"Americans Will Freak Out When Gas Stations Run Out Of Fuel This Winter"

Full screen recommended.

"Americans Will Freak Out When Gas 

Stations Run Out Of Fuel This Winter"

by Epic Economist

"If you thought we had seen the worst of fuel prices and shortages, we’re sorry to break it to you but official agencies are warning that the energy crisis is far from over and that the period from December 2022 to April 2023 will make history as one of the most chaotic and difficult winters on record. “A winter from hell,” they say. The U.S. simply can’t produce enough supplies to meet the growing demand. Our energy systems have been stretched to the limit, and now we’re about to face the consequences of all this.

The U.S. Energy Information Administration just released a new Short-Term Energy Outlook Report alerting consumers and businesses that all energy prices, including oil, oil-based fuels, natural gas, coal, and electricity, are set to soar above their historical highs in 2023, citing geopolitical uncertainties and extremely tight inventories as the main drivers of the coming spike. Shortages of fuels, including gasoline, are also on the horizon, according to the International Energy Agency. “The crisis is not over,” IEA said in a press release last week, with members urging the government to take action to address dwindling supplies of diesel and gas as well as prepare for electricity outages all across the nation.

2023 may pose an “even tougher test” than the energy crunch of 2022, which led energy prices across all categories to soar by nearly 30% for U.S. households, and force industries to slow down production to avoid “crippling energy bills,” the agency noted, adding that soon, we will begin to see campaigns that will encourage the public to use less energy. Right now, exports are running at record rates, and refineries are already operating around the clock, but inventories still remain below the seasonal average. In fact, they are at the second-lowest point for this time of the year in over 12 years, analysts reported. And there are no signs of improvement in the level of inventories despite the rise in energy prices.

None of this suggests that the trend of lower gasoline prices we’re thankfully seeing right now is going to be sustained in the long run. On the contrary, the latest figures suggest more financial pain for U.S. drivers. At the same time, electricity generation is also compromised. A major contributor to that crunch is the lack of alternative sources for power production: coal plants are being retired, and droughts in many parts of the country have hampered our hydropower capacity. A colder-than-expected winter could push consumption even higher and power grids are at real risk of collapsing.

Throughout the entire year, energy prices have been slamming U.S. consumers, but a paper by International Monetary Fund economists projects that their budgets will be even more squeezed in the months ahead. They estimate that the increase in fuel prices will raise households’ expenditure on energy in 2023 by 50% to between 7% and 10% of their income. “At some point in the future, historians will describe December 2022 to April 2023 as the winter from hell,” the Energy Intelligence Group. group stressed. “The energy system is already stretched to breaking point. No excess capacity exists today in the sector - none.”

- https://www.epiceconomist.com/

Musical Interlude: Gnomusy, "Footprints On The Sea"

Gnomusy (David Caballero), 

"Footprints On The Sea"

"A Look to the Heavens"

"Cradled in cosmic dust and glowing hydrogen, stellar nurseries in Orion the Hunter lie at the edge of a giant molecular cloud some 1,500 light-years away. Spanning nearly 25 degrees, this breath-taking vista stretches across the well-known constellation from head to toe (top to bottom). The Great Orion Nebula, the closest large star forming region, is right of center. To its left are the Horsehead Nebula, M78, and Orion's belt stars. Red giant Betelgeuse is at the hunter's shoulder, bright blue Rigel at his foot, and the glowing Lambda Orionis (Meissa) nebula at the far left, near Orion's head.

Of course, the Orion Nebula and bright stars are easy to see with the unaided eye, but dust clouds and emission from the extensive interstellar gas in this nebula-rich complex, are too faint and much harder to record. In this mosaic of broadband telescopic images, additional image data acquired with a narrow hydrogen alpha filter was used to bring out the pervasive tendrils of energized atomic hydrogen gas and the arc of the giant Barnard's Loop.”

- http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap101023.html

"Memento Mori"

"Memento Mori"

by Ryan Holiday

"Were all the geniuses of history to focus on this single theme, they could never fully express their bafflement at the darkness of the human mind. No person hands out their money to passersby, but to how many do each of us hand out our lives! We're tight-fisted with property and money, yet think too little of wasting time, the one thing about which we should all be the toughest misers." - Seneca

Born with a chronic illness that loomed large throughout his life, Seneca was constantly thinking about and writing about the final act of life. "Let us prepare our minds as if we'd come to the very end of life," he said. "Let us postpone nothing. Let us balance life's books each day. The one who puts the finishing touches on their life each day is never short of time."

Most interestingly, he quibbled with the idea that death was something that lay ahead of us in the uncertain future. "This is our big mistake," Seneca wrote, "to think we look forward to death. Most of death is already gone. Whatever time has passed is owned by death." That was Seneca's great insight - that we are dying every day and no day, once dead, can be revived.

So we should listen to the command that Marcus gave himself. He wrote,"Concentrate every minute like a Roman on doing what's in front of you with precise and genuine seriousness, tenderly, willingly, with justice. And on freeing yourself from all other distractions." The key to this kind of concentration? "Do everything as if it were the last thing you were doing in your life."

That's the power of Memento Mori - of meditating on your mortality. It isn't about being morbid or making you scared. It's about giving you power. It's to inspire, to motivate, to clarify, to concentrate like a Roman on the thing in front of you. Because it may well be the last thing you do in your life.

The Stoics were philosophers, but more than that they were doers. They didn't have room for big words or big ideas, just stuff that made you better right here, right now. As Marcus Aurelius said: "Justice, honesty, self-control, courage, don't make room for anything but it - for anything that might lead you astray, tempt you off the road, and leave you unable to devote yourself completely to achieving the goodness that is uniquely yours."

- ryanholiday.net.

Chet Raymo, “The (Unattainable) Thing Itself”

“The (Unattainable) Thing Itself”

by Chet Raymo

“Clear water in a brilliant bowl,

Pink and white carnations. The light

In the room more like a snowy air,

Reflecting snow. A newly-fallen snow

At the end of winter when afternoons return.

Pink and white carnations- one desires

So much more than that. The day itself

Is simplified: a bowl of white,

Cold, a cold porcelain, low and round,

With nothing more than the carnations there.”

"Simplicity. Morning. Forty minutes till sunrise. Coffee. An English muffin. Sit on the terrace. The sky a deep violet. Then rose. Then gold. Simplicity. The senses fill to overbrimming, displacing thought. The moment is sweet and pure. Distilled. The shackles of conscience fall away. One simply is.

“Say even that this complete simplicity

Stripped one of all one's torments, concealed

The evilly compounded, vital I

And made it fresh in a world of white,

A world of clear water, brilliant-edged,

Still one would want more, one would need more,

More than a world of white and snowy scents.”

Now I wait with my eyes fixed on that place along the horizon where the Sun will rise. The sky itself holds its breath, anticipates the flash of green. I try, I try to empty myself, Zenlike, to become an empty vessel for nature to fill. A gathering vessel, brilliant edged. To exist entirely in the moment, outside of time, this moment, just now, now, as the disk of the Sun bubbles up on the sea horizon, that orb of of molten gold.

“There would still remain the never-resting mind,

So that one would want to escape, come back

To what had been so long composed.

The imperfect is our paradise.

Note that, in this bitterness, delight,

Since the imperfect is so hot in us,

Lies in flawed words and stubborn sounds.”

It's no use, of course. No way to obviate the conscious mind. Perhaps a Zen master might do it, a mystic in transport, a drunken sailor who walks into a lamppost. Even as the Sun's disk inflates, swells, unaccountably huge, the mind parses, frames, construes. I close my eyes to shut out thought and the words fill up the space behind my eyelids. The thing itself is out of reach, the moment adulterated by mind. The blessing of consciousness. And the curse."

- http://blog.sciencemusings.com/

(The three stanzas are Wallace Stevens' "The Poems of Our Climate.")

The Daily "Near You?"

Wheat Ridge, Colorado, USA. Thanks for stopping by!

The Poet: James Kavanaugh, “Searchers”

“Searchers”

“Some people do not have to search -

they find their niche early in life and rest there,

seemingly contented and resigned.

They do not seem to ask much of life,

sometimes they do not seem to take it seriously.

At times I envy them,

but usually I do not understand them -

seldom do they understand me.

I am one of the searchers.

There are, I believe, millions of us.

We are not unhappy, but neither are we really content.

We continue to explore life,

hoping to uncover its ultimate secret.

We continue to explore ourselves,

hoping to understand.

We like to walk along the beach -

we are drawn by the ocean,

taken by its power, its unceasing motion,

its mystery and unspeakable beauty.

We like forests and mountains, deserts and hidden rivers,

and the lonely cities as well.

Our sadness is as much a part of our lives as is our laughter.

To share our sadness with the one we love is

perhaps as great a joy as we can know -

unless it is to share our laughter.

We searchers are ambitious only for life itself,

for everything beautiful it can provide.

Most of all we want to love and be loved.

We want to live in a relationship that will not impede

our wandering, nor prevent our search, nor lock us in prison walls.

We do not want to prove ourselves to another or compete for love.

We are wanderers, dreamers and lovers,

lonely souls who dare ask of life everything good and beautiful.”

- James Kavanaugh

"The Heart of Humanity"

"The Heart of Humanity"

by Madisyn Taylor, The DailyOM

"Sitting with our sadness takes the courage to believe that we can bear the pain and we will come out the other side. The last thing most of us want to hear or think about when we are dealing with profound feelings of sadness is that deep learning can be found in this place. In the midst of our pain, we often feel picked on by life, or overwhelmed by the enormity of some loss, or simply too exhausted to try and examine the situation. We may feel far too disappointed and angry to look for anything resembling a bright side to our suffering. Still, somewhere in our hearts, we know that we will eventually emerge from the depths into the light of greater awareness. Remembering this truth, no matter how elusive it seems, can help.

The other thing we often would rather not hear when we are dealing with intense sadness is that the only way out of it is through it. Sitting with our sadness takes the courage to believe that we can bear the pain and the faith that we will come out the other side. With courage, we can allow ourselves to cycle through the grieving process with full inner permission to experience it. This is a powerful teaching that sadness has to offer us - the ability to surrender and the acceptance of change go hand in hand.

Another teaching of sadness is compassion for others who are in pain, because it is only in feeling our own pain that we can really understand and allow for someone else’s. Sadness is something we all go through, and we all learn from it and are deepened by its presence in our lives. While our own individual experiences of sadness carry with them unique lessons, the implications of what we learn are universal. The wisdom we gain from going through the process of feeling loss, heartbreak, or deep disappointment gives us access to the heart of humanity."

- https://www.dailyom.com/

"The Only Cure..."

"We're all susceptible to it, the dread and anxiety of not knowing what's coming. It's pointless in the end, because all the worrying and the making of plans for things that could or could not happen, it only makes things worse. So walk your dog or take a nap. Just whatever you do, stop worrying. Because the only cure for paranoia is to be here, just as you are."

- Dr. Meredith Grey, "Grey's Anatomy"

"There Arrives A Point..."

"When swimming into a dark tunnel, there arrives a point of no return when you no longer have enough breath to double back. Your only choice is to swim forward into the unknown and pray for an exit."

- Dan Brown

"Economic Market Snapshot 12/27/22"

"Economic Market Snapshot 12/27/22"

Market Data Center, Live Updates:

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

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

Only the consequences are real - to you!

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

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A comprehensive, essential daily read.

- http://www.shadowstats.com/

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Financial Stress Index

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

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- https://www.dailyjobcuts.com/

Job cuts and much more.

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- https://www.zerohedge.com/

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- https://www.investmentwatchblog.com/

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- https://wallstreetonparade.com/

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- https://www.whatreallyhappened.com/

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- https://jessescrossroadscafe.blogspot.com/

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Commentary, highly recommended:

- https://www.theburningplatform.com/

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"The more I see of the monied classes,

the better I understand the guillotine."

- George Bernard Shaw

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

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And now... The End Game...

"How It Really Is"

 

"A Very Fit Consideration..."

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

- Christiaan Huygens, (1629-1695)

"A Wise Man Once Said..."

“A wise man once said you can have anything in life if you will sacrifice everything else for it. What he meant is nothing comes without a price. So before you go into battle, you better decide how much you’re willing to lose. Too often, going after what feels good means letting go of what you know is right, and letting someone in means abandoning the walls you’ve spent a lifetime building. Of course, the toughest sacrifices are the ones we don’t see coming, when we don’t have time to come up with a strategy to pick a side or to measure the potential loss. When that happens, when the battle chooses us and not the other way around, that’s when the sacrifice can turn out to be more than we can bear.

So, how do you beat the odds when it’s one against a billion? You’re just outnumbered. You stand strong, keep pushing yourself against all rational limits, and never give up. But the truth of the matter is despite how hard you try and fight to stay in control, when it’s all said and done, sometimes you’re just outnumbered.”

- "Meredith", "Gray's Anatomy"

"Exactly Who Is The Enemy?"

"Exactly Who Is The Enemy?"

By John Wilder

"I decided last night to shift everything over by a day this week. Why? Christmas. Christmas Day was pretty mellow. We are Christmas Eve package openers, so there weren’t many surprises. We had a nice ham dinner starring mashed potatoes, gravy, sautéed mushrooms, and great company. After that?

A chess game broke out. It turns out that Pugsley decided he wanted to learn to play, and has been on chess.com playing games. We played a couple, then The Boy (on college break) and I split a couple of games, and then The Mrs. was even coaxed into playing a game, too. So, you can see why I skipped out on writing Monday’s missive.

Christmas is over for this year, so we can begin to return to dealing with the problems at hand: The Narrative. First: who, exactly, is The Enemy? Oh, sure, the Ultimate Enemy is obvious to folks like me who are Christian. That doesn’t mean that we can’t talk about the minions.

One thing that’s become very clear is that the difference between the good guys and the bad guys is simple: the good guys want government and economic system to work for the people, and the bad guys want the people to work for the government and economic system. I’ve used the terms Left, Leftism, and Leftist to name them, but it’s a clumsy, inaccurate term. I think I’ll keep using the term, but I just wanted to recognize that it is an approximation.

In the real world, the actual Commie left has been co-opted. The goal has been to remove the economic from the political. That has been hugely successful. When is the last time that either party actually did something real on the economic front? The latest spending bill was nearly 4,200 pages, and most legislators had only a few hours to review it.

What’s in it? Who knows? It’s certain that economic policy isn’t debated, and the Federal Reserve Bank® isn’t federal, yet makes decisions that widely impact the nation and the world. Without meaningful oversight. Without significant debate. If politicians don’t control economic decisions, what chance does an individual have to change the system?

Economics have been pulled from political control. And what’s the goal? Whatever makes folks work for the economic system. As the World Economic Forum® stated, the goal is that nothing is owned, and everything is rented. Need a frying pan (to cook your state-approved dinner)? That’ll just be a rental fee of $1.50 for the night. There’s a cleaning fee if you don’t return the pan clean. And the food? Bugs. It’s not like there’s a great technology that turns bugs into human-friendly protein, called, “a chicken”.

The Far-Left (think the actual committed Commies in Antifa®) have been co-opted into being race warriors and fighting for “rights” based on fetishes. When they do this, they are no threat to the economic system, at all. The George Floyd riots weren’t about solving racial inequity. The George Floyd riots were about reprogramming the Left into something harmless to the system.

But even those fetishes are being sold as products. Think about the profit opportunity in just one sex-change surgery. The average transsexual is worth hundreds of thousands of dollars to the economy. That’s the goal – a society that looks like a pyramid, with just a few at the top.

What threatens the system? Anything that offers resistance. Anything that wakes people up. Anything that makes people upset at a system that is designed to transfer wealth out of their hands can concentrate it into the hands of a global elite. I understand that this is Evil, and wonder how many of them have actually made the decision to be Evil themselves. Ghislaine Maxwell went to jail over a client list that had to be sealed.

Why is that? To those not in the inner circle, it probably looks like people trying to create control, to make a profit. To do this best, you need international treaties that people can’t see or control, that are made without their knowledge or consent. This creates a structure that allows every important decision to be made outside the realm of politics.

See? No politics in the economics. And to do that properly, it has to be done so people don’t care. Trump was a surprise to them. Trump was always focused on the deal, yet he (either intentionally or by mistake) created a situation where tens of millions of people “woke up,” at least for a little while, to the system that was set up beyond their control or even knowledge. He was a glitch in the matrix, a spelling error in the Narrative.

I was recently reading a book, and in it, the author indicated that the reason that German propaganda failed in the Netherlands during World War II was that the Germans didn’t mindlessly repeat the same slogans like a Korean War Era communist concentration camp. No, they tried to appeal (according to the author) to reason. And when you appeal to reason, that leaves room to think and to choose something else.

That’s why COVID-19 became the litmus test – everyone was supposed to listen to the slogans, repeated endlessly. The slogans were calibrated, repeated endlessly from every source: “safe and effective,” “free and easy.” If there weren’t side effects on millions of people, it would have been bad enough. But it shows just how easy it is to control a population.

That’s also why Trump was dangerous. He certainly didn’t accomplish much, outside of several Supreme Court picks, but from the beginning, there was a hard push-back against him. Why? He wasn’t like ¡Jeb!, just another controlled candidate from the system-loving uniparty where the only decisions politicians make are the unimportant ones. And the only thoughts you’re allowed to have are those that don’t interfere with the Narrative."

- https://wilderwealthywise.com/

"Someone Once Told Me..."

"Someone once told me that time is a predator that stalked us all our lives. But I rather believe that time is a companion who goes with us on the journey, that reminds us to cherish every moment because they'll never come again. What we leave behind is not as important as how we live it. After all, Number One, we're only mortal."

- Captain Jean-Luc Picard

"History Repeating"

"History Repeating"

The war drums beat louder as nations 

rush to ignore the lessons of the past.

by Bill Bonner

Baltimore, Maryland - "Hasn’t anyone ever read de Caulaincourt? David Petraeus was on the TV this morning – hustling for more taxpayers’ money. The disgraced general (he gave national security secrets to his mistress, who put them in a book) was drumming up support for The Ukraine… or more specifically, for buying more weapons from US military suppliers to send their way. Mr. Petraeus is one of many spokesmen and shills for the war sector, one of America’s biggest and most profitable industries.

For decades, the war mongers have kept the pot boiling, always looking for enemies – foreign and domestic. And this past February, 2022, they finally succeeded in goading Russia into war. The long, sorry history of government in the Ukraine is beyond the scope of this blog. So, too, is it beyond the interest of Americans, generally. There couldn’t be more than a few dozen people in the whole US who care whether the Donetsk People’s Republic is controlled by the Ukrainians, by the Russians, or by the people themselves.

One of the goals of the war industry has been to make Russia the “them” that “us” has to fight. Though, in 1990, US Secretary of State James Baker had promised Mikhail Gorbachev that NATO would “not advance one inch to the East,” by 2022, it had pushed Putin’s back to the wall. NATO’s missiles in the Ukraine were as unacceptable to Vladimir Putin in 2022 as Soviet missiles in Cuba were to John Kennedy in 1962. And when the Biden Administration brushed off his concerns, Putin took action.

Who’s right? Who’s wrong? Who knows. But today, people all over Europe and America are flying Ukrainian flags, listening to David Petraeus, and treating Volodymyr Zelenskyy like a war hero. Even from the pulpit, we were advised to pray for Ukrainians, but not for Russians.

Unremarkable Allegiance: None of this is especially remarkable. In baseball and war, people take sides. Usually, they take whatever side is sold to them most successfully. In WWI, for example, Americans could choose to take the side of France and Britain or of Germany. But England had cut the cable from Berlin to New York. All the news coming from the war was filtered through the British propaganda service. And it wasn’t long before Americans were stoning Dachshunds in the street and shooting foreigners in the mistaken belief that they were German nationals.

Also not remarkable is that the world’s leading empire is going after Russia. There must be something about Russia; like a chorus girl on the make for a rich, old man, she seems to attract degenerate empires.

Charles XII of Sweden attacked Russia in 1708. He was an early proponent of the blitzkrieg – striking hard and moving fast with his cavalry. The Russians retreated, destroying all farm animals and food stocks as they went. Then, as they continued to pursue the Russians, the Swedes ran out of supplies. And in the final battle, at Poltava, the Swedes were decisively defeated. Only 543 Swedes escaped – including Charles XII himself – out of an original force of 40,000.

Click image for larger size.

Charles Minard's 1869 chart showing the number of men in Napoleon’s 1812 Russian campaign army, their movements, as well as the temperature they encountered on the return path. Source: Wikipedia Commons

A century later, Napoleon repeated the adventure, but with 10 times as many men. Similarly, the Russians retreated… using their same scorched earth tactic. And then, reaching Moscow, but achieving no decisive victory, the French were forced to retreat – in the winter – across the vast steppes. The Russians counterattacked. The Cossacks harassed the fleeing French. ‘General Winter’ did his part. And by the time the survivors reached safety, approximately 380,000 French and allied troops had died.

Then, in 1941, Hitler couldn’t resist. Again, he upped the ante, committing 10 times the number of troops used by Napoleon – 3.8 million soldiers. Same story, more or less. And the same outcome. He retreated, leaving about 1 million dead. It was in his defeat that the amusing story was told.

Lessons Unlearned: Armand-Augustin-Louis de Caulaincourt was a general in Napoleon’s army. He had previously been sent as a diplomat to Moscow and knew the country well. When Bonaparte announced his plan to conquer Russia, de Caulaincourt begged him not to do it. He described the distances, the poor roads, the savage, long-suffering people, and the unbearable weather. Still Napoleon was determined to attack and took de Caulaincourt with him. Of course, all of the miseries de Caulaincourt warned about – and more – soon became apparent to the French and the general later recounted them in a delicious memoire, “With Napoleon in Russia.”

In 1944, German troops were rediscovering the hell that de Caulaincourt warned about. A group of German prisoners sat on the hard ground as Soviet troops prepared to interrogate them. A Soviet officer with a sense of humor approached them. “What’s the matter with you people? Didn’t any of you read de Caulaincourt?” Curiously, at least one German general actually did have a copy of de Caulaincourt’s book, in his pocket, when he was captured at Stalingrad.

And now… Joe Biden and his allies have begun a ‘sanctions war’ against Russia, as well as a real shooting war, using the Ukrainians as proxies. What could go wrong? Have they read de Caulaincourt?"

- bonnerprivateresearch@substack.com

o

Freely download

"With Napoleon In Russia: The Memoirs Of General De Caulaincourt" here:

- https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.58850

"Empty Shelves Everywhere At Meijer! Not Good! This Is Crazy!"

Full screen recommended.

Adventures With Danno, 12/27/22:

"Empty Shelves Everywhere At Meijer! 

Not Good! This Is Crazy!"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

Gregory Mannarino, "The World Economy Is Being Wiped Out By Design"

Gregory Mannarino, 12/27/22:

"The World Economy Is Being Wiped Out By Design"

- https://traderschoice.net/

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

"Why Do So Many Bad Things Keep Happening To Us?"

"Why Do So Many Bad Things Keep Happening To Us?"

by Michael Snyder

"I suppose that this is a fitting way to end the year. 2022 has been a year of war, plagues, natural disasters, shortages and severe economic troubles, but up until this month we had not been able to add “an apocalyptic winter storm” to the list yet. Unfortunately, what we have just been through over the last week definitely qualifies. A “monster storm” that covered almost the entire country at one point brought blizzard conditions to much of the U.S. over the past several days. Temperatures dipped down to minus 50 degrees in some areas, and extremely high winds and heavy snow combined to create truly nightmarish conditions in certain cities. For example, we are being told that this was the “most devastating storm in Buffalo’s long storied history”…

“We had to send specialized rescue crews to go get the rescuers,” Poloncarz told “CNN This Morning” Monday, adding it was the worst storm he could remember. “It was just horrendous, and it was horrendous for 24 hours in a row." “We’re used to snow here, we can handle snow,” he said. “But with the wind, the blinding views – it was complete whiteouts – and the extreme cold, it was some of the worst conditions that any of us have ever seen.”

The storm has drawn widespread comparisons to Buffalo’s famous blizzard of 1977. Poloncarz said in Monday’s news conference the current storm’s “ferocity… was worse than the blizzard of ’77.” And in a news conference Sunday, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul called this storm the “most devastating storm in Buffalo’s long storied history.”

Buffalo has had a lot of really bad storms over the years. But this one takes the cake. According to a local news report, Buffalo has already received about 4 feet of snow, and snow is going to continue to fall until the middle of the day on Tuesday…"The blizzard began Friday, dumping nearly 4 feet of snow in the Buffalo area and making many roads impassable. The snow is still falling. Some parts of the county could see another 8 to 12 inches by 1 p.m. Tuesday."

I have never seen anything quite like this. Of course I have been using that phrase a lot lately. So far, at least 27 people have been killed by the storm in Erie County, and the overall national death toll from the storm is up to 55. But both of those numbers will inevitably go much higher because right now there are countless drivers stranded in their vehicles on highways all over the United States. What part of “don’t drive during this storm” did people not understand? Many others are without power and are slowly freezing as they find themselves trapped inside their own homes by colossal mountains of snow. Those that are in need of rescue could use our prayers right about now.

Sadly, it seems like whenever there is some sort of a major natural disaster in this country there are hordes of looters ready to take advantage of it. On Monday, the rampant looting that we just witnessed in Buffalo made headlines all over the globe…"Videos posted online show brazen thieves taking advantage of the chaos, trudging over mounds of snow to get into abandoned storefronts — like a Dollar General where shelves were overturned and items were scattered across the ground.

Residents filmed some of the thieves as they entered the store and left with handfuls of items like paper towels and toilet paper, as one shameless woman even posted a Facebook Live of her and her friends grabbing items from the store. Others were filmed hauling televisions out of stores, and security footage caught one man breaking the glass of a liquor store door, where he allegedly stole $500 worth of goods."

Zero Hedge has posted lots of videos of the vicious looting, and those videos are prime examples of just how far we have fallen as a society. As I have said so many times before, the thin veneer of civilization that we all depend upon on a daily basis is rapidly disappearing. If a truly horrific long-term disaster were to erupt that causes law and order to break down on a widespread basis, we will devolve into a “Mad Max society” very quickly.

Speaking of crime, someone just attacked four more electrical substations in Washington state…"Thousands of homes were left in the dark after four electrical substations in western Washington were vandalized on Christmas Day, local authorities said on Sunday, adding that it was unknown if the incidents were connected. The attacks on Sunday cut power to more than 14,000 utility customers in south Pierce County, near Tacoma, the Pierce County Sheriff’s Office said. The burglaries were reported at two substations belonging to Tacoma Public Utilities and two belonging to Puget Sound Energy."

In a previous article, I discussed the fact that the number of these attacks has reached an all-time record high this year, and they are happening all over the nation. Utility companies are going to have to start hiring 24 hour security to guard their equipment, because this is a problem that isn’t going to go away. And that will mean even higher utility bills for all of us.

I truly wish that our society was not coming apart at the seams all around us. But this is where we are at, and denying reality is not going to make things any better. So why is our society in such bad shape? And why do so many bad things keep happening to us?

The end of the year is often a time of self-reflection for individuals, and it should also be a time of self-reflection for our nation as a whole. Because if we stay on the path that we are currently on, the pain that we will experience in the years ahead will be far more severe than what we have been through already. Good decisions lead to good consequences. And bad decisions lead to bad consequences. Wake up America, because time is quickly slipping away."

- http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/

"Living Rent Free In Los Angeles; Your Financial Situation Is Getting Worse; Living On Food Stamps"

Jeremiah Babe, 12/26/22:

"Living Rent Free In Los Angeles; Your Financial

 Situation Is Getting Worse; Living On Food Stamps"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

"Emergency! 48 Hours of Global Chaos!"

Full screen recommended.

Canadian Prepper, 12/26/22:

"Emergency! 48 Hours of Global Chaos!"

"Attacks on nuclear bases; USA power grid attacked again; Korean peninsula on high alert; shots fired at Serbia/Kosovo border; China's massive incursion of Taiwan airspace; sleeper cells activated around the world; storms of the century; looting and famine. Get ready for 2023...

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

"Brace for Impact, Fake Economy Now Crashing; Inflation Will Win, FED Will Lose"

Jeremiah Babe, 12/26/22:

"Brace for Impact, Fake Economy Now Crashing;

 Inflation Will Win, FED Will Lose"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

Musical Interlude: 2002, "We Meet Again”

Full screen recommended.

2002, "We Meet Again”

"A Look to the Heavens"

"No, hamburgers are not this big. What is pictured is a sharp telescopic view of a magnificent edge-on spiral galaxy NGC 3628, a puffy galactic disk divided by dark dust lanes. Of course, this deep galactic portrait puts some astronomers in mind of its popular moniker, The Hamburger Galaxy.

The tantalizing island universe is about 100,000 light-years across and 35 million light-years away in the northern springtime constellation Leo. NGC 3628 shares its neighborhood in the local Universe with two other large spirals M65 and M66 in a grouping otherwise known as the Leo Triplet. Gravitational interactions with its cosmic neighbors are likely responsible for the extended flare and warp of this spiral's disk.”

- https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap170503.html

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

"Curious..."

Curious how often you humans manage to 

obtain that which you do not want."

- Mr. Spock

"I’m Saying Goodbye"

Full screen recommended.

Dan, iAllegedly 12/26/22:

"I’m Saying Goodbye"

"Cancer is big business. It destroys families and relationships. 

You need to fight through this."

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

The Daily "Near You?"

Amsterdam, Noord-Holland, Netherlands

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