Jeremiah Babe, 6/19/26
"The Economy Is So Good
Everyone Is Living With Their Parents"
Comments here:
So, we rise from the rubble...
StatCounter
Friday, June 19, 2026
Musical Interlude: Juzzie Smith, "Bluesberry Jam"
Juzzie Smith, "Bluesberry Jam"
An incredible one-man-band...
"A Look to the Heavens"
“Few butterflies have a wingspan this big. The bright clusters and nebulae of planet Earth's night sky are often named for flowers or insects, and NGC 6302 is no exception. With an estimated surface temperature of about 250,000 degrees C, the central star of this particular planetary nebula is exceptionally hot though - shining brightly in ultraviolet light but hidden from direct view by a dense torus of dust.
Click image for larger size.
This dramatically detailed close-up of the dying star's nebula was recorded by the Hubble Space Telescope soon after it was upgraded in 2009. Cutting across a bright cavity of ionized gas, the dust torus surrounding the central star is near the center of this view, almost edge-on to the line-of-sight. Molecular hydrogen has been detected in the hot star's dusty cosmic shroud. NGC 6302 lies about 4,000 light-years away in the arachnologically correct constellation of the Scorpion (Scorpius).”
- http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap111113.html
"This Is the New America – A Second Great Depression Silently Destroying Millions"
Full screen recommended.
Across The States, 6/19/26
"This Is the New America –
A Second Great Depression Silently Destroying Millions"
"What if having a full-time job was no longer enough to guarantee a stable life? Across America, millions of working families are facing rising housing costs, shrinking financial cushions, growing medical bills, and an economy that looks healthy on paper but feels very different in everyday life. In this video, we break down the realities behind housing affordability, eviction risks, food insecurity, healthcare debt, and the growing gap between wages and the actual cost of living. From working people sleeping in their cars to families one emergency away from crisis, this report explores why economic hardship is becoming harder to see - and harder to escape. The numbers tell one story. The lived experience tells another. We examine the data, the structural challenges, and the questions many Americans are asking about work, stability, and the future of the middle and working class."
Comments here:
"People No Longer Believe What They're Being Told"
Full screen recommended.
Finance Economist, 6/19/26
"People No Longer Believe What They're Being Told"
"Someone told you the economy was doing well last week. You didn’t argue. You didn’t push back. You just stopped listening. That silence is the most dangerous thing happening in this country. The 2026 Edelman Trust Barometer found that 7 in 10 people won’t trust anyone who thinks differently. Media trust dropped below 30% for the first time ever. Congress is at 7%. The medical establishment lost 20 points in 4 years. Corporations laid off 400,000 by email while posting record profits. And 63% say the economy is bad while the GDP says it’s growing. Americans don’t trust anything anymore. Not the news. Not the numbers. Not the institutions. Not each other."
Comments here:
"INTEL Roundtable w/Johnson & McGovern: Weekly Wrap 19 - June"
Judge Napolitano - Judging Freedom, 6/19/26
"INTEL Roundtable w/Johnson & McGovern:
Weekly Wrap 19 - June"
Comments here:
Dan, I Allegedly, "The Good News and The Not So Good News"
Full screen recommended.
Dan, I Allegedly, 6/19/26
"The Good News and The Not So Good News"
"In today's iAllegedly video, I break down the latest Iran (MOU) memorandum of understanding and what it could mean for energy prices, oil markets, inflation, and the broader economy. While increased oil supply could provide some relief at the gas pump, the economic challenges facing Americans remain severe. Dan discusses why gas prices are still elevated, why mortgage rates remain above 6%, and how rising utility costs continue to squeeze household budgets across the country. The bigger concern may be what is happening beneath the surface of the economy. Americans borrowed tens of billions of dollars against their homes during the first quarter just to cover everyday expenses, while businesses, restaurants, hotels, and vacation destinations continue to struggle. Dan examines inflation, fertilizer shortages, consumer debt, housing affordability, interest rates, and the growing financial pressure on working families. Is the economy improving, or are we simply seeing temporary relief while larger problems continue to build?"
Comments here:
"Luminarium"
"Luminarium"
“I have undertaken a labor, a labor out of love for the world, and to comfort noble hearts: those that I hold dear, and the world to which my heart goes out. Not the common world do I mean, of those who (as I have heard) cannot bear grief and desire but to bathe in bliss. (May God then let them dwell in bliss!) Their world and manner of life my tale does not regard: it's life and mine lie apart. Another world do I hold in mind, which bears together in one heart its bitter sweetness and its dear grief, its heart's delight and its pain of longing, dear life and sorrowful death, dear death and sorrowful life. In this world let me have my world, to be damned with it, or to be saved.” - Gottfried Von Strassburg
"A comprehensive anthology and guide to English literature of the Middle Ages, Renaissance, Seventeenth Century, Restoration and Eighteenth Century. This site combines several sites first created in 1996 to provide a starting point for students and enthusiasts of English Literature. Nothing replaces a quality library, but hopefully this site will help fill the needs of those who have not access to one.
Luminarium is the labor of love of Anniina Jokinen. The site is not affiliated with any institution nor is it sponsored by anyone other than its maintainer and the contributions of its visitors through revenues from book sales via Amazon.com, poster sales via All Posters, and advertising via Google AdSense.
For all materials, authorities in a given subject are consulted. The Norton Anthology of English Literature, The Encyclopaedia Britannica, and The Cambridge Guide to Literature in English are some of the general reference works consulted for accuracy of dates and details. Many of the materials collected here reside elsewhere. Quality and accuracy are concerns, and all materials are checked regularly. However, "Luminarium" cannot be held responsible for materials residing on other sites. Corrections and suggestions for improvements are encouraged from the visitors.
The site started in early 1996. I remember looking for essays to spark an idea for a survey class I was taking at the time. It seemed that finding study materials online was prohibitively difficult and time-consuming - there was no all-encompassing site which could have assisted me in my search. I started the site as a public service, because I myself had to waste so much time as a student, trying to find anything useful or interesting. There were only a handful of sites back then (read: Internet Dark Ages) and I could spend hours on search engines, looking for just a few things. I realized I must not be the only one in the predicament and started a simple one-page site of links to Middle English Literature. That page was soon followed by a Renaissance site.
Gradually it became obvious that the number of resources was ungainly for such a simple design. It was then that the multi-page "Medlit" and "Renlit" pages were created, around July 1996. That structure is still the same today. In September 1996, I started creating the "Sevenlit" site, launched in November. I realized the need to somehow unite all three sites, and that led to the creation of Luminarium. I chose the name, which is Latin for "lantern," because I wanted the site to be a beacon of light in the darkness. It was also befitting for a site containing authors considered "luminaries" of English literature."
"The Web Gallery of Art"
"The Web Gallery of Art"
"The Web Gallery of Art is a virtual museum and searchable database of European painting and sculpture of the Gothic, Renaissance, Baroque, Neoclassicism, Romanticism and Realism periods (1100-1850), containing over 52,800 reproductions. It was started in 1996 as a topical site of the Renaissance art, originated in the Italian city-states of the 14th century and spread to other countries in the 15th and 16th centuries. Intending to present Renaissance art as comprehensively as possible, the scope of the collection was later extended to show its Medieval roots as well as its evolution to Baroque and Rococo via Mannerism. More recently the periods of Neoclassicism and Romanticism were also included.
The collection has some of the characteristics of a virtual museum. The experience of the visitors is enhanced by guided tours helping to understand the artistic and historical relationship between different works and artists, by period music of choice in the background and a free postcard service. At the same time the collection serves the visitors' need for a site where various information on art, artists and history can be found together with corresponding pictorial illustrations. Although not a conventional one, the collection is a searchable database supplemented by a glossary containing articles on art terms, relevant historical events, personages, cities, museums and churches.
The Web Gallery of Art is intended to be a free resource of art history primarily for students and teachers. It is a private initiative not related to any museums or art institutions, and not supported financially by any state or corporate sponsors. However, we do our utmost, using authentic literature and advice from professionals, to ensure the quality and authenticity of the content.
We are convinced that such a collection of digital reproductions, containing a balanced mixture of interlinked visual and textual information, can serve multiple purposes. On one hand it can simply be a source of artistic enjoyment; a convenient alternative to visiting a distant museum, or an incentive to do just that. On the other hand, it can serve as a tool for public education both in schools and at home."
For those so inclined, this is a treasure trove of material. Enjoy!
'Internet Sacred Text Archive"
"About Sacred Texts"
"All ancient books which have once been called sacred by man, will have their lasting place in the history of mankind, and those who possess the courage, the perseverance, and the self-denial of the true miner, and of the true scholar, will find even in the darkest and dustiest shafts what they are seeking for, - real nuggets of thought, and precious jewels of faith and hope."
- Max Müller, "Introduction to the Upanishads" Vol. II.
"This site is a freely available archive of electronic texts about religion, mythology, legends and folklore, and occult and esoteric topics. Texts are presented in English translation and, where possible, in the original language.
This site has no particular agenda other than promoting religious tolerance and scholarship. Views expressed at this site are solely those of specific authors, and are not endorsed by sacred-texts. Sacred-texts is not sponsored by any religious group or organzation.
Sacred texts went live on March 9th, 1999. The traffic started to increase when sacred-texts was listed at Yahoo! under 'Society and Religion|Texts'. In its first year of operation sacred-texts had about a quarter million hits. By 2004, it was receiving well over a quarter million hits per day.
Today, site traffic often exceeds a million hits a day. Sacred texts is one of the top 20,000 sites on the web based on site traffic, consistently one of the top 10,000 sites in Australia, the US and India, and is one of the top 5 most visited general religion sites (source: Alexa.com).
The texts presented here are either original scans from books and articles clearly in the public domain, material which has been presented elsewhere on the Internet, or material included under fair use conditions in printed anthologies.
Many of the texts included here were originally posted in ftp archives or on bulletin boards before the growth of the World Wide Web and have been lost. In some cases, the texts were posted in such a form as to make them unusable by non-technically oriented users. Some of these texts were on the web at some point but have completely disappeared because the site they were posted on has closed. Thus the need for an archive which organizes this material in a persistent location.
From the start, we have had a special focus on remedying the under-representation of traditional cultures on the Internet. The site has one of the largest collections of transcriptions of complete books on Native American, Pacific, African, Asian and other traditional people's religion, spiritual practices, mythology and folklore. While many of these pre-20th century books are flawed due to orientalist or colonialist biases, they are also eye-witness accounts by reliable observers, typically at the moment of contact. These texts are crucial to the study of tribal traditions, and in many cases, the only link with the past. Locked up in academic libraries for decades, sacred-texts has made them freely accessible anywhere in the world.
We have scanned hundreds of books which have all been made freely accessible to the world. A comprehensive bibliography of the texts scanned at sacred texts is available here.
We welcome email regarding typographical or factual errors in any file at sacred-texts. Please write us if you spot an error; include the URL and a few lines of context so we can pin down the location.
While all due care has been taken in the reproduction of the texts here, none of the texts or translations here are represented to be sanctioned by any particular religious body or institution. We welcome advice as to errors of fact or transcription.
Some of the material here may be copyrighted. It is our hope that the copyright holders may allow these texts to be posted here in the public interest. If you are the copyright holder of record of a text which you believe has been archived at this site in error, please contact us at the email address listed at the bottom of this page. We have made a good-faith effort to determine the provenance of each text and apologize if we have posted a text in error. Note: If you are requesting the removal of a file, you must be the copyright holder of the file, and you must specify the exact URL of the file.”
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Fabulous, an absolute treasure trove! Enjoy!
"The Greatest Loss..."
Though woe on woe bitter hour may bring;
the spirit shrinks, and Nature dreads to brave,
The doubt, the gloom, the stillness of the grave.
But what is death? – a wing from earth to fee –
a bridge o’er time into eternity."
- Michelle, in “The Fear of Death Considered”
"Until The End"
Full screen recommended.
Gengu AI, "Until The End"
"Welcome to Gengu AI – your ultimate destination for AI-generated music and next-generation sound experiences. This channel is dedicated to creating unique, high-quality tracks powered by artificial intelligence, blending creativity and technology to deliver music that feels fresh, emotional, and immersive."
Native Elder, "How to Turn Decades of Pain Into Your Greatest Wisdom"
Full screen recommended.
Native Elder,
"How to Turn Decades of Pain
Into Your Greatest Wisdom"
"I Ain’t Drunk, I Just Walk Like This"
Full screen recommended.
Delta King's Blues,
"I Ain’t Drunk, I Just Walk Like This"
"These legs got their own rhythm… and it ain’t always straight. “I Ain’t Drunk, I Just Walk Like This” is a funny, back-porch Delta King’s Blues tune about bad knees, old bones, and the kind of crooked walk that comes from years of livin’ - not drinkin’. A loose, stumbling acoustic guitar shuffles along like boots trying to remember where they’re headed. The harmonica laughs and wobbles between notes, sounding like it’s in on the joke. The groove rolls slow and crooked, built for folks who sway a little even stone-cold sober. This is blues that laughs at the wear and tear. For anyone whose body got a little unpredictable - but their spirit’s still steady. These legs got their own rhythm… and it ain’t always straight. Ain’t the whiskey, friend… it’s just mileage."
The Poet: Charles Bukowski, "Roll The Dice"
“Alea Iacta Est”
“'Alea iacta est' is a Latin phrase attributed by Suetonius to Julius Caesar on January 10, 49 B.C. as he led his army across the Rubicon river in Northern Italy. With this step, he entered Italy at the head of his army in defiance of the Senate and began his long civil war against Pompey and the Optimates. The phrase, either in the original Latin or in translation, is used in many languages to indicate that events have passed a point of no return.
The historian Frances Titchener has given a stylized description of the context of Caesar’s pronouncement: “We know from [Caesar's journals] that Caesar is not taking this lightly. He knows that if he marches on Rome with his armies, then he is a public enemy, and that he will either have to win, or die. For a Roman patrician like Julius Caesar there is no life without military service; there is no life without service to the state. He cannot simply ‘go native’ and stay in Gaul, and he does realize that if he goes back to Rome, he would be killed. At this time the northernmost border of the Roman territory in Italy is the River Rubicon. Once someone crosses the River Rubicon, he’s in Roman territory. A general must not cross that boundary with his army – he must do what the Romans call lay down his command, which means surrender his right to order troops, and certainly not be carrying weapons.
Caesar and his armies hesitate quite a while at this river while Caesar decides what to do, and Caesar tells us that he informs his soldiers that it’s a little tiny bridge across the river, but once they cross it they’ll have to fight their way all the way to Rome, and Caesar is well aware that he’s risking not just his own life, but those of his loyal soldiers, and he might not win. Pompey is a formidable enemy. It’s also impossible to avoid the fact that Caesar was attacking the state, and as a patrician Roman this would have been very difficult for him, equivalent to beating up your father. He wouldn’t have done any of this lightly. Finally he makes a decision, it’s time to go, and he uses a gambling metaphor: he says ‘Roll the dice’, ‘Alea iacta est’. Once the dice start rolling they cannot be controlled, even though we don’t know what the outcome will be as the dice roll and tumble. Julius and his men swiftly cross the river and they march double time toward Rome, where they almost beat the messengers sent to inform the Senate of their arrival.”
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"Life's a gamble. Courage is to roll the dice and go
for the gusto when all odds and bets are against you!"
- Bobby Compton
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Charles Bukowski, "Roll The Dice"
Read by Tom O'Bedlam
"Is There An Answer..."
"Is there an answer to the question of why bad things happen to good people? The response would be to forgive the world for not being perfect, to forgive God for not making a better world, to reach out to the people around us, and to go on living despite it all, no longer asking why something happened, but asking how we will respond, what we intend to do now that it has happened."
- Harold S. Kushner
"How It Really Is"
Well, for most of us anyway...
Food stamp balance $13,401.82
Cash balance $4,498.85
And how are YOU doing, Good Citizen?
Bill Bonner, "What AI Won't Do, IV"
"What AI Won't Do, IV"
by Bill Bonner
"To every thing there is a season,
and a time for every purpose under Heaven."
- Ecclesiastes
Youghal, Ireland - "This week we turned over three possibilities. The first - that AI stocks, SpaceX among them, are simply priced beyond all reason. Markets move in cycles, as surely as the oceans obey the moon, and this has every appearance of a cyclical high tide: the dearest shares ever floated, with SpaceX glittering in the foamy apex.
The rule is old and unsentimental - IPOs of exceptional vigor, the ones that set investors hooting and stamping, are commonly followed by returns that are exceptionally dull. This time is unlikely to be different. So, AI stocks, in all probability, will not make the investor rich.
Nor can we ignore the Primary Trend in the market for credit. Inflation and interest rates alike appear to be marching uphill. CNBC: "Dollar clings to two-month peak as Fed rate-hike bets mount, yen slides. Interest rates touched bottom in July of 2020, and have been climbing ever since. Yes, yes - it is a “whole new world.” Musk will plant his colonists upon Mars; AI will so swell our productivity and we shall “all be rich.” Of course. And every last one of our children will be above average, too.
But the Primary Trend does not give a tinker’s damn what we believe. If we have read it right, it will go on lifting rates and grinding down the real value of capital for years. These are just the normal heavings of the market; AI plays only a bit part.
The second possibility is that AI proves a roaring success and plays a leading role in the history of the world...but that its impresarios and chief beneficiaries surprise us. This notion arrives in two flavors. First, the Chinese are already out in front. They stuff the contrivance into robots, and the robots then perform marvels. The machines do not merely think faster and write cleaner than we do - they dance better. (See the YouTube spectacle below: “China’s Dancing Robots Just Broke the Internet - Top 8 That Move Too Human!”)
Full screen recommended.
The Chinese appear to be discovering how to harness the artificial brain to practical ends that reach well beyond ghosting high-school term papers. We’ll see.
Bound up with this is the old observation that the great upheavals of technology are led by unknown upstarts, not by the fat and settled corporations. The well-financed houses are wedded to their own past success; now they are too burdened, too gouty, too arthritic to vault into the future. The true winners may bear names we have never heard, doing things we have not yet imagined.
The third - and the most provocative by a good margin - is the hesitant hunch that AI will prove a dud, or worse, a calamity. Not every “successful” technology has been a blessing to mankind. History works Her will with no particular thought for our happiness or our health. The agricultural revolution, for example, allowed the earth to carry far more human beings. But for twelve thousand years it condemned those who took up the hoe to toil from dawn ‘til dark, to suffer zoonotic plagues and miseries their hunting forebears had never known, and to die young, half-starved, and worn to a nub by hard labor. The new hayseed had also to reckon, for the first time in the human story, with elaborate hierarchies, wars, and a parasitic government squatting upon his back.
That which grows more abundant grows less precious; and that of which we already have too much does not gain in worth as the heap mounts. It is scarcity that mints value, never abundance. So, the value of all this incoming freight - AI-created, AI-indexed, AI-searched, AI-derived, AI-delivered, a whole groaning, fake world of AI rubbish swelling like The Blob in the 1950s horror film - would tumble fast, down to the worth of one more dollar in Elon Musk’s pocket: approximately zero.
And besides - who would command a durable moat to guard his AI edge and throw off profits fat enough and for long enough to cover his fat investment? The genie is already out of the bottle, already strutting before the whole world and displaying its wonders. Everyone enjoys the use of it - which is only to say that, in relative terms, no one does.
But picture, for a moment, that some genius bolted a colossal mirror into the sky, and bathed the earth in sunshine ‘round the clock. A stupendous breakthrough, surely! Plants might grow by night. Solar panels might pour out twice the current. The need for the evening reading lamps would simply vanish, as the sunshine fell on the just and unjust alike, 24/7, making vast tracts, now dark and frozen, at last fit for habitation. A triumph for our species?
AI takes no holidays and never gets tired. But we poor mortals require our rest - to sift the day’s doings. Our wisdom, our knowledge, our grasp of the world about us is a cramped and modest thing, and not merely because we are slow-witted beasts. As matters already stand, we scarcely find the hours to connect one dot to the next. And the machine - AI - can fling fresh dots out like God creating the heavens. A whole new universe of reports we ought to read, films we ought to see, plans we ought to follow. But where is the time for them?
All of life - the human portion and the rest of it alike - is built upon a kind of balance: between action and rest, good and bad, day and night. Despite the wonders of AI, we still only have 24 hours in a day...and we need our sleep."
"Is It Just A Coincidence That So Many Disasters Are Suddenly Hitting The United States The Same Week The Memorandum Of Understanding Was Signed?"
"Is It Just A Coincidence That So Many Disasters
Are Suddenly Hitting The United States The Same Week
The Memorandum Of Understanding Was Signed?"
by Michael Snyder
"Why isn’t anyone else writing about this? On Wednesday, the Memorandum of Understanding was signed by the presidents of the United States and Iran. Meanwhile, major disasters were breaking out all over America. Is this just some sort of really bizarre coincidence, or is something else going on here? Read the evidence that I have compiled below and decide for yourself. On Wednesday, the very first named storm of the season, Tropical Storm Arthur, suddenly formed and slammed into the Texas coastline…"Tropical Storm Arthur made landfall along the coast of Texas on Wednesday, and as the first storm of the Atlantic hurricane season, it is bringing significant flooding and severe weather to the Gulf Coast.
Arthur formed on Wednesday after a sprawling area of showers and thunderstorms over Texas tracked over the warm waters of the Gulf, which helped it organize and strengthen. Hours later, the center of the storm moved inland over the Texas coast." In 2025, only one named storm hit the U.S. the entire year. And it is very rare for a named storm to make landfall this early.
As this storm travels east, it is expected to bring “extreme” flooding to Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and the Florida Panhandle…"As many as 40 million people across eight states are in the deadly path of Tropical Storm Arthur after the first named storm of hurricane season made landfall Wednesday night. Arthur, which has been downgraded to a post-tropical cyclone on Thursday, slammed into the Texas Coast last night, and is now projected to barrel across the South, bringing severe flooding from Louisiana to the Carolinas.
Meteorologists with AccuWeather warned that Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and the Florida Panhandle will see ‘extreme’ levels of flooding along the coast and in urban areas throughout Thursday, with as much as 12 to 18 inches of rain falling. Then on Friday, it is being projected that this storm will bring “life-threatening flooding” to Georgia and the Carolinas…
"Georgia and the Carolinas are expected to be impacted on Friday, as forecasters say Arthur will continue to bring ‘life-threatening flooding, property damage and disruptions to commerce and travel.’ AccuWeather meteorologist Alex Duffus warned in a statement: ‘Heavy rainfall will be fueled by tropical moisture, delivering rainfall rates of 2-4 inches per hour across portions of the Gulf Coast.’ However, flooding is not the only concern tied to Arthur, as the National Weather Service has also issued a widespread tornado watch across coastal areas in Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and the Florida Panhandle.
Tropical Storm Arthur formed and made landfall on the exact same day that the Memorandum of Understanding was signed by the presidents of the United States and Iran. This storm is going to cause a massive amount of damage all the way from Texas to the Carolinas. Is this just a coincidence? I don’t think so. (Then what, exactly, Michael, do you attribute it to? Enlighten us, spell it out... - CP)
Also on Wednesday, a series of extremely violent tornadoes suddenly broke out in the Midwest and the Southeast…"At least seven tornadoes broke out Wednesday night across the Midwest and Southeast, as severe weather descended on a large swath of the country. According to the National Weather Service, a confirmed tornado was reported near the small northeast Iowa community of Harpers Ferry at 5:10 p.m., while a second confirmed tornado rolled through Charleston in central Illinois at about 6:40 p.m. local time.
Both tornadoes were flagged by the weather service as a “particularly dangerous situation,” a rare designation used by the weather service for environments in which “strong and violent tornadoes” are possible. The town of Charleston, Illinois was hit particularly hard.
At one point, a trailer was actually picked up and torn away from its foundation…"Photos and videos obtained by CBS News showed extensive damage to homes and buildings in Charleston, where a mess of downed trees and power lines covered the streets. Emergency responders in the city could also be heard in dispatch audio describing some of the treacherous scenarios they encountered, including multiple overturned semitrucks and a trailer that had been torn from its foundation, possibly with someone inside.
Hail measuring between 2.75 and 3 inches was also reported in Charleston and surrounding parts of Illinois, where powerful winds at times climbed as high as 78 mph, according to the weather service."
Is it just another coincidence that this also occurred on Wednesday? As you can see, the “coincidences” are starting to pile up. Let me give you another one. An enormous wildfire in eastern Washington state that is being driven by very high winds caused all sorts of chaos on Wednesday… High winds drove a wildfire into an eastern Washington neighborhood, forcing the evacuation of about 1,500 people and destroying at least 15 homes, officials said Wednesday.
The Spokane County Sheriff’s Office announced Wednesday that its forensic unit found what appeared to be human remains inside a home destroyed in the fire. A family member had requested a wellness check because one of the residents had refused to evacuate and could not be reached, officials said in a news release." Of course the skeptics will insist that this is yet another coincidence. (Instead of the righteous punishment for our many sins from a wrathful Diety? Really? - CP)
Meanwhile, the screwworm plague that just broke out in the Southwest just continues to pop up in even more Texas counties…"Screwworm cases are rising in the US as the outbreak spreads beyond the initial contamination zones. Twelve animal cases have been confirmed so far, a significant increase from the first case detected in a calf in south Texas on 3 June. The growing number of infections has alarmed agricultural experts, who warn that a wider outbreak could have serious consequences for the Texas beef industry.
Of the 12 reported cases, 11 remain active and one is inactive, according to an update issued last Thursday by the US Department of Agriculture’s animal and plant health inspection service. The most recent case was reported on 12 June in Sutton countyin west Texas, where a sheep was discovered with the infection. Other cases have been identified in the Texas counties of Edwards, Tom Green, Gillespie, La Salle and Zavala, as well as in Lea county, New Mexico.
And just within the last 24 hours, we have officially hit “tank bottoms” in Cushing, Oklahoma…As I discussed yesterday, once we get below 20 million barrels of oil at Cushing, there won’t be enough pressure in the pipelines to keep operating.So this is it.
At the same time, fish are literally being cooked to death in lakes and rivers all over the country…"A team of contractors spent their weekend hauling thousands of dead fish carcasses from the waters of Minnesota’s Como Lake, the Minnesota Star Tribune reported on Tuesday. Located in a suburban park in St. Paul, the lake is now down about 1,000 bluegill and crappies, which died en masse as a result of low oxygen - a side effect of a rapid influx of heat.
Down south in Arizona, state wildlife officials closed public access to San Carlos Lake indefinitely after drought conditions and a nearby dam release “resulted in a major fish kill affecting approximately 100 percent of the fish population.” Across the country in Massachusetts, the Charles River was the site of a massive die-off of carp after a pre-summer heat wave baked fish exhausted from spawning."
This is happening even though summer has not even officially begun yet. That is certainly not a good sign. And now a “Super El Niño” has begun…"The forecasted El Niño - a mysterious but well-documented climate phenomenon - has officially begun, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) announced on June 11. Meteorologists expect it to evolve into one of the most powerful ones on record, and the event will likely bring about extreme weather worldwide and consequently affect the economy."
If you believe that it is just a “coincidence” that all of the things that I have shared in this article are happening simultaneously, that is okay. We will just have to agree to disagree. Personally, I am convinced that what we are currently experiencing is yet more evidence that history is taking us in a very particular direction. So many prominent voices are crying out “peace and safety”, but the truth is that apocalyptic times are upon us. Global events have been spinning out of control for quite some time now, but what we have been through so far is not even worth comparing to what is eventually coming."
"Platoon: Movie Propaganda And Serial Killer Jokes"
"Platoon:
Movie Propaganda And Serial Killer Jokes"
by John Wilder
“Now, I got no fight with any man who does what he’s told, but when he don’t, the machine breaks down. And when the machine breaks down, we break down. And I ain’t gonna allow that in any of you. Not one.” – "Platoon"
"I saw "Platoon" in the theater when it came out. I watched "Platoon," and left the theater as the credits rolled. I was filled with Raisenettes®, yet exhausted with no desire to ever watch that movie ever again. But last weekend it showed up in the “movies you might like to watch” and since The Mrs. hadn’t seen it, we started watching it. Only I finished, since she fell asleep while on patrol and was caught in a firefight with some NVA regulars. But I finished it. Again.
As a movie, "Platoon: looks and feels like a slice of reality coming from the “nerdy dolphin talking about hang gliding” me who has never been to Vietnam nor been in a foxhole with Charlie Sheen. I’ve seen many films shot on bigger budgets that don’t feel nearly as real as "Platoon." I imagine that part of that is because the writer/director, Oliver Stone, actually did serve in Vietnam as a ground-pounder and this movie is certainly based on his actual experiences there. I have a lot of thoughts about Vietnam, but this post isn’t about Vietnam. This post is about what the movie "Platoon" really was: propaganda to make you hate America and traditional American values in 1986.
Let’s start with the time that this movie came out: 1986. 1986 was part of Reagan’s Morning in America. The GloboLeft hated that because the GloboLeft loved the Soviets. I mean, they also love illegal immigrants, but they really love the Soviets. 1986 was also the year of "Top Gun," which was the top grossing movie of the year. Why was "Top Gun" the highest earning film of the year even though it wasn’t that great of a movie? Because people loved America. And yes, I liked "Top Gun", but you’ve got to admit it didn’t really have a plot. "Top Gun: Maverick" at least had a plot.
I digress. Back to the “people love America” thing. Hollywood© had changed since Reagan was there. When Reagan was there, Hollywood was subversive, but it didn’t hate absolutely everything about America. Now a majority of Hollywood© did. So, it created one of the most effective propaganda movies of all time, Platoon. I must admit, the message of the movie makes Trotsky look like a patriotic America and Charlie Sheen look morally upright.
What, then, was the message? Traditional American values suck. Almost* every leader was shown to be either out of touch, incompetent, sycophantic, or evil. In one scene almost* all of the leadership of the titular (heh) platoon was in a barracks. It wasn’t fun. It looked like your grandpa’s poker night with his old smelly friends, ruled over by the despotic and disfigured Satan of our story: Staff Sergeant Barnes.
This is an effective scene. Your brain subconsciously looks at pretty things and thinks that they’re good. The opposite holds true as well. Barnes is established and reinforced as the antagonist. He is, for this movie, Evil personified. Wait, what? This is a war movie, aren’t the enemy supposed to be the bad guys? Not for a large chunk of Hollywood©. Remember Hanoi Jane Fonda? They hated America and wanted communism.
The Vietnamese in this movie aren’t the bad guys, they’re just some sort of natural occurrence, like the weather. Put the story on a boat and replace the Vietnamese with a storm and it’s the same movie.But, move to the cool kid bunker! They had dope! They had cool music! They were doing cool and groovy things! No leadership here, at all, except for cool and groovy dope-smoking Sergeant Elias.
Elias isn’t the protagonist, the protagonist is the character played by Charlie Sheen, who might as well have been called Pvt. Nobody as cardboard as he is, since he only takes one action in the entire movie. No. Elias, played by Willem Dafoe, is Jesus. His betrayal and final death scene with his arms outstretched as if on the cross is heavy-handed. Even young me got that.
And, in this movie, Jesus was cool and smoked pot. Dafoe would play Jesus in another movie two years later: "The Last Temptation of Christ." This was back at a time when the Catholic Church actually managed to be against something other than being against people saying mean things about rapefugees.
But I digress. Again. The movie is clear. Barnes, who represents traditional American society and traditional American values, is bad. Elias, who represents stoner culture, is good. When you analyze propaganda, another questions to ask is, “Who is it aimed at?” Charlie Sheen was the stand-in for the target, the person the audience is supposed to identify with. In several masterfully shot scenes, I felt like I was in Private Sheen’s place. That’s effective film making. Sheen is early wave Gen X. This makes sense, since Gen X was the target.
Early, Atari© Xers like myself were the primary ticket purchasers of R-rated movies at the time Platoon came out. It’s where we took our dates on a Friday night, and young men were the primary decision makers when it came to selecting a movie to see. "Platoon" was demoralization aimed straight at Gen X. Here is what it was saying:
“Reagan making you feel good? Perhaps a bit too good? Enjoyed "Red Dawn" or "Top Gun?" Well, white people are awful, except for the stoner socialists who hate America. Those are the real good guys. And Hollywood©. Hollywood™ loves you.”
Hollywood© does not love you. But they loved this movie with the heat of a thousand sons. Nominated for seven Academy Awards®, it won three, including best picture and best director. Hollywood© loved this movie. So did critics. And it did well at the box office, finishing up third for the year, behind the previously mentioned "Top Gun" and the heavy period drama that was "Crocodile Dundee."
I bought two tickets to it, so my $10 was in the $138,530,565 that it’s credited with. When I finished watching it, I wanted to take a shower because in the end, the character I’m supposed to identify with, Pvt. Cardboard, kills the stand-in for America: Sergeant Barnes. On purpose. Murder. Demoralization. Again, I didn’t have the words to describe nor the wisdom to understand the propaganda at play in the film. I just know that I felt revolted. But now I see what was going on through clear eyes. Maybe it was because I didn’t have any Raisenettes™?"
Adventures With Danno, "Nothing But Sales At Kroger"
Full screen recommended.
Adventures With Danno, 6/19/26
"Nothing But Sales At Kroger"
Comments here:
"Alert! Moscow Burning, Talks Cancelled, War In Lebanon Restarts"
Full screen recommended.
Canadian Prepper, 6/18/26
"Alert! Moscow Burning, Talks Cancelled,
War In Lebanon Restarts"
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Thursday, June 18, 2026
"Americans are Starting to Lose Interest in Everything And It's Concerning"
Full screen recommended.
Finance Economist, 6/18/26
"Americans are Starting to Lose Interest
in Everything And It's Concerning"
"You picked up your phone last night at 10:30. You scrolled through nothing. You put it down at 11:15 and stared at the ceiling and felt something heavier than sadness that you could not name. You are not alone. Psychologists didn’t have a word for what you’re feeling until 2021. Half the workforce has quietly quit. 54% of adults feel isolated. 90% say mental health crisis. 264,000 die of despair every year. And the system that made you feel this way did it on purpose. Because a population that has lost interest in everything is the easiest to extract from. Your numbness is not a failure. It is the product."
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Musical Interlude: Jennifer Warnes, "Joan Of Arc"
Full screen recommended.
Jennifer Warnes, "Joan Of Arc"
"I have long adored this song by the late Leonard Cohen, and performed impecably
by Jennifer Warnes. This is the performance at Night of the Proms in Antwerp in 1992."
"A Look to the Heavens"
“What are those red clouds surrounding the Andromeda galaxy? This galaxy, M31, is often imaged by planet Earth-based astronomers. As the nearest large spiral galaxy, it is a familiar sight with dark dust lanes, bright yellowish core, and spiral arms traced by clouds of bright blue stars.
A mosaic of well-exposed broad and narrow-band image data, this colorful portrait of our neighboring island universe offers strikingly unfamiliar features though, faint reddish clouds of glowing ionized hydrogen gas in the same wide field of view. These ionized hydrogen clouds surely lie in the foreground of the scene, well within our Milky Way Galaxy. They are likely associated with the pervasive, dusty interstellar cirrus clouds scattered hundreds of light-years above our own galactic plane.”
The Poet: Mary Oliver, "Lead"
"Lead"
"Here is a story to break your heart.
Are you willing?
This winter the loons came to our harbor and died,
one by one, of nothing we could see.
A friend told me of one on the shore
that lifted its head and opened
the elegant beak and cried out
in the long, sweet savoring of its life
which, if you have heard it,
you know is a sacred thing,
and for which, if you have not heard it,
you had better hurry to where they still sing.
And, believe me, tell no one just where that is.
The next morning this loon, speckled
and iridescent and with a plan
to fly home to some hidden lake,
was dead on the shore.
I tell you this to break your heart,
by which I mean only
that it break open and never close again
to the rest of the world."
- Mary Oliver
"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
“Sigmund Wollman’s Reality Test”
“Sigmund Wollman’s Reality Test”
by
Robert Fulghum
“In the summer of 1959, at the Feather River Inn near the town of Blairsden in the Sierra Nevada Mountains of northern California. A resort environment. And I, just out of college, have a job that combines being the night desk clerk in the lodge and helping out with the horse-wrangling at the stables. The owner/manager is Italian-Swiss, with European notions about conditions of employment. He and I do not get along. I think he’s a fascist who wants pleasant employees who know their place, and he thinks I’m a good example of how democracy can be carried too far. I’m twenty-two and pretty free with my opinions, and he’s fifty-two and has a few opinions of his own. One week the employees had been served the same thing for lunch every single day. Two wieners, a mound of sauerkraut, and stale rolls. To compound insult with injury, the cost of meals was deducted from our check.
I was outraged.
On Friday night of that awful week, I was at my desk job around 11:00 P.M., and the night auditor had just come on duty. I went into the kitchen to get a bite to eat and saw notes to the chef to the effect that wieners and sauerkraut are on the employee menu for two more days.
That tears it. I quit! For lack of a better audience, I unloaded on the night auditor, Sigmund Wollman.
I declared that I have had it up to here; that I am going to get a plate of wieners and sauerkraut and go and wake up the owner and throw it on him. I am sick and tired of this crap and insulted and nobody is going to make me eat wieners and sauerkraut for a whole week and make me pay for it and who does he think he is anyhow and how can life be sustained on wieners and sauerkraut and this is un-American and I don’t like wieners and sauerkraut enough to eat it one day for God’s sake and the whole hotel stinks anyhow and the horses are all nags and the guests are all idiots and I’m packing my bags and heading for Montana where they never even heard of wieners and sauerkraut and wouldn’t feed that stuff to the pigs. Something like that. I’m still mad about it.
I raved on this way for twenty minutes, and needn’t repeat it all here. You get the drift. My monologue was delivered at the top of my lungs, punctuated by blows on the front desk with a fly-swatter, the kicking of chairs, and much profanity. A call to arms, freedom, unions, uprisings, and the breaking of chains for the working masses.
As I pitched my fit, Sigmund Wollman, the night auditor, sat quietly on his stool, smoking a cigarette, watching me with sorrowful eyes. Put a bloodhound in a suit and tie and you have Sigmund Wollman. He’s got good reason to look sorrowful. Survivor of Auschwitz. Three years. German Jew. Thin, coughed a lot. He liked being alone at the night job – gave him intellectual space, gave him peace and quiet, and, even more, he could go into the kitchen and have a snack whenever he wanted to – all the wieners and sauerkraut he wanted. To him, a feast. More than that, there’s nobody around at night to tell him what to do. In Auschwitz he dreamed of such a time. The only person he sees at work is me, the nightly disturber of his dream. Our shifts overlap for an hour. And here I am again. A one-man war party at full cry.
“Fulchum, are you finished?”
“No. Why?”
Lissen, Fulchum. Lissen me, lissen me. You know what’s wrong with you? It’s not wieners and kraut and it’s not the boss and it’s not the chef and it’s not this job.”
“So what’s wrong with me?”
“Fulchum, you think you know everything, but you don’t know the difference between an inconvenience and a problem. If you break your neck, if you have nothing to eat, if your house is on fire – then you got a problem. Everything else is inconvenience. Life is inconvenient. Life is lumpy. Learn to separate the inconveniences from the real problems. You will live longer. And will not annoy people like me so much. Good night.” In a gesture combining dismissal and blessing, he waved me off to bed.
Seldom in my life have I been hit between the eyes with a truth so hard. Years later I heard a Japanese Zen Buddhist priest describe what the moment of enlightenment was like and I knew exactly what he meant. There in that late-night darkness of the Feather River Inn, Sigmund Wollman simultaneously kicked my butt and opened a window in my mind.
For thirty years now, in times of stress and strain, when something has me backed against the wall and I’m ready to do something really stupid with my anger, a sorrowful face appears in my mind and asks: “Fulchum. Problem or inconvenience?”
I think of this as the Wollman Test of Reality. Life is lumpy. And a lump in the oatmeal, a lump in the throat, and a lump in the breast are not the same lump. One should learn the difference. Good night, Sig.”
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