I've received just one submission to this contest, and it's already been over a week, so it automatically wins.

I agree with Eugene fully, that in any case, the West will unleash a storm of criticism that will dwarf anything that we've seen so far, even though by Russian law, it's been public information for several months, that Russia would take such a step if forced. Last November (2024), the latest update to Russia's nuclear protocol was published which among other things declared a country that is being militarily supported by a nuclear power in a war against Russia to be a potential target. A massive launch of strike drones or missiles against Russia was also declared a condition allowing a nuclear response.


Both of these conditions have been met time and time again over the last months, but that's not the best part! A massive drone strike was launched on the aerial element of Russia's nuclear forces in Irkutsk and Murmansk last Sunday!

As Eugene correctly points out, Europe would have no legal basis for retaliation based on NATO article 5. Maybe it's time the Europeans hurried up and made Ukraine a member😉 Otherwise they might miss out on all the fun! They haven't yet because they know they aren't ready. Russia is!

- Western contingent in Ukraine is fighting against Russia as a matter of fact and preventing us from achieving our goal in special military operation there;

- Since our motherland can not outpower the combined power of the West, we had to resort to a nuklear strike;

- Nuklear weapon was originally designed and produced specifically for to be deployed for the times of such unfair assaults against our country;

- We've striken Ukraine with a tactical variety of nuke, meaning that the destruction is limited to just several areas witih Ukraine borders;

- Since no territories of the Western countries have been hit, there is no ground for the West to refer to the article #5 of their NATO agreement;

- In case of unreasonable escalation by the West to the 3-rd Word War, all our global strategic nuclear weapons have been rendered to the highest alert by my order and we shall retaliate immediately before the their nukes land to our territory;

- We will not accept any accusation for our defence action from anybody and specifically from the USA, who without military reasn destroyed by nukes 2 cities in Japan, killing just civilians.

Eugene

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My fishing stories are about getting caught in the rain, having the boat flip over, or somebody getting a fishing hook stuck in their shoulder.

I never did go worm hunting, except in a bait and tackle store. Can't say that was a pleasant experience either. Can't seem to remember what smelled worse, the bait or the fishermen. Or the smell of beer coming from the fishermen?

I guess the question is, if I want to use fishing for a retreat from the day-to-day grind, would it be better to learn to fish, or find a wife that loves fishing so much that she would take the kids and go on her own?😏

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Once in the subway, I noticed an Asian couple that seemed to be somewhat lost. The guy was standing looking at a map hanging from the ceiling with his mouth half open, smartphone in hand, with his second hand frozen halfway to the screen. He must have been puzzling about which way to go for some time.

I know Chinese, so perhaps I could help him. But was he Chinese? Chinese do have a specific style of dress, and he seemed to fit my memories from working in China.

"Are you Chinese"? I put the question to him.
"Yes! You speak Chinese"!?

It was fun to practice my Chinese again in person after a 6-year break, but I couldn't make any more sense of the maps than he! The subways in China are so much simpler... We finally decided that he should go north! Hopefully things would clear up at the next station!

Knowing languages is great, but being a local is irreplaceable🙂!

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Work before play, mom used to say. It’s a great lesson to have learned and put into practice.

One of my first practical experiences with this idea was when I wanted a dirt-bike or four-wheeler as a preteen. I hinted at my desire to my parents for a couple of years, but never begged because I knew we didn’t have the money. Finally, my dad decided to help me out.

He didn’t buy me a recreational vehicle though. He bought me an incomplete kit for building a mini-bike. At first it seemed impossible to me to turn the kit into a working machine, but some neighborhood kids encouraged me to make something of it.

Thanks to my dad’s wise decision to give me a project rather than a complete vehicle, I had to learn many of the basics of building machinery. From basic design, to finding and buying parts online or from a scrapyard. In the end I had a motorbike that would run along at 50 MPH.

Many of the skills that this project taught me would come in handy when later I went to work for my dad, although I wouldn’t complete a similar project again until almost 20 years later in a warzone.

“Work before play” – part 2

What’s the 21st century definition of play? It’s actually more of a disease if you ask me, that has infected everyone from infants to the most elderly. You guessed it, smartphone addiction. Oddly enough, I think that living with constant blackouts in Bogoyavlenka showed me a solution!

In the last post on this topic, I mentioned my next project making a motorbike was in a warzone. It’s true but in reverse. You see, because we often didn’t have electricity, sometimes for months, and I still needed to use my phone, I needed a solution that I could depend on. The answer was a bike with a motor on it, only the motor wasn’t for driving the bike. The bike was for driving the motor to create DC electric current.

When I had it all assembled and working, I could crank the pedals for an hour to fully charge my phone from zero to one-hundred. This got me thinking, in the future to limit my children’s phone usage, they should only be able to charge their phone using this kind of pedal-charger! Work before play ;-)

This channel is mainly intended for my western audience, but I know that most of my readers are actually from Russia so...

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Last night in a move typical for the egocentric west and its allies, Israel decided to do something to make us forget their previous offenses against Iran by dwarfing them with an unprecedented and unannounced attack on that peaceful nation.

I hope that Russia will be able to balance diplomacy, military support if any for Iran, and taking maximum advantage of the situation to finish off the Kiev regime.

I missed the publication of part 3 bank in May.
https://revers.press/danielmartindale-eng/tpost/2kd2j5ct91-in-2035-will-america-still-have-the-worl

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Possibilities for achievement are almost endless, but often we lack motivation. That's basically how you could sum up my experience with distance running.

I can already hear everybody saying, "no, no, not my sport. I'm dead after only a few steps". There once was a day when I would have said the exact same thing.

I remember one night in Bejing China when I had to walk home. I had missed the last subway, and the bus that I found quit for the night at its station about halfway back to my home. I still had another 14 kilometers to go.

I didn't run that night, I just walked, but even so, my legs felt like they were made of jelly when I crossed my doorstep. They were sore for at least a couple days after that.

I had always been a good sprinter, but even jogging for more than a few hundred meters was a monumental effort.

Then in 2018 I received an invitation from a friend to run a half-marathon together in Vladivostok...

"Run a half-marathon, 21km? And be ready within 6 months? Sounds like mission impossible for me. Oh well, at least I can give it a try".

My buddy had the motivation, but it seemed that he needed some inspiration, or moral support. "Worst that can happen is that he might be encouraged if his own progress ends up being better and faster than mine".

My friend gave me the opportunity to feel responsible for my own progress, and for setting a good, inspiring example. And I thank God he did.

At first I just walked 21km once per week, and ran every other evening for 5km. Then I started running for part of the 21km. A month before the big day, I ran/jogged 21km non-stop.

My friend and I successfully ran the half-marathon together, and I was hooked. Over the next 3 years I would continue running, finishing two full marathons.

The stamina, and more importantly the mindset, that I gained from running was invaluable when the time came for me to bicycle day and night in all kinds of weather on my way to Bogoyavlenka in Ukraine.

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Business the American way - part 1 of 5

Back in 2017 I was still working with my Dad, building farm equipment in the United States. We were about halfway through our search for a reliable business partner when we tried working with a Mennonite company near Mansfield, Ohio. It was an eye-opener to how crooked seemingly honest people can be.

At first all seemed to be in good order. The company, after reviewing all of my drawings, agreed to do the work for the price I had calculated. I also received a recommendation of the this company, saying that they were reliable and trustworthy.

The company's office staff consisted of just two people; family members and co-owners of the company, just like my dad and I. One of them told a story about another company from their community; seemingly to warn me about their underhanded tactics.

He said that the company would quote a very low price in order to win the contract to build a Wal-Mart supercenter, for example. But then their customer would inevitably ask for part of the project to be changed or additions to be made. Additional bathrooms, or a bigger freezer room, for example. This contractor would charge extravagantly for such additions and changes in order to make a good overall profit on the construction project.