Full screen recommended.
Adventures With Danno, PM 3/29/25
"Dollar Tree Is Making A Big Mistake"
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So, we rise from the rubble...
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Saturday, March 29, 2025
Jeremiah Babe, "I'm Buying A House Today, Don't Buy A House Unless You Do This"
Jeremiah Babe, 3/29/25
"I'm Buying A House Today,
Don't Buy A House Unless You Do This"
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Musical Interlude: Deuter, "Music of the Night: East of The Full Moon"
Full screen recommended.
Deuter,
"Music of the Night: East of The Full Moon"
Musical Interlude: Genesis, "Land of Confusion"
In this time of wars and rumors of wars...
Genesis, "Land of Confusion"
"A Look to the Heavens"
"The photographer had this shot in mind for some time. He knew that objects overhead are the brightest - since their light is scattered the least by atmospheric air. He also that knew the core of our Milky Way Galaxy was just about straight up near midnight around this time of year in South Australia. Chasing his mental picture, he ventured deep inside the Kuipto Forest where tall radiata pines blocked out much of the sky - but not in this clearing. There, through a window framed by trees, he captured his envisioned combination of local and distant nature. Sixteen exposures of both trees and the Milky Way Galaxy were recorded.
Antares is the bright orange star to left of our Galaxy's central plane, while Alpha Centauri is the bright star just to the right of the image center. The direction toward our Galaxy's center is below Antares. Although in a few hours the Earth's rotation moved the Galactic plane up and to the left - soon invisible behind the timber, his mental image was secured forever - and is featured here."
"We Are All Of Us..."
"We are all of us born, live and die in the shadow
of a giant question mark that refers to three questions:
Where do we come from?
Why?
And where, oh where, are we going?"
- Tennessee Williams
The Poet: Rainer Maria Rilke, Rainer Maria Rilke
"Book of Hours II, 16"
"How surely gravity's law,
strong as an ocean current,
takes hold of even the strongest thing
and pulls it toward the heart of the world.
Each thing-
each stone, blossom, child-
is held in place.
Only we, in our arrogance,
push out beyond what we belong to
for some empty freedom.
If we surrendered
to earth's intelligence
we could rise up rooted, like trees.
Instead we entangle ourselves
in knots of our own making
and struggle, lonely and confused.
So, like children, we begin again
to learn from the things,
because they are in God's heart;
they have never left him.
This is what the things can teach us:
to fall,
patiently to trust our heaviness.
Even a bird has to do that
before he can fly."
~ Rainer Maria Rilke
"This World..."
"This world, after all our science and sciences, is still a miracle;
wonderful, inscrutable, magical and more, to whosoever will think of it."
- Thomas Carlyle
"Ultra-Processed Life"
"Ultra-Processed Life"
by Charles Hugh Smith
"The digital realm, finance, and junk food have something in common: they're all ultra-processed, synthetic versions of Nature that have been designed to be compellingly addictive, to the detriment of our health and quality of life.
In focusing on the digital realm, money (i.e. finance, "growth," consuming more as the measure of all that is good) and eating more of what tastes good, we now have an Ultra-Processed Life. All three - the digital realm, money in all its manifestations and junk food - are all consumed: they all taste good, i.e. generate endorphin hits, and so they draw us into their synthetic Ultra-Processed World.
We're so busy consuming that we don't realize they're consuming us: in focusing on producing and consuming more goods and services as the sole measure of "the good life," it's never enough: if we pile up $1 million, we focus on piling up $2 million. If we pile up $2 million, we focus on accumulating $3 million. And so on, in every manifestation of money and consumption.
The digital realm consumes our lives one minute and one hour at a time, for every minute spent focusing on a screen is a minute taken from the real world, which is the only true measure of the quality of our life.
Ultra-processed food is edible, but it isn't nutritious. It tastes good, but it harms us in complex ways we don't fully understand. This is the core dynamic of the synthetic "products and services" that dominate modern life: the harm they unleash is hidden beneath a constant flow of endorphin hits, distractions, addictive media and unfilled hunger for all that is lacking in our synthetic Ultra-Processed World: a sense of security, a sense of control, a sense of being grounded, and the absence of a hunger to find synthetic comforts in a world stripped of natural comforts.
In effect, we're hungry ghosts in this Ultra-Processed World, unable to satisfy our authentic needs in a synthetic world of artifice and inauthenticity. The more we consume, the hungrier we become for what is unavailable in an Ultra-Processed Life.
We're told there's no upper limit on "growth" of GDP, wealth, abundance, finance or consumption, but this is a form of insanity, for none of this "growth" addresses what's lacking and what's broken in our lives, the derangements generated by consuming (and being consumed by) highly profitable synthetic versions of the real world.
Insanity is often described as doing the same thing and expecting a different result. So our financial system inflates yet another credit-asset bubble and we expect that this bubble won't pop, laying waste to everyone who believed that doing the same thing would magically generate a different result.
But there is another form of insanity that's easily confused with denial: we are blind to the artificial nature of this Ultra-Processed World and blind to its causal mechanisms: there is only one possible output of this synthetic version of Nature, and that output is a complex tangle of derangements that we seek to resolve by dulling the pain of living a deranged life.
We're not in denial; we literally don't see our Ultra-Processed World for what it is: a manufactured mirror world of commoditized derangements and distortions that have consumed us so completely that we've lost the ability to see what's been lost.
Ultra-processed snacks offer the perfect metaphor. We can't stop consuming more, yet the more we consume the greater the damage to our health. The worse we feel, the more we eat to distract ourselves, to get that comforting endorphin hit. It's a feedback loop that ends in the destruction of our health and life.
Once we've been consumed by money, the digital realm and ultra-processed foods, we've lost the taste for the real world. A fresh raw carrot is sweet, but once we're consuming a diet of sugary cold cereals and other equivalents of candy, we no longer taste the natural sweetness of a carrot; it's been lost in the rush of synthetic extremes of salt, sugar and fat that make ultra-processed foods so addictive. To recover the taste of real food, we first have to completely abandon ultra-processed foods - "Go Cold Turkey."
The idea that we can consume junk food and maintain the taste for real food in some sort of balance is delusional, for the reasons stated above: junk food destroys our taste for real food and its artificially generated addictive qualities will overwhelm our plan to "eat healthy" half the time.
Just as there is no "balance" between ultra-processed food and real food, there is no balance between the synthetic Ultra-Processed World and the real world. We choose one or the other, either by default or by design.
Credit--borrowing money created out of thin air - is the financial equivalent of ultra-processed food. The machinery that spews out the addictive glop is complicated: in the "food" factory, real ingredients are processed into addictive snacks. In finance, reverse repos, swaps, derivatives, mortgages, etc. generate a highly addictive financial product: credit. Just as with ultra-processed food, the more credit we consume, the more it consumes us. I owe, I owe, so off to work I go.
The derangements of synthetic food, digital realms and finance have yet to fully play out. Consuming more of this Ultra-Processed World is not a path to "the good life," it's a path to the destruction and derangement of an Ultra-Processed Life."
"In Retrospect..."
“In retrospect, the spark might seem as ominous as a financial crash, as ordinary as a national election, or as trivial as a Tea Party. The catalyst will unfold according to a basic Crisis dynamic that underlies all of these scenarios: An initial spark will trigger a chain reaction of unyielding responses and further emergencies. The core elements of these scenarios (debt, civic decay, global disorder) will matter more than the details, which the catalyst will juxtapose and connect in some unknowable way. If foreign societies are also entering a Fourth Turning, this could accelerate the chain reaction. At home and abroad, these events will reflect the tearing of the civic fabric at points of extreme vulnerability – problem areas where America will have neglected, denied, or delayed needed action.”
– "The Fourth Turning", Strauss & Howe
"Our Task..."
“We have not overcome our condition, and yet we know it better. We know that we live in contradiction, but we also know that we must refuse this contradiction and do what is needed to reduce it. Our task as humans is to find the few principles that will calm the infinite anguish of free souls. We must mend what has been torn apart, make justice imaginable again in a world so obviously unjust, give happiness a meaning once more to peoples poisoned by the misery of the century. Naturally, it is a superhuman task. But superhuman is the term for tasks we take a long time to accomplish, that’s all.
Let us know our aims then, holding fast to the mind, even if force puts on a thoughtful or a comfortable face in order to seduce us. The first thing is not to despair. Let us not listen too much to those who proclaim that the world is at an end. Civilizations do not die so easily, and even if our world were to collapse, it would not have been the first. It is indeed true that we live in tragic times. But too many people confuse tragedy with despair. “Tragedy,” D.H. Lawrence said, “ought to be a great kick at misery.” This is a healthy and immediately applicable thought. There are many things today deserving such a kick.”
- Albert Camus
"How It Really Is"
Oh, you'll get it, too...
Louis Armstrong, "What A Wonderful World"
Yeah...just wonderful.
"Meanwhile, Elsewhere..."
Full screen recommended.
Lisa With Love, 3/29/25
"Modern Apartment In Siberia,
What Can $400 Can You In Siberia?"
"First Time visiting Novosibirsk Russia 🇷🇺
How modern Russian Apartments look like?"
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o
Full screen recommended.
Scottish Guy In Moscow, 3/29/25
"Weekly Food Shopping In Russia, With Prices"
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o
Full screen recommended.
Travelling with Russell, 3/29/25
"Australian Visits Russia's Newest Supermarket"
"What does a brand new Russian typical supermarket look like inside? Join me on a tour of a typical Russian supermarket in provincial Russia. Dixy supermarket is one of Russia's well-known local supermarkets. What can you buy, and what are the prices like?"
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o
Full screen recommended.
Different Russia, 3/29/25
"Russian Shops: What's in Sales Department Now?
Spring Shopping at Russian Hypermarket"
"Go shopping at the Huge Russian Hypermarket in the city near Moscow, Russia."
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o
I know, Good Citizen, this is all so familiar,
just like where and how you and all of us live now...
Right? RIGHT? Yeah...
"Network: I'm As Mad As Hell"
Full screen recommended.
"Network: I'm As Mad As Hell"
And if you're not aware enough to be mad
as hell you should be, and real quick now, too...
Dan, I Allegedly, "This Says It All - You Can’t Get Ahead"
Full screen recommended.
Dan, I Allegedly, 3/29/25
"This Says It All - You Can’t Get Ahead"
"Dollar Tree just lost $8 BILLION on Family Dollar, and it’s a wake-up call for the economy. In today’s video, I break down how Dollar Tree’s $9B purchase of Family Dollar in 2015 led to a shocking $1B sale this week. This says everything about where the economy is right now – people can’t even afford dollar stores anymore! From messy, empty shelves to major financial struggles, this is a sign of the times.
I also dive into the bigger picture: frozen job markets, mounting car repossessions, skyrocketing debt, and why Gen Z and Millennials are still relying on their parents financially. With layoffs everywhere and interest rates going through the roof, it’s clear we’re heading into a dark economic phase. But there’s hope – you CAN take control and create opportunities for yourself, and I’ll share a few ideas on how to do just that. The “bank of mom and dad” is officially closed. "
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"Alert! NATO Troops Deploy To Ukraine; Russian Nuke Sub"
Canadian Prepper, 3/28/25
"Alert! NATO Troops Deploy To Ukraine;
Russian Nuke Sub"
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Friday, March 28, 2025
Jeremiah Babe, "You Better Be Paying Attention And Preparing, Something Ominous Is Coming"
Jeremiah Babe, 3/28/25
"You Better Be Paying Attention And Preparing,
Something Ominous Is Coming"
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"A Look to the Heavens"
"Point your telescope toward the high flying constellation Pegasus and you can find this expanse of Milky Way stars and distant galaxies. NGC 7814 is centered in the pretty field of view that would almost be covered by a full moon. NGC 7814 is sometimes called the Little Sombrero for its resemblance to the brighter more famous M104, the Sombrero Galaxy. Both Sombrero and Little Sombrero are spiral galaxies seen edge-on, and both have extensive halos and central bulges cut by a thin disk with thinner dust lanes in silhouette. In fact, NGC 7814 is some 40 million light-years away and an estimated 60,000 light-years across. That actually makes the Little Sombrero about the same physical size as its better known namesake, appearing smaller and fainter only because it is farther away.
In this telescopic view from July 17, NGC 7814 is hosting a newly discovered supernova, dominant immediately to the left of the galaxy's core. Cataloged as SN 2021rhu, the stellar explosion has been identified as a Type Ia supernova, useful toward calibrating the distance scale of the universe."
"Where Your Gaze Lingers..."
“Sometimes fate is like a small sandstorm that keeps changing directions. You change direction but the sandstorm chases you. You turn again, but the storm adjusts. Over and over you play this out, like some ominous dance with death just before dawn. Why? Because this storm isn’t something that has nothing to do with you, this storm is you. Something inside you. So all you can do is give in to it, step right inside the storm, closing your eyes and plugging up your ears so the sand doesn’t get in, and walk through it, step by step. There’s no sun there, no moon, no direction, no sense of time. Just fine white sand swirling up the sky like pulverized bones.
You have to look! That’s another one of the rules. Closing your eyes isn’t going to change anything. Nothing’s going to disappear just because you can’t see what going on. In fact, things will be even worse the next time you open your eyes. That’s the kind of world we live in. Keep your eyes wide open. Only a coward closes his eyes. Closing your eyes and plugging up your ears won’t make time stand still.”
- Haruki Murakami
“Closing your eyes won’t make the awfulness go away. It may be that nothing will. But dwelling on it, dreading the evil, playing out the misery in your head – doesn’t this feed the monster? You can’t close your eyes to life, but you can choose where your gaze lingers.”
- Richelle E. Goodrich
Judge Napolitano, "INTEL Roundtable w/Johnson & McGovern: Weekly Wrap"
Judge Napolitano - Judging Freedom, 3/28/25
"INTEL Roundtable w/Johnson & McGovern: Weekly Wrap"
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"Good Or Bad..."
"Good or bad, everything we do is our best choice at that moment."
- William Glasser
"Larry C. Johnson & Col. Larry Wilkerson: Iran Fires Back; Red Sea Chaos Shakes Trump’s Expectations"
Dialogue Works, 3/28/25
"Larry C. Johnson & Col. Larry Wilkerson:
Iran Fires Back; Red Sea Chaos Shakes Trump’s Expectations"
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"Dazed Lemmings Can't Bridge The Reality Gap"
"Dazed Lemmings Can't Bridge The Reality Gap"
by Zen Gardner
"Ever wonder why people can't make the leap to real awareness of what's going on? Why do so few people seem to care about the dangers of the unreported Fukushima radiation levels and toxic debris washing across the pacific? As the Orwellian American police state sweeps into place, the economy crumbles, Americans celebrated their entry into a brave new 2020 with minimal awareness of the true dangers already dissolving their health, wealth and chances for survival in an engineered conflagration of mythic proportions that is already descending on their heads.
As the gap between reality and manipulated public perception grows, it may just be too big a leap for many at this point. Having been dumbed-down and unresponsive for so long, it's too much for them to take in. Sad, but again, that's reality. Hey, why wake up when everything's such a bummer? That's the underlying mentality. The thing is, this is a conditioned response. Overload and recoil. And it's been going on a long, long time.
Why? Like the dumbing down effect of fluoride and chemtrails and adulterated food, it eventually suppresses natural responses. When the real alert presents itself, the subject will not be able to react and protect himself. Why all the dramatic end of the world sci-fi movies? Why the emphasis on violence and horror movies and graphic, destructive wars? Why does the news major on the bad events of the day? Why the combative gladiator sports, emphasis on technology instead of humanity, and mind-numbing crass consumerism and sexualization of society? This is deliberate social engineering, and that's the biggie. It's all engineered..and that's the last thing most people want to realize. And it usually is.
The Power of Cognitive Dissonance: The world has become essentially schizophrenic in outlook. Being told one thing while the exact opposite is happening before their eyes for so long, the "dissonance" created by this conflict causes humanity to shut down. America is the perfect example. Ostensibly fighting for "freedom and liberty" we commit genocide and destroy nation after nation. To protect our liberties the government has overturned the Bill of Rights and made the Constitution a mockery. Yet the populace sits and takes it. Why? Too big of a leap. If it turned out they've been completely conned by a massive manipulated agenda they may just completely break down. And subconsciously the horror of that reality is therefore a "no". Even if it were true they're at the point they'd rather not know.
I'll Take Conscious Reality. "Why all the negativity?" is what you'll hear a lot of the time when you bring these things up. The answer, as David Icke often says, is that ignorance is negative. Truth is empowering, no matter how awful it may be sometimes. And at this point in history the more you learn the more negative it may seem, with the Controllers' agenda in full final-phase swing. But so what. Things haven't changed all that much. The purpose of life is to rediscover who you truly are, and that wonderful awakening makes everything else pale in comparison. Our mission then becomes to inform and empower, share and encourage. The same one it always has been. That it's taking this kind of extreme compression to awaken the slumbering masses is really no surprise, and ultimately a gift from the Universe to help people back into the real world....that of conscious loving awareness."
"Awaken from slumber, one and all..."
"There Is Always The Hope..."
“What happens to people living in a society where everyone in power is lying, stealing, cheating and killing, and in our hearts we all know this, but the consequences of facing all these lies are so monstrous, we keep on hoping that maybe the corporate government administration and media are on the level with us this time. Americans remind me of survivors of domestic abuse. This is always the hope that this is the very, very, very last time one’s ribs get re-broken again.”
- Inga Muscio
"172,017 Job Cuts In One Month – Mass Layoffs Rise To A Level That We Haven’t Seen Since The Great Recession"
"172,017 Job Cuts In One Month – Mass Layoffs Rise
To A Level That We Haven’t Seen Since The Great Recession"
"Have you ever not been able to sleep at night because you are stressed out about your finances? If so, you are certainly not alone. When there is simply not enough money coming in to pay all the bills, the pressure can be excruciating. The cost of food, housing and other essentials has been rising much faster than paychecks have in recent years, and now a huge wave of mass layoffs has begun. According to Challenger, Gray & Christmas, employers in the United States announced 172,017 job cuts last month. That was the highest level that we have seen for the month of February since the depths of the Great Recession in 2009…
"U.S.-based employers announced 172,017 job cuts in February, the highest total for the month since 2009 when 186,350 job cuts were recorded. It is the highest monthly total since July 2020 when 262,649 cuts were announced, according to a report released Thursday from global outplacement and business and executive coaching firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas. February’s total is a 245% increase from the 49,795 cuts announced one month prior. It is a 103% increase from the 84,638 cuts announced in the same month last year."
Look, if the number of job cuts goes up by 245 percent in just one month, your economy is going in the wrong direction. You don’t exactly have to be a genius to figure that one out. Overall, employers in the United States announced 221,812 job cuts during the first two months of this year. That is 33 percent higher than the total for the first two months of 2024…"So far this year, employers have announced 221,812 job cuts, the highest year-to-date (YTD) total since 2009 when 428,099 job cuts were planned. It is up 33% from the 166,945 cuts announced during the same period in 2024."
I keep trying to warn my readers that this is just the beginning. During this new economic downturn, it is likely that millions of people will eventually lose their jobs. What will our society look like if that actually happens?
Meanwhile, home sales continue to be depressingly low. According to economists at Wells Fargo, total home sales in January were “only modestly above the weak rate experienced between 2008 and 2010”…"In January, total home sales reached 4.7 million, a figure Wells Fargo economists say is ‘only modestly above the weak rate experienced between 2008 and 2010.’ Before the pandemic, monthly home sales averaged around 6 million. Housing demand soared during the pandemic, sending prices and mortgage rates to new highs. But now, high costs and borrowing rates are keeping both buyers and sellers on the sidelines. Homeowners that secured a low mortgage rate during the pandemic or who have paid off their home aren’t selling since they do not want to give up their low rates."
Once again, here is another example where we are seeing numbers that are unlike anything we have seen since the Great Recession. When will the reality of what we are facing start sinking in for people? Right now, major retailers are shutting down stores all over the nation. They wouldn’t be doing this if they thought that good times were ahead of us.
For instance, Kohl’s is telling us that they will be permanently closing 27 “underperforming” stores this weekend…"Kohl’s will shut 27 ‘underperforming’ US stores this weekend, but not before slashing final sale prices. The department store chain will wind down operations at the locations in 15 states on Saturday. Initially the store’s were expected to close by the end of April but the deep discounts have stripped stock down leading the locations to close sooner."
And Macy’s has just identified 66 out of the 150 stores that it eventually plans to shut down…"Macy’s in January named 66 of the 150 stores it is planning to close as part of its revitalization plan, and some stores on the list appear to have already closed or be closing soon. The retailer announced in February 2024 plans to shut down 150 “underproductive” Macy’s store locations by 2026. The plan “is designed to return the company to sustainable, profitable sales growth,’ Macy’s said in a press release in January 2025."
All over the nation, there are now abandoned buildings where once thriving businesses used to operate. Boarded up storefronts litter the landscape all over America, and this is particularly true in many of our heavily populated urban areas.
Of course it isn’t just large businesses that are failing. According to Gregory Mannarino, small business startups are failing at a staggering rate…"According to the latest data, a staggering 90 percent of U.S. small business startups fail, this is the highest level in history. It is incredibly difficult to get a successful small business off the ground in the United States today. If you have ever tried, you know what I am talking about."
We should have a system that nurtures small businesses, because traditionally small businesses have been the primary engine of employment growth in this country. But instead, we have a system that ruthlessly crushes most small businesses. The economic environment that we live in is sick, and that isn’t going to change any time soon. In fact, it appears that economic conditions are about to get even worse.
According to a CBS News poll that was just released, 28 percent of Americans believe that we are already in a recession right now. That was a five percent jump from last month. And a different survey just discovered that 51 percent of Americans believe that the stock market could crash soon… But here’s the real shocker: 51% said they were worried that stocks could be headed for another crash, up from 46% during the fourth quarter.
At the same time, fewer Americans feel comfortable investing right now, with only 26% saying they would feel comfortable putting money in the market, given current conditions. Stock prices were down once again on Thursday, and the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq recently entered correction territory. In so many ways, it is starting to feel like 2008 and 2009 all over again. I hope that you are ready, because we are in for a wild ride."
"Knowing The Face Of Your Father, or, The Best Post I’ve Ever Written About Bronze Age Europe"
"Knowing The Face Of Your Father, or,
The Best Post I’ve Ever Written About Bronze Age Europe"
by John Wilder
"The rooster crowed. Tark opened one eye, peering through the heavy hide covering him. He could see light. Motion was already starting in the longhouse, and he could see the oak beams above him dimly in the firelight. He could smell the barley and mutton stew that would be his breakfast. Always in a hurry, he jumped up and dressed into his pleasantly cool tunic and pants and bolted down a bowl of the stew. It was warm. It was good.
Tark was eight. Tark hummed a song to the sky father, the one who had spoken the world into existence, according to the stories the men told around the fire. Tark’s first job was to feed the chickens so mother could get the eggs for tomorrow.
His father, Wulfric, was already up, as usual. Tark had seen that his father was up later and up earlier. Tark noticed that Wulfric always had a wary look in his eye, as if he was never relaxing, always assessing. When other men talked after too much drink, Wulfric listened. Wulfric was tending the tribe’s cattle, their major stock of wealth and the way that they would be sure that they would make it through the winter, even if it was a long one.
Tark’s older brother Branoc, now 16, was already up and practicing with a battle axe – sweat already dripping from him despite the cool air. Branoc was a man, and to be a man, one fought. And to be a man, one married. Branoc would soon be bonded to Lunara. A man protects his woman, a man protects his family. All is right with the world.
Tark and Branoc go through the forest, intermittent sunlight flashing in Tark’s light blonde hair. His blue-gray eyes lit up as they caught deer sign. Maybe a hunt soon. That would be good.
Later, after a day of work and mock combat with wooden weapons and a laughing Branoc, Tark and the family gathered by the fire. Wulfric speaks slowly, telling the stories of their Yamnaya ancestors who rode the steppe and died valiantly. Those tales are the last thing that Tark heard as he drifted off to sleep – dreaming of becoming worthy enough to have a final burial place, a kurgan, worthy of a man of honor. The last thing he saw in the flickering firelight was the face of his father.
Okay, enough of Tark’s life. Tark was a member of the Corded Ware people, a successor to the Yamnaya. This culture (and its associated genetics) first show up on the steppe in what is today Russia and the Ukraine thousands of years ago and then spread throughout Europe during the thousands of years that followed.
This land was harsh, and not only in climate – some writers have referred to it as the bloodlands. Steppe warriors. These were the first humans to effectively use the horse as transport, and were fierce warriors. Most of the skeletons that we’ve found of these people have evidence of combat injuries. This isn’t uncommon.
In roughly 1250 BC, a band of warriors descended on a settlement in the Tollense Valley. The Tollense Valley is in present day Germany. On the day of the battle, current estimates are that perhaps 2,000 warriors fought during the battle – an immense battle for that time in Europe. Who won? Civilization won.
Steppe warriors have been a sort-of periodic vaccination against societal complacency. Urban areas exist, and the steppe warriors, be they Mongol, Hun, Turk, Scythian, or Yamnaya, have been a cleansing fire that keeps those urban and settled areas vital. I mean, would you build a giant great wall to protect you from cosplay LARPers or furries? No, not from LARPers. But I would build a fiery moat to keep furries out.
This crashing wave of martial prowess was built on a selection process that favored honor, planning, and daring. Genghis Khan is related to something like one out of eight east Asians, so I think his strategy paid off. It also forced societies out of their complacence, and kept them invigorated. Stagnant empires in decline were exactly the sort of thing these steppe barbarians were looking for. I mean, don’t threaten them with a good time.
Wave after wave of first Yamnaya and then Corded Ware people replaced almost all of the neolithic farmers in the region from the Volga to the Rhine on the east and west, and from the Arctic in the north to the Alps in the south, a huge range.
But they also pushed into places like Gaul, the Iberian Peninsula, and into Italy. In the Iberian Peninsula, for instance, many villages consist only of the offspring from the Y chromosome of the Yamnaya/Corded Ware people. They invaded, killed all the men and male children, and took over. The men from those places are erased from genetic history.
To a lesser extent, this happened in both Greece and Italy. The early emperors were blonde or sandy brown in hair color, with eyes that were light grey or blue – the Steppe Chads like Tark had found a home, and their genes lived on in emperors. And in people like Alexander the Great, who had heterochromia. What’s heterochromia? One blue eye, one brown. Steppe Chad’s blood flowed in Alexander’s veins, and probably made up 30% of the genome of some populations of the ancient Greeks and Macedonians.
In Italy, it was also pronounced, with early Latin DNA being 30% or more of Corded Ware origin. Nero was blonde and had blue eyes. I guess that makes the Yamnaya steppe daddies?
The Italians and Greeks of today are, of course still related to the Italians and Greeks of 2,000 years ago, but there has been a huge admixture of the peoples of the Mediterranean because these were the capital cities of empire. Think New York of 2025 is genetically even remotely close to New York of 1825? Nope, not at all. And neither was Rome of 200 AD genetically similar to Rome of 100 BC, except, perhaps, in the royal families.
The genetics of three to five thousand years of brutal struggle in the bloodlands were flowing in the veins of Octavian, even until the years just before his death...
A rooster, somewhere, crowed. Augustus (who had been Octavian) opened one eye. A servant was already there. One of the joys of youth was solitude, one of the banes of being Caesar was never being really alone. After Julius was murdered, Octavian never let a single man guard him. That would be folly. Besides, Augustus was 74, and when he woke, everything hurt. He remembered bounding up as a boy, but now everything was slow.
Even his waking was an event that set in motion a cascade of events. Three men entered the room. His bath was ready, and, as usual, already at perfect temperature. One had deeply absorbent towels. One had a chalice of wine. The third had brought in a fresh toga, trimmed in the Tyrian murex that was the amazingly expensive purple coloring of the Caesar.
The gardens of his palace by the Tiber were a place of quiet contemplation. He walked them slowly, in silence, his formerly blonde and now grey hair catching the morning Sun, reflecting off of his blue-gray eyes. A soft echo of the sounds of his guard, training, bring Actium back to his mind, where he finally ended Mark Antony’s planned usurpation of his power. Such glory. The entire world in the balance! In the afternoon, Senators. Roads. Gaul. Plans of Empire, details for lesser men.
That night, Augustus sits by the fire. Alone. In an unguarded moment, he allows himself to think about what he already knows awaits him: a marble tomb. He pondered: was he a man of honor? He thought, briefly, of a memory from when he was a child of perhaps four, of the face of his father in dim light, illuminated by the flickering light of a lamp. The blood of Tark had made a very long journey, indeed."
Bill Bonner, "Dollar Cage Match"
"Dollar Cage Match"
by Bill Bonner
Baltimore, Maryland - "Another day. Another sucker punch. And another guess about the dumbest investment you can make. USA Today: "President Donald Trump on Wednesday imposed 25% tariffs on imported automobiles, barreling forward with a whiplash economic strategy that has rattled markets and ignited a global trade war. Trump detailed the tariffs, which will start at 2.5% and rise to 25% on all foreign cars and light trucks, in front of reporters in the Oval Office." Why the feds would want to make autos more expensive is hard to figure. Inscrutable. Implausible. Incomprehensible. But not inconceivable.
Mr. Trump believes in tariffs the way prize fighters put their faith in their left jabs or right hooks. Everything is a fight. And the goal is to win. He’s ready to duke it out with one and all. And now, Ontario, Canada, arguably our closest and dearest neighbor, has its fists up too. Reuters: "Ontario Premier vows to 'inflict as much pain as possible' on US over tariffs. Ontario Premier Doug Ford said on Wednesday (March 26) he aims to "inflict as much pain as possible" on American citizens as the U.S. and Canada engage in a trade dispute over tariffs."
But since we’re wondering what will turn out to be the dumbest investment you can make, let’s consider what the real causes and consequences of a trade war may be. America’s last trade war, led by Misters Smoot and Hawley, led to the Great Depression.
This time could be different. Mr. Trump is no average, run-of-the-mill protectionist. He’s a brawler, not an economist…nor a diplomat. He throws tariffs around like a prizefighter, not a statesman. Fortune: "Trump warns EU and Canada not to team up to resist tariffs - they must take the beating or worse will follow. President Trump is warning the EU and Canada not to get any ideas about joining forces to outmaneuver his upcoming tariff announcements, saying if they team up against the U.S. they will face consequences."
Next Wednesday is a day of reckoning for the Trump administration - and indeed for economies across the world. 'Liberation Day', as Trump has called it, will confirm further tariff action against a raft of countries. The greatest country in the world conducts its affairs as if it were a Mixed Martial Arts cage combat. But is there a method to the madness? Probably not. But let us imagine that there is.
Perhaps the chaos is intended to drive investors out of the US…reduce the value of the dollar and thereby make US exports more competitive? Would that make sense? Maybe. In the long run, a weaker dollar could help US export industries. But in the near term, the combination of declining dollar purchasing power and tariffs on imports would surely pinch consumer spending, hard. MoneyTalksNews: "Economic Pessimism Hits 12-Year Low As Americans Brace for Uncertainty. The Conference Board reports consumer confidence has plummeted below recession warning levels for the second straight month. With 15.5% of Americans expecting lower incomes and inflation expectations rising to 6.2%, financial anxiety is growing nationwide.
Combined with already sinking consumer confidence - the result would likely be a slowdown in GDP, along with rising unemployment and a recession. A lower dollar would also make it harder to fund America’s expected $60 trillion worth of new and refinanced debt over the next 15 years. How would all of that shake out? We don’t know. But a declining dollar would also mean a decline in the value of dollar assets. And the biggest dollar asset is also America’s biggest dollar liability.
It may be that some forward-thinking person on Team Trump believes he can score a two-fer…or a three-fer. Lowering the value of the dollar, in an imagined Mar-a-Lago Accord, would reduce imports, improve exports…and one other thing - lower the real value of US debt. Bingo! A 20% cut in the dollar would lighten America’s debt load by nearly $8 trillion. Another 20% loss to inflation would bring the savings to $16 trillion.
There is a precedent for this sort of manipulation too. The Plaza Accord of 1985 - 30 years ago this September. Then, as now, the dollar was judged too high. The leading financial powers got together at the Plaza Hotel in New York and agreed to knock it down. The effect was to put a rocket under Japanese asset prices…leading to the famous Japan Inc. bubble of the late ‘80s…thence to the crash in Japan of 1990…and to the 35-year bear market that followed.
But no matter. If the feds were to achieve the objective - a lower dollar - consumer prices would rise. Wage earners would lose jobs (at least in the short-run). Investors would lose money in stocks. But the biggest losers would probably be those who held US Treasurys.
Either way - because lack of spending control brings inflation…or because the feds want to lower the value of the dollar, intentionally - US Treasurys would come down. If both were to happen, which seems likely, 30-year Treasury bonds, now offering a paltry 4.68% yield, might turn out to be the dumbest investment you could make."
Adventures With Danno, "Jaw Dropping Prices At Kroger"
Full screen recommended.
Adventures With Danno, AM 3/28/25
"Jaw Dropping Prices At Kroger"
Comments here:
Jim Kunstler, "Bedlam, Pending"
"Bedlam, Pending"
by Jim Kunstler
"You need a sufficient amount of ruthlessness to run a country."
- Will Chamberlain on "X"
"You understand, all these lawsuit shenanigans with select federal judges from Woke-crazed districts like Boston, San Francisco, Rhode Island, and the DC Beltway are aimed at provoking a second civil war. The objective is to burden Mr. Trump with so many restrictions on the executive that the country can’t be governed without declaring a national emergency.
This is the Democratic Party’s desperate strategy to stay alive: to preserve the flow of taxpayer money to its minions stuffed into the organs of government like cancer cells, and the vast network of NGOs that employ its agents and spread its sickness. The Democratic Party is a malignancy within the republic and the money is the blood-flow that feeds it.
DOGE is the chemotherapy that has starved some of the worst tumors, such as USAID. Chemotherapy is always hard on the patient. Cancer is a very tough and resourceful enemy of a healthy body, and fights back by any means available. Ultimately, it seeks to kill the body it has come to inhabit — in this case, the body-politic of the USA. We are fighting for the life of our republic against a demonic enemy.
The Democratic Party displays exactly the characteristics that human beings traditionally associate with pure evil. Above all, it lies about everything that it does. It lies, of course, in order to deceive you, so that you won’t understand how it is working to vanquish you and your posterity (your kids and their future). RussiaGate, Covid-19, the Ukraine War, all were marinated in lies. The lies operate through the perversion of language, so you won’t understand what is being said. For instance: that the Democratic Party is working to save our democracy. That howler persists in their every public performance.
The Democratic Party controls the major organs of information: The New York Times, CNN, Hollywood. They are the conveyers of lies, bamboozling the body politic to divide and conquer it. The Democratic party is a bad faith legion enlisted to defend the Father-of-Lies, America’s Deep State (a.k.a. the blob). That information regime is failing now along with the Democratic Party. The Deep State is failing with them. They are the parasites that kills its host. They intend to kill the republic as they go down.
The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is supposed to function like an immune system for the body politic, defending it against political sickness. The current organized action in the federal judiciary against the executive is a grave sickness induced by the Deep State that must be corrected by the SCOTUS. We await that corrective action — a sweeping decision in reply to 100-plus lawsuits — that the chief executive is in-charge of the executive department and that his prerogatives to manage the staffing and actions of the executive agencies can’t be arrogated by federal judges.
So far, obviously, the SCOTUS has not yet come to issue that decision. Many of you worry that they will fail to, because Chief Justice John Roberts appears to be somehow under the influence of the Deep State. Let’s have a look. Sheldon Snook is Special Assistant to Chief Justice Roberts, and is deeply involved in the day-to-day management of the SCOTUS. Sheldon Snook is married to Mary McCord. Ms. McCord has been a leading actor, via her various roles in the Deep State, in the seditious operations against President Trump since 2017.
As Acting Attorney General for National Security in 2017, Mary McCord, turned James Comey’s FBI jihad against National Security advisor Mike Flynn into a malicious and ultimately unsuccessful prosecution. (The DOJ dropped the charges, which Judge Emmet G. Sullivan refused to execute, thus necessitating a pardon from Mr. Trump.)
Mary McCord was instrumental in the DOJ’s dishonest FISA application to surveil Carter Page (when Judge James Boasberg sat on the FISA Court). Ms. McCord quit the DOJ to become a counsel to the committee in the first impeachment of Donald Trump. In that role, she assisted Norm Eisen, the Chief Counsel to committee Chairman, Rep. Jerrold Nadler. Norm Eisen has gone on since that time to become the chief coordinator of lawfare operations against Mr. Trump. Mary McCord remains a senior fellow of the Atlantic Council, sponsored by George and Alex Soros. Sheldon Snook remains at John Roberts’ right hand.
Do you find these connections disturbing? Do they suggest where Justice John Roberts may stand in the war between the Deep State and President Donald Trump? I suppose we are going to find out.
So, if the SCOTUS upholds the arrogation of executive powers and prerogatives by federal district judges, don’t expect Mr. Trump to roll over for that decision. It may come to pass, as per all the above, that he will be constrained to declare a national emergency to vacate the Deep State actors who are trying to make it impossible for him to govern, establishing special tribunals to disarm them. This, of course, will be seen by the Deep State and the Democratic Party as cassus belli, an excuse to declare war against the president. We seem to be headed in that direction. There will be friction, heat, and light."
Thursday, March 27, 2025
Canadian Prepper, "Alert: Washington Insider Issues 30 Day Warning! Prepare Now!"
Full screen recommended.
Canadian Prepper, 3/27/25
"Alert: Washington Insider Issues 30 Day Warning!
Prepare Now!"
Comments here:
Jeremiah Babe, "I Can't Wait To Leave California, Stocking Emergency Preps In A Storage Locker"
Jeremiah Babe, 3/27/25
"I Can't Wait To Leave California,
Stocking Emergency Preps In A Storage Locker"
Comments here:
Musical Interlude: Deuter, "Atmospheres"
Deuter, "Atmospheres"
Be kind to yourself, relax and enjoy this...
Find yourself in enchanted and blissful serenity.
"A Look to the Heavens"
“Stars are sometimes born in the midst of chaos. About 3 million years ago in the nearby galaxy M33, a large cloud of gas spawned dense internal knots which gravitationally collapsed to form stars. NGC 604 was so large, however, it could form enough stars to make a globular cluster.
Many young stars from this cloud are visible in the above image from the Hubble Space Telescope, along with what is left of the initial gas cloud. Some stars were so massive they have already evolved and exploded in a supernova. The brightest stars that are left emit light so energetic that they create one of the largest clouds of ionized hydrogen gas known, comparable to the Tarantula Nebula in our Milky Way's close neighbor, the Large Magellanic Cloud.”
- http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap121211.html
"Hold On To Something..."
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."
- Samwise Gamgee,
"Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers"
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