“Requiem for a Ladybug”

“Requiem for a Ladybug”

by Frankly Francis

“You lie still less than a foot away on top of the soft mouse pad that protects me from carpal tunnel syndrome. I noticed this morning, through eyes not yet clarified by my first coffee of the day, your presence in my study. Odd, I thought, that you would even be present now. It is certainly past your time of the year in these parts.

I had the presence of mind to reckon that your life must be short. Rather than remove you from my space, both physical and mental, I decided that if these were your final moments then my study could be your Hospice and I your companion.

Your flight and movement were a little chaotic, seemingly random. You nestled in the heat of the light in the globe of my desk lamp, you circled my cranium, you landed in various spots, and in and on various objects on my desk while I got about the business of the day.

Sometimes I could see you, other times I did not know where you were. Then you would rise again to a new location. I wondered if you had any purpose in this, if there was more going on than my conscious programming allowed me to realize.

Perhaps it was, in your reality, some last business to be done? Or perhaps a ritual of your species’ existence? I hoped that if there is any pleasure in being a Ladybug that it was satisfying in some way, even so far from your natural habitat. Then you landed on your final resting spot and moved no more.

For me, my study is a place of many good things. I hope in your last moments it was to you as well. Rest in Peace my little Ladybug. And thanks for reminding me of the preciousness and fragility of life.”

- http://franklyfrancis.com/?p=1255.

"Relax..."

"Relax. They're not going to kill us. They're going to

TRY and kill us. And that is a very different thing."

 - Steve Voake, "The Dreamwalker's Child"

Dan, I Allegedly, "Now You Can’t Close"

Full screen recommended.

Dan, I Allegedly, 4/8/24

"Now You Can’t Close"

"This is almost unbelievable. Politicians in northern California wanna make it so 

that grocery stores are not allowed to close without six months notice. True insanity."

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

Judge Napolitano, "Larry Johnson: Israel Provoking Wider War"

Judge Napolitano - Judging Freedom, 4/8/24

"Larry Johnson: Israel Provoking Wider War"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

o

Judge Napolitano - Judging Freedom, 4/8/24

"Alastair Crooke: Western Thinking About War"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

"Infectious Insanity"

"Infectious Insanity"

by Jeff Thomas

"In any country, during prosperous times, the great majority of people go to work each day with the understanding that productivity results in an improved life. Even for those of humble means, the existence of prosperity around them is a daily assurance that, if you work hard and/or work smart, your life will steadily improve.

This is the normal state of affairs and has existed since time immemorial. Whether progress is quick or slow in a given location, the principle remains the same. A general condition of prosperity is a continual reminder of the value of a strong work ethic.

In a collectivist country, however, this is missing. The leaders live quite well, but they’re small in number and, for the most part, are outside of the view of the proletariat. What the common man sees around him is uniform poverty. No one in his midst is visibly progressing, so there’s no one to be jealous of.

This breeds complacency and so it’s not surprising that collectivism may be tolerated by the populace for many decades, even generations. People are invariably worse off under collectivism, but collectivism rarely ends due to rebellion. It ends because it’s a dysfunctional non-productive system that eventually collapses under its own weight.

But, if that’s so – if people living in a free-market system will instinctively reject collectivism and those living under a collectivist system also rarely rebel – how is it possible that, periodically, revolutions occur?

Why might the people of, say, the US, have been staunch supporters of a free-market system half a century ago and now be demonstrating a dramatically increased belief in collectivism? How is it even possible that political candidates with no experience in either politics or leadership positions be elected to Congress by promising collectivism?

Well that’s occurring for the same reason that it has occurred throughout history. The US no longer lives under a free-market system. Roughly one hundred years ago, the free market began to be replaced with corporatism. As corporatism increasingly bled the populace, the opportunity for personal prosperity declined. Over time, the average person was seeing less and less evidence of prosperity around him. At this point, he’s viewing corporate leaders enjoying unimaginable wealth, whilst those around him are experiencing stagnation. Real wages have not increased in decades.

Historically, it’s at this point that a people are ripe for the empty promises of collectivism. And collectivists happily provide it. Although they occasionally promise to raise the proletariat up to the level of their economic betters, for the most part, they focus on the promise that they’ll bring the aristocracy down.

The selling of the idea of collectivism is based upon envy and resentment toward those who are better off than we may be. Collectivist leaders invariably accuse anyone who has prospered as being "greedy" and having "starved the poor" in order to achieve their relative wealth. Although this is rarely accurate, it’s a great sales pitch, as those who have learned that their lives are not progressing are actively seeking an explanation and are ripe for one that blames those who have progressed.

The key here is that collectivism almost never sells well in a country where prosperity exists. In a free-market country, a strong work ethic is regularly rewarded. However, once the free market has deteriorated enough that the proletariat have come to understand that they’re not genuinely moving forward, they’re ready to jump on board with those leaders who appeal to their frustration and anger. At this point, logic and reason cease to be important. What matters is rhetoric.

Once a people have concluded that prosperity is not truly in their future, they must choose between hopelessness and empty promises. This is an important point, because human nature will always dictate that they choose empty promises. Left with no real hope, false hope is infinitely preferable to no hope.

Collectivism in the US began in the 1930s and was expanding nicely, when it was interrupted by World War II. The productivity of creating the goods of war for the European Allies sent the US into a period of dramatic productivity. This continued after the war, but in the 1960s, the effort to increase government’s control of production was renewed until, today, the wet blanket of government has become so heavy that prosperity has been minimized and the US is in a condition of stagnation.

And so, Americans are ripe for empty promises, and the younger the American (i.e., the less memory he has of the former prosperity), the more believable the empty promises seem to be.

Young Americans today are disinclined to daydream about a home with a white picket fence, a single wage earner, and a wife at home with three well-adjusted children. That dream sold well to their grandparents, but their grandparents witnessed people all around them achieving that dream, so it was clearly attainable if they were prepared to work for it.

Today’s young American sees this as hopeless. He’d like to be a billionaire like Jeff Bezos, but that clearly isn’t going to happen. So, he might as well not try. His country has entered into eternal warfare, the government is broke, and he can’t even open a lemonade stand without applying for government permits and inspections. At this point, it’s very unlikely that 1950s-style rhetoric of "Make America Great Again" will have any appeal to him whatever.

What is appealing is the promise that even if he makes no effort whatever, even if he remains in his parents’ basement for the rest of his life, unemployed, there’s a new political movement out there that understands him. And it’s a breath of fresh air. It promises a life free from worry and effort. A free healthcare system, free college for as long as he wishes to be enrolled, and most importantly, a guaranteed living wage without the need to earn it. In addition, instead of feeling worthless, his belief in the new collectivism gives him the ability to "stand for something." He may now see himself as "making a difference."

Only five years ago, Americans would have said that this would not have been possible. Leftist crackpots have always existed, but no one took them seriously. Surely, this would never come to pass in the US. But recently, that’s been changing. Some candidates who have received the greatest support have been those who offer absurdly empty collectivist promises, and the media (whether they endorse them or not) are shining a spotlight on them every day.

The rhetoric has been classical collectivist propaganda. As impossible as it might be to actually work, it does absolutely appeal. It’s therefore spreading rapidly. I term this rhetoric, "infectious insanity" – a harsh term but, I think, an apt one. In my belief, this will spread much as Bolshevism did after 1917, like a particularly virulent skin rash. Historically, it’s always been true that, when prosperity has ceased to be readily visible in a nation, the false hope of collectivism becomes the drug of choice."

- https://internationalman.com/

The Daily "Near You?"

Birmingham, United Kingdom. Thanks for stopping by!

"Doomsday..."

"Doomsday is quite within our reach, 

if we will only stretch for it.”

- Loudon Wainwright III

"Why US Public Debt Is Unsustainable And Is Destroying The Middle Class" (Excerpt)

"Why US Public Debt Is Unsustainable 

And Is Destroying The Middle Class"

by Daniel Lacalle

Excerpt: "In a recent tweet, a talented financial analyst and investor stated: “The “debt is unsustainable” narrative has been around for 40 years plus. What’s astonishing to me is how the people who push this narrative never ask themselves, “Why has it been sustainable for so long?”.

There is a widespread idea that the fiscal imbalances of a world reserve currency issuer would end in an Argentina-style bankruptcy. However, the manifestation of unsustainability did not even appear as drastic in Argentina itself. Hey, Argentina continues to exist, doesn’t it?

Excessive public debt is unsustainable when it becomes a burden on productive growth and leads the economy to constantly rising taxes, weaker productivity growth, and weaker real wage growth. However, the level of unsustainable accumulation of debt may continue to rise because the state itself imposes public debt on banks’ balance sheets and the state forces the financial sector to take all its debt as the “lowest risk asset.” However, law and regulation have merely imposed and forced this construct. Rising debt bloats the government’s size in the economy and erodes its growth and productivity potential.

Many diabetic and obese people continue to eat too much unhealthy food, thinking nothing has happened so far. That does not mean their eating habits are sustainable.

Those who ignore the accumulation of public debt tend to do so under the idea that nothing has happened yet. This is a reckless way of looking at the economy, a sort of “we have not killed ourselves yet; let us accelerate” mentality.

An ever-weaker private sector, weak real wages, declining productivity growth, and the currency’s diminishing purchasing power all indicate the unsustainability of debt levels. It becomes increasingly difficult for families and small businesses to make ends meet and pay for essential goods and services, while those who already have access to debt and the public sector smile in contentment. Why? Because the accumulation of public debt is printing money artificially."

Full article here:

- https://www.zerohedge.com/

"Wars... And On The Beach"

"On the Beach"

by Wikipedia

"'On the Beach' is a post-apocalyptic novel published in 1957, written by British author Nevil Shute after he emigrated to Australia. The novel details the experiences of a mixed group of people in Melbourne as they await the arrival of deadly radiation spreading towards them from the Northern Hemisphere, following a nuclear war the previous year. As the radiation approaches, each person deals with impending death differently.

The phrase "on the beach" is a Royal Navy term that means "retired from the Service." The title also refers to T. S. Eliot's poem "The Hollow Men", which includes the lines:

"In this last of meeting places

We grope together

And avoid speech

Gathered on this beach of the tumid river."

Printings of the novel, including the first 1957 edition by William Morrow and Company, New York, contain extracts from Eliot's poem on the title page, under Shute's name, including the above quotation and the concluding lines:

"This is the way the world ends

Not with a bang but a whimper."

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_the_Beach_(novel)

○

Freely download, "On The Beach", by Nevil Shute, here:

- https://www.fadedpage.com/

○

Full screen recommended.

"On The Beach" complete movie.

"Although there'd been "doomsday dramas" before it, Stanley Kramer's "On the Beach" was considered the first "important" entry in this genre when originally released in 1959. Based on the novel by Nevil Shute, the film is set in the future (1964) when virtually all life on earth has been exterminated by the radioactive residue of a nuclear holocaust. Only Australia has been spared, but it's only a matter of time before everyone Down Under also succumbs to radiation poisoning.

 With only a short time left on earth, the Australian population reacts in different ways: some go on a nonstop binge of revelry, while others eagerly consume the suicide pills being issued by the government. When the possibility arises that rains have washed the atmosphere clean in the Northern hemisphere, a submarine commander (Gregory Peck) and his men head to San Diego, where faint radio signals have been emanating. The movie's all-star cast includes: Peck as the stalwart sub captain, Ava Gardner as his emotionally disturbed lover, Fred Astaire as a guilt-wracked nuclear scientist, and Anthony Perkins and Donna Anderson as the "just starting out in life" married couple."

"Reality..."

"Reality is what we take to be true.

What we take to be true is what we believe.

What we believe is based upon our perceptions.

What we perceive depends upon what we look for.

What we look for depends upon what we think.

What we think depends upon what we perceive.

What we perceive determines what we believe.

What we believe determines what we take to be true.

What we take to be true is our reality."

- Gary Zukav

“A Life Worth Living: Albert Camus on Our Search for Meaning and Why Happiness Is Our Moral Obligation”

“A Life Worth Living: Albert Camus on Our Search for

Meaning and Why Happiness Is Our Moral Obligation”

by Maria Popova

“To decide whether life is worth living is to answer the fundamental question of philosophy,” Albert Camus (November 7, 1913–January 4, 1960) wrote in his 119-page philosophical essay “The Myth of Sisyphus” in 1942. “There is but one truly serious philosophical problem, and that is suicide. Judging whether life is or is not worth living amounts to answering the fundamental question of philosophy. All the rest – whether or not the world has three dimensions, whether the mind has nine or twelve categories – comes afterwards. These are games; one must first answer. And if it is true, as Nietzsche claims, that a philosopher, to deserve our respect, must preach by example, you can appreciate the importance of that reply, for it will precede the definitive act. These are facts the heart can feel; yet they call for careful study before they become clear to the intellect. Everything else… is child’s play; we must first of all answer the question.” 

One of the most famous opening lines of the twentieth century captures one of humanity’s most enduring philosophical challenges – the impulse at the heart of Seneca’s meditations on life and Montaigne’s timeless essays and Maya Angelou’s reflections, and a wealth of human inquiry in between. But Camus, the second-youngest recipient of the Nobel Prize in Literature after Rudyard Kipling, addressed it with unparalleled courage of conviction and insight into the irreconcilable longings of the human spirit.

In the beautifully titled and beautifully written “A Life Worth Living: Albert Camus and the Quest for Meaning” (public library), historian Robert Zaretsky considers Camus’s lifelong quest to shed light on the absurd condition, his “yearning for a meaning or a unity to our lives,” and its timeless yet increasingly timely legacy: If the question abides, it is because it is more than a matter of historical or biographical interest. Our pursuit of meaning, and the consequences should we come up empty-handed, are matters of eternal immediacy.

Camus pursues the perennial prey of philosophy – the questions of who we are, where and whether we can find meaning, and what we can truly know about ourselves and the world – less with the intention of capturing them than continuing the chase.”

Reflecting on the parallels between Camus and Montaigne, Zaretsky finds in this ongoing chase one crucial difference of dispositions: “Camus achieves with the Myth what the philosopher Maurice Merleau-Ponty claimed for Montaigne’s Essays: it places “a consciousness astonished at itself at the core of human existence.”

For Camus, however, this astonishment results from our confrontation with a world that refuses to surrender meaning. It occurs when our need for meaning shatters against the indifference, immovable and absolute, of the world. As a result, absurdity is not an autonomous state; it does not exist in the world, but is instead exhaled from the abyss that divides us from a mute world.”

Camus himself captured this with extraordinary elegance when he wrote in “The Myth of Sisyphus”: “This world in itself is not reasonable, that is all that can be said. But what is absurd is the confrontation of this irrational and wild longing for clarity whose call echoes in the human heart. The absurd depends as much on man as on the world. For the moment it is all that links them together.”

To discern these echoes amid the silence of the world, Zaretsky suggests, was at the heart of Camus’s tussle with the absurd: “We must not cease in our exploration, Camus affirms, if only to hear more sharply the silence of the world. In effect, silence sounds out when human beings enter the equation. If “silences must make themselves heard,” it is because those who can hear inevitably demand it. And if the silence persists, where are we to find meaning?”

This search for meaning was not only the lens through which Camus examined every dimension of life, from the existential to the immediate, but also what he saw as our greatest source of agency. In one particularly prescient diary entry from November of 1940, as WWII was gathering momentum, he writes: “Understand this: we can despair of the meaning of life in general, but not of the particular forms that it takes; we can despair of existence, for we have no power over it, but not of history, where the individual can do everything. It is individuals who are killing us today. Why should not individuals manage to give the world peace? We must simply begin without thinking of such grandiose aims.”

For Camus, the question of meaning was closely related to that of happiness - something he explored with great insight in his notebooks. Zaretsky writes: “Camus observed that absurdity might ambush us on a street corner or a sun-blasted beach. But so, too, do beauty and the happiness that attends it. All too often, we know we are happy only when we no longer are.”

Perhaps most importantly, Camus issued a clarion call of dissent in a culture that often conflates happiness with laziness and championed the idea that happiness is nothing less than a moral obligation. A few months before his death, Camus appeared on the TV show Gros Plan. Dressed in a trench coat, he flashed his mischievous boyish smile and proclaimed into the camera: “Today, happiness has become an eccentric activity. The proof is that we tend to hide from others when we practice it. As far as I’m concerned, I tend to think that one needs to be strong and happy in order to help those who are unfortunate.”

This wasn’t a case of Camus arriving at some mythic epiphany in his old age – the cultivation of happiness and the eradication of its obstacles was his most persistent lens on meaning. More than two decades earlier, he had contemplated “the demand for happiness and the patient quest for it” in his journal, capturing with elegant simplicity the essence of the meaningful life – an ability to live with presence despite the knowledge that we are impermanent: ”We must” be happy with our friends, in harmony with the world, and earn our happiness by following a path which nevertheless leads to death.”

But his most piercing point integrates the questions of happiness and meaning into the eternal quest to find ourselves and live our truth: ”It is not so easy to become what one is, to rediscover one’s deepest measure.”

- https://www.brainpickings.org/

○

Freely download “The Myth of Sisyphus,” by  Albert Camus, here:

- http://www2.hawaii.edu/

"How It Really Is"

 

"The Life Of Man..."

"The life of Man is a long march through the night, surrounded by invisible foes, tortured by weariness and pain, towards a goal that few can hope to reach, and where none may tarry long. One by one, as they march, our comrades vanish from our sight, seized by the silent orders of omnipotent Death. Very brief is the time in which we can help them, in which their happiness or misery is decided. Be it ours to shed sunshine on their path, to lighten their sorrows by the balm of sympathy, to give them the pure joy of a never-tiring affection, to strengthen failing courage, to instill faith in times of despair."

- Bertrand Russell

"The Monstrous Thing..."

"The monstrous thing is not that men have created roses out of this dung heap, but that, for some reason or other, they should want roses. For some reason or other man looks for the miracle, and to accomplish it he will wade through blood. He will debauch himself with ideas, he will reduce himself to a shadow if for only one second of his life he can close his eyes to the hideousness of reality. Everything is endured - disgrace, humiliation, poverty, war, crime, ennui - in the belief that overnight something will occur, a miracle, which will render life tolerable. And all the while a meter is running inside and there is no hand that can reach in there and shut it off."

- Henry Miller, “Tropic of Cancer”

Jim Kunstler, "Bang-and-Whimper"

"Bang-and-Whimper"

By Jim Kunstler

"Whoever doesn’t miss the Soviet Union doesn’t have a heart. 

Whoever wants it back doesn’t have a brain.” 

- VV Putin

"Have you checked if your hair is on fire today? Here comes an eclipse of the sun. Our moon will cast a totality of its shadow in a path about 100 miles wide arcing from Del Rio Texas to Bangor Maine, with lesser effects outward on each side of the path so that night will seem to fall at mid-day over most of America east of the Big Muddy. This event typically freaks out primitive peoples, and brings out the latent archaic terror even in supposedly civilized minds, reminding us in a powerfully spooky way that the cosmos runs things, not us puny humans.

You might ask: Are we hostages to cycles, Astronomical, Kondratieff, the Maunder Minimum, Fourth Turning, the Great Wave...? Considering the feckless doings of our own society, we seem to be yielding to some final act of cosmic punishment. What is not falling apart? Our livelihoods? Our politics? Our money system? Our morals? Our common sense, our families, our relations with other societies, our infrastructure, our culture, our business models, our education, our medicine? Alas, our government still lurches along, gone mad-dog on its citizens as it desperately sucks all power and resources unto its inner engine like a red giant star preparing for death.

Today is also the end of Ramadan, the Islamic holy month of fasting, prayer, atonement, and reflection. What follows this pause in the troubled Middle East, a.k.a. Armageddonville? I daresay most adult citizens of sore-beset America actually don’t care...can’t care, because they have trouble enough of their own keeping a roof overhead, a car on the road, and food on the table. The Woke-Marxist college kids are wailing over the actions of Israel in Gaza - as they will for anyone within their dumb-ass equation of victims-and-oppressors, especially involving brown and white people. It is a brutal operation in Gaza, for sure, but so was the Hamas act-of-war on October 7 that many want to forget about now. They still hold hostages, you know.

I doubt that Israel wants to exterminate the Gazans, but at this point they would probably like to export them to other nations that share their Arab culture. Those other Arab nations are not eager to take in the Gazans. The fractious minority in the USA who militate against Israel because, you know, the Jews, never ask if the Palestinians have some other plan, some other position other than From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free! - meaning Death to Israel. Can you name any alternate proposal they have proffered? No, because there is none.

Not only have they no intention of getting along somehow with Israel, but they give every sign that they prefer to continue making war on her one way or another: rocket attacks, café bombings, rape and murder ops. Because they’re oppressed. They might have turned their 40 kilometers of Mediterranean beach-front into a world-beating resort, but instead they spent billions in international aid building a tunnel network and purchasing arms to wage war against Israel. And with October 7, they got war.

So, the rest of the world is very concerned now that this will lead to World War Three, world wars being the grand prize at the end of many historical cycles. Of course, the Iranians have been chanting Death to Israel in so many words for decades, so no one can mistake Iran’s intentions. And Iran has funded and deployed Hezbollah military bases on Israel’s northern frontier with Lebanon. They are said to have thousands of high-tech rockets capable of decimating Tel Aviv. Everybody knows that launching such an operation could result, ten minutes later, in Tehran becoming an ashtray.

And what if Mr. Netanyahu launches a peremptory attack against southern Lebanon to destroy those bases? Does Iran ride to the rescue? And does Russia ride to Iran’s rescue? And does China rush in to secure the sea lanes in the Persian Gulf and the oil refineries of Iran that Israel doesn’t manage to blow up? And what does the USA do? Or Europe (watching much of its oil supply go off-line)? Looks World War Three-ish, a little bit.

There is also, lest we forget, the mess in Ukraine, another world war flashpoint. There, the stark reality is that Russia is in control of the tactical situation on the ground. The WEF syndicate’s project - fronted by NATO - to weaken Russia and eventually loot its resources is a flop. The indignities heaped on Russia in sanctions and foolish objurgations will not be forgotten. There will be a Great Reset for Europe, but not the one it ordered. Not the nirvana of transhumanism and social control; rather a cold plunge into neo-medieval poverty, the breakup of large states, and a shocking simplification of daily life.

Everything that the USA and NATO are doing these days is pretense: pretending that they have the military mojo to directly enter the Ukraine War; pretending to continue pouring money into the hopeless and unnecessary conflict; pretending that the ill-conceived project even matters. The hidden truth now is that the USA war blob needs to cut its losses in Ukraine and wants to bug out. The trouble is: how to do that in a way that does not amount to another gross American strategic humiliation? That’s Russia’s problem, too: how to adroitly work the conclusion of this fiasco in a way that doesn’t humiliate the USA to the degree that we resort to some new act of geopolitical insanity in compensation. Do you remember the half century when Ukraine was indisputably within Russia’s sphere-of-influence and was not a problem for the world? I assure you this was so, and will have to be again. It will be all right.

So, if you are among those who believe that the cosmos seeks to convey an occult message in this eclipse that will supernaturally darken half our country today, maybe it’s this one: just stop it, America! Stop meddling in every flashpoint across the planet. Look to yourself and your own monstrous problems: your jive-tragic government, your fake economy, your breached borders, your sick-and-depressed population, your racketeering corporations, your broken banks, your buggered election methods, your faithless news media, your political mental illness. Or else, get ready for bang-and-whimper."

- https://kunstler.com/

"This is the way the world ends

This is the way the world ends

This is the way the world ends

Not with a bang but with a whimper."

Download "The Hollow Men", by T.S. Eliot here:

- https://www.lcsnc.org/

"Economic Market Snapshot 4/8/24"

"Economic Market Snapshot 4/8/24"

○

Down the rabbit hole of psychopathic greed and insanity...

Only the consequences are real - to you!

○

"It's a Big Club, and you ain't in it. 

You and I are not in the Big Club."

- George Carlin

o

Market Data Center, Live Updates:

- https://www.marketwatch.com/market-data 

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- https://www.asktraders.com/analysis/

○

Comprehensive, essential truth.

- http://www.shadowstats.com/

○

Financial Stress Index

"The OFR Financial Stress Index (OFR FSI) is a daily market-based snapshot of stress in global financial markets. It is constructed from 33 financial market variables, such as yield spreads, valuation measures, and interest rates. The OFR FSI is positive when stress levels are above average, and negative when stress levels are below average. The OFR FSI incorporates five categories of indicators: credit, equity valuation, funding, safe assets and volatility. The FSI shows stress contributions by three regions: United States, other advanced economies, and emerging markets."

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- https://www.dailyjobcuts.com/

Job cuts and much more.

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- https://www.zerohedge.com/

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- https://www.investmentwatchblog.com/

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- https://wallstreetonparade.com/

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- https://www.whatreallyhappened.com/

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- https://jessescrossroadscafe.blogspot.com/

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Commentary, highly recommended:

- https://www.theburningplatform.com/

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"The more I see of the monied classes,

the better I understand the guillotine."

- George Bernard Shaw

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Oh yeah... beyond words. Any I know anyway...

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And now... The End Game...

o

Canadian Prepper, "State Of Emergency: Solar Eclipse; Nationwide Terror Risk; Nuclear Plant Attacked"

Full screen recommended.

Canadian Prepper, 4/8/24

"State Of Emergency: Solar Eclipse; 

Nationwide Terror Risk; Nuclear Plant Attacked"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com

Scott Ritter, "Israel Is Desperate In Multi-front War With Iran, Houthi, And Hezbollah"

Full screen recommended.

Scott Ritter, 4/7/24

"Israel Is Desperate In Multi-front War 

With Iran, Houthi, And Hezbollah"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

Jeremiah Babe, "Living In A Tiny Home To Living In Your Car

Jeremiah Babe, 4/7/24

"Living In A Tiny Home To Living In Your Car; 

The Great Wealth Transfer Is Underway"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

"Target Is Dying Before Our Eyes As Retail Business Continues To Collapse"

Full screen recommended.

Epic Economist, 4/7/24

"Target Is Dying Before Our Eyes As 

Retail Business Continues To Collapse"

"The Target corporation was once known for being a retail giant and a very popular household name. The founder of the Target Corporation, George Dayton created the business with the people and community in mind. E-commerce came in and changed the game for traditional retail, this led to shifts in consumer behavior and expectations. Dive into the world of Target, as it faces extinction in the face of online shopping and digital transformation."

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

Dan, I Allegedly, "My Insurance Just Got Canceled"

Full screen recommended.

Dan, I Allegedly 4/7/24

"My Insurance Just Got Canceled"

"Here is a fact of life that we’re going to have to get ready for. Insurance companies are looking for ways to cancel policies whether it’s homeowners or health insurance get ready."

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

Musical Interlude: Deuter, "Wind and Mountain"

Deuter, "Wind and Mountain"

Music for Healing and Relaxation.

"A Look to the Heavens"

"In silhouette against a crowded star field along the tail of the arachnalogical constellation Scorpius, this dusty cosmic cloud evokes for some the image of an ominous dark tower.

In fact, clumps of dust and molecular gas collapsing to form stars may well lurk within the dark nebula, a structure that spans almost 40 light-years across this gorgeous telescopic portrait. Known as a cometary globule, the swept-back cloud, is shaped by intense ultraviolet radiation from the OB association of very hot stars in NGC 6231, off the upper edge of the scene. That energetic ultraviolet light also powers the globule's bordering reddish glow of hydrogen gas. Hot stars embedded in the dust can be seen as bluish reflection nebulae. This dark tower, NGC 6231, and associated nebulae are about 5,000 light-years away."

- https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap210715.html

The Poet: Mary Oliver, "There Is Time Left"

"There Is Time Left"

"Well, there is time left –

fields everywhere invite you into them.

And who will care, who will chide you if you wander away

from wherever you are, to look for your soul?

Quickly, then, get up, put on your coat, leave your desk!

To put one's foot into the door of the grass, which is

the mystery, which is death as well as life,

and not be afraid!

To set one's foot in the door of death,

and be overcome with amazement!”

~ Mary Oliver

"Middle East Crisis, 4/7/24"

Full screen recommended.

Times Of India, 4/7/24

“'Israel Embassies Not Safe Anymore' Iran Ready To

 Strike As Khamenei’s Top General Sends Warning"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

o

Full screen recommended.

Times Now, 4/7/24

"IDF Withdraws Troops from Gaza Strip As 

Iran Readies Killer Drones, Missiles, Deadliest War Next?"

"In a sudden turn of events, IDF withdraws division from Gaza, leaving no troops actively maneuvering in southern Gaza. The IDF said that the army's 98th Division has left the Gaza Strip and that no troops actively maneuvering in the southern Strip. Only one brigade remains and is tasked with securing the 'Netrazrim corridor' that divides the Gaza Strip, according to Israeli media. Israel had planned a ground invasion of the southern city of Rafah, where more than half of Gaza's 2.3 million population are taking refuge."

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com

So, Israeli Occupation Force, you cowardly scum, big bloodthirsty tough guys, aren't you, killing defenseless old people, women and children. Sending you now to face the real men of Hezbollah is your death sentence, as you will all rapidly find out.

So be it! Hell awaits you, monsters...

o

Full screen recommended.

The Times and The Sunday Times, 4/7/24

"Residents Return To Devastated

 Khan Yunis After Israeli Troops Withdraw"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

o

"Over 14,000 Children Killed in Gaza Strip 

Since Israel-Hamas Conflict Began"

By Tass

"At least 14,350 minors have died in the Gaza Strip since the start of a new round of escalation in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict on October 7 last year, accounting for about 44% of the total number of victims, according to data released by the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics to mark the annual Palestinian Child's Day on April 5.

According to statistics cited by Al Jazeera television, about four children die every hour because of the actions of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) in the Gaza Strip. Women and minors account for at least 70% of the total number of missing persons, which has reached 7,000. As many as 117 children were killed and 724 injured in the West Bank, where Israeli forces regularly carry out operations accompanied by clashes.

More than 816,000 children in Palestine require the help of specialists "due to the consequences of the Israeli aggression, which led to psychological trauma, caused fear, anxiety, depression," the report emphasizes.

The statistics bureau estimated that the number of minors in Palestine will reach 2,432,000 by mid-2024, representing 43% of the total population. Meanwhile, according to the census, some 43,349 children in the Gaza Strip are orphans or live without one parent. In 2020, the number of such children was 26,349."

- https://tass.com/world/1771005

The Daily "Near You?

Tewkesbury, Gloucestershire, United Kingdom.

Thanks for stopping by!

"This Is How Easy It Is..."

The Moody Blues, "Don't You Feel Small"

"Still, Sometimes..."

“The early bird catches the worm. A stitch in time saves nine. He who hesitates is lost. We can’t pretend we haven’t been told. We’ve all heard the proverbs, heard the philosophers, heard our grandparents warning us about wasted time, heard the damn poets urging us to seize the day. Still, sometimes, we have to see for ourselves. We have to make our own mistakes. We have to learn our own lessons. We have to sweep today’s possibility under tomorrow’s rug, until we can’t anymore, until we finally understand for ourselves what Benjamin Franklin meant: That knowing is better than wondering. That waking is better than sleeping. And that even the biggest failure, even the worst, most intractable mistake, beats the hell out of never trying.”

- “Meredith”, “Grey’s Anatomy”