The Weekly Watch

Rats in a Cage?

Open Thread Image.jpg

Chris looks at the state of our society as an experiment on rats. I found it insightful.

29 minutes

We are all rats in a cage who are being shocked. A very well-studied form of psychological warfare is being waged against us, and it's designed to encourage us to overlook where the shocks are originating and fight amongst each other.

Knowing that this is running is your first step towards freedom.

Police fighting people is an example of "rats in a cage."

People fighting over relatively meaningless things is an example of acting like rats in a cage.

People arguing over Joe Rogan’s prior podcast series (while having practically no objections to zero “Johns” being named in Ghislaine Maxwell’s trial) is an example of rats in a cage.

The shocks being administered are anything but accidental:

Student debt growing a trillion dollars in the past decade, while being the only non-dischargeable form of debt in bankruptcy court, is shocking.

The Federal Reserve printing up and expanding the nation’s money supply by 300% in the past 2 years is shocking.

Inflation exploding to levels not seen since the 1970’s is shocking.

The wealthy becoming grotesquely more wealthy and powerful as a result of the Fed’s reckless printing is shocking.

Insects disappearing so comprehensively and suddenly is shocking.

The list of shocks is a mile long and ten feet deep. Given that, it’s not at all surprising that people are turning on each other. But it’s a shame.

Their ire really ought to be directed at the architects of the shocks. There are people in power who are both conscious of this dynamic and actively engineering more shocks simply so that people remain befuddled and harmlessly fighting amongst each other. Well, harmless to the powerful, that is.

If we do not recognize this and turn the righteous anger towards the rightful targets, our lives will continue to erode and, eventually, this all devolves into a major social, political, economic, and ecological storm.

twain choice.jpg

So what is the alternative?
Here's a great alternate approach...(30 min)

In 1994 a group of seven friends began living and farming together after taking over an 80-acre, 1974 organic farm 70 miles north of San Francisco that had been left to decay. They set up an intentional community around farming and wildlife restoration, as well as water management and permaculture, raising their families & learning by doing during a long-term restoration process that will hit its 50 Anniversary soon.

One of the first actions taken in the founding of the Sowing Circle community was an agreement made by all partners that each owner’s “share” in the company that owns the land would not be linked to the land’s market value.

The group worked with the previous landowner to create the first Organic Agricultural Easement in the country which protects in perpetuity the organic gardens and orchards from any development or any use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides.

Today their Occidental Arts & Ecology Center (OAEC) is one of California’s oldest organic farms and their Sowing Circle one of its most-enduring intentional communities. At the start, they wanted to put to practice their ideas of permaculture, water management, and wildlife restoration.

The idea was to live like the land-based communities that predated them- like the Southern Pomo and Coast Miwok-, much like an old-growth forest. “Until recently, the majority of human settlement has functioned much like an old-growth forest,” writes OAEC kitchen manager Olivia Rathbone. “Humans... have long had the skills and knowledge to actually increase the biological carrying capacity of the land rather than deplete it, to render the concept of 'waste' obsolete.”

Today, their kitchen waste is composted, either directly or via their chickens. Their human waste is sent through one of three commercial-grade composting toilet systems - one of which involves mycelium - and which are being monitored by the county and state as testing grounds for more widespread use. Tree clippings (for fire management) become mulch. Their greywater is recycled in the gardens and even their seeds are saved in a very extensive heirloom seed library.

There’s a long history of land-based communities here, after the Southern Pomo and Coast Miwok cane Italian and Portuguese homesteaders in the late 1800’s and finally, from 1974 through 1990 the Farallones Institute established their Rural Center here (a counterpoint to their Integral Urban House in Berkeley) where scientists, designers, and horticulturists lived together and experimented around appropriate technology and sustainable design. Their cluster of 5 300-square-foot passive solar cabins (financed through the state’s Office of Appropriate Technology in the seventies) called “Solar Suburbia” is still the main residential cluster, though they have been enlarged to 700 to 900 square feet.

Brock Dolman moved here in 1994 as one of the seven founding friends of the Sowing Circle. His advice to those hoping to start their own intentional community or permaculture practice: listen to your predecessors rather than trying to follow trends or recipes for design. “It’s really taking our cues from what is the genius of nature that has been in that place for eons and eons and eons.

It has adapted to the conditions: temperature, moisture, soil, availability, slopes, aspects, the traditional ecological knowledge of indigenous people's interacting with that landscape over time. Why we would disregard those clues and impose an idea that we happen to make up because we think we have a better idea. I think our sense is that that's just human hubris and folly."

https://oaec.org/

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I want to just feature these two perspectives today....the way we're controlled and manipulated to oppose one another, and a way to create communities that are harmonious with our fellow humans and our planet. The choice is obvious to me. Treasure every day. It is a gift. They even call it "the present".

This tread is open...

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Lookout's picture

The Department of Homeland Security, presumably at the direction of the Biden administration, has issued a new terrorist warning surrounding the extraordinarily dangerous threat posed by anyone questioning or “spreading misinformation” about the government’s COVID response. Such prospective terrorists may even be receiving aid and comfort from nefarious international sources, or so the warning would have us believe.

Jimmy and comedian Kurt Metzger light into the Biden administration for all but declaring free speech a terrorist threat.

5 min
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=csjNAZpqrmo]

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“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”

Thanks Lookout, you are so damned cheery all the time is there anything that makes you grumpy? lol Please do go on and send sweet potatoes, even if I have to leave here it will take thirty days or so. Maybe sixty days? I don't know. Thanks.

I love that map of the watershed! Sonoma has private land owners, and we have non-profit charities and their CEOs, and that's it. There is no Public nothing built anywhere in Sonoma County, or California it's all sub-contracts as far as the eye can see. I have wasted my life. lol Oh well.

This map was compiled and printed in collaboration with resident David Berman, the Sonoma Ecology Center, Russian Riverkeepers, Russian River Watershed Association, Sonoma Water, 34 North Cartography and the Environmental Funding Committee.

VoA earworm goes here. Volunteers of America.

What the OAEC is doing was hardly legal for decades and now they are under county and state supervision, that's how I read between those lines. They are a Sonoma Water resource, downstream from Cloverdale.

https://www.sonomawater.org/ocsd

About the District
Began Operation: 1950
Service area: 55 acres
Service recipients: 272 Equivalent Single-Family Dwelling
Treatment level: Secondary
Design capacity: 50,000 gallons per day (average daily dry weather flow)
Discharge: Between May 15 and September 30 the recycled water is irrigated on private property. Between October 1 and May 14 recycled water is discharged into Dutch Bill Creek.
Board of Directors: Sonoma Water's Board of Directors act as the District's Board.

Cloverdale is not part of Sonoma Water. All of us, and Sonoma Water should not even exist here, in my opinion. There are 160k too many people. I'd rather see fishes. Remove all the dams.

If there is any banker involved with the Occidental Arts & Ecology Center, and there most certainly is, then their time is short and they will not be allowed to thrive much longer. Every groovy project ever started in Sonoma County has been destroyed, and it is always a banker that destroys it. Every person either sells out, or goes bankrupt. That's the system, through my proximity filter. Nothing lasts forever. Except the good old boys running the permits department. Romania, California. heh

The house next door has been for sale since my neighbor took early retirement from Sonoma Water and moved to Idaho. I can't say why he took early retirement in this essay because there is a separate essay here for that kind of talk. bzzt

Peace and Love

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Lookout's picture

@eyo

I think much of that comes from being in such a natural, quiet, clean place here in the holler. Every day I do things and can see what I've accomplished...quite different from teaching.

I do get frustrated about many things like our endless push for more war, the destruction of the biosphere, the nature of our punitive prison state, and so on. Like the serenity prayer... grant me the serenity
To accept the things I cannot change;
Courage to change the things I can;
And wisdom to know the difference

I try to focus on what I can do.

I also love maps. I used to spend lots of on line time in the map library at UA and UGA,
https://maplibrary.ua.edu/ and https://guides.libs.uga.edu/maps/maps_georgia
The historical maps are really interesting to me.

Will send you a box of taters like last time sometime next week.

All the best!

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“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”

I found this paper from 1998 recently. It is all over the internets if you search that title, took me twenty years to find it. I wish I had one, a good mind firewall of my own. Takes a lot of practice.

Recommended Citation
Timothy L. Thomas, "The Mind Has No Firewall," Parameters 28, no. 1 (1998), https://press.armywarcollege.edu/parameters/vol28/iss1/12

"It is completely clear that the state which is first to create such weapons will achieve incomparable superiority." -- Major I. Chernishev, Russian army

The human body, much like a computer, contains myriad data processors. They include, but are not limited to, the chemical-electrical activity of the brain, heart, and peripheral nervous system, the signals sent from the cortex region of the brain to other parts of our body, the tiny hair cells in the inner ear that process auditory signals, and the light- sensitive retina and cornea of the eye that process visual activity.[2] We are on the threshold of an era in which these data processors of the human body may be manipulated or debilitated. Examples of unplanned attacks on the body's data-processing capability are well-documented. Strobe lights have been known to cause epileptic seizures. Not long ago in Japan, children watching television cartoons were subjected to pulsating lights that caused seizures in some and made others very sick.

Defending friendly and targeting adversary data-processing capabilities of the body appears to be an area of weakness in the US approach to information warfare theory, a theory oriented heavily toward systems data-processing and designed to attain information dominance on the battlefield. Or so it would appear from information in the open, unclassified press. This US shortcoming may be a serious one, since the capabilities to alter the data- processing systems of the body already exist. A recent edition of U.S. News and World Report highlighted several of these "wonder weapons" (acoustics, microwaves, lasers) and noted that scientists are "searching the electromagnetic and sonic spectrums for wavelengths that can affect human behavior."[3] A recent Russian military article offered a slightly different slant to the problem, declaring that "humanity stands on the brink of a psychotronic war" with the mind and body as the focus. That article discussed Russian and international attempts to control the psycho-physical condition of man and his decisionmaking processes by the use of VHF-generators, "noiseless cassettes," and other technologies.

An entirely new arsenal of weapons, based on devices designed to introduce subliminal messages or to alter the body's psychological and data-processing capabilities, might be used to incapacitate individuals. These weapons aim to control or alter the psyche, or to attack the various sensory and data-processing systems of the human organism. In both cases, the goal is to confuse or destroy the signals that normally keep the body in equilibrium.

Sounds kind of like that Cuban mind weapon. pew pew pew! I am not winning this war, I surrender.

Peace and Love
praise bob
slackware15dot0.jpg

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enhydra lutris's picture

@eyo

be well and have a good one.

tux-1

Ubuntu 20.04.3 LTS
GNOME 3.36.8

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That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --

enhydra lutris's picture

@enhydra lutris

Basic RGB

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That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --

@enhydra lutris hi and thanks. I am because we are, that is ubuntu. RIP Desmond Tutu. Peace and Love

I remember nonameyet.org, before the gnome marketing hackers arrived at ubuntu, were you there then? Remember all those free DVDs? /aol

Also too, that paper that took me twenty years to find? I found it via zerohedge, who was reporting on an article by Ben Norton at the Grayzone.
https://thegrayzone.com/2021/10/08/nato-cognitive-warfare-brain/

I saved the whole text to my hard drive and promptly forgot. doh Here's and excerpt:

The Ottawa Citizen reported this September that the Canadian military’s Joint Operations Command took advantage of the Covid-19 pandemic to wage an information war against its own domestic population, testing out propaganda tactics on Canadian civilians.

Internal NATO-sponsored reports suggest that this disclosure is just scratching the surface of a wave of new unconventional warfare techniques that Western militaries are employing around the world.

Twice each year, NATO holds a “pitch-style event” that it brand as an “Innovation Challenge.” These campaigns – one hosted in the Spring and the other in the Fall, by alternating member states – call on private companies, organizations, and researchers to help develop new tactics and technologies for the military alliance.

In the wrong essay again? I am because we are. heh

shields up!

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snoopydawg's picture

Clinton campaign paid tech firm to link Trump to Russia

A legal motion makes bombshell allegations about IT firm’s clandestine spying activities on Trump White House

Lawyers working for Hillary Clinton's 2016 presidential campaign paid an IT firm to “infiltrate” servers at Trump Tower and the White House in order to establish a “narrative” that would link Donald Trump to Russia, an explosive new legal filing alleges.

The legal motion, filed in a District of Columbia court on Friday by a Justice Department (DOJ) prosecutor investigating the origins of the FBI’s ‘Russiagate’ probe, relates to potential conflicts of interest by former Clinton campaign lawyer Michael Sussmann. Sussmann has previously pleaded not guilty to a one-count charge of lying to federal agents.

Two months before the 2016 election, Sussmann, a partner at Perkins Coie, the law firm that represented the Democrats and Clinton’s campaign, allegedly told the FBI he was not working on behalf of Clinton when he presented the agency with supposedly incriminating documents.

In the filing, Special Counsel John Durham alleges that Sussmann was working on behalf of the Clinton campaign and an unnamed “technology executive” at a US tech firm when he submitted “purported data” and “white papers” to then-FBI General Counsel James Baker in September 2016. They apparently pointed to a “covert communications channel” between the Trump Organization and Russia-based Alfa Bank (identified as “Russian Bank-1”).

Then, in 2017, Sussmann apparently used this information to compile “an updated set of allegations” about Trump’s supposed Russian ties – noting “suspicious DNS lookups” and “Russian-made wireless phones” – to another US government agency, the motion states. Durham said he found “no support for these allegations” and added that some of the lookups occurred as early as 2014 during the Obama administration.

There sure looks like there is enough smoke to call this a fire, but what comes from it remains to be seen. We’ve watched powerful people breaking the law our whole life only to see nothing happen to them. From what I read years ago it sure looks like people from Obama’s administration were involved in nefarious schemes that could have made watergate seem like child’s play.

On a side note Hillary is trolling us with hats saying, but her emails. She knows she got away with breaking the law. The only reason she wasn’t prosecuted for them was no one wanted to. Strzok changed the wording of the charges to a lesser charge or she could have been charged under the espionage act. I’ve forgotten all the words used. Then there was her massive pay to play while she was Secretary of State that I don’t believe was ever investigated. I doubt if there is a smoking gun that ties Hillary or Obama into the Russia Gate saga only the small fry will get charged. Trump will also walk away from everything he’s been accused of doing. Anything Mueller found against him has expired. But since Russia Gate was made up I don’t see how he could have been charged with anything. Oh what a tangled web..

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Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.

Lookout's picture

@snoopydawg

between the DNC and CIA for some time. As you know, the Steele dossier used to prosecute Trump was also a DNC funded piece of propaganda.
https://nypost.com/2021/11/05/inside-the-clinton-dossier-and-the-con-beh...

Have you seen that Obummer's parents had CIA connections? https://covertactionmagazine.com/2021/10/01/a-company-family-the-untold-...

And of course the Bushies had long family connections to the CIA.

The thing that became obvious to me during Bernie's 2016 run was how the DNC cheated Bernie...and not a peep out of the MSM even though the $hill's emails clearly indicate the fix. I don't think she eats children, but I wouldn't be too surprised. Bad as Trump was, I think she would have been worse...even more of a warmonger than Brandon.

Thanks for the tweets!

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“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”

zed2's picture

@Lookout Bernie was part of a scheme to hide the GATS agreement and make Democats think that some kind of progressive agenda that breaks all kinds of neoliberal doxa could or might happen, if only Bernie and more Dems were voted for and nothing else needed to happen. Which is a total fabrication. In other words, it was all a fake. Like single payer - heres proof its not allowed to the US here.

Its not allowed because we made commitments in our Specific Committments both on financial; services and health care. So we cant limit other countries activities here in any way which would negate our committments to them.

In short that business is already promised to others.

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Lookout's picture

@zed2

When he rolled over again to Obombers pressure.

Additionally he hasn't been vocal about all our wars other than Iraq. I suspect there's a reason...
https://military.einnews.com/category/weapon-manufacturers/vermont

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“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”

snoopydawg's picture

But jake has been saying that for over 3 months.

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ggersh's picture

@snoopydawg w/Russia is a good day. I'm just not sure how many of those days are left.

It's a good thing that Zelensky actually wants proof

https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/surreal-plot-twist-ukraines-presi...

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I never knew that the term "Never Again" only pertained to
those born Jewish

"Antisemite used to be someone who didn't like Jews
now it's someone who Jews don't like"

Heard from Margaret Kimberley

@ggersh standing with him

PROOF.

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NYCVG

@NYCVG

He is stuck between the US neocons in the government, the right wing Ukrainian Nazis and those who see that this is simply a "Wag the Dog' exercise.

He is in a no win situation.

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Lookout's picture

@humphrey

I'm thinking he was a comedian that was accidentally elected? Some comedy in which he's acting now.
https://www.universalpersonality.com/volodymyr-zelensky-the-comedian-tur...

Mr. Zelensky was a comic whose TV present, ‘Servant of the Folks’, revolved round a faculty instructor who turns into President. He rode the recognition of his comedy present to turn into a presidential candidate. As an outsider with no political observe document or get together affiliation, he ran on a plank of imprecise populism. His election marketing campaign was nearly totally on-line — with no rallies, speeches, press conferences or journey throughout the nation. However Ukrainians, many projecting the picture of his tv persona onto his political self, voted to make him President in 2019, preferring him to the incumbent Petro Poroshenko, who turned recognized with the corrupt oligarchic elite.

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“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”

Joe appear to be strong.

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Lookout's picture

@humphrey

but what a failed policy. The MIC will be happy, but not the people.

Wild that Tucker has become the only MSM antiwar voice, and Tulsi the only dim...
5 min
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y5JqOmkanLw]

I've been thinking 1984 doublespeak has become reality...
war is peace_8.jpg

and black is white, up is down, right is left...

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“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”

@Lookout What are her plans for the future? Does anybody know?

An interview with Mr. Rogan would be something I am eager to see.

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NYCVG

Lookout's picture

@NYCVG

https://www.tulsigabbard.com/

I wish her well. Like us all she's not perfect, but she's damn sight better than any we got.

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“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”

ggersh's picture

@humphrey https://www.zerohedge.com/political/something-isnt-right-38-lawmakers-de...

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I never knew that the term "Never Again" only pertained to
those born Jewish

"Antisemite used to be someone who didn't like Jews
now it's someone who Jews don't like"

Heard from Margaret Kimberley

Lookout's picture

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“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”

zed2's picture

@Lookout

Biological clock

He and the other Old Warriors of his generation in government positions should retire

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snoopydawg's picture

@humphrey

MoA says this has been going on since October. Long time for imminent.

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Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.

@snoopydawg It seems never ending but yikes! this long.

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NYCVG

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Lookout's picture

@humphrey

is very blatant. But what to do? Congress has abdicated their duty to declare war. Joementia can just start WWIII without oversight. That is scary.

Thanks for the tweets.

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“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”

zed2's picture

@Lookout

Russia has a doomsday device which would trigger automatically. It is supposed to destroy all life on Earth. Like in Dr. STrangelove. All humanity would die except for the ultra-rich people who built and occupy their underground bunkers in New Zealand.

video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gETg9iaifYE

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Lookout's picture

@zed2

living with a demented president....and a puppet of the corporate oligarchs.

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“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”

snoopydawg's picture

@humphrey

Zelensky keeps saying that he sees no sign of Russia invading anytime soon either, but boy are the shitlibs up in arms over Putin being naughty. 5 years of Russia Russia has warped their minds.

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snoopydawg's picture

@snoopydawg

It’s very, very good.

https://thesaker.is/americas-real-adversaries-are-its-european-and-other...

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NYCVG

enhydra lutris's picture

bushy-tailed tree rat will never get the scrubbie's peanuts. Some lesson there about dinosaurs and mammals and the providence of errant asteroids.

be well and have a good one

edit: changed or to of

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That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --

Lookout's picture

@enhydra lutris
Scrubbie had peanuts. What a goober.

I have a small collection of goober related items because I always roast peanuts for the festivals and over the years folks have given me an interesting collection. We often shoot peanut shells like paper footballs at these gatherings...an event known as goober thumping....and we've even had goober shell regattas during rainstorms where we race shells in the runoff. We dub ourselves the society of the easily amused.

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“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”

enhydra lutris's picture

@Lookout

(we've got a pair) out away from anything the bushy tailed tree rat can launch from where I feed the Scrubbies unsalted in shell peanuts every morning. The tree rat covets them but the exposed clime makes that out of the question. I was discussing this with a local wildlife expert who said that in most situations tree rat is no match for jay under any conditions.

Glad you can find such inexpensive amusement tht is also minimally strenuous.

be well and have a good one

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That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --

zed2's picture

Maybe a few hundred miles north of there might work. But its very cold and wet up these lots of the year, so ones heating and energy bills might be astronomical, I hear they are going up fast now.

The idea of co-ops is a good one and won that works financially for many people, but the government isnt allowed to help make anything like that happen economically in a great many service sectors we've committed to due to GATS Article XVI. Biden's baby, TISA, is much worse, as it commits in the same way to all service sectors and modes of supply in a similar way by default, (and its irreversible) unless a country carves them out, in advance, formally in writing.. It even applies by default to all service sectors including ones that have not been invented or even thought of yet.

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Lookout's picture

@zed2

but you can afford land, property tax is low, and water is plentiful.

Tolerance required.

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“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”

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about Trade Routes and Maps. This is in answer to Snoopydawg's posting. I must have forgotten to hit reply.

Miss Huether, my fifth grade teacher, taught me that and it has served me well.

We spent the entire 5th grade year doing in what was then called Social Studies. We mapped out every country and which natural resources that country possessed.

Then we learned about Trade over Water. Canals.

Hudson's theory is right and a timely reminder of a sensible way to look at the news.

Also a reminder that schools may not be teaching as much that is useful as they did a long time ago.

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NYCVG

Lookout's picture

@NYCVG

kids to looks at evidence and analyze what they see.

In fact they pressure you not to do so. Back when the town where I taught was the "sock mill capitol" of the world, my line was - "all you're try to do is provide fodder for the mills."

And I was right. But now there's not even that. At the time the largest single employer in town was an Earthgrains bakery....a union shop. where they baked the worlds largest cake at the time. Then Sarah Lee bought them out and shut down the (union shop decent jobs) bakery. Speaks volumes to how the corporate oligarchy works. It gets sadder as even the sock mills leave town offshoring to first to Central America and then China, but still run by the same families.

It is all about profit. It is what it is.

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snoopydawg's picture

@NYCVG

He’s so knowledgeable about so many topics he’s wonderful to read. I vaguely remember learning about trade routes in school too. It sure makes sense that we are still trying to make countries buying our crap instead of going with superior products. But our crap of late are weapons of mayhem and war and fossil fuels that are destroying the planet. Yippee America is #1. It seems that Ukraine has screwed themselves by getting cut off from Russia’s gas and transporting it. And how long will Germany pay higher prices for it from us? And screw their people?

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Lookout's picture

@humphrey

thanks for providing even more evidence of our warmongering.

The fact that the Hunter Biden and Kerry's associate Devon Archer story on the BoD of Barisma has been amazingly suppressed speaks volumes.

The US set up the Ukrainian coup to oust the socialist pro-Russian gov't and install a fascist replacement to promote NATO. So which side are we on? The wrong one!

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“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”

Lookout's picture

I'll close tonight with what I'm remembering as the opening of the book 1984...where they are going to put a starving rat in a cage over the head of Winston...

O'Brien picked up the cage and brought it across to the nearer table. He set it down carefully on the baize cloth. Winston could hear the blood singing in his ears. He had the feeling of sitting in utter loneliness. He was in the middle of a great empty plain, a flat desert drenched with sunlight, across which all sounds came to him out of immense distances. Yet the cage with the rats was not two metres away from him. They were enormous rats. They were at the age when a rat's muzzle grows blunt and fierce and his fur brown instead of grey.

'The rat,' said O'Brien, still addressing his invisible audience, 'although a rodent, is carnivorous. You are aware of that. You will have heard of the things that happen in the poor quarters of this town. In some streets a woman dare not leave her baby alone in the house, even for five minutes. The rats are certain to attack it. Within quite a small time they will strip it to the bones. They also attack sick or dying people. They show astonishing intelligence in knowing when a human being is helpless.'

There was an outburst of squeals from the cage. It seemed to reach Winston from far away. The rats were fighting; they were trying to get at each other through the partition. He heard also a deep groan of despair. That, too, seemed to come from outside himself.

O'Brien picked up the cage, and, as he did so, pressed something in it. There was a sharp click. Winston made a frantic effort to tear himself loose from the chair. It was hopeless; every part of him, even his head, was held immovably. O'Brien moved the cage nearer. It was less than a metre from Winston's face.

'I have pressed the first lever,' said O'Brien. 'You understand the construction of this cage. The mask will fit over your head, leaving no exit. When I press this other lever, the door of the cage will slide up. These starving brutes will shoot out of it like bullets. Have you ever seen a rat leap through the air? They will leap on to your face and bore straight into it. Sometimes they attack the eyes first. Sometimes they burrow through the cheeks and devour the tongue.'

The cage was nearer; it was closing in. Winston heard a succession of shrill cries which appeared to be occurring in the air above his head. But he fought furiously against his panic. To think, to think, even with a split second left -- to think was the only hope. Suddenly the foul musty odour of the brutes struck his nostrils. There was a violent convulsion of nausea inside him, and he almost lost consciousness. Everything had gone black. For an instant he was insane, a screaming animal. Yet he came out of the blackness clutching an idea. There was one and only one way to save himself. He must interpose another human being, the body of another human being, between himself and the rats.

http://www.george-orwell.org/1984/21.html

eyo accused me of always being cheery...and I am mostly, but I also see...and I can't unsee.

Be of good heart and believe in one another. It's all we got!

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“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”