Full screen a must for this beautiful video!
Peder B. Helland,
"Dance of Life"
So, we rise from the rubble...
StatCounter
Monday, May 8, 2023
"A Look to the Heavens"
“A now famous picture from the Hubble Space Telescope featured Pillars of Creation, star forming columns of cold gas and dust light-years long inside M16, the Eagle Nebula. This false-color composite image views the nearby stellar nursery using data from the Herschel Space Observatory's panoramic exploration of interstellar clouds along the plane of our Milky Way galaxy. Herschel's far infrared detectors record the emission from the region's cold dust directly.
The famous pillars are included near the center of the scene. While the central group of hot young stars is not apparent at these infrared wavelengths, the stars' radiation and winds carve the shapes within the interstellar clouds. Scattered white spots are denser knots of gas and dust, clumps of material collapsing to form new stars. The Eagle Nebula is some 6,500 light-years distant, 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).”
"I Have Accepted The Fact..."
“One can fight evil but against stupidity one is helpless… I have accepted the fact, hard as it may be, that human beings are inclined to behave in ways that would make animals blush. The ironic, the tragic thing is that we often behave in ignoble fashion from what we consider the highest motives. The animal makes no excuse for killing his prey; the human animal, on the other hand, can invoke God’s blessing when massacring his fellow men. He forgets that God is not on his side but at his side.”
“There is no salvation in becoming adapted to a world which is crazy.”
- Henry Miller
"Life Comes at You Fast, So You Better Be Ready"
"Life Comes at You Fast, So You Better Be Ready"
by Ryan Holiday
"In 1880, Theodore Roosevelt wrote to his brother, “My happiness is so great that it makes me almost afraid.” In October of that year, life got even better. As he wrote in his diary the night of his wedding to Alice Hathaway Lee, “Our intense happiness is too sacred to be written about.” He would consider it to be one of the best years of his life: he got married, wrote a book, attended law school, and won his first election for public office.
The streak continued. In 1883, he wrote “I can imagine nothing more happy in life than an evening spent in the cozy little sitting room, before a bright fire of soft coal, my books all around me, and playing backgammon with my own dainty mistress.” And that’s how he and Alice spent that cold winter as it crawled into the new year. He wrote in late January that he felt he was fully coming into his own. “I feel now as though I have the reins in my hand.” On February 12th, 1884 his first daughter was born.
Two days later, his wife would be dead of Bright’s disease (now known as kidney failure). His mother had died only hours earlier in the same house, of typhoid fever. Roosevelt marked the day in his diary with a large “X.” Next to it, he wrote, “The light has gone out of my life.”
As they say, life comes at you fast. Has the stock market not been an example of that? In December, 2019 the Dow was at 28,701.66. Things were good enough that people were complaining about the “war on Christmas” and debating the skin color of Santa Claus. In January, the Dow was at 29,348.10 and people were outraged about the recent Oscar nominations. In February, when the Dow reached a staggering 29,568.57, Delta Airlines stock fell nearly 25% in less than a week, as people argued intensely over a message from Delta’s CEO about passengers reclining their seats. Even in early March, there were news stories about Wendy’s entering the “breakfast wars” and a free stock-trading app outage that caused people to miss a big market rally.
And that was just in the news. Think about what you busied yourself with at home during that same period. Maybe you and your wife were looking at plans to remodel your kitchen. Maybe you were finally going to pull the trigger on that Tesla Model S for yourself - the $150,000 one, with the ludicrous speed package. Maybe you were fuming that Amazon took an extra day to deliver a package. Maybe you were frustrated that your kid’s room was a mess.
And now? How quaint and stupid does that all seem? Depending on the day you look, years of market gains can now be taken back. 47 million people are projected to be added to the unemployment rolls in the US. The US death count from what was dismissed as a mere respiratory flu and the left’s latest hoax is now inching towards 1,000,000 and there are millions more confirmed cases worldwide. There have been runs on supplies. Store shelves are empty while prices skyrocket. The global economy has essentially ground to a halt.
Life comes at us fast, don’t it? It can change in an instant. Everything you built, everyone you hold dear, can be taken from you. For absolutely no reason. Just as easily, you can be taken from them. This is why the Stoics say we need to be prepared, constantly, for the twists and turns of Fortune. It’s why Seneca said that nothing happens to the wise man contrary to his expectation, because the wise man has considered every possibility - even the cruel and heartbreaking ones.
And yet even Seneca was blindsided by a health scare in his early twenties that forced him to spend nearly a decade in Egypt to recover. He lost his father less than a year before he lost his first-born son, and twenty days after burying his son he was exiled by the emperor Caligula. He lived through the destruction of one city by a fire and another by an earthquake, before being exiled two more times.
One needs only to read his letters and essays, written on a rock off the coast of Italy, to get a sense that even a philosopher can get knocked on their ass and feel sorry for themselves from time to time.
What do we do? Well, first, knowing that life comes at us fast, we should be always prepared. Seneca wrote that the fighter who has “seen his own blood, who has felt his teeth rattle beneath his opponent’s fist… who has been downed in body but not in spirit…” - only they can go into the ring confident of their chances of winning. They know they can take getting bloodied and bruised. They know what the darkness before the proverbial dawn feels like. They have a true and accurate sense for the rhythms of a fight and what winning requires. That sense only comes from getting knocked around. That sense is only possible because of their training.
In his own life, Seneca bloodied and bruised himself through a practice called premeditatio malorum (“the premeditation of evils”). Rehearsing his plans, say to take a trip, he would go over the things that could go wrong or prevent the trip from happening - a storm could spring up, the captain could fall ill, the ship could be attacked by pirates, he could be banished to the island of Corsica the morning of the trip. By doing what he called a premeditatio malorum, Seneca was always prepared for disruption and always working that disruption into his plans. He was fitted for defeat or victory. He stepped into the ring confident he could take any blow. Nothing happened contrary to his expectations.
Second, we should always be careful not to tempt fate. In 2016 General Michael Flynn stood on the stage at the Republican National Convention and led some 20,000 people (and a good many more at home) in an impromptu chant of “Lock Her Up! Lock Her Up!” about his enemy Hillary Clinton. When Trump won, he was swept into office in a whirlwind of success and power. Then, just 24 days into his new job, Flynn was fired for lying to the Vice President about conversations he’d had with Sergey Kislyak, the Russian ambassador to the United States. He would be brought up on charges and convicted of lying to the FBI.
Life comes at us fast… but that doesn’t mean we should be stupid. We also shouldn’t be arrogant.
Third, we have to hang on. Remember, that in the depths of both of Seneca’s darkest moments, he was unexpectedly saved. From exile, he was suddenly recalled to be the emperor’s tutor. In the words of the historian Richard M. Gummere, “Fortune, whom Seneca as a Stoic often ridicules, came to his rescue.” But Churchill, as always, put it better: “Sometimes when Fortune scowls most spitefully, she is preparing her most dazzling gifts.”
Life is like this. It gives us bad breaks - heartbreakingly bad breaks - and it also gives us incredible lucky breaks. Sometimes the ball that should have gone in, bounces out. Sometimes the ball that had no business going in surprises both the athlete and the crowd when it eventually, after several bounces, somehow manages to pass through the net.
When we’re going through a bad break, we should never forget Fortune’s power to redeem us. When we’re walking through the roses, we should never forget how easily the thorns can tear us upon, how quickly we can be humbled. Sometimes life goes your way, sometimes it doesn’t.
This is what Theodore Roosevelt learned, too. Despite what he wrote in his diary that day in 1884, the light did not completely go out of Roosevelt’s life. Sure, it flickered. It looked like the flame might have been cruelly extinguished. But with time and incredible energy and force of will, he came back from those tragedies. He became a great father, a great husband, and a great leader. He came back and the world was better for it. He was better for it.
Life comes at us fast. Today. Tomorrow. When we least expect it. Be ready. Be strong. Don’t let your light be snuffed out.
"If Tomorrow Starts Without Me"
"If Tomorrow Starts Without Me",
read by Tom O'Bedlam
"Dog's Last Day"
So sadly beautiful...
"Regret..."
"Regret for the things we did can be tempered by time;
it is regret for the things we did not do that is inconsolable."
~ Sydney J. Harris
The Poet: Rainer Maria Rilke, "Book of Hours II, 16"
"Book of Hours II, 16"
"How surely gravity's law,
strong as an ocean current,
takes hold of even the strongest thing
and pulls it toward the heart of the world.
Each thing-
each stone, blossom, child-
is held in place.
Only we, in our arrogance,
push out beyond what we belong to
for some empty freedom.
If we surrendered
to earth's intelligence
we could rise up rooted, like trees.
Instead we entangle ourselves
in knots of our own making
and struggle, lonely and confused.
So, like children, we begin again
to learn from the things,
because they are in God's heart;
they have never left him.
This is what the things can teach us:
to fall,
patiently to trust our heaviness.
Even a bird has to do that
before he can fly."
~ Rainer Maria Rilke
Musical Interlude: Matt Simons, "After The Landslide"
Full screen recommended.
Matt Simons, "After The Landslide"
"I Am An Invisible Man..."
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"I am an invisible man. No, I am not a spook like those who haunted Edgar Allan Poe; nor am I one of your Hollywood-movie ectoplasms. I am a man of substance, of flesh and bone, fiber and liquids - and I might even be said to possess a mind. I am invisible, understand, simply because people refuse to see me. Like the bodiless heads you see sometimes in circus sideshows, it is as though I have been surrounded by mirrors of hard, distorting glass. When they approach me they see only my surroundings, themselves, or figments of their imagination - indeed, everything and anything except me."
- Ralph Ellison, "Prologue to Invisible Man"
And the brutal truth is that unless if affects them directly,
nobody gives a damn. All fun and games and grabass, right?
This nightmare's only beginning. Oh, they will care, very soon...
nobody gives a damn. All fun and games and grabass, right?
This nightmare's only beginning. Oh, they will care, very soon...
"Homeless Encampments Are Exploding In Size All Over America As Rents Soar And Evictions Surge"
"Homeless Encampments Are Exploding In Size All
Over America As Rents Soar And Evictions Surge"
by Michael Snyder
"Communities all over the United States are being taken over by giant homeless encampments, but we are supposed to believe that this is perfectly normal. The Biden administration is trying very hard to convince all of us that the economy is in fine shape even though many of our most prominent corporations are currently conducting mass layoffs and even though Challenger, Gray & Christmas is telling us that the number of jobs cuts during the first three months of this year was up 396 percent compared to the same period last year. Just like in 2008 and 2009, large numbers of people that have lost their jobs or their businesses are ending up living in the streets, and as a result homeless encampments are absolutely exploding in size from coast to coast.
In Marin County, California the average price of a home is 1.4 million dollars, and it is one of the most prosperous areas of the entire country. But it is also home to vast hordes of homeless people. In fact, one of the biggest homeless encampments in Marin County is now more than two miles long…
Hundreds of locals in one of San Francisco’s wealthiest counties have been forced to pack up their lives into RVs and trailers after being pushed out of the housing market. Shocking photos show the ever-growing line of trucks and other vehicles along 101 Highway – which now stretches over two miles in one of the largest encampments in the country.
The Federal Reserve knew that pumping vast amounts of money into the system would make the wealthy even wealthier, but they also hoped that some of that wealth would eventually trickle down to the poor. Sadly, that didn’t really happen. Instead, the gap between the wealthy and the poor has gotten larger than it has ever been before, and now we are witnessing scenes like this all over the nation…
Full screen recommended.
I was absolutely floored when I first viewed that footage. Those that live there are trying to make the best of it. In fact, one woman that recently “moved in” is comparing it to “heaven”… “My life here… it’s OK to me. It’s really relaxing. There’s no harassment,” Shelly G. told the Post. Shelly, 53, moved to Binford Road from Petaluma at the beginning of April to join her friend Terry. Shelly was seated under a covered area behind a green vehicle and held her small dog, Bailey, as she talked to the Post. “This right here, this is heaven,” she went on.
No, you are not living in “heaven”.You are 53-years-old and you are living in a vehicle on the side of the road. But I give her credit for trying to put a positive spin on her very distressing circumstances.
Of course she is far from alone. More than half a million Americans are currently homeless, and that number is inevitably going to grow much larger. Many would argue that the problem is even worse in southern California. The homeless encampment along San Vicente Boulevard in Beverly Grove just continues to expand, and this has pushed one physician to the breaking point…"Dr. Kenneth Wright, a physician and surgeon, has been working out of an office in the neighborhood for 22 years.
“For the last year and a half to two years, there’s been encampments on both sides of our office building. Patients are afraid to come in. Many of them have psychiatric problems, drug problems, and they’re screaming profanities. They [unhoused people] defecate in our planters, defecate in the parking lot and it’s gotten to the point now that I had to leave. My office staff is afraid. They’re afraid to come to the office. They come in pairs,” said Wright." I feel very badly for him. But at least he has the option of moving his office. Other types of businesses are not so easy to relocate.
Unfortunately, it has now become nearly impossible to escape this crisis in some cities. At this point, the entire city of Portland is essentially one enormous homeless encampment, and countless businesses have fled for greener pastures as a result. Yes, some of the people living in these homeless encampments are drug addicts and criminals, but there are also a lot of hard working individuals that have just had some tough luck.These days, most of the population is barely scraping by from month to month, and inflation has pushed housing costs to absurdly high levels…
Americans are facing one of the toughest markets in years Рwith up to 20 prospective renters per single apartment in some cities. The Northeast is ground zero in the battle for a new apartment, as inflation, interest rate hikes and cost of living pressures shatter the home ownership dreams of many Millennials and Gen Zers. Almost half of the 20 most competitive markets for renting in 2023 are in the Northeast, with North Jersey topping the list, according to Rent Caf̩, which analyzed 134 markets across the U.S.
I can hardly believe what landlords are asking these days. In New York City, the average rent on a one-bedroom apartment has now reached five thousand dollars a month… That high demand could partly be a result of New York renters getting sticker shock from exorbitant renewal rates for shoe boxes in the city, where one-bedrooms are now going for an average of $5,000 per month. Can you imagine paying $5,000 a month for an apartment with just one bedroom? That is insanity.
But thanks to the Federal Reserve, this is our country now. And as economic conditions deteriorate, the number of Americans that are getting booted out of their rentals has been soaring…All told, landlords filed nearly 970,000 eviction cases across the sites that we track in the ETS, an increase of 78.6% compared to 2021.
Those that are running things are not going to be able to fix this. In the months ahead, many more Americans will lose their jobs, and many more Americans will get evicted from their homes. That means that a lot more people will be joining the ranks of the homeless, and homeless encampments will continue to rapidly grow all over the country. Please do not look down on those that end up in the homeless encampments, because with a few bad breaks you could be one of them too."
"Economic Market Snapshot 5/8/23"
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Down the rabbit hole of psychopathic greed and insanity...
Only the consequences are real - to you!
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"It's a Big Club, and you ain't in it.
You and I are not in the Big Club."
- George Carlin
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A comprehensive, essential daily read.
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Financial Stress Index
"The OFR Financial Stress Index (OFR FSI) is a daily market-based snapshot of stress in global financial markets. It is constructed from 33 financial market variables, such as yield spreads, valuation measures, and interest rates. The OFR FSI is positive when stress levels are above average, and negative when stress levels are below average. The OFR FSI incorporates five categories of indicators: credit, equity valuation, funding, safe assets and volatility. The FSI shows stress contributions by three regions: United States, other advanced economies, and emerging markets."
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Job cuts and much more.
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Commentary, highly recommended:
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"The more I see of the monied classes,
the better I understand the guillotine."
- George Bernard Shaw
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Oh yeah... beyond words. Any I know anyway...
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And now... The End Game...
Bill Bonner, "Government For Sale, Going Cheap"
"Government For Sale, Going Cheap"
Get your two-bit congressman and his
military wares at half off, limited time only
By Bill Bonner
Dublin, Ireland - "Last week, the stupidity of smart people was on display. But as failure often leads to success, youth leads to old age, and holding up liquor stores leads to jail time…so do bad ideas sometimes lead to good ones. Today, we offer a solution to the ‘debt ceiling’ shenanigans. Note to McCarthy, McConnell et al – no need to send thanks.
We begin with the weekend news. CNN: "Jack Lew: We are weeks away from a potential financial disaster. Congress must act now to extend the debt ceiling to clear the path for fiscal negotiations and to avoid default, a self-inflicted wound that would hurt our economy, burden hard-working Americans and damage our influence internationally."
The Establishment is giving the Debt Ceiling a full court press. Janet Yellen: "If Congress fails to increase the debt limit, it would cause severe hardship to American families, harm our global leadership position, and raise questions about our ability to defend our national security interests..” Really? Our ‘national security’ would be put at risk by not borrowing more money? We already owe $33 trillion. Isn’t that enough? Apparently not.
Moronic Economics: Stupidity is our daily fare. The news is full of it. But so often are we mired in mere mediocrity…surrounded by commonplace knuckleheads – it was refreshing to see genuine, Full Retard Imbecility on display. And from a Nobel Prize winner no less. We speak of Paul Krugman, lead economist at The New York Times…and a moron.
Markets Insider: "A $1 trillion platinum coin could prevent the US government from defaulting on its debt without making inflation worse, according to Nobel laureate Paul Krugman. The idea behind the coin is for the Treasury to use its authority to mint platinum coins and create one with a face value of $1 trillion that gets deposited at a Federal Reserve account to pay bills while lawmakers remain deadlocked on lifting the debt ceiling." The Fed could simply ‘print up’ a trillion paper bucks and put them in the Treasury’s account. But that would obviously increase the money supply and therefore be ‘inflationary.’
A Public Scam: Krugman imagines that there is some magic about a palladium coin….that somehow, it defies the basic laws of the monetary universe. So, let’s think about this. “Inflation” means adding to the money supply…such that, later, consumer prices rise. This is the ‘natural order’ of things. That’s the way it works. Just like adding wood to a fire makes it burn hotter…and eating more makes you fatter.
What has Krugman been watching, we wonder? What bread doth he eat? What air doth he breathe? He thinks he can outsmart the natural order of things. But how?
A one-trillion dollar palladium coin would not add to the world’s money supply, for example…but only if it were really worth $1 trillion. But that would defeat the purpose. If the feds had $1 trillion to buy a $1 trillion palladium coin, they wouldn’t need the coin. Instead, they need the coin because they don’t have $1 trillion. So they create a coin, stamp it with ‘$1 trillion’…and perhaps add “In God We Trust” just to make it sound like the Almighty is behind the deal. The idea is to make people think it is somehow worth $1 trillion…even though it’s not. The whole idea is to scam the public, in other words.
Just to make it easier for us to understand… forget the coin. Let’s just say the feds could deposit one trillion worth of palladium in the Treasury. At today’s prices, that would be about 1,024 billion ounces of palladium. But according to the LBMA there are only about 20 million ounces of palladium in existence. Which is why it is valuable; it’s rare. The US Treasury could neither find that much palladium, nor afford to pay for it. So that won’t work.
Krugman’s plan is, of course, not to mint a coin worth $1 trillion…but simply to mint a coin and say it is worth $1 trillion. Obviously, the difference between its actual palladium content and the $1 trillion price tag is ‘money’ that didn’t exist previously…and never will really exist. It is fake money, in other words; it is as if the Fed were inviting you to sit down on a chair that isn’t there. Go ahead. Have a seat. You will fall to the ground and we will laugh. The idea is just too dumb to take seriously. It makes us wonder not only about Krugman’s professional expertise…but about his sanity.
Cash Strapped Feds: But wait…don’t worry about the inflationary impact, said the Great Man on Twitter last week. “The Fed would surely sterilize any impact on the monetary base by selling off some of its huge portfolio of US debt," he said.
Holy schmoley. Now he’s on to something. Krugman is imagining a slick move… in which the Fed trades long term assets (bonds) for short-term assets (cash). Then, it uses the cash to pay the federales’ bills. We will pass over the obvious flaw – the Fed’s T-bonds are a liability to the federal government, not an asset. They are an asset to the Fed and would have to be purchased from the Fed before they could be sold – obviously, a waste of time.
But maybe we’re missing something. In any case, the federal government does own lots of real, non-performing assets, which could be off-loaded for cash. What do other people do when they run out of cash? They have a yard sale.
So, here’s the idea – the largest yard sale in history. Sell some tanks. A few battleships. Think of all the jeeps…back-hoes…and nuclear missile silos that could be auctioned off. And there’s Yosemite! Think of all the surplus…superfluous…and super-duper stuff that the feds could let go.
On the Block: There’s really no need to raise the debt ceiling, not as long as the feds have something to sell. And they’ve got a lot. Why not dispose of those 800 military bases overseas…? They serve no purpose. And there are as many as 500 military bases in the 50 states….surely we could get by with half as many.
According to the GSA, the feds have 645,000 vehicles, many of them owned by the Post Office. There’s some easy money right there. Most of the ‘mail’ has moved to the electronic genre. And private companies – such as Fedex and UPS– are willing to deliver the rest. And there’s AMTRAK. Why not sell off these losing enterprises, raise some cash and reduce annual expenses?
The US government also holds title to more than 600 million acres of land in the US – nearly 30% of the entire country. That ought to be worth something. Auction it off. Even at just $2,000 an acre…the nation’s available cash would rise by $1.2 trillion.
So here we have our solution. Hold a ‘zoom auction.’ What fun it would be. Putting out for bids all the bad investments, overbought, and misguided acquisitions of a spendthrift Congress. Would you like to buy an F-15 fighter, dear reader? How about a two-seater “Eagle?” Take your main squeeze for a spin at nearly 2,000 mph. Impress the neighbors with a ‘vertical’ takeoff. This would be your chance. Or, how about something more practical – the Department of Education headquarters at 4th and C SW, District of Columbia? Or how about the Mary E. Switzer building on C St. SW? We don’t know what they do there…but it probably wouldn’t be missed.
The list of assets goes on and on – more than enough to replenish the feds’ coffers…Just put it up for auction. And make sure you translate everything for Chinese bidders."
Jim Kunstler, "The Next Big Thing"
"The Next Big Thing"
by Jim Kunstler
“Psychopaths and narcissists aren’t ‘mentally ill,’ they’re just horrible people, and they get worse with age, not better.”– Aimee Terese on Twitter
"Now that the charm has worn off the transsexual craze - the idea that a person’s emotional distress can be cured by identifying as the opposite sex - we await the next ploy out of the Woke Transhumanist game-plan to destabilize the human project on earth. People-of-color, brown, indigenous, Pacific Islander, gay, lesbian, plus-size, differently-abled, all women (of course), have taken their turn in the batting order of intersectional oppressed minority groups, and each has walked off with a participation trophy. Who’s left now?
The dead! Their needs have not received sufficient attention. Inclusion has not come to them… yet. They are systematically kept out of all current activities and ceremonies. They are segregated in ghettos of grass and granite. The legal system stigmatizes them. Numerically, through human history, they are by far the largest demographic. Yet, they are routinely ignored, overlooked, disrespected. If anyone deserves to be Woked-up from the sleep of oppression, it’s them.
Don’t despair, a great grooming is underway. The next new thing will be for most of us to transition into the dead. Do you think it’s an accident that Hollywood has churned out zombie movies by morgue-full in recent years? Obviously, more and more Americans have come to identify as the walking dead. (And, judging by the behavior in our land, a lot of people’s brains have been eaten.) Even our businesses and banks have a walking dead kind of look to them.
Our project in Ukraine has been a tremendous grooming aid in preparing people to become dead. But that experiment is nearly complete now. Hence, we must seek a much bigger global project for transitioning humanity into the satisfactions of being dead. A war with China would be the ideal grooming opportunity. They outnumber us about ten to one. They’ve developed hypersonic missiles that can deliver nuclear payloads anywhere in our country, with the potential of transitioning millions of Americans at a time. And when they’re done with that, they can send an army over here to work the luckless survivors to death out in the soybean fields and the corn rows.
Perhaps in anticipation of this, America elected (so they say) a president in mid-transition to being dead. “Joe Biden” is celebrated for staying mostly out-of-sight, underground, for speaking a dead language that resembles 20th century American vernacular English, for lurching one way and another, zombie-like, on his way off-stage in fleeting public appearances, and for taking large sums of money from Chinese officials who support America’s transitioning program. Best of all, the president personally empathizes and identifies with the dead, encourages more Americans to become dead, offers cash incentives to hospitals that expedite death, and makes pharmaceuticals available - both legal and illegal - for inducing efficient transitions to the bliss of non-being.
In fact, there seems to be a rush now to transition, with the pace being set by professional athletes in their twenties and thirties who keel over in mid-play on the football pitches, by movie actors who undergo conversion as the cameras roll, TV news-readers who drop away from the mic with eyes rolling down like window shades in full view of multitudes, and other celebrities who surprise their loved ones by simply waking up dead in the morning. These are the edgy avatars of the next big thing. So hallowed are their transitions from living to dead, that the process is spoken of only in whispers, as in a church or a sepulcher. Doctors who come upon the scene are mesmerized to the point of silence, too much in awe to speak of what brought on the fateful transition - certainly nothing they did.
As the people go, so goes the nation. The USA is transitioning from a dynamic system of economic liberty, endeavor, and law to an entropic dystopia of chaos, corruption, and inertia. As suits a country of the walking dead, nothing works: telephone calls go dead, the bank won’t give you any money, your duties on-the-job have been eliminated, your food store has closed down, there are no parts available for your broken things, your flights are cancelled, your Facebook archive has been erased, your opinion is not wanted, your vote is meaningless, your children no longer need your permission to do anything, and, final insult, a martini now costs fifteen dollars.
Death is everywhere in America now, hovering over everything we do. Don’t fight it - celebrate it! Foster it wherever you go, among all you consort with! Welcome it as you slough off all the annoyances of being here and rise to your blessed platform in the perfect gnostic Elysium promised by the theurgists of Wokery. Become the dead you long to be!"
"Judge Napolitano - Judging Freedom, 5/8/23"
Full screen recommended.
Judge Napolitano - Judging Freedom, 5/8/23
"Ray McGovern: Zelenskyy Vows To Defeat Putin;
JFK Assassination Update"
"Hard hitting legal/political news from a man who knows and respects the Constitution and the importance of defending individual freedoms. Judge Andrew P. Napolitano. As Fox News’ Senior Judicial Analyst from 1997 to 2021, Judge Napolitano gave 14,500 broadcasts nationwide on the Fox News Channel and Fox Business Network. He is nationally known for watching and reporting on the government as it takes liberty and property. The Judge is the author of nine books on the U.S. Constitution, two of which have been New York Times Best Sellers. His most recent book, "Suicide Pact: The Radical Expansion of Presidential Powers and the Assault on Civil Liberties."
Comments here:
"Banks Will Be Shut Off"
Full screen recommended.
Dan, I Allegedly 5/8/23
"Banks Will Be Shut Off"
"Experts are talking about how the banking crisis is going to escalate out of control very quickly. They are going to limit the withdrawals from banks."
Comments here:
"Shop With Me At Target! These Prices Are Crazy! What's Next?"
Full screen recommended.
Adventures With Danno, 5/8/23
"Shop With Me At Target!
These Prices Are Crazy! What's Next?"
In today's vlog, we are at Target and seeing some expensive prices on groceries. With inflation at an all-time high, we are searching for items where we can all save some money! We also go over a lot of items that our viewers have been asking about."
Comments here:
Sunday, May 7, 2023
"Humiliating Russia and Making Terrible Mistakes"
Col. Douglas Macgregor, 5/7/23
"Humiliating Russia and Making Terrible Mistakes"
Comments here:
"Ranchers Report Biggest Cattle Supply Drop In 40 Years As Shortages Hit Grocery Stores"
Full screen recommended.
"Ranchers Report Biggest Cattle Supply Drop
In 40 Years As Shortages Hit Grocery Stores"
by Epic Economist
"Tens of thousands of ranchers are reporting the largest beef supply drop since 1962 as herds continue to shrink all across the country. The meat shortages we have been warned about for months are now hitting all major grocery stores, and consumers are seeing prices soar to levels last seen during the inflation peak of June 2022. However, livestock economists say that a price spike will likely be seen in the months ahead, with summer demand further squeezing inventories at supermarkets. A new report reveals that many Americans have already begun stockpiling meat to get ready for the shortages that are rapidly emerging, but millions who didn’t prepare will have to be forced to consume less or eat cheaper cuts as shelves go empty and costs spiral. That’s what we’re going to expose in today’s video.
As 2023 unfolds, demand for cattle is expected to keep strong and producers are going retain heifers again — leading to a hole in beef production that could go even deeper, says Derrell Peel, Oklahoma State University livestock marketing specialist. “The real spike in prices will come when we start the rebuilding process and ranchers start retaining heifers. That's what squeezes slaughter in the short run, and we're not sure when that's going to happen. It will certainly start this year, and then we will get some painful price hikes,” Brown notes.
Mom-and-pop ranchers will increasingly struggle with profitability given that they were forced to send their animals to slaughter much earlier than normal, making far less money than they predicted they would. At the same time, big corporations are reporting billionaire profits. Recently, some of these companies have been under fire for racking up prices even as inflation levels go down, adding to families’ cost of living.
Over the past three years, dozens of meat processing plants have been closed by some big players in the industry who are transforming scarcity into higher cash flow. The closings are putting the entire meat industry on the brink of collapse. That’s why independent livestock producers are raising the alarm for burdensome regulations that need to go. We are under legislation that bans thousands of mom-and-pop meat processing plants to supply restaurants, schools, hotels, and the like. Yes, you read that right. The American people are dependent on four big businesses that enjoy great advantages thanks to regulation.
And ever since Tyson Foods, one of the largest meat packers in the world said that the supply chain was “breaking,” it is clear that America can’t afford to ignore the warnings of small cattle producers. This food supply issue is critical to public health and the economy. They know what they are talking about when they warn that massive-scale shortages and price increases are coming.
For some families, securing their supply of meat is crucial, and many have been buying in bulk to save money, according to a new report by The Washington Post. In contrast, for the millions of Americans that didn’t have the chance to prepare in advance, the outlook is cloudy. Reports estimate that on average, U.S. consumers will eat 6% less beef this year due to shortages and soaring prices.
It’s safe to say that actions will only be taken when it is too late and supply shortages reach crisis levels. If you can, stock up on your favorite cuts while you can still find and buy them at local stores because, in a few short months, the situation will be vastly different."
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"My Warning To You: Get Ready Now, They Are Hiding The Truth From You, Don't Be Fooled"
Full screen recommended.
Jeremiah Babe, 5/7/23
"My Warning To You: Get Ready Now,
They Are Hiding The Truth From You, Don't Be Fooled"
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"A Look to the Heavens"
"The Horsehead Nebula is one of the most famous nebulae on the sky. It is visible as the dark indentation to the orange emission nebula at the far right of the featured picture. The horse-head feature is dark because it is really an opaque dust cloud that lies in front of the bright emission nebula. Like clouds in Earth's atmosphere, this cosmic cloud has assumed a recognizable shape by chance. After many thousands of years, the internal motions of the cloud will surely alter its appearance.
The emission nebula's orange color is caused by electrons recombining with protons to form hydrogen atoms. Toward the lower left of the image is the Flame Nebula, an orange-tinged nebula that also contains intricate filaments of dark dust. Two prominent reflection nebulas are visible: round IC 432 on the far left, and blue NGC 2023 just to the lower left of the Horsehead nebula. Each glows primarily by reflecting the light of their central star."
Chet Raymo, “Try To Remember…”
“Try To Remember…”
by Chet Raymo
“In a sleepless hour of the night, I was trying to remember the last name of a person I have known well for more than forty years. When my spouse stirred in her sleep, I asked her. She couldn’t remember either. One again I started mentally through the alphabet. “I think it starts with B,” I said. Ten minutes later she rolled over and said, “The next letter is R.” Bingo! The name popped into my head. Or I should say, “popped out of my head.” Because it was in there somewhere, recorded in a tangle of neurons as materially as if it were written on a piece of paper.
There was a time, back when I was a young man, when some scientists thought memory might be molecular – stored as proteins or RNA molecules that have somehow been modified by experience. The molecule theory of memory rested on experiments with worms (I remember the cover illustration on Scientific American). The worms were taught to navigate a simple maze. Then they were ground up and fed to untrained worms, which seemed to navigate the maze without training. Only molecules, it was thought, could have survived the transfer. Those experiments have been discredited. Scientists now overwhelmingly believe that memories are stored as webs of connections between spider-shaped brain cells called neurons. Each neuron is connected through electrochemical connections to thousands of others. According to the current view, experience fine-tunes the connections, strengthening some, weakening others, creating a different “trace” of interconnected cells for each memory.
But truth be told, memory is still deeply mysterious. How exactly are a lifetime of memories stored and retrieved at will? We know how it works for computers, but how for the human brain? What is self-consciousness? What are dreams? This is the primary scientific agenda for the 21st century. In the middle of the night I go fishing, in that sea of potentiated synapses that are the human soul, for a name that becomes ever more difficult to extract as I get older. I troll the alphabet: A, B, C, D… The name is in there, along with a face and more that forty years of interactions. The Nobel Prizes are waiting.”
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Graphic: Salvador Dali, “The Persistence of Memory”
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