Monday, June 17, 2024

"How Is One To Live..."

“How is one to live a moral and compassionate existence when one is fully aware of the blood, the horror inherent in life, when one finds darkness not only in one’s culture but within oneself? If there is a stage at which an individual life becomes truly adult, it must be when one grasps the irony in its unfolding and accepts responsibility for a life lived in the midst of such paradox. One must live in the middle of contradiction, because if all contradiction were eliminated at once life would collapse. There are simply no answers to some of the great pressing questions. You continue to live them out, making your life a worthy expression of leaning into the light.”
- Barry Lopez

"Humanity, I Love You..."

"Humanity, I love you because when you're down
and out you pawn your intelligence for a drink." 
 - e.e. cummings

"Scott Ritter: Israel is Being Wiped Out and the IDF is Losing Big on All Fronts"

Danny Haiphong, 6/17/24
"Scott Ritter: Israel is Being Wiped Out 
and the IDF is Losing Big on All Fronts"
Former Marine Corps Intelligence Officer and UN Weapons Inspector Scott Ritter reveals the truth about Israel's growing dilemma both on the battlefield and in the court of world public opinion. What happens next for Israel may shock you and this video breaks it all down.
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"How It Really Is"

 

"Judge Napolitano - Judging Freedom, 6/17/24"

Judge Napolitano - Judging Freedom, 6/17/24
"Ray McGovern: Dangers of Misreading Putin"
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o
Judge Napolitano - Judging Freedom, 6/17/24
"Prof. Jeffrey Sachs: Putin's Offer of Peace"
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Judge Napolitano - Judging Freedom, 6/17/24
"Alastair Crooke: Europe In Mutiny"
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Adventures With Danno, "Strange Prices At Walmart!"

Full screen recommended.
Adventures With Danno, 6/17/24
"Strange Prices At Walmart! 
Food Shortage Updates & Some Empty Shelves!"
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Dan, I Allegedly, "A Very Serious Warning For Everyone"

Full screen recommended.
Dan, I Allegedly, 6/17/24
"A Very Serious Warning For Everyone"
"Here’s a very serious warning for everyone. You need to name a beneficiary on your bank accounts and retirement accounts. Some people have done this decades ago with people that are no longer in their lives getting the inheritance. This is catastrophic."
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Robert Gore, "Small Black Bundles"

We all have too much to lose.
"Small Black Bundles"
by Robert Gore

"The Biden administration and NATO have steadily escalated participation in the Ukraine-Russia war. Recently, Biden authorized Ukraine missile attacks deeper into Russia’s territory using U.S.-made ATACMS ballistic missiles, which have a range of up to 190 miles. All of the expertise necessary to target and guide these attacks will come from the U.S. and NATO.

On May 22, Ukraine drones attacked two Russian nuclear early warning radars at Armavir. Much of the targeting and guidance expertise had to have come from the U.S. and NATO. Suddenly deprived of part of their ability to detect incoming threats, if the Russians had assumed the worse - that they were under nuclear attack and the drone strike was meant to cripple their command and control capabilities - the U.S. and NATO risked a nuclear response.

The U.S.-led alliance is at war with Russia, a fact that’s downplayed or ignored by American mainstream media. Being in a “hot” war with Russia increases the likelihood of nuclear war, triggered either accidentally or intentionally, beyond even the possibility that existed during the Cold War. That possibility was almost realized during the Cuban Missile Crisis. John F. Kennedy and Nikita Khrushchev demonstrated wisdom and courage in stepping away from the brink. Now, both sides are trash talking, threatening to use nuclear weapons. Their bluster increases the chances of nuclear war.

An American public that was recently scared into masks, social distancing, lockdowns, deadly experimental vaccines, and the evisceration of civil liberties by a germ about as dangerous as a bad flu bug seems blissfully unaware of the much more severe risks of nuclear war. American officials prattle on about “tactical” nuclear weapons, “escalatory dominance,” and “limited” nuclear war, oblivious to the reality that they control only one side of a chain of decisions to respond and escalate once a conflict goes nuclear.

It would be enlightening to review the effects of atomic bombs on the people of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. The following excerpts and quotes come from The Making of the Atomic Bomb, by Richard Rhodes, Simon and Schuster, 1986, from a chapter titled “Tongues of Fire.” The Hiroshima bomb was the equivalent of 12,500 tons of TNT and the Nagasaki bomb 22,000 tons of TNT. Current thermonuclear, or hydrogen, bombs - predominantly deployed today - have an explosive force three orders of magnitude greater, measured in the tens of millions of tons of TNT, over 1,000 times as powerful. So far, these have never been used against humans.

On the morning of August 6, 1945, 8:16:02 local time, “Little Boy,” a uranium-235 gun-type fission bomb dropped from Enola Gay, an American B-29, exploded 1,900 feet above a hospital in Hiroshima. “Just as I looked up at the sky,” remembers a girl who was five years old at the time and safely at home in the suburbs, “there was a flash of white light and the green in the plants looked in that light like the color of dry leaves.” Pg. 713

The temperature at the hypocenter, the point on the ground directly below the explosion, was 5,400 degrees Fahrenheit. "People exposed within half a mile of the Little Boy fireball, that is, were seared to bundles of smoking black char in a fraction of a second as their internal organs boiled away. “Doctor,” a patient commented to Michihiko Hachiya a few days later, “a human being who has been roasted becomes quite small, doesn’t he?” The small black bundles now stuck to the streets and bridges and sidewalks of Hiroshima numbered in the thousands." Pg. 715

The blast wave rocketed several hundred yards from the hypocenter at 2 miles per second before slowing to 1,100 feet per second, destroying everything in its path and throwing up a huge black cloud of smoke and dust.

"That boy had been in a room at the edge of the river, looking out at the river when the explosion came, and in that instant as the house fell apart he was blown from the end room across the road on the river embankment and landed on the street below it. In that distance he passed through a couple of windows inside the house and his body was stuck full of all the glass it could hold. That is why he was completely covered with blood like that" Pg. 716

Perhaps the black bundles’ instantaneous deaths were a blessing. From a grocer who escaped into the street: "The appearance of people, was... well, they all had skin blackened by burns. They had no hair because their hair was burned, and at a glance you couldn’t tell whether you were looking at them from in front or in back. They held their arms [in front of them] and their skin - not only on their hands, but on their faces and bodies too - hung down. If there had been only one or two such people perhaps I would not have had such a strong impression. But wherever I walked I met these people. Many of them died along the road - I can still picture them in my mind - like walking ghosts. They didn’t look like people of this world. They had a very special way of walking - very slowly. I myself was one of them." Pgs. 717-718

From a young woman: "I heard a girl’s voice clearly from behind a tree. “Help me, please.” Her back was completely burned and the skin peeled off and was hanging down from her hips" Pg. 718

A young sociologist: "The most impressive thing I saw was some girls, very young girls, not only with their clothes torn off but with their skin peeled off as well. My immediate thought was that this was like the hell I had always read about." Pg. 718

A five-year-old boy: "That day after we escaped and came to Hijiyama Bridge, there were lots of naked people who were so badly burned that the skin of their whole body was hanging from them like rags." Pg. 718

A five-year-old girl: "People came fleeing from the nearby streets. One after another they were almost unrecognizable. The skin was burned off some of them and was hanging from their hands and from their chins; their faces were red and so swollen that you could hardly tell where their eyes and mouths were." Pg. 719

The burns, heat, and sounds of horror were unbearable. From a junior-college girl: "Screaming children who have lost sight of their mothers; voices of mothers searching for their little ones; people who can no longer bear the heat, cooling their bodies in cisterns; every one among the fleeing people is dyed red with blood." Pg. 719

Compounding the horror and agony were the fires and smoke. From a five-year-old girl: "The whole city was burning. Black smoke was billowing up and we could hear the sound of big things exploding. Those dreadful streets. The fires were burning. There was a strange smell all over. Blue-green balls of fire were drifting around. I had a terrible lonely feeling that everybody else in the world was dead and only we were still alive." Pg. 720

From a seventeen-year-old girl: "I walked past Hiroshima Station and saw people with their bowels and brains coming out." Pg. 721

To escape the raging fires, many people went to fire reservoirs or one of the seven rivers that flowed through Hiroshima. From a physician sharing his horror with Michihiko Hachiya, director of the Hiroshima Communications Hospital, who kept a dairy of the bombing and its aftermath: "I saw fire reservoirs filled to the brim with dead people who looked as though they had been boiled alive. In one reservoir I saw a man, horribly burned, crouch beside another man who was dead. He was drinking blood-stained water out of the reservoir." Pg 724.

From a young ship designer trying to reach a train station to return to his home in, of all places, Nagasaki: "I had to cross the river to reach the station. As I came to the river and went down the bank to the water, I found that the stream was filled with dead bodies. I started to cross by crawling over the corpses, on my hands and knees. As I got about a third of the way across, a dead body began to sink under my weight and I went into the water, wetting my burned skin. It pained severely. I could go no further, as there was a break in the bridge of corpses, so I turned back to the shore." Pgs. 725-726

From one of Dr. Hachiya’s patients: "The sight of the soldiers, though, was more dreadful than the dead people floating down the river. I came onto I don’t know how many, burned from the hips up; and where the skin had peeled, their flesh was wet and mushy.  And they had no faces! Their eyes, noses and mouths had been burned away, and it looked like their ears had melted off. It was hard to tell front from back." Pg. 726

From a man trying to help his wife escape the city: "While taking my severely-wounded wife out to the riverbank by the side of the hill of Nakahiro-machi, I was horrified, indeed, at the sight of a stark naked man standing in the rain with his eyeball in his palm. He looked to be in great pain but there was nothing that I could do for him." Pg. 725

Many of those who didn’t die in the first few days seemed to improve, but then sickened. American psychiatrist Robert Jay Lifton, who interviewed survivors, explained: "Survivors began to notice in themselves and others a strange form of illness. It consisted of nausea, vomiting, and loss of appetite, diarrhea with large amounts of blood in the stools; fever and weakness; purple spots on various parts of the body from bleeding into the skin, inflammation and ulceration of the mouth, throat and gums, bleeding from the mouth, gums, throat, rectum, and urinary tract, loss of hair from the scalp and other parts of the body. Extremely low white blood cell counts when those were taken, and in many case a progressive course until death." Pg 731

It was radiation sickness, or what the Japanese called “atomic bomb illness.” "Direct gamma radiation from the bomb had damaged tissue throughout the bodies of the exposed. The destruction required cell division to manifest itself, but radiation temporarily suppresses cell division; hence the delayed onset of symptoms. The blood-forming tissues were damaged worst, particularly those that produce the white blood cells that fight infection. Large doses of radiation also stimulate the production of an anti-clotting factor. The outcome of these assaults was massive tissue death, massive hemorrhage and massive infection..." Pgs 731-732/

An estimated 140,000 were killed by the end of 1945 and 200,000 within five years from the atomic bomb in Hiroshima. The Nagasaki bomb killed 70,000 by the end of 1945 and 140,000 within five years. For both cities, the five-year death rate was about 54 percent of the population. The percentage killed was an inverse function of distance from the hypocenter. At Hiroshima, almost 100 percent were killed at the hypocenter, and the percentage declined to “only” 10 percent two miles away from it. Property damage was extensive. Of Hiroshima’s 76,000 buildings, 70,000 were damaged, of which 48,000 were totally destroyed.

Many of the Americans who made the decision to drop the bombs thought it would prevent the massive loss of allied lives that an invasion of Japan presumably would have entailed. The destructive force of the bombs and the aftereffects of radiation were generally underestimated. Demonstrating to the world, particularly the Soviet Union, the power of the bomb, and preventing a Soviet invasion of Japan were at least as compelling as military necessity for dropping the bombs. Those who thought the bomb was unnecessary included General Dwight Eisenhower, General Douglas MacArthur, Admiral William Leahy, Major General Curtis LeMay, General Hap Arnold, Fleet Admiral Chester Nimitz, Brigadier General Carter Clarke, and Ralph Bard, Under Secretary of the Navy.

Almost eighty years later, it’s important to realize that as devastating and deadly as the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs were, they would be relatively tiny compared to what would happen today. The blast, fires, and radiation from one thermonuclear bomb, with a yield of 1,000 times that of the Nagasaki bomb’s 22,000 tons of TNT equivalent, would obliterate a city and surrounding countryside and kill tens of millions of people.

For America’s rulers, the other big difference between then and now is that the other side has its own bombs. Because some of the major nuclear powers’ missiles are carried on submarines, there is no way anyone’s response capability could be wiped out with a first strike. A nuclear strike against Russia or China would mean nuclear bombs dropped on American targets.

What should stop American rulers dead in their tracks is that Russia would be better able to withstand a nuclear attack than the U.S. Russian missiles are faster and more maneuverable and their antimissile technology is superior. Russia is much larger than the U.S. and has more room to hide. Their civil defense measures are far more extensive. Russia, as its history repeatedly demonstrates, knows how to play defense, even in the face of staggering losses.

Before the bomb, wars were often won by the side that was able to escalate to a point where the other side couldn’t match it. The World War I standoff was broken when the U.S. entered the war. The idea of escalatory dominance makes no sense when either side of a conflict can escalate to nuclear war and the other side can respond in kind. Seeking escalatory dominance risks escalatory annihilation of both sides, and perhaps of the entire global population.

These considerations would prevent, among rational people, any sort of threat or provocation that could lead to nuclear war. That the U.S. is playing nuclear chicken with Russia is all the proof one needs that its rulers are insane. They may take comfort from their supposedly bomb-proof bunkers and airborne command-and-control centers, but bombs detonated simultaneously in Washington, New York, and Silicon Valley would wipe them out before they ever reached those bunkers or jets.

Nothing is more insane than the desire to destroy one’s self. Among the West’s rulers, this subconscious desire manifests itself in their reaction to a global realignment of power. Their proxy war and sanctions against Russia have been disastrous failures. Russia and China lead a confederation of a majority of the world’s countries that threatens to eclipse the U.S.-led global billion. Western economies rest on a tottering foundation of debt. The totalitarian plans of globalist string-pullers are floundering on the plans’ inherent unworkability and the resistance of millions of people, empowered by decentralizing communications, computing, and weapons technologies (see “Ants at the Picnic,” Parts One and Two).

In their desperation, Western rulers have reached this point: “If we can’t rule the world, we’ll destroy it.” Facing the loss of their exalted positions and potential prosecution for their many crimes, don’t put it past this human excrement to start a nuclear war in a burst of terminal nihilism. Their cohorts in Israel (a nuclear power) may reach the same point in the Middle East - suicide is better than concession.

Even yesterday’s COVID cowards seem indifferent to today’s much more substantial dangers: instant incineration, boiled organs, skin peeling, eyeballs popping, ears melting, body-wide burns, deadly radiation sickness, and, for those that survive, the complete destruction of everything they have and their way of life. There would be hundreds of millions or billions of small black bundles. The death toll would be a several orders-of-magnitude multiple of COVID and its deadly vaccines’ combined final tally. Incidentally, climate would change for the worse, but the climate-change crowd seems unconcerned.

Many Americans may share their rulers’ death wish. Those of us who don’t must do what we can to stop the insane and their insanity. We can start by refusing to support any politician who advocates escalation in either Eastern Europe or the Middle East, rather than diplomacy, negotiations, and peaceful resolutions. Not one dime or weapon more should go to Ukraine or Israel, who both seek full-fledged U.S. military involvement in their wars - escalation that could lead to nuclear war and annihilation. There is no U.S. “interest” that justifies running that risk, certainly not an “interest” in maintaining a faltering empire.

Admittedly a political boycott of war-mongering politicians is only a small step, but it’s more than anyone’s doing now. The “movement” would gain membership after the first nuclear bomb detonates, but by then it may well be too late."

Bill Bonner, "Rotten Roots"

"Rotten Roots"
Great empires rise…and fall. And when the time comes, leaders must step up to 
the challenge. Corruption and dysfunction get worse. They must not stand in the way.
by Bill Bonner

Paris, France - "Just before we left Ireland, one of the magnificent old oak trees on the other side of the road toppled over. There it lay, branches broken, jumbled together on the ground... its rotten roots in the air, for all to see. We had no idea it was dying; until the roots were exposed, we saw only the healthy leaves and majestic, spreading limbs.

The politics of the 2024 election are simple enough. The Republicans are behind their man Trump. They’d probably prefer a different champion, but Trump has strong appeal among a large part of their voters. He’s not a conservative... but then, neither are Republican voters. The Democrats are behind their man Biden. They too would prefer to have a different standard bearer. But for better or worse, Biden is what they’ve got. Trump seems like a con man. Biden, like a doddery old fool.

The press is eagerly trying to catch one or the other in a ‘senior moment.’ The Telegraph: "Another off-day seemed to take place during this week’s G7 summit in Italy when he [Biden] appeared to wander off during a photoshoot with world leaders. As the president, who once again appeared to be completely frozen, turned to face the wrong direction, Italian prime minister Georgia Meloni intervened to usher him back in the direction of the photographer. Some may think that it’s cruel to point out these obvious frailties - but surely it is even more cruel to let him run again in his current state?"

The Mirror fires back: "Donald Trump grips railing for dear life in embarrassing video as he walks down stairs."

Both rascals are too old. Neither has a strong sense of where the country should go or a coherent agenda to get it there. Neither is likable or personally attractive. Neither seems very smart. Neither has a sense of history... nor a solid grasp of economics. Neither is suited to the challenge of the White House.

But both are perfect for the mega-political challenge... helping the US towards its rendezvous with catastrophe. Great empires rise…and fall. And when the time comes, leaders must step up to the challenge. Corruption and dysfunction get worse. They must not stand in the way. Arguably, America’s two geriatric nincompoops are just what history needs.

We sympathize with Biden. He’s only six years older than we are. But there’s a time to lead, and a time to let others lead. After watching a few video clips of Biden, appearing to be ‘out of it,’ we are left with the impression that the democrats will probably try a switcheroo before the election. At this stage, Biden is probably a negative for them.

Nobody has a bumper sticker with a heart and ‘I love Biden’ on it. Democratic voters just want him to win, either because they distrust Trump... or because they want to see the elites’ agenda continue without interruption.
 
A Real Leader: A real leader would have original ideas. He would suggest new approaches. He would propose solutions to the nation’s problems. He might go into a meeting and say “here’s what I think we should do.” While we have never been in a meeting with Joe Biden, we have a hard time imagining him doing that.

Biden, the man, is just a cut-out... a place-holder. We’ve never heard an original thought pass his lips, nor an insight worth remembering. Instead, his pensée is just much-rehearsed blah-blah, sticking with whatever talking points his handlers suggest.

After 50 years of blah-blah, Biden can do it without thinking. He may be fine in the presidential debates, for example, ‘a battle of wits between two unarmed opponents,’ where no honest thoughts are allowed. But there are times when something unexpected happens and you have to think; one of those times is bound to come sooner or later...

And if we’re right, Democratic party insiders won’t want Biden, the man, getting in the way of Biden, the sham. So, they must be looking for some relatively obscure, vaguely presentable substitute - much like Obama in 2008 - who will reliably keep the grift going without stumbling down the steps.

They needn’t worry. Donald Trump had four years to ‘drain the swamp’ and balance the budget. Instead, the swamp got deeper than ever... and the budget was never more out of balance. No agencies or departments or programs were shut down. Not a dollar of spending was cut. The Donald cut taxes (a cut the Democrats now preserve) but did nothing to diminish the power or wealth of the Imperial City.

At least Trump is what he appears to be - a genuine sleazeball. He craves attention and power... but has no idea what to do with it. No ideology. No philosophy. No plan. That’s what makes him acceptable, in a mega-political sense, to the elites of both parties. He has no ideas that will get in the way.

Yes, dear reader, both candidates are corrupt impostors. One promises more of the same. The other promises something different. But both, witlessly or willingly, will keep the jig up - more war overseas, more spending at home - transferring even more money and power to key, elite lobbies. The stock market looks healthy. GDP is positive. Unemployment is low. And the roots rot."

Jim Kunstler, "The Unites States of Go Figure"

"The Unites States of Go Figure"
by Jim Kunstler

"You realize, don’t you, that everything going on around the Ukraine fiasco on the NATO side is completely insane? The folks running the US government - Barack Obama and his witches’ coven - started the whole thing over there in concert with a gang of corporate players (BlackRock, sundry oil-and-gas companies, Haliburton types, arms-makers, bunch of big banks), plus the dastardly WEF for “guidance” (ha!), looking to grab the mineral wealth of Ukraine and, ultimately, of Russia itself. Nice try. Didn’t work out. Tons of money pounded down a rat hole.

Now, the chatter is that we (NATO) “can’t afford to lose.” Yeah? But we’re losing. Russia will hold the eastern Ukraine provinces and what’s left in the rest of Ukraine will be a failed state drained of men under sixty able to work at anything, bankrupt, broken. It will take a century, if ever, for Ukraine to recover from all that and the West will have gained nothing. Anyway, that’s the true prospect. And so, the West’s “solution” to that humiliating quandary appears to be: start a bigger war, right up to and including nukes. That’s good thinking there, Butch, said Sundance.

Why the European members of NATO wanted to go along with this nickel-plated clusterfuck is an abiding puzzle of history now, like who exactly bumped off JFK in 1963. Germany, the Euro club’s biggest economy, stood by listlessly while America blew up its supply of affordable natgas (the Nord Stream pipelines), which was an act of war by us against Germany. Apparently, Olaf Scholz went to our CIA station in Berlin for a haircut one day and came out with a lobotomy, staring blankly through the whole affair like a Hinterwälder steer on the killing floor. Meanwhile, goodbye industrial economy! Nice knowing you. Looks like it’s back to the fourteenth century, living on rough black bread, sleeping with the cattle under your house for heat in winter, fighting jihadis inside your town walls...

What is the purpose, you ask yourself, of this new world war we’re itching to start? And why now, exactly? The stupid answers may be the correct ones. To furnish an emergency pretext allowing “Joe Biden” (Barack Obama & Co.) to “postpone” the election? If so, I guess they want a hot civil war even more than WWIII, because that’s what they’ll get. Or is it just to complete the destruction of the USA, turning us into a failed state run by a tranny Mamluk-ocracy? Or is it, as Ed Dowd has averred, to cover up the imminent implosion of the US/ Euroland debt debacle?

To provide cover for all that, the West held a fake peace conference at a five-star resort in Switzerland last week - flutes of Louis Roederer Cristal Brut with langoustine mousse in puff pastry boats...to die for! (and you just might) - and you know how serious the USA was because we sent our ace problem-solver Veep Kamala Harris, who cackled and hee-hawed her way through a session or two and then...just...split the scene, mysteriously. Russia, was conspicuously not invited, by the way. Whose idea was that?

Mr. Putin marked the occasion by issuing a sane proposal to commence peace negotiations so plain, simple, and straightforward that even “Joe Biden” might have gotten the drift: 1) withdraw Ukrainian troops from Donbas territory that has joined the Russian Federation, and 2) agree that Ukraine not join NATO. The US and NATO instantly rejected it, on grounds unspecified. According to The New York Times own search engine this very morning (June 17), the newspaper hasn’t published a news story on the Ukraine War for the past five days. Go figure . . .
Click image for larger size.
While Veep Kamala Harris was yukking it up over the peace hilarity in Switzerland, “Joe Biden” went to the far more important celebrity fundraiser out in Hollywood, headlined by the likes of actors George Clooney, Julia Roberts, and late-nite snarkist Jimmy Kimmel, that is, certified experts on geopolitical conflict, united in the cause of “saving our democracy” from “the dictator Trump.”

“Joe Biden” declared that Donald Trump was bent on “retribution...he’s gonna get back at the people.” Roger that. But I think he meant that Mr. Trump might open some inquiries into how come the Democratic Party and its Intel blob ran one debilitating lawless hoax after another on our country for the past eight years while bankrupting it and destroying the medical system, the legal system, the currency, higher education, and the US military, not to mention jailing thousands on fake criminal charges and letting ten billion alien mutts into the country, many of them jihadis with dubious intentions.

But never mind all that. $30-million got raised in Hollywood to continue the game of pretend that “JB” is running for reelection. Pretend is what actors actually do, you see. They’re really good at it, and your job is to play along, suspend your disbelief. That’s the essence of showbiz. Of course, that chunk of the US population no longer mesmerized by CIA-sponsored disinfo ops is somehow rising implacably in every poll. World War Three might be the only answer for that, after all. In any case, Barack Obama himself even came out of the woodwork to lead the cheerleading among the stars in LA. And when the time came, he took the dazed, vacantly grinning “President Joe Biden” gently by the elbow and assisted him in shuffling offstage, demonstrating to the whole world how things really work in the United States of America."

"Economic Market Snapshot 6/17/24"

"Economic Market Snapshot 6/17/24"
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:
Comprehensive, essential truth.
Financial Stress Index

"The OFR Financial Stress Index (OFR FSI) is a daily market-based snapshot of stress in global financial markets. It is constructed from 33 financial market variables, such as yield spreads, valuation measures, and interest rates. The OFR FSI is positive when stress levels are above average, and negative when stress levels are below average. The OFR FSI incorporates five categories of indicators: creditequity valuationfunding, safe assets and volatility. The FSI shows stress contributions by three regions: United Statesother advanced economies, and emerging markets."
Job cuts and much more.
Commentary, highly recommended:
"The more I see of the monied classes,
the better I understand the guillotine."
- George Bernard Shaw
Oh yeah... beyond words. Any I know anyway...
And now... The End Game...
o

Sunday, June 16, 2024

Canadian Prepper, "Alert! NATO Places Nuclear Weapons On Standby"

Full screen recommended.
Canadian Prepper, 6/16/24
"Alert! NATO Places Nuclear Weapons On Standby; 
Emergency Meeting Over Another Nuke Sub Near UK"
Comments here:

Jeremiah Babe, "The Economy Is In A Full Blown Collapse, Just Look Around"

Jeremiah Babe, 6/16/24
"The Economy Is In A Full Blown Collapse, Just Look Around; 
You May Get Drafted For WW 3"
Comments here:

"Moscow, Russia at Night is Mesmerizing!"

Full screen recommended.
Sly's Life, 6/16/24
"Moscow, Russia at Night is Mesmerizing!"
Comments here:

Viewer comment:
@mikemiami7841: "No graffiti, no garbage, streets are clean, and people are happy and friendly. What a great country!"

"People Will Rush To Take Their Money Out Of The System As 50% Of US Banks Face Risk Of Collapse"

Full screen recommended.
Epic Economist, 6/16/24
"People Will Rush To Take Their Money Out Of 
The System As 50% Of US Banks Face Risk Of Collapse"
"The U.S. banking system is literally hanging by a thread. Official data shows that half of all banks across the country are at risk of insolvency right now. In other words, your money may not be safe at these financial institutions anymore. And we all should start looking for alternatives on how to preserve our wealth. Today, we will give you the details about the devastating crisis that is threatening people's deposits, and explain why we could soon be facing a meltdown worse than the 2008 subprime collapse."
Comments here:

A Blues Musical Interlude: Foy Vance, Ed Sheeran, "Make it Rain"

Foy Vance, "Make it Rain"
The original, Ed Sheeran's version is the cover.
Ed Sheeran, "Make it Rain"

"A Look to the Heavens"

"Is this one galaxy or two? The jumble of stars, gas, and dust that is NGC 520 is now thought to incorporate the remains of two separate disk galaxies. A defining component of NGC 520 - as seen in great detail in the featured image from the Hubble Space Telescope - is its band of intricately interlaced dust running vertically down the spine of the colliding galaxies. A similar looking collision might be expected in a few billion years when our disk Milky Way Galaxy to collides with our large-disk galactic neighbor Andromeda (M31). 
The collision that defines NGC 520 started about 300 million years ago. Also known as Arp 157, NGC 520 lies about 100 million light years distant, spans about 100 thousand light years, and can be seen with a small telescope toward the constellation of the Fish (Pisces). Although the speeds of stars in NGC 520 are fast, the distances are so vast that the battling pair will surely not change its shape noticeably during our lifetimes."

The Poet: Mary Oliver, "Mysteries, Yes"

"Mysteries, Yes"

"Truly, we live with mysteries too marvelous
to be understood.
How grass can be nourishing in the
mouths of the lambs.
How rivers and stones are forever
in allegiance with gravity
while we ourselves dream of rising.
How two hands touch and the bonds
will never be broken.
How people come, from delight or the
scars of damage,
to the comfort of a poem.
Let me keep my distance, always, from those
who think they have the answers.
Let me keep company always with those who say
"Look!" and laugh in astonishment,
and bow their heads."

~ Mary Oliver

“24 Life Lessons By An Old Greek Shepherd”

“24 Life Lessons By An Old Greek Shepherd”
by George Giotis, Greece by Greeks

1. “The road to the destination is never straight. To reach out to the winter shelter someone must take a lot of turns, travel along rough roads, suffer losses. You have to make sure that you always take food supplies with you.

2. Leave the past behind. If a wolf eats your goat, you can’t do anything about it. Just make sure that next time you will be more careful.

3. Don’t live just for saving money and don’t be stingy. Don’t postpone the tasting of joy for future times. Do it now, while you are still young. Make your hard work worth even more.

4. Struggle, fight. You are the only one in charge of yourself. Don’t be truant, don’t expect your dogs to do all the work in herding the sheep.

5. Ask for the respect you deserve, don’t let others use you as a doormat. Set limits, put up fences, protect your animals.

6. Blessed are the ones who make mistakes. Make mistakes. These are life lessons, we call these experience. Don’t forget who you were until yesterday. Start today and define with your actions who you are going to be from now on.  Learn to forgive, starting with yourself. Don’t feel guilty, you have no time for that.

7. Blessed are those who doubt. Don’ t let your life be ruled by dogmas. Remember that if some people hadn’t doubted previous knowledge, mankind would have still lived in caves. Examine the information, be skeptical, think critically, think rationally, revise. You haven’t seen any fairies and ghosts in the forest, just wolves.

8. Be careful. Observe others. Look them in the eyes. Like a Greek saying, “If it is not shown in the goat, it is shown by the horn.”

9. Life is a journey, not a destination. And it is valuable. The previous word you read already belongs to the past.

10. Don’t advise the young constantly, it’s a waste of time. There is no right way to teach them pain or misery, solely experience will do that.

11. Go travel! Trips are experiences that stay with us forever. Get out, try, taste, savor images greedily. Let your senses free. Expose yourself, let it go, crumble, lose your self-control from time to time. Not just your self-control, but stop controlling others too.

12. You have been isolated enough in your winter shelter, get out. Go find your friends and companionship.

13. Do not try to control others. You condemn in anxiety and suffering not only yourself, but also those who you try to control. Let others live, and live for yourself. Leave the other flocks to their shepherds, take care of yours. 

14. Life is not fair. The universe does not owe you any solace, and it is certain that at the end of the road you die. Hurry up.

15. You can be a winner. Learn from those around you. Become a child with children, play with them, but also go to the cafe and talk to the elderly. You can learn from their accumulated experience.

16. Do not take everything into account. Do not take everything seriously. You are probably overreacting today. What bothers you or you are afraid of now, most likely tomorrow will seem lukewarm or insipid. Try to see yourself from a distance, take a look at the sight of your flock from the hill.

17. Have patience. The goats do not give birth every month. But when that happens you need to be there because they need you.

18. Quarrel with your partner if necessary, it is not terrible, let the feelings be defused. Make decompression in anger. The fire is sometimes beneficial. If an area of kermes oak get burnt, spring will give again vegetation, fine food for goats and their young. Careful though, the words you say you can’t take them back. Watch what your goats eat, they don’t know how to pick. If they eat the shoots of trees, the forest cannot be created again, the place will be left bare fallow.
  
19. Be balanced. Enjoy the food and your drink. Do not forget that the world’s poor walk miles for their daily food while the rich walk miles to digest it.

20. There is no perfect time, the circumstances and conditions will never be ideal. Start from where you are now! Do not postpone.

21. Be polite. A smiling face reflects similar behavior. Make gifts. Even the gift of a good word is important. Behave well to the elderly, you will soon be like them. Behave well to animals, they are not mean or envious, they have no obsessions or selfishness. They forgive without limit.

22. If you know how to read, read a lot! Those who read live extra lives. Not only their own but also all of those who you have read about.

23. Be bold. The fear keeps you tied but it is not real, it just comes from the unknown which is not in your head.

24. Do not get attached to things. Life is like the path of the pastures and the shepherd’s bag. The more you fill it, the harder you will walk. Take only the necessary things with you. The flock keeps walking, it will not wait for you if you can’t move because of too many heavy things. Let them go, release them, feel more flexible and free.”
Translated by Eleni Vafeiadou

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