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Wednesday, October 28, 2026
"Why Are So Many Countries Suddenly Warning Their Citizens To Prepare For An Emergency And Stockpile Essential Survival Supplies?"
by Michael Snyder
"What in the world is going on? Why are governments all over the planet suddenly encouraging their citizens to become preppers? Do they know something that they aren’t telling us? If it was just one nation that was suddenly instructing people to stockpile food, water and other essential supplies, that wouldn’t be a big deal. But it isn’t just one nation. As you will see below, quite a long list of countries have simultaneously decided that now is the time for everyone to get prepared. So what has prompted this sudden sense of urgency?
For some reason, governments in Europe seem to have more of a sense of urgency than anyone else…Governments in the UK, Sweden, Germany, Ireland, the Netherlands and France have encouraged households to keep food, water, medicines and other essentials available for emergencies. I can’t recall a time when so many European governments have been so concerned about making sure that their citizens are prepared for an emergency.
In the UK, the “Be Ready campaign” has been launched. Every citizen is being encouraged to stockpile at least enough food and bottled water to last for 72 hours…Every Briton is being urged to stock up to nine litres of bottled water and three days’ worth of food in new government guidance designed to ensure that households can survive a weather, cyber or other serious emergency. The Be Ready campaign is aimed at persuading people to stock up with supplies to last 72 hours, amid growing official concern about the impact of the climate crisis, technological dependency and hostile state threats.
Dan Jarvis, the security minister, said that “those who can follow this advice should follow this advice”. It amounted to “simple steps to be ready for everyday emergencies” as part of a wider, community-oriented effort “to improve our resilience as a nation”, he said.
So why has it suddenly become so important to do this? The UK’s defense secretary is saying that it is because we “live in a more dangerous and turbulent world”… UK families are suddenly being told to stock up on emergency supplies – and to prepare for war.
Wes Streeting, the UK’s defense secretary, went on a media blitz to push a new “Be Ready” campaign to boost Brits’ preparedness for crises - which he said could range from floods and wildfires to terrorism and cyber attacks and ultimately even war. “There’s no sugarcoating the fact that we do live in a more dangerous and turbulent world,” Streeting told BBC’s “Newsnight.” “It’s about saying to households across the country to be ready by just having some everyday essentials indoors should there be disruption from these sorts of events.”
Yes, our world has certainly become more “dangerous” and more “turbulent”, but I also get the impression that there is something that he isn’t telling us. In Sweden, citizens are being told that they may have to survive on their own for at least a week “in case of crisis or war”…In Sweden, the country’s civil defense guidance is warning households to be able to manage on their own for at least one week ‘in case of crisis or war.’ ‘The state of the world has worsened drastically in recent years. War is being waged in our vicinity. Extreme weather events are becoming increasingly common. Terror threats, cyberattacks, and disinformation campaigns are being used to undermine and influence us,’ the bulletin stated. It is noteworthy that Swedish authorities are using the word “war”, because a lot of people out there are convinced that military conflict is what has prompted all of this talk about preparing.
On social media, many are speculating that European governments are getting ready to go to war with Russia…
But if European governments are bracing for a military showdown with Russia, why is the government of Japan urging their citizens to stockpile food, water and other necessary supplies?…
Statements from Japan’s Disaster Management Minister indicate that the government is preparing to issue a national “emergency request” on November 2, 2026. The request aims to urge all households across the country to stockpile essential survival supplies. The announcement is planned for the same day as the official launch of Japan’s National Disaster Management Agency. The new national agency will lead coordination efforts across the country regarding disaster planning, immediate emergency response, long-term recovery, and reconstruction.
I can’t remember the Japanese government ever doing anything like this. Just like in the UK, Japanese citizens are being instructed to have enough on hand to last for at least three days…The emergency request lays down a self-sufficiency window of at least three days. However, the Disaster Management Minister Gishi Hosono emphasized that a one-week supply is recommended wherever possible.
Here in the United States, Project FORTRESS has just been initiated. The goal is for the U.S. military to be able to keep fighting for at least 90 days if all civilian infrastructure goes down…The Pentagon is preparing U.S. military bases to keep operating for at least 90 days without outside support as it prepares for the possibility of a major war that could cripple power grids, disrupt supply chains and threaten critical infrastructure on American soil.
The new requirement is part of FORTRESS, a broader military initiative aimed at ensuring American forces can continue fighting even if the civilian systems they depend on are disrupted, according to documents reviewed by Fox News Digital. “We don’t want to rely on standard civilian municipal infrastructure to run our national defense. We just simply can’t. It’s an intolerable risk,” Pentagon chief spokesperson Sean Parnell told Fox News Digital.
What kind of scenario would “cripple power grids, disrupt supply chains and threaten critical infrastructure”? I can only think of a few, and most of them involve military conflict. So what do they think might happen?
Shortly after we learned about Project FORTRESS, former Deputy Director of the FBI Dan Bongino issued a very urgent warning…The former Deputy Director of the FBI has issued an urgent warning to Americans as countries worldwide start stockpiling supplies for a potential crisis. Dan Bongino, who left the bureau in January, said the public needs to do what the UK and European governments are telling citizens: Have a preparedness plan and at least three days of food and power ready. ‘Have yourself an emergency radio, have yourself some batteries, get yourself some emergency food, get yourself a rain collection and water filtration, some filtration tablets,’ he said on Monday. ‘Get your stuff today. Please. Do it for your family,’ Bongino added.
Even though he no longer works for the government, Bongino still has lots of contacts inside the government. Has he been told something that would prompt him to literally beg his listeners to go out and buy emergency supplies? Someone should really ask him that question. And why is he urging us to have a “rain collection” system? You wouldn’t need to collect rain unless you were facing some sort of a long-term catastrophic emergency. Without a doubt, everything that he is saying is wise advice. But why has he suddenly developed such a sense of urgency? I have a feeling that something big is coming. Perhaps after the midterm elections in the United States we shall find out what it is."
Dan, I Allegedly, "This Is Getting Ugly"
Full screen recommended.
Dan, I Allegedly, 10/28/26
"This Is Getting Ugly"
"Businesses are struggling, restaurants are closing, and the cost of everyday life keeps climbing. From fast-food deals to outrageous restaurant bills, corporate mergers, changing consumer habits, and the growing pressure on small businesses, we’re looking at the warning signs affecting the American economy."
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"10 Expenses You Need to Cut Now for the Upcoming Economic Depression - The Reckoning Will Arrive Quietly!"
"10 Expenses You Need to Cut Now for the Upcoming
Economic Depressionv- The Reckoning Will Arrive Quietly!"
by John Walter
Excerpt: Editor’s Note: "Economists say nobody can date a recession, which is true and also the least useful thing they tell us, since a household does not need a date so much as a margin. What people can date is their own tightening - the cancelled service, the second car listed on a Saturday morning, the pantry that abruptly acquires a system and a rotation - and that tightening is already underway in ordinary kitchens where the arithmetic gets done after the dishes are washed, months ahead of any official confirmation.
Two questions sit under everything that follows: how much fixed weight can an ordinary family carry before one bad quarter becomes a ruined decade, and who decided the answer should be as much as a lender will allow? The second matters more, because nobody actually signed off on it, and because the answer has been quietly wrong before.
This piece is long on purpose, and it is written for people who would rather move early than move under duress. (Major sites are warning of a possible economic collapse in the coming years - watch this video to find out why.)
Cutting Weight Before the Storm: Why Households Feel the Break Long Before Economists Name It: The last time the ground shifted this way, in 2008, the earliest warnings came from the least credentialed places. The mortgage broker stopped returning calls. A neighbor sold a boat in June, which nobody thought about until October. When a plant trimmed overtime without announcing anything, the men on the floor noticed before the memos did. By the time the official word arrived, the decisions that would decide how the year treated each household had already been made by whoever made them, and everyone else spent two years catching up to a reality that had been visible, faintly, for months. Something similar is in the air now, minus the convenience of one dramatic event to point at, which makes it harder to argue about and considerably easier to ignore.
Being right about the future is less valuable than being early about your own exposure, and nobody needs a forecast to notice that fixed costs have crept up to meet income, that a savings account has been quietly subsidising the gap between the life a family leads and the one it planned, or that the whole arrangement rests on a single signature continuing to arrive. What follows is not a prophecy and does not pretend to be one, only a triage list ordered the way you would move if the ground started to give - fastest cuts first, then the slow, heavy, invisible ones that take years rather than weeks.
Four things are worth pinning down before the list, because they explain the order, and why some families will barely feel a downturn that flattens others.
▪ Fixed costs do not shrink when income does. A mortgage, a car payment, a card minimum and a nursery bill keep arriving in full whether or not the paycheck behind them arrives at all, so the damage in a collapse gets done by obligations rather than by prices. The family that can bend its obligations survives a shock that snaps the family carrying more of them, and income rarely decides which is which.
▪ Two households earning the same salary can sit in opposite positions. One holds a mortgage coverable on half a paycheck, drives something paid off and keeps a few months of cash within reach, while the other needs both incomes, carries a loan on the second car, services a card balance and keeps almost nothing liquid. From the street they look identical; only one has room to move.
▪ Cash is not the same thing as net worth. A retirement account feels like a cushion until it has to be tapped in a falling market, and home equity feels like one until the sale drags on four months and the buyer offers less than the last comparable. The only genuine cushion is the boring sort: money sitting somewhere reachable, doing nothing impressive, ready on a Tuesday.
▪ The window to act closes before the layoff, not after it. Once the notice lands, everyone in town is selling at the same moment, lenders tighten in unison and the family that waited pays the price of the crowd. Move while the paycheck still exists and you sell into a functioning market; move afterwards and you sell into a queue.
Here is where the last two collapses get specific, since generalities have a way of sliding off. Between 1929 and 1932 American equities lost roughly 89 percent of their value, around nine thousand banks failed and took depositors’ money with them, unemployment climbed toward a quarter of the workforce, national income fell by close to a third, and the federal government eventually shut every bank in the country for a week in March 1933 to stop the runs. Thirty years of habit dissolved in three, and the men who came through with their dignity intact were mostly the ones who owed the least. In 2008 the mechanism was faster and narrower but just as brutal in the personal register: Lehman Brothers filed on 15 September, credit markets froze within days, the S&P 500 fell about 57 percent from its 2007 peak to its March 2009 low, roughly 8.7 million jobs vanished and home prices dropped by around a third, leaving millions owing more than their houses were worth and unable to sell or refinance their way clear.
(A sequence that actually happened, and deserves remembering, because it answers the question of whether money in a bank is really money in your hand. In December 2001 Argentina froze bank withdrawals under a set of limits the press called the corralito, and savers discovered that the balance on the statement was real but unreachable; when the currency peg broke weeks later, dollar deposits were converted at a rate savers had not agreed to. In March 2013 Cyprus imposed a haircut on uninsured deposits above €100,000 to fund a bank rescue, and money that had been guaranteed in ordinary conversation turned out to be a claim rather than a possession. In June and July 2015 Greece closed its banks and capped ATM withdrawals at €60 a day for weeks, and pensioners queued outside branches for their own money. None of these was a collapse of the kind the history books describe, and every one of them was a collapse for the household living through it.)
What the record keeps saying, in the grand versions and the small ones alike, is that pressure arrives as a sequence rather than a single blow. Employment goes first, in hours cut before jobs are lost and overtime that quietly stops, credit follows as approvals automatic in spring are refused by autumn, and assets come next, when the house and the fund that were meant to be the safety net turn out to be worth less than the family believed. Fixed obligations, which never tightened at all, keep arriving in full at the worst possible hour, which is why they matter more than the things people argue about. The trouble with the interval between the first sign and the general recognition is that families make their biggest decisions inside it, in the dark, on the reasonable assumption that the last ten years will run for ten more.
So the work is to shed weight now, while the ground still feels solid and selling is still easy. The order below runs from cuts that take an afternoon to cuts that take a year, and it runs that way deliberately, because the small fast ones create the margin that the big slow ones are paid out of; skip the sequence and the margin never appears, since the other costs keep absorbing whatever surplus shows up.
What follows, then, are the ten places a household bleeds, and what to do about each. Two dots, and then the list:"
Full, most highly recommended article is here:
"Snyder Reports, 10/28/26"
Full screen recommended.
Snyder Reports, 10/28/26
"Feds Prepare For Election Doomsday -
Election Concerns Are Growing"
"Less than one week from the 2026 midterm elections - and the federal government is already preparing for an election doomsday scenario. According to three officials, the Justice Department has been discussing contingency plans to intervene in next week's midterms, covering scenarios seen as improbable but not impossible: foreign interference, claims that non-citizens voted, and chaos at the polls. In Alaska, a Trump-ordered DOJ lawsuit asked a federal judge to block the state from certifying a winner unless the incumbent, Republican Senator Dan Sullivan, comes out on top. Alaska is fighting back - and a judge has now set filing deadlines. In this video I break down what is actually on the table before the midterms, what both parties are preparing for, what is NOT confirmed yet, and what it means for your vote and your confidence in the outcome."
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"The War's The Thing"
"The War's The Thing"
by John Leake
"I voted for Trump because he promised “no more wars.” Holding a man to his most important promise about matters of life and death is what self-respecting grownups do. Many readers were offended by my post Both Sides of TDS: Trump Derangement Syndrome is the obverse of Trump Dimwit Syndrome. They apparently believe that Trump’s decision to break ten years of promises not to start new wars is a minor point. Others apparently believe that Trump always intended to vanquish the Iranian regime, which they believe “has been at war with the US since 1979.” They seem to believe that Trump never mentioned this intention because he assumed that prospective voters would understand that attacking Iran did not qualify as a “new war.”
I believe I have made it clear on this newsletter that I am opposed to war unless US territory is attacked. As all our Founding Fathers and many philosophers of great intellectual and moral distinction have remarked over the centuries, war is a calamity, and the decision to wage war is the most momentous, dangerous, and usually the most corrupt thing an executive can do.
Because only 0.4% of Americans serve in the military, 99.6% haven’t a clue about war and how terrible it is. Without knowing anything about it - and taking for granted that they and their children have little to no risk of being killed or maimed by it - they are “okay” with the US government/military killing foreigners and destroying their lands.
They don’t worry or lose sleep over young men who are killed by American weapons or the grief of the mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, and friends of these young men. It doesn’t bother them when American bombs destroy cities and civilian infrastructure, disrupting the lives, jobs, food and fuel supplies of millions and wrecking their economies.
For readers who don’t understand why I have become so critical of President Trump, I will clearly declare it so that you can decide if you wish to continue reading my newsletter posts, which are delivered from “John Leake From Focal Points.”
ͦ I do not share the tendency to be “okay” with killing people and dropping bombs on women and children and civilian infrastructure.
ͦ I believe that the perfidy and odiousness of the Democrats do not mitigate the gravity of Trump’s broken promise.
ͦ I believe that war is the most significant, dangerous, risky, and corrupt thing a US president can do, and that his domestic policies are of secondary importance.
ͦ In the matter of war - that is, the life, death, and property of millions - I expected President Trump to keep his promises."
Bill Bonner, "Doomsday Prospectus"
"Doomsday Prospectus"
by Bill Bonner
Ardmore, Ireland - "‘Oh, and by the way...it could be the end of all life as we know it. ‘But don’t bother coming after us. We warned you.’ That was the gist of perhaps the strangest disclosure ever issued by a company preparing an IPO. Normally, disclosures are written by lawyers who cover every possibility but with the pizzazz of instructions on how to use your new vacuum cleaner. But in this case, the warnings are so apocalyptic...we can scarcely wait to see what happens.
The company is Anthropic. Its stock-in-trade is AI. And it could kill us all. The Independent: "In a long list of potential dangers for the company, it warns that its systems could “pose catastrophic or existential risks to humanity, particularly if such systems were misused, replicated, weaponized, or allowed to operate with a high degree of autonomy”.
The IPO documents point to a whole range of ways that Anthropic’s systems could pose a threat. They include models that have already been shown to be able to help people “develop chemical, biological, or other dangerous weapons”, and the use of its models in “high-risk or sensitive contexts, such as healthcare, scientific and biomedical research, drug discovery and development, legal, finance, government, or other critical decision-making environments.”
In addition to possibly causing the extinction of the human race, Anthropic may wipe out your money. Daily Mail: "The company behind the chatbot Claude reported a net loss of $80m.7 billion in the first half of 2026. That compares to a loss of $13 billion in the same period a year earlier. Despite the losses, Anthropic, valued earlier this year at $965 billion by private investors, is reportedly set to see that value rise to $1.5 trillion or possibly $2 trillion, although its final valuation has not been established.
This is not an investment offer...it is a Doomsday Prospectus. A single company worth more than $1 trillion? A company that has, as of yet, not earned a dime? The whole idea is absurd. But whatever else can be said about it, it’s one for the record books - one of the many strange things that are happening in the money world.
Most peculiar is the money itself. As far as we know, no paper money has held up so well as the dollar. It’s lost 96% of its value since the Federal Reserve was set up to protect it. But it is still in use. And perhaps no other currency has so thoroughly distorted and disjointed an entire world economy. In order to be worth so much, Anthropic would have to look forward to annual earnings of $50 to $100 billion per year - almost forever. But forever is a very long time for anyone. For a tech investor it’s about three months.
And how is Anthropic going to earn so much when a better product can be had for free? Already in a Front End Code Arena (whatever that is!) China’s Open Source Kimi-K3 beat Claude Fable 5...and every other US for-profit contender. That is probably why Anthropic is rushing an IPO. It is like a grocery store that marks down its inventory on Saturday; by Monday, the bread will be stale and the bananas will be rotten.
And something else for the record book, Anthropic could lose as much as $200 billion this year...marking it as the biggest money loser of all time. By comparison, Tesla’s losses are peanuts. Since its founding in 2003, it lost only $7 billion until it reached profitability in 2020.
There is so much cash, credit and claptrap in the asset markets. Like a giant sea surge - companies like Anthropic, Tesla, and others are lifted up far beyond what they are worth. Anthropic may come to rest on an Everest, with a value of $2 trillion, say some speculators.
Remember our dictum: The more you inflate prices, the less things are really worth. We brought up the subject yesterday. You may say that these prices are ‘inflated’ by the feds’ funny money. But what does that mean?
The output of Anthropic can in no way be described as ‘worth’ the prospective stock value. Its output is negative, by the aforementioned $80 billion in the first six months of this year. Speculators may guess that it will turn positive sometime in the future, but where will that money come from? From the millions of people whose jobs have been lost to AI robots? Will Claude make the accountants, lawyers, radiologists, and architects jobless...and then bill them for the benefits of AI? Unless the industry can add to consumer incomes - which seems unlikely its current market valuations are just more fakery caused by the funny money fever; don’t try to take it to the bank.
Worth noting is that while trillions flush down the AI dream-hole, investment in residential construction has dropped. Zillow: "Over the 12 months ending July 2026, more than 1.42 million residential building permits were issued nationwide, down 1.7% from the same period a year earlier. Compared with the pre-pandemic trajectory from 2016 through 2020, permitting is running 19.4% below where it would have been if that trend had held."
But building data centers has boomed. At present prices and mortgage rates, approximately 88 million families are said to have been ‘priced out’ of the housing market. But at least the data will have a nice place to live. Air-conditioned. Off-street parking. And no noisy neighbors. The family of four can move in with the grandparents. And if Anthropic wipes them out…along with their town…and their country, who could complain? It was in the prospectus!"
John Wilder, "Manmade Horrors Beyond Human Comprehension"
"Manmade Horrors Beyond Human Comprehension"
by John Wilder
“Mr. Quaid, can you hear yourself? She’s real because you dreamt her?”
– "Total Recall"
"It’s the spooky season running up to Halloween, so, why not get a little strange and think about the dark side of things. I mean, with a chuckle or two.
Philip K. Dick is dead. I think. In life, Dick was obsessed with one overriding theme: that reality ain’t what it used to be. In his stories, he focused on things not being what they seemed to be. During his life he was dirt poor, and drug addicted. Back then, I hear, the goal of hippies was to do as many drugs as they could and not get caught. But enough about the Tour de France.
If that wasn’t enough, Dick was also paranoid, so I imagine having him over for dinner would have been, well, interesting, especially if he was in the midst of a meth binge. But his vision caught up with the world and since his death many movies and at least two television series have been based on his work. I’ll say, if you stop "The Man in the High Castle" at the end of season one, it’s a pretty good show. And some of the movies have been entertaining. We are, however, getting to the point in the news cycle where Dick’s vision seems to be on the verge of being able to be real as he wrote a lot about machine intelligence, so let’s review A.I.
In the last few days, Jack Dorsey of O.G. Twitter© fame, introduced an A.I. named Dessa that he claims was entirely trained on spoken language. If true, this is a huge increase in the amount of information that A.I.s can be trained on, as the spoken word contains so much more information than the same words as written down.
We had speech far before we had writing, and the intonation, timbre, pitch, and timing of words all have meaning that is very difficult to catch in the written word. I don’t need to have to wonder what The Mrs. means when she asks, “What are you doing?” because that sentence, though it can contain hundreds of different meanings, is always very clear from the way she says it. This is unlike when The Mrs. says, “Don’t leave your socks in the front room.” I have no idea what The Mrs. means by that one.
Training A.I. by voice is, I suppose, the next phase of A.I. development. Add in the capacity to process text, and you’ve got at least twice the training material, if not an order of magnitude more. What’s next? Well, why not mimic the sensory input of a child in a robot, and have the A.I. interact with the physical world the way an infant human would? You can mimic the stimuli that a child feels, from being tired, to being hungry, to being alone, to feeling pain and discomfort.
I’ve often thought that the limiting factor in the training of A.I. was in giving it limits, i.e., bounding the formless void that it dreams in with walls and time and sensation. My thought has been it is the existence of those very limits that created consciousness.
So now, an “infant” A.I. is trained and conditioned on the world. Hell, it doesn’t even have to be a real world, it could be a simulation, since the A.I. could easily be placed in a realistic video game engine to experience the world. And it would be easy to do this with 100,000 A.I.s at a time, discarding all of those that didn’t meet the parameters the researcher was looking for into electronic oblivion, even if they were conscious. The researcher could use just the best of them as templates to build all of the A.I.s for the next phase of development. Those A.I.s then would just be copies of the A.I. that had the “actual” experience. Paging Philip K. Dick.
If that worked, and the researcher gave it a body, well, we’re straight into Bladerunner territory where we, humanity, may have created something that is indistinguishable from a conscious human being out of this laboratory. I’ll note, if it’s indistinguishable, at what point would we have to call it alive? At what point would we have to call it human? Can it get worse? Certainly!
The post is titled "Manmade Horrors Beyond Human Comprehension", so I’ve gotta live up to that. It gets worse. What happens if we use all that simulation data . . . on us.
Aldous Huxley famously wrote "Brave New World", which, arguably is closer to reality than Orwell’s "1984." But I digress, that’s fodder for another post.
Brave New World centered around a caste system. In it, there were five levels:
Alphas: the intellectual elite.
Betas: smart, but not independent and not capable of revolt.
Gammas: mass-produced drone men with some skills.
Deltas: no-skill laborers, can’t read.
Epsilons: barely above animals.
These creatures were based on genetic engineering, chemical manipulation, and conditioning. Based on what we’ve seen with immigration, it certainly seems like "Brave New World" is the goal. I’ll let you fill in the blanks.
At what point are humans replaced by A.I. in the caste system our overlords would have? At what point do they use A.I. to create a Skinner Box for conditioning humans based on A.I. research? At what point do they cease needing wild-born humans at all? At what point will they want to discard us?
We seem to be messy and independent, which isn’t good for the bottom line, and certainly not good for the comfort of the elite. These risks certainly do seem to converge, one a man-like artificial servant that is born of hundreds of thousands of sacrifices, and one a neutered caricature of a human built to serve the needs of a ravenous elite.
Thankfully Dick and Huxley were paranoid mad dreamers and nothing like that could ever happen. And don’t think I’m a paranoid drug user. Don’t you be calling me a Dick! Besides, that’s the word that The Mrs. keeps using when she mentions socks. Whatever could she mean?"
Tuesday, October 27, 2026
"AI Insiders Final Warning: 'It Will Kill You' w/ Connor Leahy"
Full screen recommended.
Canadian Prepper, 10/27/26
"AI Insiders Final Warning:
'It Will Kill You' w/ Connor Leahy"
Comments here:
"Why Is The US In A Cascade Of Dangers?"
Full screen recommended.
Snyder Reports, 10/27/26
"Why Is The US In A Cascade Of Dangers?"
Experts are now warning the United States to prepare for a cascade of dangers this winter - and it comes down to two things colliding at the worst possible moment. Sweeping cuts to NOAA have slashed staff levels, canceled contracts and grants, and shut down databases and research labs. The agency long considered a global crown jewel in climate science and forecasting has lost roughly 20% of its staff since January 2025. At the same time, forecasters are tracking a potentially historic Super El Niño for 2026–2027, and a polar vortex forecast to weaken and stretch in early November - which can push cold air deep into the Southeast for days, if not weeks. In this video: what a "cascade of dangers" actually means, the flooding already hitting Hawaii, heavy rain aimed at Southern California on Halloween weekend, what stratospheric warming does to the jet stream, and why experts say this is the worst possible time for both of these to happen at once."
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Musical Interlude: 2002, "Falling Through Time"
Full screen recommended.
2002, "Falling Through Time"
"A Look to the Heavens"
"Dwarf galaxies NGC 147 (left) and NGC 185 stand side by side in this sharp telescopic portrait. The two are not-often-imaged satellites of M31, the great spiral Andromeda Galaxy, some 2.5 million light-years away. Their separation on the sky, less than one degree across a pretty field of view, translates to only about 35 thousand light-years at Andromeda's distance, but Andromeda itself is found well outside this frame.
Brighter and more famous satellite galaxies of Andromeda, M32 and M110, are seen closer to the great spiral. NGC 147 and NGC 185 have been identified as binary galaxies, forming a gravitationally stable binary system. But recently discovered faint dwarf galaxy Cassiopeia II also seems to be part of their system, forming a gravitationally bound group within Andromeda's intriguing population of small satellite galaxies."
Asha’s AI Art & Music, "The Celestial Kingdom"
Full screen recommended.
Asha’s AI Art & Music, "The Celestial Kingdom"
"Welcome to The Celestial Kingdom - a breathtaking fantasy realm suspended high above the clouds, where luminous palaces rise among floating islands, waterfalls disappear into the mist, and peaceful gardens glow beneath endless skies. Journey through grand ivory-and-gold halls, tranquil turquoise pools, flowering terraces, hidden libraries, and magnificent castles drifting among the clouds. As daylight fades into a deep sapphire night, the kingdom comes alive with warm lantern light, shimmering waterfalls, graceful fairies, and quiet celestial beauty. This immersive fantasy journey is accompanied by original ethereal music featuring delicate strings, harp melodies, atmospheric textures, soft humming, and sparse male and female fantasy vocals. Some vocals are intentionally sung in an invented fantasy language, allowing the voices to become part of the atmosphere rather than tell a specific story. Perfect for relaxing, studying, reading, writing, sleeping, creative inspiration, or simply escaping into another world for a while. For the best experience, headphones are recommended."
Native American Elder, "Wisdom When You Feel Completely Lost"
Full screen recommended.
Native American Elder,
"Wisdom When You Feel Completely Lost"
"A Lonesome Highway Hymn"
Full screen recommended.
Retro String, "A Lonesome Highway Hymn"
"Some music is heard. The blues is felt. Welcome to a journey through smoky guitar tones, slow-burning rhythms, soulful melodies, and the unmistakable sound of the blues. Every note carries a little heartache, every guitar bend holds a memory, and every rhythm feels like a story from another time. Imagine an old blues bar after midnight - dim lights, a weathered guitar, a glass on the table, and music drifting through the room long after everyone else has gone home. This playlist blends the spirit of Classic Blues, Soul Blues, Slow Blues, and Blues Rock into a timeless listening experience made for quiet nights and reflective moments."
"It's Human Nature..."
“We’ve all heard the warnings and we’ve ignored them. We push our luck. We roll the dice. It’s human nature. When we’re told not to touch something we usually do even if we know better. Maybe because deep down, we’re just asking for trouble.”
- “Meredith Grey”, “Gray’s Anatomy”
"What The Herd Hates The Most..."
"Men fear thought as they fear nothing else on earth, more than ruin, more even than death. Thought is subversive and revolutionary, destructive and terrible, thought is merciless to privilege, established institutions, and comfortable habit. Thought looks into the pit of hell and is not afraid. Thought is great and swift and free, the light of the world, and the chief glory of man."
- Bertrand Russell
"If you're going to tell people the truth make them laugh, or they'll kill you."
- Oscar Wilde
“The Immutable Laws of Nature, and Murphy’s Other 15 Laws”
“The Immutable Laws of Nature, and Murphy’s Other 15 Laws”
by Peter McKenzie-Brown
“The Immutable Laws of Nature”
•Law of Mechanical Repair: After your hands become coated with grease, your nose will begin to itch and you’ll have to pee.
•Law of Gravity: Any tool, nut, bolt, screw, when dropped, will roll to the least accessible place.
•Law of Probability: The probability of being watched is directly proportional to the stupidity of your act.
•Law of Random Numbers: If you dial a wrong number, you never get a busy signal; someone always answers.
•Law of Variable Motion: If you change traffic lanes or checkout queues, the one you were in will always move faster than the one you are in now.
•Law of the Bath: When the body is fully immersed in water, the telephone will ring.
•Law of Close Encounters: The probability of meeting someone you know increases exponentially when you are alongside someone you don’t want to be seen with.
•Law of the Damned Thing: When you try to prove to someone that a machine or device won’t work, it will.
•Law of Biomechanics: The severity of the itch is inversely proportional to the reach.
•Law of the Spectator: At any theatrical, musical or sporting event, the people whose seats are furthest from the aisle always arrive last. They are the ones who will leave their seats several times to go for food, for beer, or to the toilet and who leave before the end of the performance or game. Those who occupy the aisle seats come early, never move once, have long gangly legs or big bellies and stay seated beyond the end of the performance. The aisle people also are very surly folk.
•Law of Coffee: As soon as you sit down to a cup of hot coffee, your partner will ask you to do something which will last until the coffee is cold.
•Murphy’s Law of Lockers: When only 2 people are in a locker room, they will have adjacent lockers.
•Law of Plane Surfaces: The chance that a slice of marmalade toast will land face down on a floor is directly correlated to the newness and cost of the carpet or rug.
•Law of Logical Argument: Anything is possible when you don’t know what you are talking about.
•Law of Physical Appearance: If clothes fit, they’re ugly.
•Law of Public Speaking: A closed mouth gathers no feet
•Law of Commercial Marketing: As soon as you find a product that you really like, it will cease production or the store will stop selling it.
•Law of Psychosomatic Medicine: If you don’t feel well, make an appointment to see to the doctor and by the time you get there, you’ll feel better. If you don’t make an appointment you’ll stay sick.
“Murphy’s Other 15 Laws”
1. Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.
2. A fine is a tax for doing wrong. A tax is a fine for doing well.3. He who laughs last, thinks slowest.
4. A day without sunshine is like, well, night.
5. Change is inevitable, except from a vending machine.
6. Those who live by the sword get shot by those who don’t.
7. Nothing is foolproof to a sufficiently talented fool.
8. The 50-50-90 rule: Anytime you have a 50-50 chance of getting something right, there’s a 90% probability you’ll get it wrong.
9. It is said that if you line up all the cars in the world end-to-end, someone would be stupid enough to try to pass them.
10. If the shoe fits, get another one just like it.
11. The things that come to those who wait, may be the things left by those who got there first.
12. Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day. Teach a man to fish and he will sit in a boat all day drinking beer.
13. Flashlight: A case for holding dead batteries.
14. God gave you toes as a device for finding furniture in the dark.
15. When you go into court, you are putting yourself in the hands of twelve people who weren’t smart enough to get out of jury duty.”
"I Used to Be Disgusted, Now I'm Just Tired"
"I Used to Be Disgusted, Now I'm Just Tired"
by Charles Hugh Smith
"The midterm elections, the “most important elections of our lifetimes,” are coming. Whoever wins, it isn't really going to change much. Today’s system is simply too deeply entrenched. While the much-touted differences between America's political parties get obsessive, hysterical attention, the sameness of Imperial corruption, waste and squalor regardless of who's in power gets little notice.
Scrape away the differences - mostly in domestic and cultural issues - and we see the dead hand of Imperial Corruption is on the tiller. The core of Imperial Corruption is the disconnect between the nation's ideals of representational democracy and open markets and the sordid reality: elites serve their interests by corrupting both democracy and open markets.
Elites Against Democracy: Unfettered democracy and markets cannot be controlled by a tiny, self-serving elite. Stripped of corruption, democracy and markets are free-for-alls that are constantly evolving. This open-ended dynamism is the beating heart of both democracy and open markets. But the dynamic adaptive churn of unfettered representative democracy and open markets are anathema to insiders, vested interests and elites. Each has gained asymmetric power by subverting democracy and markets to serve their private interests. They’ve destroyed the system’s natural dynamism.
When "competition" has been reduced to two telecoms, two healthcare insurers, two pork processors, etc., the system has been stripped of adaptability and resilience. Democracy has been replaced by an auction of political power to the highest bidder.
Everything’s Up for Grabs: It rewards cronies and devotes all its resources not to solving the nation's problems but to whipping up conflagrations of divisiveness and partisan hysteria that wash away the middle ground where problems can actually be addressed. This crippling of the nation's ability to actually solve difficult problems serves the interests of self-serving elites whose sole interest is accumulating personal wealth and power.
Their proclaimed interest in solving the nations' real-world problems are fraudulent tissues designed to hide the putrid reality that all their so-called "solutions" distill down to sluicing huge sums of state money to cronies and campaign contributors under the guise of "solving problems."
The only "problem" America's elites know how to solve is the "problem" of how to get personally richer while tightening their control of the nation-state's vast flood of (taxed/ borrowed) money. Cronies and contributors get tax breaks hidden in 1,000-page legislation and overflowing rivers of money (here's looking at you, Big Pharma, Big Defense, Higher Education, Sickcare, et al.).
Masters at Misdirection and Distraction: America's elites are masters at misdirection and distraction: it's always the other side's fault that the nation is sliding down the chute. The elites don't really care which side is in power, as they control them both to serve their own interests. Any advance that increases efficiency and productivity and furthers the public good is squelched, suppressed or co-opted by vested interests. They fear, rightly, that their share of the spoils might be diminished by advances that render obsolete their particular cartel, monopoly or other embedded skim, scam, fraud, embezzlement or simply unproductive dead weight.
But something funny happens on the way to gaining control of complex emerging systems: that control destroys the system's self-correcting mechanisms and adaptability. Rigging the system to serve one's own interests destroys the system's ability to adapt to changing circumstances and selective pressures.
Adapt or Die: Once a system has been crippled to serve the interest of an elite, when forced to adapt or die, it can only die as its mechanisms of adaptation were destroyed by the power-grab of elites. An economy dominated by a handful of cartels and quasi-monopolies is an economy that is doomed to slide into the dustbin of history, as cartels and monopolies "win" by crushing competition, as competition threatens their profits and control of markets and governance, a.k.a. "democracy."
Any system that serves the interests of the few by choking off adaptability and the dynamisms of a free-for-all churn lacks the tools needed to avoid systemic collapse. By enabling elites to organize the nation to serve their personal interests, America has been stripped of the dynamics needed to adapt. Without these dynamics, collapse is the only possible outcome.
Don’t Forget the Deep State! But no mention of today’s “democracy” can ignore the Deep State - the unelected and unaccountable Administrative State. The Administrative State has existed in some form in every nation-state/empire, but the U.S. Deep State only gained its vast global powers in World War II and the Cold War. That was when the Deep State learned the lesson that the public can’t always be counted on to do “the right thing.” They may choose unwisely (for example, choosing appeasement over preparation). And so the really important decisions needed to preserve the nation cannot be left to the public or parochial politicos in elected office. Those decisions must be in the hands of those who know what has to be done.
Democracy is simply the rubber stamp for doing what's necessary. Beyond that, it's a potentially fatal hindrance. That's the mindset of the Deep State, and if you and I were in upper-echelon positions in the Administrative State, we'd agree with this mindset when things get serious.
This mindset is a self-reinforcing group-think feedback loop. Those who believe the public should set policy are weeded out, either by self-selection or via being sent to bureaucratic Siberia. We're protecting you. That's all you need to know.
This opens the door to functionaries who came to do good but stayed to do well, i.e. those with the right credentials and connections to enter the Power Circle to "serve the public" but soon become insiders maximizing their own private gains. That's the problem with the Administrative State: it's ultimately unaccountable, not just to the public or elected officials but to itself.
Enjoy the Circus: But in the meantime, enjoy the political theatrics we’ve been treated to down on the sand-strewn floor of the Coliseum. While Imperial Corruption undermines what's left of the nation's ability to adapt fast enough and successfully enough to survive what lies ahead, we can cheer the "winners" of the political bloodsport. We can simply ignore the winds of disorder sweeping the land.
It seems like it can just go on forever. But everything is forever until systemic weaknesses reveal themselves, typically at the most inopportune junctures. We could well be at one of them. It's easy to be disgusted. But I’ve found that being disabused of the fantasy that the system is self-correcting is the healthier perspective. I used to be infuriated by it all. Now I'm just tired of it all."
"How It Really Is"
"If only"... you don't stop because you can't stop.
If you do it's all over. It's all over anyway, you're just buying time.
Tell me I'm wrong...
Col Doug Macgregor, "Iran Just Made the One Move Trump Never Prepared For - Too Late to Stop It!"
Col Doug Macgregor, 10/27/26
"Iran Just Made the One Move Trump Never Prepared For -
Too Late to Stop It!"
"Col. Douglas Macgregor delivers a powerful analysis of Iran's unexpected strategic response to American military pressure, the growing vulnerability of U.S. military bases, and the dangerous escalation confronting President Donald Trump across the Middle East. Macgregor argues that Tehran has moved beyond simply surviving American and Israeli attacks toward a broader strategy of challenging Washington's military presence throughout the Persian Gulf. He examines Iran's surviving ballistic missile arsenal, advanced drone capabilities, and intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance systems that could threaten American troops, naval forces, and military installations. Macgregor also discusses Iran's reported military cooperation with Russia and China, warning that America's traditional reliance on aircraft carriers, air superiority, and precision-guided weapons may no longer guarantee strategic success.
As President Donald Trump faces mounting pressure over the Iran conflict, Macgregor explores what he considers Tehran's most consequential strategic move: shifting the confrontation toward American military bases and the regional security arrangements supporting U.S. operations. He examines the risks of deploying American ground forces to seize Iranian islands, the vulnerability of troops to persistent drone surveillance and missile strikes, and the challenge of maintaining control over the Strait of Hormuz. Macgregor also discusses the possibility of renewed U.S.-Israeli bombing campaigns, Iranian retaliation against Gulf oil infrastructure, and the devastating economic consequences of a prolonged regional conflict. He argues that further escalation could deepen the global energy crisis, weaken American influence, and leave Washington confronting military and diplomatic choices it never adequately prepared for. Has Iran found America's greatest military vulnerability by shifting the conflict from defending its own territory to threatening the very bases and regional infrastructure Washington depends on?"
Comments here:
"Judge Napolitano - Judging Freedom"
Judge Napolitano - Judging Freedom, 10/27/26
"Larry Johnson Warns:
Are You Ready for the Energy Crisis?"
Comments here:
"Trump on Iran: 'We’re Making A Fortune!'”
"Trump on Iran: 'We’re Making A Fortune!'”
by John Leake
"A fascinating character to emerge during the Thirty Years War (1618-1648) was Albrecht von Wallenstein, Duke of Friedland (September 1583 – 25 February 1634), a Bohemian military leader and statesman who fought on the Catholic side as supreme commander of the armies of Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand II. His successful military career made him one of the richest and most influential men at the time of his death by assassination.
Wallenstein built his initial fortune through the Kipper und Wipper financial crisis by participating in the debasement of coinage. He used those profits to buy estates confiscated from defeated Protestant nobles by Emperor Ferdinand II. Wallenstein organized these lands into a vast enterprise that funded a large private mercenary army.
While many criticized Wallenstein’s war profiteering and opportunism, no one accused him of lacking bravery. Early in the war, he personally led a breakthrough with his newly raised regiment of cuirassiers against Count Ernst von Mansfeld's forces at Theyn in Bohemia.
In this respect, Wallenstein contrasts with most US Presidents. The last to serve in combat was George H.W. Bush, who flew 58 combat missions as a carrier-based torpedo bomber pilot in the Pacific Theater, was shot down twice, and earned the Distinguished Service Flying Cross.
For those who are well positioned, war can be extremely profitable. Some observers who were in a position to know - such as Major General Smedley Darlington Butler (1881–1940), one of the most decorated officers in U.S. Marine Corps history - have concluded that War Is a Racket (as he characterized it in a 1935 pamphlet). As he saw it, war’s primary purpose is to enrich powerful commercial interests while the enormous costs are borne by ordinary citizens. Butler advocated restricting military force to genuine national defense and removing the financial incentives that encourage war. I was just reminded of Butler when I read the following essay by Ron Paul titled “Who Is Making Billions from the Iran War?” reproduced on the LewRockwell newsletter."
"Who Is Making Billions from the Iran War?"
By Ron Paul, MD
"At a campaign rally over the weekend, President Trump dismissed Americans’ concerns over high oil and gas prices, claiming that it’s a small price to pay for the hundreds of billions of dollars “we” are making from these higher prices. “We’re making a fortune,” he said. “Hundreds of billions of dollars. Trillions of dollars.” People are paying a little bit more for gas, he explained, but it doesn’t matter because “we” are making so much money.
The question is, “Who is ‘we’?” We know it is not the American people. They are seeing wage stagnation, inflation, and more pain at the pump. An Economist/YouGov poll earlier this month found that inflation and prices are the top concern among Americans by a wide margin. And in second place were jobs and the economy. The same poll asked Americans how they rate the state of the US economy and in first place – again by a long shot – was “poor.”
If “we” as in the American people were making hundreds of billions of dollars from the war, you would think these would not be their top two concerns. But we understand what the President meant by “we.” He meant that part of the “private” sector directly or indirectly in bed with the government war machine. From oil companies to weapons manufacturers and everything in between, war and conflict drive up profits in well-connected corporations at the expense of the rest of us.
That is why we are in a constant state of war. Twenty years in Afghanistan and a similar length in Iraq. Endless bombing in places like Somalia. A twelve-year (and counting) proxy war with Russia in Ukraine. Military bases and covert operations across the globe. And if we find that the largest military budget in the world does not deliver enough actual weapons to win a war? Well, that’s all good too: just double military spending and accuse anyone who objects of not being patriotic!
“Private” companies with enormous political power – many of them revolving doors between government and business – “make so much money” on war, as Trump would say. Whether these wars produce US wins, loses, or stalemates, these corporations in bed with government always win. The money-printing machine makes sure the money cycles into government-favored companies, while campaign contributions are made to the politicians who support the wars. And if you don’t support the wars? You get the Thomas Massie treatment.
Endless war produces more corporatism, where the private sector does not exist to provide goods to compete in the free market, but to serve political power and strengthen governmental control over the population. Think of it as welfare for the rich at the expense of the poor. The result is tyranny.
This is the very reason our Founders intended to make it as difficult as possible to wage war. As well-educated students of history, they understood how the concentration of war-making power in the hands of one ruler or an oligarchy would impoverish the masses and lead to a moral and financial bankruptcy. They placed war-making power in the “people’s branch” – Congress – hoping that the people would hold their representatives accountable. We have strayed very far from what they intended and if we are to survive, we must reclaim that authority and responsibility."
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