"This Is Why So Many People Are Suddenly 'Panic Buying' Rice All Over The United States"

"This Is Why So Many People Are Suddenly 

'Panic Buying' Rice All Over The United States"

By Michael Snyder

"Rice is one of the most important staple foods for more than 3 billion people around the world, and the nation of India accounts for approximately 40 percent of all global rice exports. So if India decides to start placing restrictions on rice exports, that is a really big deal. Unfortunately, that is precisely what just happened on July 20th. Less than a week ago, India “banned the export of non-basmati white rice”, and that has created a tremendous wave of panic all over the planet…

"The Food and Consumer Affairs Ministry on July 20 banned the export of non-basmati white rice, with immediate effect, to stabilize the volatile retail prices in the country. Rice production has taken a hit owing to vagaries of weather such as heavy monsoon rains in rice-producing States in the north and deficit rainfall in other parts of the country." Non-basmati rice is by far the most common rice used in Asian and Mexican cuisine.

Normally, an enormous amount of non-basmati rice is exported from India to the United States, but very unusual weather patterns have been devastating crops in key rice-producing areas of India…"But heavy rain in the north of India over the last few weeks has damaged newly-planted crops in Punjab and Haryana states. Paddy fields have been submerged for over a week, destroying seedlings, and forcing farmers to wait before they can replant the rice seeds. In other major rice-growing states, farmers have prepared paddy nurseries but have been unable to transplant the seedlings due to inadequate rainfall."

So authorities decided to ban the export of non-basmati rice, and news spread quickly among Indian-Americans here in the United States…"India’s decision to impose a ban on the export of non-basmati white rice has triggered panic buying among NRIs (non-residential Indians) in the US. India accounts for more than 40 percent of world rice exports, and a cut in shipments could inflate food prices in the US."

This is how fast it can happen. Just days after the export ban was announced, social media was filled with videos of panic buying from coast to coast…"Videos and reports shared on social media over the weekend show Indian-Americans standing in long lines or panic-buying rice in Texas, Michigan, New Jersey Alabama, Ohio, Illinois and California."

When people get desperate, they can do crazy things. In fact, there was one report of some very desperate consumers “wrestling for a bag of rice in Dallas, Texas”…"There is a mad rush for rice in the United States after India banned exports. Several Indians were seen wrestling for a bag of rice in Dallas, Texas. Long queues to stock up on rice at supermarkets were also witnessed."

Some of the videos that are currently circulating are just nuts. I didn’t think that we would see anything of this nature in the United States this summer. But here we are.

Some retailers responded to this frenzy by dramatically hiking prices on bags of rice. In one particular case, the price of a bag of rice approximately tripled…"The Business Line reported that several grocery stores across America had increased the price of rice bags, seeing the frenzy. The report quoted an NRI as saying that a bag of 9 kg of rice, which used to cost $15-16 (Rs 1,222-1309) earlier, was now being sold at $46.99 (Rs 3,846)."

Other retailers responded by placing limits on the amount of rice that each customer could purchase…"Other stores unable to keep up with the demand for rice were implementing rationing schemes or deploying innovative methods to stop the panic buying of rice. For instance, the owner of a store stocking Indian products in Mason town in Ohio enforced rationing by asking customers to restrict their purchase to one 20-pound bag (9.07 kg) of ordinary white rice per head, costing $24 (Rs 1,964)."

Gouging consumers during a crisis such as this is just wrong, and so I like the second option much better. Of course it isn’t just the United States where panic buying is happening. Up in Canada, a grocery store in Toronto has also decided to limit each customer to just one bag of rice…"Rice is a staple for billions of people around the world but India has imposed a ban on the export of non-Basmati white rice products. A Toronto South Asian grocery store says it is already feeling the pinch, leading to a spike in panic buying.

“What happened in the last couple of days, it’s only a panic purchase,” Salam Hasan, general manager at Mississauga’s Iqbal Halal Foods, tells CityNews. “We used to have enough for three to four weeks. The stock was sold in just a couple of days.” Hasan says for the time being the popular South Asian grocery store has implemented a restriction, allowing each family to buy just one bag of rice."

Needless to say, this rice panic is taking place at a time when hunger is rapidly growing all over the world. According to the United Nations, 2.4 billion people already do not have enough food to eat. And 900 million of them are facing severe food insecurity. Now the deal that had allowed Ukraine to ship grain through the Black Sea has been terminated and India has decided to completely ban the export of non-basmati rice. Global hunger is going to get even worse during the weeks and months that are in front of us, and I am extremely concerned about where all of this is eventually heading.

But you aren’t hearing much about this from the mainstream media here in the United States, are you? Even though the presidential election is more than 15 months away, our major news networks are obsessively focused on it. That is extremely unfortunate, because historic changes are taking place all over the world right now, but most Americans don’t even realize that they are happening."

- https://citizenwatchreport.com/

The Daily "Near You?"

Union, Kentucky, USA. Thanks for stopping by!

The Poet: Robinson Jeffers, "We Are Those People"

"We Are Those People"

"I have abhorred the wars and despised the liars,

laughed at the frightened

And forecast victory; never one moment's doubt.

But now not far, over the backs of some crawling years, the next

Great war's column of dust and fire writhes

Up the sides of the sky: it becomes clear that we too may suffer

What others have, the brutal horror of defeat -

Or if not in the next, then in the next - therefore watch Germany

And read the future. We wish, of course, that our women

Would die like biting rats in the cellars,

our men like wolves on the mountain:

It will not be so. Our men will curse, cringe, obey;

Our women uncover themselves to the grinning victors

for bits of chocolate."

- Robinson Jeffers

"All The Available Data..."

“All of the available data show that the typical American citizen has about

as much interest in the life of the mind as does your average armadillo.”

- Morris Berman

Apologies to armadillos for the comparison...

"Burning Books In A Brave New 1984 World - The Age Of Censorship" (Excerpt)

"Burning Books In A Brave New 1984 World -

The Age Of Censorship"

By Jim Quinn

Excerpt: "In Part 1 of this article, I explored how Huxley, Orwell, and Bradbury foretold the use of technology by totalitarians to subjugate and control the masses. Now we move on to a currently hot topic – censorship.

“Great is truth, but still greater, from a practical point of view, is silence about truth.” - Aldous Huxley, "Brave New World"

Censorship: “There was always a minority afraid of something, and a great majority afraid of the dark, afraid of the future, afraid of the past, afraid of the present, afraid of themselves and shadows of themselves” - Ray Bradbury, "Fahrenheit 451"

“There is more than one way to burn a book. And the world is full of people run­ning about with lit matches.” – Ray Bradbury

The primary theme of "Fahrenheit 451" is censorship. In Bradbury’s dystopia, burning books was the principal method of censorship, directed by the government, but generally supported by the masses. A form of self-censorship developed, as the dullards, intellectually lazy, and willfully ignorant, preferred books to be burned so they felt that would put them on a level playing field with the critical thinkers and intellectually curious minded.

It always comes back to the government doing everything in their power to keep the masses apathetic, ill-informed, entertained, and distracted, to ensure their continued control over society. Bradbury believed the masses would go along with censorship because they already had television, radio, and fast cars, with vacuous programming, loud music, and unceasing advertising creating over-stimulation and distraction for the populace. They were too distracted to read a book, learn, think critically, or question the authorities.

In Part 1 of this article, I explored how Huxley, Orwell, and Bradbury foretold the use of technology by totalitarians to subjugate and control the masses. Now we move on to a currently hot topic – censorship.

“Great is truth, but still greater, from a practical point of view, is silence about truth.” - Aldous Huxley, "Brave New World"

Bradbury doesn’t have much faith in either government or the people they rule. His view of humanity in general was not positive in the early 1950s. Imagine what he would think of American society seventy years later. The hostility towards books in "Fahrenheit 451" for many was based on envy. The lazy, willfully ignorant masses didn’t want to feel intellectually inferior to those who wanted to read books, learn, inquire, think, and question the government narrative.

Seeing your neighbor’s books burned gave a warped sense of satisfaction to the intentionally ignorant. When your government wants to keep you ignorant to better control you and you choose ignorance because it’s easier to not think, you’ve achieved dystopian perfection. Thinking is hard. Watching a screen is easy.

The 1930’s and 1940’s saw the height of book burnings, with Goebbels and the Nazis burning books contrary to their ideology in the early 1930s, and then the counter book burnings of Nazi literature after 1945. It spread to the U.S., with the Karens of their day burning textbooks and literature they didn’t agree with. There will always be an authoritarian-minded segment of the population who seek power to decide what you should read or see. They do not believe freedom of speech as defined in the Constitution should be available to those they disagree with.

“I wasn’t worried about freedom, I was worried about people being turned into morons by TV…the moronic influence of popular culture through local TV news and the proliferation of giant screens and the bombardment of factoids.” – Ray Bradbury

Censorship is the cudgel they utilize to keep you from making up your own mind about ideas, historical events, opinions, and facts. If you don’t want the masses to know the truth, don’t let them see both sides of issues, keep them distracted by technology, and overload their brains with meaningless drivel. Bradbury’s dystopian fears have come to fruition, seventy years later. We are now a nation of low IQ sheep who “feel” smart because their overlords have lowered the bar so low, every dullard believes themselves to be smarter than Einstein, even though they can’t subtract 57 cents from $1.00 in their head. Generations have been indoctrinated to feel rather than think. They don’t even know what thinking means.

Full, most highly recommended article is here:

- https://www.theburningplatform.com/

o

"The problem isn't even that Johnny can't think. The problem is that 

Johnny doesn't know what thinking is; he confuses it with feeling." 

- Thomas Sowell.

"How It Really Is"

 

Bill Bonner, "RFK, Jr. Gets Stoned"

"RFK, Jr. Gets Stoned"

"Antisemite!" "Racist!" "Vaccine denier!"

 "Conspiracy theorist!" And other baseless, nonsensical claims...

by Bill Bonner

"Well, they'll stone ya when you're trying to be so good.

They'll stone ya just a-like they said they would.

They'll stone ya when you're tryin' to go home,

Then they'll stone ya when you're there all alone.

But I would not feel so all alone,

Everybody must get stoned..."

~ Bob Dylan

Poitou, France - "Robert F. Kennedy is undergoing a modern day lapidation…a stoning…by an angry mob. Another rock landed yesterday; Kennedy reports: "The New York Society for Ethical Culture @EthicalNYC just CANCELED my event with @RabbiShmuley scheduled for tomorrow night. They're evidently under tremendous pressure since they violated a binding contract and canceled without explanation…"

The Military/Industrial/Spook Complex: Some are angry because he has dared to challenge his own party. They think he may be playing into the hands of evil Republicans. Some are angry because he threatens the medical/pharmacy/insurance industry – by wondering if its vaccines are all they’re cracked up to be.

Some are mad at him because he menaces the military/industrial/spook complex, with its forever wars, body bags and trillion-dollar budgets. This just in from the Fabius Maximus website: "Summary: The Department of Defense uses obscure accounting to conceal its true cost from America’s citizens, assisted by the mainstream press. Long-time DoD expert Winslow Wheeler shows the real cost for our War Department. Like all debunking of our mad military industrial complex since President Eisenhower warned us in 1961, he has been ignored. The US National Security Budget for 2023/24 is …approximately $1.5 Trillion."

Fabius Maximus was a Roman consul and dictator who saved Rome from the Carthaginians. First after the battle of Lake Trasimene. Second, after the disastrous encounter at Cannae. He is called the ‘Cunctator’ – the delayer – because he realized that it was unwise to meet Hannibal in open battle. Better to harass him…to cut his supply lines…and to wait for him to run out of supplies and soldiers. Generations of military leaders have studied The Cunctator.

Meanwhile, some people despise Kennedy simply because ‘the system’ has made them rich and powerful, and they don’t appreciate his criticisms. He’s betrayed his class, (the liberal elite), they say. Even his own cousin, Jack Schlossberg, says he’s a disgrace to the Kennedy clan. The New York Post: "Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s 2024 presidential run is a “vanity project” and an “embarrassment” that’s “trading in on Camelot, celebrity, conspiracy theories and conflict,” his cousin Jack Schlossberg decried Friday.

The 30-year-old son of Caroline Kennedy - and only grandson of her late father, President John F. Kennedy - went one step further and officially endorsed President Biden, who “shares his grandfather’s vision for America” and is “the greatest progressive president we’ve ever had.” Really?

Contra Empire: But the most dangerous characters in the mob are those with the black masks. They say nothing. They admit nothing. They claim they don’t exist. While the superficial ‘political’ reasons for wanting to discredit Kennedy are obvious, the deeper, megapolitical reasons are more important: RFK, Jr. is not just running against Joe Biden, nor only against the swamp…the military/industrial/spook/medical/university/media complex…and the entire elite Establishment of both political parties…and the Deep State. Kennedy is at odds with The Empire.

That’s where the fight really matters. It was a battle his uncle and his father took up more than half a century ago, a fight to keep a decent republic from turning into a rapacious empire. They lost. Now, the contest will determine how the empire declines – peacefully…or disgracefully.

America’s rendezvous with imperial greatness came with the end of WWII. After the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the US was cock of the walk. Then, for half a century, it was the world’s hegemon. But it peaked out in the late ‘90s and has since become the ‘late, degenerate empire’ that we see in the daily news.

Kennedy lived through this period, as most of us did. But he saw it taking place up close, and far too personally. His father and his uncle, both were murdered. He then watched as the empire grew and corroded. The Tafts, Cabot Lodges, Dirksens and the Kennedys were mostly driven out of politics. In their place came Biden, Hillary, AOC, Santos, Taylor-Greene. America’s military posture grew larger and larger while Congress turned into a convention of midgets.

A Threat to ‘The System’: Small wonder! It is not hard to see why good men and women stay away from politics. Who would want reporters checking out his high school yearbook…or what he wrote in a letter to the editor in 1985? Who would want political hacks calling up ex-wives…disgruntled former employees…or jealous rivals? Who would put his family through the kind of malign media attention that Donald Trump…and now Robert Kennedy…endure? What kind of power-mad, pathological egomaniac would want it for himself…let alone the people he cared about?

Joe Biden spent his whole life as a hack politician. For him, the move to the White House was merely the natural summa of a tawdry career. Likewise, Donald Trump always craved fame and fortune. He had no real plan, no principles and no program for the US; he had only a goal for himself – to dominate the headlines and prove that he really wasn’t the loser that everybody thought he was.

Kennedy? His is a more complex personality. But whatever it is that drives him has so far made him the victim of the most vicious and hysterically dishonest attack we’ve ever seen. The antagonists – politicians as well as the propaganda press – know perfectly well that Kennedy does not hate Jews. They know he is no more ‘racist’ than they are. They know too that he’s not intentionally spreading ‘misinformation’ about vaccines. He says the things he says because he believes them to be true. Right? Wrong? Who knows? But worth discussing.

But Kennedy represents a threat to ‘the system’…to the empire…to the Deep State, and all the malignant jackassery that comes with it. So, they try to bury him in a pile of rocks. Antisemite! Racist! Vaccine denier! Conspiracy theorist! Kennedy says he is being slammed much harder than even Donald Trump ever was. But Trump was never a real threat. Kennedy is. Today, no sparrow can tumble off a limb without setting off sensors in Langley, Virginia. And no politician can challenge the Empire without being struck by a granite rock."

Joel’s Note: "What you can hear and what you can’t. What you might like to read, versus what you’re “protected” from viewing. Disinformation, misinformation and so-called “malinformation”… all are curtailments on your right to hear, read and think whatsoever you wish… and to make up your mind for yourself on any given matter of importance.

The Founding Fathers, much maligned today, and after a similar fashion to RFK, Jr. (racists, misogynists, anything-a-phobes, etc.), were unequivocal in their determination regarding the paramount importance of freedom of speech… so much so, that they enumerated it as the very first, and most important, amendment in the Bill of Rights… the basic freedom upon which all others depend. For anyone in need of a quick refresher, it reads…

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."

~ First Amendment to the Constitution fo the United States of America

Agreed with him or not, RFK, Jr.’s campaign represents adult Americans’ right to determine for themselves what they agrees with… and what they does not. It stands for the right not to have “The Message” dictated to you by some faceless, nameless, deep state cronies. To hear that which may be challenging, upsetting, even…gulp!… “offensive!”

As always, feel free to opine in the comments section below… What do you agree with? What to you shudder at? What would you like to see more or less of? What resonates with you, as an American voter, in the upcoming electoral campaign?"

- https://bonnerprivateresearch.substack.com/

o

Bob Dylan, "Everybody Must Get Stoned"

Dan, I Allegedly, "Where Is The Bottom?"

Full screen recommended.

Dan, I Allegedly 7/25/23

"Where Is The Bottom?"

"Experts have sounded the horn that commercial real estate is going to be a huge problem in the coming months. Buildings cannot be refinanced and some are even being given back to the banks. People are getting denied for loans all over the place."

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

"Panic Buying On Rice In The US! Massive Price Increases!"

Full screen recommended.

Adventures With Danno, 7/25/23

"Panic Buying On Rice In The US!

 Massive Price Increases!"

"Panic buying on rice has begun in the United States due to the rice export ban in India.  This is a concern as we have already seen massive price increases on such products."

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

o

Full screen recommended'

CBCSaskatchewan, 7/25/23

"India's Ban On Non-basmati Rice Triggers

 Panic Buying At Saskatchewan Grocery Stores"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

o

Full screen recommended.

Adventures With Danno, 7/25/23

"Stocking Up At Meijer! Be Prepared! What's Coming?"

"In today's vlog, we are at Meijer and are noticing more price increases on groceries. We are stocking up on our preps on all the sales we find. Inflation is causing major problems at supermarkets, and we are doing what we can to be prepared!"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

Scott Ritter "NATO Cannot Fight Russia"

Scott Ritter, 7/24/23

"NATO Cannot Fight Russia"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

Canadian Prepper, 7/24/23

"Panic Buying Explodes; Polish Battalion Sent To Border;

 37% Fatal Virus; Heat Record"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

"Ukraine Is Disintegrating, The Hospitals Are Full"

Redacted, 7/24/23

"Ukraine Is Disintegrating, The Hospitals Are Full"

"Redacted is back with a big update on military advancements in Ukraine as the western media runs out of lies to tell about the war. Col. Douglas MacGregor joins Redacted to discuss the latest breakthroughs in the war indicating that the "Europeans have had it" with this war. Events on the ground are beginning to overtake the carefully orchestrated charade in Kiev. So what now?'

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

"Wake Up, We Are Headed Straight To The Bottom"

Jeremiah Babe, 7/24/23

"Wake Up, We Are Headed Straight To The Bottom"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

"My Thoughts On 'Sound Of Freedom' Movie! This Was Terrifying!"

Adventures With Danno, 7/24/23

"My Thoughts On 'Sound Of Freedom' Movie!

 This Was Terrifying!"

"We discuss my thoughts on the movie Sound Of Freedom and how it is absolutely terrifying. Although this movie can be unsettling at times, it is one that I feel we must all see, and understand the message it brings across."

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

Musical Interlude: 2002, "We Are Always"

2002, "We Are Always"

"A Look to the Heavens"

“A star cluster around 2 million years young surrounded by natal clouds of dust and glowing gas, M16 is also known as The Eagle Nebula. This beautifully detailed image of the region adopts the colorful Hubble palette and includes cosmic sculptures made famous in Hubble Space Telescope close-ups of the starforming complex. Described as elephant trunks or Pillars of Creation, dense, dusty columns rising near the center are light-years in length but are gravitationally contracting to form stars.

Energetic radiation from the cluster stars erodes material near the tips, eventually exposing the embedded new stars. Extending from the ridge of bright emission left of center is another dusty starforming column known as the Fairy of Eagle Nebula. M16 lies about 7,000 light-years away, an easy target for binoculars or small telescopes in a nebula rich part of the sky toward the split constellation Serpens Cauda (the tail of the snake).”

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

"The Holstee Manifesto"

 

Full screen recommended.

"The Holstee Manifesto: Lifecycle Video"

"I Think..."

"I cannot believe that the purpose of life is to be “happy.” I think

the purpose of life is to be useful, to be responsible, to be compassionate.

It is, above all, to matter and to count, to stand for something,

to have made some difference that you lived at all.”

- Leo C. Rosten

“6 Steps to Release Your Fear and Feel Peaceful”

“6 Steps to Release Your Fear and Feel Peaceful”

by Nicolas Perrin

“We are not what we know but what we are willing to learn.”

~ Mary Catherine Bateson

“It was a balmy spring morning and I started my day as per usual, but I soon realized that my mind was entertaining fearful thoughts about my financial insecurity. With many new ventures within the seedling stage, my income flow was erratic and unpredictable, while my financial responsibilities were consistent and guaranteed. At the time I ignored these thoughts as “petty,” like a parent dismissing a crying child after a mild fall on the pavement.

What I didn’t realize was that my mind wanted to entertain these fear-based thoughts like a Hollywood blockbuster, and as you may know, what you focus on expands. Before I knew it, my body was in a state of complete anxiety and fear. I literally felt my cognitive and creative centers shutting down. I felt completely powerless, a hostage to my own mind. My body felt paralyzed, and I felt disconnected from my talents and gifts. I felt separate, isolated, and vulnerable. I became a victim of the fear. In this moment I realized the powerful impact thoughts can have on how we feel, mentally and physically. Here is what unfolded through me, and the lessons I treasured from this experience.

Fear is a closed energy, referred to as inverted faith. Fear exists when we do not trust our connection to the infinite part of who we are and buy into a story about what’s unfolding in our life. The emotions we feel are created from the thoughts that we choose to focus on, consciously or unconsciously. The emotions act as markers to let us know if we are focusing on expansive, empowering thoughts or fearful, limiting thoughts.

If I were to relate this in a story, it may be like a pilot believing he no longer had any guidance or support from the airport control tower in a large storm, and no instruments on board to detect if he was on a collision course with another airplane. If the control tower represents the infinite part of who we are, which always knows what’s best for us, it can be understandable why the pilot with no other guidance except for his own eye sight would be fearful of the situation at hand. An alarm on the plane beeping at the pilot would represent the emotions. The alarm’s purpose is to get the attention of the pilot so he can focus and realize he is off the path. Once our emotions start to take a grip of our physical body, what can we do to move from a state of limitation and fear into an open, tranquil, peaceful state?

1. Come back to the present moment. The first step is to bring your awareness to the present moment. To do this, take three deep breaths through your nose and exhale through your mouth. After the air has filled your lungs and you’ve felt your stomach rise, exhale through your mouth by forcing the air through your teeth, as if you were hissing out loud. This detoxifies your body from the heavy emotions you’re experiencing and brings you back into the present moment. When I do this, I place my awareness into my feet so I am in a feeling space within my body, rather than being in my mind, entertaining the stories that swirl around with vigor, like a dangerous hurricane. Imagine that all your emotions are in a large sludge bucket. This breathing technique will empty the bucket out so you are empty and free.

2. Put things in perspective. Now that you are present, acknowledge the experience and ask yourself this question: “What is the worst case scenario that can happen to me?” Once we can accept this and realize we will be okay if that happens, we are free from the fear. When I realized I’d blown things out of proportion with my fears, I was able to detach from the story and put things into perspective. I like to imagine that in every moment I have two wolves I can feed (per the Native American myth): the fear wolf or the love wolf. The one that gets stronger and wins is the one I feed.

3. Become an observer of your thoughts. What has served me well in moments like this is to say, “I’m not these thoughts. I’m not these emotions. I’m not this body. I’m an infinite being having a human experience.” In saying this, we immediately detach from the story and allow ourselves the choice of suffering or to become the observer. Imagine that your life is represented in a book, and the story you are living out comes from the words on the page. We can change the words of the story at any point in time.

4. Change your experience. The fourth step is to place your awareness and your right hand on the heart center, which is located near the sternum. Close your eyes, take three deep breaths, and make the following command: “I am now connected to the infinite part of who I am, which already knows how to be whole and complete. I take full responsibility and accountability for this creation, I recognize how it has served me, and I am now ready to let it go. I command that the fear energy be transmuted into unconditional love now. Thank you. It is now done.” This process is incredibly empowering. We allow ourselves the opportunity to experience being our own inner master and a co-creator of our reality.

5. Prevent your mind from sabotaging you. Visualize a stone being thrown into a pond. Observe the ripples it creates when it enters the water. This is to simply distract your mind and allow the process to unfold without doubt or self-sabotage. It is only our mind that can interfere with our own healing.

6. Be grateful. Express gratitude and appreciation for the integration and healing you have received. The key to happiness is awareness. When we become aware that our mind is wandering, we can gently bring it back to the present moment. It’s only in the present moment that we are empowered and can consciously choose the thoughts we engage with. The thoughts we focus on will determine where our energy flows, and thus what is created in our life. Each thought has a vibration, which is reflected by the feeling we experience in our body. To be able to move from a fear-based experience to an open, peaceful experience we must first take full responsibility and accountability that on some level we created the experience, and nobody else is to blame. The choice is truly ours. Do we choose to experience a fearful, limited life or do we choose a happy joyful life?"

- http://tinybuddha.com/

○

Reduce fear, good. Reduce stress also...

Full screen recommended.

Marconi Union, "Weightless"

"Neuroscience Says Listening to This Song 

Reduces Anxiety by Up to 65 Percent"

- https://www.inc.com/melanie-curtin/

○

Think more clearly...

"Cognition Enhancer For Clearer and Faster Thinking - 

Isochronic Tones"

Full screen recommended.

"This session stimulates Beta, SMR and Alpha to train your 

brain for better cognition, such as clearer and faster thinking."

"So It Was All A Lie In Ukraine And They Can't Hide It Anymore"

Scott Ritter, 7/24/23

"Ukraine, An In-depth Analysis"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

Redacted, 7/24/23

"So It Was All A Lie In Ukraine And 

They Can't Hide It Anymore"

"Redacted is back with a big update on military advancements in Ukraine as the western media runs out of lies to tell about the war. Col. Douglad MacGregor joins Redacted to discuss the latest news. "

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

The Daily "Near You?"

Camberwell, Southwark, United Kingdom. Thanks for stopping by!

"Life Comes at You Fast, So You Better Be Ready"

"Life Comes at You Fast, So You Better Be Ready"

by Ryan Holiday

"In 1880, Theodore Roosevelt wrote to his brother, “My happiness is so great that it makes me almost afraid.” In October of that year, life got even better. As he wrote in his diary the night of his wedding to Alice Hathaway Lee, “Our intense happiness is too sacred to be written about.” He would consider it to be one of the best years of his life: he got married, wrote a book, attended law school, and won his first election for public office.

The streak continued. In 1883, he wrote “I can imagine nothing more happy in life than an evening spent in the cozy little sitting room, before a bright fire of soft coal, my books all around me, and playing backgammon with my own dainty mistress.” And that’s how he and Alice spent that cold winter as it crawled into the new year. He wrote in late January that he felt he was fully coming into his own. “I feel now as though I have the reins in my hand.” On February 12th, 1884 his first daughter was born.

Two days later, his wife would be dead of Bright’s disease (now known as kidney failure). His mother had died only hours earlier in the same house, of typhoid fever. Roosevelt marked the day in his diary with a large “X.” Next to it, he wrote, “The light has gone out of my life.”

Life comes at us fast, don’t it?  It can change in an instant. Everything you built, everyone you hold dear, can be taken from you. For absolutely no reason. Just as easily, you can be taken from them. This is why the Stoics say we need to be prepared, constantly, for the twists and turns of Fortune. It’s why Seneca said that nothing happens to the wise man contrary to his expectation, because the wise man has considered every possibility—even the cruel and heartbreaking ones.

And yet even Seneca was blindsided by a health scare in his early twenties that forced him to spend nearly a decade in Egypt to recover. He lost his father less than a year before he lost his first-born son, and twenty days after burying his son he was exiled by the emperor Caligula. He lived through the destruction of one city by a fire and another by an earthquake, before being exiled two more times.

One needs only to read his letters and essays, written on a rock off the coast of Italy, to get a sense that even a philosopher can get knocked on their ass and feel sorry for themselves from time to time.

What do we do? Well, first, knowing that life comes at us fast, we should be always prepared. Seneca wrote that the fighter who has “seen his own blood, who has felt his teeth rattle beneath his opponent’s fist… who has been downed in body but not in spirit…” - only they can go into the ring confident of their chances of winning. They know they can take getting bloodied and bruised. They know what the darkness before the proverbial dawn feels like. They have a true and accurate sense for the rhythms of a fight and what winning requires. That sense only comes from getting knocked around. That sense is only possible because of their training.

In his own life, Seneca bloodied and bruised himself through a practice called premeditatio malorum (“the premeditation of evils”). Rehearsing his plans, say to take a trip, he would go over the things that could go wrong or prevent the trip from happening - a storm could spring up, the captain could fall ill, the ship could be attacked by pirates, he could be banished to the island of Corsica the morning of the trip. By doing what he called a premeditatio malorum, Seneca was always prepared for disruption and always working that disruption into his plans. He was fitted for defeat or victory. He stepped into the ring confident he could take any blow. Nothing happened contrary to his expectations.

Life comes at us fast… but that doesn’t mean we should be stupid. We also shouldn’t be arrogant.

We have to hang on. Remember, that in the depths of both of Seneca’s darkest moments, he was unexpectedly saved. From exile, he was suddenly recalled to be the emperor’s tutor. In the words of the historian Richard M. Gummere, “Fortune, whom Seneca as a Stoic often ridicules, came to his rescue.” But Churchill, as always, put it better: “Sometimes when Fortune scowls most spitefully, she is preparing her most dazzling gifts.”

Life is like this. It gives us bad breaks - heartbreakingly bad breaks - and it also gives us incredible lucky breaks. Sometimes the ball that should have gone in, bounces out. Sometimes the ball that had no business going in surprises both the athlete and the crowd when it eventually, after several bounces, somehow manages to pass through the net.

When we’re going through a bad break, we should never forget Fortune’s power to redeem us. When we’re walking through the roses, we should never forget how easily the thorns can tear us upon, how quickly we can be humbled. Sometimes life goes your way, sometimes it doesn’t.

This is what Theodore Roosevelt learned, too. Despite what he wrote in his diary that day in 1884, the light did not completely go out of Roosevelt’s life. Sure, it flickered. It looked like the flame might have been cruelly extinguished. But with time and incredible energy and force of will, he came back from those tragedies. He became a great father, a great husband, and a great leader. He came back and the world was better for it. He was better for it.

Life comes at us fast. Today. Tomorrow. When we least expect it. Be ready. Be strong. Don’t let your light be snuffed out."

- https://ryanholiday.net/

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

"Figuring Forward in an Uncertain Universe"

"Figuring Forward in an Uncertain Universe"

by Maria Popova

"We make things and seed them into the world, never fully knowing - often never knowing at all - whom they will reach and how they will blossom in other hearts, how their meaning will unfold in contexts we never imagined. (W.S. Merwin captured this poignantly in the final lines of his gorgeous poem “Berryman.”)

Today I offer something a little apart from the usual, or sidelong rather, amid these unusual times: A couple of days ago, I received a moving note from a woman who had read "Figuring" and found herself revisiting the final page - it was helping her, she said, live through the terror and confusion of these uncertain times. I figured I’d share that page - which comes after 544 others, tracing centuries of human loves and losses, trials and triumphs, that gave us some of the crowning achievements of our civilization - in case it helps anyone else.

Click image for larger size.

Meanwhile, someplace in the world, somebody is making love and another a poem. Elsewhere in the universe, a star manyfold the mass of our third-rate sun is living out its final moments in a wild spin before collapsing into a black hole, its exhale bending spacetime itself into a well of nothingness that can swallow every atom that ever touched us and every datum we ever produced, every poem and statue and symphony we’ve ever known - an entropic spectacle insentient to questions of blame and mercy, devoid of why.

In four billion years, our own star will follow its fate, collapsing into a white dwarf. We exist only by chance, after all. The Voyager will still be sailing into the interstellar shorelessness on the wings of the “heavenly breezes” Kepler had once imagined, carrying Beethoven on a golden disc crafted by a symphonic civilization that long ago made love and war and mathematics on a distant blue dot.

But until that day comes, nothing once created ever fully leaves us. Seeds are planted and come abloom generations, centuries, civilizations later, migrating across coteries and countries and continents. Meanwhile, people live and people die - in peace as war rages on, in poverty and disrepute as latent fame awaits, with much that never meets its more, in shipwrecked love.

I will die.

You will die.

The atoms that huddled for a cosmic blink around the shadow of a self will return to the seas that made us. What will survive of us are shoreless seeds and stardust."

- https://www.brainpickings.org/

"How It Really Is"

Bill Bonner, "The Big Switch"

"The Big Switch"

From the monetary front to the fiscal front, 

inflation continues to rage...

by Bill Bonner

Poitou, France - “He just refuses to die.” Our neighbor came over for an ‘apero’ yesterday. She told us about her poor father. “He’s 96 years old. He and my mother have been married more than 70 years. But he pointed to her last week and asked me: “Who’s that woman?” “It’s sad. He’s lived in that house for 50 years…but he can’t remember where the bathroom is. “When he got the Covid virus, we all thought he was going to die. But he just lost his mind.” What has to happen will happen, sooner or later. Often, it takes longer than you expect.

The Fed has increased its key lending rate faster and more than any Fed ever did. But the stock market hasn’t crashed. Unemployment is still low. And we’re still waiting for the recession. How come?

The Big Switch: Last week, we were exploring the issue. The secret, we believe, is that the federales have lost their minds. The Trump Team went bonkers in the Covid Hysteria, with a deficit of $4.2 trillion in 2020…then the Biden Bunch followed up with another $1.4 trillion deficit in 2021. (On Friday, we got distracted by RFK, Jr.’s congressional testimony…to which we will return tomorrow.) In the meantime…

It’s still ‘inflate or die.’ But now, consumer prices are coming down (No, they're not. - CP)…and the economy still lives. The reason, we believe, is that the source of inflation has largely switched from the monetary front (the Fed’s interest rates) to the fiscal front (federal deficits). The Fed is still lending at around zero cost in real terms. But now, in addition, the federal government is running the biggest budget deficits in history.

‘Inflation’ refers, technically, to an increase in the money supply…which typically leads to an increase in prices. In today’s global economy, you don’t even have to spike your own punchbowl; about half of the world’s central banks are still lending money below the inflation rate…some as low as 6% below consumer price increases. Some of it is likely to leak in your direction. But there are other ways to enliven a party. Turn up the music. Bring in a stripper. Pass out the hard drugs.

For the last 12 months, the US government has been throwing the biggest shindig in history – spending about $130 billion per week – or nearly 14% more than the year before…and 40% more than before the Covid era blowout. Bank bailouts…the slaughter in the Ukraine…a boondoggle for the silicon chip industry – it adds up. And now, government spending is headed toward 39% of the US economy (see below). Not since WWII has so much of US output been squandered by the government.

Bananaless Republic: The federales are taking charge of everything – deciding which industries will prosper and which won’t ...which news reports are ‘disinformation’ and which are truth…telling foreigners what kind of governments they must have, where their borders should be, and with whom they should trade. The feds rig US markets…crony-fy its capitalism…and run deficits more suited to a Banana Republic (without the bananas!) than to a serious, developed country.

The Biden administration, like the Trump Team before it, is not holding back. David Stockman: "For fiscal year 2023 to date the U.S. federal deficit is up a staggering $900 billion to nearly $1.4 trillion. That’s because YTD revenues are down $422 billion while outlays are higher by $455 billion."

You can’t make this up. The one-time capital gains windfall harvested in FY 2022 is long gone, but they are still spending like drunken sailors. During the first nine months of FY 2023 receipts of $3.4 trillion covered only 71% of outlays at $4.8 trillion. Back in the day that would have been called Keynesian fiscal stimulus with a vengeance. But, alas, we supposedly have an overheated economy with a historically low unemployment rate of 3.6%, but are running a budget deficit at 7% of GDP. (That's incorrect. "May 2023 ShadowStats Alternate Unemployment increased to 24.7% from 24.6% on top of U.6 increasing to 6.7% from 6.6%"

 - CP)

Here’s the Financial Times with further comment: "Within 10 years, US government interest payments will exceed spending on defense and on social programs such as Medicaid. Through 2025, the trillions unleashed by this administration will push government spending up to 39 per cent of GDP, most of it not covered by new revenue. In other big developed economies, spending is poised to fall sharply as a share of GDP, while revenues hold up relatively well. Under pressure from Congress last month, Biden signed the Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2023, creating the appearance of a new restraint. Despite what look like large spending cuts of $1.3tn over 10 years, the US deficit is still projected to hover near 6 per cent of GDP throughout the next decade."

When the Music Stops: The Fed, trying to pin the blame on anyone but itself, did a study showing that while more than 60% of the price increases came from ‘excess demand,’ half of that demand came from the federal government’s deficits.

Government spending is not in itself “inflationary.” If the funds were borrowed honestly, the money supply would not increase. Consumer prices would not necessarily go up. Instead, as the feds’ borrowing increased, eventually interest rates would go up…stifling investment and spending, leading to a weaker economy and lower prices. That is what is happening now…but slowly. The yield on the US 2-year note has gone from around 2.7% a year ago, to nearly 5% today…while the price of oil has fallen from over $120 a barrel last summer to under $80 today.

Like monetary inflation, fiscal inflation (bigger deficits) can keep the party going…for a while. But the underlying pattern is much the same – bringing spending forward, while depriving the future of savings and investment. And either way, whether the source is fiscal or monetary, the formula is the same: either the inflation continues…or the boom dies."

- https://bonnerprivateresearch.substack.com/

Jim Kunstler, "The Purple Hour"

"The Purple Hour"

by Jim Kunstler

“I have a dream that the people we elect to run the 

government will be the ones who actually run the government.”

- Vivek Ramaswamy

"The hour is late for “Joe Biden.” His sojourn in America’s highest office was one long twilight of pretending to be effectual, or merely present, and now even that abject pantomime slips into a place of nullity, where all is still and dark. What does he do these languorous weekends at the fabled Delaware beach house? Stare out at the empty Atlantic horizon over an uneaten egg salad sandwich with the crusts cut off? Does he even suspect that the world is already turning without him?

The pressure is mounting for some group of somebodies to arrange his exit from the scene. Of course, there is no public discussion of that among the somebodies because everything they have been doing for years happens sub rosa, in addition to being of dubious legality. Despite the most formidable praetorian protections - a depraved Justice Department, a Gestapo-caliber FBI, a debauched news media - the arrows of culpability are flying clean through the beach house windows at that immobilized figure sitting in the crepuscular gloom.

Forgive me for bringing this up, but remember the first impeachment of Mr. Trump on the grounds of a phone call to freshly-minted President Z in Ukraine pertaining to some fishy matters around the Burisma gas company? Yes, Mr. T was impeached over a mere inquiry into possible misconduct by a former high US official (being one “Joe Biden,” ex-veep) and his bag-man son. The setup was patently obvious even to us bloggers who enjoy no intimate correspondence with organelles of the DC Blob. A CIA spook “whistleblower” named Eric Ciaramella (sssshhhh) was injected into the scene with help from the devious Col. Vindman at NSA and an assist from Intel Community Inspector General Michael Atkinson…and voila! Recall the solemn pageantry of Nancy Pelosi’s march across the Capitol rotunda with the hallowed bill of impeachment on a satin pillow….

And now, more than three years later, the nation is informed of all the particulars around those Burisma Company’s doings with the Biden family in granular detail ($5-million plus $5-million), laying out just one instance of treasonous moneygrubbing by this family among many grifts in other nations. And in case of any lingering questions - if the news media were not a pseudopod of the Blob - a long roster of bank transfer records has been assembled by Rep. Comer of the House Oversight Committee to validate the deal memos, emails and audio recordings already available for inspection in the alt.news.

You realize, don’t you, that the DOJ and the FBI had all of this info (a.k.a evidence) in its possession even before Trump impeachment number one? AG William Barr and FBI Director Wray could have stepped up at any time after October, 2019, and said, “Oh, here’s what that phone call to Z was about.” That they didn’t is arguably the most blatant crime among scores of crimes committed by the Blob in the Trump and post-Trump years.

"Federal Justice Manual 9-5.000, Section B: Constitutional obligation to ensure a fair trial and disclose material exculpatory and impeachment evidence. Government disclosure of material exculpatory and impeachment evidence is part of the constitutional guarantee to a fair trial. Brady v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 83, 87 (1963). The law requires the disclosure of exculpatory and impeachment evidence when such evidence is material to guilt or punishment.”

So now the Blob is desperate to jettison this embodiment of its corruption and lawlessness, “Joe Biden,” before the Trump-deranged masses start paying attention to the distant yelling from the asteroid belt of actual news beyond noisy Planet MSNBC. The Blob will be fighting for its very life anyway. The Ukraine operation is not proceeding according to plan. Do you know why? Answer: because it was a stupid plan concocted by purblind Neocon idiots. Russia has been insulted to the degree that it deems America unworthy of negotiation - meaning Russia will bring the Ukraine mess to a conclusion on its terms. They will take care to do it gingerly, so as not to further inflame the psychosis afflicting America and tempt us into even grosser stupidities. Namely, they will insist on a neutral Ukraine with no foreign operators in it and some rearrangement of Ukraine’s borders. America will have to lump it. The Blob Neocon faction will blame the whole lamentable affair on “Joe Biden,” who, by then, will be gone from the White House.

How does that happen? The 25th Amendment, since we are now at the point where his infirmity is as hard to ignore as the evidence of his crimes. How the Blob deals with his successor, the distressing Ms. Harris, is another bridge to cross. The switcheroo itself may be enough to tank the financial markets, which will give the restive nation something else to think about: the personal ruin of every household in the land. Then, things get really interesting."

- https://kunstler.com/

"Cash Will Be A Crime"

Full screen recommended.

Dan, I Allegedly 7/24/23

"Cash Will Be A Crime"

"Where did your money come from? This will be the question of the day. We are seeing banks limit cash deposits. This is only going to get worse."

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

"India's Export Ban On Rice Will Affect The Entire World! Prices Surge & Shortages Coming!"

Adventures With Danno, 7/24/23

"India's Export Ban On Rice Will Affect 

The Entire World! Prices Surge & Shortages Coming!"

"In today's vlog, we notice that India has put an export ban on rice, which is 40% of the world's rice supply. This is troubling news as we are already struggling with inflation at an all-time high and will surely cause prices to skyrocket! In our discussion, we talk about how we must prepare for this situation and plan accordingly!"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

o

"World Food Supply Panic As India Bans Rice Exports"

"Expect A 'Severe' Economic Downturn And More Inflation, Here's Why"

Gregory Mannarino, 7/24/23

"Expect A 'Severe' Economic Downturn 

And More Inflation, Here's Why"

- https://traderschoice.net/

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/