Chet Raymo, “The Spark of Life”

“The Spark of Life”

by Chet Raymo

"In a previous post I quoted Teilhard de Chardin referring to the discovery of electromagnetic waves as a "prodigious biological event." A biological event? What could he mean? The universe was awash with electromagnetic waves long before life appeared on Earth, or anywhere else in the universe. The cosmic microwave background radiation- the residue of the big bang- is electromagnetic. Starlight is an electromagnetic wave. You can "discover" electromagnetic waves by opening your eyes.

Of course, what Teilhard referred to was the conscious control of electromagnetic radiation by sentient biological creatures. Electromagnetic waves were predicted theoretically by the Scottish physicist James Clerk Maxwell in 1864, as he played with equations describing electric and magnetic fields. Then, twenty-two years later, electromagnetic waves were experimentally demonstrated by Heinrich Hertz, who in effect made the first radio broadcast and reception. At Hertz's transmitter a spark jumped back and forth between two metal spheres 50 million times a second. Across the room a similar spark was instantly produced at the receiver. Invisible electrical energy had passed through space at the speed of light.

A spark dancing between two spheres- an unpretentious beginning for the age of radio, television, mobile phones and wireless internet. That first transmitter and receiver had a basement-workshop simplicity about them. Hertz demonstrated the nature of electromagnetic waves with constructions of wood, brass and sealing wax.

Wood, brass, sealing wax and conscious intelligence. Here on Earth- perhaps throughout the universe- stardust gave rise to living slime. The slime complexified, became conscious. Invented mathematics, experimental science. Caused sparks to jump between metal spheres. Sent the signature of biological activity across a room. Across a planet. Across the universe."

"Prodigious!”

- https://www.sciencemusings.com/

"Needed: A 'Reality Czar'?”

"Needed: A 'Reality Czar'?”

by Brian Maher

"The United States confronts a “reality crisis.” This we know because The New York Times - the Newspaper of Record - informs us it does. Subversive conspiracies are amok. The internet is a sewer of disinformation...Some even call the infallibility of the New York Times into question… as some heretics still call the infallibility of the Pope into question.

The results are atrocious. Times technology reporter, Mr. Kevin Roose: "In the past year alone, we have seen conspiracy theorists cause Covid-19 vaccine delays, sabotage a wildfire response and engineer a false election fraud narrative. We have also seen that if left unchecked, networked conspiracy theories and online disinformation campaigns can lead to offline violence, as they did during last month’s deadly Capitol riot…"

Democracy itself dangles in the balance: "Unless the Biden administration treats conspiracy theories and disinformation as the urgent threats they are, our parallel universes will only drift further apart, and the potential for violent unrest and civic dysfunction will only grow."

A “Reality Czar”: As toxic chemicals poison a body, conspiracies and disinformation poison a democracy. What - then - is to be done? The drug crisis required a drug czar. The climate crisis requires a climate czar… And so the reality crisis requires a reality czar… to flush the demon toxins that poison American democracy. Mr. Roose: "Several experts I spoke with recommended that the Biden administration put together a cross-agency task force to tackle disinformation and domestic extremism, which would be led by something like a “reality czar.”

This Roose fellow concedes a reality czar “sounds a little dystopian.” He hears the shade of George Orwell razzing him. The very thought of it tortures him. But the nation is down with a dire disorder - a reality crisis. And the needs of the hour are the needs of the hour. The hour needs the man. They will revoke his czarship once the crisis blows through… as wartime powers are lifted once the war winds blow through.

Here is why we need him today: The government’s approach to disinformation and domestic extremism is scattered. It lacks direction... focus… thrust. It is a dull blade. A reality czar must therefore sharpen the point: Right now, these experts said, the federal government’s response to disinformation and domestic extremism is haphazard and spread across multiple agencies, and there’s a lot of unnecessary overlap.

Do you question the experts?

Americans Need a Reality Check: The Daily Reckoning is heart and soul for reality. Each day we face reality with unflinching stoicism… and a stiff top lip. Thus we throw in for a reality czar. Too many Americans harbor deluded and fantastical beliefs. They must be shaken by the shoulders… set to rights… and returned to their senses. You may believe it or you may not believe it... but many among us reject these bedrock facts:

• That the stock market is a mirror of the economy. That it “discounts the future.” That the stock market booms because the future is flush. That fundamentals are king…

• That stocks - like redwoods - can grow to the sky…

• That “buy and hold” is the royal road to stock market riches...

• That the Federal Reserve exerts little gravity upon the stock market.

• That the same Federal Reserve can and should dictate the value of money for hundreds of millions of independent economic actors. That it should dictate the price of time itself...

• That bow-tied experts from ivied institutions can repeal the iron laws of economics...

• That negative interest rates are positives.

Again - there are primitives among us who reject these obvious realities. As well deny the nose upon the face, you say. Yet nothing goes home. These are impenetrable hunks of granite.

More Abominations: They may even deny the obvious fact that Washington axed the cherry tree… or that spacemen constructed the pyramids of Giza. But horror succeeds horror. For example, these fantasists further deny the truths that:

• Deficits do not matter…

• That gold is a relic truly barbarous…

• That prosperity springs from the printing press, that money and wealth are identical twins, to have money is to have wealth.

Can you believe the dullards? Should they mention the hyperinflations of Venezuela or Weimar Germany, please turn a deaf ear. What is more, they deny that rising consumer prices are economically healthful...

• That diluting the purchasing power of money yields more money, that adding water to milk equals more milk…

• That a nation indebted is a nation enriched… that a nation sunk in debt is risen in wealth…

• That the individual is a dunce, yet 300 million dunces glued together are Einstein. That is, there are dolts among us who fail to perceive democracy’s obvious genius.

We could continue. But mercy forbids it. You have had enough. But lo, a shaft of sunlight penetrates the gloom. Reality may prevail yet…

Dangerous Algorithms: The “Protecting Americans From Dangerous Algorithms Act” was introduced in October. No greater menace exists than dangerous algorithms. The desperately needed legislation would, in Mr. Roose’s telling: "Remove large tech platforms’ legal immunity for violent or violence-inciting content that their feed-ranking and recommendation systems amplified, while preserving their immunity for other user-generated content".

Thus you would be protected from dangerous algorithms. With God’s grace, this legislation will clear all hurdles. But the legislative process is lengthy. Tangled. Fraught. The nation cannot wait. It needs its reality czar immediately.

The question next arises: Who should bear the title? We can immediately eliminate Mr. John Kerry from consideration. He is occupied czaring the climate. Hillary Clinton? Bill Clinton? Robert Mueller? James Comey? Additional candidates spring to mind... Rudolph Giuliani? Sidney Powell? John Bolton? Perhaps… Donald Trump? We are spoiled for choice. Yet we trust President Biden will tap the right man’s shoulder. Much is at stake. We must resolve to end this reality crisis afflicting American democracy… even if it requires an undemocratic czar..."

- dailyreckoning.com

"A Look to the Heavens"

“Stars are sometimes born in the midst of chaos. About 3 million years ago in the nearby galaxy M33, a large cloud of gas spawned dense internal knots which gravitationally collapsed to form stars. NGC 604 was so large, however, it could form enough stars to make a globular cluster. 

Many young stars from this cloud are visible in the above image from the Hubble Space Telescope, along with what is left of the initial gas cloud. Some stars were so massive they have already evolved and exploded in a supernova. The brightest stars that are left emit light so energetic that they create one of the largest clouds of ionized hydrogen gas known, comparable to the Tarantula Nebula in our Milky Way's close neighbor, the Large Magellanic Cloud.”

- http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap121211.html

Gregory Mannarino, Post Market 2/4/21: "Today The Stock Market Hits New Record Highs As The Economy Freefalls"

"Down the rabbit hole of psychopathic greed and insanity...

Only the consequences are real - to you!

Your guide:

Gregory Mannarino, Post Market 2/4/21:

"Today The Stock Market Hits New 

Record Highs As The Economy Freefalls"

- https://traderschoice.net/

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CNN Market Data:

- https://money.cnn.com/data/markets/

Must Watch! “Stock Market Euphoria Ignores Reality; Big Trouble Coming; Inevitable Is Imminent; Debt Crisis”

Jeremiah Babe,

“Stock Market Euphoria Ignores Reality; 

Big Trouble Coming; Inevitable Is Imminent; Debt Crisis”

"Dumbing Down"

"Dumbing Down"

By Bill Bonner

WEST RIVER, MARYLAND – "Bits and bobs, as the English say, while we’re “on the road” again. Today, we ramble… We forget what we were talking about… We get distracted… Our stay in the USA has been enjoyable. We saw a few friends, a few colleagues, and a few family members. But mostly, we kept to ourselves, social distancing – which suits us… and which seems to be “The Way We Live Now.” We’ve been here for Thanksgiving, Christmas, Boxing Day, New Years, Epiphany… We even had a snow holiday. The grandchildren came over to go sledding down the hill. And we gathered in front of the kitchen fire for tea and hot chocolate… bouncing children on our knee…

Age of Zoom: But what does a Hallmark granddad do in the Age of Zoom? So much of our lives – business and pleasure – now takes place via the internet… A news report this week told us that Santa Fe, New Mexico, had become such a prized “Zoom Land” that the local people were being priced out of the real estate market there. Grandparents are moving in! That may be true of a lot of places. But not where we’re going…

The U.S. State Department says to “reconsider” travel plans to Nicaragua. But we’re going anyway. We want to see what happens to a travel resort when nobody is traveling. (For newer readers, every year, we like to spend some time at our holiday home in Rancho Santana, a resort and residential community in Nicaragua.) But what about the people who aren’t traveling – families who want a good place to Zoom from?

A young friend framed our research: “I spend $40,000 a year to put my two girls in private schools in Baltimore. I can’t send them to public school because the schools in Baltimore are terrible. And I live in Baltimore because my job is there. But I don’t go into the office anymore. The company wants me to ‘commute’ via Zoom. I spend almost all day on it… I could move to Rancho Santana… send my girls to the school on the ranch… keep working as usual… and go surfing in the evening. We’d save $40,000 a year on school fees. I can rent a house on the beach for less than that.”

Reload: Meanwhile, news from Washington tells us that the feds are reloading. They shot the nation in the foot with their War on Terror… then in the head with their Wall Street bailout… and then in the heart with their “stimmy” checks for everyone. But so long as this economy still has a pulse, they’ll keep shooting.

Remember, as we said yesterday, the Big Story of the 21st century is the grand delusion offered by trillions of dollars of fake money… and the subsequent real-world, real-time butt-kicking Americans will get as a result. We’re just in the early stages. But the story is developing as expected. Here’s Business Insider:

"Senate Democrats on Tuesday took the first step to secure the passage of President Joe Biden’s $1.9 trillion rescue package, advancing a budget resolution in a maneuver that could allow them to approve it without any Republican support. It was a 50-49 party-line vote. Every Democratic senator supported it, and all Republicans were united in their opposition. GOP Sen. Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania was absent. “We’re not going to dilute, dither, or delay because the needs of the American people are just too great,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said at a news conference before the vote. “Time is of the essence.”

Don’t ask any questions, in other words, just print. But who could believe in such a miracle? That fake dollars, printed up by the Federal Reserve, could somehow transform themselves into new cars, new houses, vacations, gourmet meals, and memberships at the Mar-a-Lago country club? And if this is true, why didn’t somebody think of it sooner?

Well, because it’s idiotic. But just because it is stupid doesn’t mean it is unpopular. And there’s a line of research that helps explain why…

Outside Brain: For many years, psychologists have warned that heavy use of digital media – Facebook, Twitter, etc. – could make people dumber. Now, there’s a French savant, whose name we forgot to memorize, who says that recent testing shows IQ levels are falling in many countries. This will be the first generation ever to test lower on standardized IQ tests than its parents, he says.

We thought this was impossible. Reading the news… watching the “insurrection” at the Capitol… listening to the opinions of the “influencers”… and observing the leadership of the politicians – we figured IQs were already at some cyclical bottom. Sad to think that they may go lower still.

But a growing number of intelligence testers and psychologists believe that cellphones and iPads actually weaken the brain. One explanation: People just don’t have to think so hard anymore. Every problem has a solution – just a click or a tap away. No need to figure it out yourself. No need to memorize facts, phone numbers, or directions. No need to do math. All you have to do is learn to use your “outside brain” – your enhanced, hand-held telephone.

Cartoon Education: We watched our grandson going to “school” online yesterday. The teacher gamely tried to keep the children on the Zoom call focused on their schoolwork. But it was almost impossible to hold a six-year-old’s attention over the internet. He only really paid attention when she put on an “educational” video that looked more like entertainment – or indoctrination – than real education. It featured cartoon figures… and a storyline almost indistinguishable from other kids’ shows.

Whatever else may be said about the COVID-19 school shutdowns, it should be added that they have probably taken a few IQ points off the next generation. “The kids only do this for a couple hours a day,” our daughter explained. “They’re supposed to go back to school physically later this month. The school requires masks, of course, and has the kids sitting at desks with plastic barriers between them.” “Sounds like child abuse,” we opined."

- www.rogueeconomics.com

Musical Interlude: Richard Harris, "MacArthur Park"

Richard Harris, "MacArthur Park"

Oriah Mountain Dreamer, "The Invitation"

"The Invitation"

"It doesn't interest me what you do for a living.

I want to know what you ache for,

and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart's longing.

It doesn't interest me how old you are.

I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool for love,

for your dream, for the adventure of being alive.

It doesn't interest me what planets are squaring your moon.

I want to know if you have touched the center of your own sorrow,

if you have been opened by life's betrayals or have

become shriveled and closed from fear of further pain!

I want to know if you can sit with pain, mine or your own,

without moving to hide it or fade it, or fix it.

I want to know if you can be with joy, mine or your own,

if you can dance with wildness and let the ecstasy fill you

to the tips of your fingers and toes without cautioning us to be careful,

to be realistic, to remember the limitations of being human.

It doesn't interest me if the story you are telling me is true.

I want to know if you can disappoint another to be true to yourself;

if you can bear the accusation of betrayal and not betray your own soul;

if you can be faithless and therefore trustworthy.

I want to know if you can see beauty even when it's not pretty,

every day, and if you can source your own life from its presence.

I want to know if you can live with failure, yours and mine,

and still stand on the edge of the lake and shout to the silver of the full moon, "Yes!"

It doesn't interest me to know where you live or how much money you have.

I want to know if you can get up, after the night of grief and despair,

weary and bruised to the bone,

and do what needs to be done to feed the children.

It doesn't interest me who you know or how you came to be here.

I want to know if you will stand in the center of the fire with me

and not shrink back.

It doesn't interest me where or what or with whom you have studied.

I want to know what sustains you, from the inside, when all else falls away.

I want to know if you can be alone with yourself and if you truly like

the company you keep in the empty moments."

- Oriah Mountain Dreamer

Tecumseh, "Live Your Life...:

"Live your life that the fear of death can never enter your heart.

Trouble no one about his religion.

Respect others in their views and demand that they respect yours.

Love your life, perfect your life, beautify all things in your life.

Seek to make your life long and of service to your people.

Prepare a noble death song for the day when you go over the great divide.

Always give a word or sign of salute when meeting

or passing a friend, or even a stranger, if in a lonely place.

Show respect to all people, but grovel to none.

When you rise in the morning, give thanks for the light,

for your life, for your strength.

Give thanks for your food and for the joy of living.

If you see no reason to give thanks, the fault lies in yourself.

Touch not the poisonous firewater that makes

wise ones turn to fools and robs their spirit of its vision.

When your time comes to die, be not like those

whose hearts are filled with fear of death,

so that when their time comes they weep and pray

for a little more time to live their lives over again in a different way.

Sing your death song, and die like a hero going home."

- Tecumseh, Shawnee

“A Short Course in Get-a-Life Science”

“A Short Course in Get-a-Life Science”

by Lore Sjöberg

“There are about 250 million U.S. internet users, according to something I read on the internet, and about a quarter of them use discussion boards, according to something I read on some discussion board. And yet, I’m not seeing much evidence that the corpus of comments clogging the commons is going to produce the next Bertrand Russell, or for that matter the next Nipsey Russell.

There seems to be a certain desperation in the tone of your typical bile-posting poster child. They obsessively stomp from site to site, from article to article, fuming and chafing to share their opinion with the world. Oddly enough, often as not that opinion is “get a life.” I’m not exactly sure what “a life” is in this context, but it’s apparently impossible to capture on video, because I’ve never seen a YouTube comment saying, “Ah, this person truly has a life! Good show!” I was, however, able to isolate the Three Laws of Getting a Life:

1. Life is inversely proportional to time: People who need to get a life invariably, according to online comments, have too much time on their hands.

2. The best way to tell that someone lacks a life is that they are doing something just because they want to. This strikes me as a bit like defining “starvation” as “a bellyfull of homemade ice cream with chocolate sauce,” but you can’t argue with science.

3. Life-deficit is communicable. If you tell someone to get a life, that will often inspire a third party to impress upon you the importance of a life, and your current lack of same.

This led me to wonder: Who has less of a life, the person who needs to get a life, or the person who says “get a life” to the person who needs to get a life?

According to the Second Law, the more self-indulgent and less practical an activity, the less of a life the participant has. While skydiving in a Bulbasaur costume is clearly both fun and pointless, it does require some sacrifice (hours spent sewing, plane rental fees) and it has some benefits (free drinks, casual sex with Pokégroupies). By comparison, telling someone to “get a life” is as easy as it is useless. But then, telling someone who just told someone “get a life” to get a life is clearly even more pointless. That implies that life-deficity can increase infinitely. Shouldn’t there be a lower limit where one has no life at all? (Or, to be more exact, where one has only zero-point life due to quantum fluctuation?)

That’s when it struck me, an insight worthy of a Hendrik Lorentz or a Florence Henderson: Needing to get a life isn’t the result of lacking life; life is the result of lacking the need to get a life! The scales were lifted from my eyes and set back in the eye-scale cabinet. Of course! If you spend every waking minute of your limited lifespan doing something drearily important, then you don’t have an abundance of life, you have zero “get-a-life.”

On the other hand, as I’ve learned from either chaos theory or Elliott Smith lyrics, meaninglessness is infinite. There’s always a way to make your actions more pointless and less purposeful. This is easily proven: If you post “Get a life!” you need to get a life less than someone who posts “Get a life!!” Thus, adding an exclamation point makes any activity more, well, pointless. Because there’s an infinite supply of exclamation points (at least according to classical typographic theory), there is no limit to the amount of get-a-life one can reach.

The Universal Get-a-Life Formula: I’ll be publishing the details of my work in an upcoming issue of “The Journal of Cretinology and Loser Science,” but suffice to say I have worked out the Universal Get-a-Life Formula. Here it is:

g’ = (g + 1)cue

…where g is the amount of get-a-life of the individual being commented on, c is the number of words in the comment that suggests that that individual get a life, u is the number of all-uppercase words in the comment, e is the number of exclamation points in the comment and g’ is the resulting amount of get-a-life exhibited by the commenter.

I have arbitrarily decided on Tron Guy as the international standard for one unit of get-a-life. Thus, by definition, Tron Guy has a get-a-life factor of 1 TrG. Most people who spend less than an hour a day using the internet have a get-a-life factor of 0.2 to 0.4 TrG. Charlie Sheen, by comparison, tops out at 6.351 TrG.

Now say someone using the handle “halokillr” visits a video of Tron Guy — or a photo of Tron Guy, or an article about Tron Guy — and leaves the following comment: “GET A LIFE!!!!! ha ha SO DUMB and y r u DOING?!?!!!” According to my calculations, halokillr now boasts a get-a-life factor of 212 times 69, or just over 41 billion.

I await my Nobel Prize.”

- https://www.wired.com/

"Folly Is Perennial..."

“Folly is perennial, yet the human race has survived.”

- Bertrand Russell

Graphic: Auguste Barthelemy Glaize, 

"The Spectacle of Human Folly," 1872 

"Doctor Admits Masks Don’t Work: “All Viruses Can Get Through”

"Doctor Admits Masks Don’t Work: “All Viruses Can Get Through”

by Adan Salazar

"A medical doctor’s lecture explaining face masks aren’t effective at blocking viruses has gone viral. In the message, a member of America’s Frontline Doctors, Dr. Richard Urso, admits masks block little if any microscopic virus particles, contrary to what mainline health experts have been telling the public. "When I wear a mask, which is not very often fortunately, this is why." Video: pic.twitter.com/FkSAt15FKp

- Jeff Nelson (@vegsource) January 29, 2021

“We know what works - these don’t work against viruses. Regular masks don’t work. That’s simply what it is,” Urso explains. “It has nothing to do with Covid. Covid doesn’t even factor into the equation, because for years we’ve been looking at these issues.”

The Texas-based ophthalmologist goes on to explain there are more protective methods which would be more effective, but the N-95 masks recommended to the public still allow virus particles to pass. “So, they have these spacesuits, they’re called ‘PAPRs,’ they’re incredibly effective, they filter viruses down to .01. Basically we have materials like N-99, N-100, but N-95… only five percent of airborne particles can get through, but all viruses can get through period. Do they all get through? No, it’s just like a chainlink fence. When you throw sand at a chainlink fence not all the sand gets through.

So, I think the best example I can say is the reason we wear masks and the reason I wear a mask is because the fear is so massive in this country. I wear a mask so people don’t think I don’t care about them, but I don’t wear a mask because they work.”

Dr. Urso’s message is spreading as NIAID Director Anthony Fauci has once again flip-flopped on masks, at first claiming last week that it was “common sense” to wear two, or even up to three masks. Over the weekend, however, Dr. Fauci claimed there was “no data” to indicate that wearing two masks “would make a difference.” Fauci on double masking: “There’s no data that indicates that that is going to make a difference” Video: pic.twitter.com/ptVivQfuw

- Eli Klein (@TheEliKlein) January 31, 2021

- https://www.infowars.com/

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Dr. Urso interview, Dec. 30, 2020.

"How They Really Intend It To Be"

 

"The Only Cure..."

"We're all susceptible to it, the dread and anxiety of not knowing what's coming. It's pointless in the end, because all the worrying and the making of plans for things that could or could not happen, it only makes things worse. So walk your dog or take a nap. Just whatever you do, stop worrying. Because the only cure for paranoia is to be here, just as you are."

- Dr. Meredith Grey, "Grey's Anatomy"

"Why Are So Many Americans Stockpiling Guns, Silver And Food Right Now?"

"Why Are So Many Americans Stockpiling Guns, 

Silver And Food Right Now?

by Michael Snyder

"We were told that 2021 would be the year when everything starts to get back to normal. But that hasn’t exactly been the case, has it? It has been just over a month, and there is still chaos everywhere. We have seen a wild riot at the U.S. Capitol, civil unrest has been erupting in major cities from coast to coast, millions of people have filed for unemployment benefits, a president was impeached, and a crazy ride on Wall Street made “GameStop” a national phenomenon. That would normally be enough for an entire year, but we are still in the first week of February.

All throughout history there have been critical turning points when events have greatly accelerated, and it appears that we have reached one of those turning points. In fact, this may be turn out to be the biggest turning point of them all.

Millions upon millions of Americans can sense that big trouble is ahead. For many, it is like a “gut feeling” that they just can’t shake. Just a few days ago, my wife met a woman from the west coast that just moved here. This woman and her husband were desperate to leave California, and they felt very strongly that they should move somewhere safe. What makes her story remarkable is the fact that my wife and I have heard similar stories from others countless times over the past 12 months.

Our nation is being shaken in thousands of different ways, and so many of us can feel that things are building up to some sort of a grand crescendo.So that is why so many Americans are stockpiling guns, silver and food right now. They want to be ready for what is ahead.

2020 was a record year for U.S. gun purchases, but instead of slowing down in January, gun sales went even higher: "According to the FBI’s National Instant Criminal Background Check (NCIS) data, 4.3 million firearm background checks were initiated in January. That’s the highest number on record, and up over 300,000 in comparison to December 2020. Three of the top 10 highest weeks are now from January 2021.

The National Shooting Sports Foundation’s adjusted background check figure of 2 million, reached by subtracting out background code permit checks and permit rechecks and checks on active concealed carry permits, was a jump from its adjusted figure of 1.1 million in January 2020."

One of the biggest reasons why people feel a need to be armed right now is because crime rates have been absolutely skyrocketing. In particular, murder rates in our major cities rose by an average of 30 percent last year: "Murder rates in nearly three dozen American cities exploded in 2020, rising 30 percent over the previous year, resulting in 1,200 more deaths from murder last year when compared to 2019, according to a new study examining possible connections between crime, the coronavirus pandemic and protests against police brutality.

Homicide rates were higher during every month of 2020 relative to rates from the previous year. That said, rates increased significantly in June, well after the pandemic began, coinciding with the death of George Floyd and the mass protests that followed,’ states a report from the National Commission of COVID-19 and Criminal Justice (NCCCJ), titled Pandemic, Social unrest and Crime in US Cities."

We have never seen an increase of that magnitude from one year to the next, and the brutality of some of these murders has been off the charts. For example, the recent murder of two women in California deeply shocked people all over the nation: "A brother of up-and-coming rapper Uzzy Marcus was arrested in California following an eight-hour standoff with police and charged with murdering two women, whose lifeless bodies were captured in an Instagram Live video. Raymond Weber, 29, was taken into custody by police in Vacaville at around 8.30 am on Saturday and was then booked into the Solano County Jail on two counts of first-degree murder and multiple other felonies, including domestic assault."

In addition to the straight up crime we have been witnessing, endless political violence has also made some of our largest cities almost unlivable at this point. I honestly do not know why anyone would want to live in downtown Portland or downtown Seattle now. Of course conditions are not much better in the core areas of many of our other major metropolitan areas.

Meanwhile, our economy continues to be greatly shaken and recent volatility in the financial markets caused a massive run on physical silver: "U.S. bullion broker Apmex warned of delays in processing silver transactions because of surging volumes. Other U.S. dealers, including JM Bullion and SD Bullion, warned customers of shipping delays of five to 10 days. Everett Millman at Gainesville Coins in Florida said they were expecting shipping delays, perhaps until perhaps mid-March, for some products like Silver Eagles and Silver Maples."

Things have calmed down a bit after the craziness of the past few days, but people are going to continue voraciously buying silver. Precious metals have been a safe haven all throughout human history, and that is especially true during highly inflationary times.

And as I have written about extensively, we are moving into very highly inflationary times. In addition to gold and silver, Americans have also been feverishly stockpiling food: "Wise Company estimated in 2018 that Americans were buying between $400 million and $450 million worth of emergency food supplies per year. And, while Wise declined to release any specific revenue figures, Eriksson tells CNBC Make It that the company saw its food sales surge by “probably five or six times” in 2020 amid the pandemic."

In the long run, I would argue that food is more important than guns or silver, because you can’t eat guns or silver when you are hungry. And yes, things will eventually get that bad. Most people don’t understand the specifics of what is coming, but what they do know is that they have a gnawing feeling deep inside that they can’t shake that really bad things are on the horizon. I would strongly encourage you to use this current period of relative stability to get prepared for the very uncertain times that are ahead of us. Everything that can be shaken will be shaken, and our society will soon be turned completely upside down."

- http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/

"A Conspiracy So Monstrous..."

"The individual comes face-to-face with a conspiracy so monstrous he cannot believe it exists. The American mind has not come to a realization of the evil which has been introduced into our midst. It rejects even the assumption that human creatures could espouse a philosophy which must ultimately destroy all that is good and decent."

- J. Edgar Hoover

"Redefining Death"

"Redefining Death"

by Eric Peters

"The biggest lies go down easiest – because most psychologically normal people have trouble believing anyone could lie on a scale like that. This is why psychopaths get away with lying on an epic scale. It is literally unbelievable. It is why people working 60 hours a week for $15 an hour believe in TV evangelists who live in multimillion dollar homes and travel in private jets. And it is why people believe that “400,000” have died Because Corona. They hear the sermons – which like those of the TV evangelist are full of fire and brimstone, death – and promises of salvation. Now send in $100.

Or wear “your” mask. Accept a life of perpetual diminishment, personal and economic. Subservience eternal – as the price of your salvation. But maybe hold off on sending in that $100 and consider some simple division.

We’re told that – as of the end of 2020 – about 315,00 people died Because Corona. The problem is, almost no one died of anything else. The CDC said – in late December – that the total number of deaths from all causes in the U.S. over 2020 was about 2.9 million. If you subtract the number of asserted deaths Because Corona, you end up with fewer total deaths than in any years since 2014.

There’s a very revealing article over at uncoverdc.com by the journalist Celia Farber, who specializes in sussing out large-scale medical fraud and who has written for Esquire, Harper’s and Rolling Stone. She cites an academic paper just published – “A Critical Review of CDC USA Data on COVID-19: PCR/Antigen Tests & Cases Reveal Herd Immunity Only & Do Not Warrant Public Hysteria or Lockdown,” by atmospheric scientist James DeMeo, Ph.D.

DeMeo did the math and came up with a conclusion so spectacular it is very hard to believe – because the idea of a lie on such a monumental scale is hard to believe. But numbers don’t require belief. They just are.

Well, the number of people who’ve died, at rate – which isn’t fungible. You can’t inflate the body count – as opposed to the cases! the cases! But the reason for these deaths can be redefined – and that’s what DeMeo’s paper deconstructs.

According to the CDC’s numbers as of the end of 2020, approximately 2,916,492 people died in the United States during all of 2020, with about 315,507 of those deaths attributed to the “novel” Corona virus. But when you subtract the latter from the former you get 2,600,985 total deaths – a lower number of deaths than for any years since 2014. The conclusion must be that either 2020 was a year in which people stopped dying – or the year in which deaths were redefined.

Farber quotes DeMeo: “That figure, 2,600,985, is less than the all-cause death counts each year going back to 2014! That means the total death count for all fatal diseases and accidents in 2020, excluding Covid-19, dropped mysteriously and substantially - right about to the same degree that Covid-19 went up. For the Covid deaths to be genuinely new ‘excess’ deaths, that all-cause total of 2.9 million - which already includes ‘Covid-19’ deaths - should be something like 3.2 million, with an annual increase in 2020 of at least 360,000 deaths, not 61,000.”

Put another way, there are about 300,000 “missing” deaths for all of 2020 – e.g., deaths from ordinary influenza/pneumonia – which deaths have all-but-disappeared – as well as deaths from heart disease and cancer and so on. “What’s going on with influenza statistics? They’ve gone down to a very low number, the figure I found was 0.2%. Two-tenths of one percent, when at this time of year, we should be having something between 5 and 20 percent. In terms of the number of influenza deaths, that happens every winter. The numbers they are throwing out make no sense whatsoever,” DeMeo says. 

Then a really strange thing happened. On January 7, the CDC altered its body count and came up with another 269,249 deaths for 2020 and added these in a lump-sum to the 2020 total and – presto! – about 3.2 million total dead. Farber writes: “Evidently, 269,249 people suddenly died in the last week of 2020.” This is also so improbable as to beggar belief.

Farber quotes Tom DiFerdinando, an associate of DeMeo’s: “Without those added deaths, there would be no evidence of a Covid pandemic,” he said. ”This triangulation of facts: essentially no excess deaths beyond the normal annual background count; absolutely NO relationship between Covid “confirmed” cases and Covid “confirmed” deaths; and the mysterious, last-minute dump of 268,259 all-cause deaths into the 2020 end-of-year all-cause death totals; completely demolish any pretext of there having been a 2020 viral pandemic, whether caused by a novel coronavirus or by anything else and that therefore there is no rational reason to be putting masks on children, isolating elders, destroying businesses, locking down populations or shattering the public trust.”

DeMeo adds: “The numbers do not lie; the numbers tell the story. Where are the massive, massive numbers of people dying, which you would correlate with positive PCR and antigen tests, which is what you would expect to happen. People who are dying of old age diseases, they’re re-defining them as Covid 19, but the symptomatology is so exactly similar to influenza and other lung diseases.”

So how many people have actually been Corona’d so far in the United States? According to DeMeo it might be as high as 16,848 people. The article’s worth your time – as hard as it may be to believe."

- https://www.theburningplatform.com/

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The corrupt establishment will do anything to suppress sites like the Burning Platform from revealing the truth. The corporate media does this by demonetizing sites like mine by blackballing the site from advertising revenue. If you get value from this site, please keep it running with a donation. [Jim Quinn - PO Box 1520 Kulpsville, PA 19443] or Paypal at the website.

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A MUST Read:

"Have 400,000 Americans Died of Covid-19?"

"Economic Market Snapshot AM 2/4/21"

"Economic Market Snapshot AM 2/4/21"

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"Capitalism is the astounding belief that the most wickedest of men will

do the most wickedest of things for the greatest good of everyone."

- John Maynard Keynes

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"Down the rabbit hole of psychopathic greed and insanity...

Only the consequences are real - to you!

Your guide:

"The Economic Meltdown Is Accelerating"

Gregory Mannarino, AM 2/4/21

- https://traderschoice.net/

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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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MarketWatch Market Summary, Live Updates

- https://www.marketwatch.com/tools/marketsummary

CNN Market Data:

- https://money.cnn.com/data/markets/

CNN Fear And Greed Index:

- https://money.cnn.com/data/fear-and-greed/

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A comprehensive, essential daily read.

- http://www.shadowstats.com/

Feb 1st to Feb 5th, Updated Daily 

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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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Daily Job Cuts

- https://www.dailyjobcuts.com/

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- https://www.zerohedge.com/

FEB 4, AT 8:10 AM: "Read The Details Of Biden's Plan For $1,400 (Not $2,000) Stimulus Checks"

FEB 4, AT 6:36 AM: "'Only' 779,000 Americans Filed For First-Time Jobless Benefits Last Week"

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- https://www.investmentwatchblog.com/

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- https://wallstreetonparade.com/

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- https://www.whatreallyhappened.com/

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- https://jessescrossroadscafe.blogspot.com/

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Commentary, highly recommended:

- https://www.theburningplatform.com/

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And now, the End Game...

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Oh yeah...

Musical Interlude: Pink Floyd, "The Dark Side of the Moon" (Full Album HQ)

Pink Floyd, 

"The Dark Side of the Moon" (Full Album)

1973, incredibly...that can't be possible. It is...

"A Look to the Heavens"

“What's happening behind those houses? Pictured here are not auroras but nearby light pillars, a nearby phenomenon that can appear as a distant one. 

In most places on Earth, a lucky viewer can see a Sun-pillar, a column of light appearing to extend up from the Sun caused by flat fluttering ice-crystals reflecting sunlight from the upper atmosphere. Usually these ice crystals evaporate before reaching the ground. During freezing temperatures, however, flat fluttering ice crystals may form near the ground in a form of light snow, sometimes known as a crystal fog. These ice crystals may then reflect ground lights in columns not unlike a Sun-pillar. The featured image was taken in Fort Wainwright near Fairbanks in central Alaska.”

- http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap160208.html.