Snyder Reports, 4/11/26
"Americans Are In Crisis Mode,
It's Only Getting Worse"
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So, we rise from the rubble...
StatCounter
Saturday, April 11, 2026
"America Is In A Food Crisis And Nobody Wants To Admit It"
Full screen recommended.
Epic Economist, 4/11/26
"America Is In A Food Crisis
And Nobody Wants To Admit It"
"Many Americans are saying that their weekly shop that used to cost $100 now costs $200. The cart looks the same, but the receipt doesn't. And no matter how carefully you plan, how many store brands you swap in, or how many coupons you clip, it never quite adds up the way it used to. In this video, we're looking at what everyday Americans are actually experiencing right now when they walk through those grocery store doors.
Real people are sharing what they're spending, and the numbers are striking. A thousand dollars a month for two people. Nearly $400 a week for a family of five that still runs out of food before the week ends. Forty dollars for a single dinner for three. The financial pressure that families are feeling right now at the grocery store is unlike anything most of us have seen in our lifetimes.
And it's not one or two items driving this. It's everything. Meat, eggs, cheese, fruit, even the small everyday things like a box of cereal or a pack of cookies have quietly crossed price points that would have seemed unthinkable just a few years ago. What used to be a $1.50 treat is now pushing $10. What used to feed a family of six for a week now barely covers a few dinners. The people in these videos are just describing what going to the grocery store actually feels like right now.
What makes it even harder to swallow is that while prices keep climbing, portions keep shrinking. Shrinkflation has quietly changed the way products look on the shelf without changing the price tag. Bags that are half full of air. Cereal boxes you can hold in one hand. Recipes that don't turn out right anymore because the can sizes have changed without any announcement. People are noticing, and they're frustrated, because it feels like a quiet rearrangement happening without anyone being asked.
This video is really just a reflection on where things stand for a lot of ordinary Americans right now. No political agenda, no easy answers. Just real people talking about a real and growing pressure that is affecting families across the country."
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Musical Interlude: Liquid Mind, "Velvet Morning"
Full screen recommended.
Liquid Mind, "Velvet Morning"
Liquid Mind ® is the name used by Los Angeles composer and producer
Chuck Wild of the best-selling Liquid Mind relaxation music albums.
"A Look to the Heavens"
"What's happening at the center of the Trifid Nebula? Three prominent dust lanes that give the Trifid its name all come together. Mountains of opaque dust appear near the bottom, while other dark filaments of dust are visible threaded throughout the nebula. A single massive star visible near the center causes much of the Trifid's glow. The Trifid, cataloged as M20, is only about 300,000 years old, making it among the youngest emission nebulas known.
The star forming nebula lies about 9,000 light years away toward the constellation of the Archer (Sagittarius). The region pictured here spans about 10 light years. The featured image is a composite with luminance taken from an image by the 8.2-m ground-based Subaru Telescope, detail provided by the 2.4-m orbiting Hubble Space Telescope, color data provided by Martin Pugh and image assembly and processing provided by Robert Gendler."
"Each Must Decide..."
“Each must for himself alone decide what is right and what is wrong, and which course is patriotic and which isn’t. You cannot shirk this and be a man. To decide against your convictions is to be an unqualified and inexcusable traitor, both to yourself and to your country, let men label you as they may. If you alone of all the nation shall decide one way, and that way be the right way according to your convictions of the right, you have done your duty by yourself and by your country – hold up your head! You have nothing to be ashamed of.”
- Mark Twain
Chet Raymo, “Retreat From Reason”
“Retreat From Reason”
by Chet Raymo
“Is there a flight from reason in the United States? Everywhere we look, science is under attack. In government. In the schools. In the churches. We are offered faith-based substitutes. The “Left Behind” series of apocalyptic novels outsells everything else on the shelves. People are more interested in astrology than astronomy. Intelligent design is championed at the highest levels of government. Alternative medicine - faith healing, homeopathy, energy therapies, New Age healing, and the like - is more popular than ever. Scripture and revelation are embraced as more reliable sources of knowledge than anything we might learn empirically. We are entering, it seems, a new Dark Age. For a substantial number of our fellow citizens, it's as if the Enlightenment never happened.
Let me take you back to the Hellenistic city of Alexandria, at the mouth of the Nile River in Egypt, in the 3rd and 2nd centuries B.C. Alexandria was then the seat of a magnificent flowering of mathematical and scientific thought. The city welcomed all comers - Eratosthenes from Cyrene, Aristarchus from Samos, Archimedes from Sicily, Apollonius from Rhodes, Hipparchus from Nicaea, Galen from Pergamon, and so on - the only requirement being an inquisitive mind and a bent for explaining the world in terms that made no reference to the gods. Geography and astronomy became mathematical sciences. Eratosthenes measured the size of the Earth. Aristarchus deduced the sizes and distances of the Sun and Moon.
These spectacular achievements get no more than passing mention in textbooks of Western Civilization. We learn in school about the Golden Age of Greece and the glory that was Rome, Sophocles and Ovid, the Parthenon and the Pantheon, triremes and aqueducts, but very little of the invention of scientific thinking in the white city at the mouth of the Nile.
Alexandria was built on a ribbon of land between Lake Mareotis and the Mediterranean Sea. It was graced with forums, temples, marketplaces, palaces, a double harbor with a famous lighthouse, quays, warehouses, and, prominently, a museum ("place of the muses"), and the famous library over which Eratosthenes presided. The museum and library were together the equivalent of a great modern university. It was the dream of the first rulers of Alexandria - the Ptolemys - that the library would possess a copy of every book in the known world, and within a century hundreds of thousands of scrolls were collected within its walls. By the middle of the first century B.C. Diodorus of Sicily could say that Alexandria was "the first city of the civilized world, certainly far ahead of all the rest in elegance and extent and riches and luxury."
In his book "The Greeks and the Irrational", the scholar E. R. Dodds was thinking of the Greek culture of Alexandria when he wrote: "Despite its lack of political freedom, the society of the third century B.C. was in many ways the nearest approach to an 'open' society that the world had yet seen, and nearer than any that would be seen again until modern times." It was a society confident of its powers. Aristotle had asked his fellow citizens to recognize a divine spark within themselves: the intellect. Men and women who exercise reason can live like gods, he said. For Zeno, the human intellect was not merely akin to God, it is God, a portion of the divine substance. Temples are superfluous, he said; God's true temple is the human intellect.
Of this supreme confidence in rational thought, the Alexandrians created a new empirical, mathematical way of knowing. But the seeds of irrationality were also there, embedded in popular culture, or perhaps embedded in the human soul. Soon enough, supernaturalism returned. Astrology and magical healing replaced astronomy and medicine. Cults flourished, rationalists were scapegoated, and scientific culture began to decline.
The old dualisms - mind and matter, God and nature, soul and body - which the rationalists had striven to overcome, reasserted themselves with fresh vigor. Dodds calls it "the return of the irrational." He writes: "As the intellectuals withdrew further into a world of their own, the popular mind was left increasingly defenseless. . .and left without guidance, a growing number relapsed with a sigh of relief into the pleasures and comforts of the primitive. . . better the rigid determinism of the astrological Fate than the terrifying burden of daily responsibility."
Harvard historian of science Gerald Holton sees a similarity between Dodds' description of the decline of Greek culture and the resurgence of anti-science in our own time. Once again, astrology, magical healing, and other kinds of superstitious thinking are in ascendancy. Once again, cults flourish and rationalists are scapegoated.
The Greek experience shows that movements to delegitimize science are always present, says Holton, ready to bend civilization their way by the glorification of folk belief, violence, mystification, and the rabid ideologies of ethnic and nationalistic passions. Dodds calls it "the fear of freedom - the unconscious flight from the heavy burden of individual choice which an open society lays upon its members."
Science can only prosper in a free and open society, in an atmosphere of rational skepticism where traditional patterns of thought are challenged and subjected to critical scrutiny. Science will only flourish when a people have confidence in the power of the human intellect to make sense of the world."
- http://www.sciencemusings.com/
"How Are Things Going, Joe?"
“You go up to a man, and you say, “How are things going, Joe?” and he says, “Oh fine, fine… couldn’t be better.” And you look into his eyes, and you see things really couldn’t be much worse. When you get right down to it, everybody’s having a perfectly lousy time of it, and I mean everybody. And the hell of it is, nothing seems to help much.”
- Kurt Vonnegut
"I'd Still Swim..."
"If I were dropped out of a plane into the ocean and told
the nearest land was a thousand miles away, I'd still swim.
And I'd despise the one who gave up. "
- Abraham Maslow
And don't you ever give up...
Full screen recommended.
Jason Mraz, "I Won't Give Up"
"Insane..."
“And those who were seen dancing were thought to be
insane by those who could not hear the music.”
- Friedrich Nietzsche
"American Life During The 1930s"
Full screen recommended.
Old Photos Channel, 10/18/24
"American Life During The 1930s"
"Welcome back to the Old Photos Channel! Today, we're taking a journey back to one of the most challenging and transformative decades in American history – the 1930s. Through these incredible old photos, we'll explore what life was when the spirit of resilience and community defined everyday life in the United States.
The 1930s were marked by the Great Depression, a time when millions of Americans faced severe economic hardships. Many lost their jobs, homes, and savings. In these photos, you can see the somber faces of people standing in breadlines, searching for work, or living in makeshift shantytowns called "Hoovervilles." Yet, amid these struggles, there was a deep sense of perseverance. Communities came together to support one another, and families made do with what little they had.
These photos also reveal the strength of family bonds during the 1930s. Despite the hardships, people found joy in simple things: children playing in the streets, families gathering for meals, and neighbors helping each other. This sense of community was a vital part of survival during the Great Depression, showing us that hope and connection can thrive even in the toughest of times.
Surprisingly, the 1930s was also a time of cultural creativity. As we look at these photos, we see jazz clubs thriving, movie theaters offering an escape from reality, and artists like Dorothea Lange capturing iconic images of the era. Despite the economic downturn, Americans found ways to express themselves and find joy through music, film, and art. The 1930s was a decade of both struggle and resilience. These photos give us a glimpse into the lives of those who lived through the hardships, reminding us of the strength of the human spirit in times of adversity.
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"The Gods Laugh At Your Plans"
"The Gods Laugh At Your Plans:
Chekhov, Jaspers, And Life-changing Moments"
The most momentous and significant events in our lives are the
ones we do not see coming. Life is defined by the unforeseen.
by Jonny Thomson
"You’re in the shower one day, and you feel a lump that wasn’t there before. You’re having lunch when your phone rings with an unknown number: there’s been a crash. You come home and your husband is holding a suitcase. “I’m leaving,” he says.
Life is inevitably punctuated by sudden changes. At one moment, we might have everything laid out before us, and then an invisible wall stops us in our tracks. It might be an illness, a bereavement, an accident or some bad news, but life has a habit of mocking those who make plans. We can have our eyes on some distant shore, some faraway horizon, only to find everything come crashing down by the most unseen of events. As the Scottish poet Robert Burns wrote, “The best laid schemes o’ Mice an’ Men. Gang aft agley” (often go wrong).
In Anton Chekhov’s remarkable play, "The Seagull," we meet a cast of characters who are all, in some way, in love with something. The young, idealistic artist Konstantin is in love with the idea of pure art. Arkadin, his mother, is in love with her fans and her celebrity. Konstantin’s girlfriend, Nina, is in love with becoming rich and famous. Everyone in the play has some kind of ambition and plan, or they live in regret over the life they chose. They rail against how misguided or mistaken their life has been, while longing for something else.
They are each like a seagull, flying over the sea or a great lake, and aiming purposefully for the shore. The view up there is wonderful. But the longer the seagull flies, the more oblivious they are to how they tire or weaken. They’re so fixated on some distant horizon that they’re at the mercy to life’s sudden changes. They’re blinkered and distracted, and the gods love nothing more than the hopeful hubris of mankind.
At one point in the play, Chekov has the character Trigorin recount a short story about a gull flying over a lake who’s, “happy and free.” But in the next moment, “a man sees her who happens to come that way, and he destroys her out of idleness.” The seagull is killed, its flight and plans annihilated, in one instant of random thoughtlessness.
Boundary Situations: While so much of our lives are spent in planning and preparation, the most transformative and significant moments are those which come at us out of the blue. These are what the psychiatrist Karl Jaspers called “boundary situations” - the ones we cannot initiate, plan, or avoid. We can only “encounter” them. These are not the mundane, everyday parts of our life - what Jaspers calls “situation being” - but rather they are things which thunder down to shake the foundations of our being. They change who we are. Although these “boundary situations” (sometimes called “limit situations”) change a bit in Jaspers’ works, he broadly sorted them into four categories:
Death: Death is the source of all our fear. We fear our loved ones dying, and we fear the moment and fact of our own death. When we know grief and despair, or when we reflect on mortality, we are transformed. We always know about death, but when it’s a boundary situation, it comes crashing into our lives like some grim scythe; an unforeseen curtain call. The awareness and subjective encounter with death transforms us.
Struggle: Life is a struggle. We work for food, compete for resources, and vie with each other for power, prestige, and status in almost every context there is. As such, there are moments when we are inevitably overcome and defeated, but also when we are victorious and champion. The final outcomes of struggle are often sudden and great, and they make us who we are.
Guilt: Hopefully, there comes a moment for each of us when we finally accept responsibility for things. For many, it comes with adulthood, but for others it comes much later still. It’s the awareness that our actions impact all around us, and our decisions echo into the world. It’s seeing the damage or tears we’ve caused. It’s to recognize that, however small or big, we’ve hurt and upset someone. It’s a profound pull of the heart that changes how we live, and it often comes on unexpectedly.
Chance: No matter how neat and ordered we might want our world to be, there will always be a messy, chaotic, and unpredictable exception. We can hope for the best, and make the plans we want, but we can never take a steering handle on the facts that will affect our existence. According to Jaspers, we each prefer, “assembling functional and explanatory structures… whose central axis lies in sufficient reason” and yet, “despite this, it is not possible for man to control and explain everything. In fact, day by day he faces events that he cannot call anything else other than coincidences or hazards.” We want order, and regularity. What we get is the mercurial and capricious throes of chance.
The best laid plans: What Chekhov’s Seagull and Jaspers’ “boundary situations” get right is that we are each much more vulnerable than we might want to allow. A wedding, three years and a fortune to plan, is ruined by a stomach bug. An hour-long journey home for Christmas winds up getting you stuck in the traffic of a freak snowstorm. A lifetime achievement is overshadowed by a national disaster. Our lives are defined by the unforeseen. We have our dreams, hopes and are flying to some faraway shore. Yet life doesn’t care. Around every corner, at every flap of our wings, everything can change."
○
"If you caught a glimpse of your own death,
would that knowledge change the way you live the rest of your life?"
- Paco Ahlgren, "Discipline"
"Iran Unleashes 1,700 Fattah-3 at Palmachim, Israel Systems Destroyed, US Panics"
Prof. Jiang Xueqin, 4/11/26
"Iran Unleashes 1,700 Fattah-3 at Palmachim,
Israel Systems Destroyed, US Panics"
"Iran’s massive Palmachim strike changes the strategic map of the Middle East and sends shockwaves through Washington, Tehran, and beyond. In this 35-minute analysis, GeoStrike Network breaks down the operational architecture of the attack, the systems allegedly lost at Palmachim, the implications for Israeli deterrence, and the wider consequences for global nuclear order and American extended deterrence. We examine how this event could reshape alliance structures, military doctrine, and geopolitical power balances for years to come. Watch to the end for the full strategic picture behind one of the most consequential developments of this era."
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Col. Douglas Macgregor, 4/11/26
"Israel Is Bleeding, Much Worse Than They Admit"
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Jeffrey Sachs, 4/11/26
"This Is How Israel Ends, And America Can't Stop It"
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"Something Massive Just Entered the US-Iran War in Pakistan…JD Vance in Shock"
Full screen recommended.
OPTM, 4/11/26
"Something Massive just Entered the US-Iran
War in Pakistan…JD Vance in Shock"
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"Abby Martin Went To Israel. It's Worse Than You Think"
Full screen recommended.
Double Down News, 4/11/26
"Abby Martin Went To Israel. It's Worse Than You Think"
Comments here:
o
"Israel: Same Old Playbook"
by Redacted
"While the U.S. and Israel become increasingly desperate, Israel is moving fast on its expansive plans of ethnically cleansing Palestinians. The Israeli Knesset’s National Security Committee approved a bill that will impose the death penalty on Palestinian prisoners. This means executions by hanging. This is terrifying. Israel has over 14,000 Palestinian prisoners right now, held without charge or trial. This law would allow them to kill them at will. Remember, they had at least 4,000 October 7 Hostages, but the media won’t use that word.
Palestinians are already enduring extreme suffering. According to a report from B'Tselem, an Israeli human rights group, Israeli prisons currently function as a network of torture camps. Yet now, legislation threatens to escalate that harm even further by passing a bill that can easily end their lives. Additionally, The Guardian finds that Israel has not prosecuted the killing of a Palestinian in the West Bank since 2020, despite hundreds of adults and children alike being killed by Israeli settlers in that time frame. It seems this war has only made the plight of Palestinians worse as attention is diverted to Iran."
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"All Palestinian Prisoners To Be Executed And Shot In The Head"
"The Minister of National Security of Israel, Itamar Ben-Gvir, says he plans to introduce legislation in the Knesset which reads: "All Palestinian prisoners to be executed and shot in the head." – The Minister of National Security of Israel, Itamar Ben-Gvir
Watch this monster say it himself!
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"Israel is Evil personified. Israel is Evil embodied."
- Scott Ritter
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"Shocking Genetic Science Reveals Ashkenazi Jews
Suffer High Rates of Mental Illness Due To Inbreeding"
by Mike Adams
"We are facing a dire situation for humanity. Today, I reveal some of the elements that have led us to that, including shocking scientific evidence that studied the inbreeding common among Ashkenazi Jews (the dominant population worldwide) and found that centuries of inbreeding has produced widespread mental illness and schizophrenia. This is relevant because Netanyahu thinks God talks to him and tells him to mass murder people in Gaza, Lebanon and Iran. He thinks he's hearing voices from God. It's actually a genetic mental illness caused by inbreeding.
- Genetic studies on Ashkenazi Jews reveal mental disorders.
- Generations of inbreeding have produced mental illness defects.
- High levels of schizophrenia among "God's chosen people."
- Netanyahu thinks God is talking to him and telling him to commit genocide.
- Quotes from Jewish Rabbis calling for mass death of non-Jews.
- The U.S. has provided nuclear weapons to mentally ill sociopathic inbreds.
- Jewish inbreeding has also removed "mirror neurons" responsible for empathy and compassion.
- High risk of nuclear war that kills billions, due to Israel's insane genocide."
Fully explained in video here:
Many references online.
Now it all makes sense...
OMG...YOU, Americans, paid for it all, every bullet, every bomb, every plane, every tank, everything, billions and billions of dollars! All that blood's on YOUR hands too! 100,000 innocent and unarmed old people, men, women and 20,000 CHILDREN slaughtered, with another 10,000 buried under the rubble and unrecovered. And these ZioNazi creatures from Hell call the Palestinians "human animals?!" Eternal shame and disgrace on us all! Stipendium peccati mors est, Israel, and it's coming...
Michael Bordenaro, "The Gig Economy is on the Brink of Collapse"
Full screen recommended.
Michael Bordenaro, 4/11/26
"The Gig Economy is on the Brink of Collapse"
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"Major Warnings - Everything Is Collapsing At Once"
Full screen recommended.
Snyder Reports, 4/11/26
"Major Warnings -
Everything Is Collapsing At Once"
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Dan, I Allegedly, "No One Is Coming to Save You!"
Full screen recommended.
Dan, I Allegedly, 4/11/26
"No One Is Coming to Save You!"
"Most people are waiting - for help, for a bailout, for someone to step in and fix their life. But the truth is simple and brutal: no one is coming to rescue you. In this powerful episode of i Allegedly, Dan breaks down the reality that financial freedom, better health, stronger relationships, and real happiness all come down to personal responsibility. Through real-life stories of loss, hardship, custody battles, and financial struggles, this video forces you to take an honest look at your own life - and where you need to step up. This isn’t about fear - it’s about empowerment. Whether you’re dealing with debt, poor health, broken relationships, or feeling stuck, the message is clear: you can change your life starting today. Cut the excuses, take control of your finances, prioritize your health, and surround yourself with better people. No government program, no bailout, no shortcut will fix what only discipline and action can. Watch this if you’re ready to take ownership and build a better future."
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Friday, April 10, 2026
"Consumers Running To Pawn Shops For Gas Money"
Jeremiah Babe, 4/10/26
"Consumers Running To Pawn Shops For Gas Money"
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Musical Interlude: Paul Mauriat, "Love is Blue" (1968)
Full screen recommended.
Paul Mauriat, "Love is Blue" (1968)
"A Look to the Heavens"
"Dwarf galaxies NGC 147 (left) and NGC 185 stand side by side in this sharp telescopic portrait. The two are not-often-imaged satellites of M31, the great spiral Andromeda Galaxy, some 2.5 million light-years away. Their separation on the sky, less than one degree across a pretty field of view, translates to only about 35 thousand light-years at Andromeda's distance, but Andromeda itself is found well outside this frame.
Brighter and more famous satellite galaxies of Andromeda, M32 and M110, are seen closer to the great spiral. NGC 147 and NGC 185 have been identified as binary galaxies, forming a gravitationally stable binary system. But recently discovered faint dwarf galaxy Cassiopeia II also seems to be part of their system, forming a gravitationally bound group within Andromeda's intriguing population of small satellite galaxies."
Khalil Gibran, "Youth and Age"
"Youth and Age"
by Khalil Gibran
"In my youth the heart of dawn was in my heart, and the songs of April were in my ears. But my soul was sad unto death, and I knew not why. Even unto this day I know not why I was sad. But now, though I am with eventide, my heart is still veiling dawn, And though I am with autumn, my ears still echo the songs of spring. But my sadness has turned into awe, and I stand in the presence of life and life’s daily miracles.
The difference between my youth which was my spring, and these forty years, and they are my autumn, is the very difference that exists between flower and fruit. A flower is forever swayed with the wind and knows not why and wherefore. But the fruit overladen with the honey of summer, knows that it is one of life’s home-comings, as a poet when his song is sung knows sweet content, though life has been bitter upon his lips.
In my youth I longed for the unknown, and for the unknown I am still longing. But in the days of my youth longing embraced necessity that knows naught of patience. Today I long not less, but my longing is friendly with patience, and even waiting. And I know that all this desire that moves within me is one of those laws that turns universes around one another in quiet ecstasy, in swift passion which your eyes deem stillness, and your mind a mystery.
And in my youth I loved beauty and abhorred ugliness, for beauty was to me a world separated from all other worlds. But now that the gracious years have lifted the veil of picking-and-choosing from over my eyes, I know that all I have deemed ugly in what I see and hear, is but a blinder upon my eyes, and wool in my ears; and that our senses, like our neighbors, hate what they do not understand.
And in my youth I loved the fragrance of flowers and their color. Now I know that their thorns are their innocent protection, and if it were not for that innocence they would disappear forevermore.
And in my youth, of all seasons I hated winter, for I said in my aloneness, “Winter is a thief who robs the earth of her sun-woven garment, and suffers her to stand naked in the wind.” But now I know that in winter there is re-birth and renewal, and that the wind tears the old raiment to cloak her with a new raiment woven by the spring.
And in my youth I would gaze upon the sun of the day and the stars of the night, saying in my secret, “How small am I, and how small a circle my dream makes.” But today when I stand before the sun or the stars I cry, “The sun is close to me, and the stars are upon me;” for all the distances of my youth have turned into the nearness of age; and the great aloneness which knows not what is far and what is near, nor what is small nor great, has turned into a vision that weighs not nor does it measure.
In my youth I was but the slave of the high tide and the ebb tide of the sea, and the prisoner of half moons and full moons. Today I stand at this shore and I rise not nor do I go down. Even my roots once every twenty-eight days would seek the heart of the earth. And on the twenty-ninth day they would rise toward the throne of the sky. And on that very day the rivers in my veins would stop for a moment, and then would run again to the sea.
Yes, in my youth I was a thing, sad and yielding, and all the seasons played with me and laughed in their hearts. And life took a fancy to me and kissed my young lips, and slapped my cheeks. Today I play with the seasons. And I steal a kiss from life’s lips ere she kisses my lips. And I even hold her hands playfully that she may not strike my cheek.
In my youth I was sad indeed, and all things seemed dark and distant. Today, all is radiant and near, and for this I would live my youth and the pain of my youth, again and yet again."
o
Frank Sinatra, "It Was A Very Good Year"
Free Download: Jack London, "The Iron Heel"
The greatest little whore house, well, anywhere...
"I know nothing that I may say can influence you. You have no souls to be influenced. You are spineless, flaccid things. You pompously call yourselves Republicans and Democrats. You are lick-spittlers and panderers, the creatures of the Plutocracy."
- Jack London
o
Freely download "The Iron Heel", by Jack London, here:
Read online The Project Gutenberg eBook
of "The Iron Heel", by Jack London, here:
"Making Your Best Guess"
"Making Your Best Guess"
by Arthur Silber
"We are not gods, and we are not omniscient. We cannot foretell the future with certainty. Most often, cultural and political changes are terribly complex. It can be notoriously difficult to predict exactly where a trend will take us, and we can be mistaken. We do the best we can: if we wish to address certain issues seriously, we study history, and we read everything that might shed light on our concerns. We consult what the best thinkers of our time and of earlier times have said and written. We challenge everyone's assumptions, including most especially our own. That last is often very difficult. If we care enough, we do our best to disprove our own case. In that way, we find out how strong our case is, and where its weaknesses may lie.
Barring extraordinary circumstances, we cannot be certain that a particular development represents a critical turning point at the time it occurs. If we dare to say, "This is the moment the battle was lost," only future events will prove whether we were correct. We do the best we can, based on our understanding of how similar events have unfolded in the past, and in light of our understanding of the underlying principles in play. We can be wrong. "
"Warning: Grocery Stores Are Deceiving You And It’s Disgusting"
Full screen recommended.
Snyder Reports, 4/10/26
"Warning: Grocery Stores Are
Deceiving You And It’s Disgusting"
Comments here:
"Judge Napolitano - Judging Freedom, 4/10/26"
Judge Napolitano - Judging Freedom, 4/10/26
"INTEL Roundtable w/Larry Johnson &
Special Guest for Ray - Scott Ritter"
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Glenn Diesen, 4/10/26
"John Mearsheimer:
World Changed Forever as Iran Defeated the U.S."
"Prof. John Mearsheimer argues that Iran's victory over the U.S. will transform the international system. The U.S. alliance system is in decline, NATO is done, and Project Ukraine will also be impacted. John J. Mearsheimer is the R. Wendell Harrison Distinguished Service Professor of Political Science at the University of Chicago, where he has taught since 1982."
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The Poet: Charles Bukowski, "Darkness Falls"
"Darkness Falls"
"Darkness falls upon Humanity
and faces become terrible things
that wanted more than there was.
All our days are marked with
unexpected affronts -
some disastrous, others less so,
but the process is
wearing and continuous.
Attrition rules.
Most give way,
leaving empty spaces
where people should be.
And now,
as we ready to self-destruct,
there is very little left to kill,
which makes the tragedy
less and more,
much, much more. "
- Charles Bukowski
“The More Laws, the Less Justice”
“The More Laws, the Less Justice”
by Brian Maher
"This past weekend we entered a local park hard upon the Chesapeake Bay. At water’s edge stood several head of fishermen. Each extended a line to pluck aquatic beings from the “immense protein factory” - as H.L. Mencken labeled the fruitful Chesapeake Bay. All was peace.
Of a sudden a vehicle of the Maryland Natural Resources Police came pulling up. From it emerged an officer of the same authority. He was armed as any other policeman is armed - with a sheathed firearm. Why does an officer of the Maryland Natural Resources Police require a firearm? The answer is somewhat dark to us. Yet let it pass.
Your Papers, Please: The officer descended upon each of the assembled fishermen, one by one. He was in search of papers. That is, he was in search of fishing licenses. That is, he was in search of permission slips from the state of Maryland. A man may not fish the Chesapeake Bay without one.
By some miracle of God they each possessed the required documentation. Some had to abandon their rods and withdraw to their vehicles to secure it. Yet each had it. To be certain: This was not a hostile affair. The officer appeared to be a pleasant, even affable fellow. He gabbled with each potential felon. “Hey, how’s it going? Beautiful day for fishing. Any luck?” So on and so on. Et cetera, et cetera.
You Can Keep Your Dinner: The interrogated men responded with equal affability. They did not appear the least irritated, flustered or annoyed. Both officer and fisherman exchanged multiple laughs and guffaws. At one point the officer took a fisherman in tow and both men withdrew to the police vehicle. From it the officer retrieved a ruler. He stretched a captured fish out upon it. The fish evidently met specification. It was no youth of child-rearing age. The man could keep his dinner - and escape a fine.
Eventually this officer of the Maryland Natural Resources Police abandoned the scene… and drove off… we imagine to the next fishing spot… in quest of some felonious hellcat fishing without official grant.
The entire incident passed without incident. The lines remained in the water and the fish came out of the water - with no additional interruptions. No one was clubbed, no one was jugged. In fact, the officer extended the fishermen high respect. They in turn extended him high respect. If all police encounters were so peaceful policemen would not bear billy clubs and firearms.
One Question: Yet we emerged from the incident with a question: Why should a man require the state of Maryland’s permission to lower a fishing line into the water? Your editor has not fished since he was perhaps 12 years of age. He did not require documentation. He was never approached by an armed policeman demanding to see it. He was merely exercising his rights as a somewhat lunatic and murderous 12-year-old fish hunter.
We understand the authorities may wish to regulate the commercial fishing fleets. We do not abhor or detest conservation - and commercial fishermen may at times yield to temptation. Their vision at times may fail them. The juvenile eight-inch fish they cannot legally haul aboard appears 16 inches to them. Many would work the dockside scale to a favoring calibration… downward… if they could pull off the caper.
But a solitary fisherman casting an individual rod? Who may - if fortune favors him that particular day - pull up two or three unfortunate fish? It is of a different character. We do not believe this man requires permission… at least in the absence of very rigid and demonstrable justification. To our knowledge flounder lack all presence upon the endangered species list.
Land of the Free: Each of the fishermen from the abovesaid incident was Hispanic. Their English was accented. In some cases, very heavily. Did they require fishing permits in their countries of origin? We do not know. Perhaps none require them. Perhaps some require them. Perhaps all require them.
Yet it makes no nevermind. These men are presently camped within the United States - the land of the free - at least in verse and in theory. Should they not fish in freedom… without documented permission from the state of Maryland… or any other united state?
More Laws, Less Justice: “The more laws, the less justice,” said the old Roman Cicero. We are convinced beyond all convincing that this ancient was correct.
The United States Code of Federal Regulations ran to 16 pages in its 1936 debut. Today the thing runs to some 70,000 pages - each singly spaced and finely printed. That is, today’s law list is 4,375 times thicker than 1936’s law list. Has American justice expanded with it? Is the 2026 United States 4,375 times more just than the United States of 1936?
To ask the question is essentially to answer the question. A decent man can scarcely put in one single day without fracturing half a dozen laws. On dark days the same man may fracture a full dozen.
When Laws Justify Injustice: A man can “miss the forest for the trees,” as the popular expression runs. Well, a nation can miss the forest of justice… for the trees of laws. Vast injustice can - and in fact often does - parade as justice because it assumes the color of law. A government goon (bureaucrat) can cite this regulation or that regulation as the warrant for actual injustice.
You request examples? An Oregonian was jugged 30 days for collecting rainwater on his property. That is because the state of Oregon operates under the theory that it owns the rain that falls on it. Thus an Oregonian requires a government permit to collect and hold rain. It is the law. Yet is it just?
Law Run Amok: An Arizona man was fined for holding religious meetings in his residence. Officials cited fire safety. The man subsequently came into compliance. Officials proceeded to inform him that he required exit signs above the doors and safety ramps outside of them. Their fines ran to $12,000. It is the law. Yet is it just?
In Vermont it is illegal to deny God’s existence. You may or may not be a fool to deny God’s existence. Yet are you a criminal to deny God’s existence?
Meantime, you violate federal law if you sell wine with a label harboring the word “Zombie.”
Don’t You Dare Call It Ham Turkey! There exists a meat product known as turkey ham. Within the United States it is illegal to peddle turkey ham with a label of “ham turkey.” Nor can the words “ham” and “turkey” appear in differing fonts. They must be identical. If you do not comply you have acted contrary to the laws of the United States. And you will face the attending punishment. Here we cite but some examples. Others multiply and multiply. Yet these are the laws that “govern” us.
What It Means to Be Governed: And as we are fond to observe: To be governed, noted 19th-century philosopher Pierre-Joseph Proudhon: "Is to be watched, inspected, spied upon, directed, law-driven, numbered, regulated, enrolled, indoctrinated, preached at, controlled, checked, estimated, valued, censured, commanded… registered, counted, taxed, stamped, measured, numbered, assessed, licensed, authorized, admonished, prevented, forbidden, reformed, corrected, punished… drilled, fleeced, exploited, monopolized, extorted from, squeezed, hoaxed, robbed… repressed, fined, vilified, harassed, hunted down, abused, clubbed, disarmed, bound, choked, imprisoned, judged, condemned, shot, deported, sacrificed, sold, betrayed; and to crown all, mocked, ridiculed, derided, outraged, dishonored."
The more laws, the less justice. That weekend… however minor in appearance… we witnessed its reality…"
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