Monday, November 13, 2023

"Economic Market Snapshot 11/13/23"

"Economic Market Snapshot 11/13/23"
o
Market Data Center, Live Updates:
Down the rabbit hole of psychopathic greed and insanity...
Only the consequences are real - to you!
"It's a Big Club, and you ain't in it. 
You and I are not in the Big Club."
- George Carlin
A comprehensive, essential daily read.
Financial Stress Index

"The OFR Financial Stress Index (OFR FSI) is a daily market-based snapshot of stress in global financial markets. It is constructed from 33 financial market variables, such as yield spreads, valuation measures, and interest rates. The OFR FSI is positive when stress levels are above average, and negative when stress levels are below average. The OFR FSI incorporates five categories of indicators: creditequity valuationfunding, safe assets and volatility. The FSI shows stress contributions by three regions: United Statesother advanced economies, and emerging markets."
Job cuts and much more.
Commentary, highly recommended:
"The more I see of the monied classes,
the better I understand the guillotine."
- George Bernard Shaw
Oh yeah... beyond words. Any I know anyway...
And now... The End Game...
o

Douglas Macgregor, "We Are Entering a War With Iran"

Full screen recommended.
Douglas Macgregor, 11/13/23
"We Are Entering a War With Iran"
Comments here:

"Alert! 4 US Soldiers Dead In Iran Attack? All Carriers Now Deployed; Ukraine 500,000 Mines"

Full screen recommended.
Canadian Prepper, 11/13/23
"Alert! 4 US Soldiers Dead In Iran Attack? 
All Carriers Now Deployed; Ukraine 500,000 Mines"
Comments here:

Sunday, November 12, 2023

Jeremiah Babe, "Alert! National Unrest - You're Not Safe Anywhere"

Jeremiah Babe, 11/12/23
"Alert! National Unrest - You're Not Safe Anywhere"
Comments here:

"Israel Bombed Lebanon, Hezbollah Will Beat Them With One Hand Tied Behind Their Back"

Full screen recommended.
Scott Ritter, 11/12/23
"Israel Bombed Lebanon, Hezbollah Will Beat 
Them With One Hand Tied Behind Their Back"
Comments here:

"15 Signs A Terrifying Housing Crash Is About To Burst"

Full screen recommended.
Epic Economist, 11/12/23
"15 Signs A Terrifying Housing Crash Is About To Burst"

"This is shaping up to be the most dramatic housing crash we have ever seen. Mortgage rates haven’t been this high in over 23 years. Meanwhile, in October, sales dropped to the lowest level since the Great Recession. Now, the number of home listings is rapidly rising, and sellers are having to slash their prices to be able to strike a deal. The market already hit a turning point, and new data suggests that it’s all downhill from here.

Real estate agents, homebuilders, and mortgage lenders are getting increasingly pessimistic about the future of the market. Americans are extremely worried about losing equity in their homes or losing their homes altogether. When home sales rapidly fall after growing consistently year-over-year, it could serve as a warning sign of a housing market crash. That’s because declines in sales volumes can affect home appreciation, and when enough sellers are unable to find a buyer for their homes, they will have to lower the price to attract more buyers. In the third quarter, home sales plunged by 15.1%, meaning that the number of existing homes sold fell to levels not seen since the fallout of the Great Recession. With mortgage rates nearing 8%, the majority of would-be buyers are currently priced out of the market. That is leaving sellers no choice but to significantly reduce their asking prices right now.

According to data provided by Zillow and Redfin, a record number of sellers dropped the prices on their listings in the past quarter. In September, the percentage of home listings that had a price cut jumped to 9.2%, and in October, that figure went up by an additional 7%, an “unusually high” month-over-month increase, analysts said. Moreover, the National Association of Homebuilders reported that 32% of homebuilders slashed prices in the past month, with an average drop of 6% nationwide.

Meanwhile, housing inventory continues to grow. The supply of unsold homes in the market is starting to pile up. There are now more than half a million homes unsold active on the market. The latest numbers shared by the National Association of Realtors show that the U.S. housing inventory is almost 6% higher than it was a year ago. If the number of properties on the market is increasing, but the demand is keeping pace, that’s a significant indicator that there are more sellers than buyers, and the market is about to face a major shift.

Housing bubbles don’t happen out of thin air, and the same is true for housing crashes. There are always early signs that indicate things are starting to get out of hand in the market, and we need to recognize the red flags before the downfall begins so we can safeguard our finances. We hope this video was informative to you and that you prepare accordingly because many factors are expected to impact the economy in the months ahead. The key to weathering the storm is staying informed about local and national housing trends, and ensuring your financial situation is stable enough to survive the turbulence.

Several stats reveal that another disaster is imminent. So it might be helpful to homeowners and prospective homebuyers to identify the warning signs so that they can be prepared. For that reason, today we share the latest and most shocking facts about the housing downturn that is already unfolding."
Comments here:

Dan, I Allegedly, "Who Is Going Down Next?"

Full screen recommended.
Dan, I Allegedly 11/12/23
"Who Is Going Down Next?"
"We keep hearing that there’s all these retailers that are in serious trouble. The real question is who is going down next? You can’t help it, walk in the stores that have zero inventory and no people shop in there."
Comments here:

Musical Interlude: Grateful Dead, “Touch of Grey”

Grateful Dead, “Touch of Grey”

“If I were dropped out of a plane into the ocean and told
 the nearest land was a thousand miles away,
 I'd still swim. And I’d despise the one who gave up.”
- Abraham Maslow

Despite it all, and it looks grim as hell, God help us...
"We will get by, we will get by, we will get by,
we will survive..." Never, ever give up!

"A Look to the Heavens"

“Hot, young stars and cosmic pillars of gas and dust seem to crowd into NGC 7822. At the edge of a giant molecular cloud toward the northern constellation Cepheus, the glowing star forming region lies about 3,000 light-years away. Within the nebula, bright edges and dark shapes are highlighted in this colorful skyscape. The image includes data from narrowband filters, mapping emission from atomic oxygen, hydrogen, and sulfur into blue, green, and red hues. 
Click image for larger size.
The atomic emission is powered by energetic radiation from the hot stars, whose powerful winds and radiation also sculpt and erode the denser pillar shapes. Stars could still be forming inside the pillars by gravitational collapse, but as the pillars are eroded away, any forming stars will ultimately be cutoff from their reservoir of star stuff. This field spans around 40 light-years at the estimated distance of NGC 7822.”

"Declaration of Principles"

"Declaration of Principles"

"The Sharp Tang And Savor Of Existence"

"The Sharp Tang And Savor Of Existence"

"The thought of the disaster which almost certainly lay in wait for the Other Men threw me into a horror of doubt about the universe in which such a thing could happen. That a whole world of intelligent beings could be destroyed was not an unfamiliar idea to me; but there is a great difference between an abstract possibility and a concrete and inescapable danger. On my native planet, whenever I had been dismayed by the suffering and the futility of individuals, I had taken comfort in the thought that at least the massed effect of all our blind striving must be the slow but glorious awakening of the human spirit. This hope, this certainty, had been the one sure consolation. But now I saw that there was no guarantee of any such triumph. It seemed that the universe, or the maker of the universe, must be indifferent to the fate of worlds. That there should be endless struggle and suffering and waste must of course be accepted; and gladly, for these were the very soil in which the spirit grew. But that all struggle should be finally, absolutely vain, that a whole world of sensitive spirits fail and die, must be sheer evil. In my horror it seemed to me that Hate must be the Star Maker.

Not so to Bvalitu. "Even if the powers destroy us," he said, "who are we, to condemn them? As well might a fleeting word judge the speaker that forms it. Perhaps they use us for their own high ends, use our strength and our weakness, our joy and our pain, in some theme inconceivable to us, and excellent." But I protested, "What theme could justify such waste, such futility? And how can we help judging; and how otherwise can we judge than by the light of our own hearts, by which we judge ourselves? It would be base to praise the Star Maker, knowing that he was too insensitive to care about the fate of his worlds." Bvalitu was silent in his mind for a moment. Then he looked up, searching among the smoke-clouds for a daytime star. And then he said to me in his mind, "If he saved all the worlds, but tormented just one man, would you forgive him? Or if he was a little harsh only to one stupid child? What has our pain to do with it, or our failure? Star Maker! It is a good word, though we can have no notion of its meaning. Oh, Star Maker, even if you destroy me, I must praise you. Even if you torture my dearest. Even if you torment and waste all your lovely worlds, the little figments of your imagination, yet I must praise you. For if you do so, it must be right. In me it would be wrong, but in you it must be right."

He looked down once more upon the ruined city, then continued, "And if after all there is no Star Maker, if the great company of galaxies leapt into being of their own accord, and even if this little nasty world of ours is the only habitation of the spirit anywhere among the stars, and this world doomed, even so, even so, I must praise. But if there is no Star Maker, what can it be that I praise? I do not know. I will call it only the sharp tang and savor of existence. But to call it this is to say little."
- Olaf Stapledon, "Star Maker"
o
"In this passionately social world, loneliness dogged the spirit. People were constantly getting together, but they never really got there. Everyone was terrified of being alone with himself; yet in company, in spite of the universal assumption of comradeship, these strange beings remained as remote from one another as the stars. For everyone searched his neighbor's eyes for the image of himself, and never saw anything else. Or if he did, he was outraged and terrified."
- Olaf Stapledon, "Star Maker"

Freely download "Star Maker", by Olaf Stapledon, here:

The Poet: Czeslaw Milosz, "On The Day The World Ends"

"On The Day The World Ends"

“On the day the world ends
A bee circles a clover,
"A fisherman mends a glimmering net.
Happy porpoises jump in the sea,
By the rainspout young sparrows are playing
And the snake is gold-skinned as it should always be.

On the day the world ends
Women walk through the fields under their umbrellas,
A drunkard grows sleepy at the edge of a lawn,
Vegetable peddlers shout in the street
And a yellow-sailed boat comes nearer the island,
The voice of a violin lasts in the air
And leads into a starry night.

And those who expected lightning and thunder
Are disappointed.
And those who expected signs and archangels’ trumps
Do not believe it is happening now.
As long as the sun and the moon are above,
As long as the bumblebee visits a rose,
As long as rosy infants are born
No one believes it is happening now.

Only a white-haired old man, who would be a prophet
Yet is not a prophet, for he’s much too busy,
Repeats while he binds his tomatoes:
There will be no other end of the world,
There will be no other end of the world.”

~ Czeslaw Milosz
o
“The Last Night of the World”
Originally published in the February 1951 issue of "Esquire"
by Ray Bradbury

“What would you do if you knew this was the last night of the world?”
“What would I do; you mean, seriously?”
“Yes, seriously.”
“I don’t know – I hadn’t thought.” She turned the handle of the silver coffeepot toward him and placed the two cups in their saucers. He poured some coffee. In the background, the two small girls were playing blocks on the parlor rug in the light of the green hurricane lamps. There was an easy, clean aroma of brewed coffee in the evening air.
“Well, better start thinking about it,” he said.
“You don’t mean it?” said his wife.
He nodded.
“A war?”
He shook his head.
“Not the hydrogen or atom bomb?”
“No.”
“Or germ warfare?”
“None of those at all,” he said, stirring his coffee slowly and staring into its black depths. “But just the closing of a book, let’s say.”
“I don’t think I understand.”
“No, nor do I really. It’s jut a feeling; sometimes it frightens me, sometimes I’m not frightened at all – but peaceful.” He glanced in at the girls and their yellow hair shining in the bright lamplight, and lowered his voice. “I didn’t say anything to you. It first happened about four nights ago.”
“What?”
“A dream I had. I dreamt that it was all going to be over and a voice said it was; not any kind of voice I can remember, but a voice anyway, and it said things would stop here on Earth. I didn’t think too much about it when I awoke the next morning, but then I went to work and the feeling as with me all day. I caught Stan Willis looking out the window in the middle of the afternoon and I said, ‘Penny for your thoughts, Stan,’ and he said, ‘I had a dream last night,’ and before he even told me the dream, I knew what it was. I could have told him, but he told me and I listened to him.”
“It was the same dream?”
“Yes. I told Stan I had dreamed it, too. He didn’t seem surprised. He relaxed, in fact. Then we started walking through offices, for the hell of it. It wasn’t planned. We didn’t say, let’s walk around. We just walked on our own, and everywhere we saw people looking at their desks or their hands or out the windows and not seeing what was in front of their eyes. I talked to a few of them; so did Stan.”
“And all of them had dreamed?”
“All of them. The same dream, with no difference.”
“Do you believe in the dream?”
“Yes. I’ve never been more certain.”
“And when will it stop? The world, I mean.”
“Sometime during the night for us, and then, as the night goes on around the world, those advancing portions will go, too. It’ll take twenty-four hours for it all to go.”
They sat awhile not touching their coffee. Then they lifted it slowly and drank, looking at each other.
“Do we deserve this?” she said.
“It’s not a matter of deserving, it’s just that things didn’t work out. I notice you didn’t even argue about this. Why not?”
“I guess I have a reason,” she said.
“The same reason everyone at the office had?”
She nodded. “I didn’t want to say anything. It happened last night. And the women on the block are talking about it, just among themselves.” She picked up the evening paper and held it toward him. “There’s nothing in the news about it.”
“No, everyone knows, so what’s the need?” He took the paper and sat back in his chair, looking at the girls and then at her. “Are you afraid?”
“No. Not even for the children. I always thought I would be frightened to death, but I’m not.”
“Where’s that spirit of self-preservation the scientists talk about so much?”
“I don’t know. You don’t get too excited when you feel things are logical. This is logical. Nothing else but this could have happened from the way we’ve lived.”
“We haven’t been too bad, have we?”
“No, nor enormously good. I suppose that’s the trouble. We haven’t been very much of anything except us, while a big part of the world was busy being lots of quite awful things.”
The girls were laughing in the parlor as they waved their hands and tumbled down their house of blocks.
“I always imagined people would be screaming in the streets at a time like this.”
“I guess not. You don’t scream about the real thing.”
“Do you know, I won’t miss anything but you and the girls. I never liked cities or autos or factories or my work or anything except you three. I won’t miss a thing except my family and perhaps the change in the weather and a glass of cool water when the weather’s hot, or the luxury of sleeping. Just little things, really. How can we sit here and talk this way?”
“Because there’s nothing else to do.”
“That’s it, of course, for if there were, we’d be doing it. I suppose this is the first time in the history of the world that everyone has really known just what they were going to be doing during the last night.”
“I wonder what everyone else will do now, this evening, for the next few hours.”
“Go to a show, listen to the radio, watch the TV, play cards, put the children to bed, get to bed themselves, like always.”
“In a way that’s something to be proud of – like always.”
“We’re not all bad.”
They sat a moment and then he poured more coffee. “Why do you suppose it’s tonight?”
“Because.”
“Why not some night in the past ten years of in the last century, or five centuries ago or ten?”
“Maybe it’s because it was never February 30, 1951, ever before in history, and now it is and that’s it, because this date means more than any other date ever meant and because it’s the year when things are as they are all over the world and that’s why it’s the end.”
“There are bombers on their course both ways across the ocean tonight that’ll never see land again.”
“That’s part of the reason why.”
“Well,” he said. “What shall it be? Wash the dishes?”
They washed the dishes carefully and stacked them away with especial neatness. At eight-thirty the girls were put to bed and kissed good night and the little lights by their beds turned on and the door left a trifle open.
“I wonder,” said the husband, coming out and looking back, standing there with his pipe for a moment.”
“What?”
“If the door should be shut all the way or if it should be left just a little ajar so we can hear them if they call.”
“I wonder if the children know – if anyone mentioned anything to them?”
“No, of course not. They’d have asked us about it.”
They sat and read the papers and talked and listened to some radio music and then sat together by the fireplace looking at the charcoal embers as the clock struck ten-thirty and eleven and eleven-thirty. They thought of all the other people in the world who had spent their evening, each in their own special way.
“Well,” he said at last. He kissed his wife for a long time.
“We’ve been good for each other, anyway.”
“Do you want to cry?” he asked.
“I don’t think so.”
They went through the house and turned out the lights and locked the doors, and went into the bedroom and stood in the night cool darkness undressing. She took the spread from the bed and folded it carefully over a chair, as always, and pushed back the covers. “The sheets are so cool and clean and nice,” she said.
“I’m tired.”
“We’re both tired.”
They got into bed and lay back.
“Wait a moment,” she said.
He heard her get up and go out into the back of the house, and then he heard the soft shuffling of a swinging door. A moment later she was back. “I left the water running in the kitchen,” she said. “I turned the faucet off.”
Something about this was so funny that he had to laugh. She laughed with him, knowing what it was that she had done that was so funny. They stopped laughing at last and lay in their cool night bed, their hands clasped, their heads together.
“Good night,” he said, after a moment.
“Good night,” she said, adding softly, “dear…”

Greg Hunter, "America Attacked on All Fronts, WWIII Underway"

"America Attacked on All Fronts, WWIII Underway"
by Greg Hunter’s USAWatchdog.com

"Renowned radio host, filmmaker, book author and archeological dig expert Steve Quayle says just about every aspect of American life is under attack by Deep State demonic globalists who want to “take down America.” Let’s start with the U.S. banking system that is teetering on insolvency and locked in a growing liquidity crisis. Quayle explains, “This is a watershed moment in the world today. In the world of financial happenings and events, we are watching the takedown, breakdown and total onslaught by multiple nations, namely the BRICs nations with total abandonment of the U.S. dollar. World War III is underway. It’s happening before our eyes, and the mainstream media, which is an accessory to genocide, do not report anything accurately. 

For the first time in the history of federal banking, the ACH (automated clearing house) problem happened, multiple millions of people, from my sources, were waiting to get paid their paychecks. For the first time in history, you know what the Fed said to the banks? ‘It’s your problem. You deal with it.’ I believe the Fed is in survival mode. It’s treading water. There is simply no more money to back up the big 5 or the big 12 banks. We are seeing a focused liquidity crisis in the United States of America. Our T-Bonds, T-Bills and T-Notes are selling at horrific discounts. What people need to understand is banks of all sizes park their excess capital or their client’s funds in T-Bonds, Bills and Notes, and when the value goes down, that puts them into a position of financial jeopardy. We are watching a breakdown, a takedown and a meltdown of the Federal Reserve Bank. You need to get out of the big banks, and you need to get out of online banking because of cyberattacks and hacks, and the U.S. dollar is being vomited out by other nations.”

Another huge ongoing attack is at the southern border. Quayle says, “I think what we are watching is the displacement of the American citizen and replacement by everyone else. You can’t deny this. The people orchestrating this are demon possessed, supernatural evil people, hellbent on destroying the United States from within.”

Quayle says there is a covert move by Deep State globalists that are wanting to shut down alternative news and conservative websites. Quayle says, “They not only want to shut us down, but they want to shut us up. Remember, ladies and gentlemen, when they shut down free speech and shut down free thinkers and speakers, then the world you thought you lived in has come to an ultimate crash with reality.”

Quayle says the coming war will see the need to “reinstate the draft.” Look for a new techno feudalism to control society. Quayle also predicts a massive loss of jobs, and at some point, you will see a million jobs disappear in a single day because companies will have to cut costs quickly as the economy implodes. He also contends there will be a continued takedown of Donald Trump throughout 2024. The evil Deep State will continue to do anything and everything to stop Donald Trump from running for president again. In closing, Quayle says, “This is the reality of Biblical, End Times. Resist evil..."  There is much more in the 1-hour and 13-minute interview.

Join Greg Hunter on Rumble when he goes One-on One with radio host, filmmaker and top selling author Steve Quayle as he warns about hard times of Biblical proportions coming to America with World War III that is underway.

The Daily "Near You?"

Groningen, Netherlands. Thanks for stopping by!

"The Whole Problem With The World..."

 

"The Time of Your Life"

"The Time of Your Life"
 by William Saroyan, (1939)

“In the time of your life, live - so that in that good time there shall be no ugliness or death for yourself or for any life your life touches. Seek goodness everywhere, and when it is found, bring it out of its hiding place and let it be free and unashamed.

Place in matter and in flesh the least of the values, for these are the things that hold death and must pass away. Discover in all things that which shines and is beyond corruption. Encourage virtue in whatever heart it may have been driven into secrecy and sorrow by the shame and terror of the world. Ignore the obvious, for it is unworthy of the clear eye and the kindly heart.

Be the inferior of no man, or of any men be superior. Remember that every man is a variation of yourself. No man's guilt is not yours, nor is any man's innocence a thing apart. Despise evil and ungodliness, but not men of ungodliness or evil. These, understand. Have no shame in being kindly and gentle but if the time comes in the time of your life to kill, kill and have no regret.

In the time of your life, live - so that in that wondrous time you shall not add to the misery and sorrow of the world, but shall smile to the infinite delight and mystery of it.”

"The whole world and every human being in it is everybody's business."
- William Saroyan

'If God Does Things For A Reason..."

“If God does things for a reason, he sure has a bunch
of psychopaths carrying out his job orders.”
- Fox Mulder

"How It Really Is"

 

"These Events Are Changing The World! Prepare For A Rough Winter!"

Adventures With Danno, 11/12/23
"These Events Are Changing The World! 
Prepare For A Rough Winter!"
"In this mornings coffee rant, we are discussing different events that are changing the world as we know it and how we need to prepare ourselves for the future."
Comments here:

"World War III Prelude, 11/12/23"

Douglas Macgregor Daily, 11/12/23
"Are We On The Brink Of World War 3?"
Comments here:
o
Full screen recommended.
Scott Ritter, 11/12/23
"Hezbollah Escalated To Total War After Israel 
Beheaded, Raped & Bombed Gaza Hospital"
Comments here:

OMG... view this in horror if you dare...

Note that Hezbollah has 150,000 battle-hardened, extremely well armed and equipped
professional soldiers, as well as 200,000 missiles than can strike anywhere in Israel...
o
Full screen recommended.
Hindustan Times, 11/12/23
"Missiles Fired From Lebanon Wreak Havoc In Israel;
 Civilians Wounded, Cars On Fire"
"A massive missile strike from Lebanon wreaked havoc in a border area in Israel. The strike left at least people injured while several cars were caught huge fire. Israeli military retaliated by striking the launch sites with artillery fire, IDF said. The massive missile strike comes just a day after Hezbollah chief vowed to continue to hit Israel from Lebanon border." 
Comments here:
o
Full screen recommended.
Redacted, 11/11/23
"Death Toll In Gaza Is MUCH WORSE Than They're Telling Us"
"Former U.S. Marine Scott Ritter says the death toll is way worse than official
 numbers represent as thousands of Palestinians are missing beneath the rubble."
Comments here:
o
Full screen recommended.
13News Now, 11/12/23
"Death Toll In Gaza Surpasses 11,000"
"Arab leaders met in Saudi Arabia, calling for an immediate end to military 
operations in Gaza and declaring Israel responsible for crimes against Palestinians."
Comments here:
o
Full screen recommended.
Hindustan Times, 11/12/23
"Al-Qassam Militants Chant 'Allah-u-Akbar', 
Fire RPGs At Advancing IDF Troops In Gaza"
"Hamas shared a video of a fierce street battle between Al-Qassam Brigades fighters and Israeli Defense Forces in Al-Tawam and Beit Hanoun areas in the northern Gaza Strip. Al Qassam fighters claim that they destroyed two Israeli tanks during the fighting. Israeli troops meanwhile also intensified their offensive in northern Gaza to wipe out Hamas."
Comments here:
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

Add China and Taiwan, Ukraine, Russia and NATO to the mix...

Saturday, November 11, 2023

"RV Sales Collapse, Dealers Struggle To Stay Alive; RV Manufacturers Going Bankrupt"

Full screen recommended.
Jeremiah Babe, 11/11/23
"RV Sales Collapse, Dealers Struggle To Stay Alive; 
RV Manufacturers Going Bankrupt"
Comments here:

Musical Interlude: Mike Oldfield, "Tubular Bells Finale"

Mike Oldfield, "Tubular Bells Finale"

"A Look to the Heavens"

"Braided, serpentine filaments of glowing gas suggest this nebula's popular name, The Medusa Nebula. Also known as Abell 21, this Medusa is an old planetary nebula some 1,500 light-years away in the constellation Gemini. Like its mythological namesake, the nebula is associated with a dramatic transformation.
The planetary nebula phase represents a final stage in the evolution of low mass stars like the sun, as they transform themselves from red giants to hot white dwarf stars and in the process shrug off their outer layers. Ultraviolet radiation from the hot star powers the nebular glow. The Medusa's transforming star is near the center of the overall bright crescent shape. In this deep telescopic view, fainter filaments clearly extend below and to the left of the bright crescent region. The Medusa Nebula is estimated to be over 4 light-years across.”

"Perhaps..."

"One summer night, out on a flat headland, all but surrounded by the waters of the bay, the horizons were remote and distant rims on the edge of space. Millions of stars blazed in darkness, and on the far shore a few lights burned in cottages. Otherwise there was no reminder of human life. My companion and I were alone with the stars: the misty river of the Milky Way flowing across the sky, the patterns of the constellations standing out bright and clear, a blazing planet low on the horizon. It occurred to me that if this were a sight that could be seen only once in a century, this little headland would be thronged with spectators. But it can be seen many scores of nights in any year, and so the lights burned in the cottages and the inhabitants probably gave not a thought to the beauty overhead; and because they could see it almost any night, perhaps they never will."
- Rachel Carson

"Hezbollah Will Escalate to Total War in Israel If They Break The Red Line in Gaza"

Full screen recommended.
Scott Ritter, 11/11/23
"Hezbollah Will Escalate to Total War in Israel 
If They Break The Red Line in Gaza"
Comments here:

Dan, I Allegedly, "We Are A Bunch Of Deadbeats"

Full screen recommended.
Dan, I Allegedly, 11/11/23
"We Are A Bunch Of Deadbeats"
"Moodys just downgraded the United States of America’s financial position. Because of political strife and the continued geopolitical forces that we are getting ourselves involved in our credit rating has been lowered."
Comments here:

The Daily "Near You?"

Lawton, Oklahoma, USA. Thanks for stopping by!

"The Times..."

"The times might be unpleasant, repulsive. The ghastly chaos, the abhorrent incivility might be intolerable, might force us into argument or leave us panic-stricken. On such occasions people build within themselves a conviction that the world outside is diabolical. The whimsical insults test our level of endurance, causing us to plead for mercy, wanting us to be pitied than exploited and victimized. Often this grief and shame form a delusion within us that there no longer exists good in this world, that good people are fictitious, and that goodness has lost its definition altogether. But such is not true because there are still people who are virtuous, unselfish, willing to help and possessing the ability of restoring our faith in humanity. To disregard them, their presence, would be as heinous as the deeds of the people who are unlike them. The times might be unpleasant, repulsive, but we'll come out it, unharmed and liberated."
- Chirag Tulsiani
o
Sam: "It's like in the great stories Mr. Frodo, the ones that really mattered. Full of darkness and danger they were, and sometimes you didn't want to know the end because how could the end be happy? How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad had happened? But in the end it's only a passing thing, this shadow, even darkness must pass. A new day will come, and when the sun shines it'll shine out the clearer. Those were the stories that stayed with you, that meant something even if you were too small to understand why. But I think Mr. Frodo, I do understand, I know now folk in those stories had lots of chances of turning back, only they didn't. They kept going because they were holding on to something.
Frodo: What are we holding onto, Sam?
Sam: That there's some good in the world, Mr. Frodo, and it's worth fighting for."
- Samwise Gamgee, "Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers"

"Shortly..."

"Shortly, the public will be unable to reason or think 
for themselves. They'll only be able to parrot the information
 they've been given on the previous night's news." 
- Zbigniew Brzezinski 

Just a guess, but it appears "shortly" has arrived...

“Just Sit Down And Think?”

“Just Sit Down And Think?”
by Oliver Burkeman

“’All of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone,’ wrote the French philosopher Blaise Pascal. It's a line repeated so frequently, in the era of smartphones and social media, that it's easy to forget how striking it is that he wrote it in the 1600s. Back then, a sentence such as "Yo is a messaging app that enables iPhone and Android users to say 'Yo' to their friends" might have got you burned as a witch.

Yet even in 17th-century France, apparently, people hated being alone with their thoughts so intensely, they'd do almost anything else: play boules, start the Franco-Spanish war, and so on. Still, I'd wager even Pascal would have been disturbed by a study published in Science, showing that people detest being made to spend six to 15 minutes in a room by themselves with nothing to do but think – even to the extent of being willing to give themselves mild electric shocks instead. It's natural to conclude that there's something wrong with such people. Which means, all else being equal, that something's probably wrong with you, too.

Modern humans spend virtually no time on "inward-directed thought", and not solely because we're too busy: in one US survey, 95% of adults said they'd found time for a leisure activity in the previous 24 hours, but 83% said they'd spent zero time just thinking. The new study, led by Timothy Wilson of the University of Virginia, first asked students to entertain themselves with nothing but their thoughts in an "unadorned room". Most said they found it hard to concentrate; half found it unpleasant or neutral at best. In further experiments, older people, and those who rarely used smartphones, got similar results. Meanwhile, those given the chance to do something outward-directed, such as reading, enjoyed it far more. And when 42 people got to choose between sitting doing nothing and giving themselves electric shocks, two-thirds of men and a quarter of women chose the latter.

Are we mad? In his book "Back To Sanity," the Leeds Metropolitan University psychologist Steve Taylor answers: yes. The condition he diagnoses, "humania", isn't recognized as a disorder, but only because we're all victims, he argues, and it's part of the definition of a mental illness that most people don't have it. The "urge to immerse our attention in external things is so instinctive that we're scarcely aware of it", he writes. We often speak of emails, tweets and texts as if they're annoyances that we'd eliminate if we could. Yet the truth, of course, is that half the time we're desperate to be distracted, and gladly embrace the interruption.

Taylor's explanation for this puzzle borrows from Buddhism (among other places). We mistake ourselves for individual, isolated beings, trapped within our heads. No wonder we don't dwell on what's inside: that would underline the loneliness of existence, so obviously watching TV is more fun. To sit comfortably with your thoughts first requires seeing that there's a sense in which they're not real. A less new agey way of putting it is simply that you don't need to believe your thoughts. Whereupon they become fun to watch, and the need for distraction subsides. To quote the title of a book by Sylvia Boorstein, a meditation teacher: don't just do something, sit there.”

"How It Really Is"

 

Happy Veterans Day 2023