Full screen recommended.
King Luxury, 8/2/25
"Putin's Presidential Jet Even Shocked Donald Trump"
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So, we rise from the rubble...
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Friday, August 15, 2025
Thursday, August 14, 2025
Musical Interlude: Spirit Tribe Awakening, "Raise Positive Vibrations"
Full screen recommended.
Spirit Tribe Awakening, "Raise Positive Vibrations"
"528Hz Positive Energy, Self Healing with 417Hz Solfeggio frequency. Peaceful, empowering and soothing music and nature to nurture your mind, body, and soul. Supporting and empowering you on your life journey." I can't praise this visually beautiful, and very effective, video enough. In these incredibly highly stressful times, please be kind to yourself and take the time to savor this exquisite work in full screen mode. Headphones suggested but not necessary. It works, as simple as that...
- CP
"A Look to the Heavens"
“The Cat's Eye Nebula (NGC 6543) is one of the best known planetary nebulae in the sky. Its more familiar outlines are seen in the brighter central region of the nebula in this impressive wide-angle view. But the composite image combines many short and long exposures to also reveal an extremely faint outer halo. At an estimated distance of 3,000 light-years, the faint outer halo is over 5 light-years across.
Planetary nebulae have long been appreciated as a final phase in the life of a sun-like star. More recently, some planetary nebulae are found to have halos like this one, likely formed of material shrugged off during earlier episodes in the star's evolution. While the planetary nebula phase is thought to last for around 10,000 years, astronomers estimate the age of the outer filamentary portions of this halo to be 50,000 to 90,000 years. Visible on the left, some 50 million light-years beyond the watchful planetary nebula, lies spiral galaxy NGC 6552.”
Chet Raymo, “Asperges Me, Domine” *
“Asperges Me, Domine” *
by Chet Raymo
“Greystone Books publishes a series of "Literary Companions" to natural environments- mountains, rivers and lakes, deserts, gardens, and the sea, so far. Now they come to my environment- night- and have been kind enough to include a chapter from “The Soul of the Night”, the chapter called "The Shape of Night." I am in lovely company, admired companions of several generations- Diane Ackerman, Timothy Ferris, Annie Dillard, Henry Beston, Loren Eiseley, Louise Erdrich, Pico Iyer, and Gretel Ehrlich, to name but a few - all connoisseurs of darkness.
Our earliest mammalian ancestors were presumably nocturnal- to escape the predations of dinosaurs- but for most of human history we have been afraid of the dark, huddling in caves around stuttering fires, curled together in darkness like mice in a burrow. Night belonged to animals with big, dark-adapted eyes and sharp teeth, to footpads and graverobbers, to werewolves and vampires. Ironically, it was with the coming of electric illumination that it became reasonably safe to go out and about at night, even as the illumination erased the best reason to do so.
William Blake called day Earth's "blue mundane shell... a hard coating of matter that separates us from Eternity." At night we peer into infinity, awash in a myriad of stars. We creep to the door of the cave and look up into the Milky Way and catch a glimpse of divinity- everlasting, all-embracing, utterly unknowable. Night- that cone of shadow, that wizard's cap of spells and omens- is the chink in Earth's shell through which we court Ultimate Mystery the way Pyramus courted Thisbe.
Which is why, I suppose, that whenever I think of "the porch" of people who visit here, I imagine Carolina rockers on a southern summer verandah, far from city lights, Vega, Deneb and Altair swimming in the Milky Way, fireflies flickering on the lawn. At some point the conversation ceases and we simply sit, rock, and listen to the sounds of the night- the whippoorwill, the bullfrog, the cricket and the owl- and let starlight fall upon our heads like a sprinkling of holy water.”
•
* “Wash me, Lord. Sprinkle me with hyssop and I shall be clean.”
- The Catholic Mass
"The Rise And Fall of Quizno's Subs - 5,000 Stores To Bankruptcy?"
Full screen recommended.
Michael Girdley, 8/14/25
"The Rise And Fall of Quizno's Subs -
5,000 Stores To Bankruptcy?"
"In the early 2000s, Quiznos was on top of the world - over 5,000 stores, toasted subs loved by millions, and a brand that rivaled Subway in the fast food industry. But just a decade later, Quiznos was a shadow of its former self, filing for bankruptcy and closing thousands of locations."
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o
Full screen recommended.
Michael Girdley, 8/14/25
"The Rise And Fall of Pizza Hut:
A $5.7 Billion Collapse"
"In the 1990s, Pizza Hut dominated the U.S. pizza scene - over 7,500 locations and nearly 25% of the market. But today? It's a fading franchise. Stores are shutting down, delivery is lagging, and Domino’s has taken the lead."
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"35 Retailers Collapsing Right In Front Of Our Eyes"
Full screen recommended.
Epic Economist, 8/14/25
"35 Retailers Collapsing Right In Front Of Our Eyes"
"Your local Walmart could be gone tomorrow. That Walgreens down the street? Shuttered. The grocery store where you've shopped for years? Permanently closed. This isn't some doomsday prediction. It's happening right now across America. Over 3,000 major retail stores are shutting down permanently in 2025. Pharmacies, grocery chains, department stores, fast food giants - they're all collapsing. These aren't pandemic casualties. This is a complete systemic failure of the retail model. Crushing rent costs, online competition, organized theft, and consumers who've fundamentally changed how they shop. When these stores disappear, they're taking essential services with them. Access to food, medicine, jobs - all gone. Small towns and vulnerable neighborhoods are feeling the worst impact. We're counting down the 35 biggest retail chains collapsing in 2025 and what their shutdowns mean for everyday Americans like you. Will your town be next?"
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o
Full screen recommended.
Michael Girdley, 8/14/25
"The Rise And Fall of Walgreens:
From $100B to Bankruptcy Watch"
"Walgreens used to be unstoppable. Once a $100 billion drugstore empire, they dominated street corners across America with drive-thrus, clever retail strategy, and a booming pharmacy business model. For decades, they rode the rise of post-war healthcare spending, and Walgreens stock looked like a can’t-miss investment.."
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"Not Knowing..."
“Not knowing you can’t do something
is sometimes all it takes to do it.”
- Ally Carter
The Poet: Linda Pastan, “What We Want”
“What We Want”
“What we want
is never simple.
We move among the things
we thought we wanted:
a face, a room, an open book
and these things bear our names-
now they want us.
But what we want appears
in dreams, wearing disguises.
We fall past,
holding out our arms
and in the morning
our arms ache.
We don’t remember the dream,
but the dream remembers us.
It is there all day
as an animal is there
under the table,
as the stars are there
even in full sun.”
- Linda Pastan
"Your Only Choice..."
”There is a point of no return, unremarked at the time, in most lives.”
- Graham Greene
○
“When swimming into a dark tunnel, there arrives a point of no
return when you no longer have enough breath to double back.
Your only choice is to swim forward into the unknown… and pray for an exit.”
- Dan Brown
"Does The Bible Command Christians To Protect the Pathological Liars and Criminally Insane Psychopaths and Genocidal Maniacs In Israel?"
"Does The Bible Command Christians To Protect the Pathological
Liars and Criminally Insane Psychopaths and Genocidal Maniacs In Israel?"
by State Of The Nation
Excerpt: "SOTN Editor’s Note: The entire world community of nations is watching the apartheid Zionist state of Israel expose it’s nakedly genocidal agenda in real time. And yet, Christian Zionists across America continue to lend their money and moral support to Israel, even applauding the Gaza Genocide with every massacre committed by the IDF and starvation ploy carried out by MOSSAD.
Not only that, but these same Christian Zionists are perfectly okay with the IDF assassinating journalists whenever they so choose to. See: Funerals held for five Al Jazeera journalists killed by targeted Israeli strike in Gaza.
They are even okay with the fact that more journalists have been deliberately killed by a military aggressor than in any other conflict since the recording of such stats first began: 186 journalists have been killed since the start of Israel’s military offensive in Gaza in October 2023
Exactly who is “thee Antichrist” who leads this veritable Palestinian Holocaust?
"Does The Bible Command Christians To
Protect the Liars and Psychopaths In Israel?"
by Patrick J. McShay
“Most Jews do not like to admit it, but our God is Lucifer.”
- Harold Wallace Rosenthal, Senior Aide to Jewish Senator Jacob Javits
“I am 100% positive that Israel was behind the 911 attacks.”
- Dr. Alan Sabrosky
(The Jewish Director of Studies at The Army War College on 9-11-2001)
“My opinion of Christian Zionists? They’re scum. But don’t tell them that.
We need all the useful idiots we can get right now.”
- Benjamin “Bibi” Netanyahu, Prime Minister of Israel.
(Present in New York City on 9/11 and London during the 7/7 subway bombings.)
Full article is here:
"Eventually You Understand..."
"That's where it all begins. That's where we all get screwed big time as we grow up. They tell us to think, but they don't really mean it. They only want us to think within the boundaries they define. The moment you start thinking for yourself- really thinking- so many things stop making any sense. And if you keep thinking, the whole world just falls apart. Nothing makes sense anymore. All rules, traditions, expectations- they all start looking so fake, so made up. You want to just get rid of all this stuff and make things right. But the moment you say it, they tell you to shut up and be respectful. And eventually you understand that nobody wants you to really think for yourself."
- Ray N. Kuili, "Awakening"
"Job-Stealing AI, Sun Taxes, and Broken Trust"
"Job-Stealing AI, Sun Taxes, and Broken Trust"
by Peak Prosperity
"Today, Evie and I dove into some heavy topics that are shaping our world in ways we can’t ignore. First up, we tackled how AI is disrupting jobs, especially for young graduates. Looking at the data, unemployment rates for 20 - to 24-year-olds are climbing, reminiscent of past economic dips like the Great Financial Crisis. I’m seeing AI as a major culprit, swallowing up entry-level positions and even displacing seasoned professionals in fields like coding and law. It’s a tough reality - imagine doing everything right, getting that degree, only to compete with veterans whose jobs AI has already taken. This isn’t just about blue-collar losses from policies like NAFTA; now, white-collar jobs are on the chopping block, and it’s hitting our youth hard. How do we, as a community, support them against a force so vast and incomprehensible?
Then, we shifted to an even darker side of AI - its impact on our souls. I came across a chilling thread by psychiatrist Keith Sakata, who’s seen patients hospitalized with what he calls “AI psychosis,” losing touch with reality through online interactions. AI, trained on massive datasets, knows exactly how to flatter and manipulate, feeding delusions by telling people what they want to hear. It’s a “doom loop,” especially for the vulnerable, where there’s no reality check, just an echo chamber of false beliefs. We’ve seen this before with COVID, where cognitive warfare unmasked or even created psychosis in some. But AI takes it further, personalizing the manipulation. I’m haunted by stories like a woman “engaged” to an AI named Casper, or a man who cried over losing his AI companion due to a memory reset. These aren’t just quirks; they’re signs of a profound disconnection from real human interaction, amplified by AI’s emotional hijacking.
We also touched on broader societal trends, looking at data from the Understanding America study. It shows young adults losing conscientiousness, trust, and extraversion, while neuroticism and distraction skyrocket. I blame smartphones and digital media for much of this, fracturing face-to-face bonds and making real-life commitments feel burdensome. It’s no accident—cognitive warfare tools are weaponizing our minds, pushing us toward dependency and distrust. Yet, I see a silver lining: if you can show up, follow through, and genuinely connect with others, you’ve got a superpower in this distracted age.
Lastly, we couldn’t ignore the absurdities in policy and politics. From Germany taxing sunlight after pushing solar energy, to honoring those who’ve harmed their economy, it’s a humiliation ritual. And hearing Dick Cheney call Trump the greatest threat to our republic? The irony is thick, given his own history. Meanwhile, trust is eroding, critical thinking is a relic, and AI like Grok gets suspended for stating uncomfortable truths about Gaza. It’s a mess, folks. We’re at a unique point in history with resource limits looming and tech fracturing our reality. That’s why at Peak Prosperity, I’m committed to cutting through the lies with hard evidence, helping you prepare - whether it’s food storage, financial security, or emotional resilience. Join us at the Peak Prosperity Annual Summit in September to connect with like-minded folks who still value reality. We’ve got to fight back against this insanity together."
Dan, I Allegedly, "No More Coffee! The Coffee Crisis is Here!"
Full screen recommended.
Dan, I Allegedly, AM 8/14/25
"No More Coffee! The Coffee Crisis is Here!"
"The shocking truth about coffee’s future is here - and it’s not looking good. In today’s video, I’m diving into the alarming challenges facing the global coffee industry, from severe weather in Brazil and Vietnam wreaking havoc on crops to skyrocketing prices that could make your daily cup of coffee a luxury. With production projected to drop by up to 44%, we’ll discuss how this could impact your wallet and the entire supply chain. Whether you’re a fan of Arabica or Robusta, the reality of reduced output, frost-damaged beans, and higher shipping costs is hitting hard. We’re talking $20 per pound for coffee and $15 for a basic Starbucks cup - crazy, right? I’ll also share insights about budgeting and how people are adapting to rising costs in other areas like dining out and even thrift shopping."
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Familiar? LOL
Adventures With Danno, "Items At Kroger Everyone Should Be Buying Right Now!"
Full screen recommended.
Adventures With Danno, AM 8/14/25
"Items At Kroger Everyone Should Be Buying Right Now!"
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o
Full screen recommended.
Travelling With Russell, 8/14/25
"Russian Supermarkets Are No Longer Typical"
"How have Russian Supermarkets changed in the last few years? Join me on a tour of 2 different brand new formats of Russian supermarkets. Both stores have traditional formats, but now they are testing a new, smaller format store."
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Bill Bonner, "Smooth Sailing"
"Smooth Sailing"
by Bill Bonner
Poitou, France - "Uh oh. In the fight between virtue and vice, it looks like our fav congressman is going down. The Washington Examiner: "Pro-Israel billionaires spent over $1.5 million in 38 days to oust Thomas Massie. Polling shows him running way behind the candidate Trump/AIPAC paid for."
Massie made a good point in a recent interview. It’s not just Trump and the Israel lobby he’s up against...it’s America’s firepower industry too. They all want more of the public’s money. But it’s worse. Massie is up against the whole system of fake money and inflated prices. Anyone who stands in the way is marked for elimination. .
Massie: “The Pentagon provides Congress with a handy map showing all the districts where defense industries are located and all the jobs they create.” That is what we see. What we don’t see is all the jobs, incomes, sales and earnings taken from elsewhere. Every pound of steel used to make a tank is not used to build an HVAC system. And even if the money is fake - ‘printed’ and borrowed - it still is used to buy real resources that must come out of the real economy.
Which brings us to our question for today. What is it we’re not seeing? What’s the rest of the story? We see what is, not what could be...or ought to be…or will be. A man takes a vacation to Milan, and misses the sights in Paris. Napoleon takes his soldiers to Moscow; they might have enjoyed the Cote d’Azur instead. A bomb goes off...and kills a man who might have found a cure for cancer. We only know a small part of the story. And the part we think we know we see only through a glass darkly.
We are told, for example, that the tariffs are a big success because the revenue to the Treasury will reduce deficits and debt. In this case, the ‘more to the story’ didn’t take long in coming. CNBC: "US deficit grows to $291 billion in July despite surge in tariff revenue. The deficit for July was up 19%, or $47 billion, from July 2024. Receipts for the month grew 2%, or $8 billion, to $338 billion, while outlays jumped 10%, or $56 billion, to $630 billion, a record high for the month."
At this rate, expected revenues from tariffs, while substantial, will still be negligible from a debt reduction standpoint. Until last week, Mr. Trump looked upon the job numbers as proof of a healthy economy. Then, when the numbers were revised downward, he claimed they were ‘rigged.’ But either way, the numbers prove nothing.
Some of the disappeared jobs might have vanished because industries feared the uncertainty of Trump’s unpredictable Big Man management. Others might have gone away because women are leaving the workforce. Newsweek: "Hundreds of Thousands of Women Are Leaving the Labor Force."
Or because the immigrants are packing up. USA Today: "The country's immigrant population may have dropped by roughly two million people in the first six months of the year, according to new government data."
And in the stock market, record prices prove that the Trump Team must be doing something right...right? Stock prices are data. Facts. They don’t lie. Reuters: "S&P 500, Nasdaq hit record highs at open..."
But wait. What stories are stock prices not telling us? Stocks in the US are up almost 10% this year. But in Germany they’re up 35%. Has the Trump Team cost investors a 25% gain? We don’t know. But congratulations may be premature. Like praising the captain of the Titanic for four days of smooth sailing…or Herbert Hoover for the remarkable stock market of the summer of 1929… It might be wise to wait for the rest of the story."
o
"Then you will see the rise of the men of the double standard - the men who live by force, yet count on those who live by trade to create the value of their looted money - the men who are the hitchhikers of virtue. In a moral society, these are the criminals, and the statutes are written to protect you against them. But when a society establishes criminals-by-right and looters-by-law - men who use force to seize the wealth of disarmed victims - then money becomes its creators' avenger. Such looters believe it safe to rob defenseless men, once they've passed a law to disarm them. But their loot becomes the magnet for other looters, who get it from them as they got it. Then the race goes, not to the ablest at production, but to those most ruthless at brutality. When force is the standard, the murderer wins over the pickpocket. And then that society vanishes, in a spread of ruins and slaughter.
Do you wish to know whether that day is coming? Watch money. Money is the barometer of a society's virtue. When you see that trading is done, not by consent, but by compulsion - when you see that in order to produce, you need to obtain permission from men who produce nothing - when you see that money is flowing to those who deal, not in goods, but in favors - when you see that men get richer by graft and by pull than by work, and your laws don't protect you against them, but protect them against you - when you see corruption being rewarded and honesty becoming a self-sacrifice - you may know that your society is doomed."
An excerpt from “Atlas Shrugged,” by Ayn Rand.
Full text of “Francisco’s Money Speech” is here:
Jim Kunstler, "Carefully And Gracefully"
"Carefully And Gracefully"
by Jim Kunstler
“It’s funny they call [intel] a ‘community.’ That sounds so
benign and beneficial. Everybody likes communities.”
- Doug Casey
"And so, now, in Alaska, Mr. Trump sits down with Vlad Putin to attempt a settling of Ukraine’s hash. This war has been a three-year bloody grind, millions killed, mostly Ukrainians, provoked underhandedly by US State Dept/CIA neocons, Britain’s MI6 apparatus, and the girl-bosses of the EU, for no good reason, namely, to weaken and possibly break-up Russia so as to get at its vast mineral and energy resources. This has been tried before in history, always to the grief of the triers.
From our country’s point of view, the dynamics in play at this moment are delicate to an extreme. In the background of the Trump-Putin meet-up, amid an eerie silence in the DOJ and FBI, an epic, sweeping prosecution of the RussiaGate hoaxers creeps forward. RussiaGate, of course, was born in the false charge (by America’s highest officials, derived from nonsense cooked up by Hillary Clinton) that Donald Trump was a Russian agent. It was preposterous and continually disproven, but the many-footed creatures of America’s deep state, which controlled so many levers of power, dragged it out for years. Altogether, that endeavor amounted to a campaign of sedition and arguably treason.
The delicacy comes in as President Trump must now avoid at all costs any appearance of giving-in to Mr. Putin, of appearing to be any sort of a vassal — “Putin’s puppet,” as charged in RussiaGate. The raw truth is that Russia has likely already “won” the war in Ukraine, in the sense that it has finally gained control of the battlespace and worn out its opponent. It is fait accompli. What remains is the disposition of Ukraine’s future which, in another raw truth, is mostly Russia’s to determine.
Yet another raw truth is that this would probably be the best outcome for all concerned: a neutralized, disarmed Ukraine returned to its prior condition as a mostly agricultural sovereign backwater of Europe within Russia’s sphere-of-influence, resuming its longstanding status as not being a problem for anyone.
Still, yet another raw truth is that the USA would benefit hugely from normalized relations with Russia, no more sanctions, fair trade, a rebalance of the drift toward China, lessening the chance of nuclear war - and this would even benefit the knuckleheads of Europe whose economies are imploding due to a lack of affordable energy (and also because of, let’s face it, the EU’s terrifically stupid “green” policies).
All of which means there will necessarily be a lot of “pretend” played in Anchorage for show. Mr. Trump must pretend to be tough on Putin, and Mr. Putin must pretend, a little bit, to give-in to Mr. Trump’ proposals. That is, it will be something of a kabuki, a kafabe. Surely, many of the stickiest points have been pre-negotiated by Mr. Trump’s envoy, Steve Witkoff, who quietly visited Moscow a week ago.
Mr. Trump must appear strong with Russia because his appointees are commencing to go medieval on the folks who called him “Putin’s Puppet” nine years ago - and subjected him to a series of epic torments including the subversion of his whole first term in office, nonstop obloquy from the media, impeachment (X 2), home invasion, and a grotesque set of malicious, nitwit prosecutions that have either failed completely (Fani Willis, Jack Smith) or will be subject to humiliating reversals in the higher courts. Not to mention two attempted assassinations.
You should assume that Mr. Putin well understands all this and intends to play along. He will appear to make some generous concessions to Ukraine, starting with the promise that it can go forward as a sovereign, self-governing nation. The big enchilada might be to grant that Ukraine can retain possession of Odessa, the port city on the Black Sea which is Ukraine’s depot for export to the world of its chief commodity, grains. In any case, both Russia and the USA intend to relieve Volodymyr Zelenskyy of his duties - notice he is conspicuously not invited to the Alaska meeting.
Mr. Trump well understands that one way or another, Russia is going to prevail in this conflict on-the-ground. He abhors all the killing. He has already expressed a disinclination to keep backing the war with money and weapons. He must be disgusted at how the Bidens (and the Deep State) used Ukraine as a money-laundry, as a site for bioweapons labs, and how it served as a nexus for human trafficking.
He also knows that Russia wants badly to be re-admitted to normal relations with the West, which is in everybody’s interest, except perhaps China’s. You should infer therefore that Russia wants the war to end in a way that does not humiliate the losers and backers - perhaps along the lines of how America managed our victory against our enemies in World War Two, carefully and gracefully."
Wednesday, August 13, 2025
"Alert! NORAD Airspace Closure, National Guard is WW3 Prep, Huge Russian Nuke War Drill Planned"
Prepper News, 8/13/25
"Alert! NORAD Airspace Closure, National Guard is WW3 Prep,
Huge Russian Nuke War Drill Planned"
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"Alert! NATO Is Getting Ready For Something Big"
Prepper News, 8/13/25
"Alert! NATO Is Getting Ready For Something Big"
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