"Layoffs are sweeping across America at a pace we haven't seen since 2020. Major companies like Amazon, Nike, Starbucks, General Motors, and even federal agencies are cutting thousands of jobs, many of them right after the holidays. And the scary part? This is just the beginning. With over a million jobs already lost in 2025 and more layoffs planned for 2026, the American workforce is facing one of its toughest periods in decades. In this video, we're breaking down the latest wave of layoffs, what's happening in the job market right now, and why so many people are struggling to find work. From college graduates unable to land interviews to experienced professionals getting lowballed on salary offers, the reality on the ground is rough. And while jobs are disappearing, the cost of living keeps climbing groceries, healthcare, housing, none of it is slowing down. If you're feeling the pressure right now, you're not alone. Millions of Americans are going through the same thing. We're all trying to figure out how to navigate this economy and protect our families. Let me know in the comments how you're handling things and what you're seeing in your area."
"In the lower left corner, surrounded by blue spiral arms, is spiral galaxy M81. In the upper right corner, marked by red gas and dust clouds, is irregular galaxy M82. This stunning vista shows these two mammoth galaxies locked in gravitational combat, as they have been for the past billion years. The gravity from each galaxy dramatically affects the other during each hundred million-year pass.
Last go-round, M82's gravity likely raised density waves rippling around M81, resulting in the richness of M81's spiral arms. But M81 left M82 with violent star forming regions and colliding gas clouds so energetic the galaxy glows in X-rays. This big battle is seen from Earth through the faint glow of an Integrated Flux Nebula, a little studied complex of diffuse gas and dust clouds in our Milky Way Galaxy. In a few billion years only one galaxy will remain."
"When observing the stars, you should see them in another perspective. Take into account what they really are: the mothers of the atoms from which we are constituted, the atoms that constitute the mortal and thinking species that admire the sun as a god, a father or a nuclear power station. The particles that were composed at the beginning of the Universe, the atoms that were forged in the stars, the molecules that were constituted on Earth or in another place… all that is also inside us."
- Michel Cassé, French astro-physicist, "Desafio do Século XXI"
"We are in the Long Dark now. Both hope and despair are the enemies of our survival. We must live in the awareness that we might not see the light come back, without ceasing to work - with empathy, anger and knowledge - for its return.
We must be here, in the moment, experiencing its fullness (whatever its horrors or joys), yet be elsewhere, removed from the madness pouring in from every side, the avalanche of degradation. We must be here, now, but also in a future we can’t see or even imagine.
We must see that we are lost, with no clear way forward, no sureties or verities to cling to, no roots to anchor us, no structures within or without that will always keep their coalescence in the chaotic, surging flow.
We must live in discrete moments of illumination and connection, pearls hung on an almost invisible string winding through the darkness. Striving, always striving, but not expecting; striving without hope, without despair, without any certainty at all as to the outcome, good or bad.
These are the conditions of the Long Dark, this is what we have to work with, this is where we find ourselves in the brief time we have in this vast, indifferent, astounding universe. As I once wrote long ago, quoting the old hymn: “Work, for the night is coming.”
So do we counsel fatalism, a dark, defeated surrender, a retreat into bitter, curdled quietude? Not a whit. We advocate action, positive action, unstinting action, doing the only thing that human beings can do, ever: Try this, try that, try something else again; discard those approaches that don't work, that wreak havoc, that breed death and cruelty; fight against everything that would draw us down again into our own mud; expect no quarter, no lasting comfort, no true security; offer no last word, no eternal truth, but just keep stumbling, falling, careening, backsliding, crawling toward the broken light.
And what is this "broken light"? Nothing more than a metaphor for the patches of understanding – awareness, attention, knowledge, connection – that break through our darkness and stupidity for a moment now and then. A light always fractured, under threat, shifting, found then lost again, always lost. For we are creatures steeped in imperfection, in breakage and mutation, tossed up – very briefly – from the boiling, chaotic crucible of Being, itself a ragged work in progress toward unknown ends, or rather, toward no particular end at all. Why should there be an "answer" in such a reality?
What matters is what works – what pulls us from our own darkness as far as possible, for as long as possible. Yet the truth remains that "what works" is always and forever only provisional – what works now, here, might not work there, then. What saves our soul today might make us sick tomorrow.
Thus all we can do is to keep looking, working, trying to clear a little more space for the light, to let it shine on our passions and our confusions, our anger and our hopes, informing and refining them, so that we can see each other better, for a moment – until death shutters all seeing forever."
"The precept: "Judge not, that ye be not judged" is an abdication of moral responsibility: it is a moral blank check one gives to others in exchange for a moral blank check one expects for oneself. There is no escape from the fact that men have to make choices; so long as men have to make choices, there is no escape from moral values; so long as moral values are at stake, no moral neutrality is possible. To abstain from condemning a torturer is to become an accessory to the torture and murder of his victims.The moral principle to adopt in this issue, is: "Judge, and be prepared to be judged."
but in groups, parties, nations, and ages it is the rule.”
~ Friedrich Nietzsche (1844 to 1900)
Buenos Aires, Argentina - "Is man a “teachable animal,” capable of learning from experience? Or is he doomed to historical repetition, as the saying goes? On an individual level, he may learn to stack one block on top or another, to eat with a knife and fork and to enunciate his diphthongs. Stick him in a classroom, however, and he’s as prone to believe that XX = XY as he is to understand Aristotle’s A = A.
Get him to a voting both, and there’s no telling what collectivist nonsense he might be persuaded to believe. “Diversity is our greatest strength”… “From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs”… “Silence is violence (and so are words)”… “Workers of the world unite!” It seems the greater the number of men, the steeper the decline in his ability to think rationally, reasonably… or even at all. “Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority,” cautioned the inimitable Mark Twain, “it is time to pause and reflect.”
Naturally, the world of politics does not lend itself to sane and prudent thinking. Rather, it is the domain of murky ambiguity, deceptive nuance, and slippery slopes. At turns captivating and mortifying, it arrests the attention like a fat man bouncing on a diving board at the local swimming pool; one simply cannot look away."
"In the closing days of 50 BC, the Roman Senate declared that Julius Caesar’s term as a provincial governor was finished. Roman law afforded its magistrates immunity to prosecution, but this immunity would end with Caesar’s term. As the leader of the populares faction, Caesar had many enemies among the elite optimates, and as soon as he left office, these enemies planned to bury him in litigation. Caesar knew he would lose everything: property, liberty, even his life. Caesar decided it was better to fight for victory than accept certain defeat. In January 49 BC, he crossed the Rubicon River with his army, in violation of sacred Roman law, and began a civil war. “Alea iacta est,” said Caesar: The die is cast."
Laramie, Wyoming - "Did you know that the office of the President - indeed the entire Executive Branch - are completely absent from the Articles of Confederation? All the Executive and Judicial powers we associate with two separate and equal branches of government today were vested in the Congress in America’s original founding. Congress could select an officer to ‘preside’ over it. But he wasn’t a President. The Articles only lasted about eight years, from 1781 to 1789. The weak central government couldn’t tax, couldn’t regulate commerce, couldn’t field a standing army, and couldn’t easily declare war. The good old days!
Alas, the forces of collectivism and centralization are powerful and have deep pockets. The US Constitution as we know it was drafted and signed in 1787. It was ratified in 1788 and became the law of the land. Though specifically defining and limiting the powers of the Federal government, it amounted to vast expansion of Federal power and an assault on the States and individual liberty.
Still, try as you might, you can read all of Article II (dealing with the powers of the Executive branch and the President) and you’ll find no mention of capping interest rates on credit cards, limiting stock buy backs, or forbidding the corporate ownership of single family homes. Those were all things the current President proposed doing this week.
It would take an act of Congress to do any of those things. And even then, they might be un-Constitutional (violating the due process language in the 5th amendment). Individual states actually CAN cap credit card rates under ‘usury’ laws. This is why so many national credit card companies (Citibank, Chase, Capital One) are based in Delaware and South Dakota - because those states have no maximum interest rate limit on credit cards (general usury cap, in legal terms).
Of course I haven’t spoken to anyone who hates the President’s idea of lowering credit card interest rates to 10% for a year. Americans have about $1.3 trillion in credit card debt. The average APR on that debt is over 20%. That adds up to roughly $260 billion in interest payments each year. That does seem a bit usurious, but the again those companies are effectively taking the risk of lending money to debtors who might not pay it back. You take what you can get.
What does this Presidential over-reach/populism/outreach mean? The President wants to run the economy ‘hot’ headed into this year’s mid-term elections. You dole out some tariff money as a ‘stimulus,’ you eliminate taxes on tips, you buy $200 billion in mortgage backed securities to lower interest rates and stimulate the housing market, you replace your Fed chair with someone willing to do your bidding and lower interest rates, and you save debtors money on interest payments they can now spend. It all adds up…but to what?
Keep an eye on GDP figures and the velocity of money. If the intention of the Executive branch is to do everything in its power - and some things clearly NOT in its power - to boost economic activity, it will show up in a higher velocity of money (higher inflation). That, plus Congresses inability to restrain, much less cut, spending, should be a tail wind for precious metals in 2026.
By the way, sometime in the early hours of January 11th, 49 BC, Julius Caesar crossed the actual Rubicon. ‘Alea iacta est,’ Caesar said. The die is cast. Caesar was governor of Cisapline Gaul, or what is now northern Italy. But under Roman law, he could not legally cross into the Roman homeland with his army, as a General. It was an offence punishable by death. He did it anyway and the Roman civil war began. All the institutions of power were up for grabs. The sword was more important than the vote.
You could argue this was the real end of the Republic, although as I pointed out Friday, historians generally point the rule of Octavian (Augustus) as the point at which Rome ceased to be a Republic and became an Empire. It doesn’t really matter exactly when, especially since the process took place over more than century. For ordinary people, life went on.
And America today? Well, who knows. This summer will mark the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence in 1776. It’s been a good run. Let’s hope we make it another 250 years! Life goes on either way. And we must all do something with our money, to protect it, and our families. That work continues this week."
"There is an Eastern tale that speaks about a very rich magician who had a great many sheep. But at the same time this magician was very mean. He did not want to hire shepherds, nor did he want to erect a fence about the pasture where the sheep were grazing. The sheep consequently often wandered into the forest, fell into ravines and so on, and above all, they ran away, for they knew that the magician wanted their flesh and their skins, and this they did not like.
At last the magician found a remedy. He hypnotized his sheep and suggested to them, first of all, that they were immortal and that no harm was being done to them when they were skinned; that on the contrary, it would be very good for them and even pleasant; secondly he suggested that the magician was a good master who loved his flock so much that he was ready to do anything in the world for them; and in the third place, he suggested that if anything at all were going to happen to them, it was not going to happen just then, at any rate not that day, and therefore they had no need to think about it. Further, the magician suggested to his sheep that they were not sheep at all; to some of them he suggested that they were lions, to some that they were eagles, to some that they were men, to others that they were magicians. After this all his cares and worries about the sheep came to an end. They never ran away again, but quietly awaited the time when the magician would require their flesh and skins."
“’All of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone,’ wrote the French philosopher Blaise Pascal. It's a line repeated so frequently, in the era of smartphones and social media, that it's easy to forget how striking it is that he wrote it in the 1600s. Back then, a sentence such as "Yo is a messaging app that enables iPhone and Android users to say 'Yo' to their friends" might have got you burned as a witch.
Yet even in 17th-century France, apparently, people hated being alone with their thoughts so intensely, they'd do almost anything else: play boules, start the Franco-Spanish war, and so on. Still, I'd wager even Pascal would have been disturbed by a study published in Science, showing that people detest being made to spend six to 15 minutes in a room by themselves with nothing to do but think – even to the extent of being willing to give themselves mild electric shocks instead. It's natural to conclude that there's something wrong with such people. Which means, all else being equal, that something's probably wrong with you, too.
Modern humans spend virtually no time on "inward-directed thought", and not solely because we're too busy: in one US survey, 95% of adults said they'd found time for a leisure activity in the previous 24 hours, but 83% said they'd spent zero time just thinking. The new study, led by Timothy Wilson of the University of Virginia, first asked students to entertain themselves with nothing but their thoughts in an "unadorned room". Most said they found it hard to concentrate; half found it unpleasant or neutral at best. In further experiments, older people, and those who rarely used smartphones, got similar results. Meanwhile, those given the chance to do something outward-directed, such as reading, enjoyed it far more. And when 42 people got to choose between sitting doing nothing and giving themselves electric shocks, two-thirds of men and a quarter of women chose the latter.
Are we mad? In his book "Back To Sanity," the Leeds Metropolitan University psychologist Steve Taylor answers: yes. The condition he diagnoses, "humania", isn't recognized as a disorder, but only because we're all victims, he argues, and it's part of the definition of a mental illness that most people don't have it. The "urge to immerse our attention in external things is so instinctive that we're scarcely aware of it", he writes. We often speak of emails, tweets and texts as if they're annoyances that we'd eliminate if we could. Yet the truth, of course, is that half the time we're desperate to be distracted, and gladly embrace the interruption.
Taylor's explanation for this puzzle borrows from Buddhism (among other places). We mistake ourselves for individual, isolated beings, trapped within our heads. No wonder we don't dwell on what's inside: that would underline the loneliness of existence, so obviously watching TV is more fun. To sit comfortably with your thoughts first requires seeing that there's a sense in which they're not real. A less new agey way of putting it is simply that you don't need to believe your thoughts. Whereupon they become fun to watch, and the need for distraction subsides. To quote the title of a book by Sylvia Boorstein, a meditation teacher: don't just do something, sit there.”
"Why do people seem more irritable, defensive, emotionally distant, or aggressive than ever before? Why do conversations feel colder, relationships more fragile, and empathy increasingly rare? What if this is not a coincidence - but the result of how modern society is shaping the human mind? In this video, we explore why toxic behavior is no longer an exception, but a growing pattern in modern life. Drawing from the insights of Carl Jung, Freud, Viktor Frankl, Erich Fromm, and contemporary psychology, this reflection goes far beyond blaming individuals. Instead, it uncovers the hidden systems, pressures, and emotional mechanisms that quietly produce toxic personalities.
This is not a video about judging others. It is an invitation to understand human behavior at a deeper level - including your own reactions. Because toxicity does not end through confrontation, but through consciousness. If you are interested in psychology, philosophy, self-awareness, and deep reflections on modern society, this video will challenge how you see people, conflict, and inner growth. The world may be growing louder and harsher - but awareness remains one of the most radical forms of resistance."
"The times might be unpleasant, repulsive. The ghastly chaos, the abhorrent incivility might be intolerable, might force us into argument or leave us panic-stricken. On such occasions people build within themselves a conviction that the world outside is diabolical. The whimsical insults test our level of endurance, causing us to plead for mercy, wanting us to be pitied than exploited and victimized. Often this grief and shame form a delusion within us that there no longer exists good in this world, that good people are fictitious, and that goodness has lost its definition altogether. But such is not true because there are still people who are virtuous, unselfish, willing to help and possessing the ability of restoring our faith in humanity. To disregard them, their presence, would be as heinous as the deeds of the people who are unlike them. The times might be unpleasant, repulsive, but we'll come out it, unharmed and liberated."
- Chirag Tulsiani
o
Sam: "It's like in the great stories Mr. Frodo, the ones that really mattered. Full of darkness and danger they were, and sometimes you didn't want to know the end because how could the end be happy? How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad had happened? But in the end it's only a passing thing, this shadow, even darkness must pass. A new day will come, and when the sun shines it'll shine out the clearer. Those were the stories that stayed with you, that meant something even if you were too small to understand why. But I think Mr. Frodo, I do understand, I know now folk in those stories had lots of chances of turning back, only they didn't. They kept going because they were holding on to something. Frodo: What are we holding onto, Sam? Sam: That there's some good in the world, Mr. Frodo, and it's worth fighting for."
- Samwise Gamgee, "Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers"
"You have a problem! Big changes are here! The U.S. Postal Service has quietly rolled out new rules that could cost you big time. From delayed postmarks to rising prices, these changes affect everything—your taxes, rent, insurance, child support payments, and more. If you rely on mailing bills or documents close to their deadlines, this new system could mean late fees and major headaches. In this video, I break down what you need to know to stay ahead, including the impact on priority mail, rental payments, and even credit card bills. Don’t let these changes catch you off guard!"
"These days, no kids in school are ducking and covering under their desks. American magazines don’t have stories about families (with the money) building private nuclear shelters to guard against an attack on this country. And I can walk the streets of New York City without normally seeing one of those ancient yellow signs of my childhood indicating a fallout shelter (that you could quickly enter in case a war suddenly broke out and the Soviet Union - yes, can you even remember that? - lobbed a nuke our way). In truth, it’s hard to believe anymore, but all of that took place in the previous century, when those of us living in New York actually feared a nuclear attack from the Soviet Union.
And yet, so many years later, with not two but nine countries now possessing nuclear weapons (and undoubtedly more to come), nuclear war seems strangely not part of the conversation anymore. It’s true, of course - and one of the great miracles of our history - that, 80 years after the first atomic bombs destroyed the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, such a weapon has never again been used. Still, given this increasingly strange planet of ours, don’t count on another 80 years like that.
In fact, as TomDispatch regular Michael Klare makes grimly (and strikingly) clear, at this very moment both our country and Russia (the Soviet Union being long gone) seem to be abandoning the basic nuclear restraints of so many decades and potentially expanding their already gigantic nuclear arsenals, already easily capable of wiping out several Earths. Fortunately, there are still groups organizing against such a nuclear nightmare, though you don’t hear much about them these days. But if you want to know more, check out the websites maintained by the Arms Control Association and the Friends Committee on National Legislation. And then, if you’re feeling anxious, instead of ducking and covering, check out Klare’s latest piece below on the all too strange world we now find ourselves in."
Will the U.S. and Russia Abandon All Nuclear Restraints?
by Michael Klare
Excerpt: "For most of us, Friday, February 6, 2026, is likely to feel no different than Thursday, February 5th. It will be a work or school day for many of us. It might involve shopping for the weekend or an evening get-together with friends, or any of the other mundane tasks of life. But from a world-historical perspective, that day will represent a dramatic turning point, with far-reaching and potentially catastrophic consequences. For the first time in 54 years, the world’s two major nuclear-weapons powers, Russia and the United States, will not be bound by any arms-control treaties and so will be legally free to cram their nuclear arsenals with as many new warheads as they wish — a step both sides appear poised to take.
It’s hard to imagine today, but 50 years ago, at the height of the Cold War, the U.S. and Russia (then the Soviet Union) jointly possessed 47,000 nuclear warheads - enough to exterminate all life on Earth many times over. But as public fears of nuclear annihilation increased, especially after the near-death experience of the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, the leaders of those two countries negotiated a series of binding agreements intended to downsize their arsenals and reduce the risk of Armageddon.
The initial round of those negotiations, the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks I, began in November 1969 and culminated in the first-ever nuclear arms-limitation agreement, SALT-I, in May 1972. That would then be followed in June 1979 by SALT-II (signed by both parties, though never ratified by the U.S. Senate) and two Strategic Arms Reduction Treaties (START I and START II), in 1991 and 1993, respectively. Each of those treaties reduced the number of deployed nuclear warheads on U.S. and Soviet/Russian intercontinental ballistic missiles, submarine-launched ballistic missiles, and long-range bombers.
In a drive to reduce those numbers even further, President Barack Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev signed a New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START) in April 2010, an agreement limiting the number of deployed nuclear warheads to 1,550 on each side - still enough to exterminate all life on Earth, but a far cry from the START I limit of 6,000 warheads per side. Originally set to expire on Feb. 5, 2021, New START was extended for another five years (as allowed by the treaty), resetting that expiration date for February 5, 2026, now fast approaching. And this time around, neither party has demonstrated the slightest inclination to negotiate a new extension.
So, the question is: What, exactly, will it mean for New START to expire for good on February 5th? Most of us haven’t given that a lot of thought in recent decades, because nuclear arsenals have, for the most part, been shrinking and the (apparent) threat of a nuclear war among the great powers seemed to diminish substantially. We have largely escaped the nightmarish experience - so familiar to veterans of the Cold War era - of fearing that the latest crisis, whatever it might be, could result in our being exterminated in a thermonuclear holocaust.
A critical reason for our current freedom from such fears is the fact that the world’s nuclear arsenals had been substantially diminished and that the two major nuclear powers had agreed to legally binding measures, including mutual inspections of their arsenals, meant to reduce the danger of unintended or accidental nuclear war. Together, those measures were crafted to ensure that each side would retain an invulnerable, second-strike nuclear retaliatory force, eliminating any incentive to initiate a nuclear first strike. Unfortunately, those relatively carefree days will come to an end at midnight on February 5th."
"In today’s world, the threat of global annihilation is a very real possibility. Among the nations with the power to end all civilization in a matter of minutes, Russia stands out as number 1. With advanced weapons systems capable of unparalleled destruction, Russia could trigger the end of the world in just five minutes and bring humanity to its knees."
Full screen recommended.
"This Is What a Nuclear War Would
Look Like Minute by Minute"
o
"Russia Puts Advanced Sarmat
Nuclear Missile System On ‘Combat Duty’"
"Moscow has put into service an advanced intercontinental ballistic missile that Russian President Vladimir Putin has said would make Russia’s enemies “think twice” about their threats, according to reported comments by the head of the country’s space agency. Yuri Borisov, the head of the Russian space agency Roscosmos, said Sarmat missiles have “assumed combat duty”, according to Russian news agency reports.
“The Sarmat strategic system has assumed combat alert posture,” the state-run TASS news agency quoted the Roscosmos chief as saying. “Based on experts’ estimates, the RS-28 Sarmat is capable of delivering a MIRVed warhead weighing up to 10 tons to any location worldwide, both over the North and South Poles,” TASS said in its report.
Putin said in February that the Sarmat – one of several advanced weapons in Russia’s arsenal, is deployed now. In 2022, some two months after Russian troops invaded Ukraine, Putin said the Sarmat would “reliably ensure the security of Russia from external threats and make those, who in the heat of aggressive rhetoric try to threaten our country, think twice”.
The Sarmat is an underground silo-based missile that Russian officials say can carry up to 15 nuclear warheads, though the United States military estimates its capacity to be 10 warheads. Known to NATO military allies by the codename “Satan”, the missile reportedly has a short initial launch phase, which gives little time for surveillance systems to track its takeoff.
Weighing more than 200 tons, the Sarmat has a range of some 18,000km (11,000 miles) and was developed to replace Russia’s older generation of intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICMBs) that dated from the 1980s. Russia test-fired the Sarmat missile in April 2022 in the Plesetsk region of the country, located some 800km (almost 500 miles) north of Moscow, and the launched missiles hit targets on the Kamchatka peninsula, in Russia’s far east region."
15 warheads per missile, 11,000 mile range, hypersonic speed of 15,880 mph.
One Sarmat can destroy an area the size of Texas or France.
A hypersonic nuclear missile launched from Russia will hit Washington, DC in 23 minutes.
o
The Poseidon Torpedo
Full screen recommended.
Fully operational and deployed, the Poseidon torpedo with a 100 megaton warhead explodes deep underwater, causing a 1,600 foot high tidal wave which destroys everything on the U.S. East Coast as far inland as West Virginia. England would simply disappear beneath the waves...
It would look exactly like this, only twice as high...
Do we really want to do this? Pray to God we don't...
"After living through many challenges, I’m sharing the valuable life lessons I wish I had learned earlier. In this video, I discuss time, relationships, regrets, success, and what really matters in life. Whether you're in your 20s, 30s, 40s, or even older, the insights in this video could save you years of mistakes. These are honest, unfiltered thoughts from someone who has lived through it all. Don’t spend decades figuring it out the hard way like I did. While you still can, learn from my journey and make smarter choices.
This channel invites you to listen to the real voices of older individuals as they share the paths they've walked, their deepest regrets, and the life lessons they wish they had known earlier. These individuals have lived long enough to truly understand the meaning of life. Every week, we bring you different stories and perspectives, but each one shares universal truths about life, love, time, faith, and what truly matters. Subscribe for more wisdom from those who’ve truly lived it. Authentic stories. Real lessons. No filters, no regrets. Leave a comment to share which lesson impacted you most. What’s one change you’ll make after watching?"
“The southern Milky Way appears spectacular in this composite image taken from Mangaia, the most southerly of the Cook Islands. Few sources of light pollution exist here, home to only 500 people.
The two bright stars at the Milky Way’s center are Alpha (left) and Beta Centauri. They point to Crux the Southern Cross. Near the horizon, two of the satellite galaxies of our Milky Way, the Small (left) and Large Magellanic Clouds are easy to spot.”
“I know the world seems terrifying right now and the future seems bleak. Just remember human beings have always managed to find the greatest strength within themselves during the darkest hours. When faced with the worst horrors the world has to offer, a person either cracks and succumbs to ugliness, or they salvage the inner core of who they are and fight to right wrongs. Never Let hatred, fear, and ignorance get the best of you. Keep bettering yourself so you can make the world around you better, for nothing can improve without the brightest, bravest, kindest, and most imaginative individuals rising above the chaos.”
"Nearly every creature upon this planet has one or more natural predators: creatures that prey upon them. Humans seem to be a striking exception; even though we’re bereft of natural weapons – claws, ripping teeth and so on – we easily protect ourselves from even large predators. There are the occasional “bear in the woods” stories, but those come when we leave our constructed environments.
The reason we’re so able to keep ourselves safe is simply that we can think. Humans have, since long before recorded history, figured out how to master wild animals. And so we have no natural predators… or at least none of the usual type.
Our Predators Are Intellectual Predators: In case anyone is pounding a desk and screaming “war,” don’t worry, I’ll get to that in a minute. Humans are not destroyed by claws and teeth, they are destroyed by ideas. In fact, they are highly vulnerable to ideas. In particular they are suckers for authority, for idols and for promises of free stuff. We see these vulnerabilities from one end of human history to another. Here’s just a brief explanation:
Authority: Humans will obey a well-presented authority without critique. The doctor in a white lab coat, the politician wearing a fine suit and podium, the monarch with a crown and a retinue… people turn off their minds when confronted with them and simply comply. The fact that so many order-givers play up their authority proves the point: they wouldn’t take pains to create such images if they didn’t work. Beside that, we all know from experience that they work. And people will reflexively defend authority, if for no other reason than they’ve already obeyed it and they don’t want to look stupid.
Idols: Humans find psychological comfort in holding to a great and powerful person. It makes them feel safe. If you frighten people, then supply them with a powerful figure (Mussolini makes a nice example) and they’ll line right up. It’s no accident that the communists made giant images of Lenin, Stalin, Mao and the others: It works.
Free stuff: From the plunder of enemies to robbing the rich to technical incarnations of the same principle, humans are easy marks for this scam. We’ve all watched it in action, and so I won’t elaborate further.
Okay, Now I’ll Do War: War begins with the people. Genghis Khan had to get his arrows from somewhere, after all. No warlord is solely blamable for his slaughters. Warfare rests upon the complicity of normal people. Those people must be manipulated, in one way or another, to supply the materials and bodies required for war. (Crime can be an individual venture, of course.)
No war-seller, so far as I know, has clarified this better than Nazi boss Hermann Göring. Note from this passage that he and his Nazi brethren didn’t use bullets and swords to make people service their war machine, they used ideas:
"Why, of course, the people don’t want war. Why would some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best that he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece. Naturally, the common people don’t want war; neither in Russia nor in England nor in America, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy or a fascist dictatorship or a Parliament or a Communist dictatorship.The people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country." And Göring was right that it’s the same in any country: Our entire species is vulnerable to this type of predation.
The Way Forward: Our first step forward, as the AA people rightly say, is to admit we have a problem. And we do have a problem. It’s fixable, but so long as we refuse to acknowledge it, we won’t repair it.
We’ve already covered the basic vulnerabilities above, and I won’t dig into further discussion on that. But our habit of chaining one thought to another, as if each were purely and unquestionably correct, is another major issue. Author Ben Hecht explained this very well, when he commented upon people who were, “unable to think, except in homage to other thoughts.”
Hecht was right, and stacking one concept upon another, and then on another, leads easily into gross errors, unless each of those thoughts are perfect, complete and ideally expressed… which they never are. Still, stacking thoughts up in this way (ever deviating from precision) yields the comfort and confidence – and the justification – of having thought.
The bottom line here is that our predators use words and emotions to make us do their will. They are, in illustrative terms, vampires, sucking our will from us. They convince us, through emotional pressures and devious logic – by riding upon our vulnerabilities – that it’s right for them to collect our sacrifices, that failure to obey them will bring us shame, that comfort and safety require our immediate obedience, and that being restricted is the only way to be safe.
“He was going to suck my blood!” “Which is what we do
to anyone when we say we’ll be hurt if they don’t live our way.”
All of that is predation. Again, if we are to stop being abused, the first step is to realize… to accept… that we have a problem. We must recognize that we have vulnerabilities; then we must forgive ourselves for them. After that it’s straightforward and not terribly hard."
"Banking and AI are about to change everything - and it’s happening sooner than you think! In this video, I share insights on how the economy is evolving, from crypto banking innovations to AI reshaping industries. We’re all navigating a world where technology and finance are merging to create new opportunities - and challenges. Plus, I talk about real estate, insurance struggles in California, and surprising updates from companies like General Motors and Bank of America.
I had an amazing chat with Kevin, a subscriber and biotech expert, about the future of banking, real estate, and the impact of AI. He shared fascinating stories about his son’s innovative real estate venture, and we dove into the importance of staying ahead in this rapidly changing economy. Whether it’s crypto banks, stablecoins, or AI-powered solutions, the future is here, and it’s redefining how we think about money and business."
"California faces an unprecedented fuel infrastructure challenge as 473 independent gas stations prepare to close on January 1st, 2026. In this video, we break down what's actually driving this crisis. A 2014 state law requires all underground storage tanks to be upgraded from single-walled to double-walled systems by the end of 2025. The upgrades cost approximately $2 million per station - a financial barrier many independent operators cannot overcome. We'll dive into the RUST loan program that was designed to help small stations cover upgrade costs, the multi-year application delays that left owners unable to complete work before the deadline, and the $5,000 per day penalties that force immediate closure for non-compliant stations. Finally, we look at the human and economic impact - rural communities losing their only fuel source, the gap between electric vehicle adoption rates and gasoline infrastructure decline, and what happens to fuel prices when competition disappears from local markets."
"Governor Newsom is panicking as California's supply chain collapses from two converging crises - and 70,000 truckers being forced to flee the state reveals exactly why. This video exposes how Assembly Bill 5 is eliminating independent truckers while simultaneously 473 gas stations closed and major refineries shut down, creating a perfect storm where California can't move goods and can't fuel the trucks that remain. Discover how California's strictest-in-the-nation AB5 law forces owner-operators to become employees or leave entirely, why major carriers like Landstar are telling drivers to relocate out of state before enforcement even begins, and how 473 gas stations closing on January 1st combined with refinery shutdowns means the trucks that do stay have nowhere to fuel. We'll explore the unprecedented trucking industry exodus affecting 40% of America's shipping containers, the simultaneous fuel infrastructure collapse, and why California's well-intentioned worker protection laws have created a self-inflicted supply chain catastrophe that experts warn is only beginning."
"A massive wave of evictions is sweeping across America right now, and the people being hit the hardest might surprise you. It's not just young families or people who made bad financial decisions. It's seniors. Retired Americans who worked their entire lives, paid their bills, and did everything right. And now they're losing their homes. In this video, we're looking at real stories from people facing eviction. Some of them were just one payment behind. Others asked for more time and were told they had five days to leave. The speed at which someone can go from stable housing to homeless is alarming. And for seniors living on a fixed income, there's often no way to recover. No second chance. No safety net.
The system that these people spent decades contributing to has failed them. They built the roads, the businesses, the communities we live in today. And now, at the end of their lives, there's no place for them. Shelters are overwhelmed. Affordable housing is nearly impossible to find. And the assistance programs that are supposed to help often fall short or come too late.
What makes this even more heartbreaking is watching people who are 70, 75, 80 years old suddenly depending on strangers just to survive. Whether it's a financial crisis or a natural disaster, losing your home at that age is devastating. Starting over isn't really an option when your body can't keep up and your savings are gone.
And the outlook for 2026 isn't good. Rents are expected to continue rising while incomes stay flat. That means millions more families will be pushed to the edge in the coming months. Young Americans are already staying home longer because they can't afford rent on their own. But that puts pressure on their parents, who were counting on that time to save for retirement. And when those parents become seniors, they're more vulnerable than ever. It's a vicious cycle of financial insecurity feeding into housing insecurity across generations.
If you're going through something like this, please know that you're not alone. There are others facing the same fears and the same uncertainty. And sometimes just knowing that someone else understands can make a difference."
