121. Nasruddin at the Bathhouse
Nasruddin went to the bathhouse.
When the attendant saw Nasruddin’s shabby clothes, he treated him poorly, giving him a threadbare towel and only a tiny piece of soap. Nevertheless, after Nasruddin finished his bath, he tipped the attendant very generously.
On his next visit, the attendant greeted Nasruddin with great respect, remembering the generous tip. He gave Nasruddin several luxurious towels and a new bar of soap. But when he left, Nasruddin gave the attendant no tip at all.
“That’s for last time,” Nasruddin explained, “and the tip I gave you last time was for this time. Now we’re even!”
This Tale is from “Tiny Tales of Nasruddin” by Laura Gibbs. The book is licensed under the CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 license. © 2019-202The2 Laura Gibbs
I made a mistake yesterday morning and got wet. The forecast was a slight chance of showers and it looked like it was clearing so we took off on our walk. At almost the turn around the very slight sprinkle became a light rain and I sought shelter for about 10 minutes until it stopped and the sun came out from behind the clouds. I had to do this two more times before getting back to Desperado. With increasing winds and and the expected high to be 53 with continuing chance of more rain we did not do an afternoon walk.
More showers starting around sundown and through the night with sprinkles when I took Erik out at midnight. The forecast high for today is 48 with winds which is going to keep me inside and close to the Wave 6. A hard freeze has been issued for a good part of Southeastern AZ for tomorrow morning with expected lows of 18 to 28; local forecast is for 26.
You will not see this reported by the US media. They are just parroting President Trump that is letting is alligator mouth overload his humming bird ass.
Venezuela After the Shock: Why China Still Holds the Real Leverage
What happened in Venezuela was sudden and brutal. Nicolás Maduro was removed in what can only be described as a kidnap — a political method that belongs to another century. Predictably, commentary rushed to the same conclusion: China would be the ultimate loser. Fifty billion dollars in investment, erased overnight.
This interpretation is emotionally satisfying, but analytically wrong. It rests on a fundamental misunderstanding of how China operates — and of what a state actually is.
China does not anchor its overseas exposure to individuals. Not to Maduro. Not to Chávez. Not to any political figure. It anchors itself to legal entities, contracts, infrastructure systems, and revenue flows. Venezuela, in this sense, is not a man. It is a juridical person — a continuing legal entity. Just as when one buys shares in a company, ownership does not evaporate because the CEO changes.
From this perspective, the idea that “Maduro is gone, therefore China loses everything” collapses immediately.
Most Chinese oil agreements with Venezuela are not symbolic political deals. They are binding financial contracts, with repayment mechanisms, collateral structures, penalty clauses, and derivative linkages embedded deep into global finance. These are not isolated South–South arrangements. They are connected — directly and indirectly — to Western financial institutions, commodity traders, insurers, and clearing systems, including entities tied to Wall Street. If these contracts are broken, the consequence is not China “taking a loss.” It is a cascade event: defaults triggering counterparty exposure, derivatives being repriced, legal disputes crossing jurisdictions, and confidence shock spreading outward. At a certain point, this ceases to be a Venezuelan problem and becomes a systemic global one.
But finance is only the surface layer.
The deeper reality — is that over the past twenty years, China has become the operational core of Venezuela’s oil industry. Not merely as a buyer, but as a builder. China provided refinery technology, heavy crude upgrading systems, infrastructure design, control software, spare parts logistics, and most critically, trained human capital. This means Venezuela’s oil sector today is not an obsolete American system that can be easily and quickly renovated. It is a Chinese-engineered ecosystem.
Remove the Chinese engineers. Remove the technicians who understand the control logic. Remove the maintenance supply chains. Remove the software support. What remains is not a functioning oil industry waiting to be “liberated,” but an inert shell.
History already offers a precedent. In Niger, armed groups once seized Chinese-built refining facilities, believing control equaled power. What followed was paralysis. They could not operate the machinery. Equipment degraded rapidly. Damage accumulated. Repair costs ballooned into tens, then hundreds of millions of euros. In the end, the same conclusion emerged: without Chinese engineers, the infrastructure was useless.
Venezuela would face the same outcome — except on a national scale. This is why the idea of “confiscating” Chinese oil infrastructure is largely fictional. Seizing physical assets is easy. Replacing an integrated technological system is not. Converting Venezuela’s Chinese-built oil sector into an American one would take three to five years, minimum. — America-China Watcher@ PandemicTruther
I don’t know who told Trump that seizing a Russian-flagged ship was a good idea, but the action is not just pointless and stupid… It is dangerous. If you’re sitting in Moscow and reflecting on the actions of the United States since December 28 — i.e., the failed drone attack on Putin’s residence, the illegal abduction of Venezuelan President Maduro, Trump’s threats to attack Colombia and Greenland, and yesterday’s piracy of a Russian ship — you are likely to conclude that Trump is not serious about normalizing relations with Russia and that he is looking for a confrontation. It is foolish to poke a cranky bear because you are only going to further provoke the animal and incite him to eat you. — Russia Goes Oreshnik Again by Larry C. Johnson