"A Look to the Heavens"

"Stars are forming in Lynds Dark Nebula (LDN) 1251. About 1,000 light-years away and drifting above the plane of our Milky Way galaxy, the dusty molecular cloud is part of a complex of dark nebulae mapped toward the Cepheus flare region. Across the spectrum, astronomical explorations of the obscuring interstellar clouds reveal energetic shocks and outflows associated with newborn stars, including the telltale reddish glow from scattered Herbig-Haro objects hiding in the image. 

Click image for larger size.

Distant background galaxies also lurk on the scene, almost buried behind the dusty expanse. This alluring view spans over two full moons on the sky, or 17 light-years at the estimated distance of LDN 1251."

- https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap210920.html

"Surely..."

"It's 3:23 A.M.

And I'm awake because my great great grandchildren won't let me sleep.

They ask me in dreams,

 What did you do while the planet was plundered?

What did you do when the earth was unraveling?

Surely you did something when the seasons started flailing?

As the mammals, reptiles and birds were all dying?

Did you fill the streets with protest?

When democracy was stolen, what did you do once you knew?

Surely, you did something..."  

- Drew Dellinger

"The Definition of Insanity?"

"The Definition of Insanity?"

by Bill Bonner

"Everybody knows that the boat is leaking,

Everybody knows the captain lied.

Everybody got this broken feeling,

Like their father or their dog just died.

Everybody talking to their pockets,

Everybody wants a box of chocolates,

And a long-stemmed rose.

Everybody knows."

– "Everybody Knows," by Leonard Cohen

BALTIMORE, MARYLAND – "Politics. Politics. Politics. Surprise, surprise… Congress has found a way to keep spending money it doesn’t have on “investments” we don’t need. Here’s Politico: "The Senate passed a stopgap spending bill Thursday afternoon that would prevent a government shutdown come midnight and punt the funding cliff into early December."

This week, we’ve looked at how politics took over the COVID-19 debate; at this stage, neither real health issues nor “The Science” have much to do with it. We saw, too, how the debt ceiling fight is another example of pure politics.

With perhaps one lonely exception – Democrat senator Joe Manchin from West Virginia – no one seems to care about the nation’s finances… or whether the “investments” will really pay off (everybody knows they won’t). Here’s Senator Manchin: "I can’t support $3.5 trillion more in spending when we have already spent $5.4 trillion since last March. At some point, all of us, regardless of party, must ask the simple question – how much is enough?

What I have made clear to the President and Democratic leaders is that spending trillions more on new and expanded government programs, when we can’t even pay for the essential social programs, like Social Security and Medicare, is the definition of fiscal insanity."

The definition of insanity? Not exactly. It makes perfect sense.

Real Agenda: Politics is the dishonest way to get your box of chocolates. You just take it from someone else… and call it “government.” There’s nothing insane about it. It’s just theft. Everybody knows it. Ultimately, both parties have more in common with each other than with the public. They both want more power and money. They aim to get it from you. The battle between Republicans and Democrats is just a way of determining what gets taken from whom… and into whose pockets go the stolen goods.

The Democrats’ big-spending initiatives – $1.2 trillion for infrastructure… $3.5 trillion (most likely ballooning to $5.5 trillion over 10 years) for “human infrastructure” – are just ways to pay off left-leaning cronies, the rich, Democratic campaign donors, apparatchiks, nomenclatura, and other unworthies. This transfer of wealth is the real agenda of both parties. Not health. Not finance. Nor even national security.

How to Get a Raise in Washington: If any proof of that accusation were needed, we have the latest Pentagon budget as an illustration. Rather than concern itself with protecting the nation, the generals are mostly just “talking to their pockets.” Of all the government’s Elite Insiders, the Pentagon, perhaps more than any other government agency, has been corrupted by too much power and too much money for way too long.

Stumbling over its expensive weapons… led by incompetents… blinded by politics… larded up with excess of every kind – the Pentagon is probably more of a source of danger to the nation than of security. Its most recent enemy had no air force, no navy, no tanks, no military academies, no artillery support, almost no logistical support… It was nothing more than a bunch of ill-trained “insurgents” riding in the back of Toyota pick-up trucks, spending maybe a penny for every $100 U.S. forces spent.

Nevertheless, the Pentagon waged a costly war for two decades… and still managed to lose… Then it went to Congress and got a raise! Here’s The New York Times last month with the details: "Instead, the Democratic-controlled Congress is on track to increase the military budget by roughly $24 billion more than what President Biden had requested, after over a dozen moderate Democrats on the House Armed Services Committee joined Republicans in pushing through a measure to substantially raise the cost of the annual defense policy bill.

The amendment, spearheaded by Representative Mike D. Rogers of Alabama, the top Republican on the committee, would bring the total military spending budget to $740 billion, with nearly half of the additional funding earmarked to procure new ships, aircraft, and combat vehicles as well as pouring money into the development of emerging technologies and new military laboratories."

Big Winners: Giving more money to the Pentagon – is that the definition of insanity? Not at all. America lost the war… but the military/industrial/elite complex – backed by both Republicans and Democrats – came out way ahead. Richer sinecures for the generals. More profits for the “defense suppliers.” More campaign funds for the politicians who back the Pentagon.

But wait. We can still rely on our military when the real fighting starts, right? Wrong. Tune in on Monday… Our friend Byron King, former aide to the United States Chief of Naval Operations, explains why the U.S. will lose the next war."

- www.rogueeconomics.com

○

Leonard Cohen, "Everybody Knows"

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

"The Greater..."

"The greater our knowledge increases,

the greater our ignorance unfolds."

- John F. Kennedy

The Daily "Near You?"

Bristow, Oklahoma, USA. Thanks for stopping by!

"In a Dark Wood"

"In a Dark Wood"

by Jim Kunstler

"Behold the photo (above) showing President “Joe Biden” getting his booster shot of the Covid-19 “vaccine,” with the news media clustered to the left of what is apparently a stage-set built in a larger chamber. Do you possibly ask yourself: why bother to build a set for this event in or under the White House somewhere - including even fake daylit windows - when there are any number of actual rooms in the White House perfectly suited to holding this grand event in real daylight? What is going on here?

And, by the way, how do we know that “JB” is getting an actual mRNA booster? Or is it just 10 CCs of saline solution? Is not the syringe, after all, just another prop in the show? The video of this event was broadcast on cable TV channels and corporate media websites everywhere. None of them commented on the strange artificiality of the staging. And so, the mystery abides….

It only reinforces the creeping suspicion that absolutely everything about the “Joe Biden” regime is fake. And malevolently so. How else could it be that so many bad things are happening at the same time in this country if there was not some faction seeking to destroy it?

For instance, the vaccine mandates for medical personnel. In upstate New York, WNYT-TV reported yesterday that 200 employees of Albany Med, a large, regional teaching hospital, are placed on seven day’s unpaid leave prior to getting fired for refusing the vaccine. Andrew Cuomo’s replacement, new Governor Kathy Hochul, has blocked unemployment benefits for fired nurses and technicians if they persist in evading the vax. Doctors are included in the mix, too.

Of course, large numbers of health care workers getting kicked out of their jobs will only make it more difficult to care for patients - with Covid or any other health problem - so how does this policy help anyone? (Unless you consider that, with fewer staff on-duty, fewer Covid in-patients will be subjected to the medical malpractice of being placed on ventilators and treated with the killer drug Remdesivir.) Not only has effective early treatment with other drugs been banned from the official medical standards-of-practice across the USA, but mere talk about it has been banned, notably by Google’s YouTube app.

This coercion of health care workers is going on all over the country, of course, not just in New York state. These nurses and techs have been working around Covid patients for going on two years, and many of them have gotten the disease, with symptoms or without, conferring natural immunity. So, what is the point of forcing the vaxes on them? It is also a fact that vaccinated people are susceptible to catching the disease, and that, in any case, the vaccinated carry heavier viral loads than the un-vaxed, making them more efficient spreaders. It is also a fact that mass vaccination in the midst of a pandemic promotes the mutation of new variant viruses that increasingly are not affected by the vaccines.

Thursday night, CNN ran a segment with its house doctor, Sanjay Gupta, hectoring one Andrea Babinski, a La Crosse, Wisconsin, nurse who is quitting her job at Gundersen Hospital there rather than take the vax shot. Dr. Gupta, acting all perplexed, asked her why. Ms. Babinski said she was concerned about blood-clotting. Dr. Gupta dismissed her concern, saying, “If you’ve got a clotting disorder, you should get the vaccine.” Really…?

After the segment, Dr. Gupta and Anderson Cooper shook their heads in amused puzzlement over the nurse’s obdurate foolishness. They are apparently uninformed that the spike protein produced by the vaccine is known to bind onto the endothelial lining of blood vessels and promote blood clots, leading to a range of lethal events such as myocardial infarction and cerebral hemorrhage - heart attack and stroke - plus a broad array of organ damage and neurological disorders.

The Medicare Tracking System states that 48,465 people have died within 14 days of receiving a vax shot. Many had co-morbidities, of course, so not all the deaths can be directly attributed to the vaccines, but the public health authorities are averse to autopsies that might establish the truth of the matter. Anyway, the CDC has ruled recently that they will only count people more than 14 days out from a shot as being considered officially vaccinated — so none of those aforementioned deaths would have counted as vaccinated persons under the rule. Do you see how they are gaming the statistics to keep Americans as uninformed as possible?

Despite all the efforts to bamboozle the public, the “Joe Biden” regime has about run out the string on Covid paranoia, and wrung all of the political usefulness out of it. Going forward, it will only backfire on them. Do they think that wrecking hospital services while depriving thousands of health care workers of their incomes is a winning strategy? These are existential threats to US citizens.

Everything else under “Joe Biden’s” watch looks like a pyromaniac seeking to burn down the country. Over 10,000 Haitian interlopers have been surreptitiously dispersed from Del Rio, Texas, to nether regions of the USA. The government made no effort to vaccinate them - what does that tell you? Over 100,000 more invading opportunists from all over the world are reportedly heading to the southern border. A month after the fall of Afghanistan, and after this week’s hearings in both the House and the Senate, still nobody knows who gave the insane order to surrender Bagram Air Force Base outside Kabul. The Democrats’ dishonest “infrastructure” bill is wilting in Congress. Food and energy prices are rising fast, with shortages on the horizon. The capital markets are wobbling. And Special Counsel John Durham is back on the scene with more actions against Hillary Clinton’s favorite law firm, Perkins Coie, facilitators of the seditious RussiaGate campaign. Put it all together and you have a mechanism that looks like a “Joe Biden” toaster.

Off in a far corner of the News-O-Sphere, someone affecting to be John McAfee dwells on a Telegram channel labeled “OfficialMcAfee.” John McAfee, for those who don’t know, was the wealthy inventor of antivirus computer software who found himself at odds with the US government, went rogue, and supposedly committed suicide in Spain last June. Now, he has apparently turned up on this social media app in a series of videos and cryptic info drops. Whether he is actually still alive, or perhaps recorded these videos before taking his life, is not known. But he had threatened to release terabytes of digital evidence against his antagonists, including video of sexual misconduct among well-known political figures connected to the late Jeffrey Epstein, as well as incriminating documents from the DNC and the Hillary Clinton campaign files from 2016. Those info dumps have commenced and the figure who appears to be John McAfee in the Telegram videos says that the dumps will contain incrementally more shocking material for weeks to come.

All of this activity is obviously weird to an extreme never before seen in national affairs prior to the deep fake era - to the degree that reality is almost impossible to establish for now. We are a people lost in a dark wood. When you are lost, the first thing you must do is stop your useless, self-defeating locomotion, hunker down in place, and carefully assess what’s around you. Even if everything else is murky and perplexing, one thing is known: there is a way out of these dark woods. Remain calm and alert and it will reveal itself."

- https://kunstler.com/

○

Related must view:

"Unthinkable Thoughts"

○

"Why Are Americans Being Coerced To Submit To Injection

 With A Dangerous Substance That Is Known Not To Protect

 Against Covid but to Cause Death and Serious Health Injuries?"

○

"Michigan Couple Dies Of COVID Within Minutes 

Of Each Other Despite Being Fully Vaccinated"

Gregory Mannarino, AM 10/1/21: "Freefall! Inflation Surges Higher Faster Than Forecast; Global Manufacturing Slowing"

Gregory Mannarino, AM 10/1/21:

"Freefall! Inflation Surges Higher Faster Than Forecast; 

Global Manufacturing Slowing"

- https://traderschoice.net/

"The Streets Of Major U.S. Cities Are Being Flooded With Far More Drugs Than Ever Before"

"The Streets Of Major U.S. Cities Are Being 

Flooded With Far More Drugs Than Ever Before"

by Michael Snyder

"An endless tsunami of illegal drugs is turning the streets of our major cities into desolate wastelands, and yet our politicians seem powerless to do anything about it. In fact, in some of our biggest cities the politicians actually don’t seem interested in doing anything about it. As I will discuss below, open air drug markets are operating freely right in the heart of New York City at this moment. Dealers and addicts go about their business without the slightest fear that the police will do anything. Meanwhile, the national death toll just continues to rise. An all-time record 93,000 Americans died as a result of a drug overdose last year. That was an increase of nearly 30 percent from the year before, and authorities are already warning that there will be another huge jump when the final numbers for 2021 come in.

Federal law enforcement authorities are trying to do what they can, but they know that they are fighting a losing battle. On Thursday, they announced that they just seized 1.8 million counterfeit pills, but in the big picture that is only a drop in the bucket.

Right now, federal officials are warning that more fake medications are circulating on our streets than we have ever seen before, and a very large proportion of them contain fentanyl. According to the DEA, the number of fentanyl-laced counterfeit pills that they have been able to intercept has risen by almost 430 percent since 2019… "Counterfeit pills are more lethal than ever before. The number of DEA-seized counterfeit pills with fentanyl has jumped nearly 430 percent since 2019. DEA lab testing reveals that 2 out of every 5 pills with fentanyl contain a potentially lethal dose."

This is one of the biggest reasons why vast hordes of mindless addicts now endlessly roam the streets of our major cities like zombies.

Full screen recommended.

Streets of Philadelphia, Kensington Ave, September, 2021

For these addicts, their primary goal in life is always the next fix, and what most Americans don’t realize is that “most of the counterfeit pills coming into the United States are produced in Mexico and China”… “Drug traffickers, both here and abroad, are increasingly using counterfeit pills to package and distribute the poison that illicit fentanyl is,” said Thomas Hodnett, acting special agent in charge of the DEA’s Philadelphia Division. Law enforcement officials say most of the counterfeit pills coming into the United States are produced in Mexico and China."

You see, the truth is that the drug war never actually ended, and it is being won by the Mexican drug cartels and the Chinese. And thanks to social media, counterfeit pills are now easier to distribute than ever before… "The DEA said the counterfeit pills - made to look like real opioid medications such as oxycodone, Percocet or Adderall - are sold on the street by dealers or online, including through social media platforms." “If you have a smartphone and you’re sitting on the sofa at home … your drug dealer is right there in your hands,” DEA spokesperson Anne Edgecomb said in an interview with NPR.

Of course dealers are constantly having to search for new customers because so many of their existing customers end up dying. Fentanyl is extremely potent, and it only takes a couple of milligrams to kill you… "Mexican drug cartels increasingly are manufacturing the pills with fentanyl, which is at least 30 times more potent than heroin and is fatal in doses of as little as two milligrams. “It’s everywhere,” says Robert Bell, head of the DEA’s Chicago field division. “They’re available in street deals, for purchase online, in schools. It’s very scary.”

This is a major national security crisis, because it is absolutely devastating communities all across the nation. But as I stated at the top of the article, many of our politicians don’t even seem interested in finding a solution.

In New York City, the Garment District has become a horrifying drug-infested cesspool… "The block bordered by 35th and 36th streets, and Seventh and Eighth Avenues, is “littered with used needles, broken glass crack pipes, trash, urine, and feces” as junkies shoot up and dealers brazenly sell drugs, lamented one neighbor on social media. “I’ve personally seen dozens of deals go down. I’ve seen a person OD and nearly die.”

During a single walk around the block last week, The Post witnessed three different people injecting needles in their wrists or fingers in the middle of the afternoon. Each addict sat on the sidewalk or in empty storefronts. Dozens of other junkies sat or lay nearly comatose, many of the men shirtless, on the same block. But instead of doing something about it, the politicians in New York have apparently told the police “to let junkies roam free”… "The NYPD appears to have only a token presence. Two cops stood on Eighth Avenue between 35th and 36th, leaning up against a police van while staring into their phones, as illicit activities swirled around them. But cops have been “effectively ordered” by city and state leaders to let junkies roam free, said Manny Gomez, a former NYPD sergeant and FBI special agent who now heads MG Security Services."

Of course whenever you have large numbers of addicts concentrated in one location you are going to see a spike in crime, and that is precisely what we are witnessing in the Garment District… "Crime in the Midtown South Precinct, which includes the Garment District, is up 41 percent this year through Sept. 19 compared to the same period in 2020, according to NYPD crime data. The most eye-popping spikes are in the number of robberies – which increased 189 percent from 97 to 280 – and felony assaults – which increased 151 percent from 131 to 329."

Sadly, New York is far from alone. For a very long time I have been warning that major cities all over America were being transformed into crime-ridden, drug-infested hellholes, and it is getting worse with each passing year. It has been estimated that approximately 23 million Americans are addicted to drugs, but nobody knows the real number. It isn’t as if there is any sort of a “drug census” that would give us a more accurate count. But what we do know is that the problem is bigger than it has ever been in our entire history.

We have raised entire generations of Americans to believe that their only purpose in life is to serve our soulless, corrupt system. Of course millions of people do eagerly get on the hamster wheel and try to grab as much money and stuff as they can because they think that they will eventually achieve fulfillment that way. But millions of others quickly realize that the game is meaningless and they search out other ways to make themselves happy. A lot of drug addicts didn’t start out as bad people, but their search for happiness ended up taking them down some paths that they never should have gone down.

If you are searching for meaning in life, our society doesn’t have any answers for you. Those that run things just want to control and manipulate you as they make themselves even richer and more powerful. It is imperative that we all learn to think for ourselves, because many of those that don’t learn to think for themselves end up being stuck in their little game for their entire lives."

- http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/

"Economic Market Snapshot AM 10/1/21"

"Economic Market Snapshot AM 10/1/21"

"Capitalism is the astounding belief that the most wickedest of men will

do the most wickedest of things for the greatest good of everyone."

- John Maynard Keynes

○

"The more I see of the monied classes,

the better I understand the guillotine."

- George Bernard Shaw

○

MarketWatch Market Summary, Live Updates

- https://www.marketwatch.com/tools/marketsummary

CNN Market Data:

- https://money.cnn.com/data/markets/

CNN Fear And Greed Index:

- https://money.cnn.com/data/fear-and-greed/

○

A comprehensive, essential daily read.

- http://www.shadowstats.com/

September 30th to October 1st, Updated Daily

○

Financial Stress Index

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

○

- https://www.freightwaves.com/

○

Daily Job Cuts

- https://www.dailyjobcuts.com/

○

- https://www.zerohedge.com/

○

- https://www.investmentwatchblog.com/

○

- https://wallstreetonparade.com/

○

- https://www.whatreallyhappened.com/

○

- https://jessescrossroadscafe.blogspot.com/

○

Commentary, highly recommended:

- https://www.theburningplatform.com/

○

And now, the End Game...

○

Oh yeah...

"How It Really Is"

Well, the party's over folks. Welcome to Reality...

Now what?

Must Watch! “Economy Has Already Crashed, Market Is Next; Investors Crushed Like Cockroaches; Restaurants Dying”

Jeremiah Babe, PM 9/30/21:

“Economy Has Already Crashed, Market Is Next;

 Investors Crushed Like Cockroaches; Restaurants Dying”

Greg Hunter, "Unvaxed at Risk from Vaxed in Coming Dark Winter"

"Unvaxed at Risk from Vaxed in Coming Dark Winter"

By Greg Hunter’s USAWatchdog.com

Karen Kingston is a medical analyst that researches a wide variety of things in the medical world. She’s an expert in getting new drugs and medical devices approved and pass regulatory hurdles. She researched the drug patents for the CV19 vaccine and says the unvaxed are at serious medical risk form the vaxed. Kingston explains, “If you take a look at the biological license approval for Pfizer, it specifically explains that Comirnaty is a nucleoside-modified messenger RNA. What is that? That is a man-made genetic material that coats the spike protein of SARS COV 2. So, people who are injected are producing trillions of the disease causing spike protein, and they can infect other people. This was documented in the August 2015 document by the FDA called ‘Viral Based Gene Therapies’ and shedding analysis and design studies. This is what’s called a viral gene based therapy, and it’s very well documented by the FDA. That is clear evidence that they knew the shedding would occur.”

This is so insidious that the FDA is well aware of unvaxed pregnant women. Kingston says, “Not only can you get sick, but if you get pregnant and are around someone who is vaccinated, that could result in the death of your baby, your baby dying within one month of being born, birth defects and autoimmune disease over its lifetime. That is horrifying.”

Kingston says there are also cases of vaxed parents infecting their unvaxed children. Kingston says, “If you look at the weekly morbidity and mortality reports from the CDC in August, they showed that there was a major spike in cases of hospitalization in children between 1 and 4 years old, then 5 and 12, and 12 to 18 beginning in January and going up very quickly. Well, the children were not supposed to be vaccinated. That’s correct – the parents are. As parents get more and more vaccinated, the children, particularly 1 to 4 year olds, are the highest spike in hospitalizations due to Covid. Children never got Covid before. What they are getting is Covid from their parents being vaccinated.” Kingston gives ways to minimize the risk for the unvaccinated and also some help for the vaccinated with a supplement called NAC.

Kingston says the world needs to wake up to the extreme and contends, “This is absolutely unlawful, and I just can’t believe parents, police officers, healthcare providers and our government are just standing by and basically letting a conspiracy to commit aggravated assault and murder on our children and employees. I am tired of people saying this is conspiracy theory, it’s unproven. It’s not. All these documents are available on the FDA, NIH and USPTO.gov.”

One thing is for sure, more and more vaxed people and some unvaxed people are going to get sick, and many will also die from the vaccines forced on the world. Can it be avoided? Kingston says, “I think there is a way to avoid this to get the truth out there and to start treating people. Otherwise, yes, let’s heed the words of Dr. Fauci, this time and this time only, which is that we are in for a dark winter.” (What is written here is only a small portion of what is covered. There is much more in the 58 minute interview.)"

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

pharmaceutical and medical device analyst Karen Kingston.

- https://rumble.com/

"I'd Still Swim..."

"If I were dropped out of a plane into the ocean and told

the nearest land was a thousand miles away, I'd still swim.

And I'd despise the one who gave up."

- Abraham Maslow

Musical Interlude: Mason Williams, "Classical Gas"

Mason Williams, "Classical Gas"

"A Look to the Heavens"

"Gorgeous spiral galaxy M33 seems to have more than its fair share of glowing hydrogen gas. A prominent member of the local group of galaxies, M33 is also known as the Triangulum Galaxy and lies a mere 3 million light-years away. Sprawling along loose spiral arms that wind toward the core, M33's giant HII regions are some of the largest known stellar nurseries, sites of the formation of short-lived but very massive stars. Intense ultraviolet radiation from the luminous massive stars ionizes the surrounding hydrogen gas and ultimately produces the characteristic red glow. 

Click image for larger size.

To highlight the HII regions in this telescopic image, broadband data used to produce a color view of the galaxy were combined with narrowband data recorded through a hydrogen-alpha filter, transmitting the light of the strongest hydrogen emission line. Close-ups of cataloged HII regions appear in the sidebar insets. Use the individual reference number to find their location within the Triangulum Galaxy. For example, giant HII region NGC604 is identified in an inset on the right and appears at position number 15. That's about 4 o'clock from galaxy center in this portrait of M33."

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

"A Very Fit Consideration..."

“How vast those Orbs must be, and how inconsiderable this Earth, the Theatre upon which all our mighty Designs, all our Navigations, and all our Wars are transacted, is when compared to them. A very fit consideration, and matter of Reflection, for those Kings and Princes who sacrifice the Lives of so many People, only to flatter their Ambition in being Masters of some pitiful corner of this small Spot.”

- Christiaan Huygens, (1629-1695)

"Has Our Luck Finally Run Out?"

"Has Our Luck Finally Run Out?"

by Charles Hugh-Smith

"Long-term cycles escape our notice because they play out over many years or even decades; few noticed the decreasing rainfall in the Mediterranean region in 150 A.D. but this gradual decline in rainfall slowly but surely reduced the grain harvests of the Roman Empire, which coupled with rising populations resulted in a reduced caloric intake for many people. This weakened their immune systems in subtle ways, leaving them more vulnerable to the Antonine Plague of 165 AD.

The decline of temperatures in Northern Europe in the early 1300s led to “years without summer” and failed grain harvests which reduced the caloric intake of most people, leaving them weakened and more vulnerable to the Black Plague which swept Europe in 1347.

I’ve mentioned the book "The Fate of Rome: Climate, Disease, and the End of an Empire" a number of times as a source for understanding the impact of natural cycles on human civilization. It’s important to note that the natural cycles and pandemics of 200 AD didn’t just cripple the Roman Empire; this same era saw the collapse of the mighty Parthian Empire of Persia, the kingdoms of India and the Han Dynasty in China.

In addition to natural cycles, there are human socio-economic cycles of debt and decay of civic values and the social contract: a proliferation of parasitic elites, a weakening of state finances and a decline in the purchasing power of wages/labor. The rising dependence on debt and its eventual collapse is a cycle noted by Kondratieff and others, and Peter Turchin listed these three dynamics as the key drivers of decisive discord of the kind that brings down empires and nations. All three are playing out globally in the present.

In this context, the election of Donald Trump in 2016 was a political expression of long-brewing discontent with precisely these issues: the rise of self-serving parasitic elites, the decay/corruption of the social contract and state finances and the decades-long decline in the purchasing power of wages/labor.

Which brings us to karma, a topic of some confusion in Western cultures more familiar with Divine Retribution than with actions having consequences even without Divine Intervention, which is the essence of karma. Broadly speaking, the U.S. squandered the opportunities presented by the end of the Cold War 30 years ago on hubristic Exceptionalism, wars of choice, parasitic elites and an unprecedented waste of resources on unproductive consumption.

Now the plan – for lack of any real plan – is to borrow trillions of dollars to fund an even more spectacular orgy of unproductive consumption, on the bizarre belief that “money” can be conjured out of thin air in essentially infinite quantities and squandered, and there will magically be no consequences of this trickery in the real world.

Actions have consequences, and after 30 years of waste, fraud and corruption being normalized by the parasitic elites while the purchasing power of labor decayed, the karmic consequences can no longer be delayed by doing more of what’s hollowed out the economy and society.

Which brings us to luck. As a general rule, historians seek explanations which leave luck out of the equation. This gives us a false confidence in the predictability and power of human will and action and cycles. Yes, cycles and human action influence outcomes, but we do a great disservice by shunting luck into the shadows as a non-factor.

If Emperor Pius had chosen someone other than Marcus Aurelius as his successor, someone weak, vain and self-absorbed like so many of Rome’s late-stage emperors, then Rome would have fallen by 170 AD as the Antonine Plague crippled finances and the army, and the invading hordes would have swept the empire into the dustbin of history. It can be argued that only Marcus Aurelius had the experience and character to sell off the Imperial treasure to raise the money needed to pay the soldiers and spend virtually his entire term in power in the front lines of battle, preserving Rome from complete collapse. That was good judgement by Pius but also good luck.

As we ponder luck, consider the estimate that had the meteorite that wiped out the dinosaurs 65 million years ago struck the Earth 30 minutes earlier or later, it would not have generated the Nuclear Winter that destroyed the dinosaurs. (A direct hit in deep water would have spawned a monstrous tsunami, but no dust cloud. A direct hit on land would have raised a dust cloud but without the water vapor/steam generated by the vaporization of millions of gallons of sea water, the cloud wouldn’t have risen high enough to encircle the planet.) That was bad luck for the dinosaurs, and good luck for the mammals who replaced them.

The global economy has been extraordinarily lucky for 75 years. Food and energy have been cheap and abundant. (If you think food and energy are expensive now, think about prices doubling or tripling, and then doubling again.)

In our complacency and hubris, we attribute this to our wonderful technologies, which we assume guarantee us permanent surpluses of energy and food. The idea that technology has reached hard limits or that it could fail doesn’t occur to us. We’ve taken good luck to be our birthright because it’s all we’ve known. We attribute this good fortune to things within our control – technology, wise investments and policies, etc. The possibility that all these powers that we consider so godlike are insignificant doesn’t occur to us because we’ve enjoyed the favorable winds of luck without even being aware of it.

We are woefully unprepared for a long run of bad luck. My sense is the cycles have turned and the good luck has drained from the hour-glass. Energy and food will no longer be cheap and abundant, our luck in leadership will vanish, and our vaunted technologies will fail to maintain an abundance so vast that we can squander the finite wealth of soil, water, resources and energy on mindless consumption.

I’m reminded of a line from an Albert King song, "Born Under a Bad Sign" (composed by Booker T. Jones and William Bell): “If it wasn’t for bad luck, I wouldn’t have no luck at all.” The next five years might have us singing this line with feeling."

- https://www.investmentwatchblog.com

"Panic At Sea: 500,000 Containers Stuck At US Ports As Supply Chain Crisis Goes From Bad To Worse"

Full screen recommended.

"Panic At Sea: 500,000 Containers Stuck At US Ports 

As Supply Chain Crisis Goes From Bad To Worse"

by Epic Economist

"Global supply chains are in a state of absolute chaos. Every time things seem to be getting back on track, a new disruption emerges and pushes the entire system to the brink of a collapse. Even the mainstream media is extremely alarmed about the worsening of this crisis. Widespread shortages are being reported all across the country, but the situation may escalate to a whole new level over the coming weeks as millions of supply chain workers are threatening to quit their jobs.

Over the past 18 months, seafarers, truck drivers, and airline workers have dealt with strict travel restrictions, testing requirements, and a crew change crisis that left nearly a million workers stuck at sea for almost a year. After so many challenges, millions of them are reaching their breaking point and planning to quit the workforce, posing yet another risk to congested ports, container vessels, and trucking companies. Last week, the International Chamber of Shipping sent a letter to heads of state attending the United Nations General Assembly warning of a “global transport system collapse” if governments do not lift movement restrictions to transport workers and give them priority to get vaccines so that they can travel freely around the world.

"Global supply chains are beginning to buckle as two years' worth of strain on transport workers take their toll," the groups wrote. The letter was signed by several groups, including the International Air Transport Association, the International Road Transport Union, and the International Transport Workers’ Federation. Together they represent 65 million transport workers globally. "All transport sectors are also seeing a shortage of workers, and expect more to leave as a result of the poor treatment millions have faced during the sanitary outbreak, putting the supply chain under greater threat," it added.

At this moment, the situation is looking particularly dire at our ports. Dozens of cargo ships are arriving every day and having to wait for days to finally get unloaded. In the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, at least 75 cargo ships are carrying an estimated 500,000 containers and no one seems to know what to do and how to handle the unprecedented backlog given that there are not enough dockworkers to empty all of those containers. Never in history, US ports faced such acute congestion. To make things worse, the container backlog on the other side of the world is even bigger. In China, at least 154 container ships full of import cargo are stuck offshore waiting to unload and refill containers with export goods in Shanghai and Ningbo ports, according to eeSea, a company that analyzes carrier schedules. All across the country, a total of 242 container ships are waiting for berths.

Congestion in Chinese ports means that the flow of exports to U.S. importers is significantly constrained. This comes as retailers struggle to restock their inventories before the busy holiday shopping season. Waiting times are more than doubling and shipping delays have become the norm. As this crisis aggravates, we're now being told that this holiday season is going to be a turbulent one. "Retailers are sounding the alarm on the upcoming holiday shopping season due to serious supply chain issues that are slowing shipments of manufactured goods around the world," CBS reported., adding that: "chaos theory in its simplest form says if a butterfly flaps its wings in China, it means rain in Central Park. Well, that applies not just to weather, but supply chains as well, and in the Bay Area, it will impact everything from computer parts for your car to the gifts and toys on your holiday shopping list".

So if you really want to get something for the coming season, you should probably place your order right now, because there's a huge chance that it will not be available later. According to the Chamber of Commerce, the delivery delays are only going to get worse from now on. At the grocery store, soaring food prices have been absolutely devastating for working-poor families who allocate a high percentage of their incomes to basic and essential items. While many Americans are still relying on the false idea that widespread shortages will never become a reality in the world's most prosperous nation, soon enough they will notice that extensive shortages are already here and they will persist for months. The unprepared are usually the ones that end up becoming panic buyers. And once they realize that our leaders won't come up with some sort of quick fix to this crisis, our entire system will be shaken to the core. As the blind lead the blind, our country heads to yet another critical season while most people remain unaware of the looming threats."

- https://www.epiceconomist.com

The Daily "Near You?"

Bath, Maine, USA. Thanks for stopping by!

"US Debt of $30 Trillion Visualized in Stacks of Physical Cash"

Full screen recommended.

Demonocracy Info,

"US Debt of $30 Trillion Visualized in Stacks of Physical Cash"

- http://Demonocracy.info

"Congress Kicks the Can"

"Congress Kicks the Can"

by Brian Maher

"CNBC gives the news: "Congress was poised to prevent a government shutdown Thursday with hours to go before a midnight deadline. The Senate and House both passed a short-term appropriations bill that would keep the government running through Dec. 3. The U.S. will avoid a lapse in funding once President Joe Biden signs it into law. The Senate approved the legislation in a 65-35 vote, as 15 Republicans joined all 50 Democrats. The House passed the bill by a 254-175 margin as 34 GOP representatives and every Democrat supported it."

Barring delays, the House is expected to approve the plan and send it to President Joe Biden before funding lapses. President Joe Biden will of course sign his name to the legislation. We hazard many palms were greased… many backs were scratched… many arms were twisted. Many horses were traded.

“Disaster” Avoided: And so federal workers essential to the Republic’s safety will remain on station - the customs official at Ketchikan, Alaska - for example. The Transportation Security Administration will still defend the aerial ways against infants, their great-grandmothers, the crippled and related hellcats. Social Security checks will still go through the mails. In event of national invasion, the Marines will answer the bugle.

Of course, Congress would never permit an authentic government shutdown. One fellow attempts to seize concessions from the other… to make him blink first. The other pursues an identical strategy. But they come to terms by the fatal hour. The political combat before us is thus reduced to spectacle, a professional wrestling bout with its false feuds, artificial blows and imitation blood. The outcome is pre-decided. And so today the soda can goes rolling down the roadway, kicked plenty hard. You will be treated to the identical show in December, when the present arrangement terminates - depend on it.

913,242.24 Years of Ceaseless Labor: Consider another enormity - the national debt - presently running, again, to $28.8 trillion. You are committed to frugality in government. Each dollar you print you therefore consecrate to retiring the nation’s debt. Thus we multiply 31,709.8 years by 28.8. Here is what we learn: Reducing today’s $28.8 trillion debt to $0… would require 913,242.24 years of ceaseless labor - 13,046.31 lifetimes. Commence today and the job is done in the year of our Lord 915,263.

And we are not factoring interest on this debt. We will spare you the calculations for fear of your sanity. The business seems beyond all human agency, beyond all control. ‘What can I do?’ a fellow wonders. His shoulders he shrugs. His head he bows. He may cluck-cluck his opposition to it all - and what sane man does not?

The Modern Monetary Theory zanies may be for it. They argue that greater and greater debt is the great elixir, the granite foundation of wealth everlasting, the goose that is golden. But our normal man, he is no zany. He has good, hard sense in him. He is sturdy, he is sound. He is also powerless. He is a man resigned..."

- dailyreckoning.com

Gerald Celente, “Great Reset Coming: Equity Markets Worst Month Since March 2000”

Full screen recommended.

Gerald Celente, PM 9/30/21:

Strong Language Alert!

“Great Reset Coming: Equity Markets

 Worst Month Since March 2000”

“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/