Podcasts about mechanized

Sibeal Pays A Visit.Book 3 in 18 parts, By FinalStand. Listen to the ► Podcast at Explicit Novels.It is selfish to believe that your family will always love you. At some point you will be asked to earn it{Right where we left off}It was H-hour plus four. A Thai soldier fired another burst from his T A R 21. The other four soldiers around him did the same. They were using an overturned car as cover. He saw movement at a building across the street to his right. He fired off another few rounds. The figure fell to the ground. By hard-earned experience, he realized the enemy soldier had probably dived for cover, not been hit."Time to fall back. One block back," he hoped he didn't sound too shrill. "You two go first," he indicated the two townsfolk. His battalion major had drafted them minutes after the attack began. Any organized supply depot had been an open invitation for an artillery strike, so he had called for civilians to help carry the ammunition loads instead. These two had been attached to his platoon. Now they were with him.They nodded, hefted up the crate of 5.56mm and sprinted toward the rear while his men gave them cover fire. They made it. He named off two of his other men. It was their turn to go. After their sprint to safety, it was time for him and the last two to go. They ran past some terribly close flanking fire, but all made it.This Thai soldier wasn't the squad leader, or even the squad's second in command. He was a lowly Phon Thahan (Private, not 1st Class). Those two men were already dead. No, he was a common soldier who found other men listening to his orders so, by default, he was in command. His initial squad of ten had shrunk down to three. The fourth man had been part of the regimental staff, a driver, sent into the firefight to replace losses. He still could point and shoot, which was all that mattered at the moment.At the next block he found the two civilians. His men dumped their empty clips on them, then positioned themselves for the next enemy rush. The leader of this ad hoc force took the driver over to the far corner of the building they sheltered behind. Too often, going inside buildings was a death trap. The enemy would corner you then call in their artillery."Guard this corner," he told the driver. "I'll be checking up on you." The frightened soldier nodded, then took up his post. Now he had a few seconds to consider his position. He was running out of town to retreat through. Behind him lay open fields. Just then he saw the tale-tell site of a Dragon Anti-Tank missile firing from the next raised roadway to his rear-right.He couldn't see if it hit anything. There was no huge explosion. Still, it indicated that other elements of his battalion were in the fight. From what little briefing he had been given when the attack started, the major had placed his heavy machine guns and recoilless rifles on each flank to stop the enemy's mobile forces from getting around his command and surrounding them.Little did the soldier understand he was involved in a textbook defense by foot-bound infantry versus armored opponents. His two townsmen were busy shoving bullets into the thirty round magazines. His men had already engaged the enemy to the front. Gone were the cries of 'got him'. No one gave a damn anymore. They were too exhausted to care. Now they counted the comrades they had left, not the possible number of enemy out there.Six minutes later he heard the sound of death coming his way."Everyone down," he screamed a second before an artillery round flattened their shelter. For a few moments all he could do was gaze up at the heavens. His body hurt, his ears were ringing and the belief that he could stop now, he had given it his best shot and his part in this battle were over.He pulled himself and examined what he had left. He wasn't hurt if you didn't count the blood coming out his ears. He couldn't say the same for his companions. One of the townsmen had the top of his head torn off, his soulless eyes gazing up to the forever. One of his men had a smoking chunk of meat where his spine should have been. A second one was nursing a bad leg wound.The third soldier? He was already up and firing. The second townsmen was a bit dazed, yet looked like he could carry on. The soldier crouch-ran to check on the driver. He was laying on his belly. For a second he mourned for that fellow then the man got off a burst, then scooted back. He had been 'playing possum' in order to draw some enemy out. He was alive and fighting."We have got to get out of here," he told the man. "Get to the elevated road across the field then provide cover fire for the rest of us." The driver acknowledged the command, fired off one more burst then bolted for the field. The Thai made his way back to his other survivors. He gave them the same order, the civilian first.The wounded man? He couldn't make it with that leg wound and if any of the others carried him they would most likely die too."Cover us as long as you can," he ordered. The wounded shoulder crawled to the corner to relieve the only standing soldier."Go," he ordered that man. Off he sprinted. The leader placed two spare clips next to the wounded man, wished him luck, then it was his turn to sprint to safety. Close to the end, a few bullets hurried him along. He found the others had made it unwounded as well. The townsman was already shoving more bullets into the empty magazines.To his right was the remnants of the squad with the recoilless rifle and a light machine gun. To his left was a group of six Thahan Phran, paramilitary border guards. He rejoined the firing line. The enemy had overrun the buildings closest to them and were faced with the same quandary he had just overcome, the open field. When a man tapped his shoulder he nearly jumped out of his skin.It was his company commander."You've been doing well. I'm placing you in command of this section. We have a Carl Gustav (another version of a recoilless rifle) in the trees over there," the Captain pointed to the right. Hold this position as long as you can. Help is on the way."Before this fight, the soldier had dreaded this officer. He had been so pompous, so spit-and-polished and arrogant. Now he saw different qualities in the man. He was cool under fire, had his mind on the bigger picture of the fight and the discipline he had instilled in his men was paying dividends the private soldier hadn't appreciated at that time."You are Sip Tho (corporal) now," the officer told him. With that declaration, the common foot soldier had inherited 13 more men, the squad of seven to his right and the six Thahan Phran to his left. Combined with his two that made something more like a combat command. The Captain made his way back up the line. The Thai didn't have long to appreciate his promotion. Smoke shells began detonating between his position and the town, obscuring the place."Remember," he shouted. "Short, controlled bursts and only shoot at something that you know is out there!" With that, he had established his command of the situation. Several explosions detonated in the wooded position. Half a minute later, a tank appeared and pumped another H E into the position. In doing so, it exposed its side to Thai's section.The two men manning his Dragon launcher looked his way. It was a shot at a 45 degree angle and any heavy weapons fire would bring about all kinds of hate."Fire," he ordered. The man aiming the device took a few seconds then let loose. The rocket didn't penetrate the side, but it did knock a track out."Now we are going to get it," the Thai mumbled.A few heartbeats later, a larger TOW missile slammed into it from a position to his command's rear. This time the tank blew up. Of equal importance to the soldier's mind, there were men behind him and that could only mean, the second regiment had finally arrived. He was sure he wouldn't be falling back any further, giving the invaders one more inch of sacred Thai soil. It also meant his men would most likely live to see the end of the day. That mattered too.  It was H-hour plus six. Two hour earlier, elements of the Vietnamese People's Army's 314th Mechanized regiment and 206th Tank Regiment with the Mobile battalion of the Laotian 1st Division and the Khanate's Laos Force Command slammed into Khon Kaen. By that time, the small city had already seen its share of hell. Khanate forces had stormed the regional airport with an aerial assault at 4:10 AM that morning.There were no dedicated combat troops in Khon Kaen. It was the HQ for both the Royal Thai 3rd Division and its component 1st regiment. That had resulted in a see-saw battle until the relief force arrived from the north. After that, resistance had collapsed. Over three hundred men surrendered. A hundred miles to the north forces in the town of Udon Thani, battalions of the 1st and 2nd regiments of the 3rd Division were still in combat with Laotian and Vietnamese forces. The final outcome of that battle had yet to be decided.What did matter was that the entire command structure of northeast of Thailand had been neutered. There were five more battalions out there that had no idea what to do next. They suffered from sporadic air attacks, but nothing serious was coming their way.What none of them were aware of was that a Far North Force out of the Laotian highlands had broken a battalion of the Royal Thai's 6th Infantry Division, taken Roi Et and severed the communications between the two formations. At Roi Et, the Khanate armored spearhead had left elements of the 2nd Regiment of Lao's 4th Division to hold the airport and was blazing a trail westward along Highway 23, to the south/rear of those five battalions.South of Roi Et, two other Thai battalions were grudgingly giving ground to a regiment of Vietnam's 305th Division plus the 270th Combat Engineers and 16th Artillery Brigade. What mattered was that those forces were drawing off the efforts of the 6th Divisions to counteract the invasion.The 6th Division had its own litany of woes. It was the subject of a dozen pinpricks. The division's commander had lost contact with the other two divisions under the 2nd Army's command. He had enemy forces to his north around Amnat Charoen, he'd lost contact with this 1st regiment HQ at Roi Et.His second regiment, at Ubon Ratchathani, was heavily engaged with the Alliance's North Force. His 3rd regiment, spread out along the southern approaches to his life line, Highway 24, had discovered small teams of Special Forces at every bridge and crossing, making every attempt at creating a unified front costly and ultimately futile.The 2nd Army's HQ and supply hub were at Nakhon Ratchasima. They were under attack, the airport had fallen and the sole mechanized regiment (minus one battalion) was having a terrible time retaking it. They were presently incapable of coming to his defense, since their third battalion had already been called to the capital to put down unrest/enemy forces.He finally made his decision. The remnants of the 1st regiment were to retire westward over the back roads towards the division headquarters at the Si Sa Ket Railway Station. The second regiment was to hold in place until sunset. Using all of the division's remaining assets, he was going to secure Highway 24 so that his command could retire using that path before they were cut off and defeated one regiment at the time.  It was H-hour plus seven. For one of the drivers in a Khanate Heavy Mountain Supply Zuun, there wasn't much to love about this mission. He was a truck driver with a weapon, not a true foot soldier. He was content with his role in logistics, which was why his current mission scared the crap out of him. He wasn't in an armored vehicle and was accompanied by only one Fast Zuun ~ by its very nature a lightly armored unit. Now he was driving deep into enemy territory with a truckload of Karin freedom fighters, who also were lightly equipped.He had already reached the first goal, the town of San Buri, 270 kilometers behind enemy lines and only 60 kilometers from downtown Bangkok. There was a fear that his own air force would mistake then for an enemy supply column and shoot them up. Then there was the fear that some rear echelon troops would find the convoy suspicious and fill his unarmed vehicle with holes. His luck held, the enemy were looking to the north and east, not at a group of trucks heading south.Soldiers from the rebel faction of the Thai Royal Army were stationed in each vehicle to cover any conversation with the local constabulary that might come up. The cover story was that the unit was driving with a purpose ~ the capital was under attack and they were reinforcements using back roads to avoid airstrikes ~ the phone network was a mess and the fact that the plan was so audacious, the normal police officers didn't feel the need to slow the military trucks down.The last phase was pure madness. They rolled down Road 304 at 80 kph. Every time they approached a checkpoint, the unit's commander called in a hopefully faux airstrike, on both them and the Thai soldiers. That made it plausible for the convoy to race forward as the troops around them were too busy diving for cover to stop them. If anything, the defenders thought those truck drivers were the bravest men they'd ever seen.At the end of the journey, they rolled across the Road 304 Bridge over the Chao Praya River, then dispersed. Each truck disgorged 16 Karin fighters, for a total of 560. To that was added the 100 members of the Fast Zuun and 35 drivers, three Tigr's and 59 combat troops. Miracles of miracles, they found the capital to be in total chaos.  It was H-hour plus 6 and a half. The Turkish Khanate commander of 100 looked south in the direction of In Buri. He was already in the 'spread chaos' phase of his operation. The central part of In Buri was the junction of Highways 11 and 32. Somewhere to the far north, friendly units were fighting their way to him. Forces retreating south, or reinforcements from Bangkok would have to pass through his position. He commandeered some passing civilian vehicles and created barricades on all three sides of the T-cloverleaf.Before long, the ground elements of an Airmobile Zuun had joined him. That allowed him to deploy several two-man observer teams over the surrounding countryside. He left two AFV's on the bridge and camouflaged the others in the best ambush points he could think of. Then, he waited.  It was H-hour plus eight. For Julia Atwood, this was the culmination of twenty-five years working in Asia, covering a host of military conflicts and both natural and man-made humanitarian disasters. She'd gotten a tip two days earlier that Bangkok Thailand was going to be the place to be. Since she wasn't a known anti-government reporter, her entry into the country had been easy enough.She had spent the previous day picking a city guide, luckily finding one she knew well, and looking around for sources of information about 'trouble'. What she found was a quiet city on the edge of an explosion. The police, paramilitary forces and the military had everything battened down tight. At the same time, the population was extremely anxious over the upcoming loyalist offensive against the rebel northwest.The military had clamped down on all information coming out of the prospective war zones while exhorting on all forms of mass media the sacred traditions of Thai national identity and the need for law and order. That made the hairs on the back of Julia's neck tingle. It spoke of an upcoming shit storm. Still, Day One had been a bust. Few people wanted to talk about what was going on; all known opposition leaders were in prison or in exile.She had awakened early in the morning to the sound of heavy weapons fire. She had been in enough war zones to know the difference between grenades exploding, or pistol, assault rifle, machine gun, and tank fire. She was hearing tank fire, which made no sense. The Thai army didn't need to use their tank's big guns to fire at anything the opposition could bring to bear.She slipped out the back of her hotel to avoid any possible police minder, gathered up her guide and went hunting for the story. Twice she barely avoided roving army patrols. What immediately occurred to her was these soldiers didn't seem to know what was going on. They were jumpy (not good) and nervous (great for a story).Her trained ears and years of instinct led her to one of the eyes of the storm. Julia's jaw nearly dropped open. There were Central Asian men riding around in Russian equipment surrounded by throngs of hundreds, possibly thousands, of Thai 'Red Shirt' protestors marching on a police barricade. Several leaders of the movement had bullhorns and were communicating with the police. It was a tense situation.Julia forced her way to the BMP-3M, then shouted up at the commander standing in the copula. She tried Uzbek. The man looked her way."No. I'm Kazak. My Uzbek isn't very good," he replied. Julia's Kazak wasn't the best in the world, but she endeavored to make it work."What are you doing here?""I could ask you the same thing," the man smiled. "We are part of the Alliance effort to bring about democratic change in this country." Julia knew he was spouting the party line."What are you really doing here?" she pressed."I have no idea," he chortled. "I don't speak this language, don't know who these people are and only found out where Thailand was two days ago.""Are there a lot of you here?""Not really.""How did you get here?""We landed at the airport. We are a portion of an airmobile Zuun."Just then one of the protestors tried to get the unit leader's attention. He kept repeating something."He wants you to advance on the police line and look menacing," she translated."Okay," the Khanate officer shrugged. "That I can do."He spoke rapid fire Kazak, which Julia couldn't quite follow. Her ride lurched forward, the crowd parted and she could see the blood drain out of the police commander's face. Without looking her way, the Kazak spoke to Julia."Tell them they have thirty seconds to put down their arms or I'm going to shred the lot of them."Julia thought about it for a second. She was recording this exchange on her camcorder. She knew this was straying dangerously close to becoming a participant, not a reporter. She translated to the Thai young man. He sprinted toward the police and relayed the message. She had no idea what a 100mm fragmentation shell would do, had an idea how bloody a 30mm auto-cannon could get and had great familiarity with the effectiveness of 12.7 & 7.62mm machine guns.The lead protestor had a rapid discussion with the lead policeman, bowing and begging for this situation to be resolved peacefully. The countdown reached eight when the officer indicated his acquiescence. The mob didn't surge forward victoriously. Julia slapped the turret to get the Kazak's attention."You don't need to fire.""I understand that," the man acknowledged. It wasn't over though. Another protestor, a woman, waved for the Kazak's attention. Since she wasn't alone in doing so, the man hadn't noticed her. What she was saying did get Julia's attention."She is saying that tanks are on the way!" she shouted at the man in the copula."Which direction?" he inquired. Julia confirmed the information relayed by the girl, who double checked with the person on the other end of her phone, worked out the terrain in her head, then drew a quick map on her palm."They are coming up the road one block up. They are heading north toward us.""Clear out the crowd," he responded evenly. He once more ordered his unit to action. One of the Tigr's raced forward and disgorged its men close to the next corner then the vehicle withdrew."What do you plan to do?" she asked."Do what I came here to do, kill the enemy.""But they have tanks.""Fortunately I have things that kill tanks," he grinned."Do you mind if I stick around?""It is your life," he shrugged. The BMP moved forward to the point where, with its barrel turned sideways, the vehicle was just short of exposing itself. He was busy talking to someone else.Seconds later, one of the Khanate soldiers at the corner launched a grenade up the street, then two others opened fire with their assault rifles. They ducked back around the corner right as a larger caliber machine gun chewed up the wall as well as the street in front of her. Two other soldiers fired off flares into the sky."You might want to get down," the Kazak advised her. Julia nodded, jumped off and ran to the corner to join the other troopers. She edged around the corner, leading with her camcorder. Sure enough, up the street was an honest-to-God tank, with others behind it. One of the foot-bound Kazaks was busy shouting at the others. Once more, a soldier fired a grenade at the tank, to no visible effect. This time he apparently got the response the Kazaks wanted.The tank's big gun fired. One of the troopers, mindful of Julia, grabbed her as they propelled themselves to the ground. The world exploded. Julia was doing a quick check of her well-being when she heard the BMP race forward, barrel turned perpendicular down the street and then it fired. Julia barely caught it all on her camera. The IFV had fired an anti-tank missile out of its main gun. The oncoming tank was a Ukrainian made T-84 Oplot.It exploded; the turret flying away in a curtain of flame. This time it was the blast that blew Julia to the ground. A Kazak soldier hefted her up and pulled her to safety. He was truly pissed when she dodged back into the danger zone to retrieve her camcorder. She sighed happily when she found it undamaged. The BMP rolled back behind cover."Get down," the Kazak ground pounder growled. "It is about to get a whole lot worse.""How?" she looked at him."Well, now that we have stopped the column from moving," he grinned like a maniac. That wasn't much of an answer. Then she noted all the Kazaks clutching at the concrete sidewalks. She did likewise. Seconds later, she heard the jets. 'Oh God', she gulped. She'd seen more than her fair share of airstrikes. She had never been this close to one.Out of the corner of her eye she noticed the Thai crowd moving closer."Get down," she screamed in Thai. "Get Down!"Others repeated her warning and the crowed went down to their knees. Then came the thunder. Julia could barely make out the whoosh of missiles before the detonating rockets and missiles shook her world.A stubby-winged jet raced past her vision. The pilot had gotten so damn close to the building tops she could make out every feature of his aircraft. This level of caution where civilians were concerned was surprisingly unlike the Khanate. She tried to stand, but the soldier next to her had wrapped an arm around her."They come in twos," he cautioned her.Sure enough another series of explosions rocked her surroundings. No sooner had she gotten to her feet, the Kazak commander shouted,"They are coming around for another pass, then we go!"A series of passes followed with the jets using auto-cannons on whomever was left out there.Julia pushed away from her guardian and rushed up to the BMP officer."Wait," she called to him. Stunningly, he waited, looking at her. "Let the crowd save the survivors. This is their struggle too.""If the soldiers fire on them there will be little I can do," he responded."Give them a chance."Against all her expectations, he did. The crowd moved to discover the carnage visited on their oppressors, and fellow countrymen.  It was H-hour plus eight. The Thai tank commander was close to the end of his rope. He'd been fighting since sunrise. Defend, attack, withdraw to a defensive position then wait for the order to counterattack. His platoon had dwindled down to his sole surviving tank. His company no longer acted as a separate entity. Now his battalion, barely a company in strength, operated as a fire brigade, shoring up his beleaguered battle group.The last attack, backed by air power, had shattered his unit. He fell back, literally backing into a second story building to avoid the ever-present Alliance attack helicopters. From his vantage point he could see a column of armored vehicles rolling down Highway 11. He was debating which one he would fire on first when he noticed a jeep coming his way. Onboard were three Thai soldiers, rebels.The jeep rolled right up to his hiding spot. The man in the back dismounted and he walked right up to the tank."Can we talk?" the man inquired. The tank commander kept him covered with this machine gun."What do you have to say, traitor?" he barked."I come to request,""We will not surrender," he growled."We are not asking you to surrender," the man corrected him. "We are asking you to let the war pass you by.""Why should I?""If you fight, you will be destroyed. The Thai army will need to rebuild when this is over and we must be strong. If you throw your life away, we will all be weaker."The tank commander had to think that over. If he began firing on that armored column he would be striking a mighty blow for his country. He would also be sentencing him and his men to death."There will be no surrender?""No sir," the man insisted.The rebel soldier made some sense. The Thai military would have to rebuild when this catastrophe was over. He and his men had done their part."We will stay here for a while," the tank commander informed the rebel."Very well," the soldier bowed. He remounted his jeep and drove away."We are going to stay here a while," he addressed his crewmen. "Get a bite to eat and a drink of water."His men hesitated for a moment."Now, while we have the chance."The men hopped to. They had their orders. They would worry about the morality of their actions later.  It was H-hour plus nine. The men in the Royal Thai Army's high command were finally getting ahold of the big picture. The good news was the Third Army's offensive was grinding to a halt along a line stretching along Highway 1 from Tham Pet Tham Tong Forest in the east to Chai Nat on the Chao Praya River in the west. It was accepted as fact that the 3rd Cavalry and 11th Infantry divisions could hold the line.West of the Chao Praya was a chaotic mess of small garrisons involved in raids and counter-raids. It was deemed unlikely the Alliance forces could push forward any further in that direction either. It also meant that they couldn't pull units from that region to reinforce any of their other trouble points and they had a few.That was most of the good news.Another piece of good news was the1st Army's 2nd Infantry Division had stopped the invasion force they were facing only a few kilometers over the frontier in the area of Watthana Nakhon District. As soon as they had gathered the majority of the division together, they would be mounting a counter-offensive with the intention of overwhelming that force and destroying it.After that, it only got worse.In the area of the 2nd Army, the 3rd Infantry Division and the 2nd Cavalry Division had virtually ceased to exist as cohesive forces. Two battalions of the 3rd Division were retreating south into the 6th Division's area. The 2nd Cavalry division had been reduced pre-battle to one mechanized regiment. That regiment was gone and with it, the supply routes for the 2nd Royal Thai Army.Inside that zone, the 6th Infantry Division still existed, but it was in a world of trouble. They had lost control of Highway 24, their primary supply/evacuation route, and were relentlessly being driven out of Ubon Ratchathani. Even with the slowly arriving battalions of the 3rd Division, the 6th could barely muster two combat-effective regiments and those were running short of fuel and ammunition. The 6th had become a static force, too large to be overwhelmed, too immobile to press the enemy out, or save themselves from a slow strangulation. Had they their assigned tank battalion, but they didn't.The 1st Army's 9th Division was in the worst shape. They had gathered into one elliptical shaped perimeter centered on Chanthaburi and were down to four battalions and two tanks. Technically, they had another battalion, except the 1st Army command had ordered that into Bangkok to aid in suppressing the rebel movement. The 9th Division was surrounded, under attack from the land, sea (the Indian Navy had joined the fight) and air. Their commanding general expected to be wiped out before sunset.And Bangkok?It was turning into a typhoon scale disaster. They had finally determined that there were eight small Khanate platoons roaming the city, seemingly at will. The 1st Division had finally located and destroyed one of those, along with a dozen protestors who chose to fight by their side. The others were still at large and causing trouble.That wasn't the worst of it though. The plan had been to pacify outlying neighborhoods and work their way in to the worst areas. That had started out effectively, then suddenly they had lost the northwestern and southeastern sectors. In the northwest, there were Karin fighters killing, or capturing police and paramilitary strongpoints.In the southeast, it was much worse. Unknown armored troops from the 9th Division's rear area had come seeping in along the riverfront. They seemed to be everywhere at once, surprising roadblocks and checkpoints then ambushing the forces sent to restore order. They were a cancer pushing into a city already short on reserves.There were public displays of defiance going out over the international news, surgical air strikes and a growing sense among the rank and file 'Guardians of the Public Order' that they were on the losing side. There were reports of police turning their backs on the unrest, directing traffic and arresting petty criminals instead.The Royal Thai Army in Bangkok still had over 50,000 men under its command. They were sure they were facing less than a thousand hardcore militants, yet they were losing control of the streets. Part of that was caused by the military being tied down to certain strategic areas they had to hold. They had to protect over a dozen buildings and, as they had painfully learned, a platoon wouldn't do.The Government House had been temporarily overrun and Parliament had been shelled. Channel 3 had been hijacked and the forces sent to take it back had been subject to intense helicopter attacks and driven back. They'd killed two such craft, but that only seemed to make the Alliance troops angrier. This was what a death by a thousand cuts felt like. This was worse than bad, because it looked bad on media going out all over the world.  It was H-hour plus twelve. The commander of the MARCOS had finally taken the time to eat. He was in the Maleenont Towers section of Khlong Toei, Bangkok. It had been his masterstroke, seizing the Channel 3 station. He wasn't sure who the eight shady characters who showed up with the VIPs were and he didn't really care. What did matter was while the VIP's fought like wildcats in private they were putting on a unified front while on TV.One of the VIPs was the former civilian Prime Minister of Thailand. The other guys seemed to hate her guts, but were willing to work with her to overthrow the generals. What he did care about was the nearly five hundred men under his command plus a dozen helicopters and jets somewhere above, waiting to swoop in and help when the next government attack materialized.He had to give them this much, the police forces had guts, not a lot of brains, but plenty of guts. Their counter-terrorism unit had known their stuff, but they didn't have any effective anti-tank weapons and he had a half dozen tanks. Whenever the army got feisty, he called up 'Shiva's Fist' ~ his men's joking reference to the Khanate air support. Those bastards not only killed you, they came back around and killed your corpse too.He got a call from the perimeter. Some of those Karin fighters had crossed half the city to join them. The Indian officer had thought that part of the Khanate plan was utter madness, yet here they were, shooting up the place in a manner only highly experienced insurgents could. Those guys didn't even want to hang around. They were asking for more ammo. The locals were giving them all the food and water they needed.At nine, once it was truly dark, the Khanate was promising to drop off a few tons of whatever they need plus some more medivac units. He was down nine men dead and twenty-seven wounded badly enough they need to be removed. The Khanate had lost four times as many. All in all, the overthrow of a military regime was turning out to not be as difficult as he thought it would be. He was waiting to be surprised.  It was H-hour plus fifteen. The fighting had died down and now the main activity was the Thai civic authorities fighting the fires burning in Saraburi. The Khanate Commander of 1000 looked over his shoulder at the burning city. It hadn't been much of a fight, mainly a few rear echelon forces from the Royal Thai 2nd Army and some paramilitaries.He wasn't in the town. The majority of his troopers had already rolled down to the junction of Highways 1 and 33. He had communication with other elements farther west on Highway 32 at Ang Thong and to the northwest at the junction of Highways 1 and 32. The offensive operations was essentially over for his command. That was just as well. He was running low on petrol. He still had plenty of ammunition though.They were sitting on the lifeline for the 1st Army's 3rd Cavalry and 11th Division to the north and the 2nd Division to the east. The 6th Division was too far in his rear to matter and the 9th Division was facing annihilation along the coast. It was very dark now, but the air force was still active. Some pilots were flying their sixteenth mission of the day.For most of the day, the Khanate Air Force had concentrated on his axis of advance and the battle in Bangkok. The Vietnamese Air Force had concentrated on the hapless 9th Division. In reality, the Alliance was almost at the end of its tether.His combined Laos and Far North Task Forces were spent. The North and Cambodian Task Forces had the 6th Division pinned down. The South Task Force had done the same with the 9th. Only the Central Task Force facing the 2nd Division appeared to be in serious trouble.None of those formations were actually near defeat, though many of them wouldn't realize that until morning. Only the 3rd Army's two task force had consisted of more than 5,000 hastily gathered troops and most of those were Cambodians, Laotians and Vietnamese. To that the Khanate had added 50 mobile Zuuns spread over ten task forces and another 50 airmobile, parachute and airlifted units ~ less than ten thousand men and women spread over all fronts.The cold, hard reality for him was that not a single loyalist Thai unit had been destroyed. The 3rd and 9th infantry divisions has been battered, that was true. The majority of their mobile forces, the 2nd and 3rd cavalry divisions, still existed as a potent force. The 11th and 2nd infantry divisions were also out there, but they were all cut off from the capital. And in this elegant global play, the one theater that mattered was Bangkok.In the morning, if they came for him, the loyalist Thai's were going to discover that offense was a lot more painful that defense. Only the 2nd Division bothered him. The forces to the north were too heavily engaged with the rebel Thai 3rd Army to dispatch more than a battalion his way and he would gobble up a battalion.It would be too much to ask the battered Alliance Center Task Force to keep the 2nd Division occupied. From what he had heard, they were on the verge of disintegration after a powerful Loyalist counterattack. He did have patrols on the 304 and 359 Roads in case their commander got creative. What those few men lacked in vehicles, they would compensate for with air power.The Khanate Air Force was a 24/7, all-weather operation. They had lost 40 aircraft to enemy action and a further forty to mechanical malfunction. Losses in helicopters was also high. But there were still enough of both to get the job done. Now all he had to do was wait for the Americans to arrive.  It was H-hour plus seventeen.There were only three major acts left in this macabre play before the eyes of the world. A squadron of 12 Tu-22M bombers found two of the 2nd Division's regiments sneaking to the west. The Thais had done this with as much secrecy as they could. Unfortunately, their move was one of only two option left to the Loyalist Royal Thai Army.Option One, the most likely one, had the 2nd Division attacking the Khanate troops south of Saraburi. It would not only give the 2nd Division freedom of movement, it would establish supply lines to the divisions currently holding the rebel Thai Third Army at bay. It was the predictable choice.The Khanate U A V were out there, scouting for them and when they spotted the three columns using the backroads to approach their attack positions, they relayed that information to a not-so-distant A-50E/I. The squadron of waiting bombers had incredible endurance and had been circling the suspected target area for three hours. They broke up into groups of six then into groups of two. The first two lined up on their targets then unleashed their lethal cargo.Each plane dropped sixty-nine 250 kg bombs. That was138 bombs with a combined explosive power of 75,900 lbs. spread out over three-quarters of a mile. The A-50 assessed the damage for 7 minutes before sending the second set of two in. Another 138 bombs. Another 75,900 lbs. of death. The third group wouldn't be needed. In ten minutes the fighting power of the 2nd Royal Thai Infantry Division had evaporated.Option Two? That called for the 1st Infantry Division, with her added units, to sally forth from Bangkok and rescue the trapped elements of their other divisions. That would have entailed abandoning large areas of the capital to the protestors and the tiny groups of invaders that were helping them. No one thought they would do that and they were right. Had they been wrong, there was another squadron of bombers waiting for them.  It was H-hour plus nineteen. The Thai Phon Thahan-turned-Sip Tho looked out into the darkness. Four hours ago he was anticipating crossing the Cambodian border and burning down their town for a change. Now, now it was wait-and-see. The majority of the division had withdrawn for a long night march to the west. From what he had gathered, the 2nd Army had been pummeled and it was once again the time for the 2nd Division to save the day.He spotted movement in front of him. He glanced over to his 'sniper', a Thahan Phran who was the best shot in his unit and had a taste for the task. The man had the target in his sights."I come to parlay," the voice in the darkness shouted in less than perfect Thai. The Thai soldier had to think what that meant. His instinct was to shoot the man. His training taught him to not make choices above his pay grade."Advance. Don't do anything stupid," he called out. To the man next to him he whispered, "Go get the Captain." The man slunk away. No one alive in the unit stood up to do anything. You even pissed crouched down. The man coming toward him was a Cambodian. It was evident in both his gear and accent. "What do you want?""We want a truce," the man replied. He remained very erect, his hands in the air and only made slow, careful movements."I should shoot you," he growled."That would be unfortunate for both of us. I would, of course, be dead, and my allies would open up with our artillery."The conversation was truncated by the captain's arrival. They went through much of the same routine, absent the 'I should kill you part' and the counter-threat. The captain turned to the Thai soldier."Blindfold and bind this man's hands then take him to the Phan Ek (Colonel). Let him figure this out."Without the soldier saying anything the Captain added, "This could be a ruse. I must stay here. Hurry."He nodded, took a shirt from one of the civilian volunteers, cut it into strips then blindfolded and bound the man."If you so much as sneeze, I'll put a bullet in your head," he warned the man."I understand," the Cambodian replied. The soldier took the Cambodian one block behind the lines, spun the man around several times, then led him toward the command bunker. He spun him around twice more before making his final approach. A wounded junior officer met him at the entrance."Come on," he took custody of the man. Having nothing else to do and not having been ordered to release the prisoner, the soldier followed along.The Regimental Commander had the man un-blindfolded. His hands remained bound."What do your masters want?" the Major snapped."They want a truce," the Cambodian blinked in the sudden bright light."You invaded us without a declaration of war. That makes you criminals, not combatants.""We attacked at the request of the legitimate authority in Thailand, the Commanding General of the Royal Thai Third Army.""Those men are rebels and you will not refer to them as anything but," the Phan Ek insisted."Very well. My Commander wishes to let you know that our mobile hospital has arrived. We wish to exchange prisoners and place our facilities at your disposal as well.""The Royal Thai army will be there soon enough," the Major glowered."Unlikely. Our Khanate allies have informed us that most of your division was destroyed on the road. You have one battered regiment and a handful of tanks. You are not going anywhere."The soldier wanted to slap the smug smile off the man's face."I do not have the authority to hand over prisoners until their status as POWs or criminals has been established," the senior officer countered."If you consider our men criminals, we will treat your men like traitors.""Are you threatening me?""Yes. A fact you should be aware of is that the Khanate has been flying in reinforcements since noon and we have five more armored, mechanized and artillery Zuuns to attack with. Come sunrise, we will be coming at you again unless we have a truce.""Now you are threatening us again," the Phan Ek pointed out."I am explaining the realities of your situation, nothing more," the Cambodian countered. "Our task force commander believes that further violence will be futile. You have done your job and we have done ours.""And your job was to keep us occupied so you could rape and pillage other parts of our country?""No sir. The Alliance forces have been operating under very strict guidelines. The Thai people are our allies and we are a liberating force," the Cambodian replied."You consider this town 'liberated'? You've destroyed it," the Phan Ek noted."It was unfortunate that you chose to fight us here."The Colonel studied the man silently for thirty seconds."I will agree to a two hour truce. That should allow me to contact my superiors for further clarification on my mission. We will hand over any critically injured 'invaders'. You will return any POW's you are holding in exchange.""Agreed," the Cambodian immediately responded."Just like that? It is really within your authority to make such a deal?""As I said earlier Phan Ek, we believe the fighting is over. We don't need your captured men. We would like to see as many as our comrades live as possible. No matter what your commanders say, the fact remains that if you come out of these ruins, you will be slaughtered. You know that. I know that. Peace is the only avenue that leads to any level of success. Today, today, both our forces did what our commanders told us to do. The dying should stop.""Go. The truce will take effect in, fifteen minutes ~ 12:12 am. We will transfer prisoners and wounded at your point of entry. We will both give a warning whistle fifteen, ten, five and one minute before the truce ends at 2:12 am. Do you understand?"The Cambodian repeated the terms of the truce. He was bound up then sent back with the Sip Tho."Do you really think this is the end of the fighting," he asked his blind captive."On the lives of my children I hope so," the man sighed. "I led 88 men into battle this morning and now I'm down to 46 effectives. I have lost too many already for a battle that wasn't in my nation's best interest. I am tired of the killing.""Me too," the Thai said a moment later. After he delivered him to the Captain on the front lines, the man was unbound."Good luck," he found himself saying."Good luck for both of us," the Cambodian gave a weary smile. "May we not meet again.""If I see you again, I will kill you.""I feel the same way," the man chuckled. "We are both soldiers doing what more powerful men have commanded us to do. I don't know about you, but I have had enough." Several Thai soldiers nodded. They had driven the enemy off Thai soil. Continuing the fight didn't seem to have much of a point.  

Diplomatic Hell Hole.Book 3 in 18 parts, By FinalStand. Listen to the ► Podcast at Explicit Novels."Are we in the right place?" the stranger worried."I'm afraid so. Anais, you need to leave.""Not until you tell me what is going on here," she sizzled."She's not here to have sex, if that's what you worried about," I retorted. "Wait, are you here to have sex with me?""I barely know you.""That rarely stops me," I muttered."He's a master of bedroom antics," Pamela praised me. "He's pretty much at a loss at doing anything else.""Thanks Grandma," I griped."Your welcome, Grandson.""We, are here to meet someone," the stranger hedged."You came to the right place," Pamela preempted me. "He's definitely someone.""Fine, redo. I'm Cáel Nyilas," (deep breathe), "NOHIO, HCIESI-NDI, U HAUL, Magyarorszag es Erdely Hercege plus a bunch of other honorifics that have yet to be confirmed. I am single-handedly bringing back medievalism to the center of Europe and the Near East. The woman to my left is Pamela Pale, and she really is my bodyguard. The woman to my right is Sgt. Anais Saint-Amour, RCMP, my ex-lover and the person that needs to leave   right now.""I'm not sure I should leave at this moment," Anais shifted possessively. I had to recall earlier this morning, the part where we'd broken up by mutual consent. Yep. That had really happened. I had thought I was whittling down my current list of paramours. Why do the Goddesses hate me so?"Told you, she can't give up that cock," Pamela whispered."As you can see, I have limited control of my life," I told the strange woman. "I know you are here to meet somebody who isn't me. Now you know who I am. Who are you and your companions?""I'm Ms. Quincy.""Sorry; I'm on a first name basis with everyone I meet," I interrupted."What's your rank, Honey?" Pamela added."What makes you think,?""She doesn't think. That's what makes her so dangerous." I explained."Hey now," Pamela faux-complained."Okay. She's a fledgling telepath, or medium," I shrugged."Captain, Zelda Quincy.""In case you are mesmerized by her tits," Pamela tapped me, "she's packing some serious hardware.""One of those personal defense gizmos?" I leaned Pamela's way."Close, but no cigar. She's my kind of girl, big 'bang-bang', back-up at the small of her back and knife in her boot.""What!" Zelda gulped."She's his knife-fighting instructor," Anais answered drolly."Are you Special Forces?" Zelda regarded my mentor."Nah, I got kicked out for a consistent failure to observe even the loosest Rules Of Engagement. I'm a free-spirit.""Oh, you're a sniper," Zelda nodded."I like this one," Pamela smiled."Ah, thank you." Then, over her shoulder, "I think we are in the right place." Zelda entered the room, followed by a Hispanic panther of a man (kind of like a tanned, slightly shorter Chaz without the cool accent) wearing a long coat, and a Subcontinent-cast woman who looked at everyone as if she expected us to sprout fangs, or start quoting the Koran any second now. She obviously was a brain seconded to this mission very much against her will.The fourth person had that cagey 'when my lips move, I'm lying' look while seemingly unhappy with her current assignment. The heavy implication was that the lady was a career diplomat. Considering our current company and who we were talking to, she was State Department. She was in her late 30's or early 40's and giving off the sensation she had devoted so much to her career that she was starting to wonder if that was all that life had to offer.The fifth member was a military man clearly uncomfortable about what he was doing here, thus not a spook. His off-the-rack suit wasn't terrible, so he expected to socialize somewhat while performing his duties. He also looked like a man who expected other people to speak half-truths and obfuscated lies as easily as they breathed. Numbers three, four and five were dressed for the weather and unarmed.All of this meant they were good at what they did, though they probably didn't know the particulars of what was expected of them. They had their marching orders. Those orders were about to be made irrelevant in the company they would be keeping. The latter weren't the 'doing it by rote' kind of people they would normally be dealing with."I bet you she's a doctor," I murmured to Pamela, "she's with State and he's some sort of Foreign Service type.""I bet the first guy is Air Force," she countered."Like one of those Para-rescue guys?""No. More like one of those Battlefield Air Operations guys, I'm guessing," she corrected me."That guy?" I nodded to the final guy. "Pentagon wonk?""More likely he's one of those embassy guys. I'm going to take an educated leap here, Office of Military Cooperation, Mongolia?""That is pretty clever of you. Kazakhstan. Major Justin Colbert.""I bet some people in the White House, Pentagon and Langley are disappointed with you right now," I reasoned. His jaw grew tight."Don't worry, Major," Pamela grinned. "We consider that a good thing. We don't like the people in charge and have a low opinion of their opinion on just about everything, including their habit of blaming the blameless for their government's fuck ups.""Who are these people?" the first man whispered to Quincy."She's a telepath." That was Zelda"She's a psychic-medium." That was Anais."She can see through time." That was me. "Nice to meet you. Who are you?""Chris Diaz. Lieutenant Colonel, USAF.""Dr. Saira Yamin," the second woman introduced herself. "Asia Pacific Center for Security Studies. Are you the man from Johnston Island?""Why yes, yes I am," I beamed."The APCSS is in Waikiki, Hawaii," Pamela educated me. "Your arrival probably cost her some prime surfing time.""I was more interested in the fact that he survived a plane crash in a Category Four Cyclone," she admitted."Mother Nature hates me. No matter how hard I try, she refuses to kill me," I confessed. "My suffering is an endless source of amusement to that bitch.""That, that wasn't the helpful answer I was looking for," she stammered."So, Lt. Colonel Chris Diaz, you must be with JSOC, I have a deep and abiding respect for you guys. If you need something, just ask," I greeted him. "Captain Zelda, you are not with JSOC.""She's with the DCS ~ that is the Defense Clandestine Service," Pamela kept going. "Zelda, you love being in your uniform, you're proud, yet happy with the concept of dying in an unmarked grave for Constitution and Country. You are too old to have been in the first female class at Ranger School, so that means no 'in the field' JSOC for you. You've gotten around that stone wall by joining the US Defense Department's own little pack of killers.""Also, you felt it was necessary to bring a Benelli M4-11707. That's a close-in action shotgun, but a bit over-kill considering the paper-thin walls in this building. That tells me you are used to being in the kinds of places where such a tool is a necessity. Or in other words, since you think you are meeting a band of terrorists, you brought along your favorite toy.""Your personal weapon is a SIG Sauer P229R DAK in .357 which is a new weapon still under trial by the US Army and Air Force. Your boot dagger is ceramic so it will pass a cursory exam, or scan. You hate the idea of being trapped on a public aircraft weaponless. You have also given up killing power for a proper balance for throwing. I like a forward-thinking gal.""Air Force ~ you've recently come back from Asia, most likely Tibet. It shows in your breathing brought about by a close call with Altitude Sickness. The only reason for an Air Force guy to be here is because he's familiar with the Khanate military and you are not US Army, or Marine Corp Special Forces. I know the type.""You went with the MP5K in the standard 9mm, so you are more interested in sending bullets down range than looking into someone's face as you kill them. You may be a 'light' Colonel, which means you are almost somebody. What your higher-ups haven't appreciated is that our guests will respect you because they are like that ~ remembering past friends and comrades in arms. Of greater importance, you have Cáel's gratitude which will count for more than you currently believe."I pledged then and there to be as good as Pamela at determining that kind of stuff before I died. She had assured me it was as much a matter of psychology as eagle-eyed perception. People were often a type that gravitated to various forms of destruction, be they old school, or going for the latest gadget."I told you all that firepower was excessive," State softly chastised her associates (what they really were, not the underlings she saw them as)."So, you appeared to have forgotten to tell us your name," I regarded the State lass."Nisha Desai Biswal. I'm with the government.""Oh, Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asian Affairs, I've examined your website," I told her. It clearly pissed her off somewhat that I so swiftly disregarded her crude attempt at subtle manipulation."Hey. I've got some real enemies at State, so it pays to know who might be the next suit trying to cock me over," I explained. I had to prioritize. It would take some serious effort to convince Zelda to have a MFF three-way straight out the gate and she was definitely the hotter number."Major, you came here unarmed," Pamela noted. "That won't do. They expect you to be armed because you are a warrior, damn it. Cáel get him one of your Glock 22's.""Gotcha," I nodded. I went to my room, tipped away the false back to my closet (that Havenstone had installed recently so Odette wouldn't accidently fire off one of my weapons) and retrieved one of my spare Glocks, but not the one with the laser sight. Such over-the-top fancy gear would be inappropriate. I only gave him one mag. If he couldn't get the job done with 15 rounds, he wouldn't have a chance to reload.Mind you, I took two in a twin-rig shoulder holster and four 22 round magazines, because I tend to shoot two-handed which doesn't exactly give you a bullseye every time. I returned to our crowded living room, handed the Major his weaponry, and then directed the US group to the far side of the room (towards Timothy's bedroom. Saira and Nisha took the couch.Because this tiny space wasn't crowded enough, there was a knock at the door. I checked. It was Juanita, oh yeah, my real bodyguard."Listen up everybody," I announced to the room. "This is my other bodyguard, my official one. Her names is Juanita Leya Antonio Garza, she's from the Dominican Republic via Buenos Aires and she is armed, so don't freak out." I opened the door."What is going on?" Juanita hissed."I'm having a private meeting with a few heavily armed friends. The other side to this party hasn't arrived yet. Why don't you come in?" She came in."Why didn't you warn me?" she whispered her complaint."Long night, worse wake-up, needed to do some soul-searching. Pamela was looking after me, then this came up and I forgot. I apologize," I lowered my head in shame. Juanita was only trying to do the job she'd been entrusted with and by not thinking of her, I was making that so much harder.I made the introductions, first names only."Juanita, Anais, Pamela; please slip into the kitchenette," I suggested.Anais "Why?"Juanita "Where are you going to be?"Pamela "Sure. I'm starving. I'm going to raid the fridge.""Anais, because I need my faction in one place. Juanita, I will be refereeing this meeting, so I will have to remain in the living room, roughly six feet from you." It was really a small apartment. "Pamela, if it is edible, it isn't mine and you'll have to replace it."Great Caesar's Ghost! No wonder Big Wigs had their personal assistants handle this pre-meeting crap. I was on my last two fucking nerves and one of those was already stressed and tender. And the real reason for being here hadn't even arrived yet."Why am I in your faction?" Anais mulled over threateningly."Because you haven't walked out that door. There are going to be three sides to this meeting, not three plus Anais. That is the way it is going to be. Now, are you going to behave, or are Juanita and Pamela going to toss you out?""You are threatening me!""Finally catching on to that, aren't you, Sweetie?" Pamela chimed in."I'm only staying because I believe you are in trouble," Anais grumped."Why is she (Anais) here?" Nisha inquired heatedly. "This is supposed to be a very, very private encounter.""I know Anais. I don't know you. I trust Anais with my well-being despite the fact she has numerous reasons to distrust me. She's staying because she is a straight arrow. That's good enough for me.""But is she going to keep her mouth shut about what happens here today?" Nisha pressed."Anais, this is a clandestine meeting that isn't going to be recorded by anybody so, barring a crime being committed, you can never discuss this with anyone who isn't already in the room. Agreed?"Pause."I agree," she nodded. I really was going to have to fuck her again. Not today. Well, maybe not today; I had to keep my options open. Her investigator mind was going into overdrive. Give it a week and she'd be knocking on my door late one night. Inquisitive, truth-hungry dames are like that, trust me. Then it would be 'bask in my genius' sex. It had been a while since I'd experienced that, with Lady Yum-Yum.There was another knock at the door. I checked before Juanita could do the checking for me, in case someone was going to shoot me through the door. Fuck it. I was going to talk to Timothy about moving. Him, me and Odette. I couldn't give those two up. It was Kazak bookends. I opened up and invited them in. It turned out they had names besides Bookends #1 and #2, Nuro and Roman.Nuro (I think) checked out the rooms while Roman (I was pretty sure) kept an eye on my guests. I made introductions, first names only and specifying who was with who. Technically, they could trust my side because I was the Great Khan's brother and thus my servants were his servants. Technically.Iskender came next followed by OT. A woman I didn't know (sadly, not OT's daughter) came in behind him while the other two quintuplets stayed in the hallway. Iskender and I hugged."Ulı Khaan s yikti ağası," he smiled. That was 'Prince-something'. My Kazak was a bit rusty. He then whispered into my ear. "OT bows to you first. His title is Hongtaiji." What?"Ulı Khaan s yikti ağası," OT bowed."Hongtaiji Oyuun T m rbaatar," I bowed back. I remembered I had to rise first. It was an etiquette thing. In retrospect, Iskender had stretched the bounds of tradition by hugging me, his titular superior. "Welcome to my humble abode.""I thank you for your hospitality," he 'grinned'. His face wasn't made for that gesture so that faint gesture came across as rather unnatural.My mind finally finished translating what Iskender and OT had called me. It wasn't 'prince'. It was 'beloved brother of the Great Khan'. Mother fucker!"Wait," Justin, the military attach  guy muttered, "we are here to meet this guy?" indicating me."What do you mean?" Saira questioned."The title Mr. Nyilas was identified with means 'beloved brother of the Great Khaan'," he explained. "The Kazakhs don't go tossing honorifics like that around. This guy," again pointing at me, "is a really important somebody.""Thanks for dropping this grenade in my lap, OT," I joked. "I'll get you for this, and your little yak too.""Odette is going to be so miffed that she missed this," Pamela chuckled."Mr. Nyilas," Zelda began."Please, call me Cáel. It is how I roll.""Cáel, can I ask you a stupid question?""Go right ahead," Pamela snorted. "Cáel does stupid real well. It is a critical part of his skill set. It makes him adorable instead of annoying. Trust me, you'll learn that soon enough."Too much 'trust me' was flying around in a room where nobody trusted anybody."Thanks for that encouragement, Teach," I grumbled. "Ask away, Captain Zelda.""Why are you playing this game with us?""I wasn't. Until thirty seconds ago I was sure I was here totally as a spectator," I gripped. "My buddy," the word dripped with sarcasm, "Temujin likes dumping these kinds of surprises on me.""Did you mean what Ms. Pale said about you feeling you owed me?" Chris asked."Absolutely.""We need help defusing this Thailand crisis before a shooting war begins.""What do you suggest?""We want the Khanate to back down," Chris stated firmly."I thought we had agreed that I would spearhead this delegation," Nisha reminded Chris."I think the situation had evolved and we need a different approach," Chris insisted."You should listen to the Lieutenant Colonel," I advised. "He knows a whole lot more about what is going on than you do.""Why don't you explain it to us?" she began her weevil-ling."You are engaging in linguistic niceties with men who have bled together, Ms. Biswal," I instructed. "Not that Chris and I have bled on the same battlefield, we have shed blood in the same cause; and that cause has been bringing our two nations, the Khanate and the US, together. The Khanate owes Chris for his efforts on our behalf and we pay our debts.""How so?" Nisha asked."National Security stuff," I evaded. "If you don't know, you shouldn't know and you probably don't want to know. Suffice it to say, the Khanate is willing to listen to Lt. Colonel Diaz's request as a friend.""But he doesn't speak for the United States Government," she corrected."Why not?" I riposted. "He's dealt with the Khanate longer than you have. He has a clue about the mindset of their rank and file.""But does he know their leadership?" she persisted."I don't know. Chris, do you think you have a handle on me?""Are you really capable of talking for the Khanate government?" Nisha preempted Chris. What she left unsaid was 'are you culpable in their atrocities?'"Let's find out," I then looked over my shoulder. "Hongtaiji Oyuun T m rbaatar, will my words and wishes reach my brother's ear?""That is why I am here," he replied."Don't you have the authority to speak for your leader?" she grilled OT. Nisha was relentless trying to stay in the limelight. "Aren't you a diplomat?""There is no need to insult the man," Pamela snidely commented."I am one of many voices that provide information to the Great Khan. I am not his brother. Cáel Nyilas is and has already proved his familial affection by proposing Operation Funhouse and brought whole nations as gifts," OT schooled her. "He is gifted with both tactical and strategic insight as well as sharing the Great Khan's love for his people and his hopes for their eventual freedom.""I didn't think you were a soldier," Zelda looked me over."Oh no," I wove off that insinuation. "I've never been a real soldier and am unworthy of that distinction. I know quite a few who have earned that title and they scare the crap out of me. I mean, they go looking for trouble. In my case, trouble comes looking for me. I'm damn lucky to still be alive and that's the damn truth.""Bullshit," Pamela coughed."What was that, Artemisia?" I winked at her."Bitch," she laughed "My men have become women, and my women men. At least you didn't call me Cassandra.""Well, she's Greek (a deadly insult to all Amazons), but you could be her Evil Twin because everyone believes whatever you say.""Can we get down to business?" Chris inquired."Damn," Pamela shook her head. "They haven't been paying attention.""What does that mean?" Zelda griped."Iskender, you know what I'm talking about, don't you?" I asked."Not a clue, Exalted One," he stood there like a stone statue. Note, the Khanate contingent really were standing there like the Altai Mountains, doing nothing. You had to carefully examine them to see that they did indeed breathe and blink."Use small words," Pamela advised."You really are a rude misanthrope," Anais told Pamela."Do you know what's going on?" Pamela volleyed."No.""Then sit back and watch how the madness works," she snickered. "It is all you, Cáel.""Okay. One; how did Artemisia escape the battle of Salamis?" I began. Nothing."Oh," Justin nodded. "She rammed an allied ship to make the pursuing Athenians think she was an ally. What does that have to do with our current predicament?""Achieve your ends by using violence as a distraction," I sighed. "The Khanate will invade Thailand in," I looked to OT, "tomorrow?" He nodded."How does that help us?" Nisha complained."Second example, Cassandra. She saw the truth through all illusions and falsehoods and no one believed her. Now, reverse that."Pause."We are waiting," Saira finally joined the conversation. I could hear those little microprocessors inside her noggin firing electrons at light speed."We fight a phony war. The Khanate and their buddies invade in a lightning campaign that appears to be successful. Shit like attacking the opposition where they ain't. Things that look epic on CNN where some retired colonel, no offense...""None taken," Chris responded."Where some colonel talks about seizing resources, severed supply lines and encirclement. We, the Khanate, bomb shit like bridges and supply dumps, things with no civilians to get killed. On the downside, to make this work the Khanate needs to put some level of force into Bangkok.""That will get civilians killed," Nisha reminded me, unnecessarily."Civilians are getting killed right now by their own government. This time they will get a chance to strike back," I stated firmly. "The Thai protestors aren't cowards. They are just grossly outgunned. We can change that.""How does that help the United States?" Nisha queried."The US gets to come in and save the day," I sighed. "The US can t get there until the day after, so you don't look bad about letting the first 24 hours of brutality happen.""Oh," Zelda blinked."The US gets to end the fighting that the Khanate has no desire to continue. The US brings peace, while whomever takes over owes the Khanate. Both sides look good. Both sides claim victory. The President gets a second Nobel Peace Prize (psychic, aren't I?). The US gathers some regional allies like Malaysia, the ROC and the Philippines along with our Marines to ensure free and fair elections. The Khanate isn't seen to be backing down against the Titan of Western Civilization. They are working with them to bring about a better world.""Win-win," Saira nodded in agreement."The Khanate is still an autocratic tyranny," Nisha commented."As opposed to the People's Republic's oligarchical tyranny?" Chris countered."Agreed," Saira said. "I now think we should work with the Khanate to bring stability to Central Asia which which was impossible while those member nations were being squeezed between Russia, Europe, China and India.""What are you a doctor of?" I asked."I specialize in 'failed states', among other things," Saira grinned."This could still turn into one bloody cluster-fuck," Zelda mused."My peopled don't have the resources to devastate Thailand," OT finally spoke. "If you, the US, agrees to intervene on our timetable, you will have our thanks, off the record, of course.""How do we know this isn't some ruse to allow the Khanate to overthrow Thailand's existing government?" Justin questioned."You have my word," I replied. No one said anything for several heartbeats."Really?" Nisha balked."Mr. Nyilas, Cáel, do you give me the Great Khan's word?" Chris studied me intently."Without reservation," I answered. "For what you have done for us and more, the Great Khan will honor this deal. We and the Thai's will do the bleeding. You will get your accolades. We avoid a pointless clashing of forces, which is why we are all here today.""I will give you my written recommendation in a few hours," Saira told Nisha.Chris stepped forward to shake my hand. He was an alpha-type alright. I gave as good as I got. His eyes bore into mine, looking for a faltering of will."What did you do in Romania?""I got a lot of good men killed.""Okay.""Okay?" Nisha squawked. "A handshake, a pat on the back and the deals done? Since when did our democratic republic do business this way? He admitted he got men killed in Romania. What is to say this won't be Romania writ large?""Ms. Biswal, he told the truth. He got good men killed and he isn't happy about it. I would be worried if he claimed one bit of glory from that episode. He didn't.""Nisha," I took a deep breathe, "When you unleash men with weapons, nothing is assured. Maybe the Thai government will see the hate coming their way and back down. Maybe the people will resist the intrusion. Maybe the Khanate's forces will get slaughtered at the starting line. It isn't like they have enough time to deploy enough forces to win a protracted war.""What happens if the Khanate decides it won't go?" she continued."Then they get destroyed on the ground in a war of attrition," Chris answered for me. "He's right. They can't bring enough in the time allotted to completely overwhelm the roughly 120,000 members of the Royal Thai Army that have remained loyal to the regime.""In three days they will be out of fuel, shells, rockets and bullets. It is logistics, Ms. Biswal," Zelda piled it on. "The Khanate war-fighting systems are not NATO compatible. That means they can't simply capture more material as they penetrate the frontiers. If they overstay their welcome, we can launch missile strikes against their fuel depots. The combat devolves back to World War I and that's a style of war they can't afford to fight.""What about stopping the Khanate from invading in the first place?" Nisha wouldn't give up."Had the US acknowledged the Khanate, none of this would have happened, Ms. Biswal," I became snappish. "Neither superpower talked to the other until other commitments had been made.""If you think you can come in and start dictating Khanate policy, you are dreadfully mistaken. The US doesn't have the power, or the resolve," I glared at her. "Don't try convincing the Khanate that isn't the case. We know better.""You don't know what the US is capable of," she snapped back."Abandoning Iraq with a fractured pseudo-democratic process? Abandoning Afghanistan without destroying the Taliban? The Syrian Civil War? The Donbass Crisis? The collapse of Libya? Boko Haram? Somalia? Yemen? Exactly how has the US's power and resolve solved any of those issues?" I countered."Ms. Biswal," OT spoke again. "We are willing to create a desert and call it 'Peace'. Our enemies know that. Your unwillingness to do so is neither a strength nor a weakness. It is a hallmark of your society in the same way that 'Total War' is a hallmark of ours. We are more than willing to leave you to manage the Peace. Let us manage the War against the forces opposed to civilized discourse.""As ugly and disagreeable as it is, we are willing to keep creating pyramids of skulls on every street corner until either they learn their lesson, or we kill them all. Let us do that and you will have your global stability and reap the economic benefits and accolades of Pax Americana. We are not your enemy. We are precisely the ally you need to keep the peace and we will do that, if you let us.""To allow barbarism is to become barbarians," Saira mused."That is complete fiction," I scoffed. "The United States didn't become communist because it allied with the Soviet Union in World War II. Truman didn't become Stalin. The enemy of my enemy is my friend is older than recorded history.""It is the Carrot and the Stick on a Global basis," Justin agreed. "Listen to the gentle words of the West, or you will end up feeling the wrath of the East.""As long as the Khanate accepts the limitations of is role," Saira added, "this might work. Please understand there will be factions in the Western Democracies who will not accept that status quo. It is not in the nature of our societies to stifle dissent.""Is it possible to get any political concessions from the Khanate's leadership?" Justin requested. "A pledge to hold some level of democratic elections? A Constitution with some strong provisions to protect individual rights and liberties would be nice.""Justin, in case your bosses missed it, the Khanate is still at a state of war with the PRC," I shook my head. "With their limited experience with democratic government throughout most of the Khanate's territories, that would be madness.""With limited concessions to the Imperial State, we have not interfered with the politics of Albania, Armenia, Georgia and Turkey. We are never going to become a Western-style democracy. We have had limited rule by consensus long before White Men arrived in the Western Hemisphere," OT informed them."Discounting the Irish Monks, Vikings and Knights Templar," Pamela interjected."If you say so," OT gave a minuscule bow to Pamela. "Long before your nation was anything more than the scribbled history of a long-faded Greek city-state, we had meritocracies, oligarchies of senior statesmen & warriors, thinkers and religious leaders, and we had codified judicial moral equality into the political arena. We have a far superior record of religious and minority freedom, of genuine multi-culturalism plus a deeper understanding of the arts and crafts as a means of uniting disparate peoples. We find your claims of cultural superiority to be childish.""Oh, snap," I snickered. "You get'em, OT.""I bet the boys in Foggy Bottom felt that pimp-slap," Pamela agreed."I bet the bronzed skull of some Harvard dean just fell off its pedestal.""They are called 'busts'," Anais groaned. "With a name like that, how could you forget it?""So true," I concurred. "All this responsibility must have clouded my normally hedonistic vocabulary.""That doesn't change the fact that you have employed biological warfare and genocide in this current day and age," Justin pointed out."Tell that to our Native Americans," I snorted. "They are easy to find. They live in trailer parks in whatever blasted Hell Hole we stuck them in, or in their casinos where they are buying back their country, one rube at a time. Ask them if they've gotten over it.""We don't claim to be perfect," Justin insisted."No, we merely claim to have the only correct form of government, economic policy and schools of philosophical, political, scientific and educational thought," I pointed out."We definitely should revive ethical utilitarianism," Pamela slapped a fist into her palm. "Oh, and the guillotine. Work houses for orphans and grist mills for the disabled, and A Modest Proposal for those chronically unemployed and terminally homeless, yes, and,""Pamela, what is it with you today?" I snickered."It is nearly sunset,""Ah, and you haven't killed anyone yet.""You know how cranky I get when I don't get my daily dose of homicide.""Are you two done?" Anais frowned. She did that a lot around me."And you don't hand out Mini-Uzi's to your preschoolers," Pamela glowered. "What is wrong with you people?"Pause, waiting for that punch line that was never coming. See, it was more difficult to sense Pamela was an immediate threat to your health if you thought she was completely off her rocker."Hmm, well, on that note, ladies and gentlemen, I believe we have a deal. Chris and Justin, I will leave you with my loyal Iskender to work out the gory details. Who wants to grab dinner?" I inquired."Are you serious?" Nashi gasped."Oh yeah. I had the Russian invasion of Manchuria figured out in this amount of time and Manchuria is way bigger than Thailand." Was it? I didn't know. Geography was not one of those subjects which gets you laid."What do you have in mind?" Zelda inquired."Whatever you want."{1 am, Sunday, August 31st ~ 8 Days to go}"How did I end up in bed with you?" Zelda sighed happily, her body splayed halfway over mine and her head resting on my chest, listening to my heartbeat."You aren't the first girl to ask me that question."On the other side, Anais moaned in her sleep. Yeah, she was over me. Abso-fucking-lutely. If you recall, she'd try anything once. I convinced her the military babes were totally different than that Goth chick we'd blown the mind of back in Montreal.Zelda was with me because I had caught her in a lie. She claimed to be a lesbian when I first hit on her. She was adamant. I destroyed her with incontrovertible evidence.A) She hadn't scoped out Anais when she came in. A glance didn't count and Anais oozed sexy when she was angry, which was most of the time.B) She hadn't scoped out Juanita's figure when said worthy went to the kitchenette. I look for such things and Juanita has thighs to die for.C) When I told her she had a wicked sense of humor, she blushed. Honestly, lesbians rarely care about strange men complimenting their personalities.D) Then I double-downed by asking her if she preferred a shower, or bath. She said shower (because that's the butch thing to say). When I asked her 'when was the last time she'd had a bubble bath', she blushed again. Lesbians don't like it when a man imagines them naked. Straight chicks, unless you are a creepy, stalker guy, like it when men fantasize about them swathed in bubbles, thus semi-clothed, thus not creepy.E) In a final and fatal act of evasion, she asked a grumpy Anais what she liked about me. Anais was blunt."He can fucking hammer you all night, sneak in a romantic quickie in the shower, cook you a delicious breakfast then give you another round of mind-numbing intercourse up against the wall before you have to go to work. And still find the time and energy to fuck your neighbor."Woot!"So, this happens to you often?" she mused, it was a trap. She really wanted to know if I was an egotistical scumbag who took advantage of every woman I came across. At the same time, she wanted to know if I considered her a 'whoe' ~ a woman who gives up the goodies for free."Do you mean 'am I taking advantage of you'?" I replied."That is not what I asked," she persisted. That meant 'yes'."Let me see," I laid back and looked up at the ceiling. "I have a fiancée, six women I am close enough to to spend quality time with, a fuck-buddy who is a sweet girl and trusts me too much and a passel of ex-girlfriends who have found my infidelity to be reprehensible.""Six women?" she frowned."Four co-workers (Rhada, Oneida, Yasmin and Buffy), the girlfriend of a co-worker who dumped her in a very public fashion (Brooke) and that woman's friend (Libra). She was the wing-chick who was stuck with me on a quadruple-date and was underwhelmed with me when we first met."I didn't count my 'hook-ups' and I wasn't sure how to qualify Nicole."Ex's?""'No' is not a word in common usage in my vocabulary. I've dated a best friend's girl, a mother, sister and aunt of the same girlfriend, basically, I'm either highly immoral, incredibly loose, or a letch.""Don't you take responsibility for any of those, relationships?""Hell yeah," I tilted her chin up so that we could make eye-contact. "I've never blamed a woman for taking out her frustrations on my flesh, ran away from a screaming fit (Big Lie!), or blamed them for any failing in our relationship. It is always my fault because I can't stay loyal.""That's depressing," Zelda moped."Don't get me wrong. I don't find fault in any of the women I have spent time with. That is my problem, I find women fascinating; never boring, or bland. Quite frankly, it is a gift that I don't regret having. I may be a fuck-up, but I'm a fuck-up who will give you the very best attention.""Full of yourself, much?" her attitude shifted. I had short-circuited her fears; I was a cheater, I confessed to it without shame because I was inexorably drawn to her beauty, personality and charm. With Anais around, I couldn't claim to be solely enchanted with Zelda, so I had to think quickly on my feet. After all, Zelda was energetic and had great stamina."I promised you pleasure," I countered. "Did I deliver?""Yes, you are full of yourself," she slapped my stomach. I wasn't full of myself. I was a confident sex machine."Thank you.""Huh?""Wonderful sex, taking a chance with me, agreeing to a three-way, being awake after," I looked at the bed-table clock, "six hours.""I run five miles a day," she bragged."I try to have ten hours of sex a day," I teased. Zelda slapped my stomach again. Anais stirred."Do any women like you, for any reason beyond your cock?""I'm considered loyal where sex is not concerned, reliable and brave," I offered."What happened in Romania?""Have you ever been in combat?""I've been in violent confrontations, but not a true firefight," she admitted."Hmm,""Is it something that you can't relate?" she asked."No. You are a soldier so you probably know more about combat than I do. It was, not chaotic at all. I never lost perspective of what was going on despite the bullets flying around. The Romanian Captain in charge knew his stuff, directed his company well and all I had to do was figure out where the terrorist leader was.""What happened?" she perked up."I am here talking with you and he's in a morgue in Bucharest.""Oh," She wanted more."I have to live with the knowledge that I set all of that in motion, Zelda. I convinced the Romanians that they had to confront that terror group before they moved on to their next target, me.""I knew they would come after me and my friends, no matter where we were. Which would have ended up as a blood bath in some urban center. So I felt compelled to strike first. Based on information I provided, the Romanian Army sent two battalions, the 22nd and 24th, of the 6th Mountain Troops Brigade into battle.""It was a massacre," I remembered sadly."But you won," she tried to comfort me."Of the four companies involved in the battle, the Romanians suffered nearly two hundred dead and wounded. I hardly consider it anything other than a massacre. Yes, we won. Only three of the terrorists escaped. Their leader died. I don't think I've ever felt so hollow in my life," I finished."Forty percent losses, that is horrific," she crawled on top of me."The kicker is the Romanians sent some men of the 24th to hunt me down when I was kidnapped. A squad was in the group that rescued me and my companion from Johnston Island. I thought they would never want to deal with me ever again.""Don't be so hard on yourself. If they thought well enough of you to send their men out to rescue you, then you must have done right by them.""Chaz said something like that too," I felt sheepish and sleepy."Chaz? Who is she?"Honest to God, one day I want to find a girl who thinks I'm talking about another girl and asks if we can have a three-way, instead of trying to compare herself to this unknown person. Wait... I already had someone like that. Her name was Odette."Chaz is Color Sergeant Charles 'Chaz' Tomorrow of Her Majesty's SSR," I corrected her assumption."SSR? Those are some tough people. How do you know him?""Black Bag directives from the National Security Council, sworn to secrecy upon penalty of death, pinky-promise kind of stuff," I grinned. Maybe I wasn't all that sleepy after all."You really are a Man of Mystery," Zelda purred. She had truly exceptional stamina. "Maybe I can convince you to talk.""Maybe I can find another use for my tongue," I countered and off we went. Somewhere along the process, Anais woke up and joined in.It wasn't all fun and games. Anais' parting words were "You are a pig," then she sauntered out of my room and out of my life. Had she remembered to take her Serge with her, I would have bought the act. As it was,"Is she always so volatile?" Zelda remarked."Volatile? That's not her being volatile. That's Anais being affectionate. Volatile usually is accompanied by thrown objects and bodily harm," I sighed happily. Meeting her one more time couldn't be all that bad, could it? Zelda looked hungry so I shoved that thought to the back of my mind and got to work.That was the highlight of my Sunday. Zelda had to fly back to Washington D.C. and I had to go to work with JIKIT. It seemed that the Khanate and the US military were heading for a showdown. I unloaded all my Saturday's activities to the team and we got to work, no recriminations. I was the Khan's spiritual brother and sometimes that meant I had to do him favors.I asked Addison when she thought he would return the favor. She laughed, then smiled and told me that wasn't how it worked. He was a world leader now and I was merely his kooky kinsman that he would keep throwing problems at until one day I broke. Then it would be some other poor saps turn.Then she told me she was kidding and clearly the Great Khan thought the world of me. I chose to believe the second lie because it made me feel better, and it was promising to be a long weekend/start of the week.Note: Geopolitical DevelopmentsWhat follows are snippets of the Battle for Thailand that takes place late in the night of September 1stand continued into the early morning of September 3rd. If this does not interest you, you can rejoin Cáel's exploits in four pages)On the eve of battle, the Royal Thai High Command had decided to strip all but one armored unit from the 2nd Army in order to give the First Army's offensive against the rebels more of a punch. It's decision to strip the tank battalions from both their infantry divisions as well as the armored and one of the two mechanized regiments would prove to be disastrous. It was as if the leadership of the Royal Thai military were idiots.The least economically valuable part of the country was the northeast which the 2nd Army warded. They had severely underestimated the airlift capacity of the Khanate as well as the willingness of Laos and Cambodia to both use their armed forces in an invasion as well as their willingness to let Vietnamese troops cross their countries.That thinking had led the Thai military to adopt a 'forward defense' strategy, the desire to fight the enemy at the borders, as opposed to having stronger formations deeper within the country. Considering the relative weakness of the Cambodian and Laotian militaries, that policy had made sense:- The baseline Laotian and Cambodian tank was the T-54/55, a 1950's Soviet relic. The normal anti-tank capabilities in all Thai infantry formations was more than equal to such a threat.-Neither country had an air force worth worrying about.In contrast, the Khanate's primary tanks, the T-90SM and T-95 were resistant to most of what the Thai Army could throw at them, at least from the front. The seven hundred combat aircraft the Khanate and the Vietnamese were able to field was an equal catastrophe for the Thais. It greatly compensated for the relative small numbers of invaders.Finally, there was a fundamental misunderstanding of what the Alliance's goals were. Military logic dictated the destruction of Thailand's mobile force followed by the capture of Bangkok. As long as the Thai regime held the capital, it would remain the legitimate power in the country.Due to the altering political landscape, the Alliance's only option was to make the government 'look bad'. The loss of peripheral provinces, while of negligible immediate strategic value, looked great on the maps the world-wide media would be showing to their audiences. It would appear that the Thai army had failed to defend their country. That would (hopefully) make the Thai Third Army look like the legitimate authority in Thailand.That was the plan anyway, and you know what they say about battle plans and the enemy, right? H-hour was 4 am, September 1st.The commander of the Zuun stood up and waited to be recognized. The staff officer from the Yunnan Command pointed at him."Sir, why are we doing this? I am not afraid to fight for the Great Khan, but this action seems to be suicidal. We will be far behind enemy's lines while our offensive force will be grossly under-equipped.""You will have to rely on our ability to supply you by air.""We only have supplies for two days of operations. What happens then?""We rely on the Americans to come and save us," the senior officer responded bitterly."Allah save us from allies," the young commander muttered. What else could he do?He was part of the 2nd Mountain Sultan Mehmet Tumen which had just arrived in Yunnan to replace the exhausted 1st Mountain Abu al-Ghazi Bahadur Tumen. His men were from Turkey, inexperienced in combat and using new equipment they were not familiar with. They would be working with a unit he had never worked with before, the 1st Airmobile Tauekel Khan Tumen, Kazaks, who would be seizing the small airport his men needed to land in.From there, they were to 'run amok'. That was the technical term for racing south down a highway in Central Thailand, attacking the headquarters of the 3rd Cavalry Division, an armored unit. Once that was accomplished, they were to attack the local police precinct. Provided they were still alive after that, they were to return to the air strip to resupply then they were to 'spread chaos' until they were finally hunted down by the vastly larger Thai division his 100 men would be fighting.Of course, there was the plan for the rebel Royal Thai Third Army to force their way through the larger frontline forces of the loyalist Royal Thai First Army and come to his rescue. How would the Thai troops respond when ordered to fight their fellow Thais? No one was sure. If there was any hope in this mission, it was the knowledge that several other Zuuns had the exact same mission in other areas of Thailand.  It was H-hour minus twenty-two.It was 11 o'clock in the evening when the general in charge of the Royal Thai 9th Infantry Division was woken up. The Marines were leaving. That was correct; the three Royal Thai regiments were heading west to Sattahip Naval Base, because they had been ordered to by the Commander-in-Chief of the Royal Thai Navy. It didn't take a rocket scientist to realize why this was going on.Seven hours earlier, the Royal Thai Army had seized all the Air Force bases in the 1st and 2nd Army districts as well as ordering the 4th Army to do the same thing (The Royal Thai Air Force had been trying to remain neutral in the upcoming civil war).Undoubtedly the navy had decided to make their assets less 'hijack-able'. A few phone calls later confirmed that most of the Navy had set sail for parts unknown and the naval air units at Ban Sattahip Air Base (U-Tapao International Airport) had also departed either out to sea, or to ports and bases in the South.He made a personal appeal to the commander of Marine Forces to no avail. They wanted no part of the upcoming struggle and advised the general to do the same. The general had other problems. The Royal Thai Marines were the frontline forces facing the southern border with Cambodia. He quickly reorganized his regiments, sending them to take the old Marine strongpoints to await further orders. Stopping the Marines never entered his mind.That was a bloodletting he wanted no part of. The last thing he did was inform his superiors, thus avoiding any stupid orders to the contrary. Suddenly the nebulous movements along the Cambodian border developed a haunting significance. He wondered how much longer he had before something happened.  It was H-hour minus five.At midnight a loyalist commander of a company of mechanized infantry in the 2nd Cavalry's 11th Battle Group (named after their axis of advance, Highway 11) decided to send a motorized section of his command forward to the advance position his battalion was to occupy come sunrise. Either later in the day, or tomorrow morning, the forces loyal to the regime would launch a coordinated assault against the rebels main supply center at Phitsanulok.He had a cot set up in his communications hut and had just nodded off when the radio squawked to life. His lieutenant in charge of the advance made a hurried report. They had encountered serious opposition in a confusing night action, then he went silent. The captain immediately swung into action. He put the rest of his men on alert, then contacted the neighboring Tank Battalion. He needed some armored support. He made a similar call to the attached artillery component.The Tank Battalions night officer quickly put a platoon of light tanks at his disposal. The artillery were ready for any fire mission he sent their way. Before the armor could arrive, the company commander found himself being called to the carpet by the Duty Officer at the 3rd Cavalry (two regiments of the 2nd Cav. had been attached to the 3rd's command) over his 'offensive' action and the relief mission was called off. What had happened to the patrol of 20 Royal Thai soldiers? He was ordered to wait until sunrise to find out.Little did anyone know, these were the first combat casualties of the upcoming rebel offensive. His patrol had stumbled across a battalion of mechanized troops arriving at their jump off point for the attack that was less than six hours from beginning. Neither the commander of the 11th Battle Group, the 3rd Cavalry Division, or First Army was informed that the enemy had already advanced twenty kilometers south of where they were supposed to be.  

For review:1. IDF Chief of Staff to Resign in March.  Israel Defense Forces Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi and the head of the IDF Southern Command (Major General Yaron Finkelman) said they would both be resigning over their roles in the failures that led to the Hamas 07 October onslaught.2. Iranian Vice President for Strategic Affairs (Mohammad Zarif) discusses conflict with Israel while at the World Economic Forum in Davos. 3. US President Donald Trump's first call with a foreign leader is  Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.4. Houthi terrorist group finally releases the crew of the merchant vessel M/V Galaxy Leader. In an Executive Order, new US President Trump declares the Houthi group a Foreign Terrorist Organization.5. During Russian Security Council videotaped meeting, Russian President Putin open to peace talks with US only if "root causes" of the conflict are addressed.6. Sweden Deploys Mechanized Infantry Battalion to Latvia. The six month deployment consists of 600 Soldiers, CV90 armored vehicles, and Leopard 2 main battle tanks. 7. Latest Update on US Army IVAS Program.IVAS = Integrated Visual Augmentation System (IVAS).

For review:1. Israeli Politicians: Drone Attack on PM Home - "Big Mistake."Israeli politicians aimed their rhetoric in Iran's direction, vowing Tehran would “pay a price” for a drone attack by Tehran's proxy Hezbollah that struck the Israeli PM's home.2. Nordic Countries to Collaborate on future Infantry Fighting Vehicle.Major General Lars Lervik, Chief of Staff of the Norwegian Army said that the four nations are “currently investigating” the project, in the hope that it could lower procurement costs and make development and maintenance issues “easier.”3. Breaking Defense Interview with Australian Major General Richard Vagg (Head of Land Capability).4. AM General Ready for Joint Light Tactical Vehicle (JLTV) A2 production.Full production = a maximum of 20,682 vehicles and 9,883 trailers.5. US Army XM30 Mechanized Infantry Fighting Vehicle Progressing.American Rheinmetall Vehicles and General Dynamics Land Systems were selected (by the Army) in June 2023, to continue into a detailed design phase of the XM30 Mechanized Infantry Combat Vehicle. The first vehicles are expected to be fielded in fiscal 2029.  

Tales of Three Campaign One Arc 1: *Redacted* Episode 7: Wand Whipper After their night in the tunnels, the three take the day to regroup. Ivy tries Reg's famous moonshine, Véres checks in with Riven, and Elara goes to the local science guild. Content Warnings: Alcohol consumption and intoxication, Emotional distress, Fantasy violence, Mechanized spiders, Panic attacks, Profanity, Religious cults Tales of Three is an all-queer narrative-driven D&D audio drama where your 3 GM's are also your 3 PC's If you like what you hear please tell your friends about us or consider giving us a 5 star review! It's a quick and easy way to show your support for small creators whose content you enjoy! Find our socials ⁠⁠here⁠⁠!   Want to chat with the cast, talk spoilers, play games, and make new friends? Join our ⁠⁠Discord⁠⁠!   If you want to help keep the podcast running and get access to bonus content check out our ⁠⁠Patreon⁠⁠! Buy us a coffee on ⁠Ko-fi⁠! Special thanks to ⁠⁠SG ⁠⁠for the theme music, ⁠⁠Chris ⁠⁠for the logo, ⁠⁠Fenn ⁠⁠& ⁠⁠Ely ⁠⁠for the character art! Background music and SFX by ⁠⁠Epidemic Sounds⁠⁠

Tales of Three Campaign One Arc 1: *Redacted* Episode 6: A Spider Named Norman Elara, Ivy & Véres take on two creatures lurking deep below the town of Grimford, Elara reveals a new invention, Véres asks for help with a project of their own, and Ivy talks more about her home. Content Warnings: Body gore, Body horror pertaining to cracking bones and skin, Confined underground spaces, Emotional distress, Fantasy violence, Mechanized spiders, Profanity, Reference to cults Tales of Three is an all-queer narrative-driven D&D audio drama where your 3 GM's are also your 3 PC's If you like what you hear please tell your friends about us or consider giving us a 5 star review! It's a quick and easy way to show your support for small creators whose content you enjoy! Find our socials ⁠here⁠!   Want to chat with the cast, talk spoilers, play games, and make new friends? Join our ⁠Discord⁠!   If you want to help keep the podcast running and get access to bonus content check out our ⁠Patreon⁠! Buy us a coffee on Ko-fi! Special thanks to ⁠SG ⁠for the theme music, ⁠Chris ⁠for the logo, ⁠Fenn ⁠& ⁠Ely ⁠for the character art! Background music and SFX by ⁠Epidemic Sounds⁠

In this episode, MA student Rodrigo Silva delves into the history and contemporary dynamics of the Haliti-Paresi Indigenous group in Mato Grosso, Brazil, amidst continuous capitalist incursions into the region. The historical analysis observes the material exploitation and discursive practices being employed by colonial powers since the eighteenth century towards these peoples. It culminates with the current enrolment of Indigenous leaders in projects of agribusiness, the still dominant elites of the country. The (still tentative) analysis seeks to understand the complications offered by this current scenario, with its juridical as well as cosmopolitical implications, to our current understanding of the climate crisis, through a historical materialist standpoint. The podcast interview touches on some important points to reflect about this topic in relation to the advancements of capitalism as well its contemporary political developments, with devastating impacts to ecologies and livelihoods.

For review:1. US - built Gaza Pier ready in one or two days.US Pentagon Deputy Press Secretary (Sabrina Singh): "Improved sea conditions will allow the U.S. Army to anchor a causeway onto the beach this week."2.  IDF Moves Further into Rafah. Israel's relations with Egypt strained.3. Ukrainian Commander of Kharkiv Region Removed. Offensive in Kharkiv Region has given Russian forces control of an estimated 162 square kilometers of border territory and ten villages in a pair of 5-8 kilometer-deep salients projecting into Ukrainian defenses. 4. Sweden Defense Minister: No Troops Planned for Ukraine.5. Employment of First Person View (FPV) Drones in Russia-Ukraine War, force change of tactics on both sides including additional armor protection for combat vehicles and use of Electronic Warfare.6. UK Hypersonic Missile developmental effort (Hypersonic Technologies and Capability Development Framework).7.  UK Multi-Role Support Ships (MRSS) program. This program plans a fleet of six amphibious support ships capable of carrying drones, larger aircraft and insertion craft for the Royal Marines.8.  US Army Watercraft- the Maneuver Support Vessel - Light (MSV-L), to undergo operational testing in Hawaii. This vessel replaces the Landing Craft, Mechanized-8 (LCM-8) and has an improved capability to transport M1 Tanks, and Bradley & Stryker Vehicles. US Army plans to procure 13 x MSV-Ls. 

In the NES version, the player can use either a gamepad or the NES Light Zapper to carry out the mission. While the arcade version of Mechanized Attack has a miniature machine gun replica for the player to use, the NES version attempts to reproduce the feel by allowing the player to hold down a game pad button or the Light Zapper trigger for automatic fire. Extra ammo is plentiful so be sure to fire at those power-up boxes to grab as much as you can. There are also more powerful grenades which are in much shorter supply than the bullets. Support NEStalgia directly by becoming a member of our Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/Nestalgia Members at the $5 and above level get access to our brand new show NEStalgia Bytes. A look at the famicom games you can play without any Japanese knowledge! For More NEStalgia, visit www.NEStalgiacast.com --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/nestalgia/support

Welcome to Ground Zero Classics, where we delve into the latest advancements in technology and their impact on society. In this episode, we explore the use of robots as a new form of self-defense for local police departments. With the transfer of second-hand military equipment from warzones, these advanced machines are now being utilized by law enforcement agencies to protect citizens and neutralize threats. However, it's important to remember that these robots were originally designed for use in combat zones and their effectiveness in domestic settings remains a matter of debate. Join us as we examine the potential benefits and risks associated with this new technology and how it may shape the future of law enforcement.Originally Broadcast On 7/11/16Liking this episode?   Get more episodes, news and other bonuses when you become a member of Ground Zero: Aftermath.   Get a free trial now!

Codey talks through all of the recent news, and gives us some insect facts. Timings 00:00:00: Theme Tune 00:00:30: Intro 00:03:20: What Has Codey Been Up To 00:07:48: News 00:54:14: Outro Links Of Life and Land Early Access Rusty’s Retirement Release Date Botany Manor Release Date Len’s Island “Community” Update Steamworld Build “Mechanized” DLC Disney Dreamlight Valley “Eternity Isle” Moonstone Island Fisholutions Critter Crops Delay Poglings Dev Update Contact Al on Twitter: https://twitter.com/TheScotBot Al on Mastodon: https://mastodon.scot/@TheScotBot Email Us: https://harvestseason.club/contact/ Transcript (0:00:30) Codey: Hello farmers and welcome to another episode of the harvest season (0:00:35) Codey: My name is Cody and I am here today to talk about cottagecore games. Whoo (0:00:42) Codey: I am just doing a solo episode today. We had a scheduling issue and (0:00:49) Codey: Like frantically tried to get a news episode together and I was the only person available (0:00:54) Codey: Which I’m totally fine with al has done this before al has done solo episodes before he said it’s like hard for something (0:01:01) Codey: I don’t know. So we’re gonna find out if it is (0:01:04) Codey: Check back in here. I’m actually gonna add it to the show notes right now (0:01:09) Codey: Check back in is solo (0:01:15) Codey: Uh, I think it’s going to be hard (0:01:19) Codey: But uh I’m just gonna imagine (0:01:23) Codey: Listening to everyone responding to this (0:01:25) Codey: And so that is gonna be great. And honestly if y’all enjoy it, I would (0:01:31) Codey: No to doing this again if absolutely needed (0:01:35) Codey: So today is just gonna be a news podcast but because people have been clamoring for insect facts in (0:01:44) Codey: The slack and just in general in my life people are just really into insects (0:01:49) Codey: In between each news item. I’m going to dive into a fact about an order of insects (0:01:55) Codey: So insecta is a clade and inside of that clade there are many orders (0:02:01) Codey: I don’t know the number off the top of my head So I’m gonna go into it like some quick facts like maybe a minute of facts about each order (0:02:08) Codey: We’re not covering all the orders in this episode (0:02:11) Codey: It’s just like the ones that that jumped out to me or that I thought had some cool facts (0:02:16) Codey: and so for that reason (0:02:20) Codey: Now I will say the transcripts are available in the show notes on the website if you don’t like insects if they freak you out I really tried to make sure that some of the facts aren’t too like scary gruesome or whatever (0:02:30) Codey: Um, but I also am biased and don’t think that insects are scary gruesome at all (0:02:36) Codey: So if you do have an entomophobia or anything like that do check out those transcripts and the show notes (0:02:43) Codey: On the website harvest season club so that you can get your news content (0:02:48) Codey: Without the insect content also if that is the case for you do let us know you can (0:02:54) Codey: If you’re not subscribed you can email us again at harvest season club And then I will avoid doing this type of episode in the future. (0:03:00) Codey: I definitely do not want to push people away, but I have a feeling that people who listen to this podcast and enjoy farming games are going to like the bug content. So we’re going to find out how that goes. (0:03:13) Codey: So bug content news. And first, of course, (0:03:17) Codey: we always talk about what we have been up to. (0:03:21) Codey: So I have been doing a lot of different games. (0:03:26) Codey: My grandma got me back into this phone game, um, called cross-stitch. (0:03:30) Codey: It’s literally like a color by number, but with cross stitches, cross-stitching, um, (0:03:36) Codey: it’s really helped me with my ADHD lately, trying to stay focused on tasks. (0:03:40) Codey: Like if I’m in an environment that’s really distracting or if I’m losing focus on a conversation or something that I’m trying to pay attention to, um, that I, that I genuinely care about, (0:03:51) Codey: I’ll just whip out that game and like color. (0:03:53) Codey: And then I can 100% mean maintain focus on, um, whatever conversation or show or pot or seminar or whatever it is that I’m (0:04:00) Codey: listening to so I highly recommend that for our fellow ADHDers and fellow crafters it’s really it’s really fun I will say I have mentioned it in a while Tetris game I think I think she’s dead y’all I hadn’t played it in a while and I realized that the other day and so I opened her up and yeah they do shifting baselines I am pretty sure because I checked and there are no cruises available right now. I have almost 2 million coins. (0:04:30) Codey: And there are no cruises showing up. What is showing up is I can use like a certain amount of my coins for (0:04:37) Codey: X money off of a cruise or something like that. So (0:04:41) Codey: Yeah, I just have to take the L there y’all (0:04:45) Codey: But I can still use those points for things but they’re all like places or things that I’m not gonna be doing like (0:04:52) Codey: Going to Vegas and spending money at the Luxor or whatever. I’m like, I’m not gonna I’m not gonna do that (0:05:00) Codey: So yeah, rest in peace that game (0:05:03) Codey: More pertinent to to y’all. I’ve been playing a lot of Disney Dreamlight Valley. I finally hit credits (0:05:09) Codey: So I am done on the main story and I am almost done with the realms that are available (0:05:16) Codey: and maximizing the (0:05:20) Codey: Villagers that I have right now So I think the only realm that is currently available that I have not yet unlocked with Dreamlight is Monsters Inc. (0:05:28) Codey: So I just did the Lion King. (0:05:30) Codey: and the Toy Story Realm and I have a lot of my people at max level but for some of them like Olaf I tried to max his level and it was like to do this you need to have Buzz Lightyear in your valley and I was like what the heck. (0:05:44) Codey: So I’m going through and doing that and it’s just it just scratches a good itch when I am not fox crafting because I’m still doing that as well. (0:05:53) Codey: My Minecraft fox has a full tail outlined now. (0:05:59) Codey: The head is complete and we have– (0:06:01) Codey: my bestie Devin and I have begun construction of the fox sanctuary. (0:06:06) Codey: We went and kidnapped some foxes and drug them through the nether (0:06:10) Codey: and put them on top of the fox island and have been building a little fox army with them (0:06:20) Codey: and so I have those available and I’m just like outlining the tail and outlining all and all of that stuff. (0:06:30) Codey: Told up the sides of it, and then we’re continuing to create the sanctuary. (0:06:34) Codey: Very fun. (0:06:35) Codey: I’ve also been playing window garden. (0:06:37) Codey: I don’t talk about that too much right now because of reasons. (0:06:42) Codey: Stay tuned for– (0:06:43) Codey: watch this podcast feed. (0:06:45) Codey: And then I’m also setting up– this is my last field season of my graduate degrees– (0:06:52) Codey: I guess degrees– (0:06:54) Codey: my graduate education, as it were. (0:06:57) Codey: Tomorrow I’m going into the woods with a forester. (0:07:00) Codey: And we’re he’s going to be slingshotting some stuff into the into the trees for me so that I can put ropes up there and pull my traps up and I’m going to do the final set up the rest of the week and then start next week with my last trap effort. (0:07:16) Codey: It’s really bittersweet I cannot believe that I am about to be done with the field work that will culminate in my dissertation. (0:07:24) Codey: I do still have a full year and a half of my research of my doctor at left because I do have a full year to finish writing, finish specimens, all of that stuff and I have so many specimens. (0:07:38) Codey: So, yeah, we will see how that goes I’m very excited though. (0:07:44) Codey: And, yeah, very sad, very exciting. And with that, let’s get into some news. So our first bit of news here is for of life and land of life and land is now out in early access. (0:07:58) Codey: game is 20 is basically 30. (0:08:00) Codey: $30 USD on Steam, but it has a 10% discount currently. (0:08:04) Codey: So you can get it for 27. (0:08:07) Codey: Also available for purchase right now is a supporter pack for $5 or 450. (0:08:12) Codey: Again, it’s 10% off right now. (0:08:14) Codey: Um, and in that supporter pack, you get things like a desktop wallpapers, (0:08:18) Codey: some digital art posters, paper, Fox folding instructions, and some 3d models, (0:08:27) Codey: but paper fox excuse me (0:08:31) Codey: These people (0:08:33) Codey: These people (0:08:36) Codey: They know what I like. So this thing is so hanging cute. It’s basically it looks like (0:08:42) Codey: It’s just something that you would print out (0:08:45) Codey: So you’d print out these instructions you print out the pages that have the bits that you would fold (0:08:51) Codey: On like the colored paper whatever colored paper so probably orange and white But you could also probably honestly do like a purple box. I’d be super cute (0:09:00) Codey: And then you fold it and it makes really cute little fox design and I have personally never wished that I had thirty dollars (0:09:07) Codey: More in my life so that I can get the game and the fox folding. Um (0:09:12) Codey: But I probably will wait on this game until (0:09:16) Codey: 1.0. Um, i’m just (0:09:18) Codey: I Really? I don’t I have limited time for games right now. So I am always going to wait at this point. Um, unless (0:09:25) Codey: asked by by people to cover a game before it is in 1.0. (0:09:32) Codey: Game looks really cute, though. (0:09:33) Codey: It’s like Age of Empires, but cozier, and I played the crap out of Age of Empires when I was a kid. (0:09:37) Codey: So I would love to play this game. (0:09:40) Codey: And yeah, so we’ll see how their, how their early access goes and just keep watching them and maybe find this paper, fox, folding instructions. The developers, is it correct? I think it’s Corozan. (0:10:02) Codey: I believe, Kurzovan. Oh, I was so close. (0:10:04) Codey: Kurzovan developers, if you’re listening right now, I will literally pay $5 just for the paper, fox, folding instructions. (0:10:10) Codey: Actually, I might be able to do that, actually. (0:10:13) Codey: Anyway, like without buying the base game, we’ll find out. (0:10:17) Codey: Anyway, so end of the first news item. (0:10:20) Codey: So here I’m going to talk about an insect order. (0:10:22) Codey: So I picked for the first four insect orders. (0:10:26) Codey: I picked the big four orders which comprise (0:10:31) Codey: of insects that comprise the most biodiversity in insecta and so the one of these is coleoptera which is the beetles it is possibly the most diverse order so approximately one of every four species of life this includes plants animals bacteria and fungi one of every four species is a beetle is wild and (0:11:01) Codey: they’re so underrepresented if you ever see any games or anything like it’s like oh here’s all these mammals and then maybe like one beetle and it’s like really this should flip the script it should be 800 beetles and then one mammal this is crazy so there are currently about 400,000 described species of beetles but that only refers to beetles that we know and have like written down and acknowledged why they’re different and why they are unique species. (0:11:31) Codey: Some scientists think that there’s possibly a million beetles. I’ve seen up to like 30 million. I don’t know. That’s pretty crazy. I would be really sad if there were 30 million beetles and we’ve only described 400,000. Oh my gosh. (0:11:45) Codey: So yeah, probably a million species of beetles, which is wild. I mean, if you think about it, there’s only like 4,000 mammals or something. I’m actually not sure on that species of mammal. 6400. Yeah, 64. (0:12:01) Codey: 400 species of extant mammals. So that’s so little. And that’s what most people think of when they think of animals, but beetles are just crazy. One of my favorite quotes about this is by British evolutionary biologist and geneticist JBS Haldane. He was talking about beetles once and he said that if there were a god or some type of divine being that has created all of the living organisms on the Earth, then that creator must– (0:12:31) Codey: have a quote, “inordinate fondness for beetles.” (0:12:35) Codey: So basically, they must really like beetles because there’s so heck and many of them. (0:12:40) Codey: Oh my gosh, there’s so many of them. (0:12:42) Codey: And I’m trying to learn the families right now. (0:12:45) Codey: Not fun. (0:12:46) Codey: Not– not fun. (0:12:49) Codey: But I need– I need to– (0:12:52) Codey: I do want to learn it. (0:12:53) Codey: It’s just a lot of– it’s just a lot. (0:12:55) Codey: It’s a lot. (0:12:57) Codey: What is not a lot– (0:13:01) Codey: I’m going to be on fire today, y’all. (0:13:03) Codey: Well, it’s not a lot because it’s awesome and is not a lot of work, question mark. (0:13:09) Codey: Is Rusty’s retirement coming out in its 1.0? (0:13:15) Codey: Its release is the 26th of April. (0:13:18) Codey: Oh my gosh. (0:13:19) Codey: The end of this month, then we get Rusty. (0:13:24) Codey: And I’m also not sure if it’s been confirmed in the pod before, but rusty is non-binary. (0:13:31) Codey: Which makes sense. (0:13:32) Codey: Like robots probably don’t have, um, I mean, I guess they could choose to have gender if they want, but, um, the developer just says in this, in this trailer, they say they, um, and that you can help rusty on their quest to (0:13:47) Codey: rebuild a little farm. (0:13:49) Codey: Very cute. (0:13:50) Codey: Um, and they have more information about how you can like build more housing, (0:13:56) Codey: build more, more like buildings for different. (0:14:01) Codey: Things you recruit other robots. (0:14:04) Codey: It’s this game looks so hecking cute. (0:14:06) Codey: I’m so excited for it to come out. (0:14:07) Codey: Yes, I will be playing this game. (0:14:09) Codey: It will be on the bottom of my, of my screen. (0:14:13) Codey: Um, I am trying to figure out if I want to put it on my laptop or not. (0:14:18) Codey: Um, or if I’m going to get too distracted by that, we will find out. (0:14:23) Codey: But I will be playing it. (0:14:25) Codey: Um, one of the things that I love about rusty’s retirement whenever I see the little things is the little beads. (0:14:31) Codey: They have bee hives. I’m not sure if they’re real bees or if they are like little mechanical robot bees. Very excited to find that out. Speaking of bees, (0:14:42) Codey: transition on point, the next insect order, the next order that is within the big four are hymenoptera. So these are, this order includes sawflies, ants, wasps, (0:14:57) Codey: and bees and just cuz I’m never sure (0:15:01) Codey: if people know this bees are just vegetarian wasps about a hundred million years ago when flowers started evolving and diversifying in this great radiation event in flowers occurred some of the wasps were like bet like I see this I see this I see these resources and I want them and they started eating the plant pollen plant pollen and they became the first bees and since then there’s been this evolutionary arms race between bees and flowers as they They continue to evolve and specialize with each other. (0:15:32) Codey: flowers developed nectar to draw bees in closer so that bees would definitely collect pollen. (0:15:39) Codey: Bees then developed branched hairs which allowed them to become more efficient at collecting pollen and they just kept going back and forth and there’s all kinds of really wacky evolutionary stories there about the different evolutionary things that bees or flowers have done for each other. (0:15:56) Codey: But I think my favorite is orchids and orchid bees. (0:16:00) Codey: There are orchids that literally. (0:16:02) Codey: Look like female bees and they, and they put out volatiles and pheromones and scents that smells like female bees of, of this very specific group. (0:16:14) Codey: The, I think it’s the euglossine bees, the orchid bees. (0:16:18) Codey: That’s what they’re called. (0:16:19) Codey: And they mimic female bees. (0:16:21) Codey: So the males come in, they think they see a female, they jump on it and they end up getting stuck and have to like, when they pull themselves out, they take a pollen. (0:16:32) Codey: A polynia, which is like a little bundle of pollen. (0:16:35) Codey: And then when they get tricked by another flower, they end up transferring the pollen from one flower to another. (0:16:42) Codey: Wild, super wild, very cool insects. (0:16:47) Codey: They’ve, they just have, because they’re so short lived, they don’t have these super long lifespans like we do. (0:16:53) Codey: Evolution happens so fast with them. (0:16:55) Codey: So you have this huge radiation of different lifestyles. (0:17:00) Codey: Different life histories is what I meant to say. (0:17:02) Codey: Different life histories, different adaptations. (0:17:04) Codey: Crazy. (0:17:05) Codey: So cool. (0:17:07) Codey: Another thing that’s really cool is botany manor. (0:17:11) Codey: I am super excited for this game. (0:17:13) Codey: I have been since we first talked about it on the pod and it is now going to be releasing by the time you are listening to this podcast. (0:17:21) Codey: It is already out. (0:17:22) Codey: She’s out on Steam for PC. (0:17:27) Codey: Again this is a game where you’re a botanist in 1890 and you are trying to (0:17:32) Codey: It seems like you’re trying to revive flora that have become missing or are misunderstood or just not poorly not not well understood. (0:17:42) Codey: I’m here for it. (0:17:44) Codey: So you’re basically learning about these different flowers evolving these are not I guess you’re evolving the different flowers and kind of doing an artificial selection on the flowers. (0:17:54) Codey: This game is published by white thorn games, which is the same publisher as friend of the pod a backhoe. Love that. (0:18:02) Codey: And yeah, I mean in this trailer that they showed where they talked about their release date, they showed the manner they showed mysteries of the manner Morse code you use Morse code at some point like legitimately you learn Morse code and use Morse code to solve some of the puzzles. (0:18:20) Codey: I mean teaching me to do something like that is useful in the real world say less. (0:18:28) Codey: It also looks like there might be cooking. (0:18:32) Codey: Tending to a plant in what’s clearly a kitchen environment. (0:18:36) Codey: You tend to plants in general. (0:18:37) Codey: So there’s like a compost bin. (0:18:39) Codey: There’s seeds you water things you plant things in different places. (0:18:45) Codey: One thing that caught my eye in this trailer was a moth calendar. (0:18:49) Codey: So it’s it looks like it’s this like spinning wheel calendar. (0:18:54) Codey: That tells you what season different moths come out. (0:18:59) Codey: like you see you you’re like oh may and it’s like (0:19:02) Codey: oh in May these are the moths that you’ll see which I would love that I mean I use iNaturalist which is a an application to basically try and figure out what diversity is popping up around me but like a cute little kind of cute little thing that you can rotate and it tells you you’re just like oh look what kind of stuff is gonna be here in September I think that’s so cute so yeah check out Botany Manner if you haven’t already. (0:19:32) Codey: steam for pc, because i’m recording pre-release, I don’t know the amount. (0:19:39) Codey: i’m not sure of the price of this game, but I would drop down probably like 20 bucks on this game if I had the time to play it. and if it was on mac, because steam, again, I usually don’t use my desktop for anything anymore, unfortunately. speaking of cool moths, the next (0:20:02) Codey: insect order in our big four is Lepidoptera, which i’ve already talked about before on a previous pod. so these are the moths and the butterflies. and although many people know a lot about like the big showy butterflies and moths, like the monarchs of swallowtails, atlas moths, luna moths, (0:20:20) Codey: you see the big caterpillars like the hickory horned devil or the tobacco hornworm, like these (0:20:29) Codey: caterpillars that just have these crazy adornments. (0:20:32) Codey: Some of my favorites are in the family Lycenidae or Lycanidae depends on how you want to pronounce the C in that word and these are the blue butterflies. (0:20:44) Codey: So these are really actually fairly small in my area the eastern tailed blue is probably the most common and it’s when it folds its little wings up it’s probably no bigger than like a quarter. (0:20:55) Codey: It might be a little bit bigger than a quarter. (0:20:59) Codey: I don’t know the size of a Euro. (0:21:00) Codey: I don’t really know. (0:21:02) Codey: Like other audiences and what might explain to them, maybe like a, it’s way smaller than like a bottle cap. (0:21:10) Codey: It’s probably the size of a bottle cap. (0:21:12) Codey: Let’s just say it’s a bottle cap. (0:21:15) Codey: So these caterpillars of the family Lecenidae have a partnership with ants. (0:21:20) Codey: They’re actually called mermechophyllus. (0:21:22) Codey: So mermecho means ant, phylee means love. (0:21:26) Codey: So they’re literally ant-loving butterflies. (0:21:29) Codey: So these caterpillars literally pay the ants. (0:21:33) Codey: They excrete secretions on their backs that provide a sugar-rich nectar source for the ants. (0:21:39) Codey: So they’ll come up to some ants in the wild, you know, wherever their mother laid their egg. (0:21:48) Codey: They’ll find some ants and they’ll just start releasing this nectar, sugar-rich nectar source. (0:21:53) Codey: And ants are like, “This is awesome. This thing just poops out deliciousness.” (0:22:00) Codey: And then they carry the- (0:22:02) Codey: The ants house this caterpillar and protect it while it grows bigger and bigger and bigger, and I think sometimes the caterpillar also like just eats their food. (0:22:17) Codey: Um, and yeah, so it basically gets this defense and this protection from these ant- from this ant colony. (0:22:26) Codey: And then they’ll either, depending on the species, I think they either pupate within the ant colony and then they’ll- (0:22:32) Codey: emerge as an adult butterfly, you know, in the spring or whatever, um, or they might come out of the ant colony, crawl out of the ant colony, find a place to pupate and then pupate and then do the same thing. (0:22:44) Codey: Super crazy though, that they just- because you’ve heard of ants farming fungus before, but what about butterfly larvae farming ants basically, or manipulating ants? Super wild. (0:22:59) Codey: Uh, next bit of news is Len’s island. (0:23:02) Codey: Um, so the community update is out now, this adds Korean, Russian, French, Portuguese, and an update to the update to the Thai translations. (0:23:11) Codey: So I guess the original Thai translations might have been sub par, um, or just had hadn’t been finalized yet. (0:23:18) Codey: Um, so they are, they’ve taken that into consideration and have updated that. (0:23:22) Codey: Love that. (0:23:23) Codey: Um, they’ve also added a lot of things to the game. (0:23:25) Codey: There’s some small changes, um, some bug fixes, some things, some balancing issues. (0:23:32) Codey: There were some things that might’ve been too difficult or too easy or what have you. (0:23:36) Codey: Um, so they’ve changed all of that. (0:23:38) Codey: And every time we talk about this game, I want to jump back into it immediately. (0:23:42) Codey: Like every time I see the word lens Island words, lens Island, I’m like, man, I would love to jump back into that game. (0:23:49) Codey: Like at this very moment, because I really did enjoy it. (0:23:51) Codey: I put many hours, like probably like 20 or 30 hours into this game. (0:23:55) Codey: Um, just like jumping into the mines, trying to explore the dungeon, trying to, I mean, it was. (0:24:02) Codey: It was a pretty big slog in the beginning to level, to like, level up your weaponry and get the things that you needed. (0:24:10) Codey: I would go for like a 10 or 15 minute jaunt around the Island just to get like all the food that I could get before I went in the dungeon. (0:24:18) Codey: And then I would still probably end up running out of food and dying. (0:24:20) Codey: Um, it’s way easier now, but I just really want to jump back into it. (0:24:25) Codey: But I really also want to wait until 1.0 to get the full effect of having not played this game since its first release. (0:24:33) Codey: Um, so I will be on the lookout for that 100% lens Island. (0:24:38) Codey: Don’t you worry. (0:24:40) Codey: No cool transition here. (0:24:41) Codey: Just the final of the big four or back to bugs. (0:24:44) Codey: Uh, the final of the big four is diptura. (0:24:46) Codey: These are the flies. (0:24:47) Codey: Um, diptura literally means two wings and that’s because flies only have two wings. (0:24:52) Codey: Um, most everything else has either four wings or Beatles have, um, hind wings that are super soft. (0:24:59) Codey: often than forewings that have been hardened into… (0:25:02) Codey: elytra but diptra just straight up have two wings they have on the back instead of having a second pair of a pair of hind wings they have what are called hull tiers and there are these organs that kind of help them balance in the air and orient there are all kinds of really cool flies including beef lies just the family bomb a lady they just look like fluffy little clouds I mean if you’re here a Pokemon fan and you think of cutie fly it just looks like that (0:25:33) Codey: Um, uh, hoverflies and flower hoverflies or flower flies. (0:25:38) Codey: Those are two names for the exact same thing. (0:25:40) Codey: They’re flies in the family’s surfady. (0:25:42) Codey: Um, these flies are actually also really efficient pollinators. (0:25:45) Codey: They tend to be fairly hairy. (0:25:47) Codey: Um, and they can look like bees as well, uh, bees or wasps. (0:25:50) Codey: And they do this to fake out predators. (0:25:52) Codey: So they look, they look fuzzy. (0:25:54) Codey: They have the coloration of bees or wasps and then predators see them. (0:25:58) Codey: And they’re like, I’ve eaten a bee before it didn’t go well for me. (0:26:01) Codey: So I’m going to leave this thing alone. (0:26:03) Codey: Super cool, cool form of mimicry, but I think I’m going to go with, uh, for some of my favorite diptarins is going to be dance flies, um, or flies in the family and piddity. (0:26:15) Codey: So the males actually find, um, what they call, what is called a nuptial gift. (0:26:20) Codey: They find something that they want to give to the female. (0:26:23) Codey: It could be some food, could just be something cool that he found or whatever. (0:26:26) Codey: Um, and then he wraps it in a little package of silk and then he flies, um, (0:26:31) Codey: carrying package of like a (0:26:33) Codey: silk on a string and he presents it to a female and then if she likes it she’ll take it she’ll open it she’ll look at it and if she likes it cool you you’ve you’ve successfully won her hand in marriage and if she doesn’t then she just tosses it and you have to go the male has to go find another gift wrap it again in silk and try again next time super cool I have never seen these in the And I’m so sad like of this this thing, but I did have a friend once (0:27:03) Codey: sent me this he’s a friend who’s an ornithologist and he was like Do you know what the heck is going on here? (0:27:08) Codey: And he sent me a picture of a fly with a like in the air flying with this little thing under it And I was like, oh my gosh, that’s a dance fly and I lost my mind and he was like you are exactly right That’s that was really cool (0:27:21) Codey: So yeah catch me in (0:27:24) Codey: Gosh, where is he Kentucky in probably like August trying to find him pitted? (0:27:30) Codey: Okay, next bit of news here is (0:27:33) Codey: steam world build now has a DLC called mechanized out. (0:27:40) Codey: You can go get this, get this DLC now. (0:27:43) Codey: This DLC basically adds a bunch of stuff, (0:27:46) Codey: including an NPC named mech that can help you solve puzzles to help get you off the planet. (0:27:53) Codey: And it also introduces a new big bad called the abomination that tries to thwart you and goes through your area (0:28:02) Codey: and just. (0:28:03) Codey: Destroyes things that you’re doing or impedes your your attempt to leave the planet it looks like a really cool puzzle game I’ve actually never looked at steam world build before (0:28:13) Codey: It’s giving (0:28:15) Codey: Gosh not Forrester or forager or oh my gosh. I can’t believe I’m not thinking of this game right now (0:28:23) Codey: Another game where you’re doing computery things. It’s probably it’s literally on my desktop. Isn’t it factorial? (0:28:29) Codey: I guess I’ve played this with my partner. It’s giving factorial. (0:28:33) Codey: Vibes, but in more of a puzzle-y 3d format. Very cool. (0:28:39) Codey: Um, and for a limited time, (0:28:41) Codey: you can save money when bundling the DLC with the main game on steam. (0:28:46) Codey: So if you’ve been wanting to try out steam world, and you’re like, no, really, (0:28:48) Codey: sure, then, uh, now’s a great time to jump back in. (0:28:52) Codey: Cause you can save money, um, on not only the main game, but also the DLC. (0:28:58) Codey: Um, the next group. So we’ve already covered the big four. (0:29:01) Codey: of the big four being Beatles. (0:29:03) Codey: Um, coleoptera, hymenoptera, diptra and lepidoptera. (0:29:08) Codey: Um, so those are the big four that I just wanted to get out of the way, um, just because they’re the most diverse, but the next, so the other ones that I’m going to talk about are the ones that I think are just really cool and show, uh, I mean, I think they’re all really cool honestly, but these I thought were accessible, um, and just interesting to people. So, uh, the first order is Oda Nada, (0:29:31) Codey: which is the damsel flies in the (0:29:33) Codey: dragonflies. So these are some of the best flyers in the animal kingdom. They have really insane musculature in their thorax and they actually can fly in any direction because of this. Each of their wings has its own musculature and can move independently of the others. So this allows them to move in any direction. They can move forward, backward, up, down, side to side. They can do whatever they want. Whereas most insects, they’re restricted to flying forward and in (0:30:03) Codey: a different direction, they have to like turn their body. So they like use their wings to like turn in a different direction, but they can’t just go backwards. They can’t fly backwards or go up or down or whatever. This makes them really successful predators in the animal kingdom. Most predators have a really low success rate. So think of like the lion on the savanna. Most of the time not going to be successful. Most of the time not getting a wildebeest or or whatever it’s trying to, whatever she’s trying to catch. (0:30:34) Codey: The dragonflies, I think it’s like 75% success, bonkers. (0:30:39) Codey: They also will take, some of them will take like bees, (0:30:43) Codey: other flies. (0:30:44) Codey: I mean, I think that they’re not really that picky. (0:30:45) Codey: Some will take other dragonflies, crazy. (0:30:49) Codey: They also, this is, (laughs) (0:30:51) Codey: nothing I’ve said is a lie so far. (0:30:54) Codey: And I don’t plan on lying, this seems made up. (0:30:59) Codey: They make a really cute heart shape when they mate. (0:31:02) Codey: So when they mate, they connect. (0:31:04) Codey: They’re like the end of their abdomen to the top of the head of the other one, and they end up making a really cute heart shape. (0:31:13) Codey: I highly recommend people look up Dragonfly mating. (0:31:17) Codey: It’s not graphic or anything. It just looks goofy. (0:31:22) Codey: Speaking of goofy, look at me with these transitions. Disney Dreamlight Valley. (0:31:28) Codey: The act two of the paid DLC has been announced to be coming out. (0:31:35) Codey: The paid DLC is a rift in time, and this DLC includes three acts. (0:31:42) Codey: Some people on this tweet, when they mention in the Twitter that the next part of the act of this expansion DLC is going to be coming out. (0:31:57) Codey: Some people were like, “Oh, wait. Do I have to pay more for this? I’ve already paid for a rift in time.” (0:32:02) Codey: And they’re like, no, no, like, this is– (0:32:04) Codey: part of the paid DLC. (0:32:05) Codey: So if you’ve already paid for a Rift in Time, (0:32:09) Codey: which I believe is only like $25 or $20, (0:32:12) Codey: you don’t have to pay again. (0:32:13) Codey: You’re going to get all three of these acts. (0:32:17) Codey: So Act 1 was Eternity Isle. (0:32:19) Codey: This is available now. (0:32:20) Codey: You can do this now. (0:32:21) Codey: If you have paid for it, I will say I have the game on Xbox Live, like Game Pass. (0:32:31) Codey: So I didn’t pay for the game. (0:32:33) Codey: playing it free to play. (0:32:34) Codey: through game pass and if you want to do rift of rift in time you have to pay on top of that and so I haven’t done this. but I’m also like nowhere near done with with the content that is free so I’m not gonna be worried about it. so yeah act one adds eternity isle adds Rapunzel Gaston and Eve as the player goes to what is called Eternity Isle. (0:33:04) Codey: Seems like this place where you can mess with time, you can get a tool. (0:33:09) Codey: It looks like it’s Jafar’s staff and it can allow you to turn back time to see different artifacts. (0:33:16) Codey: Interesting, I guess. (0:33:20) Codey: I don’t really, I really need to rewatch the Aladdin movies. (0:33:24) Codey: I don’t think he can mess with time. (0:33:27) Codey: Maybe he can in like one of the second or third ones, I don’t remember. (0:33:33) Codey: So yeah, that is already out. (0:33:35) Codey: Um, so coming quote unquote spring, which spring’s almost done y’all. (0:33:42) Codey: Isn’t spring like at the end of may mid may, I don’t know when you would end spring, but, uh, the second act is called the spark of imagination. (0:33:53) Codey: And in the spark of imagination, you will quote, explore ancient landing to uncover more of its secrets and befriend a very lucky villager. (0:34:04) Codey: So there are some spec, there’s some speculation about who this villager could be. (0:34:08) Codey: Um, I, I’m trying to think of like what Disney character could be called lucky. (0:34:17) Codey: Um, but what I think this is is probably Atlantis. (0:34:22) Codey: Um, the symbol on this looks a lot like the cave that is on Dazzle beach was it, (0:34:28) Codey: which is the current Disney dream light Valley. (0:34:30) Codey: Um, one of the places in the current game. (0:34:32) Codey: and it gives big Atlantis- (0:34:34) Codey: when you are in that cave there are Atlantean symbols and people have already like decoded them (0:34:41) Codey: because there’s an Atlantean alphabet um and just the thought of like going back in time and thinking about like Atlantis as this land lost to time or whatever i’m thinking i’m thinking it’s milo thatch y’all but it could also be the I don’t remember her name but the princess from atlantis who’s (0:35:04) Codey: awesome human like is she atlantean (0:35:08) Codey: um it could be her too uh who knows but um I think that’s who it is someone else like I saw someone else say something it could be like daf not daffy duck uh donald duck’s brother cousin something I was like I don’t that sounds way way out of left field I don’t think I don’t think that’s true um so yeah the spark of imagination is the second act in um eripton time the third act (0:35:34) Codey: coming out quote unquote summer 2024 is treasures of time. (0:35:40) Codey: So this is the final act of a rift in time. (0:35:43) Codey: And in this you will foil Jafar’s schemes, (0:35:48) Codey: whatever that means. (0:35:50) Codey: So we’ll see how I feel about this. (0:35:51) Codey: I don’t know about y’all. (0:35:53) Codey: If you’ve been playing DTV, as I call it, (0:35:58) Codey: let me know. (0:36:00) Codey: Some of these villains, I wish I could just, (0:36:03) Codey: I mean, honestly, some of the– (0:36:05) Codey: like, old-timers, too. (0:36:06) Codey: Like, sometimes I’m just like, can I just not see Mickey anymore? (0:36:09) Codey: I’m sick of it. (0:36:10) Codey: I’m not a big Mickey Mouse fan. (0:36:12) Codey: I’m not a big Minnie Mouse fan, not a McDonald Duck fan. (0:36:15) Codey: I like, just get these kids out of here. (0:36:17) Codey: I don’t– I don’t care. (0:36:18) Codey: And I feel that way about some of the villains as well. (0:36:20) Codey: Like, one of the villains is Mother Gothel. (0:36:22) Codey: Every time she walks up, she, like, is just so gaslight-y. (0:36:26) Codey: And the way she talks to you is just so disrespectful. (0:36:32) Codey: And so I’m not, at least like Ursula. (0:36:34) Codey: When you talk to her, she seems to like meet, respect you and like meet you at your level. (0:36:41) Codey: And then Scar, I mean, he’s delusional. (0:36:43) Codey: He just thinks that he should be the King. (0:36:45) Codey: So I get it. (0:36:46) Codey: But Jafar has always given me the ick. (0:36:53) Codey: In Aladdin, like the way that he treats Jasmine and like the way that he feels like he needs to like own her or whatever is just very ick. (0:37:02) Codey: So I don’t know. (0:37:04) Codey: I don’t know how I feel about this about, I don’t know how I’m going to feel about Jafar or if they can kind of like, update him to be not as ick as he was, that’d be lovely. (0:37:16) Codey: But I also have not paid for this deal to you yet. I honestly probably will once I complete all of the current free to play content because this game has given me a lot. (0:37:26) Codey: And if you haven’t played it and you have game pass, I highly recommend it. If you have expendable income and nothing to do with your life for the next- (0:37:34) Codey: forever, no, you could probably play this game in like a month. You probably get through everything. (0:37:42) Codey: I do recommend it. I’m getting a lot of enjoyment out of it. (0:37:48) Codey: I just don’t like the ick of some of the villains. And speaking of ick, the next group of insects is the order Phasmata. (0:38:00) Codey: And this is the stick stick (0:38:04) Codey: and leaf insects. (0:38:06) Codey: Um, I as I was looking over like the orders of insects and I saw Phasma that my I just like my heart grew three sizes. (0:38:15) Codey: You will never know greater joy than I did when I was working in the field in 2019 here in Pennsylvania. (0:38:22) Codey: And I found a stick insect in the wild like in the woods because sometimes you’ll find them on like a building like they’ll because they do show up in in rural areas every now and then. (0:38:34) Codey: And it’s like, okay, like that it’s going to stick out. (0:38:38) Codey: Hot stick sticks is a stick insect. (0:38:40) Codey: Like it it you see it when it’s against a building super obvious, (0:38:44) Codey: but when you find one in the wild like I was just like doing a survey. (0:38:49) Codey: I was walking a transect was just literally a line. (0:38:52) Codey: I was walking a line for 30 minutes to look at the bees that were there and I just was like that is a stick insect on that bush. (0:39:02) Codey: and I had to pause my survey because I– (0:39:05) Codey: I played with that thing for like an hour. (0:39:08) Codey: I put it on my face. (0:39:09) Codey: I have pictures that– (0:39:10) Codey: I put so many insects on my face and take pictures, y’all, it’s crazy. (0:39:14) Codey: Took a picture of it, just lost my mind and just had so much joy in watching this thing and just, I set it down. (0:39:22) Codey: I watched it for like 10 minutes as it walked around. (0:39:25) Codey: So cool. (0:39:27) Codey: They’re super hard to find because of their amazing camouflage abilities. (0:39:30) Codey: So their whole evolutionary strategy for all stick and leaf insects like this whole order. (0:39:34) Codey: Is just fake out the predators don’t don’t look like something to eat look like a stick be a stick (0:39:43) Codey: and there are other than that I mean they’re just pretty they can be pretty breakable though there can be some in tropical areas that have will have some pretty gnarly cuticular defenses like they’ll have some spikes or thorny protrusions and they’re pretty um sclerotized so when you touch them like (0:40:05) Codey: hard they’re not squishy and they hurt and so I’ve never really seen these before we we have had some in the insect zoo some um leaf insects that had some of that but um again evolution what are you doing uh moonstone island um they did an april fool’s haha on everyone um on twitter and they basically showed everything evolving into a version of fish bow (0:40:35) Codey: a fish bow? I haven’t played Moonstone Island. This is wild to me. I had to go down the rabbit hole a little bit to know what the heck I was talking about here. But basically, fish bow is like one of the spirits, I believe. And it’s literally a fish bowl that has legs. (0:40:50) Codey: It’s just a fish bow, fish bow. So they tweeted a graphic, kind of like a meme from Pokemon, (0:40:58) Codey: and it showed like a fish bow becoming a fish bow or like something becoming a fish bow. (0:41:06) Codey: All your little guys is evolving. So it’s basically like all your guys, they’re just little guys, (0:41:12) Codey: they’re all evolving right now. And it alludes to the fact that all of your spirits can become fish bowed, as a verb, fish bowed. So it’s like if you have another spirit, it would just become the spirit instead of the fish in the bowl, it’s that spirit in the bowl. (0:41:31) Codey: And this might actually come to the game in the tweet they said that if they’re (0:41:35) Codey: If they get 1,000 likes on the tweet, they’ll do it but they’re clearly excited to do it with or without the likes They already have some pictures of different sprites that they’ve put or spirits that they’ve put in the fishbowl. Very cute (0:41:48) Codey: Let us and the Moonstone Island devs know what spirit you want fish bowed. Maybe they’ll make it happen (0:41:56) Codey: Okay, just a couple more things here. But next up is a another order of insects and here we have a macoptera (0:42:05) Codey: Scorpion flies and I specifically I’m going to be talking about the family of panorpity (0:42:10) Codey: Hilarious name panor. I love saying it. These guys look wild (0:42:17) Codey: So these even though they’re called scorpion flies, they aren’t actually flies just like butterflies aren’t flies they’re they’re something completely different (0:42:25) Codey: So scorpion flies do look like flies (0:42:28) Codey: But they have four wings. They’re not they didn’t evolve They’re not a part of that evolutionary chain and the males (0:42:35) Codey: literally have scorpion like tails. Like their reproductive organ looks like a scorpion tail. Doesn’t sting you can’t hurt you just looks like a scorpion. They also this really like (0:42:51) Codey: goober looking snoot. Very funny. They’re super, super weird. (0:42:56) Codey: And they’re known mostly among entomologists for the fact that they look weird. But they are also thought to have helped in early pollination before the evolution of bees. (0:43:05) Codey: And they are used for forensic entomology currently. (0:43:10) Codey: So for, I just thought this would be a cool moment to like shout out what, (0:43:13) Codey: what forensic entomology is super cool. (0:43:15) Codey: It’s using insects to solve crimes. (0:43:17) Codey: So often it’s used to try and time when, uh, like time of death, like when someone (0:43:26) Codey: died based on what insects have come to the body at that time. (0:43:29) Codey: So scorpion fly larvae can be some of the very first to find a cadaver. (0:43:34) Codey: So if. (0:43:35) Codey: They’re there and if they’re present and how, how much they’ve, um, (0:43:40) Codey: developed can tell you how long the body has been in that area and how long it’s been since, since deceasement, um, new word, uh, forensic entomology is super cool. (0:43:54) Codey: Um, there’s actually a forensic entomologist that I met, um, who’s out in New Jersey, New Jersey, and she kind of, she can tell you like vague stories, (0:44:04) Codey: but she can’t tell you so. (0:44:05) Codey: This is a legitimate thing that people do sometimes, like as a career, so cool, not for me, but cool. (0:44:20) Codey: Other insects that can be used in forensic entomology include flesh flies of the family Sarcophagidae, (0:44:28) Codey: blow flies, family California, rove beetles, which is the family Staphylenidae, and (0:44:35) Codey: carrion beetles, which is the family Sulfagidae. (0:44:39) Codey: Super, super cool. (0:44:42) Codey: Next on news is critter crops, so critter crops has been delayed to quote-unquote later this year. (0:44:49) Codey: So this was meant to release on the 15th of April, and I just think it’s funny. (0:44:54) Codey: I bet that they probably just heard Al say that this looks like a good game to play in October during the last Coral Island episode, and they were like, “That, let’s do it. Let’s delay it.” (0:45:06) Codey: That’s not true, but I do like the idea of that. (0:45:10) Codey: They delayed because testing is taking longer than they expected. (0:45:14) Codey: And in their launch delay note in Steam News, they said that they’re literally playing the game over and over again to test it and make sure that everything works. (0:45:27) Codey: So I’m not super surprised that it’s taking longer than they expected. (0:45:31) Codey: I’m assuming people probably get fatigue if you try and play a game over (0:45:36) Codey: over again. Um, even if, especially if you’re the one that developed it, (0:45:39) Codey: honestly, you know, everything. Um, but yeah, it’s not, (0:45:44) Codey: not surprising. Take your time. Um, totally fine with the delay. (0:45:49) Codey: All of the comments that I saw were also very positive about the delay. (0:45:52) Codey: Like you do you have out it. Um, okay. (0:45:57) Codey: This is, this is it y’all. This is the final order, (0:46:01) Codey: but it’s also kind of a bonus because there are four sub orders. (0:46:06) Codey: that are very important so this order is Hemiptera and this has four sub orders in it and I’m gonna go through these and I am never sure if I’m pronouncing this first one correctly. I think it’s Coleo Rinca, could also be Celio Rinca, they don’t occur in the United States so I don’t know but these are called the moss bugs. Another one is Eucanarenca so this includes cicadas and leafhoppers. Another suborder is (0:46:36) Codey: sternaryncha, which is aphids, white flies, and scalins, and others. But the one that I really wanted to talk about is heteroptera. So this is the suborder within hemiptera. It’s called heteroptera. And these are the true bugs. So while we call things bugs all the time, like, and people will call something a bug, even if it’s not an insect, like they’ll call like a spider a bug or whatever. While we do call all kinds of things bugs all the time this is the. (0:47:06) Codey: This is the suborder that these are the ones that are actually bugs. These are called the true bugs crazy. So the true bugs include families, things like stink bugs, which is Pentatomity, Assassin bugs, Reggi Viti, kissing bugs. I actually don’t remember that bed bugs, submissity, but my favorite family is tingity. (0:47:30) Codey: Or the lace bugs. These things literally look like if you knitted something and (0:47:36) Codey: it grew legs and walked away like you like you made something out of lace a very very small small (0:47:42) Codey: Lacey thing and it grew legs and walked away (0:47:45) Codey: That’s what these things look like and I never I had never seen one before and then I just started going through my samples from last year and I’m finding a (0:47:54) Codey: Good number of them actually like like at least like 10 and I every single time I’m like I have this like child like (0:48:01) Codey: Giddy giggle cuz I’m just like oh, they’re so cute, and they just look like little (0:48:06) Codey: Delicate creations, they look like little art artwork. I mean, they’re not the only things that look like artwork There’s a lot of other things that are brightly colored metallic colored (0:48:17) Codey: What have you but the lace bugs the tinges they’re just they’re so cute (0:48:24) Codey: Okay final bit of news y’all you’re almost done with me hang in there poglings (0:48:36) Codey: So the news is about poglings, but (0:48:39) Codey: I just had to go on a tangent here for a second about pog (0:48:44) Codey: Or pogs so that every time I see this game name I think that it’s about pogs which are the collectible tabs tags that we like (0:48:53) Codey: Collected in the 90s and played with (0:48:56) Codey: which if you are a 2000s, baby look these things up because (0:49:02) Codey: It just we collected I mean I guess people do (0:49:06) Codey: things like this. Now they collect pieces of cardboard and trade them and stuff. But this is basically what we did. It’s this little circle that you collected and you would find cool ones and trade them with your friends or do like a different game super crazy. And I was trying to like look those up and be like, why are happened to those? And I went down a Wikipedia rabbit hole. And I’m just going to take you guys with me for a minute here about pogs. This is not about this game at all. I’ll get to that in a second. This is about 1990s in my childhood. So this is straight from Wikipedia, quote, milk caps is a children’s game played with fat flat circular cardboard milk caps. Players make a stack of these caps and take turns to drop a heavier slammer object onto it, causing the caps to be disrupted. Each player keeps any face up caps and is to restock the face down caps, repeating the process until none land face down, at which point the player who collected the most caps wins the game. (0:50:06) Codey: I lost the game. The game is also known as pogs under which name it was sold commercially in the 1990s. So I think like the circular milkboard caps that they says me going off of the quote, the circular milkboard caps. This is just like you buy, I think, a milk and you take that like tab that’s on the inside of it and you play with play it with that. So that was just like that. (0:50:28) Codey: But these pogs that were sold and commercialized, they had so many different pieces of art on them. So some (0:50:36) Codey: were like I’m just like at a loss to even begin to say what’s on me there’s like art like someone drew like a flower on it there’s some that are are like a Tasmanian devil like so there’s some that were like Looney Tunes there’s some that you could have found them in any like (0:50:56) Codey: anything that said that it was okay for POG to put its likeness on them there were just so many many different kinds and they they were pretty good (0:51:07) Codey: as well and I never played because with this because the like milk caps game itself because I didn’t want to if I’d collected it and I wanted it I didn’t want to get it get rid of it and I don’t know where my hogs are and I’m upset the end of the Wikipedia blurb here is that the name originates from POG which is a brand of juice made from passion fruit orange and guava and the use of the juice’s caps to play the game. (0:51:36) Codey: the game’s commercialization which is wild to me because I just went to Hawaii and POG is (0:51:43) Codey: is a Hawaiian beverage and I lost my mind because it’s delicious and when I got it in Hawaii it is so smooth and I got it everywhere like every single place I went to I was like do you have POG and they said yes and I was like that is what I would like to drink please um and I found it on the west coast but you cannot find it on the east coast of the United States and your girl’s about to to drop like 50 bucks. (0:52:06) Codey: I can’t do that. (0:52:07) Codey: But if I could, I would drop 50 bucks to get some of this stuff delivered to me. (0:52:13) Codey: Well, pogs, pog the juice, poglings the game. (0:52:18) Codey: Here we are. (0:52:20) Codey: They just announced on Kickstarter that the development team will be changing. (0:52:24) Codey: So the person who is the creator of poglings, his name is Chad. (0:52:30) Codey: He is just not, he is still going to be staying on. (0:52:34) Codey: but another team that had (0:52:36) Codey: agreed to help him develop poglings is not going to be able to continue on for unknown reasons. Um, and he, the, in the post, it’s very, very clear that it’s, it’s, you know, not, (0:52:48) Codey: not something to have drama over. Like this happens. The game industry is really difficult right now. Developing is really difficult. Some people have been losing their jobs. Like it’s kind of hard to make money in this. So he’s super understanding and he’s looking for, um, (0:53:00) Codey: other development teams to help him finish this project, product, project. Yeah. Both words work. (0:53:06) Codey: Um, so yeah, uh, the reasoning’s pretty generic there. Uh, the development team will be changing and this was obviously going to delay the game. Um, and he just, you know, says this and says, (0:53:17) Codey: you know, I’m sorry for the lack of, um, whatever. Uh, yeah. And, and that the game was going to be delayed. The response is pretty positive. Um, you know, a lot of people saying, (0:53:30) Codey: you know, take your time. We understand gaming is really the game development industry is really (0:53:36) Codey: important and I’ll thank you for your transparency. Um, and yeah, all of, all of those things echoed back. Um, I think that it’s good that they’re being transparent and open about it. And, um, (0:53:48) Codey: I hope they find us a new development team to partner with them and wish them the best so that we can see this game. And if they chab, chab, this is just, just for you. If you put passion for orange and clava juice in this game and you at me or reach out. (0:54:06) Codey: To me in some way and you tell me that you did this, I will buy this game a hundred percent, (0:54:12) Codey: a hundred percent. Well, that is al

Lieutenant General Christopher Donahue returns to the show to continue his previous conversation with Joe on culture and leadership. In this episode, they discuss:What LTG Donahue has learned since his last appearance on the podcastHow the culture of the 82nd Airborne Division held up during the evacuation of AfghanistanFour reasons leaders need to focus on physical fitnessThe importance of innovation in today's ArmyWhat LTG Donahue is reading right nowTips for successful communicationLieutenant General Christopher Donahue currently serves as the 39th Commander of the XVIII Airborne Corps, and Ft. Liberty, NC. Prior to assuming command of the corps, LTG Donahue served as the Commander of the 82nd Airborne Division.LTG Donahue's other assignments include Commander, NATO Special Operations Component and US Joint Special Operations in support of Operation Freedom's Sentinel, Deputy Director for Special Operations and Counter-Terrorism, J-3, for the Joint Staff in Washington, D.C., Commandant, US Army Infantry School and Director of the Soldier Lethality Cross Functional Team, and Deputy Commanding General (Maneuver) of the 4th Infantry Division.LTG Donahue has led Soldiers at all levels in Airborne, Ranger, Light and Mechanized units, to include service with 3 divisions, the 75th Ranger Regiment and USASOC. He has deployed 20 times in support of operations in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, North Africa, and Eastern Europe, to include; Operation Iraqi Freedom, Operation Enduring Freedom, Operation New Dawn, Operation Inherent Resolve, Operation Atlantic Resolve, Operation Freedom's Sentinel, Operation European Assure, Deter and Reinforce, and in support of the Sudan crisis.His formative and key, Army and special operations, assignments include Director of Operations, Joint Special Operations Command, and 16 years in various USASOC organizations, first as a platoon leader, then as a troop commander, squadron commander, and finally as a brigade commander.LTG Donahue is a graduate of the United States Military Academy at West Point, NY, and was commissioned in 1992. His military education includes the Infantry Officer Basic and Advanced Courses, the Naval War College, and the US Army War College Fellowship at Harvard University.Special thanks to this week's sponsors!Veteran-founded Adyton. Connect Leadership With Action Across Distributed Formations With Mustr by Adyton. Mustr is your digital knife-hand for daily and rapid personnel accountability, real time response data visibility, and automated reporting. Learn more about what Mustr can do for your formation here! My favorite coffee is veteran-owned Alpha Coffee and I've been drinking it every morning since 2020! They make 100% premium arabica coffee. Alpha has donated over 22k bags of coffee to deployed units and they offer a 10% discount for military veterans, first responders, nurses, and teachers! Try their coffee today. Once you taste the Alpha difference, you won't want to drink anything else!  Learn more here.   

Deadly doses/A bizarre entity breaks the rules Patreon https://www.patreon.com/user?u=18482113 PayPal Donation Link https://tinyurl.com/mrxe36ph MERCH STORE!!! https://tinyurl.com/y8zam4o2 Vote For Your Favorite Paranormal Podcast: Dead Rabbit Radio! https://paranormalitymag.com/vote25/ Amazon Wish List https://www.amazon.com/hz/wishlist/ls/28CIOGSFRUXAD?ref_=wl_share Dead Rabbit Radio Wiki https://deadrabbitradio.pods.monster/doku.php?id=Welcome Help Promote Dead Rabbit! Dual Flyer https://i.imgur.com/OhuoI2v.jpg "As Above" Flyer https://i.imgur.com/yobMtUp.jpg “Alien Flyer” By TVP VT U https://imgur.com/gallery/aPN1Fnw “QR Code Flyer” by Finn https://imgur.com/a/aYYUMAh   Links 5th Annual Dead Rabbit Radio Livestream November 23, 2023 https://www.youtube.com/@DeadRabbitRadio EP 429 - Is Bill Gates The Antichrist? https://deadrabbitradio.libsyn.com/ep-429-is-bill-gates-the-antichrist First episode psychosis following receipt of first dose of COVID-19 vaccine: A case report https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8784614/ Can new onset psychosis occur after mRNA based COVID-19 vaccine administration? A case report https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8349391/ Alana Cutland plane death: police investigate possible medication link https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/aug/02/alana-cutland-death-police-investigate-possible-medication-link Alana Cutland: Body found in search for British teenager who fell from plane in Madagascar https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/africa/alana-cutland-death-plane-madagascar-body-found-british-student-latest-a9044581.html Schizotypal personality disorder https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/schizotypal-personality-disorder/symptoms-causes/syc-20353919 Someone saw me driving an ATV while i was home (Reindeer ATV Mimic story) https://www.reddit.com/r/ParanormalNews/comments/17vhst2/someone_saw_me_driving_an_atv_while_i_was_home/ Archive https://archive.ph/rxmEb Listen to the daily podcast anywhere you listen to podcasts! ------------------------------------------------ Logo Art By Ash Black Opening Song: "Atlantis Attacks" Closing Song: "Bella Royale" Music By Simple Rabbitron 3000 created by Eerbud Thanks to Chris K, Founder Of The Golden Rabbit Brigade Dead Rabbit Archivist Some Weirdo On Twitter AKA Jack YouTube Champ Stewart Meatball The Haunted Mic Arm provided by Chyme Chili The Golden Rabbit Army: Fabio N, Chyme Chili, Greg Gourley, Vixen, Lula F. Wiki by Germ   http://www.DeadRabbit.com Email: DeadRabbitRadio@gmail.com Twitter: https://twitter.com/DeadRabbitRadio Facebook: www.Facebook.com/DeadRabbitRadio TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@deadrabbitradio Dead Rabbit Radio Subreddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/DeadRabbitRadio/ Paranormal News Subreddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/ParanormalNews/ Mailing Address Jason Carpenter PO Box 1363 Hood River, OR 97031 Paranormal, Conspiracy, and True Crime news as it happens! Jason Carpenter breaks the stories they'll be talking about tomorrow, assuming the world doesn't end today. All Contents Of This Podcast Copyright Jason Carpenter 2018 - 2023    

Every week a new dj set brodcasted live at eurobeat radio with exclusive promos and some classics in between

In this episode, Joey and I sat down with Daniel Griffith of Commons Provisions. Daniel eloquently paints the  grave challenge ranchers face when selling under various grocery store labels. As an advocate for local food, Daniel outlines the issues with the structures  in place within our society. Tune in to hear the intricate nuance of America's meat industry to find out why local food trumps certified regenerative meat every day.Podcast mentioned: Kellogg, Bill Gates, and Rockefeller—how extreme ideology shaped America's most quintessential foods with James ConnollyFind Commons ProvisionsInstagram // @commonsprovisionsWebsite // https://eatcommons.com/Find HomegrownInstagram // @homegrown_education, @lizhaselmayer, @joeyhaselmayerWebsite // homegrowneducation.orgNatural Home Goods // Haselmayer Goods

In our culture, we have placed a set of habitual notions about time on top of the soul's instincts and intuitions about rhythm and temporality. The physicist David Bohm said that, “. . . every thought assumes time. Whether we discuss thought or anything else, we always take time for granted. And we take for granted the notion that everything exists in time. We don't take for granted that time is an abstraction and a representation, but we take for granted that time is of the essence—reality—and that everything is existing in time, including thought.” What if we have some very unskillful notions about time? What if the evolution of our culture depends on shifting our relationship with time?

How intelligent is artificial intelligence when it comes to Antinatalism? Antinatalist Philosopher Matti Häyry & Antinatalist Activist Amanda Sukenick ask the OpenAI Chat Bot some simple questions and receive... interesting ... answers. Learn more about mechANized & read transcripts HERE!: https://www.exploringantinatalism.com/ https://beta.openai.com/ Read Matti's newest Antinatalist article, If You Must Give Them a Gift, Then Give Them the Gift of Nonexistence: https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/cambridge-quarterly-of-healthcare-ethics/article/if-you-must-give-them-a-gift-then-give-them-the-gift-of-nonexistence/2D6A8DD4EA49B6154471243CD65FAE77 Follow Matti here: https://linktr.ee/mattihayry Listen to The Exploring Antinatalism Podcast #65 here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4L1eiDoMuCQ

How intelligent is artificial intelligence when it comes to Antinatalism? Matti Häyry & Amanda Sukenick ask the OpenAI Chat Bot some simple questions and receive... interesting ... answers. Watch the video version of the episode here!: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0JMw7OU_mnELearn more about mechANized & read transcripts HERE!: https://www.exploringantinatalism.com/ Les U. Knight clip from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4pafyDEofHg Make sure to sub to Lawrences' channel!: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4pafyDEofHg Patricia MacCormack clip from The Exploring Antinatalism Podcast #11 - Patricia MacCormack: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4pafyDEofHg https://beta.openai.com/ Web pages & Transcript coming shortly! Read Matti's newest Antinatalist article, If You Must Give Them a Gift, Then Give Them the Gift of Nonexistence: https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/cambridge-quarterly-of-healthcare-ethics/article/if-you-must-give-them-a-gift-then-give-them-the-gift-of-nonexistence/2D6A8DD4EA49B6154471243CD65FAE77 Follow Matti here: https://linktr.ee/mattihayry Listen to The Exploring Antinatalism Podcast #65 here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4L1eiDoMuCQ

Full episode loaded with lots of great stories. Tanks are going to Ukraine- and from the looks of it- 2 x Companies worth- 12 Challengers from the UK and 12 Leopards from Poland. Also- we discuss the stationing of two Iron Dome Batteries at Fort Lewis, Washington.  In addition, we discuss a little bit about the (new) 12th Marine Littoral Regiment's basing in Okinawa, Japan.  In other stories- we discuss upcoming Patriot training to be held in Fort Sill, OK for Ukraine. And finally, a story about the new Mechanized Infantry Division being built by Poland- along the border with Belarus.

How intelligent is artificial intelligence when it comes to Antinatalism? Matti Häyry & Amanda Sukenick ask the OpenAI Chat Bot some simple questions and receive... interesting ... answers. https://beta.openai.com/ Web pages & Transcript coming shortly! Read Matti's newest Antinatalist article, If You Must Give Them a Gift, Then Give Them the Gift of Nonexistence: https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/cambridge-quarterly-of-healthcare-ethics/article/if-you-must-give-them-a-gift-then-give-them-the-gift-of-nonexistence/2D6A8DD4EA49B6154471243CD65FAE77 Follow Matti here: https://linktr.ee/mattihayry Listen to The Exploring Antinatalism Podcast #65 here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4L1eiDoMuCQ

The Oakland Police Department is now pursuing the option of using robot cops and machine-accurate surveillance to patrol its city. The question of whether robots originally designed for defusing bombs should be converted into remote-controlled guns taps into several topics at the center of national debates: police using lethal force, the militarization of American life, and, not least of all, killer robots. These Bot Cops along with many other A.I. machines have the potential to inch us closer to a planned technological Armageddon. Tonight on Ground Zero, Clyde Lewis talks about BOT COP - MASS SURVEILLANCE AND MECHANIZED DEATH. #GroundZero #ClydeLewis #BotCop https://groundzeromedia.org/10-19-22-bot-cop-mass.../ Ground Zero with Clyde Lewis is live M-F from 7-10pm, pacific time, and streamed for free at groundzero.radio. There is a delayed broadcast on our local Portland affiliate station, KPAM 860, from 9pm-12am, pacific time. For radio affiliates near you, go to talkstreamlive.com. To listen by phone: 717-734-6922. To call into the show: 503-225-0860. The transcript of each episode will be posted after the show at groundzeromedia.org. In order to access Ground Zero's exclusive digital library which includes archived shows, research groups, videos, documents, and more, you must sign up at aftermath.media. Subscriptions start at $7/month. Check out the yearly specials!

The U.S. Army's Second Brigade of the Third Infantry Division was part of the force that invaded Iraq in March of 2003.  It raced out of Kuwait in Abrams tanks and Bradley fighting vehicles across open terrain, fighting a battle for which they'd trained. Mechanized infantry combined with the tank sledgehammer brushed aside any resistance losing more vehicles to maintenance than enemy action.  Things and the plan changed when the Second Brigade made it to Baghdad.  Instead of encircling the city of seven million people and trying to clear it block by block with dismounted infantry, the decision was made to make a rapier armored thrust into Baghdad, seize the centers of power, and cause Saddam Hussein's regime to collapse from within.  That is what the Second Brigade did and what is chronicled in David Zucchino's “Thunder Run: The Armored Strike to Capture Baghdad.”

Brian Fritz is an archaeologist and inventor that saw an issue with deep digging in Pennsylvania. To help out he developed a new machine that can basically do an auger test down to 7 meters, log the levels along the way, and there's an attached mechanized screen. It's a pretty cool system and we hear how he developed it and what he hopes to do in the future with this new system. Brian's Bio Brian L. Fritz is the Principle Archaeological Investigator for Quemahoning, LLC, a cultural resources consulting business that specializes in geoarchaeology, soil geomorphology, and GIS solutions for archaeological problems. Mr. Fritz has earned a B.S. in geology and a B.A. in Anthropology from Clarion University of Pennsylvania, and M.S. in Geology at the University of Akron. Interested in learning about how to use X-Rays and similar technology in archaeology? Check out the linked PaleoImaging course from James Elliot! For rough transcripts of this episode go to www.archpodnet.com/archaeotech/175 Links ArchaeologyX on Youtube Contact Chris Webster Twitter: @archeowebby Email: chris@archaeologypodcastnetwork.com Paul Zimmerman Twitter: @lugal Email: paul@lugal.com ArchPodNet APN Website: https://www.archpodnet.com APN on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/archpodnet APN on Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/archpodnet APN on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/archpodnet Tee Public Store Affiliates Wildnote TeePublic Timeular

Brian Fritz is an archaeologist and inventor that saw an issue with deep digging in Pennsylvania. To help out he developed a new machine that can basically do an auger test down to 7 meters, log the levels along the way, and there's an attached mechanized screen. It's a pretty cool system and we hear how he developed it and what he hopes to do in the future with this new system. Brian's Bio Brian L. Fritz is the Principle Archaeological Investigator for Quemahoning, LLC, a cultural resources consulting business that specializes in geoarchaeology, soil geomorphology, and GIS solutions for archaeological problems. Mr. Fritz has earned a B.S. in geology and a B.A. in Anthropology from Clarion University of Pennsylvania, and M.S. in Geology at the University of Akron. Interested in learning about how to use X-Rays and similar technology in archaeology? Check out the linked PaleoImaging course from James Elliot! For rough transcripts of this episode go to www.archpodnet.com/archaeotech/175 Links ArchaeologyX on Youtube Contact Chris Webster Twitter: @archeowebby Email: chris@archaeologypodcastnetwork.com Paul Zimmerman Twitter: @lugal Email: paul@lugal.com ArchPodNet APN Website: https://www.archpodnet.com APN on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/archpodnet APN on Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/archpodnet APN on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/archpodnet Tee Public Store Affiliates Wildnote TeePublic Timeular

Episode Summary:In this episode, I speak with Carl Hua, General Manager and Chief Architect of CelciusX about their DeFi launch at https://celsiusx.network/Guest:Carl Hua, General Manager and Chief Architect of CelciusXFor developer applications to CelciusX: email x@celsius.networkHosts:Joe Dewitt Follow at: https://twitter.com/metabitzCrypto Heat MapSubscribe to our Benzinga Crypto Youtube ChannelSubscribe to Moon or Bust PodcastPast Episodes of Daily CryptoDisclaimer: All of the information, material, and/or content contained in this program is for informational purposes only. Investing in stocks, options, and futures is risky and not suitable for all investors. Please consult your own independent financial adviser before making any investment decisions.Questions? Ask at joedewitt@benzinga.com and we will answer!Unedited Transcript:Hey everybody happy Tuesday. My name is Joe Dewitt and this is the crypto breakdown. And today I have a special guest GM and chief architect over at CelsiusX Carl Hua. How are you doing, man?Carl: Good. Good. Thanks for inviting me here. Q: absolutely. We're glad you're happy here. Carl, if you wanted to just give a quick rundown of CelsiusX to those out there, listening that are unaware of the platform and want to learn a little bit more.Carl: So before I go into CelsiusX, Celsius itself is a digital asset platform where we perform various services to our users are primarily users are able to generate yield on. And Celsius X really is the defy arm of Celsius. We're our mission really is to build infrastructure into defy so that we're able to reduce the friction in which we onboard users entity.Q:And you mentioned that DeFi arm. What is that?Carl: DeFi stands for decentralized finance today where track five, which are the banks that provide day-to-day sir financial services to the general public, in a web decentralist decentralized finance, which lives on the blockchain. The entire infrastructure is essentially decentralized. There is no centralized entity to control the flow of money. People transact with each other using something called smart contract, which is essentially programs that run on the blockchain and the are various protocols and programs been built on the blockchain to allow financial services to be.Q: So I'm aware that you guys have an upcoming launch for the DeFi arm. If you want to go ahead and talk about,Carl: So the initial two product offering CelsiusX is launching with our one liquidity bridge and then two, the initial set of wrapped tokens that we'll be launching with the liquidity bridge. So how this will work is really today. There are many blockchains out there. They don't need to operate. They don't really talk to each other. So assuming that you have assets on one blockchain it's rather difficult for you to move from one blockchain to another blockchain, right? There are some very primitive bridges have been built, but the overall security and usability.Is simply not good enough  for the community. So Celsius X is launching it, liquidity bridge, leveraging the entire infrastructure of Celsius, and we would allow users to deposit and withdraw native token. And the coins on one blockchain and allow them to withdraw on polygon so that people can actually move across various blockchain.Q:And when is that launching?Carl: We are launching this on February 22nd now, us to start, and we are looking to bring us into the ecosystem as well as we. Do additional testing, how many active users does the Celsius X network have? So for us, we have more than 1 million users today in the crypto industry. It's significant. We look to expand our user base over time.Q: And so Carl, how is the CelsiusX. Liquidity bridge going to be a little bit different than some of the other options out there.Carl: Yes. So if you look at this industry today, especially in the bridging ecosystem, they're largely decentralized, meaning they're actually knows no single party that's controlling the fund. Some of the decentralization is questionable, right. And that has been a couple of hacks in the past. And I anticipate more in the more bridges will be. So we generally believe that institutional adoption is inevitable. And I just don't see a way that given the current state of the decentralized bridges, that we will be able to attract institutional players into the field. Our liquidity bridge is eventually we'll go into the decentralization process, but initially we'll start with the centralized bridge, which is controlled by the Celsius backend secured by our custodian, which is fire blocks. They've been great to work with. So security is. A top concern for entities like Celsius. When we mechanize this type of framework, the other side of the thing is that there are other wrapped token offerings in this industry, though. They're not really retail friendly, right? Meaning that they've wrapped the Tokyo. For the projects or institutions. And if you're a retail and you get ahold of these Ratto case, there's not an easy way for you to go back to the native form.With that said our Celsius X offering really is geared towards not only institutions as well. We're also looking to penetrate the retail market. So for our wrap token, you're able to deposit withdraw at any given time. So it's real time redemption in. We also have stale. Transparency and accountability.What that means is that we're actually integrating with a decentralized Oracle services, such as chain link to prove that we're actually one-to-one back, we're not as not depositing the coin somewhere in telling you, Hey, it's. With our custodian, right? We're actually pointing the decentralized Oracle prover reserve service into our wallet or a decentralized vault, depending on the architecture and the types of tokens we're wrapping in.We're broadcasting that to the target, blockchain that. We'll be maintaining the tokens.  At any given time you're able to audit us and we're not the person that's providing the audit, it's link. They have more than a hundred billion dollars secured. So it's a very proven system to show transparency.And not only that we have deeply integrated. Hoover reserve into our smart contracts, which will be maintaining the tokens and the we're doing a hard deadline check. If we're at we're not properly, collaterized Celsius is not going to be able to mend the toolkits. So this way we're establishing accountability as well as transparency and all that data is publicly available on our websites.Q: That's awesome to Hear that you guys are using chain-link Oracles. That's super interesting. Just essentially simplifying the whole process too.Carl: For everyday users be able to bridge on bridge and wrap and unwrap their tokens. Initially it will be centralized in we'll over time. Decentralization is more multi-dimensional effort, right? And over time we'll decentralize. And we're also teaming up with chain-link to utilize their decentralized protocol called the us CCIP in the future to be able to do. Mechanized this entire infrastructure in a decentralized fashion. So essentially we'll have two concurrent roadmap, right? One's decentralization.And the other ones aggressively expand our offerings through our existing infrastructure.Q: Is there a place for individuals out there who want to check out the bridging platform when it launches? Is there a place to go to find it or is it just the CelsiusX websiteCarl: So there's two places for the actual wrapping and unwrapping. Please go to the Celsius website. There's a web app. We're not enabling mobile app on day one, but the web app allows you for bridging for additional information on the actual technology. Our roadmap, you can go on https://celsiusx.network/  We have the comprehensive documentation on there. The transparency report, as well as the real-time collateralization ratio is all listed on the website as well.Q:So as you guys look to expand the Celsius network, are you looking to onboard any new developers or expand your teamCarl: Yes. Thank you, Joe, for asking this. developers, these days are extremely hard to onboard. They're almost like exotic animals.  We have a dedicated email for those of you, those developers that would like to join us.And that email is X the letter, just one letter x@celsius.network. And that will be reading these emails myself. So we have a very good pipeline there. So please don't hesitate to reach.Q: I also got a quick personal question for you. Of course, I had the connect on LinkedIn. I saw that you were a flight software engineer.I was just wondering how you went from aerospace over to DeFi?Carl: I started my career in the aerospace industry and then quickly transitioned that to the spacing. That's true. Working for JPL NASA out of a Pasadena. It was a very interesting career path though. I. Brought into the blockchain world.When the original Bitcoin white paper was published, frat, that was 2009. I downloaded a copy on the Bitcoin talk forum. And ever since it's being, there's just a voice in my head. Hey Carl, like probably you want to do something there took me a while, as you can see, I didn't really transition until 2017.There was not really a trigger except for the fact that. I lost 95% of my portfolio backing the crash in late 2017. And I just doubled down because I I believed in this and that one day I just woke up and said, this is it. So I moved from California to New York to join a first layer of blockchain first layer.Meaning there, there are multiple layers layer, one, the startup, and the rest is historyQ: For those of you listening out there that want to go check out their website, https://celsiusx.network/. Make sure to go give it a look, Carl, thank you so much for being on the show . That about wraps it up. That's all the time we have for today, guys.Thank you so much for tuning in Carl. You were a fabulous guest. I want to thank you again for coming on the show and talking to us.Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/crypto-daily/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

The COVID-19 pandemic has taught us many things, including how sensitive our supply chain truly is. Instead of hunkering down and watching the labor shortages happen during the pandemic, an innovative group of entrepreneurs came together and began working on a solution. Those same people became the founders of an intelligent meat processing company called Marble Technologies. On this episode, we're joined by Jordyn Bader, co-founder and Director of Industry Partnerships at Marble and a true woman in agriculture. If you're interested in robotics, automation, meat processing, entrepreneurship, startup companies, or software engineering, stick around and you'll like what we have for you. This is the first episode in the Nebraska Women in Agriculture x FarmBits Collaboration for the Spring 2022 Series. Marble Technologies Contact Information Email: hi@seemarble.com Website: https://www.seemarble.com Twitter: https://twitter.com/SeeMarbleTech LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/seemarbletech/ Jordyn's Contact Information: Email: jordyn@seemarble.com LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jordyn-bader-04009836 FarmBits Contact Information: Email: farmbits@unl.edu Twitter: https://twitter.com/NEDigitalAg Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/UNLFarmBits Kelsey's Twitter: https://twitter.com/kswan713 Kelsey's LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/KelseySwantek Asya's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/asya-macon-080677189 Nebraska Women in Agriculture Contact Information: Email: WIA@unl.edu Website: https://wia.unl.edu Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/NEwomeninag Twitter: https://twitter.com/newomeninag Opinions expressed by the hosts and guests on this podcast are solely their own, and do not reflect the views of Nebraska Extension or the University of Nebraska - Lincoln.

Dan Damschen shares his story about his time in the military and life. The ups, the downs, and the lessons learned. He is a servant leader, and I am proud to call him a friend.

Had a great talk with the CTO of Studio 369, the developers of MetalCore! They just released a sick trailer and have their first NFT drop in January. They will have f2p gameplay options with 50v50 huge combat battles! Great team, with experience on some of the biggest games in the industry like Gears of War! Check out this future AAA game this ep! I am not a financial advisor. Protect Your Seed Phrases With Black Seed Ink! Black Seed Ink Sponsor link: https://blackseedink.com/discount/Cryptogamingpodcast2021 (https://blackseedink.com/discount/Cryptogamingpodcast2021) 10% OFF Discount code: Cryptogamingpodcast2021 MetalCore Website: https://www.metalcoregame.com/ (https://www.metalcoregame.com/) MetalCore Discord: https://discord.com/invite/metalcorenft (https://discord.com/invite/metalcorenft) MetalCore Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6qvC1RYouok&t=2s (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6qvC1RYouok&t=2s) Twitter: https://twitter.com/TCGPodcast2 (@TCGPodcast2) Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/the_crypto_gaming_podcast/ (the_crypto_gaming_podcast) Music: Voxel Revolution by Kevin MacLeod Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/7017-voxel-revolution (https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/7017-voxel-revolution) License: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license (https://filmmusic.io/standard-license) Music from Uppbeat (free for Creators!): https://uppbeat.io/t/soundroll/feeling-home License code: FAWUIZSNHXQRLXDZ Music from Uppbeat (free for Creators!) https://uppbeat.iotsoundrollmemories/ (https://uppbeat.iotsoundrollmemories)  License code: IMGEAAXEIS9O33HJ  Music from Uppbeat (free for Creators!): https://uppbeat.io/t/hartzmann/take-me-there (https://uppbeat.io/t/hartzmann/take-me-there)  License code: T6ZTIOPNTR83QOCI  Support this podcast

Keegan chats with LJ about an updated droid armor list straight out of Kashyyyk.   800/800 10 Activations Super Tactical Droid (Kalani) (Improvised Orders, Commanding Presence) 4x B1 Battle Droids (E-5s B1 Trooper) B1 Battle Droids (E-5s B1 Trooper, HQ Uplink) IG-100 MagnaGuard (RPS-6 MagnaGuard, Offensive Push) 2x DSD1 Dwarf Spider Droid (Engagement Protocols, Nose-Mounted Ion Blaster) NR-N99 Persuader-class Tank Droid (Attack Protocols, High-Energy Shells) Mechanized Incursion•, They Too Will Suffer•, Orbital Strike••, Preservation Protocols••, Assault•••, Do Not Underestimate Our Means•••, Standing Orders••••

Funky continues with the theme of Yordle Inventors this week as he discusses Rumble! The first yordle with a known love interest is also one with a temper and need to prove to the world that he can do anything. If you haven't, I highly encourage you to go watch ARCANE on Netflix! It is truly an amazing show and brings Piltover and Zaun to life in ways that the paragraphs I read never could. Contact: funkyodorgaming@gmail.com Credits: Rumble's Lore and Story https://universe.leagueoflegends.com/en_US/story/champion/rumble/ Super Galaxy Rumble https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G6JAQD0FmDg&t=24s Rumble Voice Lines: https://www.101soundboards.com/boards/28183-rumble-league-of-legends --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/leagueloreandmore/support

In order to access the entire archived shows/podcasts, you must sign up on our secured server at aftermath.media/ If you want access to the entire online Ground Zero library, which includes videos, audio clips, e-books, e-magazines, documents, a news aggregator, a social media platform, plus the archived shows/podcasts, it's $10 a month. Check out the yearly specials!

For Episode 19 of the SOSH Podcast, we interview the former Commander of III Corps, LTG (Ret.) Sean MacFarland. In a conversation with the SOSH Department's MAJ Ryan Van Wie, LTG MacFarland reflected on his time as Brigade Commander of the “Ready First” Brigade during the 2006 Battle of Ramadi and how that experience differed from his time leading the Counter-ISIL campaign of 2015-2016 in Syria and Iraq. He also shares his views on the decision to withdraw US troops from Afghanistan, why mechanized forces are essential for counterinsurgencies, and perhaps most controversially, why the US should get rid of its Airborne units.    Please email us at SOSHresearchlab@westpoint.edu with any comments, critiques, and questions. We are always looking to hear from our listeners, SOSH Faculty Alumni, and friends of the Department.    LTG (Ret.) Sean Macfarland is a non-resident Senior Fellow at Harvard University's Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs. He was the Commander of 1st Brigade Combat Team, 1st Armored Division in 2006 during the Battle of Ramadi, Iraq. In 2015, he commanded III Corps and assumed responsibility of all coalition forces under Combined Joint Task Force – Operation Inherent Resolve.    MAJ Ryan Van Wie is an instructor of International Relations at the US Military Academy, West Point. His research interests include counterinsurgency strategy and civil conflict dynamics.       This episode was originally recorded on May 4th, 2021.   The views expressed in this podcast are those of the speakers. They should not be seen as reflective of the official positions of the US Military Academy, the United States Army, the Department of Defense, or any other government entity. 

On this week's episode we briefly cover the following topicsNBA Playoffs Round 1 with Dallas MavericksSaturday Night Live series finaleOur Top 3 Music Videos OF ALL TIMEAmerican Idol FinaleM.O.D.O.K. on Hulu staring Patton OswaltWeird Hygiene RitualsA&E's Wresting Documentary Series about Ultimate Warriorand SO much more.Support the show (https://twitter.com/GuDVIBESpodcast?s=20)

All kinds of guests in this segment from May 2nd. Advisor Aleksandr Sergeyev along with Michigan Tech students Heather Harris, Joe Barbercheck, Seth Cherry, and Cole Kubick discuss a special Senior Design project for a disabled girl in Alabama.

We talk about dogecoin, my new favorite show Alone, Mechanized vs. Light Artillery and jump into our OTGL Real Talk discussing some xrated material and finish off with being slaves to our own inventions on the Cross Talk portion. Enjoy. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/danny832/support

When Jim Scott mentions ‘resistance,’ this recovering political scientist isn’t usually talking about grand symbolic statements or large-scale synchronized actions by thousands or more battling an oppressive state. He’s often referring to daily actions by average people, often not acting in concert and perhaps not even seeing themselves as ‘resisting’ at all. The ‘problem’ with political scientists, he tells interviewer David Edmonds, in this Social Science Bites podcast, “is that when they’re talking about resistance they’re tending to talk about overt declarations – protests in the streets, marches, or potentially armed combat. What I’ve found is that throughout history, open resistance of this kind is impossible or suicidal. The result is a lot of what I call ‘unobtrusive forms of resistance.’” There are, he notes, “very many different kinds of resistance: forms of resistance that announce themselves publicly and forms that are more subtle and unobtrusive in order to protect the people who are protesting from massive retaliation.” He offers several examples of this unobtrusive resistance, such as poaching, squatting, and desertion - “common weapons of people who don’t have formal power.” In this podcast, Scott draws on the year and half he spent in a Malaysian village, in the late 1970,s to discuss insights he gained about resistance (and which resulted in his Weapons of the Weak: Everyday Forms of Peasant Resistance). Scott learned the Malay language, acquainted himself with the local Kedah dialect, and studied first the rich and then the poor in this village. Mechanized, combine harvesters had taken over rice harvests in the area, leaving many people out of work and many tenants homeless. While there was no organized public protesting – that would have been foolhardy – he witnessed sabotage in the fields and ousted tenants killing the chickens of those who had evicted them. In a “a subtle showing of contempt,” people who felt badly treated would look the other way when someone they hated crossed their path. “The kind of shunning was extraordinarily effective and humiliating in a face-to-face community of such a small size.” It reflected, in turn, the psychic violence done to the poor -- “Inequality and injustice almost always is reflected in a loss of cultural dignity and standing.” Scott sees resistance from several vantage points in large part because he’s untethered himself from many academic restrictions, “defecting” from a discipline when he finds its approaches miss the point. He trained as a political scientist, for example, but as he saw how it studied elites and mass populations differently -- conducting social science “behind their backs,” as he put it -- he decamped to anthropology. ( But he argues every anthropologist should come with a historian strapped to their back. “James Scott has taught us to see how art can fuel resistance, how social planning can undermine social justice, how anarchic principles inform everyday acts of resistance, and how agriculture led to the rise of state control,” said Tamar Szabó Gendler, the dean of Yale’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences, when the Social Science Research Council awarded him the Albert O. Hirschman Prize last year. 

Mechanized bugs have evolved and present an option to consider when welding on a pipeline.  Paul Spielbauer of  Lake Superior Consulting brings insights into the inherent challenges of pipeline welding and brings success by incorporating tribal knowledge into today’s world. 

The Doctor declares his work finished and Deacon’s new false eye is revealed, a grotesque item that all gathered agree is a charming accessory. The Ledger Guy arrives reporting a problem in The Pit. Finished with the Doctor, Deacon calls for his car which conveys him through the crowded bowels of The Deez eventually arriving at the hatch leading to the Smoker’s tank of crude oil. Special Guests: Drone and Mechanized from V2A

We strap ourselves into the cockpit to a deep dive into the world of giant robots on this episode of the Retro Ridoctopus cephalo-podcast! Along for the interstellar ride is our very good friend and fellow podcaster, Justin Cooper! Stick around as we read the results of our big bloated Facebook battle MECHAPOCALYPSE and for another edition of Power To The Metal as Nintenjoe spotlights the band Hellion Prime! ,,/ Check out Justin Cooper on the following shows! Geeklife HQ Epic Tales From The Sewers The Fan-Tastic Podcast ----------------------------------------Retro Ridoctopus is:• Parasite Steve (read)• 8-Bit Alchemy (listen)• Nintenjoe (subscribe)----------------------------------------All original heavy metal music by Enchanted Exile ,,/ This podcast is powered by Pinecast.

Labor costs in California are high and continue to rise. Nut crops are less affected by this, since most operations are fully mechanized, however fruit must still be hand picked. Rachel Elkins and Stavros Vougioukas share some of the work they’ve done with picking platforms to reduce harvest costs for peaches and pears.Thank you to the Almond, Pistachio, Prune, and Walnut Boards of California for their kind donations. Thank you to Muriel Gordon for the music.The views, thoughts, and opinions expressed are the speaker’s own and do not represent the views, thoughts, and opinions of the University of California. The material and information presented here is for general information purposes only. The "University of California" name and all forms and abbreviations are the property of its owner and its use does not imply endorsement of or opposition to any specific organization, product, or service.

Mostafa Hanafy talks specifics about pipeline strings and tie ins. We talk details of mechanized vs handheld welding. We also talk about the complexity of pipelines from planning to execution of the project.

We shouldn’t have recorded this, so you shouldn’t listen. Don’t forget to bookmark our Amazon link to help us stay online. Use code “GTST” for lifetime 33% off at Eables™ CBD, and enter to win a $25 gift card from Eables. Follow the show on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, so the NSA knows you like quality podcasts. For everything we can’t post on big tech’s networks, follow us on Telegram and check out our brand new chatroom! Subscribe: Tripod Broadcasting Podcasts … The post GTST Episode 261: Mechanized Meat Suit first appeared on Tripod Broadcasting.

We shouldn’t have recorded this, so you shouldn’t listen. Don’t forget to bookmark our Amazon link to help us stay online. Use code “GTST” for lifetime 33% off at Eables™ CBD, and enter to win a $25 gift card from Eables. Follow the show on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, so the NSA knows you like quality podcasts. For everything we can’t post on big tech’s networks, follow us on Telegram and check out our brand new chatroom! Subscribe: Tripod Broadcasting Podcasts … The post GTST Episode 261: Mechanized Meat Suit first appeared on Tripod Broadcasting.

Here it is again, sorry that it is late, we played the 5 games and sometimes these games, let me tell ya, we played Castlequest (not as fun as it sounds), Racket Attack (a lot more racket, a lot less attack), Super Pitfall (more like super pit something, you know), Mechanized Attack (about 50/50 on the mech and the attack if I'm being honest), and Kickle Cubicle which might have been the best game of the week, where did that come from. Give it a listen, let us know what you think on Facebook and the Soc Meds. --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/nesessary-podcast0/support

"Bradleys from the 30th Armored Brigade Combat Team were last sent to Syria in late October 2019 to guard oil infrastructure from [Daesh] militants, officials said at the time," Army Times reported Friday. "They were quietly pulled out after roughly a month when combined patrols with Turkish forces 'never materialized' and the 'mission requirements changed,' a military official in the region previously told Army Times." One year later, the US military is sending such forces back to Syria. What's the problem here, other than that the US should never have engaged in regime change in Syria in the first place?US President Donald Trump is preparing to nominate a successor to Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg this week. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) said back in 2016, following the death of Justice Antonin Scalia, that the American people should be allowed to vote in the presidential election and through that process provide their input to the Supreme Court nomination process. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) made clear his belief that Supreme Court appointments shouldn't be pushed through in an election year, going so far as to say that if a similar situation came up in the future, "I want you to use my words against me." How do we see ourselves through the dust created by this political spin? "Close to 1 million people have died of the virus around the world, a staggering toll," the New York Times reported Monday about the COVID-19 pandemic. "Around the world, at least 73 countries are seeing surges in newly detected cases." What are we to make of this?US Claims UN Sanctions on Iran Reinstated: The World Disagrees - "On Sunday, the United States reiterated that “snapback sanctions” against Iran are back in place at the United Nations, and that all nations are compelled to obey them," Antiwar.com reported Sunday. "They say that the US was allowed to unilaterally do this under the P5+1 nuclear deal." There's a small problem here, a fly in the ointment: "the United States is virtually the only nation that thinks so," Antiwar.com noted. How will this end?A Saturday Reuters headline read: "Pompeo hails Colombia's stance on Maduro, pledges more help in drugs fight." The article said: “'Your support for interim [Venezuelan] president Juan Guaido and the democratic transition for a sovereign Venezuela free of malign influence ... is incredibly valued,' Pompeo told [Colombian President Ivan] Duque in a joint press conference in Bogota." What are we to make of this? A Friday article in CounterPunch said, "With tens of millions unemployed, inevitable eviction merely postponed for a few months and low-wage jobs and small businesses drying up like the Rio Grande south of Albuquerque, you'd think the federal government could negotiate some help for stranded Americans." Is this possible?"Ideas that Russia and China will play by sets of Western rules under any circumstances are deeply flawed, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said in an interview with New York-based international Russian-language RTVI channel," TASS reported last week. What signals are being sent here? The title of Max Bluementhal's Friday piece in The Grayzone read: "Mainstream US reporters silent about being spied on by apparent CIA contractor that targeted Assange." What are we to make of this?Guests:Laith Marouf - Broadcaster and journalist based in Beirut, LebanonJohn Burris - Civil rights attorneyDr. Iyabo Obasanjo - Professor, epidemiologist, veterinarian and daughter of former Nigerian President Olusegun ObasanjoRobert Fantina - Journalist and Palestine activistLeo Flores - Latin America coordinator for Code PinkLinwood Tauheed - Associate professor of economics at the University of Missouri-Kansas CityDaniel Lazare - Investigative journalist and author of "The Velvet Coup"Jim Kavanagh - Writer at The Polemicist and CounterPunch and the author of the article "Over the Rainbow: Paths of Resistance After George Floyd"

After a couple of weeks hiatus brought on by KillerCon and a death in the family, we are back in force showing everyone what we are made of, with spoilers, ruined anuses, and obese sex offenders making the list of shit we talk about this week!Three writers talking about the thing they love most about games, the monsters!Lemons Clemons of the Rosedale Shakespeare CompanyJohn Baltisberger the Kaiju PoetCharles Bernard the Salt City SinnerThe Project Entertainment NetworkBuy Lemon's New Book!Find John's Books!Find Charles' BooksSupport the show (https://www.patreon.com/MHP_Horror)

Meet Kamal Yakub, co-founder of TROTRO Tractor, sometimes called the 'Uber for tractors' in Africa. TROTRO Tractor is an agricultural technology company that makes it possible for smallholder farmers to access agricultural machinery services ranging from tractors to combined harvesters, planters etc. as well as post harvest machinery, like shellers and treshers. Why that is a huge deal? According to Kamal, the average smallholder farmer in Ghana has about three acres of land and thus far getting access to agricultural machinery for land preparation and other services has been difficult to impossible for smallholder farmers in Ghana, which make up the majority of farmers in the country. Through TROTRO Tractor, the very smallholder farmers, that were mostly left out from mechanized farming now have the option to order mechanized farm services via USSD short codes from their phones, a service that has meet a real need. At the time of the interview in August 2019 TROTRO Tractor already had about 21.000 farmers signed up on their platform. But not just that, digitizing the payment processes with mobile money and upgrading the tractors and the agricultural machinery with IoT capabilities, such as geo fencing, gathering data on the agricultural machinery as well as the payment history for the services supplied, becomes possible, allowing the tractor owners to access financial services such as loans and insurances with more ease, according to Kamal. In the interview we speak about: ★ How Kamal and his team came up with the idea ★ How they tested their idea with no money down ★ What the bottlenecks are, how the right partnerships could make a huge impact for the advancement of mechanized farming in Ghana ★ What his advice is for young entrepreneurs on the continent and so much more... __ Also here the Interview with Kamal Yakub co-founder of TROTRO Tractor on the AfricaX Blog.

Sosa me acompaña hablando de lo que la Estructura Mechanized Madnees trae al Yu-Gi-Oh! Social Media: Facebook: www.facebook.com/YGOTheShadowGames YouTube:www.youtube.com/c/TheShadowGames Instagram: the_shadow_games

The movie It was really good! One-shot gimmicks of the past and appreciating the technical complexity of what was done here. People The demographic makeup of the British military. Young average infantryman age. “Pals battalions” and serving alongside your friends. The Great War The scale of WWI versus what came before. Rising contemporary appreciation for the study of this conflict. How much was the war a “modern war” and how much did it help usher in the modern world? Horses and tanks. Trench warfare The shovel as a tool of war for millenia. How do we wind up with stalemate trench warfare? A hint of trench warfare in the American Civil War. Really impressive trench engineering. Tanks, tech, strategy, and the eventual end of trench warfare. Rats - yuck! Rats in the trenches. Technology Barbed wire. Mechanized warfare. Horses in WWI and WWII. Tanks! Really slow and not very great tanks. Radio reliability. Hard-line comms. Sending messages by foot, radio, or… dropping it out of a plane? Medical infrastructure and what modern medicine owes to WWI. A Prussian Landwehrmann tanning rat skins in a dugout, WWI: Reddit Josh's show's on LSG Media: The X-Files Podcast (always)Science Fiction Film Podcast (sometimes) Gallipoli: Prime VideoiTunes They Shall Not Grow Old: iTunesAmazonYouTube They Shall Not Grow Old: film restoration, persistance of vision, and vfx: Decipher SciFi Support the show!

Welcome to Miss-Rolled Adventures! Where the players make plans, and horribly execute them! We find the adventurers in the continent of Faerun of the Material plane. Taking place in a modular campaign with heavy homebrew elements and setting! This will be different and most likely something you have not seen or heard! RPGLeague - Roll, Play, Win! Coming soon, http://www.rpgleague.com Come Join the Adventure There are a number of homebrew elements that I decided would make the adventure more enjoyable for the players and allow for more creativity! 1 - While some characters would not fit the requirements for specific multi-classing, I have removed the requirements but instead force a story trigger that allows the potential. It is not a level up choice initially. 2 - Due to the wild nature of the magic currently in the area, whenever a spell of arcane or divine magic is cast, they roll to determine if a wild magic surge occurs. 3 - To allow for faster character building at first, when the players reached level 4, they were given an ability score improvement option regardless of specific class level. They must receive the next one as normal, requiring the class to reach the specific level apart from their first one. 4 - Changing ones knowledge on spells is normally not something that can be done apart from leveling, but due to the wild nature in the area, they are allowed to change spells based on the level. You can only change spells a maximum of 3 times per long rest and they must range from different level of spells. Thumbnail made by @pip400art on Twitter through paid commission Check out our good friends of Minnesota! Dragons in the Dining Room! They stream a ton and also upload said streams to YouTube! https://www.twitch.tv/dragonsinthediningroom/ https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCAQz_74LTjimfF-YKWNm8KA Audio--------- Teller of the Tales Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i-Pg3apUIWA&t=1s Lonely Light - Sad Fantasy Music Emily - RollForFantasy https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KqxUGygbXdc Sunny Afternoon - Elvish Fantasy Music Emily - RollForFantasy https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yNZNgER-Xqc Fear The Dark - Dark Fantasy Music Emily - RollForFantasy https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CFKoZT3Qp54 Desolate Wasteland - Calm Fantasy Music Emily - RollForFantasy https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6_dK-StgvJ8 'Dance of the Dragons'' Jay Man - OurMusicBox http://www.youtube.com/c/ourmusicbox Thank you for listening to our #ActualPlay podcast! If you liked it, then drop us a like and leave a comment about some fun #TTRPG or #dnd5e moments you remember! Good or bad, either is fine :)

Welcome to the 37th Episode of The Two Tankers And a Cat Podcast!  The mittlere Schützenpanzerwagen (Sd Kfz 251/1) was designed to transport Panzer-Grenadiere (armored infantry) into battle alongside tanks. Using a half-tracked vehicle, it was possible to drive in terrain where trucks could not go, while its armor offered some protection against small arms fire and scrapnel. It was allowed for the mittlere Schützenpanzerwagen to attack with the Panzer-Grenadiere mounted, but did so at great risk. Anti-tank guns, mortars, artillery, hand grenades, fighter-bombers, etc. were all a serious risk for the lightly-armored, open-topped vehicles.  As always you can contact us with your comments or suggestions at twotankersandcat@gmail.com  Check out our website at www.twotankersandcat.com Happy Tanking and Have A Great Week! Russel & Charlie

In our culture, we have placed a set of habitual notions about time on top of the soul’s instincts and intuitions about rhythm and temporality. The physicist David Bohm said that, “. . . every thought assumes time. Whether we discuss thought or anything else, we always take time for granted. And we take for granted the notion that everything exists in time. We don’t take for granted that time is an abstraction and a representation, but we take for granted that time is of the essence—reality—and that everything is existing in time, including thought.” What if we have some very unskillful notions about time? What if the evolution of our culture depends on shifting our relationship with time?

Seems like a routine mission: intercept a secretive convoy and retrieve its mysterious package. But our squad of pilots, with their hulking weapons of war, find that their past hurts catch up soon enough. The Gauntlet, and everything related, can be found at https://www.gauntlet-rpg.com/ Beam Saber, by Austin Ramsay, can be found at https://austin-ramsay.itch.io/beamsaber Sword Queen Games can be found at https://temporalhiccup.itch.io/

Jake and Justin discuss Fortnite Season 10, Ninja having trouble with his old channel, Minecraft not getting new graphics, and Apex Legends cosmetics being too expensive. 

Drinks are shared in this round of Casual Master Quest! Have a pint on us as we cheer on the football (or FIFA for the layman) championship match this weekend, dream of understanding what Kojima is trying to tell us, fight off video game burnout, and indulge in the more sporadic Pokemon news as the Nintendo Direct looms ever closer. This is Casual Master Quest! Games We Played: Dungeons & Dragons Grand Theft Auto 5 Roleplay Overwatch Splitgate Modular segment: Death Stranding. We finally know! (What do we know?) https://www.reddit.com/r/DeathStranding/comments/bughls/kojima_finally_explains_death_stranding_sorta/ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=piIgkJWDuQg https://www.techradar.com/news/death-stranding-could-be-out-on-pc-as-soon-as-may-2020 https://www.reddit.com/r/DeathStranding/comments/bvp92d/anyone_else_pick_up_on_this_kojima_looking_out/ Topic of the Show: Pokemon News Galore! https://www.gamecrate.com/everything-we-learned-2019-pok-mon-press-conference/23141 Pokemon Sleep Pokemon GO Plus + Detective Pikachu 2 Pokemon Masters Pokemon Home Game releases: The Elder Scrolls Online: Elsweyr (Jun 4th, PS4/XB1/PC) Kotodama: The 7 Mysteries of Fujisawa (Jun 4th, PS4/XB1/PC) The legend of heroes: Trails of cold steel II - Relentless Ed. (June 4th, PS4) Persona Q2: New Cinema Labyrinth (Jun 4th, 3DS) Warhammer: Chaosbane (Jun 4th, PS4/XB1/PC) MotoGP 19 (Jun 6th, PS4/XB1/PC/NS) Octopath Traveler (Jun 7th, PC) This day in gaming (June 3rd, 2019) Star Fox (1993, SNES) Super Mario Bros. : The Lost Levels (1986, Famicom) Donkey Kong (1982, Game & Watch Multi Screen) https://www.mobygames.com/stats/this-day/0603 Tyler: @TwoTimesTyler Nik: twitch.tv/lrwarrior11, Twitter and IG @lrwarrior11 CMQ: Twitter @MasterQuestPod, Email casualmasterquest@gmail.com, https://www.facebook.com/CasualMasterQuest/ https://soundcloud.com/revelriesmusic is where you can find the artist who made our theme song! All other music was purchased and played under the Creative Commons license which can be found at https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ The promotion ended, but screw it, they're great! Our podcast partner this week is still Death Saving Bros.! http://www.deathsavingbros.com/

Red and Mike present an Erotic Thriller Special. Apologies in advance. Plus a quick introduction to the world of Folk Horror. Presented by Mike Milling and Red RedmondProduced  by Dead Cat ComedyRecorded + Edited by Red RedmondMusic by Eddie French

Reviews of Lego Movie 2, First Reformed, Minding the Gap, If Beale Street Could Talk, Cold War, At Eternity's Gate, and The Wife. News on Red Sonja, Conan the Conquerer, Captain Marvel, Marvels five new adult animated shows on Hulu, The Flash, The Trench, Albert Finney's death, and changes to the Oscars.

Latest episode of 8.5Bits

Juliette revisits the millennium, hates The Warden, gets circled by a peeing peacock, deflects seething balls, lines a desk with weed, prepares for the worst, alludes to a serial killer, attends a sleeper, considers a time out, fears 10 years of prison, stands accused, and settles the score on the worst ever New Year's Eve... all while drinking Jim Beam Distiller's Masterpiece bourbon.

Ira Sherman presents the inspirations, techniques, and concepts from his early work as a jewelry designer leading to his current collection of prosthetic sculpture and chastity couture.

Show notes: http://bit.ly/1PjaVyU Two-Week Catch-Up: Darrell embarks upon a spectacular staycation, watches all seven Fast + Frustrating films, & "plays Diablo III until my fingers hurt" Darrell enjoys the "reconstructive cars" in 2 Fast 2 Furious, Jermaine's bedazzled by the "Dodge Chargers + Safes" in Fast Five, & Robert loves the "infinite runways" of FF6 + "glorious parachuting cars" in Furious 7 Robert tries Japanese acupuncture & donates his childhood to the local library Jermaine visits Wisconsin's Cheese Castle, tries the "triple-bypass burger" in Pittsburgh, plays more Diablo III, & gives Mario Maker a whirl Nerdy News: Robert thinks Microsoft's new "Surface Book" looks mighty impressive Darrell wants to believe with the X-Files series revival Jermaine keeps the American Dream alive & reminds us capitalism's alive + well Robert wonders, "Why can't America be more like Germany wrt vocational trades?" Darrell adds, "Don't forget VW!" Trailer Talk: Jessica Jones (Netflix original series) Darrell: "Superheroes, Hell's Kitchen, private investigator-- all things I like! Three stars." Robert: "Mr. Hastings, I hope this show does bonkers money & inspires Netflix to embark upon more Showtime/Cinemax-esque programming! Widen that demographic & take our money! 4.5 stars." Jermaine: "WHAT is happening to this world? We're AGREEING ON EVERYTHING. Four stars." Review of Blindspot pilot: Darrell: "I'm in!" Robert: "Man. Everyone's favorite American. . . . is actually Australian! Anyway. Isn't this just Prison Break meets Bourne Identity? Unimpressed. Three stars. (As I said weeks ago! Consistent as a rock.)" "Also: Damien Scott scores 23 million compared to Stonebridge's 4 million. Ugh. Wished those numbers were reversed!" Jermaine: "I don't know what I should do! I feel like I should disagree with you! But I don't! It's a 'solid meh.' Perfectly average." Review of The Player pilot: Robert: "It's Montana's favorite cultural export! Philip Winchester! Yes!" Jermaine: "Based on the pilot, most terrible show ever. . . . but after episode two? I'M IN! But oh man, the pilot. . . . SO overstuffed!" Darrell: "I like how the audience is right there with the character for the ride. So great." Recommendations: Robert worships The Song Machine in John Seabrook's insider tour of the Swedish pop-hit factory Jermaine can't get enough of Episodes-- the story of what happens in translation when a British television hit crosses the pond & arrives stateside. . . . Darrell recommends Netflix's Longmire-- a cowboy from Wyoming living in this modern era

“Mechanized doom” —For Whom The Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway.  / My Grunt & GulpJS screencasts: compiling Bootstrap 4 SCSS into CSS and more. / “This b—-.” / “Pizza phone!” / “Birdman inkster.” Listen: download the mp3. 🔔

Due to a computer failure I've not been able to record the sessions that followed this one.  So I will summarize the events that followed. The Tinkerman Transport Company (TTC) flew to Six Gun Junction, the primary city of Little Texas.   There they got in contact with Petrolux Oil Company that works the sole oil well in the Hinterlands to get some quality, high temperature oil as detailed in Tinkerman's notebook.   They checked on the order for the finely tooled seat covers that the professor had left with Hempstead Fine Leather Goods and found it finished but warehoused, so they ordered it brought to the store for inspection. They went to The Foundry to purchase some more weapons but found little to their liking since most weapons were designed to fit in well for the 1890's time period that Little Texas emulates. A surprise visit from a stranger prompted Professor Silas to return to the Airport.  There he met the CEO of New Horizon's Construction Company who needed his expert assistance in developing a superior explosive to aid their bid for the first railroad that Little Texas has ever had. After seeing how much money this could be for TTC as well as a way to get NHCC to pay for the very expensive lubricants they wanted Petrolux to make for them, he agreed and travelled to their compound.  Turned out that they made their own explosives so the lab he needed was well equipped, but a number of workers seemed suspicious.  Silas confronted the head machinist Bingo and made an enemy for life.  That night someone tried to blow up Silas's hacienda.  Only the quick actions of his bodyguard Alpha saved his skin and allowed them to dispatch the assassin.  Sadly the Animal cat, Machen Meow, lost most of her litter of kittens, but she solaced herself by eating the eyeball she had ripped from the assassin's face during the battle. Meanwhile the rest of the TTC had a wonderful evening at the Kickapoo casino.  Benjamin Reiher and Natasia made a little money at the black jack table.  Jason the Pig cleaned up at the poker tables.  Dan McCoy displayed his weapon prowess at the arcade and set up a special shootout exhibition for the next day. The next morning as they were leaving their floor of the casino suites, they ran into two gunman.  Desperately trying to protect Jason, they ran to the fire escape but found a blaze of gunfire from the street right after they pushed Jason into the escape tube.  Throwing caution to the wind, Benjamin leaped down to the next floor and managed to grab Jason before he slid out of reach but suffered multiple gunshot wounds for his effort.  Dan and the casino guards arrived in time to chase off the kidnappers.  Dan pursued someone he thought was involved and almost caught him but only managed to grab his duster.  Fortunately the varmint's wallet was in the duster.  In the wallet was a decent amount of silver coin and a premium ticket for the Wild Bill Shootout Extravaganza that Dan had set up.  The ticket indicated that it was part of a group purchase.  Trouble at the shootout? Dan hired a fast ride to Wild Bill's ranch and checked out the site for details on the competition and for possible ambush locations by the kidnappers.  The shootout was to take place in a ghost town set rife with clockwork mechanisms and pressure traps.  Wild Bill told him the competition against two of the greatest shooters Little Texas had ever known was the following: 1. Mechanized arcade bottle shootout2. Dollar toss shoot (any dollars hit are kept by the shooter - dollars are worth $35 US - up to 200 targets were tossed at a time but practically only 12 could be hit).3. Match Lighting - hit a number of Rube Goldberg contraptions that would ultimately light a match or light them directly with a bullet for extra points4. Wooden Indian Cigar Shootout - knock the lighted ash from the cigars held by wooden indians - Kickapoo approved.5. Ride by target shooting - hit targets that swing, jump, and bounce into view at a walk, canter, and then gallop down main street -- second round side by side ride with opponent tied to each other with a leash as each fired at targets on opposing sides of the street.  Yanking on the leash was fair game.6  Follow the leader last minute challenge by Dan McCoy as each contestant had to hit targets picked by the leader (Dan and the other two contestants rotated as leader).7. Death Walk - can you survive the angry ghosts to get to the far end of Main Street Until the final challenge, Dan was leading the competition, which gave him lots of crowd support.  Even his two competitors tipped their hats to him. The death walk for Dan: A ghastly undead bushwacker leaned over the edge of the general store and made Dan dance until Dan could hit him square between the eyes and put him to rest. A rotting dance hall girl beckoned Dan to fire at a target inside the salon, when he did the entire brick top floor swung out periously over his body.  He could try to get where he would go through a glass window when it dropped or try to hit a small bullseye to stop it.  Dan tried for the target and missed.  Dan rolled back well enough that the bricks only bruised him under his undercover vest. As he passed the cooper's shop, barrows smashed through the window and slammed right into him.  The crowd gasped because the barrows were supposed to fly right over Dan's head and give him a more targets to hit.  Mechanical error or foul play?  It had worked fine for the other two shooters who had already finished the Death Walk.  Dan suffered 3 wounds and was now missing targets that were worth a lot of points. An electrical fence wire web rose up behind Dan and began to close.  Dan had to pick up his pace or get zapped like a heifer.  Just then a gauntlet of decaying and disintegrating townsfolk lined the street on both sides before him.  All looked lost, but Dan realized they were firing in a pattern that if solved would allow him to walk unscathed while shooting the targets on each one, time permitting since that electric threat closed every faster on Dan.  He rolled the dice and sussed the pattern, darting forward as slowly as he could to get the maximum number of targets. At the end of the competitions it was: Merry Burgess - 972Dan McCoy - 1103Cliff Levan - 1200 Cliff being the champion shooter of Little Texas was not surprised as his triumph, but everyone wondered what would have happened if there wasn't that tragic barrow accident that wounded Dan.  Beating Merry, a man of no little notoriety, was still unexpected,  Dan's sizable 2nd place purse would not be need to pay for drinks that night. This campaign is now on hiatus due to work requirements.  Hopefully we will be back and recording in about a month. If you've enjoyed this campaign, please Bruce Sheffer a message, flaming or otherwise, at our facebook groups, the tritac gamer's forum, the podcast site (tritacsystems.podbean.com) or just give the Tri Tac Podcast a glowing review on Itunes and mention our actual play episodes. Thanks partners!

The party decides what to do with the kraken and their city.

The party decides what to do with the kraken and their city.

The party decides what to do with the kraken and their city.

The party decides what to do with the kraken and their city.

The party decides what to do with the kraken and their city.

The party decides what to do with the kraken and their city.

The party decides what to do with the kraken and their city.

March Music of 2014 show

Hosts: Dickson Despommier and Vincent Racaniello Dickson and Vincent discuss the effects on industrialization on the development of farming. Links for this episode History of agriculture (New World Encycl) Haber process (Wikipedia) Urea synthesis (Wikipedia) Plants need 18 elements (Cornell) The industrial revolution Crop indemnity maps (USDA) Image credit Dickson's Pick Photographs of Dorothea Lange Send your questions and comments to urbanag@urbanag.ws

Chris Kaye speaks to Major Laurence Roache, the spokesman for Task Force Helmand, 4 Mechanized Brigade. Half way through Op Herrick 17 hear about the successes so far, what challenges are still to come and how the Afghan security forces are developing.

The Xingu is famous worldwide, not only for the Amazon forest and its border with the Brazilian savannah (called “Cerrado”), but for the cultural richness of its oldest inhabitants: 24 distinct indigenous ethnicities, who still live, drink, bathe and fish in Xingu’s water. The spread of soy and beef production during the last decades has left 300,000 hectares of degraded areas around rivers and water springs in the Xingu basin, threatening the survival of its original people and their health, as well as the economic viability of these new businesses. These areas are legally protected in Brazil: where native vegetation was cut, it must be restored. However, that is not what usually happens, mainly because seeds, seedlings and technology are still not available. The campaign Y Ikatu Xingu (“Save the Good Water of the Xingu”, in the local Kamaiura language) has been uniting indigenous peoples’ organizations, small farmers settled by agrarian reform, larger-scale farmers, governmental and non-governmental institutions since 2005 in one great effort for the restoration of riparian forests aiming for the conservation of the Xingu’s water. By working in a participatory way with different actors, new solutions for tropical forest restoration at the landscape-scale were developed. Our work has been communicated on national and local television channels, in newspapers and on the radio, as well as in local events promoted by churches, clubs, unions, schools and agribusiness companies, always including the local farmers who support “Muvuca”. This new way of forest restoration is becoming popular in the region, expanding steadily by 30-50% per year in planting area and metric tons of seeds planted. For making this amount of native seeds available, we helped create the Xingu Seeds Network, which brings together indigenous people and smallholders as seed collectors, selling native seeds from the Cerrado and Amazonia to farmers who need to restore riparian vegetation on their farmland. The Xingu Seeds Network has annual meetings to discuss maintenance and impacts of seed collection, storage techniques, organization and seed prices. The network is four years old and has generated US$250,000 in income for 300 local families, organized in 15 groups spanning a 400 kilometer radius, producing 53 tons of seeds of 203 different native species. To date, over 2,400 hectares in 21 municipalities have been restored through this campaign. Of those, 400 hectares were planted with seedlings, 1,000 hectares through exclusion and management of natural regeneration, and 1,000 hectares through mechanized direct sowing. The next challenges for the campaign now include the development of the native forest technology, legislation and economy, such as the organization of local productive systems, access to credit, infrastructure and marketing.

For the last week of my existence as a bachelor, we're examining an idea spawned by the ongoing struggle of how to approach the environment. Would the environment, and our world in general, benefit if we began to take a more 'mechanized view' of how things work? Aren't there advantages to approaching life as a series of systems, similar to the mechanics of a car or a computer? We break down why we think that the 'mechanized view' in all things might help us reach what is truly essential to anything in in life: balance. Opening Music: "Fire In The Sky" by Dave London Closing Music: "ET" by Peplab