Vangelis, "Albedo 0.39"

Full screen recommended.

Vangelis, "Albedo 0.39"

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"The Pale Blue Dot"

"Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there- on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.

The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds.

Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.

The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand.

It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known."

- Carl Sagan

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"The civilization now in jeopardy is all humanity. As the ancient myth makers knew, we are children equally of the earth and sky. In our tenure on this planet, we have accumulated dangerous, evolutionary baggage propensities for aggression and ritual, submission to leaders, hostility to outsiders, all of which puts our survival in some doubt. We have also acquired compassion for others, love for our children, a desire to learn from history and experience, and a great, soaring passionate intelligence, the clear tools for our continued survival and prosperity.

Which aspects of our nature will prevail is uncertain, particularly when our visions and prospects are bound to one small part of the small planet earth. But up and in the cosmos, an inescapable perspective awaits. National boundaries are not evidenced when we view the earth from space. Fanatic ethnic or religious or national identifications are a little difficult to support when we see our planet as a fragile, blue crescent fading to become an inconspicuous point of light against the bastion and citadel of the stars.

There are not yet obvious signs of extraterrestrial intelligence, and this makes us wonder whether civilizations like ours rush inevitably into self-destruction. I dream about it... and sometimes they are bad dreams."

- Carl Sagan

"A Look to the Heavens"

"Peculiar spiral galaxy Arp 78 is found within the boundaries of the head strong constellation Aries, some 100 million light-years beyond the stars and nebulae of our Milky Way galaxy. Also known as NGC 772, the island universe is over 100,000 light-years across and sports a single prominent outer spiral arm in this detailed cosmic portrait. 

Its brightest companion galaxy, compact NGC 770, is toward the upper right of the larger spiral. NGC 770's fuzzy, elliptical appearance contrasts nicely with a spiky foreground Milky Way star in matching yellowish hues. Tracking along sweeping dust lanes and lined with young blue star clusters, Arp 78's large spiral arm is likely due to gravitational tidal interactions. Faint streams of material seem to connect Arp 78 with its nearby companion galaxies."

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

Chet Raymo, “Strange”

“Strange”

by Chet Raymo

“In a review in the “New York Times” Book Review, Daniel Handler wrote: “And strange? Well, let’s get this straight: All great books are strange. Every lasting work of literature since the very weird “Beowulf” has been strange, not only because it grapples with the strangeness around us, but also because the effect of originality is startling, making even the oldest books feel like brand new stories.”

Strange: Out-of-the-ordinary, unusual, curious. “The strangeness around us,” says Handler. There is a paradox here. What could be less strange than the world around us? It is the same world that was here yesterday, and the day before that. More to the point: It is a world ruled by law. Inviolable causal bonds. That’s what makes science possible.

And yet, and yet. I walk wary. Strangeness lurks on ever side. Strangeness leaps out of every pebble in the path, every wildflower, every spider web flung between weedy stalks. In the midst of the utterly ordinary the extraordinary abounds. Nothing is so commonplace as to be common. The strangeness of the world, as in literature, has its source in the head, in the convoluted interaction of mind with world. Strange, that we should be here, strangers in a strange land, pilgrims on our own yellow brick roads where nothing is ordinary because everything is perceived through the filter of a unique consciousness.

And strange? Well, let’s get this straight. I hope never to lose the capacity to see the strangeness in the familiar, the curious in the everyday, the exception in the unexceptional. 

“I do not expect a miracle, 

or an accident, 

to set the sight on fire...” 

wrote Silvia Plath. Just being here is enough. Just being here is surpassing strange.”

- http://blog.sciencemusings.com/

"Sometimes..."

“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 Poet: Joy Harjo, "Remember "

"Remember"

 "Remember the sky that you were born under,

know each of the stars stories.

Remember the moon, know who she is. I met her

in a bar once in Iowa City.

Remember the suns birth at dawn, that is the

strongest point of time. Remember sundown

and the giving away to night.

Remember your birth, how your mother struggled

to give you form and breath. You are evidence of

her life, and her mother's, and hers.

Remember your father. He is your life also.

Remember the earth whose skin you are:

red earth, black earth, yellow earth, white earth

brown earth, we are earth.

Remember the plants, trees, animal life who all have their

tribes, their families, their histories, too. Talk to them,

listen to them. They are alive poems.

Remember the wind. Remember her voice. She knows the

origin of this universe. I heard her singing Kiowa war

dance songs at the corner of Fourth and Central once.

Remember that you are all people and that all people are you.

Remember that you are this universe and that this universe is you.

Remember that all is in motion, is growing, is you.

Remember that language comes from this.

Remember the dance that language is, that life is.

Remember."

- Joy Harjo

"Thought..."

"Men fear thought as they fear nothing else on earth, more than ruin, more even than death. Thought is subversive and revolutionary, destructive and terrible, thought is merciless to privilege, established institutions, and comfortable habit. Thought looks into the pit of hell and is not afraid. Thought is great and swift and free, the light of the world, and the chief glory of man."

- Bertrand Russell

"Five percent of the people think;

ten percent of the people think they think;

and the other eighty-five percent would rather die than think."

- Thomas A. Edison.

Gonzalo Lira, "The Macro Picture: Ukraine; Sanctions"

Gonzalo Lira, 9/6/22:

"The Macro Picture: Ukraine; Sanctions"

My Twitter, where I post regularly: 

- https://twitter.com/GonzaloLira1968

Brutal truth... a must view.

The Daily "Near You?"

Pensacola, Florida, USA. Thanks for stopping by!

"A List Of 33 Things We Know About The Coming Food Shortages"

"A List Of 33 Things We Know 

About The Coming Food Shortages"

by Michael Snyder

"Things are far worse than you are being told. Over the past few months, I have been carefully documenting facts that show that global food production is going to be way down in 2022. Unfortunately, most people out there don’t seem to understand that the food that isn’t being grown in 2022 won’t be on our store shelves in 2023. We are potentially facing an absolutely unprecedented worldwide food crisis next year, but the vast majority of the population doesn’t seem very alarmed about this. So I would encourage you to help me get this warning out by sharing this list with as many people as you possibly can. As you will see below, we now have so many data points that it is impossible to deny what is coming. The following is a list of 33 things we know about the coming food shortages…

#1 The hard red winter wheat crop in the United States this year “was the smallest since 1963”. But in 1963, there were only 182 million people living in this nation. Today, our population has grown to 329 million.

#2 It is being projected that the rice harvest in California will be “half what it would be in a normal year”.

#3 The U.S. tomato harvest will come in at just 10.5 million tons in 2022. That is over a million tons lower than a normal year.

#4 This will be the worst U.S. corn harvest in at least a decade.

#5 Year-to-date shipments of carrots in the United States are down 45 percent.

#6 Year-to-date shipments of sweet corn in the United States are down 20 percent.

#7 Year-to-date shipments of sweet potatoes in the United States are down 13 percent.

#8 Year-to-date shipments of celery in the United States are down 11 percent.

#9 Total peach production in the U.S. is down 15 percent from last year.

#10 Almost three-fourths of all U.S. farmers say that this year’s drought is hurting their harvests.

#11 Thanks to the endless drought, the total number of cattle in Oregon is down 41 percent.

#12 Thanks to the endless drought, the total number of cattle in New Mexico is down 43 percent.

#13 Thanks to the endless drought, the total number of cattle in Texas is down 50 percent.

#14 One beef producer in Oklahoma is now predicting that ground beef “could eventually top $50 per pound”.

#15 At least 40 percent of the United States has been suffering from drought conditions for 101 consecutive weeks.

#16 Overall, this is the worst multi-year megadrought in the United States in 1,200 years.

#17 Europe is currently experiencing the worst drought that it has seen in 500 years. In some parts of central Europe, river levels have fallen so low that “hunger stones” are being revealed for the first time in centuries.

#18 Corn production for the entire EU could be down by as much as one-fifth in 2022.

#19 We are being warned that there will be crop losses in France of up to 35 percent.

#20 It is being projected that crop losses in some areas of the UK could be as high as 50 percent.

#21 It is being reported that there will be crop losses “of up to 50 percent” in some parts of Germany.

#22 Some farmers in Italy have already lost “up to 80% of their harvest”.

#23 Agricultural production in Somalia will be down about 80 percent this year.

#24 In eastern Africa, the endless drought has already resulted in the deaths of at least seven million animals.

#25 In China, they are facing the worst drought that they have ever experienced in recorded history.

#26 India normally accounts for 40 percent of the global rice trade, but we are being warned that production in that country will be way down in 2022 due to “considerable rainfall deficits in key rice producing states”.

#27 A third of the entire nation of Pakistan was under water after recent floods absolutely devastated that nation, and agricultural areas were hit particularly hard. As a result, the vast majority of the crops in the country have been “washed away”…It has also been estimated that roughly 65 per cent of the country’s food basket - particularly crops like rice, cotton, wheat and onion - have been washed away. Pakistan Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari, in an interview to CGTN earlier this week, offered an even starker outlook by saying that “about 80 to 90 per cent” of the country’s crops have been damaged by the floods.

#28 The prices of some fertilizers have tripled since 2021, while the prices of some other fertilizers have actually quadrupled.

#29 One payment company is reporting that the number of Americans using their app to take out short-term loans for groceries has risen by 95 percent.

#30 Demand at U.S. food banks is now even worse than it was during the height of the COVID pandemic.

#31 The World Health Organization is telling us that millions of people in Africa are now potentially facing a very real possibility of starving to death.

#32 According to the World Food Program, 828 million people around the world go to bed hungry each night. Needless to say, that number will soon be much higher.

#33 UN Secretary General António Guterres has publicly stated that he believes that it is likely that there will be “multiple famines” in 2023.

As global food supplies get tighter and tighter, so will the risk of civil unrest. In fact, this has already been happening…"The risk of civil unrest has surged this year in more than half of the world’s countries, signaling a coming period of heightened global instability fueled by inflation, war, and shortages of essentials, a new analysis says. According to Verisk Maplecroft, a UK-based risk consulting and intelligence firm, 101 of the 198 countries tracked on its Civil Unrest Index saw an increase in their risk of civil unrest between the second and third quarters of this year."

In recent weeks, we have seen absolutely massive protests in cities all over the planet. But conditions aren’t even that bad yet. So what will things be like in 2023 when it finally becomes exceedingly clear that there simply will not be enough food for everyone? Wealthy countries will have the resources to buy up much of what is available on the market, and that means that many poor countries will deeply suffer.

If everything that you have read in this article sounds familiar, that is because we have been warned for years that such conditions were coming. In 2023, there will be famines and civil unrest all over the globe. This is not a drill. An extremely serious global food crisis has already begun, and I would encourage you to get prepared for what is ahead while you still can."

- https://www.investmentwatchblog.com/

"Summer is Over - Trouble is Coming"

Full screen recommended.

Dan, iAllegedly, 9/6/22:

"Summer is Over - Trouble is Coming"

"Experts say UK inflation will hit 22% and that natural gas will go up to 38% in the next couple of weeks. People are asked to go back to the office this week and it’s a huge problem. People don’t want to do this."

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

"I Am Forced To Leave California; People Jumping Off Buildings As Wall St. Crisis Begins"

Jeremiah Babe, 9/6/22:

"I Am Forced To Leave California; 

People Jumping Off Buildings As Wall St. Crisis Begins"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

Gregory Mannarino, "Look For Continued Instability In The Debt Market. If It Gets Worse - Look Out!"

Gregory Mannarino, AM 9/6/22:

"Look For Continued Instability In The Debt Market. 

If It Gets Worse - Look Out!"

- https://traderschoice.net/

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/ 

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Yeah...

Bill Bonner, "Two to Tango"

"Two to Tango"

What happens when income and expenses 

fall out of step? Lessons from Argentina...

by Bill Bonner

Poitou, France - "It’s a new week. So, let’s turn to the New World. Yes, it’s time to check in on one of the world’s daffiest, most mismanaged and most entertaining economies – Argentina. Today, we’ll visit the land of the pampas, the tango… Piazzolla and Gardel… gauchos… llamas… pickpockets… and slums…the vast country at the foot of South America, where 45 million people live, a third of them in and around the capital city, Buenos Aires.

We’ve been visiting Argentina for 25 years… invested in property there 15 years ago…and typically spend two or three months a year there, mostly trying to keep the locals from stealing our property. During that quarter of a century, the Argentine currency – the peso – has gone from 1 to 1 with the dollar… to 3 to 1… when we bought our property… to 150 to 1 now. (At the parallel ‘blue’ rate – which is to say, the ‘unofficial’ or black market – the rate is almost twice that; 270 – 1.)

In 1910, Argentina was the 7th richest country in the world. Now, its GDP per person puts it at #65, below Kazakhstan, Turkey and Guyana. Whee! But not everyone is enjoying the ride. Associated Press is on the story:

"BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (AP) — A man tried to kill Argentina's politically powerful Vice President Cristina Fernández outside her home, but the handgun misfired, the country's president said. The man was quickly overpowered by her security officers in the incident Thursday night, officials said. President Alberto Fernández, who is not related to the vice president, a former president herself, said the pistol did not discharge when the man tried to fire it." A close call!

Broken Promises: Many think the attempted murder was really a stunt to bring attention and sympathy to Ms. Fernandez. You might wonder, for example, why a fellow who really intended to kill the VP of a country wouldn’t make sure he had a working pistol in his hand. But what sadness it would have brought if the man had actually killed her. And what joy too!

Ms. Fernandez is one of the most corrupt figures in Argentine history… which offers some pretty heavy competition. She is a ‘Peronist,’ a follower of Juan Peron, who was no slouch at corruption either. He was also a master politician, a skill he learned by observing Benito Mussolini in the 1930s. Immediately after winning the Casa Rosada (the Rose House, Argentina’s answer to the White House) Peron headed down the wrong track, developing a ‘Five Year Plan” that put the government in charge of the economy and doomed the nation to slow growth and fast politics. Since then, it has been a long slide into on-again, off-again recession, poverty and inflation. By the early 1990s, consumer prices in Argentina were rising at a rate over 20,000%.

Inflation was brought under control by Carlos Menem, when he pegged the Argentine peso to the dollar. But it didn’t last. Menem broke the peg in 2002. Since then, inflation has increased amid episodic and bizarre financial crises.

A friend of ours, for example, a lawyer in New York, was once hired by the Argentine government to try to get back an Argentine navy ship in 2012. It had been tracked as it crossed the Atlantic then, by court order, was seized when it went into port in Ghana. It was the first time in history that a naval vessel was captured by a hedge fund.

Only Possible Outcome: Today, the inflation rate is supposed to be around 70%, with more than a third of the country living in poverty. And the inflation rate is rising. Argentines keep their money in dollar deposits – if they can. But now, the government is getting desperate. The ‘treasury secretary’ gave up trying to match income with outgo; he resigned suddenly in July. The ‘treasury secretary’ gave up trying to match income with outgo; he resigned suddenly in July. But what he was doing was idiotic. Mises.Org explains:

"After the pandemic was over, instead of returning toward a path of fiscal balance and debt reduction, Guzmán accelerated the path toward high deficits, which can only be sustained by money printing… As a result, public spending currently is increasing more rapidly than revenue, and it is uncertain whether the country will meet the deficit target that was agreed with the IMF only last year in order to avoid defaulting on its debt.

[…]

But if government policies on public spending stay the same, they will drive Argentina’s economy toward hyperinflation, which is the only possible outcome for a country with perpetually high deficits and no access to debt markets."

The Argentines have seen this show before. Bloomberg: "Argentines Withdraw $1 Billion From Bank Accounts During Turmoil." "Savers started pulling out their dollars from bank accounts at a fast pace when former Economy Minister Martin Guzman resigned on July 2, plunging the government deeper into crisis. Argentina’s third economy minister since then, Sergio Massa, enjoyed a brief market rally upon arrival before deposits declined again. Deposits offer an almost real-time pulse of Argentines’ economic expectations. In late 2001 during one of the country’s worst crisis, the government banned large ATM withdrawals, helping to fuel social chaos."

Hereditary Kleptocracy: But this weekend, crowds gathered outside Christina Fernandez de Kirchner’s apartment. They claimed they were there to “defend democracy.” Why they wanted to defend the system that has ruined the country was not explained. Besides, Argentina functions more like a hereditary kleptocracy. Like ‘Isabelita’ Peron before her, Ms. Fernandez was elected to take the place of her dead husband.

“Why do you stay there,” people ask? Maybe we’ll have a better answer some day. But for now, we can only say that we like the food, the wine, the challenge, the people and the learning experience. Yes, we’ve had some financial losses, but at least we’ve learned to ride a horse, and yell at cattle in Spanish. “Aiiihuuurrup! Vamonos!”

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Joel’s Note: “Is the problem cultural, we often ask ourselves, or systemic? Perhaps it’s both?” Yesterday morning your weekend editor attended a private conference in the Hotel Club Francés, down in the Recoleta neighborhood. Seated around the table were perhaps thirty men and women, all with the kinds of surnames you see on street signs and bronze plaques around the city. The speaker, himself a dapper, silver-haired gentleman in his 70s, was ruminating on his nation’s sordid political history.

“I’ve heard it said that you could drop the population of Switzerland into Paraguay and, within a few short years, the Swiss will have turned the place into a safe and prosperous place to live. I don’t know that could be said of our sorry nation.” A collective grimace rumbled around the table. “We have the natural resources,” he continued, “Oil, water, fertile plains for our cattle, our agriculture. What’s lacking is character. I wonder, even if we had a better system in place, with fairer rules and less corruption, we wouldn’t find some way to spoil it after all.”

Following a morning spent debating politics and economics, the group gathered for lunch in the grand old building’s atrium. There was lamb from Patagonia… wine from Mendoza… espresso and little cakes filled with dulce de leche for desert. Porteños are an amiable bunch. They welcome foreigners with open arms, even if they are confused by those of us who choose, voluntarily, to live in their midst.

“So you could have stayed in Australia, where everything… works?” inquired one attendee. “And your wife was born in Norway? And you’ve family in Texas?” echoed another. “And you’re okay, mentally speaking? Not crazy or anything?” joked a third, shaking her head just the same.

Fair questions. Why would anyone choose to live in a basket case economy like Argentina, with 90% projected inflation by year’s end and a seventy-year history of rolling political disaster?

We addressed some of these points in Part I of an essay we published a few weeks back. (See here: "Journey to the End of the Earth".) This Sunday, in Part II, we’ll take a look at some of the more practical aspects of life here in the Paris of the South… like access to private healthcare, cost of living, education options, safety/crime, lifestyle, etc. Stay tuned…"

- bonnerprivateresearch@substack.com

"How It Really Is"

 

"Stocking Up At Meijer! Prep The Pantry! Stock Up Now! Prices Are Rising!"

Full screen recommended.

Adventures with Danno, 9/6/22:

"Stocking Up At Meijer! Prep The Pantry! 

Stock Up Now! Prices Are Rising!"

"In today's vlog we are at Meijer, and are stocking up on preps for our pantry! Prices on groceries continue to go up, and we are sharing some of the deals we are finding at the grocery stores! It's getting rough out here as stores seem to be struggling with getting products!"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

"5 Psychological Experiments That Explain The Modern World" (Excerpt)

"5 Psychological Experiments 

That Explain The Modern World"

by Kit Knightly

Excerpt: "The world is a confusing place. People do things that don’t make any sense, think things that aren’t supported by facts, endure things they do not need to endure, and viciously attack those who try to bring these things to their attention. If you’ve ever wondered why, you’ve come to the right place.

Any casual reader of the alternate media landscape will eventually come up with a reference to Stanley Milgram, or Philip Zimbardo, the “Asch Experiment” or maybe all three. “Cognitive Dissonance”, “Diffusion of Responsibility”, and “learned helplessness” are phrases that regularly do the rounds, but where do they come from and what they mean? Well, here are the important psycho-social experiments that teach us about the way people think, but more than that they actually explain how our modern world works, and just how we got into this mess."

View this outstanding complete article, with videos, here:

- https://www.zerohedge.com/

"Economic Market Snapshot 9/6/22"

"Economic Market Snapshot 9/6/22"

Market Data Center, Live Updates:

- https://www.marketwatch.com/market-data 

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Down the rabbit hole of psychopathic greed and insanity...

Only the consequences are real - to you!

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Latest Market Analysis, Updated 9/6/22

- https://www.asktraders.com/analysis/

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A comprehensive, essential daily read.

September 5th to 7th

- http://www.shadowstats.com/

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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."

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- https://www.dailyjobcuts.com/

Job cuts and much more.

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- https://www.zerohedge.com/

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- https://www.investmentwatchblog.com/

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- https://wallstreetonparade.com/

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- https://www.whatreallyhappened.com/

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- https://jessescrossroadscafe.blogspot.com/

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Commentary, highly recommended:

- https://www.theburningplatform.com/

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"The more I see of the monied classes,

the better I understand the guillotine."

- George Bernard Shaw

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Oh yeah... beyond words. Any I know anyway...

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And now... The End Game...

Jim Kunstler, "Labor Day Assessment"

"Labor Day Assessment"

Uncertainty rules at the top of our slide into the dark half of the year…

by Jim Kunstler

"There will be a Great Re-set, of course, but it’s not exactly the one that Western Civ is blabbering about - a mere shuffling of political and financial protocols. It’s happening with or without “Joe Biden,” the EU, and der Hoch Schwabenklaus, though the aggregate stupidity they represent is surely making the entry process worse. The Great Re-set is what happens when the business model goes bust for powering the world with oil and other fossil fuels - even if there is quite a bit of all that stuff left in the ground. Years ago, I called it The Long Emergency.

Everything emanates off of that, including the astonishing bouts of mischief made in attempts to work around it, assign the blame for it, grub money off it, and shift the effects of it from one group of people or one region of the world to another. Steve St. Angelo says it neatly: “Energy drives the economy; finance steers it.” That’s so. When the oil business model broke in 2008, industrial society lost its mojo and, after that, finance steered it into a ditch.

The Great Re-Set is an emergent phenomenon. It unspools naturally out of circumstances that reality presents. It goes its own way and we have to adapt to it, like it or not. Is our climate changing? Maybe. But so what? The climate has changed many times since the Bronze Age. If preventing that is actually out of the question, which it is, then what else are you going to do? The answer is: adapt intelligently to new conditions. When you clear away all the mental resistance to that - which amounts to a titanic struggle to keep things just the way they are - you’re going to have to make changes anyway.

America was, for a time, the greatest industrial society and now that appears to be over. The disorder in all the moving parts of it is probably too gross to arrest at this point. We shoved it into disorder by making some very bad choices, like getting rid of our factories and squandering our wealth on an absurd suburban living arrangement. Shale oil was a financial stunt to keep our set-up going a little longer. It was part of the colossal debt roll-up - the steering function of finance - that was used to compensate for our actual loss of mojo, and now that gambit has hit the wall. You can’t pretend to issue more debt when everyone knows it can never be paid back.

Europe, the old home-base of Western Civ, never got around to shale oil, and its financial structure was such - reckless bond issuance with no fiscal accountability whatsoever - that now it is collapsing faster and worse than America. Europe’s leadership is clearly insane and it will likely be overthrown before long. The foreign minister of Germany, the winsome Annalena Baerbock, promised last week to keep demonizing Russia to support Ukraine’s black hole of racketeering “no matter what my German voters think or how hard their life gets.” Stand by to see how that goes over.

The angst around these circumstances is expressing itself in a generalized political nervous breakdown featuring the sort of tragi-comic behavior previously confined in lunatic asylums. Have you ever seen anything more patently insane than the sexual confusion acted out in American schools? Drag Queen story hours? Litter boxes in the bathrooms for students who identify as “furries”?

That was the funny part. The Covid-19 event is no joke - rather a psychopathic mass murder. Obviously, it was no accident. We have a pretty good idea who made it, and set it loose into the world. And the “vaccine” response looks plainly malevolent at this point. Yet the Covid episode is shot through with mystery. How did all those sedulously trained doctors get so mind-f**ked as to persist in saying the “vaccines” were safe-and-effective, when the vaxxes were obviously killing and maiming people? They’re still stuck in that disgraceful posture, busy punishing their colleagues who demur, and dishonoring medicine - not to mention the thousands of public health officials still pushing vaxxes and boosters to this day. We can attribute that to mass formation psychosis, but even that reeks of mystery. Maybe, as the old American hymn goes, farther along we’ll understand why….

Anyway, and in the meantime, we’re obliged to see where all this is taking us and what we have to do about it. The survivors of this disorder will be living in a world of generalized contraction, facing much-reduced standards of living. All the giant enterprises will be gone, including probably the federal USA government as we know it, and all the supports it offered. We’ll be gravely disappointed by the failures of advanced technology to mitigate any of this, and much of that technology will disappear, including reliable electric service and the Internet. Whatever you do will have to be much more local and, in one way or another, these activities will revolve around growing food.

I called it a World Made by Hand in the cycle of four novels I churned out between 2008 and 2017. You can look there for a detailed, graphic description of how this new disposition of things might work. The society depicted is still recognizably an American culture, and the people still find joy, purpose, and meaning in being here on this planet, despite the reduction in comfort and convenience. In many ways, it is a world in recovery from the ravages of the super high velocity way-of-life we’re leaving behind, and because of that, it is shot through with grace. That is our destination.

Keep that in mind - if you still have a mind - as you witness the unravelings ahead. This is not the end of the world or the end of the human project in this world. Not everybody will be violent or insane and the number of reality-based people with their emotional equipment intact will, oddly, grow in proportion as the others depart this plane of existence. For some of us, this is a movie with a happy ending. Make some popcorn while there is still some corn, and some electricity to pop it with."

- https://kunstler.com/

Canadian Prepper, "Wow... This is Alarming News"

Canadian Prepper, 9/5/22:

"Wow... This is Alarming News"

A new article documents in DETAIL 

the elites plans to survive the coming crisis.

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

"Chinese Lockdowns Trigger Panic Buying Frenzy Of Food Supplies As Shortages Emerge"

Full screen recommended.

"Chinese Lockdowns Trigger Panic Buying Frenzy

 Of Food Supplies As Shortages Emerge"

by Epic Economist

"Chaotic scenes of desperate people panic buying food and energy supplies are rapidly spreading all around the world – and the U.S. could be next. In several countries, supermarkets and local stores are quickly running out of everyday necessities as residents rush to stock up on crucial goods before shortages worsen. Simultaneously, the global energy crisis is driving the demand for alternative energy sources to stratospheric heights on a consumer and industrial level. Industry insiders exposed that even major manufacturers in global markets are panic buying raw materials and commodities in anticipation of further disruptions. Purchasing limits, rationing, and empty shelves are ahead, and the commotion we’ve seen so far is just the tip of the iceberg.

Even as the rest of the world emerged from the global pandemic, Chinese citizens are still facing strict stay-at-home mandates. This time, millions of residents in Chengdu city dipped into a snap lockdown which triggered widespread desperation among the population. The new measures sparked a panic buying frenzy of essential supplies that stripped store shelves bare in record time.

The residents were given less than six hours to stock up on critical supplies, which resulted in the mass hoarding of vegetables and fruits, seafood, and red meat by locals who were in an all-scrambling state. Some drivers were captured filling their cars to the brim with slabs of red meat and were even captured fastening dead chickens to the roofs of their vehicles. At this stage, the restrictions have no end date and they’re likely to cause a major economic fallout, particularly for the manufacturing and technology sectors. The new curbs prompted widespread alarm in global markets, with major manufacturers hurrying to ensure supplies of raw materials and commodities to keep operations running. During the Global Financial Derivatives meeting on Friday, the 2022 Economics Bulletin noted that tight supplies for critical materials “have driven global manufacturers and local investors to front-load their inventory requirements with panic buying as industrial activities slumped with weak supply chains and unavailability of raw materials.”

Meanwhile, the race to hoard energy supplies amid skyrocketing natural gas prices is leaving Europeans scrambling for alternative energy sources. In Germany, where households are facing a 720% rise in their gas bills, people are resorting to stockpiling firewood. However, suppliers of the raw material are unable to keep up with the growing demand, leading to a scarcity of firewood. To prevent the panic-buying wave from escalating any further, some sellers have been rationing supplies and limiting purchases to three boxes of wood at a time.

In the U.S., even the corporate-controlled media is admitting that “social media is getting swamped with pictures of empty grocery shelves”. The federal government promised to solve our supply chain problems, but in the past two years, they just kept getting worse. In some states, inventories have never recovered from the early shortages caused by the health crisis, which makes common delivery delays result in extensive product shortages.

Now more than ever, it’s important to make common sense preparations for the time when economic chaos starts rocking our nation. Sadly, most of our fellow citizens are completely and utterly unprepared for what is happening. But if you think that we’ve already seen the worst of these crises, just wait, because the truth is that what we have experienced so far is just the start."

- https://www.youtube.com/

Canadian Prepper, "This Video Will Lose Me Subs (I Upload Anyways)"

Full screen recommended.

Canadian Prepper, 9/5/22:

"This Video Will Lose Me Subs (I Upload Anyways)"

This is part two of the talk with Dr. Guy McPherson.

 Make sure you watch part 1 here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

Musical Interlude: 2002, "We Meet Again"

Full screen recommended.

2002, "We Meet Again"

"A Look to the Heavens"

“Bright clusters and nebulae abound in the ancient northern constellation of Auriga. The region includes the open star cluster M38, emission nebula IC 410 with Tadpoles, Auriga’s own Flaming Star Nebula IC 405, and this interesting pair IC 417 (lower left) and NGC 1931. An imaginative eye toward the expansive IC 417 and diminutive NGC 1931 suggests a cosmic spider and fly.

About 10,000 light-years distant, both represent young, open star clusters formed in interstellar clouds and still embedded in glowing hydrogen gas. For scale, the more compact NGC 1931 is about 10 light-years across.”

- http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap100113.html

“Sigmund Wollman’s Reality Test”

“Sigmund Wollman’s Reality Test”

by 
Robert Fulghum

“In the summer of 1959, at the Feather River Inn near the town of Blairsden in the Sierra Nevada Mountains of northern California. A resort environment. And I, just out of college, have a job that combines being the night desk clerk in the lodge and helping out with the horse-wrangling at the stables. The owner/manager is Italian-Swiss, with European notions about conditions of employment. He and I do not get along. I think he’s a fascist who wants pleasant employees who know their place, and he thinks I’m a good example of how democracy can be carried too far. I’m twenty-two and pretty free with my opinions, and he’s fifty-two and has a few opinions of his own. One week the employees had been served the same thing for lunch every single day. Two wieners, a mound of sauerkraut, and stale rolls. To compound insult with injury, the cost of meals was deducted from our check.

I was outraged.

 On Friday night of that awful week, I was at my desk job around 11:00 P.M., and the night auditor had just come on duty. I went into the kitchen to get a bite to eat and saw notes to the chef to the effect that wieners and sauerkraut are on the employee menu for two more days.

That tears it. I quit! For lack of a better audience, I unloaded on the night auditor, Sigmund Wollman.

I declared that I have had it up to here; that I am going to get a plate of wieners and sauerkraut and go and wake up the owner and throw it on him. I am sick and tired of this crap and insulted and nobody is going to make me eat wieners and sauerkraut for a whole week and make me pay for it and who does he think he is anyhow and how can life be sustained on wieners and sauerkraut and this is un-American and I don’t like wieners and sauerkraut enough to eat it one day for God’s sake and the whole hotel stinks anyhow and the horses are all nags and the guests are all idiots and I’m packing my bags and heading for Montana where they never even heard of wieners and sauerkraut and wouldn’t feed that stuff to the pigs. Something like that. I’m still mad about it.

I raved on this way for twenty minutes, and needn’t repeat it all here. You get the drift. My monologue was delivered at the top of my lungs, punctuated by blows on the front desk with a fly-swatter, the kicking of chairs, and much profanity. A call to arms, freedom, unions, uprisings, and the breaking of chains for the working masses.

As I pitched my fit, Sigmund Wollman, the night auditor, sat quietly on his stool, smoking a cigarette, watching me with sorrowful eyes. Put a bloodhound in a suit and tie and you have Sigmund Wollman. He’s got good reason to look sorrowful. Survivor of Auschwitz. Three years. German Jew. Thin, coughed a lot. He liked being alone at the night job – gave him intellectual space, gave him peace and quiet, and, even more, he could go into the kitchen and have a snack whenever he wanted to – all the wieners and sauerkraut he wanted. To him, a feast. More than that, there’s nobody around at night to tell him what to do. In Auschwitz he dreamed of such a time. The only person he sees at work is me, the nightly disturber of his dream. Our shifts overlap for an hour. And here I am again. A one-man war party at full cry.

“Fulchum, are you finished?”

“No. Why?”

Lissen, Fulchum. Lissen me, lissen me. You know what’s wrong with you? It’s not wieners and kraut and it’s not the boss and it’s not the chef and it’s not this job.”

“So what’s wrong with me?”

“Fulchum, you think you know everything, but you don’t know the difference between an inconvenience and a problem. If you break your neck, if you have nothing to eat, if your house is on fire – then you got a problem. Everything else is inconvenience. Life is inconvenient. Life is lumpy. Learn to separate the inconveniences from the real problems. You will live longer. And will not annoy people like me so much. Good night.” In a gesture combining dismissal and blessing, he waved me off to bed.

Seldom in my life have I been hit between the eyes with a truth so hard. Years later I heard a Japanese Zen Buddhist priest describe what the moment of enlightenment was like and I knew exactly what he meant. There in that late-night darkness of the Feather River Inn, Sigmund Wollman simultaneously kicked my butt and opened a window in my mind.

For thirty years now, in times of stress and strain, when something has me backed against the wall and I’m ready to do something really stupid with my anger, a sorrowful face appears in my mind and asks: “Fulchum. Problem or inconvenience?”

I think of this as the Wollman Test of Reality. Life is lumpy. And a lump in the oatmeal, a lump in the throat, and a lump in the breast are not the same lump. One should learn the difference. Good night, Sig.”

- http://www.livinglifefully.com/

"So We All Ran Around..."

“So we all ran around in mad, mindless, meaningless circles, as if we were in a cotton-candy eating contest where the grand prize was getting kicked in the face. We were oblivious to everything around us that no truly sane person would ever tolerate. And we needed someone else to tell us to stop it.”

- Edward M. Wolfe

The Poet: Mary Oliver, "Lead"

"Lead"

"Here is a story to break your heart.

Are you willing?

This winter the loons came to our harbor and died,

one by one, of nothing we could see.

A friend told me of one on the shore

that lifted its head and opened

the elegant beak and cried out

in the long, sweet savoring of its life

which, if you have heard it,

you know is a sacred thing,

and for which, if you have not heard it,

you had better hurry to where they still sing.

And, believe me, tell no one just where that is.

The next morning this loon, speckled

and iridescent and with a plan

to fly home to some hidden lake,

was dead on the shore.

I tell you this to break your heart,

by which I mean only

that it break open and never close again

to the rest of the world."

- Mary Oliver

The Daily "Near You?"

Tallahassee, Florida, USA. Thanks for stopping by!

"He Cannot Help Doubting..."

“A person who has not been completely alienated, who has remained sensitive and able to feel, who has not lost the sense of dignity, who is not yet ‘for sale’, who can still suffer over the suffering of others, who has not acquired fully the having mode of existence – briefly, a person who has remained a person and not become a thing – cannot help feeling lonely, powerless, isolated in present-day society. He cannot help doubting himself and his own convictions, if not his sanity.”

- Erich Fromm

"Even Amazon is Worried About the Economy - Prepare Now"

Full screen recommended.

Dan, iAllegedly, 9/5/22:

"Even Amazon is Worried About the Economy - Prepare Now"

"All the signs are in front of us. The global economy is not doing well. High energy prices are affecting everything from aluminum to steel production. Even Amazon is not going to complete dozens of fulfillment centers."

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/