Headline of the week - maybe of the year

 

I couldn't believe my eyes when I read this headline:

Indiana Egg Farmer

Transported to Hospital

With a Live Adult Chicken

Stuck in His Rectal Cavity

I mean . . . huh???  At first I though this had to be a parody or satirical "news" site - but no, it's a serious news outlet for and in New Jersey.

I'm not going to embed the news report here.  You can click over on that headline to read it for yourself.  Suffice it to say that the details are as gory as you can imagine.  Frankly, I wouldn't have believed it was physically possible, but clearly I've lived a sheltered life.

I presume the victim (or perhaps he's better described as the perpetrator?) isn't married . . . because if he was, I'd love to be a fly on the wall and listen to him trying to explain that to his wife!

Peter

Heh

 

Another goodie from Stephan Pastis.  Click the image to see a larger version at the comic's Web page.

Is this blog "antisocial media"?  Interesting thought . . . depends on the society, I guess!

Peter

If you're still not listening, you're about to run out of time

 

For years, people like me have been warning that hard times are coming.  For the past year or more, some of us have been hammering on the point that hard times are already here, and they're going to get worse - a lot worse - before they get better.  Michael Yon has gone so far as to coin an acronym, PANFAWAR (Pandemic, Famine, War) to describe what he sees coming down the pike at us.

Some readers have listened, and some have built up their reserves to an almost incredible extent.  Good for them.  Many of us (including yours truly) aren't able to do that much, thanks to financial and other constraints;  but we've done the best we can within our limited capabilities.

Sadly, others have derided us as alarmists and panic-mongers, and still haven't done anything to boost their abilities to withstand hard times.  It's to them that this post is addressed, in a last attempt to get through to them what's bearing down on us.  It's worldwide, not just in America, and it's here, now, staring us in the face.  It's no longer theory.  It's unavoidable, undeniable fact.

Rather than use my own words, I'll let headlines speak for me, along with a few words from each.  Click on any headline to be taken to the article, to read it in full.  They're in no particular order.

German eggs: Supply no longer secured from summer (original article, in German, here;  Google Translate English version here).

Against the background of massively restricted supply chains and dramatic cost increases, especially for animal feed ... From summer 2022 at the latest , the supply of eggs can no longer be guaranteed, writes the Central Association of the German Poultry Industry.

It's not just poultry

It is not an isolated crisis, but an exemplar of the full collapse of modern agriculture, now in its final moments.

Greenhouses sit empty, unheated, because the price of natural gas is too high.

Fertilizer is not being produced.

Ranchers are not breeding animals — and are already culling — because there is no feed.

Countries have cut off the exports, and there is not enough wheat to go around for importers.

Grow/store everything you can.

And be ready with seeds and ANSWERS as people are going to be waking up in droves and looking for answers, “How could our gov lie to us?”

EU ministers discuss the fear of a global food crisis

Agriculture Ministers of the European Union (EU) are discussing on Monday [03/21] measures to address the consequences of the war in Ukraine on the agri-food sector and the “fears” that it could trigger a “global food crisis” ... While the war is not going to jeopardize the food security of the European Union, it could have repercussions on supply in other parts of the world, such as the Middle East or Africa ... The war has joined the problems that the agricultural sector was already causing due to the rise in energy or feed prices, the crisis in the pork sector and, in the case of Spain, the drought.

Ukraine: How the global fertilizer shortage is going to affect food security

We are currently witnessing the beginning of a global food crisis, driven by the knock-on effects of a pandemic and more recently the rise in fuel prices and the conflict in Ukraine. There were already clear logistical issues with moving grain and food around the globe, which will now be considerably worse as a result of the war. But a more subtle relationship sits with the link to the nutrients needed to drive high crop yields and quality worldwide.

The World Is Facing A Critical Diesel Shortage

Distillate fuel oil inventories in the United States are 30 million barrels (21%) below the pre-pandemic five-year seasonal average and at the lowest level since 2005, the U.S. Energy Information Administration said.

Stocks in Europe are 35 million barrels (8%) below the pre-pandemic five-year average at the lowest level since 2008, Euroilstock, which compiles inventory data on behalf of the European Union, found.

And middle distillate stocks in Singapore are 4 million barrels (32%) below the pre-pandemic five-year average and also at the lowest since 2008, according to the country’s Ministry of Trade and Industry.

Combined inventories across the three locations have fallen by 110 million barrels compared with the same point last year, as consumption has persistently outpaced production.

Demand for diesel and other middle distillates is highly geared to the economic cycle since they are mainly used in freight transportation, manufacturing, farming, mining and oil and gas extraction.

Diesel Crisis —> Food Crisis (Michael Yon)

How many thousands of times have I warned since January 2020 to stock up on food and other essentials? Start the bidding at 2,000 warnings over about 26 months ... There are patterns. Nobody needed to wait to know the “vaccines” would explode. Nobody needed to wait two years to start seeing the reality of PanFaWar. Especially so when social arsonists are feeding accelerants into the blaze they started ... Ukraine is nothing on the scale of what is unfolding. That said, Ukraine-Russia are an ideal battleground for many reasons such as increased strike on and food, fertilizer, and fuel supplies ... But here is the spot where reality lands with a thud and explosion: Fuel, food, no real leadership in any western country — FAMINE.

China agriculture minister says winter wheat condition could be worst in history

Minister of Agriculture and Rural Affairs Tang Renjian said that rare heavy rainfall last year delayed the planting of about one-third of the normal wheat acreage ... "Not long ago we went to the grassroots to do a survey and many farming experts and technicians told us that crop conditions this year could be the worst in history," he said. "This year's grain production indeed faces huge difficulties."

The minister's comments underscore concerns about China's grain supply at the same time as the war between Russia and Ukraine, which together account for about 29% of global wheat exports, has disrupted supplies causing wheat prices to surge to 14-year highs.

Russia's Ukraine war threatens to blow US food prices sky-high

"It comes an absolutely horrible time for American consumers because we're looking every day at inflation almost reaching 10%," Dan Varroney, a supply chain expert and founder of Potomac Core, told FOX Business. "Last month's figures were close to 8%. And that means that consumers, including those that are living paycheck to paycheck, are going to pay more for food."

"Food markets are globalized so, to a certain extent, it's impossible to avoid the impacts of disruptions like this," [Caitlin Welsh, the director of the Global Food Security Program] said. "I think that these types of disruptions remind us the extent to which we, you know, the global economy and global agriculture trade is intertwined with the rest of the world."

Biden about to get caught flat-footed on another crisis: Ukraine war–generated global food shortages

As Reuters notes, countries such as Lebanon, Yemen, and Egypt are going to be hit hard by this crisis.  But other analysts note that the Pacific nations will be hit, too.  Politico reports that the Philippines is making its largest-ever grain orders just to get some kind of cushion for what's coming down the pike. 

Making matters worse, some countries that could fill the void, such as Argentina, Hungary, and Turkey, are blocking exports to ensure that they have no shortages of their own.

In the U.S., a major problem of another sort is out there — drought and reduced crops owing to bad weather.  That isn't going to be helpful in helping alleviate this problem overseas, either ... last time there was a global grain shortage, and it wasn't as dangerous as this one, was 2008 — the year the Arab Spring happened.  That presaged revolts and toppled governments, which pretty well had potential for realigning U.S. alliances and friends, usually not in our direction.

[Biden] blamed President Trump.  He blamed companies.  He blamed others.  And his solution?  Harness "the restaurant industry" to feed the hungry.  Today, he's substituting Putin.  It will be interesting to see how that goes over internationally, as it doesn't include much in the way of solutions ... He wants the other guy to do it.  He doesn't seem to be offering much from the U.S. to head off the crisis.

Ukraine War Could Put Food Security on Pentagon’s Plate

Now the Pentagon has been urged to study how the disrupted food supply driven by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine will impact security around the world ... “Conflict and hunger are closely intertwined–when one escalates, the other usually follows,” said Gilbert F. Houngbo, president of the UN’s International Fund for Agricultural Development, or IFAD, in a statement last week.

Caitlin Welsh, director of the Global Food Security Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said she frequently tried to get more attention from the Pentagon in conversations about food security while working in the State Department’s Office of Global Food Security.

The fear? Instability in Egypt, Iraq, Syria and Iran, which rely heavily on exports from Ukraine and Russia, Welsh said.

“To the extent that those countries’ security is affected by riots, or protests that threaten regimes, that’s how our interests could be threatened,” she said. 

Food instability and high food prices were one factor that led to the Arab Spring in the early 2010s, said Molly Jahn, a professor of agronomy at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Friends, if you can read those headlines and articles and still put off building up at least some food security for yourself and your family, I don't know what to say to you.  The sand in the hourglass has just about run out.  These warnings used to be largely voiced by "preppers" and those who'd experienced previous conflicts, shortages and famines themselves (the latter including yours truly).  Now they're coming from all over;  governments, national and international organizations, experts, whatever.  If you aren't listening, there's an old proverb that applies to you:  "There are none so deaf as those who will not hear".

Phil, over at Bustednuckles, shares my outlook.

All of us are getting price shocks every time we turn around.

I spend a lot of time keeping up with what is going on.

Everywhere I went on the tubes last night was someone else saying it is going to get much, much worse.

As in 10% inflation, PER MONTH.

We are looking at $10 a gallon milk and everything else is going to go through the roof also.

IF, you can find it.

The ripple effects of the Supply Chain fiasco, the Truckers strikes, the failing Farm production, we are in for a scenario that hasn’t been seen since WWII and the Rationing.

Quit putting it off people, get you a pantry going.

From what I am seeing, there isn’t any relief in sight until AFTER next year.

If we make it that long.

God help us.

Ayup.

Peter

Gigglesnort! - CPR edition

 

There's a very funny thread on Reddit concerning a CPR student who claimed his instructor had a heart attack right in front of the class.  WARNING:  it contains a lot of profanity, including repeated F-bombs.

After a few minutes of nervous giggling and coy, frightened gazes between members of the group, many of whom had barely stepped a foot outside their door or interacted with other human beings in person for two years, the CPR instructor strode in, nursing her arm and carrying a dummy. I beamed at her, crinkling my eyes as best as I could to convey I was friendly and eager to learn, sitting up in my chair like a good boy.

"Sorry, I'm late, folx, just had my boos--" she began, before collapsing onto the mat, the test dummy sliding out of her arms and clattering to the floor.

The room descended into anarchy. Not one of us knew what to do. The woman with six face-shields on and the crazed glint in her eyes started rocking back and forth on her chair, cradling her legs and sobbing. The guy beside me bravely bolted to the door, leaving behind a slug trail of excrement and urine in his wake. I floundered over to the CPR lady, tripping over the CPR dummy in the process and skinning my knee on the hard-wood floor of the community centre. "****!!!" I howled, grasping my knee whilst stinging tears stained my cheeks and soaked my masks.

I army-crawled over to the teacher, breathlessly shouting for help and rolling out of the way of my fellow classmates, who were frantically running around in a confused panic. I finally got to within six feet of the CPR expert, mindful of the invisible forcefield surrounding her. "Do I have your consent to break your social distance bubble!??!" I yelled across at her, feebly pounding the gym mat with my little gloved fists. "IS THIS PART OF THE TEST!?!?!"

She's still not moving and the rest of the class have either fled or are cowering in separate corners of the hall. HELP ME, REDDIT, YOU'RE MY ONLY HOPE.

There's more at the link.

The best part isn't the initial post, but the responses from Redditors, who let themselves go with a vengeance.  For example:

• "At this point the best thing you can do is cover her body with Ukrainian flag."
• "May I suggest looking up Tic-Tok twerking nurses? It's been conclusively proven by scientific experts who have made great achievements in the field of excellence that precision twerking has many therapeutic effects."
• "Climate change has given her a heart attack. Try lowering the room temperature to stimulate the effect of everyone in the world driving a Tesla."

I think there were more responses yesterday than those I saw this morning when I went back to the thread to copy some of it here.  I suspect some of the more... awkward... ones may have been "edited out".  Even so, those that are left are funny.  If you're on Reddit, you might want to add a contribution or two.

Peter

If they can do it for a sex cult, why not for Epstein and Maxwell?

 

It's amusing to watch the brouhaha over the Justice Department's mistaken publication of a student prostitute's customer list in the Sarah Lawrence sex cult case.

New York's business elite was left shaking in its boots Tuesday after a list of alleged clients of the student prostitute in the Sarah Lawrence 'sex cult' case was inadvertently published online.

The list, which was entered into evidence under seal in the ongoing trial of accused cult leader Larry Ray, includes lawyers and businessmen and socialites throughout the Tri-state area.

DailyMail.com acquired a copy of the list of 121 names which was taken down nearly as fast as it was put up.

A top executive at The Gap clothing firm and her husband was one of two married couples included. A former New York State Supreme Court judge is also named.

Another alleged client is a painter who has studios in Manhattan's East Village and in Italy. A third is an architect, famous for designing college and university buildings. 

An investment executive who was also in pedophile Jeffrey Epstein's infamous little black book of contacts is also listed.  

Other names include a hedge fund manager who has donated millions to charity and has his name on a museum building in New York, a Washington DC, lobbyist who has worked for a foreign resistance movement and an international diamond dealer. 

Also included is an executive at the Metropolitan Transit Authority, an account executive at Amazon and a veteran travel writer. 

. . .

... somehow the government posted the 'sealed' document online and then immediately scrambled to stop the information getting out.

'Per order of the Court, government exhibit #3217 (GX 3217) was admitted under seal,' a spokesman for the Department of Justice wrote in an email soon after the document was taken offline.

'This file was inadvertently loaded to the U.S. v. Ray file share. Please do not reproduce, share, or use this exhibit in any way, if you have downloaded this file, please delete it.'

But the department's plea is unlikely to be successful as the document has already been posted on Twitter.

There's more at the link.

I have no problem at all with the client list being published.  If conduct is criminal, those who encourage, buy and support it are surely as guilty as those who engage in it.  Sauce for the goose, and so on, etc. etc.

However, why the hell have we still not seen any of the names of the clients/guests/whatever of Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell?  They were surely as guilty of the couple's crimes - by participating in them, even if they didn't pay for them - as the two perpetrators.  The Justice Department must have their names by now.  By not publishing them, it's a tacit admission that there's "one law for the rich/powerful, and one for the poor/powerless".  I wonder how many Washington D.C. elites would be "shaking in their boots" today, if that client list had been published by mistake?

It's not what you know, or even who you know - it's what you can get away with.  I wonder how much behind-the-scenes blackmail goes on to prevent the publication of sordid details like that?  And I wonder how many important decisions - maybe even high court verdicts - are "influenced" by threats to reveal such information?

Peter

Who can forget "Leave the gun. Take the cannoli"?

 

On this date 50 years ago, the movie "The Godfather" opened in cinemas nationwide.  It was a smash hit, and today it's shown on TV or in cinemas almost every single day, somewhere in the world.  Its popularity is astronomical.

It's had an overwhelming impact on cinema and acting since its release.  I can't think of a single gangster or crime movie I've watched since then that doesn't owe at least something to The Godfather in terms of its ethos.

Today, fifty years on, let's be grateful for the team of geniuses (genii?) who gave birth to The Godfather, and left us so enduring a legacy.  In their honor, here are a few excerpts from the movie.

A classic indeed.

Peter

The US economy: death by a thousand cuts?

 

The fabled "death by a thousand cuts" refers to a traditional method of slow, lingering, extremely painful execution used for over a millennium in China, right up until last century.  In theory at least, no one cut would be lethal in and of itself (unless the executioner had been bribed, or was feeling merciful);  rather, it was their cumulative effect that eventually overwhelmed the body's ability to resist.

That can be applied to economies as well.  It certainly describes very well the state of the US economy at this moment.  The "cuts" are different economic problems that all have the same outcome;  damaging parts of our economy, hampering their ability to resist, and increasing the drain on the whole economy in the process.

Consider these developments, all of which have been thoroughly documented in news media over the past couple of years:

• The economic contraction caused by COVID-19, which appears to have reduced economic output by at least 25% in the short term.
• The loss of jobs and income by those laid off during that process.
• The urgent provision of funding to help those laid off, leading to uncontrolled "money printing" by the Federal Reserve.
• The explosion in government spending to make up for the private sector economic contraction, but which has also caused massive inflationary pressures.
• The supply chain crunch, caused by the economic destabilization initiated by the COVID-19 crisis.
• The shortage of workers, as many employees decided it would be more to their advantage to stay at home, draw unemployment benefits and live off COVID-19 economic assistance payments.
• The closure of literally tens of thousands of smaller businesses, who did not have sufficient financial reserves to cope with the economic downturn, and who took with them hundreds of thousands of jobs that have not yet come back.
• International geopolitical pressures, including the Ukraine war, commercial competition with China, a worldwide economic contraction caused by COVID-19, competition for scarce natural resources, and so on.
• Natural disasters such as storms, volcanoes, droughts, floods and other events that have had a crippling local and regional effect.

Any one of those evils might hurt an economy, but not to the point of wrecking it.  However, they all have a cumulative effect;  and as an economy is more and more injured by each successive event, it becomes less and less able to respond to or resist the next one.  It's like a person suffering from multiple health issues.  Each can be controlled by medication and/or other factors;  but if one gets out of control, it puts additional strain on the body, making it less able to resist another of those issues.  If two or three of them get out of control, their cumulative effect may be to make it impossible for the body to resist the others.  The same applies if the medication(s) needed to control one such issue react negatively with those used for another health problem, making it difficult or even impossible to treat either of them.  A single illness may lead to such progressive disease, or a combination of illnesses, but the outcome is the same . . . death.

That's where the American economy is right now.  We've had too many individual pressures that on their own, might not be too difficult to withstand;  but, in combination with each other, they're putting us under enormous strain.  Each new adversity makes it more and more difficult for the economy as a whole to cope with it.  The most recent, the sudden, almost uncontrolled increase in fuel prices, may be the worst - particularly since left-wing, progressive politicians see it as a positive, rather than a negative development.  They want to reduce our use of fossil fuels;  and what better way to do it quickly than to deliberately make those fuels too expensive for the average person to afford?

I don't think we'll see a sudden and complete implosion of the entire US economy.  However, I do believe we'll see the implosion of sectors of the US economy.  To name just a few examples:

• The entire motor vehicle sales industry has been built up around the concept of individual dealers who take cars from the manufacturers, sell them to customers, and support them after sale by offering service, repairs, etc.  However, those dealers at present - and for the foreseeable future - can't get enough stock from the manufacturers, to sell enough vehicles, to make enough profit to sustain themselves.  They're trying to survive by charging more per vehicle, so that the excess profits from fewer sales can keep their heads above financially troubled waters;  but this can't be a long-term solution, because if they become (or remain) too expensive, people will simply stop buying vehicles.  How are dealers to survive?  Is the dealer model of vehicle sales ultimately doomed?  Literally millions of jobs have been built around that core.  What will happen to them?
• Agriculture has evolved into a market where relatively low profits are made by the producers of food.  Most of the profit goes to industrial-scale food processors and distributors, who "add value" to the raw product by slaughtering, preparing and marketing it in myriad ways.  However, with the collapse of the traditional two-pronged market approach - one the consumer, the other the restaurant and fast-food industry - supply lines have shifted, and may never return to what they were.  What's more, interruptions and vastly increased prices for inputs such as fertilizer, diesel fuel (to power farm machinery), and so on, are severely impacting farmers, whether family or corporate.  Will our food production, processing, distribution and consumption models withstand such pressures, or will they have to be modified (at very great expense and disruption)?  Will geopolitical pressures such as the collapse of food exports from Russia and Ukraine lead to unbearable pressures on other food producers - not to mention possible political upheavals in consuming nations?
• The transport industry has been thrown into turmoil by, first, a sudden and drastic reduction in volume when COVID-19 hit, then a "rebound effect" of vastly increased traffic when distributors and retailers hastened to rebuild their inventories.  That's still going on, and shows no sign of slowing.  Sea cargo costs have skyrocketed;  air freight has done likewise;  road and rail transport simply can't cope with the vastly increased demand.  A system built for "just-in-time" manufacturing and distribution can't cope with current conditions, but it's not possible to change it "on the fly" without causing even worse disruption.  Everybody in that industry is so busy trying to cope that they can't spare the time or resources to look for better ways to do things.  They're running so hard to stay in place that they can't make any forward progress - and if they try to slow their pace to examine how to make better progress, they'll end up going backwards.

Those are just a few areas where the "thousand cuts" are crippling our economy.  It could withstand one, or a few, or even a moderate number of them, but there are now so many that it's faltering.  Those who speak of economic collapse tend to look at a single major factor, or a few big factors, as precipitating a sudden decline.  The reality is that each "little" problem has its effect, and makes the effect of the next "little" problem that much worse.  We traditionally speak of "the last straw that breaks the camel's back".  I fear that's precisely what we're currently seeing in our economy as a whole.

So . . . what can we, as individuals, do about it?  All I can suggest is to look at our own needs as individuals and families, and prepare for hard times in those areas.  That way, we'll insulate ourselves as best we can from the current crisis, and protect ourselves if it gets worse.  There's no "one-size-fits-all" solution;  each of us must analyze our own situation, and react accordingly.  A few examples:

• If I'm dependent upon prescription medication to stay healthy, I need to make every effort (including scrimping, saving and sacrificing in other areas if necessary) to accumulate a reserve of those medications, to help get through shortages that might otherwise be dangerous to my health or even life-threatening.  I'd say that at least a 90-day supply of such medications is warranted;  if possible, 180 days.  Even non-prescription needs (e.g. over-the-counter painkillers, anti-allergy pills, cold and flu relief, etc.) and personal hygiene items (sanitary napkins, deodorant, toothpaste, denture fixative, soap, etc.) may be in short supply.  Stock up accordingly.
• If I have food allergies or food-related health conditions (e.g. gluten allergies, inability to digest certain foods, etc.), I should stock up on foods I can eat, so that if their supply is interrupted, I can maintain my health for at least a while.
• If I see supermarkets and other retail channels getting short of what I need, and/or becoming too expensive, I need to investigate alternatives.  Can I grow food in my own back yard to help supplement my diet?  Can friends come in on that with me, so that we all grow something, help each other with the daily tasks involved, and share the harvest?  Can we learn together to preserve food through home canning and other techniques?  Every little helps.
• If fuel becomes too expensive to permit unrestricted travel, can I carpool with friends and co-workers to save money?  Can we coordinate joint trips to the supermarket to do our shopping?  Can I buy a bicycle, put a small basket or other cargo-carrying receptacle on it, and ride it to local shops?  That might be good for my health as well as my wallet.

Our economy as a whole is currently facing "death by a thousand cuts".  So are we, in our individual economic circumstances.  We can either sit back passively and wait for it to happen to us, or we can be proactive and prepare ourselves to resist and withstand it as best we can - and even fight back, together with our friends, co-workers and neighbors.  I know which option I'm choosing.

Understand, too, that the powers that be don't want us preparing to cope with such hard times.  We're already seeing official warnings not to "hoard" supplies, and assurances that there will be enough to go around.  If you believe that, there's this bridge in Brooklyn, NYC I'd like to sell you . . .  Making preparations to cope with what's clearly, unambiguously staring us in the face is not hoarding - it's prudence.  When our government fails to protect us against economic storms, we'd better protect ourselves . . . or be destroyed by them.  (As part of that prudence, be very careful not to let too many people know that you have reserve supplies of essentials.  If things get bad, authorities will probably try to confiscate them for "redistribution" - and even if they don't, you can expect your neighbors to demand that you share with them.  Refusals may not be well received.  Keep a low profile.  When everyone around you is tightening their belts and their stomachs are growling with hunger, it's not a good idea to grill steaks on your backyard barbecue, sending the smell wafting over the neighborhood!)

We're undoubtedly in for hard times, and I don't think they're only short-term.  I won't be surprised if it takes a decade or more for us to dig our way out of our present troubles.  Let's buttress our defenses as best we can before the crisis gets any worse.

Peter

How the Biden administration may be maneuvering to destroy our country

 

Sundance has a thought-provoking article on how the Ukraine war may have been actively instigated by hidden forces in the USA, as a desired outcome in their efforts to bring down our own country.  I've highlighted critical sections with an orange background.

In late February, the New York Times reported on U.S. intelligence and diplomatic officials from the State Dept sharing intelligence with Chinese officials in the three months leading up to the Russian invasion.  {Go Deep on Analysis} The narrative from the NYT article tells the story of the U.S. trying to convince China in December, January and February to intervene and persuade Russia not to cross the border into Ukraine.

. . .

There’s every reason to believe what the Biden intelligence community and state department were sharing with China, was done with the intention of Beijing giving it to Moscow.

From that perspective, the question around intent becomes, what did they push, and why did they push it?

. . .

Entry into NATO was a red line for Russia, Joe Biden knew it.  Vladimir Putin had been very clear about his opposition, and everyone knew it.  Russia would never concede allowing Ukraine to enter NATO.  Yet, the people running the Biden administration wanted to give the public appearance of Ukraine entering NATO.

In December of 2021, the U.S. intel community and Dept of State were talking to China about the Russian troop buildup, per the New York Times info.

The Biden administration is not stupid enough to tell Zelenskyy to play the game of pretend without knowing this would trigger a definitive military response from Putin.

There’s only one way to look at this.  The Biden administration was purposefully baiting Putin, and provoking Putin to invade Ukraine, because the team around Biden wanted Putin to invade Ukraine.

The question then becomes why?  Why would the people in/around Biden want to provoke Vladimir Putin to invade Ukraine?

Again, a critical frame of reference is needed to answer that question: never ascribe to incompetence that which can be explained by intent. 

With the scale of economic bad news and catastrophic policy outcomes overwhelming the White House, a geopolitical crisis to distract the world’s attention does have major benefits.  However, this specific motive is also deeper than that.

This crisis actually helps advance the goals and objectives of domestic policy in multiple ways.

The people around Biden want soaring energy costs; they want huge increases in gasoline costs as part of their Green New Deal agenda.  These are ideological travelers, the most intense elements within the Obama crowd, and Biden has been installed as a disposable figurehead allowing them to operate a policy agenda without any concern for political damage.

Paving the path to ‘The Great Reset’, also known as ‘Build Back Better’, is much easier when the fundamental change crowd can just plow full speed ahead.

These are the most entrenched ideologues who consider federal deficit spending as a means to an end, where the U.S. is fundamentally changed and forever diminished because we are broke.

Through this prism of consequence, all of the negative domestic outcomes from Russia entering Ukraine and our responses therein, are not viewed as bad outcomes.  These consequences are domestic and economic pains to be embraced, not avoided.  After all, the people delivering these outcomes will never, themselves, feel any of it.

Watch what happens if our own government, these same entrenched ideologues, are successful in leveraging the sanctions against Russia to include the removal of Russia from the SWIFT financial exchanges.

Russia, China and Iran will immediately respond to the “west” blocking Russia from the SWIFT financial system.  If they launch a counter trade currency to work around the petro-dollar, it will not take long before the dollar is weakened or removed as the global trade currency.  If that happens, it’s game over for the United States of America as we know it.

Now, think about the Obama crew, the most ideological of all ideological traveling globalists…. the same crew who wanted to see the decolonialization of western culture.  The crew who wants ‘fundamental and permanent change’.  For this crew, the collapse of the United States is their goal.  For this crew, getting to that place by putting SWIFT sanctions on Russia is a net positive.

From that perspective, what is happening in Ukraine-Russia becomes a completely different dynamic.

There's more at the link.

I wish I could disagree with Sundance, but his theory fits all the known facts;  and we know from bitter experience how anti-American the Obama administration really was.  It was inexorably opposed to the Founding Fathers' vision for and of this country.  Those involved knew they could not remove the constitution - too many Americans would resist that - and therefore they sought to destabilize the constitution by simply ignoring it.  They succeeded all too well, aided and abetted by previous administrations (of both major parties) that had already started down that slippery slope.  President Trump was a welcome interruption in their efforts, but he could not stop the already-deeply-rooted rot from continuing;  and with his removal and the engineered installation of President Biden, the same destructive forces are again seeking to overturn everything that makes America what it is.

They may succeed.  They may already have done enough damage to ensure that our constitutional republic falls apart, or descends into apathetic anarchy.  However, I refuse to concede defeat, and I believe there are enough Americans who feel likewise to make a difference.  It may be that we can't save the entire country, but we can save individual states from collapse, and if those states work together, we can ensure that our constitution survives.  It'll take all our efforts, but I believe it's worth that.

Meanwhile, I suggest we regard any and every action by the Biden administration - and the éminences grises behind it - as a deliberate attempt to destabilize and undermine our constitution and our republic, and respond accordingly.  The odds are pretty good that such an assumption will be correct.

Peter

Primitive superstition rears its ugly head yet again...

 

The BBC reports:

Armed with a sharp knife, a megaphone and dressed all in black, Gbenga Adewoyin could have passed for a medieval witch hunter, a herbal salesman or an urban preacher as he walked around a market in the south-western Nigerian city of Ibadan.

Those curious enough to get close in the Gbagi market quickly dispersed when they heard his message. "Anyone that can provide any evidence for the existence of the supernatural, be it juju or voodoo magic, will be offered 2.5m naira ($6,000, £4,650)," he announced repeatedly in Yoruba and English.

The 24-year-old atheist has recently emerged as a rebel publicly contesting the powers of the supernatural in this deeply religious country.

Belief in African traditional religions and its juju components are widespread in Nigeria ... Many Nigerians believe that magic charms can allow humans to morph into cats, protect bare skins from sharp blades and make money appear in a clay pot.

These beliefs are not just held by the uneducated, they exist even at the highest level of Nigeria's academia.

Dr Olaleye Kayode, a senior lecturer in African Indigenous Religions at the University of Ibadan, told the BBC that money-making juju rituals - where human body parts mixed with charms makes money spew out of a pot - really work.

The naira notes that supposedly appear "are gotten by spirits from existing banks", he told the BBC.

Jude Akanbi, a lecturer at the Crowther Graduate Theological Seminary in Abẹ́òkúta, is also unequivocal about juju.

"This ability to be able to transform yourself to [a] cat, to disappear and reappear, these things are possible within the dynamics of traditional African religion.

"Although [it] sounds illogical, like old wives' tales, however from what we have seen and heard, these things are possible," he said.

Such beliefs, especially that human body parts and charms can produce money from a clay pot, have led to a recent wave of gruesome murders in the country, with single women often the victims.

. . .

"If money ritual worked, we would have seen a massive inflation in the economy for the decades that we have believed in it," Mr Adewoyin told the BBC.

He was in Ibadan, Oyo state, on the second of three planned in-country tours offering 2.5m naira, crowd-funded via Twitter, to anyone that can publicly demonstrate these juju powers.

"The knife is for anyone that claims their juju makes them blade-proof," he said.

There's more at the link.

We've spoken of widespread primitive animist superstition among Africans on several prior occasions, including the murder and mutilation of albinos to obtain their body parts and organs for use in making "muti" ("medicine);  the "smelling out" and murder of witches, which has led to the establishment of protected villages where those accused of witchcraft can live under police protection (without which they'd be killed);  and even cannibalism.

Trouble is, many Africans - possibly a majority - still make use of witchcraft in their own interests.  I've personally witnessed the latter on numerous occasions.  They may be afraid of it being used against them, but they'll gladly make use of it against others.

We in the First World need not feel superior to them.  When a mainstream newspaper like the New York Post runs articles about astrology and its influence on people (such as, for example, this one) and publishes daily astrology forecasts, it's demonstrating just as much superstition and credulity as those believing in witchcraft in Africa.  I wish it wouldn't, but I guess at least some of its readers like it - so we're stuck with it.

*Sigh*

Peter

The "cashless society" - points to ponder

 

Found on MeWe (clickit to biggit):

Sounds pretty accurate to me.

If you want government and big business to exercise that level of control over you and your finances, you haven't learned a thing from the COVID-19 lockdowns and excesses - particularly Canada's seizure of control over protesters' bank accounts without due process of any sort.

Equal protection under the law?  Don't make me laugh . . .

As for the "digital currency" that many governments are talking about introducing:

Programmability changes everything:

The people issuing the money would have the power to control how it is spent.

That’s not an interpretation or a “conspiracy theory”, just listen to Agustin Carstens, head of the International Settlement Bank, speaking earlier this year: …

The key difference [with a CBDC] is that the central bank would have absolute control on the rules and regulations that will determine the use of that expression of central bank liability, and they have the technology to enforce that.

An article in the Telegraph, back in June, was just as candid:

Digital cash could be programmed to ensure it is only spent on essentials, or goods which an employer or Government deems to be sensible.

China:  As they progress toward the release of their digital currency, they are banning all cryptocurrencies to remove competition and it’s already known the digital yuan will be programmable.

Britain:  Britcoin will likely be programmed in only “special circumstances”. Starting, as the Telegraph says, with state benefits. They will be flagged to be spent only on “essentials”. .. It’s also not hard to see programmable money feeding into the “protect the NHS narrative”, where people aren’t allowed to spend state money on sugar, cigarettes or alcohol. …

. . .

So the UK government will make a big show of renouncing their own power to program the money ... but at the [same] time will take no steps to prevent large companies “programming” the wages they issue.

McDonald’s, for example, will make it impossible to spend their wages at Burger King, and vice versa. Coke and Pepsi. Starbucks and Costa.

Companies could commit to “combatting hate”, and stop their employees from donating money to black-listed political parties, religious groups, charities or individuals.

Imagine a world where companies could “renounce those who spread misinformation”, by making it impossible to spend wages they issue on art/films/music/books by outspoken critics of the government.

Maybe an unvaxxed paycheck can’t be spent at cinemas or nightclubs, to “stop the spread of the virus”.

Now imagine the nascent “Green New Deal”. Hard limits on how much money you can spend on petrol, plastic, or meat.

Authoritarians will love programmable currency.

There's more at the link.

So much for the "cashless society"!

Peter

Memes that made me laugh 101

 

Gathered around the Internet over the past week.  Click any image for a larger view.

Sunday morning music

 

On a whim, here's one of the rarest of Tom Lehrer's albums, "Tom Lehrer Discovers Australia", released in 1960.  For those who know his satirical and comic songs, it'll be a repeat treat;  for those who have yet to have the pleasure of getting to know him, you'll love this one.

A vintage comedy classic!

Peter

Saturday Snippet: There, but for the grace of God, go I...

 

I posted a snippet from the late Pentecostal pastor Jamie Buckingham in these pages back in 2020.  His wit and wisdom helped me in the past, and I still dip into his books now and again, because their message stays fresh even with the passage of time.

This one, like the previous example, is from his collection of short articles titled "The Last Word".

This story in particular has always been a powerful reminder to me that I need to put myself into the shoes of others, rather than just look at things from my own, often selfish perspective.

I parked my car, shut off the headlights, and walked back to the little knot of people who were standing beside the darkened highway.

Lying on his back with body grotesquely bent was a man. He had been struck by a car. Both shoes had been knocked off by the impact which had picked up his body and smashed it against the windshield. Little bits of flesh and hair were still imbedded in the shattered glass and twisted windshield wiper.

The crowd seemed strangely disinterested in the man’s body. Someone had thrown a dirty canvas tarp over his legs as though this were as close as he wished to get. Little groups of people stood around talking to each other. Two of the men had cans of beer in their hands, having just stepped outside of a roadside joint nearby.

I knelt beside the man and heard him breathing. The neon lights from the tavern cast weird reflections on his twisted body. His eyes were open and glassy. His breath sounded like someone sucking on a straw in a nearly empty milkshake cup.

I put my hand on his chest but quickly removed it. It felt like a plastic bag filled with water. I turned his head so the blood would run out of his mouth rather than back down his throat. I tried to brush some of the dirt and gravel from his face, but it all seemed so futile. I looked up from my kneeling position but the people were still standing in little groups several feet away. No one offered to help.

He stopped breathing for long agonizing seconds, then came another gurgling gasp. His body was straining to stay alive, although I had the impression his spirit had already departed. I bent low over him to try to speak, but the smell of cheap liquor was so strong it forced me back. He was dying—maybe dead—drunk.

The ambulance arrived and the attendants gently placed his dirty, torn body on a stretcher and sped off into the night. I knew the report would read DOA: dead on arrival.

After talking to the patrolman who had arrived, I walked back to my car. I caught snatches of conversation—“been in every bar along the road” . . . “staggered into the path of a speeding car on the four-lane.”

A fat man silhouetted in the door of the honky-tonk muttered to a friend, “Serves him right. He deserved to get hit after acting the way he did in here.”

I wondered if he would feel the same way if it had been his son—and shuddered involuntarily as I realized he probably would.

The paper the next morning said the man was estranged from his wife and four children. Had no friends. Had been fired from his job. Belonged to no church.

That was a number of years ago. But I remember it took me several days to scrub the bloodstains from my hands. However, I finally got them clean, in time for church services Sunday where we sat in our cozy building and sang songs about how much we loved one another.

Would anyone care to join me in a heartfelt, "Ouch! That hurt!"?  It always does, to get a spiritual slap in the face like that . . . but we all need it, because we can very quickly lose touch with the reality of being human.

I'll let John Donne have the last word today.

No man is an island,
Entire of itself,
Every man is a piece of the continent,
A part of the main.
If a clod be washed away by the sea,
Europe is the less.
As well as if a promontory were.
As well as if a manor of thy friend's
Or of thine own were:
Any man's death diminishes me,
Because I am involved in mankind,
And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls;
It tolls for thee.

Word.

Peter

A lethal dose so small it can hardly be seen

 

Courtesy of an e-mail chain of which I'm a member, I came across this picture (clickit to biggit).

On the left is a lethal dose of heroin.  On the right is a lethal dose of fentanyl.

The article from which I took that image warns:

Heroin and fentanyl look identical, and with drugs purchased on the street, “you don’t know what you’re taking,” Tim Pifer, the director of the New Hampshire State Police Forensic Laboratory, told STAT in an interview. “You’re injecting yourself with a loaded gun.”

There's more at the link.  Highly recommended reading.

No wonder fatalities from illicit narcotics are increasing by leaps and bounds.  When the difference between life and death can hardly be seen with the naked eye, it's far too easy to make a fatal mistake.

Peter

The joys of installing a new HVAC system

 

A short while ago, I noted:

We recently got paid a useful sum of money that's been owed to us for some time.  If we put it in the bank, the inflation rate would reduce its buying power by double digit percentages every year; so we're going to put it to work instead, by investing in major domestic improvements while we can afford them.

We're investing part of that money in replacing our old HVAC system.  It was installed when the house was built, 30-odd years ago, and was on its last legs.  (The last time something broke, two years ago, the local HVAC service company couldn't get new parts to fix it, and had to pay an exorbitant price for a used part [which was passed on to us, of course].  They warned us at the time that the next time it broke, they probably couldn't fix it, and advised us to save up for a replacement system.)  The old geothermal system was also too small, a 2-ton-capacity unit instead of the recommended 3-ton unit for our size of house.  In high summer it ran non-stop for 18 hours a day trying to keep the place cool, and in mid-winter it ran non-stop trying to keep the house warm.  Electricity bills reflected that.

We got several quotes to replace it, and were astonished at the prices currently being charged.  Two years ago, we could have bought a geothermal system for approximately $10K.  Today, geothermal would have set us back more than double that price - far beyond our budget;  so we went for a conventional heat pump system instead, which still cost us almost $12K with the addition of two extra vents and the duct work to reach them.  At the recommendation of the installer, we increased system capacity from 2 to 3½ tons.  The new system also has a much higher SEER rating than the old one.

The installation team showed up bright and early on Wednesday morning.  The first order of business was to remove the old geothermal system, which had been installed in the attic.  It was very heavy indeed, so much so that they had to break it down into component parts and remove them one at a time.  Once that had been done, they tried to lift the new unit into the attic, only to find that it was too big to fit through the narrow hatchway leading up there;  so they had to unscrew the frame surrounding the hatch and take down the folding ladder giving access to it, then use conventional step-ladders to hoist the new A/C unit up there.  A great deal of sweat and sotto voce bad language later, they managed to complete the exchange, with yours truly and our cats as interested observers (and listeners!).

Over the rest of Wednesday and yesterday, heavy footsteps and loud mutterings were heard from the attic as wider ducts were installed to replace the old, narrower ones.  Our two cats did not approve of such continued interruptions from above, and showed their disdain by vanishing under beds and staying there until work ended each day - after which, of course, they demanded treats and extra attention to compensate them for the trauma they'd had to endure.  My wife calls them "furry little socialists", and I think she's not far wrong!

The new system "went live" late yesterday afternoon.  It's humming right along, and is already proving to be very much more efficient than the old one, keeping the house at the right temperature for much less run-time than we saw in the past.

Now comes the added financial pain of getting an electrician to give us a quote to install a larger electrical panel.  We don't need more power to the house, but we need more room for expansion, given that we want to install a generator switch and run a power line to a garden shed in future.  The new HVAC system took up two of our open slots, so there are no longer enough free spaces on the existing panel to accommodate that expansion.  Oh, well . . . our debt repayment windfall won't last long at this rate, but as they say in the classics, it's only money!

Peter

Smoke and mirrors, wrestling and politics and reality

 

I can only say, I wish I'd written this article myself.  It's that good, that accurate.  It's raw and in-your-face about where we are now with all the war-talk about Ukraine and Russia.

A wise man once wrote, “American politics (and most democratic politics, really) cannot be properly understood without a working knowledge of professional wrestling” ... Professional wrestling is a business. It was born in the circus. Promoters and talent would seek to entice the public with the promise of a violent spectacle in the hopes of “putting an ass in every eighteen inches of seat.” The business changed over the years as it adapted to technology like the rest of the world, growing from local carnival acts to territories to global franchises, however, the core of it remains the same. Through the use of a persona or ‘gimmick’ establishing The Good Guy (or ‘Babyface’) and The Bad Guy (the ‘Heel’), the two engage in a simulated fight. The wrestling itself is merely the medium. What matters is the story, and the more personal it is, the better their chances of seducing the ‘marks’ to come and pay to watch it play out.

Ain’t that America.

Here we stand poised for war yet again with the last one barely even cold. Like the announcers calling a pro-wrestling match, those charged with manufacturing consent have supplied us with a story in which the beleaguered Babyface must face a dastardly Heel, and by God how we’ve come out for it.

. . .

A schizophrenic coalition representing the Grift-Industrial Complex with a crooked-ass elderly dementia patient for a spokesman has been rolling into a midterm election season with low approval ratings due to their sheer incompetence and corruption, and no sooner than they call for blood against foreigners, RINOs fall in line with them, ready to snatch a defeat from the jaws of victory like the Jobronis they are.

The fools can’t seem to grasp that the Globalist-Left is not only on the brink of starting a war in which Red State sons would disproportionately be paying America’s butcher’s bill, but the tools developed in GWOT and refined in the plot against President Trump, the Canadian Trucker Protest, and now Russia will be directed against people like us who object to living under the diktats of GloboHomo. They will run headlong to secure the borders of Ukraine or Taiwan (or rather, send others to do so), yet when it comes to doing something about those who have declared war on us here at home, suddenly their martial vigor fails them and they sit like good little school boys awaiting instruction from their teacher. They let their enemies tell them who they should fight, then wonder why they always seem to lose. Charlie Brown had more self-awareness. In a way, I suspect it must be a bit of a relief for some. Having a faraway spectacle elsewhere offers a distraction from just how corrupt the ruling class is here and dulls the messy responsibility of having to do something about it.

. . .

The more I’ve looked into this conflict, the more I’ve found I don’t know a fraction of all the nuances running wild in it. Most of what I have to go on is the word of a class of people who have lied to me my whole life, and I wouldn’t trust them to scratch a dog’s ass. They can piss up a rope. What I do know is that however bad the toll of dead and wounded are and could be with the current combatants, it pales in comparison to what will happen if this regime manages to deploy forces in earnest. Should that happen, I have no doubt the old infantry adage will prove itself true in that “the best laid plan goes to shit once the first boot hits the ground,” and by the end, their cute little ‘humanitarian intervention’ will look like just another grisly shitshow of a war and that’s the Red Hot Gospel.

Those with hearts now bleeding over Ukraine lament the suffering there, and rightfully so. However, the world is filled with such suffering. My friend James LaFond lived in Baltimore most of his life and over the years watched it descend into the status of a war-torn third-world shithole in places. Where is the outcry to ‘do something’ and save the people there from the lawless who prey upon them? We can only surmise it’s not the scheduled match and doesn’t benefit the promotion.

It is my hope that serious men with cooler heads can reason together and come to an understanding that can grant both sides an honorable peace. God knows that part of the world could use it. It’ll have to come from them though, because I cannot imagine any in power on our side with wisdom sufficient to foster such an accord. Those jackals are fit for nothing but the gallows. Regardless, for those in the contested areas, it is my prayer that this ends soon and with as little blood spilled as possible. However, it ain’t my war. My war is here. 

In response to my Okie compatriots in the State Legislature and others across the country, I would remind you it wasn’t Vladimir Putin who has been conducting a scorched-earth culture war upon our beliefs, history, and identity, and degraded our social fabric to the point we now have to fight against the normalization of transsexualism. It wasn’t the Russians who outsourced our productive capacity while sending us upon one misbegotten war after another and flooding the country with drugs. It wasn’t ‘Ivan’ who caused the biggest wealth transfer in human history with the Covid scandal, fomented riots across the country, or “fortified” the election. Most of the ills I’ve seen metastasize over the course of my life, with increasing speed over recent years, were not the result of some foreign plot, but were born right here. Rattle your sabers against foreigners on the other side of the planet if it makes you feel better, but don’t confuse that with bravery. It just makes you a mark. If you truly wish to show your quality, summon the courage to attack the very real patronage networks who guide our course. Bring your powers to bear against those who shape the opinions and policies by which we live and die.

. . .

I hope as this deadly farce plays out, more and more Americans will come to grips with the fact we are being lied to, and have been for a very long time. And while the loss of that illusion we’ve known and identified with for so long is painful, once free of it, there remains the possibility of building something better. Something real.

There's more at the link.

I have nothing to add to what the author has said.  Go read the whole thing, and please circulate it as widely as possible.  It deserves the biggest audience we can generate for it.

Peter

A useful kitchen chart

 

Have you ever run out of salad dressing just before you needed it?  I have, and I sometimes haven't had time to get to the shops, because of cooking other things.

Here's a handy chart to show you how to make your own salad dressings in case of need.  Click the image for a larger view.

Tasty stuff.

Peter

Putting our current crisis of leadership into perspective

 

What we see in Washington D.C. right now is the fruit of a "color revolution" very similar to those the USA engineered in the Middle East and Ukraine in recent decades.  Bold, underlined text is my emphasis.

In August 2020, the Washington Post published an opinion piece, “What Americans should learn from Belarus” as part of a flurry of articles setting the narrative that Trump was doomed to lose the election and that he would attempt to seize power by authoritarian means when he did. It directly drew parallels between the BLM protests and Belorussian protests and correctly identified them as the same phenomenon. Left unsaid was that neither movement was organic but in fact were manifestations of elite-sponsored terrorism against democratic norms of orderly political and civil processes.

A month later, investigative journalist Darren Beattie published an investigation warning that the same constellation of NGOs and Washington apparatchiks that coordinated color revolutions abroad were actively plotting one right here at home. Election Night came and it happened: The infamous halt of the vote count; the coordinated declaration by the media that Biden had been elected president before the vote count was complete. Then came the instant social media bans of anyone posting evidence of voter fraud. It was a surreal moment in American history. Anyone questioning the details or pointing out the coordinated nature of this operation was branded a conspiracy theorist or even a traitor attempting to subvert democracy.

Months later, Time published an article titled, “The Secret History of the Shadow Campaign That Saved the 2020 Election.” It explained, “There was a conspiracy unfolding behind the scenes, one that both curtailed the protests and coordinated the resistance from CEOs. Both surprises were the result of an informal alliance between left-wing activists and business titans” and it described “a vast, cross-partisan campaign to protect the election.” That’s how brazen the people who are doing this are. They gaslight anyone who notices what they’re doing when they’re doing it, and then turn around and brag about what they did after the fact.

The successful overthrow of the Trump presidency returned to power the same cast of characters that had carried out the color revolution in Ukraine in 2014. Joe Biden, who as vice president had shepherded the deal to set up a puppet regime in Ukraine is now president. Victoria Nuland has returned as undersecretary of State for political affairs. Jen Psaki, who served as propaganda mouthpiece for the State Department during the Obama Administration, is now the propaganda mouthpiece for the Biden White House. Biden declared upon taking office, “America’s back,” which is only true if you define America as a government run by insane kleptocratic clowns whose problem-solving abilities amount to those of a farmer who sets fire to his cotton fields to drive out the boll weevils.

These are people who think they’re clever enough to deal with powerful foreign countries run by sane people. They’re not, and those foreign powers have taken note of that fact. The kind of Americans the world fears or respects have been put out of government and military leadership and replaced by a menagerie of nursing home patients, human resources ladies, affirmative action hires, sexual degenerates, and obese four-star generals angling for board seats on the next Theranos start-up. The day of reckoning has arrived. Leaders like Putin, Xi, and Mohammed bin Salman are no longer amenable to being pushed around and morally browbeaten by the circus freaks that constitute the United States Government.

There's more at the link.

Read the above in the context of this morning's first article.  These "circus freaks" are directly aiding and abetting the "Great Reset" project, and directly engaged in the destruction of the constitution of the United States, by revising or ignoring its meaning until it becomes meaningless, nothing more than a historical fig-leaf for tyranny and oppression.

I think our November elections this year will be pivotal.  If they're subverted again, as they were in November 2020, there will no longer be any rational, peaceful, democratic way to dislodge those who have illegitimately seized power in the United States.  The "four boxes of liberty" will come into play.  If the soap box, ballot box and jury box have all been closed to us, that will leave only one box.  Please God we won't have to use it!  I've seen, up close and personal in the Third World, what happens when it's opened, and it's nothing I want to see in these United States.

Nevertheless, our current rulers may make that inevitable through closing off all other avenues for change.  Pray God they have the sense not to do that . . . but I'm not going to hold my breath waiting for them to acquire that sense.  They've shown no sign of it so far.

Peter

"Never let a good crisis go to waste" - and they're not

 

Winston Churchill used that phrase during World War II.  More recently and notoriously, Rahm Emanuel said something similar during the Obama administration:

You never let a serious crisis go to waste. And what I mean by that it's an opportunity to do things you think you could not do before.

The hidden powers manipulating the US and other world governments into what Klaus Schwab calls the "Great Reset" are using the Ukraine crisis to do precisely that.  Sundance explains.  (Bold, underlined text is my emphasis.)

When the [International Monetary Fund] starts saying the Ukraine conflict “may” trigger a new world order of global economic and financial systems, we should pay attention, because behind those statements is a reality that no one has mentioned yet.

Think of it this way… If Russia was to just simply withdraw from Ukraine, do you think the western financial sanctions and multinational corporations would just reverse themselves?   Of course not.  What was never mentioned in the sanction package, pushed by NATO and western alliances, was the no retreat Rubicon they created.  Removing Russia from the SWIFT financial exchange was/is irreversible; so too are the global banking sanctions triggered by political will.

What does that mean?  It means from these moments forward something else, some other form of financial transaction process, is going to be needed for Russia and their allies to engage in commerce, banking and economic activity together.  Russia, China, Iran, Saudi Arabia, India, Brazil and other nations are now in a position of being forced to create another mechanism for trade and commerce.

The petro-dollar may factually be dropped as a part of this.  The issue is not ‘if’ it will happen, the issues are how and when they will happen.  Vladimir Putin was pushed into this position by the western financial response, and don’t think for a moment that China and Russia are unhappy about it.

. . .

This is not a ‘losing scenario’ for Vladimir Putin.  Independent payment networks, out of the influence or reach of the U.S. government, are something Putin would openly embrace.  Indeed, the creation of that new financial system for transactions was the primary intent of the BRICS economic alliance.

Pay very close attention to anyone who would say “Putin has already lost”, or any iteration therein.  Putin and Chairman Xi will embrace this new global financial system of independent mechanisms based on value that is separate from the U.S. dollar.

Regardless of the outcome in Ukraine, this situation within the international financial world is not a loss for Putin.  Additionally, and not coincidentally, this new financial world order is also embraced by the domestic ideologues inside the United States who have long felt that our geopolitical power was grossly inflated by the economic value of our currency in the world of trade and finance.

Not only does President Putin and Chairman Xi welcome this new order, no one is smiling bigger than former President Obama and his ‘fundamental change’ crew.

THIS is the change they were hoping for.

A weakened dollar means the wealth behind the valuation is removed from unilateral U.S. benefit, and with that removal wealth spreads around the globe into the trade and payment networks that are based on non-dollar transactions.

All the players who look at the USA as an arrogant and entitled economic system, only made possible by the dollar as the reserve currency, will equally embrace a new financial system.

Klaus Schwab and the WEF/Davos crowd will look happily at a western financial system valued on the currency of a collaboration of nations similar in value to how the Euro was established.

The central bankers in the EU, the IMF, the World Bank, and the WTO will all work on this new fragmented financial system. Perhaps the underlying currency will be digital, which aligns with the need for a western styled digital identity.

This is a direct outcome of the DC political system, NATO, western government and the multinational corporations all aligning to take advantage of the crisis that Ukraine presents.

The new financial mechanisms will likely line up with the Build Back Better program of clean energy and carbon trading.  All of the systems merge together into one unified western valued global financial system.

It’s stunning how no one in Washington DC is seemingly against this outcome.  It’s almost as if they realize, in the biggest of big pictures, the scale of the U.S. debt and deficit is so large that a massive reset is needed.  [Insert Captain Obvious Here]

Regardless of the Ukraine outcome, Putin, Xi, Obama and Klaus Schwab have already won.   The only real losers are American citizens, many of whom were duped into putting Ukraine flags in their social media avatars without thinking about the longer-term consequences.

There's more at the link.

He's probably correct, in that it's too late to undo the damage to international financial and trade networks caused by the Ukraine war.  That's already happened, and it's not going to un-happen.  It's also worth noting that those behind this upheaval didn't, and still don't, give a damn about what happens to the innocent people caught up in the crisis.

• So a few thousand Ukrainian civilians get ground up in war's mincing machine, and a few thousand families and their homes are shattered and destroyed, and a few thousand soldiers are killed and wounded and maimed for life?
• So millions, even tens of millions, of people in the MENA region (Middle East and North Africa), who are utterly dependent on imports of Russian and Ukrainian agricultural products for their survival, will now starve because those imports have been shut down and there's nothing to replace them?
• So millions of people who were formerly citizens, with all the rights and privileges of citizens, are now to be reduced to the status of subjects, with no effective say in who governs them or what happens to them?

So what?  To the powers that be, they're just "collateral damage", speed bumps on the road to reshape the world.  They don't matter.  They never did, except as an unwelcome distraction, an irritation, an annoyance, to be disposed of as quickly as possible while they get on with the business of ruling.  All they're good for is a few pious-sounding publicity soundbites.

I hope and trust that someone - hopefully, lots of someones - are taking note of the names of all those who are using this crisis for their own ends.  There are thousands of them, from well-known politicians at all levels, to creatures of the Deep State like Victoria Nuland or Alexander Vindman, to field operatives who carried out their bidding and "dug the trenches", so to speak.  They all need to pay for what they've done.  It may be a pipe dream to say that, but it may also be that some people are motivated enough by what they, and we, have lost, to actually do something about it.  The rule of law may be dead right now, as far as official proceedings are concerned, but it's still the rule by which many of us live.  It needs to be applied to those who consider themselves above and/or beyond the law.  Justice needs to be applied, one way or another.

Note that I'm not speaking of revenge.  That's a fool's game.  Revenge won't bring back a single one of the lives that have been and will be lost over this.  Revenge won't reunite a single shattered family, or rebuild a single blown-up building, or feed a single starving family.  No, we need justice;  something that calls people to account for the damage they've done, and imposes on them a punishment appropriate to the crime.  If our subverted so-called "justice system" won't do that, it risks an entirely undesirable alternative, where people take justice into their own hands.  In fact, it may make that alternative unavoidable.  Once that takes hold, no-one is safe from it.  Allowing injustice to triumph is as unjust and destructive as the damage caused by that injustice, and the suffering of those who were and are and will be its victims.

Long memories.  That's what we need - that, and the will to act on them.

Peter