Tuesday, December 26, 2023

Adventures With Danno, "Get Ready...It's Over!"

Adventures With Danno, PM 12/26/23
"Get Ready...It's Over!"
"Events that are going to cause more food items to become unaffordable, and continue to see significant food shortages as we head into 2024! These issues are becoming a terrible reality, and we have to prepare accordingly!"
Comments here:

Musical Interlude: Disturbed, "The Sound Of Silence"

Full screen recommended.
Disturbed, "The Sound Of Silence", Studio version.
Singer: David Draiman
958 million views.

Full screen recommended.
Disturbed, "The Sound Of Silence", Live version.
142 million views.

"A Look to the Heavens"

"Have you ever seen the Pleiades star cluster? Even if you have, you probably have never seen it as large and clear as this. Perhaps the most famous star cluster on the sky, the bright stars of the Pleiades can be seen without binoculars from even the depths of a light-polluted city. With a long exposure from a dark location, though, the dust cloud surrounding the Pleiades star cluster becomes very evident.
The featured exposure covers a sky area several times the size of the full moon. Also known as the Seven Sisters and M45, the Pleiades lies about 400 light years away toward the constellation of the Bull (Taurus). A common legend with a modern twist is that one of the brighter stars faded since the cluster was named, leaving only six of the sister stars visible to the unaided eye. The actual number of Pleiades stars visible, however, may be more or less than seven, depending on the darkness of the surrounding sky and the clarity of the observer's eyesight." - https://apod.nasa.gov/

"Each Must Decide For Himself..."

“Each must for himself alone decide what is right and what is wrong, and which course is patriotic and which isn’t. You cannot shirk this and be a man. To decide against your convictions is to be an unqualified and inexcusable traitor, both to yourself and to your country, let men label you as they may. If you alone of all the nation shall decide one way, and that way be the right way according to your convictions of the right, you have done your duty by yourself and by your country – hold up your head! You have nothing to be ashamed of.”
- Mark Twain

"I Have Accepted The Fact..."

"One can fight evil but against stupidity one is helpless. I have accepted the fact, hard as it may be, that human beings are inclined to behave in ways that would make animals blush. The ironic, the tragic thing is that we often behave in ignoble fashion from what we consider the highest motives. The animal makes no excuse for killing his prey; the human animal, on the other hand, can invoke God's blessing when massacring his fellow men. He forgets that God is not on his side but at his side."

 "There is no salvation in becoming adapted to a world which is crazy."
- Henry Miller

Paulo Coelho, "Walking the Path"

"Walking the Path"
by Paulo Coelho

"I reckon that it takes about three minutes to read my text. Well, according to statistics, in that same short period of time 300 people will die and another 620 will be born. It takes me perhaps half an hour to write a text: here I sit, concentrating on my computer, books piled up beside me, ideas in my head, the scenery passing by outside my window. Everything seems perfectly normal all around me; and yet, during these thirty minutes, 3,000 people have died and 6,200 have just seen the light of the world for the first time.

Where are all those thousands of families who have just begun to weep over the loss of some dear one, or else laugh at the arrival of a son, grandson or brother? I stop and reflect for a while: perhaps many of these deaths are reaching the end of a long, painful sickness, and some persons are relieved that the Angel has come for them. Besides these, in all certainty hundreds of children who have just been born will be abandoned in a minute and transferred to the death statistics before I finish this text.

What a thought! A simple statistic that I came upon by chance – and all of a sudden I can feel all those losses and encounters, smiles and tears. How many are leaving this life, alone in their rooms, without anyone realizing what is going on? How many will be born in secret, only to be abandoned at the door of shelters or convents? And then I reflect that I was part of the birth statistics and one day I will be included in the toll of the dead. How good that is to be fully aware that I am going to die. Ever since I took the road to Santiago I have understood that although life goes on and we are eternal, one day this existence will come to an end.

People think very little about death. They spend their lives worried about really absurd things, putting things off and leaving important moments aside. They risk nothing because they believe that is dangerous. They grumble a lot, but act like cowards when it is time to take certain steps. They want everything to change, but they themselves refuse to change. If they thought a little more about death, they would never fail to make that telephone call that they have been putting off. They would be a little more crazy. They would not be afraid of the end of this incarnation – because you cannot be afraid of something that is going to happen anyway.

The Indians say: “Today is as good a day as any other to leave this world”. And a sorcerer once remarked: “May death be always sitting beside you. That way, when you have to do something important, it will give you the strength and courage you need.” I hope, reader, that you have accompanied me this far. It would be silly to let the subject scare you, because sooner or later we are all going to die. And only those who accept this are prepared for life."

"We All Know..."

"We all know that something is eternal. And it ain't houses and it ain't names, and it ain't earth, and it ain't even the stars... everybody knows in their bones that something is eternal, and that something has to do with human beings. All the greatest people ever lived have been telling us that for five thousand years and yet you'd be surprised how people are always losing hold of it. There's something way down deep that's eternal about every human being."
- Thornton Wilder

The Daily "Near You?"

Oranjestad, Aruba. Thanks for stopping by!

“Al Swearengen's Take On Life"

Strong language alert!
"In life you have to do a lot of things you don't ****ing want to do.
Many times, that's what the **** life is... one vile ****ing task after another.
But don't get aggravated, then the enemy has you by the short hair."
Strong language alert!
"Pain or damage don't end the world, or despair or f***ing beatings.
The world ends when you’re dead. Until then you got more punishment
in store. Stand it like a man, and give some back.”
- “Al Swearengen”, Ian McShane’s character on “Deadwood”

"This Year, Americans Have Become Hungrier, Lonelier And More Desperate"

"This Year, Americans Have Become 
Hungrier, Lonelier And More Desperate"
by Michael Snyder

"The ominous trends that we see all around us are taking us somewhere. Needless to say, 2023 was not a good year for our country. Hunger and homelessness have been absolutely exploding, the suicide rate just continues to go even higher, and there is chaos in the streets on an almost nightly basis. It is in this environment that the election of 2024 will happen. I expect election season to add an additional level of strain to our society, and I don’t think that our society will be able to handle it. We are headed for a nightmare, and at this point everyone should be able to see that.

When conditions deteriorate, it is often those at the bottom of the economic food chain that feel it first. And right now food banks all over the nation are dealing with a tsunami of hunger… "Food bank leaders from all corners of the country tell USA TODAY their neighborhood pantries are serving more people while using less resources, as economic pressures continue to ravage the budgets of low-income Americans and service providers alike. Since pandemic-era boosts to government food aid ended earlier this year in many states, families are turning to food banks to close a gap in need that feels like it has no end in sight.

Susannah Morgan, the president of Oregon Food Bank, says that she is literally witnessing “the worst rate of hunger in my career”…“This is the worst rate of hunger in my career,” said Morgan, who has worked at food banks in Boston, San Francisco and Anchorage, Alaska. “It’s so large, it’s hard to wrap your head around.”

I don’t know what I have to do to convince some people that things really are this bad. I keep sharing fact after fact in my articles, but some people out there are just not convinced. One out of every five children in the U.S. does not have enough food to eat, but the reality of the suffering that is now taking place just isn’t sinking in for many of those that are still living the high life.

Meanwhile, homelessness in the U.S. is increasing at the fastest rate ever recorded…"The United States experienced a dramatic 12 percent increase in homelessness as soaring rents and a decline in coronavirus pandemic assistance combined to put housing out of reach for more Americans, federal officials said Friday. About 653,000 people were experiencing homelessness during the January snapshot. That’s the highest number since the country began using the yearly point-in-time survey in 2007 to count the homeless population."

There are many out there that feel that such people need to “get a job” or “work harder”, but the truth is that most Americans are living on the verge of economic disaster because most Americans are living paycheck to paycheck.

At the same time, Americans continue to get even lonelier. According to USA Today, “Americans are lonely and it’s killing them”, and at this point things are so bad that this crisis is being called “a new epidemic”…"America has a new epidemic. It can’t be treated using traditional therapies even though it has debilitating and even deadly consequences. The problem seeping in at the corners of our communities is loneliness and U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy is hoping to generate awareness and offer remedies before it claims more lives. “Most of us probably think of loneliness as just a bad feeling,” he told USA TODAY. “It turns out that loneliness has far greater implications for our health when we struggle with a sense of social disconnection, being lonely or isolated.”

It is especially bad during this time of the year. There are so many people out there that are deeply, deeply hurting because they are so lonely. They are trying their best to face a world that has gone completely mad, but that can be really difficult to do when you don’t have anyone to lean on for support.

Speaking of a world gone mad, retail theft has absolutely skyrocketed in many of our largest cities since 2019…"Crime-ridden New York City has seen the biggest impact with a 64 percent increase in retail theft, followed by Los Angeles with a 61 percent jump and Virginia Beach, Virginia, which has seen a 44 percent rise."

Each month, more Americans are descending into poverty and more Americans are turning to crime. And it certainly doesn’t help that vast hordes of illegal immigrants are constantly being added to the mix. Chaos in the streets has become an almost constant state of affairs in this country, and this year in Oakland there was even rioting on Christmas Eve.

Of course our leaders continue to exist in a bubble where none of these problems constitutes a serious crisis. To them, everything must be just fine because they are doing such a wonderful job. When he was recently confronted about the reality of the economic crisis that we are now facing, Joe Biden bluntly told the press to “start reporting it the right way.”  "President Biden criticized news coverage of the U.S. economy as he faces growing backlash from voters over his handling of inflation.

In brief remarks Saturday before boarding the presidential helicopter, Biden expressed confidence in the economy and ripped the reporters for the way it has been portrayed. “All good. Take a look. Start reporting it the right way,” Biden said when asked about his economic outlook for 2024, according to a transcript released Sunday by the White House. He wants the press to continue to spin things in a way that will make him look good as they always have done in the past. But we have reached a stage where all of the charades are finally crumbling.

Conditions are bad now, and they are going to get even worse in 2024. So brace yourself for what is ahead, because we are going to experience so much chaos during the year that is in front of us."
o
Oh, but we have $898 billion for the "Defense" Dept., $200 billion for Ukraine, our national debt is $33.7 trillion while the government borrows and spends $33 billion per day it doesn't have... and 1 in 5 children in the United States of America goes hungry?! WTF! As a society, as a country, we are literally insane...

Dan, I Allegedly, "Laws You Won’t Believe Are Real"

Full screen recommended.
Dan, I Allegedly 12/26/23
"Laws You Won’t Believe Are Real"
"The state of New York just announced that you can no longer cook on a charcoal grill as of 2024. This got me thinking what other crazy laws are out there? There are some great articles below that cover everything."
Comments, articles list here:

"On Cooperation and Win-Win"

"On Cooperation and Win-Win"
by Bill Bonner

“A physician cannot heal the sick if he is ignorant of the causes of certain conditions of the body, nor can a statesman help his fellow citizens if he cannot follow how, why or by what process each event had developed.” - Polybius

At one point in his short life, Jesus was invited to take control of government. Political power... the power to force win lose deals on others... was offered to Him.

"Luke 4:5–8: 5 And the Devil taking him up into a high mountain, showed unto him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time . . .

6 And the Devil said unto him, All this power will I give thee, and the glory of them: for that is delivered unto me; and to whomsoever I will give it.

7 If thou therefore wilt worship me, all shall be thine.

8 And Jesus answered and said unto him, Get thee behind me, Satan: for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve."

Who offers political power? The Devil himself! Not the voters. Not the aristocracy. Not God. Instead, the Devil says clearly that government is his to do with as he wishes. And if Jesus wants it, all He has to do is worship him who gave it to Him: Satan.

We’ve heard sermons of all sorts... in big cities... and in small country churches . . . high churches, low churches... Catholic, Baptist... and God-knows-what. Almost all the ministers, priests, and preachers we have heard from believe that God is good... and that He expects us to support good works, private and public. Often, they think they hear our political leaders speaking for God Himself. They think they hear Him telling us to back more government aid to unwed mothers, limits on carbon emissions, or more help for Native Americans. “We need to do this... or that...” they say, sounding a bit like an editorial in The Washington Post.

But there is no “we” in the Gospel. No appeal to special interests or to the common good...or to collective justice, shared virtue, patriotism, or social economy. No tribes. No sects. No flags. No creeds. No political parties. Neither Pharisee nor Sadducee. There is only the unique person... the individual, alone... with his God.

Only once, in a little country church in Normandy, France, did a priest take up this insight: “God doesn’t ask you to change the world,” he said. “He asks you to do something much more difficult - to change yourself.”

It is difficult because you are changing your own software...updating programming that has been in place for thousands of years. Of course, it is much easier to ask somebody else to change. Change his religion! Change his behavior! Change his government! Change the way he spends his money...the way he treats his wife... the way he drinks... the way he works! Make his women take off the hijab. Make his men say the Hail Mary.

But wait. What if he doesn’t want to change? He’ll bristle at higher taxes. He’ll whine and complain about new regulations. He’ll want to keep his old gods. He’ll resist your grand projects for a better world. Marching to Moscow in the winter isn’t in his plan. Nor is living in a godforsaken slum simply because the party bosses say so. What to do? What would Attila or Adolph do? Force him to On Cooperation and Win-Win 61 do what you want! You know what’s best for him. You know what’s best for the world. Force him to do it!

Jesus knew it wouldn’t work. He never suggested that the Roman rulers should take care of the poor. He never hinted that it was Pontius Pilate’s responsibility to look after the cripples of Judea or to fix the price of lamb on behalf of Jewish shepherds. In his Parable of the Good Samaritan, a traveler was beaten, stripped of his clothes, and left for dead beside the road. He wasn’t rescued by the army... or by the tax collectors... nor by the social welfare agencies of the time. Even the priest walked by. Instead, it was a Samaritan - a member of a group with whom Jews enjoyed a mutual contempt - who helped him.

This story was told by Jesus in response to a question. When told that one should “love thy neighbor,” a lawyer asked: “But who is my neighbor?” “Who’s ‘we’?” he might have asked.

Jesus explained that it had nothing to do with group affiliation or group responsibility... or the “common good”... or the good government can do with central planning and elite, expert guidance. It didn’t matter what race, creed, religion, or gender box you checked. “Loving thy neighbor” was a radical idea at the time, a major software update. It still is radical. It suggests, to many, that the whole edifice of Christian morality is built on love. Our own guess is that it stands on a more solid foundation - two sturdy pillars: fear and self-interest. But either way, the responsibility is squarely on the individual, not on the group.

This new religion did much more than announce a “moral code” or a “good idea.” It also described the transactions of a modern, growth economy and anticipated the codes of modern civilization. “Do unto others...” turned out to be a capitalist manifesto.

There are only two kinds of deals: cooperative, voluntary deals... or deals made at the point of a gun. In a fixed, non-growth economy, violence is almost the only way to get ahead. The idea was, you can only get more by taking market share from someone else. That was why murder and theft were so common in the ancient world; there were few alternatives available to the ambitious person.

Back then, the idea of the “common good” made sense. Tribal life was, perforce, collective. The “common” good was the good of the tribe. Ethnologist Richard Dawkins describes a human being as a “survival machine” for our genes. But it is more likely that the tribe was the survival machine. The individual was simply a detachable part. The tribe carried a group of genes. Individuals were expendable. The tribe was not.

The “common good” was not universal. That is why the Old Testament is focused on a tribe -the Jews - and its progress. The tribe could benefit, for example, by exterminating a rival tribe. It could benefit by pushing another tribe away from its prime hunting grounds, or by capturing its young women in a raid. Wealth was limited. Generally, it couldn’t be increased. It could only be moved from one tribe to another.

There was little opportunity for an individual to realize any “progress” of his own or pursue happiness in his own way. He could hunt. He could gather. He could fight. He could pass along his genes to a new generation. What he thought probably didn’t matter much. What he wanted probably never came up in conversation. It was probably very rare for tribe members to sit around the campfire and discuss their eating disorders, their political preferences, or their career aspirations. The individual didn’t count for much.

Modern, extended societies sometimes slip back into tribal thinking. “Ein Volk, ein Reich, ein Führer,” as Hitler famously put it. The idea was simple enough - he would treat the German people as though they were “we,” members of the same tribe with a “common good” that could be had by following their leader.

There was one Reich (government), but there were many different Volk (people) in Germany. But while the “we” of a prehistoric tribe was natural, authentic, and could benefit from the win-lose protocols of a zero-sum world, the “we” of Nazi Germany was fake. Needless to say, not all Germans shared the same enthusiasm for the success of the master race. Eventually, almost all of them - Jews, Gypsies, and Nazi Party members, too - came to detest it, as they suffered from trying to insist on win-lose deals in what had essentially become a win-win world."

"How It Really Is"

 

"Alas, regardless of their doom, the little victims play!
No sense have they of ills to come, nor care beyond today.”
- Thomas Gray,
“Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College”
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/

"Heaven and 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.
o
John Milton, 
o
“Hell is empty and all the devils are here.”
- William Shakespeare, "The Tempest"

"Israeli Bombing of Gaza Ranks Among 'Most Devastating' in History"

"Israeli Bombing of Gaza Ranks 
Among 'Most Devastating' in History"
by Brett Wilkins

"As the Palestinian death toll from Israel's 10-week annihilation of the Gaza Strip passed 20,000, warfare experts said this weekend that the retaliatory campaign ranks among the deadliest and most destructive in modern history.

Gaza health officials said Friday that 390 Palestinians were killed and 734 others wounded in the besieged strip over the previous 48 hours, driving the death toll from 77 days of near-relentless Israeli attacks to 20,057, with another 53,320 people injured. More than 6,000 women and over 8,000 children have been killed - approximately 70% of all fatalities. That's more than twice the number of civilians - and over 14 times as many children - as Russian forces have killed in Ukraine since February 2022.

Thousands more Palestinians are missing and feared buried beneath the rubble of the hundreds of thousands of buildings destroyed or damaged by Israeli bombardment. "The scale of Palestinian civilian deaths in such a short period of time appears to be the highest such civilian casualty rate in the 21st century," Michael Lynk, who served as the United Nations special rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian territories from 2016 to 2022, toldThe Washington Post on Saturday.

Robert Pape, a U.S. military historian and University of Chicago professor, toldThe Associated Press that "Gaza is one of the most intense civilian punishment campaigns in history." "It now sits comfortably in the top quartile of the most devastating bombing campaigns ever," he added. By comparison, the 2017 U.S.-led coalition battle for Mosul, Iraq during the war against the so-called Islamic State - widely viewed as among the most intense urban assaults in recent decades - killed approximately 10,000 civilians, around a third of them from aerial bombardment.

Pape said that by some measures, Israel's bombing of Gaza is surpassing the Allied "terror bombing" of German cities during World War II. He noted that U.S. and U.K. airstrikes obliterated about 40-50% of the urban areas of the 51 German cities bombed between 1942-45, and that around 10% of all buildings in Germany were destroyed. In Gaza, approximately 1 in 3 buildings have been destroyed. In northern Gaza, over two-thirds of all buildings have been leveled. "Gaza is now a different color from space. It's a different texture," Corey Scher, who studies natural disasters and wars using satellite remote sensing at the City University of New York's Graduate Center, told the AP.

Experts point to the types of munitions being used by Israeli forces as a major reason why so many Gazans are being killed and injured. These include U.S.-supplied 1,000-pound and 2,000-pound guided "bunker-buster" bombs, which Israel says are necessary to target Hamas' underground tunnels. These massive bombs turn "earth to liquid," Marc Garlasco, a former Pentagon defense official and war crimes investigator for the United Nations, told the AP. "It pancakes entire buildings." Garlasco said that 2,000-pound bombs mean "instant death" for anyone within about 100 feet of the blast, with shrapnel posing a deadly danger for people up to 1,200 feet away.

In a separate interview with CNN, Gerlasco said that the intensity of Israel's bombardment of Gaza has "not been seen since Vietnam," when U.S. airstrikes killed up to hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese, Cambodians, and Laotians. The U.S. dropped more bombs on tiny, non-belligerent Laos than all sides combined unleashed during World War II. "You'd have to go back to the Vietnam War to make a comparison," Garlasco added. "Even in both Iraq wars, it was never that dense."

The use of such heavy ordnance in close proximity to critical civilian infrastructure like hospitals has alarmed observers. "What we have been witnessing is a campaign that was planned, it was a plan, definitely, to close down all the hospitals in the north," Léo Cans, head of mission for Palestine with Doctors Without Borders, told the Post.

Aided by AI-based target selection systems, Israel Defense Forces (IDF) commanders are approving bombings they know will cause large numbers of civilian casualties. In a bid to assassinate a single Hamas commander, the IDF dropped at least two 2,000-pound bombs on the densely populated Jabalia refugee camp on October 31, killing more than 120 civilians.

Although the United States - which has killed more foreign civilians this century than any other armed force in the world - provides Israel with thousands of 1,000 and 2,000-pound bombs, its own military avoids using such massive ordnance in civilian areas due to the devastation they cause. "It certainly appears that [Israel's] tolerance for civilian harm compared to expected operational benefits is significantly different than what we would accept as the U.S.," Larry Lewis, research director at the Center for Naval Analyses and a former U.S. State Department senior adviser on civilian harm, told CNN. That includes the risk of killing Israel's own citizens and others held hostage by Hamas in Gaza.

Lewis added that the Jabalia strike was "something we would never see the U.S. doing." That isn't entirely true; during the 1991 Gulf War the U.S. dropped a pair of 2,000-pound Raytheon GBU-27 Paveway III laser-guided bombs on the Amiriyah air raid shelter in Baghdad, killing at least 408 Iraqi civilians in one of the deadliest single airstrikes in modern history. U.S. officials claimed they thought the shelter, which was used during the Iraq-Iran war, was no longer a civilian facility.

"The use of 2,000-pound bombs in an area as densely populated as Gaza means it will take decades for communities to recover," John Chappell, advocacy and legal fellow at the Washington, D.C.-based advocacy group Center for Civilians in Conflict, told CNN. Even more concerning for some experts is Israel's use of unguided, or "dumb" bombs, against civilian targets in Gaza. While IDF spokesman Daniel Hagari said that "we choose the right munition for each target so it doesn't cause unnecessary damage," the death and destruction in Gaza - and Israeli officials' own words - tell an entirely different story.

Early in the war, Hagari declared that "Gaza will never return to what it was," clarifying that "the emphasis is on damage and not on accuracy." Meanwhile, numerous Israeli officials advocated the complete destruction of Gaza, with more than a few government figures -including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other Cabinet members - making statements supporting genocide against the Palestinian people.

U.S. President Joe Biden - who has affirmed his "unwavering" support for Israel and is seeking $14.3 billion in additional military aid for the country, which already gets almost $4 billion annually from Washington - has implored Israeli leaders to stop the "indiscriminate" bombing of Gaza, even as his administration thwarts international cease-fire efforts and restocks the IDF's arsenal. Chappell stressed that "the devastation that we've seen for communities in Gaza is, unfortunately, co-signed by the United States." "Too much of it is carried out by bombs that were made in the United States," he added.

Ahmed Abofoul—a Gaza-born, Netherlands-based attorney with ‎the Palestinian human rights organization Al-Haq who has lost 60 of his relatives to Israeli bombing - said in Friday interview with Democracy Now! that "the American government is complicit in this genocide." "There is blood of Palestinian children on their hands," he added. [Biden] said Israel is engaged in indiscriminate bombing. This is a war crime. So, the question is: Why do you then send weapons to Israel? The position of the U.S. is quite hypocritical."
o
"He who passively accepts evil is as much involved in it as he who helps to perpetrate it. 
He who accepts evil without protesting against it is really cooperating with it." 
-  Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
o
And YOU, Americans, are paying for all this!
Full screen recommended.
Scott Ritter, 12/26/23
"Biden Gave Israel Green Light To Kill As 
Many As Possible & Houthis Are Stopping It"
Comments here:
o
A comments: Hell is not hot enough, and eternity is not long enough for the genocidal monsters doing this, and anyone who supports it. God damn them to Hell! These degenerate creatures are NOT human beings! And you, Netanyahu, you said Beurit will become Gaza if Hezbollah intervenes. Look at the graphic about, that's what Tel Aviv will be... - CP

"Gladness and Silence Amid Chaos and Violence" (Excerpt)

"Gladness and Silence Amid Chaos and Violence"
By Doug “Uncola” Lynn

"The line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either - but right through every human heart - and through all human hearts."
- Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, "The Gulag Archipelago", 1918–1956

"Come, I will show you the punishment of the great prostitute, who sits by many waters. With her the kings of the earth committed adultery, and the inhabitants of the earth were intoxicated with the wine of her adulteries.
… The woman was dressed in purple and scarlet, and was glittering with gold, precious stones and pearls. She held a golden cup in her hand, filled with abominable things and the filth of her adulteries. The name written on her forehead was a mystery: Babylon the Great, the mother of prostitutes, and of the abominations of the earth."
- Revelation 17:1-5

"I had been emotionally involved a few times with women with enough of a record of promiscuity to make me vaguely uneasy. It is difficult to put much value on something the lady has distributed all too generously. I have the feeling there is some mysterious quota, which varies with each woman. And whether she gives herself or sells herself, once she reaches her own number, once X pairs of hungry hands have been clamped rightly upon her rounded undersides, she suffers a sea change wherein her juices alter from honey to acid, her eyes change to glass, her heart becomes a stone, and her mouth a windy cave from whence, with each moisturous gasping, comes a tiny stink of death."
- MacDonald, John D., “Darker Than Amber”

Excerpt: "We live in an age of wizards and whores where souls are sold in the pursuit of material pleasures. Time-honored principles have been traded for profit and power as lawlessness intensifies. The word “mystery” is defined as “something not understood or beyond understanding” or, in a religious sense: “truth that one can know only by revelation and cannot fully understand”. This would imply more than simply not knowing. A mystery can be that which exceeds human understanding.

There is a saying I’ve heard over and over in my life that has… for the most part… been stated by older men with whom I’ve been related and/or acquainted: “The older I get, the less I know”. I can’t recall ever hearing a woman make that statement; perhaps because they know it all already (wink, wink). But, seriously, I speculate that assertion is made by men more often than women, because, when younger, we males tended to consider ourselves as invincible. However, over time, the experience of life engenders humility.

In my youth, I never would have predicted a doomsday scenario where vaccines would be used to simultaneously kill and maim the sheep while rendering the shepherds powerless or, worse, turning them into wolves. The wolves are devouring the weakest of the herd, and they now gather for a final feast. They won’t be bargained with, because they have forfeited their very souls. There is nothing left within them to petition or persuade. Their eyes have turned to glass, their hearts have become stone, and they breathe death. They lurk in the shadows of “good intentions”, “following orders”, and plausible deniability and they are magically controlled by wizards that are safely ensconced high above the pack, out of reach; and behind armed security.

My 81-year-old mother-in-law suffered a stroke after Thanksgiving and my life has been hectic since. Like so many people I know, the wizard’s fearful spell caused her to trust Fauci, the experts, and Trump before she received two Moderna shots. She failed to heed the warnings of my wife and me and… within weeks of her second shot... my wife took her mom to the emergency room on two separate occasions for nosebleeds that wouldn’t stop. I would guess the shots caused her stroke but she had a stroke prior, in 2019. The first one diminished her vocabulary along with moderate memory loss but both afflictions appeared to accelerate after being vaccinated against Covid. Or, maybe it was merely the result of old age. How can one know for sure? I suspect the ever-generated spike protein aggravates and augments the negative consequences of pre-existing conditions, but I can’t prove anything. She remains in skilled care.

My mother-in-law’s mother lived well into her nineties and refused to leave her farm in her dotage. My mother-in-law inherited the same farmwife stubbornness… I mean… independent spirit yet she may not be able to live on her farm, even with abundant family and medical assistance. I always thought my mother-in-law would be an asset during the apocalypse. She has her allegorical “black belt” in all of the old ways: Canning, sewing, gardening, cooking, baking, etc. Although my wife acquired these as well, she is minus the extra decades of experience as a daily practitioner.

Growing old and failing physically can serve as a metaphor for a dying society: Just as aging organs revolt against the body via malfunction and decay, so does civilization descend into decadence and degeneration until the center no longer holds. Moreover, when systems break down, individual autonomy is lost as those in authority prioritize safety over liberty.

Just as my mother-in-law has lost autonomy as her physical body fails, so, too, will once-free people lose their liberty as civilization collapses into Central Bank Digital Currency, digital identity, the WHO Global Pandemic Treaty, and the United Nations’ Agenda 2030 mandates – all for the well-being of humanity, of course. At this point, progress unfolds as a result of math; same as civilizations past. Although I understand the inevitabilities, it’s hard to know exactly what may happen next and when.

The older I get, the less I know."
Full, most highly recommended article is here:
o
Hat tip to The Burning Platform for this material.
o
Freely download "One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich"
 by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, here:

Freely download "The Gulag Archipelago"
 by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, here:

Adventures With Danno, "Food Recalls Everywhere!"

Adventures With Danno, 12/26/23
"Food Recalls Everywhere And Becoming 
A Huge Concern! This Is Ridiculous!"
"With food recalls happening almost daily now, there is growing concern on what is going on and how to fix this massive problem. We discuss these newest recalls and how we need to prepare for these in the future accordingly."
Comments here:

"Economic Market Snapshot 12/26/23"

"Economic Market Snapshot 12/26/23"
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

John Mearsheimer, "State Of Israel Is An 'Apartheid' State"

John Mearsheimer, 12/24/23
"State Of Israel Is An 'Apartheid' State & 
Should Not Be Allowed To Exist"
Comments here:

Monday, December 25, 2023

Scott Ritter, "Yemen Just Changed Everything and Israel, Neocons Are Stunned"

Full screen recommended.
Scott Ritter, 12/25/23
"Yemen Just Changed Everything 
and Israel, Neocons Are Stunned"
Comments here:

Jeremiah Babe, "Netflix Movie Review: 'Leave The World Behind"

Jeremiah Babe, 12/25/23
"Netflix Movie Review: 'Leave The World Behind'; 
Get Ready, Something Is Going To Happen"
Comments here:

Canadian Prepper, "Alert! Netanyahu In Bunker; Mass Power Outage; Assassination Of Top Iranian General! Cyberattack"

Full screen recommended.
Canadian Prepper, 12/25/23
"Alert! Netanyahu In Bunker; Mass Power Outage; 
Assassination Of Top Iranian General! Cyberattack"
Comments here:

Musical Interlude: Two Steps From Hell, "Downstream"

Full screen recommended.
Two Steps From Hell, "Downstream"

“... and tho'
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven; that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.”
- Alfred, Lord Tennyson, "Ulysses"

"A Look to the Heavens"

“While drifting through the cosmos, a magnificent interstellar dust cloud became sculpted by stellar winds and radiation to assume a recognizable shape. Fittingly named the Horsehead Nebula, it is embedded in the vast and complex Orion Nebula (M42). A potentially rewarding but difficult object to view personally with a small telescope, the above gorgeously detailed image was recently taken in infrared light by the orbiting Hubble Space Telescope in honor of the 23rd anniversary of Hubble's launch.
The dark molecular cloud, roughly 1,500 light years distant, is cataloged as Barnard 33 and is seen above primarily because it is backlit by the nearby massive star Sigma Orionis. The Horsehead Nebula will slowly shift its apparent shape over the next few million years and will eventually be destroyed by the high energy starlight.”

"Never, Ever Forget..."

"Never, ever forget that nothing in this life is free. Life demands payment in some form for your "right" to express yourself, to condemn and abuse the evil surrounding us. Expect to pay... it will come for you, they will come for you, regardless. Knowing that, give them Hell itself every chance you can. Expect no mercy, and give none. That's how life works. Be ready to pay for what you do, or be a coward, pretend you don't see, don't know, and cry bitter tears over how terrible things are, over how you let them become."
- Ernest Hemingway, "For Whom the Bell Tolls "

"There Are Many Things..."

“We have not overcome our condition, and yet we know it better. We know that we live in contradiction, but we also know that we must refuse this contradiction and do what is needed to reduce it. Our task as humans is to find the few principles that will calm the infinite anguish of free souls. We must mend what has been torn apart, make justice imaginable again in a world so obviously unjust, give happiness a meaning once more to peoples poisoned by the misery of the century. Naturally, it is a superhuman task. But superhuman is the term for tasks we take a long time to accomplish, that’s all.

Let us know our aims then, holding fast to the mind, even if force puts on a thoughtful or a comfortable face in order to seduce us. The first thing is not to despair. Let us not listen too much to those who proclaim that the world is at an end. Civilizations do not die so easily, and even if our world were to collapse, it would not have been the first. It is indeed true that we live in tragic times. But too many people confuse tragedy with despair. “Tragedy,” D.H. Lawrence said, “ought to be a great kick at misery.” This is a healthy and immediately applicable thought. There are many things today deserving such a kick.”
- Albert Camus