From the "Foxes In Love" comic strip for December 5, 2025. Click the image for a larger version at the comic's Web page.
I've felt that way sometimes during extended periods in the bush in various parts of Africa. One's hair picks up all sorts of dust and debris, and long hair is much worse. When finally able to wash everything out and dry it off, the result looked like a cross between a broom and a mop!
Peter
Gathered from around the Internet over the past week. Click any image for a larger view.
The late Denis Norden, appearing on BBC Radio's "My Music" quiz program, famously quipped that his favorite instrument was "Bagpipes, receding into the distance". Fortunately, not everybody shared his opinion!
The previous record for the number of bagpipers assembled in one place to play the same tune was set in Bulgaria in 2012 by 333 players. Enthusiasts in Australia decided it was time to set a new record, and they chose AC/DC's current tour of that country to do it. The Guardian reports:
On Wednesday afternoon (12 November 2025), 374 bagpipers gathered in Melbourne’s Federation Square to play AC/DC’s It’s a Long Way to the Top (If You Wanna Rock’n’Roll), setting a new world record just up the road from where Bon Scott and the band famously played the song on the back of a flatbed truck riding up Swanston Street 50 years before.
There's more at the link. Here's how the record attempt went.
Looks like a good time was had by all.
Peter
That's the headline to Jared Dillian's analysis of higher education in the USA at present. Here are a few excerpts.
My generation, Generation X, the smallest generation, hatched an even smaller generation, Gen Z. The number of students going to college peaked around 5–7 years ago, has been going down ever since, and will continue to go down. Many colleges and universities simply won’t be able to survive. They’re businesses, like anything else, and the schools that have something to offer will continue to thrive, and others will simply wither and blow away. We’ll have far fewer institutions of higher education 10 years from now, and while that is regrettable in a sense, it is probably a good thing.
. . .
Demographers use “demographic cliff” to describe the sharp drop in the population of 18‑ to 24‑year‑olds that began after the Great Recession and is projected to continue into the 2030s. Because this age group makes up the majority of undergraduates, fewer young people almost automatically translates into fewer traditional college students, unless college‑going rates rise a lot.
. . .
The question is: Will schools be competing on amenities, or will they be competing on the quality of education, or will they be competing on price? My guess is all three. Yes, for the first time in history, schools will have to compete on price. I think we’ve reached the apex of college tuition, and we’re headed downward from here. Not materially, but even if the cost of college remains constant, it will decline in real terms as incomes rise. Same goes for textbooks and room and board and everything else.
. . .
Given declining birth rates generally, 50 years from now, we could have half of the colleges that we have today. Nobody is thinking this far ahead, and nobody is preparing for it. If I were a university president, this would be top of mind—how to financially prepare a university for the day that enrollment is cut in half, building up financial reserves, and not building the indoor practice field.
There's more at the link.
I suspect he's right on the money. When I look at how many administrators colleges and universities have hired over the past couple of decades (as opposed to lecturers and professors), I'm immediately struck by the huge increase in the former versus the relative (as a proportion of the higher education workforce) decrease in the latter. All those administrative staff are leeching off the higher education budget without contributing anything, in education terms, to the purpose of that function. When the only purpose of a function is education, and the demand for education goes down instead of up, what's going to happen to those who aren't contributing anything educational to that sector? That's right . . . they're going to find themselves out of work.
There's also the question of how much instruction and teaching can be handled by computers and artificial intelligence systems, versus the old lecture style of learning. High school students have already found they can learn far faster (and get a higher quality of education) through AI systems than through teachers. Will that translate to higher education as well? In many areas, I see no reason why not.
I'm currently reading "The Preparation: How To Become Competent, Confident, and Dangerous", by Doug Casey and Matt and Maxim Smith.
The blurb reads:
Skip the debt. Build the man. What if you could trade four stagnant years in lecture halls for four years of adventure—emerging as a debt‑free EMT, pilot, welder, web/app builder, rancher, and entrepreneur all in one? The Preparation is the field manual for young men (and the parents who love them) who know the old college formula is broken and want a roadmap that actually forges competence, confidence, and real‑world value.
Written by three generations—legendary investor and bestselling author Doug Casey, entrepreneur Matt Smith, and twenty‑year‑old “beta tester” Maxim Smith—this book distills their hard‑won wisdom into a four‑year, 16‑cycle program you can start tomorrow.
- 16 themed cycles—Medic, Cowboy, Pilot, Fighter, Hacker, Maker, and more—each built around a hands‑on “Anchor Course” that forces you to learn by doing, not by cramming.
- Earn‑while‑you‑learn design shows you exactly how to pay your way through each cycle and graduate debt‑free.
- Cost: roughly one year of tuition – yet delivers four years of marketable skills, global travel, and a network of do‑ers, not talkers.
- Foundational philosophy rooted in Stoicism and Renaissance thinking so you don’t just master tasks—you master yourself.
- Bullet‑proof curriculum: step‑by‑step schedules, book lists, online courses, and locations for every skill so you’re never guessing what to do next.
- Battle‑tested results—Maxim used the program to rack up EMT shifts on Oregon wildfires, fly solo over the Rockies, ranch in Uruguay, and sail the Strait of Magellan before he turned twenty.
The Problem: College now averages $140,000+ and often delivers little more than ideology, debt, and obsolete credentials.
The Preparation: compresses that money and time into a crucible that turns raw potential into a modern‑day Renaissance Man—one who can protect, build, heal, sell, and lead in a world being up‑ended by AI and economic turmoil.
If I were a young person today, looking at making my way in life but not yet certain what I wanted to do, something like "The Preparation" as an alternative to college would be very intriguing. If I had a son or daughter, I'd certainly be making sure they read it, and considered it as a viable alternative to the current higher education grind. At the very least, it would turn out someone far better prepared for whatever life could throw at them as the typical college or university student. Remember Robert Heinlein's timeless advice:
A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.
We won't get that from today's universities!
Peter
If a country is ruthless enough, it can threaten the leaders of rival nations even far beyond its borders, as Ukrainian President Zelensky found out earlier this week.
Four "unidentified military-style" drones violated a no-fly zone on Monday at Dublin Airport as they flew toward the flight path of Volodymyr Zelensky, the Ukrainian president, according to Irish news outlet The Journal.
The flight carrying Zelensky landed, slightly ahead of schedule, a few moments before the drones flew at about 11 p.m.
The drones had their lights on, prompting security forces to suspect that the aim was to disrupt the arrival of Zelensky's plane into Dublin, the outlet said.
The drones, which reached the location where the Ukrainian president's plane was expected to be at the exact moment it had been due to pass, then orbited above an Irish Navy vessel that had secretly been deployed in the Irish Sea for the Zelensky visit.
The report said that, according to sources, the drones took off from the north-east of Dublin, possibly near Howth, and flew for up to two hours.
A lot is unknown at this point - who launched and controlled the drones, or where the drones are now.
The drones were "large, hugely expensive, of military specification, and ... the incident could be classed as a hybrid attack", Ireland's security services have found, according to the outlet.
There's more at the link.
I don't think there's any real doubt about where those drones came from, or who planned and executed the whole thing. My only question is whether the miniature aircraft would have tried to actually attack Zelensky's plane, or simply disrupt its flight path. I wouldn't put money either way at this point. I think Putin is more than ruthless enough to eliminate his rival if the opportunity arose, but he might hesitate due to the diplomatic repercussions . . . or would he? Enough of his internal political opponents have "fallen out of windows", or experienced aircraft "accidents", or whatever, that one can't be sure he has any real moral restraints at all - only practical ones.
What this means, of course, is that any politician or diplomat is vulnerable to the same sort of threat. What if Air Force One were intercepted by drones sent by, say, Venezuela, or Mexican drug cartels (which can easily afford weapons-grade military-style drones, plus the explosives needed to turn them into deadly missiles)? What if US transport aircraft ferrying supplies to an operation against terrorists or drug smugglers (e.g. in the Caribbean, or off Yemen) were threatened in the same way?
Nor is the distance between a potentially hostile nation and the aircraft concerned an obstacle, because (as in Ireland) drones can be smuggled into and through a country or countries relatively easily, particularly if disassembled. Once used (whether successfully or not), the drones can simply be crashed into the ground and their explosives detonated, or directed to dive themselves into the sea or a large, deep lake nearby. The odds of their being found, traced and identified are small.
This has the potential to make air travel in general, and in more dangerous areas in particular, a whole lot less safe. I would say that ship, train or road travel might become safer, except that drones can intercept vehicles at sea or on the ground even more easily than they can those in the air. I suspect that diplomatic teleconferencing might take on a whole new lease on life . . .
Peter
We've all read innumerable recalls of various products for different reasons. Some are just ho-hum, same old, same old, and all that. However, a recall of shredded cheese sold in 31 states is potentially much more dangerous: so much so that I thought it deserved mentioning it here.
Shredded cheese sold at major retailers, including Target, Walmart, and Aldi, has been recalled in 31 states and Puerto Rico, according to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The cheese, produced by Great Lakes Cheese Co. Inc., was initially recalled on Oct. 3 for containing metal fragments, which pose the risk of internal injury if consumed. On Dec. 2, the FDA updated the risk level to Class II, the second-highest, meaning the chances of serious health consequences are "remote," but there is a possibility of temporary or reversible effects.
There's a full list of affected products and brands at the link. I highly recommend checking your groceries against that list, and getting rid of any that match. Ingesting metal fragments is anything but funny - particularly if your kids are affected!
Peter
Business Insider reports that drone guidance and signal cables are being strewn so thickly over the Ukrainian countryside that they're becoming a major hazard in themselves. I've included some photographs from social media to illustrate the problem.
Small unjammable drones controlled by fiber-optic cables have become so integral to Russian and Ukrainian combat operations that they are leaving trails of cabling everywhere, turning areas of the battlefield into a tangled web.
As a counter to extensive electronic warfare, fiber-optic drones are becoming increasingly prevalent on both sides. And with sprawling cables stretched across the battlefield, soldiers are moving with greater caution.
"You see the little webs, and you never know — is it from the fiber-optic drone? Or it's a part of a booby trap," Khyzhak, a Ukrainian special operator who for security reasons could only be identified by his call sign ("Predator" in Ukrainian), told Business Insider. Mines and traps have also been prominent threats in this war.
. . .
Other video footage taken from the battlefield shows how fiber-optic cables crisscross like spider webs, sometimes only visible in direct sunlight or when viewed from a certain angle.
Soldiers can't always tell right away if it's a harmless fiber-optic cable or something far more dangerous, like a booby trap. This forces them to think carefully about whether they should call an engineer, destroy the web with explosives, halt, or proceed forward.
There's more at the link.
Those are worrying images, to put it mildly. Imagine an infantry soldier having to walk through a meadow festooned with such cables. It'd be almost as bad as barbed or razor wire, not in the sense of being cut, but in the sense of having to cut through almost every cable in order to make progress. It would slow him down so much that he'd end up being an easy target for a sniper, or another drone looking for an enemy to destroy. That truck looked like it was pretty much stopped because of fiber-optic cables wound around its wheels and axles. Speaking from experience, you do not, repeat, NOT want your vehicle to be disabled like that where enemy fire can find you!
This has implications for us as civilians, too. If such fiber-optic drones become commonplace in civilian use, or by criminals (e.g. the drug cartels) or the police, who's going to police up all the leftover fiber optic cables? This could become a hazard to animals as well as humans. There are all sorts of complications one can imagine.
I'm glad I'm not a young soldier these days. Their chances of living through a war appear to be a lot less than mine did, in my day! We may, indeed, be getting closer to the day when mortality rates become so high that actual combat is carried out by machines instead (robots, automatons, call them what you will), with human involvement limited to programming and maintaining the machines, and providing person-in-the-loop supervision.
Remember what Azerbaijan did to Armenia just a few years ago? That war didn't involve one single fiber-optic drone. Its drone technology already seems primitive compared to what we're seeing in the Ukraine-Russia conflict, and developments are so rapid that even the latest equipment in the drone war will only be effective for six months to a year before it's superseded by something even more capable - and lethal. Those drone cables strewn all over the Ukrainian landscape did not exist a year ago. All those tangles were laid down over the past twelve months or so. What's the betting that by this time next year, something else will have replaced them? Who can say? And who's going to clear up the debris already on the ground? That may take years, and until it's done, crops can't be planted and land can't be fully utilized.
Peter
Today's award goes to a particularly dense TikTok user who filmed herself committing a felony. She threw a stolen gun off the Cross Lake Bridge in Shreveport, and then posted the video on social media. That was a bad idea.
You can watch another brief video of the proceedings at X.com. It's giggle-worthy, as are the comments about it from other viewers (you need to be logged in to X to view them).
Peter
I enjoyed reading an article in German magazine Der Spiegel about the jewels of the last Austro-Hungarian Empire ruler, Karl I, and how they ended up in a safe place in Canada. Here's a lengthy excerpt.
It was the morning of November 1, 1918, and the end of his reign was nigh – that much was clear to Austria’s final emperor. His multi-ethnic empire of Austria-Hungary was rapidly disintegrating as crowds in the streets clamored for a republic. Given the direness of the situation, he turned to a loyal servant, Lord High Steward Leopold Count Berchtold and put him in charge of a sensitive mission. Emperor Karl I asked the count to secret the Habsburg family jewels out of the country.
Count Berchtold and his men retrieved dozens of pieces from the display cases of the Imperial Treasury in Vienna’s Hofburg. And in the chaotic days of the revolution, the emperor’s minions brought the riches safely across the border into Switzerland on November 4.
Among the pieces was the diamond crown of Empress Elisabeth (better known as Sisi), a cuff of brilliant-cut diamonds featuring a large emerald that Empress Maria Theresa used to wear for festive sleigh rides – and the legendary Florentine Diamond, a glorious, walnut-sized gemstone said to glow yellow. At 137 carats, it was said to be the fourth-largest diamond in the world. The only existing photograph of the diamond, a black-and-white image taken before 1918, shows it as part of a hat brooch.
Only three years after the clandestine operation, the treasure vanished without a trace. Since then, myths and conspiracy theories have swirled around its fate. It was stolen, said some, the Florentine Diamond cut up and transformed into cash. The rumors were myriad.
Now, though, those rumors can be put to rest.
. . .
At the center stands Zita of Habsburg, Austria’s last empress, Karl Habsburg’s grandmother. The grandson sketches the image of a brave, largely destitute woman, fleeing with her eight children.
The imperial couple eventually ended up on the Portuguese island of Madeira in the Atlantic Ocean. There, Karl I soon died of pneumonia.
Zita relocated with the children to the Basque Country and then to Belgium. Beginning in the mid-1930s, her eldest son Otto, Karl Habsburg’s father, rose to become an opponent of the Nazis. He was persecuted, and when the Wehrmacht attacked Belgium and France in 1940, Zita of Habsburg once again found herself on the run with her family.
They traveled through Bordeaux to the Spanish border, where hundreds of refugees were waiting to cross, but it was closed. A border guard, as Karl Habsburg tells it, recognized the former empress and allowed her to pass. "And then he asked who in the waiting crowd was part of her entourage and also needed to cross. And grandmother said: All of them.” Habsburg gestures expansively into the restaurant as though a long line of refugees were waiting there, desperate to cross a border in the Pyrenees.
And was the jewelry, was the giant diamond with them the whole time? That he does not know, Habsburg says. But in his narration, it isn’t difficult to visualize a delicate woman with a leather suitcase in her hand. In 1940, she resettled to Canada, in the Quebec City suburb of Sillery.
. . .
Christoph Köchert [co-owner of A.E. Köchert "Imperial and Royal Court and Chamber Jewelers and Goldsmiths since 1814”] in the sixth generation, is a man of gentile bearing.
On behalf of the Habsburgs, the jeweler recently traveled to Canada with a portable carat scale, a refractometer and an electronic diamond tester packed away in his suitcase. His task was determining whether the items in the safe were indeed those that had been missing for so long.
There is a note of reverence in Köchert’s gentle voice when he speaks of seeing the contents of the suitcase for the first time. "It was a sublime moment,” Köchert folds his hands, "possibly one of those you only experience once in a lifetime.”
Some of the pieces in the collection were made, augmented or worked on by his own forebears. He pulls out a photo of a watch set into a large, pear-shaped emerald with another emerald, ground wafer-thin, as its cover. Maria Theresa gave it to her daughter Marie Antoinette, who would later become queen of France and meet an untimely end at the guillotine.
There is a bodice bow of rubies, emeralds, and diamonds in the Hungarian national colors, once owned by Sisi. And there is the "stone of destiny,” that large, 137-carat yellow diamond.
"It is rare to see such a perfect stone,” Köchert says. It is extremely pure, he says, the color reminiscent of "a good Scottish whisky.” The cutter left the original surface in places on the edges. "This is one of the most famous diamonds in the world. The history, the craftsmanship – it is overwhelming.”
The diamond and the 15 other pieces in the safe are genuine, Köchert has no doubt about that. He has put it in writing in two authentication reports.
There's much more at the link. It's a fascinating story.
Peter
... what could I do but re-post his recommendation for this video clip from Johnny Carson? I daresay it's what the social media user I mentioned in my first post would want, although without some of the more painful accessories.
Johnny Carson was a national treasure. He retired a few years before I came to the USA, but I've thoroughly enjoyed clips from his golden years on NBC.
Peter
From user Common Sensei on Gab:
I'd vote for that (and the representative[s] proposing it) in a heartbeat . . .
Peter
A good friend, whose views and judgments I trust, was very angry this past weekend at the thought that the USA might "force" Ukraine to make peace with Russia, giving the latter country most of what it it wanted and leaving the former impoverished. He's right, of course: an "enforced peace" would do just that. However, is that sufficient reason not to pursue it?
Let's start by acknowledging that Russia was and remains the aggressor in this war. No question about that. However, few people are willing to acknowledge just how much pressure the USA put on Russia through Ukraine to weaken the former superpower. The so-called "Maidan Revolution" in 2014, and the popular uprising that preceded it, was organized, sponsored and actively supported by the USA. (Hello, neocon Victoria Nuland and her infamous "F*** the EU" comment. The Russia-Ukraine war today owes much to her interference and hostility. I wonder just how much blood she has on her hands because of that?)
Furthermore, people don't like to remember or acknowledge that the USA supported "46 Ukrainian laboratories, health facilities, and diagnostic sites" under the Department of Defense's "Biological Threat Reduction Program (BTRP)". That fact is acknowledged openly by the DoD, which strongly denies that those facilities had anything to do with biological weapons. So, tell me, DoD - in that case, why was it necessary to sponsor no less than 46 such facilities in a foreign country (and former adversary during the Cold War) on the border of Russia (ditto)? Why not fund them inside the USA instead? Is it any wonder that Russia took that to be a hostile act and a major threat to its security? If I were Russian, I'd view it in precisely the same way.
Those and other factors (of which there are many) don't excuse Russia's invasion of Ukraine, but they do make it clear that the former had reasons for its actions, and the latter had few believable excuses. The US also has few, if any, rational justifications for its military support for Ukraine. As I pointed out before the war:
There is no, repeat, NO reason for Americans to lose their lives to defend a corrupt, incompetent regime in Ukraine. We have no compelling or vital national security interest to defend there. Anyone who disagrees with me is free to identify such an interest and explain it in a comment to this blog post. I'd love to read it.
. . .
We've seen this tactic used time and time again in multiple countries over many centuries. Are things getting out of hand for the powers that be in their own country? Then, quick - let's make the citizens focus on an external threat, something around which they'll feel duty-bound to unite and ignore anything else. While they're focused on that, we can get away with whatever we like internally.
China's doing that right now over Taiwan.
Russia's doing that right now over Ukraine.
The USA's doing that right now over Russia.
. . .
Afghanistan wasn't worth the thousands of American lives it cost to conquer and occupy it. Ukraine isn't worth even one American life, because there's nothing there that we need or want, and nothing that's of direct and immediate importance to us. Let the Ukrainians and the Russians sort it out. It's their business. If Europe wants to get involved, let them. They're near enough to the problem for it to be their business. We aren't.
There's more at the link. In the years since I wrote that, I've seen nothing to make me reconsider my position.
Even after all that, there are those who believe that giving Russia's President Putin most of what he wants in a peace settlement would be to "betray" Ukraine, and create more problems with Russia further down the line. They may be right on both counts . . . but the countervailing arguments are at least as strong, if not more so. Karl Denninger made some trenchant points over the weekend.
The wise thing to do back before the shooting started was to stop the persecution in the eastern provinces, eliminating the Azov garbage (jailing any who refused to cut that crap out) that nobody can reasonably claim was "legitimate", formally renounce any intent or capacity to enter NATO, pass it into the Constitution to stop the prattling on by European and US interests and recognize through formal and Constitutional protection that Crimea and Sevastopol were and shall remain Russian on a perpetual basis, albeit a borderless entity (e.g. no checkpoints or passports required) to cross between them and the rest of Ukraine.
Of course that's not what happened; the exact opposite was fomented and encouraged and now the violence that resulted is water under the bridge.
You negotiate from where you are today; the foolish decisions you made two years earlier are irrelevant. On any sort of rational analysis the deal put forward under today's conditions is not crazy.
. . .
We'll see if there's a deal to be had here in the coming days -- I'm not convinced there is, but there should be, and if it is to come it will be from the situation today, not prior to when the shooting started.
You have to deal with the cards on the table today which are a function of both your and everyone else's prior acts. You don't get to turn clocks back or pretend you didn't have a hand in any of it; quite clearly everyone did.
Again, more at the link. I highly recommend reading Mr. Denninger's article in full. He lays out a lot of the background that we've skipped here.
Many of those arguing against a peace settlement emphasize that it will cost less if Ukraine defeats Russia's invasion than if Russia is allowed to "win". However, they seldom examine all sides of the equation. For example, consider a recent report published by the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs and consultants at Corisk.
Funding Ukraine’s war effort over four years will cost European governments between $606 and $972 billion, but it would cost them almost double, between $1.4 and $1.8 trillion, to reinforce its eastern flank if Moscow gets its way.
. . .
The funding would go towards an additional 8 million drones, 95 brigades, and up to 2,500 new battle tanks, among other hardware. The report also proposes that the necessary funding could be found by confiscating frozen Russian assets.
Where will Ukraine get the troops and specialists it needs to use that new hardware? It's already so desperate for cannon fodder that it's kidnapping its own citizens off the street and putting them into uniform. The proposal is ludicrous on the face of it - but nobody's recognizing the reality that's staring them in the face. Ukraine is militarily bankrupt. It's steadily losing ground, and it's incapable of regaining it except for short-term assaults which are rapidly driven back. The situation has tipped past stalemate into a slow, steady Ukrainian defeat. If there's a practical, affordable alternative to making peace now, on the best terms available under the circumstances, please tell us in Comments - because I can't see one.
Hundreds, if not thousands, of people are dying on both sides in the Russia-Ukraine war in a situation that can, eventually, have only one end. At least a negotiated peace would save uncounted lives, and let the survivors go on to live the best life they can under the circumstances.
Peter
Gathered from around the Internet over the past week. Click any image for a larger view.
I was looking through Daddybear's blog earlier this week when I came across this music video from British jazz/blues guitarist Danny Bryant. It caught my imagination.
Intrigued, I looked over his YouTube channel. Here are a couple more of his tracks.
I'm not all that much into jazz and blues music, but I think Danny Bryant will repay further listening. My thanks to Daddybear for introducing me to his work.
Peter
My wife has the crud, and I'm fighting it off. I'm going to have a quiet Friday, and leave this blog and everything else to the vagaries of chance. See y'all on Sunday morning.
Peter
Sometimes the old traditions speak more clearly to us than their modern descendants. Here's Maddy Prior with a medley of "Marigold" and "Harvest Home".
A happy and blessed Thanksgiving to all of you. May we give thanks where they are due, and seek renewed blessings for the year ahead.
Peter
I laughed out loud as I watched this video clip of an escaped goat in Detroit last weekend.
If that goat had tried that in our back yard, I suspect my wife and I would have been in serious competition to see who could shoot it first. We both like goat curry!
Peter
In a recent column, Janet Daley tried to put the great clash of modern politics into perspective. She addresses it in the context of American versus European politics, but points out - correctly - that the socialized European model is preached in America too by the Democratic Party, particularly its left-wing progressive movement. This "muddies the waters".
American voters ... are unabashed in their belief that the American way of life is based on an abiding principle: that individuals have an inalienable right to improve their circumstances in life by their own efforts. If they find that their aspiration and determination are frustrated by things that are beyond their control like inflation or competition for jobs from illegal migrants, they expect the government to act effectively on those problems. Traditionally in the United States, it has been believed that this was what government was for: to remove obstacles to individual achievement and progress.
Much more recently the European model of state intervention and the creation of a welfare state which is designed to protect the disadvantaged and to care for those who, it is believed, cannot succeed on their own, has been brought into the US electoral arena. It is espoused by Left liberals like Bernie Sanders and the new mayor of New York, Zohran Mamdani, who have gained a hearing but whose ideas are still considered exotic and profoundly at odds with mainstream discourse. It is important to appreciate this because, paradoxically, it could help to illuminate the identity crisis that European democracies are undergoing.
Americans who demand that the obstacles to individual success and personal advancement be removed – that it is, in fact, the most important function of government to remove them – do not see themselves as selfish or callous. On the contrary, they believe quite sincerely that they are upholding an important moral standard: individuals must fulfil their potential and make the effort to succeed as best they can in order to take responsibility for their own lives. Most importantly, to as great an extent as possible, they must see to it that their children will have greater opportunities for self-advancement than they did. That was, and still is, the great American promise.
. . .
This perfectly plausible moral view has been almost drowned out in European politics by generations of class-based ideology. The very idea of a public morality based on individualism – generally termed “selfish individualism” – was attacked. Then there was the inviolable credo that those who appeared to fail, even if they refused to try, were not to blame. Their bad choices were determined by the misfortune of their circumstances which were out of their control.
In some cases, of course, this would be true – but as a general principle applied to the whole of a population it became an insidious vindictive force: all those who succeeded were guilty of stealing wealth and advantage from all those who failed. Allowing people to prosper and achieve the rewards of their own ingenuity or hard work could not be acceptable because their success created inequality and was, in effect, a form of theft from those who lacked those fortunate traits. The only decent political solution was to take some of that advantage away and hand it out to those who, through no fault of their own, had achieved less. Wealth redistribution or, as it came to be known, “social fairness”, relied on the idea that even your apparent virtues – self-reliance, responsible behaviour, determination – were actually unfair privileges.
If your actions are constructive and conducive to success, that is just the good luck with which you happened to be gifted at birth. The problem for contemporary democracy is that a great many people believe this too. In fact, it is probably the case that a majority of the populations of Western countries believe both of these arguments – that people should be rewarded for succeeding by their own efforts, and that they should be penalised by having to support those who have not made an effort. It has simply become impossible for societies to sustain this contradiction any longer.
There's more at the link. I highly recommend following the link at the end of the excerpt to read more about how socialized policies are "destroying" the self-sufficient.
We're seeing this conflict of perspectives in America right now between "purists" who want to demolish the "nanny state", dismantle the "deep state", and restore the rights and freedoms of the individual over those of state overreach. On the other hand, there are those who complain that they're economically less well off than they were, and want the government - any government - to "make them whole", support them financially and in other ways so that they're not as exposed to the vicissitudes of the free market. I suspect that's at the root of why President Trump's popularity has decreased in recent months. He's doing a pretty good job of tearing down State overreach, but in doing so he's exposing those who were sheltered by that overreach to greater economic uncertainty, even pain - and they don't like it.
It's a tough discussion, particularly in a world where there are too many people competing for too few resources. It's all very well for free marketeers to proclaim that if only everyone were given unlimited opportunity, they'd all do better - because there are many who will not do better, either through laziness, or through corruption, or through too much competition for resources. The free market doesn't have all the answers, but neither does socialism or any of its offshoots.
I find this conundrum personally taxing, if I could put it like that. As a result of serving in a US government law enforcement function, I became permanently partially disabled, and have relied to some extent on the income that resulted from that disability. To that extent, I'm dependent on the government. Yet, I also see the point of those that say we as a society are too dependent on government, and should minimize that dependency wherever possible. For able-bodied people, I certainly support that approach, and did my best to live that way during the years prior to my injury. I'd find it very hard to do that today, but there are doubtless those who'd prefer me to "suck it up" and "tough it out". Needless to say, I don't find that encouraging!
We'll never find an answer that satisfies everyone, I guess.
Peter
Following our discussion last week of drones and their utility for defense of life and property, I found this article about how Mexican drug cartels are weaponizing drones against each other, and against the security forces.
Last month, three drones rigged with explosives detonated outside a prosecutor’s office in Tijuana, Mexico, besieging six cars parked outside with a blast of nails, BBs and metal fragments. The attack was orchestrated by a cartel, Mexican government officials confirmed, and targeted an anti-kidnapping unit of the Baja state attorney general’s office. It is the latest high-profile example of first-person view drones being used by cartels to replicate military tactics being used in Ukraine.
Defense News previously reported that members of Latin American drug cartels had joined Ukraine’s foreign fighter volunteer units to gain FPV drone training.
Earlier this year, a cartel ambush using an explosive drone in the border state of Chihuahua sent two Mexican military service members and one police officer to the hospital. Three drones were subsequently seized.
Attacks made by explosive-equipped drones surged to over 260 in 2023. In 2024, a drone ambush was reportedly followed by an infantry-style attack in a remote community in Mexico, according to AP.
“Nonstate actors can now acquire capabilities once reserved for nation-states,” writes Stephen Honan for the Atlantic Council on cartels’ increasing use of FPV drones. “Cartels are no longer merely criminal syndicates; they increasingly resemble hybrid entities blending organized crime, paramilitary force, and terrorist tactics.”
There's more at the link.
If the cartels are getting that sophisticated in Mexico, it's surely only a matter of time before they try using drones against the US Border Patrol and/or law enforcement agencies in an effort to get more drugs into this country, or attack rivals in the drug trade. I'd also expect to see them as a security device to guard marijuana plantations and drug "factories", detecting police raids or rival cartel operations before they strike.
There's also the question of airport security. Drone operations have shut down airports in Europe on several occasions recently. Nobody knows (yet) who's behind them, but suspicion centers around Russia, which is at war with Ukraine and is hostile to European nations helping the latter country. Asymmetric warfare is nothing new, and drones merely add another string to the bow of that sort of warfare.
This makes me even more certain that it will be a good idea to learn how to use a drone, partly for reasons of local security during times of unrest, wildfire or other danger, and partly to understand how to defend against them in the hands of local gangs or drug dealers. You can bet the gang-bangers have already realized how useful these things can be to plot crimes or keep an eye out for patrolling police, and I'm sure we'll be seeing more and more of them being used for such purposes.
My "el cheapo" drone arrived yesterday, and over the next couple of weeks I'm going to start figuring out how to use it. If I crash it, it won't hurt my wallet too much, as drones costing less than $50 - some less than $10 - are freely available and affordable. If the learning process goes well, I can look at upgrading to something more effective when funds are available. If I understand the little beasts better, I can defend against them - and their operators - better as well.
Food for thought - and action.
Peter
I've never thought of "Thanksgiving" and "pizza" in the same breath . . . but after reading this news report, that's changed.
Pino’s Pizza of Deer Park has something savory to be thankful for this Turkey Day — their viral Thanksgiving pizza pie, which is served with sliced roasted turkey breast, gravy, sausage and apple cornbread stuffing and topped off with cranberry sauce.
Barbieri has since expanded his Thanksgiving-themed offerings to include calzones, stromboli and empanadas — all stuffed with the same ingredients.
There's more at the link.
Here's a video report on the gastronomic monstrosity.
I'm hungry just looking at that thing! It seems Americans will put anything on a pizza . . . and in this case, it looks like a winner.
What strange or alternative pizzas have you made and/or eaten, dear readers? Surprise us with your stories and recipes in Comments.
Peter
