three minutes with shelby foote on the origins of the war of succession;

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 capital controls? coming soon; 

 

Guest Post by Nick Giambruno

Weekends and holidays are the perfect time to catch people off guard…

Like a street thug committing a mugging, capital controls blindside most people—otherwise, they wouldn’t be effective.

The government declares a surprise bank holiday and shuts down all the banks—mere hours after denying any such plans.

Then come the capital controls, preventing citizens from moving their money out of the country.

Cash-sniffing dogs—less friendly than drug-sniffing ones—suddenly appear at airports and border crossings.

At that point, your money is like a lobster in a trap. It doesn’t take much imagination to guess what comes next.........more..........

 the wolves are at the door;

 

Editor’s Note

We publish this piece in the August of 2026, as the machinery of global commerce groans and sputters, as hollow men in expensive suits speak of “corrections” and “adjustments” while families count pennies in dimly lit kitchens. The photograph you see above—those gaunt men hunched over bowls of thin soup, their eyes fixed on some middle distance between hunger and dignity—was snapped nearly a century ago, yet it could have been taken yesterday in any tent city stretching like a scar across the American landscape. We do not traffic in false nostalgia here, nor in the cheap comfort of historical distance. The Great Depression was not a sepia-toned folktale; it was a meat-grinder that chewed through 25 percent of the working population, that evicted grandmothers into snowbanks, that turned proud men into beggars and children into scavengers. The bones of that era still jut through the soil of our present moment—visible to anyone brave enough to look. What follows is not a curiosity shop of antiquated customs, but a field manual written in blood and hunger, a record of how ordinary human beings refused to break when the world snapped in half. Read it. Memorize it. The wolves are already at the door............more..........

 book, shmook. not to be a bragging son of a 'individual' but i have at various time consumed one a week, on average. it all depends on other items demanding my time;

watch............

  

Findings

A 2024 standardized test showed that only 35% of American high school seniors were deemed “Proficient” in reading.

35% scored below “Basic,” meaning they couldn’t draw conclusions or use context clues to decode new words.

Less than half of Americans read a single book in 2022......https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i4xAEBoSlbw

 dolly signing her song in an irish pub; 

 

The news of the passing of Dolly Parton today broke millions of hearts across the country. She is a true American icon.

Social media is flooded with people remembering her and one story in particular is going viral because it reminds us of how wonderful Dolly was as a person and how humble she was despite her fame.

Dolly was vacationing in Ireland in 1990 and had no plans to perform, but when she happened into a local pub, the guitar player performing there that night asked her to sing her song ‘Coat of Many Colors’ which he knew how to play.

Naturally, Dolly obliged them.

The Irish Star wrote about this back in 2023:

Dolly Parton’s visit to an Irish pub where she sang one of her most famous songs

Dolly Parton blew pub-goers in Co Kerry away in 1990 when she performed one of her most beloved songs. The legendary 9 to 5 hitmaker was on vacation in the stunning Irish county at the time and visited one of the country’s most iconic pubs, Páidí Ó Sé’s.

She was accompanied by her friend Walter Miller whose mother was buried in the area. Upon visiting the iconic pub, owned by legendary Irish Gaelic football manager Páidí Ó Sé, Parton was greeted by an eager crowd and was eventually convinced to perform for the punters there............more...........

 here's another bet you can't practice;

watch.......... 

 nine seconds. bet you can't do this;

watch...........