From the James Kunstler blog...

Quote:Saturday morning, we toodled over to the next town, Salem, New York, (pop. 2,612, per capita income $19,499) fifty miles northeast of Albany, to catch one of the hundreds of “No Kings” demos across the nation sponsored by Shanghai-based software billionaire Neville Roy Singham, Walmart heiress Christy Walton, Paypal partner (and Linked-in founder) Reid Hoffman, and father-and son team, George and Alex Soros.

Speaking of Alex Soros, Saturday also happened to be his wedding day, to Huma Abedin, former Hillary Clinton sidekick and BFF (and ex-wife of disgraced congressman and convicted sex offender Anthony Weiner.) The nuptials happened at the Soros’s Hamptons estate. Cable news covered the fabulous cavalcade of black Escalade limousines conveying the super-elite of Progressive-Wokery to the glorious event. The New York Times, with its habitual lack of self-awareness, styled the event thusly:



“Liberal royalty?” Say, what. . . ? There is such a thing? In the party of No Kings? What’s the deal, then? Just princes and princesses, dukes and duchesses, earls, viscounts, baronets, lairds, marquis, knights and dames, and so on. Yet, no king? Well, if you asked the fortunate wedding guests, they might aver to Hillary Clinton as a sort-of Queen of the party, or maybe just Queen Bee. As for former president Bill, he appears to be undergoing slow-motion mummification, so he currently occupies an ambiguous zone between this world and the next, with no mojo left for kingly duties. Anyway, it rained that day down on the South Fork.



Meanwhile, back upstate, cloudy and cool but no rain, some two-hundred wrathful plebeian souls gathered at the one-stoplight-intersection in little Salem, these days mainly a farm community, the old railroad engine repair shop defunct, and many good non-farm jobs with it, the usual story in this corner of the country. The hopped-up crowd was well-supplied with signs and placards, many avouching Down with Oligarchs! — which, oddly, seemed a sort of backhanded reference to billionaires of the very type underwriting the day’s festivities, not to mention the super-rich “liberal royalty” gang gathered for the Soros-Abedin royal wedding.

But that was only one of the many incongruities haunting the mass protest against the abhorred president, Mr. Trump. For instance, one poor fellow on the southeast corner of South Main and East Broadway inveighed mournfully against the suppression of free speech, apparently unaware of the epic efforts 2021 to 2025 by “Joe Biden’s” underlings to censor the Internet and de-platform the regime’s critics (including yours truly, whose website was mysteriously destroyed in October 2024).

The moiling mob was overwhelmingly geriatric, perhaps reflecting the backwater demographics of a region with few job opportunities for young folk. A spirit of revival bubbled among them as they reenacted old rituals of the hippie halcyon, the grand old days of the Vietnam War protests, when thousands gathered to levitate the Pentagon. Only now, their sentiments and beliefs exhibit a striking and peculiar inversion of the ancient 1960s credos that drove the beloved Movement.

I know because I was there, on campus, between 1966 and 1971. Back then, the Left opposed the wicked “establishment” and all its nefarious operations, from the war in Vietnam to the FBI’s underhanded suppression of political dissent. These days, strange to relate, the Left stands in staunch defense of the Deep State, big government (and its prodigious corruption), and the politicization of the FBI and CIA.



Their placards lament the withering of “our democracy,” yet they were just fine with “Joe Biden” selecting a 2024 presidential candidate for them — with no customary vote by party delegates, or anything approaching an open democratic process. They shout for the “rule-of-law,” except when it concerns special persons such as the former president’s crackhead, bag-man son. They’re all for the colossal grift around the war in Ukraine. And don’t forget they supported vaccine mandates, the closing and ruination of small businesses (while Walmart and Taco Bell were allowed to thrive), and all the other hypocritical, fraudulent, lethal actions of Covid-19 policy.

The object of the “No Kings” shuck and jive, you might suspect, was to prepare so many friction-points around the country that violence was apt to erupt in order to create a George Floyd-type martyr figure, so as to re-energize the Left for another sustained summer of riots. There was plenty of mayhem around the country but, alas, no martyr emerged, no apotheosis of “progressive” victim-hood. . . only the peculiar murder of two Minnesota legislators by an apparently deranged Democratic party fringe character, the sometime evangelist and Tim Walz appointee, Vance Boelter.

$65-million is a plausible number for the money spent by billionaires and political NGOs on the nation-wide “No Kings” project. A lot of that was paid directly to protesters for just showing up. (They ran ads on Craig’s List to enlist players.) None of them showed up in the Hamptons, though, where “liberal royalty” assembled for their special event. You’ve got to think that they missed something rather bigly there.

There is the expanding universe, the contracting universe, the pulsating universe, and now the universe inside a black hole theory. That one expands because of a bounce-back effect from the contraction, like a mini-pulsation inside a giant black hole.

But maybe it is more like the exact opposite.

Gravity and the inverse square law draw things towards themselves at an ever-increasing rate, leaving the empty space without distortion and able to retain its shape and size. This makes it appear that everything in the universe is moving away from everything else, when in fact the mass is actually drawing into itself, or shrinking, leaving empty space to remain static in size and not really expanding.

ANOTHER DEVELOPMENT THAT WILL PROBABLY DISAPPEAR BEFORE WE CAN GET ONE 

Quote:This began with a strange light, too bright, too small, too impossible to ignore. In a machine no larger than a microwave, a scientist claims to have created something that defies the known laws of physics. Dr. Randell Mills believes he’s found a new form of hydrogen that can release massive energy cleanly and safely enough to power cities, vehicles, and even entire nations. His invention, the SunCell, could eliminate fossil fuels forever. But it’s not just controversial, it’s forbidden by mainstream science. Is this a fraud, or the breakthrough no one saw coming? Either way, the world won’t look away for long.

Most people know how messed up the Military Acquisition System is already.... Even when a weapon system is purchased and is found to not work as promised millions if not billions of dollars are used to make the POS military procurement item work. For a very long time stories on how ships, planes, weapons, you name it, that all cost a fortune are cancelled or need upgrades for such a long term that when they finally work as once promised (5 to 10 years later if ever) it is time for a new weapon as this one is obsolete already. 

Quote:

Hyenas, Hydras, and Hilarity Ensues

Add some color to your revolution



UPDATE 11JUN25: completely forgot to mention Leo XIV showing his true colors, not to mention his organization operating some of the most active NGOs trafficking humans across borders.

Somewhere in my vast collection of digital media, I have a group of books I’ve carried around for decades now: [url=https://en-academic.com/dic.nsf/enwiki/1883884#:~:text="The%20Poor%20Man's%20James%20Bond",Saxon%20believed%20contained%20inaccurate%20information]The Poor Man’s James Bond[/url], and The Anarchist’s Cookbook. Be careful with the latter. I’m of the opinion that the FBI published it in the early 1970s, for reasons only the FBI knows. I think a number of the recipes are deliberately incomplete or incorrect to provide entertainment for investigators cleaning up the messes.

That said, since the early days of the Marxist/Socialist movements in the 1920s, and well into the Weather Underground, SLA and similar groups of the 1960s and 1970s, rich privileged trust-funded kids have been the primary drivers behind these groups. Like mafia bosses, the rich kids kept the dirty work at arm’s length, legitimizing themselves behind charitable and non-governmental organizations.

These little sweethearts converted universities into revolutionary think tanks and recruiting stations. They parleyed their exclusive degrees and pedigrees into high-level jobs, where they could influence hiring, investment, legal and political cronyism, and essentially steer society to favor themselves.

These little privileged darlings built up networks of taxpayer-funded operations, using corporate cut-outs and special grant writing circles. For instance, a group ostensibly promoting 2SLGBTIA+ interests would hang a shingle in Ghana, apply for a multi-million dollar grant to liberate non-existent queers in Ghana, then launder the funds through a web of interrelated “service” organizations into a global slush fund to be used for disruptive activities we might generally call “color revolutions”.

Another example? Do you really think that superhero movies with wall-to-wall Marxist ideology messaging and laughable special effects costs $400 million to produce? Certainly not. Vast amounts of money are being paid to animation farms in Myanmar, Vietnam and the Philippines, where just pennies are spent on actual product, while the rest is funnelled through various layers of entities and into the global slush funds.

To what end, I hear the astute reader ask? Every instance of Socialism that has ever arisen involves authoritarian control over society, a small inner circle of super-elites who own and control everything, and the power of life and death over everything these pathetic shrivelled individuals survey.

When it comes to media circuses like the Los Angeles riots (most recent edition), folks need to realize these are not organic populist events. They are carefully planned around some trigger event (immigration raid), with the media pumping out pre-arranged messages, trained agitators bused in and paid, integrated with at least some aspects of local power structures (mayor, police, governor, etc.), complete with pre-arranged Kodak moments to get dramatic images of “the Great Struggle” against oppression.

None of it, at any level, location, or participation, is real in any way shape or form. It is all staged to support a narrative of underprivileged masses being abused and hounded by an authoritarian State. In reality, it is the authoritarians and the privileged few who are running the scam to promote themselves as the solution to the problem they created, thus channelling ultimate power to themselves.


But why, the clever reader asks. Because when you are a privileged spawn, who has everything handed to them—including wealth and privilege—life is pretty boring without some big challenge, like taking over the world, to play with.

This may seem overly simplistic, even stupid, but observe history. It is always the children of privilege who are the greatest tyrants. Oh sure, some dynasties manage to produce a sense of noblesse oblige, but for the most part, the spawn prefer to amass power and wealth for its own sake, like collecting stamps or glass figurines. For them, the wealth and power are meaningless trinkets, whose accumulation only represents abstractions like money and control.

You and I are nothing but status markers to be collected and stored in a warped game of global Monopoly.

Coming back to where we started, every tactic you see used in the various riots and revolutions have been published for decades in the aforementioned books. Every motive has been known since ancient times. The NGOs and corporate cut-outs are simply puppetry and shadows. There is nothing new, only rediscovery.

We owe these people nothing, and they have earned nothing from us. We have no obligation to them, and they certainly and obviously feel no obligation to us. What they really need is to be taken behind the barn and given a good switching. In fact, the worst punishment they could possibly receive is to be irrelevant and ignored.

Suppose Bill Gates flew into town and no one greeted him, no one took his calls, and no one cared if he lived or died. Suppose the same thing happened to the Soros clan, or the Schwabs, or the Rockefellers. Suppose they woke up one day and all their wealth and power couldn’t get them a cut in line at the donut shop?

We have the power to change the world by simply changing what we care about and pay attention to. That may seem ridiculously simplistic, but when you start thinking about it, it really is that easy.

Stop giving those people our power, and they will have none to use against us.

=====
Though a bit plodding in places, The Riot Club (2014) is probably one of the better dramatizations of today’s screed. The world really is nothing more than a bunch of bored rich kids playing with daddy’s empire.

Speaker of The House in Minnesota has been murdered!

MN Governor Walz quick to label it as "Political" !!

Walz might be trying to get ahead of the facts and who the killer is.

Apparently The Speaker voted to stop aid to illegals !!!!

State Police telling people to NOT go to any protests !!


This is just The BEGINNING !! 


BREAKING - It’s been revealed the Minnesota democratic lawmakers shot last night, State Rep. Melissa Hortman and State Sen. John Hoffman, both recently voted against their party, with Hortman supporting repeal of free healthcare for illegals and Hoffman joining Republicans in the Senate to pass it.


MN State Patrol @MnDPS_MSP Given the targeted shootings of state lawmakers overnight, we are asking the public to not attend today’s planned demonstrations across Minnesota out of an abundance of caution.


BBC Article >>>>


Walz Press - Pull 

The Greek Theatre, Los Angeles 18–19 October 1999 Jimmy Page and The Black Crowes united to create 2 nights of rock perfection , to mark the 25th anniversary of rock history being made the album Live at the Greek has been re-released.

Jimmy and the boys remembering the gig.


Big Crowes and Zeppelin fan so pure Gold. 

0:00 Celebration Day
3:33 Custard Pie
9:08 Sick Again
14:08 No Speak No Slave
19:15 What Is And What Should Never Be
24:49 Hard To Handle
28:39 Woke Up This Morning
33:10 Ten Years Gone
40:04 In My Time Of Dying
49:50 Your Time Is Gonna Come
55:01 Remedy
1:01:30 The Lemon Song
1:10:50 Sloppy Drunk
1:17:08 Shapes Of Things
1:20:33 Nobody's Fault But Mine
1:27:42 Heartbreaker

• encore -
  
  

I'm not sure where to park this one because I don't even know how to describe the experience other than very...weird.

I woke up tonight/this morning (I don't sleep well sometimes these days) and I was thinking about a childhood very good friend of mine, not just casually either.  It was a very focused and detailed thought.  His name was John, and we were best friends from age 7 or so until about 12.  My family moved away about that time and eventually John and I lost contact.  

The thought I woke up with this morning is as follows....

About 3 years ago I learned that John had moved (coincidentally) to Colorado.  Of all the places I've lived around the globe I never expected John would wind up in the same state as me.  I had no choice but to reach out to him if nothing else to say hello.  I found an email address for him and, not knowing if it would work or not, I wrote out a quick email to say "Hi".  About 3 weeks later, to my surprise, I received a reply, but the reply wasn't from John, it was from his wife.

His wife profusely thanked me for reaching out to him, but unfortunately John had passed away several months before.  His wife was over the top with thanks for trying to contact him (which I found odd) and stated what a terrible shame it was that we never got to meet up.  She went on to say that John had talked about me for their entire married life and had searched for me many times with no success.  

His wife and I exchanged a couple of emails, first mine offering my sincerest condolences and asking about John.  I also provided a little background on myself and what I'd been doing all these years.  She replied with a lengthy email about John, his personality, his hobbies and what a great guy he was.  I had not really intended anything more than my second condolence email, figuring that would be the end of it.  However, upon reading her lengthy reply now I had some questions.  She had also posed some questions to me which I answered in my follow up.  She sounded like a very nice and loving wife.

John had always been a big Star Trek nut, so big that I figured he was the type who wound up going to conventions as an adult, so I inquired about this.  Her response was that my question confirmed my identity as the person John always talked about, and she went on to say that while he was a lifelong fan of Star Trek he never went overboard with it.  In his later years his interest in Star Trek waned and he took up model trains as a hobby (apparently in a big way).  There were a couple other questions, but you get the idea.  I wasn't trying to start any sort of a long term dialog with this woman, just a few simple questions.  She replied (once I think), I thanked her and that was the end of it.

Fast forward to my waking up this morning.  I remembered all of that as I laid there awake.  Except for one problem...I can find no record of those conversations ever having taken place.  None.  I keep everything, and I mean every-thing, for decades, and I could find absolutely no record of these events ever taking place.  Then I started wondering if it had all been just a dream of some kind.  Maybe none of it was real.

I got up and decided to do some digging.  Turns out John really did move to Colorado.  And, it also turns out John really did die in 2019.  And, if this wasn't enough, many of the sympathy messages from friends and family in his obituary repeatedly complimented him on his fantastic model train work.  There's no way I could have known any of those details without his wife telling me.  I knew I had never previously seen an obituary for John, so I never would have read the sympathy messages.

The overall thought/memory I woke up with was far more detailed than what I've written here, but again you get the idea.

Was it real?  Or was it 'Memorex' (i.e. just some crazy coincidence?).  Or...was it something completely different, like some metaphysical communication?

What do you think?

Recently, the TSA has adopted another scare-tactic, warning people that charging their phones at airports might infect their phones with viruses which will steal their identities and personal information (including credit card data).

Well, first off; this threat is WAY overblown!  There is no known technology which can do this under any circumstances other than a laboratory environment with very controlled conditions which the average person would never face in public.  But let's examine why (and, I happen to know a bit of what I am talking about here).

First...in order to anything to "infect" your phone, or any other device, there has to be an intelligent mechanism nearby (i.e. like a storage device and a processor).  Even if it's networked...which would mean the airport is "in on" the hack...there still has to be a storage device to host the malicious software.  No airport would voluntarily participate in such a caper.  

Secondly, your phone (or other device) would have to be set up to willingly accept downloads from any unknown source.  Anyone with even reasonably updated OS's and even OEM virus protection would never allow this.  Not ever.  At minimum, you have to give your mobile device permission to accept a download, and you will be presented with numerous options to prevent its installation.  Even beyond this, there is no way, other than the lowest IQ, who would allow their device to be taken over even for a second by a 3rd party.  Now, people ask about 3rd party WiFi at airports (something I know about quite well).  Yes, a user will be asked to accept certain terms and agreements, BUT, this is the ONLY allowance permitted on a device.  Side note - Just think about this for a moment...if an airport or other public space knowingly allowed damaging or criminal malware and/or viruses to be inserted into their devices, how long do you think these networks would be deemed acceptable before they became the subject of every hacker blog and sensationalized news site on the planet?  Like 5 minutes maybe?  Bottom line, they'd be taken down instantly.  BUT, there's more. ...

Malware isn't just harmful to the user, it's also harmful to the host.  You see, these people don't care; they are looking for maximum impact in the shortest amount of time with the most amount of damage...and hosts are an even better target.  A user is one person, but a host is tens of thousands of users...possibly even millions.  A host has exactly zero incentive to allow such malicious software to exist on their networks.  This isn't about bulletproof security as much as it is about overwhelming business incentives to prevent such things.  But, there's even more. ...

Up to this point, in what I've written so far, a person could say..."yeah, yeah, but you're biased".  Even though I could go into volumes about why I am not biased (I don't work for an airport authority), this goes beyond the point.  I am appealing to common sense here, and nothing more.  There is also one other (perhaps even more significant) thing to consider, and this is regulatory oversight.  Airports have lots of rules.  LOTS.  There are more regulatory rules at an airport than most people could even imagine.  And, it's not a big stretch to imagine that security might be a big portion of these.  If there were huge and unresolved security issues on an airport network (the ones who transport this data), then there would also be an indefensible position that their whole network(s) are vulnerable to control by outside, evil, doers.  Right?  So, I don't think I should have to go very far to reinforce how dim of a view airports would have to such an event (even one, let alone thousands)!

Furthermore, I need to address a concept known in the airport world as "concessions".  A concession is a vendor who sets up shop at their own expense and pays rent.  In theory, they control everything about their world.  Take a food vendor like McDonald's; they're concession.  And McDonald's often offers free things like Wifi (just to get you to eat there...it's called "dwell time", btw.)  However, if McDonald's were determined to have a serious security breach in the USB plug ins at their restauraunts, then an airport would shut that service down (immediately) until the breach was corrected.  Why?  Because public relations is a really big issue at airports (Gawd knows with all the bad press EVERY airport gets over the TSA, which everyone universally hates!)

So, there's no way...that an innocent USB charging station at any serious airport is ever going to infect your phone.  And...

...the TSA led scare that this is even possible is just pure "DOOM PORN"...nothing more.  You don't have to trust me, you can go test it for yourself.  Just don't be surprised if, when testing, you get locked out of the network.  Why?  Because you're doing exactly what they are trying to prevent.

You can safely charge your phone or other USB device at any airport without worry.  There are so many checks and balances to prevent anything bad from happening it would make your head spin.  Now, at Juan's Taco Shack food truck, maybe not, but at a full blown airport, it's not a worry.

Just stop it, TSA!!  We don't need you, and we never did!

Where do you guys host your pictures?

I assume, looking at the "Insert Pictures" function, that you need to place a URL in the 'http://' box (thus the reference to a web address), so to me this means I need a host to upload and store the pictures in order to generate a linkable URL from it, correct?  If so, is there a favorite place to do this?  I used to use Imgur (I think), but it's been a while.  That was kind of a pain in the butt to get them loaded and then generate a link (required about 5 steps or more).  I'm hoping someone has an easier way to do this so pictures can be posted quickly.

Appreciate any info which members or staff can provide.

Thanks!