"They will not see. They will not listen. Blindly they follow their seducers into ruin."
The White Rose, Fifth Leaflet, Munich 1943
"Having thus become a mindless tool, the foolish person will also be capable of any evil and at the same time incapable of seeing that it is evil. This is where the danger of diabolical misuse lurks, for it is this that can once and for all destroy human beings. The word of the Bible that the fear of God is the beginning of wisdom declares that the internal liberation of human beings to live the responsible life before God is the only genuine way to overcome foolishness."
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Letters and Papers from Prison, 1945
“He will choose you, disarm you with his words, and control you with his presence. He will delight you with his wit and his plans. He will smile and deceive you, and he will scare you with his eyes. And when he is through with you, and he will be through with you, he will desert you, and take with him your innocence and your pride."
Robert D. Hare, Without Conscience
“This great masquerade of evil has played havoc with all our ethical concepts. For evil to appear disguised as light, compassion, historical necessity or even social justice is quite bewildering to anyone brought up on our traditional ethical concepts, while for the Christian who bases his life on the Word, it merely confirms the fundamental wickedness of evil. Mere waiting and looking on is not Christian behavior. Christians are called to compassion and to action. "
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Who Stands Fast, Letters and Papers From Prison, 1945
"The foolish ask nothing better than not to have to understand anything, and they even used to get together and try not to understand, because the last thing of which a person is capable is to be malicious and foolish all by themselves. Without understanding, they form spontaneously into herds, not according to any particular affinities but in obedience to the petty ideology, which swallowed up the whole of their small lives, allotted them by birth or chance. They would far rather kill than have to think."
George Bernanos, Under the Sun of Satan, Paris 1926
Ivan the Terrible reportedly was shocked with remorse, after he struck and murdered his own son with his scepter in a fit of anger. This is the famous portrait of them by Ilya Repin pictured above.
To stand fast as a faithful Christian you must not just talk like one, you must act like one, and serve the commandments of God. The leaven of the Pharisees colors a lot of what passes for piety these days.
Many say how they hate evil and love good, with the trappings of solemnly pious words, but it is they who decide what is evil, and what is good. And do so in the darkness of their hearts.
If you are a servant of the Beast, soon enough you will fall into lies, then hate and anger, and after into an eternal regret.
Only love and the humility of faithful service can keep you standing in this greeding frenzy.
Gold and silver were on an absolute tear higher today, and went out on the highs.
I wish some of my old friends like Ted Butler and Jim Sinclair were alive to see this.
The rally we have been seeing in both precious metals is truly impressive, but it's making this old cross-market tape reader a little edgy.
There will be a futures contract option expiration for the precious metals on the Comex this Thursday, the 25th. It is for the October contracts which are more significant for gold rather than silver. As you know the biggest contract month of the year is December.
If stocks were not rallying right along with the metals I would be even more concerned that the financial class were circling the wagons.
It looks like something is broken behind the scenes, or somebody is going to get whacked.
Yeah, the Dollar is sliding and the yield curve is acting a squirrelly, like it sees trouble coming but it doesn't know when.
The economic indicators are sucking out loud now, and it almost looks like stagflation on the horizon.
VIX is still sleep-walking, but that's just another sign of the mispricing of risk.
Bitcoin continued its slide today which was also a bit odd, since it usually correlates with the NDX.
It is hard to have any certainty about a long odds event, but this market seems to be gearing up for a really stiff correction, maybe after a little more frothing at the top. It's only a matter of time.
How much? 10%? 20? More? Let's see what the trigger event and government response will be.
Uncertainty is the rule of the day, with Donnie and his Merry Pranksters doing their wild and crazy cowboy routines in world affairs and economic policy decisions.
The recent debacle over H1-B visas was handled from a messaging standpoint about as badly as any bad decision I have seen in a very long time.
The geopolitical situation is a nail-biter. If you don't know this then you probably aren't paying attention, just listening to the mainstream media infomercials.
Overall I cannot remember so much brazen lying going on in my life.
I have faith, and I have hope, but my confidence levels are getting thin. There are too many Bozos and Baghdad Bobs and not enough guys with nets to rein them in.
Well, let's see what happens.
Have a pleasant evening.
