Full screen recommended.
Prepper News, 3/3/26
"Alert! 'Armageddon War':
50,000 Troops, 10 Ships Hit"
Comments here:
So, we rise from the rubble...
StatCounter
Tuesday, March 3, 2026
"Iran Just Destroyed THAAD - The U.S. Has No Defense Left"
Full screen recommended.
Money Over History, 3/3/26
"Iran Just Destroyed THAAD -
The U.S. Has No Defense Left"
"Iran has reportedly destroyed a U.S. THAAD missile defense system - one of America’s most advanced and expensive air defense platforms. If confirmed, this is not just another strike. It represents a direct hit on America’s layered missile shield architecture in the Gulf. THAAD (Terminal High Altitude Area Defense) is designed to intercept ballistic missiles at extreme speeds. Each interceptor costs millions. The entire system takes years to replace. And now, one battery may be out of action. In this video, we break down:
• How THAAD works
• Why destroying it is strategically massive.
• The real cost exchange ratio in this war.
• What this means for U.S. defense capability.
• Why China and global powers are watching closely.
• Whether America can replenish its missile stocks in time.
This could mark a turning point in the conflict."
Comments here:
o
Full screen recommended.
Money Over History, 3/3/26
"How 12 Missiles Broke a $2 Trillion Defense Shield -
America Shocked"
"At 03:47 local time, Iran launched 350 drones and ballistic missiles across the Persian Gulf. America’s layered missile defense system - built on Patriot PAC-3 batteries, THAAD interceptors, and Aegis warships - stopped 338 of them. The official success rate: 96.6%. But twelve got through.
Those twelve missiles struck the Ghawar oil stabilization complex in a blast so intense it erased satellite imagery in seconds. Forty-seven people were killed. The world’s largest oil facility was set ablaze. And a $2 trillion defense architecture, long described as “impenetrable,” faced a question it was never designed to answer: not why most threats were stopped - but how any made it through at all. This video breaks down the four-layer method behind the breach: precision electronic warfare, radar saturation and ghost targets, logistics software manipulation, and human hesitation under corrupted data. This was not a lucky strike. It was a calibrated audit of America’s shield.
Within hours, global oil markets surged. The USS Gerald R. Ford repositioned. Intelligence agencies scrambled to connect dots that had been logged for days. Twelve missiles changed the operational calculus for America, Israel, and every military watching. The shield wasn’t shattered by force. It was dissected by design."
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Gerald Celente, Danger Ahead: Prepare For False Flag Event And Market Crash"
Strong language alert!
Gerald Celente, 3/3/26
"Danger Ahead: Prepare For False
Flag Event And Market Crash"
"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."
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"March 3, No One Left To Call"
"March 3, No One Left To Call"
by No1
"Yesterday I ended with “four days became four weeks”. I may have been optimistic.
Trump’s now telling reporters wars can be fought “forever” using American stockpiles with a “virtually unlimited” supply of weapons. He posted it on Truth Social, so it should be the Truth, right? Sure, there are plenty of Cold War-era JDAMs - converted MK-84 dumb bombs with a GPS kit strapped on. But Patriots? THAADs? The things actually keeping people alive? Those don’t grow on Truth Social posts. Those take two years per missile to manufacture. And most of the existing ones were gifted to Ukraine. No refunds. Six American soldiers are dead. Eighteen seriously wounded. The war is four days old. Remember when this was supposed to be a four-day special military operation to Tehran?
The story of the day isn’t the F-15s from yesterday, or the oil markets, or even the ground invasion of Lebanon - although we’ll get to all of those. The story of the day is what Israel did to the Assembly of Experts in Qom. The Assembly of Experts is the 88-member clerical body constitutionally responsible for selecting Iran’s supreme leader. After killing Khamenei on Saturday, the logical next step in any “regime change” playbook would be to let the succession process collapse under its own contradictions. Let the factions fight. Let the moderates and hardliners tear each other apart. Classic divide and conquer. Instead, Israel bombed the building while they were counting the votes. “We wanted to prevent them from picking a new supreme leader”. - Israeli defense official to Axios
They struck the assembly in Qom while the body was in session. Iranian state media confirmed the building was flattened. Reports of many members killed or wounded. Iran’s Mehr news agency tried to play it down, calling the building “an old, secondary structure” no longer in use - which directly contradicts the Israeli claim that it was struck mid-vote. Both versions can not be true. The Assembly’s compound in Tehran - the former parliament building - had already been hit overnight. Both locations, in sequence.
Now think about what this means strategically. Yesterday I wrote that Trump had killed his own “very good choices” for Iran’s next leader in the opening strikes, and that Iran’s military units were operating mostly without central command. Today, Israel deliberately destroyed the constitutional mechanism for selecting a replacement. You killed the leader. You killed the people you wanted to replace him with. And now you bombed the room where the country’s legal process for choosing a successor was literally in session. Who exactly are you planning to negotiate with?
Iran named a new supreme leader anyway. Alireza Arafi. His opening statement was not what you’d call an olive branch: “The time for negotiations is over”. So the bombing achieved precisely nothing except turning a succession process into another martyrdom narrative. Again. Really nailed that one.
Israel invaded Lebanon today. The 91st Division deployed ground forces across the border, capturing positions along the frontier. Clashes with Hezbollah near Kfarkela. Artillery and airstrikes across the south. The cabinet reportedly approved the incursion with 100,000 troops on the border. Hezbollah responded by firing missiles into central Israel for the first time in this conflict. Sirens in the Tel Aviv metropolitan area. A new escalation corridor that did not exist yesterday morning.
The Lebanese army, under reported US pressure, pulled back from border positions. Literally cleared the road. A senior Hezbollah official said “our patience has run out”. Hezbollah also struck the Ramat David Airbase near Haifa and the Meron surveillance base with cruise missiles. Israel responded by ordering evacuations in Sidon - deep inside Lebanon, well north of the Litani River.
So on day four of a war that was supposed to last four days, we now have a second front. Third if you count the Houthis. Fourth if you count Iraq, where resistance groups have claimed 67 separate operations against US targets in three days. The stated objective was to destroy Iran’s missile capability. Instead we now have missiles flying from Iran, Lebanon, Iraq, and Yemen simultaneously. Task failed successfully.
Now for the diplomatic masterpiece. Trump, sitting in the Oval Office with German Chancellor Merz, decided this was the perfect moment to threaten a NATO ally with total economic war. Spain had the audacity to say no. Foreign Minister Albares told the US that its bases on Spanish soil - Rota and Morón - could not be used for strikes that weren’t covered by the UN charter. Something about international law. Quaint concept. Fifteen US aircraft were relocated, including refuelling tankers.
Trump’s response was to order Treasury Secretary Bessent to “cut off all trade with Spain”. Then, the part that should give every European capital a sleepless night: “We could use their base if we want. We could just fly in and use it. Nobody’s gonna tell us not to use it”. The President of the United States just openly suggested he could violate a NATO ally’s sovereignty and use their military bases by force. On camera. While sitting next to the German Chancellor. Merz’s contribution? He agreed that Spain should pay more for NATO…
Belgium called the entire operation illegal under international law. Spain’s Sánchez called it “unjustifiable”. These are NATO members, publicly breaking with Washington four days into a war that NATO Secretary General Rutte had enthusiastically endorsed. The cracks aren’t showing. The cracks are structural. Trump also went after the UK for refusing him use of Diego Garcia. “This is not the age of Churchill”, he complained. No, sir. It is not.
The drone war over Iran is evolving in a way that deserves more attention than it’s getting. The IRGC shot down three Israeli drones today - two Elbit Hermes 900s and an IAI Heron. These are not disposable surveillance toys. The Hermes 900 runs about $30 million per unit. The Heron is Israel’s primary SIGINT platform. Iran is learning to hunt them.
US and Israeli strike planning relies on persistent drone coverage loitering over Iran to find and track mobile missile launchers. If Iran can systematically degrade that coverage, targeting quality drops. “Precision” becomes less precise. The “surgical strikes” get sloppier. CENTCOM released footage today of strikes on “ballistic missile launchers in Iran”, apparently expecting applause. As if Iran wouldn’t fill the landscape with cheap decoy trucks. Without persistent ISR to tell real launchers from plywood props, you’re playing whack-a-mole blindfolded. Shooting down the drones is the airborne equivalent of blinding the FPS-132 radar on day one. Same logic, different domain. Remove the eyes, then move freely.
The markets. Oh, the markets. Global stocks cratered. South Korea down 8%. Japan 6%. Germany 5%. Nasdaq futures off 200 points. The S&P 500, gold, silver, bitcoin, bonds - all down together, which is your classic “everything sell-off” when institutional money panics and runs for the exits. Except oil. Oil remembered what planet it was on.
Brent surged past $85. WTI hit $77, erasing every single penny of decline since Trump’s inauguration. The entire “Trump energy renaissance” narrative, gone. Four days. Iraq shut down Rumaila - the world’s second-largest oil field, 1.5 million barrels per day - amid escalating military activity. Iran hit Fujairah in the UAE, the Middle East’s largest bunkering terminal and a key crude loading point. Not a military target. An economic one. The message: no oil leaves without permission.
Click image for larger size.
The IRGC reiterated Hormuz is closed and oil will hit $200. Shipping through the strait is down 81%. As Lloyd’s List said: “the Strait was closed not by Iran, but by shipping itself”. The insurers won’t cover it. The tanker captains won’t transit. Iran doesn’t need to physically blockade anything.
Trump’s solution? He ordered the Development Finance Corporation to provide insurance for ships transiting the Gulf, and floated the idea of US Navy escorts through Hormuz. Didn’t we try that with the Houthis already? How’d that go?
Silver bounced between $90 and $77 today. Wild swings. Lease rates keep creeping higher, the swap keeps turning more negative. Don’t get distracted by registered inventory rising on COMEX - eligible is falling faster, total stock is still declining. The physical shortage is extreme and nobody seems to have figured out yet that you need a lot of silver to build the very weapons currently being expended at record pace. War is bullish for silver in a way that most traders haven’t even begun to price in. But COMEX gonna COMEX.
Gold touched $5,380 before being walked back. When 30% of global oil supply is offline and your safe haven asset drops like a stone, you’re not watching a market. Someone desperately needs the dials to read “everything is fine” while missiles hit hotels on the Palm.
Something that got almost no coverage but matters more than most of today’s headlines: US military commanders across more than 30 installations told their troops this war is part of “God’s plan” and linked it to Armageddon. A commander reportedly said Trump had been “anointed by Jesus to light the signal fire in Iran to cause Armageddon and mark his return to Earth”. This was not one rogue officer at one remote base. The Military Religious Freedom Foundation says it received hundreds of complaints. Every branch of the military. Coordinated messaging.
If the people executing this war believe they’re fulfilling biblical prophecy, there is no off-ramp. You can not negotiate the end of Armageddon. There is no ceasefire clause in the Book of Revelation. This is the ideological backdrop against which American 20-year-olds are being told to fight and die in a country most of them couldn’t find on a map last week. Raise your hand if you had this on your New Year’s Bingo card!
Bahrain is coming apart. Riots across the country. The majority Shia population is in the streets demanding the government expel US forces. Saudi Arabia sent security forces across the King Fahd Causeway - the only bridge connecting Saudi to Bahrain - to help the monarchy contain the protests. Exactly what they did in 2011 during the Arab Spring. Iran’s response was elegant: they droned the bridge. Cut the troop pipeline with one strike.
There is now a regional war providing cover for something the Bahraini monarchy has feared for decades. Bahrainis were outside cheering as Iranian missiles hit US facilities. The US 5th Fleet is headquartered in Bahrain. If the popular uprising succeeds - or even gets close - the entire US naval command structure in the Gulf becomes untenable. Iran doesn’t need to sink the 5th Fleet. It needs the country hosting the 5th Fleet to ask them to leave. The regime change is happening. Just not in the country they planned it for.
The US Embassy in Riyadh was hit by Iranian drones. Part of the main building’s roof collapsed. Embassy in Beirut: closed. Kuwait: closed. Three US embassies shuttered, several more on limited operations. The State Department told Americans to immediately leave Bahrain, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Israel, the West Bank, Gaza, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, the UAE, and Yemen. Leave immediately. Breaking news. Emphasis on breaking. Not on news.
One more thing. A Russian-made Kometa-M anti-jamming unit was found in the wreckage of an Iranian Shahed drone that hit RAF Akrotiri in Cyprus. The reverse Shahed pipeline is real. Russia received the original drone design from Iran, improved it through two years of combat in Ukraine, and is now feeding the upgrades back. The Geran-2 variants flying over Ukraine are several generations ahead of the original Shahed-136. Now those improvements are showing up in Iranian drones hitting NATO territory. Full circle.
Meanwhile, Chinese military cargo planes have reportedly been flying into Iran for days. One Chinese factory alone produces 30,000 drone engines per day. The production capacity behind Iran’s drone war isn’t Iranian. It’s Chinese. And it is, for all practical purposes, unlimited. Trump’s “virtually unlimited” munitions versus China’s actually unlimited manufacturing capacity…
The White House released Operation Epic Fury’s official objectives. Demilitarization. Regime elimination. Homeland protection. Putin’s speechwriter must be flattered. Trump told reporters: “They want to talk. I said ‘too late!’” Iran doesn’t want to talk. Iran rejected the ceasefire on day one because they believe the June 2025 ceasefire was a strategic error. And now Trump is pretending to refuse negotiations that aren’t being offered, while simultaneously begging Italy to back-channel a way out of this war. Four days became four weeks. Four weeks will become “whatever it takes”. And nobody, on any side, has a plausible theory of how this ends. Still devolving..."
"Iran 'Activates' Missile Cities? Inside Tehran's Mountain Fortress"
Full screen recommended.
Times Of India,3/3/26
"Iran 'Activates' Missile Cities?
Inside Tehran's Mountain Fortress"
"Deep beneath Iran’s mountains and deserts lies one of the most secretive and hardened military infrastructures in the Middle East: the so-called missile cities - vast underground networks of tunnels and bunkers housing thousands of ballistic and cruise missiles. Built by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and designed to be virtually invisible to satellites and airstrikes, these facilities store, transport, fuel, and prepare missiles that Tehran says serve as its ultimate deterrent. Recent unveilings by Iranian media show hardened complexes with precision-guided weapons such as Emad, Sejjil, Qadr and Haj Qassem missiles buried hundreds of meters underground. Iranian military officials say this subterranean doctrine ensures that if Iran is hit first, its response will still be swift and overwhelming - a strategy designed to keep adversaries guessing and deter escalation."
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"Orders From The Grave: You Won’t Believe What Khamenei Did Before His Death"
Full screen recommended.
Money Over History, 3/3/26
"Orders From The Grave: You Won’t
Believe What Khamenei Did Before His Death"
"What if the man America believed would end Iran’s war strategy… actually ensured it would continue even after his death? In this video we reveal the shocking truth behind Ayatollah Khamenei’s final move - a strategic blueprint he set in motion long before he died that is now driving the conflict forward and leaving diplomats around the world scrambling. This isn’t a rumor. It’s based on how Iran’s military has executed its campaign with precision without central command - using pre-authorized orders that continue to fire missiles and drones across the Gulf. You’ll learn:
• How Khamenei designed a war system that survives his death.
• Why America cannot simply end the conflict by killing leadership.
• How Iran’s decentralized militarized strategy works.
• Why every ceasefire attempt has failed.
• What this means for global security, defense systems, and future wars.
Watch closely - this changes everything you thought you knew about this war."
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Judge Napolitano, "Scott Ritter: How’s the War Going, Mr. President?"
Full screen recommended.
Judge Napolitano - Judging Freedom, 3/3/26
"Scott Ritter: How’s the War Going, Mr. President?"
Comments here:
"The Middle East: The Decisive Battleground of WW3"
"The Middle East:
The Decisive Battleground of WW3"
by Nick Giambruno
"It’s important to recognize that "world orders" are nothing new. World orders have long been the frameworks through which major global powers set the rules of the game. They define the structure of international political relations. Thinking in terms of world orders requires zooming out entirely - taking the geopolitical view from 40,000 feet. On a smaller scale, it’s similar to how the most powerful criminal organizations in a city - such as mafias and street gangs - form agreements to divide their activities and territories among themselves. Eventually, though, these arrangements always break down, leading to violent power struggles until a new agreement is reached, reflecting the shifting balance of power.
A similar dynamic is at play with the most powerful countries, world orders, and world wars. You can think of world orders as epochs - distinct historical periods marked by evolving global power structures.
Peace of Westphalia (1648 to 1803): This agreement ended the Thirty Years’ War and established a framework for European international relations for over two centuries by maintaining a balance of power among major European states. It involved the Holy Roman Empire, Spain, France, Sweden, the Dutch Republic, and various German territories. This world order persisted until the Napoleonic Wars disrupted the balance, necessitating a new international arrangement.
Congress of Vienna (1814 to 1914): The military defeat of Napoleon I led to this world order, which cemented Britain as the dominant global power. The Congress of Vienna set the foundation for European politics until the onset of World War 1 in 1914.
Treaty of Versailles (1919 to 1939): The victors of World War 1 established this world order, introducing institutions like the League of Nations. However, it collapsed when Germany, Italy, and Japan sought to overturn it and impose their own world order during World War 2.
The Current US-Led World Order (1945 to Today): The victors of World War 2 created the current world order with the US as its leader. This system includes institutions like the United Nations, the World Bank, and the International Monetary Fund - all headquartered in the US. This world order has largely been unipolar, with the US exerting significant influence over international policies and decision-making.
World War 3: While many don’t realize it, World War 3 is already underway. Let me explain…Total war between the world’s largest powers that reshuffled the international order defined the previous world wars. However, with the advent of nuclear weapons, total war between the largest powers today - Russia, China, and the US - means a nuclear Armageddon where there are no winners and only losers. That could still happen despite nobody wanting it, but it’s not the most likely outcome.
World War 3 is unlikely to be a total war between the world’s largest powers, like the previous world wars. Instead, the conflict is playing out on different levels - proxy wars, economic wars, financial wars, cyber wars, biological warfare, deniable sabotage, and information warfare. In that sense, World War 3 is already well underway, though most fail to recognize it.
Russia, China, and their allies are seeking to reshape the US-led world order that has been in place since the end of World War 2. While they resent US dominance, both Russia and China hold a position - albeit a subordinate one - within the current system. They have permanent seats on the UN Security Council and are members of key international institutions like the IMF, World Bank, and WTO.
Unlike Germany and Japan in World War 2, Russia and China do not appear intent on completely overturning the current world order. Doing so could invite nuclear Armageddon. Instead, they aim to shift the balance away from US dominance to a multipolar world where they wield greater influence. The conflict is playing out just below the threshold of direct military conflict. Nevertheless, it is a high-stakes struggle among the world's major powers to determine the future world order, just as in previous world wars.
This is World War 3. It’s happening right now and unfolding rapidly. In fact, World War 3 has been ongoing for over a decade. While WW3 lacks an official starting date, two pivotal events in 2013 and 2014 signaled the beginning of this global struggle between Russia, China, and the US to reshape the world order.
The first was the rise of Xi Jinping in March 2013. It quickly became evident that China was no longer content with being a junior member of the US-led system. Instead, Beijing sought a role commensurate with its power - at minimum, equal to the US, if not the world’s dominant force.
The second was the US-backed coup in Kiev in February 2014, which led to the violent overthrow of Ukraine’s pro-Russian government and its replacement by a pro-US administration. Ukraine is Russia’s most vital neighbor - both culturally and strategically. Slavic nations, including Russia, trace their heritage to the Kievan Rus’, a federation of tribes centered in present-day Ukraine that existed from the late 800s to the early 1200s.
Ukraine is also of immense geopolitical value. For years, US strategists have pursued the idea of integrating Ukraine into NATO, a move that would significantly weaken Russia’s military position and further isolate Moscow - an appealing prospect for those favoring a unipolar world. After the 2014 coup, Moscow became convinced that the US was determined to bring Russia under its control. In response, Russia saw no choice but to push back - primarily by aligning with China and other nations to shift the world order from unipolar to multipolar.
I believe these two events marked the beginning of a global struggle among the most powerful nations to reshape the international order - World War 3. Since then, the conflict has only escalated and may soon reach a tipping point that changes everything.
The graphic below (click to enlarge) maps out the timeline of recent world orders and world wars, offering a clearer perspective on their evolution - and where we may be headed next.
The US-led world order has undergone several distinct phases since the end of World War 2. From 1945 to 1991, it was defined by the Cold War - a global struggle between the US and the Soviet Union. After the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, the post-WW2 world order experienced a massive shift, with the US emerging as the undisputed global superpower. This era, often called the "unipolar moment," lasted from 1991 until 2025. Though it endured for over 34 years, the notion that the US could maintain a unipolar world order indefinitely was never realistic. We are now in a volatile adjustment period as the unipolar world order gives way to a multipolar one.
There is still much to be determined - most crucially, the boundaries of the US, Russia, and China’s spheres of influence in this emerging multipolar world. With the war in Ukraine all but lost and the prospect of victory in Taiwan shrinking by the day, the US government appears to have accepted that the complete subjugation of Russia and China under its unipolar dominance is no longer an achievable goal, at least in the immediate future. Rather than total victory, the US is now focused on maximizing its power within the new multipolar landscape - while limiting the influence of its most formidable rivals: Russia and China.
While the US seems to be moving away from the unipolar model and begrudgingly acknowledging the existence of rival powers (Russia and China), it still seeks to be the dominant force in a multipolar world. The boundaries of the US, Russia, and China’s spheres of influence in this emerging multipolar world have yet to be defined, and the situation remains volatile and dangerous. Whether this transition can occur without descending into greater conflict remains an open question.
On a smaller scale, this mirrors how powerful criminal organizations - such as mafias and street gangs - operate within a city. Ideally, a gang or mafia would eliminate all rivals. However, when certain rivals prove too strong to destroy, the conflict shifts toward defining boundaries until a formal arrangement is reached that divides territories. The same dynamic is now unfolding on a global scale between the US, Russia, and China as World War 3 plays out. Each side is maneuvering to expand its power and influence until a new arrangement is reached that defines the balance of the multipolar world.
Determining the precise boundaries of various spheres of influence in a multipolar world - and formalizing them into an agreement - will be a complex and prolonged process. It won’t happen overnight. Until a formal agreement is reached among the world’s major powers -much like the Congress of Vienna after the Napoleonic Wars, the Treaty of Versailles following World War 1, and the Yalta Conference at the close of World War 2 - World War 3 will continue.
Iran: The Decisive Battle of WW3: The Middle East presents one of the greatest uncertainties in the emerging multipolar world. I believe the region will be pivotal. If the US and its allies prevail there, it could open the door to containing Russian and Chinese influence within a multipolar world. But if Russia and China gain the upper hand in this strategic region, the US will suffer a major geopolitical downgrade, much like the British Empire after World Wars 1 and 2. The region is further complicated by the presence of powerful regional players like Turkey, nuclear-armed Israel, and Iran, all of whom have their own interests.
The US, Russia, and China will not only need to define their boundaries in the Middle East, but so will these regional actors. There's no sign of a resolution anytime soon. The region remains volatile, and the potential for a regional conflict escalating into a global confrontation remains a real possibility.
A key question is Iran’s role in the multipolar world order. If the Middle East is pivotal to the global balance of power in a multipolar world, then Iran is pivotal to the balance of power within the Middle East. Control of Iran would give the US even greater leverage over the Middle East’s hydrocarbon resources. A US-aligned government in Tehran could help block China’s Belt and Road Initiative from pushing further west and potentially cut off 14% of China’s oil imports. It would also hinder Russian trade through the Caspian Sea and serve as a launchpad to destabilize Russia from its southern flank.
In short, bringing Iran under US influence would open the door to further undermining both Russia and China. For them, Iran is strategic depth. Russia and China cannot afford to let Iran fall - and the US and Israel cannot afford to let it stand. The question is: who will prevail? It's doubtful that the US and its allies can win the war in Ukraine against Russia or a potential war over Taiwan against China. Their best shot at rolling back Russian and Chinese influence in a multipolar world is through striking Iran, which is exactly what they have just done. Whether they’ll succeed is another question entirely.
As Iran becomes the decisive flashpoint in this accelerating great-power struggle, the fallout won’t be confined to missiles and maps - it can ripple straight into money. A widening war can spike energy costs, strain supply chains, blow out government deficits, and force emergency measures from central banks. In other words, the war with Iran could be the catalyst for a full-blown monetary reset - sudden, disruptive, and brutal for anyone caught positioned the wrong way."
Musical Interlude: Soothing Relaxation, "Relaxing Piano Music & Rain Sounds"
Full screen recommended.
Soothing Relaxation,
"Relaxing Piano Music & Rain Sounds"
"A Look to the Heavens"
“Massive stars, abrasive winds, mountains of dust, and energetic light sculpt one of the largest and most picturesque regions of star formation in the Local Group of Galaxies. Known as N11, the region is visible on the upper right of many images of its home galaxy, the Milky Way neighbor known as the Large Magellanic Clouds (LMC).
The above image was taken for scientific purposes by the Hubble Space Telescope and reprocessed for artistry by an amateur to win the Hubble's Hidden Treasures competition. Although the section imaged above is known as NGC 1763, the entire N11 emission nebula is second in LMC size only to 30 Doradus. Studying the stars in N11 has shown that it actually houses three successive generations of star formation. Compact globules of dark dust housing emerging young stars are also visible around the image.”
"We Are Prometheus"
"We Are Prometheus"
by The Findings
"If you could go back in time a thousand years, you’d find people who were eerily similar to your present companions. The same is true for people who will live a thousand years from now: some of them will be nearly identical to the people you now love, and you would care deeply about those people, the same as you do their present-day counterparts.
Please understand this: The men, women and children we would love in the future can advance only in the same way we have, by the benefaction of their predecessors.
Can you imagine how long it took for ignorant men and women to learn metallurgy? Or crop rotation? Or a hundred other things we can barely imagine being without? Our lives are advanced only because they created new ways of living and passed them down to us. Hundreds of generations of people just like us lived through dark times, fighting toward whatever bits of light they could find, opposed by others most of the way, to bring us where we are now.
Someday our generation will also be gone, and we will have played – whether we’ve understood it or not – the crucial role of transmitting civilization to following generations. What do we want them to be like? How do we want them to live? Numberless men and women have struggled toward the future and spent all they had to bring us here. We owe them something. It may be that they no longer care, but their gifts to us will cease to exist unless we pass them along. We make them matter, and they deserve to matter.
We stand now at the threshold of the stars, but we’ve been restrained by self-serving structures designed to control every human and reap from their every action. We must get past them to continue forward. Foolishness and fear bid us to forget the future, to chase status instead of goodness, consumption rather than production, and stasis rather than expansion. A thousand self-serving voices call us aside, grasping at our minds and emotions. We must turn away from it all.
We owe this to the people of the past. We owe it to the people of the future. We owe it to ourselves. What happens next is up to you. It’s not up to leaders or bosses. It’s up to you. The consequences of your failures are inescapable, and the consequences of your good deeds are inescapable. Whether or not you acknowledge them, our descendants will live or die by them. What you are and what you do matter a very great deal.
Engage your will. Act. Awake."
“I Can’t Wait For the Day When Life Finally Makes Sense”
“I Can’t Wait For the Day
When Life Finally Makes Sense”
by Rania Naim
“I can’t wait for the day when life finally makes sense, when we find the silver lining in every tragedy, when we learn the lesson from each mistake and when we understand why our hearts needed to get broken a few times to let love in.
I can’t wait for the day that we understand why we met the right people at the wrong time or the wrong people at the right time and why our lives didn’t align to bring us together. I wonder if it’s because they’re the wrong ones for us or because we still have a lot of growing up to do and we’re meant to be with someone who understand who we’re becoming not who we were.
I can’t wait for the day that we understand the lesson behind every struggle. Why we struggled to be successful, why we struggled to find love, why we struggled to reach our dreams and why we lost people who meant the world to us. I wonder if we needed these lessons to learn how to appreciate life and feel the pain of others or we just needed to learn that there is no living without suffering.
I can’t wait for the day that we understand why we had to hate ourselves to love ourselves, why we had to destroy ourselves to build ourselves up again and why we had to start over just before we got to the finish line. I wonder who saved us or who inspired us to save ourselves.
I wonder if we are meant to be reborn a few times so we can learn how to truly live. I want to know what triggered us to change and how we can no longer recognize who we used to be.
I can’t wait for the day that we understand why we keep falling for the wrong ones over and over again, why we can’t forget those who hurt us and why we sometimes can still forgive them and take them back. I want to understand how our hearts operate, how they function, how they move us to do things we would never do and lead us to places that we know we shouldn’t go to. I’m curious to know why we listen to it, why we follow it blindly like it never got us lost before, why we trust it even though it left us broken and why do we always go back to it for questions when it keeps giving us the wrong answers. I wonder if there will come a day when we stop listening to it and if we’ll ever be truly alive without it.
They say everything happens for a reason and I truly believe that, but I also want to know what this reason is and why it chose us. Why some reasons keep recurring and why some reasons leave us even more perplexed. I want to understand why we go through certain things, what’s the message behind it and what if we never respond to this message, what if we just ignore it and keep living, what will happen then? Will our lives get lost in translation?
I can’t wait for the day that life makes sense – some days I understand why certain things happened and others I’m not so sure, but all I know is that somehow we’ll connect the dots and someday we’ll complete the puzzle, until then, we have to learn how to live our lives without trying to understand it and we have to learn how to be comfortable with the irony and uncertainty of life; otherwise we’ll lose our common sense trying to make sense of the life we’re living.”
"Hang In There..."
“Using time, pressure and patience, the universe gradually changes caterpillars into butterflies, sand into pearls, and coal into diamonds. You’re being worked on too, so hang in there. Just because something isn’t apparent right now, doesn’t mean it isn’t happening. It’s not until the end do you realize, sometimes your biggest blessings were disguised by pain and suffering. They were not placed there to break you, but to make you.”
- “The Angel Affect”
“What the caterpillar calls the end of the world the master calls a butterfly.”
- Richard Bach
“More To Come…”
“More To Come…”
By Jeff Thomas
“Years ago, when visiting the US, I’d often watch late night television. Just prior to each interval, in order to ensure that viewers would sit through the adverts, the show would run a panel that said, “More to Come.” This, of course, was effective, as the viewer would be anticipating that the best part of the program would come in a later segment and would be more likely to continue watching.
Today, we’re looking at the reverse of that situation. The program we’re watching is The Decline and Fall of the American Empire and those who recognize the decline are viewing with ever-increasing trepidation, the developments that are unfolding there. Even those of us who are not American and don’t live there are glued to our screens, as we’re aware that were viewing the early stages of a collapse that promises to be the greatest social, political and economic event that we’re likely to see in our lifetimes.
Following World War Two, the US was in a boom beyond anything the world had ever seen. The Americans came to the war late, after having built up their manufacturing capacity for war dramatically, at the expense of the Allied powers in Europe. And they did this, essentially for free. It was paid for with the gold from the vaults of the European allies. After the war, Europe was trashed and it would take decades for them to get on their feet again. Meanwhile, the US had been going flat out in production, had first-rate modern factories and, most important, held the majority of the world’s gold.
The 1944 Bretton Woods Agreement ensured that the US dollar would become the world’s default currency and, later, become the petrodollar, ensuring American hegemony over much of the rest of the world. There can be no doubt that, in the first decades after the war, the US had an amazing run and was, arguably, one of the best places to live in the world.
But, unfortunately, as so often happens, American political and industry leaders became full of themselves and couldn’t resist going out on limb to gain even more for themselves. In so doing, they turned the US from the world’s foremost creditor nation into the world’s foremost debtor nation. Worse, when they reached this unprecedented point, they opted to just keep going.
Worse still, it would appear that today’s leaders are aware that the mother of all bubbles that they’ve created is going to pop sometime in the near future, as they’re preparing themselves for the mother of all pushbacks from the populace when the crashes come.
The FBI, CIA, NSA, and a host of other authorities have either been created or expanded, allowing the creation of the world’s foremost police state. And, beginning in 2001 with the Patriot Act, have created a host of laws to assign authority to any of those bodies to exert ever-increasing control over the population. Capital controls, migration controls, higher taxes, confiscation of deposits in banks and quite a bit more have been passed in legislation, including the ability to declare the US in its entirely to be a “battle zone,” through which habeas corpus and the court system can be suspended nationally.
Yipes. (Or, blimey, depending on where you’re from.) At this point, any American who’s paying attention could be forgiven if he’s genuinely frightened at where his government is going with all this.
And so, we come back to the title of this essay – “More to Come.” A regular flow of proposed laws is now coming down the pipeline that would have been considered the stuff of a bad movie a few decades ago, but is now only too real and threatening to the freedoms of the average citizen. Instead of “more to come” meaning that the best is still on the way, the opposite would appear to be the case, and the worst is here, now.
But, how can this be, we ask ourselves. Surely those in power – the politicians, the industrialists, the central bankers, etc., must have seen this coming and, if that’s so, surely they’d have done something to stop it. Well, historically, that’s never been the case. Those in the greatest positions of power have never suddenly reversed an empire when it was about to self-destruct. What they tend to do instead is to guard against becoming casualties of the disaster they’ve created.
So, is that what’s happening this time around? In a word, yes. The Bernie Madoffs of the world go to jail. However, those who commit the same fraudulent acts from within the system never go to jail. For example, if the heads of a bank commit massive fraud, the bank pays an enormous fine. The fine is then paid by the stockholders. And should the fine be large enough to crash the bank, the bankers can appeal to the government to bail them out, as they’re “too big to fail.” Thus, the taxpayers pick up the bill.
At this point, what we’re witnessing is an era in which laws are regularly being passed to ensure that the creators of the bubble will get a “Get Out of Jail Free” card and others will sustain the losses.
This is the very essence of what happens in an endgame run. Just as a hitman who places a bomb in a building makes his exit before the bomb can go off, the creators of bubbles safeguard themselves before the economic bomb can go off. They have no intention of being around to live with the resultant devastation that they’ve put into play.
Pete Townshend wrote prophetically, “Won’t Get Fooled Again,” in 1971, in which he hopes that the latest gang of leaders will be better than the last. In the final line of the song, he grimly announces, “Meet the new boss – same as the old boss.”
And, in fact, this is the usual outcome. Perhaps the reason why empires collapse much in the same way, time and again, and their citizens consistently fail to see it coming, is that empires general last a long time before collapsing. The Venetian Republic lasted 200 years. The Spanish Empire lasted just over 120 years. Holland lasted 130 years, Russia – 200, the UK, just under 120. And it’s been much the same for the others. In every case, they last longer than a single lifetime, so it’s rare that any individual sees more than one empire collapse in his own lifetime and doesn’t understand that empires don’t end with a whimper. They end with a crescendo, not unlike the Who’s “Won’t Get Fooled Again.”
We are witnessing the collapse of the world’s foremost empire. This is not mere conjecture. The US has all the symptoms that we’re now coming close to the final stages. And, if history plays out yet again, as it has repeatedly, we can expect that, in the lead-up to the collapse, the controls by governments will become increasingly draconian. As we consider, “more to come,” we should be braced for the likelihood that the worst controls are yet to be revealed.”
John Wilder, "One Page At A Time"
"One Page At A Time"
by John Wilder
"It’s cold outside. I can see that in how crisp and clear the air is. The big picture window in the cabin up on Wilder Mountain lets my young eyes see a mile, looking for the headlights on a dim winter morning. The bus rounds the corner, and I head off. Burt, the driver, is rarely off on time by more than a minute or two. I’m the farthest kid out, and he starts rounding up the school kids with me. “Hi Burt!” “Morning, John.”
Since I’m in middle school, and I’m the first on, I tromp my winter boots all way to the back of the bus. That’s where the cool kids sit. I remember the first day I decided to sit back here. Since I was the first on, there was no one to stop me, so I decided to break the norm of the past few years and just sit there. I was in sixth grade, and the high school freshman started to object when he got on. He didn’t finish the sentence. If he would have asked me to move, my answer would have been short. “Make me.” I didn’t have to. Even in sixth grade, I was bigger than him. But I lived so far out that most of the time, I had the entire back of the bus to myself.
So instead of a long, boring bus ride, I decided I’d do something else. Like take a trip to Mordor. Or fight bugs with Johnny Rico. Or figure the best way to ambush a troop of Sardaukar. Or take a trip to Boulder after Captain Trips paid a visit.
The bus isn’t a ride, it’s a journey through the past that never was and the future that never will be. It was, metaphorically, my campfire, and these books were the ways that storytellers of my people could share the legends that shape humanity. In part, these are the legends that shape me, just like our ancestors learned valor and cowardice from tales told under starlit skies in long-ago Sparta and Denmark and Scotland and Rome.
Stories aren’t just entertainment. They are the code that programmed humanity and fueled the creation of Western Civilization. Warriors heard of Achilles’ courage and the hubris of Icarus, learning to strive for glory and wear a parachute if they were going to fly too close to the Sun. Kids grew up on fables of clever foxes and lazy hares, etching lessons of wit and work into their bones. These weren’t bedtime stories: they were survival guides and cultural norms, showcasing the best of what we could be and the worst that we should avoid at all costs. Both lessons are useful.
My bus ride was no different. Tolkien’s Christian valor, never naming Christ but screaming His Truths three different ways through Frodo, Aragorn, and Gandalf lit a fire in me. Heinlein’s musings on duty versus freedom made me question what I owed my community, and what it owed me. Those pages were my elders, whispering truths no teacher could match, even though they were sometimes quite contradictory.
Stories aren’t just ink on paper, they’re the software that nourishes our souls. Throughout history, they’ve been the mirror showing us who we are, who we could be, who we should avoid being, and what the journeys of the hero really meant. The Greeks had Odysseus, outsmarting cyclopes to get home to his family valor in action, and the aforementioned Icarus, flying too high and crashing, a warning against arrogance. Norse kids heard of Thor’s hammer, inspiring strength, but also Loki’s betrayal, a caution against deceit. But you should ignore that, because I’ve heard from the news media that there is no white culture.
These archetypes stuck because they’re shades of the universal Truth: every boy wants to grow up to be the man who is a hero, not the coward who folds. My bus ride library was no campfire, but it did the same job. Tolkien taught me sacrifice, Frodo carrying the One Ring, knowing it’d break him, but doing it anyway. Heinlein’s Starship Troopers hit me with duty: you don’t get a vote unless you’re willing to bleed for it because sooner or later someone will. Harsh? Sure. But it made me think, heroes sometimes falter, freedom isn’t free, and communities aren’t built by loners. Even Dune’s Paul Atreides, wrestling with destiny and betrayal, showed me the weight of leadership. These weren’t just stories; they were blueprints for being a man, not a drone.
The GloboLeft hates this. They want stories that flatten everything into DEI dogma. No heroes, no villains, just victims and oppressors, any woman being equal in combat to the strongest man. They’d rewrite Tolkien so Frodo’s a non-binary climate activist, and Heinlein’s troopers would be whining about microaggressions and wanting to use Zoom™ instead of a dropship. You can see it in the box office: their stories don’t inspire; they control exist as humiliation exercises. Look at modern Hollywood: every film is a lecture, not a legend. No wonder kids scroll InstaChat® instead of reading. They’re starved for tales that stir the soul, not the HR manual and they haven’t even been given the words to tell us this – the video game is as close as they come to the myths that make a culture.
Stories work because they show us the extremes, the valor to chase, the cowardice to shun. Take Beowulf: he faced Grendel head-on, no excuses. I read that one in high school, and loved it. I thought, “This is amazing. Our ancestors were heavy metal badasses two thousand years before electric guitars were a thing.” Beowulf is the guy you want to be, not the prol cowering in the mead hall. My bus ride heroes were no different. Tolkien’s Aragorn didn’t negotiate with orcs. He killed them.
Heinlein’s Johnnie Rico in Starship Troopers learned civic duty the hard way, bugs don’t care about your feelings, and when they kill your mother, well, they’ve sent a message that you simply must respond to. Stand up, protect your own, don’t bend.
From what I’ve seen, GenZ didn’t take too many bus rides with Tolkien, they’ve got TikGram™. Schools push “diversity” over duty, “equity” over excellence. The campfire’s gone, replaced by screens spewing shadows, not legends.
To be clear, the GloboLeft wants it that way. But stories still matter, and, I think, you can see Gen Z starting to rise, especially among the boys. And that’s important: they’re how we pass on the code. Tell the kids stories. Real stories, not Modern Disney©. Make them read 1984, and Tolkien. And Beowulf. Every tale’s a seed, planting valor and weeding out cowardice, because at some point every man needs to be able to say the two most important words a man can say: “Make me.”
o
"Back when I taught at UCLA, I was constantly amazed at how little so many students knew. Finally, I could no longer restrain myself from asking a student the question that had long puzzled me: ''What were you doing for the last 12 years before you got here?''
- Thomas Sowell
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"The problem isn't that Johnny can't read. The problem isn't even that Johnny can't think.
The problem is that Johnny doesn't know what thinking is; he confuses it with feeling."
- Thomas Sowell
○
"The trouble with most people is that they think with
their hopes or fears or wishes rather than with their minds."
- Will Durant
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"It takes considerable knowledge just to realize the extent of your own ignorance."
- Thomas Sowell
The Poet: William Stafford, "The Gift"
"The Gift"
"Time wants to show you a different country. It's the one
that your life conceals, the one waiting outside
when curtains are drawn, the one Grandmother hinted at
in her crochet design, the one almost found
over at the edge of the music, after the sermon.
It's the way life is, and you have it, a few years given.
You get killed now and then, violated
in various ways. (And sometimes it's turn about.)
You get tired of that. Long-suffering, you wait
and pray, and maybe good things come - maybe
the hurt slackens and you hardly feel it any more.
You have a breath without pain. It is called happiness.
It's a balance, the taking and passing along,
the composting of where you've been and how people
and weather treated you. It's a country where
you already are, bringing where you have been.
Time offers this gift in its millions of ways,
turning the world, moving the air, calling,
every morning, "Here, take it, it's yours."
- William Stafford
“It is never too late to be what you might have been.”
– George Eliot
"Something You Already Know..."
Full screen recommended.
“Let me tell you something you already know. The world ain't all sunshine and rainbows. It's a very mean and nasty place and I don't care how tough you are it will beat you to your knees and keep you there permanently if you let it. You, me, or nobody is gonna hit as hard as life. But it ain't about how hard ya hit. It's about how hard you can get it and keep moving forward. How much you can take and keep moving forward. That's how winning is done! Now if you know what you're worth then go out and get what you're worth. But ya gotta be willing to take the hits, and not pointing fingers saying you ain't where you wanna be because of him, or her, or anybody! Cowards do that and that ain't you! You're better than that!”
- Rocky Balboa
"An Astonishing, Incredible 'Get Away From It All' Musical Interlude: "White Rabbit"
Full screen a must!
"White Rabbit",
Trippy Video Of Fractal Deepdream Hallucinations
"You don't need to take psychedelic drugs like LSD to experience trippy, vivid hallucinations. Since Google released their #deepdream-algorithm, you can let your computer do the job. This is the first "guided" deepdream-zoom into the depth of a dreaming neural network."
"How It Really Is"
"We do not rest satisfied with the present. We anticipate the future as too slow in coming, as if in order to hasten its course; or we recall the past, to stop its too rapid flight. So imprudent are we that we wander in the times which are not ours, and do not think of the only one which belongs to us; and so idle are we that we dream of those times which are no more, and thoughtlessly overlook that which alone exists. For the present is generally painful to us. We conceal it from our sight, because it troubles us; and if it be delightful to us, we regret to see it pass away. We try to sustain it by the future, and think of arranging matters which are not in our power, for a time which we have no certainty of reaching. Let each one examine his thoughts, and he will find them all occupied with the past and the future. We scarcely ever think of the present; and if we think of it, it is only to take light from it to arrange the future. The present is never our end. The past and the present are our means; the future alone is our end. So we never live, but we hope to live; and, as we are always preparing to be happy, it is inevitable we should never be so."
- Blaise Pascal
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