Not Yet

Still Preparing,

US Nuclear Forces Chief Says ‘the Big One Is Coming’   ​The commander that oversees US nuclear forces delivered an ominous warning at a naval conference last week by calling the war in Ukraine a “warmup” for the “big one” that is to come.
​  ​“This Ukraine crisis that we’re in right now, this is just the warmup,” said Navy Adm. Charles Richard, the commander of US Strategic command. “The big one is coming. And it isn’t going to be very long before we’re going to get tested in ways that we haven’t been tested [in] a long time.”
​  ​Richard’s warning came after the US released its new Nuclear Posture Review (NPR), which reaffirms that the US doctrine allows for the first use of nuclear weapons. https://news.antiwar.com/2022/11/06/us-nuclear-forces-chief-says-the-big-one-is-coming/

​  Former Russian President Medvedev explains the reason behind the timing of the special-military-operation to eliminate elements hostile to Russian-speakers and Russia.​  Kiev’s nuclear ambitions spurred Moscow’s military operation

​  ​Under the 1994 Budapest Memorandum, Ukraine surrendered its Soviet-era nuclear arsenal in exchange for promises from the US, Britain and Russia that they would “provide assistance” to the country in case of aggression. The three states also vowed not to attack Ukraine themselves.
​  ​However, Russian officials have repeatedly stated that this document was undermined by NATO’s eastward expansion, which threatened Moscow’s vital security interests. Moreover, prior to the start of the Ukraine conflict in late February, Zelenksy signaled that Kiev could give up its decades-old pledge to be a non-nuclear nation and reverse the decision it took to give up its atomic weapons. https://www.rt.com/russia/566062-medvedev-ukraine-nuclear-weapons/

​  War as a "lesser good" for the Godly, who prepare themselves to kill or to die for moral principles, to be judged by eternity.​ "The General" makes the case that only a Godly, morally intact army can excel. Anything else lacks the necessary foundation of certainty of conscience in each soldier. (Did Putin refer to this book?)

  While the Moscow military operation was taking place, in the author's reading schedule it was turn for a book by the Russian philosopher Vladimir Solovyov entitled “Three Conversations on War, Progress and the End of World History“. The English translation, published in the second decade of the previous century, is entitled “War and Christianity from a Russian perspective“. “Three Conversations” is a philosophical work by Vladimir Solovyov, in which he addresses several important issues, by presenting his ideas in the form of a discussion among five characters. http://thesaker.is/operation-z-through-the-eyes-of-vladimir-solovev/

 After evacuating all civilians from Kherson 2 days ago, Russian troops are withdrawing to the east side of the Dnieper river. Ukrainian forces have been shelling the city, and the dam above it for weeks. It can't be a killing-field until there are people in it. Ukrainian forces are not eager to occupy the regional capital city. Without holding Kherson, how can Russian forces take Odessa? But who wants to be in the way of a flood?

​  ​Both sides now appear to be scrambling to bolster manpower in the region, with Ukraine's military vowing to keep up the pressure after pounding the Russian-held city with artillery for weeks:
​  ​A senior adviser to Ukraine’s president said on Wednesday it was too early to talk about a Russian troop pullout from the southern city of Kherson. https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/russia-orders-troops-leave-kherson-zelenskys-office-cautions-over-staged-retreat

​  ​The United States and Russia are expected to meet soon and discuss resuming inspections under the New START nuclear arms reduction treaty that have been paused since before Russia's invasion of Ukraine, U.S. State Department spokesperson Ned Price said on Tuesday.
​  ​Speaking at a daily press briefing, Price said the bilateral consultative commission (BCC), the mechanism for implementation of the last remaining arms control agreement between the world's two largest nuclear powers, will meet "in the near future." https://www.reuters.com/world/russia-us-discuss-first-nuclear-talks-since-ukraine-conflict-kommersant-2022-11-08/

​ Ugo Bardi and I see this the same way. The defense against lies is the unremitting attempt to fully and completely understand reality in our own way, in our own living minds. Easy answers tend to be lies, calculated to serve some interest, which pays to make them available to you.​ How to Beat Propaganda: the Grokking Strategy   ​ We can describe this attitude by the term "grokking," invented by sci-fi author Robert Anson Heinlein to indicate the kind of in-depth understanding that professionals have of their field. In Heinlein's fictional Mars, "to grok" also means "to drink." You assimilate knowledge just like you assimilate the water you drink. It is strictly related to the concept of "empathy" as discussed by Chuck Pezeshky in his blog. (It is also part of the concept of "virtual holobiont," but let me skip that, here).
​  ​The "grokking-style" learning is based on the idea that you don't trust any source just because it is "authoritative." https://www.senecaeffect.com/2022/11/how-to-beat-propaganda-grokking-strategy.html

​

Another Michael Hudson interview transcript, from which I excerpt this pearl of wisdom: ​So there are two economic philosophies and I began the book by contrasting the dynamics of industrial capitalism with finance capitalism. And industrial capitalism in the United States, Germany, England, and every country where it took off, was to promote a public investment in basic infrastructure monopolies in transportation, communication, education, healthcare.
​  ​The idea is that if the government would provide these basic services and basic human rights at subsidized rates – or freely, as in the case of education and healthcare – then employers would not have to pay labor a high enough basic wage to make labor pay for healthcare – as in the United States where 18% of GDP is for healthcare – or to pay for education, the 1.7 trillion that goes for student debt in the United States, not mentioning the education that is not debt-financed.
​  ​Finance capitalism basically sought to break away all of the public infrastructure. Most financial fortunes and financial fortunes in history were made just in the way that Zola had described, by prying thefts from the public domain.
​  ​But the financial capitalism doesn’t say… You don’t have to steal it; you actually make it your policy, giving away the financial domain in the way that President Yeltsin gave away all of Russia’s natural resources, public utilities, electric companies, anything that yields an economic rent that can be just easy income without any investment. And you financialize it.
​  ​You’ve had, for the last – really since the 1980s, but even since World War 1 – this movement to prevent industrial economies from being low cost. But the objective of finance capitalism, contrary to what’s taught in the textbooks, is to make economies high cost, to raise the cost every year. https://thesaker.is/the-real-progressive-interview-of-michael-hudson-with-transcript/

  ​I will make the case that the next default will be massive devaluation of the $US against gold, allowing all federal debts to be paid-off-in-gold at much reduced real value. Other deeply indebted countries will do the same, maybe first, or at the same time. Suddenly transitioning to Central Bank Digital Currency requires too much trust and agreement in our world.​ There is too much to read here. This is the nugget. Thanks Ilargi. Are You Ready for the Coming U.S. Government Default?   ​ The popular American myth is that the U.S. government has never defaulted on its debt.  Quite frankly, that’s an unadulterated lie.  The U.S. government has (unofficially) defaulted on its debt twice within the last hundred years...
​  ​Executive Order 6102 of 1933, which forced all American citizens to turn in gold coins and bars, was, in fact, a default.  Gold ownership in the United States, with some small limitations, was illegal for the next 40 years.
​  ​Under EO 6102, Americans were compensated $20.67 per troy ounce of gold.  They were paid with paper dollars.  Immediately following the government’s gold confiscation, the price of gold was raised by the Gold Reserve Act of 1934 to $35 per ounce.  Just like that, American citizens were robbed of over 40 percent of their wealth.
​  ​The second default occurred in 1971, when President Nixon “temporarily” suspended the convertibility of the dollar into gold.​   https://economicprism.com/are-you-ready-for-the-coming-u-s-government-default/

​  But they won't say how they know these numbers. They may be confirming total sales, then looking at declared purchases, and declaring the=at central banks quietly bought the rest. That might be right. Somebody appears to have bought the most gold in history this year, and it's a secret. One presumes they took possession, in the prevailing circumstances.​

​  ​“Global central bank purchases leapt to almost 400 tonnes in Q3 (+115% q-o-q). This is the largest single quarter of demand from this sector in our records back to 2000 and almost double the previous record of 241t in Q3 2018.
It also marks the eighth consecutive quarter of net purchases and lifts the y-t-d total to 673 tonnes, higher than any other full year total since 1967.”
Specifically, the World Gold Council claims that Q3 2022 central bank gold demand was 399.3 tonnes, which is a massive 340% higher than Q3 2021. https://www.bullionstar.com/blogs/ronan-manly/gold-establishment-supports-central-bank-secrecy-instead-of-exposing-it/#comments

​  Peter Schiff has good reason to push gold. ​Still, he makes a good case that something has fundamentally changed in the way gold "markets" are managed, to allow a $50 increase in the price of an ounce of gold Friday, then another $40 on Monday, when it had never been allowed to rise more than $20 (thanks Dr.D) before. This could be a signal that gold is the ordained next-bubble. 

As above, that would allow global central banks to get out of debt by massively devaluing against gold, then settling under a new global gold regime.

Peter Schiff: The Gold Train Has Left the Station​      https://schiffgold.com/peters-podcast/peter-schiff-the-gold-train-has-left-the-station/

​Charles Hugh Smith: The Unintended Consequences of Unintended Consequences

​ ​Decades of central bank distortions and regulatory / market-share capture by cartels and monopolies have completely gutted "markets," destroying their self-correcting dynamics.​ ​ http://charleshughsmith.blogspot.com/2022/11/the-unintended-consequences-of.html

​  The post-mortem analysis of midterm election results won't be fully settled until the December 6 runoff election for US Senate seat in Georgia, but it appears that Republicans will take a narrow lead in the House, while the Senate is a toss-up, favoring the Democrats, since VP Kamala Harris can cast a tie-breaking vote.​

  My view is that there will be another 2 years of gridlock, as the rest of the world, outside of NATO and other vassal-states, moves rapidly forward to bypass the $US in global trade. There is the splitting into 2 blocs, as Michael Hudson describes above, but the declining bloc is self-cannibalizing. 

  There cannot be a power/leadership transition in the US/NATO/$US bloc until the current power elites capitulate in ultimate despair. 

The owners may kill a lot of their herds before they despair like that. It seems like a best-case-scenario that this bottom could be reached in 2024, blame dumped on "Joe Biden", and some transitional-figure elected to walk the USA through chapter-11 bankruptcy. 

  Power elites could really wait another 4 years, until 2028 to give-up-all-hope. That would imply horrific war in those years. 

I sincerely suggest that we turn our efforts and best-intentions towards hitting bottom by 2024.  https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2022/11/comprehending_the_underwhelming_performance_of_the_gop.html

​  Ben Davidson is a brilliant scientist and author of the textbook on Space Weather. 

From 2:30 he explains that all of the space agencies have clammed-up on magnetic field strength data in recent years. 

We are mainly looking at 6 year old data, which was showing rapid weakening of our protective fields.​ Thanks Red.

​  If you mimic the trees, shrubs and herbs in a mature old-growth forest near you, or one that previously existed where you live, you can nurture that mix, planted fairly densely, for 3 years and it should self-sustain. This is significantly expensive, and in 100 years it will just look like something to log, if it is big enough. 

It's not financially feasible, except as a gift to life, with an uncertain future. 

Imagining a Mini-Forest’s Potential: The Miyawaki Method

https://www.chelseagreen.com/2022/the-miyawaki-method/

How to make a mini forest with Miyawaki method

https://bengaluru.citizenmatters.in/how-to-make-mini-forest-miyawaki-method-34867

​Impatiently Waiting  (pictured with growing Nam Wah banana stalk)