The Poet: Edward Hirsch, "I Was Never Able To Pray"

"I Was Never Able To Pray"

"Wheel me down to the shore 

where the lighthouse was abandoned 

and the moon tolls in the rafters.

Let me hear the wind paging through the trees

and see the stars flaring out, one by one, 

like the forgotten faces of the dead.

I was never able to pray, 

but let me inscribe my name 

in the book of waves

and then stare into the dome 

of a sky that never ends 

and see my voice sail into the night."

- Edward Hirsch

"You Must Think..."

"How should we be able to forget those ancient myths that are at the beginning of all peoples, the myths about dragons that at the last moment turn into princesses; perhaps all the dragons of our lives are princesses who are only waiting to see us act, just once, with beauty and courage. Perhaps everything terrible is in its deepest being something helpless that needs our help. So you must not be frightened if a sadness rises up before you larger than any you have ever seen; if a restiveness, like light and cloud shadows, passes over your hands and over all you do. You must think that something is happening with you, that life has not forgotten you, that it holds you in its hand; it will not let you fall."

- Rainer Maria Rilke

The Daily "Near You?"

St James, Michigan, USA. Thanks for stopping by!

"Covid-19 Pandemic Updates 2/12/21"

"Covid-19 Pandemic Updates 2/12/21"

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"When you have eliminated the impossible, 

whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth."

- "Sherlock Holmes", Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

• "Doctor Admits Masks Don’t Work: “All Viruses Can Get Through”

• "Redefining Death"

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- https://www.zerohedge.com/

 FEB 12, AT 9:19 AM: "Australia Imposes 5-Day Lockdown; Japan Approves Pfizer Jab: Live Updates"

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 Coronavirus Map: Tracking the Global Outbreak 

 Feb 12, 2021 2:07 PM ET: 

The coronavirus pandemic has sickened more than 107,994,200 

people, according to official counts, including 27,478,817 Americans.

Globally at least 2,378,900 have died.

  Feb. 12, 2021 2:07 PM ET: 

Coronavirus in the U.S.: Latest Map and Case Count

- www.nytimes.com

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"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.
- https://covidtracking.com/
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- https://www.cdc.gov/library/covid19/

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Coronavirus World Map: Tracking The Spread Of The Outbreak

Feb. 12, 2021,8:30 AM ET

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Where I Live:

- CP

"The Cruelest Joke Of All..."

“The smallest decisions made had such profound repercussions. One ten-minute wait could save a life… or end it. One wrong turn down the right street or one seemingly unimportant conversation, and everything was changed. It wasn’t right that each lifetime was defined, ruined, ended, and made by such seemingly innocuous details. A major life-threatening event should come with a flashing warning sign that either said ABANDON ALL HOPE or SAFETY AHEAD. It was the cruelest joke of all that no one could see the most vicious curves until they were over the edge, falling into the abyss below.”

- Sherrilyn Kenyon

Gregory Mannarino, "The Federal Reserve Is Preparing For A Massive Market Crash And Credit Freeze"

"Down the rabbit hole of psychopathic greed and insanity...

Only the consequences are real - to you!

Your guide:

Gregory Mannarino, PM 2/12/21:

"The Federal Reserve Is Preparing For 

A Massive Market Crash And Credit Freeze"

- https://traderschoice.net/

"How It Really Is"

"The week's biggest story is the plunge in temperatures across the Great Plains from Canada to Texas, resulting in skyrocketing demand for natgas and electric markets as tens of millions of Americans crank up their thermostats to stay warm. "One of the main stories is the very cold temperatures and the expanse of the cold," Marc Chenard, a senior branch forecaster at the US Weather Prediction Center, told Bloomberg. "Most of the country will be at or below average except Florida."

BAMWX explains a series of winter storms are possible" from Denver to Dallas to Chicago to Cleveland to Mid-Atlantic and Northeast states through next week. "An overwhelming signal seems to be developing for a major winter storm from the Deep South to the Ohio Valley into the NE early next week. Here are our 3-7 day hazards map and a blend of models 75th percentile data. Worth note deterministic data showing major snow numbers. #Snow," BAMWX's official Twitter account tweeted."

- https://www.zerohedge.com/

"What We Think We Know Now"

"What We Think We Know Now"

By Bill Bonner

RANCHO SANTANA, NICARAGUA – "Let’s summarize… Herewith, the Dummies’ Guide to our Diary. To begin, picking up where we left off yesterday… Can any government really make tomorrow better? Answer: No. That’s why “the government that governs best, governs least.”

Markets and economies are natural things. Left alone, they evolve… they innovate… they run into problems and find solutions. Allowed to happen… the future reflects the choices, bugaboos, fantasies, and desires of billions of people… all getting and spending… all making deals with one another… some erring… others having flashes of genius and moments of spontaneous kindness. Putting them all together… and letting them do what they will do… what do you get? Tomorrow!

Rank Absurdity: But why can’t the feds make it better? (And here, Dear Reader, you are getting a mini course in political philosophy worthy of a dead Greek.)

Tomorrow can take many different forms – so many that predictions about it are almost always wrong.  The great conceit of the political class – including all the many insiders, power brokers, media celebrities, elite Deep Staters, Biden and Trump supporters, and those who actually control our government – is that they can know what’s coming… and make it better even before it gets here. This is rank absurdity, for obvious reasons. 

First, they can’t predict the future any better than anyone else. And it is obviously impossible to improve something when you don’t even know what it is you’re improving. 

Second, all they have to work with are fake money and real weapons – either force or fraud, in other words.

Neither has ever proved useful for creating a better world. Au contraire, always and everywhere, the more they were brought to bear on a society, the worse the outcome. The fake money is what we’re watching. We’ve seen that it distorts and misleads. It never can, never has, and never will produce an improved future.

Silly Season: Our second observation of the week: We’re in a bubble… thanks to the Federal Reserve’s fake money. Stocks are way overpriced. And you know what that means… Something will come along to prick this bubble. Poof! A lot of fake wealth will disappear.

Dear readers are advised to get out of the markets… or make sure they have some bubble insurance.  Our sidekick, Dan Denning, elaborates in our recent Bonner-Denning Letter (if you’re a paid-up Bonner-Denning Letter subscriber, click here to read), but the easiest bubble insurance is simply to sell high-priced stocks – especially the tech superstars – and buy gold, real estate, or other “hard” assets.

As we saw in yesterday’s Diary, stock prices, generally, are “off the charts,” by many measures. This is classic bubble territory. Taken all together, stock valuations are more than twice their “normal” level, implying at least a 50% loss somewhere in the future. Yes… and it’s the “Silly Season,” when people begin to think that things that couldn’t possibly be true for a single minute will be true forever.

“Printing press” money can make stocks more valuable. Sure it can. And if the government, which is already headed for another record deficit, gives away money… that will “stimulate” the economy. Sure it will.  And we don’t need to worry about inflation because our new Treasury secretary Janet Yellen knows how to deal with it. Sure she does.

Taken for Granted: Third: People are getting very tetchy about everything. A bunch of low-IQ yahoos break into the Capitol, and they call it an attempted coup d’état. Russia and China are up to something… We know they are… We just don’t know what. And as for the fake money… people come to rely on it.  Does it really make sense to give people “stimmy” checks? Previous generations would have taken it for absurd. But this generation takes it for granted. They expect bailouts… and giveaways… And they get damned irritated if they don’t come.

More than that, they plan their lives around the bubble. They depend on the price of bitcoin to build their dream house. They need low interest rates – zero, in real terms – to refinance their mortgage and other debt. They expect to retire early on their pot stocks.  They think that if they all close their eyes and wish hard enough, all their preposterous, malign dreams will come true.

Youthful Skepticism: And they don’t appreciate anyone who dares to contradict them. We recall in 1999, we suspected that the dot-com revolution was more like the mob invasion of the Capitol than a real revolution. Readers wrote to heckle and moan. They were counting on their dot-com profits.  Again in 2007/2008… nobody wanted to hear that “house prices don’t always go up.” Then, the average house was selling for more than the average person could afford. But many people thought they had a right to “an ATM machine in the bedroom.” They bought houses with “cash out” mortgages and then “took out equity”… and lived on it.  And now…?

Again, we have the advantage of being privy to a whole company full of analysts and advisors… and feedback from thousands of dear readers. Many people – even those who are otherwise sane – are convinced that these stock prices – especially for tech companies – represent a New Era, where “trillion-dollar” companies will make True Believers rich. Maybe we are too old. Or maybe the True Believers are too young! Most of them are under 40, which means they were born after the last major bear cycle ended (in 1980).

Tesla – a $10 stock? Inconceivable. The Blockchain – BS? Not possible. Stimulus – fake… foolish… and futile? Oh c’mon… You’re kidding, right?

Far Out: But we’re not kidding. And now, we’re seeing a kind of zaniness all up and down the capital structure.  Take individual stocks – GameStop, Tesla, and Tilray come readily to mind. Nobody in his right mind could think their market valuations represent a fair calculation of future earnings discounted to present value. They’re all basically losing money… and probably always will.

Tilray – are they joking? What is a company that produces nearly half a billion in losses on only $200 million in sales worth? Nothing. Zero. Squat.And yet, pot-addled “investors” gave it a market value over $10 billion this week… What can we say? Far out, man… And look at bitcoin. In the early stages, people thought of it as a bet on a new money system, in which the cryptocurrency – despite having no physical existence, but limited by mathematical wizardry – would prove superior to gold. That could still turn out to be true…

Or, it could turn out that the price action in bitcoin is really just another of the many puffs of smoke coming out of the Fed’s Vesuvius. When this baby blows… bitcoin could go with it. Stay tuned for more of what we think we know now… on Monday. Regards,"

- www.rogueeconomics.com

"When Corporations Become More Powerful Than The Government, Our Definition Of 'Big Brother' Needs To Change"

"When Corporations Become More Powerful Than The Government, 

Our Definition Of 'Big Brother' Needs To Change"

by Michael Snyder

"Throughout human history, our God-given liberties and freedoms have often been brutally crushed by oppressive governments, and that is still happening all over the world today. But in our time, an additional threat to our liberties and freedoms has emerged. Global corporations just continue to get larger and more powerful, and in recent years they have been increasingly using that power to shape society. This is a very dangerous trend, because in the western world many of the constraints that our national governments are forced to operate under simply do not apply to corporations. This gives them an enormous amount of leverage, and they are using it.

Here in the United States, the federal government still has a monopoly on power in areas such as border security, national defense and foreign policy. But when it comes to the things that matter the most in the day to day lives of most Americans, it could be argued that the giant corporations have now become more powerful than the federal government.

For example, our politicians like to brag about how many jobs that they have “created”, but the truth is that they don’t actually create any jobs unless you want to count useless government desk jobs. Our politicians can help to foster an environment that will be favorable for economic growth, but it is the corporations that really determine whether the economy will grow or not. In fact, it could be argued that the corporations are the economy at this point.

Over time, it has become increasingly difficult for any American to become truly independent of the corporate system. Even if you own a small business or you work for yourself, there is a good chance that you depend on the big corporations in many ways. If you doubt this, just try to “go it on your own” without ever using any corporate products, without ever dealing with a big tech company, and without ever bringing in any income from any corporate source whatsoever.

These days, most of our lives are defined by our corporate overlords. They decide what job you will have, what your pay will be, what hours you will work and what your health plan will look like. Beyond that, now many large corporations have decided that there are certain beliefs, opinions and values that their employees are not permitted to have.

By now, you have probably heard that a certain actress was fired by Disney for having opinions that were not acceptable. That was a very high profile case, but the truth is that this sort of thing is constantly happening all over the country at this point.

As we move into the future, being guilty of “thought crime” is going to eliminate large blocks of people from ever having certain types of jobs. If you do not pledge fealty to the current version of political correctness, you simply will not be permitted to hold a prominent position in society. If your beliefs are considered to be “offensive”, you may get to mop the floors for the elite if you are lucky.

Even when you are at home, the elite want to endlessly monitor and control what you do, say and think. The primary way that they do this is through the Internet, and in recent months they have tightened their control considerably. The following comes from an opinion piece that was just authored by former U.S. Senator Orrin Hatch…

Consider the events of the last month. Social media sites banned the sitting president of the United States from their platforms. A purge of conservative voices on Twitter ensued. Amazon Web Services expunged Parler, a conservative social media site, from the internet. Just days later, YouTube blocked public access to a Senate hearing on COVID-19.

These events confirmed what many of us have long known: true political power no longer resides in Washington, but in Silicon Valley. Big Tech now effectively decides who has the right to speak, who has the right to assemble online and who has the ability to build a business in the digital age. For many Americans, Twitter’s terms of service agreement now has more power over what they can and cannot say in the public square than the First Amendment does.

In the old days, Americans could go to the public square and say anything that they want. But now the big tech companies are the public square.Freedom of speech is a thing of the past on the Internet, and more voices are being “deplatformed” with each passing day. On Wednesday, it was LifeSiteNews… "YouTube just completely removed the LifeSiteNews YouTube channel. This isn’t a temporary ban; every single one of our videos is completely gone." This greatly grieved me, because so many other pro-life voices have already been silenced. We desperately need those voices, because if we stay on the path that we are currently on, there is no future for America.

On Thursday, Twitter suspended Project Veritas. Project Veritas would like to continue to share their information in the public square, and I would like to continue to share it with my readers. In fact, I share Project Veritas videos on The Most Important News all the time. But Twitter has decided that Project Veritas has become too offensive.

“Cancel culture” has gotten wildly out of control, and it is starting to infect every area of our society. Here is more from Orrin Hatch… "The pattern of “canceling” individuals for social media posts is well established. This can result in deplatforming, termination of employment or - if you’re baseball legend Curt Schilling - even losing your health insurance. We’re used to seeing cancel culture on a micro-scale: a newspaper editor being fired here, a university professor being suspended there. But now, thanks to an assist from Big Tech, we’re seeing cancel culture on a much broader level. Take the mass cancelation of Parler’s more than 10 million users, or growing calls to ban Fox News, Newsmax and other right-leaning channels altogether. If successful, these efforts will shrink the window of acceptable viewpoints in American society until conservatives find themselves on the outside."

As we continue to go down this road, just think about what this would mean for the next generation of Americans. Children that are guilty of “thought crime” won’t get into good schools, they will never be allowed to have good jobs, they will be shunned by banks and financial institutions, and they will be banned or marginalized by all of the major entities on the Internet. Basically, they will have to find a way to survive on the fringes of society somehow. All of this is designed to force people to believe what they are supposed to believe.

In fact, it is dangerous for you to be reading this article right now. They are always watching everything that you do on the Internet, and expressions of noncompliance are not acceptable in this brave new world that we live in."

-  https://www.investmentwatchblog.com/

"The Trials of Wokery"

"The Trials of Wokery"

by Jim Kunstler

"How do you like the party you supposedly voted into power so far? Or is it perhaps too much to say they were actually voted into anything? And if so - if there was something, let’s say, a little irregular with the ballot tabulation, maybe even more than a little - have they not succeeded splendidly in pissing-off more than half the people across the land? And then attempted to rub that half’s faces into the squishy, fetid loam of the DC Swamp?

I’d say that every move they make, every breath they take, seems calculated to spark a new civil war. Yesterday’s spiteful exercise in cognitive dissonance was a humdinger: Mr. Biden threatened to cut off travel to Florida for flouting his regime’s policy on Covid-19 lockdowns, while over in Texas (and several other states), he ordered a general unlocking-down of the border with Mexico, permitting the unchecked illegal ingress of thousands of possible Covid-19 carriers a day. Ron DeSantis, Florida’s governor, responded, saying - if I may paraphrase - see you in court, assh*le.

Meanwhile, the cancellation reign-of-terror among the regime’s self-appointed guardians of Wokeness rages on. In the name of diversity and inclusion, no one in the USA is allowed to publicly question the Woke narrative of the moment, or else be deprived of your livelihood. The New York Times fired forty-year veteran science reporter Donald G. McNeil, Jr., for using the freighted word “n*gg*r” while answering a student’s question about the history of the word’s usage, just as I am explaining his use of it in the incident at issue - that is, academically.

Though Mr. McNeil’s intent was incontrovertibly innocent as viewed by persons not insane - including, only briefly, the paper’s executive editor Dean Baquet - the decision to not sack Mr. McNeil provoked a reflexive uproar among the Times’s staff, as something in the wind might provoke a flight of grasshoppers transforming into a swarm of locusts, and Mr. Baquet reversed himself, forcing Mr. McNeil to choose demotion or resignation. Then, to make matters worse, the Times’s publisher, AG Sulzberger, spiked a column by nominally “conservative” op-ed writer Bret Stephens that attempted to argue some legalistic points about intent in the conduct of a witch hunt, an apparent affront to the Times’s witch-hunters, who seem to prefer their witch-hunting as a straight-up blood sport.

How strange it is to see the group formerly so avid for social and sexual transgression, and the artistic subversion of norms, turn into the most viciously censorious species of bluenose. But, of course, you must understand that Wokery is not about principle, not even a teeny-weeny bit. It’s simply about coercion and punishment, which is exactly why apologizing for supposed counter-Woke errors never avails. In other words, you are not dealing with a mere extreme type of moralist, but rather dedicated sadists. They’re not in it to correct injustice, but for the pleasures of vengeance alone, the torturing of their quarry, and the glow of power it confers.

And the motive is no different among the Democratic Party’s Wokesters in government. How else explain the idiotic impeachment of former president Trump, like the trial of the cadaver of Pope Formosus in the year 897, seven months after his death, for provoking the Carolingian Duke Arnolf to cross the Alps into Italy and seize the throne of the Holy Roman Empire. That episode took place in the heart of the Dark Ages, of course, but have we perhaps not entered a new Dark Age with the Woke Inquisition against - let’s just face it - Western Civ, and all its (for some) difficult-to-comprehend achievements?

Like the trial of Formosus, the trial of Mr. Trump is strictly in the service of laying out a story, a narrative, for validating the continued persecution of Woke heretics - that is, “insurrectionists,” indeed anyone not ardently on-board with transforming the USA into a Woke tyranny of race-and-gender hustling and the endless extortion of cash penalties for the crime of whiteness. What cat-turd box of Satan’s own law school are the leaders of this despotic hysteria hatched from: Pelosi, Swalwell, Adam Schiff, Schumer, and their accessories in media and tech, Jack, Zuck, Cook, and Bezos, and their numberless priests in higher ed? How much longer will it be before the substantial and obdurately not-insane of this country refuse to roll over for these rampaging maniacs?"

- https://kunstler.com/

"All We Really Need..."

"Causes do matter. And the world is changed by people who care deeply about causes,about things that matter. We don't have to be particularly smart or talented. We don't need a lot of money or education. All we really need is to be passionate about something important; something bigger than ourselves. And it's that commitment to a worthwhile cause that changes the world."

- Steve Goodier

"Find the things that matter, and hold on to them, 

and fight for them, and refuse to let them go."

- Lauren Oliver

Greg Hunter, "Weekly News Wrap-Up 2/12/21"

"Weekly News Wrap-Up 2/12/21"

by Greg Hunter’s USAWatchdog.com 

"Another day of the impeachment trial of President Trump, more massive lies by Democrat prosecutors. The case for impeachment is so weak that the Democrats have to lie in some way at every turn. They edit out phrases President Trump said such as “peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard” to try to make Donald Trump look like he incited a riot at the U.S. Capitol on January 6th. All the evidence clearly shows President Trump DID NOT incite a riot. Next week, it will be the Trump impeachment lawyers turn to put on their case. I expect some major pushback. I hope they finally get to make the case of massive election and voter fraud that NO court, including the Supreme Court, has had the guts to hear. The Senate trial is Trump’s day in court, even though this is really a kangaroo court of political theater.

More election fraud was discovered and documented this week. According to TheGatewayPundit.com, “A recent hand recount in the Rockingham District 7 NH House Race in Windham, New Hampshire, found that the Dominion-owned voting machines shorted EVERY REPUBLICAN by roughly 300 votes.” There is also a new video out by “Pure Data” (it’s fantastic) that shows statistical anomalies that could never happen naturally and points to major fraud in the so-called battleground states.

Unemployment took another jump this week with nearly 800,000 new filers. The state unemployment rolls are dropping off as people run out of benefits. On the other hand, the federal emergency unemployment claims are skyrocketing as those state benefits run out. As I predicted, the economy would get worse and much worse because of Biden Administration policies."

Join Greg Hunter on Rumble as he talks about

these stories and more in the Weekly News Wrap-Up.

- https://rumble.com/

"Severe Economic Suffering Is Taking A Very Heavy Toll On Millions Of American Families"

"Severe Economic Suffering Is Taking A Very

 Heavy Toll On Millions Of American Families"

by Epic Economist

"The recession we're experiencing right now is not only destroying the economy as it is causing severe economic suffering on millions of American families. Several groups had their lives turned upside down since the burst of the sanitary outbreak. The mass lay-offs that were triggered by the widespread shutdown of U.S. businesses have put approximately 70 million out of their jobs and at least 11 million remain unemployed. Even those who didn't go through a job loss are facing financial setbacks, as many had a major cut on their paychecks and their household income was significantly reduced. 

At this point, nearly 50 percent of all U.S. adults with lower incomes have trouble paying their bills, and Americans have been accumulating debt like never before. The financial pain these workers have been dealing with is taking a very heavy toll on their psychological stability, and according to a recent survey, almost half of the U.S. workforce is suffering from mental health issues. It is tragic to admit but many of our citizens are coming to the realization they simply can't afford to live in this country. That's what we're going to expose in this video. 

Millions of Americans have been completely overwhelmed with the financial setbacks resultant from the economic fallout of the health crisis. A recent Pew Research Center survey found that approximately one-in-four adults have had trouble paying their bills during the crisis, while one third have dipped into savings or retirement accounts to be able to cover their expenses, and about one-in-six have borrowed money from friends or family or received food from a food bank. In the lower-income segment of our society, 46% of all adults have affirmed to be facing troubles to pay the bills for almost a year now. Data from the survey showed that overall, 25% of U.S. adults disclosed they or someone in their household was laid off or lost their job because of the outbreak, with 15% saying this happened to them personally.

Even those who didn't lose a job are having financial strains, as many workers have had to reduce their hours or take a pay cut to stay in their posts. The survey reported that roughly one-third, or 32%, of all adults affirmed this has happened to them or someone in their household, with 21% revealing this happened to them personally. Taking all these evidences into account, it's understandable why such a big part of our population is now suffering. When people realize they simply won't have enough money to afford their most basic needs, that can cause a lot of mental stress. 

The economic deterioration is causing so much anxiety that, according to a report from the Oregon-based insurance company The Standard, there has been a remarkable jump in the number of full-time U.S. workers dealing with mental health issues over the past 12 months. Around 46%, which represent nearly half of American workers, reported that they were struggling with mental health issues, compared to 39% in 2019. It is just incredibly sad to witness the effects of the economic collapse weighing upon the shoulders of our great workers. It's even sadder when we consider that this is just the beginning of the crisis and much more pain is still ahead. 

Poverty has grown so quickly and so much over the past year, that we have been naturalizing the decay of our living standards because, at this point, we know there's not much we can do to fight it. We're failing to realize that our dignity is being gradually removed from our reach, to the point compromising it is becoming something "normal". We have been so fragile amid this endless storm of problems that we're not seeing with clarity how authorities have been walking all over our heads. Millions of jobs are gone, hundreds of thousands of businesses have permanently disappeared from our economic landscape, our population has been suffering like never before and some still dare to say we're in the middle of an "economic recovery". The truth is, as our businesses are dying and most Americans are living paycheck to paycheck, we're much closer to a financial disaster. Just wait and see."

- http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com

God help us...

Must Watch! "Positive Thinking Won't Stop The Greatest Depression; Economy On Life Support; Economic Trauma"

Jeremiah Babe,

"Positive Thinking Won't Stop The Greatest Depression;

 Economy On Life Support; Economic Trauma"

Gerald Celente, "Debt Bomb To Explode, Inflation To Spike"

Gerald Celente, 

"Debt Bomb To Explode, Inflation To Spike"

"The Trends Journal is a weekly magazine analyzing global current events forming future trends. Our mission is to present Facts and Truth over hype and propaganda to help subscribers prepare for What’s Next in the increasingly turbulent times ahead."

- https://trendsresearch.com/

Gregory Mannarino, "Critical Must Know Updates; The Market And Beyond"

Gregory Mannarino, PM 2/11/21:

"Critical Must Know Updates; The Market And Beyond"

- https://traderschoice.net/

Musical Interlude: Ludovico Einaudi, "Indaco"

Ludovico Einaudi, "Indaco"

Full screen highly recommended.

"A Look to the Heavens"

"The South Celestial Pole is easy to spot in star trail images of the southern sky. The extension of Earth's axis of rotation to the south, it's at the center of all the southern star trail arcs. In this starry panorama streching about 60 degrees across deep southern skies the South Celestial Pole is somewhere near the middle though, flanked by bright galaxies and southern celestial gems. Across the top of the frame are the stars and nebulae along the plane of our own Milky Way Galaxy. Gamma Crucis, a yellowish giant star heads the Southern Cross near top center, with the dark expanse of the Coalsack nebula tucked under the cross arm on the left. Eta Carinae and the reddish glow of the Great Carina Nebula shine along the galactic plane near the right edge. 

Click image for larger size.

At the bottom are the Large and Small Magellanic clouds, external galaxies in their own right and satellites of the mighty Milky Way. A line from Gamma Crucis through the blue star at the bottom of the southern cross, Alpha Crucis, points toward the South Celestial Pole, but where exactly is it? Just look for south pole star Sigma Octantis. Analog to Polaris the north pole star, Sigma Octantis is little over one degree fom the the South Celestial pole."

- https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap210101.html

Chet Raymo, "Starlight"

"Starlight"

by Chet Raymo

"Poor Calvin is overwhelmed with the vastness of the cosmos and no small dose of existential angst. He is not the first, of course. Most famously the 17th-century French philosopher Blaise Pascal wailed his own despair: "I feel engulfed in the infinite immensity of spaces whereof I know nothing and which know nothing of me. I am terrified...The eternal silence of these infinite spaces alarms me."

And he didn't know the half of it. Not so long ago we imagined ourselves to be the be-all and end-all of creation, at the center of a cosmos made expressly for us and at the pinnacle of the material Great Chain of Being. Then it turned out that the Earth was not the center of the cosmos. Nor the Sun. Nor the Galaxy. The astronomers Sebastian von Hoerner and Carl Sagan raised this experience to the level of a principle -- the Principle of Mediocrity -- which can be stated something like this: The view from here is about the same as the view from anywhere else. Or to put it another way: Our star, our planet, the life on it, and even our own intelligence, are completely mediocre.

Moon rocks are just like Earth rocks. Photographs of the surface of Mars made by the landers and rovers could as well have been made in Nevada. Meteorites contain some of the same organic compounds that are the basis for terrestrial life. Gas clouds in the space between the stars are composed of precisely the same atoms and molecules that we find in our own backyard. The most distant galaxies betray in their spectra the presence of familiar elements.

And yet, and yet, for all we know, our brains are the most complex things in the universe. Are we then living, breathing refutations of the Principle of Mediocrity. I doubt it. For the time being, Calvin will just have to get used to living in the infinite abyss and eternal silence. He has Hobbes. We have each other. And science. And poetry. And love."

- http://blog.sciencemusings.com/

"The More Connected..."

"In a universe devoid of life, any life at all would be immensely meaningful. We ARE that meaning. "And what we see, "says the poet Mary Oliver, "is the world that cannot cherish us, but which we cherish." As though life itself is the great, universal, unrequited love of all time. But there is even more to this. Deep mystery. We are the universe aware of itself. We let the miracle get lost in distractions. On a planet so rich with living companions, much of humanity sentences itself to solitary confinement. Late at night, I used to lie in my boat listening to radio calls from ships to families ashore. There was only one conversation, and it boils down to, "I love you and I miss you: come home safe." Connections make us individuals. Ironic, isn't it? The more connected, the more unique our life becomes…"

- Carl Safina