Quote:February is a busy month this year. In fact, a single week is packed with celebrations and solemn holidays. We have a smorgasbord of religious and quasi-religious events converging in a single seven-day orgy of ritual purification and renewal.

It all begins on the 15th, with Maha Shivaratri, a major Hindu festival dedicated to Lord Shiva, observed annually on the 14th night of the dark fortnight (waning moon) in the month of Phalguna (usually February–March) of the Saka calendar. “The Great Night of Shiva” is one of meditation, fasting, and spiritual vigilance commemorating Shiva’s cosmic dance (Tandava), symbolizing the triumph of consciousness over ignorance and stillness over chaos. This is when the Abhishekam ritual bathing of the Shiva lingam with milk, water, honey, ghee, or bilva leaves takes place.

The Hindu holiday is followed immediately by Lunar, or Chinese New Year 4723 of the Mandarin calendar, which kicks off two weeks of eating, drinking and making merry. My kind of holiday. Everything turns red and gold, and vast amounts of cash change hands in little red envelopes called hóngbāo, or angpao here locally. Avoid the number 4 and always use crisp uncirculated notes.

This year is Yang Red Bǐng Wǔ (丙午), or Fire Horse. This is going to be one wild year! You see, the Horse is already a yang sign, and by luck of the draw the Celestial Root and Earthly Stem for this year are yang and fire, and fire is a red symbol. So basically, we get a double whammy on the yang-red aspect, and who can’t use a big red yang every now and then?

Maximum yang implies fast, volatile, expansive, restless energy. Fire years emphasize heat, visibility, passion, and exposure—nothing stays hidden for long. The Horse brings:

• Speed and volatility
  
• Bold action, impulsive decisions
  
• Revolutions, uprisings, market swings
  
• Charismatic leaders and spectacular flameouts
  
• Innovation paired with instability
  

Seems to me this already describes 2026 to a T. This will not be a year for bureaucracies, rigid hierarchies, risk-averse personalities, or long, slow consensus processes. Could be a good year for us free thinkers, though.

It’s worth noting that the American, French and Cultural Revolutions all overlapped Horse years, with major momentum shifts to the revolutionaries. This might explain some of the things going on with Xi Jinping and the Trump administration. Just sayin’.

On a practical basis, it means that I have to help Mrs. FarSide with a top-down house cleaning, bathing the cats, cutting my hair, and buying a new red shirt that, in all likelihood, I will never wear again.

All this festivity is immediately followed on the 18th, by Ash Wednesday and the beginning of the solemn month of Lent in Christendom. The day is marked by Christians getting a cross of ashes on their foreheads with the words, “Remember, man, that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” It’s a rather bleak admonition to contemplate one’s mortality and re-assess priorities in the period leading up to Easter. All of this comes from very ancient pagan rituals of public mortification and goddess worship.

Also on the 18th, or is it the 20th—for some reason Islam can never quite calculate the moment of the New Moon ahead of time—is the beginning of Ramadan, the Muslim month commemorating the period when the Qur’an was first revealed to the Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him). It’s obviously not the precise month of revelation, since Ramadan moves around year to year, based on the lunar calendar.

Ramadan is about discipline, self-restraint, and spiritual renewal. The aim is not deprivation for its own sake, but moral clarity—training the will to master appetite, anger, and ego. The faithful abstain from eating, drinking, smoking, and sex during daylight hours for 28 days, culminating in Eid al-Fitr (Idul Fitri locally), which is a bit like Thanksgiving, Christmas and Easter all rolled into one.

In some parts, folks take the admonition against “wine” in the Qur’an literally, meaning other intoxicants are just peachy keen (see arak and hashish). Sex is also strictly defined as between a male and a female. I’ll leave the readers to infer here whatever they wish.

It reminds me of what my aunt told the former Mrs. FarSide, concerning the lack of booze at a wedding party: “Honey, we’re all Baptists. We don’t drink in front of each other.”

So, a busy month and year ahead. A year of excess and volatility begun amid abstinence and deprivation. Talk about your split personalities. In just the first month and a half, we’ve already witnessed markets flying into the stratosphere, then plunging into the Abyss. We’ve seen dark secrets revealed. We’re seeing political unrest flaring up here and there. All in all, the trends seem clear for the coming year of the Horse.

It’s rare to have so many important cultural events converge like this, and the last Fire Horse year was 1966, a volatile year, so chaos seems to be in the cards this year. Batten down, buckle up, and don’t forget your goggles. As the shrunken head said in the Harry Potter series, “Eet’s gonna be a bompy ride!”

Si munds vult dicipi, ergo dicipitatur.

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Our cinematic feast of the day is a pair of films from the same director and creative team. The first is Baraka (1992), and the second is Samsara (2011), both directed by Ron Fricke. They are beautifully shot and assembled, showing the human experience across time and place, with just regular folks as the stars. This is cinema as high art.

https://denyignorance.com/Thread-End-of-an-Era

DI is shutting down says the Administrator who BTW no one can contact.

Prepare for an avalanche people!

I like it here at RN for the lack of trolls.  Times are a changing. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=90WD_ats...rt_radio=1

Here we go!

P

Quote:WATERGATE FILES: Newly uncovered documents about former President Richard Nixon, the 'deep state,' and the Watergate scandal are put under the spotlight by longtime political advisor and Nixon campaign ally Roger Stone - and Stone unpacks the Nixon-CIA relationship, the JFK assassination, and more.

Quote:In this Hot Question, former CIA targeter Sarah Adams discusses the ongoing issue of American hostages still being held by the Taliban and why she believes the situation is receiving little public attention. She breaks down the complexities of hostage diplomacy, the policy delays, and the broader implications of continued funding and negotiations while Americans remain in custody. The conversation also highlights the names and cases that have largely gone unreported, raising serious questions about awareness, accountability, and how these situations are handled behind the scenes. This segment is part of a deeper discussion featured on The Shawn Ryan Show and within the Vigilance Elite network, including Sarah Adams’ show, The Watch Floor.

Lucky Larry's Preposterous Plan, Ep 1. "UNKNOWN UNKNOWNS" directed by Timeline Junkie Films:

World Leaders, Terrorists and Businessmen all converge to pull off the biggest crime in history...9/11.

The conspiracy surrealism is quite good.

A 20 min taste of NKor war propaganda with English Subtitles!

Quote:DPRK Kursk Liberation Video

This film was made after the liberation of Kursk from the Ukrainian regime by the combined forces of the Army of the Russian Federation and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) - Korean People's Army. It was screened in Pyongyang to a massive crowd including Respected Marshal Kim Jong Un. The film is very emotional and audiences around the world are in tears over the heroism and bravery of the Korean troops.

The Kettle and the Pot that Deserve each other. The EU has become so undemocratic even the US gets to criticize it.



The Committee on the Judiciary of the US House of Representatives has issued an important report. Its title is an officialese mouthful:

“The Foreign Censorship Threat, Part II: Europe’s decade-long campaign to censor the global internet and how it harms American speech in the United States.”

Yet even if the report’s almost 160 pages may be a little dry, they pack a powerful and well-deserved punch. A punch directed at the EU.


Basically, the House Judiciary report shows how the EU, in particular its happily unelected and power-grabbing apparatchik rulers in the European Commission, have used the pretext of fighting online "disinformation" and "hate speech" to suppress legitimate speech, information, and debate. The report also details how this policy of behind-the-scenes (so much for public accountability) deliberate manipulation and censorship has already been deployed to mess with six national elections (so much for sovereignty, democracy, and the rule-of-law) plus EU elections, of course and it's tried to interfere in American elections. Inside this perversely motivated issue that the USGOV has, they produce a perfectly credible case showing what the EU has been doing. Here we go...EU Gate.













Link to the long report (PDF)

The report was too spicy for Russian media to pass up so RT has a short article on it...

The US has accused the EU of censorship: Here’s how the bloc’s consensus machine works


Why did the US do it?

1. The social media companies are all American. Americans don't like it when you mess with them. They can mess with you. You can never mess with them. Rule #1.

(Telegram wasn't even mentioned in the report)

2. The House Judiciary makes the argument that by influencing these social media platforms with their censorship rules the EU is also affecting American users because the platforms can't always distinguish where the information goes or to a limited extent. Only Americans get to censor American public opinion. That's the essence of this case.

The massive EU Commission machine for opinion control and mass censorship. In essence they're competing with the Americans whereas the Americans are saying, "We can't accept anybody else censoring the Internet. That's what we do and it's our companies. GTFO!"

No idea what the outcome is going to be behind the scenes, but it seems the digital battlefield is going to get bloody. Expect new overt & covert games to engage in the field of information space.

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Today the traitorous Imp Starmer told the majority of British people that our voice doesn't matter while giving a speech at the Munich Security Conference as he moves the UK back toward the EU with no mandate to do so other than that's what he wants , 'We are not the Britain of the Brexit years any more'.

Democracy and the Democratic will of the people are dirty words to Starmer and his party of idiots , cancelled elections , no more Brexit and no say on who comes to our Country under this this illegitimate lying gang of incompetent criminals.
 

You're in a fight you can't win scumbag , your time is short , we will have the last laugh.

Quote:February 13, 2026 / Joseph P. Farrell

Every now and then I get an article that is "almost too good to be true", and this is one of those stories. It was shared by M.L., and it deserves a special thank you, because it virtually single-handedly makes the case that those of us concerned about the effects of GMOs - and their accompanying pesticides and herbicides - on the food supply have been arguing for years. In this case, the "accompanying herbicide" is glyphosate, principal ingredient in many "GMO-friendly" herbicides like Mon(ster)santo's "Roundup" weedkiller. Over the years, the stories grew that some turbocancers seemed to be linked to the use of the product, among many other health concerns raised by GMOs and their accompanying pesticides and herbicides products.

With that in mind, contemplate this:

Lebanon says Israel sprayed southern villages with concentrated herbicide

Note the opening statements here:

Quote:Lebanon has accused Israeli aircraft of spraying an agricultural herbicide over southern villages at concentrations authorities described as dangerously high, raising concerns for food and environmental security.

The agriculture and environment ministries said laboratory tests confirmed the substance was glyphosate, a chemical used to destroy vegetation, with concentrations in some samples "between 20 and 30 times the levels usually accepted".

President Joseph Aoun condemned the spraying of what he described as "toxic substances", calling it a violation of Lebanese sovereignty and an environmental and health crime.

Towards the end of the article we finally encounter the standard boilerplate about glyphosate and the "scientific consensus":

Quote:But there's no universal consensus on the risks of glyphosate.

In other words, one might argue that there are no risks to spraying glyphosate in concentrations 20 to 30 times above the recommended concentrations. On that view, Israel is simply going out of its way to have its air force assist local Lebanese farmers save their crops by battling the weeds that threaten them. And if you believe that, I have some waterfront property available, in Gaza. Cheap, but needs development. The land is already being "cleared".

Or of course, we can be reasonable, and draw the reasonable conclusions here: Israel has confirmed that glyphosate in high concentrations could be of military value, that it is weaponizable, that it can interfere with plant growth, and perhaps even has concluded that if ingested by animals or humans from eating plants (or in tobacco's case, smoking it), it might be harmful.  In short, there's a reason the Israeli military is spraying it on Lebanon, and that reason perforce is probably military in nature.

It reminds me of similar uses of a similar chemical to cause defoliation in Vietnam: Agent Orange.  That too was a "safe" product, or so we were assured by the company that made it for the military. So the next time you hear about there being "no universal consensus on the risks of glyphosate", just remember that the Israeli airforce has been spraying it on Lebanon.

See you on the flip side...

Quote:Bayer to Pull Glyphosate Products, Including Roundup, From U.S. Home and Garden Market

“This move is being made exclusively to manage litigation risk and not because of any safety concerns,” the company said when it announced its decision.

The products will be replaced with different active ingredients beginning in 2023, following reviews by the EPA and state regulatory bodies. January 2023 was the earliest the change could reasonably be implemented, Bayer Crop Science Division president Liam Condon told AgWeb.