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1. Just listening to a podcast w/ the Author Annie Jacobsen, who just came out with a book called, “Surprise, Kill, Vanish: The Secret History of CIA Paramilitary Armies, Operators, and Assassins.” I’m reading the book now, and immediately began to think about what Catherine has been discussing w/ the Missing Money and FASB 56, and ‘Contractors doing the dirty work’ (my words). This clip was chilling. They were discussing DARPA, Pentagon and Intel, etc and AI/Robotics used as autonomous weapons and more. She said it here: https://youtu.be/5VoVIpIzj_c?t=8082 (paraphrased: If the ‘Generals’ don’t want this, because they want the Warrior/Human instead of Robots/AI, then asks, WHO does want this? and it all came down to the money.)

   1. Colleen:

      Be cautious. Jacobsen is good writer and does a lot of good document digging. But she often comes up with the wrong frame and buys into modified hang outs and official stories. I like reading her as I always find very useful nuggets and just ignore the hang outs.

      Catherine

      1. Thank you for the response Catherine. I absolutely agree with you.

2. The shipping industry worldwide is mandated to start using low sulphur bunker oil by 2020. Ship owners will either install scrubbers on the vessels at a high cost + layup time of vessel at drydock, or will pay the market price for low sulphur oil. At this point, no one knows what that market price will be, given that the shift of demand will be so huge and immediate. The waiting time for a spot at dry dock to install the new equipment is also going to be long, so there is sure to be a big time lag before everything settles.

   The assumption is in short term the bunker oil prices will spike and then settle once the refining capacity catches up with demand and ship owners have time to upgrade their ships.

   It would be interesting to see who has the ability /raw material + refining capacity/ to take advantage of this transition time. There is a big market opportunity there for the right players.

   1. Fascinating – thanks Andrzej! I did not realize that was so. Good time to be sitting on all the financial coup d’etat proceeds, don’t you think?

   2. The bunker fuel of the future will be LNG. Coming soon to a port near you. The service life of oceangoing fleets is such that the transition takes a generation of 20+ years. After that, railroad and then on-road trucks will convert, once distribution is ramped up to support the vast amounts that ships use. Way less particulates from burning gas.

      1. John:

         I confess, having doing banking work on coal gasification when I was a banker in the Energy Group at Dillon Read, I have never been able to understand how LNG could be economic given other available technologies. You will have to explain it when I see you next….which I hope is sooner rather than later!

         Catherine

         1. Catherine,

            LNG is of course natural gas, which is abundant and basically free, plus freight and processing. The supplies are essentially unlimited in the form of Methane Hydrates in the edges of continental and ocean plates, plus, as discussed previously, the planet is constantly manufacturing more (cf. Gold *Deep, Hot Biosphere*). Ships and most diesel locomotives run constantly and consume enormous amounts of fuel and create enormous amounts of particulates. The new ULS diesel requirements will be extremely difficult to meet and any VLS or ULS is vulnerable to biological attack (the sulfur doesn’t taste good to the bugs). Enter LNG. It is very competitive with bunker fuel, and there is a robust demand for it to supplement (gaseous) natural gas in less hydrocarbonically well-endowed places like Europe, so there are already transshipment ports that have plenty of it to fuel ships. Lastly, if indeed methane is a greenhouse gas and evolves naturally from the earth, it makes no sense NOT to burn it.

            1. John

               Do you think there is a connection between the shipment of LNG and the warming of the Arctic allowing shorter distances to ship the fuel?

            2. Thanks. Makes sense.

3. The shipping industry worldwide is mandated to start using low sulphur bunker oil by 2020. Ship owners will either install scrubbers on the vessels at a high cost layup time of vessel at drydock, or will pay the market price for low sulphur oil. At this point, no one knows what that market price will be, given that the shift of demand will be so huge and immediate. The waiting time for a spot at dry dock to install the new equipment is also going to be long, so there is sure to be a big time lag before everything settles.

   The assumption is in short term the bunker oil prices will spike and then settle once the refining capacity catches up with demand and ship owners have time to upgrade their ships.

   It would be interesting to see who has the ability /raw material refining capacity/ to take advantage of this transition time. There is a big market opportunity there for the right players.

   1. Fascinating – thanks Andrzej! I did not realize that was so. Good time to be sitting on all the financial coup d’etat proceeds, don’t you think?

   2. The bunker fuel of the future will be LNG. Coming soon to a port near you. The service life of oceangoing fleets is such that the transition takes a generation of 20 years. After that, railroad and then on-road trucks will convert, once distribution is ramped up to support the vast amounts that ships use. Way less particulates from burning gas.

      1. John:

         I confess, having doing banking work on coal gasification when I was a banker in the Energy Group at Dillon Read, I have never been able to understand how LNG could be economic given other available technologies. You will have to explain it when I see you next….which I hope is sooner rather than later!

         Catherine

         1. Catherine,

            LNG is of course natural gas, which is abundant and basically free, plus freight and processing. The supplies are essentially unlimited in the form of Methane Hydrates in the edges of continental and ocean plates, plus, as discussed previously, the planet is constantly manufacturing more (cf. Gold *Deep, Hot Biosphere*). Ships and most diesel locomotives run constantly and consume enormous amounts of fuel and create enormous amounts of particulates. The new ULS diesel requirements will be extremely difficult to meet and any VLS or ULS is vulnerable to biological attack (the sulfur doesn’t taste good to the bugs). Enter LNG. It is very competitive with bunker fuel, and there is a robust demand for it to supplement (gaseous) natural gas in less hydrocarbonically well-endowed places like Europe, so there are already transshipment ports that have plenty of it to fuel ships. Lastly, if indeed methane is a greenhouse gas and evolves naturally from the earth, it makes no sense NOT to burn it.

            1. John

               Do you think there is a connection between the shipment of LNG and the warming of the Arctic allowing shorter distances to ship the fuel?

            2. Thanks. Makes sense.

4. Pretty grim report again this week. I would aver that there is no nuclear war ahead—at least not intentionally—on any side, and I think this includes the often bellicose Israelis, who are vulnerable to any number of unmanageable hazards being in the midst of their many enemies. The Persians have no appetite for self destruction and indeed their apparent newfound Chinese buddies aren’t going to want to drive lead-lined railcars over an obsidian desert, so don’t look for that. Incidentally, the vulnerability of Iran is that its nuclear destruction could conceivably be isolated from a great deal of the West. So, again what’s anyone’s incentive?

   I am just finishing L. Fletcher Prouty’s “JFK” book, and I think it should be on the essential list for all subscribers. It’s only tangentially about JFK and almost entirely about the incredible ruse of Vietnam, and for any boomer who needs an object lesson about this “nation-building” mischief we’ve spent 75 years on, it will ring quite true. Indeed, as I have elsewhere remarked, the current Venezuelan hijinks run a close parallel to the Indochinese adventure. Never intended to be concluded, it just represented a threat that could be sold to the public with the concomitant belt tightening efforts that war brings about in the name of patriotism. Conventional warfare could easily have defeated whatever Hanoi could do, but we could not risk nukes with the Chinese in possession of them. Prouty spells it out slowly and clearly. Nukes are never really an option, but brinkmanship is a game of chicken that seems to attract the poker players among the world’s statesmen.

   Incidentally, the term ‘suborbital’ refers to something that goes up and back down without entering orbit (like an ICBM) and I think you have been meaning ‘orbital’ and ‘space-faring’ platforms as potential bases for our own (and our up-to-date rivals’) wonder weapons. Last, the midweek schedule of the Tea Time with Catherine is unfortunately not going to work for me this time around, although it’s only a few hours away. I enjoyed our last meeting and would like to have attended.

   1. John:

      Yes, things do look grim. It was fun to be in Thailand where they do not look or feel grim. I agree, the chances of nuclear war are slim – certainly by the sovereign nations. My concern with nuclear is the cowboys – mercenaries and organized crime. And of course there are accidents.

      Yes, I should add ALL Prouty to the essential reading list.

      I think the reason we talk about nuclear weapons so much is because the most important weapons are secret. Nuclear weapons are public. And having nuclear power makes counties financially independent of the US system.

      Sorry we will not see you in Michigan, but it is far to go for someone with many obligations. I hope to return to the beautiful Ohio valley….

      Catherine

5. Pretty grim report again this week. I would aver that there is no nuclear war ahead—at least not intentionally—on any side, and I think this includes the often bellicose Israelis, who are vulnerable to any number of unmanageable hazards being in the midst of their many enemies. The Persians have no appetite for self destruction and indeed their apparent newfound Chinese buddies aren’t going to want to drive lead-lined railcars over an obsidian desert, so don’t look for that. Incidentally, the vulnerability of Iran is that its nuclear destruction could conceivably be isolated from a great deal of the West. So, again what’s anyone’s incentive?

   I am just finishing L. Fletcher Prouty’s “JFK” book, and I think it should be on the essential list for all subscribers. It’s only tangentially about JFK and almost entirely about the incredible ruse of Vietnam, and for any boomer who needs an object lesson about this “nation-building” mischief we’ve spent 75 years on, it will ring quite true. Indeed, as I have elsewhere remarked, the current Venezuelan hijinks run a close parallel to the Indochinese adventure. Never intended to be concluded, it just represented a threat that could be sold to the public with the concomitant belt tightening efforts that war brings about in the name of patriotism. Conventional warfare could easily have defeated whatever Hanoi could do, but we could not risk nukes with the Chinese in possession of them. Prouty spells it out slowly and clearly. Nukes are never really an option, but brinkmanship is a game of chicken that seems to attract the poker players among the world’s statesmen.

   Incidentally, the term ‘suborbital’ refers to something that goes up and back down without entering orbit (like an ICBM) and I think you have been meaning ‘orbital’ and ‘space-faring’ platforms as potential bases for our own (and our up-to-date rivals’) wonder weapons. Last, the midweek schedule of the Tea Time with Catherine is unfortunately not going to work for me this time around, although it’s only a few hours away. I enjoyed our last meeting and would like to have attended.

   1. John:

      Yes, things do look grim. It was fun to be in Thailand where they do not look or feel grim. I agree, the chances of nuclear war are slim – certainly by the sovereign nations. My concern with nuclear is the cowboys – mercenaries and organized crime. And of course there are accidents.

      Yes, I should add ALL Prouty to the essential reading list.

      I think the reason we talk about nuclear weapons so much is because the most important weapons are secret. Nuclear weapons are public. And having nuclear power makes counties financially independent of the US system.

      Sorry we will not see you in Michigan, but it is far to go for someone with many obligations. I hope to return to the beautiful Ohio valley….

      Catherine

6. Dear Catherine

   I started listening to the video with Dr Randy Trent. As you said, it is too much to take in at one sitting and so far I have only got into the first 40 minutes of his talk.

   I was so shocked by what I heard that I was literally shaking. With each new revelation I kept saying to myself in astonishment, “I don’t believe it.” and “How can seemingly normal and civilized people do such things?”. Is this what Hannah Arendt called “the banality of evil”?

   I recently listened to an interview with Sophia Smallstorm. (You had an interesting talk with her about glyphosates last month.) Well, she convincingly argues that viruses don’t exist
   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EmPdVAae9gA
   so right now I am totally confused.

   This discrepancy might be clarified later on in Dr Trent’s discussion however I am not a scientist so I don’t know what or whom to believe. Not just about this but about everything. I am totally confused and it has got to the point that I have must believe this confusion is part of the plan. Everything I have learned and thought to be true I am now discovering is all wrong – science, history, economics, finance, current events… everything. Everything is a big fat lie; simple everyday things like the air we breathe, the water we drink, the food we eat, the soap we use, the medication we take and the weather we experience are all lies. Even supposedly “solid” things like medicine. This is what Adam Curtis has called the post-truth world of hyper-normalization. He says that we live in a world where the powerful deceive us and we know we re being deceived and lied to.

   It seems as though the Zoroastrians are right, that there is the god of good and the god of evil. Earth is their battleground, and we are in the midst of this battle. The more I learn every day and the more I try to discover the truth, the more pervasive I see that evil is amongst us. It is truly unsettling.

   Thank you for continuing to be be a beacon of goodness and truth in my life.

   1. I am inclined to agree with Tent on this one, in part because of what I read in Judy Mikovits book https://home.solari.com/book-review-plague-by-kent-heckenlively-and-dr-judy-a-mikovits/ – but I am like you – moving through the uncertainty, listening to talented good hearted people who often disagree. I have learned to keep learning and stay patient.

      I do believe that vaccines have been as harmful as he describes. I don’t believe the people who are instituting the various poisonings of the general population are normal and civilized. I worked for them. They practiced and believed in slavery and war. They look at the world differently than we do. We have always allowed them to do these things and agreed to go along for small rewards. Social prestige, money, sex, etc. They don’t respect us because we are cheap and easy to buy – and are very willing to harm or kill each other for small rewards.

      Evil is real and we are dealing with it. So important that we not invite it in, feed it or finance it.

      Appreciate your kind words- we search for goodness and truth together.

      Catherine

7. Dear Catherine

   I started listening to the video with Dr Randy Trent. As you said, it is too much to take in at one sitting and so far I have only got into the first 40 minutes of his talk.

   I was so shocked by what I heard that I was literally shaking. With each new revelation I kept saying to myself in astonishment, “I don’t believe it.” and “How can seemingly normal and civilized people do such things?”. Is this what Hannah Arendt called “the banality of evil”?

   I recently listened to an interview with Sophia Smallstorm. (You had an interesting talk with her about glyphosates last month.) Well, she convincingly argues that viruses don’t exist
   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EmPdVAae9gA
   so right now I am totally confused.

   This discrepancy might be clarified later on in Dr Trent’s discussion however I am not a scientist so I don’t know what or whom to believe. Not just about this but about everything. I am totally confused and it has got to the point that I have must believe this confusion is part of the plan. Everything I have learned and thought to be true I am now discovering is all wrong – science, history, economics, finance, current events… everything. Everything is a big fat lie; simple everyday things like the air we breathe, the water we drink, the food we eat, the soap we use, the medication we take and the weather we experience are all lies. Even supposedly “solid” things like medicine. This is what Adam Curtis has called the post-truth world of hyper-normalization. He says that we live in a world where the powerful deceive us and we know we re being deceived and lied to.

   It seems as though the Zoroastrians are right, that there is the god of good and the god of evil. Earth is their battleground, and we are in the midst of this battle. The more I learn every day and the more I try to discover the truth, the more pervasive I see that evil is amongst us. It is truly unsettling.

   Thank you for continuing to be be a beacon of goodness and truth in my life.

   1. I am inclined to agree with Tent on this one, in part because of what I read in Judy Mikovits book https://home.solari.com/book-review-plague-by-kent-heckenlively-and-dr-judy-a-mikovits/ – but I am like you – moving through the uncertainty, listening to talented good hearted people who often disagree. I have learned to keep learning and stay patient.

      I do believe that vaccines have been as harmful as he describes. I don’t believe the people who are instituting the various poisonings of the general population are normal and civilized. I worked for them. They practiced and believed in slavery and war. They look at the world differently than we do. We have always allowed them to do these things and agreed to go along for small rewards. Social prestige, money, sex, etc. They don’t respect us because we are cheap and easy to buy – and are very willing to harm or kill each other for small rewards.

      Evil is real and we are dealing with it. So important that we not invite it in, feed it or finance it.

      Appreciate your kind words- we search for goodness and truth together.

      Catherine

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