My wife and I are headed to Amarillo, where Alma Boykin has invited me to scare terrify enlighten her class about what Africa is really like, versus what their "woke" textbook portrays. Needless to say, the latter bears little or no relationship to reality!
I'll be offline until Monday morning. Amuse yourselves with the bloggers in my sidebar.
Peter
Last Friday I mentioned that my blog post that day would be abbreviated due to a medical appointment. I duly attended it, and it accomplished what I wanted. I asked about alternative neurosurgical practices, since I'm not happy with the one I've been using, and the doctor referred me to another neurosurgeon in Dallas for further investigation. (It seems the problem is to decide precisely what surgery I need: to fuse two or three more vertebrae in addition to the existing pair, or to remove the latter and encase my entire lumbar spine in a sort of metal cage to stabilize the whole area. There appears to be serious disagreement over which approach would work best, so I've asked for a second opinion from a more professional professional, if you know what I mean.)
So far, so good . . . but then I called the new doctor's office to set up the appointment. The conversation went something like this.
Me: I've been referred to Dr. X for further investigation of my spine injury. My medical insurance is XYZ, and you should have been sent my medical history, copies of X-rays and myelograms, and all that stuff.
Doctor's nurse: Let me check . . . Yes, we have those. You'll have to get another myelogram, though, because the previous one was done more than six months ago. Dr. X won't see you until the new results are available.
Me: Er . . . this is a problem. A myelogram is a very expensive and complex procedure. I can't just ask for it as a private patient: I have to be referred for it by a doctor. However, if Dr. X won't see me, he can't issue the referral; and my local general practitioner certainly can't do so, because it's a specialist procedure. I can't ask for a referral from my previous neurosurgeons, because I'm moving on from them. What now?
Doctor's nurse: I'm afraid that's Dr. X's protocol. He won't see you without an updated myelogram.
Me: Well, his protocol has just run headlong into medical bureaucrats, and I'm pretty sure they're going to win. You're asking me to do the impossible.
Doctor's nurse: I'm sorry, but my hands are tied. You're going to have to find some other way to get that myelogram.
Me: Hangs up, bites tongue, bangs head against brick wall, etc.
I checked with my general practitioner, and sure enough, they can't refer me for a myelogram because it's a specialist procedure, outside their area of competence. The neurosurgery practice that ordered the previous myelogram has no good reason to order another one. After all, I'm going to see one of their competitors for a second opinion, so they'll expect the new doctor to prescribe whatever tests he thinks are necessary. They're not going to do it for him.
"Laugh!", they said. "Things could be worse!" So I did. And they were.
Oh, well. This, too, shall pass . . . I just need the administrative equivalent of an enema for the bureaucrats, to make sure it does!
Peter
First, an article in American Intelligence addresses artificial intelligence in the agricultural sector. (American Intelligence provides very few details about itself or those behind it. I did a search using Supergrok, which provided these details, if you're interested.)
America cannot lead the AI farming revolution while federal policy keeps imported labor cheaper than machines
Every agricultural economy has a legacy. The question is which part is being preserved. The fertile soil is a legacy. The family farms are a legacy. The harvest is a legacy. So is the labor model that brings it in. And across American agriculture, that model has for forty years depended heavily on foreign labor, illegal hiring, and a political class determined not to disturb either.
When a city brochure pairs “legacy” with AI robotics in the same breath, it is not just describing the future. It is making a quiet promise: the technology will advance, but the labor model will not.
America is preparing for the AI age everywhere except the place that feeds the country.
. . .
Autonomous tractors already plant, till, and spray without a driver. Computer-vision systems can scout crops plant by plant. Machine-learning models can optimize water, fertilizer, pest control, and yield down to the meter. Robotic harvesters can pick faster, cleaner, and longer than hand crews. Precision irrigation can be guided by satellite analytics. AI-assisted breeding can compress decades of plant selection into months.
The question is no longer whether American agriculture can automate. It is whether Washington will stop subsidizing the cheap labor model that makes automation a losing bet.
America should be leading this revolution. It builds the software, funds the research, trains the engineers, and talks constantly about technological dominance. Yet federal policy still props up an agricultural labor model built on cheap imported labor, illegal hiring, and guestworker expansion. That bargain has kept human labor cheaper than machines, delayed mechanization, and now risks leaving the United States on the sidelines of a revolution it should own.
There's more at the link.
To a technologist, that sounds wonderful. Machine intelligence and labor will take over the agricultural sector, modernizing everything and guaranteeing much greater yields and more efficient utilization of resources. So far, so good . . . but what happens to the many millions of people who earn their living working on farms and in the food industry? When they're replaced in the fields and the food processors, where will they find employment? Almost every other sector of the economy is also paring back on human resources and switching to ever greater automation. How is our economy, our nation, going to cope with the burden of all those thrown out of work by this sea-change?
Furthermore, what will it do to nations that cannot afford to grow their own food even today, but also cannot afford to automate their agriculture? Will there be seeds they can grow, or will even that be absorbed into techno-agriculture? What about the illegal aliens who used to flood across our borders to work on American farms? Now they'll be stuck in their own countries, without work, and possibly without local food either.
I'm not a Luddite. I think automation and technology can serve us well, if properly managed, and hold out great hope for the future. However, we can't embrace them blindly unless we also account for those who will be displaced by them. How are we going to cope with them in our increasingly digital society? How are they going to adapt, particularly if there's no work available for them to earn a living while they and their families adapt?
That dilemma was discussed last year at the Nexus Conference 2025, 'Apocalypse Now: The Revelation of our Time'. It was held under the auspices of the Nexus Institute, which describes its mission like this:
As an independent non-profit foundation, the Nexus Institute brings together the world’s foremost intellectuals, artists, scientists and politicians, and encourages them to discuss the questions that really matter. How are we to live? How can we shape our future? Can we learn from our past? Which values and ideas are important, and why?
From reading its Web site, the Institute seems fairly typically left-wing and progressive, but it does appear to try to provide those with different philosophies with an opportunity to participate in wide-ranging discussions. Here's an excerpt from a panel from last year's conference titled "The Wild West of digital technology in a capitalist system". I don't agree with many of the points raised (unsurprising, from my right-of-center perspective), but I think they present aspects of the problem that are important, and worth examining.
The future of our technological society is far from settled, and is in many cases unsettling to think about. I try to keep informed about all sides of the debate, and the article and video clip above have helped me to do that. I hope you enjoyed them, too.
Peter
I note the following news report.
A South African hotelier is believed to have been eaten by a 15ft crocodile after human remains were found inside the swollen reptile.
The animal was shot from a helicopter and airlifted from the crocodile-infested Komati River in a daring police operation before a post-mortem examination was carried out.
A ring was found inside the belly of the 500kg apex predator and is thought to have belonged to Gabriel Batista, 59.
The businessman was swept away in floodwaters while trying to drive across the Komati River in the north-east of the country a week ago.
Investigators will carry out DNA tests on the bones and flesh found inside the crocodile.
. . .
As well as the body parts, six different types of shoes were found, according to Capt Potgieter.
There's more at the link, including images.
The comments from friends and acquaintances in the USA have been amusing. A surprising number are absolutely horrified that a man who'd just escaped drowning had promptly been eaten by a wild animal. It's almost as if it was unfair, somehow. They weren't comforted by my assurance that in large parts of Africa, that sort of thing happens on an almost daily basis. As for the "six different types of shoes" . . . yeah, I'd say Mr. Batista was far from the only human meal that croc had enjoyed. Local tribespeople were doubtless greatly relieved by the news that it had been caught.
Rural Africa remains a very dark continent, filled with very deadly animals. Actual examples:
I'm very sorry for Mr. Batista, and for his family, of course . . . but that's Africa: and in Africa, the good guys don't always win. It goes with the territory.
Peter
Gathered from around the Internet over the past week. Click any image for a larger view.
I've found that a lot of people know the more "common" songs by Jethro Tull, but most are unaware that there are literally dozens of less-well-known pieces out there. Some are outtakes, some are from concept albums that were never released as such, and some appeared in other channels. Many of them are a lot of fun, and I enjoy listening to them.
Today I'd like to bring you four of Jethro Tull's less-well-known pieces. The first, originally intended for their album "Broadsword and the Beast" but left off the final set, is called "Motoreyes". This recording is from the compilation album "20 Years of Jethro Tull".
Next, here's the theme music from the 1984 Channel 4 television series "Blood Of The British". David Palmer wrote most of the music for the series, but Jethro Tull performed the title song, "Coronach".
From their double CD "Nightcap: The Unreleased Masters 1973-1991", here's "Rosa On The Factory Floor".
And finally, again from their "20 Years of Jethro Tull" compilation, here's one of my favorites: "Part Of The Machine".
Please let me know in Comments if these songs were new to you, and if you'd like more of Jethro Tull's less-well-known music. If so, I'll put up a few more posts like this.
Peter
I have an early appointment with a pain management specialist today, so I haven't been able to put up my usual longer blog post. If I have time later, I may do so.
In the meantime, here are two cartoons from the past week or so that caught my eye and made me laugh. Click either image to be taken to the cartoon's Web page for a larger view.
Wish me luck!
Peter
A little late, perhaps, but worth repeating nonetheless. From Peter Girnus, "a senior coordinating producer for the White House Correspondents' Association Dinner".
I was backstage at the Washington Hilton when the shots were fired.
The first thing I heard was not the gunfire. It was glass.
A champagne flute hit the floor of the International Ballroom at approximately 9:47 PM. Then a second. Then the sound that I have since been told was a 12-gauge shotgun, which from inside the ballroom sounded like a heavy door slamming in a parking garage. Then the Secret Service moved. They moved the President, the Vice President, the First Lady through the east corridor in under ninety seconds, which is protocol, which is practiced, which is the one part of the evening that worked exactly as it was designed.
Everything else was improvised.
I know this because I ordered the wine. 94 tables. Two bottles per table. 188 bottles of a Willamette Valley pinot noir that the Association selected in February after a tasting committee spent three meetings debating between Oregon and Burgundy. Oregon won. The budget was $14,200. I signed the invoice. I can tell you the vintage. I can tell you the distributor. I can tell you the per-bottle cost because I negotiated it down from $89 to $76.
What I cannot tell you is how 147 of those bottles left the building during an active shooter evacuation.
I can tell you what I saw. A correspondent from a network I will not name picked up two bottles on her way to the east exit. Full bottles. One in each hand. She was wearing heels and she did not spill. A man in a tuxedo tucked one inside his jacket the way you'd shoplift a paperback at an airport bookstore. A woman picked up a bottle, looked at the label, put it back, and took a different one.
She checked the vintage. During an evacuation. That's editorial judgment under pressure.
. . .
2,600 guests were directed to the exits by Secret Service agents, one of whom had just taken a shotgun round in his ballistic vest and walked to the ambulance on his own feet.
The agent's vest costs approximately $800. The wine that left the building was worth $11,172 at Association cost. At restaurant markup, roughly $29,000. The guests saved more in wine than the vest that saved the agent.
That's priority.
. . .
I have produced eleven of these dinners ... I have never, in eleven years, seen a guest leave a $76 bottle on the table during an evacuation. I have also never seen a guest check the label first. Both observations are consistent. The bottle is worth taking. The evacuation is worth surviving. The instinct is to do both simultaneously.
188 bottles placed. 41 recovered. 147 unaccounted for. One agent shot. Zero guests injured. Zero bottles broken.
A free press for a free people. The press is free. The wine was $76 a bottle. They took it anyway.
There's more at the link.
Mr. Girnus' post on X (formerly Twitter) has so far attracted over 4,000 replies and comments. Click over there to read them if you're interested. I particularly liked his reply to one comment:
They took the wine at a pace that suggested familiarity with hotel evacuation corridors. That's not elite behavior. That's logistics under pressure. I've seen worse at a Marriott fire alarm in Phoenix.
Word!
Needless to say, my opinion of most alleged journalists has not been improved by this fiasco . . .
Peter
I haven't posted much by Peter Zeihan in recent months, because much of his work has disappeared behind a paywall. I know many readers disagree with his perspective on geopolitics and economics, but I think he brings out a demographic emphasis that many other analysts lack.
In this video interview, about an hour and twenty minutes long, he postulates that many things that we've taken for granted, or assumed to be true, are not certain any longer. Change is accelerating, and our perspectives need to take that into account. If you want to look for specific issues, this is how the video breaks down:
0:00 Is China Really on the Brink?
6:19 Has China Been Lying About Their Data?
11:08 Can AI Save Us From Population Decline?
17:21 Can We Survive Demographic Collapse?
25:19 How Politics is Impacting Population Data
34:23 The Future of Global Energy
41:03 Are Electric Vehicles Truly Sustainable?
51:24 Where the Green Movement is Really Headed
01:03:40 How Technology is Impacting Modern Warfare
01:08:40 Could China Ignite the Next Global Conflict?
01:15:09 The Power Alliances Reshaping the World
01:18:50 Where to Find Peter
The video loaded correctly when I tested this before publishing this post. If it doesn't (as sometimes happens), you can find it on YouTube. Highly recommended - in particular, the second segment mentioned above.
Do you agree with his points? If you don't, where do you think he's going wrong? Let us know in Comments, and let's discuss.
Peter
There's tremendous disagreement right now over whether or not we're careering towards an economic cliff, and about to fall over the edge. Much of the evidence offered is convincing, but much is duplicitous propaganda designed to stampede us into precipitous action before we've had a chance to think things through. If anyone says to you, "This is how it's going to go down! Guaranteed!", I suggest you ask them what they're selling, because they're out to convince you to buy it.
Rather than advance my own views on our and the world's economy (which are and have for some years been negative, as regular readers will know, but for very different reasons than the Iran war alone), here are a few articles that caught my eye over recent weeks. I suggest you read each of them, and make up your own minds. I've included a few key paragraphs beneath each link.
1. We’re on the brink of a global recession, but it’s not Iran we need to worry about
With the Strait of Hormuz impassable, a widespread inflation spike is looming, which would seriously damage the global economy.
Along with a fifth of the world’s oil and gas supplies, this dual Iran-US blockade also prevents a third of the world’s seaborne fertiliser feedstocks from reaching global markets.
That points to lower crop yields this summer – a serious energy-price spike with a food-price surge too.
A third of global helium supplies – which is is vital when making semiconductors – pass through the strait. Those chips, comparable in strategic terms to oil, enable trillions of dollars of downstream economic activity – from manufacturing to energy structures, wireless and computer data storage and defence.
On top of all that, multiple sovereign bond crises are brewing across the G7, as Western nations struggle with high fiscal deficits, tightening demographics and big government, while failing to constrain runaway welfare spending.
2. U.S. Wheat Futs Hit Two-Year High As Wall Street Sounds Alarm Over Drought Shock
Hard red winter wheat climbed to a two-year high by the end of the week, as our coverage of the drought shock now hitting America's Breadbasket raises serious alarm bells on commodity desks.
The concern is not just reduced crop yields and quality. It is colliding with fertilizer shortages and elevated diesel prices, creating a broader inflationary transmission channel that could work its way through the food supply and translate into higher supermarket prices down the road.
3. I Am Calling It Now: THE EVENT Has Happened
Michael Yon has spoken of "flash-to-bang"—that delay between seeing a distant explosion and feeling/hearing its shockwave. I witnessed this firsthand in Iraq. Out on the highway in front of COB Speicher, a massive car bomb detonated miles away. I saw the giant mushroom cloud rise first—a silent, horrifying spectacle—before the low, guttural bass thump finally rolled in. You feel it in your chest as much as hear it. The bigger the blast, the longer the delay when you're observing from afar.
That same principle applies here with the Strait of Hormuz. The "flash"—the initial explosions, ship attacks, blockades, and seizures—has already lit up the horizon. The "bang"—the full economic, energetic, and societal shockwave—is still traveling toward us. It will hit hardest in the months ahead as fuel shortages cascade into transportation failures, fertilizer disruptions, higher food prices, and broader supply chain collapses. Global food systems are already under pressure, and this energy crunch could tip vulnerable regions into outright crisis.
I know extremely hard times lie ahead for millions. In places like the Philippines, the challenges will be especially brutal—not just because of external shocks, but because of deep cultural and societal realities on the ground.
4. The Economic Destruction of Trump’s War Goes Far Beyond High Gas Prices
A lot of economic pain has already been locked in by this war. But to really understand it, it’s necessary to keep a few important economic truths at the front of our minds.
First is the fact that the entire purpose of the economy is to produce goods and services that consumers value enough to pay for. All of the production happening anywhere in the economy is geared towards that end ... Every consumer good can be viewed as the end of a long chain of production stretching all the way back to the cultivation of raw materials like iron or timber, or the creation of basic components like resins or plastics. Economists call those basic capital goods at the beginning of the chain higher order goods.
. . .
And second, production takes time. That’s true for the production of any given good, but it’s especially true if we look across that entire chain of production. The higher order goods that are currently being produced won’t help bring about finished consumer products until months or even years down the road.
All of this is important to understand and keep in mind because the war with Iran is, so far, primarily impacting the production of higher order goods. And it goes far beyond oil.
And, to show how left-wing "thinkers" (you should pardon the expression) are relating economic issues to their own pet ideological hobby-horses, here's what a New York Times opinion columnist had to say about older people and the economy. The original is behind a paywall, so the link goes to an archived copy.
Older Americans Are Hoarding America’s Potential
It is not ageist to ask whether older people should be required to give more to younger Americans and national priorities — it is critical to the future of our democracy and society. America needs to confront gerontocracy before the system collapses under the weight of its inequality and injustice.
Older Americans deserve a say over the future even when they might not live to see it. But they do not deserve the stranglehold over it they currently enjoy through overrepresentation in elections, which produces too many regressive policies and too many seniors in the highest offices.
Older Americans are owed the care that everyone else funds. Indeed, they should get more of it than they get now — including funding for long-term care at home or in nursing homes. But they also need incentives to give up accumulated housing, jobs and wealth.
Considering that I'm now numbered among "older Americans", that does not give me warm fuzzy feelings about my economic future under a progressive left government in this country, should one come to pass. The above screed sounds more to me like "We're young! We don't want to wait our turn! Give us the keys to the kingdom right now! And while you're handing them over, give us all your money as well!" Greedy, much?
I'll give the last word to the inimitable Karl Denninger.
The real problem for ordinary people in the economy is that anything that is unsustainable over a sufficient amount of time will blow up in your face. But when will it blow up? That's a more difficult problem. For example we know that housing is largely locked up in a large part of the country -- indeed, most of it. In those places where it sort-of-isn't there are other serious problems including property tax and insurance concerns that might as well have it locked up from a standpoint of actual affordability. Add to this that many formerly thought of as "safe" professions which earn a nice wage, including computer science and medical, are rapidly being destroyed in terms of forward earnings capacity by both AI and foreign worker imports. There are plenty of stories already of people living quite high on the hog having accumulated a lifestyle with mandatory monthly spend commensurate with $250,000 wages suddenly being laid off and finding no replacement for that wage at even half what they formerly made. If you've managed to get yourself into a leveraged position with a forward requirement for such earnings and they disappear you're in very serious trouble indeed.
True dat.
Peter
Gathered from around the Internet over the past week. Click any image for a larger view.
I'm not generally a fan of jazz and blues music; it's a uniquely American music genre, and my exposure to it growing up and as a young man was minuscule. Nevertheless, I've learned to enjoy some performers and their music. The subject of this morning's post, Justin Johnson, was highlighted by fellow blogger Zendo Deb a couple of months ago. I hadn't heard of him before, but it seems he's very well-known, with a guitar instruction Web page, his own YouTube channel, and many other points of contact.
I selected three of his pieces for this morning's post. You'll find many more online. Let's start with "Swamp Groove".
Next, a more rock music sound in "Six Of One".
And finally, some excellent slide guitar work in "Low Country Slide".
He also makes (and sells) a 3-string shovel guitar, and has videos showing him playing a cigar box guitar, one made from an ammo can, and more. He's obviously a tremendously versatile and very skilled musician. I'm sorry I hadn't heard of him before Zendo Deb's Blog post, but I'll be making up for lost time!
Peter
I was both sympathetic and very annoyed to read a woman's account of how she set about demonstrating that her job was meaningless.
It was around then, as the company went through various rounds of restructuring, that I developed a nagging suspicion that my role was irrelevant and futile ... No one – my new manager included – really knew what my role was meant to entail. I looked at what I was doing day to day, hour to hour, and looked at what everyone else was doing, and it all started to feel like a convoluted farce.
So, I decided to conduct an experiment. Out of protest, I resolved to stop working and to see how long it would be before anyone noticed.
. . .
This was in the era before working from home, so I knew I’d have to go to my office each day and at least appear to be working.
I quickly realised, though, that there is no greater ruse in a modern office than the spreadsheet.
People walk past, see all that small text and columns, and just assume you’re working. What was I actually doing? Meticulously planning 10 months of travel: day-by-day itineraries, budgets, where we’d stay, what trains to get, things to see. My now-husband and I had always planned to travel; I was simply using company hours to prepare for it.
Of course this involved a lot of Googling, so I always had a page that looked like work ready, so that I could minimise my travel research quickly. I’d angled my monitor, but I was lucky to be sat in front of a window, away from any footfall, so it was rare that anyone saw my screen.
To leave a paper trail – so that if anyone asked, I could point to tasks I’d completed – I’d send a couple of emails during the week. I’d pad the basic questions about some account or other out with extra thoughts, so that it seemed like I’d considered the subject at length. Sometimes I’d create a document based on whatever was exchanged in the email. Other times, I might even turn the email contents into a PowerPoint presentation. With about 15 minutes of effort, I would have earned my crust.
If I hadn’t done even that, half an hour before my weekly one-to-ones with my manager I would spend 15 minutes knocking up a page of something, typically a presentation with figures I knew he wouldn’t bother to follow-up on. Then I’d deliver my updates in a convincing tone, using the appropriate buzz phrases. “I’m making great progress... the stakeholders are on board…”
My manager would nod: “That all sounds great! Carry on.”
In that way, I did no work for an entire year. The experiment ended not because anyone exposed my idling, but because I finally left.
There's more at the link.
She doesn't appear to have worried at all that it might be unethical to take an honest day's wage for a dis-honest day's work. That was the infuriating part. On the other hand, there was also sympathy for working in such a meaningless, dead-end environment (which I experienced more than once during my years in the business world - not to mention the military). On average, I'd say that the companies and institutions where I worked probably had a good 30% of staff who were basically redundant, hindering the company rather than helping it, soaking up resources that could have been better applied elsewhere.
I remember when Elon Musk took over Twitter. I understand he shed about 80% of its workforce, some through being dismissed, others through encouraging them to leave through buyout offers, and not a few resigning in outrage that the left-wing ethos of the company was being stripped away. For a couple of years Twitter was in financial difficulties, but it bounced right back, and is currently profitable - but still a much smaller company in terms of headcount. What were those people doing who were removed? How could Twitter have justified keeping them on the payroll when clearly it could have functioned - and is now functioning - just fine without them?
I suppose part of the problem is that too much of one's corporate status is dependent on how many people and/or functions report to you. The more people a given level of management supervises, the more senior it's deemed to be, and the greater the rewards and incentives offered to its manager(s) to hire even more and expand even further. Very few companies seem to value managers who reduce headcount and economize on corporate resources.
On the other hand, small companies seem much more focused on their purpose. Every employee has to contribute measurably to their success, financially or otherwise. If someone's a freeloader, he or she will be identified much more quickly as such, and probably shown the door within a matter of weeks. That's as it should be. A small company doesn't have the accumulated resources to carry unnecessary bodies with it. It has to be lean, mean and economical, because its proprietor's income is utterly dependent on himself and his small group of workers. Any loss of focus will cost money out of his pocket - a very good incentive to keep a tight rein on outflows.
I guess there are too many companies who end up with employees like the author above, but tolerate them for all the wrong reasons. We really need to have concrete, specific ways to evaluate how every job contributes to the mission of the company/department/etc. If your output can't be measured, how do you know you're doing something worthwhile? And how do you know that about those who work for you?
Peter
Late last month, I wrote about Kat Ainsworth Stevens.
She's a friend and occasional member of the North Texas Troublemakers, and an active gun writer - you've probably read articles by her if you read gun mags or several well-known Internet sites. When last I wrote about her, she was facing imminent surgery for breast cancer, and since she's a free-lancer, she doesn't have medical insurance to help.
She's had her surgery, which was massive - double mastectomy, every lymph gland in sight, all that sort of thing. She's recovering from it at present, and is facing both radiation and chemotherapy to knock down any remaining traces of the cancer. To make matters worse, her four-year-old son developed some sort of intestinal disorder that required him to be hospitalized as well: but Kat can't visit him much, because her wounds are still draining and the risk of infection is simply too great. That's a very tough row to hoe.
Kat's received her first bill from the hospital. It's well into the five-figure bracket, and it won't be the last, either, what with chemical and radiological therapy still to come. Her friends have therefore organized a raffle for a Foxtrot Mike Ranch Rifle (description at link).
The one on offer in the raffle has been upgraded even further, making it a very desirable firearm. Click the link to see it in more detail, with more and larger images, and enter for the raffle. Any donation up to $100, no matter how small, gets one ticket, and multiple tickets are given for larger donations - details at the link.
Kat's good people, and deserves our help. Please donate whatever you can afford, either to the raffle, or (if you prefer) to the original GiveSendGo fundraiser, which is still in operation.
Thanks, friends.
Peter
I'm a relative lightweight in the "prepping" world. I have emergency food, water and other supplies to keep my wife and myself alive for a few months in a disaster situation, and (hopefully) enough to share with friends for at least the short term; but that's based on "bugging in", staying in our home and not venturing far unless and until it's safe to do so. We don't have a "bug out" location, or remotely stored supplies, or anything like that - it's simply unaffordable for us.
Nevertheless, I'm often surprised to hear from people who are very much in our situation that they have these grand plans to "bug out" to the sticks, establish a survival homestead from scratch, grow their own food, herd a few cows, steal a travel trailer from somewhere as a place to live, and so on. Frankly, I think they have no idea at all of just how much effort will be involved in making that plan work.
Eaton Rapids Joe has put up a couple of recent blog posts in which he lays out precisely what skills and resources are needed (and vitally important) if one is to homestead successfully. In the first article, "A man has to know his limitations", he looks at all the skills needed to successfully homestead (some required all the time, others for specific situations). In the second, "Why 'Russian' Dachas all look alike", he examines what successful country farms have in the way of facilities and equipment, and also what they don't have (because it's either way too expensive, or too resource-heavy, or unnecessary). Both articles, and both of the lists he provides, are well worth reading. If, after reading them, anyone still thinks it'll be easy to set up an emergency homestead . . . well, you're probably going to learn the hard way how wrong you are!
... if you need to resort to your hideaway stash becase you can’t get to your primary gear, then its safe to assume that your life has just taken a turn for the spectacularly ungood, agreed? So, in that time of (literally) existential crisis doesn’t it seem to make sense that you would want the best gear you can have?
It does, indeed, make sense. That's a lesson I learned the hard way in Africa over many years. If you know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that Mother Nature is a stone cold bitch who's out to kill you, wouldn't you want the best gear you can get in your emergency stash, to help you withstand her advances? Quality can save your life. Economy can kill you. That applies to all our emergency preps, not just firearms.
(On a related subject, Commander Zero recently bought some land in the back country of Montana, and is beginning to set it up as a private retreat. He recently blogged about his first weekend excursion to begin preparing it for use. So many things went wrong that one can almost feel his pain, but he's not afraid to discuss all the mistakes he made, and what he's learned from the experience that he'll apply in future visits. A very useful discussion, and a very useful reality check for the rest of us.)
Preparation isn't just physical. One's outlook on everyday living - and what it costs - is a foundational element. SNAFU links to a social media comment from a teacher who's complaining that she can't come out on $7,500 net income per month - while spending over $1,500 on a vehicle payment, and over $3,000 on rent! Some commenters at his site question whether the original post is truthful, because the payments seem extraordinarily high, but he makes the very valid point that "Financial Education needs to be a REQUIRED course in school (along with NOT chasing luxury items to impress people that don't give a damn)".
On that subject, here's some brutally frank (and very truthful) advice from the TV series House Of Cards. Kevin Spacey plays Frank Underwood, a highly immoral yet realistic politician.
Yes, that is brutal advice: but in this world of easy-fulfilment dreams, hire purchase, leasing, and all the other debt instruments out there, it remains true. If you're in debt, you're a financial slave to those who own your debt, and most of them will be utterly ruthless in coming after you to get what they're owed. Being prepared for emergencies is as much about financial preparation as any other type of preparedness: and one of the first and most fundamental steps in financial preparation is to get out of debt as far as possible. As Spacey's character says, "The moment you get in debt, you're enslaving yourself until you buy back your freedom with interest." Believe it. It's true.
(Sometimes, of course, we can't afford not to go into debt. We had to replace my wife's car in early 2022, because her old one had been driven into the ground until it was no longer viable. The impact of COVID-19 had led to a drastic shortage of all types of vehicles, partly due to the reduction in dealer inventory, partly due to the shortage of used vehicles thanks to President Obama's "Cash For Clunkers" scheme, which scrapped tens of thousands of otherwise worthwhile cars. We ended up buying a new car, and paying above the manufacturer's MSRP, because nothing else worthwhile was available to us: and, to finance that very expensive purchase, we took out a loan. It was a loan neither of us wanted, but under the circumstances, it was necessary. Under such circumstances, one does what one must. We bought an entry-level model without all the luxury features, and that helped lower the price and keep payments down.)
All of the above articles are food for thought.
Peter
Inflation hits the contraceptive market! Reuters reports:
Malaysia's Karex Bhd, the world's top condom producer, plans to raise prices by 20% to 30% and possibly further if supply chain disruptions drag on due to the Iran war, its chief executive said on Tuesday.
Karex is also seeing a surge in condom demand as rising freight costs and shipping delays have left many of its customers with lower stockpiles than usual, CEO Goh Miah Kiat told Reuters in an interview.
"The situation is definitely very fragile, prices are expensive... We have no choice but to transfer the costs right now to the customers," Goh said.
There's more at the link.
Well, "inflation" sort of goes with the territory of condoms, so to speak, so for prices to match reality is logical, I suppose. The same might be said for "dragging on". However, regarding the "very fragile" situation, I daresay that's inimical to the product!
Sometimes the jokes almost write themselves . . .
Peter
I hadn't realized how endemic the gender apocalypse had become in the health care (?) industry until I read this article.
In Minton v. Dignity Health, Evan Minton, who was born female but masqueraded as a male, was scheduled by her doctor for a hysterectomy at Mercy San Juan Medical Center, a Catholic hospital near Sacramento, in August 2016. Two days before the procedure, the doctor informed the hospital that she was transgender, and the hospital canceled the surgery. The hospital’s position was that the surgery was elective, part of a “transition,” and that, as a Catholic hospital, they could not participate in sex change operations.
The ACLU filed suit under California’s Unruh Civil Rights Act. The California Court of Appeals ruled in 2019 that Minton had standing to proceed, and in 2021, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear Dignity Health’s appeal, leaving that ruling intact.
In the end, the San Francisco County Superior Court entered the following judgment: “It is adjudged that plaintiff Minton, Evan take nothing from defendant Dignity Health dba Mercy San Juan Medical Center.” Minton lost. She was awarded nothing.
In Hammons v. University of Maryland St. Joseph Medical Center, the ruling went the other way when a federal court subsequently ruled that the hospital’s refusal to perform a hysterectomy on a woman who dressed as a man violated the Affordable Care Act.
. . .
Jessica Simpson, a Canadian transgender activist who retains male genitalia, filed a complaint against a gynecologist who refused to treat her, claiming discrimination. The complaint was filed with the College of Physicians and Surgeons of British Columbia in 2019, though no resolution has been publicly reported.
A report by Advocates for Trans Equality states, “If a transgender woman’s health care provider decides she needs a prostate exam, an insurance company can’t deny it because she is listed as female in her records. If her provider recommends gynecological care, coverage can’t be denied simply because she was identified as male at birth.”
There's more at the link.
Verily, the mind doth boggle. How on earth is an insurance company to assess the likely costs to be incurred by a prospective member if they can't be sure whether he/she is male or female? Women have gynecological expenses that men don't have; men have male-specific illnesses that women don't have. It makes a difference to risks, premiums, etc. For that matter, how about life insurance when life expectancy is affected by biological sex? All other things being equal, women live several years longer than men, and insurance companies take that into account when deciding on the premium for life insurance policies. What if they can't be sure of the biological sex (and hence natural life expectancy) of the person applying for insurance?
I've got a simple proposal. Whenever anyone applies for health insurance, life insurance, or anything else where biological sex makes a difference, insist that they have to undergo a chromosome check. If it comes back XX, they're female, no matter what they say they are. If it comes back XY, they're male, ditto. Only in the vanishingly small number of so-called "intersex" cases (generally accepted by authoritative medical sources as being far less than 1%) would further testing be required. The insurance or medical procedures the individual seeks should be awarded on the basis of this chromosome test. If it's not appropriate for their chromosomal (i.e. biological) sex, they can't have it unless they pay for it out of their own pockets and the provider is willing to provide it. Period (you should pardon the expression). Biologically female? No subsidized prostate or testicular cancer exam for you. Biologically male? No subsidized birth control pills or cervical cancer test for you. Is the examination or procedure you want against the moral or ethical code of the provider? Then you don't get it from them. End of story.
I think that would eliminate most of the legal problems facing the health care industry, exclude a great deal of the political correctness and "wokeness" involved, and save insurers a lot of money into the bargain. What say you, readers?
Peter
Gathered from around the Internet over the past week. Click any image for a larger view.
I'm not particularly sympathetic towards the environmental movement, particularly because so many of their claims have proved to be hyperbole, exaggeration and failed prophecies of doom. Two well-known examples would be the late Paul Ehrlich's "The Population Bomb" and Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth", neither of which has been borne out by events - but both of which are still lauded by environmentalists for promoting awareness of their respective causes.
Nevertheless, I acknowledge there is empirical evidence of some environmentalist's concerns, which can be independently confirmed. One of these is the retreat of the glaciers, which is undoubtedly caused by rising global temperatures. What causes these temperature changes is the subject of fierce debate that is still ongoing, of course. However, I think we can agree that it's a subject worthy of concern and further investigation.
Swiss singer/songwriter To Athena decided to highlight the issue.
Singer To Athena, accompanied by a small ensemble of musicians, staged the performance inside a glacial cave on the Morteratsch glacier in southeastern Switzerland on March 25. The group hiked through the snow before sunrise, instruments in hand, to reach the cave in time for filming. The performance was captured for a music video of her song "Collide," organized in collaboration with Greenpeace Switzerland.
The Morteratsch glacier, located near the resort town of Pontresina in the canton of Graubünden, has been shrinking for decades. Scientists estimate it is retreating by roughly 50 meters (about 164 feet) per year, with meltwater steadily carving tunnels and caverns into the ice from within.
. . .
Swiss glaciologist Giovanni Kappenberger, who was present at the site, said the cave is a stark symbol of accelerating ice loss.
"The more meltwater there is, the more caves form, and the faster the glacier disappears," he said.
Kappenberger added that the cave is unlikely to survive another summer. He noted that the glacier is losing at least 10 meters of ice from above annually, while warm air flowing through in summer simultaneously melts it from below.
There's more at the link.
Here's the video of her performance.
Regardless of our feelings about climate change and/or globular worming, I think we can agree that was a very attractive piece of music, and a great way to highlight a very real problem.
Peter
When I first heard about this a few days ago, I dismissed it as a fake news gimmick. I mean, who would be dumb enough to actually say something like this?
Turns out I was wrong. Jim Treacher reports:
Okay, let me try this: MMIWG2SLGBTQQIA+.
That stands for: Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls, Two-Spirit, Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, Questioning, Intersex, Asexual, and additional identities.
Again, that’s MMIWG2SLGBTQQIA+. I find it helps to go three letters at a time. Like when you’re giving your account number to the customer service guy, who says his name is Steve but he has an Indian accent.
The speaker there is named Leah Gazan. (Oops. There’s a warning sign right there.) Who is a member of [the] Canadian Parliament. She’s in the NDP, whatever that is.
There's more at the link.
Rick Moran adds:
MMIWG2SLGBTQQIA+ is an all-inclusive, all-encompassing, balls-to-the-wall, slam bang, wham-bam-thank-you-ma'am acronym for the totality of the gender bending, sexually "unique" population of Canada.
. . .
Budgeting for each and every identity, preference, and fantasy spirit in the MMIWG2SLGBTQQIA+ community would blow up the Canadian budget.
I fondly recall when sexual preference identities were simple: LGB and maybe T, XYZ, believe you me. It was easy. It was a simpler time then. We didn't have to worry about offending someone by using the wrong pronoun. We didn't have to worry about making some poor, disturbed "T" or "Q" explode in tears from being misgendered.
It would be so much easier (and we'd be less likely to offend) if the MMIWG2SLGBTQQIA+ "community" would just walk around with name tags identifying which gender they are, what their sexual identity is, and most importantly, what pronouns they prefer to be referred to.
Yes, that's a joke. No Nazi "Star of David" references, please.
Not that I'd use them. But since misgendering is going to be an Olympic sport in 2030, it would be helpful to know who we should insult.
Again, more at the link.
And yet . . . even when they come up with absolute howlers such as the acronym above . . . the LGBWTF crowd actually expect us to take them seriously. They (well, some of them, anyway) expect us to take the acronym seriously.
What are they smoking??? Whatever it is, where can I buy some? If I'm going to have to read, or listen to, or endure that sort of crap any longer, I'm going to need all the help I can get!
Oy, gevalt...
Peter
The word "Cheddarisation" threw me when I saw it in the title of an article at Off-Guardian, but having read it, it makes sense.
Once, Britain was a landscape of cheese. There were hundreds of distinct regional varieties, each rooted in a particular place and shaped by local conditions and practices.
These cheeses were not interchangeable. They reflected differences in soil, pasture, climate and animal breeds. Their characteristics shifted with the seasons. They were products of specific environments and the knowledge of those who worked within them. But that diversity has largely disappeared.
Today, most cheese available through mainstream supply chains is standardised. It is consistent in taste, texture and appearance, regardless of where it is produced. Variation has been minimised with predictability the defining feature.
The turning point came during the Second World War. Faced with the challenge of feeding a population under rationing, the British government intervened in food production through the Ministry of Food. One of its key decisions was to consolidate cheese-making into a single, standardised form: Cheddar.
The rationale was practical. Cheddar was durable, transportable and relatively straightforward to produce at scale. In wartime conditions, these qualities made it suitable for centralised distribution. Efficiency took precedence over diversity.
. . .
What occurred in the British dairy sector can be understood as an early example of a wider process: the replacement of complex, localised systems with simplified, standardised ones. For the purposes of clarity, this process might be described as cheddarisation.
Cheddarisation is not confined to cheese. It refers to a more general pattern in which diversity is reduced in favour of uniformity, and local variation is treated as an obstacle to efficiency. Systems are reorganised so that outputs can be standardised, scaled and controlled ... Once a system is simplified enough to be managed from a central desk, the people within that system lose their ability to act outside of it.
There's more at the link.
There are many interesting discussions under each heading. Recommended reading.
Peter
I know plenty of people who are using almost everything they earn to support their lifestyle. Some do it because they earn so little, they can't afford to do anything else with it! Others do so because they want much more than they actually need, and they earn a salary high enough to afford wants as well as needs, so they spend all their "excess" money on those luxuries.
That's where the trap comes in for everybody, but particularly for higher-earning individuals and families. They're committed to repaying hire-purchase accounts, credit card bills, leases, and what have you. They've used their surplus income to "bring forward" consumption that they'd otherwise have had to put off until they managed to save enough to buy it. Instead of saving money, they borrow money in order to spend even more. Psychology Today examines this behavior.
For decades, America has operated on a simple yet precarious principle: Borrow from tomorrow to pay for today. This mindset, deeply embedded in our economic systems and individual behaviors, has created a teetering tower of debt that threatens to collapse under its own weight. As a nation, we've normalized living beyond our means—from federal deficit spending to consumer credit card debt—with seemingly little consideration for the inevitable reckoning.
. . .
The national debt has grown exponentially rather than linearly, suggesting that each generation has become more comfortable leveraging the future than its predecessor.
. . .
Historical evidence suggests that debt-fueled economies eventually face correction. The 2008 financial crisis provided a preview of what happens when leveraged systems begin to unravel. Yet instead of fundamentally restructuring our approach, we responded with even more borrowing and financial engineering.
There's more at the link.
The problem is that such spending habits last only as long as there's money to spend. I'm seeing more and more cases where income is suddenly cut off (as in being fired, or made redundant) or greatly reduced (getting a new job, but having to accept a much lower wage or salary than you made in the old job). Having weighed oneself down with debt and spending patterns based on a higher income, suddenly one is faced with creditors demanding repayment, vehicles being repossessed, and all the other burdens of an over-leveraged household. Kids whine when they're told they can't have all they're used to, spouses blame each other for the sudden hole in their finances, and in some cases families break down altogether under the strain.
Karl Denninger sums up the problem.
The real problem for ordinary people in the economy is that anything that is unsustainable over a sufficient amount of time will blow up in your face. But when will it blow up? That's a more-difficult problem. For example we know that housing is largely locked up in a large part of the country -- indeed, most of it. In those places where it sort-of-isn't there are other serious problems including property tax and insurance concerns that might as well have it locked up from a standpoint of actual affordability. Add to this that many formerly thought of as "safe" professions which earn a nice wage, including computer science and medical, are rapidly being destroyed in terms of forward earnings capacity by both AI and foreign worker imports. There are plenty of stories already of people living quite high on the hog having accumulated a lifestyle with mandatory monthly spend commensurate with $250,000 wages suddenly being laid off and finding no replacement for that wage at even half what they formerly made. If you've managed to get yourself into a leveraged position with a forward requirement for such earnings and they disappear you're in very serious trouble indeed.
Again, more at the link.
Just this week (so far) I've heard from friends and acquaintances fighting that very issue. Examples:
With those problems fresh in mind, you can bet that my wife and I are checking on our monthly expenses to make sure we can fit into a reasonable budget, and keep our heads above water if any sort of financial emergency hits. Recent medical bills would have made that very problematic, except that you, dear readers, came to our rescue last year, to our deep and abiding gratitude. Even so, it's up to us to use what we have wisely, and not waste it. We also made a decision early in our marriage to get out of debt as far as possible (following Dave Ramsay's advice), and pay cash for routine expenses wherever possible, and pay off our credit cards and other accounts in full every month rather than accumulate a balance, and save money in an emergency fund. Those decisions have been a Godsend for us, sparing us more than a little worry.
I guess more and more of us are going to be facing this conundrum as prices increase and jobs become harder to find. It's a good time for all of us to take stock of where we are, what we're spending, and how we might cope if similar problems rear their ugly heads in our lives. If you have helpful suggestions that might help others to do that, please share them in Comments.
Peter
