(Thread IKs:
fart simpson)
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uninterrupted posted:the two genders I finish having sex with my girlfriend, roll over and keep reading Grey Hunter's War in the Pacific LP.
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Sep 3, 2023 20:38
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| # ? May 27, 2024 20:44 |
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Texas ranchers are on the brink of booting out a Chinese billionaire who has bought more than 130,000 acres of farmland in the state, sparking fears over national security, DailyMail.com can reveal. Sun Guangxin, who has extensive ties with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), paid an estimated $110million for swathes of Texan real estate between 2016 and 2018 in an unprecedented foreign land grab in the Lone Star State. But he has now sold the most controversial part of his portfolio, a 15,000-acre ranch that included plans for a 46-turbine wind farm, and is planning to offload the rest of his vast Texan empire. Opponents of the wind farm claim it would provide the former Chinese military captain access to the state electric grid, presenting a potential risk to energy security given Sun's well-documented loyalty to the Chinese state. The fight is far from over, however, with campaigners claiming ongoing dealings could allow the billionaire to retain an interest in the property, providing Beijing with a backdoor to critical state infrastructure. A report written by former CIA officials alleged Sun would likely be considered an agent of the Chinese state by US authorities due to his close ties with the CCP and its military - and that his proposed wind farm could present a threat to national security. It claimed the site, which is a mere 30 miles from a major US Air Force base, would also provide espionage opportunities for Beijing. At Val Verde County, a wild and desolate stretch of terrain in West Texas where Sun has amassed his property empire, we found locals united in anger at how a potentially hostile foreign actor had ever been allowed to set up camp in the heart of their community. 'We're all red-blooded Americans,' Dallas Barrington, a Texan attorney and rancher, said. 'That means we believe in America - and that we stand up against enemies of the state.' Chinese-owned companies now own more than $2billion of US farmland, up from just $162million a decade ago. It comes amid wider concerns over CCP infiltration into American society, which was thrown into sharp relief when a suspected Chinese spy balloon was shot down over the Atlantic coast. The CCP has a stake in 383,935 acres of American agricultural land as of December 2021, according to the latest figures released by the US Department of Agriculture. But an astonishing 34 percent of that is owned by Sun, 61, who has an estimated net worth of $2.9billion, thanks largely to his controlling stake in Guanghui Group, an energy, automotive and real estate firm based in his home province of Xinjiang. Through Brazos Highlands and another group subsidiary, Harvest Texas LLC, Sun controls nearly 7 percent of all land in Val Verde County. The working-class son of a shoemaker began his business career in the late 1980s when he opened a seafood restaurant and other entertainment ventures, including a karaoke bar, swimming pool and bowling alley in Urumqi, the capital city of Xinjiang. He used these venues to wine and dine the officials who frequented them, according to Eurasian Crossroads: A History of Xinjiang, a book by Georgetown professor James A. Millward. Indeed, support of party officials has been crucial to his success. This is likely how the firm gained access to the Chinese energy sector, the report claims. But Sun's interest in the US could be gleaned from his westernized hobbies. The energy mogul rides a Harley Davidson and is an avid basketball fan. He even owns the Xinjiang Flying Tigers, a Chinese Basketball Association team. Sun is also a keen hunter and in 2006 spent more than $100,000 on a hunting trip to Tanzania, bringing back exotic trophies including a leopard, lion, elephant and cheetah, the intelligence officials said. It is a blood sport he has since enjoyed at his sprawling hunting cabins in Texas. A wild and dangerous place Val Verde County, flanked by the Pecos and Devils Rivers, is home to around 50,000 people, the small town of Del Rio, and dozens of family-owned hunting ranches. The conservation hotspot also provides a critical migratory corridor for monarch butterflies, bats, hundreds of bird species, and a growing number of black bears. The Seven Oaks Ranch - named after the 400-year-old oak tree that towers over its three-bedroom living quarters - has been in the Walker family for three generations since 1934. Brothers Wayne, 55, and Philip Walker, 51, inherited it when their father, Kelly, who passed away in 2020. Wayne and Dallas Barrington are co-managing directors. Philip, who has won several awards for his conservation work alongside his brother, described Seven Oaks as 'one of the last wild and scenic areas in the state of Texas'. 'It can be dangerous, but it's also incredibly beautiful,' he said. Far removed from civilization and home comforts, the ranch can be an inhospitable place. Philip joked he had a hard enough time convincing his London-born wife to enjoy the eerie silence that comes from its remote location. So, it is fair to say he and his family were stunned when they heard the neighboring property, Carma Ranch, had been bought by a Chinese billionaire in 2018. But their ire was ignited when Sun, via his US company GH America, proposed a mammoth wind farm that would see 46 turbines, some up to 700 feet tall, tower over a landscape largely untouched by mankind. Conservation groups, including The Nature Conservancy Texas, The Devils River Conservancy, Bat Conservation International and the North American Butterfly Association, lobbied against the plans, arguing it would ravage ecotourism and cause untold damage to migratory pathways of bats, birds and butterflies. Unique among these natural treasures is Fern Cave at Monarch Ranch, a prehistoric geological formation home to the largest bat roost in the US. Although no official count has been completed, the ranch manager, Doug Meyer, 31, estimates that several million Mexican free-tailed bats live in the cave, before flying out en masse to hunt every night in a spectacular vortex. But Meyer fears the population could be 'decimated' by the turbines, which would stand directly in their flight paths. The proposed 700-foot structures would dwarf even some of the biggest landmarks in the US, including the 554-foot Washington Monument. James King, a local realtor who owns a ranch on the Pecos River and founded the Lower Pecos Landowners Group in opposition to the project, said: 'It's like, not only do they want to put it in my face, they want to stick it in my eye.' A threat to national security But it was fears over national security that jolted state politicians into action. A privately-commissioned report written in 2019 by former intelligence officials, shared with DailyMail.com, suggested Sun's close ties to the CCP could provide Beijing an opportunity to leverage his business interests for national security objectives. Indeed, Guanghui Group's website boasts of its resolute support for the party leadership and its work on 'party-building' among staff, for which it has received numerous awards, the report claims. The firm states that it is guided by '[Chinese President] Xi Jinping Thought', while around half of its senior team are former CCP, People's Liberation Army (PLA) or government leaders, the former intelligence officials say. Their report also raised concerns over the project's proximity to Laughlin Air Force Base, which is used to train US pilots, noting that spy cameras could be placed on top of the turbines to surveil the camp. Sun's personal allegiance to the CCP was drilled into him during his nine years in the PLA, China's main military force, in which he saw active combat in the 1979 Sino-Vietnamese war and rose to the rank of captain, according to Millward's book. Millward noted Sun 'intensified his cultivation' of political connections after he was 'accused of paying bribes' in 1993. Sun opened a branch of the CCP within his own company and has employed many former army officers in top corporate positions, Millward wrote. 'This is not a normal Chinese conglomerate company trying to diversify its global business interest,' said Wayne Walker. 'This is a former Chinese military captain who came in and bought 130,000 acres of land very near our border, and within, you know, a few dozen miles of an Air Force base.' It is not known whether action was taken based on the intelligence report, but Texas Governor Greg Abbott certainly appeared to share its concerns. In 2021, he signed the Lone Star Infrastructure Act, which prevented firms associated with 'hostile nations', including China, from accessing the state infrastructure. Has the sun set over Texas? But if locals thought that was the end of the matter, they were sadly mistaken. Around eight months after the bill was signed, GH America sold the rights to develop the wind farm to Babcock & Wilcox, an energy firm based in Ohio, for $11million. The deal included the option to buy the underlying land for $22million. The US firm never did, however, and the rights were instead sold onto Spanish energy firm Greenalia in June last year. The deal was worth $15million, Forbes reported, meaning Babcock & Wilcox may have made $4million profit in just five months. The same report suggested Greenalia had not yet exercised its option to buy the land itself for a further $22million, meaning the development of the wind farm would still be in breach of the Lone Star Infrastructure Act. By maintaining ownership of the land the project is situated on, the Chinese would still have access to and control of the site. However, DailyMail.com has seen a deed dated July 20 indicating that GH America has now sold the land to Greenalia. But realtors such as King and others suggested the Spaniards grossly overpaid and are at a loss to explain why it would pay such a sum. 'That's the million dollar question,' Wayne Walker said. 'If it doesn't make sense, there's got to be something else going on here.' Several sources suggested Sun may have struck a similar deal to the one he sealed at his luxurious headquarters, Morning Star Ranch, where he still collects royalties from a wind farm run by French firm Akuo Energy. Greenalia said it could not comment on the deals struck with GH America due to confidentiality agreements, but a spokesman added its work on the Blue Hills project would 'comply with all legal and environmental requirements and take into account 'the different sensitivities existing in the territory'. GH America did not respond when contacted. The uncertainty threatens to overshadow what could mark a significant victory for Val Verde County ranchers. But whether Chinese, Spanish, or American owned, they remain staunchly opposed to the idea of a wind farm in Val Verde County on environmental grounds. Conservationists insist that while they support renewable energy solutions, there are other, more suitable locations available than the one proposed for Blue Hills. Wayne Walker, himself a wind developer, said it was 'not a conventional NIMBY (Not In My Back Yard) argument', because Blue Hills was simply 'a bad project'. The fear is that if it appears Chinese interest in the wind farm has been withdrawn, the political will to stop the development will also fade. 'This is the essence of Texas,' Barrington said, looking out to a full moon rising over the border fence separating Seven Oaks, Cole and Carma Ranch, as the Texan sun set behind him. 'The question is: do we keep it, or do we destroy it?'
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Sep 3, 2023 21:03
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I told you about how windmills kill all the birds, and now China—they already killed all the birds over there, and now they want to kill our beautiful American birds. And we’re just letting it happen.
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Sep 3, 2023 21:08
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The Chinese don't have to do anything to destroy the texas power grid, justbwait for a sufficiently hot or cold day and it self-destructs
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Sep 3, 2023 21:15
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That's gotta be sourced from RFA
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Sep 3, 2023 21:20
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KomradeX posted:The Chinese don't have to do anything to destroy the texas power grid, justbwait for a sufficiently hot or cold day and it self-destructs what about the draw on the grid from all the teens on their tiktok phones
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Sep 3, 2023 21:21
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Danann posted:https://twitter.com/CarlZha/status/1697946399118381373 Happy music playing, as these creatures painfully asphyxiate, eyes filled with terror as they die...just what I'd expect from a culture that does not respect life
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Sep 3, 2023 21:36
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people who claim to love capitalism extremely upset when capitalism happens
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Sep 3, 2023 21:40
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critical support to farmers fighting against a greedy land baron.
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Sep 3, 2023 21:42
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Danann posted:https://twitter.com/CarlZha/status/1697946399118381373 But at what cost?
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Sep 3, 2023 21:43
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Ytlaya posted:Happy music playing, as these creatures painfully asphyxiate, eyes filled with terror as they die...just what I'd expect from a culture that does not respect life i can see the western media headlines already: "china raising inhabitants of xinjiang solely so they can kill them for profit at a later date"
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Sep 3, 2023 21:53
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Cerebral Bore posted:i can see the western media headlines already: "china raising inhabitants of xinjiang solely so they can kill them for profit at a later date" now this: underwater holding pens in Xinjiang revealed in damning aerial footage
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Sep 3, 2023 23:03
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Al-Saqr posted:lol remember when hollywood made a film about salmon fishing in yemen as obama was sending drone strikes and seal teams into that country Oh yeah it was a romantic comedy. I still can't decide whether the Hollywood writers went crazy with the promise or I am too ignorant to know you can raise salmon in Yemen. I mean the movie title is a punt right?
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Sep 3, 2023 23:43
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Ytlaya posted:Happy music playing, as these creatures painfully asphyxiate, eyes filled with terror as they die...just what I'd expect from a culture that does not respect life salmon farms tend to be pretty awful though
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Sep 3, 2023 23:56
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All animal farms are awful if you really think about it
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Sep 4, 2023 00:09
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https://twitter.com/mrjeffu/status/1698096270026362996 tetsuya stays winning
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Sep 4, 2023 00:40
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direct action gets the goods
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Sep 4, 2023 00:41
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Truga posted:https://twitter.com/mrjeffu/status/1698096270026362996 Based The South Koreans should make him a statue.
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Sep 4, 2023 00:45
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https://twitter.com/justinpodur/status/1698489386545897688 which one of you ThatBasqueGuy has issued a correction as of 01:47 on Sep 4, 2023 |
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Sep 4, 2023 01:40
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I'm pretty sure "at what cost" is well out of SA containment at this point
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Sep 4, 2023 01:52
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Market based solution to climate change.
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Sep 4, 2023 02:03
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ikanreed posted:I'm pretty sure "at what cost" is well out of SA containment at this point Pretty sure it was out of containment when it made the cover of time magazine several years ago
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Sep 4, 2023 02:16
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why the gently caress do the subs here keep saying social democracy
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Sep 4, 2023 03:05
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"Laissez-faire!" *China dumps a bunch of stuff* "Not like that!"
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Sep 4, 2023 03:26
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Stairmaster posted:why the gently caress do the subs here keep saying social democracy they know that the post-Lenin Soviet Union was a degenerate worker's state.
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Sep 4, 2023 04:48
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Dallas Barrington, an attorney and co-managing director of Seven Oaks Ranch, said local ranchers were opposed to the presence of a potentially hostile foreign actor in their community because they were 'red-blooded Americans'
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Sep 4, 2023 07:03
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crepeface posted:(Palpatine voice) execute order 39 *removes hood* ok, so which one of you wanted the domino's pizza feat. hatsune miku hologram stage
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Sep 4, 2023 08:04
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Stairmaster posted:why the gently caress do the subs here keep saying social democracy seems like a translation issue. it sounds like they're saying 社会主义国家 shèhuìzhǔyìguójiā, which would be "socialist nation/country" corona familiar has issued a correction as of 08:19 on Sep 4, 2023 |
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Sep 4, 2023 08:17
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Some Guy TT posted:Raimondo also said that she had brought up to Chinese officials that her email was hacked in advance of her late August trip to China. Her email was hacked, she has no reason to believe it was China but brings it up anyway. Does she want free tech support? stephenthinkpad posted:Oh yeah it was a romantic comedy. I still can't decide whether the Hollywood writers went crazy with the promise or I am too ignorant to know you can raise salmon in Yemen. Not atlantic salmon as portrayed in this movie (I looked it up and it sounds hilarious) but maybe a variety of pacific salmon. Atlantic salmon are a cold water fish.
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Sep 4, 2023 08:52
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finally, a cdrama I can watch.
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Sep 4, 2023 10:18
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https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/sep/04/japan-may-seek-to-dissolve-moonies-church-in-wake-of-shinzo-abe-killingquote:Japan’s government may ask courts to order the dissolution of the Unification church following the assassination in July last year of the former prime minister Shinzo Abe, according to multiple local reports. Could this be the most successful lone assassin in history?
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Sep 4, 2023 10:26
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ModernMajorGeneral posted:https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/sep/04/japan-may-seek-to-dissolve-moonies-church-in-wake-of-shinzo-abe-killing direct action gets the goods
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Sep 4, 2023 10:28
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Dismantling an entire church with a well placed shot. 47 aint got poo poo on this man.
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Sep 4, 2023 10:43
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ModernMajorGeneral posted:https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/sep/04/japan-may-seek-to-dissolve-moonies-church-in-wake-of-shinzo-abe-killing depends on how you define success, but i feel like dipendra still takes the cake
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Sep 4, 2023 11:18
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Cerebral Bore posted:depends on how you define success, but i feel like dipendra still takes the cake That doesn't count as "assassination". Plus he already had the power to change his country anyway. But largest impact assassins, WW1 Serbs; Successful mission accomplished assassin, Japanese DIY shooter
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Sep 4, 2023 11:40
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Why would you tell the people you are negotiating that your email is hacked? It's like telling the opponent poker player look my cards are leaked I know you know what cards I am holding. First of all Beijing will never admit they did it, second it just creates awkward stares in the negotiation room when everyone knows what's your haggling bottom line. Lastly telling the world you got owned is just dumb. Wham wham I lost because they didn't play fair! There is no fair game in the real world Raimondo.
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Sep 4, 2023 11:54
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stephenthinkpad posted:Why would you tell the people you are negotiating that your email is hacked? It's like telling the opponent poker player look my cards are leaked I know you know what cards I am holding. "Japanese ambassador says their PURPLE diplomatic messages have been broken by MAGIC intercepts during negotiations with Cordell Hull" lmao
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Sep 4, 2023 11:57
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"chinese hackers did this but no we won't give any evidence because muh natsec" says american security cybersec groups with no clearly vested interest
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Sep 4, 2023 16:41
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American officials complaining about other countries reading their emails is infuriating. we hoover up the entire internet just on principle and barely even try to hide it.
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Sep 4, 2023 16:53
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ModernMajorGeneral posted:https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/sep/04/japan-may-seek-to-dissolve-moonies-church-in-wake-of-shinzo-abe-killing king. he killed a man and a church with two shots.
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Sep 4, 2023 17:11
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