Full screen recommended.
Josh Groban, "You Are Loved (Don't Give Up)"
So, we rise from the rubble...
Monday, November 4, 2024
"A Look to the Heavens"
“From Sagittarius to Carina, the Milky Way Galaxy shines in this dark night sky above planet Earth’s lush island paradise of Mangaia. Familiar to denizens of the southern hemisphere, the gorgeous skyscape includes the bulging galactic center at the upper left and bright stars Alpha and Beta Centauri just right of center. About 10 kilometers wide, volcanic Mangaia is the southernmost of the Cook Islands. Geologists estimate that at 18 million years old it is the oldest island in the Pacific Ocean.
Of course, the Milky Way is somewhat older, with the galaxy’s oldest stars estimated to be over 13 billion years old. (Editor’s note: This image holds the distinction of being selected as winner in the Royal Observatory, Greenwich, Astronomy Photographer of the Year competition in the Earth and Space category.)“
- http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap110924.html
"Heaven And Hell..."
“Many people don’t fear a hell after this life and that’s because hell is on this earth, in this life. In this life there are many forms of hell that people walk through, sometimes for a day, sometimes for years, sometimes it doesn’t end. The kind of hell that doesn’t burn your skin; but burns your soul. The kind of hell that people can’t see; but the flames lap at your spirit. Heaven is a place on earth, too! It’s where you feel freedom, where you’re not afraid. No more chains. And you hear your soul laughing.”
- C. JoyBell C.
o
John Milton,
o
“Hell is empty and all the devils are here.”
- William Shakespeare, "The Tempest"
"The Only Final Sin..."
"In a closed society where everybody’s guilty, the only crime is
getting caught. In a world of thieves, the only final sin is stupidity."
- Hunter S. Thompson
Adventures With Danno, "Listeria: This is Hard To Explain, Here We Go"
Adventures With Danno, PM 11/4/24
"Listeria: This is Hard To Explain, Here We Go"
Comments here:
Dan, I Allegedly, "Don't Let Them Rip You Off"
Full screen recommended.
Dan, I Allegedly, 11/4/24
"Don't Let Them Rip You Off"
"Discover the hidden cost of your insurance policy in this eye-opening video! I'm Dan, and today, I share a personal experience that could save you thousands. When my son totaled his car, I noticed a sneaky insurance tactic that almost cost us $2,000. I dive into the details of how insurance companies might try to clip you and what you can do to protect yourself. From shady insurance practices to data breaches affecting public housing, we cover it all."
Comments here:
Jeremiah Babe, "Warning! This Is The Calm Before The Storm - Tuesday Night Chaos"
Jeremiah Babe, 11/4/24
"Warning! This Is The Calm Before The Storm -
Tuesday Night Chaos"
Comments here:
"First Of All..."
"First of all, although men have a common destiny, each individual also has to work out his own personal salvation for himself in fear and trembling. We can help one another to find the meaning of life no doubt. But in the last analysis, the individual person is responsible for living his own life and for "finding himself." If he persists in shifting his responsibility to somebody else, he fails to find out the meaning of his own existence. You cannot tell me who I am and I cannot tell you who you are. If you do not know your own identity, who is going to identify you?"
- Thomas Merton
"The Top Banana"
"The Top Banana"
by Jeff Thomas
"The United States emerged from World War II as the top banana. Having entered the war late, it not only was in the enviable position of expanding as a manufacturing nation to supply the allies with war materials, it also insisted on being paid in gold for whatever it shipped. (Pretty nice deal.) At the end of the war, it only had to switch from building tanks and radio equipment to building cars and televisions for the peacetime population. The icing on the cake was that it had not been invaded, so, in 1945, it was poised to take off as the world’s foremost supplier of goods.
For several decades, the US reigned as the top banana, and indeed, that’s still true in many ways, except the peel of the banana is rapidly turning brown. The US has, in recent times, devolved from being the world’s greatest creditor nation to becoming the world’s greatest debtor nation. And in fact, were it not for the residual image of its past laurels, it’s likely that the US would already have collapsed under its unprecedented debt-and-deficit burden. But whilst we’re making a comparison of the US to the yellow fruit, there are a few other parallels that come to mind.
Banana Republic: The term "banana republic" was coined in 1904 to refer to those economically unstable countries that rely on just one product that they sell to the rest of the world, with no backup plan should that product fail. The banana republic remains functional only as a result of money and goods shipped to it in trade for the one product. Sooner or later, something goes wrong with that product, and the republic crashes as a result. At one time, the US supplied the world with its manufactured goods, but American manufacturing facilities have long since moved to countries where costs of operation are far lower than in the US.
Today, the foremost US export product, by far, is debt. US Treasuries are held by countries across the globe and the present debt is at a world record level. If even a portion of the Treasuries were to be redeemed, the US economy would quickly collapse. And yet, the debt is increasing by three billion dollars every day. It’s important to remember that this is not a problem created by one political party or the other. Both parties are responsible for the rises in debt. This is therefore not a situation that can or will be corrected "if our candidate could just win the next election." And so, the US can therefore unquestionably be categorized, at this stage in its development, as a banana republic – one with no plan for a solution to its situation.
Going Bananas: Another aspect that seems to always emerge in banana republics is the tendency to steadily diminish basic freedoms and the rule of law. In recent decades, constitutionally guaranteed freedoms have been steadily removed in the US, but more rapidly in the last decade.
In addition, the government on both sides, but particularly on the left, has been destroying the rule of law. All branches of the government are playing high and loose with their authority. In the past, the legislature did all it can, regardless of whether it is lawful, to unseat the president. Most disappointing of all, the judicial branch has become an extension of the legislative branch, basing their decisions on political prejudices rather than on law.
This now takes place even with regard to the Supreme Court. The Court is seen by both political parties as an agency for enforcement of political beliefs, with each party locked in a struggle to gain dominance by having the majority of justices be loyal to one party or the other, not to the law. Not surprisingly, since law and principle have been tossed aside in the post-constitutional era, the American people are left with no moral compass whatever. The best that they can hope for is that their chosen group will vanquish the other somehow.
And so, we see a constant game of one-upmanship amongst both the American people and the political parties – a continuous attempt to win as many of an endless series of "moral" battles, played out each evening on the news. In such an environment, those who attempt to inject quiet reason are unable to be heard. Only those who "go bananas" get enough attention to possibly edge forward in the fray.
Slipping on a Banana Peel: And so we ask ourselves what the outcome of this charade is likely to be. Well, if we see a banana peel before us, hopefully, we’d be looking where we’re going and sidestep it. However, what we’re seeing in America is a pathway filled with banana peels and an obsessive populace that shows every sign of placing more attention on individual agenda than where it’s walking.
To be sure, this conundrum is nothing new in the world. Over the millennia, such situations have played themselves out countless times. The net result tends to be the same. There’s a dramatic socio-economic–political collapse, followed by a period in which both wealth and order have been lost. Once they realize that there have been no real winners in the debacle, the populace shakes its collective head and wonders, "How did we let it get so crazy?"
Eventually, they begin to ask themselves what can be done to rebuild the system, but historically, this does not happen quickly. In most such cases, a hardworking and successful generation have raised a spoiled generation, who want quick answers and immediate gratification. They in turn raise an apathetic generation, who don’t see any real light at the end of the tunnel.
Unfortunately, the US is in the latter stage. Such a generation of apathetic individuals is typically incapable of creating a recovery. In almost all cases, what’s necessary is that the following generation recognize that their parents have left them with virtually nothing and that, if they want more, they’ll have to work for it.
And so the cycle begins anew. But make no mistake; it’s not a quick process. It tends to take decades. But as the declining nation slides into the doldrums, others come forward to take its place. As anyone who has raised bananas knows, when one tree begins to fruit, small banana "suckers" begin to come out of the ground. By the time the tree is in full fruit, the suckers are big enough to be firmly rooted.
Once the tree has fruited and collapsed under its own weight, the suckers feed off its moisture and minerals to grow. The position of top banana is not perennial. It passes from one to another from time to time. But this is by no means the end of the world. The trick is to recognize the warning signs and, when we see them, to uproot and move on to a more favorable grove."
Bill Bonner, "Happy Times Are Here Again"
President Ronald Reagan speaks at
the Inaugural Ball in Washington DC, 1981.
"Happy Times Are Here Again"
Reagan was well meaning. He was smart. And his instincts were good.
But he was no match for the entrenched power of the elites.
by Bill Bonner
"It was 44 years ago. But we remember it well. The Inaugural Ball of 1981. Ronald Reagan had just been elected president. The ceiling was festooned with red, white and blue. The champagne flowed. The band played ‘Happy Times Are Here Again.’ And we were out of business.
Yes, at the time we were running the National Taxpayers Union... whose stated mission was to ‘cut out government waste’ and save the taxpayers’ money. But now that Ronald Reagan was president, there was no more need. Reagan was in charge. And he would bring order to federal finances... and cut unnecessary spending. Or, so we thought.
Unlike Donald Trump, Reagan had devoted years of his life to government and politics. Beginning his career on the ‘left,’ he moved to ‘right’ as he got older and concluded that ‘government is the problem, not the solution.’ He knew that budgets needed to be balanced. And he was fully committed - ideologically, intellectually, temperamentally - to the traditional conservative cause of limited federal power. He even appointed our friend David Stockman, a man who could spot a wasted penny from miles away, as Budget Director. If his team couldn’t turn things around, none could.
And yet, he failed. The momentum of Big Government was too strong. Reagan was well meaning. He was smart. And his instincts were good. But he was no match for the entrenched power of the elites.
David Stockman wrote an excellent book detailing how things went wrong. It’s called "The Triumph of Politics: Why the Reagan Revolution Failed." It explains how, even in the early ‘80s, Washington politics diverted ‘conservatives,’ turning them into the biggest spenders ever. During Reagan’s four years, US debt increased 160% - the third biggest hike of any president... and twice that of Barack Obama. Go figure.
And since then, every ‘conservative’ leader has been an imposter. Bush I, Bush II, Trump - all were firmly in the grip of the Big Spending/Big Empire elites. None ever broke a sweat trying to rein in deficits or US military adventures.
And now, Dan Denning points out that the Chief Executive has been largely sidelined. That’s why Ms. Harris is a plausible candidate; she’s not really expected to do anything or have ideas of her own. Voters attach themselves to the candidates on the basis of shared cultural clues, not underlying policy. Besides, the basic policy choices for Republicans as well as Democrats are essentially the same.
This, says Dan, is largely proven by the example of the last two years when “we’ve basically NOT had a president.” And we didn’t need one: "In the absence of a real CEO (instead of an empty mind like Biden, an empty suit like Harris, an empty wallet like Trump) the State and its minions are more than capable of running themselves. The CEO comes and goes. The assistant secretaries for this and that... and the hundreds of thousands of civil servants and federal employees [along with lobbyists, special interests, think tanks, hacks, hangers-on, and has-beens]... they stay... they keep not working... or worse... working. Doing their damage to the Republic like termites in the Resolute Desk. "
But people still think it’s a civic duty to vote for one of the two candidates, no matter how bad the choice is. They must think that there’s some invisible genius to the system that elevates ordinary men (or women!) into worthy leaders of the free world. Even today many otherwise sensible people send out hopeful pleas to voters to elect Trump or Harris.
Ellen Sauerbrey, for example, is a politician from Baltimore with a big smile. Among other things, she had been appointed as a US ambassador to the UN. Writing to Maryland voters, she urges them to pull the lever for Trump: “My mind is made up. I'm voting for him and here's why: He puts Americans and their well-being first. Kamala will not. He will bring @elonmusk into his cabinet to be the efficiency czar and get rid of waste. This alone may be the best single reason to vote for him.”
We can’t remember the last time we heard a politician say he didn’t put the well-being of Americans first and foremost. But they all put on their pants one leg at a time like everyone else... and put their own well-being first - just as we would if we were in their shoes.
The most remarkable credulity is the idea that an ‘efficiency czar’ would ‘get rid of waste.’ This reveals an alarming lack of cynicalism. First, as we learned in the ‘80s, there is no such thing as ‘waste’ in Washington. All the money that comes into town ends up in someone’s pocket... which is the whole idea.
Second, inefficiency is often the only thing that makes it tolerable. Would the world have been a better place if Mussolini’s Italian government had been more efficient at rounding up Jews? Or Yamamoto’s bombers had done a better job on the US Pacific Fleet? And no one was ever praised for his efficient love-making.
Reagan understood that when it comes to government, it’s not efficiency that counts. It’s size. Less is more. And now... Donald Trump... with none of the Gipper’s charm... none of his warmth... and none of his philosophical and ideological principles -- is there any plausible hope that The Donald will succeed where The Gipper failed?"
Gregory Mannarino, "A Warning From Warren Buffet? And I Repeat, After the Selection All Bets Are Off"
Gregory Mannarino, AM 11/4/24
"A Warning From Warren Buffet?
And I Repeat, After the Selection All Bets Are Off"
Comments here:
Jim Kunstler, "Escape from Psychopathocracy"
"Escape from Psychopathocracy"
by Jim Kunstler
"Most people do not get a clear opportunity to vote against Communism and
prevent a historical evil from taking hold. We have that opportunity. Vote Trump."
- James Lindsay
"You thought Halloween was over, but somehow the horror show won’t stop, and it’s not so much fun anymore. Those oversized ghouls, werewolves, and dead souls you erected in the front yard, like shrines to wickedness, represent something truly roiling and moiling around the zeitgeist of this troubled land: the ruling Party of Chaos. Look at what they have done to you and what they are still doing. Hoaxing you, sucking the life-blood out of you, and lying about everything. Wrecking the country.
Why does it seem that the Democratic Party is in it solely to remain in power? I will tell you: because it controls the money-flows to the vast cadres of a vicious parasitical bureaucracy and its support system of outside orgs that commit crimes and make war on the rest of us. It’s called “the blob” for a reason. It’s exactly like that monster out of the 1950s horror movies, a shape-shifting leviathan that devours everything in its path with only one purpose, to grow ever larger until it consumes...everything.
In my state of New York last week, the DEC authorities sent a swat team to seize a man and woman’s pet squirrel and raccoon and then killed the animals. Why? Because they could. How is that different from the DOJ swatting and seizing a grandmother for walking through the US capitol building and then stuffing her in prison for the rest of her natural life on misdemeanor charges? It’s not different. They are both demonstrations of deliberate cruelty - and that’s why the squirrel story resonated so widely around the country. You know exactly what it says: we can take whatever is dear to you...your pets...your livelihood...your freedom...your life.
Who failed to notice that candidate Kamala Harris was unable to articulate any coherent notion about how her government might manage its business beyond some empty nostrums about “joy,” and “turning the page?” Because the party’s actual purpose, which it hides and lies about, is just to push you around, tell you what to do and what to think, and to punish you if you don’t comply - in other words, to exercise despotic power. It can’t do anything else with that power.
It lacks the competence to manage an economy from the top down, and it certainly won’t allow the countless volitional transactions of people at liberty to produce and sell things of value on their own. It will go to war against anything to steal more money: some pitiful foreign kleptocracy of country...the liberty-minded people of our own country...against sound ideas, proven principles, standards of decency, and, not unusually, against reality itself.
And now you and I face the ordeal of an election that, by design, will be nearly impossible to audit, will remain inconclusive for weeks, and subject to endless dispute. Why, because it serves the purpose of the Party of Chaos, which is...chaos! The scheme was to introduce so many devices of uncertainty as to guarantee political paralysis. Why else would you use batteries of hugely expensive computerized vote-counting machines that can be easily hacked, untraceable mail-in ballots with no chains of custody, the automatic registration of non-citizens, and laws (as in California) to literally forbid the requirement of voter-ID?
This was the work of lawfare terrorist Marc Elias -with hundreds of millions of dollars at his disposal, some from the government itself, a bunch from the party, and some from rogue billionaires such as George Soros, Bill Gates, and Reid Hoffman, and then disbursed surreptitiously through hundreds of NGOs - to elect officials such as Secretaries of State and district attorneys who will ignore or bend the law, to pay off state legislators around the country to change voting rules, to hire brigades of ballot “harvesters,” and to file ruinous lawsuits against anyone who objects to these pranks. It is an enormous, dastardly machine designed to deprive you of your consent to be governed. It is the work of political psychopaths.
You’ve no doubt heard about one of the blob’s instrumental players, Rep. Jamie Raskin’s audacious plan to un-do the election, should Donald Trump happen to generate a landslide vote that overwhelms Marc Elias’s ballot-box-stuffing operation. The Raskin scheme is to disqualify Mr. Trump as an “insurrectionist” by an act of Congress before the January 6 certification ceremony. Of course, that would suppose a Democratic majority in Congress, which is unlikely to be the case.
But Mr. Raskin put his foot in his mouth so deeply that he nearly choked to death last week when, discussing election matters with entertainer Bill Maher on TV, Mr. Raskin stated that he would accept the results only of a free and fair election - with himself left to determine whether it was free and fair. This, you understand, is exactly what he accuses Donald Trump of doing in 2020: thinking-and-saying that the election might not have been free and fair.
The problem for Mr. Raskin is that this sort of “election denial” he exhibits is exactly the basis for accusing Mr. Trump of “insurrection” in the first place. Thus: Mr. Raskin has just made a potential “insurrectionist” of himself. What’s more, as if the Jack Smith Case in Judge Chutkan’s DC court was not already compromised enough by the SCOTUS decision on presidential immunity, Mr. Trump’s lawyers can now call Jamie Raskin as a witness in the case, play the video of his remarks to Bill Maher, and ask him how expressing doubt about the freeness or fairness of an election amounts to “insurrection.”
One way or another, looks like we’re in for a hard, anxious winter. Threats galore loom concerning possible blob / Party of Chaos mischief ahead, designed to disorder our national life: false flags prompting the imposition of martial law...aggressive censorship and cancellation of free-speaking regime opponents...deployment of Antifa mobs against civil order, with violence, looting, arson. This symbiotic enemy of the people is desperate to evade accountability for the crimes they’ve already committed as officials running institutions: abuse of power, conspiracy to deprive many citizens of their civil rights, perhaps even treason. They’re capable of anything. They must be defeated."
Judge Napolitano, "Alastair Crooke: Netanyahu’s Imaginary Victories"
Judge Napolitano - Judging Freedom, 11/4/24
"Alastair Crooke:
Netanyahu’s Imaginary Victories"
Comments here:
o
Dialogue Works, 11/4/24
"Col. Jacques Baud:
Iran's Massive Response to Israel's Attack"
Comments here:
"A 'Lockdown Economy' Without The Lockdowns: 48 Percent Of U.S. Small Businesses Couldn’t Even Pay Their Rent Last Month"
"A 'Lockdown Economy' Without The Lockdowns: 48 Percent
Of U.S. Small Businesses Couldn’t Even Pay Their Rent Last Month"
by Michael Snyder
"When nearly half of all small businesses are struggling so much that they can’t even pay their rent, you have an enormous economic crisis on your hands. The last time that we witnessed anything like this was during the peak of the COVID pandemic, but here in 2024 we don’t have a major global health crisis to blame for our catastrophic economic performance. In March 2021, 49 percent of small business owners in the United States could not make their rent payments, but that was because so many states had instituted lockdowns which were severely harming the economy. In September 2024, 48 percent of small business owners in the United States could not make their rent payments, but there is no excuse this time around…
"Close to half of small business owners couldn’t pay their rent in September, marking a new three-year high. According to business networking platform Alignable’s September Revenue & Rent Report, 48% of small business renters could not make their rent payments. That was up from 41% in July and August. And it was the highest it has been since the Covid recovery era in March 2021, when 49% of small business owners were delinquent."
We have a “lockdown economy” without the lockdowns. Does anyone out there want to try to put a positive spin on this? Because if you do, I would love to hear what you have to say.Fox Business interviewed one restaurant owner in California that has tried everything that she can think of to keep her restaurants going…"A regenerative farmer and restaurateur who closed several of her California eateries is now facing the possibility of shutting down her remaining two locations. Mollie Engelhart, owner of Sage Regenerative Kitchen, said despite her continuous attempts to keep her restaurants afloat, they are “barely hanging on by a thread.” “It doesn’t feel like we can hold on because I’ve run out of assets to literally liquidate, to keep us above ground and above water,” Engelhart told FOX Business. Engelhart said she and her husband “leveraged everything” including their retirement and home, in hopes that things would turn around."
I feel so badly for her. But the truth is that there are countless other small business owners that are in the exact same boat. Our economy really stinks. That is the bottom line.
Of course many larger businesses are deeply struggling too. In fact, we just learned that TGI Fridays has just filed for bankruptcy…"Casual dining chain TGI Fridays Inc. filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in Texas on Saturday with the company’s executive chairman saying it still has not fully recovered from the COVID-19 pandemic. The bar and grill chain, known for serving up hamburgers, loaded potato skins and $5 happy hour drinks, said the move was done to “address legacy liabilities and position restaurants for long-term success,” the company said in a press release. The Dallas-based company says 39 of its corporate-operated domestic restaurants would remain open."
When I first started using the term “restaurant apocalypse” many months ago, a lot of people thought I was exaggerating. Since then, chain after chain has gone bankrupt. It turns out that I was not exaggerating one bit.
Meanwhile, the percentage of middle-income households that rate their financial situations negatively has just hit a brand new high…"America’s middle class is feeling the squeeze like never before, according to new data. Primerica’s latest Financial Security Monitor report for the third quarter found 55% of middle-income households now rate their personal financial situation negatively, a 6-point jump from the previous survey. “For the first time in a year, a majority of middle-income households are feeling negative about their personal finances,” said Glenn Williams, CEO of Primerica. “In fact, this latest report represents the highest negative rating we’ve seen since we began fielding the survey exactly four years ago.” The middle class is being absolutely eviscerated, and it is getting worse with each passing month.
Last week, I was stunned to learn that hundreds of people had applied to rent a “sleeping pod” in San Francisco for $700 a month…"A company that rents “sleeping pods” in downtown San Francisco for $700 a month has had 300 people apply for its remaining 17 beds, the company’s CEO said. Brownstone Shared Housing describes its mission as “providing low cost housing in the most expensive cities”. Its bunkbed-style “pods” measure approximately 3.5ft-by-4ft-by-6.5ft, large enough to fit a twin mattress. The pods come with privacy curtains, inside lighting and charging ports."
I still remember the days when you could rent a spectacular luxury apartment for $700 a month. Now all you get for $700 is a “pod” that allows you to sleep in a large room with a bunch of other stinky people.
The government has been feeding us numbers that indicate that the economy is performing well, but it turns out that they were just an illusion. For example, we are now learning that the labor market is actually far weaker than we were originally told…"Biden/Harris lied about jobs numbers. They said in August there were 159k added, there were only 78k. In September they said 254k, but only got 223k. In October they expected 100k, but only got 12k."
Will they later revise October’s number even lower? It takes 150,000 jobs a month just to keep up with population growth. And that doesn’t even account for the millions upon millions of people that have been coming into this country illegally. And the outlook for the months ahead is not good at all.
It is being reported that Nissan “is planning on cutting production of its main U.S. models by 30%”…"In continuing signs that the U.S. consumer is tapped, Nissan is planning on cutting production of its main U.S. models by 30%, according to a new report from Nikkei, which says the cuts could jeopardize the automaker’s 2024 global sales targets. Nissan forecasts a 99% drop in quarterly operating profit to 995 million yen ($6.52 million) and a 12% decline to 500 billion yen for the year, citing weakening U.S. market earnings, the report says. The company’s target of 3.65 million vehicles sold for 2024 is now at risk, it says." If Nissan thought that the economy was about to turn around, they wouldn’t be doing this.
So far in 2024, U.S. banks have shut down more than 700 branches…"US banks closed more than 700 branches in the first nine months of the year, forcing thousands to travel further to access vital services. Bank of America closed the most locations of any bank, shuttering 132 between January and September. U.S. Bank followed swiftly behind, having closed 101 of their own branches". If our banks thought that the economy was about to turn around, they wouldn’t be doing this.
Warren Buffett continues to sell off stocks, and he now has a cash stockpile of 325 billion dollars…"Berkshire Hathaway, the conglomerate headed by Warren E. Buffett, extended its retreat from stocks in the third quarter, cutting its holdings in Apple and Bank of America and increasing its cash to a record $325.2 billion." If Warren Buffett thought that the economy was about to turn around, he wouldn’t be doing this.
Let’s be real. I have been documenting our economic decline for more than ten years, and now we have reached a terminal phase. Our leaders flooded the system with money and piled up trillions upon trillions of dollars in new debt. They were able to delay the inevitable for a few years, but now the economy is crashing anyway. Economic pain is all around us, but what is ahead is going to be even worse."
Adventures With Danno, "Massive Changes Happening At Dollar Tree!"
Full screen recommended.
Adventures With Danno, AM 11/4/24
"Massive Changes Happening At Dollar Tree!"
Comments here:
"Economic Market Snapshot 11/4/24"
"Economic Market Snapshot 11/4/24"
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Down the rabbit hole of psychopathic greed and insanity...
Only the consequences are real - to you!
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"It's a Big Club, and you ain't in it.
You and I are not in the Big Club."
- George Carlin
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Market Data Center, Live Updates:
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Comprehensive, essential truth.
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Financial Stress Index
"The OFR Financial Stress Index (OFR FSI) is a daily market-based snapshot of stress in global financial markets. It is constructed from 33 financial market variables, such as yield spreads, valuation measures, and interest rates. The OFR FSI is positive when stress levels are above average, and negative when stress levels are below average. The OFR FSI incorporates five categories of indicators: credit, equity valuation, funding, safe assets and volatility. The FSI shows stress contributions by three regions: United States, other advanced economies, and emerging markets."
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Job cuts and much more.
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Commentary, highly recommended:
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"The more I see of the monied classes,
the better I understand the guillotine."
- George Bernard Shaw
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Oh yeah... beyond words. Any I know anyway...
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And now... The End Game...
o
Sunday, November 3, 2024
"Emergency Alert! Election Civil War Plan; Iran War Will Be Diversion; 1,000 Missiles Prepped"
Full screen recommended.
Canadian Prepper, 11/3/24
"Emergency Alert! Election Civil War Plan;
Iran War Will Be Diversion; 1,000 Missiles Prepped"
Comments here:
Jeremiah Babe, "These People Are Pure Evil, This Country Is In Big Trouble"
Jeremiah Babe, 11/3/24
"These People Are Pure Evil, This Country Is In Big Trouble"
Comments here:
o
Full screen recommended.
"Peanut the Squirrel,
Rescued Squirrel and Dad Do Everything Together!"
"For those that aren’t on X, Peanut was a squirrel rescued as a baby seven years ago, and raised in captivity by Mark Longo. Peanut (and Mark) became an Instagram sensation with over a half million followers. Peanut lived with another rescued pet named Fred, who was a raccoon.
Mark runs a non-profit animal rescue and sanctuary. Someone decided to report Mark to NY State authorities for this. The New York State police raided Mark’s home this week: A total of 10 officers raided his house. He and his wife were not allowed to use bathroom alone. He was not allowed to feed his other rescue animals. They interrogated his wife about her immigration status. There were search warrants from 4 bureaucratic departments, including FISA.
This week, despite massive public outcry, both Peanut and Fred were murdered by the New York State Environmental police. Their crime was living in captivity.
To be clear: "Based on the search results, it is extremely rare for squirrels to contract rabies. The data suggests that squirrels are not considered vectors of rabies and have never been known to transmit the disease to humans."
In the end, this is not about a squirrel. It is all about government overreach, illegal and overbearing search and seizure, arbitrary and capricious bureaucracies. Has our republic really been reduced to murdering pet squirrels? God save America."
There is truly Evil in this world, and as Shakespeare said,
"Hell is empty, and all the devils are here."
Musical Interlude: Il Divo, "Wicked Game (Melanconia)"
Full screen recommended.
Il Divo, "Wicked Game (Melanconia)"
(Live In London 2011)
"A Look to the Heavens"
“M13 is one of the most prominent and best known globular clusters. Visible with binoculars in the constellation of Hercules, M13 is frequently one of the first objects found by curious sky gazers seeking celestials wonders beyond normal human vision.
M13 is a colossal home to over 100,000 stars, spans over 150 light years across, lies over 20,000 light years distant, and is over 12 billion years old. At the 1974 dedication of Arecibo Observatory, a radio message about Earth was sent in the direction of M13. The featured image in HDR, taken through a small telescope, spans an angular size just larger than a full Moon, whereas the inset image, taken by Hubble Space Telescope, zooms in on the central 0.04 degrees.”
- http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap160727.htmlChet Raymo, “Examination of Conscience”
“Examination of Conscience”
by Chet Raymo
by Chet Raymo
"I have been reading Stephanie Smallwood's “Saltwater Slavery,” a close examination of the trade in human beings between the coast of West Africa and the Americas in the 17th and 18th centuries. It is a sobering read, but if there is one thing I came away with, it was this: We have an enormous capacity to rationalize the most horrendous crimes. Everyone involved in the slave trade - the European owners of the ships, the masters of the trading companies, the ship captains and crews, the plantation owners in the West Indies and the Chesapeake, the African tribal chiefs who captured and sold their neighbors to the European merchants - knew in some part of their souls that what they were doing was wrong. All of them - good Christians among them, pillars of their communities - found ways to rationalize their participation.
Who among us is immune to self deceit? To what extent am I implicated in the horrendous tragedies that are Darfur and Iraq? What do I owe to the global environment? Is there such a thing as innocence when we are so intimately connected that people in Fiji and Japan will read these words only moments after I write them?
What about science, the favored subject of this blog? Here is Smallwood: “The littoral [of the West African coast]...was more than a site of economic exchange and incarceration. The violence exercised in the service of human commodification relied upon a scientific empiricism always seeking to find the limits of human capacity for suffering, that point where material and social poverty threatened to consume entirely the lives it was meant to garner for sale in the Americas.”
Even science, like religion and democratic politics, can be pressed into the service of evil. We are all of us to some extent in the grip of economic forces as powerful and sometimes as pernicious as those that drove the saltwater slave trade. Few of us are required to personally face the direst evils. We are saved from moral anguish only by the fact that our acts of commission and omission ripple outward until their consequences are diluted and lost in the general happiness or unhappiness of humankind.”
- http://blog.sciencemusings.com/
The Poet: Robert Service, "Prelude"
"Prelude"
"In youth I gnawed life's bitter rind
And shared the rugged lot
Of fellows rude and unrefined,
Frustrated and forgot;
And now alas! it is too late
My sorry ways to mend,
So sadly I accept my fate,
A Roughneck to the end.
Profanity is in my voice
And slag is in my rhyme,
For I have mucked with men who curse
And grovel in the grime;
My fingers were not formed, I fear,
To frame a pretty pen,
So please forgive me if I veer
From Virtue now and then.
For I would be the living voice,
Though raucous is its tone,
Of men who rarely may rejoice,
Yet barely ever moan:
The rovers of the raw-ribbed lands,
The lads of lowly worth,
The scallywags with scaley hands
Who weld the ends of earth."
- Robert Service
Dan, I Allegedly, "There is a New Bailout That Should Make You Furious"
Full screen recommended.
Dan, I Allegedly, 11/3/24
"There is a New Bailout
That Should Make You Furious"
"Did you know there's a hidden $91 billion bailout quietly happening under our noses? While we're being distracted, our tax dollars are bailing out unions and pension funds like the Teamsters, all without our knowledge. It's crazy to think about how mismanaged funds are getting a free pass while regular folks are left to fend for themselves."
Comments here:
"Wars And Rumors Of War"
Canadian Prepper, 11/3/24
"Alert! B-52's, Nuclear Subs, USS Lincoln Sent
For War With Iran, NATO Sends Troops To Ukraine"
Comments here:
o
o
Full screen recommended.
Scott Ritter, 11/3/24
"The Great Battle Is About To Break Out!
Iran's Grand Ayatollah Shocks The World"
Comments here:
"A Musical How It Really Is"
Full screen recommended.
The Temptations, "Ball of Confusion" (1970)
Prophetic...
"The Molten Pit Of Human Reality"
"Friedrich Nietzsche in ‘Beyond Good and Evil’ holds that only a few people have the fortitude to look in times of distress into what he calls the molten pit of human reality. Most, studiously, ignore the pit. Artists and philosophers, for Nietzsche, are consumed however by an insatiable curiosity, a quest for truth and a desire for meaning. They venture down into the bowels of the molten pit. They get as close as they can before the flames and heat drive them back. This intellectual and moral honesty, Nietzsche wrote, comes with a cost. Those singed by the fire of reality become ‘burnt children’ he wrote, eternal orphans in empires of illusion."
- Chris Hedges
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"We work in the dark. We do what we can to battle the evil that would otherwise destroy us. But if a man's character is his fate, it's not a choice but a calling. Sometimes the weight of this burden causes us to falter from the fragile fortress of our mind, allowing the monster without to turn within. We are left alone staring into the abyss, into the laughing face of madness."
- Fox Mulder, "X-Files"
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Freely download "Beyond Good And Evil", by Friedrich Nietzsche, here:
"Evil Walks Among Us: Monsters with Human Faces Wreak Havoc on Our Freedoms"
"Evil Walks Among Us: Monsters with
Human Faces Wreak Havoc on Our Freedoms"
by John & Nisha Whitehead
“But these weren’t the kind of monsters that had tentacles and rotting skin, the kind a seven-year-old might be able to wrap his mind around - they were monsters with human faces, in crisp uniforms, marching in lockstep, so banal you don’t recognize them for what they are until it’s too late.” - Ransom Riggs, "Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children"
"Enough already. Enough with the distractions. Enough with the partisan jousting. Enough with the sniping and name-calling and mud-slinging that do nothing to make this country safer or freer or more just. We have let the government’s evil-doing, its abuses, power grabs, brutality, meanness, inhumanity, immorality, greed, corruption, debauchery and tyranny go on for too long. We are approaching a reckoning.
This is the point, as the poet W. B. Yeats warned, when things fall apart and anarchy is loosed upon the world. We have seen this convergence before in Hitler’s Germany, in Stalin’s Russia, in Mussolini’s Italy, and in Mao’s China: the rise of strongmen and demagogues, the ascendency of profit-driven politics over deep-seated principles, the warring nationalism that seeks to divide and conquer, the callous disregard for basic human rights and dignity, and the silence of people who should know better. Yet no matter how many times the world has been down this road before, we can’t seem to avoid repeating the deadly mistakes of the past.
This is not just playing out on a national and international scale. It is wreaking havoc at the most immediate level, as well, creating rifts and polarities within families and friends, neighborhoods and communities that keep the populace warring among themselves and incapable of presenting a united front in the face of the government’s goose-stepping despotism.
We labor today under the weight of countless tyrannies, large and small, disguised as “the better good,” marketed as benevolence, enforced with armed police, and carried out by an elite class of government officials who are largely insulated from the ill effects of their actions.
For too long now, the American people have rationalized turning a blind eye to all manner of government wrongdoing - asset forfeiture schemes, corruption, surveillance, endless wars, SWAT team raids, militarized police, profit-driven private prisons, and so on - because they were the so-called lesser of two evils.
Yet the unavoidable truth is that the government - through its acts of power grabs, brutality, meanness, inhumanity, immorality, greed, corruption, debauchery and tyranny - has become almost indistinguishable from the evil it claims to be fighting, whether that evil takes the form of terrorism, torture, drug trafficking, sex trafficking, murder, violence, theft, pornography, scientific experimentations or some other diabolical means of inflicting pain, suffering and servitude on humanity.
At its core, this is not a debate about politics, or constitutionalism, or even tyranny disguised as law-and-order. This is a condemnation of the monsters with human faces who walk among us. Many of them work for the U.S. government.
This is the premise of John Carpenter’s film "They Live", which was released thirty-five years ago and remains unnervingly, chillingly appropriate for our modern age. Best known for his horror film Halloween, which assumes that there is a form of evil so dark that it can’t be killed, Carpenter’s larger body of work is infused with a strong anti-authoritarian, anti-establishment, laconic bent that speaks to the filmmaker’s concerns about the unraveling of our society, particularly our government. Time and again, Carpenter portrays the government working against its own citizens, a populace out of touch with reality, technology run amok, and a future more horrific than any horror film.
In "Escape from New York," Carpenter presents fascism as the future of America. In "The Thing" a remake of the 1951 sci-fi classic of the same name, Carpenter presupposes that increasingly we are all becoming dehumanized.
In "Christine" the film adaptation of Stephen King’s novel about a demon-possessed car, technology exhibits a will and consciousness of its own and goes on a murderous rampage. In In the "Mouth of Madness," Carpenter notes that evil grows when people lose “the ability to know the difference between reality and fantasy.”
And then there is Carpenter’s "They Live," in which two migrant workers discover that the world is not as it seems. In fact, the population is actually being controlled and exploited by aliens working in partnership with an oligarchic elite. All the while, the populace - blissfully unaware of the real agenda at work in their lives - has been lulled into complacency, indoctrinated into compliance, bombarded with media distractions, and hypnotized by subliminal messages beamed out of television and various electronic devices, billboards and the like.
It is only when homeless drifter John Nada (played to the hilt by the late Roddy Piper) discovers a pair of doctored sunglasses - Hoffman lenses - that Nada sees what lies beneath the elite’s fabricated reality: control and bondage. When viewed through the lens of truth, the elite, who appear human until stripped of their disguises, are shown to be monsters who have enslaved the citizenry in order to prey on them.
Likewise, billboards blare out hidden, authoritative messages: a bikini-clad woman in one ad is actually ordering viewers to “MARRY AND REPRODUCE.” Magazine racks scream “CONSUME” and “OBEY.” A wad of dollar bills in a vendor’s hand proclaims, “THIS IS YOUR GOD.” When viewed through Nada’s Hoffman lenses, some of the other hidden messages being drummed into the people’s subconscious include: NO INDEPENDENT THOUGHT, CONFORM, SUBMIT, STAY ASLEEP, BUY, WATCH TV, NO IMAGINATION, and DO NOT QUESTION AUTHORITY.
This indoctrination campaign engineered by the elite in "They Live" is painfully familiar to anyone who has studied the decline of American culture. A citizenry that does not think for themselves, obeys without question, is submissive, does not challenge authority, does not think outside the box, and is content to sit back and be entertained is a citizenry that can be easily controlled.
In this way, the subtle message of "They Live" provides an apt analogy of our own distorted vision of life in the American police state, what philosopher Slavoj Žižek refers to as dictatorship in democracy, “the invisible order which sustains your apparent freedom.”
Tune out the government’s attempts to distract, divert and befuddle us and tune into what’s really going on in this country, and you’ll run headlong into an unmistakable, unpalatable truth: what we are dealing with today is an authoritarian beast that has outgrown its chains and will not be restrained.
We’re being fed a series of carefully contrived fictions that bear no resemblance to reality. Despite the fact that we are 17,600 times more likely to die from heart disease than from a terrorist attack; 11,000 times more likely to die from an airplane accident than from a terrorist plot involving an airplane; 1,048 times more likely to die from a car accident than a terrorist attack, and 8 times more likely to be killed by a police officer than by a terrorist , we have handed over control of our lives to government officials who treat us as a means to an end—the source of money and power.
As the Bearded Man in "They Live" warns, “They are dismantling the sleeping middle class. More and more people are becoming poor. We are their cattle. We are being bred for slavery.” We have bought into the illusion and refused to grasp the truth. From the moment we are born until we die, we are indoctrinated into believing that those who rule us do it for our own good. The truth is far different.
The powers-that-be want us to feel threatened by forces beyond our control (terrorists, pandemics, mass shootings, etc.). They want us afraid and dependent on the government and its militarized armies for our safety and well-being. They want us distrustful of each other, divided by our prejudices, and at each other’s throats. We are little more than expendable resources to be used, abused and discarded.
In fact, a study conducted by Princeton and Northwestern University concluded that the U.S. government does not represent the majority of American citizens. Instead, the study found that the government is ruled by the rich and powerful, or the so-called “economic elite.” Moreover, the researchers concluded that policies enacted by this governmental elite nearly always favor special interests and lobbying groups.
In other words, we are being ruled by an oligarchy disguised as a democracy, and arguably on our way towards fascism - a form of government where private corporate interests rule, money calls the shots, and the people are seen as mere subjects to be controlled.
Rest assured that when and if fascism finally takes hold in America, the basic forms of government will remain: Fascism will appear to be friendly. The legislators will be in session. There will be elections, and the news media will continue to cover the entertainment and political trivia. Consent of the governed, however, will no longer apply. Actual control will have finally passed to the oligarchic elite controlling the government behind the scenes.
Sound familiar? Clearly, we are now ruled by an oligarchic elite of governmental and corporate interests. We have moved into “corporatism” (favored by Benito Mussolini), which is a halfway point on the road to full-blown fascism.
Corporatism is where the few moneyed interests - not elected by the citizenry - rule over the many. In this way, it is not a democracy or a republican form of government, which is what the American government was established to be. It is a top-down form of government and one which has a terrifying history typified by the developments that occurred in totalitarian regimes of the past: police states where everyone is watched and spied on, rounded up for minor infractions by government agents, placed under police control, and placed in detention (a.k.a. concentration) camps.
For the final hammer of fascism to fall, it will require the most crucial ingredient: the majority of the people will have to agree that it’s not only expedient but necessary. But why would a people agree to such an oppressive regime? The answer is the same in every age: fear. Fear makes people stupid.
Fear is the method most often used by politicians to increase the power of government. And, as most social commentators recognize, an atmosphere of fear permeates modern America: fear of terrorism, fear of the police, fear of our neighbors and so on. The propaganda of fear has been used quite effectively by those who want to gain control, and it is transforming the populace into fearful, compliant, pacified zombies content to march in lockstep with the government’s dictates.
This brings me back to "They Live," in which the real zombies are not the aliens calling the shots but the populace who are content to remain controlled. When all is said and done, the world of They Live is not so different from our own. As one of the characters points out, “The poor and the underclass are growing. Racial justice and human rights are nonexistent. They have created a repressive society, and we are their unwitting accomplices. Their intention to rule rests with the annihilation of consciousness. We have been lulled into a trance. They have made us indifferent to ourselves, to others. We are focused only on our own gain.”
We, too, are focused only on our own pleasures, prejudices and gains. Our poor and underclasses are also growing. Injustice is growing. Inequality is growing. A concern for human rights is nearly nonexistent. We too have been lulled into a trance, indifferent to others. Oblivious to what lies ahead, we’ve been manipulated into believing that if we continue to consume, obey, and have faith, things will work out. But that’s never been true of emerging regimes. And by the time we feel the hammer coming down upon us, it will be too late.
So where does that leave us? The characters who populate Carpenter’s films provide some insight. Underneath their machismo, they still believe in the ideals of liberty and equal opportunity. Their beliefs place them in constant opposition with the law and the establishment, but they are nonetheless freedom fighters.
When, for example, John Nada destroys the alien hypno-transmitter in "They Live" he delivers a wake-up call for freedom. As Nada memorably declares, “I have come here to chew bubblegum and kick ass. And I’m all out of bubblegum.” In other words: we need to get active and take a stand for what’s really important. Stop allowing yourselves to be easily distracted by pointless political spectacles and pay attention to what’s really going on in the country.
As I make clear in my book "Battlefield America: The War on the American People" and in its fictional counterpart "The Erik Blair Diaries," the real battle for control of this nation is taking place on roadsides, in police cars, on witness stands, over phone lines, in government offices, in corporate offices, in public school hallways and classrooms, in parks and city council meetings, and in towns and cities across this country.
All the trappings of the American police state are now in plain sight. Wake up, America. If they live (the tyrants, the oppressors, the invaders, the overlords), it is only because “we the people” sleep."