Paulo Coelho, "Be Like a River"

"Be Like a River"

by Paulo Coelho

“A river never passes the same place twice,” says a philosopher. “Life is like a river,” says another philosopher, and we draw the conclusion that this is the metaphor that comes closest to the meaning of life. Consequently, it is always good to remember during all the year:

• We are doing things for the first time. While we move between our source (birth) to our destination (death), the landscape will always be new. We should face these novelties with joy, with fear – because it is useless to fear what cannot be avoided. A river never stops running.

•  In a we walk slower. When everything around us becomes easier, the waters grow calm, we become more open, fuller and more generous.

• Our are fertile. Vegetation only grows where there is water. Whoever comes into contact with us needs to understand that we are there to give the thirsty something to drink.

 • Stones should be avoided. It is obvious that water is stronger than granite, but it takes time for this to. It is no good letting yourself be overcome by stronger obstacles, or trying to fight against them – that is a useless waste of energy. It is best to understand where the way out is, and then move forward.

 • Hollows call for patience. All of a sudden the river enters a sort of hole and stops running as joyfully as before. At such moments the only way out is to count on the help of time. When the right moment comes the hollow fills up and the water can flow ahead. In the place of the ugly, lifeless hole there now stands a lake that others can contemplate with joy.

• We are one. We were born in a place that was meant for us, which will always keep us supplied with enough water so that when confronted with obstacles or depression we have the necessary patience or strength to move forward. We begin our course in a soft and fragile manner, where even a simple leaf can stop us. Nevertheless, as we respect the mystery of the source that gave us life, and trust in eternal wisdom, little by little we gain all that we need to pursue our path.

• Although we are one, soon we shall be many. As we travel on, the waters of other springs come closer, because that is the best path to follow. Then we are no longer just one, but many – and there comes a moment when we feel lost. However, “all rivers flow to the sea.” It is impossible to remain in our solitude, no matter how romantic that may seem. When we accept the inevitable encounter with other springs, we eventually understand that this makes us much stronger, we get around obstacles or fill in the hollows in far less time and with greater ease.

• We are a means of transportation. Of leaves, boats, ideas. May our waters always be generous, may be always be able to carry ahead everything or everyone that needs our help.

• We are a source of inspiration. And so, let us leave the final words to the Brazilian poet, Manuel Bandeira:

“To be like a river that flows

silent through the night,

not fearing the darkness and

reflecting any stars high in the sky.

And if the sky is filled with clouds,

the clouds are water like the river, so

without remorse reflect them too.”

- http://paulocoelhoblog.com/

The Poet: Mary Oliver, "What I Have Learned So Far"

"What I Have Learned So Far"

"Meditation is old and honorable, so why should I

not sit, every morning of my life, on the hillside,

looking into the shining world? Because, properly

attended to, delight, as well as havoc, is suggestion.

Can one be passionate about the just, the

ideal, the sublime, and the holy, and yet commit

to no labor in its cause? I don't think so.

All summations have a beginning, all effect has a

story, all kindness begins with the sown seed.

Thought buds toward radiance. The gospel of

light is the crossroads of- indolence, or action.

Be ignited, or be gone."

~ Mary Oliver

"On Going Seriously Boom"

"On Going Seriously Boom"

by Fred Reed

"Pleasurable excitement ripples through the usual boredom of Washington, and the resident curiosities enjoy exquisite frissons, over the possibility of nuclear war over the Ukraine. Some official of the EU, or maybe it was the mediocrity in the White House with the truculence problem, but anyway one of the geniuses ruling the planet’s fate has said that if Russia used nukes, the Russian army would be destroyed, grrr, bowwow, woof. Exactly how it would be destroyed, the sayer didn’t say. Anyway, the threats and counterthreats swirl around the idea that a nuke war between Russia and the West might occur. Maybe, with tactical nukes in the Ukraine, about which nobody gives a rat’s nether region. The world is full of damned fools.

But: The general staffs of both Russia and China are, whatever else you may think of them, sane. They know of America’s massive nuclear forces. They are not going to launch an atomic war. Sane behavior cannot be relied on with Washington’s second-rate lawyers, but the generals in the Pentagon are not crazy. They like hobbyist wars and big budgets, but if Biden ordered a nuclear strike, they would be likely to suddenly remember that Congress has to declare war and, seeing that their radar screens were empty of incoming missiles, and say, “Mr. President, we are not authorized to do that.” And recommend a committee.

What would such a war be like? Let’s guess.

America is fragile. We don’t notice because it works smoothly and because when a local catastrophe occurs - earthquake, hurricane, tornado - the rest of the country steps in to remedy things. The country can handle normal and regional catastrophes. But nuclear war is neither normal nor regional. Very few warheads would serve to wreck the United States beyond recovery for decades. This should be clear to anyone who actually thinks about it.

Defense is impossible. Missile defenses are meaningless except as money funnels to the arms industry. This is not the place to go into decoys, hypersonics, Poseidon, maneuvering glide vehicles, bastion stationing, MIRV, just plain boring old cruise missiles, and so on. Coastal cities are particularly easy targets, being vulnerable to submarine-launched sea-skimming missiles. Washington, New York, Boston, San Diego, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle for starters, all gone.

A modern country is a system of systems of systems, interdependent and interconnected - water, electricity, manufacturing, energy, telecommunications, transportation, pipelines, and complex supply chains. These are interconnected, interdependent, and rely on large numbers of trained people showing up for work. Modern warheads are not the popgun squibs of Hiroshima. Talking of repair any time soon after the nuclear bombing of a conurbation is foolish because the city would have many hundreds of thousand of dead, housing destroyed, massive fires, horrendously burned people with no hope of medical care, and in general populations too focused on staying alive to worry about abstractions like supply chains.

The elimination of transportation might cause more death than the bombs. Cities, suburbs, and towns cannot feed themselves. They rely on a constant, heavy influx of food grown in remote regions. This food is shipped by rail or truck to distribution centers, as for example Chicago, whence it is transshipped to cities like New York. Heavy megatonnage on Chicago would disrupt rail lines and trucking firms. Trains and trucks need gasoline and diesel which come from somewhere, presumably in pipelines. These, broken by the blast, burning furiously, would take time to repair. Time is what cities would not have.

What would happen in, say, New York City even if, improbably, it were not bombed? Here we will ignore the likelihood of sheer, boiling panic and resultant chaos on learning that much of the country had been flattened. In the first few days there would be panic buying with shelves at supermarkets being emptied. Hunger would soon become serious. By day four, people would be hunting each other with knives to get their food. By the end of the second week, people would be eating each other. Literally. This happens in famines.

Most things in America rely on electricity. This comes from generating plants which burn stuff, usually natural gas or coal. These arrive on trains, which would not be running, or in trucks, not likely to be running. They depend on oil fields, refineries, and pipelines unlikely to function. All of the foregoing depend on employees continuing to go to work instead of trying to save their families. So - no electricity in New York, which goes dark.

This means no telephones, no internet, no lighting, and no elevators. How would this work out in a city of high rises? Most people would be nearly incommunicado in a lightless city. Huge traffic jams would form as people with cars tried to leave - to go where? - as long as gasoline in the tank lasted.

Where does water come from in New York? I don’t know, but it doesn’t flow spontaneously to the thirtieth floor. It needs to be pumped, which involves electricity, from wherever it comes from to wherever it has to go. No electricity, no pump. No pump, no water. And no flushing of toilets. River water could be drunk, of course. Think of the crowds.

In all likelihood, civil society would collapse by the end of the fourth day. The more virile ethnics would surge from the ghettos with guns and clubs to feed. Police would have disappeared or be either looking after their families or themselves looting. Civilization is a thin veneer. The streets and subways are not safe even without a nuclear war. The majority would be unarmed and unable to defend themselves. People who had never touched a gun would suddenly understand the appeal. If you think this would not happen, give my best to Tinker Belle.

Thus it would not be necessary to bomb a city to destroy it, only to cut it off from transport hubs for a couple of weeks. An attacker would of course destroy many cities in addition to necessary infrastructure. Those who plan nuclear wars may be psychopaths, or just insular geeks fiddling with bloodless abstractions, but they are not fools. They have carefully calculated how to most seriously damage a target country. In no more than a couple of months, perhaps two hundred million people would starve to death. Do you think this fantastic? Tell me why it is fantastic.

Parenthetically, in my days of walking the E-ring in the Pentagon, I read manuals on how to keep soldiers fighting after they had received lethal doses of radiation. They don’t die immediately and, depending on dosage, might be administered stimulants to keep them on their feet, or so the manuals said. These manuals also discussed whether these walking dead should be told that they were about to die. The authors used the evocative phrase “terrain alteration” to describe landscapes with all the trees lying on their sides, and we have all heard of “overkill.” After a nuclear war, millions would slowly die of radiation - read up on Nagasaki and Hiroshima - and burned corpses would rot in the streets, too numerous for burial by survivors with other things on their minds.

How would the next season’s crops be planted? Answer: they wouldn’t be. Where would fertilizer come from? Parts for tractors, trucks, harvesters? Making these requires functioning factories which require electricity, raw materials, and workers. If the attacker chose to hit agricultural lands with radiation-dirty cobalt bombs, these regions would be lethal for years. Nuclear planners think about these things.

Among “defense intellectuals,” there is, or was when I covered such things, insane talk of how America could “absorb” a Russian first strike and have enough missiles in reserve to destroy Russia. These people should be locked in sealed boxes and kept in abandoned coal mines.

Note also that Biden, Blinken, and Bolton, bibbety bobbety boo, and their families, live in DC, the priority target. While the rats are aboard the ship, they won’t sink it. If they are discovered boarding a Greyhound out of Washington at three a.m., dressed as washerwomen, it will be time to worry."

- https://www.theburningplatform.com/

The Daily "Near You?"

Dysart, Iowa, USA. Thanks for stopping by!

Canadian Prepper, "Warning: Tactical VS Strategic Nuclear Weapons"

Full screen recommended.

Canadian Prepper, 10/23/22:

"Warning: Tactical VS Strategic Nuclear Weapons"

"We discuss some misconceptions and clarify the 

difference between tactical and strategic nuclear weapons."

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

○

Related:

Full screen recommended.

Canadian Prepper, 3/26/22:

"How Russia Might Win WW3: Peter Vincent Pry"

"What we are seeing is a fiction... the bigger conflict is coming".

 Dr. Peter Vincent Pry breaks down his theories 

about whats actual going on in the Far East."

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

Note EMP information beginning at 30:00...

○

"A Chilling Warning From a Wise Old Man 

About What's Coming..."

"Balls Of Steel"

"Balls Of Steel"

by Gerard Wall

"This is Marshall Josep Broz Tito, former President of Yugoslavia who not only stood up to the biggest, most evil dictator in the history of mankind, Stalin, but publicly threatened to have him murdered.

After World War II, in which Yugoslavia held their own, they weren’t saved by the Soviets, or the Western Allies, so they could decide their own fate. Tito (the partisan leader) set about forming the combined states of Yugoslavia. They refused to be a part of the Soviet Bloc, we’ll do our own thing, thank you very much. This annoyed Stalin to the extent that he sent several assassins to kill Tito.

Marshall Tito’s response was exemplary - “Stop sending people to kill me. We've already captured five of them, one of them with a bomb and another with a rifle. [...] If you don't stop sending killers, I'll send one to Moscow, and I won't have to send a second.”

Balls of steel, on this hombre. He died in 1980, at the age of 87."

- https://www.quora.com/

Gregory Mannarino, "Markets, A Look Ahead: Manipulation On An Unprecedented Scale!"

Gregory Mannarino, 10/23/22:

"Markets, A Look Ahead: 

Manipulation On An Unprecedented Scale!"

- https://traderschoice.net/

"Doomsday For Banks; Auto Loan Debt Is Spiraling Out Of Control; Consumer Is Done; 401 Scam - Beware"

Jeremiah Babe, 10/23/22:

"Doomsday For Banks; Auto Loan Debt Is Spiraling 

Out Of Control; Consumer Is Done; 401 Scam - Beware"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

"Useful Idiots"

"Useful Idiots"

"How one group of Scientists got a 

glimpse into the coming Dark Ages..."

by Joel Bowman

Buenos Aires, Argentina - "Welcome to another Sunday Session, dear reader, that time of the week when we pull up a barstool at the virtual watering hole, take stock of the week just gone, and try to recall a little perspective to our lives... one nip of flu medicine at a time (we’ve been “crook as a dog” all week, to put it in Australian vernacular, but seem to be on the mend now)...

It ought to go without saying that we live in an unprecedented Age of Abundance. Our modern economy is one brimming with cheap and abundant goods... manufactured using cheap and abundant energy... financed using cheap and abundant credit. For better and worse, modern man scarcely wants for his bare necessities. His physiological requirements, the base of Maslow’s famous hierarchy of needs, he takes more or less for granted. If anything, he is overburdened with worldly goods, a slave to his possessions.

But when he requires painkillers – as we did during the week – he need only visit a drugstore and choose from a variety of on- and off-label products. Pills, potions, capsules and caplets... daytime, nighttime... drowsy, non-drowsy... balms, rubs, ointments. You name it.

As Bill wrote during the week, such a casual cornucopia of pharmaceutical remedies and therapeutics were not so readily available in the recent past... not even to a man whose word was law and who ruled over the richest land on earth. (Read Bill’s excellent essay about King Louis XIV’s toothache ordeal here.)

But what happens when the things we take for granted... simple things, like light... and heat... and door-to-door food delivery... suddenly cease to work? One group of climate activists snatched a valuable glimpse into this Modern Dark Ages earlier in the week, when the company they were “occupying” decided to “just stop oil” by shutting off the power. Read on for their tale of irony and woe, below...

"Useful Idiots"

by Joel Bowman

“Be the change that you wish to see in the world.”

 ~ Mahatma Gandhi

"Poor Gianluca Grimalda. The 51yr-old researcher must have thought he’d found his higher calling, discovered his raison d'être, caught a glimpse of his name, for one fleeting moment, etched in the history books. Donning a symbolic white lab coat, Grimalda joined a group of die-soft climate activists last Wednesday in “occupying” a Volkswagen showroom in Wolfsburg, Germany. Here’s how that went down...

Like similar stunts played out across the UK over the past month, this antic involved, predictably (and rather unimaginatively, it must be said), the group gluing themselves to the floor in front of three top of the line Porsches... photos of which appeared in newspapers across Europe and all over the Internet, presumably saving the auto company millions in advertising.

Alas, no sooner had the petrochemical-based adhesive set when the campaign started to go south. Summoning the kind of staying power that would make Liz Truss cringe, the group quickly ran into a slew of entirely foreseeable difficulties. Scientist Grimalda (who was live Tweeting the whole thing from his compost-powered smartphone) dutifully posted: "@VW told us that they supported our right to protest, but they refused our request to provide us with a bowl to urinate and defecate in a decent manner while we are glued, and have turned off the heating."

Bad Xenia: Yes, gentle reader, not only had the ungracious hosts neglected to provide their trespassing protestors with a proverbial pot to piss (etc.) in, but they had the hide to turn off the heat and even the lights, too... and at night time! (Wait, wasn’t this about “decarbonizing?”) More unsettling yet, VW dared to monitor their own private facility, without so much as informing the unhinged interlopers, who had stuck themselves right next to the company’s rather expensive private property.

And what were these renegade Long Marchers to eat, anyway, now that they had gone dozens of minutes without DoorDash? The situation was getting grim. Relayed Scientist Grimalda (whose Tweeting was beginning to show understandable signs of fatigue, perhaps due to malnutrition): "We can't order our food, we must use the one provided by Wolkswagen. Lights off. Random unannounced checks by security guards with bright torches. Police just came in."

Next, as if the situation could not get any more dire, the unthinkable happened. For almost three heartbreaking hours, Grimalda and his team went dark. Like witnessing an Apollo mission lost to the dark side of the moon, the free world waited. Still, no word. Without firewood to burn or dung huts to keep out the elements, loved ones huddling in the parking lot, several yards away, had all but given up hope when... contact! Scientist Grimalda, emotional, but alive: "I love so much all fellow scientists supporting us outside....(emoji love heart) you don't know how important this is for us!"

But the danger was not yet past. Digging deep into his training as a social psychology researcher, Scientist Grimalda and his Super Scientific team of Scientists settled in for the long night ahead... laying themselves down in the refulgent glow of the headlights of a skeek, white 2022 Porsche Panamera. (For details, see here.)

Almost a whole day into the grueling campaign, Scientist Grimalda recorded another video on his renewable phone, leveraging their obvious position of strength to summon the Volkswagen CEO. (And also to alert the free world that the team – that’s Team Science, made up of Scientists – had indeed received pizza on their first night. Phew!)

Their demands were simple-minded enough. Decarbonize the global auto industry. Lobby to reduce the speed limit in Germany to 100kms/h. Reintroduce €9 public transport tickets (presumably so the Scientists from Team Science could get home). Oh, and ensure the earth’s temperature be managed within 1.5% degrees from pre-industrial levels by a certain calendar date some decades into the future.

Lest you think that’s all a bit rich, coming from a group of adult humans who could not collectively foresee their next bowel movement, may we hasten to remind you: these are not mere humans, like you and me... they’re (capital “S”) Scientists.

The Speed of Science: That’s right. The same mob who brought you “2 weeks to flatten the curve,” who fought to clandestinely quash any open dialog regarding blanket Covid lockdowns, who sent infected seniors back into aged care facilities, who declared masks, then no masks, then masks, then no masks (etc...), who shuttered your children’s schools, who brought you a “vaccine” that stopped neither transmission nor infection and that, it turns out, wasn’t even tested for efficacy against transmission before it hit the market.

These are the same people who travel, not by Porsche sports coupe, but by “the speed of Science,” who constantly invoke “The Science” as if it were the final unalterable word and not, as is actually the case, a process, and whose very climate models have so far predicted that... the earth would enter into another Ice Age by 2021. That “major European cities will be sunk beneath rising seas as Britain is plunged into a 'Siberian' climate by 2020.” That Arctic summers would be ice free by 2000... 2004... 2008... 2013... 2014... 2015... 2017. Or that Australia would have “no more snow” by 2020 when, actually, Australia saw huge snowfalls to kick off the 2022 Season. One could go on... and on...

But never mind all that. Unwilling to let a track record entirely devoid of correct forecasts damper their spirit, Team Science fought marched sat boldly on. Until, that is, they didn’t. After twenty-six hours of grueling, unrelenting sitting down and a harrowing night in which he nearly got no sleep, Scientist Grimalda’s hand – the one he had voluntarily glued to somebody else’s ground – got a bit swollen.

Assessing the “life-threatening” situation confronting him, and no doubt tapping into his special skill set... as a Scientist, Grimalda made the tough decision to allow doctors (summoned to the scene at his request) to unglue him and transport him (presumably by bicycle or sedan chair) to (a solar powered) hospital for further tests. “My health is of course paramount,” he video tweeted before adding, in case of any lingering doubt, “I feel pain, but not so much. And nothing in comparison to the suffering that people in Africa and other countries have to suffer.”

Thanks to the brave sacrifice of Scientist Grimalda and his Scientific team of Scientists, we have some small insight into what a cold, dark, hungry world it might be without fossil fuels.

Thank goodness for useful idiots.

And that’ll do for this short ‘n’ snappy Sunday Session, dear reader. Grateful for the miracles of modern medicine, we’re heading back to the couch to find a mindless show to binge watch while we await our food delivery. A hot toddy or two ought to knock this bug on the head in the meantime. Tune in again next week when Bill will be back with his regular weekday missives. Whatever you’re up to this weekend, give a little thanks to the wonders of the modern world… without which, we’d just be a bunch of Grimaldas, lost in the dark."

Until next time...Cheers,

Joel Bowman

- bonnerprivateresearch@substack.com

"Massive Shrinkflation At Dollar Tree! This Is Ridiculous!"

Full screen recommended

Adventures with Danno, 10/23/22:

"Massive Shrinkflation At Dollar Tree! This Is Ridiculous!"

"In today's vlog we are Dollar Tree, and are noticing massive food products that have shrunk in size! We are also noticing a lot of empty shelves! It's getting rough out here as stores seem to be struggling with getting products!"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

"17 Out-of-Place Artifacts That Suggest High-Tech Civilizations Existed Thousands - or Millions - of Years Ago"

"17 Out-of-Place Artifacts That Suggest High-Tech 

Civilizations Existed Thousands - or Millions - of Years Ago"

by Tara Macisaac

Excerpt: "According to our conventional view of history, humans have only walked the Earth in our present form for some 200,000 years. Much of the mechanical ingenuity we know of in modern times began to develop only a couple hundred years ago, during the Industrial Revolution. However, evidence today alludes to advanced civilizations existing as long as several thousand years ago—or possibly even earlier.

“Oopart” - or “out-of-place artifact” - is the term given to numerous prehistoric objects found in various places across the world today that show a level of technological sophistication incongruous with our present paradigm. Many scientists attempt to explain these ooparts away as natural phenomena. Yet others say that such dismissive explanations only whitewash over the mounting evidence: that prehistoric civilizations had advanced knowledge, and this knowledge was lost over the ages only to be developed anew in modern times.

We will look at a variety of ooparts here, ranging from millions to hundreds of years old in purported age, but all supposedly demonstrating advancement well beyond their time. Whether these are fact or merely fiction we cannot say. We can only offer a glimpse at what’s known, supposed, or hypothesized regarding these phenomena, in the spirit of being open-minded and geared toward real scientific discovery."

View this complete, fascinating, article here:

- https://www.zerohedge.com/

"How It Really Is"

 

"People Are Not Paying Their Bills"

Full screen recommended.

Dan, iAllegedly, 10/22/22:

"People Are Not Paying Their Bills"

"Credit card delinquencies are only going to get worse. Banks are building war chests to combat the delinquencies. Banks are putting up unusual holds on accounts and real estate is still going through the roof."

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

Musical Interlude: 2002, "Greater Than The Sum"

Full screen recommended.

2002, "Greater Than The Sum"

In Ancient Greece, philosopher Aristotle (384–322 B.C.)

wrote “The whole is greater than the sum of the parts”

"A Look to the Heavens"

“How many arches can you count in the below image? If you count both spans of the Double Arch in the Arches National Park in Utah, USA, then two. But since the below image was taken during a clear dark night, it caught a photogenic third arch far in the distance- that of the overreaching Milky Way Galaxy. Because we are situated in the midst of the spiral Milky Way Galaxy, the band of the central disk appears all around us.

The sandstone arches of the Double Arch were formed from the erosion of falling water. The larger arch rises over 30 meters above the surrounding salt bed and spans close to 50 meters across. The dark silhouettes across the image bottom are sandstone monoliths left over from silt-filled crevices in an evaporated 300 million year old salty sea. A dim flow created by light pollution from Moab, Utah can also be seen in the distance.”

- http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap110524.html

"Perhaps..."

"Perhaps they are not stars, but rather openings in 

heaven where the love of our lost ones pours through

 and shines down upon us to let us know they are happy."

~ An Eskimo saying.

"And It Was Pointless..."

“And it was pointless… to think how those years could have been put to better use, for he could hardly have put them to worse. There was no recovering them now. You could grieve endlessly for the loss of time and for the damage done therein. For the dead, and for your own lost self. But what the wisdom of the ages says is that we do well not to grieve on and on. And those old ones knew a thing or two and had some truth to tell… for you can grieve your heart out and in the end you are still where you were. All your grief hasn’t changed a thing. What you have lost will not be returned to you. It will always be lost. You’re left with only your scars to mark the void. All you can choose to do is to go on or not. But if you go on, it’s knowing you carry your scars with you.”

- Charles Frazier

“The Immutable Laws of Nature, and Murphy’s Other 15 Laws”

“The Immutable Laws of Nature, and Murphy’s Other 15 Laws”

by Peter McKenzie-Brown

“The Immutable Laws of Nature”

•Law of Mechanical Repair: After your hands become coated with grease, your nose will begin to itch and you’ll have to pee.

•Law of Gravity: Any tool, nut, bolt, screw, when dropped, will roll to the least accessible place.

•Law of Probability: The probability of being watched is directly proportional to the stupidity of your act.

•Law of Random Numbers: If you dial a wrong number, you never get a busy signal; someone always answers.

•Law of Variable Motion: If you change traffic lanes or checkout queues, the one you were in will always move faster than the one you are in now.

•Law of the Bath: When the body is fully immersed in water, the telephone will ring.

•Law of Close Encounters: The probability of meeting someone you know increases exponentially when you are alongside someone you don’t want to be seen with.

•Law of the Damned Thing: When you try to prove to someone that a machine or device won’t work, it will.

•Law of Biomechanics: The severity of the itch is inversely proportional to the reach.

•Law of the Spectator: At any theatrical, musical or sporting event, the people whose seats are furthest from the aisle always arrive last. They are the ones who will leave their seats several times to go for food, for beer, or to the toilet and who leave before the end of the performance or game. Those who occupy the aisle seats come early, never move once, have long gangly legs or big bellies and stay seated beyond the end of the performance. The aisle people also are very surly folk.

•Law of Coffee: As soon as you sit down to a cup of hot coffee, your partner will ask you to do something which will last until the coffee is cold.

•Murphy’s Law of Lockers: When only 2 people are in a locker room, they will have adjacent lockers.

•Law of Plane Surfaces: The chance that a slice of marmalade toast will land face down on a floor is directly correlated to the newness and cost of the carpet or rug.

•Law of Logical Argument: Anything is possible when you don’t know what you are talking about.

•Law of Physical Appearance: If clothes fit, they’re ugly.

•Law of Public Speaking: A closed mouth gathers no feet

•Law of Commercial Marketing: As soon as you find a product that you really like, it will cease production or the store will stop selling it.

•Law of Psychosomatic Medicine: If you don’t feel well, make an appointment to see to the doctor and by  the time you get there, you’ll feel better. If you don’t make an appointment you’ll stay sick.

“Murphy’s Other 15 Laws”

1. Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.

2. A fine is a tax for doing wrong. A tax is a fine for doing well.

3. He who laughs last, thinks slowest.

4. A day without sunshine is like, well, night.

5. Change is inevitable, except from a vending machine.

6. Those who live by the sword get shot by those who don’t.

7. Nothing is foolproof to a sufficiently talented fool.

8. The 50-50-90 rule: Anytime you have a 50-50 chance of getting something right, there’s a 90% probability you’ll get it wrong.

9. It is said that if you line up all the cars in the world end-to-end, someone would be stupid enough to try to pass them.

10. If the shoe fits, get another one just like it.

11. The things that come to those who wait, may be the things left by those who got there first.

12. Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day. Teach a man to fish and he will sit in a boat all day drinking beer.

13. Flashlight: A case for holding dead batteries.

14. God gave you toes as a device for finding furniture in the dark.

15. When you go into court, you are putting yourself in the hands of twelve people who weren’t smart enough to get out of jury duty.”

- http://www.24hgold.com/

Chet Raymo, “Tyger, Tyger Burning Bright…”

“Tyger, Tyger Burning Bright…”

by Chet Raymo

“Divinity is not playful. The universe was not made in jest but in solemn incomprehensible earnest. By a power that is unfathomably secret, and holy, and fleet.” You may recall these words from Annie Dillard’s “Pilgrim at Tinker Creek.” There is nothing intrinsically cheerful about the world, she says. To live is to die; it’s all part of the bargain. Stars destroy themselves to make the atoms of our bodies. Every creature lives to eat and be eaten. And into this incomprehensible, unfathomable, apparently stochastic melee stumbles… You and I. With qualities that we have - so far - seen nowhere else. Hope. Humor. A sense of justice. A sense of beauty. Gratitude. But also: Anger. Hurt. Despair. Strangers in a strange land.

Galaxies by the billions turn like St. Catherine Wheels, throwing off sparks of exploding stars. Atoms eddy and flow, blowing hot and cold, groping and promiscuous. A wind of neutrinos gusts through our bodies, Energy billows and swells. A myriad of microorganisms nibble at our flesh.

We have a sense that something purposeful is going on, something that involves us. Something secret, holy and fleet. But we haven’t a clue what it is. We make up stories. Stories in which we are the point of it all. We tell the stories over and over. To our children. To ourselves. And the stories fill up the space of our ignorance. Until they don’t. And then the great yawning spaces open again. And time clangs down on our heads like a pummeling rain, like the collapsing ceiling of the sky. Dazed, stunned, we stagger like giddy topers towards our own swift dissolution. Inexplicably praising. Admiring. Wondering. Giving thanks.”

- http://blog.sciencemusings.com/

◆

“The Tyger”

“Tyger! Tyger! burning bright

In the forests of the night,

What immortal hand or eye

Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

In what distant deeps or skies

Burnt the fire of thine eyes?

On what wings dare he aspire?

What the hand dare sieze the fire?

And what shoulder, and what art.

Could twist the sinews of thy heart?

And when thy heart began to beat,

What dread hand? and what dread feet?

What the hammer? what the chain?

In what furnace was thy brain?

What the anvil? what dread grasp

Dare its deadly terrors clasp?

When the stars threw down their spears,

And watered heaven with their tears,

Did he smile his work to see?

Did he who made the Lamb make thee?

Tyger! Tyger! burning bright

In the forests of the night,

What immortal hand or eye

Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?”

- William Blake

The Daily "Near You?"

Peterborough, New Hampshire, USA. Thanks for stopping by!

"Putin’s Winter Offensive"

"Putin’s Winter Offensive"

 by Mike Whitney

“Every dead Russian and Ukrainian in this war, every family anywhere in the world that suffers the consequences of this war, every business that shuts down because of the economic damage this war is causing and the increased risk of nuclear annihilation, it’s all US Govt made.” Twitter @KimDotcom

"Proxy War (def)– a war instigated by a major power which does not itself become involved."

"Ukrainian gains on the battlefield have been met by a widely-anticipated Russian escalation. On September 21, in a rare national address, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced the mobilization of 300,000 reservists who would be called to serve in the war in Ukraine. In recent weeks, the Russian army has suffered a number of setbacks due to its lack of sufficient manpower in the battlespace. Simply put, the Russians did not have enough combat troops to carry out their mission or to defend the vast area that has recently been annexed by Moscow. Russia’s Special Military Operation was never designed to seize and occupy great swaths of Ukrainian territory. In essence, the SMO was a police operation aimed at locating and eliminating the Ukrainian forces that had been bombarding and killing ethnic Russians living in east Ukraine. After numerous clashes with advancing NATO-trained battalions, it’s clear that Russia needs significant reinforcements to roll back Ukrainian forces and impose a security buffer around its new provinces. Russia’s critics see the under-staffing as an indication of military incompetence but, in fact, Moscow is merely adapting to a fluid situation in which both parties continue to raise the stakes. Here is an excerpt from a post by Big Serge at Substack that helps to clarify what’s going on:

"Of all the phantasmagorical claims that have been made about the Russo-Ukrainian War, few are as difficult to believe as the claim that Russia intended to conquer Ukraine with fewer than 200,000 men. Indeed, a central truth of the war that observers simply must come to grasp with is the fact that the Russian army has been badly outnumbered from day one. On paper, Russia has committed an expeditionary force of less than 200,000 men, though of course that full amount has not been on the frontline in active combat lately.

The light force deployment is related to Russia’s rather unique service model, which has combined “contract soldiers” – the professional core of the army – with a reservist pool that is generated with an annual conscription wave. The transition from a Soviet mobilization scheme to a smaller, leaner, professional ready force was part and parcel of Russia’s neoliberal austerity regime throughout much of the Putin years.

This Russian contract force can still accomplish a great deal, militarily speaking – it can destroy Ukrainian military installations, wreak havoc with artillery, bash its way into urban agglomerations in the Donbas, and destroy much of Ukraine’s indigenous war-making potential. It cannot, however, wage a multi-year continental war against an enemy which outnumbers it by at least four to one, and which is sustained with intelligence, command and control, and material which are beyond its immediate reach…

More force deployment is needed. Russia must transcend the neoliberal austerity army. It has the material capacity to mobilize the needed forces – it has many millions in its reservist pool, enormous inventories of equipment, and indigenous production capacity undergirded by the natural resources and production potential of the Eurasian bloc that has closed ranks around it. But remember – military mobilization is also political mobilization.” (“Politics By Other Means; Putin and Clausewitz”, Big Serge Thoughts, Substack)

Russia’s critics, of course, will dismiss this explanation as nonsense, even so, the calling up of 300,000 reservists shows that Putin’s generals realize they cannot achieve their strategic objectives with merely an “expeditionary force” but must adjust to changes on the ground. And that is precisely what they are doing; they are beefing up their forces at a time when Putin’s public approval rating is at an eye-watering 77%. So, while an earlier mobilization would have undoubtedly been met with widespread condemnation and rejection, the great majority of Russians now fully support the policy. Simply put, Putin has won the hearts and minds of the Russian people. He has convinced them that their country, traditions, culture and lives face an unprecedented existential threat. Here’s more from Big Serge: "Putin and those around him conceived of the Russo-Ukrainian War in existential terms from the very beginning. It is unlikely, however, that most Russians understood this….

What has happened in the months since February 24 is rather remarkable. The existential war for the Russian nation has been incarnated and made real for Russian citizens. Sanctions and anti-Russian propaganda – demonizing the entire nation as “orcs” – has rallied even initially skeptical Russians behind the war, and Putin’s approval rating has soared. A core western assumption, that Russians would turn on the government, has reversed. Videos showing the torture of Russian POWs by frothing Ukrainians, of Ukrainian soldiers calling Russian mothers to mockingly tell them their sons are dead, of Russian children killed by shelling in Donetsk, have served to validate Putin’s implicit claim that Ukraine is a demon possessed state that must be exorcised with high explosives… The government of Ukraine (in now deleted tweets) publicly claimed that Russians are prone to barbarism because they are a mongrel race with Asiatic blood mixing.” (Big Serge, Substack)

In short, the establishment media and political class have made Putin’s job easier for him by persuading even left-leaning Russians that the western nations – led by the US – despise all-things Russian and are determined to destroy their country and subjugate their people. Here’s Putin: "I want to underscore again that their insatiability and determination to preserve their unfettered dominance are the real causes of the hybrid war that the collective West is waging against Russia. They do not want us to be free; they want us to be a colony. They do not want equal cooperation; they want to loot. They do not want to see us a free society, but a mass of soulless slaves….I would like to remind you that in the past, ambitions of world domination have repeatedly shattered against the courage and resilience of our people. Russia will always be Russia. We will continue to defend our values and our Motherland.

We have never agreed to and will never agree to such political nationalism and racism. What else, if not racism, is the Russophobia being spread around the world? What, if not racism, is the West’s dogmatic conviction that its civilization and neoliberal culture is an indisputable model for the entire world to follow?

Today, we are fighting so that it would never occur to anyone that Russia, our people, our language, or our culture can be erased from history. Today, we need a united society, and this unification can only be based on sovereignty, freedom, creation, and justice. Our values ​​are humanity, mercy and compassion.” (Speech on the Accession of the New Regions to Russia, Vladimir Putin, Unz Review)

According to Putin, the collective west wants to plunder Russia, enslave its people, and create a colony whose wealth can be siphoned off by tyrannical bigots and foreign profiteers. The media’s relentless attack on Russian athletes, scholars, scientists, musicians and even businessmen has only reinforced the view among ordinary Russians that they have entered the crosshairs of a violent and out-of-control western coalition that intends to deliver the same lethal death-blow to Russia that they did to Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan and countless other nations. Putin’s soaring public approval ratings underscore the fact that most Russians think the threat is real and that the battle must be joined. Here’s more from Big Serge:

“Putin has … achieved his project of formal annexation of Ukraine’s old eastern rim. This has also legally transformed the war into an existential struggle. Further Ukrainian advances in the east are now, in the eyes of the Russian state, an assault on sovereign Russian territory and an attempt to destroy the integrity of the Russian state. Recent polling shows that a supermajority of Russians support defending these new territories at any cost.” (Substack)

The speed at which Putin annexed the four regions in Ukraine suggests that the real purpose of the action goes far beyond the expansion of Russia’s western border. The real reason Putin rushed through the measure was to fundamentally change the rules of engagement. Needless to say, a Special Military Operation is worlds apart from the defense of one’s own sovereign territory. In other words, the real purpose of the referendum was to indicate that “the gloves are off” and that Russia is going to respond to Ukraine’s attacks with unexpected ferocity. Here’s Serge again:

A political consensus for higher mobilization and greater intensity has been achieved. Now all that remains is the implementation of this consensus in the material world of fist and boot, bullet and shell, blood and iron.”

Russia is massing for a winter escalation and offensive, and is currently engaged in a calculated trade wherein they give up space in exchange for time and Ukrainian casualties. Russia continues to retreat where positions are either operationally compromised or faced with overwhelming Ukrainian numbers, but they are very careful to extract forces out of operational danger…

Russia will likely continue to pull back over the coming weeks, withdrawing units intact under their artillery and air umbrella, grinding down Ukrainian heavy equipment stocks and wearing away their manpower. Meanwhile, new equipment continues to congregate in Belgorod, Zaporizhia, and Crimea. My expectation remains the same: episodic Russian withdrawal until the front stabilizes roughly at the end of October, followed by an operational pause until the ground freezes, followed by escalation and a winter offensive by Russia once they have finished amassing sufficient units.

There is an eerie calm radiating from the Kremlin…The disconnect between the Kremlin’s stoicism and the deterioration of the front are striking. Perhaps Putin and the entire Russian general staff really are criminally incompetent – perhaps the Russian reserves really are nothing but a bunch of drunks. Perhaps there is no plan.

Or perhaps, Russia’s sons will answer the call of the motherland again, as they did in 1709, in 1812, and in 1941. "As the wolves once more prowl at the door, the old bear rises again to fight.” (Big Serge, Substack)

Bottom line: Russia has now laid the groundwork for a broader and more violent conflict. 300,000 reservists have been called up, vast amounts of military hardware are being shipped to the front, and public opinion overwhelmingly supports the war-effort. All the signs point to a significant escalation in the fighting that will leave much of Ukraine in ruins while pushing Washington and Moscow closer to a direct confrontation.

Mearsheimer’s Chilling Prediction: “The Russians are going to turn Ukraine into rubble.” John Mearsheimer called it right in 2015 and he called it right again 7 months ago. Maybe the US Govt should hire him as a fire alarm: 2 minute video: pic.twitter.com/8CvbMPyUO6

- Kim Dotcom (@KimDotcom) October 12, 2022

- https://straightlinelogic.com/

The Middle Class Is Dying! 50 Percent Of All American Workers Made Less Than $3,133 A Month Last Year

The Middle Class Is Dying! 50 Percent Of All American

 Workers Made Less Than $3,133 A Month Last Year

by Michael Snyder

"Inflation is systematically destroying our standard of living, and the middle class is shrinking a little bit more with each passing day. The Social Security Administration just released wage statistics for 2021, and the numbers that they have given us are quite stunning. As you will see below, half of all American workers made less than $3,133 a month last year. Once upon a time, you could live a very comfortable middle class lifestyle on $3,133 a month. But thanks to inflation, such a wage now puts you just barely above the poverty level. The decisions that our leaders have been making are absolutely eviscerating the middle class, and that should deeply trouble all of us.

You can find the new Social Security Administration wage report right here. The following are some statistics that I pulled out of the report…

-More than 30 percent of all American workers made less than $20,000 last year.

-More than 41 percent of all American workers made less than $30,000 last year.

-More than 52 percent of all American workers made less than $40,000 last year.

-More than 62 percent of all American workers made less than $50,000 last year.

These numbers tell us that most Americans are just barely scraping by, but our leaders want us to buy into the illusion that most people are “doing well” these days. Of course that isn’t even close to the truth. According to the Social Security Administration, the median wage for 2021 was just $37,586.03…"By definition, 50 percent of wage earners had net compensation less than or equal to the median wage, which is estimated to be $37,586.03 for 2021."

If we were still living in 1980, that would be fine. But we aren’t in 1980 anymore. In 2022, the poverty level for a household of five in the United States is $31,040. That means that a worker in the United States making the median wage would be earning just enough to lift a family of five above the poverty line. If you divide $37,586.03 by 12, that gives you a median monthly wage of $3,132.17. For purposes of this article, I will round up and call it $3,133.

Half of all American workers make more than that per month, and half of all American workers make less than that per month. And it is important to remember that this figure is before taxes are taken out. Ouch.

Meanwhile, the cost of living continues to spiral out of control. Recently, the average rent on a single family home in the United States reached $2,495 a month…"Rent prices for single family homes swelled during the first half of 2022, hitting a national average of $2,495 a month - a 13.4% increase compared to the same period in 2021, according to a new report from national real estate brokerage HouseCanary."

If you are only earning $3,133 a month and you have to spend $2,495 a month for rent, that leaves you next to nothing for everything else. For example, all of us have to eat. But these days a single shopping cart full of food will easily run you more than 300 dollars. And that is if you are trying to be really frugal.

Gasoline has also become extremely expensive. All the way back in 1960, a gallon of gas cost just 31 cents. Today, gas is approaching 7 dollars a gallon in some parts of California.

I could go on and on with more examples of the rapidly rising cost of living. Heating bills are expected to soar this winter, health insurance has gotten absurdly expensive, and new vehicles cost so much that most Americans can no longer afford them.

If things are this bad already, what will conditions be like for the middle class as the economy deteriorates in 2023 and beyond? The worst housing crash since 2008 has now started, the financial markets are on pace for their worst year since 1969, and big companies all over America are starting to lay off people in large numbers. Alarmingly, some of the biggest layoffs are actually being conducted by the big tech companies. In fact, we just learned that Microsoft will be laying off approximately 1,000 workers…"Microsoft will lay off about 1,000 employees, the company confirmed Tuesday. Although it is not confirmed if the layoffs are isolated in gaming divisions, employees who work for Xbox and other Microsoft-owned studios said they were being laid off, the Washington Post reported. Axios first reported the layoffs Monday evening."

At this point, almost everyone can see that a recession is coming. (What?! "Recession'? This will be the greatest Depression in the history of the world, Michael, and you know it. Folks, he's being overly kind here. - CP) Even Jeff Bezos, who is usually extraordinarily optimistic, is warning people to “batten down the hatches”…"Amazon founder Jeff Bezos warned America’s to ‘batten down the hatches’ as he shared a tweet warning of a likely impending recession. Bezos – who is the world’s second-richest man – tweeted a video of Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon saying there was a ‘good chance’ of a downturn. The Amazon founder – who has a $137 billion fortune – signaled his agreement by captioning the tweet: ‘Yep, the probabilities in this economy tell you to batten down the hatches.’"

When Jeff Bezos starts sounding like The Economic Collapse Blog, you know that the hour is late.

Yep, the probabilities in this economy tell you to batten down the hatches. https://t.co/SwldRdms5v

- Jeff Bezos (@JeffBezos) October 18, 2022

These days, our impending economic downturn has even become a very hot topic among Hollywood celebrities…Even non-billionaire-but-still-rich person Gwyneth Paltrow is losing sleep over it. “The economy sucks,” she told the Hollywood Reporter this week. “I’m just worried about next year and how bad the recession’s gonna be.” Other celebrities are weighing in, too. Last month, rapper Cardi B ranted about inflation and interest rates. “How are people surviving? I want to know.”

If the middle class is steadily eroding during relatively stable times, what is going to happen once the economy really begins to unravel? There is so much anger all over the United States right now, and the vast majority of the population is simply not prepared for what is ahead.

I have been writing about the demise of the middle class for more than a decade, and the condition of the middle class has never been worse than it is right now. At one time America had the largest and most prosperous middle class in the history of the world, and that was a wonderful thing. But now very dark times for the middle class are here, and there doesn’t appear to be much hope on the horizon."

- http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/

"Kroger Marketplace, Stock Up Now! What's Next?"

Full screen recommended.

Adventures with Danno, 10/22/22:

"Kroger Marketplace, Stock Up Now! What's Next?"

"In today's vlog we are at Kroger Marketplace, and are noticing massive price increases. We are finding lots of sales that we point out that are some great options to stock up on for the future."

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

"How It Really Is"