"Joe Kent is an American former Green Beret, CIA paramilitary officer, Republican political figure and former director of the United States National Counterterrorism Center. Kent served approximately 20 years in the US Army, including with the 75th Ranger Regiment and Army Special Forces. He completed 11 combat deployments, principally in Iraq but also in Yemen and North Africa, eventually retiring as a chief warrant officer. He subsequently worked in the CIA’s paramilitary branch. Kent resigned from the counterterrorism position on 17 March 2026 over the US war against Iran. He said the available intelligence did not demonstrate that Iran presented an imminent threat to the United States and argued that entering another major Middle Eastern war contradicted the non-interventionist foreign policy Trump had previously promised."
"Mike Adams Explains Why Trump's Iran War Is Going To
Cause Famine And Mass Migration Into The U.S., Canada and Europe"
by Leo Hohmann
“This war is a war against humanity.”
"Mike Adams has put together one of the better explanations I’ve seen for why Trump’s war against Iran is going to cause a global economic meltdown the likes of which we have never seen in our lifetimes. Adams, who owns the Brighteon.com news site and is a published food scientist, says 2027 and 2028 will be marked by widespread famine and starvation, especially in the Global South. He says at least 400 million people are at risk of starvation, about 5 percent of the total human population of 8 billion people.
In the U.S., food prices will skyrocket and more people will go hungry but we won’t see widespread famine. The bad news is, we will have tens of millions of starving migrants trying to get into the U.S. and other countries such as Canada and Europe that are seen as wealthy and more likely to have food.
He said the only reason the world can sustain its current population of 8 billion is the advent of synthetic fertilizers, which were developed by German scientists in the first half of the 20th century. Without those fertilizers, a global population of only about 2 to 4 billion people could be sustained longterm.
“All of humanity is at some level of risk. Trump and Hegseth need to leave the region (of the Middle East) now, before we lose tens of millions of people,” Adams said in a July 25 interview with Lt. Col. Daniel Davis of the Daniel Davis Deep Dive podcast.
I have reported similar concerns about how the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, the Bab El Mandeb Strait and other vital trade choke points are going to cause major famine starting in 2027. Those choke points were all open before Trump started the war with Iran on Feb. 28. The longer they stay closed, the worse the situation gets.
Last night the Houthis bombed the Saudi Aramco oil facilities in Saudi Arabia. That’s not a good sign of where things are heading.
And while Trump may want to find a way out of the war he started, that’s going to be easier said than done. Thanks to Trump, Iran has been made stronger now, having discovered that it’s not that difficult to close down the Strait of Hormuz and keep it closed, disrupting the flow of 20 percent of the world’s oil and around 30 percent of the world’s fertilizers. As long as Trump is punishing them with bombs, they will punish the world by choking off the major trade route.
This economic catastrophe and food insecurity, as I reported in my July 23 article, is going to blamed on America and its ally Israel. These two countries will be hated even more than they already are once people can’t get food for their children. There is no stronger motivating force than human hunger and we are going to start seeing the global blowback against Trump and America by spring of 2027, so prepare accordingly. World War III is only going to intensify."
Adams breaks it all down and what it means for Americans and the world going forward in an interview with Lt. Col. Daniel Davis (retired):
"A reputation is what people think about you. Character is what follows you home. "Your Shadow Knows the Truth" is an original Delta blues song about integrity, quiet character, and the simple truth that no amount of praise can silence your own conscience. Led by warm resonator guitar, soulful harmonica, and the seasoned voice of Delta Blues Brother, this song reminds us that the hardest person to deceive is ourselves. This is the blues of character. "You can fool the whole wide world... not the person you meet each day."
“Here is one of the largest objects that anyone will ever see on the sky. Each of these fuzzy blobs is a galaxy, together making up the Perseus Cluster, one of the closest clusters of galaxies. The cluster is seen through a foreground of faint stars in our own Milky Way Galaxy.
Near the cluster center, roughly 250 million light-years away, is the cluster's dominant galaxy NGC 1275, seen above as a large galaxy on the image left. A prodigious source of x-rays and radio emission, NGC 1275 accretes matter as gas and galaxies fall into it. The Perseus Cluster of Galaxies, also cataloged as Abell 426, is part of the Pisces-Perseus supercluster spanning over 15 degrees and containing over 1,000 galaxies. At the distance of NGC 1275, this view covers about 15 million light-years.”
“They are questions that bedeviled thinkers for thousands of years: Is the universe infinite or finite, eternal or of a finite age? It is certainly hard to imagine a universe that extends without limit in every direction, or a universe without a beginning or end. It is equally difficult to imagine a finite universe; what is beyond the edge? Or a beginning or end in time; how can something come from nothing? How can what is cease to be?
The problems are so intractable philosophically that their resolution has generally been left to the theologians, which from a philosophical (or scientific) perspective offers no solution at all. Giordano Bruno was burned at the stake for proposing a philosophical resolution (an infinite universe) that offended theology.
An escape from befuddlement is provided by Einstein's theory of general relativity, which- for example- can describe a finite universe without a boundary, as the "two-dimensional" surface of a sphere is finite and without an edge. Unfortunately, multi-dimensional curved space-time is so counterintuitive that it is difficult to get one's head around it without mastery of the mathematics. Given a choice between the ancient myths of your local preacher and the obtuse mathematics of the physics professor, it's not hard to guess what most folks will opt for.
Meanwhile, I'm reading a meditation on infinity by physics professor Anthony Aguirre, in a collection of essays called "Future Science." He discusses contemporary cosmological theories based on general relativity, and in particular the rehabilitation of the idea of an infinite and eternal universe, or, more precisely, that our universe might be just one of an infinity of infinite universes. He writes in conclusion: “What seems clear, however, is that infinity can no longer be safely ignored; beautifully constructed, empirically supported, self-consistent theories have brought infinity from idle curiosity to central player in contemporary cosmology. And if correct, the worldview these theories represent constitutes a perspective shift unlike any other: in comparison to the universe, we would be not just small but strictly zero. Well, I can't imagine many folks racing to embrace that conclusion.
Oh, but wait. Aguirre adds one final sentence: "Yet here we are, contemplating - if not quite understanding - it all.”
“Everybody knows Wells’s Time Machine, which enabled its possessor to travel backwards or forwards in time, and see for himself what the past was like and what the future will be. But people do not always realize that a great deal of the advantages of Wells’s device can be secured by traveling about the world at the present day.”
~ From "Skeptical Essays", by Bertrand Russell (1928)
Buenos Aires, Argentina - "On a clear, afternoon, much like today’s, a voluntary exile opened a relic of the past (known to old timers as a “physical book”) at a quaint café in Buenos Aires and began to read. The well-thumbed collection, from which the above quote is borrowed, brims with a lifetime of zany insights from the eccentric British philosopher and polymath, Bertrand Russell. Meditating on Wells’s fictional machine and the words at hand, the reader began to wonder whether he was, relative to his fellow café-goers around the world and throughout history, occupying a seat in the past or a place in the future, and whether the present really existed at all. “Otro cortado, por favor,” he called for another coffee “cut” with milk and began scribbling the following notes...
Time and Space: What is this space in time (Buenos Aires, July 2026) to a Japanese geisha, pouring tea and dispensing wisdom in coquettish flourishes to Tokugawa shoguns, gathered around the hearth tatami? Or to the Golden Age of the grand Viennese cafés, Schwarzenberg, Parsifal, Rebhuhn and Central, in whose abiding embrace huddled rabbis and intellectuals, librettists and rakish raconteurs, conscientious objectors and those who conscripted Horace’s hoary ode, “dulce et decorum est pro patria mori”?
What say those who filled their cups from Nicolas’s copper samovar, poured China’s best from Queen Charlotte’s earthen Wedgwood, or sought longevity (āyus,) and knowledge (veda) from the clove-spiced chai, flowing in Indian abodes for five-thousand years and more?
Gazing around Café Tabac, a point in space at the intersection of Avenidas Libertador y Coronel Diaz, the reader absorbs the liminal afternoon light as it is refracted through floor to ceiling windows. An amorphous liquid, he knows the glass itself is moving through space and over time. And yet, even the sun’s incomparable heat energy, so diffused during the 8 and 1/3 minutes (approx.) it takes to reach earth through the cold indifference of space, is insufficient to excite the structure’s atoms such that their movement is visible to the human eye. Indeed, mathematical models, standing themselves outside the constraints of the physical world, have shown it would take longer than the universe (and by extension, time itself) has existed for medieval cathedral glass to melt at today’s tepid temperature.
Bound by reality (temporal, spatial) and his merely mammalian brain (biological), and having duly lost count of his cortados, the reader cannot comprehend what this means. Instead, he contemplates the receding afternoon, the daily bombardment of heat and light fading from the Coronel’s corner, his thoughts pouring back over the event horizon of consciousness itself.
The present is a moment that reaches back into the past, set in motion long before Nicolas thwarted Konstantin’s Decembrist Revolt... before General José de San Martín liberated the peoples of Argentina, Chile and Perú... before Britain’s longest serving queen consort bore King George his fifteen children... before even Horace mobilized the latin for Wilfred Owen’s epic poem, two millennia prior...
“Time and space are modes by which we think,” observed Albert Einstein, “and not conditions in which we live.” This from a man who knew a thing or two about time and space, relatively speaking of course. Light pouring through the slow melting glass, the reader’s trembling thumb turns another page in Russell’s century-old meditation...
“A European who goes to New York or Chicago sees the future, the future to which Europe is likely to come if it escapes economic disaster. On the other hand, when he goes to Asia he sees the past. In India, I am told, he can see the Middle Ages; in China he can see the eighteenth century.”
~ Bertrand Russell, "Skeptical Essays"
And if he ventured to South America, considered the world from upside down, what past, what present, what future would the man behold? Were the British philosopher seated here, in Café Tabac, one-hundred years ago, smoking his pipe under the gilt mirror over by the door, he might have encountered Herr Einstein, who was then touring the Paris of the South (and staying at the Australian Embassy, a short carriage ride up Avenida Libertador). The reader pictured the scene…
“What then of Wells’s device?” said the philosopher to the physicist, a plume of purple smoke infusing the atmosphere with an hazy glow. “A human being is a part of the whole called by us ‘universe,’” replied the latter behind a wry and knowing smile, “a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts, and his feelings as something separate from the rest – a kind of optical delusion of consciousness.” Placing Russell’s essays on the table, the reader considers the two men as they pass him by, backlit against the fading afternoon light, time and space forgotten..."
"I’ll save you the suspense: You’re trying too hard. Many self-help books and productivity gurus argue a good life is a math problem: input effort, output glory. But that equation doesn’t work for everyone. The blasphemy no one tells you is that the grind is not noble. It drains your soul. The more you hustle your way through existence, the less you live.
17th-century philosopher Baruch Spinoza notes, “The more you struggle to live, the less you live. Give up the notion that you must be sure of what you are doing. Instead, surrender to what is real within you, for that alone is sure….you are above everything distressing.” People have been gaslit into believing they need a 5-year plan. They don’t.
Spinoza could not be more right: “Give up the notion that you must be sure of what you are doing.” Want to pivot careers at 45? Do it. Want to start something new without a one-year plan? Go ahead. Use what goes wrong as wisdom for your next action. Certainty is where dreams go to die. Even if you get it, it’s temporary. A job you thought was “it” suddenly isn’t. A relationship changes over. You evolve. People change. You’ll never be sure of anything.
When you’re always pursuing certainty, the perfect career plan, the 5-year roadmap, the “this-is-my-purpose” epiphany, you miss what’s right in front of you. You’re so busy building the life you think you’re supposed to have that you forget to actually live the one you’ve got. You don’t need to know how chapter ten ends before you write chapter one. Certainty is a comfort blanket for the scared parts of your brain. I’ve micromanaged plans until they died in my notebook. I won’t go to that life anymore. I stopped trying to prove I knew exactly what I was doing.
The uncertainty won’t kill you. But the endless need for certainty? That just might waste your life. Stumbling is the path. The only thing you must be sure of is that you’re listening to your soul. The one that says yes or no without a PowerPoint deck. Your need for control is the very thing stealing your joy. You keep waiting for a sign, a guarantee, a cosmic permission.
Clarity doesn’t precede action. Action precedes clarity. The most alive people you know are not the ones with the bulletproof plans. They’re the ones who said “screw it” and stepped into the fog. Hesitation is not wisdom. The artist who waits for inspiration dies with a blank canvas. The lover who needs proof they won’t get hurt ends up alone with a spreadsheet of pros and cons. “You are above everything distressing.”The moment you stop resisting the uncertainty of being human, you realise the weight was never yours to carry.
Surrender to your own self. Your chief task in life isn’t to wrestle life into submission. Your job is to stop arguing with what’s true for you. Hate your corporate job but terrified to freelance? That dread is real. Ignoring it is what’s fake. “Surrender to what is real within you, for that alone is sure,” notes Spinoza. Your gut isn’t just smarter than your brain. It’s faster. Stop asking for permission from the wrong people. And stop negotiating with yourself. When you stop holding onto outcomes, you’re no longer a hostage to hope. You’re free.
You are the antidote to your own misery. The minute you stop treating life like an opponent, it stops fighting back. Distress isn’t fate, it’s friction. You’ll be “above everything distressing” when you stop confusing pain with purpose. Remember the last time you felt truly alive. I bet it wasn’t when you were “hustling.” It was when you forgot to measure, judge, or optimize. When you were just in it. For the experience. That’s the secret. Stop trying to live “correctly.” Start letting life happen through you.
The minute you “arrive” is the minute you start dying inside. Remember that one vacation where you planned every minute? Color-coded itinerary, timed breaks from experiences? Yeah. By day two, you were cranky and Googling “fun things to do near me” like you hadn’t spent three weeks researching. Life works like that. The more you try to control it, the less time to have to actually live it.
“The more clearly you understand yourself and your emotions, the more you become a lover of what is.” - Spinoza
Every time you start spiraling over a decision, get back to these questions. Am I forcing this, or flowing with it? Is this fear… or freedom in disguise? Then, do the wisest thing possible, first: Nothing. Let the answer rise like heat off pavement. Because the truth isn’t out there. It’s in the parts of you that already know how to live, if you’d just get out of the way.
Life is weirdly beautiful when you stop forcing answers and just let it flow. Spinoza’s genius wasn’t in his logic; it was in his freedom. He proved what you already sense but refuse to accept. The struggle isn’t inevitable. It’s optional. Cancel your imaginary deadlines. The universe doesn’t care about your 5-year plan. Follow the unreasonable joy. What makes you grin for no reason? Do it badly.
Trust your gut. It already knows the way. What should I be doing with my life? It’s the wrong question. “What feels true right now?” Live from that. The rest, distress, uncertainty, and other people’s expectations, will still be there. You’ll just be above it. And when you finally stop wrestling the river, you realize it’s been carrying you the whole damn time. Stop trying to “win” at life. You don’t need to have it all figured out. You never will. “Surrender to what is real within you, for that alone is sure…you are above everything distressing.”
"We are seeing a major escalation in the Red Sea in the undeclared war between AnsarAllah and Saudi Arabia and this may spill over to the war the US is waging on Iran. As I write this the Houthis have retaliated to a Saudi attack on the Houthi-held port of Hodeidah. So let’s go through this week’s events.
On Wednesday July 22, Houthi military spokesman Yahya Saree claimed an attack on two Saudi oil tankers, the Encelia and the Layla, transiting the Red Sea, using drones and missiles. The stated justification was that the vessels violated the Houthis’ maritime blockade. Saudi Arabia’s own Saudi Press Agency, citing an official at the Transport General Authority, confirmed the Encelia was hit, reporting a fire at the bow and all crew safe. UKMTO logged a master reporting his tanker struck by an unknown projectile with an onboard fire the crew were fighting. So the Encelia is confirmed by the flag state; the Layla is so far Houthi-claim-only — SPA didn’t provide details on it.
After the Encelia attack (Wednesday) and a further strike Friday on the Saudi vessel NCC MASA (minor hull damage, continued to destination per SPA), the Saudi-led coalition struck Houthi-held Hodeidah late Friday July 24. Al-Maliki framed it as a “proportionate military response against legitimate military targets” - sites used to threaten commercial shipping - and pointedly insisted the port itself wasn’t hit and remains open. The Houthis see it differently: Al Masirah says the strikes hit state telecommunications facilities in Hodeidah city and Kamaran Island (one woman injured there), with explosions reported at the port by Reuters. The Houthi Foreign Ministry warned Riyadh has made “escalation for escalation” the defining feature of the coming phase and that the strike “will prove costly.”
And sure enough, within hours, the Houthis launched 5 ballistic missiles launched at the ARAMCO oil terminal at Jazan Port, Saudi Arabia. The Saudi Aramco facilities in Jazan (also spelled Jizan) represent one of the company’s most ambitious and technologically advanced downstream projects - a fully integrated refinery, petrochemical complex, and power generation hub located in the far southwest of the Kingdom, on the Red Sea coast. The refinery is a full-conversion refinery, meaning it can process heavy crude into high-value light products rather than simply separating crude into fractions. Jazan is the largest gasification-based power facility in the world.
The Jazan complex is not merely a refinery - it is a fully integrated energy ecosystem that converts crude oil into refined products, petrochemicals, electricity, hydrogen, and industrial metals, all while minimizing waste and emissions. It represents Saudi Aramco’s vision of a smarter, lower-carbon downstream future and serves as the economic anchor for one of the Kingdom’s most ambitious regional development initiatives. In other words, the Houthis hit an extremely important Saudi Arabian energy asset.
The ball is now in the Saudi court. Will they escalate and attack the port facilities at Hodeidah or will they decide to call a halt to military operations and seek a diplomatic resolution? The smart move will be to go the diplomatic route. If they choose to strike more targets in Houthi-held territory then the Houthis’ next logical target would be the oil terminals at Yanbu. There are two main crude oil export terminals at Yanbu, Saudi Arabia. These two Saudi Aramco-operated terminals handle the bulk of crude oil exports from the Red Sea port (connected via the East-West Pipeline). Together they have a nominal combined loading capacity of roughly 4.5 million barrels per day (about 1.5 million bpd at North and 3 million bpd at South). An attack that damages or destroys these terminals would add to the global oil shortage. This makes for an interesting weekend, to say the least."
While Iran continued to blast Kuwait and Bahrain, the US was uncommonly quiet on the military front… Nima and I discussed it:
Excerpt: "The conflict that shook the Middle East may have quietly ignited the world’s next military race. The explosions that echoed across the skies of the Middle East have faded from television screens, but they have not disappeared from the minds of the people who plan wars for a living. As diplomats rushed to negotiate ceasefires and governments counted the political cost of the Israel-Iran conflict, another process had already begun behind closed doors - one that may prove far more consequential than the fighting itself.
Inside intelligence agencies and military headquarters from Washington to Beijing and Moscow, analysts began reconstructing the conflict frame by frame. Satellite imagery was reviewed alongside radar recordings, missile trajectories were compared against interception data, and every second of the engagement was examined with extraordinary attention. To outside observers, the war looked like another dangerous regional crisis. To defense planners, it became something entirely different: one of the largest real-world laboratories for modern missile warfare ever witnessed.
History has a habit of hiding its most important turning points in plain sight. The tank did not transform warfare the day it first crossed a battlefield; its true significance became clear only years later. Radar, aircraft carriers, stealth aircraft and armed drones followed a similar path. Each appeared first in conflict, was studied by rivals, refined through years of development, and eventually reshaped the balance of military power. A growing number of defense analysts now believe the Israel-Iran war could occupy a similar place in history - not because of its political outcome, but because of the military lessons it delivered to countries that never fired a single shot.
Those lessons arrive at a particularly sensitive moment. China has spent years expanding its missile industry while investing heavily in hypersonic technologies capable of flying at speeds exceeding Mach 5. Russia has already integrated several hypersonic systems into its strategic arsenal and continues to present them as a cornerstone of its long-term military doctrine. Neither country needed to participate directly in the conflict to benefit from it. The battlefield itself produced the information. Every interception, every successful strike, every electronic countermeasure and every logistical challenge became evidence that engineers and military planners can study for years.
That process matters because modern wars are no longer judged solely by who wins territory or secures diplomatic leverage. Increasingly, they are judged by what they reveal about the strengths - and limitations - of advanced military technology. Simulations can estimate how missile-defense systems might perform under pressure. Exercises can train personnel to respond quickly. Yet neither can fully reproduce the uncertainty of combat, where hundreds of variables unfold simultaneously and decisions measured in seconds determine the outcome. Real conflicts expose realities that no laboratory can replicate.
Among those realities, one observation appears to have drawn particular attention. Israel’s multilayered air-defense network performed with remarkable effectiveness, intercepting the overwhelming majority of incoming missiles and drones with support from the United States and regional allies. That achievement reinforced confidence in modern defensive technology. At the same time, however, it highlighted another fact that military professionals have understood for decades but rarely see demonstrated on such a scale: even the most sophisticated defensive systems operate within physical and logistical limits. Interceptors must be manufactured before they can be launched. Radar stations can monitor only a finite number of targets at any given moment. Command centers process enormous quantities of information under extreme time pressure, while replacement missiles, spare parts and trained personnel all depend on industrial capacity far from the battlefield itself.
None of this suggests that air-defense systems failed. On the contrary, their performance was widely regarded as a major success. The concern emerging inside defense circles lies elsewhere. Military planners are increasingly interested in understanding what happens when the number of incoming threats continues to grow - not from dozens, but potentially from hundreds arriving in coordinated waves over an extended period. That is a fundamentally different question, and one that reaches far beyond the Middle East."
And how about you, Good Citizen? How's that job going? Current with all the bills? Health insurance affordable, keeping you well? If you're in Appalachia I hope you're wisely spending that $750 they gave you to replace losing your home and everything you owned, if you could even apply... But of course your own food stamp balance and available cash balances look like this, right? Right?
10 MILLION illegals in 2024 alone automatically got $5,000 pre-paid debit cards, free phones, and free transportation wherever they liked? Free health care and housing? While 700,000 Americans are homeless, including 60,000 veterans, 22 of whom commit suicide EVERY day?! Hungry children, elderly can't afford life-saving medicines,150,000 drug overdoses in the last year! $380 BILLION for Ukraine, God knows how many BILLIONS to Israel, and you, Good Citizen, what do they do for YOU?!
WTF, and I repeat WTF is wrong with this country?!
“If only it were all so simple! If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?
Gradually it was disclosed to me that the line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either - but right through every human heart - and through all human hearts. This line shifts. Inside us, it oscillates with the years. And even within hearts overwhelmed by evil, one small bridgehead of good is retained. And even in the best of all hearts, there remains … an unuprooted small corner of evil.
Since then I have come to understand the truth of all the religions of the world: They struggle with the evil inside a human being (inside every human being). It is impossible to expel evil from the world in its entirety, but it is possible to constrict it within each person.”
"Sad, but true. Since the Covid fiasco, I’ve seen the true nature of people - or at least the nature they were willing to show once the fear got turned up and the herd started moving. Most of them are still firmly under the sheep banner, content to graze wherever they’re told. A small handful stand under the “critical thinker” banner. Those are the ones I still trust.
The sheepies? I don’t trust them anymore. Did I ever, really? I thought I did, back when I was younger and still believed most people were basically decent when the chips were down. Turns out that was optimistic.
Lately this loss of trust has had me thinking about the American Wild West. Not the Hollywood version p the real one. Back then, almost every man who wanted to stay alive carried a revolver on his hip. It wasn’t for show. You never knew when some mean-eyed bastard might decide your horse, your money, or your life was worth more to him than it was to you. The sensible ones stayed ready. They watched people. They didn’t assume good intentions just because someone smiled and said howdy. Trust was something you earned slowly, usually after a man had proven he wouldn’t sell you out the first time it became convenient.
So, did folks in that dusty, hard country go around trusting their neighbors? Hell no. You bet your boots they didn’t. And the ones who did - the tenderfoots who rode into town believing everybody was basically good underneath - usually got fleeced, shot, or both. The sheep of that era didn’t last long.
I keep coming back to that because it feels uncomfortably close to where we are now. The difference is the wolves don’t need to hide behind a bandana anymore. They wear white coats, or sit in glass offices, or smile at you from a television screen while they tell you what you need to do for your own good.
And the sheep-types? They didn’t just follow along during Covid. A lot of them became enthusiastic enforcers. They reported neighbors for having too many people over for dinner. They cut off family members who wouldn’t take the shot. They posted smug little memes about how the unvaccinated were selfish and stupid while their own kids were losing years of school and their elderly parents were dying alone in nursing homes. They did it with a clear conscience, because the authorities had given them permission to be cruel.
That’s the part that still sticks in my throat. Not the government lying - governments always lie when it suits them. Not even Big Pharma doing what Big Pharma does - make scads of money and not giving a crap who suffers for it. It was the ordinary people, the ones I used to think were mostly harmless, who turned out to be so willing to turn on anyone who stepped out of line.
The masked Karens. The vaccine passport enthusiasts. The ones who genuinely seemed to enjoy punishing others for non-compliance. I saw longtime friends and even family members do things I would have sworn they were incapable of. And they did it without a second thought. That’s what really got to me - not the betrayal itself, but how easily it came to them. How little it seemed to cost them.
The rest of us were the ones who kept their powder dry. We asked questions when the story kept changing. We noticed the bodies didn’t match the narrative. We refused to pretend that “following the science” meant following whatever the people who owned the science told us to do. For that, we got called dangerous, selfish, and - my personal favourite - grandma killers. The irony was almost funny if you had a dark enough sense of humor. The real danger was coming from the people screaming the loudest about keeping everyone safe.
I don’t know if this loss of trust is permanent. Maybe it softens over time. But right now, it feels pretty solid. I still have my circle. Those are the people I can still talk to without wondering whether the conversation is going to end up on some government list or get repeated at the next family gathering as evidence of how crazy I’ve become. With them I can lower my guard a little. We’ve got each other’s backs. That counts for something in a world where most people will throw you under the bus the moment the authorities give them a good enough reason.
Everyone else? I’ll be polite. I’ll make small talk. I’ll even hold the damn door. But I’m not handing over trust again just because someone seems nice or shares my politics or went to the same school. That ship sailed somewhere around 2021, and I don’t see it coming back into port anytime soon. Once you’ve watched people you cared about turn into informants and punishers, it changes how you move through the world. You don’t go back to the old way of seeing things. You can’t.
Maybe that’s the real lesson buried in all this mess. The Wild West never actually ended. The outlaws just got better costumes and much better PR. And the sheep-types learned to police each other instead of waiting for the sheriff. The thinkers are still here, though - eyes open, hands near the metaphorical holster, not particularly interested in pretending everything is fine just to make other people comfortable.
All this has seemed to calm down a bit. But don’t kid yourself. It is still there. That’s the hard part now; you can’t tell who from who. But you know it is there. There are still occasional masks, a tell-tale sign the murmuring sheep-mind is still bubbling underneath. We don’t have to be mean to strangers; we can still love our fellow human beings no matter how lost they may be, but we must be wary, and not automatically expect a helping hand if needed.
So yeah. I no longer trust anyone the way I used to. And I’m not sure that’s entirely a bad thing. It’s clarifying, at least. You find out who’s really with you when the pressure is on. And you find out who was only ever along for the ride until it got inconvenient. The ones who stayed? Those are my people now. The rest can go graze somewhere else."
Todd Hayen PhD is a registered psychotherapist practicing in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. He holds a PhD in depth psychotherapy and an MA in Consciousness Studies. He specializes in Jungian, archetypal, psychology. Todd also writes for his own substack, which you can read here
"You will be shocked by what they have in store for us. Starting in September 2026, a series of events will unfold across this country that most Americans have no idea are coming. SNAP funding is only confirmed through September 30 and 3.5 million people have already lost benefits from new work requirements. The Social Security COLA announcement arrives in October and the projected 2.5 to 3 percent increase will not cover the 4.2 percent inflation that retirees are actually experiencing. States must implement Medicaid work requirements by December 31 and most are nowhere near ready. The CBO projects 5 million will lose health insurance. Bird flu fall migration begins in September and the flyways pass directly over Iowa, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Minnesota, the top egg and poultry states. Another government shutdown is possible at the fiscal year transition on September 30.
The 2025 shutdown lasted 43 days and halted SNAP payments. USDA harvest reports in September and October will confirm the worst crop year in decades with wheat at a 50-year low and corn and soybeans under drought stress. Medicare open enrollment starts October 15 after 2.9 million seniors were forced off their plans. The student loan system overhaul launches into a Department of Education that has been gutted. Midterm elections in November will paralyze the institutions that are supposed to respond. And the homeowner's insurance market is collapsing heading into peak hurricane season. Ten converging crises in one 90-day window on a consumer with a 2.6 percent savings rate. It begins in September."
"In this video, I break down why everything feels like it’s getting more expensive, more unstable, and harder to manage all at once. From natural gas prices exploding and heating bills shocking families, to real estate cracks, layoffs, automation, and the growing gap between executives and everyday workers, the pressure is building everywhere you look. These aren’t isolated stories - they’re signals of a system under strain. We also cover what’s happening with jobs, travel, media, AI, and how quietly these changes are reshaping daily life. While some people are thriving, many are being squeezed with fewer options and higher costs, and that imbalance is becoming impossible to ignore. This isn’t about politics - it’s about reality on the ground and the economic signals most people aren’t talking about. Watch closely, because this environment isn’t sustainable."
"For years, grocery stores have been one of the best real-time indicators of the American economy, and now Albertsons is issuing a warning that should concern everyone. The company says shoppers are buying fewer discretionary items, switching to generic brands, and focusing almost exclusively on necessities. Combined with rising food prices, utility bills, housing costs, and ongoing inflation, this is another sign that American consumers are under increasing financial pressure. In today's video, we break down Albertsons' latest earnings, why consumer spending is slowing, and what this could mean for the economy going forward. We also discuss grocery inflation, shrinkflation, loyalty rewards programs, cybersecurity concerns involving customer data, self-checkout risks, the affordability crisis, luxury apartment construction, consumer behavior, travel spending, and why businesses across multiple industries are reporting the same trend: Americans are cutting back. If you're interested in the economy, personal finance, saving money, grocery shopping, inflation, recession indicators, real estate, and consumer trends, this video explains why one grocery store's warning may be much bigger than most people realize."
"The Trends Journal is a weekly magazine analyzing global current events forming future trends. Our mission is to present facts and truth over fear and propaganda to help subscribers prepare for what's next in these increasingly turbulent times."
"Many spiral galaxies have bars across their centers. Even our own Milky Way Galaxy is thought to have a modest central bar. Prominently barred spiral galaxy NGC 1672, featured here, was captured in spectacular detail in an image taken by the orbiting Hubble Space Telescope. Visible are dark filamentary dust lanes, young clusters of bright blue stars, red emission nebulas of glowing hydrogen gas, a long bright bar of stars across the center, and a bright active nucleus that likely houses a supermassive black hole.
Light takes about 60 million years to reach us from NGC 1672, which spans about 75,000 light years across. NGC 1672, which appears toward the constellation of the Dolphinfish (Dorado), has been studied to find out how a spiral bar contributes to star formation in a galaxy's central regions."
"Nobody warns you about this part. The way ordinary mornings become everything. The way you stop counting years and just live inside them. The way loving someone long enough turns into something that doesn't have a word yet. This one's for the person who's still there. "I'm Glad I Grew Old with You." AI doesn't always prove the Dead Internet Theory. I'm open about using AI - and genuinely glad to be. Not as a shortcut, but as a tool. The way a filmmaker uses a camera, or a composer uses a piano. A knife can cause harm or prepare a meal. It depends entirely on the hands holding it. Every idea on this channel begins in a human mind. The concepts, the imagery, the words - they come from me. And lately, more and more often, they begin with you - with stories you leave in the comments that stay with me long after I've read them. The lyrics are mine. The visual direction is mine. The subtle details and quiet references woven into each frame - I'm always quietly hoping someone will notice them, and every time you do and write about it, it means everything. Reading hundreds of your comments, I feel something I didn't expect: that this work reaches people in the way I hoped it would. That it makes you feel something real. That's the whole point. That's always been the whole point."
"Death twitches my ear; 'Live,' he says... 'I'm coming.'"
- Virgil
"When Scott Adams shuffled off this mortal coil that event got me thinking about the big D: death. Adams, the Dilbert author who turned office satire into a cultural touchstone for nerds like me, left me thinking about his legacy. Adams wasn’t just a cartoonist; he was a man who rewired how we see persuasion, hypnosis, and the Clown World® we call reality. His passing was foreshadowed, but when it happens, the inevitability of it doesn’t make it better.
That’s Adams, who has left us, but there’s a contrast in George R.R. Martin, still kicking (for now). Today (my today, not yours) I read an interview where he whined at a fan who had asked if he was going to finish his Song of Fire and Ice series (Game of Thrones to most people) before he died. To his face. Martin griped about this confrontation. “I’m not dying,” he grumbled, as if that’s the point.
George, buddy, hate to break it to you and subvert your expectations, but you are. So am I. So is everyone reading this post. We’re all dying, right this second. Tick-tock, the clock doesn’t care if you’re an author with $120 million in the bank lounging in Santa Fe while some flunkies sand off your bunions with sandpaper made from diamonds or a blogger hammering keys in the Midwest who ran out of beer last weekend. Every breath is one closer to the last.
We have an end date stamped on us like milk, but the Universe keeps the label hidden. Could be tomorrow in a freak duck attack (hey, it happens), or decades from now after a life of quiet desperation that had no more impact on the world than a potted fern. The point? We’re terminal from day zero. I think Adams knew this; he talked about it in his books, framing life as a series of systems to hack for maximum output.
Martin? He’s procrastinating his way through what could be his magnum opus, letting plot threads dangle like cat toys. Ignoring the reaper doesn’t make him go away, it just wastes the sand in my hourglass.
In our rush to the grave, have we forgotten the miracles? Yes, miracles. Not the flashy water-to-wine kind. I’m not good at those. But what about the everyday wonders that make existence sparkle? Bite into a ripe strawberry straight from the plant. The explosion of sweet yet tart on my tongue? Phenomenal.
Or cracking a cold beer after mowing the lawn on a scorching day, sweat dripping, the pilsner hitting like a high-five from my guardian angel. Crisp linens on a freshly made bed, sliding in like you’re royalty in a five-star hotel are another feast for the senses.
These aren’t mundane bits of life: they’re tiny miracles, proof the universe isn’t all entropy, Indians, Somalians, and taxes. We take these amazing things for granted, missing the point. We get one shot on this merry-go round. Enjoy it.
Even I, the mighty John Wilder sometimes get bogged down in the daily grind. Bills, deadlines, that endless loop of work-eat-write-drink-sleep-shower-rinse-repeat. It’s easy to zombie through days, forgetting the biggest miracle and gift of all: being alive. Heart pumping, lungs filling, neurons firing symphonies in my skull. We’re stardust animated by the Great Cosmic Spark, yet we whine about traffic or the price of eggs.
Adams would call this a bad frame. Zoom out. Reframe. Boom. The mundane becomes amazing magic. Martin’s dragons and ice zombies are cool (I mean the first three seasons with all the hot naked chicks), but they are pale imitations next to the real epic: Life, unfolding heartbeat by heartbeat.
Here’s the kicker: we have a choice. Every. Single. Day. That next moment? It’s yours. Infinite power in that moment. No matter if you’re chained to a desk, stuck in traffic, or lounging on a yacht (I see you, Elon), that sliver of time belongs to you. You get to choose to squander it on despair, or seize it like a Spartan grabbing a Persian neck at Thermopylae.
Adams seized life. He didn’t just draw funny strips; he changed the United States. He changed the entire national conversation on politics, race, and the matrix of media manipulation. Some X™ dweeb (responding to me) called him a victim of the woke mob after his cancellation. Victim? Please. Adams knew the game. He poked the bear on purpose, shifting Overton windows at scale.
Martin? He’s the flip side. He hit the jackpot with Thrones, turned his fantasy story into a cultural juggernaut, then found himself unable to stick the landing. Hell, he hasn’t even landed, and almost certainly never will now. It’s way more than a decade and his books are not only unfinished, they will never be finished by him. His writing chops are leagues above mine (I’ll admit it), but finishing an epic like that?
Nah. He’s got time left, but he’s squandering it on forgettable side quests while the sand runs out on the hourglass? That’s the opposite of Adams’ hustle. One built empires of influence; the other built a throne of delays.
There’s hope, though. If you want to change the Universe, it’s likely that you still can. You think, “I don’t have an audience.” True, but Adams started with zero. Sketched in a cubicle, built it strip by strip. Me? I peck away at the laptop, hoping to nudge minds.
Tomorrow, what can you do? Write that book. Start that business. Mentor a kid. Plant a tree. Convince an Indian to move back to Mumbai. Make the most of every second. Death’s coming, but until then? Make it matter.Adams left a blueprint: hack reality, persuade boldly, point out and mock the absurd. Martin’s a cautionary tale: don’t let potential rot. Me? I’m typing this, hoping it sparks something in you. The clock ticks for us all. Use it wisely. You’ve got one life. Make it matter."
"The 59-year-old chimpanzee Mama was very ill and stopped taking food and drink at the Royal Burgers Zoo in Arnhem, Netherlands. Professor of Behavioral Biology, Jan van Hoof has known Mama since 1972. In the video he visits to say goodbye to her. Mama is asleep, but is slowly awakened by Jan. When she sees who is visiting, she lights up. She takes the food she has previously refused to eat. In the video, the old friends are enjoying and kidding each other before Jan finally takes one last goodbye. Mama died one week after the visit."
"You ever stand in a room, knowing you had a reason… just not the reason? “I Forgot Why I Walked Here” is a wry, self-aware Delta King’s Blues tune about aging, wandering thoughts, and laughing through the little losses. A lazy, shuffling acoustic guitar moves like footsteps that stopped too soon. The harmonica drifts in and out, just like the thought you almost caught. The groove stays slow and playful, made for smiles with a hint of truth underneath. This is blues that laughs at itself. For people who still get where they’re going - even if they forget why they started. Some memories wander off… the music stays."
