Keaau, Hawaii, USA. Thanks for stopping by!
So, we rise from the rubble...
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Friday, June 26, 2026
The Poet: Mark Jarman, "Coyotes"
"Coyotes"
"Is this world truly fallen? They say no.
For there's the new moon, there's the Milky Way,
There's the rattler with a wren's egg in its mouth,
And there's the panting rabbit they will eat.
They sing their wild hymn on the dark slope,
Reading the stars like notes of hilarious music.
Is this a fallen world? How could it be?
And yet we're crying over the stars again,
And over the uncertainty of death,
Which we suspect will divide us all forever.
I'm tired of those who broadcast their certainties,
Constantly on their cell phones to their redeemer.
Is this a fallen world? For them it is.
But there's that starlit burst of animal laughter.
The day has sent its fires scattering.
The night has risen from its burning bed.
Our tears are proof that love is meant for life
And for the living. And this chorus of praise,
Which the pet dogs of the neighborhood are answering
Nostalgically, invites our answer, too.
Is this a fallen world? How could it be?"
~ Mark Jarman
"Time, Life, And The Roller Coaster"
"Time, Life, And The Roller Coaster"
"Life is truly a ride. We're all strapped in and no one can stop it. When the doctor slaps your behind, he's ripping your ticket and away you go. As you make each passage from youth to adulthood to maturity, sometimes you put your arms up and scream, sometimes you just hang on to that bar in front of you. But the ride is the thing. I think the most you can hope for at the end of life is that your hair's messed, you're out of breath, and you didn't throw up." - Jerry Seinfeld
○
Remember when you were 10 years old, and summer felt like it lasted forever? Got a little older, not so bad, still plenty of time to do everything you wanted. Someone told me back then that time speeds up the older you get. Being young, and knowing everything as the young do, I of course ridiculed this idea. But guess what - it’s true. Now I view life, and time, as a roller coaster with just one enormous riser. Time is slower to pass at the beginning as you climb towards the top. At 30 or so you’re at the very top, then you start the fall towards the bottom. Faster and faster you go, as time goes by ever quicker. Weeks and months flash by, and you wonder where it all went, and as you descend ever faster you suddenly realize that somewhere on the tracks below there’s a solid brick wall or some other disaster awaiting your arrival. The only thing you don’t know is where on the tracks ahead of you it is, or how soon you'll arrive. So, while you still can, you'd better appreciate even more the things you can enjoy, and the people whom you love and that love you, because the ride isn’t going to last forever... - CP
Of course, sometimes Life feels like this...
"The Ones Who Live Alone"
Full screen recommended.
"The Ones Who Live Alone"
"In Three-Quarter Town, some people live by themselves. They wake to a cat at the foot of the bed. They make breakfast for one, with a dog watching from the floor. They water plants, read by the window, walk quiet lanes, make soup, light lamps, and end the day with a warm room and a small companion nearby. This gentle story follows different elderly villagers through one ordinary day of living alone, and the cats and dogs who quietly make their homes feel less empty."
Native Elder, "Why Your Children Treat You Like a Stranger"
Full screen recommended.
Native Elder,
"Why Your Children Treat You Like a Stranger"
"Every Line Earned, Every Wrinkle a Story"
Full screen recommended.
Delta King's Blues,
"Every Line Earned, Every Wrinkle a Story"
"These wrinkles ain’t damage… they’re proof I lived. “Every Line Earned, Every Wrinkle a Story” is a soulful, reflective Delta King’s Blues tune about hard years, deep memories, and wearing your age with pride instead of shame. A warm, weathered acoustic guitar carries the melody like hands shaped by decades of work and love. The harmonica speaks soft and seasoned, each bend sounding like another chapter remembered. The groove stays slow and dignified, built for front-porch reflection and stories too real to fake. This is blues about honoring the road behind you. For folks who know every scar, gray hair, and wrinkle came with a lesson attached. A smooth face never tells a life story like a worn one does."
"UFC America: More Ass and Less Class"
"UFC America: More Ass and Less Class"
by Donald Jefferies
"Our Prideful Idiocracy: This country wasn’t exactly classy in 2015, when Donald Trump came down the escalator to announce his candidacy for president. Casual Fridays had already taken the culture by storm. People of Walmart was already a website. I think twerking was already popular, and Kim Kardashian’s huge ass was in the middle of everything.
They stopped teaching Civics in high school before I entered high school. So you know that was a long time ago. Civics taught students the rights and obligations of citizens in a society. Now, it wasn’t needed as much back in the 1940s and 1950s, when our civilization placed great importance on manners and politeness. What Ambrose Bierce defined as “the most acceptable form of hypocrisy.” Sure, you knew most people didn’t meant it when they said, “let me know if there’s anything I can do.” I mean, did anyone really ever let these people know that they could do something? It was a common courtesy. Our world used to be full of such common courtesies. School just reinforced what most parents taught their children. Say please and thank you. As Barney the purple dinosaur reminded my children’s generation- they’re the magic words. There’s a thin line between a common courtesy and an empty gesture. Empty or not, they elevated the overall discourse. Insincere pleasantries are still pleasant.
Now you might be saying, “Oh geez, is he going to be claiming how much better things were when he was young again? Brag about how no one had tattoos, the men were lean and the chicks were hot? Talk about how you could be a goof off like him, and still be paid a living wage?” Well, okay, maybe I am figuratively yelling to get off of my lawn. I resisted the idea of being old for a long time, but now I’m claiming every senior citizen discount I can. Just don’t call me elderly. We weren’t as civil as our parents’ generation. My parents never, ever said “fuck.” We did. Quite a bit. We didn’t respect them the way they had respected their parents. The hippies which came just before me were the first to question some of the “establishment.” Oddly, they never seemed to question our banking system. Or the medical industrial complex. Their ire was primarily directed at the Vietnam War. But no other war. Ever. They were at odds with conventional morality, which frowned on premarital sex and drug use.
The foundation for our present day Idiocracy was built on feminism. Most women entered the workplace, leaving most homes with latchkey kids. No fault divorce. The celebration of single mothers in pop culture. Easy access to abortion. “If it feels good, do it” was an updated version of “Do what thou wilt,” credited to the monstrous Aleister Crowley, but actually originating with Ben Franklin’s Hellfire Club. That was the downside to all the personal liberty we enjoyed in the 1970s and 1980s. I’ve talked about how I fought a battle to keep my shirttail out, back in a tucked in world. To say we’ve swung too far in the opposite direction is a kinder way of saying Americans have let themselves go over the past fifty years.; a Hall of Fame understatement. I never thought I’d see people out in public wearing pajamas. I sometimes can’t determine someone’s race or sex these days. Call me a hopeless bigot, but I think that matters. And yes, you can judge our culture’s collective book by its cover.
But more important than mere physical facades are the character of the people. A half century of diabolical conditioning has resulted in generations of soft males with decreased testosterone, and aggressive females with perpetual resting bitch faces. Not to mention an increasing number of confused “transgenders,” whose anger results in a shockingly high suicide rate. All of them- male, female, and they/them, are less polite than any previous edition of Americans. They’re far less likely to say “thank you.” Some struggle to simply say “hello” in response to a greeting. And crowds display a collective stupidity that goes beyond that. It’s routine for thousands of fans to chant “Bullshit!” at sporting events now. I thought it was bad when they would sometimes yell “You suck!” during games a few decades ago. A simple “boo” seemed much more civil. You’d think that the lack of testosterone would make physical violence less likely, but somehow a simple word, or a simple look, can trigger it now.
So it’s appropriate that Trumpenstein- the leader of the free world- scheduled an outdoor UFC extravaganza on the White House lawn. In our mixed up, muddled up, shook up civilization, that is the perfect celebration for the 250th anniversary of our independence. Now, I don’t expect Trumpenstein or the evil Democrats to talk meaningfully about the Founders, and the importance of human liberty. No one is going to quote from the Declaration of Independence, which is all but labeled Hate Speech at this point. No one is going to dwell on that whole angry people breaking away from tyrannical rulers thing. Even our fantastically dumbed down populace might make some kind of connection. The event was what you’d expect; enjoyed by what’s left of the MAGA crowd, deplored by much of America. It was entertaining to hear one of the fighters shout, “Michelle Obama is a man!” He was quickly repudiated by UFC president Dana White. No outlandish conspiracy theories need apply.
Trumpenstein also decided to paint the bottom of the Reflection Pool on the Mall a swimming pool blue. It’s a wonder he didn’t coat it with a garish gold, to match the new decor of the White House. Apparently, he must have used the lowest paid illegal visa painters, because the paint started immediately peeling. Well, at least Trumpenstein turned away from ruining what’s left of the Middle East for a moment, to address domestic issues. Sure, it wasn’t a rebuild of the infrastructure, or a revival of DOGE, but it made a portion of the populace briefly happy. Trumpenstein is the perfect president for the times, a real President Camacho for the Idiocracy. Like many of his countrymen/women/they/thems, he’s rude, inarticulate and unapologetic. He’s overweight and loves fast food. He doesn’t keep promises. He’s untrustworthy. He is America 2.0. As we stand on the brink of our 250th anniversary, there couldn’t be a starker contrast between the former reality TV star and the Founding Fathers.
I used to actually know people who possessed genuine class. Not the class of a caste system, which designates a person’s place in the hierarchy. This kind of class could once be found in trailer parks and inner cities. It wasn’t necessarily associated with one’s net worth. Do we have any leaders, let alone common riffraff, who have real class today? Can anyone act dignified? Every ambassador, every debutante, every One Percenter, seems only a few words away from unleashing a flurry of obscenities, if not launching a physical attack. The poor never took any shit. Now the hoi polloi have the same reluctance to talk things out. Like their immature leaders, they forego diplomacy in lieu of fists flying. Bombs dropping. As boxer turned philosopher Mike Tyson said, “Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face.” You all know I generally like Candace Owens, but she announced that she was pregnant again recently, and explained that whenever she’s pregnant she feels like fighting. With her dainty dukes.
That’s an odd reaction to pregnancy, but all 57 genders love to talk about punching someone in the face. The “Woke” Left especially loves to fantasize about punching ”Nazis” in the face. Since pretty much anyone we don’t like is now de facto a “Nazi,” this leaves a lot of people very vulnerable. I wonder if “Nazis” can say that they love to punch people who call them Nazis in the face? Just imagine how many punches the Mark Levins and Ben Shapiros would have to absorb in such a scenario. We really haven’t progressed much since the days of “you wanna take this outside?” But an Idiocracy pretty much has to be violent. Kick someone in the balls, or watch someone get kicked in the balls. The UFC, in its pure brutality, is the perfect sport for the times. No lions or Christians needed. Just lots of blood. And the same kind of Drunk White Fans who cheer on all Black football and basketball teams. It’s exactly the same mob mentality that used to pack family lunches to watch the public hanging.
I have sometimes cited the 1841 book "Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds" by Charles Mackay. It had a huge impact on me when I read it during my misspent youth. I feel confident in saying that, in the 1980s very few other 20 somethings were reading this ancient book, that chronicled how gullible and unthinking the mass of humans have always been. It was instructive to know that vapid catchphrases would pop up frequently on the streets of 18th century London, long before some creative inner city resident came up with “right on” and “I heard that.” You don’t have to be Frankenstein’s monster for the crowd to turn against you with burning torches and pitchforks. Frank Capra’s brilliant "Meet John Doe", something I cite even more often, demonstrated what would likely happen if a true populist hero emerged on the scene. With just a dash of emotional propaganda, passionate fans would destroy him. Most people are followers. They are looking for guidance.
The angry mob is more frightening than a confederation of conspirators, holed away in a dark castle, plotting future misdeeds. Look at how easily people can be turned by idle school, neighborhood, or workplace gossip. They don’t need the Bilderbergers to manipulate them. Born troublemakers exist. People who enjoy causing misery to others. With all the misshapen and tattooed bodies in present-day ‘Murrica, they don’t have to look very far to find a nice target for ridicule. The problem is, though, when the majority are overweight, and few are even attempting to look presentable, let alone attractive, what poisonous barbs are used against them? If most of the crowd is fat and ugly, can you really call anyone fat or ugly? Maybe the few lookers get singled out? “Hey, Mr. 6 pack abs, kiss my fat tattooed ass!” “Hey, little miss 2 percent body fat, miss perfect hair- why don’t you eat another salad with no dressing?” Maybe the transgenders scoff at those who still have their original biological equipment.
So no, things were far from perfect when I was an obese young boy in a far more fit world. We all stepped on anthills. For the fun of it. Dogs got left outside. In a literal doghouse. The cuisine was less exciting. Pizza was for very rare occasions. I didn’t know, until I was a teenager, that there was any other Chinese food except Chow Mein. No Mexican. Italian was limited to spaghetti. Lots of roast beef and overcooked vegetables. But bacon grease made it delicious and I remember it fondly. I obviously liked the food well enough to become a pathfinding obese youngster. We had only three TV networks, but the programming was far better than what you find today, on the combined 200 channels or whatever. I was the only person I knew who was “awake.” The music was great. And the people were in much better physical condition. To be fair, they were also often high. Just look at any old group shot from beaches, up even into the 1980s. You’ll see that we really lost something aesthetically.
Sure, people were rude back then. But they looked better being rude. And they weren’t quite as rude. I don’t think people took as long to back out of a parking space when others were visibly waiting. I’ve seen posters on message boards laugh and brag about that. They enjoy making people wait. You have online personalities devoted to catching and shaming people who are too lazy to push their shopping carts to the designated area, blocking parking spaces. Most notably, I’ve heard idiots on talk radio justify not washing their hands after taking a shit. Seriously. I guess there were cretins who didn’t wash their hands after wiping their asses back then, too. Just not as many. And no one would have admitted it, let alone bragged about it. In many ways, our evil overlords have helped build a nation of sociopaths. Fat, unattractive sociopaths. Unquestioning sociopaths, ready to line up for the next booster shot. Vindictive sociopaths, anxious to prosecute those who aren’t as stupid and obedient as them.
The madness of modern Americans reaches its peak on Black Friday, when they’re willing to risk life and limb for 20% off an electronics item. There is not the slightest bit of civility in retail. People routinely trample each other for sales that aren’t even special. A few years ago, Popeye’s introduced a new fried chicken sandwich. There were lines out the door to get it. Believe it or not, they were being sold on Ebay. Now, I don’t think I’d want to meet someone who would buy a sandwich on Ebay. But their vote counts the same as mine does. I’m as far removed from a snob as can be, but a civilization requires some standards. Briefly brush your hair. Don’t wear pajamas in public. Pull your pants up. Kind of the same instructions you might give a toddler. If this keeps up, maybe ‘Murricans will regress and forget they’re potty trained. Why not? No one’s going to stop you from doing it in the street. Can Gen Zers tell time with an old fashioned clock? Do addition and subtraction by hand? Make change?
A while back, I came up with a slogan for America 2.0- Smaller Brains and Bigger Asses. Who can argue with the accuracy of that? Our president is a WWE Hall of Famer. We are all WWE now. Females of all ages are willing to really brawl, even more so than the average emasculated male. We have been influenced by the loud Black women, doing the neck movement thing. We’re all keeping it real. Too real. Few can spell decorum, and almost no one has any. We’re an ill mannered mess. An ill mannered mess that is easily angered, but never at the conspirators who are controlling their lives. Instead, they’re distracted by the neighbor’s rosebush. Witness how much property was destroyed after the Knicks won the NBA championship. We won! Nah, we never win. 80% have to lose in a rigged casino economy like ours. So light off fireworks. Hope that the next White House UFC match is extra bloody. Treat yourself to a new tattoo. And order something extra fattening from Uber Eats."
o
Tip of the hat to The Burning Platform for this material.
"The Cost of Everyday Life in America Is Starting to Scare Everyone"
Full screen recommended.
The Unfolded States, 6/26/26
"The Cost of Everyday Life in America
Is Starting to Scare Everyone"
"In this video, we take a closer look at why everyday life in America feels increasingly difficult to afford, even for households earning what used to be considered solid middle-class incomes. From rising childcare costs and unaffordable housing to grocery inflation, car expenses, and shrinking financial flexibility, many families are asking the same question: why does earning more no longer feel like enough? This is not just a story about inflation. The deeper issue is that essential expenses are rising faster than many people can realistically adapt to. Housing, insurance, healthcare, transportation, and childcare are consuming a growing share of household income, leaving less room for savings, emergencies, or long-term planning. For many people in middle class America, the real challenge is no longer income alone, but how little remains after fixed costs are paid. We break down the economic forces behind today’s cost of living crisis using real stories, data, and practical analysis. More importantly, we explore how these rising costs are changing behavior across America, from delaying homeownership and having children later to relying more on debt and living with thinner financial margins. What expense has impacted your life the most recently? Rent, groceries, insurance, childcare, or something else? Share your experience in the comments."
Comments here:
"If the Iran War Lasts Until August, the U.S. Won't Have a Single Drop of Oil Left"
Pepe Escobar, 6/26/26
"If the Iran War Lasts Until August,
the U.S. Won't Have a Single Drop of Oil Left"
Comments here:
Dan, I Allegedly, "Americans Are Running Away From Their Bills"
Full screen recommended.
Dan, I Allegedly, 6/26/26
"Americans Are Running Away From Their Bills"
"A shocking new consumer survey reveals just how financially stressed Americans have become. Millions of people admit they would skip a credit card payment, carry vacation debt, or even go into debt just to take a summer vacation. In this video, I break down the most surprising statistics from the survey and explain what they really tell us about the U.S. economy, inflation, consumer spending, and the growing affordability crisis. We'll discuss why people are budgeting less successfully, why travel costs and gas prices are changing vacation plans, how credit card rewards are becoming a financial necessity, and why so many Americans are still paying for last year's vacation. If you're interested in personal finance, debt, business news, consumer trends, inflation, recession warnings, and protecting your financial future, this is a discussion you won't want to miss."
Comments here:
Jim Kunstler, "The Party of Algae and 'Our Democracy'"
"The Party of Algae and 'Our Democracy'"
by Jim Kunstler
"Okay, convince me that gay-Islamic-race-communism is a “progressive” political program America is going to buy like corn flakes. The Lefty-left wants to think so, as it lurches from one peak of mental illness to an even greater one in the 130 days to the midterms. Look how successful they’ve been with open borders, defunding the police, men in the girl’s swim lane, no cash bail, sex-change surgery for kids, free-for-all elections, hatin’ on white people, and open Medicare fraud. The new re-branding strategy as “Democratic Socialism” only tells you that reality has ceased to interest them.
No, winning electoral districts stuffed with illegal aliens in bright blue cities with tiny overall voter turnouts won’t sweep the nation like love. More likely it’s a harbinger of the party’s approaching death, like the Whigs going down the drain in 1852, gurgle-gurgle. Advocating to destroy American society is a poor sales pitch. The party’s old-line leadership frantically seeks some way to neutralize the rising influence of Zohran Mamdani and his disciples, but so far nothing works. An odor of desperation fills the air.
One thing you can say about the gay-Islamic-race-communists is that they are well-organized, which is understandable since their political program resembles an ant farm, a dis-individuated collective with insectile characteristics, workers and soldiers toiling in mindless solidarity to occupy more electoral territory so as to vanquish their “oppressors,” Trump and the big feet of his capitalist minions.
Meanwhile, though, the money flows dry up as the old Big Donor Dawgs freak-out at the prospect of having their fortunes confiscated, eaten by this advancing ant-swarm, while Scott Bessent and Todd Blanche work to disassemble the giant, hive-like matrix of NGOs that, for years, laundered US taxpayer dollars through the Democratic Party’s patronage system. In New York City, Philly, LA, Chicago, Seattle, Boston, Portland, the NGOs furnished comfortable salaries for young activists churned out remorselessly by Higher Ed, but all that’s starting to look like a bygone Shangri-la, a lost world.
“Many Democratic primary voters, however, are in no mood for defensiveness. As they see it, they’ve been failed by a cautious, compromising establishment, and they’re going to overthrow it.” —Michelle Goldberg, The New York Times
Of course, the loss of those cushy jobs and perqs has pitched that young demographic into a yet greater rage, prompting them to wreak vengeance and havoc on the system that took their “entitlements” away. Activists want to do activism, which is not necessarily the same as working for a living. It’s working for an ideal, a cause - to abolish the very society based on working for a living and replace it with a parent-like, hovering, all-powerful government that provides your every need by “seizing the means of production.”
The trouble is, this has been tried before, many times in the previous century, and the track-record is discouraging, exhibit-A being the old Soviet Union, the experiment that failed. Why? Because after seizing the means of production, the state bureaucracy lacks the skills, the spirit, and the creative juice to produce much of anything, and especially to do it well. All it can actually contribute to the process is its intrinsic bureaucratic entropy and, to put it ultra-simply, entropy is just not a force for good in this world.
The Republican Party is laboring through its own parallel, but rather different sort of crack-up, a breach based more on pure enmity to President Trump’s personality than necessarily to ideas or policy. The Right still uniformly subscribes to personal liberty and economic enterprise, but factions on the right have a long-running investment in the Deep State apparatus and its protection against Mr. Trump’s impending prosecution of the so-called “grand conspiracy” (the ongoing seditious coup), as well as his dismantling of the money-flow architecture that keeps Beltway types rolling in dough. Former AG Bill Barr is exhibit-A for that faction, as when he concealed the FBI’s possession of Hunter Biden’s laptop through Trump Impeachment No. 1, when he refused to investigate ballot fraud after the 2020 election, and when he managed to let Jeffrey Epstein off himself in the Manhattan federal lockup.
Then there is Senate Majority Leader John Thune, the emptiest suit to ever occupy that job, who refuses to explain his aversion to common-sense election reform or his failure to allow confirmation of the president’s nominees to important federal posts. He is so committed to doing nothing that he makes “Joe Biden” look like a prodigy of action. They say Sen. Thune represents the old-school “country club” Republicans, but he looks too dim to even tote up an 18-hole golf card.
There are also Tucker, and Candace, and Nick Fuentes, and MTG, and other pouting and shouting former MAGA superstars throwing down against the president and his program. Tucker has exposed facets of his personality that seem every bit as cuckoo as the beliefs of the Democratic Party - his Bible literalism, his romance with space aliens, and especially his vehement antipathy for the Jews. It has all become rather unappetizing, though rumors swirl of Tucker seeking to build a whole new party to replace the GOP and MAGA. As Homey de Clown might put it: I don’t think so. . . .
Candace Owens, of course, seems clinically insane, with her year-long program of intense defamation and vilification of Charlie Kirk’s widow, as well as heer fleering Jew hatred. MTG just looks like a sore loser, and Nick Fuentes...? He’s like something that crawled out of the kitchen baseboards after the lights went out. I doubt that any of them will succeed in destroying MAGA, but they’re making the movement uncomfortable. Let’s face it: they’re embarrassing.
On the other hand, the Party of Algae and “Our Democracy” is incapable of being embarrassed, and that has been obvious for a long time based on the absurdities they attempt to foist upon our country. The Iran War seems to be fading in the rear-view mirror now, despite all their yelling about how we lost it. Oil is hovering just below $70-a-barrel as I write. Hakeem Jeffries and Chuck Schumer are reduced to a pitiful vaudeville act in the face of Mamdani-ism. Bernie Sanders is lost in a rain-dance for Utopia. And James Carville is on-track for a three-week vacation in the Rubber Room. Don’t bother praying for them. Just wait for gurgle."
Joel Bowman, "A Sum Without Limit"
"A Sum Without Limit"
by Joel Bowman
“The sum of things is bounded by no limit.”
~ Lucretius, "De Rerum Natura," Book I (c. 60–55 BCE)
Buenos Aires, Argentina - "Once upon a time, in another world, a magical world, the future still felt like it was a long way away. Now, it seems like it can’t come quickly enough! One has only to pick up the paper to read stories of breathtaking ambition and profound stupidity.
Why, just in today’s New York Times...One headline asks whether “Canada is about to enter the Eurovision song contest?” Another wonders if it’s “time for a new sexual revolution?” One inquires “what’s behind those tarps at the Kennedy Center?” Another fearless mind probes “where has all the cottage cheese gone?” Behold, dear reader, the pressing concerns of our day! And lo! What’s this?
Rockets and Riches: No sooner had the world minted its very first trillionaire, in Mr. Elon Musk, when his “13-figure club card” was unceremoniously revoked. Naturally, the green-eyed papers are delighted by the demotion: "Elon Musk’s Net Worth Drops $350 Billion In Massive SpaceX Selloff" ~ gloats Forbes. "Elon Musk loses trillionaire status as global tech rout hits SpaceX" ~ crows the BBC. "Musk loses trillionaire status as SpaceX shares ‘come down to earth with a bump’" ~ gushes The Guardian.
And just for good measure, via a report from the kind of people who study such things, we learn that xAI is “leaning into explicit content.” Here’s Forbes, “psst, passing is on”:
Grok’s Traffic Is Mostly Driven By Adult Content, Report Says: The report claims xAI is actively doubling down on its explicit video and image-generation tools and that adult-content dominance extends into Grok’s coding model, which The Information reports frequently receives requests for pornographic material. So the man is into big rockets, cyber trucks and nudie pics? A man’s gotta have a hobby, doesn’t he? (Your editor enjoys slow train rides, comfy old sweaters and dusty books. Ahem...)
Leaving the Freudian psychoanalysts to their own diagnoses, we pause only to marvel at the kind of civilization that would make such a fellow the richest person – by a wide margin – in its long and sordid history? Oh, the times we live in! Speaking of...
Political Animals: In Wednesday’s Note, we left you with a humble suggestion for a new measurement of time: Human Years. Instead of measuring time by days, months, years and so forth, we mused, perhaps we might think of it in terms of “aggregate human experience.” Or calendar time multiplied by the number of human beings living it. And why not? Geologists have deep time. Astronomers have cosmic time. Physicists have space time.
What about us? We wide-eyed observers of the passing parade? A 12-hour clock is useful for making sure you arrive at the train station on time. A monthly planner is helpful when booking a vacation. A calendar year is practical for organizing your Christmas cards and counting the candles on your daughter’s birthday cake. But what about the collective, human experience? What about considering the broad sweep of civilization itself?
How does a day planner... or a news cycle... or a sun dial... help us understand the rise and fall of empires, the decay of their currencies, the great cycles of history itself? They can help us pinpoint a moment in relative time... but what if, as the population grows, history literally speeds up?
When Caesar crossed the Rubicon, back in 49 BC, the world population stood at about 170 million, hardly more people than voted in the last US presidential election. That we have 8.2 billion men, women and children roaming the planet today... about 48x the population alive during Caesar’s day... is only part of the story.
Human beings, as Aristotle so keenly observed, are by nature “political animals.” By that he did not mean that we are all Republicans or Democrats, Tories or Whigs, RINOs or libtards, but rather that we are essentially creatures of the polis... the broader civic community that helps shape our lives. That includes our institutions, our laws and customs, our liberties and obligations, our cultures and habits, as well as our public deliberations, general elections and other such popular, mass delusions.
In this way, civilization is less like a stack of building blocks and more like a vast network of interconnected individuals, exchanging information across time and space, through billions of interactions, from one End of the World to another.
Laws and Large Numbers: Which brings us to another piece of the puzzle: Metcalf’s Law, or what armchair economists sometimes refer to as the “network effect.” Robert Metcalfe, inventor of Ethernet, distilled his proposition as following:
The value of a network is proportional to the square of the number of its users. The basic idea here rests on the concept of non-linearity. You throw a Fourth of July cocktail party. One sympathetic friend arrives. Early. They’ve created one possible two-way line of conversation. Then the second guest arrives. Now you have three possible pairings. After the fourth, you have six. The fifth, ten. And so on... By the time fifty of your closest mates are gathered on your back lawn, you’ve got over a thousand (1,225) possible duos.
Thus, under Metcalf’s Law, value is said to grow quadratically, so that:
Guest #10 adds 9 new potential connections.
Guest #100 adds 99 new potential connections.
Guest #1,000 adds 999 new possible connections>
And if we keep counting to include all possible connections – pairs, trios, small groups, large groups, whole teams, etcetera... right up to all 50 guests shouting at one another simultaneously – the possible combinations increase to...
several trillion (1.126 quadrillion, or 1,125,899,906,842,572).
The same mind-boggling math is true across various other kinds of networks, too... whether it be communications, operating systems, social media, dynamic marketplaces, payment systems and even the vast network called civilization itself. Not only does each additional participant bring their own individual value, but they increase the potential value of every preceding person in the entire community.
Across the Rubicon: In Caesar’s day, that community fanned across the “known world.” Today, with nearly fifty times as many people and a density of connections unimaginable to the ancients, civilization has grown into the largest and most intricate information network ever assembled.
During the five minutes it takes you to scan today’s pithy Note, for example, the world’s population will grow by approximately 650 people. Using Metcalf’s Law, and factoring in our existing population, that’s 5.33 trillion new potential human pairs created just while you finish your cup of coffee/glass of wine.
Every minute... of every hour... of every day... unfathomable waves of budding partnerships, lurking rivalries, nascent collaborations, and looming conflicts are building on humanity’s horizon. And if we expand our counting as we did for your hypothetical garden party, to include every new possible grouping of three, four, five, etc. ... all the way up to an 8.2 billion person (plus 650 newbies) collaboration? The number of new possible human connections created by these new earthly arrivals grows to hundreds of orders of magnitude greater than the estimated number of atoms in the observable universe. No kidding. Surely one of ‘em can figure out where all the cottage cheese went, no?"
"Stay tuned for more Notes From the End of the World..."
Thursday, June 25, 2026
"3-18 Days: The Practical Diesel Buffer… Does It Preclude Bombing Iran?"
Click image for larger size.
"3-18 Days: The Practical Diesel Buffer…
Does It Preclude Bombing Iran?"
by Larry C. Johnson
"I am indebted to my new friend who is an energy expert ,and currently working in the Persian Gulf, for explaining why the US is facing a very serious risk of a domestic energy crisis. If ignorance is bliss then I’ve spent my last 71 years happily believing that the conversion of oil to fuel for cars, trucks and planes was a simple process. Boy, was I wrong. The United States is facing a potential crisis surrounding the production of diesel and aviation fuel. According to this person, who has 35 years experience in the oil industry:
The U.S. does not have a month of freely deliverable diesel in a stress event. The headline EIA number shows 106.1 million barrels of total distillate fuel oil stocks and 3.631 million b/d of four-week average distillate product supplied, implying 29.2 days on paper. But that national inventory includes barrels in pipelines, refineries, terminals, regional storage, and operational positions that cannot all be allocated immediately to critical distribution hubs.
Operational estimate: applying a 45%-60% practical deliverability factor to total distillate stocks leaves roughly 48-64 million barrels of usable, allocable diesel-equivalent supply. At 3.631 million b/d, that is approximately 13.1-17.5 days, rounded to 13-18 days.
So let me explain how he reached this conclusion. Think of the diesel buffer as the gap between when supply stops flowing and when the economy starts breaking. Thirteen days is not a comfortable cushion - it’s essentially no cushion at all, because the economy runs on diesel in ways that cannot be deferred.
Diesel is not a lifestyle fuel. It moves every truck on every highway, powers every locomotive, runs every tractor during planting and harvest, and drives every piece of heavy construction equipment. When a family decides gas prices are too high, they drive less. When a freight company decides diesel is too expensive or too scarce, it cannot defer the shipment - the grocery store shelves just go empty. Diesel demand is largely inelastic. The economy cannot negotiate with it the way it can with gasoline.
Let’s use the worst case: 13 days. Thirteen days means that if anything disrupts the supply chain - a refinery outage, a pipeline failure, a crude supply disruption - the effects reach the real economy within two weeks. There is no meaningful time to arrange alternatives. A tanker from a replacement crude source takes longer than 13 days to arrive. A refinery turnaround takes longer than 13 days to complete. The buffer is shorter than the lead time for almost every possible remedy.
The geography makes it worse. The 13-day figure is a national average, which means some regions have more and some have less. The Southeast is particularly exposed, being heavily dependent on the Colonial Pipeline, which is itself a single point of failure that demonstrated its criticality when it was shut down for six days in 2021. Six days is nearly half the total national buffer.
What about aviation fuel? Here is where the two problems collide mechanically, and why it creates a genuine bind rather than just a theoretical tradeoff. Diesel and jet fuel are not different products from different parts of the refinery. They are competing claims on the same physical fraction of crude oil - the middle distillate cut that comes off the atmospheric distillation column in the same boiling range. Every refinery scheduling decision is, at its core, a daily argument about how to divide that fraction between the two products.
With a 13-day diesel buffer, the refinery cannot let diesel output fall. The economic and political consequences of a diesel shortage materialize too quickly and too severely. Diesel production becomes, in practical terms, the floor that cannot be breached.
Now layer in a wartime demand for military jet fuel. JP-8 is pulled from the same middle distillate fraction. The military’s operational requirements are also non-negotiable - aircraft do not fly on goodwill. So you now have two inelastic demands competing for one fixed supply of middle distillate from each barrel of crude processed.
The refinery’s response to this bind is constrained in every direction: It cannot simply run more crude. Crude supply itself may be disrupted - this is precisely the scenario the Persian Gulf blockade creates. And even if crude is available, refinery throughput is limited by physical capacity. You cannot run 110% of nameplate capacity.
It cannot shift to lighter crude to get more barrels. Light crude produces proportionally more gasoline and less middle distillate. Running lighter crude when you need diesel and jet fuel makes the allocation problem worse, not better, because you are shrinking the pool of middle distillate that both are fighting over.
It cannot get more middle distillate out of sour crude than the chemistry allows. A barrel of sour crude from the Persian Gulf typically yields around 20–25% middle distillates by volume. That fraction is fixed by the molecular composition of the oil. You can optimize within a range, but you cannot double the yield through operational choices.
Hydrogen becomes a choke point. Making JP-8 from sour crude to military specification requires substantial hydrogen - for sulfur removal, for aromatic ring saturation to meet smoke point requirements, and for freeze point management. Making ULSD from the same sour crude also requires substantial hydrogen - even more, to reach the ≤15 ppm sulfur specification. A refinery’s hydrogen generation capacity is finite. Every cubic foot of hydrogen diverted to jet fuel processing is a cubic foot unavailable for diesel desulfurization. At the margin, maximizing JP-8 production makes the diesel quality problem worse, not just the diesel volume problem.
The certification delay adds time pressure. Switching refinery configuration between maximizing diesel and maximizing jet fuel is not instant. It takes days to a week to restabilize the unit operations and certify the product meets specification. In a 13-day buffer environment, a week of transition time is not a casual cost - it represents a material fraction of the entire safety margin consumed by the act of reconfiguring production.
Under normal peacetime conditions, refineries optimize their middle distillate split based on market prices - jet fuel commands a premium, so they lean toward jet. The diesel buffer stays comfortable and the system works.
The Iran war changes all of that simultaneously in three directions at once: First, the diesel buffer starts shrinking. Persian Gulf sour crude - even though only 8% of US imports - supplied roughly 17% of the medium-sour grades that US complex refiners prefer for middle distillate production. That quality gap is not easily filled by Canadian heavy or domestic light sweet crude without refinery adjustment. Diesel output drops or becomes more expensive per barrel just as the buffer needs defending.
Second, military JP-8 demand spikes. A naval campaign in the Persian Gulf, sustained air operations, and a mobilized logistics tail consume enormous quantities of aviation fuel. The military doesn’t queue behind civilian demand - it has priority. So the refinery is simultaneously being squeezed from both ends of the middle distillate barrel: the military is claiming more jet fuel from the top, and the diesel buffer is bleeding out from the bottom.
Third, the refinery cannot easily solve this by running harder. As explained earlier, maximising JP-8 from sour crude requires pulling a lighter, narrower distillate cut. This is precisely the action that reduces diesel yield - the heavier tail of the middle distillate that would have become diesel is either lost to the vacuum unit or downcycled to fuel oil. The more aggressively refineries respond to military jet fuel demand, the faster the diesel buffer erodes.
This creates a three-way constraint with no clean solution:
1. Protect the diesel buffer → limit JP-8 output → constrain military operations.
2. Maximize JP-8 for military → draw down diesel buffer → trigger civilian supply cascade before the war ends.
3. Try to do both → run refineries at maximum utilization → lose the ability to flex for any further shock, with no margin for equipment failures, maintenance, or a second disruption
The 13-day buffer is what makes this bind acute rather than manageable. With sixty days of diesel inventory, a refinery operator can tolerate shifting the middle distillate split toward jet fuel for several weeks without civilian consequences. With thirteen days, the same shift starts a visible countdown almost immediately. Now do you understand why Donald Trump signed the MoU with Iran?
If the United States decides to renew its bombing campaign of Iran, that would likely trigger the stress event outlined above. Based on that fact I believe that Donald Trump, notwithstanding his threats, will not run the risk of crashing the US economy by bombing Iran again."
As the great Mogambo Guru said, "We're so freakin' doomed!"
And we are...
Gerald Celente, "Nasdaq Down, Inflation Up, Main Street Suffers"
Strong language alert!
Gerald Celente, 6/25/26
"Nasdaq Down, Inflation Up, Main Street Suffers"
"In this episode of Trends in the News, Gerald Celente breaks down the economic warning signals the mainstream won’t tell you. As the Nasdaq slides and inflation continues to climb, the real story isn’t on Wall Street - it’s unfolding on Main Street, where businesses and consumers are feeling the squeeze. From rising costs and shrinking purchasing power to market volatility and deepening economic uncertainty, Celente connects the dots between financial market turbulence and the everyday struggles facing working Americans. Who’s really winning in this economy - and who’s paying the price? Tune in as Celente exposes the forces driving today’s economic chaos and what it means for your future."
Comments here:
"You'll Never Own a Home in America, Here’s Why"
Full screen recommended.
Epic Economist, 6/25/26
"You'll Never Own a Home in America, Here’s Why"
"The math stopped adding up sometime around 2021. A house that cost four years of income now costs eight and the gap is the whole story. I went looking for the moment American homeownership broke, and I kept hitting the same wall: the inventory. There are roughly 700,000 homes for sale in a country that needs millions more. Builders never recovered from 2008, and the ones they do put up are bigger, pricier, aimed at the buyer who already owns. So the shortage isn't an accident of the market. It's the foundation everything else is built on. Then I traced where your money actually goes.
On a 30-year loan at today's rates, you don't pay for the house first, you pay the bank first. For the opening decade, the overwhelming share of every check is interest, not equity. I ran the numbers on a median home and watched the borrower hand a lender more in interest than the original price of the house. You're not buying a home. You're renting money, and the rent is brutal. Now layer in wages. Adjusted for what things actually cost, the typical paycheck has barely moved in 40 years while home prices ran off the chart. I overlaid the two lines and the divergence is almost violent , productivity climbing, pay flat, prices vertical. When I stacked rent against a mortgage payment in most major metros, renting came out cheaper month-to-month. Which means the people calling renters irresponsible have the math exactly backwards. That's the part that reframes everything: the system isn't failing to put young people into homes, it's working precisely as designed to keep them out.
The median first-time buyer is now pushing 40. A generation that did everything right is being filtered out one credit decision at a time, and the lever that decides it is a three-digit number most people never learn to control. So I dug into that number, the credit score, because it's the one variable in this whole machine you can still move. And below that score sits a bigger question I'm still chasing: who decided a country could price its own children out of the ground they were born on?"
Comments here:
"A Look to the Heavens"
"As far as ghosts go, Mirach's Ghost isn't really that scary. Mirach's Ghost is just a faint, fuzzy galaxy, well known to astronomers, that happens to be seen nearly along the line-of-sight to Mirach, a bright star. Centered in this star field, Mirach is also called Beta Andromedae.
About 200 light-years distant, Mirach is a red giant star, cooler than the Sun but much larger and so intrinsically much brighter than our parent star. In most telescopic views, glare and diffraction spikes tend to hide things that lie near Mirach and make the faint, fuzzy galaxy look like a ghostly internal reflection of the almost overwhelming starlight. Still, appearing in this sharp image just above and to the right of Mirach, Mirach's Ghost is cataloged as galaxy NGC 404 and is estimated to be some 10 million light-years away."
"What the Rain Found Them Doing"
Full screen recommended.
Three-Quarter Town,
"What the Rain Found Them Doing"
"In Three-Quarter Town, rain never arrives in a hurry. It finds an old woman by the window, a black cat curled on a blanket, sheep waiting patiently beneath the eaves, and quiet hands still busy with tea, music, letters, and small familiar work. Some stay inside by the fire. Some step out to check the barn. Some simply watch the rain move across the rooftops until evening comes. A gentle rainy-day story about solitude, companionship, and the little things people keep doing when the world turns soft and gray."
Native Elder, "Why Real Freedom Disappeared and Nobody Noticed"
Full screen recommended.
Native Elder,
"Why Real Freedom Disappeared and Nobody Noticed"
Delta King's Blues, "Too Old for This Nonsense"
Full screen recommended.
Delta King's Blues,
"Too Old for This Nonsense"
"I’ve seen enough, heard enough, and lived long enough to know what ain’t worth my time. “Too Old for This Nonsense” is a witty, straight-shootin’ Delta King’s Blues tune about patience running thin, wisdom kicking in, and finally learning when to walk away from foolishness. A laid-back, no-nonsense acoustic guitar sets the groove like a man shaking his head and moving on. The harmonica answers with sly, knowing bends, full of hard-earned perspective and just a touch of attitude. The rhythm rolls slow and confident, built for folks who stopped arguing with nonsense years ago. This is blues with wisdom and a backbone. For people who learned that peace is worth more than being right. The older I get, the less room I got for drama."
The Poet: William Stafford, ”Today”
”Today”
“The ordinary miracles begin. Somewhere
a signal arrives: “Now,” and the rays
come down. A tomorrow has come. Open
your hands, lift them: morning rings
all the doorbells; porches are cells for prayer.
Religion has touched your throat. Not the same now,
you could close your eyes and go on full of light.
And it is already begun, the chord
that will shiver glass, the song full of time
bending above us. Outside, a sign:
a bird intervenes; the wings tell the air,
“Be warm.” No one is out there, but a giant
has passed through town, widening streets, touching
the ground, shouldering away the stars.”
- William Stafford
Bill Bonner, "The Great Beyond"
by Bill Bonner
"The heart has its stories… often best left untold. Jealousy. Hate. Betrayal. Desperation. Our beat is money. But on its own, money is worthless. It is the heart, with its wants and needs, it's vanities and mysteries, that gives money meaning. So, today, we will dig a bit further into the mush and muscle, in the hopes that we might learn something.
State-Sanctioned Suicide: An old friend, in Switzerland, committed suicide. This was a death of an entirely different sort. Premeditated. Assisted. Sanctioned by the government. Here’s the report (from a family member): “Marie got in touch with an organization called ‘Exit.’ Normally, they help terminally ill people kill themselves. But they will also do it for people who are severely depressed. Marie had cut herself off from her two children. I think it was over money. She had become a recluse. And she was very unhappy.
She called me about a month ago to say that she had contacted the Exit people and was planning to commit suicide. I didn’t know what to do. Or how to take it. She could be melodramatic. And very emotional. I figured she was just telling me how depressed she was. I knew she was taking antidepressants. I thought she had it under control. Then, she called to say she had a date – about a week ahead. She seemed very determined. Calm. Her mind was made up."
Apparently, the Exit group did interviews with family and friends to make sure that she was in her right mind and was unlikely to ever recover from her depression. Then, they came to her apartment, along with a policeman as a witness; they gave her a pill. I heard from her friend, who must have been with her, that she was smoking a cigarette, calmly and even making jokes. Then, she took the pill, fell asleep and died. Rest in peace. Another family member reported that the end was “serene”… and that “it was what she wanted.”
Total Control: But the news left others deeply disturbed. One offered a comment: “Rest in peace? What kind of peace is that? She was obviously at war with her own children… and it tormented her… drove her crazy… so crazy that either she wanted to escape by killing herself… or wanted to torment them by removing all possibility of a reconciliation. Either way, it was the wrong thing to do. Not just ‘wrong’ like a mistake… but wrong – sinful… selfish and mean."
That’s what is wrong with our whole modern world,” she continued. “It has lost its soul. Imagine, people who come to your house… give you a pill… and watch you die. What’s wrong with these people? Didn’t anyone try to stop her? Didn’t anyone try to save her? Suppose you saw someone getting ready to jump off a bridge? Would you just say ‘oh well, that’s their business’? And didn’t it occur to anyone that killing people – even people who say they want to be killed – is wrong?
Look… I have no idea whether Marie should live or die. But neither do they. It’s one thing when people suddenly shoot themselves and there’s nothing you can do about it. But coming to her apartment with a pill?
This is so disappointing… and so sad. These people think they can make life or death decisions based on interviews and psychological profiles. How did they know what was really in her heart… or what Marie’s suicide would do to her children… or her friends? Why did they think she had any choice in the matter? She didn’t choose to be born; who gave her the right to choose to die? Those are things we shouldn’t decide for ourselves. How did they know whether she was meant to live or die… or whether she might some day see a burning bush… and get down on her knees to beg forgiveness… beg her children and her god… to take that iron corset off her heart and let her live?
I find it just overwhelmingly sad… crushingly sad… as if there really were no God at all… no real grace or beauty… no hope of redemption… as if we were now all at the mercy of soulless technicians with their crackpot theories on their power trips… with their charts and graphs… telling us the planet can only be 1.5 degrees warmer… or that we should have 2% inflation, not more, not less… and telling us when we can go a restaurant… and giving children vaccines that they don’t need… and censoring what we say…and insisting that we put their medicines into our bodies… you’re always going on about the Fed monkeying with interest rates and printing fake money… and I guess that’s part of it too… they think they can control everything and everybody…and now, they think they have the right to tell us who can die… and when."
“Very sad.”
"From Stars to Souls: The Science of What Made You You"
Pillars of Creation, Eagle Nebula, Messier 16.
Infrared photograph. NASA /Hubble Space Telescope.
"From Stars to Souls: The Science of What Made You You,
with a Dazzling Poem Read by David Byrne"
by Maria Popova
"We are each a chance constellation of elements forged in long-dead stars assembled by gravity, which may be the other word for God - the weakest of the four fundamental forces, yet the great cosmic compactor that made the first atoms cohere into a common center to form the first star: an immense ball of gas, at the core of which was a hydrogen sphere that eventually reached pressures of millions of atmospheres and heated up to millions of degrees. These extreme conditions triggered a new phenomenon in the cosmos - the first nuclear fusion reactions: When two hydrogen atoms collide with immense force, neutrons are transferred from one nucleus to the other, making some atoms larger. After a series of such collisions, a nucleus with two protons forms and the second element - helium - is born. As the star ignites, illuminating the austere darkness of pure spacetime surrounding it, it keeps burning its hydrogen to make more helium. The fusion accelerates, forging carbon, then neon, then oxygen, and so forth across the periodic table, turning the star into a kind of onion with layers of fusion reactions.
Most of the first twenty-six elements in the periodic table - the elements composing almost everything we can touch and see - were created by nuclear fusion in individual stars. If you could tag any individual atom in your body and follow it backward in time, across all the other matter it composed before it became yours - your mother’s body, the food your mother ate, the soil in which that food grew, the geologic strata ground down by the oceans to make that soil - you could trace it all the way back to the core of a particular star that lived and died billions of years ago: an actual atom that is now in you, having prevailed over the infinite probabilities by which it could have ended up in someone else.
To this Rube Goldberg machine of chance you owe all of your particularity - alter any part of that cosmic genealogy, and you would have ended up as someone else.
The victory march of our particularity against probability comes alive in a short, dazzling poem by Ruth Stone (June 8, 1915–November 19, 2011). Stone was six and enchanted by her grandmother’s dictionary when she began writing poetry. She was eight-four and the grandmother of seven when she received major recognition as a poet. By the time she died, having lived nearly a century and survived her husband’s suicide, she had been nominated for the Pulitzer Prize and won the National Book Award with her singular poems bridging the domestic and the cosmic, lensing the world of love and loss, of rapture and regret, through the world of galaxies and particles - poems shimmering with the spirit of The Universe in Verse (which is now a book).
This poem, found in "What Love Comes To" (public library) - Stone’s final poetry collection, published just before her death at age 96 - was read at the seventh annual Universe in Verse by David Byrne:
"Strings"
by Ruth Stone
"We pop into life the way
particles pop in and out
of the continuum.
We are a seething mass
of probability.
And probably I love you.
The evil of larvae
and the evil of stars
are a formula for the future.
Some bodies can
thrust their arms into
a flame and be instantly
cured of this world,
while others sicken.
Why think, little brother
like the moon, spit out like
a broken tooth.
“Oh,” groans the world.
The outer planets,
the fizzing sun, here we come
with our luggage.
Look at the clever things
we have made out of
a few building blocks -
O fabulous continuum."
Follow the continuum forward into the science of what happens when we die, then revisit David Byrne’s animated reading of Pattiann Rogers’s magnificent poem “Achieving Perspective,” with art by Maira Kalman, and Nick Cave’s animated reading of “But We Had Music.”
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