Col. Douglas Macgregor, 5/7/26
"Iran Fires 1,200 Missiles at IDF, 50 Bases Erased,
300,000 Troops Stranded Without Ammo"
Comments here:
So, we rise from the rubble...
StatCounter
Thursday, May 7, 2026
"Col. Macgregor: 'We Only Have Weeks Left' Until Economic Disaster Hits The US"
Full screen recommended.
Redacted, 5/7/16
"Col. Macgregor: 'We Only Have Weeks Left'
Until Economic Disaster Hits The US"
"Financial experts like Citadel's Ken Griffin and Carlyle Group's Jeff Currie are issuing stark warnings of a global recession driven by an escalating energy crisis. Currie highlights that the U.S. is already in an oil deficit and will face devastating shortages once inventories, which he compares to the shark fin in 'Jaws', hit 'tank bottoms' by mid-summer. Col. Douglas MacGregor elaborates, linking the crisis to conflict in the Persian Gulf and explaining the cascading effects like soaring jet fuel prices and broken supply chains for diesel. I had a fascinating conversation with Kevin DeMeritt, Founder of Lear Capital, about gold, silver, and what investors should be paying attention to right now. If you’re curious about protecting your wealth and learning where the market is headed, you won’t want to miss this discussion."
Comments here:
Gerald Celente, "Main Street Suffers As Wall Street Prospers"
Strong language alert!
Gerald Celente, 5/7/26
"Main Street Suffers As Wall Street Prospers"
"The Trends Journal is a weekly magazine analyzing global current events forming future trends. Our mission is to present Facts and Truth over fear and propaganda to help subscribers prepare for What's Next in these increasingly turbulent times."Comments here:
"Warning: Stagflation is Here To Stay, Households Are Now In Recession"
Jeremiah Babe, 2/7/26
"Warning: Stagflation is Here To Stay,
Households Are Now In Recession"
Comments here:
"A Look to the Heavens"
“Far beyond the local group of galaxies lies NGC 3621, some 22 million light-years away. Found in the multi-headed southern constellation Hydra, the winding spiral arms of this gorgeous island universe are loaded with luminous young star clusters and dark dust lanes. Still, for earthbound astronomers NGC 3621 is not just another pretty face-on spiral galaxy. Some of its brighter stars have been used as standard candles to establish important estimates of extragalactic distances and the scale of the Universe.
This beautiful image of NGC 3621 traces the loose spiral arms far from the galaxy's brighter central regions that span some 100,000 light-years. Spiky foreground stars in our own Milky Way Galaxy and even more distant background galaxies are scattered across the colorful skyscape.”
- http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap090919.html
"Acceptance..."
"Acceptance is a crucial step forward for those who prefer the idea of living this life over simply existing within it. Accept all that you've said and what you've done, because you cannot change your past. Accept the idea of the unknown, because the future is the unknown waiting patiently to reveal itself. Accept the person you have become thus far in your journey, because you are the only person who will be there with you when you finish it. Do all of this so that you may never find yourself having to accept regret that haunts you at two a.m., leaving you sweaty and broken hearted. All you have is this minute; not this hour, or this day, or this year. Live in this minute so that you won't get stuck simply existing with your guilty past, or with nothing but anxiety for the future."
- Margaret E. Rise
"America's Rental Collapse Has Begun - No One Can Get Approved"
Full screen recommended.
Epic Economist, 5/7/26
"America's Rental Collapse Has Begun -
No One Can Get Approved"
"America's rental collapse has begun. And in 2026, the average working American can't even get approved for an apartment they could pay rent on. Application fees they don't get back. Credit floors they can't hit. A math rule from 1985 that locks out half of working America. A $1.3 billion tenant screening industry running silent on every renter - and one eviction filing flags you for seven years. Even if it was dismissed. Failures are recorded. Successes are not. By design. This is what 17 working tenants describe in their own words. They paid the fees. They had jobs. They had clean records. The wall went up anyway. Listen to how they describe it."
Comments here:
The Poet: Neil Gaiman, "What You Need To Be Warm "
"What You Need To Be Warm "
"A baked potato of a winters night to wrap
your hands around or burn your mouth.
A blanket knitted by your mother's cunning fingers.
Or your grandmother's.
A smile, a touch, trust, as you walk in from the snow
or return to it, the tips of your ears pricked pink and frozen.
The tink tink tink of iron radiators waking in an old house.
To surface from dreams in a bed,
burrowed beneath blankets and comforters,
the change of state from cold to warm is all that matters, and you think
just one more minute snuggled here before you face the chill. Just one.
Places we slept as children: they warm us in the memory.
We travel to an inside from the outside.
To the orange flames of the fireplace
or the wood burning in the stove.
Breath-ice on the inside of windows,
to be scratched off with a fingernail, melted with a whole hand.
Frost on the ground that stays in the shadows, waiting for us.
Wear a scarf. Wear a coat. Wear a sweater.
Wear socks. Wear thick gloves.
An infant as she sleeps between us. A tumble of dogs,
a kindle of cats and kittens.
Come inside. You're safe now.
A kettle boiling at the stove. Your family or friends are there.
They smile.
Cocoa or chocolate, tea or coffee,
soup or toddy, what you know you need.
A heat exchange, they give it to you, you take the mug
and start to thaw.
While outside, for some of us, the journey began
as we walked away from our grandparentshouses
away from the places we knew as children:
changes of state and state and state,
to stumble across a stony desert, or to brave the deep waters,
while food and friends, home, a bed, even a blanket become just memories.
Sometimes it only takes a stranger, in a dark place,
to hold out a badly-knitted scarf, to offer a kind word,
to say we have the right to be here,
to make us warm in the coldest season.
You have the right to be here. "
- Neil Gaiman
o
Neil Gaiman reads "What You Need To Be Warm"
Dan, I Allegedly, "Ferrari’s and Food Stamps"
Full screen recommended.
Dan, I Allegedly, 5/7/26
"Ferrari’s and Food Stamps"
"The shocking truth about food stamp fraud is starting to come out, and it’s worse than most people think. In this video, we break down how individuals with luxury assets - including Ferraris, Lamborghinis, and high-end lifestyles - are still qualifying for SNAP benefits due to loopholes in the system. While millions of struggling Americans rely on food assistance to survive, others are allegedly exploiting the program, costing taxpayers millions every single day. We also dive into the broader economic impact, including stricter SNAP enforcement, millions being removed from the program, and the growing frustration over government oversight and accountability. From California’s massive daily losses to nationwide fraud concerns, this is a story about waste, policy failure, and who ultimately pays the price. If you care about the economy, government spending, and financial fairness, this is a must-watch."
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"Not Such An Easy Business..."
“Over the years you get to see what a struggle life is for most people, how tough it is, how easy it is to be judgmental and criticize and stand outside of situations and impart your wisdom and judgment. But over the decades I've got more tolerant of people's flaws and mistakes. Everybody makes a lot of them. When you're younger you feel: "Hey, this person is evil" or "This person is a jerk" or stupid or "What's wrong with them?" Then you go through life and you think: "Well, it's not so easy." There's a lot of mystery and suffering and complication. Everybody's out there trying to do the best they can. And it's not such an easy business.”
- Woody Allen
"Bamboozled..."
"One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we've been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We're no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It's simply too painful to acknowledge, even to ourselves, that we've been taken. Once you give a charlatan power over you, you almost never get it back. "
- Carl Sagan
"Why Can’t We Thrive Like 1905?"
by Paul Rosenberg
"When writing historical things, I try to include perspective from people who actually lived through the events. And for money issues in the US, I’m able to do that back to about 1905. So, do you think life was nasty, brutish, and short in 1905? That there were poor and starving people falling dead on every street corner? Hardly.
The Wright brothers were flying for 30 minutes at a crack; Einstein was upgrading the laws of physics; telephones and electric lights were being installed all across America; Henry Ford was getting the final pieces in place for his moving assembly line and Model T; radio was being developed; art was flourishing; and the world was more or less at peace.
Sure, we have far more tech and better medicine now, but mostly because the people of earlier times (like the 1905 era) gifted it to us. People in 1905 lived in heated homes, refrigerated their food, had access to professional physicians, traveled the world (mostly on trains and ships), read daily newspapers (there were many more of them in those days), watched early movies, and ate just about the same foods we eat.
So, was it really that bad a time? No, it wasn’t. In fact, it was better in important ways, and one in particular: It was moving rapidly forward.
Money In The USA: Facts: Consider this: The working person of 1905 kept his or her money. They ended up saving somewhere between a quarter and a half of everything they made – after living expenses. It’s hard to be completely precise when reconstructing the budgets of average people in 1905 (records are hard to find), but we do have enough for a good, close guess. Here’s how finance worked for a working family man of 1905:
Annual income: $700.00
Annual expenses: ($350.00)
Annual savings: $350.00
If you’re thinking that I’m taking liberties with these numbers, let me assure you that I’m not – I’m being conservative. For example:The income figure should probably be higher. I’ve found figures of well over $800 for construction workers. As for expenses, I rounded up from a New York Times article, dated 29 September, 1907. It specified $325 per year. Added to that is the fact that many people grew their own food during that time, which would skew the figures further.
As noted initially, I compared these numbers with stories I heard from relatives who lived through the time. My uncle Dave, for example, used to tell me how he got a job paying $390 per year sweeping floors, as an unskilled immigrant who spoke almost no English, in 1903.
The next time you drive through an old part of town and see the grand old houses, remember that people were able to build and buy them because their paychecks weren’t stripped bare. There were no income taxes in 1905, no sales taxes, no state taxes, and not much in the way of property taxes. There was also no such thing as a military-industrial complex in those days, and – miracle of miracles – the rest of the world survived!
And Now… As you know, today’s situation is much different. The average working family pays about half their income in combined taxes: income taxes (to the state and the Feds), payroll taxes, property taxes, gas taxes, utility bill taxes, sales tax, local taxes, and on and on. So, figuring an average income of just over $50,000 (that’s a 2011 figure). And combined taxes of about $25,000, the average American family is left to pay bills like these:
Mortgage $11,000
Car payments $6,000
Gas, repairs, etc. $2,500
Property taxes $2,500
Food $3,000
Total $25,000
That leaves people zeroed-out. And again, I’m being conservative: I haven’t included a number of smaller expenses, and that huge numbers of people are deeply in debt.
If Great Grandpa Could Do It… Our great grandfathers faced very few of the taxes that we face. (The government survived on tariffs.) There was no social security either, and – believe it or not – the streets were never full of starving old people. Families were able to take care of their own – it’s not that hard when you’re saving half of your income! We have forgotten that it was once possible for an average person to accumulate money. The truth is that productive people should be comfortable. Well-off, as they used to say. So, why can’t we thrive like it’s 1905? You might want to hold that question in mind."
"Trump’s War on Iran Is Destroying America"
"Trump’s War on Iran Is Destroying America"
"The very first story on the Drudge Report on both April 23 and 24 was headlined with a quote from Bernard Arnault saying if the Iran war was not quickly settled, it could be a “world catastrophe.” I apparently do not keep up with world business as much as I should, because I did not know that Arnault is one the three richest men in the world along with Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos. They trade first, second and third depending on fluctuating stock prices.
Arnault heads a French conglomerate, LVMH, which specializes in luxury brands like Louis Vuitton and many others. He bought a struggling Christian Dior in 1984 for $15 million and Tiffany & Co. in 2021 for over $15 billion.
Arnault told the annual meeting of his Company: “Either it (the Iran War) will be a world catastrophe with very serious and very negative economic impacts – in which case, who can say how 2026 will unfold – or it will be resolved more rapidly in some shape or form that we all hope for – even if it doesn’t seem easy – in which case businesses will recover and resume their normal course.”
Newt Gingrich, the former Speaker of the House, almost always tries to speak in a positive way about Republican chances in elections. But he told the New York Times on April 28 that if the elections were in May, Republicans would lose. He said: “The war, the sense of affordability, and gasoline – some of that has to be cleared up in order to win. If it doesn’t change, I’ll start tearing my hair out.”
President Trump is in an almost impossible situation. He is in between possibly the greatest rock and hard place in history. I think Trump realizes that both the U.S. economy and the world economy will be greatly damaged and possibly go in to a major recession if the war is not ended very soon. JP Morgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon said it “will be worse than people think.” The President seems to be trying very hard to reach an agreement, but he knows Israel wants to go in the other direction and escalate the war even further. And he knows the Israel Lobby has almost total control of the Congress and will go along with Netanyahu no matter what.
John Mearsheimer is a West Point graduate, Air Force veteran, and longtime professor at the University of Chicago. He is one of the most well-respected foreign policy experts in this Country. In an interview on April 27, he said “The world economy is teetering, and the longer this war goes on the worse the damage… and if we go up the escalation ladder, it will be another hammer blow to the world economy.” He added: “Israel wants to continue the war. They want us to continue hammering away at Iran to try to beat them into submission and if we can’t beat them into submission, well we’ll just destroy them and do what we did in Gaza to Iran.”
Jeffrey Sachs is another foreign policy expert and economist who has been called upon for advice for many countries around the world. He is a longtime professor at Columbia University in New York City. He has in the past described Netanyahu as “the main cheerleader for the war in Iraq.” He said on Judge Napolitano’s podcast on April 27 the Israeli leader is “trying to achieve the unachievable” and that it is impossible for “the United States and Israel to run Iran.”
He said Netanyahu has”conned Trump into endless wars on behalf of Israel” and that if they continue this war “they will destroy the U.S. economy.” He added that Netanyahu “wants the U.S. to spend not just the hundreds of billions we will spend” but the seven trillion we have spent over the last 30 years in seven wars for Israel.
The main cheerleaders for this war have been Netanyahu, Sen. Lindsay Graham, and Mark levin. And while I agree with Fox News on almost everything, I do not agree with Fox being a propaganda network for a neocon foreign policy that is the exact opposite of an America First foreign policy.
I am a conservative Presbyterian, and I agree with Christian fundamentalists on most things. Christians can bless the Country of Israel without agreeing with everything the current Israeli government does, the same as I can pray for God to bless the USA without agreeing with everything our government does(especially when it is controlled by those on the left).
As I write this column, oil is at $114.60. It was at $60 and the Strait of Hormuz was open the day before this war was started. Socialism has destroyed the economy of most nations around the world, and probably half of their people are trying to flee. Most want to come here.
Unfortunately, the Democrats in this Country have become a party of socialists. If we let this war continue much longer, socialists will take control of our government and economy and do very long term damage to this Nation."
A Video From Iran: "Peace is Our Only Choice: Bridging the Gap for Iranians & Americans"
Full screen recommended.
A Video From Iran:
"Peace is Our Only Choice:
Bridging the Gap for Iranians & Americans"
Dan, I Allegedly, "Foreclosures Are Exploding!"
Full screen recommended.
Dan, I Allegedly, 5/7/26
"Foreclosures Are Exploding!"
"Foreclosures are surging across America and this could be just the beginning of a massive housing market correction. In this video, Dan from i Allegedly breaks down why foreclosure filings are exploding, why commercial real estate is collapsing, and how rising interest rates, property taxes, HOA fees, insurance costs, and unaffordable mortgages are crushing homeowners nationwide. Banks are tightening lending standards, short sales are returning, and foreclosure auctions are seeing activity not witnessed since before the pandemic housing boom. Dan also explains how the end of mortgage forbearance programs and COVID-era protections has completely changed the real estate market. Investors, homeowners, and first-time buyers are now facing a dangerous combination of falling home prices, upside-down mortgages, commercial loan defaults, and increasing monthly housing expenses. If you want to understand the future of the housing market, foreclosure investing, real estate crashes, bank-owned properties, and where the economy may be heading next, this is a must-watch breakdown from iAllegedly."
Comments here:
"2026 Weather Warning: Super El Niño Could Bring Historic Extremes"
Full screen recommended.
Snyder Reports, 5/7/26
"2026 Weather Warning:
Super El Niño Could Bring Historic Extremes"
Comments here:
"Megadrought: We Just Experienced The Driest First Three Months Of A Year In U.S. History"
by Michael Snyder
"January, February and March were insanely dry. In fact, in all of U.S. history conditions have never been so dry during the first three months of the year. Just think about that for a moment. Not even during the Dust Bowl days of the 1930s were conditions this dry. Many were hoping that 2026 would be the year when our multi-year drought would finally break. Needless to say, that hasn’t happened. Scientists are telling us that the southwestern U.S. is in the midst of the worst multi-year drought in at least 1,200 years. We really are experiencing a “megadrought”, and this is something that experts such as Steve Quayle and Dane Wigington have been talking about for a long time. Unfortunately, it appears that our seemingly endless “megadrought” has gone to an entirely new level in 2026.
If it simply doesn’t rain, there is not much that farmers and ranchers can do. Right now approximately 63 percent of the continental United States is experiencing at least some level of drought, and the first quarter of this year was one for the record books…Winter wheat is dying in Kansas fields that should be green by now. Ranchers in New Mexico are selling cattle they cannot afford to feed. Reservoir levels along the Colorado River system are dropping weeks ahead of the season when mountain snowmelt is supposed to refill them. Across roughly 63% of the contiguous United States, drought rated moderate to exceptional on the federal scale has taken hold, and the first three months of 2026 were the driest the nation has recorded in 131 years of continuous measurement.
This isn’t just a crisis. This is catastrophic. It appears that the winter wheat crop in the U.S. is going to be a disaster. At this stage, more than 81 percent of the Southern Plains is experiencing drought…Heading into the harvesting season for the key winter wheat crop, much of the western side of the U.S. Plains are locked in drought. Over 81% of Southern Plains is experiencing some form of drought, according to the latest data from the U.S. Drought Monitor. Nearly 20% of the region is experiencing either “extreme” or “exceptional” drought.
Only 30% of U.S. winter wheat is in either good or excellent condition as of the start of this week, according to the most recent weekly Crop Progress report from the Department of Agriculture. By comparison, 49% of the crop was good-or-excellent at this point last year.
The situation is particularly dire in the state of Oklahoma. Last year, the state produced 101.1 million bushels of red winter wheat. Thanks to the drought, it is being projected that the state will produce less than half of that total this year… At the 2026 Oklahoma Grain and Feed Association meeting, crop scouts, extension specialists, and grain elevator representatives painted a sobering picture of this year’s hard red winter wheat crop. Their estimates say the 2026 crop is roughly half the size of the previous two years, with production projected at 48.9 million bushels compared to 101.1 million bushels in 2025. The outlook is based on an average yield of 23.93 bushels per acre across an expected 2.043 million harvested acres, highlighting the significant downturn facing Oklahoma wheat producers.
When there is a lot less wheat to go around, prices will go up. It is simply a matter of supply and demand. One farmer that grows winter wheat in Kansas is saying that his farm has only had a quarter of an inch of precipitation since last fall… Southwest Kansas farmer Gary Millershaski says his area has only received a quarter-of-an-inch of precipitation since last fall. “For us to get a 30-bushel crop, you’ve really got to be optimistic and believe in prayer. That’s a fact.” He has done everything right, but the sky has been silent. What is he supposed to do?
So far in 2026, Chicago wheat futures are up about 30 percent…Chicago wheat futures have gained nearly 30% since the start of the year - the biggest gain among row crop futures - due to the combination of U.S. drought, global fertilizer shortages and a looming El Niño.
If this crisis in the Middle East is not resolved, this will only be just the beginning. Once upon a time, the U.S. was absolutely swimming in wheat, but now we are moving into a time when it will be considered a “luxury grain”. Of course beef is already considered to be a “luxury meat”. When I was growing up, my mother would feed us beef constantly because it was so inexpensive. But now beef prices have skyrocketed, and some of the prices that we are seeing at the meat counters in our grocery stores are absolutely absurd…
I never thought that I would see beef prices get this high. But this is the reality that we are living in now. And it appears that beef prices will continue to remain elevated because the size of the U.S. cattle herd is the smallest that it has been since 1951…The US cattle herd remained the smallest since 1951 at the start of the year, in the latest signal that consumer beef prices will remain near records. There were about 86.2 million cattle and calves in the US as of Jan. 1, the US Department of Agriculture said in a Friday report. The tally is nearly unchanged from 2025, providing no relief to the ongoing cattle shortage.
The lack of improvement comes as ranchers keep selling animals to slaughter amid high beef demand, rather than retaining the animals to grow their herds. The downsizing - which began years prior when ranchers shrunk their herds due to high production costs and droughts - has sent consumer beef prices to all-time highs.
It is really hard to feed cattle when conditions are bone dry. Sadly, they could get even drier in the months ahead… Meanwhile, there’s a 62% chance of the world’s climate shifting from neutral to El Niño between June and August, according to NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center forecast. The European Center for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts said that this El Niño could be the strongest on record, with peak intensity hitting in October.
El Niño typically results in hot and dry weather in many growing areas, including the U.S. Corn Belt and in Australia. With fertilizer supplies thin, this may further compound production losses for world wheat. We are being told that we could soon be experiencing a “super El Niño”, and meteorologist Ryan Maue is warning that the long-term forecast for the second half of this year is “off the charts”…
I have been repeatedly warning my readers that global weather patterns are going nuts, and I was not exaggerating one bit. We really are facing a historic long-term crisis with no end in sight. As I discussed last week, for the upcoming season U.S. farmers are planting the fewest acres of wheat that we have seen since records began in 1919.
In 1919, there were 104 million people living in the United States. Today, there are 341 million people living in the United States. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that we have a major problem on our hands. Many of us have been warning about this crisis for years, and now we really have reached a breaking point."
Adventures With Danno, "Massive Price Increases At Kroger!"
Full screen recommended.
Adventures With Danno, 5/7/26
"Massive Price Increases At Kroger!"
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Wednesday, May 6, 2026
"Alert! Iran Rejects Trump Claims! All Lies! Hantavirus Spreading?! China Says F#$K Your Sanctions!"
Full screen recommended.
Canadian Prepper, 5/6/26
"Alert! Iran Rejects Trump Claims! All Lies!
Hantavirus Spreading?! China Says F#$K Your Sanctions!"
Comments here:
"What Happened To Truckers? Mystery Of The Freight Crisis"
Full screen recommended.
Epic Economist, 5/6/26
"What Happened To Truckers?
Mystery Of The Freight Crisis"
"Something is happening on America's highways and most people don't see it yet. American truck drivers are walking off the job - and it's not just a few. Across the country, more drivers are leaving the cab for good, parking their rigs, and posting their last loads on TikTok. The trucks that keep this country moving are starting to sit still. But why? From the rate collapse to broker chains, lease-purchase traps, and a system that grinds drivers down for years before spitting them out, the job isn't what it used to be. In this video, we break down what's really happening, why truckers are walking away, and what this could mean for anyone who depends on the freight that gets moved every day in this country. Because when the people who move everything start disappearing it becomes everyone's problem. Why truckers are quitting What's broken in the freight industry The frustration drivers are sounding off about What this means for the country moving forward This is one of those shifts you don't notice - until it shows up on your shelves."
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"War In The Middle East, 5/6/26"
Dialogue Works, 5/6/26
"Scott Ritter: Iran Unlashes Missiles!
Trump Caves, UAE And Israel Panic!"
Comments here:
o
Col. Douglas Macgregor, 5/6/26
"Netanyahu Declares Emergency As
Iran Attack Cripples All Israel Defenses"
Comments here:
o
Scott Ritter, 5/6/26
"Iran Wipes Out 50,000 Tons Ammunition IDF Arsenal -
Israel Army Collapses in 72 Hours"
Comments here:
Musical Interlude: Gnomusy (David Caballero), "Shadows In The Wood"; "Footprints On The Sea"
Gnomusy (David Caballero), "Shadows In The Wood"
○
Gnomusy (David Caballero), "Footprints On The Sea"
"A Look to the Heavens"
“Stars are sometimes born in the midst of chaos. About 3 million years ago in the nearby galaxy M33, a large cloud of gas spawned dense internal knots which gravitationally collapsed to form stars. NGC 604 was so large, however, it could form enough stars to make a globular cluster.
Many young stars from this cloud are visible in the above image from the Hubble Space Telescope, along with what is left of the initial gas cloud. Some stars were so massive they have already evolved and exploded in a supernova. The brightest stars that are left emit light so energetic that they create one of the largest clouds of ionized hydrogen gas known, comparable to the Tarantula Nebula in our Milky Way's close neighbor, the Large Magellanic Cloud."
Chet Raymo, “Tyger, Tyger Burning Bright…”
“Tyger, Tyger Burning Bright…”
by Chet Raymo
“Divinity is not playful. The universe was not made in jest but in solemn incomprehensible earnest. By a power that is unfathomably secret, and holy, and fleet.” You may recall these words from Annie Dillard’s “Pilgrim at Tinker Creek.” There is nothing intrinsically cheerful about the world, she says. To live is to die; it’s all part of the bargain. Stars destroy themselves to make the atoms of our bodies. Every creature lives to eat and be eaten. And into this incomprehensible, unfathomable, apparently stochastic melee stumbles… You and I. With qualities that we have - so far - seen nowhere else. Hope. Humor. A sense of justice. A sense of beauty. Gratitude. But also: Anger. Hurt. Despair. Strangers in a strange land.
Galaxies by the billions turn like St. Catherine Wheels, throwing off sparks of exploding stars. Atoms eddy and flow, blowing hot and cold, groping and promiscuous. A wind of neutrinos gusts through our bodies, Energy billows and swells. A myriad of microorganisms nibble at our flesh.
We have a sense that something purposeful is going on, something that involves us. Something secret, holy and fleet. But we haven’t a clue what it is. We make up stories. Stories in which we are the point of it all. We tell the stories over and over. To our children. To ourselves. And the stories fill up the space of our ignorance. Until they don’t. And then the great yawning spaces open again. And time clangs down on our heads like a pummeling rain, like the collapsing ceiling of the sky. Dazed, stunned, we stagger like giddy topers towards our own swift dissolution. Inexplicably praising. Admiring. Wondering. Giving thanks.”
◆
“The Tyger”
“Tyger! Tyger! burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?
In what distant deeps or skies
Burnt the fire of thine eyes?
On what wings dare he aspire?
What the hand dare sieze the fire?
And what shoulder, and what art.
Could twist the sinews of thy heart?
And when thy heart began to beat,
What dread hand? and what dread feet?
What the hammer? what the chain?
In what furnace was thy brain?
What the anvil? what dread grasp
Dare its deadly terrors clasp?
When the stars threw down their spears,
And watered heaven with their tears,
Did he smile his work to see?
Did he who made the Lamb make thee?
Tyger! Tyger! burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?”
- William Blake
"Your Enemies..."
“Never hate your enemies. It clouds your judgment.”
- "Michael Corleone"
"Forgive your enemies, but never forget their names."
- John F. Kennedy
The Poet: Rainer Maria Rilke, "I Want A Lot"
"I Want A Lot"
"You see, I want a lot.
Perhaps I want everything:
the darkness that comes with every infinite fall
and the shivering blaze of every step up.
So many live on and want nothing,
and are raised to the rank of prince
by the slippery ease of their light judgments.
But what you love to see are faces
that so work and feel thirst...
You have not grown old, and it is not too late
to dive into your increasing depths
where life calmly gives out its own secret."
- Rainer Maria Rilke
"A Kind Of Stubborn, Unrecognized Courage..."
"For many great deeds are accomplished in times of squalid struggle. There is a kind of stubborn, unrecognized courage which in the lowest depths tenaciously resists the pressures of necessity and ill-doing; there are noble and obscure triumphs observed by no one, unacclaimed by any fanfare. Hardship, loneliness, and penury are a battlefield which has its own heroes, sometimes greater than those lauded in history. Strong and rare characters are thus created; poverty nearly always a foster-mother, may become a true mother, distress may be the nursemaid of pride, and misfortune the milk that nourishes great spirits."
- Victor Hugo
"The Hyphen..."
"Life is the hyphen between matter and spirit."
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"Deadlier Than COVID Once Infected, Hantavirus Raises Alarm"
Full screen recommended.
Snyder Reports, 5/6/26
"Deadlier Than COVID Once Infected,
Hantavirus Raises Alarm"
"A growing number of Americans are asking questions about Hantavirus after reports connected the deadly virus to multiple deaths aboard a cruise ship. In this video, I break down what Hantavirus is, how it spreads, why experts say it is far deadlier than COVID once somebody becomes infected, and whether people should actually be concerned about another potential health crisis."
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"The Hantavirus Theater Continues: Fear Over Facts,
and Why We Already Have Solutions"
A Measured Look at What the Press Got Wrong (And What They Got Right, More or Less)
by Robert W. Malone, MD, MS · Chief Medical Officer, Curativa Bay
"The narrative has evolved. We now know - courtesy of the WHO and various health authorities scrambling to contain the optics as much as the virus - that the passengers aboard the MV Hondius contracted the Andes strain of hantavirus. This is the detail the press has seized upon, amplified, and weaponized into a fresh installment of fear porn. But before we succumb to the theatrical anxiety that seems to be the dominant mode of public health communication these days, let’s examine what this actually means.
The Origin Story: Yes, It Came From South America: The ship departed Argentina in late March. Argentina - where the Andes strain has been circulating since at least 1995, where outbreaks have occurred regularly, and where between July 2025 and January 2026 alone, at least 20 deaths were reported. This is not new. This is not emerging. This is a known pathogen in a known endemic region, and apparently, someone (or several someones) who carried it boarded a cruise ship.
The question the press should have asked - and largely didn’t - is straightforward: How did the virus get from Argentina onto the ship? The answer is almost certainly rodent contamination during provisioning or boarding. This is a logistics problem, not a pandemic harbinger. It is entirely foreseeable and, frankly, entirely preventable with adequate sanitation protocols. But the narrative doesn’t work that way. Rodent control in ports sounds mundane. Boring. Unmotivating for the 24-hour news cycle.
Human-to-Human Transmission: Rare, Documented, and Misrepresented: Here is what the science actually shows about the Andes strain and human-to-human transmission: it is possible, but extraordinarily rare, and it requires sustained, intimate contact - the kind of contact that occurs between spouses, between healthcare workers and critically ill patients, or among family members living in close quarters during an active outbreak.
The press, inevitably, has positioned this as a looming threat. The subtext runs thus: A virus that can jump from person to person is loose on a ship. Civilization hangs in the balance. Never mind that documented cases of person-to-person transmission are vanishingly few, or that when they have occurred, they’ve been in contexts of profound intimacy or direct exposure to the blood and bodily fluids of acutely ill patients.
Let me be precise: the Andes virus spreads primarily through aerosolized particles from infected rodent excreta. When humans contract it, they typically acquire it by inhaling those particles directly. Yes, person-to-person transmission has been documented - primarily in Argentina and Chile, and primarily under conditions of close, sustained contact. But as one expert noted with admirable restraint: “This is not a virus that spreads like flu or like COVID. It’s quite different.” The transmission route, when it occurs between humans, appears to involve significant exposure to bodily fluids - not the casual contact that characterizes respiratory viruses. This matters. A great deal.
What This Means: Respiratory Protection, Aerosol Control, and Why We Shouldn’t Panic: If - and it is a conditional if - human-to-human transmission via the Andes strain occurs through respiratory droplets or aerosols (as the available evidence suggests for the most likely transmission route), then we have well-established tools for mitigation that have nothing to do with vaccines or antivirals.
This is where the conversation gets interesting, and where the public health establishment seems remarkably incurious. The media line is that there is no cure, no vaccine. This is true in the sense that there is no FDA-approved antiviral specifically for hantavirus, and no preventive vaccine in widespread use. But this framing - there is nothing we can do - is fundamentally misleading.
We have aerosol mitigation strategies. We have room-level environmental controls. We have topical and respiratory interventions that can address viral particles in the environment and at mucosal surfaces. These are not speculative. They are not unproven. They are, in fact, among the most direct and upstream approaches to infectious disease prevention that exist.
The Missing Conversation: Hypochlorous Acid and Prevention at the Source: Which brings me to hypochlorous acid (HOCl) - a molecule that deserves far more attention in discussions of respiratory and environmental viral control than it currently receives.
HOCl is not a pharmaceutical. It is not a vaccine. It is a naturally occurring antimicrobial agent, a weak acid that the human immune system produces in neutrophils and other immune cells specifically to kill pathogens. When weaponized in controlled formulations - whether as a nasal spray, a surface disinfectant, or a room-level aerosol - it provides a straightforward mechanism for reducing viral burden at the point of exposure or transmission.
Think of it as upstream prevention. Not waiting for someone to become symptomatic. Not waiting for a virus to reach the lungs or cause systemic disease. Instead, intervening at the site of initial infection - the nasal mucosa, the respiratory tract, the contaminated environment.
A nasal spray formulation of HOCl offers direct antiviral activity at the primary portal of entry for respiratory pathogens. Room nebulization - dispersing a fine mist of HOCl throughout an enclosed space - offers environmental viral control without the toxicity profile of traditional chemical disinfectants. Both approaches are mechanistically sound, grounded in immunology, and immediately applicable to a situation like the one aboard the Hondius.
For a healthcare setting - or a cruise ship quarantine - these interventions provide options that are currently not part of the mainstream discussion, despite being more readily available and deployable than waiting for antiviral drugs or vaccines to materialize.
The Real Story: Not Novel, Not Unprecedented, Manageable With Known Tools: Here is what has actually happened: A virus that has been endemic to South America for decades, that has killed people in Argentina with predictable (if tragic) regularity, made its way aboard a ship. A small number of people became ill. Some required hospitalization. Some died. This is sobering. It is also not unprecedented.
The Andes strain has demonstrated human-to-human transmission capability in previous outbreaks, most notably in Argentina and Chile. The scientific literature on this is clear. But it is also clear that such transmission is rare, limited, and occurs in specific epidemiological contexts. The current outbreak aboard the Hondius does not represent a fundamental change in the virus’s behavior, nor does it represent the emergence of a novel pathogen or a newly adapted viral isolate with enhanced transmissibility.
What it represents is what it has always represented: a zoonotic pathogen, maintained in rodent populations in South America, capable of occasional spillover into human populations, and - in rare circumstances - capable of limited human-to-human spread. The mechanisms for this are well understood. The epidemiology is well documented. The problem is not that we lack understanding. The problem is that understanding doesn’t sell advertising.
What Should Be Done: In practical terms, the response should be straightforward:
o Environmental control: Rigorous disinfection of the ship, with attention to rodent exclusion and control. This is basic public health, and it is effective.
o Isolation of symptomatic cases: Standard precautions for any respiratory pathogen, with appropriate PPE for healthcare workers and caretakers.
o Mucosal protection: For close contacts and healthcare personnel, nasal spray formulations of HOCl provide a rational, evidence-based mechanism for reducing viral load at the primary site of infection. This is not speculative - it is grounded in the immunobiology of innate immunity.
o Environmental aerosol control: Room nebulization with HOCl offers a mechanism for controlling viral particles in shared spaces, reducing the risk of airborne transmission without relying on vaccines, antivirals, or extended lockdowns.
None of these interventions require regulatory approval they have not already received. None require years of development. All of them operate at the level of prevention and early intervention, not crisis management.
The Broader Point: The press narrative around the Andes strain is designed to provoke anxiety about a novel threat. But this threat is not novel. It is an iteration of a longstanding zoonotic reality - one that has been managed, more or less poorly, for decades. The difference now is that we have additional tools available: targeted antimicrobial aerosols, evidence-based topical antivirals, and a much better understanding of respiratory transmission dynamics than we had even five years ago.
The positioning from official sources - there is no cure, no vaccine, therefore nothing can be done - is not only factually incomplete, it is strategically indefensible. It ignores the possibility of prevention at the source, upstream intervention before systemic disease takes hold, and environmental controls that can materially reduce transmission risk. If the goal is to inform the public and protect health, this conversation needs to expand. If the goal is to maintain a narrative of helplessness and fear, then the current approach makes perfect sense. I’ll leave it to readers to decide which is happening."
Dr. Robert W. Malone is the Chief Medical Officer of Curativa Bay (CuraClean Technologies). He is a physician, scientist, and the inventor of foundational mRNA vaccine technology. He has served on multiple biotechnology and biodefense advisory bodies and writes regularly on pandemic preparedness, medical countermeasures, and public-health policy.
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