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Thursday, April 9, 2026

"Retirement Is Dead - 85 Is the New Retirement Age"

Full screen recommended.
Dan, I Allegedly, 4/9/26
"Retirement Is Dead - 
85 Is the New Retirement Age"
"The idea of retiring at 65 is quickly becoming a thing of the past. In this video, we break down why more Americans are facing the harsh reality that retirement may not happen until age 85 - or at all. With rising living costs, failing pensions, uncertainty around Social Security, and poor financial preparation, millions of people are being forced to work later into life just to survive. This isn’t just a theory - it’s happening right now across the country. We also dive into the collapse of commercial real estate, bad investments, and how government mismanagement is making the situation even worse. From shrinking retirement funds to skyrocketing expenses, the financial pressure is building fast. If you’re not prepared, you could be caught in the same trap. This is a must-watch for anyone concerned about their financial future, retirement planning, and the real state of the economy."
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Adventures With Danno, "Stock Up at Kroger Before Price Increases!"

Full screen recommended.
Adventures With Danno, 4/9/26
"Stock Up at Kroger Before Price Increases!"
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o
Full screen recommended.
Snyder Reports, 4/9/26
"Higher Prices: The Concerning Economic Trend"
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"US-Israel-Iran War, 4/9/26"

Full screen recommended.
OPTM, 4/9/26
"Iran Just Did Something Out Of This World 
as Pakistan Negotiations Fall Apart"
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o
Full screen recommended.
Tucker Carlson Network, 4/9/26
"Israel Has Done It Again"
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 Prof. John Mearsheimer, 4/9/26
"Iran Retaliates:
 Full Evacuation Ordered, Hits Tel Aviv"
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Prof. Jiang Xueqin, 4/9/26
"Iran Hurls 1,800 Ballistic Missiles,
 Iron Dome Collapses, US Panics"
"Iran launches an unprecedented 1,800 ballistic missile barrage, overwhelming Israel’s multi-layered defenses and triggering a dramatic U.S. naval response. This in-depth GeoStrike Network analysis breaks down how the attack was executed, why Iron Dome, David’s Sling, and Arrow systems struggled under saturation pressure, and what America’s rapid repositioning reveals about modern deterrence limits. We examine missile technology, operational tactics, and the broader geopolitical consequences shaping the future of warfare. From cost asymmetry to maneuverable warheads, this event marks a turning point in global military strategy and power balance in the Middle East and beyond."
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Bill Bonner, "The Fog of Peace"

"The Fog of Peace"
by Bill Bonner

"In this plan, America is fundamentally committed to guaranteeing non-aggression, the continuation of Iran’s control over the Strait of Hormuz, the acceptance of enrichment, the lifting of all primary and secondary sanctions, the termination of all resolutions of the Security Council and the Board of Governors, the payment of Iran’s damages, the withdrawal of U.S. combat forces from the region, and the cessation of war on all fronts, including against the heroic Islamic Resistance of Lebanon."  - Iran’s Supreme National Security Council on the ceasefire.

Baltimore, Maryland - "Who cried ‘uncle?’ Like the Virgin Birth, or ‘printing press money,’ the victory over Iran is largely incomprehensible to modest minds. But so is the history of warfare and foreign policy, generally. Reaching for an insight...we note that most of what we know is probably false...and that even those elements that are true are like mere foot soldiers in a farcical war. They are real. And they are ready to die. For what? Nobody really knows. The media spent yesterday trying to sort it out. Was there a ceasefire in effect...or not? Did it include the Israelis...or not? Was traffic moving through the Strait? Whose peace proposal had been accepted...the US version, or Iran’s? Is Lebanon part of it?

In any event, Gen. Caine warned that a “cease fire is just a pause.” It turned out that it was such a short pause that if you went to the bathroom, you may have missed it. At around 10am came a report from NBC that: "Israel launches huge attack in Lebanon after cease fire agreed."

By 11am, the Strait was closed again. Jackson Hinckle: "BREAKING: Iran OFFICIALLY CLOSES the STRAIT OF HORMUZ until further notice due to Israel’s attack on Lebanon - Fars New Agency."

The Wall Street Journal added detail at 1pm: "Iran told mediators it would limit the number of ships crossing the Strait of Hormuz to around a dozen a day and charge tolls under the cease-fire struck by President Trump, showing Tehran plans to keep control over the world’s most important energy-shipping lane. Ships that pass will have to coordinate with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the powerful paramilitary group that has been labeled a terrorist organization by the U.S. and the European Union, Arab mediators said."

And by 3pm the ceasefire ceased to be a ceasefire. Came a headline: ‘What Ceasefire?’ World Politics Review: "In reality, not much has changed on the ground in the past 24 hours. Iranian airstrikes are continuing to hit targets in Bahrain, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates. Saudi Arabia reported that a critical east-west pipeline that carries oil to the Red Sea had been struck. Traffic has not resumed through the Strait of Hormuz.

Israel, meanwhile, launched what it said was its heaviest wave of airstrikes yet against Lebanon as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Lebanon was excluded from the deal, flatly contradicting Sharif’s statement. Indeed, the Americans seem to be the only ones who have stopped shooting."

By 4pm we discovered that somebody hadn’t read the fine print. Reuters: "US did not agree that ceasefire would cover Lebanon, Vance says." Whatever else might be said about it, the ceasefire was at least equal to the war it was meant to stop: neither was what it was advertised to be.

You’ll recall that the stock market didn’t take the end of the world very seriously. But now that the world wasn’t going to end so soon, it shot straight up at the opening yesterday. The price of oil collapsed by $22 on the opening...and held in the low $90s for the rest of the day. And as of this morning, the fog of war had been replaced by the fog of peace. Only America’s war-fighters have stood down...and wondered why they ever stood up in the first place."

"Iran Activates Satan-2 Nuclear 15-Ton Warhead From Russia - Israel Has 24 Hours to Evacuate Tel Aviv, U.S Panics"

The Jiang Report and US Power Analysis, 4/8/26
"Iran Activates Russia's 15-Ton Satan-2 Missile, 
Tel Aviv Has 24 Hours to Evacuate, U.S. Panics"
"Iran has reportedly activated Russia’s RS-28 Sarmat, known as Satan-2, triggering a 24-hour ultimatum for Tel Aviv. This video breaks down the missile’s terrifying capabilities, including MIRV warheads and hypersonic glide vehicles, and why experts believe it is nearly impossible to intercept. We analyze how Iran gained access, the deepening Russia-Iran alliance, and the rapid U.S. military response. As Washington scrambles and Israel faces an unprecedented threat, this crisis could reshape global power dynamics. Is this the beginning of a new multipolar world - or the brink of escalation? Watch the full breakdown to understand what’s really happening."
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"Russia Puts Advanced Sarmat 
Nuclear Missile System On ‘Combat Duty’"

"Moscow has put into service an advanced intercontinental ballistic missile that Russian President Vladimir Putin has said would make Russia’s enemies “think twice” about their threats, according to reported comments by the head of the country’s space agency. Yuri Borisov, the head of the Russian space agency Roscosmos, said Sarmat missiles have “assumed combat duty”, according to Russian news agency reports.

“The Sarmat strategic system has assumed combat alert posture,” the state-run TASS news agency quoted the Roscosmos chief as saying. “Based on experts’ estimates, the RS-28 Sarmat is capable of delivering a MIRVed warhead weighing up to 10 tons to any location worldwide, both over the North and South Poles,” TASS said in its report.

Putin said in February that the Sarmat – one of several advanced weapons in Russia’s arsenal, is deployed now. In 2022, some two months after Russian troops invaded Ukraine, Putin said the Sarmat would “reliably ensure the security of Russia from external threats and make those, who in the heat of aggressive rhetoric try to threaten our country, think twice”.

The Sarmat is an underground silo-based missile that Russian officials say can carry up to 15 nuclear warheads, though the United States military estimates its capacity to be 10 warheads. Known to NATO military allies by the codename “Satan”, the missile reportedly has a short initial launch phase, which gives little time for surveillance systems to track its takeoff.

Weighing more than 200 tons, the Sarmat has a range of some 18,000km (11,000 miles) and was developed to replace Russia’s older generation of intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICMBs) that dated from the 1980s. Russia test-fired the Sarmat missile in April 2022 in the Plesetsk region of the country, located some 800km (almost 500 miles) north of Moscow, and the launched missiles hit targets on the Kamchatka peninsula, in Russia’s far east region."
o
RS-28 Sarmat
15 warheads per missile, 11,000 mile range, hypersonic speed of 15,880 mph.
One Sarmat can destroy an area the size of Texas or France.
A hypersonic nuclear missile launched from Russia will hit Washington, DC in 23 minutes.
o
The Poseidon Torperdo
Full screen recommended.
Fully operational and deployed, the Poseidon torpedo with a 100 megaton warhead explodes deep underwater, causing a 1,600 foot high tidal wave which destroys everything on the U.S. East Coast as far inland as West Virginia. England would simply disappear beneath the waves...
Full screen recommended.

It would look exactly like this, only twice as high...
as far inland as West Virginia.

Do we really want to do this? Pray to God we don't...

Wednesday, April 8, 2026

"Alert! Well, That Was Quick, Strait Closed Again"

Canadian Prepper, 4/8/26
"Alert! Well, That Was Quick, Strait Closed Again"
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"Trump Crashes Out, 25th Amendment Plans Begin"

Full screen recommended.
OPTM, 4/8/26
"Trump Crashes Out, 
25th Amendment Plans Begin"
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"People Will Freak Out When Gas Prices Hit $10 In The Coming Weeks"

Full screen recommended.
Epic Economist, 4/8/26
"People Will Freak Out When Gas Prices
 Hit $10 In The Coming Weeks"

"Gas prices just hit $8 a gallon in Los Angeles, and experts are already warning that $10 could be next. In this video, we're reacting to real people across the country sharing what they're experiencing at the pump right now, and what it's actually doing to their lives. This isn't just about numbers on a sign. It's about the everyday decisions that millions of Americans are being forced to make because of where fuel prices are heading.

We start by looking at what's happening on the ground in California, where drivers are stopping to photograph gas station signs because they simply can't believe what they're reading. At $8 a gallon, filling up a regular tank means spending over $300 a month on fuel alone, before insurance, before car payments, before anything else. For a lot of families, that's not a budget line they can absorb without giving something else up.

From there, we get into the bigger picture. There are a lot of different opinions floating around about what's actually causing this spike. Global oil markets, strained supply routes, domestic policy decisions, corporate pricing behavior. The truth is probably a combination of all of it, and most people watching their tank drain faster than their paycheck don't have the luxury of waiting for economists to agree on an answer. What's clear is that the pressure is real, and it's not going away anytime soon.

The part f this conversation that hit hardest was hearing from everyday people who are quietly restructuring their lives around the cost of gas. Someone skipping a fitness class because the drive isn't worth it anymore. Someone in Tennessee shocked to be paying prices they associate with New York or LA. A person putting 37 cents in their tank because that was all they could spare. These aren't dramatic stories. They're ordinary moments that say something serious about where things stand for working Americans right now.

We also talk about a few practical things you can do to stretch your fuel budget further while prices stay elevated. Nothing that fixes the bigger problem, but small habits that add up over time and give you a little more breathing room when every gallon counts.

If you've been feeling the weight of this at the pump, you are not alone. This video is for anyone trying to make sense of what's happening and figure out how to keep moving forward without burning through their savings every time they leave the driveway. Watch until the end, share your thoughts in the comments, and let us know what gas prices look like where you live right now."
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o
Full screen recommended.
Snyder Reports, 4/8/26
"Major US Businesses Are Collapsing, Millions Warned"
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Musical Interlude: Yanni, “The Storm”

Full screen recommended.
Yanni, “The Storm”

"A Look to the Heavens"

"Except for the rings of Saturn, the Ring Nebula (M57) is probably the most famous celestial circle. Its classic appearance is understood to be due to our own perspective, though. The recent mapping of the expanding nebula's 3-D structure, based in part on this clear Hubble image,indicates that the nebula is a relatively dense, donut-like ring wrapped around the middle of a (American) football-shaped cloud of glowing gas. 
The view from planet Earth looks down the long axis of the football, face-on to the ring. Of course, in this well-studied example of a planetary nebula, the glowing material does not come from planets. Instead, the gaseous shroud represents outer layers expelled from the dying, once sun-like star, now a tiny pinprick of light seen at the nebula's center. Intense ultraviolet light from the hot central star ionizes atoms in the gas. The Ring Nebula is about one light-year across and 2,500 light-years away."

"The Things We Did Not Do..."

"Regret for the things we did can be tempered by time;
it is regret for the things we did not do that is inconsolable."
~ Sydney J. Harris

The Poet: Rainer Maria Rilke, “Sunset”

“Sunset”

“Slowly the west reaches for clothes of new colors
which it passes to a row of ancient trees.
You look, and soon these two worlds both leave you,
one part climbs toward heaven, one sinks to earth,
leaving you, not really belonging to either,
not so helplessly dark as that house that is silent,
not so unswervingly given to the eternal as that thing
that turns to a star each night and climbs -
leaving you (it is impossible to untangle the threads)
your own life, timid and standing high and growing,
so that, sometimes blocked in, sometimes reaching out,
one moment your life is a stone in you, and the next, a star.”

- Rainer Maria Rilke

"'Life Doesn’t Owe Anyone a Damn Thing'; or 'Handle Hard Better'"

"'Life Doesn’t Owe Anyone a Damn Thing'; 
or 'Handle Hard Better'"
by Justin Smith

“We all wait in life for things to get easier. It will never get easier. What happens is you handle hard better. That’s what happens. Most people think that it’s going to get easier. Life is going to get easier. Basketball is going to get easier. School is going to get easier. It never gets easier. What happens is you become someone who handles hard stuff better. And if you think life when you leave college is going to all of a sudden get easier because you graduated, and you got a Duke degree, it’s not going to get easier. It’s going to get harder. So make yourself a person that handles hard well.” ~ Kara Lawson, Head Coach for Duke University Women’s Basketball Team and Graduate of the University of Tennessee [July 5th 2022]

"An incredible number of Americans today have been coddled, pampered and fed a sense of entitlement from birth that continued into their early adulthood, making them always look to others or the government for help in acquiring their needs and wants. They have been raised without a backbone, weak-willed and dependent; and so, whenever they find themselves to be in a minority, they more often than not petition the federal and state governments, protest and riot, in order that their particular concerns are proactively pursued and implemented as favored, privileged and superior, no matter how insane, from destroying humanity by way of transgenderism or energy and job-killing fallacious “climate change” policies.

From my earliest memories, I saw hard men, laughing, loving, fighting hard and playing just as hard, as they’d rise each day to head out to work, in the mines, the forests, office buildings and on the nation’s lines of defense, and in particular I recall learning something of worth from each of them, much as I did from my Granddad Spurge, who was a coal miner and a stone mason. They were a hardy bunch of industrious scrappers, who pulled up their sleeves and worked hard to make a better life for themselves and their children, to build better communities, a better America.

But what passes for young “men” today is but a mere shadow of men of worth from better days gone by, what with their feminine appearances and their aversion to doing anything to break a sweat. And aside from weak bodies, too much coddling has made their minds work in a new, cunning devious manner, in which they waste enormous amounts of effort sidestepping real work and figuring out how to get something for nothing rather than perform an honest day’s work to pay for bills they make, without any intention of ever repaying, such as student loans.

Half of America seems content to allow Uncle Sam to make life better for them and their children via the welfare system and the government cheese, even tho’ it means a life of subsistence, just scraping by. Although today, many have developed gaming the system into a real art, whereby they live just about as good as anyone working a full-time job, complete with HUD homes, EBT cards, late model cars, color T.V.s and government purchased cellphones.

Life doesn’t owe any of us a thing, regardless of the circumstances and station of our birth. The miracle of your birth alone doesn’t mean you are automatically owed a job, a house, a bed or a single meal after you are a grown adult and supposedly capable of doing for yourself. You’re not owed recognition and understanding for simply existing, and neither are you owed success and comfort, abundance and happiness or immunity from the problems, pain and suffering that is simply a part of the human condition, and you certainly aren’t due any money you haven’t earned through your own sweat and effort, not from me, the American taxpayers or the U.S. government.

The only thing anyone should expect from The Government, if we are to accept the Contract found in our Constitution, are those things enumerated in its original form, and in that sense, we are owed a strong, affirmative and fierce defense of our Inalienable God-given Rights, as expressed and defined in the Bill of Rights, to be left alone to our own devices to live and thrive as free born Americans, without interference from The Government and its agents where no real harm is being done.

People aren’t created equal in the very real definition of the word and life has never been fair to anyone, and yet, the constant refrain heard all across all levels of American society today, from the ranks of the Mau Mau Marxist-Maoist totalitarians, those lovers of “democracy”, is “the world is so unfair”. They were evidently raised to believe “all men are created equal” in the context of the Declaration of Independence meant they are somehow guaranteed equal outcomes in everyday life, instead of the simple “equality under the law” as intended. And their voices are now amplified by an out-of-control regime that seeks to use their envy to complete the fundamental transformation of America, by any means necessary, no matter how unconstitutional or illegal they might be and are currently proving to be.

Standing on one’s own two feet and making your way through the merit of your own knowledge and work are now a thing of the past, as the poorest results in school and on the job are given the same weight and worth as the best and everybody gets a participation trophy. And in its place, envy, greed, sloth, gluttony, lies, sex and murder, the destroyer of worlds, are the rule, for a generation indoctrinated through Marxist-Maoist multiculturalist doctrine and propaganda, taught from kindergarten through university, who are now driven by an unhinged hate and anger directed at white society and capitalism.

This, in part, is the reason we see whole cities, controlled by the Marxist-Maoists and the totalitarian minded, enacting new “laws” that make the theft of anything $900 or less a misdemeanor, giving way to thousands of groups of poorly taught, undisciplined, predominantly black “youths” rampaging, rioting and looting numerous times a day, taking $900 dollars worth of merchandise nine times a day, if not more, taught racism and hatred and driven by envy and greed. It’s the reason cities across America are folding up, shriveling like a crop attacked by locusts and dying on the vine where once they thrived, back when our people, indeed our youth, had more pure hearts and moral directions and had not strayed far and away from America’s Christian roots.

Over the past thirty years, the nutcases of the Democrat Party have advocated a pathologically negative agenda for America that is based on destroying the Founding and revising history to portray early America as evil and worth casting on the ash-heap of history. Accelerating their plans through the public education system, an entire generation of America’s youth have been brainwashed to believe our planet is dying due to manmade CO2 and “climate change”, in defiance of actual science, and as if that isn’t enough, we are all constantly inundated with one alarm after another raised over racism — even as reverse racism against whites is now advocated, capitalism — which hasn’t really existed in America for over 100 years, homophobia / gender bigotry, capitalist oppression — even tho’ our system is economic fascism, and the fallacious assertion that White Supremacist Nazis are ascending in every community in America.

The real problem found within the ranks of the Takers? They just can’t face the fact that life isn’t easy for anyone, especially the Makers; and it never has been, although exceptions can be found in those born into wealth. But even the wealthy are weighted with life’s problems, if of a different variety, much as the old adage says that “money can’t buy you love or happiness”, even if it does buy you a line of coke and hookers, in a sad sort of dystopian world of a different immoral construct.

The routines many of us indulge in daily have made the largest percentage of Americans, a fairly large majority, complacent and apathetic, caring next to nothing on matters of government and whether or not they are actually living free.

Americans rise each morning, check their emails and cellphones, shower, shave and maybe brush their teeth, to rush off to their same, everyday, boring regular job that may or may not quite pay the bills, grabbing their $7 dollar cup of Starbucks special latte of the day, to do a job they find meaningless. At day’s end, they may grab some overpriced fast-food on the way home, to relax and maybe drink a cheap beer or glass of whiskey, while they watch The Voice — or is it porn [?] — call some friends to complain over how bad things are, and then simply watch some news, ’til they call it a night, sleeping fitfully and rising the next morning to do it all over again, and everyday afterward, year after year, until one day someone hands them their walking papers or a copper watch upon their “retirement”.

Too many live under the delusion that they should be able to drive brand new $60k cars, own $400k homes complete with the most exquisite adornments and furniture on their $15 per hour paycheck at McDonald’s, having never put forth the effort to gain useful knowledge demanded by skilled and professional career positions, in order to make themselves more valuable to society on the whole, and thus able to demand a salary that would allow them to buy all the trappings of such success. Instead, they cast an envious eye in the direction of the Makers and scheme on how to take what they want, by any scheme, any illegal act, any means necessary. They believe their mere existence entitles them to other people’s property, just because deep down in their black little souls, they really, really want it — just not enough to go after it the right way.

Our youth have lost all sense of shame and seem fine with getting anything they want, right when they want it, no matter how they come to acquire it. They never learned that something worth having is worth the work it takes to purchase, as if stuff is just supposed to fall from the heavens and land in their lap.

Things of real worth don’t come easy.

Sure. Not everyone has the intelligence and capability to become a surgeon, but if that’s your dream, you will never know if you could have been one, until you try — same for anything else that any of you are dreaming of being, no matter if you dream of being a content farmer or a successful writer. Whatever you want in life, put forth the effort to achieve competency in that field and then go do it.

If you want something of worth in life, stop depending on others. Venture out on your own in some business or capacity you love, rather than settling to work for someone else your entire life. And for your own sake, quit wallowing in self-pity over bad circumstances created by your own bad choices.

As Ms Lawson notes (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oDzfZOfNki4) at one point: "Any pursuit in life, if you want to be successful, it goes to the people that handle hard well. Those are the people that get the stuff they want. People that wait around for easy, you probably see them at the bus stop. They’re waiting on the easy bus to come around. Easy bus never comes around. Go handle hard.”

Too many parents, too many schools, too many churches have failed America by failing to teach them that hard times won’t break you if only you have the right state of mind on life — that there is a loving God — and no one will ever find a fulfilling or positive way of life by looking to The Government for answers and solutions. Our society stopped teaching the youth how to be strong and independent somewhere along the way, as the tyrant-wannabes persisted in teaching “everyone is a victim”; but the fact remains today, anyone can be a proud survivor of hard times, if only they persevere and never give-up and never give-in to defeat, choosing to ultimately succeed and live good, prosperous and happy lives."

"Out of Time"

"Out of Time"
by Edward Curtin

“If sleep is the apogee of physical relaxation, boredom is the apogee of mental relaxation. Boredom is the dream bird that hatches the egg of experience. A rustling in the leaves drives him away.” - Walter Benjamin “The Storyteller,” 1936

"Today’s rustlers are stealing the silence needed to allow stories to percolate in our minds. They are noisy speedsters, gunning down the highway of regret, constantly pushing us to abandon any sense of living deliberately and relaxed for the bait of faster internet speed and 24/7 lives in which no one is ever “off.” Like our machines, we are barely sleeping in “sleep mode” and always ready for a fast wake-up to jump into action before our use-by-date is up. Run as fast as you can. Vamoose. You can be sure that those who send and receive the most cell phone messages and emails have not heard from themselves in a long time.

Walter Benjamin was a German-Jewish writer who knew that doing nothing and reposing into boredom was the secret to creativity and wisdom. He knew that silence was an endangered species whose extinction would eradicate boredom. He knew, of course, with WW I and then Hitler’s rise to power in Germany, that the times were out of joint.

“Contrary to many interpretations of Nazism, which tend to view it as a reactionary movement,” writes Modris Eksteins in "Rites of Spring: The Great War and the Birth of the Modern Age," “as, in the words of Thomas Mann, an ‘explosion of antiquarianism,’ intent on turning Germany into a pastoral folk community of thatched cottages and happy peasants, the general thrust of the movement, despite archaisms, was futuristic.”

As with its lightning fast warfare – Blitzkrieg – and emphasis on “breaking out” to the future – Aufbruch – it was technocratic and progressive, with an emphasis on speed. Its romantic visions of returning to a conservative past were pure propaganda, used to fool Germans into thinking the country was on its way back while it was hurtling forward to a nihilistic, mechanized future based on violence, nationalism, and demagoguery. Its future was futuristic.

What Benjamin didn’t and couldn’t know was that sound sleep, silence, and tranquility would, with the rise of digital technology, cell phones, and the internet, become very rare as speed and a general mood of constant emergency would dominate people’s subconscious lives; that permanent busyness would become the norm; that technique and machines, in the service of creating the machine mind, would come to dominate societies, no matter what the political rhetoric.

Wendell Berry’s 1968 poem, "The Peace of Wild Things," seems quaint these days:

"When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free."

Berry is now an old man, a farmer-poet, a naturalist, a prodigious writer who has written all his work on a manual typewriter. He is a slow man; out of step with today’s speed time and being 91 years-old is nearing the end of his life as the world frantically races on faster and faster.

Hustler or idler, getting things done or leaving things undone? For myself, such a choice may be a bit extreme. But I know that I’m not going to read "The Tao Te Ching" for wisdom since the Tao doesn’t reside in books. Nor does sapience depend on a podcast or an encounter with God depend on reading the holy books. I don’t need any more studies or conferences on social issues whose truths have been long apparent.

How many details are necessary to grasp the obvious once you are acquainted with the principle? “It is so hard to forget what is worse than useless to remember,” said Thoreau in his essay “Life Without Principle.” Few were listening then and fewer now.

The modern view of time asserts it is an objective measurement; it ticks away and for everyone ends in death. So fight the clock; fight death. Hurry, hurry! Run, Rabbit, run. The clock is running out. But despite this view that clock time measures one’s journey toward death, I have experienced another dimension of time that is “timeless.” I am sure you have, also. It is timeless and exists alongside clock time. It is rooted in love and takes different forms – God, sex, art, moments playing basketball, and human solidarity against evil forces being a few.

This variation in the experience of time is also natural. Clocks “tell us” one thing, but our experience of time tells us another. Even now here in New England as winter comes on, our experience of time is slowing down as nature goes dormant until the spring. Then time speeds up for us as over one night in spring the vegetation grows exponentially. We wake up and feel our hearts beating faster and a spring in our step. Excitement pulses through our veins. All the while throughout the seasons, the clocks – now mostly digital – click their sad numbers so monotonously as if they are telling us something.

I am considering starting a movement to create “do nothing days” by announcing the movement has started and immediately bowing out to do exactly nothing. Things have gotten so bad these days that if you ask a retired person how they are doing, they will proudly tell you they keep very busy, as if that is a badge of honor. Any thought of the contemplative life is an anathematic kiss of death.

At the risk of boring you and putting you to sleep and not to hatch the egg of experience, I will tell you a weird story appropriate to our most weird times. That it occurred on the night between Halloween and All Saints Day, Nov. 1, and on the weekend when eidolons and spooky images of death perambulate the streets and byways of our imaginations, might be significant if you believe in conspiracy theories and all that way-out nonsense. I can attest to its factual nature only, not to its significance. Doing so could leave egg on my face.

On this recent Halloween night, my wife and I went to sleep at our usual early hour. In the morning when we awoke, the ugly little digital clock on the table by the window read 5 A.M. So we got up, this being our normal waking time. As we passed another room, we noticed that the clock in that room said the same. But when we got downstairs, we saw that a numbers of clocks reported it was 4 A.M. We checked all the clocks in the house and four said it was 4 A.M. and four plus the telephone said 5 A.M. Naturally we were confused. Daylight Savings Time was not scheduled to end until the following day and then the clocks were to be set back an hour, not forward, and yet four of ours jumped forward, as if to tell us to hurry up, time’s running away and we’re late, we’re late for an important date. Like Alice in Wonderland, we wondered if we had gone mad, and these lines popped to mind: “‘Have I gone mad?’ ‘I am afraid so, you are entirely bonkers. but I will tell you a secret… all the best people are.‘”

There was no technological answer for this strange occurrence. Were we “losing time” or “maintaining time” or “conquering time” or was some comedian sending us a message that despite clocks we had no control over time, that it was a mystery, as we are, that the line between then and now and tomorrow, between life and death, dreams and reality is so thin as to be ghostly? Despite this spooky reminder that we all live “out of time,” my wife synchronized all the clocks to pretend she was reasserting control and was not too bonkers. I decided to do nothing."

The Daily "Near You?"

Valley Center, Kansas, USA. Thanks for stopping by!

Judge Napolitano, Gerald Celente, "Ceasefire Or Lies? Trump Alien To The Truth"

Judge Napolitano, Gerald Celente, 4/8/26
"Ceasefire Or Lies? Trump Alien To The Truth"
Comments here:

"TACO King Declares Ceasefire with Nothing Won!"


"TACO King Declares Ceasefire with Nothing Won!"
Trump lost EVERY possible objective he boasted about 
during his Iran War. I will lay that out plainly for all to see.
by David Haggith

"Fortunately, Trump caved in and did not commit an act of extreme genocide by exterminating Persian civilization as he cussed and sweared and bloviated and bellowed and raged that he would do in the name of Allah and to the Glory of God! His war hit the brakes hard and shut down in a whimper … for now.

No one is surprised that the TACO King retreated again. He talks big then falls back. I said it was a strong possibility when I wrote about his war: “Of course, Trump Always Chickens Out (TACO Trump), so I wouldn’t be surprised if he finds some last-minute argument for why he’s not going to follow through with his newly amplified threats, but for now he has intensified them even above his expletive-laden rants of Easter weekend. Think this is just a bluff by Trump? Maybe. He does the TACO dance a lot….”

Unfortunately, for all the suffering, death, destruction, and cost, the war accomplished nothing for the US. It weakened the US substantially in terms of drawing down its already diminished weapon stockpiles. It seriously damaged the entire global economy, and it diminished the United States’ reputation in regard to how its allies view it as a reliable friend and how its enemies view it as a blustery nation that cannot even overthrow the Iranian regime. Trump did not win a single one of the various desired accomplishments he flashed on and off over the past five weeks as possible objectives. Let’s take a look:

Dire straits: Trump’s main claim right now, having said only a few days ago he couldn’t care less, is that he won the opening of the Strait of Hormuz! What an empty windbag that boast is! Does he actually think we have already forgotten that the strait was open before the war ever started. Or did he just forget that in a moment of Old-Timers Disease? In fact, the Strait of Hormuz was a LOT more open than it is now under the ceasefire. That’s quite an accomplishment - to win the end of the trouble you caused by starting the war!

Here’s what Trump’s War won in the strait: Iran forced him to promise that Iran will have full official control of the strait. All ships going through the strait will be governed by Iran’s decision to let them pass, including US ships, and all ships (except maybe Iran’s friends and certainly its own ships) will pay a $2-million toll for passage. Whew! What a win!

Not only does the toll help cover Iran’s costs of rebuilding and rearming for years to come, but it assures that Iranian oil will sell at a premium of $2,000,000 per tanker because Iranian shippers don’t have to pay the toll. They can just raise their prices to match up to all the competition that will have to include the toll in the price of the oil they are shipping. So, the ceasefire, if it holds, is a major win for Iran financially in terms of oil.

If the deal closes as it currently stands, Iran also wins the end of all sanctions on the nation. So it will be free to trade unlimited oil (albeit to whatever extent its facilities can still function). Tromp-all-over-them, on the other hand, did not manage to get them to give anything they didn’t want to give. (They are delighted to open the strait if it nets them a work-free $2-million in tribute with each passing ship! That’s an easy $200-million dollars per day! Or more! That is a bonanza of a win for Iran … at every other nation’s expense!)

The disarming nuclear agreement: Trump won the right to talk for two weeks about getting Iran to hand over all of its 60%-enriched uranium. For now, they retain all that they had, which is enough to make several bombs. It is likely mostly buried inside collapsed bunkers, so it will take time and significant precautions to dig it out. There is some talk of the US already helping them dig it up. If that’s true, I’m sure the US will seize it, but that remains to be seen. It’s not a victory yet.

It is not clear whether all of Iran’s nuclear-enrichment facilities have been destroyed either. In fact, the ceasefire agreement as it stands, says Iran will be promised the right to continue to enrich uranium! Iran won a pause to rearm and reposition for two weeks before the war resumes, which the war most likely will do if Iran continues to insist it is not giving up its uranium. Unless Trump has completely given up on his biggest objective of all.

Iran attacks: Iran has won a guarantee, should the ceasefire terms pass on to an eventual truce, that the US and Israel will never attack it again! The US has promised to retreat entirely by removing all of its combat troops out the region! The deal, as it stands, represents a total retreat for the US! Does that mean, since it will have no combat troops to man bases that it will also terminate all of its bases? This is a total sucker deal for a president who was obviously desperate to find a way to back out of his enormous bluffs.

Iran, on the other hand, has not had to guarantee it will not attack either the US or Israel. However, it stands to reason that if either side attacks, the other side will fight back. Guarantees not to initiate attacks are only as good as those making them, and those parties would appear to be void of any substance, at best, with all three parties - Netanyahu, Trump and whoever is in charge in Iran not the least bit trustworthy.

It seems Trump has never made a deal he wasn’t willing to break. He broke all of the original Trump1.0 tariff deals he original boasted about. He also broke most of his 2.0 deals when he decided he wanted to hit countries hard with more tariffs to punish them for something else that came up like not helping in one of his new wars. I have never seen a man whose word means less.

The ceasefire terms promise a permanent end to war between the parties now involved. Trump wins nothing there because Iran was not threatening the US with war, though it often threatened Israel. It did threaten the US with actual terrorist attacks; so, if the deal holds, presumably any future terrorist attacks planned by Iran will be terminated. However, we do not know that Iran had any specific attacks planned; so, it is impossible to declare a win there. Iran may only be agreeing not to do something it had no further intention of doing unless the US attacked it. The US and Israel agree to end all future attacks on Iran’s allies as well. It’s impossible to believe Israel will honor that as it continues to attack Lebanon today.

Regime change changed day by day: At first, Trump clearly spoke about regime change, creating the impression that that was what this war was fundamentally about. As it became clear that he and Netanyahu decapitated the regime, only to have its younger head sprout up in place of the withered old head, Trump began to lie and claim he never said he wanted regime change. It wouldn’t be hard to stack up plenty of videos where he talked about it like it was a major goal; and we all know that, if true regime change had happened, we’d hear endless boasting about it from Trump as one of the primary objectives he was seeking.

Now the Iranian leaders he has ended up with are said by many to be more hardline than the iteration of this same regime that existed before the war. Son is harder than his father. And by surviving such intense attacks from its two worse enemies simultaneously, the regime is hugely strengthened in the eyes of Iran’s people and of many in the Middle East.

They have shown they are a force to be reckoned with. Donald Trump, on the other hand, has demonstrated he can make a lot of noise and smoke and rain down enormous destruction, but he cannot accomplish much positive change in the world by doing all of that - maybe not any positive change since the new iteration of the same old regime is more enraged at him (and the WHOLE US) than the old one was and has reason to believe it can survive by fighting hard. Most likely, they are now hardened into wanting a nuclear bomb more than ever.
Trumpian-sized losses outside the deal

The war has resulted in sanctions on Russian oil being removed for the time being. It has taken US attention off of Ukraine and seriously damaged US ability to endlessly supply Ukraine with weapons. Putin’s ability to end his Ukraine war with a better deal for Russia is somewhat strengthened.

Putin is delighted over Trump’s destruction of NATO as the best sugar plum he could have ever hoped for. It is practically a fantasy for him, many years incoming. He sees the US as weaker than he did before because it failed to gain any clear objective. It revealed Trump is not the bargain-master he said because this deal looks like Trump actually retreated and won nothing, other than a lot of chaotic destruction in Iran. US allies are likely to strengthen alliances elsewhere with no trust left at all in Donald Trump.

The people of Iran did not unite to overthrow their government. They united around their government. Hundreds of thousands or Iranian citizens even risked their lives to ring their electrical plants with lines of human shields. The citizens likely see their brave ayatollahs as having stood up to Trump victoriously and their proud nation as having survived, although badly beaten up. The survived the worst that Trump could throw at them (apparently) with conventional weapons.

Trump’s war leaves the US weakened in the eyes of its enemies (and friends). The ceasefire in Iran has reinforced views among both adversaries and the NATO alliance that President Donald Trump’s campaign against the Tehran regime marks a strategic setback, bolstering China and Russia while squandering American strengths, according to people familiar with the thinking across capitals in Europe and the Middle East….

“Although Iran has suffered huge physical damage and much loss of life, it emerges strategically stronger,” former UK National Security Adviser Peter Ricketts said. “The regime has survived. It has shown the massive leverage control of Hormuz gives them…” “It’s certainly not a victory in that the United States has nowhere achieved any of its military objectives,” Long Island University Director of International Relations Dalia Fahmy told Bloomberg TV. “Actually, the war has cost the United States much more than anticipated.”

Everyone has seen that Trump DID NOT force Iran to capitulate to any of his demands. (Yes, he got them to reopen the strait, but it was more open before the war, so the war did not accomplish that.) While Team Trump is doing all they can to claim this was a great victory for Trump most of the world will easily see that there is no victory to be seen at all. There is not one single way in which the US has benefited from the war - a way in which it is greater now than it was before; but there are many ways in which it loses. Team Trump looks like a gaggle of fools for even trying to make that argument, but I suppose it will work for the last remaining die-hard Trumpettes.

Trump has managed to convince many of his own strongest MAGA supporters to drop their support. He has even managed to convince them that Trump Derangement Syndrome is something happening to the Trump, though Carlson, Fuentes, Jones, MTG, and Kelly are far from admitting they were deranged for so adamantly and fully supporting such a fraud and a clown in the first place. (Especially Carlson who told Fox execs that Trump was the devil but they needed to play nice with him, anyway, or they would lose huge audience share - total pandering to the audience.)

Calls for Trump’s impeachment are likely to gain traction as well as calls for his removal under the 25th amendment. Even Alex Jones, Tuckered Carlson, and MTG are now openly demanding he be 25ed! The likelihood of Republicans losing even more ground in the elections is greater because none of those in congress seriously stood up to take him down, which increases the likelihood that Dems will gain control and will impeach him (again).

After this unconstitutional war, he may find less support among Republicans in the Senate, though that is unlikely because they have proven - just as the Dems always do - that it is party over country every time, even when a deranged president threatens in a totally unconstitutional war to wipe out millions of civilians in a nation by shutting off all their electrical power and their escape routes for emigration as refugees in a desert where large-scale modern cities are utterly dependent on electricity for survival.

I’m sure most of the world is convinced Trump is a truly dangerous lunatic after his cussing statements in the name of Allah that he would destroy Persian civilization if they didn’t open the strait and after the way he bashed former US allies around for not helping him with a war that he started against their wishes. I’m sure they will not be too favorably impressed with the entire United States any more for having thrown the enormous financial destruction upon them that the aftermath of this war will certainly bring in the months ahead, let alone the risks of WWIII.

The worst part is that Trump actually looked more and more deranged as the war went on, adding credence to the arguments in the press that he is now on the steep downgrade of frontal-lobe dementia, a form of mental deterioration that makes people highly erratic and ill-tempered. No one is likely to trust dealing with this lunatic anymore. Trump is turning the US into a true pariah state in international opinion. All other nations see is an aged, ranting, hobbling, baby man in diapers, more desperate than ever to prove his power over them.

The US certainly will not be able to paint itself anymore as a benign hegemon that they are willing to put up with because it guarantees some of them some security. It now guarantees them endless insecurity and economic chaos. The East will strengthen ties with each other. The West was glued together by US resolve to stand by the West, its military, and its financial support, but the glue has failed entirely.

The Iran campaign has been a “serious setback” for Trump, said Wu Xinbo, director at Fudan University’s Center for American Studies in Shanghai who previously advised the Chinese Foreign Ministry. “When he comes to Beijing now, he’ll be frustrated and will realize that China will have to play an even larger role,” said Wu, who spoke before the ceasefire was announced.

Officials cited mockery of Trump in Russian and Chinese state media as evidence of how his handling of the war will likely be perceived by the regimes in those countries. The TACO meme - that “Trump Always Chickens Out” - is not just an amusing political attack by his domestic opponents but now a geopolitical conclusion of America’s enemies, one said.

Trump’s endless lies on parade were destroyed endlessly. Every time he said Iran’s navy or its airforce or anything else was “decimated, destroyed” or “obliterated,” never able to harm our military again, their navy sank another ship or their air defenses downed more US planes.

Now Iran can easily move equipment in from their Eastern allies without need to worry about being fired upon in order to replenish for the next battle. Iran flipped from having its nuclear program, according to Trump, “obliterated for years to come” last summer to being able to have a bomb within two weeks at the start of this war, and finally back to claims they have been obliterated again.

I don’t know how you obliterate something twice in less than a year; but Trump clearly says anything he wants to and believes his base will lap it up. That undue power to deceive and influence has now become badly damaged among his supporters. It was already weakened by all his Epstein delays, illegal redactions, and revelations that he was accused of sexually using young girls. Now his reputation among supporters is worse.

Trump has learned the hard lesson that not all regime-change wars are as easy as knocking out Venezuela’s Maduro. He thought Iran would be a 3-4 week pushover to help assure him next years’ Nobel Peace Prize, which he only pretends not to covet, but would place on his desk if he ever actually won it. After five weeks, he got nothing!

Israel has been damaged worse than by any war in its history. We haven’t seen all of the destruction inside Israel yet, as it entirely censored press coverage, though some leaked through; but early indications are that the destruction was severe, and some in the Israeli government are livid over it. They certainly were not able to declare another 6-day war with a miraculous victory, which calls into question their vain belief that God will enable them to take the Promised Land by whatever means they deploy. The image of endless miraculous victories assured by God, no matter how they act or whether they are even faithful to God, is now a badly dented helmet.

(I know God loves them as he loves all people, but I certainly don’t think he loves everything they do. Half of the Bible seems to be about how badly they appear in God’s eyes and about his willingness to let them suffer judgment when they run too far off the rails and from the behavior he demands of them.)

Regardless of the ceasefire, massive damage to oil facilities will take many months or even a few years to repair, so the shortages and high prices will return after the oil that is already backed up in the gulf is shipped and the ability to load any more oil is reduced by all the damage—assuming reports of damage are true, as both sides have reason to overstate the damage they have done and understate the damage done to them or their allies.

It will take a few weeks, maybe even until summer, for the dust of war to settle enough to know what kind of a lasting oil crisis we are really going to have; but I am certain all of us will be paying higher prices for everything for the next few years. You’ll get to pay for the war every day because oil is in everything, directly or indirectly! While speculators cause huge spikes up and down in their greed and their fear, supply and demand will determine a strong upward trend in the price of oil, as you iron out the spikes caused by daily jolts of euphoria over the ceasefire followed by fear over whether it will hold with each new event that happens."

"A Cult Of Ignorance..."

“There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that ‘my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.” - Isaac Asimov
o
"What the herd hates the most is the one who thinks differently. It is not so much the opinion itself, as the audacity of wanting to think for themselves. Something they do not know how to do." – Schopenhauer
o
Read a book? That'll be the day!
"Nationwide, on average, 79% of U.S. adults are literate in 2024.
21% of adults in the US are illiterate in 2024.
54% of adults have a literacy below 6th grade level."
o
"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
o
"Five percent of the people think; 
ten percent of the people think they think; 
and the other eighty-five percent would rather die than think."
- Thomas Edison

"The Gospel of Ignorance"

"The Gospel of Ignorance"
by Paul Rosenberg

"The good news about ignorance? Yes, and emphatically yes. The good news about ignorance is that it sets us free from mental chains. Now, to be clear, what I’m talking about here is accepting and admitting our ignorance. This is essential if we want to actually know things, as opposed to making a show of knowing things. And I can tell you from personal experience that it really works. I gained the habit of admitting my ignorance (almost advertising it) back in the early 1980s, and that habit has helped me toward more understanding and discovery than I’d be able to itemize.

The School Model: Most people pull back from admitting their ignorance, and while the roots of the problem are probably very old, I’m convinced that it has been supercharged by factory-style schooling; that is, by the government schools nearly all children are forced to attend. The universal model of schooling over the past century has been “memorize and repeat.” And so expressing the right answer has become grounds for praise and expressing the wrong answer has become grounds for ridicule.

In fact, getting the wrong answer in school very often spawns public ridicule, from other kids or from the teacher. Bear in mind that public ridicule is among the harsher blows a young psyche can take. And so the instinct to avoid such blows sticks. People are wildly evasive of being shown wrong.

Because of this, people stay far away from admitting ignorance. That’s a silly thing to do, of course – we’re all ignorant of a great many things – but emotional damage tends to override reason. This, however, locks us out of further inquiry. When we see a situation steering us toward possible ridicule we shut it down; all that matters is getting away. And thus learning is evaded right along with the possibility of pain.

The Lust For An Ultimate Ruleset: Just behind the terror of ridicule comes a quest for an unassailable ruleset. And while I won’t take the space to dig deeply into this, I will make one essential point: We cling to rulesets because they save us from responsibility. The ruleset becomes the responsible party, saving us from exposure and the possibility of blame. And once this is in place, our lives descend into unending arguments over which ruleset is right. Please re-read that a few times and give it some thought.

We’re probably millennia away from anything resembling a perfect ruleset, if such a thing is possible at all. Pretending to have such a ruleset, however, locks us into it, and locks us into defending those parts of it that are either partial or wrong… and at this stage of human development every ruleset will be full of such things. When we latch on to a dogma – a doctrine, a political movement, a metaphysics, whatever – we cut ourselves off from proper humility and we erect barriers to further knowledge. We need to get past this.

What We Once Had: Political ideologies have become weaponized rulesets in recent times. By rejecting your rules (and vocabulary) the other party becomes wrong, crazy, deranged, and so on. The foundation of Western civilization, however, was very much otherwise. Here’s how professor Carol Quigley explained it: "Western Civilization… might be summed-up in the belief that “Truth unfolds through time in a communal process.”

This is a great core of Western civilization, if not the core. Westerners use phrases like “we know that…” or “we have no information on…” Every time we use such words, we presume that truth is built, that all of us may contribute to it, and that we will certainly have more truth in the future than we have now. But if the final truth is yet to be discovered, who can say that he or she has full knowledge?

By becoming clear on the fact that we don’t know ultimates and ends, we both consolidate what we do know and open a door to learning… moving toward the day when we can properly conceive of ultimates and ends. Western civilization was never pure, of course, but this belief went a long way toward bringing us forward.

Say It Loud And Say It Proud: So, when something comes up that you don’t know, say it loudly and clearly: “I don’t know.” “I’m ignorant about that.” By doing this you open your mind and tell the world (as well as yourself) that you’re strong enough to portray yourself honestly… that you’re no longer terrified of being wrong. It’s the sensible thing to do, and it works."
o
"The trouble with most people is that they think with their
hopes or fears or wishes rather than with their minds."
- Will Durant
o
"It takes considerable knowledge just to
realize the extent of your own ignorance." 
- Thomas Sowell