U.S. Financial System “Monitor” Failed to Flash Warning as Fed Pumped $6 Trillion Emergency Liquidity into Wall Street

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: May 8, 2020 ~  The Office of Financial Research (OFR) was created under the Dodd-Frank financial reform legislation of 2010 to keep the Financial Stability Oversight Council (F-SOC) informed on emerging threats that have the potential to implode the financial system — as occurred in 2008 in the worst financial crash since the Great Depression. The Trump administration has gutted both its funding and staff. One of the early warning systems of an impending financial crisis that OFR was supposed to have created is the heat map above. Green means low risk; yellow tones mean moderate risk; while red tones flash a warning of a serious problem. On September 17, 2019, liquidity was so strained on Wall Street that the Federal Reserve had to step in and began providing hundreds of billions of dollars per week in repo loans. By January 27, 2020 (before … Continue reading →

-

U.S. Unemployment Reaches 14.7 Percent – Chart from Great Depression Shows Risks Ahead

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: May 8, 2020 ~   The data is out this morning and it’s not pretty. Nonfarm payrolls collapsed by 20.5 million jobs in April and the unemployment rate rose to 14.7 percent. The United States is now seeing the worst unemployment rates since the Great Depression. We prepared the above chart from data available at the Federal Reserve Economic Data (FRED) archives at the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. Following the stock market crash of October 29, 1929, it was not until August 1931 that the unemployment rate reached 15.01 percent. We’re now at 14.7 percent unemployment from a rate of 3.5 percent just two months ago in February. Consider using the chart above to figure out just how much cash on hand you need to maintain.

-

Don't expect a pack of running fanatics swarming to the finish line at road races this year. But that doesn't mean that participants don't have options.

Distance runner Dathan Ritzenhein announced his retirement Thursday, closing a career during which he made three Olympic appearances.

Posted by: history79



( Read more... )

comments

Posted by: history79

( Read more... )

comments

Posted by: thezmage

Some MCU mashups from Liu-Psypher aka Prime Premne, who has designed most of my shirts

( Read more... )

comments

Pandemie koronaviru dolehla v březnu i na hypoteční trh. Objemy poskytnutých hypoték se propadly o čtvrtinu. Průměrná úroková sazba hypoték však roste již třetí měsíc v řadě, v březnu vzrostla na 2,45 procenta.

Říká se, že po krizi spojené s onemocnění covid-19 se probudíme do jiného světa. Otázka je, zda to bude platit i pro realitní trh. Podle odborníků s největší pravděpodobností ano. Což platí jak pro prodejní ceny nemovitostí, tak pro ceny nájemního bydlení.

Řada lidí přijde o práci a začne hledat novou. Už teď je dobré se na to připravit a před podpisem pracovní smlouvy vědět, na co si dát pozor. Je lepší kývnout na mzdový výměr, nebo na mzdu v pracovní smlouvě? A na co dalšího si dát pozor? Na otázky odpovídá advokát Pavel Nastis.

Kvůli koronavirové pandemii pracují z domova tisíce lidí. Home office má však určitý pracovně-právní rámec, což tuší málokdo. Jaká jsou práva a povinnosti zaměstnanců a co musí zaměstnavatel udělat, aby neporušil zákoník práce? Ve spolupráci s právníky Bořivojem Líbalem a Markem Poloni přinášíme praktický servis rad pro zaměstnance a zaměstnavatele.

Zaměstnaní rodiče mají od dubna nově nárok na ošetřovné ve výši 80 procent denního vyměřovacího základu. Důvod zvýšení je jasný. Původních 60 procent většině rodin na pokrytí nákladů na provoz domácnosti nevystačilo. Potvrzuje to i případ paní Anny.

Nová zákon „Lex voucher“ stanovil pravidla pro vypořádání cestovních kanceláří s klienty. Na problematické situace, které mohou být s koupeným zájezdem spojeny, jsme se zeptali advokáta Ondřeje Vokála.

Do pracovních i osobních životů vstoupila pandemie, jakou nikdo nepamatuje. Krize, která nastává, se dotkne všech. Nad aktuální situací a tím, co nás letos čeká a co je klíčové pro rozhýbání ekonomiky, se v komentáři zamýšlí personalista Tomáš Surka.

The finalists are:

• Beneath Ceaseless Skies, editor Scott H. Andrews
• Escape Pod, editors Mur Lafferty and S.B. Divya, assistant editor Benjamin C. Kinney, audio producers Adam Pracht and Summer Brooks, hosts Tina Connolly and Alasdair Stuart
• Fireside Magazine, editor Julia Rios, managing editor Elsa Sjunneson, copyeditor Chelle Parker, social coordinator Meg Frank, publisher & art director Pablo Defendini, founding editor Brian White
• FIYAH Magazine of Black Speculative Fiction, executive editor Troy L. Wiggins, editors Eboni Dunbar, Brent Lambert, L.D. Lewis, Danny Lore, Brandon O’Brien and Kaleb Russell
• Strange Horizons, Vanessa Rose Phin, Catherine Krahe, AJ Odasso, Dan Hartland, Joyce Chng, Dante Luiz and the Strange Horizons staff
• Uncanny Magazine, editors-in-chief Lynne M. Thomas and Michael Damian Thomas, nonfiction/managing editor Michi Trota, managing editor Chimedum Ohaegbu, podcast producers Erika Ensign and Steven Schapansky

In this category, everything but FIYAH is available free online, supported by subscriptions / Patreons etc. FIYAH puts a list of contents of each issue, and also publishes a Spotify playlist for each quarterly issue. Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Fireside Magazine and Strange Horizons also all publish podcasts of each of their fiction / poetry, and Uncanny Magazine publishes two podcasts per issue which cover some but not all of the content (as far as I can tell). Escape Pod is of course a fiction podcast to start with, but does provides transcripts of its episodes.

I subscribe to Uncanny Magazine & FIYAH, I had a subscription last year to Fireside Magazine, I support Strange Horizons on Patreon and I'm on Beneath Ceaseless Skies's mailiing list to get notifications of new issues, even if I don't always read them. I'll need to have a bit of a think about how I'll rank them.

comments

In my team's morning standup[1] today, my boss asked us for our "most ridiculous / useless achievement" of the weekend. He offered as his, that he and his wife had looked at their growing stack of papers for shredding, and had a bonfire of them instead.

Another colleague offered up fitting one of those little metal keyhole covers on his front door, and I said that I'd finished the paté in the fridge no-one else was eating before it went off.

What are your tiny achievements of the week?


[1] which is of course actually conducted these days sitting down in our respective homes ...

comments

ingredients

• 2 carrots ($.30)
• 2 bananas, sliced and frozen ($.40)
• 1 apple, peeled and chopped ($.50)
• 1 tablespoon agave ($.20)
• 1 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice
• water for blending, about 1 cup

directions

In a blender, puree all ingredients until very smooth. A high speed blender will smooth out all the little carrot bits, and a less high powered one will leave a bit of pulp. If you're very opposed to pulp, juice the carrots instead.




nutritional information: calories: 165 fat: 0 gr carbs: 47 gr protein: 2 gr











ingredients

• 1 avocado, chopped ($.88)
• 2 medium apples, peeled and chopped ($1.29)
• 1 tablespoon chopped onion
• handful arugula leaves ($.50)
• 2 tablespoons olive oil ($.20)
• 2 cups water, for blending
• minced onion
• salt and pepper to taste
• red pepper flakes directions

directions

1. Set aside a few arugula leaves for garnish.
2. In a blender, combine the avocado, apples, chopped onion, arugula leaves, olive oil, and water, and puree until very smooth.
3. Salt and pepper to taste, and garnish with a few chopped arugula leaves, some finely minced onion, and red pepper flakes.
4. nutritional information

calories: 275 fat: 18 gr carbs: 42 gr protein: 7 gr









ingredients

• 1/4 cup walnuts ($1.00)
• 1 large tomato ($1.00)
• 1 teaspoon cumin
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 head romaine ($2.30)
• 1 medium onion, thinly sliced ($.20)
• 1 small jalapeno, sliced
• 1 ripe avocado ($.1.00)
• black olives ($.50)
• green olives ($.50)

• 4 tablespoons cashew cream ($.60) {recipe below}

directions

• Make the walnut taco meat first and set aside.
• In a food processor fitted with an "S" blade, pulse the walnuts, half a tomato, cumin, and salt until chopped but still a little chunky.
• To a bed of chopped romaine, add the walnut taco meat, the other half of tomato (chopped), sliced onion, a bit of sliced jalapeno, chopped avocado, and olives. 
• Top with a couple scoops of cashew cream.

cashew cream

• 1/2 cup cashews ($2.00)
• 1/2 cup water
• 1 tablespoon lemon juice ($.20)
• 1/2 teaspoon salt

Blend all ingredients in small blender until very smooth. Store leftovers in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to three days.

nutritional information










ingredients

• 1 zucchini, sliced 1/4" thick ($.70)
• 2 tablespoons olive oil ($.20)
• 2 tablespoons maple syrup ($.40)
• 1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar ($.10)
• 1 small clove garlic
• 1/2 teaspoon liquid smoke
• 1/2 teaspoon black pepper
• 1/2 teaspoon salt

directions

Slice the zucchini into strips about 1/4" thick. In a small bowl, whisk together the remaining ingredients. Toss with the zucchini until well coated, then dehydrate for several hours or overnight, until just a little bit crunchy but pliable.




Tear the zucchini bacon into pieces and serve over vanilla banana ice cream with maple syrup. To make the ice cream, slice and freeze four bananas. When ready to use, grind them in a food processor with one teaspoon vanilla and a splash of almond milk. Process until smooth, which may take a few minutes and some scraping down on the sides. This will cost about $.30 per serving.



nutritional information: calories: 298 fat: 14 carbs: 45 protein: 2 gr



ingredients

•  2 big handfuls greens (kale, romaine, etc) ($.75)
• 3 bananas, sliced and frozen ($.75)
• 1 cup blueberries ($1.00)
• 2 tablespoon ground flax seeds ($.20)
• 4 tablespoons hemp protein powder ($.90)
• about 2 cups water for blending

I love making big, sweet, hearty green smoothies in the morning, and this is what I had this morning. I'm pretty sure I put just about everything I had in it, hence the name "(everything but the) Kitchen Sink Smoothie!"

My blender is small and weak, poor thing (but has lasted forever), so I blend my greens first. If you don't have a VitaMix or other high powered blender, this might work better for you, too. They get pretty smooth if I process them for a minute or two.

I also used Manitoba Harvest Hemp Pro 50, 50% Protein Powder, 32-Ounce which is my favorite hemp powder. Manitoba Harvest leaves all the good omega-3s intact.

Just blend everything well until smooth and serve.

Even though we enjoyed a beautiful, warm, sunny day here today, hard core fall is coming. This menu has some heavier, more substantial meals using seasonal produce. Pears are plentiful right now and citrus is coming into its best season soon. You should be able to score some great tasting produce at reasonable prices!








Simple, juicy, and delicious ... everything that's the best of raw plant foods ...

ingredients

• 1 peach, sliced ($.80)
• 1 plum, sliced ($.90)
• 1 apple, sliced ($1.25)
• 1/2 cup blueberries ($.50)
• 1 tablespoon lemon juice ($.20)
• 2 tablespoons chopped walnuts ($.50)

directions

1. Slice the fruit, mix together, add a splash of lemon juice and chopped walnuts (a bit of nut milk would be good, too ... like a bowl of fruit cereal).

nutritional information: calories: 137 fat: 1 gr carbs: 33 gr protein: 2 gr






salad

• 1 grapefruit ($.50)
• 2 pears, sliced ($1.40)
• 1 small onion, thinly sliced
• 1 head romaine, chopped ($1.90)
• 1/4 cup walnuts ($.50)

dressing

• 2 tablespoons lemon juice ($.20)
• 3 tablespoons olive oil ($.30)
• 2 tablespoons agave ($.20)
• pinch nutmeg
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon pepper

directions

1. Cut the grapefruit by first slicing off about 1/4" off the top and bottom.
2. Stand the grapefruit up on a cut side and slice along the outside curve of the fruit, cutting away the skin and pith.
3. Use a sharp knife to cut each grapefruit section away from the membrane.
4. Slice the pears and onions, and chop the lettuce.
5. Toss together and sprinkle the walnuts on top.
6. Whisk together all the dressing ingredients and drizzle over the top.

nutritional information: calories: 304 fat: 17 gr carbs: 40 gr protein: 5 gr










ingredients

• 2 medium zucchini ($1.20)
• 1 carrot ($.15)
• 1 bunch green onions, sliced ($.59)
• 1/2 red bell pepper, sliced ($.50)
• large handful mung bean sprouts ($.75)

sauce

• 4 tablespoons almond butter ($.80)
• 1/2 in piece ginger, peeled
• 1 tablespoon braggs aminos or soy sauce ($.10)
• 1 clove garlic ($.05)
• 1 tablespoon agave ($.10)
• 1/2 teaspoon cayenne (or to taste)
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 2 tablespoons chopped cashews ($.20)

directions

1. Noodle the zucchini and carrot using a vegetable peeler or spiral slicer. 
2. Toss with the bell pepper, green onion, and bean sprouts.
3. In a bullet type blender, puree all the sauce ingredients until very creamy. Because of the high fat content of the nut butter, this can get quite hot while blending. Stop and let it cool for a minute if it becomes too hot for your personal definition of raw.
4. Pour over noodles, toss lightly, serve. 

nutritional information:        calories: 345        fat: 23 gr        carbs: 30 gr         protein: 8 gr





ingredients

• 1 ripe avocado, chopped ($.88)
• 2 bananas, chopped ($.30)
• 3 tablespoons cocoa or cacao powder ($.60)
• 1 tablespoon coconut oil, melted
• 2 tablespoons agave ($.20)
• 1/2 dropper liquid stevia
• 1/4 teaspoon orange extract

directions

1. Combine all ingredients in a food processor fitted with an "S" blade and process until very smooth.
2. Add coconut oil to room temperature or warmer ingredients only, otherwise the coconut oil will harden into little lumps before it has a chance to blend.
3. Chill for at least a half hour before serving.
4. Top with a few orange sections and/or pieces of fruit and a pinch of orange rind, if desired.

nutritional information: calories: 321 fat: 16 gr carbs: 41 gr protein: 5 gr

• 4 tablespoons artisana coconut butter ($2.20)
• 4 tablespoons artisana cashew butter ($2.35) 
• 1 1/2 cup water
• 3 dates ($.60)
• 2 tablespoons cilantro leaves ($.10) 
• 1 clove garlic
• 1 teaspoon red pepper flakes
• 1/4 teaspoon cayenne
• juice of one lime ($.50)
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon black pepper
• 1 cucumber, sliced into noodles ($.89)
• 1/2 avocado, chopped ($.88)
• 1 medium onion, minced
• 2 stalks celery, minced ($.20)
• small bunch cilantro leaves ($.05)
• 1 cup cherry tomatoes, halved ($.30)
• red pepper flakes

1. In a blender, process the coconut butter, cashew butter (almond butter will work as well), water, dates, cilantro, garlic, red pepper flakes, cayenne, lime juice, salt and pepper. 
2. Puree until as smooth as possible.
3. Cut the cucumber into noodles and put in bowls with the avocado, celery, cilantro, and cherry tomatoes. 
4. Using a wire mesh strainer, strain the coconut and nut butter soup base. This will take out any larger pieces of dates or spices. A higher powered blender may make this step unnecessary. 
5. Add a sprinkle of red pepper flakes.

nutritional information:      calories: 537       fat: 44 gr       carbs: 33 gr       protein: 11 gr













ingredients

• 1/2 cup walnuts ($1.00)
• 1/2 cup raisins ($.85)
• 3 plums, sliced thinly ($3.00)
• 3 tablespoons coconut butter ($1.65) 
• 2 tablespoons coconut nectar ($.40)

• banana ice cream ($.50)
• blackberry puree

From just about everybody.

1. Are you an Essential Worker?

Nope. I have been comfortably working from home for a month, making online education. It's useful, thousands of people have been learning about bacterial genomics from my stuff, but it's not essential. In many ways my job hasn't changed very much since lockdown since we did a lot of collaborating with scientists all over the world by conference call, in order to make material that goes on the internet anyway.

2. How many drinks have you had since the quarantine has started?

Hi, I've just finished celebrating Pesach. The two of us got through about 2 bottles of wine in the course of two seders and two kiddushes. And in the couple of weeks before that, something around one bottle between the two of us, again mostly for religious reasons rather than mental health reasons.

3. If you have kids... Are they driving you nuts?

I don't have kids, but there are children who are normally part of my life and now I'm quarantined in a different house from them. They are being amazing and bringing positivity to my life through the limited interaction we're allowed, playing music with me over video link, waving and sending hugs when I'm calling their adults or walking past their house for exercise. I am probably less sane than usual but it's from too little contact with not-my-own children, not too much.

4. What new hobby have you taken up during this

Online play readthroughs, organized by the marvellous wildeabandon. I've tried to start an ultra, ultra low-key exercise routine at home, which isn't a completely new hobby, but is something I hadn't done for some years.

5. How many grocery runs have you done?

None at all since I had maybe suspicious symptoms. We've got by on the generosity of friends bringing us occasional top-ups of extra-perishable stuff like milk and mushrooms, a big online order that fortuitously arrived just before we started full isolation, and a couple of local organizations that were able to make limited deliveries of produce. Before that, we weren't really counting. We had a decent amount of supplies in at the start of lockdown, and jack was visiting the local corner shop a couple of times a week to top up on fresh produce (with careful distancing), but we haven't needed to make a 'run' to a big supermarket since lockdown officially started.

6. What are you spending your stimulus check on?

I'm not getting any extra money, which is reasonable because I don't need any extra money. I am still working full time and still earning my full salary, as is jack. I'm not really even spending much extra on working from home rather than in an office; it's warm enough not to need the heating on during the day, and we already had plenty of broadband. We're spending very slightly more on food because we're getting everything delivered rather than picking up our own shopping, but it's fairly trivial on the scale of things.

Also, can I just say it's a weird framing to talk about a 'stimulus', ie money provided to encourage people to spend and keep the economy buoyant. The state is paying money to people to make it possible for them to stay home without starving, and really the aim is, or should be, to keep the economy as stagnant as possible, not to encourage economic activity which would involve people interacting and spreading the infection.

7. Do you have any special occasions that you will miss during this quarantine?

My plague of disappointment started with a work trip to Paraguay to help with some in-person training. Then I missed spending Passover with my family like I normally do. Other than that, I saw this coming far enough in advance that I didn't make a whole lot of plans for this spring or summer


8. Are you keeping your housework done?

About the same amount as normal. To an extent we tend to tidy for visitors and we're not having any visitors. But we're mostly succeeding with keeping on top of general maintenance. On the other hand I did zero Passover cleaning because I was isolating from jack at the time so not going into the kitchen, and I was uncertain enough about supplies that I wasn't willing to eliminate leavened products.

9a. What movie have you watched during this quarantine?

Lionheart
Porco Rosso

9b. What are you reading right now?

Err... Twitter, mostly. And some Gemara, the mystical bit of Chagigah, which is a project I've been meaning to get to for ages, and which I will hopefully be talking about soon.

9c. What video game are you playing?

At the weekend managed to progress our three-way game of Stellaris with cjwatson in a different house, so that was cool. Still a lot of Monster Legends on my phone. A little bit of the second chapter of 12 Labours of Hercules, but only about as often as I was playing it anyway, which isn't very often.

10. What are you streaming with?

Netflix, and even that occasionally. Spotify and YouTube for music. I haven't managed to watch any of the free broadcast theatre and opera performances yet.

11. 9 months from now is there any chance of you having a baby?

Very unlikely but not completely impossible. I'm quarantined away from the partner I'm most likely to have potentially-reproductive sex with (but I guess rarely indulging isn't never). I am 41 and was recently diagnosed with PCOS so I'm quite possibly not as fertile as I spent most of my adult life assuming. I have a coil, which should be pretty reliable at preventing pregnancy, but it has reached the end of its predicted 10-year lifetime, and getting it replaced was one of the things I failed to get sorted out while non-emergency medical stuff was still happening.

My partner is going to have a baby much sooner than 9 months away though! She made it before the virus even existed, and I have absolutely no idea how long it will be before I'm allowed to meet the little one, but I'm still quite excited.

12. What's your go-to quarantine meal?

About the same as not in quarantine: we call it goulash, but it isn't really anything to do with goulash. It's a sort of veggie chilli, basically onions, garlic, spice, tomato sauce, some combination of Quorn mince and beans, and veg if we have lots of veg available but otherwise it's nice on its own.

13. Is this whole situation making you paranoid?

So siderea the actual psych says it only counts as paranoia if you're irrationally afraid that beings with agency ... are behaving malevolently towards you personally. So, no, I do not think the virus is out to get me nor deliberately created by evil people.

However, I've already spent much of the last five years worrying that the government and much of the populace want me dead, and it's the worst version of that increasingly nasty government which is in charge of deciding whether buying ventilators and medical equipment is a good use of money that could otherwise be used for bridges to nowhere. When I hear people ranting about foreigners or Europeans or 'citizens of nowhere' it feels personal. I think it isn't, mostly. I'm a shirley exception for lots of people, or at least, I see posts on social media about how it's morally good to exterminate Jews from people who are broadly civil to me as an individual.

I'm scared of vigilantes who are using the pandemic as an excuse for violence against people they don't like being out in public, and to an extent I'm scared of overreach by the official police. And I'm somewhat scared of looting, of people getting desperate enough that they start breaking into houses like mine where there is enough toilet paper and storable foods. And a little bit scared of wannabe fascists trying to deliberately infect liberals and Jews. But not very scared, not to the point that it's actually interfering with my day-to-day life. Anxious, I guess, rather than paranoid.

14. Has your internet gone out on you during this time?

Nah. Internet is fine and I'm deeply grateful for that.

15. What month do you predict this all ends?

I don't think it's going to end, really, not all of it at once. It's going to be a very gradual climb back towards sufficient population immunity that we can live our lives without infection avoidance being the major determining factor in all decisions.

Predicting the end of the plague would require me to predict all of: how fast scientists will come up with a vaccine and reliable tests; how the disease itself will move through the population; and what our terrible politicians will decide, and I don't really have any information on any of those.

I'm guessing some relaxation of lockdown round about July or August, but we will still be very much in a pandemic situation. Sticking my finger in the air I think we'll likely have the capacity for mass vaccination and testing by early 2021, let's say January. But whether we will actually in practice have an effective programme of prevention and detection depends on decisions by a leadership who are erratic and evil, plus we are heading for a cliff-edge end to our Brexit transition at the end of 2020, so I think people will still be getting infected and dying well into 2021 or even 2022.

16. First thing you're gonna do when you get off quarantine?

Go to my OSOs' house and hug my partners and their children. And meet the baby, because I'm pretty certain that getting off quarantine is happening after baby is external.

17. Where do you wish you were right now?

I'm pretty happy with my location, my nice pleasant house with all my friends inside my computer, surrounded by a beautiful spring. The problem is not where I am, it's that I have been forced to stay here for a month and expect to continue here for months to come. I wish I could go to other places, especially places where my friends are.

I slightly wish to be in a country with a competent government, if I have to pick somewhere I'd probably go for New Zealand, but I don't actually wish I were in NZ, since I don't know anybody there and I can't imagine the circumstances that would lead to being there.

18. What free-from-quarantine activity are you missing the most?

Visiting people in person, primarily.

19. Have you run out of toilet paper and hand sanitizer?

No. We usually buy a big family pack of TP once every few weeks and we happened to do so just before lockdown. Also I don't believe in hand sanitizer in a domestic setting.

20. Do you have enough food to last a month?

Yeah, probably. If we really couldn't get any fresh supplies for a whole month we would struggle, and we haven't counted it out in terms of calories and micronutrients per person per day, but we have decent amounts of long-lasting carbs and tinned vegetables.

comments

Rituals of childhood (content note: gun violence, mass shooting) The Stump That Didn’t Die Growth mindset lessons had no impact The Costs of Reliability Everyone I know is mostly going about their days right now slightly dazed with horror about the detention camps on the southern border. Piece of string? I’m a frayed knot (Included … Continue reading Links — September 1

Mornings go best when I’m ready to go before anyone else gets out of bed. I need to save my knees for my commute and cannot take the stairs at work. (Having discovered how much this helps, I am now reconsidering all the previous times in my life when my knee issue flared up.) I … Continue reading Things I learned in 4 months of full time employment

Event cancellations at local bodies due to COVID-19 will reduce revenue, but not rent and other fixed expenses. Many local bodies already operate on extremely tight margins and struggle to pay their bills even during normal times. All members are encouraged to continue to financially support their local bodies, even if there are no events …

Continue reading

The Grand Master Sabazius has provided some useful information and advice to O.T.O. members about how to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law. Greetings on the First Day of the Writing of the Book of the Law! Due to the ongoing economic impact of the Coronavirus pandemic, the International Supreme Council of Ordo Templi Orientis, in consultation with the Grand Lodges, is implementing the following measures to …

Continue reading

The Worst Things For Sale is Drew's blog. It updates every day. Subscribe to the Worst Things For Sale RSS!