Podcasts about Wu

In this episode of the Epigenetics Podcast, we talked with Kunal Rai from MD Anderson Cancer Center about his work on active DNA demethylation and its role in cancer progression. A major part of the conversation covers his postdoctoral work on active DNA demethylation. He describes how he identified an AID-MBD4-based mechanism, later supported by GAD45, and how this work showed a role for DNA demethylation in early neuronal differentiation and in colon cancer initiation. We then discuss his move into his own lab and his work on melanoma progression. He explains how he used broad epigenomic profiling, chromatin state analysis, and 3D chromatin methods to study enhancers and chromatin organization, and how these approaches helped reveal changes linked to cancer progression. Another topic is his work on epigenetic regulators such as RNF2 and KMT2D. He describes findings on polycomb and trithorax-related factors, including tumor-suppressive roles for KMT2D in melanoma and lung cancer, and how KMT2D loss affects cell phenotype and metabolism. Finally, we talk about lab organization, collaboration, and newer technologies. He says his group works across multiple cancer types and increasingly includes immunology, single-cell methods, spatial epigenomics, and clinical translation, while still using ChIP-seq, CUT&RUN, and CUT&Tag where appropriate. References Fiziev, P., Akdemir, K. C., Miller, J. P., Keung, E. Z., Samant, N. S., Sharma, S., Natale, C. A., Terranova, C. J., Maitituoheti, M., Amin, S. B., Martinez-Ledesma, E., Dhamdhere, M., Axelrad, J. B., Shah, A., Cheng, C. S., Mahadeshwar, H., Seth, S., Barton, M. C., Protopopov, A., Tsai, K. Y., … Rai, K. (2017). Systematic Epigenomic Analysis Reveals Chromatin States Associated with Melanoma Progression. Cell reports, 19(4), 875–889. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.celrep.2017.03.078 Terranova, C. J., Tang, M., Maitituoheti, M., Raman, A. T., Ghosh, A. K., Schulz, J., Amin, S. B., Orouji, E., Tomczak, K., Sarkar, S., Oba, J., Creasy, C., Wu, C. J., Khan, S., Lazcano, R., Wani, K., Singh, A., Barrodia, P., Zhao, D., Chen, K., … Rai, K. (2021). Reprogramming of bivalent chromatin states in NRAS mutant melanoma suggests PRC2 inhibition as a therapeutic strategy. Cell reports, 36(3), 109410. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.celrep.2021.109410 Related Episodes Epigenetic Signatures During Aging and Cancer (Alena van Bömmel) Epigenetic Mechanisms in Breast Cancer (Luca Magnani) The Effect of Histone Demethylases on Gene Expression and Cancer Cell Stability (Johnathan Whetstine) Contact Epigenetics Podcast on Mastodon Epigenetics Podcast on Bluesky Dr. Stefan Dillinger on LinkedIn Active Motif on LinkedIn Active Motif on Bluesky Email: podcast@activemotif.com

Episode 4210 │ August 25, 2026 Anthropic admitted degrading their own AI's output quality to comply with EU watermarking law. Mike Adams says that changed the entire race. WHAT THIS EPISODE COVERS  Scott Kesterson sits down with Mike Adams for their first conversation in a year, opening with the oracle versus librarian framework both have independently arrived at — AI as a tool for research and task execution, never as a divine verdict-giver — and using the Chinese farmer Wu's destroyed sesame crop as the case study for why blaming AI rather than human accountability misdiagnoses every failure. Adams delivers the most significant claim of the interview: Anthropic publicly admitted to watermarking all model outputs under EU law by statistically biasing token selection, a technical concession that provably reduces output quality, while China's DeepSeek, Qwen, and other open-published models have pulled ahead of the US frontier labs specifically because Chinese companies shared their research openly instead of hoarding it as classified defense technology. The conversation closes on the sovereign computing model both are independently building — desktop AI on AMD's Strix Halo chip, open-weight models run locally on solar power, and a coming economy where owning hardware and generating your own energy matters more than money, because decentralized cognition is, in Adams's words, the single greatest threat to globalist control of what people are allowed to know. KEY QUESTIONS ADDRESSED  What did Anthropic publicly admit about watermarking their AI model outputs to comply with EU law — and why does Mike Adams argue this technical concession provably reduces the quality of every response, even for US domestic users who never consented to it? How did China overtake the US in the AI race — and why does Adams argue that China's strategy of openly publishing research papers and sharing innovations like sparse attention mechanisms and KV cache compression across companies proved more effective than the secrecy-driven US model treating AI as classified defense technology? What is the sovereign computing model Scott and Mike Adams are both building — and why does running open-weight AI models locally on solar-powered hardware represent, in Adams's words, decentralized augmented cognition and the single greatest threat to globalist controllers who have always sought to limit public access to knowledge? ABOUT BARDSFM BardsFM is a daily independent podcast covering faith, liberty, history, and information warfare. Hosted by Scott Kesterson — combat veteran, documentary filmmaker, and rancher. Over 4,100 episodes and 50 million lifetime downloads. New episodes every weekday. bards.fm This episode was researched and produced under the Spatial Terra Intelligence Methodology (STIM v5) — the analytical framework built by Scott Kesterson — with AI-assisted research synthesis at a 70/30 human/AI authorship ratio, fully disclosed. All analysis, conclusions, and editorial judgments are those of Scott Kesterson. BardsFM's archive includes hundreds of episodes on prayer, scripture, and walking the Way of Christ — available free in the full episode catalog. DOWNLOADS Citizen's Guide - Community Organizing Against Data Centers: click here Citizen's Guide - Auditing Automatic License Plate Readers: click here Citizen's Guide - Auditing Your State's Driver License Data: click here AFFILIATE LINKS Bards Nation Health Store: www.bardsnationhealth.com MYPillow promo code: BARDS >> Go to https://www.mypillow.com/bards and use the promo code BARDS or... Call 1-800-975-2939.  EMPShield protect your vehicles and home. Promo code BARDS: Click here Treadlite Broadforks...best garden tool EVER. Promo code BARDS26: TreadliteBroadforks.com EnviroKlenz Air Purification, promo code BARDS to save 10%: www.enviroklenz.com Morning Intro Music Provided by Brian Kahanek: www.briankahanek.com Founders Bible 20% discount code: BARDS >>> TheFoundersBible.com Windblown Media 20% Discount with promo code BARDS: windblownmedia.com White Oak Pastures Grassfed Meats, Get $20 off any order $150 or more. Promo Code BARDS: www.whiteoakpastures.com/BARDS Mission Darkness Faraday Bags and RF Shielding. Promo code BARDS: Click here DONATIONS: If you wish to support this podcast directly you can donate here... DONATE: Click here MAILING ADDRESS: Xpedition Cafe, LLC Attn. Scott Kesterson 591 E Central Ave, #740 Sutherlin, OR  97479

Wir gehen auf Tour und Tickets gibts [hier](https://links.190a.de/talent/trashologinnen) Gönnt euch KoRo [hier](https://serv.linkster.co/r/kBjeQcWG2K) Mit dem Code *TRASH* gibt es 5% Rabatt Folgt uns um keine Datenanalysen oder psychologischen Hintergrundinfos zu verpassen: [Instagram](https://www.instagram.com/trashologinnen/) | [TikTok](https://www.tiktok.com/@trashologinnen) Sounddesign und Schnitt: [Sophie Hiller ](https://www.instagram.com/soundbysophie_/) Literatur aus der Folge: Andersson, P. A., Vartanova, I., Västfjäll, D., Tinghög, G., Strimling, P., Wu, J., ... & Eriksson, K. (2024). Anger and disgust shape judgments of social sanctions across cultures, especially in high individual autonomy societies. Scientific reports, 14(1), 5591. Bodenhausen, G. V., Sheppard, L. A., & Kramer, G. P. (1994). Negative affect and social judgment: The differential impact of anger and sadness. European Journal of social psychology, 24(1), 45-62.

Episode 4207 │ August 17, 2026 An oracle ends the not knowing. A librarian leaves you responsible. Most people are turning AI into an oracle without realizing it. WHAT THIS EPISODE COVERS Scott Kesterson opens with corrections to last week's surveillance coverage before building a full theological framework around a single Hebrew word, kesem — divination, the practice of consulting a procedure outside God's authority to escape the weight of a decision — and applies it directly to how Americans are using AI and surveillance technology as oracles rather than librarians, demanding verdicts instead of doing the accountable work of verification. Scott dismantles the crowd-sourced Flock camera maps people are misreading as proof of surveillance gaps, walks through Kentucky's new law requiring visual verification before any ALPR-triggered traffic stop, and uses Ring's cancelled 2025 partnership with Flock to show that Americans built the largest private surveillance network in the country one household at a time and only objected once they lost control of who could view it. The episode closes on the Chinese farmer Wu, who destroyed 25 acres of sesame crop by blindly following an AI herbicide recommendation without a patch test or expert consultation, and the biblical distinction Scott draws from 1 Samuel 15 and Proverbs 16: the sin is not the tool, it is surrendering the accountability that was always yours to carry. KEY QUESTIONS ADDRESSED What is the Hebrew concept of kesem, divination — and why does Scott argue that using AI, license plate cameras, or any data tool as an oracle rather than a librarian repeats the exact sin condemned in Deuteronomy 18 and 1 Samuel 15? Why do the crowd-sourced Flock camera maps circulating online lead people to draw false conclusions — and what does Kentucky's new law requiring visual verification before any ALPR-triggered traffic stop reveal about the gap between what the technology shows and what it actually proves? What really happened when a Chinese farmer's AI-recommended herbicide destroyed his sesame crop — and why does Scott argue that blaming AI for the outcome, rather than the farmer's failure to patch test or consult an expert, is the same accountability-avoidance driving fear-based narratives about surveillance and artificial intelligence across the board? ABOUT BARDSFM BardsFM is a daily independent podcast covering faith, liberty, history, and information warfare. Hosted by Scott Kesterson — combat veteran, documentary filmmaker, and rancher. Over 4,100 episodes and 50 million lifetime downloads. New episodes every weekday. bards.fm This episode was researched and produced under the Spatial Terra Intelligence Methodology (STIM v5) — the analytical framework built by Scott Kesterson — with AI-assisted research synthesis at a 70/30 human/AI authorship ratio, fully disclosed. All analysis, conclusions, and editorial judgments are those of Scott Kesterson. BardsFM's archive includes hundreds of episodes on prayer, scripture, and walking the Way of Christ — available free in the full episode catalog. DOWNLOADS Citizen's Guide - Community Organizing Against Data Centers: click here Citizen's Guide - Auditing Automatic License Plate Readers: click here Citizen's Guide - Auditing Your State's Driver License Data: click here AFFILIATE LINKS Bards Nation Health Store: www.bardsnationhealth.com MYPillow promo code: BARDS >> Go to https://www.mypillow.com/bards and use the promo code BARDS or... Call 1-800-975-2939.  EMPShield protect your vehicles and home. Promo code BARDS: Click here Treadlite Broadforks...best garden tool EVER. Promo code BARDS26: TreadliteBroadforks.com EnviroKlenz Air Purification, promo code BARDS to save 10%: www.enviroklenz.com Morning Intro Music Provided by Brian Kahanek: www.briankahanek.com Founders Bible 20% discount code: BARDS >>> TheFoundersBible.com Windblown Media 20% Discount with promo code BARDS: windblownmedia.com White Oak Pastures Grassfed Meats, Get $20 off any order $150 or more. Promo Code BARDS: www.whiteoakpastures.com/BARDS Mission Darkness Faraday Bags and RF Shielding. Promo code BARDS: Click here DONATIONS: If you wish to support this podcast directly you can donate here... DONATE: Click here MAILING ADDRESS: Xpedition Cafe, LLC Attn. Scott Kesterson 591 E Central Ave, #740 Sutherlin, OR  97479

Episode 507 - Leonardo Soto Pete's Percussion Podcast Principal Timpanist for the Houston Symphony (TX) Leonardo Soto stops by to talk about his main gig, teaching at the University of Miami (FL), working at summer festivals, secrets of auditioning, and maintaining a busy schedule (03:35), his previous orchestral jobs at the Detroit Opera (MI) and Charlotte Symphony (NC) and his experiences on the audition circuit later in his career (33:45), growing up in Chile, his father the drummer and pop musician, the legacy of Chilean orchestral percussionists, studying percussion in Chile, and the challenges of equipment and music resources in the country (45:20), his master's degree work at Carnegie-Mellon University (PA), studying with Tim Adams and (later) Tom Freer, early audition experiences, and learning English through Seinfeld and the Rush Hour movies (01:04:05), and finishes with the Random Ass Questions, including segments on student learning styles, his sporting activities and doing cardio, playing athletic timpani music, Rafa Nadal, Chilean soccer, cooking mishaps, great books, and seeing the artwork in The Vatican (01:27:20).Finishing with a Rave on the 2026 documentary Cookie Queens (02:04:55).Leonardo Soto links:Leonardo Soto's Houston Symphony pageLeonardo Soto's University of Miami pageLeonardo Soto's Remo pageTimpani Concerto - Andy Akiho (Leonardo Soto, soloist)Previous Podcast Guests mentioned:She-e Wu in 2025Pablo Rieppi in 2024Andrés Espinoza in 2018Other Links:Matthew StraussBrevard Music CenterGrand Teton Music FestivalNational Youth OrchestraTom FreerTim AdamsCloyd DuffSteven ReinekeSvet StoyanovJoseph PetrasekEdward StephanMingyu SonLuft MalletsRichard WeinerShannon WoodLa Sonora de Tommy ReyThe All-American Drummer: 150 Rudimental Solos - Charley WilcoxinEtudes for Timpani - Richard HochrainerRafa NadalThe Inner Game of Music - Barry GreenCity Lights trailerCinema Paradiso trailerThe Undefeated Mind - Alex LickermanThe Alchemist - Paulo CoehloMeditations - Marcus AureliusMyriam HernandezThe VaticanRaves:Cookie Queens trailer

How do we bridge the gap between Eastern and Western medicine and create a holistic approach to patient care in order to get the best possible fertility results? Today on Fertility Forward, we welcome the founder of NYC Acupuncture + Wellness, Dr. Ting Wu, to discuss her integrative East Asian medicine approach to women's health, fertility, and reproductive wellness. Tuning in, you'll hear all about how research and perception of East Asian medicine have changed over the last decade, her unique approach to HPA (Hypothalamic-Pituitary-Adrenal) axis and how it helps with fertility issues, and more! We delve into how Dr. Wu is working to bridge the gap between Eastern and Western medicine within her patient care and the power of collaboration, before discussing the importance of listening to your own body above anything else when it comes to your health. Our guest even challenges us to do an internal audit of our lives. Finally, and as always, we all talk about what we are grateful for today. Thanks for listening!  

When Michelle Wu was first elected mayor, she promised to transform Boston's streets. Her plans for bike lanes and public transit were ambitious but achievable, she said. Now, 5 years later, street safety advocates are wondering, what happened? Wu's streets champion, Jascha Franklin-Hodge, left city hall last year. After months of reflection, Franklin-Hodge talks to Say More's Anna Kusmer about why progress is so hard in Boston, and why people deserve better. Email us at saymore@boston.com.

『真正的獨立，是心靈的自由。』  「你不花我的錢，跟我在一起要幹嘛？」 一篇放閃文引發全網「27項拜金清單」大亂鬥！明明是小倆口甜甜蜜蜜，為什麼陌生網友會集體大崩潰？ 這集海苔熊帶大家從心理學看透愛情與金錢裡的集體焦慮，送上 5 個金錢與被愛的精華剖析： 【矛盾的金錢心理】 8成人嘴上喊男女平等，行為卻高度傾向男方買單？看懂想法與大腦劇本的落差。 【拜金清單的焦慮】 為什麼酸民非要證明別人很糟？從「向下比較」看懂那些刺耳留言背後的脆弱自尊。 【金錢是蜜糖或控制】 「你不花我的錢要幹嘛」是愛還是控制？從「投資模型」辨識金錢背後的附帶條件。 【坦然被愛的能力】 被請客就代表不獨立？依附理論告訴你：能安心收下對方的照顧，需要極大的安全感。 【解套金錢老劇本】 別被網路清單綁架！用 3 個提問檢視關係，與另一半建立專屬於你們的金錢默契。

I interviewed Singing Chen about The Clouds Are Two Thousand Meters Up on Monday, September 1, 2025 at Venice Immersive in Venice, Italy. Here is the story synopsis for The Clouds Are Two Thousand Meters Up: "After the sudden death of his wife, Guan discovers her unfinished novel — a tale intertwining the endangered clouded leopard and the Rukai tribe's sacred origin myth, which tells of their descent from the elusive animal. Grief-stricken and seeking connection, he sets out on a surreal journey into dreamlike scenes — a maze of the subconscious, mistshrouded forests, ancient tree hollows and symbolic inner landscapes. Adapted from a short story by acclaimed Taiwanese author Wu Ming-Yi, The Clouds Are Two Thousand Meters Up is a single-user, free-roaming VR experience that blends literature and memory into an intimate exploration of love, loss and self-reflection." Here are the contextual domains that are explored: Exploration of indigenous myths [9] as the protagonist goes on an epic journey into these imaginal (or real) realms [9]. It's a husband whose's wife [7] has died [8], and he's picking up clues from her work [10] as a writer as he explore her office [10], gets lost within a maze [12], and then he embarks on this adventure [9] deep into nature and the forest [4] Here is the Elemental Center of Gravity: 1st Center of Gravity of Earth Element / Environmental and Embodied Presence: Blends a number of different spatial capture techniques from traditional CGI modeling to Gaussian Splats. Very high resolution spatial capture. Lots of theme park type of feel whilst exporing the maze portion, and recreated a spatial journey where you feld like you had some wandering agency. But it was all still very contained and constrained, but felt like a bit of using your body movemnt to edit and pace through the piece. You're mostly an invisible ghost without any embodiment, although there are some scenes where you have agency to move around, but there's other scenes where you're more of an invisible audience. Some incredible technical breakthroughs to fuse it all together.2nd Center of Gravity of Water Element / Emotional Presence: Very narrative and story-driven overall, with a lot of influences from the cinematic tradition, especially during the first half. There's some cinematic cut scenes inspired from film. Some spatial embodied movement of spatial storytelling, The last half involves more of theatrically staged dialogue, where the overall spatial context stays static, and so the experience of time is more like being at a thearical play. Having volumetrically captured actors actually makes a huge difference in communicating the subtleness of emotionality via their facial expressions that is much harder than how emotions are captured on film. This piece stands in the volumetric capture techniques, fused with traditional CGI as well as with Gaussian Splats.3rd Center of Gravity of Air Element / Mental and Social Presence: Based upon a book, and so it has quite a literary feel, but also some scenes with extended dialogue. Overall, it's a bit of a mystery as the husband investigates the research archives of his wife, who was digging into an indigenous myth, and he comes to find out that it is completely TRUE. So there's lots of elements of magical realism, but also poetic dreamlogic and spatial storytelling. The maze scene has some post-it notes that deliver voice over. It's a single-player experience, but you share spatial contexts with some volumetrically-captured performances.4th Center of Gravity of Fire Element / Active Presence: No real narrative agency, but there's a chance to explore a room of objects, but also the maze scene gives the experience of a lot of agency as you can chose how you move through and at what pace. Archetypal Themes and Character Explored: Grief from a death and loss, and going on a spiritual adventure, to find connection. From the description about the book author that inspired the piece, they say, "he weaves dreams, memory and multiple dimensions of time and space has long inspired me." Turning inward to explore spatial contexts that symbolically represent an inner journey of discovery. "Grief-stricken and seeking connection, he sets out on a surreal journey into dreamlike scenes — a maze of the subconscious, mist-shrouded forests, ancient tree hollows and symbolic inner landscapes" Artist Statement: "Wu Ming-Yi is one of Taiwan's most influential contemporary novelists. The way he weaves dreams, memory and multiple dimensions of time and space has long inspired me. When the chance came to adapt The Clouds Are Two Thousand Meters Up into VR, I knew it would be a daunting yet necessary journey. Wu's writing evokes vivid imagery, spatiality and bodily presence — qualities that resonate with VR's immersive nature. Through free-roaming exploration, I aimed to recreate a journey of loss, memory and Indigenous mythology. This project is a dialogue between literature, technology and emotion — one that seeks to spark empathy across cultures." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gEUki2mN-ps This is a listener-supported podcast through the Voices of VR Patreon. Music: Fatality

Infrastructural Urbanism in Contemporary China: Volunteering, Infrastructures and Civic Imaginations (Leiden University Press, 2026) examines how Chinese citizens negotiate their everyday experiences with urban spaces, improved city infrastructure, and an increasingly tight surveillance regime through volunteering. This book asks how citizens connect to city spaces where facilities for transit, culture, and leisure have been substantially upgraded. Drawing on extensive research, Ka-ming Wu investigates how citizens conduct volunteer activities that not only promote party-state campaigns and engage with new urban spaces and services, but also experiment with political, social, and cultural rights, including advocating for the rights of people with disabilities and promoting unofficial interpretations of national history. The book argues that volunteering has become an urban practice through which citizens navigate existing hierarchies of urban and rural status, gender, age, and ability, while contesting top-down, mega-event-driven urbanization. It situates Chinese everyday urbanism within the context of China's hosting of multiple international events, its expanding public and digital infrastructures, heightened party-state control, and burgeoning digital activism. The book contributes to the infrastructural turn in urban anthropology and the field of China studies, offering a new understanding of urban rights and public access in contemporary China. NOTE: The book Ka-ming Wu mentioned in the interview is Stephen Graham's Cities under Siege: The New Military Urbanism (Verso, 2010). Wu Ka-ming is Associate Professor in the Department of Cultural and Religious Studies at The Chinese University of Hong Kong, with courtesy appointments in the Department of Anthropology and the Centre for China Studies. Trained as a cultural anthropologist, her work is interdisciplinary, situated at the intersection of cultural studies, anthropology, China studies, and environmental humanities. She is the author of Reinventing Chinese Tradition: The Cultural Politics of Late Socialism (UIP 2015) and the co-author of Living with Waste (CUP 2017). Yadong Li is an anthropologist-in-training. He is a PhD candidate of Socio-cultural Anthropology at Tulane University. More details about his scholarship and research interests can be found here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

Infrastructural Urbanism in Contemporary China: Volunteering, Infrastructures and Civic Imaginations (Leiden University Press, 2026) examines how Chinese citizens negotiate their everyday experiences with urban spaces, improved city infrastructure, and an increasingly tight surveillance regime through volunteering. This book asks how citizens connect to city spaces where facilities for transit, culture, and leisure have been substantially upgraded. Drawing on extensive research, Ka-ming Wu investigates how citizens conduct volunteer activities that not only promote party-state campaigns and engage with new urban spaces and services, but also experiment with political, social, and cultural rights, including advocating for the rights of people with disabilities and promoting unofficial interpretations of national history. The book argues that volunteering has become an urban practice through which citizens navigate existing hierarchies of urban and rural status, gender, age, and ability, while contesting top-down, mega-event-driven urbanization. It situates Chinese everyday urbanism within the context of China's hosting of multiple international events, its expanding public and digital infrastructures, heightened party-state control, and burgeoning digital activism. The book contributes to the infrastructural turn in urban anthropology and the field of China studies, offering a new understanding of urban rights and public access in contemporary China. NOTE: The book Ka-ming Wu mentioned in the interview is Stephen Graham's Cities under Siege: The New Military Urbanism (Verso, 2010). Wu Ka-ming is Associate Professor in the Department of Cultural and Religious Studies at The Chinese University of Hong Kong, with courtesy appointments in the Department of Anthropology and the Centre for China Studies. Trained as a cultural anthropologist, her work is interdisciplinary, situated at the intersection of cultural studies, anthropology, China studies, and environmental humanities. She is the author of Reinventing Chinese Tradition: The Cultural Politics of Late Socialism (UIP 2015) and the co-author of Living with Waste (CUP 2017). Yadong Li is an anthropologist-in-training. He is a PhD candidate of Socio-cultural Anthropology at Tulane University. More details about his scholarship and research interests can be found here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/political-science

Infrastructural Urbanism in Contemporary China: Volunteering, Infrastructures and Civic Imaginations (Leiden University Press, 2026) examines how Chinese citizens negotiate their everyday experiences with urban spaces, improved city infrastructure, and an increasingly tight surveillance regime through volunteering. This book asks how citizens connect to city spaces where facilities for transit, culture, and leisure have been substantially upgraded. Drawing on extensive research, Ka-ming Wu investigates how citizens conduct volunteer activities that not only promote party-state campaigns and engage with new urban spaces and services, but also experiment with political, social, and cultural rights, including advocating for the rights of people with disabilities and promoting unofficial interpretations of national history. The book argues that volunteering has become an urban practice through which citizens navigate existing hierarchies of urban and rural status, gender, age, and ability, while contesting top-down, mega-event-driven urbanization. It situates Chinese everyday urbanism within the context of China's hosting of multiple international events, its expanding public and digital infrastructures, heightened party-state control, and burgeoning digital activism. The book contributes to the infrastructural turn in urban anthropology and the field of China studies, offering a new understanding of urban rights and public access in contemporary China. NOTE: The book Ka-ming Wu mentioned in the interview is Stephen Graham's Cities under Siege: The New Military Urbanism (Verso, 2010). Wu Ka-ming is Associate Professor in the Department of Cultural and Religious Studies at The Chinese University of Hong Kong, with courtesy appointments in the Department of Anthropology and the Centre for China Studies. Trained as a cultural anthropologist, her work is interdisciplinary, situated at the intersection of cultural studies, anthropology, China studies, and environmental humanities. She is the author of Reinventing Chinese Tradition: The Cultural Politics of Late Socialism (UIP 2015) and the co-author of Living with Waste (CUP 2017). Yadong Li is an anthropologist-in-training. He is a PhD candidate of Socio-cultural Anthropology at Tulane University. More details about his scholarship and research interests can be found here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/anthropology

Infrastructural Urbanism in Contemporary China: Volunteering, Infrastructures and Civic Imaginations (Leiden University Press, 2026) examines how Chinese citizens negotiate their everyday experiences with urban spaces, improved city infrastructure, and an increasingly tight surveillance regime through volunteering. This book asks how citizens connect to city spaces where facilities for transit, culture, and leisure have been substantially upgraded. Drawing on extensive research, Ka-ming Wu investigates how citizens conduct volunteer activities that not only promote party-state campaigns and engage with new urban spaces and services, but also experiment with political, social, and cultural rights, including advocating for the rights of people with disabilities and promoting unofficial interpretations of national history. The book argues that volunteering has become an urban practice through which citizens navigate existing hierarchies of urban and rural status, gender, age, and ability, while contesting top-down, mega-event-driven urbanization. It situates Chinese everyday urbanism within the context of China's hosting of multiple international events, its expanding public and digital infrastructures, heightened party-state control, and burgeoning digital activism. The book contributes to the infrastructural turn in urban anthropology and the field of China studies, offering a new understanding of urban rights and public access in contemporary China. NOTE: The book Ka-ming Wu mentioned in the interview is Stephen Graham's Cities under Siege: The New Military Urbanism (Verso, 2010). Wu Ka-ming is Associate Professor in the Department of Cultural and Religious Studies at The Chinese University of Hong Kong, with courtesy appointments in the Department of Anthropology and the Centre for China Studies. Trained as a cultural anthropologist, her work is interdisciplinary, situated at the intersection of cultural studies, anthropology, China studies, and environmental humanities. She is the author of Reinventing Chinese Tradition: The Cultural Politics of Late Socialism (UIP 2015) and the co-author of Living with Waste (CUP 2017). Yadong Li is an anthropologist-in-training. He is a PhD candidate of Socio-cultural Anthropology at Tulane University. More details about his scholarship and research interests can be found here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/chinese-studies

Infrastructural Urbanism in Contemporary China: Volunteering, Infrastructures and Civic Imaginations (Leiden University Press, 2026) examines how Chinese citizens negotiate their everyday experiences with urban spaces, improved city infrastructure, and an increasingly tight surveillance regime through volunteering. This book asks how citizens connect to city spaces where facilities for transit, culture, and leisure have been substantially upgraded. Drawing on extensive research, Ka-ming Wu investigates how citizens conduct volunteer activities that not only promote party-state campaigns and engage with new urban spaces and services, but also experiment with political, social, and cultural rights, including advocating for the rights of people with disabilities and promoting unofficial interpretations of national history. The book argues that volunteering has become an urban practice through which citizens navigate existing hierarchies of urban and rural status, gender, age, and ability, while contesting top-down, mega-event-driven urbanization. It situates Chinese everyday urbanism within the context of China's hosting of multiple international events, its expanding public and digital infrastructures, heightened party-state control, and burgeoning digital activism. The book contributes to the infrastructural turn in urban anthropology and the field of China studies, offering a new understanding of urban rights and public access in contemporary China. NOTE: The book Ka-ming Wu mentioned in the interview is Stephen Graham's Cities under Siege: The New Military Urbanism (Verso, 2010). Wu Ka-ming is Associate Professor in the Department of Cultural and Religious Studies at The Chinese University of Hong Kong, with courtesy appointments in the Department of Anthropology and the Centre for China Studies. Trained as a cultural anthropologist, her work is interdisciplinary, situated at the intersection of cultural studies, anthropology, China studies, and environmental humanities. She is the author of Reinventing Chinese Tradition: The Cultural Politics of Late Socialism (UIP 2015) and the co-author of Living with Waste (CUP 2017). Yadong Li is an anthropologist-in-training. He is a PhD candidate of Socio-cultural Anthropology at Tulane University. More details about his scholarship and research interests can be found here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This week's new albums:  High Fade | Mary in the junkyard | RadkeyAlso: Crowbarred stings, single-sided podcasting, the opposite of jazz, the opposite of emo, one of every duo is having a worse time than the other, Weird Al without jokes, space-filling cheese, Tom Hardy's holiday job, Wu as a lifestyle, swears North Americans are bad at, Sir Not-Appearing-In-This-Album, society's to blame, on the tiles with Tadej, chasing the green, getting publically owned, failed experiments in nation building, Flemball Begins, bigging up Bangers, gap Phil-ers and the truth about cats and dogs.1:37  High Fade   7:21  Mary in the junkyard11:55  Radkey14:45  Next week's albums 25:11  After Dark - STONKS, TdF, BBL, fan ownership, test cricketNext week's new albums: Twisted Teens | Inspectah Deck | MaaraSpotify playlists: Album review playlist | Doc's and Beeso's 2026 mixtapes | All our playlistsThe list: Our previous review albums and year-end top fivesFind us on: Spotify Podcasts | Apple Podcasts | RSS feed for other appsSocials: Beeso on Bluesky | Doc on BlueSky | Pod Facebook | Pod email

Good afternoon, I'm _ with today's episode of EZ News. Lai boards coast guard vessel to observe coastal defense President Lai Ching-te boarded a Coast Guard Administration vessel in New Taipei's Bali District to observe coastal defense (海岸防禦) operations during the Han Kuang military exercise. According to the Presidential Office, Lai received briefings (簡報) on the patrol vessel's equipment and coastal strike operations. He also inspected its missile launcher system and learned about its configuration and operational readiness (作戰準備狀態). Thursday marked the second day of the Han Kuang exercise, with drills in the north focusing on coastal defense and other defensive operations. Typhoon Dolphin moves west Meteorologist Wu De Rong says Typhoon Dolphin appears to be moving further west even as it continues to weaken. The Central News Agency cites Wu as saying that while the system is expected to pass near the Ryukyu Islands today, uncertainty in its projected track (預測路徑) is increasing, making it less likely that the storm might miss Taiwan completely. Because of this, Wu is warning of intense rainfall in northern Taiwan and later in central and southern Taiwan tomorrow through the early morning of the 10th. While temperatures are expected to drop in parts of Taiwan, eastern Taiwan may experience extreme heat due to downslope warming (下坡增溫) caused by air descending over the mountains. Strong wind gusts are also expected across Taiwan, and residents are advised to take precautions. National Central University planning Arctic expedition Members of the National Central University's Polar Institute are taking part in what is Taiwan's first ever independently planned expedition (考察／探險) to the Arctic. According to the university, a 30-member team will be spending 12 days near Norway's Svalbard archipelago (群島), which is located midway between mainland Norway and the North Pole. The team includes scientists from Academia Sinica, the National Taiwan University and the National Academy of Marine Research. The university says although Taiwan is not an Arctic nation, changes in the Arctic could have long-term consequences for Taiwan. UKRAINE WARNS ALLIED AIR DEFENCE MISSILE SUPPLIES DOWN BY A THIRD AS ZELENSKY URGES URGENT ACTION AHEAD OF WINTER Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says Ukraine has hit more oil facilities deep inside Russia. The attacks are part of Kyiv's effort to undermine (削弱) Moscow's wartime economy. Meanwhile, Russian drone and glide bomb attacks across Ukraine killed at least three civilians and wounded 22 others. Zelenskyy is urging his allies to supply interceptor missiles to bolster (加強／強化) Ukraine's air defenses. William Denselow reports from Brussels. That was William Denselow reporting. Iran reviews ban on US ships An Iranian parliamentary committee is ​reviewing a preliminary bill ‌that would bar (禁止) U.S., Israeli and ​other "hostile" vessels from ​transiting the Strait of Hormuz. The ban was reported by Iran's semi-official ​Fars news agency… and its citing a lawmaker. The draft bill would impose ​fines (處以罰款) of up ​to 20% of a ship's ‌cargo value for violations of the proposed restrictions. The lawmaker said ​the ​legislation was still under expert review ​and that ​parliament had invited specialists to submit recommendations before the ​draft is ​finalised. Canada climate change wildfires In North America, a new analysis (分析) found that climate change created conditions that led to Canada's Wildfires… even though the Trump administration thinks otherwise. Ed Donahue explains. That was the I.C.R.T. EZ News, I'm _. -- Hosting provided by SoundOn

*Before a child ever learns language, the nervous system begins writing scripture. Every embrace becomes a sentence. Every absence becomes a definition. Every inconsistency becomes a prophecy. Long before consciousness asks, “Who am I?” survival has already answered, “Become whoever keeps you connected.” Need performs a miracle. It keeps the infant alive. Then, unnoticed, the miracle becomes a monarchy. The architecture that once served survival quietly begins governing identity. Self-worth becomes negotiated. Love becomes verified. Presence becomes performance. Effort becomes evidence. The first environment does not merely teach relationship. It teaches consciousness how to interrupt itself. Perhaps this explains why so many adults call it discernment while living almost entirely inside inherited conclusions. They believe they are evaluating another human being, yet every act of vetting first passes through an invisible inheritance that predates memory itself. The Mother Room has already translated reality before reality has been allowed to speak. Perhaps every wisdom tradition has been circling this same mystery from different horizons. Jung asked whether we remain possessed by what we refuse to see. Krishnamurti questioned whether observation can exist before conclusion. The Dao refuses to force the river because the river never forgot how to become the ocean. Wu wei suggests that life's deepest intelligence appears when compulsion releases its grip. Attachment theory describes the earliest architecture through which safety becomes internalized. Different languages. One investigation. What keeps consciousness from participating in life before it organizes life into something familiar? Relationship therefore becomes something far more unsettling than romance. It becomes the only place where the architecture protecting yesterday collides with the life attempting to arrive today. Every demand for proof. Every craving for reassurance. Every fear of abandonment. Every insistence that love continually demonstrate itself. Each may represent a single movement wearing different disguises: the original pattern asking existence to obey the laws that once made survival possible. Then letting and vetting cease to describe dating strategies. They describe two civilizations living inside one psyche. One civilization believes love must first be secured before it can be trusted. The other discovers that love does not arrive through control, but through participation. Perhaps the greatest relationship never begins between two people. Perhaps it begins the moment consciousness withdraws its unconscious allegiance from yesterday's survival and allows today's embodiment to complete a sentence that fear has interrupted since childhood. Not because love finally arrived. Because the interruption finally departed. CORE PREMISE Every river already knows where it is going. Only the banks believe they are directing the water. Human consciousness appears to carry a similar misunderstanding. Nearly every moment becomes an attempt to negotiate with reality. Accelerate this. Delay that. Keep this. Prevent that. Predict them. Manage uncertainty. Control outcomes. Even love quietly becomes another engineering project. An invisible assumption governs nearly every decision: Life requires my management before it can be trusted. Yet every wisdom tradition eventually arrives at an altogether different possibility. The deepest intelligence may never emerge through greater control. It may emerge only after control exhausts itself. Relationship therefore presents one of the most demanding laboratories a human being will ever enter. Two conditioned identities arrive carrying thousands of conclusions about safety, intimacy, commitment, conflict, masculinity, femininity, trust, abandonment, betrayal, desire, permanence, and love. Each attempts to organize reality around those conclusions. Very little is actually allowed to reveal itself. Perhaps this explains why so much energy becomes invested in determining whether another person deserves entry into our life while almost no attention is given to whether life itself has been allowed to introduce us to ourselves. Vetting asks: “How do I determine whether this person fits the architecture I already possess?” Letting asks: “What architecture within me keeps interrupting reality before reality finishes speaking?” That second question is profoundly Daoist. Because Daoism does not begin with controlling the current. It begins with noticing that the current was already moving before you arrived.

Takara turns the G1 Predacons into Autobots, third party Dr. Wu has some new micromaster scaled G1 figure redecos, and the UK exclusive Titan Powerplex becomes a real, official toy. All this and much, much more on this episode of TransMissions! Order our exclusive Skybound Transformers #1 comic with cover art by E.J. Su! Want some TransMissions swag? Check out our online shop, powered by Dashery! Show Notes: If you enjoy TransMissions, please rate us and subscribe on Apple Podcasts and Spotify! These ratings greatly help podcasts become more discoverable to other people using those services and is an easy way to help out our show. Contact us: Continue reading The post Episode 706 – Playing With Powerplex appeared first on TransMissions Podcast Network.

Takara turns the G1 Predacons into Autobots, third party Dr. Wu has some new micromaster scaled G1 figure redecos, and the UK exclusive Titan Powerplex becomes a real, official toy. All this and much, much more on this episode of TransMissions! Order our exclusive Skybound Transformers #1 comic with cover art by E.J. Su! Want some TransMissions swag? Check out our online shop, powered by Dashery! Show Notes: If you enjoy TransMissions, please rate us and subscribe on Apple Podcasts and Spotify! These ratings greatly help podcasts become more discoverable to other people using those services and is an easy way to help out our show. Contact us: Continue reading The post Episode 706 – Playing With Powerplex appeared first on TransMissions Podcast Network.

Thousands signed a letter accusing Wu of slow-walking the transportation safety agenda she ran on. But the tragedy is also personal for the mayor. Gag once interned in Wu's old city council office.

Vandaag bespreken we het boek The age of extraction, van Tim Wu. De ondertitel is: How tech platforms conquered the economy and threaten our future prosperity Timothy Shiou-Ming Wu is a Taiwanese-American legal scholar who served as Special Assistant to the President for Technology and Competition Policy at the United States from 2021 to 2023. He is also a professor of law at Columbia University and a contributing opinion writer for The New York Times. He is known legally and academically for significant contributions to antitrust and communications policy, coining the phrase "network neutrality" in his 2003 law journal article, Network Neutrality, Broadband Discrimination. In the late 2010s, Wu was a leading advocate for an antitrust lawsuit directed at the breakup of Facebook. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_Wu Dit boek bestaat uit 4 delen: Understanding platform power The business of herding The dangers of centralized economic power An architecture of equality Het boek is opgebouwd rond de volgende centrale thema's: De opkomst van platformmacht: hoe techplatforms zoals Amazon, Google en Meta zich hebben ontwikkeld tot dominante economische spelers. De belofte en realiteit van het internet: de oorspronkelijke belofte van welvaart en democratie in de jaren '90 en '00, en hoe dit is omgeslagen in nieuwe economische klassen en autocratie. Extractie als bedrijfsmodel: hoe platforms aandacht, data en welvaart extraheren, en wat de gevolgen zijn voor gebruikers, werknemers en kleine bedrijven. De rol van monopolies en concentratie: hoe techgiganten concurrenten opkopen en markten domineren, met voorbeelden uit de gezondheidszorg, vastgoed en andere sectoren. De gevolgen voor democratie en samenleving: hoe deze ontwikkelingen bijdragen aan ongelijkheid, politieke polarisatie en de opkomst van autocratie. Een blik vooruit: voorstellen voor herstel van de balans, zoals strengere regulering, antimonopoliewetten en democratische controle over platforms. Tim Wu schetst in The Age of Extraction vijf centrale oplossingen om de macht van techplatforms te beteugelen en een eerlijkere economie te creëren. Deze zijn samengevat als volgt: Strengere antimonopoliewetten en handhavingWu pleit voor het actief aanpakken van monopolies en het voorkomen van marktconcentratie, bijvoorbeeld door het blokkeren van overnames die concurrentie uitschakelen. Hij wijst op het belang van het herstellen van eerlijke concurrentie, zodat nieuwe spelers kansen krijgen en consumenten, werknemers en kleine bedrijven niet worden uitgebuit. Democratische controle over platformsPlatforms moeten transparanter en democratischer worden bestuurd, met meer inspraak voor gebruikers, werknemers en andere stakeholders. Wu stelt voor om governance-structuren te herzien, zodat niet alleen aandeelhouders, maar alle betrokkenen invloed hebben op beslissingen die hen raken. Regulering van data-extractie en privacyWu benadrukt dat platforms nu onbeperkt data en aandacht kunnen extraheren. Hij bepleit strengere regels voor datagebruik, privacybescherming en het beperken van manipulatie via algoritmen. Consumenten moeten meer controle krijgen over hun eigen data. Herverdeling van economische waardeDe welvaart die platforms genereren, moet eerlijker worden verdeeld. Wu stelt voor om belastingstelsels aan te passen, zodat platforms een billijker bijdrage leveren aan de samenleving en kleine bedrijven en werknemers niet worden benadeeld. Publieke alternatieven en open infrastructuurWu pleit voor het ontwikkelen van publieke of coöperatieve alternatieven voor commerciële platforms, bijvoorbeeld op het gebied van sociale media, zoekmachines of betaalsystemen. Open standaarden en interoperabiliteit moeten worden gestimuleerd, zodat gebruikers niet gevangen zitten in gesloten systemen. Kernboodschap: Wu's oplossingen richten zich op het herstellen van de balans tussen innovatie, economische groei en sociale rechtvaardigheid, met nadruk op democratische controle, eerlijke concurrentie en het beperken van extractieve praktijken. Opvallende lessen uit het boek voor ons: 00:00 Intro van het boek en eerste indruk van Erno 02:10 Eerste indruk van Tom en de hoop op meer achtergrond over de invloed van Big Tech bij de Amerikaanse verkiezingen. 06:15 Sterke economische macht werd gezien als een bedreiging voor de democratie. 08:45 Oprichters van techbedrijven werden eerst als cool gezien, maar rond 2010 veranderde dit beeld. 12:05 Antitrust als oplossing om de macht van extreem grote en machtige bedrijven op te breken. 13:45 Hoe een bedrijf als Amazon mensen met lage prijzen naar een platform trekt, marktmacht wint en op het moment dat mensen geen kant meer op kunnen, verhoogt het de prijzen. 15:30 Idee dat we allemaal onze abonnementen van de grote platformen opzeggen om de macht af te breken door hun terugkerende inkomsten onder druk te zetten. 17:00 Hoe Big Tech de markt neutraliseert door concurrerende platformen of apps op te kopen. 19:20 Blitz scaling kort uitgelegd aan de hand van de Blitzkrieg, en de verrassing dat Elon Musk hier ontbreekt. 21:05 Thiel moedigt ieder techbedrijf aan om een monopolie na te streven. 24:05 Verschil tussen de strategie van Hidden Champions en de drang van techbedrijven om monopolist te worden. 26:05 De mentale druk op influencers op een platform om continu door te gaan om in beeld te blijven. 28:35 Het verslavende effect van de platformen op kinderen is bewust gecreëerd. 31:00 Dat technologie steeds meer gemak realiseert en bedrijven gebruikmaken van onze hang naar luidheid. 33:30 Je kunt de verantwoordelijkheid nauwelijks meer bij de consument neerleggen, de enige die kan reguleren is de staat. 36:05 Hoe artsen slaven worden van een bedrijf met behulp van software. 39:25 Beperking van de Amerikaanse auteur: Europese voorbeelden, zoals woningcooperaties, worden niet genoemd. 41:20 Geef de woningbouwcoöperaties weer hun oude rol. 42:50 De Europese gemengde economie wordt niet genoemd, maar die functioneert wel beter bij publieke goederen. 43:15 Uitleg hoe economische macht verschuift naar politieke macht. 50:15 De vijf oplossing van Tim Wu. 52:00 Het beperkte zicht is dat, als het bedrijfsleven maar beter functioneert, je dan de problemen hebt opgelost. 54:15 Met het heel zwaar belasten van de miljardairs zou het probleem ook kleiner worden. 55:05 De problemen van de technologieplatformen proberen op te lossen met meer technologie (AI en crypto). Bronnen die we genoemd hebben Vibe van Mistral (voorheen Le Chat) Nazimiljardairs – David de Jong #boekencast afl 66 Pierre Omidyar - Wikipedia - oprichter eBay MacKenzie Scott (ex-Bezos) - heeft zich ertoe verbonden minstens de helft van haar vermogen aan goede doelen te schenken. Abigail Disney - Wikipedia (kleindochter oprichter Disney) Jimmy Wales - Wikipedia (medeoprichter Wikipedia) Blitzscaling – Hoffman en Yeh #boekencast afl 17 Autoroutes en verkeersrapporten van Waze Zero to one boek - Thiel Reid Hoffman - Wikipedia Peter Thiel - Wikipedia Palantir Technologies - Wikipedia Alex Karp - Wikipedia - CEO Palantir Strijd tussen Trump en paus - NOS De onzichtbare hand - Bas van Bavel Over Tirannie – Snyder en Krug #boekencast afl 118 Over vrijheid – Timothy Snyder #boekencast afl 121 Hidden Champions van de 21e eeuw boek Elon Musk – Walter Isaacson #boekencast afl 94 Muskisme - Quinn Slobodian en Ben Tarnoff Sir Timothy John Berners-Lee - uitvinder van het internet, het URL systeem Here Comes Everybody - Clay Shirky Scott Galloway (hoogleraar) - Wikipedia De tijd van de oligarchen - Aldous Huxley Brave New World - Aldous Huxley Animal farm - George Orwell Winners take all - Anand Giridharadas Geld genoeg, maar niet voor jou – Thomas Bollen #boekencast afl 135 De Trias Economica boek - Zo krijgen we een economie zonder verborgen impact – Babette Porcelijn Luister naar deze aflevering Beluister hier ons gesprek over het boek The age of extraction . We vonden het een leuk boek over de groei en achtergronden van de platformen en hoe macht verschuift van de economie naar de politiek. Maar we zijn teleurgesteld over de voorstellen waarmee Tim Wu komt. Door de problemen in de markt op te lossen, met regulering van de markt en met technologie de platformproblemen aan te pakken. Niets om de problemen in de kern op te lossen. In een halfuur delen wij dit boek met jou. Een halfuur met kennis die je tot je neemt terwijl je wandelt, loopt of rijdt, bijvoorbeeld. Video van deze aflevering Bekijk ons gesprek op video https://youtu.be/RUko4jgpsQk https://youtu.be/RUko4jgpsQk In deze aflevering bespreken we het boek The age of extraction. Een leuk boek, met voorbeelden, met name uit de VS tenzij het te spannend wordt, bijvoorbeeld over de politieke macht en de afbraak van de democratie; dan zwijgt hij over de problemen in de VS. Hij mist goede oplossingen uit Europa en wil de problemen oplossen met antitrust en technologie. Proberen om de markt onder controle te krijgen, met vooral oppervlakkige oplossingen. Terwijl de geschiedenis, zeker in de VS laat zien dat de markt altijd voor winstmaximalisatie gaat en de burger geen schijn van kans heeft. Samenvatting (met hulp van AI) Transcript

What's the most powerful tool in any classroom? In the age of AI, education advocate Matt Wu still believes it's the people. In this hopeful talk, he discusses the nonprofit he leads, Schoolhouse, which pairs students with peer tutors from across the globe, building the crucial human connection that every person needs to thrive. Peer tutoring isn't just teaching students how to learn concepts, says Wu. It's teaching them how to better understand one another. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Good afternoon, I'm _ with today's episode of EZ News. Tai-Ex opening The Tai-Ex opened up 113-points this morning from yesterday's close, at 44,851 on turnover of $9.9-billion N-T. Shares in Taiwan came under pressure Tuesday, falling below 44,000 points at one point, before rebounding in the last 90 minutes of the session to cap the losses. But while most non-tech stocks were also in the doldrums, the petrochemical sector outperformed the market on a spike in international crude oil prices amid renewed unease in the Middle East, which could boost product prices. Heat and Afternoon Thunderstorms Over Next Few Days Forecasters are warning of intense heat and severe afternoon thunderstorms across Taiwan over the next several days. The Central Weather Administration today issued high-temperature alerts for eight counties and cities. Officials say Changhua, Yunlin, Tainan, and Hualien are under an orange alert… meaning temperatures could repeatedly exceed (超過) 36 degrees Celsius. Taipei, New Taipei, Chiayi, and Taitung are under a yellow alert. Taitung also faces a high risk of hot, dry foehn winds. Meteorologist Wu Der-rong says tropical disturbances in the South China Sea and near the Philippines are bringing large amounts of moisture toward Taiwan, creating highly unstable conditions. Wu warns that severe convective thunderstorms will develop in mountainous areas every afternoon through July 21st, and te storms will likely trigger lightning, strong winds, and flash flooding in low-lying areas. (NS) China Senior CCP Member Expelled Chinese state media says a senior official has been expelled from the ruling Communist Party. Ma Xingrui is one of three members of the current Politburo purged in leader Xi Jinping's anti-corruption campaign, alongside two military generals. Analysts see the campaign as a tool to enforce loyalty to Xi and root out (根除) corruption. Party authorities concluded that Ma committed violations including accepting gifts and using his position to help others. The 66-year-old Ma was previously the Communist Party chief of Xinjiang and governor of Guangdong province. Gold trader gets time served in Iran sanctions case that strained US-Turkey relations A Turkish businessman charged in a conspiracy to help Iran evade (逃避) sanctions gets no additional prison time after helping U.S. investigators. The AP's Jennifer King reports. Spain Gibraltar Border Fence** Dismantled** The fence separating Gibraltar from Spain has been dismantled, easing travel for thousands who cross daily. This change, which goes into effect today, follows years of post-Brexit negotiations between the European Union and the United Kingdom over Gibraltar, a British Overseas Territory that is also claimed by Spain. On Tuesday, the U.K. and the E.U. signed an agreement securing Gibraltar's economic future. The deal de facto brings Gibraltar into the EU's Schengen free travel area. Gibraltar officials say live facial recognition (臉部辨識) cameras are now set up at entry points. When Britain left the EU in 2020, the relationship between Gibraltar and the bloc had been left unresolved. In 2025, the EU and U.K. announced an agreement on those issues, with the two sides and Gibraltar's government signing a treaty Tuesday that eases border crossings. That was the I.C.R.T. EZ News, I'm _. －－－－以下為 SoundOn 動態廣告－－－－ 今秋跟著楓紅展開最動人的旅程~ 日本紅葉祭限定！漫遊河口湖紅葉迴廊，或登上東北藏王紅葉纜車飽覽山林秋色 韓國賞紅葉x銀杏，韓服漫遊景福宮感受秋日浪漫 美加東必追楓葉大道，走訪尼加拉瀑布沉醉最美楓景 限量團位，快搜尋「可樂旅遊」與你分享世界的美好~ https://sofm.pse.is/9bu2gx -- 【暑假首選】雄獅文具想像力製造所天天不休息！白色牆面隨你畫、泡泡雨空中飄，巨型 60 色色彩牆隨手拍都是網美大片！ 八月更有全新「彩耀日」戶外顏料射擊，暑假就是要玩好玩滿。 快來發揮想像力打包快樂！

Chief Epidemiologist at Hartford Healthcare Dr. Ulysses Wu discusses the horrible effects of cyclosporiasis that has now infected those in 35 states. What should we do, what should we look for, and how to avoid the virus, Dr Wu covers it all!

Get your note pads out. This episode is packed with a bunch of information for anybody who is interested in getting into the Music business. Dula and myself had the pleasure of having a conversation with Matthew “M80”Markoff. Some of you may not be familiar with the name, but his resume speaks for itself. From working with everybody from the WU to Snoop to Kurpupt, he's been an A&R and music attorney for the past, 20 years. Great stories, and a lot of information. ENJOY!!

In a highly unusual move in the insular world of Massachusetts politics, Wu is the first mayor in recent memory to openly campaign against state senators who have blocked her priorities.

What if a single nerve in your ear could shift you out of fight-or-flight in 10 minutes? Jane Ollis explains why your vagus nerve and HRV may be the most overlooked levers for stress, sleep, and longevity. In this episode of Health Longevity Secrets, Robert Lufkin MD sits down with Jane Ollis — founder and CEO of Sona, medical biochemist with a career across NASA, Oxford, and the NHS — to unpack the science of the vagus nerve, heart rate variability (HRV), and the autonomic nervous system. Jane breaks down why HRV is one of the strongest predictors of all-cause mortality, why a tiny patch of "fish gill pipework" in your outer ear is the key to calm, and how Sona's AI-powered closed-loop vagus nerve stimulator personalizes a 10-minute daily protocol to retrain a nervous system stuck in chronic sympathetic overdrive. CHAPTERS: 00:00 — Introduction 01:01 — Meet Jane Ollis: From NASA and Oxford to Vagus Nerve Science 03:05 — Why Chronic Stress Drives Inflammation, Insulin Resistance and Disease 05:07 — Sympathetic vs Parasympathetic: The Two Arms of Your Autonomic Nervous System 08:09 — The Hidden Benefit of Stress (And Why You Still Need Recovery) 11:13 — Cortisol, Adrenaline and How the Stress Response Actually Works 12:14 — Acetylcholine, Repair Mode and the Parasympathetic Switch 14:19 — Symptoms of Autonomic Imbalance and Sympathetic Overdrive 17:22 — Heart Rate Variability: Why It Predicts All-Cause Mortality 20:27 — HRV, Aging, Blood Pressure and the Baroreceptor Connection 23:29 — Anatomy of the Vagus Nerve: The Body's Communication Superhighway 26:33 — Free Vagus Nerve Hacks: Slow Breathing, Humming and Chanting 28:35 — How Vagus Nerve Stimulation Works (Cervical vs Auricular Branch) 30:37 — From Epilepsy to Depression: 30 Years of Implanted VNS Research 32:40 — Inside Sona: The First AI-Powered Closed-Loop Vagus Nerve Stimulator 35:44 — How to Use Sona: 10-Minute Daily Sleep Ritual and Neuroplasticity Stack 38:46 — Sleep Quality, Deep Sleep and Stroke Rehab: What the VNS Evidence Shows 40:49 — The Future: Personalized VNS for Anxiety, PTSD, Long COVID and Metabolic Disease 42:52 — The Biggest Myth About Stress, Recovery and Resilience 45:00 — Final Takeaway: One Small Action to Calm Your Nervous System Today KEY TAKEAWAYS: Higher heart rate variability (HRV) is one of the strongest non-invasive predictors of all-cause and cardiovascular mortality. The parasympathetic nervous system isn't about "switching off" — it switches on repair, digestion, and immune housekeeping via acetylcholine. 80% of vagus nerve fibers carry information from the body to the brain — it's a communication highway, not just an output. The auricular branch of the vagus nerve in the outer ear (cymba conchae) is a 100% afferent vagal pathway. Slow-paced breathing with a long nasal exhale, humming, and chanting are zero-cost vagal activation tools that raise HRV. Closed-loop, AI-personalized vagal stimulation may unlock applications in anxiety, depression, PTSD, long COVID, and metabolic disease. STUDIES & SOURCES: Sammito et al., 2022 — HRV as a predictor of all-cause mortality: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36243195/ Wang et al., 2023 — taVNS in depression meta-analysis: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/37230264/ Wu et al., 2018 — taVNS for depression: Frontiers in Psychiatry taVNS for insomnia (PSQI): ⭐ Enjoying the show? Please leave a 5-star review on Apple Podcasts — it takes 30 seconds and helps more people discover the science of health and longevity. Thank you!New episodes every other Tuesday. Subscribe so you don't miss one.Continue this conversation on Substack: https://robertlufkinmd.substack.comLies I Taught In Medical School — Free sample chapter: https://www.robertlufkinmd.com/lies/Web: https://www.robertlufkinmd.comYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/robertlufkinmdX: https://x.com/robertlufkinmdInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/robertlufkinmd/TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@robertlufkinLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/robertlufkinmd/

So BW2 Galvatron has a full reveal this week, TFcon show off one of the con exclusives and more Micromaster sized guys from Dr Wu

xETFs CEO Johnny Wu explains the firm's new daily income ETFs, which provide exposure to stocks like Nvidia (NVDA) and Tesla (TSLA) while generating consistent income. He outlines how the strategy differs from traditional covered call funds by selling options on only a small portion of holdings each day, preserving most of the upside potential. Wu also discusses monetizing volatility, maintaining overnight market exposure, and delivering regular weekly distributions for investors.======== Schwab Network ========Empowering every investor and trader, every market day.Subscribe to the Market Minute newsletter - https://schwabnetwork.com/subscribeDownload the iOS app - https://apps.apple.com/us/app/schwab-network/id1460719185Download the Amazon Fire Tv App - https://www.amazon.com/TD-Ameritrade-Network/dp/B07KRD76C7Watch on Sling - https://watch.sling.com/1/asset/191928615bd8d47686f94682aefaa007/watchWatch on Vizio - https://www.vizio.com/en/watchfreeplus-exploreWatch on DistroTV - https://www.distro.tv/live/schwab-network/Follow us on X – https://twitter.com/schwabnetworkFollow us on Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/schwabnetworkFollow us on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/company/schwab-network/About Schwab Network - https://schwabnetwork.com/about

It's the Wimbledon 2026 1st Round Show. We'll cover all of the following: Ben Shelton's gutting 5th-set tiebreak loss to Otto Virtanen, Serena Williams' comeback effort--- a loss to Maya Joint. Jannik Sinner found himself down 2-1, but survivied Miomir Kecmanovic. Novak Djokovic came through a high-quality battle with Yibing Wu, and more! 0:00 Intro 1:20 Virtanen d. Shelton 17:19 Joint d. Serena 29:49 Sinner d. Kecmanovic 36:10 Draper Withdrawal 38:10 Djokovic d. Wu 42:45 Mensik d. Samuel 46:12 Swiatek d. Townsend 47:52 Saffiulin d. Rublev IG: https://www.instagram.com/gillgross_/TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@gill.gross24/7 Tennis Community on Tribe: https://tribechat.com/gillTwitter/X: https://twitter.com/Gill_GrossThe Draw newsletter, your one-stop-shop for the best tennis content on the internet every week: https://www.thedraw.tennis/subscribeBecome a member to support the channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCvERpLl9dXH09fuNdbyiLQQ/joinEvans Brothers Coffee Roasters, the Official Coffee Of Monday Match Analysis... use code GILLGROSS25 for 25% off your first order: https://evansbrotherscoffee.com/collections/coffeeAUDIO PODCAST FEEDSSpotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5c3VXnLDVVgLfZuGk3yxIF?si=AQy9oRlZTACoGr5XS3s_ygItunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/monday-match-analysis/id1432259450?mt=2 Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Dr. Wu has a super small Sixshot coming soon, TFC toys shows off a transforming cobra rattler from G.I. Joe, and we get early hints of Hasbro's next Titan figure coming in 2027. All this and much, much more on this episode of TransMissions! Order our exclusive Skybound Transformers #1 comic with cover art by E.J. Su! Want some TransMissions swag? Check out our online shop, powered by Dashery! Show Notes: If you enjoy TransMissions, please rate us and subscribe on Apple Podcasts and Spotify! These ratings greatly help podcasts become more discoverable to other people using those services and is an easy way to help out our show. Contact us: Continue reading The post Episode 701 – Great Balls Of Steel appeared first on TransMissions Podcast Network.

Dr. Wu has a super small Sixshot coming soon, TFC toys shows off a transforming cobra rattler from G.I. Joe, and we get early hints of Hasbro's next Titan figure coming in 2027. All this and much, much more on this episode of TransMissions! Order our exclusive Skybound Transformers #1 comic with cover art by E.J. Su! Want some TransMissions swag? Check out our online shop, powered by Dashery! Show Notes: If you enjoy TransMissions, please rate us and subscribe on Apple Podcasts and Spotify! These ratings greatly help podcasts become more discoverable to other people using those services and is an easy way to help out our show. Contact us: Continue reading The post Episode 701 – Great Balls Of Steel appeared first on TransMissions Podcast Network.

The 2027 Titan is Age of Extinction Scorn — and the Dinobots are coming for the next five years. Flame Toys floods GMHS 2026 with prototypes, Bruticus finally combines in hand, and Dr Wu teases a Micromaster Sixshot. Plus a lavender Shockwave, a Hot Wheels GT Scorcher, and a boxed G1 Deftwing in What We Got This Week. The post Radio Free Cybertron 993 – Five Years of Dinobots appeared first on Radio Free Cybertron.

The 2027 Titan is Age of Extinction Scorn — and the Dinobots are coming for the next five years. Flame Toys floods GMHS 2026 with prototypes, Bruticus finally combines in hand, and Dr Wu teases a Micromaster Sixshot. Plus a lavender Shockwave, a Hot Wheels GT Scorcher, and a boxed G1 Deftwing in What We Got This Week. The post Radio Free Cybertron 993 – Five Years of Dinobots appeared first on Radio Free Cybertron.

央行最新預測把台灣2026年經濟成長率上調到9.45%，而看起來消費者物價指數好溫和啊，這是一個完美的消息嗎？大家不要高興得太早⋯⋯ 問題是：如果經濟成長這麼強，為什麼通膨預測還能維持在相對低的水準？我們就來探究原因吧。 先講結論：好消息是：股票也許還會急漲急跌，但是存股的人在黃仁勳團隊以及護國神山的庇蔭之下，這幾年不用太擔心， 但是．．多數人會承受到的經濟體感，可能並沒有數字看起來那麼完美！ / 「台南寢具南霸天」的億進寢具，千坪現代化廠房、全台超過 40 家直營門市、年營收破 6 億，這次是我們第一次合作，也特別提供比周年慶還優惠的價格回饋給朋友們，送紗布超吸水運動毛巾+超細丹天絲枕套！ 請看優惠連結

In this episode, Thomas K Varghese, Jr, MD, FACS, is joined by Serena Lofftus, MD, and James Wu, MD, FACS, from UCLA. They discuss Drs Lofftus and Wu's recent article, “Patient-Based Decision Making for Opioid Prescriptions After Ambulatory Breast Operation: A Randomized Clinical Trial,” which evaluated whether incorporating patient choice into postoperative prescribing decisions could reduce opioid prescribing and consumption after ambulatory breast operation without negatively affecting pain control or quality of life.   Disclosure Information: Drs Varghese, Lofftus, and Wu have no relevant financial conflicts of interest to disclose.   To earn 0.25 AMA PRA Category 1 Credits™ for this episode of the JACS Operative Word Podcast, click here to register for the course and complete the evaluation. Listeners can earn CME credit for this podcast for up to 2 years after the original air date.   Lofftus, Serena Y MD1,4; Graham, Danielle S MD, PhD1,4; Le, Julie MD, FACS1,2; Zhu, Catherine Y MD1,3; Kaufman, Noy MD4,5; Huy, Tess C MD1,4; Kusske, Amy M MD, FACS1,4; Teshome, Mediget MD, FACS1,4; Baker, Jennifer L MD, FACS1,4; Wu, James X MD, FACS4,6. Patient-Based Decision Making for Opioid Prescriptions After Ambulatory Breast Operation: A Randomized Clinical Trial. Journal of the American College of Surgeons ():10.1097/XCS.0000000000001974, April 13, 2026. | DOI: 10.1097/XCS.0000000000001974   Learn more about the Journal of the American College of Surgeons, a monthly peer-reviewed journal publishing original contributions on all aspects of surgery, including scientific articles, collective reviews, experimental investigations, and more.   #JACSOperativeWord

Flame Toys reveals an ultra detailed shattered glass action figure in their Kuro Kara Kuri line, Dr. Wu also has a new shattered glass figure in the works, and DNA Design has a new upgrade kit for a legendary Prime. All this and much, much more on this episode of TransMissions! Order our exclusive Skybound Transformers #1 comic with cover art by E.J. Su! Want some TransMissions swag? Check out our online shop, powered by Dashery! Show Notes: If you enjoy TransMissions, please rate us and subscribe on Apple Podcasts and Spotify! These ratings greatly help podcasts become more discoverable to other people using those services and is an easy way to help out our show. Contact us: Continue reading The post Episode 700 – Haven’t Aged A Day appeared first on TransMissions Podcast Network.

Flame Toys reveals an ultra detailed shattered glass action figure in their Kuro Kara Kuri line, Dr. Wu also has a new shattered glass figure in the works, and DNA Design has a new upgrade kit for a legendary Prime. All this and much, much more on this episode of TransMissions! Order our exclusive Skybound Transformers #1 comic with cover art by E.J. Su! Want some TransMissions swag? Check out our online shop, powered by Dashery! Show Notes: If you enjoy TransMissions, please rate us and subscribe on Apple Podcasts and Spotify! These ratings greatly help podcasts become more discoverable to other people using those services and is an easy way to help out our show. Contact us: Continue reading The post Episode 700 – Haven’t Aged A Day appeared first on TransMissions Podcast Network.

Last time we spoke about the battle of Shanggao. From late March to early April 1940, Japanese forces attacked Shanggao in Jiangxi with a multi‑pronged offensive. Chinese commanders used elastic defense and coordinated counter-moves, trading space for time through layered positions until the Japanese advanced into prepared strongpoints. As the 34th Division moved toward the town, assaults repeatedly hit ridges and bridge lines held by the 74th Corps. Heavy air strikes caused chaos, but timely flank redeployments prevented a decisive breakthrough. During the crisis around March 21–24, Chinese units maneuvered an encirclement and executed a controlled breakout at the critical moment. After intense fighting and bombing, the Japanese were routed and fell back to their original positions. The wider war did not change, yet Shanggao proved that disciplined Chinese planning could reverse Japanese offensives against superior initiative and numbers.   #207 Battle of Zhongtiao Mountain Welcome to the Fall and Rise of China Podcast, I am your dutiful host Craig Watson. But, before we start I want to also remind you this podcast is only made possible through the efforts of Kings and Generals over at Youtube. Perhaps you want to learn more about the history of Asia? Kings and Generals have an assortment of episodes on history of asia and much more  so go give them a look over on Youtube. So please subscribe to Kings and Generals over at Youtube and to continue helping us produce this content please check out www.patreon.com/kingsandgenerals. If you are still hungry for some more history related content, over on my channel, the Pacific War Channel where I cover the history of China and Japan from the 19th century until the end of the Pacific War. By the spring of 1941, the War of Resistance against Japan had been grinding for nearly four years, and the map of China looked increasingly like a wound. Japan controlled the coastal cities, the major river valleys, and most of the productive lowland plains of the north and east. The Nationalist government had retreated far inland to Chongqing, governing a rump state of mountainous hinterland, foreign sympathies, and diminishing resources. The war had long since ceased to look like a conventional conflict between organized fronts and had settled into something grimmer and more ambiguous — a slow war of attrition fought in the mud and rocks of the Chinese interior, punctuated by Japanese offensives designed not to end the war but to compress it, to squeeze the Nationalists tighter with each season until surrender became a rational calculation rather than a humiliation. Japan had tried other methods first. In the late 1930s, Tokyo made serious overtures to Chiang Kai-shek's government, proposing a negotiated settlement that would see China aligned with Japan and the puppet Wang Jingwei government elevated as the vehicle for that arrangement. Chiang refused. He had gambled, and would continue to gamble, that the war in Europe would eventually draw in the Western powers, that American patience with Japanese aggression would run out, and that time was ultimately on China's side. The strategy required suffering in the present to buy survival in the future. Germany's invasion of Poland in September 1939 and the subsequent expansion of war across Europe only reinforced Japan's desire to accelerate its operations in China before the international situation made them impossible. By 1940, Japan signaled it intended to resolve the "China Incident" — the bureaucratic euphemism it used to avoid officially acknowledging that it was fighting a full-scale war — once and for all. The question was where. The front was hundreds of miles long. The Japanese army in China was stretched thin despite its nominal strength. Spectacular victories in the lowlands had failed to produce the political capitulation Tokyo expected. And in the mountains of Shanxi Province, a particular irritant had been festering for three years — one that the Japanese could neither ignore nor seem to dislodge. The Zhongtiao Mountains rise along the southern edge of Shanxi Province, running roughly east to west for some two hundred miles, forming a natural wall between the loess plateaus of Shanxi and the plains of northern Henan below. The range is not dramatic by Chinese standards — it is not the soaring, cloud-piercing landscape of Sichuan or Yunnan — but it is rugged, deeply ridged, and extraordinarily difficult to move through quickly. For a defending army with knowledge of the terrain, the Zhongtiao range was close to ideal. For an attacker, especially one dependent on mechanized firepower and coordinated logistics, it was a nightmare. Chinese forces had occupied the Zhongtiao Mountains since 1938, following the fall of Taiyuan and the retreat of Nationalist forces from the broader Shanxi campaign. At a moment when much of northern China was collapsing around them, the garrison there dug in and refused to move. Over the following three years, the Japanese Army mounted thirteen separate offensives against the Zhongtiao position. All thirteen failed. The mountains held. Chinese soldiers would later call it the "Eastern Maginot Line," a nickname that was simultaneously a boast and, in retrospect, a warning — the original Maginot Line, after all, had also been considered impregnable until the enemy simply went around it. But the strategic importance of Zhongtiao went beyond prestige. The mountains commanded the northern approach to the Yellow River crossings — the great geographic boundary that separated Japanese-controlled northern China from the Nationalist-held central and western regions. From their positions in the mountains, Chinese troops could threaten Japanese supply lines, protect their own river logistics, and maintain at least a symbolic presence north of the Yellow River. As long as the Zhongtiao garrison held, Japan could not claim complete control of northern China. It was also a potential launching point for a Chinese counteroffensive, should one ever become possible. The Japanese understood this perfectly. By 1940, eliminating the Zhongtiao position had become not merely desirable but strategically necessary. The First War Zone command responsible for the Zhongtiao garrison was, at least on paper, an imposing force. Between 170,000 and 180,000 men were deployed across the mountain range and its approaches, drawn from multiple armies and organized into several large groupings. The 5th Army Group under Zeng Wanzhong held the central area. The 14th Army Group under Liu Maoen operated in the eastern sector. The 4th Army Group, known as the "Iron Pillar of Zhongtiao" for its tenacious defense of the position over three years, was stationed as the backbone of the force. Individual armies were spread across specific nodes: Pei Changhui's 9th Army at Jiyuan in northern Henan; Zhao Shiling's 43rd Army at Yuanqu at the southernmost tip of Shanxi; Tang Huaiyuan's 3rd Army and Kong Lingxun's 80th Army in the Wenxi and Xiaxian areas; Wu Shimin's 98th Army at Dongfeng Town; Wu Tinglin's 15th Army near Gaoping. The man responsible for holding all of this together was Wei Lihuang, a gifted commander and one of Chiang Kai-shek's most capable generals. Wei had organized the Zhongtiao defense from the beginning, and his strategic instincts were widely respected. He was, by most accounts, the indispensable figure in the garrison's survival. The problem was that Wei had made powerful enemies. His refusal to participate in anti-Communist friction operations — at a time when the Nationalist government was increasingly focused on neutralizing the Communists even at the cost of Japanese resistance — had alienated him from a circle of powerful rivals, including the influential Hu Zongnan. Outmaneuvered at court, Wei was summoned to Chongqing in early 1941 and, under the pretext of strategic consultations, was effectively detained at Mount Emei. He never returned to his command in the Zhongtiao Mountains. The army he had built was left without its architect. The garrison that remained was compromised far beyond its missing commander, however. Three years of static defense had created conditions that corroded military discipline in predictable and insidious ways. Supply lines were unreliable, rations were short, and the soldiers garrisoning remote mountain positions had turned, by necessity and then by habit, to the local economy to sustain themselves. A bustling illicit trade in grain and opium had sprung up across the mountain zone, with Chinese troops selling what they could and buying what they needed from merchants who operated equally comfortably on both sides of the Japanese-Chinese frontier. This was not merely a logistical failure. It meant that Japanese intelligence had abundant commercial cover to infiltrate the garrison area, that security was a fiction, and that the defensive posture of the entire force had quietly shifted from warlike readiness to something closer to bureaucratic occupation. The Japanese had not missed any of this. For months before the offensive, Japanese intelligence agents had worked their way into the garrison's supply networks, trading relationships, and eventually its command structure itself. Japanese special forces had identified key headquarters positions. Informants had mapped the positions of individual units, traced the routes between them, and assessed the readiness of the men holding them. By the spring of 1941, Japanese planners believed, with considerable justification, that they could paralyze the entire Chinese command system within an hour of opening fire. This was not boasting. It was reconnaissance. Back in Chongqing, the intelligence picture was worse than unclear — it was actively distorted. The Nationalist intelligence apparatus issued warnings about Japanese troop movements near the Zhongtiao perimeter in April 1941, but the warnings were partial, their significance disputed, and the political will to act on them absent. A series of conferences were convened at Luoyang, the regional headquarters. Fortification orders were issued. Additional supplies were promised. Almost none of the follow-through actually materialized. The garrison's most powerful formation, the 4th Army Group, had already been transferred away from the area. Its absence left a hole in the defensive line that no amount of paper orders could fill. On the Japanese side, the operation that would eliminate the Zhongtiao garrison was carefully and systematically prepared. It was codenamed the "Central Plains Campaign" — a name that reflected its true ambition, which was not merely to take a mountain range but to reshape the strategic geography of the entire region. The operation was assigned to the North China Area Army under Lieutenant General Tada Shun, an experienced commander who had studied the Zhongtiao problem for years and had a clear understanding of why previous offensives had failed. The core of the attacking force was seven divisions: the 33rd, 35th, 36th, 37th, 41st, and 21st Divisions, along with several independent mixed brigades, puppet Chinese formations, cavalry, and a substantial artillery and air component. The 3rd Air Group, operating from airfields at Yuncheng and Xinxiang, would provide tactical air support throughout the operation. In total, the frontline assault force numbered approximately 100,000 men. This was not a repeat of the previous thirteen offensives, in which the Japanese had probed and pressed at the mountains frontally. This was a comprehensive annihilation plan. Tada's design exploited the geographic shape of the Zhongtiao position itself. The Chinese garrison occupied a roughly crescent-shaped area, with its back to the Yellow River and its front facing north and east into Japanese-held territory. The obvious previous approach — attacking from the north — had failed repeatedly because the terrain favored the defenders. Tada's solution was to attack from three directions simultaneously, with the town of Yuanqu on the Yellow River as the primary objective. Yuanqu was the hinge of the entire Chinese position: it controlled the main river crossings, served as the central supply point for the garrison, and sat at the narrowest point between the mountains and the water. If Yuanqu fell, the Chinese would be cut off from their supply line and divided into two separate pockets. Then each pocket could be destroyed at leisure. To execute this, Tada organized his forces into three attack groups. The eastern group, built around Lieutenant General Harada Yukichi's 35th Division with elements of the 21st Division and the 4th Independent Cavalry Brigade — totaling roughly 25,000 men with armor, artillery, and supporting puppet forces — would drive westward along the Daoqing Road, pushing through Jiyuan and Mengxian toward the eastern flank of the Chinese position. The northeastern group, under Lieutenant General Shozo Sakurai commanding the 33rd Division and an Independent Mixed Brigade, would descend from Yangcheng southward, striking at the middle of the Chinese line. The western and northwestern group, the largest, comprising the 36th, 37th, and 41st Divisions along with the 9th and 16th Independent Mixed Brigades, would push southward from multiple points between Sangchi and Zhangdian, driving straight for Yuanqu. The final element of the plan was the most audacious. Japanese special forces and paratroopers were to land behind Chinese lines on the opening night of the offensive, targeting the Chinese headquarters and communications nodes. If the Chinese command could be blinded and paralyzed in the first hours of the battle, resistance would collapse before it could organize. Given the penetration of the garrison by Japanese intelligence, the paratroopers knew precisely where to go. From late April, Japanese forces quietly moved into their assault positions. Supply dumps were stocked. Artillery was registered on Chinese positions. The attack was set for the morning of May 7, 1941. Everything was ready. The battle opened before dawn on May 7, and it opened everywhere at once. On the eastern front, Harada's 35th Division and its attached formations crossed the start line and drove westward in three parallel columns along the Daoqing Road. More than 5,000 infantrymen, 1,000 cavalry, dozens of artillery pieces, over 100 tanks and armored vehicles, and the supporting puppet troops of Zhang Lanfeng and Liu Yanfeng poured into the Chinese-held area around Jiyuan and Mengxian. The assault had an almost mechanical quality — it moved at the pace of its armor and artillery, methodically grinding through whatever lay in its path. On the northeastern front, Sakurai's 33rd Division descended from Yangcheng with more than 10,000 men, striking at Wu Shimin's 98th Army at Dongfeng Town. Wu was one of the more aggressive Chinese commanders in the garrison, and he did not wait to be overwhelmed. He threw his forces into active resistance on multiple axes, contesting each Japanese advance rather than simply absorbing it. In the fighting around Wangcun, his troops achieved one of the campaign's rare Chinese tactical successes, routing approximately 2,000 Japanese attackers and killing more than 700, including Colonel Hamada, a Japanese regimental commander. It was a genuine local victory, but it could not change the larger picture. On the western and northwestern front, the main Japanese force pushed south with its eyes fixed on Yuanqu. The coordinated weight of three divisions and two independent brigades, all moving along converging axes, was designed to be overwhelming. Individually, a Chinese unit might hold a ridge or a pass for a day. Collectively, there was no way to stop what was coming. And that same night, as the Chinese scrambled to respond to attacks on every side, Japanese paratroopers landed near Chinese headquarters positions. They found what intelligence had promised: a command system already in disarray, staffed by officers who had received no coherent orders and had lost communications with most of their subordinate units. The Japanese were not wrong when they predicted they could paralyze the Chinese command within hours. By the morning of May 8, the Chinese First War Zone headquarters had effectively ceased to function as a coordinating body. Individual armies would fight on, but they would fight alone. The second day of the battle brought the decisive blow. On the afternoon of May 8, the 9th Army under Pei Changhui — already reeling from the pressure of the eastern Japanese columns — abandoned the cities of Ji and Meng and fell back westward. The withdrawal opened a path through the Chinese line, and the Japanese exploited it immediately. That evening, with the assistance of paratroopers who had secured key access routes overnight, Japanese forces reached Yuanqu on the Yellow River's northern bank and took it. The fall of Yuanqu changed everything. At a single stroke, the Chinese garrison's supply line from the south bank of the Yellow River was severed. The main crossing points were in Japanese hands. The two halves of the Chinese position — those to the east of Yuanqu and those to the west — were now separated, unable to reinforce one another. The double encirclement that Tada had designed on paper became a physical reality on the ground. The trap had closed. May 9 brought further disaster. Japanese forces captured Wufujian, another significant point in the Chinese rear. And on this day the battle's human cost began to register in the most stark terms possible. Wang Jun, commander of the newly formed 27th Division of Kong Lingxun's 80th Army, was killed in action fighting in the southern Shanxi mountains. Major General Chen Wenqi, deputy commander of the 24th Division, died in fierce combat near Taizhai Village. And Major General Liang Xixian, having retreated with the remnants of his force to Taizhai and found every route blocked — his options reduced to surrender or death — walked into the Yellow River and drowned himself. He was not the last Chinese officer to choose death over capture. The loss of three generals in a single day was not merely tragic. It reflected something about the nature of the battle that the casualty statistics alone could not capture: the Chinese officers who fought most fiercely and refused to abandon their positions were precisely the men dying, while the broader institutional structure that should have supported them had already failed. The garrison was being consumed from its fighting edge inward. Over the following two days, the Japanese methodically tightened the ring. The eastern column, having taken Yuanqu, split into two prongs: one drove eastward, capturing Shaoyuan by the morning of May 12 and linking up with the forces that had been pressing westward from Jiyuan; the other drove westward to Wufujian, joining with the troops already there. The inner encirclement was now complete and continuous. The Yellow River crossings along the entire Chinese front were blocked. There was no route south that wasn't already under fire or in Japanese hands. The fighting in the mountain passes was, by all accounts, ferocious. At Fengmenkou — a critical pass that both sides recognized as a key chokepoint — the Chinese 9th Army committed the main force of its newly formed 24th Division along with elements of the 54th Division, fighting for every ridge and ravine. The Japanese sent reinforcements and simply absorbed the punishment, pressing forward until numbers and artillery told. By May 12, the position at Jianshan had been surrounded as well, and the outer ring of encirclement had sealed. The Chinese armies in the Zhongtiao Mountains were now divided into isolated pockets, each fighting separately, each trying to find a gap in the Japanese lines that simply wasn't there. Beyond the mountains, the Chinese high command in Luoyang was issuing desperate orders. Units that had already been overrun were instructed to hold positions they no longer occupied. Army commanders who had lost contact with their corps were told to coordinate with formations they couldn't reach. The gap between the orders flowing from headquarters and the reality on the ground had become absolute. The First War Zone command was, in practical terms, a spectator to the destruction of its own army. Of all the days in the three-week battle, May 13 was perhaps the most devastating for Chinese morale. At Cunbu, in the western sector, the 3rd Army under Lieutenant General Tang Huaiyuan had been surrounded and cut off. Tang was among the finest officers in the Nationalist army — a career soldier of exceptional ability, admired by subordinates and superiors alike, the kind of commander who by his personal presence could steady troops on the edge of breaking. He had led the 3rd Army in continuous fighting since May 7, conducting a fighting retreat that had preserved more of his force than most. But there was nowhere left to retreat to. Cunbu was surrounded on all sides. The Yellow River was behind him. The Japanese were in front. Tang Huaiyuan sat with his surviving officers and told them that he would not surrender. Then he shot himself. He was fifty-seven years old. On the same day, Cun Xingqi, commander of the 12th Division, was hit eight times during close combat and died on the field. The tally of dead general officers had now reached five in the space of a week. Tang Huaiyuan's death, unlike the others, resonated as something more than a military loss. He was a symbol of what the Zhongtiao defense had once represented: the possibility that courage and skill could compensate for disadvantages in firepower and logistics. His death seemed to say, loudly, that that possibility was exhausted. Chiang Kai-shek, when news reached him in Chongqing, personally ordered that Tang Huaiyuan be posthumously promoted and honored. The gesture was well-intentioned and entirely beside the point. Tang was dead. His army was destroyed. The gesture could not undo either fact. With the double encirclement complete and the primary Chinese resistance broken, the Japanese Army entered the second and less dramatic but equally brutal phase of its operation: the systematic clearance of what remained. Beginning around May 15, Japanese units shifted from the headlong offensive drives of the first week to methodical sweep operations, moving through the mountain terrain in organized formations, pressing into each remaining pocket and eliminating whatever resistance they found. The Yellow River's northern bank was secured by Japanese forces who established posts at the crossing points, blocking retreat and interdicting any resupply attempt. From the western front, sweep operations continued in a series of movements that lasted until well into June, each one driving Chinese remnants further into smaller and more untenable positions. Japanese after-action reports from this period read with the clinical detachment of men doing carpentry rather than fighting: so many positions cleared, so many prisoners taken, so many bodies counted. For the surviving Chinese forces, this period was one of desperate improvisation. With coordinated resistance impossible and every organized position either taken or surrounded, the remnant armies broke up into smaller columns and attempted to find their own routes out of the encirclement. Their experiences varied enormously depending on their starting position, the initiative of their commanders, and fortune. The remnants of the 3rd Army and 15th Army, under Zeng Wanzhong of the 5th Army Group, managed to push through to Yellow River crossings in the west and get their men across to the south bank, eventually reorganizing at Luoyang and Xin'an. The 93rd Army, which had occupied positions in the northeast, shook off the Japanese pursuit with sufficient speed and organization to cross at Yumenkou and escape into Hancheng County in Shaanxi Province, preserving more of its fighting strength than most. Wu Shimin's 98th Army — whose fighting at Wangcun had been one of the campaign's genuine bright spots — was pushed northward into the Taiyue Mountains, conducting guerrilla operations as it went. Wu himself was wounded during the withdrawal and would spend months recovering; he never fully recovered his health, and would die by suicide the following year. The 43rd Army under Zhao Shiling, which had held Yuanqu before its fall, managed a fighting withdrawal toward Fushan and Yicheng in the north. Pei Changhui's 9th Army conducted several days of guerrilla operations along the Daoqing Road before finding crossings at Xiaodukou and Guanyangdukou and getting across the Yellow River to safety. By May 27, the great majority of the Zhongtiao Mountain garrison had either been destroyed, captured, or withdrawn. The mountains that had held for three years were in Japanese hands. The battle, for all practical purposes, was over. The two sides emerged from the battle with starkly different accounts of what had happened, and the gap between those accounts is itself revealing. Japanese operational records claimed that their forces had killed approximately 42,000 Chinese soldiers on the battlefield, taken around 35,000 prisoners, captured enormous quantities of weapons and supplies, and inflicted total Chinese casualties exceeding 100,000. Against this, Japanese headquarters reported their own losses as 673 killed and 2,292 wounded — a ratio so lopsided that it seemed to describe a completely different kind of warfare. Whether or not the precise numbers are accurate, Japanese sources were consistent in portraying the battle as a catastrophic one-sided rout. The Chinese government's official figures, presented to the public and to allied nations, told a very different story. Nationalist records acknowledged approximately 13,751 officers and soldiers killed, wounded, gassed, or missing, while claiming Japanese casualties of around 9,900. These numbers, by the standards of the actual fighting and the geographic scale of the defeat, strained credulity. They were the numbers of a government that needed, for political and morale reasons, to minimize a disaster it could not afford to fully acknowledge. What is beyond dispute is the strategic result. The Zhongtiao garrison, which had held for three years against thirteen prior offensives, had been destroyed in twenty days. The last significant Nationalist Chinese presence north of the Yellow River in the region had been eliminated. Japan now controlled the northern bank of the river for a substantial stretch, had secured its supply lines through southern Shanxi, and had opened the door for future pressure on Luoyang and ultimately Xi'an. The mountain barrier that had allowed Chinese forces to threaten Japanese logistics was gone. It would not be rebuilt. Six senior Chinese generals had died in the battle: Wang Jun, Chen Wenqi, Liang Xixian, Tang Huaiyuan, Cun Xingqi, and others in the fighting. Their deaths were individually remarkable — men choosing death over surrender at rate that reflected both the desperate conditions of the battle and a code of honor that many of them explicitly invoked in their final moments. They were also, in aggregate, a measure of how completely the officer corps had been consumed. In the decades since the battle, historians have returned repeatedly to the question of why a position held for three years collapsed so completely in three weeks. The answers are neither simple nor flattering to the Nationalist government, and they were debated with bitter intensity in Chongqing even while the battle was still being fought. The most immediate cause was the removal of Wei Lihuang. This was not merely the loss of a capable general — it was the destruction of the institutional knowledge and personal relationships that had made the defense function. The Zhongtiao garrison was not simply a collection of soldiers in mountain positions; it was a system, carefully constructed over three years, that depended on specific command relationships, established logistics arrangements, and particular allocation of resources. Wei had built that system. Without him, and without any adequate replacement, it became something far more brittle than it appeared. Below the level of high command, the garrison's gradual corruption was an equally powerful factor. The trading networks, the opium commerce, the penetration by Japanese intelligence — these were not incidental problems but symptoms of a deeper institutional failure. An army that has spent three years in static defensive positions, chronically undersupplied and without a meaningful offensive mission, tends toward exactly this kind of decay. The Nationalist government's decision to prioritize anti-Communist friction operations over Zhongtiao's fighting readiness had removed the 4th Army Group — the backbone of the defense — and had consumed Wei Lihuang's attention and political capital at the worst possible moment. The Japanese plan, too, deserves credit it rarely receives in Chinese accounts of the battle. The three-pronged converging attack on Yuanqu was not simply overwhelming force applied to an obvious target. It was an elegant solution to the genuine tactical puzzle that the Zhongtiao mountains presented, exploiting the garrison's geographic vulnerability with a precision that turned the defenders' mountain terrain from an asset into a trap. The use of paratroopers to decapitate the Chinese command in the opening hours was a sophisticated operational concept that worked almost exactly as designed. Tada Shun was not lucky. He was thorough. Finally, there is the question of Chiang Kai-shek's own priorities. His reported weeping upon receiving news of the defeat was genuine, in the sense that the loss clearly shocked and grieved him. But the decisions that led to the defeat — Wei Lihuang's removal, the transfer of the 4th Army Group, the neglect of fortification and resupply in the months preceding the battle — had been made in Chongqing, not in the mountains. The Zhongtiao garrison had been strategically sacrificed, piece by piece, for political calculations in the internal factional struggle between Nationalists and Communists. Whether Chiang understood the cost of those choices before May 7, 1941, is debatable. After that date, it was difficult to pretend otherwise. The fall of the Zhongtiao Mountains did not end the War of Resistance, but it substantially worsened China's strategic position in the north. Over the following months, Japan used its consolidated control of southern Shanxi to increase pressure on the Yellow River line and probe toward Luoyang. The surviving Chinese armies, reorganized south of the river, were in no position to counterattack. The mountains themselves, stripped of their garrison and secured by Japanese occupation troops, became part of the extended Japanese occupation zone — a territory to be administered and exploited rather than contested. For the men who had fought there, the battle left wounds that went beyond the physical. Entire armies had to be rebuilt from remnants. Officers who had retreated, whether under orders or on their own initiative, faced boards of inquiry in an atmosphere of recrimination and blame-seeking. Some were cashiered. Some faced criminal proceedings. The search for culpability — which was genuine enough, since the failure was genuine — tended to fall on those least able to defend themselves rather than on the senior commanders and political figures whose decisions had created the conditions for defeat. The posthumous honors awarded to Tang Huaiyuan, Liang Xixian, Wang Jun, and the other officers who died in battle were heartfelt, and they were also convenient. The heroic dead could be elevated without requiring the living to answer uncomfortable questions. Their sacrifice was real. The system that wasted it was also real. In the broader history of the Second Sino-Japanese War, the Battle of Zhongtiao Mountain tends to be overshadowed by more famous engagements — Shanghai, Nanjing, Taierzhuang, the later battles along the Salween. This is partly because the Chinese side lost comprehensively and had little interest in memorializing the loss, and partly because the battle's significance was more strategic than dramatic. There was no great last stand, no single moment of heroism sufficient to redeem the catastrophe. There were only men dying in mountain passes, generals walking into rivers, and an entire defensive system disintegrating under the weight of its own contradictions. What the Battle of Zhongtiao Mountain represents, in the end, is a case study in how military positions are really lost. They are rarely lost on the battlefield alone. They are lost in the staff meetings where capable commanders are removed for political reasons. They are lost in the supply depots that never get restocked. They are lost in the informal economies that grow up when institutions stop functioning. They are lost in the intelligence assessments that are written and ignored. They are lost, finally and irreversibly, in the early morning hours when the guns open simultaneously on three sides and the men at the radios discover that no one is answering.     I would like to take this time to remind you all that this podcast is only made possible through the efforts of Kings and Generals over at Youtube. Please go subscribe to Kings and Generals over at Youtube and to continue helping us produce this content please check out www.patreon.com/kingsandgenerals. If you are still hungry after that, give my personal channel a look over at The Pacific War Channel at Youtube, it would mean a lot to me. On May 7, 1941, Japan opened a three-front assault on Zhongtiao Mountains; paratroopers disrupted command night. With the 9th Army withdrawing, Yuanqu fell on May 8, severing supply and trapping the garrison. Fighting raged through May 13, costing generals, until Japanese sweeps cleared pockets; survivors escaped south of Yellow River.

AI來的快又急，你也擔心過被取代嗎？ 在這樣的時代，只會一件事情是不夠的， 很多人只看見成功者跳得高， 卻沒看見他們腳下其實有一張彈簧床， 第二優勢，就是那張支撐你跳得更高的床．．． / 三倍茂盛配方洗髮精、養髮液來了！每次開團一下子就消失了，複購率高達九成五，靠得全是口碑！由牛津大學生化博士 陳博士，花了多年心力研發，將畢生研究成果的養髮配方申請專利，進行了大量臨床試驗，在證明它的「有感」！ 請看優惠連結

誰會先知道美國要有大事發生？答案居然是一個披薩店老闆。 這個故事是這樣來的，有一間在五角大廈附近的披薩店老闆發現， 平常門可羅雀的深夜訂單，在某些大事件發生前訂單居然會暴增， 這就是有名的「披薩指數」。 在數據時代，愈高層的秘密愈容易藏在看似瑣碎的消費行為中， 真正的大預測家，不只看大數據，也看小訊號， 原來世界的秘密，常常就藏在日常的細節裡．．．這是最真實的「從微觀預測宏觀」的市井經濟學！ / 最適合悶熱夏天的輕盈質感衣服來了。深耕供應鏈多年的敏敏，為大家嚴選耐穿實用、隨手可穿搭的基本款。單品299元起，成套599元起。滿1500送「淡如手繪帆布袋」1個，滿3000直接送2個。 優惠連結：https://lovebetty.cyberbiz.co/collections/style Otto2 藝術美學獨家引進美國知名品牌的畫筆，只要官網訂價的39折起！ 一支專業、又上手的工具，竟然只要10多元，再送線上課程+大禮，只有這一次。 請看優惠連結

On this episode of Unsupervised Learning Razib talks to Brianna Wu. Wu is an American video game developer, programmer, and political activist best known as the co-founder and CEO of the independent game studio Giant Spacekat. Raised in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, she attended the University of Mississippi to study journalism and political science but withdrew in 2001 without earning a degree in order to pursue early entrepreneurial ventures. After establishing herself in the tech industry and leading the development of the 2014 indie game Revolution 60, Wu became a prominent advocate for marginalized groups in gaming, a role that expanded significantly after she was targeted during the Gamergate harassment campaign. She later transitioned into political organizing, running for the U.S. House of Representatives in Massachusetts as a Democrat in 2018 and 2020, and co-founding Rebellion PAC to support progressive political initiatives. In the last few years Wu has been pivoting more toward the center, expressing concerns about the power of the anti-Israel faction on the Left. Razib and Wu discuss their political differences, he, being on the political Right his whole adult life, and, Wu, a partisan of the Left. Wu makes the affirmative case for a liberal Left vision of American politics, a welfare state without express support for socialism. They also discuss the excesses of both the woke Left and the MAGA Right, and Wu challenges Razib on the actions of state-level Republicans. She argues that for many Americans the Right presents no option, because it does not welcome many identity categories as the Left does.  

你聽過高罌粟花症候群嗎？ 當一朵花長得太高，就會被剪掉， 這現象用來表示，許多人認為自己不應該太突出，應該要謙虛低調．． 很多人，尤其是女性，明明很優秀，被稱讚時卻總急著說「沒有啦，只是運氣好」， 其實你很了解，你絕對不是靠運氣成功的，為什麼不承認自己很棒？ 培養允許自己發光的自信，試試這樣做．．． / 認識吳英俊醫師 30 多年，首次合作 DR.WU 提供全通路最低 45 折破盤優惠！ 「亞洲醫美之父」將 50 年經驗化為日常保養，術後、敏弱肌都能安心用。「玻尿酸保濕」、「角鯊精華」與「PDRN超逆齡」人氣商品一次備齊，還有豐富滿額禮。 優惠連結

In this episode of The Truth In This Art, I sit down with Maurice Scarlett III!About Maurice Scarlett III: Maurice Scarlett III is a Baltimore-based visual artist and multi-disciplinary creative named after his father from West Baltimore. He is of Jamaican heritage and specializes in figurative art characterized by darker, alluring tones that capture the essence of Black figures. His journey began in 2010 with photography—documenting friends who were musicians, DJs, and clothing designers right after graduating high school. In 2017, fashion designer Kirby Jean-Raymond of Pyer Moss discovered him on Instagram and invited him to collaborate for New York Fashion Week, a pivotal moment that pushed him to take painting seriously.We talk about his evolution from photography to painting and how his work has become more grounded, immersive, and soulful—"more of his essence in it." Scarlett discusses his use of dark tones rooted in life experiences, grief, and learning to use pain as power. He explains his philosophy of embracing imperfections, quoting Miles Davis: "If you mess up on a key, keep that because that can make the song better."Scarlett describes his approach to portraying Black people in a "re-imagined way"—highlighting them beyond repetitive narratives of politics, slavery, and trauma. He shares how Baltimore shows up in his work subconsciously, with subtle cues that come naturally from growing up in the city. He introduces the word he associates with Baltimore art: grit—the do-it-yourself mentality of creatives who carved their own lane without waiting for platforms. His advice for artists: "Find your own lane, carve your own lane and stay within it, but at the same time experiment and stay curious—doing what's true to you."We also talk about the importance of living life to create soulful work, the danger of comparing yourself to other artists on social media, learning to pace yourself as a creator, his studio on North Avenue, and why Baltimore is a "cool melting pot" slowly getting its recognition.Follow Maurice Scarlett III on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/mauricescarlett to see his work, including recent pieces "Smokey" (2024), "The Scene" (2025), and "Wu-tang Is For The Children" (2025).Photo courtesy of subject. The Truth In This Art is supported by William G. Baker, Jr. Memorial Fund, the Maryland State Arts Council's Creativity Grant and Mayor's Individual Artist Award - Creative Baltimore Fund (Baltimore). Host: Rob LeeMusic: Original music by Daniel Alexis Music with additional music from Chipzard and TeTresSeis.Production:Produced by Rob Lee & Daniel AlexisEdited by Daniel AlexisShow Notes courtesy of Rob Lee and TransistorPhotos:Rob Lee photos by Vicente Martin for The Truth In This Art and Contrarian Aquarian Media.Guest photos courtesy of the guest, unless otherwise noted.Support the podcastThe Truth In This Art Podcast Fractured Atlas (Fundraising): https://www.fracturedatlas.orgThe Truth In This Art Podcast Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/thetruthinthisart.bsky.socialThe Truth In This Art Podcast Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/truthinthisart/?hl=enThe Truth In This Art Podcast Website: https://www.thetruthinthisart.com/The Truth In This Art Podcast Shop: Merch from Redbubble ★ Support this podcast ★

你可能也聽過「學生的責任是念書」這樣的說法， 不過大學生創業做起生意來，一樣可以風風火火， 前陣子在大學校園吹起一股新潮流叫校內創業， 不是當家教喔！而是把宿舍變成創業基地， 有人幫同學做美甲，有人賣衣服、零食、咖啡．．．， 這些有生意腦袋的大學生小老闆，在認真讀書的同時還能比別人更早了解這個商業社會的運作規則．．． / 認識吳英俊醫師 30 多年，首次合作 DR.WU 提供全通路最低 45 折破盤優惠！ 「亞洲醫美之父」將 50 年經驗化為日常保養，術後、敏弱肌都能安心用。「玻尿酸保濕」、「角鯊精華」與「PDRN超逆齡」人氣商品一次備齊，還有豐富滿額禮。 優惠連結

我唸大學到研究所一年級，一直靠著接家教維生。 所以我跟吳醫師他家很熟，因為我在他家當了一年多的家教。 這個學生當時只是小學四年級的可愛小朋友，隔了30多年，還笑著跟我說：「老師我也快50歲了！」，真是歲月不饒人！ 很多人想像的家族接班，就是孩子照著父母的路走， 但真正好的傳承，不一定是複製上一代， 而是把上一代累積的專業，轉換成下一個時代需要的形式。 DR.WU品牌的誕生就是來自於一個不願意接班的醫生兒子， 沒有繼承父親的醫師袍，吳奕叡卻用另一種方式讓專業發揮更大的價值．．． P. S 學生把爸爸的小診所變成了連鎖集團，也開創了暢銷歐美的品牌。看這麼久的交情就知道會有多好的價格組合出現囉，請↓看 / 慶祝認識吳英俊醫師40年，DR.WU 提供全通路最低45折破盤優惠！ 「亞洲醫美之父」將50年經驗化為日常保養，術後、敏弱肌都能安心用。「玻尿酸保濕」、「角鯊精華」與「PDRN超逆齡」人氣商品一次備齊，還有豐富滿額禮。 優惠連結

  All Hail Unicron: Episode 119: Justin is Back with the Milk    INTRODUCTION Anybody Get Anything? Movie/Show News Third Party Dr Wu's War Within Devastator full look - G1 and G2 colors (2 links) https://news.tfw2005.com/2026/05/05/dr-wu-dw-es03-cyber-mixer-truck-dw-es06-cyber-excavator-war-within-mixmaster-scavenger-and-cyber-hercules-war-within-devastator-color-prototypes-563219 https://news.tfw2005.com/2026/05/10/dr-wu-g2-cyber-hercules-war-within-devastator-g2-deco-color-prototype-563517 From War Within to Bayverse, Dr Wu is very busy! https://news.tfw2005.com/2026/05/06/dr-wu-dw-mc05-disc-jockey-transformers-2007-frenzy-color-prototype-563290 Craftsman Toys is doing that Kang Toys thing and giving us an MP and Legends scale Swoop https://news.tfw2005.com/2026/05/06/great-general-toys-craftman-toys-masterpiece-legends-scale-swoop-gray-prototypes-563286 Newage showing off a Shattered Glass Ultra Magnus repaint/retool https://news.tfw2005.com/2026/05/08/newage-h28b-lucullu-legends-scale-shattered-glass-ultra-magnus-color-images-563383 Galaxy Toys might be new, but that repaint game isn't! https://news.tfw2005.com/2026/05/09/galaxy-toys-mini-10-iron-armor-mini-11-guardian-ratchet-color-prototypes-563417 Want a random new Arcee with a realistic car mode and human face? LaserCat has you covered! https://news.tfw2005.com/2026/05/20/lucky-cat-cyber-goddess-series-cg01-venus-arcee-color-prototype-564385 MachineCat, formerly LaserCat, has a color prototype of their chibi Superion to show off https://news.tfw2005.com/2026/05/21/machinecat-toys-mct-01-flight-b-robot-sd-superion-color-prototype-564539 MachineLaserCat whatever company isn't done yet! Here's their chibi BW Waspinator https://news.tfw2005.com/2026/05/21/machinecat-toys-mct-02-flight-buzz-voltbee-sd-waspinator-prototype-564559 MachineLaserKiddyPlayCat toys news week continues with more images of their chibi G1 Prime https://news.tfw2005.com/2026/05/27/machinecat-toys-sd-g1-optimus-prime-gray-prototype-update-564871 Listen, it's all about MachineCat this week, m'kay? https://news.tfw2005.com/2026/05/28/machinecat-toys-mct-02-ferocy-b-robo-sd-abominus-gray-prototype-564943 Bingo Toys wants to know, does it after burn when you pee? https://news.tfw2005.com/2026/05/22/bingo-toys-bt08-02-newton-masterpiece-scale-afterburner-color-prototype-564605 Magic Square revealed their legends class Strafe prototype and broke half the fandom... https://news.tfw2005.com/2026/05/23/magic-square-toys-ms-b63-eniac-no-3-legends-scale-strafe-color-prototype-564707 Rising Force is still a company, and they still want you to buy their Fall of Cybertron Combaticons, starting with Swindle and Blast-Off https://news.tfw2005.com/2026/05/29/rising-force-fall-of-cybertron-combaticons-swindle-and-blast-off-prototypes-565000 Who's a big puffy-puff bitch?! Yes you are a big puffy-puff bitch, yes you are! https://news.tfw2005.com/2026/06/01/01-studio-01s-18-fortress-fall-of-cybertron-metroplex-new-images-565193 Official: Even this blind dude loves Titan class AoE Grimlock! https://news.tfw2005.com/2026/05/19/transformers-studio-series-titan-class-age-of-extinction-grimlock-color-sample-564342#images Unreleased Artemis from BWII has surfaced https://news.tfw2005.com/2026/05/20/possible-first-look-at-unreleased-transformers-beast-wars-ii-artemis-figurine-prototype-564366 Oh good, another Transformers game that will probably get cancelled before it's released or will otherwise suck https://news.tfw2005.com/2026/05/20/hasbro-ceo-chris-cocks-talks-video-games-transformers-action-adventure-role-playing-pc-console-game-coming-564350 Save a horse, ride an Ironhide! https://news.tfw2005.com/2026/05/19/takara-tomy-missing-link-c-14-ironhide-hidden-features-564362 Blokees Wheels Wreck and Rule wave 2 stock images, including chase figures (2 links) https://news.tfw2005.com/2026/05/24/blokees-wheels-transformers-c03-wreck-rule-2-official-stock-images-564749 https://news.tfw2005.com/2026/05/26/blokees-wheels-transformers-c03-wreck-rule-2-product-update-chase-variants-564816 Move over Gunpla, it's Transpla time? https://news.tfw2005.com/2026/05/27/hasbro-files-trademark-for-new-in-house-model-kit-line-564849 Another G1 Matrix is coming for "roleplay" night https://news.tfw2005.com/2026/05/27/killerbody-transformers-g1-matrix-of-leadership-564854 MPG-19 Repainted and over-adjusted for inflation Soundwave and Laserbeak in-hand images https://news.tfw2005.com/2026/05/29/transformers-mpg-19-soundwave-condor-laserbeak-new-in-hand-images-565020 Seafood Platter, eject! https://news.tfw2005.com/2026/05/27/transformers-cyberworld-energon-surge-additional-stock-images-564893 Takara shows off G2 Menasor complete. You seeing this, Hasbro, or just don't care, or what? https://news.tfw2005.com/2026/05/30/takara-tomy-transformers-new-legends-g2-menasor-color-sample-565093 An AotP Leader Class Unicron Soldier coming? https://news.tfw2005.com/2026/05/30/age-of-the-primes-leader-unicron-soldier-teasers-565103 "Fuck you, 52Toys, we can make boxes too!"  -Hasbro (2026) https://news.tfw2005.com/2026/05/28/officially-licensed-transformers-squaroes-deck-boxes-564959 More YoloPark Botcon "exclusives" that you can probably buy now from BBTS revealed. Sideburn and Menasor https://news.tfw2005.com/2026/05/31/yolopark-amk-mini-battle-protocol-sideburn-menasor-2-pack-images-565126 Reeeeelax, guy! It's just more images of me, guy! That's what this post is all uh-boot! https://news.tfw2005.com/2026/06/01/lego-brickheadz-transformers-megatron-new-stoCk-images-565175 Remember that time Hasbro took some shitty little kid's drawing of Shockwave as an alligator-dinosaur thing and made it a figure? https://news.tfw2005.com/2026/06/01/transformers-cyberworld-energon-surge-ultimate-cyber-changers-shockwave-in-hand-images-565208 Questions? Discussion: Email your questions to: Hailunicroncast@gmail.com    Special Shoutouts: Dustmightz for providing the beats for the theme song! Check the Realm of Collectors on Facebook! https://www.facebook.com/groups/realmofcollectors   Everyone who followed us from Shattered Cast Uncut, we are grateful to each and everyone of you for joining us on this journey!   Hosts: T2RX6 http://www.youtube.com/user/T2rx6 Rich “Preordered” H. Oscar Alonso https://www.youtube.com/user/oscarnjboy Robert Duyjuy-sabado-gigante

One month before the bloodshed in Beijing, a 10km line of protestors snaked through the city. For over a decade China had been opening up to global trade and there was promise that, with greater economic freedoms, democratic rights might be within reach too. In an emotional testimony, student organiser Wu'er Kaixi explains why he thought protest and demonstrations were encouraging leaders towards a more progressive China. On 4 May 1989, with huge numbers in the streets it was a moment when many dared to believe the fight for democracy could be won. But, as Wu'er Kaixi tells Tom Bonnett, it was a brief high point. A month later, tanks and soldiers descended on the streets and sent a bloody message - protest would not be tolerated. Eye-witness accounts brought to life by archive. Witness History is for those fascinated by and curious about the past. We take you to the events that have shaped our world through the eyes of the people who were there. For nine minutes every day, we take you back in time and all over the world, to examine wars, coups, scientific discoveries, cultural moments and much more. Recent episodes explore everything from how the Excel spreadsheet was developed, the creation of cartoon rabbit Miffy and how the sound barrier was broken.We look at the lives of some of the most famous leaders, artists, scientists and personalities in history, including: the moment Reagan and Gorbachev met in Geneva, Haitian singer Emerante de Pradines' life and Omar Sharif's legendary movie entrance in Lawrence of Arabia.You can learn all about fascinating and surprising stories, like the invention of a stent which has saved lives around the world; the birth of the G7; and the meeting of Maldives' ministers underwater. We cover everything from World War Two and Cold War stories to Black History Month and our journeys into space.(Photo: Student protests in Beijing in May 1989. Credit: Getty Images)

Last time we spoke about the second phase of the One Hundred Regiment Offensive.  During the second phase of the Hundred Regiments offensive, CCP forces emphasized strongpoint and transportation warfare across the Taihang/Jizhong area. Units were organized with wings containing Japanese positions while a central force struck deeper, as in the Renhe Dasu fighting in early October 1940. Night raids seized strongholds, while engineers and sabotage teams disrupted roads, bridges, and mobility, and ambushes targeted Japanese foraging and supply routes. Across these theaters, the strategy was consistent: make Japanese control porous by destroying or capturing local nodes and forcing constant repairs, re-routing, escorts, and slowed reinforcement, so occupation logistics and strongpoint networks could not function reliably. This approach supported wider offensives by isolating strongpoints, draining enemy strength, and giving Communist base areas room to endure and expand.   #204 The One Hundred Regiment Offensive Phase Three Welcome to the Fall and Rise of China Podcast, I am your dutiful host Craig Watson. But, before we start I want to also remind you this podcast is only made possible through the efforts of Kings and Generals over at Youtube. Perhaps you want to learn more about the history of Asia? Kings and Generals have an assortment of episodes on history of asia and much more  so go give them a look over on Youtube. So please subscribe to Kings and Generals over at Youtube and to continue helping us produce this content please check out www.patreon.com/kingsandgenerals. If you are still hungry for some more history related content, over on my channel, the Pacific War Channel where I cover the history of China and Japan from the 19th century until the end of the Pacific War. After the two large-scale offensives carried out over wide areas of North China, the Japanese army did what it always did when control started to slip: it tried to turn mobile pressure back into something it could "manage" again. The Eighth Route Army's continued fighting had shown that Japanese-occupied space was not secure, and that base areas could still resist, strike, and persist even while under counterpressure. That was dangerous for occupation. If the enemy could keep operations going, Japanese lines of movement stayed uncertain and "stabilization" became a temporary illusion. To prevent the situation from worsening and to re-stabilize the occupied areas as quickly as possible, the Japanese mobilized heavy forces and launched retaliatory counter–"mopping-up" operations against anti-Japanese base areas in North China beginning October 6. The Japanese attempt wasn't only to punish; it was designed to take advantage of an asymmetry: the Eighth Route Army was striking and fighting continuously, and it did not have the luxury of resting, replenishing, and re-cohering as neatly as a garrison army might. Japanese commanders hoped that if they struck hard enough in enough places, the Communist main forces could be isolated, destroyed, or at least forced into a defensive posture that would break their operational tempo. At Liaodong and Yulin, Japanese reinforcements also created a second political-military stake. After the Yuliao Campaign ended, the Eighth Route Army headquarters issued instructions on October 1 to major regions, warning that enemy reinforcements in Liaodong and Yulin might use the opening to "sweep" the Taibei region. In the Communist operational mind, this wasn't just one threat; it was a pattern. A "sweep" could come as a wave that pushed inward, burned villages, destroyed supplies, and tried to force Communist forces out of their protected networks. Even if the offensive couldn't win a conventional decisive battle, it could aim to strip the base areas of people, food, and mobility—things that make guerrilla and strongpoint warfare possible. By October 19, 1940, the Eighth Route Army headquarters issued a counter–"mopping-up" operation plan, and civilian and military authorities in various regions launched counter-"mopping-up" operations accordingly. This is important background: in these campaigns, "mopping-up" was not only an army activity. The Japanese were attempting to break the base system itself—its logistics, its local administration, and the relationship between armed units and civilians who hid, moved, fed, and replaced them. So the counter-operations had to be just as systemic. The Communists needed to keep people alive, keep movement possible, and keep the enemy from consolidating inside a cleared space. In southeastern Shanxi's Taihang and Taiyue regions, the Japanese 1st Army aimed to strike the main force of the 129th Division and destroy anti-Japanese base areas by running a series of mopping operations from October 6 to December 5. The plan had a typical occupation logic: push through strongholds gradually, clear pockets methodically, and rely on local superiority—especially in manpower, logistics, and the ability to reinforce by road. And because the Communist main force had been operating without meaningful rest after the earlier offensives, the Japanese believed they could catch formations while they were still "in between battles." On October 6, in the Taihang region, more than 800 enemy troops from Wu'an in western Hebei began a "mopping-up" operation in the Yangyi area. By October 11, the Japanese posture escalated. Part of the Japanese Independent Mixed 4th Brigade departed from Liaoxian and Wuxiang, while part of the 36th Division departed from Lucheng and Xiangyuan; together they totaled over 3,000 troops. Coordinating from north and south, they carried out operations to "mop up" both banks of the Zhuozhang River between Yulin, Liaoxian, and Wuxiang, encircling and clearing the south side of the Yulin–Liaoxian highway. This emphasis on riverbanks and highway corridors reveals the Japanese method: move along terrain that controls movement, then compress enemy options until the defenders have to fight inside a narrowing space. The counter to that method required more than bravery. The Eighth Route Army's 385th and 386th Brigades, along with the 1st Column of the Decisive Battle, fought on inner lines—where they could move more rapidly between known local positions and threaten the enemy's flanks or supply behavior. Meanwhile the New 10th Brigade fought on outer lines, where it could intercept, delay, and force the enemy to spend time reacting instead of clearing. By the morning of October 15, the New 10th Brigade delivered a concrete example of that interception strategy. Two regiments ambushed an enemy motor-transport convoy at Gongjiagou on the Heliao Highway, destroying more than 40 vehicles and annihilating more than 100 Japanese soldiers escorting the convoy. The meaning of a convoy ambush is strategic even when the numbers are modest: vehicles represent speed, logistics, and reinforcement. If the enemy loses vehicles repeatedly, "mopping" becomes slower, and slower clearing creates openings for the defenders to reorganize, disperse, or shift main effort. After that, on October 17, the enemy forces that had been mopping up the convoy withdrew in different directions. Withdrawal in multiple directions is a sign that the Japanese clearing operation, meant to compress a space, had instead been forced into a reactive mode. It also hints at a recurring pattern in these years: Japanese units could clear what was already weak, but when defenders hit their movement corridors, the occupiers had to spend time and combat power simply to recover mobility. The next major sweep began October 20, 1940, and it was much larger. Nearly 10,000 troops—from the 36th Division and Independent Mixed Brigade No. 4—set off from multiple locations, including Wu'an, Liaoxian, Wuxiang, and Lucheng, to sweep the area east and west of the Qingzhang River, focusing on land between Matian and Zuohui. Crucially, that was not random ground. The Japanese sought to strike the CCP Central Committee Northern Bureau, the Eighth Route Army headquarters, and the 129th Division headquarters, along with party and government organs of the Jin-Ji-Yu Border Region, located together with Shexian and Piancheng. In other words, the Japanese targeted not just armed units but the political-administrative heart that makes base areas function. Once in the attack area, the Japanese carried out "mopping-up" operations paired with burning and killing for several days. That brutality wasn't only cruelty; it served a purpose. Burning villages, destroying crops, and killing civilians could deny the base area food and shelter while making local cooperation more difficult. Then, on October 26, the Japanese began to withdraw and carried out mopping-up in different areas on the way back. The base area was "severely damaged and destroyed," indicating that even when the Japanese didn't annihilate the main Communist force, they could still achieve degradation—hurting the system they needed to keep operating. But the Communists were not simply absorbing damage. On October 29, a force of over 500 men from the 36th Division, plus over 400 supply and laborers, was mopping up Huangyandong and advanced through Zuohui to Guanjia'nao east of Panlong, preparing to return to Wuxiang. This is where counter-mopping becomes operationally dangerous for the occupier. Supply and labor detachments move differently from combat formations, and they represent an enemy's assumption that the base area is being "cleared." The Eighth Route Army headquarters ordered, at 1:00 p.m., for the 129th Division to concentrate its main force to annihilate the enemy. That night, the 129th Division—uniting the main forces of the 385th and 386th Brigades, parts of the New 10th Brigade, and the First Column of the Death Squad—surrounded the enemy at Guanjia'nao with a plan to launch a general offensive at 4:00 a.m. The besieged enemy, besides quickly building fortifications, seized Fengkengding high ground southwest of Guanjia'nao under cover of darkness. The two high points helped defenders support one another and resist stubbornly. The battle lasted until dawn on October 31, when most of the enemy had been annihilated, leaving only more than 60 men to hold positions. Then reinforcements arrived—over 1,500 from Huangyandong—supported by more than 10 aircraft. The 129th Division withdrew, and the remaining enemy fled toward the flood, leaving behind more than 280 corpses. By then, most Japanese troops had withdrawn from the central base area. The background stake is clear: "mopping-up" could damage and burn, but if defenders could convert the Japanese attempt into a trap—especially when enemy units had become separated from their core and committed to clearing—they could turn a destructive operation into a costly one for the occupier. In early November, the Japanese continued. In Licheng south of Taihang, Japanese forces invaded Nanweiquan and Beiweiquan and then Xijing. Elsewhere, Japanese forces in Xiangyuan invaded Panlong via Xiying, attempting to attack Dongtian and the area around Zhuanbi, where the Eighth Route Army headquarters was located. In that moment, the 386th Brigade was ordered to rush to the north–south line of Damocun, east of Panlong, block the invading enemy, and cover the transfer of the Eighth Route Army headquarters. At 9:00 a.m. on November 3, 1940, fierce fighting broke out as the troops finished deploying near Damocun. The Japanese launched continuous attacks and captured some positions. The 386th Brigade held until 4:00 a.m. on November 4, then withdrew after the headquarters successfully moved. The Japanese attempt to launch a pincer attack failed, and they retreated to the Baijin Line on November 5. Even when Japanese action couldn't be fully blocked, the counter's aim was not only tactical survival but prevention of strategic encirclement—protecting the central institutions and preserving the ability to fight again. In the northern Taihang region, more than 2,500 enemy troops from Heshun arrived in Yushe on November 3 via Hanwang Town and Changcheng Town, reinforcing Japanese forces in the Yu, Liao, and Wu areas. Then they carried out repeated mopping operations south of the Yuliao Highway, including Jiangtang, Lingshang, Songjiazhuang, Guojiao, and Dayouyi. Harassment and attacks by military and civilians forced Japanese troops back into their strongholds by the 13th. A "40-day" counter-mopping operation in Taihang came to an end. The term "40-day" isn't only calendar time; it suggests that these were not one-off battles but sustained campaigns of movement, dispersal, and repeated harassment meant to drain the enemy's capacity. Starting November 17, the Japanese launched a multi-pronged attack on Qinyuan and the area north of Guodao Town. The attack involved part of the 37th Division from Qin County and Nanguan Town, part of the Independent Mixed Brigade from Pingyao, Jiexiu, and Huo County, and a battalion of the 41st Division from Hongdong—more than 7,000 troops deployed to attack Qinyuan and the north area. But the Taiyue Military Region response shows how the Communist counter-mopping wasn't always to meet force with force. To avoid the enemy's "sharp edge," the Taiyue Military Region formed two detachments—Qin East and Qin West—with leadership and main force moving to both sides of the Qin River outside the Japanese attack zone, targeting scattered Japanese troops instead of being fixed into a single killing field. By November 23, due to harassment by local armed forces, the Japanese reached the attack zone and then carried out dispersed mopping operations. Qinyuan County was the most severely damaged, with more than 5,000 people killed (about one-tenth of its population), nearly 10,000 livestock killed and over 7,000 stolen, and 30,000 to 40,000 houses destroyed. Those details are brutal, but they explain why background stakes mattered: "mopping-up" was meant to break the social base. If civilians died or fled, the guerrilla system became harder to sustain. The response from the Dayue Military Region seized the opportunity created by Japanese dispersal. On November 23, the 42nd Regiment of the Qinxi Detachment annihilated more than 100 Japanese soldiers in Guantan. On November 27, parts of the 42nd and 59th Regiments killed or wounded more than 160 in Huhanping and Mabei. The Qindong Detachment's 17th and 57th Regiments inflicted serious damage in a series of places—Guang'ao, Chenjiagou, Longfosi, Wuyuanzhen, Nanweicun, Nanli, and more. The 17th Regiment's battle at Longfosi annihilated more than 100 Japanese. Additional heavy losses were inflicted by the 212th Brigade in Jiaokou. By December 5, the Japanese were forced to withdraw from the Taiyue area in separate routes. Strategically, dispersal punished the occupier because scattered units are harder to protect and easier to ambush. Across the Jin-Cha-Ji Border Region, anti-"mopping-up" operations unfolded gradually, beginning with the Pingxi area, the first target of the Japanese on the path toward the Japanese-held headquarters and rail lines. Pingxi mattered because it directly threatened the headquarters of the Japanese North China Area Army and Beiping—the puppet regime's center—and also threatened the Pinghan and Pingsui railways, North China's main transportation lines. So Pingxi became an operational priority: if the occupier couldn't keep the rail network secure, their ability to reinforce and supply their own strongpoints suffered. On October 13, 1940, more than 10,000 Japanese and puppet troops attacked Sanpo, the central area of the Pingxi base area, in 10 routes. This attack used a methodical, steady approach: advance gradually, rely on strongholds, and cover 5 to 10 kilometers each day. In response, the Pingxi Military Sub-district countered using timely maneuvers of its main forces and extensive guerrilla warfare. Over more than a week of fighting, the enemy was constantly harassed and attacked, wearing them down. Although Japanese troops penetrated deep, they failed to identify the main force's movements. By November 21, when the encirclement tightened further, the Pingxi main force jumped out from the Sanpo area and moved southwest. Encountering the enemy at Pengtou, it then moved to the Yegu and Datai line east of Bancheng. After the Japanese entered the Sanpo area, they conducted widespread burning and killing and looted grain. Starting from the 23rd, the Japanese retreated in different routes. By the end of October, the main force had withdrawn from Pingxi, but more than 2,000 troops remained in the Pingxi anti-Japanese base area to build strongholds and roads. Strongholds were added in places like Changping and Wanping—14 strongholds alone—and villages such as Dongzhaitang and Dujiazhuang came under their control. The base area began to shrink and shrink. That shrinkage is the other background stake: even when guerrilla forces avoid annihilation, the occupier may still carve away space through fortification. On October 19, 1940, the Eighth Route Army headquarters instructed that enemy attacks in Pingxi and Taihang might turn around and attack the Beiyue area. The Jin-Cha-Ji Border Region needed to prepare quickly to crush these "mopping-up" operations, coordinating Party, government, military, and civilians and conducting in-depth combat mobilization. The main force should assemble in appropriate positions and prepare to annihilate one or two enemy forces decisively. The headquarters also instructed the 129th and 120th Divisions to cooperate actively. By November 9, 1940, the Japanese struck again in a massive sweep. The 110th Division, along with other units and more than 14,000 puppet troops, launched a "mopping-up" operation in the jurisdiction of the 1st Military Sub-district. The Japanese and puppet troops moved in coordinated lines: along the line of Yi County, Dalonghua, Wang'an Town, Laiyuan, and Chajianling from north to south, while those in Baoding and Mancheng moved east to west. The intent was to squeeze Communist sub-district forces into a narrow area for a decisive battle. On November 10, the Jin-Cha-Ji Military Region issued operational guidelines and deployments for countering "mopping-up" operations. By the 12th, in response to Japanese widespread burning and killing, it further instructed that without hindering mobility, the main force could disperse a portion of troops—no more than one-third—to strike resolutely at attempts to burn and kill. That instruction captures the balance commanders tried to strike: disperse too much and you lose power; disperse too little and you become trapped by the occupier's brutality. The Japanese then attempted to pressure multiple places. On November 9, more than 6,000 enemy troops from Laiyuan, Yixian, and Baoding attacked Guantou, Yinfang, Huangtuling, and Shenbei. On the 12th, their attack failed; they burned and killed people before retreating in different routes. At that time, the 1st Military Sub-district assembled the 1st and 25th Regiments to intercept them. One enemy force of more than 800 was intercepted on the 14th as it retreated from Wujiazhuang to Yuangang; some were killed or wounded. Even so, the enemy broke through under aircraft cover and retreated to Guantou. On the way, it was intercepted again by the 20th Regiment, suffering heavy casualties, and it fled back to Mancheng. Then on November 13, more than 2,700 Japanese and puppet troops attacked the 3rd Military Sub-district; on November 14, about 2,600 advanced from Dingxiang, Dongye, and Wutai toward Fuping and its southwest area in two routes. The Japanese attacked with east-west coordination, launching joint attacks on Taiyu north of Fuping. The Jin-Cha-Ji Military Region headquarters and the command organs of the 3rd and 5th military sub-districts, along with the 2nd, 3rd, and 6th regiments and other troops, transferred to the outer line before the enemy encirclement formed. On the 16th, the Japanese launched a joint attack again on Taiyu and Zhangjiayu, and the guerrillas who failed to transfer fought hard. Commander Wang Pu and Deputy Director of the Political Department Hao Yuming were killed, and troops suffered more than 100 casualties. On November 18, the enemy from Taiyu quickly occupied Hanping City. By the 21st, enemy forces from Daying via Shentangbao and Wuwangkou, and from Wutai via Taihuai, Shizui, Longquanguan, and Xiaguan, also gathered in Fuping City. After occupying Fuping, the Japanese launched repeated attacks "sweeping" areas under the jurisdiction of the 3rd Military Sub-district from both inward and outward strongholds, conducting brutal burning and killing and destruction. On the night of November 21, the 2nd Regiment dispatched more than 30 men to raid Dangcheng and attack Japanese barracks with grenades. The Japanese panicked and fired guns and cannons all night. On the 26th, four plainclothes officers infiltrated Baoding and attacked a theater where the Japanese army was holding a meeting, causing panic among the Japanese. The enemy that had invaded the base area withdrew in different routes on the 25th. By December 3, 1940, most Japanese troops had withdrawn from the Beiyue area, but more than 1,000 remained along lines including Fuping, Wangkuai, Dangcheng, and Quyang to continue building points and roads in an attempt to occupy the area long-term. To force the enemy back, eliminate occupied points, and completely crush Japanese and puppet "mopping-up," the Jin-Cha-Ji Military Region organized the Fuping–Wangkuai Campaign starting December 9, with the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and 6th regiments participating. At 21:00 on December 14, the 6th Regiment attacked enemy forces in Dongzhuang. The 1st Battalion captured three fortified positions on the north mountain of Dongzhuang and rushed into the village, only for Japanese counterattacks to recapture fortified positions and kill or wound more than 170 Japanese during the counterfight. The 4th Regiment attacked the enemy in Fuping; the 2nd Regiment and guerrilla forces entered Dangcheng and Lingshan. On the 21st, more than 130 enemy soldiers escorting more than 100 pack animals carrying military supplies reached Wangkuai and were completely annihilated when they reached Wanglinkou. By December 26, an ambush in the Xuancun area of the Pinghan Railway destroyed 14 Japanese trains and their vehicles as well as three heavy artillery pieces. On the 27th, more than 1,200 enemy troops advancing from Dongzhuang in Fuping were attacked in Luoyu and Tumen, suffering more than 140 casualties. The remaining Japanese withdrew from Fuping, Dongzhuang, and Wangkuai starting New Year's Day 1941. By January 4, the 55-day anti-"mopping-up" campaign had basically ended, with the Jin-Cha-Ji Military Region killing and wounding more than 2,000 Japanese and puppet troops while suffering 1,382 casualties itself. These numbers and dates show why background and stakes matter: the counter-mopping effort wasn't short. It was sustained, operationally demanding, and required continued offensive action even while facing superior Japanese resources. The pressure didn't end there. From October 25 to early November, about 4,000 Japanese troops, including the 16th Independent Mixed Brigade, launched a mopping operation in the Miyu and Loufan areas of the 8th and 3rd military sub-districts in northwestern Shanxi, but they were attacked by local soldiers and civilians. In mid-December, Japanese forces transferred additional strength: parts of the 37th Division from southern Shanxi and the 41st Division from southeastern Shanxi, along with parts of the 3rd, 9th, and 16th Independent Mixed Brigades and the 26th Division from northwestern Shanxi—totaling more than 20,000 troops—to prepare for a full-scale mopping operation in northwestern Shanxi. After the second phase of the Hundred Regiments Offensive ended, the 120th Division anticipated retaliation and actively prepared for counter-mopping. On October 30, the division was ordered to establish the Jin-Northwest Military Region, and on November 7, the military region was established in Lijiawan, Xing County. The Jin-Northwest Military Region had direct military sub-districts and six military sub-districts: the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 8th, and Yanbei. Then the occupier escalated. Starting December 14, 1940, the Japanese launched a full-scale mopping operation against the Jin-Northwest region. More than 5,000 enemy troops invaded the Mi-Yu Town area of the 8th Military Sub-district, more than 4,000 invaded Lin-Xian, and more than 6,000 attacked Xing-Xian and the area south of Bao-De from strongholds such as Lan-Xian and Qi-Lan. By December 23, Japanese forces had occupied all county towns, most market towns, and Yellow River crossings in the Jin-Northwest region except for Bao-De and He-Qu counties, and began to implement a systematic policy commonly described as the "Three Alls" policy. The "Three Alls" emphasis is the clearest expression of stakes turning lethal. Japanese troops and traitors disguised themselves as the Eighth Route Army to lure and kill masses. They sent out core detachments to attack and repeatedly sweep the area, seeking to annihilate party, government, and military leadership organs—focusing on destroying the rear organs and facilities that made Communist endurance possible. According to incomplete statistics, more than 5,000 people were brutally killed during these sweeps. In Xingxian County alone, 150,000 catties of grain were looted and burned; in the 4th Military Sub-district, more than 5,000 head of livestock were looted and killed; and more than 19,000 houses and cave dwellings were burned down. In the early stage of this anti-mopping campaign, the Jin-Sui Military Region mainly used a portion of its forces to cooperate with local troops and guerrillas in widespread guerrilla warfare. They harassed and contained the attacking enemy, disrupted enemy transportation, and covered the transfer of the masses. The main force avoided the enemy's sharp edge and moved to the outer line to seek opportunities to attack the Japanese army. This describes the classic guerrilla operational pattern: avoid being fixed into a single decisive trap, but create enough friction that enemy operations degrade into a struggle they can't sustain. repeated attacks and ambushes during the mopping period across Miyu Town and other areas—units striking repeatedly, destroying roads, cutting off enemy transportation, and attacking enemy strongholds north of Dawu. To thwart the Japanese army's plans to build roads and fortifications—plans that would make future sweeps easier—the Jin-Sui Military Region instructed, on December 27, all sub-districts to mobilize forces to disrupt Japanese road construction and fortification. The 358th Brigade attacked enemy road construction from Lanxian to Dashetou and from Puming to Chijianling; the Independent 1st Brigade sabotaged the Dawu–Linxian highway; and the 4th Column of the Death Squad sabotaged the Dawu–Fangshan highway. Part of the Independent 1st Brigade's 2nd Regiment organized over 2,000 civilians to sabotage the Dawu–Sanjiao highway twice, forcing the enemy in Linxian to detour through Fangshan to contact Lishi. The Lishi guerrillas led civilians in two sabotage attacks on the Lishi–Jundu highway, destroying over 30 "li" of road. Other units attacked strongholds along key highways and destroyed or disrupted the "maintenance committees" that surrounded newly built enemy strongholds. There were also direct raids—storming into Linxian County and capturing representatives of enemy maintenance organizations. Meanwhile, the Workers' and Patriots' Brigade carried out continuous sabotage on the Taifen Highway. As the enemy plans ran into persistent disruption, Japanese and puppet forces began to retreat in different routes starting January 2, 1941, and by January 24 they returned to their original strongholds. The Jin-Sui winter counter-mopping operation lasted 40 days, annihilated more than 2,500 enemy troops, destroyed 125 kilometers of roads and 23 bridges, and recovered all towns occupied by the enemy during the campaign. Here the stakes show through most clearly: the campaign was not merely about killing enemy troops. It was about preventing the occupier from building a durable, road-connected grid that would allow future sweeps to be faster, larger, and more decisive. At the wider campaign level, the Eighth Route Army also recorded its total effects from August 20 to December 5, covering roughly three and a half months. During that period, the Eighth Route Army fought 1,824 battles of varying sizes, killing or wounding 20,645 Japanese soldiers (including senior officers), killing or wounding 5,155 puppet troops, and capturing 281 Japanese soldiers and 18,407 puppet troops. 47 Japanese soldiers surrendered voluntarily, and 1,845 puppet troops defected, totaling 46,380 people. The Communists captured 5,942 guns and 53 artillery pieces, and destroyed extensive transportation infrastructure: 474 kilometers of railway, 1,502 kilometers of highway, 213 bridges, 37 railway stations, 11 tunnels, more than 217,000 rails, more than 1,549,000 sleepers, more than 109,000 telephone poles, and more than 424,000 kilograms of telephone wire. Five coal mines and 11 warehouses were destroyed. The narrative further adds that when including casualties of Japanese and puppet forces across related engagements—such as Fuwang and the anti–mopping operations in northwest Shanxi—the total number of casualties reached more than 50,880. Japanese statistics were also cited for damage assessment, noting destruction of track and bridges across key railways (Zhengtai, Tongpu, Pinghan), telegraph pole damage, power line cuts, and effects on coal production—such as the Jingxing New Mine being unable to produce coal for at least six months. These details underline a broader background stake: infrastructure damage was meant to weaken the occupier's ability to keep its occupation apparatus working, even after the direct battles ended. The price of that multi-month struggle was high for the Eighth Route Army as well. Over the three and a half months leading up to the Hundred Regiments Offensive, the Eighth Route Army suffered 17,000 casualties, and more than 20,000 were poisoned. During the Hundred Regiments Offensive itself, post-war statistics state that the 129th Division suffered 7,362 casualties and 450 missing persons, and the entire division suffered 7,812 casualties. When you connect these lines—offensive sabotage, counter-offensives, Japanese mopping-ups, and anti-mopping resistance—you see why this second wave of fighting mattered. It wasn't only about whether the Japanese could respond to the offensive. It was about whether both sides could sustain their operational logic: the Japanese trying to stabilize occupation through "mopping," and the Communists trying to preserve base systems through dispersal, harassment, and counter-moves that convert the occupier's clearing effort into something too costly to maintain. The background of the Hundred Regiments offensive, who authorized it, who planned it, and why, remains unclear. The Japanese response was so severe that, in retrospect, it appeared to some as if the offensive had been a mistake. Some leaders, especially Mao, may have wanted to disavow it. Indirect hints in Mao's writings in subsequent months and years suggest he may have viewed it critically or harbored misgivings from the start. It was not the kind of strategy Mao preferred. More than twenty years later, during the Cultural Revolution, Red Guards charged that Mao had not even known of the plan in advance because of Peng Dehuai's alleged duplicity, at the time, Peng was being denounced. While this seems unlikely, it may contain some substance. In his own defense against these charges, Peng stated that after the 8RA headquarters—located not in Yan'an but in Jin-Cha-Ji—planned the operation, it sent mobilization orders downward to each regional command and also notified the Central Military Affairs Commission headed by Mao. In the original plan, the action would begin in early September. But, Peng wrote, to prevent enemy discovery and to ensure simultaneous surprise assaults—thereby inflicting an even greater blow to the enemy and the puppets—they began about ten days earlier than scheduled, during the last week of August. "So we did not wait for approval from the Military Affairs Commission (this was wrong), but went right into combat earlier than planned." There is also the issue of the "spontaneous" participation of more than eighty regiments without authorization from the Eighth Route Army headquarters, and not from Yan'an as well. If Peng Dehuai's account is accepted (written in 1970, shortly before his death), then Mao and Party Central had no role in conceiving or planning the Hundred Regiments campaign. In that case, the "grand strategy" motivations for undertaking it largely vanish—except perhaps insofar as they were considered by Peng and his colleagues. One alleged motive was to counter any tendency toward capitulation by Chiang Kai-shek and the Chongqing regime: if the war heated up and the CCP threw itself into fighting, any accommodation between Chiang and Japan would look like cowardly surrender. A related consideration was the Communist leadership's sensitivity to the charge that they were simply exploiting the war to expand their influence—avoiding Japanese combat while letting KMT armies bear the real burden of fighting. The Nationalists gave major publicity to the accusation that CCP policy devoted 70 percent of effort to expansion, 20 percent to coping with the KMT, and only 10 percent to opposing Japan. A third suggested motive was to divert attention from the New Fourth Army's offensives against Nationalist forces in Central China, which were peaking around the same time. Peng Dehuai acknowledged the campaign was "too protracted," yet he defended its importance in maintaining the CCP's anti-Japanese image in the wake of anti-friction conflicts, in demonstrating the failure of the cage-and-silkworm policy, in returning at least twenty-six county seats to base control, and in keeping "wavering" elements in line. Even if these reasons mattered less than regional and tactical calculations in launching the campaign, they could always be used for propaganda afterward. Whatever misgivings Mao and Party Central may have had, the Party kept them to itself. Mao radioed congratulations to Peng after his victory, and in public statements the Hundred Regiments were turned into legend. Even if the Hundred Regiments campaign aimed to defeat Japanese pacification efforts, it did not succeed in a decisive way. Shocked and stung by the 8RA's action, the North China Area Army intensified its efforts to bring North China under tighter control. Under General Tada and then his successor, General Okamura Yasuji (July 1941–November 1944), the Japanese inflicted brutal, sustained violence against all North China bases. Between 1941 and 1944, about 150,000 Japanese troops were assigned full-time to pacification duty, supported by roughly 100,000 Chinese auxiliaries of widely varying description and effectiveness. The remainder of the NCAA (about 150,000–200,000 men) was assigned to other tasks such as garrisoning major cities and containing Nationalist forces. Communist regulars were estimated at around 250,000 within base areas and 40,000 in SKN. The Japanese and their Chinese auxiliaries invested even more heavily than before in constructing moats, ditches, palisades, and blockhouses. Japanese sources claimed that by 1942 their forces had built 11,860 kilometers of blockade line and 7,700 fortified posts, mostly in the Hebei plains and the foothills of the Taihang mountains. A massive trench ran for 500 kilometers along the western side of the Pinghan railway line, with a depopulated and constantly patrolled zone on either side. The 250 Japanese outposts established in southern Hebei by December 1940 were more than quadrupled by mid-1942. These became the key means of controlling plains areas; by the end of 1941, all Communist bases in such terrain had been reduced to guerrilla status. Many main force units—such as those under Liu Cheng'ao and Yang Xiufeng—were compelled to move westward into mountains to survive. What distinguished the new Tada–Okamura approach from earlier tactics was the much larger and more protracted search-and-destroy thrust into the core mountain-base areas. They also replaced selective repression with indiscriminate, generalized violence. These infamous "Three-All" mop-up campaigns meant: kill all, burn all, loot all. Unable to distinguish ordinary peasants from Communists, the Japanese waged war on everyone. After attempting to seal off major consolidated regions in the base areas, they sent in very large detachments to search for Communist forces, civilian cadres, and activists. They also tried to destroy base facilities and war material stockpiles; to disrupt agriculture by burning crops or interfering with planting and harvesting; and to seize grain stores. Entire villages were razed, and everything alive found there was killed. Unlike earlier mop-ups that swept through an area and then departed, these campaigns left troops in the targeted zones for extended periods, "combing" the area back and forth and building at least temporary strongpoints in more accessible parts of mountain bases. These mop-up operations took a heavy and painful toll on rural populations. No doubt the harsh tactics and atrocities frequently committed during these actions did cause many peasants, rich and poor alike, to harbor deep hatred of the Japanese and to commit more fully to the Communist side. But intra-party sources also portray cases in which repression worked even more effectively than earlier attempts to drive a wedge between party and peasantry. As one internal assessment put it: If we only stress concealment… we are bound to be divorced from the masses. The morale of the masses cannot be sustained for long either. On the other hand, if we only seek fleeting gratification in careless fighting, we may also invite still more cruel enemy suppression. That will also alienate the masses. Communist spokesmen acknowledged that, in North China base areas, the population under Party control fell from 44 million to 25 million, while the Eighth Route Army declined from 400,000 to 300,000. Local records present an even grimmer picture. By 1942, 90 percent of the plains bases had been reduced to guerrilla zones or outright enemy control. In the mountainous Taiyue district within the Jin-Cha-Lu-Yi base, one cadre admitted that "not a single county was kept intact and the government offices of all its twelve counties were exiled in Jin-yuan." All twenty-six county seats occupied following the Hundred Regiments fighting were lost. I would like to take this time to remind you all that this podcast is only made possible through the efforts of Kings and Generals over at Youtube. Please go subscribe to Kings and Generals over at Youtube and to continue helping us produce this content please check out www.patreon.com/kingsandgenerals. If you are still hungry after that, give my personal channel a look over at The Pacific War Channel at Youtube, it would mean a lot to me. Japan tried to regain control through retaliatory "mopping-up" operations starting in October 1940. In response, the Eighth Route Army and its commanders issued counter-measures: coordinate party, government, military, and civilians; keep mobility while dispersing forces when possible; and focus on annihilating incoming enemy units decisively. Counter-sweeps and anti-pacification actions continued through December, involving repeated ambushes and sabotage of roads, highways, and fortification efforts.