Canadian Prepper, 8/18/26
"Alert! WW3 Goes into Overdrive! Multiple
Ships on Fire! Planes Surround Russia"
Comments here:
So, we rise from the rubble...
StatCounter
Tuesday, August 18, 2026
"Diesel Crack Spread Screams Economic Red Alert, and Inflation Will Soon Surge"
"Diesel Crack Spread Screams Economic Red Alert,
and Inflation Will Soon Surge"
by Mike Adams
"Diesel at $102 Over Crude: The Economy's Canary Is Dead, and Inflation Will Follow: The most important number in the American economy right now is not the stock market, the jobs report, or even the price of crude oil. It is the diesel crack spread -- now $102 over crude. That figure is so far outside historical norms that it does not represent a market correction. It represents a structural collapse in fuel supply. The economy runs on diesel, you see, not oil. Crude is just a raw material. But diesel is what moves food, medicine, construction materials, and every physical good in this country. When diesel breaks, everything breaks. And the crack spread -- the canary in this economic coal mine -- just died.
The Diesel Crack Spread Is Screaming: The crack spread is the pricing difference between a barrel of crude oil and the petroleum products refined from it. [1] When it widens, it means refineries cannot keep up with demand for specific fuels. Back in January 2023, analysts were alarmed when the spread hit a three-month high of $42.41, against a five-year January average of just $15.56. Today we are staring at $102. That is not an outlier; it is an emergency.
Jefferies, one of Wall Street's sharpest energy desks, put it in exactly these words: the Hormuz shock is "manifesting itself in cracks, not crude." Politicians can easily manipulate crude prices, releasing strategic reserves and spinning narratives. But they cannot fake diesel supply. And when diesel supply tightens, the whole economy follows.
Why Refining Matters More Than Drilling: Everyone watches crude. Almost nobody watches refineries. That is a fatal blind spot. A refinery's configuration determines which fuels it can produce, and American refineries were largely optimized for light sweet crude. Diesel, however, comes disproportionately from the heavier sour barrels that flow through the Persian Gulf (and Venezuela, for those keeping track of the global RISK gameboard).
The war with Iran has cut off exactly those supply lines. Saudi Aramco reported a 33 percent jump in quarterly profits while redirecting what crude it could through its East-West Pipeline to the Red Sea. But pipelines cannot fix a chemistry problem. When refineries are forced to run suboptimal crude slates, diesel output falls, and the crack spread blows out. This is why I have been warning that drilling alone is a fantasy. You can drill a million new wells and it will not produce a single gallon of diesel unless the refineries can process what comes out of the ground. Refining capacity is the bottleneck -- and that bottleneck is now poised to strangle the economy.
The Permanent Destruction of US Refining Capacity: While Washington wrings its hands over crude prices, America's refining capacity is being dismantled from within. California -- the state that lectures the rest of the country about energy virtue -- has lost two major refineries. The Phillips 66 refinery in Los Angeles and the Valero Energy Corp. refinery in Benicia are closed down, reducing California's refining capacity by 21 percent.
These are not maintenance shutdowns. They are permanent closures. They come on top of the earlier shuttering of the LyondellBasell refinery in Houston, a sprawling 700-acre facility that produced over 200,000 barrels of fuel per day before its owners decided the upgrade costs were simply too high. Every one of these closures permanently removes diesel production capacity. Meanwhile, the Strategic Petroleum Reserve has been drained to a 43-year low. There is no buffer. No cushion. When the next disruption hits -- and it will -- there will be nothing left to absorb it.
When Diesel Prices Spike, Everything Breaks: Here is what the financial press refuses to tell you: diesel is the fuel of physical reality. Approximately 7 billion ton-miles of freight move by truck every single day in the United States, consuming upward of 2.9 million barrels of diesel per day. Retail diesel has already surged from $3.55 a gallon to $5.60 -- a 56 percent increase in the cost of moving every physical good in America. By the end of this year, it could easily reach $8 or even higher.
Farming runs on diesel. Construction runs on diesel. Trains, mining, shipping, manufacturing -- all of it runs on diesel. Diesel inflation does not stay in the fuel tank; it works its way into food prices, consumer goods, and construction materials. JPMorgan is already warning that a global food crisis could erupt next year, driven by what its analysts call the "Five Ws": War, Weather, Warehousing, Water, and Waste. Higher diesel prices will make food inflation far worse. And the claim that "demand destruction" will fix this? Not without a lot of economic chaos happening first. Shortages cascade from fuel to food to everything else. A fuel shock becomes a food shock, and a food shock becomes a social shock with dire political consequences.
How to Prepare for the Diesel Supply Shock: If you live in California, prepare for diesel at $8 to $10 a gallon. The rest of the country may not be far behind. Do not expect the government to save you - the Strategic Petroleum Reserve is nearly empty, and no amount of political spin can rebuild refining capacity that has been permanently destroyed.
What actually protects you is self-reliance. Grow your own food. Store fuel safely if you can. Learn to live without the just-in-time delivery system that is about to break. I have been growing a portion of my own food for years, and it remains one of the most powerful acts of resistance available to a free citizen. The practical knowledge found in books like John Seymour's classic "Farming for Self-Sufficiency" is worth more than any government program. The crack spread is the canary. At $102 over crude, that canary is dead. The inflation that follows will be neither polite nor temporary. Prepare now, while you still can."
Watch my video interviews at Decentralize.TV to learn practical steps for off-grid living and decentralizing away from banks, the broken medical system and the stressed power grid.
Explainer Infographic:
Musical Interlude: Il Divo, "Wicked Game" ("Melanconia")
Full screen recommended.
Il Divo, "Wicked Game" ("Melanconia")
(Live In London 2011)
English lyrics here:
"A Look to the Heavens"
"Sprawling emission nebulae IC 1396 and Sh2-129 mix glowing interstellar gas and dark dust clouds in this 10 degree wide field of view toward the northern constellation Cepheus the King. Energized by its bluish central star IC 1396 (left) is hundreds of light-years across and some 3,000 light-years distant.
The nebula's intriguing dark shapes include a winding dark cloud popularly known as the Elephant's Trunk below and right of center. Tens of light-years long, it holds the raw raw material for star formation and is known to hide protostars within. Located a similar distance from planet Earth, the bright knots and swept back ridges of emission of Sh2-129 on the right suggest its popular name, the Flying Bat Nebula. Within the Flying Bat, the most recently recognized addition to this royal cosmic zoo is the faint bluish emission from Ou4, the Giant Squid nebula."
The Poet: Mary Oliver, "What I Have Learned So Far"
"What I Have Learned So Far"
"Meditation is old and honorable, so why should I
not sit, every morning of my life, on the hillside,
looking into the shining world? Because, properly
attended to, delight, as well as havoc, is suggestion.
Can one be passionate about the just, the
ideal, the sublime, and the holy, and yet commit
to no labor in its cause? I don't think so.
All summations have a beginning, all effect has a
story, all kindness begins with the sown seed.
Thought buds toward radiance. The gospel of
light is the crossroads of - indolence, or action.
Be ignited, or be gone."
~ Mary Oliver
"Heaven And Hell..."
“Many people don’t fear a hell after this life and that’s because hell is on this earth, in this life. In this life there are many forms of hell that people walk through, sometimes for a day, sometimes for years, sometimes it doesn’t end. The kind of hell that doesn’t burn your skin; but burns your soul. The kind of hell that people can’t see; but the flames lap at your spirit. Heaven is a place on earth, too! It’s where you feel freedom, where you’re not afraid. No more chains. And you hear your soul laughing.”
- C. JoyBell C.
o
John Milton,
o
“Hell is empty and all the devils are here.”
"I Keep Saying That..."
"Angel: Well, I guess I kinda worked it out. If there's no great glorious end to all this, if nothing we do matters... then all that matters is what we do. 'Cause that's all there is. What we do. Now. Today. I fought for so long, for redemption, for a reward, and finally just to beat the other guy, but I never got it.
Kate Lockley: And now you do?
Angel: Not all of it. All I wanna do is help. I wanna help, because I don't think people should suffer as they do. Because, if there's no bigger meaning, then the smallest act of kindness is the greatest thing in the world.
Kate Lockley: Yikes. It sounds like you've had an epiphany.
Angel: I keep saying that, but nobody's listening."
"First Of All..."
"First of all, although men have a common destiny, each individual also has to work out his own personal salvation for himself in fear and trembling. We can help one another to find the meaning of life no doubt. But in the last analysis, the individual person is responsible for living his own life and for "finding himself." If he persists in shifting his responsibility to somebody else, he fails to find out the meaning of his own existence. You cannot tell me who I am and I cannot tell you who you are. If you do not know your own identity, who is going to identify you?"
- Thomas Merton
"The Top Banana"
"The Top Banana"
by Jeff Thomas
"The United States emerged from World War II as the top banana. Having entered the war late, it not only was in the enviable position of expanding as a manufacturing nation to supply the allies with war materials, it also insisted on being paid in gold for whatever it shipped. (Pretty nice deal.) At the end of the war, it only had to switch from building tanks and radio equipment to building cars and televisions for the peacetime population. The icing on the cake was that it had not been invaded, so, in 1945, it was poised to take off as the world’s foremost supplier of goods.
For several decades, the US reigned as the top banana, and indeed, that’s still true in many ways, except the peel of the banana is rapidly turning brown. The US has, in recent times, devolved from being the world’s greatest creditor nation to becoming the world’s greatest debtor nation. And in fact, were it not for the residual image of its past laurels, it’s likely that the US would already have collapsed under its unprecedented debt-and-deficit burden. But whilst we’re making a comparison of the US to the yellow fruit, there are a few other parallels that come to mind.
Banana Republic: The term "banana republic" was coined in 1904 to refer to those economically unstable countries that rely on just one product that they sell to the rest of the world, with no backup plan should that product fail. The banana republic remains functional only as a result of money and goods shipped to it in trade for the one product. Sooner or later, something goes wrong with that product, and the republic crashes as a result. At one time, the US supplied the world with its manufactured goods, but American manufacturing facilities have long since moved to countries where costs of operation are far lower than in the US.
Today, the foremost US export product, by far, is debt. US Treasuries are held by countries across the globe and the present debt is at a world record level. If even a portion of the Treasuries were to be redeemed, the US economy would quickly collapse. And yet, the debt is increasing by three billion dollars every day. It’s important to remember that this is not a problem created by one political party or the other. Both parties are responsible for the rises in debt. This is therefore not a situation that can or will be corrected "if our candidate could just win the next election." And so, the US can therefore unquestionably be categorized, at this stage in its development, as a banana republic – one with no plan for a solution to its situation.
Going Bananas: Another aspect that seems to always emerge in banana republics is the tendency to steadily diminish basic freedoms and the rule of law. In recent decades, constitutionally guaranteed freedoms have been steadily removed in the US, but more rapidly in the last decade.
In addition, the government on both sides, but particularly on the left, has been destroying the rule of law. All branches of the government are playing high and loose with their authority. In the past, the legislature did all it can, regardless of whether it is lawful, to unseat the president. Most disappointing of all, the judicial branch has become an extension of the legislative branch, basing their decisions on political prejudices rather than on law.
This now takes place even with regard to the Supreme Court. The Court is seen by both political parties as an agency for enforcement of political beliefs, with each party locked in a struggle to gain dominance by having the majority of justices be loyal to one party or the other, not to the law. Not surprisingly, since law and principle have been tossed aside in the post-constitutional era, the American people are left with no moral compass whatever. The best that they can hope for is that their chosen group will vanquish the other somehow.
And so, we see a constant game of one-upmanship amongst both the American people and the political parties – a continuous attempt to win as many of an endless series of "moral" battles, played out each evening on the news. In such an environment, those who attempt to inject quiet reason are unable to be heard. Only those who "go bananas" get enough attention to possibly edge forward in the fray.
Slipping on a Banana Peel: And so we ask ourselves what the outcome of this charade is likely to be. Well, if we see a banana peel before us, hopefully, we’d be looking where we’re going and sidestep it. However, what we’re seeing in America is a pathway filled with banana peels and an obsessive populace that shows every sign of placing more attention on individual agenda than where it’s walking.
To be sure, this conundrum is nothing new in the world. Over the millennia, such situations have played themselves out countless times. The net result tends to be the same. There’s a dramatic socio-economic–political collapse, followed by a period in which both wealth and order have been lost. Once they realize that there have been no real winners in the debacle, the populace shakes its collective head and wonders, "How did we let it get so crazy?"
Eventually, they begin to ask themselves what can be done to rebuild the system, but historically, this does not happen quickly. In most such cases, a hardworking and successful generation have raised a spoiled generation, who want quick answers and immediate gratification. They in turn raise an apathetic generation, who don’t see any real light at the end of the tunnel.
Unfortunately, the US is in the latter stage. Such a generation of apathetic individuals is typically incapable of creating a recovery. In almost all cases, what’s necessary is that the following generation recognize that their parents have left them with virtually nothing and that, if they want more, they’ll have to work for it.
And so the cycle begins anew. But make no mistake; it’s not a quick process. It tends to take decades. But as the declining nation slides into the doldrums, others come forward to take its place. As anyone who has raised bananas knows, when one tree begins to fruit, small banana "suckers" begin to come out of the ground. By the time the tree is in full fruit, the suckers are big enough to be firmly rooted.
Once the tree has fruited and collapsed under its own weight, the suckers feed off its moisture and minerals to grow. The position of top banana is not perennial. It passes from one to another from time to time. But this is by no means the end of the world. The trick is to recognize the warning signs and, when we see them, to uproot and move on to a more favorable grove."
"Russians Pull Billions From Banks, You Need Physical Cash; What Happens When America Goes Dark"
Jeremiah Babe, 8/18/26
"Russians Pull Billions From Banks, You Need Physical Cash;
What Happens When America Goes Dark"
Comments here:
"The All-Seeing Eye"
"The All-Seeing Eye"
by Todd Hayen
"In an era where our every word, step, and glance can be archived, summarized, and replayed by sleek little discs pinned to our chests, the ancient archetype of the all-seeing eye has found its modern silicon incarnation. What was once the paranoid whisper of conspiracy has become the marketed convenience of ‘life logging’ - yet beneath the promise of perfect memory lies the total erasure of privacy, turning every shrew into a unwitting performer on the surveillance stage. (If you haven’t read enough of my work to know what a “shrew” is, read this: "Sheep and Shrew")
During a recent three-hour ramble with my sister - one of those wide-ranging, idea-sparking talkathons we’ve shared for years - the little recording device I had just bought, attached to my phone, quietly drank it all in. Every tangent on culture, politics, family, and the state of the world was captured, summarized, and later served back as a tidy slideshow of “highlights.” It auto-suggested calendar entries, pulled up past chats on demand, and generally made itself indispensable.
For a moment, I felt the rush: This is the future. No more forgotten details, no more scrambling for notes. Pure magic. I will disclose immediately that I have purchased several of these odd devices mostly out of curiosity, but also out of an attempt to record various “having fun moments” of my life (like a recent dog adventure to a local pond, and our three-day trip to New York City to see Swan Lake). I won’t go into my personal experience (with the intentions just stated) out of fear it will bore you; ask in the comments if you would like to know.
Here I will make my general comments on what I feel the impact such devices will have on our human culture. What masquerades as personal empowerment is a profound archetypal shift toward total surveillance, eroding privacy, authenticity, and human freedom - normalizing the sheeple’s willing submission while shrews must stay vigilant. Woo-hoo, what else is new?
During my conversation with my sister, the shrew in me stirred almost immediately. That ancient archetype of the All-Seeing Eye - once reserved for gods, tyrants, or paranoid fantasies - had slipped into the room wearing the friendly face of convenience. What felt like an innocent companion was, in truth, a silent recorder turning private exchange into permanent data. And I had invited it in.
This is how the trap springs. Not with jackboots and cameras in every corner (though those exist too), but with sleek little devices marketed as extensions of ourselves. Wearable AI pins, smart glasses, neck discs - they promise perfect memory while quietly building the most intimate profile imaginable: where we go, what we say, who we say it to, and how we feel about it all. Street cameras and smartphone sensors already blanket the public square; these wearables drag the surveillance indoors, into our conversations, our homes, our unguarded moments with loved ones. The panopticon goes portable.
We’ve seen this pattern before. Remember when “just a phone” became a pocket tracker? Or how contact-tracing apps during the scamdemic morphed from “temporary emergency tools” into permanent fixtures in the biosecurity state? The same sleight of hand is at work here. Tech companies dangle the carrot - Never forget a name! Relive every precious moment! Let AI organize your chaos! - and the sheeple flock to it, bleating about how “empowering” it all feels. The sheep, yes, and at least one sheep-like shrew. Me.
Meanwhile, the other shrews (you) feel the water getting warmer. You are more aware than me that every logged conversation is fodder for training models, targeted ads, behavioural predictions, or worse - subpoenas, hacks, or authoritarian overreach. Deepfakes already erode trust in video evidence; add always-on personal recording, and alibis become meaningless, private truths become contestable, and authentic human connection withers under the gaze of the machine.
My sister and I laughed about it at first. Then the unease settled in. What if one of those “helpful” summaries gets shared without consent? What if the data shapes how others (or algorithms) perceive us? The archetype of the all-seeing eye doesn’t just watch—it consumes. It flattens the rich, contradictory mess of human life into clean, marketable data points.
From a Jungian perspective, this is no mere gadget problem. It is the externalization of the Self’s shadow—the watcher within projected onto silicon. Privacy is not just a legal right; it is the sacred space where the psyche breathes, where shadow integrates, where anima and animus dance unseen. Strip that away, and we become performers, constantly curating our words for an invisible audience. The sheepsters may not notice - they’ve grown accustomed to the slowly boiling pot. But the shrew feels the contraction of soul.
This is the latest chapter in the long war on autonomy waged primarily by the advocates of transhumanism and technoculture. Digital passports, social credit systems, vaccine mandates - each promised safety or convenience while tightening the noose. AI wearables complete the circle: they don’t just monitor the body or the public square; they ingest the mind itself, turning inner dialogue into training data for the next generation of control.
We are not far from the logical endpoint - stylish glasses with always-on cameras, or worse, neural implants that record thoughts before they become words. The marketers will call it “seamless augmentation.” The shrew calls it the end of anything resembling private life. But here we go. Woo-hoo again, what fun!
Obviously, we have known about all this techno-joy for quite some time: science fiction novels, 50’s SciFi movies, superhero comic books, Star Trek, Outer Limits and Battlestar Galactica TV series, among many other media enticements. All techno gadgets presented in these resources have been emblazoned into our feeble brains (not you, of course!), always looking for the next exciting and fun thing to engage with.
Why do we have to move back into the techno-less past in our effort to survive? Why can’t we take this fun ride into a more convenient, more joyous, more exciting future with interesting “things” to fiddle with? Primarily because there is likely an evil intention behind it all. We can never forget the agenda, and one of the prime tools of manipulation the agenda thrives on is private information.
So, what do we do? Do we stop participating in this new science-fiction-turned-reality world? Do we just get the hell off the grid, and live in some backward fourth-world country drinking milk out of a coconut? That’s one way to do it; another is to simply become more aware and conscious. Awareness itself is resistance. Turn the All-Seeing Eye inward. Use these tools sparingly, consciously, and never without remembering what they truly cost. Talk with your pack. Document the unease. Keep the conversations that matter offline when you can.
The water is heating, my dear shrew. But we still have legs to jump - and voices to warn the others before the lid clamps shut for good."
Todd Hayen PhD is a registered psychotherapist practicing in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. He holds a PhD in depth psychotherapy and an MA in Consciousness Studies. He specializes in Jungian, archetypal, psychology. Todd also writes for his own substack, which you can read here.
"The 50% Canada Tariff Hits Tomorrow: What It Costs You"
Full screen recommended.
Snyder Reports, 8/18/26
"The 50% Canada Tariff Hits Tomorrow:
What It Costs You"
"Tomorrow, a 50% tariff on $20 billion worth of Canadian goods goes into effect - and it's about to show up in your grocery bill, your next car, and even your homeowners insurance. Here's what's getting more expensive, why it hits you even if you never buy Canadian, and the hidden $1,200–$1,300 annual cost per household most people won't see coming. The U.S. and Canada are holding last-minute talks to stop President Trump's new 50% tariff, set to take effect August 19th. The tariff covers everything from lumber and cars to dairy, alcohol, furniture, and even hockey sticks."
Comments here:
"Americans Film Their Breaking Point - Nothing Is Affordable Anymore"
Full screen recommended.
Strong language alert!
Full screen recommended.
Epic Economist, 8/18/26
"Americans Film Their Breaking Point -
Nothing Is Affordable Anymore"
"Americans are filming their own breaking point, and nothing is affordable anymore. A thirty-dollar roast at Aldi. One bag of groceries that rings up at $91. Fifteen people turned their cameras on and did the math out loud, a man working 41 hours at his first job who still DoorDashes at night, a woman who stopped eating dinner so her partner could take lunch to work, a mother cooking on a mini griddle in a hotel room. In this video we look at what the cost of living crisis actually looks like from the inside, why working Americans can no longer cover rent, groceries and gas, and what it means when the paycheck arrives and still does not reach. Comment your thoughts below."
Comments here:
Adventures With Danno, "Massive Changes To Dollar Tree!"
Full screen recommended.
Adventures With Danno, 8/18/26
"Massive Changes To Dollar Tree!"
Comments here:
Dan, I Allegedly, "The Middle Is Gone - Here's What's Happening"
Full screen recommended.
Dan, I Allegedly, 8/18/26
"The Middle Is Gone - Here's What's Happening"
"The Middle Class is getting wiped out! Retail is changing right before our eyes. Stores are closing, businesses are struggling, consumers are running out of savings and credit, yet discount retailers like Ross and other off-price stores are expanding. In this video, Dan from iAllegedly breaks down why consumers are trading down, hunting for bargains and demanding more value for every dollar they spend. The retail economy is not simply disappearing - the middle is disappearing. From Ross and Marshalls to McDonald's, Kraft Heinz, Whirlpool and Wendy's, major companies are responding to a consumer who is under enormous financial pressure. We look at changing shopping habits, declining purchasing power, rising costs, disappearing savings, credit problems, private equity, retail closures and why discount stores may be positioned to win as Americans become more price-conscious. The consumer is still spending, but they're spending differently - and that could tell us a lot about where the economy is headed."
Comments here:
"Iran Just Abandoned Its Defense Strategy – US Discussed Nuclear Option on Iran"
Full screen recommended.
Col. Larry Wilkerson,
"Iran Just Abandoned Its Defense Strategy –
US Discussed Nuclear Option on Iran"
Comments here:
"Trump Just Approved the Nuclear Option — And There's No Going Back Now"
Col. Douglas Macgregor:
"Trump Just Approved the Nuclear Option -
And There's No Going Back Now"
"Colonel Douglas Macgregor addresses what he calls the most serious development of this entire conflict: credible reports that President Trump has approved the nuclear option for operational consideration. Col. Macgregor breaks down what "approved for consideration" actually means inside the national security decision-making process - and why the distance between that threshold and actual use is far smaller than most people believe. He examines the specific weapons being discussed, the ideological actors driving the conversation, the failure of institutional checks, and the escalation modeling that the people pushing this option are ignoring. Three historical parallels - Korea 1950, Cuba 1962, Vietnam 1968 - illuminate exactly how this kind of decision gets made and what stops it. His most urgent analysis to date. The threshold has not been crossed. But time is running out."
Comments here:
"Are We Closer To Nuclear War Than Ever Before?"
by Michael Snyder
"It appears that most of the population has become way too apathetic about the threat of nuclear war. There are people on social media that cheer as both sides continue to escalate the conflict in Ukraine, and there are people on social media that are openly advocating for nuclear weapons to be used in the Middle East. I don’t think that such people actually understand the immense destructive power of modern nuclear weapons. Even a limited nuclear exchange would kill millions, and an all-out nuclear war would cause a nuclear winter that could kill billions. Unfortunately, it appears that we are now closer to nuclear war than ever before.
In recent months, Russia and Ukraine have been absolutely pummeling each other with long-range strikes. The escalations that we have been witnessing have been absolutely shocking, but the mainstream media in the western world hasn’t been giving these escalations the attention that they deserve. On Saturday, hundreds of long-range Ukrainian drones hit targets in the Moscow region…
Hundreds of drones have targeted the Moscow region in a sustained overnight assault that wounded killed at least six people, according to the Russian capital’s mayor, as Ukraine steps up long-range attacks deep inside Russia. Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said 600 drones had been flying toward the Moscow region between Saturday evening and 6:30 a.m. local time (0330 UTC) on Sunday, adding that 201 were destroyed over the region.
If someone was hitting Washington D.C. or New York City with long-range drones every night, what would we do to them? Just think about that for a moment. We should be very thankful that the Russians have been showing a great deal of restraint so far. But they are clearly running out of patience.
In a desperate attempt to provoke the Russians into doing something really stupid so that NATO will be forced to enter the war, the Ukrainians have been striking “four key categories of targets”…Many of its strikes have focused on four key categories of targets, according to an Associated Press analysis of hundreds of Ukrainian attacks this year - compiled from statements by Russian officials and state media and the Ukrainian military.
As the Iran war pushed up energy prices, leading the U.S. to ease sanctions on Russian oil, Kyiv ramped up strikes on oil infrastructure to deny the Kremlin revenue from fuel exports and force shortages on ordinary Russians. It is also striking defense manufacturing to damage Russia’s long-term ability to produce weapons, targeting air defenses to clear a path for its own arms, and hitting retail warehouses to bring the effects to ordinary Russians.
Hitting retail warehouses is a recent development. Just within the past few months, Ukraine has striking one Wildberries warehouse after another. Last night, it was a warehouse in the Moscow area that got hit…New footage shows the moment an apocalyptic fire engulfed a ‘Russian Amazon’ warehouse near Moscow after a Ukrainian drone attack. The huge inferno blew up the Wildberries online marketplace complex at Koledino, just 25 miles south of the Kremlin, in the early hours of this morning.
Wildberries, the largest Russian online retailer, stores and houses military equipment for Putin, according to Ukraine. Can you imagine how angry the American people would be if Amazon warehouses were getting destroyed by drones? This is a really big deal, and the Russian people are furious. At this point, well over a dozen Wildberries warehouses have been destroyed…
Click image for larger size.
That graphic totally floored me when I first saw it. In addition, the Ukrainians just used long-range missiles to hit a number of other very sensitive targets that are located hundreds of kilometers inside Russian territory. The following comes from a social media post by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy…
"Today, there are new significant results from our deep strikes. In Russia’s Samara region, one of the key enterprises within Roscosmos – the Progress Center, which was involved, among other things, in electronics production – was hit. Flamingo missiles were used. A good achievement. The distance from our border is about 900 kilometers. Our long-range sanctions also reached the Savasleyka airbase, where the carriers of Russian missiles that strike our cities and villages are based – about 700 kilometers from Ukraine. We also have confirmation of the damage we were aiming to inflict at an oil facility in Ust-Luga – more than 800 kilometers from our border."
He is so thrilled about these strikes. But pundits on Russian television are regularly talking about the need to use tactical nuclear weapons in Ukraine. If the Russians actually did this, the joint chiefs would likely recommend using tactical nuclear weapons against Russian forces in the Donbas. It is hard to say what President Trump would do in such a scenario.
There is also a risk that the conflict in Ukraine could spark an all-out nuclear exchange between the United States and Russia. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov is publicly accusing the United States of being deeply involved in Ukraine’s long-range strikes deep inside Russian territory… Russia believes that US is playing a far deeper role in Ukrainian attacks on Russian territory than Washington has publicly acknowledged, including by providing intelligence to Kyiv, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Friday. Lavrov said Moscow had formally raised the issue with US officials and was awaiting an explanation over Washington’s alleged involvement in strikes carried out deep inside Russia.
“We have submitted a series of questions to the State Department requesting comment, including on the matter of intelligence data and the fact that the US is far more deeply involved in organizing and executing strikes deep within Russian territory against civilian targets. We await a response,” Reuters quoted Lavrov as telling Russian state television.
Unfortunately, Lavrov is not wrong about this. We are helping the Ukrainians conduct these strikes, and that has been well documented. We desperately need the conflict in Ukraine to end, because the longer it goes on the more likely it will be that nuclear weapons will get used.
According to one report, the Chinese are highly concerned about the possibility that the Russians might lose patience and decide to use nukes against Ukraine…China has again told Russia not to even consider using a nuclear weapon against Ukraine, according to President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Russian nuclear saber rattling has accelerated in 2026, with officials and major Russian outlets making the case for tactical nukes more forcefully and unambiguously than any time since Vladimir Putin ordered the 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine. In response, China, a vital enabler of Moscow’s assault, has told Russia it must avoid any atomic attacks, Zelenskyy said - reiterating Beijing’s long-stated opposition to nuclear strikes.
Reading that should deeply alarm all of us. Meanwhile, Marjorie Taylor Greene is claiming that she knows with 100 percent certainty that the potential use of nuclear weapons against Iran is being discussed in high-level strategy meetings in Washington… Former US Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene claimed Sunday that high-level strategy meetings are underway to discuss the potential use of nuclear weapons against Iran. “I’m not speculating, I know. And it’s pure evil,” Greene wrote on US social media platform X. She did not provide evidence to substantiate the claim.
Greene alleged that the US government was considering lowering the threshold for nuclear weapons use despite President Donald Trump’s repeated claims of victory in the war and assertions that Washington has control over the Strait of Hormuz. That is quite a claim.
Hopefully President Trump would not ever consider doing such a thing. But the U.S. wouldn’t even have to be involved for nuclear weapons to be used in the Middle East. A senior IRGC official is warning that the Iranians may soon go on the “offensive” and that they have some “strategic surprises” up their sleeves… A senior Revolutionary Guards official said Iran’s military actions, which he described as defensive so far, could become “offensive” in the future and warned adversaries to expect “strategic surprises.” “The enemy should know that it cannot carry out surprise actions against us and should expect strategic surprises,” Yadollah Javani, the IRGC’s political deputy, told state broadcaster IRIB. Javani said Iran’s armed forces would take whatever measures they deemed necessary to defend the country, ensure security and counter threats at what they considered the appropriate time.
If the Iranians were to launch even a single unconventional warhead at Israel, it is likely that Israel would respond with nuclear weapons. Israel has more than enough nuclear warheads to destroy all of Iran’s largest cities, and all it would take is a single wrong move to unleash such a scenario.
And let us not forget about China. The Chinese have been building up their strategic nuclear arsenal faster than anyone else in the world, and they have also been making preparations for a military move against Taiwan. Last week, Taiwan began a series of military exercises that were intended to simulate what a Chinese invasion would look like… China on Friday condemned Taiwan’s annual Han Kuang military exercises as a “wasteful charade”, accusing Taipei of stoking fears of war as the island conducts 10 days of drills simulating a potential Chinese attack. The comments were China’s first official response since the exercises began last week. Taiwan, a democratically governed island that rejects Beijing’s sovereignty claims, launched the drills as Chinese military activity around the island continues to increase.
The moment that China attempts to take control of Taiwan, we will be at war with China. Most Americans do not realize this. And once we are at war with China, things could go nuclear very rapidly. Of course using nuclear weapons should be absolutely unthinkable. In a full-blown nuclear war between the United States and Russia, tens of millions would die within the first few hours…
34.1 million people could die, and another 57.4 million could be injured, within the first few hours of the start of a nuclear war between Russia and the United States triggered by one low-yield nuclear weapon, according to a new simulation by researcher’s at Princeton‘s Science and Global Security program. Tens of millions more would quickly die from radiation exposure, but the real killer would be the nuclear winter that would follow.
It has been estimated that the nuclear winter that we would experience would kill over 5 billion people… More than 5 billion people would die of hunger following a full-scale nuclear war between the U.S. and Russia, according to a global study led by Rutgers climate scientists that estimates post-conflict crop production.
“The data tell us one thing: We must prevent a nuclear war from ever happening,” said Alan Robock, a Distinguished Professor of Climate Science in the Department of Environmental Sciences at Rutgers-New Brunswick and co-author of the study. Lili Xia, an assistant research professor in the School of Environmental and Biological Sciences, is lead author of the study published in the journal Nature Food.
This is not a game. Engaging in brinksmanship with the Russians or the Iranians or the Chinese is a really, really bad idea. We should seek to end the wars in the Middle East and Ukraine as soon as possible. But that isn’t going to happen, is it? We are playing with fire, and if we aren’t very careful our entire society is going to get burned."
Bill Bonner, "Whee!"
Click image for larger size.
"Whee!"
by Bill Bonner
‘If Watergate were to happen now,
it would be like a 12-hour news story.’
- JD Vance
Poitou, France - "The vice president is talking about the shrug...about the way grift is ‘normalized.’ It becomes another part of what Steve Bannon called the ‘flood the zone’ strategy. You keep so much stuff coming at the voters that they don’t have time to think...or react. It seems to be working. Surveys report that Americans are not outraged; they are tuning out.
Trump is president. He’s the Big Man, the most powerful man in the world. But surveys show that people are less and less inclined to pay any attention to him. He’s the one who should’ve...could’ve...and didn’t. They will label him a ‘conservative,’ and blame him when even nuttier Mamdani-style socialists are elected.
Every POTUS this century has been a disaster. Each of them has put more grease on the skids...helping to speed America’s toboggan-like decline. They all overspent. They all committed war crimes. They all bowed down before the big lobbies and did as the Deep State elite commanded. And, generally, with the support of the public. But no US leader, present or past tense, has done it with the bravado...the chutzpah...and the sheer gall of DJT.
The Donald took the White House in 2017. Since then, US debt has approximately doubled. About $8 trillion of it came on during Joe Biden’s spendathon. But $12 trillion, so far, is the bill for Trump – more than any president ever...so much new debt that now the debt bomb has been dropped. It cannot be recalled or disarmed. It will hit the ground in an explosion of chicanery, bankruptcy, and inflation.
In matters of war, Trump cannot be said to be worse than, say, George W. Bush. But Bush kept within the boundaries of broadly acceptable fraud – assembling an international coalition to attack Iraq with the blessing of the West’s most self-righteous institutions and the stamp of approval from the great and the good. At least the man who wears a mask when he robs a bank admits that there is something low-down about it.
Trump is more brutally honest...attacking Iran with only the rogue state, Israel, by his side...in defiance of world opinion, the Geneva convention, good taste and good judgement.
But where Trump really stands head and shoulders above his predecessors - going all the way back to Warren Harding - is that he is by far the most corrupt president the US has ever seen. Harding presided over the Teapot Dome scandal. And people went to jail for it...showing how much standards have slipped. But Harding was not where the buck stopped; there is no record of him gaining anything personally. Bush and Obama, too, were disasters, but neither took much personal profit from their White House sojourn. A book contract here...speaking fees there...a few million perhaps; hardly worth mentioning.
Corruption moved into a higher gear with Joe Biden. Recall the theory. As an empire becomes more costly...less productive...and more top-heavy, growth slows and corruption speeds up. It is as if the rascals see the ship sinking...and loot it before it goes down. This does not mean that the Biden crew were especially evil or avaricious. A baby hyena is a cute little thing; it is not his fault he grows up to be an ugly killer.
Corruption is a symptom, not a cause. It’s what happens when win-win is no longer a winning strategy. Ambitious people turn to win-lose. First, they increase the general level of flimflam - focusing most of their efforts, like Willie Sutton, on where the money is. They set up heads-I-win, tails-you-lose hedge funds, for example. Or, they change the rules so that they take profits from rising stock prices, but get a ‘bailout’ from the feds when they go down.
The Biden ‘crime family’ got its crooked money in several different ways. Hunter, the President’s son, collected $4 million for helping to run a Ukrainian energy company. He knew not a word of Ukrainian...and not a thing about energy. He got another $2.6 million from Chinese businesses in return for unknown services. He spoke no Chinese either. But he was fluent in flimflam. He sold $1.5 million worth of his paintings. And his uncle, Jim Biden, received $500,000 from Hunter’s Chinese business pals...again, for no identifiable reason.
Corrupt practices? Most people will say so. But farm league stuff. When it comes to grift, Trump is in the Super Bowl. Trump’s crypto business has brought in about $1.4 billion. The plane from Qatar was worth $1.1 billion. Jared Kushner’s hedge fund drew in $5.4 billion. Selling advance notice of his Truth Social posts is estimated to be worth $1.2 billion. Trump collected $10 million from selling pardons. Reuters said “nearly all the clemency decisions” were linked to payments. Melania got $28 million for her documentary; it grossed only $16 million.
Sons Donald Jr. and Eric have made sweet deals with weapons contractors...though neither knows anything about weaponry. The Financial Times: "A Florida-based drone manufacturer with financial ties to Donald Trump Jr. has landed its largest Pentagon contract to date as the US military steps up efforts to boost domestic drone acquisition. The company, Unusual Machines, in which Trump Jr. holds a stake worth about $4 million, announced it will supply the Army with 3,500 drone motors."
These are merely different forms of influence peddling. But there is also some $13 billion worth of Venezuelan oil, taken by the US. No one seems to know where it is, but it is rumored to be under Trump’s control.
As POTUS, Trump earns about $200 per hour on the job. But Ralph Nader estimates that Trump’s side hustles earned him $1.1 million per hour in the first 12 months of his second term: That’s right, $1.1 million an hour based on a 40-hour work week over one year. (And remember, Trump spends a lot of his time on his vengeance missions, his golf game, and napping - so a 40-hour work week is a generous estimate.) Good work if you can get it. And it takes corruption to a whole different level...in comparison, Joe Biden was nothing more than a shoplifter, running from a mid-town mall with a pair of Nikes.
The ‘Corruption Perceptions Index’ ranks the world’s countries. As might be expected, it ranks South Sudan, Somalia and Venezuela as the most corrupt. Denmark, Singapore and New Zealand are on the other end of the scale. And where’s the US? The United States (64) continues on a downward trend, recording its lowest ever score in the CPI index. Is anyone outraged? No, we’re beyond that. Watergate took two years to unfold. Today, the nation can’t sit still for an afternoon. Whee!"
Monday, August 17, 2026
Jeremiah Babe, "This Can Get Bad Real Fast
Jeremiah Babe, 8/17/26
"This Can Get Bad Real Fast -
Japan's $620 Billion Selloff Of US Equities Would Be Catastrophic"
Comments here:
"Alert! This Will Get Ugly Fast! Stockpile as Much Food as You Can Now!"
Full screen recommended.
Canadian Prepper, 8/17/26
"Alert! This Will Get Ugly Fast!
Stockpile as Much Food as You Can Now!"
Comments here:
Musical Interlude: Yanni & Samvel Yervinyan, "Until The Last Moment"
Full screen recommended.
Yanni & Samvel Yervinyan, "Until The Last Moment"
"From Stardust to Sapiens: A Stunning Serenade to Our Cosmic Origins and Our Ongoing Self-Creation"
Our Cosmic Origins and Our Ongoing Self-Creation"
By Maria Popova
"We were never promised any of it - this world of cottonwoods and clouds - when the Big Bang set the possible in motion. And yet here we are, atoms with consciousness, each of us a living improbability forged of chaos and dead stars. Children of chance, we have made ourselves into what we are - creatures who can see a universe of beauty in the feather of a bird and can turn a blind eye to each other’s suffering, creatures capable of the Benedictus and the bomb. Creatures who hope.
A generation after Maya Angelou held up a cosmic mirror to humanity with “A Brave and Startling Truth,” Pattiann Rogers - who writes with uncommon virtuosity about the intersection of the cosmic and the human, and whose poems have therefore been a frequent presence in "The Universe in Verse" - offers a poignant cosmogony of our self-creation in the stunning final poem of her book "Flickering" (public library).
Full screen recommended.
"Homo Sapiens: Creating Themselves"
by Pattiann Rogers, Read by Maria Popova
I.
"Formed in the black-light center of a star-circling
galaxy; formed in whirlpool images of froth
and flume and fulcrum; in the center image of herring
circling like pieces of silver swirling fast, a shoaling
circle of deception; in the whirlpool perfume of sex
in the deepest curve of a lily’s soft corolla. Created
within the images of the creator’s creation.
Born with the same grimacing wrench of a tree-covered
cliff split wide suddenly by lightning and opened
to thundering clouds of hail and rain.
Cured in the summer sun as if in a potter’s oven,
polished like a stone rolled by a river, emboldened
by the image of the expanse beyond earth’s horizon,
inside and outside a circumference in the image
of freedom.
Given the image of starlight clusters steadily silent
above a hillside-silence of fallen snow… let there be sleep.
II.
Inheriting from the earth’s scrambling minions,
images of thorn and bur, fang and claw, stealth,
deceit, poison, camouflage, blade, and blood…
let there be suffering, let there be survival.
Shaped by the image of the onset and unstoppable
devouring eclipse of the sun, the tempestuous, ecliptic
eating of the moon, the volcanic explosions of burning
rocks and fiery hail of ashes to death… let there be
terror and tears. Let there be pity.
Created in the image of fear inside a crawfish
skittering backward through a freshwater stream
with all eight appendages in perfect coordination,
both pincers held high, backing into safety beneath
a fallen leaf refuge… let there be home.
III.
Made in the image of the moon, where else
would the name of ivory rock craters shine
except in our eyes… let there be language.
Displayed in the image of the rotting seed
on the same stem with the swelling blossom…
let there be hope.
Homo sapiens creating themselves after the manner
and image of the creator’s ongoing creation — slowly,
eventual, alert and imagined, composing, dissembling,
until the right chord sounds from one brave strum
of the right strings reverberating, fading away
like evening… let there be pathos, let there be
compassion, forbearance, forgiveness. Let there be
weightless beauty.
Of earth and sky, Homo sapiens creating themselves,
following the mode and model of the creator’s creation,
particle by particle, quest by quest, witness by witness,
even though the unknown far away and the unknown
nearby be seen and not seen… let there be goodwill
and accounting, let there be praise resounding."
Complement with astronomer-poet Rebecca Elson’s ode to dark matter and the mystery of being, “Let There Always Be Light,” non-speaking autistic poet Hannah Emerson’s astonishing “Center of the Universe,” and Jane Hirshfield’s “To Be a Person,” then revisit Pattiann Rogers’s harmonic of the human and cosmic perspectives, read by David Byrne and illustrated by Maira Kalman."
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