[Bilgemaster]

With a perpetually leaky kitchen faucet my Trophy Wife finally coerced me into pulling on my manly cisgendered Harry Homeowner overalls today and installing a brand new "Wanjinli Kitchen Faucet" care of Amazon. It's not so shabby for $36. At least it seems a bit more robust in its honest stainless steel construction than its Costco predecessor, which appeared to have been crafted from chrome-painted zip ties and old bottle caps. But I just know you and your womenfolk will all be seething with envy when I assure you that not only does it offer "SWEET INTELLIGENCE CONCISE BUT NOT", but is also "SIMPLE AND THE UTMOST ENJOYMENT TASTE", just like it says on the box. Indeed!

[Adrian II]

Worth it if only for the Ingrish on the box...

A.

[Richard230]

With a perpetually leaky kitchen faucet my Trophy Wife finally coerced me into pulling on my manly cisgendered Harry Homeowner overalls today and installing a brand new "Wanjinli Kitchen Faucet" care of Amazon. It's not so shabby for $36. At least it seems a bit more robust in its honest stainless steel construction than its Costco predecessor, which appeared to have been crafted from chrome-painted zip ties and old bottle caps. But I just know you and your womenfolk will all be seething with envy when I assure you that not only does it offer "SWEET INTELLIGENCE CONCISE BUT NOT", but is also "SIMPLE AND THE UTMOST ENJOYMENT TASTE", just like it says on the box. Indeed!

Did you develop "plumber's butt" while installing your new faucet?   

[Bilgemaster]

Did you develop "plumber's butt" while installing your new faucet?   

Nah...I always have that handy. In fact, I keep some droopy oversize Dad jeans just for the neighbors' amusement whenever I clean out the gutters.

[Karl Fenn]

I think l will just stick to odd tap here and there l don't know much about dual fuel.

[cyrusb]

After reading that box I would have sent it right back. 

[AzCal Retred]

At 12,000 miles of open water away from the U.S. & our Pacific Fleet, the Philippinos and Australians are certainly taking notice. China is today what America was in the 1950's, technical products supplier to the world. It would be difficult to ramp up domestic supply to meet demand if that stopped, the factory capacity just doesn't exist. These are folks that build moon rockets, space stations, hypersonic ship killing missiles, high speed rail lines, nuclear reactors and submarines, not just low-buck faucets for export. They are even working out a deal for a joint moon base with the Russians. Not a good candidate for someone to be complacent about.

South China Sea dispute: Huge Chinese 'fishing fleet' alarms Philippines
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-56474847

How Australia-China relations have hit 'lowest ebb in decades'
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-54458638

“2034,” a Cautionary Tale of Conflict with China
https://www.newyorker.com/podcast/political-scene/2034-a-cautionary-tale-of-conflict-with-china
American naval vessels routinely patrol the South China Sea. It is a shared maritime space, but China claims much of the area as its own. That much is true. What if one of the ships was torpedoed? The retired admiral James Stavridis teamed up with Elliot Ackerman, a journalist and former marine, to write about how, in the shadow of an increasingly tense relationship between the U.S. and China, such an incident could spiral into catastrophe. The result is “2034: A Novel of the Next World War.” The book is a thriller and also a cautionary tale; Stavridis cites Nevil Shute’s post-apocalyptic novel “On the Beach” as an inspiration. The writers tell Evan Osnos that they intend to deliver in fiction an ingredient that’s missing in military planning: “We have plenty of intelligence, we have plenty of hardware,” Ackerman notes, but “what we often lack is imagination.”

BBC: China and Russia to build lunar space station
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-56342311

[zimmemr]

At 12,000 miles of open water away from the U.S. & our Pacific Fleet, the Philippinos and Australians are certainly taking notice. China is today what America was in the 1950's, technical products supplier to the world. It would be difficult to ramp up domestic supply to meet demand if that stopped, the factory capacity just doesn't exist. These are folks that build moon rockets, space stations, hypersonic ship killing missiles, high speed rail lines, nuclear reactors and submarines, not just low-buck faucets for export. They are even working out a deal for a joint moon base with the Russians. Not a good candidate for someone to be complacent about.

South China Sea dispute: Huge Chinese 'fishing fleet' alarms Philippines
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-56474847

How Australia-China relations have hit 'lowest ebb in decades'
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-54458638

“2034,” a Cautionary Tale of Conflict with China
https://www.newyorker.com/podcast/political-scene/2034-a-cautionary-tale-of-conflict-with-china
American naval vessels routinely patrol the South China Sea. It is a shared maritime space, but China claims much of the area as its own. That much is true. What if one of the ships was torpedoed? The retired admiral James Stavridis teamed up with Elliot Ackerman, a journalist and former marine, to write about how, in the shadow of an increasingly tense relationship between the U.S. and China, such an incident could spiral into catastrophe. The result is “2034: A Novel of the Next World War.” The book is a thriller and also a cautionary tale; Stavridis cites Nevil Shute’s post-apocalyptic novel “On the Beach” as an inspiration. The writers tell Evan Osnos that they intend to deliver in fiction an ingredient that’s missing in military planning: “We have plenty of intelligence, we have plenty of hardware,” Ackerman notes, but “what we often lack is imagination.”

BBC: China and Russia to build lunar space station
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-56342311

I'll be looking for that book on my next trip to Barnes and Nobel. Do you recall the movie "The Bedford Incident?"

[Karl Fenn]

Well china is a superpower now, come a long way since buying buying redundant spitfires, the probably have the largest spy network in the world, they have masses of nukes stored under mountains, the technology there has grown beyond proportion is true.

[AzCal Retred]

Zimmemr @ #7: Sure do. WW1 started with some dumbass and  bad attitude, lots more willing participants this time around trying to replicate "Fight Club". I haven't forgotten about what a great idea the "Southeast Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere" was in 1939 either, just maybe the players have changed. Regardless of what you think about the Chinese battle prowess, starting with a 12,000 mile open ocean supply chain to a battle front is a very bad idea. Modern weaponry rather stalemates your ships. The hypersonic ship killers reduce you to aircraft & submarines. The very best we could do is to jump off with aircraft from an Argentinian base over the South Pole to Australia, and that will require some very fancy footwork to repair the rift between the US and Argentina, not to mention all of those other South American countries the CIA has hammered on inbetween.

China is patient. The reinforced islands are part of their 50 year plan. Hard to sink an island unless you go nuclear, and then the rules get real ugly fast. You know it's part of the long plan because the Chinese have recreated the flying boat. ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AVIC_AG600 ) Flying boats don't need a landing strip. ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-runway_penetration_bomb ) If the opposition makes your runway unusable, you still get to resupply. The artificial islands all have landing strips. There is virtually no other justification for flying boats, they were phased out in the 1950's when wheeled planes became stone reliable. It's not a good idea to underestimate these boys.

[Karl Fenn]

Ho they will just abide their time, they are not in any rush.

[viczena]

I think this plane is quite useless. How do you want to load or unload cargo without a dedicated harbour? And a new landing strip is much more easy to reconstruct than a harbour.

[zimmemr]

I think this plane is quite useless. How do you want to load or unload cargo without a dedicated harbour? And a new landing strip is much more easy to reconstruct than a harbour.

They off-load onto an LST type lighter, then run the lighter onto a beach, it's not the most efficient way to do it, but it gets the job done. Think of D-day plus 1.

[zimmemr]

Zimmemr @ #7: Sure do. WW1 started with some dumbass and  bad attitude, lots more willing participants this time around trying to replicate "Fight Club". I haven't forgotten about what a great idea the "Southeast Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere" was in 1939 either, just maybe the players have changed. Regardless of what you think about the Chinese battle prowess, starting with a 12,000 mile open ocean supply chain to a battle front is a very bad idea. Modern weaponry rather stalemates your ships. The hypersonic ship killers reduce you to aircraft & submarines. The very best we could do is to jump off with aircraft from an Argentinian base over the South Pole to Australia, and that will require some very fancy footwork to repair the rift between the US and Argentina, not to mention all of those other South American countries the CIA has hammered on inbetween.

China is patient. The reinforced islands are part of their 50 year plan. Hard to sink an island unless you go nuclear, and then the rules get real ugly fast. You know it's part of the long plan because the Chinese have recreated the flying boat. ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AVIC_AG600 ) Flying boats don't need a landing strip. ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-runway_penetration_bomb ) If the opposition makes your runway unusable, you still get to resupply. The artificial islands all have landing strips. There is virtually no other justification for flying boats, they were phased out in the 1950's when wheeled planes became stone reliable. It's not a good idea to underestimate these boys.

The Chinese are patient, imaginative, and have a national will that's second to none. They'd be a formidable adversary, and you're right it's a really bad idea to underestimate them. My guess is that their idea of forward planning extends well into the next century. I'd be surprised if ours extends much past labor day.

[Karl Fenn]

Well we are falling into chaos now with all this short term fix it. The Chinese on the other hand have great foresight, history always does a complete circle and goes round and round, the covid chaos is just a glimpse of things to come to pass.