Tuesday, June 6, 2023

The Poet: Samuel Taylor Coleridge, "What If?

"What If?"

"What if you slept?
And what if,
In your sleep
You dreamed?
And what if,
In your dream,
You went to heaven
And there plucked
A strange and
Beautiful flower?
And what if,
When you awoke,
You had the flower
In your hand?
Ahh, what then?"

- Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Khalil Gibran, "Youth and Age"

"Youth and Age"
by Khalil Gibran

"In my youth the heart of dawn was in my heart, and the songs of April were in my ears. But my soul was sad unto death, and I knew not why. Even unto this day I know not why I was sad. But now, though I am with eventide, my heart is still veiling dawn, And though I am with autumn, my ears still echo the songs of spring. But my sadness has turned into awe, and I stand in the presence of life and life’s daily miracles.

The difference between my youth which was my spring, and these forty years, and they are my autumn, is the very difference that exists between flower and fruit. A flower is forever swayed with the wind and knows not why and wherefore. But the fruit overladen with the honey of summer, knows that it is one of life’s home-comings, as a poet when his song is sung knows sweet content, though life has been bitter upon his lips.

In my youth I longed for the unknown, and for the unknown I am still longing. But in the days of my youth longing embraced necessity that knows naught of patience. Today I long not less, but my longing is friendly with patience, and even waiting. And I know that all this desire that moves within me is one of those laws that turns universes around one another in quiet ecstasy, in swift passion which your eyes deem stillness, and your mind a mystery.

And in my youth I loved beauty and abhorred ugliness, for beauty was to me a world separated from all other worlds. But now that the gracious years have lifted the veil of picking-and-choosing from over my eyes, I know that all I have deemed ugly in what I see and hear, is but a blinder upon my eyes, and wool in my ears; and that our senses, like our neighbors, hate what they do not understand.

And in my youth I loved the fragrance of flowers and their color. Now I know that their thorns are their innocent protection, and if it were not for that innocence they would disappear forevermore.

And in my youth, of all seasons I hated winter, for I said in my aloneness, “Winter is a thief who robs the earth of her sun-woven garment, and suffers her to stand naked in the wind.” But now I know that in winter there is re-birth and renewal, and that the wind tears the old raiment to cloak her with a new raiment woven by the spring.

And in my youth I would gaze upon the sun of the day and the stars of the night, saying in my secret, “How small am I, and how small a circle my dream makes.” But today when I stand before the sun or the stars I cry, “The sun is close to me, and the stars are upon me;” for all the distances of my youth have turned into the nearness of age; and the great aloneness which knows not what is far and what is near, nor what is small nor great, has turned into a vision that weighs not nor does it measure.

In my youth I was but the slave of the high tide and the ebb tide of the sea, and the prisoner of half moons and full moons. Today I stand at this shore and I rise not nor do I go down. Even my roots once every twenty-eight days would seek the heart of the earth. And on the twenty-ninth day they would rise toward the throne of the sky. And on that very day the rivers in my veins would stop for a moment, and then would run again to the sea.

Yes, in my youth I was a thing, sad and yielding, and all the seasons played with me and laughed in their hearts. And life took a fancy to me and kissed my young lips, and slapped my cheeks. Today I play with the seasons. And I steal a kiss from life’s lips ere she kisses my lips. And I even hold her hands playfully that she may not strike my cheek.

In my youth I was sad indeed, and all things seemed dark and distant. Today, all is radiant and near, and for this I would live my youth and the pain of my youth, again and yet again."
o
Frank Sinatra, "It Was A Very Good Year"

"You Get That One Chance..."

“You get that one chance; and damn it, you’ve got to take it! If there’s one lesson I know I will take with me for eternity, its that there are those things that might happen only once, those chances that come walking down the street, strolling out of a cafĂ©; if you don’t let go and take them, they really could get away! We can get so washed out with a mindset of entitlement – the universe will do everything for us to ensure our happiness – that we forget why we came here! We came here to grab, to take, to give, to have! Not to wait! Nobody came here to wait! So, what makes anyone think that destiny will keep on knocking over and over again? It could, but what if it doesn’t? You go and you take the chance that you get; even if it makes you look stupid, insane, or whorish! Because it just might not come back again. You could wait a lifetime to see if it will… but I don’t think you should.”
- C. JoyBell C.

"How It Really Is"

 

"Twenty Grim Realities Unearthed by Lockdowns" (Excerpt)

"Twenty Grim Realities Unearthed by Lockdowns" (Excerpt)
By Jeffrey Tucker

Excerpt: "It’s common now to speak of the before times in contrast to the after times. The turning point was of course March 16, 2020, the day of 15 Days to Flatten the Curve, though authoritarian trends predate that. Rights were suddenly broadly throttled, even religious rights. We were told to conduct every aspect of our lives in accordance with the priorities of the bio-medical security state.

Very few people anticipated such a shocking development. It was the onset of a new state-conducted war and the enemy was something we could not see and hence could be anyway. No one has ever doubted the omnipresence of potentially dangerous pathogens but now we were being told that life itself depended entirely on avoidance of them and the only guide going forward would be public-health authorities.

Everything changed. Nothing is the same. The trauma is real and lasting. The claim of “15 Days” was revealed to be a ruse. The emergency lasted three years and then some. The people and machinery that did this are still in power. The pick to head the CDC has a long track record of enabling and cheering the lockdowns and all that followed.

It’s a helpful exercise to summarize the new things we’ve all discovered in these years. Together they account for why the world seems different and why we all feel and think differently now that we did just a few years ago."
Full article here:

"Strange Prices At Meijer! How You Can Save Money!"

Full screen recommended.
Adventures With Danno, 6/6/23
"Strange Prices At Meijer! How You Can Save Money!"
"In today's vlog, we are at Meijer and noticing some strange 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:

"Emergency Update! Dam Destroyed, Nuclear Plant Alert, Crimea Cut Off, Evacuations Underways"

Full screen recommended.
Canadian Prepper, AM 6/6/23
"Emergency Update! Dam Destroyed, 
Nuclear Plant Alert, Crimea Cut Off, Evacuations Underways"
Comments here:
o
Full screen recommended.
Hindustan Times, 6/6/23
"Putin Seethes as Nova Kakhovka Dam Gets Destroyed; 
Russia Accuses Kyiv of Using Missiles"
"A major Soviet-era Dam in Russian-controlled part of South Ukraine was breached. Unverified videos on social media showed water surging through the remains of the dam. The Kakhovka hydroelectric power plant supplies water to Russia-annexed Crimea and to Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant, Europe's biggest plant in Ukraine. UN nuclear watchdog IAEA said it was monitoring the situation closely."
Comments here:
o
Full screen recommended.
Hindustan Times, AM 6/6/23
"World War III? West Spooked as Russia's 
Deadly Tu-95 Bombers Fly Over Northern Europe"
"The fear of a bigger war between the West and Moscow is greater than ever before following continuous Ukrainian attacks inside Russian territory. Russia has reportedly not just unleashed its "bear" on the Ukrainians but is also performing 'routine' flights in neutral waters over northern Europe. According to a video released by the Russian defence ministry, two Tu-95M "bear" strategic missile carriers flew over the Barents Sea and the Norwegian Sea. Crews of MiG-31 interceptor jets even escorted the bombers for the five hours of the flight."
Comments here:
o
Col. Douglas Macgregor, 6/6/23
"The Russian Military Establishment is Now Ready to Attack"
Comments here:

Monday, June 5, 2023

"WWIII: It Has Begun! Invasion on All Fronts, Russian Media Tells Us What's About to Happen"

Full screen recommended.
Canadian Prepper, 6/5/23
"WWIII: It Has Begun! Invasion on All Fronts,
 Russian Media Tells Us What's About to Happen"
"The war between NATO and Russia has begun,
 its being called a "counteroffensive".
Comments here:
o
Was nice knowing you, folks...
it all seems so horrifyingly inevitable. God help us...

"Living In An RV, Trying To Survive Economic Crisis; Auto Makers Ripping You Off; Credit Crisis Panic"

Jeremiah Babe, 6/5/23
"Living In An RV, Trying To Survive Economic Crisis; 
Auto Makers Ripping You Off; Credit Crisis Panic"
Comments here:

"They Did It Again"

Full screen recommended.
Dan, I Allegedly 6/5/23
"They Did It Again"
"Crime is running rampant across the country. I had my catalytic converter stolen for the second time in three weeks. Real estate is at the most on affordable level and history. Interest rates are sky high, and the average person cannot afford to buy a home. General Motors said that they are going to produce more gasoline powered vehicles. Who know?"
Comments here:

Musical Interlude: Justin Hayward, "The Way of the World"

Full screen recommended.
Justin Hayward, "The Way of the World"

"A Look to the Heavens"

“Near the outskirts of the Small Magellanic Cloud, a satellite galaxy some 200 thousand light-years distant, lies 5 million year young star cluster NGC 602. Surrounded by natal gas and dust, NGC 602 is featured in this stunning Hubble image of the region.

Fantastic ridges and swept back shapes strongly suggest that energetic radiation and shock waves from NGC 602's massive young stars have eroded the dusty material and triggered a progression of star formation moving away from the cluster's center. At the estimated distance of the Small Magellanic Cloud, the picture spans about 200 light-years, but a tantalizing assortment of background galaxies are also visible in the sharp Hubble view. The background galaxies are hundreds of millions of light-years or more beyond NGC 602.”

"Ten Commandments For Living From Philosopher Bertrand Russell"

"Ten Commandments For Living From
Philosopher Bertrand Russell"

"The Ten Commandments that, as a teacher, I should wish to promulgate, might be set forth as follows:

1. Do not feel absolutely certain of anything.

2. Do not think it worthwhile to proceed by concealing evidence, for the evidence is sure to come to light.

3. Never try to discourage thinking for you are sure to succeed.

4. When you meet with opposition, even if it should be from your husband or your children, endeavor to overcome it by argument and not by authority, for a victory dependent upon authority is unreal and illusory.

5. Have no respect for the authority of others, for there are always contrary authorities to be found.

6. Do not use power to suppress opinions you think pernicious, for if you do the opinions will suppress you.

7. Do not fear to be eccentric in opinion, for every opinion now accepted was once eccentric.

8. Find more pleasure in intelligent dissent than in passive agreement, for, if you value intelligence as you should, the former implies a deeper agreement than the latter.

9. Be scrupulously truthful, even if the truth is inconvenient, for it is more inconvenient when you try to conceal it.

10. Do not feel envious of the happiness of those who live in a fool’s paradise, for only a fool will think that it is happiness."
"Three Passions" 
 "Three passions have governed my life:
The longings for love, the search for knowledge,
And unbearable pity for the suffering of humankind.
Love brings ecstasy and relieves loneliness.
In the union of love I have seen
In a mystic miniature the prefiguring vision
Of the heavens that saints and poets have imagined.
With equal passion I have sought knowledge.
I have wished to understand the hearts of people.
I have wished to know why the stars shine.
Love and knowledge led upwards to the heavens,
But always pity brought me back to earth;
Cries of pain reverberated in my heart,
Of children in famine, of victims tortured,
And of old people left helpless.
I long to alleviate the evil, but I cannot,
And I too suffer.
This has been my life; I found it worth living. 
- Bertrand Russell

"A Person Who Has Remained A Person..."

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

And so, sometimes, we all get like this...
Full screen recommended.
Pet Shop Boys, "Numb"

The Poet: May Sarton, “Now I Become Myself”

 

“Now I Become Myself”

“Now I become myself. It’s taken
Time, many years and places,
I have been dissolved and shaken,
Worn other people’s faces,
Run madly, as if Time were there,
Terribly old, crying a warning,
“Hurry, you will be dead before —”
(What? Before you reach the morning?
or the end of the poem, is clear?
Or love safe in the walled city?)
Now to stand still, to be here,
Feel my own weight and density!
Now there is time and Time is young.
O, in this single hour I live
All of myself and do not move,
I, the pursued, who madly ran,
Stand still, stand still, and stop the Sun!”

~ May Sarton,
 Collected Poems, 1930-1993

"Still, Sometimes..."

“The early bird catches the worm. A stitch in time saves nine. He who hesitates is lost. We can’t pretend we haven’t been told. We’ve all heard the proverbs, heard the philosophers, heard our grandparents warning us about wasted time, heard the damn poets urging us to seize the day. Still, sometimes, we have to see for ourselves. We have to make our own mistakes. We have to learn our own lessons. We have to sweep today’s possibility under tomorrow’s rug, until we can’t anymore, until we finally understand for ourselves what Benjamin Franklin meant: That knowing is better than wondering. That waking is better than sleeping. And that even the biggest failure, even the worst, most intractable mistake, beats the hell out of never trying.”
- “Meredith”, “Grey’s Anatomy”

"What Happens When The Competent Opt Out?"

"What Happens When The Competent Opt Out?"
By this terminal stage, the competent 
have been driven out, quit or burned out.
by Charles Hugh Smith

"What happens with the competent retire, burn out or opt out? It's a question few bother to ask because the base assumption is that there is an essentially limitless pool of competent people who can be tapped or trained to replace those who retire, burn out or opt out, i.e. quit in favor of a lifestyle that doesn't require much in the way of income or stress. These assumptions are no longer valid. A great many essential services that are tightly bound to other essential services are cracking as the competent decide (or realize) they're done with the rat-race.

The drivers of the Competent Opting Out are obvious yet difficult to quantify. Those retiring, burning out and opting out will deny they're leaving for these reasons because it's not politic to be so honest and direct. They will offer time-honored dodges such as "pursue other opportunities" or "family obligations."

1. The steady increase in workloads, paperwork, compliance and make-work (i.e. work that has nothing to do with the institution's actual purpose and mission) that lead to burnout. There is only so much we can accomplish, and if we're burdened with ever-increasing demands for paperwork, compliance, useless meetings, training sessions, etc., then we no longer have the time or energy to perform our productive work.

I wrote a short book on my experience of Burnout. I believe it is increasingly common in jobs that demand responsibility and accountability yet don't provide the tools and time to fulfill these demands. Once you've burned out, you cannot continue. That option no longer exists.

For others, the meager rewards simply aren't worth the sacrifices required. The theme song playing in the background is the Johnny Paycheck classic Take this job and shove it.

Healthcare workloads, paperwork and compliance are one example of many. Failure to complete all the make-work can have dire consequences, so it becomes necessary to do less "real work" in order to complete all the work that has little or nothing to do with actual patient care. Alternatively, the workload expands to the point that it breaks the competent and they leave.

2. Loss of autonomy, control, belonging, rewards, accomplishment and fairness. Professor Christina Malasch pioneered research on the causes of burnout, which can be summarized as any work environment that reduces autonomy, control, belonging, rewards, accomplishment and fairness. Despite a near-infinite avalanche of corporate happy-talk ("we're all family,"--oh, barf) this describes a great many work environments in the US: in a word, depersonalized. Everyone is a replaceable cog in a great impersonal machine optimized to maximize profits for shareholders.

3. The politicization of the work environment. Let's begin by distinguishing between policies enforcing equal opportunity, pay, standards and accountability, policies required to fulfill the legal promises embedded in the nation's social contract, and politicization, which demands allegiance and declarations of loyalty to political ideologies that have nothing to do with the work being done or the standards of accountability necessary to the operation of the complex institution or enterprise.

The problem with politicization is that it is 1) intrinsically inauthentic and 2) it substitutes the ideologically pure for the competent. Rigid, top-down hierarchies (including not just Communist regimes but corporations and institutions) demand expressions of fealty (the equivalent of loyalty oaths) and compliance to ideological demands (check the right boxes of party indoctrination, "self-criticism," "struggle sessions," etc.).

The correct verbiage and ideological enthusiasm become the basis of advancement rather than accountability to standards of competence. The competent are thus replaced with the politically savvy. Since competence is no longer being selected for, it's replaced by what is being selected for, political compliance.

It doesn't matter what flavor of ideological purity holds sway - conservative, progressive, communist or religious - all fatally erode competence by selecting for ideological compliance. Everyone knows the enthusiasm is inauthentic and only for show, but artifice and inauthenticity are perfectly adequate for the politicization taskmasters.

4. The competent must cover for the incompetent. As the competent tire of the artifice and make-work and quit, the remaining competent must work harder to keep everything glued together. Their commitment to high standards and accountability are their undoing, as the slack-masters and incompetent either don't care ("I'm just here to qualify for my pension") or they've mastered the processes of masking their incompetence, often by blaming the competent or the innocent for their own failings.

This additional workload crushes the remaining competent who then burn out and quit, go on disability or opt out, changing their lifestyle to get by on far less income, work, responsibility and far less exposure to the toxic work environments created by depersonalization, politicization and the elevation of the incompetent.

5. As the competent leadership leaves, the incompetent takes the reins, blind to their own incompetence. It all looked so easy when the competent were at the helm, but reality is a cruel taskmaster, and all the excuses that worked as an underling wear thin once the incompetent are in leadership roles. By this terminal stage, the competent have been driven out, quit or burned out. There's only slack-masters and incompetent left, and the toxic work environment has been institutionalized, so no competent individual will even bother applying, much less take a job doomed to burnout and failure.
This is why systems are breaking down before our eyes and why the breakdowns will spread with alarming rapidity due the tightly bound structure of complex systems."
o
Hat tip to The Zero Hedge for this material.

"Fate. Luck. Chance."

“That is life, isn’t it? Fate. Luck. Chance. A long series of what-if’s that lead from one moment to the next, time never pausing for you to catch your breath, to make sense of the cards that have been handed to you. And all you can do is play your cards and hope for the best, because in the end, it all comes back to those three basics. Fate. Luck. Chance.”
- Kelseyleigh Reber

“Unless, of course, there’s no such thing as chance…in which case, we should either - optimistically - get up and cheer, because if everything is planned in advance, then we all have a meaning and are spared the terror of knowing ourselves to be random, without a why; or else, of course, we might - as pessimists - give up right here and now, understanding the futility of thought-decision-action, since nothing we think makes any difference anyway, things will be as they will. Where, then, is optimism? In fate or in chaos?”
- Salman Rushdie

The Daily "Near You?"

Loveland, Ohio, USA. Thanks for stopping by!

"Survival..."

 

May not work, but you can at least try...

"Judge Napolitano - Judging Freedom, 6/5/23"

Judge Napolitano - Judging Freedom, 6/5/23
"Ukraine's Offensive is Ready" - Zelenskyy;
 - Ray McGovern fmr CIA
Comments here:
o
Judge Napolitano - Judging Freedom, 6/5/23
"Ukraine Offensive - All the Hype; 
- Col. Daniel Davis (ret)"
Comments here:
o
Scott Ritter, 6/5/23
"Russia Thwarts Attempted Offensive; 
Belgorod Shelled by Ukraine"
"We are joined by Alexander Mikhailov, head of the Bureau of Military-Political Analysis. Graduate of the Military University of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation, he worked in various printed publications of the Ministry of Defense. From 2006 to 2011 he worked in the State Duma. He is a laureate of an All-Russian competition in the media for covering the activities of special services and has numerous departmental and public awards for his activities in the field of mass media."
Comments here:

Col. Douglas Macgregor, "Bakhmut - The Illusion of Invincibility"

Col. Douglas Macgregor, 6/5/23
"Bakhmut - The Illusion of Invincibility"
Comments here:
o

"How It Really Is"

 

As H. L. Mencken said, "Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard." Yeah Joe, you got this, and we're all getting it good and hard too, aren't we? And not even a peck on the cheek...

Jim Kunstler, "What’s Next"

"What’s Next"
by Jim Kunstler

“In this singular quest to win the Heartland the West has bankrupted itself - economically, morally, and most importantly, spiritually. This has led to a political crisis gnawing at the center of western society.” - Tom Luongo, the Gold, Goats, and Guns blog.

"What’s next? You must be wondering because the psychopathic regime running our national affairs seems to be fresh out of trips to lay on us. One thing for sure, as the sweet zephyrs of springtime merge into the punishing infernos of summer, is that the collapse of the USA continues apace. You can debate whether it is a good thing or a bad thing, but above all it is the thing.

Have you forgotten our Ukraine project (Let’s you and him fight)? The idea was to bleed Russia dry because, you know… Russia! (They meddle in our elections… they collude with Trump… they tamper with our hopes and dreams...) It was years in the making, impeccably gamed-out in the State Department’s sub-basement. Secret Agent Man Hunter Biden, the then vice-president’s son, was even installed in the dark heart of Ukraine’s power center to… to do what, exactly? Never mind, because what secret agent men do is… secret!

The Ukraine bear trap was supposed to put Russia out-of-business for the foreseeable future. Didn’t work out. The crowning act of boobery was our demolition of the Nord Stream natgas pipelines, which had the predictable effect of putting our NATO allies out-of-business, while Russia turned around and found other customers for its gas. The sound of teeth gnashing down in Foggy Bottom might have kept “Joe Biden” up at night - except he was a hundred miles away on the beach in Delaware, medicated unto dreamland where it’s always 1964 and you’re tooling among the saguaros in your beloved Corvette, getting your kicks on Route 66.

So, let’s face it: Ukraine flopped. The main result of the Ukraine project is that it destroyed the tiny shred of what was left of America’s reputation for acting the global hegemon. In fact, Ukraine revealed that Russia has better weapons than we have (China, too) and that, given the emergence of hypersonic missiles, our gazillion-dollar aircraft carrier fleets are as obsolete as Roman triremes and liburnae. So, what’s our Plan B for defending Taiwan? (Hint: there is none.)

What’s next? Western Europe, facing its own collapse, will turn on America and refuse to continue pretending it can help out in Ukraine. NATO falls apart. (What to do with those vacant office buildings and idle employees?) Europe will have enough problems with its cratering industries and banking system. It may even be obvious to a few heads-of-state that the best outcome is to simply allow Russia to pacify and demilitarize the age-old borderland. After all, for the rolling decades since World War Two, Ukraine was not a problem for anyone until America made it one.

There will be no face-saving for the “Joe Biden” regime, either, which is reaching its own collapse phase. Last week’s face-plant at the Air Force Academy was the harbinger of things-to-come. Today (Monday), FBI officials must walk over to the House oversight Committee an internal FD-1023 document revealed by a whistleblower to contain allegations of a Biden family $5-million bribery scheme with foreign actors. Of course, the substance of this criminal mischief is not news. What’s news is that the allegations contained in the doc come from a “trusted” confidential human source, meaning that, according to the FBI’s own rules, the allegation should have been dealt with expeditiously. Instead, the Bureau sat on it for three years. The FD-1023 doc is dated 2020, months before that year’s presidential election. The source is also alleged to be from Ukraine.

Will committee members be allowed to photo-copy the doc, or transcribe what’s in it? Wouldn’t it be amusing if Committee Chairman James Comer personally walks it over to the Xerox machine? What would the FBI officials do? Body check him? What if it turns out that the doc is full of redactions - blacked out. Like a big, fat practical joke from FBI Director Christopher Wray. (They’ve done it before.) Remember, Mr. Wray is already under threat of a contempt citation for stalling on this matter. But he’s obviously caught between that old rock and a hard place, since the doc appears to prove that, at least, the FBI has obstructed justice, and of the worst sort, a potential case of presidential treason. Mr. Wray may even be colored as an accomplice in it.

Or maybe it will all amount to nothing because all bad deeds go unpunished in the degenerate era that precedes collapse. Even so, it seems the regime is running out of insults to launch against the people who consent to be governed by it. The national transexual struggle-session draws to a close with SecDef Lloyd Austin canceling the upcoming drag shows on our military bases. What else have they got? Slavery reparations? Rep Cori Bush (D-MO) has introduced a bill to pay $14-Trillion to the descendants of slaves. I’m sure that’ll work, both as a unifying action to bring together the quarrelsome diverse peoples of our land, and as a purely fiscal measure.

The fate of the financial system will probably shove all of that aside, anyway. Everybody with more than half a brain is waiting for it to crack up, meaning a generalized vanishing of American wealth as expressed in cratering markets, failing banks, and a broken currency, in some vicious combo. Nothing else, it seems, can quite get the people’s attention."

Gregory Mannarino, "Recession Coming? NO...How About A Super Depression!"

Gregory Mannarino, AM 6/5/23
"Recession Coming? 
NO...How About A Super Depression!"
Comments here:

"Shopping At Ollies! Bargain Hunting, Checking Prices!"

Full screen recommended.
Adventures With Danno, 6/5/23
"Shopping At Ollies! Bargain Hunting, Checking Prices!"
"In today's vlog, we are at Ollie's and are seeking out some bargains on grocery items. With massive price increases continuing at grocery stores, we are searching for some good deals during these times of high inflation. We will go over the quality and prices of items that we shop for in the store."
Comments here:

"Economic Market Snapshot 6/5/23"

  

"Economic Market Snapshot 6/5/23"
Market Data Center, Live Updates:
Down the rabbit hole of psychopathic greed and insanity...
Only the consequences are real - to you!
"It's a Big Club, and you ain't in it. 
You and I are not in the Big Club."
- George Carlin
A comprehensive, essential daily read.
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: creditequity valuationfunding, safe assets and volatility. The FSI shows stress contributions by three regions: United Statesother advanced economies, and emerging markets."
Job cuts and much more.
Commentary, highly recommended:
"The more I see of the monied classes,
the better I understand the guillotine."
- George Bernard Shaw
Oh yeah... beyond words. Any I know anyway...
And now... The End Game...
o

Sunday, June 4, 2023

"We Are Never Going Back To Normal; California Is Falling Into The Abyss As Ports Shutdown"

Jeremiah Babe, 6/4/23
"We Are Never Going Back To Normal; 
California Is Falling Into The Abyss As Ports Shutdown"
Comments here:

"Gas Prices Will Double In The Weeks Ahead As Stations Face Massive Supply Outages"

Full screen recommended.
"Gas Prices Will Double In The Weeks 
Ahead As Stations Face Massive Supply Outages"
By Epic Economist

"Are you ready to pay double at the pump this summer? Because the experts are warning about a huge price spike as fuel inventories continue to shrink, especially as OPEC+ slashed oil production, and the Saudis are telling US short-sellers who are betting prices will fall to “watch out.” The Energy Information Association expects the price of a barrel of oil to rise almost $10 above the current average, which will have a massive impact on gasoline prices all over the country. In some states, drivers are already paying over $4.90 per gallon, but the shock could be even bigger as seasonal demands pick up, according to Bloomberg. Adding to the worrying outlook, new research has found that US gas pipelines are at risk of outages and regulators are urging officials to take precautions before a nationwide disruption occurs.

To make things worse, national gasoline inventories dropped for the third straight week to their lowest levels for this time of the year since 2014. Furthermore, total US fuel oil production is on track to decrease this month after output fell last week by the largest amount since February 2022, data from the EIA reveals. Gulf Coast and East Coast refiners have led the decline and produced 15% and 9% less fuel oil so far this month, respectively,

Though a gallon of gas costs less than a year ago, those averages may not hold for much longer. Analysts say prices can double in the near term and put a crimp in people’s budgets. Summer gas produces fewer emissions and is more expensive to produce, whereas cheaper winter gas ignites more easily to start your car in cold temperatures. Warm weather typically draws out more drivers, too, significantly increasing the demand for gas. “Usually when demand is up, gas prices go up,” said Anlleyn Venegas, spokesperson for the AAA.

When inventories start to dwindle and people notice that prices are rapidly skyrocketing, they tend to hoard fuel before stations run completely dry. That’s what happened in 2021 when Americans witnessed huge lines outside gas stations due to supply disruptions and higher costs. This year, one single extreme weather event left seven states without fuel, according to CBS News, including Virginia and North Carolina, which even declared a state of emergency to prevent the crisis from escalating. More recently, the entire Miamo-Fort Lauderdale area faced massive gasoline outages after a historic storm caused flooding and triggered a wave of panic buying by drivers filling their gas tanks.

More than half of gas stations in the Miami-Fort Lauderdale area were without gasoline Wednesday after flooding from last week’s massive storm caused a wave of panic buying by drivers topping off their gas tanks. And just a few weeks ago, researchers at Carnegie Mellon University published a study in The Electricity Journal that found that US gas pipelines are at risk of facing widespread outages. They urged US officials to take action before supplies dropped to dangerously low levels. The scientists investigated vulnerabilities at production sites and outage risks at major US stations.

In new research, scientists investigated the vulnerability of power generation to outages at U.S. pipeline compressor stations. They found that at least 10% of such stations are facing serious threats of shortages, and thus are vulnerable to widespread energy supply outages. In the short term, Americans should expect more unpleasant surprises at the pump, and in the longer term, we should all prepare for unprecedented outages and a downturn unlike anything we’ve ever experienced."
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Gerald Celente, "Nuclear War Looming?! Be Warned!"

Full screen recommended.
Gerald Celente, 6/4/23
"Nuclear War Looming?! Be Warned!"
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Musical Interlude: Mecano, "Hijo de la Luna"

Mecano, "Hijo de la Luna"

"A Look to the Heavens"

"A gorgeous spiral galaxy some 100 million light-years distant, NGC 1309 lies on the banks of the constellation of the River (Eridanus). NGC 1309 spans about 30,000 light-years, making it about one third the size of our larger Milky Way galaxy. Bluish clusters of young stars and dust lanes are seen to trace out NGC 1309's spiral arms as they wind around an older yellowish star population at its core.
Not just another pretty face-on spiral galaxy, observations of NGC 1309's recent supernova and Cepheid variable stars contribute to the calibration of the expansion of the Universe. Still, after you get over this beautiful galaxy's grand design, check out the array of more distant background galaxies also recorded in this sharp, reprocessed, Hubble Space Telescope view.”

"I Know..."

“I know the world seems terrifying right now and the future seems bleak. Just remember human beings have always managed to find the greatest strength within themselves during the darkest hours. When faced with the worst horrors the world has to offer, a person either cracks and succumbs to ugliness, or they salvage the inner core of who they are and fight to right wrongs. Never let hatred, fear, and ignorance get the best of you. Keep bettering yourself so you can make the world around you better, for nothing can improve without the brightest, bravest, kindest, and most imaginative individuals rising above the chaos.”
- Cat Winters

The Poet: David Whyte, ”Sweet Darkness”

 

”Sweet Darkness”

“When your eyes are tired the world is tired also.
When your vision has gone no part of the world can find you.
Time to go into the dark where the night has eyes
to recognize its own.
There you can be sure you are not beyond love.
The dark will be your womb tonight.
The night will give you a horizon
further than you can see.
You must learn one thing:
the world was made to be free in.
Give up all the other worlds
except the one to which you belong.
Sometimes it takes darkness and the sweet confinement of your aloneness
to learn anything or anyone that does not bring you alive
is too small for you.”

- David Whyte,
“House of Belonging”

"Do What You Can..."

 

The Daily "Near you?"

Susanville, California, USA. Thanks for stopping by!

"If The Earth..."

"If The Earth..."
“If the Earth were only a few feet in diameter, floating a few feet above a field somewhere, people would come from everywhere to marvel at it. People would walk around it marveling at its big pools of water, its little pools and the water flowing between. People would marvel at the bumps on it and the holes in it.

They would marvel at the very thin layer of gas surrounding it and the water suspended in the gas. The people would marvel at all the creatures walking around the surface of the ball and at the creatures in the water.

The people would declare it as sacred because it was the only one, and they would protect it so that it would not be hurt. The ball would be the greatest wonder known, and people would come to pray to it, to be healed, to gain knowledge, to know beauty and to wonder how it could be.

People would love it, and defend it with their lives because they would somehow know that their lives could be nothing without it. If the Earth were only a few feet in diameter.”
- Joe Miller
Full screen recommended.
Michael Jackson, "Earth Song"