Chet Raymo, “When The Morning Stars Sing Together”

“When The Morning Stars Sing Together”

by Chet Raymo

“A Chinese proverb: A bird does not sing because it has an answer. It sings because it has a song. Which might be an acceptable epigraph for this blog. I can’t imagine anyone coming here looking for answers. Certainly, providing answers is the last thing on my mind. I would like to think you come for song.

We are, I think, by and large, a community who distrusts answers, at least answers that are vehemently held. We are made uncomfortable by stridency. By dogma. By the desire to proselytize. We wear our truths lightly, gaily, as a song bird wears its feathers. We are grateful to those who push back the clouds of ignorance and hold the reins of passion. With Blake, we sing their praises, a song we have spent a lifetime learning. We sing to celebrate. We sing because we have a song.”

- http://blog.sciencemusings.com/

The Poet: Wendell Berry, “Leavings”

“Leavings”

“In time a man disappears

from his lifelong fields, from

the streams he has walked beside,

from the woods where he sat and waited.

Thinking of this, he seems to

miss himself in those places

as if always he has been there.

But first he must disappear,

and this he foresees with hope,

with thanks. Let others come.”

- Wendell Berry

○

“Perhaps as he was lying awake then, his life may have passed before him - his early hopeful struggles, his manly successes and prosperity, his downfall in his declining years, and his present helpless condition – no chance of revenge against Fortune, which had had the better of him - neither name nor money to bequeath - a spent-out, bootless life of defeat and disappointment, and the end here! Which, I wonder, brother reader, is the better lot, to die prosperous and famous, or poor and disappointed? To have, and to be forced to yield; or to sink out of life, having played and lost the game? That must be a strange feeling, when a day of our life comes and we say, “Tomorrow, success or failure won’t matter much, and the sun will rise, and all the myriads of mankind go to their work or their pleasure as usual, but I shall be out of the turmoil.”

- William Makepeace Thackeray, “Vanity Fair”

"And There Comes A Time..."

“Cowardice asks the question, 'Is it safe?' Expediency asks the question, 'Is it politic?' Vanity asks the question, 'Is it popular?' But, conscience asks the question, 'Is it right?' And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular, but one must take it because one's conscience tells one that it is right.”

- Martin Luther King Jr.

The Daily "Near You?"

Stockholm, Sweden. Thanks for stopping by!

"As Americans..."

''As Americans, we must ask ourselves: Are we really so different? Must we stereotype those who disagree with us? Do we truly believe that ALL red-state residents are ignorant racist fascist knuckle-dragging NASCAR-obsessed cousin-marrying roadkill-eating tobacco juice-dribbling gun-fondling religious fanatic rednecks; or that ALL blue-state residents are godless unpatriotic pierced-nose Volvo-driving France-loving left-wing communist latte-sucking tofu-chomping holistic-wacko neurotic vegan weenie perverts?''

- Dave Barry

Bill Bonner, "The Conceit of the Living"

"The Conceit of the Living"

What one generation learns, another is quick to forget...

by Bill Bonner

"We do not merely study the past: we inherit it, and inheritance brings with it not only the rights of ownership, but the duties of trusteeship. Things fought for & died for should not be idly squandered. For they are the property of others, who are not yet born." ~ Roger Scruton

Poitou, France - "This week, we are working our way through the good news. Yes, we are in high clover. And like a cow that jumped the fence, now gorging itself on the rich grass, it is fun…until the ‘bloat’ kills us. This morning, on a news program, we saw our old friend Nassim Nicolas Taleb. He warned that there was going to be hell to pay from “fifteen years of zero interest rates. Almost a whole generation forgot that credit has a price. Now, they’re finding out again. It’s going to be painful.”

“As much money as we want”: In the US, the pain has scarcely begun. But as Tom told us yesterday, we can get a preview of it by looking at what is happening in England. Here’s the latest from Bloomberg: "Britain’s mortgage market has become a horror show for borrowers and the government as soaring interest rates threaten to leave households destitute and the economy on the rocks. … Inflation is cooling only slowly, forcing the central bank to go hard on Thursday with a bigger-than-expected hike that took the key rate to 5%.

…The squeeze is eating into incomes, taking away money that might otherwise be spent in stores, bars and restaurants, creating a drag on an economy forecast to grow just 0.2% this year. Only Germany is expected to have a weaker performance among major developed economies."

Taleb: “My advice to investors is to get out of the big AI Tech stocks…and stay away from real estate. “ “But we’ve got the world’s reserve currency,” protested the interviewer. “We can print as much money as we want.” Taleb laughed.

Bordeaux, Burgundy and Bubbles: We’re in France, at a ramshackle chateau we bought nearly 30 years ago. (You may be surprised...) We lived here for more than a decade. Now, we come back to paint the shutters and reassemble the family. The house is big. So, there is plenty of room for our six children and their growing families.

So far, we have only one grandson with us. At 15, he is the oldest of the grandchildren. He’s learning to speak French from a neighbor, learning rough carpentry from his grandfather…and how to ‘faire la bise’ (greeting people in France by kissing them on both cheeks) from his grandmother. Most importantly, we are teaching him vital life skills, such as how to tell a bottle of Bordeaux from a bottle of Burgundy...and how to spot a bubble market when he sees one.

But the Fed has paused. We will take a ‘pause’ of our own. It is a bright, summer day in rural France. Not too hot. Not too cold. There are birds in the trees and lovers, we suppose, in each other’s arms. So, we will sit, like a retired writer in the sun, and take stock.

Our goal here at Bonner Private Research is to ‘connect the dots.’ But there are millions of them…as many as the stars in the night sky. How to make sense of them? We end up looking at clusters…and constellations…groups of them that seem to have a pattern or shape. And hanging over the whole firmament is an insight…a bright light that guides us through the news like a prisoner of war through a minefield.

We are, after all, our fathers’ sons and daughters. And they were the sons of their own fathers and mothers. Each generation had its ideas…its goals…its sense of right and wrong. What makes us think that we are so much smarter than all of them?

They put up monuments. We tear them down.

They believed in free speech. We believe in censorship.

They believed in free markets. We believe the government should control the economy.

They believed boys will be boys and girls will be girls. Now, we think they can be anything they want.

Righteous Racists: For 150 generations, they regulated and protected capital with interest rates; but for the last 15 years our geniuses pretended that they didn’t matter.

In 1990, US Secretary of State James Baker assured Mikhail Gorbachev that Western powers would advance ‘not one inch’ towards Russia. But a generation later, US tanks, drones, and spy satellites are all helping to kill Russian soldiers.

One generation was racist. Another thought racism was bad. Now we are self-righteous racists again, ready to give special privileges to special groups.

One generation believed that deficit spending was practically a sin. Later generations piled up $32 trillion in debt.

One generation believed the ‘Nifty Fifty’ stocks were “one decision” investments. You buy. You hold. You get rich. The next generation thought the dot.coms would make them rich. And now, it is the AI-powered super-Techs.

Each generation is delusional in its own way, ready to pay absurd prices for its favorite assets…and commit murder for its favorite cause. It is what we call the Conceit of the Living, the belief that our ancestors were all imbeciles…and our descendants will thank us every day for leaving them with the Final Truth.

But ‘pride goeth before the fall.’ Fads and fashions change. Which will fade? Which will endure? What will the Big Techs be worth 5 years from now? And how about America’s $100 trillion of real estate. It is priced for a world of 4% mortgages. What will it be worth when investors realize we are in a 7% world? Let’s return to connecting those dots on Monday."

- https://bonnerprivateresearch.substack.com/

Jim Kunstler, "Teachable Moment"

“I’m proud of my son” - Joe Biden

"Teachable Moment"

By Jim Kunstler

“In the wake of the Hunter Biden sweetheart plea deal, calling D.C. a swamp is an insult to swamps and frankly to all wetlands in general. We need to redefine the Clean Water Act to include all Biden adjacent areas.” - Margot Cleveland, Lawyer and legal analyst

"I hope you agree this has been an instructive week for our republic, sinking to the bottom as fast as the Titan submersible on its way to consort with its grandmama, the HMS Titanic. Here’s what I learned, for instance, from Special Counsel John Durham’s visit to the House Judiciary Committee: When asked why he did not seek grand jury testimony from the primary culprits in the Russia Collusion hoax - Comey, McCabe, and Strzok - he told the room it would have been “unproductive” because they habitually claimed to “not recall” anything when testifying in Congress.

That’s an interesting legal theory. If it is so, we must suppose that any witness in a criminal inquiry may decline testifying on the grounds of claiming a defective memory. I’m not a lawyer, of course, but is it not the case that witnesses can be prompted to recall events when presented with evidence? E.g., “…here is your smartphone text of July 29 saying, ‘Don’t worry, we’ll stop him [Trump].’ What means did you have in mind to accomplish that, Mr. Strzok?”

In the four-year lead-up to his personal appearance in the House, many of us were fooled into thinking Mr. Durham was a serious dude. (I sure was.) Turns out the ferocious facial hair masked a rather timorous persona. Mr. Durham apparently did not dare test the boundaries of the narrow lane laid out in the scoping directives set forth by then Attorney General Barr. Mr. D. did find a line of criminal conduct between Lawfare artist Michal Sussmann, the Fusion GPS disinfo company, the DC law firm Perkins Coie, and candidate Hillary MyTurn in the creation and marketing of the Steele Dossier - yet he never called Hillary to do any ‘splainin about it (or anything else she did in 2016). Weird, a little bit.

While his omissions and missteps were spotlighted by the Republican members, Mr. Durham was mugged, kicked to the curb, stomped, and peed-on by the committee Democrats, who still labor to prop-up the dead-letter Russia Collusion fraud against all evidence and reason. As usual, the lead attack dog on that was Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA). He was rewarded the next day with a censure vote for seven years of shameless lying about said fraud, and stripped of his seat on the House Intel Committee, which he used, as then-chairman, to launch Trump Impeachment #1 in 2019 with fake “whistleblower” (and CIA goblin) Eric Ciaramella, whom Mr. Schiff naturally lied about never meeting prior to the proceeding.

We are treated in these twilight months of the “Joe Biden” regime to a cavalcade of revelations laying out the degeneracy of a federal justice system at war with the American people and its shady machinations in service to the Biden family global bribery operation. Late Thursday, the House Ways and Means Committee, chaired by Rep. Jason Smith (R-MO), released the affidavit of IRS supervisory special agent Gary Shapley from testimony given in closed session May 26. It disclosed a concerted program by the DOJ to impede, obstruct, delay, divert, and bury a massive tax evasion and fraud case against Hunter Biden, involving millions of dollars garnered from foreign persons and entities for no discernible services performed in return.

I am alleging, with evidence…” Mr. Shapley testified under oath, “…whatever the motivations, at every stage decisions were made that had the effect of benefiting the subject of the investigation. These decisions included slow-walking investigative steps, not allowing enforcement actions to be executed, limiting investigators’ line of questioning for witnesses, misleading investigators on charging authority, delaying any and all actions months before [the 2020] elections to ensure the investigation did not go overt well before policy memorandum mandated the pause.”

Hunter Biden was code-named “Sportsman” as the case opened in 2018. Red flags in bank transfer records of Hunter B and associates involving millions of dollars triggered the IRS inquiry. It wasn’t until a year later that Hunter’s laptop turned up, crammed with deal memos of bribes paid along with vivid documentary evidence of sex and drug crimes. The FBI verified its authenticity in November of 2019 by matching the device number against Hunter Biden’s Apple iCloud ID.

By the way, note that this was the exact same time that the House Intel Committee under chairman Adam Schiff commenced its impeachment inquiry against President Donald Trump. AG William Barr and FBI Director Chris Wray therefore knew then that Hunter’s laptop existed and that it contained evidence of suspicious money transactions with Russia, China, and most particularly Ukraine - since Mr. Trump’s impeachment case was based on a telephone query he made to Ukrainian President, Zelensky, regarding the Biden family’s operations there. Neither Mr. Barr nor Mr. Wray alerted Mr. Trump’s lawyers about the evidence contained in the laptop - which would have provided exculpatory proof of a reasonable motive for Mr. Trump’s phone call. How was that not an obstruction of justice?

Mr. Shapley’s testimony is just one thread in the much larger tapestry of Biden family corruption now achieving clarity. Rep. James Comer’s Oversight Committee continues on its deep dive into the Biden family bank transfer records - with its evidence of money laundering through Biden shell company cut-outs - and the direct voice recording evidence of “Joe Biden” discussing his family’s financial arrangements with Petro Poroshenko, then-president of Ukraine from 2014 to 2019, plus other damning evidence connected to a “trusted” (and well-paid) FBI human confidential source in the much fought over FD-1023 document recently surrended to the Oversight Committee.

In short, the tide is going out even as the sun sets on “Joe Biden” as President. He and his handlers may believe they enjoy the protection of a compliant news media, but even that has its limits. Impeachment is coming, even if not as fast as Rep. Lauren Boebert wants it to, and if and when it does, there will be no ignoring the stark presentation of hard evidence - no matter how much MSNBC’s Joy-Ann Reid snorts and cackles.

Meanwhile, please understand that “Joe Biden” is only pretending to run for reelection and his party is pretending along with him just for the present desperate moment. Before long, their whole reeking, creaking edifice of lies and bad faith will come crashing down. Joe Biden will have to resign or the nation will be treated to the spectacle, this time, of a trial in the senate for real cause, bribery and treason, not just fake animus. And then, not even Gavin Newsom will be able to save the Democratic Party in its present alignment and foul habits. If it survives at all, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. will have to rebuild it from the ground up and expel the demons infesting it."

- https://kunstler.com/

- https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/

"How It Really Is"

 

"Nuclear War Emergency Update: Drastic Escalation Imminent?"

Full screen recommended.

Canadian Prepper, 6/23/23

"Nuclear War Emergency Update: 

Drastic Escalation Imminent?"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

These psychopaths are absolutely determined to get us all killed...

o

“When the pain of leaving behind what we know outweighs the pain of embracing it, or when the power we face is overwhelming and neither flight nor fight will save us, there may be salvation in sitting still. And if salvation is impossible, then at least before perishing we may gain a clearer vision of where we are. By sitting still I do not mean the paralysis of dread, like that of a rabbit frozen beneath the dive of a hawk. I mean something like reverence, a respectful waiting, a deep attentiveness to forces much greater than our own.”

- Scott Russell Sanders

Folks, I fear our time for such reverence is here.

God help us, God help us all...

"The Boom Is Over, The Bust Is Underway; Collapse Of The Midwest; RV Sales Crushed"

Jeremiah Babe, 6/23/23

"The Boom Is Over, The Bust Is Underway; 

Collapse Of The Midwest; RV Sales Crushed"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

"I Hope This Is True"

Full screen recommended.

Dan, I Allegedly, 6/23/23

"I Hope This Is True"

"The fight of the century could take place soon. Elon Musk

 and Mark Zuckerberg want to fight each other. Will it happen?"

- https://www.youtube.com/

"Massive Price Increases At Aldi! This Is Ridiculous! Not Good!"

Full screen recommended.

Adventures With Danno, 6/23/23

"Massive Price Increases At Aldi! This Is Ridiculous! Not Good!"

"In today's vlog we are at Aldi and are noticing massive price increases! We are here to check out skyrocketing prices and shelf stable grocery items we can add to our preps! It's getting rough out here as stores seem to be struggling with keeping prices down due to inflation and many other reasons!"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

Greg Hunter, "Weekly News Wrap-Up 6/23/23"

"Weekly News Wrap-Up 6/23/23"

by Greg Hunter’s USAWatchdog.com

"Many House GOP members want to impeach President Biden for taking bribes from foreign countries. The U.S. Constitution clearly states this is a reason to kick a President out of the White House. The FBI and DOJ have not been slow walking their investigations into the Biden grifting family, they have been moon walking them backwards. Speaker Kevin McCarthy is blocking the impeachment of President Biden, but he is in for a fight from his own party on what many say is obvious bribe taking in the millions of dollars for Biden and his clan.

The American public is totally in the dark about how bad the increasing war is in Ukraine. We are told one lie after another about what is going on, as Washington shovels cash into the black hole called Ukraine. Putin is warning of a coming nuclear conflict, but his warnings are falling on deaf ears. Why is the drive for war so great in Washington? Is it because the dollar system is about to crash with the introduction of the new “BRICS+” currency? Fed Head Jay Powell is fighting inflation, but is he really raising interest rates to protect the dollar from a massive devaluation after it is no longer the world’s reserve currency? If the dollar falls, how high will inflation rise?

There is new data out that says 600,000 Americans a year are dying from the CV19bioweapon/vax. It just keeps killing people. The CV19 injections are also disabling people at a much higher pace than its kill rate. People are waking up to this nightmare, and it won’t be long before enough people wake to totally put a stop to the carnage, and jail the evil people who pushed this genocide on America and the world. There is a lot more in the 52-minute newscast."

Join Greg Hunter on Rumble as he talks about these

 stories and more in the Weekly News Wrap-Up for 6/23/23.

- https://rumble.com/

"Alert! Ukraine Military Draft Begins; NATO Blows Up Bridge In Crimea; Russian Bombers Airborne"

Full screen recommended.

Canadian Prepper, 6/22/23

"Alert! Ukraine Military Draft Begins; 

NATO Blows Up Bridge In Crimea; Russian Bombers Airborne"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

o

"There are a multitude of fuses affixed to dozens of powder-kegs and little kids with matches are on the loose. I don’t know which of the fuses will be lit and which powder-keg will blow, but someone is bound to do something stupid, and then all hell will break loose. It could happen at any time. One military miscue. One assassination. One violent act that stirs the world. And the dominoes will topple, setting off fireworks not seen on this planet since 1939 – 1945. I can see it all very clearly."

- Jim Quinn

- https://austincountynewsonline.com/

"The Great American Purge Is Approaching, Plan For Emergency Now"

Jeremiah Babe, 6/22/23

"The Great American Purge Is Approaching, 

Plan For Emergency Now"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

"Subway Reports Biggest Store Shutdowns In Two Decades As Fast Food Chains Collapse All Around Us"

Full screen recommended.

"Subway Reports Biggest Store Shutdowns In 

Two Decades As Fast Food Chains Collapse All Around Us"

By Epic Economist

Subway is now shuttering a huge number of stores, and new reports reveal that the mass closures have just brought the chain to its smallest size in almost two decades. The company has been struggling financially for years, and right now executives are trying to sell the decaying franchise to the highest bidder. The retail apocalypse, recent controversies, and higher competition are just some of the issues that are devastating the largest sandwich shop chain in the world, and in today’s video, we decided to expose what is truly behind Subway’s downfall.

The chain’s financial problems are well documented. The company overexpanded, often forcing franchisees to build stores near existing locations. The sheer number of restaurants meant that each individual store generated less revenue per unit. And that started to erode Subway’s operations from within.

After years of facing increasing operational costs, falling sales, and declining profitability, many franchisees had no other choice but to start eliminating the stores that were reporting disappointing financial results. According to data released by Reuters, over the past 12 months alone almost 600 Subway restaurants closed doors in the US. But these closures are added on top of the thousands of stores the franchise shuttered in recent years.

Citing over-expansion, outdated operations and decor, stale menus, and $5-footlong deals that hurt profits, the chain closed over 1,000 in 2021 and 1,609 in 2020, according to an April 25 disclosure document obtained by Reuters that Subway provides to franchisees interested in purchasing locations. Since 2016, more than 6,500 Subway restaurants, or one in every four locations, have disappeared from the US market, as reported by Restaurant Business.

In 2023, Subway’s store Count hit the lowest total since 2005, and franchisees continue to report growing problems inside the company, with some of them exposing that the fast food giant charges operators markups of up to 700 percent on products.

The worsening problems between corporate executives and franchisees, mass closings, financial difficulties, and a dozen lawsuits have greatly accelerated the demise of the fast food titan. Now Subway is trying to sell its business to the highest bidder.

In May, dozens of multi-unit operators - the more sophisticated, financially sound franchisees that Subway desires - examined the possibility of entering the chain's system by buying swaths of restaurants but walked away after seeing how little money they made, according to two of their advisers.

Although Subway has not revealed the average annual sales volume for its U.S. restaurants, industry experts and insiders estimate the figure is less than $500,000, which would make it one of the lowest in the entire industry. Rival sandwich shops Jersey Mike's and Firehouse Subs generate more than $1.1 million and $900,000 respectively, according to QSR Magazine.

For now, no one has shown interest in saving the struggling chain. It will be hard to find a buyer that would want to get involved with the company’s mess. It is looking like Subway’s empire is crashing down right before us, and what we’ve seen so far is surely just the beginning of its collapse."

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

Scott Ritter, "Ukraine Update 6/22/23"

Scott Ritter, 

"The Devastating Battle For Bakhmut"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

Scott Ritter, 

"The Counter-Offensive is Over"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

“They Burn Quite Well”

“They Burn Quite Well”

By Tass

"Ukraine’s troops understand that they don’t stand a chance against heroic and courageous fighters of the Russian Armed Forces, President Vladimir Putin emphasized on Wednesday. “Thanks to the courage and heroism of our fighters, thanks to the commanders’ readiness to repel any aggressive actions against Russia, I believe, the enemy doesn’t stand a chance. They understand that and this is why they have stalled now,” Putin said at the meeting with military college graduates, answering a question from reporter Pavel Zarubin.

“Ukrainian forces began [the counteroffensive] on June 4, engaging strategic reserves. Curiously, we currently observe a certain lull at this moment,” the president said, adding that “this is due to the enemy suffering serious casualties in personnel and in vehicles.” According to the president, “there are individual elements of hostilities going on: shelling, reconnaissance-in-force.” “But, I repeat, there is currently no active offensive,” Putin added. Meanwhile, he noted: “As of today, we see that the enemy’s offensive potential has not been depleted yet; the enemy has reserves and it thinks where and how to use them.”

Speaking about the destroyed Western vehicles, Putin underscored that these numbers keep growing. “How much – that would require a look at the numbers. The total as of last night was 245 tanks and 678 armored vehicles of various types. Of course, that includes Leopards, French wheeled vehicles, US-made armored vehicles – everything,” the president said. “They burn quite well.”

- https://www.theburningplatform.com/

"Cannot Get Any More Blunt..."

"Cannot get any more blunt than this from Lavrov. "If NATO, through the mouth of Stoltenberg, once again declares that they are against freezing, as they say, the conflict in Ukraine, then they want to fight,” Lavrov told a press conference. “Well, let them fight, we are ready for this, we have long understood the goals of NATO in the situation around Ukraine, which have been formed for many years.”

Blunt and almost nonchalant. All this while Putin speaking to graduates of military academies described the future: "Strengthening the armed forces is one of Russia’s top priorities, President Vladimir Putin said at a meeting with graduates of military academies in Moscow on Wednesday. The nation’s military will evolve on the basis of the “priceless experience” provided by the ongoing military operation in Ukraine, as well as the modern challenges Russia is facing, he added. Russia’s nuclear triad will remain a focus of the military development efforts," Putin said, adding that it remains “a key guarantee of Russia’s military security and global stability.” Around half of Russia’s strategic land-based missile units have already been equipped with state-of-the-art Yars missiles – some of Russia’s most modern nuclear intercontinental ballistic missiles, Putin revealed.

Putin also stressed hypersonic weapons and Russia's Navy Commander Admiral Evmenov stated that newest weapons will begin to be deployed not "soon, but immediately". Pretty self-evident, really. Naturally VSU complaint about German tanks, Germans told them to shove it (in Russian). Things are getting curioser and curioser."

- https://smoothiex12.blogspot.com/

Musical Interlude: Gnomusy (David Caballero), "Footprints On The Sea"

Gnomusy (David Caballero),

 "Footprints On The Sea"

"A Look to the Heavens"

"Fans of our fair planet might recognize the outlines of these cosmic clouds. On the left, bright emission outlined by dark, obscuring dust lanes seems to trace a continental shape, lending the popular name North America Nebula to the emission region cataloged as NGC 7000. To the right, just off the North America Nebula's east coast, is IC 5070, whose avian profile suggests the Pelican Nebula. The two bright nebulae are about 1,500 light-years away, part of the same large and complex star forming region, almost as nearby as the better-known Orion Nebula. At that distance, the 3 degree wide field of view would span 80 light-years.

This careful cosmic portrait uses narrow band images combined to highlight the bright ionization fronts and the characteristic glow from atomic hydrogen, sulfur, and oxygen gas. These nebulae can be seen with binoculars from a dark location. Look northeast of bright star Deneb in the constellation Cygnus the Swan."

- https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html

Chet Raymo, “The Journey”

Click image for larger size.

“The Journey”

by Chet Raymo

“Here’s a deep-deep sky map of the universe from the March 9, 2006 issue of Nature. The horizontal scale is a 360 view right around the sky; the vertical gaps at 6 hours and 24 hours are the parts of the universe that are blocked to our view by the disk of our own Milky Way Galaxy. The vertical scale – distance from Earth – is logarithmic (10, 100, 1000, etc.) measured in megaparsecs (a parsec equals 3.26 light-years). Across the top is the Big Bang, and the oldest and most distant thing we can see, the cosmic microwave background, the radiation of the Big Bang itself. A few relatively nearby galaxies are designated at the bottom. All that stuff in the middle that looks like smoke or dusty cobwebs are quasars and galaxies from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey.

A smoke of galaxies! (2 trillion galaxies* according to latest estimates.- CP) A universe cobwebbed with Milky Ways! Each galaxy itself a smoke of stars, hundreds of billions of stars, many or all of them with planets. My book, “Walking Zero,” is about the human journey from the omphalos of our birth into the world of the galaxies, a journey many of us are disinclined to make. Here is how the Prologue to the book begins:

“Each of us is born at the center of the world. For nine months our physical selves are assembled molecule by molecule, cell by cell, in the dark covert of our mother’s womb. A single fertilized egg cell splits into two. Then four. Eight. Sixteen. Thirty-two. Ultimately, 50 trillion cells or so. At first, our future self is a mere blob of protoplasm. But slowly, ever so slowly, the blob begins to differentiate under the direction of genes. A symmetry axis develops. A head, a tail, a spine. At this point, the embryo might be that of a human, or a chicken, or a marmoset. Limbs form. Digits, with tiny translucent nails. Eyes, with papery lids. Ears pressed like flowers against the head. Clearly now a human. A nose, nostrils. Downy hair. Genitals.

As the physical self develops, so too a mental self takes shape, not yet conscious, not yet self-aware, knitted together as webs of neurons in the brain, encapsulating in some respects the evolutionary experience of our species. Instincts impressed by the genes. The instinct to suck, for example. Already, in the womb, the fetus presses its tiny fist against its mouth in anticipation of the moment when the mouth will be offered the mother’s breast. The child will not have to be taught to suck. Other inborn behaviors will express themselves later. Laughing. Crying. Striking out in anger. Loving.

What, if anything, goes on in the mind of the developing fetus we may never know. But this much seems certain: To the extent that the emerging self has any awareness of its surroundings, its world is coterminous with itself. We are not born with knowledge of the antipodes, the plains of Mars, or the far-flung realm of the galaxies. We are not born with knowledge of Precambrian seas, the supercontinent of Pangea, or the Age of Dinosaurs. We are born into a world scarcely older than ourselves and scarcely larger than ourselves. And we are at its center.

A human life is a journey into the grandeur of a universe that may contain more galaxies than there are cells in the human body, a universe in which the whole of a human lifetime is but a single tick of the cosmic clock. The journey can be disorienting; our first instincts are towards coziness, comfort, our mother’s enclosing arms, her breast. The journey, therefore, requires courage – for each individual, and for our species.

Uniquely of all animals, humans have the capacity to let our minds expand into the space and time of the galaxies. No other creatures can number the cells in their bodies, as we can, or count the stars. No other creatures can imagine the explosive birth of the observable universe 14 billion years ago from an infinitely hot, infinitely small seed of energy. That we choose to make this journey – from the all-sustaining womb into the vertiginous spaces and abyss of time – is the glory of our species, and perhaps our most frightening challenge.”

- http://blog.sciencemusings.com/

o

Full screen recommended.

* "2 Trillion Galaxies? The Mind-Boggling 

Scale of the Universe Explained"

o

Full screen recommended.

"The Living Universe is Unimaginably 

BIG and You're a Part of It!"

o

"In this galaxy, there's a mathematical probability of three billion Earth-type planets. And in all of the universe, 2 trillion galaxies like this. And in all of that... and perhaps more, only one of each of us." - "Dr. Leonard McCoy"

"Reality Avoidance"

"Reality Avoidance"

by Morris Berman

"It’s quite amazing how the news is endlessly about filler, which is what I call it. Very little of this has anything to do with reality, which the Mainstream Media and the American people avoid like the plague. What then is real?

1. The empire is in decline; every day, life here gets a little bit worse; all our institutions are corrupt to varying degrees; and there is no turning this situation around.

2. A crucial factor in this decline and irreversibility is the low level of intelligence of the American people. Americans are not only dumb; they are positively antagonistic toward the life of the mind.

3. Relations of power and money determine practically everything. The 3 wealthiest Americans own as much as the bottom 50% of the population, and this tendency will get worse over time.

4. The value system of the country, and its citizens, is fundamentally wrong-headed. It amounts to little more than hustling, selfishness, narcissism, and a blatant disregard for anyone but oneself. There is a kind of cruelty, or violence, deep in the American soul; many foreign observers and writers have commented on this. Americans are bitter, depressed, and angry, and the country offers very little by way of community or empathy.

5. Along with this is the support of meaningless wars and imperial adventures on the part of most of the population. That we drone-murder unarmed civilians on a weekly basis is barely on the radar screen of the American mind. In essence, the nation has evolved into a genocidal war machine run by a plutocracy and cheered on by mindless millions.

Most Americans hide from these depressing, even horrific, realities by what passes for ‘the news’, but also by means of alcohol, opioids, TV, cellphones, suicide, prescription drugs, workaholism, and spectator sports, to name but a few. This stuffing of the Void is probably our primary activity. In a word, we are eating ourselves alive, and only a tiny fraction of the population recognizes this."

- https://morrisberman.blogspot.com/

"Madness..."

“When the world goes mad, one must accept madness as sanity;

since sanity is, in the last analysis, nothing but the

madness on which the whole world happens to agree.”

- George Bernard Shaw

"The World Economy Is In Freefall As Inflation Continues To Surge! The Worst Is Yet To Come!"

"It's a Big Club, and you ain't in it.

You and I are not in the Big Club."

- George Carlin

o

Gregory Mannarino, PM 6/22/23

"The World Economy Is In Freefall As

Inflation Continues To Surge! The Worst Is Yet To Come!"

- https://traderschoice.net/

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

The Daily "Near You?"

Cicero, Indiana, USA. Thanks for stopping by!

"Hope In a Time of Hopelessness"

"Hope In a Time of Hopelessness" 

by Washingtons Blog

"Hope has two beautiful daughters. Their names are anger and courage;

anger at the way things are, and courage 

to see that they do not remain the way they are."

- Augustine of Hippo

"Several long-time activists have told me recently they are overwhelmed, worried, and think that we may be losing the struggle. One very smart friend asked me if there is any basis for hope.

Hope is an act of will, not a passive mood. Admittedly, things are easier when circumstances bring hope to us, and we can just receive the hopeful and inspiring news. But if we care about winning, we have to be able to decide to have hope even when outer circumstances aren't so positive.

I have children who are counting on me to leave them with a reasonably safe and sane planet. As I've said elsewhere, I care too much about my kids and my freedom to be afraid. I care enough about them that it gets my heart beating, connects me to something bigger than myself, and that gives me courage, even when the chips are down. 

If I allowed myself to lose hope about exposing falsehoods, about protecting our freedom and building a hopeful future, I would be dropping the ball for my kids. I would be condemning them to a potentially very grey world where bigger and worse things may happen, where their liberties and joys are wholly stripped away, where every ounce of vitality is beholden to joyless and useless tasks.

Many of us may be motivated by other things besides kids, and only you can know what that is. But we each must dig down deep, and connect with our most powerful motivations to win the struggle for freedom and truth.

I don't know about you, but I don't have the luxury of giving up hope. When I get depressed, overwhelmed or exhausted by the stunning acts of savagery, treason, and disinformation carried out by the imperialists, or the willful ignorance of far too many Americans, I will myself into finding some reason to have hope. Because the struggle for life and liberty is too important for me to give up." 

- http://georgewashington2.blogspot.com/

Sadly this blog has been deleted...

"2023: Fourth Turning Meets Mass Formation Psychosis" Part 1 (Excerpt)

"2023: Fourth Turning Meets Mass Formation Psychosis"

By Jim Quinn

 

Excerpt: “Four things need to exist or need to be in place if you want a large-scale mass phenomenon to emerge. The first thing is that there needs to be a lot of socially isolated people, people who experience a lack of social bonds. The second one is that there needs to be a lot of people who experience a lack of sense-making in life. And the third and the fourth conditions are that there needs to be a lot of free-floating anxiety and a lot of free-floating psychological discontent. So: meaning, anxiety, and discontent that is not connected to a specific representation.

So, it needs to be in the mind without the people being able to connect it to something. If you have these four things - lack of social bonds, lack of sense-making, free-floating anxiety, and free-floating psychological discontent -then society is highly at risk for the emergence of mass phenomenon.”

- Mattias Desmet, "The Psychology of Totalitarianism"

“Try to unlearn the obsessive fear of death (and the anxious quest for death avoidance) that pervades linear thinking in nearly every modern society. The ancients knew that, without periodic decay and death, nature cannot complete its full round of biological and social change. Without plant death, weeds would strangle the forest. Without human death, memories would never die, and unbroken habits and customs would strangle civilization. Social institutions require no less. Just as floods replenish soil and fires rejuvenate forests, a Fourth Turning clears out society’s exhausted elements and creates an opportunity.

- Strauss & Howe, "The Fourth Turning"

I recently finished reading Mattias Desmet’s fascinating and illuminating book "The Psychology of Totalitarianism", where he examines the mass formation psychosis which swept over the world during the time frame of early 2020 until present day. He explores some of the root causes of this psychological phenomena, comparing it to previous episodes in history, and delving into whether it occurred naturally or was purposely generated in order to implement a Great Reset agenda.

This type of spectacle has happened throughout human history, even documented by Charles Mackay in his 1841 book "Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds." It is clear to me aspects of mass formation psychosis played a part in the previous two Fourth Turnings, as both sides in the U.S. Civil War displayed characteristics of those being hypnotized by a narrative, and the German people falling under the spell of Hitler and his rhetorical skills."

View full, highly recommended, article here:

- https://www.theburningplatform.com/

"2023: Fourth Turning Meets Mass Formation Psychosis", Part 2 (Excerpt)

"2023: Fourth Turning Meets Mass

 Formation Psychosis", Part 2 (Excerpt)

By Jim Quinn

Excerpt: "In Part 1 of this article, I laid out the mass formation psychosis theory postulated by Mattias Desmet in his book "The Psychology of Totalitarianism" and how totalitarian minded politicians and bureaucrats manipulated the masses by creating the covid crisis. Now I will focus on how this will impact the Fourth Turning we are currently trying to survive.

Decades of social indoctrination and degraded ability to think critically has left most people hopelessly unable to resist the vitriolic opinions of those under the spell of coronavirus mass formation. Even though they didn’t necessarily believe the covid narrative, especially when it became clear only the very old (especially when tyrant governors inserted infected patients into nursing homes) and the very obese actually died with covid, these people still went along. Even the CDC admitted only 6% of deaths were attributable to covid alone.

Based upon research like the Milgram Experiment, we know average people will obey authority without question, even when they know their actions are causing pain. The conformity research done by Solomon Asch explains why a huge percentage of the global population just conformed to what appeared to be a majority opinion. Asch’s experiment had 8 test subjects, but 7 of them worked for Asch. They asked them which line was the same length as Exhibit 1. The 7 Asch employees answered C. Only 25% of the case subjects consistently answered A. They were cowed into giving a patently absurd answer due to peer pressure and lack of faith in their own judgement.

When you have 30% of the population as true believers of the covidian religion, with their savior Fauci, prophets Walensky, Birx, Gottlieb, Biden, the pope, a slew of Big Pharma paid priests for hire, Hollywood elites, low IQ athletes, and a highly compensated mass media campaign of fear and loathing, the 40% in the middle really had no chance to not be pulled into the vortex of pandemia. From the outset they were inundated with data like Neal Ferguson’s Imperial College model of death. Putting up a scary chart, even though it was based on absurd assumptions, is considered fact by the lazy, non-thinking masses.

Shutting down the world was based on this worthless fraudulent model. Add some fake videos of dead people piling up in the streets in China, with media talking heads declaring hospitals being overrun (even though nurses had time to do coordinated dance routines on Tik Tok), and graphics on CNN, MSNBC, and Fox showing cases rising (based on a faulty PCR test set too high), and Fauci knowingly lying about the effectiveness of masks and the ineffectiveness of ivermectin and hydroxychloquine, and you’ve got panic."

Full, highly recommended article is here:

- https://www.theburningplatform.com/

"Permanent Adolescence: The Epidemic That Will Destroy America"

"Permanent Adolescence:

The Epidemic That Will Destroy America"

by Dr. Paul Kindlon

"As a Humanities professor I have had the opportunity to teach psychology and social psychology for more than 25 years. Occasionally the knowledge obtained in these areas allows me to analyze and understand social behavior and certain cultural trends. This is one those occasions.

If one is able to observe American society in an objective manner (granted no easy task) it becomes clear that the country is suffering from an epidemic of arrested emotional development (AED). This particular illness is characterized by some combination of: addiction, greed, immaturity, fear, blame, shame, resentments, anger, confusion and suffering. What it means is that the vast majority of Americans are stuck in adolescence exhibiting behavior like lying, negative attitudes, disobedience and disrespect, drug and alcohol abuse, depression, and issues of sexuality.

One has only to watch American movies or television shows to get a snapshot of juvenile, puerile, and base comedy characteristic of adolescent humor. It’s no accident that 48 year old Jimmy Fallon is essentially the “eternal teenager” performing comedy that mostly includes bathroom humor and gags that are based on and appeal to a silly sense of immaturity. The other darling of late-night shows in America is Stephen Colbert, age 58, who specializes in insulting public figues in an overtly adolescent display of negative attitude and disrespect.

Another hallmark of AED is to evade responsibility and blame others for failure. One had only to observe the millions of Hillary supporters to understand this phenomenon. Also common for AED sufferers is to show disrespect in sophomoric ways usually by damaging property as we see with monuments being defaced and destroyed.

Teenagers, of course, tend to have identity issues often involving sexuality which is another phenomenon all too apparent in contemporary America. It’s almost uncool not to be LGBT or confused about your gender nowadays. Soon there will be as many genders as ice-cream flavors for it’s all just a matter of taste!

In terms of cognitive activity AED is characterized by exaggeration and over-simplification. If you are angry with one of your parents you might refer to them as a Nazi or Fascist.

This negative attitude now is extended to anyone who disagrees with you and can be seen in slogans such as “No Trump, No KKK, No Fascist USA”. Adults are an endangered species. The cognitive effect of exaggeration and over-simplification leads to irrationality and confusion. Witness the millions of people who think they are being anti-racist by opposing “White Supremacy”. No anthropologist on earth would claim that “White” is a race (although a Neo- Nazi would) It’s not even a primary color. The Irish were discriminated against for more than a hundred years in America due to Anglo-Saxon racism yet the Irish are considered “white”. There are millions of Americans of German, Polish, and Scandinavian extraction who have been working-class and lower for a very long time. Are these “white people” guilty of supremacy? Against whom? Themselves?

Of course, what the protestors should be focusing on is class and not race which is really an arbitrary term. Unfortunately. the progressive movement in America has gone from “Occupy Wall Street” to “occupy the public bathroom”. Lenin would be turning over in his grave – if he had one. With regard to alcohol and drug addiction in America, the statistics are startling. Opiod addiction alone is becoming a national health issue as is depression. Alcohol abuse, of course, is also quite high. Lying is also becoming commonplace. It used to be just politicians and lawyers who were known to “play with the truth”. Nowadays the mainstream media is widely seen as a mainstream of lies with CNN now wearing the title of FAKE NEWS.

The teenage attempt to rebel and show disobedience is often manifested through the use of profanity intended to shock the older generation. Gratuitous profanity is pervasive in American culture and has replaced the imagination as a form of creativity. It is not an accident that Pussy Riot – a group of “performance artists” using profanity in a Cathedral considered sacred to “shock” the Russian public and “disobey” authorities – has found a home in the United States and been befriended by Madonna, another symbol of eternal adolescence. Her AED was on full display when she publicly offered all men fellatio if they voted for Hillary Clinton. And as any rebellious teenager attempting to shock the “older generation” she had to announce that she “swallows”. Stay classy, Madonna. Keep in mind we’re talking about a then 63 year old mother of six.

You see…if everyone is a teenager there is no adult supervision. That is the problem. After an autopsy is conducted years from now to ascertain how and why the American Empire expired, the obituary will include multiple causes of death and AED will be listed prominently. Perhaps a precocious teenager will be allowed to write the epitaph that will read…”When extended, the bridge between adolescence and adulthood can take a heavy toll”.

- https://www.lewrockwell.com/

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“Most people don’t grow up. It’s too damn difficult. What happens is most people get older. That’s the truth of it. They honor their credit cards, they find parking spaces, they marry, they have the nerve to have children, but they don’t grow up. Not really. They get older. But to grow up costs the earth, the earth. It means you take responsibility for the time you take up, for the space you occupy. It’s serious business. And you find out what it costs us to love and to lose, to dare and to fail. And maybe even more, to succeed."

- Maya Angelou