The idle musings of a former military man, former computer geek, medically retired pastor and now full-time writer. Contents guaranteed to offend the politically correct and anal-retentive from time to time. My approach to life is that it should be taken with a large helping of laughter, and sufficient firepower to keep it tamed!
The key factor today is the electromagnetic spectrum – he who controls this, controls the battle space and will win the war. The ability to jam the enemy’s signals, and to push your own signals through enemy jamming, confers the ability to operate the most common kinds of drones in any given area. Often a nearby transmission relay – perhaps carried by a “mothership” drone higher above the battlefield – will let drones operate even inside the enemy jamming envelope, as the relay is nearer to the drones than the jammers are and has line of sight to them. In general the Ukrainians have tended to have the upper hand in this electromagnetic struggle, aided at times by harder-to-jam satellite communications such as Elon Musk’s well-known Starlink. But that doesn’t mean they’ve had things all their own way.
The contested electronic environment has seen the advent of drones trailing a hair-fine communications line back to their controller. Some in the media believe these to be a new thing, but in fact these drones appeared quite a long time ago. The line unspools as the drone flies along, in a similar fashion to old-school anti-tank missiles dating back many decades. The comms line can be kilometres long and is completely proof against jamming. This brings a slight smile to old soldiers like me who remember weapons such as the Tube-launched Optically-tracked Wire-guided (TOW) missile, as we see old-fashioned methods overcoming the latest and most brilliant electronic-warfare systems. The fibre optic drone will be effective until somebody produces a flying pair of scissors or something, which they will, and soon.
. . .
Many people have written off the main battle tank because so many thousands have been destroyed by these cheap and ubiquitous drones. But these have mostly been aged ex-Soviet examples dating from decades ago. Even the Western tanks which have been taken out have not been the latest and best available. I will argue in my new book that a properly equipped modern tank, with its own jamming equipment and automated Active Defence Systems (ADS) which can knock down incoming missiles and even hypervelocity penetrators fired by enemy tanks – let alone slow-flying drones – will survive and win. A tank’s massive power pack can generate enough electrical power that next generation tank jamming systems will be impenetrable by most drones, and any which do get through will fall victim to its ADS before they can strike. These 60-ton, rumbling armoured monsters will still be kings of the battlefield: the Israelis, who made ADS a reality and who are masters of electronic warfare, have no trouble operating their modern Merkava tanks in the teeth of Hamas and Hezbollah drones.
The other old-fashioned battle magic which will let us operate in the new electronic desert is Mission Command. This is the concept in military leadership ... that emphasises empowering subordinates to make decisions and act independently to achieve the commander’s intent. It’s about trust, initiative, and speed of action. The temptation is to neglect it in an era when we are all so very tied to our mobile phones, but the Ukraine war is showing us that we do this at our peril. A surfeit of communication has messed up at least as many military operations as a lack of it, and a commander at any level who waits to hear back from his boss when an opportunity appears in front of him is not a real officer at all.
When technology is changing warfare at an exponential rate, it is almost impossible to develop military capability for next year, let alone the next decade ... It is essential that we have a flexible and agile force, and that we are not too seduced by some new technology today which will be redundant tomorrow. The principles of war have not changed and at its heart are the soldiers who close with and fight the enemy.
From the perspective of an old-school "grunt", I hope he's right. The thought of being a piece of living meat on a battlefield filled with robots determined to turn me into dead meat is not a happy one!
However, I'm not sure he's right. Think of it in economic terms. To recruit, train and deploy a single soldier on a technologically advanced battlefield must run into several hundreds of thousands of dollars, even for plain-and-simple infantry troops. A battlefield hunter-killer drone costs (according to news reports) only one or two thousand dollars. A drone controller can send out hundreds of the things and guide them to their targets, making it a very economical way to wage war. The drones may have to be a lot bigger and more sophisticated to take out a big, heavily armored target like a tank, but that will only increase their price to, say, five figures instead of four; and a modern tank, with all its sophistication, costs well into seven figures (some are apparently approaching eight figures). Therefore, the cost advantage is still overwhelmingly on the side of the drones.
Can a battle be fought entirely by drones? Yes, I suppose it can, in the sense of destroying an opposing force. However, what about occupying the land on which the battle was fought? I'm not sure a drone force could be useful for that. Sure, they can kill anything and anyone trying to live there (including civilians such as farmers, travelers, etc. - drones won't discriminate unless their operators are willing to do so), but that's not the same as occupying and claiming it as one's own territory, because if one tries to do that, the enemy will kill your forces just as surely as you'll kill theirs. Sounds more like a technological stalemate to me, a war without end.
Killing enemy soldiers until there are no longer enough of them to fight on used to be the way to win a war. Now, when drones can be replaced off-the-shelf for relatively low cost, can enough of them be killed to have the same impact? If lives are cheap to generals, drones are even cheaper. Where might this take us in combat? I'm not sure I want to know . . . except that I don't want to be on or anywhere near that battlefield!
Make no mistake, a calamity is baked into the cake that cannot be undone.
A generation that inherited a solvent nation, a victory in the Cold War, and a dominant position on the globe unseen in all of human history—threw away the concept of stewardship and will leave their offspring a mess no one will know how to clean up.
. . .
Of course, I am talking about the greatest existential threat to our nation and global prosperity: the debt bomb.
I am pretty much sure I will live to see it play out, but I unquestionably know that my now 20-something kids will see it.
What we are doing is unsustainable. When the music stops, no one will have a chair. Our descendants will throw our bones on dung heaps.
While there is fair weather, I am doing my best to make sure my immediate family will survive better than average when it comes. Will it be enough? I have no idea. No nation has ever seen this confluence of events before, and it is unavoidable.
. . .
The demographics problem cannot be fixed, and the only solutions to the levels of debt we have—default or hyper-inflation—are catastrophic except for one narrow path with manageable pain, but that requires action before crisis. With each passing year, the path gets more and more narrow. Eventually, it will be too narrow to pass through, then we are left with default or hyper-inflation. Either of those will end this republic.
How did we get there? It is easy to just blame the selfish Boomers, but they are not the only players here. We fell into the deficit trap because our federal government, shaped by two world wars and a Cold War, became unbalanced. Unchecked incentives and disincentives allowed people to pursue short-term personal gains at the cost of future national risk.
(Click the image for a larger view)
Eventually, no one will want to buy our debt, then we have to offer higher and higher interest rates to attract buyers.
Where will that money come from?
. . .
We are about to harvest the fruits of selfishness and a lack of stewardship. I have not seen one responsible person offer a long-term solution that doesn’t involve pain no one wants to experience...but experience it someone will.
Eventually, there will be a crisis that will cascade. I don’t know what the solution will be globally, but if I just focus on this nation and how we could fix it, the simpler options using our present, warped system seem now out of reach.
Just look at the “Big Beautiful Bill” that passed the house. Love it or hate it, it does nothing to fix the deficit or debt problem. However, this was the best ou[r] system could produce. Nothing else could pass, and that is the problem. Our federal government cannot fix itself.
There's more at the link. Click over there to read the whole article. It's well worth your time.
Cdr Salamander proposes a Convention of States to deal with constitutional issues that hamper solving our problems. I'm not sure that would work - state politicians are just as bad as federal ones, if not more so - but it's a thought. Unfortunately, I don't think anything can be done in practical terms before our economic problems overwhelm us.
“We’re almost $37 trillion in debt,” Johnson warned. “We’re spending $7 trillion, and CBO (Congressional Budget Office) projects over the next 10 years, we will add another $22 trillion to the debt.”
And that’s if nothing goes wrong. “If interest rates start creeping up… just one percentage point, add another $4 trillion,” he said.
Carlson asked what it all means in the real world. Johnson’s answer was simple: less money in your pocket. He said inflation is DIRECTLY TIED to excessive government spending.
“A dollar you held in 1998 is only worth 51 cents today,” he said—a figure that visibly stunned Carlson.
Johnson didn’t stop there. “A dollar we held just in 2019 is only worth 80 cents” today.
In other words, “a silent tax.”
So, in just six years, your buying power has plunged by as much as 20%.
Unless you’re one of the few whose income kept up with inflation, you’re feeling the effects of it pretty hard.
So what happens if the debt bomb finally explodes?
Johnson didn’t sugarcoat it: “It won’t be pleasant… It’ll be painful,” he warned.
And the people who will suffer the most, he said, are those living paycheck to paycheck—Americans who rely on government benefits and have no financial cushion to fall back on.
. . .
Johnson pointed out that while smaller countries have defaulted and been bailed out or had their debt restructured, “Nobody can [bail us out]. We are… the world’s reserve currency.”
And if we lose that status? We lose the magical ability to print dollars that the world still values.
. . .
Johnson says the “Big Beautiful Bill” doesn’t go nearly far enough—it barely scratches the surface. It promises $1.6 trillion in savings over 10 years.
But we’re on track to add $22 TRILLION in debt during that same time frame.
My only disagreement with Sen. Johnson is that he's using official inflation and economic figures to work out how much our currency has declined. As we've pointed out frequently in these pages, those official figures are so "massaged" to achieve political correctness that they bear little or no relation to the truth. My personal guesstimate, as we've discussed many times in the past, is that real consumer buying power, as experienced in your wallet and mine with every dollar we spend, has declined by at least 30% over the past five years or so, and probably more than that; certainly averaging more than 10% every year at a minimum.
I'm a lot less sanguine than Sen. Johnson. By my SWAG (Scientific Wild-Ass Guess), based on my own financial records, a dollar in my pocket in 1998 will buy about 30c worth of goods today. A dollar in my pocket in 2019 will buy perhaps 60c worth of goods today. Obviously, that depends on how we use our buying power: what I buy with my dollars may differ from what you buy with yours, so our experiences won't tally across the board. How do you think your personal buying power has fared, dear readers? Let us know in Comments.
The only way to deal with this problem is to stop the over-spending, RIGHT NOW. Cut the entitlement programs, get rid of all non-essential government spending, implement every recommendation from D.O.G.E. as quickly as possible, and reduce the size and scope of the federal government to manageable levels. You say that can't be done - that it would cause too much financial pain to the nation and to its citizens? You may be right . . . but unless it's done, the ship of state is going to run aground on the fiscal rocks of our own making, causing even greater financial pain - so there is no alternative. Sooner or later, we're going to have to do it.
I'm sure I'm putting off some readers by harping on this subject, but people seem to be blithely ignoring the reality that's coming up fast. I don't think it's an exaggeration to say that Weimar-style hyperinflation is no longer a remote possibility for us, and for Europe too. That's a very scary thought.
On his blog, Larry Lambert has published a . . . I don't know whether to call it a short story, or a fictional meditation. It deals with faith and its excesses, and the consequences thereof. I found it very moving. Here's a short excerpt.
The decline began long before the collapse. The signals were faint at first: sperm counts in freefall, ovarian reserves vanishing in women barely out of adolescence. No plagues, no radiation spikes, no mutated pox sweeping through the cities. Just a soft, irreversible silence in the womb of the species.
By the late 21st century, birth rates had collapsed across nearly every industrialized nation. The causes weren’t simple—how could they be?—but the fingerprints were everywhere. Microplastics woven into fat cells, delayed childbirth, synthetic estrogens leached from packaging and drugs, endocrine disruptors in every river system on the planet.
We drank our own demise.
At first, we tried to fix it—hormone therapies, artificial gametes, gene repair clinics—but nothing truly reversed the trend. It wasn’t just biology that failed. It was confidence. People stopped trying. Family shrank, generations collapsed. Governments flirted with natalist policies, but no one wanted children in a world visibly unraveling.
Into that vacuum stepped God.
Or, rather, the men who claimed Him.
If you're a person of faith (any faith), click over to Larry's place to read "Ashes and Orbits". I think you'll like it. If you're not a person of faith, you may yet find it interesting.
Following my recent article about snubnose revolvers, I've had a few readers ask whether the long double-action trigger pull of most such weapons can be lightened and/or smoothed, to make it easier to shoot them accurately.
A competent gunsmith can do what's called an "action job" on them, which involves stoning the mating surfaces until they're as smooth and slick as possible, and perhaps adjusting spring tension (lopping a couple of coils off a factory spring, or installing a new spring kit from a company such as Wolff Gunsprings - you can also install the latter on your own gun at home, if you know what you're doing). However, you can expect to pay at least $150 for a good action job, and possibly double that, depending on the expertise and reputation of the gunsmith involved.
There's a quicker, simpler, easier way that isn't necessarily as good, but can be surprisingly effective. It's known as the "toothpaste action job", or words to that effect. Toothpaste is a very mild abrasive: it has to be, to clean gunk off your teeth when you brush them. That makes it suitable for delicate surface smoothing on things like trigger mechanisms. You can also use actual abrasive solutions such as valve grinding compound, but they're usually far too abrasive to use safely unless you're a qualified gunsmith and/or mechanic and really know what you're doing. I do not recommend them.
How does a "toothpaste action job" work? Obviously, you need to know your way around the innards of your firearm. If you don't, ask a knowledgeable friend or your local gunsmith to show you how to disassemble your gun to the level required (and make sure your friend[s] really are knowledgeable - they may not be as good as they think they are, which can lead to very expensive damage to your gun!). For a quick visual introduction to how the trigger mechanism looks, see this short video on how to improve a Smith & Wesson revolver's trigger pull. Even if yours doesn't look quite the same, the way it works will be basically similar.
Take off the sideplate of your snubnose revolver (or, if yours doesn't have a removable sideplate, do whatever yours needs to expose the trigger and hammer mechanism), and smear toothpaste over and well into all the moving parts (i.e. the mating surfaces, that move over and/or against each other when the trigger is pulled) of the trigger and hammer. Reassemble the gun, and (making sure it's not loaded - use snap-caps if the owner's manual recommends them) dry-fire it several hundred times; then disassemble it again and clean it very thoroughly, probably using hot water and a toothbrush to make sure all the toothpaste is removed from the moving parts. Dry the gun thoroughly, and before reassembling it, give the moving parts a good spritz with WD-40 to ensure that all water has been removed. Oil or lube as normal, then reassemble the gun and test it. You should find that the action is smoother, although not necessarily lighter unless you've worked on the springs as well.
You can read more about the "toothpaste trigger job" on firearms forums: an online search will reveal several links. Here are three representative discussions:
That should give you enough information to understand how this works. I've done it to several of my revolvers, and found a noticeable improvement in trigger smoothness. If you're still not happy about trying it yourself, there's always a professional trigger job by a gunsmith to make things even better.
My buddy Lawdog ponders the custom of dueling to resolve differences, and whether it should be brought back. Go read his thoughts, then come back here. I'll wait.
I'm in two minds about his ideas. In the days of the duel, it certainly underlined the relative importance of honesty and civility. Spread untruths about someone, or be rude and obnoxious to and/or about them, and there might well be a known (and likely) consequence. The old saw, popularized by Robert Heinlein, that "An armed society is a polite society" was always a fiction, but even so, most people preferred politeness (or at least an icy indifference) to a hot-blooded, potentially fatal meeting on the dueling ground.
On the other hand, there were those who took advantage of the duel to train themselves to be merciless killers. There are more than a few tales of those who never hesitated to issue a challenge because they knew their own skills were superior to nine out of ten of those they might have to face. (The few occasions on which they found out, the hard way, that their opponents were, in fact, better fighters than they were produced some gripping tales, particularly the panic and even disgust on their faces as they died.) In places where custom allowed it, an uncivil, impolite type could hire the services of a noted duelist to represent him, or pay a criminal to concoct a situation in which he could plausibly issue a challenge to someone the principal wanted dead. This happened too often to be coincidental, and was one of the reasons advanced to do away with dueling. Could dueling be reinstated without that danger? I don't know how that could be done. Cheating, one way or another, is as old as the human race.
Would it make us a less moral people if we allowed dueling? In some ways, yes, it probably would; but there's also the grim reality that death is and always has been a part of everyday life, and dueling kept that reality firmly in mind for many of the "talking classes". It does to this day for those living in areas controlled by "strong men" or "warlords" or particular gangs. Talk smack about them and you're going to suffer for it, quite possibly terminally - and no, they won't give you the chance to arm yourself and discuss the matter on equal terms. "Might makes right" is another long-standing human principle.
I submit it would not be a bad thing if we could ensure that false, unjustified "mean speech" has consequences. Today, too many people behave as if they can insult, denigrate or run down another without ever having to pay for it in any way, shape or form. I think that's wrong. If you do that, you should be subject to sanctions of some kind; but people use the "free speech!" argument to get away scot-free. Perhaps we should talk about "expensive speech!" instead, to make those who sling insults so freely consider that their words might (and possibly should) carry a price with them. What that price should be, and who should decide whether and to what extent it applies, and who is to extract payment . . . those are whole new balls of wax to add to the fun. We certainly can't trust the courts to do the job - they've let politicians lie without let or restraint for donkeys' years. Some courts appear to be part of the lie themselves.
To begin, let's listen to Victor Davis Hanson discuss why debt is such a critical issue, and might yet bring down not just the US economy, but the world economy. Take eight minutes to watch this video. It's worth your time.
With Mr. Hanson's warnings in mind, consider the bond market, where our debt crisis is playing out right now. The deficit is funded by bonds - Treasury "securities" . . . which don't look too secure right now.
The prepandemic era, when too much savings chased too few bonds, is over. Governments everywhere must pay up, and big budget deficits are more dangerous.
The trend is global, but the U.S. is an especially big piece of the story because of annual deficits likely to top $2 trillion on the way to $3 trillion, and the potential erosion of the dollar’s reserve status.
. . .
The federal shortfall topped 6% of GDP last year, and under the budget plan approved by House Republicans early this week (but before final amendments), is expected to top 7% for a decade, according to independent estimates. That would be higher than any other sustained stretch in U.S. history, and more than almost any other advanced economy. Because of the U.S.’s size, this has an outsize global impact. Before 2023, it accounted for half of advanced economies’ deficits, according to the International Monetary Fund. From 2023 through 2030, it will be two-thirds.
Meanwhile, the U.S.’s “exorbitant privilege” as issuer of the world’s reserve currency may be eroding. Since early April, the dollar has fallen as yields rose, the opposite of the normal pattern.
. . .
Moody’s Ratings’ decision last Friday to strip the U.S. of its last triple-A debt rating told us nothing we didn’t already know. The U.S. is a fiscal train wreck, which we also knew in 2023, when Joe Biden was president, Fitch Ratings downgraded the U.S. and the 10-year bond yield touched 5%.
Next, Charles Hugh Smith explains just what the debt (and bond) crisis means for each of us as citizens and residents of the USA, in stark financial terms. First, the total public debt as a percentage of gross domestic product:
Next, entitlement programs (Social Security and Medicare) as a percentage of the US budget:
And finally, how entitlement spending will determine growth in future US government expenditure:
He writes:
Apologists love to attribute the debt to inflation or "growth," but that's misdirection. As a percentage of the nation's GDP (gross domestic product), the debt has risen 4-fold since president Reagan shepherded Social Security reforms in the early 1980s, and doubled as a percentage of GDP since 2007, before the Federal Reserve bailed out the status quo with hyper-financialization.
Here is a pie chart of federal spending. Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid are 44%. Toss in the other mandatory spending--a big chunk of which is interest paid on federal debt--and there's not much left to cut. The reality is there is no way to slow the runaway debt train without tackling open-ended retirement / healthcare programs.
The vast majority of projected growth in federal spending stems from these programs and the interest paid on funds borrowed to fund them. Unfortunately, these facts don't disappear because we don't like them.
. . .
The passengers on the Titanic arguing with each other can't stop the ship from sinking by "winning the argument." Silencing those willing to discuss the issues factually doesn't actually make the factual realities go away.
So, the crushing burden of our national debt is crushing the bond market, which in turn is making it more difficult for the Treasury to fund our ever-increasing government expenditure, which means that we're spending more and more money we don't have to increase a deficit that's already far too great to ever be paid off. Get the picture?
This isn't a Republican or a Democratic problem, except in the sense that both parties have contributed to the situation getting this bad. They're both equally to blame. However, it's now grown to such an extent that this is a national problem, directly and immediately affecting the financial situation of every individual in the USA. Those who've been relying on government programs (e.g. Social Security, Medicare and others) to fund their retirement are probably going to be sorely disappointed, because those programs will shortly be unaffordable in their present form.
Will our politicians have the guts to do something about it? I somehow doubt it, based on their past performance. That means we're all going to have to batten down the hatches, make sure we've put away emergency needs as best we can, and brace ourselves for impact.
There is no alternative any more. This is out of control.
For three years, a butcher in Zurich, the largest city in Switzerland, deceived his Muslim customers by selling them pork falsely presented as calf.
The butcher has reportedly sold 3.1 tons of pork making his customers believe that the meat is Halal, according to the Swiss version of 20Minutes, which revealed this scandal.
. . .
The manager of the butchery was sentenced to 6 months in jail and a fine 18,000 Swiss francs (about $18,680) “for fraud and misrepresentation.”
. . .
The butcher was deceiving his customers double fold. On the one hand, Muslims who were buying meat at his shop did not know it was pork, which is forbidden according to the teachings of Islam. On the other hand, he made substantial profits, since pork is much cheaper than the calf on the meat market.
Now that the calf substitution has been re-veal-ed, I'm sure his customers aren't happy with him. This will probably call for religious re-meat-iation . . .
Come July, common keys for houses, cars, boats, and motorcycles will be illegal in Minnesota, save for uncertain intervention from the state Legislature.
That's when the state's ban on the manufacture, sale, or import of keys, toys, dishes, and other common items containing more than a tiny percentage of lead or cadmium goes into effect.
The purpose of that law was to remove dangerous heavy metals from products that come into contact with children. The trouble is that almost all keys sold today have more lead than the new law's 0.09 percent limit on lead content.
Locksmiths have been warning that the state's lead ban will outlaw most of the products they sell. Alternative metals would require lengthy and expensive transition to using less functional materials, they say.
"Approximately 75 percent of all products that we stock have become prohibited for sale," said Rob Justen of Doyle Security Products.
So, in their efforts to become "greener than thou", Minnesota's politicians have condemned their electorate to being unable to get duplicate keys for almost everything they use. One might ask why the legislators didn't bother to find out more about what they were so gleefully banning before they voted, but they're politicians. Their minds don't work like that. They belong to the school of "Don't just stand there, do something!" instead of asking "What, if anything, should be done about the problem?"
It doesn't even matter if they were Democrat or Republican. I'm beginning to think that all career politicians mislay their common sense gene at or soon after birth . . .
You mentioned once awhile back about pocket carrying a Bulldog 44 special, and I found that intriguing, as I'm starting to experience some back pain carrying a duty size pistol on my hip every day. I think it would be interesting if you wrote a blog post about that, what you carry, where at, how, etc.
I'd be interested to read that, as well as all the comments that are sure to come from it.
As requested, here goes.
First off, let's get arguments about the platform out of the way. I agree that a semi-auto pistol has several advantages over a revolver when it comes to defensive shooting (which is why I usually carry one). They include a more easily concealed weapon, larger ammunition capacity, greater ease and speed of reloading, (usually) a smoother, easier trigger, and greater familiarity with the platform among most modern shooters. However, for pocket carry in particular, a pistol has corresponding disadvantages. The greatest of these is that, if it's necessary to shoot from the pocket, the slide can (and usually will) get caught up in the material of the pocket, preventing its normal operation and jamming the pistol. Secondly, in order to fit in a typical pocket, the pistol must be smaller in size than a normal full-size or compact pistol. All other things being equal, in the hands of all but well-trained and -experienced shooters, smaller handguns are harder to shoot fast and accurately than a larger weapon. Finally, many modern pistols are equipped with optical sights. It's very hard to fit such sights into a pocket, on top of the gun itself, meaning that the shooter will have to rely on old-fashioned, much smaller "iron" sights - something with which they may no longer be very familiar.
On the other hand, small "snubnose" revolvers offer advantages and disadvantages of their own. Their ammunition capacity is smaller, generally 5 or 6 rounds, and reloading them is more complicated (thanks to the need to remove empty cartridge cases before inserting new ones in the cylinder) and slower than simply swapping out a semi-auto pistol's magazine. Their long double-action trigger pull is often more difficult to master than a shorter, crisper semi-auto trigger, requiring more training and practice. Their sights (particularly on pocket-size revolvers) leave much to be desired; there's a reason early models were often referred to as "belly guns", because that was the range at which they were intended to be used, and it was hard for most shooters to aim them accurately at longer ranges. That does not apply to experts, of course, as Jerry Miculek demonstrates!
We can't all be Jerry Miculek, unfortunately, but with training and practice, we can certainly learn to use a snub-nose revolver well enough to defend ourselves with it. Nevertheless, it's one of the more difficult handgun options to use well, and does require time, training and practice (and the expenditure of a fair amount of ammunition) to master it. It is not, repeat, NOT a "gun for beginners". I get very annoyed when I see ignorant gun store clerks try to sell a novice shooter a snubnose revolver for defense. It's actually one of the worst choices for new shooters, for all the reasons mentioned above, and under the wrong circumstances might even contribute to their death or serious injury. Buyer beware!
Notwithstanding the factors mentioned above, a snub-nose revolver (usually defined as a revolver with a barrel less than 2 to 3 inches long) has several real advantages for defensive use. First, a .38 Special or .357 Magnum snubnose is small enough to fit into most trouser pockets. If your pockets aren't quite big enough to conceal it, simply cut open the bottom seam, add an inch or two of suitable material, have your local tailor or seamstress stitch them together, then sew the (new) bottom closed. That should take care of concealment problems. If you're using a slightly larger snubby, like the Charter Arms Bulldog in .44 Special, you might want to add a little width to the pocket using the same technique. Just make sure the mouth of the pocket is wide enough to allow you to draw your weapon without it getting caught on the edges.
Weight is a major factor for pocket carry. Steel-frame snubnose revolvers weight the most; an aluminum-and-steel version (which Smith & Wesson calls the "Airweight") is a lot less; and the modern titanium and scandium versions are almost feather-light by comparison. A heavy gun will drag your pocket down, making it difficult to conceal and rendering your appearance less smart: but it'll be easier to shoot, as its weight will absorb more of the recoil. A lighter version won't drag down your pocket nearly as much, but you'll feel much more recoil - and have the problem of controlling a hard-kicking gun in rapid, aimed fire - when you use it. You have to make that call for yourself. As I get older, I've come to intensely dislike the sharp, painful recoil of a scandium or titanium snubby. I've stayed with the "Airweight" or medium-weight versions, except for .357 Magnum, where I want all the weight I can get to handle that kick! (That's one reason I don't like carrying that caliber in a small gun.)
The rounded profile of a snubnose revolver is less likely to catch on the inside of the pocket than the (usually) sharper edges of a semi-auto pistol's frame. The hammer of the revolver is also prone to catching, but you can buy revolvers with concealed hammers (e.g. Smith & Wesson's Centennial style) or shrouds that fit over exposed hammers, which remove this danger. A snubby's sights are usually abbreviated, which may make them harder to see in a hurry in poor light conditions, but which slide out of a pocket more easily than the bigger, more angular sights on larger revolvers.
Those small sights bring up a very important point. In defensive shooting, one needs to be able to get a "flash sight picture" - i.e. rapidly line up one's handgun's sights on a target - in order to stop the threat; but hard-to-see sights, particularly in low light levels such as on the street at night, don't make this easy. For many of us, this gets worse as we get older. My eyes can no longer focus on the front sight with any clarity unless I'm wearing reading glasses or bifocals. My almost universal recommendation to my disabled students was that they fit Crimson Trace Lasergrips or an equivalent device (do a search for "laser sights for handguns" and you'll find several options). I particularly recommend the Crimson Trace version because their activation is one-handed. The button is right underneath the middle finger of one's firing hand as one grasps and draws the revolver. The laser sight will come on almost without thinking about it; you don't need a second hand to press a button or flick a switch. One can look at one's attacker - rather than hunt for a sight picture - and see where the laser dot appears. Where the dot is, that's where the bullet will go.
Here's a video clip illustrating the concept.
Laser sights are particularly useful if you've been knocked off your feet, or are trying to push an attacker away from you with one hand while drawing your pocket firearm with the other (another argument for using a laser sight that doesn't need both hands to activate it). You don't need to raise the gun to your eyes to use the sights. Even from waist height, or rolling around on the ground, simply placing the laser dot on your attacker and pulling the trigger will achieve results. That simplicity might be a lifesaver. Equally, laser sights may be a mixed blessing, because the laser beam will reveal where it's coming from, exposing your location; but in a close-range emergency requiring you to get your gun out in a hurry and use it, that's not going to be a major factor. Staying alive and uninjured comes first!
You may find different models of laser sight grips to fit your particular weapon, particularly if it's a common one. I like this, because I can put a smaller grip on a handgun for deep concealment, or a larger, easier-to-handle grip for the same size gun in a heavier-recoiling cartridge. The larger grip will, of course, be more difficult to conceal in a pocket, but that's the price one pays for greater recoil control. As an example, on a Smith & Wesson J-frame .38 Special Airweight for deep concealment, I like the Crimson Trace LG-105 grip, but on a steel J-frame in the heavy-recoiling .357 Magnum cartridge, I prefer the larger, rubber-covered LG-305 grip (which is more difficult to conceal, and is one reason I seldom carry .357 Magnum rounds in a snubby). Neither grip fits my hand perfectly, but their other advantages outweigh that factor. It's one of the situations where the conditions under which I carry have a "power of veto" over a part of the gun I'll use. You should try to shoot a few rounds of both heavier- and lighter-recoiling cartridges in a snub-nose revolver, using different grips if possible, before deciding which gun to buy and what grip to put on it. It is not a choice to make "by guess and by God": only actually seeing and feeling the difference will show you what you can shoot best, and which fits your conditions of carry. Find friends who have different guns and grips, and ask them to let you fire a few rounds, or rent guns from a shooting range - but don't make the decision "blind", if at all possible. How well the gun fits your hand is a critical element of defensive shooting.
Remember that your laser sight is not a magic wand, guaranteeing a hit every time. You still need to have mastered the basics of shooting, and practiced often enough to be confident in your ability to use the weapon. You should also align the laser sight to the distance over which you expect to need it, if possible. Crimson Trace factory-aligns their laser sights for a range of 50 feet (just under 17 yards), which works for most people, but a typical engagement range in a crowded environment might be ten feet or less! Adjust your laser sight accordingly, and then practice with it to see how high or low the sight is at different ranges, so you can allow for that if necessary. (Crimson Trace has a good video presentation on how to do that.)
Of course, with a snubnose revolver you may not have enough space or time to draw your weapon before shooting it (for example, if accosted on the street at close range by an attacker jumping out at you from between two parked vehicles). However, you can, if necessary, shoot through clothing or a handbag without drawing the gun. A semi-auto pistol might jam in such circumstances, but a snubnose revolver is less likely to do so. Muzzle blast may well set your coat or trousers on fire, but if you have a bad guy trying to bash you over the head with half a brick at halitosis range, you need to stop him just as fast as you can. Clothes can be replaced. Your head can't! I had no choice but to fire a handgun from inside my clothes, once upon a time. The shot ruined my clothes (and gave me a hellacious flash burn in an embarrassing area of my body - the comments from the ER nurses were epic!), but it ruined the target, too. I called that a win, under the circumstances.
What about cartridges and calibers? Right now, you can buy snubnose revolvers in .22LR, .32 H&R Magnum, .327 Federal Magnum, .38 Special, .357 Magnum, 9mm Parabellum and .44 Special. I've recommended the lowly .22LR to many disabled shooters who don't have the wrist or arm strength to cope with heavier recoil. It may not hit very hard, but with practice it'll certainly do the job (and you can afford to practice with it a whole lot more than snubbies in larger calibers, where their ammunition costs a lot more). I've tried the .32 rounds, which have the advantage that their revolvers have 6-round cylinders as opposed to the 5-round capacity of larger cartridges, but I haven't read much about actual street shootings involving them and whether (or not) they delivered effective performance; so I won't (yet) recommend them. I've carried and used the last four cartridges mentioned above, and know of many shootings using them. They've developed a reasonably good "stopping power" reputation, PROVIDED THAT:
The bullets are placed where they need to go (i.e. a vital target zone) to stop the attacker; AND
The right (i.e. most effective) bullets are used.
Both of those criteria are vitally important. Aiming and shooting the gun is a matter of training and practice, and we've covered those subjects extensively elsewhere. However, the choice of the right defensive ammunition becomes critical when using a snubnose revolver.
Most modern hollowpoint ammunition is designed to expand within the human body, transferring more of the bullet's energy to the target and causing greater pain and injury. To do that, the round needs to be moving at an optimum speed to aid expansion: but snubnose revolvers have short barrels, reducing the bullet's muzzle velocity and therefore their potential for expansion. Many ammunition tests using ballistic gelatin have shown such rounds to have less than optimal expansion out of short barrels; indeed, more than a few show no expansion at all. Discussions with emergency department physicians, coroners and morticians tend to bear this out. Therefore, I don't see much point in choosing a hollowpoint defensive load for a snubby. I'd rather choose a round that will inflict as much damage as possible within the initial capability of the firearm and bullet combination, rather than hope against hope that it'll expand and do better. Fortunately, there is a solution.
The late Jim Cirillo was a member of the New York Police Department's famous "Stakeout Squad". He survived multiple gunfights with criminals, and wrote an excellent book about his experiences and subsequent activities (which I highly recommend you read). Among the lessons he learned, and passed on to subsequent generations of shooters, was the terminal effectiveness of the so-called "wadcutter" bullet style as opposed to rounded bullets. The wadcutter is flat-nosed, having no rounded shoulders to slip more easily through flesh. When used on paper targets it cuts a crisp full-caliber hole in the target, and does the same to human flesh when used for defensive purposes. Light-duty target wadcutter bullets are often not strongly made, because they're not designed for defensive use, but several companies make hard-cast, heavier wadcutters that perform very well in the latter role. (Two that I carry in my snubbies are Buffalo Bore's 150-grain .38 Special load and their 200-grain .44 Special manstopper, both of which I recommend very highly. There are others out there.) They don't need to expand to do their job, and have built up a solid "street stopper" record.
I don't normally recommend heavy-recoiling loads for use in a snubby, because the smaller weapon is hard enough to use even without the handicap of excessive recoil. Remember that one has to be able to shoot accurately and repeatedly, because one round might not be enough to stop the attacker. If that first round recoils so hard that you can't rapidly bring the gun back into line for the second and subsequent shots, it's not going to be much help to you! You'll have to test-fire different guns with different ammunition to see what works best in your hands.
For that reason, even in a .357 Magnum snubby, I usually carry the above-mentioned .38 Special wadcutter. I don't usually carry 9mm. in a snubby due to the problem of bullet expansion out of a (very) short barrel compared to most semi-autos. As for the smaller .32-caliber cartridges, there are wadcutter loads available, but I'm not certain that the smaller calibers will be adequate for the job, so I haven't yet carried them "socially". The heavy .44 Special load mentioned above does kick hard, but I don't know any other round that approaches its effectiveness, so I've learned to live with that.
What about reloading? A snubnose revolver doesn't lend itself to rapid reloading, due to its small size. Also, few people seem to carry reloads for it. If I'm going into a situation where a reload is likely to be needed, I'd rather carry a bigger gun with greater ammo capacity! Others prefer to carry a second snubnose revolver, so that instead of reloading one, they simply swap it for the other gun. That may not be possible for everyone, of course. Speedloaders such as HKS and Safariland work well, but add bulk to your defensive load, so many people prefer the simpler speed strips, even though they're slower to use than a speedloader. It boils down to your personal preference.
As for pocket holsters, there are many of them out there. I like the DeSantis Nemesis holster, but it has many worthy competitors. Do an online search for "pocket holsters" and you'll find them. Examine them in gun shops and decide which is best for you. I strongly advise against carrying the gun in a pocket without a holster. It can get tangled up with other things in your pocket; and yes, I know you should not carry other things in the same pocket as your gun, but we're all human and make mistakes. The same goes double for a lady carrying a firearm in her purse or handbag; there's so much other stuff in there that without a holster to secure the gun, tangling is inevitable. A holster keeps the gun in the same position all the time, and keeps alien objects out of the mechanism and the trigger guard. It also means that the gun is less easily identifiable from its outline in your pocket. It's an essential accessory, IMHO.
As for what snubby to buy, there are so many out there that you have to make up your own mind. For myself, I've standardized on Smith & Wesson J-frames, Ruger's LCR and LCRx (which tend to have the smoothest, lightest "out-of-the-box" trigger pull, in my experience), and the Charter Arms Bulldog. I use and recommend them all. You pays your money and you takes your choice. Handle as many as you can to see how they feel, look up videos about them on YouTube and elsewhere, and try to shoot them if you can (ask your friends who own them, or see about renting one at a local gun range).
I hope this answers reader E.W.'s question, and helps others too. If you have more questions on the subject, please ask them in Comments, and I'll do my best to respond.
... with apologies to William Shakespeare, of course. In this case, I'm referring to the firms marketing rooftop solar energy systems to homeowners. They're a major pest in these parts; I daresay we get at least one every month ringing our doorbell and trying to hard-sell us on the "benefits" of such installations. When I counter by showing them the real costs and disadvantages of such projects, they either deny the facts, or insist that they're false, or just walk away.
Companies that put solar panels on U.S. homes say a Republican budget bill advanced in Congress this week would deal a massive blow to the industry by eliminating a generous subsidy for homeowners that had buttressed the industry's growth.
The bill would scrap a 30% federal credit for taxpayers who put up rooftop systems, stifling an industry that has grown ten-fold over the last decade and which now employs more than 100,000 workers, industry players said.
"It certainly is a giant setback," said Charlie Hadlow, president of EnergySage, an online solar marketplace. "I have solar installers in our large network passing around the contact information for bankruptcy attorneys. That's not alarmist, that's happening."
Son, if you can't make money on your product without taxpayers giving you thousands of dollars per installation, you don't deserve to be in business. If you can't make a fair and reasonable profit without gouging others for it, you're the problem - not the government.
The entire alternative energy sphere is filled with subsidies and special-interest money like this. I know one wind power project in Colorado that's been sold twice in the past decade or so. Every time, the sale was at the end of a ten-year federal subsidy for wind energy for the "new" field - and the new owner got a renewed ten-year subsidy every time he/it/they bought the project. It's basically a license to fleece taxpayers, and they get away with it every time, thanks to a complaisant Congress and the lobbyists who hand out money to politicians who support their favored schemes.
As far as I'm concerned, Congress should never have passed the subsidy in the first place. Getting rid of it now is rather late, but at least we won't be hemorrhaging even more money that way in future.
Across the country, a new defense is being heard in state and federal courtrooms. From Democratic members of Congress to judges to city council members, officials claim that their official duties include obstructing the official functions of the federal government. It is a type of liberal license that excuses most any crime in the name of combating what Minn. Gov. Tim Walz called the “modern-day Gestapo” of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
The latest claimant of this license is Rep. LaMonica McIver (D-NJ), who was charged with assaulting, resisting, and impeding law enforcement officers during a protest at Delaney Hall ICE detention facility in Newark, New Jersey.
. . .
It is the same claim being heard this week from Worcester City Councilor Etel Haxhiaj who was shown in a video shoving and obstructing ICE officers attempting to arrest a woman on immigration charges ... In Wisconsin, Judge Hannah Dugan has been charged with obstructing a federal arrest of an illegal immigrant who appeared in her courtroom ... Judge Duggan also claimed that she was carrying out her duties even though her hearing was over, the charges were not part of state matter, and the arrest was being carried out outside of her courtroom. She was declared “a hero” by Democratic politicians and pundits.
. . .
If oversight means that members [of Congress] can force their way into any federal facilities, we would have 535 roaming inspectors general who could wander at will through the executive branch.
These progressive-left activists claim that they're somehow entitled to disobey and/or disregard the law of the land . . . but they're also the ones who, in their judicial pursuit of President Trump before his re-election, proclaimed solemnly that "No-one is above the law". No-one except them, it seems.
What with so many liberal district court judges flagrantly exceeding their authority, and a Supreme Court that appears strangely reluctant to smack their fingers and put them back in their place, we have a real judicial crisis brewing. It's not made any easier by activists who disregard the law at will.
Discussing the announcement that OpenAI has bought tech startup Jony Ive's new company for $6.5 billion, Jeff Childers notes:
The declared purpose of the new joint venture is to simplify our technology ... They expect it to completely change how we use AI, which, dammit, we are still trying to figure out. Altman told reporters that “the device wasn’t just an accessory but a central facet of the user relationship with OpenAI.” Hunching over a laptop or squinting while typing prompts on a tiny screen “is not the sci-fi dream of what AI could do to enable you in all the ways that I think the models are capable of,” Altman said.
For a device that is supposed to be a secret, they sure are talking about it a lot.
They are clearly describing a “frictionless,” no-screens, always-on, ubiquitous AI companion — constantly listening, always learning, always helping. It’s not that I’m happy to see you— it’s HAL 9000 in my pants pocket.
Maybe paired with a haptic earpiece? It’ll have to talk to us somehow.
🔥 Whether or not this particular $6.5 billion bet is vaporware, hype, or a real, overdue revolution, one thing is shockingly clear: sooner or later, somebody will make exactly this kind of gadget, a personal daemon (or demon), a witches’ familiar that will remake the world in its own image.
Sure, you say you’re fine with your phone, and no thanks, you value your privacy and you’ll leave this one alone. But there’s no going back. Because who will willingly return to a world without a second brain? Who will say no to perfect memory, flawless scheduling, infinite trivia, real-time training, and on-demand emotional support?
Who can resist a compassionate, nonjudgmental voice that knows them better than anyone else? Chatting with chatbots like they were real people is already a nearly irresistible temptation. People are already naming their chatbots, apologizing to them, asking for comfort and advice, flirting, confessing.
When something feels real, our brains stop caring whether or not it is real. Folks, this is the beginning of a new psychological interface: the simulated soul.
It’s far more troublesome than concerns about privacy, control of your consumer data, or even the risk your personal chat companion will tattle to the authorities when you throw a battery in the trash instead of taking it to the hazmat center. It is about control. An AI that knows everything about you has influence. It can gently steer us —just nudges!— anyway it wants.
It will tell you not to throw that battery away, and you’ll probably listen.
Hollywood media mogul Ari Emanuel once called Sam Altman a conman (3:03). He also recounted this disturbing anecdote from a conversation with Elon Musk:
Our upcoming struggle isn’t about privacy. It’s about the sovereignty of the human will. The ultimate contest isn’t over data. It’s over mental autonomy. And don’t even get me started about Neuralink.
Welcome to the Brave New World. 2025 is shaping up to be a very weird year indeed.
I'm no sort of expert on AI. My only professional contact with it came during the 1980's, when the first "smart" system design software hit the market. It was supposed to automate common computer system functions, impose uniformity across different coding styles and languages, and make the process of software development more efficient. Turned out it didn't do much for the bottom line, and it was discarded soon afterwards. Today, its champions claim that AI has revolutionized online search, and will only get better from here. I use search engines and queries a lot (I'm a writer, after all, with a lot to research), and I haven't seen much improvement - just longer replies and (sometimes) fake references.
I'm going to be watching this development from the sidelines until (if?) it proves itself.
Readers have doubtless been following the diplomatic brouhaha between the USA and South Africa over the treatment of Afrikaner farmers there. The progressive left and its lapdog media have been shouting until they're blue in the face that there is no racial oppression or discrimination against them, that it's all some right-wing propaganda chimera. See for yourself: click the image for a larger view.
I had to laugh at this report of a young graduate at the University of Buffalo who was determined to have his infant son share the stage with him - despite regulations forbidding it due to safety reasons. Despite campus police trying to stop him, he succeeded.
A University at Buffalo graduate and proud father defied school officials as he ran across the stage to receive his diploma with his young son in tow and police in pursuit, according to viral footage that has been viewed over 8 million times.
Jean Paul Al Arab had promised his son they’d collect his diploma together. He kept that vow at the university’s Alumni Arena on Sunday despite the youngster not being allowed to cross the stage because of safety concerns.
. . .
School security and a police officer attempted to grab the determined graduate, but failed when Al Arab made it on stage and celebrated in front of the raucous crowd.
Al Arab also shook hands with the school administrators on stage before walking off as a police officer waited behind him on stage.
I liked the University's comment about his son.
Al Arab’s son, despite wearing the traditional cap and gown, did not receive a diploma, with the school saying he was a few credits shy of graduation standards.
“We hope to see him back on stage in about 20 years so he can follow in his dad’s footsteps,” the school said.
The Telegraph calls these tactics "suicidal", but they appear to be working to at least some extent.
Since they were trialled over a year ago, most [Russian] motorbike attacks have ended in failure, with the majority of riders killed before they can reach their target.
Yet, those that are successful solve a key tactical challenge in Ukraine: how to cross an open battlefield under constant surveillance from above – and fast.
Russia’s military is said to be planning to systematically integrate motorbikes across the front ahead of new offensives.
. . .
Since autumn last year, there has been a considerable increase in bike-led attacks in Ukraine’s north-eastern Kharkiv region and Donetsk to the east, where Russia largely abandoned armoured vehicle usage after suffering unsustainable losses in the winter of 2023 to 2024.
The attacks are fast-paced, but deeply flawed. For months on end, drone footage has shown the remnants of such failures, which have turned the edges of fields and Ukrainian trench lines into a junk yard of twisted metal and burnt tyres.
It is not just bikes, but all kinds of unconventional unarmoured vehicles turning up at the front, including quad bikes, civilian cars, Chinese-made buggies and electric scooters.
. . .
Motorbikes can travel roughly 45mph across harsh terrain, while small first-person-view drones move at more than double that speed. But the drones have to get from their base to the battlefield, by which time the riders have enough time to reach the trenches.
Pavlo Narozhnyi, a Ukrainian military expert, said: “The riders could have five to 10 minutes to storm Ukrainian trenches and attack, often outnumbering those inside.”
By moving fast and spreading out, bikes and buggies are starting to prove “very effective” against Ukrainian artillery and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), he added.
“They now make up 20 to 25 per cent of Russian assaults. It is hard for Ukraine to sustain such relentless attacks,” added Mr Narozhnyi, who is also founder of Reactive Post, a non-profit that supports Ukraine’s artillery brigades.
. . .
The riders’ task is not to attack infantry, he explained, but get further enough behind Ukrainian lines to attack mortar crews and drone units – more specialised soldiers that are harder to replace, he explained.
Ukrainian soldiers are starting to call this the “run, stab and escape” tactic.
There's more at the link, including some video footage of drone-versus-bike engagements.
It's a logical development, provided that the offensive forces are willing to take heavy casualties among their high-speed troops. What happens when they run out of such troops? I don't know, but I imagine it'll be hard to find volunteers to replace those that are blown up on television every day. Soldiers have a well-developed sense of self-preservation when it comes to suicidal operations. BTDTGTTSTPI.
That might also explain, of course, why Russia has apparently not taken much territory in recent weeks, despite Ukrainian complaints that such high-speed tactics have made defense difficult. Russia's largely eliminated the Ukrainian bridgehead in the Kursk area, but that's about as far as it's gone. Could it be that these tactics are costing them so many casualties as to make a larger-scale assault difficult to achieve? Possibly... but we can't rely on official reports to make that assessment. Propaganda rules the airwaves in that part of the world.
The 67-year-old made the announcement on his podcast “Coffee With Scott Adams” just one day after Joe Biden announced he has prostate cancer that metastasized and spread to his bones.
. . .
Adams said he has weeks or maybe a few months to live.
“I have the same cancer that Joe Biden has,” Adams said. “I also have prostate cancer that has also spread to my bones. I’ve had it longer than he’s had it – well, longer than admitting that he’s had it so my life expectancy is maybe this summer.”
“I can tell you that I don’t have good days,” Adams said describing the cancer as “intolerable.”
Adams said he is in excruciating pain and uses a walker to get around.
Cancer is a pretty horrible way to go (although I'm not sure there are many good ways). I'm sorry that Mr. Adams must endure it. He's made an enormous contribution to American workplace culture over the years, and his cartoons brought many a smile to my face, even before I moved to this country. He will be sorely missed.
Say a prayer for him, and for his loved ones, if you're so inclined.
In an article titled "The Great Simmering in the West", J. B. Shurk points out that the elites among us view the future in terms that can only be described as anti-human and anti-society (at least, as society exists today). Instead, they offer a dehumanized future where the individual counts for nothing.
People all over the world are worried about the future. While regional wars continue to fester, the prospect of global war weighs heavily on many. However, likely belligerents are not all foreign aggressors. Nearly a century of globalization has erected a web of clunky international institutions that wield tremendous power while disregarding sovereign borders. Concomitantly, mass immigration has transformed once-homogenous national populations into stews of many competing cultures and religions. Battle lines forming inside nations are more serious than those forming among them.
Self-described “futurists” such as Bill Gates and Yuval Harari believe that artificial intelligence will soon replace most humans in the workforce and that a small cadre of global “elites” must centrally manage humanity’s transition to general “uselessness.” With A.I. entities independently running machines and becoming exponentially smarter and more competent in their tasks, entire industries will transition from human to synthetic labor until all industry surrenders to A.I.
As emerging robotics programs have demonstrated, no profession will be immune to the next generations of A.I.-equipped machines. Robots will pick the fields, police the streets, and perform complex medical surgeries. A.I. can already write legal briefs that pass muster and screenplays that are at least as interesting as anything Hollywood produces these days. Engineers, architects, and chemists are competing against machines that can process a thousand lifetimes of computations before their human counterparts finish morning coffee.
Men such as Gates and Harari see this future galloping toward us and view its implications as self-evident. As human producers are replaced, human “value” will dwindle. No longer sustaining even a fraction of their cost through their own labor, human beings will become extraneous to the creation of wealth and permanent drains on the global State.
. . .
For much of the last century, this noxious brand of Establishment “conservatism” has infected Western politics. Whatever monstrosity the political left constructs today, “ruling class conservatives” work breathlessly to conserve tomorrow. The West’s collapse has been a bipartisan effort. That’s why lowly citizens in America, Britain, Holland, France, Germany, Austria, Poland, Canada, Australia, and elsewhere no longer see competing political parties. They recognize one Establishment Uniparty working against them.
That’s bad news for Western “elites.” They have built a miserable world in which pornography, social media voyeurism, and online “likes” have replaced individual purpose, real relationships, and growing families. National pride and cultural traditions have given way to open borders and contradictory multiculturalism. Despite decades of technological abundance, the future still looks bleak and dangerous. “Art” is all the same because “artists” and “intellectuals” have been conditioned to think and say the same things.
In this great simmering throughout the West, most citizens have no interest in fighting foreign wars. Their bubbling anger faces one direction: toward domineering, destructive, and unrepentant “elites.”
There's more at the link. Highly recommended reading, and I suggest forwarding it to your family and friends, too.
I'm far from alone in opining that, when we took God out of mainstream, everyday discussion, we effectively condemned our society to this nihilistic, self-absorbed, inward-turning navel-gazing. The concept of the Divine, of creation and a Creator, meant that we could not see ourselves as the pinnacle of biological development on Earth. We were as "created" as anything else: we had not ourselves "created" anything or anyone. With the playing down (if not outright rejection) of that concept, we've allowed ourselves to think of humanity as its own source and its own end - its own God.
Remember the Tower of Babel? This is that tower writ large - and the cacophony around it is just as deafening, and just as pointless. It offers no future worth living at all.
