Visitors from Lisbon

My wife has three brothers. One of them lives in Paris, one in Porto and one in Lisbon. None of them are very successful, and I would classify the one in Lisbon as poor. If it wasn't for the fact that he has a wife with a modest income, he would have to live from state subsidies which are anything but generous in Portugal.

His story is typical for people who find themselves down and out in their mid sixties. He had a period of relative success during his thirties and forties, but failed to put aside much from his windfall. Once his luck changed, he had too little money to get by. He had to sell his apartment and other assets, which rendered him penniless before his sixties birthday.

This means that he can't afford a hotel when he visits his home town Porto. He comes knocking at his sister's door instead. He camps out in our spare bedroom, together with his wife and five year old son.

My wife's apartment isn't very large, but we're able to squeeze them in. They're nice people, so I don't mind having them over for a few days every now and again, and my son is positively delighted to have his cousin over. However, the plague has complicated things; at least in principle.

My brother in law is a big vaccine enthusiast. Once vaccinated, he called my wife several times to convince her to take it too. The peer pressure was so severe that my wife would have taken the shot had I not put my foot down. As a consequence, I'm now my wife's hero and at the same time the big villain in the eyes of my wife's vaccine enthusiastic family.

This leads to some strange situations; mostly in the lead up to their visits. My brother in law calls my wife, lamenting the difficulties related to the fact that we don't have the same vaccine status. This is something that occupies his mind, day and night. However, once he knocks at our door, none of this is any longer mentioned. He's not even wearing his mask, despite his paranoia.

My wife and I respond in kind. We don't mention the virus with a word. As far as we're concerned, cough it is over.

Our refusal to make a fuss has the effect of making everybody less fearful. We focus on other things, and it's as if the virus never existed. With fear and anxiety out of the way, we're able to resume our old ways, which goes to prove that love really is the opposite of fear.

Porto view of Douro

Leveraging Happy Circumstances

Key to success in life is to live contented within our means, and to make wise investments. The successful implementation of such a lifestyle yields the dual benefit of relative affluence and the admiration of our peers. However, this kind of success doesn't happen over night. Impatience can easily get the better of us and ruin in one go years of carefully accumulated wealth. That's why I put down a plan in writing where I lay out the sort of things I will do and the sort of things I won't do.

My plan is formulated in such a way that it will always be current. I'm not dependent on anything going one way or the other. The only premise is that certain things are eternal, and therefore always valid. There's no final goal to my plan, nor any milestones, and it scales up and down the social and economic ladder. Anyone can use it as it is or take whatever they find useful in order to lay out their own plan.

As things are at the moment, I've reached a point of affluence relative to my peers. This doesn't mean that I'm rich in any conventional sense. I live a modest life with little luxury spending. Nor am I particularly successful. I have no great career and I wield no political power. However, I'm independently wealthy, and that's success in most people's minds.

There's no lack of people materially better off than I am. But are they richer than me if their wealth depends on politicians, employers and bank connections? I would say no, and many would agree with me, especially in our times when many find themselves force to go along with absurd agendas, pushed by people we detest.

I've been in my current happy circumstances for close to five years now, and there's no sign of any let up in my good fortunes. My plan is unfolding as anticipated. Little by little, my wife and I add to our material comforts. We convert some of our profits into home improvements, furniture and art.

Inexpensive antique furniture

These upgrades don't go unnoticed by family and friends who conclude that my wife and I are enjoying some success in our lives. My most skeptical peers may still think that we're living beyond our means, but this impression is fading. They too are starting to realize that my wife and I really did find a way to achieve a comfortable and independent lifestyle.

There's a growing notion that I figured something out, and that I might know a thing or two about finance and lifestyle. This in turn is something I leverage for my pet projects. People understand the importance of good decision making, so they take note when I vent an opinion on something.

The fact that I'm unvaccinated is causing a stir. People know that I'm right in many things, so my vaccine status is making my vaccinated peers uncomfortable. My opinion weighs in more heavy than that of others because my life doesn't depend on me always taking a politically correct position. I can be completely honest.

Unlike most people, I'm a sovereign. I don't have to go along with the popular delusions of our day, and therein lies the true power of my lifestyle.

Inexpensive fine art

Still Stuck in a Wedge

Another month has passed, and gold is still stuck in its wedge formation. A measly one percent gain for the month pales in comparison to other assets, such as Bitcoin and tech stocks. However, there are a few things worth noting for those in search of something positive to say about gold's medium term prospects.

• The August 9 attempt to break out of the formation to the downside failed, and has not been attempted again.
• Pressure remains mainly to the upside, with multiple attempts having been made since August.
• Search interest for gold has increased, and is now at a multiyear high.

Retail interest in gold is presumably behind the upswing in search interest. If so, physical demand is likely on its way up, and this is exactly what we need in order to push the price higher. Unlike ETFs and future contracts, which can be manipulated by central banks and other entities with unlimited access to cash, physical gold is hard to find. There's only 20 grams of it per person on the planet, and central banks, together with their affiliated bullion banks, are only in control of a small portion of this.

If average middle class families start putting some of their saving in gold as was the norm in the olden days, gold will break out in a big way, to the benefit of prudent savers and to the detriment of central banks, bullion banks and other gold manipulators.

Rococo Cup with handle

By Vincennes Porcelain (France, circa 1739–1756), Francois Binet (France, active 1750-1775, born 1731) - Image: http://collections.lacma.org/sites/default/files/remote_images/piction/ma-31852871-O3.jpg Gallery: http://collections.lacma.org/node/229367 archive copy, Public Domain, Link

Emergency Rooms are now Swamped

Here's an interesting piece of journalism that reveals a lot more than what's stated. It's full title is "ERs are now swamped with seriously ill patients — but many don't even have COVID".

This piece is published by NPR, a journal with a pro vaccine stand, so the title alone is a bit of a puzzle. Why highlight the fact that something other than the virus is causing emergency rooms to fill up?

Delving into the article, we learn that emergency rooms are fuller now than a year ago, and the illnesses people come in with are more serious than they were back then. But there's no explanation for why this is so. We are left to ponder for ourselves what the cause of this surge in illnesses may be.

One possibility may be that people avoided doctors while the virus was raging. What we're seeing may be a backlog that will soon be worked through. However, a more obvious explanation is not mentioned with a word; namely the possibility that the lockdowns, mask mandates and vaccines have been counterproductive.

The journalist appears to be using a subversive trick to alert her readers to what's really going on. Alternatively, she's oblivious to the fact that people do notice the absence of things. Not mentioning the most obvious possibility merely serves to highlight it.

This is how people relay important information in times of tyranny. The censors are avoided because nothing controversial is stated in plain text. Yet the message is clear to anyone willing to ponder the unasked questions.

The answers reveal themselves to those with a capacity for independent thinking, and they become even clearer to anyone in the habit of making predictions. I predicted that something like this would happen back in July, so the article reads to me as a confirmation of this.

Oxygen treatment

By James Heilman, MD - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, Link

Signs of Hyper-stagflation

One of the topics that came up in yesterday's conversation with my brother was whether we'll see hyperinflation as a consequence of the insanity that has gripped the world. Then he mentioned stagflation, and I told him that my bet would be on that rather than hyperinflation.

My prediction has long been for a 1970s type scenario, only worse. There will be a rapid rise in the price of all necessities like food and energy, while prices of non-essentials stay untouched. Speculative assets of all kinds will stay flat, or fall. The same will happen to luxury goods, including second homes and fancy cars. However, gold and silver will rise together with necessities due to their monetary properties. Sound money is a necessity, and hence, gold and silver rise when trust in paper currencies and their derivatives evaporate.

Businesses will react to this by loading up on commodities necessary for their operations, and speculators will try to front run these. They will also discover that money can be made by borrowing money to buy gold. With real interest rates consistently lower than inflation, gold will shine due to its inflation tracking property derived from the fact that gold is a commodity rather than a paper asset.

Commerce will constantly look for ways to hedge against inflation. Once their warehouses are full, they will home in on whatever commodity is easy to store and trade as an alternative to holding paper assets or cash. With storage cost going up due to hoarding, gold will present itself as the commodity of choice.

Bitcoin will be revealed as a red herring because of the energy required to keep its network up and running. It will become clear to everyone that Bitcoin is far from free of storage costs. The scheme depends on power hungry computers, floor space, and a whole range of services related to maintenance and upgrades. Gold has none of these requirements. A small box, hidden away in an attic, can hold a fortune in gold at no cost. Only Bitcoin requires an army of engineers and a constant flow of energy to be available 24/7.

Cryptocurrency mining farm

By Marco Krohn - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, Link

There will be a market driven flow out of currencies and paper assets that will continue until the current financial system either collapses or some brave central banker pushes interest rates so high that people are forced to abandon their speculative bets against central banks, government debt and all things related to paper currencies.

The stagflation period of the 1970s came to an end when interest rates were set substantially higher than the rate of inflation. However, this was done in an era of relatively little national debt. If something like this is tried today, nations will go bankrupt, and the system will crash. It's therefore unlikely to be tried. Interest rates will never be set above the rate of inflation, and stagflation will therefore become hyper-stagflation, at which point everything crashes and nothing but a complete reset will restore confidence.

A prolonged period of stagflation will force commerce onto a de facto gold standard, similar to what has already been established between Russia and China. Contracts will be written against gold, rather than currency, and central banks will be forced to incorporate this market driven demand in their reset. Otherwise, they'll risk irrelevance, because commerce will not abandon their gold standard unless currencies can provide the same stability. Any attempt at a reset without gold will be met with a great deal of skepticism.

With this in mind, it's interesting to note that Australia's two year bond yields shot up over night. This high quality paper asset fell substantially in price. If not corrected, this will spread to the rest of the world. If corrected, the message from central banks will be clear; they will let their currency crash and burn. Either way, life's necessities are about to get a whole lot more expensive.

As an interesting aside for the religiously inclined, the third horseman of the Apocalypse brings with him stagflation. Life's necessities become increasingly expensive, while luxury goods like wine and fine oils remain unchanged.

Four horsemen of the apocalypse

By Viktor Mikhailovich Vasnetsov - http://lj.rossia.org/users/john_petrov/166993.html, Public Domain, Link

Giving my Brother Credit

My older brother has committed to help his daughter with her house purchase. The contract was signed a year ago, and now that the house is ready he's on the hook for a substantial amount of money. However, he's short on liquidity. He cannot get a loan in the bank, and has to sell something in order to cover his commitment.

The problem is that his most liquid asset is also the asset he's least interested in selling. If he sells his gold at current prices, he loses a lot on the spread. He'd rather post the gold as security for a loan, but banks no longer accept gold as security.

This puts him in a squeeze where the bank and gold trader are likely to get away with a big cut of his savings, unless he can find liquidity among friends and family.

Luckily for my brother, my wife and I have access to credit, and we accept gold as security. This means that we can apply the strategy outlined in this post from February.

The deal will be as follows:

1. My brother posts 100% security in gold at spot price for the loan he wants to raise.
2. My wife takes out a mortgage on her apartment for the same amount.
3. My brother promises to cover all my wife's costs and pay 1% above her bank rate.
4. The duration and payment plan of the loan matches that of the mortgage.
5. Security is handed back in proportion to the down payments.

I'm in the fortunate position that I can trust my brother 100%, so the security doesn't have to be moved into the hands of a third person. All I need to know is where to find it, and that bit of knowledge can be shared with me directly in a letter, hand written and sent to me. Should anything happen to my brother, I will have sufficient proof that the security is mine, and not part of his estate.

This plan saves my brother from the substantial loss that he would incur if he had to sell his gold. Instead of giving the gold trader a big cut, he gives me a small profit in capacity of being his bank contact in Porto.

Sovereign

By Heritage Auctions for image, Mary Gillick for coin - Newman Numismatic Portal, Public Domain, Link

Not the Mark of the Beast

I keep coming across claim that the vaccine is the mark of the beast. However, the mark of the beast was implemented a long time ago, and the vaccine is only incidentally related to it. This is evident from the fact that the mark is required in order to earn wages or do business. It's nothing more than the id card we use in order to get a job or start a business. There's nothing mysterious or new about it. The only odd thing about it is that so few people recognize their id cards for what they are.

One way we can confirm this is to consider God's kingdom on Earth. This social arrangement, which is projected to replace our current system, has no temples. There are no nation states, nor any registrations of any kinds beyond what is voluntarily agreed upon through voluntary contracts.

Kings are mentioned, but this does not imply the existence of nation states. The original meaning of this archetype is merely a powerful land owner. Such people are not endowed with any special rights to register and coerce people into paying taxes. The kings that exist in the kingdom of God are bound by the golden rule, just as much as everybody else. There is no special class of bureaucrats that can do things that other people would be arrested for doing privately.

It follows from this that id cards, issued by a central bureaucracy, is contrary to God's vision of the world. Such id cards belong to the beast. They are the mark of the beast.

There's also an acronym of three characters that serves as the number of the beast. This too is a long established feature of modern society. Bureaucrats have special privileges that they wield, provided they show a badge with their name, picture, and the three letter acronym of their agency.

None of this has anything to do with the vaccine.

The only thing that ties the vaccine to our id system is the green cards that are currently being pushed. However, green cards are merely a layer on top of our system of id cards. Green cards are not the mark of the beast. They are applications based on the mark that we already have.

Some people make a point out of the fact that the stab of the vaccine leaves a mark, but no-one is required to show this to anybody. The only vaccine related thing we're sometimes required to show is our vaccine status.

The only mention of the stab in the Bible is a brief incident that happens in the Revelation. A global swarm of scorpion demons inject non-believers with their venom. The episode is not tied directly to the mark of the beast. It's mentioned as a curiosity. It's a sign we should look for to know that things are out of whack.

Another observation regarding this prophesy is that hardly anyone regret the incident of the scorpion demons. Those injected by their venom don't repent nor change their ways. The incident fades into obscurity. Hence, it serves purely as a sign, and should be treated as such. If no-one is prosecuted, and hardly anyone regrets any of the nonsense we're currently living through, we know that things are about to get serious.

As for the remedy to all of this, we're advised to be meek. We mustn't go face to face against the beast. The beast has no real authority, so there's no point in petitions, nor is there any point in demonstrations or riots. Rather, we should build community with God's kingdom on Earth, aka the 5th Empire, as our ultimate goal.

This doesn't mean that we should sever all ties with the current system. That would only get us in trouble. We have to go about our project in a sensible way.

The trick is to do our thing without announcing it to anyone. When the beast demand that we do certain things in a certain way, we can do a Southwest Airlines. It yields the desired results, without the dangers of arrests and fees that come with open rebellion.

Whenever possible, the beast should be avoided. Little by little, we remove our shackles. Everything we do should be with our ultimate aim in mind. My wife and I buy our vegetables directly from farmers who put our cash payments directly into their pockets. This bypasses taxation, and the beast is thereby starved.

Finally, we have to keep in mind that our current enslavement is an edifice several thousand years in the making, so we can't expect to achieve our goal over night. However, we can become free in spirit simply by recognizing what our ultimate goal is, and to strive towards it as best we can.

Liberty

Cough It is Over

I called my son in Norway yesterday to hear how things are going up at that other western corner of Europe. He could tell me that Cough It is over. Ever since the government declared victory over the virus back in September, my son has consistently shut down any discussion about Cough It by simply stating that it's over.

There are still some restrictions related to the virus, but my son hasn't been inconvenienced by any of them. People are waking up to the fact that it has been a great hoax, manufactured by government and media, and few want to talk about it. It's not like my son needs to shut down conversations very often. Things are returning to the old normal without anyone commenting on this.

A similar trend is emerging in Portugal. People are dropping their masks, and they avoid talking about the virus. The topic is still heavily featured on TV, but the public seems increasingly embarrassed by it. When Super-Delta-Cough-It was featured on the news a few days ago, we couldn't help laughing at the desperation evident in the official narrative.

Many are similarly amused by the way this whole thing is becoming a farce. However, we're not out of the woods yet. There are still enough scared people out there for the official narrative to stage a comeback. But such a comeback is unlikely to have much success. Media has by now lost all credibility, so any counter argument is seen as valid. We don't have to back up our statements with facts, because the media doesn't do this either.

Any story related to the virus can be met with "Cough It is over". If anybody objects by citing the official narrative, we can ask them if they still believe in TV. Direct observations contradict the official narrative. The whole thing is a scam.

Mask of the beast

La Palma's Ridge of Fire

The La Palma volcano is relatively small, yet full of energy, and it has a total of five vents, all strung out in a north to south line. This in itself, indicates that the volcano is in fact a crack in a fault line, and we get this confirmed by taking a look at a map of the island.

Zooming in on the southern tip of La Palma, where the current eruption is taking place, we see that the volcano is but one of many small craters strung out in a north to south line. This line extends south from a large crater in the center of the island. There are also a number of small craters strung out to the north of the large crater.

Zooming in on the large crater, we see that it doesn't appear to be volcanic. It looks more like the scarred remains of a landslide, as if the entire central part of the island once slid into the Atlantic on the island's western side. It appears that the island once cracked, with a substantial part of it tumbling into the ocean. The tsunami that this caused must have been enormous, especially if it happened as one big catastrophic event, rather than gradually over several months.

It's hard to see something like this without being reminded of ancient stories of mountains of fires being tossed into the sea. There are also more recent events, such as the Krakatoa eruption of 1883 that serve as reminders that islands do explode, collapse and emerge with little prior warning. If the current eruption on La Palma continues unabated, and we get a ridge of fire, splitting the island's southern part into two, there's a risk that we'll see a land slide similar to what has happened before.

La Palma is situated on a fault line that separates America from Africa. This pulls the western part of the island towards America at a faster rate than its eastern side, and hence we get a ridge of fire down its middle where stress is released in the form of eruptions and lava flows. The center of the island is situated on a pool of magma that rises up and makes it soft and liable to collapse whenever it's under stress.

Violent volcanic eruption

By Oliver Spalt, CC BY 2.0, Link

Completing the Circle

I made the prediction back in July that gold prices would start rising due to continued gold accumulation by Russia and China. However, the price of gold has stayed flat. Nothing much is happening. The price of gold bounces about inside a wedge formation that has been in place for more than a year. It appears that the suppression of the gold price through paper derivatives is still taking place, actively aided by gold importers such as Russia and China.

I'm not alone in this verdict. GoldBroker is of the same opinion, and they lay their case out excellently in this article. Putin's obsession with gold is not a mere fancy. It's rooted in a desire to get back onto a gold standard for international trade. However, instead of petitioning world leaders for this, Putin has gone ahead and done it without asking anybody for permission.

The scheme is simple, and based on sound economics.

Putin's primary concern is that of Russia's sovereignty, which depends on two factors:

1. A strong military
2. No trade deficits

This makes it impossible to attack Russia either through military intervention or through trade embargos. But these two factors are not in themselves sufficient to guarantee success. Russia depends on trade for its economic prosperity, and must therefore keep running accounts of imports and exports.

This is the domain of money. Without access to money and associated transaction mechanisms, trade becomes impossible. Hence, Russia is dependent on the world's reserve currency in order to prosper, and that reserve currency is the US dollar. But why should this be so? Why use the US dollar in trade with other countries than the US?

The answer to this is that it doesn't have to be so at all. Any currency will do for trade, provided there's a simple way to convert the currency in question into some tangible asset that everybody can agree on, so that trade imbalances can be settled and straightened out before they becomes unbearably large.

This is the significance of China's gold exchanges. China's currency can be used to buy gold. If China imports more from Russia than Russia imports from China, the difference can be settled in gold. The same goes for any other country with a gold exchange, and Russia is now using these mechanisms to settle trade imbalances.

This is the reason Russia and China are actively suppressing the price of gold. They want as much of it as possible when they settle trade surpluses in gold rather than dollars or euros.

With Russia and China now on a de facto gold standard, other countries are likely to follow suite. Trade surpluses will increasingly be settled in gold, and surplus nations will naturally try to get as much gold as they can before deficit nations run out of the stuff.

The irony in this is that the mechanisms for suppression of the gold price trough derivatives was invented by the deficit nations of the west in order to strengthen the US dollar. That mechanism has now been hijacked by the nations running surpluses, and the west is running out of time. If nothing is done to stop physical gold from moving east, there will come a day when there's no gold left.

When that happens, there will be no reason for surplus nations to trade with deficit nations. The value of their currencies will drop off a cliff, and the whole system will have to be reset. Every currency will have to be tied to gold at a rate that will guarantee a balance of trade. Only nations with gold reserves will be allowed to run trade deficits, and every one of these nations are currently running surpluses.

Deficit nations will have to produce stuff that surplus nations are willing to buy. In the absence of this, deficit nations will have to hand over assets of all kinds. The tables will be turned, and the people of the west will once again have to produce before they can consume.

Vladimir Putin

By Kremlin.ru, CC BY 4.0, Link

Earth, Heavens and Humanity

Economic super cycles tend to follow climate cycles. Stability and plenty is associated with stable warm weather, while wars, revolutions and upheavals happen during period with cold and unstable weather.

The transition from plenty to want is often sudden and chaotic because of the way we fail to prepare. A lot of wasteful practices build up during the good times. Politicians and bureaucrats take advantage of the situation. They invent all sorts of programs. They limit people's liberties, and make people dependent on handouts, thereby securing control of the population. However, these schemes always collapse in the face of real hardships.

All it takes for things to go from tolerable to disastrous is a couple of bad harvests. Suddenly, there's an awareness of the liberties lost during the good times, and an awakening to the fact that the state cannot work magic. There's revolt and revolution. There's war.

This is not a new insight. Historians tend to agree on this. Even religious texts make this connection. Times of upheaval coincide with times when the climate turns against us. However, religious texts take this one step further than what the typical historian would. The Bible lays a connection between the earth, the heavens and humanity. When it comes to signs of imminent catastrophe we are told to observe all three.

An interesting aspect of this is that it's becoming increasingly evident that the climate is connected to solar cycles as well as geological events. Volcanic eruptions can cause bad harvests, sometimes on a global scale. Low solar activity coincides with cold and unstable weather. There is in other words a connection between the economy and the state of our sun and our planet.

What used to be seen as religious superstition turns out to be correct. However, the Bible draws the parallel even further, and it remains to be seen if this too is correct. It claims that humanity often go mad before the signs are clear for everyone to see. The first signs of trouble are in our fellow men. A moral decline precedes natural disasters.

I find this interesting in that I sensed the approach of some imminent storm back in 2016, and it was the moral failings of people around me that I found particularly alarming. This moral decline has since accelerated, especially over the last two years, and now, all of a sudden, we're seeing volcanos pop all over the place, and the climate has turned decidedly cooler in certain parts of the world, including Portugal where I live.

Things have not deteriorated to the point where there's widespread famine, and we're not seeing mountains of fire being tossed into the sea. But, the signs are there, and if the Bible is right, we're getting close to some spectacular fireworks.

Violent volcanic eruption

By Oliver Spalt, CC BY 2.0, Link

Bitcoin ETFs and Bitcoin Futures

"ProShares Bitcoin Strategy ETF (BITO) is the first U.S. bitcoin-linked ETF". It offers investors "an opportunity to gain exposure to bitcoin returns in a convenient, liquid and transparent way". However, "the fund does not invest directly in bitcoin". It "seeks to provide capital appreciation primarily through managed exposure to bitcoin futures contracts".

This, according to BITO's own words.

In other words, the ETF is a derivative of a derivative that's merely tracking the price of Bitcoin. As noted back in early 2018, Bitcoin futures don't settle in Bitcoin, so they don't affect the supply and demand of Bitcoin itself.

This means that the ETF doesn't directly affecting the price of Bitcoin. However, it does have an indirect effect, because any money put into the ETF, which would otherwise have been put directly into Bitcoin, is directed away from the demand side of the Bitcoin market.

The net effect of the ETF will be the same as that of Bitcoin futures. It directs money away from the demand side of the Bitcoin market. The result of this, back in 2018, was that the price of Bitcoin fell from almost $20,000 to around $3,000 over the next two years. Something similar may well happen this time around, with the introduction of Bitcoin ETFs.

Train wreck

By Photo credited to the firm Levy & fils by this site. (It is credited to a photographer "Kuhn" by another publisher [1].) - the source was not disclosed by its uploader., Public Domain, Link

Five Months of Agony

There's a detail in the book of revelation that caught my attention when I read through it back in June. Rev. 9 talks of global swarm of locust that stings like scorpions; "but only those men which have not the seal of God in their foreheads".

I couldn't help laying the connection between this and the global vaccination effort. A strong belief in God, aka nature, protects people from the injection. There's much pressure to take the vaccine, but it's still not administered at gun point. A firm belief in our immune system, and a rejection of the idea that man can in a few months produce something that nature has perfected over millennia, has so far been sufficient to protect us from the stab.

There's also a curious mention of five months. That's how long the scorpion poison torments its victims. Five months is also the period most often mentioned when it comes to the effectiveness of the vaccine. It's not one month, six months or twelve months we keep hearing; it's five.

This is not to say that Rev. 9 is an accurate description of what we're seeing. Most of this revelation doesn't make much sense in the current context. However, there's enough overlap with current events to serve as a useful warning. It's clear that we should not let ourselves be stung by the scorpions. It's also clear that this is but one of many troubles coming our way. We're not out of the woods just because we dodged the vaccination bullet.

Mask of the beast

Global Mass Hysteria

“Men, it has been well said, think in herds; it will be seen that they go mad in herds, while they only recover their senses slowly, one by one.”

― Charles MacKay, Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds

This insight by a 19th century scholar has rarely been on such full display as it is now. In fact, the current hysteria is of an unprecedented scale. Never before has a popular delusion gone global. Hysterias in the past have been limited to a continent at most. Yet, there's nothing new in the way the current madness has evolved.

The madness has reached its peak. This is evident in how people are reverting to normal behavior. Little by little, people drop their masks. The look of fear and desperation in people's faces is evaporating, and it's again possible to exchange friendly glances with strangers in the streets.

This trend will become impossible to revert. The evaporation of fear means that love and clear thinking is on its way back. People are starting to realize that they were duped into thinking that something dangerous was afoot where there was nothing to fear, and that this fear was used to usher us into something far more dangerous; namely a willingness to accept lockdowns, mask mandates and an experimental and untested drug.

People are waking up to the fact that the hysteria was deliberately created by politicians, journalists and corporate leaders. The system that has been sold to us as being "by the people and for the people" has been revealed to be neither. The dangers of centralized power are now plain to see, and trust in the system is plummeting.

In retrospect, the lies were easy to spot. It's not difficult to make a list of culprits. However, anger is not the best way forward. Indifference is a better approach. Ask family and friends what the fuss was all about. Wonder out loud why politicians don their masks when on TV but not when out partying with friends. Express genuine puzzlement, but only when called for. Saying nothing at all is often the best strategy, because the last thing the globalists want is a public completely unfussed by their hysteria.

Simply going back to normal as if the past 20 months never happened is the ultimate rebuke of the political and corporate class. When combined with genuine puzzlement and a refusal to go along with clownish nonsense, the new normal will be the exact opposite of what the globalists had in mind.

Boris Johnson

By Ben Shread / Cabinet Office, OGL 3, Link

Bitcoin Surges to All Time High

Bitcoin is currently trading at an all time high of about $64,000. However, it's not entirely clear why this is so. Search interest for Bitcoin remains muted, and trading volumes are modest. The divergence between price action and search interest that I wrote about two weeks ago is still intact.

This situation cannot persist for much longer before someone is forced to sell, because Bitcoin is in constant need of fresh money in order to pay its energy and hardware bills. With no fresh money coming in, miners are selling into the existing community of whales and hodlers. The community as a whole is either going into debt in order to hold their tokens, or digging into their savings. Either way, there's increasing selling pressure.

If search interest doesn't soon increase from current levels, Bitcoin is likely to see a major correction. The constant need for fresh money to pay its bills makes Bitcoin a de facto Ponzi scheme. It's not money, it's not a commodity, and it's not a productive asset. It's a lottery ticket, and a very pricy one at that.

Whale

By Michaël CATANZARITI - by Michaël CATANZARITI, CC BY-SA 3.0, Link

Dead from Complications

Colin Powell is dead at 84. That's several years more than typical life expectancy, so his death isn't exactly a tragedy. However, the circumstances of his death are interesting, because they suggest that he died from medication that he'd been taking, or the treatment that he was receiving at the hospital.

Powell's death was due to complications, which means that something other than a disease killed him. Powel had been ill with the virus, he had cancer, and he suffered from Parkinson. Yet, none of this killed him. That's what we're being told.

Interestingly, Powell's cancer seems to have been of recent date. Unlike his Parkinson, which he had been struggling with for years, his cancer is mentioned without a time reference. We're simply told that Powell had been diagnosed with multiple myeloma, a form of blood cancer that makes it difficult to fight infections.

From this alone, I would have concluded that Powell died from his cancer rather than his treatment. Any infection would have killed him. The mention of the virus is superfluous, as is the use of the word complications. Powell suffered from myeloma, and he died as a result of this. So what are the journalists trying to tell us by framing his death differently? Why the emphasis on the virus and the fact that he was vaccinated.

The simple answer to this is that the virus and the vaccine are the only thing people care about, so these things are mentioned even when irrelevant to the story. Powell didn't die from the virus. He had recovered from it, and died subsequently from something else. But that doesn't sell, so a mention of the virus and the vaccine is tossed in to get more attention.

However, there may be a real story hidden in this. If Powell developed myeloma after being vaccinated, his death may in fact have been due to the vaccine. The vaccine appears to be causing cancer and other immunity related disorders. This happened to an old acquaintance of us, and the problem is not unique to him. Powel may simply fit into this pattern, and that's what the journalists are telling us.

Either way, this is not exactly great PR for the vaccine. It's still possible to construe this into a story in which old people are encouraged to take booster shots, but the level of naivety required for accepting such a narrative is too high to con more than a few gullible souls.

Colin Powell

By Department of State of the United States of America - https://www.durdarshan.site/2021/10/colin-powell-first-black-us-secretary.html?m=1, Public Domain, Link

A Tall Plume on the La Palma Volcano

With two live cameras directed towards the La Palma volcano, anyone can be an observer.

There's a close up camera, situated across from the volcano, that details the changes on the ground. A whole little mountain has been created in the space of a few weeks. The morphology of the terrain changes by the day, with lava flows and new fissures replacing old ones. Enormous forces are in play, sometimes constructive in building up the terrain, and sometimes destructive in tearing down what had recently been created.

A camera at a distance shows nothing more than a plume of volcanic ash. The volcano itself is hidden behind a tall ridge. However, it provides for some interesting information when it comes to the fundamental nature of volcanos. For one, the plume of volcanic ash settles into the same thin strata of the atmosphere regardless of the intensity of the eruption. A sudden burst of activity at the ground doesn't translate into a higher plume.

This indicate stability beyond the state of the volcano itself. The volcanic ash is destined for a particular atmospheric strata regardless of momentary intensity. The electric explanation for this would be that the atmospheric strata matches the electric charge of the ejected dust, which in turn matches the electric charge inside the volcano itself.

This means that the potential energy inside the volcano can be derived from how high the plume is. If the plume is relatively low, there's little remaining energy in the volcano. If it's tall, there's a potential for major eruptions, even if the plume appears thin and lackluster at the ground.

Seen in this respect, it's interesting to note that the plume on the La Palma volcano has become taller over time. Energy appears to be building up inside the volcano, and we can therefore expect eruptions to become stronger in the days ahead.

Volcanic ash cloud

By NASA - https://archive.org/details/STS067-721A-052, Public Domain, Link

Dealing with Travel Restrictions

It's clear, even from casual observation, that there's a totalitarian push to control travel. A green pass will soon be required for travel across borders. This pass will be hooked up to various databases. Bureaucrats will be able to read our complete travel history. They will be able to see our social credit score, and they will be able to determine if we're allowed to travel based on this data.

The new normal envisioned by the totalitarians is full of checkpoints. No-one will be able to work or buy stuff without a valid green pass, and the exact parameters that have to be met for a green pass to be valid will be set arbitrarily by the people at the top of the bureaucratic pyramid.

This dystopian future is what top bureaucrats are pushing all over the world, and they imagine themselves well positioned to do exactly this. However, the totalitarian view of the world is incorrect. The world is not a hierarchy. It's a network. No amount of technology will ever change this. All that will be achieved by pushing the green card agenda is an emergence of parallel systems that operate under the radar.

My plan, in case of complete totalitarian madness, is to further expand my reliance on the parallel economy. We will get our food delivered, and we'll either become farmers ourselves, or we will find ways around work restrictions.

One possibility might be to work remotely from a country where things are less crazy. However, that would require a green pass. The relatively sane place we're heading for might allow people in without a green pass, but the crazy place we're traveling from may require a green pass to leave. How then do we get out of the country without being stabbed?

One option would be to drop our travel plans and simply stay put, or move into the outback to get away from the worst of the insanity. Internal travel restrictions, such as those that were common in Nazi occupied Europe, are never very effective. There's always some way to get from one place to another. A network of informants develops out of necessity. There will be ways to know if a checkpoint is in place, and alternative routes can be sought.

But we're not necessarily stuck in the country where we live, even if it goes completely bananas. There are other ways to get from one place to another than to take a commercial flight or ferry. There might be loopholes for private jets and yachts, in which case a journey can be made by renting such a vehicle. That will make the journey more expensive, but if the goal is to move somewhere permanently, it's a one off cost. It may well be worth it.

If the totalitarians crack down on all loopholes so that any travel out or in must be according to green pass regulations, there's still the option of illegal travel. This is how refugees get around. It's always been this way, and it's always been impossible to stamp out. There's always a way to get from one place to another, especially for those prepared to pay for the service.

A draconian crackdown on travel will have major repercussions. However, it won't increase their ability to control us, because travel in itself is not a liberating experience.

Spending a week on a beech in Florida doesn't change the way people think about government. However, traveling somewhere with the aim to circumvent rules and restrictions does affect our world view. Travel restrictions are therefore likely to strengthen local networks to the detriment of centralized power.

There's already a tendency in this direction. People are paying less attention to politicians and their spin doctors in media. Decrees are being increasingly ignored at the local level. The execution of mandates fail because too few take them seriously. The net effect of this is de facto secession at a personal and local level.

Combined with internet communication, people will be able to identify safe havens for their escape plans. A sailboat can be hired, a marina identified, and safe passage ensured, all happening under the radar. This, and many other things, will become increasingly easy to do in the parallel economy where everyone is a sovereign and there are no laws beyond the golden rule.

British Airways coming in for landing

By Wo st 01 / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0 de, Link

A Beautiful Morning in Porto

Mask usage was never evenly distributed across Porto. Parks and beaches never saw much of it. Affluent areas saw less usage than poorer areas.

My neighborhood has been relatively conform. People do what they're told, even if they don't have much faith in what's being said. I put this down to the area being a typical workers neighborhood with a mix of low skilled laborers and office clerks. These are people who're used to doing what they're told even if it makes little to no sense.

However, less than 30% of the people I crossed paths with on my morning walk wore their masks. There were a clear majority of people not wearing it at all, and a small minority wearing it properly, as advised on TV.

This drop in compliance happened over the weekend, which makes me think that there has either been another official rollback of rules or a drop in virulent propaganda. I don't follow mainstream news too closely, so I don't know. But whatever it was, it has resulted in even less compliance with recommendations. Fear is evaporating, and clear thinking is making a comeback.

It's starting to dawn on people that politicians and their minions in media cannot be trusted. It's clear that there never was a big risk to humanity. It was all a bunch of media driven hysteria.

Good morning Porto

Civilized, Peripheral and Poor

Portugal is:

1. Civilized: There's little crime, and there's respect for property and privacy.
2. Peripheral: It's often overlooked when it comes to globalist agendas.
3. Poor: There's little money available for social engineering.

These are virtues that makes Portugal a good destination for people who desire to be left alone to do their own thing. However, Portugal is not immune to madness. Things are not quite as bad as in places like France, Italy and Germany. But politicians push for totalitarian control here too, and it's impossible to say where things are heading.

The way things are right now, I see no reason to go anywhere. We'll simply stay put and wait for things to settle down before making any moves. However, if things deteriorate further, we need to consider our options, which in my case are several.

For one, I can return to Norway with my family. Norway is both peripheral and civilized, and it has a history of low tolerance towards nonsense. It's not a poor country, but has a culture steeped in a tradition of prudence and discipline. It's a place of relative sanity.

Alternatively, I can buy or rent a small farm in the Portuguese outback.

However, there might be an even better option available out in the Atlantic. There's an archipelago outside Africa with a culture similar to Portugal. The islands were uninhabited until 550 years ago when European seafarers discovered them. Portugal took control of the islands and developed them into a peripheral clone of their own country.

These are the Cape Verde islands. Unlike the Azores and Madeira, which are still under Portuguese control, Cape Verde is independent. Hence, they are in a position to develop policies different from those in Portugal. Being just as civilized as Portugal, and even more peripheral and poor, Cape Verde may end up doing things very different from other western nations.

This leaves me with three options beyond my default option of doing nothing. That's better than having a single plan B. I have flexibility, and this flexibility will be preserved if I move to Cape Verde, because I can always return to either Portugal or Norway.

Such a move will not be a break with my established contacts. My wife may even continue her work as an editor from this remote location. We will keep in contact with friends and family, which adds flexibility to them as well. Not only can I return to Norway, Norwegian family members can come to us in Cape Verde. Alternatively, we go to Portugal.

However, this is not the time to band together. It's too early to tell where things are going. Hence, it's better to spread out than to come together, because likeminded people clustered together make for easy targets. A hostile state can do a Waco, and kill everybody. But if everybody are spread out we can go under the radar.

Each of us can build community around ourselves, and integrate into it. My Christian friend here in Portugal is on good terms with his neighbors in the Portuguese outback. My children in Norway have their own circles of friends. I'm on good terms with our neighbors in our Porto neighborhood.

We would do the same in Cape Verde if we were to go there. We would rent a place while looking around, and we would make an effort to get on good terms with everybody. Once that's established, others can come and join us without it coming across as excessive or threatening among the locals.

The trick is to integrate as much as possible, and to make it both pleasant and profitable to have us around. The more we spread out in this manner, the more options there will be for maneuvering in times of crisis. However, for now, I'm going nowhere. I'm doing perfectly fine where I am.

Satellite photo of the Cape Verde islands

By Terra (NASA) - http://rapidfire.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/gallery/?2010327-1123/CapeVerde.A2010327.1200.250m.jpg, Public Domain, Link

Well Positioned for a Storm

The world is going insane before our very eyes, yet I feel at ease with things. I don't feel pressured to do one thing or another. I'm in charge of my life, and I alone decide what I will or will not do. Hence, I'm unvaccinated, and confident that this will remain the case.

This is not due to some random luck on my part, but the result of a strategy that I formalized back in 2016 when I fully realized that I was on an unsustainable path. I had to get out of debt. I had to sell my house and get away from the banking system as much as possible. I sensed a storm on the horizon, and a need to have financial flexibility to sustain whatever ugliness was on its way.

I had no idea what the nature of the storm would be. However, I knew that it would be centered around the big cities of the world. The sort of insanity I foresaw was to be rooted in an excess belief in bureaucratic power to shape society. Hence, a relatively poor country at the periphery of civilized society seemed to me the ideal outpost.

I was already living in Portugal at the time, and it has proven itself worthy of my trust. It's a good place to be during times of uncertainty. People are polite and helpful. There are small stores everywhere, and towns and cities have strong connections to the surrounding countryside. Everybody knows somebody with a farm.

There's also a tradition of gentle anarchy. People are not too particular about government rules and regulations, and this mentality extends all the way into the police force and bureaucracy itself. The only rule that everybody abides by is the golden rule, save the odd crook here and there.

My optimism is in part due to the fact that my strategy seems to be coming into its own. So far, I've been right about Portugal as a peripheral state, and the virtues of having financial flexibility. I'm not dependent on a boss or the state. I can move quickly if need be, and I can decide for myself what to do. But there's no urgency. The overall feel of things is that rules and regulations are being rolled back. Even the police has stopped following state issued recommendations.

However, this doesn't mean that things can't get ugly. The war of attrition is by no means over. Things are getting worse in places like Italy and Germany. A ruthless system of segregation is being implemented in which only the vaccinated are allowed to earn a salary or go into stores. This may still be pushed in Portugal as well.

Should Italian and German style apartheid be implemented in Portugal, there will still be options open to me and my family. We have sufficient savings to last us many years, and we have direct access to farms in the area. We can have groceries delivered directly to our door. We even have enough money to buy a small farm for ourselves. However, this may never become necessary, because there's a good chance that increased segregation in Italy and Germany will result in less segregation in Portugal.

Portugal is already experiencing an influx of internally displaced refugees from the rest of Europe. These people don't identify themselves as refugees. They call themselves expats. However, they come to Portugal for more reasons than cheap wine and sunny weather. They come here to escape fascism. Hence, there's increasing internal pressure on Portugal to relax rules and regulations.

Being both peripheral to the EU and the center of an old empire, Portugal is a country that's likely to find its own path going forward. But it's too early to say anything for certain. We need to stay vigilant. If things get worse, we might have to do something. That might mean moving into the hinterland of Portugal, or go somewhere even more peripheral, like Cape Verde. But none of this worries me. I'm perfectly positioned and confident that we'll get through this without getting stabbed by needles.

Castle

By Ángel Sanz de Andrés - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, Link

Myopic Science

It has been known since June that vaccines are ineffective against Delta, and this has recently been confirmed by other studies. Direct observation provides further proof of this. It's been evident for months that the vaccines are counterproductive. Yet, politicians and journalists haven't changed their tune. They have doubled down on the false narrative that vaccines are both safe and effective.

Outside of Porto's city park, some 40% of everybody I see on the streets still wear their masks, despite this being optional, and young people are still volunteering to take the vaccine. So it appears that the official narrative is holding up relatively well.

The spin doctors' ability to keep the official narrative alive is helped by the way modern science is organized. There are specialists everywhere, and hardly anyone have an overall view of anything. Hence, the field of science is wide open for spin doctors to pick and choose the evidence that support their narrative.

This has become particularly evident over the last 20 months. Spin doctors have been cherry picking studies that fit their vision of a new normal. Studies that show lockdowns, mask mandates and vaccines to be effective are quoted. Studies that show the opposite are given little attention or not mentioned at all.

Even when a major study comes out against the official narrative, spin doctors find ways to present the facts so as to support them anyway. When vaccines were found to cause more severe illnesses in those who caught the virus anyway, focus was switched to number of cases rather than severity of illness.

The only positive effect of vaccination has been a slowdown in the spread of the virus. In every other way, the vaccine has failed. Hence, focus is now increasingly on the spread of the virus rather than the severity of the illness.

Had the vaccine had some other positive effect, that would have been the focus of the spin doctors. For instance, it was for a while believed that the vaccine caused less severe symptoms. This was therefore a part of the narrative. But now that this has been proven false, that angle has to go.

The scientific base for the official narrative is now so small that it has become a minority opinion. Yet, this doesn't deter the spin doctors. They will ramble on about the spread of the virus while ignoring the fact that only the unvaccinated are well protected from severe illness. However, the speed of the spread appears to be accelerating among the vaccinated, making it likely that even this remaining positive aspect of the vaccine will fall.

Should the vaccine one day be proven ineffective in all aspects, spin doctors will not stop, because science isn't something they take very seriously. It's merely an angle to a story that they can use to further their agenda. If science fails them, they will switch to a different angle. They will focus on individual stories. They will cherry pick emotionally laden stories that fit their agenda in the exact same way that they cherry pick scientific findings.

Trapeze Artists

By Copyright by the Calvert Litho. Co., Detroit, Mich. - This image is available from the United States Library of Congress's Prints and Photographs division under the digital ID cph.3g02091. This tag does not indicate the copyright status of the attached work. A normal copyright tag is still required. See Commons:Licensing for more information., Public Domain, Link

Delta in Israel

Here's a paper confirming what was already established by scientists in England, and expanding on it by pointing out that Delta spreads almost as easily among the vaccinated as it does among the unvaccinated.

The case referred to in the paper relates to an outbreak in an Israeli hospital, where 96% of the patients and staff were vaccinated.

The paper is a little deceptive in that it omits 16 staff members from the table of cases. We have to read the text to get the full picture. However, there's sufficient data in the table to give us some valuable insights without having to read the whole report.

Out of the 23 cases in the table, 2 were unvaccinated. That's about 9% of the total sample. This means that 91% of the cases were among the vaccinated, which is only marginally better than the vaccination rate of 96%.

Furthermore, all the critical and severe cases, including 6 deaths, occurred in the vaccinated. The unvaccinated got mild symptoms.

The logical conclusion from this is that the vaccine is counterproductive. It is ineffective in keeping the virus from spreading, and the vaccinated end up more severely ill than the unvaccinated. Yet, the paper concludes that the proper response to this is to give everybody a booster shot.

Delta

By Dcoetzee, F l a n k e r - Own work, Public Domain, Link

Cultural Polarization

People in Portugal never stop making new friends. It's a curious aspect of Portuguese culture, very different from Norway, where most people stop making new friends in their early 20s. This makes Portugal a more welcoming place than Norway.

Additionally, Portugal offers good weather and a low cost of living. These are aspects that attract retirees from all over Europe. But people move to Portugal for other reasons as well.

Portugal is a peaceful country. It has the lowest crime rate in the Latin world. People from Brazil are attracted by this, as well as people from France and Belgium.

There's little anti-Semitism, which attracts Jews from all over Europe, and tourism from Israel.

Politicians are generally positive to this kind of immigration and tourism, because it brings a lot of capital with it.

There are all sorts of brotherhoods and societies pushing agendas to get even more people to relocate. Some of these societies are very old, with tentacles all over. The Knight Templars are still active in Portugal, and the town of Porto has one of Europe's biggest and most influential synagogue.

Every possible culture and business has its own brotherhood. Wines, olive oils, beef, kid, cod, and cork. There are brotherhoods for all industries. The same goes for every imaginable culture and religious faction, and they are all operating with expansion in mind. None of these organizations are too fond of measures that limit their ability to expand and make money.

Add to this that Portugal is Europe's arguably most successful colonial power ever, and we see the outline of a culture that is primed for expansion. Portugal, with its 10 million people, was not only the first European country to colonize the world. They kept it going for the longest time, primarily due to a policy of cultural assimilation and cooperation.

Japanese people are fond of Portugal for this reason. 500 years of special economic and political relations makes for lasting influence. Ethiopia was allied with Portugal against the Ottomans back in the 17th century. People from Ethiopia still speak fondly about this successful venture.

Ex-colonies are also positive towards Portugal, despite some of them having engaged in bloody colonial wars. The Portuguese language has been adapted, also in places with their own local languages. The same goes for local culture. Much is rooted in Portuguese language and culture.

The Portuguese speaking world numbers some 260 million people, and there are strong sympathies with Portuguese culture in far away places, as well as internally in Europe. That's no small feat for a small and relatively poor country of only 10 million people.

It can be argued that Portugal is a cultural super-power that's doing its own thing under the radar, as it has done for hundreds of years. The myth of the 5th Empire is based on this observation. Portugal is such a small country compared to its competitors that it could only succeed as a colonial power by making a lot of people either Portuguese in language and culture, or pro-Portuguese in sentiment.

As of late, I've noticed an uptick in immigration into Portugal, especially from Italy, France and Israel. People are presumably fleeing from vaccine mandates.

Portugal is not a haven when it comes to vaccine regulations, but things are less strict here. It's easier for a vaccine skeptic to live a normal life in Portugal than in other countries. Those who can afford to move are therefore attracted to Portugal.

This causes Portugal to tilt increasingly towards a lax implementation of vaccine related regulations. A myriad of brotherhoods and societies are pushing in this direction. Immigrants are pushing in this direction, and politicians are naturally reluctant to kill this golden goose. A dynamic has been created where Portugal is likely to drift farther and farther away from the centralized push towards a one world government.

This same dynamic appears to be in play in places like Texas and Florida as well. People flock to these places, not because they are havens of liberty, but because they are less terrible than other places. However, once this dynamic gains momentum, the polarization between regions and countries will become increasingly apparent.

The net result of this is likely to be similar to the Portuguese model where token tribute is made towards centralized power while practical politics are taken care of under a blanket of secrecy. The big guys never attack, because the small guys never provoke. Centralized power becomes in the end symbolic, as happened to Rome.

The Portuguese kept paying lip service to Rome for hundred of years after their de-facto secession. There was never an open rebellion against Rome. It was a silent secession that no-one openly recognized. Something similar is likely to happen with Texas and Florida in their relationship with Washington DC, and Portugal is likely to do the same in its relationship with the EU and the UN.

Liberty

Was Eva-Maria Holzleitner Vaccinated?

Having seen Eva-Maria Holzleitner on YouTube, collapsing mid speech in Parliament, the first question on my mind was whether she was vaccinated or not. From the comments under the video, it appears to be what everybody were wondering too. However, I've found no reliable answer. There hasn't been any official statement on this, so we have to infer the answer from circumstantial evidence.

Ms. Holzleitner is a member of Austria's SPÖ party. That's an old traditional party, about as conventional as it gets. We can therefore assume that Ms. Holzleitner held pro-vaccination opinions, because a young aspiring politician is unlikely to hold views that are frowned upon by her peers.

From this, we can further assume that she took the vaccine as soon as it was available to people her age. That would have been some time in August, assuming that the Austrians are roughly in line with Portugal and Norway when it comes to their vaccine rollout.

Although we cannot prove anything based solely on assumptions, we can be fairly certain that Ms. Holzleitner took her shots six to eight weeks before her collapse.

The mask of the beast