"The Porno Economy"

"The Porno Economy"

By Bill Bonner

YOUGHAL, IRELAND – Some day in the future… we’re going to understand the world better. Among other things, perhaps we will have a clearer view of that wonderful, wacky world of cryptos…Are they investments? Are they alternative forms of “money”? Or are they more like an art-form… or just entertainment? Maybe they’re a kind of financial pornography… exciting, but ultimately, phony and unsatisfying? When we figure it out… you’ll be the first to know, Dear Reader.

Signal Event: Similarly, the COVID-19 panic needs a deeper insight. Our friend, and former U.S. budget director, David Stockman, reminds us that the signal event in the first chapter of the COVID-19 calamity was the isolation of the cruise ship, "The Diamond Princess." The “novel” COVID-19 virus was found on board in February last year. And the passenger list was heavy with old people – every one of whom might have been exposed to the death bug. “Order the lilies,” said one and all. “Those people are doomed.” 

But they weren’t doomed. Out of the 3,711 people trapped on the death ship, only seven died, according to Stockman. While that was a much higher mortality rate than on the average holiday cruise, it was not exactly The Plague. Besides, nearly every one of the dead was over 70, the age when death normally begins peeking in through the portholes.

Blind Panic: That was then, when nobody really knew much about the virus, and the initial reports had the whole world in a panic. Now, it is 17 months later. We’ve seen that the disease, and its variants, are very hard to stop. And that it really has it in for old people. Some countries fought it tooth and nail. Yes, that got pulses racing, too – as if the planet had been invaded by hostile aliens. Other countries took a more relaxed approach. And the results – in terms of death tolls – were all over the place.

But then… Hallelujah! Suddenly, a miracle – a vaccine! The Russians… the Chinese… the British… even the Cubans had one of their own. With the shot in the arm, the human race was saved. Take the shot, says Dr. Anthony Fauci, and you are protected.

Continued Hysteria: But what’s this? Here’s a headline that appeared on Bloomberg during the week: "Get Shots or Get Out: US Employers Are Telling Workers." And here’s The Washington Post on the same theme: "More companies are weighing penalties for unvaccinated workers. Meanwhile, our better half is back in the U.S. She reports the following: We got an invitation to a lawn party. It looked like fun. So I was going to take [our grandchildren]. Then, I read it more closely and saw that the “invitation is extended to all those who are vaccinated.”

I don’t get it. Dr. Fauci was on the news today. He clearly said that the vaccines are effective and that vaccinated people don’t have too much to fear. Even if they get the virus, they suffer much less from it. So why are people so afraid? If the vaccine is as effective as Dr. Fauci says, it makes COVID-19 – to vaccinated people – no more of a threat than the common cold or the typical flu.

People who take the medicine are no more likely to catch the coronavirus, and die from it, than they are to die in a traffic accident on their way to the party. So why the fear? Why don’t vaccinated people go about their lives like normal people – without masks – and let the unvaccinated take their chances? Why the continued hysteria? Is it just a fake excitement… a porno-like thrill, full of sound and fury, panting and moaning, but signifying nothing?

Questioning Our Assumptions: We don’t know… But like cryptos, we’re on the case. And we have a suspicion that both the crypto craze… and the COVID-19 panic… are related to our subject this week. But what isn’t?

We’re exploring how an economy actually functions… and how false signals, sent out by the feds, created a kind of porno-economy… full of fake action and unrealistic expectations.

This week, we dug down to the bedrock… the hard foundation of ideas that helps us understand what is going on. If we’re wrong about them, we may be wrong about everything: Maybe you really can get rich by printing money… Maybe it’s not really sweat, toil, saving, and innovation that create wealth; maybe prosperity comes from government decrees… And maybe we owe our standard of living not to Henry Ford, Andrew Carnegie, and Steve Jobs… but to those selfless politicians and bureaucrats, who so carefully regulate and control our lives…

Don’t they make sure that the “male” and “female” ends of the iron pipe screw together properly? Don’t they tell us when we should wear our face masks… and exactly how much inflation – 2%, not 3% or 4% – the nation needs?

Saviors and Protectors Didn’t Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal pull us out of the Great Depression? Didn’t Federal Reserve chief Ben Bernanke’s “Courage to Act” save us from another great depression in 2008? Didn’t Dr. Fauci protect us from a catastrophic plague?

Tune in again on Monday… We’ll back up the tape and take a closer look."

- www.rogueeconomics.com

"It Is Our Fate..."

"Well, it is our fate to live in a time of crisis. To live in a time when all forms and values are being challenged. In other and more easy times, it was not, perhaps, necessary for the individual to confront himself with a clear question: What is it that you really believe? What is it that you really cherish? What is it for which you might, actually, in a showdown, be willing to die? I say, with all the reticence which such large, pathetic words evoke, that one cannot exist today as a person – one cannot exist in full consciousness – without having to have a showdown with one’s self, without having to define what it is that one lives by, without being clear in one’s mind what matters and what does not matter.”

- Dorothy Thompson

"Fed Up with the Fed's Abuse of Power"

"Fed Up with the Fed's Abuse of Power"

by Charles Hugh Smith

"To confess that the fate of the entire global economy now rests on the mumblings of a fossilized Politburo fanatically devoted to making the rich richer is to 1) state the obvious and 2) admit the extreme fragility of the global financial system. That it has come to this - all global markets soar or collapse in unison based on the addled spew of the fossilized Politburo's chairman - is overwhelming evidence that 1) the system is broken and 2) the fossilized Politburo has way too much power and 3) the fossilized Politburo is abusing its power by enriching the already-rich, decade after decade, to the detriment of the bottom 90% and systemic stability.

Let me translate the incoherent ramblings of Chairperson Powell: let them eat cake (or more precisely, let them eat brioche), for increasing wealth and income inequality has been the Fed's prime directive since The Maestro Alan Greenspan began the Fed's manipulation - oops, I mean management - of the stock, bond and risk markets in the early 1990s.

The fatal synergies unleashed by the Fed's abuse of power were already apparent to Greenspan by December 5, 1995 when he issued his famous warning that equities were exhibiting "irrational exuberance." The irrational exuberance of those early days of the Fed's abuse of power - stripmining the middle class to boost the wealth of America's top tier - now look positively quaint compared to today's Fed-fueled speculative mania which has poisoned the entire society and hoisted the economy on a rickety ladder to the sky that will crush everything below when it finally snaps.

It would be refreshing to dispense with the Fed's pathetic, tissue-thin rationalizations for making the rich richer: we're just trying to boost inflation (the surest way to impoverish the bottom 90%) and increase employment... oh right, which must be why labor's share of the economy has been in a free-fall for the past 30 years of Fed manipulation/ buse of power. (see chart below)

Let the record show what the Fed has accomplished: 1) inflating three ever-more destructive speculative bubbles and 2) unprecedented extremes of wealth and income inequality. The Billionaires are grateful for the free trillions the fossilized Politburo showers on the super-wealthy while destroying the safe yields that once benefited the middle class.

One phrase describes the Fed's pillaging of the nation to benefit the few at the expense of the many: abuse of power. When will America finally end the Fed's reign of inequality and ever more extreme abuse of power? When will we finally ease this disastrously fossilized Politburo into the dustbin of history? If we cannot do so, the nation's financial collapse is easily foretold."

- https://www.oftwominds.com/

The Daily "Near You?"

Mustang, Oklahoma, USA. Thanks for stopping by!

"In Afghanistan, the Worst Is Yet to Come"

"In Afghanistan, the Worst Is Yet to Come"

by Pat Buchanan

"Say what you will about President Joe Biden, he has stuck to his guns on ending America’s 20-year involvement in Afghanistan’s forever war. His decision not to delay our departure after Aug. 31 was fortified by hard intel that the terrorist ISIS-K was preparing attacks at Kabul airport. Thursday evening, the two bomb attacks occurred.

It now seems inevitable that the withdrawal will be completed by Aug. 31, with all U.S. military forces following the last civilians out. Before yesterday’s attacks, the airlift had been going far better than in its chaotic first days. Some 100,000 Americans and Afghans had gotten out of the country since Aug. 14.

Biden held his ground, refusing to be stampeded by Democratic critics, NATO allies, Republican hawks or media demanding he extend the deadline for departure until all Americans were out. His adamancy testifies to the convictions Biden came by during decades at the apex of the U.S. government during our longest war. Those convictions: Even if the end result of a withdrawal is that Afghanistan falls to the Taliban, the cause is not worth a continuance of the U.S. commitment or the blood and treasure that four presidents have invested. Better to accept a U.S. defeat and humiliation than re-commit to a war that is inevitably going to be lost.

Biden’s decision and the botched early days of the withdrawal have not been without political cost. Polls show the president’s approval rating sliding underwater. A Suffolk poll has him down to 41%. Yet, on his basic decision to get out now and accept the costs and consequences, his country appears to be with him. After all, former President Donald Trump was prepared to depart earlier than Aug. 31, and a majority of Americans still support the decision to write off Afghanistan and get out. Still, we need to realize what this means and what is coming.

According to the secretary of state, 6,000 Americans were still in Afghanistan when the Afghan army collapsed and Kabul fell. Some 4,500 of these have now been evacuated. The State Department is in touch with 500 other U.S. citizens to effect their departure. As for the remaining 1,000, we do not know where they are. What does this mean?

Hundreds of Americans are going to be left behind, along with scores of thousands of Afghan allies who worked with our military or contributed to the cause of crushing the Taliban. And many of those Afghans are going to pay the price of having cast their lot with the Americans. After Aug. 31, the fate of those left behind will be determined by the Taliban, and we will be made witness to the fate the Taliban imposes. This generation is about to learn what it means to lose a war.

When the war for Algerian independence ended in 1962, and the French pulled their troops out, scores of thousands of “Harkis,” Arab and Muslim Algerians who fought alongside the French, were left behind. The atrocities against the Harkis ran into the tens of thousands. Such may be the fate of scores of thousands of Afghans who fought beside us.

Biden’s diplomats may be negotiating with the Taliban to prevent the war crime of using U.S. citizens left behind as hostages. But we are not going to be able to save all of our friends and allies who cast their lot with us and fought alongside us. Yet, while the promises of the Taliban are not credible and ought not to be believed, we are not without leverage. As The New York Times writes, the Afghan economy is “in free fall.” “Cash is growing scarce, and food prices are rising. Fuel is becoming harder to find. Government services have stalled as civil servants avoid work, fearing retribution.”

The Taliban’s desperate need is for people to run the economy and for money from the international community to pay for imports of food and vital necessities of life. What will also be needed from us, soon after the fall of Afghanistan, is a reappraisal of America’s commitments across the Middle East. We have 900 U.S. troops in Syria who control the oil reserves of that country and serve as a shield for the Syrian Kurds. How long should we keep them there? We retain several thousand troops in Iraq. Why?

These are questions for which new answers are going to be needed. Indeed, there will be a temptation to counter our defeat and humiliation with defiant gestures or precipitate action to restore our lost credibility. Henry Kissinger’s advice on any such action today seems wise: “No dramatic strategic move is available in the immediate future to offset this self-inflicted setback, such as by making new formal commitments in other regions. American rashness would compound disappointment among allies, encourage adversaries, and sow confusion among observers.”

As for Afghanistan and the Kabul airport, there comes a time when even a great nation needs to accept the reality that Corregidor is lost."

- https://www.theburningplatform.com/

Jim Kunstler, "Glide Path Low and Dark"

"Glide Path Low and Dark"

by Jim Kunstler

"It would only be cruel to burden readers with more opprobrious denunciation of the pathetic figure pretending to lead the nation, but it might be fair to ask: what is to be done about him? It’s looking a little bit as though “Joe Biden” is skidding toward resignation. His body language suggests defeat. When newsman Peter Doocy asked him Thursday evening on live TV about the thirteen American soldiers blown up outside the Kabul airport, he folded up in front of the cameras like a broken accordion. Poor optics, as they say in the spin business. This was after he kept the country waiting for five and a half hours to even make an appearance when news of the bombing broke.

His managers installed a “poison pill” named Kamala Harris as his vice-president, and even members of her own party get the vapors at mere fugitive thoughts of her trying to run the country, giggling from one crisis to another. Meanwhile, the veep cut short her tour of Southeast Asia, rushing to aid beleaguered California Governor Gavin Newsom at a rally to fight his recall vote… but then cut short her Newsom rescue mission to fly on to Washington. Electioneering during the greatest hostage crisis in US history probably equals more poor optics. She will presumably spend the days ahead “standing by” on developments, within reach of the Xanax vial - while a claque of party bigwigs importunes her to get rolling on the 25th amendment.

Some of said bigwigs, including the managing parties behind “Joe Biden,” might be cooking up a neat operation in which “Joe Biden” resigns, Ms. Harris gets elevated to POTUS… Ms. Harris appoints Barack Obama vice-president… and then Ms. Harris resigns, making the popular ex-president president again. The 22nd Amendment only prevents presidents from being elected more than twice, not from being appointed by happenstance. Would they dare? Well, why not? They dared to engineer some pretty audacious election hijinks in 2020.

One thing you can count on, the situation has the potential to get a whole lot worse, both for the nation and for “Joe Biden”. Our new Taliban “partners,” assigned to provide security in-and-around Kabul, may prove to be less than steadfast in their duties as hoped. Thursday’s bloodbath hints at their inadequacies. The number of Americans stranded in Afghanistan remains hypothetical, a thousand… six thousand…nobody seems to know. Plus, Gawd knows how many NATO-ally civilian personnel, international NGO workers, and other people of, shall we say, the Western persuasion, remain trapped.

The ISIS suicide bombings made a pretty bold statement, too. If one ventured to say that our new Taliban partners are something less than gentlemen, how would you describe the cadres of Al Qaeda and ISIS? Poor sports? Ruffians? Misogynists? They have the run of Kabul now, the ability to go from door-to-door, rooting Westerners out, something they probably regard as fun. Do you remember from just a few years ago what kinds of things they like to do to their captives? Cut their heads off. (Notice I didn’t say chop.) Roast them in cages. That could start any minute. What then, “Joe Biden”?

But, then, maybe something else happens, something rather shocking: a play to remove the current president by unorthodox means, say, a rising up of parties seemingly outside of US government, including a select group of current and former US military officers? An extraordinary hiatus in the long-running usual procedures around the transfer of power? I can say no more about that because I know no more about it - except there are rumors in the wind and this is at least as dark a moment in our history as Valley Forge, Fort Sumter, Pearl Harbor, Nine-eleven. You can’t overstate how ticked-off some resourceful folks are about the current situation.

Let’s not forget that “Joe Biden” still faces some additional adversities. The Arizona election audit results can be released at any time. They will indicate that the officially certified November 3, 2020, Maricopa County vote bears little resemblance to what has been actually discovered by a scrupulous and exhaustive review of the ballots. The upshot will be a powerful intimation that perhaps “Joe Biden” arrived in his latest federal position by nefarious means… provoking moves in other states to revisit their certified 2020 conclusions, too. The optics will be poor.

Then there is the ongoing Covid 19 hysteria, a world-beating fiasco of tricked-up data and deadly mischief. “Joe Biden” is determined to get everyone in the nation vaccinated with pharmaceutical cocktails that the public has reason to be skeptical about. We know that there have been more serious adverse reactions and deaths from these mRNA shots than anything previously called a “vaccine.” There is reason to believe that the number of these mishaps is, even so, wildly under-reported.

There is plenty of reason to suspect the number of Covid-19 cases reported. The PCR tests have been ruled unreliable, and yet the medical establishment is permitted to use them until December. Is that how we’re still calculating the number of cases? I’ve heard of no other method. What if a substantial number of Covid cases are not Covid at all, but rather reactions to the spike proteins in those already vaxed-up? My guess would be: plenty of them are just that. And is it not clear by now that “vaccinating” half the population does not eradicate the disease but rather creates more variants that are resistant to these mRNA concoctions? The nations around the world that are most fully vaxed-up are also the ones with the highest rates of Covid cases now.

And “Joe Biden” is moving heaven and earth to get every company and institution in America to coerce their employees into getting a shot. Do you have any idea how pissed-off the nation is getting over this - not to mention the avalanche of lies put out by government health officials and the news media for two years about the true origins of the disease and of the mRNA “vaccines?” It’s obvious that this so-called pandemic has become an excuse to push people around.

Events are rushing ahead at a gallop, and events are in charge now, not personalities. “Joe Biden” has days left in the Oval Office. It’s really only a matter of how he gets removed… and what replaces him. Do the people who installed him in office and all his election partisans feel any buyer’s remorse? We’re finding out."

- https://kunstler.com/

"There Comes A Point..."

 

"This Is A Moment In U.S. History That Will Forever Live In Infamy"

"This Is A Moment In U.S. History That 

Will Forever Live In Infamy"

by Michael Snyder

"There are certain moments that just make you want to cry. The bombings in Kabul that killed 13 U.S. troops and at least 90 Afghans didn’t have to happen. If we didn’t have completely and utterly incompetent political leaders and completely and utterly incompetent military leaders, things could have turned out very differently. The end of a 20 year war is being capped off in humiliating fashion, and nobody is going to be afraid of the United States after this. And that is actually a really bad thing, because fear of U.S. retribution has kept China, Russia, North Korea, Iran and a whole host of terror groups largely in check for the past several decades. Now that the U.S. is seemingly unable to play the “restrainer” role any longer, the stage is set for tremendous global instability.

For years, our generals were telling us that the Taliban had been defeated. Obviously, that wasn’t even close to the truth. And ISIS had supposedly been bombed into oblivion, but apparently that wasn’t true either.

Everyone knew that having so many evacuees crammed into such a small area would be a really tempting target, and our leaders were depending on the Taliban (the guys we have been shooting at for 20 years) to protect us. Needless to say, that was a recipe for disaster, and that is precisely what we got.

In the aftermath of the bombings, Joe Biden promised to hunt down those that had attacked us… "Speaking to the American people in the wake of a devastating terror attack at the Kabul airport that left scores dead on Thursday - including numerous U.S. troops - President Biden promised the U.S. would strike back against those responsible. “To those who carried out this attack, as well as anyone who wishes America harm, know this - we will not forgive, we will not forget, we will hunt you down and make you pay,” the president said in a somber White House address.

Yes, I am sure that they are shaking in their boots. At this point, nobody is afraid of our “woke military” and the snowflake generals that are leading them. The head of U.S. Central Command was asked if the Taliban allowed the ISIS terrorists to get close to the Marines, and “there’s a failure somewhere” was the best that he could come up with in response… "The commander of U.S. Central Command said Thursday he did not know if the Taliban - whose members the U.S. was relying on to screen individuals getting to the airport - let Islamic State suicide bombers get through and conduct at least two bombings that have so far killed 12 Marines and injured 15 more. “Clearly if they were able to get up to the Marines…at the entry point of the base, there’s a failure somewhere,” said Marine Gen. Kenneth McKenzie at a press briefing on Thursday."

We know that more ISIS terrorists are lurking in the vicinity right now. So will there be additional attacks in the days ahead? One source told Fox News that it is “likely” that there will be more… "A source briefed on the situation in Kabul told Fox News that some Americans stranded in Afghanistan will likely be left behind after Thursday’s bombings. The source told Fox News that “hundreds” of ISIS-K fighters remain in the vicinity of the Kabul airport and that the attacks are “likely to continue.”

Hearing that “some Americans stranded in Afghanistan will likely be left behind” should make your blood boil. What in the world is wrong with our leaders? Trump was impeached over a phone call. How much more does Biden deserve to get impeached if he leaves Americans behind in the hands of the Taliban?

And what makes things even worse is the fact that the Biden administration has actually given the Taliban a list of Americans and others that needed to be evacuated… "U.S. officials in Kabul gave the Taliban a list of names of American citizens, green card holders and Afghan allies to grant entry into the militant-controlled outer perimeter of the city’s airport, a choice that’s prompted outrage behind the scenes from lawmakers and military officials. The move, detailed to POLITICO by three U.S. and congressional officials, was designed to expedite the evacuation of tens of thousands of people from Afghanistan as chaos erupted in Afghanistan’s capital city last week after the Taliban seized control of the country. It also came as the Biden administration has been relying on the Taliban for security outside the airport."

Some are calling this a “kill list”, and that is exactly how the Taliban could choose to view it once all U.S. military forces are gone for good. And thanks to our recklessness, Taliban fighters are going to be armed to the teeth as they begin their new reign… "A government watchdog group says the U.S. military is leaving behind 75,000 vehicles, 600,000 weapons and 208 aircraft in Afghanistan as forces evacuate the country after a 20-year war.

We’ve made the Taliban into a major U.S. arms dealer for the next decade,” said Adam Andrzejewski, CEO of Open the Books. “They now control 75,000 military vehicles. This is about 50,000 tactical vehicles, 20,000 Humvees, they control about 1,000 mine-resistant vehicles, and even about 150 armored personnel carriers.”

To make matters worse, you and I paid for all of that equipment. How can any of the brass at the Pentagon keep their jobs after such a debacle? I just keep looking at those numbers and I keep wondering how our military leaders could possibly be so grossly incompetent. And the rest of the world is watching.

If a ragged group of opium dealers and goat herders can absolutely humiliate the once mighty U.S. military, why should anyone else ever be afraid of us ever again? What the Taliban has pulled off is going to greatly inspire terror organizations all over the globe, and it is going to embolden America’s most prominent enemies.

I think that the Biden administration was hoping that withdrawing from Afghanistan would be a move toward peace, but instead their incompetence has set the stage for more war.

As America is humiliated in Afghanistan, there have been lots of news stories about how China has been practicing for an invasion of Taiwan… China’s long-standing threats to invade Taiwan would require the biggest amphibious invasion in human history - and analysts say recent military activities, including exercises using commercial ferries, appear designed to practice exactly that. If you think that global supply chains are messed up now, just wait until that happens.

I know that a lot of people are cheering the fact that things are becoming more unstable geopolitically, but this new period of instability will not end well. For decades, the United States dealt with everyone else from a position of strength. But now the rest of the world can see that the emperor doesn’t have any clothes, and a power vacuum will always be filled."

- http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/

○

Related:

"A 'Strategic Apocalypse' In Afghanistan: 

A Seismic Shift, Years In The Making"

"How It Really Is"

We never learn, do we?

"Your national greatness, swelling vanity; your denunciation of tyrants, brass-fronted impudence; your shouts of liberty and equality, hollow mockery; your prayers and hymns, your sermons and thanksgivings, with all your religious parade and solemnity, are, to Him, mere bombast, fraud, deception, impiety, and hypocrisy - a thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages."

- Frederick Douglass

Greg Hunter, "Comirnaty CV19 Vax Approval is Actually Fraudulent"

"Comirnaty CV19 Vax Approval is Actually 

Fraudulent – Chris Martenson"

By Greg Hunter’s USAWatchdog.com

"Dr. Chris Martenson holds a PhD in toxicology from Duke University and is a futurist and economic researcher. Martenson says the FDA just approved a Pfizer CV19 vaccine named Comirnaty, but the public is not getting it. This is classic bait and switch because the public is still getting the same Pfizer jab they have been getting all along. It’s still experimental (Emergency Use Authorization or EUA), and it still gives Pfizer total immunity from liability. Dr. Martenson explains, “For all practical purposes, there are two identical drugs. One stays under EUA, and one has been given approval. The problem is the one given approval, and if you are in the United States, you can’t get it. There is none here. So, they approved something that doesn’t exist. This feels like legal wrangling. People say, oh, they have approved this vaccine, and they have our best interest at heart. I say if that were true, they would have released a lot more data. We did not get any new data on the filing, and they would not have given us this legal Rube Goldberg runaround, and we would not still be seeing people being injected with something still under a EUA, which absolves the manufacturer of liability. That’s the situation we are in right now. If the FDA was looking to build trust with people who were a little hesitant, I think they completely dropped the ball on that and committed a huge error.”

Dr. Martenson says he looked at the Comirnaty data and contends, “So much of this has been unfortunately conducted. We would like to see a lot more data coming out around this. In the FDA release about this approval letter that they just put forward, we can see a lot of things in there that are actually fraudulent in my opinion. They mention in there a 91.3% effectiveness rate, which was the original rate of effectiveness of data that was gathered way back on March 31, 2021. The CDC, all on its own, just 5 days before the August 23 approval of this Pfizer Comirnaty thing, the CDC said the most recent data they had said there is a 79.8% effectiveness, but the FDA is sticking with 91.3%. This is a huge disagreement between the CDC and the FDA. All I can imagine is inside the FDA, they couldn’t flat out bring themselves to approve this. I am sure there are all sorts of legal ramifications and bureaucratic ramifications and on and on and on. Again, if the intent was to make people feel less hesitant and less resistant, they needed to be completely open and completely transparent, and they didn’t. They actually used data that is old, that everybody knows is completely out of date and no longer true. . . .There is so much data that is not there. I am not sure if they just ‘lost it’ or it has not been submitted or it’s being hidden. I don’t know what the story really is, but I can tell you there is a lot of data missing.”

Martenson also talks about the Federal Reserve and how the central bankers have set the country up for a huge economic fall in the not-so-distant future. Martenson contends this fall will destroy businesses, families and cost a lot of lives. There is much more in the 40 min. interview."

(Programming note: The Martenson interview will take the place of the Weekly News Wrap-Up for 8.27.21)

- https://usawatchdog.com/

Join Greg Hunter on Rumble as he goes One-on-One with

 the founder of PeakProsperity.com, Dr. Chris Martenson.

- https://rumble.com/

“I Have No Money! Forget Your Pride, Get a Job! Banks Closed; You Need Cash”

Jeremiah Babe, PM 8/26/21:

“I Have No Money! Forget Your Pride,

 Get a Job! Banks Closed; You Need Cash”

"Supreme Court in 6 to 3 Ruling Blocks CDC and Biden Eviction Moratorium"

Michael Zuber, PM 8/26/21:

"Supreme Court in 6 to 3 Ruling Blocks CDC 

and Biden Eviction Moratorium"

Reportedly 12 million evictions, 30 - 40 million people put on the street.

What then?

"New Report Finds US Has Spent Over $2.3 Trillion On Afghanistan War"

"New Report Finds US Has Spent 

Over $2.3 Trillion On Afghanistan War"

by Dave DeCamp

"Brown University’s Costs of War project released an updated report Wednesday on US spending for the war in Afghanistan. The report found that since the 2001 invasion, Washington has sunk over $2.3 trillion into the war.

Click image for larger size.

The spending includes operations in both Afghanistan and Pakistan and is broken down into five categories. The biggest chunk is the Defense Department’s budget for the war, which is just over $1 trillion. The State Department’s war budget adds another $60 billion. War-related Increases to the Pentagon budget account for $433 billion.

Estimated interest payments on war borrowing accounts for $532 billion, and spending on care for veterans of the war adds up to $233 billion. Costs of War did not account for future interest payments or future spending on lifelong care for veterans, so the total will still increase even after the US completes its military withdrawal from Afghanistan.

Costs of War released its last Afghanistan update in April 2021. At the time, the project estimated the war cost $2.26 trillion. The project also tracks casualties of the war. As of April, Costs of War estimates up to 241,000 people were killed in the war in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Out of the 241,000 people killed, 71,344 were civilians, including 47,245 in Afghanistan and 24,099 in Pakistan. The numbers do not account for indirect deaths due to conditions caused by the war, like loss of access to food, disease, or infrastructure damage.

The Taliban take over of Afghanistan and the swift collapse of the US-backed government shows that the massive amount of spending was for nothing, except to line the pockets of US defense contractors."

- https://www.zerohedge.com/

"Panic And Chaos Sweep Across Supply Chains As Shortage Of Everything Push Prices To Skyrocket"

Full screen recommended.

"Panic And Chaos Sweep Across Supply Chains 

As Shortage Of Everything Push Prices To Skyrocket"

by Epic Economist

"These days, everyone seems to be talking about a "global economic recovery", but the truth is that more problems are emerging with each passing day and the global economy is still very far from what it was before the onset of the health crisis. Even though consumer demand is still booming, supply chains all over the world are in a state of total chaos. Shortages of essential parts and products are making things extremely difficult for hundreds of thousands of manufacturers and the process of shipping products overseas has become insanely expensive, oftentimes resulting in horrendous delays. On top of that, a historic shortage of workers is aggravating the supply chain crisis even further while retailers struggle to restock their shelves for their customers in a timely manner. This level of disruption is something that we have never seen before. The crisis is getting so severe that even CNN is admitting that things are bound to get worse.

A recent CNN article described that "the vast network of ports, container vessels and trucking companies that moves goods around the world is badly tangled, and the cost of shipping is skyrocketing". And that’s extremely upsetting for retailers and consumers. After 18 months into the health crisis, "the disruption to global supply chains is getting worse, spurring shortages of consumer products and making it more expensive for companies to ship goods where they’re needed," the article reported. Unresolved issues, and the emergence of new problems including the Delta variant, means that consumers are about to face even higher prices and fewer choices this holiday season.

Here in the United States, many experts have been sharing very bleak predictions about the upcoming holiday season, citing a global shortage of containers and severe port congestion as the main drivers to shortages and shipping delays. "Name almost anything and it seems like there's a shortage of it," one industry executive said. "Retailers are struggling to replenish inventory as fast as they're selling, let alone prepare for holiday demand. As we've been forecasting for months, shoppers are going to see some bare shelves during the holidays. And if you buy most of your presents online, get it done early. Delivery time may be four to six weeks," he warned. Of course, the US is not alone. On the other side of the ocean, in the UK, recent reports describe that the country is facing “worst supply-chain crisis since the 1970s” and that could potentially “ruin Christmas”.

Right now, one of the greatest problems the British are facing is an unprecedented shortage of workers. Business owners are urging for more workers to be allowed into the country because they believe that will help to ease the crisis. Numbers released by the Road Haulage Association suggest that the UK needs another 100,000 truckers to continue to deliver goods to stores. Here in America, we have been dealing with similar issues. At this point, all retailers across the nation are struggling to find truck drivers to hire. According to Benjamin Walker, the senior vice president of sales at Sysco, finding new drivers is “next to impossible,” and at the same time, freight costs are rising daily.

But even if we had enough truck drivers, we would still be facing widespread shortages. One of the main reasons for it is the global shortage of computer chips. Industry executives have been alerting that the semiconductor shortage is causing major headaches for American manufacturers across thousands of industries. And given that Asian factories are being shut down once again due to the rapid spread of the Delta variant, all manufacturers who need these tiny chips to get their products running will face more disruptions in production this year. In the US, automakers alone will make 1 million fewer cars this year because they’re unable to get all the computer chips they need.

Apparently, American consumers will have to get used to facing shortages for the foreseeable future. Even our vice-president is warning that is only going to get worse, as we discussed in yesterday's video. But warnings don't seem to convince most Americans. In any case, when they start to realize that empty store shelves and shortages are here to stay, they will have to wake up to this new reality. Our entire economic infrastructure is being shaken to its core, and our society is just starting to notice that the “invincible” U.S. economy is not that invincible after all. The coming holiday season is definitely not going to be "normal". And don't expect things to "come back to normal" in 2022 either because we are headed to crazy times, and they are only going to get crazier."

- https://www.youtube.com/

Gerald Celente, "Afghan Tragedy, War On The Horizon If We Don't Stop It"

Full screen recommended.

VERY strong language alert!

Gerald Celente, PM 8/26/21:

"Afghan Tragedy, War On The Horizon If We Don't Stop It"

"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://trendsresearch.com/

"Fools, Traitors and America"

"Democracy is a government of the fools, 

for the fools, by the fools."

- George bernard Shaw

"Fools, Traitors and America"

by Brian Maher

"A nation can survive its fools, it is said - but not its traitors. Yet we have long suspected the opposite…That is, a nation can survive its traitors. But it cannot survive its fools. That is because a nation’s fools infinitely outnumber a nation’s traitors.

Please answer this question: How many traitors occupy the District of Columbia? Now answer this question: How many fools occupy the District of Columbia? The ratio must run 9,000:1 - against the traitors.

Being a fool is no crime of course. We would presently languish behind the bars if it were, serving a long, long sentence. A great portion of the population would be with us. But our legal status renders fools no less dangerous. A fool with a bad idea in his head is a menace. He is the equal of a baby with a loaded gun in his hand...

Woodrow Wilson, Fool: Was Woodrow Wilson a traitor for meddling in a European civil war 104 years ago? We would never suggest it. He may have meant the best in the world. He may have wished to make the world safe for democracy - and by extension safe for America. (He certainly made the world safe for the large American banks that loaned to the allied powers).

But was Wilson a fool for hurling the nation into a European civil war? Almost certainly. The warring parties had nearly bled themselves white by 1917. Neither side could shatter the other. They would have likely exhausted themselves, come to terms… and limped home, honors even. “Never again!” they would have cried.

But Mr. Wilson dispatched the doughboys over there in 1917. It shifted the battle tide against the kaiser. And the allies “won.” Yet the Versailles Treaty that closed the war to end all wars... spawned the peace to end all peace. Mr. Wilson’s fool crusade did not make the world safe for democracy. It made the world safe for fascism… and communism. And WWI was “The Great War” until an even greater war raged 20 years later.

All Roads Lead Back to Wilson: Here our former colleague David Stockman hauls Wilson into the dock - and indicts him for every crime on the calendar: "Had Woodrow Wilson not misled America on a messianic crusade, the Great War would have ended in mutual exhaustion in 1917 and both sides would have gone home battered and bankrupt but no danger to the rest of mankind. Indeed, absent Wilson’s crusade there would have been no allied victory, no punitive peace and no war reparations; nor would there have been a Leninist coup in Petrograd or Stalin’s barbaric regime.

Likewise, there would have been no Hitler, no Nazis, no Holocaust, no global war against Germany and Japan and no incineration of 200,000 civilians at Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Nor would there have followed a Cold War with the Soviets or CIA-sponsored coups and assassinations in Iran, Guatemala, Indonesia, Brazil and Chile to name a few. Surely there would have been no CIA plot to assassinate Castro, or Russian missiles in Cuba or a crisis that took the world to the brink of annihilation.

There would have been no domino theory and no Vietnam slaughter, either.

Nor would we have had to come to the aid of the mujahedeen and train the future al-Qaida in Afghanistan. Likewise, there would have been no Khomeini-led Islamic revolution and no U.S. aid to enable Saddam’s gas attacks on Iranian boy soldiers in the 1980s.

Nor would there have been an American invasion of Arabia in 1991 to stop our former ally Saddam Hussein from looting the equally contemptible emir of Kuwait’s ill-gotten oil plunder — or, alas, the horrific 9/11 blowback a decade later.

Nor would we have been stuck with a $1 trillion Warfare State budget today."

A Fool, Not a Traitor: Does David simplify events? Do we simplify events? Very likely, yes. The world was - as it always is - to its neck with fools. And these fools would have certainly gotten themselves up to mischief somehow or other. Yet we believe the hottest hells of the 20th century would have been averted had Mr. Wilson sat upon his hands in April 1917. But again: It was not treason that sent Mr. Wilson buccaneering into Europe’s war. It was foolishness. Of course Wilson was not the only fool to ever sit down at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue...

Never Fight a Ground War in Asia: Never fight a ground war in Asia, warned Douglas MacArthur. Here was the sage counsel of a fellow who had fought two. But fool Lyndon Baines Johnson soon had the United States fighting a ground war in Asia. Eventually it came straggling home, bandaged, beaten, broken. 58,000 of its sons came home horizontal.

Was Johnson a traitor? It has never been suggested, to our knowledge. But a fool? This time the “domino theory” was the fool idea that fetched an American president...

“Ridiculous”: But old Gen. MacArthur - no pacifist - toppled the domino theory. “Ridiculous,” he labeled it. Scroll the calendar back to April 1961... MacArthur met freshly minted president Johnny Kennedy at New York’s Waldorf Astoria. MacArthur, said Kennedy aide Kenneth O’Donnell: "Implored the president to avoid a U.S. military buildup in Vietnam, or any other part of the Asian mainland, because he felt that the domino theory was ridiculous in a nuclear age. MacArthur instead advised the youthful president to battle communism with America’s mightiest weapon - its economy. He believed a free economy would knock the devil out of a communist economy."

Kennedy vastly respected MacArthur’s experience. Would he have taken aboard the advice… brought home the advisers he had dispatched to Vietnam… and quit the country altogether? We will never know. The fool idea won the day - and America lost its way.

Combining Two Fool Ideas: A half-century later, another fool idea infested the White House. This fool idea was wedged within the dense cranium of President George Walker Bush. And the United States once again shooed aside MacArthur’s advice against Asian ground wars.

The United States combined a variation of Wilson’s fool idea... with the fool idea of a reverse domino theory. It would make the Islamic world safe for democracy. The democratic dominoes would then proceed to fall, knocking down the region’s dictatorships and autocracies. The Taliban and Saddam Hussein would go out. Thomas Jefferson and James Madison would come in. Afghanistan would become a Kansas in the Hindu Kush, Iraq a Utah on the Euphrates. But what happens when you combine one fool idea with another fool idea? Could there be any doubt?

So Much for Democracy: Saddam Hussein is out, it is true. And our ethereal sources inform us he is suffering lamentably in his present location… even if he finds the company agreeable. Yet is Iraq a democracy today? Then a wilderness is a democracy, a jungle is a democracy.

And in Afghanistan, the Taliban is presently installing its own democracy. Its Constitution is the Koran, and its justice system is Sharia Law - which includes: Severe punishments such as execution, stoning, cutting off limbs or whipping. These include offences such as zina (unlawful sexual intercourse such as fornication), unfounded accusations of zina, drinking alcohol, highway robbery and some forms of theft.

Here is mercy itself. Only “some forms of theft” are punishable by execution, stoning, cutting off limbs or whipping.

Capital Offenses: We would vastly expand the roster of offenses punishable by the methods listed. For example: The sale or ingestion of hydroxychloroquine, Ivermectin, Vitamin D and other poisonous substances falsely claimed to treat COVID-19.

For example: Denying that the mRNA vaccines are 100% safe and effective.

For example: Refusing to sport a facial mask when alone out of doors.

Each would be punishable by execution, stoning, cutting off limbs or whipping. Perhaps worse. But let it go for now. Let us return to the main road...

Like Messieurs Wilson and Johnson, Mr. Bush was no traitor - except perhaps a traitor to the good senses. Yet he was a fool to believe he could transform these alien cultures. A fool? No. A dunce.

Fools, Drunks and the United States of America: We wonder what fool idea will next prevail. War with China? In the economic realm, perhaps Modern Monetary Theory? Or the Green New Deal? We know only that the fools are busy. Principal among them are the fools of the Federal Reserve. They are a menace to American happiness.

“God has a special providence for fools, drunkards and the United States of America,” said Germany’s Iron Chancellor, Otto von Bismarck. Let us be glad of it. We hazard the United States of America will require God’s special providence in the times to come..."

- dailyreckoning.com

Musical Interlude: Dan Fogelberg, "Nether Lands"

Full screen recommended.

Dan Fogelberg, "Nether Lands"

"A Look to the Heavens"

“Separated by about 14 degrees (28 Full Moons) in planet Earth's sky, spiral galaxies M31, left, and M33 are both large members of the Local Group, along with our own Milky Way galaxy. This wide-angle, telescopic mosaic captures colorful details of spiral structure in both, while the massive neighboring galaxies seem to be balanced either side of bright Mirach, beta star in the constellation Andromeda. But M31, the Andromeda Galaxy, is really 2.5 million light-years distant and M33, the Triangulum Galaxy, is also about 3 million light years away.

 

Mirach, just 200 light-years from the Sun, lies well within the Milky Way, along with the dim clouds of dust drifting through the frame only a few hundred light-years above the galactic plane. Although they look far apart, M31 and M33 are locked in a mutual gravitational embrace. Radio astronomers have found indications of a bridge of neutral hydrogen gas that could connect the two, evidence of a closer encounter in the past. Based on measurements, gravitational simulations currently predict that the Milky Way, M31, and M33 will all undergo mutual close encounters and potentially mergers, billions of years in the future.”

- http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.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

"What Is Hope?"

"What Is Hope?"

"What is hope? It is the pre-sentiment that imagination is more real and reality is less real than it looks. It is the hunch that the overwhelming brutality of facts that oppress and repress us is not the last word. It is the suspicion that reality is more complex than the realists want us to believe.

That the frontiers of the possible are not determined by the limits of the actual; and in a miraculous and unexplained way, life is opening creative events which will light the way to freedom and resurrection. But the two — suffering and hope — must live from each other. Suffering without hope produces resentment and despair. But hope without suffering creates illusions, naïveté and drunkenness.

So let us plant dates even though we who plant them will never eat them. We must live by the love of what we will never see. That is the secret discipline. It is the refusal to let our creative act be dissolved away by our need for immediate sense experience, and it is a struggled commitment to the future of our grandchildren. Such disciplined hope is what has given prophets, revolutionaries and saints the courage to die for the future they envisage. They make their own bodies the seed of their highest hope." 

- Rubin Alves

The Daily "Near You?"

Gilmer, Texas, USA. Thanks for stopping by!

"Why The Other Side Won’t Listen to Reason"

"Why The Other Side Won’t Listen to Reason"

by David Cain

"At some point during your first year as a human being, the adults throw a real curveball at you. They expect you to start understanding what right and wrong mean. These lessons come in the form of mysterious reactions that follow certain things you do. After you pull all the books from the bottom shelf onto the floor, quite a feat for a one year-old, they scold you for some reason. When you pee in the correct place, they praise you. It’s completely baffling, but over time you get a sense that adults are extremely preoccupied with classifying actions into two broad categories: okay and not okay, or good and bad.

You quickly gather this is how the world works. And there is some logic behind what’s rewarded and what’s punished: “bad” actions are usually (but not always) ones that hurt, annoy or inconvenience other people, and “good” actions usually (not always) help in some way, or at least don’t hurt anyone.

This classification system is so strongly emphasized by the adults that you develop a keen sense of it yourself. You see rights and wrongs everywhere, particularly where you stand to gain or lose something personally: in the fair distribution of treats, in acknowledgement for chores done, in which cartoon characters deserve to be happy (or in a police wagon) at the end of the episode. 

Seemingly everything is morally relevant. There are right and wrong ways to speak, play, fidget, ask for things, touch people, and express your feelings. The rules are endlessly detailed and idiosyncratic. There are right and wrong places to sit or stand, things to wear, things to stare at, even expressions to have on your face. Some acts are okay in one place and very bad somewhere else. The adults insist that navigating this sprawling bureaucracy is simple: just be good.

You make use of this system. You argue your case to your parents when your sibling takes something of yours, or plays with a coveted toy too long—if you feel slighted, there must be wrongdoing, and you say so, perhaps listing reasons why you’re right. You petition teachers to take action against other kids who are being greedy, annoying, or mean, and you defend yourself when you’re the one being accused.

There’s Something Fishy About the Way We Judge: By adulthood, morality has become such an intuitive part of our thinking that we barely realize when we’re making a moral judgment.

Hundreds or thousands of times a day we assess the character of another person. We feel we know enough to commend or condemn (usually condemn) a person from the way they park, a word they chose to use in their comment, the state of their front lawn, how they stand in a queue, what they laugh at, where and when they look at their mobile phones, how long they take to get to the point of their anecdote, or any of ten thousand other morally salient micro-actions.

Our moral sense works with great speed and force. Every news article - even the headline alone -gives us a strong, immediate, and seemingly unmistakable sense of which are the good and bad parties involved. Virtually every time we feel annoyed, we reflexively assert some wrongdoing on the part of another human being, even if it’s someone we’ve never seen. If service is slow, some employee is being lazy or inconsiderate. If traffic is crawling it’s because the city always schedules construction work at such stupid times. If an item’s price is unexpectedly high, some greedy CEO is getting paid too much.

There’s something fishy about all this moralizing. We treat our moral feelings and judgments as though they’re truly all-important; seemingly, nothing deserves as much energy and attention as determining the right and wrong of everything done and said in the human world, and lamenting that world’s failure to meet our idea of what’s right. (For endless examples, just check Twitter.) Yet for all their importance, we’re extremely flippant with our moral judgments. We make them all day long, with ease and even a kind of pleasure, and very little second-guessing. Maddeningly, other people have almost perfectly opposite positions on the same moral issues - drug policy, immigration, pornography, whether mayo belongs in guacamole - and they cast their judgments with the all the same ease and certitude.

You’d think that if determining right and wrong were truly what’s important to us, we’d be far more careful about making judgments. We’d want to gather a lot of information before saying anything. We’d seek opposing viewpoints and try to understand them. We’d offer people the benefit of the doubt whenever possible. We’d be very wary of our initial emotions around the topic, and very interested in how our personal interests might be skewing our conclusions. We’d refrain from making conclusions at all if we didn’t need to.

In other words, we’d employ the same reserved, dispassionate, self-scrutinizing ethic we use to examine questions about anything else: physics, history, biology, engineering, business, or any other arena of understanding where premature conclusions can create a big problem. We’d have a keen, ongoing interest in learning how we might be wrong.

But we’re not like this at all. We make moral conclusions freely, immediately, and without self-scrutiny, recruiting as much emotional tilt as possible. We dismiss counterpoints reflexively, as though it’s dangerous to even consider changing our minds. We only rarely admit that an issue is too opaque or complex to be sure what to think.

Why are we so smart and careful when it comes to figuring things out in most areas of inquiry, and so dumb and impulsive when it comes to moral questions, which are supposedly the most important ones to get right?

Why We’re So Stubborn: Social psychologist Jonathan Haidt sheds a lot of light on our confused moral psychology in his book, "The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided By Politics and Religion."  It’s a fascinating read, but the main punchline is that our moral sensitivity didn’t evolve in order to make us good at determining right and wrong. It evolved to help us survive and thrive in highly social environments.

Our moral feelings are quick and reactive because they developed to aid us in real-time social interactions, not in careful, solitary periods of reflection. These feelings are often conflicting and illogical because they adapted to meet a number of different social goals:

• Our desire to protect the vulnerable, and our hatred for cruelty and carelessness, adapted to motivate us to keep children safe at all costs, and keep potentially dangerous people away
• Our resentment for cheating and unfairness adapted to help us avoid getting exploited by the rest of our group
• Our respect for loyalty, and our fear of betrayal, evolved to help us form coalitions, and identify disloyal people before they make trouble
• Our attitudes towards authority, and those who subvert it, conferred an advantage at positioning ourselves within social hierarchies
• Our moralizing around cleanliness and the sanctity of bodies, sex, and bodily functions, adapted to help us avoid infection and disease 
• It’s no wonder our moral intuitions are so strong, quick and often thoughtless. They are essentially survival reflexes, conditioned by our upbringing and our instincts.

Our moral reasoning - our capacity to explain why something is right or wrong - comes only after our emotional intuitions, if at all, and is tuned for persuading others of our value to the tribe, not for helping us find the most sensible moral stances. Haidt describes our moral reasoning as working much like a press secretary or company spokesperson - its purpose is to justify positions and actions already taken, using any explanation that sounds passably good in the moment, true or not.

Note that none of the above social goals require our moral feelings to be fair or logically sound, and in fact, that can be disadvantageous - a tribe that viewed all outsiders as predators likely would have protected its children better than a tribe that was most concerned with never falsely accusing someone of being dangerous.

In other words, our moral intuitions are strongly tuned to make us groupish and tribal, not even-handed and insightful. And our moral reasoning is tuned more for soliciting approval from others than for actually discovering moral truths.

This explains why we’re so susceptible to rhetoric, prejudice, selective hearing, and fake news. It also explains why it’s strangely pleasurable to take hard moral stands, no matter how poor or nonexistent the reasoning behind them - hard stands, declared publicly, reliably generate a small flood of praise and approval from the tribe that shares those positions.

You can see what a powder keg this moral psychology is liable to create in an increasingly global, internet-connected society, composed of people from many different backgrounds, all of whom enjoy getting Retweeted, Liked, and Favorited.

It’s why, when it comes to politics, the other side simply doesn’t listen to reason. Of course, all of us are on someone’s other side."

- http://www.raptitude.com

"I Know Why You Did It..."

"There are of course those who do not want us to speak. I suspect even now, orders are being shouted into telephones, and men with guns will soon be on their way. Why? Because while the truncheon may be used in lieu of conversation, words will always retain their power. Words offer the means to meaning, and for those who will listen, the enunciation of truth. And the truth is, there is something terribly wrong with this country, isn't there? Cruelty and injustice, intolerance and oppression. And where once you had the freedom to object, to think and speak as you saw fit, you now have censors and systems of surveillance coercing your conformity and soliciting your submission. How did this happen? Who's to blame? Well certainly there are those more responsible than others, and they will be held accountable, but again truth be told, if you're looking for the guilty, you need only look into a mirror. I know why you did it. I know you were afraid. Who wouldn't be? War, terror, disease. There were a myriad of problems which conspired to corrupt your reason and rob you of your common sense. Fear got the best of you, and in your panic you turned to the government. They promised you order, they promised you peace, and all they demanded in return was your silent, obedient consent."

- "V For Vendetta", slightly modified.

"Maybe..."

“We’ve all heard the warnings and we’ve ignored them. We push our luck. We roll the dice. It’s human nature. When we’re told not to touch something we usually do even if we know better. Maybe because deep down, we’re just asking for trouble.”

- “Meredith Grey”, “Gray’s Anatomy”