Friday, August 9, 2024

"Fall Like A Thunderbolt"

"Fall Like A Thunderbolt"
by William Schryver

“Let your plans be dark and impenetrable as night, 
and when you move, fall like a thunderbolt.”
- Sun Tzu, "The Art of War"

"81 years ago what was arguably the single greatest battle of the Second World War took place in roughly the same area where battles are occurring again today. Across a broad front in eastern Ukraine and southwestern Russia, stretching from Bryansk in the north to Izyum in the south, German and Soviet forces faced each other in the summer of 1943, with a substantial bulge in the lines in the area around Kursk. It was this bulge that was targeted by German commanders for envelopment and destruction.

The campaign commenced in the first week of July with a massive German counter-offensive, and continued for several weeks. Several hundred thousand soldiers and thousands of tanks and armored vehicles took part, with massive maneuvers and counter-maneuvers over a broad landscape of forests, fields, and rolling hills.

Much has been and could be written about the conduct of this battle, but this essay will focus on an aspect of the campaign that was unprecedented: it was the first battle in which the Soviet concepts of maskirovka were aggressively incorporated into every stage of the planning and execution of their operations.

Maskirovka is a Russian word meaning literally “masking” or “disguise”, but in the context of Russian military doctrine, it incorporates a wide spectrum of undertakings designed to deceive the enemy regarding strengths, weaknesses, disposition of forces, and the intentions of those forces. In its simplest expression, it echoes the famous dictum from Sun Tzu’s The Art of War: “All warfare is based on deception. Hence, when we are able to attack, we must seem unable; when using our forces, we must appear inactive; when we are near, we must make the enemy believe we are far away; when far away, we must make him believe we are near.”

In the summer of 1943, the Soviet army was the stronger force in comparison to the Wehrmacht. For this reason, Stalin was aggressively pressing his generals to go on the offensive. But Soviet commanders, cognizant of German preparations for a large counter-offensive, argued against this strategy. On April 8, 1943, overall commander Georgy Zhukov wrote to Stalin: “I consider it inexpedient for our troops to launch a preemptive offensive in the near future. It would be better for us to wear down the enemy on our defenses, knock out his tanks, bring in fresh reserves, and finish off his main grouping with a general offensive.” - Glantz, David M., "Soviet Military Deception in the Second World War," p. 148

The top Soviet commanders rushed to Moscow to plead their case to Stalin in an April 12th meeting. General Shtemenko, 1st Deputy of the Operations Department, later wrote: “Ultimately it was decided to concentrate our main forces in the Kursk area, to bleed the enemy forces here in a defensive operation, and then switch to the offensive and achieve their complete destruction.” - Ibid, p. 148

The trick was going to be to assemble and conceal the forces for the envisioned counter-attack within the front-wide defensive preparations – to give the Germans the impression that they had been considerably weakened, and were therefore assuming a purely defensive posture until their offensive potential could be reconstituted. Bear in mind, up until this point in the war, the Soviets had never undertaken a summer offensive, and therefore their apparent move to the defensive in the summer of 1943 was entirely consistent with prior practice.

Their employment of maskirovka would be of utmost importance in their preparations. “… staffs prepared detailed maskirovka plans which included the concealment of preparations, creation of false troop concentrations, simulation of false radio nets and communications centers, construction of false air facilities and false aircraft, and the dissemination of false rumors along the front and in the enemy rear area. These plans emphasized secret movement of reserves, hidden preparations for counter-attacks and counter-strokes, and concealed locations of command posts and communications sites.”

To deceive extensive German air reconnaissance army commanders established 15 false airfields, complete with mock-up aircraft, runways, control towers, and aircraft shelters, and installed numerous mock-up tanks to simulate armored assembly areas. German aircraft responded by bombing these false airfields nine times.” - Ibid, p. 152

Lieutentant General I.S. Konev described the situation: “The enemy thought that we were preparing only for defensive battle. Possessing a huge number of tanks and guns of a new type, the Germans hoped that it was impossible to stop them. Thus, as the enemy prepared, we prepared. The main thing was not to conceal the fact of our preparations, but rather the force and means, the concept of battle, the time of our counter-offensive, and the nature of our defense. Very likely it was the only unprecedented occasion in military history, when the strong side, having the capabilities for offensive action, went over to the defense.” - Ibid, p. 154
German tanks and troops advance near Kursk, 1943

In addition to the masking of force preparations and concentrations, once the battle had commenced, the Soviets employed substantial offensive movements in other areas of the front to draw off German forces from the primary target of the major Soviet counter-offensive. And what was the “key strategic sector”? Well, somewhat ironically, the great armored battle that unfolded in the vicinity of Kursk developed as a diversion from the primary Soviet objective: to defeat and conquer the primary locus of German power in and around Kharkov.

“Surprise was essential for Soviet forces to achieve victory around Belgorod and Kharkov, and surprise had to be a product of maskirovka. The Soviets applied maskirovka in all of its varied forms to deceive the Germans regarding the timing, strength, form, and location of the major Soviet counter-stroke.” - Ibid, p. 174
Soviet tanks and troops at Kursk – 1943

Well, a full description of the elaborate maskirovka employed in the Battle of Kursk is beyond the scope of this article. I simply wanted to introduce and elaborate on some of its fundamental aspects in order to suggest possible parallels between what was done then and what is happening now in Ukraine.

There has been ecstatic jubilation among Ukraine-supporters, and anguished hand-wringing among Russia-supporters, that somehow Russian forces were “surprised” and “humiliated” by the recent Ukrainian counter-offensive near Kursk. Let me therefore be perfectly clear: the notion that the Russian high command did not see this coming is, in my confident estimation, utterly absurd.

They observed its preparations over the course of many weeks. They knew much of the NATO-provided equipment shipped into Ukraine since the spring was not being used yet in battle, and had instead been diverted and hoarded to provide the backbone of firepower for an eventual counter-stroke. They also knew that substantial numbers of the remaining cadre of Ukrainian professional soldiers had been pulled from the front lines to form the core of this attack, and that they were being supplemented by a significant infusion of “foreign volunteers”.

They knew that thousands of new Ukrainian conscripts had been sent to Poland and Britain for rapid training according to NATO standards. They knew NATO commanders had effectively assumed operational command of this force, and were calling the shots as to when and where it would be deployed. And they certainly knew that, because this force was not present in the Kursk region for the limited counter-attack that took place there earlier in August.

Indeed, as the true nature of the events of the past few weeks comes into clearer focus, it is now possible to see that the Russians acted deliberately to provide the NATO commanders of this reconstituted Ukrainian force with some low-hanging fruit to blood their untested army, and provide it with a victory that would not only bolster its battlefield confidence, but more importantly serve essential political purposes at a time when western public support was flagging to a very discernible degree.

More importantly, from the Russian perspective, providing NATO commanders a temptation they could not resist would draw this fresh army into the open field of battle where it could then be isolated and ultimately destroyed.

Therefore the Russians commenced, several weeks ago, to withdraw all but a token force from the area containing the towns of Balakliya, Kupyansk, and Izyum – thereby presenting an irresistible opportunity for the commanders of this NATO-trained, NATO-equipped, and NATO-led force to demonstrate, as they imagine it, the superiority of western combined-arms warfare. The subsequent attack achieved seemingly extraordinary success against the relative handful of Donbass militia and Rosgvardia troops left to defend Kursk. The Ukrainians and their “foreign volunteer” shock troops advanced mostly unopposed and occupied a fairly significant piece of real estate extending all the way to the Oskil River.

Relatively little soldier against soldier fighting has occurred. In fact, Ukrainian reports euphorically trumpeted the fact that the Ukrainian advance could not even keep up with the speed of the Russian retreat! The “glorious victory” of this quasi-NATO army has – at least for the time being – launched the western media narrative into an unprecedented spasm of triumphalism.

Delusional reports abandoned tanks, casualties, and captured Russian soldiers are circulating widely, willingly believed by those whose biases find them pleasing. Western think-tank monkeys and retired-generals-for-hire move from one mainstream news studio to the next spouting fantastical nonsense about next liberating the Donbass, then Crimea, followed by deposing Putin and hauling him before a tribunal at The Hague.

And if that were not enough, many have even begun to openly discuss the long-desired western pipe dream of dismantling Russia altogether; cutting it up into a dozen or more smaller republics that will then obediently fall in line with the rest of the “rules-based world order”. It’s all quite breathtaking to behold.

Few seem to be aware that the triumphant army that marched forth into the power vacuum the Russians created for them have been continually savaged by long-range artillery fire and airstrikes, which have already inflicted many casualties upon the relatively exposed force.

Few seem to appreciate that the pace of the initially rapid advance has now effectively ground to a halt, caught between the Oskil River to the east and the Seversky-Donets to the south, and it has proven unable to achieve appreciable success against the concentrations of Russian forces it is now encountering on the other sides of those rivers. And no one seems to be asking the most pertinent question: What will the Russians do next?

There seems to be a pervasive assumption that this apparent battlefield “victory” has been so humiliatingly complete that the Russians have been ruined; psychologically broken; that they are no longer capable of operations; that they are now a beaten, trembling mob of frightened “orcs” nervously awaiting the next train back to wherever it was they came from.

Those cheering as the victory parade rolls down the streets of Kiev, London, and Washington appear to have forgotten that Russia’s “special military operation” up to this point has employed a minor fraction of its military capability, and that the Russian objective, from the beginning, has not been to conquer territory, per se, but to comprehensively destroy Ukrainian military capabilities.

I think the Ukraine supporters might be engaging in an orgy of premature exultation. I am persuaded the events of the past few weeks have been largely orchestrated pursuant to Russia’s ultimate objectives. I am convinced the Russians remain masters of the art of maskirovka, and that the masters of empire in Brussels, London, and Washington – as they always have – continue to underestimate Russian strategic acumen, operational capabilities, and clever resourcefulness.

Even as NATO commanders in Kiev clink champagne flutes filled to the brim with looted Dom Perignon, and congratulate each other on a brilliantly conceived and expertly executed plan, I strongly suspect the other shoe is about to drop – and when it does, I expect it to fall like a thunderbolt on their unjustifiably inflated heads."

"Prepare To Lose Your Job, The Layoff Tsunami Is Coming; Thousands Lose Their Jobs This Week"

Jeremiah Babe, 8/9/24
"Prepare To Lose Your Job, The Layoff Tsunami Is Coming;
 Thousands Lose Their Jobs This Week"
Comments here:
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Musical Interlude: Deuter, "Sea and Silence"

Deuter, "Sea and Silence"

"A Look to the Heavens"

"Would the Rosette Nebula by any other name look as sweet? The bland New General Catalog designation of NGC 2237 doesn't appear to diminish the appearance of this flowery emission nebula, at the top of the image, atop a long stem of glowing hydrogen gas. Inside the nebula lies an open cluster of bright young stars designated NGC 2244.
These stars formed about four million years ago from the nebular material and their stellar winds are clearing a hole in the nebula's center, insulated by a layer of dust and hot gas. Ultraviolet light from the hot cluster stars causes the surrounding nebula to glow. The Rosette Nebula spans about 100 light-years across, lies about 5000 light-years away, and can be seen with a small telescope towards the constellation of the Unicorn (Monoceros)."

"It's Just... Life"

“Bad things don’t happen to people because they deserve for them to happen. It just doesn’t work that way. It’s just… life. And no matter who we are, we have to take the hand we’re dealt, crappy though it may be, and try our very best to move forward anyway, to love anyway, to have hope anyway… to have faith that there’s a purpose to the journey we’re on.”
- Mia Sheridan
o
Full screen recommended.
RedFrost Motivation, 
Chief Tecumseh, "So Live Your Life"
Read by Shane Morris

"In The End..."

"What we think, or what we know, or what we believe is, in the end,
of little consequence. The only consequence is what we do."
- John Ruskin

"The End of 'Luxurious Languor'”

"The End of 'Luxurious Languor'”
by Brian Maher

“'Luxurious languor'…We hazard the epoch of luxurious languor - 18th-century philosopher David Hume’s delicious expression - is closing. It acquired its existence through the post-2008 imposition of artificially reduced interest rates. Rates at or near zero reigned for an entire decade and longer. Credit was essentially… costless.

The United States economy got accustomed to it - even dependent on it. Projects that would prove juiceless at higher rates of interest may yield juice at zero rates of interest. And so they were undertaken at zero rates of interest. This unnatural epoch fattened a particular group of the languorously luxuriant…

Nothing Changes but the Date: In 1752 the abovesaid Hume authored an essay, “Of Public Credit” by title. From which: "In this unnatural state of society, the only persons, who possess any revenue beyond the immediate effects of their industry, are the stock-holders, who draw almost all the rent of the land and houses, besides the produce of all the customs and excises.

These are men, who have no connexions with the state, who can enjoy their revenue in any part of the globe in which they chuse to reside, who will naturally bury themselves in the capital or in great cities, and who will sink into the lethargy of a stupid and pampered luxury… Adieu to all ideas of nobility, gentry and family."

Switch 1752 for 2012 or 2024. Are they not the same? Yet the reign of zero rates is ended. The reign of luxurious languor will likely end with it. Not today perhaps. Perhaps not even tomorrow or the tomorrow after that. Yet end it will.

This week yields on the bellwether 10-year Treasury note scaled 3.946, as the daily and tides recede routinely from their heights. Yet in the natural cycle the tide reacquires its height. As with nature, so with markets. We believe yields will once again attain the 5% tidal mark. They will likely exceed it. And the sand structures erected in low tide - under luxurious languor - will go washing away under high tide. We shall label this phase “non-luxurious rigor.”

Time and Tide Claim All Ultimately: These structures remain largely intact. Yet the tides run to lagging cycles. And expiring debt - acquired at the low tide of zero rates - must be refinanced under higher tide. At this point sandy foundations begin to give way… and luxury is not nearly so langourous. It is perilous. It is non-luxurious rigor.

Mr. Dan Amoss is Jim Rickards’ senior market analyst. He is an authentic market crackerjack with a skull ear to ear and chin to crown with knowledge. From whom: "Corporate debt is about $40 trillion. The longer yields stay at 5% or higher, the more corporations will have to refinance at that rate. It’s going to have a depressing effect on the economy. There’s a huge difference between an economy that has a zero cost of capital, and one that has a 5% cost of capital. It changes everything."

It puts a period to the languorously luxurious epoch. That is what it does. The business reduces ultimately to fundamental mathematics - and its iron laws.

There’s a Limit: Take a 200-pound man. Place 100 pounds upon his back. If he is a somewhat stout and hearty fellow, this burden he can withstand. It is merely half his weight. Now place 200 pounds upon his back - his own bodyweight. He may quake some. He may perspire some. Yet if he is a man of normal construction, if his muscles have not atrophied under languorously luxuriant living, he can absorb the load. He can even stagger ahead some. Not much perhaps - yet some.

Now load an additional 50 pounds upon his back. You have exceeded his capacity. The additional 25% of his weight proves too much. He can retain the vertical, the burden will not buckle him or bring him heaping down. Yet he is unable to advance. He can merely stand where he is.

Now you understand the economy of the United States. Ample evidence indicates that an economy can withstand a 90% debt-to GDP ratio. Once that ratio exceeds 90% the economy proceeds to strain and stagger. The United States debt-to-GDP ratio runs presently to 125%, roughly. It is the normal 200-pound man with 250 pounds upon its back. It can stand, it is true. Yet it cannot walk. It is overloaded.

“More Is Not More”: Mr. Matthew Piepenburg is a money man at Matterhorn Asset Management. Here he cites the abovesaid Hume: "The folks at the big banks… who never bothered to study economics (or frankly basic history) forgot to tell voters and investors that beneath the last [14-plus] years of “luxury” and “recovery” lies a market secret (and economic virus) of which Hume warned in 1752…

Specifically, Hume said this of debt: “More is not more.” That is, more debt does not create long-term growth; in fact, it mathematically destroys it. To confirm this market secret, one only needs to look at the history of what happens when government debt exceeds 50% of its income, or GDP. Once that ratio hits 50% of GDP, this is bad. And when that ratio hits 90%, the economy loses one-third of its growth rate.

No exceptions exist, says this Piepenburg fellow. That is because the dilemma reduces to mathematical equation. It is science: "This is not just true some of the time. It’s true all of the time, because economics, when understood, is not an art; it’s a science. Debt, when overextended, always kills growth. As of today, U.S. government debt to GDP, at [124%], is well past the point of no return."

We fear he is correct. Again, the mathematics is the mathematics and the science is the science. We refer not to “the science” of Dr. Fauci - but to the demonstrable science - to the authentic science. And the science says a 124% debt-to-GDP ratio is economically lethal.

Nixon Started It: When did the United States begin to flout the mathematical laws? When did its debt addiction and ultimate descent into languorous luxury commence? In 1971 says Mr. Piepenburg: "[It all] went downhill when Nixon famously declared, “I guess we’re all Keynesians now,” meaning we all ignored the market secret and became enamored by (addicted to) debt."

Why? Because debt is fun. It buys a lot of shopping sprees and “luxurious languor,” from Wall Street to Main Street to Pennsylvania Avenue.  But Hume’s market secret reminds us that any nation that doesn’t produce and earn as much as it spends is heading mathematically for a real moment of “uh-oh.”

Let us then conclude with Mr. Hume himself: "Either the nation must destroy public credit, or public credit will destroy the nation. It is impossible that they can both subsist… The entire economic and financial apparatus is constructed upon public credit. The nation will not destroy it - not voluntarily that is. Thus option one goes emptying into the hellbox. Only one option remains. And that is option two…"

The Daily "Near You?"

Pensacola, Florida, USA. Thanks for stopping by!

The Poet: Dylan Thomas, “Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night”

“Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night”

“Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.”

- Dylan Thomas

"Is There An Answer?"

"Is there an answer to the question of why bad things happen to good people? The response would be to forgive the world for not being perfect, to forgive God for not making a better world, to reach out to the people around us, and to go on living despite it all, no longer asking why something happened, but asking how we will respond, what we intend to do now that it has happened."
- Harold S. Kushner

"Ray McGovern on Scott Ritter - Israel's Collapse: The Moral and Military Crisis"

Dialogue Works, 8/9/24
"Ray McGovern on Scott Ritter -
 Israel's Collapse: The Moral and Military Crisis"
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Related:
Danny Haiphong, 8/9/24
"Prof. Mohammad Marandi on Scott Ritter FBI Raid: 
America's War on Iran & Russia Destroys the U.S."
Friend of the show and US Marine Corps Intelligence Officer Scott Ritter had his home raided August 7th by the FBI under alleged violations of the FARA Act. Prof. Mohammad Marandi joined the show to discuss his take on this chilling event and how it relates to similar attacks on journalism as a result of America's march to war on Iran and Russia.
Comments here:
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Dialogue Works, 8/9/24
"Larry C. Johnson on Scott Ritter;
 Israel's Stunning Fall; Ukraine's Suicidal Moves"
Comments here:
o
Full screen recommended. 
OpenmindedThinker Show 8/9/24
"Key Arab Allies Abandon Israel 
As Iran Plans to Strike Tel Aviv"
Comments here:

"How It Really Is"

 

Bill Bonner, "La Vie de Chateau (Chateau Life)"

"La Vie de Chateau (Chateau Life)"
When we got here the house was broken down... but we were young and energetic. Now, it is we whose thatch has thinned and whose hinges creak. The house is in more-or-less good shape.
by Bill Bonner

Poitou, France - "Today, we leave the frauds and foolishness of politics and economics... in order to give you an update on what has been happening here, in our little corner of France.

When we first came to France, we had six children... a tutor... and one elderly mother and an aunt. This big, old house looked perfect. Plenty of space. And plenty of work to do too — fixing roofs, doors, windows, shutters, walls, electricity, plumbing - everything. It was going to be a learning experience... and an adventure.

And here we are, thirty years later. When we got here the house was broken down... but we were young and energetic. Now, it is we whose thatch has thinned and whose hinges creak. The house is in more-or-less good shape. And now there are only the two of us... awaiting visitors.

Chateau life is different from ordinary life. The chateau and the church were, traditionally, the centers of community life in the villages of France. The church held command of the spiritual high ground... the chateau was where the secular power resided. But as farms modernized in the ‘50s and ‘60s, the gentleman farmer became a thing of the past and the big house became an unnecessary burden. Families in France do not leap for joy when they inherit an old chateau; they call a realtor. And today, a chateau is a drafty, vast, rambling place almost always in need of repair. But chateau life has some charms.
“Putain de merde!” (better left untranslated) yelled Damien. Damien, a part-time handyman, was trying to get our old car started. It is an ancient 2CV... we had to get it going because our other car - a Nissan Patrol - exploded as we were driving down the highway. “I knew something was wrong when I saw smoke coming out of the glove compartment,” Elizabeth told us. And when we tried to get it going again, a huge cloud of smoke arose... while the engine made a clanging noise. An old diesel, with 300,000 kilometers on it…the time had come to say goodbye. "The motor is dead,” was the judgement of a mechanic called to the scene.

When we got back home, we pulled the 2CV out of the garage and dusted it off. “You won’t get very far in this,” said Damien. It was a Saturday morning. And the first time we had ever seen Damien in a pair of shorts. They were short shorts... made out of some shiny tissue that looked vaguely like leather. His legs were alabaster white... with thin reddish hair on them. Beneath them were a pair of rubber boots. If you had put him on stage, Damien would have drawn a torrent of laughs. But Damien had been fishing.

“Did you catch many fish,” we asked. “Yes... they’re very little... in that bucket over there. You can fry them up whole. You don’t have to clean them. A ‘friture’ it’s called.” Peering into the bucket did not increase our appetite. Damien fished in the canal next to the house. The water was muddy... and some of the little fish were already floating belly-up.

Turning back to the car, we had put in a fresh battery, but it still wouldn’t start. Damien took over. “Merde!” he let out a curse. Almost immediately, he scraped his knuckles on the carburetor... trying to figure out why no fuel was getting where it needed to go. This was old technology. Not a silicon chip in the whole car. And when it didn’t work... you took it apart.

The carburetor was soon in pieces. Damien put it back together. But when it was all assembled, there was still a little piece on the table. “Merde!” came the inevitable remark. Once again, the carburetor was disassembled... and reassembled. Whether Damien figured out where to put the extra piece... or whether he threw it in the trash, we don’t know... but when he pulled out the choke... and turned the key... the engine started up promptly.

“Let’s go for a spin,” suggested one of our young visitors from America. So, we rolled back the top (made of flexible plasticized cloth)... took our seats... and set out. Over hill and dale... on the little, one-lane farm roads of the countryside... past fields of sunflowers... cows grazing... neglected 12th century chateaux... and humble farm dwellings. The clear blue sky overhead…the winding road ahead. “It runs well, doesn’t it?” we remarked, to no one in particular.

But then, on an uphill climb, we felt something slip. The motor raced... but it seemed to slip out of gear... it advanced more and more slowly... and then, not at all. We turned off the engine... now spinning over as if in a void. The three young passengers got out and pushed... after a bit of effort, with your editor directing from behind the steering wheel, the car crested the hill. What luck. We weren’t far from home... and it was mostly downhill.

The three teenagers gave a shove and jumped back inside for a long coasting ride down the hill to the white cross that marked the turn-off to our house. Then, on flat ground, our three companions almost effortlessly pushed the car back into the yard. Damien was standing in the driveway with his fishing bucket in his hand. ‘Merde!’ More Chateau Life... to come..."
o
"Breathing New Life into a Faded Beauty – Interiors Case Study"
Elisabeth and Bill Bonner talk to Nicola Venning about their
 beautifully renovated Château de Courtomer’s farmhouse.

Dan, I Allegedly, "Biometric Scanners at Costco - End of Privacy?"

Full screen recommended.
Dan, I Allegedly, AM 8/9/24
"Biometric Scanners at Costco - 
End of Privacy?"
"Our freedoms are being eliminated everywhere we go. The latest is walking into Costco and having to have a scan to enter. What’s next? Eye scan? Palmprint? Who knows."
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Adventures With Danno, "Ollie's Bargain Outlet 2024!"

Full screen recommended.
Adventures With Danno, AM 8/9/24
"Ollie's Bargain Outlet 2024!"
"In today's vlog, we are at Ollie's Bargain Outlet and are going over many different food options to stock up our pantry with. We go over a lot of good quality items for much cheaper prices."
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Full screen recommended.
Travelling with Russell, 8/9/24
"Russian Typical (French Owned) Hardware Store: Leroy Merlin"
"Discover what a Russian typical hardware store looks like inside. Join me on a Tour of Russia's most popular hardware store chain. With over 100 locations Leroy Merlin is the most known and recognized hardware store in Russia."
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Gregory Mannarino, "Beware! This Is A Massive Con-job And Many People Are Going To Be Destroyed!"

Gregory Mannarino, AM 8/9/24
"Beware! This Is A Massive Con-job 
And Many People Are Going To Be Destroyed!"
Comments here:

Jim Kunstler, “Who Elected YOU Boss of This Outfit?”

“Who Elected YOU Boss of This Outfit?”
“There’s some perversion that’s happened
 in our country in the last several years.”
- Candidate Kamala Harris
by Jim Kunstler

"You might well wonder: how does the Democratic Party rank and file sustain such fervor for the wrecking crew of Harris & Walz conjured up with zero input from the Party’s demos? Just plopped onstage as by the old MGM studio heads casting a pair of iffy contract players in a “B” movie musical called "Our Pronouns Are Cash and Carry."

So far, Harris and Walz levitate in fake polls on gusts of idiot wind from the Party’s unofficial public relations team of the The New York Times / MSNBC / CNN / NPR media matrix. But it’s already obvious that Veep Kamala Harris’ brain is just a laugh generator triggered by anything that sounds like an idea from the material world: the economy? Hee-haw...Ukraine? Bwa-ha-ha-ha-ha...The border? Tee-hee...Transitioning minor children? Yuk-yuk-yukity-yuk...The Middle East? Cackle cackle...

You are well aware, I’m sure, that the veep has yet to be exposed to a single unscripted interchange with anyone outside her promotional circle. It’s been kind of neat trick to behold, like watching a barking terrier walk around the stage on its hind legs —-but after a while the audience might be thinking, What else can you show me?

You must not suppose this liminal moment in history between the defenestration of “Joe Biden” and the apparent selection of Harris & Walz is anything but a transient psychotic episode in American politics. The tell is that nobody in the Dem fold is inquiring as to how it happened, and especially who is behind it. Has the Dem Party become just Speaker emeritus Nancy Pelosi’s personal mafia? It appears that she was the one who delivered the black spot to “JB.” Do Chuck Schumer and Hakim Jefferies even matter in that supposed hierarchy, or is Mrs. Pelosi sole proprietor of the org now?

There must be a few unfettered souls among the Dem delegates who detect that, without the smoke and mirrors of the media matrix, Harris & Walz can’t possibly make the case for getting elected honestly. And the odds of successfully rigging another national election seem to be on-the-fade, too, with such obvious pranks as registering 371 illegal aliens (non-citizens) to vote using an address that turns out to be a Walmart parking lot. Yesterday, Governor Glen Youngkin of Virginia signed an excutive order requiring paper ballots and voter ID along with other new regs. Is a trend underway among the states to clean up their acts?

The so far railroaded national Dem delegates have ten more days to watch the Harris/Walz tag-team get vivisected on “X”, which, like it or not, has become the sole open conduit for news and commentary in a nation ruled by a psychopathocracy. You can say that because the policies they promote are obviously inimical to our country’s well being - open borders, harrassment, arrest and censorship of political opponents, the pointless Ukraine war, sexual mutilation of children, mass digital surveillance, medical quackery, and a policy of lying about absolutely all of it. Many still recognize insanity when they see it in action. These matters are not defensible and, deep down, they must know it, and maybe enough of the delegates will decide to do something about it - like revolt against the candidates foisted on them.

One possible result, of course, is that such a revolt will rip the party to shreds. You can easily imagine chaos in the streets of Chicago among the disaffected delegates and the Antifa shock troops called forth to punish them. Chaos for its own sake is highly valued by so-called “progressives” looking to progressively destroy the entire armature of civilized life in order to create out of the ashes a nirvana of sadomasochistic persecution and punishment - their Hieronymus Bosch Wokester utopia.

I’m guessing that there will be untoward discoveries about, and mortifying blunders galore by, Harris & Walz these ten days ahead, and they will go into the Chicago convention like two pitiful creatures marked for sacrifice. Gawd knows what will emerge from the turbulence that ensues - but I’m still dogged by the feeling that the only plausible outcome is a giant flying reptile with a face like Hillary’s swooping into the arena on her great, flapping, leathery wings crying, "Caw caw caw, I own you all now, you miserable cat ladies, incels, nose-rings, and sundry victims of hateful offense! Follow me once more into the glorious rapture of defeat! And it shall be done!"

Thursday, August 8, 2024

Jeremiah Babe, "The Bubbles Just Keep Getting Bigger"

Jeremiah Babe, 8/8/24
"The Bubbles Just Keep Getting Bigger"
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Judge Napolitano, "INTEL Roundtable w/ Johnson & McGovern: Weekly Wrap"

Judge Napolitano - Judging Freedom, 8/8/24
"INTEL Roundtable w/ Johnson & McGovern: Weekly Wrap"
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Musical Interlude: Ludovico Einaudi, "Oltremare"

Ludovico Einaudi, "Oltremare"

"A Look to the Heavens"

“Close to the Great Bear (Ursa Major) and surrounded by the stars of the Hunting Dogs (Canes Venatici), this celestial wonder was discovered in 1781 by the metric French astronomer Pierre Mechain. Later, it was added to the catalog of his friend and colleague Charles Messier as M106. Modern deep telescopic views reveal it to be an island universe - a spiral galaxy around 30 thousand light-years across located only about 21 million light-years beyond the stars of the Milky Way. 
Along with a bright central core, this stunning galaxy portrait, a composite of image data from amateur and professional telescopes, highlights youthful blue star clusters and reddish stellar nurseries tracing the galaxy's spiral arms. It also shows off remarkable reddish jets of glowing hydrogen gas. In addition to small companion galaxy NGC 4248 at bottom right, background galaxies can be found scattered throughout the frame. M106, also known as NGC 4258, is a nearby example of the Seyfert class of active galaxies, seen across the spectrum from radio to X-rays. Active galaxies are powered by matter falling into a massive central black hole.”

Chet Raymo, "Lessons"

"Lessons"
by Chet Raymo

"There is a four-line poem by Yeats, 

"What they undertook to do
They brought to pass;
All things hang like a drop of dew
Upon a blade of grass."

"Like so many of the short poems of Yeats, it is hard to know what the poet had in mind, who exactly were the unknown instructors, and if unknown how could they instruct. But as I opened my volume of "The Poems" this morning, at random, as in the old days people opened the Bible and pointed a finger at a random passage seeking advice or instruction, this is the poem that presented itself. Unsuperstitious person that I am, it seemed somehow apropos, since outside the window, in a thick Irish mist, every blade of grass has its hanging drop.

Those pendant drops, the bejeweled porches of the spider webs, the rose petals cupping their glistening dew - all of that seems terribly important here, now, in the silent mist. There is not much good to say about getting old, but certainly one advantage of the gathering years is the falling away of ego and ambition, the felt need to be always busy, the exhausting practice of accumulation. Who were the instructors who tried to teach me the practice of simplicity when I was young - the poets and the saints, the buddhas who were content to sit beneath the bo tree while the rest of us scurried here and there? I scurried, and I'm not sorry I did, but I must have tucked their lessons into the back of my mind, a cache of wisdom to be opened at my leisure. Whatever it was they sought to teach has come to pass. All things hang like a drop of dew upon a blade of grass."

“Albert Camus on Strength of Character and How to Ennoble Our Minds in Difficult Times”

“Albert Camus on Strength of Character 
and How to Ennoble Our Minds in Difficult Times”
by Maria Popova

“In 1957, Albert Camus (November 7, 1913–January 4, 1960) became the second youngest laureate of the Nobel Prize in Literature, awarded to him for work that “with clear-sighted earnestness illuminates the problems of the human conscience in our times.” (It was with this earnestness that, days after receiving the coveted accolade, he sent his childhood teacher a beautiful letter of gratitude.)

More than half a century later, his lucid and luminous insight renders Camus a timeless seer of truth, one who ennobles and enlarges the human spirit in the very act of seeing it – the kind of attentiveness that calls to mind his compatriot Simone Weil, whom he admired more than he did any other thinker and who memorably asserted that “attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity.”

Nowhere does Camus’s generous attention to the human spirit emanate more brilliantly than in a 1940 essay titled “The Almond Trees” (after the arboreal species that blooms in winter), found in his “Lyrical and Critical Essays” (public library) – the superb volume that gave us Camus on happiness, despair, and how to amplify our love of life. Penned at the peak of WWII, to the shrill crescendo of humanity’s collective cry for justice and mercy, Camus’s clarion call for reawakening our noblest nature reverberates with newfound poignancy today, amid our present age of shootings and senseless violence.

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

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

In a sentiment evocative of the 1919 manifesto “Declaration of the Independence of the Mind” - which was signed by such luminaries as Bertrand Russell, Albert Einstein, Rabindranath Tagore, Jane Addams, Upton Sinclair, Stefan Zweig, and Hermann Hesse – Camus argues that this “kick” is to be delivered by the deliberate cultivation of the mind’s highest virtues: “If we are to save the mind we must ignore its gloomy virtues and celebrate its strength and wonder. Our world is poisoned by its misery, and seems to wallow in it. It has utterly surrendered to that evil which Nietzsche called the spirit of heaviness. Let us not add to this. It is futile to weep over the mind, it is enough to labor for it.

But where are the conquering virtues of the mind? The same Nietzsche listed them as mortal enemies to heaviness of the spirit. For him, they are strength of character, taste, the “world,” classical happiness, severe pride, the cold frugality of the wise. More than ever, these virtues are necessary today, and each of us can choose the one that suits him best. Before the vastness of the undertaking, let no one forget strength of character. I don’t mean the theatrical kind on political platforms, complete with frowns and threatening gestures. But the kind that through the virtue of its purity and its sap, stands up to all the winds that blow in from the sea. Such is the strength of character that in the winter of the world will prepare the fruit.

Elsewhere in the volume, Camus writes: “In the depths of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer.” Each time our world cycles through a winter of the human spirit, Camus remains an abiding hearth of the invisible summer within us, his work a perennial invitation to reinhabit our deepest decency and live up to our most ennobled nature.

Complement this particular excerpt from the thoroughly elevating “Lyrical and Critical Essays”, with Nietzsche on what it really means to be a free spirit, and Susan Sontag on how to be a moral human being, then revisit Camus on happiness, unhappiness, and our self-imposed prisons and our search for meaning.

Judge Napolitano, "Col. Douglas Macgregor: Is Israel On the Ropes?"

Judge Napolitano - Judging Freedom, 8/8/24
"Col. Douglas Macgregor: Is Israel On the Ropes?"
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"Goyim were born only to serve us. Without that, they have no 
place in the world; only to serve the People of Israel." 
- Rabbi Ovadia Yosef
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Gerald Celente, "Markets Up = Market Madness, Worst Yet To Come"

Strong language alert!
Gerald Celente, 8/8/24
"Markets Up = Market Madness, Worst Yet To Come"
"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."
https://trendsjournal.com/
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The Daily "Near You?"

Scottsboro, Alabama. USA. Thanks for stopping by!

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

"The Universe"

“Thoughts become things... choose the good ones!”