Tuesday, August 22, 2023

"The Last Time Always Happens Now"

"The Last Time Always Happens Now"
by David Cain

"William Irvine, an author and philosophy professor I’m a big fan of, often tries to point people towards a little-discussed fact of human life: "You always know when you’re doing something for the first time, and you almost never know when you’re doing something for the last time."

There was, or will be, a last time for everything you do, from climbing a tree to changing a diaper, and living with a practiced awareness of that fact can make even the most routine day feel like it’s bursting with blessings. Of all the lasting takeaways from my periodic dives into Stoicism, this is the one that has enhanced my life the most. I’ve touched on it before in my Stoicism experiment log and in a Patreon post, and I intend to write about it many more times in the future (but who can say?)

To explain why someone might want to start thinking seriously about last times, Bill Irvine asks us to imagine a rare but relatable event: going to your favorite restaurant one last time, knowing it’s about to close up for good.

Predictably, dining on this last-ever night makes for a much richer experience than almost all the other times you’ve eaten at that restaurant, but it’s not because the food, decor, or service is any different than usual. It’s better because you know it’s the last time, so you’re apt to savor everything you can about it, right down to the worn menus and tacky napkin rings. You’re unlikely to let any mistakes or imperfections bother you, and in fact you might find them endearing.

It becomes clearer than ever, in other words, how great it was while it lasted, and how little the petty stuff mattered. On that last dinner, you can set aside minor issues with ease, and appreciate even the most mundane details. Anything else would seem foolish, because you’re here now, and this is it. It might even occur to you that there’s no reason you couldn’t have enjoyed it this much every time you dined here – except that all the other times, you knew there would be more times, so you didn’t have to be so intentional about appreciating it.

That’s an exceptionally rare situation though. Almost always, we do things for the last time without knowing it’s the last time. There was a last time – on an actual calendar date – when you drew a picture with crayons purely for your own pleasure. A last time you excitedly popped a Blockbuster rental into your VCR. A last time you played fetch with a certain dog. Whenever the last time happened, it was “now” at the time.

You’ve certainly heard the heart-wrenching insight that there’s always a last time a parent picks up their child. By a certain age the child is too big, which means there’s always an ordinary day when the parent picks up and puts down their child as they have a thousand times before, with no awareness that it was the last time they would do it.

Ultimately there will be as many last times as there were first times. There will be last time you do laundry. A last time you eat pie. A last time you visit a favorite neighborhood, city, or country. For every single friend you’ve ever had, there will be a last time you talk, or maybe there already has been.

For ninety-nine percent of these last times, you will have no idea that that’s what it is. It will seem like another of the many middle times, with a lot more to come. If you knew it was the last-ever time you spoke to a certain person or did a certain activity, you’d probably make a point of appreciating it, like a planned last visit to Salvatore’s Pizzeria. You wouldn’t spend it thinking about something else, or let minor annoyances spoil it.

Many last times are still a long way in the future, of course. The trouble is you don’t know which ones. The solution, Irvine suggests, is to frequently imagine that this is the last time, even when it’s probably not. A few times a day, whatever you’re doing, you assume you’re doing that thing for the last time. There will be a last time you sip coffee, like you’re doing now. What if this sip was it? There will be a last time you walk into the office and say hi to Sally. If this was it, you might be a little more genuine, a little more present.

The point isn’t to make life into a series of desperate goodbyes. You can go ahead and do the thing more or less normally. You might find, though, that when you frame it as a potential last time, you pay more attention to it, and you appreciate it for what it is in a way you normally don’t. It turns out that ordinary days are full of experiences you expect will keep happening forever, and of course none of them will.

It doesn’t matter if the activity is something you particularly love doing. Walking into a 7-11 or weeding the garden is just as worthy of last-time practice as hugging a loved one. Even stapling the corner of some pages together can generate a sense of appreciation, if you saw it as your final act of stapling in a life that’s contained a surprising amount of stapling.

Irvine uses mowing the lawn as an example, a task he doesn’t love doing. If you imagine that this is the last time you’ll mow the lawn, rather than consider it a good riddance, you might realize that there will be a time when you’ve mown your last lawn, and that there were a lot of great things about living in your lawn-mowing, bungalow-maintaining heyday. A few seconds later, it dawns on you that you still are.

You can get very specific with the experiences you do this with. The last time you roll cookie dough between your palms. The last time you get rained on. The last time you sidestep down a crowded cinema aisle. The last time your jeans smell like campfire smoke. The last time your daughter says “swannich” instead of “sandwich.” Virtually everything is a worthy candidate for this reflection.

It always brings perspective to your life as it is now, and it never gets old. It’s an immensely rewarding exercise, but it not a laborious one. It takes only two or three seconds - allowing yourself “a flickering thought,” as Irvine put it - to notice what you’re doing right now, and consider the possibility that this is indeed the last escalator ride at Fairfield Mall, the last time you put on a Beatles record, the last time you encounter a squirrel, or the last time you parallel park in front of Aunt Rita’s building."
Rolling Stones, "The Last Time"

Gerald Celente, "America's Silent Erosion, Unveiling the Thousand Cuts"

Full screen recommended.
Gerald Celente, 8/22/23
"Judge Napolitano, America's Silent Erosion,
Unveiling the Thousand Cuts"
"In this video, Gerald Celente shares his expertise and sheds light on the numerous factors contributing to the silent erosion currently unfolding in the United States. From a blurring middle class to widening wealth inequality, Celente uncovers the thousand cuts slowly weakening the very foundations of our nation. By meticulously analyzing the signs of this silent erosion, Celente navigates through key issues such as declining job opportunities, diminishing education standards, faltering healthcare systems, and the detrimental effects of corporate and political corruption."
Comments here:

"Gregory Mannarino, PM 8/22/23"

Gregory Mannarino, PM 8/22/23
"Banks Troubles Are Getting Much Worse Faster, 
Economic Situation Dire"
Comments here:

"The Enemy..."

 

The Daily "Near You?"

Old Town, Maine, USA. Thanks for stopping by!

"The Demolition of the World Trade Center (The Devil’s Trick)"

The crater in WTC 6
"The Demolition of the World Trade Center (The Devil’s Trick)"
by Mark Gaffney

"When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever 
remains, however improbable, must be the truth"
- Sherlock Holmes

Excerpt: "As we approach the twenty-second anniversary of the September 11, 2001 attacks, more than enough evidence exists to draw reasonable conclusions about what happened that day and who was responsible. Most of the basic facts have been known for years, though unfortunately have not been readily available to the general public.

Way back in 2007, a physics professor at Brigham Young University, Dr Steven E. Jones, turned up critical evidence while investigating samples of World Trade Center (WTC) dust. The samples had been collected immediately after September 11, 2001 from the thick deposit of dust that blanketed the WTC site and much of lower Manhattan. Jones found tiny bits of an exotic incendiary known as thermate that can cut through steel like a hot knife through butter. Thermate burns at ~5,000°F. The main product of the reaction is molten iron.

Thermate differs from its better known cousin thermite in that it contains sulfur which lowers the melting point of iron, speeding up the reaction. The presence of both sulfur and aluminum was diagnostic for thermate. Jones called this “the last nail in the coffin.” (Dr. Steven E. Jones, Revisiting 9/11/2001. Applying the Scientific Method, 2007)

Jones also found an abundance of tiny iron microspheres in the dust (up to .05% by volume), proof that large amounts of WTC steel had melted. The diameter of the spheres ranged from one micron to 1.5 mm. When Jones obtained some thermate, which is commercially available, and used it to cut through a steel plate, the reaction produced an intense spray of molten droplets which cooled into iron microspheres identical to the spheres in the dust.

Other studies of the WTC dust also reported the iron microspheres. (Heather A. Lowers and Gregory P. Meeker, Particle Atlas of World Trade Center Dust, posted at https://pubs.usgs.gov/of/2005/1165/508OF05-1165.html ; also see Damage Assessment: 130 Liberty Street Property. WTC Dust Signature Report: Composition and Morphology. December 2003)

Jones and his colleagues learned that thermite/thermate can be made more explosive by reducing the particle size of the ingredients. This more reactive variety is known as super thermate or nano-thermate. (Niels H. Harrit, et al, Active Thermitic Material Discovered in Dust from the 9/11 World Trade Center Catastrophe, 2009)

And there were other revelations. It is indeed shocking how far the development of thermate had “progressed” by the late 1990s. Jones & Co, learned that a liquid sol-gel form of nano-thermate can be applied to steel simply by spraying or painting it on. This means insiders could have prepped the twin towers for demolition undetected during an elevator retrofit, a fireproofing upgrade, or even during routine maintenance. Nor was it necessary to wire the entire building. Ignition can be accomplished remotely using a specially designed thermitic match triggered by a radio signal. Once thermate is ignited, the reaction is self perpetuating. (Kevin R. Ryan, The Top Ten Connections between NIST and Nano-thermites, July 2, 2008)

All of this is consistent with the many eyewitness accounts of explosions on 9/11. And it is consistent with the testimony of New York City firemen, first responders and clean-up crews who reported seeing copious amounts of molten steel on site. As one fireman put it: “molten steel was flowing down the channel rails like in a foundry…”

(David Ray Griffin, The New Pearl Harbor revisited, 2008, pp. 31-37; Mark H. Gaffney, The 9/11 Mystery Plane, 2008, pp.132-139; Graeme MacQueen, 118 Witnesses: The Firefighters’ Testimony to Explosions in the Twin Towers)

Office and building fires do not reach temperatures anywhere near hot enough to melt steel which has a melting point of 2,500°F. Nor were there any combustible materials in the WTC, nor any combination thereof, capable of approaching this temperature. Although burning jet fuel has been frequently (and incorrectly) cited as the reason for the WTC collapse, the reality is otherwise. Jet fuel is essentially kerosene and will not burn in air in excess of 1,832°F, far below the melting point of steel.

Not long after the towers collapsed, a hard rain storm drenched Manhattan. Firemen also sprayed millions of gallons of water onto the smoking ruin of the WTC in an attempt to extinguish the fires, all to no effect. This is consistent with burning thermate, which includes its own chemically bound oxygen. This is why a thermate fire cannot be smothered by dowsing and will even burn underwater.

The WTC site was so hot it melted the workmen’s rubber boots. Search-and-rescue dogs brought in to help locate survivors suffered severe burns, and three of the dogs died. Just how hot was the pile? We got an idea on September 16, 2001 when NASA conducted a flyover using an infrared spectrometer (AVIRIS) and detected surface temperatures as high as 1,376° F. Temperatures beneath the pile were undoubtedly much higher. 

The site remained intensely hot for five months. Molten steel was reported as late as February 2002 when clean-up crews finally reached the bottom of the WTC bathtub. (Jennifer Lin, “Recovery Worker Reflects on Months Spent at Ground Zero”, Knight-Ridder Newspapers, May 29, 2002)

The discovery of thermate in the WTC dust should have been front-page headline news across America, and indeed, around the world. Yet, as we know, the US media went deaf and dumb on the issue. Why? If Muslim jihadists were behind the 9/11 attacks, why would the media censor this breaking story? The only plausible reason for suppressing it was to prevent the truth from emerging about what actually happened. Blanket censorship has been the rule, ever since."
Full article here:
Hat tip to The Burning Platform for this material.
o
Down the rabbit hole, indeed...

"9/11"

"We work in the dark. We do what we can to battle the evil that would otherwise destroy us. But if a man's character is his fate, it's not a choice but a calling. Sometimes the weight of this burden causes us to falter from the fragile fortress of our mind, allowing the monster without to turn within. We are left alone staring into the abyss, into the laughing face of madness."
- Fox Mulder, "X-Files"

The Economic Ninja, "They Know What's Coming Next..."

The Economic Ninja, 8/22/23
"They Know What's Coming Next..."
"Food shortages and empty shelves at Walmart will happen as more
 companies like Tyson Foods bail from China. Prepare for shtf 2023."
Comments here:

Dan, I Allegedly, "It’s Time to Hunker Down"

Full screen recommended.
Dan, I Allegedly 8/22/23
"It’s Time to Hunker Down"
"We are getting some real advice from an economist who believes that the worst is yet to come in the economy. Gross domestic product is going to be disastrous moving forward. Business will never be the same and we need to prepare."
Comments here:

"Stocking Up At Meijer! Adding To The Stockpile! Getting Prepared!"

Full screen recommended.
Adventures With Danno, 8/22/23
"Stocking Up At Meijer! 
Adding To The Stockpile! Getting Prepared!"
"In today's vlog, we are at Meijer and are stocking up on some food to add to our preps. With price increases and food shortages happening all around the world, we are doing the best we can to show different items that are smart for everyone to stock up on and be prepared!"
Comments here:
o

"How It Really Is"

 

"A Time of Unimaginable Sorrow is Upon Us"

"A Time of Unimaginable Sorrow is Upon Us"
by Stucky

"It was a nice cool sunny morning with some blue birds soaking up the sun, all in a row on the high wire. It took some time to figure out what happened. There were a few low rumbles, they seemed to be coming from north of here. We live on a farm out in the wooded hills of southern Missouri, and north would be up towards St Louis. Soon as the booming sounds started the power went off. At first, I didn’t pay much attention, but with all the military stirrings going on in the world these days, you just don’t know what to expect.

I went inside the house, but with the power off there’s no internet, so no way to find out what’s going on. At least until the power comes back on, or until I get the generator started up. More distant thunderous booms that echo now less like thunder and more like tremendous explosions – and I’m starting to get worried. My kids are at work and the grandkids are in school. I swear I‘m seeing sparks and smoke coming from under the hood of my car, but it’s not running. Now the power line where those bluebirds were singing looks like it’s getting really hot and smoke is coming from the bucket transformer on the poles. Wow! The transformer just blew up sending a shower of sparks and molten metal flying all around the pole! I can hear blasts all over the countryside from more pole transformers exploding. All the fences are sparking and smoking. The woods around the power lines and transformers are starting to go up in extremely violent flames. And the cars are now on fire – all of them! Even the old broken-down ones out in people’s pastures. Our emergency generators are smoking – I’ve got to get them away from the houses before they burn up.

Now I’ve got an idea of what’s happening, because I’ve heard of what an EMP event could do to electrical circuits. Electromagnetic Pulse. That’s what happens when a nuclear weapon explodes. The only other thing I can think of that would do this is a coronal mass ejection from a solar flare. It happened back in 1859 and it was named the Carrington Event. Fortunately, the world did not have much electrical infrastructure back then, just telegraphs, and the induced currents caused the wires to catch fire – sort of like what’s happening to the power lines out here right now. I don’t think it’s a solar event either, because the warmongers in Washington have been beating the nuclear drums for a while, and I’ve been afraid the Russians were going to get spooked and do a first strike. I guess this is it.

A big problem for those of us who might survive a while because we live in areas that aren’t targets is that we lose all sources of information. We don’t have any way of knowing what’s happening. Don’t know if it’s a first strike or a retaliatory strike. Does Washington DC even exist anymore, or is it just a huge radioactive smoking crater? Are those beautiful, magnificient buildings of the Kremlin still standing?

How many of our big cities are destroyed? I remember seeing pictures of the devastation that was Nagasaki and Hiroshima when that monster Truman murdered all those Japanese civilians, and thinking that those bombs were tiny compared to what the psychopaths have in their arsenals today – the Russians have bombs that could literally flatten New York City and/or Houston. I cannot, nor can anyone else, begin to fathom the destruction of a 10 or 20 megaton thermonuclear weapon could wreak on a major city.

Lights go off and then nothing. No TV; no internet. No football – the treasury department that writes all the government checks is gone. Fear-crazed citizens make runs on WalMarts and grocery stores and take everything they can. No one tries to stop them; the store employees are in a panic to get home. Problem is, with no operable vehicles, the only things people can take are what they can carry by hand. Everyone has to walk, even the police are stranded out on the highways. All troopers, city cops, and sheriff deputies are trying desperately to get home to their loved ones. No cops on duty anymore. No traffic moving anymore. Just lots of people running, screaming, hoping they can just get home, and that there still is a home.

Fires are blazing everywhere from the powerlines and transformers exploding. All electrical substations in the country are smoldering and blazing chaos. Forest fires are rampant and out of control all over the nation and there are no operable fire trucks. No firefighting planes or helicopters are available to fight the fires. Houses hundreds of miles away from the many ground zeros are burning both from the unchecked wildfires, and from EMP induced electrical shorts in home wiring. Almost every building in every town is on fire with no way to put them out. And these towns are far away from the targeted places where the bombs actually hit.

This is truly a catastrophe of unimaginable proportions, the like of which has never been witnessed in all of human history. There will never be electricity in this country again. Let that sink in. Freezers will thaw out and food will ruin. Untold thousands of people will perish, starting with those vaporized, then those being burned up in their homes, and there are no fire departments available to help anyone. No hospitals; doctors and nurses are gone, understandably abandoning useless smoldering medical facilities. No industry, no UPS deliveries, no more dog food for the pups. If your house didn’t burn to the ground, at least you may (for a while) have a (dark) shelter from the elements.

Huge blasts of radioactive winds blow hundreds of miles from the explosions, of which there have been many. The first wave was intended to take out the military establishment. No way of knowing, but there’s no reason to believe that anything remains of the Pentagon, DC or Langley, Norfolk, San Diego, Chicago, Houston, or any of the coastal cities where there are refineries. All cities with military infrastructure of any kind will be destroyed. The joke that has been for years a missile defense system has been exposed. The sick joke that a nuclear war could be “winnable” has also been exposed. The numbers of people succumbing to radiation sickness is beyond belief. There will be no schools, no stores, no food, and no government services; no disaster relief will be forthcoming. All banks will have ceased to function, so even if there is any money left, it won’t be worth anything. The bankers never were.

If you take medications to stay alive, you’d best have a good supply, because there won’t be any more. All livestock will either be dead from radiation, burned to a crisp in the fires, or promptly slaughtered by starving survivors, and it doesn’t matter to whom they belonged. Same with property. People will no longer obey private property signs, they will go anywhere they think there might be resources, food, water, at the risk of their lives, which aren’t worth much right now anyway. There will be no law!

Every military ship on and under the ocean, with the likely exception of a few submarines, will be sunk. All of the nuclear-powered ships will go to the bottom with reactors likely damaged, spewing radioactive contamination. Like dozens, maybe hundreds, of Fukushimas. Even the reactors that aren’t damaged will undergo meltdowns with no controls. The bible says that something will kill all of the fishes in the oceans, maybe this is how that happens.

The USSR detonated a bomb of around 50-megaton yield back in 1961. It was called the Tsar Bomba. The weapon had a 100-megaton capacity, but for safety they modified the yield. Awe inspiring is just too mild of a description of what that looked like. Since the bomb was so powerful, they calculated that the plane that dropped it had only a 50 percent chance of surviving – that is even after the plane released the weapon several thousand feet up in the air with a parachute to slow it down while the plane flew away from the scene at full speed. It did almost destroy the plane – they said the blast wave overtook the plane some 45 miles from the explosion and it lost over a kilometer of altitude before the pilot, Andrey Durnovtsev, could regain control and keep it from crashing. That thing made a mushroom cloud 37, yes 37 miles, (60 km) high! An uninhabited village, Severny, 34 miles (55 km) from ground zero was obliterated, and buildings 100 miles away were damaged! The blast would have caused third degree burns 62 miles (100 km) from the explosion. I would expect if they still have these in their arsenal, they would use one on Cheyenne Mountain. It would probably take out Denver and Amarillo, TX and certainly everything in between. Instantly vaporized. What are our “leaders” thinking?

It sounds crazy, but if this happens, I want to be at one of the ground zeros. As bad as being vaporized sounds, it would be infinitely better than surviving into the nightmarish existence that would ensue. There will be marauding gangs of survivors, undoubtedly armed, in various stages of hunger, disease, emaciation, and injury. It will probably be a situation where anyone you encounter will be apt to kill you. For one thing, they won’t know whether you are out to kill them too, or maybe you have something they want/need to survive. A can of tuna or a bowl of beans might cost your life.

The landscape will be nightmarish. Imagine a few days or weeks after the event. There will be burned out stumps on land that was beautiful forest, now riddled with stagnant pools of black muddy radioactive slime, full of human and animal bones, charred flesh, and entrails. Few buildings will exist intact, and many will perish fighting over them. There will be no light at night. Light would attract unwanted guests. No music. No one will have any idea what’s going on. There may be a few survivors in places like subway tunnels, abandoned train cars, or in remote wilderness areas, but such people will have resorted to the basest of behavior, including cannibalism, in short order. Imagine! Human beings who once inhabited a civilized nation and lived decent lives will have to worry about being killed and eaten by other human beings! Zombie apocalypse, just with regular people, not zombies, although with burns and wounds, hair falling out and all out of sorts with radiation poisoning, they probably will look the part.

I have heard people talking like they plan to survive and stay healthy by hunting and foraging. Well, if a nuclear winter follows a nuclear apocalypse, foraging is going to be slim pickings. And the deer won’t last long if they manage to survive the bombs, radiation, and fires, there’ll probably only be a few very unhealthy specimens left, but if a gunshot rings out, I’m pretty sure it will attract whatever starving people hear it, so there might be more to deal with than just dressing a deer.

Bedraggled survivors will wander in shock around former cities in hopes of disaster relief which will never come. Desperate people will offer anything – gold, jewelry, ammunition, their own bodies, for sustenance. Helpless parents will watch in horror as their children starve, hoping against hope that they will awaken from this nightmare, but when this all comes down, it’ll be too late for them.

And we still won’t know what happened. Who decided that a nuclear war would be a good idea? Who “won” the war? Did any of our leaders survive to sign a surrender, and to whom? Or did Russia or China surrender? Will there be hordes of soldiers from some faraway land invading our country after the radiation dies down?

And what of the wealthy folk who built the magnificent bunkers filled with the necessities of life in which to wait out the nuclear winter? Do they actually believe they will emerge into a second garden of Eden complete with succulent fruit trees and minstrels singing their praises? First of all, the bible speaks of a great earthquake, such as has not occurred since people have been on earth, so I think a big part of those individuals will be entombed in those lavish bunkers. So maybe a few do survive, and after some months, maybe a few years tucked away, they stumble blindly onto the surface, a hardly recognizable landscape littered with human skulls, burned out cars and buildings, and destroyed terrain. When they went into the holes, they were wealthy, but after what has transpired, of the few commoners left, no one will be interested in their gold – and those old bank accounts? Well the digital age has completely and utterly vanished, and all those millions or billions they had on their ledgers is now squat.

Even by this time, there will undoubtedly still be a few scroungy survivors, but instead of the fawning proles these rich folks were used to in the old world, those survivors will undoubtedly have a taste for some well-fed and plump upper crust brisket, so thanks for preserving some. It won’t help their situation any when they discover that some of the survivors actually know they caused, or at least played a part in causing the disaster. The scenario described does not take into account the likelihood that hapless survivors will undoubtedly spend their time searching for air vents to the bunkers in which to pour gasoline or whatever else they can find to upset living conditions in said refuges down below. Any who survive this carnage will be on a mission and will not easily be placated!

Who knows what the final outcome will be. How many millions, or hundreds of millions of people will be counted among the slain? When this calamity happens, it will obviously involve the deaths of millions. This destruction, I believe is prophesied as the destruction of the modern Babylon in Revelation 18, and most people I’ve heard seem to think (as I do) that the place named as Babylon is the United States, and it is utterly destroyed in the space of one hour, by fire! Completely devastated to the point that (verse 22) “the music of harpists and musicians, pipers and trumpeters, will never be heard in you again,” and “no worker of any trade will ever be found in you again,” this decadent place will cease to be! According to scripture, it’s not a bad thing that this evil place is destroyed. “Rejoice over her, you heavens! Rejoice, you people of God! Rejoice apostles and prophets! For God has judged her with the judgement she imposed on you.” Time will tell, but I’m afraid we don’t have much."
Hat tip to Stucky and The Burning Platform for this material.
o
I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, 
but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.”
- Albert Einstein

Bill Bonner, "Lust for Domination"

"Lust for Domination"
The raw and driving force beneath 
the elite's unceasing will to power...
by Bill Bonner

“Therefore I cannot refrain from speaking about the city of this world, a city which aims at dominion, which holds nations in enslavement, but is itself dominated by that very lust of domination.” ~ Saint Augustine

Normandy, France - "We were on our way down to our house in France when we got word of a terrible ‘canicule.’ (A heat wave in the ‘dog days’ of August.) Temperatures in our area are already in the upper 90s. Tomorrow, they’re supposed to reach 100. There is no air-conditioning. But people know how to beat the heat. Shutters, windows and drapes are closed during the day. People remain inside until the evening. Then, the windows are opened to let in the cool night air. Typically, heat waves don’t last long in Europe. And the old houses, built of heavy stone, moderate the temperatures. But since we are hosting a daughter, her husband, and their three little children – all very much used to climate control – we judged it better for us all to remain in much cooler Normandy until the heat has passed.

Rape and Pillage: Yesterday, we took the family to Falaise to visit the castle where William the Conqueror was born. The town was dead. Almost deserted. But the castle was alive with tourists. And the highlight of the visit was a projection on the castle wall of William, explaining himself…and illustrating our point. The elites rule. History is largely a story of one elite replacing another…and each one exploiting the masses as much as it is able. The gist of the American story is the rise of the ‘rich men north of Richmond.’ The rest is obiter dicta.

William was born the bastard son of Robert, Duke of Normandy, who died in the Holy Land, on crusade. His death left William, at only 7 years old, the new duke. Normandy, only fairly recently colonized and conquered by the Danes, was a rough place. The nobles fought with each other for power and wealth. They built stout fortifications to protect themselves…and then ambushed their opponents or laid siege to their castles. Farmsteads burnt. Castles captured…and recaptured. Peasants butchered. Soldiers killed; their wives raped…it went on for decades. And then, believing he had a valid claim to the throne of England after the death of Edward the Confessor, his cousin, William took the Norman show on the road. He launched his famous invasion in 1066.

What a marvelously simple world! If you wanted wealth or status, the way to get it was well advertised – you took it from someone who had it. People formed into groups – tribes…factions…alliances. Your chances of success often depended on how large a group of fighters you could get on your side. The real struggles are always between the elites – often related by blood, class, education or marriage. The common folk are merely voters, taxpayers and cannon fodder – too busy with their personal lives to understand the elites’ agenda, let alone have one of their own.

The Will to Power: The common man is the subject, not the ruler…he is a spear carrier, not a general… one of ‘The People,’ not one of the deciders. This is a hard pill for Americans to swallow. They have been taught that they are all equal…and that their government is ‘for, by, and of The People.’ They believe their votes will determine the course of history.

But it is really not so. Instead, even in a democracy, there are some who govern and many who are governed. The real competition in a democracy is to see which elite group can manipulate the masses most effectively…or whose armies – staffed by the unwitting ‘little guys’…who think they are being ‘patriotic’ – can win on the battlefield.

The desire to dominate is inherent in the human species. One guy needs to show another guy who’s boss. One is slave and one is master. One wins the World Series. The other is a loser. St. Augustine called it the ‘libido dominandi’ or the ‘lust for domination.’ Nietzsche referred to it as the ‘will to power.’

It cometh, we believe, from the most basic of animal instincts, lust itself…or the desire to reproduce. Deer in rut…bull elephants goring each other with their tusks…cocks digging in their spurs – many male animals fight to the death just to be able to mate. Most likely, primitive humans did something similar. The rich and powerful chieftain had many wives…the poor man had none.

After the need for food, no other drive is so powerful or so wily. In humans, it takes many shapes and disguises…from hair transplants to the Ironman Triathlon to trying to conquer Constantinople. As to when one group tries to dominate another, the answer is simple: when it can get away with it.

Blood Money: In the US, the Yankee elite soon made it clear that the voters should have no other gods before them. The War Between the States decided that; henceforth, the states were not free to choose their own governments or to go their own way. The federales were in charge. Then, as they grew more powerful, the elites threw their weight around – Mexico (which US forces invaded 4 times), Nicaragua, Cuba, Columbia…the Philippines…France …Korea…Vietnam...Iraq…Afghanistan…and now Russia! (We’ve left out dozens of the small fry not worth mentioning.)

The banking system fell under their sway with the creation of the Fed in 1913. In the 1930s and ‘40s, they stuck their big noses into insurance, labor, investment, commerce, trade, welfare, housing – and dozens of other industries. In 1971, they turned the dollar into a currency they could control. Later that decade, they gave up all pretense of having balanced budgets or balanced trade. By the late 90s they were backstopping Wall Street, where their wealth was stored. After 2008, they were lighting up the entire economy with fake, below-zero interest rates. And in 2020, they went completely into fantasyland…replacing almost the entirety of honest US output – goods and services – with ‘money’ they created and controlled.

Injustice for Some: Their record, since 1945 – at home as well as abroad – is one of failure, incompetence and death. Wars lost. Trillions of dollars squandered. Millions of casualties and corpses. Poverty, drugs, terrorism – whatever they tried to stop flourished. Whatever they encouraged, withered. In the richest period in human history – the 21st century – they still couldn’t balance their budgets, adding nearly $27 trillion in government debt when they should have been paying down previous borrowing.

And no matter how egregious the crime…how big the loss…or how stupid the error, they are never called to account. George W. Bush is still a free man, despite wasting $5 trillion and getting a million people killed …on false pretenses…and without lawful, constitutional authority. Did they give Barack Obama the chair for following lamely in his footsteps – adding trillions to the nation’s debt and thousands more casualties? How about Victoria Nuland, who got us into the Russo-Ukrainian war? Not even. Instead, their idea of justice is to put a hapless, witless ex-president on trial for ‘conspiracy’…for disputing election results!

America’s elites dominate. But they are dominated by their own need to dominate. And, if history is any guide, it will ruin them…and us too. Stay tuned…"

"Russia/Ukraine War Update 8/22/23"

Col. Douglas Macgregor, Straight Calls 8/22/23
"Within Six Months A Million Russian Soldiers On The Polish Border"
"Analysis of breaking news and in-depth discussion of 
current geopolitical events in the United States of America and the world."
Comments here:
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Full screen recommended.
Hindustan Time, 8,22/23
"Belarus Attack? Biden Wants Americans Out; Poland,
 Lithuania Troops At Border Amid Wagner Scare"
"The U.S. has asked to citizens to "immediately" leave Belarus as NATO Nations Poland, Lithuania and Latvia shut down their borders with Minsk. An advisory released by the U.S. Embassy warns its citizens to not travel to or through Russia and Ukraine and adds that the embassy cannot be of much help to facilitate their evacuation from the warring nations. It also adds cites the risk of spillover of the Ukraine war in Belarus as one of the reasons for the warning to Americans."
Comments here:
o
o
We just can't help ourselves, can we? The Human species seems absolutely, 
insanely determined to cause our seemingly inevitable nuclear annihilation...
"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

Monday, August 21, 2023

"Major Alert! US Embassy Warning To Get Out Immediately, War Imminent"

Full screen recommended.
Canadian Prepper, 8/21/23
"Major Alert! US Embassy Warning 
To Get Out Immediately, War Imminent"
Comments here:

Musical Interlude: Spirit Tribe Awakening, "Raise Positive Vibrations".

Full screen recommended.
Spirit Tribe Awakening, "Raise Positive Vibrations".
"528Hz Positive Energy, Self Healing with 417Hz Solfeggio frequency. Peaceful, empowering and soothing music and nature to nurture your mind, body, and soul. Supporting and empowering you on your life journey." I can't praise this visually beautiful, and very effective, video enough. In these incredibly highly stressful times, please be kind to yourself and take the time to savor this exquisite work in full screen mode. Headphones suggested but not necessary. It works, as simple as that...
- CP

"A Look to the Heavens"

"Where do the dark streams of dust in the Orion Nebula originate? This part of the Orion Molecular Cloud Complex, M43, is the often imaged but rarely mentioned neighbor of the more famous M42. M42, seen in part to the upper right, includes many bright stars from the Trapezium star cluster.

M43 is itself a star forming region that displays intricately-laced streams of dark dust - although it is really composed mostly of glowing hydrogen gas. The entire Orion field is located about 1600 light years away. Opaque to visible light, the picturesque dark dust is created in the outer atmosphere of massive cool stars and expelled by strong outer winds of protons and electrons."
o
"The eternal silence of infinite spaces frightens me. Why now rather than then? Who has put me here? By whose order and direction have this place and time have been ascribed to me? We travel in a vast sphere, always drifting in the uncertain, pulled from one side to another. Whenever we find a fixed point to attach and to fasten ourselves, it shifts and leaves us; and if we follow it, it eludes our grasp, slips past us, and vanishes for ever. Nothing stays for us. This is our natural condition, most contrary to our inclination; we burn with desires to find solid ground and an ultimate and solid foundation for building a tower reaching to the Infinite. But always these bases crack, and the earth obstinately opens up into abysses. We are infinitely removed from comprehending the extremes, since the end of things and their beginning are hopelessly hidden from us in an encapsulated secret; we are equally incapable of seeing the Nothing from which we were made, and the Infinite in which we are swallowed up."
- Blaise Pascal

"Panic Food Buying, You Are On Your Own; Economy Overheating; Storm Watch Update"

Jeremiah Babe, 8/21/23
"Panic Food Buying, You Are On Your Own; 
Economy Overheating; Storm Watch Update"
Comments here:

"Trader Joe's Food Products Are Now 100% More Expensive As Shortages Hit Stores"

Full screen recommended.
"Trader Joe's Food Products Are Now 100%
 More Expensive As Shortages Hit Stores"
by Epic Economist

"With food prices still rising in most parts of the country, it’s easy to understand the appeal of shopping at Trader Joe’s. The grocery chain is considered one of the cheapest stores in the United States, and its amazing selection of products continues to impress fans and draw more and more customers in. However, amid booming sales in 2023, a new report comparing Trader Joe’s prices with prices at other traditional retailers found that Americans aren’t saving as much money as they think when they shop at the Hawaiian-themed grocery store. In fact, we tracked a series of price increases that went into effect in recent weeks, and our research has also found that several Trader Joe’s products are now facing recalls due to the presence of contaminant agents that go from rocks and insects to heavy metals and carcinogenic substances. That’s what we’re going to discuss today. 

As grocery prices continue to increase in many traditional supermarkets, Trader Joe’s is experiencing a notable rise in visits this year. That’s according to data just released by foot traffic research firm Placer.ai. Researchers reported that visits to the specialty grocer are far outpacing those at other food retailers in recent months. The research gives a glimpse into sales metrics at the popular but notoriously quiet.

However, analyses released by consumer trends blogs Eat This, Not That, and Mashed.com revealed that in recent months, Trader Joe’s superfans are seeing some of the biggest price hikes the chain has ever implemented, while portions are shrinking, and several products are being recalled for having dangerous contaminants.

Adding fuel to the fire, last week, Trader Joe’s had its hands full issuing several product recalls after being alerted by its suppliers about foreign materials potentially contaminating its food products.

Also adding pressure on the food retailer this year is the fact that several of its new releases were a total failure. The company’s plant-based egg alternative, Simply Eggless, released in 2022, has been heavily criticized due to some truly unsavory experiences with this "horrifically awful" vegan product, including a "plastic burning smell" during the cooking process and a "rancid oil" taste that quite literally turned customers’ stomachs, according to their comments on Reddit.

Unlike many other major grocers, TJ’s doesn’t offer delivery or pick-up services, does not have online operations, and relies entirely on its physical locations. Rumors that the stores would offer drive-through sample cups of coffee, build in-store restaurants, and adopt a self-checkout system were recently crushed by the company’s president Jon Basalone.

However, its choice to remain offline and be a niche grocer may limit its future, and potential to turn out a profit and stay afloat during the recession. For now, everything seems calm, but a perfect storm for retailers is already on the horizon, and it’s no one can tell for sure what the future may hold."
Comments here:

"Tell Yourself..."

“Life will break you. Nobody can protect you from that, and living alone won’t either, for solitude will also break you with its yearning. You have to love. You have to feel. It is the reason you are here on earth. You are here to risk your heart. You are here to be swallowed up. And when it happens that you are broken, or betrayed, or left, or hurt, or death brushes near, let yourself sit by an apple tree and listen to the apples falling all around you in heaps, wasting their sweetness. Tell yourself you tasted as many as you could.”
- Louise Erdrich

The Daily "Near You?"

Massillon, Ohio, USA. Thanks for stopping by!

"Learning from Ants"

"Learning from Ants"
by Jeff Thomas

"If you catch 100 red fire ants as well as 100 large black ants, and put them in a jar, at first, nothing will happen. However, if you violently shake the jar and dump them back on the ground the ants will fight until they eventually kill each other. The thing is, the red ants think the black ants are the enemy and vice versa, when in reality, the real enemy is the person who shook the jar. This is exactly what’s happening in society today. Liberal vs. Conservative. Black vs. White. Pro Mask vs. Anti-Mask. Vax vs. Anti-vax. Rich vs. poor. Man vs. woman. Cop vs. citizen. [Etc.] The real question we need to be asking ourselves is who’s shaking the jar… and why?"

The above observation by Shera Starr cannot be improved upon. And yet, the answer to the question is fairly simple. But let’s first take a look at this anomaly. It’s natural to identify with some individuals more than others. That tendency occurred before Homo sapiens came into being. In addition, the tendency for animals to group into families or packs also predates humans.

We tend to want to be around those who behave the way we do and have the same perceptions as we do. That only makes sense. We wish to surround ourselves with those who are unlikely to surprise and possibly even endanger us by behaving in a fashion that we would not ourselves choose. This is the basis of trust – an essential in group or herd mentality. And being a part of a group or herd brings to us increased safety.

So, what then, of those who are not within our group or herd? How do we relate to them? Well, any nature program that covers animals gathered around a water hole can provide that answer. We see a small group of wild pigs drinking alongside a group of wildebeests. Neither species is predatory, so they learn to recognize that, even though one group is made up of savannah-living grazers and the other are forest-living foragers, they can easily co-exist, which will increase the ability of both species to use the water hole at the same time.

We might also see a group of hyenas using the water hole, but we notice that the prey animals all seek to keep a distance between themselves and the predatory hyenas. Everyone understands that they are all at the water hole for the same reason and it makes sense to share, even if, in another situation, they are natural enemies. In fact, in most of nature, we see that species adapt to a condition of mutual tolerance in order to be able to coexist.

No surprise, then, that Homo sapiens got on the mutual tolerance bandwagon in its formative stages and, for the most part, has remained that way. But it is also true that predators develop dual habits. They may exercise tolerance at the water hole, but at some point, they mean to make a meal of their water hole neighbors. And when doing so, many species create associations with others of their kind to hunt.

This, too, is true of humans. Most of humanity seeks to live in a spirit of cooperation with others. In the countryside, people erect walls and fences to establish boundaries, then find it expedient to respect such divisions in order to live in peace. Even in cities, people who live cheek by jowl in the same building respect each other’s privacy for the most part. Even if they do not become friends, they either remain polite or ignore each other.

Although there are always exceptions, for the most part, mankind behaves in a manner that is based upon "getting along." He might argue with others, but for the most part, he understands that cooperation generally should be the objective, as it’s in his best interests. But why, then, are we seeing in so many of the countries of the First World, a rapidly increasing polarity amongst people. Ms. Starr is exactly correct. Those who would be most inclined toward mutual tolerance have, in recent years, become so polarized that they cannot so much as get together with their own families for the holidays without getting into heated arguments.

Why are people of today so solidly in one of two camps? Can this be blamed on the rise of the internet? Well, no, the internet has become the source of a plethora of opinions and perceptions. And more than closing people off to polarized "A" and "B" choices, the internet has served to broaden public discourse.

Of course, most people express distrust for the media, particularly those networks that purportedly deal in "news." What passes for news today is far from objective information that the viewer can then assess at his leisure. On one network, we view unceasing diatribes against one political party. Then we turn the channel and view unceasing diatribes against the opposing party. In turning on the News, we arrive at Indoctrination Central. But if we really pay attention objectively, we discover that the same programs are dictating to us that it is either our humanitarian duty to vax, or that vaxxing will enslave us to globalists who will inject us with microchips. They are also our source for the opposing beliefs that warfare is essential to protect us against those who seek to destroy us, or that it will be the wars themselves that will destroy us.

In fact, all of Ms. Starr’s concerns find their source in the media. When we ask the question, "Who is shaking the jar… and why?" we find that those who control the media are at the source of the polarization of people, especially in the First World. As to the "Why?" the answer is so simple that it’s often overlooked. Like the ants, the more a people can be made to fight each other, the easier it is to subjugate them. And since the effort to polarize people has become so massive, we can only conclude that the ultimate objective will be to implement a far greater level of subjugation, in an abnormally short period of time.

Liberal vs. Conservative. Black vs. white. Man vs. woman. Divide and conquer. In such a socio-political climate, the challenge will be to keep your wits about you. As the jar is shaken on a daily basis, it will be vital to recognize that those who control the media are creating a war between the pigs and the wildebeests. This is something that is not desired by either species, but as Hermann Goering stated, "Why, of course the people don’t want war." They must be goaded into it if those who are pulling the stings are to achieve greater subjugation.

In the coming years, this trend can be expected to become far worse than at present. The challenge will be to escape the jar if you can. Find a location where the state of warfare is less pronounced, or if this is not possible, seek a location within the jar that’s away from the fray. Those who fall for the bait – who buy into rabidly supporting one political party or another, or who allow themselves to be angered at an entire race, or who are conned into hatred of an entire gender – will prove to be the greatest casualties of subjugation."

"All The Money You Make..."

“All the money you make will never buy back your soul. ”
- Bob Dylan
o
Full screen recommended.
Steve Cutts, "Happiness"

Bill Bonner, "When Slavery Doesn't Pay"

"When Slavery Doesn't Pay"
The deep currents of American megapolitics 
and where they're taking us next...
by Bill Bonner

"If I could save the Union without freeing any slave, I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves, I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone, I would also do that…" ~ Abraham Lincoln

Poitou, France - "We were in Ireland for only a week. Youghal was festooned with flags…banners…and decorative flourishes. It was the Ironman triathlon. From all over the world, fit men and women had come to compete. The roads were blocked. Barriers set up. Bicycle racks were placed all over town. The contestants were to swim 2.4 miles across Youghal bay, ride their bicycles 112 miles around Ireland. And then run a 26-mile marathon. All in one day. “Are you running tomorrow?” The question came from a woman at the supermarket. We had stopped in for supplies. The stout, gray-haired woman at the checkout counter had a smile on her face. “Do they have an over-70 group?” we asked. But we couldn’t stay for the race. We returned to France the next day.

Phony Promises vs Real Liberty: In the US, the Biden Bunch drained America’s strategic petroleum reserve in order to keep gas prices low before an election. Argentina manipulates gas prices without an SPR. Here’s the latest from La Nacion in Buenos Aires: "The government has decreed to freeze gas prices at the pump until after the elections (actually this is more of an agreement with the Gas companies). Last increase takes place today at 12.5%."

Year after year, the rich men north of Richmond and south of the Rio de la Plata learn more tricks. But out on the pampas, the public is wising up…or at least, it is fed up with 70 years of chaos, and decline. In the primaries, more voters pulled the lever for the rebel, Javier Milei, than for the other two, more mainstream, ‘reform candidates’ put together.

Whether the Argentine voters will follow through in the general election is an open question. If so, it will be perhaps the first time in history that a democracy has actually saved itself…perhaps the first time in history that masses have rejected the phony promise of ‘more free stuff’ in favor of real liberty. It was only a primary election in Argentina. And as Joel told us this weekend, the press is doing all it can to portray Milei as a nut and a kook. Most likely, in the general election to follow, the voters will rediscover their inner terror of freedom and get back into their traces. But we’ll see…

American Megapolitics: In the meantime, the ‘rich men north of Richmond’ idea is clean and simple. It avoids all the political claptrap and distracting culture wars. Democrats vs. Republicans…LBGQT rights…racism…inequality…blah, blah, blah.

In the things that really matter – money and war – the elites of both parties are unified, as tight as a head gasket. Presidents change…but the laws, regulations, bureaucracy, the Deep State, the wars and deficits don’t. Why? Because they suit the rich men north of Richmond…

In the popular press, the story of America is essentially a tale of party politics, racism, inequality, slavery and the struggle for ‘rights’ by victims…including those who aim for victimhood by doing weird things. It is the story of Valley Forge, trust busters, and the Civil Rights Act of 1964. But these were just sideshows. They may be of great interest to a few people, but little significance to most. Even if Britain had won the Revolutionary War, it probably would have made little difference in our lives. Immigrants were still rushing in. There was a whole continent – sea to shining sea – to bring under control. One way or another, the rich men north of Richmond were soon to be richer and more powerful than those in London.

That’s ‘megapolitics,’ with its deep, deep currents…taking us along with it. America, almost inevitably, was going to become a great empire.

With or Without Them: The Emancipation Act is widely regarded as the greatest act ever undertaken by a US president. But as the quote above makes clear, Lincoln didn’t care about the slaves. It was the power of the rich men north of Richmond that he cared about. Slavery was a ‘megapolitical’ institution. If it were sinful, it wasn’t mentioned in the Bible…and for most of history, neither was it a crime. It was how humans organized themselves. There were the poor, downtrodden masses – the slaves. And there were the people who owned them.

Slavery was a very durable arrangement – lasting for thousands of years – and a very popular one (with the slave owners). Governments encouraged it; they recognized slaves as property and protected ‘property rights.’ We’d still have it today if the rich men north of Richmond could make a buck from it. Morality, as Professor Buchanan put it, is what ‘used to pay.’ But after 1860, slavery didn’t pay. With the coming of the industrial revolution, machines replaced slaves. They were cheaper. More productive. More reliable. And less trouble.

The main storyline of America is a story of power relations…but it is not the story of black people rising out of chattel slavery. Nor is it the story of the Lord trampling down the vineyards where the grapes of wrath were stored. Nor of our brave boys protecting our freedom at Yorktown, Shiloh, the Somme, Iwo Jima or Baghdad. Instead, it is the story of the rise of the rich men north of Richmond and a more modern form of ‘slavery’… with gossamer chains. More to come…"

"How It Really Is"

 

"Moral compass?!" 
You fool, surely you jest... This is 'Murica!

"Doubt..."

“Cherish your doubts, for doubt is the handmaiden of truth. Doubt is the key to the door of knowledge; it is the servant of discovery. A belief which may not be questioned binds us to error, for there is incompleteness and imperfection in every belief. Doubt is the touchstone of truth; it is an acid which eats away the false. Let no one fear for the truth, that doubt may consume it; for doubt is a testing of belief. The truth stands boldly and unafraid; it is not shaken by the testing, for truth, if it be truth, arises from each testing stronger, more secure. He that would silence doubt is filled with fear; the house of his spirit is built on shifting sands. But he that fears no doubt, and knows its use, is founded on a rock. He shall walk in the light of growing knowledge; the work of his hands shall endure. Therefore let us not fear doubt, but let us rejoice in its help. It is to the wise as a staff to the blind; doubt is the handmaiden of truth.”
- Robert T. Weston