Contracted..

 

Stache..

 

This optical illusion can determine if you’re one or the other by simply looking at it.

The image shows a turquoise circle with a face and two birds forming a luscious mustache against a black background.

At first glance, one may immediately see a round moon face and the two birds create the ‘stache.

For those who noticed the blue moon face first, it means they are an introvert, yet a sensitive and kind person. This person also avoids conflict and has marvelous intuition that allows them to stay out of tough issues.

These people also learn from their mistakes, and this type of personality brings both strengths and challenges.  These individuals are also good listeners and can hold their own in certain situations.

For those who saw a glimpse of the birds at first, it indicates that these types of people are warm and fun-loving extroverted fellows.

These characters are the ones who enjoy life to the fullest, are light-hearted and funny, spiritual and playful. Just a "playful" thought.

Loose..

 

 China’s defense minister accused the U.S. of “smearing” Beijing and said Washington is trying to “hijack” countries in the Indo-Pacific region.

Wei Fenghe, speaking at the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore, said the burden of improving the troubled U.S.-China ties lies on Washington.

“We request the U.S. side to stop smearing and containing China. Stop interfering in China’s internal affairs. The bilateral relationship cannot improve unless the U.S. side can do that,” he told delegates at the dialogue, Asia’s top defense conference.

“However, if you want confrontation, we will fight to the end. The two militaries should make positive efforts for a positive relationship,” Wei added.

Wei said U.S. President Joe Biden’s new Indo-Pacific strategy leads to “conflict and confrontation.”

The U.S. announced its Indo-Pacific Economic Framework, or IPEF, in May as part of its strategy for the region.  The IPEF involves 13 countries and excludes China.

Some talk out of both side of the mouth, or that could be ... 

 Just a "Loose Lips" thought

Rubbish..

 

There is a grow­ing body of evid­ence that sanc­tions can impose severe human­it­arian costs on inno­cent civil­ian popu­la­tions. Stud­ies show that sanc­tions have wreaked signi­fic­ant harm in Cuba, Venezuela, Iran, and Syria, lead­ing to adverse health impacts like malnu­tri­tion and increased infant mortal­ity. 

Targeted sanc­tions, such as those imposed on human rights offend­ers under the Global Magnit­sky Act, more easily avoid such collat­eral damage. But compre­hens­ive sanc­tions program­s—those that target entire coun­tries or govern­ment­s—can be devast­at­ing; some have labeled them “finan­cial carpet bomb­ing.” By one estim­ate, there have been tens of thou­sands of deaths due to sanc­tions.

The U.S. govern­ment often grants licenses to enable the provi­sion of human­it­arian aid to areas affected by sanc­tions. But these licenses can be narrow in their concep­tion of human­it­arian assist­ance for instance, by not includ­ing civil­ian energy infra­struc­ture and delayed in imple­ment­a­tion. 

Moreover, because the penal­ties for viol­at­ing sanc­tions are so immense, the private sector routinely “over-complies” with sanc­tions and shies away from trans­act­ing with targets even when a license is gran­ted. 

A recent U.S. Govern­ment Account­ab­il­ity Office report on Venezuela sanc­tions found that all nine of the U.S. Agency for Inter­na­tional Devel­op­ment imple­ment­ing part­ners in that coun­try had banks close their accounts or reject trans­ac­tions, despite being permit­ted to deliver human­it­arian aid.

So we crush a country, and gave a little leftover to the few. Just a "famine" thought.

Haass..

 

Economic sanctions are increasingly being used to promote the full range of American foreign policy objectives.

Yet all too often sanctions turn out to be little more than expressions of U.S. preferences that hurt American economic interests without changing the target’s behavior for the better. 

As a rule, sanctions need to be less unilateral and more focused on the problem at hand. 

Congress and the executive branch need to institute far more rigorous oversight of sanctions, both prior to adopting them and regularly thereafter, to ensure that the expected benefits outweigh likely costs and that sanctions accomplish more than alternative foreign policy tools.

[Economic Sanctions: Too Much of a Bad Thing. Richard N. Haass Monday, June 1, 1998.]

Muscle Confusion..

The Big Myth About Changing Your Workout

Have you ever heard that:

• You need to constantly make changes to your workout routine for it to be effective?
• You need to “keep your muscles guessing“?
• You need to “shock your body” into improving?
• You need to prevent your body from “getting too used to what you’re doing“?
• You need “muscle confusion workouts” in order to keep making progress?

Does any of this sound familiar?

Cool, because it’s largely a bunch of myth-based bullshit.

There are definitely some legitimate reasons for making changes to your workout.

But this stuff? This is all nonsense that only prevents people from making progress. 

Diversion..

 

Can we..

 

Halfway..

 

We’re almost halfway through the year, and sentiment has yet to turn bullish.

The S&P 500 is down 13% in 2022, while the tech-centric Nasdaq is off 22%.

If you want to know how low the market could really go, pay attention to what Savita Subramanian — head of U.S. equity and quantitative strategy at Bank of America Securities — has to say.

“We calculate that a floor on the market is 3,200, even in a recession case,” she told Bloomberg earlier this week.

The S&P 500 currently sits at roughly 4,100, so that market floor call represents potential downside of around 23%.

President Biden said he expected the Russian stock market to blow up the second it reopens in response to crippling sanctions that have been imposed on the country in response to its invasion of Ukraine. Ours too.  Just a thought.

Progressive..

 

Liberal Democrats known as progressives have never commanded a political majority. Not even close, really. That’s why progressive candidates such as Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren bombed in the 2020 Democratic presidential primaries, while the more centrist (at the time) Joe Biden won the Democratic nomination, then the presidency.

The high point for progressives may have been the Green New Deal, which the newly elected Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York spearheaded in 2019 after her come-from-nowhere upset of a party stalwart. Democrats re-took control of the House that year, and the Green New Deal was a vision for sweeping, egalitarian change in the energy sector and much of the economy. It wasn’t a legislative package, but a manifesto for ending 40 years of crony capitalism.

It's been mostly downhill from there, and the majority of Democrats themselves may have now tired of progressive visions of 

a mythical Shangri-La. In the June 7 primary elections in California, voters recalled the progressive San Francisco district attorney Chesa Boudin, whom they elected in 2019. Boudin crusaded against “two systems of justice,” one for the wealthy and one for everybody else, and he advocated alternatives to prison for many convicts. San Francisco’s liberal voters endorsed that view a couple years ago, but with worsening crime, homelessness, drug use and untreated mental illness on the city’s streets, they’ve now said, enough of that! Enough of it.