Full screen recommended.
2002, " A Gift of Life"
So, we rise from the rubble...
Friday, September 15, 2023
"A Look to the Heavens"
"Who knows what evil lurks in the eyes of galaxies? The Hubble knows -- or in the case of spiral galaxy M64 - is helping to find out. Messier 64, also known as the Evil Eye or Sleeping Beauty Galaxy, may seem to have evil in its eye because all of its stars rotate in the same direction as the interstellar gas in the galaxy's central region, but in the opposite direction in the outer regions. Captured here in great detail by the Earth-orbiting Hubble Space Telescope, enormous dust clouds obscure the near-side of M64's central region, which are laced with the telltale reddish glow of hydrogen associated with star formation.
M64 lies about 17 million light years away, meaning that the light we see from it today left when the last common ancestor between humans and chimpanzees roamed the Earth. The dusty eye and bizarre rotation are likely the result of a billion-year-old merger of two different galaxies."
The Poet: Rainer Maria Rilke, "I Want A Lot"
"I Want A Lot"
"You see, I want a lot.
Perhaps I want everything:
the darkness that comes with every infinite fall
and the shivering blaze of every step up.
So many live on and want nothing
and are raised to the rank of prince
by the slippery ease of their light judgments.
But what you love to see are faces
that so work and feel thirst...
You have not grown old, and it is not too late
to dive into your increasing depths
where life calmly gives out its own secret."
- Rainer Maria Rilke
"Decide..."
“We're all going to die. We don't get much say over how or when, but we do get to decide how we're gonna live. So, do it. Decide. Is this the life you want to live? Is this the person you want to love? Is this the best you can be? Can you be stronger? Kinder? More compassionate? Decide. Breathe in. Breathe out and decide.”
- “Richard”, “Grey’s Anatomy”
o
- W. Somerset Maugham
"Regret for the things we did can be tempered by time;
it is regret for the things we did not do that is inconsolable."
- Sydney J. Harris
Chet Raymo, "The Dot and the Abyss"
Click image for larger size.
"The Dot and the Abyss"
by Chet Raymo
"Let's take a stroll around the neighborhood. Nearby. Not very far. Let's say 20 light-years from the Sun. A typical neighborhood, for our neck of the galaxy. About a hundred stars. If we travel to the nearest one on, say, a Voyager spacecraft, it will take us upwards of thirty thousand years to get there. So our neighborhood amble will take a while.
First we'll pop in on Alpha Centauri and its two companions. Alpha is a twin of our Sun, a yellow star. In our 20-light-year neighborhood there are half-a-dozen Sunlike stars. Not many stars are bigger or brighter. Sirius, Altair, Procyon. Nothing really hot and bright like Rigel in Orion, and no red giants. All things considered, our Sun is one of the big shots on the block. A dozen or so orange stars, somewhat cooler and less bright than the Sun. A passel of red dwarfs. And a handful of white dwarfs make up the mix. About a hundred in all.
Now let's put the neighborhood in perspective. Imagine the 20-light-year-radius sphere with its hundred stars is the size of the period at the end of this sentence. Then the Milky Way Galaxy would be about the size of your desktop, a great wheeling whirl of stars with our neighborhood dot about two-thirds of the way out from the center.
Click image for larger size.
The next spiral galaxy? Andromeda? Another circular tabletop of a hundred billion stars at the other end of the house. How many galaxies? Well, tens of billions that we can potentially see with current technology, spread out around us in every direction for hundreds of miles. And our sweet little Sun and its one hundred neighboring stars are in this period.
We know all of this. But there is a sense in which we don't know it. Psychologically we still live in the cosmic egg universe of Dante, our cozy planet with the Empyrean just up there above the clouds. We have lived through the most breathtaking transformation of human knowledge and we haven't begun to grasp what it means. It’s as if the transformation never happened. We know and we don't know. Maybe we don't want to know."
"A Lot Of People..."
"Thomas Edison said in all seriousness: "There is no expedient to which a man will not resort to avoid the labor of thinking"- if we bother with facts at all, we hunt like bird dogs after the facts that bolster up what we already think- and ignore all the others! We want only the facts that justify our acts- the facts that fit in conveniently with our wishful thinking and justify our preconceived prejudices. As Andre Maurois put it: "Everything that is in agreement with our personal desires seems true. Everything that is not puts us into a rage." Is it any wonder, then, that we find it so hard to get at the answers to our problems? Wouldn't we have the same trouble trying to solve a second-grade arithmetic problem, if we went ahead on the assumption that two plus two equals five? Yet there are a lot of people in this world who make life a hell for themselves and others by insisting that two plus two equals five- or maybe five hundred!"
- Dale Carnegie
"Your Future As Peasants"
"Your Future As Peasants"
by Addison Wiggin
I know the human being and fish can co-exist peacefully.
- George W. Bush
"Okay, so are we “boiling the oceans,” as former Vice President Al Gore told the Davos Crowd of the World Economic Forum earlier this year… or are we “burnt toast”?
"Free Speech On Trial"
by Leighton Woodhouse and Alex Gutentag
"Neither sound very positive. And on a sunny day in the Mid-Atlantic, 75 degrees and a slight breeze, it doesn’t feel much like either. Still, it’s not a question we’re asking lightly. The journal Science Advances published the results of a study which has been measuring 9 key health factors for the planet earth. They include, Earth’s climate, biodiversity, land, freshwater, nutrient pollution and “novel” chemicals, those created by man. Those six metrics are all “out of whack” according to the AP, because all six are exceeding “safe operating space for humanity” on this shining ball of blue we call home.
“We are in very bad shape,” said Johan Rockstrom, director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research. “We show in this analysis that the planet is losing resilience and the patient is sick.” Of the three other metrics the study tracks – ozone, health of the air and acidity in the oceans – only the ozone layer is in whack. “I’ve often said if we don’t quickly cut back on how we are stressing the Earth, we’re toast,” commented Granger Morgan, a professor of environmental engineering at Carnegie Mellon, when interviewed by AP. “This paper says it’s more likely that we’re burnt toast.”
As you can imagine, after the AP covered the study, the rest of the legacy press chimed right in. The “narrative,” of course, is that we’re all doomed to be boiled alive and, apparently, have dry mouth as we try to swallow the “burnt toast” conclusion. You’ll recall, here in The Daily Missive we’ve been following the debate between the “alarmists” and “deniers.”
The alarmists want draconian measures taken to mitigate the causes of climate change in their scientific view. The deniers, many of whom don’t dispute the science at all, but have a beef with the policy being crammed down our throats by politicians and unelected bureaucrats all over the globe. Deniers favor “adaptation” which is best supported by a free market and open source innovation. Addled by the Baader-Meinhoff phenomenon, we see these debates all over the place from network news to twitter posts.
The mitigators believe we need draconian measures to bring the Earth back into the whack it was before the Industrial Revolution in the 1750s. Oy. “Climate change is the perfect problem for enterprising globalists,” Jim Rickards told us in a Wiggin Sessions interview earlier this year. “It’s a global problem, so it requires a global solution.”
Our buddy Jud Anglin, writing in Mark Moss’ newsletter Brush Fires, identifies some objectives of the Davos Crowd, should we go along with their premise and accept that the seas are, in fact, boiling and the air tastes like stale bread crumbs. Here are the objectives of The Green World Order policy agenda, in bullet point form, according to Jud:
Centralized for total control. Eyes on you… Eyes on me.
A transformation from fossil fuels to electricity.
All your home appliances will have to be electrified:
Furnaces…
Gas Ranges and Ovens. ...
Water Heaters. ...
Clothes Dryers. ...
Fireplaces. ...
Grills. ...
Fire Pits...
Outdoor Lighting…
And, of course, you’ll drive an Electric Vehicle (EV).
The X (formerly Twitter) iconoclast, Jordan Peterson, tweeted a longer list:
No fireplaces.
No meat.
No dairy.
No heat.
No air conditioning.
No cars.
No clothes.
No flights.
No comedians.
No free speech.
No cash.
No cats.
No dogs.
No farm animals.
No children.
Your future as peasants under the eco-fascists. Really just fascists with the best excuse ever.
There are two main tenets we follow in our writing. The first is we start most of our inquiries with a simple question: “What could go wrong?” Then we see where that question takes us. The second is “ignore politics at your peril.” Both tenets are vital to keep in mind when planning your future… what you’re going to do with your money, what you’re going to do to protect your family, what you can do to ignore the busy body world improvers who want to tell you where to live, what to eat, what energy you can use, what you drive and… the worst of them all, what you can “think”.
Today’s installment of “ignore politics at your peril,” comes loaded with a fresh dose of Orwellian doublespeak. Below, you’ll find a piece tracking the Great Barrington Declaration as it wends its way through the courts. We’ll let the authors, Leighton Woodhouse and Alex Gutentag, writing in today’s episode of the online publication, Public, explain the Declaration and why it's destined for the Supreme Court.
Some context, The Biden White House, including specific members thereof, has been issued an injunction by a Federal judge in Louisiana forbidding them from talking to social media companies (like X, Facebook, LinkedIn etc.).
Specific evidence has been cited in instances where the Biden administration has demanded specific posts they deemed “misinformation” about the COVID-19 virus, mask mandates and vaccines. It’s a deep rabbit hole, if you have a few days of free time you want to spend wondering whatever happened to the America that cherished free speech.
Spoiler alert: White House lawyers are trying to get the injunction lifted because… the injunction violates the government’s right to free speech. In other words, they are using the 1st Amendment to argue they have the right to censor statements they don’t agree with. Yeah, see below.
In light of the climate “debate”, we’re keenly observing the Great Barrington Declaration as it trundles its way toward 1 First St NE, Washington, DC. If the Biden folks have their way, they will also be able censor “misinformation” about the climate. Rather, they will only allow you to read the forgone conclusion that the climate crisis is here and we must act urgently. After all, “the science is settled,” right?
“What kind of disaster,” we’re wondering beholden to our first tenet, “would a climate crisis lockdown of the economy create?” And how long could we expect the government to use emergency powers like they did during the pandemic? It’s Friday, enjoy the read below. And enjoy your weekend!"
o
by Leighton Woodhouse and Alex Gutentag
"Missouri v. Biden, one of the most important free speech cases in American history, is almost certainly going to the Supreme Court. The case centers around whether the Biden administration violated the First Amendment of the Constitution when it pressured social media platforms to take down or de-amplify accounts that voiced speech the government disagreed with. Two of the plaintiffs in the case are Stanford University’s Dr. Jay Battacharya and Dr. Martin Kulldorff, currently on leave from Harvard, who co-wrote a statement called the Great Barrington Declaration, which laid out an alternative public health response to lockdowns and school closures.
For that, they were personally targeted by Anthony Fauci and then-NIH Director Francis Collins, who orchestrated a media campaign to discredit them. On social media, they were censored and shadow-banned, which is at the heart of the case. On the Fourth of July, a federal judge issued an injunction to prevent the government from pressuring social media companies to censor any further content. That ruling was appealed to the Fifth Circuit, which issued a mixed ruling on the injunction.
Yesterday, the Biden administration asked the Supreme Court to weigh in by appealing the federal court’s injunction. That’s a risky move for the government, given how stridently pro-free speech this court is. Most observers believe the Supreme Court is almost certain to hear the case. In its application for a stay on the injunction, the Biden administration argued that the Fifth Circuit decision “contradicts fundamental First Amendment principles.”
“A central dimension of presidential power is the use of the Office’s bully pulpit to seek to persuade Americans - and American companies - to act in ways that the President believes would advance the public interest,” the administration wrote. “The court imposed unprecedented limits on the ability of the President’s closest aides to use the bully pulpit to address matters of public concern, on the FBI’s ability to address threats to the Nation’s security, and on the CDC’s ability to relay public health information at platforms’ request.”
In other words, according to the Biden administration, by preventing the government from censoring people, the court is violating the government’s freedom of speech. Public is tracking this case closely and will report on any developments here as it makes its way to the nation’s highest court."
o
"The Supreme Court Will Rule on Censorship"
Missouri v. Biden goes to the high court, setting up a historic
showdown. Did adminstration lawyers make a tactical error?
"Wrong Is Wrong"
"Wrong Is Wrong"
by Robert W. Malone, MD, MS
"Living in the state of Virginia, I have witnessed first-hand this week how most of the main stream media has worked to normalize that a political candidate could run for the Virginia State Congress, all the while streaming herself and her husband in porn videos as recently as this year. These porn videos include this candidate soliciting “tips” for “sex acts” - requested by her audience. Ergo, she was getting paid to perform sex for money… to pay for her costs to get elected… Yes, this is seriously happening and yes, journalists are defending this. Many big name journalists and newspapers are suggesting Virginians should accept such a candidate without reservations. In fact, some went as far to say it is “misogyny” (this is, is hatred of, aversion to, or prejudice against women) to “malign” such a candidate.
Common decency is something we should strive for in our society and elected officials. Anyone who streams sex videos purposefully on-line, who solicits money for sex on-line or off-line, doesn’t not represent decency. End of story. Defending the indefensible for the sake of winning an election is disgusting. But just look at these headlines:
I could literally write an entire essay on why this behavior is so wrong, whether the candidate is women, man, Democrat or Republican. Why defending this behavior is so wrong. Wrong is wrong."
o
"And then it all changed. It was of course 9/11 that signaled the alteration and darkened the sky, the growing mistrust, the boot-faced bureaucracy. This was bad enough for Americans, but perhaps even more dismaying for foreign admirers. Bit by bit, the glitter came off.
On my last visit, a change of planes at a major mid-western hub was so dingy and exhausting, and the airport itself so tired, crowded, and unwelcoming…Everywhere there were long lines of dispirited people, looking like a defeated army. Even some years ago the growing state-sponsored squalor of San Francisco was becoming evident in some parts of the city. Now I dread to go back at all. But behind it lay a feeling of a country in decline. I do not just mean that the country seems poorer and shabbier, a sensation that has grown stronger and stronger since the Iraq War. I no longer have that sensation of sunny liberation I had back in the 1970s and 1980s whenever I set foot there. The last few times I have been, I have been glad to depart… I have fallen out of love with America."
Jim Kunstler, "The Conundrum"
"The Conundrum"
By Jim Kunstler
“If a politician does a ‘favor’ for a crime boss, and the crime boss pays the politician’s wife, it’s still bribery. If the crime boss pays the politician’s crackhead son on account of the favor, it’s still bribery.” - Jeff Childers, the Coffee & Covid blog.
"Just as a janky investment can turn catastrophically ruinous in the finance world, “Joe Biden” has transmuted from an asset to a liability for the Party of Chaos as we enter the season when things get real. Just weeks ago, the phantasm in the White House could do nothing wrong, despite doing absolutely everything wrong in the thirty-two months he’s haunted the Oval Office. But now, an odor of rot and sulfur trails his every bumbling misstep while his maunderings from the podium set off alarms in party HQ. What to do, indeed…?
As of five minutes ago, “JB” was still pretending to run for reelection, which, of course, was a bamboozle that only the Wokester rank-and-file, hoaxed into an epic psychotic rapture, might swallow. The “president’s” stage managers run a “campaign committee” on next-to-zero contributions, you see, but all it really does is send out millions of algo-concocted, drivel-filled emails five times a day to keep the big pretend going while the DC Blob desperately looks for a way out.
Ever since the fabled Laptop from Hell entered stage left, the un-raptured of the land have been exposed to gales of evidence that “Joe Biden” ran a family influence-peddling racket as veep, and that it likely has something to do with the extravagant mess spawned in Ukraine. The crude and lawless labors of the DOJ and the FBI to cover all that up have been failing lately as a harsh music of blown whistles ominously cleaves the dank night air over the Potomac swamp.
The coming House impeachment inquiry, with its extraordinary subpoena powers, can easily un-confuse these matters as Rep Comer (R-KY) goes after the Biden family bank records. The equation is pretty straightforward: Millions of dollars rattling around the coffers of “Joe” and Jill, and Jim and Frank, and the Biden kids and grand-kids divided by the low six-figure salaries of a senator and vice-president, times, say, the $20 to $50-million inflows of revenue (for no discernible services rendered) from Ukraine, Russia, China, Kazakhstan, and Gawd-knows how many other entities arguably hostile to the USA’s interests through Hunter Biden’s multitudinous shell companies. It’s called money-laundering.
Meanwhile, mirabile dictu, Special Counsel David Weiss goosed three counts of illegal gun possession against Hunter Biden out of a federal grand jury Thursday. Somehow, a loaded garbage barge of tax evasion charges that was last seen a few weeks ago steaming into Indictment Central happened to sail off into the Bermuda Triangle and vanish from the docket. Also in question: what about that “diversion agreement” sneakily embedded in the plea deal that blew up a month ago in Judge Maryellen Noreika’s courtroom? That little gem would have let Hunter B off the hook for any other past federal crime imputed in the many reams of evidence about Biden family moneygrubbing already made public. If the plea deal evaporated, did not the diversion agreement go up in a vapor with it? Hunter’s lawyers apparently say it’s still in force. How does that work?
More to the point, this exorbitant political psychodrama involving a criminally compromised head-of-state, who appears increasingly mentally incompetent, too, is taxing the Blob’s patience, disturbing the Wokesters’ consensus trance, and testing the DNC’s tactical playbook without any apparent good options at hand. Somebody ought to be whispering in “Joe Biden’s” ear that his services are no longer required, the performance is over, and it’s time to exit, stage right. But that, of course, leaves the Blob and the DNC with Kamala Harris, the cackling empty pants-suit, now fully evolved into an historic political joke. It’s not like they can even pretend to run her for president in 2024.
Nor is there any realistic way to shove her offstage for a replacement. The appointed veep switcheroo gambit - shoehorning Gavin Newsom in there and then elevating him as Kamala quits - looks un-sellable. He’s turned California into a Hieronymus Bosch hellscape of flash-mob thievery, car-jacking, medical lunacy, and wildfire mismanagement. The videos of California mayhem play on social media 24/7. He’d never get confirmed by Congress. And who else is there on the DNC bench? Pete Buttigieg? (I’m sure…) Hillary? Bwa-ha-ha-ha-ha…! They could stuff Barack Obama back in - the Constitution only prohibits a third elected term, not an appointment. Wouldn’t that be a nation-ending prank? (At least he could stop pretending to not already be secretly acting president.)"
Bill Bonner, "California Dreamin'"
"California Dreamin'"
Shorter lives, bigger jails and a nation of fear and loathing...
by Bill Bonner
"All the leaves are brown,
And the sky is gray.
I've been for a walk,
On a winter's day.
I'd be safe and warm,
If I was in L.A."
~ John and Michelle Phillips
London, England - "We travel. We keep our ears open. Here’s what we are hearing now: “I can remember the first time I went to California,” said a middle-aged man at a dinner in France. “It was the 1970s. I was so impressed. I wanted to stay there for the rest of my life. It just seemed like paradise….the music…the beaches…the cars…I was ‘California dreaming’ all year round. Most of all, I just loved the feeling that I got back then, that I could do anything. It just seemed so open.
I never lived in the US. But I went back almost every year. But after 9/11 America changed. I got to the border, and they didn’t seem to want me to come in. Everybody was suspicious of foreigners. And by then, the highways in California were clogged with traffic. And people seemed angry. Or cynical. Or maybe just fearful. It wasn’t the same. It wasn’t as much fun. Even the good music seemed to disappear. All they had was ‘boom boom’ music. You couldn’t get away from it. You go to breakfast in a decent hotel…and they’re screaming out some awful music. Hip Hop. Rap. I don’t know what they call it, but it is awful.
Excuse me for sounding so critical. But I only say these things because I like America so much…I hate to see what it is becoming. I didn’t go for a few years…not while Covid shut down travel…but I went back last year. I went to New York and San Francisco. It was depressing. Shocking, actually…the way the places have gotten drab…dull…dangerous… Americans are in their own little world. They seem to be obsessed by racism. A big waste of the nation’s energy, in my opinion. I’m never going back.”
Decline and Fall: The US has been slipping in the international ratings for at least 20 years…and by some measures, for more than 50 years. The US share of world GDP, for example, has been cut in half, from around 40% in 1960 to barely 25% today.
America’s share of prison inmates, on the other hand, has risen. With more than 2 million people in jail, statistically, you’re more likely to be locked up in America than in any other country. No other country comes close. China and Russia, said to be ‘repressive’ regimes, actually leave many more of their citizens at liberty than the US. China has more than three times as many people as the US, but only half as many behind bars.
And Americans, alone among people in developed nations, are living shorter lives. The US is now in 58th place, after China, Kuwait and Albania, in average life expectancy. MSN: "Life Expectancy In The U.S. Is Declining at a Rapid Rate - It Began Much Earlier Than We Thought." "According to Dr. Steven Woolf, the author of the study and the Virginia Commonwealth University’s Center on Society and Health director, the issue of declining life expectancy is more extensive and longstanding than previously believed. The recent report illustrates the continuation of this upward trend in life expectancy until the 1950s when the United States held the 12th highest ranking globally. However, starting from 1955, the growth rate hit a decline, and in 1968, the United States dropped to the 29th position."
No Love Lost: Peter Hitchens, a British commentator writing in the American Conservative, told the story of his own love affair with the USA: "After I visited the USA for the first time, in 1977, I could not sleep properly for a month. As soon as I got home, I wanted to go back…
And then it all changed. It was of course 9/11 that signaled the alteration and darkened the sky, the growing mistrust, the boot-faced bureaucracy. This was bad enough for Americans, but perhaps even more dismaying for foreign admirers. Bit by bit, the glitter came off.
On my last visit, a change of planes at a major mid-western hub was so dingy and exhausting, and the airport itself so tired, crowded, and unwelcoming…Everywhere there were long lines of dispirited people, looking like a defeated army. Even some years ago the growing state-sponsored squalor of San Francisco was becoming evident in some parts of the city. Now I dread to go back at all. But behind it lay a feeling of a country in decline. I do not just mean that the country seems poorer and shabbier, a sensation that has grown stronger and stronger since the Iraq War. I no longer have that sensation of sunny liberation I had back in the 1970s and 1980s whenever I set foot there. The last few times I have been, I have been glad to depart… I have fallen out of love with America."
Don’t worry, Peter; it’s us…it’s not you."
Dan, I Allegedly, "A New Warning We Can’t Ignore; Sphere"
Full screen recommended.
Dan, I Allegedly, 9/15/23
"A New Warning We Can’t Ignore; Sphere"
"Now that we’ve seen the shut down of one of the world’s largest casinos, we have to look at the fact that central bank digital dollars could be shut down at a moment's notice. We cannot let these get started. Ray Dalio issued a warning as well. Plus, today I went to the Las Vegas Sphere."
Comments here:
Gregory Mannarino, "They Are Propping Up A DE@D System, And This Will End Very Badly"
Gregory Mannarino, AM 9/15/23
"They Are Propping Up A DE@D System,
And This Will End Very Badly"
Comments here:
o
Gregory Mannarino, PM 9/15/23
"Goldman Sachs Warns Surging Debt
Will Cause Economic Challenges"
Comments here:
- https://www.youtube.com/
Thursday, September 14, 2023
"Russia - Ukraine War Update 9/14/23"
Full screen recommended.
Canadian Prepper, 9/14/23
"Alert: Massive Strike In Moscow Very Likely;
US Military Takes Over Starlink"
Comments here:
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The Revelation, 9/14/23
"Douglas Macgregor -
A Direct Counterattack on Western Ukraine!"
Comments here:
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So, we're providing the Ukrainians long range missiles and encouraging them to attack Russia, now the US military takes over the Starlink system to guide those missiles. How is this not an act of war? We're just begging for a Russian preemptive first strike and a nuclear war, and we'll get it, too...
Musical Interlude: Vangelis, "Space, Time Continuum"
Full screen recommended.
Vangelis, "Space, Time Continuum"
"A Look to the Heavens"
“Here in the Milky Way galaxy we have astronomical front row seats as M81 and M82 face-off, a mere 12 million light-years away. Locked in a gravitational struggle for the past billion years or so, the two bright galaxies are captured in this deep telescopic snapshot, constructed from 25 hours of image data.
Their most recent close encounter likely resulted in the enhanced spiral arms of M81 (left) and violent star forming regions in M82 so energetic the galaxy glows in X-rays. After repeated passes, in a few billion years only one galaxy will remain. From our perspective, this cosmic moment is seen through a foreground veil of the Milky Way's stars and clouds of dust. Faintly reflecting the foreground starlight, the pervasive dust clouds are relatively unexplored galactic cirrus, or integrated flux nebulae, only a few hundred light-years above the plane of the Milky Way.”
“Alea Iacta Est”
“Alea Iacta Est”
“Alea iacta est is a Latin phrase attributed by Suetonius to Julius Caesar on January 10, 49 B.C. as he led his army across the Rubicon river in Northern Italy. With this step, he entered Italy at the head of his army in defiance of the Senate and began his long civil war against Pompey and the Optimates. The phrase, either in the original Latin or in translation, is used in many languages to indicate that events have passed a point of no return.
The historian Frances Titchener has given a stylized description of the context of Caesar’s pronouncement: “We know from [Caesar's journals] that Caesar is not taking this lightly. He knows that if he marches on Rome with his armies, then he is a public enemy, and that he will either have to win, or die. For a Roman patrician like Julius Caesar there is no life without military service; there is no life without service to the state. He cannot simply ‘go native’ and stay in Gaul, and he does realize that if he goes back to Rome, he would be killed. At this time the northernmost border of the Roman territory in Italy is the River Rubicon. Once someone crosses the River Rubicon, he’s in Roman territory. A general must not cross that boundary with his army – he must do what the Romans call lay down his command, which means surrender his right to order troops, and certainly not be carrying weapons.
Caesar and his armies hesitate quite a while at this river while Caesar decides what to do, and Caesar tells us that he informs his soldiers that it’s a little tiny bridge across the river, but once they cross it they’ll have to fight their way all the way to Rome, and Caesar is well aware that he’s risking not just his own life, but those of his loyal soldiers, and he might not win. Pompey is a formidable enemy. It’s also impossible to avoid the fact that Caesar was attacking the state, and as a patrician Roman this would have been very difficult for him, equivalent to beating up your father. He wouldn’t have done any of this lightly. Finally he makes a decision, it’s time to go, and he uses a gambling metaphor: he says ‘Roll the dice’, ‘Alea iacta est’. Once the dice start rolling they cannot be controlled, even though we don’t know what the outcome will be as the dice roll and tumble. Julius and his men swiftly cross the river and they march double time toward Rome, where they almost beat the messengers sent to inform the Senate of their arrival.”
○
"Life's a gamble. Courage is to roll the dice and go
for the gusto when all odds and bets are against you!"
- Bobby Compton
○
Charles Bukowski, "Roll The Dice"
Read by Tom O'Bedlam
"The Unthinkable Has Begun As A Major Bank Warns Of A Deep Dark Winter"
Full screen recommended.
Epic Economist. 9/14/23
"The Unthinkable Has Begun As A
Major Bank Warns Of A Deep Dark Winter"
"What JPMorgan just said should serve as a warning for all Americans. Yesterday, speaking at an industry event organized by Barclays, CEO Jamie Dimon sounded the alarm on a slew of headwinds that will hit the U.S. economy hard in the next couple of months, and pointed to several risks that could deal heavy blows to consumers, investors, businesses and banks. On Monday, he weighed in on how new regulation by the Fed will impact customers in the coming months. The changes will certainly not make them happy. Dimon explained how plans for new capital rules in the United States could damage the attractiveness of bank stocks, and make banking costs go even higher for consumers.
He argued that the Fed’s “'Basel III Endgame' reforms” would make loans even more expensive, and would force banks to reduce the amount of money they lend, which could drive banking activities into less regulated sectors. Dimon stressed that more lenders could run into problems just like Silicon Valley Bank did this spring. “Any crisis that damages Americans’ trust in their banks damages all banks — a fact that was known even before this crisis,” he wrote. “Even when it is behind us, there will be repercussions from it for years to come," he emphasized.
He also said that it is “a huge mistake” to think that the U.S. economy will boom “for years” given that there are so many risks out there. With interest rates still going up, conditions will become even more recessionary, and “you are going to see more people out there with problems”.
It is for that reason that JPMorgan has just reiterated its bearish stance on the stock market, urging its clients to stay defensively positioned. Analysts at the firm also adjusted the bank's investment strategy in response to rising commodity prices and the potential spike in inflation. JPMorgan strategist Marko Kolanovic also noted that the increased potential for bank turbulence, an oil shock, and slowing growth is poised to send stocks back toward their 2022 lows, as reported by Bloomberg News.
We still have three more months to go before this year is done, and a lot more can happen in financial markets. One of the biggest concerns right now is the real estate sector. Warren Buffet’s investment partner and vice president of Berkshire Hathaway, Charlie Munger recently observed that hundreds of banks are exposed to commercial real estate loans that are at risk of going into default. He thinks there is trouble ahead for the U.S. commercial property market. “A lot of real estate isn’t so good anymore,” Munger said. “We have a lot of troubled office buildings, a lot of troubled shopping centers, a lot of troubled other properties. There’s a lot of agony out there.”
These are the very early chapters of this crisis. But when even the head of one of the biggest financial institutions on the planet is worried about growing risks, we should definitely brace for pain because much worse is yet to come. Although it may take a while for all the dominoes to fall, we won’t be able to avert a decline that is already in motion. The clock is ticking, and time is running out for the U.S. financial system."
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Dan, I Allegedly, "Las Vegas is Under Attack"
Full screen recommended.
Dan, I Allegedly PM 9/14/23
"Las Vegas is Under Attack"
All of the MGM Grand properties have been under a cyber attack for the last four days. An American hacking organization has done a real number on this casino. Check this out. This place is completely a shell of what it normally is and there is no end in sight.
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"Crude Reserves"
"Crude Reserves"
Oil leads all prices higher, more BS from
the BLS and dirty tankers get busy...
by Bill Bonner and Joel Bowman
London, England - "We took the train up to London to attend a conference. Too busy to put thoughts together carefully, today, we will just toss them into a heap.
First, Dan reported yesterday, “two pieces of unpleasant data. August CPI up 3.6% year-over-year. And oil prices at 10-month highs. Good for our Trade of the Decade. Bad for CPI readings in the next few months as higher energy prices hit the index. From BLS: "The all items index increased 3.7 percent for the 12 months ending August, a larger increase than the 3.2-percent increase for the 12 months ending in July. The all items less food and energy index rose 4.3 percent over the last 12 months. The energy index decreased 3.6 percent for the 12 months ending August, and the food index increased 4.3 percent over the last year."
Here's USA Today with the same story: "Inflation accelerated for a second month in August on a spike in gasoline prices and an underlying measure of household expenses rose more than anticipated, highlighting that the Federal Reserve's battle to tame consumer prices may not be over."
And here’s the inevitable effect. Breitbart reports: "Real Household Income Suffers Biggest Drop In 12 Years". Real median household income was $74,580 in 2022, a drop of 2.3 percent from the prior year, the Census Bureau said Tuesday. This is the biggest drop in household income since 2010, when it fell 2.6 percent. That means it is worse than the pandemic decline of 2.2 percent. It is the fourth worst year in records going back to 1985.
In our comments this week and last, we focused on how that is possible. Is this not the greatest economy, in the greatest country, in the greatest period in human existence? Apparently not. But why not?
Progress… of a Kind: Over the last 40 years, the US economy produced plenty of material progress for the capitalists – increases in their stock and bond portfolios. But few gains – other than those (most unmeasurable gains from technology) – for the proletariat. The median man in 2023 earns the same real, median wage he did in 1975. Is that progress? Maybe, but not the kind of progress we were looking for.
A rise in the cost of energy was cited as the primary cause of the higher inflation reading. Did you notice that the price of oil is back over $90 a barrel? In the midterm election cycle, Joe Biden drained the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to try to keep gasoline prices down. Now, another election cycle is coming up…and there’s little oil left in the SPR to pump out. The nation’s inventories are said to be lower than they’ve been at any time in the last 40 years. So, supplies are likely to be tight…with higher prices at the pump.
The fight against inflation is not going to be so easy after all. Stansberry Newswire: These recent price movements are largely due to the ongoing oil-production cuts from Saudi Arabia and Russia. On Tuesday, the two nations announced they're continuing their cuts of 1.3 million barrels per day through the end of the year.
The last time that oil prices were near $90 a barrel, the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve ("SPR") had 250 million more barrels of crude oil than it does now. The SPR is currently at its lowest level since 1983. This means that the U.S. no longer has the slack to offset rising energy costs when a geopolitical event happens.
Panic on the Pampas: Meanwhile, Tucker Carlson goes to Argentina to discover where inflation leads. Argentina has 47 million people, explains an economist he interviews on Twitter, and what they don’t know about inflation isn’t worth knowing. But of those 47 million only 11 million are employed…and take out those who work for the government, and you are left with only 7 million who have actual, wealth-producing jobs.
The inflation rate is now about 10% PER MONTH. “Every month,” Carlson reports, “people get 10% poorer.” That has left the country with a lot of very poor people. The ‘child poverty rate,’ for example, is 60%. And Argentina has slipped from being one of the world’s richest countries to being an economic ‘no man’s land.’
But the most interesting thing coming from Argentina is the ‘Milei phenomenon.’ Would you believe it, Dear Reader…a politician who is proposing to shrink the size of government, reduce taxes, return to real money, get rid of thousands of do-nothing government employees and dismantle the country’s central bank? For the first time since the American Revolution, comes a substantial political movement that aims for less government, not more. Most amazing of all…he’s winning! In the recent primaries, Milei came out in front. Tucker Carlson says he will broadcast his interview with Milei, later today."
o
Joel’s Note: Dear readers noticing their gas bills sneaking higher are not crazy… even if they are being gaslit by the clowns in congress. As you can see from the chart below, forwarded by our man up in Laramie, Dan Denning, the rising oil price is once again leading gas prices higher…
At $3.84 per gallon for regular, prices at the pump are at their highest they’ve been this year. “This is good for the stocks on our Official List,” wrote Tom Dyson in yesterday’s note to BPR’s members. “Demand for crude oil is probably the highest it’s ever been… around 102 million barrels per day. But Saudi Arabia and Russia are choking back their oil production.
According to a report out today by the International Energy Agency, global oil demand is eclipsing supply by 1.2 million barrels per day which is causing record inventory draws. Unless there’s a recession, or OPEC opens the taps again, oil prices should keep rising.”
Of course, price movements like this are both a burden… and an opportunity. As Tom outlined in yesterday’s note, more and more refining capacity is being added nearer to production. That is, away from the “NIMBY” west – think Europe, North America and Australia…where it’s considered “dirty” – and closer to the greasy origins over in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). So not only can oil exporting countries capture more of the profit from their own natural resource, western countries can pat themselves on the back for being “environmentally friendly”… all while outsourcing the dirty work to places most people can find on a map. Umm…win-win?"
"The World Ends in 16 Days"
"The World Ends in 16 Days"
by Brian Maher
"On Sept. 30… in a mere 16 days…The United States government will “shut down” barring fresh congressional funding. Uncle Samuel’s doors will swing shut - and Pandora’s notorious box will swing open. Horror upon horror will ensue. The ranger patrolling the National Park of American Samoa will be thrown into idleness…The Federal Theatre Project will be thrown into darkness…And the visiting seventh-grader from Topeka, Kansas, will be thrown from the Washington Monument.
These are merely examples. Many additional privations would enter existence. How the nation can possibly endure such dark days… we do not know. Yet take some solace…
A Glimmer of Light: Federal workers deemed essential to the safety of the Republic will remain on in event of shutdown - the customs official at Ketchikan, Alaska, for example. The Transportation Security Agency will continue guarding the aerial ways against infants, great-grandmothers, wheelchair-riders and related hellcats.
In event of armed invasion, we are assured the Marines will leap from their barracks. Social Security checks will still go issuing through the mails. That is, the nation will peg along substantially uninterrupted.
Yet we are warned we stand perched upon the devil’s shovel - unless the two political parties at Washington can sink their differences - and agree to keep the government in funds. Warns Goldman, for example: "A government-wide shutdown would directly reduce growth by around 0.15 [percentage points] for each week it lasted; including modest private-sector effects, the hit to growth could be around 0.2 [percentage points] per week. In the quarter following reopening, growth would rise by the same amount." Yet would a government “shutdown” - again, the quote marks are necessary - represent the devastation it is presented to be?
We harbor the gravest doubts. Any discomforts would likely be brief. And we hazard the long-term rewards would outdo whatever short-term hells that attend it.
Government Is a Parasite: It is claimed that federal expenditures constitute some 25% of GDP. Government at all levels is credited with a thumping 36% of United States GDP. Let we must return to a fundamental understanding. We must recognize that governments lack all resources. Imagine a parasite dining on a host. Now imagine a government. You have imagined the very same thing.
You may argue that portions of government’s parasitic enterprise are useful… even necessary. The parasitic arrangement obtains nonetheless. Before government can ladle out one meager dollar for guns, for butter, for bread, for circuses… it must first pluck it up from private pockets - directly or indirectly. That is, directly through taxes or indirectly through credit - borrowing. That is, through taxes or taxes.
Pay Me Now or Pay Me Later: The dollar borrowed is merely a delayed plucking, a plucking at one remove. It is a plucking nonetheless. It represents a future plucking of the taxpayer’s pocket. Explains “Austrian” school economist Peter St. Onge: "We have to remember where [the money comes] from. The government, after all, doesn’t actually create anything. Every dollar it spends came out of somebody else’s pocket. Whose pocket? Part of the [money is] bid away from private borrowers like businesses, and the rest [is] siphoned from people’s savings by the Federal Reserve creating new money."
And if this money is not siphoned away? If it stays unsiphoned and in taxpayer pockets? This means that, yes, GDP would decline sharply. But wealth would actually grow, perhaps substantially. The businesses would be able to buy things they need, while the savers keep their money that was doing useful things like paying their retirement. So GDP drops, wealth soars… Kind heaven, can it be? Wealth soars as the gross domestic product drops?
Who is this St. Onge heretic? Paul Krugman would denounce him as an arm of Satan, rope him to a stake and set him aflame. Yet like a Hollywood movie set… a false set of teeth… or a politician’s word… GDP often gives a deceptive appearance. The numbers tell fantastic lies.
GDP and the Torture of Statistics: Assume the government pays a fellow to shovel a hole. Assume further this government pays him to shovel it back in. In the official telling, you have just witnessed an increase to the gross domestic product. Have you? Or have you merely witnessed an idiocy? You have witnessed an idiocy. You have witnessed a juiceless pursuit. You have witnessed a squandering of time, of effort, of resources.
We maintain that vast amounts of government enterprise sort into this category. Take the example cited. What if the resources to fund this idiocy had remained in rightful hands? The world would be that less idiotic. The world would likewise be that much richer. Alas, this is not the world we inhabit. Yet we begin to stray from the central topic under consideration. Let us then come back. Will the federal government “shut down” on Sept. 30?
Three Possibilities: NBC news sketches three possible outcomes:
1) Congress does nothing and shuts down the government at midnight on Sept. 30;
2) Congress passes one or more continuing resolutions (“CR”) that extend FY2023 funding at current levels until a certain date, moving a potential shutdown date further down the calendar, likely around the Christmas holiday.
3) Congress passes some or all of the 12 separate appropriations bills to fund the government through Sept. 30, 2024, averting a shutdown for some or all of the federal government.
Which will it be? We wager high on outcome 2. Congress will hand down another continuing resolution, so-called. That is, Congress will boot the soda can further down the roadway. “Never underestimate the ability of Washington to kick the can down the road,” affirms one Republican congressman. We do not, Congressman. We do not.
They’d Never Allow a Real Government Shutdown: Congress will never allow a true government shutdown worthy of the expression. Too many would stand to lose too much. There are simply too many angling to get a bucket in the stream. To get a snout in the trough. To catch a penny…To pick a pocket… or two pockets… or 330 million pockets.
Thus the combats before us reduce to theater. They resemble a professional wrestling bout - with its artificial blows and false blood. They are a staged affair. In the congressional example one fellow attempts to wring concessions from the other… to make his eyes blink first. The other fellow pursues an identical result. Each knows that to get, he must give. And so horses are traded, backs are scratched, palms are greased. A deal is reached.
Honest Men Need Not Apply: What about the honest few who demand a square and honest accounting? Their arms are twisted and their skulls are bashed. Thus we expect a continuing resolution to come issuing on Sept. 30. That is, we expect another can-kicking on Sept. 30. If you expect officials to make courageous choices guided by principle… if it is statesmanship you seek… you will not find it in Washington. It is the wrong address."
"Here And Now..."
"That we can never know," answered the wolf angrily. "That's for the future. But what we can know is the importance of what we owe to the present. Here and now, and nowhere else. For nothing else exists, except in our minds. What we owe to ourselves, and to those we're bound to. And we can at least hope to make a better future, for everything."
- David Clement Davies
"The Gods Laugh At Your Plans: Chekhov, Jaspers, And Life-changing Moments"
"The Gods Laugh At Your Plans:
Chekhov, Jaspers, And Life-changing Moments"
The most momentous and significant events in our lives are the
ones we do not see coming. Life is defined by the unforeseen.
by Jonny Thomson
"You’re in the shower one day, and you feel a lump that wasn’t there before. You’re having lunch when your phone rings with an unknown number: there’s been a crash. You come home and your husband is holding a suitcase. “I’m leaving,” he says.
Life is inevitably punctuated by sudden changes. At one moment, we might have everything laid out before us, and then an invisible wall stops us in our tracks. It might be an illness, a bereavement, an accident or some bad news, but life has a habit of mocking those who make plans. We can have our eyes on some distant shore, some faraway horizon, only to find everything come crashing down by the most unseen of events. As the Scottish poet Robert Burns wrote, “The best laid schemes o’ Mice an’ Men. Gang aft agley” (often go wrong).
In Anton Chekhov’s remarkable play, "The Seagull," we meet a cast of characters who are all, in some way, in love with something. The young, idealistic artist Konstantin is in love with the idea of pure art. Arkadin, his mother, is in love with her fans and her celebrity. Konstantin’s girlfriend, Nina, is in love with becoming rich and famous. Everyone in the play has some kind of ambition and plan, or they live in regret over the life they chose. They rail against how misguided or mistaken their life has been, while longing for something else.
They are each like a seagull, flying over the sea or a great lake, and aiming purposefully for the shore. The view up there is wonderful. But the longer the seagull flies, the more oblivious they are to how they tire or weaken. They’re so fixated on some distant horizon that they’re at the mercy to life’s sudden changes. They’re blinkered and distracted, and the gods love nothing more than the hopeful hubris of mankind.
At one point in the play, Chekov has the character Trigorin recount a short story about a gull flying over a lake who’s, “happy and free.” But in the next moment, “a man sees her who happens to come that way, and he destroys her out of idleness.” The seagull is killed, its flight and plans annihilated, in one instant of random thoughtlessness.
Boundary Situations: While so much of our lives are spent in planning and preparation, the most transformative and significant moments are those which come at us out of the blue. These are what the psychiatrist Karl Jaspers called “boundary situations” - the ones we cannot initiate, plan, or avoid. We can only “encounter” them. These are not the mundane, everyday parts of our life - what Jaspers calls “situation being” - but rather they are things which thunder down to shake the foundations of our being. They change who we are. Although these “boundary situations” (sometimes called “limit situations”) change a bit in Jaspers’ works, he broadly sorted them into four categories:
Death: Death is the source of all our fear. We fear our loved ones dying, and we fear the moment and fact of our own death. When we know grief and despair, or when we reflect on mortality, we are transformed. We always know about death, but when it’s a boundary situation, it comes crashing into our lives like some grim scythe; an unforeseen curtain call. The awareness and subjective encounter with death transforms us.
Struggle: Life is a struggle. We work for food, compete for resources, and vie with each other for power, prestige, and status in almost every context there is. As such, there are moments when we are inevitably overcome and defeated, but also when we are victorious and champion. The final outcomes of struggle are often sudden and great, and they make us who we are.
Guilt: Hopefully, there comes a moment for each of us when we finally accept responsibility for things. For many, it comes with adulthood, but for others it comes much later still. It’s the awareness that our actions impact all around us, and our decisions echo into the world. It’s seeing the damage or tears we’ve caused. It’s to recognize that, however small or big, we’ve hurt and upset someone. It’s a profound pull of the heart that changes how we live, and it often comes on unexpectedly.
Chance: No matter how neat and ordered we might want our world to be, there will always be a messy, chaotic, and unpredictable exception. We can hope for the best, and make the plans we want, but we can never take a steering handle on the facts that will affect our existence. According to Jaspers, we each prefer, “assembling functional and explanatory structures… whose central axis lies in sufficient reason” and yet, “despite this, it is not possible for man to control and explain everything. In fact, day by day he faces events that he cannot call anything else other than coincidences or hazards.” We want order, and regularity. What we get is the mercurial and capricious throes of chance.
The best laid plans: What Chekhov’s Seagull and Jaspers’ “boundary situations” get right is that we are each much more vulnerable than we might want to allow. A wedding, three years and a fortune to plan, is ruined by a stomach bug. An hour-long journey home for Christmas winds up getting you stuck in the traffic of a freak snowstorm. A lifetime achievement is overshadowed by a national disaster. Our lives are defined by the unforeseen. We have our dreams, hopes and are flying to some faraway shore. Yet life doesn’t care. Around every corner, at every flap of our wings, everything can change."
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If you caught a glimpse of your own death,
would that knowledge change the way you live the rest of your life?"
- Paco Ahlgren, "Discipline"
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