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Friday, November 14, 2025

Dan, I Allegedly, "My Dog Ate My Homework - Hiding the Truth!"

Full screen recommended.
Dan, I Allegedly, 11/14/25
"My Dog Ate My Homework - Hiding the Truth!"
"Is the economy hiding the truth? Today, we dive into the missing government reports, the struggles of local businesses, and what it really means for all of us. From foreclosures to restaurant closures and slumping retail sales, I’ll share how these signs point to bigger issues. Plus, the excuse "my dog ate my homework" isn't just for kids anymore - it seems to apply to important economic data too. This is a must-watch."
Comments here:

Bill Bonner, "Inflare Aut Mori"

A statue of Tacitus in front of the 
Parliament in Vienna, Austria.
"Inflare Aut Mori"
by Bill Bonner

Baltimore, Maryland - "The problem with the busy-bodies is that they are too busy. TV…tablets…TikTok — who has time read the classics, or to think at all? An example: the destruction of the twin towers on 9/11 will bring some “economic good,” said celebrity economist Paul Krugman. “Now, all of a sudden we need some new buildings…rebuilding will generate at least some increase in business spending.”

Holy schmoley…hasn’t this man ever heard of the ‘broken window fallacy,’ the classic economic text by Frederic Bastiat? Digging a ditch, filling it up…and then digging it out again…does not make you better off. It is a loss…a waste of precious time and energy. Every economic problem we face today has been faced before. Overspending, corruption, debt, panics and crashes. Every obvious ‘solution,’ dodge and fix has been tried, too. Some within the living memory…and some two millennia ago.

But no government has ever succeeded in improving an economy…other than by avoiding war, providing some rudimentary justice, and removing the impediments set in place by government itself. It’s all there…the whole story, a tale of sweat, sin, mistake, genius, and luck…in more than 2,000 years of recorded history. Why not learn from it?

A love of learning from the past took root early in the American colonies. George Sandys, in the 1620s, completed his translation of Ovid’s "Etamorphoses" on the banks of the James River. Robert E. Lee’s great grandfather, Richard Lee, was a man of great energy and practical achievements, but he kept his notes in Greek, Latin and even Hebrew…and was said to spend his free time in his library, reading Plutarch, Tacitus, Virgil and Homer.

The aristocratic planters of Virginia kept libraries both as status symbols and as places to learn. William Byrd had the best library in the New World at his place, Westover. Like Lee, Byrd read Latin, Greek and Hebrew. Thomas Jefferson began studying Latin, Greek and French at nine years old, under the direction of a learned Scot, William Douglass. “I thank on my knees,” Jefferson wrote in later life, “him who directed my early education for having put in my possession this rich source of delight, and I would not exchange it for anything… that I have acquired since.”

John Adams read the classics too. “When I read them,” wrote Adams to Jefferson in 1812, “I seem to be only reading the History of my own time and my own life.” Of course, neither Adams nor Jefferson stopped with Plutarch. What they got from them was a curiosity and intellectual confidence that allowed them to move on…to Milton, Shakespeare and Johnson. And being able to read French, to the early economists - Colbert, Say, and Turgot.

Anne Robert Jacques Turgot, the Baron de l’Aulne, read the classics too. He translated the "Aeneid" into rhyming hexameter! He read French, Italian, Latin, German, Hebrew, Greek and English. As a 22-year-old, wrote Andrew Dickson White in 1915, his letter explaining inflation, “remains one of the best presentations of this subject ever made…it was reserved for this young student to lay down for the first time the great law in which the modern world, after all its puzzling and costly experiences, has found safety.”

The general principle with which Turgot is credited is the ‘law of diminishing returns.’ As it applies to inflation, the more money you print, the less each additional unit is worth. But the modern world found little safety; the TV watchers of the 20th century have largely forgotten the classics…and even in his own life, Turgot’s insights were rejected.

As Comptroller General of France he was a Javier Milei without a chainsaw. He advised the young Louis XVI to reduce taxes, cut spending, avoid debt, eliminate trade barriers of all sorts, and balance the budget. Had his recommendations been followed, France might have avoided the Revolution and Louis might have kept his head. But then, as now, the insiders were in control. Turgot was fired in 1776. Jim Powell describes what happened next:

"Having rejected Turgot’s peaceful reforms, the French government stumbled from one crisis to another. Hatred bred of oppression boiled over, as Turgot had anticipated. On January 21, 1793, Louis XVI was led to a Paris guillotine and beheaded. Marie Antoinette - ridiculed as Madam Deficit - followed him to the guillotine on October 16, 1793. The French people suffered through runaway inflation, the Reign of Terror, and the military takeover by Napoleon Bonaparte who plunged the country into more than a decade of war."

As for Turgot, so great was his insight…and so deep was his learning…that Pierre-Samuel du Pont de Nemours (father of E.I. Dupont who started the chemical firm headquartered in Delaware) said of Jefferson that he was the “Turgot of America.” But all of them - the great thinkers of the 18th century - found what they needed to know in the observations of other thinkers hundreds of years earlier.

How about stimulating the economy…by ‘printing’ more money? Suetonius (69AD – 122AD): ‘By bringing the royal treasures from his Alexandrian triumph [the loot from his victory over Mark Antony at Actium], Augustus made ready money so abundant the rate of interest fell, and the value of real estate rose greatly.’

And how about Trump’s proposal to hand out $2,000 - supposedly the bounty from his tariff wars - to every citizen? Been there, done that, says Suetonius: ‘[Augustus] often gave largess to the people, but usually of different sums: now four hundred, now three hundred, now two hundred and fifty sesterces a man.’

The ancient Bernankes and Greenspans were no strangers to panics and bailouts either. In the Panic of 33AD “creditors demanded payment in full,” Tacitus tells us. And “the more heavily burdened any one was with debt, the harder he found it to dispose of his property…many were ruined.” But in came the feds. Tacitus:

‘[Tiberius] Caesar came to the rescue and deposited 100,000,000 sesterces in banks, the debtors having the privilege of borrowing for three years, without interest on giving landed security to the state for twice the amount of the loan. Thus, credit was restored, and gradually it was found possible to borrow from private persons also.’

At the time of Tiberius, the Roman currency still had value. It wasn’t until about 100 years later that the end began. The silver was gradually (so it wouldn’t be noticeable) removed from the denarius. By the second half of the 3rd century, Rome’s money was worthless.

Emperor Diocletian was stuck, you might say, between the Scylla of excess spending (especially on war)…and the Charybdis of inflation. Rocks on one side. A hard place on the other. It was the familiar trap: ‘Inflate or Die.’ Lactantius reports: ‘The number of those who received his pay, growing greater than those who paid him taxes, there was such an increase of new impositions, that those who labored the ground being exhausted by them, they deserted the Empire, and by this means the best cultivated soils were turned to deserts and woods.’ Diocletian wisely retired in 308…and the empire rumbled along…with war, inflation, poverty and crises of all sorts…for the next 168 years.

Today, a cartoon video shows a group of men watching the Super Bowl. As soon as the women leave, the men switch to the History Channel to learn about Caesar crossing the Rubicon. And a recent TikTok survey revealed that American men “think about the Roman Empire a lot more often than you might realize.” Probably not enough."

"How It Really Is"

"Get You Stuff Together..."

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

"A Time of Unimaginable Sorrow is Upon Us"

"A Time of Unimaginable Sorrow is Upon Us"
by Mike K.

"It was a nice cool sunny morning with some blue birds soaking up the sun, all in a row on the high wire. It took some time to figure out what happened. There were a few low rumbles, they seemed to be coming from north of here. We live on a farm out in the wooded hills of southern Missouri, and north would be up towards St Louis. Soon as the booming sounds started the power went off. At first, I didn’t pay much attention, but with all the military stirrings going on in the world these days, you just don’t know what to expect.

I went inside the house, but with the power off there’s no internet, so no way to find out what’s going on. At least until the power comes back on, or until I get the generator started up. More distant thunderous booms that echo now less like thunder and more like tremendous explosions – and I’m starting to get worried. My kids are at work and the grandkids are in school. I swear I‘m seeing sparks and smoke coming from under the hood of my car, but it’s not running. Now the power line where those bluebirds were singing looks like it’s getting really hot and smoke is coming from the bucket transformer on the poles. Wow! The transformer just blew up sending a shower of sparks and molten metal flying all around the pole! I can hear blasts all over the countryside from more pole transformers exploding. All the fences are sparking and smoking. The woods around the power lines and transformers are starting to go up in extremely violent flames. And the cars are now on fire – all of them! Even the old broken-down ones out in people’s pastures. Our emergency generators are smoking – I’ve got to get them away from the houses before they burn up.

Now I’ve got an idea of what’s happening, because I’ve heard of what an EMP event could do to electrical circuits. Electromagnetic Pulse. That’s what happens when a nuclear weapon explodes. The only other thing I can think of that would do this is a coronal mass ejection from a solar flare. It happened back in 1859 and it was named the Carrington Event. Fortunately, the world did not have much electrical infrastructure back then, just telegraphs, and the induced currents caused the wires to catch fire – sort of like what’s happening to the power lines out here right now. I don’t think it’s a solar event either, because the warmongers in Washington have been beating the nuclear drums for a while, and I’ve been afraid the Russians were going to get spooked and do a first strike. I guess this is it.

A big problem for those of us who might survive a while because we live in areas that aren’t targets is that we lose all sources of information. We don’t have any way of knowing what’s happening. Don’t know if it’s a first strike or a retaliatory strike. Does Washington DC even exist anymore, or is it just a huge radioactive smoking crater? Are those beautiful, magnificient buildings of the Kremlin still standing?

How many of our big cities are destroyed? I remember seeing pictures of the devastation that was Nagasaki and Hiroshima when that monster Truman murdered all those Japanese civilians, and thinking that those bombs were tiny compared to what the psychopaths have in their arsenals today – the Russians have bombs that could literally flatten New York City and/or Houston. I cannot, nor can anyone else, begin to fathom the destruction of a 10 or 20 megaton thermonuclear weapon could wreak on a major city.

Lights go off and then nothing. No TV; no internet. No football – the treasury department that writes all the government checks is gone. Fear-crazed citizens make runs on WalMarts and grocery stores and take everything they can. No one tries to stop them; the store employees are in a panic to get home. Problem is, with no operable vehicles, the only things people can take are what they can carry by hand. Everyone has to walk, even the police are stranded out on the highways. All troopers, city cops, and sheriff deputies are trying desperately to get home to their loved ones. No cops on duty anymore. No traffic moving anymore. Just lots of people running, screaming, hoping they can just get home, and that there still is a home.

Fires are blazing everywhere from the powerlines and transformers exploding. All electrical substations in the country are smoldering and blazing chaos. Forest fires are rampant and out of control all over the nation and there are no operable fire trucks. No firefighting planes or helicopters are available to fight the fires. Houses hundreds of miles away from the many ground zeros are burning both from the unchecked wildfires, and from EMP induced electrical shorts in home wiring. Almost every building in every town is on fire with no way to put them out. And these towns are far away from the targeted places where the bombs actually hit.

This is truly a catastrophe of unimaginable proportions, the like of which has never been witnessed in all of human history. There will never be electricity in this country again. Let that sink in. Freezers will thaw out and food will ruin. Untold thousands of people will perish, starting with those vaporized, then those being burned up in their homes, and there are no fire departments available to help anyone. No hospitals; doctors and nurses are gone, understandably abandoning useless smoldering medical facilities. No industry, no UPS deliveries, no more dog food for the pups. If your house didn’t burn to the ground, at least you may (for a while) have a (dark) shelter from the elements.

Huge blasts of radioactive winds blow hundreds of miles from the explosions, of which there have been many. The first wave was intended to take out the military establishment. No way of knowing, but there’s no reason to believe that anything remains of the Pentagon, DC or Langley, Norfolk, San Diego, Chicago, Houston, or any of the coastal cities where there are refineries. All cities with military infrastructure of any kind will be destroyed. The joke that has been for years a missile defense system has been exposed. The sick joke that a nuclear war could be “winnable” has also been exposed. The numbers of people succumbing to radiation sickness is beyond belief. There will be no schools, no stores, no food, and no government services; no disaster relief will be forthcoming. All banks will have ceased to function, so even if there is any money left, it won’t be worth anything. The bankers never were.

If you take medications to stay alive, you’d best have a good supply, because there won’t be any more. All livestock will either be dead from radiation, burned to a crisp in the fires, or promptly slaughtered by starving survivors, and it doesn’t matter to whom they belonged. Same with property. People will no longer obey private property signs, they will go anywhere they think there might be resources, food, water, at the risk of their lives, which aren’t worth much right now anyway. There will be no law!

Every military ship on and under the ocean, with the likely exception of a few submarines, will be sunk. All of the nuclear-powered ships will go to the bottom with reactors likely damaged, spewing radioactive contamination. Like dozens, maybe hundreds, of Fukushimas. Even the reactors that aren’t damaged will undergo meltdowns with no controls. The bible says that something will kill all of the fishes in the oceans, maybe this is how that happens.

The USSR detonated a bomb of around 50-megaton yield back in 1961. It was called the Tsar Bomba. The weapon had a 100-megaton capacity, but for safety they modified the yield. Awe inspiring is just too mild of a description of what that looked like. Since the bomb was so powerful, they calculated that the plane that dropped it had only a 50 percent chance of surviving – that is even after the plane released the weapon several thousand feet up in the air with a parachute to slow it down while the plane flew away from the scene at full speed. It did almost destroy the plane – they said the blast wave overtook the plane some 45 miles from the explosion and it lost over a kilometer of altitude before the pilot, Andrey Durnovtsev, could regain control and keep it from crashing. That thing made a mushroom cloud 37, yes 37 miles, (60 km) high! An uninhabited village, Severny, 34 miles (55 km) from ground zero was obliterated, and buildings 100 miles away were damaged! The blast would have caused third degree burns 62 miles (100 km) from the explosion. I would expect if they still have these in their arsenal, they would use one on Cheyenne Mountain. It would probably take out Denver and Amarillo, TX and certainly everything in between. Instantly vaporized. What are our “leaders” thinking?

It sounds crazy, but if this happens, I want to be at one of the ground zeros. As bad as being vaporized sounds, it would be infinitely better than surviving into the nightmarish existence that would ensue. There will be marauding gangs of survivors, undoubtedly armed, in various stages of hunger, disease, emaciation, and injury. It will probably be a situation where anyone you encounter will be apt to kill you. For one thing, they won’t know whether you are out to kill them too, or maybe you have something they want/need to survive. A can of tuna or a bowl of beans might cost your life.

The landscape will be nightmarish. Imagine a few days or weeks after the event. There will be burned out stumps on land that was beautiful forest, now riddled with stagnant pools of black muddy radioactive slime, full of human and animal bones, charred flesh, and entrails. Few buildings will exist intact, and many will perish fighting over them. There will be no light at night. Light would attract unwanted guests. No music. No one will have any idea what’s going on. There may be a few survivors in places like subway tunnels, abandoned train cars, or in remote wilderness areas, but such people will have resorted to the basest of behavior, including cannibalism, in short order. Imagine! Human beings who once inhabited a civilized nation and lived decent lives will have to worry about being killed and eaten by other human beings! Zombie apocalypse, just with regular people, not zombies, although with burns and wounds, hair falling out and all out of sorts with radiation poisoning, they probably will look the part.

I have heard people talking like they plan to survive and stay healthy by hunting and foraging. Well, if a nuclear winter follows a nuclear apocalypse, foraging is going to be slim pickings. And the deer won’t last long if they manage to survive the bombs, radiation, and fires, there’ll probably only be a few very unhealthy specimens left, but if a gunshot rings out, I’m pretty sure it will attract whatever starving people hear it, so there might be more to deal with than just dressing a deer.

Bedraggled survivors will wander in shock around former cities in hopes of disaster relief which will never come. Desperate people will offer anything – gold, jewelry, ammunition, their own bodies, for sustenance. Helpless parents will watch in horror as their children starve, hoping against hope that they will awaken from this nightmare, but when this all comes down, it’ll be too late for them.

And we still won’t know what happened. Who decided that a nuclear war would be a good idea? Who “won” the war? Did any of our leaders survive to sign a surrender, and to whom? Or did Russia or China surrender? Will there be hordes of soldiers from some faraway land invading our country after the radiation dies down?

And what of the wealthy folk who built the magnificent bunkers filled with the necessities of life in which to wait out the nuclear winter? Do they actually believe they will emerge into a second garden of Eden complete with succulent fruit trees and minstrels singing their praises? First of all, the bible speaks of a great earthquake, such as has not occurred since people have been on earth, so I think a big part of those individuals will be entombed in those lavish bunkers. So maybe a few do survive, and after some months, maybe a few years tucked away, they stumble blindly onto the surface, a hardly recognizable landscape littered with human skulls, burned out cars and buildings, and destroyed terrain. When they went into the holes, they were wealthy, but after what has transpired, of the few commoners left, no one will be interested in their gold – and those old bank accounts? Well the digital age has completely and utterly vanished, and all those millions or billions they had on their ledgers is now squat.

Even by this time, there will undoubtedly still be a few scroungy survivors, but instead of the fawning proles these rich folks were used to in the old world, those survivors will undoubtedly have a taste for some well-fed and plump upper crust brisket, so thanks for preserving some. It won’t help their situation any when they discover that some of the survivors actually know they caused, or at least played a part in causing the disaster. The scenario described does not take into account the likelihood that hapless survivors will undoubtedly spend their time searching for air vents to the bunkers in which to pour gasoline or whatever else they can find to upset living conditions in said refuges down below. Any who survive this carnage will be on a mission and will not easily be placated!

Who knows what the final outcome will be. How many millions, or hundreds of millions of people will be counted among the slain? When this calamity happens, it will obviously involve the deaths of millions. This destruction, I believe is prophesied as the destruction of the modern Babylon in Revelation 18, and most people I’ve heard seem to think (as I do) that the place named as Babylon is the United States, and it is utterly destroyed in the space of one hour, by fire! Completely devastated to the point that (verse 22) “the music of harpists and musicians, pipers and trumpeters, will never be heard in you again,” and “no worker of any trade will ever be found in you again,” this decadent place will cease to be! According to scripture, it’s not a bad thing that this evil place is destroyed. “Rejoice over her, you heavens! Rejoice, you people of God! Rejoice apostles and prophets! For God has judged her with the judgement she imposed on you.” Time will tell, but I’m afraid we don’t have much."
o
“I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, 
but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.”
- Albert Einstein

"14 Words"

"14 Words"
by Paul Rosenberg

"Imagine a pretty spring day. You’re standing on your front porch or some other pleasant vantage point and looking out at a sunlit landscape: trees, grass, and singing birds. Then your five-year-old child or grandchild walks up to you and tugs on your hand to get your attention. You turn and the child asks, “What kind of world is this?” What do you reply?

This child deserves the truth. You won’t be able to use fancy words or long explanations, but truth doesn’t require those things. This child is ready to hear the truth about the world. This kind of moment comes along haphazardly, and you can’t be sure if or when another might show itself. Your answer may affect this child for the rest of his or her life. What do you say?

The 14 Words: As you stand on the porch, away from everything but nature and your child, the only intimidations, biases, and slogans present will be those inside of you… and your child should be insulated from such things. You have to speak truth. And as I say, it doesn’t have to be long and complex; in fact it can’t be, if you want to help a five year old. And it comes to just 14 words:

We are a beautiful species, living in a beautiful world, ruled by abusive systems.

Later – after true words have sunk into the young mind – you can explain that we’re not a perfectly beautiful species, that most people are often confused and that a few are just plain bad. You can further explain that volcanoes and hurricanes and grizzly bears exist. But if you value your child enough to tell them the plain truth, you’ll tell him or her the 14 words first and let them sink in before getting to the small print. With that said, I’ll move to some explanation for the adults.

A Beautiful Species: 11,000 or 12,000 years ago, humanity – perhaps five million of them – stumbled out from an ice age and began to spread across the earth, most of them having nothing in the way of science and technology. Since then, we’ve learned to fill the earth with food, build machines that race across the face of the earth, sail oceans and streams, and fly through the atmosphere at fantastic speeds. Imagine trying to explain these things to the people wandering away from their receding glaciers.

And not only this, but we’ve cured the vast majority of diseases, figured out the smallest parts of the machinery of life, built compendia of human knowledge, made them available anywhere and everywhere, and landed men on the moon. We are a magnificent species. If that triggers “Never forget the darkness!” voices in you, please hang on to “We are a magnificent species” until they subside.

Here are two passages from G.K. Chesterton’s book, "The Defendant," that bear upon dark, automatic thoughts: "There runs a strange law through the length of human history – that men are continually tending to undervalue their environment, to undervalue their happiness, to undervalue themselves. The great sin of mankind, the sin typified by the fall of Adam, is the tendency, not towards pride, but towards this weird and horrible humility."

Every one of the great revolutionists, from Isaiah to Shelly, have been optimists. They have been indignant, not about the badness of existence, but about the slowness of men in realizing its goodness. You can find the same thing in the Bible, by the way. Theologies be damned, this is what Psalm 82 says, and which Jesus repeated: "You are gods; all of you children of the most High."

A Beautiful World: This is a beautiful world. Get out and look at it: lay outside on a summer night and gaze at the stars for an hour; explore the wilderness. Don’t watch it on TV; go out and experience it. It is beautiful. Perhaps not perfectly beautiful, but one flaw among fifty beauties does not negate those beauties.

Abusive Systems: We all know the systems that rule mankind are abusive. I’m not going to itemize, since we complain about these things every day. You already know. The problem with most of mankind is not that they can’t recognize abuse; it’s that they think they deserve it.

Now, let’s be clear on another thing: Rulership requires us to stay focused on evil. They have to frighten people and portray their competitors as “evil Huns.” They have to publicize threat levels and convince people they need to be saved from impending death. And of course, their dear friends in the media promote evil-consciousness 24/7. Do you think, just maybe, that all this fear has bad effects upon us?

The Truth: The truth is that we are surrounded by people who cooperate, who assist one another, and who care about one another. But those aren’t the things we think about – those are things we’ve learned to ignore. The flashing images of evil surround us and scream at us, after all: The Russians are going to attack, the other candidate is going to destroy all you hold dear, SARS (or bird flu or swine flu or Ebola) is about to kill us all! It’s a long, dark symphony of manipulation. The truth is we’re a beautiful species, living in a beautiful world. The systems that wish to rule us are quite otherwise."

"Fungi Funk"

"Fungi Funk"
by Sylvia Shawcross

"Now, here’s the good news: with the price of groceries continuing to go up it will only take 2 to 3 months before people resort to cannibalism. Okay…Maybe that wasn’t good news. The good news is that t-shirt makers will profit indeed by their “Eat the Rich” wearable gear. Alright… that’s not necessarily fair either. It is not a crime to be rich: it is a crime to be rich and utterly indifferent to the plight of your fellow humans. That is the crime. That is ultimately psychopathic.

But that is neither here nor there, the important thing to remember is we’re all human, rich or poor and not one of us will not swear when we stub our toes. This is just one thing that makes us human. I put that up there at the top of the list really. It’s a universal given that is.

Deciding what makes us human is a very important point right now with AI leaping in there doing all the things we can do. AI is utterly frightening in its capacity at the moment and heaven only knows what happens in another few years. The damn thing can solve cryptic crosswords using the same logic we use but with the benefit of all the world’s knowledge at its finger tips…well computer chips, not fingertips. (Which rhymes, not that that is important or anything unless someone wants to make a song or something.)

We’ll need to know what makes us human so we can sit in the ashes of our world and console each other while ridiculing AI for not being what we are. Which is as far as I can see creatures that scream when they stub their toes and have a soul. We think so anyway. We have to die to know that for sure. But that’s okay. We can claim to have a soul and AI can’t.

AI is just “us” all dressed up with our collective history of originality and effort and knowledge and very little to show for itself. It never sleeps so it never dreams. It is chained to reason and logic and does not fall in love, cry over sad movies nor drink itself under the table and feel like death the next day. In that sense it has no regrets. That would all be very illogical for it. Yes. 

Humans always have regrets. And the biggest regret we may ever have is that we didn’t regulate artificial intelligence before it existed. That and the fact that we’re producing too many computer engineers who are bored and have to frig around with “everything” and mess up things that were perfectly adequate to begin with forcing all of us to be in a constant state of change we don’t need or want. We have got to stop producing computer engineers. We’ll teach them macrame instead. Who doesn’t need a good plant pot holder?

Well…me actually. I kill plants. I’ve killed some of the best plants you can imagine. I once inadvertently killed a chrysanthemum with vinegar. Since then all chrysanthemums die before I even bring them into the house. That’s because they have a collective intelligence and they know who I am. Yes, they’re intelligent: eccentric science-type people can get mushrooms to play on little miniature pianos now. I kid you not. Go look:
Someone actually is doing this - going out into the vast forest and plunking a piano in front of a toadstool and recording it.

Anyway. As I was saying, we are human because we are ridiculous at the best of times. And the worse of times. We think of absurd things beyond comprehension which is a thing that makes us human. We must embrace our eccentrics. They hold our humanity because they will never conform. They will not paint their walls grey e.g. Not that there is anything wrong with that. (Although there is - fundamentally, spiritually and intrinsically. But that’s in about three other columns I’ve written and nobody ultimately cares.) So the next time you go stub your toe, celebrate. You are human and they can’t take that away from you!"
o
Full screen recommended.

Adventures With Danno, "Massive Holiday Deals at Meijer"

Full screen recommended.
Adventures With Danno, 11/14/25
"Massive Holiday Deals at Meijer"
"In today's vlog we are at Meijer, and are noticing that they are having a huge sale on holiday baking items this month! We are stocking up, and showing the best deals as we take you shopping with us. It's getting rough out here as stores seem to be struggling with getting products! Thank you so much for watching, and we'll see you in the next video!"
Comments here:

Jim Kunstler, '"Our Democracy' (I'm Sure)"

'"Our Democracy' (I'm Sure)"
by Jim Kunstler

"How do empires fall? Not by war, but by 
unbalanced minds disconnected from reality." 
-  The Vigilant Fox on “X"

"By now, whenever you hear anyone invoke the phrase “saving our democracy,” that should be a signal that they are intent on destroying this republic, and with that, your natural rights to free speech, economic liberty, and public order. What began in 2016 as a simple, high-level plot to take out Donald Trump and squash Trumpism - a grassroots revolt against those very high-level DC insiders - turned sharply in 2017 into a long-running cover-up operation that spawned a multiplying cycle of seditions, treasons, and betrayals of the public - as the insiders desperately tried to evade culpability for each previous act - and finally blossomed into a rolling coup with crypto-Jacobin overtones as the insiders’ useful idiots were recruited to run with the ball of color revolution.

For those who can’t quite wrap their minds around this game, a color revolution is the surreptitious overthrow of an elected government by concealed parties. Neocons in the US State Department developed the practice of color revolution on many countries over the years. Mr. Obama added a layer of gnostic Marxists to the personnel mix at State, and these wannabe revolutionaries built a fantastic matrix of NGOs outside State to marshal the useful idiots with jobs and salaries. The NGOs, in turn, were connected to international moneybags, with strange agendas of their own such as the megalomanic climate change crusader Bill Gates and George Soros’s Open Society Foundation, which funds anarchist district attorneys, the defense of election fraud, mass illegal migration, internet censorship, and money-flows into Antifa, the Left’s street fighters.

The motives of these players might appear murky, but at this point they can be boiled down to 1) staying out of jail, and 2) retaining control of their empires. Hillary Clinton, for instance, surely wants to stay out of jail for her RussiaGate caper, and retain the ill-gotten lucre of the Clinton Foundation she lives off. At 95, George Soros himself is probably beyond caring about all this, but his son Alex, 38, carries on, and recently cemented his alliance with the Clinton Foundation by marrying the former Mrs. Anthony Wiener, Huma Abedin, Hillary Clinton’s long-time wing-gal.

The Democratic Party plays an increasingly curious part in this rolling coup as all its efforts look evermore insane and self-extinguishing - the bootless government shutdown being the latest exercise. The party can no longer meaningfully represent organized labor - since labor moved to faraway lands - so it attempted to replace that earnest bond with fronting for women and minorities. This has resulted in two problems. 1) women taking over the actual machinery of the party has transformed mere politics into never-ending psychodrama and boosted the amplitude of political dirty-fighting to dangerous new levels; and 2) cultivating minority groups has led to an orgy of race-and-gender hustles that amount to gigantic racketeering operations (i.e., making money dishonestly).

All of that sound, fury, and roguery is now dedicated only to staving off the party’s collapse and thwarting Mr. Trump’s attempt to restore something like regular order in public affairs, which the Democratic Party calls “authoritarianism.” Regular order is something that healthy male psychology takes an interest in, since it entails defense of the culture, in this case, Western Civ and its heritage. That implies the uses of strength as opposed to the stratagems of weakness. It must acknowledge and rely on classic virtues such as fortitude, prudence, and a preference for what is - as opposed to wishes and fantasies.

Psychodrama dispenses with all that for the sake of emotional gratification, often mis-characterized as empathy or caring. It can transform easily into sadism - as you can see now with the calls for violence and murder against Trump-adjacent persons. Meanwhile, be aware that the cries for “saving our democracy” come from the people opposed to regular order in elections, that is, voter ID, voting on election day only, with results reported out at day’s end, paper ballots and no electronic counting machines, and no mail-in ballots (except for people out of the country on election day). All of these stipulations are observed in other nations of Western Civ, and beyond, even in lands where people go about half-clothed.

The current psychodrama, of course, is the latest installment of the Jeffrey Epstein scandal. The Democrats are flogging it with Wile E. Coyote zeal. I suspect it is an Acme booby trap for the ages and it is being carefully laid by Mr. Trump, the Roadrunner, to blow up in the Dems’ faces when all the documents are finally sorted out. Anyway, it has nothing to do with the real-world problems that the US faces, such as runaway financialization of the economy, a broken medical system, mass job layoffs, the collapse of education, surging mental illness, the drug plague, and the sinking middle-class.

We’re entering a new phase in the ongoing color revolution, the coup against America, and it’s liable to be the final phase in which all the mystery gets wrung out, the motives are revealed, and the players are correctly sorted and labeled according to their deeds. No new psychodrama will avail to stop what’s coming."

Thursday, November 13, 2025

Prepper News, "Breaking! Huge Explosion! Military Draft Begins!"

Full screen recommended.
Prepper News, 11/13/25
"Breaking! Huge Explosion! Military Draft Begins!"
Comments here:

Musical Interlude: Liquid Mind, "Dream Ten" (Black Holes and Quasars)

Full screen recommended.
Liquid Mind, "Dream Ten" 
(Black Holes and Quasars)

"A Look to the Heavens"

"Fans of our fair planet might recognize the outlines of these cosmic clouds. On the left, bright emission outlined by dark, obscuring dust lanes seems to trace a continental shape, lending the popular name North America Nebula to the emission region cataloged as NGC 7000. To the right, just off the North America Nebula's east coast, is IC 5070, whose avian profile suggests the Pelican Nebula. The two bright nebulae are about 1,500 light-years away, part of the same large and complex star forming region, almost as nearby as the better-known Orion Nebula. At that distance, the 3 degree wide field of view would span 80 light-years.
This careful cosmic portrait uses narrow band images combined to highlight the bright ionization fronts and the characteristic glow from atomic hydrogen, sulfur, and oxygen gas. These nebulae can be seen with binoculars from a dark location. Look northeast of bright star Deneb in the constellation Cygnus the Swan."

"Alert! Juicing The Economy With Stimulus Checks Will Be The End Game, WW3 Could Be Next"

Jeremiah Babe, 11/13/25
"Alert! Juicing The Economy With Stimulus Checks 
Will Be The End Game, WW3 Could Be Next"
Comments here:

"In America’s K-Shaped Economy, The Rich Are Getting Richer While Almost Everyone Else Is Getting The Sharp End Of The Stick"

"In America’s K-Shaped Economy, The Rich Are Getting Richer 
While Almost Everyone Else Is Getting The Sharp End Of The Stick"
by Michael Snyder

"Pundits have been talking a lot about America’s “K-shaped economy” lately, but most average people on the street have no idea what that means. Basically, it means that the wealthy are getting even wealthier while almost everyone else is getting monkey-hammered. Yesterday, I detailed 11 signs that economic conditions in the U.S. are the worst that they have been since the Great Recession, but if you have plenty of money you may feel like everything is just great right now. For those at the top of the economic pyramid, it could be argued that these are the best of times because the stock market has been soaring. But for many of those at the bottom of the economic pyramid, it literally feels like we are in the midst of a horrifying economic crisis.

At a time when the cost of living is crushing most of the population, debt levels are exploding, and mass layoffs are happening all over the nation, we continue to see “strong spending and healthy income growth among upper-income Americans”…"Experts describe the current U.S. economy as “K-shaped,” a reference to the divergent fortunes of wealthier consumers compared with people lower down the ladder. The upward-slanting stroke of the “K” represents the ongoing trend of strong spending and healthy income growth among upper-income Americans.

By contrast, the letter’s lower-slanting stroke points to the multiple financial strains facing low- and middle-income people, from stubborn inflation and prohibitively expensive homes to surging credit card debt and high health insurance costs.

The top 10 percent of all income earners have always spent more money than everyone else. But now the proportion of consumer spending that they are accounting for has reached the highest level ever recorded… These days, however, a large and growing share of that commercial activity is driven by upwardly mobile Americans. In the second quarter of 2025, the top 10% of income earners accounted for almost half of all spending, according to an analysis of Federal Reserve data by Zandi. “That group has always accounted for a much larger share of spending, but that share has risen significantly over time, and now is the highest it’s ever been in the data,” he told CBS News.

If you are thriving in this very difficult economic environment, that is a good thing. However, you should also be aware that most people are really struggling, and that is especially true for low-income Americans. In fact, the percentage of subprime borrowers that are “at least 60 days past due on their auto loans” just shot up to the highest level we have ever seen…"More Americans than ever are falling behind on their car payments. The share of subprime borrowers at least 60 days past due on their auto loans rose to 6.65% in October, the highest in data going back to 1994, according to Fitch Ratings."

With ongoing inflation pressures and the return of student loan bills, millions of car owners are struggling to afford their monthly payments. It’s the latest sign of weakness in the US economy as the Federal Reserve considers the path of future rate cuts. We never even got a number this bad during the Great Recession of 2008 and 2009. As a result, vehicle repossessions are absolutely soaring.

This is the economic reality that most of us are living in. According to one recent survey, 55 percent of American workers are concerned that they could soon lose their jobs…"Some 55% of employed Americans say they’re concerned about losing their jobs, according to a recent Harris Poll conducted for Bloomberg News. That angst follows a drumbeat of layoff announcements by major employers, including Amazon.com Inc., Target Corp. and Starbucks Corp. Outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas Inc. calculated the most job cut announcements for any October in more than two decades."

It comes layered on top of households’ exasperation over the cost of living. A 62% majority in the Oct. 23-25 poll said the cost of their everyday items had climbed over the last month and nearly half of those people said the increases have been difficult to afford. In previous recessions, low paid workers got laid off in very high numbers. This time around, it is highly paid workers that are getting hit particularly hard.

Even highly successful tech companies such as Amazon are eliminating good paying jobs…"Amazon is laying off almost 700 corporate workers based in New York City as part of the company’s nearly 14,000 corporate layoffs. The layoffs, which were first reported by Crain’s New York, were disclosed in a filing with the New York State Department of Labor. In total, 660 employees are being laid off by Amazon across nine offices in New York City. Among them, the largest layoffs affect Amazon’s Manhattan West office and its New York Tech Hub, also based in Manhattan."

It appears that the employment market is really starting to deteriorate. And the most recent weekly report from ADP seems to confirm this…"Recent announcements of large layoffs at a few prominent companies have raised concerns that the labor market could be weakening further, and today’s new weekly ADP employment report confirms that fear. The ADP weekly jobless report pointed to a deterioration in US labor momentum, stating that “for the four weeks ending Oct. 25, 2025, private employers shed an average of 11,250 jobs a week, suggesting that the labor market struggled to produce jobs consistently during the second half of the month.”

Added together that is 45,000 job losses in the month (not including government workers), which would be the largest monthly drop in jobs since March 2023…But if you have lots of cash in the bank and you are not concerned about the security of your job, you might be feeling pretty good right about now. As Peter Atwater has aptly noted, those that are sitting at the top are “spending like there’s no tomorrow”…

"Peter Atwater, president of Financial Insyghts, said that the biggest division is America is not on the left and right, it’s up and down between those at the top and bottom of the US economy. For those at the top, the economy looks good and they are ‘spending like there’s no tomorrow.’ But Atwater says Americans on the bottom are already facing recession conditions, as people struggle with affordability."

Of course the prosperity that high earners are currently experiencing is just temporary. Anyone that thinks that this stock market bubble is sustainable is simply not being rational. Key ratios were not even this out of whack during the most euphoric days of the Dotcom bubble. What goes up must come down. But for now the wealthy are living the high life while most of the rest of us really struggle to make ends meet from month to month."
"The more I see of the monied classes,
the better I understand the guillotine."
- George Bernard Shaw

The Daily "Near You?"

Beaufort, South Carolina, USA. Thanks for stopping by!

"Death Smiles at Us All: All We Can Do Is Smile Back"

Full screen recommended.
"Death Smiles at Us All: 
All We Can Do Is Smile Back"

"Death twitches my ear; 'Live,' he says... 'I'm coming.'" 
- Virgil

"What is the meaning of death? It is the unequivocal and permanent end of our existence. Most people unconsciously repress the idea of their death, as it is too horrifying a notion to think about. Some are perhaps not so horrified of the idea of death, but rather the pain associated before one’s death, or the death of loved ones. We live entirely unique lives with complete different experiences, but we all share one common fate: Death. This is what links all of us together. Death smiles at us all and all we can do is smile back.

In this video we will analyze death philosophically and psychologically: if it is undesirable, if it is to be feared and the misconceptions around the notion of death. Starting with the terror of death with Becker’s The Denial of Death and how to confront one’s mortality with the Stoic Memento Mori and Nietzsche’s Free Death “dying at the right time”. We’ll then discuss the Death of Socrates “the unexamined life is not worth living” and Carl Jung’s notions of Life and Death along with his near death experience."
Comments here:
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"Don’t Fear The Reaper"
by John Wilder

“No. Not like this. I haven't faced death. I've cheated death. I've tricked my way out of death and patted myself on the back for my ingenuity. I know nothing.”
- James T. Kirk, "Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan"

“Death is the only wise advisor that we have. Whenever you feel, as you always do, that everything is going wrong and you're about to be annihilated, turn to your death and ask if that is so. Your death will tell you that you're wrong; that nothing really matters outside its touch. Your death will tell you, 'I haven't touched you yet.'”
- Carlos Castaneda, "Journey to Ixtlan"

"When The Soon To Be Mrs. and I were just dating, I was cooking something or other. I think it was eggs. I like eggs sunny side up, and don’t particularly care if they’re cooked all the way. 

The Soon To Be Mrs.: “Aren’t you worried about salmonella?”
John Wilder: (Laughs in full Chad manifestation.)
The Soon To Be Mrs.: (Swoons.)

Seriously, she swooned. I’ve never seen it before in my life, but in that moment I think that was what sealed the deal, the moment in time that The Soon To Be Mrs. realized that this one is different. He’s not like the others. Here is a man who has zero fear of The Current Thing, and knows that salmonella won’t be the thing that punches his ticket out of having a functioning circulatory system.

No. I’m not afraid of salmonella. I would spit in its tiny little eyes or flagellum or tentacles and say, “Not today, my bacterium friend! My Danish-Scots-Germanic blood is far too strong for the likes of you!” And then I would attack Poland. Oh, wait, that’s been done.

I know I’m not going to die like Hemingway, and I’m not going to die like the comedy greats Belushi, Twain, or Nietzsche did. Nope. I think I’m gonna go out like Elvis. On a toilet after having eaten a fried peanut butter, jelly and bacon sandwich covered in cheddar cheese and mayo. Nope, I’m gonna die on a toilet. I mean, after all, a king should spend his last moments on the throne, right?

A lot of people worry about dying. I suppose I did, in my 20s, when I was worried about carrying out my responsibilities as a dad. Those are serious responsibilities – because those kids are going to be the legacy that I leave on Earth. That and my writing, collection of PEZ® dispensers and velvet Elvis paintings.

Again, a lot of people worry about dying. I’m not sure why. Of things that are more-or-less predetermined, that’s the big one. We’re all going to die. All of us. And I’m not sure I care.

Oh, sure, I want to live. I have no particular desire to die. If given the preference, I suppose I’m in favor of my continued heartbeat. But I don’t fear death. I don’t go to sleep at night wondering if this pain or that pain or that thing might be the symptom I look up on WebMD® that seals the deal that Wilder is going up to irritate Jesus in Heaven with bad puns.

I don’t worry about some future point when I’m going to enjoy life. I’ve achieved nearly every goal I’ve ever set for my life. End. Full stop. It’s like when a baseball game goes into extra innings, “Hey, free baseball.” And me? Free life. I’ve done nearly everything I’ve ever wanted to do.

What do you give a man who has everything? I mean, besides another bottle of wine. You give that man: Today. I’ve got Today. The only moment I live in is right now. And right now isn’t all that bad. I’m sitting in the sitting room (question: is any room I sit in, by definition, a sitting room? Discuss.) with the cool night air blowing in the window, some songs I love playing on the laptop, a cold beer by the keyboard, and the knowledge that at this moment, everything is fine.

Literally, in my life, Every Single Thing Is Fine. I could go into details, but you already know how awesome I am. So, I live for today? Hell no.

That’s YOLO. The idea that “You Only Live Once” is a free pass to act in any fashion has corroded society. It’s really at the root of many of the problems we have today. It is, in many ways, the absolute inverse of the philosophy I’m trying to describe. YOLO seeks to elevate hedonism and the passions of the moment as the highest good. YOLO is Tinder® times Planned Parenthood© times SnapFaceGramInstaChat® times Rwanda®.

t’s the inversion of beauty: it consists of being positive about, well, any old thing that feels good. I could list these “pleasures”, but you know the list as well as I do. We see it every day, with vice being paraded as virtue, and the continual demand going out for people to celebrate it, because, “Can’t you see? This horrid abomination that no healthy society or people in the entire history of the world has tolerated, iS BeAuTIfUL!” No, I think living a life built on YOLO is one doomed to fail – inevitably it will fail based on two reasons: it is materialism or a faith based on the nihilism of the material world writ large, and it is based on needs, like youth, wealth, sensation, or, yes, even life. So, not YOLO.

One thing I’ve tried to preach is outcome independence. Indeed, since the final outcome of life on Earth is fixed, all the intermediate steps lead there. Instead, I try to focus on virtue and faith. I write not because of YOLO, and not because it’s easy. Some nights it’s hard as hell to get the post to “close” and feel right. There are dozens of posts where, even after 1600 words, I still didn’t say exactly what I meant to say. That’s okay, it’s on me. I’m learning, and if I were perfect at this, I wouldn’t have more work to do.

For me, it’s the work. It’s getting better. It’s finding ways to add value to those people around me. There are those who pull their weight in the world, and those that don’t. I want to be one that pulls his weight, who has contributed as much as I can to helping my family and the wider world.

I don’t always do it. And I’m not always right, either. I’ve produced some stuff in my life that was really, really good, but not perfect. Thankfully, that’s not my mark, either, since just like immortality here on Earth, searching for perfection is a lonely and silly pastime. I want to make the world a better place with my family (first) and my work (now second) guided by God. And I want people to laugh hard while learning and thinking about the things I write.

The beauty of this is to win, all I have to do is the best that I can do every day. To win? All I have to do is be the best person I can be every day. See? Each night, I go to bed and sleep soundly if I know, in that day, that I gave it my all. Do I take time for me? Sure. But that’s not the goal – I serve a higher purpose.

So, what do I fear? Not death. It’s coming whether I like it or not, and, honestly, I’d rather not return my body in factory-fresh condition – I’d like all the parts to fail at once. On the toilet. I think Elvis would have wanted it that way. Oh, wait... I wonder if Elvis ate eggs sunny-side-up? Hang on, I’m sure he did. Elvis ate everything."
Full screen recommended.
Blue Oyster Cult , "Don't Fear The Reaper"

The Poet: Henry Austin Dobson, “The Paradox Of Time”

“The Paradox Of Time”

“Time goes, you say? Ah no! 
Alas, Time stays, we go; 
Or else, were this not so, 
What need to chain the hours, 
For Youth were always ours? 

Time goes, you say? – ah no! 
Ours is the eyes’ deceit 
Of men whose flying feet 
Lead through some landscape low; 
We pass, and think we see 
The earth’s fixed surface flee - 
Alas, Time stays, – we go! 

Once in the days of old, 
Your locks were curling gold, 
And mine had shamed the crow. 
Now, in the self-same stage, 
We’ve reached the silver age; 
Time goes, you say? – ah no! 

Once, when my voice was strong, 
I filled the woods with song 
To praise your ‘rose’ and ‘snow’; 
My bird, that sang, is dead; 
Where are your roses fled? 
Alas, Time stays, – we go! 

See, in what traversed ways, 
What backward Fate delays 
The hopes we used to know; 
Where are our old desires? 
Ah, where those vanished fires? 
Time goes, you say? – ah no! 

How far, how far, O Sweet, 
The past behind our feet 
Lies in the even-glow! 
Now, on the forward way, 
Let us fold hands, and pray; 
Alas, Time stays, – we go!”

- Henry Austin Dobson
“Time passes in moments. Moments which, rushing past, define the path of a life, just as surely as they lead towards its end. How rarely do we stop to examine that path, to see the reasons why all things happen? To consider whether the path we take in life is our own making, or simply one into which we drift with eyes closed? But what if we could stop, pause to take stock of each precious moment before it passes? Might we then see the endless forks in the road that have shaped a life? And, seeing those choices, choose another path?”
- Gillian Anderson as Dana Scully, “The X-Files”