"Chaos Creeps in on Little Cat's Feet"

Shopping with Zohran Mamdani

"Chaos Creeps in on Little Cat's Feet"

by Jim Kunstler

"Great cities fall to the sound of cheering crowds." 

- Ami Kozak on "X"

"The Democratic Party put another bullet in its head this week with the election of the charming, affable jihadi communist Zohran Mamdani. Is “communist” too harsh a label? (He styles himself, softly, a “socialist.”) Yet his campaign platform looks like a template from the venerable Soviet Council of Ministers circa 1957: Free Everything: housing, buses and subways, college, child-care, government food stores...with a cherry-on-top of replacing police with social workers in high crime areas - because rapists and car-jackers would quit their rowdy ways if only they could talk about their feelings.

If you believe the news reports emanating from Woke Central, Zohran received major support from the folks who predominate the Upper West Side, where he was raised-up by his Columbia prof Dad and film-maker Mom. That is, voted in by the same high-income demographic that flocks to Zabar’s Deli on Sunday mornings for smoked sturgeon and babka - a curious alliance. I guess this solves the old riddle of why Europe’s Jews walked so placidly into Auschwitz.

“Life imitates art,” old Oscar Wilde liked to say, and with so many self-administered bullets in its head now, the Democratic Party looks more and more like The Walking Dead, a necromantic tribute to its erstwhile mascot, “Joe Biden,” the Phantom of the White House. Fortunately, the Latinx bombshell, AOC, America’s answer to Eva Peron, has stepped up to the leadership role, flanked by the foxy Jasmine Crockett, with their mentor, Bernie Sanders close at hand (on a leash, really) barking validation for the Party’s death trip.

It’s a wonder of our time (and its playful zeitgeist) that New Yorkers might choose a mayor even worse than the brain-dead colossus, Bill de Blasio, but there it is, in plain sight for all to behold. The Big Apple and its various services will now go from their currently merely broke-ass condition, to the complete collapse of infrastructure, transit, housing, revenue, business, and public safety, in other words, to true Third World authenticity! Serious people, who run viable businesses, support families, and pay whopping taxes, are in a panic, all a’chatter about moving elsewhere.

That chatter is not idle, especially among the class that owns major real estate, of which New York City has a frightening and increasingly obsolete inventory - hundreds of office skyscrapers running at fifty percent (or less) occupancy, which cannot cover their mortgages, maintenance, or taxes. What will become of them? I’ll tell you: some will be foreclosed-on, sold for dimes on the dollar (and fail again under new ownership,) and quite few will stand empty waiting for acanthus tree seeds to sprout on their empty windowsills.

Or, they will turn into “squats,” like the towers in the abandoned city center of Johannesburg that I saw visiting there ten years ago. Those giant office buildings were not converted into “residential,” you understand; folks were simply camping-out there, even with the electricity and water turned off. This is exactly what happens when you run the prosperous people, whom you hate, out of town, which is what happened in that sad-sack nation. How many demonstration projects like that are needed to prove that communism with a racist frosting on top is a mug’s game.

Of course, we’re not there yet. Zohran hasn’t been sworn in, though the victory celebration just now looks like it’s fait accompli. You can only imagine the frantic conversation running between the old party poohbahs out in the cold: Chuck Schumer, Hakim, Nadler, Obama, even the loser, Cuomo, plus the non-elected party apparatchiks: Axelrod, Podesta, Carville, Plouffe, Emmanuel... They’re not saying, but I bet many are silently wondering: Is there some way we can just disappear the guy? Make him go away? X him out? Cancel his ass? (Someone, for Godsake, find a couple of girls who will say he groped them in an elevator!)

Or maybe some electoral work-around? Maybe put what remains of the party’s dwindling financial mojo back behind Eric Adams - yes, he’s still Mayor - who supposedly quit the party (after they tried and failed to stuff him in prison) and is running for mayor now as an independent...but who will surely welcome whatever support and moolah they can bring to his cause. Adams’s two great virtues as a political figure: he’s not Bill de Blasio and he’s not Zohran Mamdani.

New York might go down the drain anyway. At least for a while. That broken business model for skyscrapers is not going away anytime soon, and neither is the greatly augmented Third World population funneled across the open border into New York City by “Joe Biden’s” shadowy minders. Will New York turn into that fairytale town whose economy subsisted on people simply taking in each other’s laundry?

Well, the city will always have its geographical assets, like, the best goshdarn ocean harbor in the whole east coast. Something will be there...some human agglomeration. But what? And over all of that, like the uncanny eyes of Dr. TJ Eckleburg in Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, looming above the ash-heaps of Queens County on the road to West Egg, lately rises the stern visage of Donald J. Trump, New York real estate mogul superbus, and now President of this sore-beset nation, watching events roll out."

- https://www.kunstler.com/

"False Flag Attacks and Nuclear Samson Option w/ Ray McGovern"

Full screen recommended.

Prepper News, 6/26/25

"False Flag Attacks and Nuclear Samson Option

 w/ Ray McGovern"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

"I Was The Only One At The RV Dealership Today; Local Restaurants Shut Down Permanently"

Full screen recommended.

Jeremiah Babe, 6/26/25

"I Was The Only One At The RV Dealership Today; 

Local Restaurants Shut Down Permanently"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

Gerald Celente, "Market Does Not Reflect Economic Reality"

Strong language alert!

Gerald Celente, 6/26/25

"Market Does Not Reflect Economic Reality"

"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/

"What Can We Know..."

"What can we know? What are we all? 

Poor silly half-brained things peering out at the infinite, 

with the aspirations of angels and the instincts of beasts."
- Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

12K Video Ultra HD, "Only Real OLED: 16K Video Ultra HD, Dolby Vision 16K HDR"

Full screen recommended.

12K Video Ultra HD, "Only Real OLED: 

16K Video Ultra HD, Dolby Vision 16K HDR"

Be kind to yourself, relax and savor this

 astonishingly beautiful video experience..

Musical Interlude: Alexandro Querevalú, "The Last of the Mohicans"

Full screen recommended.

Alexandro Querevalú, "The Last of the Mohicans"

"This masterpiece not only makes the performer cry but also millions of people all over the world! The sentiments expressed in Alexandro´s interpretation of the music with one of the native American flutes called Quenacho has a uniting effect on the hearts of people of all races, nations, religions, and cultures."

"A Look to the Heavens"

“Stars are sometimes born in the midst of chaos. About 3 million years ago in the nearby galaxy M33, a large cloud of gas spawned dense internal knots which gravitationally collapsed to form stars. NGC 604 was so large, however, it could form enough stars to make a globular cluster.

Many young stars from this cloud are visible in the above image from the Hubble Space Telescope, along with what is left of the initial gas cloud. Some stars were so massive they have already evolved and exploded in a supernova. The brightest stars that are left emit light so energetic that they create one of the largest clouds of ionized hydrogen gas known, comparable to the Tarantula Nebula in our Milky Way's close neighbor, the Large Magellanic Cloud.”

- http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap121211.html

Chet Raymo, “Tyger, Tyger Burning Bright…”

“Tyger, Tyger Burning Bright…”

by Chet Raymo

“Divinity is not playful. The universe was not made in jest but in solemn incomprehensible earnest. By a power that is unfathomably secret, and holy, and fleet.” You may recall these words from Annie Dillard’s “Pilgrim at Tinker Creek.” There is nothing intrinsically cheerful about the world, she says. To live is to die; it’s all part of the bargain. Stars destroy themselves to make the atoms of our bodies. Every creature lives to eat and be eaten. And into this incomprehensible, unfathomable, apparently stochastic melee stumbles… You and I.

With qualities that we have - so far - seen nowhere else. Hope. Humor. A sense of justice. A sense of beauty. Gratitude. But also: Anger. Hurt. Despair. Strangers in a strange land.

Galaxies by the billions turn like St. Catherine Wheels, throwing off sparks of exploding stars. Atoms eddy and flow, blowing hot and cold, groping and promiscuous. A wind of neutrinos gusts through our bodies, Energy billows and swells. A myriad of microorganisms nibble at our flesh.

We have a sense that something purposeful is going on, something that involves us. Something secret, holy and fleet. But we haven’t a clue what it is. We make up stories. Stories in which we are the point of it all. We tell the stories over and over. To our children. To ourselves. And the stories fill up the space of our ignorance.

Until they don’t. And then the great yawning spaces open again. And time clangs down on our heads like a pummeling rain, like the collapsing ceiling of the sky. Dazed, stunned, we stagger like giddy topers towards our own swift dissolution. Inexplicably praising. Admiring. Wondering. Giving thanks.”

- http://blog.sciencemusings.com/

○

“The Tyger”

“Tyger! Tyger! burning bright

In the forests of the night,

What immortal hand or eye

Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

In what distant deeps or skies

Burnt the fire of thine eyes?

On what wings dare he aspire?

What the hand dare sieze the fire?

And what shoulder, and what art.

Could twist the sinews of thy heart?

And when thy heart began to beat,

What dread hand? and what dread feet?

What the hammer? what the chain?

In what furnace was thy brain?

What the anvil? what dread grasp

Dare its deadly terrors clasp?

When the stars threw down their spears,

And watered heaven with their tears,

Did he smile his work to see?

Did he who made the Lamb make thee?

Tyger! Tyger! burning bright

In the forests of the night,

What immortal hand or eye

Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?”

- William Blake

The Poet: Rainer Maria Rilke, "I Want A Lot"

"I Want A Lot"

"You see, I want a lot.

Perhaps I want everything:

the darkness that comes with every infinite fall

and the shivering blaze of every step up.

So many live on and want nothing

and are raised to the rank of prince

by the slippery ease of their light judgments.

But what you love to see are faces

that so work and feel thirst...

You have not grown old, and it is not too late

to dive into your increasing depths

where life calmly gives out its own secret."

- Rainer Maria Rilke

"The Greater..."

"The greater our knowledge increases,

the greater our ignorance unfolds."

- John F. Kennedy

"It takes considerable knowledge just to

 realize the extent of your own ignorance."

-Thomas Sowell

The Daily "Near You?"

Surrey, British Columbia, Canada. Thanks for stopping by!

"Only One Question..."

"There's only one question that matters, and it's the one you never get around to asking. People are capable of varying degrees of truth. The majority spend their entire lives fabricating an elaborate skein of lies, immersing themselves in the faith of bad faith, doing whatever it takes to feel safe. The person who truly lives has precious few moments of safety, learns to thrive in any kind of storm. It's the truth you can stare down stone-cold that makes you what you are. Weak or strong. Live or die. Prove yourself. How much truth can you take?"

- Karen Marie Moning

"The End Of Free Will"

"The End Of Free Will"

by The ZMan

"The late polemicist Christopher Hitchens famous quipped, “Yes, I have free will; I have no choice but to have it.” He was addressing the paradoxical nature of free will in that even if it were an illusion, and we could somehow figure that out, we would be forced to carry on as if it were real. Everything about how we understand ourselves as human beings, and how we get on with one another, depends on the assumption that we have choices and we make those choices freely.

The reason for that is our societies and even our own minds are organized around prescriptive requirements, not descriptive ones. Sure, we know not to step off a roof as the facts tell us we will accelerate toward the sidewalk below, until we reach the sidewalk and suddenly decelerate. It is that rapid deceleration that kills us and that is a fact not subject to opinion. The reason we believe it is immoral to jump off a roof or kill yourself in any other way has nothing to do with physics.

Suicide is a choice. In Western societies at this point in time, making that choice, regardless of the circumstances, is immoral. In other times and other places, suicide was an honorable option. The Japanese used to treat ritual suicide as an honorable end for a man who faced a disgraceful end. The West used to have the idea of leaving a doomed man alone with a bottle of whiskey and revolver. The former was to gain the required courage to use the latter for the honorable act.

As an aside, this is why the liberal project was doomed from the start. It assumed that there was a universally correct way for humans to organize their societies. We could use reason and observations of nature to arrive at the correct way we ought and ought not act and how we should and should not organize our societies. We can reason our way to a set of universal moral principles. Then we can reason our way to building a society around those moral principles.

The liberal project, all of the ideologies that have spring from it, assumes that human beings are programmed to work best in a specific sort of society. We naturally function at our best within a specific set of rules. If we can figure out those rules and then figure out how to impose them, man will be liberated from the oppression of having to live against his nature within a hostile set of rules. This is the goal of libertarianism, anarchism, communism, progressivism and so on.

This brings us back to the issue of free will. Ideologies fail, because they assume that once the rules are imposed, people no longer have to make choices between the things they desire. Free will is no longer be necessary. Even if free will is an illusion, however, it is one necessary for us to be human beings, rather than moist robots. There is something about the nature of man that requires the belief in free will. Without this illusion, if that is what it is, we cease to be human and cease to exist.

It is probably why we lack the language to discuss the descriptive world in purely descriptive terms. You see that in this post by W. M. Briggs. He is taking on a post by former physicist and current YouTuber Sabine Hossenfelder, who tries to argue that free will is a myth and you should stop believing in it. As Briggs notes, her language, even when discussing the laws of physics, is prescriptive. Even when we think descriptively, we end up using prescriptive language.

This crackpot notion that we would be better off if we chose to not believe in free will is not new to Sabine Hossenfelder. Like all such arguments, the first person to think about it was the first man with enough free time to waste some of it on contemplating pointless questions like do we have free will? Idle hands do the Devil’s work and the best proof of that is philosophy. Everywhere there have been idle hands we find the philosopher and Hell follows with him.

Of course, free will is a slippery concept. There is libertarian free will, which argues that for any choice we make, we could have chosen otherwise, even if all of the conditions that could impact our decision were identical. For example, you chose to arrive at work on time, but you could have arrived earlier or later, even assuming some negative or positive consequences to the choices. Like so much of libertarianism, this makes sense if you forget that humans live in societies with other humans.

The other form of free will involves morality. Often, oaths have a line where the person taking the oath testifies that he is taking the oath of his own free will. In criminal proceedings we differentiate between knowingly committing a crime and inadvertently or accidentally committing a crime. The driver who purposely runs down a pedestrian is treated differently from the person who does so while trying to avoid a group of school children because of our notion of free will.

Both conceptualizations of free will are most likely illusions, like much of what we think we understand about the natural world. What we think of as physical reality is probably a simplified illusion of reality. Our brains evolved to conceptualize the parts of reality we need to understand in order for our genes to advance to the next round. The concept of free will is just another item in the toolkit. Even our ability to question our conceptualization of reality is probably an illusion.

That is the problem with Sabine Hossenfelder’s argument. Whether or not free will, however defined, is a real thing does not matter, other than it being a useful topic around which to build a post. Whether you believe it or not does not matter, but once you decide to act as if it is not real, then you enter the world in which it is perfectly acceptable to remove the people who cannot fit your model of society. In the end, every ideologue must reject free will in order to pull the trigger.

That is the end of the free will debate. The age of ideology has taught us that in order to have societies that accommodate human nature, we must choose to organize ourselves as comes naturally to use. That means leaving others to organize themselves as comes naturally to them. Once you start down the path of rejecting free will, you end up on the road that leads to industrial slaughter and the menticide that now promises to extinguish the Western world.

We have free will and if we did not have it, we would have no choice but to invent it as it is the only way we can live as human beings. That means we have a choice as to how we organize ourselves. We must collectively choose our metaphysics and our morality and choose how we deal with those who undermine our choices. Those who choose otherwise, in effect, choose not to be us. Therefore, we have the choice to exclude them from us, even choosing to use force if necessary."

- https://thezman.com/

o

"Eckhart Tolle: Free Will"

"No Offense"

"No Offense"

You can please some of the people, some of the time...

by Joel Bowman

“For the fairest.”

~ Inscription on Eris’s golden Apple of Discord

Hella, Iceland - "Crikey! It’s a good thing your editor does not mind holding unpopular opinions. Our reckless, anti-warmongering in Tuesday’s Note excited the umbrage of some gentle readers. (Catch up on our radical reckonings and dive into the comment section fracas – especially if you stand in disagreement – here: "Mostly Peaceful Bombings.")

Of course, we are not so naïve as to expect our own wife to agree with everything we write, much less an audience of thousands of people from different backgrounds all around the world. Notice we did not title this humble publication “Notes From the Echo Chamber.” It would be wrong to abuse independent-minded readers as though we had.

Rather, and unlike many in the so-called “legacy press,” we actively invite disagreement, courting discord like cheeky Eris and her golden apple. Indeed, we are inspired by a long line of ornery gadflies and impenitent contrarians.

Fighting Words: Back in the early 2000s, for example, we used to relish the delivery of Vanity Fair magazine for the pure pleasure of reading the monthly column, appropriately titled “Fighting Words,” from the pen of the late, great Christopher Hitchens. The iconoclastic pugilist rarely pulled his punches, and we disagreed with almost everything he wrote. (Mr. Hitchens was an unreconstructed Trotskyist who rabidly supported the Iraq war, just for starters...)

Still, we rarely parsed one of his columns without having enjoyed a chuckle or an “ah-ha” moment of some sort. And if it was pure disagreement we felt, at least we felt it more so after his essay than before. Of course, those were the good ol’ days, before being offended was considered to be an acute, and in some cases terminal, condition...

That being said, we will continue writing under the assumption that most folks tune in to hear what we honestly think... not what we dishonestly think they want to hear. (There’s enough pandering in the world already, without us adding to the steaming pile.) Besides, if we’re correct in our assessment of the latest quagmire in the Middle East, the mighty Military Industrial Complex will deliver us plenty of opportunity to offend and re-offend thick-skinned readers in future Notes. So, if you’re among the easily outraged... please, do stay tuned for more!

Meanwhile, let us turn from a subject upon which almost nobody can seem to agree, to one which everyone can surely disagree...Here’s CNN, with the latest from the center of the socialist universe: "Zohran Mamdani declares victory in NYC Democratic mayoral primary. New York State assemblyman and democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani declared victory in a speech as he is poised to win the Democratic primary for New York City mayor, with his top challenger Andrew Cuomo conceding the race."

Readers unfamiliar with Mr. Mamdani will grasp most of what they need to know by discovering that he was enthusiastically endorsed by gushing comrade in arms, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. The snappy pair of socialists are part of what some, including veteran collectivist Bernie Sanders, are calling the “new guard” of the Democratic Party. This is a party, lest we remind readers, that witnessed the results of the last general election... in which they lost the House, the Senate, the popular vote, the presidency and every swing state there was to lose... and said to itself, “Hmm... perhaps if we moved further left?”

Eat the Rich, Redux: Naturally, Mamdani supports all the usual “eat the rich” slogans... higher taxes for the enviably wealthy and “greedy” capitalists alike, “free” rides on the city’s already dilapidated public transport, collectively owned grocery stores and more governmental intervention in the already highly dysfunctional rental market. (We addressed many of these ideas in another Note, titled “Real Socialists”. ) “But, but, but...” comes the inevitable rejoinder to our frequent socialist-bashing, “Bernie and his DemSoc juniors are not talking about Havana/Caracas/Soviet-style socialism... rather, they’re aiming more at Denmark-style socialism.”

Which would be fine... except Denmark is not a socialist nation, as Prime Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen was at some pains to note in a direct response to Bernie’s continued mischaracterization of his country and its people. “I would like to make one thing clear,” Prime Minister Rasmussen said in a speech at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government. “Denmark is far from a socialist planned economy. Denmark is a market economy. “Denmark is a successful market economy with much freedom to pursue your dreams and live your life as you wish.”

Like its Nordic neighbors, Denmark is able to sustain generous welfare programs – universal healthcare, public education, etc. – because of its dynamic, highly functional capitalist economy. It is not the way it spends its money that makes it rich, in other words, but the way it generates it in the first place.

Denmark also happens to be a high trust society, something that cannot exactly be said of the mean streets of many a Democrat-run city in the US, where crime is rampant, baby formula lives behind plexiglass and stealing up to $950 of goods is considered by a growing demographic to be just a new and fashionable way of shopping, because: oppression.

We laid over in Copenhagen on the way to this icy End of the World earlier in the week and were reminded of this quaint cultural distinction when we saw the self-service vending machines and self-service stations at the airport...

Live Free and Prosper: For the uninitiated, these outlets operate entirely on the honor system. One makes their selection from a menu, swipes their credit card for the appropriate amount, then opens the door to the entire fridge, with all the goods within reach, and simply takes what he has paid for... and nothing more.

The items are not protected in individually-packaged and alarmed plastic containers, there are no security personnel to ensure compliance, and one gets the feeling nobody would dare entertain anything so wild as a smash-and-grab style shoplifting frenzy, as are regularly witnessed in cities from San Francisco to New York and between.

Buying people off with stolen freebies and relieving them from individual responsibility might win elections among low trust voters in the short term, but it doesn’t make the underlying society peaceful and prosperous in the long run. For that you need free markets, free minds and free people. But you already knew that didn’t you, dear reader. See you in the comments…And stay tuned for more Notes From the End of the World..."

- https://joelbowman.substack.com/

"How It Really Is"

 

Good luck!

"Life..."

"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

Strong language alert!

"In life you have to do a lot of things you don't ****ing want to do.

Many times, that's what the **** life is... one vile ****ing task after another."

- "Al Swearengen," "Deadwood"

○

Strong language alert!

"Pain or damage don't end the world, or despair or f***ing beatings.

The world ends when you’re dead. Until then you got more punishment

in store. Stand it like a man, and give some back.”

- “Al Swearengen”, Ian McShane’s character on “Deadwood”

"Why You Should Hate the Rich Even More"

Full screen recommended.

Chris Hedges, 6/19/26

"Why You Should Hate the Rich Even More"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

o

“You know, I've been around the ruling class all my life, and I've

been quite aware of their total contempt for the people of the country.”

- Gore Vidal

"Wars And Rumors Of Wars: The Middle East"

Glenn Diesen, 6/26/25

"Seyed M. Marandi:

 Iran - Israel War Is Not Over"

"Seyed Mohammad Marandi is a professor at Tehran University and a former advisor to Iran's Nuclear Negotiation Team. Prof. Marandi discusses why the end of the war is only temporary."

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

o

Full screen recommended.

Mahmood OD, 6/26/25

"The Nefarious Trump-Netanyahu Plan;

 Iran's Gift For Gaza"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

o

Full screen recommended.

Danny Haiphong, 6/26/25

"Pepe Escobar: Iran’s Missile Attack Sends Severe Warning -

Israel & Trump Made a Fatal Mistake"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

o

Judge Napolitano - Judging Freedom, 6/26/25

"Prof. Jeffrey Sachs: Israel Never Abides Ceasefires"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

"Israel is Evil embodied, Israel is Evil personified."

- Scott Ritter

Dan, I Allegedly, "Time to Get Out of Town, You Won’t Believe This!"

Full screen recommended.

Dan, I Allegedly, AM 6/26/25

"Time to Get Out of Town, You Won’t Believe This!"

"New York City is facing a shocking collapse, and today I’m breaking down exactly why this is happening. From wild election results to policies that could destroy businesses and property owners, it’s chaos like never before. This election has sparked a wave of concern, with socialist policies threatening to reshape the city’s future. Rent freezes, state-run grocery stores, free childcare, and healthcare - sounds great on paper, but who’s paying for it? Business owners are fleeing, landlords are at a loss, and New York is spiraling into uncharted territory. We’re talking about skyrocketing rents, defunding the police, and policies that just don’t add up. Plus, I’m sharing tips on how to negotiate better deals on homes, live within your means, and avoid financial pitfalls. Don’t miss my thoughts on why this could be the beginning of something bigger and how it’s impacting everyday life, from cars to vacations."

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

Adventures with Danno, "My Very Frustrating Trip To Kroger"

Full screen recommended.

Adventures with Danno, AM 6/26/25

"My Very Frustrating Trip To Kroger"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

"WTF... Something Disturbing Is Happening, What Are They Hiding?"

Prepper News, 6/25/25

"WTF... Something Disturbing Is Happening, 

What Are They Hiding?"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

Adventures with Danno, "I Hate Delivering This Bad News"

Adventures with Danno, 6/25/25

"I Hate Delivering This Bad News"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

"This Is A Huge Economic Warning, New Home Sales Fall Off A Cliff"

Jeremiah Babe, 6/25/25

"This Is A Huge Economic Warning, 

New Home Sales Fall Off A Cliff"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

"11 Signs That The Entire Country Is Facing Enormous Economic Challenges Right Now"

"11 Signs That The Entire Country Is Facing 

Enormous Economic Challenges Right Now"

by Michael Snyder

"While everyone has been preoccupied with the war in the Middle East and the anti-ICE protests going on around the nation, economic conditions in the U.S. have continued to deteriorate. The housing market is in abysmal shape, consumer spending is down and layoffs are way up. Meanwhile, fear of our seemingly endless cost of living crisis is preventing the Federal Reserve from cutting interest rates, and we shouldn’t expect any additional “economic stimulus” from our politicians in Washington any time soon because the federal government is already facing an unprecedented debt crisis. In other words, our economy is a giant mess and the cavalry isn’t going to come riding along to save us.

If you find yourself deeply struggling in this difficult economic environment, you are definitely not alone. The following are 11 signs that the entire country is facing enormous economic challenges right now…

#1 Sales of new homes in the United States absolutely tanked last month…"Sales of new single-family homes dropped 13.7% in May compared with April to 623,000 units on a seasonally adjusted, annualized basis, according to the U.S. Census. That sales total was 6.3% lower than May 2024 and well below both the six-month average of 671,000 and the one-year average of 676,000. It also lags the pre-pandemic average in 2019 of 685,000 units sold. Wall Street analysts were expecting May new home sales of 695,000, according to estimates from Dow Jones."

#2 According to the latest numbers that we have been given, home prices in the U.S. have fallen for two months in a row…" After US home pries declined in March (the latest data) for the first time in over two years, this morning’s Case-Shiller Home Price Index data was expected to show another drop in the cost of buying a home. And the consensus was right but way off in magnitude as prices in April tumbled 0.31% MoM (-0.02% exp) – the biggest MoM drop since Dec 2022…"

#3 Last month, existing home sales in the U.S. were the worst that we have seen during the month of May since 2009.

#4 Retail sales fell even more than expected last month…Consumer spending pulled back sharply in May, weighed down by declining gas sales and looming unease over where the economy is headed, the Commerce Department reported Tuesday. Retail sales declined 0.9%, even more than the 0.6% drop expected from the Dow Jones consensus, according to numbers adjusted for seasonality but not inflation. The decline followed a 0.1% loss in April and came at a time of unease over tariffs and geopolitical tensions."

#5 The Federal Reserve Bank of New York is warning that the labor market “deteriorated noticeably” during the first quarter of this year…"Economic research from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York indicated the labor market “deteriorated noticeably” in the first quarter of 2025, with those just entering the workforce taking the hardest hits.

The Labor Department reported that employers added 139,000 jobs in May while unemployment held steady at 4.2%. The unemployment rate for all college grads was 2.7%, but the rate for those between the ages of 22 and 27 years old jumped to 5.8%, according to the New York Federal Reserve. That’s the highest reading since 2021.

#6 According to Challenger, Gray & Christmas, U.S. employers announced 47 percent more job cuts in May 2025 than they did in May 2024…"Layoffs of U.S. workers were nearly 50% higher in May than they were a year ago, with reductions attributed to the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) remaining the leading reason for job cuts this year, according to a new report. Global outplacement Challenger, Gray & Christmas on Thursday released a report that said there were 93,816 job cuts announced by U.S. employers in May. That amounts to an increase of 47% from 63,816 announced last May, while last month’s figure was down 12% from 105,441 cuts in April."

#7 For the first five months of this year, U.S. employers announced 80 percent more job cuts than they did during the first five months of last year… That brings the total number of job cuts announced this year to 696,309  -  an increase of 80% from the 385,859 jobs cut in the first five months of 2024. This year’s total is just 65,049 job cuts away from matching the 2024 annual total. “Tariffs, funding cuts, consumer spending, and overall economic pessimism are putting intense pressure on companies’ workforces. Companies are spending less, slowing hiring, and sending layoff notices,” said Andrew Challenger, senior vice president of Challenger, Gray & Christmas.

#8 Factories in California are permanently shutting down at a staggering pace…"All within a week, California lost Amy’s Kitchen’s San Jose plant (331 jobs), Anheuser-Busch’s Oakland warehouse complex (142 jobs), and several smaller plants, all for unsustainable prices and operational disruption. Amy’s Kitchen, for example, was losing $1 million monthly, consumed by inflation, labor shortages, and supply chain problems. Anheuser-Busch’s exodus, conversely, left workers in suspense as the plant changed hands without a guarantee of employment. It is not bad luck, evidence of a business environment where even legendary companies can’t survive the relentless fiscal squeeze."

#9 More than 3 percent of Paramount’s entire workforce will be hitting the bricks…"Paramount Global is trimming its U.S. workforce by 3.5% in a move to cut costs. The company’s plans to cut jobs were announced Tuesday by its three co-CEOs in a company-wide memo viewed by FOX Business. Co-CEOs George Cheeks, Chris McCarthy and Brian Robbins said in the message that Paramount was “taking the hard, but necessary steps to further streamline our organization this week.”

#10 Microsoft is cutting jobs in its gaming division for the fourth time in 18 months…"Microsoft is planning another round of cuts at Xbox as part of the tech giant’s ongoing reorganization. Xbox managers are expecting substantial job cuts across the entire group as soon as next week, people familiar with the matter told Bloomberg. This marks the fourth time Microsoft downsized its gaming division in the past 18 months, the outlet reported. Several video game studios at the company’s Xbox division were shuttered in 2024, too."

#11 At this point, things are so bad that even Google is reducing headcount…"Google on Tuesday offered buyouts to employees across several of its divisions, including those within its knowledge and information and central engineering units as well as marketing, research and communications teams, CNBC has learned.

Knowledge and information, or K&I, is the unit that houses Google’s search, ads and commerce divisions. The buyouts Tuesday are the company’s latest effort to reduce headcount, which Google has continued to do in waves since laying off 12,000 employees in 2023. CNBC could not confirm how many employees were impacted by the latest round of buyouts. The Information reported earlier that the company offered buyouts to employees in the search and ads unit."

Our ongoing economic decline is just one element of the “perfect storm” that we are now experiencing. Everywhere around us, chaos is erupting. Unfortunately, I believe that conditions will become even more chaotic in the months ahead. If you currently have a job that you value, I would hold on to it as tightly as you can. We all remember what happened in 2008 and 2009, and now it appears that another very serious downturn has arrived."

- https://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/

"The Iran-Israel Conflict: Will It Mark the End of American Hegemony?"

"The Iran-Israel Conflict: 

Will It Mark the End of American Hegemony?"

by International Man

"International Man: Israel and the US have recently initiated their long-anticipated war with Iran. How do you see it unfolding, and what consequences might follow?

Doug Casey: Anything anyone says may be overtaken by events an hour from now. This is an ultra-fluid situation. If the Three-Body Problem has become famous for its unpredictability, we’re dealing with something like a Twelve Body Problem here.

The consequences of the unprovoked US attack on Iran are completely unpredictable on one level - but totally predictable on another. Among the many unpredictable parts is whether the Iranians will close the Straits of Hormuz and/or the Red Sea entrance to the Suez. Will they seriously attack the numerous US bases around them? Or proceed to build or buy some nukes to counter Israel? How will Iran - quite justifiably at this point - retaliate in any of a hundred different ways? Exactly how does the US/Israel expect to win without invading? The only predictable part is that the attack moves the world closer to going all-out in WW3.

It’s odd that Iran has been painted as a terrorist state. Why do I say that? The fact is that Iran’s conflict has been solely with Israel. It’s clearly supported Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in Gaza, and Ansar Allah (the Houthis) in Yemen - but those groups only attack Israel, for their own reasons. Iran has - notwithstanding the US Embassy incident in 1979 coincident with the overthrow of the Shah, a US puppet - never attacked the US or anyone else.

What about “Death to America”? It’s just stupid, counterproductive rhetoric, on a par with the late Senator John McCain’s moronic chants of “Bomb bomb bomb, bomb bomb Iran.” At least up until Saturday’s unprovoked attack, Iran presented absolutely zero threat to the US.

In fact - and I know this will enrage reflexively nationalistic readers - from an objective point of view, the US can be seen as a terrorist state. The US Government is constantly invading and overthrowing regimes and assassinating leaders—scores of times since WW2, usually in pitiful little nothing/nowhere Third World shitholes. Trump is the one making violent threats. Israel killed, maimed, or seriously wounded about 3400 Lebanese with boobytrapped pagers in their war with Hezbollah. And, of course, its one-sided war against Hamas in Gaza has killed 60,000. You’d think the Israelis might say, “Enough, already”…

However, at some point, the shoe might be on the other foot. Some group or regime may counterattack by massively assassinating US officials. Or attacking US bases with drones, much the way the Ukrainians did in the heartland of Russia. These are technically very easy feats. Both the US and Israel are playing with fire.

International Man: Public opinion in the US has shifted notably. Support for Israel has declined, especially among younger Republicans. Congressman Thomas Massie conducted an informal poll on X, where 85% of respondents opposed the US providing weapons to Israel. What’s your take on this shift in public sentiment?

Doug Casey: Maybe a lot of people have heard that, for many years now, the US has given Israel about $4 billion a year in aid, plus weapons. Americans don’t approve of putting a foreign government on welfare. That’s in addition to another $4 billion to Egypt, bribing them to be Israel’s BFF.

Meanwhile, Trump has been acting like a schizophrenic. He makes a point of not being sure what he’ll do, back and forth, on and off, all the while threatening and name-calling like an adolescent. The world’s greatest negotiator? Hardly. No sensible person can take him seriously. And only a fool tries to negotiate with a bully who threatens violence.

The situation is greatly complicated by the US relationship with Israel. Is it the 51st state of the Union? Many seem to think they’re at least our ally - which is ridiculous. They’re an extremely costly liability. Israel acts only in Israel’s best interest. They bring nothing to the party. They’re using the US as a patsy and playing it for a sucker.

And although American Jews overwhelmingly support Israel, Israel isn’t helping their cause. It’s not just what’s going on with the universities, where there’s lots of anti-Jewish sentiment. The antics of Kanye West have underlined how Jews seem to control politics, business, finance, law, academia, entertainment, and the media. It’s no wonder the average American thinks that about a third of the US population is Jewish, when in fact, there are only about 6 million or so American Jews, which means they’re about 2% of the population. Maybe I shouldn’t observe that. It’s the “third rail” for what’s left of free speech in what’s left of America.

It’s not about Jews, per se. The majority always resents it when a small group seems to sway a country’s direction. Much the same thing has happened with blacks. Americans are also experiencing “black fatigue.” Most Europeans who haven’t been to the US, as well as anyone who watches TV commercials, think that the US is about 50% black and most couples are biracial.

International Man: Historically, false flag operations have been used to justify involvement in unpopular wars. How likely do you think such a tactic is today, especially to build support for another war in the Middle East?

Doug Casey: What’s going on now is an unprovoked attack from Israel and the US. It’s a purely offensive war. Of course, the Israelis justify this by saying that the Iranians are on the point of developing nuclear weapons, but they’ve been saying that for the last 30 years.

The fact is that practically any country in the world can develop nuclear weapons. It’s an 80-year-old technology. And the Israelis are in no position to speak since they’re said to have a nuclear arsenal of about 200 bombs. Even the North Koreans, one of the world’s most poverty-stricken shitholes, have bombs. Anybody can have them and likely will. Why is Iran a special case? Should Israel be censured for threatening to use the “Samson Option” if it seems they’re losing a war?

But, to answer your question, it’s always better to fabricate an atrocity so you can play the victim. The Japanese did that before they invaded China in World War II. The Germans did that in Poland before they invaded. It’s a reliable gambit.

Our friend Michael Yon (link) has asserted that of the 10, 20, or 30 million migrants that are wandering around the US, there are likely a couple of un-uniformed but well-organized armies among these young, military-age men. They can be activated in what amounts to a guerrilla war. And who’s to say that one of these groups wouldn’t attack the US from within and claim to do so on the part of Iran?

International Man: If the war doesn’t unfold as Israel and the US intend, what might the broader geopolitical implications be? Could this accelerate the decline of US hegemony and the rise of a multipolar world?

Doug Casey: Now that the US is actively involved - as opposed to just supporting Israel with money and weapons - we have a lot to lose. It would be a gigantic embarrassment on the scale of Vietnam or Afghanistan. On the other hand, if the US “wins” and Iran collapses, the place could fall into civil war. Most of Iran is Persian. But Iranian Kurds might split off to join the Kurds in Syria, Turkey, and Iraq to form a new nation-state.

There are lots of imponderables. Is the average Iranian sick of the mullahs who’ve been in charge for the last 45 years? Undoubtedly, lots of Iranians are. But the Big Satan’s attack might unite Iran the way only a war can. Will the Republican Guards take over? “We” don’t know what’s going on in Iran, as evidenced by Tulsi Gabbard, who is head of the US intelligence community, saying that we have no indication that Iran has a nuclear weapon or is moving toward one. Then Trump says he doesn’t care what she says, whereupon she recants. I guess his buddy Bibi gave him the straight scoop. Or maybe Ted Cruz - I pity the poor fool for his appearance on Tucker Carlson - is advising Trump.

One thing is for sure: when the US sticks its nose into the business of countries on the other side of the world, it always ends badly, just as it did with Iraq - which it transformed from a military power into a chaotic failed state. Or Libya, which our unprovoked attack turned into two countries at war with each other. Or Afghanistan, where we conducted an unprovoked invasion, killed a few hundred thousand peasants, spent a couple of trillion dollars, and 20 years later left the Taliban in charge, as it was before the US invaded.

International Man: What are the potential economic and financial consequences of the Israel-Iran war - particularly regarding inflation, energy prices, national debt, and the financial markets?

Doug Casey: If the US and Israel create chaos in Iran, is the US going to be on the hook to rebuild it? For that matter, now that Israel has destroyed Gaza, is the US going to relocate the Gazans and rebuild Gaza? As Saudi Prince MBS’s phony alignment with Israel destabilizes Saudi Arabia, will we have to invade them, too? I think the answer may be “yes” to all those questions.

The fact is that the Muslim world dislikes, fears, and distrusts what they call “the Zionist entity.” They feel Palestine was invaded by Zionists starting with the first Aliyah 125 years ago and that the place was conquered demographically, economically, politically, and militarily. It’s nothing new. I expect white Californians will feel like Palestinian Arabs in a couple of generations.

There’s no point in rehashing the pros and cons of both sides here. This is a massive replay of the feud between the Hatfields and the McCoys in West Virginia. Taking sides is idiotic. I simultaneously wish them both well, with a pox on both their houses. The only solution is complete non-intervention by the US."

- https://internationalman.com/

Musical Interlude: Neil H, “Daybreaks Early Rising

Neil H, “Daybreaks Early Rising

"A Look to the Heavens"

“Can you see them? This famous Messier object M89, a seemingly simple elliptical galaxy, is surrounded by faint shells and plumes. The cause of the shells is currently unknown, but possibly tidal tails related to debris left over from absorbing numerous small galaxies in the past billion years. Alternatively the shells may be like ripples in a pond, where a recent collision with another large galaxy created density waves that ripple through this galactic giant.

Click image for larger size.

Regardless of the actual cause, the featured image highlights the increasing consensus that at least some elliptical galaxies have formed in the recent past, and that the outer halos of most large galaxies are not really smooth but have complexities induced by frequent interactions with - and accretions of - smaller nearby galaxies. The halo of our own Milky Way Galaxy is one example of such unexpected complexity. M89 is a member of the nearby Virgo cluster of galaxies which lies about 50 million light years distant.”

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

o

"Experience Earth's Most Beautiful Landscapes in 16K HDR 120FPS Dolby Vision"

Full screen recommended.

8K Earth, "Experience Earth's Most Beautiful 

Landscapes in 16K HDR 120FPS Dolby Vision"

"Experience Earth's most beautiful landscapes in stunning 16K HDR 120FPS Dolby Vision quality. Immerse yourself in the highest resolution video available and see the world like never before!"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

Astonishingly, incredibly beautiful...

Free Download: Seneca, "On The Shortness of Life"

"On The Shortness of Life"

Seneca’s Advice for Dealing with Death

"'De Brevitate Vitae' (English: "On the Shortness of Life") is a moral essay written by Seneca the Younger, a Roman Stoic philosopher, sometime around the year 49 AD, to his father-in-law Paulinus. The philosopher brings up many Stoic principles on the nature of time, namely that people waste much of it in meaningless pursuits. According to the essay, nature gives people enough time to do what is really important and the individual must allot it properly. In general, time is best used by living in the present moment in pursuit of the intentional, purposeful life."

Freely download “On The Shortness of Life”, by Seneca, here:

- http://www.abbottepub.com/

"I Have Chosen My Side..."

"I make no bones about being partisan for my country. I also feel no shame whatever because of it. I absolutely disagree that "great thinkers don't let that affect the thoughts". I would say exactly the opposite: someone who refuses to let love-of-country affect their thoughts is a moral cripple irrespective of their intellectual prowess. I can look dispassionately at the situation, and I have done so repeatedly. But I will never forget which nation I love and support.

We Americans have a saying: “It’s more important what you stand for than who you stand with.” I do not rely upon peer opinion to decide what is right and what is wrong. I make those decisions for myself, and even if I discover that every other human alive chose differently, that doesn’t mean I was wrong.

There comes a time in every man’s life when he has to choose sides. I have chosen my side. I am comfortable with my decision. I do not think everyone on my side is a saint, but I know that those on the other side are much, much worse.

Sometimes a man with too broad a perspective reveals himself as having no real perspective at all. A man who tries too hard to see every side may be a man who is trying to avoid choosing any side. A man who tries too hard to seek a deeper truth may be trying to hide from the truth he already knows. That is not a sign of intellectual sophistication and “great thinking”. It is a demonstration of moral degeneracy and cowardice.”

- Steven Den Beste

○

“Each man must for himself alone decide what is right and what is wrong, which course is patriotic and which isn't. You cannot shirk this and be a man. To decide against your conviction is to be an unqualified and unexcusable traitor, both to yourself and to your country, let men label you as they may.”

- Mark Twain