"A Big 'Thank You' From The Global Oligarchy"

"A Big 'Thank You' From The Global Oligarchy"

by Rob Slane

"Dear People,

We are now almost two years into our great transition, and although there’s still a very long way to go, we wanted to take this opportunity to thank you for your help in allowing the project to run so smooth thus far, and to encourage you to allow us to continue making progress.

We must begin by saying how very pleased we have been by the levels of restraint shown. Given the nature of the plan, we naturally factored in the potential for high levels of civil unrest, but we have been surprised - pleasantly surprised it must be said - by the general absence of turmoil. Yes, there have been a few outbreaks of late, and they have meant we needed to take appropriate steps - for the good of humanity - to ensure that such disquiet is not broadcast around the world. But by and large you have got on with your thing - whatever things it is that you do - which has allowed us to get on with the important business of the day, largely unhindered and with extraordinarily little fuss.

Even more pleasing than the restraint, however, has been the exceptional levels of compliance and acceptance of restrictions which - speaking candidly - we had some reason to doubt we’d be able to pull off, such were their nature. Indeed, when we ordered your governments to implement the mass quarantining of millions of healthy people for the first time in history; the wearing of bits of cloth over your faces; and the entire human race to be injected with a new technology gene therapy which had never even been used in a vaccine, nor had any long-term safety trials, there was a real possibility that you’d smell a rat and simply refuse to comply. But thanks to our colleagues in the behavioral science teams across the world, and to you for so placidly and willingly going along with their messaging, it has all gone off far smoother than we could ever have imagined.

Of course, this has not been true of all of you. There have indeed been some misguided attempts to push back against our important agenda, and this might have been problematic had such troublemakers been given a platform. However, given the nature of our position and status, it was of course little trouble for us to silence the most egregious violators, denying them the ability to air their views, which most of you will hopefully agree was justified in the interests of serving the good of humanity. As for the more bog standard offenders, most of this was taken care of by the majority of you, who helpfully took up the cause on our behalf, refusing to listen to these “conspiracy theorists” and “anti-vaxxers”, and hearteningly taking all your news and views from our official and trusted media outlets.

This is not without irony, however. Though it has been an important part of our plan that so many of you use our pejorative labels to describe those who claim the last two years has been about something other than the official narrative we have set out, the truth is that throughout the transition we’ve been at pains to be as open and honest with you about our plans as we were able. Very little has been done in secret. From the outset, and long before anyone had so much as a needle in their arm, Bill was telling you that the plan was to jab every human on the planet. Then of course Klaus made it clear that this was a one-off window of opportunity to reset everything in the way we’ve been hoping to do for many years. He even kindly went on to drop a few more clues when he talked about your future being a fusion of your digital, physical, and biological selves. Klaus’s marketing team even put out that thing about you owning nothing but being happy. Of course the bit about being happy was added as a bit of light-hearted banter, but the point is this: we’ve been entirely open about our plans, and nobody can say they weren’t told.

Nowhere has this been seen more clearly than when we got the whole crew across the globe using the same phrase - Build Back Better. And so it has been a genuine source of amusement for us that when people have pointed to all this as evidence of some sort of agenda to destroy the existing socioeconomic order and replace it with a Transhumanist Technocracy replete with a Social Credit ID System, they have been scoffed at and called Tinfoil Hat Wearing Nutjobs, as if they’d based their opinion on the Conspiracist’s Gazette, rather than the World Economic Forum or Bank of International Settlements. Most amusing!

As we look to the future, however, we must ask that you continue to be patient. A transition of this size and scope clearly cannot be done overnight, and there are lots of moving parts which will need to run in some form or other for a number of years. Thankfully, years of mass priming on the climate stuff should take care of that. We will of course require that every one of you take all the Covid booster shots offered to you over the coming years, and whilst our hope is that you will avail yourselves of this important part of our plans without the need for coercion, I’m sure most of you will agree that those who refuse or resist - the Anti-Vaxxers - will only have themselves to blame when we are forced to deny them access to all the basic essentials of life, since the good of humanity is at stake, is it not?

We would also ask that you spare a thought for us. Although the last couple of years has gone far more smoothly than we could ever have imagined, it has nonetheless been a stressful time planning each next move and wondering whether the majority might start asking awkward questions and taking steps to thwart the agenda we have committed the planet to. Many sleeplessness nights have been had. Many a day of uncertainty. As has been observed of the movers and shakers of the world down the ages, “ours is a high and lonely destiny”. But we press on, as we must. For the good of humanity."

Best wishes,

The Global Oligarchy

- https://www.zerohedge.com/

P.S. Those who read this and conclude that we really are attempting the most audacious reordering of the world that has ever been seen, remember: that’s just nothing but a Conspiracy Theory. Stay safe!

"Bonhoeffer‘s Theory of Stupidity"

Full screen recommended.

"Bonhoeffer‘s Theory of Stupidity":  

"Dietrich Bonhoeffer argued that stupid people are more dangerous than evil ones. This is because while we can protest against or fight evil people, against stupid ones we are defenseless - reasons fall on deaf ears. Bonhoeffer's famous text, which we slightly edited for this video, serves any free society as a warning of what can happen when certain people gain too much power."

○

Read online:

- https://booksvooks.com/

"The Economy is Completely Out of Control - Christmas is Cancelled?"

Full screen recommended.

Dan, iAllegedly, PM 10/22/21:

"The Economy is Completely Out of Control - 

Christmas is Cancelled?"

"The Global Economy is completely out of control. There is nothing in sight that resembles it coming back together. The holidays are going to be a mess this year."

"Brace For Shortages Of Oil, Natural Gas, Propane And Coal: It’s Only Going To Get Worse"

Full screen recommended.

"Brace For Shortages Of Oil, Natural Gas, Propane And Coal: 

It’s Only Going To Get Worse"

by Epic Economist

"No one is telling you the truth about the extremely serious problem we could potentially face this winter. Over the past few months, several countries started to suffer with a ravaging energy crisis, and now that crisis has become global. Blackouts and power outages are happening all over the planet, and energy prices are spiking at an absolutely breathtaking pace. Meanwhile, the global supplies of oil, natural gas, propane, and coal just keep getting tighter, even though the heart of winter in the northern hemisphere is still several months away.

Summer just ended a few weeks ago, and the fact that global energy supplies are already dropping isn't a good sign. If things are this bad already, how the world is going to look like when we get into January and February? All over the U.S., gas prices are already going through the roof, but the situation is particularly dire in California. The supply and demand crisis is the main driver of such acute price increases. Energy demand, particularly across the industrial sector, continues to soar, while supplies are getting increasingly limited.

A recent study released by JPMorgan warned that the crude oil hub in Cushing, Oklahoma could be effectively out of supply in just a few weeks. In recent a note predicting the near-term dynamics of the oil market, JPMorgan’s commodity Natasha Kaneva wrote that "in a world of pervasive natural gas and coal shortages, which are forcing the power sector to increasingly turn to oil, Cushing oil storage – which just dropped to the lowest level since 2018 is just weeks from being completely out of crude.”

In an interview with Reuters, Saudi Arabia's Minister of Energy Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman said that energy users worldwide were switching from gas to oil, which could trigger a demand spike of 500,000-600,000 barrels per day during the winter. Abdulaziz argues that just now the people were waking up to the reality of severe shortages in the energy sector. Considering all of these factors, how high could the price of oil actually go? If prices face another massive spike in the months ahead, just imagine how much Americans would have to pay when they go to fill up their vehicles. That's going to be very painful for millions of families who are already coping with higher prices for everything.

To make things worse, one expert recently told Bloomberg that the propane market could be in total chaos in the winter season. Edgar Ang, an IHS Markit analyst, said that stockpiles of the important heating fuel may have already "topped out for the year" and could be "stretched thin" by early 2022. The Energy Department expects "nearly half of U.S. households that heat primarily with natural gas will spend 30% more than they spent last winter on average - 50% more if the winter is 10% colder-than-average". For the 41% of U.S. households that heat primarily with electricity, they will spend 6% more or 15% more in a colder winter. Meanwhile, the 5% of U.S. households that heat primarily with propane will spend 54% more or 94% more in a colder winter. And the 4% of U.S. households that heat primarily with heating oil will spend 43% more or 59% if temperatures drop more than usual.

This means that the exceedingly expensive energy bills that have been causing headaches in Europe and Asia will soon hit the U.S. On the other side of the globe, dwindling natural gas supplies have already become a huge problem. According to Global News, in several countries in Europe and Asia, natural gas prices have more than tripled this year, which is forcing manufacturers to either shut down or slow down activity from Spain to Britain to China. In addition to a shortage of natural gas, China is also struggling with an acute coal shortage, which is contributing to the immense economic distress the country is facing at the moment.

All of this means that all the goods that we import from Asia will become more significantly expensive. This is just the beginning. And if things continue to escalate this quickly, we might face a simultaneous shortage of oil, natural gas, propane, and coal by the beginning of 2022. We have to keep in mind that these shortages aren’t something that we have to wait for. They are already here, and they are going to get a lot worse and make our supply chain problems even more frustrating in the coming months. As global energy supplies get tighter and tighter, all of us are about to feel the pain. So you should start making plans for this winter because things are really starting to get crazy out there."

- https://www.epiceconomist.com​

"Anarchy From Above"

"Anarchy From Above"

by Brian Maher

"Here is reader Jason M., in response to yesterday’s Reckoning: "Today’s article really got my blood boiling. This Micheline Maynard is the epitome of what’s wrong with the elites and our federal government today. We are in this mess because the elites shut the economy down for a virus that has a 99.8% survival rate. Shelves are going bare because the government has pursued policies that destroyed our manufacturing capacity and then made it near impossible to conduct business or make a living. Now countless people are going to lose their jobs in critical fields over the vaccine mandate. I am one of them.

When is enough going to be enough? How long are we going to let the government and elites like Ms. Maynard lord it over us while we bend over and take it? I’m fed up with all of them. I’m ready to rebel against the system. There’s only so much one can take of being told what to do by one’s “betters” before you want to punch them in the face. I know I’m not alone in feeling this way. Thank you for putting out the great content that you do!"

Jason is far from alone. His frustration and resentment are the frustration and resentment of many. His boiling blood is their boiling blood. Jason, to our knowledge, is a normal man. And as Mr. Henry Louis Mencken noted: "Every normal man must be tempted, at times, to spit upon his hands, hoist the black flag and begin slitting throats… Almost inevitably he comes to the conclusion that the government he lives under is dishonest, insane, intolerable."

We assume Jason has made that conclusion. Your editor does not claim to be normal. Yet even he has arrived at the identical conclusion.

Take the Jab or Lose Your Job! Our earnest sympathies are with Jason. We hope he is able to retain his employment. He labors within a critical field. Who will take his place? Your editor’s own brother - who incidentally hunts out drug risks for a behemoth pharmaceutical concern - confronts the identical dilemma. He has obtained legal counsel in the hope of wriggling out of it. He has until Dec. 8 to plead his case to victory. If counsel fails him… he must take aboard the alien genetic material… else take the consequences.

Mind you - these are trial vaccines whose enduring effects are not known. Moreover, they do not prevent infection to any reliable degree. Nor do they prevent the vaccinated from radiating the virus outward.

Double Standard: Meantime: Migrants swarming illegally across the Mexican border with the United States can roam unvaccinated. Leaked Border Patrol documents reveal a minimum 160,000 of these unlawful entrants have been turned loose within the United States - with little oversight. Yet foreign voyagers entering United States airports must provide vaccine documentation upon entry.

Reduce the thing to its essentials. These are the facts confronting you: A man visiting these shores for days must be inoculated, else he is turned 180 degrees around and ordered home. Yet another man… whose very entrance to the United States ran contrary to its immigration laws… and who intends to stay for years… can roam around unvaccinated and unharassed. Is this logic? Is this justice? Is this law?

A Bonfire of Law: We have no heat against the immigrant chasing his rainbow in these United States. We acknowledge his strivings. We do not fault him for seeking a higher level. We fault the parallel standards presently being enforced - one for the one group and another for different groups.

It is the anti-logic that wrings our gizzard. It is the anti-justice that wrings our gizzard. It is the anti-lawfulness that wrings our gizzard. The umbrella of law must cover all alike. Else it is not law. It is anti-law, a reverse polarity of law, a bonfire of law. It is “anarchy from above”…

“A Government May Grow Anarchic as Much as a People”: Chesterton - G.K. Chesterton - once wrote of anarchy from above. You imagine anarchy and you imagine a mob amok. Violence. Chaos. That is, you imagine anarchy from below. Yet as Chesterton noted: “It is not in the least necessary that anarchy should be violent; nor is it necessary that it should come from below.”

Thus he concludes, gravely, pithily - presciently: “A government may grow anarchic as much as a people.” Look behind you, to last year’s tribulations. As we have noted previously…

Locked Down: Governments shuttered America’s restaurants, alehouses, barbershops, nail salons, gymnasiums, arenas, beaches… all places of public resort. Governments ordered churches to scatter their flocks - and to bolt their doors. Governments restricted funeral attendance to a handful of bereaved.

These were the grim but necessary costs of containing a demon virus, we were told. Yet the same governments that barred you from graveside, that locked you out of Sunday service and the haircutter’s store… blessed the mightiest mass gatherings we have ever encountered. We refer of course to the George Floyd protests…

Americans swarmed the streets in numbers truly prodigious… each one a potential plague-spreader… in hundreds of cities… in all 50 states of this union… plus the District of Columbia. Authorities not only permitted these disease incubators to infest the streets - they waved them in. That is, certain Americans could assemble in their thousands, in their tens of thousands… yet others could not gather in their dozens to worship almighty God or to plant a relative.

“Only Gather in Groups if You Are Protesting Trump!” The morality of the cause is beyond our care. Our stance is not pro. Nor is our stance con. We are concerned merely with its logic. We therefore conclude: The rules were arbitrary. The rules were capricious. The rules warred against all logic - save the logic of the illogical.

Libertarian author Jeffrey Tucker, in concise yet withering summary: “Go inside, no wait, don’t go inside!” “Stay healthy, but shut the gyms.” “Get away from the virus, but don’t travel.” “Don’t wear a mask, wait, do wear a mask.” “Only gather in groups if you are protesting Trump!”

More Anarchy From Above: Meantime, “mostly peaceful” hellcats who vandalized public and private property, who set buildings aflame, who besieged police… received largely slaps across the wrist joint. Yet protesters who loafed around outside of the United States Capitol on Jan. 6 - without stepping inside it - are labeled domestic terrorists and clapped into jails for trespassing upon public property.

We do not bless the actual violence of that day. Felonious assaults upon police undisputedly took place… and their perpetrators must face the law’s wrath. The judge has our permission to heave his law book at them. Yet a fellow lolling harmlessly hundreds of feet from the chaotic scenes is not a menace. He should not be cooped.

Will We All Be Called Domestic Terrorists? Here is who the United States Department of Justice (do not laugh!) likewise brands domestic terrorists: "Parents who object to certain school curricula they deem offensive."

At some point, perhaps not distant, we may all be branded domestic terrorists. We pray upon both knees the day never dawns in our pristine and God-favored nation... But will the point come when normal men feel they must spit upon their hands, hoist the black flag... and begin slitting throats?"

- dailyreckoning.com

Musical Interlude: Gnomusy, "Footprints on the Sea"

Gnomusy, "Footprints on the Sea"

"A Look To The Heavens"

"This pretty field of view spans over 2 degrees or 4 full moons on the sky, filled with stars toward the constellation Taurus, the Bull. Above and right of center in the frame you can spot the faint fuzzy reddish appearance of Messier 1 (M1), also known as the Crab Nebula. M1 is the first object in 18th century comet hunter Charles Messier's famous catalog of things which are definitely not comets.

Click image for larger size.

Made from image data captured this October 11, there is a comet in the picture though. Below center and left lies the faint greenish coma and dusty tail of periodic comet 67P Churyumov-Gerasimenko, also known as Rosetta's comet. In the 21st century, it became the final resting place of robots from planet Earth. Rosetta's comet is now returning to the inner solar system, sweeping toward its next perihelion or closest approach to the Sun, on November 2. Too faint to be seen by eye alone, the comet's next perigee or closest approach to Earth will be November 12."

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

Chet Raymo, “The Sea Grows Old In It”

“The Sea Grows Old In It”

by Chet Raymo

“The poet, like the electric [lightning] rod, must reach from a point nearer to the sky than all surrounding objects down to the earth, and down to the dark wet soil, or neither is of use. The poet must not only converse with pure thought, but he must demonstrate it almost to the senses. His words must be pictures, his verses must be spheres and cubes, to be seen, and smelled and handled.” 

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Ah, Mr. Emerson. This seems about as good a description of poetry as one is likely to find. I love the image. Not a hand reaching up to grasp the hand of Zeus, the hurler of bolts, but merely a pointed rod that reaches higher than any surrounding objects. A pen-point, scratching the firmament. Not a conductor reaching down to the earth, but deeper, into the wet inkpot of the soul.

Not lofty thoughts, airy philosophies, gnostic arcana. Rather, ideas that come wrapped in the stuff of the senses. Ideas that must be unwrapped the way you’d peel an orange, or pry open an oyster, or stir up from the bottom of a bowl of soup. The electric fire of the heavens captured and stored in the Leyden jar of physical self.

Take, for example, Marianne Moore’s “The Fish”, a poem that has been endlessly analyzed without ever giving up its secrets. Anyone who stands on that rocky shore with the poet, looking into the wave-washed chasm - the sea as fluid as breath, as hard as a chisel- takes away a lesson as profound as any one might learn in school, perhaps without being able to articulate exactly what the lesson is. The experience is simply there, to be seen, smelled, handled, in the weave and wave of animal bodies, in the intricate rhyme and syllabication of the poem. Truth- crow-blue, ink-bespattered, hatcheted, defiant.

I’d go further. I’d say that Emerson’s description of poetry can be equally applied to science, or to any human attempt to attract the spark of Zeus. One must lift one’s rod beyond the scratch and tumble of the everyday, while keeping its foot buried in the dark wet soil of lived experience.”

- http://blog.sciencemusings.com/

•

“The Fish”

“Wade through black jade.

Of the crow-blue mussel-shells, one keeps

adjusting the ash-heaps;

opening and shutting itself like an injured fan.

The barnacles which encrust the side of the wave,

cannot hide there for the submerged shafts of the sun,

split like spun glass,

move themselves with spotlight swiftness into the crevices -

in and out, illuminating

The turquoise sea of bodies.

The water drives a wedge of iron through the iron edge of the cliff;

whereupon the stars, pink rice-grains, ink-

bespattered jelly fish, crabs like green lilies,

and submarine toadstools, slide each on the other.

All external marks of abuse are present on this defiant edifice -

all the physical features of accident -

lack of cornice, dynamite grooves, burns, and hatchet strokes,

these things stand out on it;

the chasm-side is dead.

Repeated evidence has proved that it can live

on what can not revive its youth.

The sea grows old in it."

- Marianne Moore

The Poet: Rainer Maria Rilke, “Sunset”

“Sunset”

“Slowly the west reaches for clothes of new colors

which it passes to a row of ancient trees.

You look, and soon these two worlds both leave you,

one part climbs toward heaven, one sinks to earth,

leaving you, not really belonging to either,

not so helplessly dark as that house that is silent,

not so unswervingly given to the eternal as that thing

that turns to a star each night and climbs -

leaving you (it is impossible to untangle the threads)

your own life, timid and standing high and growing,

so that, sometimes blocked in, sometimes reaching out,

one moment your life is a stone in you, and the next, a star.”

- Rainer Maria Rilke

"Where Your Gaze Lingers..."

“Sometimes fate is like a small sandstorm that keeps changing directions. You change direction but the sandstorm chases you. You turn again, but the storm adjusts. Over and over you play this out, like some ominous dance with death just before dawn. Why? Because this storm isn’t something that has nothing to do with you, this storm is you. Something inside you. So all you can do is give in to it, step right inside the storm, closing your eyes and plugging up your ears so the sand doesn’t get in, and walk through it, step by step. There’s no sun there, no moon, no direction, no sense of time. Just fine white sand swirling up the sky like pulverized bones.

You have to look! That’s another one of the rules. Closing your eyes isn’t going to change anything. Nothing’s going to disappear just because you can’t see what going on. In fact, things will be even worse the next time you open your eyes. That’s the kind of world we live in. Keep your eyes wide open. Only a coward closes his eyes. Closing your eyes and plugging up your ears won’t make time stand still.”

- Haruki Murakami

“Closing your eyes won’t make the awfulness go away. It may be that nothing will. But dwelling on it, dreading the evil, playing out the misery in your head – doesn’t this feed the monster? You can’t close your eyes to life, but you can choose where your gaze lingers.”

- Richelle E. Goodrich

The Daily "Near You?"

Frankfurt Am Main, Hessen, Germany. Thanks for stopping by!

"God Speaks"

"God Speaks"

By Bill Bonner

BALTIMORE, MARYLAND – "Yesterday evening, traffic was snarled, almost gridlocked, all around our neighborhood in Baltimore. Fortunately, we walk to work. Headed home, we noticed dozens of unmarked police cars with red and blue lights flashing. “What’s going on?” we asked when we came in the door. “Oh… that’s the president. He’s doing a ‘Town Meeting’ down the hill. He’s promising people a lot of free stuff. I think that’s the gist of it.” He calls it the “caring economy.” More medical care. More child care. More senior care. More homeless care. More care for the Taiwanese. More caring for minorities, women, and, of course, the non-binary members of the population. And most important, though the president didn’t mention it, more care for the rich… who already get the most care of all.

It’s wonderful… how caring you can be when you can print money ad infinitum. And now, with so much caring going on… the U.S. slips and slides… stumbles and falls. This week, we looked for someone to blame. Two suspects came readily to mind: God or man. We made our case against man. But God bears some of the guilt, too. He created the world… and man… and death. No one… and no empire… escapes. And today, in what we believe is a first for the newsletter business… if not for the entire publishing industry… we put God Himself on the witness stand… and let Him defend Himself.

Witness Testimony: "Be still. Yep. It’s Me, God. Representing Myself. I don’t need no jackass ambulance chaser to give My side of the story. I’ll do it Myself. Bill Bonner has alleged that I am at least partially responsible for the decline of the U.S. He says I created a world where tides ebb and flow… days dawn and then the sun sets… where people allow themselves all sorts of vain illusions… fall into predictable traps… and then, amidst all the upward striving… the fight for love and glory…  success and failure… in the end, everybody dies anyway.

And I don’t deny it. Yes… I created the world. And man, too. Man is an imperfect creature. Well, I’m being too kind. He’s a moron, really. I don’t know why I put up with him sometimes. But let’s back up… well… to Genesis, and I’ll explain how it came to be.

God’s Work: I first put man into a paradise… Adam. I gave him a wife… Eve. And the two of them cavorted, naked as jaybirds, in the Garden of Eden. You’d think they’d have been grateful. Instead, they got together and thought they were pretty hot stuff… and they didn’t need Me to tell them what to do.

That was the beginning of the trouble. I had to banish them from the garden. The easy living was over; now, man had to live by the sweat of his brow. But he was never a straight-shooter. He was always robbing Peter to pay Paul… looking for shortcuts… for aces up his sleeve… and loose change in his pocket. And he had that scoundrel, Lucifer, to tempt him.

I tried to lead man… I tried to teach him… and even to create a better model. Once, I was so disgusted, I drowned almost all of them, like unwanted kittens. And then, I gave the dirty work to the Jews… and told them to exterminate the other tribes. Mixed results there, too. You win some; you lose some.

The Chosen Ones: And I knew Americans would make a mess of things. Why shouldn’t they? Every other group has. Remember when Madeleine Albright – there was a piece of work! – called the USA the “indispensable nation”? “If we have to use force, it is because we are America,” the then Secretary of State said in an interview on The Today Show with Matt Lauer in February 1998. “We stand tall and we see further than other countries into the future.” I almost fell out of my chair laughing. She thought THEY were the chosen people. And nobody sees into the future but Me. But that’s the thing with clowns like Albright… they think they are gods, too.

Know-It-Alls: The Romans had the right idea. They had a slave walk alongside a victorious general, whispering in his ear: memento mori (remember, thou art mortal). And the clowns always have Big Plans… Thousand-year Reich? Remember that one? Ha ha. A “war to end all wars?” Heh heh. “Democracy…?” “Diversity?”

They always think they know more than any human who ever lived before them… and that what they want, right now, is what humans should want for all eternity. And then, the next thing you know, they’re retreating from Moscow and freezing their buns off.

Really, it’s amazing what drivel people will believe… and what mischief they’ll get up to. Ha, ha, ha… They’re alright – mostly – when they stick to what they really know – their own lives… their own families… their own business… But the minute they walk upon the public stage… and begin making plans for others… well, good God, it’s a disaster.

Rules of the Road: Okay… yes… I admit… I’m to blame for the ebb and flow… the yin and yang… and the rise and fall of nations. And yes, My creature, man… never comes upon a banana peel without slipping on it. I take responsibility for the world, but not for every dumb thing done by man. I gave him “free will.” You know what that means? When he screws up, it’s his own damned fault.

But Bill already made the case against man. There’s no point in My saying more on that. So, let’s turn to Me… Ich… Yo… Moi… What is My fault? There are some basic laws that govern all my creations… and some rules of the road, “traffic lights,” as you call them.

Nobody gets out alive, for example. It doesn’t matter what you do or what you think. And you can’t get something for nothing. And whether you call it “democracy” or armed robbery, ripping people off is not a good idea. And you can’t just print up “money” and pretend it’s real wealth.

Yes… I imposed “limits.” You can’t spend more than you earn – not for long. You can’t beat a royal flush with a pair of eights. And if you’re over 70 and you try to act like a 25-year-old, you’ll make a fool of yourself.

Reaping the Whirlwind: Bill has shown that Americans have ignored the limits for a long time. They’ve sown the wind, to coin a phrase. Now, they’re reaping the whirlwind. He’s shown why they can’t back up… why they can’t change direction… and why the result will be the worst financial calamity the world has ever seen.

But it’s not just the USA. Almost all modern economies are headed for the same crisis. They’re running into My limits… and it’s going to be one Helluva crash."

God has agreed to come back to the courtroom next week so he can continue his testimony."

- www.rogueeconomics.com

"24 Norse Life Rules (Lessons From the Vikings)"

Full screen recommended.

RedFrost Motivation, 

"24 Norse Life Rules (Lessons From the Vikings)"

Life rules are based on the Hávamál, a collection of old 

Norse poems from the Viking age. Read the original here: 

- https://sites.pitt.edu/~dash/havamal.html

"We Must Marvel..."

“In our society, confidence leads to knowledge – which leads to power – which leads to pride – which leads to a fear of seeming ignorant – which constricts learning like an iron vise. We must understand that confidence is a blessing, for it is the embodiment of self-love, and through it we find the fuel for innovation and progress. We must realize that ignorance is merely the opportunity to learn more. And lastly, we must marvel rather than groan at the fact that there will always be more to learn… Only then will we be free of the intellectual prisons we have so readily caged ourselves within.”

- Zeb Reynolds

"This Winter, We Could Potentially Be Facing Simultaneous Shortages Of Oil, Natural Gas, Propane And Coal"

"This Winter, We Could Potentially Be Facing 

Simultaneous Shortages Of Oil, Natural Gas, Propane And Coal"

by Michael Snyder

"I realize that the headline that I have chosen for this article may sound a bit wild to many of you, but keep reading because what we are potentially facing is extremely serious. Right now, we are already in the midst of an epic global energy crisis. There have already been significant power outages all over the planet, and prices are spiking at a pace that is absolutely breathtaking. With each passing day, it seems like supplies of oil, natural gas, propane and coal just keep getting tighter, and what is really odd is that it is happening so early in the year. Summer just ended a few weeks ago, and the heart of winter in the northern hemisphere is still several months away. So if things are this bad already, what are things going to look like when we get into January and February?

This morning, I was stunned when I pulled up the Drudge Report and saw that one gas station in California was now selling gasoline for $7.59 a gallon… "Gas keeps getting more and more expensive, especially in California. But perhaps nowhere is it pricier than the remote central coast community of Gorda. The town’s only gas station is offering regular unleaded for $7.59. Premium is nearly $8.50."

The good news is that a gallon of gasoline is not nearly that high in most of the rest of the nation. But the bad news is that prices are rising aggressively from coast to coast. As of yesterday, Fox News was reporting that the price of gasoline had risen “for 22 straight days”.

The main reason why prices are skyrocketing is because supplies are starting to get really tight. In fact, it is being reported that the crude oil hub in Cushing, Oklahoma could be “effectively out of crude” in just a few weeks… "In a note predicting the near-term dynamics of the oil market, JPMorgan’s commodity Natasha Kaneva writes that in a world of pervasive nat gas and coal shortages which are forcing the power sector to increasingly turn to oil (boosting demand by 750bkd during winter and drawing inventory by 2.1mmb/d in Nov and Dec), Cushing oil storage – which just dropped to 31.2mm barrels, the lowest since 2018… may be just weeks from being “effectively out of crude.” The bank’s conclusion: “if nothing were to change in the Cushing balance over the next two months, we might expect front WTI spreads to spike to record highs—a “super backwardation” scenario.”

Needless to say, we have never seen anything like this happen before. In such a scenario, how high could the price of oil potentially go? And if oil price records are being shattered in the months ahead, what will ordinary Americans have to pay when they go to fill up their vehicles?I have a feeling that we are about to enter uncharted territory.

Meanwhile, one expert recently told Bloomberg that we could soon be facing “propane-market armageddon”… "In the report by Bloomberg, Ang says prices for the first quarter of 2022 are already far above later supplies, saying, “it may indicate players are preparing for propane-market armageddon.” He added that some areas could see outright shortages before winter ends. To add to the stress, Poynter says some weather forecasts are already calling for a colder than normal winter, thanks to the La Nina effect. Experts call for an 87% chance of the system bringing an early and harsh winter season.

The use of the term “outright shortages” definitely alarms me, because there are millions of Americans that use propane to heat their homes. If the propane runs out in the middle of the winter, what are those people supposed to do?

On the other side of the globe, a tightening of natural gas supplies has become an enormous problem. According to Global News, natural gas prices in Europe and Asia “have more than tripled” in 2021… "Regional natural gas markets in the United States are seeing prices for this winter surge along with global record highs — suggesting that the energy bills causing headaches in Europe and Asia will hit the world’s top gas producer before long.

Gas prices in Europe and Asia have more than tripled this year, causing manufacturers to curtail activity from Spain to Britain and sparking power crises in China. In addition to a lack of natural gas, a severe coal shortage has also contributed to the economic chaos that we are witnessing in China at the moment.

Just recently, CNN reported that energy shortages had already spread to 20 different provinces… "Power shortages have spread to 20 provinces in recent weeks, forcing the government to ration electricity during peak hours and some factories to suspend production. These disruptions resulted in a sharp drop in industrial output last month and weighed on the outlook for China’s economy.

India is being hit really hard by the global coal shortage as well. In fact, we are being told that most of India’s coal plants “have critically low levels of coal inventory”… Most of India’s coal-fired power plants have critically low levels of coal inventory at a time when the economy is picking up and fueling electricity demand." Coal accounts for around 70% of India’s electricity generation.

So the truth is that my headline for this article is not over the top at all. The shortages aren’t something that we have to wait for. They are already here, and they are going to get a lot worse. Of course this new energy crisis is going to make our global supply chain headaches even more frustrating.

In our economic system, it takes energy to literally do just about anything, and as energy becomes more expensive virtually every form of economic activity will also become more expensive. That means that all of the stuff that is made for us in Asia and shipped halfway around the planet is going to start costing a lot more.

As toy shortages intensify heading into the holiday season, we are already seeing some resellers pricing toys at nearly 400 percent of their normal levels… "American Girl’s sold-out blonde winter princess doll, which retailed for $250, is now going for up to $999 on platforms such as Mercari and eBay. The cat-themed Gabby’s Dollhouse, which is all the rage for this year’s preschoolers, has nearly quadrupled on some sites from its original $55 price tag."

This is the “new normal”, and so you might as well get used to it. I am shocked that things have deteriorated so rapidly, and this new global energy crisis is definitely setting the stage for so many things that I have been warning about. As global energy supplies get tighter and tighter, all of us will feel the pain. And the experts are telling us that things are not going to turn around any time soon. So I hope you have a plan for this winter and beyond, because things are really starting to get crazy out there."

- https://www.investmentwatchblog.com/

○

"Consumers Around The World Are About To Get Socked With Even 

Higher Prices On Everyday Items; Worried Consumers Flash Warning Signs"

Gregory Mannarino, "AM/PM 10/22/21"

Gregory Mannarino, AM 10/22/21:

"It Begins: The FED is Sending A Message, Pay Attention To It!

This Is All A Game"

- https://traderschoice.net/

○

Gregory Mannarino, PM 10/22/21:

"The Twisted Freak Show Game Continues: 

They Are Eating Us All Alive"

- https://traderschoice.net/

"How It Really Is"

 

"Fools And Knaves..."

“In the mass of mankind, I fear, there is too great a majority of

fools and knaves; who, singly from their number, must to a certain

degree be respected, though they are by no means respectable.”

- Philip Stanhope

○

"How to Behave Badly in Elizabethan England: A Guide for Knaves, 

Fools, Harlots, Cuckolds, Drunkards, Liars, Thieves, and Braggarts"

○

"There are more fools than knaves in the world,

 else the knaves would not have enough to live upon."

- Samuel Butler

Free Download: "The Truth About COVID-19: Exposing The Great Reset, Lockdowns, Vaccine Passports, and the New Normal"

"The Truth About COVID-19: Exposing The Great Reset,

Lockdowns, Vaccine Passports, and the New Normal"

Freely download here:

- https://dokumen.pub/

Greg Hunter, "Weekly News Wrap-Up 10/22/21"

"Weekly News Wrap-Up 10/22/21"

by Greg Hunter’s USAWatchdog.com

"President Trump is still pushing the horrible injections he calls vaccines from his “Operation Warp Speed.” I don’t know who is telling him these are working well when death and injuries on VAERS (Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System) outnumber all vax deaths and injuries for the past 30 years. By every metric, the vaccines Trump is still pushing are a growing disaster, just ask former Secretary of State Colin Powell. Oh wait, Powell was fully vaccinated, and he just died of complications from Covid 19. Stop the shots, Mr. President, and admit you are wrong. The nation will forgive you, but not the people who lied.

There is a new study done by Harvard for the NIH (National Institutes of Health), and it basically says the vax injections do not work. The highest counties in America have the highest Covid transmission rates, and the lowest vaccinated counties have the lowest Covid transmission rates. It was the same overseas in high vaxed countries such as Israel. Dr. Chris Martenson simply says “We’ve been had.” I say it was a deadly money making scam for Big Pharma and government co-conspirators. They all should be prosecuted under the Nuremberg code of 1947. They hung Nazi doctors for experimenting on people against their will and without informed consent. Sound familiar?

There is no stopping the rising inflation trend we find ourselves in. There are supply chain disruptions and dramatically rising prices for just about everything. Inflation is going to force the Fed to raise interest rates. Trends researcher Gerald Celente summed it all up perfectly this past week on USAWatchdog.com and said, “When they raise interest rates, this thing goes down - end of story.”

- https://usawatchdog.com/

Join Greg Hunter on Rumble as he talks about these stories

 and more in the Weekly News Wrap-Up 10/22/21.

- https://rumble.com/

Musical Interlude: Runrig, "Running to the Light"

Full screen recommended.

Runrig, "Running to the Light"

“Financial End Game For Unprepared Americans; Economic Nightmare Is Now Real; FED Will Not Save You”

Jeremiah Babe, PM 10/21/21:

“Financial End Game For Unprepared Americans; 

Economic Nightmare Is Now Real; FED Will Not Save You”

"25 Life Lessons from the Anglo-Saxons"

Full screen recommended.

RedFrost Motivation, 

  "25 Life Lessons from the Anglo-Saxons"

Narrated by Nicky Rebelo

"The Exeter Book": This is the largest (and perhaps oldest) known collection of Old English poetry/literature still in existence. Freely download "The Exeter Book" here:

- https://ia800703.us.archive.org/

○

“The Durham Proverbs”: “The proverbs are considered to have been used to document everyday business of the people of Anglo-Saxon England.”

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Durham_Proverbs

"A US Government Official Is Telling Us That Shortages & The Supply Chain Crisis Will Last For Years"

Full screen recommended.

"A US Government Official Is Telling Us That Shortages &

 The Supply Chain Crisis Will Last For Years"

by Epic Economist

"A shortage of everything is only intensifying all across the nation as the all-important holiday season approaches and thousands of cargo ships remain stuck outside key US ports while millions of containers are in rail yards waiting to get unloaded amid a lack of workers and truckers. A couple of months ago, President Biden assured Americans that supply chain bottlenecks and price spikes would reduce as our economy continues to "heal," and appointed a "port envoy" to work with Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg.

But now, the truth is finally coming out, and the outlook doesn't look pretty. During a recent interview with Bloomberg, Buttigieg admitted that some of the supply chain problems that we are currently facing are likely to last for “years and years”. Last Thursday, he also told MSNBC that this is “an incredibly complicated situation,” and even though the government is holding virtual “roundtables” with port operators, labor unions, and private companies, the “challenges” will continue, not only “going into the next year or two, but going into the long term.”

It's truly shocking how the outlook for our economic future has changed so drastically in a matter of a few months. At the beginning of the year, government officials were promising that we would soon be entering a new golden era of prosperity. But instead, what we have today is chaos, inflation and shortages everywhere we look. And now even our leaders can't deny the fact that things are collapsing all around us. The mainstream media also seems alarmed about the severity of this crisis. In a recent article, the Daily Mail bluntly reported that "stores across America have empty shelves thanks to a series in supply chain problems that are prolonging inflation and could stretch into the new year, with some retailers like Costco and Walmart limiting the amount of toilet paper in some stores".

The article also highlighted that there are currently more than 60 cargo ships are waiting to dock in California, each of them is carrying hundreds of thousands of containers, and they may be stuck for months in this unprecedented port traffic jam. Meanwhile, in China, millions of dollars of American goods are still sitting in warehouses awaiting shipment. The situation is causing massive delivery delays and aggravating local shortages at U.S. retail and grocery stores.

At the Port of Savannah in Georgia, at least 80,000 containers are still stacked up on the docks, 50% more than normal, according to the New York Times. Some of the ships are having to wait up to ten days before getting a slot.In addition to the extensive container backlog that we are witnessing at our major ports, shipping costs continue to rise relentlessly for Pacific trade lines. The latest numbers reported by The Washington Post revealed that the median cost of shipping a standard container from China to the U.S. West Coast hit a record $20,586.

Needless to say, those price increases are completely absurd. To make things worse, now that the global energy crisis is pushing energy prices to skyrocket, it is going to be even more expensive to move goods around the planet. US oil prices have shot up by $120 since crashing to negative $40 a barrel in April 2020. Sadly, as demand continues to soar, global energy supplies are going to get even tighter and prices are going to hit sky-highs in the months ahead. As a result, big corporations will start passing on those higher costs to consumers. In several industries, this is already happening. In fact, the CEO of the international food giant Kraft Heinz, which makes the famous tomato sauce and baked beans, just revealed the company is raising the prices of several items. Miguel Patricio said that unlike in previous years, inflation was “across the board”.

With all things considered, the short-term scenario looks incredibly chaotic. We're currently heading to an era of inflation that is going to absolutely shock most Americans. Unfortunately, we're being warned that conditions are going to continue to deteriorate in the coming weeks and months. And as more turbulence emerges, our society will start to realize that our nation has become extremely dependent on broken supply chains that can't be easily fixed. That's to say, our problems may only worsen from now on. Although we would like to tell you that things will get better soon, that would be simply unrealistic. We should brace for more supply chain problems in the months ahead, and keep in mind that some of them are going to be exceptionally painful. It's time to get ready while you still can!"

- https://www.epiceconomist.com​

"A 'High Class Problem'”

"A 'High Class Problem'”

by Brian Maher

"Let them munch cake…The White House chief of staff - a certain Ron Klain - recently blessed a statement by Harvard economics instructor Jason Furman. This statement declared inflation and supply chain delinkings "high class problems" Incidentally… 

this is the identical Ronald Klain who objected to Trump tax cuts this way: "Will [they] hold up a Campbell Soup can and argue that price increases for basic food items don’t really hurt the middle class? Because I think that is the Trump admin economic message of the day."

Inflation ran to 2.4% at the time. Today the official tabulation pegs it at 5.4%. It is likely higher. But the fellow endorses the claim that the business represents a “high class problem.” He believes you roll in green, green clover.

Do you glow about your heightened class as you endure your fleecing at the filling station? When your grocery shopping cleans you out? When you cannot locate the item you seek because shelves run bare? Perhaps you plan to purchase a Christmas toy for a child or grandchild. Owing to your overflowing bounty... you can expect to pay 400% higher for this toy this season. Meantime, some 70% of early shoppers claim an item they seek is no longer in stock.

The present supply chain discombobulations are the direst since World War II claims one expert - when “there were submarines sinking commercial traders.” Our spies inform us worldwide freighter torpedoings number zero. Yet the lacks endure. They may worsen yet.

Fortunately… and by God’s grace… only 4.8% of Americans wallow in unemployment. Yet is it true? Is 4.8% the correct rate? No, says Mr. John Williams and his ShadowStats. As he reminds us: "The long-term idle, dispirited beyond all hope, were read out of official existence in 1994. They are not actively chasing work."

If government statistics-manglers included these defeated and forlorn forgottens… what is the authentic unemployment rate? A dizzying 25.1%, argues Mr. Williams. That is correct - 25.1%. If this figure reflects a true reading - we are uncertain if it does - you are free to moan and bellyache about your “high class problem.” Recall, 10% unemployment is the line, the high fence dividing the classes.

But have you a right to moan and bellyache about present economic conditions? Washington Post columnist Micheline Maynard says no. The lady claims Americans are “spoiled”... that they must transition to “new, more realistic expectations.” What precisely these new, more realistic expectations constitute… we do not know.

Perhaps to reduce to a human ice block this winter for want of heat...To verge upon starvation for want of food...To be hollowed out by inflation... What else should Americans expect - realistically? Will they be forced to endure a deprived and depraved “new normal”? If so, it is not a normal to which they have consented. They have not signed their names upon Ms. Maynard’s dotted line. Nor will they.

Who - and what - brunts the blame for the present laments? Libertarian writer Jeffrey Tucker: “Every bit of this unfolding disaster traces to lockdowns and money printing. Every bit of it.” Mr. Tucker recounts a recent conversation with one business owner. This fellow claims he cannot obtain the labor he requires. Why? In his telling: "Lockdowns showed millions of people that they can get by without working. The government dumps money into their bank accounts. They can rent three bedroom apartments, stick 6 people in there, share the rent, and get by very cheaply and even become richer than they’ve ever been, even without a job. They stay drunk and stoned all day while watching big screen TVs."

“The modern world is insane,” said G.K. Chesterton once upon a time, “not so much because it admits the abnormal as because it cannot recover the normal.” Can this modern world… insaner even than Chesterton’s… recover the normal? Can it afford not to?

Below, Jeffrey Tucker shows you why food rationing is not out of the question if shortages worsen. Does he exaggerate? Read on to determine the answer for yourself."

○

"Get Ready for Food Rationing"

By Jeffrey Tucker

"It must have been this flippant dismissal that caused me to go over the top. I wrote that hyperinflation could lead not only to implicit price controls, but also to rationing. Eventually, we could see the government issuing food tickets into bank accounts that allow us only a certain amount of food for the week. One chicken. One pound of hamburger meat. Five rolls of toilet paper.

I wrote that with a worry that I might be going too far here with speculation. This is America, after all, and we don’t do things this way. And yet in the old America we didn’t close churches for Easter, or skip Christmas for fear of a virus. And so on. Yet we know now that in fact we do these things, and easily.

Fear makes anything possible. And so right on cue - things are moving very fast these days - The Washington Post has published an article by one of its regular contributors (Micheline Maynard) with one message: GET USED TO IT!

She says that we have come to expect too much for the economy. Ever since 1911, she says, we’ve been obsessed with getting stuff and getting it fast. That’s dumb, she says. Deprivation is not only the new normal; it’s the way things should be. “Across the country, Americans’ expectations of speedy service and easy access to consumer products have been crushed like a Styrofoam container in a trash compactor,” she writes. “Time for some new, more realistic expectations.”

For example, she writes of the candy shortage. The milk shortage. The everything shortage. Then she concludes: “Rather than living constantly on the verge of throwing a fit, and risking taking it out on overwhelmed servers, struggling shop owners or late-arriving delivery people, we’d do ourselves a favor by consciously lowering expectations.”

How bad can it get? She saves the best for the very end: “American consumers might have been spoiled, but generations of them have also dealt with shortages of some kind - gasoline in the 1970s, food rationing in the 1940s, housing in the 1920s, when cities such as Detroit were booming. Now it’s our turn to make adjustments.”

You might read that again. She is defending gas lines. More astonishingly, she is going on about the glorious suffering of wartime, when food was rationed with rationing tickets! You cannot make this stuff up. What’s worse, that The Washington Post published it reveals something about what they imagine could be our future. And by future I don’t mean distant future. I mean next year.

No One Is Safe: You will notice the growing tribalization of everything and everyone in the last 20 months. People are retreating to what is safe and known, their own kind. Their neighborhood. Their closest friends. Their families. Even those are strained, but that is all we have. The old world of integration and heterogeneity is shattered, commercial culture is dead in large parts of the country and fear and depression are taking over as the dominant emotions.

I write that and my friends in Texas, Florida and South Dakota say: “I have no idea what you are talking about. Life around here is normal. Concerts are packed. Restaurants are busy. No one is wearing masks. We are so over this!” I’m happy for them. Truly. But there’s a problem. Many problems. We all share the same monetary unit. Supply chains are connected all over the country, and the world. Every state relies on goods from every other state. We are long past autarky. We can feel like we are safe, but we are not.

Hyperinflation will affect everyone without exception. If North Carolina can’t get milk and chicken, neither can Florida and New Mexico. The deprivation will be shared. A good example is the car shortage. Texas was not spared simply because the state has a relatively halfway decent governor who finally got wise, too late, but he finally got there. Still the car lots are empty.

It’s the same with many things. We all use the same dollar. Its destruction will hit South Dakota the same as it hits California. There will be no safe space. Many people moved to get away from despotism during this last year. They thought they were safe. They are not. Yes, life for now is better in Miami than Chicago but when the crisis hits, it will not spare red states with reasonable governors just because the people there have not been part of the insanity for a long time. They will still pay the price.

The Great Deprivation: In the past when things went wrong, at least our leaders admitted that things were not going so well. They tried to fix the problem. It’s not clear that our current leadership in Washington even believes it is a problem. The response toward existing inflation is telling. They think it's all fine. Gas lines? Fine: Just switch to electric. No heating oil or it is unaffordable? That’s all the better for solving climate change. No bags in the stores? Just bring your own. No meat? Eat veggie burgers. And so on.

These people are part of a cult. They do not oppose poverty. They think it’s about time we experienced it. Poverty is good for us. Deprivation is plenty. Inflation is prosperity. Empty shelves are a reset to the way things should be.

These are people for whom socialism was not a failure but a triumph in which people learned to become a new form of community through suffering. In fact, they are pro-suffering. It’s a new form of leftist ideology that has gained steam for decades. Now they are in charge. They get perverse pleasure out of the whole scene.

It doesn’t matter how bad it gets. Our leaders will never admit failure. They will look at the disaster they are creating and call it success. This is what is truly chilling about the unfolding crisis: They do not believe it is a crisis. They think this is a reset to the way things should work."

- dailyreckoning.com

Gerald Celente, "Trends in The News: PM 10/21/21":

Gerald Celente, "Trends in The News: PM 10/21/21":

“Inflation Spiking; More Lockdowns; The Worst Is Yet To Come”

"The Trends Journal is a weekly magazine analyzing global current events forming future trends. Our mission is to present Facts and Truth over fear and propaganda to help subscribers prepare for What’s Next in these increasingly turbulent times."

- https://trendsresearch.com/

Musical Interlude: The Moody Blues, "Question"

The Moody Blues, "Question"

"A Look to the Heavens"

“Here is one of the largest objects that anyone will ever see on the sky. Each of these fuzzy blobs is a galaxy, together making up the Perseus Cluster, one of the closest clusters of galaxies. The cluster is seen through a foreground of faint stars in our own Milky Way Galaxy. 

Near the cluster center, roughly 250 million light-years away, is the cluster's dominant galaxy NGC 1275, seen above as a large galaxy on the image left. A prodigious source of x-rays and radio emission, NGC 1275 accretes matter as gas and galaxies fall into it. The Perseus Cluster of Galaxies, also cataloged as Abell 426, is part of the Pisces-Perseus supercluster spanning over 15 degrees and containing over 1,000 galaxies. At the distance of NGC 1275, this view covers about 15 million light-years.”

-http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap110712.html

Chet Raymo, “Living In The Little World”

“Living In The Little World”

by Chet Raymo

"My wisdom is simple," begins Gustav Adolph Ekdahl, at the final celebratory family gathering of Ingmar Bergman's crowning epic “Fanny and Alexander.” I saw the movie in the early 1980s when it had its U.S. theater release. Now I have just watched the five-hour-long original version made for Swedish television. Whew!

But back to that speech by the gaily philandering Gustav, now the patriarch of the Ekdahl clan and uncle to Fanny and Alexander. The family has gathered for the double christening of Fanny and Alexander's new half-sister and Gustav's child by his mistress Maj. A dark chapter of family history has come to an end, involving a clash between two world views, one- the Ekdahl's- focussed on the pleasures of the here and now, and the other- that of Lutheran Bishop Edvard Vergerus, Fanny and Alexander's stepfather- a stern and joyless anticipation of the hereafter.

It is not the habit of Ekdahls to concern themselves with matters of grand consequence, Gustav tells the assembled guests. "We must live in the little world. We will be content with that and cultivate it and make the best of it."

The little world. I love that phrase. This world, here, now. This world of family and friends and newborn infants and trees and flowers and rainstorms and- oh yes, cognac and stolen kisses and tumbles in the hay. The Ekdahl's are a theatrical family; we will leave it to the actors and actresses to give us our supernatural shivers, says Gustav. "So it shall be," he says. "Let us be kind, and generous, affectionate and good. It is necessary and not at all shameful to take pleasure in the little world."

- http://blog.sciencemusings.com/