Grammy nominated trance legends Cosmic Gate aka Nic Chagall and Bossi have proved to be a matchless musical union.
The last 20 Years set them on the course to becoming Germany’s most enduringly successful electronic music duo. Smashing the biggest festivals and road-blocking clubs worldwide.
Featured Wake Your Mind Radio track from Fat Sushi:
Bringing a new level of definition to Wake Your Mind’s sound, prepare yourself for Wake You Mind Radio. Across 60 minutes, the fully formatted weekly show will feature Nic & Bossi discussing and airing the tracks that have been setting their floors on fire. It’ll also encompass first-listen music premieres and tracks from the deeper side of the WYM psyche.
The show also features comprehensive info on up-and-coming gigs, Nic & Bossi’s biggest hitting tune of the week and WYMR will also be the first port of call for breaking news on the fast-approaching sixth Cosmic Gate artist album.
Swiss duo Fat Sushi is currently making its trademark on the underground clubland by releasing tracks and remixes on some of the most respected labels in the game: Suara, Einmusika, Katermukke, Steyoyoke or Hive Audio to name a few. Being in the industry for almost two decades before the peculiarly named pairing decided to join forces in 2013, you can hear the inspiration of various musical styles in their productions: heavy basslines, uplifting melodies and carefully chosen vocals – from deep house to techno spectrum.
I’m pretty sure that most of us would agree that we here in the United States live in a free market economy.
Though we live in a free market economy, I find it rather interesting that there are a lot of people over on the interwebs, including our so-called politicians, that have absolutely no idea of just how a free market economy works.
A free market economy can be a thing to behold when things are running smoothly, but it can also be somewhat of a bear-cat when things aren’t.
When Covid came around, our economy was just humming right along. The impact of Covid hammered the oil industry in 2020, forcing U.S. oil prices to go negative for the first time on record. In a matter of hours on April 20, the May 2020 contract futures price for West Texas Intermediate plummeted from $18 a barrel to around -$37 a barrel.
In an effort to not putting too fine of a point on this, I’d have to say that the oil companies, at this time, were all dressed up with no place to go.
Oil producers were faced with a glut of crude oil that left them scrambling to find space to store the oversupply. Brent crude oil prices also tumbled, closing at $9.12 a barrel on April 21, a far cry from the $70 a barrel that crude oil fetched at the beginning of the year.
The plunge of U.S. oil futures into negative territory was short-lived. But the collapse in demand was so fast and volatile that it led many people to question whether oil would be able to fully recover in 2021. By the summer of 2020, oil prices began to rebound as nations came out of the Covid lock-downs and OPEC agreed to major cuts in crude oil production. West Texas Intermediate crude finished 2020 at a price of $49 per barrel, while Brent crude finished the year at a price of $51 per barrel.
People claim that Trump was responsible for keeping the price at the pump so low (2019-2020), but really, the low prices were the result of the Saudi’s and the Russian’s having their little pissey-fits over just how much to either increase or decrease production. During their little squabbles, oil tanked totally (this is the point where you would’ve had to give me $37 for every barrel of oil I wanted)
Currently, the U.S. has 129 refineries in operation. Though we might be able to get our hands on vast amounts of oil, the ability to refine it and get it to market is limited, affecting the actual supply that is available for consumption. Purchasing oil from the Saudi’s won’t make much of a difference in lowering the price of gas at the pump, even at $120 a barrel, because our refining capacity is stretched pretty thin already. Even if we pumped our oil at home, the prices would remain inflated due to the same limits on our refining capacity as it relates to the current demand.
Oil production/refining is actually up (tap or click on image to enlarge)
Jumping up and down blaming Trump or Biden for all of this is just political bullshit. Trump and Biden, at the end of the day, were just as tied to our free market economy as we are. Neither of them either in past or present capacity could do a single thing. Trying to supposedly help, either via Presidential or Congressional fiat, would only serve to muck up the natural order of our free market economy and continue the current pain for much, much longer. Besides, trying to fix all of this using socialist principles wouldn’t be too unlike putting transmission fluid into your crank case.
Demand for fuel is at an all time high, production is limited, so here goes the price through the proverbial roof. Our capacity to refine is at it’s limit. Yes boys and girls, oil production/refining is actually up. Refining rates currently are higher than when Trump was in office.
Because of the Russian/Ukraine war, the U.S. has stopped purchasing imported oil from Russia.(The U.S. had only imported about 12% of it’s domestic supply from Russia)
With keeping free market economy in mind here, I’ll now introduce you to the Federal Reserve.
To add insult to injury to what’s already going on in the oil industry, the U.S. Fed just happened to decide that it needed to print literally trillions of dollars out of thin air and it flooded the domestic economy with it.
Here we have the perfect storm of market economics paired with increased inflation.
The last time oil was up to $120 per barrel, gas prices rose to $3.80-$4.00 per gallon. This time it’s the same, but with inflation factored in. The price at the pump now, with added inflation, is $5.00-$6.00 per gallon. As demand increases as most surely it will, and with our current rising rate of inflation, the price at the pump could quite literally go much higher.
Since we all live in a free market economy, we might do well to just STFU and roll with it.
If for some reason $7-$8 gas per gallon is untenable for you and your pocket book, you might consider actually electing people to office that know a thing or two about the free market economy. The very least we can do is to not be drawn in by all of the political bullshit from either side and look at all of this for what it really is.
Are the prices going up? Of course they are.
The best we can do in the short term is to hunker down and roll with it.
Upon after years of having to listen to Country, Rock, and other main stream genre’s on the radio and the internet, I’ve found the musical style of Loreena McKennitt to be pretty refreshing.
Sometimes it’s a good thing to be able to sit down and relax with music that allows you to set the mood independent from all of the regular musical noise that’s out there.
I hope you might find this piece of music from Loreena McKennitt to be as delightful as I have found it to be. Enjoy!
Loreena McKennitt is a Canadian singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and composer who writes, records, and performs world music with Celtic and Middle Eastern influences.
McKennitt is known for her refined and clear soprano vocals.She has sold more than 14 million records worldwide.
In 1990, McKennitt provided the music for the National Film Board of Canada documentary The Burning Times, a feminist revisionist account of the Early Modern European witchcraft trials. She and the musical team she headed would later re-record the documentary’s main theme on her album The Visit under the title “Tango to Evora”.
In 1993, she toured Europe supporting Mike Oldfield. In 1995, her version of the traditional Irish song “Bonny Portmore” was featured in the Highlander series, followed by the 1994 film Highlander 3: The Sorcerer.
You can catch up with Loreena McKennitt on her website and stay caught up on concert schedules and other updates: https://loreenamckennitt.com/
Photoshop has been around for years. It’s an extremely functional program that’s used all through it’s many versions since Photoshop CS2.
I still use Photoshop for even some of the most basic graphics rendering, and since I use Linux exclusively for all of my work, I run Photoshop on my local machine via WINE.
More about how to use Photoshop in Linux later. For now, here is an illustration of just how useful Photoshop can be.
Below is a time-lapse video of some of the remarkable things that Photoshop is capable of:
Any reputable grade school in the world teaches Charles Darwin’s “theory” of evolution as basic fact, yet a national poll in America has revealed that 42% of citizens are “not too” or “not at all” confident that the concept of evolution is real. 36% had serious doubts that the Earth is around 4.5 billion years old, despite numerous scientific tests that indicate this. Only 53% per cent of people were “extremely” or “very confident” that childhood vaccines are safe and effective, despite mountains and mountains of evidence that proves this.
A paltry 33% of Americans polled believe in human-induced climate change, even though the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has made it as clear as possible that it is real, it is us, and it will have catastrophic effects on humanity as a whole unless drastic and immediate action is taken to combat it. Despite mass shootings in Colorado, Texas, Virginia, Las Vegas, ad infinitum, gun control still isn’t close to the number one issue that most Americans decide their vote on, and laws and regulations continue to be watered down instead of squeezed. In fact, Georgia now has a law that enables people to carry weapons in state and local buildings, airports, churches and bars, Florida has signed a bill banning local gun regulations, and at least 12 states have made it legal for people to carry guns in schools.
Dr. George Land recently informed an audience at TEDx Tucson of his findings regarding a NASA-level creativity test that was performed on school children. Land and Beth Jarman were the ones who developed the test, and it was designed to determine where creativity comes from, and if it is inherited or learned. In total, 1,600 children between the ages of 4 and 5 were tested.
Dr. Land sums it all up nicely in this video below:
Almost unbelievably, scientists concluded that 98% of these children were creative geniuses! However, when the same children were tested only 5 years later, merely 30% of them were creative geniuses; 5 years after that, a paltry 12% qualified. As might be expected—at least after reading the aforementioned results—only 2% of adults test as creative geniuses. Also keep in mind that this trend has been verified millions of times. The modern school system is making most children less creative, overall.
Dr. Nascimento, head scientist for the study cited above, explains that, “The reasoning for this is not too difficult to comprehend; school, as we plainly call it, is an institution that has historically been put in place to ultimately serve the wants of the ruling class, not the common people. In order for the so-called elite to maintain their lavish life styles of overt luxury—where they contribute the least but enjoy the most—they understand that children must be dumbed down and brainwashed to accept (And even serve) their rapacious system of artificial scarcity, unending exploitation, and incessant war.”
Dr. Land argues that, “actually looking inside the brain we find that neurons are fighting each other and actually diminishing the power of the brain because we’re constantly judging, criticizing, and censoring. If we operate under fear we use a smaller part of the brain, but when we use creative thinking the brain just lights up.”
George Land, Ph.D. (1932 – 2016)
In 1965 George Land, Ph.D. founded a research and consulting institute to study the enhancement of creative performance. This research ultimately led to the formulation of Transformation Theory-a theory of natural processes that integrates principles of creativity, growth, and change. From these principles, Dr. Land developed unique strategic thinking and innovation processes for organizations.
He invented the first computer-interactive approaches to group innovation, decision-making, and strategic thinking. His exceptional processes are now licensed by over 400 major corporations worldwide.
Dr. Land has also taught interdisciplinary science and creative/innovative process to the faculties of some three dozen universities. Among his articles and books is his seminal work Grow or Die: the Unifying Principle of Transformation. Originally published in 1973 by Random House, it was a main selection of the Saturday Review Book Club and was submitted Random House as its nominee in the science category for the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award.
With Dr. Beth Jarman he co-authored Breakpoint Beyond: Mastering the Future – Today, published by HarperCollins in 1993 now also available in Spanish, Portuguese, Swedish and Korean.
Dr. Land has been elected a senior fellow of the University of Minnesota, a fellow of the New York Academy of Sciences for his outstanding contributions to science, and a colleague and fellow of the Creative Education Foundation. In 1989, Dr. Land received the Outstanding Creative Achievement Award from the Creative Education Foundation for his lifetime achievements in creativity. In 1995, the Innovative Thinking Network created the George Land World Class Innovator Award in honor of Dr. Land. His listings include Who’s Who in America and Who’s Who in the World. He passed away in March 2016, but his work on Transformation Theory and creativity will continue to impact the world for decades to come.
Swiss duo Fat Sushi is currently making its trademark on the underground clubland by releasing tracks and remixes on some of the most respected labels in the game: Suara, Einmusika, Katermukke, Steyoyoke or Hive Audio to name a few. Being in the industry for almost two decades before the peculiarly named pairing decided to join forces in 2013, you can hear the inspiration of various musical styles in their productions: heavy basslines, uplifting melodies and carefully chosen vocals – from deep house to techno spectrum.
The perfect storm of free market economics
I’m pretty sure that most of us would agree that we here in the United States live in a free market economy.
Though we live in a free market economy, I find it rather interesting that there are a lot of people over on the interwebs, including our so-called politicians, that have absolutely no idea of just how a free market economy works.
A free market economy can be a thing to behold when things are running smoothly, but it can also be somewhat of a bear-cat when things aren’t.
In an effort to not putting too fine of a point on this, I’d have to say that the oil companies, at this time, were all dressed up with no place to go.
Oil producers were faced with a glut of crude oil that left them scrambling to find space to store the oversupply. Brent crude oil prices also tumbled, closing at $9.12 a barrel on April 21, a far cry from the $70 a barrel that crude oil fetched at the beginning of the year.
The plunge of U.S. oil futures into negative territory was short-lived. But the collapse in demand was so fast and volatile that it led many people to question whether oil would be able to fully recover in 2021. By the summer of 2020, oil prices began to rebound as nations came out of the Covid lock-downs and OPEC agreed to major cuts in crude oil production. West Texas Intermediate crude finished 2020 at a price of $49 per barrel, while Brent crude finished the year at a price of $51 per barrel.
People claim that Trump was responsible for keeping the price at the pump so low (2019-2020), but really, the low prices were the result of the Saudi’s and the Russian’s having their little pissey-fits over just how much to either increase or decrease production. During their little squabbles, oil tanked totally (this is the point where you would’ve had to give me $37 for every barrel of oil I wanted)
Currently, the U.S. has 129 refineries in operation. Though we might be able to get our hands on vast amounts of oil, the ability to refine it and get it to market is limited, affecting the actual supply that is available for consumption. Purchasing oil from the Saudi’s won’t make much of a difference in lowering the price of gas at the pump, even at $120 a barrel, because our refining capacity is stretched pretty thin already. Even if we pumped our oil at home, the prices would remain inflated due to the same limits on our refining capacity as it relates to the current demand.
Jumping up and down blaming Trump or Biden for all of this is just political bullshit. Trump and Biden, at the end of the day, were just as tied to our free market economy as we are. Neither of them either in past or present capacity could do a single thing. Trying to supposedly help, either via Presidential or Congressional fiat, would only serve to muck up the natural order of our free market economy and continue the current pain for much, much longer. Besides, trying to fix all of this using socialist principles wouldn’t be too unlike putting transmission fluid into your crank case.
Demand for fuel is at an all time high, production is limited, so here goes the price through the proverbial roof. Our capacity to refine is at it’s limit. Yes boys and girls, oil production/refining is actually up. Refining rates currently are higher than when Trump was in office.
Because of the Russian/Ukraine war, the U.S. has stopped purchasing imported oil from Russia.(The U.S. had only imported about 12% of it’s domestic supply from Russia)
With keeping free market economy in mind here, I’ll now introduce you to the Federal Reserve.
To add insult to injury to what’s already going on in the oil industry, the U.S. Fed just happened to decide that it needed to print literally trillions of dollars out of thin air and it flooded the domestic economy with it.
Here we have the perfect storm of market economics paired with increased inflation.
The last time oil was up to $120 per barrel, gas prices rose to $3.80-$4.00 per gallon. This time it’s the same, but with inflation factored in. The price at the pump now, with added inflation, is $5.00-$6.00 per gallon. As demand increases as most surely it will, and with our current rising rate of inflation, the price at the pump could quite literally go much higher.
Since we all live in a free market economy, we might do well to just STFU and roll with it.
If for some reason $7-$8 gas per gallon is untenable for you and your pocket book, you might consider actually electing people to office that know a thing or two about the free market economy. The very least we can do is to not be drawn in by all of the political bullshit from either side and look at all of this for what it really is.
Are the prices going up? Of course they are.
The best we can do in the short term is to hunker down and roll with it.
Chart sourced from: https://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/hist/LeafHandler.ashx?n=PET&s=MCRFPUS2&f=M