Dog Days

According to the National Weather Service: The “dog days of summer” is a phrase used to describe the hot and humid days of summer. It can be traced back thousands of years to the days of the Roman Empire. It refers to the dates from July 3 through August 11, which is 20 days prior and 20 days after the star Sirius rises and falls in conjunction with the sun. Sirius was known as the “Dog Star,” because it is the brightest star in the constellation Canis Major (Large Dog).

The name Sirius comes from an ancient Greek word for “scorching” or “glowing.” Plus, Sirius is the brightest star visible from Earth, and it’s visible from both hemispheres. Also, it’s the brightest star in the evening sky during the Northern Hemisphere winter... Sirius is behind the sun as seen from Earth during the Northern Hemisphere summer. Then, in late summer, it appears in the east before sunrise, near the sun in our sky. ... And then, it traveled across the sky with the sun all day. Thus, early stargazers might have imagined a double-whammy from Sirius and the sun caused the hot weather.

I find it curious they honored Julius (July) and Augusta (August) Caesar with these months. I guess they thought they were hot stuff. It may be from my Alabama perspective...these are the hot challenging months in this clime and dog days seem a good descriptor. It is also interesting that the upcoming months named Sept.(seven), Oct. (eight), Nove (nine), and Dec (ten) which infers that the ancient world recognized the start of the year in March. Roman writers credited this calendar to Romulus, their legendary first king and culture hero.

When Julius Caesar became pontifex maximus, he reformed the Roman calendar so that the 12 months were based on Earth’s revolutions around the Sun. It was a solar calendar as we have today. January and February were moved to the front of the year, and leap years were introduced to keep the calendar year lined up with the solar year.
The winter months (January and February) remained a time of reflection, peace, new beginnings, and purification. After Caesar’s death, the month Quintilis was renamed July in honor of Julius Caesar in 44 BC and, later, Sextilis was renamed August in honor of Roman Emperor Augustus in 8 BC.
Of course, all the renaming and reorganizing meant that some of the months’ names no longer agreed with their position in the calendar

When are the cat days? Oh yeah, every day is cat day.

Oops 2023, how time slips away...

So much for dog days and the calendar, let's look at some news!

So the big news of the week, might be the geriatric leadership of America. We saw Son of a Mitch freeze during his press conference, Feinstein forget how to vote (5 min), and Biden constantly lost and disoriented (1 min)....not to mention Pelosi's word salad talents (50 sec). No wonder the empire is in decline.

Glenn takes on the story (18 min)

This is sad.

Another take away this week is the lawfare being waged. Trump got several more indictments for having classified documents (like Biden), as the Biden crime family has been revealed to have received through a multitude of shell companies several million dollars (of bribes?).
Robert Barnes explains from a legal point of view...

So here in the US we have an incapacitated leadership class, a broke legal system used to bring down the opposition, and a media megaphone that cheers it all on providing cover for some and attacking others...
a decade old John Pilger Documentary (90 min)

John Pilger's film is a powerful and timely investigation into the media's role in war. The War You Don't See traces the history of 'embedded' and independent reporting from the carnage of World War I to the destruction of Hiroshima, and from the invasion of Vietnam to the war in Afghanistan. As weapons and propaganda are ever more sophisticated, the very nature of war has developed into an 'electronic battlefield'. But who is the real enemy today?

It isn't just war that the media pushes. How about their COVID narrative? They are still suppressing and distorting that story...
Medical Journal PULLS Study Showing COVID Vaxx Death Connection! (11 min)

Prestigious British medical journal The Lancet recently published — but then almost immediately pulled — a study authored by Peter McCullough and others revealing autopsy results showing deaths caused by the COVID vaccine. The study had not been peer reviewed but that was not the reason given for the study being excised from The Lancet’s pages.

According to Dr John in his review of a Swiss study, one in 35 experience myocardial injury after COVID-19 mRNA-1273 Booster Vaccination. Of the 22 cases with mRNA-1273 vaccine-associated myocardial injury, twenty cases occurred in women and only two in men.

Perhaps this might explain the wide spread excess deaths, yet no debate is allowed.
Excess deaths, lack of debate (17 min)

Matt Taibbi discusses how the so called "left" lost its mind (57 min). The journalist talks Twitter Files, the end of the anti-government left, Donald Trump, and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. To my mind the left, left long ago. Remaining are only corporatists.

Caity suggests It’s Not The Really Blatant Propaganda That Gets You. “The most effective propaganda is the subtlest” is a phrase you should try to remember, because it’s so very true.

In the US it seems peace is a dirty word... what about our profits?

For the five years from 2017 to 2021, the U.S. accounted for 39 percent of major arms deliveries worldwide, over twice what Russia transferred and nearly 10 times what China sent to its weapons clients. In addition, the U.S. had far more customers – 103 nations, or more than half of the member states of the United Nations.

How The West Blew Up Peace In Ukraine. Medea Benjamin explains what she learned researching the history of Ukraine and Russia. Medea also went on a trip to Ukraine to investigate further.

Sadly this isn't the end game. TPTB have their eyes on China...(59 min)

Political economists Radhika Desai and Michael Hudson are joined by geopolitical analyst Pepe Escobar to discuss how NATO has shifted from its proxy war against Russia in Ukraine to targeting China in the Pacific.

The Washington Post invents some crude reasoning to explain a new aggressive anti-China move by the Biden administration. The White House has decided it will bar Hong Kong’s top government official from attending a major economic summit in the United States this fall, according to three U.S. officials familiar with the matter, in the latest test of President Biden’s bid to reset relations with China.

It may be that economic matters will impact their plans. That is my hope...
S-Curve Rejection of US Dollar Is Here NOW (27 min)

With over 41 nations around the world now looking to join BRICS and seeking alternatives to the U.S. dollar, the pace of change is faster than ever. We could very well be witnessing the early stages of a new monetary shift that will impact everyone on the planet.

The Russia Africa conference last week also tells a story of lost hegemony.

(10 min but there's more to his walk through Moscow if you want to watch the entire 38 min clip)

Blue Moon (original Al Bowlly, 1936)

We started with a celestial subject, let's end with one too.
After a Super Sturgeon Moon on August 1, a Super Blue Moon will shine brightly in the night sky on August 30/31, 2023... the second Full Moon in August. And no, it will not turn blue. The full Moon in August is known as the sturgeon Moon because it happens in the northern hemisphere when sturgeon fish were supposedly abundant in the United States' Great Lakes and Lake Champlain.
The popular definition of the Blue Moon, that of the second Full Moon in a month, owes its existence to a misinterpretation originally made by amateur astronomer James Hugh Pruett (1886–1955) in a 1946 edition of Sky & Telescope magazine. The error took on a life of its own and spread around as fact. It even found its way into the answers of the 1986 version of the board game Trivial Pursuit! Today, this definition is considered a second definition of the Blue Moon rather than a mistake. Some believe that the term “blue moon” meaning something rare may have originated from when smoke and ashes after a volcanic eruption turned the Moon blue. Others trace the term's origin to over 400 years ago—folklorist Philip Hiscock has suggested that invoking the Blue Moon once meant that something was absurd and would never happen.
So what's a super moon?
Basically, a supermoon is when the full Moon appears larger than usual. This happens roughly once a year when the full Moon falls near the point where the Moon is closest in its orbit to Earth. The Moon’s 27-day orbit around the Earth is not perfectly circular. Its distance to Earth varies between 363,300 and 405,500 kilometers (226,000 and 253,000 miles). When the Moon is at its closest point to Earth, it appears up to 14% bigger and 30% brighter to observers on Earth. Because the Moon's closest point lasts for a while, we'll usually get a couple of supermoons in a row although they won't look the exact same.

The Moon's Changing Size... The Moon's 27-day orbit around the Earth is not perfectly circular, so its apparent size in the night sky varies. NASA's LandSat 8 spacecraft captured the left image in December 2013 when the Moon was near its closest point to Earth. LandSat 8 captured the right image in July 2014 when the Moon was near its farthest point from Earth.Image: NASA / USGS

Bill Monroe & the Bluegrass Boys - Blue Moon of Kentucky