"A Look to the Heavens"

"How do clusters of galaxies form and evolve? To help find out, astronomers continue to study the second closest cluster of galaxies to Earth: the Fornax cluster, named for the southern constellation toward which most of its galaxies can be found. Although almost 20 times more distant than our neighboring Andromeda galaxy, Fornax is only about 10 percent further that the better known and more populated Virgo cluster of galaxies.

Fornax has a well-defined central region that contains many galaxies, but is still evolving. It has other galaxy groupings that appear distinct and have yet to merge. Seen here, almost every yellowish splotch on the image is an elliptical galaxy in the Fornax cluster. The picturesque barred spiral galaxy NGC 1365 visible on the lower right is also a prominent Fornax cluster member."

- http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap130111.html

"If You Caught A Glimpse..."

"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"

Free Download: Richard Bach: "Illusions"

"We Are All. Free. To Do. Whatever. We Want. To Do.”

by Richard Bach

“We are all free to do whatever we want to do,” he said that night. “Isn’t that simple and clean and clear? Isn’t that a great way to run a universe?” “Almost. You forgot a pretty important part,” I said. “Oh?” “We are all free to do what we want to do, as long as we don’t hurt somebody else,” I chided. “I know you meant that, but you ought to say what you mean.”

There was a sudden shambling sound in the dark, and I looked at him quickly. “Did you hear that?” “Yeah. Sounds like there’s somebody…” He got up, walked into the dark. He laughed suddenly, said a name I couldn’t catch. “It’s OK,” I heard him say. “No, we’d be glad to have you… no need you standing around… come on, you’re welcome, really…”

The voice was heavily accented, not quite Russian, nor Czech, more Transylvanian. “Thank you. I do not wish to impose myself upon your evening…” The man he brought with him to the firelight was, well, he was unusual to find in a midwest night. A small lean wolflike fellow, frightening to the eye, dressed in evening clothes, a black cape lined in red satin, he was uncomfortable in the light.

“I was passing by,” he said. “The field is a shortcut to my house…” “Is it?” Shimoda did not believe the man, knew he was lying, and at the same time did all he could to keep from laughing out loud. I hoped to understand before long.

“Make yourself comfortable,” I said. “Can we help you at all?” I really didn’t feel that helpful, but he was so shrinking, I did want him to be at ease, if he could. He looked on me with a desperate smile that turned me to ice. “Yes, you can help me. I need this very much or I would not ask. May I drink your blood? Just some? It is my food, I need human blood…”

Maybe it was the accent, he didn’t know English that well or I didn’t understand his words, but I was on my feet quicker than I had been in many a month, hay flying into the fire from my quickness. The man stepped back. I am generally harmless, but I am not a small person and I could have looked threatening. He turned his head away. “Sir, I am sorry! I am sorry! Please forget that I said anything about blood! But you see…”

“What are you saying?” I was the more fierce because I was scared. “What in the hell are you saying, mister? I don’t know what you are, are you some kind of VAM-?” Shimoda cut me off before I could say the word. “Richard, our guest was talking, and you interrupted. Please go ahead, sir; my friend is a little hasty.” “Donald,” I said, “this guy…” “Be quiet!” That surprised me so much that I was quiet, and looked a sort of terrified question at the man, caught from his native darkness into our firelight.

“Please to understand. I did not choose to be born vampire. Is unfortunate. I do not have many friends. But I must have a certain small amount of fresh blood every night or I writhe in terrible pain, longer than that without it and I cannot live! Please, I will be deeply hurt – I will die – if you do not allow me to suck your blood… just a small amount, more than a pint I do not need.” He advanced a step toward me, licking his lips, thinking that Shimoda somehow controlled me and would make me submit.

“One more step and there will be blood, all right. Mister, you touch me and you die…” I wouldn’t have killed him, but I did want to tie him up, at least, before we talked much more. He must have believed me, for he stopped and sighed. He turned to Shimoda. “You have made your point?” “I think so. Thank you.”

The vampire looked up at me and smiled, completely at ease, enjoying himself hugely, an actor on stage when the show is over. “I won’t drink your blood, Richard,” he said in perfect friendly English, no accent at all. As I watched he faded as though he was turning out his own light… in five seconds he had disappeared.

Shimoda sat down again by the fire. “Am I ever glad you don’t mean what you say!” I was still trembling with adrenalin, ready for my fight with a monster. “Don, I’m not sure I’m built for this. Maybe you’d better tell me what’s going on. Like, for instance, what… was that?”

“Dot was a wompire from Tronsylwania,” he said in words thicker than the creature’s own. “Or to be more precise, dot was a thought-form of a wompire from Tronsylwania. If you ever want to make a point, you think somebody isn’t listening, whip ‘em up a little thought-form to demonstrate what you mean. Do you think I overdid him, with the cape and the fangs and the accent like that? Was he too scary for you?”

“The cape was first class, Don. But that was the most stereotyped, outlandish… I wasn’t scared at all.” He sighed. “Oh well. But you got the point, at least, and that’s what matters.”

“What point?” “Richard, in being so fierce toward my vampire, you were doing what you wanted to do, even though you thought it was going to hurt somebody else. He even told you he’d be hurt if…”

“He was going to suck my blood!” “Which is what we do to anyone when we say we’ll be hurt if they don’t live our way.”

I was quiet for a long time, thinking about that. I had always believed that we are free to do as we please only if we don’t hurt another, and this didn’t fit. There was something missing.

“The thing that puzzles you,” he said, “is an accepted saying that happens to be impossible. The phrase is hurt somebody else. We choose, ourselves, to be hurt or not to be hurt, no matter what. Us who decides. Nobody else. My vampire told you he’d be hurt if you didn’t let him? That’s his decision to be hurt, that’s his choice. What you do about it is your decision, your choice: give him blood; ignore him; tie him up; drive a stake of holly through his heart. If he doesn’t want the holly stake, he’s free to resist, in whatever way he wants. It goes on and on, choices, choices.”

“When you look at it that way…”

“Listen,” he said, “it’s important. We are all. Free. To do. Whatever. We want. To do.“

○

“Illusions: The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah”

by Richard Bach

“Born in 1936, Richard Bach is an American author who has written many excellent books. His quotes are inspirational and motivational. “Jonathan Livingston Seagull;” “Illusions;” “The Bridge Across Forever;” to name only a few of his books.

Notice: This electronic version of the book has been released for educational purposes only. You may not sell or make any profit from this book. And if you like this book, buy a paper copy and give it to someone who does not have a computer, if that is possible for you.

FREELY download “Illusions”, in PDF format, is here:

- http://img1.liveinternet.ru/images/

"We Have Reached The Terminal Phase Of The Greatest Debt Spiral In The History Of The Human Race"

"We Have Reached The Terminal Phase Of

 The Greatest Debt Spiral In The History Of The Human Race"

by Michael Snyder

"If you are going to go out, you might as well do it with a bang. At the beginning of June, our national debt was sitting at $31,467,639,287,894.39. Today, it has risen to $33,442,148,619,617.43. That means that we have added almost two trillion dollars to the national debt in just three months. It is the largest single debt in the entire history of our planet, and it will never be paid off. Our debt spiral has reached a terminal phase, and all we can do now is prolong the agony. If we keep taking on more debt at an exponential rate, we may be able to extend our seemingly endless party for a little while longer. As for the bright future that our children and grandchildren were supposed to have, we destroyed that a long time ago, and so it doesn’t really matter what we do now.

What our politicians are doing to us is truly a crime against humanity. And I am not just talking about the United States. All over the world, politicians have been on the greatest debt binge in the history of the human race, and for quite a few years it seemed like they were getting away with it. But now interest rates are rising and there is great turmoil in the bond markets. The following comes from CNN…

"A slump in government bonds around the world has pushed up the cost of some nations’ debt to levels not seen in more than a decade. That’s bad news for governments in the red but also for the wallets of millions of mortgage borrowers, stock investors and businesses. The sell-off has been fueled by expectations among investors that the world’s major central banks will keep interest rates “higher for longer” to bring inflation down to their targets.

It works like this: Governments looking to raise cash for public services and investments issue bonds. A bond provides a way to borrow money from investors for a set length of time, with the obligation to make regular interest payments. In recent weeks, bond yields have reached very alarming levels.

If this continues, governments all over the world will soon be facing enormous problems: When official interest rates rise, so do investors’ expectations for returns on bonds, known as yields. This creates an incentive for investors to sell the bonds they currently hold and buy newly issued ones that offer higher interest payments. Selling bonds reduces prices. So, in short, when yields rise, bond prices fall.

And yields have most definitely been rising: The yield on 30-year US government bonds, also known as Treasuries, hit 5% on Tuesday for the first time since 2007. In the United Kingdom, the yield on 30-year bonds also reached 5% this week, the highest level in more than two decades. Yields on German long-dated bonds are back to levels last seen on the eve of the eurozone debt crisis in 2011. Yields on Italy’s 10-year bonds hit 5% on Wednesday, the highest level since 2012, when that crisis was in full swing.

There is no way out of this mess now. If we would have acted responsibly all along, we would have gotten a much different outcome. But at this point our fate is pretty much sealed.Of course our politicians never intended to change course. In fact, they continue to spend money like drunken sailors.

As Zero Hedge has aptly noted, the U.S. government recently added 275 billion dollars to the national debt in a single day…The US added – checks notes – $275 billion in debt in, uh, ONE DAY. Total US debt is now $33.442 trillion, hit $33 trillion just 2 weeks ago, and on pace to rise by $1 trillion in 1 month.

What makes all of this even more frustrating is that they aren’t even spending the money efficiently. And in many instances, it is being wasted on extremely frivolous things…Federal officials have been criticized after splashing $3.3 billion on swanky new office furniture during the pandemic, when almost all staff worked from home. The egregious spending habits of the US government included almost $250,000 on solar-powered picnic tables for the CDC, and $120,000 on plush Ethan Allen leather chairs.

We are borrowing and spending money at an exponential pace, and we all know how this is going to end. It is going to end with the U.S. dollar becoming worth little more than toilet paper. This is a point that author Robert Kiyosaki made very eloquently during a recent interview…

"Robert Kiyosaki, renowned author of the phenomenal personal finance book “Rich Dad, Poor Dad,” shared a piece of his mind on how to decentralize from the fiat currency in these scary times of a broken banking system. According to him, the dollar has been losing its purchasing power and not long from now, it would just be worth less than “toilet paper.”

During his appearance on the recent episode “Decentralize.TV” hosted by Mike Adams and Todd Pitner, Kiyosaki pointed out how the lack of financial education in the United States blinds the people and even President Joe Biden’s administration in tackling the current economic downturn. “Just recently they raised the debt ceiling again…and because our schools have no financial education, no idea of credit rating, our debt increased by $1.8 trillion. The United States via Fitch Rating services downgraded the U.S. debt from AAA to AA-plus. We are on a collision course for disaster.”

It is true. We really are on a “collision course” with disaster, but most Americans don’t realize what is happening. Most Americans seem to believe that there will never be any serious consequences for all the borrowing and spending that we have been doing. And that is because most Americans don’t understand basic economics.

When your debt rises much faster than your income does for an extended period of time, it is always going to result in pain. Every single time. If you have ever found yourself drowning in debt, you know exactly what I am talking about. Well, now our entire country is drowning in debt, and our politicians are adding hundreds of billions more to that debt every single month.

This is not going to end well, and that should be obvious to everyone. For the moment, our politicians are doing their best to keep the debt spiral humming, but the clock is ticking and time is quickly running out…"

- https://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/

"We Are Witnessing One Of The Greatest Financial Market Crashes In History Right Now"

"We Are Witnessing One Of The Greatest

 Financial Market Crashes In History Right Now"

By Michael Snyder

"History is starting to repeat itself. In 2008, bond prices crashed before stock prices did. Here in 2023, bond prices are crashing again. In fact, we are currently witnessing one of the greatest financial crashes in U.S. history at this moment. Of course most Americans have absolutely no idea that this is happening. Most Americans don’t know anything about the bond crash that is causing a tremendous amount of fear in the financial community right now, and that is because the big news networks aren’t talking about it too much. But it is serious. Since the peak of the market, 10 year bonds are down 46 percent and 30 year bonds are down 53 percent…

"Losses on longer-dated Treasuries are beginning to rival some of the most notorious market meltdowns in US history. Bonds maturing in 10 years or more have slumped 46% since peaking in March 2020, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. That’s just shy of the 49% plunge in US stocks in the aftermath of the dot-com bust at the turn of the century. The rout in 30-year bonds has been even worse, tumbling 53%, nearing the 57% slump in equities during the depths of the financial crisis."

We haven’t seen anything like this in many years. As bond yields go up, bond prices go down. And the last time the yield on 10 year bonds rose to this level was “just before the 2008 financial crisis”…"At the center of the storm is the 10-year Treasury yield, one of the most influential numbers in finance. The yield, which represents borrowing costs for issuers of bonds, has climbed steadily in recent weeks and reached 4.8% on Tuesday, a level last seen just before the 2008 financial crisis."

We are witnessing the exact same pattern that we witnessed in 2008 and during other financial panics. Bonds crash first, and then stocks crash later. I have warned over and over again that high interest rates were going to have an absolutely devastating impact on our system, and now it is staring to happen. Our banks are going to be in so much trouble. They were already sitting on hundreds of billons of dollars in unrealized losses, and the spike in bond yields in recent weeks has pushed that number even higher.

Meanwhile, mortgage rates continue to soar…"Freddie Mac’s latest Primary Mortgage Market Survey released Thursday shows the average rate for the benchmark 30-year fixed-rate mortgage jumped to 7.49%, up from 7.31% last week and from 6.66% a year ago. The rate for a 15-year mortgage also climbed, averaging 6.78% after coming in last week at 6.72%. One year ago, the rate on a 15-year fixed note averaged 5.9%."

These high rates are absolutely paralyzing the housing market. Millions of potential buyers have been forced to the sidelines, because high rates have made housing “unaffordable” in 99 percent of all U.S. counties…"Housing prices are growing more unaffordable even with the astronomical rise in mortgage rates, putting ownership out of reach for millions of Americans. That’s according to a new report published by real estate data provider ATTOM, which examined 572 U.S. counties and determined that median home prices in 99% of those areas are out of reach for the average income earner, who makes about $71,214 annually. “The latest trend continues a two-year pattern of homeownership getting more and more difficult for average U.S. wage earners,” the report said."

The home prices that we are seeing today are absolutely insane. Recently, a 565 square foot house in West Hollywood “sold for a whopping $1.1 million”…"A miniature home in Los Angeles’ West Hollywood neighborhood recently sold for a whopping $1.1 million despite only offering 565 square feet inside. The 1924 Craftsman-bungalow – settled on a 2.240 square foot lot – is tucked away behind a row of hedges and located just across the street from a fire station."

I couldn’t imagine paying that much for a glorified closet. But apparently someone out there had money to burn. Of course most homes are not selling at this point. In fact, sales of existing homes have fallen by about a third over the past year. So something has got to give.

Either the Federal Reserve has got to dramatically reduce interest rates or home prices have got to fall. And the Federal Reserve is not planning to reduce interest rates any time soon. Unfortunately, Fed officials keep talking about the possibility of raising them even higher.

So a lot more pain is coming, and the American people are getting restless. If you can believe it, a recent Rasmussen survey discovered that more than half of all U.S. adults believe that we will experience “another Great Depression” within the next few years…"Despite claims by President Joe Biden about the strength of America’s economy, most Americans still think we’re headed toward another Great Depression.

The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone and online survey finds that 52% of American Adults believe it is likely that, over the next few years, the United States will enter a 1930s-like depression, including 21% who say a major depression is Very Likely. Thirty-six percent (36%) don’t think another Great Depression is likely over the next few years, including 11% who say it’s Not At All Likely. Another 11% are not sure."

Even though they may not understand the specifics, most Americans can feel that something has gone horribly wrong. But things didn’t have to turn out this way. You see, the truth is that we didn’t learn our lessons from the last financial crisis Instead of fixing the system, we created bubbles that were even bigger. Now that bonds have crashed, it is just a matter of time before stocks crash too. And we are headed for an economic meltdown of epic proportions. The months and years ahead are going to be incredibly challenging. So I hope that you have been preparing for difficult times, because the nightmare that many of us have been warning about has already begun."

- https://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/

The Daily "Near You?"

Steuben, Maine, USA. Thanks for stopping by!

"Israel's 'Pearl Harbor Moment'? Hundreds Dead, Horrifying Scenes Of Entire Families Kidnapped & Whisked Into Gaza"

Full screen recommended.

"Israel, Gaza Conflict - 

Hamas Attacks, Netanyahu Declares 'War'"

"Hamas attacks Israel: The ruling Hamas militant group in the Gaza Strip carried out an unprecedented attack on Israel at daybreak Saturday, firing thousands of rockets as dozens of fighters infiltrated the heavily fortified border in several locations by air, land and sea, catching the country off guard on a major holiday. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared war in a televised address, calling for a mass army mobilization, "Not an ‘operation,’ not a ‘round,’ but at war."

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

o

"Israel's 'Pearl Harbor Moment'? Hundreds Dead, 

Horrifying Scenes Of Entire Families Kidnapped & Whisked Into Gaza"

By Tyler Durden

Excerpt, Continuing Updates:

Update(1430ET): "Former Israel Defense Forces (IDF) international spokesperson Jonathan Conricus has summed up what this day means for Israel, calling in the country's "Pearl Harbor" moment. "The entire system failed. It's not just one component. It's the entire defense architecture that evidently failed to provide the necessary defense for Israeli civilians," he told CNN of the surprise invasion from Gaza militants. "This is a Pearl Harbor type of moment for Israel, where there was reality up until today, and then there will be reality after today."

Town-by-town and farm-by-farm fighting is still underway given Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) reportedly control swathes of southern territory and even military outposts in Israel.

Netanyahu and his cabinet now must be contemplating what will surely be a high-risk rescue operation and potential ground incursion.

⚡️More hostages being taken into Gaza pic.twitter.com/G612nStiQt - War Monitor (@WarMonitors) October 7, 2023

Every hour results in even more incredible, shocking footage being released of dead Israeli soldiers and civilians. The Times of Israel is reporting that over 200 Israelis have been killed, and at least 1,000 injured. The death toll is also mounting into the hundreds on the Gaza side as Israel retaliates.

In some instances, there are what look like Israeli soccer moms and their families being escorted barefoot across the border. Video footage suggests at least dozens of Israelis have been taken captive, possibly even hundreds. Grandmothers, men, women, children - the young and old - are being paraded in front of Hamas and PIJ cameras...

One of the POW’s captured by the PIJ in Gaza pic.twitter.com/vzLOWF4gT9— Younis Tirawi | يونس (@ytirawi) October 7, 2023

At the same time, the expected Israeli aerial assault has begun. In some instances entire apartment housing blocks have been leveled.

Breaking: Many hundreds of Israeli civilians are being captured by #Hamas terrorists and are seen being taken back to #Gaza and attacked by #Palastinians#IsraelUnderAttack #Israel #IsraelPalestinewar pic.twitter.com/gx9YlyrBE4— Jim Ferguson (@JimFergusonUK) October 7, 2023"

Full, constantly updated article is here:

- https://www.zerohedge.com/

"Cycles, Systems and Seats in the Coliseum"

"Cycles, Systems and Seats in the Coliseum"

by Charles Hugh Smith

"Contrary to first impressions, I am not a doom-and-gloomer; I'm a systems-cycles-er, meaning I'm interested in where systems and cycles are heading. Cycles work because we're still running Wetware 1.0 which entered beta testing around 200,000 years ago and was released, bugs and all, around 50,000 years ago. Since the processes and inputs haven't changed, neither do the outputs.

Nature is a mix of dynamic, semi-chaotic systems (fractals, etc.) and cyclical patterns which tend to operate within predictable parameters. Why should human nature and human constructs (societies, economies and political realms) be any different?

So longterm success breeds complacency, hubris, economic and intellectual sclerosis, draining political infighting and the overproduction of parasitic elites, to use Peter Turchin's apt description. Consumption of resources expands to soak up every last bit of what's available and then the supply of goodies plummets for a multitude of completely natural and predictable reasons (sunspot/solar activity, El Nino, etc.) and a host of unpredictable but equally natural semi-chaotic extremes (100-year droughts, floods, etc.).

Wetware 1.0's go-to solutions to all such difficulties are rather limited:

1. Ramp up magical thinking. If a couple of human sacrifices ensured good harvests in the good old days, let's slaughter a couple hundred now - and if that doesn't work, then...

2. Do more of what's failed spectacularly and slaughter a couple thousand fellow humans, because darn it, maybe everything will turn around if we just kill another couple dozen. This requires ignoring the novelty of the current challenges and clinging to what worked so well in the past even as whatever worked in the past can't possibly work now because circumstances are fundamentally different.

3. Seek scapegoats. It's those darn witches. Burn a bunch of them and our troubles will magically disappear.

4. Go take what we need from some other tribe. What's our oil doing under their sand?

5. Consolidate power and wealth in the hands of elites whose failures exacerbated the crisis. Because the obvious solution (to the elites with cushy offices around the palaces and temples) to repeated failures of a leadership that only excels in one thing, squandering rapidly depleting resources on infighting and self-aggrandizement, is to give us all the remaining wealth and power. Hey, this makes perfect sense once you understand #2 above.

6. Demand sacrifices of the many to protect the privileges of the few. The Empire needs some warm bodies to fend off the Barbarians, because it would be a real shame if the Barbarians reached our palatial estates and disrupted the flow of wine and festivities. No worries when you come back on your shield; the bureaucracy will give you a decent burial and your spouse and kids can join the multitude of half-starved beggars waiting for the dwindling distributions of bread and circuses. But never mind that, did you hear about the upcoming games in the Coliseum? Good seats are going fast.

7. Eat your seed corn to keep the party going awhile longer. Not every human group had the luxury of borrowing "money" to keep the fast-unraveling party going awhile longer, so they consumed their seed corn and drained the last of their reserves--which is the same thing as borrowing "money" from a future with diminishing resources and productivity.

8. Maintain supreme confidence that "it will all work out fine because it's always worked out fine" without any sacrifice required of "those who count." What's forgotten is that the luxe greatness that is now teetering on the precipice of ruin was won by the sacrifices of the elites far exceeding the sacrifices of the many.

Back in the day, joining the elite and maintaining one's position required constant sacrifices on behalf of the common good, and strict adherence to public virtue. Now that's all forgotten, and all that remains are elites possessed by the demons of shameless greed and self-interest. The idea that debt, leverage, speculation, greed, exploitation and parasitic elites can expand exponentially forever is magical thinking. Yet that is precisely what America and the rest of the global economic order insists is true and will always be true, forever and ever.

By all means, reject those horrid, awful doom-and-gloomers who look at systems and cycles. Everything will be fine as long as you secure seats for the next games at the Coliseum - they should be spectacular - but not in the way you expect."

- https://www.oftwominds.com/

"How It Really Is"

"At the beginning of June, our national debt was sitting at $31,467,639,287,894.39. Today, it has risen to $33,442,148,619,617.43. That means that we have added almost two trillion dollars to the national debt in just three months. It is the largest single debt in the entire history of our planet, and it will never be paid off."

- https://coyoteprimeblog2.blogspot.com/

o

Jethro Tull, "Locomotive Breath"

The Atlantis Report, "U.S. Bankruptcies Will 100% Crash Small Banks"

Full screen recommended.

The Atlantis Report, 10/7/23

"U.S. Bankruptcies Will 100% Crash Small Banks,

Major Warning For Corporations"

"S and P Global predicts that the United States will be trailing the 12 month corporate default rate, soaring to a daunting 4.5 percent by June of 2024. Just to put things in perspective, as of this past July, that rate stood at a mere 3.5 percent ; a nearly 30 percent surge in just a single year. But here's the crux of the matter: American outfits are standing on the precipice of a colossal wave of maturing debt in the near future. Brace yourselves for this staggering revelation; a mind boggling $790 billion is set to mature in 2024, followed by a jawdropping $1.07 trillion due the very next year in 2025. Now, here's the kicker: When the Federal Reserve steps up with its updates and soothing promises of soft lending, they conveniently omit this impending financial storm. We're on the brink of 2024, and the Fed is gazing at the same harrowing figures I've just laid out for you. It's crucial to recognize that we're not talking about small, obscure firms going belly up; we're talking about corporate titans. Take the recent filing by the Yellow Corporation, for instance. This massive corporation filed for bankruptcy in August, a move that impacted tens of thousands of employees; those are jobs lost."

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

Dan, I Allegedly, "Even the Employees Were Fake"

Full screen recommended.

Dan, I Allegedly AM 10/7/23

"Even the Employees Were Fake"

"A couple weeks ago we talked about a company that had sold bogus airline components. Now we find out that they may have even affected the employees as well. Who did this?"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

Adventures With Danno, "Stocking Up On These Deals At Kroger!"

Full screen recommended.

Adventures With Danno, 10/7/23

"Stocking Up On These Deals At Kroger!"

"In today's vlog, we are at Kroger Marketplace and are taking full advantage of their sales on Halloween Candy, along with meat and produce! We show all the different prices and many things that are worth stocking up on!"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

Jeremiah Babe, "Fake Labor Market Is Stronger Than Ever"

Jeremiah Babe, 10/6/23

"Fake Labor Market Is Stronger Than Ever; 

Here Come More Rate Hikes"

Comments here:

-  https://www.youtube.com/

"I Just Got An Email That Left Me Speechless, We're At DEFCON 2"

Full screen recommended.

Canadian Prepper 10/6/23

"I Just Got An Email That Left Me Speechless, 

We're At DEFCON 2"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

Musical Interlude: 2002, "Memory of the Sky"

Full screen recommended.

2002, "Memory of the Sky"

"A Look to the Heavens"

"A now famous picture from the Hubble Space Telescope featured Pillars of Creation, star forming columns of cold gas and dust light-years long inside M16, the Eagle Nebula. This false-color composite image views the nearby stellar nursery using data from the Herschel Space Observatory's panoramic exploration of interstellar clouds along the plane of our Milky Way galaxy. Herschel's far infrared detectors record the emission from the region's cold dust directly. 

The famous pillars are included near the center of the scene. While the central group of hot young stars is not apparent at these infrared wavelengths, the stars' radiation and winds carve the shapes within the interstellar clouds. Scattered white spots are denser knots of gas and dust, clumps of material collapsing to form new stars. The Eagle Nebula is some 6,500 light-years distant, 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).”

- http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap160728.html

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

“Now I Become Myself”

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

~ May Sarton,
 Collected Poems, 1930-1993

"15 Fast Food Chains Closing Restaurants Right Now"

Full screen recommended.

Epic Economist 10/6/23

"15 Fast Food Chains Closing Restaurants Right Now"

"Your favorite local fast-food restaurant may disappear before you even notice. That's because the sector is now preparing for the year ahead, and companies are reevaluating their businesses, cutting costs, separating the profitable restaurants from the unprofitable ones, and deciding which locations will make it into 2024. Competition has never been so tough, and with economic conditions suggesting that consumers will continue to limit their dining-out budget, brands need to adapt to the new market conditions and cut off some bad apples that could compromise their growth and stability in the near future.

For instance, after parent company Yum! Brands reported a 25% drop in net income for the first quarter of 2023 due to declining sales and foot traffic at its restaurants, KFC and other chains owned by the company began closing stores to start rebalancing their business. Since 2020, almost 70 KFC restaurants have been shuttered, with 35 closings happening over the past twelve months. Though the chicken chain also opened some locations in 2022, after generating its first unit growth in years, it reverted back to closures this fall. Revenue slipped by 1.1% during Q1, but data from the most recent quarters hasn't been released to the public yet. Now, the popular fried chicken fast food chain is exiting the market of one U.S. state completely, shuttering all stores and liquidating its assets in the region. According to the U.S. Sun, dozens of KFC locations are closing down in Louisiana. And the last seven closures meant that the chain will no longer serve customers in the state. KFC restaurants in Jennings, DeRidder, Crowley, Eunice, Lake Charles, Lafayette, and Sulphur were reportedly closed without notice. The company didn't respond to the outlet why it is leaving the state. Staffers said they were only made aware of the shutdowns by notices put at the restaurants' doors. The stores were not franchisee-owned, but operated by the corporation. According to retail analysts, the only reasonable explanation for the sudden closings is underperformance. Right now, Yum! Brands is reassessing its portfolio, and many other chains operated by it, including Taco Bell and Pizza Hut, are likely to follow the same move as KFC.

Similarly, burger chain Hardee's seems to be in trouble. In 2022, annual sales declined by 4.2%, and average sales volumes dropped by 3%. The brand is a sister to Carl's Jr., and both chains have been reporting weak sales since at least 2018, according to Restaurant Business. Then, Summit Restaurant Holdings, a large Hardee's franchisee went bankrupt and closed 40 restaurants. Now, parent company CKE Restaurant Holdings is planning to reduce Hardee's store count by 13%, or approximately 213 locations. The targeted restaurants are based in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, Kansas, Missouri and Wyoming. During the filing, CKE said Summit Restaurant Holdings should sell the restaurants it operated to a “qualified and well-capitalized buyer, with a record of success across the restaurant, entertainment, food, beverage and retail markets.” Unfortunately, that didn't materialize, and the restaurants are at risk of being liquidated.

For most of these brands, closing stores is not something they take lightly. Oftentimes, that is their last resort. However, they must protect their business now to be able to navigate the challenges ahead. In many cases, it's a matter of survival. This trend is likely to intensify as economic conditions continue to deteriorate, meaning that we may have to say goodbye to multiple beloved restaurants before the year ends."

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"A Person..."

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

- Erich Fromm

"The Right Time Will Never Come"

"The Right Time Will Never Come"

by Paul Rosenberg

"Lots of good people are frustrated with the world, and I understand that only too well. They are, furthermore, eager for the world to improve, and I respect that a great deal. Their problem arises, however, right on the heels of these desires, when they ask the question, “What should I do?” And that’s where the wheels fall off.

All the Popular Answers Are Wrong: The world is full of people who are glad to tell you what to do. They have elaborate arguments as to why their plan is the right one and why everyone else’s is wrong. They’ll encourage you to commit to them, and they’ll try to surround you with people who have already chosen their plan. If you join, you’ll get lots of pats on the back and assurances that you’re a good person. But all those ways are wrong. They offer you fast, cheap self-esteem. They offer you a fast track to feeling useful, important, and wanted. And all you have to do is join their very pleasant crowd.

Let me make this very clear: There is no blueprint for freedom. There will be no great plan to follow. People who say they have such a thing, while they may be well-meaning, bright, and even respectable, are moving in the wrong direction. (And I truly don’t mean to criticize here; we’ve all made our mistakes.) Here’s the core of the issue: If we want a world that is safe for individuals, we’ll have to create it as individuals, not as groups. Groups beget after their own kind, and individuals beget after their own kind.

I’m not the first person to decide this, by the way; here’s what Albert Schweitzer had to say on the subject many years ago: "The unnatural way of spreading ideas must be opposed by the natural one, which goes from man to man and relies solely on the truth of the thoughts and the hearer’s receptiveness for new truth."

The Easiest Thing to Do: Following someone else’s plan is the easy way. It saves us from responsibility. It allows us to deflect the blame, at least a little, if later we’re found to be wrong. This easy way, however, is a wrong way. There’s a great line from Steven Stills’s song, “The Southern Cross,” that goes like this:

"And we never failed to fail;

it was the easiest thing to do."

It will always be the easiest thing to go downward into servitude. That is the current condition of the world, with its dominance-obsessed and status-worshiping inertia. You can go downward quickly by handing your will to the status quo, or you can go slowly by standing still. But until you act, solely upon your own judgment, you’re not going to go upward.

Are You Saying…? Yes, I’m saying that you have to make your own decision, all alone, and that you have to raise the courage to start acting upon it by yourself, with no leader telling you the best choice, with no famous author guiding you, and with no authority sanctifying the path for you. You’ll have to choose, all by yourself. And you’ll have to face all the fears that hold you back from stepping out… you’ll have to push past them… you’ll have to make your own legs start walking. That, my friends, is the price of progress… and we each have to pay it, or not pay it, alone.

We Should Act Without a Plan? Emphatically yes. The central issue here is not following a plan, but dragging ourselves out of stasis and taking some kind of initiative. Unless you’re making some kind of wild, destructive choice, almost any choice you make is a good one. Your central necessity is to unfreeze yourself and start moving. Once you’re in motion, it’s easy to correct your course. But if you never move, you’ll just keep sliding down the majority’s path, regardless of how much you complain.

In our time, most of the good people in the world remain motionless. We complain about our local fiefdom’s abuses, of course, but that’s about all. That’s the seduction of “democracy,” you see: It magically turns complaints into progress. Except that the magic of democracy never really shows up. Still, it’s the easiest thing to do. And so we complain and we wait, but we do not act.

But again: There’s never going to be a perfect plan and there’s never going to be a right time. If you wait for them, you’ll wait forever. So, pick a spot and start. You probably already have choices in mind: Bitcoin, homeschooling, intentional communities, agorism, becoming a perpetual traveler, or something else. Whatever it is, get moving: your central necessity is to face the fear and to act anyway. And if you’d like to know my favorite choice, here it is: Sit at bus stops or train stations and talk to people. You can do that at almost any time and any place.

Who Happens to Whom? In other words, “Who acts, and who is acted upon?” As an old coworker of mine used to say, “He who hesitates is lost.” If you wait, you’ll be acted upon. And then you’ll have to re-form your plan, and you’ll hesitate again. And then you’ll be acted upon again… over and over, until you’re too old to do much of anything.

The ‘right time’ never comes. Either we let the world happen to us, or we transcend our fears and we happen to the world. So, I propose a simple motto for people who have courage enough to break stasis: The world doesn’t happen to us. We happen to the world."

- https://freemansperspective.com/

The Daily "Near You?"

Scottsboro, Alabama, USA. Thanks for stopping by!

Bill Bonner, "The Report from Iron Mountain"

"The Report from Iron Mountain"

Support for war flags... 

even as the health of the state depends on it.

by Bill Bonner

"Laugh…and know."

~ Marcus Valerius Martialis

Poitou, France - "Every day the war drums beat louder. Asia Times: "US provocatively points new nuke-tipped missile at China." The US has just tested a new type of nuclear-tipped air launch cruise missile, reaffirming the viability of the air-based leg of its nuclear triad against evolving threats from near-peer adversaries China and Russia with profound implications for regional stability and global non-proliferation norms. This month, The Warzone reported that the US Air Force had conducted nine flight tests of its future nuclear-tipped AGM-181A Long Range Stand Off (LRSO) cruise missile prototypes, including one test with a mock nuclear warhead.

Waning Support: When Europeans were just beginning to discover North America, an intrepid explorer spent time with the tribes along the Hudson Bay of Canada. He reported that one day, the young men of the tribe took their weapons and headed north. He thought they were on a hunting party. For weeks they continued…until the trees had disappeared …and it looked like desolate tundra. Finally, they found what they were looking for – an Eskimo village. The Eskimos were different people – different language, different culture… Wasting no time, the Indians attacked and slaughtered everyone in the village – men, women, children.

They were on a crusade. And they targeted people they must have viewed as ‘bad.’ Were they bad because they worshiped other gods? Or because they worshiped no gods at all? Were they bad because they had bad breath…or because the Indians lived on a vast, mostly-empty continent and the Eskimos were the only plausible ‘enemy’ within range?

The war in the Ukraine seems to be winding down. When Zelensky spoke to the UN last week, many of the seats were empty. Russia is winning; the rest of the world is losing interest. Reuters: "US public support declines for arming Ukraine, Reuters/Ipsos poll shows." "Support for U.S. weapon shipments is down from May, when a Reuters/Ipsos poll showed 46% of Americans backed sending arms, while 29% were opposed and the rest unsure. Ukrainian forces have retaken a series of villages and settlements in the counteroffensive that began in June, but its soldiers have been hampered by vast Russian minefields and trenches."

The White Flag: Ukraine is running out of weapons, money, and enthusiasm. Most important, it is running out of meat for its grinder. The average age of its soldiers is said to be 40 years. Young men leave before they can be drafted; they aren’t willing to die for whatever crusade Zelensky is leading.

What is surprising to us is how many are still there. All Russia asked was to keep NATO out of the Ukraine. Dying so that your country can join NATO does not seem particularly attractive. In a similar situation young Americans would scurry out of town too. At least, that was the finding of a survey reported in the Daily Mail. Voters were asked:

'Assume there is an invasion of America by another country and they were on the brink of victory. You can either almost certainly die fighting for your country, or surrender and survive. What would you do?' Of young people, 18-29, only 30% would fight.

No matter. History tells us that it is easy to gin up a war fever and get millions of people killed for no apparent reason. All you need is an enemy. And right now, America’s foreign policy experts…its glorious think tank generals…and its newspaper heroes turn their eyes east – to China. What have the Chinese done to us? Don’t know? But that was the point of the ‘Report from Iron Mountain.’ An enemy doesn’t have to do something, he just has to be something – a useful foe.

The Health of the State: China is the world’s greatest success story – ever. Since 1979, it brought 800 million people up from the grit and slime of Mao’s communist poverty into the modern world of capitalism, decent salaries, abundant food and technological wonders, such as its high speed rail and Shanghai’s maglev train. The US can’t match it.

But instead of admiring it…trying to learn from it…and hoping to profit from it, all of which would benefit the American people, China is becoming the enemy the empire elite need. Richard Cullen: "Bad-tempered coverage of China continues to flourish across the entire US media. It ranges from fire-breathing to pearl-clutching. Most commentators look daggers at Beijing in a dozen different over-cooked ways – and especially at the Communist Party of China – while reminding readers and viewers of America’s continuing paramount superpower status."

Truth emerges, often, in unexpected places. The “Report from Iron Mountain” may have been a spoof, designed only to elicit a knowing chuckle from the cynical cognoscenti, but it reveals the real cause of war better than any group of federal hacks ever could. The supposed background is that a 15-member group of pipe smokers got together in a Special Study Group to speculate on the consequences of ‘peace.’ They met in a nuclear-secure bunker under Iron Mountain. They came to the conclusion that government is incompatible with ‘peace.’ It can’t exist without war. Nation states only exist so they can make war.

There was nothing new about this insight. “War is the health of the state,” said Randolph Bourne. War is not just useful to government; it is government. The defining difference between the US government and the Catholic Church, Kiwanis Club or Walmart is that the former uses force to get what it wants. The latter do not. Without the use of force – police, jails, wars – the ‘state’ would have no reason to exist. Tune in Monday…for more on why war is inevitable…and why the US will probably lose it.

- https://www.bonnerprivateresearch.com/

o

Freely download

"Report From Iron Mountain On The

Possibility And Desirability Of Peace" here: 

- https://www.1215.org/

Jim Quinn, "Pull It!" (Excerpt)

"Pull It!" (Excerpt)

by Jim Quinn

“The illusion of freedom will continue as long as it’s profitable to continue the illusion. At the point where the illusion becomes too expensive to maintain, they will just take down the scenery, they will pull back the curtains, they will move the tables and chairs out of the way and you will see the brick wall at the back of the theater.” - Frank Zappa

Excerpt: "I know they try to keep us distracted with Taylor Swift’s latest escapades, today’s fake indictments of Trump, Biden’s dog biting another White House visitor, Dementia Joe falling down or shitting his pants while lying about his past, our imminent death from climate change and gas stoves, black lesbians from Maryland being appointed senator from California, allowing millions of third world savages to invade our homeland and then proposing Trumps wall, the annual government shutdown kabuki dance, and sending another $25 billion into Zelensky’s off-shore bank accounts for his noble freedom fighting efforts against Russia.

But I know and you know it is all bullshit, meant to divert our attention from the imminent destruction of our financial system at the behest of the Deep State cabal using Dementia Joe as their Trojan horse. They plan to implement their Great Reset agenda come hell or high water. They want to reduce the “surplus population” of the planet through whatever means necessary, whether it be their toxic vaccines, global warfare, climate lockdowns, destroying farmers, starving the peasants, making sure you own nothing, and creating a catastrophic financial collapse designed to impoverish the masses.

I know they try to keep us distracted with Taylor Swift’s latest escapades, today’s fake indictments of Trump, Biden’s dog biting another White House visitor, Dementia Joe falling down or shitting his pants while lying about his past, our imminent death from climate change and gas stoves, black lesbians from Maryland being appointed senator from California, allowing millions of third world savages to invade our homeland and then proposing Trumps wall, the annual government shutdown kabuki dance, and sending another $25 billion into Zelensky’s off-shore bank accounts for his noble freedom fighting efforts against Russia."

Full, most highly recommended article is here:

- https://www.theburningplatform.com/

Hat tip to Jim Quinn and 

the Burning Platform for this material

"How It Really Is..."

 

The best little whorehouse, well, anywhere...

"Russia - Ukraine War Update 10/6/23"

Judge Napolitano - Judging Freedom, 10/6/23

"How Bad is US intel on Ukraine?

 Intel Round Table w/Larry Johnson & Ray McGovern"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

o

Colonel Douglas Macgregor Straight Calls, 10/6/23

"The Russians Press On And Take Odessa"

"Analysis of breaking news and in-depth discussion of current 

geopolitical events in the United States of America and the world."

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Dan, I Allegedly, "Something Big and Stupid is About To Happen"

Full screen recommended.

AM 10/6/23

"Something Big and Stupid is About To Happen"

"Everything is precarious in the economy right now, but we’re getting more and more experts that feel that something big and stupid is about to happen. Layoffs are happening. The job numbers are horrible right now."

Comments here:

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Jim Kunstler, "Comes the Dancing Skeleton"

"Comes the Dancing Skeleton"

by Jim Kunstler

"By some hidden working of unseen forces, legions of ghouls and demons are bursting out of the ground in every other front yard of small-town America. Supposedly hard-up working-class people go all-out constructing Halloween shrines to the totem figures of decay and death, as in some depraved cargo cult competition aimed at hastening our country’s descent into chaos. The end can’t come soon enough, seems to be the message. Something in the zeitgeist is prompting us to do this.

Year to year, these morbid displays of slavering werewolves, hooded skeletons, grinning mummies, pirate corpses, horned devils, giant spiders, flapping crows, and glowing skulls far surpass in scale the once-exuberant displays of Christmas time - as if to say the celebration of horror and terror has way more meaning in America these days than the message of peace-on-earth, angels-on-high, the boundless generosity of Santa Claus, and the humble birth of a loving god. Kind of reminds you of what Mr. Dylan said more than a half-century ago: “…he not busy being born is busy dying.”

This Halloween month, America looks super-busy preparing for the death of something, maybe itself. Surely many now live in terror of the malevolent blob that the US government has become, led by a very paragon of ghouls, “Joe Biden.” This week, the blob declared in a “leak” to Newsweek magazine, that supporters of Donald Trump, the Golden Golem of Greatness, are now officially deemed to be enemies of the state. So, the blob that has lately subsumed the state, explicitly targets Trumpists (the MAGA crowd) for wholesale persecution, cancellation, de-personing, and incarceration. That is, opponents of the blob regime organizing for the coming election will be systematically neutralized and/or liquidated, taken off the game-board one way or another, by any means necessary.

The blobistas would do well to take heed of those Halloween lawn displays. A stupendous, howling rage is building across this land in revolt against the blob’s monumental insults to a once proud and productive people. Soon, that plastic totem army of stock mythological monsters cavorting in the front yards will be superseded by real flesh-and-blood Americans aiming to shred the blob and scatter its quivering tatters to the four winds - as John F. Kennedy once remarked of the CIA in 1962, before it killed him in retaliation.

Coincidentally, a scion of the JFK generation now running for president on an as-yet-to-be-specified independent party seeks to do exactly what his uncle promised to do. As you gaze on this developing battlefield, you will now see two sizable armies marshaling against the unholy hosts of blobbery - Mr. Trump’s MAGAs and Bobby Kennedy’s emerging division representing the old stoic virtues betrayed by vicious blob tyrants. The plausible outcomes on this battlefield are in flux thirteen months before the election. But it looks a little like the blob is outflanked; hence, its growing desperation.

The psychodrama in the House of Representatives this week looked like a possible inflection point in the blob’s war against the American people. Mr. Gaetz evicted the quisling Speaker Kevin McCarthy in a rather brave gambit, opening up the possibility of unifying his party against the programmatic wickedness of the post-Covid-19 era - the suicidal spending, the insane and unnecessary Ukraine proxy war, traitorous refusal to control the southern border, the official DOJ lawfare waged against half the citizenry, the disgusting official censorship campaign, and the ongoing criminal conspiracy between the pharma companies, the US public health officialdom, and shadowy globalist forces embedded in the World Health Organization, the World Economic Forum, and scores of sinister multinational organizations ranging from George Soros’s Atlantic Council to the Sinaloa Cartel.

In the background of all that - a true-life horror - lies the crumbling bond market, the foundation of the money-and-banking system that is supposed to support the on-the-ground economy that produces things of value like food and roofing shingles. The bond market is wobbling badly. As rates rise, banks’ collateral melts away and they go bust, liquidation moves to stock markets, derivatives implode, and the vast reservoirs of capital vanish. There’s your stealth true Halloween psychodrama sneaking up on the scene. Gradually, then all at once, the quarreling nation finds itself stone broke, and even the blob shrinks from the scene in horror.

It will be hard to gaslight the country anymore when that happens. That will be the sobering moment when all the preposterous, mendacious, criminally insane propositions of recent years stand nakedly exposed. That’s when “Joe Biden” begins to be seen as a dancing skeleton."

- https://kunstler.com/