Monday, May 29, 2023

Sustaining Impossible Beliefs

 Examining Facts,


  Vanessa Beeley ,  NATO's dirty war in Ukraine.
  Are Ukraine's neo-Nazi divisions deploying NATO-supplied chemical weapons? A recent report published by the Russian Federal News Agency suggests that NATO is preparing wide scale use of chemical weapons against civilians in Donbass and in ongoing military campaigns..
   According to the article during the defence of Artemovsk (Bakhmut) Ukraine used drone-delivered ammunition containing toxic substances. The neo-Nazi ‘Birds of Madyar’ air reconnaissance team were identified as deploying these weapons. Since April 2023, Ukrainian-manufactured Teren 6 gas grenades have also been delivered by UAVs...
..Flechette darts kill and maim indiscriminately as do the “petal” mines that are often trodden on by unsuspecting children causing terrible mutilation...
..We must understand that Ukraine in this war has no limiters at all, no “ stops ”. Great Britain supplied depleted uranium shells. And what did it lead to? To the mass flight of citizens from those areas where warehouses with these ammunition were destroyed. And this is not we measuring the radiation background in Ukraine, it is the citizens themselves who measure it and see that the level has risen.

  Ukraine claims Russia planning ‘massive’ incident at nuclear site  
  Ukraine’s defence intelligence directorate warns Russia will simulate an attack at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant.
(Huh?)  Ukraine’s defence ministry has warned that Russia plans to simulate a major accident at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power station, which is under the control of Russian forces, in a bid to thwart the expected counteroffensive by Ukraine to retake its territory captured by Moscow.

  The predominant average hourly wind direction in Zaporizhia varies throughout the year.
  The wind is most often from the east for 4.4 months, from January 28 to June 9 and for 3.4 months, from September 3 to December 16, with a peak percentage of 35% on March 22. The wind is most often from the north for 2.8 months, from June 9 to September 3, with a peak percentage of 39% on August 5. The wind is most often from the west for 1.4 months, from December 16 to January 28, with a peak percentage of 29% on January 1.

 Believing Impossible Things, Alastair Crooke
The endless bitter antagonism to Putin and to Russia has allowed a self-imagined reality to detach, ultimately becoming a delusion.
The recent G7 summit should be understood as firstly, the shaping of a battlespace in the ‘War of Narratives’ whose principal ‘front’ today is the Team Biden insistence that only one ‘reality’ — the US-led ‘Rules’ ideology (and it alone) – can predominate. And, secondly to underline pointedly that the West is ‘not losing’ in this war against the other ‘reality’. This other reality is the multivalent ‘otherness’ that self-evidently is attracting more and more support around the world.
  Many in the West are simply unaware of how fast the geopolitical tectonic plates are shifting: The original plate bifurcation (the failed financial war declared on Russia), already has led to a building wave. Anger is growing. People now no longer feel alone in rejecting western hegemony – they “no longer care”.
  In just the week that preceded the G7 summit, the Arab League literally ‘went multi-polar’; It quit its former pro-US automaticity. The embrace of President Assad and the Syrian government was both the logical consequence to the secondary tectonic-plate shift set in motion by China with its Saudi-Iranian diplomacy...
..For the West, it is ontologically impossible to tolerate their reality being disassembled: to see their society and the world split in two. The narrative reality is so embedded via the well-honed effectiveness of MSM messaging however, that politicians have become lazy. They do not have to argue their case, and have no incentive to hold back on untruths either.
  The dynamics are exorable: an over-hyped ‘monolithic reality’ evolves into a Manichaean fight to the death. Any backsliding by ‘principals’ could result in the collapse of the Media narrative ‘house of cards’.  (This notion of a monolithic reality is not one shared by most other societies who see reality as multi-faceted).
  Denial becomes endemic. So, we witness a hawkish G7, diverting from the narrative setback (of Bakhmut falling) by the casual embrace of a ploy to supply F-16s to Ukraine; chastising China for not making President Putin ‘back off’ in Ukraine; and using the meeting to set a narrative framework for the coming confrontation with China on trade issues and Taiwan...
..China angrily responded to the G7 summit allegation that it had become a workshop for “smearing” and slandering China.
  This extensive narrative-shaping for China confrontation is seen to be necessary by the G7 as the rest of the world does not view China as a  genuine ‘threat’ to the US:  Rather, they understand that the true ‘threats’ to the US derive from its internal divisions, and not from external sources.
  The G7 salience lies not so much with the anti-China narratives launched, but, plainly said, because the entire episode expresses a western hubristic denial, which portends extreme danger in respect to Ukraine. It speaks to the reality that the West — in its present mental mode — will be unable to put forward any credible political initiative to end the Ukraine conflict...
..The G7 language abjures all serious diplomacy, and signals that the imperative remains to stick with the ‘not losing’ mantra: The fall of Bakhmut is no defeat for Kiev, but a Pyrrhic loss for Putin; Ukraine is winning, Putin is losing, was the G7 messaging...
..That President Xi could – or would – pressure Putin ‘to back-off’ in Ukraine, and accept a ceasefire on EU terms — which are the ‘Zelensky terms’ — is delusional.  Yet some key EU leaders genuinely seem to think Putin can be arm-twisted by Xi or Modi into exiting Ukraine on terms wholly favourable to Kiev.  These European leaders simply are dangerously hostage to the psychological processes fuelling their denialism.
  Russia is ‘winning’ on the financial war front, and on the global diplomatic front. It has the overwhelming advantage in force numbers; it has the advantage in weaponry; it has the advantage in the skies and in the Electro-magnetic sphere. Whereas Ukraine is in disarray, its forces decimated and the Kiev entity is crumbling fast.
  Don’t they ‘get it’?  No...
..What next?  Russia likely will wait to see whether Kiev is able to mount an offensive — or not. If Kiev does launch an offensive, it would make sense for Russia to let the Ukrainian forces throw themselves upon the Russian defensive lines, and expend their forces further, in a new ‘meat grinder’.  Moscow will test whether Kiev’s patrons are then ready to acknowledge ‘facts on the ground’, rather than some imagined reality, by acquiescing to Moscow’s terms...
..Col Davis says “there is little likelihood the [the F-16] fighters will see combat over the skies of Ukraine this year”.  So, Biden just casually extended the war well beyond September.
  If Europe wants an early end to the war, it must hope for the Kiev ‘project’ to implode soon.  (And it might do just that, F-16s notwithstanding.)

Taiwan Says It’s in Talks on Being Brought Under US Nuclear Umbrella , Taiwan's foreign minister declined to share details about the talks
https://news.antiwar.com/2023/05/28/taiwan-says-its-in-talks-on-falling-under-us-nuclear-umbrella/

​  ​US Building New Base in Northern Syria , The construction demonstrates that the US has no plans to leave Syria
  The US-led anti-ISIS coalition is building a new military base in Syria’s northern province of Raqqa, The New Arab reported, citing a source close to the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).
  The US backs the SDF and keeps about 900 troops in eastern Syria, allowing the US to control about one-third of Syria’s territory
. The report said there are currently about 24 US-led military sites spread throughout eastern Syria.
  While the US says it’s in Syria to fight ISIS, the presence is part of Washington’s economic war against Damascus, which includes crippling economic sanctions. ISIS also holds no significant territory, and the Syrian government and its allies would continue to fight the remnants of the terror group if the US withdrew.
  But the construction of a new base demonstrates the US plans to continue the occupation indefinitely
  In March, the House voted down a resolution introduced by Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) that would have ordered President Biden to withdraw from Syria.

Among 25,000 likely voters, Robert F.Kennedy Jr.is polling 26.6% against "Joe Biden's" 50%. (Why can't I find this poll anywhere, Google?)

  Those vaccinated against COVID-19 have a 26 percent higher mortality rate on average compared to those who declined the jab – and the death toll is even more staggering for vaccinated people under 50 years old, where mortality is 49 percent higher than for those unvaccinated..
..“Worst of all – the people who only took one dose of the vaccine have an approximately 145 percent worse mortality rate,” Stirling said and explained that this even higher death rate applies to those who took the first shot and then had adverse reactions, making them stop the planned vaccination schedule.

  A Washington state appeals court has granted an emergency injunction to a retired doctor facing disciplinary action from the Washington Medical Commission (WMC) over articles he wrote against the official COVID-19 narrative in 2021.
  Dr. Richard J. Eggleston, a retired ophthalmologist in Clarkston, Washington, faces disciplinary action over articles published in the Lewiston Tribune he wrote challenged the prevailing information and guidance regarding the pandemic.
  During the pandemic, doctors could be accused of spreading misinformation if they provided advice contrary to the official information. This included, for example, advocating or prescribing treatments such as ivermectin or disagreeing with the effectiveness of face masks and vaccines...
..The WMC filed charges against Dr. Eggleston, accusing him of unprofessional conduct, including spreading false information and misinformation about the SARS-CoV-2 virus and its treatments. They assert that his actions violated state laws related to moral turpitude, misrepresentation, and interference with an investigation.
  In response to the charges, Dr. Eggleston has maintained his innocence and has argued that his articles are protected under the First Amendment’s guarantee of free speech. He sought to have the disciplinary proceedings dismissed on the grounds that the statutes applied by the WMC infringed upon his constitutional rights...
..[Judge] Landrus favored the retired doctor’s argument, saying public dialogue by professionals receives strong First Amendment protection, and the mere fact of prosecution can have a “chilling effect” on the exercise of these rights for Dr. Eggleston and other medical professionals.

Steve Kirsch, COVID vaccines have likely caused over 25,000 new cases of multiple sclerosis (MS)
​ ​A paper abstract that appeared on the WHO website created quite a stir because it showed the biological mechanism for how COVID vaccines can induce multiple sclerosis...What the paper didn’t say is how common this is or whether it is causal. It certainly looks causal, but causality requires more than just biological plausibility...​ [The mechanism is explained in the next ​link. Spike protein has some antigenic areas that resemble  myelin sheath constituents.]
​..​This also shows the CDC is corrupt that they are hiding this information. They could have easily done the same research I did and verified all five causality requirements were satisfied. Are you surprised they didn’t do this?
​  ​The observations (in VAERS and in the papers cited below) cannot be explained any other way.
​  ​If someone has a more plausible explanation for the 28X increase in reporting rates in VAERS, I’m all ears (for symptoms unrelated to the vaccine, reporting rates in the queries are comparable).
​  ​Multiple papers support the hypothesis that COVID vaccines cause MS

​  Nursing Educator, Dr.John Campbell explains the WHO paper mentioned above (which he could still find)​, so he won't be censored for explaining how COVID mRNA "vaccines" can cause an autoimmune response against Myelin Basic Protein and Myelin Oligodendrocyte Glycoprotein, which are necessary for normal nerve conduction. Damage tothe myelin sheaths in the nervous system is the proximalcause of Multiple Sclerosis.

​  ​The US COVID mitigation measures resulted in 23X higher COVID deaths , Steve Kirsch​
​  ​The unvaccinated Amish were the control group. Their infection fatality rate from COVID was 23X lower than the surrounding community. 
Their secret? They ignored ALL the CDC's recommendations.

​  Steve Kirsch, Parent survey results: vaccines increase the risk of autism, autoimmune disorders, etc.
  Preliminary analysis of the results of my 10,000 child survey show that Andrew Wakefield was right: vaccines cause autism. There is simply no other way to explain these results.
  Nobody could find a Bradford Hill criteria that is NOT satisfied. Some people said that there are autistic kids who weren’t vaccinated, but I never claimed it was the only cause of autism, but it is, by far, the major cause of autism.
  Parents were right about vaccines causing autism...

​..​How do you know it is the vaccines and not office visits?​ https://publications.aap.org/pediatrics/article-abstract/101/3/383/61917/Acute-Encephalopathy-Followed-by-Permanent-Brain?redirectedFrom=fulltext?autologincheck=redirected
In this 1998 paper in Pediatrics, you can see that in this study, only the measles vaccine caused autism cases, not the mumps or rubella vaccines.
So it is vaccine-type dependent.
How do you explain that? The paper has been out for 25 years and never been retracted. Uh oh!
They can’t explain it. It’s been in public view for 25 years and NOBODY can explain it.


​  More Steve Kirsch, ​ Key paper showing "no link between vaccines and autism" is fatally flawed
​  ​Study of Measles, Mumps, and Rubella Vaccination and Autism in 2002 in NEJM that has been widely cited by others (over 1,000 other papers) as strong evidence that vaccines don’t cause autism.
​  ​Hviid and his colleagues chose a study design that was designed to look credible but obscure any signal. So when they found no signal they could claim victory, that there was “no association.”
​ But the real meaning of what they found is that “the study design we choose is unable to find a signal.” That can either mean:
​  ​The methodology was inappropriate to find a signal
​  ​The data was corrupted
​  ​There were confounding factors such as a change in reporting requirements that obscured a signal
​  ​There is no signal
In Hviid’s case, the first three were true.

​  ​Covid and Marburg Weapons Systems​  , Sasha Latypova   Tomahawk missile systems are not tomahawks.
  ​I received a number of questions about “Marburg virus”. I will try to summarize everything I was able to find on it, and also provide some current working theories.​  [Marburg Virus is like Ebola.Itmakesa personvery sick and beed everywhere.]​
​  ​Three years of non-stop propaganda of “covid” everything, but few people realize that in fact, we have had 2 “scary scary virus” epidemics since 2020: covid AND Marburg! Did you know that? ...​  ​
​..Yet, as the Federal register shows, we have had a Marburg epidemic in the US since December 2020. The PREP act declarations and EUAs remain in place for both Covid and Marburg. To keep the money and weapons and psy-op cycles flowing.
​  ​I read a Department of Homeland Security memo on Marburg, basically stating we don't really know anything about it, but it’s definitely a scary scary virus, and here are some numbers that we made up just to generate some official sounding text. Statistics on lethality are all over the place.  Some sources claim 90%+, ​  ​WHO says 88%, but calculating from the 25 primary cases/7 deaths - 28%, some other sources claim 50%.    
​​Whatever that Marburg thing is - it needs to be injected to “work”.  Highly lethal = it doesn’t really spread.

​A Midwestern Doctor, ​Emotional Health in the Age of Disconnection , Perspectives on emotional integration and holistic psychiatry.

Digging for Sanity (pictured again at sunrise in our Austin garden last week)


Friday, May 26, 2023

Enemy Of The People

Public Citizens,

  Chris sent this 21 minute video of David Martin testifying at the EU Parliament COVID Conference about the history of coronavirus, discovered in 1965 and identified as a bioweapon-platform by 1967.   The first spike protein vaccine patent was awarded to Pfizer in 1990. No coronavirus vaccine since then ever worked.  It appears that the original SARS was also a bioweapon. The business plan to release a named Wuhan-coronavirus was propounded in 2018-2019, as a means to urgently and profitably release a new universal-vaccine-platform. This is a detailed history and it's "turtles all the way down".  I hope a transcript will be released, with slides.

  Dr. Naomi Wolf, Dear Friends, Sorry to Announce a Genocide

  I’ve been silent for some weeks. Forgive me.
The truth is: I’ve been rendered almost speechless — or the literary equivalent of that — because recently I’ve had the unenviable task of trying to announce to the world that indeed, a genocide — or what I’ve called, clumsily but urgently, a “baby die-off” — is underway.
  The WarRoom/DailyClout Pfizer Documents Research Volunteers, a group of 3000 highly credentialled doctors, RNs, biostatisticians, medical fraud investigators, lab clinicians and research scientists, have been turning out report after report, as you may know, to tell the world what is in the 55,000 internal Pfizer documents which the FDA had asked a court to keep under wraps for 75 years. By court order, these documents were forcibly disclosed. And our experts are serving humanity by reading through these documents and explaining them in lay terms. You can find all of the Volunteers’ reports on DailyClout.io .
  The lies revealed are stunning.
  The WarRoom/DailyClout Volunteers have confirmed: that Pfizer (and thus the FDA) knew by December 2020 that the MRNA vaccines did not work — that they “waned in efficacy” and presented “vaccine failure.” One side effect of getting vaccinated, as they knew by one month after the mass 2020 rollout, was “COVID.”
  Pfizer knew in May of 2021 that 35 minors’ hearts had been damaged a week after MRNA injection — but the FDA rolled out the EUA for teens a month later anyway, and parents did not get a press release from the US government about heart harms til August of 2021, after thousands of teens were vaccinated. [ https://dailyclout.io/pfizer-vaccine-fda-fails-to-mention-risk-of-heart-damage-in-teens/ ]
  Pfizer (and thus the FDA; many of the documents say “FDA: CONFIDENTIAL” at the lower boundary) knew that, contrary to what the highly paid spokesmodels and bought-off physicians were assuring people, the MRNA, spike protein and lipid nanoparticles did not stay in the injection site in the deltoid, but rather went, within 48 hours, into the bloodstream, from there to lodge in the liver, spleen, adrenals, lymph nodes, and, if you are a woman, in the ovaries...
..And now, the babies are dying. Now scale the data from Canada, Scotland and Israel to all the vaccinated nations in the world.
  What do we do with all of this?
  Knowing as I now do, that Pfizer and the FDA knew that babies were dying and mothers’ milk discoloring by just looking at their own internal records; knowing as I do that they did not alert anyone let alone stop what they were doing, and that to this day Pfizer, the FDA and other demonic “public health” entities are pushing to MRNA-vaccinate more and more pregnant women; now that they are about to force this on women in Africa and other lower income nations who are not seeking the MRNA vaccines, per Pfizer CEO Bourla this past week at the WEF, and knowing that Pfizer is pushing and may even receive a US EUA for babies to five year olds — I must conclude that we are looking into an abyss of evil not seen since 1945.
  So I don’t know about you, but I must switch gears with this kind of unspeakable knowledge to another kind of discourse.
  I am not saying that this is exactly like finding evidence of Dr Mengele’s experiments; but I am saying, with these findings, that now the comparison may not be that excessive. These anti-humans at Pfizer, speaking at the WEF; these anti-humans at the FDA; knowing what they know; are targeting the miraculous female body, with its ability to conceive, gestate, birth and nurture life. They are targeting the female body’s ability to sustain a newborn human being with nothing but itself. They are targeting the amniotic membrane, the ovaries that release the ovum, they are targeting the lymph and blood that help support the building up of mother’s milk, they are targeting the fetus in utero, helpless.
 They are targeting the human fetus’ very environment, one of the most sacred spaces on this earth, if not the most sacred.                                          
And they know it.                                                                                                                                                                       https://naomiwolf.substack.com/p/dear-friends-sorry-to-announce-a?s=r

  There are lots of implications to consider here. Does this mean the elites are losing control of the societal narratives?
​ A new Rasmussen poll has found that almost two thirds of Americans believe the media is “​T​ruly the ​E​nemy ​o​f ​T​he ​P​eople”.
The survey found that a total of 59 percent of likely voters either strongly or somewhat agree with the statement.
Among Republicans, the belief is even more prevalent at 77 percent. Only a slim majority of Democrats disagree.

​  Electoral capture through corruption in the Empire State:
​  A peer-reviewed study in the Journal of Information Warfare (JIW) confirms a “Loss of Control” breach has occurred in the NYSVoter Database. A peer-reviewed paper of their results in a respected journal is a hard-won and “significant milestone,” according to Marly Hornik, Executive Director of the NY Citizens Audit...
​..​In her recent letter to New York citizens, Hornik explains the seriousness of the group’s findings:
​  ​“Through auditing the voter roll databases, obtained directly from state and local boards of elections, we have uncovered millions of invalid registrations, hundreds of thousands of votes cast by legally invalid registrations, hundreds of thousands of votes cast by legally invalid registrants, massive vote discrepancies, and the clear presence of algorithmic patterns we reverse engineered from within the state’s own official records.
​  ​To be absolutely clear, there is no known innocent purpose or explanation for why these algorithms exist. I am told by cyber-intelligence experts they indicate a ‘Total Loss of Control’ data breach, the most severe kind of data breach recognized by our federal government. The law says it renders the affected NYSVoter database completely untrustworthy.”


  Earlier this week, an insider at the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) came forward and revealed his identity for the first time after filing an anonymous whistleblower complaint about the agency's handling of an investigation into Hunter Biden.
  The original whistleblower complaint from Gary Shapley, a 14-year veteran of the agency, was revealed in an April 19 letter to members of Congress. Since then, Shapley and his attorney, Mark D. Lytle, have alleged retaliation.
  In an interview with CBS News that aired Wednesday night, Shapley identified himself as an IRS supervisory agent, who says he was assigned to an investigation in January 2020 - the subject of which he said he couldn't legally identify due to tax secrecy laws, but which CBS said was the Hunter Biden case. Shapley and his legal team are simply calling it an "ongoing and sensitive investigation of a high-profile, controversial subject." ....
..According to Shapley, "When I took control of this particular investigation, I immediately saw deviations from the normal process. It was way outside the norm of what I’ve experienced in the past." ...Shapley says he decided to file a whistleblower complaint following an Oct. 2022 meeting with federal prosecutors.  "It was my red-line meeting," he said. "I don’t want to do any of this. I took an oath of office and when I saw the egregiousness of some of these things, it no longer became a choice for me," he told CBS News. "It’s not something that I want to do. It’s something I feel like I have to do." ....
..Shapley made clear he had never seen this level of interference in his long service at the IRS and said it was done “at the direction of the Department of Justice.” ...
..Garland refuses to appoint a special counsel who would then have the ability to write a report on the alleged massive influence-peddling operations the Bidens run.
It is all part of the “incredible shrinking Merrick Garland,” who promised to prevent any political influence over his department.
  We now have multiple whistleblowers alleging interference from the Justice Department to slow-walk investigations or shield the president’s son.
  We also have questions raised by IRS agents’ visit to the home of Matt Taibbi, who helped expose the government-Twitter censorship program.
They appeared on the very day Taibbi appeared before Congress and was attacked by Democratic members as a “so-called journalist.”
(The subcommittee’s ranking Democrat, Delaware Stacey Plaskett, later called for Taibbi’s possible arrest.)
  The IRS opened its probe of him on a Saturday — Christmas Eve last year, just weeks after his exposé.

​  ​Obama Judge Sentences Oath Keepers Founder Stewart Rhodes to 18 Years in Prison in J6 'Sedition' Case

​  Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes, who came unarmed to DC and didn't even enter the Capitol Building on January 6th, was sentenced to 18 years in prison on Thursday for "seditious conspiracy" by Obama-appointed US district judge Amit Mehta.
​  ​Rhodes' crime was apparently mouthing off about revolution in private chats and lamenting after the event that "we should have brought rifles."
​   "You, sir, present an ongoing threat and a peril to this country and to the republic and to the very fabric of this democracy," Judge Amit Mehta, an Indian immigrant appointed to the DC district court by Obama in 2014, scolded Rhodes before handing down the longest sentence to date for any J6er.​..
​..In a politically-charged speech in the courtroom just before his sentencing, Rhodes called himself a "political prisoner" and said that when he talked about "regime change" in a phone call with supporters earlier this week, he meant he hopes that former President Donald Trump will win in 2024.
​  ​The judge disagreed that Rhodes had been locked up for politics, saying it was his actions that led to his criminal convictions.[Dude has a scary pirate eye-patch. Lock him up!]​

​More Russian Election-Rigging!
What matters for Moscow is that 'a guy with dementia' not elected US president — Medvedev

​  ​Pentagon officials have already been on record as predicting the Russia-Ukraine war could take "years". But on Friday a top Russian official and former president gave the longest prediction thus far.
​  ​Russian Security Council Deputy Chairman Dmitry Medvedev was quoted in Russian media as saying the war will last "decades, probably".


​Gilbert Doctorow, Thanks Christine.
  A lot of print has been spilled and all too many words have been spoken by Western analysts on whether or not Russia will use tactical nuclear weapons in Ukraine.  This is empty talk that ignores two facts. The first is that the Ukraine regime can be decapitated at any moment of Russia’s choosing using the hypersonic missiles at Russia’s disposal equipped with conventional warheads. Secondly, Russia is holding its nuclear option in reserve use of nuclear weapons against NATO, as this Duma member made crystal clear. Let us all remember that Russia has the world’s largest stock of tactical nuclear arms, just as it is the world’s leader in strategic nuclear arms.
  If the hare-brained regime in Warsaw proceeds with plans to do Washington’s bidding and create a “second front” by invading Belarus under the guise of local insurgents, Russia will certainly intervene. President Putin specifically stated that yesterday, but you will not find his citation in today’s NYT. If as a follow-on, NATO begins to move against Russia along the vast front line that it has recently manned, then the Russian general’s proposed response is also ready to hand:   to use tactical nuclear weapons against these NATO forces, destroy them and move tanks past them to the next point of resistance where it again uses nuclear weapons. This game of leapfrog would logically take those Russian tanks to the Atlantic somewhere near Lisbon as I have indicated in the headline.
  And what would the USA do about the destruction of its European allies?  An informed guess is nothing. If Washington is now pussy-footing over whose tanks go to Ukraine, over whose F-16s go to Ukraine, all for the purpose of keeping the fight with Russia at the level of proxies, then why would the USA risk instant destruction by Russian strategic missiles just because Europe is burning?  [Deciders with secure bunkers might risk it, huh?]

Andrew Korybko, Thanks Amrita, for this succinct and informative news regarding central Asia. 
Four Eurasian Connectivity Corridors Were Discussed At The Kremlin On Thursday

​  Pepe EscobarThe inside story of Russia-Iran-India connectivity
  The G7 is stupefied by the dynamic progress of the multipolar order embodied by the Russian-led INSTC and the Chinese-led BRI, with Iran's strategic port of Chabahar now poised to play a transformative role. 
​  ​Make no mistake about what the G7’s Hiroshima Communique is all about.
The setting: a city in neo-colony Japan nuclear-bombed 78 years ago by the United States, for which it made no excuses.
​  ​The message: the G7, actually G9 (augmented by two unelected Eurocrats) declares war – hybrid and otherwise – against BRICS+, which has 25 nations on its waiting list and counting.
​  ​The G7’s key strategic objective is the defeat of Russia, followed by the subjugation of China. For the G7/G9, these – real – powers are the main “global threats” to “freedom and democracy.”​ ​ ...
​..​Russia, for its part, is now facing the Ukraine stalemate, relentless western sanctions hysteria, and serious trade restrictions to Eastern Europe. All that while Moscow consistently expands its trade with New Delhi.
​  ​So it is no wonder Moscow is now much more attentive to the INSTC. Last December, a key deal was clinched between Russian Railways and the national companies in Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, and Iran, and the Russians came up with a 20 percent discount for import-export containers going through the Russia-Kazakh border.
​  ​What matters most for Russia is that Chabahar operating at full speed reduces the cost of transporting goods from India by 20 percent. The Iranians fully understood the game, and started to heavily promote the Chabahar Free Trade-Industrial Zone to attract Russian investment. And that culminated in the Rasht-Astara deal.​..
..China’s BRI, for its part, plays a parallel game. Beijing is heavily investing in the East-West transit route – also known as the Middle Corridor.
​  ​This BRI corridor goes from Xinjiang to Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, and Turkmenistan, and then across the Caspian to Azerbaijan, Georgia, Turkiye, and further on to Eastern Europe – a total of 7,000 km, with a cargo journey of maximum 15 days.
​  BRI’s emphasis is to bet on multiple corridors East-to-West to fight possible new western-dictated disruptions of supply chains. China-Central Asia transit to Europe bypassing Russia and Iran is one of the top bets. The BRI corridor through Russia, because of NATO’s proxy war in Ukraine, is on hold for the moment. And the Chinese are testing all options to bypass the Maritime Silk Road through Malacca.
​  ​Turkiye, with the serious possibility of its longtime President Recep Tayyip being re-elected this weekend, has also made its play.
The Baku-Tblisi-Kars railway, opened in 2018, was a key plank in Ankara’s masterplan to configure itself as an inescapable hub of container freight between China and Europe.

Creating Alternatives (pictured in Austin garden at sunrise with tomatoes)


Thursday, May 25, 2023

Weather Alert

Avoiding Rain,

  John Helmer at Dances With Bears has a good analysis of the Gamma radiation spike noted after the Russian missile attack that blew up a Ukrainian ammo-dump in Khmelnitsky, western Ukraine,  in the early hours of May 13. The preponderance of the data (Ukraine denies) suggest that a large amount of Uranium munitions likely exploded there, vaporizing and becoming airborne after burning. Evidence is also presented that measured uranium in Ukrainian air has been much increased since March 2022 (already using DU munitions, maybe in machine guns?). Polish rainfall on May 15, 17 and 18 had increased radiation, consistent with DU fallout, but the Polish government said that it was from natural radon gas. That weather pattern has since crossed Denmark, the Netherlands and has likely reached London. Thanks Christine.

  Aleks @ Black Mountain Analysis has a detailed and point by point analysis of the Ukraine war, including the head-fakes from Wagner Chief, Prigozhin badmouthing his superiors in the media. 
  Artyomovsk/Bakhmut fell on May 20th, the one year anniversary of the fall of Mariupol, because the Russian command picked that day to finish their "meat grinder" operation. 
  Aleks thinks the Ukrainian spring-offensive has been underway since early May, but they don't want to say so until they accomplish something impressive. He sees the 70,000 western-trained Ukrainian troops, recently available for duty, as being a trained and motivated group of men who the Russians will annihilate before proceeding with their own offensive. 
  He sees western equipment like the F-16s being used in the same way that Soviet era equipment has been used to date. Some range-extension is the main difference in some cases
  This war is existential for Russia and for Ukraine, and Russia needs to complete its objectives, eliminating future threats. He predicts the 4 remaining ethnically Russian and Russian-voting oblasts will also be taken into Russia.

   Alastair Crooke, The EU is Over-invested in the Ukraine War-Project
​  ​The European Union, by any standards, is over-invested in the Ukrainian war-project – and in its romance with Zelensky too. Just earlier this year, the western (and EU) narrative was that the coming post-Winter offensive by Ukraine would ‘break’ Russia and render a ‘coup de grace’ to the war. MSM headlines spun a regular tale of Russia on its last legs. Now, however, the Establishment messaging has done a 180°. Russia is not ‘on its last legs’ ​  
..​Put simply, European leaders have dug themselves into a deep hole. European states, by emptying what remained in their armouries of old weapons for Kiev, had grimly hoped that the coming Spring/Summer offensive would settle everything, and they would not have to deal with the problem – the Ukraine war – anymore. Wrong again: They are being invited to ‘dig-in deeper’.
  ​Yet, European leaders do not appear to see that the next few months in Ukraine are a key inflection point; Should the EU not firmly refuse ‘mission creep’ now, a slew of adverse economic consequences will ensue. Ukraine is not a stand-alone foreign policy issue, but rather the pivot around which Europe’s economic prospects will rotate.
​  ​Zelensky’s F-16 blitz through Europe last week is indicative that, whilst some European leaders want Zelensky to end the war,he – conversely – wants (literally) to take the war to Russia (and likely all of Europe).​//
​..These latter EU States now are becoming desperate for a way out of the hole they dug into. What if the U.S. were to cut Ukraine’s funding? What if Team Biden pivots rapidly to China? Politico is running a headline: The End of Ukraine Aid is rapidly Approaching. Reupping it Won’t be Easy. The EU could be stuck with financing a ‘forever conflict’ and the nightmare of a further refugee flood – draining EU resources and exacerbating the immigration crisis already roiling EU electorates.
​ Member States seem still to be wishfully thinking again, half-believing the tales of divisions in Moscow; believing the Prigozhin ‘mind-omelettes’; believing the Russian slow-cooking of Bakhmut to be a sign of force exhaustion...

​..​The EU does not discuss these crucial decisions affecting Europe’s role in the war in public. All sensitive matters are debated behind closed-doors in the EU. The problem with this democracy deficit is that the sequelae to these Russia-related issues touch almost every aspect of European economic and social life.​..

​..​Is there a way out from the ‘hole’ the EU has dug for itself?
​  ​Yes – it is called ‘honesty’
. If the EU wants a quick end to the war, it should understand that there are two options available: Ukrainian capitulation and an agreement on Moscow’s terms; or the continuation of full-spectrum attrition of Ukraine’s capacity to wage war, until its forces are ​​overtaken by entropy.
​  ​Honesty would require the EU to ditch the delusional stance that Moscow will negotiate a settlement on Zelensky’s terms.​..
​..​And honesty would require the EU to admit that joining the financial war on Russia was a mistake. One that should be corrected.

​Moon of Alabama (Germany): ​Mearsheimers Latest Talk On The War In Ukraine
​  ​Mearsheimer made two major points:
​  ​Ukraine can not win this war because the kill ratio in this war is in its disfavor. Mearheimer estimates that two Ukrainians die for one Russian soldier but says that many of his friends think that the ratio is more like 3:1 or 4:1. The reason for this is the WWI-style static war in which artillery is the most deadly weapon. Russia has an immense artillery advantage. During an offensive the attacker will often have more casualties than the defender. But in this war the Ukraine side has been (counter-)attacked most of the time while the Russians defended.
​  ​The Ukraine also has a much smaller population than Russia. The current ratio is about 5 Russians for 1 Ukrainian. With a much smaller population and much higher casualties the Ukraine will run out of able bodies way before Russia does.
​  ​Mearsheimer expects that Russia, which already has incorporated four Ukrainian oblast plus Crimea, will take another four oblast from Ukraine. (I predicted this on February 24 2022, the day the war began. Those eight oblast plus Crimea are historically Russian land inhabited by Russian people. During the last thirty years they have consistently voted for pro-Russian candidates while the people in west Ukraine consistently opted for anti-Russian candidates.) Ukraine will end up as a dysfunctional (and poor) rump state.
​  ​Mearsheimer says that there will be no peace agreement in Ukraine. The war is seen by both sides as existential.


​  ​A neo-Nazi militia launched a cross-border raid from Ukraine into Russia’s Belgorod region on Monday using US armored vehicles, Financial Times reported Tuesday.
​  ​Denis Nikitin, leader of the Russian Volunteer Corps, said his fighters who attacked Belgorod were in possession of US armored vehicles, including at least two M1224 MaxxPro armored vehicles, known as MRAPs, and several Humvees. Videos and pictures posted by Russia’s military corroborated Nikitin’s claims.
​  ​Nikitin is a well-known extremist who has ties to neo-Nazis across the world and has his own white nationalist clothing line. According to Financial Times, the Russian Volunteer Corps “includes self-avowed neo-Nazis.”
​  ​The group was formed in 2022 and is said to be comprised of Russian citizens who have volunteered to fight for Kyiv. Some of its members signed up to fight in the Donbas war back in 2014 and are Azov Battalion veterans.
​  ​Nikitin would not say how his fighters acquired the US-made armored vehicles. Ukrainian intelligence officials have acknowledged that they cooperate with the Russian Volunteer Corps and another group that launched the assault, the Freedom of Russia Legion.


​  Moon of Alabama on F-16s to Ukraine: [They have one jet engine, which gets ruined if it sucks up rocks on the runway. They need vacuum-cleaned runways.]
  A few days ago U.S. President Joe Biden announced the training of Ukrainian pilots for the F-16 multirole fighter aircraft:
​  ​President Joe Biden told G7 leaders on Friday that the US would join in efforts to train Ukraine’s pilots on fourth generation fighter jets including the F-16s, a senior administration official told CNN on Friday.
​  ​This has obviously been in the planning for some time. The timing of the announcement at the G7 summit was simply chosen to maximize the propaganda value for Biden.​..

​..​I had assumed that F-16 training had in fact already started several weeks back. The EU blabber mouth Josep Borrell now all but confirmed it​...​

​..​The process will be much faster than many assume.
​  ​The jets the Ukraine will get have already been selected and will go through ready maintenance. The Ukrainian pilots, who already have some experience on other fighter jets, will get just a short introduction course - six to eight weeks or even less. They do not need to train air to air fights because the F-16 would lose any such fight against the newer and better armed Russian jets. They just need to learn the basics, starting, landing, going up to a certain height and launch point, release whatever long range weapon will be on board. Anything else would be suicide.
​  ​The big question is where to start and land from. The F-16 has a relative short combat range of some 500 kilometer and there will be no air to air tankers. There ain't that many airfield that are suitable for the fighter jet's missions.​..
​..Even if a MiG-29 happens to shell out an engine because of the careless placement of a bolt or tool by a mechanic or the ingestion of a bird during flight or take off, the MiG HAS TWO ENGINES which are isolated in separate bays, preventing the destruction of one engine from FOD-ing out the second.
​  ​The F-16, by contrast, is definitely not suited for this style of airfield. The bottom of the intake lip sits approximately 30” from the ground with no provision of alternate intake. In addition, all the suction flow of that air comes from the sides, fore, and ground since no air can be ingested from above the engine (that’s where the fuselage is). With no provision for FOD protection or alternate, high-mounted intakes during the entire time spent on the ground, this calls for rigid and inflexible FOD control measures from the location of engine start, to taxiing routes to the runway.
​  In the USAF, this meant hundreds of maintainers walking at arms-length intervals two to three times a day with eyes on the ground looking for any and every piece of debris that could be ingested by the multi-million dollar vacuum cleaner with only ONE engine we were charged with maintaining. In addition, an almost constant procession of street-cleaners rumbled up and down the flightline, taxiways and runway. Everything had to be spotless lest we risk the aircraft, or worse, the pilots.​..

..The MiG-29 averages about 11 hrs of maintenance for every ONE hr of flight. The F-16? A whopping increase to 18.5 maintenance hrs for every one hr of flight time. These are per aircraft with experienced crews...

​..​Well, good luck doing maintenance on the F-16s that will soon sit on those few available and thereby quite vulnerable Ukrainian airfields.
​  ​Russian air defenses, from the ground and from the air, can certainly suppress any F-16 flights coming near to them.
​  ​The only sensible purpose of those planes is thereby their one or two time use as a launching vehicles for long range missiles like the British Storm Shadow cruise missiles that were given to Ukraine.

The FBI Has Crossed The Rubicon
​  ​Caesar broke the rule. He marched on Rome. He didn’t care what the Senators thought. The rest is history. Within a generation, there was no republic.
​  The FBI has now taken similar action. It has signaled in the clearest possible manner it does not care what the people or their elected representatives think. It will do what it pleases, and the consequences be damned.
​  ​The recently released Durham report paints a graphic picture of an agency out of control. The FBI did not blunder into an investigation of Donald Trump, his campaign, and his associates. The FBI undertook to deliberately destroy Trump and those around him including General Flynn. The FBI took unto itself the power to decide who could be President.​..

..The House Oversight Committee is investigating the possibility that the current President of the United States took money from foreign interests, including Communist China, in exchange for policy decisions. In other words, the House is pursuing evidence that suggests pretty strongly that Joe Biden works for Beijing.   As part of that investigation, the House has demanded from the FBI copies of reports that apparently show the FBI knew about this some time ago.
The FBI has refused to provide the documents.
Meanwhile, there are continuing reports that whistleblowers from within the federal workforce who provide information about the Bidens are being retaliated against and sidelined. In some cases, they have had their security clearances taken away and been suspended without pay. That’s what happens to FBI agents who think Congress is still in charge.​..

​..Meanwhile, the FBI has announced that it destroyed all of the evidence it gathered into the actions of Hillary Clinton, the Clinton Foundation, and the mountains of foreign money that flowed to the Clintons when Hillary was Secretary of State.  This comes after revelations that the FBI shut down four separate investigations into the Clinton campaign in the runup to the 2016 election.  While the FBI was manufacturing evidence of a non-existent Trump-Putin connection it was actively covering for Hillary – and it is continuing to do so.​..
​..Three years ago, the FBI was handed Hunter Biden’s laptop which literally drips with evidence not just of corruption but of Chinese intelligence connections to Joe Biden and his associates. As far as anyone can tell, the FBI continues to sit on that computer and intends to take no action of any kind to investigate its contents.​..
​..The FBI no longer answers to the elected representatives of the American people nor does it care what they think. It did not get sloppy. It did not make some errors in judgment. Its leaders decided that they were entitled to do whatever they chose and to ignore our laws, our traditions, and the judgment of the nation’s citizens.
​  ​Most importantly, however, nothing that has happened has changed any of that. The FBI is not chastened.


There is No Safe Place in Gaza:
​  In 2021, Riyad Iskhuntana’s residence was the target of a direct Israeli bombing. “My four kids and my wife were killed in the apartment that I lived in, and they were killed in a brutal way. In one moment, I lost my four kids and my wife,” he testified. “And I remained under the rubble for 12 hours with my youngest daughter, not knowing if my kids had died or not. But eventually they were all dead except me and my youngest daughter.”
  Iskhuntana spoke about the traumatic IOF bombing of Gaza on May 12. “Yesterday,” he said, “my neighbor also was bombed, and this even deteriorated the psychological condition of myself and my daughter beyond what we had lived through in 2021. One of the psychological issues that we’re experiencing is that we began to forget things, and now with the restarting of the bombings again, the trauma is back. And we’re scared and trembling all the time.”


Vanishing Demand Shows Why Dollar's Star Has Peaked
  The dollar is going through a transition, but it is one that will be gradual. It is not about to be, or likely to be any time soon, supplanted by another currency. But there are mounting signs its luminescence has peaked, and we are moving toward a more multi-polar world.
  When we say the dollar’s hegemony has peaked, we should be clear about what we mean. Hegemony is not about price, it is about the dollar’s place in the global financial and economic system. With the currency accounting for 40% of export invoicing, 45% of cross-border bank claims, 60% of FX reserves and 90% of FX transactions, it will take years before its dominance is seriously challenged.
  Nonetheless, that process looks to have started, as following four charts demonstrate. In short, demand for the dollar is not rising as it normally would in response to the currency’s near-10% decline since October.

  John Rubino,  Next Generation Money, Part 1: Texas Re-Imagines The Dollar
  This brings us to Texas Senate Bill 2334, which calls for the introduction of a state-run digital currency, backed by gold and/or silver, accepted as legal tender within the state and available to people living anywhere in the world....

..If the Texas digital currency proposal becomes law, money could be spent with a debit card by people anywhere in the world, not just within Texas.
​  ​Under the proposed law, the Texas comptroller would create a digital currency based on gold or silver and would be given the authority to mint pure gold or silver coins based on weight.
​  ​The coins and the digital currency would be considered legal tender to pay debts and would be “readily transferable … to another person,” according to the bill.  


​  Ellen Brown, ​Squeezed by the Shorts: Time to Ban Short Selling?
​  ​Short sellers have made a killing in the recent banking crisis, scalping $14.3 billion from bank stock owners just in March of this year. Short sellers “borrow” stock they don’t own and immediately sell it, driving the price down. Then they buy it back at the lower price, return the stock, and pocket the difference. Bankers say the practice is threatening the stability of the banking system and are calling for a ban on short sales of bank stock. The SEC is expected to decline but is investigating whether the practice constitutes illegal market manipulation intended to deceive investors.
​  ​It is argued here that short selling is fraudulent by its very nature – it is a fraud on the legitimate stock owners – and should be banned across the board. But first a closer look at the issues and some recent developments.

  ​I picked this section from an Artificial Intelligence update. "Hallucinations" could be called "confabulations", or "lies", but "lies" would imply conscious intent.​
GPT-5 Features and Capabilities (Expected)
Reduced Hallucination

​  ​The hot talk in the industry is that GPT-5 will achieve AGI (Artificial General Intelligence), but we will come to that later on in detail. Besides that, GPT-5 is supposed to reduce the inference time, enhance efficiency, bring down further hallucinations, and a lot more. Let’s start with hallucination, which is one of the key reasons why most users don’t readily believe in AI models.

​Naturally Intelligent (took this picture of Jenny in the Austin garden)​


Tuesday, May 23, 2023

The Great Degrowth

 Considering Decay,


  Thanks Christine. Yes, the Gamma Radiation can be from DU, because the breakdown products of uranium fission break down further, emitting gamma rays.
​  ​Russian Security Council Secretary Nikolai Patrushev warned on Friday that a radioactive cloud was heading towards Western Europe following the destruction of a Ukrainian warehouse storing British-supplied depleted uranium ammunition.
​  ​Sputnik News spoke with Dr. Chris Busby, physical chemist and scientific secretary of the European Committee on Radiation Risk, about how the West’s decision to provide depleted uranium (DU) ammunition to Ukraine has potentially caused a continent-wide ecological disaster. Below is his answer in full.

   ​Fade To Black In Ukraine: Jim Kunstler
​   ​After two-plus years of “Joe Biden” — well, our country is bypassing the banana republic stage of dissolution and depravity and steaming quickly into a Hieronymus Bosch dystopia of financial, social, psychological and moral ruin. Every official utterance is a lie. Everything’s broken or breaking. And seemingly, on-purpose. The nagging question, of course, is on whose purposes?
     And why is Mr. Zelensky flitting from one country to another the past month? Because the game of Let’s You and Him Fight is drawing to a close and Mr. Z may find himself fatally unpopular back on the home-front. He has managed to send upward of a hundred-thousand young Ukrainian men to their deaths in the meat-grinder, and perhaps a million more have hightailed it for other countries.


​  C.J. Hopkins , The War On Reality (Revisited)
​  The War on Reality is a civil war, but it is much more than just a civil war. It is an asymmetrical, polymorphous, metastatic, multiplicitous war. An ontological free-for-all. It has no conventions or rules of engagement. There are no battle lines. The battle is everywhere. Alliances shift from day to day. It is chaos, unrelenting, inescapable chaos. An omnipresent, immaterial, omnipotent organism attacking itself. It is continual, and completely unwinnable. It is unwinnable because it has already been won. It ended in victory the moment it began, and now we’re doomed to go on fighting it forever, or until some less ethereal leviathan is born, or reborn, out of its ashes...
​..​Historically, we humans have not done very well in such psychotic ontological environments. When “reality” is shattered into a thousand little shards, and things fall apart, and the center does not hold, we tend to get rather scared, and confused, and agitated. We start to panic. We try to put “reality” back together again. This does not work. This worsens our panic. We start looking around for a new “reality.” We start looking for a savior, a leader, a Führer, someone with a vision, and the will, and the power, to impose a new “reality” on the ontological chaos that is making us so confused and agitated, and scared, and angry, and restore some sense of ideological cohesion so that we don’t have to think about “reality” on a moment-by-moment basis anymore.
​  ​This is the time of dime-store messiahs, tinpot tyrants, zealots, gurus, hustlers, hosers, scam artists, quacks, snake oil salesmen of every variety, fanatical revolutionary movements, new religions and political parties, and so on. Typically, eventually, once the hapless masses have been repeatedly duped, and bilked, and betrayed, and gaslighted and humiliated to the point where they can’t even think anymore, literally cannot think because their brains are broken, and they just want someone to make it all stop … well, to rephrase an old Buddhist platitude, “when the masses are ready, the despot will appear.”​ ...
​..Capitalism, though it can adapt to anything, has never been inherently inclined toward fascism or any other form of totalitarianism. Totalitarianism is a value-coding machine. Its objective is to completely code society with its values, its official ideology (i.e., “reality”). Every aspect of society, not just politics, culture, and so on, but the most intimate aspects of people’s lives.
​  ​Capitalism is a value-decoding machine. Its objective is to completely decode society of any values that impede the free flows of capital, rendering everything and everyone a de facto commodity, transforming societies into markets. It can adapt to totalitarianism and other varieties of despotism when necessary, but left to its own devices, or … you know, granted dominion over the entire Earth, and every creeping thing that creeps upon it, it sets about decoding and destabilizing values, destabilizing value and meaning itself, until, ultimately, everything means anything, or nothing, or whatever the market determines it means or is worth at any given moment.
​  ​The point is, the ongoing War on Reality is not a means to an end. It is the end. The official ideology (i.e., “reality”) that GloboCap, Inc. is implementing is not a set of official values or beliefs. It is the absence of any values or beliefs, any non-commodifiable values and beliefs. Values and beliefs are fine, as long as they’re just empty signs, logos, meaningless identity statements, and not principles and beliefs you are trying to live by, and that you are crazy enough to fight to preserve.​..
​..And, if that doesn’t sound like your kind of future, or reality, the “everything is a floating signifier” reality … no worries, you can always drop out of the “mainstream” and join the carnival of “conspiracy theorists, anti-vaxxers, Covid deniers, Russiagate deniers, climate change deniers, disinformationists, malinformationists, transphobes, white supremacists, violent domestic extremists,” and assorted other freaks and curiosities of nature that are actively being quarantined, or are quarantining themselves, in ideological ghettos where normal consumers never have to see them and they (i.e., we, the deviants and freaks) are preyed upon by legions of charlatans, demagogues, agents provocateurs, and other such spiritual and emotional parasites, until the day comes when we find ourselves spastically tweeting about an 86-year-old Chomsky chasing naked sex slaves around Epstein’s island, ripped to the gills on Viagra and Ecstasy, and probably freshly harvested adrenochrome!
​  ​That, or you could withdraw from society completely, and go live in a Kaczynski cabin in Montana, or Idaho, or wherever folks are doing that these days, as several of my readers advised me recently, and forage for berries, and barbecue squirrels, and, well, you know, defecate in a hole in the ground.


​  They must wait 72 hours for further debate after agreeing on a debt-ceiling increase. The Treasury is required to pay, but won't talk about selling assets, such as gold/silver. The funds appear to run out about June 15. Which side has more to lose or gain while the federal government sits in default. Who are the "sides"?
​  ​GOP, White House Remain 'Far Apart' On Debt Deal, Treasury Asks Agencies About Delayed Payments
​  ​According to Punchbowl News, McCarthy says he told Biden that there would be no agreement to a 'clean' debt limit deal which wouldn't include spending cuts, and that he won't agree to raise taxes. The government needs to 'spend less money,' he said, telling Republican lawmakers that 'we are nowhere near a debt ceiling deal yet.'

  [If inflation from supply-contraction, on top of a huge asset-bubble, can't be beaten, then government paying high interest rates assures eventual default on the Federal debt. Nobody really expects default now, but wouldn't it make more sense strategically?​ How about making gold run up to $10k/oz, then switching to a gold-standard?​]  
​  The Fed Is Losing The Inflation Fight​, Peter Schiff  
​  ​Household debt is now above $17 trillion for the first time ever. Even more concerning is the fact that credit card debt was flat in Q1. Credit card balances typically fall in the first quarter.
​  ​Americans are using their credit cards as a lifeline. That’s how they’re dealing with higher prices. They’re charging stuff.”
​  ​In March alone, revolving credit, which included credit card debt, was up 17.3% on an annual basis. Meanwhile, interest rates on credit card debt have spiked to over 20%. Peter said this indicates that the Fed really isn’t making any progress on inflation.
​  ​The consumer keeps spending. Where are they getting the money? They’re borrowing it. Credit continues to expand. That’s part of the inflationary dynamic. ​  ​  Inflation is an expansion of the money supply, which includes credit. So, consumers are not cutting back on their spending because of higher prices. They’re not even cutting back on their spending because of higher interest rates. They just keep on spending. So, prices are going to keep on rising, and this next quarter-point rate hike isn’t going to be any more effective than the previous rate hikes, which means they’re going to have to do it again.”
​  ​But Peter said no matter how much they hike, it’s not going to matter. That’s what the markets fail to understand. Everybody is thinking that since the central bank is going to fight even harder to fight inflation, it’s a good sign and the Fed is on course to slay the inflation dragon.
​  ​No. The Fed is losing its fight with inflation. That’s why it’s going to try harder. But it’s going to be ineffective. If they couldn’t beat inflation with 5%, they’re not going to beat it with 5.25%.”
​  ​It’s not just household debt that’s a problem. The federal government has a debt problem of its own. Federal revenues have collapsed even as the Biden administration keeps right on spending. And why are tax receipts going down? Because the economy is weakening.

​  The Middle Class Is Being Systematically Destroyed, Michael Snyder​
​  ​If you wanted to destroy the middle class, one way that you could accomplish that goal would be to flood the system with money.  Of course that is precisely what we have witnessed over the past few years.  Our leaders have pumped trillions of new dollars into (the top of)​ the system, and the wealthy have gotten much, much wealthier.  But meanwhile, the rest of us have seen the cost of living rise much faster than our paychecks have.  As a result, we are getting poorer and the middle class is shrinking.
​  ​Over time, our capitalist economy has steadily evolved into a system where almost all of the wealth and almost all of the power are concentrated in the hands of giant institutions.
​  ​Collectively, big government and big corporations run virtually everything, and this system of “corporate socialism” funnels tremendous amount of wealth into the pockets of a very small minority of the population.
​  ​If you are in that club, life is good.
​  ​But if you are not in that club, life can be a struggle.
​  ​The gap between the rich and the poor has steadily grown, and now it is larger than it has ever been before.

​  Charles Hugh Smith​ ,  2023: Echoes of 1973  
  2023 is echoing 1973 in potentially consequential ways.. It's not just one year, of course; the entire era from 2019 echoes the era that started in 1969, when the second-order effects of postwar policies finally started kicking in.
Consider these similarities / echoes:
1. Major shifts in global capital and trade flows that attracted little notice start to matter in terms of currency valuations, inflation, monetary and fiscal policy and geopolitics: check.
2. After decades of modest inflation, inflation not only rises but is sticky rather than transitory: check.
3. Major shifts in the power structure of global oil markets: check.
4. Cultural and social shifts become divisive, reaching destructive extremes: check.
5. A global superpower is ensnared in a hot war in which the other side is supplied by a superpower rival: check.
6. Political scandals upend the cozy arrangements of political elites: check.
7. A new wave of geopolitical rivalries arise between allies and rivals alike: check.
8. Stock and bond markets keep rallying like nothing's changed, but since things have changed, each rally fails: check.
​  ​Let's focus on #8: market participants continue assuming that the past 15 years are an accurate guide to the next 15 years, unable or unwilling to face the enormity of the changes that have already occurred in the fundamental structures of state and private-sector finance and the economy. (I discuss these in my book Global Crisis, National Renewal.)
​  ​These shifts guarantee the next 15 years will not follow the low-risk scripts of the past 15 years. I've explained here many times that systems have their own dynamics, and so they don't respond to our desires or opinions or our policy tweaks. No matter how many policy tweaks you throw at diminishing returns, for example, returns still diminish--though you can mask this reality temporarily behind extremes of stimulus and other financial sleight of hand.
​  ​Tightly bound systems, i.e. highly centralized systems, unravel far more abruptly than loosely bound systems, no matter how many fiscal or monetary policy tweaks you throw at the system.


  John Campbell explains "International Health Regulations" under WHO treaty in 15 minutes, and well, crossing out the old words and showing the new words.  Thanks to Meryl Nass MD for posting this.

​  ​Many Pregnant Women Were Forced to Get COVID Shots. Here’s What Happened to Them.​  Joseph Mercola DO​
​   ​COVID-19 shot contents are biodistributed into the bloodstream within hours and cross “all physiologic barriers including the maternal-placental-fetal barrier and the blood brain barriers in both the mother and the fetus,” according to maternal-fetal medicine expert Dr. James Thorp.
​  ​Compared to the flu vaccine, COVID-19 shots are associated with a significant increase in adverse events among women of reproductive age.
​  ​Data revealed a 27-fold higher risk of miscarriage and a more than two-fold increased risk of adverse fetal outcomes across six different categories following COVID-19 shots.
​  ​Birth rates in multiple European countries fell significantly at the end of 2021, months after COVID-19 shots became widely utilized.
Researchers have called for the immediate suspension of COVID-19 vaccination for all persons of childbearing and reproductive age.


Key Differences of Innate & Adaptive Immunity for Handling Pandemics , Dr Marian Laderoute​ 
[Take vitamin-D. Don't take vaccines. Exercise outdoors. Sleep. Eat fresh vegetables. Enjoy "a good immune system".]

  Steve Kirsch has a vaccine questionnaire for those of us who are parents. I entered data on our four young adult "children".
 The most important survey I've ever done
Are you a parent of a child 40 and younger? Please take my survey now. It's REALLY important. I'll explain why soon. Just take my word for it right now.

 
​  ​How solar farms took over the California desert: ‘An oasis has become a dead sea’​  [Fossil-fuels are exquisite​;​ ​marvelous. Cherish and spare them.]
​  ​Residents feel trapped and choked by dust, while experts warn environmental damage is ‘solving one problem by creating others’
​  ​“There are so many other places we should be putting solar,” says Clarke, of the National Parks Conservation Association, from homes to warehouses to parking lots and industrial zones. He describes the current model of large-scale, centralised power generation, hundreds of miles from where the power is actually needed, as “a 20th-century business plan for a 21st-century problem”.
​  ​“The conversion of intact wildlife habitat should be the absolute last resort, but it’s become our first resort – just because it’s the easy fix.”
​  ​Vincent Battaglia, founder of Renova Energy, a rooftop solar company based in Palm Desert, agrees. “We’ve been led to believe that all solar is good solar,” he says. “But it’s not when it molests pristine land, requires hundreds of millions of dollars to transmit to city centres, and loses so much power along the way. It is simply preserving the monopoly of the big energy companies.”​   
[Thanks Christine]

​Solar Farmer (pictured with chlorophyll-based collectors​ around compost pile)