Doug

And so we must be very, very close.

Yes, they would. The first thing the dictator does is to cut communication to the outside world. Can't have anybody witnessing their brutality. In June 2025 Iran shut down the Internet throughout the country for 12 days. This meant that the airports, banks and practically every other business could not function. Today, Internet traffic in Iran is down 35-80%. They are throttling it this time. On the subject of the regular guy reporting what's really going on, as opposed to the legacy news outlets, let's not forget Minnesota. Father and son free-lance journalists Nick Shirley blew the lid off the fraud and corruption going on in Minnesota. To date, over 1,000 arrests and it's just getting started. The so-called legit news outlets paid no attention over the past 10-15 years. In 2015 David Daleiden conducted an undercover report about the sale of fetal tissue by Planned Parenthood. As far as so-called legit news outlets, I think the days of Woodward and Bernstein are long gone. Those outlets tell you what they (their Board and their stockholders) want us to think and believe. Congressman Francis E. Walter said in 1956: "One may say that he who controls the media of mass communication, controls the minds of men". The Internet and mobile phone cameras are changing that.

Hopefully from someone honest and impartial with no agenda reporting live from their basement. Possibly the most famous and most studied piece of film is the 26.6 seconds of the JFK assassination recorded on 8mm Kodachrome by ordinary citizen Abraham Zapruder. If not for the guy in the basement, a lot of Truth would have never seen the light of day.

How ironic - The "religious" man can see the writing on the wall.

That's right!!!! They could berm the US out. Like my driveway when I get home

If the rules of engagement are Snowballs Only

The UN Security Council will hold an emergency meeting on Monday. Interesting observation by the Associated Press: The 15-member council has been surprisingly inactive on the issue of Venezuela for the last several months, even as US posturing and boat strikes in the Caribbean increased.

Further on "excuses": Foreign Intelligence Service of Ukraine (SZRU) and Institute for the Study of War (ISW) have issued warnings of a potential large-scale false=flag incident around the Russian Orthodox Christmas on January 6 or 7. The assessment of this potential attack is that a religious site, or a site with a high symbolic significance, will be attacked and there will be many civilian casualties. And, fragments of western drones salvaged from the war will be planted as "evidence" of western involvement, setting peace talks back to square-one. This sounds like a script from Robert Ludlum's Jason Bourne movies. But, with the latest out of Venezuela, maybe this potential false-flag plan will not even be needed? I saw one news headline that said Russia condemns the "aggression"

Interesting distinction. I can imagine a tourist coming back from Rome with a souvenir T-shirt "I went to the Vatican and all I got is a lousy T shirt". I wouldn't view the T shirt as an idol. So, I'm trying to imagine a tourist in the year 600 C.E. coming back from a Christian pilgrimage to the Holy Lands with a small vessel decorated with an ornate cross and the Greek inscription "Lord's blessing from the holy places" merely as a reminder of their vacation. It's possible! This got me thinking about the televangelists that used to beg for money on TV. They offered "seed" gifts to make the transaction feel more real. Popular gifts were "anointed" prayer cloths, or handkerchiefs. The preacher would claim to have personally prayed over the cloth, maybe even wiping his forehead with it, and it would bring luck and fend off calamity. Another hot gift was a small bottle of Jordan River water, or olive oil, and the donor was told to dab some on their doorposts (seriously!!). Jim Bakker took a new approach , he offered Survival Food Buckets to his donors, to survive the coming apocalypse. Jim is still working the gullible. After doing 5 years in prison, his ministry was ordered to pay $156,000 in restitution after he falsely claimed "Silver Solution" cured COVID19. Oh, well. From the Byzantine era down to today, "there's nothing new under the sun".

False religion has always been a business, hasn't it? Selling idols, images or icons, and charging for "services".

On July 15, 2025, the brothers released Ramapo Construction Update #1 ~ Site Works Underway. With this October release, the brothers are apparently not keeping with the pattern of #2 , #3 etc.

Europe, especially France, Germany and Poland, have definitely raised alert readiness to "war posture". The thing is, even if Russia doesn't intend to attack any other nation, mistakes happen. It would take a high level of discipline for one of those nations to refrain from shooting back even if provocation had been a genuine accident. That's when the UN Security Council calls an emergency meeting.

The negotiations look more and more like theater. Rather than being"very close" to a deal, the two sides are possibly further apart than ever.

Trump announcement: "Under my leadership, our Country will not allow Radical Islamic Terrorism to prosper". And the bombs arrived . . Northwest Nigeria. Boko Haram, ISIS etc.

There's a topic called A random thread of absolute randomness... Your post was made for it