Panem in Process?

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Some believe that the creatures behind the curtain give us a preview of the show to come – a kind of anticipatory taunting. To let us know, but also to let us know we can’t do anything to prevent it from happening, prior to it happening.

Perhaps the best example of this being Event 201, which “simulated” a worldwide outbreak of a coronavirus – the cases! the cases! – just months before we all became unwilling participants in the exercise.

Other looks-behind-the-curtain come to us via films, where we are given glimpses of what they have in store for us. Some of that may be just intuitively prophetic; extrapolation from current trends to future probabilities. But perhaps such prophecies sometimes get a little inside-baseball help. This isn’t speculative. There is the fact of Operation Mockingbird, the CIA’s infiltration and use of media-celebrity-entertainment stooges to “front” story lines and plot twists the CIA wanted the public to imbibe as true.

Which brings us to The Hunger Games, with its interestingly coincidental use of the term Mockingjay, Part 1 as the second half of the book/movie’s title. Perhaps even more interesting, in terms of what the book/movie was perhaps meant to preview for us, is the book/movie’s fictitious land of Panem, the former United States, ruled “democratically” – in the East German/North Korean/American Leftist – sense – that ” . . .was established sometime after a series of ecological disasters and a global conflict brought about the collapse of modern civilization.”

It consists of a “federal” – meaning, centralized, authoritarian – capitol city, in which all the beautiful and rich (as well as not-hungry) people liveĀ  . . . and everywhere else.

This brings us to the goings-on in the British city of Canterbury where a kind of Panem is being erected for real, perhaps as a Beta Test, a la Event 201. In the name of “encouraging” – which means of course, coercing – the people of the area to “walk, cycle or use public” (that is government) “transportation” rather than use their cars to move freely about, the area surrounding downtown Canterbury (effectively, the capitol city of Beta Test Panem) will be isolated from the outlying areas, which are each divided into four “provinces.” Each of these will, in turn, be isolated from the other.

Drivers who breach the containment of their “province” would be fined – meaning, if they fail to pay, violent men (and women and probably alsoĀ  “men” who were once women, given the state of things) will force them to pay, using every means necessary until they do pay. Such being the nature of “fines.” And of using them to “encourage” compliance.

People can still leave their province by car – for now. But if they wish to avoid being “encouraged,” they must ” . . . drive out of one neighbourhood onto a new ring road around the city, before re-entering their chosen section,” as the Daily Mail describes the Panem Plan. Which is called the Canterbury Circulation Plan, an ironic thing to call it since it is designed to throttle “circulation.”Ā 

The plan’s critics say it “… will stop direct journeys across the virtual lines, meaning that short trips to supermarkets, cafes and GP surgeries in cars will be banned and create more traffic.” ALPERS – automated license plate readers – will be “operating at entry and exit points to each of the area. This will stop drivers from sneaking between neighbourhoods without facing a fine.”

Italics added.

Just like in the book/movie, where the residents of each province of Panem were “encouraged” to remain within the confines of their province. The gleaming Capitol was, of course, off limits.

It has the ring of the pending, doesn’t it?

One of the planners behind the Panem Plan is a “conservative” politician, Ben Fitter-Harding (a name that sounds as if it came right out of the book/movie) who says “I really hope that in 2045 people will look back and see this is what made Canterbury realise the potential it has. No one’s movement will be constrained at all – it’s cars going down the rat runs that will be stopped.”

Ben Fitter-Harding

Italics added.

“No one’s movement will be constrained at all” – provided they walk, cycle or use government transport to move. It is “cars going down the runs that will be stopped.” In other words, your movement will be constrained – if you want to move using a car. Meaning, you will be “constrained” from moving any farther than your feet make feasible, which means only so far. Or as far as you can pedal, using your feet. Or – last resort – according to the government’s timetable and under the government’s control, via a government-controlled bus or train.

Welcome to Panem!

How soon before Panem come to you?

In varying degrees, it is already here. In “provinces” across the United States, planners are busily planning Panems for us. You will perhaps have heard about “road diets,” for instance – by which is meant mobility rationing, if you do not wish to use foot/pedal power, or government controlled forms of mobility. The “diet” is meant to “encourage” you to stop driving. Which means, as a practical matter, you will be “encouraged” to live no farther from where you want or need to go than your feet or bicycle or government transportation can get you. Which will not be very far, because it will not be very convenient. It will take much longer and be much less pleasant and – most of all – it will be entirely out of your control as to when and how you go, unless you walk or pedal.

For residents within the five zones, they can access the facilities within their neighbourhood by car if they need to, says hyphenated-name politician, who could stand in for Panem’s President Snow. “But if you want to travel into a different neighbourhood, the best way to do that will be by walking, cycling or using public transport.”Ā 

Welcome to Panem, for real – which is what they are planning – and have just given you another preview of.

. . .

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56 COMMENTS

  1. Eric,

    I did some research on this scheme, and it doesn’t make sense. You can still go to other neighborhoods or districts within Canterbury, but you have to hop on the new ring road to do it; you can’t go directly to another district via city streets. If you’re just going over the line or heading in to the interior (or center) of the city, it would seem to me that taking the ring road would take more time, use more fuel, and thus cause more pollution. If your destination in another district is along the periphery of the ring road, it’s no problem; if your destination is in the interior of the city or even the district, it would take a lot more time to use the ring road to do it. Going by the stated reason for this, this scheme doesn’t make sense.

    • Hi Mark,

      But it does make sense – once you stop looking at it from the feigned purpose and understand the true purpose. That being to corral and control people. To herd them, like cattle.

  2. The UK seems like a gone case. we have a “conservative” government for over 12 years – and they seem to have “conserved” nothing. Infact everything they’ve actually achieved is stuff that was NOT on their agenda / manifesto told to the public…. net zero, HS2, “smart” motorways…. more bus lanes and 20 zones than ever…. Nothing they ran or or public voted for. If people still believe there is a “democracy” here – theres no hope. At this stage the only difference bw us and say China or a middle eastern dictatorship is the appearance…. nothing else.

    • We donā€™t have politicians anymore. We have WEF middle managementā€¦.
      just fire all the politiciansā€¦let the wef run the country directly, that is the future plan anywaysā€¦.and the reality today…….

  3. The legislation to make these changes that are taking place all originate from the WEF, the traitor politicians are given huge bribes to sign off on it…..

    We need a government that doesn’t just sign into law any legislation the WEF sends them and has no other purpose….

    In modern politics not a single member of parliament writes a law or puts pen to paper to write out a legislative construct.

    looks like all legislation is created now by the WEF, WHO, UN, it is all designed to enable their agenda 2030

    Legislation is presented/sold/marketed by lobbyists, from leftist/communist/nazi think tanks/special interest groups/leftist NGO’s/or related ESG corporations……
    then politicians approve it for cash…..

    sounds like politician is a well paid job….maybe the highest paid….
    truck loads of cash from lobbyists to sign bills
    huge salary plus gold plated pension from the taxpayers….
    plus a 3rd salary from the WEF?….

    Dr. Marc Faber says these governments steal between 5% (honest governments) and 100% (crooked governments) of the money collected, borrowed…… that is a 4th source of income…going into offshore accounts….

    Starting in 2020 politicians got cash bonuses from the WHO to enforce lockdowns, etc….a 5th source of income…

    five sources of income and what do they do? not much….sometimes they will turn up in parliament to laugh or argue and not answer questions….

    We don’t have politicians anymore. We have WEF middle management….
    just fire all the politicians…let the wef run the country directly, that is the future plan anyways….

    conservatives need to create more special interest groups to create legislation/laws to support conservative values…that they can get politicians to sign into law ….

  4. People living the near the lines will only be able to drive away from the line or drive around the city to get into the neighboring section. Remember these are the people who say they want less fuel used. It’s insanity from that point of view.

    If this comes about people should bike everywhere taking the lane. Simply snarl traffic until government and crony business can’t operate and the buses are caught in it.

  5. “…But if you want to travel into a different neighborhood, the best way to do that will be by walking, cycling or using public transport.ā€

    I guess it is no surprise that they’ll be decreeing the opposite of sensibility, alluding to the fact that it is easy and reasonable to walk or cycle to a place IN your neighborhood, but you use a car to go to a different neighborhood because it’s far away. (Duh?)

    It’ll all be decreed, of course, by people who will never have to abide by their own decree.

    I guess, at least, they’ll finally be “cracking down” on border enforcement. šŸ˜‰

    • Reminds me of NYC- even 40 years ago. You’re in The Bronx or Queens or upper Manhattan and you need something from the Bensonhurst section of Brooklyn? LOL- it might as well be in a foreign country. It would take hours to get there via “public” transit- which is usually the only option, even if you are in the minority of NYC residents who have a car, because unless it’s the wee hours, they’ll be so much traffic that it’ll still take hours to do whjat would be a 20-minute drive anywhere else.

      The millionms living in such places won’t notice the difference- be it switching to EVs or bi-cycles, or taking the disgustig bus/subway- it’s all equally slow and annoying. -And they gladly spend their lives earning 5-figure incomes to pay top dollar to live like that. It amazes me that humans can live like that- for generations…many millions of humans- already molded and shaped into what the globalist elitist Cabal wants us all to be. Pay a million dollars to live in a 15′ wide row-house in a concrete slum with smelly garbage cans in front of your stairs and bums laying on the steps, while it takes you an hour to commute to work 6 miles away…..and mosyt of your income goes for taxes and fines, while those who collect the taxes cause crime to prosper in the streets (Bail reform!) while they’d shove you under the jail if you dared to defend yourself from a precious criminal….but you think you’ve arrived because it says on some piece of paper that you make $135K a year…even though you never seem to actually see most of that money.

      • Well, Nunz, you certainly put that poignantly.

        Never will I complain about any off-the-grid difficulties I might have. Things can be challenging, but much of it is because I moved in and BAM, suddenly it’s winter!

        But it’s MUCH better than winter in New York, and light years removed from the hell of living in a “thriving” metropolis.

        • Hehe, yeah, Bad, Many’s the time when I lived in Queens [shudder]I’d have to come or go from Midtown…I’d just freaking WALK, over the 59th St. Bridge (It was the only part of the walk that was remotely “groovy”, as the song goes…) and all- It didn’t take much longer than taking the subway, and was a lot more pleasant than being caged in there with a bunch of sweaty animals.

          Had I had the option at the time, the coldest climate wouldn’t have detered me from moving!

          Makes me REALLY appreciate the quality of life and freedom I now have here in southern KY.

  6. Panem, or Babylon is not a bad place to visit, for a day.

    Spent some time with an old friend who lives in the high rise, across the street from Crypto.Com center. Really nice digs as long as the water and power are on. Lots of local places to eat. and party. We went to the Pantry, Still about the same as it ever was. I can see why people love LA, its just not for me.

    Lots of really nice cars in the buildings garage. To bad they let Eeevees in. If one of them catches fire, they’ll probably end up with a real life Towering Inferno. Wouldn’t want to be up there when that happens. Something about life imitating art. Not so cool if its from the disaster movie

    The absolute worst part about my whole time in So Cal was, as always, the soul destroying traffic. Once you’re sitting on the beach, and watching the sun set, it kind of warms your soul, makes you forget how absolutely FUBAR California is.

  7. Meanwhile, in Commiefornia (where else), CARB proposes to enact a “regulation” to command the Bad Molecules to Go Away.

    According to the ignoramus who wrote this article:
    https://www.pressenterprise.com/2022/11/28/diesel-trucks-could-be-phased-out-in-california-in-20-years/

    (who misspells gases as “gasses” and benzene as “benzine”)
    “Diesel engines ….. can contain carbon dioxide.” Gee, really?

    Never fear, though.

    “Those staffers expect the rule would cause almost half of semi-trucks on California highways to run on zero-emission engines by 2035”

    Imagine that! Just by passing a “rule.” Fear not, comrades, the Peopleā€™s Collective for Environmental Justice (no, really)
    https://pc4ej.org
    has got your back.

    Me got idea! Why not just command the diesel engines to not “spew” (Greenies and Watermelons just love that word) all those Bad Molecules?

    I can hardly wait for battery powered container ships! Might take awhile to lay the cables for the “Mid Pacific Recharge Stations,” though. Ah, progress…

  8. California has its so-called “agricultural checkpoints” that slow or stop all inbound traffic at nearly all points where you might enter the state. I know of at least two ways one might enter the state (if you must) without encountering these checkpoints. Both involve leaving Las Vegas to the southeast instead of the southwest, and that’s all I’ll say, lest someone get the idea to drop a couple more checkpoints down on the map.

  9. Go ahead. Build that paradise. Wall off the deplorables. Keep us out of your side.

    When the project is complete, you can close te gates, to keep us out. We donā€™t want in, I promise you. We might even help you build it, and when the job is done as we leave weā€™ll lock the doors behind us.

    From the outside.

  10. Utopianism is a common feature of communism since it’s the denial of God, man is his own God. It’s used to suck the dupes in so they can be controlled and farmed by our betters. All communist schemes promote this, from Orwell’s Animal Farm to the Puritans, the original communists. It’s always bullshit obviously but is an excuse for centralization of power and absolute tyranny. I suppose it tends to collapse on itself once implemented enough but I’m sure its dreadful in the meantime. Hopefully what’s happening in China and Brazil right now will show it’s not a one way street.

    • Hey Mark,
      Ever read The Story Of Utopias by Lewis Mumford? I read that nearly 40 years ago….great book, showing the lunacy and communism of these dreamers who seem to always imagine that all people want the same things out of life/same lifestyle/etc. The common denominator in these schemes always seems to be that those who invent and control them get to be the local god…and always have power, privilege and wealth at the expense of their captive pets. (Was I wild and crazy guy or what when I was young, reading Lewis Mumford?! )

  11. **” a kind of anticipatory taunting. To let us know, but also to let us know we canā€™t do anything to prevent it from happening,”**

    I think it is more so that people will be predisposed to behave in a certain way. “I seen it on the tee-vee, this is what we gotsta do….”. Measures (like lockdowns, etc.) which the masses would have seen as strange, extreme and reprehensible, are considered par for the course; standard protocol; and perfectly normal and expected, as that’s the way the characters in a TV series or movie acted. It’s a sort-of programmed behavior and acceptance of the created circumstances via entertainment, which the masses don’t realize is propaganda and brainwashing on the highest level.

    No wonder they call it “programming”.

    • Nunz,

      You may be correct.

      I always thought the thought process was “well, we kind of told you what we were planning to do, and no one objected at the time, so it must be OK with everyone.”

      Then, if everyone objects (which seldom happens) I always figured the thought process was “Well, no one wants it but it is obviously a good idea so we’ll just have to find a way to sneak it in anyway.”

      In short…it’s the old “heads I win, tails you lose” trick.

      We are run by narcissists and sociopaths (the difference between the two is actually kind of subtle).

      The only way to win, is to stop playing their game. Stop playing along. Stop reacting to them. Just stay cool, walk away, and keep on walking despite their entreaties. When they can’t get us monkeys to dance on command any more, they will become helpless and confused. Meanwhile, society will move on and do perfectly well without them, which will confuse them even more.

      I agree with Martin Armstrong that, based on historical outcomes, what will matter most in the end is which side the military & police choose. But I think that, in the event that we the people make a clear choice, that may help them to make up their minds. We all have a part to play in this. Just remember–Alone, we are powerless. Together, there is no power on earth that can withstand us.

      • Pub,
        We know what side the military and the fuzz will be on- The same side they are on now. They are order-followers. They don’t seem to care who is giving the orders, nor the consequences of their own actions. Just follow zee orders and collect the paycheck. If one makes their living by serving the state, and has no compunctions about enforcing it’s dictates now- and even see themselves as ‘heroes’ who are working for “the good of the people” and “fighting for freedom”, they are of all people the most dangerous people on earth- the very people who enable the tyrants and without whom those tyrants would be powerless to effect their evils.

  12. Hi Mike,

    IIRC, even Henry Kissinger urged an end to the ongoing war in Ukraine, while world leaders such as Zelensky and others seem hell bent on STARTING World War 3.

  13. I highly recommend ā€œCellā€ by Robin Cook, who writes some scary and prescient medical thrillers that fit in with whatā€™s happening now. This one is about having an app on your cellphone to monitor your medical conditions and automatically dose you with any medication it decides you need. Donā€™t want to give any spoilers here, but what could possibly go wrong?

  14. “We must have control to prevent chaos!”
    Chaos works better, and is more enjoyable. Who wants a life where every damned thing is predictable? New, different, better don’t appear out of perfect control, or even very much control at all. We certainly aren’t getting much “better” these days, and it ain’t for lack of control.

    • Yin and Yang, Order and Chaos… Jordan Peterson talked about this. Too much Order is the worst. Authoritarian and everyone/thing is stifled, no creativity. Think of North Korea. That’s perfect Order. Yuck.

      “They” are trying to add their own blend of Chaos (open borders, lawlessness, Convid, climate change, etc) to the mix to make us want Order. But of course too much Chaos is bad also. But I think it is easier to settle Chaos down with law and Order.

      Hopefully humanity can soon find the fine line in-between. Once Order is established firmly, it’s tough to get out.

  15. Recently I’ve noticed if I use goolag maps to get directions in my city, I see green dotted lines outlining proposed walking routes, where they intend to draw bike lanes and walking lanes and install new crosswalk traffic lights. It will make roads narrower, and eliminate street parking in many neighborhoods. Congestion will increase if cars have to wait for more pedestrians to cross. I’m not against people walking, obviously, but I don’t like the coercion to walk. Has anyone seen anything similar where they live?

    • Hi Jen,

      I’ve not seen that on the maps – I need to look! – but I have seen bike lanes being laid down in place of travel lanes for cars. They even dye these bike lanes green, so you get the message.

      • In commie Phoenix they’re using fed bucks to ruin as many streets as possible with these useless things, just like they did in Chicago

    • RE: “Congestion will increase if cars have to wait for more pedestrians to cross.”

      No doubt. Pedestrian overpasses are just too difficult of a concept & too expensive – and – how else are speed limits supposed to be lowered?

      In my area they have put down many miles of concrete (not cheaper asphalt) bike paths. Some are used heavily by both bikers & joggers/walkers, however; I’ve seen many more which appear to never get used. Sorta like the bridges to nowhere, they jut out like an ocean pier over the Mississippi River and I almost never see anyone on them.
      But, I suppose, I digress.

      • It is called the 15 minute city, you will be confined to a zone which is a maximum 15 minute walking distance, from the soviet era style, closet sized slum apartment you will live in and own nothing, if you temporarily escape the cull.

    • > Has anyone seen anything similar where they live?
      Sure have.
      The “plan” to “revitalize” what used to be “downtown” (back in the 1930s) includes narrowing the streets and eliminating a significant amount of automobile parking. This industrial strength “hopium” is being peddled by a “design consultant” called Storyland Studios, which specializes in deigning theme parks. Go figure.

      Meanwhile, the adjacent neighborhoods are among the lowest income in town. Their level of disposable income limits “fine dining” to Taco Bell, Wienerschnitzel, and the like. The “upscale” demographic resides 2-3 miles south, away from the BNSF and the freeway.

      News flash! People with money so spend will not drive 3 miles to a place with narrow streets and inadequate parking, and they certainly are not going to bicycle there after dark in nice clothes, or board inconvenient, and possibly dangerous, public transit, especially when there are attractive entertainment venues (restaurants, movie theaters) approximately the same distance in the opposite direction , which have *plenty* of free parking.

  16. With this push from the WEF to turn humans into human/ machine hybrids, I wonder if they viewed the Borg from Star Trek as a ROLE MODEL.

  17. Eric,

    If you haven’t started already, I highly encourage you to look into the plans and the technology that the Australian company Transurban used to implement their 395/495 express lanes projects around DC and down I95 to Fredericksburg, the “Fred Ex”.

    The newer the project, the more advanced the surveillance and enforcement tech becomes.

  18. A similar thing – a control zone – one which does not explain what it is, exactly.

    ‘1.8M Chickens Slaughtered In Nebraska As Bird Flu Pecks Away At Food Supply’

    “After the affected flock is culled, the NDA will establish a 6.2-mile control zone around the affected premises.” …

    https://www.zerohedge.com/commodities/18m-chickens-slaughtered-nebraska-bird-flu-pecks-away-food-supply

    I’m reminded of a map I saw once, the 100 mile deep ‘Constitution Free Zone’ all around the border of the unitedstate.

    • We have a rule in our household when it comes to our animalsā€¦no real names and no real addresses. The 4H questionnaire that was sent to my daughter to joinā€¦never completed it, the time I took our pullet to a doctor to try to save herā€¦no address or real names, my dogsā€¦they live two counties away.

      I donā€™t trust my government, but I also donā€™t trust those working within the confines for Uncle Sam. It is too easy for rules to change overnight and to have all you hold dear be taken from you. To me, most of the world is a suspect. Some days, I miss the rose colored glasses.

      • I wonder, is a ‘control zone’ where the FDA conducts warrantless searches on all the properties in that area? Idk.

        If so, fake names & addresses do no good.
        Nor would a gate.

        …Things just keep getting creepier & creepier.

        • Hi helot,

          Doesn’t that defeat the purpose of the Fourth Amendment? Touring someone’s backyard uninvited seems to be a good enough reason for the homeowner to pull out the rifle and aim for the kneecaps. They may have walked in but will be crawling out.

          • Kneecaps hell girl.

            FDA joggers in my chicken coop, on my property, dark of night, don’t care who, what, or why. Head and neck until the threat is eliminated. “I was in fear for my life, and wont say anything else until I talk to an attorney.”

          • RG,

            This would seem to raise some potential due process concerns, as well. Unless Congress actually budgets money to compensate the farmers for any takings that occur.

            Since I don’t hear the farmers complaining about it (and if you listen to farmers they worry about everything from too much rain to not enough rain to diesel prices & the list goes on) I assume someone’s getting paid off pretty well.

            On this train of thought. Does anyone remember how during the Depression TPTB screwed everything up by destroying perfectly edible food while there were lots of hungry Americans in bread lines–ostensibly to help the farmers by propping up prices for their agricultural goods? They did that, way back in the day.

            Fast forward to 2022, and we have bird flu, no turkey at the grocery stores, random rotating shortages of other items, shrinkflation, strange clusters of fires at food processing plants, self-imposed fertilizer and diesel shortages, etc. etc. etc. Weird stories about dumping milk down the drain early on in the plandemic.

            I can’t prove this, but my spidey-sense tells me that someone is trying to pull the same kind of monkey business today that they did back in the ’30s. And I predict the results will be just as horrible and nonsensical now, as they were back then.

            I also can’t believe that it falls to me, apparently, to make this connection.

  19. Every day that brings some new program, push or life controlling idea, I ask, why do we even have a government?

    Under the quaint notion that governments are instituted for the protection of rights, well, they refuse to do the most basic things like stop rioters from burning and looting private business and residences.

    Every single program from social security to the court system to the EPA seems to be done solely for the purpose of controlling people, not protecting them.

    Seems to me that government is really just a game that groups of people are playing where the goal is to dominate as much of the world as entirely as you can.

    What’s the use of even having it?

  20. Very eerie, Eric. I was just thinking about these said movies over the weekend and how it seems movies are becoming real life (Divergent, The Hunger Games, Demolition Man, etc.). I was also delirious with the flu and had the TV on the whole time, so that could have also triggered my bad dreams as well.

    The one thing I love about the USSA is her sheer size. It is very easy to implement something like Panem in smaller regions or countries. Panem would be easy to establish in Anguilla, it is much harder to contain where millions of miles of roadways flow throughout. Sure, you can put a couple gate keepers on major highways, but the backroads, gravel lanes, and dirt trails are harder and near impossible to restrict.

    I am a constant backroad driver. I try to avoid interstates and highways at all costs. One, because of the traffic. Two, the scenery sucks. My husband has grown accustomed after 30 years that we will never take the shortest route, because it is usually the most boring. There is something very calming about driving through old towns, trying out of the way restaurants, and seeing our country for what she was and still is. If it takes 20 minutes or an hour more, so what? I have learned and experienced in the process.

    • Ditto that, RG!

      I also avoid highways at all costs – for the same reasons.

      On the movies: It’s fascinating, isn’t it, that Soylent Green was set in 2020… and then there’s The Matrix, which foresaw “electrification” in a way that few understood at the time.

      I keep up with the flicks for just this reason. To get a sense of what they’re thinking…

      • I will say by the tine they came out with Hunger Games I was kind of putting together that our actual world was beginning to resemble the movies more and more and these movies are hitting too close to home now. Maybe my tastes have changed too. But I cant bring myself to watch them anymore. I found Hunger Games so depressing. But my neices and nephews loved it.

      • Eric,

        One movie you might want to watch if you haven’t seen it before is Logan’s Run. It came out in the 1970s, and in the movie, to avoid overpopulation, people who reach the age of 30 are put to death under guise of “Being renewed”. It sounds eerily familiar to Canada’s MAID, which could conceivably order in the future that people who reach a certain age be put to death to avoid collapse of their health care system or draining limited resources. And in the U.S., Ezekiel Emanuel thinks that people who turn 75 should be put to death too (Except, I guess, Joe Biden, Tony Fauci, Klaus Schwab, Henry Kissinger, George Soros, etc.).

        • Hi John,
          Even that old war criminal Henry Kissinger is worried about runaway AI deciding humans are useless and wiping us out, and thereā€™s no time travel to go back and prevent it.

      • Iā€™m a backroader as well. Although here in WA there are ā€œtrafficā€ cameras everywhere, literally out in the middle of nowhere. More and more every year.

        https://wsdot.com/Travel/Real-time/Map/

        Why in he** is there a need for a traffic cam at the intersection of 172 and 17? There is no traffic, nothing there. End times surveillance?

    • Raider Girl i do the same thing if it takes me 5 or 10 minutes longer to get to work I take the back way out and drive thru rolling hills with lovely scenery instead of stressing out on the highway where everyone is jockeying to get one car length more ahead it really improves mood by the time I get there.

    • Tolling/surveillance of surface streets to the same level of expressways is coming. It is not a question of technology as much as will and, for now, limited by the inept management and personnel practices common among the usual government contractor cabal and their vendors.

    • I have frequented Rt 30 from NE Ohio to NE Indiana many times, and I gotta tell you, you are 100% right. The only neat part is seeing the ‘Shawshank’ prison in Mansfield.

      I went to Michigan once to get some…legal things there… and took small roads through towns I’ve never heard of to avoid highways like I-80 and yes, so much nicer than the boring ‘Bacon Highways’.

    • > I try to avoid interstates and highways at all costs.
      Same here.
      Same reasons.

      “The highway is for gamblers,
      better use your sense.”

    • Hi RG, we did something similar. For about 5 years in a row, we rv’d across the country for a month every summer. One of our little rules was we stop to eat/sleep only in very small towns. No chain restaurants. If we saw a sign on the road that said X’town population 50 to 400, that’s where we stopped, even if it was way off the main road. Wow did we have fun. We learned so much about different states cultures, people, etc… We met amazing people, etc.. The experience was one of our favorite events of the trips. We still talk about it.
      Another fun part was them seeing our plates (from a deep blue state), and they were sorta dreading us, rolling their eyes (I didn’t blame them either), but it all changed once they engaged with us a little. Basically, don’t believe everything you see on tv (about a place).

      • Way to do it, Chris!
        The biggish towns pretty much all look the same wherever one goes these days. Just parking lots and box stores along 4-lanes, and the same stinking chain restaurants.People are pretty much the same, too. The tiny towns are the only places left where ya can find some true “diversity” (As opposed to the modern version, where everything’s the same….)

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