USA. A Mexican restaurant. We had not yet ordered anything, and the food was already arriving.
Chips. Salsa. Unrequested. Free.
I stopped the waiter. "We have not earned these."
"They just come with the table, man."
They come with the TABLE. In my land, hospitality is a debt. Every gift creates an obligation, weighed carefully, returned in the proper season with interest of feeling. Here, the gift arrives before you have even proven you can pay for dinner.
This is not an appetizer. This is a declaration: we trust you. Eat.
I ate with the gravity the moment deserved. And then — I must report this calmly — the basket emptied, and a new one appeared.
"Did we…?"
"Refill," the waiter said. "It's bottomless."
Bottomless. They have wells of salsa. The supply lines of this nation are beyond anything my ancestors imagined.
My friend warned me. "Don't fill up on chips, dude."
Too late. I had accepted three baskets. Honor demanded each one be finished — an unfinished gift is an insult. By the time my actual food arrived, I was a ruined man.
I was not hungry. I was not comfortable. I had been defeated by a courtesy.
Generosity that arrives before the request cannot be repaid. It can only be survived.
I know the rule now. I have made my peace with the basket. One basket. Two at the most.
Who am I deceiving. There is no number of baskets I would refuse. The trust of a nation is in that salsa, and I intend to honor all of it.
Today, on my final day as Director of National Intelligence, I’m releasing never-before-seen communications and documents exposing how Dr. Fauci provided millions in US taxpayer dollars to fund dangerous gain-of-function research at the Wuhan lab, worked with politicized elements within the Intelligence Community to suppress the truth about his actions and hide the virus’ lab-leak origins, and lied to Congress while under oath in 2024. It’s time you know the truth.
https://t.co/3YJSstB7d4
American Airlines surprised passengers on a flight to Seattle with USMNT jerseys, soccer balls, and World Cup-themed care packages waiting at every seat.
It was $5mil that was converted into roughly 416k shares. They then sold the shares in ‘99 for $15mil. Accounting for splits Jun ‘00 2-1, Sep ‘01 2-1, Apr ‘06 2-1, Sep ‘07 3-2, Jul ‘21 4-1, and Jun ‘24 10-1. 1 share would be 480 post splits. They would have roughly 200mil shares ~$42 Billion. Still way under the $1T number but a bit more than $8mil
Jeff Bezos: "If we ran Amazon the way New York City runs their school system, packages would take 6 weeks to arrive, we would charge you a $100 delivery fee and when the package did finally arrive, it would have the wrong item in it."
Let me get this straight:
> the top 1% earners in CA pay a cumulative $40-$50b/yr in income tax
> yet CA Medicaid alone loses $50b/yr in fraud
So, you can work your whole life to be incredibly successful, and bureaucrats in CA will redistribute it to fraudsters
The Bolscheviks working to pass an asset seizure cannot be trusted.