Full screen recommended.
Deuter, "Koyasan: Reiki Sound Healing"
Beautiful...
So, we rise from the rubble...
Saturday, June 18, 2022
"A Look to the Heavens"
“These three bright nebulae are often featured in telescopic tours of the constellation Sagittarius and the crowded starfields of the central Milky Way. In fact, 18th century cosmic tourist Charles Messier cataloged two of them; M8, the large nebula left of center, and colorful M20 on the right. The third, NGC 6559, is above M8, separated from the larger nebula by a dark dust lane. All three are stellar nurseries about five thousand light-years or so distant.
The expansive M8, over a hundred light-years across, is also known as the Lagoon Nebula. M20's popular moniker is the Trifid. Glowing hydrogen gas creates the dominant red color of the emission nebulae, with contrasting blue hues, most striking in the Trifid, due to dust reflected starlight. The colorful skyscape recorded with telescope and digital camera also includes one of Messier's open star clusters, M21, just above the Trifid.”
- http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html
"Everything passes away - suffering, pain, blood, hunger, pestilence. The sword will pass away too, but the stars will still remain when the shadows of our presence and our deeds have vanished from the earth. There is no man who does not know that. Why, then, will we not turn our eyes towards the stars? Why?"
- Mikhail Bulgakov, "The White Guard"
"Swindling...:
"The principle of spending money to be paid by posterity, under
the name of funding, is but swindling futurity on a large scale."
– Thomas Jefferson, “Letter to John Taylor,” May 28, 1816
"The Truth Virus: The Most Dangerous Virus in the World"
"The Truth Virus:
The Most Dangerous Virus in the World"
by DogPoet
"I’ve got a virus. It doesn’t have a common name because it isn’t a common virus. It’s difficult to catch this virus because there are only so many ways for it to enter your system. You can catch it as a result of extreme trauma which results in all of your defenses being shut down. This includes all subconscious resistance and all systemic defenses. You can catch it as a result of long term abuse. This includes abuse visited upon you or abuse you visit on yourself. Often this abuse comes about because the virus is already looking for a foothold and it will attract one of these two kinds of abuse. You can catch it through diligent and repeated efforts to catch it, in an environment of quietude, created by a relentless persistence of the mind to cease from the production of thought. There are a few other ways.
Once you’ve got this virus there’s no cure for it. Every cell in your body is going to be replaced and the world will gradually- and sometimes not so gradually- take on the appearance of an insane asylum, while also becoming remarkably predictable. People think insanity is unpredictable but that’s just one of the illusions that are part of the ordinary mindset of the collectively insane.
There’s a lot of news, noise and argument about Howdy Doody’s comprehensive health plan for the Teletubbies. Most people think that some permutation of universal health care is going to be a major step up for American society. They seem to think that having it is somehow going to lead to a more general state of well being among the population. There are several reasons why this isn’t going to make the slightest difference no matter what kind of a program finally gets decided on.
It doesn’t really matter whether you can see a doctor of your choice or not and have some amount of it paid for. It isn’t going to have any positive effect on your health. Health is the result of a few basic things and one of them is youth. The other things are diet and ones mental and emotional state. An awareness of ones relationship to all of these leads to making the right decisions about how one lives their life. A conscious awareness of diet has a profound effect on one’s well being. One’s mental and emotional states also play significant roles. One needs only to study how many stress-related diseases there are to understand this. If you factor bad diet into unbalanced mental and emotional states you’ve got a problem no doctor can deal with, especially if your medical system is of the allopathic variety.
The people who decide what doctors can and cannot do and what doctors can and cannot tell you are permanent bed-partners with various corporations for whom good health is a bad thing. These are the pharmaceutical concerns; the AMA, the hospital equipment industry and related suppliers of related products. These corporations have another relationship with the various food industries in the sense that they will not write or permit policy that impinges on major enterprises that bring you processed foods, fast foods, mystery meats, candy and soft drinks and whatever else hides under that umbrella. What this means is that, according to the capitalist mentality that rules this society, it is possible; it has to be possible and it damn well will be possible to eat anything you want, avoid exercise and generally break any and every rule of intelligent behavior and if there’s a problem they will either cut it out of you or suppress the symptoms until they have to cut it out of you.
Because the will of corporations is the rule of the land, there will be no change in the profit line for participating corporations. What will change will be the language that the non-change is presented in. To see into the black heart of the system in charge of American life you have only to look into the prison industry where 5% of the American public and 25% of the world’s prison population are incarcerated in American prisons. Why is this? It’s a business. Is it coincidence that America uses 60% of the world’s resources as well?
The unstated objective of American society is that a small percentage of its members shall possess the greatest amount of wealth at the expense of everyone else and will then be lauded for their efforts to assist the less fortunate where no such efforts exist. Such a system cannot survive and will not survive and is presently at the state where a number of shell games are being used to give the impression that the system is doing fine (nicely recovering from a bad scare) and going to get better as it approaches the lip of a high cliff. As things begin to fall from the cliff, you will see charts and graphs appear that indicate the true state and direction of the culture and economy but they will probably be holding these charts and graphs upside down.
I see these things and many other things because I have this virus. Others have this virus too and many more are on the verge of infection. The biggest concern of the TPTB is the proliferation of this virus. Their concern about all other viruses, which they manufactured to begin with, is just Slim Shady dining at the Red Herring Restaurant.
With this virus I can see that the appetites and desires being milked by corporations in order to promote and sell their products leads directly to aberrant behavior which leads to the prison industry for those who are not making the laws that route the unfortunate toward the prison or the grave with that long interlude of enslavement at the looping track of life where they chase the uncatchable dream rabbit that is already steaming in the pot of their betters.
With this virus I can look directly at the lies of politicians and religious leaders and hear the truth that spotlights the pies around the corner and their relationship to the pies in the sky which are moving on conveyor belts behind unbreakable Plexiglas. I can see that there are no pies because the pies are only video projections of pies bounced off of a series of mirrors. I can see the people who do no have the virus and I can see the world they are looking at and it turns out that this world is also just a projection bouncing off of mirrors and one of those mirrors is their minds. These projections then activate the furnace in the visceral brain which causes those without the virus to dance like millions of chickens on a hot griddle that somehow got the impression that they are auditioning for American Idol.
It is not possible to create a society, based on the principles that some of us have read and most of us have heard about, when corporations are the ruling authority of the land, because the intent of a corporation is diametrically opposed to the principles that some of us have read and most of us have heard about. You can’t make Beef Stroganoff out of pork rinds and Velveeta but you can convince people that that is what they are eating and that is the point.
There’s a debate that has been going around since Cain brained Abel and that debate centers on whether it is better to have this virus or some form of all the other viruses. The awareness that comes with having this virus can lead to the rack, the auto da fe and other less pleasant locations. Having the other viruses can lead to being a hamster or some part of a compost pile and a fire burns there as well. They can lead to being cannon fodder and the merciless hands of those who practice a form of medicine that has little to do with the stated intentions of the art. The hands of these practitioners are often more dangerous than the problem that brought you there.
Most people spend more than ninety percent of everything they have saved in their lives in the last year of their life on an industry whose purpose is exactly for that reason.
This virus of mine- and perhaps you have it too- is not an easy burden to bear. You can never pull the covers over your head again. You know there’s no monster in the closet but you also know where the real monsters dwell. You are doomed to an unending quarantine even as you move among your fellows. One thing you do acquire as a result of this virus is compassion and, as Lao Tzu said long ago, “Compassion is a weapon from the sky against being dead.” Realization may not be all the things we imagine it to be, but it is preferable to the restless sleep of nightmares wielded by the whip hand of psychopaths."
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Full screen recommended.
"They Live, Sunglasses"
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"Let me tell you why you're here. You're here because you know something. What you know you can't explain, but you feel it. You've felt it your entire life, that there's something wrong with the world. You don't know what it is, but it's there, like a splinter in your mind, driving you mad. It is this feeling that has brought you to me. Do you know what I'm talking about?"
- Morpheus
Free Download: Richard Bach, "Illusions, The Adventures Of A Reluctant Messiah"
"We Are All. Free. To Do. Whatever. We Want. To Do.”
by Richard Bach
“We are all free to do whatever we want to do,” he said that night. “Isn’t that simple and clean and clear? Isn’t that a great way to run a universe?” “Almost. You forgot a pretty important part,” I said. “Oh?” “We are all free to do what we want to do, as long as we don’t hurt somebody else,” I chided. “I know you meant that, but you ought to say what you mean.”
There was a sudden shambling sound in the dark, and I looked at him quickly. “Did you hear that?” “Yeah. Sounds like there’s somebody…” He got up, walked into the dark. He laughed suddenly, said a name I couldn’t catch. “It’s OK,” I heard him say. “No, we’d be glad to have you… no need you standing around… come on, you’re welcome, really…”
The voice was heavily accented, not quite Russian, nor Czech, more Transylvanian. “Thank you. I do not wish to impose myself upon your evening…” The man he brought with him to the firelight was, well, he was unusual to find in a midwest night. A small lean wolflike fellow, frightening to the eye, dressed in evening clothes, a black cape lined in red satin, he was uncomfortable in the light.
“I was passing by,” he said. “The field is a shortcut to my house…” “Is it?” Shimoda did not believe the man, knew he was lying, and at the same time did all he could to keep from laughing out loud. I hoped to understand before long.
“Make yourself comfortable,” I said. “Can we help you at all?” I really didn’t feel that helpful, but he was so shrinking, I did want him to be at ease, if he could. He looked on me with a desperate smile that turned me to ice. “Yes, you can help me. I need this very much or I would not ask. May I drink your blood? Just some? It is my food, I need human blood…”
Maybe it was the accent, he didn’t know English that well or I didn’t understand his words, but I was on my feet quicker than I had been in many a month, hay flying into the fire from my quickness. The man stepped back. I am generally harmless, but I am not a small person and I could have looked threatening. He turned his head away. “Sir, I am sorry! I am sorry! Please forget that I said anything about blood! But you see…”
“What are you saying?” I was the more fierce because I was scared. “What in the hell are you saying, mister? I don’t know what you are, are you some kind of VAM-?” Shimoda cut me off before I could say the word. “Richard, our guest was talking, and you interrupted. Please go ahead, sir; my friend is a little hasty.” “Donald,” I said, “this guy…” “Be quiet!” That surprised me so much that I was quiet, and looked a sort of terrified question at the man, caught from his native darkness into our firelight.
“Please to understand. I did not choose to be born vampire. Is unfortunate. I do not have many friends. But I must have a certain small amount of fresh blood every night or I writhe in terrible pain, longer than that without it and I cannot live! Please, I will be deeply hurt – I will die – if you do not allow me to suck your blood… just a small amount, more than a pint I do not need.” He advanced a step toward me, licking his lips, thinking that Shimoda somehow controlled me and would make me submit.
“One more step and there will be blood, all right. Mister, you touch me and you die…” I wouldn’t have killed him, but I did want to tie him up, at least, before we talked much more. He must have believed me, for he stopped and sighed. He turned to Shimoda. “You have made your point?” “I think so. Thank you.”
The vampire looked up at me and smiled, completely at ease, enjoying himself hugely, an actor on stage when the show is over. “I won’t drink your blood, Richard,” he said in perfect friendly English, no accent at all. As I watched he faded as though he was turning out his own light… in five seconds he had disappeared.
Shimoda sat down again by the fire. “Am I ever glad you don’t mean what you say!” I was still trembling with adrenalin, ready for my fight with a monster. “Don, I’m not sure I’m built for this. Maybe you’d better tell me what’s going on. Like, for instance, what… was that?”
“Dot was a wompire from Tronsylwania,” he said in words thicker than the creature’s own. “Or to be more precise, dot was a thought-form of a wompire from Tronsylwania. If you ever want to make a point, you think somebody isn’t listening, whip ‘em up a little thought-form to demonstrate what you mean. Do you think I overdid him, with the cape and the fangs and the accent like that? Was he too scary for you?”
“The cape was first class, Don. But that was the most stereotyped, outlandish… I wasn’t scared at all.” He sighed. “Oh well. But you got the point, at least, and that’s what matters.”
“What point?” “Richard, in being so fierce toward my vampire, you were doing what you wanted to do, even though you thought it was going to hurt somebody else. He even told you he’d be hurt if…”
“He was going to suck my blood!” “Which is what we do to anyone when we say we’ll be hurt if they don’t live our way.”
I was quiet for a long time, thinking about that. I had always believed that we are free to do as we please only if we don’t hurt another, and this didn’t fit. There was something missing.
“The thing that puzzles you,” he said, “is an accepted saying that happens to be impossible. The phrase is hurt somebody else. We choose, ourselves, to be hurt or not to be hurt, no matter what. Us who decides. Nobody else. My vampire told you he’d be hurt if you didn’t let him? That’s his decision to be hurt, that’s his choice. What you do about it is your decision, your choice: give him blood; ignore him; tie him up; drive a stake of holly through his heart. If he doesn’t want the holly stake, he’s free to resist, in whatever way he wants. It goes on and on, choices, choices.”
“When you look at it that way…”
“Listen,” he said, “it’s important. We are all. Free. To do. Whatever. We want. To do.“
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“Illusions: The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah”
by Richard Bach
“Born in 1936, Richard Bach is an American author who has written many excellent books. His quotes are inspirational and motivational. “Jonathan Livingston Seagull;” “Illusions;” “The Bridge Across Forever;” to name only a few of his books.
Notice: This electronic version of the book has been released for educational purposes only. You may not sell or make any profit from this book. And if you like this book, buy a paper copy and give it to someone who does not have a computer, if that is possible for you.
FREELY download “Illusions”, in PDF format, is here:
"Mortgage Rates Explode and Housing Crash Imminent"
Full screen recommended.
Dan, iAllegedly 6/18/22:
"Mortgage Rates Explode and Housing Crash Imminent -
With Scott Walters and The Economic Ninja"
"We have a great show today where we brought Scott Walters Realtor USA and the one and only Economic Ninja to discuss real estate. We cover everything from for closures, loans, what are the markets headed and what you should do."
Comments here:
"Putin’s Speech on Friday is A Red-Pill Machine-Gun"
"Putin’s Speech on Friday is A Red-Pill Machine-Gun"
by Chris Black
"Blind idiocy on the part of the EU, cutting off their noses to spite their faces, is difficult to understand without the addition of an evil hand behind the curtain, intentionally driving the western nations to oblivion. There is no stupidity so accurately focused on our collective demise.
"As Russian President has claimed, Moscow is ready to talk about normalizing logistics and transportation, as well as increasing exports of fertilizer and food, with ‘people who understand what’s going to happen’, despite speculations about Russia blocking Ukrainian deliveries." pic.twitter.com/0bCDj7LsNU
- RT (@RT_com) June 17, 2022
You cannot watch this in the “Free World” because these are our values. It’s who we are.
It is clear why they waged this propaganda campaign, what all these spells about 200-to-1 ruble-dollar exchange rates and claims that our economy would collapse were all about. All this was – and remains – a tool in the information warfare, an attempt to put psychological pressure on Russian society, some global currencies are committing suicide. Such a detachment from reality, from the demands of society, will inevitably lead to a surge of populism and the growth of radical movements, to serious social and economic changes, to degradation and, in the near future, to a change of elites.
The US and Europe lost this war already. I love being American. Walking around on the street, people are f*cking clueless. No interest in anything but genitals and skin color. Is this not the most remarkable comedy ever written? 350 million people, all of them utterly convinced that they are never, ever going to suffer like other peoples and nations in history have suffered. No, God shed His Grace on Me. Coming to an end soon, and man, I’d rather take a bat to a hornet’s nest in a closet on that day than be anywhere near “civilization.”
"Massive Price Increases At Kroger! This Is Ridiculous!"
Full screen recommended.
Adventures with Danno, 6/18/22:
"Massive Price Increases At Kroger! This Is Ridiculous!"
"In today's vlog we are at The Kroger Marketplace and are noticing massive 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!"
"Life Comes at You Fast, So You Better Be Ready"
"Life Comes at You Fast, So You Better Be Ready"
by Ryan Holiday
"In 1880, Theodore Roosevelt wrote to his brother, “My happiness is so great that it makes me almost afraid.” In October of that year, life got even better. As he wrote in his diary the night of his wedding to Alice Hathaway Lee, “Our intense happiness is too sacred to be written about.” He would consider it to be one of the best years of his life: he got married, wrote a book, attended law school, and won his first election for public office.
The streak continued. In 1883, he wrote “I can imagine nothing more happy in life than an evening spent in the cozy little sitting room, before a bright fire of soft coal, my books all around me, and playing backgammon with my own dainty mistress.” And that’s how he and Alice spent that cold winter as it crawled into the new year. He wrote in late January that he felt he was fully coming into his own. “I feel now as though I have the reins in my hand.” On February 12th, 1884 his first daughter was born.
Two days later, his wife would be dead of Bright’s disease (now known as kidney failure). His mother had died only hours earlier in the same house, of typhoid fever. Roosevelt marked the day in his diary with a large “X.” Next to it, he wrote, “The light has gone out of my life.”
As they say, life comes at you fast. Has the stock market not been an example of that? In December, 2019 the Dow was at 28,701.66. Things were good enough that people were complaining about the “war on Christmas” and debating the skin color of Santa Claus. In January, the Dow was at 29,348.10 and people were outraged about the recent Oscar nominations. In February, when the Dow reached a staggering 29,568.57, Delta Airlines stock fell nearly 25% in less than a week, as people argued intensely over a message from Delta’s CEO about passengers reclining their seats. Even in early March, there were news stories about Wendy’s entering the “breakfast wars” and a free stock-trading app outage that caused people to miss a big market rally.
And that was just in the news. Think about what you busied yourself with at home during that same period. Maybe you and your wife were looking at plans to remodel your kitchen. Maybe you were finally going to pull the trigger on that Tesla Model S for yourself - the $150,000 one, with the ludicrous speed package. Maybe you were fuming that Amazon took an extra day to deliver a package. Maybe you were frustrated that your kid’s room was a mess.
And now? How quaint and stupid does that all seem? Depending on the day you look, years of market gains can now be taken back. 47 million people are projected to be added to the unemployment rolls in the US. The US death count from what was dismissed as a mere respiratory flu and the left’s latest hoax is now inching towards 1,000,000 and there are millions more confirmed cases worldwide. There have been runs on supplies. Store shelves are empty while prices skyrocket. The global economy has essentially ground to a halt.
Life comes at us fast, don’t it? It can change in an instant. Everything you built, everyone you hold dear, can be taken from you. For absolutely no reason. Just as easily, you can be taken from them. This is why the Stoics say we need to be prepared, constantly, for the twists and turns of Fortune. It’s why Seneca said that nothing happens to the wise man contrary to his expectation, because the wise man has considered every possibility - even the cruel and heartbreaking ones.
And yet even Seneca was blindsided by a health scare in his early twenties that forced him to spend nearly a decade in Egypt to recover. He lost his father less than a year before he lost his first-born son, and twenty days after burying his son he was exiled by the emperor Caligula. He lived through the destruction of one city by a fire and another by an earthquake, before being exiled two more times.
One needs only to read his letters and essays, written on a rock off the coast of Italy, to get a sense that even a philosopher can get knocked on their ass and feel sorry for themselves from time to time.
What do we do? Well, first, knowing that life comes at us fast, we should be always prepared. Seneca wrote that the fighter who has “seen his own blood, who has felt his teeth rattle beneath his opponent’s fist… who has been downed in body but not in spirit…” - only they can go into the ring confident of their chances of winning. They know they can take getting bloodied and bruised. They know what the darkness before the proverbial dawn feels like. They have a true and accurate sense for the rhythms of a fight and what winning requires. That sense only comes from getting knocked around. That sense is only possible because of their training.
In his own life, Seneca bloodied and bruised himself through a practice called premeditatio malorum (“the premeditation of evils”). Rehearsing his plans, say to take a trip, he would go over the things that could go wrong or prevent the trip from happening - a storm could spring up, the captain could fall ill, the ship could be attacked by pirates, he could be banished to the island of Corsica the morning of the trip. By doing what he called a premeditatio malorum, Seneca was always prepared for disruption and always working that disruption into his plans. He was fitted for defeat or victory. He stepped into the ring confident he could take any blow. Nothing happened contrary to his expectations.
Second, we should always be careful not to tempt fate. In 2016 General Michael Flynn stood on the stage at the Republican National Convention and led some 20,000 people (and a good many more at home) in an impromptu chant of “Lock Her Up! Lock Her Up!” about his enemy Hillary Clinton. When Trump won, he was swept into office in a whirlwind of success and power. Then, just 24 days into his new job, Flynn was fired for lying to the Vice President about conversations he’d had with Sergey Kislyak, the Russian ambassador to the United States. He would be brought up on charges and convicted of lying to the FBI.
Life comes at us fast… but that doesn’t mean we should be stupid. We also shouldn’t be arrogant.
Third, we have to hang on. Remember, that in the depths of both of Seneca’s darkest moments, he was unexpectedly saved. From exile, he was suddenly recalled to be the emperor’s tutor. In the words of the historian Richard M. Gummere, “Fortune, whom Seneca as a Stoic often ridicules, came to his rescue.” But Churchill, as always, put it better: “Sometimes when Fortune scowls most spitefully, she is preparing her most dazzling gifts.”
Life is like this. It gives us bad breaks - heartbreakingly bad breaks - and it also gives us incredible lucky breaks. Sometimes the ball that should have gone in, bounces out. Sometimes the ball that had no business going in surprises both the athlete and the crowd when it eventually, after several bounces, somehow manages to pass through the net.
When we’re going through a bad break, we should never forget Fortune’s power to redeem us. When we’re walking through the roses, we should never forget how easily the thorns can tear us upon, how quickly we can be humbled. Sometimes life goes your way, sometimes it doesn’t.
This is what Theodore Roosevelt learned, too. Despite what he wrote in his diary that day in 1884, the light did not completely go out of Roosevelt’s life. Sure, it flickered. It looked like the flame might have been cruelly extinguished. But with time and incredible energy and force of will, he came back from those tragedies. He became a great father, a great husband, and a great leader. He came back and the world was better for it. He was better for it.
Life comes at us fast. Today. Tomorrow. When we least expect it. Be ready. Be strong. Don’t let your light be snuffed out.
"So We All Ran Around..."
“So we all ran around in mad, mindless, meaningless circles, as if we were in a cotton-candy eating contest where the grand prize was getting kicked in the face. We were oblivious to everything around us that no truly sane person would ever tolerate. And we needed someone else to tell us to stop it.”
- Edward M. Wolfe
"Executive Order 14067: Biden Orders US Dollar Replaced with Trackable “Spyware” Version"
"Biden Orders US Dollar Replaced
with Trackable 'Spyware' Version"
by Jim Rickards
"On March 9, President Biden quietly signed his Executive Order 14067. This Order could pave the way for Democrats holding onto power in 2024. In fact, they may control America indefinitely. The Order demands the government look into a digital “spyware” currency I call Biden Bucks which could eventually replace the US dollar. I believe Biden Bucks would allow for:
• Total control over your bank accounts and purchases, and…
•The ability to silence all dissenting voices for good.
And it’s already underway. AOC has tweeted her support. While we still have time…Click below to see video showing how Biden’s Order could allow for permanent Democrat control."
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Related:
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This is essentially a commercial for Rickard's subscription services,
but the information is absolutely valid in my humble opinion.
Caveat emptor...
"The Truth?"
I've always believed you can handle the truth, given the chance...It may not be what you want to hear, but it is the truth to the best of my ability to determine. What you do with it is of course up to you... - CP
"Putin: They Even Named Inflation After Me"
Full screen recommended.
"Putin: They Even Named Inflation After Me"
by Martin Armstrong
"Vladimir Putin is not suffering from sanctions. The West has shot itself in the foot by banning essential Russian imports without an alternative in place. “They even named inflation after me,” he joked, hinting at the “Putin price hike” western politicians have been declaring.
The difference now, according to Putin, is that the West attempted to shun Russia. “In the Soviet times when we cut ourselves off, created the so-called Iron Curtain, we created it with our own hands,” he admitted. Putin admitted the Iron Curtain was a mistake that he has learned from. Anyone claiming Putin is pro-Communist or eager to bring back Cold War-era policies is sadly mistaken.
As I have mentioned, Russia has created a new G8. They have alliances with Brazil, Indonesia, China, Mexico, Iran, and Turkey. They claim that this new G8 will not partake in sanction wars and noted that they are already 24.4% ahead of the former G8 in terms of GDP per capita. They are welcoming new alliances as well. Countries previously begged to join Western coalitions, but they are now failing due to a flawed design from the outset. All of this is part of what our computer has been indicating – the financial capital of the world is beginning to drift from West to East."
Hat tip the The Burning Platform for this material.
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Related:
"Debt to the Penny"
"Debt to the Penny"
"Total debt of the U.S. government reported daily. Contains information on intragovernmental holdings and debt held by the public. The Debt to the Penny dataset provides information about the total outstanding public debt and is reported each day. Debt to the Penny is made up of intragovernmental holdings and debt held by the public, including securities issued by the U.S. Treasury. Total public debt outstanding is composed of Treasury Bills, Notes, Bonds, Treasury Inflation-Protected Securities (TIPS), Floating Rate Notes (FRNs), and Federal Financing Bank (FFB) securities, as well as Domestic Series, Foreign Series, State and Local Government Series (SLGS), U.S. Savings Securities, and Government Account Series (GAS) securities. Debt to the Penny is updated at 3:00 PM EST each business day with data from the previous business day."
Go to "Home" page.
An official website of the U.S. government.
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Related:
"The Engineered Stagflationary Collapse Has Arrived – Here's What Happens Next" (Excerpt)
"The Engineered Stagflationary Collapse Has Arrived –
Here's What Happens Next"
by Brandon Smith
Excerpt: "As we all now know, the Fed waited until their balance sheet was far larger and until the economy was MUCH weaker than it was in 2012 to unleash tightening measures. They KNEW the whole time exactly what was going to happen.
It is no coincidence that the culmination of the Fed’s stimulus bonanza has arrived right after the incredible damage done to the economy and the global supply chain by the covid lockdowns. It is no coincidence that these two events work together to create the perfect stagflationary scenario. And, it’s no coincidence that the only people who benefit from these conditions are proponents of the “Great Reset” ideology at the World Economic Forum and other globalist institutions. This is an engineered collapse that has been in the works for many years.
The goal is to “reset” the world, to erase what’s left of free market systems, and to establish what they call the “Shared Economy” system. This system is one in which the people who survive the crash will be made utterly dependent on government through Universal Basic Income and one that will restrict all resource usage in the name of “carbon reduction.” According to the WEF, you will own nothing and you will like it.
The collapse is engineered to create crisis conditions so frightening that they expect the majority of the public to submit to a collectivist hive mind lifestyle with greatly reduced standards. This would be accomplished through UBI, digital currency models, carbon taxation, population reduction, rationing of all commodities and a social credit system. The goal, in other words, is complete control through technocratic authoritarianism.
All of this is dependent on the exploitation of crisis events to create fear in the population. Now that economic destabilization has arrived, what happens next? Here are my predictions…"
Please view this complete article here:
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Related:
Friday, June 17, 2022
"15 Facts About Depression In America That Will Absolutely Shock You"
Full screen recommended.
"15 Facts About Depression In America That Will Absolutely Shock You"
by Epic Economist
"Americans have never been so depressed. Over the past 24 months, depression rates almost quadrupled among adults in the United States. Young Americans haven't been immune. In fact, new studies show that about a quarter of children and teens in the country suffer from some type of mental illness. So many things happened in recent years that we can easily understand why so many people have been feeling overwhelmed. The fact that many of us had to remain isolated during lockdowns, while others faced the loss of a loved one, suffered a job loss, or dealt with eviction, financial problems, and food insecurity has taken a toll on our mental health. Right now, antidepressant use is skyrocketing, and yet most people facing depression, anxiety, or other mental health disorder do not have access to the treatment they need. At this point, virtually every new survey that comes out shows that we are extremely unhappy about the economy, our living standards, our working conditions, and our future.
According to the National Alliance on Mental Illness, every year the number of Americans experiencing mental illnesses goes up. “Typically, we would expect depression to peak following the traumatic event and then lower over time. Instead, we found that 12 months into the pandemic, levels of depression remained high,” noted study senior author Sandro Galean. Major depressive disorder is the most common mental disability in the U.S., which is quite worrying considering that people with depressive disorder or symptoms have a 64 percent greater risk of developing coronary artery disease.
For a nation that supposedly “has it all”, how can we possibly be so dissatisfied with everything? Everywhere we look, we can see people that look like they have had their life completely sucked out of them. Maybe things aren't as great as they are portrayed, and even though we "have it all," not everyone has enough to get by. In today's video, we compiled some gloomy stats that show how much Americans have been anxious, depressed, and hopeless in recent years.
Perhaps none of these numbers will be too surprising. Given everything we've been through over the past few years, it's understandable why so many of us are feeling miserable. According to a Marist College poll from December 2021, only 49% of Americans were more optimistic than pessimistic about how things were going to go in the country in 2022. This was the first time since Marist started asking the question in 2009 that the optimistic percentage fell below 50%. When 2021 started, and all that talk about an "economic recovery" was still going on, 56% of Americans had been more optimistic than pessimistic, suggesting that despite the pandemic, some Americans had hope for 2021. By the end of the year, that hope was dashed.
Now that it has become clear that we're actually entering another downturn, most Americans say that the country is going in the wrong direction. Clearly, something has gone very wrong. Hopefully, we can get back to a better normal. Because right now, these numbers are just downright depressing."
Gregory Mannarino, "Expect Inflation To Skyrocket Beyond Your Wildest Nightmares"
Gregory Mannarino, PM 6/17/22:
"Expect Inflation To Skyrocket Beyond Your Wildest Nightmares"
- https://traderschoice.net/
"Expect Inflation To Skyrocket Beyond Your Wildest Nightmares"
- https://traderschoice.net/
"Russia’s New Rules"
"Russia’s New Rules"
by Tom Luongo
"Russia is done with the West. The divorce is nearly complete. In the past few days we’ve heard from all major Russian leaders the same thing, “The West will play by our rules now.” You can decide for yourselves whether Russia is writing checks they can’t cash, but in the words of Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov telling the BBC bluntly, “We do not care about the eyes of the West.” Lavrov has always been the soul of politeness and discretion when dealing with European media.
His open hostility towards his BBC interviewer was not only palpable, it was hard to argue with. He followed that up with: “I don’t think there’s even room for maneuver left anymore,” Lavrov replied. “Because both [Prime Minister Boris] Johnson and [Foreign Secretary Liz] Truss say publicly: ’We must defeat Russia, we must bring Russia to its knees. Go on, then, do it.”
Russia’s leadership never talks in such openly blunt terms. It’s almost like Lavrov was channeling comedian Dennis Miller who used to say, “Feeling froggy, take that leap.” See where it gets you.
Russia knows it has the West on the ropes. We need what they produce and now they are determined to set the rules on who gets them and for what price. It knows that European leaders are puppets with Klaus Schwab’s hand up their asses. And it knows Davos has zero leverage over Russia’s actions from here on out.
Which brings me to the statements linked above by Gazprom CEO Alexei Miller, speaking at a panel at the St. Petersburg Economic Investment Forum (SPEIF) who just put the situation in the starkest terms there is. “The game of nominal value of money is over, as this system does not allow to control the supply of resources. Our product, our rules. We don’t play by the rules we didn’t create.” Miller’s statement should be thought of as a statement of principle across all theaters of operation for Russia. This doesn’t just apply to natural gas or oil. This is everything, all of Russia’s dealings with the West from here on out will be on its terms not the West’s.
This is clearly the biggest geopolitical middle finger in the post WWII period. Miller is clearly laying out the rules for a new, commodity-centric monetary system, one based on what Credit Suisse’s Zoltan Poszar called ‘outside money’ - commodities, gold, even bitcoin - rather than the West’s egregious use of ‘inside money’ - debt-based fiat and credit - to perpetuate old colonialist behavior well past its use-by date. I laid out the basic problem in an article from March after Russia soft-pegged the ruble to gold.
Today’s “Inside Money” standard, known colloquially as the Dollar Reserve standard, is actually what I like to call “Milton Friedman’s Nightmare.” It is nothing more than a system of competitively devalued and inflated debt-based scrips running around drinking each other’s milkshakes until everyone’s glass is empty.
Miller is definitely a glass full kinda guy now. These comments came after Gazprom began cutting gas flows to Europe through the Nordstream 1 pipeline using the cover story of repaired gas turbines trapped in fascist Canada which couldn’t be shipped back to Siemens because of sanctions. Now Germany and Canada are trying to figure out how to circumvent the sanctions to get these turbines back.
At the same time Miller pledged more gas to China (up 67% yoy through May) because Russia is interested in energy stability for its friends, while its enemies can starve. Reuters is reporting that “Russia’s Gazprom increased gas supplies to China by 67% in the first five months of this year, the company’s CEO Alexei Miller said on Thursday.”
It was also on Wednesday that Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping held their second phone call since the Ukraine war began. Xi told Putin that China is “willing to continue to offer mutual support (to Russia) on issues concerning core interests and major concerns such as sovereignty and security,” as quoted in state broadcaster CCTV.
The arrogance of EU commissars never ceases to amaze me. These people all but declare war on Russia and then act shocked (Shocked, I say!) that Russia then treats them like that. On the same day that four members of the EU Commission - France, Italy, Germany and Romania - approve fast-tracking Ukraine’s membership application, France’s Emmanuel Macron urges Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to go to the bargaining table with Russia. Even if Zelenskyy were to make those overtures to Russia, given his public statements on what his terms are, there would be absolutely zero chance that Russia would agree to show up for talks.
At this point I see nothing more than Russia continuing to grind out the Ukrainian army, taking what territory they want and then shepherding through local elections by the conquered territory to either become independent states or part of Russia. It’s likely the latter at this point since Russia is now issuing Russian passports in regions they’ve taken from Ukraine, which the EU, of course, will refuse to honor until no one cares what they think anymore.
The rules are changing rapidly. Looking ahead there is a real danger that what Russia has set in motion leads to something no one wants to contemplate. Of course the West helped create this situation by forcing Putin’s hand to invade Ukraine, so who’s to blame about where this all leads to may, ultimately, be an irrelevant point.
Let’s hope the noises coming from the West about the sanctions having gone too far and the chest-beating of the worst US and British neocons is no longer being taken seriously by anyone with their fingers anywhere near the launch codes. If that’s the case than these new rules will be grudgingly accepted only after a lot of borders have been redrawn, new alliances formed and a different world order established.
This morning President Putin declared the old world order dead. He finished his speech where he detailed how the West was committing suicide to suit the wishes of The Davos Crowd with the following definitive statement: “Russia is entering the coming era as a powerful sovereign country. We will definitely use the enormous new opportunities that time opens up for us. And we will become even stronger.”
Putin is correct here. Russia is getting stronger by the day. The West took their best shot at destroying Russia and missed the mark. He clearly identified the real culprits for Europe’s and the US’s problems, subservience to an oligarch class who feel entitled to rule the world.
When the war started I wrote about what I thought Putin’s intentions were. Then it was speculation: Russia held all the cards in the negotiations over Ukraine and we recklessly pursued a policy of insults and amateurish propaganda, refusing to believe Russia wouldn’t make her final stand. By putting boots on the ground, planes in the air and missiles up the ass of every Ukrainian military installation across the country, Russia turned the ‘might makes right’ argument of the US and Europe on its head.
The game has changed because the rules have changed. It’s no longer a game of rhetorical chicken and virtue signaling. Today it is fact. When Putin made his move on Ukraine the ultimate goal was the end of Russia treating the West as an equal and leading the Global South out of what he has called “vassalage.” The reason Putin is hated is because he realizes there are two types of countries, “sovereigns” and “vassals.”
It’s been his life’s work to make Russia into a ‘sovereign’ state free from the West. From Russia’s perspective their military operation in Ukraine was their Declaration of Independence from the old ‘rules-based order’ of the post-WWII era. Justified or not, we are now in a new age. The question is now, how many will survive into it."
"The State of the Economy with the Economic Ninja"
Full screen recommended.
Dan, iAllegedly 6/17/22:
"The State of the Economy with the Economic Ninja"
"Today we have a special guest for this the video. We are joined by the one and only economic ninja. We’re going to cover every aspect of the Economy in the current news."
Musical Interlude: Disturbed, "The Sound Of Silence"
Full screen recommended.
Disturbed "The Sound Of Silence"
Singer David Draiman
131,494,991 views
I've listened to this song 100 times, and it still makes me cry.
There's "something" here, and if there are words for it I don't know them...
"A Look to the Heavens"
"Distorted galaxy NGC 2442 can be found in the southern constellation of the flying fish, (Piscis) Volans. Located about 50 million light-years away, the galaxy's two spiral arms extending from a pronounced central bar give it a hook-shaped appearance. This deep color image also shows the arms' obscuring dust lanes, young blue star clusters and reddish star forming regions surrounding a core of yellowish light from an older population of stars.
But the star forming regions seem more concentrated along the drawn-out (right side) spiral arm. The distorted structure is likely the result of an ancient close encounter with the smaller galaxy seen near the top left of this field of view. The two interacting galaxies are separated by about 150,000 light-years at the estimated distance of NGC 2442."
- http://www.antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap090228.html
•
"Why Do We Look to the Stars?"
For as long as there has been humans we have searched for our place in the cosmos. Where are we? Who are we? We find that we live on an insignificant planet of a hum-drum star lost in a galaxy tucked away in some forgotten corner of a universe in which there are far more galaxies than people. This perspective is a courageous continuation of our penchant for constructing and testing mental models of the skies; the Sun as a red-hot stone, the stars as a celestial flame, the Galaxy as the backbone of night.
•
"Why Do We Look to the Stars?"
"The Cosmos is all that is or ever was or ever will be. Our feeblest contemplations of the Cosmos stir us — there is a tingling in the spine, a catch in the voice, a faint sensation of a distant memory, as if we were falling from a great height. We know we are approaching the greatest of mysteries.
For as long as there has been humans we have searched for our place in the cosmos. Where are we? Who are we? We find that we live on an insignificant planet of a hum-drum star lost in a galaxy tucked away in some forgotten corner of a universe in which there are far more galaxies than people. This perspective is a courageous continuation of our penchant for constructing and testing mental models of the skies; the Sun as a red-hot stone, the stars as a celestial flame, the Galaxy as the backbone of night.
The size and age of the Cosmos are beyond ordinary human understanding. Lost somewhere between immensity and eternity is our tiny planetary home. In a cosmic perspective, most human concerns seem insignificant, even petty. And yet our species is young and curious and brave and shows much promise. In the last few millennia we have made the most astonishing and unexpected discoveries about the Cosmos and our place within it, explorations that are exhilarating to consider. They remind us that humans have evolved to wonder, that understanding is a joy, that knowledge is prerequisite to survival. I believe our future depends powerfully on how well we understand this Cosmos in which we float like a mote of dust in the morning sky. Imagination will often carry us to worlds that never were. But without it we go nowhere."
- Carl Sagan
Chet Raymo, “The Spark of Life”
“The Spark of Life”
by Chet Raymo
"In a previous post I quoted Teilhard de Chardin referring to the discovery of electromagnetic waves as a "prodigious biological event." A biological event? What could he mean? The universe was awash with electromagnetic waves long before life appeared on Earth, or anywhere else in the universe. The cosmic microwave background radiation- the residue of the big bang- is electromagnetic. Starlight is an electromagnetic wave. You can "discover" electromagnetic waves by opening your eyes.
Of course, what Teilhard referred to was the conscious control of electromagnetic radiation by sentient biological creatures. Electromagnetic waves were predicted theoretically by the Scottish physicist James Clerk Maxwell in 1864, as he played with equations describing electric and magnetic fields. Then, twenty-two years later, electromagnetic waves were experimentally demonstrated by Heinrich Hertz, who in effect made the first radio broadcast and reception. At Hertz's transmitter a spark jumped back and forth between two metal spheres 50 million times a second. Across the room a similar spark was instantly produced at the receiver. Invisible electrical energy had passed through space at the speed of light.
A spark dancing between two spheres- an unpretentious beginning for the age of radio, television, mobile phones and wireless internet. That first transmitter and receiver had a basement-workshop simplicity about them. Hertz demonstrated the nature of electromagnetic waves with constructions of wood, brass and sealing wax.
Wood, brass, sealing wax and conscious intelligence. Here on Earth- perhaps throughout the universe- stardust gave rise to living slime. The slime complexified, became conscious. Invented mathematics, experimental science. Caused sparks to jump between metal spheres. Sent the signature of biological activity across a room. Across a planet. Across the universe."
"Prodigious!”
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