There are two ways to be fooled. One is to believe what isn’t true; the other is to refuse to believe what is true. —Soren Kierkegaard. "…truth is true even if nobody believes it, and falsehood is false even if everybody believes it. That is why truth does not yield to opinion, fashion, numbers, office, or sincerity–it is simply true and that is the end of it" – Os Guinness, Time for Truth, pg.39. “He that takes truth for his guide, and duty for his end, may safely trust to God’s providence to lead him aright.” – Blaise Pascal. "There is but one straight course, and that is to seek truth and pursue it steadily" – George Washington letter to Edmund Randolph — 1795. We live in a “post-truth” world. According to the dictionary, “post-truth” means, “relating to or denoting circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief.” Simply put, we now live in a culture that seems to value experience and emotion more than truth. Truth will never go away no matter how hard one might wish. Going beyond the MSM idealogical opinion/bias and their low information tabloid reality show news with a distractional superficial focus on entertainment, sensationalism, emotionalism and activist reporting – this blogs goal is to, in some small way, put a plug in the broken dam of truth and save as many as possible from the consequences—temporal and eternal. "The further a society drifts from truth, the more it will hate those who speak it." – George Orwell “There are two ways to be fooled. One is to believe what isn’t true; the other is to refuse to believe what is true.” ― Soren Kierkegaard
There are approximately 581 mosques in New York City area. So why pray in the streets? Muslims do not pray in the street in Muslim countries. This is an act of Islamic supremacism…domination. Takbir!
Muslims are the only immigrant group who come to the West with a ready made model of society they believe to be superior to Western law and they work furiously, by all means, to impose it. Under Islam, shariah (Islamic) law supersedes Western law. Anywhere Western law and Shariah law conflict, it is always Western law that must give way. What those of us working in defense of freedom did not expect, was the craven capitulation and cowardice by Western left elites to Islamic supremacy.
We warned you and you punished us for it.
This was Times Square last night…. NYC is no longer America, it’s an Islamic third-world cesspool. pic.twitter.com/MIzWiKfH6x
(New York, New York) – Muslims took over Times Square on Friday for a mass prayer marking Ramadan, temporarily filling sections of the iconic public square.
Videos circulating on social media show worshippers assembled in organized rows during the prayer, drawing attention from tourists and passersby in one of the city’s busiest areas.
The gathering also prompted a counter-event promoted online as the “Times Square Dog Lovers Gathering,” with some participants expressing opposition to holding religious services in such a high-profile public space.
Organizers of the prayer have not indicated any intent beyond observing Ramadan, one of the holiest months in Islam. Public prayer events have taken place in outdoor spaces across New York City in previous years, particularly during major religious holidays.
Critics of the Times Square location argue that houses of worship exist throughout the city and question whether heavily trafficked tourist areas are appropriate for organized religious events.
City officials have not announced any violations related to the gathering. It was not immediately clear whether a permit was obtained.
The event sparked debate online over the use of public spaces for religious expression, with some defending it as protected speech and others raising concerns about disruption.
Holy smokes. A muslim in New York just said the quiet part out loud…
He announces they are TAKING OVER the city and the entire crowd erupts in chants of “Allahu Akbar”
Image from the U.S. Dept. of Transportation, February 18, 2026 Press Release.
On Wednesday, 550 CDL truck driving schools and training facilities were found in violation of Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) standards.
These sham organizations received notices that they are to be removed from the registry of federally authorized truck driver training providers. Thousands more have been removed over the last couple of months.
Sean P. Duffy, U.S. Secretary of Transportation, was sworn into office by Trump in January, 2025. Over the last few months, Duffy has launched a serious crackdown across the country on CDL training mills (sham truck driving schools) and noncompliant training programs.
However, most of those schools were idle, so it won’t likely have much impact on keeping unqualified truck drivers off our roads.
The Registry website shows the location of training schools in your area, the removed schools, how to file complaints, and so on.
This past December, 4,000 providers were placed on notice for noncompliance with the new ELDT training standards.
In February 2022, the federal government (FMCSA) established a single, national training standard for obtaining a CDL truck driver’s license.
The ELDT training must be completed before entry-level truck drivers can take skills and knowledge tests, and obtain that valuable CDL license.
In 2021, Congress mandated the ELDT program. However, cach State was responsible for providing its own training requirements. That ended with the 2022 rule change.
The new ELDT training requirements aren’t just for truck drivers. The standards require specific training for bus drivers and those transporting hazardous materials too.
The new ELDT curriculum includes theory (classroom & online instruction) and behind-the-wheel (BTW) training. Theory classroom training covers things like trip planning, medical requirements, drug testing, vehicle safety, and so on.
The entire program has 5 areas of instruction: Basic Operation, Safe Operating Procedures, Advanced Operating Practices, Systems & Reporting Malfunctions, and Non-Driving Activities.
Some of the violations from the recent 5-day sting include:
Unqualified Instructors: Many teachers didn’t even have a CDL license themselves for the vehicles they were teaching students to drive.
Wrong Vehicles: Schools were using the wrong vehicles. The trucks didn’t match the training offered.
Incomplete Assessments: Schools failed to test students on basic requirements.
State Non-Compliance: Many admitted to investigators that their curriculum didn’t even meet their own state’s requirements.
Active Investigations: 97 schools remain under investigation for compliance issues.
After hearing about these 550 school removals, the American Trucking Association posted a press release stating: “ATA Applauds USDOT’s Continued Crackdown on CDL Mills, and made the following public statement.
“We commend the Trump Administration for taking decisive action to strengthen the integrity of our commercial driver training system and reinforce its commitment to safer roads.
“The proposed removal or voluntary withdrawal of more than 550 CDL training providers from the national Training Provider Registry makes clear there is no place in trucking for sham schools that fail to meet federal requirements.
“Our industry depends on safe, skilled, and well-trained drivers. That begins with training providers that meet and uphold rigorous federal curriculum and qualification standards. We support strong oversight, including random audits across the states, to ensure compliance and protect the integrity of the driver pipeline. The more than 1,400 on-site investigations FMCSA conducted nationwide as part of this operation demonstrates its ongoing willingness to weed out bad actors.
“Combined with enforcing federal driver qualification standards and maintaining consistent compliance reviews, these steps are critical to strengthening the CDL system and ensuring every driver who gets behind the wheel is well prepared to operate safely.”
The CDL (Commercial Driver License) originated from the Commercial Motor Vehicle Safety Act of 1986. The new federally mandated ELDT rule was supposed to ensure all CDL drivers obtain high-quality instruction from approved providers. It’s supposed to produce safer, more knowledgeable drivers for our roadways.
You may have noticed that this has been a really strange winter. In some areas there has been far less snow than usual, while in other areas people are literally being buried in their homes by mountains of snow. In some areas it has been much colder than average, while in other areas record high temperatures are being shattered. I have been writing about how global weather patterns have been going nuts for a long time, and initially there were some skeptics that just weren’t buying it. They thought that I was exaggerating, and they were convinced that conditions would “return to normal” eventually. But now even the New York Times is talking about how “weird” the weather has been this winter…
The weather has been a bit weird across the United States this winter. As historic amounts of snow fell in the Carolinas and bitter cold gripped practically everywhere else east of the Rockies, some of the western states have basked in high temperatures more typical of late spring than the dead of winter.
Perhaps no other contrast tells this story better than the fact that, since the start of the year, Florida has recorded more snow than Salt Lake City.
Read the last sentence of that quote from the New York Times again.
Florida is not supposed to get more snow than Salt Lake City.
That is crazy.
We have never seen anything like this before, and it is being caused by “a weather pattern that settled into place around the middle of January and hasn’t budged for weeks”…
These two extremes are the result of a weather pattern that settled into place around the middle of January and hasn’t budged for weeks. It’s kept the western United States unusually dry, depriving ski resorts and water reservoirs of their much-needed snowpacks. And it’s plunged the eastern two-thirds of the country into bitterly cold temperatures that have lingered for weeks.
This same pattern that brought 80-degree temperatures to Los Angeles this week sent ice, freezing temperatures and power outages to Tennessee, Mississippi and Louisiana late last month. It has given Phoenix its warmest winter ever in records going back to 1885 and delivered a rare snowfall to Wilmington, N.C., last weekend.
The worst snow drought in history threatens to cause a major crisis in the western third of the nation.
At this point, the amount of snow cover is about a third of what it normally should be…
A record snow drought with unprecedented heat is hitting most of the American West, depleting future water supplies, making it more vulnerable to wildfires and hurting winter tourism and recreation.
Scientists say snow cover and snow depth are both at the lowest levels they’ve seen in decades, while at least 67 Western weather stations have measured their warmest December through early February on record. Normal snow cover this time of year should be about 460,000 square miles — about the size of California, Utah, Idaho and Montana — but this year it’s only California-sized, about 155,000 square miles, according to the National Snow and Ice Data Center.
The snowpack — measured by how much water is trapped inside — in Oregon is not only record low, but 30% lower than the previous record, said Jason Gerlich, regional drought early warning system coordinator for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
This is going to have enormous implications for farmers in the region throughout the rest of this year.
Unfortunately, high temperatures continue to persist.
Toronto is beginning to dig itself out from the largest snowfall in the city’s history, a process which officials say is likely to take “several days”.
Some parts of Canada’s largest city were buried under nearly 60cm (about 23in) of snow and more than 500 flights were cancelled Sunday after Toronto’s main airport was snowed in.
More than 88.2cm of snow have fallen at Pearson international airport this month, marking the snowiest January and snowiest month since records began in 1937.
Russia’s capital Moscow has seen the largest snowfall in more than 200 years this month, Moscow State University meteorologists said on Thursday.
Images from the city of around 13 million people showed residents struggling to make their way through heavy piles of snow on the streets in its central district.
Commuter trains in the Moscow area were delayed and cars were stuck in long traffic jams on Thursday evening.
That was bad, but the record snowfall that hit the Kamchatka peninsula last month was even worse…
Meteorologists say the level of snowfall in Kamchatka since early January has not been seen since recordkeeping began half a century ago.
In December, Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky saw triple the monthly average of snowfall, while Jan. 1-16 saw around 150% more than the monthly average for that period. The average height of snow in the city reached 170 centimeters (5.5 feet), with drifts exceeding 2.5 meters (8 feet) in certain neighborhoods.
“The last time we saw something like this was over 50 years ago, in the early 1970s,” said Vera Polyakova, head of Kamchatka’s Hydrometeorology Center. “These conditions are exceptionally rare as far as modern observations go.”
By now, I am sure that most of you have seen images of the absolutely massive snow drifts in Kamchatka.
But the record-breaking snowfall that we witnessed in Japan earlier this month was even crazier.
Record-breaking snowfall in Japan has been blamed for 30 deaths in the past two weeks, including a 91-year-old woman found buried under 300cm (118 inches) of snow outside her home, officials said.
The heavy snowfall prompted the government of Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi to order the deployment of troops on Tuesday to help in affected areas, according to the Japanese national television NHK.
The India Meteorological Department (IMD) and media reports show a cold condition affecting northern and central India, with unusually low temperatures and dense fog disrupting daily life. Delhi recorded one of its coldest January mornings in recent years, with temperatures dipping to 3.2°C on 13 January.
Cities across Haryana, Punjab, and Rajasthan recorded near-freezing temperatures, while Gurugram, in the National Capital Region, registered a chilling 0.6°C, among its lowest readings in close to 50 years. Parts of northern India remained colder than several Himalayan hill towns.
Gujarat, where winters are usually mild, has been experiencing a rare cold spell, with night temperatures in Saurashtra and the central and southern regions dropping into the single digits. Minimum temperature below normal by 2-3°C was recorded at many places in Karnataka too.
From Argentina to Australia to South Africa, record heat and raging wildfires are rampaging through the Southern Hemisphere at the start of 2026, with scientists predicting that even more extreme temperatures could lie ahead – and possibly another global annual high – after three of the hottest years on record.
In January, a record-setting heat dome enveloped Australia, sending temperatures near 50 degrees C (122 degrees F) while heat and catastrophic wildfires gripped parts of South America, setting remote parts of Argentina’s Patagonia ablaze and killing 21 people in coastal towns in Chile. In addition, South Africa has been experiencing its worst wildfires in years.
We don’t hear much about the wildfires in the southern hemisphere here in the United States, but they have been really bad.
And the scorching temperatures that we have been witnessing have been nothing short of eye-popping.
According to BoM, the hottest temperatures of January 2026 were measured in two places in South Australia: in the town of Andamooka on the 29th and at the Port Augusta airport on the 30th, where temperatures reached 50.0°C (122.0°F). In both New South Wales and Victoria, the month’s hottest day was on the 27th, when temperatures reached 49.7°C (121.5°F) at a station in Pooncarie and 48.9°C (120.0°F) at stations in Walpeup and Hopetoun.
When the giant ball of fire that our planet revolves around becomes more active, global weather patterns tend to be more volatile.
Needless to say, the giant ball of fire that our planet revolves around has been very active lately.
But if you think that things are bad now, just wait, because what we have been through so far is just the beginning.
Most people don’t seem to realize this yet, but we really have entered one of the most apocalyptic chapters in human history.
Natural disasters are going to continue to increase in frequency and intensity, and global weather patterns are not going to “return to normal” any time soon.
Did you know that more stores were closed in the United States last year than ever before? More than 8,000 stores were permanently shuttered in 2025, and it appears that 2026 will be even worse. U.S. consumers have very little discretionary income to spend these days, and empty stores litter the landscape. If you live in a relatively prosperous area in our “K-shaped economy”, there may be just a few empty stores where you live. But if you live in a depressed area of the country, you may be faced with constant reminders of our retail apocalypse because there are abandoned stores virtually everywhere that you go. The wealthy are still spending lots of money at retailers, but things have gotten very tight for the rest of us. As a result, we are witnessing a tsunami of store closures that is unlike anything that has ever happened in the entire history of our nation.
Coresight Research is reporting that a whopping 8,234 stores were permanently closed in the United States in 2025…
Data shared with Daily Mail last month shows 8,234 US stores permanently closed last year – a staggering figure that marks a fresh blow to brick-and-mortar retail.
That’s 12 percent more than last year’s total of 7,325 closures, according to Coresight Research, and the highest number ever recorded.
We set the bar really high in 2024, and then we smashed that number by 12 percent in 2025.
Is that a good sign for the U.S. economy or a bad sign?
Needless to say, if the U.S. economy really was in good shape thousands of stores wouldn’t be closing.
And the number of store closings is a figure that government bureaucrats have no way to manipulate.
Stores either stay open or they get closed.
The fact that so many are being closed says a lot about where things are heading.
And this month there have been all sorts of signs that America’s “retail apocalypse” is getting even worse.
For example, Francesca’s has suddenly announced that all locations will be permanently closed and all inventory will be liquidated…
Nationwide women’s clothing brand Francesca’s has begun the process of closing all store locations, Women’s Wear Daily reports.
A customer service representative told the outlet the company was “liquidating our inventory and closing soon.” Francesca’s didn’t confirm the news publicly or provide any further details.
The company, which began in Houston in 1999, lists more than 450 locations across 45 states on its website. As of Monday, the site was advertising “last chance” warehouse clearance sales.
Francesca’s says it employs more than 3,400 associates.
Over 450 more stores are gone.
Just like that.
Meanwhile, the parent company of Value City Furniture has decided that now is the time to permanently close all 89 of the stores that it runs…
The parent company of Value City Furniture announced it would be closing all of its stores after nearly 80 years in business.
American Signature Inc.’s decision comes after it filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in November 2025, according to The Street.
A press release from the company stated that liquidation sales started on Jan. 10, 2026, at the company’s 79 Value City Furniture stores and 10 American Signature Furniture locations.
Value City Furniture was an institution when I was growing up.
I can still remember the television commercials.
But now in the blink of an eye it is gone.
This is what the economic environment is like in 2026.
Macy’s was once a retail behemoth, but it is currently closing 14 stores as part of a plan to shutter approximately 150 locations by the time we reach the end of this calendar year…
Macy’s announced that it’s closing more than a dozen additional stores in 2026 as it pushes forward with plans to shutter underperforming locations to boost profitability.
Approximately 14 stores are slated to close during the first fiscal quarter as part of its “Bold New Chapter” turnaround strategy, which includes shuttering about 150 underperforming locations by the end of 2026.
But at least Macy’s is doing better than Saks.
Earlier this month, Saks Global made headline news all over the globe when it announced that it would be filing for bankruptcy…
Saks Global – the parent company of Saks Fifth Avenue, Neiman Marcus and Bergdorf Goodman – filed for bankruptcy protection on Wednesday, marking a low point for the nation’s biggest luxury department store conglomerate.
The firm filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, which indicates a need for new ownership as debt impedes operations. Stores will remain open, but some locations may shutter as part of the reorganization.
I don’t know how a turnaround is going to be possible.
A popular mall merchant continues closing “underperforming” locations as it aims to shutter hundreds of stores.
Torrid, a retailer of plus-size women’s apparel, announced in August 2025 it had closed 57 stores towards its plan to shutter 180 stores for the year. More recently, individual store closings are continuing, including a Connecticut location that is shutting down this month, The Street reported.
When I was a teenager, going to the mall was the thing to do.
But who has the money to shop at the mall at this stage?
Yes, the wealthy still have lots of money to spend, but the middle class is evaporating right in front of our eyes.
GameStop once thrived selling video games to middle class kids, but now they plan to close over 470 stores in 2026…
GameStop is closing more than 470 stores nationwide to start 2026.
While the Texas-based video game retailer has not released a list of which stores are closing, the GameStop website lists hundreds of locations as closed. A spokesperson for GameStop did not respond to a request for the full list.
Unless some sort of a miracle happens, we are going to shatter the all-time record for store closings that we just set in 2025.
The numbers don’t lie.
We really are in the midst of a horrifying retail apocalypse.
So I would encourage you to visit your favorite stores while you still can, because more of them could suddenly disappear at any time.
One day after New York City’s first Muslim mayor, Democrat Zohran Mamdani, took office just twenty-four years after Muslim terrorists murdered nearly 3,000 New Yorkers in the 9/11 attack that destroyed New York City’s World Trade Center Twin Towers with hijacked passenger planes used as missiles, Democrat Governor Kathy Hochul ordered the replacement building built at Ground Zero, and over a dozen other state landmarks, to be lit in green Friday night to ‘celebrate’ Muslim American Heritage Month.
Muslim terrorists had previously tried but failed to bring done the Twin Towers with a truck bomb in 1993 that killed six people and wounded over a thousand.
Videos from the September 11, 2001 Muslim attack on the World Trade Center Twin Towers posted below. The Muslim 9/11 plot by al Qaeda terrorists ordered by Osama bin Laden involved a total of four known hijacked passenger planes–two that were flown into the Twin Towers, one that was flown into the Pentagon and another that crashed in rural Pennsylvania after brave American passengers fought the Muslim terrorists for control of the plane.
Hochul posted on X Friday evening, “The resilience, compassion, and contributions of Muslim communities help make our state stronger. Tonight landmarks across the state are lit green as New York celebrates Muslim American Heritage Month.”
The resilience, compassion, and contributions of Muslim communities help make our state stronger.
Tonight landmarks across the state are lit green as New York celebrates Muslim American Heritage Month. pic.twitter.com/5AFw9dsgof
Governor Hochul Issues Proclamation Recognizing Muslim American Heritage Month For the First Time in New York State
Sixteen State Landmarks To Be Lit Green in Honor of the Heritage and Culture of New York’s Muslim American Community
Governor Kathy Hochul today issued the first ever proclamation declaring January as Muslim American Heritage Month across New York State. Governor Hochul further directed 16 state landmarks to be illuminated green this evening in observance this month, and in celebration of the heritage and culture of Muslim Americans.
“Home to the largest Muslim American population in the nation, New York is proud to join in this month-long celebration, recognizing the values, faith and traditions of our Muslim American communities,” Governor Hochul said. “New York remains committed to being a beacon of hope, tolerance, and inclusivity that celebrates the diversity of its Muslim American population and protects them from Islamophobia, hate, bias, and harm.”
For the first time in state history, Governor Hochul has proclaimed the month of January as Muslim American Heritage Month in the state of New York. This designation recognizes the significant contributions Muslim Americans have contributed to society throughout history including in the arts, sciences, mathematics, technology, literature, music, medicine, and philosophy, and encourages the people of New York to take the opportunity to better appreciate, recognize, and understand the rich cultures, histories, and principles of the Muslim American community.
These 16 landmarks will be illuminated green in honor of Muslim American Heritage Month:
One World Trade Center Governor Mario M. Cuomo Bridge Kosciuszko Bridge The H. Carl McCall SUNY Building State Education Building Alfred E. Smith State Office Building Empire State Plaza State Fairgrounds – Main Gate & Expo Center The “Franklin D. Roosevelt” Mid-Hudson Bridge Grand Central Terminal – Pershing Square Viaduct Albany International Airport Gateway MTA LIRR – East End Gateway at Penn Station Fairport Lift Bridge over the Erie Canal Moynihan Train Hall Roosevelt Island Lighthouse Niagara Falls
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani said, “While I was proud to be sworn in as our city’s first Muslim mayor yesterday, Muslims have been part of New York for centuries. We have built small businesses, raised our families, pursued every profession, enriched our culture and cuisine, and been a part of what makes our city what it is today. I am grateful for Governor Hochul’s leadership in recognizing these many contributions and ensuring that every January, Muslim New Yorkers can see ourselves reflected and recognized in a city and state that is also our home.”
Scott Jennings schools leftist podcaster Emma Vigeland after she pushes for a wealth tax. Credit: CNN screenshot
Scott Jennings closed out 2025 with another schooling of a clueless leftist on CNN when she advocated for a socialist tax scheme to punish the prosperous and productive in America.
As TGP readers may know, California leftists are pushing a “wealth tax” that imposes a one-time 5% tax on the assets of billionaires.
As The New York Times reports, if the measure garners enough signatures to reach the state ballot in November and is approved by voters, it would retroactively apply to anyone who lived in California as of January 1, 2026. Individuals with $20 billion in assets who live in the Golden State on that date would face a ‘one-time tax’ of $1 billion.
Supporters of the proposal claim this would prevent cuts to social programs such as Medicaid. In reality, such a move would likely drive wealthy individuals and businesses out of the state, resulting in job losses and a decline in the tax base.
Many billionaires, including tech venture capitalist Peter Thiel and Google co-founder Larry Page, are already considering leaving California altogether.
Even California Governor Gavin Newsom senses the danger of this tax and opposes it.
On Tuesday, Jennings and panelists on CNN debated the merits of the wealth tax. One of the foremost defenders of the plan was socialist podcaster Emma Vigeland.
At one point, Jennings turned to Vigeland and asked her a fundamental question that a ‘good’ socialist like her should be able to answer: What is the number that makes you too rich?
Instead of answering directly, Vigeland was caught off guard and started sputtering for several seconds. She then finally said she wanted to raise taxes on the top 1%.
WATCH:
From California to New York City, the principle mission of the Democrats is to confiscate wealth and property from people they hate and redistribute it to their political constituents.
I’ve mentioned before that I lived on a yacht and sailed around for two years. We sailed north. We sailed south. We sailed coastal. We sailed offshore. We sailed fast and we sailed slow. We sailed during the day and we sailed at night.
I remember one night passage in particular. We had been anchored at Nassau’s Paradise Island and had upped anchor to scoot to nearby Rose Island. Rose Island is a long, skinny palm tree-lined island with no roads and no houses. A daily excursion boat playing a steel drum version of Yellow Bird arrived every day. We’d hear Yellow Bird coming, we’d hear Yellow Bird staying, we’d hear Yellow Bird going. I liked hearing the distant calypso steel drums, their notes winding around the palm tree leaves before bouncing off to arrive at our swaying boat to serenade us. In between it was quiet. Very quiet.
When we decided to leave, we wanted to head back north to Great Abaco Island. We plotted our trip on the chart. It necessitated scooting around the western tip of Rose island we were anchored behind, turning north, making a deep water passage, and then turning west to get inside the Abaco island chain. There were no navigational aids to mariners. We’d have to sail in between dodgy narrow cliffs with shallow waters dotted with deadly coral heads. Coral is sharp, it could rip a hole in the bottom of your boat faster than a blink.
It’s easy to see coral heads if the sun is behind your back, you’re wearing polarized sunglasses, and you stand far forward on the bow or even better, higher up if you have a wheelhouse. Unfortunately, this meant that to arrive in time for the sun to be behind our back in order to navigate the coral, we’d have to get there before noon. And that meant sailing overnight to arrive at sunrise.
Our Boat
We left Rose Island at dusk, and as the sun set, turned our vessel toward Great Abaco. Our heading was 0 degrees, due north.
Compass set for 0 degrees captain. Easy enough. The sky darkened, turned blue, then purple, then black. The stars came out. Absent any competing light, they were bright. However, one star stood out. It hung off our left spreader. The spreader is the cross-spar halfway up the mast. Our mast was unusual for a modern boat, it was wooden.
If I pointed the left spreader with the star just at the end of it, I could maintain my true north, 0 degree course. That is because the star was the North Star, and the north star never moves. All the other stars rotate around it, but Polaris never moves.
The North Star is a pole star, and it’s called Polaris. There is only one, the North Star. Wiki says, “While other stars’ apparent positions in the sky change throughout the night, as they appear to rotate around the celestial poles, pole stars’ apparent positions remain virtually fixed. This makes them especially useful in celestial navigation: they are a dependable indicator of the direction toward the respective geographic pole although not exact; they are virtually fixed, and their angle of elevation can also be used to determine latitude. … The North Star has historically been used for navigation since Late Antiquity, both to find the direction of north and to determine latitude.“
We did not sail by celestial navigation, even though we had a sextant. We didn’t have a GPS either but we used the compass and the charts and eyeball and Loran. (Yes, that’s how old we are). We loved using the North Star as our navigational aid. It made us feel like sailors of antiquity, brave and adventurous, casting off to parts unknown and getting there using only what was set in the heavens.
Little did I know that in truth, that ten years later I’d come to know the real God who set the stars in the heavens. (Genesis 1:16). Now my adventures are more biblical, casting off for spiritual parts unknown, and following my North Star, who never moves from His position, and is always bright.
My New Year wish for you is that you follow the North Star. Always, always keep your heading to true north. Always check for drift and for undersea hazards that can rip your keel off and sink you in a blink. It is Jesus who never moves, never changes, and all other beings, planets, and stars rotate around HIM. You cannot go wrong with a compass heading as true as that. Follow Him, whether it is night or day, or whether there are rough or smooth waters. Navigate by His brightness, and the course that is set will see you there safely.
“I, Jesus, have sent my angel to testify to you about these things for the churches. I am the root and the descendant of David, the bright morning star.” (Revelation 22:16)
A New Year’s Eve celebration at Restaurant Martin in New York City, 1907. Library of Congress photo
I like to read old newspapers from the 1800s and early 1900s. Especially local ones. Their focus on the minutiae of life is charming to me. The notices of who visited who, who is sick, the price of potatoes, who sold their horse. But even more than that, those people could write well and had a large vocabulary. I especially enjoy reading their obituaries. The sendoffs from this world to the next are eloquent and emotional. They are so unlike today’s obituaries that are so fact-driven and dry.
Our local weekly paper has been in continuous operation since 1895. This is remarkable. Even more than that, many of the oldest newspaper editions have been preserved and digitized. It is these original images I like to read. The old time font, the ads for tonics and liquids sure to drive away the numerous listed ailments…all so amazing to look at from the vantage point of 130 years later.
I brought to my screen the 1895 newspapers looking for obits. I had an idea for a blog article. But like the squirrel I am, I soon jumped here and there to many other articles. The first papers that were preserved were from January 3, 1895, and I got involved in reading the New Year’s news and wishes. It was timely, seeing that I am in the same week between Christmas and New Year’s as that long ago paper, so I changed my focus to copy some of the more interesting published items from that time. This first one doesn’t have anything to do with New Years but I thought it was hilarious, both the incident itself and the paper’s response to it. Newspapers back were cheeky, let me tell you.
DECLINES TO SERVE. Mr. Wm. C. Berryman, who was recently appointed as a populist committeeman for Harrison district, requests us to announce in our columns, that he is not in politics at all, and that he will not accept the position, and further that he was appointed without his consent or authority. He said further on being interviewed that he was a democrat. We make this announcement for Mr. Berryman with pleasure and hope that he may never see fit to depart from the faith of his fathers. ~Danielsville Monitor, 1895.
My Note: Back then there were the political parties of the Republicans, the Democrats, and the Populists. Populists were new (1892) but suddenly very powerful. Democrats were the dominant party in Georgia at the time. According to the New Georgia Encyclopedia, “In 1892 Georgia politics was shaken by the arrival of the Populist Party. Led by the brilliant orator Thomas E. Watson this new party mainly appealed to white farmers, many of whom had been impoverished by debt and low cotton prices in the 1880s and 1890s. Populism, which directly challenged the dominance of the Democratic Party, threatened to split the white vote in Georgia.” (Source)
A very pretty custom was that of tasting the “cream of the well,” the first drink from spring or well on New Year’s morn. The first part of water drawn, the flower of the well,” insured positively the best husband in the parish to the water drawer.” ~Danielsville Monitor January 3, 1895.
“What a man is at 40 he is apt to remain. No amount of New Year’s resolves will help him who is not full of virtuous endeavor. Jan. 1 dawns brightly to the mind, but the succeeding days conclude dismally as to achievement. Nevertheless its recurrence must ever be pleasant. If it does not bring accomplishment, it at least brings hope, and hope nerves us to bear our burdens, to discharge our duties. We dearly love to think that the cares and troubles of the old year, which so largely spring from our temperament, will not invade the new one.” ~Danielsville Monitor, 1895
New Year’s Don’ts.
Don’t fail to receive New Year’s day with a smiling face. Don’t usher in that day by declaring you are growing old. Don’t sent word you are out because New Year’s calls are out of fashion. Don’t neglect to send a bonbon box to your best girl. Don’t receive an old friend gloomily on that day. Don’t trust to new 1895 and slander old 1894. Don’t fail to send New Year’s greetings to those far away. Don’t think you may meet your fate in 1895. Perhaps it will be better to miss him. Don’t be unfriendly. Do all the good you can, and don’t slander anybody. Don’t turn over too many new leaves for 1895. Don’t be unhappy about anything. Be a philosopher. Don’t deride the new year. Don’t make the day unhappy. Don’t lose your temper. Don’t fall in love. Don’t declare you hate men. Don’t celebrate too much.
————————- That is a long list of don’ts! Don’t fall in love?? Anyway, the reference to “New Year’s Calls” or in another article “Calling Day” was the custom of people to go about on New Year’s Day visiting. Since men were not working and women liked to keep up social ties, they took the opportunity to go all around and visit one another. But by 1895 this newspaper piece described the waning days of the custom-
Source, Library of Congress
Originally New Year’s was intended
not for a universal, miscellaneous calling day, without motive or pro- propriety, into which it ultimately degenerated. It was intended for a day when men who had been prevented during the year by business or any condition of circumstances from keeping up their friendship of acquaintance with women they liked or esteemed should pursue social atonement for apparent social neglect and renew their pleasant relations. The idea was excellent and commendable, as was the custom. Before this city grew to be such a Babylon the calls were agreeable, often delightful, to makers and receivers. But the city became too big, and the custom was grossly abused. Many men and women thought only of the number of calls, ignoring quality for quantity, and sometimes the scenes indoors, and outdoors waxed disreputable from overindulgence.”
LOL on calling this rural Georgia town in 1895 a ‘Babylon’. I guess every generation thinks it is the worst?
Carlton News, January 3, 1895 Danielsville Monitor
‘Xmas is over and I think it has been a week of quiet, pleasant enjoyment in our town. There has been nothing to mar the happiness of our people. The usual dinners, suppers, and sociables for young and old which has been immensely enjoyed by all, and the most enjoyable occurrence was the beautiful snow which visited us last Sunday evening and now comes the new year with its number of good resolution and pledges, which we hope to see complied with and feel confident that this year will be more prosperous, and happy than the past. We wish the Monitor a happy, prosperous New Year.
–It must have been a memorable holiday to one and all here in Georgia to receive snow!
Happy New Year, Danielsville Monitor, January 3, 1896
The old year, has passed away and the new year has been ushered in. We should now lay aside all our prejudices and little petty differences, and start the new year on a higher plain. All of our new resolutions should be carried out faithfully, and we should try to make this the most prosperous year of our lives. We are all one people and all of our common interests are the same, therefore we should all strive to that end, that all may be benefited. So here is our happiest greetings to you for the New Year, and we hope that when the end of this new year shall come that you all will be our friends still, and that we will have many new ones added to our list, and we hope that not an enemy will have been made.”
Sometimes 130 year old sentiments are good ones! Happy New Year to all of you from The End Time blog.
To say that some parts of California are going to experience a “white Christmas” this year would be an enormous understatement. Some of the numbers that I am going to share with you in this article are difficult to believe, but I did not come up with any of them. Respected meteorologists are issuing forecasts that seem like they have been pulled directly out of a Hollywood disaster movie. How much crazier will things have to get before people start to realize that what we are experiencing is not even close to normal?
Last week, I wrote an article about what has been happening in the Northwest. Trillions of gallons of rain have fallen, flooding has been so bad that some roads will be closed for months, and at least 9 different states experienced wind speeds of at least 100 mph.
If all of that wasn’t enough, now we are being told that a “bomb cyclone” is going to hit California on Christmas Eve…
A strong storm system known as a bomb cyclone is lining up to slam the U.S. on Christmas Eve, possibly complicating holiday travel and bringing gusty winds that could cause power outages.
The forecast comes as much of California remains under some form of National Weather Service (NWS) alert on Monday as an atmospheric river inundates the state with heavy rain and mountain snow. Conditions are expected to worsen as the week progresses, with a bomb cyclone set to slam the West Coast on Christmas Eve.
Some people may be tempted to think that we are sensationalizing things when we say that a “bomb cyclone” is coming.
Bomb cyclone is a meteorological term for a storm undergoing bombogenesis. This occurs when a storm’s central pressure drops at least 24 millibars within 24 hours. The lower the pressure, the more powerful the storm becomes.
This is the first “bomb cyclone” to hit California this year.
And the storm forecast just “keeps getting worse,” according to KTLA weather anchor Mark Kriski.
Major travel disruptions, mudslides, flooding and other safety hazards are expected to come at one of the busiest travel times of the year, the National Weather Service said, urging residents to prepare.
In addition to all that, we are being told that we could even see “a tornado or two” if conditions are just right.
Greater Lake Tahoe communities may see up to 2 feet of snow at lake level and 4 feet above 7,000 feet, with winds reaching 100 mph from Tuesday night through Friday morning.
A powerful winter storm is forecast to blanket California’s Sierra Nevada with up to five feet of snow and winds nearing 55 mph from Tuesday evening through Friday, creating hazardous holiday travel conditions and prompting a National Weather Service warning.
Mono County could see 10–20 inches of snow, with higher elevations reaching 4 feet and winds up to 100 mph.
Yosemite National Park may be buried under as much as 8 feet of snow, with winds near 50 mph lasting through Friday.
Siskiyou County, including Snowman’s Summit, is expected to receive 1–3 feet of snow and winds up to 60 mph; elevations above 4,500 feet could see 5 feet of snow.
Wow.
I can’t even imagine what conditions will be like with that much wind and that much snow.
If you live in those areas, please do not attempt to travel anywhere.
According to AccuWeather Chief On-Air Meteorologist Bernie Rayno, the peaks of the Sierra Nevada mountains are probably going to get “at least 10 feet of snow this week”…
“We’re probably looking at, at least 10 feet of snow this week over the ridges and peaks of the Sierra Nevada, which is what they need from an upcoming summer water demand standpoint,” AccuWeather Chief On-Air Meteorologist Bernie Rayno said.
10 feet equals 120 inches.
I have never lived anywhere that has gotten 120 inches of snow in a week.
Have you?
Needless to say, conditions will be much different in the major cities, but it is being projected that Sacramento, Los Angeles and San Francisco could all get “a month’s worth of rainfall this upcoming week”…
Atmospheric rivers continue to soak the West, bringing heavy rainfall, gusty winds and mountain snowfall. The latest event is ramping up for Northern and Central California this weekend and is expected to last into the week. Flood watches are in effect through the next several days, where widespread rainfall of 5 to 8 inches is possible through Thursday and isolated totals could near a foot. Cities like Sacramento, Los Angeles and San Francisco could see a month’s worth of rainfall this upcoming week.
That is not good news at all.
Some areas of Northern California are already reeling from widespread flooding that was caused by the last atmospheric river…
The most recent atmospheric river dumped anywhere from 3 to 12 inches of rain in Northern California’s coastal ranges and Sierra foothills last weekend.
That lead to just over 40 reports of flooding, 20 reports of landslides and another 16 reports of wind damage in the state from Saturday night through early Monday morning. Among the most serious flash flooding occurred in and near Redding, in far Northern California, where water rescues occurred.
For the last several years, the United States has been getting repeatedly pummeled by one “billion dollar disaster” after another.
But most people just think that conditions will “return to normal” eventually.
I don’t want to rain on anyone’s parade, but that simply isn’t going to happen.
We really do live at a time when global weather patterns are going completely nuts.
Will 2026 be a year of great shaking for the United States? Coming into 2025, I thought that seismic activity would be a major global theme, and that has certainly turned out to be the case. This has been an extremely unusual year for earthquakes along the Pacific Ring of Fire, and volcanoes that have been dormant for ages are suddenly roaring to life all over the world. Here in the United States, we have been experiencing lots and lots of little earthquakes, but thankfully we have not been hit by a really bad one yet. Will our luck run out in 2026?
According to the Daily Mail, the dozens of earthquakes that have been rattling the New Madrid fault zone since the middle of November are “renewing fears of a catastrophic natural disaster soon”…
A giant seismic zone in the heart of the US has seen dozens of tiny earthquakes break out in the last month, renewing fears of a catastrophic natural disaster soon.
Since mid-November, the US Geological Survey (USGS) has detected at least 38 low-level seismic events along the boundaries of the New Madrid Seismic Zone (NMSZ) in Arkansas, Kentucky, Missouri, and Tennessee.
The threat that the New Madrid fault zone poses should not be underestimated.
The New Madrid earthquakes were the biggest earthquakes in American history. They occurred in the central Mississippi Valley, but were felt as far away as New York City, Boston, Montreal, and Washington D.C. President James Madison and his wife Dolly felt them in the White House. Church bells rang in Boston. From December 16, 1811 through March of 1812 there were over 2,000 earthquakes in the central Midwest, and between 6,000-10,000 earthquakes in the Bootheel of Missouri where New Madrid is located near the junction of the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers.
In the known history of the world, no other earthquakes have lasted so long or produced so much evidence of damage as the New Madrid earthquakes. Three of the earthquakes are on the list of America’s top earthquakes: the first one on December 16, 1811, a magnitude of 8.1 on the Richter scale; the second on January 23, 1812, at 7.8; and the third on February 7, 1812, at as much as 8.8 magnitude.
Scientists tell us that it is just a matter of time before another great earthquake strikes this region.
Six years ago, the USGS determined that a magnitude 7.7 quake would shake major cities all over the Midwest…
In 2019, USGS scientists modeled what a 7.7 magnitude earthquake would look like if it erupted along the Arkansas-Tennessee border, in an area near Memphis.
The shockwaves of this hypothetical mega quake spread for hundreds of miles, reaching cities including Kansas City, Indianapolis, Louisville, and Birmingham.
Buildings in that area of the country are typically not constructed to withstand an event of that size, and so the USGS is projecting that hundreds of thousands of buildings would be damaged and the economic damage would run into the hundreds of billions of dollars…
Since this region is not well equipped to deal with a massive seismic event, studies of such an earthquake projected that a magnitude 7.7 earthquake would cause over 86,000 injuries or deaths, damage 715,000 buildings, and knock out power to 2.6 million homes.
That report, by the University of Illinois, Virginia Tech, and George Washington University, also estimated that the cost could hit $300 billion directly, with indirect costs due to lost jobs possibly taking the damage to $600 billion.
An earthquake like that could hit us at any time.
But when the “really Big One” finally arrives, it will be much, much worse than the USGS is anticipating.
Experts are also urging us to keep an eye on the Cascadia Subduction Zone.
Beneath Cascadia’s forests and coastlines lies a 600-mile fault capable of producing a magnitude-9 earthquake. The last one struck in 1700, shaking the region for minutes and sending a massive tsunami all the way to Japan. Today, nearly 17 million people live on top of the same silent threat. Scientists warn that when it breaks again, the Pacific Northwest could change in a matter of minutes.
The reason why the Cascadia Subduction Zone is so dangerous is because it has the potential to produce “megathrust” earthquakes…
At depths shallower than around 30 km, the two plates of the CSZ are locked together by friction. Strain (deformation) slowly builds as the subduction forces continue to act upon the locked plates. Once the fault’s frictional strength is exceeded, the rocks slip past each other along the fault in a “megathrust” earthquake.
A large enough “megathrust” earthquake could cause a tsunami that is hundreds of feet high to violently slam into the west coast.
In such a scenario, the death toll would likely be cataclysmic.
So that is why any seismic activity in the region gets so much attention.
On Monday, a magnitude 2.9 earthquake not too far away from Seattle caused quite a stir…
Reports of a massive explosion in Washington state sent residents in the Pacific Northwest into a state of confusion Monday morning.
The US Geological Survey (USGS) sent out an alert just before 11.30am ET, warning that an explosion with the force of a magnitude 3.0 earthquake has just taken place near the town of Concrete.
USGS quickly retracted the false explosion warning and reclassified the seismic event as a magnitude 2.9 earthquake, less than 70 miles north of Seattle.
Scientists assure us that a “megathrust” earthquake along the Cascadia Subduction Zone is in our future.
Successfully predicting earthquakes sounds like a dark art.
However, new research hints it may be possible: Sediment cores extracted from the Pacific seafloor suggest that two major fault systems along the western coast of the United States and Canada might be partially synchronized. After an earthquake on the southern part of the Cascadia subduction zone, an earthquake soon after on the northern part of the San Andreas fault appears to occur roughly half of the time, the new findings reveal. These results, published in Geosphere, provide evidence of stress triggering, which has long been invoked to explain how activity on one fault might lead to activity on another nearby.
Fault zones persist across wide swaths of our planet, but the one that stretches onshore and offshore from California to British Columbia, Canada, is particularly complex. The vertical strike-slip San Andreas fault, in the south, intersects the Cascadia subduction zone off the coast of Northern California at a point known as the Mendocino Triple Junction.
When the San Andreas fault system finally rips wide open, the geography of the state of California will be permanently altered.
And it won’t just be Southern California that is affected.
While California ranks second in the US in seismic activity, most quakes are small and go largely unnoticed. That has changed in recent weeks with two swarms impacting the Bay Area: one is east of San Francisco near San Ramon; the other is north of San Francisco near The Geysers.
Over the last 30 days, USGS has reported 1,470 earthquakes around The Geysers; in just the last 7 days, there have been 286. Most of these have been weak, with only 5 earthquakes rated a magnitude 2.0 or higher intensity over the last week. While the volume has been eyebrow raising, the intensity hasn’t.
The opposite has been the case near San Ramon. There, over the last 30 days, there have been 139 earthquakes reported by USGS; over the last 7 days, that number has been 25. But the intensity of these earthquakes have been greater, with 39 rated magnitude 2.0 or greater and 6 rated 3.0 or greater over the last 30 days.
This is definitely not normal.
San Ramon has been getting shaken so frequently that one social media user has compared it to “a massage chair”…
“Wee bit nervous,” one person wrote on Threads, adding that she planned to stock up on water and earthquake supplies.
“San Ramon is basically a massage chair today … but like, the stressful kind,” another person wrote on the social media site. “Dear Earth: we get it, you’re active. You can stop now.”
The Calaveras Fault is a major branch of the San Andreas fault system.
This is the fault that has been causing so much shaking in San Ramon lately, and it has the potential to produce very large earthquakes…
Historically, the southern half of the central segment of the Calaveras Fault has been the most seismically active segment of the fault.
It produced the 6.2 Morgan Hill earthquake in 1984. The 5.9 Coyote Lake earthquake in 1979 ruptured slightly to the south of these other earthquakes.
When you are driving your vehicle and one of those little warning signals on the dashboard lights up, what do you do?
Hopefully you take it to a mechanic or you fix it yourself.
Ignoring a warning signal like that is a really bad idea.
Similarly, the New Madrid fault zone, the Cascadia Subduction Zone and the San Andreas fault system have all been sending us lots of warning signals lately.
Sadly, it appears that most of the population will continue to ignore those warning signals until it is too late.
The slow-motion disaster that we are witnessing on the west coast is unlike anything we have ever seen before. A series of atmospheric rivers has already dumped trillions of gallons of water on the region, and trillions of gallons of additional water will fall before the end of the year. This has caused some rivers to rise to the highest levels that we have ever seen. Meanwhile, some areas in the Northwest have been repeatedly pummeled by extremely high winds. As you will see below, some of the wind speeds that have been recorded are difficult to believe. For a long time I have been warning my readers that weather patterns have been going nuts all over the globe, but of course many people will never be convinced until it actually happens where they live. For tens of millions of Americans that live along the west coast, a wake up call has finally arrived.
According to the Weather Channel, the parade of storms that we have been witnessing will continue to roll on into next week…
A parade of Pacific storms accompanied by atmospheric rivers will continue to march into the West Coast into Christmas week, spreading the threat of heavy rain from already flooded areas of western Washington to Oregon and California.
To say it’s been a terrible stretch of weather in parts of the West has been an understatement.
The last sentence in that quote made me smile.
Yes, “a terrible stretch of weather” would most certainly be an understatement…
First, record flooding hit parts of western Washington. Then, as flood-ravaged areas were recovering, a powerhouse windstorm blasted much of the Northwest and Rockies Wednesday, with winds clocked up to 144 mph and over 160 reports of wind damage in Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming and Colorado.
I can’t recall a windstorm of this magnitude ever hitting the Pacific Northwest in modern times.
It is being reported that at least nine different states experienced wind speeds of over 100 mph…
High winds slammed the Pacific Northwest and Rockies Wednesday and Wednesday night, cutting power to three-quarters of a million customers at peak, according to PowerOutage.US. That number was down to 325,000 as of Thursday morning.
The highest wind gusts in the region were on mountain tops — 144 mph at Mount Coffin, Wyoming, 142 mph at Coldwater Ridge, Washington, and 138 mph at Mount Hood, Oregon. Winds gusted over 100 mph on mountaintops in at least nine different states.
Now that storm has moved into the middle of the country, and blizzard conditions are expected in much of the Northern Plains…
“Wind gusts of 80+ mph, several feet of mountain snow, and blizzard conditions are in the forecast for the northern and western U.S. today and tomorrow,” the forecast said.
A map included with the post on X showed that while the entirety of the Northern Plains was expected to see some impacts from the storm, some states will likely be hit by widespread major impacts. These include Montana, Wyoming, North Dakota, Colorado and Idaho.
But it is the west coast that has been getting hit harder than anyone else.
Some areas of Washington state have already had about 2 feet of rain, and more rain is on the way.
Yes, Washington state always gets rain, but this is truly unusual.
Warm water and air and unusual weather conditions tracing back as far as tropical cyclone flooding in Indonesia helped supercharge stubborn atmospheric rivers that have drenched Washington state with almost 5 trillion gallons (19 trillion liters) of rain in the past seven days, threatening record flood levels, meteorologists said.
The Skagit River rose to the highest level ever recored.
So did the Snohomish River.
Needless to say, many other bodies of water flooded as well.
According to Governor Bob Ferguson, a 49 mile stretch of US Highway 2 will be closed for months as a result of the flooding…
Massive flooding conditions persist across western Washington as another round of heavy rain and wind targets the region, adding to the damage from last week’s historic flooding and raising renewed concerns about vulnerable levees, landslide risks, and long-term transportation disruptions.
On Tuesday, Gov. Bob Ferguson said a 49-mile stretch of US Highway 2 between Skykomish and Leavenworth will be closed for months after floodwaters and mudslides heavily damaged the roadway.
Unfortunately, more rain is in the forecast.
In fact, it is being projected that some areas of western Oregon could get more than 10 inches of rain from this next storm…
A general 4-8 inches of rain is forecast to fall on western Oregon, with slightly less in the Interstate 5 corridor near Portland. From 8-12 inches of rain with an AccuWeather Local StormMax of 16 inches is projected for the western slopes of the Oregon Cascades.
This amount of rain will be enough to unleash moderate to major flooding along both small streams and rivers in western Oregon. A few locations may experience crests close to record levels, such as in the Portland area. Motorists should be prepared for areas of high water and road washouts. Mudslides are also a danger with the storm.
Meanwhile, meteorologist Ryan Maue is telling us that the Sierra Mountains in California could see up to 30 inches of precipitation from the “firehose of moisture” that is approaching…
California is looking at historic precipitation from onslaught of atmospheric rivers in next 10-days.
Could be 20″ or 30″ mostly rain in the Sierra from “firehose of moisture” directed right at coast with strong jet stream.
This going to be really bad.
He isn’t exaggerating.
It certainly looks like the next couple of weeks will be really bad.
If you live in an area along the west coast that is prone to flooding, you should be doing what you can to get prepared.
Of course this is just the beginning.
Global weather patterns have been getting increasingly unstable for quite a while, and I am entirely convinced that what is coming in the years ahead will be much worse than anything that we are experiencing now.
We really are living in extremely chaotic times, and the insane weather that we are currently witnessing is just one element of “the perfect storm” that is now upon us.
You know a Democrat is in serious trouble when they get negative coverage by a reliably left wing outlet like the Washington Post.
In the case of Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson, it wasn’t just a reporter or columnist calling out his budget proposal, it was the Editorial Board.
It seems they are concerned about the unfunded liabilities in the city’s pension programs. Johnson wants to create new taxes and raise some existing ones. The Washington Post sees this for what it is – a financial band-aid that won’t stop the bleeding.
Chicago has long-term structural problems with its finances, thanks in large part to wildly underfunded pensions. The country’s third-largest city has a history of using short-term gimmicks to paper over its problems, such as a notorious 2008 deal that sold off 75 years of future parking meter revenue for $1.15 billion, which was quickly spent. That deal is still hurting finances today, which should have taught local politicians that there is no substitute for serious fiscal reform. Alas, apparently not.
The city’s net operating budget increased almost 40 percent between 2019 and 2025, “subsidized in large part by temporary federal pandemic funding that kept the City financially afloat,” according to Grant McClintock of the Civic Federation. “The pandemic is over, but many of the programs and personnel positions established during that time remain, and without the benefit of the federal funding that previously supported them.”
Mayor Brandon Johnson (D) proposes to offset a $1.15 billion shortfall by taxing the businesses that anchor Chicago’s economy, borrowing and more gimmicks.
The mayor proposes to increase the tax on the lease of “personal property” like computers, vehicles and software from 11 percent to 14 percent, and to bring back the city’s “head tax,” which would result in large employers paying $33 per worker, per month.
By making it more expensive to do business or hire workers in the city, these measures threaten Chicago’s future economic growth and tax collections. These moves are especially reckless given that the Chicago Fed’s 12-month hiring outlook is the weakest it’s been since the pandemic. Gov. JB Pritzker (D) says the head tax would penalize employment.
Johnson was asked about this during a press event and rejected it, naturally. Watch:
WATCH: Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson responds to a Washington Post editorial today that criticized his head tax proposal.
Why have major tourist destinations all over America been so depressingly quiet in 2025? Normally tourism accounts for close to 10 percent of U.S. GDP, and that makes it a critical pillar of the U.S. economy. We witnessed an enormous downturn during the early days of the COVID pandemic, but that was just temporary. Now we are witnessing a similar downturn, but this time we don’t have a pandemic to blame. Needless to say, the overall economy is steadily moving in the wrong direction, and that is certainly affecting tourism. But as you will see below, there are other factors that are very much within our control that are driving tourists away.
When I claim that the U.S. is experiencing a “tourism industry apocalypse”, I am not exaggerating at all.
This summer, many of the country’s top tourist destinations were so empty that they resembled something out of “a dystopian novel”…
Imagine walking into what was once America’s most vibrant tourist destinations and hearing nothing but the whisper of wind through empty corridors. This isn’t a scene from a dystopian novel — it’s the stark reality of US tourism in 2025.
The summer that was supposed to be bustling with laughter, excitement, and packed attractions has turned into a ghost town of economic uncertainty. Take Florida, once the entertainment paradise of America, where over 15,000 Walt Disney World employees now face the terrifying prospect of reduced hours or complete layoffs — right in the middle of peak tourist season.
In the past, I have written about how a vacation to Disney World has become so ridiculously expensive that it is now out of reach for most middle class families.
But that doesn’t fully explain why international visitors to Florida fell by 38 percent in just one year…
The numbers are brutal. International visitors to Florida have plummeted by a staggering 38% in just twelve months. Hotel bookings from Orlando to Miami have nosedived by 27%, creating what experts are calling a “post-pandemic crisis without a pandemic”.
But this isn’t just about empty hotels and quiet theme parks. It’s about the human stories behind these statistics. Workers who built careers around tourism are now facing an uncertain future. The problem runs deeper than just fewer tourists — it’s about systemic vulnerabilities in tourism-dependent economies.
Many would argue that conditions in Las Vegas are even worse.
There are thousands upon thousands of empty hotel rooms every night, and many casino floors are eerily empty these days…
Agitators in the city have attempted to document the deterioration by posting ominous images of barren casinos, conjuring the perception of a place hollowed out by economic armageddon. The reality is more nuanced, but it is true that practically every conceivable indicator tracking tourism to Las Vegas is flashing warning signs. Hotel occupancy has cratered. Rooms were only 66.7 percent full in July, down by 16.8 percent from the previous year. The number of travelers passing through Harry Reid International Airport also declined by 4.5 percent in 2025 during an ongoing ebb of foreign tourists, for familiar reasons. Canadians, historically one of the city’s most reliable sources of degenerates, have effectively vanished. Ticket sales for Air Canada jets flying to Las Vegas have slipped by 33 percent, while the Edmonton-based low-cost carrier Flair has reported a 62 percent drop-off. Those last data points have provoked the city’s mayor, Shelley Berkley, to engage in some emergency diplomacy. In September, she implored our neighbors from the north to make their prodigal return to the Strip.
“I’m telling everyone in Canada, please come,” she said. “We love you, we miss you, we need you.”
We don’t like to admit it, but we are very dependent on our neighbors to the north.
Canadians normally account for approximately 30 percent of all international visits to the U.S. each year.
From Washington state to northern New England, American businesses that have long depended on Canadian visitors are seeing traffic dry up — and with it, a crucial source of revenue.
A new report shared exclusively with Fortune by the Joint Economic Committee (JEC) – Minority, a congressional standing committee dating back to 1946 responsible for documenting the economic conditions of the U.S., details how a sharp drop in Canadian tourism is hitting every U.S. state along the northern border.
For many border communities, maintaining a healthy level of visitors from Canada is a matter of economic survival.
If there is a substantial drop in Canadian visitors, many businesses will simply cease to exist.
If you live in a community near the Canadian border, you know exactly what I am talking about.
So the fact that the number of vehicles crossing over the border from Canada has dropped so precipitously is extremely alarming…
From January to October 2025, the number of passenger vehicles crossing the U.S.-Canada border fell by nearly 20% compared with the same period in 2024, according to the JEC analysis, which draws on U.S. Customs and Border Protection travel statistics. In some border states, the decline reached 27%, a shift that local tourism agencies say is showing up in fewer tourists, more hotel vacancies, and weaker sales.
Other than during the early days of the pandemic, we have never seen anything quite like this.
One woman that runs a gift shop in northern New Hampshire says that she can count the number of Canadian tourists that she has encountered this year on one hand…
In northern New Hampshire, the absence of Canadian license plates is especially stark. “Being only eight miles from the border, normally Canadians make up anywhere from 15-25% of visitors. Now, I can probably count the number of Canadian visitors on one hand. I’m just trying to plug along and keep my nose above the waterline,” said Elizabeth Guerin, owner of the Fiddleheads gift shop in Colebrook, New Hampshire.
Everyone knows what has happened to our relationship with Canada over the past year.
And now the Canadians are showing us exactly how they feel about it.
We need people to come here and spend their money.
So it is important to be friendly.
Unfortunately, we continue to implement even more measures that will make it even more difficult for foreign visitors to come to this country.
The Trump administration is proposing to ask visitors from several dozen nations that enjoy visa-free travel to the U.S. to submit additional personal information before entering the country, including five years of their social media history, the Department of Homeland Security said in a notice this week.
Citizens of 42 countries enrolled in the visa waiver program can generally come to the U.S. for up to 90 days for tourism or business travel, without needing to apply for a visa at an American embassy or consulate, a process that can take months or even years.
The list of countries in the visa waiver program includes many European nations like the United Kingdom, Germany and France, as well as some U.S. allies around the world, including Australia, Israel, Japan, New Zealand and South Korea.
The tourism industry is already in critical condition.
Are they trying to finish it off?
Of course even if we were as welcoming as possible, a lot of tourists would still shun us because of how expensive the U.S. has become to visit.
America has become too expensive to visit, and the tourism industry refuses to admit it. We’ve turned travel – and living – into an extraction operation, and we’re surprised when people stop coming.
America has lost the plot. We built a tourism economy designed to extract maximum revenue from every interaction, and it’s backfiring spectacularly. We have priced ourselves out of our own welcome mat. What once felt like a promise to the world is now an obstacle course, a trip measured not in miles but in fees, surcharges, and the steady erosion of goodwill.
I’ve spent nearly 15 years observing this industry at Skift, watching as we’ve collectively convinced ourselves that premium travel’s resilience somehow masks the fundamental rot beneath. But the cracks are showing, and they’re widening faster than anyone wants to admit.
If we want tourists to visit, we need to stop ripping them off.
At this stage, the vast majority of America’s most prominent tourist destinations are only affordable for the wealthy and the ultra-wealthy.
And the gap between the rich and the rest of us just continues to grow.
Fewer than 60,000 people – 0.001% of the world’s population – control three times as much wealth as the entire bottom half of humanity, according to a report that argues global inequality has reached such extremes that urgent action has become essential.
The authoritative World Inequality Report 2026, based on data compiled by 200 researchers, also found that the top 10% of income-earners earn more than the other 90% combined, while the poorest half captures less than 10% of total global earnings.
Wealth – the value of people’s assets – was even more concentrated than income, or earnings from work and investments, the report found, with the richest 10% of the world’s population owning 75% of wealth and the bottom half just 2%.
If you are at or near the top of the pyramid, life is good.
But for those in the bottom half, things are really rough.
History has shown us that when the gap between the “haves” and the “have nots” gets too large, really bad things can happen.
We have already seen eruptions of civil unrest all over the globe throughout 2025, and I am convinced that this is just the beginning.
Reviving the middle class should be a priority for leaders all over the globe.
And if we want to have a sustainable tourism industry, we need to make tourism affordable for the middle class again.
Unfortunately, the tourism industry has become yet another example of the rampant greed that is now permeating our society, and I don’t expect that to change any time soon.
EAGAN, MN — In a move intended to better reflect the state’s modern demographics and generate more interest in the team from the populace, the Minnesota Vikings announced that they were changing their name to the Minnesota Somali Pirates.
Though the franchise had built a proud tradition since joining the NFL in 1961, team ownership reportedly decided that updating the team’s name, logo, and mascot could lead to an increase in fan interest among Minnesota’s growing Somali migrant population.
“This could be a huge boost in interest and revenue,” said Steve Poppen, the team’s Executive Vice President and Chief Business Administration Officer. “We’re always looking for ways to draw more fans to the team, whether they be native Minnesotans, transplants from other states, or volatile third-world migrants who are slowly overtaking the state. We think they’re really going to get excited about the team’s new branding. Especially our new mascot, Walid the Pirate, who will take the place of the beloved but outdated Viktor the Viking. Even our new logo conveys the message, ‘Look at me — I am the football team now.'”
The team said it was leaning into the change, including making giant foam machetes and AK-47s available in the team store. “We want the new fans to feel right at home,” Poppen explained. “We can already tell that opposing teams and their fans will be terrified to come into the hostile territory of our stadium. Venture here at your own risk. I mean that literally.”
At publishing time, the team also announced that the Somali national anthem “Qolobaa Calankeed” would now be played before the start of every home game.
A Babylon Bee subscriber contributed to this report. If you want to pitch your own headline ideas to our staff, click here to check out all of our membership options!
A lot of people out there continue to deny what is happening even though it is taking place right in front of their eyes. With each passing week, we continue to get more evidence that our planet is becoming increasingly unstable. All over the globe, volcanoes that have been dormant for a really long time are now roaring to life. Many will continue to mumble “everything is fine” and go on with their daily lives as if nothing has changed, but if there is a major eruption of a supervolcano and the world is plunged into a “volcanic winter” that lasts for multiple years, nobody is going to be able to ignore the apocalyptic famine that happens as a result.
On Sunday, a volcano in Africa that has been dormant for all of recorded history suddenly erupted…
A volcano in Ethiopia’s northeastern region erupted for the first time in nearly 12,000 years, sending thick plumes of smoke up to nine miles into the sky, the Toulouse Volcanic Ash Advisory Centre (VAAC) said.
The Hayli Gubbi volcano, located in Ethiopia’s Afar region about 500 miles northeast of Addis Ababa near the Eritrean border, erupted on Sunday for several hours.
Africa is undergoing a slow-motion geological transformation that will eventually split the continent in two, according to new research analyzing magnetic data from the East African Rift.
Scientists predict that over the next five to 10 million years, Africa will separate into distinct landmasses—one in the west and a smaller eastern portion—divided by a newly formed ocean.
Of course it isn’t just in Africa where very strange things are occurring.
In Afghanistan, a volcano that has supposedly been dormant for “hundreds of thousands of years” is now showing plenty of signs of life…
A volcano that has been dormant for hundreds of thousands of years could be gearing up for a massive explosion, according to new research.
Scientists have measured signs of unrest at the Taftan volcano in eastern Iran, near the Afghanistan border, despite no eruptions in the last 700,000 years, according to a paper published earlier this month in Geophysical Research Letters.
More than 25,000 earthquakes rattled the Greek islands earlier this year, sending residents fleeing and prompting tourists to reconsider their vacation plans. According to a new AI-powered study, the pulsing movement of a massive underground magma pool was behind the mysterious earthquake swarm.
The international study, led in part by scientists from University College London (UCL) and published Thursday in the journal Science, used artificial intelligence to analyze the seismic data from between Santorini and nearby Amorgos. Researchers found that the tremors were not the result of a typical fault slip but were instead caused by rebounding sheets of magma slicing through the Earth’s crust about 7 miles (12 kilometers) below the seafloor. This deep magma activity triggered bursts of quakes, some approaching magnitude 5.
The last time Santorini erupted was in 1950.
Why is it so active now?
There are many more examples that I could give you, but I want to focus on the one that I am the most concerned about.
The Campi Flegrei supervolcano in southern Italy has been getting shaken by thousands upon thousands of earthquakes this year, and experts are concerned that all of this seismic activity could be building up to something really big…
In Greek and Roman mythology, the Campi Flegrei volcano is depicted as the opening to the underworld.
Its prehistoric eruptions blocked out the sun, turning summer into winter and covering Europe and Russia in thick volcanic ash. Now this powerful seismic giant near Naples is stirring again, shaking the ground in a way that scientists say it hasn’t for centuries.
“Two of the most recent earthquakes are the strongest we’ve ever seen,” said Giovanni Macedonio, the director of the National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology in Naples.
Why is the ground around the Campi Flegrei supervolcano being shaken to an extent that hasn’t been seen in centuries?
Nobody seems to know.
As I have detailed in previous articles, a full-blown eruption of the Campi Flegrei supervolcano could potentially cause a “volcanic winter” that could last for multiple years.
Global temperatures would absolutely plummet, a lot less sunlight would reach our planet, and it would become exceedingly difficult to grow anything.
That would particularly be true in the northern hemisphere.
All of a sudden there would be a severe lack of food all over the globe, and billions of people could potentially starve to death.
So this is a threat that we should be taking very seriously.
There is one last thing that I wanted to mention before I close this article.
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian is publicly admitting that the capital of Iran will need to be moved due to a chronic lack of water…
A major capital city in the Middle East will have to be relocated due to water shortages and overcrowding, the President has said.
Iranian leader Masoud Pezeshkian has said Tehran is no longer ecologically sustainable, and the 9,700,000 residents would have to move.
‘People said it was impossible, but now it’s no longer optional,’ Pezeshkian said. ‘We can’t keep adding population and construction here. Expansion is possible, but the water problem cannot be solved.’
There is talk that large numbers of people may need to be evacuated from Tehran quite soon if more rain doesn’t start to fall.
Rainfall in Iran has been way below normal for an extended period of time, and right now the country is enduring the worst drought that it has experienced in about 60 years…
Rainfall across much of the country is about 85 per cent below average, with the worst drought conditions in about 60 years taking hold.
Decades of mismanagement of natural resources, including the construction of too many dams and a lack of enforcement when it came to drilling illegal wells, have combined with inefficient agriculture and adverse weather conditions to lead to the crisis.
Of course it isn’t just Iran that is dealing with such issues.
All over the world, supplies of fresh water just keep getting tighter and tighter.
This is an enormous problem, and there are no easy answers.
Our world is changing at a pace that is difficult to comprehend, but most people out there are still expecting conditions to “return to normal” eventually.
The middle class in the United States is being systematically destroyed. I know that this may sound like an obvious statement to many of you, but when I first started writing about this more than a decade ago it wasn’t an obvious statement. For years, the middle class was slowly eroding, but now the decline of the middle class has become an avalanche. Even the mainstream media is talking about America’s “K-shaped economy” these days, and nobody can deny that the poor are steadily getting poorer.
Recently, a reader that has been following my work for many years sent me a very sobering email.
I asked him if I could share some of the content of that email in one of my articles, and he gave me permission.
He is one of the millions of Americans that is barely scraping by from month to month, and I think that his story will really resonate with most of you…
My Pickup Insurance went up $17 this month.
My Real Estate Tax went up $187.
I had to get rid of my Landline Phone because I couldn’t afford it anymore.
I drive a 41 year old Pickup with 221,000 miles. I would love to buy a better used Pickup for $7,000 but just don’t have the cash.
Last month I had $17 in my Checking Account when I got my SS Check. The month before that it was $5.
Michael, you have been writing about the vanishing Middle Class. I don’t think there will be a Middle Class in 1 or 2 more years!!! Like I said in a previous email, I don’t know where else I can cut back. And I live a very, very frugal, less materialistic, simple lifestyle compared to the average American.
If I didn’t inherit a small farm with a livable house, I would be homeless!!!
I know that many of you can identify with this.
For a very long time, the cost of living has been rising faster than paychecks.
Now we have reached a stage where a very large proportion of the population is desperately trying to survive from month to month.
A lot of people out there have cut down to one or two meals a day because reducing food expenses is one of the easiest ways to save money.
According to an alarming study to be released on Tuesday, 2.6 million New Yorkers in the city reported facing food hardships this last year.
“On the worst end, 550,000 New Yorkers actually said that they ran out of food before they had money to buy any more. And to put that in perspective, that’s as if the entire city of Baltimore ran out of food,” Jason Cone with Robin Hood said.
We are not “the land of plenty” anymore.
I realize that this is not welcome news, but it is the truth.
During a recent interview with Fox News, Jade Warshaw laid out some of the facts that show that we are in the midst of a very painful cost of living crisis…
We’re in a cost of living crisis, Dana. I think everybody knows it. We speak to more than 18 million Americans every single week on The Ramsey Show and I am hearing firsthand, yes, the price of housing, rent, mortgages, they’re a problem. Obviously, we know that health care has gone up 6%-7%. I spoke to a woman the other day, the price of her health care is going from $400 to $900. Of course, that’s more than 6%-7%. And then of course, we’re finding things like daycare, obviously food, it’s so expensive. The average American, as a result, is going into debt. And we’re seeing more debt on consumers than ever. $103,000 of consumer debt is what Americans are paying, because these big three are still continuing to eat at our wallets: credit cards, student loans, car payments, Dana. It really is a crisis.
So what is our country going to look like as this cost of living crisis continues to intensify?
I asked Google AI to tell me some of the things that the middle class would be unable to afford soon, and this is what I was told…
Homeownership: The traditional cornerstone of middle-class wealth, owning a home, has become an elusive dream for many, especially in urban and high-demand areas. Skyrocketing home prices, high down payments, and increased mortgage rates have made it so that in many markets, fewer than one in five homes are within reach for typical middle-income households.
Higher Education: A college education is increasingly a financial burden, with tuition and expenses soaring. Middle-class families often earn too much to qualify for significant financial aid but not enough to pay out of pocket, leading to massive student debt that can delay other life goals for decades.
Retirement Savings: Due to other financial pressures and the shift from pension plans to 401(k)s, many families struggle to save enough for a comfortable retirement. The inability to put away sufficient funds for the future means many may face the prospect of working longer or a reduced standard of living later in life.
Healthcare: Even with insurance, the costs of premiums, deductibles, and out-of-pocket expenses for medical care and prescriptions can lead to substantial financial strain, making specialized medical treatments unaffordable for some.
Childcare: Quality childcare expenses can rival or exceed college tuition in many areas, forcing many parents (often mothers) to leave the workforce because the cost effectively erases the benefit of a second income.
New Cars: The average price of a new car has surged, partly due to advanced technology features becoming standard. This, combined with higher insurance and maintenance costs, means many families are holding onto older vehicles longer or forgoing car ownership altogether.
Groceries and Everyday Essentials: Persistent inflation means essentials like food, utilities, and gas are significantly more expensive, stretching paychecks and leading many families to worry about affording daily needs.
Comprehensive Insurance Plans: The rising cost of maintaining adequate health, home, and auto insurance coverage is becoming a major concern, potentially leading families to opt for limited coverage and increased financial risk.
Leisure and Vacations: Rising costs of living mean that family vacations and leisure activities, considered essential for a balanced life, are becoming luxuries many cannot afford.
Personal Fitness and Wellness Services: Personalized services like personal trainers or boutique fitness classes are increasingly seen as luxuries for only the upper class.
Organic and Specialty Foods: The higher price tag associated with organic and specialty foods may put these healthier options out of reach for average middle-class budgets.
New Technology and Eco-Friendly Upgrades: Keeping up with the latest tech gadgets or investing in eco-friendly home improvements (like solar panels or energy-efficient appliances) often requires a substantial initial investment that can be prohibitive.
I want to say a little bit more about the first item in that list.
Soaring prices and high mortgage rates are not the only reasons why home ownership has become so expensive.
Insurance rates have been steadily escalating for years, and property taxes have risen to insane levels in many parts of the country…
The hidden costs of homeownership are reaching nearly $16,000 per year nationwide, underscoring the ongoing affordability crisis crippling potential buyers.
A new analysis from real estate marketplace Zillow and Thumbtack, an online marketplace for local services, found that insurance, maintenance and property tax can cost the average homeowner $15,979 per year. Maintenance costs account for $10,946 of that, while about $2,003 goes toward homeowners insurance and $3,030 toward property taxes, according to the November analysis.
I have a confession to make.
I really detest property taxes.
In fact, if I could permanently ban property taxes on a nationwide basis, I would do it.
All over America, elderly people are being forced out of homes that have been completely paid for because they can no longer afford the property taxes.
Do we really own our homes if we have to keep shelling out thousands of dollars a year just for the privilege of continuing to live in them?
Home maintenance has also become an increasingly burdensome expense, but many homeowners are trying to cut corners wherever they can in this very challenging economic environment, and that is having a direct impact on Home Depot’s bottom line…
The Home Depot is a bellwether for the US economy and housing market. It’s latest quarter isn’t sparking much confidence.
On Tuesday morning, the home improvement chain said it served fewer customers in the past three months than expected.
Its earnings come as Wall Street hits a concerning stretch of losses. In the past week, all three major stock indexes are in the red as investor confidence in AI begins to slide.
I know that things seem bad now, but what is coming in 2026 and beyond will be even worse.
The employment market is really tightening up, and mass layoffs are happening from coast to coast.
According to the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, the number of WARN notices filed during the month of October was one of the highest ever recorded…
Impending layoff notices across much of the U.S. surged in October, highlighting signs of stress in the job market.
Data from the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland shows that 39,006 Americans last month in 21 states received a Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act, or WARN, notice informing them of an upcoming layoff. U.S. labor law requires employers to provide these written warnings 60 days ahead of plant closings or mass layoffs.
It represents one of the highest numbers of WARN notices since Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland researchers started tracking the data in January 2006, although the tally remains below the spikes recorded during the 2008 financial crisis and the 2020 pandemic.
Over the last several years, we have witnessed a steady deterioration of the U.S. economy.
But curling up into a fetal position and crying about it isn’t going to help anything.
If you understand what is happening, that will help you to make wise decisions.
And wise decisions lead to wise actions.
The road ahead is going to require all of us to be strong and courageous, because things are starting to move very rapidly now.
ALEXANDRIA, VA — Inspired by the Trump White House’s move toward 50-year mortgages, popular burger chain Five Guys announced it would be addressing the ongoing “Five Guys Affordability Crisis” with convenient 50-year burger financing.
“We get it. Things are expensive, especially our burgers,” the company said in a public press release. “But new burger financing options make our menu more accessible to the average consumer than ever. Sign up for 10-year, 30-year, or even 50-year financing options. No credit check required!”
Economists urged customers not to sign up for Five Guys’ burger financing program, warning that the interest alone will amount to $10,000. “It doesn’t hurt as much up front, but this is really just a price hike disguised as a discount,” warned economic expert Paul Krugman.
Five Guys CEO Jerry Murrell, the first of the five guys, dismissed concerns that he was conning consumers and argued that their burger financing options adhere to the Wimpy code. “J. Wellington Wimpy from ‘Popeye’ simply wanted to pay people Tuesday for a hamburger today,” Murrell explained. “This is the same principle. We’ll gladly give you a burger today, and you can gradually pay it off for the rest of your life.”
Despite expert concerns, however, customers were already flocking to Five Guys, with diners slowly realizing that the typical person doesn’t buy one burger over the course of their life, they buy several hundred.
“One burger costs a lot if you pay for it all at once, but I can spread that cost out over several decades,” said local burger consumer Tony Hart. “But that’s the future’s problem. I’ll let my grandkids deal with it.”
At publishing time, Five Guys opened a new division within their company seeking full-time repo men to handle customers who fall behind on their burger payments.
Babylon Bee subscriber Dr Conservative Prof contributed to this report. If you want to pitch your own headline ideas to our staff, click here to check out all of our membership options!
It is already happening. There has been a lot of talk that there will be a surge in demand at America’s overwhelmed food banks once funding for the food stamp program ends in early November, but the truth is that we are already witnessing a surge in demand. So what is going to happen if the current government shutdown persists for an extended period of time? On one recent evening, the line at a food bank in downtown Kansas City “snaked through the parking lot, down a driveway and into the street”…
On a recent Thursday evening, the line of cars waiting to pick up food at Redemptorist Social Services Center in midtown snaked through the parking lot, down a driveway and into the street.
Demand for free food is soaring across Kansas City, as job cuts increase, food inflation remains persistently high and federal food assistance is slashed by the Trump administration.
Julie McCaw, executive director at Redemptorist, called the situation “alarming.” Families with working parents, senior citizens and people who simply cannot find work increasingly are turning to food pantries like hers for help.
Sadly, this is just the beginning.
At one location in San Francisco the lines “typically extend a city block”, but the president and CEO of that facility openly admits that the lines are “about to get longer”…
Each week, as president and CEO of the San Francisco social justice nonprofit Glide, I walk past the lines of people who wait for our free meal program. Those lines typically extend a city block.
They’re about to get longer.
If you find yourself needing to go to a food bank during the weeks ahead, my recommendation would be to get there very early.
Because once the food is gone, there is nothing left to hand out.
That recently happened at the Capital Area Food Bank in Maryland, but fortunately a truck with more supplies showed up just in time…
The Capital Area Food Bank started the morning with 300 boxes, enough for 150 families to receive two boxes each. They ran out halfway through distribution.
Cheers erupted as another truck backed into the shopping center parking lot. Federal workers, in a line that wrapped around the shopping center and into the neighborhood, clapped and cheered at the sight of reinforcements arriving at the emergency food distribution site.
If the line at that food bank is long enough to wrap around a shopping center now, what is it going to look like in a few weeks?
Marissa Brown, who runs the Roadrunner Food Bank distribution, says the line has increased by approximately 50 households to 225 each week. She estimated a line once composed mostly of unhoused people pushing carts is now probably 60% people with roofs over their heads.
“We are just seeing more of our neighbors who are housed coming, too, because it’s just hard for everyone,” Brown told Source New Mexico as people worked their way through the line Friday morning. “We’re really pleased that we can just expand that reach to anyone who might need it, but it certainly has expanded.”
Neighboring Texas is experiencing a similar surge in demand.
In fact, it is being reported that at food banks throughout the state the lines are “growing longer every day”…
The West Texas Food Bank is sounding the alarm. As the federal government shutdown continues, thousands of West Texans — including federal employees and families depending on SNAP benefits — are left wondering how they’ll put food on the table.
The Food Bank is stepping in to fill the gap, but shelves are emptying faster than they can be restocked. Demand has surged across the 19 counties served by the organization, with lines growing longer every day.
“We are seeing fear in people’s eyes,” Libby Stephens, CEO of the West Texas Food Bank, said in a news release. “Parents will skip meals so their children can eat. Families who have always been the ones giving help will find themselves asking for it. We will do everything we can, but our resources are already stretched to the limit. We desperately need the community’s help more than ever.”
We haven’t seen anything like this in a long time.
In our nation’s capital, federal workers that are suddenly without paychecks are lining up to get free food and supplies from a food bank in southeast DC…
Federal workers lined up around the corner outside of the Capital Area Food Bank in Southeast Washington, D.C., on Friday after missing their first full paycheck since the now 24-day government shutdown began.
The food bank, set up specifically for federal workers, provided boxed meals, household goods and personal hygiene items to over 250 federal employees on Friday, according to Wil Stroman, a local pastor who is helping organize a food bank for federal workers every Friday until the shutdown ends.
This is why it is so important to always have a sizable emergency fund.
If you suddenly lose your job or some sort of a temporary emergency happens, you will still need to pay your bills and feed your family.
Yes, it is great that the food banks are there.
But they can only do so much.
We haven’t even reached the month of November yet, and one food bank in Huntington, West Virginia is already rationing potatoes…
Cynthia Kirkhart, the CEO of Facing Hunger Foodbank in Huntington, West Virginia, has already had to explain to customers this year why the organization is rationing bags of potatoes.
The food bank, which also serves households in Kentucky and Ohio, has had to shrink its allotments as higher food costs and surging need strain its budget.
I never imagined that we would be talking about rationing potatoes in November 2025, but here we are.
When things start to go bad, they tend to do so very quickly, and you definitely don’t want to be caught without enough food when things really start hitting the fan.
These are such perilous times.
My hope is that the government shutdown will be resolved soon so that our food banks will not get absolutely crushed by a tsunami of new demand.
But right now we are being told that this shutdown is likely to last quite a bit longer, and that is not good news for any of us.
We sure have seen a lot of really crazy things happen so far this year. But in the minds of most Americans, there is one crisis that far outweighs everything else. As I have been documenting for years, our standard of living has been collapsing as the cost of living has risen must faster than our incomes have. As a result, 67 percent of U.S. workers are now living paycheck to paycheck. We are in the midst of the worst cost of living crisis in modern history, and Statista has found that Americans consider it to be the biggest challenge that they are facing by a very large margin…
The cost of living won this survey in a blowout, but that shouldn’t be a surprise to any of us.
There are countless videos on social media where ordinary Americans are complaining about how oppressive the cost of living has become. Zac Rios has compiled some of the most poignant videos that have been posted lately, and when you watch them back to back it really is heartbreaking…
This is what life is like in America in 2025.
And as economic conditions continue to deteriorate, it is going to get even worse.
Are you ready for that?
Many Americans are going deep into debt in a desperate attempt to stay afloat, and one recent survey found that nearly half of all Americans now worry about debt every single day…
Debt weighed heavily on daily life for many participants. Just under half (46.5%) said they worry about debt every day. Half admitted to avoiding their bank statements, a behavior that could worsen financial problems by delaying action.
Shame was another theme. More than half of respondents (54.6%) said they felt embarrassed about their debt, even though nearly everyone surveyed (98%) reported owing money.
When asked about specific concerns, the most common answers included falling behind on payments (53.7%), not having enough for retirement (53.7%), discovering higher balances than expected (53.5%), losing homes or belongings (53.3%), and leaving little to children (51.8%).
It is easy to tell people that they should get out of debt.
And a lot of people that are living on the financial edge are now losing their jobs.
During the second quarter of this year, a whopping 17 trucking and logistics companies went bankrupt…
At least 17 trucking and logistics companies filed for bankruptcy in the second quarter of 2025 alone, Equipment Finance News reported.
While dry van truckload contract rates were flat in the first half of 2025 from the same period a year ago, as FreightWaves reported, trucking spot rates, which shippers pay carriers for a one-time shipment, however, finished the first half below year-over-year levels.
Long-haul truckload demand reportedly plummeted by 25% in the first half of 2025, with trucking becoming more of a short-haul delivery method for the final leg of freight movement.
At this moment, we are in a trucking recession.
If the economy was moving in the right direction, that would not be happening.
The retail industry is experiencing a tremendous amount of pain as well.
This may be difficult to believe, but the largest shopping mall in San Francisco is now 93 percent empty…
The largest shopping mall in San Francisco is now reportedly 93% vacant and has seen its value plunge by 25% over the past year, as high rents and retail crime continue to batter the Northern California city.
A new appraisal has slashed the value of San Francisco Centre, located at 865 Market Street, to $195 million, which is a 25% decrease since August 2024 and more than $1 billion below its valuation in 2016, the San Francisco Chronicle reported, citing research from Morningstar.
The 1.4 million-square-foot mall has become largely deserted, with 93% of its property now empty, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.
I haven’t written about it for a while, but our rapidly growing commercial real estate crisis is reaching a crescendo.
As large numbers of commercial mortgages go bad, many of our financial institutions suddenly find themselves in very hot water.
Meanwhile, a residential real estate crisis is quickly developing. In some of the markets that were once the hottest, condo prices have begun to crash…
Condo prices in Killeen, TX, a little over an hour north of Austin, have collapsed by 40% since the peak in mid-2022 and have given up the entire 52% spike from mid-2020 to mid-2022, plus some. The spike had been driven by FOMO-madness and the Fed’s Free Money policies. This is one of the fastest-growing cities around; its population has surged by 35% in the past 15 years to 160,000 in 2024.
But Killeen and other cities like this with condo markets in free-fall don’t qualify for our list here because they’re too small.
Several additional cities made it onto this list because the August price drop brought the total price drop from the peak to 12%, including Phoenix, AZ, and Orlando, FL.
In so many ways, it is starting to feel like 2008 all over again.
Of course it isn’t just the U.S. that is experiencing significant economic pain.
Earlier today, I came across an article that was posted on Zero Hedge that warned that “the collapse of the German economy continues unabated”…
The collapse of the German economy continues unabated. The German Engineering Federation (VDMA) now expects a dramatic decline in production this year and lashes out at the federal government.
A rebound in the German economy this autumn has failed to materialize. Just a week ago, the Federal Statistical Office revised the country’s GDP decline for Q2 2025 from –0.1% to –0.3%. Now, the German machinery association follows suit with its forecast for the full year, confirming the ongoing downward trend in production: “We had previously expected a decline of 2 percent, now we anticipate minus 5 percent for 2025,” says VDMA President Bertram Kawlath, who expects production to grow by just 1 percent in 2026. Was 2025 really the trough?
I have been watching Germany for quite some time.
This is not a good sign at all.
I will probably have much more to say about the deteriorating situation in Europe in future articles.
At this stage, the entire global economy has reached a critical tipping point.
It certainly wouldn’t take much to push us into a worldwide economic nightmare, and I am expecting so much chaos in the months ahead.
A lot of people out there seem to think that they have no need to prepare for what is coming.
They are wrong.
Yes, things are bad now, but what is on the horizon is going to be much worse.
So I would encourage you to do what you can to get prepared, because the collapse of our standard of living is only going to escalate.
New York State Attorney General Letitia James, long claiming to be a public champion of tenants’ rights, has herself been in violation of New York City’s rent stabilization laws for more than two decades.
Since purchasing a four-story apartment building at 296 Lafayette Avenue in Brooklyn in 2001, James has failed to register the property with the New York State Division of Housing and Community Renewal (DHCR) as required for rent-stabilized buildings.
By failing to register, she denied her tenants the protections of rent stabilization, while collecting rents above the legally regulated amounts for 24 years. New York City’s housing code is based on its “Rent Stabilization Law of 1969,” which was designed to shield tenants from large rent raises, unlawful deregulation, and eviction abuses.
Screenshot
It sets yearly allowable rent increases, typically at around 3% per year. The law applies to qualifying buildings and requires landlords to register with DHCR and file annual reports on tenants, rents, and lease terms.
The NYC Department of Buildings (DOB) issues Certificates of Occupancy to establish the legal number of units in properties. That designation is the one and only controlling legal authority for unit count. The three most recent Certificates of Occupancy for Letitia James’s building at 296 Lafayette Avenue are:
1961: Authorized as seven (7) family units, with the building officially designated as a “Class A Multiple Dwelling.”
1981: Two decades later, the legal unit count was reduced to four (4) apartments, reflecting an authorized combining of units. 2001: This Certificate of Occupancy updated the building to a FIVE (5) FAMILY DWELLING, which remains its designation today.
The Rent Stabilization Law of 1969 said that any building constructed before January 1, 1974, with six or more apartments, is subject to “Rent Stabilization” laws.
The critical point for Letitia James is that, according to the 1961 Certificate of Occupancy, the last one before the passage of the Rent Stabilization Law in 1969, her building at 296 Lafayette Avenue had seven (7) units. This meant that when the law took effect in 1969, James’s building was permanently entered into rent stabilization program.
Once a building is subject to rent stabilization, that status “runs with the building” forever. Later reductions down to four units, or back up to five units, can never legally strip the building of its original rent stabilization regulatory status.
Courts and DHCR have repeatedly emphasized that a landlord cannot deregulate a property from rent stabilization by simply reducing the number of units through alterations or new Certificates of Occupancy.
In Gersten v. 56 7th Ave. LLC (2005), New York’s highest court held that rent stabilization coverage cannot be destroyed by unilateral landlord action.
Despite her registration requirements, public records show that Letitia James has never registered 296 Lafayette Avenue with DHCR since her purchase in 2001. Nor has she filed the required annual tenant registrations for any of her building’s apartments.
The consequences of James’s failure to register are significant. Under RSC § 2528.4, a landlord who fails to register may not lawfully collect any rent increases. Having never registered since 2001, any rent increases by James since 2001 were unlawful.
In fact, if James charged tenants above the last legal rent increase in 2001, they can file overcharge complaints. DHCR and the courts may impose a refund of overcharges plus 9% annual interest, plus treble damages.
Given that her apartment building has been unregistered for nearly a quarter century, the potential overcharge and penalty exposure for Letitia James is massive.
Ironically, Letitia James has consistently positioned herself as a defender of rent stabilization laws and tenants’ rights in New York City.
She has argued that rent stabilization is a vital safeguard for working families, especially during periods of economic stress such as the COVID-19 crisis, and that her office would “do everything it can to defend New York’s rent laws and protect struggling tenants.”
James has even pursued direct legal action against landlords who violated rent stabilization protections. In August 2025, she sued Zara Realty for overcharging tenants in Queens, accusing the company of exploiting subsidy recipients, ignoring rent reduction orders, and pursuing unlawful evictions.
I have recently chronicled in The Gateway Pundit Letitia James’s fraudulent real estate and mortgage filings in which she obtained mortgages by misrepresenting her unit count.
Now, Letitia James’s failure to register with DHCR since 2001 undermines the integrity of New York City’s rent regulation as a whole.
Tenants lose the protections they are entitled to, including regulated leases, lawful rent raise limits, and the ability to challenge illegal increases. Meanwhile, the city loses accurate data on housing stock, frustrating policymakers’ ability to assess affordability.
Above all, the issue is about fairness and accountability. There is no higher standard for a person who holds the office of state Attorney General than upholding the rule of law, not just in words, but in deed.
New Yorkers can no longer stand for an Attorney General who abuses both the law and her constituents for personal financial gain.
For the integrity of her public office, Letitia James should resign her position as Attorney General, register her apartment building with DHCR, and make financial restitution to the many tenants whom she has badly mistreated for the past 24 years.
of 16 inches is projected for the western slopes of the Oregon Cascades.
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