Saturday, July 22, 2023

Gerald Celente, "Inflation Cools Down, While War Heats Up"

Full screen recommended.
VERY strong language alert!
Gerald Celente, 7/22/23
"Inflation Cools Down, While War Heats Up"
"In this video, world-renowned trends analyst Gerald Celente delves into the current state of our economy, looking at how inflation appears to be cooling down while the unsettling prospect of war continues to escalate."
Comments here:
o
Full screen recommended.
Hindustan Times, 7/22/23
"Putin Threatens U.S. After American Cluster 
Munition Attack Killed Russian Journo In Ukraine"
"Russia's Foreign Ministry has issued a warning after an attack on a group of journalists. Moscow alleged that the Ukrainian Army used cluster munitions in the attack on journalists. A Russian war reporter was killed and three were wounded in the attack in the Zaporizhhia region. Soon after the incident, Russia launched a scathing attack on Washington over supplying cluster munitions to Ukraine"
Comments here:
o

Musical Interlude: Liquid Mind, “My Orchid Spirit (Extragalactic)”

Full screen recommended.
Liquid Mind, “My Orchid Spirit (Extragalactic)”

"A Look to the Heavens"

"Colorful NGC 1579 resembles the better known Trifid Nebula, but lies much farther north in planet Earth's sky, in the heroic constellation Perseus. About 2,100 light-years away and 3 light-years across, NGC 1579 is, like the Trifid, a study in contrasting blue and red colors, with dark dust lanes prominent in the nebula's central regions.
In both, dust reflects starlight to produce beautiful blue reflection nebulae. But unlike the Trifid, in NGC 1579 the reddish glow is not emission from clouds of glowing hydrogen gas excited by ultraviolet light from a nearby hot star. Instead, the dust in NGC 1579 drastically diminishes, reddens, and scatters the light from an embedded, extremely young, massive star, itself a strong emitter of the characteristic red hydrogen alpha light."

Chet Raymo, “Try To Remember…”

“Try To Remember…”
by Chet Raymo

“In a sleepless hour of the night, I was trying to remember the last name of a person I have known well for more than forty years. When my spouse stirred in her sleep, I asked her. She couldn't remember either. One again I started mentally through the alphabet. "I think it starts with B," I said. Ten minutes later she rolled over and said, "The next letter is R." Bingo! The name popped into my head. Or I should say, "popped out of my head." Because it was in there somewhere, recorded in a tangle of neurons as materially as if it were written on a piece of paper.

There was a time, back when I was a young man, when some scientists thought memory might be molecular - stored as proteins or RNA molecules that have somehow been modified by experience. The molecule theory of memory rested on experiments with worms (I remember the cover illustration on Scientific American). The worms were taught to navigate a simple maze. Then they were ground up and fed to untrained worms, which seemed to navigate the maze without training. Only molecules, it was thought, could have survived the transfer. Those experiments have been discredited. Scientists now overwhelmingly believe that memories are stored as webs of connections between spider-shaped brain cells called neurons. Each neuron is connected through electrochemical connections to thousands of others. According to the current view, experience fine-tunes the connections, strengthening some, weakening others, creating a different "trace" of interconnected cells for each memory.

But truth be told, memory is still deeply mysterious. How exactly are a lifetime of memories stored and retrieved at will? We know how it works for computers, but how for the human brain? What is self-consciousness? What are dreams? This is the primary scientific agenda for the 21st century. In the middle of the night I go fishing, in that sea of potentiated synapses that are the human soul, for a name that becomes ever more difficult to extract as I get older. I troll the alphabet: A, B, C, D… The name is in there, along with a face and more that forty years of interactions. The Nobel Prizes are waiting.”
Graphic: Salvador Dali, "The Persistence of Memory"

The Poet: Wendell Berry, "The Circles Of Our Lives"

"The Circles Of Our Lives"

"Within the circles of our lives
we dance the circles of the years,
the circles of the seasons
within the circles of the years,
the cycles of the moon,
within the circles of the seasons,
the circles of our reasons
within the cycles of the moon.

Again, again we come and go,
changed, changing. Hands
join, unjoin in love and fear,
grief and joy. The circles turn,
each giving into each, into all.

Only music keeps us here,
each by all the others held.
In the hold of hands and eyes
we turn in pairs, that joining
joining each to all again.
And then we turn aside, alone,
out of the sunlight gone
into the darker circles of return,
Within the circles of our lives..."
- Wendell Berry
o
“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
o
"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

The Daily "Near You?"

Shawnee, Oklahoma, USA. Thanks for stopping by!

"Decide..."

“We're all going to die. We don't get much say over how or when, but we do get to decide how we're gonna live. So, do it. Decide. Is this the life you want to live? Is this the person you want to love? Is this the best you can be? Can you be stronger? Kinder? More compassionate? Decide. Breathe in. Breathe out and decide.”
- “Richard”, “Grey’s Anatomy”

"Fate..."

"I can control my destiny, but not my fate. Destiny means there are opportunities to turn right or left, but fate is a one-way street. I believe we all have the choice as to whether we fulfill our destiny, but our fate is sealed."
- Paulo Coelho

"Breaking Alert, Biggest Red Flag Ever Happened!"

Canadian Prepper, 7/22/23
Full screen recommended.
"Breaking Alert, Biggest Red Flag Ever Happened! 
Poland Will Enter Ukraine; 2500 Troops To Iran"
Comments here:
o
Colonel Douglas Macgregor, Straight Calls 7/22/23
"The Russians Have Annihilated The Depots In Odessa"
"Analysis of breaking news and in-depth discussion of 
current geopolitical events in the United States of America and the world."
Comments here:
o
Full screen recommended.
"Russian MP’s Big Claim:
 Putin Planning to Attack NATO's Underbelly?" 
o
And it all seems so unstoppable, so inevitable...
We can't help ourselves, just gotta do it...
Full screen recommended.
"There are a multitude of fuses affixed to dozens of powder-kegs and little kids with matches are on the loose. I don’t know which of the fuses will be lit and which powder-keg will blow, but someone is bound to do something stupid, and then all hell will break loose. It could happen at any time. One military miscue. One assassination. One violent act that stirs the world. And the dominoes will topple, setting off fireworks not seen on this planet since 1939 – 1945. I can see it all very clearly." - Jim Quinn

"Our Alaric Moment"

"Our Alaric Moment"
by The ZMan

"If you were living in the Western Roman Empire in the fourth century you probably knew that things were not going well. This assumes that you were prosperous enough to have time to think about these things. You could see that the infrastructure was failing and that the empire was struggling to maintain order. On the other hand, the decline had been happening for a long time so things may have seemed normal. Without some way to compare the present to the past, you only have instinct.

Today we have mountains of facts and figures to tell us how things are doing in the Global American Empire. There was a time not so long ago when these facts and figures made up the bulk of news coverage. Economists became court wizards, explaining the latest unemployment figures or trade numbers. They were also called upon to bless whatever polices were being debated in Congress. In the Obama years, economic data was the way we measured the glories of the empire.

That has all changed now. One reason is no one in their right mind takes anything the government says at face value. People had grown used to the way the media biased the numbers depending upon who was in office, but the mortgage crisis cratered the public’s confidence in the numbers themselves. If all of the court wizards explaining the numbers could not see the mortgage fiasco coming, then why should anyone believe them about unemployment or inflation?

Then you have the general lying that has become a feature of government. The lying about Covid not only disgraced the medical profession, but it finished off whatever trust people had in the official numbers. If the government lies about how many people are dying from Covid just to move more product for the drug makers, the government will lie about how many people are working or the inflation numbers. No one trusts the numbers because no one trusts the people issuing the numbers.

The point here is we cannot trust the numbers if the numbers have no relationship to anything we have experienced. When the end of the world has the same numbers as what most consider to be a golden era for the empire, those numbers cease to have any meaning to us. Throw in the fact that most people do not feel like they are richer than their ancestors and those inflated stock figures carry even less weight. We are left to rely on our instincts to judge things.

Of course, our sense of things, that gut feeling, is the result of a many small things that we experience every day. Three-quarters of Americans think the country is going in the wrong direction because they go to the grocery store every week. They see that despite the crowing about inflation coming down, food remains expensive. Granted, no one is starving in America due to a lack of affordable food, but it is that thing they see every day that gives people a sense of things.

Think about something simple like a pint of premium ice cream. A few years ago, a pint was sixteen ounces. “A pint is a pint the world around” was true from peak of the British empire until just a few years ago. Now a pint is fourteen ounces. The price for the new pint is not the same as the old pint. The price is more than the old pint. A few years ago, the old pint of ice cream was five dollars. That is about 31¢ per ounce. Today the new pint is over seven dollars or 51¢ per ounce.

That is a seventy percent change in the price. This is one example and probably not a representative one, given that butterfat prices drive dairy prices. Even so, this is something people see all over the marketplace. Shrinkflation is a word because it is a thing that exists. People notice that the containers are getting smaller, or they are getting less full in the case of things like snacks. Meanwhile, prices go up. This subtly tells people that something is going wrong.

This is probably why we are no longer getting a parade of court wizards analyzing the latest economic numbers. According to the numbers, Joe Biden should be dozing into reelection with an insurmountable lead, as his court wizards flood the airwaves with the good news about the economy. Instead, no one talks about the numbers and Biden is as popular as rectal cancer. It is possible he could lose the election to a man sitting in prison or be deposed by the secret police.

This brings us back to where we started. There were those in the Roman Empire who sensed the true state of affairs. No doubt some of them lived and died expecting things to fall apart, only to stagger on long past their time. Then there were others who internalized this reality and just accepted that no matter how grim things might appear, the empire was a permanent feature of life. The people probably just tried to make the best of things, even as they noticed the decline.

All of that changed on August 24, 410 AD when Alaric led the Visigoths into the eternal city, sacking Rome and setting off the collapse of the Western empire. The empire staggered on for a bit longer, but it was over at that point. All of those bad signs people had sensed probably seemed obvious in retrospect. Even so, the sack of Rome by the Visigoths was a shock to the world. The signs seemed obvious, but people still thought that the imperial order was permanent.

This is most likely the fate of the American empire. There are lots of signs that things are going poorly for the empire. Getting whipped by a collection of bronze age goatherds in the graveyard of empires should have been a wakeup call, but the empire is now picking fights with Russia and China. Meanwhile things deteriorate domestically, both economically and culturally. Yet, we stagger on, but somewhere out there is an Alaric moment just waiting to happen."

"It’s Mourning In America"

"It’s Mourning In America"
Now that America has been transformed from a high-trust 
social order into a low-trust social order, there’s no going back.
by Charles Hugh Smith

"The birth of financialization in the early 1980s was morning in America because finance– the collateralization of previously low-risk assets and the resulting explosion of credit and leverage–gooses demand and asset valuations. Now that we’ve at long last reached the demise of financialization, it’s mourning in America as the hyper-stimulation has reached its zenith and is beginning its inevitable end-game of uncontrolled implosion. The hyper-financialization of American life has fatally distorted the nation’s production, politics, values and social order.

Regardless of our political persuasion, we’re all mourning for what’s been lost to either decay or erosion, both of which are so gradual that we cannot discern the full extent of the damage. We sense it, though, and this fuels the nation’s distemper. The decay, erosion and distemper remind me of a quote from French author Michel Houellebecq: “I have the impression of being caught up in a network of complicated, minute, stupid rules, and I have the impression of being herded towards a uniform kind of happiness, toward a kind of happiness that doesn’t really make me happy.”

Substitute con for happiness and we have an insight into the source of mourning in America: we’re being conned 24/7, on every level and in every nook and cranny of the economy and society. The key to any good con is to persuade the mark (victim) that it’s not a con. The most direct approach is to claim the con is true, factual, etc. Once this claim starts unraveling, then the con switches to an alternative reality that has enough shreds of credibility to be plausible.

This is why so many confuse the con and propaganda. Both are self-serving, of course, as the goal of propaganda is to generate compliance and conformity in the populace by constructing an emotionally compelling context that is both appealing and plausible. Those spewing the propaganda do so to secure their power and further their own self-serving agenda.

For example, that we’re all enjoying unprecedented prosperity in the best of all possible worlds. Look at all the low-quality rusting junk we can buy from manufacturers in totalitarian nations at low, low prices–wow! It doesn’t get any better than this. Stainless Steal (February 26, 2023).

The difference is that those spewing propaganda can be true believers in whatever cause is being pushed. In most cases, propaganda is issued by cynical, manipulative sociopaths who are merely hired guns for whomever seeks all the advantages of persuading people that enriching and empowering the few at the expense of the many is not only allowable, it’s the right thing, the only option, etc. But propaganda works best when it converts the previously uncommitted or apathetic into true believers, much like a religious conversion.

A con, on the other hand, is a swindle, a fraud, a bezzle, that takes advantage of the mark’s naive trust. This trust might be in a blood relative, a friend, an enterprise, an organization or an institution. The con exploits this trust to defraud or break the mark into an unknowing patsy. The fundamentals of the con are:

1. The gains are guaranteed, i.e. low risk.
2. The benefits are exaggerated while the costs and consequences are left unsaid.

Here’s the metaphor the con presents: I’m leading you to a glorious fruit tree loaded with ripe fruit. All you have to do is harvest as much as you want. Since we’re all still hunter-gatherers in Wetware 1.0, this greatly appeals to us. We’re inherently risk-averse and greedy to exploit windfalls, and the con promises us near-zero risk and one windfall to stripmine after another. It’s irresistible. The con always has an end date, when the mark discovers they’ve been fleeced. Trust is destroyed, and the mark, bitterly enlightened to their own credulity, laziness and greed, vows to never fall for such a con again.

The higher-order con never lets trust be completely destroyed. Instead, the con-man either rushes to console the mark and apologize for the unexpected loss, (Jeez, this never happened before – it must have been a glitch in the Matrix), or the con-man brazenly blames the victim for misjudging the situation and failing to take advantage of the unbeatable deal. "You blew it, pal, I can’t help you with that. But hey, since I’m such a nice guy, and you’re deserving of a second chance, I’m gonna let you in on another deal, not quite as good as the one you blew, but still a gem."

This is America in a nutshell: a continuous cacophony of cons. This is why trust in institutions such as the media, corporations, political interest groups, government and education are in free-fall, along with social trust in our fellow Americans. Every node of power is dominated by people out to maximize their personal gains at the expense of the public, customers, voters, members, students, etc.

"Listen, kid, you’re gonna be on Easy Street if you go borrow $120,000 and give it to us for a college diploma. You’ll be set for life, it’s like shooting fish in a barrel once you pony up the dough and we give you the paper. Don’t be a chump, kid, you gotta look out for yourself, and we’re trying to help you here."

"This medication is safe and non-addictive, you’re gonna feel a lot better as soon as you start taking it. Here’s ten pages of side-effects, but don’t worry about all that, it’s just boiler-plate. We’re here to help you, pal, and the $27,000 a month cost is mostly on the government, so it’s a slam-dunk win for you."

"Gee, I’d like to answer your questions about the district budget, employee salaries and overtime, it must be in this 293-page annual statement somewhere. You can buy a copy for only $25."
And so on, in an endless profusion of self-serving cons. Ernest academics ponder this decay and propose all sorts of scholarly possibilities, while never mentioning the obvious source: every node of power in America is hopelessly corrupt, covering its cons with tsunamis of propaganda aimed at “trust-building” among “stakeholders,” whipping up the conned faithful, cherry-picking evidence to string along the marks just a little longer, and pointing to the long history of the institution as trustworthy – a reputation that is being pillaged to benefit the few at the expense of the many.

The most successful cons divert attention from the con-men to some other group of marks/ victims. You got fleeced because of them. The fact that everyone outside the nodes of power has been fleeced is left unsaid, as this realization might generate a common cause of the marks against those benefiting so richly from the cons. It was fun while it lasted, exploiting the supercharged-cons of hyper-financialization and hyper-globalization, but those cons have been tapped out and there are no replacements. It’s tough recognizing that we’ve been credulous, naively trusting, and greedy for low-risk riches. Every one of the countless skims, scams and cons has exploited our willingness to trust and our self-interest in easy wealth.

Now that America has been transformed from a high-trust social order into a low-trust social order, there’s no going back. This is why it’s mourning in America. Trust can only be rebuilt slowly, first by opting out of all the self-serving cons and then re-establishing trust at the local level."
o

"Cash Is King"

Full screen recommended.
Dan, I Allegedly 7/22/23
"Cash Is King"
"We need to support small businesses by paying in cash. This expression was developed to discuss how liquid certain people are, and the positivity of not using credit cards and supporting the big banks."
Comments here:

"Inconvenience Stickers Are Back At Kroger! Food Shortage Report & What's Coming!"

Full screen recommended.
Adventures With Danno, 7/22/23
"Inconvenience Stickers Are Back At Kroger! 
Food Shortage Report & What's Coming!"
"In today's vlog, we are at Kroger and are noticing inconvenience stickers on a lot of grocery items. This is not good as usually when we see these, it's not long after that we deal with a major shortage of that product. We are preparing accordingly and stocking up on these items now, before thery'e gone."
Comments here:

Friday, July 21, 2023

"A Reckoning Is Coming, Are You Ready? Credit Cards Keep Americans Spending"

Jeremiah Babe, 7/21/23
"A Reckoning Is Coming, Are You Ready? 
Credit Cards Keep Americans Spending"
Comments here:

"Domino's CEO Warns Large Number Of Stores Will Disappear As Fast Food Bankruptcies Continue To Rise"

Full screen recommended.
"Domino's CEO Warns Large Number Of Stores Will 
Disappear As Fast Food Bankruptcies Continue To Rise"
by Epic Economist

"Domino’s store closings are soaring in 2023. The biggest pizza chain in the entire globe has admitted that it raised prices way too fast, and now it is facing the consequences of this decision as sales continue to fall in most of its locations in the U.S. and the world. The company is facing a perfect storm as financial losses hit the highest level since 2011. That has led corporate executives to warn that nearly 20% of the chain’s underperforming restaurants will likely disappear before the end of the year. The announcement comes as a new Bloomberg report shows that bankruptcies in the restaurant sector are rapidly rising amid worsening macroeconomic factors. The outlook is getting gloomier for the entire industry, and experts say one single disruption in the system could push Domino’s and other major chains over the edge in the next few months.

During its latest earnings call, the chain’s U.S. CEO Russell Weiner revealed that the company’s sales dropped by roughly 8.3% in the first quarter, after falling 6.6% in the fourth quarter of 2022. The company's same-store delivery sales fell for the third consecutive quarter in Q2. The decline in delivery may stem from consumers hitting their breaking point on inflation, as delivery fees stack on top of product price hikes.

“As we saw in the last recession, delivery moves with the economy, especially for customers with lower disposable income, who represent a significant portion of our business,” Weiner highlighted. Predicting more financial volatility ahead, global corporate executives are now conducting mass store closings to save on costs. In the U.S., the number of store shutdowns can hit up to 250 in the second half of the year, according to a source familiar with the matter who talked on condition of anonymity with Insider.

At least another 150 locations are set to close in Australia, Japan, France, and Germany. This year, the company also shuttered all of its locations in Denmark and Italy due to years of underperformance, the source said. Executives announced that several unprofitable stores would be gone by the end of the year. “Domino’s will reduce the size of its current corporate store network by 15 to 20 percent, through closing underperforming stores and accelerating the refranchising of corporate stores in a major ‘turnaround’,” the company said in a statement.

Not only Domino’s but many other big fast-food franchises are likely to default on their debt as the recession accelerates. That could spur more of them to file bankruptcy in the coming months, analysts warned. Although Domino's large number of franchisees can be a major advantage during times of economic prosperity, it can also be a major liability during economic downturns due to the increased exposure to debt, and limited access to credit. If operators continue to be squeezed by higher operational costs and falling sales, many of them may become insolvent, and the company may suddenly find itself drowning in debt and stuck with zombie stores. That's what happening with Burger King right now. After three franchisees filed for bankruptcy this year, the burger chain is closing 400 locations and trying to renegotiate its debt in an attempt to stay afloat and restore profitability. This situation shows that it doesn't matter how big a company is, a series of small failures can make it rot from within. Considering the size and scope of Domino's troubles, we're not that far from seeing a similar outcome."
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Musical Interlude: Chuck Wild, "Liquid Mind, Dream Ten”

Full screen recommended.
Chuck Wild, "Liquid Mind, Dream Ten”
"Liquid Mind" (aka Chuck Wild) originally wrote this music to deal with the anxiety and stress of overwork and the serious illness of friends. The gentle ebb and flow of the music has an immediate "slowing down" effect, providing a serene escape from tension-filled days. Ideal for stress relief, falling asleep at night and to enhance meditative and therapeutic practices. There are few composers with as much love for slowness in their music as Wild. Chuck draws from classical and pop influences as varying as Beethoven and Brian Eno, Bartok and Rachmaninoff, Bach, Chopin and Fauré, Duruflé and Brahms."

"A Look to the Heavens"

“The constellation of Orion holds much more than three stars in a row. A deep exposure shows everything from dark nebula to star clusters, all embedded in an extended patch of gaseous wisps in the greater Orion Molecular Cloud Complex. The brightest three stars on the far left are indeed the famous three stars that make up the belt of Orion. Just below Alnitak, the lowest of the three belt stars, is the Flame Nebula, glowing with excited hydrogen gas and immersed in filaments of dark brown dust.
Below the frame center and just to the right of Alnitak lies the Horsehead Nebula, a dark indentation of dense dust that has perhaps the most recognized nebular shapes on the sky. On the upper right lies M42, the Orion Nebula, an energetic caldron of tumultuous gas, visible to the unaided eye, that is giving birth to a new open cluster of stars. Immediately to the left of M42 is a prominent bluish reflection nebula sometimes called the Running Man that houses many bright blue stars. The above image, a digitally stitched composite taken over several nights, covers an area with objects that are roughly 1,500 light years away and spans about 75 light years.”

The Poet: Theodore Roethke, “The Return”

“The Return”

“Suddenly the window will open
and Mother will call,
it's time to come in.
The wall will part,
I will enter heaven in muddy shoes.
I will come to the table
and answer questions rudely.
I am all right, leave me
alone. Head in hand I
sit and sit. How can I tell them
about that long
and tangled way?
Here in heaven mothers
knit green scarves;
flies buzz.
Father dozes by the stove
after six days' labor.
No - surely I can't tell them
that people are at each
other's throats.”

- Theodore Roethke

Paulo Coelho, "The Water Pitcher"

"The Water Pitcher"
by Paulo Coelho

"A legend tells of a man who used to carry water every day to his village, using two large pitchers tied on either end of a piece of wood, which he placed across his shoulders. One of the pitchers was older than the other and was full of small cracks; every time the man came back along the path to his house, half of the water was lost. For two years, the man made the same journey. The younger pitcher was always very proud of the way it did its work and was sure that it was up to the task for which it had been created, while the other pitcher was mortally ashamed that it could carry out only half its task, even though it knew that the cracks were the result of long years of work.

So ashamed was the old pitcher that, one day, while the man was preparing to fill it up with water from the well, it decided to speak to him. "I wish to apologize because, due to my age, you only manage to take home half the water you fill me with, and thus quench only half the thirst awaiting you in your house."

The man smiled and said: "When we go back, be sure to take a careful look at the path." The pitcher did as the man asked and noticed many flowers and plants growing along one side of the path. "Do you see how much more beautiful nature is on your side of the road?" the man remarked. "I knew you had cracks, but I decided to take advantage of them. I sowed vegetables and flowers there, and you always watered them. I've picked dozens of roses to decorate my house, and my children have had lettuce, cabbage and onions to eat. If you were not the way you are, I could never have done this. We all, at some point, grow old and acquire other qualities, and these can always be turned to good advantage."

The Universe

"Friends are friends because they've discovered how much they have in common. Opponents, adversaries, and foes are friends too, who have not yet discovered this. It's as if a band of amazing angels got together, before time even began, to celebrate their common heritage, sense of adventure, creativity and savoir faire, and decided to meet in the distant future, amongst the jungles of time and space, upon a distant little blue planet, to see how long it would take for each and every one of them to discover who they really are. 8 billion angels, to be precise."
"Your friend,"
The Universe

"Thoughts become things... choose the good ones!"

The Daily "Near You?"

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

"US Playing With Fire - Putin Issues Dire Warning"

Full screen recommended.
"Putin Mocks 'Inferior' Western Weapons; 
Deems Ukraine's Counteroffensive 'Futile'"
"Russian President Putin has scorned Ukraine's counteroffensive, claiming it to be futile. Despite the Kyiv regime receiving extensive resources and Western aid, the efforts to reclaim territories have yielded no results. Putin emphasized that "colossal" resources and supplies of Western weapons, including tanks, artillery, armored vehicles, and missiles, have not aided Ukraine's cause."
Comments here:
o
o
Aren't you proud, Good Citizen, as you virtue-signal waving your cutesy little Ukrainian flags? After all, look at what the $150 billion you and I and all of us bought. 350,000 dead Ukrainian soldiers, 30,000 dead Russians, and the very real possibility of a world-ending nuclear war. You bought it, you own it. Be real proud...

"The Future"

"We do not rest satisfied with the present. We anticipate the future as too slow in coming, as if in order to hasten its course; or we recall the past, to stop its too rapid flight. So imprudent are we that we wander in the times which are not ours, and do not think of the only one which belongs to us; and so idle are we that we dream of those times which are no more, and thoughtlessly overlook that which alone exists. For the present is generally painful to us. We conceal it from our sight, because it troubles us; and if it be delightful to us, we regret to see it pass away. We try to sustain it by the future, and think of arranging matters which are not in our power, for a time which we have no certainty of reaching. Let each one examine his thoughts, and he will find them all occupied with the past and the future. We scarcely ever think of the present; and if we think of it, it is only to take light from it to arrange the future. The present is never our end. The past and the present are our means; the future alone is our end. So we never live, but we hope to live; and, as we are always preparing to be happy, it is inevitable we should never be so."
- Blaise Pascal

"I Visit All Moscow Metro!"

Full screen recommended.
Alex Inside, 7/21/23
"I Visit All Moscow Metro!", Part 1
"Who says Moscow, says Metro, and it would have been a shame to leave the Russian capital without mentioning its underground world. The Moscow Metro is one of the largest and most beautiful metros in the world. Each station is unique and bears witness to its own history."
Comments here:

Full screen recommended.
Alex Inside, 7/21/23
"I Visit All Moscow Metro, A Feast for the Eyes!, Part 2
"After watching this video, the Moscow metro will hold no secrets for you! At least, after two whole days in the metro, I can say it: I visited the entire Moscow metro, and it was worth it! As in Episode 1, there were some wonderful discoveries to be made (especially on the new BKL line). And you, which station impressed you the most?"
Comments here:

OMG, I am utterly, absolutely astonished, speechless...

"RFK, Jr. Goes to Washington"

"RFK, Jr. Goes to Washington"
...and into the donkey's den
by Bill Bonner

"Oh, Jake," Brett said, "we could have had such a damned good time together." Ahead was a mounted policeman in khaki directing traffic. He raised his baton. The car slowed suddenly pressing Brett against me. "Yes," I said. "Isn't it pretty to think so?"
- Ernest Hemingway, "The Sun Also Rises"

Poitou, France - "Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. testified before a Congressional committee yesterday. The committee was supposed to be looking at censorship. Then, House Democrats wanted to censure Kennedy by disinviting him. They claimed that there are some views that shouldn’t be heard at all. They are “beyond the pale,” they said. “The Pale” refers to the area around Dublin still under English control in the 14th century. Beyond it were the ‘wild Irish.’ Kennedy’s family came from New Ross, Ireland, which was beyond the pale. As we will see, Kennedy is ‘off the reservation’ in more ways than one…and poses a threat, not just to Democrats, but to Republicans too.

Into the Donkey’s Den: USA Today: 'Idiotic, bigoted messaging': Dems grill RFK Jr. during House hearing on censorship. House Democrats slammed Democratic presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. during a hearing on Thursday over his comments promoting a false claim that suggested COVID-19 was "ethnically targeted" to spare Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese people. "Distortion of the truth has consequences," Rep. Gerry Connolly, D-Va., said. "It's not censorship to try to correct that record."

It is hardly worth mentioning that Kennedy is neither a Ku-Kluxer, nor a neo-nazi, nor a homophobe. He’s not even a real anti-vaxxer. Each time you read a headline, you feel entitled to dismiss him as just another fringe politician with kooky views. But each time, when you look at what he actually says, you get a different story. On the issue of vaccinations, for example, the candidate has been vaccinated. He says all his children were vaccinated too. But that doesn’t stop him from wondering if vaccines are really as safe and effective as their manufacturers claim.

Kennedy wonders about a lot of things. About whether Sirhan Sirhan really killed his father, for example…and about whether it was just a coincidence that his uncle was assassinated right after he had vowed to smash the CIA “into a thousand pieces.” (Charles de Gaulle came back to Paris from the funeral and reported privately that the CIA had killed him.) RFK, Jr. has even begun to wonder about how to solve the problem of inflation…he’s proposing to tie the dollar to bitcoin!

“Baseless… bizarre… unproven…” But the Establishment doesn’t like wondering. It claims to have The Truth…and nothing but the truth…final and definitive – on everything from the Kennedy assassination to the efficacy of lockdowns and face masks…to the causes and cures of heat waves and cold snaps. So, the politicians and the press label him a bad guy in the headlines…and hope that he will go away.

What we are looking at here is a rare and instructive example of politics…and megapolitics… playing out on the same stage. At the superficial, political level, the plot is simple…and the characters act their assigned roles with their customary lack of grace or charm. So it was that Senator Wasserman Shultz characterized Kennedy’s wondering about the Covid -19 vaccine as “baseless conspiracy theory….bizarre, unproven…” and so on. Rep. Connolly suggested it was ‘hate speech.’

Democrats want to win the next presidential election so they can enjoy four more years of payoffs to their favorite lobbyists and pet projects. But their champion, Joe Biden, is a very flawed hero. He is an aging hack who seems unable to wonder about anything. Even most Democrats don’t like him. But the upcoming race for the White House may be a close call. And the last thing the Democrats want is for someone to cut into Biden’s votes. According to the polls, 16% of Democrats favor Kennedy. If they actually vote for RFK, Jr., they will tip the election towards the Republican challenger, who will likely be Donald J. Trump.

That is why House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries called the Kennedy campaign a “living, breathing false-flag operation…run by right-wing political operatives who have one objective: try to take down President Joe Biden.”

Over the past few weeks, the media – most of it controlled by Democrats…with reporters and columnists who overwhelmingly identify as left-of-center – has tried to knock Kennedy out of the running. Labeling him an anti-semite, they believed, would eliminate Jewish support. Tagging him as a racist, should keep the blacks away. And the ‘conspiracy theorist’ brand should make him unacceptable to the middle class. Or so they hope.

This is just ‘politics.’ Tawdry, fraudulent and dumb. The rockheads of both parties, armed by their polling consultants, aided and abetted by their friends in the media, will fight it out. The surprise could be that Kennedy takes more votes from the Republican candidate than from the Democrat. We will see.

Contra Deep State: More interesting to us, is the battle beneath the surface…the war that will determine the real future of the USA…in the rich vein of megapolitics. Both political parties have betrayed the nation. The Republicans betrayed their principles. The Democrats betrayed their voters. Republicans used to be ‘conservatives,’ appalled by federal power grabs and unbalanced budgets. But their last president – Donald Trump – grabbed more power than any president ever had – confining people to their homes in a bogus ‘national emergency.’ And he also ran the most unbalanced budgets in America’s history, with a deficit well over 10% of GDP. For their part, the Democrats used to be the party that was open to wondering. It favored peace abroad and progress at home, counting on a strong base of working-class voters for its electoral support. Now, turning its back on the families it used to represent, it is dominated by war mongers, billionaires, and non-binary wokistas.

Today, neither party represents ‘The People.’ Both are instruments of the transcontinental elite. Regardless of their blather on the ‘culture issues,’ they both support the two things that will ruin America and its middle class – inflation and war.

Poor RFK, Jr. is not just running against Joe Biden, but against the Deep State…the military/industrial/spook/medical/university/media complex – the Establishment…and the grand viziers of both political parties. That’s where the fight really matters; it’s the battle between ‘The People’ and their corrupt elite. It’s the fight his uncle and his father took up more than half a century ago…and lost. Maybe RFK, Jr. will have better luck. Wouldn’t it be nice to think so?"
o

Jason Aldean, "Try That In A Small Town"

Full screen recommended.
Jason Aldean, "Try That In A Small Town"
Comments here:
"Interesting how countless rap songs encourage murder sprees, drug dealing, pimping, and countless other crimes, and they're celebrated by the media, but a video by a country singer about self defense and neighbors looking out for each other is banned."

I never permit profanity or racism on this blog,
 but watch this and tell me this is ok, I dare you...
IceWear Vezzo, "F**k Rap"
And this absolute filth and garbage is what they love...

"They Keep Taking From Us"

Full screen recommended.
Dan, I Allegedly 7/21/23
"They Keep Taking From Us"
"The Surcharges need to end. People think the digital dollar will be free. It will cut away at your money bit by bit. Eventually, nothing will be left and there will be no monetary independence."
Comments here:

"Food Shortage Update 2023! Here We Go! It's Happening!"

Full screen recommended.
Adventures With Danno, 7/21/23
"Food Shortage Update 2023! Here We Go!
 It's Happening!"
"In today's vlog, we are going over some major food shortages that are coming in Fall of 2023 and into 2024. We explain how if these food items disappear, it will be absolutely devastating all around the world. We are facing more shortages than ever, and must prepare ourselves!"
Comments here:

Greg Hunter, "Weekly News Wrap-Up 7/21/23"

"Weekly News Wrap-Up 7/21/23"
By Greg Hunter’s USAWatchdog.com 

"This week was a rough week for the people supporting President Biden. IRS whistleblower testimony in Congress under oath made it abundantly clear President Biden and his family enriched themselves at the expense of America. In short, it looks like they took treasonous bribes, and this may be just scratching the surface. How many other people in the Washington, D.C. swamp got a cut of Biden booty? We don’t know, but the evidence presented this week shows the Bidens, including the President (aka “The Big Guy”), took money from foreign sources, including China. The Constitution clearly says a President can be impeached for taking a bribe.

While the Lying Legacy Media ignores evidence of real crime, they are reporting on the crimes being made up by the Biden Administration DOJ. The Deep State wants to jail President Trump so he cannot run in 2024 for another term in the White House. Will they use the J6 strategy that got convictions of 350 protesters at the capitol so far? It sure looks that way, and even President Trump is expecting charges soon, which is the ultimate election interference.

There is no doubt America is at war with Russia. We keep sending in arms and munitions, and there are no peace talks whatsoever. Now, a bridge linking Russia to Crimea has been blown up again, and the Russians responded by destroying a port in Ukraine that exports wheat. Higher food prices and shortages will be hitting the world soon. Meanwhile, the U.S. dollar is under attack, and a new global currency is going to be released by the so-called BRICS countries. Is a new currency war coming to go along with the real war already underway? The short answer is yes, and this spells big trouble to the buck." There is much more in the 1-hour & 2-minute newscast.

Join Greg Hunter of USAWatchdog.com as he talks about 
these stories and more in the Weekly News Wrap-Up for 7/21/23.

Jim Kunstler, "The Downfall of Blobism"

"The Downfall of Blobism"
by Jim Kunstler

“If it weren’t for double standards, 
the Democrats would have no standards at all.” 
- Jeff Childers of the Coffee and Covid blog

"You might not know it these lazy, hazy, muggy days of midsummer, but things are getting pretty wildly out-of-hand in our republic. Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. blew up the Democratic Party yesterday in the House Subcommittee on Weaponization of Government hearing, acting like a normal human while being set upon by a flock of harpies desperately screeching “Russia, Russia, Russia,” as if that means anything anymore. He branded them as worse than the McCarthyites of the 1950s, rebuked their insane scurrilities supporting censorship, and left them in a state of exhausted disgrace.

It happens that he is running for the nomination of that very party knocking itself out to destroy him. To win that prize he would have to put a thousand top Democrats through some grueling act of repentance and contrition — and then you’ve got to ask yourself: who would even want to win the support of such vile creatures as Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Jerrold Nadler, and Adam Schiff, let alone be associated with them in the same club?

Elsewhere around the scene this week, we have the ever more degenerate antics of the FBI on view as whistleblowers pour out of the woodwork disclosing the rot behind Director Chris Wray and his boss AG Merrick Garland. This Deep State Blob of turpitude has been growing and festering with so many overlapping cover-ups that they’ve run out of rugs to sweep their crimes under. The massive moneygrubbing misdeeds of Hillary Clinton from Skolkovo and Uranium One beat a direct path through the Ukraine coup of 2014, to RussiaGate, to the Biden Family’s global influence-peddling operation and every mendacious act in-between including the FISA falsehoods, the J-6 entrapment caper, hundreds of malicious and deceitful prosecutions, the Covid-19 fraud, the censorship and medical tyranny, and God-knows how many ensuing deaths from a poisonous vaccine… and now, a brain-dead government trifling with nuclear war.

And whose brilliant idea was it, anyway, to install this disgusting and incompetent grifter, “Joe Biden,” as our head-of-state? They surely knew well before 2019 that his bag-man son was rooting out bribes in Ukraine, China, and elsewhere, at the same time he was consorting with whores and trafficked children while destroying his brain with crack and downing a fifth of vodka a day. And you’re telling me that the CIA and FBI did not know about any of this, even before October 2019 when Hunter’s laptop stuffed with graphic evidence fell into their hands? If they didn’t know any of this, then what’s the point of having an intel community?

My guess is that it was Barack Obama’s idea to stick “Joe Biden” in the White House in the vain effort to use this captive criminal to stave off any accounting for the aforesaid villainies that occurred during Mr. Obama’s two terms. The mission was originally Hillary Clinton’s — she had plenty at stake herself — but she botched the job in 2016 and allowed the Golden Golem of Greatness to slip into power. It is amazing to look back and see how the mighty Blob congealed after that election — like a giant rogue macrophage — to surround and eliminate Mr. Trump, who apparently did not know for many months what he was up against: the entire permanent bureaucracy. Obviously, the Blob only partly succeeded in deactivating Mr. Trump, who has worked sedulously since 2021 to marshal about half the country militantly against the Blob and Blobism, while he still suffers one rear-guard legal affront after another.

Trouble is, the Blob itself has become an immune disorder for the polity known as the USA, and now threatens to destroy everything the country stands for and all the stuff deployed on the landscape from sea to shining sea, if the hypersonic nukes fly. These are dangerous weeks ahead. The pedal’s on the metal… the rubber’s meeting the road, and we seem to be watching a Thelma and Louise type denouement writ large.

The Blob itself, with the Democratic Party at its nucleus, and evil organelles Mitch McConnell, Lindsey Graham, and their like floating in the endoplasmic reticulum, has gone insane trying to protect its Precious, liberalism’s sacred bowling trophy, Barack Obama, from scrutiny. To call Mr. Obama to account, of course, would be viewed as the ultimate act of American “racism,” a place too many will not go. So, he may evade responsibility until he (and the rest of us) are gone and history catches up with him.

But is there any doubt now that “Joe Biden” must go, and as soon as possible? Surely there is enough evidence to mount an impeachment in the House, and rev it up as expeditiously as the Democrats revved up their two Trump impeachments. An impeachment would, of course, force a trial in the Senate. It is probably the one news event that The New York Times, The Washington Post, and CNN can’t run and hide from — as they have been hiding from this week’s whistleblower hearings and Mr. Kennedy’s sturdy performance against the House censorship activists. In a Senate trial, the rot will finally be laid out before the people to judge, whether the Senate can bring itself to convict “JB” or not. Anyway, it will end this president’s pretense of running for reelection, and on the off-chance he’s convicted, his pardon powers do not extend to that particular extraordinary Senate proceeding. And then we can see about Ms. Harris."
o
"The only difference between the Republican and Democratic parties is the velocities with which their knees hit the floor when corporations knock on their door. That's the only difference." - Ralph Nader


Thursday, July 20, 2023

"A Debt Slave Nightmare Is Coming; Low Credit Score Means No Lifeline; The Party Is Ending"

Jeremiah Babe, 7/20/23
"A Debt Slave Nightmare Is Coming; Low Credit 
Score Means No Lifeline; The Party Is Ending"
Comments here:

"Colonel Douglas Macgregor, Straight Calls 7/20/23"

Colonel Douglas Macgregor, Straight Calls 7/20/23
"A Massive Russian Force On The Ground Now"
"Analysis of breaking news and in-depth discussion of current 
geopolitical events in the United States of America and the world."
Comments here:
o
Scott Ritter, 7/20/23
"Russia's Unconventional Tactics"
Comments here:
o
Scott Ritter, 7/20/23
"Russia has Expanded its Military From 900,000 to 1.5 Million"
Comments here: