☕️ WITH LASERS ☙ Saturday, August 10, 2024 ☙ C&C NEWS 🦠

Mideast peace still possible, kinda; miraculous market recovery; historic megaquake prediction; New Madrid still trembling; creepy Russian super weapon; terrifying Chinese robots; election news, more.

Good morning, C&C, its Saturday! Which means it is time for the C&C Weekend Edition. In today’s wild and wacky roundup: Middle East continues to simmer on low boil, as the day of reckoning may or may not be approaching; markets miraculously and inexplicably recover from all the various excuses corporate media rolled out; Japan unveils new mega earthquake warning, a first, which the USGS says is impossible; people seem quietly leery of New Madrid earthquake and seem to be quietly getting ready for the big one; more historic solar flares and media pretends its just a chance to sightsee unique aurorae; the latest Russian superweapon attacks the entire continental United States; wait till you see China’s newest superweapon; and finally, terrific election-security news out of Virginia that you probably never heard of.

🗞💬 WORLD NEWS AND COMMENTARY 💬🗞

🔥🔥 As Israel’s Day of Woes, Tisha B’Av, looms on Monday (or Tuesday, it’s complicated), the world is holding its breath to find out whether the U.S.’s many threats and promises will deter Iran from responding forcefully to Israel’s assassination in Tehran last week of the top Hamas peace negotiator. Let’s start with the good signs. The BBC ran a story late yesterday afternoon headlined, “Israel accepts proposal to attend ‘urgent’ new ceasefire talks.”

‘Urgent’ is one way of putting it. The good news is this represented a sudden about-face for Israel, whose Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu previously vowed that hostilities could only cease after Hamas, the group responsible for a barbaric October 7th invasion, was completely destroyed. But it appears Israel is back at the table.

On Thursday, U.S. President Cabbage sent a personal letter to Hamas, wrapped in lettuce, inviting the terror group to join the urgent new talks. Joe promised to serve up a generous proposal that will ‘meet Hamas’s expectations.’

Hamas has not yet responded. But neither has it said ‘laa’ (loosely, Arabic for ‘go jump in Lake Michigan’). The main sticking point here is that, since Israel killed the previous chief negotiator, Hamas appointed a new, very difficult individual who loves saying ‘laa;’ he practically won’t quit saying ‘laa’ even when asked nicely.

There were more signs the car of peace was not fully in the ditch. Also yesterday, Al-Monitor ran a story headlined, “Iran says Israel retaliation won't be to 'detriment' of Gaza cease-fire.” Iran’s New York-based Mission to the U.N. released a conciliatory statement yesterday saying, "Our priority is to establish a lasting ceasefire in Gaza…we hope that our response will be timed and conducted in a manner not to the detriment of the potential ceasefire.”

Since they could have said, “our priority is to turn Israel into a giant Hebrew lava cake,” many took the measured statement to be a sign of restraint.

Team Biden was busy yesterday clamping down on dissenters and even worse, misinformers. The Hill ran a story yesterday headlined, “White House slams ‘outrageous’ statement from Israeli minister on cease-fire deal.” The fracas began yesterday when Israel’s finance minister Bezalel Smotrich tweeted that Joe’s proposed cease-fire negotiations with Hamas were a “dangerous trap.” His tweet (in part, translated from Hebrew):

Like a swarm of angry hornets, neocons in the White House immediately issued angry, buzzing statements denouncing Mr. Smotrich as a persona non grata. The Hill’s article quoted National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan, who slammed Smotrich’s tweeted arguments as “dead wrong; they’re misleading the Israeli public.”

But on the other hand, there were troubling signs that, despite its public priorities, not everyone expects Iran to quietly acquiesce into peaceful acceptance. The Times of Israel told readers yesterday that, “Airlines extend Israel flight suspensions amid ongoing military uncertainty.” The article listed seventeen airlines that have temporarily suspended flights to Israel. And Reuters reported, “US releases $3.5 billion to Israel to spend on US weapons, military equipment.”

📈 Meanwhile, the totally not-manipulated markets recovered from last weekend’s manic crash. Huzzah! The NASDAQ even ended the week above its pre-crash level, and the Dow was well on its way back:

The many smug corporate media stories failed to account for how the markets so quickly recovered after last week’s “disappointing jobs report” suggested “signs of a looming recession,” which was their previous excuse.

But in yesterday’s useless, bet-hedging Wall Street Journal article headlined, “S&P 500 Ends Wild Week Right About Where It Began,” at least, for the first time, it mentioned Middle Eastern “tensions,” even if only among a long parade of other financial horribles:

Money makes the world go around. Or at least, money makes elites go around the world. Or something. You get the idea. We must wait to see what next week brings.

🔥🔥 Will the Japanese ever get peace? First mecha-Godzilla, then Queen Mothra, and now a “mega quake?” The UK Guardian ran a curious story yesterday headlined, “Japan’s PM cancels overseas trip after experts issue ‘megaquake’ warning.”

On Thursday, Japan experienced a tremendous 7.1 magnitude earthquake in its southwest region (see collapsed house, above), which was bad enough. After that, government experts released a rare “mega quake” advisory. They estimated a 70% to 80% chance of a Godzilla-sized megaquake —8 or 9 on the Richter scale— happening near the same area within the next 30 years.

70% to 80% seems, well, a little high. And Japan’s Prime Minister must have agreed, because he canceled his all-expense-paid trip to some kind of Asian economic summit (no refunds), racing back to the island nation to call King Kong out of retirement for assistance. Japan has never issued a “megaquake” advisory before, not even for the 2011 shaker that caused a massive tsunami killing 18,000 and melting down a swamped nuclear reactor.

I don’t know about you, but I think maybe it’s really an ancient race of gigantic robots stirring in the depths, waiting for the right moment to emerge.

🔥 Remember the New Madrid earthquake zone we discussed around the last Great American Eclipse? Some conspiracy theorists were alarmed because of what happened within six months after the last time a double eclipse crossed the country. In 1811, the largest earthquake in American history struck the Midwest, jolting a vast area back to Stone Age conditions and making the Mississippi River run backwards.

The little town of New Madrid, Missouri, has a modest and stable population of around 2,700 folks. Its main street is always peaceful and quiet. Its main attraction, the town’s tiny earthquake museum, draws around 5,000 curious visitors each year. But the eponymous “New Madrid Seismic zone,” which stretches over seven states, has been quietly popping up in the news. A lot. Three weeks ago, local AM 1070 KHMO News ran this rumbly headline:

That’s around one earthquake per day so far this year. Small ones, true. But the normal annual rate is about 200, so the region seems well ahead of schedule. Maybe it’s nothing. But the heightened interest hasn’t just been from Doc Holliday at KHMO, either. On the same day, July 18th, the Kansas City Star ran this related story:

The new interest may have been triggered by news a few days earlier that, like Japan’s first-ever megaquake warning, Michigan’s and Missouri’s National Guards conducted first-ever joint earthquake exercises preparing for a major shaker in the New Madrid zone. The headline from Spectrum News, July 15th, obliquely called them “terrain emergency exercises,” but the first paragraph connected the dots:

The stories aren’t stopping. Five days ago, Michigan local WKFR FM ran this predictive story:

Around the same mid-July period, science magazine Undark ran a full-featured, magazine-style story headlined, “The Enigmatic Earthquake Hotspot in America’s Heartland.” It’s a good read. The gist was that, although scientists say the “big one” only comes every 500 years, apparently leaving around 300 years yet to go, the states are already preparing. St. Louis and Memphis, for example, have started retrofitting bridges.

Do they know something? Or are they just diligently preparing for an emergency hundreds of years off? Nobody is saying precisely why preparations along the New Madrid Seismic zone have become such an expensive priority. But maybe the double eclipses have spooked more folks than are willing to admit it.

🔥 Speaking of firsts, it’s happening again. Newsweek ran a story Friday headlined, “New York and Idaho may see aurora this week after powerful solar flares.”

Newsweek went to press too quickly. Yesterday a third major flare joined the two Newsweek mentioned. Space.com ran the story yesterday under the headline, “Sun unleashes X-class solar flare, blasts 3rd coronal mass ejection toward Earth in a week (video).”

Space.com extended the predicted aurora-viewing areas down into the midwest. What’s odd about the coverage of these solar flare stories is how little they refer to the historic nature of the effects, including aurora visible in places never before viewable in our lifetimes. What does it mean? Don’t ask the media, ‘cause they aren’t speculating.

I’m just saying, but popular heterodox science journalist Suspicious Observer often links earthquakes to solar activity in his daily updates. Be cautious because, even though the theory is well-supported scientifically, any claim of earthquake predictability is considered “misinformation,” since the approved narrative is that earthquakes cannot be forecast.

Be advised, you’ll be mercilessly mocked if you talk about predicting earthquakes (USGS: “earthquakes have nothing to do with clouds, bodily aches and pains, or slugs”).

For what it’s worth, the USGS website also says “megaquakes” cannot happen. Don’t tell the Japanese, or Godzilla.

And please don’t ask me to square the approved narrative of non-predictability with Japan’s megaquake forecast or the quiet preparations being conducted all along the New Madrid zone. That’s different, because.

Anyway, Suspicious Observer predicts the three CME’s from the Space.com story will arrive at Earth over the weekend, so keep your eyes on the skies.

🔥 Behold Thursday’s terrifying headline from local Chicago WGN-9:

Bees! I will spare you the painful details but the horrific insect attack occurred Wednesday afternoon in Lemon Grove, California. The Ahmu family was enjoying a late-summer pool session when the swarm arrived. As the headline suggested, the attacking insects caused a canine casualty.

My suspicion this kind of thing doesn’t happen very often was confirmed when the article explained that, at first, the understandably skeptical 911 operator stingingly suggested Tiffany Ahmu should call an exterminator:

I might not have mentioned this story at all, except that my research turned up something that looks like a trend. Check out this headline from New York’s North Country Now Tuesday:

Hmm. My suspicions were inflamed. Then I realized inflammation is also a common side-effect of dozens of bee stings and became even more suspicious. Potsdam, New York is an entire country away from from Lemon Grove, California. It looked like an invasion from the coasts. Then I found a similar sad story from the middle of the country, only days before the Potsdam incursion, in Texas:

This time the wily bees attacked at night. Local Socorro police were forced to close the 500 block of Horizon Boulevard just west of North Loop Drive.

Three bee attacks in one week, spanning the entire continental United States. It was, frankly, terrifying. But then I saw it might not be just bees. It might be the entire insect kingdom. Behold this headline, from four days before the Soccorro Massacre, this time in Rhode Island:

CLIP: Tormented beachgoers terrified by apocalyptic dragonfly swarm (0:14).

Is it?? Are all these insect attacks a sign of The End? If so, it must be a global phenomenon. So I searched outside the U.S.  And guess what I found: A horrifying report from Cordoba, Argentina, just three days ago:

There can be only one scientific explanation for this coordinated, worldwide attack of bees, dragonflies, and locusts, and that explanation’s name is Vladimir Putin. It’s a Russian conspiracy! We need to impeach somebody.

🔥 I know you probably think my theory that the Russians have created bionic attack insects is totally crazy, unworthy of a C&C story, but is it? On Wednesday, the UK Sun ran a story headlined, “Robot shark unveiled by China capable of diving 65ft with cameras & sensors.” The new robot sharks are sixteen feet long.

Communist robot sharks! With frickin’ lasers on their heads! The Shenyang Aerospace Xinguang Group, which is totally not a military-industrial giant, don't be silly, added the new semi-autonomous robot whale shark to its portfolio, which already includes robot goldfish, bionic killer whales, and metallic porpoises.

Purely for recreational use, of course. (The article reported Shenyang advertised the robot sharks for helping combat pollution. So. They’re green. Maybe the Japanese could use them to help fight mecha-Godzilla the next time around.)

So you tell me: is it really so farfetched to think President Putin could create robot bees to attack pool parties in California? I’m just saying.

We have now reached the point in 2024 where Austin Powers has become predictive programming. So, behave.

🔥 In news of the less-weird, and more good, the Virginia News Leader ran a story yesterday headlined, “Virginia Gov. Youngkin codifies election security measures that were already in place.” By “already in place,” the News Leader meant “not really.”

Yesterday, Virginia Governor Glenn Younkin (R) signed state Executive Order 35, which codified state election security procedures including stringent ballot security and the use of paper-only ballots for elections. “We use 100% paper ballots with a strict chain of custody. We use counting machines, not voting machines, that are tested prior to every election and never connected to the internet. We do not mass-mail ballots. We monitor our drop boxes 24/7. We verify the legal presence and identity of voters using DMV data and other trusted data sources,” Youngkin said.

The Governor continued, explaining “The Virginia model for Election Security works. This isn't a Democrat or Republican issue, it's an American and Virginian issue. Every legal vote deserves to be counted without being watered down by illegal votes or inaccurate machines. In Virginia, we don’t play games, and our model for election security is working.”

The new directives were so commonsense that Virginia’s far-left media could only carp that they were “already in place,” so who cares? That wasn’t true, of course, but let’s run with it for a moment. If they’re really so commonsense, why aren’t all the states doing things the Virginia way?

President Trump seemed to like the new executive order. According to the article, Trump immediately endorsed Younkin’s new rules, posting on Truth Social:

The beautiful Commonwealth of Virginia, superbly led by Governor Glenn Youngkin, IS TAKING A STRONG LEAD IN SECURING THE ELECTION IN NOVEMBER – PROTECTING EVERY LEGAL VOTE AND KEEPING ILLEGAL ALIENS THAT HAVE BEEN LET INTO OUR COUNTRY FROM VOTING.

What remains less clear is how much beneficial effect the additive force of thousands of new state and local election-law tweaks will have on the next election. For another example, here in Florida, major election-law changes were made over the last four years, under Governor DeSantis’ leadership.

Obviously, much less of this terrific work has been done in the blue states. But up to half the country has been —mainly quietly— making it much harder to cheat. We’ll soon see whether it was enough. But it is enough to provide hope.

Have a wonderful weekend! C&C will be back on Monday morning to kick off another terrific week of essential news and commentary.

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