Saturday, May 28, 2022

"Get Ready For A Credit Freeze This Summer"

Full screen recommended.
Dan, iAllegedly 5/28/22:
"Get Ready For A Credit Freeze This Summer"
"The Fed is completely helpless to solve the banking problems right now. People need to protect themselves and know that there is a good chance that there will be several large financial institutions that will go out of business during this time."

Musical Interlude: Neil H, "Candlelight Dreams"

Neil H, "Candlelight Dreams"

"A Look to the Heavens"

“M13 is one of the most prominent and best known globular clusters. Visible with binoculars in the constellation of Hercules, M13 is frequently one of the first objects found by curious sky gazers seeking celestials wonders beyond normal human vision.
M13 is a colossal home to over 100,000 stars, spans over 150 light years across, lies over 20,000 light years distant, and is over 12 billion years old. At the 1974 dedication of Arecibo Observatory, a radio message about Earth was sent in the direction of M13. The featured image in HDR, taken through a small telescope, spans an angular size just larger than a full Moon, whereas the inset image, taken by Hubble Space Telescope, zooms in on the central 0.04 degrees.”

"The Point..."

 

"What The World Needs Now"

"In this difficult day, in this difficult time for the United States, it is perhaps well to ask what kind of a nation we are and what direction we want to move in. You can be filled with bitterness, with hatred, and a desire for revenge. We can move in that direction as a country, in great polarization and filled with hatred toward one another. Or we can make an effort to understand and to comprehend, and to replace that violence, that stain of bloodshed that has spread across our land, with an effort to understand with compassion and love. What we need in the United States is not division; what we need in the United States is not hatred; what we need in the United States is not violence or lawlessness; but love and wisdom, and compassion toward one another, and a feeling of justice toward those who still suffer within our country, whether they be white or they be black."
- Robert F. Kennedy, on the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr.
"What The World Needs Now"
by Tom Clay
"Detroit DJ brought this out early in 1973 and it was seen as 
a celebration of the message behind that spread
by John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King Jr. and Bobby Kennedy."

"Litany Against Fear"

"I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer.
Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration.
I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me.
And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path.
Where the fear has gone there will be nothing.
Only I will remain."
- Frank Herbert,
"Dune", "Litany Against Fear"

“'Preemptive Nuclear War': The Historic Battle for Peace and Democracy. A Third World War Threatens the Future of Humanity" (Excerpt)

“'Preemptive Nuclear War': The Historic Battle for Peace and Democracy. 
A Third World War Threatens the Future of Humanity"
By Prof. Michel Chossudovsky

Excerpt: "At no point since the first atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima on August 6th, 1945, has humanity been closer to the unthinkable. All the safeguards of the Cold War era, which categorized the nuclear bomb as “a weapon of last resort”, have been scrapped.

Vladimir Putin’s statement on February 21st, 2022 was a response to US threats to use nuclear weapons on a preemptive basis against Russia, despite Joe Biden’s “reassurance” that the US would not be resorting to “A first strike” nuclear attack against an enemy of America:

“Let me [Putin] explain that U.S. strategic planning documents contain the possibility of a so-called preemptive strike against enemy missile systems. And who is the main enemy for the U.S. and NATO? We know that too. It’s Russia. In NATO documents, our country is officially and directly declared the main threat to North Atlantic security. And Ukraine will serve as a forward springboard for the strike.” (Putin Speech, February 21, 2022)

Last July 2021, the Biden administration launched its 2021 Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) to be completed and formally announced in 2022. The 2021 NPR is to include what is described as a “nuclear declaratory policy of the United States”. It is unlikely that the 2021 NPR will repeal the nuclear options of the Obama and Bush administrations which are largely predicated on the notion of preemptive nuclear war raised in President Putin’s speech. The underlying US nuclear doctrine consists in portraying nuclear weapons as a means of “self defense” rather than as a “weapon of mass destruction”. Moreover, there are powerful financial interests behind the NPR which are tied into the $1.3 trillion nuclear weapons program initiated under President Obama.

Although the Ukraine conflict has so-far been limited to conventional weapons coupled with “economic warfare”, the use of a large array of sophisticated WMDs including nuclear weapons is on the drawing board of the Pentagon.

According to the Federation of American Scientists, the total number of nuclear warheads Worldwide is of the order of 13,000. Russia and the United States “each have around 4,000 warheads in their military stockpiles.”
Please view this complete, most highly recommended, article here:
Related:
"World War 3 Nuclear Weapons MAPPED: 
14,535 Nukes Exist TODAY In These 9 Countries"

Excerpt: "The last time a nuclear weapon was used to attack people was on August 9, 1945 in Nagasaki, Japan. Only a few days prior, a bomb was dropped over the Japanese city of Hiroshima, causing an explosion which killed tens of thousands of civilians and made thousands sick in the weeks after the attack. The two bombings remain the only use of nuclear weapons in the history of warfare - but countries continue to stockpile and hard the deadly devices. Between nine countries, the most current estimate suggest they possess 14,525 nuclear weapons - including those deployed, stockpile and retired."
Please view this complete article here:

The Daily "Near You?"

Nanaimo, British Columbia, Canada. Thanks for stopping by!

"The Definition Of Hell..."

 

"Mencken, Where Are You Now That We Need You?"

"Mencken, Where Are You Now That We Need You?"

"Henry Louis Mencken, The “Sage of Baltimore”, (September 12, 1880 – January 29, 1956) was an American journalist, essayist, satirist, cultural critic, and scholar of American English. He commented widely on the social scene, literature, music, prominent politicians, and contemporary movements. His satirical reporting on the Scopes Trial, which he dubbed the "Monkey Trial," also gained him attention."
'The men the American people admire most extravagantly are the most daring liars; the men they detest most violently are those who try to tell them the truth.'

"The demagogue is one who preaches doctrines he knows to be untrue to men he knows to be idiots."

"When a candidate for public office faces the voters he does not face men of sense; he faces a mob of men whose chief distinguishing mark is the fact that they are quite incapable of weighing ideas, or even of comprehending any save the most elemental - men whose whole thinking is done in terms of emotion, and whose dominant emotion is dread of what they cannot understand. So confronted, the candidate must either bark with the pack or be lost... All the odds are on the man who is, intrinsically, the most devious and mediocre."

"When somebody says it’s not about the money, it’s about the money."

"A professional politician is a professionally dishonorable man. In order to get anywhere near high office he has to make so many compromises and submit to so many humiliations that he becomes indistinguishable from a streetwalker."

"The average man never really thinks from end to end of his life. The mental activity of such people is only a mouthing of cliches. What they mistake for thought is simply a repetition of what they have heard. My guess is that well over 80 percent of the human race goes through life without having a single original thought."

"I have little belief in human progress. The human race is incurably idiotic. It will never be happy."
- H. L. Mencken

"And There Comes A Time..."

“Cowardice asks the question, 'Is it safe?' Expediency asks the question, 'Is it politic?' Vanity asks the question, 'Is it popular?' But, conscience asks the question, 'Is it right?' And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular, but one must take it because one's conscience tells one that it is right.”
- Martin Luther King Jr.

"How It Really Is"


"Strange Prices At Kroger! This Is Crazy! What's Next?"

Full screen recommended.
Adventures with Danno, 5/28/22:
"Strange Prices At Kroger! This Is Crazy! What's Next?"
"In today's vlog we are at Kroger Marketplace and are noticing a lot of price increases! We are here to check out skyrocketing prices, and a lot of empty shelves! It's getting rough out here as stores seem to be struggling with getting products!"

"An Empire Of Lies"

"An Empire Of Lies"
by the ZMan

"An informal metric for measuring the stability of a society is the distance between reality and the official truth of the ruling regime. The more lies the regime tells, the less stable it and the society over which it rules. Official lies are a good proxy for the degree of authoritarianism within the regime. The degree of authoritarianism is a good proxy for the level of official insecurity. The more thuggish the regime the less support it enjoys, thus the more it needs to lie to the people.

At the extreme end of this metric is a place like North Korea. The regime is deeply paranoid about everything. The Kim family does not trust anyone in the ruling class and no one in the ruling class trusts anyone, especially Kim. The one thing everyone agrees upon is they cannot trust the people. This is why they get images of the tubby Kim in heroic poses or stories of him making ten holes in one playing golf. The regime feels it needs to present him as a god to intimidate the people.

On the other end of the spectrum, you get a place like Switzerland that barely has a government relative to the rest of Europe. Many Swiss residents do not know who is currently holding the position of president. It is a rotating position currently held by someone calling herself Simonetta Sommaruga. The Swiss government has no need to turn her into a rock star or make while claims about her. The official truth of Switzerland is easy for everyone to see, so they have no need to lie.

Obviously, it is an informal metric that is subjective. An extreme case like North Korea is easy to use, but where would France or Germany fall on the scale? They are closer to Switzerland than Ukraine or the United States, but not so close that anyone in France would say they believe their government. In fact, that is the story of the West since the end of the Cold War. Every Western nation has moved down the scale of honesty toward the North Korean pole over the last three decades.

Lying has consequences. One lie begets another lie which then requires more elaborate lying to cover up the previous lies. This lowers trust in the state, but it also lowers trust in institutions and eventually lowers social trust. Step one is the lies erode faith in the ruling class of the country. Step two is people lose faith in the institutions for not having punished the liars. The final step is the people who wake up to the official lies lose trust in those who keep falling for the lies.

You see this with the school shootings. Generations of lying about the nature of crime and the role of guns in these school shooting, have made it impossible to have a civil conversation about the issue. The bodies were not even cold after the latest school shooting and the usual suspects were out in public telling the all too familiar lies about the causes of these crimes. The only thing that comes from this is normal people grow to hate these liars a little more than they did yesterday.

How many people watched President Biden speak about the Texas shooting? The answer, if it was possible to get an honest one, was close to zero. Joe Biden has been a promiscuous liar for generations. Now he is an incontinent zombie barely able to read his script. That script is written by the same collection of sociopaths that have infected politics since the Clintons blew into town. Even the sociopaths have lost interest in the production of these ridiculous theaters of mendacity.

Tragic outliers like a deranged lunatic going on a rampage are just part of the human condition, but can something be done to limit it? It feels like this stuff happens more often now, but who can know? The even bigger question is why are these obviously deranged people ignored by the people around them? The Buffalo shooter was ignored by everyone, despite the obvious signs. The liars fill the space with lies about the subject so that getting a straight answer is impossible.

Of course, the reason the liars exist is they keep people off balance. Official lying has been outsourced in what may be the most cyclical public-private partnership in human history, so that the rulers can just nod along with the symphony of lies. Biden’s script writers just go to one of the websites of the many organizations who exist to produce official nonsense and jot down a few of their lines. The mass media, of course, then blasts this and their own lies to the public.

One of the underrated aspects of Orwell’s "Animal Farm" is how the pigs used deception to create doubt among the animals. It reached the point where the animals could not trust their own memory. The other day, the Washington Post claimed George Floyd was shot by police. How long before school children are taught that he was hanged by the Proud Boys? More important, how many people will tire of correcting the record and this lie becomes official truth?

The official lies are not just about keeping the public confused. It also serves to keep the managerial class huddled together. On the topic of official lies, the classic Vaclav Havel essay, “The Power of the Powerless” comes to mind. Amazingly, the people who shower the public with disinformation, the official lies, claim to be fighting against disinformation, often citing Havel’s essay. The lying is an important part of their identity as a besieged group defending “our democracy.”

In the final years of the Soviet Union, the general public no longer believed anything said by their government. The people in government were every bit as cynical about the official truths, but they were paid to lie so they lied. What held it together is both sides were sure the other side believed the lies, at least enough of them that the rest dared not question the lies. The collapsed came when everyone realized that no one believed what they were forced to say or forced to hear.

Havel opened his famous essay with this line. “A specter is haunting Eastern Europe: the specter of what in the West is called dissent.” He then explained, “It was born at a time when this system, for a thousand reasons, can no longer base itself on the unadulterated, brutal, and arbitrary application of power, eliminating all expressions of nonconformity.” That was almost fifty years ago in a world that is largely forgotten by modern people, yet terribly familiar to us now.

The final sentence of that opening paragraph is, “What is more, the system has become so ossified politically that there is practically no way for such nonconformity to be implemented within its official structures.” One paragraph from a dissident operating in an alien system from the past captures the current moment in America. A decade later that system collapsed. That is what the sea of lies from our rulers tells us about what lies ahead. A regime built on lies always ends in collapse."
Related:

Friday, May 27, 2022

“Credit Cards Keep The Consumer Alive; Car Lots Are Dead; Home Prices Falling Fast, Home Sales Drop”

Jeremiah Babe, 5/27/22:
“Credit Cards Keep The Consumer Alive; Car Lots Are Dead; 
Home Prices Falling Fast, Home Sales Drop”

Canadian Prepper, “I’m SO MAD Right Now”

Full screen recommended.
Canadian Prepper, 5/27/22:
“I’m SO MAD Right Now”

"Supply Chain Crisis Turns Into A Nightmare As Shipping Crisis Push Prices To Stratospheric Levels"

Full screen recommended.
"Supply Chain Crisis Turns Into A Nightmare As 
Shipping Crisis Push Prices To Stratospheric Levels"
by Epic Economist

"The supply chain crisis is creating the worst logistics nightmare the industry sector has ever seen. The people who actually run the supply chain industry are becoming increasingly desperate as disruptions continue to emerge in every link of the system. A myriad of problems is creating new chokepoints, and backlogs, and also sparking chaos at ports all around the world. And a new survey has exposed the many challenges plaguing supply chains and why they are likely to stay broken for the foreseeable future.

Several supply chain data sources reveal that many professionals are having problems tackling supply chain challenges this year. It’s never been harder to find solutions that actually help to fix this fragile system. According to Blue Yonder's 2022 Supply Chain & Logistics Executive Survey, almost all businesses, or about 88%, have faced disruption this year, with over a quarter, or 26%, facing prolonged interruptions in their operations due to supply chain issues.

On top of that, at least 43% of companies are experiencing staffing shortages, and 38% reported that their production is currently stalled. All in all, 58% of businesses said their customers will be facing delays this year as the port of Shanghai restarts and the shipping nightmare begins.

“It may not come as a surprise that most businesses are facing supply chain challenges over the past year, but the research demonstrates that supply chain disruptions are here to stay,” warned Shri Hariharan, Blue Yonder’s corporate vice president. In the US, an unexpected explosion of demand, a shortage of port workers, an absence of available chassis to move freight, and a weakened transportation infrastructure for domestic deliveries have combined to cause companies to fail to meet production, delivery, and distribution targets over the past 12 months.

Complex issues require multifaced solutions, and significant changes take time to occur. However, supply chain market research shows that the majority of companies, specifically 69%, do not have complete visibility of their supply chains, and around 30% of companies don’t analyze the source of supply chain disruptions whatsoever. This means that almost 70% of businesses are in an extremely vulnerable position and are still at risk of facing further disruptions.

All of these logistics headaches have largely fallen to supply-chain managers to sort out, making their jobs far tougher and mentally straining over the past two years. For that reason, supply chain managers are quitting their jobs at the fastest pace since 2016 due to a mix of burnout and late payments. The survey also found that loss of talent accounts for 51% of supply chain disruptions.

As problems pile up, those who run the system are getting absolutely overwhelmed and many are just throwing in the towel and giving up. The widespread nature of the disruptions is going to keep the system clogged for decades to come. In essence, supply chains are only as strong as their weakest link, and the myriad of issues emerging across every sector of the supply chains have demonstrated that weak links are multiplying much faster than resilience can be built. In other words, as disruptions mount and the system crumbles, the countdown to the next supply chain shock has already begun."

Greg Hunter, "Weekly News Wrap-Up 5/27/22"

"Weekly News Wrap-Up 5/27/22"
Mysterious Vax Deaths? Gun Control Diversion & Food Crisis
By Greg Hunter’s USAWatchdog.com

"Every week we are seeing what the legacy/mainstream media describe as “mysterious deaths” or “died suddenly.” There is no other explanation ever given. The latest is actor Ray Liotta who “suddenly” dies in his sleep. As a reporter, the question is a simple why? What is the cause of death? Sometimes you get the family wanting “privacy.” It’s almost a sort of “Stockholm Syndrome” where the victims protect their abusers. In this case, is it the vax makers? Does it have something to do with the global experiment of so-called CV19 vaccines? Does simply asking the question mean you are an “anti-vaxer” or a “conspiracy theorist”?

The school shooting in Texas took the lives of almost two dozen people, mostly children. The Democrats wasted no time in making gun control their new campaign rallying cry, and, thus, creating a huge diversion for all the problems they caused. I guess they cannot talk about out of control inflation, record fuel prices, a failing housing market, sky high rising crime, a wide open southern border and the real possibility of nuclear war they are trying to start with Russia. Hard to run on that. Instead, they want to run on killing less people with guns while they fight to kill babies with unrestricted abortion up until the day of birth. What a campaign platform!

There is no doubt a food crisis is coming with planting problems in the USA, a fertilizer shortage and war in Ukraine restricting the export of wheat. Russia wants to make a deal to stop the food shortage in exchange for what it calls politically motivated restrictions by the West. The response by NATO and the U.S. is to send more weapons and money to Ukraine to keep the war going. Count on higher and higher food and fuel prices for as far as the eye can see."

Join Greg Hunter on Rumble as he talks about these 
stories and more in the Weekly News Wrap-Up for 5/27/22:

"Ukraine Is Losing the War"

"Ukraine Is Losing the War"
by Jim Rickards

"The propaganda campaign on behalf of Ukraine is remarkable. You would think the U.S. itself was at war with Russia. All you hear about in the media is how many Russian soldiers are being killed and how much Russian equipment is being destroyed. Videos are everywhere depicting Russian tanks being destroyed. You never hear anything about Ukrainian military casualties or see any videos of Ukrainian tanks and other military equipment being destroyed. But rest assured, Ukraine has suffered heavy losses in its war with Russia. Meanwhile, Russia is making steady progress in eastern Ukraine. Russia has taken Lyman (a key logistics hub) and is encircling the Ukrainian army in the city of Severodonetsk.

The Mainstream Media Can’t Ignore the Facts Anymore: Even The Washington Post is admitting to Russian successes: "The city of Severodonetsk, near Lysychansk, is surrounded on three sides by Russian forces. Over the weekend, they destroyed one of three bridges into the city, and they are constantly shelling the other two. Ukrainian troops inside Severodonetsk are fighting to prevent the Russians from completely encircling the city…"

The Russians can advance north toward Lysychansk and completely surround Severodonetsk. That would also allow them to go after larger cities in the region. Meanwhile, Bloomberg is now admitting that “Russian troops control almost all of Ukraine’s eastern Luhansk region.” One Ukrainian unit commander in this area concedes that the truth is being covered up for propaganda purposes: The casualties here are largely kept secret to protect morale among troops and the general public. “On Ukrainian TV we see that there are no losses. There’s no truth.”

I don’t report any of this because I’m pro-Russian. I’m not. I’m just interested in the truth, and the media haven’t been reporting the truth (what else is new?).

Sanctions: Apart from the kinetic war, there’s also the financial war against Russia. Sanctions included seizing the assets of Russian oligarchs, excluding Russian banks from the international payment message system called SWIFT and freezing the assets of the Central Bank of Russia. Sanctions also prohibited new investment in Russia, banned exports of semiconductors and high-tech equipment to Russia, banned Russian commercial aircraft from landing in the United States (except for emergency landings) and blocked exports of Russian oil to the U.S.

The EU, U.K., Canada, Japan and other allies introduced similar sanctions. Russia retaliated by prohibiting exports of strategic metals and other essential inputs to its adversaries and selectively cutting off its exports of natural gas to Poland and Finland. What has been the effect?

U.S. Is Losing the Financial War: That’s not going so well for the U.S. and its allies. Oligarch assets such as yachts and townhouses have been seized, but that’s exactly what Putin wants. Putin’s support comes from the military, intelligence services, the Orthodox Church and everyday Russians. Putin regards the oligarchs as potential threats, so he’s happy to see the U.S. destroy them financially.

The Russian ruble is actually stronger than it was before the war began. It was 80 to US$1 in late February and today is about 70 to US$1, a 13% gain. The Central Bank of Russia (CBR) is even cutting interest rates at the same time the Federal Reserve is raising U.S. interest rates. The CBR is even signaling they may cut rates further in the near future as a response to the strengthening ruble.

Most importantly, Russia’s trade surplus rose to $96 billion in the January-April 2022 period, which is more than triple the surplus for the same period in 2021. China, India and others are lining up to buy Russian energy exports in case the Europeans decide not to buy anymore. It’s not clear how Europe can make up the energy deficit that would result (they probably cannot in less than three years), but they’ll be paying higher prices in any case.

And despite all of the sanctions talk in the media, oil and natural gas are still flowing from Russia to Europe and Russia is still being paid in dollars or euros. These payments are directed to a special account at Russia’s Gazprombank and are not subject to seizure by the U.S. (although Russia is limited in terms of what they can ultimately do with the funds).

Putin Is the Biggest Winner: The officials in the U.S. and EU who are imposing these sanctions don’t seem to understand that basic commodities, such as oil and natural gas, trade on world markets. If Europe can replace the energy, they will have to pay the world price even as Putin receives the same world price from India or others. That’s how commodity markets work. The only difference is the price will be higher for everyone, including drivers and homeowners in the U.S., because of the boycotts and sanctions. The biggest winner is Putin because he’s a net seller, not a buyer.

The same dynamic will play out with strategic metals like aluminum, titanium, palladium, platinum; in precious metals like gold and silver; and in commodities markets for wheat, barley, and corn. The U.S./EU sanctions are causing disruption to global markets and imposing some costs on Russian citizens. Still the big winner in Russia itself.

It’s true that Russia has suffered a slight decline in GDP and mild inflation, but the U.S. has suffered far more. Prices for energy, food and housing in the U.S. are soaring in part because of the supply chain disruptions caused by the financial warfare started by the U.S.

Beware the Warmongers: It’s another case of the U.S. not being able to think even two moves ahead when it rushes into feel-good sanctions. The U.S. has said that the sanctions will not be lifted until the last Russian troops leave Ukraine. Well, the Russians are not leaving Ukraine. So, get ready for a lot more financial pain as the war drags on and the costs pile up.

In the meantime, we can only hope that the warmongers in the media and in both political parties don’t drag us into the ground war in Ukraine. Unfortunately, their rhetoric is increasingly leaning towards regime change in Russia, which will only back Putin into a corner. And a cornered autocrat, like a cornered animal, is extremely dangerous. You never know when or how he might lash out."

Gregory Mannarino, "Must Watch! Mannarino Epic Rant! Calls Out All Fear Pushing YouTube 'Crash Channels'"

Gregory Mannarino, PM 5/27/22:
"Must Watch! Mannarino Epic Rant! 
Calls Out All Fear Pushing YouTube 'Crash Channels'"

Musical Interlude: Alan Parsons Project, "Ammonia Avenue"

Alan Parsons Project, "Ammonia Avenue"

"A Look to the Heavens"

"Gorgeous spiral galaxy NGC 3521 is a mere 35 million light-years away, toward the constellation Leo. Relatively bright in planet Earth's sky, NGC 3521 is easily visible in small telescopes but often overlooked by amateur imagers in favor of other Leo spiral galaxies, like M66 and M65. It's hard to overlook in this colorful cosmic portrait, though.
Spanning some 50,000 light-years the galaxy sports characteristic patchy, irregular spiral arms laced with dust, pink star forming regions, and clusters of young, blue stars. Remarkably, this deep image also finds NGC 3521 embedded in gigantic bubble-like shells. The shells are likely tidal debris, streams of stars torn from satellite galaxies that have undergone mergers with NGC 3521 in the distant past."

"For This Is What We do..."

"What keeps you going isn't some fine destination but just the road you're on, and the fact that you know how to drive. You keep your eyes open, you see this damned-to-hell world you got born into, and you ask yourself, 'What life can I live that will let me breathe in and out and love somebody or something and not run off screaming into the woods?'"
- Barbara Kingsolver

“For this is what we do. Put one foot forward and then the other. Lift our eyes to the snarl and smile of the world once more. Think. Act. Feel. Add our little consequence to the tides of good and evil that flood and drain the world. Drag our shadowed crosses into the hope of another night. Push our brave hearts into the promise of a new day. With love: the passionate search for truth other than our own. With longing: the pure, ineffable yearning to be saved. For so long as fate keeps waiting, we live on. God help us. God forgive us. We live on.”
- Gregory David Roberts, “Shantaram”

"The Worst Part..."

"Our world is not safe. It is a toxic swamp populated by predators and parasites. The odds are stacked against us from the moment of conception. We survive only because we fight the elements, hunger, disease, each other. And, although civilization promises us safe harbor, that promise is a fairy tale. Only the storm is real. It comes for each of us. And we cannot win. We can only choose how we will suffer our defeat. We can meekly take our beatings, and die like lemmings, finding solace in the belief that we shall one day inherit the earth. Or, we can plunge into the chaos with eyes wide open, taking comfort instead from the bruises, scars, and broken bones which prove that we fought to live and die as gods."
 - J.K. Franko, "Life for Life"
"The worst part is wondering how you'll find the strength tomorrow to go on doing what you did today and have been doing for much too long, where you'll find the strength for all that stupid running around, those projects that come to nothing, those attempts to escape from crushing necessity, which always founder and serve only to convince you one more time that destiny is implacable, that every night will find you down and out, crushed by the dread of more and more sordid and insecure tomorrows. And maybe it's treacherous old age coming on, threatening the worst. Not much music left inside us for life to dance to. Our youth has gone to the ends of the earth to die in the silence of the truth. And where, I ask you, can a man escape to, when he hasn't enough madness left inside him? The truth is an endless death agony. The truth is death. You have to choose: death or lies. I've never been able to kill myself."
- Louis-Ferdinand Celineo
"In the movie 'The Lion in Winter', when the sons, in the dungeon, think they hear Henry coming down the stairs to kill them:
Richard: "He's here! He'll get no satisfaction out of us! Don't let him see you beg! Take it like a man!"
Geoffrey: "You chivalric fool! As if the way one falls down matters!"
Richard:  "Well, when the fall is all that's left, it matters a great deal."

"Fellows You Had Your Day..."

“Times goin' change again an' things too, and that great British Empire goin' change too, 'cause time ain't got nothin' to do with these empires. God don't like ugly, an' whenever these big great empires starts to get ugly with the thing they does the Almighty puts His hands down once an' for all. He tell them without talkin', fellows, you had your day.”
― George Lamming, "In the Castle of My Skin"

“Calf-deep in the soothing water I indulge myself in the wishful vision. I am not unaware of what such daydreams signify, dreams of becoming an unthinking savage, of taking the cold road back to the capital, of groping my way out to the ruins in the desert, of returning to the confinement of my cell, of seeking out the barbarians and offering myself to them to use as they wish. Without exception they are dreams of ends: dreams not of how to live but of how to die. And everyone, I know, in that walled town sinking now into darkness (I hear the two thin trumpet calls that announce the closing of the gates) is similarly preoccupied. What has made it impossible for us to live in time like fish in the water, like birds in air, like children? It is the fault of Empire!

Empire has created the time of history. Empire has located its existence not in the smooth recurrent spinning time of the cycle of the seasons but in the jagged time of rise and fall, of beginning and end, of catastrophe. Empire dooms itself to live in history and plot against history. One thought alone preoccupies the submerged mind of Empire: how not to end, how not to die, how to prolong its era. By day it pursues its enemies. It is cunning and ruthless, it sends its bloodhounds everywhere. By night it feeds on images of disaster: the sack of cities, the rape of populations, pyramids of bones, acres of desolation.

A mad vision yet a virulent one: I, wading in the ooze, am no less infected with it than the faithful Colonel Joll as he tracks the enemies of Empire through the boundless desert, sword unsheathed to cut down barbarian after barbarian until at last he finds and slays the one whose destiny it should be (or if not his then his son's or unborn grandson's) to climb the bronze gateway to the Summer Palace and topple the globe surmounted by the tiger rampant that symbolizes eternal domination, while his comrades below cheer and fire their muskets in the air.”
- J.M. Coetzee, "Waiting for the Barbarians"

The Poet: Carl Sandburg, "Four Preludes on Playthings of the Wind"

"Four Preludes on Playthings of the Wind"

The past is a bucket of ashes.”

1
"The woman named Tomorrow 
sits with a hairpin in her teeth 
and takes her time 
and does her hair the way she wants it 
and fastens at last the last braid and coil 
and puts the hairpin where it belongs 
and turns and drawls: Well, what of it? 
My grandmother, Yesterday, is gone. 
What of it? Let the dead be dead. 

2
The doors were cedar
and the panels strips of gold 
and the girls were golden girls 
and the panels read and the girls chanted: 
We are the greatest city, 
the greatest nation: 
nothing like us ever was. 

The doors are twisted on broken hinges. 
Sheets of rain swish through on the wind 
where the golden girls ran and the panels read: 
We are the greatest city, 
the greatest nation, 
nothing like us ever was. 

3
It has happened before. 
Strong men put up a city and got 
a nation together,
And paid singers to sing and women 
to warble: We are the greatest city, 
the greatest nation, 
nothing like us ever was. 

And while the singers sang
and the strong men listened 
and paid the singers well 
and felt good about it all, 
there were rats and lizards who listened... 
and the only listeners left now... 
are…the rats…and the lizards. 

And there are black crows 
crying, “Caw, caw,” 
bringing mud and sticks 
building a nest 
over the words carved 
on the doors where the panels were cedar 
and the strips on the panels were gold 
and the golden girls came singing: 
We are the greatest city, 
the greatest nation: 
nothing like us ever was. 

The only singers now are crows crying, “Caw, caw,” 
And the sheets of rain whine in the wind and doorways. 
And the only listeners now are…the rats…and the lizards. 

4
The feet of the rats 
scribble on the door sills; 
the hieroglyphs of the rat footprints 
chatter the pedigrees of the rats 
and babble of the blood 
and gabble of the breed 
of the grandfathers and the great-grandfathers 
of the rats. 

And the wind shifts 
and the dust on a door sill shifts 
and even the writing of the rat footprints 
tells us nothing, nothing at all 
about the greatest city, the greatest nation 
where the strong men listened 
and the women warbled: Nothing like us ever was."

- Carl Sandburg
“Gods dream of empires, but devils build them.”
- Jessica Cluess, "House of Dragons"

"Why We Are The Luckiest People, Ever"

"Why We Are The Luckiest People, Ever"
by John Wilder

"We are the luckiest people who have ever lived. “Why, John Wilder, you must be insane! Look at what’s going on,” you say. Well, the nice men at the sanitarium said that the whole “insane” thing was in the past, especially since the surgery. The doctor said the lobotomy was a no-brainer. But really I believe that we are lucky.

When you look at the state of society, we see an amazing breakdown. I chronicle that breakdown, week after week with this blog. We see our government falling apart. We see it brimming with fraud. We see our lives mocked and insulted.

We have the whole world against us. We are called horrible names because we have beliefs rooted in those timeless values. Even though they hate us, they’re more than happy to take the fruits of our labor – to tax and to take our productivity. Despite that, at every point our politicians again and again take the road that gives them power – a road that is rooted in evil and lies.

And the world? Many in the whole world have fallen for the lies, utterly. Timeless values are overturned in the span of less than a decade. In 2000, if young boys were dancing nearly nude in the streets, dressed as women, taking money from men, there would have been arrests. Now, the pictures are printed and celebrated.

This is not evil, this is the Evil of books for children, of such a caricature that they’re nearly comical. Charles Schumer? Nancy Pelosi? Joe Biden? Soros? Really? They’re so over the top Evil that central casting wouldn’t send them to a serious movie – they’d be given roles as the Wet Bandits from Home Alone.

Their tactics are no better. They brag about being tolerant while using the power of government and media to ruthlessly suppress any opposing voices. They use the levers of government selectively – citizens visiting the Capitol on January 6, 2021 is the worst thing that ever happened. Riots in the streets causing billions in damage, theft so brazen that stores pull out of major metropolitan areas? They celebrate that. Congress is used, again and again, to pass laws that push society away from values, destroy the family, and increase the power of the government over the governed. Oddly, anarchists and Antifa® applaud that, and celebrate things that even thirty years ago would be called tyranny.

They hate us. They are attempting to use the education system to make children hate the very culture and society that allowed the prosperity that they’re leeching off even now. They want to erase the history that built this nation and the heroes that tamed a frontier and invented entire industries.

Why do you think they want to destroy and desecrate our monuments? Why do they hate our flag? Why fill the media with propaganda? They want parents to fear children in a mirror of the Soviet era. They want to turn wives against husbands. They want to split the atom that makes up society, the family, and replace it with the state. Even religious institutions are rotting from within as the values of the Current Year replace the values that have proven themselves for over 2,000 years.

That, my friends, is why we’re lucky. Our backs to the wall, the entire world against us, we owe our enemy nothing. We stand by our beliefs. We stand by God. We stand by our families, our wives, and our children. We stand by the future that we are even now building. To win, we will need to show virtue, courage, and strength greater than any generation that has ever lived.

We will do so.

We are in a place to bring heroism back to our world. The future will remember us, not as the remnants of a world gone past, but as the founders of a world reborn. They will speak of us for a thousand years. They will write stories about us. They will write songs about us.

That is why we are lucky."

The Daily "Near You?"

Pahoa, Hawaii, USA. Thanks for stopping by!

Bill Bonner, "8 Rules for a Poor Life"

"8 Rules for a Poor Life"
How to lower your standard of living AND
 look down your nose at everyone else!
by Bill Bonner

Ouzilly, France - "We rented a car in Paris yesterday and drove down to the old family property south of the Loire. The rental – a new ‘DS’ from Citroen – was quiet and comfortable. But it kept nagging us – in English. “Beep, beep, beep… put your hands on the steering wheel,” said the message on the screen, even though our hands – the only two we have – were already on the steering wheel. “Beep, beep, beep…You are following too close to the vehicle in front of you.” “Beep, beep, beep…A seat belt is not buckled.” “Beep, beep, beep…You need to take a rest.” “Beep, beep, beep…You are exceeding the speed limit.”

“Damned electronics,” we said to ourselves. We looked for a way to turn them off… but we couldn’t decipher the electronic instructions. It was hard enough to figure out how to turn the car on. The ‘start’ button is hidden – in plain view – in the middle of the dashboard, where the emergency flasher button should be, not where you expect to find it.

U-blame: The deciders in France live in chic neighborhoods in Paris. They don’t drive very much. And they are happy to make life more difficult for ‘the people’ who do. ‘Drive more slowly,’ they command; “it will reduce carbon emissions.’ And save the planet! So, the speed limit on rural roads has been reduced to the point where you go along as if you were driving to your own funeral. Then, you speed up to pass the slowpoke law-abider in front of you, and your car talks to you as if you were a criminal. But remember, it’s for a good cause.

Here in Poitou, our farmer friends reported last night: “It’s terrible. Prices for fertilizer have gone through the roof. And we can’t find replacement parts for our machinery. ‘Ukraine… Ukraine…. Ukraine…’ Whatever the problem, it’s blamed on the Ukraine.”

Back in the US…“The days of abundant resources and farm inputs are over,” said our favorite tractor company’s CEO at John Deere’s “Investor Day” yesterday. Deere chief Sam Allen says the company is rolling out electronic gadgets that will help farmers save money. His pitch sounded like what you get on your boots when mucking out a horse’s stall. What farmers need is lower prices for fertilizer and farm equipment, not more complicated technology.

And high input prices are not just a problem for farmers themselves. Higher cost inputs inevitably reduce outputs… which will mean less food and higher food prices. Again, the deciders won’t suffer… but it is a life-threatening trend for the world’s poorest people.

A Wealth of Poverty: But that’s the whole problem with the “Poverty is the new Prosperity” hustle. The elite can afford a little poverty. Other people can’t. ‘Demand destruction’ is the term economists use. It describes the self-correcting phenomenon: how high prices cure high prices…and why inflation will take care of itself, if it is left alone. As prices rise, people can’t afford to buy so much. Because they are poorer. So, prices fall simply because there is less demand for goods and services. Less is made. Less is consumed. Prices fall. And less energy is used.

Two problems solved. And people adjust as necessary. They get by and make do. When they can’t afford steak, they switch to hamburgers. But now…“Even chicken is getting too expensive?” asks a Bloomberg headline. And the geniuses at the Davos Summit… where the elite of the elite… the crème de la crème… dine on caviar and chateaubriand, after telling the masses to eat less meat… have a solution for that too. Just go further down the food chain.

Here’s the latest propaganda from the World Economic Forum (sponsors of the Davos Summit): "Good Grub: why we might be eating insects soon. Per kilo of live weight, bugs emit less harmful gas than more mainstream farm animals. A cow, for example, produces 2.8 kg of greenhouse gas per kilo of live body weight. Insects, on the other hand, produce just 2 grams. They also consume fewer resources than traditional livestock. For each kilo it weighs, a cow needs 10 kg of feed. Bugs on the other hand need just 1.7 kg.

Water, which is becoming an increasingly scarce resource in some parts of the world – and which is used liberally in intensive farming – offers another interesting comparison. To produce a single gram of insect protein, you’d need 23 litres of water. That might sound like a lot. But to get that same gram of protein from cattle, you’d need 112 litres of water."

It sounds disgusting…but it’s for a good cause! And here at Bonner Private Research, we aim to do our part. Yes, we’re going to help you get in sync with the ‘Poverty is the new Prosperity’ claptrap.

Here are our ‘8 Rules for a Poor Life’:

First, spend money you don’t have on things you don’t need. Use your credit cards. Buy lifetime memberships in golf clubs and health spas – and die soon.

Second, give generously to the political party of your choice. It’s money down the drain, for sure, but it might keep those other SOBs out of power.

Third, ask your boss to cut your salary in half and remove the AC from your office. Sweat stains will soon be a fashion statement.

Fourth, buy cryptos… meme stocks… NFTs… and techs. Tell yourself that you are wisely ‘buying the dip.’ Then, wait for them to go down more. And put your dollar savings in a safe place. Keep them there, and guard them carefully, until they are worthless.

Fifth, learn how to make ‘grasshoppers a la mode’… and ‘maggot linguini.’

Sixth, on your tax return, check the box that asks “Would you like to contribute extra money so federal employees can live better than you do?” Of course you would.

Seventh, refuse all government handouts – whether for unemployment, Social Security or welfare. You’ve made yourself poor; you want to enjoy it fully.

Eighth, sell your car. Henceforth, travel only by bicycle.

Ninth (a bonus!): scrounge around. Find a discarded tent. Set it up under an LA freeway. Panhandle… but with a superior sniff. You need some money to survive… but now you have a social status higher than all of those who give you loose change.

After all, you’re saving the planet."

"High Gas Prices Will Destroy the Global Economy This Summer - End of Days"

Full screen recommended.
Dan, iAllegedly 5/27/22:
"High Gas Prices Will Destroy the Global 
Economy This Summer - End of Days"
"High gas prices will completely cause economic destruction around the world. It will create shortages to businesses, to restaurants and every aspect of our lives. Families will not be able to take vacations this year because they will not be able to go anywhere."

Jim Kunstler, "Childhood’s End"

"Childhood’s End"
by Jim Kunstler

“When you’re born you get a ticket to the freak show. 
When you’re born in America, you get a front row seat.” 
– George Carlin

"The phoniest trope in American life goes like this: We must find the cause of X so that it never happens again. Of course, it will happen again. We only pretend that the cause is a mystery. Let’s count the ways that school massacres happen.

American schools are fantastically depressing places. They are designed to look like medium security prisons and insecticide factories. They send the message: Enter here and be psychologically brutalized. They are too big, overwhelmingly alienating, ugly, devoid of visible symbolism signaling the value of being human. The interiors of the schools are designed for the convenience of janitors, hard surfaces of tile and linoleum that can be hosed down easily like the quarters of zoo animals. Children act accordingly.

The “facilities,” as we call them, are deployed in the illegible landscape of a demolition derby, separated from all the other activities of daily life, which themselves have reached a culminating state of meaninglessness: big box shopping, national chain franchise food installations, strip malls of empty storefronts, parking lot wastelands, nothing that will excite a child’s imagination with emotions other than bewilderment, anxiety, and aversion.

The “teaching” that supposedly goes on in schools is a broken remnant of preparation for an economy that no longer exists. We’re no longer a society of people who do things, but rather a society of people to whom things are done, many of them harmful, humiliating, and arbitrary. America’s demoralized teaching corps is so unhinged by their own anomie that they resort to imposing sadistic fantasies on the children in their charge.

Thus, all the inappropriate curricula around adult preoccupations with sex, such as the Drag Queen Story Hour, for which mentally ill men are invited to act-out impersonations of women-as-monsters for young people who can’t possibly be expected to make sense of the spectacle. (I suspect that even six-year-olds, hard-wired to function as successful animals in this world, understand it as some kind of affront to reality.) Otherwise, American teachers are out of ideas, and are themselves damaged by the same forces in culture that they are now asked to direct.

America has become a malfunctioning pageant without feasible roles that children can realistically project themselves into. What ten-year-old longs to become the Burger King fry-o-later boss in a brown apron and an asinine cardboard crown? Rather, they are prompted to aspire to become sports star millionaires, of which there are perhaps fewer than 5,000 positions in a land of 340-million. By age twelve, they probably comprehend the unlikelihood of that outcome, or of becoming the next Kardashian… or Spiderman. (Superheroes are supplied by the entertainment cartels to occupy the imaginative realm of children because American culture is bereft of reality-based roles worth aspiring to.)

In this tumult of cultural impoverishment, psychotic grandiosity creeps in. Be big if you can’t be anything else. Hence, one achievable role for young persons in American life is mass murderer. It is a way of becoming important, of having an effect on other people and society in general. Your name may be forgotten, but the act itself will endure in the collective memory of a people. It will be some kind of a mark in history, even better remembered, perhaps, than whoever played third-base for the Atlanta Braves in 1994… or the woman who once capered down the red carpet at the Oscars in a dress fashioned on a slaughtered swan.

The mayhem unleashed in a school shooting is just the rectified essence of the manifold derangements in our national life. Everything is out-of-whack, including our perception of what’s going on and what it means. There is almost nothing left of childhood in this land, in the way of young, unformed creatures assisted by adults who love them into a future worth being part of. We have forgotten how to be grateful for having come into this world at all, leaving us unworthy of being here. The quality of virtue, meaning that some things and some doings are recognizably better than others was deceitfully replaced by the equity of nothing being allowed to be better than anything else. Truth and beauty have gone outlaw. Bad faith and wickedness rule, led by the Party of Chaos. So, really, what do you expect? And what do you deserve?"