Full screen recommended.
Dan, I Allegedly, 2/1/24
"Stop Driving Your Car Now"
"There is a warning that was issued to Toyota drivers
that there is a massive recall. Was your car included in this?"
Comments here:
So, we rise from the rubble...
Thursday, February 1, 2024
"Israeli Soldier Tells IDF To 'Kill All Palestinians' To Become Moral Army"
Full screen recommended.
Hindustan Times, 2/1/24
"Israeli Soldier Tells IDF To
'Kill All Palestinians' To Become Moral Army"
"A video of an Israeli soldier provoking the IDF to 'execute Arabs' is going viral. The Israeli soldier can be heard saying that Israel has destroyed vast majority of Gaza but to become moral Army it needs to kill all Palestinians after interrogation. Another Israeli soldier was awarded a honorary certificate by the military just a week after his video calling for a massacre in Gaza went viral."
Comments here:
o
NO! Don't look away and pretend you don't know! 30,000 defenseless old people, men, women and 13,000 CHILDREN, slaughtered. 29,000 bombs and 6,000 2,000 lb. bombs dropped. The monsters doing this genocide aren't human beings, they're a psychopathically degenerate, murderously genocidal sub-species of Mankind. And Americans, to our eternal shame and disgrace, allow and support this! TELL ME I'M WRONG!!! - CP
o
Full screen recommended.
Hindustan Times, 2/1/24
"Hamas' Fiery Message To Israel, Arabs & West:
'No One Can Dictate Us About Gaza'"
"Hamas has given out a message to Israel while it reviews a new hostage proposal. a Hamas official said that no one will dictate the group on how to manage the Gaza strip. Top officials from Hamas & Palestinian Islamic Jihad spoke to Al Mayadeen. In a live televised interview, they said that other Palestinian Resistance factions are being consulted on the hostage release proposal hatched in Paris."
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"What the First Week of War With Iran Could Look Like"
"What the First Week of War With Iran Could Look Like"
When Logic and Proportion Have Fallen Sloppy Dead
by Matthew Hoh
"I was asked for my thoughts on what most concerned me about the expected US attacks on Iran following the death of three American soldiers over the weekend in Jordan. Some of those thoughts made it into Newsweek. Below, I’ve provided an extended set of thoughts on what we could expect from US attacks against Iran. It’s divided into best and worst-case scenarios. Not surprisingly, the worst-case scenario is longer:
Most concerning would be an attack on Iran itself that would put the same types of domestic political pressure on Iran to respond that President Biden is facing. It’s hard to see the Iranians, or any nation, being overtly attacked by a foreign country and not responding in some equivalent manner. I think limited attacks on targets in Iran would see commensurate Iranian reprisals. So attacks on Iranian Republican Guard facilities or air and naval bases would see return attacks on US bases in Iraq and Syria.
Best Case: The Iranian response to the assassination of General Qasem Soleimani by the US in January 2020 is a good example. Hopefully, that is where it would end. However, there is the danger of it not ending and an escalating tit-for-tat cycle taking hold – insisted upon by internal US and Iranian political pressures. There is also the danger that a US attack on Iran would see groups allied with Iran increase their attacks on US targets in response, including against targets such as the US Embassies in Baghdad and Beirut. Further, anti-Iran groups such as the Islamic State and Kurdish and Baluchi separatist groups could see an opportunity to attack Iranian targets, including civilian targets, as happened earlier this month in Iran. That’s what I see as the dangers of a “best case” from a US attack against Iranian territory; again, hopefully, it’s a replay of January 2020.
Worst Case: The worst case is the US decides to launch significant attacks on Iranian targets in Iran, including Iranian political and military leadership, and indicates that the attacks will be wide-ranging and lasting, i.e., a military campaign that seeks to destroy Iranian military capacity and presages regime change (whether or not that is the actual intent doesn’t matter, what matters is what the Iranians perceive). Such intensive attacks give the Iranians a political motivation and a practical reason to launch full-scale attacks in return.
Iran, with a “use it or lose it” mentality, could launch large-scale attacks on US bases, especially air and naval bases and command headquarters in Saudi Arabia, Qatar, UAE and Bahrain, damaging or destroying the US ability to conduct operations with US Air Force ground-based aircraft. Iranian attacks on US naval ships, focusing primarily on the US aircraft carrier in the region, the USS Eisenhower, using anti-ship missiles, drones and diesel submarines, could not just cause losses and casualties but could, along with the loss of airfields in the Gulf monarchies, prevent US airpower from defending US troops on the ground in Iraq and Syria. US forces in Iraq and Syria, with limited American air support (US ground-based air support would still come from Turkey, as well as long-range bombers from Europe, Diego Garcia and the US), might then be overrun by large numbers of Iranian-allied Iraqi and Syrian units (the same experienced and very competent troops that defeated the Islamic State in both Iraq and Syria). I don’t believe we would see long-range Iranian missile strikes on Israeli targets out of fear of an Israeli nuclear response, but that would not stop Hezbollah from launching tens of thousands of missiles against Israeli bases, ports, airfields, infrastructure and cities.
Cyberattacks are probable, as cyberattacks have already been conducted over the last two decades. So, despite the 7,000-mile distance to the Persian Gulf from the US East Coast, the US public would feel the war in some hard and costly ways if cyberattacks are not limited to government and military targets (if they can even be confined to specific targets).
It must be said that the Iranians are assumably well prepared for this war. Forty-five years of US regime change efforts, including the 1980s war, sanctions, assassinations, bullying, and threats, have left no doubt in most Iranian minds that they must be prepared for war with the US. No nation is immune from incompetence and corruption in its leadership, military, and industry, and the Iranians may be as bad off as the Americans are in that regard. Regardless, the expectation should be that the Iranians have taken the threat from the US seriously and are ready for it.
Questions then abound as to how other nations would respond. Likely, Hezbollah and Ansar Allah would enter the war. Syria and Russia would seemingly be eager to quietly help, or at least not get in the way of the destruction of US forces in Syria. What would the Kurds, in both Iraq and Syria, do watching US forces attacked and destroyed and the Kurdish positions in Iraq and Syria now dramatically affected? Saudi Arabia, Qatar, UAE and Bahrain would have difficult decisions to make as their populations would possibly see the attacks not against them but against the Americans (the Iranian attacks, though significant, would presumably be confined to the US bases). The entire region, minus Israel, along with much of the world, would see the Iranian actions, as they do the Yemenis and Iraqis, as being done in defense of the Palestinians.
At a minimum, within the week, we would then witness a prolonged US air, drone and missile campaign against Iran; a Hezbollah-Israel war that might spill into Syria; US prisoners in Syria and Iraq; and a plunging world economy. Turkey, China and Russia would see a great opportunity in an eventual reduced presence of the US in the Middle East, essentially the US in an isolated alliance with a Fortress Israel. Turkey, Russia and China would present themselves in juxtaposition as calm and reliable partners. Ukraine would need to sue for peace.
The political pressure on the US to “win” in the Middle East would be enormous, the ghost of John McCain would haunt the 2024 elections, and while I don’t think we would see American ground troops in large numbers like in the Iraq and Afghan wars, the idea of a US invasion and occupation of Iran is terrifyingly absurd, the resulting war would make those previous American wars in Afghanistan and Iraq seem like provincial affairs."
Gregory Mannarino, "This Is A Declaration Of War"
Gregory Mannarino, 2/1/24
"This Is A Declaration Of War;
US To Begin Prolonged Military Campaign Against Iran"
Comments here:
o
Wednesday, January 31, 2024
"'Get Ready, We Are Going To Attack Iran', Col. Douglas MacGregor"
Redacted with Clayton Morris, 1/31/24
"'Get Ready, We Are Going To Attack Iran', Col. Douglas MacGregor"
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Jeremiah Babe, "Tiny Homes Are Selling Out In California, The American Dream Is Shrinkflation"
Full screen recommended.
Jeremiah Babe, 1/31/24
"Tiny Homes Are Selling Out In California,
The American Dream Is Shrinkflation"
Comments here:
"Opiod Addiction (Xylazine/Fentanyl) Is Killing Every 11 Minutes In America"
Full screen recommended, if you can stand it.
Drones R Eagles, 1/31/24
"Opiod Addiction (Xylazine/Fentanyl)
Is Killing Every 11 Minutes In America"
Filmed in Kensington, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Comments here:
o
Full screen recommended, if you can stand it.
Drones R Eagles, 1/31/24
"Putting Smiles On The Lost Souls Of Kensington Ave."
Filmed in Kensington, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Comments here:
o
My hometown...
Full screen recommended.
Bruce Springsteen, "Streets of Philadelphia"
Musical Interlude: Il Divo, "Wicked Game" ("Melanconia"),
Full screen recommended.
Il Divo, "Wicked Game" ("Melanconia"),
Live In London 2011
"A Look to the Heavens, With Chet Raymo"
“Learning And Yearning”
by Chet Raymo
“This photograph of the Eagle Nebula made by a rather modest telescope - the 0.9 meter instrument at Kitt Peak, Arizona - appeared on APOD. I sat in front of the computer screen for ten minutes, breathless. One tiny corner of the Milky Way Galaxy, one of tens of billions of galaxies that we can potentially see with our telescopes! At the center are the so-called "Pillars of Creation" from a famous Hubble photograph.
I recall when the Hubble photograph appeared in the media hundreds of viewers claimed to see the face of Jesus in the billowing clouds. Which prompted these observations from "Skeptics and True Believers": "In an article on the psychological basis of belief, the psychologist James Alcock proposed that two aspects of the human brain might be called the "yearning unit" and the "learning unit." He probably didn't mean these terms to be taken literally, as referring to separate compartments of the brain, but yearning and learning are certainly central to the way we interact with the world. It is hard to imagine how we can be fully human without a little of each. Finding the proper balance between the two is a task that can keep us occupied for most of our lives.
We yearn when we dream of fulfillment, of greater happiness, of knowing more. We yearn when we love, when we laugh, when we cry, when we pray. Yearning is wondering what is around the next bend, over the rainbow, beyond the horizon. Yearning is curiosity. Yearning is the driving force of science, philosophy, and religion.
Learning is listening to parents, wise men, shamans. Learning is reading, going to school, traveling, doing experiments, being skeptical. Learning is looking behind the curtain for the Wizard of Oz, touching the stove to see if it's hot, not taking anyone's word for it. In science, learning means trying as hard to prove that something is wrong as to prove it right, even if that something is a cherished belief.
Yearning without learning is seeing Elvis in a crowd, the fossilized footprints of humans and dinosaurs together in ancient rocks, weeping statues. Yearning without learning is buying tabloid newspapers with headlines announcing "Newborn baby talks of Heaven" and the like. Yearning without learning is looking for UFOs in the sky and the meaning of life in horoscopes.
Learning without yearning is pedantry, scientism, dogmatic belief. Learning without yearning is believing that we know it all, that what we see is what we get, that nothing exists except what can be presently weighed and measured. Learning without yearning is science without a heart, without a dream, without a hope of beauty. Yearning without learning is seeing the face of Jesus in a gassy nebula. Learning without yearning is seeing only the gas."
We yearn when we dream of fulfillment, of greater happiness, of knowing more. We yearn when we love, when we laugh, when we cry, when we pray. Yearning is wondering what is around the next bend, over the rainbow, beyond the horizon. Yearning is curiosity. Yearning is the driving force of science, philosophy, and religion.
Learning is listening to parents, wise men, shamans. Learning is reading, going to school, traveling, doing experiments, being skeptical. Learning is looking behind the curtain for the Wizard of Oz, touching the stove to see if it's hot, not taking anyone's word for it. In science, learning means trying as hard to prove that something is wrong as to prove it right, even if that something is a cherished belief.
Yearning without learning is seeing Elvis in a crowd, the fossilized footprints of humans and dinosaurs together in ancient rocks, weeping statues. Yearning without learning is buying tabloid newspapers with headlines announcing "Newborn baby talks of Heaven" and the like. Yearning without learning is looking for UFOs in the sky and the meaning of life in horoscopes.
Learning without yearning is pedantry, scientism, dogmatic belief. Learning without yearning is believing that we know it all, that what we see is what we get, that nothing exists except what can be presently weighed and measured. Learning without yearning is science without a heart, without a dream, without a hope of beauty. Yearning without learning is seeing the face of Jesus in a gassy nebula. Learning without yearning is seeing only the gas."
The Poet: Edward Hirsch, "I Was Never Able To Pray"
"I Was Never Able To Pray"
"Wheel me down to the shore
where the lighthouse was abandoned
and the moon tolls in the rafters.
Let me hear the wind paging through the trees
and see the stars flaring out, one by one,
like the forgotten faces of the dead.
I was never able to pray,
but let me inscribe my name
in the book of waves
and then stare into the dome
of a sky that never ends
and see my voice sail into the night."
- Edward Hirsch
"Humanity Today..."
"Humanity today is like a waking dreamer, caught between the fantasies of sleep and the chaos of the real world. The mind seeks but cannot find the precise place and hour. We have created a Star Wars civilization, with Stone Age emotions, medieval institutions, and godlike technology. We thrash about. We are terribly confused by the mere fact of our existence, and a danger to ourselves and to the rest of life."
- Edward O. Wilson
“One of the penalties of being a human being is other human beings.”
- Christopher Morley, “Hide and Seek”
“Societal Collapse”
“Societal Collapse”
by Hardscrabble Farmer
“Anyone interested in understanding the mechanics of human history must first and foremost understand the cycles of Nature and the nature of living things. There exists a balance in every closed system; creation and dissolution, growth and decay, life and death. There is no escape from this dynamic, no means by which one can exist without the other. Sometimes societies ascend, but eventually, over time, they collapse.
For a very long time America has benefited from exploiting the reserves of other nations – their labor, their resources, and their environments in a form of cultural strip mining. It has given the appearance of a sustainable system that required no effort to store surpluses or to build reserves for the future. There has been a perpetual live for the moment feel to our experience that was based on such illusory systems as credit and fiat.
These things are not real. They are manifest realities, things that exist only because a critical mass of people agree to believe in them rather than what is reflected by actuality. When such time occurs that a large enough number of people abandon their participation in that system, reality rushes in to the void left behind.
A large part of what we are seeing – as described to us by experts or media – is occult in nature, hidden not by design or subterfuge, but due to the ignorance or stupidity of the mass of men. They no longer recognize that a large part of what is taking place on the streets of cities like Portland and Minneapolis is simply a mating ritual for a generation that was so atomized and dissolute that they had no opportunity to make real life connections with the opposite sex except through electronic devices. Living beings cannot - despite the assurances of the Musks and Weils - exist by proxy.
They must eat, sleep, perform some activity during their waking hours, seek companionship, etc. These drives can be sublimated or suppressed either by societal controls or chemical dependencies, but they cannot be removed from our core drive. This is what happens when humans are thwarted from fulfilling their animal destinies – the drives of their particular species. If you eliminate the family, you do not stop fornication. If you eradicate healthy foods and a connection to its production, you do not eliminate hunger. Thus the dramatic rise in obesity and the ubiquity of pornography.
Everything exists in context, there is no way to eliminate the void left behind in a fatherless home without a corresponding flow of the feminine. A mind that has no reason will seek to replace it with an equal measure of emotion.
The Western Cultural experience that gained prominence and near global hegemony over the past several centuries is in terminal decline, accelerated by the opportunistic interference of competing cultural spheres, but predominantly by its own senescence. We are, in short, spent. What we are seeing is not a political or ideological struggle – again, manifest realities – but the natural process of a cultural expiration. The West is dying and with it all of the ideals and symbols that were attached to its rise.
Just as an elderly family member in their last days makes a point to give away their possessions, America is passing its treasures on; freedom of speech, the iconic symbols of Manifest Destiny like the statues of its heroes, even its own birthright to the rising of a new cultural expression, one that is less concerned with things like honor, nobility, truth and justice. None of those things exist in Nature, but rather are created and used like iron tools to achieve an end. Now that its energy is spent they serve no purpose, especially to the multitudes of others who share a far more dynamic and exuberant expression of collective identity.
This is a natural event, no different from a forest fire, but one which applies to the human species specifically. This is how we clear the ground for whatever is to replace us and we will serve as its fertilizer.”
"The Crisis In The Red Sea Threatens To Disrupt Global Supply Chains Even More Than The Pandemic Did"
Full screen recommended.
Epic Economist, 1/31/24
"The Crisis In The Red Sea Threatens To Disrupt
Global Supply Chains Even More Than The Pandemic Did"
"For patriots who haven’t heard of the details of the Red Sea crisis, this is a proxy war between America and Iran, which began on October 19th, 2023. This proxy war began when the Houthi movement initiated a series of attacks against vessels in the Red Sea, claiming these boats were of Israeli origin. Although this claim was never verified, the proxy war has continued to date.
The United States government is waging war in the Middle East, one it refuses to acknowledge, and one that will most likely not be successful. It is unconstitutional, and it will negatively affect most of America in the upcoming years. Even worse, if there is no success found in these situations, we will be faced with even more economic turmoil and inflation rates that might make us bankrupt in a matter of days, leaving many American patriots without any ability to survive or defend their homes.
America has quickly found itself on the brink of economic collapse, and 2024 will be one of the most drastic and important years so far. America is desperately in need of a new economic policy, the recovery of trade routes, and the return to constitutional actions."
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"US Facing ‘Death Spiral’ Of Swelling Debt – Nassim Taleb"
"US Facing ‘Death Spiral’ Of Swelling Debt – Nassim Taleb"
Only a “miracle” can reverse the problem,
the renowned economist believes.
"The burgeoning US debt pile is akin to a “death spiral” that only a “miracle” could extract the country from, economist and 'Black Swan' author Nassim Taleb said at a business event on Monday, as quoted by Bloomberg. Taleb defined the expanding US debt load as a “white swan,” meaning a risk event that is highly predictable and more probable than a “black swan” event, a metaphor describing an occurrence that comes as a complete surprise.
“So long as you have Congress keep extending the debt limit and doing deals because they’re afraid of the consequences of doing the right thing, that’s the political structure of the political system, eventually you’re going to have a debt spiral,” Taleb said. “And a debt spiral is like a death spiral.”
Earlier this week, US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said that the absolute level of US public debt looks like “a scary number.” US government federal debt topped $34 trillion for the first time in history at the end of December. It now amounts to about $102,000 for an average American family of three. In 2023 alone, it grew by more than $4 trillion.
According to Taleb, a former trader who is best known for publishing several bestselling books on economics, white swans include both the US deficit and the American economy that has grown more vulnerable to shocks than in previous years. He called such vulnerability a feature of globalization, as problems in one region can ricochet around the world.
When asked how the US “debt spiral” could play out, Taleb said, “we need something to come in from the outside, or maybe some kind of miracle,” adding that this makes him “kind of gloomy about the entire political system in the Western world.”
"Trapping Wild Pigs"
"Trapping Wild Pigs"
by Jeff Thomas
"Most of us would like to assume that we’re smarter than pigs, but are we? Let’s have a look. Pigs are pretty intelligent mammals, and forest-dwelling wild pigs are known to be especially wily. However, there’s a traditional method for trapping them. First, find a small clearing in the forest and put some corn on the ground. After you leave, the pigs will find it. They’ll also return the next day to see if there’s more.
Replace the corn every day. Once they’ve become dependent on the free food, erect a section of fence down one side of the clearing. When they get used to the fence, they’ll begin to eat the corn again. Then you erect another side of the fence.Continue until you have all four sides of the fence up, with a gate in the final side. Then, when the pigs enter the pen to feed, you close the gate.
At first, the pigs will run around, trying to escape. But if you toss in more corn, they’ll eventually calm down and go back to eating. You can then smile at the herd of pigs you’ve caught and say to yourself that this is why humans are smarter than pigs. But unfortunately, that’s not always so. In fact, the description above is the essence of trapping humans into collectivism.
Collectivism begins when a government starts offering free stuff to the population. At first, it’s something simple like free education or food stamps for the poor. But soon, political leaders talk increasingly of "entitlements" – a wonderful concept that by its very name suggests that this is something that’s owed to you, and if other politicians don’t support the idea, then they’re denying you your rights.
Once the idea of free stuff has become the norm and, more importantly, when the populace has come to depend upon it as a significant part of their "diet," more free stuff is offered. It matters little whether the new entitlements are welfare, healthcare, free college, or a guaranteed basic wage. What’s important is that the herd come to rely on the entitlements. Then, it’s time to erect the fence.
Naturally, in order to expand the volume of free stuff, greater taxation will be required. And of course, some rights will have to be sacrificed. And just like the pigs, all that’s really necessary to get humans to comply is to make the increase in fencing gradual. People focus more on the corn than the fence. Once they’re substantially dependent, it’s time to shut the gate.
What this looks like in collectivism is that new restrictions come into play that restrict freedoms. You may be told that you cannot expatriate without paying a large penalty. You may be told that your bank deposit may be confiscated in an emergency situation. You may even be told that the government has the right to deny you the freedom to congregate, or even to go to work, for whatever trumped-up reason.
And of course, that’s the point at which the pigs run around, hoping to escape the new restrictions. But more entitlements are offered, and in the end, the entitlements are accepted as being more valuable than the freedom of self-determination.
Even at this point, most people will remain compliant. But there’s a final stage: The corn ration is "temporarily" cut due to fiscal problems. Then it’s cut again… and again. The freedoms are gone for good and the entitlements are then slowly removed. This is how it’s possible to begin with a very prosperous country, such as Argentina, Venezuela or the US, and convert it into an impoverished collectivist state. It’s a gradual process and the pattern plays out the same way time and again. It succeeds because human nature remains the same. Collectivism eventually degrades into uniform poverty for 95% of the population, with a small elite who live like kings.
After World War II, the Western world was flying high. There was tremendous prosperity and opportunity for everyone. The system was not totally free market, but enough so that anyone who wished to work hard and take responsibility for himself had the opportunity to prosper. But very early – in the 1960s – The Great Society became the byword for government-provided largesse for all those who were in need – free stuff for those who were disadvantaged in one way or another.
Most Americans, who were then flush with prosperity, were only too happy to share with those who were less fortunate. Unfortunately, they got suckered into the idea that, rather than give voluntarily on an individual basis, they’d entrust their government to become the distributor of largesse, and to pay for it through taxation. Big mistake. From that point on, all that was necessary was to keep redefining who was disadvantaged and to then provide more free stuff.
Few people were aware that the first sections of fence were being erected. But today, it may be easier to understand that the fence has been completed and the gate is closing. It may still be possible to make a hasty exit, but we shall find very few people dashing for the gate. After all, to expatriate to another country would mean leaving all that free stuff – all that security.
At this point, the idea of foraging in the forest looks doubtful. Those who have forgotten how to rely on themselves will understandably fear making an exit. They’ll not only have to change their dependency habits; they’ll have to think for themselves in future. But make no mistake about it – what we’re witnessing today in what was formerly the Free World is a transition into collectivism. It will be a combination of corporatism and socialism, with the remnants of capitalism. The overall will be collectivism.
The gate is closing, and as stated above, some members of the herd will cause a fuss as they watch the gate closing. There will be some confusion and civil unrest, but in the end, the great majority will settle down once again to their corn. Only a few will have both the insight and temerity necessary to make a dash for the gate as it’s now closing.
This was true in Argentina when the government was still generous with the largesse, and it was true in Venezuela when the entitlements were at their peak. It is now true of the US as the final transition into collectivism begins. Rather than make the dash for the gate, the great majority will instead look down at their feed and say, "This is still the best country in the world," and continue eating the corn."
Bill Bonner, "Information Overload"
"Information Overload"
Drowning in data, anti-intelligence agencies
and a collision with the real world...
by Bill Bonner
“Once men turned their thinking over to machines in the
hope that this would set them free. But that only permitted
other men with machines to enslave them.”
- Frank Herbert, Dune
Youghal, Ireland - “After 20 years, I moved from NYC to Florida…” “Karen moments caught on security cameras…” “Meet the ‘trans-apostate’…” These are actual ‘news’ items we got this morning. Will they enrich our lives?
In today’s news, also, comes this from Bloomberg describing why ‘information’ will not make us rich: "There’s So Much Data Even Spies Are Struggling to Find Secrets." "Scouring open-source intelligence may not have the same cachet as undercover work, but it’s become a new priority for the US intelligence agencies. Spying used to be all about secrets. Increasingly, it’s about what’s hiding in plain sight. A staggering amount of data, from Facebook posts and YouTube clips to location pings from mobile phones and car apps, sits in the open internet, available to anyone who looks.
Why didn’t America’s spies warn us about 9/11? Why didn’t (apparently) Israel’s intel agencies (said to be the best in the world) warn about the Hamas attack; it was (apparently) ‘hiding in plain sight? One possibility, the spooks had too much information! With the right information at the right time, you can make money on Wall Street…or blackmail a politician.
Bad Intel - But any information that you don’t really need, when you don’t really need it, absorbs time and energy. It must be sorted, assayed, and stored. Much of it is false. Much is misleading. Much is just useless. But you have to figure out which is what. And while you are doing that you miss your daughter’s birthday party and the beginning of WWIII.
America is said to have 17 different ‘intelligence’ agencies, costing billions of dollars – trafficking in information. Has any one of them ever produced an important insight…an important piece of ‘intel’ that actually made our lives better? We don’t know. It’s classified information!
So, today, we turn to our senses – sight, sound, smell, taste and touch. We look around. We see steel in our kitchen faucet…refrigerator…screws…pipes…hinges and so forth. We feel energy…natural gas, which heats our water…rushing through the radiators (steel!) and under the floor (concrete…with stone laid on top). We sense the radiant heat too, coming from a fireplace made of bricks…burning wood, cut with a chainsaw, fueled with gasoline.
Wood is all around us. The chairs. The shelves. Tables…framing for the house itself. On the shelves are books…paper, made from trees. Out the window, we see the lawn – cut with a gasoline-powered mower – stone walls that required lime mortar (made by burning limestone under high heat).
Oh, when we sit down to lunch…what do we eat? Electrons? Information? Techno-faux beef a la Silicon Valley? No, we eat vegetables…meat…soup …eggs. Things that come from plants and animals…things we can see, smell and taste. We drink wine from Italy and coffee from Ethiopia (brought to us on ships and trucks powered by oil).
We sit in comfort on fabrics designed by artists, and rendered in wool (from sheep!) in factories and workshops. We listen to music produced by musicians…and correspond with friends and associates via the internet.
The Information Intersection - And here is where our lives intersect with the Magnificent Seven and the ‘Information Age.’ Many of the things we see and hear nowadays are brought to us electronically…in tiny pieces of information that are reassembled to make something we recognize.
Musicians and composers make music – the product of hundreds of years of innovation in tunes, rhythms, and musical instruments. They are recorded electronically, and sent to us on ‘apps’ that run on our laptop computer, with software and hardware produced by various tech companies. So do movies involve huge investments of time, talent and real resources to make something worth our time, which is then made available to us via Netflix or other service.
The ultimate scarce resource is, of course, time. The new Information Age is a gourmand for time. It gobbles up as much as we allow. The spooks aren’t the only ones who are deluged by information. We all are. Ads. Opinions. Jokes. Lies. You can spend all your time just taking them in and trying to make sense of them. You benefit from the occasional bit of useful info and entertainment. But you lose, too, as the most precious thing you have – your time –flits away. We measure out our lives on Tik Tok and Youtube.
More of a Bad Thing: Here at the BPR headquarters in Ireland, the things we most appreciate are those in range of our senses…things we see, eat, and use. The electronic world is just a tool. We spend much of our day…reading…writing …researching with the help of Google…Microsoft…and other companies.
And now we are told that AI will be a great time saver. It will set us free from the tyranny of the Information Revolution. It will know what we should read…and what we shouldn’t. It will help us write up our thoughts…and correct our errors and political misjudgments. With AI, we’ll take back our lives. Maybe, as suggested yesterday in a headline at Bloomberg, it will ‘make us better humans’ by scouring ‘bad’ thoughts out of our brains. “Siri,” we will say” speaking to an empty room. “What’s important today? What’s the news? What does it mean? What should I think about it?” And glory of glories…laudate dominum…we’ll have more ‘intel’ to think about! Another source of information! Another jackass opinion from a mindless object!
Omnes gentes, Hallelujah."
Dan, I Allegedly, "AM/PM 1/31/24"
Full screen recommended.
Dan, I Allegedly AM 1/31/24
"The IRS Is Already Behind"
"It’s tax season. Go get your tax refunds but get ready to wait a little longer than normal. It is anticipated that there already are 1.5 million tax returns that still haven’t been processed from 2023. People need to understand that there’s going to be be massive delays this year."
Comments here:
o
Full screen recommended.
Dan, I Allegedly PM 1/31/24
"Breaking News - Rates Don’t Budge"
"The Fed had their first meeting of 2024 and just like I predicted, they did not raise interest rates. But, what Jerome Powell had to say, was disturbing. We need to see inflation come down before he can lower interest rates. Does any of us believe that this is going to happen?"
Comments here:
Gregory Mannarino, "AM/PM 1/31/24: Preparing For War"
Gregory Mannarino, AM 1/31/24
"Red Alert! Prepare For A Massive Cyber Attack
Against The US Financial System"
Comments here:
o
Gregory Mannarino, PM 1/31/24
"Debt Market Preparing For War;
Job Creation Craters"
Comments here:
"Scott Ritter, 'The US Is Committing Suicide If We Do This To Iran"
Full screen recommended.
Redacted, 1/30/24
"Scott Ritter,
'The US Is Committing Suicide If We Do This To Iran"
Comments here:
Tuesday, January 30, 2024
Gerald Celente, "America Keeps Going To War As The Nation Goes To Sh*t"
Full screen recommended.
Strong language alert!
Gerald Celente, 1/30/24
"America Keeps Going To War As The Nation Goes To Sh*t"
"The Trends Journal is a weekly magazine analyzing global current events forming future trends. Our mission is to present facts and truth over fear and propaganda to help subscribers prepare for what’s next in these increasingly turbulent times."
Comments here:
Gerald's in fine form this evening, lol
Adventures With Danno, "People Have Had Enough! Dark Times Ahead!"
Adventures With Danno, PM 1/30/24
"People Have Had Enough! Dark Times Ahead!"
"With events continuously unfolding around the world, we are prepping for the future. We have to assume that some dark times are ahead and we must prepare accordingly."
Comments here:
Jeremiah Babe, "America's Financial Troubles Are About To Get Much Worse"
Jeremiah Babe, 1/30/24
"America's Financial Troubles
Are About To Get Much Worse"
Comments here:
"20 Big Box Retailers Collapsing Right In Front Of Our Eyes"
Full screen recommended.
Epic Economist, 1/30/24
"20 Big Box Retailers Collapsing
Right In Front Of Our Eyes"
"Big box stores have long been the behemoths of consumerism, dominating the market with their vast spaces and extensive product offerings. However, some big box retailers are on the verge of bankruptcy and collapsing right in front of our eyes. Let’s look at 20 big box retailers struggling and investigate the elements causing their problems."
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Musical Interlude: Juzzie Smith, "Bluesberry Jam"
Juzzie Smith, "Bluesberry Jam"
The amazingly, ridiculously talented one-man-band! lol
"A Look to the Heavens"
"Colorful NGC 1579 resembles the better known Trifid Nebula, but lies much farther north in planet Earth's sky, in the heroic constellation Perseus. About 2,100 light-years away and 3 light-years across, NGC 1579 is, like the Trifid, a study in contrasting blue and red colors, with dark dust lanes prominent in the nebula's central regions.
In both, dust reflects starlight to produce beautiful blue reflection nebulae. But unlike the Trifid, in NGC 1579 the reddish glow is not emission from clouds of glowing hydrogen gas excited by ultraviolet light from a nearby hot star. Instead, the dust in NGC 1579 drastically diminishes, reddens, and scatters the light from an embedded, extremely young, massive star, itself a strong emitter of the characteristic red hydrogen alpha light."
"There Comes A Time..."
"Cowardice asks the question, is it safe? Expediency ask the question, is it politic? Vanity asks the question, is it popular? But, conscience asks the question, is it right? And there comes a time when we must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular, but one must take it because it is right." - Martin Luther King, Jr.
o
“So, how do you beat the odds when it’s one against a billion? You’re just outnumbered. You stand strong, keep pushing yourself against all rational limits, and never give up. But the truth of the matter is, despite how hard you try and fight to stay in control, when it’s all said and done, sometimes you’re just outnumbered.” - “Meredith”, “Gray’s Anatomy”
o
“In the movie “The Lion in Winter”, when the sons, in the dungeon, think they hear Henry coming down the stairs to kill them:
Richard: ”He’s here! He’ll get no satisfaction out of us! Don’t let him see you beg! Take it like a man!”
Geoffrey: “You chivalric fool! As if the way one falls down matters!”
Richard: ”Well, when the fall is all that’s left, it matters a great deal.”
"What Might Have Been..."
“Space I can recover. Time, never.”
- Napoleon Bonaparte
“Lands can be reconquered, indeed in the course of a battle, a hill or a certain plain might trade hands several times. But missed opportunities? These can never be regained. Moments in time, in culture? They can never be re-made. One can never go back in time to prepare for what they should have prepared for, no one can ever get back critical seconds that were wasted out of fear or ego. Napoleon was brilliant at trading space for time: Sure, you can make these moves, provided you are giving me the time I need to drill my troops, or move them to where I want them to be. Yet in life, most of us are terrible at this. We trade an hour of our life here or afternoon there like it can be bought back with the few dollars we were paid for it. And it is only much, much later, as they are on their deathbeds or when they are looking back on what might have been, that many people realize the awful truth of this quote. Don’t do that. Embrace it now.”
- Ryan Holiday
○
And in secret moments of despair,
Too late, too late...We think what might have been,
should have been, and we let it slip away...
Chris De Burgh,
"Carry Me (Like A Fire In Your Heart)"
"What The Herd Hates The Most..."
"What the herd hates the most is the one who thinks differently. It is not so much the opinion itself, as the audacity of wanting to think for themselves. Something they do not know how to do." – Schopenhauer
o
That'll be the day!
"Nationwide, on average, 79% of U.S. adults are literate in 2024.
21% of adults in the US are illiterate in 2024.
54% of adults have a literacy below 6th grade level."
o
"The problem isn't that Johnny can't read. The problem isn't
even that Johnny can't think. The problem is that Johnny
doesn't know what thinking is; he confuses it with feeling."
- Thomas Sowell
o
"Five percent of the people think;
ten percent of the people think they think;
and the other eighty-five percent would rather die than think."
- Thomas Edison
"Homelessness In The U.S. Is Up 48 Percent Since 2015, And Americans Are Being Laid Off In Droves…"
"Homelessness In The U.S. Is Up 48 Percent Since 2015,
And Americans Are Being Laid Off In Droves…"
by Michael Snyder
"How can anyone out there possibly believe that the U.S. economy is doing well? As you will see below, the number of homeless Americans has risen to the highest level ever recorded, and large companies all over the country are laying off workers in droves. As I have discussed previously, the number of Americans that were laid off in 2023 jumped 98 percent compared to the year before, and now during the first month of 2024 it feels like we are being hit by a tsunami of layoffs. It literally seems like someone has turned a fire hose on, but the Biden administration continues to insist that unemployment is “low” and that the outlook for the U.S. economy is positive.
Honestly, I don’t understand how the Biden administration can say that the outlook for the U.S. economy is positive when the number of Americans that are homeless has been increasing at the fastest pace ever recorded. According to a brand new report that was just released by Harvard’s Joint Center for Housing Studies, the number of homeless Americas has increased 48 percent since 2015…"According to a Jan. 25 report from Harvard’s Joint Center for Housing Studies, roughly 653,000 people reported experiencing homelessness in January of 2023, up roughly 12% from the same time a year prior and 48% from 2015. That marks the largest single-year increase in the country’s unhoused population on record, Harvard researchers said."
Homelessness, long a problem in states such as California and Washington, has also increased in historically more affordable parts of the U.S.. Arizona, Ohio, Tennessee and Texas have seen the largest growths in their unsheltered populations due to rising local housing costs. We can see evidence of this all around us. Tent cities are popping up like mushrooms in our major cities and countless Americans are living in their vehicles and RVs.
One of the primary reasons why homelessness has been surging so dramatically is because rental costs have soared to unprecedented heights…"Rent in the U.S. has steadily climbed since 2001. In analyzing Census and real estate data, the Harvard researchers found that half of all U.S. households across income levels spent between 30% and 50% of their monthly pay on housing in 2022, defining them as “cost-burdened.” Some 12 million tenants were severely cost-burdened that year, meaning they spent more than half their monthly pay on rent and utilities, up 14% from pre-pandemic levels.
People earning between $45,000 and $74,999 per year took the biggest hit from rising rents - on average, 41% of their paycheck went toward rent and utilities, the Joint Center for Housing Studies said. Tenants should generally allocate no more than 30% of their income toward rent, according to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development."
But Joe Biden insists that inflation is “low”. You believe him, don’t you? Sadly, more Americans will soon be hitting the streets because we are witnessing an insane wave of layoffs all over the nation. Right now, it is being reported that Salesforce has decided to conduct another round of layoffs…"Salesforce is cutting about 700 employees, The Wall Street Journal reported. The job cuts, which amount to about 1% of its global workforce, follow a series of workforce reductions last year. In 2023, Marc Benioff’s company laid off about 10% of its total workforce as it grappled with a swarm of activist investors who wanted margins increased faster than planned."
And we have just learned that REI will be giving the axe to 357 workers…"REI is laying off 357 workers, mostly in the outdoor retailer’s headquarters and distribution centers. In a letter to employees, CEO Eric Artz noted that “outdoor specialty retail has experienced four quarters of decline – and that trend has been worsening.” While REI was able to outperform this for much of last year, he said, this trend caught up to the company in the fourth quarter, and difficult conditions are expected in 2024."
"Difficult conditions are expected in 2024?" Oh really…Who could have seen that one coming?
After their deal with Amazon fell through, iRobot announced that 31 percent of its staff would be hitting the bricks…"Amazon and iRobot, the maker of the popular Roomba vacuum, mutually called off their estimated $1.7 billion acquisition deal Monday, citing numerous regulatory hurdles. Immediately after the deal was publicly squashed, iRobot announced it would lay off 31% of its staff and that founder Colin Angle would step down from his role as CEO, citing a focus on profitability, stability and growth. Glen Weinstein will serve as interim CEO. Shares of iRobot (IRBT) were down around 9% in noon trading following the news. Amazon (AMZN), which was up about 0.5% in noon trading, will pay iRobot a previously agreed-upon $94 million cancellation fee.
Google, Microsoft, Levi’s, TikTok, Riot Games, eBay, Wayfair and Macy’s are some of the other big names that have also announced layoffs so far in 2024. But no industry is being hit harder than the mainstream media…"Journalists across the country burst into flames of panic this week, as bad news for the news business crested and erupted everywhere all at once.
Patrick Soon-Shiong, the billionaire publisher of the Los Angeles Times, laid off 20 percent of his newsroom. Over at Time magazine, its billionaire owners, Marc and Lynne Benioff, did the same for 15 percent of their unionized editorial employees. This latest conflagration had ignited at Sports Illustrated the previous week as catastrophic layoffs were dispensed via email to most staffers. Business Insider (whose parent company Axel Springer also owns POLITICO) jettisoned 8 percent of its staff while workers at Condé Nast, Forbes, the New York Daily News and elsewhere walked out to protest forthcoming cuts at their shops."
Perhaps if they had not made a habit of blatantly lying to us over and over again during the past several years they would not have lost all of their remaining credibility and they would not have had to lay off so many workers.
But even though so much is going wrong with the economy right now, many of the “experts” continue to tell us that happier times are just around the corner. For example, Ed Yardeni insists that we will soon relive the Roaring Twenties…"Ed Yardeni, a veteran market strategist, thinks the US economy might be about to relive the “Roaring ’20s.” The Yardeni Research president said during Friday’s episode of Bloomberg’s “Merryn Talks Money” podcast that he’s expecting a combination of loose post-pandemic monetary policy and rapid technological change to drive growth higher over the next decade.
Wouldn’t it be great if he was actually right? Of course the truth is that he is just being delusional. Things are bad now, and things are going to get really bad during the second half of 2024 and beyond. If you still have a good job and a warm home to come back to at night, you should be very thankful. Because more Americans are losing their jobs and losing their homes with each passing day, and the level of economic suffering that we are witnessing is already off the charts."
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