Exploring practical methods for preparing for the end times, including analysis of end time scripture and prophecy, current events, prepping and self-defense.
"Lawyers also noted that sales of his 2021 memoir 'Beautiful Things' also plunged — from 3,200 copies over six months in mid-2023, to just 1,100 copies in the following six months." Yet, for such pitiful performance, he purportedly received an advance of up to $2 million.
In the Daily Mail article, "Revealed: The 36 companies who are responsible for HALF the world's carbon emissions," it notes that "[t]he top five polluters alone - Saudi Aramco, Coal India, CHN Energy, National Iranian Oil Co., and Jinneng Group - produced 7.4 billion tonnes of CO2" which is "equivalent to 17.4 per cent of all global emissions." CHN Energy and Jinneng Group are both Chinese energy firms. This is why it is foolish for the West to engage in the carbon emission tomfoolery: we are not the ones polluting the planet. And it is a fool's errand for Western countries to suffer declining economies and skyrocketing energy costs in the vain hope of making a difference to someone else's problem. And those that argue that Westerners need to do more is nothing more than a Chinese or Indian stooge or useful idiot.
First up, David Canterbury has started a small series of videos evaluating survival guns. The first video reviews the Henry AR-7 take down survival rifle, while the second video goes over Ruger's take down 10/22, both the standard version and a custom version Canterbury has put together:
Relying
on a narrow set of thinking tools is like wearing a mental
straitjacket. Your cognitive range of motion is limited. When your set
of mental models is limited, so is your potential for finding a
solution. In order to unleash your full potential, you have to collect a
range of mental models. You have to build out your decision making
toolbox. Thus, the secret to great thinking is to learn and employ a
variety of mental models.
I
see or hear a lot of people that seem to focus on a particular mental
model: for instance, in self-defense, focusing on deploying and using a
weapon while ignoring other tactics or techniques to deal with an
confrontation or even avoid one altogether; or in prepping, the classic
dispute between "bug-out" versus "bug-in" as if one will always work.
The author suggests even looking outside the particular "silo" in which
you are working. As an example of this, Greg Ellifritz recently
published a post entitled "A Tactical Guy Goes to Relationship School."
The class was apparently aimed at people in or wanting to be in a
romantic relationship, and used breathing techniques, eye contact, and
"energy projection," to make the other person like you. But, as he
discovered, the techniques work outside the context of romance: he had
people open up to him on the street, and even had a crazy homeless
person suddenly become lucid and wish him a good evening. Thus, there is
a potential for applying these principles in everyday life or even the
self-defense field.
Speaking of mental models, "Gunfight Myths"--Tactical Anatomy Systems. The author lists out the 13 most common gunfight myths he has heard and then discusses why they are so dangerous:
We could go on and on about why all of the above myths (and many more) are unrealistic and lead to a false sense of security.
But why, exactly, is belief in Gunfight Myths so dangerous?
Because believing in myths sets us up for unrealistic expectations. Unrealistic expectations, when countered by hard, cold reality, lead to cognitive dissonance. And cognitive dissonance in a life-or-death situation leads to Brain Freeze and a Death Spiral.
The author summarizes the death spiral, but recommends that you read Training At The Speed of LIfe by author and police trainer Ken Murray which goes into more detail about the death spiral.
"Mec-Gar’s New Steel Glock Mags – More Rounds, Same Size | IWA 2025"--The Firearm Blog. Per the article and looking at Mec-Gar's website, it appears that they are releasing metal bodied magazines that, because of the thinner body, they can squeeze an additional round into. The two offerings on hand are an 18-round flush fit magazine for the Glock 17, and an 18-round extended magazine for the Glock 19. The MSRP is $29 for both models. The article indicates that a 16-round flush fit magazine for the Glock 19 is in the works, and possibly a magazine for the 43X. Although the article does not address this issue, we've seen with aftermarket metal body magazines for the Glock 43X and 48 models that the cut out for the magazine catch will damage the plastic magazine release/catch that comes standard on Glock pistols, requiring a switch to a metal catch. Maybe not a big deal, but it still is going to take money and time. Also, while we've seen that metal magazines for the 43X/48 allow for a significant increase in capacity (from 10 to 15), that these are only giving a 1-round boost for the flush-fit models doesn't seem that impressive.
A detailed history and technical look at this cartridge: "The Short, Happy Life Of The .40 Smith & Wesson"--American Rifleman. I've long argued that the .40 S&W only gained the popularity it did among civilian shooters because of the Assault Weapon Ban and it limiting magazines to 10-rounds. The author of this article seems to agree:
In the first few years of actual service, the .40 S&W ammo and guns did very well. Glock actually got its pistols on the market before S&W, and the remainder of the makers quickly followed suit. Nobody seemed to view the new cartridge as a hunting or match shooting cartridge, although it was accurate enough for either mission. This was a police-service or personal-defense cartridge, designed to halt criminal assaults. In those first few years of the Forty, I watched closely as possible to its effect in police shootings. Obviously, the cartridge was very effective, and there was little complaint about a lack of stopping power. And there was another factor that helped the .40 S&W fix its place in the hierarchy of latter day preferences.
It was the 1994 ban on so-called "assault weapons," a poorly conceived and written piece of legislation that had several undesirable results for defensive shooters. For this discussion, the most important aspect of that ban included setting a maximum capacity of just 10 rounds for all newly made magazines. That was for any newly produced pistol magazine, no matter what the chambering. Those who clung to the idea of purchasing new 9 mm pistols on the basis of their capacity lost the argument in that they were statutorily limited to 10+1. They could have a 10+1 .40 S&W just as easy as the same size gun in 9 mm. Down-range, on-the- target performance favored the bigger bullet. For tens of thousands of civilian handgunners the 10 unhappy years of the 1994 ban destroyed the capacity argument for 9 mm semi-autos. It also drove the price of second-market, pre-ban, higher-capacity magazines to stupid levels.
Over the past few years I have reviewed and tested military look-alike airguns that felt like the real deal. I've fired a BB gun at full auto--laying waste to cans in my big backyard--without disturbing my neighbors one bit. I have also tested silenced air rifles that are capable of knocking squirrels out of trees at 70 yards. GAMO makes a number of break-barrel guns that are used for small game hunting, and also for controlling invasive iguanas in Florida. They are so accurate that they can be safely used in suburban areas in the right hands.
There are also large-caliber air rifles that will down big game. I tested a few such guns that will send a .35 caliber pellet through a sheet of plywood without an issue at 50 yards! They are real tackdrivers, too: There are now air rifles on the market that are so accurate that they punch one hole with multiple shots when firing at the range.
When a firearm is discharged, it creates an intense burst of high-pressure gases that follow the projectile out of the barrel. Traditional suppressors attempt to trap and slowly release these gases through a series of baffles and chambers. Flow-through technology, however, takes a fundamentally different approach.
Instead of purely containing the gases, it creates carefully engineered paths that direct and manage gas flow. I’ve observed that this approach is particularly effective at reducing both back pressure and the dreaded “gas face” that many shooters experience with modern sporting rifles and conventional suppressors.
I don't know if it based on a Tesla valve, it the description certainly reminds me of that invention.
A look at the future of weapon optics: "Insane Thermal Reflex Sight - and It's German: The Vected TRS"--The Firearm Blog. It overlays a thermal outline onto the window with the reticle. I know this has been done when combining thermal and night vision, but this is with what appears to otherwise be a standard red dot sight picture. The purpose is to "allow[ ] users to quickly acquire targets in low light, darkness, or through smoke and camouflage."
"Discover The Coated Lead Advantage"--Shooting Sports USA. An article about the Hi-Tek polymer coating for cast lead bullets, such as used in the Syntech and CCI's clean .22 LR lines of ammunition. For the hand loader, the advantage is that you get prices that are nearly as cheap as plain cast lead, but you don't have to worry about lubing bullets and it reduces lead fouling. The article indicates that while lead bullets are generally discouraged for Glock pistols (those with the polygonal rifling, anyway) the coated bullets apparently work fine. Unfortunately, I can't speak from experience: while I bought some a couple years ago for loading .44 Magnum, I haven't actually ever gotten around to loading and shooting any. The author adds this tip for hand loaders:
Coated bullets load in the same manner as lead, but there are two things to watch for. First, make certain that the belling die puts enough flare into the case mouth to avoid scraping the coating from the bullet when it’s being seated. Second, don’t over crimp as that can also remove the coating. A moderate taper crimp works best for me with either semi-automatic or revolver. If the coating is compromised, smoke and some leading can occur.
He also notes that you shouldn't use them for velocities higher than 1,250 fps.
"What are langets on a polearm for?"--Arms & Armor. Langets are the strip of metal you sometimes see on the shafts of polearms just below the head. While most people (including myself) believe that they were used to keep the shaft from being cut by another bladed weapon, like a sword, they were actually to reinforce the shaft of longer pole arms so the shaft won't break from the force of using it.
"‘Pretty’ doomsday prepper shares extreme survival skills: ‘End of the world basics’"--New York Post. Looks like someone using their pretty face to garner attention in a crowded market. I haven't watched her YouTube videos so I can't comment on how solid is her advice. But it is a rare article about prepping in the main stream media, so I thought I would include it.
What with the Chinese and Europeans making noises about war with the U.S., this might be useful: "How I’m Prepping for War"--Organic Prepper. Daisy writes:
A friend of mine has been researching shortages from WW2, and that’s a great place to start. In America, we faced the rationing of things such as food, shoes, metal, paper, and rubber. The priority was given to the soldiers, and whatever was left over was divvied up by civilians. I’m not sure we will have the exact same shortages this time, as war, like many other things, has moved into the digital age, but soldiers will still need food, shoes, rubber things like tires, and metal for manufacturing vehicles and weapons.
What with things being digital, a wise person might also look into things that require motherboards and circuits – computers, other devices, and vehicles.
It’s important to note that the Defense Production Act is already in place to force our factories to produce what is needed for national defense and prioritize national defense customers over civilians.
We don’t know if this conflict will all be fought overseas or if it will creep onto our shores. In my opinion, it’s best to prepare for the worst case scenario and hope that it doesn’t happen.
Here’s where I’m putting my money right now as far as preps are concerned.
The general areas she is concerned with are: food, medicine, ammo, precious metals, communications, and some miscellaneous items, all discussed in more detail in her article.
For those looking at storing food, this is a resource you might find useful: "Food Storage Calculator"--Family Survival Planning. You enter the number of people in your family in their respective age groups (basically adults and children) and it shows how much of different basic food items you would need for a one-year store of food and water.
In a similar vein, Option Gray has a "Prepper & Emergency Survival: A Comprehensive Checklist" which, as the title implies, provides a detailed list of items or categories of items to consider for prepping and long term survival.
If you really want to cut weight, focus on the big four—your tent, sleep system (i.e. your sleeping bag and pad), shoes, and backpack.
Select ultralight versions of every item to save the most weight. Think lightweight sleeping pads and bags, and frameless packs, which can be several pounds lighter than their heftier counterparts. After all, a three-pound tent will cancel out any weight savings you’ll scrounge by sawing the handle off your toothbrush.
Also, keep in mind that ultra-luxe gear tends to be heavier and bulky. Brown says she once saw a backpacker ditch full-size pillows and twin-sized sleeping pads with integrated foot pumps only after a few days on the trail. You don’t want to have to do that.
Next, consider what you put on your feet. According to Brown, many people start a long hike with heavy-duty hiking boots, but only a few days into the trip, most are ready to swap them for lightweight trail runners like those from Altra or Hoka. It might not seem like it to more inexperienced hikers, but after a few days on rugged terrain, heavy footwear starts to feel like they are slowing you down.
Finally, move on to swap smaller gear for lighter alternatives. Trade in your Nalgene for a disposable SmartWater bottle or a collapsible water bottle. Consider going stove-less in warmer months to save yourself from carrying fuel canisters. Instead, pack ready-to-eat meals like tortillas or tuna, and foods you can cold-soak, like noodles or couscous. Just a few smart swaps like these could save you ounces or pounds instead of grams.
"Assembling a Stealth Prepper Group" (Part 1) (Part 2) by Prepper Doc at the Survival Blog. Just some tips on setting up a prepper group and becoming an asset to your group, and some other miscellaneous tips. He recommends taking some independent study courses offered by FEMA and the Amateur Radio Emergency Service (ARES) both for the knowledge and being able to network with the people that will be in charge after a disaster and other like-minded individuals that might be interested in forming a group.
Trump is imposing tariffs pursuant to the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) because of Canada's, Mexico's and China's role in killing Americans and facilitating the flow of illegal aliens into the United States. I have not seen any legal justification offered for the decisions of Canada, Mexico or China.
I can't find where I read it the other day, but I came across a comment about how we are watching the old ideology-based paradigm of the Cold War (and, I would add, globalism) coming to an end, to be replaced with an approach to diplomacy and trade based around self-interest. If you watched President Trump's State of the Union address last night, you saw it front and center: tariffs to punish those countries undermining the United States or taking advantage of the United States; regaining control of the Panama Canal to prevent it from falling under China's control; prying Greenland away from Europe; the Realpolitik moment the President revealed that Zelenskyy of Ukraine had reversed course and (seemingly) is now willing to accede to Trump's plan to end the Ukraine War.
It bears repeating that those who are invested in the old system are going to fight tooth and nail against these changes. Not because they believe in spreading democracy, but because they enjoy the money and power that came with the old order. And that is what the old order had degenerated to: a means to scam the American taxpayer, as the following from Stephen Green about the cuts to USAID illustrates (emphasis added):
... Reuters reported today that Nicholas Enrich, USAID's acting assistant administrator for global health, released a seven-page letter complaining that "political leadership" — the Trump administration — "had made it impossible to deliver lifesaving humanitarian assistance around the world."
* * *
Oh, spare me the sob stories. Of the $4 billion earmarked for Haiti, almost half of it never went much farther than the D.C. beltway. More than half went to "other." About 2% went to Haitian firms. Six houses were built.
There's a case to be made that charitable people like us should help feed the hungry and provide disaster relief to those who can't afford it. But USAID ain't it.
How did we get here?
Ostensibly created as an international development agency (it's right there in the name), USAID quickly morphed (some would say it was from the start) into an off-the-books intelligence operation and, from there, into a multibillion-dollar slush fund for the well-connected whose finances were already very highly developed.
To call the relationship between USAID — i.e., your tax dollars — and the Democrat-Media Complex "incestuous" would be an insult to people with only two grandparents.
Ezekiel 28 is a lesson in hubris. In it, the King of Tyre is compared to Lucifer, who fell because of his overweening pride, comparing himself to God in power and authority. A modern equivalent has just happened with the forced retirement of James Dennehy, the head of the FBI's New York Field Office. He emailed his staff: "Late Friday, I was informed that I needed to put my retirement papers in today, which I just did. I was not given a reason for this decision." Is he really that stupid and disingenuous? As the Instapundit post notes, "Dennehy had previously told his office to 'dig in' after Trump was elected," and he withheld thousands of pages of Epstein documents from the Attorney General after she had requested all Epstein related materials, publicly embarrassing her last week when she had promised to release the full Epstein file but had nothing new to provide.
We should expect a lot more of this doomsaying for the rest of Trump's term. But the Democrats and the administrative state created this situation. As John Wilder points out in his latest post, Trump came into his first term intending to use a fiscal scalpel to cut out waste. But the Democrats came back at him multiple impeachment attempts, baseless criminal and civil suits, and finally tried to kill him. So this time, he has come with an axe to take to the administrative state. John goes on:
A century of rot, non-American ideologues and secrets are being sliced away. There will be chaos, as we find that, “Oh, no, we really needed to have air traffic controllers” and as this necessarily blunt instrument hacks through some good things to save the whole.
It’s ugly. It’s necessary. And it might just be enough.
But Trump's purpose is not to cut off Social Security benefits to retirees or the disabled. He is here to try and save the country before it slides into a fiscal collapse.
If you've taken a basic Econ 101 course or read a foundational book on economics, you know that the primary argument for free trade between countries is premised on David Ricardo's Theory of Comparative Advantage which, essentially, states that countries can benefit from trading with each other by focusing on producing things for which they have a lower opportunity cost (i.e., in which they have a comparative advantage) while buying from other countries those goods that the other country can produce for a lower opportunity cost, even if the that other country is not as efficient overall at making those products. The classic example is that if Britain has a comparative advantage compared to France in producing wool, but France has a comparative advantage compared to Britain in making wine, then Britain is better off buying its wine from France rather than attempting to produce its own, and France is better off buying its wool from Britain rather than attempting to produce its own.
This is the basic argument as to why the United States was better off shipping its manufacturing to third world countries if that third world country could produce the goods for a lower overall cost, even if they weren't as efficient as American manufacturers. Because the cost of labor is generally higher in the U.S. than these third world countries, and nations like China don't care about certain costs that U.S. manufacturers have to bear--like worker safety, pollution mitigation, etc.--the consequence was always going to be a net loss of American jobs.
In any event, Vox Day decided to test out the DeepSeek AI by having it identify flaws with the Theory of Comparative Advantage, which he reports in his article, "The Intrinsic Flaws of Free Trade." He begins:
I asked Deepseek to share what it thought of what has, for more than two centuries, served as the conceptual foundation of the free trade policy that has served as a quasi-religion for the Western elite of the post-WWII era. And while I knew it was a fundamentally flawed theory, so much so that economist Joseph Schumpeter once described its question-begging formulation as “the Ricardian vice”, I was still a little surprised to see how completely it was demolished by the pattern recognition of the Chinese AI system.
Although the article goes into more detail on each point, the major flaws identified are: (1) simplistic assumptions; (2) the model's static nature; (3) unrealistic assumptions as to mobility and employment; (4) neglect of real world costs and barriers to trade; (5) it ignores social impacts; (6) it fails to recognize external costs (e.g., pollution); (7) it ignores services and costs of trade; and (8) it ignores social and political factors. Read the whole thing.
"The Deep State" has been used as a shorthand for those elements of government that opposed Trump in his first term, but has expanded to encompass the bigger issue of why elections don't actually matter: that there is a core set of bureaucrats and Congress members that are resistive to any meaningful change or reform. And whatever the exact relationship, this bureaucracy is partnered or allied with the Democrat Party.
MoveOn.org has also taken money from the Sixteen Thirty Fund, which Fox News Digital previously reported has poured tens of millions of dollars into progressive causes in recent years and is bankrolled in part by Swiss billionaire Hansjorg Wyss.
But the other tell that it is fake is the projection and misdirection from leading Democrat leaders. I'm specifically thinking of a February 4 statement from Chuck Schumer on X, where he wrote: "An unelected shadow government is conducting a hostile takeover of the federal government. DOGE is not a real government agency. DOGE has no authority to make spending decisions. DOGE has no authority to shut programs down or to ignore federal law. DOGE’s conduct cannot be allowed to stand. Congress must take action to restore the rule of law." This is the same Schumer that once said that Trump was "being really dumb" to take on the intelligence community because "they have six ways from Sunday at getting back at you." When it comes to "shadow governments," Schumer knows a thing or two.
After seeing Elon Musk’s X post on Saturday afternoon about an email that would soon land in the inboxes of 2.3 million federal employees asking them to list five things they did the week before, a clandestine network of employees and contractors at dozens of federal agencies began talking on an encrypted app about how to respond.
Employees on a four-day, 10-hours-a-day schedule wouldn’t even see the email until Tuesday – past the deadline for responding – some noted. There was also a bit of snark: “bonus points to anyone who responds that they spent their government subsidy on hookers and blow,” one worker said.
Within hours, the network had agreed on a recommended response: break up the oath federal employees take when hired into five bullet points and send them back in an email: “1. I supported and defended the constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic.”
“2. I bore true faith and allegiance to the same,” and so on.
It was only the latest effort by a growing and increasingly busy group banding together to “expose harmful policies, defend public institutions and equip citizens with tools to push back against authoritarianism”, according to Lynn Stahl, a contractor with Veterans Affairs and a member of the network. Increasingly, the group is also trying to help its members and others face the thousands of layoffs that have been imposed across the federal government.
Calling itself #AltGov, the network has developed a visible, public-facing presence in recent weeks through Bluesky accounts, most of which bear the names or initials of federal agencies, aimed at getting information out to the public – and correcting disinformation – about the chaos being unleashed by the Trump administration.
With 40 accounts to date, their collective megaphone is getting louder, as most of the accounts have tens of thousands of followers, with “Alt CDC (they/them)” being the largest, at nearly 95,000 followers.
The network has also formed a group and a series of sub-groups on Wire, the encrypted messaging app, to share information and develop strategies – as played out on Saturday.
The article goes on to note that #AltGov actually began during Trump's first term.
Mark Tapscott had warned of this back in January before the inauguration. He noted that a then-recent survey conducted for the Napolitan Institute by RMG Research of 500 federal civil service managers being paid at least $75,000 and living in the Washington, D.C., region had shown that "Fully 42% of those federal managers surveyed declared their intent to either strongly oppose or oppose Trump once he is sworn in and back in the Oval Office, assuming the RMG Research results are representative of the 2.3 million federal career civil service workforce that carries out the day-to-day work of the government." Focusing on those that identified as Democrat, "two-thirds said they would actively oppose orders advancing Trump policies."
And here we are with federal workers secretly conspiring to block policy changes. It makes one wonder if it is time we return to a spoils (as in "to the victor goes the spoils") type system when it comes to the federal bureaucracy?
As you know, the "merit" based system of a professional bureaucracy was a creature of progressive leaders, such as Woodrow Wilson, who believed in a society ruled over by philosopher kings "experts" that should be protected from firing just because a different administration had been handed control of the bureaucracy. But, as Tapscott explains, it has become subverted to its own ends:
Initially, only a small slice of federal workers were covered by the "merit system," but those ranks were steadily expanded to the point that by the time President Jimmy Carter left office in 1981, 90% of all civilian employees.
Along the way, the career service bureaucracy became steadily more entrenched, and, after JFK enabled federal workers to unionize in 1962, all but immune from management accountability and wielding millions of campaign contributions to support candidates — virtually all Democrats — who would protect them and expand their ranks with bigger government.
But the more "professionalized" the federal workforce has become, the more solidly it has become the fourth branch of government, aka the "administrative state." The administrative state uses regulations, guidance, and its own "judiciary" — i.e. administrative law judges — to enforce its will, entirely apart from anything remotely resembling electoral accountability.
The reality facing the second Trump presidency is that the administrative state that largely defeated his first-term efforts to force accountability on it is even more powerful today than it was four years ago.
These people give new meaning to the idea of "slow-walking" any idea, program, proposal, or politician seeking to reduce the power and influence of the career bureaucracy. They leak, they bury, they create endless reviews, and so forth and so on.
And because they use government power to defend and extend their political influence, the merit system has become a modern analogy of the spoils system. ...
Most importantly, it has made it all but impossible to affect any real change to federal policy, to root out corruption and inefficiency. In other words, it is no longer responsive to voters.
There is a shadow government. But it is not DOGE. It is the ossified administrative state and those in the bureaucracy plotting to thwart the will of the people.
