Full screen recommended.
Josh Groban, “You Are Loved (Don't Give Up)”
So, we rise from the rubble...
Saturday, October 2, 2021
"A Look to the Heavens"
"These are galaxies of the Hercules Cluster, an archipelago of island universes a mere 500 million light-years away. Also known as Abell 2151, this cluster is loaded with gas and dust rich, star-forming spiral galaxies but has relatively few elliptical galaxies, which lack gas and dust and the associated newborn stars. The colors in this remarkably deep composite image clearly show the star forming galaxies with a blue tint and galaxies with older stellar populations with a yellowish cast.
The sharp picture spans about 3/4 degree across the cluster center, corresponding to over 6 million light-years at the cluster's estimated distance. Diffraction spikes around brighter foreground stars in our own Milky Way galaxy are produced by the imaging telescope's mirror support vanes. In the cosmic vista many galaxies seem to be colliding or merging while others seem distorted - clear evidence that cluster galaxies commonly interact. In fact, the Hercules Cluster itself may be seen as the result of ongoing mergers of smaller galaxy clusters and is thought to be similar to young galaxy clusters in the much more distant, early Universe.”
Chet Raymo, “A Sense Of Place”
“A Sense Of Place”
by Chet Raymo
“It would be hard to find two writers more different than Eudora Welty and Edward Abbey. Welty was a Pulitzer Prize-winning author of stories and novels who lived all her life in Jackson, Mississippi, in the house in which she was born, the beloved spinster aunt of American letters. Abbey was a hard-drinking, butt-kicking nature writer and conservationist best known for his books on the American Southwest. Both writers are favorites of mine. Both were great champions of place. I always wondered what it would have been like if they got together. As far as I know, that never happened. But let’s imagine a conversation. I have taken extracts from Welty’s essay “Some Notes on River Country” (1944) and from Abbey’s essay “The Great American Desert (1977) and interleaved them.
“This little chain of lost towns between Vicksburg and Natchez.”
“This desert, all deserts, any deserts.”
“On the shady stream banks hang lady’s eardrops, fruits and flowers dangling pale jade. The passionflower puts its tendrils where it can, its strange flowers of lilac rays with their little white towers shining out, or its fruit, the maypop, hanging.”
“Oily growths like the poison ivy – oh yes, indeed – that flourish in sinister profusion on the dank walls above the quicksand down those corridors of gloom and labyrinthine monotony that men call canyons.”
“All creepers with trumpets and panicles of scarlet and yellow cling to the treetops. There is a vine that grows to great heights, with heart-shaped leaves as big and soft as summer hats.”
“This little chain of lost towns between Vicksburg and Natchez.”
“This desert, all deserts, any deserts.”
“On the shady stream banks hang lady’s eardrops, fruits and flowers dangling pale jade. The passionflower puts its tendrils where it can, its strange flowers of lilac rays with their little white towers shining out, or its fruit, the maypop, hanging.”
“Oily growths like the poison ivy – oh yes, indeed – that flourish in sinister profusion on the dank walls above the quicksand down those corridors of gloom and labyrinthine monotony that men call canyons.”
“All creepers with trumpets and panicles of scarlet and yellow cling to the treetops. There is a vine that grows to great heights, with heart-shaped leaves as big and soft as summer hats.”
“Everything in the desert either stings, stabs, stinks, or sticks. You will find the flora here as venomous, hooked, barbed, thorny, prickly, needled, saw-toothed, hairy, stickered, mean, bitter, sharp, wiry and fierce as the animals.”
“Too pretty for any harsh fate, with its great mossy trees and old camellias.”
“Too pretty for any harsh fate, with its great mossy trees and old camellias.”
“Something about the desert inclines all living things to harshness and acerbity.”
“The clatter of hoofs and the bellow of boats have gone. The Old Natchez Trace has sunk out of use. The river has gone away and left the landings. But life does not forsake any place.”
“In the Sonoran Desert, Phoenix will get you if the sun, snakes, bugs, and arthropods don’t. In the Mojave Desert, it’s Las Vegas. Up north in the Great Basin Desert, your heart will break, seeing the strip mines open up and the power plants rise…”
“The Negro Baptist church, weathered black with a snow-white door, has red hens in the yard. The old galleried stores are boarded up. The missing houses were burned – they were empty, and the little row of Negro inhabitants have carried them off for firewood.”
“…the highway builders, land developers, weapons testers, power producers, clear cutters, oil drillers, dam beavers, subdividers.”
“Eventually you see people, of course. Women have little errands, and the old men play checkers at a table in the front of the one open store. And the people’s faces are good.”
“Californicating.”
“To go there, you start west from Port Gibson. Postmen would arrive here blowing their horns like Gabriel, after riding three hundred wilderness miles from Tennessee.”
“Why go into the desert? Really, why do it? That sun, roaring at you all day long. The fetid, tepid, vapid little water holes full of cannibal beetles, spotted toads, horsehair worms, liver flukes. Why go there?”
“I have felt many times there is a sense of place as powerful as if it were visible and walking and could touch me. A place that ever was lived in is like a fire that never goes out. Sometimes it gives out glory, sometimes its little light must be sought out to be seen.”
“Why the desert, when you could be camping by a stream of pure Rocky Mountain spring water. We have centipedes, millipedes, tarantulas, black widows, brown recluses, Gila monsters, the deadly poisonous coral snakes, and the giant hairy desert scorpions. Plus an immense variety of near-infinite number of ants, midges, gnats, bloodsucking flies, and blood-guzzling mosquitoes.”
“Much beauty has gone, many little things of life. To light up the night there are no mansions, no celebrations. Wild birds fly now at the level where people on boat deck once were strolling and talking.”
“In the American Southwest, only the wilderness is worth saving.”
“There is a sense of place there, to keep life from being extinguished, like a cup of the hands to hold a flame.”
“A friend and I took a walk up beyond Coconino County, Arizona. I found an arrow sign, pointed to the north. Nothing of any unusual interest that I could see – only the familiar sun-blasted sandstone, a few scrubby clumps of blackbush and prickly pear, a few acres of nothing where only a lizard could graze. I studied the scene with care. But there was nothing out there. Nothing at all. Nothing but the desert. Nothing but the silent world.”
“Perhaps it is the sense of place that gives us the belief that passionate things, in some essence, endure.”
“In my case, it was love at first sight. The kind of love that makes a man selfish, possessive, irritable…”
“New life will be built upon these things.”
“…an unrequited and excessive love.”
“It is this.”
“That’s why.”
“The clatter of hoofs and the bellow of boats have gone. The Old Natchez Trace has sunk out of use. The river has gone away and left the landings. But life does not forsake any place.”
“In the Sonoran Desert, Phoenix will get you if the sun, snakes, bugs, and arthropods don’t. In the Mojave Desert, it’s Las Vegas. Up north in the Great Basin Desert, your heart will break, seeing the strip mines open up and the power plants rise…”
“The Negro Baptist church, weathered black with a snow-white door, has red hens in the yard. The old galleried stores are boarded up. The missing houses were burned – they were empty, and the little row of Negro inhabitants have carried them off for firewood.”
“…the highway builders, land developers, weapons testers, power producers, clear cutters, oil drillers, dam beavers, subdividers.”
“Eventually you see people, of course. Women have little errands, and the old men play checkers at a table in the front of the one open store. And the people’s faces are good.”
“Californicating.”
“To go there, you start west from Port Gibson. Postmen would arrive here blowing their horns like Gabriel, after riding three hundred wilderness miles from Tennessee.”
“Why go into the desert? Really, why do it? That sun, roaring at you all day long. The fetid, tepid, vapid little water holes full of cannibal beetles, spotted toads, horsehair worms, liver flukes. Why go there?”
“I have felt many times there is a sense of place as powerful as if it were visible and walking and could touch me. A place that ever was lived in is like a fire that never goes out. Sometimes it gives out glory, sometimes its little light must be sought out to be seen.”
“Why the desert, when you could be camping by a stream of pure Rocky Mountain spring water. We have centipedes, millipedes, tarantulas, black widows, brown recluses, Gila monsters, the deadly poisonous coral snakes, and the giant hairy desert scorpions. Plus an immense variety of near-infinite number of ants, midges, gnats, bloodsucking flies, and blood-guzzling mosquitoes.”
“Much beauty has gone, many little things of life. To light up the night there are no mansions, no celebrations. Wild birds fly now at the level where people on boat deck once were strolling and talking.”
“In the American Southwest, only the wilderness is worth saving.”
“There is a sense of place there, to keep life from being extinguished, like a cup of the hands to hold a flame.”
“A friend and I took a walk up beyond Coconino County, Arizona. I found an arrow sign, pointed to the north. Nothing of any unusual interest that I could see – only the familiar sun-blasted sandstone, a few scrubby clumps of blackbush and prickly pear, a few acres of nothing where only a lizard could graze. I studied the scene with care. But there was nothing out there. Nothing at all. Nothing but the desert. Nothing but the silent world.”
“Perhaps it is the sense of place that gives us the belief that passionate things, in some essence, endure.”
“In my case, it was love at first sight. The kind of love that makes a man selfish, possessive, irritable…”
“New life will be built upon these things.”
“…an unrequited and excessive love.”
“It is this.”
“That’s why.”
The Poet: Theodore Roethke, “The Geranium”
“The Geranium”
“When I put her out, once, by the garbage pail,
She looked so limp and bedraggled,
So foolish and trusting, like a sick poodle,
Or a wizened aster in late September,
I brought her back in again
For a new routine -
Vitamins, water, and whatever
Sustenance seemed sensible
At the time: she’d lived
So long on gin, bobbie pins, half-smoked cigars, dead beer,
Her shriveled petals falling
On the faded carpet, the stale
Steak grease stuck to her fuzzy leaves.
(Dried-out, she creaked like a tulip.)
The things she endured!
The dumb dames shrieking half the night
Or the two of us, alone, both seedy,
Me breathing booze at her,
She leaning out of her pot toward the window.
Near the end, she seemed almost to hear me -
And that was scary -
So when that snuffling cretin of a maid
Threw her, pot and all, into the trash-can,
I said nothing.
But I sacked the presumptuous hag the next week,
I was that lonely.”
- Theodore Roethke
"Grave Faults..."
“Only the following items should be considered to be grave faults: not respecting another's rights; allowing oneself to be paralyzed by fear; feeling guilty; believing that one does not deserve the good or ill that happens in one's life; being a coward. We will love our enemies, but not make alliances with them. They were placed in our path in order to test our sword, and we should, out of respect for them, struggle against them. We will choose our enemies.”
- Paulo Coelho, "Like the Flowing River"
Paulo Coelho, "Killing Our Dreams"
"Killing Our Dreams"
by Paulo Coelho
"The first symptom of the process of our killing our dreams is the lack of time. The busiest people I have known in my life always have time enough to do everything. Those who do nothing are always tired and pay no attention to the little amount of work they are required to do. They complain constantly that the day is too short. The truth is, they are afraid to fight the Good Fight.
The second symptom of the death of our dreams lies in our certainties. Because we don’t want to see life as a grand adventure, we begin to think of ourselves as wise and fair and correct in asking so little of life. We look beyond the walls of our day-to-day existence, and we hear the sound of lances breaking, we smell the dust and the sweat, and we see the great defeats and the fire in the eyes of the warriors. But we never see the delight, the immense delight in the hearts of those who are engaged in the battle. For them, neither victory nor defeat is important; what’s important is only that they are fighting the Good Fight.
And, finally, the third symptom of the passing of our dreams is peace. Life becomes a Sunday afternoon; we ask for nothing grand, and we cease to demand anything more than we are willing to give. In that state, we think of ourselves as being mature; we put aside the fantasies of our youth, and we seek personal and professional achievement. We are surprised when people our age say that they still want this or that out of life. But really, deep in our hearts, we know that what has happened is that we have renounced the battle for our dreams – we have refused to fight the Good Fight.
When we renounce our dreams and find peace, we go through a short period of tranquility. But the dead dreams begin to rot within us and to infect our entire being. We become cruel to those around us, and then we begin to direct this cruelty against ourselves. That’s when illnesses and psychoses arise. What we sought to avoid in combat – disappointment and defeat – come upon us because of our cowardice. And one day, the dead, spoiled dreams make it difficult to breathe, and we actually seek death. It’s death that frees us from our certainties, from our work, and from that terrible peace of our Sunday afternoons."
"Everything is Up in the Air with the Economy"
Full screen recommended.
Dan, iAllegedly, AM 10/2/21:
"Everything is Up in the Air with the Economy"
"The Economy treads along as we extend our spending and avert a government shutdown. The banking problems continue as there are more online issues and outages. Everything is up in the air with our Economy. Today we are at the Pacific Airshow in Huntington Beach, CA."
"If You Look..."
"We have got some very big problems confronting us and let us not make any mistake about it, human history in the future is fraught with tragedy. It's only through people making a stand against that tragedy and being doggedly optimistic that we are going to win through. If you look at the plight of the human race it could well tip you into despair, so you have to be very strong."
- Robert James Brown
The Poet: Mary Oliver, "Coming Home"
"Coming Home"
"When we are driving in the dark,
on the long road to Provincetown,
when we are weary,
when the buildings and the scrub pines lose their familiar look,
I imagine us rising from the speeding car.
I imagine us seeing everything from another place-
the top of one of the pale dunes, or the deep and nameless
fields of the sea.
And what we see is a world that cannot cherish us,
but which we cherish.
And what we see is our life moving like that
along the dark edges of everything,
headlights sweeping the blackness,
believing in a thousand fragile and unprovable things.
Looking out for sorrow,
slowing down for happiness,
making all the right turns
right down to the thumping barriers to the sea,
the swirling waves,
the narrow streets, the houses,
the past, the future,
the doorway that belongs
to you and me."
- Mary Oliver
Greg Hunter, "Weekly News Wrap-Up October 1, 2021"
"Weekly News Wrap-Up October 1, 2021"
by Greg Hunter’s USAWatchdog.com
"The Senate held a hearing this week mostly about Afghanistan, and top General Mark Milley and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin answered questions. What a joke. The Senators acted as if this was all just incompetence when it was really a plan to turn over Afghanistan to terrorists and give them weapons and millions of dollars in cash. This was the plan, and to think otherwise is moronic. They had a chance to ask why Lt. Colonel Stuart Scheller has been arrested and thrown in jail for wanting top military brass to be held accountable. They also could have asked about the Affidavit of Lt. Colonel Theresa Long MD, who is basically claiming Army pilots she evaluates at Fort Rucker are a national security risk after they have been vaxed. Lt. Colonel Long says many are NOT safe to fly a war machine, but not a single question from Senators who are as big of a joke as the Biden military leaders. Don’t kid yourself, Senators know full well what’s going on, and not asking about these current burning issues is too stupid to be stupid.
The vaccines are not working and are causing more harm than good. This was reinforced this week with many pieces of data coming out saying the Vaccines are creating sick people, and the double vaxed are the ones flooding the hospitals, not the unvaxed. Senator Ron Johnson was out this week saying the vaccines are NOT working as advertised. Much more negative vax data coming from Europe too.
Congress has passed a stopgap measure so the government will not partially shut down, but economic problems are far from over. The debt is there and rising. Many market experts are calling for a crash. The problem is nobody is listening and thinks the Fed can keep it all going forever - it can’t."
Join Greg Hunter on Rumble as he talks about these stories and more in the Weekly News Wrap-Up for 10.01.21:
Friday, October 1, 2021
"The Stock Market Crash Nobody Thinks Possible Has Begun!"
Full screen recommended.
"The Stock Market Crash Nobody Thinks Possible Has Begun!"
by Epic Economist
"Things are looking gloomy on Wall Street. The stage is set for a ruthless stock market crash, but everyone keeps denying that this gigantic bubble even exists. However, the ideal setup for a crash happens exactly when people are thinking that a crash is impossible. Of course, the market needs a good number of unsuspecting fools to keep fueling the final rally and add to the gains of the wealthy while the minions are unexpectedly left empty-handed.
Now, most investors are still believing that this time is different. Few are brave enough to come forward and warn that a massive crash is coming. The vast majority of warnings these days are carefully measured murmurings about an impending "correction," but those are just euphemisms to signal to the smart ones that it's time to leave. That's what financial expert, economic analysts, writer, and former investor Charlie Hugh Smith has described in a series of articles published this month.
The analyst argues that those who insist on denying the risks are making a deliberate choice not to be honest because, in that way, they can lure more puppets to fuel the bubble to its highest point. On the other hand, those who have made great fortunes in previous booms know this peak only lasts for a second, and they know precisely when it's time to go.
That's why he is stepping forward to call for "a rip your face off, weeping bitter tears over the grave of the speculative wealth that you thought was forever" type of crash. The coming stock market crash will be a result of several mutually reinforcing dynamics, starting with the widespread illusion that everything is just fine and there's nothing to worry about in the near term. However, there are many determinants that could end up being casual triggers of the next cascading Wall Street crash.
As Smith notes, nothing can support the blind confidence in the idea that extremes of over-valuation, leverage, euphoria, and speculation will last forever, or even for much longer. "We're well past that benchmark into unprecedented insanity," he says. The only possible outcome from now on is The Collapse. The entire market has already reached its peak. On August 13, the Dow topped out. On September 2, the S&P 500 topped out. And on September 7, the Nasdaq topped out. Now, the big guys are just enjoying the last moments to reap their colossal gains before everything implodes. But no one is talking about that. No one is exposing what is truly happening.
Even though it's remarkably easy to be carried away by a bubble mania, it's remarkably difficult to open your eyes to the bubble's inevitable collapse. But this game has always existed on Wall Street: As the financial analyst explains, the big guys see that the top traders are in, "and in order to sell all their shares, they need to recruit a bunch of ‘bagholders’ to buy their shares and hold them all the way down". Once the catastrophic losses have been taken by the ‘bagholders’, then the wealthy controllers of the market slowly build up their positions amidst the wreckage.
"The only problem with the if we don't call the bubble a bubble, it won't pop magic mantra is that it has an expiration date," the expert warns. "Human greed is unlimited, the number of currency units that can be issued by central banks is unlimited, the number of NFTs that can be originated is unlimited, and magical thinking has no limits, but enough of the assets being inflated in the Everything Bubble have faint ties back to the real world such that the distortions in the imaginary world of infinite wealth end up distorting the real world, which is much less forgiving than the imaginary one," Smith cautions.
At this stage, the retail 'bagholders' are going all-in. Now, we're witnessing the final rally that is going to close this quarter on a positive note to make it look like everything is still right on track. However, as the retail crowd pours more cash into the Everything Bubble than they did in the past decade or two, the elites controlling the market have initiated their sell-off on the side, while repositioning themselves to profit from the decline. "This is of course the most reliable signal that the bubble is about to pop," Smith warns. While the cowards are setting things up to take everything from us once again, the voices of the brave ones are being silenced amid this frenzied crowd. The stock market crash nobody thinks is possible is right at the corner. And it will spark a catastrophe that will mark the beginning of the end."
Gregory Mannarino, PM 10/1/21: "The Debt Market Is A Time Bomb; Critical Updates"
Gregory Mannarino, PM 10/1/21:
"The Debt Market Is A Time Bomb; Critical Updates"
Musical Interlude: Marie Etienne, "Hymne Céleste"
Full screen recommended.
Marie Etienne, "Hymne Céleste"
"A Look to the Heavens"
"Stars are forming in Lynds Dark Nebula (LDN) 1251. About 1,000 light-years away and drifting above the plane of our Milky Way galaxy, the dusty molecular cloud is part of a complex of dark nebulae mapped toward the Cepheus flare region. Across the spectrum, astronomical explorations of the obscuring interstellar clouds reveal energetic shocks and outflows associated with newborn stars, including the telltale reddish glow from scattered Herbig-Haro objects hiding in the image.
Click image for larger size.
Distant background galaxies also lurk on the scene, almost buried behind the dusty expanse. This alluring view spans over two full moons on the sky, or 17 light-years at the estimated distance of LDN 1251."
"Surely..."
"It's 3:23 A.M.
And I'm awake because my great great grandchildren won't let me sleep.
They ask me in dreams,
What did you do while the planet was plundered?
What did you do when the earth was unraveling?
Surely you did something when the seasons started flailing?
As the mammals, reptiles and birds were all dying?
Did you fill the streets with protest?
When democracy was stolen, what did you do once you knew?
Surely, you did something..."
- Drew Dellinger
"The Definition of Insanity?"
"The Definition of Insanity?"
by Bill Bonner
"Everybody knows that the boat is leaking,
Everybody knows the captain lied.
Everybody got this broken feeling,
Like their father or their dog just died.
Everybody talking to their pockets,
Everybody wants a box of chocolates,
And a long-stemmed rose.
Everybody knows."
– "Everybody Knows," by Leonard Cohen
BALTIMORE, MARYLAND – "Politics. Politics. Politics. Surprise, surprise… Congress has found a way to keep spending money it doesn’t have on “investments” we don’t need. Here’s Politico: "The Senate passed a stopgap spending bill Thursday afternoon that would prevent a government shutdown come midnight and punt the funding cliff into early December."
This week, we’ve looked at how politics took over the COVID-19 debate; at this stage, neither real health issues nor “The Science” have much to do with it. We saw, too, how the debt ceiling fight is another example of pure politics.
With perhaps one lonely exception – Democrat senator Joe Manchin from West Virginia – no one seems to care about the nation’s finances… or whether the “investments” will really pay off (everybody knows they won’t). Here’s Senator Manchin: "I can’t support $3.5 trillion more in spending when we have already spent $5.4 trillion since last March. At some point, all of us, regardless of party, must ask the simple question – how much is enough?
What I have made clear to the President and Democratic leaders is that spending trillions more on new and expanded government programs, when we can’t even pay for the essential social programs, like Social Security and Medicare, is the definition of fiscal insanity."
The definition of insanity? Not exactly. It makes perfect sense.
Real Agenda: Politics is the dishonest way to get your box of chocolates. You just take it from someone else… and call it “government.” There’s nothing insane about it. It’s just theft. Everybody knows it. Ultimately, both parties have more in common with each other than with the public. They both want more power and money. They aim to get it from you. The battle between Republicans and Democrats is just a way of determining what gets taken from whom… and into whose pockets go the stolen goods.
The Democrats’ big-spending initiatives – $1.2 trillion for infrastructure… $3.5 trillion (most likely ballooning to $5.5 trillion over 10 years) for “human infrastructure” – are just ways to pay off left-leaning cronies, the rich, Democratic campaign donors, apparatchiks, nomenclatura, and other unworthies. This transfer of wealth is the real agenda of both parties. Not health. Not finance. Nor even national security.
How to Get a Raise in Washington: If any proof of that accusation were needed, we have the latest Pentagon budget as an illustration. Rather than concern itself with protecting the nation, the generals are mostly just “talking to their pockets.” Of all the government’s Elite Insiders, the Pentagon, perhaps more than any other government agency, has been corrupted by too much power and too much money for way too long.
Stumbling over its expensive weapons… led by incompetents… blinded by politics… larded up with excess of every kind – the Pentagon is probably more of a source of danger to the nation than of security. Its most recent enemy had no air force, no navy, no tanks, no military academies, no artillery support, almost no logistical support… It was nothing more than a bunch of ill-trained “insurgents” riding in the back of Toyota pick-up trucks, spending maybe a penny for every $100 U.S. forces spent.
Nevertheless, the Pentagon waged a costly war for two decades… and still managed to lose… Then it went to Congress and got a raise! Here’s The New York Times last month with the details: "Instead, the Democratic-controlled Congress is on track to increase the military budget by roughly $24 billion more than what President Biden had requested, after over a dozen moderate Democrats on the House Armed Services Committee joined Republicans in pushing through a measure to substantially raise the cost of the annual defense policy bill.
The amendment, spearheaded by Representative Mike D. Rogers of Alabama, the top Republican on the committee, would bring the total military spending budget to $740 billion, with nearly half of the additional funding earmarked to procure new ships, aircraft, and combat vehicles as well as pouring money into the development of emerging technologies and new military laboratories."
Big Winners: Giving more money to the Pentagon – is that the definition of insanity? Not at all. America lost the war… but the military/industrial/elite complex – backed by both Republicans and Democrats – came out way ahead. Richer sinecures for the generals. More profits for the “defense suppliers.” More campaign funds for the politicians who back the Pentagon.
But wait. We can still rely on our military when the real fighting starts, right? Wrong. Tune in on Monday… Our friend Byron King, former aide to the United States Chief of Naval Operations, explains why the U.S. will lose the next war."
○
Leonard Cohen, "Everybody Knows"
The Poet: Dylan Thomas, “Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night”
“Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night”
“Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.”
- Dylan Thomas
"The Greater..."
"The greater our knowledge increases,
the greater our ignorance unfolds."
- John F. Kennedy
"In a Dark Wood"
"In a Dark Wood"
by Jim Kunstler
"Behold the photo (above) showing President “Joe Biden” getting his booster shot of the Covid-19 “vaccine,” with the news media clustered to the left of what is apparently a stage-set built in a larger chamber. Do you possibly ask yourself: why bother to build a set for this event in or under the White House somewhere - including even fake daylit windows - when there are any number of actual rooms in the White House perfectly suited to holding this grand event in real daylight? What is going on here?
And, by the way, how do we know that “JB” is getting an actual mRNA booster? Or is it just 10 CCs of saline solution? Is not the syringe, after all, just another prop in the show? The video of this event was broadcast on cable TV channels and corporate media websites everywhere. None of them commented on the strange artificiality of the staging. And so, the mystery abides….
It only reinforces the creeping suspicion that absolutely everything about the “Joe Biden” regime is fake. And malevolently so. How else could it be that so many bad things are happening at the same time in this country if there was not some faction seeking to destroy it?
For instance, the vaccine mandates for medical personnel. In upstate New York, WNYT-TV reported yesterday that 200 employees of Albany Med, a large, regional teaching hospital, are placed on seven day’s unpaid leave prior to getting fired for refusing the vaccine. Andrew Cuomo’s replacement, new Governor Kathy Hochul, has blocked unemployment benefits for fired nurses and technicians if they persist in evading the vax. Doctors are included in the mix, too.
Of course, large numbers of health care workers getting kicked out of their jobs will only make it more difficult to care for patients - with Covid or any other health problem - so how does this policy help anyone? (Unless you consider that, with fewer staff on-duty, fewer Covid in-patients will be subjected to the medical malpractice of being placed on ventilators and treated with the killer drug Remdesivir.) Not only has effective early treatment with other drugs been banned from the official medical standards-of-practice across the USA, but mere talk about it has been banned, notably by Google’s YouTube app.
This coercion of health care workers is going on all over the country, of course, not just in New York state. These nurses and techs have been working around Covid patients for going on two years, and many of them have gotten the disease, with symptoms or without, conferring natural immunity. So, what is the point of forcing the vaxes on them? It is also a fact that vaccinated people are susceptible to catching the disease, and that, in any case, the vaccinated carry heavier viral loads than the un-vaxed, making them more efficient spreaders. It is also a fact that mass vaccination in the midst of a pandemic promotes the mutation of new variant viruses that increasingly are not affected by the vaccines.
Thursday night, CNN ran a segment with its house doctor, Sanjay Gupta, hectoring one Andrea Babinski, a La Crosse, Wisconsin, nurse who is quitting her job at Gundersen Hospital there rather than take the vax shot. Dr. Gupta, acting all perplexed, asked her why. Ms. Babinski said she was concerned about blood-clotting. Dr. Gupta dismissed her concern, saying, “If you’ve got a clotting disorder, you should get the vaccine.” Really…?
After the segment, Dr. Gupta and Anderson Cooper shook their heads in amused puzzlement over the nurse’s obdurate foolishness. They are apparently uninformed that the spike protein produced by the vaccine is known to bind onto the endothelial lining of blood vessels and promote blood clots, leading to a range of lethal events such as myocardial infarction and cerebral hemorrhage - heart attack and stroke - plus a broad array of organ damage and neurological disorders.
The Medicare Tracking System states that 48,465 people have died within 14 days of receiving a vax shot. Many had co-morbidities, of course, so not all the deaths can be directly attributed to the vaccines, but the public health authorities are averse to autopsies that might establish the truth of the matter. Anyway, the CDC has ruled recently that they will only count people more than 14 days out from a shot as being considered officially vaccinated — so none of those aforementioned deaths would have counted as vaccinated persons under the rule. Do you see how they are gaming the statistics to keep Americans as uninformed as possible?
Despite all the efforts to bamboozle the public, the “Joe Biden” regime has about run out the string on Covid paranoia, and wrung all of the political usefulness out of it. Going forward, it will only backfire on them. Do they think that wrecking hospital services while depriving thousands of health care workers of their incomes is a winning strategy? These are existential threats to US citizens.
Everything else under “Joe Biden’s” watch looks like a pyromaniac seeking to burn down the country. Over 10,000 Haitian interlopers have been surreptitiously dispersed from Del Rio, Texas, to nether regions of the USA. The government made no effort to vaccinate them - what does that tell you? Over 100,000 more invading opportunists from all over the world are reportedly heading to the southern border. A month after the fall of Afghanistan, and after this week’s hearings in both the House and the Senate, still nobody knows who gave the insane order to surrender Bagram Air Force Base outside Kabul. The Democrats’ dishonest “infrastructure” bill is wilting in Congress. Food and energy prices are rising fast, with shortages on the horizon. The capital markets are wobbling. And Special Counsel John Durham is back on the scene with more actions against Hillary Clinton’s favorite law firm, Perkins Coie, facilitators of the seditious RussiaGate campaign. Put it all together and you have a mechanism that looks like a “Joe Biden” toaster.
Off in a far corner of the News-O-Sphere, someone affecting to be John McAfee dwells on a Telegram channel labeled “OfficialMcAfee.” John McAfee, for those who don’t know, was the wealthy inventor of antivirus computer software who found himself at odds with the US government, went rogue, and supposedly committed suicide in Spain last June. Now, he has apparently turned up on this social media app in a series of videos and cryptic info drops. Whether he is actually still alive, or perhaps recorded these videos before taking his life, is not known. But he had threatened to release terabytes of digital evidence against his antagonists, including video of sexual misconduct among well-known political figures connected to the late Jeffrey Epstein, as well as incriminating documents from the DNC and the Hillary Clinton campaign files from 2016. Those info dumps have commenced and the figure who appears to be John McAfee in the Telegram videos says that the dumps will contain incrementally more shocking material for weeks to come.
All of this activity is obviously weird to an extreme never before seen in national affairs prior to the deep fake era - to the degree that reality is almost impossible to establish for now. We are a people lost in a dark wood. When you are lost, the first thing you must do is stop your useless, self-defeating locomotion, hunker down in place, and carefully assess what’s around you. Even if everything else is murky and perplexing, one thing is known: there is a way out of these dark woods. Remain calm and alert and it will reveal itself."
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Related must view:
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Gregory Mannarino, AM 10/1/21: "Freefall! Inflation Surges Higher Faster Than Forecast; Global Manufacturing Slowing"
Gregory Mannarino, AM 10/1/21:
"Freefall! Inflation Surges Higher Faster Than Forecast;
Global Manufacturing Slowing"
"The Streets Of Major U.S. Cities Are Being Flooded With Far More Drugs Than Ever Before"
"The Streets Of Major U.S. Cities Are Being
Flooded With Far More Drugs Than Ever Before"
by Michael Snyder
"An endless tsunami of illegal drugs is turning the streets of our major cities into desolate wastelands, and yet our politicians seem powerless to do anything about it. In fact, in some of our biggest cities the politicians actually don’t seem interested in doing anything about it. As I will discuss below, open air drug markets are operating freely right in the heart of New York City at this moment. Dealers and addicts go about their business without the slightest fear that the police will do anything. Meanwhile, the national death toll just continues to rise. An all-time record 93,000 Americans died as a result of a drug overdose last year. That was an increase of nearly 30 percent from the year before, and authorities are already warning that there will be another huge jump when the final numbers for 2021 come in.
Federal law enforcement authorities are trying to do what they can, but they know that they are fighting a losing battle. On Thursday, they announced that they just seized 1.8 million counterfeit pills, but in the big picture that is only a drop in the bucket.
Right now, federal officials are warning that more fake medications are circulating on our streets than we have ever seen before, and a very large proportion of them contain fentanyl. According to the DEA, the number of fentanyl-laced counterfeit pills that they have been able to intercept has risen by almost 430 percent since 2019… "Counterfeit pills are more lethal than ever before. The number of DEA-seized counterfeit pills with fentanyl has jumped nearly 430 percent since 2019. DEA lab testing reveals that 2 out of every 5 pills with fentanyl contain a potentially lethal dose."
This is one of the biggest reasons why vast hordes of mindless addicts now endlessly roam the streets of our major cities like zombies.
Full screen recommended.
Streets of Philadelphia, Kensington Ave, September, 2021
For these addicts, their primary goal in life is always the next fix, and what most Americans don’t realize is that “most of the counterfeit pills coming into the United States are produced in Mexico and China”… “Drug traffickers, both here and abroad, are increasingly using counterfeit pills to package and distribute the poison that illicit fentanyl is,” said Thomas Hodnett, acting special agent in charge of the DEA’s Philadelphia Division. Law enforcement officials say most of the counterfeit pills coming into the United States are produced in Mexico and China."
You see, the truth is that the drug war never actually ended, and it is being won by the Mexican drug cartels and the Chinese. And thanks to social media, counterfeit pills are now easier to distribute than ever before… "The DEA said the counterfeit pills - made to look like real opioid medications such as oxycodone, Percocet or Adderall - are sold on the street by dealers or online, including through social media platforms." “If you have a smartphone and you’re sitting on the sofa at home … your drug dealer is right there in your hands,” DEA spokesperson Anne Edgecomb said in an interview with NPR.
Of course dealers are constantly having to search for new customers because so many of their existing customers end up dying. Fentanyl is extremely potent, and it only takes a couple of milligrams to kill you… "Mexican drug cartels increasingly are manufacturing the pills with fentanyl, which is at least 30 times more potent than heroin and is fatal in doses of as little as two milligrams. “It’s everywhere,” says Robert Bell, head of the DEA’s Chicago field division. “They’re available in street deals, for purchase online, in schools. It’s very scary.”
This is a major national security crisis, because it is absolutely devastating communities all across the nation. But as I stated at the top of the article, many of our politicians don’t even seem interested in finding a solution.
In New York City, the Garment District has become a horrifying drug-infested cesspool… "The block bordered by 35th and 36th streets, and Seventh and Eighth Avenues, is “littered with used needles, broken glass crack pipes, trash, urine, and feces” as junkies shoot up and dealers brazenly sell drugs, lamented one neighbor on social media. “I’ve personally seen dozens of deals go down. I’ve seen a person OD and nearly die.”
During a single walk around the block last week, The Post witnessed three different people injecting needles in their wrists or fingers in the middle of the afternoon. Each addict sat on the sidewalk or in empty storefronts. Dozens of other junkies sat or lay nearly comatose, many of the men shirtless, on the same block. But instead of doing something about it, the politicians in New York have apparently told the police “to let junkies roam free”… "The NYPD appears to have only a token presence. Two cops stood on Eighth Avenue between 35th and 36th, leaning up against a police van while staring into their phones, as illicit activities swirled around them. But cops have been “effectively ordered” by city and state leaders to let junkies roam free, said Manny Gomez, a former NYPD sergeant and FBI special agent who now heads MG Security Services."
Of course whenever you have large numbers of addicts concentrated in one location you are going to see a spike in crime, and that is precisely what we are witnessing in the Garment District… "Crime in the Midtown South Precinct, which includes the Garment District, is up 41 percent this year through Sept. 19 compared to the same period in 2020, according to NYPD crime data. The most eye-popping spikes are in the number of robberies – which increased 189 percent from 97 to 280 – and felony assaults – which increased 151 percent from 131 to 329."
Sadly, New York is far from alone. For a very long time I have been warning that major cities all over America were being transformed into crime-ridden, drug-infested hellholes, and it is getting worse with each passing year. It has been estimated that approximately 23 million Americans are addicted to drugs, but nobody knows the real number. It isn’t as if there is any sort of a “drug census” that would give us a more accurate count. But what we do know is that the problem is bigger than it has ever been in our entire history.
We have raised entire generations of Americans to believe that their only purpose in life is to serve our soulless, corrupt system. Of course millions of people do eagerly get on the hamster wheel and try to grab as much money and stuff as they can because they think that they will eventually achieve fulfillment that way. But millions of others quickly realize that the game is meaningless and they search out other ways to make themselves happy. A lot of drug addicts didn’t start out as bad people, but their search for happiness ended up taking them down some paths that they never should have gone down.
If you are searching for meaning in life, our society doesn’t have any answers for you. Those that run things just want to control and manipulate you as they make themselves even richer and more powerful. It is imperative that we all learn to think for ourselves, because many of those that don’t learn to think for themselves end up being stuck in their little game for their entire lives."
"Economic Market Snapshot AM 10/1/21"
"Capitalism is the astounding belief that the most wickedest of men will
do the most wickedest of things for the greatest good of everyone."
- John Maynard Keynes
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"The more I see of the monied classes,
the better I understand the guillotine."
- George Bernard Shaw
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MarketWatch Market Summary, Live Updates
CNN Market Data:
CNN Fear And Greed Index:
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A comprehensive, essential daily read.
September 30th to October 1st, Updated Daily
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Financial Stress Index
"The OFR Financial Stress Index (OFR FSI) is a daily market-based snapshot of stress in global financial markets. It is constructed from 33 financial market variables, such as yield spreads, valuation measures, and interest rates. The OFR FSI is positive when stress levels are above average, and negative when stress levels are below average. The OFR FSI incorporates five categories of indicators: credit, equity valuation, funding, safe assets and volatility. The FSI shows stress contributions by three regions: United States, other advanced economies, and emerging markets."
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Daily Job Cuts
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Commentary, highly recommended:
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And now, the End Game...
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Oh yeah...