Sunday, November 26, 2023

"The Immutable Laws of Nature, and Murphy's Other 15 Laws"

"The Immutable Laws of Nature, and Murphy's Other 15 Laws"
by Peter McKenzie-Brown

"The Immutable Laws of Nature"

•Law of Mechanical Repair: After your hands become coated with grease, your nose will begin to itch and you'll have to pee.
•Law of Gravity: Any tool, nut, bolt, screw, when dropped, will roll to the least accessible place.
•Law of Probability: The probability of being watched is directly proportional to the stupidity of your act.
•Law of Random Numbers: If you dial a wrong number, you never get a busy signal; someone always answers.
•Law of Variable Motion: If you change traffic lanes or checkout queues, the one you were in will always move faster than the one you are in now.
•Law of the Bath: When the body is fully immersed in water, the telephone will ring.
•Law of Close Encounters: The probability of meeting someone you know increases exponentially when you are alongside someone you don't want to be seen with.
•Law of the Damned Thing: When you try to prove to someone that a machine or device won't work, it will.
•Law of Biomechanics: The severity of the itch is inversely proportional to the reach.
•Law of the Spectator: At any theatrical, musical or sporting event, the people whose seats are furthest from the aisle always arrive last. They are the ones who will leave their seats several times to go for food, for beer, or to the toilet and who leave before the end of the performance or game. Those who occupy the aisle seats come early, never move once, have long gangly legs or big bellies and stay seated beyond the end of the performance. The aisle people also are very surly folk.
•Law of Coffee: As soon as you sit down to a cup of hot coffee, your partner will ask you to do something which will last until the coffee is cold.
•Murphy's Law of Lockers: When only 2 people are in a locker room, they will have adjacent lockers.
•Law of Plane Surfaces: The chance that a slice of marmalade toast will land face down on a floor is directly correlated to the newness and cost of the carpet or rug.
•Law of Logical Argument: Anything is possible when you don't know what you are talking about.
•Law of Physical Appearance: If clothes fit, they're ugly.
•Law of Public Speaking: A closed mouth gathers no feet
•Law of Commercial Marketing: As soon as you find a product that you really like, it will cease production or the store will stop selling it.
•Law of Psychosomatic Medicine: If you don't feel well, make an appointment to see to the doctor and by  the time you get there, you'll feel better. If you don't make an appointment you'll stay sick.

"Murphy's Other 15 Laws"

1. Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.
2. A fine is a tax for doing wrong. A tax is a fine for doing well.
3. He who laughs last, thinks slowest.
4. A day without sunshine is like, well, night.
5. Change is inevitable, except from a vending machine.
6. Those who live by the sword get shot by those who don't.
7. Nothing is foolproof to a sufficiently talented fool.
8. The 50-50-90 rule: Anytime you have a 50-50 chance of getting something right, there's a 90% probability you'll get it wrong.
9. It is said that if you line up all the cars in the world end-to-end, someone would be stupid
enough to try to pass them.
10. If the shoe fits, get another one just like it.
11. The things that come to those who wait, may be the things left by those who got there first.
12. Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day. Teach a man to fish and he will sit in a boat all day drinking beer.
13. Flashlight: A case for holding dead batteries.
14. God gave you toes as a device for finding furniture in the dark.
15. When you go into court, you are putting yourself in the hands of twelve people who weren't smart enough to get out of jury duty."

The Daily "Near You?"

Worden, Montana, uSA. Thanks for stopping by!

"Bonhoeffer on Stupidity"

Full screen recommended.
"Bonhoeffer on Stupidity"
by Averett Jones

"Taken from a circular letter, addressing many topics, written to three friends and co-workers in the conspiracy against Hitler, on the tenth anniversary of Hitler’s accession to the chancellorship of Germany…

‘Stupidity is a more dangerous enemy of the good than malice. One may protest against evil; it can be exposed and, if need be, prevented by use of force. Evil always carries within itself the germ of its own subversion in that it leaves behind in human beings at least a sense of unease. Against stupidity we are defenseless. Neither protests nor the use of force accomplish anything here; reasons fall on deaf ears; facts that contradict one’s prejudgment simply need not be believed - in such moments the stupid person even becomes critical – and when facts are irrefutable they are just pushed aside as inconsequential, as incidental. In all this the stupid person, in contrast to the malicious one, is utterly self-satisfied and, being easily irritated, becomes dangerous by going on the attack. For that reason, greater caution is called for than with a malicious one. Never again will we try to persuade the stupid person with reasons, for it is senseless and dangerous.

If we want to know how to get the better of stupidity, we must seek to understand its nature. This much is certain, that it is in essence not an intellectual defect but a human one. There are human beings who are of remarkably agile intellect yet stupid, and others who are intellectually quite dull yet anything but stupid. We discover this to our surprise in particular situations. The impression one gains is not so much that stupidity is a congenital defect, but that, under certain circumstances, people are made stupid or that they allow this to happen to them. We note further that people who have isolated themselves from others or who live in solitude manifest this defect less frequently than individuals or groups of people inclined or condemned to sociability. And so it would seem that stupidity is perhaps less a psychological than a sociological problem. It is a particular form of the impact of historical circumstances on human beings, a psychological concomitant of certain external conditions. 

Upon closer observation, it becomes apparent that every strong upsurge of power in the public sphere, be it of a political or of a religious nature, infects a large part of humankind with stupidity. It would even seem that this is virtually a sociological-psychological law. The power of the one needs the stupidity of the other. The process at work here is not that particular human capacities, for instance, the intellect, suddenly atrophy or fail. Instead, it seems that under the overwhelming impact of rising power, humans are deprived of their inner independence, and, more or less consciously, give up establishing an autonomous position toward the emerging circumstances. The fact that the stupid person is often stubborn must not blind us to the fact that he is not independent. In conversation with him, one virtually feels that one is dealing not at all with a person, but with slogans, catchwords and the like that have taken possession of him. He is under a spell, blinded, misused, and abused in his very being. Having thus become a mindless tool, the stupid person will also be capable of any evil and at the same time incapable of seeing that it is evil. This is where the danger of diabolical misuse lurks, for it is this that can once and for all destroy human beings.

Yet at this very point it becomes quite clear that only an act of liberation, not instruction, can overcome stupidity. Here we must come to terms with the fact that in most cases a genuine internal liberation becomes possible only when external liberation has preceded it. Until then we must abandon all attempts to convince the stupid person. This state of affairs explains why in such circumstances our attempts to know what ‘the people’ really think are in vain and why, under these circumstances, this question is so irrelevant for the person who is thinking and acting responsibly. The word of the Bible that the fear of God is the beginning of wisdom declares that the internal liberation of human beings to live the responsible life before God is the only genuine way to overcome stupidity.

But these thoughts about stupidity also offer consolation in that they utterly forbid us to consider the majority of people to be stupid in every circumstance. It really will depend on whether those in power expect more from people’s stupidity than from their inner independence and wisdom."
-Dietrich Bonhoeffer, from "After Ten Years" in Letters and Papers from Prison (Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works/English, vol. 8 ) Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2010.

"Fools and Knaves..."

“In the mass of mankind, I fear, there is too great a majority of
fools and knaves; who, singly from their number, must to a certain
degree be respected, though they are by no means respectable.”
- Philip Stanhope

“There are more fools than knaves in the world,
else the knaves would not have enough to live upon.”
- Samuel Butler

"Why?"

“At last, the answer why. The lesson that had been so hard to find, so difficult to learn, came quick and clear and simple. The reason for problems is to overcome them. Why, that’s the very nature of man, I thought, to press past limits, to prove his freedom. It isn’t the challenge that faces us, that determines who we are and what we are becoming, but the way we meet the challenge, whether we toss a match at the wreck or work our way through it, step by step, to freedom.”
- Richard Bach, “Nothing by Chance”

"How It Really Is"

Oh no we haven't, this is only beginning. But we will...

"Israeli-Palestinian War Update, 11/26/23"

"Israeli-Palestinian War Update, 11/26/23"

"The tragedy of the people of Palestine is that their country was “given” by a foreign power to another people for the creation of a new state. The result was that many hundreds of thousands of innocent people were made permanently homeless. With every new conflict their numbers increased. How much longer is the world willing to endure this spectacle of wanton cruelty?" ~ Bertrand Russell

Full screen recommended.
Tech Show, 11/26/23
"Russia & Saudi Arabia Sanction 
Israel After Recent Events In Gaza!"
In this in-depth video, we look at the most recent developments in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, with an emphasis on the sanctions put on Israel by Russia and Saudi Arabia following the events in Gaza. This article presents a complete summary of the situation, including the conflict's historical context, the precise events that led to the sanctions, and the rationale behind Russia and Saudi Arabia's moves.

We talk about the current tensions in Gaza as well as the long-standing issues at the heart of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, such as borders, Jerusalem, refugees, and settlements. By studying these essential aspects, we shed insight on the situation's complexity and the hurdles that remain in finding a long-term solution.
Comments here:
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Full screen recommended.
Cyrus Janssen, 11/26/23
"Turkey's Powerful Position on the
 Israel - Palestine War Revealed!"
What does Turkey think about the Israel-Palestine War? I recently traveled to Istanbul, Turkey and had the chance to met Birol Güger, the Managing Director of the Cumhuriyet, Turkey's oldest newspaper. I asked him about Israel and Palestine and the potential for a larger regional conflict in the Middle East.
Comments here:
o
Full screen recommended.
Hindustan Times, 11/26/23
"'U.S. Will Pay': Iran's Open Threat Amid Attacks
 On American Bases Over Support To Israel"
"Iran has once again issued an open threat against the United States and Israel over the war in Gaza. "However, this time Tehran has said that the U.S. will pay the price for “Israeli crimes” in Gaza. The Iranian Defense Minister said the U.S.' biggest mistake is to support a “child-killing and criminal regime”, a reference to Israel for the rising civilian toll in Gaza." (Now 14,500 Palestinians killed, including 5,000 CHILDREN! God damn those monsters for doing this, and God damn US for allowing and supporting it!)
Comments here:
o
“Child-killing and criminal regime?” Look in the mirror...
"We have heard that half a million Iraqi children have died. I mean, that is more children than died in Hiroshima," Stahl said. "And, you know, is the price worth it?" "I think that is a very hard choice," Albright answered, "but the price, we think, the price is worth it."
- Madeline Albright, Secretary of State of the United States of America

"Last Choice For Ukraine Is To Abandon Zelensky And Surrender Unconditionally To Russia"

Full screen recommended.
Scott Ritter, 11/26/23
"Last Choice For Ukraine Is To Abandon Zelensky
 And Surrender Unconditionally To Russia"
Comments here:

Surrender, after 450,000 Ukrainian soldiers were killed, along with 67,500 Russian troops. All made possible by $150 Billion from the US and their NATO servants...I'd ask "Americans! Have you no shame?" But no, disgracefully bloodthirsty conscience-free swine have none, and happily lick the blood from their hands... - CP
o
And now we'll just walk away...
Full screen recommended.
Hindustan Times, 11/26/23
"Ukraine Dumped By U.S.-Led West? 
Zelensky Scrambles To Retain Financial Support Against Russia"
"Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that his country needed to secure three key "victories" abroad. This includes the approval of major aid packages from the US Congress and the European Union and the formal start of accession talks to join the EU. Remember, US President Joe Biden asked Congress to approve billions of dollars in assistance for Ukraine last month, but the bill could not get passed. A 50 billion euro package from the EU was announced earlier for Ukraine but has not yet been approved and is so far opposed by Hungary. Kyiv also hopes the European Union's members will agree at a summit on December 14–15 to formally launch the long process of talks for Kyiv to join the bloc."
Comments here:

Adventures With Danno, "Outrageous Price Increases At Kroger!"

Full screen recommended.
Adventures With Danno, 11/26/23
"Outrageous Price Increases At Kroger!
This Is Ridiculous! What Now?"
In today's vlog, we are at Sam's Club and are noticing some outrageous price increases on some different grocery products! It has become a real struggle to buy groceries these days as prices continue to rise beyond belief!
Comments here:

Saturday, November 25, 2023

Scott Ritter, "Israeli Defense Force Is Incompetent! Palestine Has Nearly Reached It's Goal"

Full screen recommended.
Scott Ritter, 11/25/23
"Israeli Defense Force Is Incompetent! 
Palestine Has Nearly Reached It's Goal"
Comments here:
o
Full screen recommended.
Tech Show, 11/25/23
"Turkey Sanctions Israel With No More Oil!"
Comments here:

"When Your Credit Cards Get Shut Off You're Done; Americans Are Drowning In Debt And They Don't Care"

Jeremiah Babe, 11/25/23
"When Your Credit Cards Get Shut Off You're Done; 
Americans Are Drowning In Debt And They Don't Care"
Comments here:

Dan, I Allegedly, "The Fix is In - Banks Don’t Have to Pay Taxes"

Full screen recommended.
Dan, I Allegedly PM 11/25/23
"The Fix is In - Banks Don’t Have to Pay Taxes"
"Last week we got a downgrade add three more banks. This went under the radar. But what was worse was that on the 24th something was passed that is despicable. Section 12 US C531 states that banks don’t have to pay federal, state and local taxes. The fix is in."
Comments here:

Musical Interlude: Liquid Mind, "Laguna Indigo"

Full screen recommended.
Liquid Mind, "Laguna Indigo"

"A Look to the Heavens"

"One of the brightest galaxies in planet Earth's sky is similar in size to our Milky Way Galaxy: big, beautiful Messier 81. Also known as NGC 3031 or Bode's galaxy for its 18th century discoverer, this grand spiral can be found toward the northern constellation of Ursa Major, the Great Bear.
The sharp, detailed telescopic view reveals M81's bright yellow nucleus, blue spiral arms, pinkish starforming regions, and sweeping cosmic dust lanes. Some dust lanes actually run through the galactic disk (left of center), contrary to other prominent spiral features though. The errant dust lanes may be the lingering result of a close encounter between M81 and the nearby galaxy M82 lurking outside of this frame. M81's faint, dwarf irregular satellite galaxy, Holmberg IX, can be seen just below the large spiral. Scrutiny of variable stars in M81 has yielded a well-determined distance for an external galaxy - 11.8 million light-years."

"When We Walk To The Edge..."

“When we walk to the edge of all the light we have and take a step into
the darkness of unknown, we must believe one of two things will happen.
There will be something solid to stand on, or we will be taught how to fly.”
- Patrick Overton

Free Download: Olaf Stapledon, "Sirius"

"But what a universe, anyhow! No use blaming human-beings for what they were. Everything was made so that it had to torture something else. Sirius himself was no exception, of course. Made that way! Nothing was responsible for being by nature predatory on other things, dog on rabbit and Argentine beef, man on nearly everything, bugs and microbes on man, and of course man himself on man. (Nothing but man was really cruel, vindictive, except perhaps the loathly cat). Everything desperately struggling to keep its nose above water for a few breaths before its strength inevitably failed and down it went, pressed under by something else. And beyond, those brainless, handless idiotic stars, lazing away so importantly for nothing. 

Here and there some speck of a planet dominated by some half-awake intelligence like humanity. And here and there on such planets, one or two poor little spirits waking up and wondering what in the hell everything was for, what it was all about, what they could make of themselves; and glimpsing in a muddled way what their potentiality was, and feebly trying to express it, but always failing, always missing fire, and very often feeling themselves breaking up as he himself was doing. Just now and then they might feel the real thing, in some creative work, or in sweet community with another little spirit, or with others. Just now and then they seemed somehow to create or to be gathered up into something lovelier than their individual selves, something which demanded their selves sacrifice and yet have their selves new life. But how precariously, torturingly; and only just for a flicker of time! Their whole life-time would only be a flicker in the whole of titanic time. Even when all the worlds have frozen or exploded, and all the suns gone dead and cold therewill still be time. Oh God, what for?"
 - Olaf Stapledon, "Sirius: A Fantasy of Love and Discord"
Freely download "Sirius: A Fantasy of Love and Discord",
by Olaf Stapledon, here:

The Daily "Near You?"

Grangeville, Idaho, USA. Thanks for stopping by!

"Nobility..."

"The people of today have no nobility. They do not even know what it means to be noble of heart. There is no strength of character; there is only emotion. We live in a worldwide society of emotion-based actions, emotion-based thinking, emotion-based words. People do things because they feel like it, they think things ruled by their emotions to think it and they say things because in that moment it's what they are feeling. Character does, thinks and says from a place of core identity and truth. "This is my truth, thus I will do it, think it, speak it." Nobility means strength of character, a word of honor, immovability and mind over matter. The feelings and emotions of a noble person do not merely come and go with the tides; they are there in the first place because they wouldn't have been there if it were not already decided upon. That is nobility."
- C. JoyBell C.

"Lift Up Your Eyes"

"Lift Up Your Eyes"
by Paul Rosenberg

"When was the last time you tasted the sublime? When did you last feel wonder? Can you remember feeling awed by something? These are things we need, if we are to thrive. They are fuel for the higher human abilities. If we lack them, as is currently endemic throughout the West, our higher abilities will lag. For lack of better terms we can call these feelings “upward movements of the heart,” and we are diminished when there is a lack of them. Without them we fail to develop our higher capacities and insights. We slide more and more toward becoming, in one critic’s words, “mere trousered apes.”

I am certainly not the first person to notice this. Here, for example, is something Albert Einstein wrote on the subject: "The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead: his eyes are closed."

Here’s a comment from Mozart: "Neither a lofty degree of intelligence, nor imagination, nor both together go to the making of genius. Love, love, love, that is the soul of genius."

And here’s a poem from Richard Feynman:
"Out of the cradle
onto the dry land
here it is
standing:
atoms with consciousness;
matter with curiosity.
Stands at the sea
wonders at wondering: I
a universe of atoms
an atom in the universe."

We need these things.

Currents to the Contrary: Sadly, the modern West has become a mad scramble to distract as many sets of eyes as possible, and to keep them – to own them – for as long as possible. And so long as professional distractors own your imagination, you won't experience much in the way of awe.

Think of Google and Facebook; these outfits bring in billions of dollars per month, based almost entirely on how much human attention they can capture. Likewise the many news networks; they get paid according to how many people watch their images for how many minutes. These people are serious about owning your brain cycles; they employ armies of employees to count, gather, plan, and improve their ownership of your eyes. Please understand the content they deliver serves only to grasp your attention.

Certainly websites like Freeman’s Perspective also want your attention but not for its own sake. I want your attention because I think we have something worthwhile to communicate, not to own your brain. Facebook and Google want to own you… the inner you.

Likewise the lords of academia; they want your mind to bear their impress... permanently. Consider, for example, the many academics who espouse cold, rationalist, materialistic philosophies: that we are no more than preprogrammed machines, that words can never really communicate anything, that humanity is ignorant and dangerous. Have you noticed that they reek of “smarter than thou”? Then if you have the opportunity, examine their lives for beautiful acts, for loving passions, for kindness and deep benevolence. If your experience is anything like mine, you’ll notice a striking lack of those things.

The Contrasts: Among the greatest of all contrasts to the upward movements of the heart are those pertaining to dominance, status, and rulership. They are natural antagonists.

Think of drinking in the wonders of the universe, the beauty of nature, the glorious love between a good parent and their child… and then contrast those things with the blight of the dominator “protecting” you at the point of a sword… of the politician cultivating your fears like a gardener cultivates a garden… of the lover of status who feels pleasure when seeing you beneath her.

Dominance, status, and rulership are the drives of the people who abuse us. And they are primary causes for our elevated experiences being diminished.

Moving Past the Blockage: We need to get away from these people and beyond these foul concepts. And once we do, life will expand. Here to make that point is a final quote, this one from Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel: "The loss of awe is the avoidance of insight. A return to reverence is the first prerequisite for a revival of wisdom…"

The things that contribute to our higher nature have been driven away from the Western world, and often systematically. Humans who are denuded of the higher things are far less trouble to rule, and they are far easier to manipulate… to own without their noticing. But don’t let yourself by driven away from the higher and better things:

Lay under the stars and wonder.
Look into the face of a child and experience his or her awe of the world.
Sit in the wilderness and imagine benevolence and beauty and goodness unchained.
Lie in bed and imagine yourself with a conscious sense of righteousness.
Imagine yourself with no embedded fear.
Ruminate over good things you could do in the future, over beautiful things you’d do in the right circumstances.

Politics poisons this, dominators wish to subdue it, sociopaths cannot experience it. Get as much of it as you can. Go out of your way to cultivate it.”

"Watch Two Strangers Make Beautiful Music Together In A Paris Train Station"

"Watch Two Strangers Make Beautiful Music 
Together In A Paris Train Station"
Proof that music really is a universal language.
by Chloe Fox

"Music just makes everything better- even traveling through a busy and crowded train station. Which is precisely why French train company SNCF decided to put pianos smack dab in the middle of select train stations. The pianos- which are known as “À vous de jouer” pianos, or "It’s your turn to play"- are free for anyone to use, and lucky travelers in March of this year were treated to a real show when two complete strangers improvised a beautiful piece together.
Full screen recommended.
One man had just sat down at the piano and started playing what sounds like "Una Mattina" by Ludovico Einaudi when the second man, in the white shirt, approaches and observes admiringly. At the 1:10 mark, the second man jumps in, augmenting the original music. The two men barely look at each other as their composition grows, but more and more travelers stop to watch as it becomes obvious something beautiful is unfolding. The men really hit their stride around the 2:50 mark, then shake things up again around the 4:30 mark, at which point the entire train station seems to have stopped in awe of them. After their big finale, they finish with nothing more than some shy shrugs and a high-five, proving once again that music is not only universal, but truly magical."

"Hell..."

"Many people don't fear a hell after this life and that's because hell is on this earth, in this life. In this life there are many forms of hell that people walk through, sometimes for a day, sometimes for years, sometimes it doesn't end. The kind of hell that doesn't burn your skin; but burns your soul. The kind of hell that people can't see; but the flames lap at your spirit. Heaven is a place on earth, too! It's where you feel freedom, where you're not afraid. No more chains. And you hear your soul laughing."
- C. JoyBell C.

I believe it was Sartre who said, "This is Hell, cleverly disguised just 
enough to keep us from escaping." Look at the world... look right around you.
I believe he may be right...

Canadian Prepper, "End Game: Nuclear War With Iran Or Financial Crash"

Full screen recommended.
Canadian Prepper, 11/25/23
"End Game: Nuclear War With Iran Or Financial Crash"
Comments here:

"How It Really Is"

 

"Food Items That Are Set To Skyrocket In Price! This Is About To Get Ugly!"

Full screen recommended.
Adventures With Danno, 11/25/23
"Food Items That Are Set To Skyrocket In Price!
 This Is About To Get Ugly!"
"These foods have been becoming unaffordable in fall of 2023, and we're expecting another huge surge in prices on these products during winter of 2023 and into 2024. We discuss why these products are rising in costs and why we must be prepared for this!"
Comments here:

"Black Flag Friday: Could Yesterday Be A Harbinger Of A Tapped-Out Consumer?"

"Black Flag Friday: Could Yesterday Be A
 Harbinger Of A Tapped-Out Consumer?"
By Charles Hugh Smith

"If Black Friday is a bust, it may be a harbinger of what the mainstream has long considered impossible: the American consumer is well and truly tapped out. Could Black Friday be a complete bust this year? Let's explore the potential sources of a Black Flag Friday. Black flags are used to denote mourning, as in state funerals, and to warn of danger, for example, black flags posted at beaches mean "don't go in the water." Drivers in auto races who receive a Black Flag must return to their pit--their race is over.

Exhibit One is the Federal Reserve report which stated the bottom 80% of American households have fewer financial resources than they did pre-pandemic. The authors project that the cash reserves of this vast cohort would be depleted in the third quarter of 2023, i.e. right now.

Exhibit Two is a report that indicates half of employed consumers have side gigs to earn extra money. Side Gigs Help Ease Paycheck-to-Paycheck Consumers' Financial Stress This Holiday:

According to findings detailed in The Supplemental Income Edition of 'New Reality Check: The Paycheck-to-Paycheck Report' by PYMNTS Intelligence and LendingClub, half of employed consumers now have supplemental income sources in addition to their regular paychecks. This includes side jobs, other types of supplemental income and active side incomes.

This is critical because the holiday season has emerged as the most financially challenging period for a significant number of individuals, according to separate research from PYMNTS Intelligence, with over 20% pointing to vacation costs as a key contributor to their financial stress.

Exhibit Three is the "revenge spending splurges" on vacations and other luxuries have already depleted savings and boosted credit card balances. Vacations are prime examples of "greedflation" in action, as resorts, AirBNB hosts, et al. jacked prices to the moon knowing that households desperate for a splurge vacation would pay any price without question.

In street parlance, consumers have already shot their wad. There's not much left to blow on Black Friday.

Exhibit Four is the long-term deterioration of the bottom 80%'s share of financial wealth as indicated by the charts below, courtesy of the Federal Reserve. These charts reflect the reality that the vast majority of financial gains have flowed to the top 20%.

The bottom 50% of America's 132 million households, representing 165.5 million of the nation's 331 million residents, owns a meager 2.3% of the nation's financial assets. There simply isn't much wealth to tap for splurge spending.
The share of total assets owned by the middle class--those between the 50% and 90% percentiles--has been in decline for 30+ years. No wonder half of all employed consumers are working extra hours on side gigs.
Exhibit Five is the devaluation of Black Friday by "front-running" pre-Black Friday sales. Which one offers the best deals - pre-Black Friday sales, pre-pre-Black Friday sales, or post-Black Friday sales?

Like many other aspects of American life, whatever is modestly successful is ground to dust via crapification and "Calculated Misery" in which the consumer experience is intentionally degraded so consumers are forced to pony up for "premium" or "elite" service - that is, the same mediocre service that was once standard but now requires a hefty fee if you wish to avoid immiseration.


Stainless Steal (February 26, 2023)

The decay in quality reveals that the collapse of the neoliberal-hyper-financialization-hyper-globalization model has already occurred. If Black Friday is a bust, it may be a harbinger of what the mainstream has long considered impossible: the American consumer is well and truly tapped out, eviscerated by inflation and disgusted by rampant greedflation. It may also reflect a growing awareness of some of the populace that splurging with zero savings is not a stress-free strategy, and not worth the financial anxiety."

"Gaza - A Pause Before The Storm"

"Gaza - A Pause Before The Storm"
by Pepe Escobar 

"The US and its allies will continue backing Israel's war on Gaza after a brief truce. But as the case for 'genocide' grows stronger, the new multipolar powers will have to confront the old hegemons and their Rules-Based Chaos.

While the world cries “Israeli genocide,” the Biden White House is gushing over the upcoming Gaza truce it helped broker, as though it's actually “on the verge” of its “biggest diplomatic victory.” Behind the self-congratulatory narratives, the US administration is not remotely “wary about Netanyahu’s endgame,” it fully endorses it - genocide included - as agreed at the White House less than three weeks before Al-Aqsa Flood, in a 20 September meeting between Israeli President Benjamin Netanyahu and Joe “The Mummy” Biden’s handlers.

The US/Qatar-brokered “truce,” which is supposed to go into effect this week, is not a ceasefire. It is a PR move to soften Israel's genocide and boost its morale by securing the release of a few dozen captives. Moreover, the record shows that Israel never respects ceasefires.

Predictably, what really worries the US administration is the “unintended consequence” of the truce, which will “allow journalists broader access to Gaza and the opportunity to further illuminate the devastation there and turn public opinion on Israel.” Real journalists have been working in Gaza 24/7 since October 7 – dozens of whom have been killed by the Israeli military machine in what Reporters Sans Frontieres calls “one of the deadliest tolls in a century.” These journalists have spared no effort to go all the way to “illuminate the devastation,” a euphemism for the ongoing genocide, shown in all its gruesome detail for the entire world to see.

Even the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine (UNRWA), itself relentlessly attacked by Israel, revealed - somewhat meekly - that this has been “the largest displacement since 1948,” an "exodus" of the Palestinian population, with the younger generation “forced to live through traumas of ancestors or parents.”

As for public opinion all across the Global South/Global Majority, it “turned” long ago on Zionist extremism. But now the Global Minority - populations of the collective west - are watching raptly, horrified, and bitter that in just six weeks, social media has exposed them to what mainstream media hid for decades. There will be no turning back now that this penny has dropped.

A former Apartheid state leads the way: The South African government has paved the path, globally, for the proper reaction to an unfolding genocide: parliament voted to shutter the Israeli embassy, expel the Israeli ambassador, and cut diplomatic ties with Tel Aviv. South Africans do know a thing or two about apartheid.

They, like other critics of Israel, better be extra wary moving forward. Anything can be expected: an outbreak of foreign intel-conducted “terra terra terra” false flags, artificially induced weather calamities, fake “human rights abuse” charges, the collapse of the national currency, the rand, instances of lawfare, assorted Atlanticist apoplexy, sabotage of energy infrastructure. And more.

Several nations should have by now invoked the Genocide Convention - given that Israeli politicians and officials have been bragging, on the record, about razing Gaza and besieging, starving, killing, and mass-transferring its Palestinian population. No geopolitical actor has dared thus far. South Africa, for its part, had the courage to go where few Muslim and Arab states have ventured. As matters stand, when it comes to much of the Arab world - particularly the US client states - they are still in Rhetorical Swamp territory.

The Qatar-brokered “truce” came at precisely the right time for Washington. It stole the spotlight from the delegation of Islamic/Arab foreign ministers touring selected capitals to promote their plan for a complete Gaza ceasefire in Gaza - plus negotiations for an independent Palestinian state.

This Gaza Contact Group, uniting Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, Turkey, Indonesia, Nigeria, and Palestine, made their first stop in Beijing, meeting with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, and then on to Moscow, meeting with Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov. That was definitely an instance of BRICS 11 already in action – even before they started business on January 1st, 2024, under the Russian presidency.

The meeting with Lavrov in Moscow was held simultaneously with an extraordinary online BRICS session on Palestine, called by the current South African presidency. Iran’s President Ebrahim Raisi, whose country leads the region's Axis of Resistance and refuses any relations with Israel, supported the South African initiatives and called for BRICS member states to use every political and economic tool available to pressure Tel Aviv.

It was also important to hear from Chinese President Xi Jinping himself that “there can be no security in the Middle East without a just solution to the question of Palestine.” Xi stressed once again the need for “a two-state solution,” the “restoration of the legitimate national rights of Palestine,” and “the establishment of an independent state of Palestine." This should all start via an international conference.

None of this is enough at this stage - not this temporary truce, not the promise of a future negotiation. The US administration, itself struggling with an unexpected global backlash, at best, arm-wrestled Tel Aviv to enact a short “pause” in the genocide. This means the carnage continues after a few days. Had this truce been an actual “ceasefire,” in which all hostilities came to a halt and Israel's war machine disengaged from the Gaza Strip entirely, the next-day options would still be pretty dismal. Realpolitik practitioner John Mearsheimer already cut to the chase: a negotiated solution for Israel-Palestine is impossible.

It takes a cursory glance at the current map to graphically demonstrate how the two-state solution – advocated by everyone from China-Russia to much of the Arab world – is dead. A collection of isolated Bantustans can never coalesce as a state.

Let’s grab all their gas: There has been thundering noise all across the spectrum that with the advent of the petroyuan getting closer and closer, the Americans badly need Eastern Mediterranean energy bought and sold in US dollars – including the vast gas reserves off the Gaza coastline. Enter the US administration's energy security advisor, deployed to Israel to “discuss potential economic revitalization plans for Gaza centered around undeveloped offshore natural gas fields:" what a lovely euphemism.

But while Gaza's gas is indeed a crucial vector, Gaza, the territory, is a nuisance. What really matters for Tel Aviv is to confiscate all Palestinian gas reserves and allot them to future preferential clients: the EU.

Enter the India-Middle East Corridor(IMEC) - actually the EU-Israel-Saudi Arabia-Emirates-India Corridor - conceived by Washington as the perfect vehicle for Israel to become an energy crossroads power. It fancifully imagines a US-Israel energy partnership trading in US dollars – simultaneously replacing Russian energy to the EU and halting a possible export increase of Iran's energy to Europe.

We return to the 21st century's main chessboard here: the Hegemon vs. BRICS. Beijing has had steady relations with Tel Aviv so far, with lavish investment in Israeli high-tech industries and infrastructure. But Israel's pounding of Gaza may change that picture: no real Sovereign can hedge when it comes to real genocide.

In parallel, whatever the Hegemon may come up with in its various hybrid and hot war scenarios against the BRICS, China, and its multi-trillion dollar Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), that will not alter Beijing’s rational and strategically formulated trajectory.

This analysis by Eric Li is all one needs to know about what lies ahead. Beijing has mapped out all relevant tech roads to follow in successive five-year plans, all the way to 2035. Under this framework, BRI should be considered a sort of geoeconomics UN without the G7. If you’re outside of BRI – and that concerns, to a large extent, old comprador systems and elites - you’re self-isolating from the Global South/Global Majority.

So what remains of this “pause” in Gaza? By next week, the western-backed cowards will restart their genocide against women and children, and they will not stop for a good long while. The Palestinian resistance and the 800,000 Palestinian civilians still living in northern Gaza - now surrounded on all sides by Israeli troops and armored vehicles - are proving that they are willing and able to bear the burden of fighting the Israeli oppressor, not only for Palestine but for everyone, everywhere, with a conscience.

Despite such a terrible price to be paid in blood, there will eventually be a reward: the slow but sure evisceration of the imperial construct in West Asia. No mainstream media narrative, no PR move to soften the genocide, no containment of “public opinion turning on Israel” can ever cover the serial war crimes perpetrated by Israel and its allies in Gaza. Perhaps this is just what the Doctor – metaphysical and otherwise - ordered for mankind: an imperative global tragedy, to be witnessed by all, that will also transform us all."

"Middle East Crisis, 11/25/23"

Full screen recommended.
Col. Douglas Macgregor, 11/25/23
"US Can't Save Israel In A Regional War, 
Iran And Turkey Will Destroy Them"
Comments here:
o
Full screen recommended.
Scott Ritter, 11/25/23
"IDF Is Soft Militarily, Cannot Beat Hamas 
With US Technological Superiority"
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Full screen recommended.
OpenmindedThinker Show,11/25/23
"Revenge! Hezbollah Escalates Rocket 
Attacks on Israel Amidst Ceasefire"
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Full screen recommended.
OpenmindedThinker Show, 11/25/23
"Panic In Israel; First Western Nation Hits 
Israel With Biggest Sanction"
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Full screen recommended.
"China, Iran & Russia Warn US To Stop Israel In Gaza!"
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Friday, November 24, 2023

Jeremiah Babe, "Black Friday: Debt Is Enslaving The Masses"

Jeremiah Babe, 11/24/23
"Black Friday: Debt Is Enslaving The Masses
Living Big On Credit Card Enables Shopping Addiction"
Comments here:

Dan, I Allegedly, "Black Friday Is A Bust"

Full screen recommended.
Dan, I Allegedly, 11/24/23
"Black Friday Is A Bust"
"Black Friday was a total bust, people have no money."
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Musical Interlude: Il Divo, "Wicked Game"

Full screen recommended.
Il Divo, "Wicked Game" ("Melanconia") 
Live In London 2011 

"A Look to the Heavens"

"Grand design spiral galaxy Messier 99 looks majestic on a truly cosmic scale. This recently processed full galaxy portrait stretches over 70,000 light-years across M99. The sharp view is a combination of ultraviolet, visible, and infrared image data from the Hubble Space Telescope.
About 50 million light-years distant toward the well-groomed constellation Coma Bernices, the face-on spiral is a member of the nearby Virgo Galaxy Cluster. Also cataloged as NGC 4254, a close encounter with another Virgo cluster member has likely influenced the shape of its well-defined, blue spiral arms."
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"Everything passes away - suffering, pain, blood, hunger, pestilence. The sword will pass away too, but the stars will still remain when the shadows of our presence and our deeds have vanished from the earth. There is no man who does not know that. Why, then, will we not turn our eyes towards the stars? Why?"
- Mikhail Bulgakov, "The White Guard"