Full screen recommended.
"Beautiful Relaxing Music -
Calming Piano & Guitar Music"
"Beautiful relaxing music by Soothing Relaxation. Enjoy calming piano and
guitar music composed by Peder B. Helland, set to stunning nature videos."
So, we rise from the rubble...
Saturday, November 9, 2024
"A Look to the Heavens"
"To some, it looks like a giant chicken running across the sky. To others, it looks like a gaseous nebula where star formation takes place. Cataloged as IC 2944, the Running Chicken Nebula spans about 100 light years and lies about 6,000 light years away toward the constellation of the Centaur (Centaurus).
Click image for larger size.
The featured image, shown in scientifically assigned colors, was captured recently in a 12-hour exposure. The star cluster Collinder 249 is visible embedded in the nebula's glowing gas. Although difficult to discern here, several dark molecular clouds with distinct shapes can be found inside the nebula."
"In This World..."
"In this world, the thing people fear the most, and what pains people the most - is giving more than they receive. God forbid I cut off more of my fingernail for you than you cut from your fingernail, for me! Heaven forbid I hold my breath in longer while thinking about you, than the amount of time your breath is held in for me! Not a second longer! It is a sad fact of human nature that there you stand as an Infinite Soul and yet your greatest fear is not receiving from another person in proportion to what you give. Your viewpoint is low, your vision is clouded. You have become, in your eyes, a funny little drawing on the paper pad of the universe. Indeed, this race is yet to evolve. And yet, I am surrounded by such fear, to such a great extent that I begin to fear the same!"
- C. JoyBell C.
"Life Is Inconvenient...:
"One of life's best coping mechanisms is to know the difference between an inconvenience and a problem. If you break your neck, if you have nothing to eat, if your house is on fire – then you’ve got a problem. Everything else is an inconvenience. Life is inconvenient. Life is lumpy. A lump in the oatmeal, a lump in the throat and a lump in the breast are not the same kind of lump. One needs to learn the difference."
- Robert Fulghum
"Social Unrest Has Already Started To Erupt, And This Is Just The Beginning…"
"Social Unrest Has Already Started To Erupt,
And This Is Just The Beginning…"
by Michael Snyder
"If you think that the left is just going to sit back and accept Donald Trump’s victory, you must not have been paying attention for the past eight years. Trump is the most hated politician in modern American history, and prominent voices in the media continue to fuel that hate by making extremely inflammatory statements. For the moment, many on the left are still in a state of complete shock because they were entirely convinced that they were going to win this election. But once the shock wears off, we will see an explosion of anger, frustration and fury that is unlike anything we have ever seen before.
Unfortunately, we are already seeing signs of what is to come. For example, a man in Michigan has been arrested by authorities for planning an attack “against conservative Christians” because they supported Trump so strongly this election…"A 25-year-old Michigan man is facing federal charges after he allegedly threatened violence against conservative Christians over former President Donald Trump winning the presidential election. Isaac Sissel of Ann Arbor was arrested Tuesday morning and charged in a federal criminal complaint with making a threatening communication, according to a statement from the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Eastern District of Michigan."
Prosecutors said the FBI National Threat Operations Center in West Virginia received an anonymous online threat on Nov. 2, which included details about a planned attack. Apparently this particular individual was planning to use a stolen AR-15 semiautomatic rifle to hit a high profile target.
During the months ahead, churches all over America are going to need to pay extra attention to security, because there are a lot of extremely unbalanced people out there. Meanwhile, large protests against Trump have already begun. For example, last night there was a very loud protest outside of Trump’s hotel in Chicago…"Not even 24 hours after President-elect Donald Trump won more votes in Illinois this general election than in the previous two, and after winning the US election in a massive red wave sweep, far-left protesters gathered outside the Trump Hotel in Obama’s Chicago.
The protests appear to have been highly organized and well-planned before the election, given the coordination among activists, the hundreds - if not thousands - of protesters - many holding signs - and the likely pre-approved protest routes from City Hall. Organizers shouted into megaphones, “Trump is a fascist” and “racist,” echoing hate speech spewed by the defunct Harris-Walz campaign in the months leading up to November 5."
And there were also sizable protests in New York and Philadelphia…"NYU students have gathered near Cadman Plaza Park in New York to protest President-elect Donald Trump’s victory, chanting slogans like “NYU, your hands are red, over a hundred thousand dead!” and “Hey hey, ho ho, Donald Trump has got to go.” Although the crowd is currently small, similar protests are unfolding in Chicago and Philadelphia." The synchronized timing of these demonstrations has raised speculation that organized funding may be behind the protests.
This is just the tip of the iceberg. Just like in 2016, I expect that things will really start to get crazy once we get to Trump’s inauguration. Some on the left are anticipating open conflict once Trump gets in. The Washington Post has published a feature story about a former officer in the Capitol Police named Michael Fanone that seems to have gone nuts. He has run off to a compound in the woods, and he is fearing the worst from a Trump presidency…
"Michael Fanone leaped off the couch and lumbered toward his fridge, retrieving his fifth (or sixth?) beer. He glanced at the TV, took a sip of Sapporo and offered his first thought on a second Donald Trump presidency. “Better ******* arm yourselves.” Apparently Fanone is planning to die in his compound if there is any type of showdown with federal authorities…
"His tone was somehow both furious and serene. He saw this coming, and on Tuesday night some in America were starting to arrive at the place he’d already been living for the past 46 months. “I didn’t vote for that ************,” he said, “and I fought tooth and nail to prevent this day from ******* coming.”
He’d learned about more than 300 “deep state” enemies that Trump’s self-described “secretary of retribution” had compiled in a target list, as Raw Story first reported; Fanone says he saw his name on it. If Trump wants him imprisoned, he’d rather be killed in a shootout. “I’ll die right here on my ******* house,” he said. “I’m not going to be in some ‘Apprentice’ ******* military tribunal.” Fanone insists that he’s not some “prepper weirdo,” that he’s just someone who understands how law enforcement can be weaponized against people - “and I fully expect that to happen.”
Needless to say, Fanone is far from alone. There are millions of others just like him. Sadly, prominent voices just continue to ramp up the level of fear. If you doubt this, just consider something that Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez just said…“We are about to enter a political period of fascism and authoritarianism. It is not uncommon to jail political dissidents or legislative opponents.”
That is a completely and utterly insane statement. But there are lots and lots of people out there that eat this stuff up. On MSNBC, Rachel Maddow warned that Americans have chosen a “strongman, authoritarian system”…"Rachel Maddow is being mocked for her anti-Donald Trump monologue in which she warned the US was headed for an autocratic government after his resounding election victory. The MSNBC star claimed that the voter turnout for the Republican president-elect was evidence Americans had ‘let democracy go’ and opted for, a ‘strongman, authoritarian system’."
This sort of inflammatory rhetoric is extremely dangerous. But after eight years of saying such things, she certainly isn’t going to back down now. Maddow is also urging her followers to become “******** pirates” once Trump takes office…She likened the outcome to those seen in countries such as North Korea, Russia and China as she urged Democrats not to become, ‘despondent’. "Now we can work on being ******** pirates. We can work on being a thorn in the side to anyone who tries to turn this country into some tin-pot tyranny."
I understand that a lot of people may not want to hear this right now, but this story is not going to end well. Nearly half of this country hates Trump and absolutely detests the idea of being governed by him. All of the protest movements that we have seen in recent years will be dwarfed by what we will witness once Trump enters the White House. So enjoy the relative tranquility that we are experiencing at this moment, because it won’t last for long."
"The Meaning of Life is Not Happiness"
"The Meaning of Life is Not Happiness"
by Todd Hayen
"I can’t tell you the number of times every day I hear from clients in my practice, “All I want is to be happy.” And they don’t know why they are not happy, they claim to be healthy, to have a good family, a good job that pays them lots of money, and a good marriage. Other than the usual ins and outs of life they really have nothing to complain about - but they are not happy. I then ask them if they think there is meaning in their life or purpose, invariably they say “No.” Sometimes they ask, “What is that? Isn’t the meaning and purpose in life to be happy?” No, it is not.
Happiness is only one of the many states of being we encounter in a whole and complete life, and if we become unhappy simply because we think we are not happy as often as we believe we should be, we have missed the point.
We have been on this “happiness” kick for quite some time, and once again I have to say I think it is part of the agenda - maybe originally an unconscious part of a movement in society to focus on acquiring “things.” But that has always been a central part of the formula in the agenda’s effort to control.
Again, maybe it was an organic result of our natural tendency to focus on the flesh—the physical attributes of living through the senses, and an innate desire to “instantly gratify” those senses at any opportunity offered. Check out Huxley’s "Brave New World" for a view of a dystopian culture in the future that focuses entirely on the satisfaction of primal urges through the senses. Huxley had it figured out almost 100 years ago.
There have been scads of books written on happiness. Most of them conclude that the pursuit of happiness through the acquisition of physical objects (consumerism) is a dead-end pursuit, and, like a shot of heroin, will send you on a high for a moment that quickly wears off. Most people have some idea of this and understand that obsessive consumerism is typically a road to oblivion.
But again, a lot of people have not figured this out yet (need I say “young people?”), considering our entire society is based on consumerism. Try getting away from it for even 10 minutes. If you don’t go out into the woods or barren desert with no cell phone, you won’t be able to. That is about the only way to detach yourself from the world that is trying to entice you to consume.
So, even if we could remove the curse of consumerism and instant gratification from our lives, wouldn’t our central pursuit still be the state of happiness? - continual happiness? Yes, typically it would be. Even deep spiritual interventions have the goal of happiness - if you are one with God, or Jesus, or Mohammed, you will be happy. Shouldn’t the word “happy” be replaced with “content” or even “peace?” It certainly should be, because that is what I believe most of the religious traditions mean by the word “happiness.” “Contentment” and “peace” have very different meanings to “happy.”
If we are fully enlightened, are we even allowed to be happy? Of course, we are. Being happy is one of the most precious gifts of being a living creature. Should we expect to be happy all of the time? No, of course not. That would be a curse. Should we expect to be content or at peace all of the time? Yes, I believe that is indeed possible and should be a goal we all strive to attain.
I spent a large part of my life studying the works of Ernest Holmes and "The Science of Mind". I studied Phineas Quimby, Emma Curtis Hopkins, Joel Goldsmith and others as well. The surface level of what I gleaned from this study was to “think positively” - to avoid focusing on darkness in the world and see only God’s love and beauty as reality.
What is found in the depth of these philosophies is quite a different matter. I will not go into this in this article as it would take a book to even begin to explain what I mean. Suffice it to say that the true message behind all of this is that the material world is a manifestation of our thought and consciousness - and is not the only reality.
However, my view is that as long as we are in the material form, living in a material creation, we have to encounter the manifestation of evil, darkness, and suffering - not ignore it. Part of our purpose and meaning in this world is to deal with everything we encounter, not turn away from any of it. Therefore, for a large portion of our lives, we may not be happy.
Dealing with darkness is not typically a happy endeavour, however, it doesn’t mean we cannot be at peace and be content when we are dealing with it. Darkness, suffering, and pain are but an “appearance” - an illusion - in the material realm. Through this illusion, we may even find meaning, and purpose, as we deal with the darker sides of life and existence.
Viktor Frankl, an Austrian psychiatrist and Holocaust survivor offered a profound critique of the view that happiness is the ultimate meaning of life. In his seminal work, "Man’s Search for Meaning," Frankl argued that life’s true meaning is found not in the pursuit of happiness but in the pursuit of meaning. Having survived the horrors of concentration camps, Frankl observed that those who endured suffering and still found a reason to live, did so by finding a sense of purpose, not by chasing happiness. He developed the concept of “logotherapy,” a therapeutic approach that emphasizes the human desire to find meaning in life, even in the most challenging circumstances.
Frankl believed that humans are not driven primarily by the search for pleasure or happiness, but by the need to find meaning in their experiences. He argued that people can endure tremendous suffering if they have a sense of purpose to guide them.
“He who has a why to live can bear almost any how,” Frankl wrote, quoting Nietzsche. According to Frankl, meaning can be found in work, love, suffering, and even in facing death. Happiness, in his view, is not something to be pursued directly; rather, it ensues when individuals live in alignment with their values and pursue meaning.
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, the Russian writer and dissident who chronicled the horrors of the Soviet Gulag, similarly questioned the notion that happiness is life’s primary objective. In his works, such as "The Gulag Archipelago" and "One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich," Solzhenitsyn explored themes of suffering, totalitarian oppression, and the human capacity for endurance. Like Frankl, Solzhenitsyn saw meaning in suffering and responsibility rather than in the pursuit of happiness.
Solzhenitsyn argued that life is about more than personal joy or comfort. In his famous Harvard Commencement Address in 1978, he critiqued the West’s focus on materialism and individual happiness, warning that such pursuits could lead to moral and spiritual decay.
Solzhenitsyn believed that humanity’s purpose lay in the moral and spiritual development of the soul, not in the pursuit of happiness or worldly success. According to him, suffering could serve as a catalyst for this growth, offering individuals the opportunity to transcend their immediate desires and connect with deeper values such as truth, justice, and personal responsibility.
Solzhenitsyn’s view is particularly striking in his emphasis on responsibility. He believed that in the face of evil and injustice, individuals must take responsibility for their actions and decisions. A life well-lived, in his view, involves moral courage and a willingness to confront suffering and injustice rather than seeking comfort or happiness at all costs.
Wonder where I am going with this? I don’t think you have to wonder very long. I have heard again and again from those whom I love that I spend too much time “looking for bad things” that I am too interested in the wars, in suffering, in the deaths from the vaccines, in starving children. They claim that I need to give up on all of this and just enjoy what I have, the good life, the sunshine, the company of those whom I love - to be happy.
First of all, I cannot imagine turning my back on the world like that. Secondly, I am happy. In a strange way, my work which does focus on a lot of “bad” things brings me peace and contentment. My belief in God and in the beauty of physical existence - nature, art, music and love, to name a few of the things that God brings to this world through our consciousness, are always forefront of my mind.
The evil and ugliness are illusions nestled in those other realities. Yes, they limit our expressive creation, so they must be faced and dealt with. Every choice we make to see love in the world despite the hate we first face, is an act of Christ Consciousness - turning the hate that we see into the love we know sits behind it, is a truly meaningful pursuit. What could make a person happier?"
"Hanging by a Thread"
"Hanging by a Thread"
by Todd Hayen
"It is quite amazing how close people are to serious mental illness. What is serious mental illness? Suicidal depression, psychosis, anxiety that requires hospitalization, and frankly anything that keeps a person from living a functional life, a life with its share of sadness, trauma and suffering, but also with moments of happiness, fulfillment, love and laughter.
That’s serious mental illness. What about “not so serious” mental illness? Well, we’ve got a lot more of that than one could even imagine. And then twice that many hanging by the thread, just about ready to drop into depression, anxiety, personality disorders of a dizzying variety, sadness, emotional dysfunction, relational wackiness, on and on. It is a pandemic, and yes, a real one that isn’t a hoax.
In my opinion, nearly every human alive suffers from some sort of emotional/mental anomaly. Maybe not everyone but a lot (and if you find one who doesn’t - maybe some young couple dressed in loincloths riding horses on the beach of some idyllic island somewhere in the South Pacific - let me know about them, I would love to meet them).
I see a lot of people in my practice, and I can unequivocally say that they all have issues. Well, that stands to reason, of course. That’s like a dentist saying everyone who comes into his or her office has some issue with his or her teeth. But I also hear about my client’s friends and family, I also interface with people in the grocery store, on the streets, and in my own friend circle, and all of these people have emotional issues, or are hanging by a thread - me included, of course (although my thread broke long ago and I have been swimming in psychological muck for most, if not all, of my life).
Isn’t this the normal “human condition?” Well, I used to think so, but not anymore. There is, of course, a “normal” human condition concerning mental and emotional regulation. Everyone gets depressed and sad once in a while, everyone gets anxious and has emotional flare-ups. We can describe a “normal” mental state which includes a lot of ups and downs. What I am describing is more than that, it is what comes across as abnormal, intense, devoid of much reason, out of regulation, and bordering on crazy. We are all, for the most part, whacked.
Ok, ok, not all of us are whacked. I know I am; you might not be. You may fall into this narrow band of a “normally wiggy” person psychologically, and if you do, congratulations. I am not convinced, however, that there are very many of you who can completely escape the screwed-up environment we all live in (yes, some may be more adept at processing this shite show than others). I would venture to say that you more than likely have been bitten, in some way, by the agenda if you live on this particular planet. Even if only through being around people who are truly crazy - that’s enough to make you fit into this category.
But I am not really commenting on fringe stuff here. I am commenting on those of us who are very close to being certifiably “off” - close to an actual diagnosis. Whether it be run-of-the-mill depression or anxiety, or more exotic personality disorders such as Borderline, Narcissistic, Histrionic, or even any one of the array of psychotic maladies such as Schizophrenia, Bipolar with Psychosis, or Paranoia.
Let’s look at some numbers. Almost 3 million people have been diagnosed with depression in 2020 in the USA, 66 million with anxiety over the past year. In the same year almost 5 million were diagnosed Borderline Personality Disorder, about 5 million with Narcissist Personality Disorder, and almost 2 million with Schizophrenia.
About 10 million will suffer from some form of psychosis in their lifetime, almost 10 million have been diagnosed with BiPolar disorder over the past year, 15 million adults suffer from ADHD, and nearly 35 million children were diagnosed with this particular malady over the same year.
And these statistics only apply to people who have complained enough about their mental condition to their doctor, psychiatrist, or certified psychologist, to be actually diagnosed and put on the docket as having these mental disorders. No telling how many are suffering from mental illness and have not shared their condition with someone who is qualified to render an official diagnosis (psychotherapists, in Canada, are not allowed to diagnose).
Yep, it’s a big problem. And then there is the medication. It is estimated that approximately 76 million people in the US, of all ages, have been prescribed, and are consuming, some form of psychiatric drug (I would venture to say it is more than this). That’s a lot of folks, folks.
Do I put a lot of weight on official diagnoses and labelling? Not really. But regardless of what you think of diagnosis standards and criteria, people are suffering from something - even if you refrain from putting a name to it. This is easy to see without doing much digging. People seem to have lost a lot of their mental capacity to think, to think critically, and to function within the expected “norms” of society (whatever that is). People, in general, seem to have a very difficult time making any sort of rational decisions about everyday challenges in everyday life.
That’s a big statement, I know. And maybe this has always been true, but my gut tells me this is all due to the social pathology the agenda has brought upon us. And no, it isn’t all due to an intentional agenda to pulverize us into flesh-eating zombies, but by golly most of it is.
If you think about how far away humans are from living a natural life, it isn’t much of a stretch to believe we are all suffering from some sort of mental and emotional dysfunction. Although this has been slowly going on since humans stopped living in caves, we have been relatively skilled at staving off the pandemic of mental illness we now seem to be suffering.
Sure, humans have always been a bit kooky. But wouldn’t you say today it appears to be much worse than it was 100 years ago? 200 hundred years ago? The disintegration of moral values, character development, a misunderstanding of “right and wrong,” the dissolution of family, community, spirituality, gender, and even the sanctity of the human body has all had its toll on healthy emotional and mental processing. When we no longer can process properly, we lose psychic homeostasis, and disease sets in."
o
"Don't wonder why people go crazy. Wonder why they don't.
In the face of what we can lose in a day, in an instant,
wonder what the hell it is that makes us hold it together."
- "Grey's Anatomy"
o
"The worst part is wondering how you'll find the strength tomorrow to go on doing what you did today and have been doing for much too long, where you'll find the strength for all that stupid running around, those projects that come to nothing, those attempts to escape from crushing necessity, which always founder and serve only to convince you one more time that destiny is implacable, that every night will find you down and out, crushed by the dread of more and more sordid and insecure tomorrows. And maybe it's treacherous old age coming on, threatening the worst. Not much music left inside us for life to dance to. Our youth has gone to the ends of the earth to die in the silence of the truth. And where, I ask you, can a man escape to, when he hasn't enough madness left inside him? The truth is an endless death agony. The truth is death. You have to choose: death or lies. I've never been able to kill myself. "
- Louis-Ferdinand Celineo
o
"Life is an end in itself, and the only question as to whether
it is worth living is whether you have had enough of it."
- Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
Dan, I Allegedly, "FEMA Hates You - Are You on Their List?"
Full screen recommended.
Dan, I Allegedly, AM 11/9/24
"FEMA Hates You - Are You on Their List?"
"Today, we're diving into the shocking truth that FEMA hates you. Plus, we talk about Tesla's customer service and the broader economic challenges affecting the auto industry. From Tesla's trillion-dollar valuation to the struggles of Stellantis and Sumitomo's massive layoffs, there's so much to unpack. Plus, we'll touch on other surprising industry news like Bentley's delay in going electric and the unusual Applebee's and IHOP merger."
Comments here:
"Arrogance and Hubris Brings Israel to Brink of Extinction"
Full screen recommended.
The CJ Werleman Show, 11/9/24
"Arrogance and Hubris Brings Israel to Brink of Extinction"
Comments here:
o
Full screen recommended.
Dialogue Works, 11/9/24
"Col. Larry Wilkerson & Scott Ritter:
Israel's Devastating Defeat as IDF Collapsing on All Fronts"
Comments here:
Adventures With Danno, "Stock Up On These Deals At Kroger!"
Full screen recommended.
Adventures With Danno, 11/9/24
"Stock Up On These Deals At Kroger!"
Comments here:
Friday, November 8, 2024
Canadian Prepper, "Alert! Dangerous Days Ahead"
Full screen recommended.
Canadian Prepper, 11/8/24
"Alert! Dangerous Days Ahead,
Trump Is In Trouble, Crash Is Coming, Iran Attack Imminent"
Comments here:
Jeremiah Babe, "Here Comes More Cheap Money; Markets Go Wild As Debt Explodes; Homeowners Barely Hanging On"
Jeremiah Babe, 11/8/24
"Here Comes More Cheap Money;
Markets Go Wild As Debt Explodes; Homeowners Barely Hanging On"
Comments here:
Musical Interlude: Procol Harum, "A Salty Dog"
Procol Harum, "A Salty Dog"
o
"Ulysses"
"There lies the port; the vessel puffs her sail:
There gloom the dark, broad seas. My mariners,
Souls that have toil'd, and wrought, and thought with me -
That ever with a frolic welcome took
The thunder and the sunshine, and opposed
Free hearts, free foreheads - you and I are old;
Old age hath yet his honor and his toil;
Death closes all: but something ere the end,
Some work of noble note, may yet be done,
Not unbecoming men that strove with Gods.
The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks:
The long day wanes: the slow moon climbs: the deep
Moans round with many voices. Come, my friends,
'Tis not too late to seek a newer world.
Push off, and sitting well in order smite
The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds
To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths
Of all the western stars, until I die.
It may be that the gulfs will wash us down:
It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,
And see the great Achilles, whom we knew.
Tho' much is taken, much abides; and tho'
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield."
- Alfred, Lord Tennyson
"A Look to the Heavens"
“How many arches can you count in the below image? If you count both spans of the Double Arch in the Arches National Park in Utah, USA, then two. But since the below image was taken during a clear dark night, it caught a photogenic third arch far in the distance- that of the overreaching Milky Way Galaxy. Because we are situated in the midst of the spiral Milky Way Galaxy, the band of the central disk appears all around us.
The sandstone arches of the Double Arch were formed from the erosion of falling water. The larger arch rises over 30 meters above the surrounding salt bed and spans close to 50 meters across. The dark silhouettes across the image bottom are sandstone monoliths left over from silt-filled crevices in an evaporated 300 million year old salty sea. A dim flow created by light pollution from Moab, Utah can also be seen in the distance.”
- http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap110524.html
Chet Raymo, “Yet…”
“Yet…”
by Chet Raymo
“My suspicion is that the universe is not only queerer than we suppose,
but queerer than we can suppose.”
- J. B. S. Haldane
“Legend has it that after reciting his official recantation, kneeling on the floor of the Holy Office in Rome before assembled officials of the Inquisition, Galileo whispered, “And yet it moves.” To save his life, or at least to avoid some dank dungeon and perhaps torture, the old man had publicly denied that he ever believed or taught that the Earth orbits the Sun, rather than the other way around. The public recantation was real enough. Whether Galileo whispered the private qualification we’ll never know. It makes a lovely story. In any case, he was allowed to go back to Florence under house arrest and in the final years of his life invented (I will dare to assert) mathematical physics.
And yet it moves. The Earth goes spinning around the Sun with its sister planets. The Sun whirls with its neighboring stars around the center of the Milky Way Galaxy. The Milky Way drifts with its attendant galaxies toward the Andromeda cluster. The Milky Way Galaxy, the Great Andromeda Galaxy, and their lesser galactic companions, the so-called Local Group, dance somewhere near the outer edge of the Local Supercluster of galaxies. Which are but the tiniest swarm of galaxies in the whole outward-racing shebang.
It moves. Oh, yes, it moves, and Galileo didn’t know the half of it. His inquisitors didn’t know any of it, but they thought they knew all of it. And their descendants still claim infallibility. But let me not beat up on the dogmatists. We should all whisper to ourselves now and then, “And yet, and yet.” Our descendants may be surprised at our own naivety. Wholly new paradigms may be required before we understand the origin of the universe or the mysteries of biological development and consciousness. Such a little word, “yet.” Maybe the most significant word in our vocabulary.”
The Poet: Henry Austin Dobson, “The Paradox Of Time”
“Time passes in moments. Moments which, rushing past, define the path of a life, just as surely as they lead towards its end. How rarely do we stop to examine that path, to see the reasons why all things happen? To consider whether the path we take in life is our own making, or simply one into which we drift with eyes closed? But what if we could stop, pause to take stock of each precious moment before it passes? Might we then see the endless forks in the road that have shaped a life? And, seeing those choices, choose another path?”
- Gillian Anderson as Dana Scully, “The X-Files”
○
“The Paradox Of Time”
“Time goes, you say? Ah no!
Alas, Time stays, we go;
Or else, were this not so,
What need to chain the hours,
For Youth were always ours?
Time goes, you say? – ah no!
Ours is the eyes’ deceit
Of men whose flying feet
Lead through some landscape low;
We pass, and think we see
The earth’s fixed surface flee:-
Alas, Time stays, – we go!
Once in the days of old,
Your locks were curling gold,
And mine had shamed the crow.
Now, in the self-same stage,
We’ve reached the silver age;
Time goes, you say? – ah no!
Once, when my voice was strong,
I filled the woods with song
To praise your ‘rose’ and ‘snow’;
My bird, that sang, is dead;
Where are your roses fled?
Alas, Time stays, – we go!
See, in what traversed ways,
What backward Fate delays
The hopes we used to know;
Where are our old desires?-
Ah, where those vanished fires?
Time goes, you say? – ah no!
How far, how far, O Sweet,
The past behind our feet
Lies in the even-glow!
Now, on the forward way,
Let us fold hands, and pray;
Alas, Time stays, – we go!”
- Henry Austin Dobson
"Not Knowing..."
“Not knowing you can’t do something
is sometimes all it takes to do it.”
- Ally Carter
"Larry C. Johnson: Hezbollah Wipes Out Israeli Forces - IDF Facing Massive Defeats Across All Fronts!"
Dialogue Works, 11/8/24
"Larry C. Johnson: Hezbollah Wipes Out Israeli Forces -
IDF Facing Massive Defeats Across All Fronts!"
Comments here:
o
Danny Haiphong, 11/8/24
Ghadi Francis & Elijah Magnier:
"Israel Crushed:
Hezbollah's New Iranian Missiles Decimate IDF"
"Hezbollah celebrated Donald Trump's election victory by striking Israel a record number of times with new Iranian ballistic missiles. Lebanese journalist Ghadi Francis and War Correspondent Elijah Magnier debunk the lie that Hezbollah is diminishing in strength, and discuss how its allies in both Lebanon and regionally have ensured its ongoing success against the "Tik Tok" Army of the IDF."
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Dan, I Allegedly, "Crime is Illegal Again"
Full screen recommended.
Dan, I Allegedly, PM 11/8/24
"Crime is Illegal Again"
"We have jaw-dropping news! Crime is finally illegal again in California with the passing of Proposition 36. This new law makes smash-and-grab robberies and selling drugs like fentanyl felonies, signaling a major shift in how crime is prosecuted in the state. Imagine that - crime being illegal! There's a lot of buzz around this, with some folks celebrating the change and others not so thrilled."
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Judge Napolitano, "INTEL Roundtable w/Johnson & McGovern: Weekly Wrap"
Judge Napolitano - Judging Freedom, 11/8/24
"INTEL Roundtable w/Johnson & McGovern: Weekly Wrap"
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"Col. Douglas Macgregor, Geopolitical Analysis 11/8/24"
Full screen recommended.
War Zone Echo, 11/8/24
"Col. Douglas Macgregor, Geopolitical Analysis 11/8/24"
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Adventures With Danno, "You Won't Believe What I Saw At Walmart"
Full screen recommended.
Adventures With Danno, 11/8/24
"You Won't Believe What I Saw At Walmart"
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"The Cruelest Joke Of All..."
"The smallest decisions made had such profound repercussions. One ten-minute wait could save a life or end it. One wrong turn down the right street or one seemingly unimportant conversation, and everything was changed. It wasn't right that each lifetime was defined, ruined, ended, and made by such seemingly innocuous details. A major life-threatening event should come with a flashing warning sign that either said ABANDON ALL HOPE or SAFETY AHEAD. It was the cruelest joke of all that no one could see the most vicious curves until they were over the edge, falling into the abyss below."
- Sherrilyn Kenyon
Jim Kunstler, "Aborted"
"Aborted"
Be careful what you wish for.
by Jim Kunstler
“Let folks cast their votes for Trump if that’s their choice. But mark my words, we won’t be certifying the election. He might win, but we’ll ensure he doesn’t step foot in the Oval Office.”
- Jamie Raskin (D-MD)
"At last, it appears that the Party of Chaos got its fondest wish: it aborted itself in the 2024 election. “Joe Biden” was the coat-hanger it used: this miserable, grifting, now-senile hack politician who will be remembered only for driving his country to the verge of ruin. And for what? All in an effort to cover-up a long train of crimes and abuses against the American people perpetrated by a permanent bureaucracy gone rogue that was the party’s partner-in-crime. And now it’s over.
The childishness of the Left - AOC whining about “fascism” - is under-appreciated. Note how the party’s most august mouthpiece, The New York Times, pretends to soul-search in the aftermath of the election debacle.
“Many Democrats were considering how to navigate a dark future, with the party unable to stop Mr. Trump from carrying out a right-wing transformation of American government. Others turned inward, searching for why the nation rejected them. They spoke about misinformation and the struggle to communicate the party’s vision in a diminished news environment inundated with right-wing propaganda” - The New York Times
The New York Times diminished itself. It drove itself crazy with narratives - just as a crazy person with disordered thoughts can’t discern what’s real and what’s not. What they need is a serious mental health check. The time for incessant lying, hoaxing, and performative hysteria is over. On Thursday, in a three-minute speech, the President-elect set out a clear list of measures to reconstruct a national consensus based on reality. It includes firing a lot of people in the agencies, dis-embedding all the inspector-generals from the departments they oversee, establishing a “truth and reconciliation commission” to declassify and publish documents “related to alleged deep state activities, including spying, censorship, and corruption,” and finding out who exactly at the CIA/FBI/DHS / and other places has been leaking fables and falsehoods to the news media. In other words, clear away a shit-ton of untruth that burdens the consciousness of country.
Though the statement omitted to say so directly, it’s very likely that a number of public officials will find themselves before grand juries in the years ahead. If you haven’t figured it out already, you’ll learn that the term “misinformation” was just the gas in the gaslight used to confound the country about what has really been at stake - which is your personal liberty in what is supposed to be a free country. The Democratic Party and the Deep State blob really did try to steal that from you.
As they stole the 2020 election, which is probably one of the things to be revealed in the process. Look at this bar graph.
Note how many millions more votes were cast in the 2020 elections than in the two previous and now in the 2024 contest. How did that happen? Where did that surplus supply come from? The Covid-19 scam provided the cover for a profligate mail-in ballot operation. They deluged the country with paper. Mark Zuckerberg provided $450-million through his cut-out charities to hire thousands of party activists to harvest and fill-out fraudulent ballots, and stuff them in drop-boxes by the hundredweight, with special attention to the crucial precincts in swing states - and that’s what landed the basement-cringing candidate, “Joe Biden,” in the White House.
It was that simple, and that much in-your-face, and for four years the official organs of the news swatted the truth away claiming they were “false, baseless, conspiracy theories” - and half the country was credulous enough to believe that. Or mentally ill, not able to tell fantasy from reality, especially in the newsrooms. Even more shamefully, this half of the country was led by the better-educated, credentialed, managerial class of citizens, who, amazingly, managed to turn intelligence into a new kind of personal liability. (The simplest explanation for that astounding failure is that people who consider themselves “experts” eagerly believe other experts and credentialed authorities, making them easiest to dupe. That’s why the faculty lounges are full of Jacobins.)
The winning side in this contest didn’t vote against Kamala Harris so much as they voted against the Democratic Party, the Party of Chaos, of BLM riots, of drag queens in the school library, of men in the women’s swim lane (and locker room), of forced vaccinations (your bodily autonomy, sister?), of locking up grandmothers who walked through the Capitol rotunda, of state-driven censorship, of malicious political prosecutions, of ruinous proxy war, of flooding the country with criminal alien mutts, of Mao Zedong style erasing of history, of FISA court surveillance, and, finally, of the same sort of self-loathing for the nation that a three hundred pound sophomore with a nose ring and sleeve tattoos feels for herself.
Indeed, the page is turning, but the story has suddenly changed. It remains to be seen whether the Democratic Party blows up altogether now in what’s shaping up to be a time of harsh recrimination, or whether its front-line activists, Marc Elias, Norm Eisen, Mary McCord, Lisa Monaco and Company skulk in the background hatching new schemes to try to drive the republic insane. They’ll have to work fast because the law might be coming after them in January. But they surely know that.
Between now and then, prepare to put your shoulder to the wheel. It’s not just the US government that begs for reform, but many of the secular operations of daily life in America, especially of an economic scene dominated by freakishly gigantic monopolies that have impoverished so many local communities, destroyed livelihoods and whole ways of life, and made slaves of citizens. That story has hardly begun to be told."
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"Trumpquake"
"Trumpquake"
by Pepe Oscobar
"On the political Richter scale, that was a killer – literally. What was supposed to be a Liberal Totalitarian Show was brutally, unceremoniously, swept out of the park – any park. Even before Election Day, critical thinking was aware of the stakes. With fraud, Kamala wins. With no fraud, Trump wins. There were, at best, (failed) attempts at fraud. The key question still remains: what does the U.S. Deep State really want?
My inbox is infested with loads of weepy reports from U.S. Think Tankland wondering, in disbelief, why Kamala could possibly lose. It’s quite straightforward – apart from her sheer incompetence cum utter mediocrity literally cackling out loud. The legacy of the administration she was part of is ghastly – all the way from Crash Test Dummy to Little Butcher Blinkie.
Instead of bothering to care about the abysmal state of affairs, at every level, concerning that mythical entity, “the American people”, they chose to invest everything on a neocon-manufactured proxy war to inflict a “strategic defeat” on Russia – stealing Russian assets, unleashing a tsunami of sanctions, shipping an array of wunderwaffen. The weaponization of Ukraine led to countless Ukrainian dead and the inevitable, fast-approaching cosmic humiliation of NATO in the black soil of Novorossiya.
They invested everything to support a genocide in Gaza conducted with a huge arsenal of American weapons: a lebensraum-coded ethnic cleansing cum extermination op directed by a bunch of Talmudic psychos – and marketed under the “rules-based international order” spewed out by Butcher Blinkie in every bilateral or multilateral gathering.
It’s no wonder that West Asia and the wider Global South soon got the message of what may happen to anyone daring to go against the Hegemon’s “interests”. Thus the counterpunch: the strengthening of BRICS and BRICS+, celebrated for all the world to see two weeks ago in Kazan.
At least this administration had a merit, strengthening the bonds between all major “existential threats” to the Hegemon: three BRICS (Russia, China, Iran), plus the indomitable DPRK. All that in contrast with a meager tactical victory – which may not last long: the absolute vassalization of Europe.
Hanging Ukraine on Europe’s neck: Of course, foreign policy does not win U.S. elections. Americans themselves will have to solve their dilemmas, or plunge into civil war. As for the bulk of the Global Majority, it harbors no illusions. Trumpquake’s coded message is that the Zionist lobby wins – again. Perhaps not so unanimously when we consider all strands of neo-cons and Zio-cons. Wall Street wins again (BlackRock’s Larry Fink said so even before Election Day). And prominent silos across the Deep State also win again. That begs a modified question; what if Trump feels emboldened enough after January 25 to launch a Stalinist purge of the Deep State?
Election Day proceeded nearly simultaneously with the Valdai Club annual meeting in Sochi, where the superstar, not surprisingly, was eminent geopolitician Sergey Karaganov. Of course he directly referred to the Empire’s Forever Wars: “We are living in biblical times.”
And even before Trumpquake, Karaganov stressed, calmly, “We will defeat the West in Ukraine – without resorting to ultimate means.” And that “will provide for a peaceful withdrawal of the U.S. – which will become a normal superpower.” Europe, meanwhile, “will move to the sidelines of History.” All of that spot on. But then Karaganov introduced a startling concept: “The war in Ukraine is a replacement of WWIII. Afterwards, we can agree on some kind of order in Eurasia.” That would be the “indivisibility of security” proposed by Putin to Washington – and rejected – on December 2021, part of the “Greater Eurasia Partnership” that was conceptualized by Karaganov himself. The problem though is his conclusion: “Let’s make the Ukrainian war the last major war in the 21st century.”
Ay, there’s the rub: the real major war is actually Eretz Israel v. the Axis of Resistance in West Asia. Let’s have a quick pit stop in Europe before getting to the meat of this matter. Trumpquake is all set to hang Ukraine on Europe’s neck like a larger-than-life albatross. The shorthand: Exit American money financing the born-to-lose Project Ukraine. Enter German money filling the coffers of the weapons lobby inside the Ray McGovern-coined MICIMATT (military-industrial-congressional-intelligence-media-academia-think tank complex).
The U.S. Treasury has issued an internal memorandum valid until April 30, 2025 – when Trump will be already three months in power – allowing transactions with Russian banks on anything related to oil, natural gas, timber and any form of uranium. As for the gullible, Brussels-run EU, they will pay the heavy load on weaponizing rump Ukraine while accepting wave after wave of new refugees and saying goodbye to any of their funds already invested in that humongous black hole.
Beware of that Tony Soprano wannabe: Trumpquake – if taken at face value – is bound to further weaponize the U.S. dollar; Trump has threatened, on the record, to blacklist any nation that uses other currencies for international trade. BRICS and BRICS+ partners have registered it; and that will accelerate the testing of all models in the BRICS lab leading towards a multi-layered alternative trade settlement system.
BRICS and the Global Majority also know that Trump in fact signed off on Nordstream sanctions – when he referred recently to “killing” Nord Steam. And they also know he did less than zero during Trump 1.0 to find a solution for the proxy war in Ukraine.
Now we come to the clincher. Trump personally destroyed the JCPOA – the Iran nuclear deal – brokered by the P5+1 (the five permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany). Moscow – and Beijing – know perfectly well how this led to further destabilization of the whole of West Asia, in conjunction to the Trump-ordered assassination of Gen Soleimani, which started what I termed the Raging Twenties.
Last but not least, Trump brokered the bombastically-named “Deal of the Century”: the Abraham Accords, which if implemented will forever bury any possibility of an Israel/Palestine two-state solution. The deal – which may be considered as nefarious as the 1917 Balfour declaration – may be in a coma. But MbS’s Whatsapp pal Jared Kushner is back, and will certainly renew the pressure. MbS still has not made up his mind when it comes to BRICS. Trump will go bonkers if MbS increasingly starts to navigate the petroyuan way.
All that brings us to a supremely nefarious character, Tony Soprano wannabe Mike Pompeo, who is a serious candidate to become head of the Pentagon. That would spell major trouble ahead. Pompeo was CIA director and Secretary of State under Trump 1.0. He is an uber-hawk on Russia, China and especially Iran.
Arguably the pressing question from now on is whether Trump – whose life was spared by God, in his own interpretation – does what is expected of him by his uber-wealthy donors, appoints Pompeo and similar gangsters for key posts, and invests on Israel’s war against Iran and the Axis of Resistance. If that’s the case, he won’t have to worry about another failed sniper. But if he really tries to run his own independent game, there’s no question he will be a dead man walking.
So the whole Global Majority waits with bated breath. How will Trumpquake translate in the geopolitical MAGA sphere? Sure bets focus on extensive use of private military companies (PMCs) for foreign policy “missions” and selected, targeted military “interventions”. Targets could include any Global South player from Mexico (to “secure the border”) to Venezuela (the Monroe doctrine “securing the oil”), Yemen (to “secure the Red Sea”) and of course Iran (a massive bombing campaign to “secure Israel”).
In a nutshell: no new wars (as Trump promised), just a few targeted incursions. Plus Hybrid War on maximum overdrive. Brazil, watch out: Trumpquake will not tolerate a truly sovereign BRICS member increasing its Global South influence in the “Western Hemisphere”.
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