Full screen recommended.
Jeremiah Babe, 12/2/23
"Christmas Crisis At Walmart, No Shoppers"
Comments here:
So, we rise from the rubble...
Saturday, December 2, 2023
Musical Interlude: Yanni, “Standing in Motion"
Full screen recommended.
Yanni, “Standing in Motion"
Live At The Acropolis 1993
"A Look to the Heavens"
"Why isn't this ant a big sphere? Planetary nebula Mz3 is being cast off by a star similar to our Sun that is, surely, round. Why then would the gas that is streaming away create an ant-shaped nebula that is distinctly not round?
Clues might include the high 1000-kilometer per second speed of the expelled gas, the light-year long length of the structure, and the magnetism of the star visible above at the nebula's center. One possible answer is that Mz3 is hiding a second, dimmer star that orbits close in to the bright star. A competing hypothesis holds that the central star's own spin and magnetic field are channeling the gas. Since the central star appears to be so similar to our own Sun, astronomers hope that increased understanding of the history of this giant space ant can provide useful insight into the likely future of our own Sun and Earth.”
Chet Raymo, “What Not to Believe”
“What Not to Believe”
by Chet Raymo
“In Stacy Schiff's biography of Cleopatra, I came across this epigraph from Euripides: "Man's most valuable trait is a judicious sense of what not to believe." I have no idea which of Euripides' plays the quote is from, but it strikes me as a suitable source for reflection. Credulity is the default state of a human life. Children are born to believe, to accept as true what they are told by adults. An innate credulity has survival value in a dangerous world. If a grown-up says "There are crocodiles in the river," it is probably best to stay out of the water.
Skepticism, on the other hand, must be learned. I was late in realizing that I didn't have to believe the received "truth." My best teacher was a somewhat older Panamanian secular Jew I went to graduate school with at UCLA. We took our brown-bag lunches together in the university's botanical garden, and spent the hour talking about physics, religion, and the "meaning of life."
Moises was the first person I had encountered after sixteen years of Catholic education who mentioned the word "skepticism." "Why do you believe that?" he would ask, and often I had no answer except that it was what my family and teachers told me was true. The idea that I might actually examine the basis for my beliefs was a rather new concept. In matters of religion, like almost everyone else in the world, I had embraced uncritically the faith story into which I was born.
And thus began my search for "a judicious sense of what not to believe." When later, as a teacher, I wrote a little column for each issue of the college newspaper, I called it "Under a Skeptical Star," from a line of the Scots poet/scholar William MacNeile Dixon: "If there be a skeptical star I was born under it, yet I have lived all my days in complete astonishment." A liberating sense of what not to believe opened the door to a vastly more interesting world whose diverse and astonishing riches I continue to explore to this day."
"The Hand We're Dealt..."
“Bad things don’t happen to people because they deserve for them to happen. It just doesn’t work that way. It’s just… life. And no matter who we are, we have to take the hand we’re dealt, crappy though it may be, and try our very best to move forward anyway, to love anyway, to have hope anyway… to have faith that there’s a purpose to the journey we’re on.”
- Mia Sheridan
The Poet: Charles Bukowski, "Roll The Dice"
“Alea Iacta Est”
“Alea iacta est is a Latin phrase attributed by Suetonius to Julius Caesar on January 10, 49 B.C. as he led his army across the Rubicon river in Northern Italy. With this step, he entered Italy at the head of his army in defiance of the Senate and began his long civil war against Pompey and the Optimates. The phrase, either in the original Latin or in translation, is used in many languages to indicate that events have passed a point of no return.
The historian Frances Titchener has given a stylized description of the context of Caesar’s pronouncement: “We know from [Caesar's journals] that Caesar is not taking this lightly. He knows that if he marches on Rome with his armies, then he is a public enemy, and that he will either have to win, or die. For a Roman patrician like Julius Caesar there is no life without military service; there is no life without service to the state. He cannot simply ‘go native’ and stay in Gaul, and he does realize that if he goes back to Rome, he would be killed. At this time the northernmost border of the Roman territory in Italy is the River Rubicon. Once someone crosses the River Rubicon, he’s in Roman territory. A general must not cross that boundary with his army – he must do what the Romans call lay down his command, which means surrender his right to order troops, and certainly not be carrying weapons.
Caesar and his armies hesitate quite a while at this river while Caesar decides what to do, and Caesar tells us that he informs his soldiers that it’s a little tiny bridge across the river, but once they cross it they’ll have to fight their way all the way to Rome, and Caesar is well aware that he’s risking not just his own life, but those of his loyal soldiers, and he might not win. Pompey is a formidable enemy. It’s also impossible to avoid the fact that Caesar was attacking the state, and as a patrician Roman this would have been very difficult for him, equivalent to beating up your father. He wouldn’t have done any of this lightly. Finally he makes a decision, it’s time to go, and he uses a gambling metaphor: he says ‘Roll the dice’, ‘Alea iacta est’. Once the dice start rolling they cannot be controlled, even though we don’t know what the outcome will be as the dice roll and tumble. Julius and his men swiftly cross the river and they march double time toward Rome, where they almost beat the messengers sent to inform the Senate of their arrival.”
○
"Life's a gamble. Courage is to roll the dice and go
for the gusto when all odds and bets are against you!"
- Bobby Compton
○
Charles Bukowski, "Roll The Dice"
Read by Tom O'Bedlam
"Does Anyone Know..."
"All sins, of course, deserve to be treated with mercy: we all do what we can, and life is too hard and too cruel for us to condemn anyone for failing in this area. Does anyone know what he himself would do if faced with the worst and how much truth could he bear under such circumstances?"
- Andre Comte-Sponville
Joe South, "Walk A Mile In My Shoes"
Redacted, "America Is About Change Forever By Mid-January"
Full screen recommended.
Redacted 12/2/23
"America Is About Change Forever By Mid-January"
"A massive caravan of 4 million illegal migrants is inching closer to the U.S. border as we speak. Independent Journalist Ryan Matta has been tracking their movements and shares unbelievable video evidence of this mass migration into the United States."
Comments here:
"Kissinger Meets St. Peter"
"Kissinger Meets St. Peter"
By Brian Maher
"We note that Mr. Hank Kissinger, age 100, has paid his debt to nature. Thus he has put in appearance before St. Peter, heaven’s gate minder. Being a man of the Judaic faith, he was rather startled to find himself there. Yet there he was. And so he requested entry. We have obtained a transcript of their conversation, revealed herein.
HANK: Hello, St. Peter. The Grim Reaper finally came for me. Can you believe it? And so I throw myself upon your mercy, and request entry to the heavenly realm which you guard so admirably.
PETER: There’s a saying on Earth that only the good die young. You lived to be 100. What am I to infer from this? Trust me, I have every intention of giving you a fair hearing. But let me just say it now: If I were a betting man, I would take the “under,” so to speak. And in the present context, “under” carries a literal connotation.
At any rate, let us proceed. Please hand me your dossier (Peter begins thumbing through the document.) Your credentials are impressive indeed. You advised 12 presidents, and served as national security adviser under Presidents Nixon and Ford. You were also the only person ever to be White House national security adviser and secretary of state at the same time. Your influence over U.S. foreign policy was immense - even to your dying day. I must give you that.
HANK: (With blushing cheeks) Well, I mean, I don’t like to brag or anything, but yeah.
PETER: I see. Let’s take a little deeper look into your career, shall we? Let’s start with the Vietnam War, when you first came to prominence.
HANK: (Hesitant, voice trembling a bit) OK, s-s-s-u-u-u-u-r-e.
PETER: My records indicate that you sabotaged peace talks in 1968 in order to undermine that Johnson fellow. You believed it would grant you a higher position within the Nixon administration. Countless people needlessly died as a result. My records further indicate that you were responsible for mass deaths in Laos and Cambodia.
Let me quote from Rolling Stone magazine: "Every single person who died in Vietnam between autumn 1968 and the Fall of Saigon - and all who died in Laos and Cambodia, where Nixon and Kissinger secretly expanded the war within months of taking office, as well as all who died in the aftermath, like the Cambodian genocide their destabilization set into motion - died because of Henry Kissinger." Is this true? Let me remind you: You are under oath. And the penalty for perjury around here - I assure you - is quite severe.
HANK: Well, I mean, I never said I was perfect. Sometimes you have to do some unethical things for the greater good. I believed I was serving the higher good. What’s the saying? If you want to create an omelet, you need to break a few eggs.
PETER: You mean your personal ambition?
HANK: (Looking around, avoiding eye contact, fidgeting,)
PETER: You know what my boss says about killing people, right? Shall I cite the Sixth Commandment for you? But you’re right. No one’s perfect. Perhaps you redeemed yourself in the following years. Let us see.
In 1971, Pakistan waged a genocidal campaign to suppress the independence movement that resulted in the creation of Bangladesh. Pakistan was an enemy of India and therefore a friend of China. So you encouraged your boss, Nixon, to look the other way as Pakistani forces raped and murdered at least 300,000 people - and likely many more. Tricky Dick appeared at these very gates years ago. I asked him about this. He said you told him, “We can’t allow a friend of ours and China’s to get screwed in a conflict with a friend of India’s.” Do you deny this, sir?
HANK: Well, no, but you have to understand the context. It was the Cold War and we were trying to drive a wedge between the Soviet Union and China. It worked and - if I can say it for myself - it represents one of the greatest foreign policy achievements in U.S. history. Again, you have to consider the greater good. We couldn’t let something like Bangladeshi independence get in the way of that.
PETER: At least 300,000 Bangladeshi would disagree with you. I admit, opening up China was a tremendous accomplishment. But at the cost of your soul? I might further add that you set China forward 50 years. Millions of productive American jobs ended up being shipped over there, creating the Rust Belt. It also vastly expanded China’s military power, which now represents a major challenge to the United States. I thought you were on the U.S. side?
HANK: You can’t judge me for that. The world I just departed is a complicated place. It involves trade-offs. Don’t make the perfect the enemy of the good. I helped bring millions of Chinese out of abject poverty. Isn’t that, well, rather Christian of me?
PETER: It certainly factors in your favor. And believe me, I understand your world of trade-offs. But I’m a harsh grader. Why do you think I’ve turned away so many kings, prime ministers and presidents over the millennia? But let’s move on.
Oh boy. It appears to get worse. It seems like you perfected your craft, so to speak, in South America. In 1970, Chile elected a socialist by the name of Salvador Allende. He demanded reparations from the U.S. for appropriating its vast mineral wealth. Before Allende’s election, you said, “I don’t see why we need to stand by and watch a country go communist due to the irresponsibility of its own people.” You plotted a coup to have the guy overthrown. In 1973 a military junta took over. A pretty nasty bit named Pinochet took over. He tortured and killed thousands, often in —.
HANK: Now hold on, let me stop you there. Communism was evil - don’t you agree? Wasn’t I on the side of the angels here, by stopping it?
PETER: You’re correct, communism was evil. But the socialist idiot was freely and duly elected. If people want to ruin their own country, isn’t that their God-given right? Isn’t your country all about democracy? It sure likes to talk about it. I think I know why you were so hot to overthrow that guy. It goes back to all that mineral wealth Chile had and the American corporations that were tapping it. He threatened to cut them off and you weren’t having that. Am I correct? And remember, this is not an American courthouse. The Fifth Amendment does not apply here.
HANK: Can I plead nolo contendere - no contest?
PETER: You may if you wish. But I must inform you that I will consider your plea an admission of guilt.
HANK: Understood.
PETER: Is this the plea you wish to enter?
HANK: Yes.
PETER: So noted.
HANK: (Nodding slightly, somber in countenance.)
PETER: You know, some guy once wrote a book about you, called "The Trial of Henry Kissinger." It basically accuses you of every war crime under the sun. You are aware of that - correct?
HANK: Yeah, well, I can explain THAT. It was written by this lefty named Christopher Hitchens. Boy, did he have it in for me, let me tell you. The guy was so blinded by hatred for me, it colored everything he wrote.
PETER: Yes, I know this Hitchens character. He appeared in the very spot you stand several years ago. He was an atheist, so you should take some delight in the fact that I turned him away. You can guess where he ended up. I won’t bother telling you. And - for the record - he was just as shocked as I was that you, a much older man, outlived him by so many years. But hey. It happens. I nonetheless found his book about you highly compelling. He amassed a considerable amount of evidence which I can only call damning. And I don’t use the word “damning” lightly given the serious nature of my job. I think you know what I mean.
HANK: Yes, I think I do.
PETER: Well, Kissinger, I believe I’ve seen enough. I’m ready to pronounce sentence (reaches for Hank’s dossier, seizes a stamping tool and stamps the document). I’m sorry, but the weight of evidence against you is simply too great for me to ignore. Entry denied! (Hands Hank his papers.)
HANK: Wait, please give me another chance! You can’t deny that I’ve actually done some good in my life.
PETER: I don’t deny it. But I’m afraid the bad you’ve done outweighs it. My decision is final. Bailiff, will you please escort the applicant to the elevator.
HANK: (Being dragged away) No, no, please don’t do this to me! I was just doing what I had to do. Damn you Nixon, look what you did to me!
PETER: Goodbye, Kissinger. Give my regards to Hitchens. You two should get along famously down there…"
o
"The Most Evil Man in the World"
by Brian Maher
“Absolutely disgraceful piece,” says one reader - Donald J. - not Donald J. Trump. Donald refers to yesterday’s reckoning, above, … in which we detailed the freshly deceased Hank Kissinger’s postmortem encounter with St. Peter. That encounter concluded poorly for Mr. Kissinger. St. Peter denied him entry into Paradise. And this - evidently - wrung Donald’s gizzard. Donald does not inform us why our piece was absolutely disgraceful. Perhaps because we deigned to divine St. Peter’s inscrutable judgment. And who are we to do it?
Or perhaps he believed old Hank Kissinger served the United States to high effect… and that he hung his adopted nation’s altar in glory. Perhaps there is even justice here. Perhaps Mr. Kissinger did a fair measure of good for his country. He was merely advancing his nation’s interests in a hopelessly fallen world of sin and iniquity. If certain skulls got cracked in the pursuit of these interests, well, then certain skulls got cracked.
Do not forget that he was dealing with the Maos of this world. The Pol Pots of this world. The Castros of this world. These were not men consecrated to peace. What was this fellow to do?Turn his cheek to them, the other cheek - and let them batter it with their fists?
We hazard Mr. Kissinger “meant well.” We cling to the belief that very few humans are evil by nature. We believe most bear good intentions. Yet as Mr. T.S. Eliot likely never stated: “Most of the evil in this world is done by people with good intentions.”
You are aware of the proverbial roadway to hell. You are furthermore aware of the material that constitutes its pavement - good intentions. We believe much of the world’s evils are executed by well-intentioned men. These include the Robespierres of this world, the Hitlers of this world, the Stalins of this world, the Maos of this world. They were animated not by evil but by what they considered good - the highest good. Liberty, equality and fraternity… the salvation of German people… the good of the revolution. They differ merely in the particulars.
Herr Hitler’s Wehrmacht sported belt buckles emblazoned with the phrase “Gott mit uns” — God is with us. Let it go into the record: We do not sort Mr. Kissinger into this uniquely villainous category of men. Yet the larger point, we believe, stands: “Most of the evil in this world is done by people with good intentions.” Alas, this world is loaded to its crown with such people. May the Lord deliver us from their evil…"
"Here And Now..."
“That we can never know,” answered the wolf angrily. “That’s for the future. But what we can know is the importance of what we owe to the present. Here and now, and nowhere else. For nothing else exists, except in our minds. What we owe to ourselves, and to those we’re bound to. And we can at least hope to make a better future, for everything.”
- David Clement Davies
Dan, I Allegedly, "$86 Million Mistake - Could It Happen to You?"
Full screen recommended.
Dan, I Allegedly 12/2/23
"$86 Million Mistake - Could It Happen to You?"
"Ever dreamt of finding millions in your account? We chat about real folks who faced that dilemma, from a lighthearted LinkedIn post to spending sprees that led to legal battles. Plus, don't miss an unbelievable journey to unfreeze funds - talk about customer service nightmares!"
Comments here:
Adventures With Danno, "Massive Price Increases At Walmart!"
Full screen recommended.
Adventures With Danno, 12/2/23
"Massive Price Increases At Walmart!
What's Next? What's Coming?"
"In today's vlog, we are at Walmart 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!"
Comments here:
Friday, December 1, 2023
Jeremiah Babe, "Enjoy Your New Tiny Home; Boat Sales Sink Faster Than The Titanic"
Jeremiah Babe, 12/1/23
"Enjoy Your New Tiny Home;
Boat Sales Sink Faster Than The Titanic"
Comments here:
Greg Hunter, "Weekly News Wrap-Up 12/1/23"
"Weekly News Wrap-Up 12/1/23"
"Biden Still at 9% OR Less, Left Kills X, Economic Warning Signs"
by Greg Hunter’s USAWatchdog.com
"Joe Biden, and other top swamp creatures in the loop, knows full well his real approval numbers are 9% or less. Biden can’t make anyone happy on the economy, Ukraine, Hamas/Israel war, the southern border, the CV19 vax and just about any other issue with “We the People.” The elite and Barack Obama love the dumbed down, meat puppet they installed, and they love what is going on. Bidenomics and disaster political policies make them richer and might give them more control.
There is some hope, and that comes in the form of the Deep State controllers are clearly losing control of the narrative. They are so desperate to kill free speech that counters their destructive narrative they are trying to frame Elon Musk as a Jew-hating anti-Semite. That is yet another total lie told by the Left. This lie is being propelled by the Lying Legacy Media (LLM) in hopes of destroying the advertising dollars going into X, and therefore, they are hoping to kill the company. This is why Elon Musk told advertisers trying to blackmail him to go “F##k” themselves. It’s all part of the plan to stop the flow of money going to X and destroy a huge free speech platform the evil Deep State globalists no longer control. This action reveals how weak the Deep State and the Obama/Biden Administration really are. It’s going to be a rough 2024 for everyone including the Deep State."
The economic warning signs keep flashing bright red. Two big warning signs on the road to financial perdition are China and other central banks continuing to buy physical gold at record amounts. The other big warning sign comes in the form of countries shunning US Treasury debt. This makes it very difficult, if not impossible, to finance our exploding debt. What could go wrong? There is much more in the 41-minute newscast."
Join Greg Hunter on Rumble as he talks about these
stories and more in the Weekly News Wrap-Up for 12/1/23.
Canadian Prepper, "Alert! Shots Fired At US Nuclear Base; War Restarts In Israel; Germany WW3"
Full screen recommended.
Canadian Prepper, 12/1/23
"Alert! Shots Fired At US Nuclear Base;
War Restarts In Israel; Germany WW3"
Comments here:
Musical Interlude: 2002, "Greater Than The Sum", "Memory of the Sky"
Full screen recommended.
2002, "Greater Than The Sum"
In Ancient Greece, philosopher Aristotle (384–322 B.C.) wrote
“The whole is greater than the sum of the parts.”
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Full screen recommended.
2002, "Memory of the Sky"
"A Look to the Heavens"
“This pretty, open cluster of stars, M34, is about the size of the Full Moon on the sky. Easy to appreciate in small telescopes, it lies some 1,800 light-years away in the constellation Perseus. At that distance, M34 physically spans about 15 light-years. Formed at the same time from the same cloud of dust and gas, all the stars of M34 are about 200 million years young.
But like any open star cluster orbiting in the plane of our galaxy, M34 will eventually disperse as it experiences gravitational tides and encounters with the Milky Way's interstellar clouds and other stars. Over four billion years ago, our own Sun was likely formed in a similar open star cluster.”
Jim Kunstler, "The Magic Moment"
"The Magic Moment"
by Jim Kunstler
“This is in my opinion, the worst thing that’s ever happened to our country in my lifetime in the world, and the government’s role cannot be denied.”
- Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene on C-19-Vaxx
"History is a trickster. It unfolds emergently with uncanny creativity, often blindsiding humanity with the unanticipated consequences and non-linear outcomes of previous unfoldings. So, here we are now in a Second Civil War. Really? “Between whom?” you might ask. Between truth and untruth. Between a sociopathic bureaucratic blob steeped in lies and a citizenry obliged to live and die by the blob’s lies.
Case-in-point: the emergent evolution of US public health agencies, the CDC, the FDA, the NIH, the NIAID and their many fiefdoms, into a gigantic engine of death fueled by incessant and persistent lying. The people running these agencies lied to you about the creation and origin of the novel corona virus, SARS Covid-19. Then they lied about the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines created as the sovereign remedy for Covid-19. They also lied about and suppressed actual effective treatments for the disease they invented and loosed on the world and then coerced the whole medical establishment into breaking its Hippocratic oath (first do no harm) to administer vaccines that killed. They lied about these things knowingly. And through the whole three-year episode, US public health has hidden the data about Covid and the vaccines while aggressively lying about it and punishing American citizens who found ways to expose the truth.
The vaccines have killed an estimate 670,000 Americans and 17-million world-wide, consensus figures arrived at by citizens devoted to uncovering the truth. One of these is independent researcher Steve Kirsch, a Silicon Valley billionaire who invented the optical mouse. In 2021, after noticing a strange pattern of early deaths and injuries in his own circle of acquaintances, Mr. Kirsch devoted himself and his fortune to uncovering the truth about the Covid-19 vaccines. Mr. Kirsch describes himself as “a nerd,” by which he means that he is good at math and at assembling bodies of information using rigorous statistical analysis that present a coherent picture of reality, a.k.a. the truth.
Last night, Thursday, November 30, Mr. Kirsch gave a talk at his alma mater, MIT, in Cambridge, Massachusetts on what the best available statistics tell us about the Covid-19 vaccines (for instance, that so far they have killed more Americans than World War Two). The talk was live-streamed on the Rumble platform (YouTube scrubbed it). There is an interesting story behind Mr. Kirsch’s event. Years before the Covid-19 fiasco, Mr. Kirsch gave MIT $2.5 million to build a new lecture hall. Then, during Covid-19, Mr. Kirsch asked MIT to allow him to stage a lecture about his findings. The MIT administrators refused to let Mr. Kirsch speak in the lecture hall that he paid for. Mr. Kirsch went public with that, embarrassing the university, and under new MIT President Sally Kornbluth, the Institute relented.
Prior to the November 30 talk, Mr. Kirsch sought to share his data with eminent MIT professor Robert Langer, winner of countless awards for advances in the biotechnological sciences. Dr. Langer runs a research program that his MIT webpage describes as follows: "The group’s work is at the interface of biotechnology and materials science. A major focus is the study and development of polymers to deliver drugs, particularly genetically engineered proteins, continuously at controlled rates and for prolonged periods of time.”
Sounds like Dr. Langer would be intimately acquainted with the mechanisms of the Covid-19 mRNA vaccines, especially the development of lipid nanoparticles that facilitate the delivery of the mRNA message into their targeted cells. Dr. Langer declined to see the data or to meet with Mr. Kirsch. At the beginning of his talk, Mr. Kirsch offered some speculation as to why Dr. Langer might demur to see the data or meet with him. Turns out it is because Dr. Langer sits on the Moderna board of directors. If Dr. Langer were exposed to “record level” data in a structured format that indicated the Moderna Covid-19 vaccine was killing a lot of people, Dr. Langer would be required legally to insist that the company take it off the market. Now you see how the venal mendacity of Big Pharma intersects with the perfidy of Academia, and at the highest levels. Dr. Langer has been called out, and publicly disgraced by Mr. Kirsch. Will Dr. Langer sue Mr. Kirsch for defamation? I doubt it. It is a fact that Dr. Langer is on the Moderna Board, and his obligations to the public are clear vis-Ã -vis Moderna’s flagship product. It will be interesting to see how MIT and Dr. Langer handle this quandary.
Today’s morning news (Friday, Dec 1) contains nothing about Steve Kirsch’s landmark talk at MIT, which essentially laid out evidence of a crime against humanity. One feature of the assembled data is that it can take a long time for the vaccines to kill people — six months being only an average. CDC director Mandy Cohen is still pushing the Covid-19 vaccines, as did her predecessor Rochelle Walensky, who resigned just this past June, so expect a continued incidence of excess and early deaths. Did both of them somehow miss the massive accumulating data and news reports about the danger of mRNA vaccines? Could they be that dumb? Or did they knowingly lie to the public, pushing vaccines that are obviously unsafe? At some point, they may have to answer these questions.
Also yesterday, independent reporters Matt Taibbi and Michael Shellenberger testified before the House Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government. The two journalists had previously published the “Twitter Files,” an investigation into the government’s infiltration of social media for the purpose of censorship and manipulating news that would affect the outcome of recent elections. In this new chapter, the two, along with Substack blogger Alex Gutentag, have released a report based on whistleblower testimony about the sweeping censorship framework called the Cyber Threat Intelligence League that the Department of Homeland Security cooked up in 2018, and whose coordinated activities metastasized through the so-called “intelligence community,” the White House, and agencies of the UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. The same tyrannical programming has been adopted by many of the governments in the EU.
The net result of all this is Western Civilization saturating itself in lies. It appears that Covid-19 was well into development when it was adopted by the blob and its protectors in the Democratic Party to use as a means for finally getting rid of President Trump in 2020 after RussiaGate and a fake impeachment failed. The introduction of poorly-tested mRNA vaccines - actually developed by the US Department of Defense and licensed out to Pfizer and Moderna - looks like it was intended to mitigate Covid-19 after it had accomplished its task of enabling election ballot fraud to get a patsy president, “Joe Biden,” into the White House. But the vaccines turned out to be a gigantic and deadly botch. And once they were sold to the public, and the vaccine companies made billions, and people started dying and getting gross illnesses, everybody involved in the vast blob network had to keep on lying to cover up their crimes.
What follows from here in this new civil war of truth against untruth is that untruth will lose because untruth is fundamentally unsound and can’t stand on its own. The US bureaucratic blob, like the fictional product Soylent Green, is people. There are obviously thousands of them, virtually a whole army, guilty of crimes. The whistleblowers are popping out all over now. We’re approaching the magic moment when the whole blob army flips and rats out each other in the attempt to save their asses. Wait for it."
God help you if you've taken this shot...
"The Object Of Life..."
So, you look around in horrified astonishment at how totally insane it all really is, how the never ending bad news is everywhere you look, how truly hopeless it really is, and know there's nothing at all you can do about it, can't save anyone, can't even save yourself. So you remember what they said and how you need to be, and carry on...
“The object of life is not to be on the side of the majority,
but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane.”
- Marcus Aurelius, "Meditations"
“That millions of people share the same forms of
mental pathology does not make these people sane.”
- Erich Fromm, "The Sane Society"
“Laugh whenever you can. Keeps you from killing
yourself when things are bad. That and vodka.”
- Jim Butcher, "Changes"
And yet, sometimes, at the end of another long day,
your defenses are just worn out and it feels like you're losing your mind,
and you lose control and feel like this...
Full screen recommended.
The Trashmen, "Surfin Bird - Bird is the Word," 1963
Until tomorrow, when you do it all over again...
And so it is, lol...
"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.”
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. 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.
“8 Things to Remember When Everything Goes Wrong”
“8 Things to Remember When Everything Goes Wrong”
by Marc Chernoff
“Today, I’m sitting in my hospital bed waiting to have both my breasts removed. But in a strange way I feel like the lucky one. Up until now I have had no health problems. I’m a 69-year-old woman in the last room at the end of the hall before the pediatric division of the hospital begins. Over the past few hours I have watched dozens of cancer patients being wheeled by in wheelchairs and rolling beds. None of these patients could be a day older than 17.”
That’s an entry from my grandmother’s journal, dated 9/16/1977. I photocopied it and pinned it to my bulletin board about a decade ago. It’s still there today, and it continues to remind me that there is always, always, always something to be thankful for. And that no matter how good or bad I have it, I must wake up each day thankful for my life, because someone somewhere else is desperately fighting for theirs.
Truth be told, happiness is not the absence of problems, but the ability to deal with them. Imagine all the wondrous things your mind might embrace if it weren’t wrapped so tightly around your struggles. Always look at what you have, instead of what you have lost. Because it’s not what the world takes away from you that counts; it’s what you do with what you have left.
Here are a few reminders to help motivate you when you need it most:
1. Pain is part of growing. Sometimes life closes doors because it’s time to move forward. And that’s a good thing because we often won’t move unless circumstances force us to. When times are tough, remind yourself that no pain comes without a purpose. Move on from what hurt you, but never forget what it taught you. Just because you’re struggling doesn’t mean you’re failing. Every great success requires some type of worthy struggle to get there. Good things take time. Stay patient and stay positive. Everything is going to come together; maybe not immediately, but eventually.
Remember that there are two kinds of pain: pain that hurts and pain that changes you. When you roll with life, instead of resisting it, both kinds help you grow.
2. Everything in life is temporary. Every time it rains, it stops raining. Every time you get hurt, you heal. After darkness there is always light – you are reminded of this every morning, but still you often forget, and instead choose to believe that the night will last forever. It won’t. Nothing lasts forever.
So if things are good right now, enjoy it. It won’t last forever. If things are bad, don’t worry because it won’t last forever either. Just because life isn’t easy at the moment, doesn’t mean you can’t laugh. Just because something is bothering you, doesn’t mean you can’t smile. Every moment gives you a new beginning and a new ending. You get a second chance, every second. You just have to take it and make the best of it.
3. Worrying and complaining changes nothing. Those who complain the most, accomplish the least. It’s always better to attempt to do something great and fail than to attempt to do nothing and succeed. It’s not over if you’ve lost; it’s over when you do nothing but complain about it. If you believe in something, keep trying. Don’t let the shadows of the past darken the doorstep of your future. Spending today complaining about yesterday won’t make tomorrow any brighter. Take action instead. Let what you’ve learned improve how you live. Make a change and never look back.
And regardless of what happens in the long run, remember that true happiness begins to arrive only when you stop complaining about your problems and you start being grateful for all the problems you don’t have.
4. Your scars are symbols of your strength. Don’t ever be ashamed of the scars life has left you with. A scar means the hurt is over and the wound is closed. It means you conquered the pain, learned a lesson, grew stronger, and moved forward. scar is the tattoo of a triumph to be proud of. Don’t allow your scars to hold you hostage. Don’t allow them to make you live your life in fear. You can’t make the scars in your life disappear, but you can change the way you see them. You can start seeing your scars as a sign of strength and not pain.
Rumi once said, “The wound is the place where the Light enters you.” Nothing could be closer to the truth. Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls; the most powerful characters in this great world are seared with scars. See your scars as a sign of “YES! I MADE IT! I survived and I have my scars to prove it! And now I have a chance to grow even stronger.”
5. Every little struggle is a step forward. In life, patience is not about waiting; it’s the ability to keep a good attitude while working hard on your dreams, knowing that the work is worth it. So if you’re going to try, put in the time and go all the way. Otherwise, there’s no point in starting. This could mean losing stability and comfort for a while, and maybe even your mind on occasion. It could mean not eating what, or sleeping where, you’re used to, for weeks on end. It could mean stretching your comfort zone so thin it gives you a nonstop case of the chills. It could mean sacrificing relationships and all that’s familiar. It could mean accepting ridicule from your peers. It could mean lots of time alone in solitude. Solitude, though, is the gift that makes great things possible. It gives you the space you need. Everything else is a test of your determination, of how much you really want it.
And if you want it, you’ll do it, despite failure and rejection and the odds. And every step will feel better than anything else you can imagine. You will realize that the struggle is not found on the path, it is the path. And it’s worth it. So if you’re going to try, go all the way. There’s no better feeling in the world… there’s no better feeling than knowing what it means to be ALIVE.
6. Other people’s negativity is not your problem. Be positive when negativity surrounds you. Smile when others try to bring you down. It’s an easy way to maintain your enthusiasm and focus. When other people treat you poorly, keep being you. Don’t ever let someone else’s bitterness change the person you are. You can’t take things too personally, even if it seems personal. Rarely do people do things because of you. hey do things because of them.
Above all, don’t ever change just to impress someone who says you’re not good enough. Change because it makes you a better person and leads you to a brighter future. People are going to talk regardless of what you do or how well you do it. So worry about yourself before you worry about what others think. If you believe strongly in something, don’t be afraid to fight for it. Great strength comes from overcoming what others think is impossible.
All jokes aside, your life only comes around once. This is IT. So do what makes you happy and be with whoever makes you smile, often.
7. What’s meant to be will eventually, BE. True strength comes when you have so much to cry and complain about, but you prefer to smile and appreciate your life instead. There are blessings hidden in every struggle you face, but you have to be willing to open your heart and mind to see them. You can’t force things to happen. You can only drive yourself crazy trying. At some point you have to let go and let what’s meant to be, BE.
In the end, loving your life is about trusting your intuition, taking chances, losing and finding happiness, cherishing the memories, and learning through experience. It’s a long-term journey. You have to stop worrying, wondering, and doubting every step of the way. Laugh at the confusion, live consciously in the moment, and enjoy your life as it unfolds. You might not end up exactly where you intended to go, but you will eventually arrive precisely where you need to be.
8. The best thing you can do is to keep going. Don’t be afraid to get back up – to try again, to love again, to live again, and to dream again. Don’t let a hard lesson harden your heart. Life’s best lessons are often learned at the worst times and from the worst mistakes. There will be times when it seems like everything that could possibly go wrong is going wrong. And you might feel like you will be stuck in this rut forever, but you won’t. When you feel like quitting, remember that sometimes things have to go very wrong before they can be right. Sometimes you have to go through the worst, to arrive at your best.
Yes, life is tough, but you are tougher. Find the strength to laugh every day. Find the courage to feel different, yet beautiful. Find it in your heart to make others smile too. Don’t stress over things you can’t change. Live simply. Love generously. Speak truthfully. Work diligently. And even if you fall short, keep going. Keep growing. Awake every morning and do your best to follow this daily TO-DO list:
Think positively.
Eat healthy.
Exercise today.
Worry less.
Work hard.
Laugh often.
Sleep well.
Repeat…”
"So We Never Live..."
"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
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The Marmalade, "Reflections Of My Life"
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