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People don't understand how dangerous the Iran war actually is and the dangers it both possesses and magnifies.

We are on the cusp of a massive economic disruption. Iran is thrusting itself into world power. We are bankrupting ourselves

People need to understand that our economy, our way of life relies on our government's ability to borrow money.

That relies on the dollar being the world's currency and the bargain we have made with most of the world, where we provide defense and they provide economic support including and most importantly buying our debt.

That is collapsing between Piggy's insane tariff policies, threats against allies and the utter embarrassment that the Iran war is.

The Iran war has shown, with indisputable evidence that America no longer has the military capability to protect our interests.

that is a massive sea change.

We can no longer project power.

Our bases, which until last winter were symbols of America's ability to project power wherever we chose, our now albatrosses, targets for cheap drones and missiles

Despite spending trillions our military is showing itself completely and utterly unprepared for modern warfare. Our enemies and allies are taking notes

And we have a Sec. of Def obsessed with testosterone, DEI and beards and NOT transforming the military to what it needs to be-securing the resources (i.e. rare earth metals) and developing weapons and strategies to fight this new war.

Our free market capitalist society is perfectly structured to cause our demise. Our military does not serve the nation's interest, but is driven by profits from a few industries. Their incentive is not to protect America but to generate profits, which means more complicated and expensive weapon systems. Systems which the Iran war have shown to be both useless and too little and all our country can do is double down on those systems, even though we are at China's whim on whether they will allow America to buy sufficient resources to build these systems.

So, with an unwinnable war, with a world wide oil market now controlled, in large part by a nation we are at war with, prices are skyrocketing. the markets are beginning to see this and long term rates are rising and there is NO PLAN to reverse that trend. There is no plan to lower global prices, which means energy and fertilizer prices will continue to rise, meaning the interest rates will rise because of the uncertainty of this economic hit. And as that interest rate increase so does our debt and we are quickly approaching a time when our debt will not be purchased, simply not purchased

I think most of the world is afraid of that happening and are buying it but soon it will become unsustainable.

And remember, Piggy has lost this war, there is NOTHING we can do to change that fact and after the election he will accelerate the war, he is holding off now to avoid yet another price shock before the election. But rest assured between the election and January the war will get really hot and I think there is a very good chance he uses a nuke or at least tries to. There are a host of reasons why he would during that time period.

But even with out a nuke, prices will continue to be out of our control, they are subject to Iran's control of the strait. the world will adjust to that toll, but Piggy needs to surrender, which he won't so the uncertainty will continue.

Related ...

NATO condemns Russian 'nuclear rhetoric' after Kaliningrad threat
www.bssnews.net

... NATO on Tuesday condemned "irresponsible nuclear rhetoric" by Russia, after Moscow warned it would "deploy its entire arsenal" if the alliance threatens its exclave Kaliningrad.

"I can confirm that Russia sent a non-paper to NATO and that we have sent a response, noting that NATO is a defensive Alliance and none of our activities or exercises pose a risk to any part of Russia," NATO spokeswoman Allison Hart said.

"We strongly denounce the threat of force, including any irresponsible nuclear rhetoric. We call on Russia to end its unprovoked war in Ukraine."

The NATO statement came after Russia's embassy in Belgium said it had contacted the alliance to complain about "the provocative statements and actions of the North Atlantic Alliance's leadership and NATO member states with respect to the Kaliningrad Region".

"We have warned that the aforementioned reckless and irresponsible course of action sharply increases the risks of a direct armed conflict with our country," the embassy said in a statement released Monday.

"We have emphasised that Russia possesses the necessary means to repel any potential aggression and is prepared to deploy its entire arsenal to defend its territory should NATO countries attempt to isolate the Kaliningrad region from the rest of our country."

The warning from Moscow came as NATO accused the Kremlin of stepping up a campaign of sabotage and interference against Ukraine's backers to try to put them off supporting Kyiv. ...


I love Todd, and even saw him in concert a month ago in Louisville. He sounded better than ever, performing songs from throughout his long career, and his band was excellent. The crowd was mostly older people, but with a sizable number of younger folks, and even black folks, in attendance.

But I disagree with the gist of his comments here about Taylor Swife. While I'm no big fan, I hardly think she ruined music. I even like a couple of her songs. She's just a continuation of the "teenybopper" tradition that has always been present in pop music. Anybody remember Neil Sedaka? The Osmonds? Hell, I even love a couple of Madonna songs. I'd be interested in getting into a deeper conversation with Todd about this, because I have a feeling he's not as hostile about Taylor as he might sound here. Taylor's just the obvious target.

There's no question that music fans have largely moved away from what we know as rock 'n' roll, or the big tent that included rock 'n' roll, but it's complicated. Tastes change. Technology changes. The growing role of gaming, movies and streaming cannot be denied.

This evolution away from rock as the driving force behind popular music has been happening since the early to mid-1970s, when listeners discovered FM radio and the Top 40 AM stations lost their position as the primary testing ground for new hitmakers. FM's higher-quality stereophonic signal opened the floodgates to a wide range of musical styles, and it was great in the beginning as deejays threw everything against the wall. That killed off AM, and even FM was soon being divided up into narrow musical niches by the suits at the big broadcast conglomerates. Many one-time freeform stations became boring AOR stations playing the same 100 arena rock songs released between the late 1960s and the early 1980s. Other than public radio and community radio, the airwaves gradually became mostly a vast wasteland. And with satellite radio and streaming services at one's fingertips, I doubt radio will ever return to its glory days.

One thing I will say emphatically is that there is no shortage of creative, engaging rock music (and soul and funk and folk and country) to be found today. The musical choices are every bit as beguiling as what we love and remember from our youth (pick your favorite decade); you just have to dig a little deeper and keep your mind open. My Spotify playlist for 2026 favorites is up to around 160 songs so far, mostly artists who aren't well known, in every genre you can think of. Don't give up, and don't worry about what Todd says! :)

I have been wrong before but I still have faith in the American People to, after trying every else, they will finally vote to do the right thing. As for them refusing to accept the results of the mid term elections or refusing to seat the elected representatives. I hope they do. That would be a perfect storm.
But, we'll see.

#28 | Posted by donnerboy

I am sorry Donner but you are wrong soo so wrong. Americans for the past 46 years have chosen poorly time and time again. the fact we have lasted this long is due to the underlying strength of our country following WW2, of the inherent strength of a multi-cultural democracy

But that is over, we are dying as a country because the regressive conservative movement has been allowed to fester for too long. they have spent decades preparing for this moment and their revolution is nearly complete. We are one significant tragedy away from the complete overthrow of democracy and the institution of a monarchal style leadership.

People don't understand that these people, fundamentally, do not believe in equality, do not believe in democracy, they are supremacists. they believe, to their core, that the common man should be ruled by an elite, that democracy is anathema to the human condition.

They have spent decades preparing the ground for this moment when all of the progress of the past 175 years can be thrown out. This is what they want. The majority of these magat scum are ignorant immoral ----- lead by evil oligarchs.

And the countervailing forces are too weak to do anything about it. We should have been demanding Piggys impeachment, we should have had general strikes across the land for weeks on end. We should be resisting these fascists.

Instead, we get No Kings koombayahs Yay us!

That'll show em

VOTE HARDER!!

THAT"ll show em

Meanwhile they have made Piggy a king and expect him to relinquish power.

Americans are morally bankrupt

And we deserve to suffer

More from the article ...

... Testing 21 cars from 19 different brands revealed patterns of traffic to advertisers and trackers, as well as data shared with Big Tech firms like Microsoft and Adobe. And using a car's companion app can multiply the problem, their testing found.

In 2023, the Mozilla Foundation published a widely covered report looking at the privacy policies of more than two dozen automakers. They were appalled, writing that "cars are the worst product category we have ever reviewed for privacy." But that analysis was conducted by sitting down and reading all the various privacy policies of each brand; today's study involved measuring traffic from actual cars under a number of scenarios, including idling and being driven.

The researchers even parked 11 cars -- just the electric ones -- in a Faraday tent to see if the loss of a cellular signal would push that traffic to the car's Wi-Fi connection instead.

Attempts to actually see what was in the data packets using modified certificates failed in every case. But "the network traces still yielded valuable information, including the domains contacted via DNS traffic, Server Name Indication (SNI) in TLS handshakes, the volume and timing of transmissions, and differences in behavior across experimental scenarios," they found.

All of the cars contacted a first-party domain (i.e., the OEM) -- after all, all the cars tested were connected cars and that means connecting to something. And a few left it there -- the Buick Envista and Mercedes-Benz EQS didn't appear to reach out to anywhere else, for example.

Others were far more promiscuous, with Tesla topping the chart: The Model 3 contacted 34 advertising, tracking, and analytic domains, as well as 37 domains from apps integrated into the infotainment system.

Alphabet's domains were the most frequently contacted -- again not enormously surprising given the penetration of its Android Automotive OS into the sector. "But many of the [second-level domains] we observed were not necessary for core services (e.g., doubleclick.net and googlesyndication.com, which are used for advertising purposes)," the authors wrote. Media streaming -- Spotify, Sirius XM, and so on -- is well represented, as are mapping companies like HERE, TomTom, and Mapbox. ...


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