So, we rise from the rubble...
Friday, February 10, 2023
MUST VIEW! Judge Napolitano, "This Russian Offensive in Ukraine - Scott Ritter"
Judge Napolitano - Judging Freedom, 2/10/23:
"This Russian Offensive in Ukraine - Scott Ritter"
Comments here:
o
Full screen recommended.
Hindustan Times, 2/10/23:
"The Russian President, Vladimir Putin, accused Ukraine and the U.S. of starting the conflict way back in 2014. Speaking with the executives of the aviation industry in Moscow on Thursday, Putin said that "we did not start the military activities; we are trying to end them." He also attacked the U.S. for backing Kyiv in the 2014 coup, accusing Washington of using Ukrainians as "cannon fodder" in a geopolitical proxy war against Russia. Watch this video to know what happened in 2014."
Comments here:
"The Real State of the Union with Gerald Celente"
Dan, iAlllegedly 2/10/23:
"The Real State of the Union with Gerald Celente"
"We are so lucky to get Gerald Celente Back for Round 2.
He talks about the Real State of the Union."
Comments here:
"ChatGPT on The Dollar"
"ChatGPT on The Dollar"
Human stupidity vs artificial intelligence...
Bill vs a fiery bird from hell...
the US Dollar vs gold and plenty more...
by Bill Bonner and Joel Bowman
Youghal, Ireland - "Sometimes, stupidity alone isn’t enough. You also need to pay attention to what we call, pretentiously, the ‘Darwinism des moeurs.’ That is, we follow the evolved rules, customs and habits that have stood the test of time. It’s better not to kill or steal, for example, even if it seems like a good idea at the time. And that is true for governments as well as individuals.
But sometimes the living think they know better than the thousands of dead generations that came before them. And lately, we’ve completely despaired of today’s human intelligence. So, we’re giving the artificial kind a chance. Specifically, we wanted to know what ChatGPT, the latest thing in AI, sees coming for the dollar. Does it draw on the wisdom of the corpses? Or look to the latest claptrap and wishful thinking from Paul Krugman and Janet Yellen? Here’s the answer (admittedly, after a leading question): "The US dollar was once the king of currencies, but [in 2023] its reign was about to come to an end.
Step 1: The monster rises: Government spending spirals out of control, creating deficits that ballooned to unsustainable levels. As debt levels reached new heights, the once-great American economy began to show cracks. Inflation took hold, wiping out the purchasing power of ordinary Americans. The cost of living skyrocketed, making it harder for people to make ends meet.
Step 2: The monster attacks: The once-strong US dollar was no match for the monster of inflation. Its value plummeted as investors around the world sought safer investments. Foreign countries, including Japan and oil-producing states, stopped buying US government bonds, reducing demand and sending the US dollar into a downward spiral.
Step 3: The aftermath: The collapse of the US dollar changed America forever. Prices rose to levels never seen before, leaving ordinary people struggling to make ends meet. The once-great American economy was in shambles, and the world would never be the same.
Hey…humans guess. AI can guess too.
Like a Crow Outta Hell: And since it’s Friday….we will spare you our own guess about the “end of the world” until Monday. For now, let us tell you about the flaming crow incident. It began when we brought in some local lads to replace the wire on top of our chimneys. There are thousands of crows that make their home somewhere nearby. They get into chimneys and build nests, clogging them up.
One of the men who came to solve the problem was a big man, beefy, with fleshy features and a shaved head. He looked a little like “Curly” of the Three Stooges.
“Are you going up the ladder to put these new protectors on?” we asked. The answer was obvious; of course, he was; that’s what he was here for. The man looked at us blankly. “He must be Polish,” we said to ourselves. “He doesn’t understand a word we’re saying.”
Then, suddenly, as if a switch had been turned on, he came to life, and in perfect local patois, he replied: “Tat’s what um here for.” He wasn’t Polish at all; maybe just a little slow.
Coming back down the ladder, he reported…“Ye have some crows in dere. Better smoke dem out before ye put de wire on.” We filled the fireplace with lightly–packed newspaper. We struck a match. In seconds, the weekend edition of the Financial Times was alight. It flared up fast, as intended.
And then came a terrible screech…and a rustling up in the flue…all of a sudden, a firebird appeared in the fireplace…its wings aflame…like a fowl from Hell itself. It flapped its wings amid the inferno; the flames shot higher. And still screeching it headed straight for us.
Confronted by this diabolical animal…and gripped by a cold fear, we gave out a cry of terror and fell back. The crow passed over us, still with its wings ablaze… Its feathers thus consumed by the conflagration, it couldn’t fly. So, it raced around on foot. We had seen chickens run with their heads cut off, but never a crow whose wings had been scorched. Soon, the flames were out; a trail of ash and burnt feathers circled the room.
After a few moments, the crow had only tattered, stubby feathers left….still smoking. We jumped to our feet and chased the bird around the room…moving a canapé and an electronic piano to get at it. Finally, we cornered it and managed to trap it in a wicker trash basket. We took it out the door and gave it its freedom in the nearby woods. Its prospects were poor…but not hopeless.
Later that day…We were working outside…painting our hand-made conservatory. (Your editor’s handiwork. Photo: Bill)
Suddenly, crows appeared overhead. It was like a scene from an Alfred Hitchcock movie. They gathered in the big oak tree near where we were painting. A few dozen. Then hundreds…and finally what seemed like thousands. Quiet…and then calmly chattering…and then, in a great rush, they took to the air…calling to each other in anger as they circled overhead. We guessed what they were squawking about…..
“You set our cousin on fire…and you’re not going to get away with it.” “It wasn’t intentional,” we replied meekly. “We were just trying to get him out of the chimney.” The flock was unmoved by our excuses…Extenuating circumstances meant nothing to this jury. “Besides, the bird is not dead. He’s in the trash heap, eating some of yesterday’s dinner.” The birds seemed to take this in, perhaps wondering where the scrap heap was located. But inasmuch as defense yielded no progress, we went on the offense. We clapped our hands…making a noise a little like the sound of a small caliber rifle. The birds dispersed and didn’t trouble us again.
Cluster Incoming: But let us return to Mr. Powell before signing off for the weekend. We’ve already subjected our long term dear readers – who did us no harm – to no fewer than 5,000 of these commentaries. We’re not going to stop now. And so far, we were mostly right. At least about the big things. In 2000, the dot-coms did crash as predicted. The real estate market took a dive in 2007-2009, also as we predicted. And inflation rose up in 2021…again, following the script we had laid out years in advance.
Now, we think the whole Primary Trend has shifted…from bull market to bear market…from disinflation to inflation…and from growth and prosperity (especially in the best zip codes) to stagnation and poverty (especially in the middle zip codes.) This analysis stems not from our own native stupidity, but from the record of the past. Primary Trends reverse…white shoes aim for mud…and the best of times become the worst of times.
We also think that this major financial shift will be accompanied by a whole “cluster” of self-inflicted, cyclical, and inevitable political and social disasters. Did you see the State of the Union, dear reader? Did you get a good look at our elected officials? Did they remind you of Franklin, Washington, Madison and the others gathered in Philadelphia in 1787 for the Constitutional Convention? We didn’t think so. And isn’t their way of doing business – spending trillions of dollars they don’t have – bound to cause disasters?
But we remind our long-suffering readers that most analysts think we are wrong. They see moderating inflation…softening Fed policies…victories against Russia, China, germs, and carbon…and blue skies from here to eternity.
Yes, we are in a minority. Held in contempt by the Krugman school of economists…despised by the imperialist war mongers…mocked by bulls…ignored by bears…scorned by Republicans…detested by Democrats and dissed by earnest True Believers of all persuasions…hated by the crows…and wouldn’t it be nice if we were wrong?"
PS. "We’re sorry we set the crow on fire."
o
Joel’s Note: Speaking of fiery birds from Hell, how ‘bout that flapping, floundering fiat conflagration known as the US Dollar? Measured against real money – gold – the greenback lost 0.4% of its purchasing power in 2022…and this despite one of the most aggressive rate hike campaigns in recent history. It’s lost another 2% so far in 2023, even as Mr. Powell’s Fed remains committed to fighting the very inflation they didn’t see coming and then largely ignored when it inevitably arrived. (As Tom Dyson pointed out in a recent note to BPR members, the dollar index (DXY) is down from its high of 114 in October last year to 103 today…a 9.6% decline.)
Of course, gold is but one tape against which to measure the dollar’s terminal atrophy. Stack your USDs up against airfares…or a dozen eggs…or school lunches…and see how far they stretch (or don’t). The aforementioned items were up 28.5%… 59.9%… and (incredibly enough) 305% in dollar terms during 2022, a year that saw inflation rip to a four decade high.
The dollar simpered against other real world items last year, too. Flour was 23.4% more expensive in dollar terms…lettuce was up 24.9%…butter by 31.4%…and margarine by 43.8%. Overall, the cost of eating at home rose 11.8%. As for dining out, many working Americans – squeezed by rising costs on the one hand…and falling real wages on the other – simply can’t afford the luxury. (Though we doubt Mr. Powell or Ms. Yellen will be missing a lobster lunch anytime soon…)
Of course, this is only a brief snapshot of a much longer, inexorable trend… that of gradual dollar debasement. No doubt you’ve seen one of a million charts on the Internet depicting just this phenomenon. Here’s one of the better ones, from the folks over at Visual Capitalist…
Click image for larger size.
You can see the key dates on there…from the creation of the Federal Reserve, under President Woodrow Wilson, back in 1913…through to Roosevelt’s Great Gold confiscation, in 1933…to Nixon’s finally abandoning the gold standard altogether, in 1971…through to the massive inundation of freshly inked dollars that flooded the globe in the Great Covid Panic of 2020…(which definitely didn’t cause the subsequent inflation, or so we were told…)
As over a century of data makes clear, parking all your hard earned in one place leaves you vulnerable to the forces of the politicos, who have been cheating hard working citizens out of the value of their savings since time immemorial."
"Luddites Were Right, You Know…"
"Luddites Were Right, You Know…"
By Chris Black
"The term “Luddite” originated in the early 19th century and refers to a movement of English textile workers who protested against the increased use of machines in their industry. The term “neo-Luddite” was later applied to those who similarly oppose technology for similar reasons, but in a contemporary context.
Everywhere you go, you see people with their faces in their phones. Constantly, constantly, constantly. At the bus stop. On the train. In the driver’s seats of their moving cars. Their kid makes a bit of noise at the restaurant table? Shove the iPad in their face.
Boomerisms aside, it really can’t be overstated how f**ked up this is, and not because “people don’t interact” anymore. It’s actually much worse than that… Nobody ever allows themselves even a moment of peace inside their own heads. The real insidiousness of the smartphone is that it encourages you to constantly consume content, endlessly, never ever stopping. It’s common for people to spend their entire day with earphones in, listening to podcasts and watching Tiktoks literally constantly.
Our brains did not evolve to be bombarded with constant microbursts of hyper real stimulation this way. Attention spans are getting measurably shorter. Reaction times are getting longer. None of this sh*t is good for your brain.
Everyone always says, “Well, what about TV and the radio?” Inherently limited and fundamentally different because of the fact that they’re pre-programmed and don’t act as “magic mirrors” of you and your personal inputs into them. Your smartphone is designed to learn everything about you so that it can be as addictive as possible and maximize the amount of data it squeezes out of you. Nothing about TV or the radio - or even Web 1.0 internet - ever came anywhere close to this.
Even so, we have known for decades that TV is horrible for your brain on account of many of the same mechanisms that affect attention span and cognitive development. So imagine how much worse the smartphone is. Unfathomably worse. We already know it’s worse, but we won’t know exactly how much worse it is until at least another decade, when the younger Zoomers and Gen Alphas are a few years into adulthood after an upbringing that revolved around Web 2.0.
Millennials were lucky enough not to take the full brunt of the experience. We got our first taste as we came of age instead of growing up being marinated in it. The saddest part is that the only reason any of this even caught on or is the least bit operable is because of the fact that it hijacks the mechanisms that make us feel satisfied and good. We didn’t evolve to handle this level of stimulation, but BOY do we respond to it. It’s so excessive that it’s impossible for some people to resist. So there are no f**king brakes.
You have to cast The Ring into the fire or it totally consumes you. That’s the reality for most people. And that, my friends, is just sick.
Look at your screen usage on your phone and tell me I’m wrong, how you totally don’t need it and can stop whenever you want. You are no better than a crack head, and you won’t realize that until you actually do try to stop for real. It’s unprecedented in human history to think this way. We are truly in uncharted waters here. Just wait until the sensory overload most people are bathing in all day, every day becomes fully automated instead of just partially automated like it is now."
o
"And The Hell Of It Is..."
"You go up to a man, and you say, "How are things going, Joe?" and he says, "Oh fine, fine... couldn't be better. " And you look into his eyes, and you see things really couldn't be much worse. When you get right down to it, everybody's having a perfectly lousy time of it, and I mean everybody. And the hell of it is, nothing seems to help much.
- Kurt Vonnegut
"People are sad. People are broke. People are worried about money, people are worried that they're not enough and not amounting to anything and they don't feel good about themselves. People have rough times, and everybody's pretending it's not true, and we need to break that veneer."
- Eve Ensler
"When We Describe America’s Largest Cities As “War Zones”, We Aren’t Exaggerating One Bit"
"When We Describe America’s Largest Cities
As 'War Zones', We Aren’t Exaggerating One Bit"
By Michael Snyder
"Crime rates are soaring all over the nation, and this is especially true in heavily populated urban areas. The complete and utter lawlessness that we are witnessing has caused many pundits to describe our largest cities as “war zones”, and unfortunately that is not an exaggeration at all. In fact, there are some zip codes in Chicago where young adult males are more likely to be shot and killed than U.S. soldiers were during the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq…"For some residents, Chicago is more dangerous than Afghanistan was for U.S. troops during the Iraq war, according to a study published in the Journal of the American Medicine Association. The study found that young men are more likely to be shot and killed in ZIP codes with the most violence than American soldiers were in Afghanistan or Iraq."
Yes, things really have gotten that bad. We have reached a point where it is literally safer to go to war than it is to go to the most dangerous parts of Chicago. And for the worst zip codes in Chicago, the numbers are not even close…"Specifically, in Chicago’s 60624 ZIP code, the homicide rate for young men is more than 1,200 for every 100,000, and it’s not the only ZIP code with numbers like this. The average annual deaths per 100,000 for American soldiers who were heavily engaged in combat numbered at 395 in Afghanistan and 330 in Iraq."
Sadly, the violence in Chicago just continues to intensify. Crime was up 61 percent during the first four weeks of this year, and many Chicago residents are completely fed up with Mayor Lori Lightfoot…"It caused one Twitter user to say: ‘Since [Lightfoot]’s term began, Chicago has suffered 2,278 homicides and over 9,000 shot. Since January 1, the city has endured 41 homicides and 194 shot. Yet here Lightfoot is blissfully dancing and asking voters to return her to office. Lightfoot is detached from reality.’ In addition to rising crime – overall crime is up a shocking 61 percent in the first four weeks of 2023 from the same period last year – Lightfoot has overseen vacancy rates of nearly 30 percent after flagship stores on the Magnificent Mile bailed."
So is Chicago the worst major U.S. city for crime? No, actually it is being reported that overall crime per capita is now even higher in Denver…"Crime statistics for Denver, Colorado’s capital city, are astounding. They now put the Mile High City at the very bottom of the safest cities ranking at Neighborhood Scout. Crime in Denver is now worse than that in New York City or Chicago.
Some statistics from the Denver Police Department: Aggravated assaults, robberies, and homicides, through mid-December 2022, numbered 6,810. Three years ago, that number was 4,924. Property crimes in 2019 were 26,133. In 2022, through mid-December: 42,100. In Denver, the murder and assault rates are twice the national rates, and three times the national rate for rapes and robberies."
Denver was once such a nice place to live. So what happened? Unfortunately, it appears that illegal immigration is fueling much of the crime that is happening in the Mile High City, and every year it just gets even worse. Earlier this week, an official from U.S. Customs and Border Protection admitted to Congress that he has “tremendous concern” about the vast numbers of “gotaways” that are constantly pouring into our communities…
"A U.S. Customs and Border Protection chief patrol agent told lawmakers during a Tuesday Congressional hearing that he has “tremendous concern” that felons and terrorists are among the millions of “gotaways” crossing the southern border into the United States, the New York Post reported. Tucson Sector Chief Patrol Agent John Modlin, who has been with the Border Patrol since 1995, explained that the law enforcement agency needs more resources to improve border security and handle the influx of migrants attempting to enter the country."
If people come into this country legally, they are likely to obey our laws once they are here. But if people come into our country illegally, they are not likely to magically transform into law-abiding residents later on.
Of course illegal immigration is only part of the equation. Violent crime rates are exploding all over the nation, and this includes cities that are very far from the southern border. In Seattle, the number of homicides in 2022 was 24 percent higher than it was in 2021…"Seattle’s violent crime rate rose to its highest point in 15 years in 2022, with reported homicides surging by about 24% compared to 2021, according to the Seattle Police Department’s (SPD) Year-End Crime Report, more than a year after the city cut its police budget."
Property crime rates are also escalating dramatically. For example, cargo theft has become an absolutely massive problem in the state of California…"California led the way with 417 reported cargo thefts in 2022, a 41% year-over-year increase, followed by Texas with 223 and Florida with 153. CargoNet’s 2022 data showed the average value of cargo stolen in a theft was $214,104, a 20% increase compared to 2021." Cargo theft hot spots are typically areas around major ports, as well as intermodal facilities, distribution centers and truck stops.
Needless to say, none of this should surprise any of us. Moral decay has been eating away at the foundations of our society for decades, and that was inevitably going to lead to rampant social decay. If we want to turn things around, one place to start would be our ridiculously pathetic system of public education.
Many young people are turning to crime these days because the public schools have simply not equipped them with the tools that they need to be successful in life. According to test results that were just released, only 7 percent of all eighth graders in Baltimore City are proficient in math…"The Maryland State Department of Education recently released the 2022 state test results known as MCAP, Maryland Comprehensive Assessment Program. Baltimore City’s math scores were the lowest in the state. Just 7 percent of third through eighth graders tested proficient in math, which means 93 percent could not do math at grade level."
What in the world are they teaching these kids? And it turns out that not one single student was proficient in math at 23 of the schools…"Project Baltimore found, in 23 Baltimore City schools, there were zero students who tested proficient in math. Not a single student." What kind of future do you think that most of those kids will have? We have failed an entire generation of children, and most Americans don’t seem to care.
For years I have been writing about the relentless decline of our culture, but most people didn’t think that our cultural decline was a big deal. Unfortunately, now our major cities are crime-ridden, drug-infested hellholes, and it is getting worse with each passing year. Our society has become a giant mess because of the choices that we have made. Wake up America, because time is running out."
o
Jim Kunstler, "A Star is Born!"
"A Star is Born!"
By Jim Kunstler
“Everything that can be engineered is being engineered dishonestly.”
- Truman Verdun
"If you think the reasons behind the First World War were incomprehensible, imagine what historians of the future - pan-fraying peccary loins over their camp fires - will think about World War Three. Some people started something in Ukraine… and then the USA blew up the main energy supply line of its NATO ally, Germany… say, what…?!?
Weird, a little bit. A sane person in a sane world would call sabotaging the Nord Stream pipelines an act-of-war against a friendly nation, since the result was to virtually destroy the basis of Germany’s industry, not to mention the domestic comfort of German citizens. Now, thanks to 85-year-old Seymour Hersh, the independent investigator who uncovered the My Lai Massacre in 1969 and reported on the depraved antics of American jailers at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq in 2004, we have a pretty good idea how the Nord Stream caper went down.
For a year before the op, “Joe Biden” and Undersecretary of State Victoria Nuland - architect of the 2014 Maidan Coup in Ukraine, which kicked-off the present fiasco there - blabbed about “ending” the Nord Streams. Curiously, the Germans said nothing. Meanwhile, the US made a deal to beef up military bases in Norway, an original NATO signatory (1949), for staging the Nord Stream sabotage op. Of course, Norway, being Western Europe’s remaining sole oil-and-gas exporter, had an interest in eliminating its competition.
In June of 2022, under cover of an annual NATO naval exercise in the Baltic Sea, US Navy divers attached mines to the Nord Stream pipelines. The mines had triggers that could be activated remotely at any time of choosing, and that moment came on September 26… kaboom. Ms. Nuland and Secretary of State Antony Blinken gloated publicly. Naturally, the US blamed Russia. America’s news media - catamite of the Intel Community - amplified the charge, despite the absurdity of Russia blowing up its most lucrative source of export revenue. The New York Times has so far made no mention of Mr. Hersh’s recent update of the Nord Stream sabotage.
Germany, too, hardly made a peep, nor did the rest of Western Europe, which now faces a future that looks, energy-wise, like a return to the Fourteenth Century. Maybe they’re all jaded with modern life, all that tiresome bathing and malingering in the brightly-lit cafes. Under the sagacious guidance of the WEF they were all going “green,” anyway - but was that green like the heart-shaped leaves of the linden tree or green like the moldy veins in Roquefort cheese? I guess they’ll find out.
Luckily, America had the Chinese balloon to distract them, and then “Joe B’s” State-of-the-Union extravaganza where the nation learned that we are living in the most extraordinary economic boom since the days of Babe Ruth and Charlie Chaplin. The perpetually-vacationing Leader of the Free World has apparently made America great again, despite the dastardly plots and ongoing insurrections of his far-right, white supremacist adversaries. Did the annual SOTU smell a little bit like a reelection pitch, though? I hope so.
Speaking of insurrection, the House commenced hearings this past week, debuting with the Oversight Committee’s witness panel of Twitter execs who carried out a years-long censorship campaign against the First Amendment in cahoots with the FBI, CIA, DOD, DOJ, DOS, DHS… well you get the picture. A more arrogant crew of dedicated fascists would be hard to find in any other corner of the world today, except perhaps Canada, than the likes of Vijaya Gadde, Yoel Roth, Anika Collier Navaroli, and James Baker, former chief counsel of the FBI. They “moderated” speech on the chat app for the good of the American people, you understand, lest the public succumb to “misinformation” - otherwise known as reality.
One reality being that the sedulously-repressed news of Hunter Biden’s crime-stuffed laptop represented interference in the 2020 election. James Baker told the committee he could not recall at the time (October 2020) whether he spoke to anyone back in his old haunts at the FBI about the matter - though there is no question that, as chief counsel, he knew the agency had possession of the laptop since 2019, and what was in it. Rep. Clay Higgins (R-La.) warned the four former Twitter employees that “this is the investigation part, later comes the arrest part.” Let’s hope so on that one, too.
Meanwhile, the House Special Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government held a lively colloquy with four “experts” including former FBI agents Nicole Parker and Thomas Baker, GWU Law Professor Jonathan Turley, and one Elliot Williams, former DOJ Assistant AG and currently shill for DC Lawfare tank the Raban Group. The theme, generally, was the change-in-mission in the FBI-DOJ nexus from law enforcement to harassment of US citizens who oppose Democratic Party policy.
Most instructive in Thursday’s session, though, was the political debut of Rep. Danial Sachs Goldman (real name), newly elected member for New York’s Tenth District (which encompasses Wall Street). Among other distinctions, Mr. Goldman is an heir to the Levi-Strauss blue jeans fortune, and was lead counsel during the 2019 impeachment hearings against Donald Trump in the House Intelligence Committee. This vicious prick, an apt replacement for the inveterate liar and seditionist, Rep. Adam Schiff (CA), put on a florid demonstration of hectoring witnesses, cutting them off, and re-directing the committee’s attention at every opportunity to the so-called “insurrection” at the Capitol of 1/6/20.
Mr. Goldman is a man to watch, especially as the House actually does give its complete attention later this year to the 1/6/20 matter and the true facts behind the FBI’s engineering of the event, including the nefarious actions of former Speaker Nancy Pelosi and her Capitol Police. When it comes, I can’t wait to watch Mr. Goldman unwind like one of those cheap counterfeit Rolex watchers that peddlers hawk on Wall Street’s sidewalk."
"Shopping At Target! Crazy Egg Prices! What's Next?!"
Full screen recommended.
Adventures With Danno, 2/10/23:
"Shopping At Target! Crazy Egg Prices! What's Next?!"
"In today's vlog we are at Target, and are noticing some price increases on groceries, especially eggs! We are here to check out skyrocketing prices, and to search for items that have been hard to find in other grocery stores! It's getting rough out here as stores seem to be struggling with getting products!"
Comments here:
Thursday, February 9, 2023
Gerald Celente,"I've Been at This for 43 Years and Never Seen This Kind of Global Chaos"
Full screen recommended.
Gerald Celente, 2/9/23"
"I've Been at This for 43 Years and Never
Seen This Kind of Global Chaos"
Comments here:
"Warning: Stock Market Out Of Control"
Jeremiah Babe, 2/9/23:
"Warning: Stock Market Out Of Control"
Comments here:
"Bombshell: The U.S. Did It!"
"Bombshell: The U.S. Did It!"
by Brian Maher
Annapolis, Maryland - "Is he correct? Did the United States execute the caper? Veteran investigative reporter Seymour Hersh issued the “bombshell” report yesterday morning…In extravagant detail he claimed that President Joseph Biden and his understrappers hatched the idea to wreck the Nord Stream 2 energy pipeline, plotted its wrecking and ordered its actual wrecking — with active assistance from the Scandinavian nation of Norway.
Hersh: "In December of 2021, two months before the first Russian tanks rolled into Ukraine, [Biden’s national security adviser] Jake Sullivan convened a meeting of a newly formed task force - men and women from the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the CIA and the State and Treasury departments - and asked for recommendations about how to respond to Putin’s impending invasion.
It would be the first of a series of top-secret meetings, in a secure room on a top floor of the Old Executive Office Building, adjacent to the White House, that was also the home of the President’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board (PFIAB). There was the usual back-and-forth chatter that eventually led to a crucial preliminary question: Would the recommendation forwarded by the group to the president be reversible - such as another layer of sanctions and currency restrictions - or irreversible - that is, kinetic actions, which could not be undone?
What became clear to participants, according to the source with direct knowledge of the process, is that Sullivan intended for the group to come up with a plan for the destruction of the two Nord Stream pipelines - and that he was delivering on the desires of the president.
Over the next several meetings, the participants debated options for an attack. The Navy proposed using a newly commissioned submarine to assault the pipeline directly. The Air Force discussed dropping bombs with delayed fuses that could be set off remotely. The CIA argued that whatever was done, it would have to be covert. Everyone involved understood the stakes. “This is not kiddie stuff,” the source said. If the attack were traceable to the United States, “It’s an act of war.” What was the purpose behind this war act? The answer is clear as gin.
Cutting the Russian-German Umbilical Cord: The pipeline was constructed to conduct beneficial Russian natural gas to Germany. But this umbilical cord afforded Russia great leverage over these Germans. The American administration feared the Teutonic louts might cry down the anti-Russia sanctions if Russia threatened to kink the hose… and choke off the flows to Germany. And Washington’s entire sanctions regime could die aborning, strangled and murdered in the crib.
United States officials therefore chose to close off the source of Russian temptation. They would dynamite the pipeline. Russia would then be unable to dangle its natural gas before the Germans, carrotlike, to steer them in the Russian direction. More: Biden defiantly said, “If Russia invades... there will be no longer a Nord Stream 2. We will bring an end to it.”
Twenty days earlier, Undersecretary Nuland had delivered essentially the same message at a State Department briefing, with little press coverage. “I want to be very clear to you today,” she said in response to a question. “If Russia invades Ukraine, one way or another Nord Stream 2 will not move forward”... “It was like putting an atomic bomb on the ground in Tokyo and telling the Japanese that we are going to detonate it,” [Hersh’s] source said.
The Plan: Mr. Hersh’s investigations reveal a fantastically detailed and thorough plot. Frogmen of the United States Navy would affix explosive devices to the pipeline under the cover of a planned naval exercise in the area. Thus it would not attract notice. These explosives would subsequently serve as time bombs. They would be detonated remotely at a later date - sufficiently later in order to skirt suspicions that they were connected to the frogmen’s prior skunkwork.
Hersh: "A handpicked team of Central Intelligence Agency and National Security Agency operatives was assembled somewhere in the Washington area, under deep cover, and worked out a plan, using Navy divers, modified submarines and a deep-submarine rescue vehicle, that succeeded, after much trial and error, in locating the Russian cable. The divers planted a sophisticated listening device on the cable that successfully intercepted the Russian traffic and recorded it on a taping system…"
Throughout “all of this scheming,” [Hersh’s] source said, “some working guys in the CIA and the State Department were saying, ‘Don’t do this. It’s stupid and will be a political nightmare if it comes out.’” But do not forget - these are officials of the United States government at their customary tricks. They are invariably given to “stupid” activities - in the case at bar, of conducting a war act against great power Russia and sabotaging the economy of its alleged German ally - an additional act of war, incidentally.
The Plotters Wanted to Avoid Oversight: But these are crafty and slippery fellows. They devised clever legal strategies to shoo away oversight: According to [Hersh’s] source, some of the senior officials of the CIA determined that blowing up the pipeline “no longer could be considered a covert option because the president just announced that we knew how to do it…
The plan to blow up Nord Stream 1 and 2 was suddenly downgraded from a covert operation requiring that Congress be informed to one that was deemed as a highly classified intelligence operation with U.S. military support. Under the law, the source explained, “There was no longer a legal requirement to report the operation to Congress.”
To repeat: these are crafty and slippery fellows. But to proceed… Why did these shadow-slinkers choose to cooperate so tightly with Norway? They hated the Russians, and the Norwegian navy was full of superb sailors and divers who had generations of experience in highly profitable deep-sea oil and gas exploration,” [Hersh’s] source said. They also could be trusted to keep the mission secret. (The Norwegians may have had other interests as well. The destruction of Nord Stream - if the Americans could pull it off -would allow Norway to sell vastly more of its own natural gas to Europe.)
And so: "Sometime in March, a few members of the team flew to Norway to meet with the Norwegian Secret Service and Navy. One of the key questions was where exactly in the Baltic Sea was the best place to plant the explosives. Nord Stream 1 and 2, each with two sets of pipelines, were separated much of the way by little more than a mile as they made their run to the port of Greifswald in the far northeast of Germany.
The Norwegian navy was quick to find the right spot, in the shallow waters of the Baltic sea a few miles off Denmark’s Bornholm Island. The pipelines ran more than a mile apart along a seafloor that was only 260 feet deep. That would be well within the range of the divers, who, operating from a Norwegian Alta class mine hunter, would dive with a mixture of oxygen, nitrogen and helium streaming from their tanks, and plant shaped C4 charges on the four pipelines with concrete protective covers. It would be tedious, time consuming and dangerous work, but the waters off Bornholm had another advantage: there were no major tidal currents, which would have made the task of diving much more difficult…"
Hurdles to Overcome: Hersh continues: "The Norwegians were key to solving other hurdles. The Russian navy was known to possess surveillance technology capable of spotting, and triggering, underwater mines. The American explosive devices needed to be camouflaged in a way that would make them appear to the Russian system as part of the natural background—something that required adapting to the specific salinity of the water. The Norwegians had a fix…
The C4 attached to the pipelines would be triggered by a sonar buoy dropped by a plane on short notice, but the procedure involved the most advanced signal processing technology. Once in place, the delayed timing devices attached to any of the four pipelines could be accidentally triggered by the complex mix of ocean background noises throughout the heavily trafficked Baltic Sea - from near and distant ships, underwater drilling, seismic events, waves and even sea creatures. To avoid this, the sonar buoy, once in place, would emit a sequence of unique low frequency tonal sounds - much like those emitted by a flute or a piano - that would be recognized by the timing device and, after a pre-set hours of delay, trigger the explosives."
But as the fatal day neared, cold sensations began permeating the American president’s feet: "Washington had second thoughts… Some members of the planning team were angered and frustrated by the President’s seeming indecision… now the team in Norway had to come up with a way to give Biden what he wanted - the ability to issue a successful execution order at a time of his choosing. But the president’s men seized him by the feet and positioned them firmly in front of a crackling fire. He rediscovered his resolve. In late September of last year, the order went out… and explosions rocked the Baltic floor."
Only Allegations: Yet we must remind you: we deal here with allegations. Or if you’ll forgive the term in light of the present discussion… charges. We cannot chronicle them as fact. And we have it on reliable authority - a colleague who happens to be a very devoted partisan of the president - Hersh is merely taking us for a sleigh ride. The United States emphatically did not perform the vandalism, this colleague assures us: “The White House says False. The CIA says False. Norway says FALSE. Common sense shows that they would not risk putting out such a strong statement with a chance that it's true.”
And so there you have it. The defendants in this trial are their very own judges. And they have pronounced themselves innocent… by unanimous verdict. Yet by our lights this Hersh tells a highly compelling tale. It is chock-a-block with detail after detail after detail. And then some more detail after that."
Do you believe it is true?
Please, share your thoughts with us:
"Car Prices Set To Crash By 50% As Auto Market Collapse Begins"
Full screen recommended.
"Car Prices Set To Crash By 50% As
Auto Market Collapse Begins"
by Epic Economist
"Severe supply constraints and a shift away from public transport during the pandemic resulted in an insane car price bubble that is now about to crash. Car dealers are watching prices drop like a rock in face of rapidly changing market conditions, soaring interest rates, and auto production finally picking up speed. On the other hand, many buyers that purchased their vehicles at inflated prices are now underwater on their loans, which is creating a crisis that is worrying even Elon Musk and other big names in the industry due to its size and scope, with experts warning that financial turmoil is ahead.
Vehicle prices, especially of used cars, are about to come crashing down after almost two and a half years of record highs as new supply starts to make its way into the market. From 2020 to 2022, wholesale prices for used cars (adjusted for seasonality, mileage, and age) shot up roughly 88%.
Some cars have already dropped in value by as much as 30% since the peak of the bubble. And despite some in-demand vehicles that are still commanding higher than retail prices – industry analysts say the value of secondhand cars is on its way back to pre-pandemic levels. Consequently, falling used car prices mean that the vast majority of consumers who took in the past two years are now underwater, so they owe more to the banks on these cars than these cars are actually worth.
All of these factors are likely to spark another automobile crisis that will have disastrous consequences. For instance, if today a buyer that is underwater on their loan and purchased their vehicle at the top of the bubble wants to trade it in, dealers would ask them to spend thousands of dollars to cover the difference between the loan and the car value but the consumer doesn’t have that money on hand. “This is the perfect storm: the dealer can’t sell the car, the consumer can’t buy a car and the lender can’t finance a car,” wrote financial analyst Adam Aya.
In a new statement, researchers at Moody’s pointed to "Additional downward pressure on used-car prices” coming from “weaker domestic demand” as the combination of rising borrowing costs and elevated inflation “erodes the ability of households and businesses to make big-ticket purchases." Meanwhile, JPMorgan says that used car prices are set to fall another 20 to 25% in 2023, and new car prices could drop by 5 to 10% in the coming months.
This situation is raising concerns of some big names in the industry in the past few weeks. On Twitter, Elon Musk, Tesla’s CEO, and famous investor Cathie Wood agree that disaster is coming. They are both warning about the ripple effects of this potentially explosive situation."ARK Invest has been concerned about the impact of declining residual values on the $1+ trillion auto loan market," Woods commented. "Potentially, the biggest financial crisis ever," Tesla's CEO added.
Conditions are deteriorating alarmingly fast, so if you have an extra car you don't particularly need, now is a good time to sell it while prices are high and falling. But if you’re looking to buy a car, you should probably wait a little longer. With used car prices falling around 2% per month, the value of anything you buy right now is going to melt like an ice cube in the sun. And the last thing you want is to be caught up in this colossal mess."
Comments here:
Judge Napolitano, "America's Act of War - The Nord Stream Pipeline Blasts"
Full screen recommended.
Judge Napolitano, 2/9/23:
"America's Act of War -
The Nord Stream Pipeline Blasts"
Comments here:
o
"How America Took Out The Nord Stream Pipeline"
by Seymour Hersh
"The New York Times called it a “mystery,” but the United States executed a covert sea operation that was kept secret - until now."
Full article here:
o
Dated, but true...
“We have become a Nazi monster in the eyes of the whole world - a nation of bullies and bastards who would rather kill than live peacefully. We are not just whores for power and oil, but killer whores with hate and fear in our hearts. We are human scum, and that is how history will judge us... No redeeming social value. Just whores. Get out of our way, or we’ll kill you.
Well, sh*t on that dumbness. George W. Bush does not speak for me or my son or my mother or my friends or the people I respect in this world. We didn’t vote for these cheap, greedy little killers who speak for America today - and we will not vote for them again in 2002. Or 2004. Or ever.
Who does vote for these dishonest shitheads? Who among us can be happy and proud of having all this innocent blood on our hands? Who are these swine? These flag-sucking half-wits who get fleeced and fooled by stupid little rich kids like George Bush?They are the same ones who wanted to have Muhammad Ali locked up for refusing to kill gooks. They speak for all that is cruel and stupid and vicious in the American character. They are the racists and hate mongers among us - they are the Ku Klux Klan. I piss down the throats of these Nazis. And I am too old to worry about whether they like it or not. F*ck them.”
- Hunter S. Thompson
"The Wheels are Falling Off"
Full screen recommended.
Dan, iAllegedly 2/9/23:
"The Wheels are Falling Off"
"We are living in the land of Economic Meltdown. This is not a happy place. More layoffs and business closures."
Comments here:
Musical Interlude: Soothing Relaxation, "Beautiful Relaxing Music"
Full screen recommended.
Soothing Relaxation,
"Beautiful Relaxing Music - Calming Piano & Guitar Music"
"Beautiful relaxing music by Soothing Relaxation. Enjoy calming piano and guitar music composed by Peder B. Helland, set to stunning nature videos."
"A Look to the Heavens"
“Here is one of the largest objects that anyone will ever see on the sky. Each of these fuzzy blobs is a galaxy, together making up the Perseus Cluster, one of the closest clusters of galaxies. The cluster is seen through a foreground of faint stars in our own Milky Way Galaxy.
Near the cluster center, roughly 250 million light-years away, is the cluster's dominant galaxy NGC 1275, seen above as a large galaxy on the image left. A prodigious source of x-rays and radio emission, NGC 1275 accretes matter as gas and galaxies fall into it. The Perseus Cluster of Galaxies, also cataloged as Abell 426, is part of the Pisces-Perseus supercluster spanning over 15 degrees and containing over 1,000 galaxies. At the distance of NGC 1275, this view covers about 15 million light-years.”
- http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap110712.html
The Poet: Rainer Maria Rilke, “Sunset”
“Sunset”
“Slowly the west reaches for clothes of new colors
which it passes to a row of ancient trees.
You look, and soon these two worlds both leave you,
one part climbs toward heaven, one sinks to earth,
leaving you, not really belonging to either,
not so helplessly dark as that house that is silent,
not so unswervingly given to the eternal as that thing
that turns to a star each night and climbs -
leaving you (it is impossible to untangle the threads)
your own life, timid and standing high and growing,
so that, sometimes blocked in, sometimes reaching out,
one moment your life is a stone in you, and the next, a star.”
- Rainer Maria Rilke
Chet Raymo, “The Sea Grows Old In It”
“The Sea Grows Old In It”
by Chet Raymo
“The poet, like the electric [lightning] rod, must reach from a point nearer to the sky than all surrounding objects down to the earth, and down to the dark wet soil, or neither is of use. The poet must not only converse with pure thought, but he must demonstrate it almost to the senses. His words must be pictures, his verses must be spheres and cubes, to be seen, and smelled and handled.”
– Ralph Waldo Emerson
“Ah, Mr. Emerson. This seems about as good a description of poetry as one is likely to find. I love the image. Not a hand reaching up to grasp the hand of Zeus, the hurler of bolts, but merely a pointed rod that reaches higher than any surrounding objects. A pen-point, scratching the firmament. Not a conductor reaching down to the earth, but deeper, into the wet inkpot of the soul.
Not lofty thoughts, airy philosophies, gnostic arcana. Rather, ideas that come wrapped in the stuff of the senses. Ideas that must be unwrapped the way you’d peel an orange, or pry open an oyster, or stir up from the bottom of a bowl of soup. The electric fire of the heavens captured and stored in the Leyden jar of physical self.
Take, for example, Marianne Moore’s “The Fish”, a poem that has been endlessly analyzed without ever giving up its secrets. Anyone who stands on that rocky shore with the poet, looking into the wave-washed chasm - the sea as fluid as breath, as hard as a chisel- takes away a lesson as profound as any one might learn in school, perhaps without being able to articulate exactly what the lesson is. The experience is simply there, to be seen, smelled, handled, in the weave and wave of animal bodies, in the intricate rhyme and syllabication of the poem. Truth- crow-blue, ink-bespattered, hatcheted, defiant.
I’d go further. I’d say that Emerson’s description of poetry can be equally applied to science, or to any human attempt to attract the spark of Zeus. One must lift one’s rod beyond the scratch and tumble of the everyday, while keeping its foot buried in the dark wet soil of lived experience.”
•
“The Fish”
“Wade through black jade.
Of the crow-blue mussel-shells, one keeps
adjusting the ash-heaps;
opening and shutting itself like an injured fan.
The barnacles which encrust the side of the wave,
cannot hide there for the submerged shafts of the sun,
split like spun glass,
move themselves with spotlight swiftness into the crevices -
in and out, illuminating
The turquoise sea of bodies.
The water drives a wedge of iron through the iron edge of the cliff;
whereupon the stars, pink rice-grains, ink-
bespattered jelly fish, crabs like green lilies,
and submarine toadstools, slide each on the other.
All external marks of abuse are present on this defiant edifice -
all the physical features of accident -
lack of cornice, dynamite grooves, burns, and hatchet strokes,
these things stand out on it;
the chasm-side is dead.
Repeated evidence has proved that it can live
on what can not revive its youth.
The sea grows old in it."
- Marianne Moore
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