Late July this year, the Netherlands recorded all-time high temperatures, but has it ever been that hot before, or even hotter?

Take the summer of 1540. It was particularly hot over all of Europe. As Dutch author Jan Buisman of the book Duizend jaar weer, wind en water in de Lage Landen describes: "Harvest failed, drinking water was hardly available, and diseases were rampant. On top of that, there was also a mouse plague in the Netherlands. A chaplain from the Dutch province of Limburg kept a diary and described how farmers on the land fell dead as a result of the heat while they were mowing."

Many people in Amsterdam succumbed to heat stroke, heart attack or contaminated drinking water. We do not know the exact temperatures of the summer of 1540, but from the described dry rivers, many forest fires and prolonged heat and drought we can assume that these were certainly not lower than during the past summer. Many sources speak of seven months of sun-drenched, dry and hot weather.

The heat lasted so long that the year 1540 was recorded in the history books as the "Great Solar Year". Generations will continue to talk about the hottest summer ever, and for modern climatologists the summer of 1540 is still a fascinating benchmark. The following year, the summer of 1541, by the way, reverted straight back to the typical summers in Amsterdam: cold and wet.

According to Walter Scheidel in The Great Leveler, the only ways to equalize the distribution of wealth effectively have involved violence on a massive scale: famine, war, state collapse, revolution. But how did things get so inequal in the first place? Today on MindMatters we discuss the first chapter of Scheidel's book, which provides an overview of the history of inequality. From chimps and hunter-gatherers to the first farmers and the emergence of classes of elites, there has always been - and arguably always will be - inequality. But certain circumstances and practices have made things perhaps more extreme than they need to be. Especially since the advent of agriculture and the possibility of surplus production, elite classes of thieves and thugs (otherwise known as governments) have greatly exacerbated wealth inequality, and created new means accruing even more wealth and power to themselves. Join us today as we begin our discussion of inequality: is it good or bad, or both? And if it's inescapable, what can be done about its negative consequences?


Running Time: 01:15:12

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People in the Western world are increasingly divided by identity politics. That is, by identifying themselves or being forced to identify, to their very core, with the colour of their skin, their gender, sexual orientation and so on.

Much has already been said about the dangers of such a racist and exclusionist worldview, and it's worth looking into, and it is certainly the case that the ruling establishment is the primary benefactor of this divisive ideology, all in a desperate attempt to maintain the crumbling status quo, i.e. their grip on power.

The conception of the self as conceived by the Stoic philosophy tradition, primarily focusing on the Greek Stoic philosopher Epictetus (c. AD 55-135) and his Discourses, which might appeal to people that are put off by identity politics nonsense and the inevitable decadence and degradation of self/other relation which such an ideology leads to.

As SOTT readers may know, I've been in the "prophet business" for over 25 years now. It hasn't been easy, either. Despite a "Hit List" longer than both my arms, I still feel like Cassandra most days.

I haven't written anything for public consumption for quite a few years now, other than posting on our forum, and the reason is mainly the "Cassandra Complex" just mentioned. I came to realize fully that there just isn't anything that can be done to change the mad descent of humanity into near extinction. In addition to that, beginning back in the early days, vigorous efforts were made to suppress my warnings by taking me off the stage, so to say.

Failing that, the global censorship imposed by Google, Facebook, Twitter and the mainstream media has taken its toll. SOTT.net used to have 6 million readers a month - now we are lucky if we get 2 million. Referrals from FB and Twitter used to be our main mode of connection; now they have faded to oblivion.

Anyway, I'm not dead yet and everything is pretty much proceeding as predicted by our prophecy project - The Cassiopaean Experiment - and we have a good idea of where it will end.

But Greta Thunberg has no idea. And the propagation of her ignorance is literally criminal which, since she is a willing participant, though little more than a child, makes her a criminal too. She doesn't realize that, of course, because she has been thoroughly brainwashed - as has a whole generation of children on this planet; but when was that ever not the case? The words change, but the tune is the same: manipulation and control of humanity is the game.

Moralistic busybodies. They've made a comeback in recent years. It's understandable. They're an American tradition, after all. 'Totalitarian theocracy' is a phrase more commonly associated with Saudi Arabia or ISIS today, but some of the earliest colonies in what eventually became the United States fit the bill. And while they've lost their religion over the centuries, they haven't lost their penchant for sanctimonious posturing and coercive authoritarianism. The spirit of the Puritans of New England lives on.

Back in the 1630s the Puritans settled Massachusetts Bay. Contrary to popular myth, they weren't bastions of religious freedom. Sure, they were fleeing one sort of oppression in England, but they weren't concerned so much about freedom of religion and conscience per se as they were about their own freedom - everyone else be damned. Essentially the Puritans wanted freedom from oppression in order to practice their own form of oppression against everyone else.

To be fair, the Puritans weren't the only ones to contribute to modern American culture. As Colin Woodard argues in his book American Nations, Canada, the United States, and northern Mexico are primarily made up of eleven distinct cultures with roots in their original settlers. In each of these identifiable regions, the mindsets of their respective "founding fathers" live on. From the influence of the Spanish and mestizo culture in northern Mexico and the southern States (El Norte), the feudal French Catholics of New France, the conservative royalists and wannabe aristocracy in Virginia and the Carolinas (Tidewater), the utopian Puritans of New England (Yankeedom), the Dutch corporate traders and merchants of New Netherland (now New York), the Barbadian slave society of the Deep South, the libertarian Quakers of the Midlands, and the clan-based warrior culture of Greater Appalachia, to those that developed more recently in the 19th and 20th centuries: the Yankee-influenced "Left Coast" of individualists, activists, and entrepreneurs; the corporate and semi-dependent "Far West"; and the re-emerging "First Nation" in northern Canada, arguably representing North America's earliest and now latest distinct cultures - they may share and cross borders, but they're noticeably distinct from each other. (Mention must also go to the Polynesian culture of Hawaii and the Spanish Caribbean south Florida.)

After being taken into police custody, interviewed and studied, FBI profilers called him the most terrifying subject they had ever encountered. With an 'efficiency' and preternatural cunning that was unusual among even the most well known serial killers, Israel Keyes brought this monstrous modus operandi to a whole new level of planning and malevolence. What did Keyes have in common with the well documented cases of psychopaths who murdered people for their own gratification and who came before him? And what set him apart? Who did he kill, and why? What was his "grand plan" - and what can the story of Israel Keyes tell us about what is perhaps a "newer breed" of serial killer that seeks to wreak havoc on the lives and souls of innocents? Join us this week on MindMatters as we come to terms with this case study in pure evil, and remind ourselves that monsters do, indeed, live among us.


Running Time: 01:13:37

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Across the US, hundreds of people have come down with a severe and mysterious respiratory illness that seems to be linked to vaping the act of inhaling vapor produced by a vaporizer or electronic cigarette which has surged in popularity in recent years. The FDA announced a criminal probe into vaping as the number of reported cases of lung illnesses linked to the practice rose to 530. Some states and cities have already banned flavoured vape products, with Trump talking about a nation wide ban.

But are the bans necessary? Researchers have yet to figure out what about vaping is causing these issues. Vaping has been around for over a decade, yet only now are people coming down with this condition. Is this reactionary nanny-state solution really warranted?

Join us on this episode of Objective:Health as we dig deep into this latest panic gripping the US.


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Running Time: 45:17

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The ruling caste of Saudi Arabia present the most striking example in world history of the extreme combination of avarice and personal cowardice. They are gagging for a war with Iran so long as somebody else fights it for them.

Due to a dispute over who ought to have been Caliph 1400 years ago they are absolutely chomping at the bit for somebody to massacre the Shia in the Shia heartland, provided they don't have to do the massacring. It is not that they object to blood on their pure white robes, they often get that when executing a bound prisoner or raping the housemaid. But the thought of their own blood being spilled is an abomination. Let some helpful young Israelis or Americans risk fighting the Iranians, while the Saudi rulers sniff cocaine in their London penthouses.

It is not that Saudi does not have its own military - bombing civilian Shia Houthis from a great height with no chance of retaliation is great sport. And there were some actual Saudis in some of the tanks sent in to massacre the unarmed democracy demonstrators of Bahrain. But the world's greatest spender per capita on weapons systems has no intention that its own elite should do any fighting.

There is a great debate going on at the moment about Darwinism, especially after Yale professor David Gelernter published an article in which he basically agreed with the devastating criticism leveled at the theory by the scholars associated with the Discovery Institute. It is true: the creed of Darwinism is under attack, the foundation of materialist atheism is shaking, the worldview held by most people today - including many religious people - is crumbling. It is a beautiful sight for those of us who know that Darwinism is wrong, dead wrong and couldn't be any more wrong.

At the same time, people are confused. It's no secret that many critics of Darwinism - brilliant as they are in their scientific rigor - are also religious, mostly Christians. Some even try to smuggle in Jesus in their otherwise flawless books. If Darwinism is wrong, which it is without a shred of a doubt, should we all go back to the bible? Should we 'accept the Lord Jesus'?

Well, not so fast. For all the faults of the atheists (both old and new), their critique of religion is too powerful for any rational mind to ignore. And for all that Christianity has going for it, it is notoriously plagued by the blind acceptance of a ridiculous doctrine cobbled together by an unknown number of scribes throughout the ages.

Just to give a prominent example: what thinking mind could possibly accept the physical resurrection of Jesus? It is something that has never been observed by anyone; it flies in the face of what we know happens to an organism once the life force holding it together is withdrawn; it clearly sounds like a fairy-tale only a child could take literally. And yet, it is one of the most unshakable doctrines of the various Christian denominations. Tell a Christian believer that this is obvious nonsense and watch the reaction.

How will history remember us? As Americans, we like to think that we are a light to the world and that other countries should be using us as a model for how to properly do things. But the truth is that we have become unspeakably evil, and after reading this entire article I doubt that there will be anyone that will disagree with me. And while it is certainly true that there are quite a few other nations that are also tremendously evil, none have fallen harder or faster then we have. At one time America truly was "the hope of the world", but now just about every form of wickedness that you can possibly imagine is exploding all around us, and very few of our national leaders seem to care.

The first example that I would like to discuss is something that came out in court on Thursday...

The CEO of StemExpress essentially admitted in court Thursday that her biotech company supplies beating fetal hearts and intact fetal heads to medical researchers.

She also admitted at the preliminary hearing of David Daleiden and Sandra Merritt of the Center for Medical Progress that the baby's head could be procured attached to the baby's body or "could be torn away."

This is Nazi-level evil, and it is happening all across the United States every single day.

Of course the mainstream media is completely avoiding this story, because they fully approve of what is happening and they don't want to cause any sort of an uproar. And most "conservative" media outlets are avoiding this story as well, because the truth is that they aren't actually very "conservative" at all.

Companies such as StemExpress are making a tremendous amount of money selling baby body parts to medical researchers, and the "research" that is being conducted is incredibly sick and disgusting.