Full screen recommended.
Canadian Prepper, 1/27/24
"Imminent Nuke Deployments In Europe;
Tanks in Texas? Lebanon-Israel War Starts In Days"
Comments here:
So, we rise from the rubble...
Saturday, January 27, 2024
Jeremiah Babe, "Wow, Another Business Closed Forever; Costco Preps, Buy Now"
Full screen recommended.
Jeremiah Babe, 1/27/24
"Wow, Another Business Closed Forever;
Costco Preps, Buy Now"
Comments here:
"I Suddenly Realized..."
"This iconic photograph marks the end of the career of matador Álvaro Munero. In the midst of the battle, he suddenly repented and sat down at the edge of the field. Subsequently, in an interview, Alvaro will tell: “Suddenly I saw not horns, but the eyes of a bull. He stood in front of me and started looking at me. Just stood and watched, making no attempt to attack. The innocence that is in the eyes of all animals looks towards me with a plea for help. It was like a cry for justice and somewhere deep inside me, I suddenly realized that he was addressing me in the same way we address God in prayer: “I don't want to fight you, please leave me, because I have done nothing wrong to you. You can kill me if you want, kill me if you want, but I do not want to fight you." And I, reading it in his eyes, felt like the worst creature on earth. After that I became a vegetarian and stopped fighting bullfights." This story was published in 2012. After thousands of other foreign publications told about the case, millions of people learned about the matador Álvaro Munero, and this photo became one of the most recognizable."
A superb website, highly recommended!
"A 1960's Musical Interlude"
Mason Williams, "Classical Gas" (1968)
o
Full screen recommended.
Paul Mauriat, "Love is Blue" (1968)
o
Jefferson Airplane, "White Rabbit" (1967)
"A Look to the Heavens"
"Cradled in cosmic dust and glowing hydrogen, stellar nurseries in Orion the Hunter lie at the edge of a giant molecular cloud some 1,500 light-years away. Spanning nearly 25 degrees, this breath-taking vista stretches across the well-known constellation from head to toe (top to bottom). The Great Orion Nebula, the closest large star forming region, is right of center. To its left are the Horsehead Nebula, M78, and Orion's belt stars. Red giant Betelgeuse is at the hunter's shoulder, bright blue Rigel at his foot, and the glowing Lambda Orionis (Meissa) nebula at the far left, near Orion's head.
Of course, the Orion Nebula and bright stars are easy to see with the unaided eye, but dust clouds and emission from the extensive interstellar gas in this nebula-rich complex, are too faint and much harder to record. In this mosaic of broadband telescopic images, additional image data acquired with a narrow hydrogen alpha filter was used to bring out the pervasive tendrils of energized atomic hydrogen gas and the arc of the giant Barnard's Loop.”
- http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap101023.html
“10 Things You Should Know About Life’s Most Important Questions”
“10 Things You Should Know About
Life’s Most Important Questions”
Life’s Most Important Questions”
by Marc Chernoff
"It’s a harsh fact that every one of us is ignorant in some way. Although we tend to pretend otherwise, it’s impossible to know it all. Ignorance is our biggest collective secret. And it’s one of the scariest and most damaging realities of life, because those of us who are most ignorant – and thus most likely to spread ignorance – are also the ones who often don’t know it.
Here’s a quick test: If you have never changed your mind about one of your learned beliefs, if you have never questioned the fundamentals of your opinions, and if you have no inclination to do so, then you are likely ignorant about something you think you know.
What’s the quickest solution? Get outside and find someone who, in your opinion, believes, behaves, and handles certain aspects of life very differently from you, and just have a simple, honest conversation with them. I promise, some of life’s most important questions will become clearer by doing so. And it will do both of you lots of good. Once you’ve done that, here are some key things to remember:
1. Many of the biggest misunderstandings in life could be avoided if we would simply take the time to ask, “What else could this mean?”
2. An expert is not a person who gives all the right answers; she’s the one who asks the right questions.
3. Very few of us actively seek new knowledge in this world on a daily basis. We get comfortable with what we know, and we stop questioning things. On the contrary, we try to squeeze from the unknown the answers we have already shaped in our own minds – judgments, justifications, validations, forms of consolation without which we might feel incomplete or off-center. To really ask something new is to open the door to the storm. And the answer just may blow us away.
4. If someone can get you asking the wrong questions, they don’t have to worry about how they answer you.
5. Monsters do exist in the real world, but they are too few in number to be truly dangerous in the long run. More dangerous are the common people with good intentions who are instantly ready to believe and act without asking questions.
6. At the end of the day, the questions you ask of yourself determine the type of person you will become.
7. Courage doesn’t happen when you have all the answers. It happens when you are ready to face the questions you have been avoiding your whole life.
8. When it comes to your relationships: Does he/she treat you with respect at all times? That’s the first question. The second question is: If he/she remains the exact same person ten years from now, would you still want to be in a relationship with him/her? And finally, does he/she inspire to be a better human being? When you find someone that you can answer yes to all three questions, you know you’ve found yourself a relationship worth having.
9. Regardless of how much you know, or how many incredible questions you ask, you can never know it all. To believe that you do, is proof of the contrary. The wilderness around us always holds answers to more questions than we have yet learned to ask. And that’s a beautiful thing.
10. Although life will always be filled with unanswered questions, it’s the courage to seek the answers that counts – this journey is what gives life meaning. Ultimately, you can spend your life wallowing in frustration and misery, wondering why you were the one who was chosen to deal with your problems, or you can be grateful that you are strong enough and smart enough to grow from them.
Your turn: Be present and have patience with everything that remains unexplained in your heart and mind. Try to love life’s questions. Like locked doors or like good books written in foreign languages, respect their nature. Don’t expect all the answers to come easy. They cannot be given to you right now because your present understanding isn’t ready yet. It’s a question of experiencing everything first. Right now you need to hold on to the questions – explore, learn, and live your life. Perhaps, as you do, you will gradually find yourself experiencing the answers you always wanted.
So with that said, which of the reminders above hit home the most? Why? Leave a comment below and share your thoughts and insights with us."
"You Cannot Shirk This..."
“Each must for himself alone decide what is right and what is wrong, and which course is patriotic and which isn’t. You cannot shirk this and be a man. To decide against your convictions is to be an unqualified and inexcusable traitor, both to yourself and to your country, let men label you as they may. If you alone of all the nation shall decide one way, and that way be the right way according to your convictions of the right, you have done your duty by yourself and by your country – hold up your head! You have nothing to be ashamed of.”
- Mark Twain
"There comes a time in every man's life when he has to choose sides. I have chosen my side. I am comfortable with my decision. I do not think everyone on my side is a saint, but I know that those on the other side are much, much worse. Sometimes a man with too broad a perspective reveals himself as having no real perspective at all. A man who tries too hard to see every side may be a man who is trying to avoid choosing any side. A man who tries too hard to seek a deeper truth may be trying to hide from the truth he already knows. That is not a sign of intellectual sophistication and 'great thinking'. It is a demonstration of moral degeneracy and cowardice."
- Steven Den Beste
"You Finally Find What You're After..."
"When we're headed toward an outcome that's too horrible to face, that's when we go looking for a second opinion. And sometimes, the answer we get just confirms our worst fears. But sometimes, it can shed new light on the problem, make you see it in a whole new way. After all the opinions have been heard and every point of view has been considered, you finally find what you're after - the truth. But the truth isn't where it ends, that's just where you begin again with a whole new set of questions."
- "Grays Anatomy"
Maya Angelou, "One Of The Greatest Inspirational Speeches Ever"
Full screen recommended.
Maya Angelou,
"One Of The Greatest Inspirational Speeches Ever"
"Maya Angelou born Marguerite Annie Johnson; April 4, 1928 – May 28, 2014 was an American poet, memoirist, and civil rights activist. She published seven autobiographies, three books of essays, several books of poetry, and is credited with a list of plays, movies, and television shows spanning over 50 years. She received dozens of awards and more than 50 honorary degrees. Angelou is best known for her series of seven autobiographies, which focus on her childhood and early adult experiences. She made a deliberate attempt to challenge the common structure of the autobiography by critiquing, changing and expanding the genre. Her books center on themes including racism, identity, family and travel."
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"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 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."
o
"The Very Idea..."
"In the last few years, the very idea of telling the truth, the whole truth,
and nothing but the truth is dredged up only as a final resort when the
alternative options of deception, threat and bribery have all been exhausted."
- Michael Musto
"The Goths – Ancient Rome’s Migrant Crisis"
"The Goths – Ancient Rome’s Migrant Crisis"
by Martin Armstrong
"The globalists refuse to declare the migrant crisis an “invasion,” but we have history’s guidance to show us what happens when an unsustainable number of people enter a nation. The Goths, a non-military group considered migrants, are a perfect example. These men, women, and children sought refuge within the Roman Empire. This was not an invading army but rather a fleeing population seeking safety from the Huns. The Goths, long-time foes of the Romans, appealed to be admitted to Roman territory due to the threat they faced and needed to seek asylum. This event led to significant consequences and marked a turning point in the history of the Roman Empire.
The great Gothic migration involved hundreds of thousands of men, women, and children. While, to some degree, the growing unrest in the East pushed them southward, there is also little doubt that the border defenses of the Roman Empire had also been seriously weakened by the political instability and economic pressures that were building within Rome itself. Of course, the rumor of great plunder and riches available in Roman territory acted like a magnet much in the same way as the rumors of streets paved in gold in America prompted great European migrations during the 19th and early 20th centuries or the outdated stereotype of the American Dream.
By 238 AD, the Gothic position was so threatening to the Roman Empire that Emperor Maximinus was forced to pay them vast amounts of tribute, similar to how countries currently pay all expenses for migrants. While his aim may have been to buy time, this demonstrated weakness on the part of the Romans, who were still in the middle of internal political struggles for power. Internal imperial rivalries ultimately defeated Maximinis. Within less than four years thereafter, the Goths began a series of raids along the Danube.
A decade later and Philip I attempted to quell the influx of migrants, but died while battling his successor, Trajan Decius. Rome was simply decaying gradually from internal struggles, which weakened the economy and constantly pitted one legion against another in a struggle for power. We see internal struggles today throughout the West as politics continue to divide the people. The Romans did not consider the Goths to be a force that would threaten the entire Empire, but rather more as a barbarian force looking for plunder rather than power.
Trajanus Decius declared the Goths an enemy and attempted to force them out of the empire, only for the masses to return a year later. The Goths were prepared this time and formed several strategic alliances with enemies, such as the Dacian Carpi. This led to a full-scale invasion, and the Roman Empire suddenly found itself besieged as war raged on in Moesia, Dacia, and even in Thrace, while the main body of the Gothic invasion was preparing a descent into the region of the Black Sea.
After many battles, the Goths emerged as the new masters of the entire Danube territory, all the way to the Black Sea. Trebonianus Gallus emerged as the new Emperor who could do nothing to reverse the Empire’s humiliating defeat. The Goths now turned to Illyricum and Thrace, burning and plundering their way across the region. By 253 AD, the Goths set sail along the Black Sea, headed straight for Asia Minor, which was wide open and waiting to be plundered.
The Roman Empire was declining until Emperor Aurelian came to power and began restorative efforts, including anti-immigration policies. He not merely launched defensive measures, he moved on the offensive against the Goths and demolished them through a series of battles. The Goths were driven out of the Balkans and into Dacia. Aurelian also greatly restored the Black Sea defenses, which helped those regions rebuild their economies as well. However, Aurelian failed to pursue the barbarians into the Roman province of Dacia, pulling back and establishing the new border once again along the natural border as originally defined by Augustus – the Danube.
Aurelian’s decision to redraw the borders left Dacia in the hands of the Carpi and the Goths. Once the Goths were contained, they began to divide into two distinct groups – Ostrogothic and Visigothic kingdoms. These groups would evolve into powerful states that would ultimately bring down the Roman Empire in the West.
Those in favor of the Gothic migration stated that the newcomers would increase tax revenue and benefit the Roman economy. It was a humanitarian crisis and Rome’s responsibility to solve. Instead, the unsustainable influx of Gothic refugees contributed to the eventual fall of the Western Roman Empire. The event marked a turning point in Roman history and was part of a period in which the Roman Empire nearly collapsed under the combined pressures of invasion, civil war, plague, and economic depression. History always repeats."
Dan, I Allegedly, "These Are The Good Times"
Full screen recommended.
Dan, I Allegedly, 1/27/24
"These Are The Good Times"
"What if this is as good as the economy is going to get? These are the good days. You have to expect things to take a turn from here and know that this is as good as it’s going to get for many people."
Comments here:
o
"Texas Has Been Warned; Are We Heading To Civil War 2.0?"
Practical Preparedness, 1/27/24
"Texas Has Been Warned;
Are We Heading To Civil War 2.0?"
"Texas has defied a direct order. 25 states are defending them.
What is going on at the Southern border?"
Comments here:
o
Full screen recommended.
Fox Business, 1/26/24
"Take Our Border Back:
700K Trucks Will Take Part In Border Convoy"
"Rep. Keith Self, R-Texas, details plans for a multi-day
trucker convoy showing support for Texas' right to self defense."
Comments here:
o
o
"Whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute a new government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness." - "Declaration Of Independence"
o
Friday, January 26, 2024
"A Classic Musical Interlude: Righteous Brothers, "Unchained Melody", Live
Full screen recommended.
Righteous Brothers,
"Unchained Melody", Live
I'd never seen this performed live before. Wonderful... Enjoy!
Musical Interlude: Deuter, "Loving Touch"
Full screen recommended.
Deuter, "Loving Touch"
Beautiful...
"A Look to the Heavens"
“Like delicate cosmic petals, these clouds of interstellar dust and gas have blossomed 1,300 light-years away in the fertile star fields of the constellation Cepheus. Sometimes called the Iris Nebula and dutifully cataloged as NGC 7023 this is not the only nebula in the sky to evoke the imagery of flowers. Still, this remarkable image shows off the Iris Nebula's range of colors and symmetries in impressive detail. Within the Iris, dusty nebular material surrounds a hot, young star.
The dominant color of the brighter reflection nebula is blue, characteristic of dust grains reflecting starlight. Central filaments of the dusty clouds glow with a faint reddish photoluminesence as some dust grains effectively convert the star's invisible ultraviolet radiation to visible red light. Infrared observations indicate that this nebula may contain complex carbon molecules known as PAHs. The bright blue portion of the Iris Nebula is about six light-years across.”
"And The Hell Of It Is..."
“You go up to a man, and you say, “How are things going, Joe?” and he says, “Oh fine, fine... couldn’t be better.” And you look into his eyes, and you see things really couldn’t be much worse. When you get right down to it, everybody’s having a perfectly lousy time of it, and I mean everybody. And the hell of it is, nothing seems to help much.”
- Kurt Vonnegut
"People are sad. People are broke. People are worried about money, people are worried that they're not enough and not amounting to anything and they don't feel good about themselves. People have rough times, and everybody's pretending it's not true, and we need to break that veneer." - Eve Ensler
Epic Economist, "15 Critical Items To Stockpile For The Coming US Blackout"
Full screen recommended.
Epic Economist, 1/26/24
"15 Critical Items To Stockpile
For The Coming US Blackout"
"Empower your US blackout survival strategy here! Explore essential items to stockpile, from water to flashlights. Stay connected with emergency radios and solar-powered chargers. Dive into the risks of power cuts and discover solutions like backup generators and sustainable energy. Stay aware of the situation - thrive during outages with expert insights."
Comments here:
Gregory Mannarino, "Alert! Alert! Alert! Banks Are Running Out Of Cash, Get UnBanked Now!"
Gregory Mannarino, PM 1/26/24
"Alert! Alert! Alert!
Banks Are Running Out Of Cash, Get UnBanked Now!"
Comments here:
The Poet: Theodore Roethke, “The Geranium”
“The Geranium”
“When I put her out, once, by the garbage pail,
She looked so limp and bedraggled,
So foolish and trusting, like a sick poodle,
Or a wizened aster in late September,
I brought her back in again
For a new routine -
Vitamins, water, and whatever
Sustenance seemed sensible
At the time: she’d lived
So long on gin, bobbie pins, half-smoked cigars, dead beer,
Her shriveled petals falling
On the faded carpet, the stale
Steak grease stuck to her fuzzy leaves.
(Dried-out, she creaked like a tulip.)
The things she endured!
The dumb dames shrieking half the night
Or the two of us, alone, both seedy,
Me breathing booze at her,
She leaning out of her pot toward the window.
Near the end, she seemed almost to hear me -
And that was scary -
So when that snuffling cretin of a maid
Threw her, pot and all, into the trash-can,
I said nothing.
But I sacked the presumptuous hag the next week,
I was that lonely.”
- Theodore Roethke
"Grave Faults..."
“Only the following items should be considered to be grave faults: not respecting another's rights; allowing oneself to be paralyzed by fear; feeling guilty; believing that one does not deserve the good or ill that happens in one's life; being a coward. We will love our enemies, but not make alliances with them. They were placed in our path in order to test our sword, and we should, out of respect for them, struggle against them. We will choose our enemies.”
- Paulo Coelho, "Like the Flowing River"
Dan, I Allegedly, "AM/PM 1/26/24"
Dan, I Allegedly, AM 1/26/24
"The Coming Wave of Residential Foreclosures -
What to Expect by 2025"
"Today I bring on my friend of over 40 years, Doug is the foreclosure expert and we talk about the state of the foreclosure industry. Where is the foreclosure market at today? Plus, where is it heading?"
Comments here:
Full screen recommended.
Dan, I Allegedly, PM 1/26/24
"We Don't Want You Here"
"A state assembly man is trying to pass a law that will prevent speeding. He wants to device installed in all cars will make it so you cannot go over 10 miles an hour over the speed limit and that they will be able to control the speed of your car."
Comments here:
Bill Bonner, "The Heart Grows Brutal"
"The Heart Grows Brutal"
At the end of an empire, the real enemy comes from within.
by Bill Bonner
"We had fed the heart on fantasies,
The heart’s grown brutal from the fare,
More substance in our enmities
Than in our love..."
~ William Butler Yeats
Youghal, Ireland - "What a disaster. Trump vs. Biden. Two known-knowns. And look, from Donald Trump’s recent campaign speech in New Hampshire: "We have become a drug-infested, crime-ridden nation, which is incapable of solving even the 'solllest'... smallest problem. The simplest of problems we can no longer solve. We can't do anything. We are an institute in a powerful death penalty. We will put this on. “
Both candidates seem to be losing their minds, such as they were. Here’s TheNetWorthOf: "Biden Showing Early Signs of Alzheimer’s? "Repeats Himself word-for-word...is He Even Fit for Office?”
Mental health experts have noted that repeating words, phrases, or stories in a short time frame can be a potential sign of dementia or Alzheimer’s. "President Biden has faced scrutiny for various verbal gaffes during his public speeches. These blunders have led to growing worries about his mental health from people across the political spectrum."
Fantasy and Nonsense: One of the fantasies preached and amen-ed in America’s temples is the transcending goodness of democracy. Americans came to believe that their system of government was so perfect that it excused sin and erased error. And it gave America the leaders it needed when it needed…until Donald Trump was elected. Then, readers of The New York Times were encouraged to have a re-think.
The Clinton team proposed that American democracy had not really failed…it had been stabbed in the back by Russia! Somehow, a small, barely English-speaking group of Russian bloggers and influencers, with a tiny budget, had managed to do what millions of pro-Hillary pundits and influencers, backed by the richest lobbyists in the country, had been unable to do – persuade the voters to elect a blithering, blustering, blathering moron, Donald T.…rather than the quick and cunning incompetent, Hillary C.
For two years, they clung to the Russian interference theory like a child to a stuffed bear – comforted by hearings, special prosecutors, interviews, interrogations, thousands of pages of ‘evidence’…millions of dollars spent…and thousands of toady ‘news’ stories promoting the fantasy. Finally, in April of 2019 the Mueller Report showed that it was all nonsense. And then, in the fall of 2020, when the votes were tallied, mirabile dictu, elections were pure and untainted affairs, after all! (Absolutely untrue! - CP)
Autocracy vs Autocracy: “Election interference” quickly became synonymous with crackpot conspiracy theory…and a threat to democracy itself. Anybody who believed the results might be rigged in one direction or another had to be a white supremacist or a traitor. Mr. Biden had won fairly…thus reflecting the will of a wise electorate. No further discussion was welcome. Democracy was not to be dissed or gainsaid. No more. Never. Un-un.
Mr. Biden said he would “deliver for people on issues that matter most to them.” Polls showed that voters cared less about ‘protecting democracy’ than any other election issue. Nevertheless, Mr. Biden said that the defining challenge of his administration would be the fight between democracy and autocracy.
It's still not clear which side he’s on. But it scarcely matters. What matters to the elite…the ruling classes…the deciders? More power and more money. And they got it. Both Trump and Biden delivered. US debt went from $20 trillion in 2016 to $34 trillion today, with new grifts, cushy programs and boondoggles that the elite can inhabit like swamp shacks.
But as for the ‘The People’…well, boo hoo. Consumer prices are about 20% higher than when Biden took office. And nearly 30% above where they were when Trump was elected.
And what do ‘The People’ think of another 4 years with Biden or Trump? Reuters: "Americans are unhappy about a /looming election rematch between Democratic President Joe Biden and his Republican predecessor Donald Trump…Some 67% of respondents polled Monday through Wednesday said they were "tired of seeing the same candidates in presidential elections and want someone new."
And this from Gallup: "Biden and Trump Evenly Matched in U.S. [un]Favorable Ratings." "Biden is viewed favorably by 41% of U.S. adults…Trump’s 42% favorable rating is slightly lower than his 45% reading in October 2020 but improved from his weaker ratings in 2021 and 2022 …
Democracy sounds nice enough in theory. Everyone gets a vote. The majority wins. But in practice, in a late, degenerate empire, it is a pitiful sight. The heart grows brutal. Bomb, tax, lie, inflate…and re-elect. Jefferson read Latin, Greek, German, Italian and French. He played the violin, invented an encryption machine and created the first swivel chair.
John Adams negotiated the end of the Revolutionary War; his ‘Thoughts on Government’ laid out a framework for the US Constitution. George Washington was a skilled surveyor, an experienced farmer, and a proven war hero. As commander-in-chief of the Continental Army he guided it through its dark days of Valley Forge to final victory at Yorktown.
They were a different breed. They were needed to build a great nation. Now, we have the slouches and mountebanks we need to tear it down."
Adventures With Danno, "Stocking Up At Sam's Club!"
Full screen recommended.
Adventures With Danno, AM 1/26/24
"Stocking Up At Sam's Club!"
"In today's vlog, we are at Sam's Club and are stocking up on some of these great sales going on for the month of January 2024! We take you with us as we show all the different deals and things we are adding to our stockpile!"
Comments here:
"Life Is Never Fair..."
"Life is never fair,
and perhaps it is a good thing for most of us that it is not."
- Oscar Wilde
Jim Kunstler, "Michelle, Ma Belle"
"Michelle, Ma Belle"
by Jim Kunstler
“What a train wreck it is for the democrats! What an unholy mess! It is an unmitigated disaster, the sinking of the Titanic multiplied by that plane crash where the soccer players ate each other.” - Jeff Childers on the Fani Willis case.
"As Donald Trump consolidates his election mojo - defying the forces arrayed to destroy him - and more of the country turns against the creepy apparition in the White House purportedly running against him, you hear evermore chatter that a panicked Democratic Party will insert Michelle Obama in a last-minute convention switcheroo next August.
The explications I hear in the chat media all sound lame one way or another. For starters, how pathetically weak is the party that such a walking fiasco as “Joe Biden” is allowed to even pretend that he can run this race? His campaign is an obvious sham, a place-holder in hopes that one or another of the half-assed lawfare court cases against Mr. Trump might knock him off the game-board - and that’s not looking so great now since Fulton County DA Fani Willis screwed the pooch in her giant RICO action and Special Counsel Jack Smith is getting smacked around week after week on esoteric points of procedure.
Well, all right, considering the party has really got no one else. Gavin Newsom is a California train wreck, despite the fabulous teeth and hair, Oprah can’t seem to make up her mind, and Taylor Swift will not be old enough to qualify for the office until December. The leading plan for the Dems goes like this: “JB” is offered a deal...step aside for Michelle to run in August...“JB” can make whatever face-saving excuses necessary, health, low energy, whatever...but he can serve out his term to the bitter end, and then sometime before noon January 20, 2025, he can pardon himself, son Hunter, brothers Jim and Frank, and a few other family members implicated in money-laundering all the bribes they scared-up over the years.
That is, assuming “Joe Biden” does not get impeached before August, in which case he might not be convicted in a Dem majority Senate trial, BUT, the mainstream media could not ignore the proceeding, and the public - including the wokest Woke partisans - would finally see the voluminous bank records authenticating the Biden Family bribery operations - the “proof” they have been forever and snidely calling for. Bad “optics” for the party.
A late August kick off for Michelle Obama would minimize her public exposure until, really, the last two months of the race. (She reportedly hates being on display.) In theory, the vast electorate of suburban Democratic women across the land would bury the MAGA vote and enjoy months of orgasm awaiting the installation of a black, (first) female president, their final blow against the odious patriarchy of white supremacist rapists. And best of all, under President Michelle, the blob could continue all its clandestine blobulations without fear of payback, assuring that our democracy will be defended by any means necessary, including the suppression and persecution of anyone who complains about it. Now that’s a plan!
Except for one thing: none of the people chattering about this (James Rickards, Dan Bongino. ...) have mentioned that the Michelle plan actually represents a fourth term for Barack Obama. I mean...really...do you suppose that Barack will spend the next four years upstairs in the White House “residence” with an apron on, baking red velvet cakes and sweet potato pies while Michelle presides in the Situation Room, directing drone strikes against various people of the Koran? In the immortal words of Homey D. Clown: “I don’t think so!”
And what if the opposition - say, Mr. Trump, or Vivek, or Tulsi, or Tom Massie, or Rand Paul, or a dozen others in that camp - make the case that the “Joe Biden” regime was actually Mr. Obama’s third term, and look what mess he managed to make of the USA while running the puppet-show from his Kalorama redoubt: nine million illegal aliens ushered into the country with lavish benefits, phones, loaded debit cards, free four-star hotel rooms...the years-long assault of the drag queens and oral sex instruction for third-graders...the preposterous war in Ukraine engineered by neocon catspaws for the benefit of Raytheon, Lockheed Martin, General Dynamics, and the rest of the arms-makers...big cities full of homeless encampments and their noxious excretions...fentanyl killing 1,500 Americans a week...an extravaganza of flash-mob looting, shop-lifting, and car-jacking...the trillion-plus dollars in annual interest payments on the national debt...not a pretty picture. So, it comes down to: do you want another four years of that? And how did America end up under the thumb of an Obama dynasty, anyway?
I’ll tell you how: because the Democratic Party has become a criminal operation now solely dedicated to keeping its dignitaries, office-holders, and their factotums in the executive agencies out of prison for a range of crimes so vast that all the Lawfare specialists ever spawned in the hatcheries of Yale and Harvard would not run out of billable hours defending them in court before the sun turned into a red dwarf. The mighty effort consumes all the party’s energies these days, when they are not attending to the destruction of Western Civilization. The Michelle gambit would only be the party’s final hoax. After that, the deluge."
Canadian Prepper, "Putin Makes Emergency Trip; Civil War In USA! Israeli Embassies Stockpiling Up; Oil Up; Korean War"
Full screen recommended.
Canadian Prepper, 1/26/24
"Putin Makes Emergency Trip; Civil War In USA!
Israeli Embassies Stockpiling Up; Oil Up; Korean War"
Comments here:
Must View! Greg Hunter, "Weekly News Wrap-Up, 1/26/28"
"Weekly News Wrap-Up, 1/26/28:
"Border War, Global War, Get Food"
by Greg Hunter’s USAWatchdog.com
"The southern border of the US is becoming a flashpoint for the political parties. Texas has been ordered by the Supreme Court to stand down and allow federal border patrol agents to cut down razor wired Texas installed to stop the invasion of illegal aliens. The Biden Administration is continuing to inviting and allow border crossers by the thousands every day. Texas is ignoring SCOTUS, and it is putting up more wire. Now many other states are joining in and supporting Texas to secure the border. Special Guest Steve Quayle says, “The border issue in America is the issue.” The Attorney General of Texas, Ken Paxton, says, “Biden is trying to continue his illegal effort to aid the foreign invasion of America.” "War? 25 Red States Rally 'Round Texas As Battle Brews With Biden Over Border"
War is continuing to heat up in the Middle East everywhere you look. Iran, Iraq, Yemen, Gaza, Jordon, Israel, Syria and many more places are seeing increasing violence and war. There is no end in sight. Many are very worried about how this will impact global shipping and damage supply chains that are already stressed to the max. There is now the real possibility of a global nuclear war of World War III.
Quayle is watching food being attacked all over the planet. There are farmer protests in Europe and supply shortages in all kinds of things beginning to show up in America. What should the average person do? Quayle says start stockpiling food and other supplies you may need because the problems with food and supplies are only going to get worse. There is much more in the 1-hour and 11-minute newscast and interview."
Join Greg Hunter with his special guest renowned radio host and filmmaker, Steve Quayle as they talk about the important news stories of the week in what Quayle calls a “pivotal turning-point” in the survival of America for 1/26/24:
Thursday, January 25, 2024
Musical Interlude: 2002, "Remember Now"
Full screen recommended.
2002, "Remember Now"
"The inspiration for this song was a "Star Trek: The Next Generation" episode called "The Offspring". Data (an android) creates a "child" for himself which he names Lal (in the Hindi language, Lal means "Beloved"). Lal eventually dies in Data's arms, remembering and retelling the precious moments she has lived. Data transferred Lal's thoughts into his own neural net, so that she would not be forgotten."
"A Look to the Heavens"
“A now famous picture from the Hubble Space Telescope featured Pillars of Creation, star forming columns of cold gas and dust light-years long inside M16, the Eagle Nebula. This false-color composite image views the nearby stellar nursery using data from the Herschel Space Observatory's panoramic exploration of interstellar clouds along the plane of our Milky Way galaxy. Herschel's far infrared detectors record the emission from the region's cold dust directly.
The famous pillars are included near the center of the scene. While the central group of hot young stars is not apparent at these infrared wavelengths, the stars' radiation and winds carve the shapes within the interstellar clouds. Scattered white spots are denser knots of gas and dust, clumps of material collapsing to form new stars. The Eagle Nebula is some 6,500 light-years distant, an easy target for binoculars or small telescopes in a nebula rich part of the sky toward the split constellation Serpens Cauda (the tail of the snake).”
"The Only Absolute..."
"Never perceive anything as being inevitable or predestined.
The only absolute is uncertainty."
- Lionel Suggs
○
"Humans may crave absolute certainty; they may aspire to it; they may pretend, as partisans of certain religions do, to have attained it. But the history of science - by far the most successful claim to knowledge accessible to humans - teaches that the most we can hope for is successive improvement in our understanding, learning from our mistakes, an asymptotic approach to the Universe, but with the proviso that absolute certainty will always elude us."
- Carl Sagan
"Most Americans Are Literally Living On The Edge Of Disaster"
"Most Americans Are Literally
Living On The Edge Of Disaster"
by Michael Snyder
"There is a tremendous disconnect between the economic numbers that the government is giving us and what most Americans are personally experiencing on a daily basis. The government says that inflation is low, but the cost of living just continues to spiral out of control. The government says that unemployment is low, but Challenger, Gray & Christmas says that the number of layoffs in the U.S. was up 98 percent last year. The government says that the economic outlook for 2024 is positive, but companies all over America are acting as if extremely hard times are ahead. So who are we supposed to believe?
Personally, I trust numbers that come from private sources far more than numbers that come from government sources. For example, a survey that was just conducted by Bankrate discovered that 56 percent of all U.S. adults do not have enough money to handle an unexpected expense of $1,000…"A majority of Americans say a $1,000 emergency expense would be too great of a hit to their savings and that they could not afford it, according to new data released Wednesday. Bankrate’s latest survey results found 56% of U.S. adults lack the emergency funds to handle a $1,000 unexpected expense and one-third (35%) said they would have to borrow the money somehow to pay for it."
More than half the country is literally living on the edge of financial disaster. That is crazy. Another survey has found that much of the nation barely keeps any money in their bank accounts…"Nearly half of Americans have $500 or less in their savings accounts, an amount that leaves them vulnerable to unexpected expenses, according to a GOBankingRates survey of 1,063 U.S. adults conducted in November 2023. About 29% of respondents have between $501 and $5,000 in their savings accounts, while the remaining 21% of Americans have $5,001 or more. Few hold much cash in their checking accounts as well. Of those surveyed, 60% report having $500 or less in their checking accounts, while only about 12% have $2,001 or more."
Most Americans would be financially wiped out by just one major accident or emergency. The vast majority of us are just barely scraping by from month to month, and the rapidly rising cost of living is making that increasingly difficult to do. One woman recently found a Taco Bell receipt from 12 years ago, and she discovered that prices are now approximately three times higher than they were back then…"A TikTok video by a user who found an old Taco Bell receipt has gone viral – as Americans realize prices are now almost three times higher. The old receipt showed that – 12 years ago – Americans could buy TWO of the chain’s beefy five-layer burritos for $2.59 including taxes. Today, those same burritos cost about $3.69 for just ONE. That doesn’t include tax, which can vary across the US. So too can the base price. The government continues to insist that inflation is “low”, but everyone knows that is a big fat lie.
Insurance rates have been spiking at a particularly alarming rate. One man in Las Vegas was horrified when his auto insurance bill shot up by 72 percent in just eight months even though he had no accidents and no tickets…"They say ‘What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas’ – but the eye-watering auto insurance bill city resident Simon Edwards recently received is just one example of the staggering rises in premiums consumers are facing all across the US. The 2012 Mazda 5 owner was shocked to find his monthly bill from Geico had rocketed up from $130 last April to $223 now – a rise of 72 percent in just eight months. ‘I’ve been in no accidents, no tickets, been with Geico for many years,’ a perplexed Edwards told the Wall Street Journal."
Another man recently posted a video on TikTok in which he ranted about how the cost of literally everything is absolutely soaring…"Four years ago my rent was $1,200 a month at a luxury apartment comple, It is NOW $2,100, not even including utilities. 3 years ago my electric bill was averaging $45 now it’s averaging $125. I went to the grocery store yesterday and got 3 bags of chips, some ground turkey and some vegetables and it was $67 DOLLARS?!”
U.S. consumers are being squeezed like never before, and as a result debt levels have been rising to unprecedented levels.For example, unpaid residential utility debt in the U.S. rose to a new all-time record of 20.3 billion dollars last year…"Bloomberg cites a new report from the National Energy Assistance Directors Association that reveals US household utility debt hit a record as an alarming number of Americans can no longer afford heating and cooling their homes. NEADA said one out of every six ratepayers is behind on energy bills, adding residential utility debt hit a new record last year of $20.3 billion."
Please don’t let anyone tell you that the U.S. economy is in good shape. Most Americans are really hurting in this economic environment, and conditions continue to get even worse. As I discussed yesterday, large companies all over America are feverishly laying off workers. In fact, earlier today we learned that even eBay is now laying people off…"Online retailer eBay Inc. will cut about 1,000 jobs, or an estimated 9% of its full-time workforce, saying its number of employees and costs have exceeded how much the business is growing in a slowing economy. It marks the latest layoffs in the tech industry. CEO Jamie Iannone said in a message to employees on Tuesday that the company also will reduce how many “contracts we have within our alternate workforce over the coming months.”
The worse economic conditions become, the more crime we are going to see. At this point, looting has already become a way of life in some areas of the country. In Washington D.C., a CVS store is permanently shutting down because dozens of teens would literally loot the store multiple times per day…"A Washington D.C. CVS store is shutting its doors after being repeatedly ransacked by thieves, the chain has confirmed. The pharmacy, located in the Columbia Heights neighborhood, went viral last October when videos emerged of it totally stripped of all its products after being targeted by a teen gang. Staff claim more than 45 schoolkids would go into the store and steal chips and drinks in the morning, after their classes and late at night. It will close on February 29, according to WTTG-TV."
If this is what is happening now, what will we see once economic conditions get extremely bad in this country? I would encourage you to get prepared while you still can, because so much chaos is ahead of us. We are living at a time when most Americans are literally living on the edge of disaster, and disaster is coming. Millions will be wiped out by the economic tsunami that is approaching, and you do not want to be among the victims."