Rescuing a kidnapped girl from her predator captors

 

The BBC has the fascinating story of how a girl who'd been missing for six years was finally traced and rescued.  It's too long to cite everything here, but this excerpt gives you some idea of the care and attention to detail involved.

Squire and his team could see, from the type of light sockets and electrical outlets visible in the images, that Lucy was in North America. But that was about it.

They contacted Facebook, which at the time dominated the social media landscape, asking for help scouring uploaded family photos - to see if Lucy was in any of them. But Facebook, despite having facial recognition technology, said it "did not have the tools" to help.

So Squire and his colleagues analysed everything they could see in Lucy's room: the bedspread, her outfits, her stuffed toys. Looking for any element which might help.

And then they had a minor breakthrough. The team discovered that a sofa seen in some of the images was only sold regionally, not nationally, and therefore had a more limited customer base.

But that still amounted to about 40,000 people.

"At that point in the investigation, we're [still] looking at 29 states here in the US. I mean, you're talking about tens of thousands of addresses, and that's a very, very daunting task," says Squire.

The team looked for more clues. And that is when they realised something as mundane as the exposed brick wall in Lucy's bedroom could give them a lead.

"So, I started just Googling bricks and it wasn't too many searches [before] I found the Brick Industry Association," says Squire.

"And the woman on the phone was awesome. She was like, 'how can the brick industry help?'"

She offered to share the photo with brick experts all over the country. The response was almost immediate, he says.

One of the people who got in touch was John Harp, who had been working in brick sales since 1981.

"I noticed that the brick was a very pink-cast brick, and it had a little bit of a charcoal overlay on it. It was a modular eight-inch brick and it was square-edged," he says. "When I saw that, I knew exactly what the brick was," he adds.

It was, he told Squire, a "Flaming Alamo".

"[Our company] made that brick from the late 60s through about the middle part of the 80s, and I had sold millions of bricks from that plant."

Initially Squire was ecstatic, expecting they could access a digitised customer list. But Harp broke the news that the sales records were just a "pile of notes" that went back decades.

He did however reveal a key detail about bricks, Squire says.

"He goes: 'Bricks are heavy.' And he said: 'So heavy bricks don't go very far.'"

This changed everything. The team returned to the sofa customer list and narrowed that down to just those clients who lived within a 100-mile radius of Harp's brick factory in the US south-west.

There's much more at the link.  It's well worth reading in full, to give you some idea of the difficulties involved in tracing missing children.

The horrifying part of the story, to me at any rate, is that when police finally raided the house and rescued the girl, they learned she'd been raped by a sexual predator for six years.  Six years - and she was 12 years old when rescued.  That means she'd been missing and abused for half her life.  She was a child, with no resources to call on, no parent to lean on, nobody to help at all.  How she survived such abuse is something I can't comprehend.  Now in her 20's, she has a few things to say in the article about her experiences.

There are literally hundreds of thousands of missing children in our country.  Many of them were sent here by human traffickers, sold on to predators and abusers across the country.  It's heartbreaking to think that Lucy is only one such person.  If only we were all more alert to the warning signs, we might be able to help so many more . . .

Peter

The speed with which AI is evolving is startling

 

I'm obliged to the anonymous reader who sent me the link to Matt Shumer's latest blog article about the current state of artificial intelligence (AI).  It's a remarkable article - so much so that I can't begin to cover all its points in a short post like this.  Here's a small sample to whet your appetite.

For years, AI had been improving steadily. Big jumps here and there, but each big jump was spaced out enough that you could absorb them as they came. Then in 2025, new techniques for building these models unlocked a much faster pace of progress. And then it got even faster. And then faster again. Each new model wasn't just better than the last... it was better by a wider margin, and the time between new model releases was shorter.

. . .

I've always been early to adopt AI tools. But the last few months have shocked me. These new AI models aren't incremental improvements. This is a different thing entirely.

And here's why this matters to you, even if you don't work in tech.

The AI labs made a deliberate choice. They focused on making AI great at writing code first... because building AI requires a lot of code. If AI can write that code, it can help build the next version of itself. A smarter version, which writes better code, which builds an even smarter version. Making AI great at coding was the strategy that unlocks everything else. That's why they did it first. My job started changing before yours not because they were targeting software engineers... it was just a side effect of where they chose to aim first.

They've now done it. And they're moving on to everything else.

The experience that tech workers have had over the past year, of watching AI go from "helpful tool" to "does my job better than I do", is the experience everyone else is about to have. Law, finance, medicine, accounting, consulting, writing, design, analysis, customer service. Not in ten years. The people building these systems say one to five years. Some say less. And given what I've seen in just the last couple of months, I think "less" is more likely.

. . .

The models available today are unrecognizable from what existed even six months ago. The debate about whether AI is "really getting better" or "hitting a wall" — which has been going on for over a year — is over. It's done. Anyone still making that argument either hasn't used the current models, has an incentive to downplay what's happening, or is evaluating based on an experience from 2024 that is no longer relevant. I don't say that to be dismissive. I say it because the gap between public perception and current reality is now enormous, and that gap is dangerous... because it's preventing people from preparing.

. . .

This is different from every previous wave of automation, and I need you to understand why. AI isn't replacing one specific skill. It's a general substitute for cognitive work. It gets better at everything simultaneously. When factories automated, a displaced worker could retrain as an office worker. When the internet disrupted retail, workers moved into logistics or services. But AI doesn't leave a convenient gap to move into. Whatever you retrain for, it's improving at that too.

. . .

We're past the point where this is an interesting dinner conversation about the future. The future is already here. It just hasn't knocked on your door yet.

It's about to.

There's much more at the link.

I can only recommend very strongly that you click over to Mr. Shumer's blog and read the entire article.  He knows whereof he speaks, and does so with far more authority and experience than most so-called "experts" in the field.  If you wish, compare what he says with Elon Musk's views on the short-term evolution of AI.  They're pretty much in step with each other.

This is extraordinarily important.  It's going to affect all of us in ways we can hardly foresee or imagine right now.  Naysayers who dismiss AI as "just another fad" or "only a large language model" or "only as good as its programmers" are missing the point.  AI is becoming a self-perpetuating, self-improving, self-expanding phenomenon that may well have a greater impact on human society - in a vastly shorter time - than the Renaissance.  Its impact is likely to be at least as great.

Go read the whole thing, and talk to your spouses, your children and those of your friends who are in the workforce about these things.  How can we prepare for the "Brave New World" that confronts us?  Mr. Shumer offers several very useful suggestions.  Which of them can we apply to ourselves?

Peter

So much for billable hours!

 

Artificial intelligence (AI) is having some unexpected consequences, and they're still shaking themselves out as the impact spreads.  Jeff Childers reports:

The Financial Times reported that KPMG— one of the world’s Big Four accounting firms— bullied its own auditor into a 14% fee cut. Their argument was elegant in its simplicity: if your AI is doing the work, your people shouldn’t be billing for it. KPMG’s hapless auditor, Grant Thornton, tried to kick but quickly folded like a WalMart lawn chair, dropping its auditing fee from $416,000 to $357,000.

And now every CFO on Earth is reaching for a calculator.

Here’s the dark comedy. Grant Thornton’s UK audit leader bragged in a December blog post that AI was making their work “faster and smarter.” KPMG took note, and immediately asked why it was still paying the slower-and-dumber price. This is why lawyers tell their clients to stop posting on social media. The marketing department just became the billing department’s worst enemy.

As a lawyer who bills by the hour —and I suspect many of you work in professions that do the same— I can assure everyone that this story sent a terrifying chill racing through the spines of every white-collar professional who’s been out there cheerfully babbling about AI adoption at industry conferences.

The billable hour has survived the fax machine, personal computers, email, electronic filing, spreadsheets, and the entire internet. The billable hour has the survival instincts of a post-apocalyptic cockroach and the institutional momentum of a Senate tradition. But AI might finally be the dinosaur killer, and KPMG just showed everyone exactly how the asteroid hits: your client reads your own press release and demands a discount.

. . .

The billable hour won’t die overnight. But it just got a terminal diagnosis. Every professional services firm that’s spent the last two years bragging about AI efficiency is now staring at the same problem: you can’t brag to your clients you’re faster and also charge them for the same number of hours. As they say at KPMG, it doesn’t add up. Somewhere in a law firm right now, a partner is quietly deleting a LinkedIn post about how AI is “transforming their practice.” Smart move.

There's more at the link.

It's not just company-to-company billing, either.  How many professional services do we, as consumers, use, and get charged by the hour?

• Service your car - hourly charge for the mechanic.
• File your taxes - hourly charge by the tax preparer.
• Domestic services such as plumber, electrician, etc. - hourly rate for labor, plus parts, etc.

How many of these services will be affected by AI?  Quite a few, I'm guessing.  A mechanic can use AI to finish his repairs more quickly, as the software guides him through the process on an unfamiliar vehicle.  The tax preparer is almost certainly going to use AI to do his job, so the number of hours they spend on the job should go down - and so should your bill.  Even domestic service calls should be quicker and easier if the technician or professional can look up a reference to what he's doing, possibly on equipment on which he's never been trained, and do the job faster and better.

I think AI can be considered the monkey wrench that just got tossed into the professional billing pool.  This should be interesting . . .

Peter

Yet again, indulging transgender madness leads to tragedy

 

Yesterday saw yet another example of a transgender individual going insane and trying to destroy everyone around him - taking them with him, so to speak.

Ten people including the shooter are dead after ⁠an ⁠assailant opened fire at a high school in western ⁠Canada in the town of Tumbler Ridge on Tuesday in one of the country's deadliest mass casualty events in recent history.  Initial reports by local police and the Canadian media described the shooter as female.

However, the authorities reluctance to release the identity of the suspect was an immediate red flag.  Their reports only indicated that the shooter was a female in a dress.  

Independent journalists now say they have the identity of the alleged shooter, corroborated by family members:  Jesse Strang, a 17-year-old biological male who started identifying as a "woman" in 2023, is reportedly the culprit behind the school massacre which left 10 dead and 25 wounded.   

. . .

The tragedy represent yet more evidence that transgenderism is a dangerous mental health crisis.  Multiple mass shootings (including school shootings) have been perpetrated by transgender suspects in recent years, and suspected Charlie Kirk shooter, Tyler Robinson, was living with his transgender boyfriend at the time of the shooting.   

In almost every instance, the transgender status of the shooter has been covered up or dismissed by authorities and the establishment media. 

There's more at the link.

One has to ask whether someone who suffers from gender dysphoria, particularly if they insist on living a transgender lifestyle should not be automatically classified as potentially dangerous.  Not all of them are, of course;  I've known three genuinely transgender individuals, all of whom have undergone permanent sex-change surgery and lived as their chosen gender for decades.  However, they are the exceptions that prove the rule.  I've met dozens, perhaps scores, of "pseudo" transgender people whose behavior, outlook, etc. demonstrate serious mental problems, to the point that some might better be labeled as bat**** crazy.  Where does one draw the line?  Is it possible to draw a line and say that, if someone crosses it in any measurable way, he or she is more or less dangerous to society?

Strang killed nine victims, including his mother and younger brother, and injured 25.  The small, close-knit community where they lived will be haunted by the horror of his crimes for years to come.  May the souls of the victims of yesterday's shooting receive mercy from God, and may those who mourn them receive what comfort they may.  May the injured be blessed with healing, and may their families be given grace to help them recover.  And, please God, may the rest of us learn from this and all too many other tragic examples, and do what we can to protect ourselves and our loved ones from transgender insanity and violence.

Peter

"The bottom line is simple: we’re already divided in everything but name."

 

That's the punch line to a recent article by Restricted Daily on X.  I think it makes good sense, although it doesn't offer solutions.  I think it's important enough that I'm going to re-publish it here in full, hoping that the author of Restricted Daily will permit that.

We keep pretending this is just another rough chapter in American politics, but deep down everyone knows that’s a lie. This isn’t disagreement anymore. This is disillusion. This is two completely different nations trapped inside the same borders, pretending we share values when we don’t. The Declaration of Independence was written when people finally admitted they could no longer coexist under a system that no longer represented them. That same feeling is back, whether people want to admit it or not.

We don’t argue over tax rates or road funding anymore. We argue over reality itself. Over biology. Over speech. Over history. Over whether borders matter. Over whether personal responsibility even exists. One side believes the country should be preserved, protected, and handed down stronger to the next generation. The other believes it should be dismantled, reprogrammed, and endlessly apologized for. You cannot reconcile those worldviews. You can only delay the inevitable by pretending compromise still exists.

Every election now feels like an existential threat, not a policy debate. Every law feels like an act of force instead of representation. People don’t feel governed anymore, they feel ruled. And when a large portion of the population feels that way for long enough, the social contract is already broken. You can wave flags and sing songs all you want, but unity doesn’t come from slogans. It comes from shared beliefs, and those are gone.

The truth nobody wants to say out loud is this: forcing people who fundamentally despise each other to live under one federal system is not unity. It’s pressure. And pressure always finds a release. History doesn’t care about feelings. Empires don’t fall because people stop loving them, they fall because they stop believing in them. When laws feel illegitimate and elections feel meaningless, separation stops sounding radical and starts sounding logical.

Maybe it’s not about hate. Maybe it’s about honesty. About admitting that the experiment has split into incompatible outcomes. About recognizing that peaceful separation is better than perpetual cultural warfare, political revenge cycles, and a federal government that half the country views as hostile. Coexistence requires mutual respect, and that left the room a long time ago.

You can call it the Declaration of Disillusion. You can call it dissolution. You can call it whatever you want. But pretending we can duct tape this together forever is the real fantasy. The bottom line is simple: we’re already divided in everything but name. The only question left is whether we keep lying to ourselves, or finally have the courage to admit it.

I fear the author is correct.  I don't see how we can restore unity to a nation so far divided as ours has become.  It's a lot more difficult than during the American Civil War of the 19th century, because there are many issues dividing us, not just one central debate.  Furthermore, we don't have neatly divided states:  we have representatives from multiple perspectives in every state.  Big cities tend to be "blue", smaller towns and rural areas tend more towards "red", but overall the states are "purple" - and I don't see any practical way of satisfying all the blended colors in our present political melange.

"A house divided against itself cannot stand."  Jesus Christ said that.  Abraham Lincoln made it the focus of his famous "house divided" speech almost two millennia later.  It's as true today as it's ever been.  Unless we find a way to bridge the gaps between us - and I have no idea what that way might be - our house, our nation, is probably going to fall.

Peter

That's a very good point

 

In an interview a few days ago, the Commissioner of the Department of Corrections in Minnesota raised what I think is a very worthwhile question.

On Friday’s broadcast of NPR’s “All Things Considered,” Minnesota Department of Corrections Commissioner Paul Schnell discussed cooperation between local sheriffs and immigration officials and said that “having judicial orders or detainers or holds that are signed by a judge would address this issue. But, to date, we have not seen a willingness on the part of DHS to pursue those.”

. . .

"... sheriffs are in a very difficult position, because they face legal liability if they hold people beyond their appointed time. And having judicial orders or detainers or holds that are signed by a judge would address this issue."

There's more at the link.

That may be a smokescreen, of course, glossing over the real issue that Minnesota's policy is not to cooperate with Federal authorities over immigration issues, including arrests.  However, the question of administrative versus judicial orders or detainers is, I submit, more important than it may seem at first glance.

In criminal law, a warrant is typically required to arrest someone or search their property. These types of warrants must be issued by a judge; thus, they are also known as “judicial warrants.”

A judicial warrant is a document issued by a judge (or magistrate judge) that authorizes law enforcement officers to perform certain actions (like conducting a search, making an arrest, or seizing property). Judicial warrants are typically issued based on probable cause, which means there must be reasonable grounds to believe that a crime has been committed and that the action authorized by the warrant will yield evidence related to that crime. These warrants serve as a safeguard against unreasonable searches and seizures, ensuring that law enforcement actions are conducted within the bounds of the law and respect individuals' constitutional rights.

. . .

An administrative warrant doesn’t need to involve a judge or court at all (though an administrative law judge may review some). Instead, it’s issued by an administrative agency or official, as the name implies.

. . .

Administrative warrants are used for regulatory or administrative purposes, not criminal prosecution. Another difference is that administrative warrants generally have a lower standard than "probable cause,” which is required for judicial warrants. Finally, administrative warrants are based on statutory authority rather than Fourth Amendment requirements (like judicial warrants).

Judicial warrants typically deal with criminal law, whereas administrative warrants typically deal with civil law. That’s part of why the standard for a judicial warrant is higher: life and liberty are on the line. That’s also why judicial warrants will be in the form of either arrest warrants (to apprehend a suspect), search warrants (to search a specific location for evidence of a crime), or seizure warrants (to seize specific property or evidence related to a crime). Judicial warrants are considered more protective of individual rights, as they require a neutral judge's independent review of the evidence and a finding of probable cause.

Again, more at the link.

I can see both sides of this issue.  ICE and other federal agencies often try to arrest hundreds, even thousands of people in a given area (a city, a suburb, at an employer's premises, etc.).  To get individual judicial warrants against every potential suspect in that area might be so great a burden on their administration that it's effectively impossible.  However, that also runs a greater risk that some, at least, of those they arrest might have their civil rights ignored in the process.  We've already seen reports of that;  for example, US citizens arrested and detained for extended periods (sometimes days or even weeks) until they could prove they were legally resident in this country.  ICE and its defenders will protest that they could have produced such proof at any time, but if they were denied access to telephones and other means of communication (a routine occurrence, or so I understand), how were they to ask a family member or other person to deliver such proof?  If they lived alone, how could they get such proof from their place(s) of residence when they were detained, preventing them from traveling to their homes?

A judicial warrant demands a higher standard of proof from law enforcement authorities before they can make an arrest.  If a suspect's rights are to be restricted or infringed by arresting him/her, a judge or magistrate must confirm that there is enough evidence to justify that interference.  The warrant can also be challenged in court, as can the process leading to its being issued.  If an officer mistakenly asks for a judicial arrest warrant because he/she had unreliable or insufficient information, that can be held against the officer if it comes out in court.  An administrative warrant lacks all such protection - it was (normally) never reviewed by a judge or magistrate before being issued.  In so many words, it's nothing more than a bureaucratic rubber stamp.

I'm firmly of the opinion that illegal aliens should be deported, except for genuine, repeat, genuine, verifiable cases where refugee status might be awarded.  However, regardless of one's perspective on immigration, I think the use of only administrative warrants for mass arrests is legally questionable, and might become a tool of actual oppression if the "wrong people" issue such warrants without judicial scrutiny.  I think ICE may have to reconsider this issue.  Certainly, I'll be more comfortable from legal, moral and ethical perspectives if they do.

At the same time, those opposed to enforcing immigration laws will have to accept that it's a federal government issue, not a state or local issue.  If they want to protest it, there are legal avenues for them to do so.  To physically assault federal officers in the performance of their duties is not one of them;  nor is using state and local laws and regulations to obstruct and interfere with their operations.  Administrative warrants are too often used as an excuse to disrupt such legitimate law enforcement activities, without examining the rights and wrongs involved.

Peter

Population collapse threatens China - perhaps much more, and much sooner, than we think

 

A few days ago, the New York Post published an article headlined "China is facing a demographic bomb— and it could handcuff Beijing’s ambitions".  Here's an excerpt.

Last week, Beijing’s release of China’s national birth count for 2025 left demographers stunned.

The national birth total plummeted by over 17% from 2024 to 2025, the PRC disclosed.

That sort of precipitous drop is almost never seen in stable modern societies, where births tend to inch up or down from one year to the next.

A decline of this magnitude qualifies as a demographic shock of the sort typically associated with dire calamities like famine or plague — a sign that a disaster or convulsion is taking place.

And these are only the latest readings from the astonishing birth crash that’s commenced under Xi Jinping’s rule: a drop by over half in just eight years that shows no sign as yet of abating.

Tumbling birth rates have already thrown China into depopulation, with over four deaths for every three births in 2025.

With fewer than 8 million new babies in 2025, China is not only down to the lowest level of natality since the Communists took power in 1949.

It’s actually back to birth levels last seen three centuries ago, in the early 1700s, when the national population may have been no more than 225 million — less than a sixth of China’s current 1.4 billion.

. . .

If this continues, the next generation of Chinese will be only be 44% as large as their parents’ cohort — and the following generation will be smaller still.

There's more at the link.  It's worth reading the article in full.

That news was bad enough, from China's perspective.  However, it may be a whole lot worse.  Yesterday I came across a Web site called "Lei's Real Talk".  She's a Chinese lady living in the USA who analyzes events and developments in China, and has developed quite a large following.  I know nothing more about her than what she says on her Web site, but she presents carefully thought out and cogent analysis of China's real population in the video clip below.  The kicker?

She thinks China's population might already be a third to a half less than what it officially claims.

If that's true, it makes the warnings in the article above even more ominous.  See for yourself.  This is well worth watching, and listening carefully.

If Lei's claims are true, they provide an entirely new perspective on China's aggressive words and policies directed against other countries and alliances.  They might be no more than bluff and bluster, demographically speaking . . . might.  We won't know for sure unless and until Lei's calculations can be confirmed in some way.

Nevertheless, it's enough to make one think, isn't it?

Peter

Where did the water go?

 

I was interested (and somewhat amused) to read that the biggest reforestation project in the world has had some - wait for it - unintended consequences.  Say it ain't so!

China’s massive tree-planting push has long been hailed as a climate win. But new research shows the country’s ambitious effort to slow land degradation, and fight climate change, has also reshaped its water supply in surprising, and sometimes uneven, ways.

When China dramatically expanded forests and restored grasslands under its "Great Green Wall" initiative, it didn’t just change what the land looked like, it changed how water moves between the ground and the atmosphere.

. . .

“They’ve actually increased forest cover by 15% over the last five decades,” [meteorologist Jennifer] Gray explained. “If you think about the amount of moisture that those forests are releasing into the atmosphere, it is just an incredible amount.”

. . .

What surprised researchers most wasn’t that water moved, it was where it ended up. “What’s so remarkable about this study is the scale of it and the unintended consequences,” Gray said. “The rain was distributed in completely different ways and in completely different places.”

The reason lies in the atmosphere itself.

“The atmosphere and the winds can actually transport moisture more than 4,000 miles,” Gray explained. “So if you plant trees in one area that doesn’t mean that that’s exactly where it’s going to rain.”

. . .

That’s why Gray says climate solutions can’t stop at planting trees. “It puts an exclamation mark on the importance of having city planners get involved, water management folks get involved as well,” she said, “so this can be carefully thought out as to where the water is going to be distributed once you do something like this.”

There's more at the link.

This is fascinating to me.  I've never figured out how bureaucrats and political functionaries can dictate to Nature - "We are going to do this, to force you to do that" - without any real understanding of how Nature works, the interplay of forces and influences that mold and shape the world we live in.  It seems ridiculous on the face of it;  what my father would call "farting against thunder".  The power of natural forces is so enormously greater than anything of which we can conceive that it makes fools of the bureaucrats who think that way.  Perhaps this is yet another example of the folly that led to Mao's megalomaniac "Great Leap Forward", which led directly to the "Great Chinese Famine" and caused tens of millions of deaths.

I think it's a laudable ambition to halt desertification by reforestation . . . but just reforesting thousands of square miles doesn't mean they'll be transformed into the microclimate you want them to have.  I'll be watching the progress of similar projects with great interest.  Ethiopia is planting 50 billion trees;  there's the Great Green Wall for the Sahara and the Sahel;  and India has The Great Green Wall of Aravalli.  I wonder if they'll all run into the same problem?

(There's also the colonial-era Great Hedge of India, designed to prevent unwanted border crossing in either direction.  Perhaps the Border Patrol might like to investigate that project?)

Peter

Minneapolis and Minnesota: a "color revolution" in the making

 

Some readers may not be familiar with the term "color revolution".  American Thinker outlined the concept in an article last December.

A“color revolution” ... is a modern form of orchestrated political upheaval designed to replace an existing government without traditional military invasion or civil war ... These operations follow a remarkably consistent playbook, refined over two decades by Western NGOs, intelligence-linked foundations, and State Department-affiliated entities (Open Society Foundations, USAID, etc.).

Authors describe seven stages of a color revolution. The stages include these tactics, which I’ll list in approximate chronological order:

• Portray the target government as illegitimate, authoritarian, corrupt, or “fascist.”
• Front-load allegations: accuse incumbent of planning the crimes the opposition intends to commit (rigging, regression, dictatorship).
• Fund and train NGOs, student groups, and opposition politicians to repeat a unified message.
• Create/amplify a unifying symbol or theme (e.g., Orange Man Bad).
• Manufacture an electoral crisis.
• Street mobilization.
• Public appeals to and moral blackmail of the military and police: “You’re with the people, not the regime.”
• Promises of immunity, future positions for defectors.
• Threats to those who support target government.
• Provoke a response, flood media with images of “peaceful protesters” being attacked.
• International legitimation as foreign governments and media recognizes opposition leaders as “legitimate” authority.
• Sanctions, frozen assets, diplomatic isolation applied to sitting government.
• New elections scheduled under international supervision.

There's more at the link.  Notable examples of color revolutions may be found in the so-called "Arab Spring" uprisings, the "Rose Revolution" in Georgia in 2003, the "Orange Revolution" in Ukraine in 2004/5, and a number of others.  Not all of the factors listed above were present in all the color revolutions, but most of them made multiple appearances.

A noteworthy common factor is that external (i.e. foreign) non-governmental organizations (NGO's) were involved in organizing and supporting almost all color revolutions over the past two to three decades.  Most of those NGO's were left-wing or progressive in orientation, and appear again and again in multiple uprisings.  Keep that in mind as we consider the current uprisings in Minneapolis and Minnesota.

The situation in Minneapolis right now is clearly an organized uprising against the enforcement of US immigration law by ICE.  It shows many of the signs of a typical color revolution in the making.  It is not random or haphazard:  it is professionally planned and executed, and run very like a military operation by its organizers.  As evidence, consider:

• The far-left network that helped put Alex Pretti in harm's way, then made him a martyr
• "What’s unfolding in Minneapolis right now isn’t 'protest'. It’s low-level insurgency infrastructure, built by people who’ve clearly studied the playbook."
• "Look at the training 'MN Ice Watch' (which Renee Good belonged to) gives"
• Left-Wing Activists Run Shadow Police Force On Signal To Target ICE In Minneapolis
• What The Left Doesn't Want You To Know About Alex Pretti, The Man That Border Patrol Shot

I could post many similar links, but those above contain all the important information you'll need to make your own judgment.  If you're in any doubt about what I say here, follow them for yourself and learn the truth.

Next, keep in mind that violence against ICE is not widespread.  As Kevin Bass points out (his methodology is here), a mere nine counties (out of 3,143 in the entire USA!) have produced two-thirds of all such incidents over the past year.  Click the image below for a larger view.

That's hardly the widespread violence and unrest that the progressive left (and its lackeys in the mainstream news media) are trying to portray, is it?  That shows very clearly where the left is most organized and active.  However, they're bringing activists into those places from all over the country, not just to help their protests, but to learn from them how to do it and then "export" similar unrest to other cities around America.  Be prepared for that.

It's also clear that the anti-ICE demonstrations are attempting to divert attention away from the massive fraud uncovered in Minnesota's Somali community, and in which a large number of Minnesota's political figures are apparently implicated.  Prof. Glenn Reynolds says this.

The state’s Democratic political machine is reacting like a spooked squid to revelations that the machine and its clients are complicit in multi-billion-dollar frauds against the federal government.

And the “ink” being squirted is the not-at-all spontaneous wave of riots erupting against federal authorities in Minneapolis.

. . .

The House Oversight Committee this month found that Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and state Attorney General Keith Ellison were not innocent bystanders to the fraud, but actually took part in the cover-up, taking active steps to silence whistleblowers.

And it all centered on communities of illegal immigrants and refugees, some of whose members siphoned money from federal taxpayers and in turn gave campaign contributions and political support to state Democrats — a self-licking ice cream cone of graft.

. . .

These are not spontaneous uprisings of the aggrieved, but organized actions featuring out-of-state actors and organizations, detailed training programs for demonstrators, and large amounts of intentionally murky funding from organizations like Indivisible, George Soros’ Open Society Foundations and others.

They’re coordinating their anti-ICE operations — identifying, chasing and blocking agents to keep them from arresting illegal-immigrant criminals — through highly organized chat groups on Signal, a secure communications platform, Fox News reported.

And Minnesota government officials are proudly touting their involvement in this coordination ... That’s making these often violent, deliberately obstructive demonstrations look less like a civil rights sit-in and more like a government-backed insurrection.

. . .

Whatever investigators determine about how Pretti’s death unfolded, the fact remains that a cynical and corrupt political machine has fostered for its own purposes a situation that’s dangerous for its own supporters, and for the political future of our nation.

There's more at the link.

As a human being, I'm deeply saddened by the deaths of Renée Good and Alexander Pretti in Minneapolis.  May their sins be forgiven them, and may they rest in peace:  and may their families receive what comfort is possible.

HOWEVER . . .

Let us not forget that both died while actively interfering with law enforcement personnel in the execution of their duties, in situations where tempers and emotions were running high, and where misunderstandings in the heat of the moment could readily be foreseen and expected.  In both shootings, it is possible that the law enforcement officers concerned over-reacted to visual stimuli that - under the stress and tension of the circumstances - they did not have time to adequately process.  On the other hand, the actions of the victims actively contributed to that stress and tension, and therefore they were at the very least not blameless in their deaths.

It is also possible - although yet to be determined by legal process - that the shootings were justifiable under the laws and jurisprudence governing the conduct of the law enforcement personnel concerned.  Until all the facts emerge, and can be evaluated by competent authorities and ruled upon in court, I won't attempt to assign blame.  I could wish that others would be slower to judge, and be willing to wait for all the facts to come out.  By failing to do so, they're inciting and inviting further violence and bloodshed - which is, of course, exactly what some of them appear to want.

What is now effectively beyond doubt is that both Ms. Good and Mr. Pretti died as part of an uprising against the constitution and laws of the United States of America.  It's no good denying that - the evidence (as cited and provided above) is clear.  The ultimate responsibility for their deaths sits squarely at the door of those who planned, instigated and organized this unrest.  I can only hope that they will be called to account for it.

Peter

Are they trying to deter buyers of silver???

 

As we all know, precious metal prices have been going through the roof for something like a year now, and show no signs of slowing down.  This has led to well-informed speculation that the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) and similar bodies in other countries may not hold enough physical silver to meet the futures contracts they have permitted to be traded against their holdings.

... according to the CME’s registry there are 440 million ounces of silver located in its depositories. However, the current silver futures contract  which settles in late March 2026  has an open interest of 150,200 contracts. At 5,000 ounces of silver per contract, this comes to 751 MILLION ounces of silver contracts trading… or 1.7 TIMES the amount of actual silver the CME has stored in various depositories.

Put another way, the CME is permitting silver contracts to trade that are backed by NOTHING.

The CME, rather than addressing this issue, has chosen to introduce a new silver futures contract, the mini silver contract, that represents the right to buy or sell 100 oz of silver (as opposed to the usual 5,000 oz).

The catch?

This new contract is settled “financially” meaning there is ZERO silver backstopping it.

Put another way, rather than doing something to address the fact that much of the current silver trading is backstopped by nothing, the CME is doubling down by introducing NEW derivatives that are EXPLICITLY financial in nature… with ZERO actual exposure to silver itself.

There's more at the link.

The current 3-month futures contracts terminate on March 27th, if I've got it right.  What happens if a holder or holders of those contracts demands physical delivery, rather than rolling over the contract into a new one?  Will the CME have enough silver metal in its vaults to make good on those deliveries?  Informed opinion is that it doesn't.  As the article above goes on to ask:

What happens to the financial system when traders begin to realize that the CME is allowing derivatives to trade that are backstopped by NOTHING?!?!

That's a very good question.  It also provides a very rational explanation for the new silver "futures" or derivatives that the CME is offering, because they are not redeemable for silver - only dollars.  Investors who buy them are, in a sense, pretending they hold silver futures, but they don't - only a piece of paper that ties the redemption value of those futures to the silver price, not the metal itself.

Does that seem like a worthwhile investment to you?  Do you trust the CME and its ilk to pay out on time, in full, whether in precious metals and/or at rightful value?  One wonders . . .

That leads me to another interesting point.  As I write these words, the spot price of silver is quoted at US $94.89.  Many dealers are quoting 1oz. silver coins at a premium of up to 20% above spot:  for example, APMEX is quoting a 2023 1oz. American Silver Eagle coin at $112.32.  However, if you go to the website of the US Mint, a 2023 1oz. Silver Eagle is listed at - wait for it - $169.00!  That's fully 78% higher than spot - a ridiculous premium... or is it?

What if the US Mint did not have enough silver in stock to satisfy demand, or was uncertain whether it will be able to get enough stock to satisfy future demand?  Is it possible that, rather than admit to that, they're pricing their coins so high as to deter most buyers?  If they "lose a sale" on a coin they don't have enough of, because the buyer thinks their price is too high, they've actually lost nothing at all - and if the buyer decides to buy it anyway, they've made an extraordinarily high profit on the stocks they actually have in their possession.  I'm sure they'll lose some cash flow that way, but with their stock of precious metals for security, short-term financing won't be a problem.  There's really no downside for them, is there?  However, I'm willing to bet that their bulk sales of silver and gold coins to other dealers and brokers is priced much more reasonably than their retail-sale coins - otherwise, they'd be shut out of the wider market.

There may be a different, perfectly logical and rational reason why the US Mint is pricing its wares so highly, but if there is, I can't think of it.  Of course, I'm neither a futures trader nor a precious metals expert.  Can any of you come up with another reason, readers?

Peter

Minnesota: Both sides are caught on the horns of a dilemma

 

Keep a careful eye on Minneapolis.  Things are getting bad enough there that they remind me of the virtual civil war that reigned for months in some of South Africa's worst-hit areas during the last years of apartheid.  The radicals on the left are trying to force the issue - and it can only be a matter of time before radicals on the right respond in kind.  As Rod Dreher points out:

Things are fast getting out of control in Minnesota. Leftist mobs are going after innocent people they think might be pro-ICE — including a tourist driving a rental car with Texas plates. The mob figured Texas plates surely must belong to an ICE agent. State and local authorities there have put themselves openly against federal law enforcement. It’s as if they’re all but begging Trump to invoke the Insurrection Act — and you know, if all this isn’t an insurrection, what is it?

What these fools don’t understand is that things like invading and disrupting a church service compels many Christians and others, who might have been doubtful about the Trump administration’s approach to immigration enforcement, to rush towards Trump for protection from the mob. They are hardening sides. Frankly, I hope the feds swoop in with force and start mass arrests, starting with Don Lemon. Again: the protesters crossed a bright red line yesterday in going into that church.

This is how civil wars start. I’m serious. Here is a clip of an anti-ICE leftist standing on the streets of Minneapolis with a rifle in hand, ready for civil war. He says he’s standing on his block “to protect my people.” OK, but is he ready for Christian men to stand around the perimeter of their churches, with rifles, to protect their people?

There's more at the link.

The trouble is, the radical left wants that sort of confrontation.  They're doing all they can to provoke it.  They'd like nothing better than for President Trump to invoke the Insurrection Act, because then they could proclaim that it proves he was what they've called him all along - a fascist, a Nazi, another Hitler.  Eko explains:

January 15, 2026. Tore Says monitors document simultaneous Zoom calls across every major activist network in the United States. Sunrise Movement. Federal employee resistance groups. Military reservist networks. Senior Executive Service officials. Antifa organizers. Ideologically opposed groups, different platforms, never having worked together publicly.

Jake broadcasts intent to burn a Quran to provoke the left.

Pink broadcasts alerts about an “anti-Muslim rally” to mobilize the Left.

They both specify the exact time. They both name the location.

On the surface, they are enemies. In the intelligence chatter, they are the same network. One operative amplifies the threat. The other provides the violence. Two hands of the same foreign-funded clock.

Every Zoom call Tore documented discussed the same objective: create sufficient unrest that the president invokes the Insurrection Act.

Upper-level conversations revealed specific instructions.

    1. Stage provocations at mosques.
    2. Arm counter-protesters.
    3. Ensure cameras capture everything.
    4. Coordinate media amplification across all platforms.

Then further instructions surfaced:

Promote the Insurrection Act subversively through conservative outlets. Embed in right-wing media. Make supporters demand the mechanism that will remove Trump.

The Left creates chaos to force federal crackdown.

The Right demands emergency powers thinking they’ll crush the opposition.

The synthesis advances through the collision. The moment Trump invokes the Act to restore order, the narrative locks. He becomes the strongman they warned about for a decade. Every news chyron, every influencer post, every talking head will say the same thing: You see? He IS the dictator.

The truth is irrelevant. Perception is the verdict. The justification for his removal is written by his own signature.

. . .

The timeline

    Day 1: Deployment orders. Media goes 24/7 crisis mode.
    Day 3: First judicial injunction filed. International condemnation starts.
    Day 7: Cabinet members leaking concerns to press.
    Day 10: Congressional emergency hearings announced.
    Day 14: 25th Amendment whispers in mainstream coverage.
    Day 21: Politically radioactive. Legally cornered.

Three weeks. That’s the window from finally crushing them to removing him for instability.

There won’t be time to organize. To protest. To vote.

By the time we realize the mistake, he is gone and the emergency powers are permanent.

. . .

They have called us fascist for eight years. Violent insurrectionists. Threats to democracy.

Now they engineer the conditions where we demand authoritarian powers. Where we cheer military force. Where we justify emergency rule.

They are making us become the thing they accused us of being.

Take the bait and the soul of this movement is gone. We become their lie.

This is spiritual war.

Our grievances are legitimate. The solution being sold is our suicide.

Again, more at the link.  I highly recommend that you read the whole thing.

Friends, the radical Left is not interested in compromise (except as a short-term tactic while they prepare their next attack).  They aren't interested in placebos or palliatives or politicians' pablum.  They will gouge and chip away at the established order until they've disestablished it - which will be their excuse to mount an all-out takeover bid, probably invoking the 25th Amendment.  Democrat representatives in Congress and the Senate will be joined by RINO's, and even if they get only a razor-thin majority in both Houses, that's all they need.  If they do, it's a very short step to taking over both Houses in the November 2026 elections, and blocking the rest of the Trump agenda permanently.

Think it's impossible?  I don't.  There's a legal, legislative, judicial and constitutional minefield dead ahead.  Any knee-jerk reaction by the right (particularly an armed, violent reaction) will lead us right into it.  We have to emphasize the rule of law, while recognizing that some aspects of that might be more of a problem to us than a solution to the current situation.  It's a very fine line to walk.

Peter

I agree

 

As regular readers will know, I have literally decades of experience in environments of civil unrest, terrorism, and societal conflict, ranging from more-or-less peaceful demonstrations right through to the worst terrorist acts you can imagine.  I'm frequently astonished at the complacency and ignorance of people who think that "It can't happen here!"  I assure you, it most certainly can.

The expatriate American living in the Philippines, blogging at Come And Make It, appears to understand the reality of our situation, from a different-but-similar perspective.

There was a noticeable lag—roughly a year—[in Iraq after the war] between the collapse of central authority and the full emergence of widespread insurgency.

I see troubling parallels in the United States today. We're in that uneasy "lag" phase: deep instability is already here, with large numbers of people armed and ideologically primed for violence, yet most still hesitate to cross the line into open, sustained conflict. Instead, we see the precursors: fireworks thrown as provocations, screaming crowds, disruptive "stupid games," and tantrum-like escalations when people don't get their way. These are the behaviors of spoiled children testing boundaries.

So far, it's mostly individuals or small groups acting out. But the pattern is clear: one or two incidents beget more, then more still, until the tipping point arrives—and suddenly we have IEDs on interstate highways, coordinated attacks, and true insurgency.

A great deal of money—funneled from foreign governments, wealthy donors, and outside interests—has been poured into inflaming divisions, arming radicals, and eroding trust in institutions. These investments are designed to create exactly this kind of volatile tinderbox.

We are now one stray footstep away from triggering an avalanche of violence that could be very difficult to stop once it starts.

There's more at the link.

I warned earlier this month that the unrest being fomented over ICE and illegal aliens is reminiscent of the artificially-whipped-up demonstrations over George Floyd's death in 2020.  It seems many others agree.  See, for example:

• Minneapolis ICE Shooting Shows Left Wing's Protest Industrial Complex Wants Another 'George Floyd'-Type Riot
• The horns of the ICE dilemma (recommended reading)
• Stumbling Towards A New Civil War

See also the links provided in my earlier article.

El Gato Malo provides this succinct assessment.  Note:  he eschews capitals in his articles.

the "activists" they pay to run around trying to stop ICE are just upping the ante and taking even more unreasonable actions to try to protect the original incursions.

and they are creating incredibly dangerous situations.

on purpose and as a matter of policy.

and when you play stupid games, you win stupid prizes.

this issue is being used to try to drive an irreconcilable social fracture.

it’s being managed like an insurgency in the same city that keeps spawning these (and whose governor and congressional rep (this took place in omar’s district) both look like they’re about to get indicted for massive corruption around immigrants they flooded the area with to sway voting.)

it’s more than a little curious how these folks were all so ready for this within hours.

there is coordination here.

. . .

there’s an actual insurgency being run here by the same political junta that caused the immigration mess.

but this is not going to be 2020. you can feel the national mood turning. people have had enough of being held hostage by these out of control hysteria cohorts.

and at a certain point, you stop trying to convince and realize that you’re basically just at war over a set of fully unreconcilable worldviews.

Again, more at the link.

Note the last sentence above.  It's true.  No reconciliation is possible between the two sides of the illegal alien debate.  One side sees it as a fundamental threat to what it has always meant to be an American.  The other side sees it as a wedge issue to redefine what it means to be an American.

Rudyard Kipling put it well, in a different context:

East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet

That's what we have here - and unless sanity and facts prevail over emotions and feelings, it's going to get much, much worse, more quickly than most of us can imagine.

Peter

Robotic crooks? AI con artists? Computerized criminals?

 

An article at Futurism suggests that we can expect all of the above, and then some.

In a new report, pan-European police agency Europol’s Innovation Lab has imagined a not-so-distant future in which criminals could hijack autonomous vehicles, drones, and humanoid robots to sow chaos — and how law enforcement will have to step up as a result.

By the year 2035, the report warns that law enforcement departments will need to deal with “crimes by robots, such as drones” that are “used as tools in theft,” not to mention “automated vehicles causing pedestrian injuries” — an eventuality we’ve already seen in numerous cases.

Humanoid robots could also complicate matters “as they could be designed to interact with humans in a more sophisticated way, potentially making it more difficult to distinguish between intentional and accidental behavior,” the report notes.

Worse yet, robots designed to assist in healthcare settings could be hacked into, leaving patients vulnerable to attackers.

Rounding out the cyberpunk dystopia vibes, according to the report, is that all the folks who were put out of a job as a result of automation may be motivated to commit “cybercrime, vandalism, and organized theft, often targeted at robotic infrastructure” just to survive.

Law enforcement needs to evolve rapidly to keep up, Europol says. For instance, a police officer may need to determine whether a driverless car that was involved in an accident did so after receiving deliberate instruction as part of a cyberattack, or whether it was a simple malfunction.

. . .

Advanced weapons have already “spilled over into organised crime and terrorism, impacting law enforcement,” the report reads. “There has also been a reported increase in the use of drones around European infrastructure, and there are examples of drone pilots selling their services online, transforming this criminal process from crime-as-a-service to crime-at-a-distance.”

In short, it’s a troubling vision of the future of crime, facilitated by rapidly evolving technologies.

There's more at the link.  The original Europol report may be found here.

This is hardly surprising, of course.  Criminals have always used every technology ever invented, as soon as it's come along (and often before law enforcement has thought about its criminal misuse, or considered countermeasures).  Today, however, the threat is greater than ever before.  There must be enough well-trained and -experienced drone operators in Ukraine and Russia alone that every criminal organization in Europe could hire a troop of them.  As that knowledge and experience proliferates, particularly in South American drug cartels (who are already using drones as offensive weapons against each other and against law enforcement, and using them to fly drugs and other contraband across the US border), we're sure to see police forces and other agencies setting up their own specialist units to tackle the problem.

I remain equally concerned about the use of drones by "ordinary" criminals to survey streets and neighborhoods, looking for targets of opportunity.  Examples:

• There are a number of gangs stealing cars to order.  If you want a specific make and model of car, you let the gang know, and they'll find one to steal for you.  A number of high-end autos have been exported in response to such interest.  A drone-equipped operator can fly over neighborhoods all across a city to find the vehicle(s) he wants, and choose those in the most vulnerable areas or homes for further attention.
• If a given suburb is popular with wealthier people, gangs can fly drones over it to check on security systems and precautions they use.  If they find a more vulnerable home, they can plot ways to approach the house under cover of garden vegetation, or plan rapid egress routes after they've broken in.  They can also monitor the frequency and routes taken by security patrols.
• Left-wing and progressive groups are doxxing the names and addresses of ICE agents and other law enforcement personnel.  If you happen to live near one, you and your family might find yourselves caught up in (potentially violent) demonstrations against that address and those living there.
• Kidnapping and human trafficking are in the news almost every day.  Using drones, the perpetrators can look for likely victims and observe them for long periods, to establish their patterns of life and determine when they will be most vulnerable to attack.

Those are just a few of the ways in which criminals can benefit from technology, or we can suffer because they have access to it.

Peter

"Fifty people control the culture"

 

So says Ted Gioia, whom we've met in these pages before.  Here are a couple of excerpts from his long and interesting article.

After three decades of total connectivity, here’s where we stand:

• Four movie studios still control Hollywood.
• Four subscription platforms account for two-thirds of home movie streaming.
• Three major record labels own most of the hit songs.
• Five publishers account for 80% of the US book market.
• Just one company controls 60% plus of the US audiobook business.
• Etc. etc.

During this same period, print media collapsed—thousands of newspapers and magazines simply disappeared. Online media survived, but just two companies (Alphabet and Meta) now swallow up most of the ad revenues.

And here’s where it gets even worse. If an indie media outlet wants to attract some of this ad money, it needs to reach readers—but it relies on those same two companies for access. To compete with Google you need help from Google.

It’s a mystery to me why this is legal. But it is.

Google is already squeezing digital publishers like they’re mangoes at a Jamba Juice. Publishers have already lost 25% of their traffic from Google, and fear that number might soon reach 60%.

The concentration of power at Google is mind-blowing. It controls around 90% of search traffic. All that total connectivity we envisioned in the early days of the web is mostly reliant on this one company.

You can try to bypass it with apps. But guess what? Two companies control most of the app store business—and one of them is (again) Google.

Can you see what’s happened? Power in the digital world is even more concentrated than in the real world.

Just one company controls around 40% of online shopping. Two companies control two-thirds of US music streaming. The same is true elsewhere online. Because of network effects, no new entrant can compete effectively against the dominant incumbents.

If you take the CEOs of all these businesses—in movies, books, media, etc.—you could fit them in [a] single school bus, with seats left over.

There's more at the link, including more details on the "favored fifty" and how much they control.

That's a truly scary thought.  I knew that five companies controlled almost all TV networks, and a few giant publishers controlled "traditional" book publishing - but I hadn't realized how far that level of concentration had spread.

What it means, of course, is that if anyone wants to do anything that the "favored fifty" (or enough of them, at any rate) would rather not see succeed, they can throttle it to the point of strangulation without even raising a sweat.  If they don't publish it, nobody will be able to access it.  If they don't publicize it, nobody will know about it.  If it becomes any sort of a threat, they can buy it with their pocket change and simply shut it down.  The developer or author or owner won't be able to refuse their offer, because he/she/they will go broke if they don't.

A prime example may be seen in Minneapolis and Minnesota right now.  All the focus of the news media is on ICE's law enforcement activity there - ignoring the truly massive fraud investigations going on into multiple aspects of the state's government, which look likely to dwarf anything that's happened elsewhere.  (California, where investigations are just beginning, might take the crown there, but it's too early to tell yet.)  Most of the powers that be in the news and social media circles are shutting down anything that goes against the "party line".  (That's also why they're so eager to silence Elon Musk and X [formerly Twitter] - because he allows people to speak freely.  They daren't allow that on their platforms, and they're going to do their best to silence any that do.)

Can anything be done about this concentration of power and influence . . . or is it too late?  I fear the latter may be true, because the "favored fifty" can buy any unprincipled Congressional representative or Senator (which means a goodly proportion of them) and prevent restrictive laws from being passed.

Any solutions come to mind, dear readers?  If so, please share them with us in Comments.  (Please do not suggest actions that are criminal.  I won't allow this blog to turn into a bloodbath, theoretical or otherwise.)

Peter

The dollar, the Dow Jones Index, and your money

 

Peter Schiff tweeted on Tuesday:

That's a very frightening statistic.  The Dow Jones Index rising so fast, and so high, is not because the potential for investment growth is there.  In fact, the value of the Dow on a per-dollar basis is down by three-quarters since the turn of the century.  The dollar is getting weaker and weaker, because we (or, rather, the Fed, and the politicians who spend it so wastefully and carelessly) keep on printing it like there's no tomorrow.

There are those who say that the dollar is, in fact, one of the strongest currencies around, and that's why overseas investors keep buying it.  I don't believe that for a moment.  The dollar simply happens to be the least bad choice among leading international currencies.  All the others - the euro, the pound, the renmimbi, the yen - are issued by economies that are in even worse shape than the USA's.

To add to the picture, here's what Jared Dillian had to say in his Chart Of The Week e-mail, also on Tuesday.  I can't link to his e-mail, unfortunately, but here's the meat and potatoes bit.

Here’s what nobody wants to talk about: When the dollar rolled over in the early 2000s, it didn’t just decline—it collapsed. And that collapse lit the fuse on the greatest commodities supercycle in modern history. Gold went ballistic. Oil went ballistic. Everything went ballistic.

Now look at where we are today. We’re testing the bottom of that channel again. The exact same technical setup. And when—not if, but when—this thing breaks, it’s going to be biblical.

The smart money isn’t waiting around to see what happens. They’re already positioning for the next commodities boom. Because that’s what happens when the dollar gets crushed. Commodities go lunar.

When this channel breaks, the dollar is going to get absolutely demolished, and commodities are going to rip.

The setup is right there. It’s staring you right in the face. The only question is: Are you going to ignore it like many will, or are you going to position yourself correctly?

Time to get long commodities. Like, yesterday.

I have no idea whether or not he's right - I'm not a stock market chartist - but, in the light of all we've discussed in these pages over the past several years about the dollar's weakness, and the unbalanced state of national and world economies, and the immense debt overhang that threatens us all . . . I won't be surprised if he's entirely correct.  As for whether to invest in commodities, I'm a small-time saver, not a big-time rich investor, so that won't affect me much.  However, I'm very glad that some years ago, I invested a small proportion of our savings in a few one-ounce silver coins.  They're currently up by about 250-300% in dollar terms over what I paid for them.  That's a commodity price I can get behind!

Meanwhile, apart from my medical expenses stash (which I dare not spend on anything else), I'm using our steadily-depreciating dollars to buy things we can use and will need in the short to medium term, because I expect that before long, if the dollar lets go, we may no longer be able to afford them.  YMMV, of course . . . but keep Weimar Germany in mind.  The parallels are ominous.  (See also zero stroke.)

Peter

"Politics is the art of the possible" - not the impossible

 

First German chancellor Otto von Bismarck famously opined, "Politics is the art of the possible, the attainable — the art of the next best."  That's as true today as it was when he said it, about one-and-a-half centuries ago.  Unfortunately, many politicians ignore it and try to carry on regardless, usually with disastrous or tragic consequences.

The latest to do so is Venezuelan opposition leader and Nobel Peace Prize winner María Corina Machado.

Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado has said she should "absolutely" be in charge of the country, following the US ousting of President Nicolás Maduro last week.

"We are ready and willing to serve our people as we have been mandated," Machado said in an interview with the BBC's US partner CBS.

She thanked US President Donald Trump for his "leadership and courage" after US forces stormed Caracas and arrested Maduro, but said nobody trusted the deposed president's ally who has been appointed as interim leader.

Machado and her opposition movement claimed victory in 2024's heavily disputed elections, but Trump has refused to back her, saying she lacks popular support.

There's more at the link.

I accept that Ms. Machado won an electoral majority in Venezuela during the most recent elections, but she never took power, because Maduro and his goons controlled almost every avenue of control open to them.  She was blocked at every turn, and had to go into hiding in case he arrested her - in which case she'd surely have had an accident or illness while incarcerated that would have killed her.  She recently had to be smuggled out of the country to accept her Nobel Peace Prize.

There's simply no way she can muster enough support from the authority structures in Venezuela to hope to take over.  Maduro and Chavez loyalists would kill her before she took office, and the entire government bureaucracy and machinery of state - long since converted into bribe-taking, corrupt, self-seeking figureheads - would refuse to obey any directive she issued, or any law she had passed, that threatens their place in the sun.  She may have popular support among the electorate, but the reality of the Venezuelan equivalent of the "Deep State" is that electoral support doesn't matter at this time.  As we noted yesterday:

Trump “is correct in saying this is a deeply corrupt regime, and it’s a deeply factionalised military and state structure engaged in all sorts of illicit activities, who would be hard pressed to part with their ill-gotten gains, prestige and positions, and literally put their necks on the line,” says Christopher Sabatini, senior fellow for Latin America at Chatham House.

. . .

And Maduro and Hugo Chávez, his predecessor, bought loyalty by carving the state into fiefdoms from which their various clients could extract rents, impoverishing the nation while creating powerful rival power centres.

“Now the head is gone, as we see when you have dictators die, you end up getting a lot of rivals under the leader jostling for power. So don’t be surprised if somebody in the military shoots the vice-president. That’s part of the disintegration,” says Pape.

Again, more at the link.

I agree that, in simple justice, Ms. Machado probably should be the next President of Venezuela.  However, in cold, hard, practical terms, for her to assume that office would be a death sentence for her, her family, and many Venezuelans who support her.  It would plunge that country into even greater turmoil.  It's simply impossible under present conditions.  To think otherwise is to live in cloud cuckoo land.

Peter

Sure makes you think, doesn't it?

 

Found on social media, in multiple locations and variations:

That's one so-called "conspiracy theory" that immediately sounds suspiciously as if it might contain more truth than falsehood.  Were the Hortmanns murdered to send a message to their fellow politicians in Minnesota that disloyalty to the "machine", the "system", call it what you will, would be mercilessly avenged?

What say you, readers?  I've never been a conspiracy theorist, and hope never to become one, but this seems far more persuasive than mere coincidence or happenstance.

Peter

So much for tolerance

 

Brandon Smith, whom we've met in these pages on several previous occasions, points out that our excessive and inappropriate tolerance has led to the exploitation of our culture by the Third World, at grievous expense to ourselves.

The “melting pot” has been poisoned with a rancid cocktail of nefarious agendas. Any positive vestiges of the ideal have been lost. Any value the melting pot might have once had is gone. All that is left is an army of parasites looking for blood; a swarm of mosquitoes rushing in to latch onto a vein. Few if any of these people or institutions care about the “American Dream”, they only see the US as an easy target ripe for conquest.

. . .

No other culture on Earth worships tolerance like westerners do, and there’s a good reason for that. In the case of the US, our ancestors ... garnered us enough riches that we can afford to virtue signal, but not for much longer.

The people that want to give our civilizational wealth away are people who lack respect for the trials and tribulations required to obtain it.  They have no clue what it will take to earn that success back.

Another problem is that our tolerance often goes unappreciated because it is not a virtue for any other culture, either. The third world sees tolerance as weakness and opportunity. Many foreign social belief systems, from Judaism, to Hinduism to Islam, carry an ancient code of tribalism, an insider/outsider mentality of supremacy which is admonished in modern western thought but tolerated in immigrants.

For third worlders, a culture which is tolerant is fair game for exploitation and perhaps even invasion. You will consistently see foreign groups in the US argue that they are indeed American, but at the same time they will declare allegiance to their nation of origin. Their love of America is based on their love of the WEALTH they can derive from America. They’re laughing all the way to the closest Western Union.

Most have no interest in our principles and our heritage. They see America as an economic zone, a global commons with resources to be tapped. In other words, foreigners see immigration as a fishing business, a means to gain access to a largely unprotected wealth pool created by a culture with more historic merit and more success. They have been gathering their nets for quite some time.

In 2024 the US government under Joe Biden spent over $72 billion on foreign aid with another $26 billion in supplementals. India and Mexico transfer around $100 billion total in remittance from the US each year (foreign workers sending money back home). A number of officials with ethnic roots in these countries regularly argue in favor of continued visas and mass immigration while claiming it’s “for the good of Americans.”

Again, their loyalty is to their culture of origin first and America last.

For progressives and globalists immigration is also about wealth, primarily the redistribution of it from middle-class and upper-class Americans into foreign coffers. They see the common American people (conservatives) as a thorn in their side that needs to be removed. The draining of our buying power and living standards is a stepping stone to cultural deconstruction.

Mass immigration is a tool for social change. Multiculturalism erases national pride and the concept of protected borders. For if we are overwhelmed by the third world, who is going to care about maintaining the borders of our nation anymore? We might as well let the whole thing collapse, right?

They openly admit to this agenda, it’s not a secret. The question is, what are we going to do about it?

There's more at the link.

I'm very much in favor of tolerance, provided that those to whom it is extended reciprocate by assimilating into our culture and national norms, and actively seek to give back to the society that has accepted them.  Tolerance is very much a two-way street.  I've tried very hard to live that since coming to the USA myself, almost thirty years ago.  I hope I've succeeded.

However, many immigrants from the Third World have not done so . . . precisely the opposite, in fact, as exemplified by recent revelations about Somali fraudulent activities in Minnesota and Ohio.  For them, I daresay our tolerance has played out its string - and not before time.  Let them take such attitudes and practices back to Somalia, where they belong.

Peter