Saturday, April 24, 2021

Musical Interlude: André Rieu, "Conquest of Paradise" (Live at the Amsterdam Arena)

Full screen recommended.
André Rieu,
 "Conquest of Paradise" (Live at the Amsterdam Arena)

"A Look to the Heavens"

“NGC 253 is not only one of the brightest spiral galaxies visible, it is also one of the dustiest. Discovered in 1783 by Caroline Herschel in the constellation of Sculptor, NGC 253 lies only about ten million light-years distant.
NGC 253 is the largest member of the Sculptor Group of Galaxies, the nearest group to our own Local Group of Galaxies. The dense dark dust accompanies a high star formation rate, giving NGC 253 the designation of starburst galaxy. Visible in the above photograph is the active central nucleus, also known to be a bright source of X-rays and gamma rays.”

"Not Knowing..."

“Not knowing you can’t do something
is sometimes all it takes to do it.”
- Ally Carter

The Daily "Near You?"

Thomasville, Georgia, USA. Thanks for stopping by!

"Internet Sacred Text Archive"

“About Sacred Texts”

“All ancient books which have once been called sacred by man, will have their lasting place in the history of mankind, and those who possess the courage, the perseverance, and the self-denial of the true miner, and of the true scholar, will find even in the darkest and dustiest shafts what they are seeking for, - real nuggets of thought, and precious jewels of faith and hope.”
- Max Müller, "Introduction to the Upanishads" Vol. II.

“This site is a freely available archive of electronic texts about religion, mythology, legends and folklore, and occult and esoteric topics. Texts are presented in English translation and, where possible, in the original language. This site has no particular agenda other than promoting religious tolerance and scholarship. Views expressed at this site are solely those of specific authors, and are not endorsed by sacred-texts. Sacred-texts is not sponsored by any religious group or organzation.

Sacred texts went live on March 9th, 1999. The traffic started to increase when sacred-texts was listed at Yahoo! under ‘Society and Religion | Texts’. In its first year of operation sacred-texts had about a quarter million hits. By 2004, it was receiving well over a quarter million hits per day.

Today, site traffic often exceeds a million hits a day. Sacred texts is one of the top 20,000 sites on the web based on site traffic, consistently one of the top 10,000 sites in Australia, the US and India, and is one of the top 5 most visited general religion sites (source: Alexa.com).

The texts presented here are either original scans from books and articles clearly in the public domain, material which has been presented elsewhere on the Internet, or material included under fair use conditions in printed anthologies.

Many of the texts included here were originally posted in ftp archives or on bulletin boards before the growth of the World Wide Web and have been lost. In some cases, the texts were posted in such a form as to make them unusable by non-technically oriented users. Some of these texts were on the web at some point but have completely disappeared because the site they were posted on has closed. Thus the need for an archive which organizes this material in a persistent location.

From the start, we have had a special focus on remedying the under-representation of traditional cultures on the Internet. The site has one of the largest collections of transcriptions of complete books on Native American, Pacific, African, Asian and other traditional people’s religion, spiritual practices, mythology and folklore. While many of these pre-20th century books are flawed due to orientalist or colonialist biases, they are also eye-witness accounts by reliable observers, typically at the moment of contact. These texts are crucial to the study of tribal traditions, and in many cases, the only link with the past. Locked up in academic libraries for decades, sacred-texts has made them freely accessible anywhere in the world.

We have scanned hundreds of books which have all been made freely accessible to the world. A comprehensive bibliography of the texts scanned at sacred texts is available here.

We welcome email regarding typographical or factual errors in any file at sacred-texts. Please write us if you spot an error; include the URL and a few lines of context so we can pin down the location. While all due care has been taken in the reproduction of the texts here, none of the texts or translations here are represented to be sanctioned by any particular religious body or institution. We welcome advice as to errors of fact or transcription.

Some of the material here may be copyrighted. It is our hope that the copyright holders may allow these texts to be posted here in the public interest. If you are the copyright holder of record of a text which you believe has been archived at this site in error, please contact us at the email address listed at the bottom of this page. We have made a good-faith effort to determine the provenance of each text and apologize if we have posted a text in error. Note: If you are requesting the removal of a file, you must be the copyright holder of the file, and you must specify the exact URL of the file.”
Fascinating, an absolute treasure trove! Enjoy!

“The Web Gallery of Art”

“The Web Gallery of Art”

“The Web Gallery of Art is a virtual museum and searchable database of European painting and sculpture of the Gothic, Renaissance, Baroque, Neoclassicism, Romanticism and Realism periods (1100-1850), currently containing over 50,500 reproductions. It was started in 1996 as a topical site of the Renaissance art, originated in the Italian city-states of the 14th century and spread to other countries in the 15th and 16th centuries. Intending to present Renaissance art as comprehensively as possible, the scope of the collection was later extended to show its Medieval roots as well as its evolution to Baroque and Rococo via Mannerism. More recently the periods of Neoclassicism and Romanticism were also included.

The collection has some of the characteristics of a virtual museum. The experience of the visitors is enhanced by guided tours helping to understand the artistic and historical relationship between different works and artists, by period music of choice in the background and a free postcard service. At the same time the collection serves the visitors’ need for a site where various information on art, artists and history can be found together with corresponding pictorial illustrations. Although not a conventional one, the collection is a searchable database supplemented by a glossary containing articles on art terms, relevant historical events, personages, cities, museums and churches.

The Web Gallery of Art is intended to be a free resource of art history primarily for students and teachers. It is a private initiative not related to any museums or art institutions, and not supported financially by any state or corporate sponsors. However, we do our utmost, using authentic literature and advice from professionals, to ensure the quality and authenticity of the content.

We are convinced that such a collection of digital reproductions, containing a balanced mixture of interlinked visual and textual information, can serve multiple purposes. On one hand it can simply be a source of artistic enjoyment; a convenient alternative to visiting a distant museum, or an incentive to do just that. On the other hand, it can serve as a tool for public education both in schools and at home.”

“Luminarium”

“Luminarium”
by Anniina Jokinen

“This site combines several sites first created in 1996 to provide a starting point for students and enthusiasts of English Literature. Nothing replaces a quality library, but hopefully this site will help fill the needs of those who have not access to one. Many works from Medieval, Renaissance, Seventeenth and Eighteenth centuries can be found here.

The site started in early 1996. I remember looking for essays to spark an idea for a survey class I was taking at the time. It seemed that finding study materials online was prohibitively difficult and time-consuming - there was no all-encompassing site which could have assisted me in my search. I started the site as a public service, because I myself had to waste so much time as a student, trying to find anything useful or interesting. There were only a handful of sites back then (read: Internet Dark Ages) and I could spend hours on search engines, looking for just a few things. I realized I must not be the only one in the predicament and started a simple one-page site of links to Middle English Literature. That page was soon followed by a Renaissance site.

Gradually it became obvious that the number of resources was ungainly for such a simple design. It was then that the multi-page “Medlit” and “Renlit” pages were created, around July 1996. That structure is still the same today. In September 1996, I started creating the “Sevenlit” site, launched in November. I realized the need to somehow unite all three sites, and that led to the creation of Luminarium. I chose the name, which is Latin for “lantern,” because I wanted the site to be a beacon of light in the darkness. It was also befitting for a site containing authors considered “luminaries” of English literature.

I wanted the site to be a multimedia experience in the periods. I find it easier to visualize what I am reading when there is a small illustration or a tidbit about the background of the author or his work. The music and art of the period serve to complement one’s rational experience of the site with the emotional. There are people who write to me who seem to think that if something has a beautiful wrapping, it cannot possibly have scholarly insides. But I do not see why something scholarly cannot at the same time be attractive. It is that marriage of form and function, so celebrated during the Renaissance, for which my site strives.”
This is a unique source of endless wonder, a treasure, for those who
love the English language. You’ll spend many enjoyable hours here…
- CP

"How It Really Is"

 

"The United States Of 2 Americas"

"The United States Of 2 Americas"
by John Mills

"If you haven’t noticed, the United States is reorganizing itself into two Americas - blue and red. Although there is a president of the United States, state governors are in many ways now driving the national narrative in this new America.

The president and the vice president are who they are now because six Republican-controlled states forwarded questionable electoral votes, and Vice President Mike Pence missed a historic opportunity to challenge those votes. The current president and vice president seem trapped in foggy and abstract ideological slogans rather than providing executive leadership. Vague generalities and virtue signaling aren’t replacements for executive leadership.

And who are the true executive leaders of the two Americas? Florida and Texas on one side, California and New York on the other side. Their governors essentially dominate the bully pulpit formerly occupied by a sitting president. Many of the rest of the American states have aligned with one side or the other.

The American political conversation has become a modern Dr. Seuss’s “Sneetches With Stars” on steroids as Americans are now beginning to group, assemble, and march separately according to our ideologies. Both sides have equal ownership of this behavior - neither side should be excused or let off the hook on this matter.

Two Americas/Two Systems: A part of this blue/red separation is the manifest “Digital Apartheid” that is being applied by the blue side to the red side to create two social media systems. This Digital Apartheid is pervasive and driven by the new, vicious, lockstep, “social justice” mantra that has taken over the automatons who lead U.S. social media.

We are experiencing an unprecedented shakedown by groups such as Black Lives Matter (BLM) and Antifa who broadcast through their relentless bullhorn of social media and old media.

There are now two business systems in America - blue and red. Many of the businesses that lead major market sectors have now revealed themselves to be de-facto thought police to enforce Social Justice. MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell is the poster child of this, as he has been targeted for elimination by the self-appointed high priests of “wokism.”

We’re also finding out there are two financial systems in America, as those with capital now act as the gatekeepers of who receives capital and who is excluded. Bank of America has become “Bank of who I decide to allow access to the capital system.” That’s a far cry from the intent of their founder who wanted to make sure all had access. The modern bank staff has now become an appendage of the virtue-signaling synchronized chorus.

There are now two media systems in America. The Hollywood award shows are now a Roman circus of self-loathing, lecturing, and virtue signaling. Few are watching these award shows, in fact, few are watching legacy media as ratings collapse. It’s curious from an agnostic business perspective how CNN even survives at this point in time. Somehow, the citizen’s pocketbook is being fleeced by corporations and advertisers who recycle ad revenue through “woke” media to keep them alive when it’s patently obvious the viewership has imploded - but that’s the beauty of the new era of crony capitalism (which is a transition phase to socialism).

The citizens of our nation have consciously or unconsciously chosen sides. If you’re angry at yourself for not being woke enough and have righteous virtue-signal signs in your yard lauding BLM, you’re likely on the blue side. If the drivel of virtue signaling makes no sense to you, you’re probably on the red side.

US Population Relocates: The biggest manifestation of this rapid reset of America into blue and red camps is the incredible internal movement of Americans. Americans are moving to Texas from California in significant numbers. California has seen its first decline in population since 1900. Americans are on the move, and it’s mostly from blue to red, with Texas and Florida receiving the refugees from New York and California. My dreams of a large, inexpensive home in Florida have evaporated with the rise in home prices in my target localities.

I would suggest the numbers are even greater than what is being reported. This type of socio-economic data traditionally lags in reporting due to the time it takes to collect, aggregate, sort, and analyze. I would say there is easily six months to a year of lag in this reporting. Last year, I found it difficult to find data on the population flows. Yet, at the same time, anecdotal data pointed to a strong movement not yet reflected. I was in New York in July 2020 and was shocked by the abandoned streets, yet little data pointed to movement at that time.

The data is starting to hit now. Among blue locales, Washington state is still showing population gains - I would suggest they’ve hit their apogee and will start down the backside of an arc as Seattle expands its footprint of boarded-up stores and restaurants, and major companies leave, as well as population.

We’re seeing the beginnings of the “Detroit Syndrome” on scale in blue states as Americans vote with their feet. The common refrain from conservatives is “I’m concerned this will flip Texas and Florida!” I, however, prefer to look at this from an optimistic perspective as an opportunity.

Where Are We Headed? Despite the attempts of the current administration to transform American society with uncontrolled borders, I see unanticipated consequences of the Blue strategy that will work in the red state’s favor. Big Government’s plans always go awry and deliver unintended consequences.

Trend lines are bad for blue - the elites can socially engineer all they want - their blue states are collapsing because of the brilliant plans of the leaders of the four corners of deceit in modern America: Big Tech, Big Finance, Big Government, and Big Academia. By fortifying Washington, D.C. - in a way that is eerily reminiscent of the American Civil War - House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) has rendered fortified our capital of diminishing relevance. Austin, Tallahassee, and most importantly, Mar-A-Lago, are now the centers of gravity for America.

Big Tech can manipulate search results all they want, they are now living in their self-made Ministry of Truth and will go the way of MySpace and the Sears catalog as innovators such as Lindell and others establish alternatives.

The real game, the one that I haven’t mentioned yet, is the fast-approaching showdown with China. Red states, in many ways, control the world’s food and energy supplies - both of which China is desperate for. The third leg of strategic essentials for national success is access to the world’s capital markets, and financial firms are beginning to exfiltrate to red areas from New York.

China is estranged from access to capital, which is the lifeblood of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Hopefully, the evolving United States is able to deter open conflict with an increasingly isolated CCP, but if kinetic conflict begins, likely nothing will be off the table for the CCP, and the blue states are still highly concentrated with their diminishing populations, which make them very vulnerable to additional biological, and God forbid, nuclear strikes from the CCP.

Bottom line, let blue wallow in their destructive and nihilistic French Revolution bloodbath of trying to out virtue signal each other. They’ll never be happy, never satisfied, and seem to be removing themselves from the gene pool on their own accords. The rest of us can focus on defeating the CCP."

"I Hope..."

“To love is to suffer. To avoid suffering one must not love. But then one suffers from not loving. Therefore to love is to suffer, not to love is to suffer. To suffer is to suffer. To be happy is to love. To be happy then is to suffer. But suffering makes one unhappy. Therefore, to be unhappy one must love, or love to suffer, or suffer from too much happiness. I hope you’re getting this down.”
- Bertrand Russell

“Societal Collapse”

“Societal Collapse”
by Hardscrabble Farmer

“Anyone interested in understanding the mechanics of human history must first and foremost understand the cycles of Nature and the nature of living things. There exists a balance in every closed system; creation and dissolution, growth and decay, life and death. There is no escape from this dynamic, no means by which one can exist without the other. Sometimes societies ascend, but eventually, over time, they collapse.

For a very long time America has benefited from exploiting the reserves of other nations – their labor, their resources, and their environments in a form of cultural strip mining. It has given the appearance of a sustainable system that required no effort to store surpluses or to build reserves for the future. There has been a perpetual live for the moment feel to our experience that was based on such illusory systems as credit and fiat.

These things are not real. They are manifest realities, things that exist only because a critical mass of people agree to believe in them rather than what is reflected by actuality. When such time occurs that a large enough number of people abandon their participation in that system, reality rushes in to the void left behind.

A large part of what we are seeing – as described to us by experts or media – is occult in nature, hidden not by design or subterfuge, but due to the ignorance or stupidity of the mass of men. They no longer recognize that a large part of what is taking place on the streets of cities like Portland and Minneapolis is simply a mating ritual for a generation that was so atomized and dissolute that they had no opportunity to make real life connections with the opposite sex except through electronic devices. Living beings cannot- despite the assurances of the Musks and Weils- exist by proxy.

They must eat, sleep, perform some activity during their waking hours, seek companionship, etc. These drives can be sublimated or suppressed either by societal controls or chemical dependencies, but they cannot be removed from our core drive. This is what happens when humans are thwarted from fulfilling their animal destinies – the drives of their particular species. If you eliminate the family, you do not stop fornication. If you eradicate healthy foods and a connection to its production, you do not eliminate hunger. Thus the dramatic rise in obesity and the ubiquity of pornography.

Everything exists in context, there is no way to eliminate the void left behind in a fatherless home without a corresponding flow of the feminine. A mind that has no reason will seek to replace it with an equal measure of emotion.

The Western Cultural experience that gained prominence and near global hegemony over the past several centuries is in terminal decline, accelerated by the opportunistic interference of competing cultural spheres, but predominantly by its own senescence. We are, in short, spent. What we are seeing is not a political or ideological struggle – again, manifest realities – but the natural process of a cultural expiration. The West is dying and with it all of the ideals and symbols that were attached to its rise.

Just as an elderly family member in their last days makes a point to give away their possessions, America is passing its treasures on; freedom of speech, the iconic symbols of Manifest Destiny like the statues of its heroes, even its own birthright to the rising of a new cultural expression, one that is less concerned with things like honor, nobility, truth and justice. None of those things exist in Nature, but rather are created and used like iron tools to achieve an end. Now that its energy is spent they serve no purpose, especially to the multitudes of others who share a far more dynamic and exuberant expression of collective identity.

This is a natural event, no different from a forest fire, but one which applies to the human species specifically. This is how we clear the ground for whatever is to replace us and we will serve as its fertilizer.”

"The Reasons Why Leftists Will Never Successfully Disarm Americans"

"The Reasons Why Leftists Will 
Never Successfully Disarm Americans"
by Brandon Smith

Gun confiscation has always been the Holy Grail of totalitarian regimes. Without disarmament, fully centralized control of a population is not possible. And though it is true that not every evil regime seeks to disarm every single citizen (at least not right away), they always disarm the people they specifically intend to hurt the most.

For example, gun control advocates today like to point out that the Third Reich in Germany did not disarm the entire German population. This is a rather bizarre position for leftists as they continually wail and scream about Nazis around every corner and behind every tree, but they will STILL defend their gun grabbing policies by arguing that the Nazis were not as bad as conservatives assume. Of course, what they rarely mention is that the Nazis DID disarm millions of people; most of them Jews and political opponents under 1938 German gun laws.

The National Socialists disarmed the people they planned to destroy. It’s not hard to figure out why; they didn’t want their targets to be able to fight back. They allowed their political supporters to keep their weapons legally; this is not a relaxation of gun laws, in fact, it’s the reverse – It is selective enforcement of gun confiscation based on ideological loyalty.

Hilariously, leftists in the US when confronted with this fact double down on their gun control arguments. Instead of admitting their foolish error they will say: “Yes, the Nazis disarmed the Jews and others, but having guns would have made no difference in saving their lives…” And there you have it – The most backwards circular logic of all time. If Jews and others owning guns was not a deterrent to their slaughter, then why would the Nazis bother disarming them in the first place? Leftists have no answer to this question.

They are trying to argue against facts using a hypothetical; really, how would they know? Maybe owning guns might have saved the lives of millions of people the Nazis had deemed enemies of the state? Maybe it would have acted as a deterrent to the Holocaust? Maybe the Nazis would have been afraid to expand tyranny into Europe if they had to worry about their own population fighting back and disrupting their momentum? Maybe, WWII would have never happened? We could argue hypotheticals all day long…

What we do know for certain is that disarmament is ALWAYS one of the first steps by totalitarians in cementing their control of a population, and this is most common among the biggest political killers in modern history – And no, it’s not the Nazis; it’s the communists.

While a debate rages over the exact number of deaths attributed to communist governments, it is estimated that they are responsible for approximately 65 million to 100 million murders over the course of the last century, a genocide beyond anything history has ever seen before. These deaths were caused by direct means, such as shooting dissidents, or indirect means, such as imprisoning dissidents until they died from complications, or stealing food supplies from rural communities and allowing them to starve en masse.

Stalin in particular declared any theft of state property a crime punishable by death. He then at the same time declared that all production including food production was state property. So, if you eat food that was not granted to you by the state, you are stealing, and could therefore be shot. See how that works?

None of this would have been possible without gun control and confiscation laws put in place before the larger genocide was enacted. In 1918 the Bolsheviks and the Council of the People’s Commissar mandated that Russian citizens turn in their firearms under penalty of prosecution. Gun restrictions and penalties were increased over the years until WWII, when the Soviets were loath to arm their own population in response to Nazi invasion. In fact, the ease by which the Nazi army rolled through the Eastern front was partly due to the disarmament of the Russian population.

Communist governments only allow people to have firearms in their hands when they are fighting against the ideological and foreign foes of the regime. You are allowed to be cannon fodder for the elites, you are not allowed the means to defend yourself from those same elites.

Americans (primarily conservative Americans) have an in-depth understanding of this dynamic. While leftists are more concerned with rewriting history to their benefit, we are more concerned with learning from it. We know where gun control leads, and so did the Founding Fathers of our nation, which is why they codified gun ownership into the US constitution as an inalienable right under the 2nd Amendment. Here are the reasons why leftists, globalists and communists will NEVER be able to disarm the American population as they have done in previous nations…

We Know The History Of Gun Control: As noted above, we have studied the history of tyrants. There is no tyranny that has ever existed that did not try to disarm the population, or disarm the portion of the population the government intended to enslave or destroy. Leftists froth at the mouth trying to re-imagine history in a way that circumvents or ignores the tyranny issue when it comes to gun control. They are wasting their time.

They are never going to convince conservatives and moderates that gun confiscation was not a key step in the establishment of various tyrannies in modern history. All the mental gymnastics and manipulation, all the energy they spend trying to rationalize away genocide as somehow “inevitable” regardless of gun rights – it’s all for nothing. We are far smarter then they are. We are well versed in the legacy of gun control, and this makes their tactics useless.

We Understand Incrementalism – We Know All The Tricks: The level of dishonesty involved in gun control advocacy is astonishing. Leftists often use lies as a means to gain political capital; if they were completely honest about their intentions they would not receive much support from the general population for their efforts. Gun grabbers are very careful in most cases to use phrases like “common sense” when talking about new restrictions. They try to refrain from admitting what they really want is complete disarmament, at least, they tried until recently.

Incrementalism was the name of the game for decades, but in the past year they are going for broke. Some leftist politicians are openly admitting their true goals, because frankly the song and dance wasn’t working and they know conservatives aren’t going to allow any further encroachment on their rights.

I find it interesting that leftists are so astonished at our refusal to compromise on any further gun restrictions. They seem to think that any new violent shooting buys them new gun control capitol. Maybe that’s how things used to work, but not any longer. Frankly, these shootings are irrelevant to our gun rights. Punishing everyone for the crimes of a handful is no longer acceptable to conservatives because we know that if we give gun control advocates an inch, they will take a mile.

Kamala Harris, now Vice President of the US, is one of the many Democrats now openly seeking mandatory government buybacks of firearms and the dismantling of gun rights. However, it was Beto O’Rourke who really took the mask off when it came to the true intentions of gun grabbers.

Joe Biden is famous for his statements admonishing military grade weapons in civilian hands and telling people that a “double barreled shotgun” is “superior” to the AR-15 for home defense. Obviously, a two shot weapon with a limited effective range of around 50 yards or less makes it very difficult to fight back against government tyranny. And, we all know that eventually even the shotguns would be taken away.

Biden’s specific focus, though, seems to be Red Flag gun laws, which allow authorities to confiscate firearms from people not involved in criminal activity, and this is based on hearsay testimony and without due process. Criteria includes any “suspicion of mental illness”, which is completely subjective. Conservatives have been accused of mental illness because they oppose Covid lockdowns, they question vaccine safety, they question the legitimacy of Global Warming fear mongering in the media, etc. ANYTHING could be labeled a mental illness by the state and therefore make a person susceptible to Red Flag confiscation.

This is targeted incrementalism and selective enforcement of gun control, much like that used by the Nazis. Red Flag laws allow the government to attack political and ideological opponents one at a time and disarm them, just as the Nazis selectively targeted their political opponents for disarmament. We know where all of this is going. We’ve seen it before.

BLM Race Riots: Despite the false claims of the mainstream media, we have seen first hand the destruction and insanity perpetrated by Marxist groups like Black Lives Matter. They are anything but “peaceful”, they are dangerous in their lack of intelligence and logic, and their social justice ideology is a cancer that infects and debilitates every vital organ of Western civilization.

In his movie ‘Platoon’, Oliver Stone’s character Chris Taylor says: “Hell is the impossibility of reason”. If this doesn’t describe the social justice movement today then I don’t know what does. If a group of people is determined to make every single tragedy about racism and “white supremacy” despite all facts to the contrary, and then use those tragedies as an excuse for mass violence, then they are zealots, and zealots cannot be reasoned with. They are cultists with a mission, and they will do anything to accomplish that mission.

In this case, the mission of Marxists within BLM and the globalist foundations that fund them (like Ford Foundation and Open Society Foundation) is to destroy the very fabric of America, “burn it to the ground”, and then rebuild it into an unrecognizable husk devoid of principles or freedom.

Yeah, I don’t think conservative gun owners are going to go along with that. Burning down their own neighborhoods is one thing, but they have tried to spread beyond the borders of their own garbage cities in the past, and we aren’t going to allow them to act violently. For this reason alone, conservatives will never disarm.

The Control Agenda Is Out In The Open: There is a reason why leftists and globalists are so obsessed with taking away combat ready firearms from Americans, and it’s not about “saving lives”. These weapons act as a deterrent to full blown tyranny. As long as they exist, our ability to take back our other rights and freedoms exists.

If anything has convinced gun owners of the need for firearms, it has been the past year of pandemic fear mongering. What have we learned so far? Well, we are now fully aware of the “Great Reset” agenda, which has been promoted nonstop by the World Economic Forum and various political leaders. This agenda calls for years of economic lockdowns and medical mandates, forced vaccination, medical passports without which a person might be completely removed from the economy, a new cashless society, a shared economy in which you will “own nothing and like it”.

The medical or vaccine “passports” are particularly disconcerting. For one, governments don’t necessarily have to enforce them right away. Rather, they can simply allow their corporate partners to demand said passports from anyone that wants to get a job or shop in their stores. Once this system is ingrained into the consumer world, governments can then step in and make passports a legal requirement. Eventually, the passports give the establishment the ability to control and micro-manage every aspect of every individual life. Without compliance to every whim, the technocrats can easily void your passport, and then you die from poverty and starvation.

This would be impossible to do in a country where a majority of the population is armed. I think it’s safe to say most Americans do not want to live in the dystopian world that the globalists at the WEF envision, and we will fight to ensure it does not happen.

Tyranny Is Enforced By Armed Men On The Ground: My favorite mantra of gun grabbers is the claim that “Your AR-15 isn’t going to help you against an Abrams tank or a predator drone”. These people don’t understand how totalitarian systems function. In order to control a population, you have to have loyal troops on the ground…everywhere. Not only that, but you also need loyal civilians, a large percentage of the population, to act as your eyes and ears and sometimes brute force. And finally, you need anyone who might oppose you to be afraid to take action to defend themselves. You need them docile and passive.

There are a lot of moving parts to tyranny, and tanks and planes are secondary to basic manpower. And where there are troops and others enforcing tyranny, there are numerous targets. Where there are firearms, there is a means to eliminate a tyrant at the top of the pyramid with a single well placed bullet. Furthermore, you don’t need armored vehicles and stealth jets to fight tyranny; what you need is a good firearm to remove the people driving and flying those machines. A smart rebel might even take those weapons for his own arsenal in the process.

A lot of gun owners are also military veterans, and they have seen how things played out in places like Afghanistan, where all the military might in the world was ineffective against tribesman with old AK-47s and roadside IEDs. It’s about force of will along with minimal necessary firearms. Guerrilla wars are not fought in terms of battles, they are fought in terms of attrition. Americans understand this better than most.

For all these reasons and more the gun grabber ethos is essentially pointless. They can have total dominance in the federal government, they could have every state government on their side and pass hundreds of laws and executive orders making every gun owner a criminal, and it still would not matter. We will not budge, we would rather fight.

Elitists and leftists just don’t seem to get it. Maybe it’s the way their brains work. Maybe they just can’t comprehend the idea that some people will not compromise certain freedoms no matter the cost. They think everyone has a limit; that everyone has a price. They think anyone can be bought, or that anyone can be leveraged into submission. The truth is, many of us can’t. Some of us have no price, and we cannot be compelled to comply.

We are the people that keep freedom alive, and totalitarians are terrified of us; gun grabbing is merely a natural extension of their fear and doubt. Wherever an oligarchy is seeking to disarm the population this is a sure sign they are about to grasp for even more control, and they are afraid that the population might dethrone them. And honestly, they should be afraid."

Friday, April 23, 2021

"The Shortages Of Everything Are Breaking US Supply Chains And Sending Prices To Unprecedented Highs"

Full screen recommended.
"The Shortages Of Everything Are Breaking US 
Supply Chains And Sending Prices To Unprecedented Highs"
by Epic Economist

"The US supply chains have been completely turned upside down during the past 12 months. Widespread shortages persist as the impacts of the health crisis, extreme weather conditions, factory fires, the blocking of the Suez Canal, a container ship shortage, and other logistics woes are still causing disruptions in both production and delivery of a wide range of goods. Prices, on the other hand, have been continuously climbing and hitting new record highs.

Many factors are contributing to the worsening of the supply chain crisis, such as the current global shortage of semiconductors. Chips have suddenly become a very scarce commodity, but their shortage potentially affects just about any company adding communications or computing features to their products. From video games and cars to cash registers and kitchen appliances, the chip shortage is also triggering the shortage of many other essential products, since every aspect of human existence is going online, and every aspect of that is running on semiconductors.

Even before the Ever Given got stuck in the Suez Canal, global supply chains were already being pushed to the limit, which, in turn, made it significantly more expensive to move goods around the world and sparked shortages of everything, from fitness equipment to cheese at a time of exceedingly heated demand. Over 80 percent of global trade by volume is moved by sea, and the disruptions already added billions of dollars to supply chain costs.

According to the S&P Global Platts, the median cost to ship a 40-foot container jumped from $1,040 last June to $4,570 in March. In February, container shipping costs for seaborne US goods imports amounted to $5.2 billion, compared to $2 billion during the same period in 2020. Of course, all of those expenses add up and they will be translated into increased risks of rising inflation - a nightmare scenario for Wall Street. Investors are worried the supply chain chaos may lead to the beginning of a new era in financial markets because a spike in prices could force the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates much sooner than expected. However, on Main Street, it means things are about to get a lot more expensive.

As US consumers get vaccinated and receive their stimulus checks, further increases in demand are expected to occur, but companies may not be able to seize the opportunity. According to a survey performed by the Institute for Supply Management, the supply-demand imbalances are likely to be aggravated in multiple areas as the economy reopens. Purchasing managers said their companies are already suffering from depleted inventories, price increases, higher rates of delinquent shipments, and longer lead times for orders. Many sourcing experts who are managing suppliers are warning that the outlook is grim: They expect disruptions to last for longer than 12 months.

On top of that, considering that in 2021 alone, US seaborne imports were up by nearly 30%, supply chain specialists are arguing that the rise in imports in the United States has contributed to a worldwide container shortage. Therefore, as the US economy opens up and the government continues to pump a lot of financial support into it, with $1,400 stimulus checks on hand, Americans are ready to spend. But in face of all the mentioned challenges, you should expect to see a limited variety of products, scarcity of a number of goods, and, evidently, exorbitant prices. In this video, we gathered a list of products and materials that will become or already are very hard to find. So get your wallets ready because the hyperinflation era is here."

“Housing Bubble Catastrophic; Uncertainly Ahead; Bitcoin Under Pressure”

Jeremiah Babe,
“Housing Bubble Catastrophic; Uncertainly Ahead; 
Bitcoin Under Pressure”

Musical Interlude: Jean Michel Jarre, "Oxygene" (Full Album Playlist)

Jean Michel Jarre, "Oxygene" (Full Album Playlist)
Trance music.
Please listen here so auto advance works properly:

"A Look to the Heavens, With Chet Raymo"

“Like Rubies Ringed With Gold”
by Chet Raymo

“Here’s a Hubble Space Telescope composite photograph of two colliding galaxies in the constellation Corvus.
Each of the three books of Dante’s “Divine Comedy” ends with the same words: “the stars.” The Inferno concludes with distant stars glimpsed through the narrow exit of hell. “We emerged,” says the poet, “and saw the stars.” The poet’s journey through Purgatory ends on Earth’s highest mountain, with the heavens seemingly not so far away. He is “ready to ascend to the stars.” Finally, Dante looks down upon the stars from above, from the luminous realm of Paradise. He has experienced “the Love that moves the sun and the other stars.” The beauty of that final destination, the Empyrean Sphere that encloses the created universe in divine brilliance, taxes the poet’s powers of description:

“I saw light in the shape of a river
Flashing golden between two banks
Tinted in colors of marvelous spring.
Out of the stream came living sparks
Which settled on the flowers on every side
Like rubies ringed with gold…”

Nothing in Dante’s experience could have prepared him for the splendors of the heavens as revealed by the Hubble. The photograph of colliding galaxies in Corvus is a work of genius in the tradition of the “Divine Comedy” – imagination in service to humankind’s loftiest aspirations and longings.

In Dante’s time, astronomy was one of the seven liberal arts – with grammar, rhetoric, logic, arithmetic, geometry, and music – required of every student who aspired to a university degree. Of all the secular sciences, astronomy was deemed most likely to lead one to the contemplation of things divine. Yesterday’s Hubble pic made the hair stand up on the back of my neck, which is about as close to the divine as I ever get. Dante’s “Divine Comedy” is based on the medieval astronomical conception of the world – a system of concentric spheres centered on the Earth and bounded just up there by the Empyrean.

In the Hubble photograph of colliding galaxies we see something akin to Dante’s paradisal vision, but it is not a cosmos centered on the Earth. Here are other Suns and other Earths being born, in prodigious numbers, massive stars destined to die soon as supernovas, and other less massive stars that will live long lives, perhaps evolving life or consciousness on their planets. We see in the Hubble photograph a universe of a fullness and dimension that makes Dante’s human-centered cosmos of concentric spheres seem like a dust mote in an immense cathedral.

Astronomy is no longer a required course of study in our universities, and it’s something of a shame. Who can look at the photograph of colliding galaxies and not be moved to rapture? An understanding of the size, age, and prodigality of the universe should be part of every liberal arts graduate’s intellectual furniture.”
Freely download “The Divine Comedy”, PDF, by Dante Alighieri, here:
Free direct download links:
Dante Alighieri’s “Divine Comedy – Inferno” (6.57MB)
Dante Alighieri’s “Divine Comedy – Purgatorio” (3.74MB)
Dante Alighieri’s “Divine Comedy – Paradiso” (1.89MB)

Chet Raymo, “When The Morning Stars Sing Together”

“When The Morning Stars Sing Together”
by Chet Raymo

“A Chinese proverb: A bird does not sing because it has an answer. It sings because it has a song. Which might be an acceptable epigraph for this blog. I can’t imagine anyone coming here looking for answers. Certainly, providing answers is the last thing on my mind. I would like to think you come for song.

We are, I think, by and large, a community who distrusts answers, at least answers that are vehemently held. We are made uncomfortable by stridency. By dogma. By the desire to proselytize. We wear our truths lightly, gaily, as a song bird wears its feathers. We are grateful to those who push back the clouds of ignorance and hold the reins of passion. With Blake, we sing their praises, a song we have spent a lifetime learning. We sing to celebrate. We sing because we have a song.”

"One Chance..."

“You get that one chance; and damn it, you’ve got to take it! If there’s one lesson I know I will take with me for eternity, its that there are those things that might happen only once, those chances that come walking down the street, strolling out of a café; if you don’t let go and take them, they really could get away! We can get so washed out with a mindset of entitlement – the universe will do everything for us to ensure our happiness – that we forget why we came here! We came here to grab, to take, to give, to have! Not to wait! Nobody came here to wait! So, what makes anyone think that destiny will keep on knocking over and over again? It could, but what if it doesn’t? You go and you take the chance that you get; even if it makes you look stupid, insane, or whorish! Because it just might not come back again. You could wait a lifetime to see if it will… but I don’t think you should.”
- C. JoyBell C.

"The People Have Lost Faith In The State, And The State Has Lost Faith In Its People"

"The People Have Lost Faith In The State, 
And The State Has Lost Faith In Its People"
by Charles Hugh Smith

"Democracy is fundamentally about advocacy: the people are free to advocate for their interests and form groups to represent their shared interests. In the broadest scope, the people are free to advocate for what they hold as the common good, policies and programs that benefit the entire populace rather than one special-interest group.

Since the state (all levels of government) concentrates wealth and power via taxation and a monopoly on force, groups advocate/lobby the state to recognize and respond to their interests. At the local level, this advocacy entails contacting city council members, speaking at council meetings, developing outreach tools (email lists, website, etc.), holding rallies at city hall, etc.

People advocate when they still have faith in their government. When they lose that faith, their only option is dissent. When advocacy yields zero results because government really only responds to corporations and the super-wealthy, then people lose faith in the representational branch of the state. Since advocacy failed, people dissent, protesting government policies, rallying behind alternative policies and demanding a hearing of their concerns and interests.

The state tolerates polite advocacy because it is easily dismissed, but it views dissent as a threat, and responds accordingly. The state's elected officials and unelected functionaries view citizen advocacy as an annoyance, but dissent is understood as a direct challenge to the state's monopoly on force and its concentration of wealth via taxation, and a challenge to the state's freedom to exercise its powers whenever and however it wants.

Dissent is thus intolerable, especially if it demands transparency, which threatens the cozy corruption of politicos and functionaries, or threatens the wealth and power of the parasitic elites that control virtually all the nation's wealth and power.

This study of political influence and state policy decisions found that the average citizenry had zero influence: "Testing Theories of American Politics: Elites, Interest Groups, and Average Citizens."

Note the difference between conventional wealth and super-wealth. Someone earning $500,000 is wealthy to the average wage earner, but that individual pays 40+% in taxes, so they net less than $300,000, and if they live in high-cost states and have elderly parents in assisted living and kids in university, their income available to lobby the state is inconsequential compared to the tens of millions of dollars corporations and the super-wealthy routinely spend to cement their political influence.

When the people realize advocacy is an empty promise of political influence and they move to dissent, the state's powers of suppression are unleashed. This includes the judiciary (one set of oppressive laws for the average citizen, and another for the corporations and super-wealthy), law enforcement and the security agencies, which are now in bed with the Big Tech monopolies which can effortlessly suppress free speech by banning or shadow-banning dissenters, all under the convenient guise of "banning disinformation."

When the state views dissent as an existential threat to its monopoly powers, it has lost faith in its own citizenry. Fearful that the citizenry might not approve of the corruption of political deal-making and the state's Imperial machinations globally, the state devotes enormous resources to hiding its actions, policies and intentions. Since the citizenry can't be trusted with the truth, lest they disagree with the elites' choices, whistleblowers are savagely punished and dissenters are marginalized, suppressed or silenced.

As dissent is crushed, the citizenry lose faith in the state's judiciary, law enforcement, taxation and security agencies - in effect, faith in the state is completely destroyed. Once self-serving elites control the state, dissent cannot be tolerated, as the parasitic elites' hold on power is illegitimate and thus precarious. This is why whistleblowers pose such an existential threat to a thoroughly corrupt, debauched, incompetent self-serving state.
This is how states and empires decay and slide into the dustbin of history. When the citizenry lose faith in the state and the state has lost faith in its citizenry, then everything become theater and artifice: the pantomime of elections, the carefully curated simulacra of "free speech," (free as long as you mouth the approved narratives), the flood of absurd promises (free money for everyone forever!) that can never be fulfilled, the tiresome parade of politically expedient fake-fixes, a central bank slavishly devoted to expanding already jaw-dropping wealth and income inequality, and a political leadership so clueless they believe their pathetic strutting on stage is actually persuading the audience of their competence and sincerity."

Gregory Mannarino, PM 4/23/21: "Dollar Dives, Inflation Rising... And You Have Not Seen Anything Yet!"

Gregory Mannarino, PM 4/23/21:
"Dollar Dives, Inflation Rising... And You Have Not Seen Anything Yet!"

The Daily "Near You?"

Aurora, Colorado, USA. Thanks for stopping by!

Kahlil Gibran, “The Seven Selves”

“The Seven Selves”
by Kahlil Gibran

“In the silent hour of the night, as I lay half asleep, my seven selves sat together and thus conversed in whispers:

First Self: "Here, in this madman, I have dwelt all these years, with naught to do but renew his pain by day and recreate his sorrow by night. I can bear my fate no longer, and now I must rebel."

Second Self: "Yours is a better lot than mine, brother, for it is given me to be this madman’s joyous self. I laugh his laughter and sing his happy hours, and with thrice winged feet I dance his brighter thoughts. It is I that would rebel against my weary existence."

Third Self: "And what of me, the love-ridden self, the flaming brand of wild passion and fantastic desires? It is I the love-sick self who would rebel against this madman."

Fourth Self: "I, amongst you all, am the most miserable, for naught was given me but the odious hatred and destructive loathing. It is I, the tempest-like self, the one born in the black caves of Hell, who would protest against serving this madman."

Fifth Self: "Nay, it is I, the thinking self, the fanciful self, the self of hunger and thirst, the one doomed to wander without rest in search of unknown things and things not yet created; it is I, not you, who would rebel."

Sixth Self: "And I, the working self, the pitiful laborer, who, with patient hands, and longing eyes, fashion the days into images and give the formless elements new and eternal forms – it is I, the solitary one, who would rebel against this restless madman."

Seventh Self: "How strange that you all would rebel against this man, because each and every one of you has a preordained fate to fulfill. Ah! could I but be like one of you, a self with a determined lot! But I have none, I am the do-nothing self, the one who sits in the dumb, empty nowhere and no-when, when you are busy re-creating life. Is it you or I, neighbors, who should rebel?"

When the seventh self thus spake the other six selves looked with pity upon him but said nothing more; and as the night grew deeper one after the other went to sleep enfolded with a new and happy submission. But the seventh self remained watching and gazing at nothingness, which is behind all things.”

The Poet: Robert Frost, “Acceptance”

“Acceptance”

“When the spent sun throws up its rays on cloud
And goes down burning into the gulf below,
No voice in nature is heard to cry aloud
At what has happened.
Birds, at least must know
It is the change to darkness in the sky.
Murmuring something quiet in her breast,
One bird begins to close a faded eye;
Or overtaken too far from his nest,
Hurrying low above the grove, some waif
Swoops just in time to his remembered tree.
At most he thinks or twitters softly, ‘safe!’
Now let the night be dark for all of me.
Let the night be too dark for me to see
Into the future. Let what will be, be.”

- Robert Frost 

"No Room For Cowards..."

“Life has no victims. There are no victims in this life. No one has the right to point fingers at his/her past and blame it for what he/she is today. We do not have the right to point our finger at someone else and blame that person for how we treat others, today. Don’t hide in the corner, pointing fingers at your past. Don’t sit under the table, talking about someone who has hurt you. Instead, stand up and face your past! Face your fears! Face your pain! And stomach it all! You may have to do so kicking and screaming and throwing fits and crying – but by all means – face it! This life makes no room for cowards.”
- C. Joybell C.

"The Road to Oklahoma"

"The Road to Oklahoma"
By Bill Bonner

"Slip sliding away,
Slip sliding away,
You know the nearer your destination
The more you’re slip sliding away..."
– "Slip Sliding Away", by Simon & Garfunkel

YOUGHAL, IRELAND – Colleague Dan Denning says inflation is already very pronounced in financial assets… and coming on strong in the commodities market. In his latest update, which paid-up Bonner-Denning Letter subscribers will receive later this evening, he provides the evidence from the last 12 months:

• Lumber: +265%
• West Texas Intermediate Crude: +210%
• Gasoline: +182%
• Brent Crude: +163%
• Heating oil: +107%
• Corn: +84%
• Copper: +83%
• Soybeans: +72%
• Silver: +65%
• Sugar: +59%
• Cotton: +54%
• Natural gas: +43%
• Platinum +52%
• Palladium: +32%
• Wheat: +19%
• Coffee: +13%

Slip Sliding Away: But let’s not get distracted… We’re merrily tripping along… on the road to ruin, admiring the attractive intentions with which it is paved.

As you’ll recall, the U.S. made a disastrous mistake in 1971. Egged on by economist Milton Friedman and many others, the Nixon administration changed from a more or less “natural” currency – dollars backed by gold – to a purely manmade one, today’s paper dollar. Paul Volcker, who was chairman of the Federal Reserve at the time, saved the new monetary system in 1980. Thereafter, it flourished, reaching a peak around 1999. Since then, the U.S. empire has been slip-sliding downhill… on the way to some sort of ruin. Now, we’re just wondering how we get there and what it will be like when we do.

Weird Stage: When the money goes, everything goes. Money regulates and calibrates the relationships between people. One is owed; the other owes. One must use his time to earn money – placing himself at the beck and call of the other… while the other can use his money to get what he wants. 

As the money apple goes sour, the whole social and political barrel is spoiled. First, things get weird. Then, they get ugly. We are in the weird stage – with strange new forms of “money” (cryptos)… strange new ways to get rid of it (NFTsoverpriced stocks50-year U.S. bonds proposed…)… and novel programs and policies – stimmy checks, lockdowns – along with a whole new level of the old-fashioned boondoggles and payoffs.

Yesterday, we looked at how business leaders are being pressured into taking their eyes off the ball… to focus on good intentions. Jamie Dimon, CEO of JPMorgan, says “the purpose of a corporation” is no longer just to provide goods and services in exchange for money… It’s to take into account “all stakeholders.” Presumably, the outcome will improve if management considers the wishes of non-customers as well as those who buy the company’s products.

ExxonMobil, for example? Shouldn’t it cease pumping oil, out of consideration for those who think the planet is dying? Surely, cattle ranchers are not thinking about vegetarians; shame on them! And here at the Diary, shouldn’t we consider the non-readers… and the feelings of those we describe as “morons”? Shouldn’t we stop saying what we really think and say what they want us to say?

New Era: Silly, huh? Oh, dear… dear… reader. You are as behind the times as we are. In this New Era, we all must pretend to go along with whatever great cause is fashionable. Diversity. Equality. Face masks. Save the planet. Yes, the road is laid out and well-paved already.

The corporate leader… the columnist… the TV interviewer… the politician… the neighbor – all must step along gingerly. One candid misstep, and he will be labeled a denier… and deleted.
 In this regard, here at the Diary, we have some advantages. We don’t need the work or the money. We have no reputation to lose. We’re not running for office or trying to attract a large audience. We don’t mind being wrong from time to time, and we don’t embarrass easily. So let’s push on…

Costly Goal: Here’s CBS News: "President Biden pledged that the U.S. will cut greenhouse gas emissions by at least half from 2005 levels by 2030, making the announcement Thursday at the virtual Leaders Climate Summit, a two-day global meeting of more than 40 world leaders hosted by the White House. In his opening remarks, Mr. Biden said the U.S. can reach the emissions target through his jobs plan – a $3 trillion infrastructure package meant to revitalize the nation’s energy grid and create a net-zero economy."

This is an “end.” A goal. It’s advertised as a “good intention,” something Sleepy Joe thinks is so important that he’s willing to sacrifice a substantial part of your wealth to make it happen. Yes, those “sweeping changes” will cost money. And there is only one place for the feds to get it – from you and other taxpayers.

You might say, “No… no… They’ll just ‘print’ the money.” But ultimately, every fake dollar is a claim on real time and resources, both of which are limited. The people who will be setting up windmills will not be flipping burgers. The steel used in the wind tower will not be used to build an automobile. And the savings put to work on the project will not be used to create profitable new industries, new jobs, and new wealth.

Higher Purpose: A real increase in wealth – that is to say, real progress – doesn’t need the feds’ money. It gets its financing honestly. There are, for example, 115,000 gas stations in the U.S. As far as we know, not a single one of them was set up with “public” money. All were win-win deals, built to make money, not to take it away. People bought gasoline to improve their lives. Likewise, electric vehicle (EV) charging stations could be built in the normal course of business; they might even be profitable, too.

But so urgent is the intention, that the normal rules that allow us to make our way forward – that is, the win-win deals that are the foundation of civilized society – will be pushed aside. Civilization is a process. It is not an end. It is a discovery… an adventure. It is the journey, not the destination. We move ahead, but we never know exactly where we are going until we get there. But the world improvers always think they know where they are going. They lay out their good intentions like milestones on the Trail of Tears – and force everyone to march along.

Yes, that was viewed as a worthy goal, too – in the 1830s – driving the Cherokee and Chickasaw tribes out of the Southeast, all the way to “Indian Territory” (present-day Oklahoma). And now… “The signs are unmistakable, the science is undeniable and the cost of inaction keeps mounting,” Mr. Biden said. Zero net carbon emissions! Two percent inflation!

In 1693, they knew Salem would be better if they hung the witches. Germany’s rulers in 1939 knew they would be better off if they had more Lebensraum. And wouldn’t the working classes be better off, asked the Bolsheviks, if we abolished private property and created a workers’ paradise? Of course, they would. There’s always some con… some crime and some flimflam involved. But it is always justified by the High-Minded Purpose… the goal… the end.

From Dream to Nightmare: The Biden Green Team wants to install 500,000 of these EV charging stations. Who will pay for them? Most likely, you will… one way or another. The feds already give a $30,000 tax credit to places that install the commercial EV chargers… That tax loss, naturally, must be made up, mostly by people who don’t “get it”… people who also don’t drive EVs.

Tax… print… borrow… spend. Every penny put to work on Biden’s Green Dream must be taken from someone else’s dream. And every good intention – when backed by the trigger-happy power of the government – becomes a nightmare."