Feb
12th
2021
A couple of vids from 2018, me with lions · 7:22pm Feb 12th, 2021
A little look back at what were the happiest experiences of all time.
https://rumble.com/vdse7v-allan-the-lion-during-a-downpour.html?mref=6zof&mrefc=4
https://rumble.com/vdsdh7-allan-the-lion-eating-lemon-grass.html?mref=a84tj&mc=b9f2n
https://rumble.com/vcj7yd-a-2017-trip-to-the-lujan-zoo-clip-1.html?mref=a84tj&mc=b9f2n
All are of Allan, a lion I got to know very well after 5 visits starting in 2010. He was a very friendly and gentle lion. The last visit I had in 2018 gave me the chance to spend a full half-hour with him at one time. He nuzzled me a couple of times during that last visit, indicating he'd come to accept me as more than just part of the scenery!
kittehs
5453134 Nice kitties. :3
I miss them so much. Nothing brought me more joy than just sitting there with them.
Even got to feed Allan by hand in 2017. I need to convert that video from the format it's in, though. It's from an old video recorder I had at the time and NOTHING online uses the format for posting videos.
Nice. :)
I'm sorry you weren't able to spend more time with them.
5453698 Eh, gotta get my own lion. Like this guy in Russia who has a cougar and a cheetah.
He posts on Youtube a lot. Messi the cougar is quite the character.
5453758
Ah, expensive animals to care for properly, or even get at all, as far as I know; good luck getting those resources, though!
5453862 Oh I know all about the costs. I have everything all planned out if the money ever becomes available... or if I'm one of those who takes advantage of the devastation of WWIII starting in April to dominate some part of the planet.
5454659
Any particular reason for using April there, if you don't mind me asking?
5455305 China is likely going to invade Taiwan around that time. Australia, India, and Japan are prepping for it, and China has been sending troops, military vessels and aircraft into Taiwanese and other nations' territory at increasing rates. The big unknown is Russia. Putin is playing both sides against the middle right now. There's no way of knowing what his actual move is going to be. He might just help them knock each other out, then sweep in to create himself a new empire... but to do that he'd also need to ensure the US is incapacitated... which might happen by default at this rate.
5455313
Ah, thanks.
Not sure the invasion will be as soon as April (or sure it will happen... but...), but I do expect there are interesting times ahead.
5455361 I'm hoping the spring flood season is bad enough to break the Three Gorges Dam. At last report, it's not in good shape and was already cracking from last year. There's no way to refurbish and reinforce it without rebuilding large portions of it, which would first require a long period of draining the enormous reservoir. So they're stuck if this flood season is bad too.
If that thing goes in late March, all their plots and schemes will be literally under water. 3 major cities, including Wuhan, would be totally destroyed, and flooding would stretch down all the way to the ocean. If they CCP keeps denying it will fail and it breaks suddenly, millions would die. The damage would be over a trillion dollars, not even counting the dam itself. There's no way they could launch any kind of offensive with such conditions, which would also foment internal uprising and rage at the staggering incompetence and corruption that led to the dam bursting. The PLA might mount a coup with Xi suddenly rendered weak and impotent.
So, that's our last real hope.
5455383
Well... It does occur to me, though, that if the dam does break, it might be "discovered" to be due to "enemy action", which naturally must warrant a swift and firm response. I don't know how likely either of those are, but it seems like it might be a plausible sequence of events.
Quite a selection of possible bad outcomes, it looks like, here.
5455796 Well, if they try to engage in military action with so much damage... they leave themselves vulnerable to invasion AND revolution. They'll be stretched too thin.
I'm not the only one who realizes this. Just say a couple stories from Sky News Australia and The Frustrated Indian who basically said the same thing.
That dam has become far too critical to the Chinese infrastructure and electrical grid. It goes, and they're paralyzed.
5455967
Aye, but if the dam does break, I'm not sure what good options they'll have. It seems like a not completely implausible sort of gamble in that situation: blame the disaster on foreign agents and start an invasion to try and distract and redirect the outraged people, then hopefully further bolster that with a victory in the war, with that taking care of internal problems and the nuclear deterrent, if nothing else, fending off external problems. Might just work, but there are a lot of ways it could fail badly.
But aye, the dam breaking would be a major blow to them even in whatever the best case scenario might be.
5457053 They can still try to invade, of course. But their infrastructure will be so weakened that India alone will be able to thrash them. Plus, they risk a humiliating defeat, FURTHER weakening them and REALLY opening themselves to rebellion AND invasion, simultaneously.
No, I think if the dam breaks, they will suddenly play nice for a time until their wounds heal.
But then, world beware, for they will attack again!
5457285
If India decides to fight. The PRC might, with a situation that dire, be willing to take a chance that they can, through various means, keep anyone else from significantly intervening. If they fail, then, yeah, things get much worse for them, but at least with the information I have, I can see success looking possible enough that they might try it.
But it does seem more likely they wouldn't risk it, yeah.
5457802 Just saw a story relevant to this: China has been slowly retreating from the Indian disputed border in several areas. It's not clear why, but the satellite images are very clear that they're leaving. Also, got some insider information from another feed that the CCP has some big-time internal power struggles going on.
If Xi does start a war, it'll be in the mistaken notion that he can use it to trigger a nationalist unity with him at the head. BUT, he's only seeing what the people are showing him out of fear. From the underground, he's DEEPLY disliked. A war, ESPECIALLY if they suffer a major defeat, will completely undermine him.
Japan is also having none of Xi's crap anymore. They've chased Chinese vessels out of their waters several times this past month. China is underestimating how much of the world is PISSED at them, and the WHO regurgitating blatant lies about COOF's origins has only infuriated them even more (China claims it came from the USA in frozen food and auto parts... which is beyond absurd. That would mean the virus can survive for WEEKS outside a host. We don't know of ANY human-infecting virus that stable, especially not an RNA virus.)
China invading ANYONE would probably be the last straw for over a dozen major nations.
5458214
re the first paragraph:
Oh, interesting; thanks.
I did hear recently that apparently there's a lot of anti-Republic of China sentiment still, though. But yeah, even in the event of a victorious war, that probably wouldn't be enough on it's own -- and if the PRC tried to conquer the RoC and lost? Well, then that anti-RoC sentiment seems likely to be eager to find someone to blame...
...Auto parts. Really? I mean, okay, frozen food I could... well, it's more plausible, at least, still lots of holes in that story, but maybe the virus's survival could have been improved by the low temperatures. But auto parts?
(But, yeah, somehow the virus originated in the United States, made it over to China accidentally, then became a pandemic. Riiight. I mean, I get why the CCP might not want to say "So a disease research lab of ours had a bit of an oopsie...", and I suppose I get why they'd like to be able to blame it on the United States, but... really?)
Oh, yeah, there's a pretty good chance it'd end badly for China's current government, I think, and much more so if the Three Gorges Dam breaks. But I could see them trying it anyway.
How likely, exactly, though? No idea. And there being a big internal power struggler doing on just makes me more uncertain there.