Full screen recommended.
Canadian Prepper, 1/4/25
"Warning! The Most Dangerous People
When SHTF! It's Not Who You Think!"
Comments here:
So, we rise from the rubble...
Saturday, January 4, 2025
"Buying A Multi-Million Dollar Home From Disney - This Is A Dangerous Market"
Full screen recommended.
Jeremiah Babe, 1/4/25
"Buying A Multi-Million Dollar Home From Disney -
This Is A Dangerous Market"
Comments here:
"A Look to the Heavens"
"In silhouette against a crowded star field along the tail of the arachnalogical constellation Scorpius, this dusty cosmic cloud evokes for some the image of an ominous dark tower.
In fact, clumps of dust and molecular gas collapsing to form stars may well lurk within the dark nebula, a structure that spans almost 40 light-years across this gorgeous telescopic portrait. Known as a cometary globule, the swept-back cloud, is shaped by intense ultraviolet radiation from the OB association of very hot stars in NGC 6231, off the upper edge of the scene. That energetic ultraviolet light also powers the globule's bordering reddish glow of hydrogen gas. Hot stars embedded in the dust can be seen as bluish reflection nebulae. This dark tower, NGC 6231, and associated nebulae are about 5,000 light-years away."
"The Pale Blue Dot - Where We Make Our Stand"
Full screen recommended.
"The Pale Blue Dot -
Where We Make Our Stand"
by Carl Sagan
"In the climactic final episode of Cosmos titled "Who Speaks for Earth?" Carl Sagan makes an impassioned plea for nuclear de-escalation. The first nine minutes of the piece are particularly spellbinding, and the introduction draws to a close with Sagan walking along a rocky shoreline where he delivers a historic monologue:
"The civilization now in jeopardy is all humanity. As the ancient myth makers knew, we are children equally of the earth and sky. In our tenure on this planet, we have accumulated dangerous, evolutionary baggage propensities for aggression and ritual, submission to leaders, hostility to outsiders, all of which puts our survival in some doubt. We have also acquired compassion for others, love for our children, a desire to learn from history and experience, and a great, soaring passionate intelligence, the clear tools for our continued survival and prosperity.
Which aspects of our nature will prevail is uncertain, particularly when our visions and prospects are bound to one small part of the small planet earth. But up and in the cosmos, an inescapable perspective awaits. National boundaries are not evidenced when we view the earth from space. Fanatic ethnic or religious or national identifications are a little difficult to support when we see our planet as a fragile, blue crescent fading to become an inconspicuous point of light against the bastion and citadel of the stars.
There are not yet obvious signs of extraterrestrial intelligence, and this makes us wonder whether civilizations like ours rush inevitably into self-destruction. I dream about it... and sometimes they are bad dreams."
"Life Comes At You Fast, So You Better Be Ready"
"Life Comes At You Fast,
So You Better Be Ready"
by Ryan Holiday
"In 1880, Theodore Roosevelt wrote to his brother, “My happiness is so great that it makes me almost afraid.” In October of that year, life got even better. As he wrote in his diary the night of his wedding to Alice Hathaway Lee, “Our intense happiness is too sacred to be written about.” He would consider it to be one of the best years of his life: he got married, wrote a book, attended law school, and won his first election for public office.The streak continued. In 1883, he wrote “I can imagine nothing more happy in life than an evening spent in the cozy little sitting room, before a bright fire of soft coal, my books all around me, and playing backgammon with my own dainty mistress.” And that’s how he and Alice spent that cold winter as it crawled into the new year. He wrote in late January that he felt he was fully coming into his own. “I feel now as though I have the reins in my hand.” On February 12th, 1884 his first daughter was born.Two days later, his wife would be dead of Bright’s disease (now known as kidney failure). His mother had died only hours earlier in the same house, of typhoid fever. Roosevelt marked the day in his diary with a large “X.” Next to it, he wrote, “The light has gone out of my life.”As they say, life comes at you fast. Have the last 12 months not been an example of that? In December of 2019, the Dow was at 28,701.66. Things were good enough that people were complaining about the “war on Christmas” and debating the skin color of Santa Claus. In January, the Dow was at 29,348.10 and people were outraged about the recent Oscar nominations. In February 2020, when the Dow reached a staggering 29,568.57, Delta Airlines stock fell nearly 25% in less than a week, as people argued intensely over a message from Delta’s CEO about passengers reclining their seats. Even in early March, there were news stories about Wendy’s entering the “breakfast wars” and a free stock-trading app outage that caused people to miss a big market rally.And that was just in the news. Think about what you busied yourself with at home during that same period. Maybe you and your wife were looking at plans to remodel your kitchen. Maybe you were finally going to pull the trigger on that Tesla Model S for yourself - the $150,000 one, with the ludicrous speed package. Maybe you were fuming that Amazon took an extra day to deliver a package. Maybe you were frustrated that your kid’s room was a mess. And now? How quaint and stupid does that all seem? The global economy has essentially ground to a halt.Life comes at us fast, don’t it? It can change in an instant. Everything you built, everyone you hold dear, can be taken from you. For absolutely no reason. Just as easily, you can be taken from them. This is why the Stoics say we need to be prepared, constantly, for the twists and turns of Fortune. It’s why Seneca said that nothing happens to the wise man contrary to his expectation, because the wise man has considered every possibility-even the cruel and heartbreaking ones.And yet even Seneca was blindsided by a health scare in his early twenties that forced him to spend nearly a decade in Egypt to recover. He lost his father less than a year before he lost his first-born son, and twenty days after burying his son he was exiled by the emperor Caligula. He lived through the destruction of one city by a fire and another by an earthquake, before being exiled two more times.One needs only to read his letters and essays, written on a rock off the coast of Italy, to get a sense that even a philosopher can get knocked on their ass and feel sorry for themselves from time to time.What do we do? Well, first, knowing that life comes at us fast, we should be always prepared. Seneca wrote that the fighter who has “seen his own blood, who has felt his teeth rattle beneath his opponent’s fist… who has been downed in body but not in spirit…” - only they can go into the ring confident of their chances of winning. They know they can take getting bloodied and bruised. They know what the darkness before the proverbial dawn feels like. They have a true and accurate sense for the rhythms of a fight and what winning requires. That sense only comes from getting knocked around. That sense is only possible because of their training.In his own life, Seneca bloodied and bruised himself through a practice called premeditatio malorum (“the premeditation of evils”). Rehearsing his plans, say to take a trip, he would go over the things that could go wrong or prevent the trip from happening - a storm could spring up, the captain could fall ill, the ship could be attacked by pirates, he could be banished to the island of Corsica the morning of the trip. By doing what he called a premeditatio malorum, Seneca was always prepared for disruption and always working that disruption into his plans. He was fitted for defeat or victory. He stepped into the ring confident he could take any blow. Nothing happened contrary to his expectations.Second, we should always be careful not to tempt fate. In 2016 General Michael Flynn stood on the stage at the Republican National Convention and led some 20,000 people (and a good many more at home) in an impromptu chant of “Lock Her Up! Lock Her Up!” about his enemy Hillary Clinton. When Trump won, he was swept into office in a whirlwind of success and power. Then, just 24 days into his new job, Flynn was fired for lying to the Vice President about conversations he’d had with Sergey Kislyak, the Russian ambassador to the United States. He would be brought up on charges and convicted of lying to the FBI, and eventually pardoned by President Trump.Life comes at us fast… but that doesn’t mean we should be stupid. We also shouldn’t be arrogant.Third, we have to hang on. Remember, that in the depths of both of Seneca’s darkest moments, he was unexpectedly saved. From exile, he was suddenly recalled to be the emperor’s tutor. In the words of the historian Richard M. Gummere, “Fortune, whom Seneca as a Stoic often ridicules, came to his rescue.” But Churchill, as always, put it better: “Sometimes when Fortune scowls most spitefully, she is preparing her most dazzling gifts.”Life is like this. It gives us bad breaks - heartbreakingly bad breaks - and it also gives us incredible lucky breaks. Sometimes the ball that should have gone in, bounces out. Sometimes the ball that had no business going in surprises both the athlete and the crowd when it eventually, after several bounces, somehow manages to pass through the net.When we’re going through a bad break, we should never forget Fortune’s power to redeem us. When we’re walking through the roses, we should never forget how easily the thorns can tear us upon, how quickly we can be humbled. Sometimes life goes your way, sometimes it doesn’t.This is what Theodore Roosevelt learned, too. Despite what he wrote in his diary that day in 1884, the light did not completely go out of Roosevelt’s life. Sure, it flickered. It looked like the flame might have been cruelly extinguished. But with time and incredible energy and force of will, he came back from those tragedies. He became a great father, a great husband, and a great leader. He came back and the world was better for it. He was better for it.Life comes at us fast. Today. Tomorrow. When we least expect it. Be ready. Be strong. Don’t let your light be snuffed out."
Chet Raymo, "Why We Need Poets"
"Why We Need Poets"
by Chet Raymo
"The poet Jane Hirshfield referred in a poem to the number of atoms it takes to make a butterfly. Ten to the 24th power, I think she said. I thought I'd check it out. A typical butterfly might weigh about half a gram. The exact ratio of elements I don't know, but mostly hydrogen, carbon, and oxygen. Let's assume an atomic weight of ten for a typical atom; that is, an atom with ten nuclear particles (Hydrogen=1, carbon=12, oxygen=16, and so on). A proton or neutron has a weight of about 1.6 X 10-24 grams. About 3 X 1022 atoms in a butterfly.
If I'm remembering Hirshfield's reference correctly (and I may not be), we are off by one or two orders of magnitude. No matter. It's a very big number. You want to make a butterfly? You will need 30,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 atoms. And every one in exactly the right place.
Now consider the miracle of metamorphosis. The caterpillar builds a chrysalis. Wraps itself up in its closet. And there, in the privacy of its self-sufficiency, it rearranges those arrangements of atoms. The caterpillar's six stumpy front feet are turned into the butterfly's slender legs. Four wings develop, as do reproductive organs. Chewing mouthparts become adapted for sucking. A crawling, insatiable, leaf-eater is transformed into a winged, sex-obsessed nectar sipper.
This is why we need poets. It's one thing to count atoms, or draw diagrams of the 22 amino acids, or suss out their sequence on the long chains that are the proteins. Or read out the genome that controls the machinery that turns a creeping leaf-cruncher into a winged angel. But all that biochemistry, as wonderful as it is, leaves the essential mystery intact. The hum. The unceasing hum that is life. The inextinguishable continuity. Sing, poets. Sing your hosannas."
"We don't read and write poetry because it's cute. We read and write poetry because we are members of the human race. And the human race is filled with passion. And medicine, law, business, engineering - these are noble pursuits and necessary to sustain life. But poetry, beauty, romance, love - these are what we stay alive for. "
- "Dead Poets Society"
The Poet: Mary Oliver, "Coming Home"
"Coming Home"
"When we are driving in the dark,
on the long road to Provincetown,
when we are weary,
when the buildings and the scrub pines lose their familiar look,
I imagine us rising from the speeding car.
I imagine us seeing everything from another place -
the top of one of the pale dunes, or the deep and nameless
fields of the sea.
And what we see is a world that cannot cherish us,
but which we cherish.
And what we see is our life moving like that
along the dark edges of everything,
headlights sweeping the blackness,
believing in a thousand fragile and unprovable things.
Looking out for sorrow,
slowing down for happiness,
making all the right turns
right down to the thumping barriers to the sea,
the swirling waves,
the narrow streets, the houses,
the past, the future,
the doorway that belongs
to you and me."
- Mary Oliver
"You Take This Thing..."
"That life. This life. It looks as if you can have both. I mean, they're both right there, one on top of the other, and it looks as if they'll blend. But they never will. So, you take this thing. You take this thing you want, and you put it in a box and you close the lid. You can let your fingers trace the cracks, the places where the light gets in, the dark gets out, but the lid stays on. You don't look inside. You don't look at this thing you want so much, because you Can. Not. Have. It. So there's this box, you know, with the thing inside, and you could throw it away or shoot it into space; you could set it on fire and watch it burn to ashes, but really, none of that would make a difference, because you cannot destroy what you want. It only makes you want it more. So. You take this thing you want and you put it in a box and you close the lid. And you hold the box close to your heart, which is where it wants to go, and you pretend it doesn't kill you every time you feel yourself breathe."
- Megan Hart
"A Gift..."
“The life you have left is a gift. Cherish it.
Enjoy it now, to the fullest. Do what matters, now.”
~ Leo Babauta
"The System's Self-Destruct Sequence Cannot Be Turned Off"
"The System's Self-Destruct Sequence
Cannot Be Turned Off"
by Charles Hugh Smith
"We're all familiar with the plot device of the self-destruct sequence counting down while our hero/heroine frantically tries to find the kill switch that turns it off. The system - however we choose to describe it - is self-destructing and there's no switch to turn it off.
We're drawn to the notion that cabals and conspiracies are the root source of the system's ills. If these cabals were exposed and disempowered, then the system would quickly right itself and all would be well again.Cabals and conspiracies are not the source, they're a symptom of a deeper, structural self-destruct mechanism, a mechanism we take for granted as the way the world works.
Regardless of ideological label - capitalist, socialist, communist - all systems are markets of some kind with producers, sellers and buyers/consumers. The market may be more or less open, or more or less controlled by the state, warlords or cartels, but in all cases there are producers, sellers and consumers. In all cases, neither the producer, the seller nor the consumer have any responsibility for the downstream consequences of what's produced, sold and purchased. Every participant is incentivized to maximize their self-interest without regard for the future consequences of this pursuit of self-interest.
The producer of the plastic bottle has no responsibility for what happens to the bottle after production, the seller has no responsibility for what happens to the bottle after it's sold, and the consumer who tosses it in the river after consuming the contents has no responsibility for what happens to the bottle once they're done consuming the product.
The market has no internal, intrinsic responsibility for the consequences of narrow self-interest nor any mechanism that looks beyond the present. The market is blind to future consequences, and imposes no responsibility to do so on any participant.
The only possible result of this system is self-destruction. Consider the Great Pacific Garbage Gyre, the poetic name for a floating mass of plastic and other waste generated by the "growth at any cost" global economy roughly the size of Texas. (See chart below.) This is not the only garbage patch in the planet's oceans; it's merely one of the biggest.
Who cares about a floating island of garbage? It's harmless, right? Indeed. Can the same be said of the "forever" chemicals, the depleted freshwater aquifers, the mountains of electronic and other waste leaking toxic sludge and the rest of the consequences of a system that is blind to everything but "growth at any cost," self-interest and the eternal Now?
Cabals and conspiracies attract our attention because they are intentionally cloaking the destructive consequences their self-interest is passing on to others. The tobacco cabal worked diligently for decades to obfuscate the deadly consequences of smoking, as the means of maximizing their profits/self-interest.
So let's identify the cabal that intentionally created the Great Pacific Garbage Gyre to further their self-interest. Do we finger the producers of the 300 million tons of plastics produced annually, or the corporations that sold the 300 million tons of plastics, or the consumers who bought the 300 million tons of plastics?
The waste stream is generated by the system, not a cabal, and the system is constructed of values and what I call the mythology of Progress, a mythology of make-believe and play-acting, in which we watch a video of a group recycling a tiny sliver of the waste generated by global tourism and then declare, "See? Technology is solving the problems created by the system! No worries, it will all get solved by new technologies." Absolved by this magical-thinking, we're free to continue pursuing our part of consequence-free "growth at any cost." This is the internal logic of the market-system, and it operates the same under any ideological label.
In theory, political rulers are supposed to the future consequences, but rulers only rule by authority granted in the present moment. If their supporters are forced to sacrifice for some distant benefit, they will find someone else to support.
Every civilization that produces "forever" goods ends up creating mountains of waste. Broken pottery shards pile up into artificial hills. But the scale of the modern system is so colossal that the consequences are now planetary, affecting our health and complex systems we don't fully understand, much less control. The artificial hill of pottery shards is puny and localized; the consequences of our system will bring down the system in ways the system is completely blind to.
Even if technology consolidated the Great Pacific Garbage Gyre at enormous expense, what would we do with the artificial garbage island? And since the system spews out 300 million tons of new plastic every year, a new Great Pacific Garbage Gyre will soon form.
There is no "off" switch on the system's self-destruct sequence. We'll only notice, or care, when the system started breaking down under the crushing weight of the consequences that have been piling up and ignored with play-acting solutions such as recycling."
"Panic Buying Begins, Americans Prepare For Empty Shelves And Closures"
Snyder Reports, 1/4/25
"Panic Buying Begins,
Americans Prepare For Empty Shelves And Closures"
Comments here:
New port strikes Jan. 15, 2025?
Dan, I Allegedly, "No Tips for You - Tipping is Done in 2025"
Full screen recommended.
Dan, I Allegedly, 1/4/25
"No Tips for You - Tipping is Done in 2025"
"Tipping culture dead by 2025! You won't believe what's replacing it! Fed up with tipping everywhere? You're not alone! I'm exposing the shocking truth about the end of tipping in 2025. From luxury hotels to yogurt shops, learn why people are saying NO to tips!
Hot topics:
Marriott's outrageous tipping schedule.
Stadium workers NOT getting your tips.
Is tipping at doctor's offices next?!
Plus: Walmart's broccoli recall, Wall Street ditching climate programs, and Carvana's alleged multi-million dollar scam!"
Comments here:
Adventures With Danno, "Massive Changes At Walmart, This Was Shocking"
Full screen recommended.
Adventures With Danno, 1/4/25
"Massive Changes At Walmart, This Was Shocking"
Comments here:
Travelling with Russell, "Moscow Metro: The Best Metro Line in the World"
Full screen recommended.
Travelling with Russell, 1/4/25
"Moscow Metro:
The Best Metro Line in the World"
Let's discover what the Moscow Metro looks like. Having just opened 3 brand new stations days ago. The new line consists of 7 new stations opened within the last 4 months. Discover with amazement just how complex the Moscow Metro really is. Time of recording: Sunday 29th December 2024, 16:00 pm (4:00 pm).
Comments here:
o
Full screen recommended.
Window to Nightlife, 1/4/25
"I Went Down to the Moscow Metro
At Night And This Is What I Saw! Real Russia!"
Big Circle Metro Line was opened in Moscow, Russia. BKL (Big Circle Metro) became the longest circular metro line in the world! Experience the beauty of the Moscow Metro at night in this video! Explore the top 9 Moscow Metro stations and see the stunning architecture and history of this iconic underground system in Russia.
Comments here:
o
Full screen recommended.
Window to Moscow, 1/4/25
"What Skyscrapers Look Like
In Moscow, Russia 2025!"
"In this video I will show you 8 skyscrapers + Palace of Soviets in Moscow, Russia."
Comments here:
Absolutely stunning, incredible...
o
And then there's this...
Full screen recommended.
Street Souls, 1/4/25
"This is America: Streets of Philadelphia"
Comments here:
Comments?
Friday, January 3, 2025
"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).”
"Human Life..."
"Human life is thus only a perpetual illusion; men deceive and flatter each other. No one speaks of us in our presence as he does of us in our absence. Human society is founded on mutual deceit; few friendships would endure if each knew what his friend said of him in his absence, although he then spoke in sincerity and without passion. Man is then only disguise, falsehood, and hypocrisy, both in himself and in regard to others. He does not wish any one to tell him the truth; he avoids telling it to others, and all these dispositions, so removed from justice and reason, have a natural root in his heart."
- Blaise Pascal
The Poet: William Stafford, "You Reading This, Be Ready"
"You Reading This, Be Ready"
"Starting here, what do you want to remember?
How sunlight creeps along a shining floor?
What scent of old wood hovers, what softened
sound from outside fills the air?
Will you ever bring a better gift for the world
than the breathing respect that you carry
wherever you go right now? Are you waiting
for time to show you some better thoughts?
When you turn around, starting here, lift this
new glimpse that you found; carry into evening
all that you want from this day. This interval you spent
reading or hearing this, keep it for life.
What can anyone give you greater than now,
starting here, right in this room, when you turn around?"
- William Stafford
"Alert! Email Leak! Tesla Bombers WW3 Warning About Drones Is Insane! Disinformation Warning!"
Canadian Prepper, 1/3/25
"Alert! Email Leak! Tesla Bombers WW3 Warning
About Drones Is Insane! Disinformation Warning!"
Comments here:
Jeremiah Babe, "The World Ditches Us Bonds, Debt Market Signals Trouble: Dollar's Buying Power Plummets"
Jeremiah Babe, 1/3/25
"The World Ditches Us Bonds, Debt Market Signals Trouble:
Dollar's Buying Power Plummets"
Comments here:
"The Duty..."
"There is only one basic human right, the right to do as you
damn well please. And with it comes the only basic human duty,
the duty to take the consequences."
- P. J. O'Rourke
Judge Napolitano, "INTEL Roundtable w/Johnson & McGovern"
Judge Napolitano - Judging Freedom, 1/3/25
"INTEL Roundtable w/Johnson & McGovern"
Comments here:
Dan, I Allegedly, "Ladies Night is a Big Problem"
Full screen recommended.
Dan, I Allegedly, 1/3/25
"Ladies Night is a Big Problem"
"The shocking truth about ladies' night promotions is destroying small businesses across America. From restaurants to baseball teams, these once-popular marketing strategies are now leading to devastating lawsuits and closures. Discover how discrimination laws are being used against small business owners, with some facing millions in damages over simple promotional events. Learn about the controversial lawyers targeting these establishments and why your favorite local spots might be next. In this eye-opening video, we explore real cases including:
• The Lima restaurant lawsuit in the Bay Area.
• Fresno Grizzlies' $5 million legal battle.
• The rising trend of predatory legal practices.
• Why traditional promotions are becoming legal landmines.
Plus, find out why your business insurance might not protect you from these types of lawsuits, and what business owners need to know to protect themselves."
Comments here:
Adventures With Danno, "Stocking Up At Kroger Before Massive Storm"
Full screen recommended.
Adventures With Danno, AM 1/3/25
"Stocking Up At Kroger Before Massive Storm"
Comments here:
o
Full screen recommended.
Market Gains, 1/3/25
"Cargill Fires Almost 10,000 Employees
as Food Prices Collapse"
Comments here:
And how do you think this will affect your life, Good Citizen?
Bill Bonner, "Subprime Democracy"
"Subprime Democracy"
In the beginning of a democratic republic, yes, politicians still pinched
their secretary’s derrieres and skimmed money from public budgets.
But at least they kept it quiet and were generally ashamed.
by Bill Bonner
"Raise your glass to the hard-working people,
Let's drink to the uncounted heads.
Let's think of the wavering millions
Who need leading but get gamblers instead.
Spare a thought for the stay-at-home voter,
His empty eyes gaze at strange beauty shows.
And a parade of the gray-suited grafters
A choice of cancer or polio."
- "Salt of the Earth", Rolling Stones
Baltimore, Maryland - "We have said goodbye to 2024. Now, let us try to dope out the new year. But first, a yellow warning light appears. Breitbart: "Credit Card Defaults Spike to Highest Level Since Aftermath of 2008 Financial Crisis." Credit card lenders wrote off $46 billion in delinquent loan balances in the first three quarters of 2024, a 50 percent increase from the same period last year. These forms of write-offs are viewed as a highly monitored measure of loan distress. This is the highest level since 2010, according to industry data gathered by BankRegData. Mark Zandi, the head of Moody’s Analytics, said, “High-income households are fine, but the bottom third of US consumers are tapped out. Their savings rate right now is zero.”
What? Isn’t this the world’s greatest economy? Aren’t stocks near all-time peaks... and unemployment near all-time lows? How could the working class be falling behind on its credit card payments?
All around us - except for the mainstream press, which is generally wrong about everything - upbeat commentary and popular euphoria invite optimism.. After all, Trump is soon back in the White House. Pete Hegseth is going to make our military more lethal than ever. ‘Border Czar’ Tom Homan is going to deport the rapists and killers back to Central America. Scott Bessent - a billionaire hedge fund manager - is sure to keep the economy humming along. And two of the world’s most clever billionaires - Musk and Ramaswamy - are going to make the feds more ‘efficient,’ thereby eliminating a $2 trillion annual deficit.
And yet, something is clearly going wrong. While billionaires get richer, the uncounted heads... the wavering millions... are getting poorer. And what a coincidence; the rich also dominate Wall Street, the banking industry, the press, both political parties and the federal government.
We weren’t born yesterday. The feds produce nothing. So, every penny of federal spending (over $6 trillion in 2024) must come from The People. And every penny must go to other people... the people favored by the controlling elites. It is not surprising that they favor themselves. Nothing new about this. But in the US, rascality seems to be entering a more flagrant phase... in which the outgoing president pardons his own son (after making an election promise not to do so)... and the incoming president rewards his powerful supporters with the top federal jobs.
In the beginning of a democratic republic, yes, politicians still pinched their secretary’s derrieres and skimmed money from public budgets. But at least they kept it quiet... and were generally ashamed when it came out.
Those old limits - both written and customary - kept those in power from taking too much from those not-in-power. Even kings and queens learned not to squeeze their subjects too hard, lest their own heads be put onto the chopping blocks. As Voltaire remarked, ‘the best form of government is a monarchy... with an occasional beheading.’
In a democracy, public executions of politicians are regrettably rare. As a deterrent, losing an election is not nearly as effective as losing a head. Besides, the system is so rigged up in favor of the ruling class that rarely do members of Congress lose their seats. In the most recent example, 96% of those up for election won another term, even though Congress has only a 15% approval rating. The voters have figured it out. Why bother to boot a scoundrel out of office, when another ‘grey suited grafter’ will just take his place?
We must now be arriving at some near-end stage of the democratic progress. The Constitution is ignored... deficits don’t matter... and the degenerates have become greedy and ruthless. Debt and inflation increase and real output goes down.
Federal appointees are no longer chosen on the basis of their competence, but on the degree of loyalty to the chief executive. That is, they are not expected to uphold the principles of the founders, but to find ways around the restraints in order to fulfill the Maximum Ruler’s agenda, whatever it is.
In a better system, a real leader... or a savvy monarch... would tell the people the truth - that the US is headed for bankruptcy. He would get out the chainsaw and hack away at federal spending until receipts equaled expenses. But to everything there is a season. A time to be born and a time to die. We are somewhere in between. Too old to rock and roll; too young to die. America is not ready for a Milei-style revolution. Not ready for an American perestroika. Not ready for the chainsaw.
Instead, it chooses the gambler. He’ll want to keep the grift going for as long as possible, accumulating as much wealth and power as possible... while pushing the inevitable calamity as far as he can into the future. We spare a thought for the salt of the earth…and hope for the best for the year ahead...Stay tuned..."
The Rolling Stones, "Salt Of The Earth"
Jim Kunstler, "The Twilight of Twilight"
"The Twilight of Twilight"
by Jim Kunstler
“Kamala Harris and Joe Biden, in 2024, agreed to play out
their roles as uncontactable zombies, baying for the blood
of Americans at the altar of a dying Moloch.”
- Celia Farber
"I hope that the first lesson of the Bourbon Street massacre is not lost on you: There is no end of opportunity now for Jihadis and other maniacs to attack soft targets across the land. Americans are sitting ducks. And there is no shortage of jihadis and maniacs at large in our land, thanks to “Joe Biden” and Alejandro Mayorkas.
Do you have any idea how much carnage can be created with what are called small arms, meaning, light weapons, guns, rifles, grenades, and improvised explosives used tactically in public places by enemies of our country? It looks like we are going to find out. And just regular motor vehicles, too, as in New Orleans and Las Vegas. Among the millions of foreign vagabonds ushered across the border illegally are perhaps tens of thousands fanatically avid for mayhem, many of them surely organized into cadres trained to carry out atrocities, just hanging back with their US government-issued debit cards, enjoying DoorDash deliveries in their government supplied hotel rooms, waiting for the signal to activate themselves.
Do you think we can harden the millions of targets out there, make them secure? Forget about it. Many of these are plain old streets in the cities, countless bridges and tunnels, endless runs of railroad track and highway, hundreds of airports, not to mention malls, schools, big box stores, office buildings, restaurants, sports venues, cruise ships, skating rinks, theaters, churches. It would only take a couple-three more episodes like the New Orleans incident to paralyze public life in America just as badly as the Covid-19 op did. Are tourists rushing back to Bourbon Street now? Will they return for Mardi Gras on March 4?
And now, of course, the matter of drones has been brought to your attention. How many thousands (millions?) of these ingenious toys have been sold over recent years. You can walk into Best Buy today and get one, ranging from a couple of hundred bucks to models with advanced guidance electronics at several thousand bucks. Timers are cheap. C-4 and Semtex plastic explosives are easy to purloin from military bases, or just traded on black markets. Drones can be launched from anywhere, including out of windows anywhere. They can be launched in swarms.
You must also imagine that these Jihadis and other maniacs are primed to let loose on the imminently incoming Trump admin. The “Joe Biden” regime years were just the set-up period. Why open up with terror ops and show your hand prematurely while “JB” offered so much free and easy assistance in preparing the battlefield? And anyway, since so much of what “Joe Biden” was up to on his own initiative was obviously damaging to the USA in three dimensions — economically, strategically, and psychologically — then why interrupt all that serendipitous mishchief?
In the twilight of his twilight presidency, “Joe Biden” makes his final moves — that is, the people in the shadows behind “Joe Biden” make their moves — to fortify the progress he made working to destroy his own country, really anything that might hamper Mr. Trump’s ability to correct the deliberate desecration of our national life. And, of course, to shelter any of those persons responsible from a legal reckoning in the future.
In a most garish example, “JB” awarded the Presidential Citizens Medal to former Rep. Liz Cheney for her role on Congress’s J-6 committee. This, you understand, was done in defiance of what is already known and alleged about the treasonous misconduct of that body - withholding and destruction of evidence, tampering with evidence, coaching witnesses, lying to the media about testimony received, and obstruction of justice. You might lay a conspiracy charge over all those misdeeds, since they involved the formal agreement, discussion, and knowledge of it all among committee members. That is, it was done clearly in concert. This is howThe New York Times put it:
The plea there is transparently and obviously mendacious, yet The Times, being the mouthpiece of the nervous DC blob, can’t resist laying out the game: how can you prosecute somebody for acts they’ve been given a presidential award for committing? Of course, a pardon will signal that Liz Cheney is, ipso facto, a criminal. And would “Joe Biden” then have to pardon every member of the J-6 Committee - since, being a conspiracy, are they not all culpable for the same crimes? But then, the J-6 Committee crimes against the people of America comprise only a small portion, a side dish, to the many other crimes committed by the officials working under “Joe Biden.” If he pardons Liz Cheney, won’t this president also have to pardon hundreds of other officials from Mayorkas, Wray, Garland, Fauci, Walensky, Austin, Blinken, Sullivan on down?
“Joe Biden” will no doubt wait until the morning of January 20 to issue those pardons, if he dares to, and he might well include himself in the package as having committed bribery and treason. Since his dementia is not total, he probably has enough brain left to reason fallaciously that the country will be too distracted by the Trump inaugural to notice what he did. He will think that he has acquired magic powers of invisibility. Not to history, of course. And history will resume at noon on January 20. From that moment on, “Joe Biden” is certified as the most odious villain in our nation’s history."
o
“As nightfall does not come at once, neither does oppression. In both instances, there is a twilight when everything remains seemingly unchanged. And it is in such twilight that we all must be most aware of change in the air – however slight – lest we become unwitting victims of the darkness.” - William O. Douglas
Thursday, January 2, 2025
"I Can See It All Very Clearly..."
"There are a multitude of fuses affixed to dozens of powder-kegs and little kids with matches are on the loose. I don’t know which of the fuses will be lit and which powder-keg will blow, but someone is bound to do something stupid, and then all hell will break loose. It could happen at any time. One military miscue. One assassination. One violent act that stirs the world. And the dominoes will topple, setting off fireworks not seen on this planet since 1939 – 1945. I can see it all very clearly." - Jim Quinn
"A strange game. The only winning move is not to play."
"War Games", 1984
Canadian Prepper, "Alert! Global Currencies Crashing! Bidan's Iran War Plan! Korea Chaos"
Full screen recommended.
Canadian Prepper, 1/2/25
"Alert! Global Currencies Crashing!
Bidan's Iran War Plan! Korea Chaos"
Comments here:
"A Look to the Heavens"
“This rock structure is not only surreal - it's real. The reason it's not more famous is that it is, perhaps, smaller than one might guess: the capstone rock overhangs only a few meters. Even so, the King of Wings outcrop, located in New Mexico, USA, is a fascinating example of an unusual type of rock structure called a hoodoo. Hoodoos may form when a layer of hard rock overlays a layer of eroding softer rock.
Figuring out the details of incorporating this hoodoo into a night-sky photoshoot took over a year. Besides waiting for a suitably picturesque night behind a sky with few clouds, the foreground had to be artificially lit just right relative to the natural glow of the background. After much planning and waiting, the final shot, featured here, was taken in May 2016. Mimicking the horizontal bar, the background sky features the band of our Milky Way Galaxy stretching overhead.”
The Poet: Walt Whitman, "Miracles"
"Miracles"
"Why, who makes much of a miracle?
As to me I know of nothing else but miracles,
Whether I walk the streets of Manhattan,
Or dart my sight over the roofs of houses toward the sky,
Or wade with naked feet along the beach just in the edge
of the water,
Or stand under trees in the woods,
Or talk by day with anyone I love, or sleep in the bed
at night with anyone I love,
Or sit at the table at dinner with the rest,
Or look at strangers opposite me riding in the car,
Or watch honeybees busy around the hive
of a summer forenoon,
Or animals feeding in the fields,
Or birds, or the wonderfulness of insects in the air,
Or the wonderfulness of the sundown, or of stars shining
so quiet and bright,
Or the exquisite delicate thin curve of the new moon
in spring;
These with the rest, one and all, are to me miracles,
The whole referring, yet each distinct and in its place.
To me every hour of the light and dark is a miracle,
Every cubic inch of space is a miracle,
Every square yard of the surface of the earth is spread
with the same,
Every foot of the interior swarms with the same.
To me the sea is a continual miracle,
The fishes that swim- the rocks- the motion of the waves
- the ships with men in them,
What stranger miracles are there?"
- Walt Whitman, "Leaves of Grass"
"The Illusion Of The Tiny Shadows..."
“In 'The Republic', Plato imagines human beings chained for the duration of their lives in an underground cave, knowing nothing but darkness. Their gaze is confined to the cave wall, upon which shadows of the world are thrown. They believe these flickering shadows are reality. If, Plato writes, one of these prisoners is freed and brought into the sunlight, he will suffer great pain. Blinded by the glare, he is unable to seeing anything and longs for the familiar darkness. But eventually his eyes adjust to the light. The illusion of the tiny shadows is obliterated. He confronts the immensity, chaos, and confusion of reality. The world is no longer drawn in simple silhouettes. But he is despised when he returns to the cave. He is unable to see in the dark as he used to. Those who never left the cave ridicule him and swear never to go into the light lest they be blinded as well.”
- Chris Hedges
o
”To attempt seeing Truth without knowing Falsehood,
It is the attempt to see the Light without knowing the Darkness.
It cannot be.”
- Frank Herbert