Full screen recommended.
Canadian Prepper, 2/22/25
"Alert! Fort Knox! Biggest Crash In History Has Begun!"
Comments here:
So, we rise from the rubble...
Saturday, February 22, 2025
Jeremiah Babe, "Blackrock Issues Dire Warning"
Jeremiah Babe, 2/22/25
"Blackrock Issues Dire Warning -
Debt And Illness Are The Backbone Of The U.S. Economy"
Comments here:
"Dell Fires 20,000 Workers As EVERYONE Loses Their Jobs"
Full screen recommended.
Market Gains, 2/22/25
"Dell Fires 20,000 Workers As
EVERYONE Loses Their Jobs"
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o
Full screen recommended.
Snyder Reports, 2/22/25
"Shocking Update:
Layoffs Are Hitting Americans Hard"
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"The Image That Shocked The World & Surprising Message From Hamas To Israel"
Full screen recommended.
Mahmood OD, 2/22/25
"The Image That Shocked The World &
Surprising Message From Hamas To Israel"
"A Look to the Heavens"
"A gorgeous spiral galaxy, M104 is famous for its nearly edge-on profile featuring a broad ring of obscuring dust lanes. Seen in silhouette against an extensive central bulge of stars, the swath of cosmic dust lends a broad brimmed hat-like appearance to the galaxy suggesting a more popular moniker, the Sombrero Galaxy. This sharp optical view of the well-known galaxy made from ground-based image data was processed to preserve details often lost in overwhelming glare of M104's bright central bulge.
Also known as NGC 4594, the Sombrero galaxy can be seen across the spectrum, and is host to a central supermassive black hole. About 50,000 light-years across and 28 million light-years away, M104 is one of the largest galaxies at the southern edge of the Virgo Galaxy Cluster. Still the colorful spiky foreground stars in this field of view lie well within our own Milky Way galaxy. "
The Poet: Derek Mahon, "Everything Is Going to Be All Right"
"Everything Is Going to Be All Right"
"How should I not be glad to contemplate
the clouds clearing beyond the dormer window
and a high tide reflected on the ceiling?
There will be dying, there will be dying,
but there is no need to go into that.
The poems flow from the hand unbidden
and the hidden source is the watchful heart.
The sun rises in spite of everything
and the far cities are beautiful and bright.
I lie here in a riot of sunlight
watching the day break and the clouds flying.
Everything is going to be all right."
~ Derek Mahon,
"Collected Poems"
Chet Raymo, "On Saying 'I Don't Know'"
"On Saying 'I Don't Know'"
by Chet Raymo
“Johannes Kepler is best known for figuring out the laws of planetary motion. In 1610, he published a little book called “The Six-Cornered Snowflake” that asked an even more fundamental question: How do visible forms arise? He wrote: "There must be some definite reason why, whenever snow begins to fall, its initial formation is invariably in the shape of a six-pointed starlet. For if it happens by chance, why do they not fall just as well with five corners or with seven?"
All around him Kepler saw beautiful shapes in nature: six-pointed snowflakes, the elliptical orbits of the planets, the hexagonal honeycombs of bees, the twelve-sided shape of pomegranate seeds. Why? he asks. Why does the stuff of the universe arrange itself into five-petaled flowers, spiral galaxies, double-helix DNA, rhomboid crystals, the rainbow's arc? Why the five-fingered, five-toed, bilaterally symmetric beauty of the newborn child? Why?
Kepler struggles with the problem, and along the way he stumbles onto sphere-packing. Why do pomegranate seeds have twelve flat sides? Because in the growing pomegranate fruit the seeds are squeezed into the smallest possible space. Start with spherical seeds, pack them as efficiently as possible with each sphere touching twelve neighbors. Then squeeze. Voila! And so he goes, convincing us, for example, that the bee's honeycomb has six sides because that's the way to make honey cells with the least amount of wax. His book is a tour-de-force of playful mathematics.
In the end, Kepler admits defeat in understanding the snowflake's six points, but he thinks he knows what's behind all of the beautiful forms of nature: A universal spirit pervading and shaping everything that exists. He calls it nature's "formative capacity." We would be inclined to say that Kepler was just giving a fancy name to something he couldn't explain. To the modern mind, "formative capacity" sounds like empty words.
We can do somewhat better. For example, we explain the shape of snowflakes by the shape of water molecules, and we explain the shape of water molecules with the mathematical laws of quantum physics. Since Kepler's time, we have made impressive progress towards understanding the visible forms of snowflakes, crystals, rainbows, and newborn babes by probing ever deeper into the heart of matter. But we are probably no closer than Kepler to answering the ultimate questions: What is the reason for the curious connection between nature and mathematics? Why are the mathematical laws of nature one thing rather than another? Why does the universe exist at all? Like Kepler, we can give it a name, but the most forthright answer is simply: I don't know.”
- http://blog.sciencemusings.com/
Kahlil Gibran, "The Madman"
"The Madman"
by Kahlil Gibran
"It was in the garden of a madhouse that I met a youth with a face pale and lovely and full of wonder. And I sat beside him upon the bench, and I said, “Why are you here?” And he looked at me in astonishment, and he said, “It is an unseemly question, yet I will answer you. My father would make of me a reproduction of himself; so also would my uncle. My mother would have me the image of her seafaring husband as the perfect example for me to follow. My brother thinks I should be like him, a fine athlete. And my teachers also, the doctor of philosophy, and the music-master, and the logician, they too were determined, and each would have me but a reflection of his own face in a mirror. Therefore I came to this place. I find it more sane here. At least, I can be myself.” Then of a sudden he turned to me and he said, “But tell me, were you also driven to this place by education and good counsel?”
And I answered, “No, I am a visitor.”
And he answered, “Oh, you are one of those who live in the madhouse on the other side of the wall...”
"We're All Waiting..."
"We're all sinking in the same boat here. We're all bored and desperate and waiting for something to happen. Waiting for life to get better. Waiting for things to change. Waiting for that one person to finally notice us. We're all waiting. But we also need to realize that we all have the power to make those changes for ourselves."
- Susane Colasanti
John Wilder, "Choose Your Fate"
"Choose Your Fate"
by John Wilder
I think a lot about what could be versus what is. Probably too much, sometimes. What sort of examples? Well, a piece of walnut could be turned into fine furniture that might be used for hundreds of years. Or it could be burned in a fireplace and turned into ash.
That’s what I’m talking about. Yes, both of the results are useful, but one has enduring value while the other is ephemeral. Yeah, if it’s the single piece of firewood that keeps you alive for a night, well, that’s a goal, but in all the years I spent cutting firewood, not a single stick ever lived up to that level of valor. In fact, some sticks are downright bad, when a doctor presses my tongue down with a stick, I feel depressed.
There are other things, though, since I’m done talking about my wood. There is the split between having a high IQ and the performance that comes from that. Yes, generally higher IQ is correlated strongly with having a higher wealth and income, but I’ve seen geniuses who wasted it all. Athletic ability is in there, too. How many potentially great athletes disappeared because they had the work ethic of lightning: they followed the path of least resistance?
I could go on and on with examples of this, but I’m thinking that these are enough. And, generally, it’s not firewood that I’m concerned with as much as human potential. A wasted stick of mahogany is one thing, but a wasted Isaac Newton is a tragedy. Man, after a few pints, Isaac really was a mess: Leibniz really pissed him off somehow.
The biggest part, I think, of turning human potential into achievement is something very simple: language. In one sense, I think we speak the world we live in and ourselves into existence. When I say, “I’m going to write a post today” that changes my future. There have been several times I’ve promised something like, “And I’ll have a great post on Monday” and I was very pleased with the result of what I created each time I said that.
We take, I think, potential and will it into use. There is no time, ever, that I achieved something great and that it was something that accidentally happened. Dead Roman philosopher Seneca said that luck is when preparation meets opportunity, but the preparation took place in order to prepare for the opportunity. Thomas Jefferson didn’t just wake up one morning and decide to write the Declaration of Independence. Nope. Jefferson wanted to write it. Plus, they knew if Franklin wrote it that it would have been filled with jokes that everyone would have missed until after the FedEx® horse and buggy dropped it off to the king.
I’ve noticed that when I say that I’m going to do something, that’s 90% of the way to success in whatever I had planned. Today, for instance, I wanted to write a post that didn’t focus on politics or the cares of the day (that will come on Monday with the Civil War 2.0 Weather Report) since I felt I wanted a brief change before jumping back into the fray. So, with that declaration, I looked at some notes I had scribbled down, and saw that there were three that were related. And I started writing. Words, then, crystallized my vague intent into something specific.
This brings me to the final point: the difference between potential and achievement is words, but with intent. Nothing (generally) happens in my life without intent. Sure, there are accidents. Sure, there are the things that other people do that change my plans, but more often than not, the only real barrier to any achievement that is physically possible is me failing to put my goal into words and intent.
I think that intention is important. Without intention, all I see are obstacles. If my goal becomes to achieve, however, I start to try to focus in my mind ways to achieve my goal by going around, through, or even using those obstacles to my advantage.
The final point is: What is it you are here to do? Why are you here? If you’re unhappy, why aren’t you changing your circumstances? Until we draw our final breath, we have choices. Sure, I don’t have the same wide array of choices in this world that I did when I was 18, but there is still a lot of runway left for me to say those words that lock in the intent.
I’m here tonight writing because I want to be. I’m going to get up tomorrow morning because I want to. And I know I haven’t written the best essay I’m going to write, because I know that’s in front of me, not behind me. And I know that the grandest revelation isn’t behind me, it’s in my future. So, almost everyone reading this today has the option to make the work that they do with the rest of their life a pile of ashes, or a piece of furniture worth being handed down. Maybe I’ll make a recliner. That way my grandkids could say, “Me and this chair go way back.”
o
o
"The Answer To 1913 Is 2025: 3 Charts That Show Why The Income Tax, The IRS And The Federal Reserve Should All Be Abolished"
"The Answer To 1913 Is 2025: 3 Charts That Show Why The
Income Tax, The IRS And The Federal Reserve Should All Be Abolished"
by Michael Snyder
"Most Americans don’t know that for much of U.S. history there was no federal income tax and there was no central bank. But now everyone assumes that we must have a federal income tax and a central bank in order to have a functioning society. Today, there are just a handful of nations that do not have an income tax, and more than 99 percent of the entire population of the globe lives in a country that has a central bank. Of course the two work hand in hand. A central bank creates a spiral of borrowing that is meant to be unbreakable, and an income tax is necessary to service payments on that debt spiral. It is not a coincidence that a federal income tax and the Federal Reserve were both established in 1913. Since that time, we have piled up the biggest mountain of debt in the history of the world, and that is precisely the outcome that the system was designed to produce.
So what is the solution to this colossal mess? The answer to 1913 is 2025. This year, we are seeing things get proposed in Washington D.C. that once would have been unthinkable. For example, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick just told Fox News that President Trump wants to “abolish the Internal Revenue Service”…"More details have emerged from the Trump administration about alleged plans to get rid of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and utilize tariffs so the “whole economy explodes.” “His goal is to abolish the Internal Revenue Service and let all the outsiders pay,” Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said Wednesday on “Jesse Watters Primetime.” “As the president said, reciprocal tariffs, either you bring yours down or we’re going to bring ours up. If we go to their level, it will earn us $700 billion a year to be equal to everybody else,” he expanded Thursday on “America’s Newsroom.”
And it appears that the Trump administration is already taking concrete steps toward that goal. In fact, it is being reported that “approximately 7,000 probationary workers” at the IRS are about to be hitting the bricks…"The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) is planning to slash approximately 7,000 probationary workers in Washington, D.C., and across the U.S. starting Thursday, according to reports. The layoffs will affect probationary workers who have been employed for one year or less and have not been able to secure full civil service protection, The Associated Press reported, citing a person familiar with the plans."
Wow. Meanwhile, the Federal Reserve is also being targeted by the new administration. In fact, Elon Musk has suggested that the Federal Reserve could soon get visited by the Department of Government Efficiency…"Musk wrote on X in response to a user’s post about the billionaire’s support for an audit of the Fed that the central bank isn’t above scrutiny from DOGE. “All aspects of the government must be fully transparent and accountable to the people. No exceptions, including, if not especially, the Federal Reserve,” Musk wrote.
Musk is a longtime critic of the central bank and has called out its decisions on monetary policy as well as claiming the Fed’s workforce is bloated. This is wonderful news. Because what we have been doing for decades is clearly not working. The Federal Reserve system is designed to create debt, and the income tax is designed to service that debt. We find ourselves on an endless hamster wheel that becomes more painful with each passing year.
The charts that I am about to share with you tell a very clear story. The primary reason why we have had an almost unbelievably high standard of living over the past three decades is because we have piled up the biggest mountain of debt in the history of the world. Once upon a time the United States was the wealthiest country on the entire planet, but all of that prosperity was not good enough for us. So we started borrowing and borrowing and borrowing and we have now been living beyond our means for so long that we consider it to be completely normal.
When President Woodrow Wilson entered the White House in 1913, the U.S. was less than 3 billion dollars in debt. Now we are 36 trillion dollars in debt…
This is what a central bank is designed to do. Most people simply do not understand this. We have been robbing future generations blind for so long that it doesn’t even seem to bother most people anymore. It is time for a change.
Sadly, Americans have also accumulated the largest mountain of household debt in the history of the world. The following chart which comes directly from the Federal Reserve shows the growth of household and non-profit organization debt over the years…
Of that amount, more than 18 trillion dollars of it is household debt… "Americans’ household debt levels, including credit card debt, rose to new all-time highs in the fourth quarter of 2024, according to a report by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. The report showed that overall household debt increased by $93 billion to $18.04 trillion at the end of 2024, an all-time high. Credit card balances rose by $45 billion from the prior quarter to reach $1.21 trillion at the end of December, which is also a record high."
We have become accustomed to living in debt. We go into massive amounts of debt to get an education, we go into massive amounts of debt to buy a home, we go into massive amounts of debt to purchase our vehicles, and we even pile up debt to buy holiday gifts and to purchase groceries.
The American people want to hear that better times are ahead. But under the current system the only way to give the American people “better times” is to crank up the debt spiral to an even higher level. That is the approach that our leaders have been taking for a long time, and it is madness. When you add up all forms of debt in our society, it comes to a grand total of more than 100 trillion dollars…
We are literally committing national suicide. I wish that I could get more people to understand this. 30 years ago, the total amount of debt in the system was less than 20 trillion dollars. Now we have surpassed the 100 trillion dollar mark. We are talking about a financial bubble that is unlike anything that the world has ever seen before.
If we continue down this road, our children and our grandchildren would have no future. When people hear words like “billion” or “trillion” they tend to tune out. But that is a mistake. There is an enormous difference between a billion dollars and a trillion dollars.
Just how big is one trillion dollars? To answer that question, I would like to use an illustration that I have used in my books. If right this moment you went out and started spending one dollar every single second, it would take you more than 31,000 years to spend one trillion dollars. Yet somehow we have piled up more than 100 trillion dollars of debt, and our financial status just keeps getting worse month after month after month.
If we want to get free from all this debt, we have to abandon the system that created all of this debt in the first place. We need to abolish the Federal Reserve, the IRS and the income tax. We have been living far, far beyond our means for decades, and it has been the greatest party in the history of the world. But it is time to turn out the lights because the party is over. The good news is that change is in the air. The answer to 1913 is 2025, and those that are attempting to dismantle the current system should be applauded."
o
When the debt was "only" $30 trillion...
Full screen recommended.
"US Debt of $30 Trillion Visualized
in Stacks of Physical Cash"
"Jim Richards: 'Something Far Worse Than A Recession Is Coming'"
Full screen recommended.
Plain Finance Reborn, 2/22/25
"Jim Richards:
'Something Far Worse Than A Recession Is Coming'"
"Jim Rickards talks about Inflation and the possibility of a recession. he talks about two percent inflation target and why it doesn't make any sense. in the 1980s the dollar already lost half of it's value in just 5 years, and we don't need to wait for another 110 years for the dollar to loses its value."
Comments here:
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Down the rabbit hole of psychopathic greed and insanity...
Only the consequences are real - to you!
"The US Economy Is Shutting Down Rapidly. Expect Widespread Jobs Losses with Much Higher Inflation"
"The US Economy Is Shutting Down Rapidly.
Expect Widespread Jobs Losses with Much Higher Inflation"
by Gregory Mannarino
"Business activity here in the US and around the world has not just stalled, it is contracting. This past Friday here in the US, the Business Flash PMI, by their own numbers, showed a sharp contraction in business activity. This most recent fall in business activity is following a drop in January of the Business Flash PMI to a nine-month low. Moreover, the S&P Global US February flash services PMI came in at 49.7, vs an expected number of 53.0, (any reading below 50 indicates contraction).
According to S&P Global, “this unexpected decline in services and business activity here in the US is raising concerns about the health of the private sector and therefore the rising potential for private sector jobs losses.” (For weeks I have been warning those who follow my work to expect widespread jobs losses in the private sector moving forward along with much higher inflation).
A Common Denominator:
1. The current phenomenon of a sharp contraction in the global economy, can be traced back to a common denominator. And that is, currency purchasing power destruction on the back of artificially suppressed rates.
2. Despite the fact that the world economy is shutting down, the stock markets of the world are at/near all-time highs. This phenomenon as well can be traced back to THE SAME common denominator. And that is, currency purchasing power destruction on the back of artificially suppressed rates.
What can we learn from understanding the “common denominator?” Artificially suppressed rates and therefore currency purchasing power destruction are:
1. Negative for the economy.
2. Positive for the stock market.
The current trajectory, globally, is to expect that central banks will be allowed to vastly and rapidly inflate from here, which increases their collective power and control. Potentially, this mechanism can boost stock market prices, but the economy will suffer - faster. (Meaning YOU will suffer faster. - CP)
Diminishing Effect: To keep the stock market propped up, the mechanism of artificially suppressed rates and therefore currency purchasing power losses, will require extraordinary measures. The Law of Diminishing Returns applies here. To continue to push cash into risk assets/stocks, in the current environment, will require a sharp upward move in debt expansion, debt expansion in the form of currency issuance- which is also massively purchasing power negative and therefore inflationary.
To stop the economies of the world from contracting, which would help the middle class by returning purchasing power to the currency, would require muchhigher rates. Higher rates would of course be a wrecking machine for the stock market… Instead, what we will see, is lower rates, and therefore a further destruction of currency purchasing power. This of course is positive for the stock market, and a wrecking machine for the economy and middle class…"
o
A very real, and accurate, video metaphor...
Full screen recommended.
The Good Ship "World Economy" meets the perfect economic storm...
And then, what?
Dan, I Allegedly, "AI Ends Shoplifting Forever – Retail Crime is Over"
Full screen recommended.
Dan, I Allegedly, 2/22/25
"AI Ends Shoplifting Forever –
Retail Crime is Over"
"AI is changing everything, and today I’m diving into how one simple scanner could end shoplifting forever – but is this really the future we want? A Sam’s Club near me has implemented AI-powered tech that scans your cart for items, making stealing practically impossible. But what about the cost? Jobs are being replaced, and this could be just the beginning. Join me as I explore this groundbreaking technology and its impact on retail, privacy, and the workforce.
Beyond that, I’m breaking down the latest economic chaos – skyrocketing household debt, insane auto loan delinquencies, and the ridiculous moves by companies like Tesla and Ford that could shake things up even more. Oh, and apparently Kentucky Fried Chicken isn’t even in Kentucky anymore? You can’t make this stuff up. From AI in retail to financial struggles and corporate drama, there’s so much to unpack in this episode."
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Adventures With Danno, "Massive Price Increases at Walmart"
Full screen recommended.
Adventures With Danno, 2/22/25
"Massive Price Increases at Walmart"
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Friday, February 21, 2025
Canadian Prepper, "Alert! Poland Nuclear War Prep; Military Draft And Civil Alarm; The Truth About Trump And Zelensky"
Full screen recommended.
Canadian Prepper, 2/21/25
"Alert! Poland Nuclear War Prep; Military Draft And Civil Alarm;
The Truth About Trump And Zelensky"
Comments here:
Jeremiah Babe, "Paper Wealth Will Be Wiped Out Overnight, Something Very Big Is Happening"
Jeremiah Babe, 2/21/25
"Paper Wealth Will Be Wiped Out Overnight,
Something Very Big Is Happening"
Comments here:
Musical Interlude: Spirit Tribe Awakening, "Raise Positive Vibrations"
Full screen recommended.
Spirit Tribe Awakening, "Raise Positive Vibrations"
"528Hz Positive Energy, Self Healing with 417Hz Solfeggio frequency. Peaceful, empowering and soothing music and nature to nurture your mind, body, and soul. Supporting and empowering you on your life journey." I can't praise this visually beautiful, and very effective, video enough. In these incredibly highly stressful times, please be kind to yourself and take the time to savor this exquisite work in full screen mode. Headphones suggested but not necessary. It works, as simple as that...
- CP
"A Look to the Heavens"
“Sculpted by stellar winds and radiation, a magnificent interstellar dust cloud by chance has assumed this recognizable shape. Fittingly named the Horsehead Nebula, it is some 1,500 light-years distant, embedded in the vast Orion cloud complex.
About five light-years "tall", the dark cloud is cataloged as Barnard 33 and is visible only because its obscuring dust is silhouetted against the glowing red emission nebula IC 434. Stars are forming within the dark cloud. Contrasting blue reflection nebula NGC 2023, surrounding a hot, young star, is at the lower left. The gorgeous color image combines both narrowband and broadband images recorded using three different telescopes.”
"The World Rests In The House..."
“The world rests in the night. Trees, mountains, fields, and faces are released from the prison of shape and the burden of exposure. Each thing creeps back into its own nature within the shelter of the dark. Darkness is the ancient womb. Nighttime is womb-time. Our souls come out to play. The darkness absolves everything; the struggle for identity and impression falls away. We rest in the night.”
- John O'Donohue,
o
"Anam Cara: A Book of Celtic Wisdom"
“On the day when
the weight deadens
on your shoulders
and you stumble,
may the clay dance
to balance you.
And when your eyes
freeze behind
the grey window
and the ghost of loss
gets in to you,
may a flock of colors,
indigo, red, green,
and azure blue
come to awaken in you
a meadow of delight.
When the canvas frays
in the currach of thought
and a stain of ocean
blackens beneath you,
may there come across the waters
a path of yellow moonlight
to bring you safely home.
May the nourishment of the earth be yours,
may the clarity of light be yours,
may the fluency of the ocean be yours,
may the protection of the ancestors be yours.
And so may a slow
wind work these words
of love around you,
an invisible cloak
to mind your life.”
o
John O'Donohue was an Irish author, poet, philosopher and former Catholic priest. He was born in County Clare on January 1, 1956. He died suddenly on January 4, 2008. He is best known for popularizing Celtic spirituality and is the author of a number of best-selling books on the subject.
Directly download "Anam Cara", by John O'Donohue, here:
The Times..."
"The times might be unpleasant, repulsive. The ghastly chaos, the abhorrent incivility might be intolerable, might force us into argument or leave us panic-stricken. On such occasions people build within themselves a conviction that the world outside is diabolical. The whimsical insults test our level of endurance, causing us to plead for mercy, wanting us to be pitied than exploited and victimized. Often this grief and shame form a delusion within us that there no longer exists good in this world, that good people are fictitious, and that goodness has lost its definition altogether. But such is not true because there are still people who are virtuous, unselfish, willing to help and possessing the ability of restoring our faith in humanity. To disregard them, their presence, would be as heinous as the deeds of the people who are unlike them. The times might be unpleasant, repulsive, but we'll come out it, unharmed and liberated."
- Chirag Tulsiani
o
Sam: "It's like in the great stories Mr. Frodo, the ones that really mattered. Full of darkness and danger they were, and sometimes you didn't want to know the end because how could the end be happy? How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad had happened? But in the end it's only a passing thing, this shadow, even darkness must pass. A new day will come, and when the sun shines it'll shine out the clearer. Those were the stories that stayed with you, that meant something even if you were too small to understand why. But I think Mr. Frodo, I do understand, I know now folk in those stories had lots of chances of turning back, only they didn't. They kept going because they were holding on to something.
Frodo: What are we holding onto, Sam?
Sam: That there's some good in the world, Mr. Frodo, and it's worth fighting for."
Frodo: What are we holding onto, Sam?
Sam: That there's some good in the world, Mr. Frodo, and it's worth fighting for."
- Samwise Gamgee, "Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers"
"27 Thoughts For Friday"
"27 Thoughts For Friday"
by John Wilder
“I thought so. You remember our business
partner Marsellus Wallace, don’t you Brett?”
– "Pulp Fiction"
"I’ve trotted out lists of thoughts from time to time. The lists change based on (hopefully) me getting more wisdom over time. Anyway, here’s this year’s list:
1. Be on time. Seriously, it’s simple. People notice, and people care. It’s a basic principle of respect for someone not to waste their time waiting for me.
2. Never be a little late to work or a little early to leave. Especially on a regular basis. Being late an hour once every quarter is much better than being late a minute each day for sixty work days. An hour looks like something happened. A minute looks like I don’t care.
3. Little changes at the start make big difference in the result. I’ve seen many people start their careers and become experts at the subject of their first assignment. Many of them made a lot of money by knowing a whole lot about a little.
4. Choosing not to decide is a choice. I love reminding people that “doing nothing” is always an option. But it is a choice. And it has just as many consequences as “doing something”.
5. For me, opportunities always showed up when I needed them, even if I didn’t understand it at the time. Thankfully in my case the opportunities weren’t subtle.
6. After college, in a high achieving profession, it becomes rarer and rarer to be the smartest guy in the room, and someone in the room is often an expert at something in which I’m a novice. True humility allows a good leader to understand the capabilities they need, and not have to be “right” all the time.
7. The biggest fights are over the smallest things. It seems that no one ever snaps over the house being on fire on the day the insurance payment was late – it’s that the trash wasn’t taken out on time and we have to hang on to it for another week.
8. People understand $10,000 more than they understand $10,000,000. The difference between $10,000 and $11,000 means more to most people than the difference between $10 million and $10 billion. Most people can’t understand more than seven magnitudes of anything.
9. Outcome is less important than process. When working on life, I try to not care about what the outcome will be. I go in, make the best choices I can, and do the best work that I can. If it works, it works, if it doesn’t, I try to adjust to be better next time.
10. Outcome is still important. Dead is dead, so sometimes the outcome is final.
11. The last outcome is always final. How many refunds?
12. No refunds.
13. Nothing breeds success like success, and nothing breeds failure like failure. I’ve been on streaks where I literally could not lose. I’ve been on streaks where I couldn’t win.
14. Corollary to 13: I’m never as bad or as good as my failures or successes. The streaks where I couldn’t win set me up with the habits I needed to win.
15. Beating myself up is a loser’s game.
16. Most people don’t think about me very much and will have a hard time remembering my name after five years. As much as I like to think I’m the center of my story (and I am) I’m only a minor player in the stories of most other people.
17. Corollary to 16: Except where I’m their personal villain. Then I live on forever and will definitely have someone who will want to be at my funeral, if nothing more than to make sure I’m dead.
18. Protect the relationships with the people that genuinely do care about me in a positive way so maybe the sad people at my funeral will outnumber the happy ones.
19. Listen to people, really listen. They tell me amazing things if I just listen. One time I was interviewing a guy and he mentioned committing a felony at a previous job. Yeah, I kept a straight face. No, he didn’t get the job.
20. If someone says I’m wrong, I need to have the humility to embrace that and see if they’re right. Especially when my first impulse is to try to defend myself. Even if I’m not wrong, I at least understand why they thought I was wrong.
21. When I’m wrong, admit it and apologize. It’s amazing how admitting error makes other think I’m more trustworthy. And apologies? Why not apologize, have some sort of problem with that?
22. Being good at several things is enough for success, if they’re the right several things. Being an expert at useless things might be fun, but mostly nothin’ times nothin’ is, hmmm, carry the nothin’ . . . nothin’.
23. If I spend my life waiting for the next thing, I’ll spend my entire life waiting and not living. The journey is the point, and rushing through it just gets me to my grave faster.
24. Past behaviors are almost always the key to predicting future behaviors. Leopards, spots, etc. When I listen to a person’s story, I realize that often they’re also telling me their future.
25. Success is based on the last thing I did, not the next. People pay to keep me around because they think I might be able to do it again.
26. Could I have done better? Could I have done worse? Yes. I did how I did. Success is based on how I change what I’m going to do to be better.
27. Power and money are not the same thing. Just ask the rich guys after Robespierre or Lenin took over.
Okay, that’s 3³ thoughts for Friday. See you on Monday!"
Judge Napolitano, "INTEL Roundtable w/Johnson & McGovern: Weekly Wrap"
Judge Napolitano - Judging Freedom, 2/21/25
"INTEL Roundtable w/Johnson & McGovern: Weekly Wrap"
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"It's A Mess..."
Deputy Wendell: "It's a mess, ain't it Sheriff?"
Sheriff Ed Tom Bell: "Well, if it ain't, it'll do till the mess gets here."
- "No Country For Old Men"
Oh, the mess is here alright...and you ain't seen nothin' yet...
Brace for impact.
Dan, I Allegedly, "We Can't Pay Our Bills"
Full screen recommended.
Dan, I Allegedly 2/21/25
"We Can't Pay Our Bills"
"Saks Fifth Avenue’s shocking collapse is a major wake-up call for high-end retail. In today’s video, I dive into the financial woes of Saks, why they’re struggling to pay vendors, and what this means for the luxury market as a whole. With the economy shifting and consumer habits changing, even major retailers like Saks are facing the fallout. From outrageous price tags on scarves and sport coats to the sudden announcement of delayed payments, it’s clear that high-end brands are feeling the pressure. Trust me, this story is one you don’t want to miss. We also touch on how other luxury brands like Louis Vuitton and Burberry are navigating these tough times, plus the broader implications for retailers and businesses everywhere. Whether you’re in the market for a $1,900 pair of socks or just curious about what’s happening in retail, this video has something for you."
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o
Full screen recommended.
ThisisJohnWilliams, 2/21/25
"It's Started:
American's Enter The Greatest Debt Default in History"
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Adventures With Danno, "Shocking Prices At Kroger"
Full screen recommended.
Adventures With Danno, 2/21/25
"Shocking Prices At Kroger"
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o
Full screen recommended.
Travelling With Russell, 2/21/25
"I Went to Russia's Newest Shopping Mall:
Botanica Moscow"
"Join me on a tour of the newest shopping mall in Russia, Botanica Shopping Center, located in Moscow. It opened its doors in February 2025 under extreme sanctions in Russia."
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"Our Natural Predators"
Samson slaying the lion.
"Our Natural Predators"
by Paul Rosenberg
"Nearly every creature upon this planet has one or more natural predators: creatures that prey upon them. Humans are a striking exception; even though we’re bereft of natural weapons – claws, ripping teeth and so on – we easily protect ourselves from even large predators. There are the occasional “bear in the woods” stories, but those come when we leave our constructed environments.
The reason we’re so able to keep ourselves safe is simply that we can think. Humans have, since long before recorded history, figured out how to master wild animals. And so we have no natural predators… or at least none of the usual type.
Our Predators Are Intellectual Predators: In case anyone is pounding a desk, screaming “war,” don’t worry, I’ll get to that in a minute. Humans are not destroyed by claws and teeth, they are destroyed by ideas. In fact, they are highly vulnerable to ideas. In particular they are suckers for authority, for idols and for promises of free stuff.
We see these vulnerabilities from one end of human history to another. Here’s just a brief explanation:Authority: A large number of humans will obey a well-presented authority without critique. The doctor in a white lab coat, the politician wearing a fine suit and podium, the monarch with a crown and a retinue… people turn off their minds when confronted with them and simply comply. The fact that so many order-givers play up their authority proves the point: they wouldn’t take pains to create such images if they didn’t work.
People will also reflexively defend authority, if for no other reason than they’ve already obeyed it and they don’t want to look stupid.Idols: Humans find psychological comfort in holding to a great and powerful entity. It makes them feel safe. If you frighten people, then supply them with a powerful figure (Mussolini makes a nice example) and they’ll line right up. It’s no accident that the communists made giant images of Lenin, Stalin, Mao and the others: It works. Free stuff: From the plunder of enemies to robbing the rich to technical incarnations of the same principle, humans are easy marks for this scam. We’ve all watched it in action, and so I won’t elaborate further.
Okay, Now I’ll Do War: War begins with the people. Genghis Khan didn’t make his own arrows, after all. No warlord is solely blamable for his slaughters. Warfare rests upon the complicity of normal people. Those people must be manipulated, in one way or another, to supply the materials and bodies required for war. (Crime can be an individual venture, of course.)
No war-seller, so far as I know, has clarified this better than Nazi boss Hermann Göring. Note from this passage that he and his Nazi brethren didn’t use bullets and swords to make people service their war machine, they used ideas:
"Why, of course, the people don’t want war. Why would some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best that he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece. Naturally, the common people don’t want war; neither in Russia nor in England nor in America, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy or a fascist dictatorship or a Parliament or a Communist dictatorship.The people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country."
And Göring was right that it’s the same in any country: Our entire species is vulnerable to this type of predation.
The Way Forward: Our first step forward, as the AA people rightly say, is to admit we have a problem. And we do have a problem. It’s fixable, but so long as we refuse to acknowledge it, it will remain.
We’ve already covered the basic vulnerabilities above, but our habit of chaining one thought to another, as if each were purely and unquestionably correct, is another major issue. Author Ben Hecht explained this very well, when he commented upon people who were, “unable to think, except in homage to other thoughts.”
Hecht was right, and stacking one concept upon another, and then on another, leads easily into gross errors, unless each of those thoughts are perfect, complete and ideally expressed… which they never are. Still, stacking thoughts up in this way (ever deviating from precision) yields the comfort and confidence – and the justification – of having thought.
The bottom line here is that our predators use words and emotions to make us do their will. They are, in illustrative terms, vampires, sucking our will from us. They convince us, through emotional pressures and devious logic – by using our vulnerabilities – that it’s right for them to collect our sacrifices, that failure to obey them will bring us shame, that comfort and safety require our immediate obedience, and that being restricted is the only way to be safe. All of that is predation.
Again, if we are to stop being abused, the first step is to realize… to accept… that we have a problem. We must recognize that we have vulnerabilities; then we must forgive ourselves for them. After that it’s straightforward and not terribly hard." For more, see "The Twilight of Authority."
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