Monday, September 23, 2024

"Perhaps They Never Will..."

"One summer night, out on a flat headland, all but surrounded by the waters of the bay, the horizons were remote and distant rims on the edge of space. Millions of stars blazed in darkness, and on the far shore a few lights burned in cottages. Otherwise there was no reminder of human life. My companion and I were alone with the stars: the misty river of the Milky Way flowing across the sky, the patterns of the constellations standing out bright and clear, a blazing planet low on the horizon. It occurred to me that if this were a sight that could be seen only once in a century, this little headland would be thronged with spectators. But it can be seen many scores of nights in any year, and so the lights burned in the cottages and the inhabitants probably gave not a thought to the beauty overhead; and because they could see it almost any night, perhaps they never will."
- Rachel Carson

"The Sharp Tang And Savor Of Existence..."

"The Sharp Tang And Savor Of Existence..."

"The thought of the disaster which almost certainly lay in wait for the Other Men threw me into a horror of doubt about the universe in which such a thing could happen. That a whole world of intelligent beings could be destroyed was not an unfamiliar idea to me; but there is a great difference between an abstract possibility and a concrete and inescapable danger. On my native planet, whenever I had been dismayed by the suffering and the futility of individuals, I had taken comfort in the thought that at least the massed effect of all our blind striving must be the slow but glorious awakening of the human spirit. This hope, this certainty, had been the one sure consolation. But now I saw that there was no guarantee of any such triumph. It seemed that the universe, or the maker of the universe, must be indifferent to the fate of worlds. That there should be endless struggle and suffering and waste must of course be accepted; and gladly, for these were the very soil in which the spirit grew. But that all struggle should be finally, absolutely vain, that a whole world of sensitive spirits fail and die, must be sheer evil. In my horror it seemed to me that Hate must be the Star Maker.

Not so to Bvalitu. "Even if the powers destroy us," he said, "who are we, to condemn them? As well might a fleeting word judge the speaker that forms it. Perhaps they use us for their own high ends, use our strength and our weakness, our joy and our pain, in some theme inconceivable to us, and excellent." But I protested, "What theme could justify such waste, such futility? And how can we help judging; and how otherwise can we judge than by the light of our own hearts, by which we judge ourselves? It would be base to praise the Star Maker, knowing that he was too insensitive to care about the fate of his worlds." Bvalitu was silent in his mind for a moment. Then he looked up, searching among the smoke-clouds for a daytime star. And then he said to me in his mind, "If he saved all the worlds, but tormented just one man, would you forgive him? Or if he was a little harsh only to one stupid child? What has our pain to do with it, or our failure? Star Maker! It is a good word, though we can have no notion of its meaning. Oh, Star Maker, even if you destroy me, I must praise you. Even if you torture my dearest. Even if you torment and waste all your lovely worlds, the little figments of your imagination, yet I must praise you. For if you do so, it must be right. In me it would be wrong, but in you it must be right."

He looked down once more upon the ruined city, then continued, "And if after all there is no Star Maker, if the great company of galaxies leapt into being of their own accord, and even if this little nasty world of ours is the only habitation of the spirit anywhere among the stars, and this world doomed, even so, even so, I must praise. But if there is no Star Maker, what can it be that I praise? I do not know. I will call it only the sharp tang and savor of existence. But to call it this is to say little."
- Olaf Stapledon, "Star Maker"
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Freely download “Star Maker”, by Olaf Stapledon, here:

"From Stars to Souls: The Science of What Made You You, with a Dazzling Poem Read by David Byrne"

Pillars of Creation, Eagle Nebula, Messier 16. 
Infrared photograph. NASA /Hubble Space Telescope.

"From Stars to Souls: The Science of What Made You You,
with a Dazzling Poem Read by David Byrne"
by Maria Popova

"We are each a chance constellation of elements forged in long-dead stars assembled by gravity, which may be the other word for God - the weakest of the four fundamental forces, yet the great cosmic compactor that made the first atoms cohere into a common center to form the first star: an immense ball of gas, at the core of which was a hydrogen sphere that eventually reached pressures of millions of atmospheres and heated up to millions of degrees. These extreme conditions triggered a new phenomenon in the cosmos - the first nuclear fusion reactions: When two hydrogen atoms collide with immense force, neutrons are transferred from one nucleus to the other, making some atoms larger. After a series of such collisions, a nucleus with two protons forms and the second element - helium - is born. As the star ignites, illuminating the austere darkness of pure spacetime surrounding it, it keeps burning its hydrogen to make more helium. The fusion accelerates, forging carbon, then neon, then oxygen, and so forth across the periodic table, turning the star into a kind of onion with layers of fusion reactions.

Most of the first twenty-six elements in the periodic table - the elements composing almost everything we can touch and see - were created by nuclear fusion in individual stars. If you could tag any individual atom in your body and follow it backward in time, across all the other matter it composed before it became yours - your mother’s body, the food your mother ate, the soil in which that food grew, the geologic strata ground down by the oceans to make that soil - you could trace it all the way back to the core of a particular star that lived and died billions of years ago: an actual atom that is now in you, having prevailed over the infinite probabilities by which it could have ended up in someone else.

To this Rube Goldberg machine of chance you owe all of your particularity - alter any part of that cosmic genealogy, and you would have ended up as someone else.

The victory march of our particularity against probability comes alive in a short, dazzling poem by Ruth Stone (June 8, 1915–November 19, 2011). Stone was six and enchanted by her grandmother’s dictionary when she began writing poetry. She was eight-four and the grandmother of seven when she received major recognition as a poet. By the time she died, having lived nearly a century and survived her husband’s suicide, she had been nominated for the Pulitzer Prize and won the National Book Award with her singular poems bridging the domestic and the cosmic, lensing the world of love and loss, of rapture and regret, through the world of galaxies and particles - poems shimmering with the spirit of The Universe in Verse (which is now a book).

This poem, found in "What Love Comes To" (public library) - Stone’s final poetry collection, published just before her death at age 96 - was read at the seventh annual Universe in Verse by David Byrne:

"Strings"
by Ruth Stone

"We pop into life the way
particles pop in and out
of the continuum.
We are a seething mass
of probability.
And probably I love you.
The evil of larvae
and the evil of stars
are a formula for the future.
Some bodies can
thrust their arms into
a flame and be instantly
cured of this world,
while others sicken.
Why think, little brother
like the moon, spit out like
a broken tooth.
“Oh,” groans the world.
The outer planets,
the fizzing sun, here we come
with our luggage.
Look at the clever things
we have made out of
a few building blocks -
O fabulous continuum."

Follow the continuum forward into the science of what happens when we die, then revisit David Byrne’s animated reading of Pattiann Rogers’s magnificent poem “Achieving Perspective,” with art by Maira Kalman, and Nick Cave’s animated reading of “But We Had Music.”

The Daily "Near You?"

Commerce City, Colorado, USA. Thanks for stopping by!

"It's Just Life..."

“Bad things don’t happen to people because they deserve for them to happen. It just doesn’t work that way. It’s just… life. And no matter who we are, we have to take the hand we’re dealt, crappy though it may be, and try our very best to move forward anyway, to love anyway, to have hope anyway… to have faith that there’s a purpose to the journey we’re on.”
- Mia Sheridan

Jeff Thomas, "A Normal Country"

"A Normal Country"
by Jeff Thomas

"If left to their own devices, people will tend to come up with a society in which residents treat each other with equanimity and respect each other’s property. They’ll tend to help their neighbors, yet will otherwise respect each other’s privacy. This is not just happenstance. It occurs for a reason. It’s the most effective way to ensure that peaceful coexistence and mutual benefit are maximized over the long haul.

So why then, do so many societies seem to begin this way, but eventually devolve into just the opposite? The answer is that they grow to a size in which leaders are no longer equal members of the community, but are in a position above the rest. And at that point, their self-interest is no longer the same as the self-interest of those they govern.

The ideal size, therefore, is a small society. The ideal leader is an equal member of the community. In fact, this is what keeps him in check. All right, that’s a nice philosophical observation, but of what value is it to the reader who is up to his neck in bureaucracy and may even live within a collapsing socio-economic system?

Well, people are not potted plants. They have the ability to exit a community that has become overtaxed and corrupt and seek out a community where the leadership has not yet reached the point that’s detrimental to the well-being of the citizenry. We’re at a tipping-point. The former Free World is approaching a crisis, and all of the countries that make up that bloc are now teetering on the edge of socio-economic decline and, in some, political decline to boot.

In a crisis, if you live in a community that’s already corrupted, it won’t suddenly become enlightened in a crisis; it will likely become unlivable. If you’re one of the only sane people in an asylum, the odds are high that you’ll become a casualty.

Europe, for millennia, has been fought over by tribes seeking to displace each other. Beginning in the early sixteenth century, a new idea arose to seek conquest outside Europe. That meant Asia, Africa and the Americas. First, European powers created colonies in the far-flung destinations, then they began to fight over those colonies. But one by one, the colonies broke away on their own. Some, like Australia and the US, continued to trade with Europe, prospering in the good times and jointly waging war in the bad.

Not surprisingly, this process only served to maintain the tribal conflicts, although on a grander scale. This ensured an endless competition for power, both at home and abroad. And of course, the quest for power breeds corruption and oppresses those at home. But what of those countries that, for whatever reason, were overlooked, or who dropped out of the fray and sought only to be left alone, to maintain the natural order of peaceful and mutually beneficial co-existence? Do they even exist? Well, in fact they do.

I’m presently in Thailand – the only Asian country that was never colonized by Europe. It was never fought over; Europeans never drew arbitrary lines on the map. The borders exist due to natural boundaries such as mountain ranges, isolating tribes that more or less got along from those that did not.

To be sure, there have been inroads from the outside world, in some cases dramatically changing parts of Thailand. Bangkok, the capital city has become a modern-day Shanghai, a place where vice is king and a ladyboy can be had for forty dollars. Then, there’s Phuket, which specializes in Southsea-image tourism: clear blue water and a pricey mixed drink with some fruit and a little paper umbrella.

But if, like me, that’s not exactly what you had in mind, if what you’re seeking is more along the lines of a stable community where there’s a significant work ethic, the government doesn’t tax you to death and the people are both kindly and honourable, there is Northern Thailand, which bears little resemblance to the westernized cities of the south.

The largest of these, Chiang Mai, is in the extreme north, and is a city where people have had less exposure to western ways and retain the basic principles of community. Here, you can purchase a home for less than in the West, plus a farm just outside the city limits where workers can be hired inexpensively. Food and peace of mind are in abundance. To be sure, the Thai language is quite alien to westerners, but enough English is spoken in Chiang Mai that that becomes relatively unimportant. Life is both fair and relatively predictable for the farang, or westerner, who may be seeking a respite from the Western decline.

Then, there’s Uruguay. Uruguay was for a time a Portuguese colony, attached to Brazil, but broke off in 1828 and began a life of quiet independence. The Uruguayan people have a penchant for neutrality and sat out both world wars. Further, they’ve avoided disputes with neighbouring countries. Today, Uruguay exports less than ten percent of what it produces and imports only ten percent of its needs. It’s therefore substantially unaffected by major changes in world economics. Uruguay produces far more meat, produce and wine than it can consume, so, even in recessed periods, the population muddles through without significant problems.

Like Thailand, its capital, Montevideo, tends to be busier and more international than the rest of the country, although it’s far tamer than Bangkok. In Punta del Este, it has its resort town that, like Phuket, relies on tourism that its beaches attract.

But to the west, there’s Colonia del Sacramento, a quiet town that has all the supermarkets, shops and other infrastructure needed to sustain a good life, plus a quiet little café society where crime is almost non-existent and local people treat newcomers well. It helps to speak Spanish, but is not essential. And like Chiang Mai, a certain isolation from the First World has made possible the retention of the basic values of community. Everywhere you go, people treat each other not only with consideration, but with a genuine desire to be helpful.

Chiang Mai and Colonia del Sacramento are but two destinations in the world where it’s possible to immediately leave much of the strife behind. There are many others. And each has its own attractions. It’s important to recognize that there’s no "best" destination, there’s only an assortment of choices where the individual may dial in his personal priorities and preferences in order to select an alternate residence that works well for him. At a minimum, this provides a location where he may visit repeatedly, or which may become a second home.

But in addition, if his primary home is in a country that’s in decline and is soon to become less than acceptable to him, having an alternate already prepared will allow him the freedom to make a move – suddenly if necessary – to a location where it remains the norm for people to treat each other with equanimity and consideration. The political and economic climate is constantly changing... and not always for the better. It's clear the situation in the US, Europe, and other parts of the world will continue to deteriorate."

Dan, I Allegedly, "Attention Kmart Shoppers - The End of an Era?"

Full screen recommended.
Dan, I Allegedly, 9/23/24
"Attention Kmart Shoppers - The End of an Era?"
"They are all closing. “Attention Kmart shoppers”, the retail giant we all grew up with is closing its doors, leaving only a Miami mini-store standing. Remember those childhood trips for jeans and shoes? It's all fading away. But what does this mean for other iconic brands? Are Macy's and others next to fall? In today's fractured economy, brand loyalty has vanished, and we're seeing an alarming shift in consumer behavior."
Comments here:

George Carlin, "American Dream"

Very Strong Language Alert!
George Carlin, "American Dream"
Comments here:

"King, Kamala, And Evil"

"King, Kamala, And Evil"
by John Wilder

"A few weeks ago, I was re-watching the Stephen King miniseries "The Storm of the Century."  I recall watching it when The Mrs. and I were newly married. I recalled enjoying it at the time. A Cliff’s Notes™ version is generic Mysterious Villain with Mysterious Powers shows up on a Mysterious Isolated Island off the coast of Mysterious Maine for Mysterious Reasons.

The movie first aired in 1999. While watching it, the demographic change in entertainment is obvious, since all of the characters in the movie are white. This is entirely in keeping with what Maine looked like in 1999 and still looks like, with approximately 90% of Maine residents being white as of the last census. Of course, if they were going to do the series in 2024, certainly there would be a Moslem or a black woman in a wheelchair who is the only good character.

Oh, and culturally, the characters were mainly married and had kids and most of the relationships were solid and people went to church. The good guy was a father, who was married, and his wife was probably the least moral character of the movie. Yeah, not a 2024 movie since women are perfect in 2024.

Yet, the movie was dark in a way that got me thinking – is the world out there even darker than we think? I’ve been ruminating on that for weeks, and today I was listening to a YouTube® video while smoking a cigar in the hot tub tonight, and it was about...how bad the banking industry was, complete with an informant talking about secret sex parties and all manner of debauchery that I won’t discuss on this mostly family-friendly blog. The conclusion of the informant was that these parties were used to gather video to use for blackmail. I guess they just can’t charge each other penalty interest rates.

One very successful trader who was interviewed decided that he was going to quit the high-stress life even though he was making hundreds of millions for the investment bank. He told his boss. His boss took him to lunch, and told him a story about a trader that had quit. The bank then went through his emails, his trades, looking for anything that they could use to sue him or to turn over to the authorities.

It didn’t matter if the allegations stuck, the firm could keep coming up with them until the trader went broke. It was just like a Mafia shakedown. The trader decided then, he wouldn’t quit, and made himself such a pain that they fired him. I imagine that was a really amusing two weeks of his life, and I hope he brought in some trout that he’d caught and cleaned them on the copier.

But when it comes to this blackmail, I wonder just how many people that are successful, are successful only because they can be controlled. Epstein, more than anything, was likely a generator of this type of material for people to use to control others. Why have the client lists never been made public? Why have the recordings never come to light? Because those same recordings, that same information is likely being used today to control those people. The same with P. Diddy or Puff Daddy or whatever he’s known as today – what do you think the recordings from his parties were used for? And how in the hell did Epstein and Diddy get fortunes estimated to be near a billion dollars? They were part of the control apparatus.

I have no doubt that Kamala is utterly controlled in the same fashion. She was placed in her current position precisely because she can be controlled, and will do what she is told. She didn’t lead in the cover up of Biden’s decrepit condition, but she certainly has been complicit. Whatever committee that is running the White House has decided that with Kamala as president they could keep doing whatever it is that they’re doing, and that she can’t or won’t stop them. She’s made the deal, and for the trappings of power will do whatever they tell her to do.

Who are they? The GloboLeftElite. I used to just call them “The Left”, but that really doesn’t fit, nor does “communist”, and it doesn’t explain the core of what they seem to stand for. No, the thing that they stand for first is globalism. This is why they can take and transplant 20,000 Haitians into a town of 50,000, forever changing the demographics of a small and happy town to get cheap labor and dispossess the people that built the town in the first place. Their reach is global, and I think that nations are just pesky anachronisms in their minds, and whatever people actually built a country aren’t important.

So, that’s the Global part. The Left part is that they are fully on board with much more governmental control of everything. They want the government to tell us what we can do, where we can do it, and what we can say, as long as the government allows them to do whatever they want sexually without consequence. That appears to be all they want.

So, the GloboLeft are the foot soldiers, and the GloboLeftElite are the rulers. Those are the people who actually run the murky enterprises, and whose desires make the actual laws in the country. And, they do what they want, and control people via blackmail and lawfare. It’s just that simple.

In one way it’s darker than any of Stephen King’s villains, though. King is a member of the GloboLeft, but probably not the GloboLeftElite. But the villains he wrote about often had a purpose – in Storm of the Century, King’s bad guy wanted a child so he could raise it to be his Evil protégé. Wanting a child to carry on your Mysterious Evil Work is far more wholesome than the executives that will ruin a town just to increase the profit margin by a percent or two, or to dilute the heritage American voting stock so that the people who built the country will be dispossessed forever. Stephen King’s Evil Villian said, “Give me what I want and I’ll go away.” The GloboLeftElite wants power forever. Now that, I call Evil."

"How It Really, Incredibly Stupidly, Is"

 

Bill Bonner, "Judgement Day"

"Judgement Day"
Both Republicans and Democrats favor a sovereign wealth fund... which would 
just transfer more power and money to the Wall Street and Washington elite.
by Bill Bonner

Youghal, Ireland - "We were stunned. There, in the opinion pages of the Washington Post, last week was something we have not seen in any mainstream newspaper or journal. This was so unusual... not an appeal for more wasteful spending or more futile bloodshed in the Levant or on the Steppes. Not a call for more spending for unwed mothers or ‘un-housed’ cat ladies. Not a plea to the feds for more free stuff... nor to the Fed for cheaper money. ‘More’ was not what it was about; it was about less.

For once... perhaps the first and last time... the Washington Post was talking sense: The ‘Day the Dollar Died’ is coming. What’s the plan? America is racing toward a fiscal apocalypse, unprepared for the serious social upheaval that could result.

Of course, there is no plan. And the author of the Opinion piece, former Indiana governor, Mitch Daniels, didn’t pretend there was one. Instead, he looked ahead: "Since our national leaders, from both parties, have made the reckoning so probable, the least they can do is to start thinking about how to meet the fiscal judgment day when it arrives.

When fiscal ‘judgement day’ arrives, it will be too late for planning. All they will be able to do is to react... and probably in the worst possible way - by printing money. But there will be some decisions to be made - which assets to sell, which voters to stab in the back... how much to rip-off creditors... and how to explain ‘to an enraged public,’ how they got into such a mess."

To this last challenge we offer some advice: just look at the campaign proposals made in the 2024 presidential derby. Where is there any hint, suggestion or niggling soupcon about how to prevent the ‘fiscal apocalypse?’

Over at the Wall Street Journal, economist Jason Furman did some of our work for us. He looked at actual economic proposals made by the two candidates. Both Republicans and Democrats favor a sovereign wealth fund... which would just transfer more power and money to the Wall Street and Washington elite. And both candidates favor lower Fed lending rates, another gift to the Wall Street elite.

Trump would like to cut back some of the energy boondoggles in the Biden Inflation Reduction Act. But by the time the lobbyists do their work, his proposals probably wouldn’t go anywhere. Ms. Harris, meanwhile, has proposed a whole new set of giveaways - to home buyers... to students... to new parents, and so forth. She says these would be paid for by higher taxes on the wealthy, but the higher taxes probably won’t be approved.

Among the other suggestions: tax unrealized gains... un-tax tips... prohibit a Japanese company from acquiring US steel... penalize foreigners who try to protect themselves from heavy-handed sanction or dollar devaluation... stop price ‘gouging,’ etc.

The economist of the future has his work cut out for him. When it comes to wrecking the US economy, he will ask, was there a dime’s worth of difference between Trump and Harris? What if the other candidate had won; would things have turned out any different?

Furman points an accusing finger at Mr. Trump’s tariffs: "The Biden administration was wrong to keep and add to the tariffs Mr. Trump placed on China. Fortunately Ms. Harris doesn’t seem enthusiastic about pursuing this route much further. Mr. Trump, meanwhile, has proposed 10% tariffs on all U.S. imports, as well as 60% on Chinese goods. Whereas President Biden’s tariffs covered $18 billion of imports, Mr. Trump’s would cover $4 trillion, more than 200 times as much."

And he concludes: "Economists are obliged to compare and quantify. In this race, the evaluation is clear: Mr. Trump’s ideas on tariffs, the budget and the Federal Reserve pose a much greater risk to the economy than Ms. Harris’s."

Furman may be right or wrong. But the problem, as we see it, is bi-partisan. Even without the additional damage proposed by the two candidates, America’s government debt is projected to reach $65 trillion in 10 years... $150 trillion by 2050.

The candidates are like two drunken bus drivers, each racing to the same washed-out bridge. One may do a little better job of staying in his lane... but a few trillion, one way or the other, aren’t going to make much difference."

Gregory Mannarino, "Alert! The World Economy Is In Collapse! War is Expanding, Stock Market To Go Higher!"

Gregory Mannarino, AM 9/23/24
"Alert! The World Economy Is In Collapse! 
War is Expanding, Stock Market To Go Higher!"
Comments here:

Jim Kunstler, "Wheezing Past the Graveyard"

"Wheezing Past the Graveyard"
by Jim Kunstler

"The Democrats are self-immolating on the altar of
their own tenuous relationship with common decency."
- Tom Luongo

"What could go wrong? Probably more than you might imagine. We have just turned the corner into autumn. Now, things get serious, even gravely dark. America has never been so into dancing skeletons and morbidity. The small-town yards are filling up with inflatable signifiers of hell and death. Don’t you wonder what all this signifies besides good old family fun? The zeitgeist maybe having a little sport with us, you think?

We are chiefly preoccupied with our badly dysfunctional self-governance, of course, and the method for periodically revising it, which we call an election. Nobody has confidence in the process, which has acquired so many layers of absurd, needless complexity for the sole purpose of perverting the outcome that every lawyer in the land will have a hefty guaranteed annual income in the probably futile effort to sort it out come November 6. There is your hell-scape, with overtones of death on a pale horse... and all. Chaos...riots...anarchy...civil war.

The threat of World War Three may have abated for the moment, but in a peculiar and disconcerting way, viz. a coup in the executive branch. The gadfly Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, long ago chief-of-staff to Sec’y of State Colin Powell, reports that the Pentagon has cancelled “Joe Biden,” that is, taken him out of the decision-loop for anything. Well, you ask yourself, how is it possible he had even remained remotely close to any decision-loop this long, in any case, given the problem of his obviously broken brain? But now, it is unofficially official: just eat your mint-chocolate ice-cream and shut up, and let Dr. Jill run those “cabinet meeting” photo ops.

According to Col. Wilkerson, Sec’y of Defense Lloyd Austin told the “president” to his face that there will be no flinging of US-supplied long-range missiles from Ukraine “deep into Russia,” as the neocon-infested White House been chattering about endlessly. Wiser heads deep in the DOD HQ have decided the matter. Lump it, if you must, Tony Blinken and Jake Sullivan. The Russian’s “red-line” on such a caper is so wide you can see it from the International Space Station - that is, if you’re an astronaut marooned up there due to combined NASA/Boeing incompetence...but that’s another story.

Meanwhile, UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer was all revved up for the missile operation and flew to Washington for a one-to-one meet-up with “JB” to get the go-ahead. The Brits are avid for another World War. The last two went so well for them that they kissed their vast empire goodbye. Now they want to kiss goodbye their sceptered isle itself, which has almost no economy left and is overrun by cultural hostiles who are not into Shakespeare. The Brits’ floundering government is a posse of monomaniacs fixated on defeating Russia which, at the point in history, is like a dormouse (Glis glis) facing down a brown bear (Ursus arctos).

“Joe Biden,” reportedly “furious” at losing his executive power, was constrained to tell Mr. Starmer that the missile strike op was off, which left the UK PM miffed that he had crossed the ocean for no reason. Who knows, the Brits are so nuts these days that perhaps they’ll try to pull it off on their own. Mr. Zelensky, the no-longer-elected leader of Ukraine was begging them to try it because Ukraine has nothing left. NATO as a whole really has nothing left, either. Not much of a combined military, scant munitions left in the cupboard, and no will to wage war among the depressed citizens of its member nations.

There is nothing left except to come to terms on a settlement that will leave Ukraine not a member of NATO. The entire affair has been a humiliation for NATO and America, especially for the “Joe Biden” management team (whatever it actually consists of these days). The longer they refuse to engage in talks, the less of Ukraine will be left as a sovereign entity - having proven to the world that its sovereignty rests solely on its capacity to be used as a catspaw by the American neocon/intel blob. You’re reminded that for seventy years prior to 2014, Ukraine was not a problem for anyone until we made it a problem on-purpose - our purpose being idiotic and malicious and Ukraine could, in theory, revert to not being a problem for anyone again. Wouldn’t that be wonderful?

The neocon/intel blob’s other catspaw (domestic version), candidate Kamala Harris, is promising all kinds of good things “when [she] is in-office.” For some reason, nobody on The New York Times’s enormous staff of Ivy League germinated journalist-geniuses has informed Ms. Harris that she is actually in-office now, and has been since 1/20/2021. Why no good things for us plebes all these many months? No rainbows, unicorns, tax cuts, or ten-pound blocks of government cheese? Nothing but a disintegrating dollar, floods of savage mutts crossing the border and landing everywhere from Springfield, Ohio, to Nantucket, and endless raging bullshit about fighting “misinformation” - i.e., any idea that contradicts the Democratic Party’s agenda for assisted national suicide.

Ms. Harris’s gaslight-powered campaign has lost its loft in recent days, its most newsworthy event being last week’s cuddle hour with America’s official Care-Bear, Oprah...because, you see, there is nothing left except to pander to the emotional void induced by Woke-ism in the desperately needy minds of X-million voters of the birthing-person persuasion - especially among those unhappy souls who never got around to the birthing. Ms. Harris’s loathsome accessory, Tim Walz, has performed so discordantly that the campaign had to hang him in a closet somewhere, along with all his assorted skeletons, and lock the door. As ever, October surprises await: monsters, demons, ghouls, shrieking ghosts, the walking dead, and all the paid-up minions of the teachers’ union."

"It’s Chaos As Vast Hordes Of Criminals Literally Rule The Streets In Major Cities All Over America"

"It’s Chaos As Vast Hordes Of Criminals 
Literally Rule The Streets In Major Cities All Over America"
by Michael Snyder

"Did you know that gangbangers in Chicago are extremely upset because a migrant gang from South America is starting to take over territory that once belonged to them? As you will see later in this article, law enforcement authorities in Chicago have completely lost control of the Windy City, and a major gang war could erupt at any time. But of course it isn’t just Chicago that has descended into a state of complete and utter chaos. In Los Angeles, a horde of approximately 50 young criminals ruthlessly looted a 7-Eleven on Friday evening

"A group of about 50 juveniles on bikes ransacked a 7-Eleven in Pico-Robertson on Friday evening, the latest in a string of recent robberies targeting the convenience chain, authorities said. The group of juveniles, estimated to be between ages 12 and 15, entered the store at 8500 W. Olympic Blvd. around 7:25 p.m. and stole many items, according to a Los Angeles Police Department spokesperson. Most of the juveniles had fled the scene by the time officers arrived, he said."

The reason why this incident barely even made a blip in the news cycle is because this sort of thing now happens in Los Angeles on a regular basis…"The same store was targeted - also reportedly by a group of around 50 teens on bikes - on Aug. 9, according to Fox 11 Los Angeles. A week later, a group of young men on bikes robbed two convenience stores, reported to be 7-Elevens, in Hollywood. And on Aug. 24, a similar ransacking unfolded at a 7-Eleven in San Pedro.

In the middle of the country, the streets of Indianapolis are constantly under siege. In fact, it is being reported that police in the city recently had to “break up five different street takeovers in 48 hours”…"Police said they were met with violent crowds when they tried to break up five different street takeovers in 48 hours in Indianapolis."

Indianapolis was once such a quiet city. But now everything has changed. When Indianapolis police go out to break up these “street takeovers”, they are often viciously attacked…"IMPD says officers and Indiana State Police troopers were attacked and their cars were damaged while responding to several street racing and spinning events in Indianapolis over the weekend. The first incident was reported around 2:30 a.m. Saturday, Sept. 14 near East Washington and Pine streets, just east of downtown Indianapolis. Officers conducting a traffic stop saw 100-200 cars “engaged in reckless driving,” including spinning, in a parking lot, the department said in a statement."

Chaos is even reigning in major cities in the Bible Belt. This weekend, there was a horrifying mass shooting in Birmingham, Alabama that made headlines all over the nation…"At least four people were killed and dozens more were injured when gunfire broke out in Birmingham, Alabama. Investigators believe there were multiple shooters. “We have dozens of gunshot victims from this area,’’ police spokesman Truman Fitzgerald told the Birmingham News. “I’m told at least four of those gunshot victims are life-threatening.” The shooting happened in the city’s popular Five Points South entertainment district. At least 17 of the gunshot victims were seriously injured."

Needless to say, there has been chaos in our streets for a long time, but now things are going to an entirely new level. Many are blaming the surge in migration that we have been witnessing while Joe Biden has been in the White House. In Springfield, Ohio crime rates have absolutely skyrocketed during the past three years "Reports of shoplifting and vehicle theft increased considerably in Springfield, Ohio, following the arrival of thousands of Haitian refugees, according to data obtained by the Daily Caller News Foundation through a records request.

The town, which had a population of 58,622 in 2020, has taken in between 12,000 and 20,000 Haitian refugees over the past three years, marking a population increase of between 20.4% and 34.1%. From 2021 to 2023, Springfield also saw a 51.5% jump in motor vehicle theft reports and a 112.8% spike in reports of shoplifting, data provided by the Springfield Police Division shows.

In Chicago, migration has been fueling the growth of criminal gangs, and gang members now outnumber the police by more than ten to one. With numbers like that, there is no way that the police can maintain any sort of control. A migrant gang from Venezuela known as Tren de Aragua is now steadily taking over territory that once belonged to local gangs, and members of those local gangs are furious because the migrants are getting far more government handouts than they are… “There’s been a lot going on with (the migrant gangs) that nobody’s even hearing about,” Zacc Massie, 27, a street leader who first went to prison in 2015 and just recently got out.

“They be moving in our own territory and robbing people but they don’t get arrested like we do. I actually talked to one on the translator app. He told me all the things he got going on; how they helped him get a car, an apartment, (EBT) card, all this stuff. They giving them thousands, we get maybe $400 a month. And they don’t even have Social Security numbers!”

It is even being reported that teachers in Chicago elementary schools are being told to “give their migrant students a 70 percent in every subject and pass them on to the next grade” even if they don’t speak any English…"The teachers we spoke with work in CPS elementary schools and say they spoke no Spanish, while their migrant students spoke no English, making communication virtually impossible. They also added that because their schools were located in predominantly Black neighborhoods, they offered no English as a Second Language (ESL) support. Despite this, they say they were instructed by school administrators to give their migrant students a 70 percent in every subject and pass them on to the next grade. Teachers say this was the case even if their migrant students displayed severe academic deficiencies."

The locals that have been suffering in deeply impoverished sections of Chicago for many years understand very clearly what is going on, and they are deeply frustrated. Tensions in the city have never been higher, and one ex-gang member that has gone straight told the New York Post that it is just a matter of time before a gang war begins… “When the black gangs here get fed up with the illegalities and criminal activities of these migrants or non-citizens, the city of Chicago is going to go up in flames and there will be nothing the National Guard or the government can do about it when the bloodshed hits the streets. It’ll be blacks against migrants.”

For a long time, we were warned that there would be chaos in the streets of America, and now it is here. Law enforcement has already lost control of the streets in cities all over the country, and the violence, theft, drug dealing and sex trafficking only get worse with each passing day.
Meanwhile, millions of additional migrants come pouring into this nation illegally every single year. Our politicians have created ideal conditions for widespread civil unrest, and once it fully erupts nobody is going to be able to control it."
o
Full screen recommended.
Cash Jordan, 9/22/24
"NYC Thieves Raid 300 Stores… Without Getting Caught"
Comments here:
o

"Economic Market Snapshot 9/23/24"

"Economic Market Snapshot 9/23/24"
Down the rabbit hole of psychopathic greed and insanity...
Only the consequences are real - to you!
"It's a Big Club, and you ain't in it. 
You and I are not in the Big Club."
- George Carlin
o
Market Data Center, Live Updates:
Comprehensive, essential truth.
Financial Stress Index

"The OFR Financial Stress Index (OFR FSI) is a daily market-based snapshot of stress in global financial markets. It is constructed from 33 financial market variables, such as yield spreads, valuation measures, and interest rates. The OFR FSI is positive when stress levels are above average, and negative when stress levels are below average. The OFR FSI incorporates five categories of indicators: creditequity valuationfunding, safe assets and volatility. The FSI shows stress contributions by three regions: United Statesother advanced economies, and emerging markets."
Job cuts and much more.
Commentary, highly recommended:
"The more I see of the monied classes,
the better I understand the guillotine."
- George Bernard Shaw
Oh yeah... beyond words. Any I know anyway...
And now... The End Game...
o

Sunday, September 22, 2024

Jeremiah Babe, "Gang Banger Says Chicago Will Burn To The Ground; Massive Unrest In 2024"

Jeremiah Babe, 9/22/24
"Gang Banger Says Chicago Will Burn To The Ground; 
Massive Unrest In 2024"
Comments here:

"Alert! 'Nuke Like' Detonations Everywhere, Explosions Throughout Russia, War With Iran Coming"

Full screen recommended.
Canadian Prepper, 9/22/24
"Alert! 'Nuke Like' Detonations Everywhere,
 Explosions Throughout Russia, War With Iran Coming"
Comments here:

Musical Interlude: 2002, "A Gift Of Life"

Full screen recommended.
2002, "A Gift Of Life"

"A Look to the Heavens"

"Big, beautiful spiral galaxy NGC 1055 is a dominant member of a small galaxy group a mere 60 million light-years away toward the aquatically intimidating constellation Cetus. Seen edge-on, the island universe spans over 100,000 light-years, a little larger than our own Milky Way galaxy. The colorful, spiky stars decorating this cosmic portrait of NGC 1055 are in the foreground, well within the Milky Way. But the telltale pinkish star forming regions are scattered through winding dust lanes along the distant galaxy's thin disk.
Click image for larger size.
With a smattering of even more distant background galaxies, the deep image also reveals a boxy halo that extends far above and below the central bulge and disk of NGC 1055. The halo itself is laced with faint, narrow structures, and could represent the mixed and spread out debris from a satellite galaxy disrupted by the larger spiral some 10 billion years ago."

"Intense Cognitive Workout, Enter a Highly Focused Mental State - Isochronic Tones"

Full screen recommended.
Headphones are NOT REQUIRED for this video/track.
Jason Lewis - Mind Amend,
"Intense Cognitive Workout, 
Enter a Highly Focused Mental State - Isochronic Tones"

"This an extended version of my "Peak Focus For Complex Tasks" session. Listen to this when you need a strong burst of intense focus to concentrate and study things like advanced mathematics, scientific formulas, financial analysis or any other complex mental activity. Listen to this track with your eyes open while doing the task/activity you want to focus on.

This is a high-intensity audio brainwave entrainment session, using isochronic tones. Use this video to increase focus and concentration while studying, working and doing any mentally taxing activity. Listen to this track with your eyes open while doing the task/activity you want to focus on. Although headphones are not required you may find they produce a more intense effect, because they help to block out distracting external sounds.

Isochronic tones are a fast and effective audio-based way to stimulate your brain. Among many of the benefits, they can help improve focus, relaxation, energy levels, sleep and more, without taking drugs or needing any special equipment. What isochronic tones essentially do is guide your dominant brainwave activity to a different frequency while you are listening to them, allowing you to influence and change your mental state and how you feel."
I strongly suggest you read Comments here:
"Isochronic Tones –
How They Work, the Benefits and the Research"
This is a brainwave entrainment audio session using isochronic tones combined with music. The isochronic tones are the repetitive beats you can hear on top of the music throughout the track. If you are new to this type of audio brainwave entrainment, find out how isochronic tones work and how they compare to binaural beats here: 
Listen folks, we're out of time! Whether you want to know it or not we're literally in the fight of our lives, for our lives right now, and it's going to get much, much worse. Some of you reading this will not survive, and I may not either, so I'll take any edge I can get, and you should too... This works for me. Prepare yourself, brace for impact...
- CP

The Poet: David Whyte, "Sweet Darkness"

"Sweet Darkness"

"When your eyes are tired the world is tired also.
When your vision has gone no part of the world can find you.
Time to go into the dark where the night has eyes
to recognize its own.
There you can be sure you are not beyond love.
The dark will be your womb tonight.
The night will give you a horizon further than you can see.

You must learn one thing: the world was made to be free in.
Give up all the other worlds except the one to which you belong.
Sometimes it takes darkness and the sweet confinement of your aloneness
to learn anything or anyone that does not bring you alive is too small for you."

- David Whyte,
"House of Belonging"