Jefferson, Georgia, USA. Thanks for stopping by!
So, we rise from the rubble...
Wednesday, December 23, 2020
The Poet: David Whyte. "The Opening of Eyes"
"The Opening of Eyes"
"That day I saw beneath dark clouds
The passing light over the water,
And I heard the voice of the world speak out.
I knew then as I have before,
Life is no passing memory of what has been,
Nor the remaining pages of a great book
Waiting to be read.
It is the opening of eyes long closed.
It is the vision of far off things,
Seen for the silence they hold.
It is the heart after years of secret conversing
Speaking out loud in the clear air.
It is Moses in the desert fallen to his knees
Before the lit bush.
It is the man throwing away his shoes
As if to enter heaven and finding himself astonished,
Opened at last,
Fallen in love
With Solid Ground."
~ David Whyte,
"Songs for Coming Home"
"In The Time Of Your Life..."
"In the time of your life, live - so that in good time there shall be no ugliness or death for yourself or for any life your life touches. Seek goodness everywhere, and when it is found, bring it out of its hiding-place and let it be free and unashamed. Place in matter and in flesh the least of the values, for these are things that hold death and must pass away. Discover in all things that which shines and is beyond corruption. Encourage virtue in whatever heart it may have been driven into secrecy and sorrow by the shame and terror of the world. Ignore the obvious, for it is unworthy of the clear eye and the kindly heart. Be the inferior of no man, nor of any man be the superior. Remember that every man is a variation of yourself. No man's guilt is not yours, nor is any man's innocence a thing apart. Despise evil and ungodliness, but not men of ungodliness or evil. These, understand. Have no shame in being kindly and gentle, but if the time comes in the time of your life to kill, kill and have no regret. In the time of your life, live - so that in that wondrous time you shall not add to the misery and sorrow of the world, but shall smile to the infinite delight and mystery of it."
- William Saroyan
"For 55 Percent Of Americans, 2020 Has Been 'A Personal Financial Disaster'”
"For 55 Percent Of Americans,
2020 Has Been 'A Personal Financial Disaster'”
by Michael Snyder
"One of the big reasons why so many Americans are angry about the size of the “stimulus payments” in the COVID relief bill that Congress just passed is because this year has truly been a “financial disaster” for millions upon millions of people. More Americans than ever before are just barely scraping by from month to month, and $600 is just not going to go very far. In 2020, small businesses have been getting slaughtered by the thousands, millions of Americans are in imminent danger of being evicted from their homes, and more than 70 million new claims for unemployment benefits have been filed since the COVID pandemic first started. The U.S. has plunged into a brutal economic depression, and most of the country is desperately hoping that the federal government will do more to bail them out.
Of course the truth is that we can’t actually afford another 900 billion dollar “stimulus package” on top of all the other “stimulus packages” that were already passed this year. We are already 27.5 trillion dollars in debt, and all of this reckless spending is putting us on a highway to hyperinflation. But most Americans don’t really care that we are literally destroying our national finances. Most people are in desperate need of money, and the vast majority of them want checks from the government as soon as possible.
A OnePoll survey that was just released asked Americans about the current state of their finances, and that survey discovered that a whopping 55 percent of us consider this year to be “a personal financial disaster”: "While there is no question 2020 has been an unparalleled health challenge, many are not losing sight of how devastating the year was for their wallets as well. A new survey finds over half of Americans (55%) consider 2020 a personal financial disaster." That is over half the country!
And for those that are employed, that same survey found that 62 percent are planning to take on a second job in 2021 in an attempt to make ends meet: "Among employed respondents (59% in total), seven in 10 say they need a raise at their job in order to make ends meet. Sixty-two percent plan on taking on a second job in 2021 to meet their financial goals next year"
That number can’t possibly be correct, can it? Of course there aren’t that many jobs to go around. Already, there are millions upon millions of Americans that can’t find a “first job”. As I discussed the other day, we have got unemployed workers sleeping in lawn chairs or sleeping in their own vehicles because that is all they can afford at this point.
We haven’t seen anything like this since the Great Depression of the 1930s, and this latest wave of lockdowns is making things even worse. With so many Americans financially hurting, it shouldn’t be a surprise that millions of households are getting behind on their rent and mortgage payments: "One-in-seven renters with family incomes from $35,000 to $100,000 were not current on their rent in November. The overwhelming majority of these renters – 79.9% — expected to face eviction within two months. Similarly, 9.6% of homeowners with a mortgage were not current on their mortgage in November. And 56.1% of those homeowners expected they will be foreclosed on in the subsequent two months."
Congress keeps extending moratoriums on rent and mortgage payments, and that has been financially devastating landlords and mortgage holders. At some point the moratoriums must end, and when that happens we are going to see a tsunami of evictions that will be absolutely unprecedented in U.S. history.
Meanwhile, many Americans are going very deep into debt in a desperate attempt to keep themselves afloat financially: "More than one-third of households with incomes between $35,000 and $100,000 borrowed from credit cards, other loans as well as from friends and family to pay for their current expenses in November. Soon, debt payments will come due, burdening families that still suffer from long-term unemployment and added health care costs. This could mean rising credit default rates as well as spillovers of economic pain to other households, from who people borrowed to pay their bills."
If economic conditions were to “return to normal” in 2021, most Americans would be able to weather this financial storm just like they did in 2008 and 2009. But things are not going to return to normal next year. Instead, this new wave of lockdowns is going to cause thousands of more businesses to close and will force millions more Americans on to the unemployment rolls.
What we are doing to our small businesses is absolutely criminal. At this point, small business revenues are down more than 32 percent nationwide since the month of January: "Small business revenues have also taken a hit nationwide. The national average is a decrease of 32.1 percent in small business revenue since January. Washington D.C. had the worst loss in the nation at 61.6 percent. Oregon small businesses lost 16.3 percent. Illinois small businesses saw 39.2 percent decline in revenue since January."
Every day, more small businesses are closing up shop permanently. Millions of hopes and dreams have been brutally crushed, and there is nothing that our politicians can say or do that will bring those businesses back to life. If you have lost a business or a job this year, then that would definitely qualify as one of the “personal financial disasters” of 2020.
And as you have seen in this article, you are far from alone. Most of the nation is deeply hurting, and the road ahead is only going to get more challenging. In the short-term, “stimulus payments” from the federal government will definitely help tens of millions of suffering Americans.
But of course every additional dollar that our government borrows and spends just makes our long-term problems even worse. A national economic meltdown has begun, and our politicians will try lots of things to mitigate the damage, but all of their “solutions” will only help temporarily. This is going to be an exceedingly dark chapter for America, but most Americans still do not understand the true nature of the crisis that is now unfolding all around us."
"The Test..."
"The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed
ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function.
One should, for example, be able to see that things are hopeless
and yet be determined to make them otherwise."
- F. Scott Fitzgerald
"And Sometimes..."
"Yesterday is gone. Tomorrow has not yet come.
We have only today. Let us begin."
- Mother Teresa
"Economic Market Snapshot AM 12/23/20"
"Economic Market Snapshot AM 12/23/20"
○
"The more I see of the moneyed classes,
the more I understand the guillotine."
- George Bernard Shaw
○
Gregory Mannarino, AM 12/23/20:
"Economic FREE-FALL COLLAPSE Worsening-
No Relief In Sight"
○
MarketWatch Market Summary, Live Updates
CNN Market Data:
CNN Fear And Greed Index:
Daily Job Cuts
○
○
And now, the End Game...
"A 'Case' You Probably Didn’t Read About"
"A 'Case' You Probably Didn’t Read About"
by Eric Peters
"A friend in Georgia called to let me know a junior high school student who attends the same school as her 13-year-old son tried to kill herself the other day. She was found hanging from a cord she’d wound over the shower head in her parents’ home. She was despondent over being denied her life – and so decided to take it.
The good news is she was discovered in time and is still alive. The bad news is there are many such “cases” – including the premature deaths-by-neglect of elderly people who haven’t got the ‘Rona but lost the will to live – and stopped eating or just faded away from depressive ennui resulting from being “locked down” in nursing homes for the past six-plus-months, by decree of the Gesundheitsfuhrers.
Mammals need the warmth and companionship of other mammals. Take that away – “lock them down”- and you sentence them to a slow but certain death, beginning with their spirit and ending with the mortification of their bodies.
This is not a minor inconvenience, a temporary and necessary sacrifice. It is an outrageous, criminal assault on the physical and psychological well-being of hundreds of millions of people (in this country alone) in the name of a fatuous hyper-precautionary Sickness Cult that regards a slight risk of a bad cold to most as finger-wagging justification – and you’d better not object to any of it.
It has worked – so far – because most people are kind and generous and no one wants to be accused of harming other people, let alone actually harming them. But it begins to wear thin, as the enjoining and finger-wagging waxes even as the evidence mounts that the damage being done is sickeningly disproportionate to the threat asserted.
Questioning is beginning. It is reasonable to alert people who come to eat at a restaurant that certain dishes may contain peanuts so that those who have allergies to peanuts can avoid those dishes. It is ridiculous to insist that all restaurants establish Peanut Free Zones for the sake of those with peanut allergies.
It is tyrannical to decree it. My gym has been open for the past four months and almost no one wears the Holy Rag as the gym is a secular joint; people come there to exercise, not perform religious rituals. Notwithstanding this heresy, no one is sick. Probably in no small measure because they are exercising – and breathing freely – both tending to improve one’s health.
But gyms around the country are “locked down” – denying more people than the number of people who’ve allegedly died of the ‘Rona (as opposed to with it, but actually because of old age compounded by poor health) access to the means by which to maintain and improve their physical as well as psychological health.
Being able to go out – and go within. To see your friends – and see their faces. To deny this to people is inhuman. To deny it to them in the name of what, for 99.8 percent of them, amounts to nothing more than than the slight threat of a bad cold is something worse. Particularly as regards children such as the one who almost took her life, mentioned earlier.
It is established fact – the “science” – that 13-year-olds like the girl who is the schoolmate of my friend’s son – are at less risk of dying from ‘Rona than they are of being killed in a car accident. Yet on the putative basis of an hysterically exaggerated “risk,” they are being abused in a manner that would have earned those responsible a felony conviction as recently as this same time last year.
Forced to stay at home. Forced to wear a muzzle – the sort of thing formerly applied to dangerous animals and for that reason just as degrading but without the justification. Denied their friends. Denied their outlets, such as team sports and just “hanging out” freestyle.
Fear the Bogeyman! Don’t Question! Wear a Mask!
It is child abuse – or would have been so described, this time last year. This wears on kids, especially (see here) for whom six months might as well be six years as their time-sense is different than that of adults. If it seems as if this will never end to us – adults – imagine how it feels to a 13-year-old. Also, we have next year. They only get one shot at 7th grade. Or their senior prom.
It is not hard to understand why kids feel their lives are over before they’ve even gotten started. Just as it is easy to understand why many elderly people, imprisoned in “homes” and denied contact with their families (phone calls don’t suffice) despair of living. And just give up.
How did it happen that such control over our lives came to pass? It came in a blizzard storm of orchestrated terror, a manufactured emergency that has been maintained not with “science” and the free consent that an actual emergency would voluntarily engender – but by decrees that rely on threats. Issued by people who exempt themselves.
Life is becoming the equivalent of owning a car you’re not allowed to drive; of having a spouse you may not touch. A life you may not live. It is killing us. And kids, too."
"The Future..."
"It's tough to make predictions, especially about the future."
But this we do know...
"The future ain't what it used to be."
- Yogi Berra
"I Can't Believe It: I Agree With AOC"
"I Can't Believe It: I Agree With AOC"
by Simon Black
"Since the beginning of March, the US federal government has spent more than $5 trillion battling the Coronavirus and the effects of COVID-19. And governments around the world, from Europe to China, have spent trillions more. And that amount doesn’t even begin to scratch the surface of the long-term economic toll, including then incalculable cost of shutting down the economy.
Government-imposed lockdowns have wiped out trillions of dollars, pushing businesses to failure and costing millions of jobs. And this economic toll also affects tax revenue; with the economy notably weaker, government tax revenue is almost nonexistent this year. So they’re spending record sums of money while generating minimal revenue. Unsurprisingly, debt levels have spiraled out of control.
We’re supposed to cancel everything, avoid friends and family, pepper spray anyone who isn’t wearing a mask, and cower in fear in our homes… all because of a virus that, by one recent estimate in the European Journal of Epidemiology, has a survival rate of 99.9%. But even still, they’re back at it. More lock downs, more endless spending, more debt.
The United States Congress just passed yet another ‘Covid relief’ bill. Technically it includes general spending provisions for Fiscal Year 2021 (to avoid yet another government shut down). But the biggest chunk of it is COVID relief, which comprises nearly $1 trillion of the spending. The total bill is more than FIVE THOUSAND PAGES, and it embodies the old political phrase, “Never let a crisis go to waste.”
If the purpose of the bill really is to provide relief to Americans, then the bill should (in theory) be a few paragraphs at most. But this bill is literally 5,593 pages… and contains some of the most absurd provisions imaginable.
For starters, Americans will receive $600 in ‘relief’. So, you’re not allowed to operate your business and earn a living for yourself. And in exchange, the government will will send you enough money to buy some new clothes so you can stay warm while you stand in line at the soup kitchen.
But that doesn’t even begin to showcase the utter waste in this bill:
Page 1,461 of the bill, for example, authorizes nearly $135 million for BURMA (aka Myanmar) “to promote ethnic and religious tolerance... in Kachin, Karen, Rakhine, and Shan states”. What bureaucrat could possibly come up with something so absurd? You get $600. But a bunch of corrupt generals in Burma get to rake in US taxpayer funds under the guise of ethnic and religious tolerance… but ONLY in FOUR out of Burma’s 14 states. (Tough luck if you’re a Burmese warlord living in the state of Bago or Yangon… because obviously it would be ridiculous to give those states any money.)
Another $45 million of taxpayer money (page 1,491) will be awarded to key government officials in Central America– places like El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala– in order to “combat corruption”. You can’t make this stuff up– they are giving money to corrupt politicians to fund anti-corruption programs. It’s genius!
Another $10 million of taxpayer money (page 1,486) will be given to the government of Pakistan SPECIFICALLY for gender studies programs.
They’re giving boatloads of money to plenty of foreign countries, including Ukraine ($453 million), Sudan ($700 million), the Republic of Georgia ($132 million), Bangladesh ($198 million), Vietnam ($170 million), and several others.
Then there’s the small matter of $33 million for “democracy programs” in Venezuela. I’m sure Nicholas Maduro will use those funds well. (The real irony is that, while allocated $33 million for Venezuela on page 1498, page 1347 of the bill expressly prohibits any funding for Venezuela. Unbelievable.)
Perhaps most noteworthy is that Members of Congress didn’t receive the final bill yesterday until roughly two hours before the scheduled vote.
Now, Anne Jones, the six-time World Speed Reading Competition champion is able to read an average of 4,200 words per minute with 67% comprehension. So it would take her more than nine hours to read this bill in its entirety, and she’d still lose about a third of it.There’s no way anyone in Congress was able to read this bill, or even thumb through enough of it to understand the big picture. And yet they still voted in favor of it, costing taxpayers another trillion dollars.
And that led a very angry Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to take to Twitter and lament, “This is why Congress needs time to actually read this package before voting on it. Members of Congress have not read this bill. It’s over 5000 pages, arrived at 2pm today, and we are told to expect a vote on it in 2 hours. This isn’t governance. It’s hostage-taking.”
For once I actually agree with AOC. This is an absurd process that exemplifies everything wrong with government: it’s wasteful, ignorant, out of touch, oblivious, embarrassing, shameful, and corrupt. As an aside, Joe Biden praised the process by which the bill was passed, saying “I applaud the bipartisan Congressional economic relief package” and called it “a model for the challenging work ahead.”
Something tells me he didn’t read the bill either."
Tuesday, December 22, 2020
"Trump Kicks COVID Bill Back To Congress; Demands $2,000 Stimulus, Shreds Lawmakers Over Mountain Of Pork"
"Trump Kicks COVID Bill Back To Congress;
Demands $2,000 Stimulus, Shreds Lawmakers Over Mountain Of Pork"
by Tyler Durden
TUESDAY, DEC 22, 2020 - 19:46: "President Trump appeared to threaten to veto the COVID-19 stimulus package that Congress passed almost 24 hours earlier, telling lawmakers to boost checks for Americans to $2,000 as well as "get rid of wasteful and unnecessary items" in the spending bill. Trump said "Throughout the summer, Democrats cruelly blocked COVID relief legislation in an effort to advance their extreme left wing agenda and influence the election..." "It's taken forever" to get a package and the bill passed "is much different than anticipated." "It really is a disgrace," he added.
Then he reeled off a list of disgusting 'pork' (read the details here) that has been piled into this record-breaking 5,593 page bill. As Axios notes, many of the items Trump listed, such as foreign aid, which were not related to COVID-19, are not part of the coronavirus relief package. These form part of the government funding bill, which was passed alongside the coronavirus relief package.
Then he took a shot at Biden and the election: "Send me a suitable bill or else the next administration will have to deliver a COVID relief package, and maybe that administration will be me and we will get it done."
Watch the full statement here: pic.twitter.com/v9Rdjz6DNu - Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 23, 2020
And the market is not happy...
"Get back to Mrs.Pelosi!"
Must Watch! “Millions Will Meet The Boogeyman; Economic Risk Everywhere; Depression Will Be Historic; Repos”
Jeremiah Babe,
“Millions Will Meet The Boogeyman; Economic Risk Everywhere;
Depression Will Be Historic; Repos”
"The Arctic Is Melting"
"The Arctic Is Melting"
by Brian Maher
"Earth is down with a fever. Even the polar ice has vanished. Reports The Washington Post: "The Arctic seems to be warming up. Reports all point to a radical change in climatic conditions, and hitherto unheard-of high temperatures in that part of the earth's surface. Expeditions have sailed as far as 81 degrees 29 minutes north in ice-free water. The eastern Arctic has steadily gotten warmer, and today the Arctic of that region is not recognizable as the same region of about 50 years ago. Many old landmarks have changed as to be unrecognizable. Where formerly great masses of ice were found, there are now often moraines, accumulations of earth and stones. At many points where glaciers formerly extended far into the sea they have entirely disappeared."
Thus the Arctic sweats: "Formerly the waters around Spitzbergen (Norway) held an even summer temperature of about 3 degrees Celsius; this year recorded temperatures up to 15 degrees, and last winter the ocean did not freeze over even on the north coast of Spitzbergen." Spitzbergen sits far within the Arctic Circle, incidentally. Imagine an ice-free winter deep within the Arctic Circle - if you can. As well imagine hell without its fires. But there you are.
To deny climate change is to deny the very nose upon your face - or gravity itself. Wait… When? But what is this? Could it be? The article here cited bears the date of November 2... 1922. That is correct - November 2, 1922. The Arctic was iceless in 1922… if you accept the verdict of The Washington Post.
But the internal combustion engine was a mere adolescent in 1922, a junior menace, a future bugaboo. Industry was up and going - but enough to melt the stubborn Arctic ice? We are filled with doubt. We must therefore credit an alternate heat source. But what? We do not know. We lack credentials within the climatic sciences.
Yet there is the sun to consider - it gives off a varying glow. Might shifting ocean currents explain it… or wind patterns? We hazard they might. Again, we do not know. But we slant heavily towards the natural explanation.
So much for 1922. What about 2020? Has an additional century of fuel-burning raised the earthly temperature?
Carbon Dioxide: It cannot be denied, carbon dioxide emissions are greater than in 1922. We ordered our minions to investigate the literature. This morning they dropped the report upon our desk. Thus we learn: Carbon dioxide represents a vanishing 0.04% part of Earth’s atmosphere.
Imagine - if you will - this atmosphere as 100 cases of one-liter bottles. That is, imagine this atmosphere as 2,400 one-liter bottles. Of those 100 cases, 99 are not greenhouse gases. They are therefore irrelevant to our inquiry.
A mere one case of the 100 represents greenhouse gases. Of the one case that represents greenhouse gases, one bottle of the 24 represents carbon dioxide. Of the one bottle that represents this demon molecule, perhaps 50 milliliters represents mankind's annual contribution - roughly one shot glass. And so... of our theoretical atmosphere of 2,400 liters, humans account for perhaps one shot glass of carbon dioxide.
Alternately: consider the atmosphere a 100-story building. The human CO2 concentration amounts to the linoleum on the ground floor. Yet this relative trifle is scorching the planet? We request the authenticated documentation - chapter, verse, line - footnotes included. It is fully plausible that fuel-burning has tinkered Earth’s temperature. And carbon dioxide is but one variable in the mix. The science is… complex. It is beyond our slender comprehension.
But if Earth’s climate was so exquisitely sensitive to minor carbon dioxide rises… why hasn’t it burned up? This planet has previously endured CO2 levels 25 times or greater than today’s, we are informed. Yet the match never struck.
Why are we tackling climate change today? This publication centers on money and markets, after all. The answer is because the Federal Reserve is enlisting under the banner of climate change… and entering the fray.
A Risk to Financial Stability: For the first time in its 107 years... it has labeled climate change a risk to financial stability - a risk greater, ostensibly, than even itself. Federal Reserve grandee Lael Brainard: "Chronic hazards, such as slow increases in mean temperatures or sea levels, or a gradual change in investor sentiment about those risks, introduce the possibility of abrupt tipping points or significant swings in sentiment… Acute hazards, such as storms, floods, or wildfires, may cause investors to update their perceptions of the value of real or financial assets suddenly."
That is, the Federal Reserve must keep an eye upon the weather. It is not alone. To the European Central Bank (ECB), climate change is a mighty fee-fi-fo-fum that menaces financial stability. ECB President Christine Lagarde says caging it is “mission critical.”
The central bankers can moan about climate change all they please. But is it within their power to address? After all, you say, they cannot even squeeze 2% inflation out of their economies. How then can they command Nature herself… and dictate her temperature across all four corners of Earth? Your question is our question. We do not know how they can. Yet they are answering the klaxon… and clearing for action. How might central banks rout the evil enemy, how might they break the fiery siege?
The Central Bank Battle Plan: By putting “carbon-intensive” industries on ice. Reports the New Economics Foundation, regarding the Europeans specifically: "In the ‘lower-carbon’ scenario, the ECB stops buying bonds issued by fossil fuel companies and by companies with relatively high carbon intensity that belong to the energy-intensive, non-renewable utilities and carbon-intensive transportation sectors. Instead, the ECB would purchase bonds of potentially green and renewable sectors, as well as green bonds and bonds of ‘other’ non-carbon-intensive sectors. The second, ‘low-carbon’ scenario excludes all the bonds issued by carbon-intensive sectors..."
The same remedy holds for the Federal Reserve. Central banks must therefore abandon “market neutrality.” That is, they must place their thumbs upon the scales. That is, they must choose winners. And they must choose losers. That is, they must allocate resources through political consideration.
“We have to ask ourselves,” says Ms. Lagarde … “whether market neutrality should be the actual principle that drives our monetary-policy portfolio management.” The question itself is the answer.
The Green Behind Green Energy: The scheme is green in this one sense: It would green the “clean energy” industry. Jim Rickards: "Central bank support for the climate change agenda is more than just rhetoric. Central banks regulate commercial banks and control payments systems. They may decide that loans to energy companies should be discouraged and finance for wind and solar systems should receive favorable treatment. They can also require disclosures by banks intended to cast carbon-intensive sectors in a bad light."
A term exists for it - crony capitalism. The scoundrels and frauds will be holding out their hats… promising to lower Earth’s temperature and its sea levels… in exchange for easy financing. But is cleaner wind and solar energy not desirable? Should the world burn coal instead… and choke? We take no position. If the world prefers wind over oil, solar over coal, let it have wind and solar over oil and coal. Yet the world must evidently come to terms with fundamental physics…
The Point of Diminishing Returns: Mr. Mark Mills co-directs Northwestern University’s Institute on Manufacturing Science and Innovation. From whom: "All sources of energy have limits that can’t be exceeded. The maximum rate at which the sun’s photons can be converted to electrons is about 33%. Our best solar technology is at 26% efficiency. For wind, the maximum capture is 60%. Our best machines are at 45%. So we’re pretty close to wind and solar limits. Despite big claims about big gains coming, there just aren’t any possible."
If this fellow is correct - our minions inform us he is - we begin to suspect we are being taken for a sleigh ride. Wind and solar energy would be vastly inadequate to energy needs… and would remain inadequate to energy needs. Yet they may become highly efficient absorbers of capital.
We hazard many green energy businesses will prosper... with central banks helping to push them along… though few will produce much by way of value. That is, they will grab valuable capital from worthier and more productive hands. They will likely form a lovely bubble in time. But at least they are saving the planet..."
"A Look to the Heavens"
“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.”
- http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap110712.html
"Just Because..."
"Just because some of us can read and write and do a little math,
that doesn’t mean we deserve to conquer the Universe."
- Kurt Vonnegut
"Learn To Distinguish..."
"If you saw Atlas, the giant who holds the world on his shoulders, if you saw that he stood, blood running down his chest, his knees buckling, his arms trembling but still trying to hold the world aloft with the last of his strength, and the greater his effort the heavier the world bore down upon his shoulders - what would you tell him to do?"
"I... don't know. What could he do? What would you tell him?"
"To shrug."
"Learn to distinguish the difference between errors of knowledge and breaches of morality. An error of knowledge is not a moral flaw, provided you are willing to correct it; only a mystic would judge human beings by the standard of an impossible, automatic omniscience. But a breach of morality is the conscious choice of an action you know to be evil, or a willful evasion of knowledge, a suspension of sight and of thought. That which you do not know, is not a moral charge against you; but that which you refuse to know, is an account of infamy growing in your soul. Make every allowance for errors of knowledge; do not forgive or accept any break of morality."
- Freely download "Atlas Shrugged", by Ayn Rand, here:
Gregory Mannarino, PM 12/22/20: "Post-Market Wrap Up: I Dare You To Make This Stuff Up"
Gregory Mannarino, PM 12/22/20:
"Post-Market Wrap Up: I Dare You To Make This Stuff Up"
"Covid-19 Pandemic Updates 12/22/20"
"Covid-19 Pandemic Updates 12/22/20"
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DEC 22, 2020 - 15:53: "CDC Says 'No Evidence' UK COVID Mutation Is Deadlier, Or More Severe: Live Updates"
Dec. 22, 2020 2:27 PM ET:
The coronavirus pandemic has sickened more than 77,735,800
people, according to official counts, including 18,188,744 Americans.
At least 1,710,500 have died.
Dec. 22, 2020 2:27 PM ET:
Coronavirus in the U.S.: Latest Map and Case Count○
"The COVID Tracking Project"
Every day, our volunteers compile the latest numbers on tests, cases,
hospitalizations, and patient outcomes from every US state and territory.
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