Monday, October 31, 2022

The Poet: Rolf Jacobsen, "When They Sleep"

"When They Sleep"

"All people are children when they sleep.
There's no war in them then.
They open their hands and breathe
in that quiet rhythm heaven has given them.
They pucker their lips like small children
and open their hands halfway,
soldiers and statesmen, servants and masters.
The stars stand guard
and a haze veils the sky,
a few hours when no one will do anybody harm.
If only we could speak to one another then
when our hearts are half-open flowers.
Words like golden bees
would drift in.
God, teach me the language of sleep."

- Rolf Jacobsen,
"The Roads Have Come to an End Now"

Must View! Canadian Prepper, "Shocking Info About Coming Nuclear Incident"

full screen recommended.
Canadian Prepper, 10/31/22:
"Shocking Info About Coming Nuclear Incident"
"Some new developments signal 
imminent fallout of Russian/US relations."
Comments here:
Full screen recommended.
Colonel Douglas Macgregor, 10/30/22:
"The Situation in Ukraine is Ugly"
Comments here:
The terrifying, relentless march to Doomsday continues...
We can at least try to understand how and why...

"Any Moment..."

Seals and Crofts, 
"We May Never Pass This Way Again"
Kansas, "Dust in the Wind"

Noli Timere...

"How It Really Would Be"

 

And we're doing a fine job of it...

"Inflation As A Prelude To War"

Gonzalo Lira, 10/31/22:
"Inflation As A Prelude To War"
Comments here:
Related:
"NATO Set To Attack Tiraspol?"
By David Sant

Excerpt: "Gonzalo Lira recently posted two soliloquies which were both accusatory and predictive about NATO’s apparent motivations and likely near-term kinetic military objectives. He concluded that after detonating a “dirty bomb” on Ukrainian territory, the USA and NATO would use the opportunity as an excuse to move the 101st Airborne Division from Romania into Odessa. While I think his big picture thinking is generally correct, I disagree with Mr. Lira on the mission of the 101st Airborne Division in the scenario he described.

Many years ago I was an officer in the National Guard sister Brigade to the 101st. Both Brigades are “air assault light infantry,” which was developed in the Vietnam War with the 7th Air Cavalry Division. “We Were Soldiers Once and Young,” tells that story.

Though the 101st is called “airborne” in reference to its World War II days, today its soldiers are not trained to jump out of airplanes; the 82nd Airborne Division does that. The 101st deploys using UH-60 Blackhawk helicopters. Each division in the brigade has an aviation battalion with three companies of Blackhawk helicopters. Their primary combat mission is to secure a bridgehead.

When deploying, an air assault infantry battalion goes to a designated pickup zone, and a company of Blackhawks comes in to ferry them to the landing zone. Although they are trained to rappel out of the helicopters in a hot Landing Zone, in practice the helicopters usually land, and the troops jump out. It is much faster and safer. Two minutes later the chopper is back in the air and goes back for another squad at the pickup zone. Thus it might take the better part of an hour with two or three round trips to move an entire infantry battalion from the PZ to the LZ, longer if the distance is longer.

While an air assault infantry brigade can move 105 mm light artillery pieces via helicopter, the main supply and logistics assets of the brigade must follow the main force on the ground in trucks. Therefore, unlike the 82nd Airborne Division, or the Rangers, both of which are designed to jump into areas far behind enemy lines, an air assault brigade like the 101st is limited in how far it can leapfrog ahead of its support assets."
Full, excellent and highly recommended article here:
"The War in Ukraine: Made in Washington Not Moscow"
By Mike Whitney

Excerpt: “Your people do not yet feel an impending sense of danger. That worries me. Can’t you see the world is being pulled in an irreversible direction? Meanwhile, people pretend that nothing is going on. I don’t know how to get through to you anymore.” - Russian President Vladimir Putin, You Tube, 12 minute video:
“The Russians have put their nuclear weapons on high-alert.This is a really significant development.. They are….sending us a very powerful signal as to how seriously they take this crisis. So, if we start winning, and the Russians start losing, you need to understand that what we’re talking about doing here, is backing a nuclear-armed great power - that sees what’s happening as an existential threat - into a corner. This is really dangerous."
Full article here:

"It's Going To Be A November To Remember"

Full screen recommended.
Dan, iAllegedly 10/31/22:
"It's Going To Be A November To Remember"
"This is going to be a November to remember. There are four huge events that are happening within seven trading days of each other to start the month. It starts with the Fed meeting and will finish up with the CPI report just seven trading days later."
Comments here:

“Streets Of Philadelphia: Kensington Daily”, 10/31/22:

Full screen recommended.
“Streets Of Philadelphia: Kensington Daily”, 10/31/22:
"Violent crime and drug abuse in Philadelphia as a whole is a major problem. The city’s violent crime rate is higher than the national average and other similarly sized metropolitan areas. Also alarming is Philadelphia’s drug overdose rate. The number of drug overdose deaths in the city increased by 50% from 2013 to 2015, with more than twice as many deaths from drug overdoses as deaths from homicides in 2015. A big part of Philadelphia’s problems stem from the crime rate and drug abuse in Kensington.

Because of the high number of drugs in Kensington, the neighborhood has a drug crime rate of 3.57, the third-highest rate by neighborhood in Philadelphia. Like a lot of the country, a big part of this issue is a result of the opioid epidemic. Opioid abuse has skyrocketed over the last two decades in the United States and Philadelphia is no exception. Along with having a high rate of drug overdose deaths, 80% percent of Philadelphia’s overdose deaths involved opioids and Kensington is a big contributor to this number. This Philly neighborhood is purportedly the largest open-air narcotics market for heroin on the East Coast with many neighboring residents flocking to the area for heroin and other opioids. With such a high number of drugs in Kensington, many state and local officials have zoned in on this area to try and tackle Philadelphia’s problem."
Comments here:
Full screen recommended.
Bruce Springsteen, "Streets of Philadelphia"

There but for the grace of God goes you, and all of us...
 Enjoy it while it lasts. It won't...

Jim Kunstler, "Cockamamie Story"

"Cockamamie Story"
by Jim Kunstler

"It’s been several days since San Francisco police interrupted a hammer fight between Paul Pelosi - husband of House Speaker Nancy - and his “friend… David,” in the Pelosis’ Pacific Heights home, and apparently the cops have not asked David DePape why he was there in the first place. Odd, a little bit. Is it possible that a whole chain of authorities from the SFPD clear up into the top of the US government and its Democratic Party sidekicks don’t want you to know what actually happened?

So far, not much in this cockamamie story adds up. Quite a bit is known now about the attacker, David DePape. He was a colorful character on the scene in radical Berkeley across the bay, a “nudist activist” and BLM supporter. He’d lived there and had a child with one Oxane “Gypsy” Taub, a fellow nude activist and whack-job, who has spent time in prison for child abduction. That partnership ended seven years ago and DePape has been homeless on and off since then. Acquaintances and Berkeley neighbors describe him as not mentally healthy, saying he exhibits psychotic delusions and is sometimes incoherent.

So far, police have not disclosed how DePape journeyed from Berkeley to Pacific Heights at 2:00 o’clock in the morning, about fourteen miles. Did he walk from Berkeley across the Bay Bridge and then halfway across town? Mr. DePape is apparently also known to the police as a gay hustler, that is, a person who sells sex for money. Unless I’m mistaken, the San Francisco Police Department (SFPD) has a detective department - experienced men and women who go around the city seeking clues, evidence, and testimony in order to make sense of perplexing crimes - and then solve them! Shall we assume they are on-the-job?

Now, Paul Pelosi, 82, who made a $300-million fortune running a car service (also shrewd investments in real estate and the stock market), has been in quite a bit of trouble this year. On May 28, 2022, he was arrested for Driving Under the Influence (DUI) in Napa (near a vineyard estate he owns with Nancy) when his 2021 Porsche crashed into a 2014 Jeep driven by one “John Doe” (as the police identified him). KGO-TV, ABC’s affiliate in the San Francisco area, said that there was a second person in the Porsche with Pelosi at the time of the accident. He has never been identified.

In August, Mr. Pelosi was sentenced to five days in jail, a fine of roughly $7,000, a three-month drinking-and-driving course, eight hours of public service, and having an “interlock” device installed on his car that would require him to blow into an alcohol sensor before the engine can ignite. By any chance, were the Napa Police or the County Court contacted in the matter at some point by the US Capitol Police or the FBI? We may never know.

If David DePape didn’t walk fourteen miles from Berkeley to Pacific Heights, or take a cab (expensive), how did he get there? Here’s a theory: he rode the BART subway from Berkeley to the Church Street and Mission station in the city, a five-minute walk to the Castro Valley, San Francisco’s fabled gay district. Sometime before 2:00 a.m. closing time, he met up in a bar there with Paul Pelosi, who drove DePape to the Pelosi house in a car not equipped with an interlock device. That is to say, David DePape was let into the house by Mr. Pelosi.

The police and the news media have theorized that DePape broke into the place by smashing a glass door in back. Uh-huh…. Ask yourself: would there not be an alarm system at least on all the ground floor windows and doors in the house? Would there not be security cameras on the back side of the house - the side that burglars might prefer, if they could get over the wall? Would the Speaker of the House, with a discretionary budget on top of a $300-million fortune, and in a time of epic political rancor, not have a team of security guards in place at her private home?

Initial news media chatter had both DePape and Paul Pelosi dressed in their underwear, struggling over a hammer which turned out to belong to Mr. Pelosi. Not until the police entered the house did DePape wrest the hammer from Mr. Pelosi and commence to brain him with it. What does the arrest report actually say about the two men’s state-of-dress? It is not public information. How and why were the police just watching until DePape assaulted Mr. Pelosi - who was hospitalized afterward and had surgery on his cracked skull? (Uh, how did a blow that literally broke his skull not kill the elderly Mr. Pelosi?)

The news media initially suggested that somebody - a third person on the scene - opened the door to let the police in. Now they are saying no such person was there. Was the front door unlocked? (Weird, considering the general threat level for a public figure of Nancy P’s stature.) Or, did police break the glass door in the rear of the house to get in? (However, photos of the door show the glass being broken from the inside and shards spread over the outside.) Odd, also, that such a wealthy and powerful couple would not have hard-to-smash security glass on such a door. (It’s easy to buy.) Odd, too, that there was not one human security guard on the premises. The house had security cameras all over the exterior and interior. No mention in the news media or from the SFPD of what might have been recorded by these cameras at the time of the incident.

My assessment of this bizarre episode as follows: Paul Pelosi was out drinking late the night of the incident. He hooked up with David DePape, a hustler he might have been previously acquainted with, and took him back to the house in Pacific Heights. Something went wrong with the transaction. Considering that DePape exhibited psychotic behavior at times, it might have taken little to set him off. All the authorities involved are playing it coy, but failing to construct a narrative that adds up.

The Democratic Party has attempted to convert the sordid incident into a political talking point, painting DePape as a MAGA crazy. That spin apparently failed almost instantly. Their next effort will be to shove the story down the memory hole - the news media will just not report on any developments. Meanwhile, Nancy Pelosi put out a statement that her family is “heartbroken” over the incident. Yes, of course. I’m sure. Nobody knew about Paul Pelosi’s peccadillos. Boo-hoo. Cry me a river, you degenerate jade. Don’t suppose the truth about this will be successfully suppressed, like Hunter B;’s laptop. And so, the career of Nancy Pelosi comes to an ignominious end in the November 8 election, with a cherry-on-top of personal humiliation. She deserves every bit of it."

"Shopping At Ollie's Bargain Outlet! Empty Shelves Everywhere! Not Good!"

Full screen recommended.
Adventures with Danno, 10/31/22:
"Shopping At Ollie's Bargain Outlet! 
Empty Shelves Everywhere! Not Good!"
"In today's vlog we are at Ollie's Bargain Outlet, and are noticing massive price increases! We are here to check out skyrocketing prices, and a lot of empty shelves! It's getting rough out here as stores seem to be struggling with getting products!"
Comments here:
Related:

Gregory Mannarino, "Is 'All Hell' About To Break Loose? MMRI Hits 280 Again!"

Gregory Mannarino, AM 10/31/22:
"Is 'All Hell' About To Break Loose? MMRI Hits 280 Again!"
Comments here:

Link To The MMRI (Mannarino Market Risk Indicator)

Sunday, October 30, 2022

"Walmart Warning Sign, Shoppers Disappear, Inventory Piled To The Ceiling; Retailers In Big Trouble"

Full screen recommended.
Jeremiah Babe, 10/30/22:
"Walmart Warning Sign, Shoppers Disappear, 
Inventory Piled To The Ceiling; Retailers In Big Trouble"
Comments here:

"In A Very Real Sense..."

 

MUST VIEW! "Buy Lots Of Food And Stock Up Now Because This Is Going To Be A Really Dark Winter"

Full screen recommended.
"Buy Lots Of Food And Stock Up Now 
Because This Is Going To Be A Really Dark Winter"
by Epic Economist

"Very difficult times are approaching, and it is urgent to start buying food and storing it somewhere safe while we still can. For the majority of Americans, the window of opportunity to buy essential supplies to get ready for the economic downturn that is emerging all around us is rapidly closing. That’s because the price of food is rising nearly three times faster than wages, and from now on, this trend will only continue to intensify. People won’t be able to get prepared for the challenging times that are coming because they simply won’t be able to afford the soaring costs of food anymore. In the next few months, the rate of unemployment is expected to jump as more and more businesses, - suffering from declining sales, shrinking profit margins, and slower consumer demand, - will start laying-off thousands of employees in a desperate attempt to stay afloat. Without jobs, with rising levels of debt and facing a raging cost of living crisis, millions of U.S. households won’t have enough to eat, and by then, it will be too late to try to stockpile the supplies they need.

Our jobs are not as reliable as we think they are. There is no doubt that a wave of layoffs is coming, harder economic conditions are ahead for our workers - and even if you’re your own boss, you won’t be safe. While wages only rose 5%, food prices are rising almost three times as fast, increasing 13% in September. Even with jobs, we’re already facing mounting difficulties to pay for our groceries. Without them, it’s safe to say the situation would a whole lot worse.

Right now, America’s food supply chain is in shambles. Despite record food prices, our farmers are struggling like never before. In fact, the latest data released by the American Farm Bureau Federation shows that we might lose 75% of this winter’s wheat harvest, 71% of soybeans, and 70% of corn. On top of that, our supply of chickens, turkeys, and eggs has been depleted by the ongoing bird flu that is likely to intensify as temperatures cool down.

Food shortages are a reality, not a theory, and people need to start preparing while they still can. Industry executives are explicitly telling us that food prices will not come down any time soon, and the convergence of all of these factors is creating a “perfect storm” for food inflation both in the short and long term. So if you still have a job, use this precious opportunity to stockpile food before the economy breaks down hard.

When things go south, the empty shelves we’re seeing now will become even emptier. People will be desperate and chaos will erupt in our major cities. Panic buyers will rush to hoard everything they can find in front of them. On the other hand, jobless Americans won’t be able to buy what they need, and many will resort to shoplifting and stealing. So make sure you store your supplies in a safe place because the truth is that you never know what crazy things people can do when they go hungry and see their children starving. We must handle things on our own, so we must start getting prepared and stocking up on food now. In a couple of months, food prices will double or triple, and you may not be able to start stockpiling then."
Comments here:
And here's why it all goes to Hell...

Canadian Prepper, "Russia is About to Declare War on Britain! USA Fast Tracks Nuclear Delivery!"

Full screen recommended.
Canadian Prepper, 10/30/22:
"Russia is About to Declare War on Britain! 
USA Fast Tracks Nuclear Delivery!"
"I don't know how Britain and Russia don't go to war after this, USA is fast tracking upgraded nuclear weapons system to Europe. All hell could break loose at any time."
Comments here:

"Only a Few Days Left of Diesel Fuel"

Full screen recommended.
Dan, iAllegedly 10/30/22:
"Only a Few Days Left of Diesel Fuel"
"There are only a few days left of diesel fuel. They are already starting to ration diesel fuel in the northeast and now the south. Everything is delivered via trucks and trains that used diesel fuel. This will be catastrophic."
Comments here:

Tucker Carlson, 10/27/22:

"The US Is About To Run Out Of Diesel Fuel In 25 Days"
Comments here:

Musical Interlude: Logos, "Cheminement"

Full screen recommended.
Logos, "Cheminement"

"A Look to the Heavens"

"These are galaxies of the Hercules Cluster, an archipelago of island universes a mere 500 million light-years away. Also known as Abell 2151, this cluster is loaded with gas and dust rich, star-forming spiral galaxies but has relatively few elliptical galaxies, which lack gas and dust and the associated newborn stars. The colors in this remarkably deep composite image clearly show the star forming galaxies with a blue tint and galaxies with older stellar populations with a yellowish cast.
The sharp picture spans about 3/4 degree across the cluster center, corresponding to over 6 million light-years at the cluster's estimated distance. Diffraction spikes around brighter foreground stars in our own Milky Way galaxy are produced by the imaging telescope's mirror support vanes. In the cosmic vista many galaxies seem to be colliding or merging while others seem distorted - clear evidence that cluster galaxies commonly interact. In fact, the Hercules Cluster itself may be seen as the result of ongoing mergers of smaller galaxy clusters and is thought to be similar to young galaxy clusters in the much more distant, early Universe.”

Free Download: Albert Camus, “The Plague”

“Everyone knows that plagues have a way of recurring throughout history, yet somehow we find it hard to believe in the ones that crash down on us out of the sky. There have always been plagues and wars, yet they always take us by surprise. When war breaks out people say it’s stupid and won’t last long. Stupidity has a knack of getting in the way, which we would see if not wrapped up in ourselves. In this our townsfolk were like everybody else – they did not believe in plagues.”
- Albert Camus, “The Plague”

Freely download “The Plague”, by Albert Camus, here:

"The Day After Tomorrow"

"The Day After Tomorrow"
by The Zman

"The general consensus regarding the future of the American Empire is that it is headed for demise like all empires. The rapidly declining quality of the ruling elite in general and the political class in particular is the biggest sign. Then there is the changing demographics, which will reach a point where the human capital of the empire can no longer support empire. Then there is the life cycle of all empires. This one, while short lived, seems to be in the late phase of that cycle.

Most people focus on the question of when the empire will collapse, as that provides the most thrilling scenarios. The truth is though, empires collapse in slow motion, rather than in a bang. It is like a fall down a long flight of stairs, in which the empire hits some long landings where it seems to right itself for a period. Then it is another tumble down the stairs until it hits another landing. It is only in the fullness of time that the decline and fall of the empire looks like the familiar arc.

A different question worth pondering is what will the decline and fall look like for the average person living in the empire? For the people living in the provinces, it will look like the past, in that Europe and Asia will simply gain their independence. France may become a vassal of Germany or Russia, but that is just the same condition with a different management team at the top. Europe will get poorer and more violent, but that will mostly be due to massive migration from Africa.

In North America, we have some hints as to what post-empire America will look like for the typical person. This post on American Greatness goes into the third world nature of large swaths of current year America. California now looks more like Sinaloa Mexico than the old America of the young empire. There are nice modern parts for sure, but there are backward primitive parts, as well. Just like the Roman Empire, it is the infrastructure that is the leading edge of decline.

Empires that can no longer maintain their borders tend to attract large peasant classes, because long after the empire’s peak, it remains a better place to be poor than outside the empire. America lost control of its borders a generation ago, so something like fifty million people have relocated to America. There may be that many more operating inside the country illegally. The fact that no one knows or cares about the illegal population is one of those signs of collapse.

Another vision for post-empire America, is post-empire Spain. One of the interesting aspects of that period is how power devolved to local power centers. The Visigothic Kingdom ruled over what is now Spain. They were central Europeans who had moved west from the Danube Valley, first under the protection of the Western Roman Empire, but then by conquest after the fall of Rome. The kingdom maintained independence for about three centuries.

The thing is though, the kingdom was a polite fiction in many ways as the Gothic rulers had limited control of their territory. They were dependent on those local power centers that evolved in the late Roman empire. The emerging Catholic Church was one power center, but so were local ruling elites located in cities like Seville and Toledo. This is the root of antisemitism, by the way. Jews were powerful players in Gothic politics, a rival to the Church for influence over the secular authorities.

That’s probably the future of North America. The federal government will carry on long after it can exert control over the whole of the country. We see that today with the inability of the political class to do the obvious with the tech oligarchs. Today, global enterprise, finance and technology are outside the scope of government authority and often the whip hand in the relationship. We’re seeing states and cities in open revolt now, refusing to abide by federal laws.

One question no one in power thinks about is whether or not these new oligarchs can survive without the national government. The oligarchs that emerged from the Soviet empire were rooted in practical things like oil and gas. American oligarchs have power over abstract concepts that exist only because the state protects them. Both finance and technology are able to siphon off the wealth of the middle-class, because the middle-class supports the state, which protects this racket.

Put another way, Bolshevism made the Soviet empire artificially poorer, as it compelled inefficiency in the economy. It also proved to be a costly form of rule. Collapse freed the economy of the empire, allowing the new oligarchs to emerge. Liberal democracy makes the empire artificially richer, as it relies upon financial legerdemain to pull forward the proceeds of labor and capital. The cost of rule is subsidized by the social capital it consumes to perpetuate itself.

Is it possible for local power centers to emerge in North America, when the regions no longer have an identity of their own? Is it possible for local rule, when the local elites are just as inept and corrupt as the national elites? It is hard to imagine California lasting very long as an independent state. Its ruling class is clownish and stupid, a collection of petulant children. How hard would it be for the drug cartels to push them aside and turn the state into another narco-state?

The Soviet system rewarded cleverness and intrigue but it was founded on force, so there was always a role for those willing to act. The American system rewards guile, but increasingly has no role for assertiveness and force. It is why America has become so bad at waging war. It is possible that we now lack the required lions to push aside the foxes, even when the foxes die. It means a long period of chaos in which a new generation of lions can emerge to seize control."

"The 'Titanic' Analogy You Haven't Heard: Passively Accepting Oblivion"

"The 'Titanic' Analogy You Haven't Heard: 
Passively Accepting Oblivion"
by Charles Hugh Smith

"You've undoubtedly heard rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic as an analogy for the futility of approving policy tweaks to address systemic crises. I've used the Titanic as an anology to explain the fragility of our financial system and the "glancing blow" of the pandemic:


But there's a powerful analogy you haven't heard before. To understand the analogy, we first need to recap the tragedy's basic set-up.

On April 14, 1912, the liner Titanic, considered unsinkable due to its watertight compartments, struck a glancing blow against a massive iceberg on that moonless, weirdly calm night. In the early hours of April 15, the great ship broke in half and sank, ending the lives of the majority of its passengers and crew. Of the 2,208 passengers and crew onboard, 1,503 perished and 705 survived. The lifeboats had a maximum capacity of 1,178, so some 475 people died unnecessarily. Passengers of the Titanic (Wikipedia)

The initial complacency of the passengers and crew after the collision is another source of analogies relating to humanity's near-infinite capacity for denial. The class structure of the era was enforced by the authorities - the ship's officers. As the situation grew visibly threatening, the First Class passengers were herded into the remaining lifeboats while the steerage/Third Class passengers - many of them immigrants - were mostly kept below decks. Officers were instructed to enforce this class hierarchy with their revolvers.

Two-thirds of all passengers died, but the losses were not evenly distributed: 39% of First Class passengers perished, 58% of Second Class passengers lost their lives and 76% of Third Class passengers did not survive.

Rudimentary calculations by the ship's designer, who was on board to oversee the maiden voyage, revealed the truth to the officers: the ship would sink and there was no way to stop it. The ship was designed to survive four watertight compartments being compromised, and could likely stay afloat if five were opened to the sea, but not if six compartments were flooded. Water would inevitably spill over into adjacent compartments in a domino-like fashion until the ship sank.

What did the authorities do with this knowledge? Stripped of niceties, they passively accepted oblivion as the outcome and devoted their resources to enforcing the class hierarchy and the era's gender chivalry: 80% of male passengers perished, 25% of female passengers lost their lives. The loading of passengers into lifeboats was so poorly managed that only 60% of the lifeboat capacity was filled.

What if the officers had boldly accepted the inevitability of the ship sinking early on and devised a plan to minimize the loss of life? It would not have takes any extraordinary leap of creativity to organize the crew and passenger volunteers to strip the ship of everything that floated - wooden deck chairs, etc. - and lash them together into rafts. Given the calm seas that night and the freezing water, just keeping people above water would have been enough.

Rather than promote the absurd charade that the ship was fine, just fine, when time was of the essence, the authorities could have rounded up the women and children and filled every seat on lifeboats. Of the 1,030 people who could not be placed in a lifeboat, 890 were crew members, including about 25 women. The crew members were almost all in the prime of life. If anyone could survive several hours on a partially-submerged raft, it would have been the crew. (The first rescue ship arrived about two hours after the Titanic sank.)

Would this hurried effort to save everyone on board have succeeded? At a minimum, it would have saved an additional 475 souls via a careful loading of the lifeboats to capacity, and if the makeshift rafts had offered any meaningful flotation at all, many more lives would have been saved. Rather than devote resources to maintaining the pretense of safety and order, what if the ship's leaders had focused their response around answering a simple question: what was needed for people to survive a freezing night once the lifeboats were filled and the ship sank?

I think you see the analogy to the present. Our leadership, such as it is, is devoting resources to maintaining the absurd pretense that everything will magically re-set to what was normal if we just print enough money and bail out the financial Aristocracy.

Whether we realize it or not, we're responding with passive acceptance of oblivion. The economy and social order were precariously fragile before the pandemic, and now the fragilities are unraveling. We need to start thinking beyond pretense and PR."
Full screen mode recommended.

"When You Are In Deep Trouble..."

 

The Daily "Near You?"

Canarias, Spain. Thanks for stopping by!

"We Often Discover..."

“We learn wisdom from failure much more than from success.
We often discover what will do, by finding out what will not do; 
and probably he who never made a mistake never made a discovery.” 
- Samuel Smiles

The Poet: Carl Sandburg, "Preludes on Playthings of the Wind"

"Four Preludes on Playthings of the Wind"

“The past is a bucket of ashes.”

1
"The woman named Tomorrow 
sits with a hairpin in her teeth 
and takes her time 
and does her hair the way she wants it 
and fastens at last the last braid and coil 
and puts the hairpin where it belongs 
and turns and drawls: Well, what of it? 
My grandmother, Yesterday, is gone. 
What of it? Let the dead be dead. 

2
The doors were cedar
and the panels strips of gold 
and the girls were golden girls 
and the panels read and the girls chanted: 
We are the greatest city, 
the greatest nation: 
nothing like us ever was. 

The doors are twisted on broken hinges. 
Sheets of rain swish through on the wind 
where the golden girls ran and the panels read: 
We are the greatest city, 
the greatest nation, 
nothing like us ever was. 

3
It has happened before. 
Strong men put up a city and got 
a nation together,
And paid singers to sing and women 
to warble: We are the greatest city, 
the greatest nation, 
nothing like us ever was. 

And while the singers sang
and the strong men listened 
and paid the singers well 
and felt good about it all, 
there were rats and lizards who listened... 
and the only listeners left now... 
are…the rats…and the lizards. 

And there are black crows 
crying, “Caw, caw,” 
bringing mud and sticks 
building a nest 
over the words carved 
on the doors where the panels were cedar 
and the strips on the panels were gold 
and the golden girls came singing: 
We are the greatest city, 
the greatest nation: 
nothing like us ever was. 

The only singers now are crows crying, “Caw, caw,” 
And the sheets of rain whine in the wind and doorways. 
And the only listeners now are…the rats…and the lizards. 

4
The feet of the rats 
scribble on the door sills; 
the hieroglyphs of the rat footprints 
chatter the pedigrees of the rats 
and babble of the blood 
and gabble of the breed 
of the grandfathers and the great-grandfathers 
of the rats. 

And the wind shifts 
and the dust on a door sill shifts 
and even the writing of the rat footprints 
tells us nothing, nothing at all 
about the greatest city, the greatest nation 
where the strong men listened 
and the women warbled: Nothing like us ever was."

- Carl Sandburg

"What Are The Facts?"

"What are the facts? Again and again and againwhat are the facts? Shun wishful thinking, ignore divine revelation, forget what the stars foretell, avoid opinion, care not what the neighbors think, never mind the un-guessable verdict of history - what are the facts, and to how many decimal places? You pilot always into an unknown future; facts are your single clue. Get the facts!"
- Robert A. Heinlein

"When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains,
however improbable, must be the truth."
- Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, "Sherlock Holmes"

And always remember...
"When a learned man argues with an idiot two fools debate."
- Fu-shi

Greg Hunter, "CV19 Vax Destroys Hearts & Brains of Billions of People"

"CV19 Vax Destroys Hearts & Brains of Billions of People"
by Greg Hunter’s USAWatchdog.com  

"World renowned microbiologist and virologist professor Sucharit Bhakdi MD has won many medical and scientific awards and has more than 300 peer reviewed research papers. Dr. Bhakdi was one of the first top global doctors to warn about the deadly and debilitating effects of the CV19 vax. He was right. Dr. Bhakdi says there is proof that if the injections reach the heart or the brain, they will be damaged beyond repair. Dr. Bhakdi brings up one autopsy that found this and explains, “In multiple parts of the brain in this deceased man, the doctor found the same thing. He found the damned spike proteins in the smallest capillaries of the brain. There is no repair because what the doctor found was these small vessels were attacked by the immune system and destroyed. The doctor found irrefutable evidence of brain cell damage of cells that are dead and dying. This poor fellow died because his brain cells were dying. 

The same patient that died had this multifocal, meaning at many different locations, necrotizing, meaning dying, encephalitis. He had typical things being seen now in people post vax. They lose their personality. They lose their minds. They lose their capacity to think. They become demented. They can’t hear. They can’t speak. They can’t see. They are no longer the humans that they were. They are destroyed human beings. Their brains are destroyed."

The doctor found something so terrible he had to publish right away. This was published October 1, 2022, in “Vaccine,” which is a leading scientific journal. It’s peer reviewed, and it was accepted right away. It can be read by anyone. I beseech you to read it for yourself. The doctor doing the autopsy found apart from these terrible things happening to the brain, the same things were happening in the heart. It was happening in the heart of the same patient. He saw these same damned devil designed spike proteins. This means the gene that the perpetrators injected into billions of people reach the vessels of the brain and the heart. They are killing people. They are killing people in the most terrible, terrifying and tormenting way.”

Dr. Ryan Cole, Dr. Mike Yeadon and I always sing the same thing. You have to realize we did not know each other until Covid came, and there are so many others. They are not stupid, and they are wonderful and intelligent people, and if everyone is saying the same thing, you have to start thinking we may be right. If we are right, and I say it’s not me, I am one of thousands, and these thousands are right maybe, you are killing yourself and your children and your loved ones. Why do you do this? Why?” Dr. Bhakdi contends that the world should stop the injections now. . . . and Covid is a “criminal hoax.”

In closing, Dr. Bhakdi says, “I am afraid to say it, but up until one and a half years ago, I was a scientist. Now, I see what is going on. I have to admit that the colleagues and friends of mine that have been telling me that this is genocide may be right. I don’t know, but I feel in my mind there can be no other agenda. There is no other explanation. There is no other explanation because it is clear these gene-based vaccines are not needed because we are not dealing with a killer virus that is destroying mankind. Anyone who says otherwise is obviously lying to your face. Second, it is obvious these so-called vaccines could never ever have protected against infection. Third, and the worst, these gene-based vaccines are the most terrible instruments that have ever been introduced into the human body to destroy humans. These vaccines are going to destroy mankind.” There is much more in the 53-minute interview.

Join Greg Hunter on Rumble as he goes one on one with world 
renowned microbiologist and virologist, professor Sucharit Bhakdi MD:
Related:
"The Vaccine Death Report"
"The data suggests that we may currently be witnessing
the greatest organized mass murder in the history of our world."

Freely download "The Vaccine Death Report" here:

"How It Really Is"

 

Gonzalo Lira, "Why NATO Attacked Crimea (Hint, the G20 Summit)"

Gonzalo Lira, 10/30/22:
"Why NATO Attacked Crimea (Hint, the G20 Summit)"
Comments here:

Gregory Mannarino, "Markets, A Look Ahead: Expect More Propaganda And Higher Stock Prices"

Gregory Mannarino, 10/30/22:
"Markets, A Look Ahead: 
Expect More Propaganda And Higher Stock Prices"

"Crazy Trip To Walmart! This Is Ridiculous!"

Full screen recommended.
Adventures with Danno, 10/30/22:
"Crazy Trip To Walmart! This Is Ridiculous!"
"In today's vlog we are at Walmart, and are noticing some strange price increases! We are here to check out skyrocketing prices, and a lot of empty shelves! It's getting rough out here as stores seem to be struggling with getting products!"
Comments here:

Saturday, October 29, 2022

"20 Retailers Are Melting Down Right In Front Of Our Eyes"

Full screen recommended.
"20 Retailers Are Melting Down Right In Front Of Our Eyes"
by Epic Economist

"The retail death march persists. Retail businesses of all sizes in America have been facing an unprecedented crisis for more than a decade. The past couple of years have accelerated the demise of many companies, pushing them into bankruptcy, while others, with no hope for rehabilitation, just went out of business abruptly. But the storm that is brewing all across the sector right now may be unlike anything we've ever seen. A flood of bankruptcies is expected within six months. And according to data provided by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, almost half, or 47%, of U.S. retailers may not be able to survive another recession.

At this point, thousands of celebrated American brands are saddled with massive debt loads, depressed profit margins, falling sales and declining foot traffic, and before we notice, many of them can close their doors forever. Dollar-store chain 99 Cents Only is slowly dying before our eyes. It still operated about 350 stores across four states, but it’s been accumulating distressed loans since 2017. The pile of troubled debt outstanding expanded by about $12.6 billion as record inflation takes a toll on the chain. According to Bloomberg, the discount retailer’s presence in the industry is endangered by a competitive disadvantage compared to larger chains as well as a series of operational and execution issues. Given that net profits plunged by 88%, don’t be surprised if the company starts announcing layoffs and store closures in the near future.

New-York based cosmetics retailer Revlon is one of many in the industry that has faced reduced demand even before the pandemic kept most Americans confined to their homes. Revlon has been struggling with declining revenue and a $575 million debt that ultimately led the company to file for bankruptcy in July. With sales falling 21%, supply chain disruptions, and rising operational costs, as well as the rise of influencer cosmetic brands, Revlon is facing major challenges to adapt to today’s market. And while rising interest rates continue to tighten borrowing conditions, the future of the company is remains uncertain, with lenders still evaluating whether the 89-year-old company deserves more than half a billion dollars to restructure itself.

A potentially lackluster holiday shopping season can wreak havoc on the balance sheets of many struggling retailers and push them off a financial cliff. “I think many of these companies will file for bankruptcy, and it’s not going to be a handful. It’s will be a scary number,” said Stifel managing director Michael Kollender, who leads the consumer and retail investment banking group, Stifel. “It’s far more than we have seen over the last several years combined,” he predicts.

Given the fact that many of these businesses are reporting worsening financial problems for many years, we are likely to see major chains and big household names go away and not come back. Consumers are being squeezed on each and every front, and right now, there aren’t many reasons to be optimistic about the state of our economy.

The death of retail represents the death of our middle-class and the collapse of our purchasing power. These downward trends will continue to gain force as our financial conditions keep getting weaker. This winter is going to bring unprecedented challenges for all of us. And by 2023, our economic landscape may be much emptier than anyone could’ve imagined. That’s why today, we compiled a list of 20 companies that may vanish during the downturn that is intensifying all over the country."
Comments here:

"People Are Going Without..."

Full screen recommended.
Dan, iAllegedly 10/29/22:
"People Are Going Without..."
"So many people reach out to me and tell me how they’re cutting back. It’s not just cost savings it’s the fact that they are eliminating things in their lives because they cannot afford them. Inflation has destroyed so many."
Comments here:

Musical Interlude: Deuter, "Along the High Ridges"

Deuter, "Along the High Ridges"