"What A Choice: A Tyrannical World Government Or A Nuclear War"

"What A Choice: A Tyrannical

 World Government Or A Nuclear War"

by Michael Snyder

"If you had to choose between living under an extremely oppressive world government or living through a nuclear war, which one would be your choice? Personally, I don’t like either of those two options, but in recent days western leaders have been trying to convince us that we will either have one or the other. According to them, either we can submit to a “global order” that is dominated by the values and the agenda of the western elite or we can accept a multipolar world which will eventually lead to widespread chaos and nuclear war. Needless to say, western politicians are going to try very hard to get us to choose the former.

On Friday, French President Emmanuel Macron delivered a speech at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Summit in Bangkok even though France is not actually a member. During that speech, Macron lamented the fact that rapidly deteriorating relations between the U.S. and China are tearing the world apart, and he boldly declared that what we really need is “a single world order”…"French President Emmanuel Macron called for world government in a speech Friday, claiming it would avoid conflicts between competing superpowers. “We need a single world order,” Macron told the audience at the ongoing Asian-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in Bangkok, Thailand.

“Are you on the U.S. side or the China side?” Macron asked rhetorically. “Because now, progressively, a lot of people would like to see that there are two orders in this world.” “This is a huge mistake — even for both the U.S. and China,” he added after comparing the two superpowers to “big elephants” in the geopolitical “jungle.”

Of course when he says that we need a “single world order” he is not suggesting one in which nations such as China and Russia are equal partners. What Macron and other western leaders envision is a global system that is governed by western rules and western values. As he delivered his line about a “single global order”, Macron slowed down and pronounced each of the words with special emphasis.

In case you still think it’s a conspiracy theory that our elites want a world order, here’s French President @EmmanuelMacron yesterday at the APEC summit:

‘We need a single global order’. pic.twitter.com/CFTMXUPy1R

- Eva Vlaardingerbroek (@EvaVlaar) November 19, 2022

I have a feeling that Macron can picture himself leading a “single global order” someday. Such delusions of grandeur can be extremely dangerous. Meanwhile, other western leaders such as U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin are warning that a truly multipolar world would be one that would inevitably lead to nuclear confrontation and nuclear conflict…"U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin warned Saturday Russia’s invasion of Ukraine offers a preview of a world where nuclear-armed countries could threaten other nations and said Beijing, like Moscow, seeks a world where might makes right. Austin made the remarks at the annual Halifax International Security Forum, which attracts defense and security officials from Western democracies."

Politicians all over the western world have been talking a lot about the threat of nuclear war lately. I think that they are trying to use the threat of nuclear war as a scare tactic in order to advance their agenda, because if they were truly concerned about nuclear war they would be working really hard to stop one from happening. But instead of pursuing peace with China and Russia through diplomatic means, western leaders seem to have decided that now is the time to get really tough with China and Russia.

Ultimately, our leaders would love to see both regimes collapse and be replaced by governments that are ready to embrace western values and a “single global order” that is led by the western nations. Western politicians keep hoping that the war in Ukraine will lead to such an outcome in Russia, and I am sure that they are trying to figure out how to use the coming Chinese invasion of Taiwan to bring about such an outcome in China.

We have seen so many other governments get toppled over the decades, and now the western elite are going after the two biggest fish in the pond. But by being so aggressive, they are literally bringing us to the brink of nuclear conflict.

Earlier this year, a study was released that concluded that a full-blown nuclear exchange between the United States and Russia would result in billions of deaths. But only about 360 million people would be killed by the original nuclear exchange. That is the good news.

The bad news is that about 5 billion people would starve to death during the nuclear winter that would follow…"According to a peer-reviewed study published in the journal "Nature Food" in August 2022,[139] a full-scale nuclear war between the United States and Russia, which together hold more than 90% of the world’s nuclear weapons, would kill 360 million people directly and more than 5 billion indirectly by starvation during a nuclear winter.[140][141]"

In the aftermath of a full-blown nuclear exchange between the United States and Russia, global temperatures would plunge dramatically because of all the soot that is injected into the atmosphere…“A war between the United States, its allies and Russia - who possess more than 90% of the global nuclear arsenal - could produce more than 150 teragrams of soot and a nuclear winter,” the study reads." A teragram is a unit of measurement equal to 1 trillion grams and models show that soot injections into the atmosphere larger than 5 teragrams would lead to mass food shortages in almost all countries.

In such an environment, very little would be able to be grown, and so global food production would soon fall to only a small fraction of what it is today…"In the scenario of a war between the United States and Russia, the global average calorie production from crops would decrease by around 90% within four years after the nuclear war. Nuclear war would also reduce the global fish supply. People in most nations would consume fewer calories than their bodies burn at rest and more than 5 billion people would die by the end of the second year."

Western leaders are trying to convince us that the way to avoid such a fate is to embrace their vision of a “single world order” that is led by them. And the truth is that there are a whole lot of people out there that would be more than willing to give up their freedoms for the security of a one world government.

Such people are just like the mindless sheep that were recently spotted “walking around in a circle for 12 days straight”…"Dozens of sheep have been eerily walking around in a circle for 12 days straight in northern China’s Inner Mongolia region. The bizarre behavior, captured on surveillance video, shows the large flock continuously marching clockwise in a nearly perfect circle on a farm."

My hope is that we can get more “sheeple” to wake up while there is still time to do so. We don’t want world government. And we don’t want nuclear war either. Unfortunately, we don’t always get what we want. The western elite are really making a mess of things, and we are all going to suffer the consequences of their incredibly reckless decisions."

- https://www.investmentwatchblog.com/

"The Middle Class Delenda Est." Part IV

"The Middle Class Delenda Est." Part IV

Traditional common sense vs. the elite's uncommon nonsense...

by Bill Bonner

Baltimore, Maryland -  “Look both ways before crossing the street.” The common man lives with ghosts. They are the ghosts of parents whose children didn’t look both ways. They whisper the lessons of the dead:

Don’t spend more than you earn.

Say please and thank you.

Mind your own business.

Never eat yellow snow.

The difference between the common man and the elite is that the former believes in following rules; the latter believes it can make them up as it goes along. We have been exploring a grim subject – the destruction of the middle class. So far, we’ve seen that the elites use inflation like a thief uses a crowbar – to get what belongs to someone else.

It’s not exactly ‘intentional.’ A wolf does not eat a lamb with malice aforethought; that’s just the way it works. Inflation wrecks the economy and ‘The People’ who depend on it. So much the better, say the elites; they prefer the poor, who are more easily manipulated…and their votes more cheaply bought. But there’s more to it than just money. The ruling class has ideas… programs… campaigns. ‘Middle class values’ often get in the way.

No Gains Without Pains: Yes, the drum to which the common man marches is beaten by the shades, not by the Establishment. The drumbeat of the dead rocks his soul and is imprinted – as common sense – on his instincts. He is a natural ‘conservative,’ reluctant to change.

He gets up early. (‘The early bird catches the worm,’ he says.)

He gets to work. (‘I learned the value of hard work by working hard,’ he explains.)

He saves his money. (‘A penny saved is a penny earned…’)

He is careful not to spend too much. (‘Waste not, want not.’)

He follows rules, but he can be a threat to the rulers. His ‘common sense’ is often at odds with the elite’s uncommon nonsense. It is common sense to him that ‘you can’t get something for nothing’ and ‘you have to work for what you get.’ And yet, the elites offer billions in ‘printing press money’ to tempt him onto the dole. In the Covid Hysteria, for example, millions of people earned more from not working than they did on the job.

The deciders believe that the painful lessons of the past no longer matter. Today, we are smarter, or…so they believe, better educated…and more “woke” to the challenges and realities of life in 2022. We know right from wrong…good from bad…Heaven from Hell. Nor do we doubt which side we’re on – we’re always on the side of the angels. No need to ask questions.

The Heaven of today’s ruling classes – for the common man, not for themselves – is a small, energy efficient apartment in a tight, modern community where you can walk or ride a bicycle to essential services…call each other ‘they’ or another personal pronoun of their choice…and go to great lengths to make sure everyone is equal to everyone else. The swift, for example, shoot themselves in the foot so they can hobble along with the cripples…the smart watch CNN and FOX news to lower their IQs…and pretty women put bags over their heads so no one gets the wrong idea. Everyone, of course, agrees with everyone else on everything; they call it ‘diversity.’

Modern Discomforts: The trouble with the common man is that he doesn’t ‘get it.’ He clings to his habits and customs… He looks both ways before crossing the street, but doesn’t like being told where to go. And that is what the elites do.

At Davos – where the rich and famous go in their private jets to shame the common people for using too much fuel – the World Economic Forum has already made it clear where it is headed; in the future, says one of its key videos, “you will own nothing, and you will be happy.” Last week, Elizabeth Borne, France’s finance minister, let ‘The People’ know that they would “live better” once they said ‘au revoir’ to that awful fossil fuel. In Europe, too, politicians have already proposed to ban single family homes. They’re not ‘energy efficient;’ saving the planet has become a goal far surpassing the comfort of individual families.

But the common man – deplorable! – may not be on the same page. He may not bow his head to Gaia or get on his knees before the diversity gods. Follow him out to the parking lot, and you may find him getting into a big, diesel-gulping pick-up truck rather than a small electric car.

So, if you’re among the elites, you can’t let the common man vote without guidance. His candidates must be chosen for him – carefully nurturing one with money and favorable press…while starving another for funds and making him look like a dangerous moron. Then, just to be sure, make sure the candidates are all dumb rascals so the voter has no real choice. Turn the contest into an idea-free slap-fest. And watch out; he may still vote the ‘wrong’ way. Be careful taking him out in public, too. He may say the wrong thing!

Doers and Shakers: Words evolve with the fads and fantasies of the time. ‘Bum’ used to describe someone who lived on the streets. It suggested a moral failing – the man had not followed the rules. It was his own damned fault. Then, the term was replaced, in polite, elite society, by “homeless person.” It suggested a failing too – but it was not judgmental; he may have had some bad luck. But now, the proper term is “unhoused person” – which suggests that it’s someone else’s fault. Someone, somehow had failed to give the man a proper house.

The common man knows a bum when he sees him. And he smells a rat. He digs in his heels from time to time and refuses to go along with the elite’s program. His ‘common sense’ gets in the way of the great improvements the thinkers and do-gooders want to make. Without the media’s non-stop propaganda, would he want to send his money to keep the war going on in the Ukraine? Probably not. Would he approve of trillion-dollar US deficits and $31 trillion of debt? Nobody asks.

“The People” are easily bamboozled and readily suckered into foolishness. Wave the flag, and they march to murder with nary a doubt. But left alone, they stick to age-old rules. Theirs is a world guided by common civility, common decency, and common sense. You give so that you can take. You drive on the right side of the road. Each man follows the same ‘rules of the road’ but chooses his own destination.

The elite, on the other hand, think they know where he OUGHT to go. The doers and shakers of today have the Truth…the here-and-now, never-before-known Truth about what is important and what is not. They believe they have the right to write new rules…and they’re not going to let any old truths get in their way…or the people who cling to them.

The Middle Class Delenda Est."

- https://bonnerprivateresearch.substack.com/

○

Related:

"Jeff Bezos Warns Americans to Brace for Imminent Crisis"

Gregory Mannarino, "Alert! JP Morgan Warns: Millions Will Lose Their Jobs As 'Severe Recession' Hits"

Your guide...

Gregory Mannarino, 11/21/22:

"Alert! JP Morgan Warns: 

Millions Will Lose Their Jobs As 'Severe Recession' Hits"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

"How Much Diesel Is Left? 2 Weeks Left - December 5th. Inflation Alert!"

Full screen recommended.

Riverside Homestead Life, 11/20/22:

"How Much Diesel Is Left? 

2 Weeks Left - December 5th. Inflation Alert!"

"This is about to happen...SHTF INFLATION. This is getting really scary. How much diesel is left? Is there a diesel shortage? And is there a fuel shortage? If this is a diesel crisis, are you prepared for food shortages, and empty shelves, major inflation increasing to hyperinflation, because as this diesel crisis continues, it will automatically drive prices up. Truckers and cargo haulers will have to impose surcharges to be sure companies are making enough money to make a profit, this will drive inflation up with everything that we buy as everything is delivered by diesel and diesel fuels and fossil fuels, so if you’ve been watching us here at Riverside Homestead life, you will know that we’ve been giving you emergency preparedness tips  to use, and other channels do this as well, like Canadian Prepper, Prepared Homestead, Pinball, Preparedness Warning, we've warned you about diesel, shortages, and about inflation and about the fuel and gas prices. December 5 is when the new European embargo goes effect and the demand for US diesel products will go up, which means we will lose more diesel to the highest bidder, meaning inflation, and shortages of all kinds, including fuel shortage, diesel shortage, food shortage, and empty shelves will result, so be sure to be prepared for higher prices."

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

"Massive Price Increases At Walmart! This Is Ridiculous! Not Good!"

Full screen recommended.

Adventures with Danno, 11/21/22:

"Massive Price Increases At Walmart! 

This Is Ridiculous! Not Good!"

"In today's vlog we are at Walmart, and are noticing massive price increases! We are here to check out skyrocketing prices, and 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/

○

Related:

"We Are Being Warned That Meat Prices 

Could Go Up Another 40 Or 50 Percent"

Canadian Prepper, "Alert: Major Cities Being Evacuated; Nuclear Test"

Canadian Prepper, 11/20/22:

"Alert: Major Cities Being Evacuated; Nuclear Test"

"Mass evacuations underway in Europe, 30 signs that point toward WW3 escalation and not negotiation."

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

"15 Food Items To Stock Up On For The Coming Shortages"

Full screen recommended.

"15 Food Items To Stock Up On For The Coming Shortages"

by Epic Economist

"If there's a place where we can see with our own eyes the challenges our country is facing that place is the grocery store. Inflation is pushing the prices of everyday goods to levels last seen when our grandparents had our age. Today, we're paying almost 40% more on a carton of eggs, 20% more for a pound of chicken, and 100% more for a pound of turkey compared to just one year ago. Supplies of several staples are disturbingly low, and food manufacturers are already doing everything they can to boost production. But there is only so much they can do in a year of poor harvests and extensive crop losses. The bare shelves and insane prices we're facing right now are a reflection of a food supply chain that has been broken and never recovered. At this point, pretty much everyone in the industry is telling the public that conditions will continue to deteriorate as we head into 2023 and beyond.

With food supply chains profoundly disrupted, the best strategy in such a scenario is to do our best with the products we can still find and afford. Just a few years ago, if anyone said the vast majority of the U.S. population would be scrambling to afford food and other basic necessities, we wouldn't have believed them. But within a little over 24 months, the damage that has been done to our economy was so severe that many lives were turned upside down. Things have become much more uncertain and unpredictable.

And considering that grocers are announcing that more price hikes are on the horizon and also that food banks are already overwhelmed and struggling to meet demand, it's safe to say that we won't have much relief this winter.

Global leaders are explicity saying that the era of abundance is over, and that food shortages are about to get real. The truth is that we're entering times when food shortages will become far more widespread than most people realize. And before we notice, empty shelves will become far more than just an incovenience, but a painful reminder that scarcity is the new norm.

That's why, in today's video, we decide to step out of the obvious and list some foods we often overlook when we're thinking about stocking up for food shortages. It is important to highlight that some of these items are already or will soon be in short supply, so you might want to start searching for them the next time you go grocery shopping. Don't be surprised if in the next couple of months some of these products are nowhere to be found. Given the pace at which this crisis is accelerating, the best advice we can give is to start acting before it's too late."

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

Musical Interlude 2002, "Deep Still Blue"

Full screen recommended.

2002, "Deep Still Blue"

"A Look to the Heavens"

“These three bright nebulae are often featured in telescopic tours of the constellation Sagittarius and the crowded starfields of the central Milky Way. In fact, 18th century cosmic tourist Charles Messier cataloged two of them; M8, the large nebula left of center, and colorful M20 on the right. The third, NGC 6559, is above M8, separated from the larger nebula by a dark dust lane. All three are stellar nurseries about five thousand light-years or so distant.

The expansive M8, over a hundred light-years across, is also known as the Lagoon Nebula. M20's popular moniker is the Trifid. Glowing hydrogen gas creates the dominant red color of the emission nebulae, with contrasting blue hues, most striking in the Trifid, due to dust reflected starlight. The colorful skyscape recorded with telescope and digital camera also includes one of Messier's open star clusters, M21, just above the Trifid.”

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

•

"When I heard the learn’d astronomer,

When the proofs, the figures, were ranged

in columns before me,

When I was shown the charts and diagrams,

to add, divide, and measure them,

When I sitting heard the astronomer where

he lectured with much applause in the lecture-room,

How soon unaccountable I became tired and sick,

Till rising and gliding out I wander’d off by myself,

In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time,

Look’d up in perfect silence at the stars."

- Walt Whitman

The Poet: Stephen Levine, "Half Life"

"Half Life" 

 "We walk through half our life

as if it were a fever dream,

barely touching the ground,

our eyes half open,

our heart half closed.

Not half knowing who we are,

we watch the ghost of us drift

from room to room,

through friends and lovers

never quite as real as advertised.

Not saying half we mean

or meaning half we say,

we dream ourselves

from birth to birth

seeking some true self.

Until the fever breaks

and the heart can not abide

a moment longer

as the rest of us awakens,

summoned from the dream,

not half caring for anything but love." 

~ Stephen Levine

"As Humans..."

“It is easy to overlook this thought that life just is. As humans we are inclined to feel that life must have a point. We have plans and aspirations and desires. We want to take constant advantage of the intoxicating existence we’ve been endowed with. But what’s life to a lichen? Yet its impulse to exist, to be, is every bit as strong as ours - arguably even stronger. If I were told that I had to spend decades being a furry growth on a rock in the woods, I believe I would lose the will to go on. Lichens don’t. Like virtually all living things, they will suffer any hardship, endure any insult, for a moment’s additional existence. Life, in short just wants to be.”

- Bill Bryson

"Stand Up Straight..."

 

"I Can't Wait For the Day When Life Finally Makes Sense"

"I Can't Wait For the Day When Life Finally Makes Sense"

by Rania Naim

"I can't wait for the day when life finally makes sense, when we find the silver lining in every tragedy, when we learn the lesson from each mistake and when we understand why our hearts needed to get broken a few times to let love in.

I can't wait for the day that we understand why we met the right people at the wrong time or the wrong people at the right time and why our lives didn't align to bring us together. I wonder if it's because they're the wrong ones for us or because we still have a lot of growing up to do and we're meant to be with someone who understands who weare becoming not who we were.

I can't wait for the day that we understand the lesson behind every struggle. Why we struggled to be successful, why we struggled to find love, why we struggled to reach our dreams and why we lost people who meant the world to us. I wonder if we needed these lessons to learn how to appreciate life and feel the pain of others or we just needed to learn that there is no living without suffering.

I can't wait for the day that we understand why we had to hate ourselves to love ourselves, why we had to destroy ourselves to build ourselves up again and why we had to start over just before we got to the finish line. I wonder who saved us or who inspired us to save ourselves.

I wonder if we are meant to be reborn a few times so we can learn how to truly live. I want to know what triggered us to change and how we can no longer recognize who we used to be.

I can't wait for the day that we understand why we keep falling for the wrong ones over and over again, why we can't forget those who hurt us and why we sometimes can still forgive them and take them back. I want to understand how our hearts operate, how they function, how they move us to do things we would never do and lead us to places that we know we shouldn't go to. I'm curious to know why we listen to it, why we follow it blindly like it never got us lost before, why we trust it even though it left us broken and why do we always go back to it for questions when it keeps giving us the wrong answers. I wonder if there will come a day when we stop listening to it and if we'll ever be truly alive without it.

They say everything happens for a reason and I truly believe that, but I also want to know what this reason is and why it chose us. Why some reasons keep recurring and why some reasons leave us even more perplexed. I want to understand why we go through certain things, what's the message behind it and what if we never respond to this message, what if we just ignore it and keep living, what will happen then? Will our lives get lost in translation?

I can't wait for the day that life makes sense. Some days I understand why certain things happened and others I'm not so sure, but all I know is that somehow we'll connect the dots and someday we'll complete the puzzle, until then, we have to learn how to live our lives without trying to understand it and we have to learn how to be comfortable with the irony and uncertainty of life; otherwise we'll lose our common sense trying to make sense of the life we are living."

- http://paulocoelhoblog.com/

"You Must Think..."

"How should we be able to forget those ancient myths that are at the beginning of all peoples, the myths about dragons that at the last moment turn into princesses; perhaps all the dragons of our lives are princesses who are only waiting to see us act, just once, with beauty and courage. Perhaps everything terrible is in its deepest being something helpless that needs our help. So you must not be frightened if a sadness rises up before you larger than any you have ever seen; if a restiveness, like light and cloud shadows, passes over your hands and over all you do. You must think that something is happening with you, that life has not forgotten you, that it holds you in its hand; it will not let you fall."

- Rainer Maria Rilke

"They Can’t Buy It All"

Full screen recommended.

Dan, iAllegedly 11/20/22:

"They Can’t Buy It All"

"As the real estate market starts to collapse we are hearing that there are institutional investors that are swooping in and buying entire neighborhoods. Do not be alarmed by this because this is just the beginning of the shenanigans. There will be massive amount of foreclosures there will be massive amounts of short sales and other bank owned properties."

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

The Daily "Near You?"

Dearborn, Michigan, USA. Thanks for stopping by!

"Defeat? Never"

"Defeat? Never"

by John Wilder

"Back when I was in high school, I started a quest. It would probably be a trivial quest in today’s world with the Internet, and tens of millions of songs available all from a single search. However, back when I was in high school, the only people using the Internet were computer nerds at colleges or places like Los Alamos sharing nuclear bomb design info and ASCII porn.

There was exactly one rock and roll radio station that reached the lofty heights of Wilder Mountain, and it was a good three-hour drive from where I lived. Heck, the nearest record store was a 45-minute drive. But I heard a song...and loved it. I had no idea who the artist was. All I knew was that it had guitars that sounded like jet fighters coming in for an attack (metaphorically) and a heavy metal singer with pipes to growl low and also hit the high notes.

This was not helpful. My bumbling attempts to hum the song to the record store clerk probably sounded like a toddler attempting to instruct an Albanian goat herder on how to repair a Junkers Jumo-004 on an ME 262. My incoherent rambling eventually convinced the store owner that I could probably be sold a lot of records on my quest to find the goofy song.

She was right. On one particular winter day, I bought two cassettes. Memo to the young: a cassette was an attempt to put a part of the Internet on a skinny magnetic tape and take it with you. Sort of like WIFI but with a really, really low transfer rate that cost over $7 for 42 megabytes. I listened to one of the cassettes on my forty-minute drive to Stately Wilder Manor. I don’t recall what the first cassette was. It was okay. The song I was looking for, however, wasn’t on it.

When I got to Wilder Mountain, I decided to listen to the other cassette. Pa Wilder wasn’t home. It was November, and snow was falling gently across the valley, as I looked toward the volcanic cone that dominated the view above the mountains that surrounded the valley. I put in the cassette. I hit play.

A single guitar hit an E note that crunched and then was followed by 41 seconds of guitar solo that made my brain implode. The first second was enough, the next 40? Pure passion. My father’s stereo, which before that day was primarily concerned with playing Dean Martin and Johnny Cash, must have been surprised.

I know I was. Then? Another driving song, this time about a sentient A.I. encased in an orbiting surveillance satellite. What? I was in heaven. The cassette was Judas Priest, the album? "Screaming for Vengeance". The theme of the music was unabashedly masculine. It was fueled by testosterone and optimism and defiance. It was, in short, everything I loved in life.

What was my ethos at that time? Full speed. Every moment in life. When I played football, I played football. Every ounce of my being was focused on the next play. The cleats digging into the turf, the snap as the center delivered the ball to the quarterback, my sudden sprint, and the exquisite feeling of my shoulder pads digging into that quarterback's belly as I impacted him at full speed. Life was a game to be played at full speed. When a football game was over, win or lose, the idea that I would have left anything of myself or held back an ounce of myself? I never felt that after a single game.

Win or lose. Everything I had. And that was the ethos. My focus was on doing everything that I could humanly do during the game. If we won? Excellent. If we lost? There was no room for regret since I had done every single thing I could for the team. Amazingly, here that was, in music.

This music and most of the music I have loved since then was fueled by one concept – it was fueled by the idea that, in this life, there are winners, and there are losers. But there are no victims. I was responsible for my preparation. I was responsible for my effort. I was responsible for me. If I won? Wonderful. If I lost? Yeah, it stung. But if I gave it my best, and lived up to my own values, I still won.

Again, winning was and is important. But a loss of a single day was nothing. Winning could and would come. And I would live my life, on my terms. Have I been cheated? Yes. Have I been wronged? Yes. Did I stand toe to toe with my boss and tell him that I wouldn’t sell my honor and principles to him for any reason? Yes. And did I pay a price? Duh. Do I regret it? Not for a minute. Not for a second.

There are moments in life, where honor and values will be tested. Heck, that was in this music, too.

"In this world we’re living’ in, 

we have our share of sorrow.

Answer now is don’t give in, 

aim for a new tomorrow."

Also in the music? Questions of deep philosophy. The eternal battle between Good and Evil. Oh, yeah, and hot chicks. Eventually, this changed and fell out of fashion. I think it was Bush. Or maybe raising the drinking age to 21. Or maybe drugging generations with lithium and Adderall®. Or maybe the new “zero tolerance” lifestyle, where fighting for Good and being right still resulted in a suspension. Or maybe all of that.

Music based on honor and testosterone and optimism eventually fell out of favor. I can even give you the date: September 21, 1991, when Nirvana launched "Nevermind":

"With the lights out, it's less dangerous,

Here we are now, entertain us.

I feel stupid and contagious,

Here we are now, entertain us."

That abomination of learned helplessness replaced this from Judas Priest:

"Thousand of cars and a million guitars

Screaming with power in the air.

We've found the place where the decibels race,

This army of rock will be there

To ram it down, ram it down.

Straight through the heart of this town

Ram it down, ram it down,

Razing the place to the ground.

Ram it down..."

One of these makes me feel like slitting my wrists. The other? Fills me with the idea that none of us are alone. We have power. We are...going to win, no matter what the damn odds are. Judas Priest is still touring. Kurt Cobain? Not so much. I guess it proves that one person can handle only so much Courtney Love:

"Fast and furious, we ride the universe

To carve a road for us, that slices every curve in sight.

We accelerate, no time to hesitate

This load will detonate, whoever would contend its right."

I refuse to accept defeat. The idea is against every fiber of being in my body. I realize that I will not win every battle. And I am going to listen to music, and I am going to take in media that tells me the truth, but I shall never, ever, despair no matter how dire the situation. My family? They come from heroes. So does yours. Never, ever, give up. I’m not going to stop until I stop breathing. And I won’t relinquish my honor to any man. And I am responsible for every aspect of my life and my situation.

Oh, I did find the song I was looking for, a year later:

"The hammer of the gods

Will drive our ships to new lands,

To fight the horde, sing and cry

Valhalla, I am coming..."

But that’s another story, though the song remains the same."

- https://wilderwealthywise.com/

"It's What You Know For Sure..."

“Consider a turkey that is fed every day. Every single feeding will firm up the bird’s belief that it is the general rule of life to be fed every day by friendly members of the human race ‘looking out for its best interests,’ as a politician would say. On the afternoon of the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, something unexpected will happen to the turkey. It will incur a revision of belief.“

- Nouriel Roubini

“It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble.

It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so.”

- Mark Twain

"Rules of Engagement: Thanksgiving Edition"

"Rules of Engagement: Thanksgiving Edition"

A helpful guide for avoiding rhetorical pitfalls over the holiday dinner table...

by Joel Bowman

Buenos Aires, Argentina - "Welcome to another Sunday Session, dear reader, that time of the week when we thank Zeus that we weren’t born into immense wealth, power and status, and so retain some vague hope of living a decent, honest life... (in vino veritas).

Our American readers are preparing for a Thanksgiving of their own this coming week. Twenty score and one year have passed since the Pilgrims celebrated their first harvest of the New World, back in 1621. The holiday has been commemorated, on and off, since George Washington declared it a national day in 1789, but it wasn’t official until Honest Abe made it so, proclaiming...“Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens,” calling on the American people to also, “with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience .. fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty hand to heal the wounds of the nation...”

On the subject of perverseness and disobedience, just while we’ve got you, your Australian-born editor has always had a special affection for this most American of holidays, known to him as the day when families come together to flesh out irreconcilable political differences over too much cider and victuals.

Though our quasi-American wife assures us this behavior is not exclusive to Thanksgiving (“some families drag their frivolous disputes on until Christmas, or even beyond...”), we recall with fondness many a fracas in which tipsy uncles clashed with college student nephews and nieces over the controversial topic du jour.

Of course, there are certain ways of getting one’s point across that are more helpful than others... and some that are downright harmful. And so, with the holidays just around the corner, we thought it might be fun to examine a few of the dos and don’ts of artful dinner table rhetoric. Please enjoy a light-hearted guide for Turkey Day veterans and newcomers alike, below...

"Rules of Engagement - Thanksgiving Edition"

By Joel Bowman

"The first, and perhaps most obvious, rule for maintaining civil discourse (even within the family) is to never resort to ad hominem. Essentially, this means turning to personal attacks, rather than sticking to matters of logic. “Playing the man and not the ball,” as sportsfolk are heard to say. It’s just bad form, mate.

So even if Aunt Joan is a prattling old windbag with decidedly dated views... and even though Cousin Charlie is a well known charlatan who deserves to have lost his money on scammy meme stocks... and even if Uncle Jeffrey is a dipsomaniacal bore whose third wife is even more insufferable than the previous two... best not to say so.

Also steer clear of labels like “fatso,” “dunderhead,” “moron,” “millennial,” “skinflint,” “feckless pest,” “half-wit,” “jackass,” etc. Oh, and if Niece Elly decides she now identifies as a fern and asks to be referred to using gender/species neutral neopronouns, just nod along and go with it. You can lament the downfall of Western Civ and traditional values at the Chick-fil-A drive through on your way home.

Now that you’ve holstered the nasty slurs, a close second on the “Logical Fallacies to Avoid on Holidays List” is the Hasty Generalization trap. This occurs when one interlocutor summons a few, often anecdotal instances to make loose and sweeping claims, often on a subject they know precious little about. For instance, just because every single person you’ve individually encountered with blue/pink dyed hair happens to have proven themselves a brainless weirdo, that doesn’t mean there isn’t someone out there eager to establish themselves as the exception to the rule.

Recall Nassim Taleb’s Black Swan analogy: while a thousand sightings of white swans is not sufficient to prove once and for all the statement “all swans are white,” a single sighting of a black swan is adequate to disprove it. In other words, you are just one friendly, witty, well-informed, empathetic, self-aware, blue-haired Starbucks barista away from having all those harmful and triggering stereotypes disproved. Rejoice!

Pot, Meet Kettle: Next we have the notorious Appeal to Hypocrisy tactic, wherein the speaker defends himself against a particular charge by pointing out the obvious and demonstrable fact that the accuser is similarly guilty. Also known as the “pot calling the kettle black” gambit.

For instance, don’t say “Well, Republicans also lie, cheat and steal” as a way of defending Democrats from doing likewise (or vice-versa). Simply agree that both political parties are chock full of ratbags and that anyone who seeks office ought immediately to be disqualified from holding it on reasonable suspicion of hubris and delusions of grandeur. You and your new ally may wish to commemorate this novel common ground with a toast to liberty and apolitical enlightenment.

Next up we have the popular Circular Argument ploy, a favorite of cutesy, tag-teaming couples (think honeymooners, newlyweds, college sweethearts, etc. who don’t yet know what they’re in for). Infuriatingly, this often occurs when said saccharine duo completes one and other’s sentences. “Smoking pot is wrong because it’s against the law....”

“... exactly, babe, and that’s precisely why it’s against the law; because it’s wrong.”

“You got it, babe!” (*Breaks for conspicuous canoodling*)

Textbook circular argument. Rather than getting between the pawwing pair, better to just annoy everyone present by saying something like, “While not a smoker myself, I happily defend every same-sex couple’s right to guard their personal weed stash with their firearm of choice.”

Which brings us to the popular False Dilemma ruse, whereby the speaker offers (always generously) two equally poor options as if no others existed. (We covered this in last week’s Sunday Session, "The Illusion of Choice", which garnered quite a number of, ahem... enthusiastic responses.) Recall George W. Bush’s classic line, “We will fight them over there so we do not have to fight them over here.” Boy oh boy did they misunderestimate Dubbya! Never mentioned was the apparently ludicrous idea that “we” might not fight “them” at all, something one might have expected to occur to a man who also said, “I know the human being and fish can coexist peacefully.” Umm...? Moving along...

I, Bernanke: Another classic holiday ploy is the Argument from Authority. Someone out there, possibly one of our dear readers, will find themselves this year seated across from a man recently awarded the Nobel Prize for Economics. When the subject of the economy inevitably comes up, likely introduced by the faux-modest laureate himself, you may be sure the Argument from Authority is lurking close by. (So too the aforementioned False Dilemma.)

“It took a certain ‘courage to act,’ I freely admit,” Mr. Bernanke will hold forth, “but our economy was on the brink. In fact, were it not for my deep knowledge of financial meltdowns, and of course the bravery with which my name has since become synonymous, we may not be gathered here today, enjoying this sumptuous feast, brought to us by Julia and Maria in the kitchen. Gracias señoritas. In fact, we may not have an economy at all...”

If, by some twist of fate or punishment, you do happen to be seated at the above table and on the receiving end of said sermon, please do us all a favor and refuse to accept such balderdash. Call the man out. Herewith, some suggested notes: “Facts do not care for your prizes and positions, my dear man. Fortunately for us all, reality is not subject to opinion. Your tenure as Fed Chairman, unblemished by a single instance of success or real insight, was objectively disastrous. Indeed, your much lauded actions led us into the mess in which we presently find ourselves mired. True courage would have involved thoughtful inaction. Now, unless there is another round of those delicious cookies... thank you Julia and Maria for a delicious meal, thank you Mrs. Bernanke for the invite, and good evening to you all.”

Although there are a great many more Rhetorical Weapons of Mass Destruction (too many to cover in one pithy Sunday Sesh), we would be remiss if we didn’t conclude with the oft-misquoted Godwin’s Law, or Godwin’s Rule of Nazi Analogies. Always a cheerful party favorite, especially after a round or two of Moscow Mules, you’ll hear this one invoked when one or another dinner guest inevitably falls to reductio ad Hitlerum to prove a point. It is usually then said that “the first person to bring up Hitler loses the argument.”

But this is a misnomer. Introduced into the common vernacular by American attorney and author, Mike Godwin, back in the early ‘90s, the eponymous law simply asserts that, as online discussion forums grow, the probability that someone will veer into Nazi territory increases, eventually approaching a near certainty. Crucially, this tendency was observed regardless of the group’s participants and regardless of the topic under discussion.

So when Aunt Molly calls Cousin Mike a “fascist” for his views on the midterm elections... or Grandpa labels Gramdma a “Nazi” for insisting that the menfolk eat leftovers at the table instead of on the couch in front of the game, know that it’s nothing personal. It’s just Thanksgiving."

-https://bonnerprivateresearch.substack.com/

"Massive Price Increases Everywhere! Exploring Options & Money Saving Tips!"

Full screen recommended.

Adventures with Danno, 11/20/22:

"Massive Price Increases Everywhere! 

Exploring Options & Money Saving Tips!"

"In today's vlog we are noticing massive price increases everywhere at the grocery stores! We are exploring options to try and save money, and will be discussing the Kroger delivery Boost memberships. It's getting rough out here as stores seem to be struggling with getting products!"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

"How It Really Is"

 

Greg Hunter, "Unstoppable Crash Worse than 2008 Coming"

"Unstoppable Crash Worse than 2008 Coming"

By Greg Hunter’s USAWatchdog.com

"Six-time, best-selling financial author James Rickards says the upcoming book “Sold Out” lays out the case why a huge crash is already a certainty sometime in 2023. In a nutshell, broken supply chains have already caused big inflation, and the Fed is raising rates to tamp it back down. On top of the perfect storm of inflation and prolonged supply problems, we have the recent meltdown of the FTX crypto currency exchange. Rickards says, “It is definitely going to cause sequential collapses in the crypto world, but will it jump the fence into the broader financial world? My expectation is it will, but it can take six months or more to play out. We probably have an acute global financial crisis coming anyway. If FTX never existed, I would say we are staring at a worse financial crisis than 2008. Throw FTX on top of that, and it’s like throwing gasoline on a fire. It will accelerate the fire. So, we’re probably going to have problems anyway, but the FTX implosion just makes it worse.”

As far as the dwindling supply chains, Rickards says, “The old supply chain has collapsed. A new supply chain will emerge, and I talk about that in my book and what it will look like. Right now, we are in a very messy middle period where things don’t work well. It’s like a vase. You knock over a vase, and it breaks into 5,000 pieces. You can’t put it back together. You’ve got to go get a new vase. We broke the vase, and we are shopping for a new one. We are not there yet. We are just cleaning up the mess. Russia invades Ukraine. The Ukrainian plastic conduit factory shuts down, and all of a sudden, the BMW production lines are shut down because they cannot get a part. Again, this is another example of how this is all falling apart, and it’s not going to be put back together quickly. There will be a new supply chain, and I call it supply chain 2.0, but we are in that in between time, and it’s going to be just a mess.”

Rickards says the Fed is going to keep raising rates because that is what they keep telling the public. Rickards says, “They are telling us what they are going to do, and you should believe them.”

Rickards says we do have inflation, and it’s going to be with us for awhile, but we are also going to get deflation too. Rickards points out, “Why does Warren Buffett and Brookshire Hathaway have $130 billion in cash? Buffett is one of the greatest investors of all time. Why isn’t he out there buying stocks? Again, why does he have $130 billion in cash? It’s because Buffett sees what I see. Yes, this thing is going to completely crash. It’s a really good idea to have cash because you can go shopping in the wreckage and pick up some bargains. My point is, we don’t have to guess. Look at the Treasury yield curve. Look at the euro/dollar futures yield curve. Look at other metrics, and guess what it looks like? It looks like 2007. Everything I am describing, but not quite as extreme by the way, was true in 2007. These euro/dollar futures were behaving then exactly as they are now. Except now, the inversion is even worse, which means we are in for a worse crisis than 2008. It’s coming. Everything I said has nothing to do with FTX. Throw FTX on top, and as I said, you are throwing gasoline on a fire.”

After the inflation, Rickards says count on big deflation. He will explain exactly how that happens in the 58-minute interview."

- https://usawatchdog.com/

Join Greg Hunter on Rumble as he goes One-on-One with six-time, best-selling author James Rickards. Rickards’ new book “Sold Out” will be coming out in early December.

- https://rumble.com/

"The End Of The Retail Industry As We Know It Today"

Full screen recommended.

"The End Of The Retail Industry As We Know It Today"

by Epic Economist

"This holiday season may be the last for many struggling U.S. retailers, and that’s a haunting prospect for the entire sector. Even industry leaders are afraid that sales and profits will fall short of expectations again – after three-quarters of disappointing results. This period is typically the most profitable time of the year for many businesses, but each new survey shows that consumer spending is going to be way down in 2022. At the same time, some troubling trends are squeezing the life out of the industry from both sides, and they aren’t likely to go away any time soon. If these companies fail to recover from their losses over the next few weeks, we will soon see a lot more decaying buildings with boarded-up windows where thriving retail establishments once existed. The health of the retail industry is critical to the health of the overall U.S. economy, and right now the outlook suggests that a bloodbath is about to begin.

Roughly 57% of consumers who plan to spend less on holiday shopping in 2022 mostly blame rising costs, and about the same rate reports being worried about finances. Retailers have already taken a series of measures to attract customers' attention and increase sales volumes, such as hosting holiday sales earlier than normal and ratcheting up discounts to move merchandise. But so far their efforts haven’t really paid off.

“As we look ahead, we expect the challenging environment to linger beyond the holiday season and into 2023,” Chief Financial Officer Michael Fiddelke said on the call with reporters. The executive pointed to some worrying trends currently plaguing the industry – and, unfortunately, they aren’t going away any time soon.

A tsunami of retail theft is drastically reducing the company’s gross profit margin and further aggravating Target’s financial problems. In its latest quarterly report, the discount retailer revealed that inventory shrinkage — or the disappearance of merchandise — has reduced its gross profit margin by $400 million so far in 2022 compared to 2021. “And we expect it will reduce our gross margin by more than $600 million for the full year,” Fiddelke added, detailing that there are "a handful of things that can drive shrink in our business and theft is certainly a key driver”. “We know we're not alone across retail in seeing a trend that I think has gotten increasingly worse over the last 12 to 18 months. So we're taking the right actions in our stores to help curb that trend where we can, but that becomes an increasing headwind on our business and we know the business of others," he said.

With almost two-thirds, or 63%, of Americans living paycheck to paycheck, it is clear that in 2022, more people fell out of the middle class. In 2021, that rate was sitting at just 57%. “Consumers are not able to keep up with the pace that inflation is increasing. Being employed is no longer enough for the everyday American. Wage growth has been inadequate, leaving more consumers than ever with little to nothing left over after managing monthly expenses,” LendingClub financial health officer Anuj Nayar highlighted in a recent report.

Even though wages have increased nationally by an average of 5.2%, the price of everything else has climbed much higher, Schiff outlines. “On an annual basis, real average hourly earnings decreased by 3.0% from September 2021 to September. It was the 18th consecutive month of declining real wages on an annual basis. This means while you got a 5.2% raise over the last year, your purchasing power dropped 3%. In other words, you have more dollars in your pocket, but you can’t buy as much with them. In effect, you got a 3% pay cut this year,” the economist notes.

With reduced buying power and carrying massive levels of debt, the average American consumer is completely drained, and so are retail sectors heavily reliant on discretionary spending.

Some of the hardest hit businesses are in the entertainment sector, and even media giant and specialty retailer Disney is reporting a collapse in its operations, suffering over $1.4 billion in streaming losses and a stock drop of around 39% for the year."

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

Musical Interlude: 2002, “Sea of Dreams”

 2002, “Sea of Dreams”

"A Look to the Heavens"

“Magnificent island universe NGC 2403 stands within the boundaries of the long-necked constellation Camelopardalis. Some 10 million light-years distant and about 50,000 light-years across, the spiral galaxy also seems to have more than its fair share of giant star forming HII regions, marked by the telltale reddish glow of atomic hydrogen gas. The giant HII regions are energized by clusters of hot, massive stars that explode as bright supernovae at the end of their short and furious lives. 

A member of the M81 group of galaxies, NGC 2403 closely resembles another galaxy with an abundance of star forming regions that lies within our own local galaxy group, M33 the Triangulum Galaxy. Spiky in appearance, bright stars in this colorful galaxy portrait of NGC 2403 lie in the foreground, within our own Milky Way.”

- http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap150327.html

Chet Raymo, “At Home In An Infinite Universe”

“At Home In An Infinite Universe”

by Chet Raymo

“They are questions that bedeviled thinkers for thousands of years: Is the universe infinite or finite, eternal or of a finite age? It is certainly hard to imagine a universe that extends without limit in every direction, or a universe without a beginning or end. It is equally difficult to imagine a finite universe; what is beyond the edge? Or a beginning or end in time; how can something come from nothing? How can what is cease to be?

The problems are so intractable philosophically that their resolution has generally been left to the theologians, which from a philosophical (or scientific) perspective offers no solution at all. Giordano Bruno was burned at the stake for proposing a philosophical resolution (an infinite universe) that offended theology.

An escape from befuddlement is provided by Einstein's theory of general relativity, which- for example- can describe a finite universe without a boundary, as the "two-dimensional" surface of a sphere is finite and without an edge. Unfortunately, multi-dimensional curved space-time is so counterintuitive that it is difficult to get one's head around it without mastery of the mathematics. Given a choice between the ancient myths of your local preacher and the obtuse mathematics of the physics professor, it's not hard to guess what most folks will opt for.

Meanwhile, I'm reading a meditation on infinity by physics professor Anthony Aguirre, in a collection of essays called "Future Science." He discusses contemporary cosmological theories based on general relativity, and in particular the rehabilitation of the idea of an infinite and eternal universe, or, more precisely, that our universe might be just one of an infinity of infinite universes. He writes in conclusion: “What seems clear, however, is that infinity can no longer be safely ignored; beautifully constructed, empirically supported, self-consistent theories have brought infinity from idle curiosity to central player in contemporary cosmology. And if correct, the worldview these theories represent constitutes a perspective shift unlike any other: in comparison to the universe, we would be not just small but strictly zero. Well, I can't imagine many folks racing to embrace that conclusion.

Oh, but wait. Aguirre adds one final sentence: "Yet here we are, contemplating - if not quite understanding - it all.”

- http://blog.sciencemusings.com/

The Daily "Near You?"

Ozark, Missouri, USA. Thanks for stopping by!

Canadian Prepper, "90% of People Will Die Like This..."

Full screen recommended.

Canadian Prepper, 11/19/22:

"90% of People Will Die Like This..."

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

"You Decide! Crash, Correction or Chill?"

Full screen recommended.

Dan, iAllegedly, 11/19/22:

"You Decide! Crash, Correction or Chill?"

Our economy has been called many things lately. Is this a Crash, correction or just a chill with where we’re at? Please let me know your input on what you think of this."

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/