Saturday, January 21, 2023

"Streets of Philadelphia, Kensington Ave"

Full screen recommended.
SBC News, 12/27/22:
"Streets of Philadelphia, Kensington Ave"

"Problems with drugs and crime on Kensington Ave, Philadelphia's most dangerous street. In Philadelphia as a whole, violent crime and drug abuse are major issues. The city has a higher rate of violent crime than the national average and other similarly sized metropolitan areas. The drug overdose rate in Philadelphia is also concerning. Between 2013 and 2015, the number of drug overdose deaths in the city increased by 50%, with more than twice as many deaths from overdoses as homicides. Kensington's high crime rate and drug abuse contribute significantly to Philadelphia's problems.

Because of the high number of drugs in the neighborhood, Kensington has the third-highest drug crime rate by neighborhood in Philadelphia, at 3.57. The opioid epidemic has played a significant role in this problem, as it has in much of the rest of the country. Opioid abuse has skyrocketed in the United States over the last two decades, and Philadelphia is no exception. In addition to having a high rate of drug overdose deaths, 80% of Philadelphia's overdose deaths involved opioids, and Kensington is a significant contributor to this figure. This Philadelphia neighborhood is said to have the largest open-air heroin market on the East Coast, with many neighbors migrating to the area for heroin and other opioids. With such a high concentration of drugs in Kensington, many state and local officials have focused on the neighborhood in an attempt to address Philadelphia's problem."
Comments here:
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Full screen recommended.
Beach Fanatic, 1/19/23:
"Walking Dead in Kensington Ave, This Is Unbelievable!"
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o
Full screen recommended.
Bruce Springsteen, "Streets of Philadelphia"

"15 Signs That American Family Budgets Will Be Blown Through In 2023"

Full screen recommended.
"15 Signs That American Family Budgets 
Will Be Blown Through In 2023"
by Epic Economist

"The systematic destruction of American Family budgets has begun. But most people have no idea what is about to come. There was a time when the average American could work hard and build a bright future for the whole family. But not anymore. From galloping inflation and unprecedented housing bubble to exploitative health care system and soaring energy prices, evident signs show that the middle class will be unable to survive in 2023. Just like the federal budget deficit, the American family budgets are also about to become a headache for the citizens.

In Today's video we bring you the 15 indicators that American family budgets will be blown away in 2023. Soaring inflation caused the cost of many goods to increase significantly in the past year. But the ghost of inflation is still hovering on the horizon. And this trend is likely to continue through 2023. With food prices at elementary and secondary schools already increased by 254%, egg prices by almost 50 percent and bread by 15 percent, the family budgets will definitely take a toll in the coming months.

One in 7 US households is already scrambling to pay for food right now. How are they going to live in such harsh conditions with no jobs? With the average American household budget at around $5,000, unemployment in this economic mayhem would shatter a common man. But unemployment is here to stay just like the raging fuel prices. The United States Energy Information Administration (EIA) has rung the alarm bells that the energy crisis is far from over. Energy prices, including oil, natural gas, coal, and electricity, will remain historically high through 2023 due to geo-political uncertainties and tight inventories.

Winter from hell is here which would shake the supply and demand system. Energy crisis will not be averted unless we nip evil in the bud. But Russia is not pulling back at the moment. In fact, the ultimate endgame in Ukraine is uncertain. And it appears that muscle flexing in Ukraine would continue at the expense of food hikes and economic catastrophe. Well, American wallets will face the brunt of this senseless war. As the war continues, Ukrainian wheat prices will skyrocket along with Russian fertilizer, which means that farmers would expect an expensive crop in 2023.

These are incredibly hard times for millions of us. Most people are the victim of this long turn economic decline. The downfall has begun and it will slash the American family budgets in 2023. Prepare for the winter as the crisis will shatter everyone and it will be irreversible."
Comments here:

Canadian Prepper, "Alert! They're Planning Something Big"

Full screen recommended.
Canadian Prepper, 1/21/23:
"Alert! They're Planning Something Big"
Comments here:

"I Have Difficult News to Share with You"

Full screen recommended.
Dan, iAllegedly 1/21/23:
"I Have Difficult News to Share with You"
"2023 is turning into a Layoff Festival. Between Microsoft, meta-and Google there’s over 40,000 people laid off. That is just the tip of the iceberg. People need to look at how the world is changing."
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Musical Interlude: Liquid Mind, "Velvet Morning"

Full screen recommended.
Liquid Mind, "Velvet Morning"
Liquid Mind ® is the name used by Los Angeles composer and producer
Chuck Wild of the best-selling Liquid Mind relaxation music albums.

"A Look to the Heavens"

"What's happening at the center of the Trifid Nebula? Three prominent dust lanes that give the Trifid its name all come together. Mountains of opaque dust appear near the bottom, while other dark filaments of dust are visible threaded throughout the nebula. A single massive star visible near the center causes much of the Trifid's glow. The Trifid, cataloged as M20, is only about 300,000 years old, making it among the youngest emission nebulas known.
The star forming nebula lies about 9,000 light years away toward the constellation of the Archer (Sagittarius). The region pictured here spans about 10 light years. The featured image is a composite with luminance taken from an image by the 8.2-m ground-based Subaru Telescope, detail provided by the 2.4-m orbiting Hubble Space Telescope, color data provided by Martin Pugh and image assembly and processing provided by Robert Gendler."

"It Strikes Me..."

“It goes against the American storytelling grain to have someone in a situation he can’t get out of, but I think this is very usual in life. There are people, particularly dumb people, who are in terrible trouble and never get out of it, because they’re not intelligent enough. It strikes me as gruesome and comical that in our culture we have an expectation that man can always solve his problems. This is so untrue that it makes me want to cry - or laugh.”
- Kurt Vonnegut

The Poet: Robinson Jeffers, "We Are Those People"

"We Are Those People"

"I have abhorred the wars and despised the liars,
laughed at the frightened
And forecast victory; never one moment's doubt.
But now not far, over the backs of some crawling years, the next
Great war's column of dust and fire writhes
Up the sides of the sky: it becomes clear that we too may suffer
What others have, the brutal horror of defeat -
Or if not in the next, then in the next - therefore watch Germany
And read the future. We wish, of course, that our women
Would die like biting rats in the cellars,
our men like wolves on the mountain:
It will not be so. Our men will curse, cringe, obey;
Our women uncover themselves to the grinning victors
for bits of chocolate."
- Robinson Jeffers

"Life..."

"Life is not what you see, but what you've projected.
It's not what you've felt, but what you've decided.
It's not what you've experienced, but how you've remembered it.
It's not what you've forged, but what you've allowed.
And it's not who's appeared, but who you've summoned.
And this should serve you well until you find what you already have."
- The Universe

“The Meaning Of Good And Evil In Perilous Times”

“The Meaning Of Good And Evil In Perilous Times”
by Brandon Smith

"Perhaps the most destructive idea ever planted in the minds of the general public is the notion that nothing in this world is permanent – that all things can and must be constantly changed to suit our whims. The concept of impermanence fuels what I call “blank slate propaganda.” The usefulness of the blank slate as a weapon for social control should be explained before we examine the nature of good and evil, because these days it infects everything.

The push for never ending social “evolution” has been called many things over the decades. In the early 1900s in Europe it was called “futurism;” an art and philosophical movement that helped spawn the rise of communism and fascism in politics.The argument that all old ideas and longstanding traditions should be abandoned to make way for new ideas, new technologies, news systems etc., assumes that the supposedly new ways of doing things are superior to the old ways of doing things. Things are rarely this simple, and in most cases the new methods so proudly championed by movements for social change are usually recycled and repackaged old ideas that are notorious for failure.
The blank slate theory is designed to confuse people with self-doubt and to misrepresent the constructs of nature as constructs of society. It most effectively disrupts people’s relationship to their own moral compass by suggesting that moral compass should be completely ignored as artificial. The argument by blank slate proponents is that all boundaries are created by society instead of by inborn conscience, and that these boundaries often hold us back from achieving our goals, bettering ourselves as a species and generally getting what we want out of life.
But the things we want are not always the things we need, and this is something that movement’s for social change often refuse to grasp. If we are all blank slates and if morality and the human soul are myths, why not do whatever the hell we want, whenever we want and live life as if it is one big Roman orgy of feasting, self-medicating and overall addiction to sensation?
The problem with the blank slate concept is that while it purports that all restrictions in the human psyche are taught to us rather than being inborn and that they can be abandoned any time we want, we still can’t seem to avoid the consequences of breaking those restrictions.  People lose their sanity, societies crumble and nations fall to ruin over time the more we cast aside our principles in the name of social evolution or short term gain. It is unavoidable.
The only people who seem to benefit from the spread of the blank slate are the people already in political and economic power. For if they can convince the masses to ignore their conscience, they can then convince us to accept almost any other conditions.
To act in a manner consistent with inherent conscience, or to ignore conscience and act destructively, is a choice. It is the core pillar of free will. The choice to act destructively does not erase the reality of inherent conscience; in fact, people often have to be fooled into believing that a destructive and immoral action is a “good thing” before they are convinced to carry it out. Inherent conscience must be bypassed through trickery.
The problem with choosing to stick by one’s principles is that it is easy during times of relative stability, but increasingly difficult during times of struggle. In perilous days, the temptation to use destructive tactics to maintain an expectation of comfort or to merely survive can be high. It is no coincidence that power elites, the same people that tend to promote blank slate propaganda, also tend to deliberately engineer social crisis and chaos. But perhaps this needs a deeper explanation. We must define something most of us already understand intuitively. We must define “evil.”
Like inherent conscience and moral boundaries, blank slate theorists and social change advocates attempt to muddy the waters of what constitutes evil. Some will say there is no such thing — that evil is whatever we deem it to be in any given era depending on our biases.  Others will claim that tradition, permanence and anything in society that remains static is evil. The only “good” for them is constant change.
But evil is not as illusory and changing as these people suggest. In fact, most men and women recoil automatically from certain specific behaviors regardless of how they were raised, what environment they come from, what culture they were born into or what era they lived.  The people who don’t recoil at these behaviors are the people we have to watch out for because they are missing something integral to the heart and mind that makes the rest of us human.
In psychological terms, the characteristics of high level narcissists and sociopaths match most closely with our historic concept of evil.  And, in my view, most great evils done in history are in fact done by people with multiple narcissistic traits.  As far as global elitists are concerned, they represent a rather insidious threat, because they are narcissistic sociopaths that have organized into a predatory gang, so all the traits consistent with the behavior of your average serial killer are now magnified a thousandfold by their access to unlimited resources.
How do we identify these people? Well, this is a difficult prospect at times because narcissistic sociopaths commonly hide in plain sight.  Some people live with them for years before realizing exactly what they are. They also like to insert themselves into nonprofit organizations that claim to do good for the community as a cover for their more insidious motives.
Some traits and behaviors that are common are a lack of normal emotional response to traumatic events or joyous events, or they will mimic the responses of others to blend in but they come off as “forced” or “fake.” They have no concept of empathy; it does not exist for them.
They seek out centers of power and are drawn to positions of authority. They always seem to be demanding the efforts of others while rarely offering their own help. They make terrible leaders, always attempting to lead from a place of safety while letting their conscripts take the risks. Leading by example is a foreign concept to them.
They will lie repetitively about their accomplishments and their accolades. They will misrepresent their professional achievements in order to gain people’s trust. Ask them to prove through actions that they can do all the things they claim they can do, and they will try to avoid the test or respond indignantly and angrily.
They will gaslight their ideological enemies or people they are trying to control. They will accuse others of being “narcissists” or “sociopaths” or fascists or any moniker that will push the buttons of their target. Whatever evils they are guilty of, they will try to flip and lay at the feet of their enemies.
They always seem to have “minions” to do their dirty work for them and attack those that oppose them. People that have dealt with narcissistic sociopaths in their personal lives sometimes refer to these minions as “flying monkeys,” referencing the flying monkeys enslaved by the Wicked Witch in the Wizard of Oz. Flying monkeys are essentially useful idiots that the narcissist employs through fraud and sometimes through pay. Whenever the narcissist is under threat of being exposed, they unleash their flying monkeys onto the streets or onto the internet to undermine truth tellers.
They do not believe in moral or personal boundaries which is why they are always trying convince people that such boundaries are a myth.  They will cross moral lines, always testing the fences for weaknesses; trying to wear others down until they give up and stop fighting back.
They desperately want to come out of the shadows and into the light of day. They want to be adored as the monsters they are, rather than the fake philanthropists they portray themselves as. In order to do this, every narcissistic sociopath makes it their duty to erase the idea of conscience, whether they are part of the globalist cabal or just another ghoul down the street. Their natural inclination is to corrupt whatever they touch, and if they cannot corrupt a thing, they will attempt to destroy that thing.
Most of all, narcissistic sociopaths want everyone around them to believe that we are just like them. That “deep down” all of us are unprincipled and morally bankrupt and all it takes is a crisis or calamity, just a little chaos to bring out the devil in everyone.
But if this were really the case, then humanity would have died out long ago through endless self-destruction; something keeps bringing us back from the brink in our personal lives and in society as a whole. Conscience keeps defeating evil by refusing to grant evil people the utopia of blank slate chaos they want so badly. And this is what give me confidence that no matter how terrible our days might become there is something on our side that goes beyond the physical world.
Every crisis is a test, a test of each person and a test of our culture. Can we act with reason and courage and principle even in the worst of times, or will we be lured to make our struggle easier through malicious means? Will we do right by those around us, or will we happily trample over them in the name of “survival?”
In the end, the worst men bring the best men to the surface. This is the only “good” they will ever do.”

"A Well-Packaged Web Of Lies..."

“A truth’s initial commotion is directly proportional to how deeply the lie was believed… When a well-packaged web of lies has been sold gradually to the masses over generations, the truth will seem utterly preposterous and its speaker, a raving lunatic.”
– Dresden James

The Daily "Near You?"

Downingtown, Pennsylvania, USA. Thanks for stopping by!

"Man's Nature..."

"Man has one name, and many more than two natures. 
But the essential two are these:
that he shall strive to impose order on chaos, 
and that he shall strive to take advantage of chaos…
A third element of man's nature is this: 
that he shall not understand what he is doing."
- John Brunner

Gerald Celente, "Douglas Macgregor: Zelenskys March To Crimea, Ukraine In Fire"

Full screen recommended.
Gerald Celente, Trends Journal 1/21/23:
"Douglas Macgregor: 
Zelenskys March To Crimea, Ukraine In Fire"
"The Trends Journal is a weekly magazine analyzing global current events forming future trends. Our mission is to present facts and truth over fear and propaganda to help subscribers prepare for what’s next in these increasingly turbulent times."
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"Price Increases At Kroger! Stock Up On These Sales! This Is Crazy!"

Full screen recommended.
Adventures With Danno, 1/21/23:
"Price Increases At Kroger! 
Stock Up On These Sales! This Is Crazy!"
"In today's vlog we are at Kroger, and are noticing price increases on groceries! We are here to check out skyrocketing prices, and the empty shelves situation! It's getting rough out here as stores seem to be struggling with getting products!"
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"How It Really Is"

 

"The Power Of One"

"The Power Of One"
by Adam Taggart

"I’m hearing so many people express feelings of defeat and despair, that they feel they have no agency to make a difference in a world victimized by huge corporate cartels, government overreach or climate instability. To offer a candle of hope against that feeling of powerlessness, I want to remind folks that one person can indeed make a tremendous difference, even in the darkest of times: Never forget, no matter how overwhelming life’s challenges and problems seem to be, that one person can make a difference in the world. In fact, it is always because of one person that all the changes that matter in the world come about. So be that one person."
~ R. Buckminster Fuller

Few people embody being “that one person” better than Nicholas Winton. Never heard of him? Neither had I until a few years ago. But he’s now a hero of mine.

Winton was a British citizen who rescued nearly 670 Jewish children from Czechoslovakia during World War Two. He did this of his own accord, not as part of any state agency or organized movement. Initially on a skiing trip to Switzerland, he canceled his vacation after Kristallnacht and went to Prague to help a friend there who was working to support the local Jewish population. Having learned that Britain’s Parliament had recently voted to accept European war refugees provided they had a place to stay and could pay a £50 deposit, Winton began single-handidly relocating Czech Jewish children to safety in his home country.

Before the Nazis tightened their control on Czechoslovakia, Winton managed to put 669 children on trains to the Netherlands, from where they were then sent to homes of foster families in Britain that he (and his mother) had found for them. Tragically, after their children departed to safety, many of the biological parents left behind ultimately ended up perishing at Auschwitz.

Winton sought no fanfare for his heroism. He spoke so rarely of it that the general public had no idea what he had done until nearly 50 years later. His own wife (whom he married after the war) didn’t even know until she one day came across the ledger he had used to keep track of the children during the evacuation.

Once she realized the magnitude of what this quiet hero had done, she worked with a television producer on a TV special to recognize him publicly for his humanitarian effort. By this time, Winton was an elderly man.

He agreed to attend, embarrassed by the attention. And unbeknownst to him, the producers had tracked down one of the children he had rescued, now an adult, and seated her next to him throughout the evening. It wasn’t until the end of the ceremony that they announced to him who she was. Watching Winton realize that the smiling woman next to him had been able to live a long, happy life because of his courageous action all those years ago is a very tender moment.

And if that doesn’t bring a tear to your eye, what happens next should. The host then asks the audience “Is there anyone else here who owes their life to this man?”… and EVERYONE stands up. Turns out, they had packed the theater with his former rescued children, now in their 50s and 60s, each of whom was saved by this kind, humble man.
Full screen recommended.
We rarely get to witness such a moment of grace like this. It’s simply perfect. For me, it’s a reminder never to discount the impact our own individual acts can have. Winton certainly answered Fuller’s call to “be that one person” to make a difference in the world. Will each of us?"

"And It Was Pointless..."

"And it was pointless to think how those years could have been put to better use, for he could hardly have put them to worse. There was no recovering them now. You could grieve endlessly for the loss of time and for the damage done therein. For the dead, and for your own lost self. But what the wisdom of the ages says is that we do well not to grieve on and on. And those old ones knew a thing or two and had some truth to tell for you can grieve your heart out and in the end you are still where you were. All your grief hasn't changed a thing. What you have lost will not be returned to you. It will always be lost. You're left with only your scars to mark the void. All you can choose to do is to go on or not. But if you go on, it's knowing you carry your scars with you."
- Charles Frazier
 "Never be ashamed of a scar. 
It simply means you were stronger than whatever tried to hurt you." 
- Unknown

Musical Interlude: Moody Blues, "Candle Of Life"

Full screen recommended.
Moody Blues, "Candle Of Life"

"We All Know..."

“We all know that something is eternal. And it ain’t houses and it ain’t names, and it ain’t earth, and it ain’t even the stars… everybody knows in their bones that something is eternal, and that something has to do with human beings. All the greatest people ever lived have been telling us that for five thousand years and yet you’d be surprised how people are always losing hold of it. There’s something way down deep that’s eternal about every human being.”
- Thornton Wilder
“I believe that imagination is stronger than knowledge.
That myth is more potent than history.
I believe that dreams are more powerful than facts.
That hope always triumphs over experience.
That laughter is the only cure for grief.
And I believe that love is stronger than death.”
- Robert Fulghum
“For Those Who Have Died”
“Eleh Ezkerah” (“These We Remember”)

“Tis a fearful thing
To love
What death can touch.
To love, to hope, to dream,
And oh, to lose.
A thing for fools, this,
Love,
But a holy thing,
To love what death can touch.
For your life has lived in me;
Your laugh once lifted me;
Your word was a gift to me.
To remember this brings painful joy.
Tis a human thing, love,
A holy thing,
To love
What death can touch.”
- Chaim Stern
Graphic: “Into The Silent Land”,
by Henry Pegram, 1905
“We are travelers on a cosmic journey, stardust, swirling and dancing in the eddies and whirlpools of Infinity. Life is Eternal. We have stopped for a moment to encounter each other, to meet, to love, to share. This is a precious moment. It is a little parenthesis in Eternity.”
- Paulo Coelho
“Don't cry because it's over, smile because it happened.”
- Dr. Seuss
o
And we shall meet again…
Full screen recommended.
Moody Blues, “The Day We Meet Again”

Friday, January 20, 2023

"Now...

“You think you will never forget any of this, you will remember it always just the way it was. But you can’t remember it the way it was. To know it, you have to be living in the presence of it right as it is happening. It can return only by surprise. Speaking of these things tells you that there are no words for them that are equal to them or that can restore them to your mind. And so you have a life that you are living only now, now and now and now, gone before you can speak of it, and you must be thankful for living day by day, moment by moment, in this presence. But you have a life too that you remember. It stays with you. You have lived a life in the breath and pulse and living light of the present, and your memories of it, remember now, are of a different life in a different world and time. When you remember the past, you are not remembering it as it was. You are remembering it as it is. It is a vision or a dream, present with you in the present, alive with you in the only time you are alive.”
~ Wendell Berry

Canadian Prepper, "Its About to Get Very Violent..."

Full screen recommended.
Canadian Prepper, 1/20/23:
"Its About to Get Very Violent..."
"These charts indicate the future is going to be very violent."
Comments here:

"The Ukraine War is Over Except for Some More Dying"

"The Ukraine War is Over Except for Some More Dying"
by Bob Moriarty

"Ukraine lost the war in March. Zelensky knew it. The very real Nazis who think they are running the country but have accomplished nothing but the destruction of the country threatened him. They told Zelensky that if he surrendered to Russia they would kill him. But Ukrainian officials sat down with the Russians in Turkey in March of 2022 and basically came to an agreement that the forces would return to the borders on February 23, 2022 and would return to the agreement of Minsk II. Of course that would have been a non-agreement agreement since Ukraine, France and Germany only pretended to intend to adhere to the original Minsk II agreement.

In any case, Boris Johnson the then PM of the UK showed up by surprise on April 9th and reportedly told Zelensky to keep fighting to the last Ukrainian soldier. Nato would continue to pour weapons into the most corrupt country in Europe. It was nice of Boris to volunteer the services of Nato seeing as how the UK doesn’t really have an army. In comparison the USMC has 182,000 personnel in uniform. A well-attended Girl Scout Jamboree is bigger than the UK Army. It was very brave of Boris to suggest the UK would supply weapons to Ukraine so Zelensky get more Ukrainian soldiers killed.

Russia attacked Ukraine in late February after months of trying to get Zelensky to understand that Ukraine joining Nato was a red line he didn’t want to cross. In exactly the same way as John F. Kennedy felt in 1962, having a nuclear-armed enemy state on your front porch was unacceptable.

Russia attacked with a tiny force estimated at about 80,000 fighting a Ukrainian army of between 500,000 and 750,000. But the Ukrainian army was trained and equipped to Nato standards, which frankly aren’t very high.

Russian military tactics call for heavy artillery and rocket barrages against enemy positions. When this war concludes military academies everywhere will be studying the Russian actions. I’ve been under fire from rockets and artillery in Vietnam. Frankly what the Russians unleashed on the Ukrainian solders across the lines from them was hundreds of times more devastating. The Russians are the masters of the use of artillery now controlled with pinpoint accuracy by the use of thousands of low cost drones. Russian drones are dropping $15 grenades on the Ukrainians lying in bunkers protected against everything except things being dropped directly from above.

The kill ratio between the Ukrainian forces and the Russians is probably between 6-1 and 10-1. A good way to estimate it would be to compare the rate of fire of artillery. Since the beginning of the war, the Ukrainians have admitted being out gunned by 8-10 to one. For every round Ukraine fires at the Russians, the Russians fired 8 or 10 right back. Since artillery kills somewhere between 80 and 85% of those who die in battle, simply comparing the rate of relative fire will give you a reasonable estimate ratio of people killed and wounded between each side.

While NATO is clearly the enemy of Russia it is not true that Russia is necessarily the enemy of Nato. If Nato was the enemy of Russia, Russia could launch half a dozen hypersonic missiles at the Ramstein Air Base where a Nato conference is being held on January 20th and wipe out the entire leadership team of Nato and fifty other countries. If a satellite guided pair of rockets could take out Russia’s largest war ship, having spies determining the location of the meeting in Germany would be no problem at all.

But Russia has already won the war. They convinced Zelensky to agree to terms as far back as March but Johnson queered that deal. Since then there was a minor Ukrainian counteroffensive to reclaim some ground the Russians lacked the ability to defend so they removed all of their forces from the battlefield to safer positions.

After the US bombing of the Nord Stream Pipelines and the attack on the Crimean Bridge in early October Putin finally took off his kid gloves and started to fight a real war. The world has been told since March that the Russians were running out of rockets and missiles.

Nobody told the Russians. Putin’s forces unleashed thousands of attacks on the Ukrainian energy infrastructure. In my view, he should have done that in the first two weeks of the war but it’s always easy to be critical when you are sitting in the cheap seats. In any case, Ukraine has been destroyed economically. They have a barely functioning electrical system, their electric trains don’t work any longer and few cities have a functional water supply system.

But that’s not the bad part. The bad part if that it will take hundreds of billions of dollars to rebuild what was a dysfunctional state already. Inflation is out of control in the EU due to their stupidity in listening to the US and putting sanctions on Russia that hurt the EU far more than they hurt Russia and not being adult to admit they screwed the pooch by doing so. Is the EU nothing but a sock puppet for the US? Who is going to pay for rebuilding Ukraine? The total military and cash contributions to Ukraine since February don’t even come close to what it is going to cost to rebuild what is now a broken country.

Nato is not a defense force; it’s a force of destruction and murder that passed its sell-by date thirty years ago. If you don’t believe me look at Libya. Does anyone even remember what bullshit excuses Nato used to destroy the most prosperous and well-run country in Africa because Israel didn’t like them? Take a two-week vacation to Tripoli. If you go into the market you can now buy a slave. You can thank Nato.

The idiots in Ramstein today are talking about how they are going to defeat Russia and break it into pieces. Are they kidding? If you send a bunch of tanks to a country whose army has been destroyed, who is going to operate them? How is it that a hundred tanks will make some difference? Or five hundred? Or one thousand? Russia has killed thousands of Ukrainian tanks. They don’t need more targets but no doubt they are always welcome.

Ukraine is no longer a country. Poland is seizing land on the west side and Russia already controls most of the country with any economic value in the east. What is left is a third world shithole run by the remaining Nazis that Putin hasn’t gotten around to whacking yet. Ukraine is now drafting 16-year-old kids, both male and female. Tell me that doesn’t sound like the last days of the 3rd Reich.

In the mid-1960s it cost US taxpayers over a million dollars to put me in the front seat of an F-4B and took about 21 months. Training people to operate complex weapons systems takes a lot of time and a lot of money. Who is going to operate tanks in a broken country with no electric power? Who is going to spend six months in training to learn how to fire a Patriot missile when one battery wouldn’t be large enough to protect a girl-scout campfire and they barely work anyway? How does getting equipment to Ukraine a year from now or longer going to have any impact? They are losing 1,000 dead a day now. How much longer before the survivors wake up and realize where their real enemies are?

The war is over and all that is left is the dying of hundreds of thousands more Ukrainians of starvation or freezing or medical issues when the entire system has been destroyed. Nato has shot its wad unless of course they are brilliant enough to keep fighting a lost battle until it goes nuclear and the world ends. Nato is finished. The EU is finished and soon the US will realize it committed suicide fighting a war that they could never win.

What was Russia’s sin? Was it selling inexpensive natural gas to Germany so they could be the driver of the EU economy producing chemicals, pharmaceuticals and electricity? Russia was never a threat to Europe before the war and is not now. They were a neighbor who wanted safe borders and their citizens to not be killed by psychopaths who hate them because they are Russian.

Russia has 100-megaton torpedoes that go faster than any weapon can stop. One torpedo that could wipe out Great Britain and leave it unlivable for decades or wipe out the entire East coast of the US. What kind of idiots want to attack a nuclear armed state?

And I forgot. The brain dead idiots running the US want to go after China next. It’s a sort of twofer. Get two for the price of one. The US spent twenty years trying to convince goat herders to do things our way. And totally failed and got booted out of Kabul with their tail between their legs. Are they f**king kidding or just f**king stupid?"
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This never had to happen, and the $121 BILLION YOU and me and all of us sent to support this insanity has resulted in 157,000 Ukrainian and 20,000 Russian soldiers killed so far, but that'll be dwarfed by the very-soon massive Russian offensive, ending with a bloodbath of astonishing proportions, and the surrender of Ukraine. Watch and see...And for what? Why?

"You're About To Lose Your Job; House Market Begins To Crash, Inflation Crisis; Google Layoffs"

Jeremiah Babe, 1/20/23:
"You're About To Lose Your Job; House Market 
Begins To Crash; Inflation Crisis; Google Layoffs"
Comments here:

"Biosphere Destruction Reaching Extinction Level Event (ELE)"

Situation Update, Jan 20, 2023:
"Biosphere Destruction Reaching Extinction Level Event (ELE)"
By Mike Adams
"Today's Ultra-important Situation Update Podcast and Interview Features Dane Wigington from Geoengineering Watch, where we discuss the engineered devastation of Earth's biosphere. Events are reaching such criticality that a tipping point of planetary extinction may be approaching. Yet the attacks on the atmosphere and biosphere are all deliberate."
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Musical Interlude: Deuter, "Atmospheres"

Deuter, "Atmospheres"

"A Look to the Heavens"

"Dwarf galaxies NGC 147 (left) and NGC 185 stand side by side in this sharp telescopic portrait. The two are not-often-imaged satellites of M31, the great spiral Andromeda Galaxy, some 2.5 million light-years away. Their separation on the sky, less than one degree across a pretty field of view, translates to only about 35 thousand light-years at Andromeda's distance, but Andromeda itself is found well outside this frame. 
Brighter and more famous satellite galaxies of Andromeda, M32 and M110, are seen closer to the great spiral. NGC 147 and NGC 185 have been identified as binary galaxies, forming a gravitationally stable binary system. But recently discovered faint dwarf galaxy Cassiopeia II also seems to be part of their system, forming a gravitationally bound group within Andromeda's intriguing population of small satellite galaxies."

Chet Raymo, “Mortal Soul: The Great Silence”

“Mortal Soul: The Great Silence”
by Chet Raymo

“If there is one word that should not be uttered, it is the name of – no, I will not say it. Any name diminishes. In the face of whatever it is that is most mysterious, most holy, we are properly silent. It is appropriate, I think, to praise the creation, to make a joyful noise of thanksgiving for the sensate world. But praising the Creator is another thing altogether. When we make a big racket on His behalf we are more than likely addressing an idol in our own image. What was it that Pico Iyer said? “Silence is the tribute that we pay to holiness; we slip off words when we enter a sacred place, just as we slip off shoes.” The God of the mystics whispers sweet nothings, as lovers do.

In a diary entry for “M.”, near the end of his too-short life, Thomas Merton wrote: “I cannot have enough of the hours of silence when nothing happens. When the clouds go by. When the trees say nothing. When the birds sing. I am completely addicted to the realization that just being there is enough.” The natural world was for Merton the primary revelation. He listened. He felt a presence in his heart, an awareness of the ineffable Mystery that permeates creation. It was this that drew him to the mystical tradition of Christianity, especially to the Celtic tradition of creation spirituality. It was this that attracted him to Zen.

There come now and then, perhaps more frequently in late life than previously, those moments of being (as Virginia Woolf called them) when creation grabs us by the shoulders and gives us such a shake that it rattles our teeth, when love for the world simply knocks us flat. At those moments everything we have learned about the world – the invaluable and reliable knowledge of science- seems a pale intimation of what is. In Virginia Woolf’s novel “The Waves”, the elderly Bernard says: “How tired I am of stories, how tired I am of phrases that come down beautifully with all their feet on the ground! Also, how I distrust neat designs of life that are drawn upon half sheets of notepaper. I begin to long for some little language such as lovers use, broken words, inarticulate words, like the shuffling of feet on the pavement.”

In moments of soul-stirring epiphany, it is reassuring to feel beneath our feet a floor of reliable knowledge, the safe and sure edifice of empirical learning so painstakingly constructed by the likes of Aristarchus, Galileo, Darwin and Schrodinger. But at the same time we are humbled by our ignorance, and more ready than ever to say “I don’t know,” to enter at last the great silence. Erwin Chargaff, who contributed mightily to our understanding of DNA, wrote: “It is the sense of mystery that, in my opinion, drives the true scientist; the same blind force, blindly seeing, deafly hearing, unconsciously remembering, that drives the larva into the butterfly. If the scientist has not experienced, at least a few times in his life, this cold shudder down his spine, this confrontation with an immense invisible face whose breath moves him to tears, he is not a scientist.”

The whole thrust of the mystical tradition, the whole thrust of science, is toward the great silence- an awareness of our ignorance and a willingness to say “I don’t know.” A lifetime of learning brings one at last to the face of mystery. We live in a universe of more than 2 trillion galaxies. Perhaps the number of galaxies is infinite. And the universe is silent. Achingly, terrifyingly silent. Or, rather, the universe speaks a little language such as lovers use, broken words, inarticulate words, like the shuffling of feet on the pavement.”