"In terms of evolutionary psychology,
the crowd is very close to a herd of stampeding wildebeest."
– Will Self
So, we rise from the rubble...
Wednesday, March 27, 2024
"The Baltimore Bridge Collapse Is Going To Have An Enormous Impact On U.S. Supply Chains"
"The Baltimore Bridge Collapse Is Going To Have
An Enormous Impact On U.S. Supply Chains"
by Michael Snyder
"When I awoke early on Tuesday morning, I was stunned to learn that the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore had collapsed. We are being told that it was a tragic “accident” and that there is no evidence that any foul play was involved. Hopefully that is true. But no matter how it was caused, this tragedy is going to have an enormous impact on U.S. supply chains. And of course this comes at a really bad time, because Houthi missile strikes in the Red Sea and low water levels in the Panama Canal have been putting a tremendous amount of strain on global supply chains recently.
According to Bloomberg, it appears that the Port of Baltimore will be “out of commission indefinitely”…"The Port of Baltimore — the biggest handler of US imports and exports of cars and light trucks — looks to be out of commission indefinitely. The resulting bottleneck could accelerate a shift of goods through West Coast ports. Another crucial question: Which other ports have spare capacity to handle the Ro-Ro vessels that carry automobiles if Baltimore is closed for an extended period."
This is a really big deal, because over 750,000 vehicles came through that port last year alone…"The port is the busiest in the U.S. for car shipments, handling more than 750,000 vehicles in 2023, according to data from the Maryland Port Administration. It is also the largest U.S. port by volume for handling farm and construction machinery, as well as agricultural products."
In addition, a whole host of prominent retailers are very dependent on the Port of Baltimore… Retailers like Home Depot, Bob’s Furniture, IKEA, and Amazon are just some of the companies that use the port to import goods. Other top imports include sugar and gypsum. “This will have an impact for trade all along the East Coast and it will continue until we know how quickly” the port can reopen, said Richard Meade, editor-in-chief of the shipping journal Lloyd’s List."
Vessels were already being diverted to New York and down to Virginia on Tuesday, said Meade. “There will be dozens of diversions in the next week and hundreds in the coming months as long as Baltimore is shut down.” This isn’t the end of the world, and shipments can certainly be diverted to other ports.
But we are talking about the 11th largest port in the entire nation, and so this will definitely be a serious blow…"More than 52 million tons of foreign cargo, worth some $80 billion were transported out of the port last year, according to Maryland Gov. Wes Moore. The 11th largest port in the nation, Baltimore served an average of 207 calls a month last year, according to the shipping journal Lloyd’s List."
In addition, it is going to take a very long time for the Francis Scott Key Bridge to be rebuilt. As Lara Logan has pointed out, that section of I-695 was the “second busiest strategic roadway in the nation for hazardous material”…"Second busiest strategic roadway in the nation for hazardous material now down for 4-5 years – which is how long they say it will take to recover. Bridge was built specifically to move hazardous material – fuel, diesel, propane gas, nitrogen, highly flammable materials, chemicals and oversized cargo that cannot fit in the tunnels – that supply chain now crippled."
One expert is projecting that it will take more than two years to rebuild the bridge…"While trade is nimble and will reroute, over the long term the bridge will need to be fundamentally engineered and rebuilt, and that will take years. “It will be in excess of two years,” said Meade, of Lloyd’s List. “There will be significant disruption and cost to this infrastructure project. In 1977, the bridge cost $60 million. Take in inflation and the rapid pace to redesign and build will increase procurement premiums. This will be a very expensive project.”
I would be shocked if it happens that quickly. We shall see. In any event, we are talking about a multi-faceted crisis that is going to be affecting U.S. supply chains for the foreseeable future. At a press conference following the collapse of the bridge, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg openly admitted that we are looking at a “major and protracted impact on supply chains”… “There is no question this will be a major and protracted impact on supply chains,” Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said during a Tuesday afternoon press conference in Baltimore."
I think that this is the first time I have ever agreed with Pete Buttigieg on anything. Sadly, this is just the beginning. In the months ahead, U.S. supply chains will be hit with additional challenges. So if there are things that you are planning to purchase, I would do that now.
Before I end this article, there is one more thing that I wanted to mention. Global supplies of cocoa just keep getting tighter and tighter, and on Tuesday the price of cocoa jumped above $10,000 per metric ton for the first time ever…"Cocoa prices hit a record Tuesday as supply constraints fuel prices higher. Futures for May delivery were up 3.9% at $10,030 per metric ton, marking the first time the commodity breaks above the $10,000 mark. Cocoa has been on a tear this year, soaring nearly 138%.
Difficult weather conditions and disease have affected production in West Africa, which produces about 70% of the world’s cocoa. The two largest producers, Ivory Coast and Ghana, have been hit by a combination of heavy rain, dry heat and disease recently."
In January, it was less than half that price. If you love chocolate, stock up on it while you still can. Of course the same thing could be said about countless other things. Do you remember the supply chain problems that we experienced a couple of years ago? Well, what is eventually coming is going to absolutely dwarf that.
Many are using the term “black swan event” to describe the collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore, but the truth is that we are moving into a time when there will be one “black swan event” after another. So get prepared while there is still an opportunity to do so, because the months and years ahead of us are going to be extremely chaotic."
"How It Really Is"
"Alas, regardless of their doom, the little victims play!
No sense have they of ills to come, nor care beyond today.”
- Thomas Gray,
“Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College”
- https://www.poetryfoundation.org/
“Al Swearengen's Take On Life"
Strong language alert!
"In life you have to do a lot of things you don't ****ing want to do.
Many times, that's what the **** life is... one vile ****ing task after another.
Many times, that's what the **** life is... one vile ****ing task after another.
But don't get aggravated - then the enemy has you by the short hair."
“Al Swearengen”,
Ian McShane's character in “Deadwood”o
Adventures With Danno, "It Hit Us! We're Sick! This Is Terrible!"
Adventures With Danno, AM 3/27/24
"It Hit Us! We're Sick! This Is Terrible!"
"In today's vlog, we are discussing how we got the flu
and going over some home remedies we are doing to feel better."
Comments here:
Gregory Mannarino, "AM/PM 3/27/24"
Gregory Mannarino, AM 3/27/24
"A Systemic/Global Meltdown Is Coming"
Comments here:
No connection to reality at all,
only the consequences are real, to YOU...
Glen Campbell, "It's Only Make Believe"
o
Gregory Mannarino, PM 3/27/24
"Situation Critical: Final Warning! Get Your
Cash Out Of The Smaller/Regional Banks Now"
Comments here:
Greg Hunter, Destructive “Chemtrails” Finally Coming to Light"
"Destructive 'Chemtrails' Finally Coming to Light"
By Greg Hunter’s USAWatchdog.com
"Climate engineering researcher Dane Wigington says it looks like the destructive climate engineering operation that has been going on for decades is finally coming to the attention of the public with new legislation happening in states like Tennessee. Terms like “chemtrails” are used to hide the massive harm being done to the climate. Tennessee is taking action because the harm being done to the “public welfare” with everything from heavy metals, aluminum and nanoparticles being sprayed on everyone to manipulate the climate. Of course, there is no public discussion, let alone public approval, of this evil weather warfare that is well established climate Engineering science since just after WWII. With the Tennessee legislation, we may finally be getting enough public awareness to STOP spraying, poisoning and climate damage being done without public knowledge or permission.
Is the Tennessee climate engineering “ban” good news? Wigington explains, “This is extremely good news. The key point here is this raising awareness and credibility for this issue. Clearly, whatever one state passes over its airspace is not going to stop the fallout coming from upwind. You would have to ban this over the whole planet to stop theses toxic particulate matter from saturating all of us. That said, this is extremely important in raising awareness. The Senate bill is 2691 and the House bill is 2063, and it’s being voted on Wednesday 3/27/24 in Tennessee.
The interesting thing is all who are voting for this are Republicans, but this should not be a political issue. The reason why the Democrats are not voting for this is they believe anyone trying to bring attention to the climate engineering issue is somehow trying to dodge the fact that the climate is damaged. That is the furthest thing from the truth. What we are saying at GeoEngineeringWatch.org is how can there be any legitimate discussion about climate anything without addressing this issue first and foremost. On the current course, no one gets out alive. I know that is an incredibly hard pill to swallow, but it is the fact of the matter. What does that mean for all of us? Do we sit down and do nothing? No. We try to bring this issue (Geoengineering) to light, which is, at this moment in time, the single most destructive factor of all human activity. It is the single most destructive problem we face short of nuclear cataclysm. Together we can expose this and stop it and allow the planet to respond to the damage done with whatever life support systems that are left. People need to wake up while we can still make a difference. We are running out of time.”
Wigington says climate engineering is criminal, and people at the top know what is happening. Wigington says, “These people are like pirates trying to fill their pockets with loot on the deck of a sinking ship.”
On top of that, the Lying Legacy Media (LLM) are out in force trying to minimize what this Tennessee legislation means to exposing these climate engineering destructive policies. One of the latest acts of destruction is baseball size hail that destroyed thousands of acres of solar panels this past weekend in Texas. Wigington says this type of extreme weather is one of many problems caused by climate engineering. You will not hear how dire the situation is because of the propaganda by the LLM that hide the dire situation we face that is made exponentially worse by so-called “Chemtrails.” There is much more in the 41-minute interview."
Join Greg Hunter on Rumble as he goes One-on-One with climate researcher Dane Wigington, founder of GeoEngineeringWatch.org, with an update on the calamity geoengineering is causing and legislation in Tennessee to ban it.
"Get Your Stuff Together..."
“We all got problems. But there’s a great book out called “Too Soon Old, Too Late Smart.” Did you see that? That book says the statute of limitations has expired on all childhood traumas. Get your stuff together and get on with your life, man. Stop whinin’ about what’s wrong, because everybody’s had a rough time, in one way or another.”
- Quincy Jones
"'Life Doesn’t Owe Anyone a Damn Thing'; or 'Handle Hard Better'"
"'Life Doesn’t Owe Anyone a Damn Thing';
or 'Handle Hard Better'"
by Justin Smith
“We all wait in life for things to get easier. It will never get easier. What happens is you handle hard better. That’s what happens. Most people think that it’s going to get easier. Life is going to get easier. Basketball is going to get easier. School is going to get easier. It never gets easier. What happens is you become someone who handles hard stuff better. And if you think life when you leave college is going to all of a sudden get easier because you graduated, and you got a Duke degree, it’s not going to get easier. It’s going to get harder. So make yourself a person that handles hard well.” ~ Kara Lawson, Head Coach for Duke University Women’s Basketball Team and Graduate of the University of Tennessee [July 5th 2022]
An incredible number of Americans today have been coddled, pampered and fed a sense of entitlement from birth that continued into their early adulthood, making them always look to others or the government for help in acquiring their needs and wants. They have been raised without a backbone, weak-willed and dependent; and so, whenever they find themselves to be in a minority, they more often than not petition the federal and state governments, protest and riot, in order that their particular concerns are proactively pursued and implemented as favored, privileged and superior, no matter how insane, from destroying humanity by way of transgenderism or energy and job-killing fallacious “climate change” policies.
From my earliest memories, I saw hard men, laughing, loving, fighting hard and playing just as hard, as they’d rise each day to head out to work, in the mines, the forests, office buildings and on the nation’s lines of defense, and in particular I recall learning something of worth from each of them, much as I did from my Granddad Spurge, who was a coal miner and a stone mason. They were a hardy bunch of industrious scrappers, who pulled up their sleeves and worked hard to make a better life for themselves and their children, to build better communities, a better America.
But what passes for young “men” today is but a mere shadow of men of worth from better days gone by, what with their feminine appearances and their aversion to doing anything to break a sweat. And aside from weak bodies, too much coddling has made their minds work in a new, cunning devious manner, in which they waste enormous amounts of effort sidestepping real work and figuring out how to get something for nothing rather than perform an honest day’s work to pay for bills they make, without any intention of ever repaying, such as student loans.
Half of America seems content to allow Uncle Sam to make life better for them and their children via the welfare system and the government cheese, even tho’ it means a life of subsistence, just scraping by. Although today, many have developed gaming the system into a real art, whereby they live just about as good as anyone working a full-time job, complete with HUD homes, EBT cards, late model cars, color T.V.s and government purchased cellphones.
Life doesn’t owe any of us a thing, regardless of the circumstances and station of our birth. The miracle of your birth alone doesn’t mean you are automatically owed a job, a house, a bed or a single meal after you are a grown adult and supposedly capable of doing for yourself. You’re not owed recognition and understanding for simply existing, and neither are you owed success and comfort, abundance and happiness or immunity from the problems, pain and suffering that is simply a part of the human condition, and you certainly aren’t due any money you haven’t earned through your own sweat and effort, not from me, the American taxpayers or the U.S. government.
The only thing anyone should expect from The Government, if we are to accept the Contract found in our Constitution, are those things enumerated in its original form, and in that sense, we are owed a strong, affirmative and fierce defense of our Inalienable God-given Rights, as expressed and defined in the Bill of Rights, to be left alone to our own devices to live and thrive as free born Americans, without interference from The Government and its agents where no real harm is being done.
People aren’t created equal in the very real definition of the word and life has never been fair to anyone, and yet, the constant refrain heard all across all levels of American society today, from the ranks of the Mau Mau Marxist-Maoist totalitarians, those lovers of “democracy”, is “the world is so unfair”. They were evidently raised to believe “all men are created equal” in the context of the Declaration of Independence meant they are somehow guaranteed equal outcomes in everyday life, instead of the simple “equality under the law” as intended. And their voices are now amplified by an out-of-control regime that seeks to use their envy to complete the fundamental transformation of America, by any means necessary, no matter how unconstitutional or illegal they might be and are currently proving to be.
Standing on one’s own two feet and making your way through the merit of your own knowledge and work are now a thing of the past, as the poorest results in school and on the job are given the same weight and worth as the best and everybody gets a participation trophy. And in its place, envy, greed, sloth, gluttony, lies, sex and murder, the destroyer of worlds, are the rule, for a generation indoctrinated through Marxist-Maoist multiculturalist doctrine and propaganda, taught from kindergarten through university, who are now driven by an unhinged hate and anger directed at white society and capitalism.
This, in part, is the reason we see whole cities, controlled by the Marxist-Maoists and the totalitarian minded, enacting new “laws” that make the theft of anything $900 or less a misdemeanor, giving way to thousands of groups of poorly taught, undisciplined, predominantly black “youths” rampaging, rioting and looting numerous times a day, taking $900 dollars worth of merchandise nine times a day, if not more, taught racism and hatred and driven by envy and greed. It’s the reason cities across America are folding up, shriveling like a crop attacked by locusts and dying on the vine where once they thrived, back when our people, indeed our youth, had more pure hearts and moral directions and had not strayed far and away from America’s Christian roots.
Over the past thirty years, the nutcases of the Democrat Party have advocated a pathologically negative agenda for America that is based on destroying the Founding and revising history to portray early America as evil and worth casting on the ash-heap of history. Accelerating their plans through the public education system, an entire generation of America’s youth have been brainwashed to believe our planet is dying due to manmade CO2 and “climate change”, in defiance of actual science, and as if that isn’t enough, we are all constantly inundated with one alarm after another raised over racism — even as reverse racism against whites is now advocated, capitalism — which hasn’t really existed in America for over 100 years, homophobia / gender bigotry, capitalist oppression — even tho’ our system is economic fascism, and the fallacious assertion that White Supremacist Nazis are ascending in every community in America.
The real problem found within the ranks of the Takers? They just can’t face the fact that life isn’t easy for anyone, especially the Makers; and it never has been, although exceptions can be found in those born into wealth. But even the wealthy are weighted with life’s problems, if of a different variety, much as the old adage says that “money can’t buy you love or happiness”, even if it does buy you a line of coke and hookers, in a sad sort of dystopian world of a different immoral construct.
The routines many of us indulge in daily have made the largest percentage of Americans, a fairly large majority, complacent and apathetic, caring next to nothing on matters of government and whether or not they are actually living free.
Americans rise each morning, check their emails and cellphones, shower, shave and maybe brush their teeth, to rush off to their same, everyday, boring regular job that may or may not quite pay the bills, grabbing their $7 dollar cup of Starbucks special latte of the day, to do a job they find meaningless. At day’s end, they may grab some overpriced fast-food on the way home, to relax and maybe drink a cheap beer or glass of whiskey, while they watch The Voice — or is it porn [?] — call some friends to complain over how bad things are, and then simply watch some news, ’til they call it a night, sleeping fitfully and rising the next morning to do it all over again, and everyday afterward, year after year, until one day someone hands them their walking papers or a copper watch upon their “retirement”.
Too many live under the delusion that they should be able to drive brand new $60k cars, own $400k homes complete with the most exquisite adornments and furniture on their $15 per hour paycheck at McDonald’s, having never put forth the effort to gain useful knowledge demanded by skilled and professional career positions, in order to make themselves more valuable to society on the whole, and thus able to demand a salary that would allow them to buy all the trappings of such success. Instead, they cast an envious eye in the direction of the Makers and scheme on how to take what they want, by any scheme, any illegal act, any means necessary. They believe their mere existence entitles them to other people’s property, just because deep down in their black little souls, they really, really want it — just not enough to go after it the right way.
Our youth have lost all sense of shame and seem fine with getting anything they want, right when they want it, no matter how they come to acquire it. They never learned that something worth having is worth the work it takes to purchase, as if stuff is just supposed to fall from the heavens and land in their lap.
Things of real worth don’t come easy.
Sure. Not everyone has the intelligence and capability to become a surgeon, but if that’s your dream, you will never know if you could have been one, until you try — same for anything else that any of you are dreaming of being, no matter if you dream of being a content farmer or a successful writer. Whatever you want in life, put forth the effort to achieve competency in that field and then go do it.
If you want something of worth in life, stop depending on others. Venture out on your own in some business or capacity you love, rather than settling to work for someone else your entire life. And for your own sake, quit wallowing in self-pity over bad circumstances created by your own bad choices.
As Ms Lawson notes (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oDzfZOfNki4) at one point: "Any pursuit in life, if you want to be successful, it goes to the people that handle hard well. Those are the people that get the stuff they want. People that wait around for easy, you probably see them at the bus stop. They’re waiting on the easy bus to come around. Easy bus never comes around. Go handle hard.”
Too many parents, too many schools, too many churches have failed America by failing to teach them that hard times won’t break you if only you have the right state of mind on life — that there is a loving God — and no one will ever find a fulfilling or positive way of life by looking to The Government for answers and solutions. Our society stopped teaching the youth how to be strong and independent somewhere along the way, as the tyrant-wannabes persisted in teaching “everyone is a victim”; but the fact remains today, anyone can be a proud survivor of hard times, if only they persevere and never give-up and never give-in to defeat, choosing to ultimately succeed and live good, prosperous and happy lives."
Hat tip to The Burning Platform for this material.
"War Crisis! NATO No-fly Zone For F-16s; France Mobilizes Troops; Ukraine Collapsing; Belarus Nukes"
Full screen recommended.
Canadian Prepper, 3/26/24
"War Crisis! NATO No-fly Zone For F-16s;
France Mobilizes Troops; Ukraine Collapsing; Belarus Nukes"
Comments here:
Tuesday, March 26, 2024
"Walmart Is Making Changes To Their Self-checkout System, And People Are Furious!"
Adventures With Danno, PM 3/26/24
"Walmart Is Making Changes To Their
Self-checkout System, And People Are Furious!"
Comments here:
Jeremiah Babe, "Alert! Doomed Cargo Ship Causes Massive Economic Disaster"
Jeremiah Babe, 3/26/24
"Alert! Doomed Cargo Ship Causes Massive
Economic Disaster; Death Of American Cities"
Comments here:
Gerald Celente, "Duh-Mock-Racy: An Idiot's Delight!!"
Strong language alert!
Gerald Celente, 3/26/24
"Duh-Mock-Racy: An Idiot's Delight!!"
"'The Trends Journal' is a weekly magazine analyzing global current events forming future trends. Our mission is to present facts and truth over fear and propaganda to help subscribers prepare for what’s next in these increasingly turbulent times."
Comments here:
"Prepare For Chaos: Rush To The Store And Stock Up Food Items Now! Things Are Getting Crazy"
Full screen recommended.
Epic Economist, 3/26/24
"Prepare For Chaos: Rush To The Store And
Stock Up Food Items Now! Things Are Getting Crazy"
"Grocery prices have surged by a staggering 30% in just four years! But how did we get here? After World War II, the grocery industry was built on affordability and abundance. But today, the landscape has drastically changed. The pandemic disrupted supply chains, giving grocery giants the green light to hike prices while selling less food. Join us as we uncover the shocking truth of why you should go and stock up on food from the store."
Comments here:
"A Look to the Heavens"
"Except for the rings of Saturn, the Ring Nebula (M57) is probably the most famous celestial circle. Its classic appearance is understood to be due to our own perspective, though. The recent mapping of the expanding nebula's 3-D structure, based in part on this clear Hubble image,indicates that the nebula is a relatively dense, donut-like ring wrapped around the middle of a (American) football-shaped cloud of glowing gas.
The view from planet Earth looks down the long axis of the football, face-on to the ring. Of course, in this well-studied example of a planetary nebula, the glowing material does not come from planets. Instead, the gaseous shroud represents outer layers expelled from the dying, once sun-like star, now a tiny pinprick of light seen at the nebula's center. Intense ultraviolet light from the hot central star ionizes atoms in the gas. The Ring Nebula is about one light-year across and 2,500 light-years away."
"The Things We Did Not Do..."
"Regret for the things we did can be tempered by time;
it is regret for the things we did not do that is inconsolable."
~ Sydney J. Harris
The Poet: Charles Bukowski, “Mind and Heart”
“Mind and Heart”
“Unaccountably we are alone,
forever alone,
and it was meant to be
that way,
it was never meant
to be any other way -
and when the death struggle begins
the last thing I wish to see is
a ring of human faces
hovering over me -
better just my old friends,
the walls of my self,
let only them be there.
I have been alone but seldom lonely.
I have satisfied my thirst
at the well of my self
and that wine was good,
the best I ever had,
and tonight, sitting,
staring into the dark
I now finally understand
the dark and the
light and everything
in between.
Peace of mind and heart arrives
when we accept what is:
having been born into this strange life
we must accept
the wasted gamble of our days,
and take some satisfaction in
the pleasure of leaving it all behind.
Cry not for me.
Grieve not for me.
Read
what I’ve written
then forget it all.
Drink from the well
of your self and begin again.”
- Charles Bukowski
"If You Caught A Glimpse..."
"If you caught a glimpse of your own death,
would that knowledge change the way you live the rest of your life?"
- Paco Ahlgren, "Discipline"
"New York, Detroit, Los Angeles, San Francisco And Baltimore Were Once Such Beautiful Cities…"
"New York, Detroit, Los Angeles, San Francisco
And Baltimore Were Once Such Beautiful Cities…"
by Michael Snyder
"If America is heading in the right direction, why have so many of our major cities become cesspools of violence, drugs, theft, trash and homelessness? Once upon a time, millions of young people from all over America flocked to our rapidly growing metropolitan areas. Today, there is a mass exodus out of our largest metropolitan areas due to the absolutely deplorable conditions. If you are not yet convinced that we are a nation in decline, spend some time wandering around our core urban areas. The shiny new cities that previous generations of Americans built for us are degenerating at a pace that is absolutely stunning.
Just look at what is happening to New York. A couple of decades ago, it was still in relatively good shape. But now it is going down the tubes really fast. A shopping mall in the Big Apple that cost a billion dollars to build just ten years ago is being permanently shut down because conditions in the city have become so intolerable…"A MAJOR city mall with dozen of stores is planning to shut up shop as America’s theft epidemic continues to batter businesses. Retail operator Westfield announced that it intends to end its lease and sever all operations with the Fulton Center in Lower Manhattan. Westfield put pen to paper on a two-decade long lease in 2014. However, as levels of theft and homelessness continue to spiral, the company have decided to forego the contract 10 years early."
Westfield has cited soaring crime and quality of life concerns as their reason for terminating the lease. Yes, things really are that bad. Walking away from a billion dollar project is not an easy decision, but Westfield apparently has come to the conclusion that conditions are not going to improve any time soon.
Just because a city was great at one time does not mean that it will always be great. Detroit was once one of the greatest cities on the entire planet, but now it has become a cautionary tale…"Detroit was once the symbol of the mighty industrial power of America. It was the home of the “Big Three” American car companies that dominated car production around the world. It was America’s success at developing a large industrial middle class.
Today one finds articles like the Guardian’s “The Death of a Great American City: why does anyone still live in Detroit?” So what has happened to what was once one of the greatest Rust Belt cities? The story of Detroit is a much larger tale of what has been happening in the city of Gary in Indiana – a ghost town in the making."
Other major cities should learn from what has happened to Detroit. But instead, many of them are making the exact same mistakes. Years of progressive policies have turned some of our most appealing cities into horror shows. It wasn’t too long ago that the glamour of Hollywood drew in visitors from all over the globe, but now Hollywood is absolutely packed with homeless encampments…"A large Hollywood Boulevard homeless encampment that residents say is a hotspot for selling and buying drugs, a trash-strewn tent city they say took the city three months to clear, has sparked continued concern as unhoused residents are already returning to the location. The encampments are a persistent problem plaguing neighborhoods not just in Hollywood but across greater Los Angeles."
Conditions are similar up north in San Francisco. I have written extensively about the hordes of addicts that wander aimlessly through the streets. These addicts leave trash and human excrement wherever they go, and as a result San Francisco is an extremely filthy city today. If that wasn’t bad enough, the city itself is “dumping raw sewage and trash directly into the Bay at a magnitude that’s almost incomprehensible”…
Sejal Choksi-Chugh, Baykeeper’s executive director, said, “There’s no excuse for polluting the Bay with sewage and trash, and those who pollute must be held accountable. Dumping millions of gallons of untreated sewage into Mission Creek and the Bay is unacceptable, avoidable, and illegal.” Nearly all of SFPUC’s discharges flow into Mission Creek and Islais Creek, Baykeeper found. The nonprofit’s field investigators visited Mission Creek during sewer discharges and saw the presence of fecal matter, plastics, syringes, and condoms in the water. “San Francisco is dumping raw sewage and trash directly into the Bay at a magnitude that’s almost incomprehensible,” said Baykeeper attorney Eric Buescher.
Yuck! I thought that progressives were supposed to be in favor of protecting the environment. On the east coast, the city of Baltimore is facing a different sort of crisis. After years of disastrous policies, the police shortage in the city has reached an “apocalyptic” level… "Baltimore is now facing apocalyptic levels of policing shortages. Last week, THREE police officers patrolled a whole district of 61,000 residents. Police are now UNABLE to respond to calls, including for child assault. The department is now postponing police training in an attempt to solve shortages."
At one time in my life, I would visit Baltimore pretty regularly. And I was always thankful to get out of the city safely. Of course things are much worse now, and at this point I don’t know why anyone would still want to live there.
Pittsburgh is also experiencing a very serious shortage of police officers. In fact, things have gotten so bad that police in the city will no longer “respond to any calls that aren’t in progress emergencies”…"Beginning Monday, Pittsburgh police won’t respond to any calls that aren’t in progress emergencies. Chief Larry Scirotto wants to cut their call volume from approximately 200,000 calls per year down to about 50,000. That essentially means that calls for criminal mischief, theft, harassment and burglary alarms, just to name a few, will all be handled by the telephone reporting unit or online reporting."
This is what a nation in decline looks like. We have turned our backs on the values that this nation was founded upon, and as a result we are now experiencing social decay on an epic scale."
Bill Bonner, "Live and Let Die"
"Live and Let Die"
A history of bloodshed and lessons ignored...
by Bill Bonner
"Let the Messiah... the king of the Jews...
come down from the cross now, so we can see and believe."
~ The Chief Priests of Jerusalem
Dublin, Ireland - "Sunday marked the beginning of Holy Week, and the day when Christ made his way, in triumph, into Jerusalem. He did not ride a warhorse. He didn’t swing a big sword, gaud himself up in royal robes or send drones to prepare the way. Instead, he rode on an ass... a donkey... and dressed in a modest robe. This was not some bogus victor, like Maxwell Taylor in Saigon or David Petraeus in Baghdad. It was a real triumph, the sort of victory that Steven Pinker might celebrate.
Even back then, the local priests saw Jesus not as a messiah, but as a provocateur... a poseur... an imposter, claiming to be “king of the Jews.” Blasphemy! They knew a king when they saw one; and he didn’t look like one. They treated him like a whistleblower or a terrorist. Then, Judas Iscariot betrayed him... the other disciples denied him... a servant girl denounced Peter... and the crowd wanted blood.
And it still wants blood. What has changed? The New York Times: "Gaza’s Shadow Death Toll: Bodies Buried Beneath the Rubble." "Gaza has become a 140-square-mile graveyard, each destroyed building another jagged tomb for those still buried within. The most recent health ministry estimate for the number of people missing in Gaza is about 7,000. But that figure has not been updated since November. Gaza and aid officials say thousands more have most likely been added to that toll in the weeks and months since then.
The buried make up a shadow death toll in Gaza, a leaden asterisk to the health ministry’s official tally of more than 33,000 dead, and an open wound for families who hope against hope for a miracle. Most families have accepted that their missing are dead..."
By the Sword: We have been a regular churchgoer for seventy years. We are not particularly ‘religious,’ but we keep an open mind. And whether fact or fiction, Bible stories are a good source of instruction. They tell us the way the world works... that the race goeth not always to the swift nor the battle to the strong... that he who lives by the sword, dies by the sword... and that where a man’s purse is, there also is his heart - among many other things.
This is not the world of material or scientific progress - racing ahead with gizmos and gadgets. This is the world of flesh and blood, not much improved over thousands of years. The ancient scribes and prophets - observing it over so many hundreds of years - didn’t miss much. What they described was a ‘moral’ world, like it or not. There’s always ‘more’ to the story. And always a moral to it.
Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor of Judea, questioned Jesus when he was brought before him. He found no wrongdoing in him and suspected that the Jewish priests were just jealous of him. But the crowd insisted; ‘crucify him!’ they shouted.
Or course, people are not crucified anymore. Progress! They do not suffer on a cross for hours... days... before dying. Then again, they didn’t crucify children in the old days, either. Julius Caesar, in a display of mercy, had a group of pirates strangled before crucifying them. Who strangles the children today, before they are buried under piles of rubble?
A History of Bloodshed: One of the great triumphs of human civilization was the elimination of slavery in the 19th century. But slavery - compared to many other things - wasn’t so bad. The owner had a keen interest in keeping his slaves in good condition. Rarely did he kill them. Historian Jim Downs argues that more slaves died from freedom than from slavery. In the chaos of liberation during and after the War Between the States, an estimated one million former slaves died of disease or starvation.
Steven Pinker makes a persuasive case that we are generally less bloodthirsty today than we used to be. Few people attend a hanging for the entertainment. Few people go to insane asylums to gawk and laugh. Few people - with many exceptions, such as those who work for ‘security forces’ of the US, Israel, Russia, Saudi Arabia... or any one of dozens of other countries - still get a thrill by torturing people. Still, it is remarkable what goes on.
When George Floyd was snuffed by police, almost everyone thought it was an appalling act of violence or carelessness... perhaps having its origins in race hatred. There followed days of outrage. That was surely a milestone in the march toward a more empathetic, less violence-prone public. But scarcely two years later, wars in the Ukraine... and mass murder in the Holy Land... suggest substantial backsliding in the march of human social progress. And looking back, we see an almost unbroken string of butcheries - like a necklace made of human ears - stretching back to long before Jesus was born.
A Grim Record: Jerusalem must hold some sort of grim record in this regard. Placed as it is, on the likely path from Africa to the rest of the world, it might have seen extermination-level battles between Neanderthals, or other archaic human forms... and homo sapiens. Then came the Canaanites, the Egyptians, the Assyrians, the Jews, the Babylonians, Persians, Greeks, Hasmonians, Romans...we pause to catch our breath...
Pontius Pilate was recalled from Judea soon after the Resurrection and disappeared from history. But the history of massacre and conquest on the shores of the Eastern Mediterranean continued. The Byzantines, Arabs, Seljuks, Crusaders, Mamluks, Ottoman, English, Zionists... a war in 1948... another in 1967 - from siege to battle... to mass murder and exile... and another massacre in 2023-2024.
Who took Christ down from the cross? Jesus’s message was that we should do unto others what we would have them do unto us. Win-win. It was such a revolutionary new creed... too bad it never quite caught on."
o
"Heaven On Their Minds"
"Jesus Christ Superstar," Full album. Listen on YouTube:
Dan, I Allegedly, "People Are Getting More Desperate"
Full screen recommended.
Dan, I Allegedly, 3/26/24
"People Are Getting More Desperate"
"It was just announced that the inventory at pawnshops is growing across the United States. From small pawnshops to very large ones inventory is up almost 10%. People are so desperate. They are trying to get cash anyway they can."
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Adventures With Danno, "Holiday Sales At Meijer This WEEK!"
Full screen recommended.
Adventures With Danno, AM 3/26/24
"Holiday Sales At Meijer This WEEK!"
"In today's vlog, we are at Meijer and are going over all the different holiday sales this week. Get your notepad ready as you will not want to miss these deals!"
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Judge Napolitano, "Scott Ritter: On the Brink of Nuclear War"
Judge Napolitano - Judging Freedom, 3/26/24
"Scott Ritter: On the Brink of Nuclear War"
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"Everyone in the World Needs to See This: Footage Shows IDF Drone Killing Gazans"
WARNING! Absolutely Horrifying!
Full horrifying screen recommended.
"Everyone in the World Needs to See This:
Footage Shows IDF Drone Killing Gazans"
By Jessica Corbett
"An Israeli army drone pursued four civilian youths who attempted to reach their destroyed homes and killed them with missiles in Khan Younis at the start of last February. "There is no way they could have been considered combatants," said one writer and analyst. "This is unreal."
Adding to the mountain of evidence that Israel is engaged in a genocidal war on the Gaza Strip, Al Jazeera on Thursday aired footage of what the news outlet reported was an Israeli drone targeting four Palestinians in Khan Younis last month. Those killed by the unmanned aerial vehicle in the rubble of the southern Gaza city appear to be unarmed teenagers or young men. According to a translation of the coverage, they were not identified in the reporting.
"Outrageous even after months of outrages," declared Palestinian American political analyst Yousef Munayyer. "This video shows an Israeli military drone literally stalking four unarmed civilians posing no threat and eliminating them one after the other!"
Tariq Kenney-Shawa, Al-Shabaka's U.S. policy fellow, said: "This is among the worst footage I've seen. Not only were these boys clearly unarmed and present no threat whatsoever, but they were struck multiple times even after stumbling/crawling away. There is no way they could have been considered combatants. This is unreal."
o
"Israel is Evil personified. Israel is Evil embodied."
- Scott Ritter
A Comment: OMG...33,000 men, women, old people, and 14,000 CHILDREN slaughtered, 76,000 wounded, with 8,000 more missing and buried under the rubble caused by 29,000 2,000 lb. bombs from America! THIS is what these bloodthirsty psychopathically genocidal monsters are! I've never allowed profanity on this blog over 16 years and 90,000 posts, but oh I want to, I'm filled with a ferocious, hate filled rage at this horror! And YOU, Americans, hang your goddamned heads in shame and total disgrace because YOU paid for every bullet, all of it, and allow and support it continuing...
- CP, that's my opinion and I don't give a damn who doesn't like it!
"Stipendium peccati mors est," Israel.
"The Gangster State"
"The Gangster State"
by The ZMan
"Whenever there is a terrorist attack, the main question immediately after it is who conducted the attack. This is not just for the mundane reason of apprehending the people responsible, but also for understanding why they did it. Terrorism, by definition, exists within the context of a larger political cause. A crazy person opening fire at a mall is a different thing than an Antifa member opening fire at a church school. The former is simply crazy while the latter has a political motivation.
After the attack on the Moscow music venue over the weekend, the first thing people naturally asked is who did it. The Russians quickly apprehended the four gunmen and then the question shifted to who sponsored it, as it was clear that these four people could never have done this alone. The Russians have arrested a dozen other suspects they think may have been involved, but the four Tajiks have been identified as the shooters and they have confessed.
The bullets were still flying when the many bot accounts operated by American intelligence started to flood social media platforms with claims that it was Islamic terrorism, which was a red flag. Then Washington rolled out the ISIS-K claim, which is another red flag. No one had ever heard of ISIS-K until now, so that is one problem, but the bigger problem is ISIS is an American creation. Coupled with the recent State Department warnings, it looks suspicious.
It gets even more suspicious when internet sleuths figured out that the head of ISIS-K is a person calling himself Sanaullah Ghafari, who used to work at Bagram airfield as a special guard to the vice president of the American backed Afghan government, until that government was ousted by the Taliban. Mr. Ghafari also has ties to NATO as a sanctioned arms dealer. Maybe this is the wrong Sanaullah Ghafari, it is a common name, but it is another red flag.
What we know is that four Tajiks were given weapons that are exceedingly rare on the black market and paid a quarter of a million dollars each to go on a shooting rampage in Moscow and then they fled toward Ukraine. Washington claims they were backed by an organization that was created by Washington and appears to be led by a man with deep ties to American intelligence. It should be noted that Washington is now backing off the ISIS story, which can be interpreted in several ways.
There is another way of looking at this. It is possible that the White House simply has no idea what is going on with Project Ukraine. This would not be the first time they were caught off-guard by a terrorist act. After the Nord Stream attack, the Biden admin jumped from story to story, trying to find a narrative that people would accept, until the CIA planted the story of Ukrainian frogmen using a dingy to float out into the sea and plant the bombs on the gas pipeline.
The Biden admin was also lost when Daria Dugina was blown up by a car bomb in an attempt to assassinate her father, Alexander Dugin. The first story said that there was no way the Ukrainians were behind it. Eventually, they had to admit that it was most likely Ukrainian intelligence behind the assassination. This event was the start of a pattern where Ukraine or friends of Ukraine in the murky world in which the Kagan cult operates do things outside official channels.
Of course, stupidity always plays a role in these things now. Back when all the best people were sure the looming Ukrainian offensive would smash the Russian lines, Mark Milley, told a gathering of top NATO commanders and Ukrainian special forces being trained by the American military, “There should be no Russian who goes to sleep without wondering if they’re going to get their throat slit in the middle of the night. You gotta get back there, and create a campaign behind the lines.”
Every day for over two years voices of authority in Washington have said that Ukraine must win by any means necessary. European leaders come out daily and say there are no red lines when it comes to beating Russia. France is now threatening to send their troops into Ukraine and encouraging other NATO countries to join them. If you are running a CIA operation in Syria, like Sanaullah Ghafari, you are not going to hesitate to help your friends put together a terror attack in Moscow.
Getting back to the central question of terrorism, the answer here may be that this is the result of the Biden administration losing control of their foreign policy. They are no longer calling the shots. Instead, it is the shadowy world of the usual suspects doing what they like without regard to the political or geopolitical consequences. It is not as if the political class ever had tight control of foreign policy. Maybe now they no longer have any control over what happens in their name.
If you want further evidence that the White House no longer controls foreign policy, you can look at what Israel is doing. Netanyahu is openly defying the White House in his campaign to drive the Arabs out of Gaza. Anthony Blinken has been sent there to beg Netanyahu to stop a dozen times to no avail. If America’s greatest ally no longer cares what the White House has to say, maybe Israel is simply working with people it sees as more important than the White House.
Since the most likely suspect in the Israel case is also behind Project Ukraine, it is not a big leap to think they are working with the Ukrainians to conduct terrorism. It is also not a big leap to think that these same people would turn their weapons on politicians that do not support their projects. Given the direction of the Ukraine war, this may explain why European politicians make daily devotionals to the project. They do not want any Tajiks showing up at their house.
All of this is speculation and supposition, but it fits in with the general breakdown of order we see in the Global America Empire. For the last ten years this has been the defining feature of America. The rules are falling to pieces because powerful people refuse to abide by them or enforce them. This Ukraine fiasco suggests that America is falling into gangsterism. Powerful players no longer care what elected officials say or think as they conduct their private agendas."
Monday, March 25, 2024
"Col. Douglas MacGregor, 'This Was The Last Straw For Ukraine, it's Over'"
Redacted, 3/25/24
"Col. Douglas MacGregor,
'This Was The Last Straw For Ukraine, it's Over'"
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"Pawn Shops Are Buying It All As Desperate People Try To Survive"
Jeremiah Babe, 3/25/24
"Pawn Shops Are Buying It All As
Desperate People Try To Survive"
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