"How It Really Is"

"At the beginning of June, our national debt was sitting at $31,467 trillion. Today, it has risen to $35.68 trillion.That means that we have added four 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"

"America In The Age Of Nero"

"America In The Age Of Nero"

by J. Peder Zane

"Americans are like members of a quarrelsome family, so intent on arguing their petty grievances around the kitchen table that they don’t smell the rising smoke from the oven. As our nation fumes and the world burns, neither major party presidential candidate is addressing the lapping flames around us.

Kamala Harris and Donald Trump are not simply ignoring our frightening national debt – both vow to ramp it up. Neither candidate has a serious plan to respond to the threats posed by China, Russia, or Iran.

The strangling costs of health care, the sharp decline in mental health, the disintegration of our public schools – which is sharply tied to the breakdown in the family – are all ignored in a race marked by gauzy references to policy and sharp personal attacks.

It’s not just Harris and Trump – our leadership in Washington has long refused to face up to the growing threats to our republic. Their empty promise is that everything is the other side’s fault. Help us annihilate the other guy and everything will be peaches and cream.

A third-grader wouldn’t fall for this nonsense. Neither side can vanquish the other. A Harris victory will not be the death knell of Trump’s populist message; Trump’s win will not defang progressivism’s leftward lurch. Whatever the outcome, we will continue to be a divided, angry nation. And yet, seemingly thoughtful Americans have bought this line hook, line, and sinker.

More importantly, even if one side did seize absolute power, they have no legitimate plan to right the ship of state. Sixty years of Great Society programs have shown us we can’t spend our way out of problems. The 44 years since the Reagan Revolution show us that tax cuts can only set the stage for reforms that have never come – a task that nears the impossible as ever more Americans become dependent on government aid.

America is in a second Age of Nero – our leaders fiddle as the country burns.

In past crises, the strength, resilience, and ingenuity of the American people have saved us from the depths of want and war. It is not clear we retain that grit. Instead of demanding leadership, we seem content with the bread and circuses of mindless politics more akin to the gladiatorial battle of Rome than the edifying debates of ancient Greece. The broad embrace of victimhood and grievance on both sides has replaced any question of sacrifice for the common good with the desire to demonize our imagined tormentors. If anything, we savor the fight. It makes us feel important, alive – it gives our lives meaning.

Although we have serious problems, we are no longer a serious people. Hence our choice between Donald J. Trump and Kamala Harris. They are not the disease, however, but a symptom. The first step toward a treatment, if not cure, is obvious: we must reject our empty politics of diversion in order to identify and address our urgent crisis. Honesty really would make a difference. It might also make us happier as we re-channel our energies from angry partisanship into thoughtful partnership.

Still, that would only get us so far. Life teaches that identifying one’s problems is the relatively easy part of change – we all know what’s wrong with the other guy and, sometimes, ourselves. Finding the will and discipline to do something about it is far harder. We are sinking before that challenge because it still seems possible to ignore the building fire. Many of us have it pretty good; our fears are mitigated by our confidence in escape. It won’t get me.

Ironically, the fact that much of the rest of the world is crumbling imparts a false sense of security. Instead of seeing those problems as canaries in the coal mine, we think, Hey, we’re still doing okay.

It’s true that history confutes the doomsayers. The world does get better in the long run. But that is little consolation to those whose one short life is spent during the ebbing flow. History also teaches that judgment for past failure often comes with sudden swiftness, like a thief in the night. As we think about the immense problems we are allowing to smolder, recall Ernest Hemingway’s pithy warning from “The Sun Also Rises.” “How did you go bankrupt?” one character asks a friend. “Two ways. Gradually, then suddenly.”

- https://www.zerohedge.com/

Travelling with Russell, "Typical (Russian Owned) Supermarket Tour"

Full screen recommended.

Travelling with Russell, 10/12/24

"Typical (Russian Owned) Supermarket Tour"

"Join me on a tour of DA! Supermarket in Moscow, Russia. DA! is a chain of 

Russian-owned supermarkets, with more than 200 locations in Russia. 

This supermarket really is typical."

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

Dan, I Allegedly, "I Got Fired for Bad Credit"

Full screen recommended.

Dan, I Allegedly, 10/12/24

"I Got Fired for Bad Credit"

"Fired for bad credit? You won't believe it, but it's LEGAL! Join me, Dan from I Allegedly, as we dive into this shocking reality affecting hardworking individuals across the country. In today's video, I unpack how your credit score can impact your employment, even in states with strict labor laws like California. We'll explore real-life stories, legal loopholes, and how companies are using credit checks to downsize. Don't let your credit define you."

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

"Walmart Prices Continue To Soar; People are Paying Their Taxes With Credit Cards"

Full screen recommended.

Jeremiah Babe, 10/11/24

"Walmart Prices Continue To Soar;

 People are Paying Their Taxes With Credit Cards"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

Musical Interlude: Soothing Relaxation, "High Above"

Full screen recommended.

"High Above:

"Beautiful Relaxing Music for Stress Relief -

Relax, Sleep, Meditate, Study"

Beautiful relaxing music for stress relief, composed by Peder B. Helland. This track is called "High Above" and can be used to relax, sleep, meditate, study, work, do yoga, read and more.

Beautiful!

"A Look to the Heavens"

“Namibia has some of the darkest nights visible from any continent. It is therefore home to some of the more spectacular skyscapes, a few of which have been captured in the below time-lapse video. We recommend watching this video at FULL SCREEN (1080p), with audio on. The night sky of Namibia is one of the best in the world, about the same quality of the deserts of Chile and Australia.

Full screen recommended. 

Visible at the movie start are unusual quiver trees perched before a deep starfield highlighted by the central band of our Milky Way Galaxy. This bright band of stars and gas appears to pivot around the celestial south pole as our Earth rotates. The remains of camel thorn trees are then seen against a sky that includes a fuzzy patch on the far right that is the Large Magellanic Cloud, a small satellite galaxy to the Milky Way. A bright sunlight-reflecting satellite passes quickly overhead. Quiver trees appear again, now showing their unusual trunks, while the Small Magellanic Cloud becomes clearly visible in the background. Artificial lights illuminate a mist that surround camel thorn trees in Deadvlei. In the final sequence, natural Namibian stone arches are captured against the advancing shadows of the setting moon. This video incorporates over 16,000 images shot over two years, and won top honors among the 2012 Travel Photographer of the Year awards.”

- http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap130204.html

"When I See..."

"When I see the blind and wretched state of men, when I survey the whole universe in its deadness, and man left to himself with no light, as though lost in this corner of the universe without knowing who put him there, what he has to do, or what will become of him when he dies, incapable of knowing anything, I am moved to terror, like a man transported in his sleep to some terrifying desert island, who wakes up quite lost, with no means of escape. Then I marvel that so wretched a state does not drive people to despair." 

- Blaise Pascal

Ahh, but it does...

The Poet: Rainer Maria Rilke, “Sunset”

“Sunset”

“Slowly the west reaches for clothes of new colors

which it passes to a row of ancient trees.

You look, and soon these two worlds both leave you,

one part climbs toward heaven, one sinks to earth,

leaving you, not really belonging to either,

not so helplessly dark as that house that is silent,

not so unswervingly given to the eternal as that thing

that turns to a star each night and climbs -

leaving you (it is impossible to untangle the threads)

your own life, timid and standing high and growing,

so that, sometimes blocked in, sometimes reaching out,

one moment your life is a stone in you, and the next, a star.”

- Rainer Maria Rilke

"The Reality Of Life..."; "Get Your Stuff Together..."

"Despite my firm convictions, I have been always a man who tries to face facts, and to accept the reality of life as new experience and new knowledge unfolds it. I have always kept an open mind, which is necessary to the flexibility that must go hand in hand with every form of intelligent search for truth."

- Malcolm X

“We all got problems. But there’s a great book out called “Too Soon Old, Too Late Smart.” Did you see that? That book says the statute of limitations has expired on all childhood traumas. Get your stuff together and get on with your life, man. Stop whinin’ about what’s wrong, because everybody’s had a rough time, in one way or another.”

- Quincy Jones

"All Of The Available Data..."

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

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

- Morris Berman

Apologies to armadillos for the comparison...

The Daily "Near You?"

Plainfield, New Jersey, USA. Thanks for stopping by!

"It May Be Necessary..."

"You may encounter many defeats, but you must not be defeated. 

In fact, it may be necessary to encounter the defeats, 

so you can know who you are, what you can rise from, 

how you can still come out of it." 

- Maya Angelou

John Wilder, "Fear: Don't"

"Fear: Don't"

by John Wilder

"This is a week of frequently discussed topics here, or if not frequently, regularly. On Monday, I posted about the looming Civil War 2.0. It’s a topic that’s important, and one that will define whatever rises from the ashes of USA 6.0. I’m calling it USA 6.0 because I number them this way:

1.The Colonies (before 1776),

2. The Confederation (before 1788),

3. The Several States Constitutional Republic (before 1860),

4. The Single State (before 1913),

5. The Progressive Empire (before 1990), and

6. The GloboLeftistElite Playground (ongoing).

Your mileage may vary, but each of these incarnations was different, and each of them rose from the remnants of what had come before. It’s a pretty big and important topic. So, that’s Monday.

On Tuesday, I talked about how the unbridled “compassion” of the GloboLeftistElite was choking the United States pretty badly, and that, regardless of their intent, it was setting up a situation where the economy along with the culture is becoming pure Weimar. Never go pure Weimar.

But it’s Friday, so it’s time to return to another frequently discussed topic: Attitude. If you are religious, the biggest goal of the Enemy is to create literal demoralization in both senses of the word – to cause you to lose hope fill you with despair, along with causing you to lose your morality. The second part is listed as an archaic part of the word, and that’s a shame.

If you’re not religious, don’t tune out – this applies to you, too. You don’t have to believe in Him for demoralization to be a huge danger. Deciding that nothing matters, or nihilism, is the gateway to deciding that anything is possible, and feeling despair is the gateway to nihilism. Capital E or small e, this is what the adversary wants. The reason that so much of the news media is set up the way it is, is to provide an echo chamber that makes us all feel alone. Think a baby born with XY chromosomes is a male?

That’s pretty much every sane person. But the GloboLeftElite want you to think that you’re alone in having these thoughts. They thrive on it. They depend on it. Why? Because if you feel alone, you’re subject to manipulation. Many people (women especially, because of the way that they’re innately wired), for instance, want to go along with the herd and believe what everyone else does, because to many, politics is just another form of fashion. If the cool people believe it, well, shouldn’t we all? I mean, the Europeans laughed at us for electing Trump!

So? It’s a perception that the GloboLeftElite is trying to create in our minds. The same way that Kamala has gone from one of the most unpopular politicians in recent American history to within cheating distance of taking the White House, the attitude that they want to instill in us is defeat.

And if we take that attitude, and accept it, we will lose. There is a reason that one of the most repeated admonitions in the Christian Bible is “Fear not”. Frank Herbert eloquently wrote this in Dune: "I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain."

I was an utter nerd in middle school, though I was also a noseguard so I never got picked on, and I had that passage memorized in seventh grade. It was true when Herbert wrote it, it was true when I first read it, and it’s true today: fear is certainly the worst emotion a human can have.

I firmly believe that the worst outcomes of my life are from those few times I gave counsel to my fears. Nothing good ever came of it except the deep understanding that nothing good ever comes from it. Now, when I cried, “Havok!” and let slip the dogs of war and gave it my all, even when everyone said that what I was about to do was impossible? Good times, man.

To be clear: we can’t lose. Really. I do understand and fully believe that we haven’t seen that darkest night, that time when we think that all hope is lost. It’s coming. And we’ll win. The reason I am certain comes from the understanding that, no matter what the Enemy (or enemy) has done, it has never, ever kept us down forever. I am not done.

I haven’t finished doing what I was put here to do. And if I do it, facing my fears directly, I know that I’m going to win. And I know that, over time, after heartache and after piles of skulls and blood. We win. It’s inevitable. And then, in some far distant future, we’ll have to fight again. But that’s another story."

- https://wilderwealthywise.com/

"How It Really Is"

(With U.S. debt now at $35.3 trillion, the cost of the interest bill

alone on all that borrowing is about $3 billion a day. A quick calculation:

the USA is paying out over a trillion in interest this year. This is our money folks.)

"Larry C. Johnson: Israel's Humiliating Defeat Looms: Are Iran & Hezbollah to Deliver the Final Blow?"

Dialogue Works, 10/11/24

"Larry C. Johnson: Israel's Humiliating Defeat Looms:

 Are Iran & Hezbollah to Deliver the Final Blow?"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

o

Dialogue Works, 10/11/24

"Mohammad Marandi: Iran's Fierce Warning:

 A Devastating Response Awaits If Israel Strikes!"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

Dan, I Allegedly, "Are You Ready for This?"

Full screen recommended.

Dan, I Allegedly, AM 10/11/24

"Are You Ready for This?"

"The Ugly Truth About Business Uncertainty." With inflation and economic downturns, small business owners, like many, are feeling overwhelmed. Business sentiment is at an all-time low, with hiring, spending, and expansion plans on the backburner. Are we on the brink of another 2006-style economic fallout? Join me as we unravel these pressing issues and how they could impact your finances and future."

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

Jim Kunstler, "Kamala Unwinding"

"Kamala Unwinding"

by Jim Kunstler

“We are facing a catastrophic collapse of governance. 

With democracy reduced to a tragedy or a farce (probably both things)" 

- Ugh Bardi

“As the US increasingly resembles ancient Rome, being president is more and more dangerous. Something around 35 emperors met violent deaths, most from people in and around their courts. In other words, members of the Roman Deep State. An ugly situation is brewing in and around Washington DC.” - Doug Casey

"Don’t kid yourself: Kamala Harris does not want to be President of the United States. She doesn’t even want the ceremonial stuff, the incessant shuffling from one photo op to the next, the tedious Easter egg rolls, the prayer meetings, the turkey pardonings, the tiresome state banquets for men in strange headgear who are unfamiliar with using the fork and knife, and forbidden to sip chardonnay...

It’s obvious she has been played for a chump, that she was sandbagged into play-acting “the candidate” by an odd coalition of the distraught and the desperate - that is, the many agency blobsters who fear prison and the perfidious politicians such as Pelosi, Schumer, Mitch the Turtle, the Clintons, and Obama, paid to cover for the blob, often doing it badly, who fear the judgment of history, as well as the loss of their fortunes. Distraught and desperate characters make foolish decisions.

About thirty seconds after “Joe Biden” vowed to stay in the 2024 race, a delegation of these panicked pols paid him a call and passed him the black spot, knowing he could not credibly front for the massive election cheat underway. He was barely able to front for the previous one in 2020, when every lever of power got pulled to-the-max to conceal the truth about the steal, and to severely punish those who dared to murmur doubts about the election’s freeness and fairness.

How did they decide that Kamala would do any better? I assure you we will find out when the party explodes in recriminations sometime after November 5. It will probably turn out to look like the 2017 movie, "The Death of Stalin", a frantic vaudeville of scheming buffoons oblivious to mundane doings of the suffering nation they pretend to serve. Unlike Nikita Khrushchev in 1953, Kamala did not prevail among this gang of squabbling clowns by force of personality or guile. She was merely a default setting as veep, arrived at to present the illusion of continuity and solidarity where none existed. She was not even involved in the backstage action. I doubt that anyone even asked her if she wanted the assignment - she was only notified after-the-fact. Thus, all the drinking.

The outstanding question: will the Democratic Party actually go ahead and attempt to execute an election steal despite growing evidence of a developing Trump landslide that might obviate it? The works are already in motion. The mail-in ballots went out long ago and early votes are getting cast by the day. The overseas ballots that require no US address or voter verification are flooding in by the millions and four years of open borders has 10-million illegal aliens (at a minimum) dispersed around the nation, great gobs of them planted in swing states, processed through the DMVs and social services - with the requisite automatic voter registration - their ballots already pre-bundled for harvest.

It could go a few ways. One is, just let’er rip, harvest all those fake votes, stuff the drop-boxes, flood the zone, and do it all right in America’s face as if to say: we can do whatever we want...to get whatever we want...and you can’t stop us. That is probably the point where blue America finds out exactly what the Second Amendment was designed for. You might also expect a whole lot of state-organized resistance, especially in the populous red ones, Texas, Florida, real court cases over fraud this time, contested certification.

Or, the election could come out a hopeless unresolvable muddle. There’s no precedent for this and no provision in the Constitution, but you can imagine the Supreme Court having to decide a necessary do-over minus all recent gimmicks, paper ballots only, voters with proof of citizenship only, all voting on one re-scheduled election day before January 1. This novelty would be something apart from the clunky Congressional machinery established for settling electoral college disputes, since it is predicated on various states’ inability to determine their electoral college vote in the first place, based on patent irregularity and fraud.

You could also imagine a period of disorder so deep and grave that the regime behind “Joe Biden” declares martial law...or, alternately the military - the martial institution - has to take matters into its own hands, shoving aside even “Joe Biden” and his filthy retinue. Appalling to consider, I’m sure, but these things happen in history, and the Party of Chaos has set enough mischief in motion to wreck the election and wreck the country. Call it catastrophizing, if you will. There it is.

But to step back from that abyss, it appears that Mr. Trump’s momentum accelerates by the day, that he is becoming, at last, an implacable, irresistible juggernaut who will, perforce, overcome all the gimmicks, traps, and frauds arrayed against him. Kamala seems to think so. Have you ever seen such resignation, such loserdom-in-action as her recent performance on CBS’s 60-Minutes, or her pitiful admission on ABC’s "The View" that she couldn’t think of anything she would do differently beyond the excellent management of national affairs under “Joe Biden” (and herself as veep). Surely that said it all. She has nothing, brings nothing.

Long ago, she was a pretty girl with a law degree and an infectious laugh on the fringes of local politics in San Francisco. The winds of fortune blew her this way and that way until she ended up way over her head, used by the reprobates around her as a mere device to stay out of jail. She ends as an historical prank on her own country. It must be deeply demoralizing to be used like that in front of the whole world."

- https://jameshowardkunstler.substack.com/

Bill Bonner, "War and Money"

"War and Money"

Most issues don’t matter very much. Two of them matter a lot - war and money.

 The Constitution puts them in a special category - 

insisting that peoples’ representatives in Congress take charge.

by Bill Bonner

Baltimore, Maryland - "Cynicism is an attitude characterized by a general distrust of the motives of others. A cynic may have a general lack of faith or hope in people motivated by ambition, desire, greed, gratification, materialism, goals, and opinions that a cynic perceives as vain, unobtainable, or ultimately meaningless."  - Wikipedia

"Today, we add a word to the English vocabulary... and provide a step up for everyone trying to understand public policies. Cynicism questions the motives of others. Our new word, ‘cynicalism,’ is a way to avoid being harmed by them. In public life, people claim to improve the world. “Do this,” some say. “Do that,” say others. Cynicalism tells us what is really going on: whatever they are proposing won’t work... and the people suggesting it are frauds.

Yesterday, we got the latest inflation report. New York Post: "Inflation rose more than expected last month - dimming hopes for another big rate cut from Fed. The Consumer Price Index rose 2.4% versus a year ago in September - above the 2.3% increase economists had expected, the Labor Department said on Thursday. Month-over-month, the CPI rose 0.2% - steeper than the 0.1% increase economists had expected but even with the 0.2% number from August.

“Core” inflation - a metric closely watched by economists that excludes the volatile costs of food and energy, rose 3.3% versus a year ago, also ahead of economists’ prediction for a 3.2% year-over-year increase."

The Fed promised to boost the economy with low rates. But it kept rates far too low for far too long. GDP growth slowed. And now, the Fed can’t increase rates to fight inflation; there’s too much debt. Higher rates would cause the economy to cave in. It’s ‘inflate or die.’ The Fed’s only choice is to inflate... so as to lower the real value of the debt. What should you do about it?

“Whatever they tell you to do,” a French friend quoted his father, an early cynicalist, “do the opposite.” In the father’s case, he was mayor of a small town in France in 1944. A German soldier had been shot nearby. The German officer told him to have all the people of the town assemble in the town square in the morning. “It was a death sentence,” our friend explained. “There were going to be reprisals. Maybe ten citizens would be killed. Maybe all of them. So, my father spread the word... and they all went and hid in the woods.”

Cynicalism can protect you in many different circumstances. For instance, a stock broker tells you he has found the ‘next Nvidia.’ Cynicism makes you wonder why he doesn’t keep it to himself. Cynicalism tells you to ‘just say no.’

But cynicalism is particularly valuable for evaluating public policies and their effects on your wealth. As Ronald Reagan used to say, the most dangerous phrase in the English language was: ‘I’m from the government and I’m here to help.’ Cynicalism tells you that whatever he’s promoting will be a scam and a failure.

Most issues don’t matter very much. But two of them matter a lot - war and money. That’s why the Constitution puts them in a special category - insisting that peoples’ representatives in Congress take charge. And in both cases, Congress has not only dropped the ball, but shredded it. We are now engaged in two major wars... supplying material and intel. Most people are opposed to both of them; they’d rather see the money spent on hurricane relief.

But where’s Congress? Where was the discussion over how we would pay for the war? What are we fighting for? And is it worth it? Didn’t happen. Congress ducked. And how about the budget? It is obvious to even the biggest dimhead in Washington that you can’t continue to borrow, print and spend as much as you want... not without consequences. ‘The wars will make us safer,’ say the feds. ‘And the lower rates will make us richer.’ Cynicalism tells us not to believe them."

- https://www.bonnerprivateresearch.com/

"Alert! USA/Israel Finalize Iran War Plan; Netanyahu Plans 'Apocalyptic War'; Putin Meets With Iran"

Canadian Prepper, 10/10/24

"Alert! USA/Israel Finalize Iran War Plan;

 Netanyahu Plans 'Apocalyptic War'; Putin Meets With Iran"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

Jeremiah Babe, "America Will Lose The Financial World War, Debt Crisis Coming"

Jeremiah Babe, 10/10/24

"America Will Lose The Financial World War,

 Debt Crisis Coming"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

Gerald Celente, "Prepare For False Flag Before U.S. Election"

Strong language alert!

Gerald Celente, 10/10/24

"Prepare For False Flag Before U.S. Election"

"The Trends Journal is a weekly magazine analyzing global current events forming future trends. Our mission is to present Facts and Truth over fear and propaganda to help subscribers prepare for What’s Next in these increasingly turbulent times."

- https://trendsjournal.com/

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

Musical Interlude: Juzzie Smith, "Bluesberry Jam"

Juzzie Smith, "Bluesberry Jam"

An incredible one-man-band...

"A Look to the Heavens"

“To some, the outline of the open cluster of stars M6 resembles a butterfly. M6, also known as NGC 6405, spans about 20 light-years and lies about 2,000 light years distant. M6 can best be seen in a dark sky with binoculars towards the constellation of Scorpius, coving about as much of the sky as the full moon.

Like other open clusters, M6 is composed predominantly of young blue stars, although the brightest star is nearly orange. M6 is estimated to be about 100 million years old. Determining the distance to clusters like M6 helps astronomers calibrate the distance scale of the universe.”

- http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap110906.html

Chet Raymo, “Singing Beside Me In The Wilderness”

“Singing Beside Me In The Wilderness”
by Chet Raymo

“In one of those infuriating lapses that go with being a certain age, we could not remember the other evening the name of the poet who wrote "A loaf of bread, a jug of wine, and thou..." After scraping the tip of my tongue for a few minutes, I turned to the computer (Google is my browser's home page) and by typing "jug thou" brought Omar Khayyam back into consciousness. (Another click and I could have had the entire Rubaiyat.) (Freely download the entire "Rubaiyat" at that link. - CP)

And so it is that the Googlized internet arrives just in time to compensate for our withering brain cells. Everything I ever remembered is there to be Googled, plus everything I never remembered. Ten billions pages. The searchable memory of the human race. With more yet to come.

My great-great-grandchildren will no doubt have tiny video cameras implanted in the middle of their foreheads, like Hindu beauty marks, recording everything that passes before their eyes 24-7, with a sound track too. All of which will be stored digitally, ready for instant playback, and searchable by date, time, GPS coordinates, or keywords- the whole of a life, not only available to the subjects themselves in their memory-lapsed dotage, but to future generations. "Here's great-great-grandpa on his ninety-first birthday, back in 2027. Look how he dribbles soup on his shirt. Ha, ha."

I think nature knew what it was doing when it allows our memory to fade with age. It is particularly notable that the more unpleasant memories go first, so that every summer past was golden with sunshine, and every child was a model of respectful propriety. And no one, not even grandpa himself, remembers the time he... “

- http://blog.sciencemusings.com/

"The Truth?"

 

I've always believed you can handle the truth, given the chance...It may not be what you want to hear, but it is the truth to the best of my ability to determine. What you do with it is of course up to you... - CP

"Debt to the Penny"

"Debt to the Penny"

"Total debt of the U.S. government reported daily. Contains information on intragovernmental holdings and debt held by the public. The Debt to the Penny dataset provides information about the total outstanding public debt and is reported each day. Debt to the Penny is made up of intragovernmental holdings and debt held by the public, including securities issued by the U.S. Treasury. Total public debt outstanding is composed of Treasury Bills, Notes, Bonds, Treasury Inflation-Protected Securities (TIPS), Floating Rate Notes (FRNs), and Federal Financing Bank (FFB) securities, as well as Domestic Series, Foreign Series, State and Local Government Series (SLGS), U.S. Savings Securities, and Government Account Series (GAS) securities. Debt to the Penny is updated at 3:00 PM EST each business day with data from the previous business day."

- https://fiscaldata.treasury.gov/

An official website of the U.S. government.

○

Related:

"US Debt Clock"

o

"The principle of spending money to be paid by posterity, under

the name of funding, is but swindling futurity on a large scale."

– Thomas Jefferson, “Letter to John Taylor,” May 28, 1816

Judge Napolitano, "INTEL Roundtable w/Johnson & McGovern: Weekly Wrap Up"

Judge Napolitano - Judging Freedom, 10/10/24

"INTEL Roundtable w/Johnson & McGovern:

 Weekly Wrap Up"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

The Daily "Near You?"

Long Beach, California, USA. Thanks for stopping by!

"What Might Have Been..."

“Space I can recover. Time, never.” 

-  Napoleon Bonaparte

“Lands can be reconquered, indeed in the course of a battle, a hill or a certain plain might trade hands several times. But missed opportunities? These can never be regained. Moments in time, in culture? They can never be re-made. One can never go back in time to prepare for what they should have prepared for, no one can ever get back critical seconds that were wasted out of fear or ego. Napoleon was brilliant at trading space for time: Sure, you can make these moves, provided you are giving me the time I need to drill my troops, or move them to where I want them to be. Yet in life, most of us are terrible at this. We trade an hour of our life here or afternoon there like it can be bought back with the few dollars we were paid for it. And it is only much, much later, as they are on their deathbeds or when they are looking back on what might have been, that many people realize the awful truth of this quote. Don’t do that. Embrace it now.”

- Ryan Holiday

○

And in secret moments of despair, 

Too late, too late...We think what might have been, 

should have been, and we let it slip away...

Chris De Burgh, 

"Carry Me (Like A Fire In Your Heart)"

The Poet: David Whyte, "Sometimes"

“‘Sometimes’: Poet and Philosopher David Whyte’s

Stunning Meditation on Walking into the Questions of Our Becoming”

by Maria Popova

“The role of the artist, James Baldwin believed, is “to make you realize the doom and glory of knowing who you are and what you are.” This, too, is the role of the forest, it occurs to me as I walk the ferned, mossed woods daily to lose my self and find myself between the trees; to “live the questions,” in Rilke’s lovely phrase – to let the rustling of the leaves beckon forth the stirrings and murmurings on the edge of the psyche, which we so often brush away in order to go on being the smaller version of ourselves we have grown accustomed to being out of the unfaced fear that the grandeur of life, the grandeur of our own untrammeled nature, might require of us more than we are ready to give.

Those disquieting, transformative stirrings are what the poet and philosopher David Whyte explores with surefooted subtlety in his poem “Sometimes,” found in his altogether life-enlarging collection “Everything Is Waiting for You” and read here by the poet himself as part of a wonderful short course of poem-driven practices for neuroscientist and philosopher Sam Harris’s “Waking Up” meditation toolkit (which I can’t recommend enough and which operates under an inspired, honorable model of granting free subscriptions to those who need this invaluable mental health aid but don’t have the means).

“Sometimes”

“Sometimes

if you move carefully

through the forest,

breathing

like the ones

in the old stories,

who could cross

a shimmering bed of leaves

without a sound,

you come to a place

whose only task

is to trouble you

with tiny

but frightening requests,

conceived out of nowhere

but in this place

beginning to lead everywhere.

Requests to stop what

you are doing right now,

and

to stop what you

are becoming

while you do it,

questions

that can make

or unmake

a life,

questions

that have patiently

waited for you,

questions

that have no right

to go away.”

- David Whyte

- https://mailchi.mp/brainpickings/

"When We Have Time..."

 

“Yesterday is gone. Tomorrow has not yet come.

We have only today. Let us begin.” 

- Mother Theresa

○

“Life’s funny, chucklehead. You only get one and you don’t want to throw it away. But you can’t really live it at all unless you’re willing to give it up for the things you love. If you’re not at least willing to die for something – something that really matters – in the end you die for nothing.”

- Andrew Klavan

“What Mark Will You Leave On The World?”

“What Mark Will You Leave On The World?”

by Maria Rodale

“As some of you know, this time of year is my favorite time to truly reflect on the past and the future. Things seem to slow down enough that there’s finally time to ponder and think and plan and dream. The questions and thoughts change as I get older. When I was younger, it was more about what I wanted to accomplish (although I still have a VERY ambitious list for that). Now, it’s a little bit more of what do I want to leave behind?

The thing about life and reality is that it is so fleeting. Things that seem huge and vastly important can become footnotes to history or, like handprints in the sand – here today, gone tomorrow – washed away by wind or a wave. But I firmly believe that if we don’t think about it – and aren’t awake about it – we simply drift through life asleep and miss the best of it. In fact, I kind of believe that part of our purpose here in life is to create it, create change, push evolution forward, and improve things. To me, leaving a mark isn’t about getting credit or recognition, but making sure that the things we do have a positive impact rather than a negative one, and I think that starts in our heads and our hearts.

So I urge you to take some time for yourself this week, carve out an hour or, better yet, a day when you can really open your heart and calm your head enough to dream about what you truly desire. If you can dream it, you can create it. And then your life will leave a wake of happiness and joy.”

- http://www.huffingtonpost.com/

“Yet now, as he roared across the night sky toward an unknown destiny, he found himself facing that bleak and ultimate question which so few men can answer to their satisfaction. What have I done with my life, he asked himself, that the world will be poorer if I leave it?”

- Arthur C. Clarke, “Glide Path”

"How It Really Is"

Greg Hunter, "Chaos is Coming – John Rubino"

"Chaos is Coming – John Rubino"

By Greg Hunter’s USAWatchdog.com

"Analyst and financial writer John Rubino has long warned of a massive financial crisis. With unstoppable wars in Ukraine and the Middle East, Rubino says one thing is for sure, “Chaos is coming.” Rubino explains, “This does not get fixed easily, and to the extent this gets fixed at all, this gets fixed via chaos. Prepare for a really interesting decade. This is going to be unlike anything we have seen in our lifetimes. Not since the Great Depression, nothing like this has happened.”

This all feeds into what Rubino calls the “shrinking trust horizon.” Rubino points out, “When everybody is lying to you, you reach a point where you only trust your city councilman, or your mayor and your local farmers. So, you just don’t put any stock in what your doctor tells you. You stop taking the vaccinations they tell you to take. You stop doing the statins for high blood pressure and cholesterol. You stop doing that because you don’t trust those people anymore. Starting with the “weapons of mass destruction,” which the government lied to us to get us into a multi-trillion dollar war in Iraq, it’s been one big lie after another. In 2016, there was Trump/Russia collusion...It turned out to be Hillary Clinton opposition research. With the CV19 pandemic, it was just lie, after lie, after lie. Now, you have what is going on in North Carolina and Tennessee after Hurricane Helene. People are figuring out they are being lied to one issue at a time. You’ve got a whole new set of people watching the government screw up and behave incompetently or corruptly, and they are learning they cannot trust the guys in charge anymore. So, the trust horizon is shrinking everywhere you look.”

There are so many parts of the economy that are quietly facing huge trouble and big losses. Nothing could start a total all-sector market crash faster than an attack by Israel on Iran’s nuclear sites. Rubino says, “There you go. That could be the thing that sets everything off. Bombing nuclear weapons facilities or a nuclear power plants is one of those things that has so many unintended consequences. Iran would have to respond to that in a serious way. It’s possible that China and Russia would step in on the side of Iran. Then you get something much bigger. I think the financial markets would respond to that. Oil would go to $150 a barrel. That would crash the stock market. Then you get all the other dominos falling: commercial real estate, residential real estate, government bonds, derivatives and everything starts blowing up. That could be the catalyst for a market crash much bigger than 2008 and 2009. This would be something we have not seen since the Great Depression. We are not far from that. I think Trump said he thinks Israel should bomb Iran’s nuclear facility. Biden is the demented figurehead for the neocons who want WWIII because they think they can win it. Chaos is definitely coming, but I am hoping it is survivable chaos, and I am not sure that it will be.” There is much more in the 48-minute interview.

- https://usawatchdog.com/

Join Greg Hunter on Rumble as he goes One-on-One with financial writer

 John Rubino and his new enterprise called Rubino.Substack.com. 

- https://rumble.com/

Dan, I Allegedly, "Is This the End of Black Friday?"

Full screen recommended.

Dan, I Allegedly, AM 10/10/24

"Is This the End of Black Friday?"

"Is Black Friday's Doomsday upon us? With Amazon's extra Prime Day potentially taking the spotlight, are we witnessing the end of the iconic shopping frenzy? Hi, I'm Dan from IAllegedly, and today we're diving into whether this is the ultimate threat to Black Friday. We'll also explore how the shifting economy and consumer habits are changing the game. From killer deals to economic realities, I've got the scoop."

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

Adventures With Danno, "Stocking Up At Kroger & Buying What We Can Afford"

Full screen recommended.

Adventures With Danno, AM 10/10/24

"Stocking Up At Kroger & Buying What We Can Afford"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

"Middle East Geopolitics: War""

Danny Haiphong, 10/9/24

"Israel Crushed: Iran & Hezbollah Humiliate IDF, 

Netanyahu Out Of Options"

'Geopolitical analyst and journalist Ben Norton analyzes the aftermath of Iran's retaliation to Israel and how current geopolitical dynamics in West Asia spell doom for the Israeli regime and its leader, Benjamin Netanyahu. Israel is losing the war and this video breaks down exactly how."

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

o

Douglas Macgregor, 10/9/24

"Netanyahu's Grave Mistakes And Long War 

Pushed Israel Into Danger Of Destruction"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

o

Full screen recommended.

Times Of India, 10/10/24

"Iran To Attack Israel's Ben-Gurion Airport, Oil & Gas Fields?

 New Operation Announced By IRGC"

"Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps has unveiled potential targets in Israel as part of its "True Promise III" operation. Targets include critical infrastructure like power plants, gas fields, and airports. The threat follows Iran's October 1 missile strikes on Israel and warnings of further attacks. Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu has vowed to retaliate, while the U.S. has urged caution to prevent a wider regional war."

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/