Monday, January 29, 2024

"Fourth Turning Meets Mass Formation Psychosis", Part 2

"Fourth Turning Meets Mass
 Formation Psychosis", Part 2 (Excerpt)
By Jim Quinn

Excerpt: "In Part 1 of this article, I laid out the mass formation psychosis theory postulated by Mattias Desmet in his book "The Psychology of Totalitarianism" and how totalitarian minded politicians and bureaucrats manipulated the masses by creating the covid crisis. Now I will focus on how this will impact the Fourth Turning we are currently trying to survive.
Decades of social indoctrination and degraded ability to think critically has left most people hopelessly unable to resist the vitriolic opinions of those under the spell of coronavirus mass formation. Even though they didn’t necessarily believe the covid narrative, especially when it became clear only the very old (especially when tyrant governors inserted infected patients into nursing homes) and the very obese actually died with covid, these people still went along. Even the CDC admitted only 6% of deaths were attributable to covid alone.

Based upon research like the Milgram Experiment, we know average people will obey authority without question, even when they know their actions are causing pain. The conformity research done by Solomon Asch explains why a huge percentage of the global population just conformed to what appeared to be a majority opinion. Asch’s experiment had 8 test subjects, but 7 of them worked for Asch. They asked them which line was the same length as Exhibit 1. The 7 Asch employees answered C. Only 25% of the case subjects consistently answered A. They were cowed into giving a patently absurd answer due to peer pressure and lack of faith in their own judgement.
When you have 30% of the population as true believers of the covidian religion, with their savior Fauci, prophets Walensky, Birx, Gottlieb, Biden, the pope, a slew of Big Pharma paid priests for hire, Hollywood elites, low IQ athletes, and a highly compensated mass media campaign of fear and loathing, the 40% in the middle really had no chance to not be pulled into the vortex of pandemia. From the outset they were inundated with data like Neal Ferguson’s Imperial College model of death. Putting up a scary chart, even though it was based on absurd assumptions, is considered fact by the lazy, non-thinking masses.

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

“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.”

"None Of You Seem To Understand..."

“A person who has not been completely alienated, who has remained sensitive and able to feel, who has not lost the sense of dignity, who is not yet ‘for sale’, who can still suffer over the suffering of others, who has not acquired fully the having mode of existence – briefly, a person who has remained a person and not become a thing – cannot help feeling lonely, powerless, isolated in present-day society. He cannot help doubting himself and his own convictions, if not his sanity.”
- Erich Fromm

The Daily "Near You?"

Chickasha, Oklahoma, USA. Thanks for stopping by!

"Knowing..."

“Knowing can be a curse on a person’s life. I’d traded in a pack of lies for a pack of truth, and I didn’t know which one was heavier. Which one took the most strength to carry around? It was a ridiculous question, though, because once you know the truth, you can’t ever go back and pick up your suitcase of lies. Heavier or not, the truth is yours now.”
- Sue Monk Kidd

"Are We On The Verge Of An Apocalyptic War With Iran?"

"Are We On The Verge Of An Apocalyptic War With Iran?"
by Michael Snyder

"U.S. lawmakers are calling for military strikes inside Iran in the aftermath of a horrific terror attack that left three U.S. service members dead and dozens wounded. So if the U.S. does hit targets inside Iranian territory, how will the Iranians respond? It is theoretically possible that they could back down, but I doubt it. All of the airstrikes that we have conducted so far against Iranian-backed terror groups in Iraq and Syria have not caused them to back down. And the airstrikes that we have hit the Houthis in Yemen with have not caused them to back down either. The truth is that the U.S. is already at war in the Middle East, and it appears that it could soon take an apocalyptic turn.

U.S. forces in the Middle East have been attacked time after time over the past couple of months, but Sunday’s attack was the first one that actually killed members of the U.S. military…"Three U.S. service members were killed and dozens may be wounded after an unmanned aerial drone attack on U.S. forces stationed in northeastern Jordan near the Syrian border, President Joe Biden and U.S. officials said on Sunday. Biden blamed Iran-backed groups for the attack, the first deadly strike against U.S. forces since the Israel-Hamas war erupted in October and sent shock waves throughout the Middle East."

It was just a matter of time before something like this happened. Overall, U.S. troops in Iraq and Syria have been attacked more than 150 times since October 17th…"Iranian-backed militias have mounted more that 150 attacks since Oct. 17 on bases occupied by U.S. troops in Iraq and Syria, according to the Pentagon. The majority of the attacks have been with rockets and one-way attack drones, most of which have been intercepted." When someone attacks your forces more than 150 times, you are at war with them. Anyone that thinks otherwise is just being delusional.

In response to Sunday’s attack, Joe Biden told the world that “we will hold all those responsible to account at a time and in a manner of our choosing”…“While we are still gathering the facts of this attack, we know it was carried out by radical Iran-backed militant groups operating in Syria and Iraq,” Biden said in a statement. “Have no doubt – we will hold all those responsible to account at a time and in a manner of our choosing,” he said.

Needless to say, this was not strong enough for many Republican hawks in Congress. Here are just a few of their quotes that have been compiled by Axios

-Mitch McConnell: Senate Minority Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) called for “serious, crippling costs” to Iran, “not only on front-line terrorist proxies, but on their Iranian sponsors who wear American blood as a badge of honor.”

-Lindsey Graham: Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), said in a statement the attacks the U.S. has carried out on Iranian proxies outside Iran “will not deter Iranian aggression,” calling to “strike targets of significance inside Iran.”

-Tom Cotton: “The only answer to these attacks must be devastating military retaliation against Iran’s terrorist forces, both in Iran and across the Middle East,” said Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.). “Anything less will confirm Joe Biden as a coward unworthy of being commander-in-chief.”

-John Cornyn: Sen. John Cornyn, in a post on the social media site X, said: “Target Tehran,” later specifying that he wants the U.S. to strike Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. and its Quds Force branch.

Okay, so let’s imagine that Biden does what they want. Would the Iranians respond by launching missiles at U.S. targets in the region? And how would we respond if the Iranians made such a move? When it comes to geopolitics, one must always be thinking several moves ahead.

Meanwhile, one of Israel’s most prominent politicians is warning that Iran has become a “legitimate target” for Israeli missiles…"Iran is now a “legitimate target” for Israeli missile strikes, one of the country’s most senior ministers has told the Telegraph, raising the prospect of an all-out war with Tehran. In a wide-ranging interview, Nir Barkat, Israel’s economy minister, also said Palestinians from the West Bank would never be allowed to work in the country again and would be replaced by more than a quarter of a million imported foreign workers. He also complained that the war in Gaza had not been fought aggressively enough."

Those that are urging military strikes against targets inside Iran are assuming that the Iranians only possess conventional weapons. But what if this isn’t true? In fact, for a long time there have been many that have tried to warn us that this isn’t true. The Iranians are not showing us all their cards, and they have been preparing for this showdown for decades.

Interestingly, the Iranians just launched three new satellites into space…"Iran says it has successfully launched three indigenous satellites into orbit using the Simorgh carrier rocket, marking the first time the country has simultaneously sent three satellites into space.

The satellites launched early on Sunday include Mahda, weighing 32 kg, and two nano-satellites, Keyhan 2 and Hatef 1, of less than 10 kg, sent to a minimum orbit of 450 kilometers (279 miles) and a maximum of 1,100 km (683.5 mi), state media reported, citing the public relations wing of the Defense Ministry. The Simorgh satellite carrier that carried the three satellites to space has been developed by Iran’s Defense Ministry, the ministry statement noted. It is believed that these satellites have been sent into orbit for the purpose of guiding ballistic missiles. We are so close to the unthinkable. Once missiles start flying all over the region, the Middle East will never be the same again.

Meanwhile, the Chinese continue to probe Taiwan’s defenses…"Taiwan’s defense ministry announced on Saturday that over 30 Chinese warplanes were headed toward its country, in addition to navy ships. Thirty-three aircraft were sent by the Chinese People’s Liberation Army from 6 a.m. Friday to 6 a.m. Saturday, officials said. The aircraft included SU-30 fighters." An apocalyptic conflict in the Middle East would give China the perfect opportunity to try to “reunite” with Taiwan by force. So let’s keep a close eye on the Chinese. And let us not forget about the Russians. Over the weekend, they took even more territory from the Ukrainians.

This is a time of “wars and rumors of wars”, and those that are familiar with my work will not be surprised to hear that I believe that things will greatly escalate later this year. We should hope for peace, but we should also prepare for war. Because war is definitely coming, and it will shake billions out of their current state of complacency."

Bill Bonner, "Civilization vs. Barbarism"

"Civilization vs. Barbarism"
The International Court of Justice drops the hammer...
by Bill Bonner

Youghal, Ireland - "It was a show-down. A ‘rules-based order’…vs. firepower. Law versus brute force. Civilization vs. Barbarism. On Friday, the International Court of Justice handed down a verdict. The World Court, on Friday, ordered Israel to take action to prevent acts of genocide as it wages war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip, but it stopped short of calling for an immediate ceasefire, Reuters reports.

Ruling on a case brought by South Africa, the Court said Israel must ensure its forces did not commit genocide and take measures to improve the humanitarian situation for Palestinian civilians in the enclave. In the ruling, 15 of the 17 judges on the International Court of Justice (ICJ) panel voted for emergency measures which covered most of what South African asked for, with the notable exception of ordering a halt to Israeli military action in Gaza. Even the American judge, Joan E. Donoghue, sided with the majority.

Is this progress? The ruling was mostly ignored in the US; ‘how many divisions does the ICJ have,’ Anthony Blinken might have asked, if he had a sense of humor. But it was headline news throughout the rest of the world. It was something new. One nation is trying to prevent a slaughter by another nation by appealing to an international court.

Plausible Evidence - Whatever else it is, it is definitely the first time a rag-tag bunch of religious extremists on the edge of the civilized world – with no navy – has tried to impose a shipping blockade. And it’s the first time such an ‘act of terrorism’ (shooting at passing ships) has been done with the apparent approval of the ‘rules-based order.’ In other words, now that the ICJ has found plausible evidence of genocide, all nations are meant to do what they can to prevent it. So far, the Houthis are the only ones to take this responsibility seriously…which is in itself extraordinary.

Note that the ICJ did not call on Israel to stop its military activities…just to make sure it wasn’t committing genocide. This gives the Israelis some room for argument about what, specifically, constitutes ‘genocide,’ and whether it is guilty of it. On the other hand, it puts everyone on notice. The rules-based order is watching. Will it prevail?

The progress of civilization was largely a trend towards less brute force and more law. Less violence…more consensus, more customary rules. More win-win deals. Fewer win-lose deals. And today, most private transactions in most places are of the win-win variety. With big exceptions. Shoplifters, for example, take…they don’t give. Rapists don’t bargain either. But, in general, we expect our fellow citizens to do unto us as we would do unto them.

The really big exception is government. It claims the right to use as much violence as necessary to achieve its ends. It takes our money. It puts people in prison. It bombs and assassinates.

Death by Democide - In the US, there is a movement afoot to limit the number of firearms (466 million!) in private hands. But it’s the firearms – guns, artillery, bombs, tanks – used by government enforcers that do the most damage. Sometimes the feds use them to kill their own citizens. And sometimes they use them to kill foreigners. R.J. Rummel, in his 1994 book, “Death by Government,” calls it ‘democide.’ He put the total for the last century at 262 million dead…and the century wasn’t even over yet.

In WWII, neither side was too careful about following the rules. The Japanese were brutish and criminal (later, many were tried and condemned for war crimes) in the Far East. The Germans were out to exterminate whole groups of people – including millions of Slavs and Jews (among others) whom they regarded as inferior. The Nuremberg trials condemned, and hung, a few.

But the Allies had innocent blood on their hands too. The Soviet Union murdered millions of soldiers and non-combatants in various ways – starving prisoners of war…and executing Polish officers.

The English and Americans firebombed Dresden on three days in 1945, with 25,000 dead – almost all of them civilians. Arthur “Bomber” Harris, head of Britain’s RAF Bomber Command, called it an “act of terror.” By comparison, it took Israel three months to kill that many.

Then, in what appeared to have no military objective whatsoever, the US let loose two atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki (civilian targets) even as Japan was trying to surrender.

Power Over Law: Victors, however, are not prosecuted for war crimes. Instead, they are chiseled in granite and preach the virtue of following the ‘rules.’ After WWII, the US made the rules. And then interpreted them, as it pleased. Its attack on Iraq, for example – unprovoked, almost out-of-the-blue – was plainly a violation of the rules. But nobody liked Iraq. And the war was carried out with at least a reasonable respect for the rules of warfare. Civilians were not targeted. And so, the war was brought to a close with no gain for the victors, but no major confrontation with the ‘rules-based order.’

But after October 7, 2023, the US stopped mentioning rules. Its number one ally in the Middle East – Israel – began doing things that prompted worldwide outrage – killing thousands of civilians. This led South Africa to charge Israel with ‘genocide. Yemen (at least the part of it dominated by the Houthis) imposed a limited blockade on Israeli shipping. And now that the ICJ has ruled against Israel…what next? Will Israel bend to the law? Or will it ignore the court and become an outlaw? Who wins? Rules? Or firepower?

Ultimately, the political world is about power…not law. It’s firepower that calls the tune; the lawyers dance. But ‘rules’ usually are not just ‘made up.’ They reflect deeper judgments, about right and wrong, and what people should be allowed to get away with. And when other nations see an outlaw nation, they are likely to be alarmed, beefing up their own firepower… preparing for an out-of-court settlement."

"How It Really Is"

 

Dan, I Allegedly, "What They Aren't Telling You"

Full screen recommended.
Dan, I Allegedly, AM 1/29/24
"What They Aren't Telling You"
"Jamie Dimon spoke in front of a bipartisan group late last week. He said that the death that we have right now with this country is going to be absolutely devastated. He thinks that the country is heading towards a cliff that we will not be able to recover from over the course of the next 10 years."
Comments here:

Jim Kunstler, "The Next Big Thing"

"The Next Big Thing"
by Jim Kunstler

“The reserve of trust, patience, and deference,
 among non-zombies in the USA, is now ZERO.” 
- Jacob Dreizin

"I’m sure you can see exactly where all this is going. By all this, I refer to the cortège of disasters orchestrated by “Joe Biden” and associates - with help from a power-crazed globalist cabal - hauling our country at a gallop now to the graveyard of empires. Is there any question that they are out to wreck Western Civ? And speeding up the action because too many actual citizens are rising to oppose their degenerate wickedness?

Most particularly, the people who have not surrendered their reason to the Woke-Marxist mind-f*ck that calls itself “progressivism” have had enough of the purposeful inflow of something like ten-thousand fake asylum-seekers a day across the border, mostly men, a lot of them from China, and many more of them mutts from faraway lands where Jihad is the order of the day - meaning the crusade to exterminate the people of Western Civ. We’re supposed to be okay with that.

This deliberate, treasonous policy was rightfully declared an “invasion” last week by the Governor of Texas, requiring the human wave to be met with real force, not the welcome wagon that the federal border patrol has been turned into. The result so far is a real-live Mexican stand-off between the regime in Washington and the state of Texas, joined by twenty-five other sympathetic US states willing to send men and material to seal the border.

None of this is reported in Monday morning’s New York Times, by the way, though you can read "Is Dying Your Hair Bad for Your Health" there. Nor will you read about the caravan of American truckers striking out from all points around the country to “peacefully protest and pray” at the border while Texas attempts to settle its hash with “Joe Biden.” Nor will you read about the uprising of European farmers blocking highways to protest ruinous EU rules on food imports, diesel fuel prices, carbon emissions inanity, and, of course, the officially-enabled tide of Africans and jihadists flooding into EU member states.

“Joe Biden’s” response so far is to say he’ll attend to the border situation only if Congress green-lights another massive aid package for Ukraine, a dishonest proffer from any angle. Ukraine is a lost cause that should never have been a cause of ours in the first place. Yet securing the US border is a principal duty of the executive branch, not some optional fringe benefit to be used as leverage for other projects. Congress has already got impeachment articles ready for Homeland Security Secretary Mayorkas, who has lied repeatedly under oath about the border being “secure.” But it’s obviously not enough. The failure is entirely “Joe Biden’s” and warrants his impeachment on its face, aside from all the evidence of bribery and racketeering among him and his family.

The best move would be to impeach both the president and his proclaimed “border czar” Veep Kamala Harris - which would put Speaker Mike Johnson in the oval office. But the impeachment process is too slow and awkward for that. So, now I will tell you where all this is actually going: “Joe Biden” will seize an excuse to declare a national emergency and subject the US to some manner of martial law.

The excuse could be an outbreak of violence in the quarrel between the states and the feds over the border. Or it could be a widening of the war in the Middle East, a direct confrontation with Iran that would draw in Russia and Turkey and kickoff World War Three, a war we would have an excellent shot at losing, considering our DEI-ravaged, over-vaxxed army, our obsolete naval carrier groups that can be sunk by hypersonic missiles, and our depleted reserves of armaments already fobbed off by Ukraine and, lately, given to Israel in the Gaza campaign to destroy Hamas. If such a war didn’t set off a world-ending exchange of nukes, it would at least collapse the economies of Europe and America and, with that, many governments, including possibly ours. And what role might all those recently-arrived illegal aliens play in such a fiasco? Any way you cut it, we’d be in for chaos and hardship.

Or, if we somehow avert major war, “Joe Biden” can try the national emergency ploy when the much-heralded (by the WHO) “Disease X” trots onstage. (And we must ask whether that will just be a delayed side-effect of the mRNA vaccine deaths?) Ultimately, the purpose of any national emergency at this moment in history, whatever prompts it, will be to suspend the 2024 elections. The Democratic Party has gone so completely off-the-rails psychologically that it will do anything to avert losing control of the government.

The Lawfare cases aimed at knocking Donald Trump off the game-board were assigned to corrupt and stupid prosecutors who are botching their jobs in perfect sequence. They are already baking the cake for Fani Willis’s farewell office party in Georgia, and Jack Smith is being undermined daily by the emergent truth about government’s role in fomenting the J6 riot. The ridiculous judgment rendered last week in the E. Jean Carroll defamation charade, is certain to be reversed on appeal. Note the assembled tweets below attributed to Ms. Carroll’s “X” account and draw your own conclusions about her character, especially her sexual proclivities. (By the way, Judge Lewis Kaplan ruled them inadmissible as evidence for Mr. Trump’s defense.)
Now, where the next national emergency or some kind of martial law is concerned, the catch is that at least half of America will refuse to comply with diktats coming out of Blob Central. They’ve had enough trips laid on them. The government has been flirting dangerously with the loss of legitimacy as the disastrous “Joe Biden” term grinds on, but this would really ice it. Whatever other tragic consequences follow, it would be the end of our constitutional republic, and history will install “Joe Biden” in the Hall of Infamy as the man who killed it."
o
Oh yeah, the full name of Kunstler's website says it all...Click it and see.

Judge Napolitano, "Israeli False Flag Killing US Troops?"

Judge Napolitano - Judging Freedom, AM 1/29/24
"Ray McGovern: Israeli False Flag Killing US Troops?"
"Could the recent attack on Tower 22 be a meticulously crafted false flag operation? Join me as I sit down with former CIA analyst Ray McGovern to untangle the complex web of international intrigue that's emerged in the wake of this tragic event. As American casualties mount, we question the veracity of intelligence reports and consider the forces at play in the Middle East's shadowy corridors of power. Ray brings a wealth of experience to the table, dissecting the potential for intelligence manipulation by Central Command and the extent of Israeli influence on U.S. policy in Syria. Our discussion isn't just about the geopolitics—it's a candid look into the chess game where deception often masks truth.

Moving beyond the smoke and mirrors of covert operations, we turn to the broader strokes of U.S. foreign policy. President Biden's strategies, the hawkish narratives of politicians like Lindsey Graham and Nancy Pelosi, and the freedom of domestic movements are all scrutinized through a critical lens. A special preview awaits, too: an Intelligence Community Roundtable featuring insights from Ray McGovern and Larry Johnson, alongside the unique perspectives of recently discharged Lieutenant Colonel Matt Holmeyer on military corruption and Kevin DeMerit's clear-cut approach to economic principles. This episode promises a thought-provoking journey into the heart of current world dynamics, offering clarity amidst the chaos."
Comments here:
o
Full screen recommended.
FOX 9 Minneapolis-St. Paul, AM 1/29/24
"US Troops Killed In Jordan Drone Strike"
Comments here:
o

Gregory Mannarino, "WW III False Flag Alert! Iran Will Be Hit Soon!"

Gregory Mannarino, AM 1/29/24
"WW III False Flag Alert! Iran Will Be Hit Soon!"
Comments here:

Sunday, January 28, 2024

"Red Alert! US May Start WW3 Tonight, Iran On Highest Alert"

Full screen recommended.
Canadian Prepper, 1/28/24
"Red Alert! US May Start WW3 Tonight, 
Iran On Highest Alert; Israeli Nuclear Targets"
Comments here:

Jeremiah Babe, "Will American Businesses Survive 2024?"

Full screen recommended.
Jeremiah Babe, 1/28/24
"Will American Businesses Survive 2024?"

Musical Interlude: 2002, "Cycle of Time"; "Challenge From Heaven"

Full screen recommended.
2002, "Cycle of Time"
o
Full screen recommended.
2002, "Challenge From Heaven"

"A Look to the Heavens"

"A gorgeous spiral galaxy, M104 is famous for its nearly edge-on profile featuring a broad ring of obscuring dust lanes. Seen in silhouette against an extensive central bulge of stars, the swath of cosmic dust lends a broad brimmed hat-like appearance to the galaxy suggesting a more popular moniker, the Sombrero Galaxy. This sharp optical view of the well-known galaxy made from ground-based image data was processed to preserve details often lost in overwhelming glare of M104's bright central bulge.
Also known as NGC 4594, the Sombrero galaxy can be seen across the spectrum, and is host to a central supermassive black hole. About 50,000 light-years across and 28 million light-years away, M104 is one of the largest galaxies at the southern edge of the Virgo Galaxy Cluster. Still the colorful spiky foreground stars in this field of view lie well within our own Milky Way galaxy. "

"A Time of Unimaginable Sorrow is Upon Us"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Poet: Langston Hughes, "Mother To Son"

"Mother To Son"

"Well, son, I'll tell you:
Life for me ain't been no crystal stair.
It's had tacks in it,
And splinters,
And boards torn up,
And places with no carpet on the floor -
Bare.
But all the time
I'se been a-climbin' on,
And reachin' landin's,
And turnin' corners,
And sometimes goin' in the dark
Where there ain't been no light.
So, boy, don't you turn back.
Don't you set down on the steps
'Cause you finds it's kinder hard.
Don't you fall now- 
For I'se still goin', honey,
I'se still climbin',
And life for me ain't been no crystal stair."

- Langston Hughes
o
"You've seed how things goes in the world o' men. You've knowed men to be low-down and mean. You've seed ol' Death at his tricks... Ever' man wants life to be a fine thing, and a easy. 'Tis fine, boy, powerful fine, but 'tain't easy. Life knocks a man down and he gits up and it knocks him down agin. I've been uneasy all my life... I've wanted life to be easy for you. Easier'n 'twas for me. A man's heart aches, seein' his young uns face the world. Knowin' they got to get their guts tore out, the way his was tore. I wanted to spare you, long as I could. I wanted you to frolic with your yearlin'. I knowed the lonesomeness he eased for you. But ever' man's lonesome. What's he to do then? What's he to do when he gits knocked down? Why, take it for his share and go on.”
- Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings

"When I hear somebody sigh, 'Life is hard,' 
I am always tempted to ask, 'Compared to what?'"
- Sydney J. Harris

The Daily "Near You?"

Long Beach, California, USA. Thanks for stopping by!

"The Worst Of Them All..."

"Science may have found a cure for most evils,
but it has found no remedy for the worst of them all -
the apathy of human beings."
- Author Unknown
"I am an invisible man. No, I am not a spook like those who haunted Edgar Allan Poe; nor am I one of your Hollywood-movie ectoplasms. I am a man of substance, of flesh and bone, fiber and liquids - and I might even be said to possess a mind. I am invisible, understand, simply because people refuse to see me. Like the bodiless heads you see sometimes in circus sideshows, it is as though I have been surrounded by mirrors of hard, distorting glass.  When they approach me they see only my surroundings, themselves, or figments of their imagination - indeed, everything and anything except me."
- Ralph Ellison, "Prologue to Invisible Man"
Watch the story, there, but for the grace of God, go we...
Full screen recommended.
Phil Collins, "Another Day In Paradise"

Dan, I Allegedly, "The Debt Time Bomb None of Us Can Afford"

Full screen recommended.
Dan, I Allegedly, AM 1/28/24
"The Debt Time Bomb None of Us Can Afford"
"The economy is having a drastic effect on each and everyone of us. Insurance has gone up 74% over the course of the last two years. People are averaging an additional $350 a month in personal debt. Where does it end?"
Comments here:

"No Special Hurry..."

“The world breaks everyone, and afterward many are strong in the broken places. But those that will not break it kills. It kills the very good and the very gentle and the very brave impartially. If you are none of these you can be sure it will kill you too, but there will be no special hurry.”
- Ernest Hemingway, “A Farewell To Arms”
Freely download “A Farewell To Arms”, by Ernest Hemingway, here: