The Poet: T.S. Eliot, "The Hollow Men"

"The Hollow Men" (read by Tom O'Bedlam)

"My Favorite Poem"

by Craig Boehman

"I’ve been experimenting with several of the AI platforms, attempting to learn all that I can about how the systems work and how to produce the best images from the prompts that I provide. My favorite platform is Midjourney, which is what I used to create the images for this poem. It’s a relatively straight-forward process over all, but there is a bit of learning when it comes to some of the finer aspects of telling AI exactly what it is that you want. Whether then AI can actually provide you with your desired results is another issue altogether, as I’ve discovered first-hand over the past week. 

Which brings me to "The Hollow Men" by T.S. Eliot, my favorite poem. I thought what better way to put Midjourney’s AI to the test? Surely, not even artificial intelligence can handle all of Eliot’s lines in a cohesive manner. I found this to be true. But in some cases, the visuals came pretty close to matching a visual interpretation of the lines. I’ll let you be the judge though. 

For each of the images below, the corresponding lines from the poem were fed into the bot as prompts, exactly as written, no other commands given except to make the images all in a 3:2 ratio. Other than that, you’re seeing only the results from Eliot’s own words."

- https://craigboehman.com/blog/

"The Hollow Men"

I

We are the hollow men,

We are the stuffed men,

Leaning together,

Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!

Our dried voices, when

We whisper together

Are quiet and meaningless,

As wind in dry grass,

Or rats’ feet over broken glass

In our dry cellar.

Shape without form, shade without color.

Paralyzed force, gesture without motion;

Those who have crossed

With direct eyes, to death’s other Kingdom,

Remember us - if at all - not as lost

Violent souls, but only

As the hollow men.

II

Eyes I dare not meet in dreams

In death’s dream kingdom,

These do not appear:

There, the eyes are

Sunlight on a broken column

There, is a tree swinging,

And voices are

In the wind’s singing,

More distant and more solemn

Than a fading star.

Let me be no nearer

In death’s dream kingdom.

Let me also wear

Such deliberate disguises

Rat’s coat, crowskin, crossed staves

In a field,

Behaving as the wind behaves

No nearer -

Not that final meeting

In the twilight kingdom.

III

This is the dead land,

This is cactus land.

Here the stone images

Are raised, here they receive

The supplication of a dead man’s hand

Under the twinkle of a fading star.

Is it like this

In death’s other kingdom,

Waking alone,

At the hour when we are

Trembling with tenderness,

Lips that would kiss

Form prayers to broken stone.

IV

The eyes are not here,

There are no eyes here

In this valley of dying stars,

In this hollow valley,

This broken jaw of our lost kingdoms.

In this last of meeting places

We grope together

And avoid speech,

Gathered on this beach of the tumid river.

Sightless, unless

The eyes reappear

As the perpetual starm

Multifoliate rose

Of death’s twilight kingdom,

The hope only

Of empty men.

V

Here we go round the prickly pear,

Prickly pear prickly pear,

Here we go round the prickly pear,

At five o’clock in the morning.

Between the idea

And the reality,

Between the motion

And the act

Falls the Shadow.

                                                                                      For Thine is the Kingdom.

Between the conception

And the creation,

Between the emotion

And the response,

Falls the Shadow

                                                                          Life is very long.

Between the desire

And the spasm,

Between the potency

And the existence,

Between the essence

And the descent,

Falls the Shadow.

                                                                                              For Thine is the Kingdom.

For Thine is,

Life is

For Thine is the...

This is the way the world ends,

This is the way the world ends,

This is the way the world ends,

Not with a bang but a whimper."

- T. S. Eliot

"Life Is Hard?"

"Life is hard? True - but let's love it anyhow,

though it breaks every bone in our bodies."

- Edward Abbey

"When I hear somebody sigh, "Life is hard," 

I am always tempted to ask, "Compared to what?"

- Sydney Harris

Musical Interlude: Elton John, "Your Starter For"

Elton John, "Your Starter For"

"Oh, How It Really Is"

"This is your last chance. After this, there is no turning back. You take the blue pill - the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill - you stay in Wonderland and I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes."

- Morpheous

“The possibility of physical and mental collapse is now very real. 

No sympathy for the Devil, keep that in mind. Buy the ticket, take the ride.”

- Hunter S. Thompson

Dan, I Allegedly, "It’s Time For Joe To Go"

Full screen recommended.

Dan, I Allegedly, AM 7/20/24

"It’s Time For Joe To Go"

The rumblings are getting louder for Joe Biden to step down. 

Do you think it’s time for him to go and let someone else run?

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

"Not A Plane In The Sky! Cash Only Stores! Hospitals, Banks, Flights All Affected!"

Full screen recommended.

Adventures With Danno, AM 7/20/24

"Not A Plane In The Sky! Cash Only Stores! 

Hospitals, Banks, Flights All Affected!"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

o

"Let’s Talk About…the Global Computer Crisis"

Excerpt: "A massive outage of Windows-based computers has impacted systems all over the world. Doctors’ surgeries, airlines, train stations, television stations, payment platforms – virtually all sectors of human society have been impacted. Traffic is backing up, flights are grounded. So far Microsoft is blaming a “third party”, and ruled out a cyber attack. In fact, the “third party” has been named as CrowdStrike, a company specializing in safe-guarding systems against cyber attacks. So that’s either highly ironic…or something else."

Full article is here:

- https://www.theburningplatform.com/

"The “Blue Screen Of Death” Could Throw The Global Economy Into A State Of Chaos For Weeks"

"The “Blue Screen Of Death” Could Throw 

The Global Economy Into A State Of Chaos For Weeks"

by Michael Snyder

"It has become glaringly obvious that we are way too dependent on our computers. The “largest IT outage in history” has thrown the entire global economy into a state of chaos, and we are being told that it could take “weeks” to fully recover. Countless flights have been canceled, hospital services have been disrupted, online services are down for a number of big banks, and we are being told that millions of workers may not receive paychecks this month. If a single software “glitch” can cause this much insanity, what would happen if the Internet was suddenly not available for an extended period of time?

A lot of people initially speculated that a cyberattack may be happening, but the truth is that virtually all of the chaos that we have been witnessing was caused by a CrowdStrike update…"The issue was caused by a technical problem that global cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike said it had identified in its software and was working to resolve. CrowdStrike provides antivirus software to Microsoft for its Windows devices. “Earlier today, a CrowdStrike update was responsible for bringing down a number of IT systems globally,” Microsoft said in a statement to CBS News."

To me, this is yet another example of the rampant incompetence that is plaguing our society today. Didn’t anyone test this update before they released it to the entire world? The CEO of CrowdStrike says that the issue has been identified and the problem has now been fixed…"In a statement, CrowdStrike CEO George Kurtz said the issue had been identified and a solution was being implemented. He added that “this is not a security incident or cyberattack. The issue has been identified, isolated and a fix has been deployed.”

Unfortunately, this isn’t going to do much good for users that are now dealing with the infamous “Blue Screen of Death”…"The notorious Blue Screen of Death is popping up everywhere, from banks to supermarkets and media outlets, causing widespread panic and confusion. All United, Delta and American Airlines flights were grounded amid the chaos."

According to one expert, if you are repeatedly getting the “Blue Screen of Death” right now there “is not a huge amount you can do”…"Mr Pardo continued: “Unfortunately, there is not a huge amount you can do if your computer has the blue screen of death. Computer users will need to wait for their IT team to resolve the issue, and many people may need to work from their phone or use a pen and paper in the meantime. This is a wake-up call for all the companies that have been floored by this attack. Organizations need to urgently review their disaster recovery plans to make sure they can deal with such problems.”

This tech disaster has already caused tremendous supply chain disruptions all over the planet, and CNBC is reporting that it could take “days or even weeks” to completely resolve this crisis…"The CrowdStrike software bug that crashed Microsoft operating systems and caused the largest IT outage in history caused disruptions at U.S. and global ports, with highly complex air freight systems suffering the heaviest hit, according to logistics experts, as global airlines grounded flights.

“Planes and cargo are not where they are supposed to be and it will take days or even weeks to fully resolve,” Niall van de Wouw, chief air freight officer at supply chain consulting firm Xeneta, said in a statement shared with CNBC. “This is a reminder of how vulnerable our ocean and air supply chains are to IT failure.” We certainly didn’t need this right now, because our economic numbers have already been heading in the wrong direction quite rapidly.

Meanwhile, the airline industry has been thrown into a state of complete and utter chaos…"Over 1,800 flights had been canceled within, into or out of the U.S. as of Friday morning, and more than 5,000 others were delayed, according to the flight tracking service, FlightAware. Globally, more than 28,000 flights were delayed early Friday." I feel so badly for those that are stuck at an airport at this moment. If you are one of those people, you might not get to where you are supposed to go for a while.

This IT outage has also forced the cancellation of surgeries all over the nation…"Gary Baulos in woke up at 3:30 a.m. on Friday for open heart surgery to fix eight blockages. A call from the hospital in Paducah, Kentucky, soon altered his plans. The procedure would be rescheduled because of a global technology outage that was derailing operations. The 73-year-old retiree made the best of the situation, grabbing a breakfast of bacon, eggs, and pancakes at an IHOP before heading home to Marion. “I guess I’ll do it some other time,” he said."

Not everyone was as sanguine. Lydia, who asked that her last name be withheld for privacy reasons, had her surgery at the University Hospital of Maryland canceled. A waiting room full of patients and family members all got the news that operations were being placed on hold. Were there people that died because they couldn’t get the care that they needed? I hope not.

We are also being told that “millions” of workers may not receive paychecks this month because so many systems are down right now…"Millions of workers are at risk of not receiving their paychecks this month amid a global outage that could last weeks. Several of America’s biggest banks saw their systems crash this morning, preventing people from accessing their accounts or receiving or sending money."

If you are supposed to get a paycheck on Friday, you are probably at greatest risk. The CEO of the Global Payroll Association says that her organization has “received complaints from a number of clients who couldn’t access their payroll software because of the outage”…"The Global Payroll Association (GPA) warned that people ‘risk going without their wages’ because their employers or banks rely on CrowdStrike for cybersecurity protection."

It remains unclear how widespread the payroll disruption is, but Melanie Pizzey, the founder and CEO of GPA said her company had received complaints from a number of clients who couldn’t access their payroll software because of the outage. Payroll systems typically need to be notified of any issues that would stop direct deposits from going through at least two days before the payday for the issue to be resolved in time.

This certainly isn’t the end of the world, but it is yet another example that shows how incredibly vulnerable we are. I think that life was much simpler when we all relied on pen and paper. Sadly, this is the world that we live in now, and much more chaos is on the way."

- https://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/

"Crooks’ Unbelievable Path To The Roof"

Full screen recommended.

Dr. Chris Martenson, 7/19/24

"Crooks’ Unbelievable Path To The Roof"

- https://www.youtube.com/

o

"At Least Three Shooters Found 

In New Audio Forensic Analysis"

o

"Illuminating Inconsistencies and Addressing

 Anomalies in the Trump Assassination Attempt"

11 Shots fired | 3 Different Locations | Patsy | Eyewitness Accounts | 

Video Proof | 3 Letter Agencies | Lies, Coverups, Betrayal |

 All You Need to Know NOW & What Really Happened in Bethel Park, PA

by Dr. Robert W. Malone

"This article begins with the “official story” of the assassination attempt on the life of President Trump on July 13, 2024. The information contained herein is as of July 19, 2024.

"THE OFFICIAL STORY: Six days ago, on July 13, 2024, Thomas Matthew Crooks, a 20-year-old Gen-Zer with an associate’s degree, somehow masterminded an assassination attempt on President Trump. Armed with just 10 days of planning, Crooks loaded a handmade explosive device (with remote detonator) into his car, went to Home Depot, picked up a ladder, then picked up some ammo and drove from Bethel Park, PA to the Trump rally in Butler, PA.

He parked his car, with an explosive device in the trunk no less, and hauled his ladder and AR-15 to a warehouse just a few hundred feet from Trump’s podium. Meanwhile, a three-man counter-sniper team was cozy on the 2nd floor of that same warehouse, setting up through the window. Multiple bystanders, police, and the Secret Service all saw Crooks as he strolled to the warehouse, even caught on film wandering around and looking up—but nope, no red flags there.

One of the law enforcement officers stationed in the warehouse saw Crooks “scoping out” the roof with a rangefinder. There’s nothing suspicious about that, right? Maybe Crooks was using the rangefinder to improve his golf swing. He left and then returned with a backpack, the officer took a picture of him and radioed the sightings to the command center, but they somehow “lost track” of him. According to the Senate briefing on the assassination attempt, 62 minutes elapsed between the time Crooks was photographed as suspicious and when he fired the shots…

That’s right … Despite being on the Secret Service's radar for 62 minutes, they somehow “lost track” of him. Yes, they lost track of a guy with a range finder and a rifle. Maybe he had an invisible suit? Or perhaps he used some top-secret cloaking device? It’s not like someone walking around with a gun and rangefinder should raise any red flags. No, it’s perfectly normal for the elite team tasked with protecting the President just to let someone like that slip through their fingers.

When they finally “found” Crooks, he had climbed the warehouse roof. Remember, according to the Secret Service, a three-man counter-sniper team is set up in that same warehouse. Everyone knows you can hear a squirrel on a metal roof, but the team below Crooks couldn't hear him on the roof.

Evidently, a police officer saw him on the roof and confronted him, but Crooks pointed his weapon, causing the officer to duck and fall off the roof. The officer’s radio call about "an individual on the roof with a weapon" apparently didn’t warrant immediate evacuation of President Trump. Because, of course, why would it?

Of course, local law enforcement body cameras cannot confirm these facts because … are you ready for this? … According to Tom Fitton, the Butler County sheriffs were not wearing body cameras. How strange is it that a key law enforcement agency did not have its responding officers equipped with body cameras? Nothing to worry about here… we’re sure this is just a coincidence.

And the roof? Secret Service director Kimberly Cheatle later explained the lack of a sniper team on the roof by saying it was “sloped” and dangerous.

Clearly, the Secret Service isn't trained for such perilous conditions as a mildly sloped roof. Who needs them taking a bullet for the President when they could slip on a roof, right? And who needs the pesky facts that the Secret Service was already stationed on a roof with a 14.04° pitch, and the pitch of the warehouse roof was only 4.76°? And we just learned that, according to Senator Josh Hawley on X, “Whistleblowers tell me that MOST of Trump’s security detail working the event last Saturday were not even Secret Service. DHS assigned unprepared and inexperienced personnel.” Maybe that’s why she feared putting them on a sloped roof…

According to Matt Wallace, the parents of Crooks called police hours before the shooting to report that he was missing with an AR-15. And let's not forget that Crooks wasn’t even good enough to make his high school rifle team. But, hey, no biggie. It’s totally understandable, right? Because obviously, shooting in a high school competition is way more intense than sneaking onto a roof, evading the Secret Service and police, and taking a shot at the President with snipers all around. Yeah, right. Because, you know, nothing says “elite assassin” like failing to qualify for a high school team.

Crooks also supposedly managed to whip up a high-tech remote-controlled explosive device without ever bothering to search "explosive devices" on the internet and without leaving any significant internet footprint or catching the attention of law enforcement. Quite a feat for someone with such a mundane background, right? Because nothing about this whole story screams "cover-up" at all. Nope, not one bit.

OK, enough sarcasm; let’s look at some anomalies and ask some questions…

ANOMALIES & QUESTIONS: We just discussed the slope of the warehouse roof. From the videos, it appears that if Crooks was positioned where we see him, the 4.76° pitch might have obstructed his line of sight to President Trump. Check out this video and decide for yourself.

Thanks to Ivory Hecker for this video on Instagram.

Oh, here’s a real gem. The Secret Service claims there was a counter-sniper team stationed in a second-story window of the very warehouse where Crooks was supposedly perched. Minor hiccup, though … That warehouse doesn’t even have a second-story window. But guess what? The adjacent building does, giving them a perfect view of Crooks.

Thanks to In2ThinAir for the above video on X.

The video above claims that Crooks was merely a distraction, the “magician’s assistant” in this elaborate trick, while the real shooter was possibly on the water tower. Was Crooks the decoy, the sleight of hand to keep you from noticing the real threat? Let’s go down the rabbit hole a bit, shall we? This video below was shot by General Eric on the way to the Trump rally. You can clearly see an SUV parked under the water tower.

Thanks to General Eric on X

You may be thinking, “There was an SUV parked under the water tower. So what?” Videos that indicate someone was on the water tower have been circulating, but we haven’t included them because they are very grainy and don’t help much. However, several witnesses corroborated that they saw someone on the tower. And here’s a video of an eyewitness stating that someone on the water tower got shot and killed by a sharpshooter. In the words of Johnny Carson, “this is wild, weird stuff.”

Mike Adams, the “Health Ranger,” has done an amazing job of dissecting the audio file in today’s episode of Brighteon Broadcast News. The section you want to watch is from about 11 minutes to 48 minutes. In his analysis, Adams proves that shots 1 through 5 were taken from approximately 400-500 feet away, which is consistent with either Crooks on the warehouse roof OR another sniper team set up very close to Crooks. Shot 6 was taken from approximately 600-800 feet away, and shot 7 was taken from approximately 1100-1500 feet away.

Utilizing Google Earth, the water tower appears to be approximately 750 feet away. So was the 6th shot taken from the water tower? And from where was the 7th shot taken? Why are we not hearing about the investigation of the person shot on the water tower? Was there another shooter on the tower? Whose SUV was parked at the base of the tower? All questions that need to be addressed and answered.

According to Tony Seruga, a lifetime data scientist and CIA/NSA contractor, “We have tracked the black SUV that had picked up our phantom water tower sniper ... With 100% confidence, based on cell phone data, that particular sniper was FBI and the SUV was registered to the Department of Agriculture.” Is Seruga correct? Was there another shooter on the tower?

That’s not the only report of a possible second shooter. Here’s a video that sure does look and sound like there was a second shooter in the crowd. Keep in mind that this video is on Trump's left side, whereas the warehouse is on Trump’s right side.

Thanks to John Cullen for this video on X.

And here’s a video of a female attendee who heard the shots in the above video and is 100% sure that they came from the left of Trump.

Why have we not heard anything about this? It seems evident that more investigation is needed. But apparently, the FBI disagrees because, within 24 hours, FBI investigators stated that Crooks acted alone. Isn’t it amazing that they can do a thorough background check and speak to every known associate of Crooks within a day and conclude that he acted alone? The FBI sure does act fast!

Except for when they took 7 years to conclude the 2001 anthrax attack investigation… and um… when they took 3 years to determine that McVeigh and Nichols had acted alone in the Oklahoma City bombing from 1995. (By the way, there’s an eye-opening chapter on the Oklahoma City bombing in our book, Monumental Myths.)

Back to the FBI. Here is a photo of the FBI cleaning up (destroying) the crime scene where the shooter allegedly opened fire to assassinate President Trump and was quickly shot by a Secret Service sniper. Of course, the FBI may have gotten all the blood and fibers (and brass?) they needed for their investigation, so this might be nothing ….

What about that lady sitting behind Trump in the black hat? We’ve all seen the video. It went viral because when the shooting started, she stayed calm and began to film. There's nothing strange about that, right? Some are speculating that this woman is FBI Assistant Director Janeen Diguiseppi.

The FBI has categorically denied that the woman in the video is Assistant Director DiGuiseppi. OK, I guess we should believe the FB”Lie” … sorry FBI … because they’ve never been dishonest or hidden evidence before, right? They’ve never been accused of being corrupt, have they?

Anyone recall the Hunter Biden laptop circus? Just weeks before the 2020 election, the FBI had the laptop in their possession but decided to play hide-and-seek with it so it wouldn't damage the Biden campaign. Because, you know, transparency is overrated.

Yep, this is the same FBI that helped rig the 2020 election. The very same FBI that orchestrated the Oklahoma City bombing (and let’s not forget Merrick Garland was the judge on that one). And, of course, it's the same FBI that executed Randy Weaver’s wife and unborn child at Ruby Ridge.

Oh yeah, we almost forgot, the FBI just declined a request by Congress for FBI Director Christopher Wray to testify next week about the attempted assassination of President Trump. I guess he’s too busy…

And then there’s the cell phone evidence. Congressman Mike Waltz indicated that according to an FBI briefing, Crooks had three encrypted accounts overseas. Yes, you read that right. A 20-year-old with an associate’s degree and a mundane background was actually a “digital Houdini” with multiple overseas cell phone accounts. Seriously? Are we supposed to believe that Crooks was some kind of lone-wolf tech genius? This has “patsy” written all over it.

There were multiple videos of Crooks on the roof allegedly firing, so why is there no video of the muzzle flash from Crooks’ AR-15? Where’s the brass from the roof? And what caliber is the bullet that hit Trump? The trajectory should lead straight to the bullet, shouldn’t it? Where are the ballistics reports? This is imperative information. Where is it?

More anomalies, countless threads, and loose ends beg to be unraveled, but we'll stop here for the sake of time and pertinence. We need to get this article published and illuminate the inconsistencies and unanswered questions to spark the necessary scrutiny and investigation that this situation desperately demands.

CONCLUSION: Regarding the attempted assassination of President Trump, we are left with a multitude of questions, an ocean of anomalies, and an ever-growing pile of evidence that suggests not all is as it seems. Were there multiple shooters? Was there “inside” involvement? Were certain companies tipped off about an “event” on Saturday, July 13? We must demand answers to these questions because the official story simply doesn’t add up.

Think about it: Crooks somehow evades a highly trained Secret Service team, sneaks onto a warehouse roof unnoticed, and manages to fire shots at the President despite being on law enforcement’s radar for over an hour. And to top it all off, local law enforcement officers weren’t wearing body cameras on that crucial day. Moreover, the financial “bets” placed just a day before the Trump rally are too coincidental to ignore.

And let’s not forget that President Trump has promised multiple times to dismantle the so-called “deep state.” It certainly appears that this shadowy network could be involved in the attempt on his life. The timing and circumstances surrounding the assassination attempt are just too coincidental, raising serious questions about whether this was a desperate move by the “deep state” to protect its own interests and maintain its grip on power.

We love President Trump and this country. We will not stop asking these questions until we get satisfactory answers. We owe it to ourselves and our children to, in President Trump's iconic words, “fight… fight… fight.”

- https://thetruthaboutcancerofficial.substack.com/

Jeremiah Babe, "The Internet Just Blew Up Today, How Quickly The System Can Wipe You Out"

Jeremiah Babe, 7/19/24

"The Internet Just Blew Up Today, 

How Quickly The System Can Wipe You Out"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

Musical Interlude: 2002, "Children In Time"

Full screen recommended.

2002, "Children In Time"

"A Look to the Heavens"

"The small, northern constellation Triangulum harbors this magnificent face-on spiral galaxy, M33. Its popular names include the Pinwheel Galaxy or just the Triangulum Galaxy. M33 is over 50,000 light-years in diameter, third largest in the Local Group of galaxies after the Andromeda Galaxy (M31), and our own Milky Way. About 3 million light-years from the Milky Way, M33 is itself thought to be a satellite of the Andromeda Galaxy and astronomers in these two galaxies would likely have spectacular views of each other's grand spiral star systems.

As for the view from planet Earth, this sharp image shows off M33's blue star clusters and pinkish star forming regions along the galaxy's loosely wound spiral arms. In fact, the cavernous NGC 604 is the brightest star forming region, seen here at about the 4 o'clock position from the galaxy center. Like M31, M33's population of well-measured variable stars have helped make this nearby spiral a cosmic yardstick for establishing the distance scale of the Universe."

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

The Poet: Wendell Berry, "The Circles Of Our Lives"

"The Circles Of Our Lives"

"Within the circles of our lives

we dance the circles of the years,

the circles of the seasons

within the circles of the years,

the cycles of the moon,

within the circles of the seasons,

the circles of our reasons

within the cycles of the moon.

Again, again we come and go,

changed, changing. Hands

join, unjoin in love and fear,

grief and joy. The circles turn,

each giving into each, into all.

Only music keeps us here,

each by all the others held.

In the hold of hands and eyes

we turn in pairs, that joining

joining each to all again.

And then we turn aside, alone,

out of the sunlight gone

into the darker circles of return,

Within the circles of our lives..."

- Wendell Berry

○

“We are travelers on a cosmic journey, stardust, swirling and dancing in the eddies and whirlpools of Infinity. Life is Eternal. We have stopped for a moment to encounter each other, to meet, to love, to share. This is a precious moment. It is a little parenthesis in Eternity.”

- Paulo Coelho

Full screen recommended.

Moody Blues, "Gypsy"

Remember...

"It Is Only When..."

"Happily men don't realize how stupid they are, or half the world would commit suicide. Knowledge is a will-of-the-wisp, fluttering ever out of the traveller's reach; and a weary journey must be endured before it is even seen. It is only when a man knows a good deal that he discovers how unfathomable is his ignorance. The man who knows nothing is satisfied that there is nothing to know, consequently that he knows everything; and you may more easily persuade him that the moon is made of green cheese than that he is not omniscient."

- W. Somerset Maugham

○

“It takes considerable knowledge just to 

realize the extent of your own ignorance.” 

- Thomas Sowell

Adventures With Danno, "Microsoft Shuts World Down With The Push Of A Button! We're In Trouble!"

Adventures With Danno, PM 7/19/24

"Microsoft Shuts World Down With The 

Push Of A Button! We're In Trouble!"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

Canadian Prepper, "What The F%#$! 1 Billion Computers Crash, Biggest Outage In History"

Canadian Prepper, 7/19/24

"What The F%#$! 

1 Billion Computers Crash, Biggest Outage In History"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

The Daily "Near You?"

New Braunfels, Texas, USA. Thanks for stopping by!

"The End of History"

"The End of History"

A somewhat exaggerated obituary...

by Joel Bowman

“History is a cyclic poem written by time upon the memories of man.”

~ Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822)

"Remember when history ended, dear reader? The year was 1992. "Under the Bridge" and "Tears in Heaven" were playing on the FM radio. The Cold War, which had promised such a “Bang!” had ended with barely a whimper. And American philosopher, Francis Fukuyama, had just published a daring book: "The End of History and the Last Man."

In light of the great Soviet collapse, Mr. Fukuyama was of the opinion that The West had not simply triumphed over The Rest, but that the world had finally reached “the end point of mankind’s ideological evolution and the universalization of Western liberal democracy as the final form of human government.”

In other words, whatever was to be done in the fickle and turbulent realm of politics had, by the grand old year 1992, already been done. Here is Mr. Fukuyama, joining a long line of intellectuals (including Marx) to have become ensnared in the labyrinth of Hegel’s dialectical materialism: “Both Hegel and Marx believed that the evolution of human societies was not open-ended, but would end when mankind had achieved a form of society that satisfied its deepest and most fundamental longings. Both thinkers thus posited an "end of history": for Hegel this was the liberal state, while for Marx it was a communist society. This did not mean that the natural cycle of birth, life, and death would end, that important events would no longer happen, or that newspapers reporting them would cease to be published. It meant, rather, that there would be no further progress in the development of underlying principles and institutions, because all of the really big questions had been settled.” ~ Francis Fukuyama

But a curious thing happened on the way to the end of history; namely... history did not end. The political pendulum did not come to a full stop. Stubbornly, insolently, it kept right on a-swingin’...

Time and Again: Indeed, the ‘90s were a time of great political upheaval and experimentation, not all of it leading to the holy grail of western liberal democracy, as imagined by Mr. Fukuyama.

In the power vacuum created by the collapse of the Soviet Empire, Gorbachev’s perestroika (a program of political and economic “restructuring”) delivered the Russian people from the brutality of communism… into the unloving embrace of a corrupted oligarchy…and then to a kind of faux democracy that has seen the same man at the helm for a quarter of a century. (After this year’s “election,” Vladimir Putin became the longest-serving Russian leader since Joseph Stalin, who ruled the Soviet Union from 1929 to 1953.)

As for the Americans, co-belligerents in the aforementioned ideological conflict, they continued their own long march…headlong toward a special brand of political circuses and economic madness. In a country where any boy, girl or two-spirit animal might grow up to be president, the nation that enthusiastically sent its soldiers abroad to “make the world safe for democracy” offered up a Bush, followed by a Clinton (twice), followed by another Bush (twice), then very nearly another Clinton. Two decades of political power, held in the hands of two dynastic families.

Meanwhile, beneath fierce power struggles at the executive level, America’s vast and menacing security state – about which General Eisenhower famously warned in his farewell address in ‘61, at the height of the Cold War – continued its inexorable mission creep into the lives and private affairs of the good citizens of The Republic.

The Scourge of War: Neither the defeated Soviets nor the victorious Americans appeared willing to take the path Fukuyama had so carefully laid out for them. The End of History would have to wait...

Ah, but what about Europe, some venture to ask? Indeed, Mr. Fukuyama himself preferred the transnational euro-model to the comparatively unipolar American offering. Might not the “post-historic” world manifest itself over on the continent, where a common “Esperanto” currency – in the form of the euro – would facilitate free trade and citizens of all backgrounds, creeds and cultures would walk arm in arm from the Seine to the Danube, the Bay of Biscay to the shores of the Black Sea?

“I believe that the European Union more accurately reflects what the world will look like at the end of history than the contemporary United States,” declared Fukuyama at the time, in brave defense of his curious, end-of-days timeline. The EU’s attempt to transcend sovereignty and traditional power politics by establishing a transnational rule of law is much more in line with a ‘post-historical’ world than the Americans’ continuing belief in God, national sovereignty, and their military.”

Alas, not unlike the Ruskies and the Yankees before them, the Europeans would go on to disappoint Mr. Fukuyama, too. After a relatively sanguine start to the new millennium, the Eurozone spent most of the ensuing two decades descending gradually into first economic, then political, and now widespread cultural disaster. Today, protests from one end of the continent to the other – Finland to Greece, the Netherlands to France, Poland to Ireland and plenty more between – underscore real discord between neighbors in the great eurocrat utopia. Not to mention the scourge of war, which threatens to drag the entire continent, if not the whole western world, into yet another great conflagration.

Under the Bridge: And so, almost a quarter of a century after Mr. Fukuyama stopped the clock on History, it plods along regardless. Evidently, something about the political spirit of mankind just doesn’t want to sit still. In the year 2024, the world is faced with a plethora of political challenges, for which many of the seeds were sown in the dimming twilight of the last century.

That is to say, the ideological struggle continues against the backdrop of protests, uprisings, springs, occupations, revolutions and, over the weekend, here in the United States of America, attempted assassinations. (How close the Republic was to having its own Franz Ferdinand moment, we may never know...)

When Mr. Fukuyama stopped the clocks back in 1992, America’s debt clock was just ticking past $3 trillion. As we type these very words, that figure is fast approaching $35 trillion, a rather brassy 775 percent increase. According to the latest estimates by the Congressional Budget Office, it is set to top $56 trillion within the next decade. And the rate of increase is only accelerating…

In its report last month, the CBO revised its estimate of the budget deficit for 2024 from $1.6 trillion to $1.9 trillion - an increase of more than 20 percent.

As a proportion of annual GDP, the debt will rise from almost 100 percent this financial year to 122 percent in 2034, meaning that the debt is growing at a much faster rate than real economic output. Interest rate costs to service the debt, now approaching $1 trillion, will rise to $1.7 trillion by 2034, when it will become the single largest line item on the federal budget.

Which brings us back to the lessons of history…Will the United States have to go “Full Argentina” before the pendulum swings back the other way, to sanity, fiscal responsibility and limited government? Or is the die cast? We wait to see…Of course, Mr. Fukuyama is not alone in wondering how all this ends. Only, if history has taught us anything, it doesn’t. The show, as always, goes on."

- https://joelbowman.substack.com/

Gregory Mannarino, "Terminal Decline: We Are Experiencing An Extinction Level Event"

Gregory Mannarino, PM 7/19/24

"Terminal Decline: 

We Are Experiencing An Extinction Level Event"

- https://traderschoice.net/

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"We Like To Think..."

"We like to think that we are rational beings; humane, conscientious, civilized, thoughtful. But when things fall apart, even just a little, it becomes clear we are not better than animals. We have opposable thumbs, we think, we walk erect, we speak, we dream, but deep down we are still routing around in the primordial ooze; biting, clawing, scratching out an existence in the cold, dark world like the rest of the tree-toads and sloths."

- "Grey's Anatomy"