Saturday, January 14, 2023

"A Look to the Heavens"

"Cradled in cosmic dust and glowing hydrogen, stellar nurseries in Orion the Hunter lie at the edge of a giant molecular cloud some 1,500 light-years away. Spanning nearly 25 degrees, this breath-taking vista stretches across the well-known constellation from head to toe (top to bottom). The Great Orion Nebula, the closest large star forming region, is right of center. To its left are the Horsehead Nebula, M78, and Orion's belt stars. Red giant Betelgeuse is at the hunter's shoulder, bright blue Rigel at his foot, and the glowing Lambda Orionis (Meissa) nebula at the far left, near Orion's head. 
Of course, the Orion Nebula and bright stars are easy to see with the unaided eye, but dust clouds and emission from the extensive interstellar gas in this nebula-rich complex, are too faint and much harder to record. In this mosaic of broadband telescopic images, additional image data acquired with a narrow hydrogen alpha filter was used to bring out the pervasive tendrils of energized atomic hydrogen gas and the arc of the giant Barnard's Loop.”

Chet Raymo, "The Meaning Of Life"

"The Meaning Of Life"
by Chet Raymo

"There is only one meaning of life, the act of living itself."
– Erich Fromm

"I had heard from a high-school student in the midwest who had read my book 'Skeptics and True Believers,' in which, as you may know, I take to task all forms of faith that lack an empirical basis, including astrology and supernaturalist religion. He writes: "Are we just meaningless beasts roaming a meaningless Earth with the sole purpose of popping out babies so we can raise them to live longer, more meaningless lives?"

A good question, the best question. What we have learned about our place on Earth does indeed suggest that we are beasts, related even in our DNA and molecular chemistry to other animals. And, yes, the driving purpose of all animal life would seem to be "popping out babies." But our uniquely complex human brains allow us to be more than beasts, more than baby-poppers. As far as we know, humans are the most complex thing in the universe, and in our desire to gain reliable knowledge of the universe the universe becomes conscious of itself.

As for myself, I don't need stars or gods to give my life meaning. I work at meaning every day, in the love of family and friends, in caring for my own little pieces of the Earth, in art, in science, and in making myself conscious of the mystery and beauty - and terror - of the cosmos.

"Or is there a possibility that there may be more?" asks my midwestern correspondent. Yes, there is almost certainly more to existence than what we have yet learned. Just think how much more we know than did our pre-scientific ancestors. But that still greater knowledge will have to wait for minds other than my own. My children and grandchildren will know far more than I, and in that growing human storehouse of reliable knowledge I hope they will find some greater measure of meaning.

In the meantime, I attend to the fox that sometimes walks across my windowsill, the morning glory seedlings that reach achingly for the sun, and the moon that hangs like a great milky eye in the sky. Francis Bacon said that what a man would like to be true, he preferentially believes. That's a mistake I try to avoid. I choose instead to believe what my senses tell me to be palpably true."

"In Ordinary Times..."

"In ordinary times we get along surprisingly well, on the whole, without ever discovering what our faith really is. If, now and again, this remote and academic problem is so unmannerly as to thrust its way into our minds, there are plenty of things we can do to drive the intruder away. We can get the car out or go to a party or to the cinema or read a detective story or have a row with a district council or write a letter to the papers about the habits of the nightjar or Shakespeare's use of nautical metaphor. Thus we build up a defense mechanism against self-questioning because, to tell the truth, we are very much afraid of ourselves."
- Dorothy L. Sayers

The Poet: Neil Gaiman, "What You Need To Be Warm "

"What You Need To Be Warm" 
by Neil Gaiman

 "A baked potato of a winters night to wrap
your hands around or burn your mouth.
A blanket knitted by your mother's cunning fingers. 
Or your grandmother's.

A smile, a touch, trust, as you walk in from the snow
or return to it, the tips of your ears pricked pink and frozen.
The tink tink tink of iron radiators waking in an old house.

To surface from dreams in a bed, 
burrowed beneath blankets and comforters,
the change of state from cold to warm is all that matters, and you think
just one more minute snuggled here before you face the chill. Just one.

Places we slept as children: they warm us in the memory.
We travel to an inside from the outside. 
To the orange flames of the fireplace
or the wood burning in the stove. 

Breath-ice on the inside of windows,
to be scratched off with a fingernail, melted with a whole hand.
Frost on the ground that stays in the shadows, waiting for us.

Wear a scarf. Wear a coat. Wear a sweater. 
Wear socks. Wear thick gloves.

An infant as she sleeps between us. A tumble of dogs,
a kindle of cats and kittens. 
Come inside. You're safe now.
A kettle boiling at the stove. Your family or friends are there. 
They smile.
Cocoa or chocolate, tea or coffee, 
soup or toddy, what you know you need.
A heat exchange, they give it to you, you take the mug
and start to thaw.

While outside, for some of us, the journey began
as we walked away from our grandparentshouses
away from the places we knew as children: 
changes of state and state and state,
to stumble across a stony desert, or to brave the deep waters,
while food and friends, home, a bed, even a blanket become just memories.

Sometimes it only takes a stranger, in a dark place,
to hold out a badly-knitted scarf, to offer a kind word,
 to say we have the right to be here, 
to make us warm in the coldest season.
You have the right to be here. "

- Neil Gaiman

Neil Gaiman reads "What You Need To Be Warm" here:

"16 Harsh Truths That Make Us Stronger "

"16 Harsh Truths That Make Us Stronger "
by Marc Chernoff

"1. Life is not easy. Hard work makes people lucky, it's the stuff that brings dreams to reality. So start every morning ready to run farther than you did yesterday and fight harder than you ever have before.

2. You will fail sometimes. The faster you accept this, the faster you can get on with being brilliant. You'll never be 100% sure it will work, but you can always be 100% sure doing nothing won't work. So get out there and do something! Either you succeed or you learn a vital lesson. Win, Win.

3. Right now, there's a lot you don't know. The day you stop learning is the day you stop living. Embrace new information, think about it and use it to advance yourself.

4. There may not be a tomorrow. Not for everyone. Right now, someone on Earth is planning something for tomorrow without realizing they're going to die today. This is sad but true. So spend your time wisely today and pause long enough to appreciate it.

5. There's a lot you can't control. Wasting your time, talent and emotional energy on things that are beyond your control is a recipe for frustration, misery and stagnation. Invest your energy in the things you can control.

6. Information is not true knowledge. Knowledge comes from experience. You can discuss a task a hundred times, but these discussions will only give you a philosophical understanding. You must experience a task firsthand to truly know it.

7. You can't be successful without providing value. Don't waste your time trying to be successful, spend your time creating value. When you're valuable to the world around you, you will be successful.

8. Someone else will always have more than you. Whether it's money, friends or magic beans that you're collecting, there will always be someone who has more than you. But remember, it's not how many you have, it's how passionate you are about collecting them. It's all about the journey.

9. You can't change the past. As Maria Robinson once said, "Nobody can go back and start a new beginning, but anyone can start today and make a new ending."  You can't change what happened, but you can change how you react to it.

10. The only person who can make you happy is you. The root of your happiness comes from your relationship with yourself. Sure external entities can have fleeting effects on your mood, but in the long run nothing matters more than how you feel about who you are on the inside.

11. There will always be people who don't like you. You can't be everything to everyone. No matter what you do, there will always be someone who thinks differently. So concentrate on doing what you know in your heart is right. What others think and say about you isn't all that important. What is important is how you feel about yourself.

12. You won't always get what you want. As Mick Jagger once said, "You can't always get what you want, but if you try sometimes you might find you get what you need."  Look around. Appreciate the things you have right now. Many people aren't so lucky.

13. In life, you get what you put in. If you want love, give love. If you want friends, be friendly. If you want money, provide value. It really is this simple.

14. Good friends will come and go. Most of your high school friends won't be a part of your college life. Most of your college friends won't be a part of your 20-something professional life. Most of your 20-something friends won't be there when your spouse and you bring your second child into the world. But some friends will stick. And it's these friends, the ones who transcend time with you, who matter.

15. Doing the same exact thing every day hinders self growth. If you keep doing what you're doing, you'll keep getting what you're getting. Growth happens when you change things, when you try new things, when you stretch beyond your comfort zone.

16. You will never feel 100% ready for something new. Nobody ever feels 100% ready when an opportunity arises. Because most great opportunities in life force us to grow beyond our comfort zones, which means you won't feel totally comfortable or ready for it. 
And remember, trying to be someone else is a waste of the person you are. Strength comes from being comfortable in your own skin."

The Daily "Near You?"

Farmington, Maine, USA. Thanks for stopping by!

"For Those Who Deny The Problems With The Vax"

"For Those Who Deny The Problems With The Vax"
by aka.attrition

"The question of whether the vax is causing excess death or other health related problems is not answered by looking around at our own lives and seeing whether anyone we know has died after taking the vax or whether we know anyone suffering adverse side-effects. Our observable population sample is too small and may reflect all sorts of biases and sampling issues.

The question is also not answered by amateur-hour armchair analysts youtubing and surfing sites whose content is created by equally amateur-hour content creators. Or by saying, see I took the jab but I’m not dead. And neither is my friend or the guy on TV. You cannot anecdotal your way to the answer.

The question is answered by applying a high level understanding of math and statistical analysis to various sources of reliable data, or data which is as reliable as one can get, and calculating the actual stats across a large population of subjects. It is answered by comparing current death rates and rates of major health problems with known and established prior baselines. It is answered with math. Not your opinion or guesswork.

Now the problem is that most of us do not have the necessary working knowledge of math and are not trained to analyze complex sets of data. So what to do? Well one option is to find someone who does know how to do that and try as best possible to follow their thought processes and analysis to see how they get to their answers.

One of the smartest people in the room is The Ethical Skeptic whose website contains detailed analysis of the vax problem and the conclusion is very clear that we have a major excess death problem, a major increase in serious disease problem, and it’s getting worse.

I am not going to post TES’s articles as they are long and complex and you can find them yourself on his website: The Ethical Skeptic . He (I assume) has written, amongst many other articles, 3 articles in a series entitled “Houston We Have A Problem”. You can find Part 1 of 3 here: "Houston We Have A Problem" Part 1 of 3. Here is just the introduction:

Seven of the major eleven International Classification of Diseases codes tracked by the US National Center for Health Statistics exhibit stark increase trends beginning in the first week of April 2021 – featuring exceptional growth more robust than during even the Covid-19 pandemic time frame. This date of inception is no coincidence, in that it also happens to coincide with a key inflection point regarding a specific body-system intervention in most of the US population. These seven pronounced increases in mortality alarmingly persist even now.

The following work is the result of thousands of hours of dynamic data tracking and research on the part of its author. The reader should anticipate herein, a journey which will take them through the methods and metrics which serve to identify this problem, along with a deductive assessment of the candidate causal mechanisms behind it. Alternatives as to cause which include one mechanism in particular, that is embargoed from being allowed as an explanation, nor even mere mention in some forums.

At the end of this process, we will be left with one inescapable conclusion. One which threatens the very fabric and future of health policy in the US for decades to come.

Try to take the time to work through these articles, try and follow his Twitter page where he regularly posts about the excess death problem we are experiencing and how there is no doubt at all that it is related to the vax-not-vax: The Ethical Skeptic on Twitter:
Click image for larger size.
Here is a tweet worth reading and then delving into deeper to understand how he comes to this conclusion: "And finally, it goes without saying that our Public Health Missteps with Covid constitute the most deadly man-made event in US history by far. Over 1 million victims of our hubris and ignorance."

He is not the only one calling out this problem but he is certainly one of the most in-depth analysts out there. Edward Dowd is another in this class. And just to round this off, here is an article from the UK’s BBC just 3 days ago (and when the government mouthpiece starts to run articles like this then you better be paying attention): UK Excess Deaths "Excess deaths in 2022 among worst in 50 years." "More than 650,000 deaths were registered in the UK in 2022 – 9% more than 2019. This represents one of the largest excess death levels outside the pandemic in 50 years."

But I’m sure anecdotal opinion and youtubing amateur shock-jock content creators is a more reliable source of evi-dense to the con-trary."
Related:
o
Hat tip to the Burning Platform for this material.
o
Very informative Comments here:

"What Matter..."

"What matter if this base, unjust life
Cast you naked and disarmed?
If the ground breaks beneath your step,
Have you not your soul?
Your soul! You fly away,
Escape to realms refined,
Beyond all sadness and whimpering.
Be like the bird which on frail branches balanced
A moment sits and sings;
He feels them tremble, but he sings unshaken,
Knowing he has wings."
– Victor Hugo

"The Story Of Man..."

“The sands of time blew into a storm of images... images in sequence to tell the truth! Glorious legends of revolutionaries, bound only by a desire to be true to themselves, and to hope! Parables of colliding worlds, of forbidden love, of enemies healing the wounds of circumstance! Projected myth of persecution through greed and selfishness... and the will to survive! The Will to survive! And to survive in the face of those who claim credit for your very existence! We survive not as pawns, but as agents of hope. Sometimes misunderstood, but always true to our story. The story of Man."
- Scott Morse

What a chimera then is Man, what a novelty, what a monster, what chaos, what a subject of contradiction, what a prodigy! Judge of all things, yet an imbecile earthworm; depository of truth, yet a sewer of uncertainty and error; pride and refuse of the universe. Who shall resolve this tangle?”
- Blaise Pascal
This always suggested, despite ourselves, 
the relentless March of Man towards our unknown destiny...

"How It Really Is"

 

"I'd Still Swim..."

"If I were dropped out of a plane into the ocean and told
 the nearest land was a thousand miles away, I'd still swim. 
And I'd despise the one who gave up." 
- Abraham Maslow

"Human Infected with Super Virus. It's Hitting the Fan"

Full screen recommended.
Canadian Prepper, 1/13/23:
"Human Infected with Super Virus. It's Hitting the Fan"
"Human infected with bird flu for first time in Ecuador; More mysterious explosions in Europe; X-Class solar flares; unprecedented weather unfolding has scientists baffled; inflation and CPI is hiding something; NATO prepares for existential conflict that will determine global monetary supremacy."
Comments here:

"Very High Prices At Kroger! Got Eggs? Hunting Down The Best Deals!"

Full screen recommended.
Adventures With Danno, 1/14/23:
"Very High Prices At Kroger! Got Eggs? 
Hunting Down The Best Deals!"
"In today's vlog we are at Kroger, and are noticing some very high prices. With prices for groceries on the rise we are on the hunt to try and find some of the best sales on items to try and save as much money as we can. It's getting rough out here as stores continue to struggle getting products in."
Comments here:

"Has Our Luck Finally Run Out?"

"Has Our Luck Finally Run Out?"
by Charles Hugh-Smith

"Long-term cycles escape our notice because they play out over many years or even decades; few noticed the decreasing rainfall in the Mediterranean region in 150 A.D. but this gradual decline in rainfall slowly but surely reduced the grain harvests of the Roman Empire, which coupled with rising populations resulted in a reduced caloric intake for many people. This weakened their immune systems in subtle ways, leaving them more vulnerable to the Antonine Plague of 165 AD.

The decline of temperatures in Northern Europe in the early 1300s led to “years without summer” and failed grain harvests which reduced the caloric intake of most people, leaving them weakened and more vulnerable to the Black Plague which swept Europe in 1347.

I’ve mentioned the book "The Fate of Rome: Climate, Disease, and the End of an Empire" a number of times as a source for understanding the impact of natural cycles on human civilization. It’s important to note that the natural cycles and pandemics of 200 AD didn’t just cripple the Roman Empire; this same era saw the collapse of the mighty Parthian Empire of Persia, the kingdoms of India and the Han Dynasty in China.

In addition to natural cycles, there are human socio-economic cycles of debt and decay of civic values and the social contract: a proliferation of parasitic elites, a weakening of state finances and a decline in the purchasing power of wages/labor. The rising dependence on debt and its eventual collapse is a cycle noted by Kondratieff and others, and Peter Turchin listed these three dynamics as the key drivers of decisive discord of the kind that brings down empires and nations. All three are playing out globally in the present.

In this context, the election of Donald Trump in 2016 was a political expression of long-brewing discontent with precisely these issues: the rise of self-serving parasitic elites, the decay/corruption of the social contract and state finances and the decades-long decline in the purchasing power of wages/labor.

Which brings us to karma, a topic of some confusion in Western cultures more familiar with Divine Retribution than with actions having consequences even without Divine Intervention, which is the essence of karma. Broadly speaking, the U.S. squandered the opportunities presented by the end of the Cold War 40 years ago on hubristic Exceptionalism, wars of choice, parasitic elites and an unprecedented waste of resources on unproductive consumption.

Now the plan – for lack of any real plan – is to borrow trillions of dollars to fund an even more spectacular orgy of unproductive consumption, on the bizarre belief that “money” can be conjured out of thin air in essentially infinite quantities and squandered, and there will magically be no consequences of this trickery in the real world.

Actions have consequences, and after 30 years of waste, fraud and corruption being normalized by the parasitic elites while the purchasing power of labor decayed, the karmic consequences can no longer be delayed by doing more of what’s hollowed out the economy and society.

Which brings us to luck. As a general rule, historians seek explanations which leave luck out of the equation. This gives us a false confidence in the predictability and power of human will and action and cycles. Yes, cycles and human action influence outcomes, but we do a great disservice by shunting luck into the shadows as a non-factor.

If Emperor Pius had chosen someone other than Marcus Aurelius as his successor, someone weak, vain and self-absorbed like so many of Rome’s late-stage emperors, then Rome would have fallen by 170 AD as the Antonine Plague crippled finances and the army, and the invading hordes would have swept the empire into the dustbin of history. It can be argued that only Marcus Aurelius had the experience and character to sell off the Imperial treasure to raise the money needed to pay the soldiers and spend virtually his entire term in power in the front lines of battle, preserving Rome from complete collapse. That was good judgement by Pius but also good luck.

As we ponder luck, consider the estimate that had the meteorite that wiped out the dinosaurs 65 million years ago struck the Earth 30 minutes earlier or later, it would not have generated the Nuclear Winter that destroyed the dinosaurs. (A direct hit in deep water would have spawned a monstrous tsunami, but no dust cloud. A direct hit on land would have raised a dust cloud but without the water vapor/steam generated by the vaporization of millions of gallons of sea water, the cloud wouldn’t have risen high enough to encircle the planet.) That was bad luck for the dinosaurs, and good luck for the mammals who replaced them.

The global economy has been extraordinarily lucky for 75 years. Food and energy have been cheap and abundant. (If you think food and energy are expensive now, think about prices doubling or tripling, and then doubling again.)

In our complacency and hubris, we attribute this to our wonderful technologies, which we assume guarantee us permanent surpluses of energy and food. The idea that technology has reached hard limits or that it could fail doesn’t occur to us. We’ve taken good luck to be our birthright because it’s all we’ve known. We attribute this good fortune to things within our control–technology, wise investments and policies, etc. The possibility that all these powers that we consider so godlike are insignificant doesn’t occur to us because we’ve enjoyed the favorable winds of luck without even being aware of it.

We are woefully unprepared for a long run of bad luck. My sense is the cycles have turned and the good luck has drained from the hour-glass. Energy and food will no longer be cheap and abundant, our luck in leadership will vanish, and our vaunted technologies will fail to maintain an abundance so vast that we can squander the finite wealth of soil, water, resources and energy on mindless consumption.

I’m reminded of a line from an Albert King song, "Born Under a Bad Sign" (composed by Booker T. Jones and William Bell): “If it wasn’t for bad luck, I wouldn’t have no luck at all.” The next five years might have us singing this line with feeling."
o
Albert King, "Born Under a Bad Sign"

Friday, January 13, 2023

"Russia's Super Duper Uber Winter Offensive"

Full screen recommended.
Defense Politics Asia, 1 /13/23:
"Russia's Super Duper Uber Winter Offensive"

"There are many talks, predictions and analysis by everyone on how Russia will do it's winter offensive. Or would it even happen? And with the change in leadership structure for the Russian Special Military Operation, the winter offensive is looking really likely to happen soon.

DPA believes the 3 deputy commanders of the SMO will be split into managing 3 fronts, with each taking full charge of one front.

Surovikin is likely to carry on his "good work" on the Eastern Front that the fighting is currently raging.

Oleg Salyukov, whom is the commander of all Russian ground forces, is reported to be visiting troops in Belarus. Which is a signal that he would be in charge of the Northern Front. But we do not think Belarus would want to change the status quo, and thus the invasion from the north is unlikely to come from Belarus, but from Russia itself.

Alexei Kim, would then naturally be in charge of the southern front, with either an amphibious operation in the western part of Odessa oblast, or east of Odessa in the Mykolaiv oblast, OR, to start a Zaporizhzhia Offensive towards Zaporizhzhia city through to Dnipro city. Watch the full video for the full analysis."
Comments here:

"On The Road To Economic Hell; Get Healthy And Debt Free Now!"

Jeremiah Babe, 1/13/23:
"On The Road To Economic Hell; 
Get Healthy And Debt Free Now!"
Comments here:

"Target: Civilization"

"Target: Civilization"
by Jeffrey Tucker

"Two weeks ago, Southwest Airlines had a massive meltdown but they weren’t the only airline affected. Flight delays ruined vacations and travel plans for millions the world over. It was never clear why. Oh sure, blame the weather but that has become a strangely opaque excuse. You look outside and the weather seems fine but then someone snaps at you: Can’t you see that the snow is bad in Buffalo?

So on it goes and when the weather excuse runs out, they blame the airlines themselves. And I’m sure there is plenty of blame to go around. One party that always seems to evade responsibility is the FAA itself. The other morning the FAA itself grounded all planes in the U.S. for three hours. Why? It was some computer glitch. We still don’t get it really. It sure felt like a lockdown. Maybe it was all deliberate to get us used to a system that doesn’t work. Maybe we’ll travel less. Maybe we’ll just give up.

OK, you can call me paranoid, and maybe I’m wrong in my speculations about this incident but look at the bigger picture, whether it is forcing electric cars on us or floating the idea of banning gas stoves. The bottom line is that there are people out there who want to control how we live.

Burn No More: The latest thing on the chopping block is the gas stove. The Biden administration’s Consumer Product Safety Commission has floated the idea of a national ban on them based on some cockamamie study that they cause health and respiratory problems.

You say that they can never get away with it? Think again. These regulators are unbearably powerful. They have every intention of carrying out their wishes, and are enjoying every minute of it. They have disdain for Congress and scoff at your protests. They believe they alone are in charge and you have nothing to say about it.

Think of all the stuff they have already wrecked. Look around at your household appliances. Energy-use and water restrictions have degraded the washing machine, refrigerator, dishwasher, the shower, the toilet, clothes dryers, steamers and irons, dishwashers, freezers, and so much more. Even the refrigerators are shrinking in size, all in the interest of institutionalizing austerity.

The clothes washers no longer use enough water to get things clean. The result is that our clothing is dull and dirty compared only to a generation ago. You can add all the liquids you want and it still won’t work. Sure, you can add bleach but that only wrecks the fabric. When was the last time you saw sheets that were truly bright white? There is a reason for this. It’s all deliberate, and caused by overregulation of appliances. Really clean absolutely requires roiling hot water and lots of it, plus phosphates to whisk the soap away. Without that, you get what you have today: dull and dirty everything.

Sadists in Charge: All this should be a clue about what’s going on. There are sadists in charge of the regulatory apparatus. It’s not really about saving water and energy. Even if it were, that alone would be objectionable. The whole point of energy and water is to serve the human experience, not to impose privation on the planet.

Then there’s the attack on the gas-powered car, which allows us to drive long distances even in cold weather and fully control the machine. The electric vehicle is another matter. It makes us wholly dependent on the grid and limits our mobility. In cold weather, it is worse. You end up having to stop every few hours to beg for a charge and wait another hour if you are lucky enough to find a working machine. After a while, demoralization sets in and you decide it is not worth it.

Sure, there are things you can do to outsmart this imposed impoverishment, such as hack your showerhead with a corkscrew to remove the flow stopper. But there is no fixing the toilet, the dishwasher (which now runs for hours just to leave spots), or the refrigerator (which will break in five years anyway).

In time, they want now to get rid of your ability to cook with fire, thus removing from our lives a crucial primal connection to our roots and innate desire to be around it. Ever sat by a bonfire? Everyone stares for hours because it meets an inner need. No one stands around an induction stove. They’re downright creepy. The only technology these people approve of is a thoroughly censored smartphone. They want everything to work like that: centralized, anodyne, and feeding you nonstop propaganda.

How Will We Cook Our Bugs? The very notion that an electric stove is better than a gas one would be disputed by any competent chef in the entire world. Instead of cultivating instincts based on what you see in the flames, you must trust some digital display to know the temperature, which is absurd. I can’t prove it but the heat itself seems different, like the difference between incandescence and fluorescence. One seems real, the other fake.

I’ve cooked on both and absolutely dread electric stoves. There are loads of dishes that require real fire, all of which would be impossible to make otherwise. I was just in a Mexican restaurant that put their chefs on display using stoves with flames that lap up 14 inches over the air and sear the fresh-made pasta as it is swished around in the pan. There is simply no way to do this otherwise.

Fine, if you want some new tech, great. Go for it. But don’t pretend that you are really cooking. You are buying into the baloney. Also, I’ve met very few people who have used both gas and electric who would honestly choose electric. But if they do, again, fine. But don’t force that choice on everyone else. That regulators say it is bad for our health tells all that you need to know about them. They want us living in a fully sanitized, boring, and unworkable environment in which we never have contact with anything real.

Above all else, they are somehow out to demonize fossil fuels, as if electricity doesn’t use coal too and the trucks that transport it and deliver it don’t use gas. They have even degraded the basic gas can so that it no longer works properly. Oh, we should also mention that gas itself, which now includes corn which is sticky, wrecks engines, and causes the gas itself to degrade over time.

Burning Down the House: Do you see what’s happening here? It’s all deliberate. All the things we love and that make life grand are being taken away from us. The larger truth here is that this war on civilization has been going on for decades. History is supposed to move forward with ever higher living standards. That progress has stopped!

The trajectory must end now. Decades of regulations need to be repealed. The whole population needs to rise up and say no to the forced austerity and rule by the elite cadre of techno-primitivists. They have driven down the standard of living by force and are far from done with us yet.

Some good news from the GOP-controlled House: they’re talking about abolishing the IRS and maybe the income tax itself. Neither will happen of course, but such ideas were never in the public sphere in my lifetime. There’s a mighty revolt afoot in the land today. It’s about time!"

"Why China Will Shut Down The Australian Economy In 2023"

Full screen recommended.
"Why China Will Shut Down The Australian Economy In 2023"
by Epic Economist

"For the past decade, China has been growing rapidly. Rapid urbanization and industrialization mean that China is in need of minerals and raw materials. And China’s development thirst has been fulfilled by Australia. Beijing is Australia’s largest trading partner, accounting for nearly one-third of Australia’s exports and one-fifth of Australia’s imports.

In 2019, China accounted for 82 percent of Australia’s iron ore exports. And guess what? Australian coal is home to China’s thermal power stations. But this economic bond is more complex than you think. Australia is also a leading supplier of liquified natural gas to China. This year, the LNG exports are somewhere between 18-19 billion Australian dollars. And if you think this is just it. You are mistaken.

China has also become the engine of Australia’s services sector. Universities in Canberra, Melbourne, and Sydney are home to significant enrollments from Chinese students. As of June 2019, there are around 164,317 Chinese students completing their education on Aussie turf.

Australia might be on its knees And if the Chinese economy does not stabilize in the next few months, we are afraid it would be an economic winter in Melbourne, Canberra, and the entire of Australia.

Inflation is galloping and the unemployment rate is rising in China. At first glance, you might argue that once things get right, Australia would be back to business. Some could also argue that this is short-term. And once Omicron is controlled, Chinese students and tourists would resume their pre-Covid spending habits. But things might never go back to the normal. Especially when it comes to trade between China and Australia. The reason lies in China’s property market crash.

For the last 3 decades, the property sector has been the main fuel for the Chinese economy. Despite the current geopolitical environment, a sudden decoupling from China would be a big mistake since it accounts for almost 40 percent of Australia’s exports. However, it would be wise for Australia to pursue a policy of trade diversion and look for alternative buyers.

For example, when China refused to buy Australian coal in 2020, it went to Indonesian markets. This created demand gaps in India, Japan, and South Korea, which was fulfilled by Australian coal. See, Australia needs to be smart. Dark times await. The clouds of harsh economic winters will remain for a while."

"A 1968 Musical Interlude"

Mason Williams, "Classical Gas"
o
Full screen recommended.
Paul Mauriat, "Love is Blue"

"A Look to the Heavens"

“To some, the outline of the open cluster of stars M6 resembles a butterfly. M6, also known as NGC 6405, spans about 20 light-years and lies about 2,000 light years distant. M6 can best be seen in a dark sky with binoculars towards the constellation of Scorpius, coving about as much of the sky as the full moon. 

Like other open clusters, M6 is composed predominantly of young blue stars, although the brightest star is nearly orange. M6 is estimated to be about 100 million years old. Determining the distance to clusters like M6 helps astronomers calibrate the distance scale of the universe.”

The Poet: Jane Hirshfield, "The Task "

"The Task" 

"It is a simple garment, this slipped-on world.
We wake into it daily - open eyes, braid hair - 
a robe unfurled
in rose-silk flowering, then laid bare.
And yes, it is a simple enough task
we've taken on,
though also vast:
from dusk to dawn,
from dawn to dusk, to praise, and not
be blinded by the praising.
To lie like a cat in hot
sun, fur fully blazing,
and dream the mouse;
and to keep too the mouse's patient, waking watch
within the deep rooms of the house,
where the leaf-flocked
sunlight never reaches, but the earth still blooms." 
- Jane Hirshfield

"Sometimes..."

 

"Douglas Macgregor: This Is Much Worse Than They're Telling You"

Full screen recommended.
Redacted, 1/13/23:
"Douglas Macgregor: 
This Is Much Worse Than They're Telling You"
"Col. Douglas MacGreggor joins Clayton Morris to 
talk about the devastating realities on the battlefield in Ukraine."
Comments here:

A Must Read! "America’s Dumbest War"

"America’s Dumbest War"
By Bob Moriarty

"According to documents put out by a report service working for Congress the US has launched 251 foreign military interventions in the last thirty years. The report also says the US started more than 80% of all military conflicts since the end of World War II. We are in luck because the US (Stanford University IT Department says that using the words America or American should be forbidden) may well have fought their next to last war because it is having unintended consequences no one could have forecast. Actually that is not true either. They were forecast.

Before I dive into why this war is so obscenely stupid and self destructive, I’d like to comment about something I have learned about life in general. To succeed overall, you need to be good at something. It could be singing. It could be writing. It could be working as a mechanic or a cook. Actually it could be nearly anything. You just need to find something you are good at.

Once you find something that you are good at, you need to do more of it. Frankly there are a couple of things I am good at that somehow manage to pay the bills but there are hundreds of more tasks I am pretty useless at. So do more of what you are good at and less of the things you are not good at and you will get along just fine.

Can I give you a classic example? Let’s say you work for the government. You got your job because basically you are a freak. You think that you would make a great luggage thief. You take a flight; you stand around the luggage area after the flight and see a bag you would like so you walk off with it. Alas, the baggage area has cameras all over so you get caught.

That would be something you would not be good at. So you should avoid doing it in the future for a happy life. While you didn’t actually get fired for being a freak and a thief, you are not better off; you are worse off so you should avoid doing that again. But you are a freak working for Biden/Obama so you steal a second high value piece of luggage from a totally different airport after a different flight. Also equipped with dozens of totally different cameras. You get caught a second time.

If you are good at something do more of it. If you are bad at something, do less of it. Else there will be consequencesIn the Biden administration being a freak is not an opportunity killer. It’s a basic requirement. And it’s not really the Biden administration because Biden himself is pretty much a freak. He should be in an old folk’s home wearing diapers. Or at least wearing diapers. But this is really the third term of the Obama administration with Obama pulling the strings of his minions, Susan Rice, Victoria Nuland and Avril Haines.

If you were good at fighting wars or even just stealing luggage from airports clearly you should focus on that for a happy life. Alternatively, if you are not good at fighting wars or stealing luggage, you should probably avoid both.

If I was to go down the list of the 251 interventions since 1990 I could probably find one or two that clearly America somehow was better off. It might be a stretch to conclude that. After all, wars are bloody expensive and well, bloody. I was in a war once. We lost. Big surprise. I came to the conclusion that no one really wins any war. All that happens is that one side loses a lot more than the other and eventually realizes it is something they are not good at so they stop fighting.

Saying America won World War II is actually silly. First of all we lost 415,000 of our young men and it cost a lot of money. And you should take into account the fact that the Soviet Union actually fought the 80% of the Germans who died. So if anyone “won” World War II, it wasn’t the US.

But you couldn’t possibly have 251 conflicts in thirty years without someone being better off. That of course would be the Military Industrial Complex (MIC) that both Eisenhower and MacArthur warned us about. The MIC doesn’t care about winning a war. They certainly don’t care about how many young Americans die fighting stupid wars. Their blood represents dividend checks for Raytheon or Lockheed-Martin or DuPont. We now have the MIC running the Defense Department with the FBI, the CIA and the DOJ responsible for determining whom the figurehead president should be.

But to give them credit where credit is due, the MIC and CIA have done the most magnificent job possible with the war in Ukraine. They took a clown running the most corrupt country in Europe, perhaps in the world, that stole millions of dollars from his fellow Ukrainians and murdered another 14,000. Elected on a platform of ending the conflict with Russia and eliminating widespread corruption, he did neither and seems to be controlled by very real Nazis."
Full, highly recommended article here:

Hey Good Citizen! Don't you want to know what YOU 
and all of us have paid $121 billion for?