Category: VOCABULARY

VOCABULARY: AI hallucination or when a search engine tells you put glue on your pizza

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https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2024/06/11/tim-cook-apple-interview/

Opinion
How will Apple’s new AI change your phone? I asked Tim Cook. In an interview, Tim Cook explains how Apple’s new AI will enhance your work and life, with guardrails.
By Josh Tyrangiel
June 11, 2024 at 5:07 a.m. EDT

*** begin quote ***

Apple Intelligence will not hallucinate?

*** end quote ***

Kinda like following GPS directions from Google or any other source and you winding up on a Forrest Service road up to your eyeballs in snow.

Or worse.

So, now we are going to have to be skeptical on what the “computer tells us”.

Caveat Emptor.

—30—

VOCABULARY: BACKRONYM — an after the fact phrase for an acronym

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I discovered the Word of the Day from Dictionary.com, and I wanted to share it with you. https://www.dictionary.com/e/word-of-the-day/backronym-2024-05-31/

*** begin quote ***

an existing word turned into an acronym by creating an apt phrase whose initial letters match the word, as to help remember it or offer a theory of its origin.

  •     First recorded in 1980–85.
  •     Formed from the word back “toward the rear” and (ac)ronym, “a word formed from the initial letters or groups of letters of words in a set phrase and pronounced as a separate word.”

EXAMPLES OF BACKRONYM

  •     Some people believe the word news stands for “notable events, weather, and sports,” but that’s not accurate; it’s a backronym.
  •     My neighbor insists that SOS means “Save Our Ship” and wouldn’t believe that people made up that backronym years after SOS was first used.

*** end quote ***

So how did “news” originate. Just “new items”?

I learned something from this.

—30—

 

VOCABULARY: Ever heard of “trading sardines”

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https://www.curzioresearch.com/stay-away-from-these-trading-sardines/

*** begin quote ***

In 1896, the discovery of gold in Canada’s Yukon territory launched an era now known as the Yukon-Klondike gold rush.

Over the next two years, 100,000 miners flooded into the area in search of the next big gold strike. 

But it was far from easy… 

The trek was treacherous… The competition was fierce… And the weather was glacial.

During the winter of 1896–1897, the water around Alaska’s ports froze solid, which forced shipping to shut down completely.

The result was a major food shortage—and skyrocketing prices for the little amount of available supplies.

In the most isolated regions of Alaska, a single can of sardines—which cost $0.10 in New York—sold for many times that amount. And thanks to the demand from starving miners, the price kept rising.

Legend has it that one miner, desperate for a meal, bought a can for $100.

But when he went to open it, the fish was rotten.

He tracked down the seller, demanding his money back.

The seller was confused—asking the buyer why he would open the can in the first place.

He told the miner, “Those are trading sardines, not eating sardines.”

This piece of market lore is a commonly cited metaphor for speculative trading, where an asset can keep rising… and traders—suffering from FOMO (fear of missing out)—keep bidding the price higher. Meanwhile, the asset is—from a practical standpoint—worthless.

*** end quote ***

VOCABULARY: The hikikomori, aka moden day recluse

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https://edition.cnn.com/interactive/2024/05/world/hikikomori-asia-personal-stories-wellness/?ICID=ref_fark

A shrinking life: Why some Asian youth withdraw from the world

By Jessie Yeung, Sophie Jeong, Carlotta Dotto, Woojin Lee, Kenneth Uzquiano and Saki Toi

Published May 25, 2024

*** begin quote ***

Like many hikikomori, he would sleep all day and wake at dusk. Then at night, when his family went to bed, he spent hours scrolling on his phone.

*** end quote ***

Like Howard Hughes?

—30—

VOCABULARY: The precariat is one misfortune away from insolvency

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https://www.lewrockwell.com/2024/05/charles-hugh-smith/precarious-one-misfortune-away-from-insolvency/

Precarious: One Misfortune Away from Insolvency
By Charles Hugh Smith
OfTwoMinds.com
May 16, 2024

*** begin quote ***

As a result, a significant percentage of households that are considered middle-class are one misfortune away from insolvency.

We can summarize the changes in our economy over the past two generations with one word: precarity, as life for the bottom 90% of American households has become far more precarious over the past 40 years, despite the rising GDP and “wealth” as measured in phantom capital.

This reality is expressed in the portmanteau word precariat, combining proletariat (someone whose livelihood comes from their labor) and precarious: outside of government employment, work has become far more precarious. Where it was still common 40 years ago to work for a company for much or most of one’s career and have a private-sector pension, now private-sector pensions have vanished, replaced by self-managed 401K funds, and private-sector work is characterized by a series of not just job changes but career changes.

*** end quote ***

I blame this phenomena on the Gooferment.  Specifically, the Federal Reserve System.

The Federal Reserve Bank is a misnomer. IT ain’t “federal”. It reserves nothing. And, it ain’t a “bank”. It is a private cartel of the elite banks run for their benefit and that of the entrenched politicians.

The Gooferment’s politicians and bureaucrats spend far more than we can afford and the Fed borrows and “prints”.

“Money is a matter of functions four, a medium, a measure, a standard, a store.” He repeated that four times like poetry. “Six Characters in Money: Portable – Durable – Divisible – Uniformity – Limited Supply – Acceptability.” — CHURCH 10●19●62 (Vol 1) 978-0-557-08387-9 page 110

Unfortunately, it is no longer a store of value and hasn’t been since the 1970’s or maybe 1913.

“The gold standard did not collapse. Governments abolished it in order to pave the way for inflation. The whole grim apparatus of oppression and coercion — policemen, customs guards, penal courts, prisons, in some countries even executioners — had to be put into action in order to destroy the gold standard. Solemn pledges were broken, retroactive laws were promulgated, provisions of constitutions and bills of rights were openly defied. And hosts of servile writers praised what the governments had done and hailed the dawn of the fiat-money millennium.” — Ludwig von Mises

Penny candy, Nickel cigars, Dime store comics, and Quarter a gallon gas.

Are all indicators of how much the value of the U$D has been devalued.

Remember that on payday, Election Day, or any other day.

—30—

VOCABULARY: Sheeple — people who accept without scrutiny

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https://www.theburningplatform.com/2024/01/22/sheeples-or-comfortable-wolves/

Sheeples or Comfortable Wolves?
Guest Post by Mary Christine

*** begin quote ***

The American Heritage Dictionary defines sheeple as:

People who unquestioningly accept as true whatever their political leaders say or who adopt popular opinion as their own without scrutiny.

Maybe it is derogatory but the definition fits.

*** end quote ***

It describes way too many people.

Argh!

There is no cure except maybe when they realize that they have been totally screwed by “the system”!

Sigh!

—30—

VOCABULARY: “death-by-queue” caused by socialized medicine?

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https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2023/11/restoring_public_trust_in_doctors.html

November 17, 2023
Restoring Public Trust In Doctors
By Deane Waldman, M.D. 

*** begin quote ***

After unaffordability, inaccessibility is another compelling reason for distrust. What good is an assigned physician if I can’t get to see the doctor? Before the Affordable Care Act (ACA, 2010), the maximum average wait time to see a primary care physician was 99 days. After ACA went into effect, wait time increased to 122 days, causing death-by-queue. Cutting wait times requires reinserting free market forces into healthcare so that clinicians are incentivized to provide timely service and can afford to do so.

*** end quote ***

The only solution is to get Gooferment and Big Insurance out of health care.

—30—

VOCABULARY: Samizdat – translates as: “We publish ourselves”

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https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2023/09/21/american_pandemic_samizdat_149787.html

American Pandemic ‘Samizdat’
COMMENTARY
By Jay Bhattacharya
September 21, 2023

*** begin quote ***

    Censorship existed even before literature, say the Russians. And, we may add, censorship being older, literature has to be craftier. Hence, the new and remarkably viable underground press in the Soviet Union called samizdat.

    Samizdat – translates as: “We publish ourselves” – that is, not the state, but we, the people.

    Unlike the underground of Czarist times, today’s samizdat has no printing presses (with rare exceptions): The K.G.B., the secret police, is too efficient. It is the typewriter, each page produced with four to eight carbon copies, that does the job. By the thousands and tens of thousands of frail, smudged onionskin sheets, samizdat spreads across the land a mass of protests and petitions, secret court minutes, Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s banned novels, George Orwell’s “Animal Farm” and “1984,” Nicholas Berdyayev’s philosophical essays, all sorts of sharp political discourses and angry poetry.

*** end quote ***

Had the experience in typing school

— My sainted Mother’s idea to keep the “idle hands” from being the Devil’s workshop one summer when I was to young to get a real job and too old to be left alone without getting into trouble. It included: business accounting, shorthand, composition, and letter writing.  Argh!  And you wonder why I hate schools?)  — were we had timed typing tests with only three pages of onion skin and carbon paper.  If we corrected a mistake, the carbon copy made it obvious.  I still remember minus five points for a mistake on the original and minus one for a correction.  When I complained, my Mom sat down at an old manual we had at home a pounded out the test page at an amazing WPM without a single mistake.  Then she turned to me and asked: “Now want to complain about shorthand?”  I knew to shut my mouth because she had her secretarial school medals in her “hope chest” when she was best of class in various disciplines.  Guess the genes failed because I never was as good as her in those skills. Sigh! Sadly  — 

Have to admire the dedication to the produce the manuscripts.  Like the Irish monks duplicating texts by hand during the Dark Ages. 

—30—

VOCABULARY: “Jurymandering” is gerrymandering for jury pools

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https://soundcloud.com/user-534644803-655409170/live-from-sandpoint?utm_source=Email&utm_campaign=social_sharing&utm_medium=widgetutm_content=https%3A%2F%2Fsoundcloud.com%2Fuser-534644803-655409170%2Flive-from-sandpoint

ROUGHLY QUOTING:

“Jurymandering” is moving the Trump Georgia trial to Federal Court because the State Court trial will draw jurors from a mostly Democratic voter pool where as the Federal Court trial will draw from a larger less Democratic pool.

 — Robbie “The Fire” Bernstein

# – # – # – # – # 

This was a very acute compact way to describe what was going on.  I just wanted to capture it for posterity so proper credit can be given for the insight.

It makes the obvious point about a “fair trial” in a political Law-fare!

/3  

VOCABULARY: A sudden unexplainable death — “vaxxident.”

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https://www.lewrockwell.com/2023/07/chuck-baldwin/three-important-news-items-most-of-the-media-forgot-to-tell-you-about/

Three Important News Items Most of the Media “Forgot” To Tell You About
By Chuck Baldwin
July 14, 2023

*** begin quote ***

Report Number Two: In less than 2.5 years, there have been 1,884 athletic cardiac arrests or serious issues with 1,310 of them dead.

Josu García de Albeniz (25) from Spain, a Karate Fitness Gasteiz Karate exponent collapsed from a cardiac arrest at the entrance of a music festival. He later died in hospital. Alia Zuidema (21) from Michigan, a former high school basketball player died suddenly after a “medical emergency.”

*** and ***

In Ukraine, a lawyer was killed in a “vaxxident.” In Odessa, the prosecutor suddenly died at the wheel. According to local Telegram communities, an uncontrolled car rammed several parked cars. The deceased is a high-ranking law enforcement officer of the city R. Bershavsky. No age or cause of death reported.

*** end quote ***

Seems like there are an awful lot of “vaxxidents” or maybe vaxxidental deaths!

—30—

VOCABULARY: Never heard this one before “double-bun boulevard”

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https://www.boredpanda.com/boss-lunch-break-antiwork/

Work & Money
Employee Has Lunch Break At 12:40, It Renders The Boss Livid, Who Texts Them To Return
Robertas Lisickis
BoredPanda staff

*** begin quote ***

The issue here lies in what the policy is and if the boss isn’t pulling these requirements out of double-bun boulevard. So, this Redditor suggested checking the policy on lunch breaks and getting to the bottom of it. OP, however, doubts there’s one to begin with.

*** end quote ***

Very funny and polite way of saying “he pulled it out of his AQQ” or made it up on the fly.

—30—

VOCABULARY: SCROTUS: the Supremely Corrupt Royalty of the United States

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https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/corruption-potus-scotus-and-scrotus

The Corruption Of POTUS, SCOTUS, And SCROTUS
by Tyler Durden  — Monday, Jun 26, 2023 – 04:20 PM
Authored by Charles Hugh Smith via OfTwoMinds blog,

  • Until we reach that point of social transformation, we’re passengers on a ship of state doomed by rampant, systemic corruption and the collapse of moral standards and the rule of law.

*** begin quote ***

Then there’s SCROTUS: the Supremely Corrupt Royalty of the United States, the corporate bigshots, the lobbyists, the billionaires, the politically influential, the financially connected, and all the elites that are protected from consequence and therefore untouchable.

*** end quote ***

Thanks for another acronym that describes the opposite of us deplorables.

—30—

VOCABULARY: Ghosts and Zombies are real and exist in the online world

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https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2023/may/28/online-daters-say-getting-zombied-now-scarier-ghos/

Online daters say being ‘zombied’ is now scarier than ‘ghosting’

By Sean Salai – The Washington Times – Sunday, May 28, 2023

*** begin quote ***

Being “ghosted” on dating websites by wooers who abruptly vanish without a word may hurt, but matchmakers say the trend of being “zombied” is just plain scary.

*** end quote ***

An interesting phenom!

—30—

VOCABULARY: What is an “esthetician”?

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esthetician?

FROM GOOGLE

*** begin quote ***

The practice of Esthetics means providing services for a fee or any other consideration to enhance the appearance of the face, neck, arms, legs, or shoulders of a human being by the use of compounds or procedures including makeup, eyelashes, depilatories, tonics, lotions, waxes, or sanding and tweezing.

*** end quote ***

And, this is different from a “beautician” or “make up artist”?

I’d call it “word inflation”.

Argh!

—30—

VOCABULARY: Fiat currency created by computers in the Cnetral Bank = “mouse-click money”

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Matt Piepenburg calls mouse-click money

# – # – # – # – # 

Von Greyerz: Forecasting The Gold Price Is A Mug’s Game
by Tyler Durden
Tuesday, May 02, 2023 – 07:20 AM
Authored by Egon von Greyerz via GoldSwitzerland.com,

*** begin quote ***

Most investors are totally ignorant of the purpose of gold or its historical significance. 

After all, Gold is the only money that has survived in history but virtually nobody is aware of this vital information. 

*** and ***

The Everything Bubble is likely to turn into the “Everything Collapse” (link below) with all the bubble assets declining between 75% and 95% in real terms. 

After all; assets inflated by fake money must clearly be fake. 

The biggest collapse will obviously be the $300 trillion debt market. But before this debt collapse, Western governments and central banks will have drowned financial markets in what my colleague Matt Piepenburg calls mouse-click money.

And they will wear out many batteries and mice before this is finished.

We saw during the Ides of March (Shakespeare), which is an ominous time in mid March when Julius Caesar was murdered. This Ides of March this year contained the death of 4 banks; one Swiss, and three US within a matter of days. 

*** end quote ***

Very nice summation.

Back in history, the ruling elite always pretended that money contained valuable gold or silver.

The Romans debased their currency.  

https://reinkefaceslife.com/2007/10/10/money-leaders-to-the-guillotine/

So did the French.

https://reinkefaceslife.com/2021/08/09/goldbug-what-if-all-the-gold-in-fort-know-has-long-since-left-the-country/

What makes us think that it will result in a different outcome?

—30—

VOCABULARY: The gravestone emoji is used for zombies IRL

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https://nypost.com/2023/04/26/getting-zombied-is-new-dating-trend-worse-than-ghosting/

Getting ‘zombied’ is the new dating trend — and it’s worse than ‘ghosting’
By Brooke Steinberg 
April 26, 2023 11:41am 

*** begin quote ***

“Girl, you’re being ghosted? I’m being zombied,” she shared with her 255,900 followers on the platform.

“It’s like ghosting, but he comes back from the dead after a couple months and hits you up,” she explained in the video with 1.5 million views and 151,100 likes.

*** and ***

“I saw someone say she puts gravestone emojis on their name in contacts so she knows not to deal with them anymore,” a user wrote.

*** end quote ***

I really like this “productivity suggestion”.  

Use the 🪦 to remind yourself to ignore people, places, phone numbers, and email addresses.

I guess it’s polite to send the emoji to let folks know that they are dead to me.

Laugh!

—30—

VOCABULARY: Dunning–Kruger effect — perception versus reality

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect

Dunning–Kruger effect

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Relation between average self-perceived performance and average actual performance on a college exam.[1] The red area shows the tendency of low performers to overestimate their abilities. Nevertheless, low performers’ self-assessment is lower than that of high performers.

—30—

VOCABULARY: “cakeism” — the false belief that one can enjoy the benefits of two choices that are in fact mutually exclusive

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https://www.dictionary.com/e/new-dictionary-words-winter-2023/?utm_source=join1440&utm_medium=email&utm_placement=newsletter

*** begin quote ***

cakeism

noun. the false belief that one can enjoy the benefits of two choices that are in fact mutually exclusive, or have it both ways. 

📝 The first records of the term come from 2016. Derived from the expression “to have one’s cake and eat it, too,” the term is especially associated with Brexit and Boris Johnson. 

*** end quote ***

I never had the concept of “false belief”.   It goes along with the Overton Window, the JoHari window, and all the perceptions that are “misleading” us. 

—30—

VOCABULARY: Deadnaming

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Deadnaming is the act of referring to a transgender or non-binary person by a name they used prior to transitioning, such as their birth name. Deadnaming may be unintentional, or a deliberate attempt to deny, mock or invalidate a person’s gender identity.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org › wiki

Never heard this before.

—30—

VOCABULARY: “Whataboutism” to absolve bad behavior

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https://jeffjacoby.com/26689/when-whataboutism-is-appropriate

When ‘whataboutism’ is appropriate
by Jeff Jacoby The Boston Globe
January 15, 2023

*** begin quote ***

“Whataboutism,” a term much in fashion in political circles these days, is a pejorative reference to a very old and familiar argument: A’s bad behavior can’t be condemned because B engaged in bad behavior too.

The term dates back to the Cold War. It was the label given to a tactic perfected by Soviet propagandists. If Western critics blasted Moscow’s crimes in Afghanistan, the persecution of dissidents, or the horrors of the Gulag, trained Soviet flacks would respond with knee-jerk “whataboutism”: What about racism in America? What about Watergate? What about riots in US cities?

*** end quote ***

Sorry, but you can’t distract from the point being made about your bad behavior by pointing to someone else’s bad behavior.

Each “counter example” may be worthy of its own discussion, but stick to the point at hand.

—30—

VOCABULARY: Thoughtcrime (George Orwel 1949)

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https://www.zerohedge.com/political/are-you-thought-criminal

Thoughtcrime is a word coined by George Orwell in his 1949 dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four. It describes a person’s politically unorthodox thoughts, such as beliefs and doubts that contradict the tenets of Ingsoc (English Socialism), the dominant ideology of Oceania. In the official language of Newspeak, the word crimethink describes the intellectual actions of a person who entertains and holds politically unacceptable thoughts; thus the government of the Party controls the speech, the actions, and the thoughts of the citizens of Oceania.

# – # – # – # – # 

Are You A “Thought Criminal”?

YES!

—30—

VOCABULARY: “Weaponized Governmental Failure”

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https://www.zerohedge.com/political/weaponized-governmental-failure-primer

Weaponized Governmental Failure: A Primer
by Tyler Durden
Saturday, Oct 22, 2022 – 07:40 PM

Authored by Scott McKay via The American Spectator,

*** begin quote ***

Democrats rule over a ruin, but they rule…

*** and ***

Let’s call it Weaponized Governmental Failure. It’s the single most explicative factor in the breakdown of American political consensus in the 21st century, even though it’s been around since the latter part of the 20th century.

The simple definition of Weaponized Governmental Failure is this: it’s the deliberate refusal to perform the basic tasks of urban governance for a specific political purpose.

The crime and the graft and the potholes and the bad drainage, not to mention the spotty trash collection or nonexistent snow shoveling, aren’t incompetence. In fact, none of what you see in the American public sector is incompetence. The people responsible for it are quite highly educated and well-trained in their craft. You just need to understand what their craft is.

It’s a choice to do a poor job with the more mundane tasks of running a city, and an educated and purposeful choice at that. If you do those things effectively, after all, what you will get is middle-class voters moving in. Middle-class voters tend to choose to live in places where they can expect to get actual value out of their tax dollars — good roads, safe streets, functional drainage, decent schools, a friendly business climate, and a growing economy, among other things — and those things are hard to produce when you govern the way the Left does.

Put a different way, middle-class voters are a pain in the ass.

*** end quote ***

The politicians and bureaucrats are the drones of the human hive.

I have often posted that the Gooferment is immoral, ineffective, and inefficient. As well as untrustworthy. And to that “deliberately incompetent”.

Argh!

—30—

VOCABULARY: “Gaslighting” — to sow self-doubt and confusion in their victim’s mind

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https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/hopkins-gaslighting-masses

Hopkins: The Gaslighting Of The Masses
by Tyler Durden
Sunday, Oct 16, 2022 – 11:30 PM

Authored by CJ Hopkins via The Consent Factory,

*** begin quote ***

nstead, I want to focus on one particularly effective mind-control technology, one that has done a lot of heavy lifting throughout the implementation of the New Normal and is doing a lot of heavy-lifting currently. I want to do that because many people mistakenly believe that mind-control is either (a) a “conspiracy theory” or (b) something that can only be achieved with drugs, microwaves, surgery, torture, or some other invasive physical means. Of course, there is a vast and well-documented history of the use of such invasive physical technologies (see, e.g., the history of the CIA’s infamous MKULTRA program), but in many instances mind-control can be achieved through much less elaborate techniques.

One of the most basic and effective techniques that cults, totalitarian systems, and individuals with fascistic personalities use to disorient and control people’s minds is “gaslighting.” You’re probably familiar with the term. If not, here are a few definitions:

“the manipulation of another person into doubting their perceptions, experiences, or understanding of events.” American Psychological Association

“an insidious form of manipulation and psychological control. Victims of gaslighting are deliberately and systematically fed false information that leads them to question what they know to be true, often about themselves. They may end up doubting their memory, their perception, and even their sanity.” Psychology Today

“a form of psychological manipulation in which the abuser attempts to sow self-doubt and confusion in their victim’s mind. Typically, gaslighters are seeking to gain power and control over the other person, by distorting reality and forcing them to question their own judgment and intuition.” Newport Institute

*** end quote ***

IMHO the whole Covid fiasco from start to finish has been “gaslighting” the world’s population.  The politicians and bureaucrats did this to transfers huge amounts of wealth into Big Pharma. 

Argh!

—30—

VOCABULARY: Murmurations

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https://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/photographer-captures-mesmerizing-murmurations-2022/?utm_campaign=newsletters&utm_medium=weekly_mailout&utm_source=29-09-2022

What is the purpose of murmuration?

Grouping together offers safety in numbers – predators such as peregrine falcons find it hard to target one bird in the middle of a hypnotising flock of thousands. They also gather to keep warm at night and to exchange information, such as good feeding areas.

“When the early light catches thousands of wings simultaneously, combined with the haunting rustle of countless wingbeats, it is pretty close to avian witchcraft.”

# – # – # – # – # 

Interesting behavior that humans really don’t understand why.

—30—

VOCABULARY: Federal Reserve and Debt — interest versus usury?

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https://www.unz.com/mhudson/the-federal-reserve-and-debt/

The Federal Reserve and Debt
Michael Hudson • September 17, 2022 

*** begin quote ***

Well, the question is, why do people go into debt? And there are two kinds of credit. And this goes all the way back to the church theologians in the 14th century. Ancient societies didn’t have any different word for interest and usury. All that was developed to overcome the church’s banning of interest for a 1,000 years, certainly among the clergy. And then the European takeoff began. And after the Crusades it was obvious that some kind of credit was necessary to finance foreign trade. And some people benefited from credit, so the church said, all right, if you’re making a loan, the debtor gains from it, then it’s interest, then its mutual gain. And usury is when the borrower doesn’t really receive a gain but has to pay the interest out of income that they earned elsewhere.

*** end quote ***

Interesting distinction?

So what is our current scenario?  

Taxes are theft. And, they are usury to the extent we don’t benefit from them.

—30—