Full screen recommended.
2002, "Stillpoint"
So, we rise from the rubble...
Saturday, September 28, 2024
"A Look to the Heavens"
"Why doesn't the nearby galaxy create a gravitational lensing effect on the background galaxy? It does, but since both galaxies are so nearby, the angular shift is much smaller than the angular sizes of the galaxies themselves. The featured Hubble image of NGC 3314 shows two large spiral galaxies which happen to line up exactly. The foreground spiral NGC 3314a appears nearly face-on with its pinwheel shape defined by young bright star clusters. Against the glow of the background galaxy NGC 3314b, though, dark swirling lanes of interstellar dust can also be seen tracing the nearer spiral's structure. Both galaxies appear on the edge of the Hydra Cluster of Galaxies, a cluster that is about 200 million light years away.
Gravitational lens distortions are much easier to see when the lensing galaxy is smaller and further away. Then, the background galaxy may even be distorted into a ring around the nearer. Fast gravitational lens flashes due to stars in the foreground galaxy momentarily magnifying the light from stars in the background galaxy might one day be visible in future observing campaigns with high-resolution telescopes."
"Live All You Can..."
"Live all you can; it's a mistake not to. It doesn't so much
matter what you do in particular, so long as you have your life.
If you haven't had that, what have you had?"
- Henry James
"Hell..."
"Many people don't fear a hell after this life and that's because hell is on this earth, in this life. In this life there are many forms of hell that people walk through, sometimes for a day, sometimes for years, sometimes it doesn't end. The kind of hell that doesn't burn your skin; but burns your soul. The kind of hell that people can't see; but the flames lap at your spirit. Heaven is a place on earth, too! It's where you feel freedom, where you're not afraid. No more chains. And you hear your soul laughing."
- C. JoyBell C.
I believe it was Sartre who said, "This is Hell, cleverly disguised just
enough to keep us from escaping." Look at the world... look around.
I believe he may be right...
Canadian Prepper, "Alert! Total War Begins In Middle East, Iran; Russia Prepares For Nuclear War With Israel,USA"
Canadian Prepper, 9/28/24
"Alert! Total War Begins In Middle East, Iran;
Russia Prepares For Nuclear War With Israel,USA"
Comments here:
Jeremiah Babe, "People Just Don't Want To Work, Lazy People Will Fail"
Jeremiah Babe, 9/28/24
"People Just Don't Want To Work,
Lazy People Will Fail"
Comments here:
The Poet: David Romano, "If Tomorrow Starts Without Me"
David Romano, "If Tomorrow Starts Without Me"
Read by Tom O'Bedlam
o
"Dog's Last Day"
So sadly beautiful...
"I Am Done"
"I Am Done"
by OHMama
"I was born at the end of Gen X and the beginning of the Millennial Generation, and grew up in a middle class town. Life was good. Our home was modest but birthdays and Christmas were always generous, we went on yearly vacations, had 2 cars, and there was enough money for me to take dance classes and art lessons and be in Girl Scouts.
My 1940s born Dad raised me to be patriotic and proud, to love the war bird airplanes of his era as much as he does, and to respect our flag and our country as a sacred thing. I grew up thinking that being an American was the greatest gift a person could have. I grew up thinking that our country was as strong, and honest and true as my Dad. I grew up thinking I was free.
As an adult, I have witnessed the world I grew up in fall to ruin. I have watched as our currency and our economy have been shamelessly corrupted beyond redemption. Since we’ve been married, my husband and I TWICE had our meager investment savings gutted by the market that we were told to invest in, now that pensions no longer exist and we working stiffs are on our own. We will be working until we die, because the Social Security we’ve been forced to pay into has also been robbed from under us.
I have watched as our elected officials enter Congress as ordinary folks and leaves as multi millionaires. I have watched my blue collar husband get up at an ungodly hour every day and come home with an aching back that we pray will hold out long enough to get him to old age in one piece. Outside of shoes, socks and underwear, almost everything my family wears was bought used. We’ve been on one vacation in 12 years.
We don’t have cell phones, or cable, or any sort of streaming services, just a landline and internet. We hardly ever eat out. Our house is 1400 square feet, no air conditioning. I cook from scratch and I can and I garden and I raise chickens for eggs and meat and I moonlight selling things on Etsy. Still it is barely enough to pay the bills that go up every year while service quality and the longevity of goods goes down. What I just described is the life you can live on 60K a year without going into debt.
At last calculation, when you consider all of the federal, state and local taxes plus registration and user fees, Medicare and SS payroll taxes, almost a third of what my family earns is stolen by the govt each year. What’s left doesn’t go far, just enough to cover the basics and save a little for when the wolf howls at the door.
I watched as my family’s health insurance was gutted and destroyed. Our private market insurance, which we had to have because my husband’s employer is too small to have a group plan, was made illegal. We were left with the option of either buying an Obamacare plan with unaffordable deductibles and insanely ridiculous out of pocket maxes, or paying the very gov’t that destroyed our healthcare a fine for not buying the gov’t mandated plan that we cannot afford. We now have short term insurance that isn’t really insurance at all, and I live in fear of one of us getting injured or sick with anything I can’t fix from the medicine cabinet.
I have watched as education, which was already sketchy when I was a kid, became an all out joke of wholly unmathematical math, gold stars for all, and self-loathing anti-Americanism. My family has taken an enormous financial hit as I stay home to home school our child. At least she’ll be able to do old-fashioned math well enough to see how much they are screwing her. A silver lining to every cloud, I guess.
I’ve sat by and held my tongue as I was called deplorable and a bitter clinger and told that I didn’t build that. I’ve been called a racist and a xenophobe and a chump and even an “ugly folk.” I’ve been told that I have privilege, and that I have inherent bias because of my skin color, and that my beloved husband and father are part of a horrible patriarchy. Not one goddamn bit of that is true, but if I dare say anything about it, it will be used as evidence of my racism and white fragility.
Raised to be a Republican, I held my nose and voted for Bush, the Texas-talking blue blood from Connecticut who lied us into 2 wars and gave us the unpatriotic Patriot Act. I voted for McCain, the sociopathic neocon songbird “hero” that torpedoed the attempt to kill the Obamacare that’s killing my family financially. I held it again and voted for Romney, the vulture capitalist skunk that masquerades as a Republican while slithering over to the Democrat camp as often as they’ll tolerate his oily, loathsome presence. And I voted for Trump, who, if he did nothing else, at least gave a resounding Bronx cheer to the richly deserving smug hypocrites of DC. Thank you for that Mr. President, on behalf of all of us nobodies. God bless you for it.
And now I have watched as people who hate me and mine and call for our destruction blatantly and openly stole the election and then gaslighted us and told us that it was honest and fair. I am watching as the GOP does NOTHING about it. They were probably relieved that upstart Trump was gone so they can get back to their real jobs of lining their pockets and running interference for their corporate masters. I am watching as the media, in a manner that would make Stalin blush, is silencing anyone who dares question the legitimacy of this farce they call democracy. I know, it’s a republic, but I am so tired of explaining that to people I might as well give in and join them in ignorance.
I will not vote again; they’ve made it abundantly clear that my voice doesn’t matter. Whatever irrational, suicidal lunacy the nanny states thinks is best is what I’ll get. What it decided I need is a geriatric pedophile who shouldn’t be charged with anything more rigorous than choosing between tapioca and rice pudding at the old folks home, and a casting couch skank who rails against racism while being a descendant of slave owners.
I’m free to dismember a baby in my womb and kill it because “my body my choice”, but God help me if I won’t cover my face with a germ laden Linus-worthy security blanket or refuse to let them inject genetically altering chemicals into my body or my child’s. I can be doxed, fired, shunned and destroyed for daring to venture that there are only 2 genders as proven by DNA, but a disease with a 99+% survival rate for most humans is a deadly pandemic worth murdering an economy over. Because science. Idiocracy is real, and we are living it. Dr. Lexus would be an improvement over Fauci.
I am done. Don’t ask me to pledge to the flag, or salute the troops, or shoot fireworks on the 4th. It’s a sick, twisted, heartbreaking joke, this bloated, unrecognizable corpse of a republic that once was ours.
I am not alone. Not sure how things continue to function when millions of citizens no longer feel any loyalty to or from the society they live in.
I was raised to be a lady, and ladies don’t curse, but f**k these motherf**kers to hell and back for what they’ve done to me, and mine, and my country. All we Joe Blow Americans ever wanted was a little patch of land to raise a family, a job to pay the bills, and at least some illusion of freedom, and even that was too much for these human parasites. They want it all, mind, body and soul. Damn them. Damn them all."
"Russian Supermarket After 950 Days of Sanctions"
Full screen recommended.
Travelling with Russell, 9/28/24
"Russian Supermarket After 950 Days of Sanctions"
"What does a Russian typical supermarket look like inside, after 950 days of sanctions? Join me as I walk inside Perekrestok, one of Russia's most well-known supermarkets. How have sanctions affected the retail market? Are there shortages?"
Comments here:
Dan, I Allegedly, "The Drive Of Shame"
Full screen recommended.
Dan, I Allegedly, 9/28/24
"The Drive Of Shame"
"RV Sales CRASH: What Dealers Won't Tell You! Hey, it's Dan from IAllegedly, and today we're diving into the shocking truth about the RV industry's collapse. The RV sales are plummeting at an alarming rate - 31% month over month! So, what’s really going on behind the scenes? From the drive of shame to the jaw-dropping inventory levels, we're exposing it all. With smaller motorhomes not selling and industrial equipment auctions booming, is the RV market truly over? Join me as we explore these burning questions and more. "
Comments here:
Friday, September 27, 2024
"America Scheduled to Shut Down in 3 Days!"
Full screen recommended.
ThisisJohnWilliams, 9/27/24
"America Scheduled to Shut Down in 3 Days!"
"The Looming Catastrophe in the Middle East"
The Chris Hedges Report, 9/27/24
"The Looming Catastrophe in the Middle East"
"It has become quite rare to hear any meaningful accountability for Israel’s actions from Israeli citizens themselves. Israeli journalist Gideon Levy is an anomaly in Israel by today’s standards, as for his entire career he has challenged the apartheid and occupation of the Israeli state. On today’s episode of The Chris Hedges Report, Levy joins host Christ Hedges to discuss his book, The Killing of Gaza: Reports on a Catastrophe, and explain the spiritual destruction, both of Israel and Palestine, that the current genocide in Gaza is causing as well as the implications of new military operations in Lebanon.
The worst change, according to Levy, is that Israel has lost its humanity. “Everything is acceptable,” Levy tells Hedges as he describes the ongoing slaughter of Palestinian civilians in Gaza, the brutal killing of prisoners, the censorship at the hands of the state and the overall indifference to it all. “There is practically only one camp in Israel, the camp which supports apartheid and occupation,” Levy says.
There isn’t even any room left for empathy of the innocent victims in Gaza, according to Levy. Teachers have been subject to interrogation and termination because they “expressed empathy with the children of Gaza, with the victims of Gaza. Even this is not legitimate anymore in Israeli society 2024,” Levy contends.
Although the horrors following October 7 are devastatingly unprecedented, Levy asserts that this entire catastrophe was years in the making and the meaningless gestures of advocating for a two-state solution, for example, will perpetuate it further. In the first years following the war in 1967, the occupation of Palestinians as a way of life quickly became normalized, according to Levy. “Palestinians clean our streets, they build our buildings, they pave our roads and they will never have citizenship. The only people in the world without any citizenship of any state,” Levy says.
As Israeli society attempts to continue this way of living, only disruptive movements and moments, such as the First Intifada, the Yom Kippur war and now October 7, will bring meaningful attention to the Palestinian struggle most of the world is okay with ignoring.
As Levi writes in his book, “The way of terror is the only way open to the Palestinians to fight for their future. The way of terror is the only way for them to remind Israel, the Arab states and the world, of their existence. They have no other way. Israel has taught them this. If they don't use violence, everyone will forget about them, and then a little later, only through terrorism will they be remembered. Only through terrorism will they possibly attain something. One thing is certain, if they put down their weapons, they are doomed.”
Levy says that history has told the Palestinians and the world something crucial about Israel: “the message is, if you want to achieve anything from us, only by force. And the message for the world is the same, if you want the world to care about you, raising your voice is not enough. You have to take measures. You have to take actions, and unfortunately, many times violent ones, aggressive ones, and many times even barbarian ones, like on the seventh of October.”
"Beautiful Relaxing Music - Calming Piano & Guitar Music"
Full screen recommended.
Soothing Relaxation,
"Beautiful Relaxing Music - Calming Piano & Guitar Music"
"Beautiful relaxing music by Soothing Relaxation. Enjoy calming piano and guitar music composed by Peder B. Helland, set to stunning nature videos."
"A Look to the Heavens"
"A star cluster around 2 million years young surrounded by natal clouds of dust and glowing gas, M16 is also known as The Eagle Nebula. This beautifully detailed image of the region adopts the colorful Hubble palette and includes cosmic sculptures made famous in Hubble Space Telescope close-ups of the starforming complex.
Described as elephant trunks or Pillars of Creation, dense, dusty columns rising near the center are light-years in length but are gravitationally contracting to form stars. Energetic radiation from the cluster stars erodes material near the tips, eventually exposing the embedded new stars. Extending from the ridge of bright emission left of center is another dusty starforming column known as the Fairy of Eagle Nebula. M16 lies about 7,000 light-years away, an easy target for binoculars or small telescopes in a nebula rich part of the sky toward the split constellation Serpens Cauda (the tail of the snake)."
"Whatever Your Fate is..."
“Whatever your fate is, whatever the hell happens, you say, “This is what I need.” It may look like a wreck, but go at it as though it were an opportunity, a challenge. If you bring love to that moment - not discouragement - you will find the strength there. Any disaster you can survive is an improvement in your character, your stature, and your life. What a privilege! This is when the spontaneity of your own nature will have a chance to flow. Then, when looking back at your life, you will see that the moments which seemed to be great failures, followed by wreckage, were the incidents that shaped the life you have now. You’ll see this is really true. Nothing can happen to you that is not positive. Even though it looks and feels at the moment like a negative crisis, it is not. The crisis throws you back, and when you are required to exhibit strength, it comes.”
~ Joseph Campbell
Judge Napolitano, "INTEL Roundtable w/Johnson & McGovern: Weekly Wrap Up"
Judge Napolitano - Judging Freedom, 9/27/24
"INTEL Roundtable w/Johnson & McGovern:
Weekly Wrap Up"
Comments here:
"Stock Up On Medicine And Supplies Now, Port Strike Will Cripple U.S. Economy"
Jeremiah Babe, 9/27/24
"Stock Up On Medicine And Supplies Now,
Port Strike Will Cripple U.S. Economy"
Comments here:
Adventures with Danno, "This Went From Bad To Worse Very Quickly"
Adventures with Danno, PM 9/27/24
"This Went From Bad To Worse Very Quickly"
Comments here:
"Mattias Desmet, 'The Psychology Of Totalitarianism'"
Peak Prosperity, Chris Martenson,
"Mattias Desmet, 'The Psychology Of Totalitarianism'"
Comments here:
For Part 2 of this video (freely available),
please visit: - https://peakprosperity.com/the-psycho...
o
“'Doom Spending' Is Sad"
“'Doom Spending' Is Sad"
by Brian Maher
"Eat. Drink. And be merry - for tomorrow we die. Poor economic omens litter the heavens. Among these are plunging manufacturing and wobbling unemployment. Meantime, some 96% of Americans fear for the United States economy. Yet consumer consumption - said to represent 70% of the gross domestic product - remains a-jump.
Why is the American consumer evidently so flush? Why is she spending money she herself lacks? The answer, in every likelihood, is “doom spending.” Doom spending: When a person mindlessly shops to self-soothe because they feel pessimistic about the economy and their future.
The Young Feel Doomed: The youthful evidently sense doom all about them. It is they who are most given to doom spending. Zero Hedge: "Over 27% of respondents (most of them Gen Z and millennials) to a recent survey conducted by Qualtrics and commissioned by Intuit Credit Karma admitted to “doom spending,” and 32% have taken on more debt in the last six months. U.S. consumer debt stats reveal the true nature of this disastrous trend."
United States credit card debt perches at record heights… at $1.14 trillion specifically. Combined United States household debt likewise registers fresh records, at $17.3 trillion. Debt Itself Isn’t the Problem Debt - in itself - is not necessarily the scarlet sin of profligacy and wastreldom.
A man may heave himself into debt to expand his business in anticipation of fat times ahead. His debt may thus be considered productive debt. Yet doom spending is not productive. It is not merely unproductive, it is anti-productive. It represents life upon the hamster wheel, of running fast but standing still. It lives for today. It mistakes activity for action, performance for purpose, motion for direction. It may keep the show running - temporarily at least. Yet it meanders down the garden path to economic immiseration and perdition. It is the economics of the shiftless and the juvenile. It is the economics of the ostrich.
30% of American Consumers Have Tuned Out: Zero Hedge: "The U.S. economy is far from recovery. In fact, its continuous decline is being misrepresented as a “rebound” partly because of the bizarre habits of a contingent of American consumers.
Doom spending helps to explain a number of inconsistencies in current retail data and also presents a disturbing reality – that almost 30% of the U.S. consumer population has no plans to prepare for the future and is incapable of mentally adapting to sour financial conditions. In other words, they refuse to take responsibility for their own personal survival."
Thus doom spending is “unhealthy and fatalistic,” argues a certain Ylva Baeckstrom, finance lecturer at King’s Business School. We must conclude she is correct. Yet is doom spending justified by the facts? Perhaps it is to a certain extent.
Young Americans Believe They’re Worse off Than Their Parents: For the first occasion in generations, youthful Americans believe they will fare less well than their parents. They believe they are being served the uncooked meal - the raw deal.
Median earnings for those 25–34 have lagged older Americans since the Great Recession. Compare them to the youths of 1987. Today’s youthful pay triple the rent of 1987’s youthful. Today’s house is five times costlier than 1987’s. In 1989, the youthful cohort stored in 20% of all United States wealth. Today the youthful cohort boasts under 10% of all United States wealth.
The abovesaid Ylva Baeckstrom: "The generation growing up now is the first generation that’s going to be poorer than its parents for a very long time. There’s that feeling that you might never be able to achieve what your parents achieved."
The True Villain: It is time to identify the central villain of our woeful intergenerational tale, in our telling at least. That villain is the Federal Reserve Bank of the United States. Following the vast tumults of 2008 the Federal Reserve nailed interest rates to the floorboards, commenced multiple rounds of quantitative easing and made itself a general economic menace. This it did to engorge asset prices - of stocks and houses in particular. People’s stock portfolios and house values went galloping. So enriched, they would spend money. The resulting “wealth effects” would gush into the broad economy and lift all boats to a higher economic water level.
Here we cite arch-villain Ben Bernanke himself: "Higher equity prices will boost consumer wealth and help increase confidence, which can spur spending."
A Form of Generational Warfare: Who were the prime beneficiaries of this Federal Reserve welfare? Existing homeowners and those who could afford to throw money at stocks. These were of course Americans of advanced vintage. The youthful were heavily excluded from the calculus.
It is fantastic for the seasoned American whose house that was worth $300,000 10 years back is now worth $800,000. But what of the underripe American who wishes to purchase that home when it falls upon the market? He cannot do it. He is frozen out. He may be able to collar the resources for the $300,000 purchase - but not the $800,000 purchase. And so he repairs to his high-rent apartment and stews in his boiling juices, frustrated. Is it any wonder that he abandons hope in his future and takes to juiceless doom spending? It is no wonder whatsoever. The wealth effect has not affected him - not positively that is.
The Wealth Defect: Mr. Christopher P. Casey directs WindRock Wealth Management. From whom: "Across all financial media, between both political parties, and among most mainstream economists, the “wealth effect” is noted, promoted and touted. The refrain is constant and the message seemingly simple: By increasing people’s wealth through rising stock and housing prices, the populace will increase their consumer spending, which will spur economic growth.
Its acceptance is as widespread as its justification is important, for it provides the rationale for the Federal Reserve’s unprecedented monetary expansion since 2008… [However], the wealth effect is but a mantra without merit."
A mantra without merit? Please explain, sir. "The most important component of the wealth effect is the assumption that increased consumer spending stimulates economic growth. It is this Keynesian concept which is critical to the wealth effect’s validity. If increased consumer spending fails to stimulate the economy, the theory of the wealth effect fails. Wealth effect turns into wealth defect." Wealth defect! We like it! Please continue.
There Is No “Paradox of Thrift”: "The Federal Reserve believes in the paradox of thrift - the belief that increased savings, while beneficial for any particular economic actor, have deleterious effects for the economy as a whole. The paradox of thrift can essentially be described as such: Decreased consumer spending lowers aggregate demand which reduces employment levels which negatively affects consumption which in turn lowers aggregate demand. The paradox predicts an economic death spiral from diminished demand."
You disagree? History suggests the opposite: It is higher savings rates which lead to economic prosperity. Examine any economic success story such as modern China, 19th-century America or post-World War II Japan and South Korea: Did their economic rise derive from unbridled consumption, or strict frugality? The answer is self-evident: It is the savings from the curtailment of consumption, combined with minimal government involvement in economic affairs, which generates economic growth.
Giving up on the American Dream: We have argued the identical case in these pages - and often. Authentic wealth springs not from monetary manipulation and gimcrack but from toil and savings. All efforts to elevate the first at the expense of the second will come inevitably to grief. They end in such derangements as “doom spending” by the youthful. The financial and fiscal authorities have dealt them a very poor hand of playing cards. Alas, many are folding their bum hands… and walking away from the American dream…"
"Scott Ritter: Russia Prepares Devastating Nuclear Attack, NATO's Fatal Mistake Triggers WWIII"
Danny Haiphong, 9/27/28
"Scott Ritter: Russia Prepares Devastating Nuclear Attack,
NATO's Fatal Mistake Triggers WWIII"
Comments here:
Dan, I Allegedly, "This Hurricane is Bad for All of Us"
Full screen recommended.
Dan, I Allegedly, AM 9/27/24
"This Hurricane is Bad for All of Us"
"Hurricane Helene: The $426 Billion Real Estate Threat! Dive into the jaw-dropping impacts of Hurricane Hela, a colossal storm with the potential to devastate $426 billion in real estate! The storm surge alone could wreak havoc across the East Coast, leaving communities and businesses in shambles. Join me, as we explore how this natural disaster could reshape the commercial real estate landscape. From Florida's insurance crisis to the ripple effects on the economy, this is a wake-up call like no other."
Comments here:
"Alert! 'Nuclear Event' Planned For October; Zelensky, Mass Censorship Happening Before WW3 Crisis"
Canadian Prepper, 9/27/24
"Alert! 'Nuclear Event' Planned For October;
Zelensky, Mass Censorship Happening Before WW3 Crisis"
Comments here:
"A Brief Disagreement"
Full screen recommended.
Steve Cutts, "A Brief Disagreement"
"A visual journey into mankind's favorite pastime throughout the ages."
Bill Bonner, "World War Forever"
"World War Forever"
The War on Terror laid the groundwork for the ‘Forever War’ we see taking shape.
‘You’re either with us or against us,’ said George W. Bush. One side or the other.
by Bill Bonner
Youghal, Ireland - "In as much as we may be on the edge of WWForever... and maybe at the beginning of a mass extinction event... perhaps it is worth spending a few minutes to consider what is going on. Wednesday brought this news from Dave DeCamp: "Israeli Military Chief ‘Preparing’ for Ground Offensive in Lebanon." "Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi, chief of staff of the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF), said Wednesday that the Israeli military was “preparing” for a potential ground offensive in Lebanon. Halevi told a group of IDF soldiers that their “military boots will enter enemy territory” and said Israeli airstrikes in Lebanon are part of the preparations for a ground invasion".
On Thursday came this update: "Israel Rejects US-Backed Ceasefire Proposal, Continues To Pound Lebanon." "Israel on Thursday rejected a US and French proposal for a ceasefire in Lebanon and continued to launch heavy airstrikes in the country. The US and France are calling for a 21-day ceasefire, but the US continues to provide military aid to Israel and is vowing to defend Israel if the situation escalates, giving Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu no incentive to stop his new bombing campaign."
Followed by this post: "US Gives Israel $8.7 Billion in Military Aid for Operations in Gaza and Lebanon." "The new aid comes as the US claims it's pushing for a ceasefire in Lebanon. On Thursday, the Israeli Defense Ministry announced that it secured $8.7 billion in military aid from the US to support its “ongoing military efforts...”
It would be easy to stop both wars - in Lebanon/Gaza... and in the Ukraine/Russia. The Biden Team could do so in a single zoom call. ‘Hey guys,’ Anthony Blinken might say, ‘we’re out.’ Within weeks, the warring nations would come to terms with one another. Doesn’t happen. Why not?
A sane person of good will and good judgment might think that continuing either conflict was a waste. But that would put you at odds with America’s ‘foreign policy elite.’ Last week, that ‘elite’ rose out of the swamp to endorse Ms. Harris. Fortune: "More than 100 former staffers and national security leaders from past Republican administrations endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris on Wednesday - adding to the growing list of Republicans speaking out against former President Donald Trump. They ‘firmly oppose the election of Donald Trump,’ says the public letter. They say they disapprove of his “unethical behavior and disregard for our Republic's time-tested principles of constitutional governance.”
Then, on September 22, a group calling itself “National Security Leaders 4 America” sent its own letter - signed by 700 foreign policy ‘experts’ - claiming that: "Vice President Harris has proven she is an effective leader able to advance American national security interests. Her relentless diplomacy with allies around the globe preserved a united front in support of Ukraine’s fight against Russian aggression. She grasps the reality of American military deterrence, promising to preserve the American military’s status as the most “lethal” force in the world."
Donald Trump is not exactly a peacenik. To the contrary, he is as jingoistic and bellicose as any American president. But the foreign policy establishment regards him as unreliable. Of course, they are right. He’s not a team player. And they are most afraid that he might strike a deal to end the war against Russia.
The remarkable thing about this is that many of these experts were responsible for the worst decisions and most unethical behaviour in America’s history. They led the US into its woebegone War on Terror... which cost $8 trillion and upwards of a million dead. But that was, apparently, not enough. Now they are creating more serious enemies... not just freelancers with pickup trucks and towels on their heads. Now they are gunning for enemies who can put up a better fight.
The War on Terror laid the groundwork for the ‘Forever War’ we see taking shape. ‘You’re either with us or against us,’ said George W. Bush. One side or the other. But it was the US that invaded Iraq, not the other way around. And many nations that might have preferred to stay on the sidelines began to see that they could be next. They had to choose.
The Economist says they are choosing to join forces to oppose The West: "The rulers of China, Iran, North Korea and Russia are growing worryingly close. Antony Blinken, America’s secretary of state, was unusually blunt on a recent visit to Europe: “One of the reasons that [Vladimir] Putin is able to continue this aggression is because of the provision of support from the People’s Republic of China,” he said.
China was, he added, “the biggest supplier of machine tools, the biggest supplier of microelectronics, all of which are helping Russia sustain its defence industrial base”. American officials are reluctant to discuss details of what they think Russia is giving its friends, but Kurt Campbell, deputy secretary of state, recently said Russia has provided China with submarine, missile and other military technology. Separately, America says that Iran has been busy sending Russia hundreds of short-range ballistic missiles."
These revelations are examples of the growing military-industrial ties between China, Iran, North Korea and Russia. “We’re almost back to the axis of evil,” says Admiral John Aquilino, the recently departed head of America’s Indo-Pacific Commands... Back to the ‘Axis of Evil?’ Yes, they’ve got us just where our foreign policy experts want them to be. Stay tuned."
James Howard Kunstler, "The Shadow of the Shadow"
"The Shadow of the Shadow"
by James Howard Kunstler
“As shocking as it may sound, the institution of the State itself
is the real enemy. It’s time to carefully analyze your relation to it.”
- Doug Casey
"You have to wonder: has there ever been a country that marched off to war with no head-of-state at the top of its war machine? It’s exactly that bad in our country, with a broken animatronic Halloween scarecrow popping in-and-out of the White House to yell incoherently at election campaign events for a putative successor too scared of the predicament she’s in to think straight. Really, no one is in charge - and if any of the leading actors on the scene really were, the situation could easily get worse.
Hence, the brainless wish roiling through the NSC, State Department, and the various shadow councils of the intel emeriti to lob long-range missiles into Russia, apparently heedless of any consequences. America, you are a headless horseman riding blindly into chaos.
In fact, the entire Democratic Party and its Deep State intel blob partners have melted down into a desperate mob of political criminals frantic to evade accounting for their acts. So then, setting the world on fire is all they have left, a fitting act of revenge for a faction thwarted in its mad drive to merely wreck the United States for the sake of “social justice” and “equity.”
The Democrats of 2024 made exactly the same mistake that their predecessors, the Jacobins, made in France back in 1794: they just couldn’t tell when they’d gone too far with their insults against the public interest and common decency. Their insults derived from the age-old human impulse to demolish society due to life being unfair, later codified in Marxian doctrine, and then made into a play-book by Saul Alinisky (with annotations by Antonio Gramsci, Richard Cloward, and Frances Fox Piven).
As the French Revolution ground on and on, by 1793 the Jacobins gained control of the Committee of Public Safety which actually carried out policy, while endless quarrels occupied the National Convention - the then-current legislative body. The Jacobins’ policy was insane, just as the policy of open borders, lawfare, war, censorship, pharma-terrorism, climate hustles, and drag queens in the schools is insane under our modern Jacobins, the Democrats. (Notice the Democrats’ constant invoking of “safety” and “safe spaces” as a similar rhetorical device for justifying their deeds and cowing the public.)
The Committee of Public Safety sought to remake French society by turning its cultural norms upside-down and by killing as many of its political opponents as possible. Thus, the Reign of Terror when, for a whole year, heads rolled and rolled off the guillotine in the Place de Concorde, usually without benefit of a trial. The ghoulish extravaganza of gore and death grossed-out those in the country who had not lost their minds.
One night in July 1794, as the Jacobin boss, Robespierre, took to the rostrum in the Convention for the umpteenth time to denounce his enemies and announce new death sentences, members in the chamber commenced throwing food at him. That was the turning point, and it turned so hard and fast that France was amazed. Within forty-eight hours, Robespierre and many of his cohorts got beheaded under the “national razor,” and that was the end of Jacobinism and all its insane measures to wreck what was left of society after five years of revolution.
Our Democratic Party Jacobins have been harder to defeat because government these days is vastly larger and more complex, and the equivalent of the Committee of Public Safety is now a huge network of cadres toiling in scores of federal agencies and associated NGOs financed by those agencies (or by their billionaire henchmen such as George Soros, Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, and Reid Hoffman). Insane as they are, many public officials understand their culpability for the treasons and insults of recent years. They live in fear of prosecution and, short of that, of losing their cushy sinecures in the colossal bureaucracy that is bankrupting us.
There are many in our country today who are also not insane, just as in France circa 1794. This is actually the chief appeal of Mr. Trump, though he often expresses it clumsily, coming, as he does, from the rough and exacting world of property development, which is full of rough people in rough building trades using rough language. Secondarily, Mr. Trump represents leadership - the sheer idea that an actual person should be an executive-in-charge of a national polity - and it appears that a majority of the people in this land are finally sick of a faceless blob ruling madly from the shadows. Thirdly, Mr. Trump has become a national father figure, a titanic offense to a party run by women with daddy issues and to their Marxist allies dogmatically bent on destroying the family (along with every other institution). As it happens, countries need fathers, both actual and symbolic. What a surprise!
In the mad effort to evade judgment for their acts, the Democrats and their blob cadres are either trying to kill Mr. Trump directly, or are looking the other way while other nefarious parties attempt the wicked business. So far, no cigar. Who knows what they’ll try next: a surface-to-air missile at his airplane...a directed-energy weapon...a poisoned cheeseburger...?
The candidate himself seems a little tinged these days with the same aura of dauntless resignation that was seen in Martin Luther King and the first Bobby Kennedy in 1968 - who both went about their business trying to rescue our country from war and wickedness despite the threats against them. Many upright, intelligent, bold figures stand with and behind Mr. Trump this time, people capable and willing to pick up the flag in the event it becomes necessary. Do not fear.
Meanwhile, you have to also wonder: what on earth possessed the Democrats to maneuver Kamala Harris into this race? Everyone in the party and the blob must know she doesn’t have an agile mind - beyond some ability for reciting parboiled slogans - nor much acquaintance with the workings of the world besides her dwindled wiles in political amour, and that she may actually have a drinking problem. She is left, finally with no one to cheerlead for her but the harpies on The View and the degenerates on CNN and The New York Times who all know the score but are too invested in years of their own mendacity to even attempt to come clean.
Chatter arises that the awaited “October surprise” will involve “Joe Biden” resigning from office to make way for Kamala to become the First Woman President just before election day, affording her, supposedly, a magisterial prestige in the final leg of the race. Don’t bet on that. When he resigns, “JB” loses his power of the pardon. If he exercises it on the eve of resignation and lets son Hunter, brothers James, Frank, and other family members (including himself) off the hook for their global money-grubbing exploits, it will only besmirch Ms. Harris by association. He has to hang in office until after Nov 6, no matter how the election turns, and then he can pardon what left of his brains out.
Before we even get to that point, all you have to worry about are unaccountable government factotums doing something over in Russia that will make Mr. Putin want to turn the USA into an ashtray."
Thursday, September 26, 2024
"Lookout Don't Look Up"
"Lookout Don't Look Up"
Phone addiction is the most powerful drug on earth.
by Nicholas Creed
"Is the art of conversation dying or dead almost those born since 2000? Does that age cohort favour emojis and digital communication over face to face human interaction and verbal dialogue? I ask these questions both rhetorically and tongue-in-cheek, because we all know the answer. I feel like I am surrounded by zombies. I am surrounded by zombies. I’ve ranted about this kind of thing before, here, here, and here.
Today I re-examine ‘smart’ dumb phone addiction through the lens of a pedestrian in mortal peril, a driver who sees 99.9% of motorists playing on their phones or watching videos in Bangkok, and as a quietly despairing man from a bygone era that values meaningful human connection. I must be old-fashioned. I was born in 1984 and now I am living through Eric Blair aka George Orwell’s Nineteen eighty four. I have yet to turn forty years old, yet I may be called a ‘boomer’ simply by virtue of my principles and how I cling onto being human, acting human, rejecting the merging of man and machine, and quite literally detesting my own phone.
I leave my little blue screen at home most of the time. Mrs. Creed is never without hers; alas I do encourage her to spend less time on her Instagram story and more time on our story in the land of the living, within the magical, spontaneous, unpredictable realm of reality.
There are a handful of friends who I can rely on for punctuality to appear at a convened meeting point at the allotted time. It is liberating being without that little device that craves attention - even with zero anti-social media apps installed, no email account apps, *no Substack app*, no food delivery apps - only Telegram and Signal messaging - I can make do with those on my laptop desktop alone.
I was pleasantly surprised a few weeks back when I met a friend in the park for some outdoor exercise at the open-air gym, when he was despondent to my calls and messages. I reluctantly brought my phone in its little faraday cage pouch and fished it out upon arrival to check if he was nearby. He turned up and proudly announced that he’d left his phone at home, inspired by observing me having done the same so often. It was checkmate with me in the NPC crosshairs on that occasion. Nay bother. Going ‘phoneless’ is catching on. Long may it continue.
Last night I braved thunder and lightning in a torrential classic Bangkok monsoon season downpour to make a run to the local minimart. There are rarely any pavements (‘sidewalks’ in American English) around Bangkok’s little ‘Sois’ (roads). As I toddled home, I hugged the right side of the road on the final corner of the home stretch, only to be almost wiped out of the game.
A food delivery driver tore around the corner towards me, one hand on his motorcycle handlebar, the other hand holding his phone as he slouched forwards checking the map direction on his blue screen. I breathed in and darted further still into the walls atop the drains. He missed me by millimeters. I shouted in Thai “concentrate!” - to which I received an angry glare. Sorry for existing, and being in your way as you multi-tasked your journey one-handed in zero-visibility heavy rain at highspeed, Mr. Motorcyclist.
I see these near-misses daily around my neigbourhood - for the most part these motorcyclists seem to have developed an extra-sensory perception via peripheral vision that allows them to remain glued to their phones as they swerve around oncoming traffic and pedestrians. Although I know from the daily death tolls on the roads involving motorcycles and pick-up trucks, that many souls are not so ‘lucky’. It really is a concrete jungle out there.
As my car’s engine idles in the dreaded Bangkok gridlocked traffic from time to time, I look around from side to side, and what do I see? Everyone is on their phone, almost all motorists are wearing a facemask, often alone in their cars, and motorcyclists are often playing games or watching YouTube videos; if they are not otherwise mesmerised by the infinite scroll of drivel via Facebook.
When the traffic lights turn green, invariably it warrants a beep of my horn to pull the driver in front of me out of their phone-induced stupor, so that they may drive forwards, whilst they ambidextrously continue tapping away on their screens, putting their automatic drive vehicles into gear.
Frightening. Insane. Normalized. The brief reprieves from being - I like to think - sane, in an insane and abnormal society, come via the rare glances of acknowledgement from fellow humans who are socially self-aware of their surroundings, and fully conscious. What a rare, beautiful sight it is to behold, truly. Especially on the public transport links - Bangkok’s underground mass rapid transit (MRT) trains, or the over-ground ‘Skytrain’ system.
It reminds me of that scene in the film "I Am Legend" when Will Smith’s character discovers the mutated humans underground all huddled together in silence:
Yet within the silent, huddled, phone scrolling of the public transport trains in Bangkok, I yearn to find just one person who is phoneless, without earphones, without an Ipad or device in their palms. It is extremely rare. If our eyes meet but for a moment, we might exchange a knowing smile as we glance around at the other automaton passengers. It makes for good people watching at least.
What a waste of the inherently natural beauty that used to radiate from Thai women. They just do not look up anymore. They are also still often masked. Hidden away from the world, sinking into the digital, all consuming, attention sapping succubus demon of the blue screen. Unquestionably addicted. Hopelessly dependent on their bastion of truth propaganda, spewing out attention-span diminishing ten second clips of nonsense.
I am so glad to not be a single man in this landscape which is devoid of feeling, numbed by always being connected to the internet, yet entirely disconnected from the sense of self, surroundings, and from life itself.
I met an interesting bloke at the sports hall in the local park. He has a unique job where his role comes in between physiotherapy and doctor’s rehabilitative duties for people who have suffered devastating physical injuries, often from car accidents. I can’t recall the job title, but it is something ‘activated’. He helps people to ‘get activated’ through a type of Swedish massage and stretching exercises. He ranted about phone addiction.
He casually said: “Basically, babies are born now, they learn to walk, then that’s it really. They do not progress beyond the ability to walk in terms of their physical development. The walk turns into a shuffle with poor posture. Most infants are given an Ipad by the age of two years old here. Then they are cognitively and physically stunted in terms of development.”
We mused on how across the sports centre halls of the local park - Pickle Ball, Badminton, Table Tennis, Basketball, and Volleyball - the children are absent. Teenagers are nowhere to be seen. The age demographic for the most part is 30 years old and up. We agreed, nostalgically, how our childhoods in England were spent climbing trees, building rope-swings, playing football, and generally being outdoors as much as possible.
“Piss off Creed you cringeworthy Boomer!” - I hear some youngster shout from the backrow…
As a teenager at the turn of the millennium on new year’s eve 1999, I was at a house party with the entire high school year of pupils. It was wild. I drank myself stupid and ended up throwing up all over my friend’s parent’s pretty flowerbed in their neatly trimmed suburbia garden. I was somewhat mortified. I featured heavily in Monday morning’s gossip stories around the school. It faded away. Only to be replaced by some other drunken teenager falling down some stairs or into a bush at the next week’s house party.
Nowadays, teenagers cannot afford to make such mistakes - even though such errors can be a coming of age rite of passage. Not necessarily involving alcohol, but general moments of great embarrassment when you want the ground to swallow you up and memory hole the incident.
Nowadays, a teenager would be subject to intense ‘cyber bullying’ if they put one foot wrong at a party. It would be remixed into a funky video clip to a whacky soundtrack and might go viral, if they are very unfortunate. I wonder what teenaged house parties are like now. Do they sit around on their phones showing each other videos and messaging the person sat beside them? Do some people play up to the camera phones for attention, or choregraph a little dance for TikTok?
“Shut up Creed you stupid Boomer!”
As a child, I would call my friends by landline and ask “are you playing out today?” Then we would ‘knock-on’ our friend’s front door, and off we went to explore the great outdoors, tearing around on our BMX bikes, with the only danger we put ourselves in owing to our own non-stop laughter, and perhaps foolishly cycling together side by side in a row on a main road.
Although we weren’t chased by nefarious government officials from clandestine programs like in the show Stranger Things, we once experienced a bicycle chase from a group of much older boys after we replaced the huge log on their rope-swing with a twig, just for a laugh. I am sure they would have beaten us to a pulp if they had caught up with us - a lucky, narrow escape.
That’ll do it for glimpsing into my misspent well-spent, character building youth. We were free once upon a time. Carefree, adventurous, explorative, and curious about the big wide world."
Lookout Phone Parody Video I don’t know who to give credit for this final parody clip. Fellow Substacker TriTorch sent me a link to it (I hope he recommences his writing again when the time is right). If I can persuade Mrs. Creed to add a Thai voiceover to the video, I bet my inbox will be inundated by Thais asking where they can order it…
As TriTorch said to me in a direct message which I am sure he won’t mind me quoting verbatim: "They're (phones) highly weaponized poison aimed directly at mankind. Worse than drugs because the vector of attack makes so much sense ("well my son has to have his cell phone in class, what if there's an emergency") <--- there's so much evil built into that mantra it's practically inconceivable (we went on just fine for 200 years without cell phones in classrooms, but whatever eases the parents' minds paves the path to our ruin).
"Israel-Hezbollah War: Hezbollah Holds The Edge Over Israel In Ground Invasion"
Full screen recommended.
WION, 9/26/24
"Israel-Hezbollah War: Hezbollah Holds
The Edge Over Israel In Ground Invasion"
"If Israel decides to attack Lebanon via a ground operation, experts believe it won’t that easy and straightforward for IDF. Rather Hezbollah will hold the edge due to a variety of reasons ranging from terrain, tunnels, asymmetric warfare, and guerilla warfare, among others."
Comments here:
Just For One Day"
"Just For One Day"
by Paul Rosenberg
'Most people fail to appreciate the fresh opportunity that each day brings them. Their programming requires them to snort derisively at any positive description of humanity. After all, the systems of this world are built upon the assumption that mankind is weak, stupid, and generally inadequate to a moral existence. As a result, most people have become addicted to bad news.
Nonetheless every day is a fresh start, a situation created by nature itself. So, please consider this: What if, just once, you got out of bed and imagined that you were a fresh being in the universe? And more than that, a good, creative, potent being. What if you imagined yourself free of obligations and intimidations, charting a fresh course? What if you looked at your life as if it were beginning anew?
Is it an intolerable thought that you should put aside your well-groomed fears, wake up to a blank slate, and hold that position for just one day? And if we can’t allow ourselves this one productive entertainment, what has happened to us?
You Don’t Actually Suck: Our opinions of ourselves are usually out of touch with reality. To prove that, you need only to slow down, clear your mind, and answer a few questions:
Can you remember a moment from your childhood when someone was notably kind or loving toward you? You have at least one, yes? So, in detail, what was it like and how did you feel?
Can you remember a time you stood up for someone who was being unfairly insulted or abused? What exactly did you do, and how did it make you feel?
Can you remember a time when you did something because it was right, even though you knew you’d suffer for it? How did it feel to push through the fear and do it?
Have you ever done something out of nothing but simple, honest benevolence? How did that feel?
Did you answer these questions? Did you relive the experiences a little? You see, you don’t actually suck. You’ve merely been made to believe so… by people and systems who profit from your bad opinion of yourself.
What’s Life For? You are alive, and this life you possess doesn’t have a preset direction; it’s you who choose where to direct it. Our lives have the meaning we give them, and we give them meaning through exercises of will.
You have immense capabilities, but only you can choose to use them. If you spend your entire life reacting to darkness and threat, you’ll never learn to be a potent being. Instead, you’ll stay in a tight little shell, talking about everything bad that happens in the world and seeking more and more bad news because it justifies your shell. Does that sound like a good way to spend a life?
When? Ever? So, when do we pull away from the carnival of bad news? When do we lift up our eyes and consider the radical possibility that we have good things in us? When do we consider our virtues and abilities… and start using them as a first choice?
For most people the answer is “never.” Not once in a complete human lifetime. And that’s tragic. In fact, it’s premature death. Most people aren’t specifically choosing this of course – it’s a choice thrust upon them – but it ends with them never living by their own light. Instead, they find a “doesn’t hurt too badly” groove and plod along until they tip into a grave.
But what if we picked a day and chose to live as if we were wonderful? If you’re so deeply terrified that that will lead to doom, make it your day off or a vacation day. Get up and spend that day as if you were a luminous being. Flatly pretend if you must, but do it for a day. Is that really so evil a concept that you can’t allow it to exist? So, when is it that we choose to wake up and be wonderful, just for one day?
Pick One: Every tomorrow is a new day and a new chance to be wonderful. So pick a day and wake up to a blank slate. Turn away from the knee-jerk objections that ram their way into your mind; they can have the other 364 days. Try being wonderful. Pull out your calendar, pick a month and day, circle it, and then do it. You might like it."
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