Rich man's world

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Duin and Kruidberg parkingspace, 360° today. Breath [ relax ]

Above: post-training stretching on a spacious mobile stretching unit engineered by Volvo.

Min/max temperature: 7°C/10°C; humidity: 69%; precipitation: 2 mm; sea level pressure: 1015 hPa; wind: W 35.4 km/h; visibility: 10.0 kilometres; Clouds: Scattered Clouds 822 m.; Moon: Waning Gibbous, 84% illuminated

"[L]achahahahahahaa"

Boudewijn de Groot 'Het Land Van Maas en Waal' ('The land at rainbow's end'), written by Boudewijn de Groot and Lennaert H. Nijgh, produced by Tony Vos, first published in 1967 trough Decca

"Aha-ahaaa"

Abba 'Money Money Money', written and produced by Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus, recorded in 1974, first published in 1976 trough Polar/Epic/Atlanic

"Putting aside the close calls during the various Cold War crises […] none of the cases […] seem to support the idea that nuclear proliferation is "inconsequential," much less stabilising; just the opposite. [U]ntil and unless there is nuclear use, there is no proof in these matters: we cannot predict the future, and the causes of wars are always complex. All we know is that the United States fired nuclear weapons in anger on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan, and the United States and Russia threatened to use them several times during the Cold War. However, for some reason, since 1945, they never have been used. It would be nice to believe that they never will. […] The Chinese […] claim that they have built 3,000 miles of tunnels to hide China's nuclear capable missile forces and related warheads and that China continues to build such tunnels. Employing missile reloads for mobile missile systems has been standard practice for Russia and the United States. It would be odd if it was not also a Chinese practice. […] North Korea also has gone to extensive lengths to protect its strategic assets. Almost all of its nuclear and long-range military systems have underground tunnelled bases or host areas. [ It is estimated ] that North Korea has in excess of 10,000 underground facilities to protect its key military and civilian assets. […] Russia invested over $6 billion to expand a 400-square-mile underground nuclear complex at Yamantau a full decade after the Berlin wall fell. This complex is burrowed deep enough to withstand a nuclear attack and is large enough and provisioned sufficiently to house 6,000 people for months. [It is believed] it is one of a system of as many as 200 Russian nuclear bunkers. […] The question is, what is next? […] Forty years ago, when U.S. and allied arms control policies were premised upon finite deterrence -- i.e., on the evils of targeting weapons and defending against them, and on the practical advantages of holding innocents at risk in the worlds major cities [emphasis added] -- arms control rightly became an object of derision by serious security planners. Since then, it almost has become an article of conservative Republican faith that arms control is self-defeating. It also has become an article of faith among most liberal Democrats that it deserves unquestioned support. Any serious effort to reduce future nuclear threats will need to move beyond this ideological divide. […] The best way to start would be to put our Cold War fascination with mutual assured destruction theorizing aside and focus instead on what is most likely to reduce the chances of war, nuclear proliferation, and nuclear weapons use."

Henri D. Sokolski in 'Underestimated: Our Not So Peaceful Nuclear Future', page 25, 37, 47, 55, 79. first published Januari 2016 by Strategic Studies Institute and U.S. Army War College Press, USA

"[T]here can be few experiences more frightening than undergoing an air-raid. However, the well-documented information on the subject […] shows that during the Second World War the great majority of people endured air-raids extraordinarily well-contrary to the universal expectation of mass panic. Exposure to repeated bombing did not produce increases in psychiatric disorders. Although short-lived fear reactions were common, surprisingly few prolonged phobic reactions emerged. In the course of his official report to the Medical Research Council, Sir Aubrey Lewis (1942) said that “the doctors in Liverpool trained 18 volunteers as auxiliary mental-health workers for service in and after raids, but none of the 18 has been required: there was no such work for them to do,” […] His summary of his findings (“air-raids have not been responsible for any striking increase in neurotic illness” […]) is in keeping with many similar reports from other workers. [It is] noted that “the small number of psychiatric casualties that have followed aerial bombardment has been a matter for surprise”. Although [it] did obtain some evidence of fear induction and of an exacerbation of neurotic reactions, on the whole Lewis’s survey was remarkable in showing how uncommon these reactions were. In Coventry, Manchester, Liverpool and London, psychiatrists and other service-workers agreed that there had not been any significant increase in the number of patients attending psychiatric clinics. There was however evidence of more fear and related disturbances among the children. So for example, 4 per cent of 8000 school-children in Bristol (subjected to severe air-raids) were said to have developed anxiety symptoms attributable to raids. […] The fears were particularly common and noticeable among children who had been subjected to traumatic experiences. It was also observed in Bristol and in Manchester, that “frightened mothers communicated their fears to the children” […] This British information is matched by the reports from Japan and Germany […] Immediately after an air-raid, many people experienced acute emotional reactions characterised by startle responses, tremor, fatigue and sleep disturbance. However, these acute reactions generally dissipated spontaneously, usually within the course of a day or two. People adapted to air-raids and became more courageous with increasing experience, even when as in London, the raids became progressively heavier. The observations of comparative fearlessness enduring despite repeated exposures to intense trauma, uncontrollability and uncertainty, run contrary to the conditioning theory of fear acquisition. According to this theory, people subjected to repeated air-raids should acquire multiple conditioned fear reactions and these should be strengthened with repeated exposures."

Stanley Rachman in 'The Conditioning Theory of Fear-Ecquisition: A Critical Examination', page 379, 380, first published in 1976 by Pergamon Press. Printed in Great Brittain