold and red accents and blue high heels heading to the stand.

She was the one to request Ballister to go to the Institute and his adoptive mother. 

After everyone got the diploma, everyone clapped for the graduated students. Then everyone sat down as the mayor got up and went to the microphone. “Everyone,” she started, smiling at everyone, “I am so proud of this graduating class. This class has someone special. This person works all the way up. This person is my son, Ballister Boldheart.”

The spotlight pointed at Ballister and he began to stand up with everyone looking at him. 

Then everyone cheered for him as he smiled and walked up to his mother. 

Meredith got her phone and begin recording him, smiling big.

Ballister hugged the mayor before he turned to the microphone. “Thank you, Mother.” Ballister said into the microphone.

Mayor Valerin began grabbing a small box from her pocket, and then opened up to reveal a beautiful ring server and even with an obsidian gem with red spots on it, It was a family heirloom that has been in her family for generations.

Ballister looked at it and smiled at his mother. He started to reach with his right hand.

Then all of the sudden, Ballister’s University ring started to shake his hand as the top gem turned from white to green appeared at the top and shot a beam blasted through the mayor's body.

Everyone gasped in shock.

“Mom!” Ballister exclaimed in shock.

His friends came just in time, his boyfriend tried to stop  but accidentally got the beam cut off by cutting Ballister's right arm off.

Ballister fell to the ground, holding his now cut arm, bleeding as Meredith came to check on him.

Bal and Meredith begin hearing people panicking and screaming seeing their mayor hurt.

"Are you ok?" Meredith asked worriedly.

“I…” Ballister started but was interrupted by someone yelling, “The mayor is dead!”

Meredith grabbed something from her bag that she was carrying, it was a smoke bomb, she began throwing it and a puff of green smoke blew.

"Let's go." Meredith said, taking Ballister by his other hand and they ran out and away from the graduation grounds.

Ambrosius watched them run out worriedly. “How did this even happen?” he asked himself as he looked at the crime scene.

☆

Ballister and Meredith ran into an alleyway. 

“Ok, I think that we’re safe now.” Meredith panted as she caught her breath and looked at Ballister.

Ballister still held his cut arm as he sat down. His arm was still bleeding a lot.

Meredith got a med kit out of her bag and tented the wound. “Here we go.” she said as she finished wrapping the bandages around it.

Ballister looked at the wrapped up wound before looking back at Meredith as she said, "We gotta get out of this place."

“I’m sorry… ‘We’?” Ballister repeated to see if he heard her right. 

“Yes. ‘We’, Ballister.” Meredith said, helping him up.  "We need to get out of this place."

“Meredith…” Ballister started as he sighed and looked down. “You can’t just drop everything for me. You’ll be hunted too and never get to be the scientist that you wanted to be.”

“Ballister, look at me.” Meredith said, lifting his head up. “I know that you’re innocent and that you didn’t kill your mother… and I am going to help to prove that.” 

They begin hearing the news all over the city of the death of the mayor and that Ballister was a killer.

“Come on.” Meredith said to Ballister, holding his hand. "I'll call someone I know to help us and where we can go."

#ballister boldheart #ballister blackheart #ambrosius goldenloin #meredith blitzmeyer #thaddeus sureblade #Modern Nimona #Modern Nimona au #Nimona #nimona fic #todd sureblade

[milkbreadtoast]

I WATCHED NIMONA!!! As someone who read the original nimona webcomic when it was updating (roughly a decade ago??) and was rly impacted by it, I was so excited to watch the film and... they did a really good job!!! it was so beautiful i cried omg... it's def worth a watch!! (long ramble under the cut BWAHA spoiler warning)

...and it was rly completely diff from the original comic but im not complaining?? like its a v loose movie adaptation and the plot/setup was v diff but still v well done... like the comic and movie r both good in their own right... & i laughed and cried a lot... i was surprised at the extent of some of the changes but the emotional parts hit hard(my eyes r swollen from crying) and it was written v well... and visually it's just gorgeous... my jaw kept dropping at the beautiful lighting, and they brought the futuristic medieval setting to life so well i could cry😭

it's funny bc one of the main things i was afraid of was them changing nimona's backstory from the comic, bc even after a decade that's one of the things that stuck w me the most... i love nimona as a chara sm... I was so worried abt them changing it and... they ended up changing it completely... but it was actually really good?! like i cried so hard, it was well done... so I'm glad I didn't have to worry after all jdjfjd🥺 like they Did change it but both ver r good in their own right...

I understand that they had to rewrite the plot completely to fit within the time length of a single movie while still being a contained story, as is always the case w movie adaptations of books, graphic novels, etc which r much longer... Series have a chance to follow the source more closely but that just isnt the case w movies... and as far as movie adaptations go they did an amazing job!! I can rly appreciate both the comic and the movie as their own thing... and I rly liked some parts that were added to the movie, like ballister(blackheart)'s backstory in the beginning, and the addition of gloreth (and her relationship w nimona) was surprisingly compelling... And I really really love that they made Ballister and Goldenloin canon POC 😭😭😭 like that made me so happy!!!❤️‍🔥 When i first saw the casting of riz ahmed and eugene lee i was sooo happy, i was like YAYY IDC IF THEY LOOK WHITE IM GONNA HC THEM AS POC🥰 but the fact that i dont even have to hc bc its canon now... 🥹 SOUTH ASIAN/EAST ASIAN KINGS🛐... and they also didn't hold back with showing them openly as a gay couple... Even tho their dynamic changed a lot from the comic I rly appreciate that...

And there were things that I did miss from the webcomic, like the original setup with goldenloin and blackheart as staged nemesis, them being exes (and some time having passed since their graduation, so they're older, unlike in the movie when it just happened), etc. but the whole setup and plot and everything I completely understand why they had to change it to make it work/fit as a movie, so I get it... so not complaining there tbh bc they did what they had to do... But tbh... TBH... my one(1) complaint(/lh) w the movie... IS I REALLY MISS GOLDENLOIN'S BEAUTIFUL LONG HAIR😭😭😭💔 He would've looked so pretty with long golden locks in the movie artstyle, esp w the gorgeous lighting... glowing gold and flowing in the wind... And I think it would've fit perfectly well with the movie ver of his chara/lore too?? like the new lore of him being a descendant of Gloreth... I could imagine him growing out his hair and bleaching it blonde to fit the image/pressure of being a descendant of gloreth, and to look more flashy and heroic to the public (They did tone down his vanity a lot but im sure he still retains some of it... like he still has that pretty popular celebrity image)... And him having long hair doesnt contradict with him being asian too or the modern setting... modern asian men can and do have pretty long hair😭 Like he couldve still been Asian, just w long blonde hair... It doesn't contradict w his new personality either... And I wish they kept the golden color bc the white/silver makes him look less like a "goldenloin"... (i also love black/gold color combos personally lol)... And i just aldjskd can u imagine movie Ballister stroking Ambrosious's long hair affectionately... pls🥲 WE COULD'VE HAD IT ALL... canon asian madeleine cookie qkjdksdj... I also do miss his original stupid vain arrogant himbo personality from the comic, but I understand why they changed it (for one, charas like that might start out obnoxious but then slowly develop and gain depth over the course of the story, but in a movie's short length, there's less time to slowly grow on ppl so it'd be easier to make them more likeable from the start... so like i get it.) but I think it would've been perfect if they just kept his long hair even w his new personality😭😭 LIKE IT WOULDVE BEEN 100000% PERFECT THEN!!! So that's literally my one lighthearted complaint/dissatisfaction w the movie LMFAO... I'd be happy if ppl draw fanart of movie ambrosious w long hair... TTwTT i miss it sm DKDJZ /end rant OVERALL I HAD A GOOD time ^^ LMFAO

#i dont wanna tag this bc i dont want it to show up in the tag orz #and the spoilers r under the cut so dont read it if u havent watched it #(not that anyone will read this anyway... i just wanted to rant LOL #nimona spoilers #i might do a more detailed ramble abt the contents of the movie later if i have energy #i love nimona herself as a chara sm tho... both the comic and movie ver #i adore herrrr shes so funny too like i think the jokes in the movie were actually better skjfd #i dont rmbr the specifics of the comic's jokes but the ones in the movie were def original (ie not in the comic) and funny hehe #shit i ranted more abt goldenloin than i thought. I SWEAR ITS NOT A BIG DEAL IM /LH #I do want to reread the comic now... I wonder if bookstores have it... #I can appreciate the movie as its own thing but its been over a decade so i want to read the comic again too #bc theyre both good in their own right!! #also its been so long that i prob forgot a lot of it

[rainbabbles]

research before story

having different original worlds and hyper fixations for research in them makes your mind expand because now I know so much about certain topics because of my stories. while i'm not an expert in anything of course, my mind gets blown each time with new shit like:

Sohrab's Rebirth

How pantheons were created

Christian mythology

ACE (Adverse Childhood Experiences + my own education background)

The Sea King's Mermaid

Asian history, culture, and music TO THE MAX

More knowledge on North and West Asia as well as indigenous cultures of Asia

The Ashbourns

Irish history, customs, language

Ireland in the 40's

The history of Irish undertakers and mortuary practices themselves

Happy Asian Market

Viet diaspora businesses

Viet Cali gangs (and other asian gang dynamics)

Mahayana Buddhism ( + my own upbringing)

I'm just showcasing this because while the phrase "just start your comic/book!" for certain projects has its merits, I personally think exhausting every research outlet before starting a story is crucial.

I always think to this: if I saw someone doing something wholly Vietnamese and they were not Vietnamese and did it on a whim with basic knowledge- I might go ballistic apeshit. I might beat someone's ass through the screen!!!! OWO So obviously- other people might feel the same as me!

If you're not from that culture and you're doing extensive shit on it, sometimes I don't think you should. There are some experiences/cultures even I won't touch because it's not my place, and I've dropped some concepts because of that out of respect.

But if someone really believes in a project to do that, they better drown themselves in research and I'm talking the WHOLE 9 yards:

read books by Viets

research/interview articles (in English AND in Viet)

watch documentaries

view propaganda/politics from the good and bad of Vietnam

watch youtube videos and tiktok's made by viet people

listen to the music

watch our movies

learn some of the language/phrases/customs

read our folklore

actually talk to viet people (social anxiety forbid)

fucking travel to vietnam (ofc this may not be feasible but damn, dedication)

love vietnam- ALL of that

And that's what I've essentially done with each of these topics, I ran through all the research medias I can and I'm still not done!! It's the least I could do for something completely out of my circle of experience! It's time consuming, but it's really been rewarding implementing these things into my creations and connecting more to the realness that flows in these characters. Also, having big respect for the real people and history these aspects come from!!

big ramble, but I fucking love research ya'll. go big or go home!!!!!

#rainbabbles

[telomeke-bbs]

I actually think the first person to cross the tribal lines in bad buddy was Pran when he saved Pa. You can see afterwards he wanted to be the Jindapat kids’ friend even when he was told not to, but Pat pushed him aside and didn’t thank him after the incident and so his guard went back up and he talked about Pat ‘owing’ him. His olive branch offering also bookends the show as he saved Pa in episode 1 and buys Ming a gift from Singapore in episode 12 even though he knows/believes in both incidences he’ll probably gain nothing from it. Dissaya’s emotional abuse of Pran caused him to repress everything to please others and to protect himself. But his inherent kindness and selflessness always still shone through

Hi Anonymous! You're so right that the first one to cross tribal lines was Pran, jumping in selflessly to save Pa from drowning while poor Pat was too stunned to move. (And to anyone else reading, this comment is a reference to an earlier post on tribes and sides here. 😊)

I have to respectfully disagree with your observation about Pran's repression being caused by emotional abuse from Dissaya though; the only time we see her flare up at Pran (and it was admittedly a doozy) was the one time in Ep.10. I do agree she can be harsh and over-protective, but for the most part I can't picture her being abusive to Pran whom she loves so much.

Actually, we only see Dissaya turn into the flame-spewing dragon version of herself whenever Ming or his family are somehow involved (and this was invoked when Pran confessed that he and Pat were in a relationship during their Ep.10 confrontation). At all other times within the family home, Dissaya is the very soul of tenderness with her beloved Pran – for example, during the two scenes of them at the Siridechawat dining table (in Ep.1 and Ep.7), and also in Ep.12.

It's possible she could have gone ballistic at Pran during his childhood/adolescence whenever the Jindapats were involved, but I prefer to think that their Ep.10 confrontation was more a one-off in terms of intensity, and that it only escalated to that level because Pran was newly confident from being in love, and was now sassing her back. This would explain why he also found it so terribly devastating when she lashed out, if she'd never done it so violently before (verbally or physically). I think Pran only became the emotionally-repressed version of himself that we see in earlier episodes because he learnt from Dissaya that great dangers lurked outside, emphasized by her always exaggerated and outsized reactions to the Jindapats.

Thanks very much for pointing out the lovely parallel with Pran's gift to Ming in Ep.12! I hadn't noticed it before, so that was a nice discovery for me. 😊

Actually, Pran's gift of alcohol in Ep.12 made me put on my thinking hat again, and looking more closely I believe it's actually really loaded with significance.

Once again, this references the Jindapat family's Thai-Chinese roots, and Ming's portrayal in the series as a Chinese traditionalist.

Alcohol and liquor have a special place in traditional Chinese culture (which is ironic, given the prevalence of the Asian flush). There are all sorts of associations and symbolisms assigned to liquor, wine and spirits in Chinese literature and poetry dating back thousands of years. This significance of alcohol has persisted to the present day, and as with many aspects of Chinese culture, can also come into play when navigating the complex rituals addressing social hierarchy. In the China of today, hard drinking with business clients is still seen as an essential part of relationship-building (although there has been recent pushback); in drinking the liquor, you honor the client, while refusing alcohol that a client offers to you during a drinking/dining session is tremendously insulting to him/her. (A teetotaler friend of mine found this out the hard way.) If you'd like to read more, there are plenty of articles floating around the Internet (some links: Literary Lushes, Understanding Drinking Culture in China and Work Drinking in China Comes Under Fire).

As the Siridechawats are not (or do not identify as) ethnic Chinese (depicted very clearly when Pat and Pran's moms have their Ep.1 "Baby boy, call me Ma/Mae" dispute in the street), Pran's gift of prized, quality alcohol specifically to Ming is really significant because it is such an esteemed gift for a Chinese patriarch from someone not bound by the same traditions, and Ming understands this. (That the alcohol is meant for Ming is mentioned by Pran during the scene at the wonton noodle stall in Ep.12 [3I4]. And we are also shown that Pat too understands the significance of Pran's gift – he stops the teasing banter they'd been engaging in up to that point, and nods emphatically at Pran at Ep.12 [3I4] 13.44 with perhaps a note of pride in his half-smile. Pran didn't forget the rest of the Jindapats though; there are snacks for them too in the bags from Singapore that we see in Ep.12, also highlighting Pran's thoughtfulness – and I'm also trusting in his good taste to have avoided buying the durian-flavored chocolate mini-Merlions. Abominations. 😂)

What we're seeing is Pran, as the partner of Pat, being the dutiful son-in-law and honoring his Chinese father-in-law with a culturally very appropriate and meaningful gift, even though he has every reason to believe the gift will not be acknowledged as such (and even though their relationship itself is not formally acknowledged, i.e., Pran is not considered part of the Jindapat family and is not officially a son-in-law). Pran's alienation is not because he is gay; we're shown that Ink has been happily welcomed into the family as Pa's lesbian partner (with Ink addressing Ming using the Chinese honorific for "father" at Ep.12 [4/4] 0.25 and Pat's mom going "It's like we have two daughters now" at Ep.12 [4/4] 3.43). Rather, it's because Pran is from the enemy Siridechawat tribe (but we all knew that already 😊).

Nonetheless, we are then shown that Pran's alienation isn't a complete one. When Ming takes a sip of the liquor later on, it's not because he's a secret alcoholic, or just can't resist its great flavor.

I think Ming (knowing full well the gift is from Pran) has been so moved by Pran's gesture honoring him and his traditions that in drinking he signals tacitly not just that he accepts the gift, but that he also symbolically accepts Pran as his son-in-law (although he's probably never going to admit it out loud). 💖 To Ming, this is not just any old gift – it is one that resonates with deep cultural echoes, from someone outside their tribe and traditions whom he treated so despicably, but who still cares enough to do correct thing by offering respect to the patriarch and father of his spouse. In doing so, Pran has also shown respect for the traditions that Ming holds dear, and his unselfish gift across tribal lines comes even when the very traditions it embodies were what caused them so much anguish in the first place (see this analysis here for more explanation).

And this is when we get a glimpse of Ming quietly admitting some of the guilt he feels in allowing tradition to dictate so much in their lives at the expense of their happiness, and is also why he softens just a bit and redelivers the misdirected mail to the Siridechawats later on.

So it really was an olive branch across tribal lines, initiating a stepdown in the warfare between the two families. 😊

Eep. I've rambled on too long as usual. But thanks so much for pointing me to this, Anonymous! I hadn't fully worked out the significance of Pran's gift before, and it's really thanks to your comment here that I have a better understanding of Ep.12 and the thawing that we see in Ming. You've given me a gift here. 😊 💖

#bad buddy analysis #patpran #bad buddy tribes #telomeke #bad buddy ming #bad buddy alcohol #คิดถึงBBS #missing my PP rascals so much

[kayla1993-world]

China halts dialogue with the United States. What does this mean for Canada? (msn.com)

In response to Nancy Pelosi's recent visit to Taiwan, China suspended dialogue with the US in several areas on Friday. Not only has dialogue on climate change and among theater-level military commanders been stifled, but cross-border crime and drug trafficking exchanges have also ceased.

With such an “un-transparent” regime, it may be difficult to predict what lies ahead for Canada’s diplomatic relations with China, according to Josephine Chiu-Duke, professor of Asian Studies at the University of British Columbia.

“I did not anticipate the Chinese regime acting in such a fierce, violent manner,” she told Global News. "We can’t really predict China’s actions because their system is simply so opaque,” she said. “We simply don't know what other actions China will take in the long run.”

However, for the time being, Chiu-Duke does not seek a shift in Canadian-Republic People's of China relations. "At this time, I don't see any significant change in the relationship between Canada and the People's Republic of China," she said.

In response to Pelosi’s “vicious” and “provocative” actions during her visit to Taiwan earlier in the week, China's Communist government imposed sanctions on her and her immediate family.

In addition, during large military drills, China launched ballistic missiles near Taiwan. "I think China must understand that its behavior is irresponsible," André Laliberté, professor of political studies at the University of Ottawa, told Global News.

Canada has always kept a close eye on US-China relations, according to Margaret McCuaig-Johnston, a senior fellow at the University of Ottawa’s Graduate School of Public and International Affairs. She described the dialogue halt as a “gross overreaction."

According to McCuaig-Johnston, Canada must develop a comprehensive plan to govern relations with both China and Taiwan in the future.

"We need to describe the new, more aggressive China we're seeing and identify how our government intends to manage that relationship, as well as how we intend to work with and support Taiwan. This Indo-Pacific strategy will shape how we interact with China, Taiwan, and other countries in the region."

Charles Burton, a senior fellow at the Macdonald-Laurier Institute and former counselor at Canada's Embassy in China, would like to see an Indo-Pacific policy that is consistent with European allies, as well as Australia and the United States.

"We really need to put this on the government's agenda, make some decisions, and state exactly where Canada stands on Taiwan defense and China's activities," he told Global News.

With no Canadian ambassador in Beijing since Dominic Barton left in December of last year, Canada's voice in China, according to Burton, is currently "muted."

"You really need someone at the ambassadorial level to get access to the Chinese regime and be taken seriously," he said. On Friday, China’s foreign ministry said it had summoned Canadian diplomat Jim Nickel to Beijing to reaffirm the country's commitment to preserving peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait and beyond.

On Wednesday, G7 foreign ministers issued a statement outlining their concerns about recent "threatening actions by the People’s Republic of China, particularly live-fire exercises and economic coercion, which risk unnecessary escalation."

"There is no justification for using a visit as a pretext for aggressive military activity in the Taiwan Strait," according to the statement. Following that, Nickel was summoned Thursday by Chinese vice foreign minister Xie Feng, who urged Canada to “immediately correct its mistakes” on the Taiwan issue or “bear all consequences,” according to a Chinese foreign ministry statement published Friday.

"Any conspiracy to support separatist forces for 'Taiwan independence' is doomed to fail," the statement said. Canada’s relations with China have a tumultuous history. Meng Wanzhou, a senior executive of the Chinese firm Huawei Technologies was arrested in December 2018, at the request of the United States. Wanzhou was charged with American sanctions against Iran.

Following her arrest in late 2018, Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor, two Canadians working in China, were detained. They were both convicted of spying in closed Chinese courts in 2021. The two Michaels, as they became known, were allowed to fly home by Beijing on September 25 after the US worked out a deferred prosecution agreement in Meng’s case, allowing her release.

"The kidnapping of the two Michaels is still a very bitter memory for many people," Laliberté said. Ng, Canada's minister of international trade, met with Taiwan's Minister John Deng earlier this year.

During the meeting, the two agreed to begin discussions on a possible foreign investment promotion and protection agreement between Canada and Taiwan, Canada's sixth-largest trading partner in Asia.

“That’s an extremely high level. I believe that demonstrates Canada’s support for democracy,” McCuaig-Johnston said, citing Canada's ships transiting the Taiwan Strait and the country's strong diplomatic team in Taipei.

[danielleslegacy]

Greif || Spencer Reid x Reader

Request: yes / no Fandom: Criminal Minds

Summary: Based on the Episode “Nelson’s Sparrow”(10x10), or the episode where Gideon dies, a bit of insight into what was happening with Spence. 

Word Count: 2,248 

Warnings:  Panic attack, blood, medical talk, dead body?

Pairing: Reader insert x Spencer Reid

MASTERLIST 

All writing is my own, so please don’t steal this. Also, I would appreciate any feedback/comments/requests! xx

*GIF IS NOT MINE SO CREDIT GOES TO THE OWNER*

My chest tightens and anxiety overcomes me as I watch Spencer move through our house, a shell of the man he was mere moments ago, his phone still raised to his ear as whatever news that he is being given begins to digest. He eventually stops pacing and finishes the call and turns to face me. His eyes shine with unshed tears, his lips pulled into a straight line that begins to quiver and it’s like all the oxygen has been removed from the room.

“What happened Spence?” I ask softly, reaching my hand out to offer him support, resting it on his forearm.

“It’s Gideon,” He breathes, and his face changes, “There was a body found in his cabin,” His voice catches in his throat and I fill in the gaps. The man that Spencer had spent so much of his life looking up, the man that was practically his father, was probably dead.  

I reach my arms up to pull him into and embrace, allowing him to rest his body weight into mine. I feel his tears begin to trickle onto my shoulder and his body rack with sobs. I knew that this was something he would not be able to bounce back from quickly and that this would be something Spence was going to need support with.

“Shh,” I hush, trying to console him, “It’s all going to be okay, Spence, we don’t even know that it’s him yet.”

“They want us to go in, the BAU is consulting on this,” he says, pulling himself away from me, wiping his face and preparing himself for the rough few days ahead. He heads to our room and brings out each of our coats and slips mine over my arms and onto my shoulders.

“Spence, can we please just take a minute before we leave,” I say, watching as he builds his walls up around himself and places his own over his shoulders, “I need you to look at me for a second and breathe, you have to hold yourself together if we are consulting babe, we need your mind on this one.”

His eyes lift to mine, the grief is already swirling in them. I watch as he takes a deep breath, closes his eyes, and lets it out. “I’m ready.”

Spencer drives us to the cabin, knowing that we hadn’t been there since he left the BAU so many years ago but his amazing mind allowed him to know the directions without the gps. He takes a minute to compose himself after he parks, and i rub my hand across his shoulders. I wasn’t fortunate to meet the man, as I had joined the bureau after he retired, but I knew of him, not only by the stories the team had but also for his amazing work. Jason Gideon was a genius.

“Ready to go?” I ask softly, giving him the opportunity to take as much time as he needed. He nods, pressing his hands on the steering wheel and we step out and walk up and into the cabin.

The first people that we see are Rossi and Kate, soft smiles are exchanged from them, guided at Spence. JJ and I lock eyes, silently she asks me how he’s holding up, I shake my head in response. My eyes float down to the ground, as if this is the first time I have noticed the body draped with a sheet, my stomach turns knowing that hours ago the man was alive and now he’s dead. Before raking my eyes up to Hotch, his face gives everything away and I watch as Spencer’s lip quivers again as he tries to keep it together. I feel people enter the room behind us, but I cast my eyes to our unit chief.

“Are you sure?” I hear Penelope’s voice ask from the other side of Spence, and it’s almost like everyone holds their breath waiting for the answer, despite being pretty sure of what it is going to be.

Hotch's resolve falters and for the first time, I can see how truly sad he is, “It’s Gideon.”

I close my eyes, bracing myself for the news, tears gathering for the first time since the news had been broken to the team. Spencer lets out a choked sob from beside me and quickly turns and walks out the door, just after looking at the figure on the ground. We could all tell that this news was going to be hard for him to hear, but I also knew that the last time the man left how he barely held himself together. The group collectively follow the boy with their eyes, Derek takes a step to follow him, and I shake my head, mumbling that I’ve got it. I bury my hands into my coat pockets and follow after Spencer out the door.

He has barely made it fifteen feet when his knees go out from underneath him and he crashes to the ground. Dirt and mud stain the knees of his pants. His shoulders rack with sobs and hands plant firmly on the ground. I take quicker steps and am at his side a few seconds later. I take a seat on the ground in front of him and run my hands up and down his arms, letting him know that i'm just here.

“Oh baby,” I whisper, tears gathering in my eyes. The worst part about loving someone is when they are hurting and there's nothing you can do to make it better. Loving Spencer was as natural as breathing. It felt like it was an instant and I loved him, and that I fell incredibly hard for him. Loving him felt like every little thing I have ever done right has led me to him and being with him. And the person that is such a light in my life so broken and destroyed hurts my soul on a whole other level, if I could take all his pain away and put it on myself I would in a heartbeat. Spencer’s hands grip the dirt, trying to ground himself. His breath becomes laboured and sporadically.  “Breathe with me Spence.”

“Can’t-” He mutters, lifting his red eyes to meet with mine. I can practically feel his panic wrap around him and pull him away.

“Yes, yes you can,” I say pulling one of his hands out of the dirt and up to rest on my chest, “Feel my breath, babe. Match mine. I know you can do it.”

Spencer shakes his head as his eyes raise to meet with mine, he tries desperately to convey to me how scared he is. And eventually, along with a few deep breaths he’s calming down slowly.

“Thank you,” He says softly wiping his fingers under his eyes, then learning up to press his lips to my forehead, “He was like my dad, Y/n. I wanted to be him, he was incredible. You know the letter he left here for me? It was essentially the same as the one my father left for me when I was a child.”

My heart breaks in my chest and my stomach turns, “I wish I could make it better baby, I really do.”

He dusts his hands off on his pants and stands up, legs shaky beneath him. We make our way back into the cabin just in time for Hotch to be assigning everyone to different tasks. Derek, Spencer and I are all sent to the M.E, as we needed to know the cause and time of death as soon as possible.

“Cause of death was hypovolemic shock, due to ballistic trauma,” the small asian woman says, and I hear Spencer suck in a breath from beside me, “Three points of entry, left shoulder, right abdominal wall, and right temporal.”

“Did he suffer?” Morgan asks, and my eyes snap up to his face, why would he ask that.

“Not for long, no,” The woman replies and I let out the breath I had subconsciously been holding thankful that the man hadn’t suffered. Morgan knew that Spencer needed to hear that the man didn’t suffer, “His brain stopped working before he was able to process his last breath.”

Morgan and I both look towards Spence, a vacant look on his face. He’s not listening to what’s being said, his eyes are locked on the body on the table, specifically focused on the deep crimson splotches on the sheet.

“After the final shot he was gone within a fraction of a second,” She finishes, noticing the tension rising in the room.

“Would you excuse us, please?” Morgan asks, she nods and glances across each of our faces, giving me a forced smile and exiting the room. I cross my arms over my chest, suddenly freezing within the room.

“Did you hear any of that?” He asks, stepping into the view of the younger man. I take a step back from the two, watching them interact. Morgan and Spence have a relationship that I could never begin to explain, if Spencer and I were soulmates so were the boys. “He didn’t suffer.”

A tear falls from Spencer’s eye, but before it’s there too long he has reached a shaky hand and tissue up to his face to remove it.  Morgan reaches out to clasp his shoulder, trying to offer him some comfort. I take a step forward unable to let him cry without knowing that I’m with him, my hand rests on his back softly. Morgan’s eyes meet mine and he gives me a soft smile.

“Listen to me, listen to me,” Derek begins, “Sometimes you put up these walls and you block us out, and you can’t do that, not right now.” A sniffle falls from Spencers lips.

“We need you, Spence,” I say softly. I move my hand down to link ours together. He gives my hand a quick squeeze letting me know silently that he has heard us.

“Gideon needs you,” Morgan finishes, “I’m going to step right out there and when you’re ready, let’s go get this son of a bitch.”

Spencer nods his head and when I go to follow Morgan out the door, his hand tightens around mine, “Please.” He says voice hoarse, thick with tears.

“Anything you need,” I say, firmly planting myself at his side. He silently cries beside me, and collects himself for what seems to be the hundredth time in the few short hours it had been since that phone call.

The rest of the day moves in a blur, Spencer completes the case shell of the man he normally is. He kept muttering about “one more game”, and once the unsub, Donnie Mallick is dead, he begins to allow himself to feel the grief.

It’s later, driving back from the crime scene that he speaks about him next, Rossi and I patiently listen and allow the man to talk and grieve.

“I just always thought I would see him again, “ He begins, voice shaking slightly, “I’d just really like to play one more game of chess with him,” He swallows, “I know I’m not being very rational, and I know that I haven’t seen him in a really long time but I think about him all the time and I knew he was always out there and now it just feels empty.”

“Yeah, but time will pass and slowly you'll forget how much it hurts,” Rossi says, he’s not trying to take away the pain, simply rationalise it for the boy, “And maybe you’ll find something else to fill that empty space.”

“I don’t want to find something else,” Spencer says defensively, as if Rossi is trying to take away the memory of the man.

“It won’t replace him,” I say, causing Spencer to glance back at where I’m sitting in the back seat, “Your memories and time with him made you who you are today and he would be so beyond proud of the man you’ve become Spence. He is a part of who you are, on a fundamental level and nothing will change that.” He nods softly.

Later that night when we are curled up on the couch Spencer’s head rested on my lap and my fingers tangled in his hair. I look down to the man and observe his face. For the first time in days he looks completely relaxed, his brows aren’t furrowed and he isn’t frowning.

“I don’t want to cry about it anymore,” He mumbles, probably noticing that I’m looking at him.

“I know,” I whisper back.

Spencer sits up and faces me, “When will it stop hurting?” He asks me, a childlike expression on his face, asking a question no one could possibly know the answer too.

“It’s going to be hard for a while, and that’s okay, but it will get easier and eventually when he is mentioned it won’t feel like your heart is being ripped from your chest. You’ll smile and laugh you think of him and tell his stories to your kids and keep his memory alive.”

“Our kids,” He says simply, linking his hand with mine, pulling me into his lap.

“Hm?” I mutter slightly confused on what he meant.

“I’ll tell his stories to our children,” He says pressing his lips to my forehead. My only response is a nod of my head.

“Yes baby, our children,” I say back, and just like that I know that he’s going to be okay.

~

A/N: I cried writing this cause i had to rewatch scenes of Spence crying and if that doesn’t tell you something about my mental health then what does

Taglist: (Let me know if you want to be tagged!) 

@saucybeeches​

#spencer reid #spence #dr spencer reid #doctor spencer reid #spencer reid fanfiction #crim #criminal #Criminal Minds #Criminal Minds Reid #Criminal Minds AU #fanfiction #derek morgan #derek morgan x reader #derek morgan x spencer reid #david rossi #kate callahan #aaron hotch hotchner #penelope garcia #spencer reid x reader #spencer reid x oc #bau x oc #criminal minds #criminal minds reid

[mad4indiaseo]

Indian Scientists

Science is an inevitable part of our life. It is more than an academic subject that continues to impact our lives daily. India has been scientifically advanced from ancient times to the contemporary world.

From the tiny light bulb to big machines, everything around us is a dynamic science, once invented by renowned scientists. Some great Indian scientists have made noteworthy contributions to the world and have garnered a praising synonym in the science field of India.

India is a land of creativity and originality. The sovereignty has given great minds to explore ideas that have made it to global recognition.

The world has always been complex, but the inventions of these great Indian scientists in the field of science have given solutions to the problems raised.

The science & technology sector has been the fastest-growing sector in India. It is due to the credibility of great Indian scientists who were the pillars and past geniuses in this field.

As a country, we should feel immensely proud for their mammoth contributions, but as an individual, our lives have become secure and easy due to their scientific inventions.

These great Indian scientists not only made the Indian sub-continent grow but emboldens the young generation to pave and evolve the science field.

Many new ideas will arise, new inventions will arouse, but the ones that carved the path for India’s science & technology shall be remembered forever. Mad4India reminisces and brings a compilation of these great Indian scientists who brought India to global acclaim.

APJ Abdul Kalam

📷Image Source – Website

Avul Pakir Jainulabdeen Abdul Kalam was an Indian scientist who made notable contributions in the science field. He was born on 5 October 1931 in Rameshwaram, Madras (present-day Tamil Nadu, India.)

He was an aerospace scientist who served as the 11th President of India from 2002 to 2007. Out of the many great Indian scientists, APJ Abdul Kalam was a man of legacy.

He worked at the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) and was intimately involved in India’s civilian program and military missile development effort. He thus came to be known as the Missile Man of India for his role in ballistic missile and launch vehicle technology.

One of the great Indian scientists, Abdul Kalam, was transferred to the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) in 1969. He was the project director of SLV- III, India’s first Satellite Launch Vehicle.

Under the leadership of APJ Abdul Kalam, India saw rapid development in missile production and nuclear weapons programs.

While he was delivering a lecture at the Indian Institute of Management, Shillong, he collapsed and died from a cardiac arrest on 27 July 2015, aged 83.

APJ Abdul Kalam was popularly known as “People’s President.” He is also the recipient of many prestigious awards, such as Bharat Ratna.

C.V. Raman

📷Image Source – Wikipedia

Chandrasekhara Venkata Raman was one of the great Indian scientists. He was a physicist who worked in the field of light scattering. Using a spectrograph that he developed, he discovered that when light travels to transparent materials, it e deflected light changes its frequency and wavelength. This phenomenon was known as the Raman Effect or Raman Scattering.

Chandrasekhara Venkata Rama was born on 7th November 1888 in Trichy, Tamil Nadu, India. He was a bright student and was the first Palit Professor of Physics at the University of Calcutta.

C.V. Raman, one of the great Indian scientists, was the reciprocate of a Nobel Prize in Physics for the discovery of the Raman Effect. He was also the first Asian to receive a prize in any branch of science.

The Raman Effect was discovered on 28 February 1928. The day is celebrated as the National Science Day of India by the Government of India.

He is also the recipient of many awards, such as Bharat Ratan.

The great Indian scientists passed away on 21 November 1970.

Vikram Sarabhai

📷Image Source – Wikipedia

Out of the many renowned and great Indian scientists, Vikram Sarabhai’s contributions are massive. He is known as the Father of the Indian Space Program.

Dr. Vikram Sarabhai was an Indian physicist and astronomer who initiated space research and developed nuclear power in India. He is the core astronomer who shaped the future of the Indian space program.

He was born on 12 August 1919 in Ahmedabad, Bombay Presidency, British India. 0n December 1971, Dr. Sarabhai died at 52 due to a cardiac arrest. One hour before his demise, he had a conversation with APJ Abdul Kalam.

In the history of leaders, APJ Abdul Kalam was a young student of Dr. Sarabhai, who took him under his wings. The two great Indian scientists signified the space program of India.

Vikram Sarabhai is the leading founder of the Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad. He also played an instrumental role in the setting up of ISRO.

Along with many great Indian scientists, he was honored with Padman Bhushan and Padma Vibhushan.

Homi J. Bhabha

📷Image Source – Wikipedia

Homi Jehangir Bhabha, entitled the Father of the Indian Nuclear Programme, was a preeminent Indian physicist who played an integral role in the scientific community of India.

Born on 30 October 1904 in Bombay Presidency, British India (present-day Mumbai, Maharashtra, India.) He was the founder-director and professor at the TIFR – Tata Institute of Fundamental Research.

Out of the contributions of various great Indian scientists, Homi J. Bhabha is the founding director of the AEET – Atomic Energy Establishment Trombay, which is now known as Bhabha Atomic Research Centre in his honor.

During the struggle for freedom against the British rule and looking for a newly independent India, Homi Bhabha was also in close contact with the then Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, and proposed to set up a separate Indian Atomic Energy Commission, which came into existence in 1948.

Out of the many great Indian scientists, Homi Bhabha organized the first UN Conference on the Peaceful Uses of Atomic Energy in 1955. He inspired the nuclear program for India.

Homi Bhabha was awarded the Adams Prize and Padma Bhushan. He was also nominated for the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1951 and 1953–1956.

Homi Bhabha, one of the great Indian scientists of India, died in an Air India Flight 101 Plane Crash in Mont Blanc on 24 January 1966.

Venkatraman Radhakrishnan

📷Image Source – Website

Venkatraman Radhakrishnan was an Indian space scientist. He was a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. He served as the vice-president of the International Astronomical Union from 1988–to 1994.

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He was a foreign fellow of the U.S. National Science Academy. He was an Associate of the Royal Astronomical Society & a Fellow of the Indian Academy of Sciences, Bangalore.

He is one of the great Indian scientists that has contributed immeasurably to the design and fabrication of ultralight aircraft and sailboats.

Venkatraman Radhakrishnan was born on 18 May 1929 in Tondiarpet, a suburb of Chennai, Madras.

With a motto to bring a change, Radhakrishnan gave many theoretical insights & observations on many mysteries surrounding interstellar clouds, galaxy structures, pulsars, and various other celestial bodies.

He passed away at the age of 91 on 3 March 2011 in Bangalore, Karnataka, India.

Venkatraman Radhakrishnan contributed to the Indian science field and is regarded as one of the great Indian scientists.

Jagadish Chandra Bose

📷Image Source – Wikipedia

Jagadish Chandra Bose was a famous and great Indian scientist. He was a biologist, physicist, botanist, and an early writer of Bengali science fiction. He made a significant contribution to plant science and pioneered the investigation of radio and microwave optics.

Born on 30 November 1858, in Mymensingh in the Bengal Presidency (present-day Bangladesh), he was a major force behind the expansion of experimental science in the Indian sub-continent.

The IEEE named him the Father of Radio Science. Chandra Bose is known as the Father of Bengali science fiction.

Renowned a great man of belief out the great Indian scientists, Bose invented the Cresco graph, a device that could measure the growth of plants. A crater on the moon is named after his honor.

He founded the Bose Institute, a premier research institute of India and one of its oldest. Established in 1917, it is also Asia’s first interdisciplinary research center.

Along with his creations, he opposed patenting any of his inventions. He made many pioneering discoveries in plant physiology. He is a great significant who has contributed immensely to the science & technology sector of India.

Apart from being a Bengali writer, he made India proud. In a 2004 BBC poll, Jagadish Chandra Bose was voted the seventh greatest Bengali of all time.

He died on 3 November 1937 in Giridih, Bengal Presidency, British India (present-day Jharkhand.)

Nambi Narayanan

📷Image Source – Wikipedia

Nambi Narayanan was an aerospace engineer who worked at the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO.) He was a key instrumental in developing the Vikas engine that would be used for the first PSLV, India will launch.

He was also the senior official, and he was in charge of the cryogenics division.

Out of the many great Indian scientists, his contribution to India was reckoned. Nambi was born on 2 December 1941 in Tamil Nadu, India. Since growing up, he had a fascination with flying objects and aircraft.

Nambi Narayanan also met the founder and the then chairman of ISRO Vikram Sarabhai and APJ Abdul Kalam.

He was one of the enormous scientists who worked on various projects, but his life turned upside down when he was arrested in 1994 on a false accusation. He resigned from ISRO regarding the espionage scandal.

Nambi was dismissed with the charges by the CBI in April 1996, and the Supreme Court of India declared him not guilty in 1998.

He is the recipient of the third-civilian award – Padma Bhushan.

Raj Reddy

📷Image Source – Website

One of the great Indian scientists to contribute his wisdom and knowledge is Raj Reddy. He is an Indian-American computer scientist and is one of the early pioneers of artificial intelligence. Raj Reddy has also served at Stanford and Carnegie Mellon. He was also the founding director of the Robotics Institute at the University of Carnegie Mellon.

He is known to have anchored what we know as today, AI. He is related to the development of large-scale intelligence systems.

Born on 13 June 1937 in Katur, Madras Presidency (present-day Andhra Pradesh, India.)

Raj Reddy is an award-winning Indian computer scientist. He is one of the great Indian scientists.

Meghnad Saha

📷Image Source – Wikipedia

Meghnad Saha was an Indian astrophysicist who developed the Ionization equation. The Saha Ionization equation is a basic tool to describe the physical and chemical conditions in stars.

Saha was born on 6 October 1893 in Shaoratoli, Dhaka, Bengal Presidency (present-day Bangladesh.) His study on the thermal ionization of elements let him formulate the Saha equation.

He also developed an instrument for measuring the weight and pressure of solar rays.

Termed as one of the great Indian scientists, he was elected to the Parliament of India in 1952 from Kolkata.

Meghnad Saha was known as the chief architect on river planning in India. The Damodar Valley project plan was prepared by him.

In the legacies of many great Indian scientists, Maghnand Saha made an exceptional discovery that formulated the interpretation of the spectra of stars in astrophysics.

He passed away on 16 February 1956 in New Delhi at 62.

Renowned and exhilarating great Indian scientists have made enormous contributions in the science & technology sector.

It diligently received praises for its achievements across the world. Many great minds reckoned the future of India and carved their belief in making India a nation of dynamic science.

Since then, many institutes and centers were also launched in regard for youngsters to join and promote their ideas for a mainstream discovery. From Indian Institute of Science to

Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR), India, many great proposals have been discovered in the science field.

Many great Indian scientists have made subsidies to the field of science that has helped us, human beings, understand the mysteries of the world much better.

Science is more than a subject. It is the dynamic creation that we surround ourselves with daily indulgence. Mad4India is delighted to cover these great Indian scientists who have made the nation proud with their discoveries and launched a new spectrum for the young generation of this country.

If you loved reading this story, you can also read about 11 Indian Scientists received the highest Science Award in 2021

If you know more inspirational stories about a person, company, new idea, or social initiative and want us to write it on mad4india.com, share such information with us on Facebook or LinkedIn.

#inspirational stories in india #women empowerment india #motivational stories #motivational story #inspiring story #inspiring stories #social initiative #indian scientists #indian scientist

[fweeble]

Today, I was talking with my mother and a familiar, irritating chestnut came up.  Specifically, my mother, laughing, once again said, “because she’s [you are] so mean and willful, [you] she won’t listen to me.” This is something she says to her coworkers often, laughing the entire time, as they come to her for advice for their kids who are entering university or have just entered their early years of university. 

This makes me angry, frustrated, and distraught for various reasons, one of which is because I have always listened to her. Growing up, while I had a cousin who straight up cut school, shirked after school cram lessons, and even slept during tutoring, I did things like bike to cram lessons over summer break despite hating it and not wanting to go, because that was what she wanted and I refused to have relatives look down on her for having a disobedient daughter. I have always done things I didn’t like and didn’t want to do because I knew that she was a single mother and that was one of the many stains against her in the eyes of my family. I was nothing like my other cousins who were exemplary students (GPAs of 4.0 or higher, since my school district used a system where getting an A in a Honor or AP course was equal to a “5″ instead of the usual “4.”). I was not a poor student, but I did not have a 4.0. I got mostly A’s and B’s and the occasional C. I was not outstanding, but I was not a poor student.  We are not a well-to-do family. I didn’t even know what major I wanted to study. I attended the meetings at school that were meant to prepare us for university applications, seminars on how to choose the right school for us. Since my mother was born and raised in Taiwan, got her degree in Taiwan, she did not know how the US university system worked, but I did, after going to these sessions. Since I didn’t know what I wanted to do, I wanted to go to a CC. They were cheaper and I’d knock my GE classes out of the way early on and I’d get first dibs when I transferred into a four year university.  The thing is, there’s a prevalent culture in California (well, Southern California) among (East) Asians: any child worth anything went to a UC. It simply would not do for you kid to go to a CalState let alone a CC. UCs cost twice as much as a CalState (which in turn is significantly more expensive than CCs, and through my the school career center, I knew that UCs were research schools and therefore were better choices for graduate degrees. My plan, then, since I knew CCs were out of the question, was to go to the significantly cheaper CalState and then, if I decided to go on to grab a graduate degree, attend a UC.  What happened was two of the worst years of my life. Despite the fact I brought my mom pamphlets and printouts from the “How to Choose the Right University for You” workshops and career center, despite the fact a family friend even discussed this with my mother, vouching for both me and the mountain of evidence I had gathered for her, she would not listen. She told me things like “Look at your grades, if you don’t go to a UC, not even McDonald’s would want you,” all while constantly berating me. I ended up choosing the nuclear option and opted not to take the required SATII’s that UCs required for admission and didn’t ask teachers to right recommendation letters for me, officially closing the door to UCs as an option.  My mom went ballistic. I had never felt so alone, so hopeless before. I remember dissolving into a fit of tears, getting into my car, and then, after realizing I had nowhere to go, because I was to afraid of bothering anyone, I drove to the local grocery store and cried in the parking lot for hours. My mother didn’t even realize I had left when I got home close to midnight. I still went to school. I couldn’t let the family believe my mother couldn’t control her child. That would be shameful. I ended my high school career with nearly a 4.0 in my last year (with one, irritating A-), and, finally, my mom got to show me off. I excelled in my CalState school. She later heard on a Chinese news show on the radio that corroborated exactly what I spent two years trying to tell her. She started showing off to her coworkers, saying it was perfectly fine for kids to go to CCs and CalStates. Hey, her daughter is attending one. And, haha, she has never been able to tell her mean, willful daughter to do anything. It’s now a sign of pride for her, the fact she’s this “easy going mother” that allows her daughter to do what she wants, completely ignoring the fact that I suffered so much during those two years, ignoring the fact that, after spending my childhood in therapy for being suicidal since elementary school and clinically depressed, that I was suddenly contemplating suicide again in the last two years of high school again after being weaned off medication in middle school. 

God, I had spent so much of my time wishing I was dead and gone. I was too afraid to tell anyone. The fact that my therapist called me hysterical when I finally opened up to her during a session and told me I wasn’t abused only made me feel more oppressed, more alone. I knew my mother wasn’t abusive, but that didn’t mean the things that she said weren’t, especially during those two years when we had an eternal struggle over what university I would apply to. I really felt as if I had nowhere to go. I wasn’t meant to be anywhere. No one would listen to me. I was the lying shepherd without ever having cried wolf once. So when she brought it up today, I finally told her that it wasn’t funny, that what she had said to me at the time was abusive and that she needs to stop saying that I am a mean and willful daughter who never listens to her because I do. God, I have always listened to her, sacrificed so much emotionally to make her happy, and the only time I disobeyed her was with her in mind, knowing that tuition is expensive, that she is a single mother, and that it would be best to chose a university that was cheaper.  But no, I am the mean, willful daughter who never listens and she is the nice, easy going mother. My two years of suffering, hopelessness, loneliness.. Those two years are fictional years she doesn’t remember and I am cruel for bringing it up to her and telling her that, during those two years, the words she said to me were abusive, that it still hurts me when she brings it up as if it’s nothing. To my mom, that’s the truth.  And everything I feel now, is unfair to her.

#Fwee and real life #I generally keep my real life out of tumblr #and online in general but #...I'm really distraught right now #sorry for not sliding all of this under the cut #I guess...this is something I want someone to read #I want what I went through to be ACKNOWLEDGED #since my mom certainly seems to refuse to

[weekendwarriorblog]

The Weekend Warrior 9/4/20 – TENET! MULAN! I’M THINKING OF ENDING THINGS (but now that I’ve seen Tenet and Mulan, I’m better)… and More!

It’s Labor Day weekend… it is, isn’t it? I can’t even remember what day of the week it is anymore, and it looks like movie theaters across the country are generally all reopened except for a few specific areas. While theaters seem to be playing a variety of old and new movies – and Chadwick Boseman’s breakout 42, in which he plays Jackie Robinson, will be shown in 300 AMC theaters starting Thursday --  it still feels like we’re not quite where we should be. That said, only three states remain fully closed as far as movie theaters go: New York (eff you, Cuomo!), North Carolina and New Mexico. California is slowly rolling out movie theaters reopening in certain sections but not in L.A. or San Francisco just yet. Honestly, I’m having a rough week, and I’ll be surprised if I even get through half the movies that I have seen and planned to review, let alone everything else I have to do.

Finally! The movie that’s looking to be one of the most controversial movies of the summer, if not the year, comes to the United States. Of course, I’m talking about Christopher Nolan’s TENET (Warner Bros.), his tribute to James Bond movies with John David Washington (BlacKkKlansman) playing a super-spy (of sorts) who teams with Robert Pattinson to perform intricate heists on a mission to find out who has discovered bullets that travel backwards through time and brought them back into our time. Also starring Elizabeth Debicki and Kenneth Branagh, the movie has received mixed to positive reviews with about 76% on Rotten Tomatoes. You can read my full review right here and a second technical review here.

Right now, it looks like Tenet is going to be playing in roughly 3,000 theaters over Labor Day weekend with only a few states fully closed including my own (New York), as well as North Carolina and New Mexico. A few other states like New Jersey and Maryland are reopening but it may be too late to get Tenet in there. California has a few areas open but not Los Angeles or San Francisco.

Although I’m hesitant at making any predictions right now or doing a full-blown analysis – there so many unknowns in a pandemic -- I think a four-day opening of somewhere between $25 and 28 million should be possible even with limited seating in most theaters that have reopened. I think people are ready to go back to theaters despite the negative narrative created by certain irresponsible film critics who seem to care more about their own personal health than that of the industry that has allowed them to pay rent and live large for years.

Another movie that I’ve been looking forward to and actually my most anticipated movie of the year is Disney’s live action remake of their animated classic, MULAN, this one directed by one of my favorite filmmakers, Niki Caro of Whale Rider fame. I cannot tell you how excited I was to finally see this movie after being invited to a press screen back in March, and then have it systematically cancelled as everything else started shutting down. Fortunately, I got a screener and while not my favorite way to watch a movie, I absolutely LOVED IT!

It stars Yifei Liu as the title character, made famous in the 1998 Disney animated movie, and it follows a similar story of a teen girl who steals her father’s sword and armor and pretends to be a man to join the Imperial Army under secrecy. There are definitely major changes in Caro’s version, most notably the lack of songs and no sign of Mushu, the adorable dragon voiced by Eddie Murphy. This is also not meant for small children, because it’s PG-13 not because it has anything terrible like someone waving genitals or swearing but because some of the action does get intense without much blood or anything terrible. I mean, this is definitely a SOFT PG-13, if that’s even a thing.

The movie is gorgeous and in the vein of movies I love like Zhang Yimou’s Hero and Ang Lee’s Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, and it’s even exec. produced by Bill Kong, who produced many of those films. The point is that I love these kinds of movies, plus I’ve long been a fan of Caro’s, and everything just comes together beautifully from the performance by Yifei Liu to the fantastic characters around her, including ones played by Jet Li and Donnie Yen (reuniting from Hero!), as well as an amazing witch played by the indelible Ms. Gong Li, who is also terrific. Sure, there’s a few issues with the dialogue, but this is not a kiddie movie, as much as it’s something on par with the first Pirates of the Caribbean movie, and I just love all of the decision Caro and her all-Asian cast make in telling this story in a new way. I particularly liked how the film followed Chinese traditions and dealt with things like “chi,” but as with the animated film, the stuff in the army 

On top of the amazing martial arts fights, there are also some terrific battle scene that would do Braveheart proud, and it’s all pulled together by Harry Gregson-Williams’ score, which may be one of my favorite pieces of music this year. Definitely a score I’ll be buying since it brings so much excitement and emotion to every scene, but that’s just as much a credit to Ms. Caro and her fantastic cast, who in a couple scenes, particularly between Liu and Li, had me tearing up almost as much as every single time I’ve watched Caro’s debut, Whale Rider.

I’m sure that fans of the animated movie (which I only saw for the first time earlier this year) will have different expectations, but you can’t fault Disney for being a little bit concerned and undeservedly dumping it to the Disney+ streaming service (which you can watch it at a premium of $29.95) rather than giving it the theatrical release it truly deserved. Honestly, if for some strange reason, Disney decides to play it in a bunch of theaters once they’re fully open, I would not hesitate to watch this again in what I consider a much-better environment for a movie which is likely to end up in my top 10 for year. It’s probably my favorite straight-up Disney movie (not including Pixar or Marvel) since maybe Kenneth Branagh’s Cinderella, although I kind of enjoyed Mary Poppins Returns, too.

I also have a crafts review of Mulan over at Below the Line, so check that out!

While I’ve generally been mixed on Charlie Kaufman’s movies that he directed himself, I couldn’t NOT watch I’M THINKING OF ENDING THINGS, his new movie on Netflix, starring Jessie Buckley and Jesse Plemons as a young couple going to visit his parents, played by Toni Collette and David Thewlis. At first, it looks like they’ll get stuck in a snowstorm, but then they get there and then they leave and once again get stuck in a snowtorm. No, this isn’t Centigrade 2, but actually something far FAR worse, to the point where I’m not even sure where to begin.

It starts with Buckley’s “Young woman” ��� yes, Kaufman doesn’t even bother giving her a name – being picked up by her boyfriend Jake (Plemons) before the long ride through the snow to his parent’s house. The whole time, we hear her inner thoughts about wanting to break up with Jake for one or reason or another, her thoughts always been interrupted by Jake making a statement that seems out of the blue. When they get to his parents’ farm in the middle of nowhere, things start to get weird, and I don’t want to go into too many details because if you read my review and decide to sit through it anyway, then it’s your own fault.

Apparently, this was loosely based on a book of the same name by Iain Reid, but it was adapted by the guy who wrote Adaptation, so Kaufman pretty much just went off and did his own thing based on Reid’s general premise. What I find particularly weird is that some of the early reviews talked about this movie as if it was a horror movie, but I just don’t see that at all. It’s just a really dry and weird comedy that doesn’t really take off. While parts of it remind me of the comics work of Daniel Clowes (Ghost World), who I genuinely love, other parts just get so weird, and at times, it reminded me of David Lynch’s Eraserhead or M. Night Shyamalan’s The Visit, but only because there are so many WTF moments that you wonder what the actors must have thought while they were doing what Kaufman told them to do. Again, I’m not going to ruin the experience of being thoroughly confounded by some of the weirder moments but after Buckley and Plemons leave the farmhouse, they’re back driving through the snow and having far more intelligent conversations about such mundane topics. At one point, I thought, “This movie must be over soon, right?” and I checked, and there were 43 more minutes to go. That’s when I went from angry to outright ballistic, because I knew that there were so many other things I could be doing than listening to all the talking, talking, talking… They eventually arrive at an abandoned school and go there for shelter, and I was like, “Oh, good, now we get to the horror stuff.” Nope.

I’m Thinking of Ending Things is the perfect movie for the scant few that raved about Darren Aronofsky’s mother!, or those who consider Holy Rollers a masterpiece of the highest order. Awful, aggravating and almost unwatchable at times, I’d only recommend Kaufman’s movie to people as a practical joke. Nah, I’m not that mean. It’ll be on Netflix tomorrow. Good luck with it.

Filmmaker and Rooney* frontman Robert Schwartzman directs his third feature, the comedy THE “ARGUMENT” (Gravitas Ventures), which takes the simple idea of a cocktail party and turns it into a riotous and sometimes strange comedy of errors, of sorts.

Dan Fogler and Emma Bell play couple Jack and Lisa, he a writer, her an actress, who have been together for some time, and Jack is ready to pop the question. After the final of a stageplay Lisa is co-starring in, Jack throws a cocktail party at which he’s gonna propose. He invites over his agent Danny Pudi from Community) and his wife Sarah (Maggie Q) but Lisa has invited her amorous co-star Paul (Tyler James Williams from Everybody Hates Chris all grown up!), who brought his own bubbly girlfriend Trina (Cleopatra Coleman).  As Trina starts drinking, thing just get worse and worse, and it inevitably turns into a full- on fight between Jack and Lisa aka the “argument” of the title. Jack is convinced that if they have a do-over on the night, they can prove who is right.

Oh, yeah. That couldn’t possibly work, right? Well, I’m not going to spoil it, but the one do-over turns into several, which turns into Jack trying to script the perfect cocktail party with the six of them … or rather five after Maggie Q’s character quits in a hilarious huff where she does impressions of the other five. (I’ve always found Maggie to be hilarious from talking to her years ago, and it’s great that her comic skills are finally being used, along with her beauty.) Eventually, Jack brings in actors to play each of them and perform the script he’s written so they can all sit back and figure out where things went wrong. Honestly, The “Argument” is more like the Charlie Kaufman movies I liked (such as Adaptation), and the movie has a vibe a lot like the play God of Carnage, which Roman Polanski adapted into a movie that nobody saw and few gave a fair shake. Also reminded me of Ike Barinholtz’s The Oath, which I quite enjoyed. The main leads are great, but I gotta give additional kudos to Maggie and Cleopatra Coleman, who gives a surprisingly layered performance as possibly the first ditzy African-American not-blonde “blonde” in movie history?

Although Schwartzman didn’t write this movie – it’s written by Zac Sanford who made The Chumscrubber -- he does a great job using his talented cast to throw many surprises at the viewer, and I was laughing quite hardily as the movie went on, because I really enjoyed the characters portrayed not just by the main six but also the actors playing the actors. Yeah, I know it might get confusing but at least this doesn’t have time travel, so if you want a fun and unexpectedly clever dark comedy, do check out The “Argument” which will be in theaters and On Demand, and apparently, you can even order it bundled with WINE?!?!? (*And you can also check out Rooney on Spotify!)

Another really nice surprise this week was Jeff Barnaby’s apocalyptic horror film BLOOD QUANTUM (Shudder/RLJEFilms), which was released on VOD, Digital HD, DVD and Blu-Ray earlier this week but is also on the awesome horror streamer, Shudder, I guess right now? It involves a community of indigenous people in the reserve Red Crow who face the undead when an infection hits the village through a bunch of animals who come back to life and then infect the humans. The movie starts on the first night of this plague and then cuts forward six months when the people of Red Crow have shut themselves off from the rest of the world with the hopes of keeping those still alive uninfected from the hordes of “Zeds” outside their gates.

I’m a little bummed I didn’t have press notes for this movie because there are so many great characters and performances, but it was hard to keep track of them without a scorecard. It does star Michael Greyeyes from Fear the Walking Dead, as well as Forrest Godluck (The Revenant), Kiowa Gordon and Elle-Máijá Tailfeatures, but other than Greeneyes, who plays the sherriff trying to keep his family safe, I could barely keep track of the characters or figure out who played them, and that’s a shame.

I generally liked the recent Train to Busan: Peninsula but Blood Quantum works just as little bit better, mainly from the interaction of the characters in a world full of sex and drugs and gore galore where you never who is gonna get killed but for the most part, they’re likely to go in a way that involves blood that pours like a waterfall. You add to the quick pace of Barnaby’s direction the amazing score that almost sounds like Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, and you have a movie that makes you realize that Barnaby has made a film that perfectly captures the spirit and feel of John Carpenter’s best work. 

I actually watched John Leguizamo’s feature film directorial debut CRITICAL THINKING (Vertical Entertainment), way back in March, literally my very last press screening before movie theaters shut down, little realizing that it would be the last press screening for six months! It’s written by Dito Montiel, who I’ve generally been mixed on, and it’s based on a true story from 1998 where a Miami teacher, played by Leguizamo, tries to save a group of Latino and Black teenagers from the inevitable drugs and crime that kids from the underserved ghetto usually get into by teaching them chess and getting them all the way to the National Chess Championship. I didn’t get to rewatch it to write any sort of intelligent review, but as you can imagine, it has a Mr. Holland’s Opus or Dead Poet’s Society feel, but mixed with the little-seen Disney movie, Queen of Katwe, which I generally enjoyed much more. I do think Leguizamo did a pretty decent job with his first feature as a director and maybe if the crazy early days of COVID weren’t distracting me so much, maybe I would have enjoyed it more. This is a movie that I need to rewatch with a better head on my shoulders.

Tyler Norwood’s doc ROBIN’S WISH (Vertical) takes a look at the last years of comedian and actor Robin Williams, who died from suicide in August 2014 at the age of 63. To everyone who knew him, from close acquaintances to fans, it was a mystery why Williams would take his own life with things going so well in his marriage to Susan Schneider. After his death, the autopsy showed that he was afflicted by undiagnosed diffuse Lewy body dementia, and apparently, that was enough to do his head in to the point where suicide seemed like the only solution.

This is a very different than the equally good Robin Williams: Come Inside My Mind, because it does focus so much on Williams’ last years and his relationship with Schneider, who plays a much bigger role in this movie with in-depth and intimate moments. It also does a good job talking to Williams’ neighbors in Marin County, who laud the comedian’s commitment to entertaining those in the community. It also interviews Shawn Levy from the Night at the Museum movies, who talks about how Williams wouldn’t let anyone around him know what was going on, maybe because he didn’t really know himself.

Williams’ death was tragic but even moreso when you realize what he must have been going through, and the only thing else I will say is that the notably teary documentary Dear Zachary may finally have some competition as the most tear-inducing real-life film you ever watch. Even so, it’s wonderful and does as great job shining a light on how hard something like dementia hits people when they least expect it. (Also, the score and cinematography for the film are fabulous at provoking those sorrowful emotions even more.)

Arthur Jones’ doc FEELS GOOD MAN is available right now On Demand via the Fantasia Film Festival and will be available via other film festivals, like Oxford Film Festival, starting Friday. (It will also be in theaters, including Oxford’s drive-in!) The movie follows the journey of comics artist Matt Furie, who drew a comic called “Boys Club” that featured a strange frog character named Pepe, who I never heard of, but apparently, the odd underground comic character went from being a popular meme to becoming a symbol of the alt-right. It sounds pretty crazy, but it is an absolutely crazy story as Furie sees his lovable and peaceful slacker character get out from under his control as right wing kooks like Alex Jones from InfoWars gloms onto him.

At first, I wasn’t sure if I’d find this as interesting as the HBO doc, Beware the Slenderman (which I also happened to see at Fantasia a few years ago), but the way that Jones tells Furie and Pepe’s story is really quite compelling, especially as he (and we) watch the craziness surrounding his character unfold, and Pepe becomes less and less like something he wanted to be associated with. (Furie and his wife spent thousands of their own money-making Pepe T-shirts and merch only to have to destroy it all once Furie gets pegged as the creator of a hate image. I mean, holy shit, this thing gets ugly!)

Apparently, Feels Good Man won an “Emerging Filmmaker” Jury Award at Sundance, and it’s well-deserved. I’d recommend the movie to anyone who likes comics or politics and doesn’t mind when the two things collide.

There are a few other movies that I want to write about that I didn’t have time to watch despite having screeners and who knows, maybe I can watch them over this longer weekend if things aren’t too crazy screener-wise. (I lost quite a bit of time with my trip to Connecticut to see Tenet, unfortunately.)

First, there’s Julius Berg’s THE OWNERS (RLJEFilms), which stars Maisie Williams from Game of Thrones and Sylvester McCoy aka Doctor Who #6 (I think?). It’s about a group of friends who want to break into an empty house in which there’s a safe full of money, but when the elderly couple (including McCoy) return home early, they turn the tables in a deadly game of cat and mouse. Yeah, it does sound like it could be fun, and it’ll be in select theaters, On Demand and digital this Friday.

Also out on Digital, as well as DVD, Blu-Ray this week is the anime CHILDREN OF THE SEA (Shout! Factory/GKids) from director Ayumu Watanabe and STUDIO4ºC who made Mind Game and Tekkonkinkreet. It’s about a young girl named Ruka whose father works at an aquarium where she comes across two mysterious boys who were raised by dugongs (a type of sea cow) so they’re very familiar and acclimated to water, to the point where they have to be in or near it at all times, kind of like Aquaman. I did watch a little bit of this, and I do have to say that it looks gorgeous, definitely more photo-realistic than the work of Miyazaki and Studio Ghibli. I’m sure I’ll get around to watch the rest of it because I do enjoy well-made anime -- Weathering With You and Ride Your Wave are likely to be in my year-end Top 25, for instance – so hopefully, fans of anime and fantsy will check it out.

On Amazon Prime this Friday is Eric Merola’s doc THE ANDORRA HUSTLE, which look at the country of Andorra, located between France and Spain in the Pyrenees mountains, holding a population of 80,000 people who find themselves at the center of one of the most convoluted robberies in history in 2015 when a the private bank Banca Privada d’Andorra was shut down by the government to destroy the Catalonian Independence Movement, leaving dozens of innocent civilians facing jail time for laundering money after losing their life savings.

A couple prominent science fiction series premiere this weekend, including the Ridley Scott-produced Raised by Wolves on HBO Max and Away, starring Hillary Swank on Netflix. Someday, I hope to have

There’s a lot of other stuff that I didn’t have to watch or even think about it, so yeah, this is a little bit of a “lite edition” of the Weekend Warrior, so I apologize. Hopefully, I’ll be able to do better next week.

By the way, if you read this week’s column and have bothered to read this far down, feel free to drop me some thoughts at Edward dot Douglas at Gmail dot Com or drop me a note or tweet on Twitter. I love hearing from readers … honest!

#TheWeekendWarrior #Tenet #ChristopherNolan #Mulan #TheArgument #BloodQuantum #Movies #Reviews #DriveIns #VOD #Streaming

[armeniaitn]

Precision Technologies: Replacement to Conventional Weapons?

New Post has been published on https://armenia.in-the.news/politics/precision-technologies-replacement-to-conventional-weapons-38413-21-07-2020/

Precision Technologies: Replacement to Conventional Weapons?

In the dark arena of nuclear catastrophe, after the advent of nuclear related technologies emerged, the dynamics of Global security environment transformed into a Paradox of Power among the great powers. A series of power struggle became a notion between strategic competitors in the 20th century. US and Soviet Union neglected the idea of war after World War 2, when seeking the potential power of deterrence of Nuclear weapons. Since then, the world restrict itself from indulging in any nuclear war rather states became more inclined towards arms control and nonproliferation negotiations in order to avoid, conventional wars.

21st century, sets a hallmark for domination of technology in global strategic security environment. The impacts of major wars on the states provided a lesson to protect not only state itself along its nation from a nuclear winter. Advancements in the technology opens a gateway to a more precise and intelligent wars without much resources and escalation rather limited force to achieve desirable military outcomes. With such a vast spectrum of emerging technologies today, will they replace the nuclear deterrence? Or do these small yield precision technologies have potential to overtake the nuclear weapons? Or what can be the limit of its threshold for replacement?

Theoretical Framework:

Theories always provide a model or framework for analysis of any issue. While the idea of the paper revolves around the replacement of nuclear weapons by precision technologies. Numerous frameworks shall be applied depending upon the nature and dimension of the research query. As nuclear deterrence is a multidimensional concept that constitutes various approaches.  With concern to the topic, “Precision technologies: replacement to conventional weapons” meet one of the four paradox of nuclear strategy, that is ‘Stability/ Instability Paradox.

“Stability/ Instability Paradox states that by preventing total war or all out wars, the destructiveness of nuclear weapons seems to open the door to limited conflicts.”[1] “The inverse relationship between the probability of nuclear and conventional military conflict is known as the stability-instability paradox.”[2] Furthermore, the paper also analyzes some of principles of Sun Tzu, where paper reflects on the idea of policies of war making and limited resource allocation keeping in view the future expediencies. Where Sun Tzu states that, “Generally in war the best policy is to take a state intact; to ruin it is inferior to this, for to win a hundred victories in one hundred battles is not the acme of skill. To subdue the enemy without fighting is the acme of skill.”[3]He further notes, “The magnitude of outcomes of its use makes industrial war, the focusing of state’s total power to the application of force against an adversary, a high-risk enterprise”.[4]

Prospects of Precision Technologies:

Tracing back when national security of a state was ensured by the possession of nuclear weapons or nuclear force, the debate over various technologies was a source of neglect by that time. Horizons of nuclear force discriminated the idea of precision technology by the fact of its deterrence and magnitude of its collateral damage. During mid 1980s the idea of such low yield technology came to limelight and speculations emerged on its usage and delivery means. Precision technologies eliminated the idea of collateral damage by use of sufficient force to achieve military targets. With accuracy and precision as a foundational characteristic, they became a major tool in conflicts.

Some of the precision technologies are as following:

Radar: one of the best detection tool used by force in order to target enemy force and co ordinate with the signals in mostly operatable in all mediums such as dark or fog or any obstruction. Radar provides accuracy for a weapon to be delivered at any target.

Space system: it provides the exact location of thee target by several surveillance and reconnaissance satellites or use of Global Positioning System (GPS). Thus, reduces the risk of probability.

Unmanned air vehicle: one of the most intelligent and precise tool which has the capability to carry weapons and aids in surveillance objectives too. The risk of putting a life of human on danger on the vehicle has been replaced by UAV’s.

Advent of Cruise and Ballistic missiles: primary function of missile is to target the enemy with exact precision, accuracy keeping in mind the missile range, trajectory, warhead, speed and payload that it carries.

Cyber-attacks: network centric weapon launched by using Internet Protocols of an identified target by the hacker. In such a process the risk of being captured by the enemy force is nil. Cyber espionage, hacking, cyberterrorism all are the tools for physical disruption.

Sun Tzu principle of subduing an enemy without fighting can be related to such skills in order to win a war over an enemy. Where fights are fought conventionally, it’s the technology who dictates how to win thousands battles without fighting.

It is far obvious how precision technologies can be employed by the forces to achieve objectives but with immense technological factor there are various assumptions too based on their delivery means, their potential capabilities, reliability, readiness and vulnerability. Precision technologies are said to be vulnerable if slightly miscalculation or mishandling of the weapon is done wile operating it. Slightly miscalculation can prove to have an entirely different outcome and risk of mission shall reveal. Secondly, striking the targeted location requires precision in intelligence, location, and timebound attack. Any delay or slightly carelessness will produce destructive results than nuclear arms.

Securing boundaries without conventional force can be challenging yet possible by having potential use of precision technology. Such as cyber-attacks, one of the major tool which is more destructive in nature than any nuclear weapon. The potential espionage and hacking for a state make it possible. Having a trained force for cyber-attack to enemy command and control system penetration shall give desirable political, military objectives.

More Intelligence/ less Magnitude: Counter value targets

Considering one of the major drawbacks regarding the magnitude of destructiveness by precision technology is that its limited focused area which it can turn down. Historically, at the time when nuclear weapons were used on Japan, the entire nation was slaughtered by a single bomb. Now considering the range, magnitude and level of destruction that was being made by a single firebomb cannot be achieved by Precision technologies. There is no denial regarding their accuracy, intelligence and precision but when it come to target counter value location, precision technology cannot replace nuclear weapon. Thus, Nuclear weapon ensures collateral damage. But on the other hand, targeting counter value targets are morally and legally restricted. So, precision technology cannot fully but partially over come this restraint.

Conclusion:

The stability/instability paradox comes in existence while debating over an argument of countervalue and counter force targets. While theorists are of the view that nuclear weapons in any region exists in parity to the strategic security environment of that particular region keeping in view the strategic relations of nuclear weapon states and their neighbors. The prospects of threat perception are seen if it fulfilled by possession of nuclear arsenals or Precision Technology. If we look at South Asian region two nuclear states, who are in constant struggle in acquiring more and more nuclear arsenals to enhance their threshold, do have hands on precision technologies but they rely more on nuclear threshold rather than high precision weapons for deterrence purposes.

Secondly, the fancy technology can only be possessed by core states. Core states have the potential to design, operate and function such high technology prone devices because of availability of resources both skill and trained workers along with knowledge. And over such technology there is always a monopoly over the transfer of knowledge. So, such periphery states grip on nuclear deterrence for a security dilemma.

Power of technology today, paves alternatives for the core states to have an upper hand in the International Politics.

[1] Bhumitra Chakma, The Politics of Nuclear Weapon in South Asia (Burlington: Asghate Publishing Company, 2011).

[2] S. Paul Kapur, “Stability Instability Paradox”, in The SAGE Encyclopedia of Political Period (Thousand Oaks: SAGE Publication, Inc.,2017),2.

[3] Sun Tzu, The Art of War, Samuel B. Griffith translation (Oxford University Press, 1963).

[4] Rupert Smith, The Utility of Force: The Art of War in the Modern World, (New York: Random House/Vintage Books, 2012).

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[strike-back-now-info]

Remarks by President Trump to the 74th Session of the United Nations General Assembly

 Issued on: September 25, 2019

 https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/remarks-president-trump-74th-session-united-nations-general-assembly/

  United Nations Headquarters

New York, New York

 September 24, 2019

 10:12 A.M. EDT

 PRESIDENT TRUMP: Thank you very much.  Mr. President, Mr. Secretary-General, distinguished delegates, ambassadors, and world leaders:

 Seven decades of history have passed through this hall, in all of their richness and drama.  Where I stand, the world has heard from presidents and premiers at the height of the Cold War.  We have seen the foundation of nations.  We have seen the ringleaders of revolution.  We have beheld saints who inspired us with hope, rebels who stirred us with passion, and heroes who emboldened us with courage — all here to share plans, proposals, visions, and ideas on the world’s biggest stage.

 Like those who met us before, our time is one of great contests, high stakes, and clear choices. The essential divide that runs all around the world and throughout history is once again thrown into stark relief. It is the divide between those whose thirst for control deludes them into thinking they are destined to rule over others and those people and nations who want only to rule themselves.

 I have the immense privilege of addressing you today as the elected leader of a nation that prizes liberty, independence, and self-government above all.  The United States, after having spent over two and a half trillion dollars since my election to completely rebuild our great military, is also, by far, the world’s most powerful nation.  Hopefully, it will never have to use this power.

 Americans know that in a world where others seek conquest and domination, our nation must be strong in wealth, in might, and in spirit.  That is why the United States vigorously defends the traditions and customs that have made us who we are.

 Like my beloved country, each nation represented in this hall has a cherished history, culture, and heritage that is worth defending and celebrating, and which gives us our singular potential and strength.

 The free world must embrace its national foundations.  It must not attempt to erase them or replace them.

 Looking around and all over this large, magnificent planet, the truth is plain to see: If you want freedom, take pride in your country.  If you want democracy, hold on to your sovereignty.  And if you want peace, love your nation.  Wise leaders always put the good of their own people and their own country first.

 The future does not belong to globalists.  The future belongs to patriots.  The future belongs to sovereign and independent nations who protect their citizens, respect their neighbors, and honor the differences that make each country special and unique.

 It is why we in the United States have embarked on an exciting program of national renewal.  In everything we do, we are focused on empowering the dreams and aspirations of our citizens.

 Thanks to our pro-growth economic policies, our domestic unemployment rate reached its lowest level in over half a century.  Fueled by massive tax cuts and regulations cuts, jobs are being produced at a historic rate.  Six million Americans have been added to the employment rolls in under three years.

 Last month, African American, Hispanic American, and Asian American unemployment reached their lowest rates ever recorded. We are marshaling our nation’s vast energy abundance, and the United States is now the number one producer of oil and natural gas anywhere in the world.  Wages are rising, incomes are soaring, and 2.5 million Americans have been lifted out of poverty in less than three years.

 As we rebuild the unrivaled might of the American military, we are also revitalizing our alliances by making it very clear that all of our partners are expected to pay their fair share of the tremendous defense burden, which the United States has borne in the past.

 At the center of our vision for national renewal is an ambitious campaign to reform international trade.  For decades, the international trading system has been easily exploited by nations acting in very bad faith.  As jobs were outsourced, a small handful grew wealthy at the expense of the middle class.

 In America, the result was 4.2 million lost manufacturing jobs and $15 trillion in trade deficits over the last quarter century.  The United States is now taking that decisive action to end this grave economic injustice. Our goal is simple: We want balanced trade that is both fair and reciprocal.

 We have worked closely with our partners in Mexico and Canada to replace NAFTA with the brand new and hopefully bipartisan U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement.

 Tomorrow, I will join Prime Minister Abe of Japan to continue our progress in finalizing a terrific new trade deal.

 As the United Kingdom makes preparations to exit the European Union, I have made clear that we stand ready to complete an exceptional new trade agreement with the UK that will bring tremendous benefits to both of our countries.  We are working closely with Prime Minister Boris Johnson on a magnificent new trade deal.

 The most important difference in America’s new approach on trade concerns our relationship with China. In 2001, China was admitted to the World Trade Organization.  Our leaders then argued that this decision would compel China to liberalize its economy and strengthen protections to provide things that were unacceptable to us, and for private property and for the rule of law.  Two decades later, this theory has been tested and proven completely wrong.

 Not only has China declined to adopt promised reforms, it has embraced an economic model dependent on massive market barriers, heavy state subsidies, currency manipulation, product dumping, forced technology transfers, and the theft of intellectual property and also trade secrets on a grand scale.

 As just one example, I recently met the CEO of a terrific American company, Micron Technology, at the White House.  Micron produces memory chips used in countless electronics.  To advance the Chinese government’s five-year economic plan, a company owned by the Chinese state allegedly stole Micron’s designs, valued at up to $8.7 billion.  Soon, the Chinese company obtains patents for nearly an identical product, and Micron was banned from selling its own goods in China.  But we are seeking justice.

 The United States lost 60,000 factories after China entered the WTO.  This is happening to other countries all over the globe.

 The World Trade Organization needs drastic change.  The second-largest economy in the world should not be permitted to declare itself a “developing country” in order to game the system at others’ expense.

 For years, these abuses were tolerated, ignored, or even encouraged.  Globalism exerted a religious pull over past leaders, causing them to ignore their own national interests.

 But as far as America is concerned, those days are over.  To confront these unfair practices, I placed massive tariffs on more than $500 billion worth of Chinese-made goods.  Already, as a result of these tariffs, supply chains are relocating back to America and to other nations, and billions of dollars are being paid to our Treasury.

 The American people are absolutely committed to restoring balance to our relationship with China. Hopefully, we can reach an agreement that would be beneficial for both countries.  But as I have made very clear, I will not accept a bad deal for the American people.

 As we endeavor to stabilize our relationship, we’re also carefully monitoring the situation in Hong Kong.  The world fully expects that the Chinese government will honor its binding treaty, made with the British and registered with the United Nations, in which China commits to protect Hong Kong’s freedom, legal system, and democratic ways of life. How China chooses to handle the situation will say a great deal about its role in the world in the future.  We are all counting on President Xi as a great leader.

 The United States does not seek conflict with any other nation.  We desire peace, cooperation, and mutual gain with all.  But I will never fail to defend America’s interests.

 One of the greatest security threats facing peace-loving nations today is the repressive regime in Iran. The regime’s record of death and destruction is well known to us all.  Not only is Iran the world’s number one state sponsor of terrorism, but Iran’s leaders are fueling the tragic wars in both Syria and Yemen.

 At the same time, the regime is squandering the nation’s wealth and future in a fanatical quest for nuclear weapons and the means to deliver them.  We must never allow this to happen.

 To stop Iran’s path to nuclear weapons and missiles, I withdrew the United States from the terrible Iran nuclear deal, which has very little time remaining, did not allow inspection of important sites, and did not cover ballistic missiles.

Following our withdrawal, we have implemented severe economic sanctions on the country. Hoping to free itself from sanctions, the regime has escalated its violent and unprovoked aggression.  In response to Iran’s recent attack on Saudi Arabian oil facilities, we just imposed the highest level of sanctions on Iran’s central bank and sovereign wealth fund.

 All nations have a duty to act.  No responsible government should subsidize Iran’s bloodlust.  As long as Iran’s menacing behavior continues, sanctions will not be lifted; they will be tightened.  Iran’s leaders will have turned a proud nation into just another cautionary tale of what happens when a ruling class abandons its people and embarks on a crusade for personal power and riches.

 For 40 years, the world has listened to Iran’s rulers as they lash out at everyone else for the problems they alone have created.  They conduct ritual chants of “Death to America” and traffic in monstrous anti-Semitism.  Last year the country’s Supreme Leader stated, “Israel is a malignant cancerous tumor…that has to be removed and eradicated: it is possible and it will happen.” America will never tolerate such anti-Semitic hate.

 Fanatics have long used hatred of Israel to distract from their own failures.  Thankfully, there is a growing recognition in the wider Middle East that the countries of the region share common interests in battling extremism and unleashing economic opportunity.  That is why it is so important to have full, normalized relations between Israel and its neighbors.  Only a relationship built on common interests, mutual respect, and religious tolerance can forge a better future.

 Iran’s citizens deserve a government that cares about reducing poverty, ending corruption, and increasing jobs — not stealing their money to fund a massacre abroad and at home.

 After four decades of failure, it is time for Iran’s leaders to step forward and to stop threatening other countries, and focus on building up their own country.  It is time for Iran’s leaders to finally put the Iranian people first.

 America is ready to embrace friendship with all who genuinely seek peace and respect.

 Many of America’s closest friends today were once our gravest foes.  The United States has never believed in permanent enemies.  We want partners, not adversaries.  America knows that while anyone can make war, only the most courageous can choose peace.

 For this same reason, we have pursued bold diplomacy on the Korean Peninsula. I have told Kim Jong Un what I truly believe: that, like Iran, his country is full of tremendous untapped potential, but that to realize that promise, North Korea must denuclearize.

 Around the world, our message is clear: America’s goal is lasting, America’s goal is harmony, and America’s goal is not to go with these endless wars — wars that never end.

 With that goal in mind, my administration is also pursuing the hope of a brighter future in Afghanistan. Unfortunately, the Taliban has chosen to continue their savage attacks.  And we will continue to work with our coalition of Afghan partners to stamp out terrorism, and we will never stop working to make peace a reality.

 Here in the Western Hemisphere, we are joining with our partners to ensure stability and opportunity all across the region.  In that mission, one of our most critical challenges is illegal immigration, which undermines prosperity, rips apart societies, and empowers ruthless criminal cartels.

 Mass illegal migration is unfair, unsafe, and unsustainable for everyone involved: the sending countries and the depleted countries.  And they become depleted very fast, but their youth is not taken care of and human capital goes to waste.

 The receiving countries are overburdened with more migrants than they can responsibly accept.  And the migrants themselves are exploited, assaulted, and abused by vicious coyotes.  Nearly one third of women who make the journey north to our border are sexually assaulted along the way.  Yet, here in the United States and around the world, there is a growing cottage industry of radical activists and non-governmental organizations that promote human smuggling.  These groups encourage illegal migration and demand erasure of national borders.

 Today, I have a message for those open border activists who cloak themselves in the rhetoric of social justice: Your policies are not just.  Your policies are cruel and evil.  You are empowering criminal organizations that prey on innocent men, women, and children.  You put your own false sense of virtue before the lives, wellbeing, and [of] countless innocent people.  When you undermine border security, you are undermining human rights and human dignity.

 Many of the countries here today are coping with the challenges of uncontrolled migration. Each of you has the absolute right to protect your borders, and so, of course, does our country.  Today, we must resolve to work together to end human smuggling, end human trafficking, and put these criminal networks out of business for good.

 To our country, I can tell you sincerely: We are working closely with our friends in the region — including Mexico, Canada, Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, and Panama — to uphold the integrity of borders and ensure safety and prosperity for our people. I would like to thank President López Obrador of Mexico for the great cooperation we are receiving and for right now putting 27,000 troops on our southern border.  Mexico is showing us great respect, and I respect them in return.

 The U.S., we have taken very unprecedented action to stop the flow of illegal immigration.  To anyone considering crossings of our border illegally, please hear these words: Do not pay the smugglers.  Do not pay the coyotes.  Do not put yourself in danger.  Do not put your children in danger.  Because if you make it here, you will not be allowed in; you will be promptly returned home.  You will not be released into our country.  As long as I am President of the United States, we will enforce our laws and protect our borders.

 For all of the countries of the Western Hemisphere, our goal is to help people invest in the bright futures of their own nation.  Our region is full of such incredible promise: dreams waiting to be built and national destinies for all.  And they are waiting also to be pursued.

 Throughout the hemisphere, there are millions of hardworking, patriotic young people eager to build, innovate, and achieve.  But these nations cannot reach their potential if a generation of youth abandon their homes in search of a life elsewhere.  We want every nation in our region to flourish and its people to thrive in freedom and peace.

 In that mission, we are also committed to supporting those people in the Western Hemisphere who live under brutal oppression, such as those in Cuba, Nicaragua, and Venezuela.

 According to a recent report from the U.N. Human Rights Council, women in Venezuela stand in line for 10 hours a day waiting for food.  Over 15,000 people have been detained as political prisoners. Modern-day death squads are carrying out thousands of extrajudicial killings.

 The dictator Maduro is a Cuban puppet, protected by Cuban bodyguards, hiding from his own people while Cuba plunders Venezuela’s oil wealth to sustain its own corrupt communist rule.

 Since I last spoke in this hall, the United States and our partners have built a historic coalition of 55 countries that recognize the legitimate government of Venezuela.

 To the Venezuelans trapped in this nightmare: Please know that all of America is united behind you. The United States has vast quantities of humanitarian aid ready and waiting to be delivered.  We are watching the Venezuela situation very closely.  We await the day when democracy will be restored, when Venezuela will be free, and when liberty will prevail throughout this hemisphere.

 One of the most serious challenges our countries face is the specter of socialism.  It’s the wrecker of nations and destroyer of societies.

 Events in Venezuela remind us all that socialism and communism are not about justice, they are not about equality, they are not about lifting up the poor, and they are certainly not about the good of the nation.  Socialism and communism are about one thing only: power for the ruling class.

 Today, I repeat a message for the world that I have delivered at home: America will never be a socialist country.

 In the last century, socialism and communism killed 100 million people.  Sadly, as we see in Venezuela, the death toll continues in this country.  These totalitarian ideologies, combined with modern technology, have the power to excise [exercise] new and disturbing forms of suppression and domination.

 For this reason, the United States is taking steps to better screen foreign technology and investments and to protect our data and our security.  We urge every nation present to do the same.

 Freedom and democracy must be constantly guarded and protected, both abroad and from within. We must always be skeptical of those who want conformity and control.  Even in free nations, we see alarming signs and new challenges to liberty.

 A small number of social media platforms are acquiring immense power over what we can see and over what we are allowed to say.  A permanent political class is openly disdainful, dismissive, and defiant of the will of the people.  A faceless bureaucracy operates in secret and weakens democratic rule.  Media and academic institutions push flat-out assaults on our histories, traditions, and values.

 In the United States, my administration has made clear to social media companies that we will uphold the right of free speech.  A free society cannot allow social media giants to silence the voices of the people, and a free people must never, ever be enlisted in the cause of silencing, coercing, canceling, or blacklisting their own neighbors.

 As we defend American values, we affirm the right of all people to live in dignity.  For this reason, my administration is working with other nations to stop criminalizing of homosexuality, and we stand in solidarity with LGBTQ people who live in countries that punish, jail, or execute individuals based upon sexual orientation.

 We are also championing the role of women in our societies.  Nations that empower women are much wealthier, safer, and much more politically stable.  It is therefore vital not only to a nation’s prosperity, but also is vital to its national security, to pursue women’s economic development.

 Guided by these principles, my administration launched the Women’s Global Development and Prosperity Initiatives. The W-GDP is first-ever government-wide approach to women’s economic empowerment, working to ensure that women all over the planet have the legal right to own and inherit property, work in the same industries as men, travel freely, and access credit and institutions.

 Yesterday, I was also pleased to host leaders for a discussion about an ironclad American commitment: protecting religious leaders and also protecting religious freedom.  

This fundamental right is under growing threat around the world.  Hard to believe, but 80 percent of the world’s population lives in countries where religious liberty is in significant danger or even completely outlawed. Americans will never fire or tire in our effort to defend and promote freedom of worship and religion.  We want and support religious liberty for all.

 Americans will also never tire of defending innocent life.  We are aware that many United Nations projects have attempted to assert a global right to taxpayer-funded abortion on demand, right up until the moment of delivery.  Global bureaucrats have absolutely no business attacking the sovereignty of nations that wish to protect innocent life.  Like many nations here today, we in America believe that every child — born and unborn — is a sacred gift from God.

 There is no circumstance under which the United States will allow international entries [entities] to trample on the rights of our citizens, including the right to self-defense. That is why, this year, I announced that we will never ratify the U.N. Arms Trade Treaty, which would threaten the liberties of law-abiding American citizens.  The United States will always uphold our constitutional right to keep and bear arms.  We will always uphold our Second Amendment.

 The core rights and values America defends today were inscribed in America’s founding documents. Our nation’s Founders understood that there will always be those who believe they are entitled to wield power and control over others. Tyranny advances under many names and many theories, but it always comes down to the desire for domination.  It protects not the interests of many, but the privilege of few.

 Our Founders gave us a system designed to restrain this dangerous impulse.  They chose to entrust American power to those most invested in the fate of our nation: a proud and fiercely independent people.

 The true good of a nation can only be pursued by those who love it: by citizens who are rooted in its history, who are nourished by its culture, committed to its values, attached to its people, and who know that its future is theirs to build or theirs to lose. Patriots see a nation and its destiny in ways no one else can.

 Liberty is only preserved, sovereignty is only secured, democracy is only sustained, greatness is only realized, by the will and devotion of patriots.  In their spirit is found the strength to resist oppression, the inspiration to forge legacy, the goodwill to seek friendship, and the bravery to reach for peace.  Love of our nations makes the world better for all nations.

 So to all the leaders here today, join us in the most fulfilling mission a person could have, the most profound contribution anyone can make: Lift up your nations.  Cherish your culture.  Honor your histories.  Treasure your citizens. Make your countries strong, and prosperous, and righteous. Honor the dignity of your people, and nothing will be outside of your reach.

 When our nations are greater, the future will be brighter, our people will be happier, and our partnerships will be stronger.

 With God’s help, together we will cast off the enemies of liberty and overcome the oppressors of dignity. We will set new standards of living and reach new heights of human achievement. We will rediscover old truths, unravel old mysteries, and make thrilling new breakthroughs.  And we will find more beautiful friendship and more harmony among nations than ever before.

 My fellow leaders, the path to peace and progress, and freedom and justice, and a better world for all humanity, begins at home.

 Thank you.  God bless you.  God bless the nations of the world.  And God bless America.  Thank you very much.  (Applause.)

 END

 10:49 A.M. EDT

[plusorminuscongress]

New story in Politics from Time: President Trump Downplays North Korean Missile Tests, Compliments Kim Jong Un’s ‘Great and Beautiful Vision’

(WASHINGTON) — President Donald Trump on Friday downplayed recent missile tests by North Korea and flattered the country’s leader as a friend with a “great and beautiful vision for his country,” as the U.S. tries to lure Kim Jong Un back to nuclear talks.

Trump’s series of three tweets — which took great pains to excuse the actions of a man he once dismissed as “Little Rocket Man” — shows just how much the president has riding on North Korea. Despite widespread skepticism that Kim will give up his prized nuclear weapons program, Trump regularly touts his personal diplomacy with Kim as a great success.

Trump tweeted that North Korea’s recent tests of short-range missiles weren’t part of the commitments he and Kim made at their historic June 2018 summit in Singapore, although he conceded they might be in violation of a U.N. resolution.

“There may be a United Nations violation, but Chairman Kim does not want to disappoint me with a violation of trust,” Trump tweeted. “There is far too much for North Korea to gain – the potential as a Country, under Kim Jong Un’s leadership, is unlimited.”

Trump said Kim can only achieve his “great and beautiful vision for his country” if he is the U.S. president.

“He will do the right thing because he is far too smart not to, and he does not want to disappoint his friend, President Trump!”

Trump has frequently called his diplomacy a success and said the U.S. would have been war with North Korea if he hadn’t made a breakthrough with Kim.

The North’s new missile launches came as the United Kingdom, France and Germany — following a closed U.N. Security Council briefing — condemned the North’s recent ballistic activity as violations of U.N. sanctions and urged Pyongyang to engage in “meaningful negotiations” with the United States on eliminating its nuclear weapons.

Trump’s chief U.S. envoy to North Korea, Stephen Biegun, had hoped to meet Friday in Thailand with a representative of North Korea. But North Korea stayed away from the annual gathering of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, which has served as a venue for their talks in the past.

Unable to meet with a North Korean official, Biegun met with his Japanese and South Korean counterparts to discuss prospects for resuming the stalled denuclearization negotiations with the North.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said earlier Friday that he wished North Korea had sent its foreign minister to the meeting. But he also expressed optimism that talks would resume soon.

“I always look forward to a chance to talk with him,” Pompeo told an audience at the Siam Society. “I wish they’d have come here. I think it would have given us an opportunity to have another set of conversations, and I hope it won’t be too long before I have a chance to do that.”

Pompeo said diplomacy is often fraught with “bumps” and “tos and fros,” but stressed that the Trump administration remains willing to restart the talks, which broke down after Trump’s second summit with Kim in Vietnam in late February.

Trump and Kim met again in June at the Demilitarized Zone between North and South Korea. After that, U.S. officials expressed hope talks would resume in a matter of weeks. Despite that hope, the negotiations have remained stalled.

“We are still fully committed to achieving the outcome that we have laid out — the fully verified denuclearization of North Korea — and to do so through the use of diplomacy,” Pompeo said Friday.

By MATTHEW LEE and DEB RIECHMANN / AP on August 02, 2019 at 04:26PM

#Time #politics #PlusOrMinusCongress #±Congress #Indega± #IndegaPlusOrMinus #TimeMag #TimeMagazine

[newstfionline]

The Global War of 2030

By Alfred McCoy, TomDispatch, October 02, 2017

[This piece has been adapted and expanded from Alfred W. McCoy’s new book, In the Shadows of the American Century: The Rise and Decline of U.S. Global Power.]

For the past 50 years, American leaders have been supremely confident that they could suffer military setbacks in places like Cuba or Vietnam without having their system of global hegemony, backed by the world’s wealthiest economy and finest military, affected. The country was, after all, the planet’s “indispensible nation,” as Secretary of State Madeleine Albright proclaimed in 1998 (and other presidents and politicians have insisted ever since). The U.S. enjoyed a greater “disparity of power” over its would-be rivals than any empire ever, Yale historian Paul Kennedy announced in 2002. Certainly, it would remain “the sole superpower for decades to come,” Foreign Affairs magazine assured us just last year. During the 2016 campaign, candidate Donald Trump promised his supporters that “we’re gonna win with military... we are gonna win so much you may even get tired of winning.” In August, while announcing his decision to send more troops to Afghanistan, Trump reassured the nation: “In every generation, we have faced down evil, and we have always prevailed.” In this fast-changing world, only one thing was certain: when it really counted, the United States could never lose.

No longer.

The Trump White House may still be basking in the glow of America’s global supremacy but, just across the Potomac, the Pentagon has formed a more realistic view of its military superiority. In June, the Defense Department issued a major report titled on Risk Assessment in a Post-Primacy World, finding that the U.S. military “no longer enjoys an unassailable position versus state competitors,” and “it no longer can... automatically generate consistent and sustained local military superiority at range.” This sober assessment led the Pentagon’s top strategists to “the jarring realization that ‘we can lose.’” Increasingly, Pentagon planners find, the “self-image of a matchless global leader” provides a “flawed foundation for forward-looking defense strategy... under post-primacy conditions.” This Pentagon report also warned that, like Russia, China is “engaged in a deliberate program to demonstrate the limits of U.S. authority”; hence, Beijing’s bid for “Pacific primacy” and its “campaign to expand its control over the South China Sea.”

China’s Challenge: Indeed, military tensions between the two countries have been rising in the western Pacific since the summer of 2010. Just as Washington once used its wartime alliance with Great Britain to appropriate much of that fading empire’s global power after World War II, so Beijing began using profits from its export trade with the U.S. to fund a military challenge to its dominion over the waterways of Asia and the Pacific.

Some telltale numbers suggest the nature of the future great power competition between Washington and Beijing that could determine the course of the twenty-first century. In April 2015, for instance, the Department of Agriculture reported that the U.S. economy would grow by nearly 50% over the next 15 years, while China’s would expand by 300%, equaling or surpassing America’s around 2030.

Similarly, in the critical race for worldwide patents, American leadership in technological innovation is clearly on the wane. In 2008, the United States still held the number two spot behind Japan in patent applications with 232,000. China was, however, closing in fast at 195,000, thanks to a blistering 400% increase since 2000. By 2014, China actually took the lead in this critical category with 801,000 patents, nearly half the world’s total, compared to just 285,000 for the Americans.

With supercomputing now critical for everything from code breaking to consumer products, China’s Defense Ministry outpaced the Pentagon for the first time in 2010, launching the world’s fastest supercomputer, the Tianhe-1A. For the next six years, Beijing produced the fastest machine and last year finally won in a way that couldn’t be more crucial: with a supercomputer that had microprocessor chips made in China. By then, it also had the most supercomputers with 167 compared to 165 for the United States and only 29 for Japan.

Over the longer term, the American education system, that critical source of future scientists and innovators, has been falling behind its competitors. In 2012, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development tested half a million 15-year-olds worldwide. Those in Shanghai came in first in math and science, while those in Massachusetts, “a strong-performing U.S. state,” placed 20th in science and 27th in math. By 2015, America’s standing had declined to 25th in science and 39th in math.

But why, you might ask, should anybody care about a bunch of 15-year-olds with backpacks, braces, and attitude? Because by 2030, they will be the mid-career scientists and engineers determining whose computers survive a cyberattack, whose satellites evade a missile strike, and whose economy has the next best thing.

Rival Superpower Strategies: With its growing resources, Beijing has been laying claim to an arc of islands and waters from Korea to Indonesia long dominated by the U.S. Navy. In August 2010, after Washington expressed a “national interest” in the South China Sea and conducted naval exercises there to reinforce the claim, Beijing’s Global Times responded angrily that “the U.S.-China wrestling match over the South China Sea issue has raised the stakes in deciding who the real future ruler of the planet will be.”

Four years later, Beijing escalated its territorial claims to these waters, building a nuclear submarine facility on Hainan Island and accelerating its dredging of seven artificial atolls for military bases in the Spratly Islands. When the Permanent Court of Arbitration at The Hague ruled, in 2016, that these atolls gave China no territorial claim to the surrounding seas, Beijing’s Foreign Ministry dismissed the decision out of hand.

To meet China’s challenge on the high seas, the Pentagon began sending a succession of carrier groups on “freedom of navigation” cruises into the South China Sea. It also started shifting spare air and sea assets to a string of bases from Japan to Australia in a bid to strengthen its strategic position along the Asian littoral. Since the end of World War II, Washington has attempted to control the strategic Eurasian landmass from a network of NATO military bases in Europe and a chain of island bastions in the Pacific. Between the “axial ends” of this vast continent, Washington has, over the past 70 years, built successive layers of military power--air and naval bases during the Cold War and more recently a string of 60 drone bases stretching from Sicily to Guam.

Simultaneously, however, China has conducted what the Pentagon in 2010 called “a comprehensive transformation of its military” meant to prepare the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) “for extended-range power projection.” With the world’s “most active land-based ballistic and cruise missile program,” Beijing can target “its nuclear forces throughout... most of the world, including the continental United States.” Meanwhile, accurate missiles now provide the PLA with the ability “to attack ships, including aircraft carriers, in the western Pacific Ocean.” In emerging military domains, China has begun to contest U.S. dominion over cyberspace and space, with plans to dominate “the information spectrum in all dimensions of the modern battlespace.”

China’s army has by now developed a sophisticated cyberwarfare capacity through its Unit 61398 and allied contractors that “increasingly focus... on companies involved in the critical infrastructure of the United States--its electrical power grid, gas lines, and waterworks.” After identifying that unit as responsible for a series of intellectual property thefts, Washington took the unprecedented step, in 2013, of filing criminal charges against five active-duty Chinese cyber officers.

China has already made major technological advances that could prove decisive in any future war with Washington. Instead of competing across the board, Beijing, like many late adopters of technology, has strategically chosen key areas to pursue, particularly orbital satellites, which are a fulcrum for the effective weaponization of space. As early as 2012, China had already launched 14 satellites into “three kinds of orbits” with “more satellites in high orbits and... better anti-shielding capabilities than other systems.” Four years later, Beijing announced that it was on track to “cover the whole globe with a constellation of 35 satellites by 2020,” becoming second only to the United States when it comes to operational satellite systems.

Playing catch-up, China has recently achieved a bold breakthrough in secure communications. In August 2016, three years after the Pentagon abandoned its own attempt at full-scale satellite security, Beijing launched the world’s first quantum satellite that transmits photons, believed to be “invulnerable to hacking,” rather than relying on more easily compromised radio waves. According to one scientific report, this new technology will “create a super-secure communications network, potentially linking people anywhere.” China was reportedly planning to launch 20 of the satellites should the technology prove fully successful.

To check China, Washington has been building a new digital defense network of advanced cyberwarfare capabilities and air-space robotics. Between 2010 and 2012, the Pentagon extended drone operations into the exosphere, creating an arena for future warfare unlike anything that has gone before. As early as 2020, if all goes according to plan, the Pentagon will loft a triple-tier shield of unmanned drones reaching from the stratosphere to the exosphere, armed with agile missiles, linked by an expanded satellite system, and operated through robotic controls.

Weighing this balance of forces, the RAND Corporation recently released a study, War with China, predicting that by 2025 “China will likely have more, better, and longer-range ballistic missiles and cruise missiles; advanced air defenses; latest generation aircraft; quieter submarines; more and better sensors; and the digital communications, processing power, and C2 [cyber security] necessary to operate an integrated kill chain.”

In the event of all-out war, RAND suggested, the United States might suffer heavy losses to its carriers, submarines, missiles, and aircraft from Chinese strategic forces, while its computer systems and satellites would be degraded thanks to “improved Chinese cyberwar and ASAT [anti-satellite] capabilities.” Even though American forces would counterattack, their “growing vulnerability” means Washington’s victory would not be assured. In such a conflict, the think tank concluded, there might well be no “clear winner.”

Make no mistake about the weight of those words. For the first time, a top strategic think-tank, closely aligned with the U.S. military and long famous for its influential strategic analyses, was seriously contemplating a major war with China that the United States would not win.

World War III: Scenario 2030: The technology of space and cyberwarfare is so new, so untested, that even the most outlandish scenarios currently concocted by strategic planners may soon be superseded by a reality still hard to conceive. In a 2015 nuclear war exercise, the Air Force Wargaming Institute used sophisticated computer modeling to imagine “a 2030 scenario where the Air Force’s fleet of B-52s... upgraded with... improved standoff weapons” patrol the skies ready to strike. Simultaneously, “shiny new intercontinental ballistic missiles” stand by for launch. Then, in a bold tactical gambit, B-1 bombers with “full Integrated Battle Station (IBS) upgrade” slip through enemy defenses for a devastating nuclear strike.

That scenario was no doubt useful for Air Force planners, but said little about the actual future of U.S. global power. Similarly, the RAND War with China study only compared military capacities, without assessing the particular strategies either side might use to its advantage.

I might not have access to the Wargaming Institute’s computer modeling or RAND’s renowned analytical resources, but I can at least carry their work one step further by imagining a future conflict with an unfavorable outcome for the United States. As the globe’s still-dominant power, Washington must spread its defenses across all military domains, making its strength, paradoxically, a source of potential weakness. As the challenger, China has the asymmetric advantage of identifying and exploiting a few strategic flaws in Washington’s otherwise overwhelming military superiority.

For years, prominent Chinese defense intellectuals like Shen Dingli of Fudan University have rejected the idea of countering the U.S. with a big naval build-up and argued instead for “cyberattacks, space weapons, lasers, pulses, and other directed-energy beams.” Instead of rushing to launch aircraft carriers that “will be burned” by lasers fired from space, China should, Shen argued, develop advanced weapons “to make other command systems fail to work.” Although decades away from matching the full might of Washington’s global military, China could, through a combination of cyberwar, space warfare, and supercomputing, find ways to cripple U.S. military communications and thus blind its strategic forces. With that in mind, here’s one possible scenario for World War III:

It’s 11:59 p.m. on Thanksgiving Thursday in 2030. For months, tensions have been mounting between Chinese and U.S. Navy patrols in the South China Sea. Washington’s attempts to use diplomacy to restrain China have proven an embarrassing failure among long-time allies--with NATO crippled by years of diffident American support, Britain now a third-tier power, Japan functionally neutral, and other international leaders cool to Washington’s concerns after suffering its cyber-surveillance for so long. With the American economy diminished, Washington plays the last card in an increasingly weak hand, deploying six of its remaining eight carrier groups to the Western Pacific.

Instead of intimidating China’s leaders, the move makes them more bellicose. Flying from air bases in the Spratly Islands, their jet fighters soon begin buzzing U.S. Navy ships in the South China Sea, while Chinese frigates play chicken with two of the aircraft carriers on patrol, crossing ever closer to their bows.

Then tragedy strikes. At 4:00 a.m. on a foggy October night, the massive carrier USS Gerald Ford slices through aging Frigate-536 Xuchang, sinking the Chinese ship with its entire crew of 165. Beijing demands an apology and reparations. When Washington refuses, China’s fury comes fast.

At the stroke of midnight on Black Friday, as cyber-shoppers storm the portals of Best Buy for deep discounts on the latest consumer electronics from Bangladesh, Navy personnel staffing the Space Surveillance Telescope at Exmouth, Western Australia, choke on their coffees as their panoramic screens of the southern sky suddenly blip to black. Thousands of miles away at the U.S. CyberCommand’s operations center in Texas, Air Force technicians detect malicious binaries that, though hacked anonymously into American weapons systems worldwide, show the distinctive digital fingerprints of China’s People’s Liberation Army.

In what historians will later call the “Battle of Binaries,” CyberCom’s supercomputers launch their killer counter-codes. While a few of China’s provincial servers do lose routine administrative data, Beijing’s quantum satellite system, equipped with super-secure photon transmission, proves impervious to hacking. Meanwhile, an armada of bigger, faster supercomputers slaved to Shanghai’s cyberwarfare Unit 61398 blasts back, slipping into the U.S. satellite system through its antiquated microwave signals.

The first overt strike is one nobody at the Pentagon predicted. Flying at 60,000 feet above the South China Sea, several U.S. carrier-based MQ-25 Stingray drones, infected by Chinese “malware,” suddenly fire all the pods beneath their enormous delta wingspans, sending dozens of lethal missiles plunging harmlessly into the ocean, effectively disarming those formidable weapons.

Determined to fight fire with fire, the White House authorizes a retaliatory strike. Confident their satellite system is impenetrable, Air Force commanders in California transmit robotic codes to a flotilla of X-37B space drones, orbiting 250 miles above the Earth, to launch their Triple Terminator missiles at several of China’s communication satellites. There is zero response.

In near panic, the Navy orders its Zumwalt-class destroyers to fire their RIM-174 killer missiles at seven Chinese satellites in nearby geostationary orbits. The launch codes suddenly prove inoperative.

As Beijing’s viruses spread uncontrollably through the U.S. satellite architecture, the country’s second-rate supercomputers fail to crack the Chinese malware’s devilishly complex code. With stunning speed, GPS signals crucial to the navigation of American ships and aircraft worldwide are compromised.

Across the Pacific, Navy deck officers scramble for their sextants, struggling to recall long-ago navigation classes at Annapolis. Steering by sun and stars, carrier squadrons abandon their stations off the China coast and steam for the safety of Hawaii.

An angry American president orders a retaliatory strike on a secondary Chinese target, Longpo Naval Base on Hainan Island. Within minutes, the commander of Andersen Air Base on Guam launches a battery of super-secret X-51 “Waverider” hypersonic missiles that soar to 70,000 feet and then streak across the Pacific at 4,000 miles per hour--far faster than any Chinese fighter or air-to-air missile. Inside the White House situation room the silence is stifling as everyone counts down the 30 short minutes before the tactical nuclear warheads are to slam into Longpo’s hardened submarine pens, shutting down Chinese naval operations in the South China Sea. Midflight, the missiles suddenly nose-dive into the Pacific.

In a bunker buried deep beneath Tiananmen Square, President Xi Jinping’s handpicked successor, Li Keqiang, even more nationalistic than his mentor, is outraged that Washington would attempt a tactical nuclear strike on Chinese soil. When China’s State Council wavers at the thought of open war, the president quotes the ancient strategist Sun Tzu: “Victorious warriors win first and then go to war, while defeated warriors go to war first and then seek to win.” Amid applause and laughter, the vote is unanimous. War it is!

Almost immediately, Beijing escalates from secret cyberattacks to overt acts. Dozens of China’s next-generation SC-19 missiles lift off for strikes on key American communications satellites, scoring a high ratio of kinetic kills on these hulking units. Suddenly, Washington loses secure communications with hundreds of military bases. U.S. fighter squadrons worldwide are grounded. Dozens of F-35 pilots already airborne are blinded as their helmet-mounted avionic displays go black, forcing them down to 10,000 feet for a clear view of the countryside. Without any electronic navigation, they must follow highways and landmarks back to base like bus drivers in the sky.

Midflight on regular patrols around the Eurasian landmass, two-dozen RQ-180 surveillance drones suddenly become unresponsive to satellite-transmitted commands. They fly aimlessly toward the horizon, crashing when their fuel is exhausted. With surprising speed, the United States loses control of what its Air Force has long called the “ultimate high ground.”

With intelligence flooding the Kremlin about crippled American capacity, Moscow, still a close Chinese ally, sends a dozen Severodvinsk-class nuclear submarines beyond the Arctic Circle bound for permanent, provocative patrols between New York and Newport News. Simultaneously, a half-dozen Grigorovich-class missile frigates from Russia’s Black Sea fleet, escorted by an undisclosed number of attack submarines, steam for the western Mediterranean to shadow the U.S. Sixth fleet.

Within a matter of hours, Washington’s strategic grip on the axial ends of Eurasia--the keystone to its global dominion for the past 85 years--is broken. In quick succession, the building blocks in the fragile architecture of U.S. global power start to fall.

Every weapon begets its own nemesis. Just as musketeers upended mounted knights, tanks smashed trench works, and dive bombers sank battleships, so China’s superior cybercapability had blinded America’s communication satellites that were the sinews of its once-formidable military apparatus, giving Beijing a stunning victory in this war of robotic militaries. Without a single combat casualty on either side, the superpower that had dominated the planet for nearly a century is defeated in World War III.

Alfred W. McCoy is the Harrington professor of history at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He is the author of the now-classic book The Politics of Heroin: CIA Complicity in the Global Drug Trade, which probed the conjuncture of illicit narcotics and covert operations over 50 years, and the just-published In the Shadows of the American Century: The Rise and Decline of U.S. Global Power (Dispatch Books) from which this piece is adapted.

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