Article: "Your Qualification Score Doesn't Predict Gunfight Performance"

In its article "Your Qualification Score Doesn't Predict Gunfight Performance," Tactical Science digs into the statistics showing the qualification scores don't measure whatever it is that makes you effective in a gunfight. The reason? According to the article:

    The data here and in other places suggest that firearms qualification does not relate to performance in the field. In science terms, firearms qualification is not a valid measure of field shooting performance.

    This is not surprising given that this is a case of far transfer. Meaning that we are practicing something very different from the thing people are expected to do in the field. The research here is very clear and consistent. Far transfer essentially does not exist. Some of my firearms trainer audience is already grumbling, but let me explain.

    In the field, an officer must interact with people, use movement and spacing to keep a tactical advantage, attempt to de-escalate, decide that force is needed, implement that force in a way that is effective and legal, assess the outcome, alter course if needed, and then deal with the aftermath.

    On the range, a trainee hears a timer beep or sees a target turn, and then fires a set number of shots at a piece of paper, which often only vaguely looks like a person, in a certain amount of time. Then they have to swivel their head because maybe the instructor is walking behind them holding up a random number of fingers.

    You should be able to see that while a gun is used in both environments, the perceptual cues that control the use of that gun and the actions surrounding that use are very different. As I have discussed in depth here before, perception and action are so intimately linked that if you change the perceptual cues, you automatically change the action. This means if you are not practicing with cues that are close to the real thing, then the actions you practiced will not show up in the field. 

Although the article is aimed at law enforcement, the conclusions should apply to civilian defenders as well. I don't take the article as saying that you don't need to train or practice on a square range--obviously you need to learn how to handle and use your firearm--but that you also need other training or practice.  

More On Possible Threat To Estonia

Another article from PJ Media on Estonia and Russia: "Will the U.S. Send Troops to Die for Estonia? Putin Doesn't Think So." A few points from the article:

    It's eerie how Putin appears to be rerunning Adolf Hitler's playbook of bombast, bluff, probe, and testing the adversary before unleashing his armies. Like Hitler, he has spent years conducting a "shadow war" or hybrid/gray-zone warfare to weaken NATO's resolve. This has included directing arson attacks against warehouses, defense production plants, and logistics hubs servicing supply chains to Ukraine across Poland, Germany, Britain, and the Baltics, as well as the physical disruption, arson, and signal tampering along critical transport corridors, such as Polish rail lines transporting aid and civilian traffic. Russia is also suspected of severing undersea cables and sabotaging underwater pipelines.

    There have been Russian airspace violations of Poland, Lithuania, and Romania. There have been strategic overflights, "accidental" missile or drone crashes near border areas, and fighter jet incursions testing NATO air-defense response times. NATO's feeble responses have emboldened Putin to the point that he now appears ready to stage the ultimate test in the alliance's 80 years.

    Putin now has 100,000 troops massed on Estonia's border and will attempt to call up another 300,000 reservists. Putin has manufactured a crisis about "ethnic Russians" being oppressed in the border city of Narva. He wants Estonia "to grant regional autonomy to the “Narva People’s Republic” — a breakaway statelet purportedly declared by Estonia’s Russian minority, but which in reality has been invented by the Kremlin, then mercilessly promoted on social media," writes UnHerd's Michael Kranz.

[snip]

    Like any good performer, Vladimir Putin has read the room and already knows NATO's response. Donald Trump is not going to ask American boys to die for Estonia, no more than he asked American boys to die for Ukraine. He will not send troops to defend Poland, Lithuania, Romania, or any European country, seeing the defense of Europe as a European matter. 

Although the U.S. is looking at pulling 25,000 troops from Western Europe, I suspect that Putin may have misread the room. It is notable that Lithuinia is receiving a new rotation of American troops--an armored battalion, so not a huge number--but not nothing. Nevertheless, the Russian threat is likely more nuanced than a full-out invasion of the whole country. Rather, as Stars & Stripes, reports, "Russia could test NATO’s bedrock collective defense pledge by sending a small number of troops to seize a sliver of Estonia, forcing allies to decide whether they want to risk taking it back, a new assessment says."

     The aim would be “breaking the alliance by causing it to fail to activate and act appropriately on its Article 5 commitments,” the Institute for the Study of War said in an analysis published Monday. 

    According to NATO’s founding charter, an attack on one member country is considered an attack on all of them. Invoking Article 5 is designed to trigger a collective military response by the other 31 countries in the bloc on behalf of the one under attack. 

    “A number of NATO states will likely be very hesitant to invoke Article 5 over a limited incursion, fearing the consequences of appearing to launch the alliance into a full-scale war with Russia,” the report said. 

    Such an operation around the Estonian border city of Narva could unfold without the major buildup that NATO might expect before an invasion, according to the Washington-based think tank. 

    Instead, Russia could position drone units inside its own territory while operatives seized key locations in Narva and declared a breakaway enclave.

I Can Believe This

Yesterday's Anonymous Conservative news brief linked to this Daily Mail article: "I investigated 700 UFO abductions. I started believing in God after survivors claimed two words saved them from 'demonic' entities." Key part: "Jordan told the Daily Mail he has investigated roughly 700 abduction cases, finding that those who called out to either Jesus or God claimed the supernatural incident immediately ended without further harm."

    I used to have a great deal of interest in UFOs and the like until I read a book that went into more detail on abduction cases than most accounts, and I realized that almost all of the accounts made some reference to the "abducted" person having involvement or interest in the occult. Sometime thereafter, I happened to pick up a book collecting myths of fairies and dwarfs and I noted a lot of similarity between the stories of people that encountered fairies and close encounters with UFOs, but with the odd recurrent mention that fairies could not abide the name of Christ nor being reminded that they did not have souls that could be saved. Thus, if UFO abductions are the modern versions of fairy stories, then it makes sense that mentioning God and Jesus would be just as upsetting to the "aliens".  

Immigration As War

As you may know already, an ICE agent shot and wounded an illegal alien in Austin, TX, on Sunday after a vehicle chase. Although Austin police said the shooting took place after a foot pursuit, that does not appear to be correct. The illegal was identified as 28-year-old Wilber Rafael Garces Perez, a Venezuelan, who entered the country illegally during the Biden Administration and was still here despite an order of removal.

    Interestingly, although there are references to protests following the shooting, the reporting has been rather muted as though the media knows it will reflect badly on the liberal narrative. However, a local ABC affiliate--KVUE--relates:

    What began with a handful of people gathered across the street from the scene grew into a much larger crowd over the course of several hours.

    People held signs, chanted and called for answers about what led to the shooting. Many also demanded that local authorities have a role in the investigation.

    “As someone who lives in the neighborhood, this is a violation of our human rights and our constitutional rights," Austin resident Ben Suddaby said. "The clear demands that I'm hearing from everyone in English and Spanish is for a local investigation. There's no confidence in the federal government to investigate itself. We are demanding that our local resources be used to protect our local residents." 

[snip]

    As the crowd grew Sunday evening, the scene began to change.

    KVUE crews saw water bottles being thrown at law enforcement as people crossed the street and moved closer to police tape. Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) troopers began putting on gas masks, while Austin police officers lined up nearby in what appeared to be riot gear.

    Law enforcement then used chemical agents to push the crowd back.

    Later, law enforcement pulled back from the immediate area, and the crowd moved into the street, blocking traffic as the protest continued.

    At one point, KVUE crews saw some people throw rocks at a car that was trying to drive through the area.

    As the night continued, the protest also expanded beyond the shooting itself, with people speaking out against ICE and immigration enforcement actions across the country.

The Texan has this about the protests:

The shooting prompted protests Sunday night at the scene in north Austin near the intersection of Anderson Square and Highway 183, and in other locations around the city. Some protesters waved Mexican and Guatemalan flags, while throwing rocks at law enforcement in some instances. Austin police officers deployed pepper balls to disperse the crowd from the street and investigation area.  

Rep. Greg Casar, whose district does not even include where the shooting took place, as reportedly described immigration enforcement as "war" and called for ending immigration enforcement. It is a war because the mass immigration is an invasion which has and will result in population displacement and replacement. Just look at at what happened in southern California. 

A Good Example Why A Red Dot Is A Bad Idea For Concealed Carry

The other day I started watching the video, below, which was showing the difference in speed between drawing and shooting a handgun with a round chambered versus drawing and shooting a handgun with no round chambered, requiring you to have to rack the slide as part of the draw ("Israeli carry"). But the concealed handgun being used sported a closed emitter red dot sight, and during the test, it became caught up in the tester's t-shirt on the draw at least twice that they showed in the video. Something to think about if you are using a red dot on a concealed carry pistol.  

VIDEO: "Israeli Draw | The Worst Way to Carry"
Charlie Coks (15 min.)

World War III?

With Russia's conflict in Ukraine still dragging on with no end in sight, there are signs that Russia might consider taking parts of Estonia soon. From "Who Had 'World War III Starting in Estonia' on Their 2026 Bingo Card?" at PJ Media:

    Which brings us to today's news and Estonia, nicely summarized on X by Eric S. Raymond.

    "There are intelligence reports that Russia has been building hospital facilities" on the Estonia border, while "Russian border guards have been spotted shoring up the banks of the Narva River in exactly the way you would expect if you thought they were going to throw expedient military bridges across it."

    "Russian border guards have also removed a set of buoys in the river marking the Russian-Estonian border, sparking a formal protest from the Estonian government," Eric added, literally muddying the waters between the two countries.

    But here's where it gets truly disturbing: "The city of Narva, Estonia, sits at the Russian border, on the Narva river, opposite the zone where the Russians have declared a curfew for its inhabitants and a no-go zone for people who don't already live there."

    Narva is 87% ethnic Russian, a result of Russian colonization efforts in the Baltics, both during the Czarist and Soviet era. "Putin has claimed the right to intervene militarily to protect 'oppressed' ethnic Russians in the near abroad," Eric posted. "The invasion and annexation of Crimea [in 2014] was justified on these grounds."

I don't believe Putin would be doing this unless he believes that the U.S. blew its wad, so to speak, on Iran and would not be in a position to defend Estonia--which is a member of NATO--and is convinced that Europe would be incapable of defending or retaking Estonia. A paper from the Atlantic Council in February 2026, "Putin’s next move? Five Russian attack scenarios Europe must prepare for," similarly observes (footnotes omitted):

    The accession of Sweden and Finland as NATO’s newest members has fundamentally altered Russia’s security calculations in the Baltic and Nordic region. Should the war in Ukraine evolve into a prolonged frozen conflict, Russia will rearm its military in pursuit of Vladimir Putin’s imperial ambitions. He will seek opportunities to rebuild Russian prestige and recover former or disputed territories, improve Russia’s strategic posture, and test NATO’s resolve in Article 5 scenarios in which he assesses the chance of a robust Alliance response is low, or the chances of success at acceptable cost are high. As one expert notes, “Russia wants to expand its military and political opportunities in the face of the West and considers a direct clash with the West highly probable, if not unavoidable.”

    The potential rewards for continued and successful Russian aggression in Europe include enhanced prestige for Putin’s regime, an improved geostrategic position along Russia’s periphery, delivery of a damaging and perhaps fatal blow to NATO, and the severing of the transatlantic link—all of which are powerful incentives. .... 

In the case of most European countries, Putin's assessment is probably correct. In fact, a lot of British men are saying they would not even be willing to fight to defend the U.K. (watch this Asmongold TV video), echoing what a 100 year old British WWII veteran said last year when he stated on British national TV that the sacrifice of him and his comrades and WWII was not worth it. That is the consequence when you import so many third world invaders that social capital collapses. 

    The country that should give Putin pause is Poland. Not only does Poland have greater military capabilities than Ukraine, but considerable public support for protecting Baltic allies--78% of Poles would support military action to protect the Baltic states from Russia according to a recent poll. 

VIDEO: Can A Steel Bow As Described By Tolkien Work Against Orc Armor?

The host focuses on a line from one of Tolkien's unfinished tales describing the men of Númenor using hollow steel bows.  Steel bows have occasionally been tried through history (as late, apparently, as the early 20th Century) but there are reasons they have never caught on including their propensity to break, which is discussed in the first part of the video. The rest of the video tests arrows roughly the size described in the text against soft steel armor (to stand in for the iron armor used by Orcs).  

 VIDEO: "Can A 'Steel Bow' As Described by Tolkien Actually Work?"
Dash Rendar (18 min.) 

VIDEO: The Biblical Origin of Feminism

This explains so much. Funny enough, this meaning of God's curse on Eve is common, but I've never heard it taught this way in my church. 

 VIDEO: "The Curse of Eve: The Biblical Origins of Feminism"
Basic Logic (5 min.)

Gun & Prepping News #99

Some links that may be of interest: 

• "Sling Manipulation for Home Defense: Making Slings Work Around Corners"--Ammo Land. The author begins: 

    A rifle sling is often treated as little more than a carrying strap. For a gun owner relying on a rifle, shotgun or pistol caliber carbine for home defense, that is a mistake.

    A properly set-up sling helps retain the rifle, frees a hand when necessary, and gives the shooter more control in hallways, doorways, and other confined spaces. A poorly adjusted sling can bind the rifle, slow a shoulder transition, or leave the gun swinging around when the shooter needs both hands.

    In a recent training video, Travis Haley of Haley Strategic demonstrates how sling configuration affects shoulder transitions, body exposure around corners, and the shooter’s ability to keep a rifle in action after an injury. Haley discusses those techniques primarily through the lens of close-quarters operations, but several of the underlying lessons have direct value for civilian gun owners who keep a carbine for home defense.

• "Close Encounters of the Revolver Kind"--Revolver Guy.  A look at concealed carry in the Old West with an emphasis on revolvers, including what some famous (or infamous) gunfighters used. An excerpt:

    All the same, most 19th century Westerners weren’t pistoleros by circumstance or experience and didn’t have the need or ability to tote large hog-legs for personal protection. Even so, the Western society of that era expected men to defend themselves against nutjobs and violent bullies. Thus, it was common for many Westerners, including some women, to be discreetly armed. Added to this was the dominant Western belief that a man’s personal honor and safety should be backed up by lethal force. 5

    Among the first to take advantage of these concealable arms were gunfighters on both sides of the law who wanted compact firepower in addition to their full-sized revolvers made by Colt, Smith & Wesson, Remington and other companies as backup heaters. Moreover, some boomtowns’ politicians forbade carrying firearms, especially open carrying such hardware. Therefore, many folks who worked in higher risk jobs carried small hidden firearms for self-defense. In those bygone days such weapons were known as hideout guns, cutdowns, pocket guns, vest pocket pistols, and bicycle guns. Today, our modern versions are called belly guns, snub-nosed revolvers, snubbies, micro pistols, backup guns and so forth. 

    So, a lot of Westerners who worked in mercantile stores, banking, gambling, bar tending, prostitution and stage coach transportation sought small equalizers that could be inconspicuously carried or stashed nearby. Quite a few manufacturers, both domestic and foreign, recognized a lucrative market and produced an assortment of small revolvers, some well-made and others clearly substandard. 

And you might find this note about the homicide rates interesting:

 In current-day America, 35 murders per 100,000 people is considered extremely high. Yet those figures pale in comparison to homicide rates in the Wild West. Adjusting for population densities, boomtowns Bodie, California, and the five main cattle Kansas cattle towns sported murder tallies that ran from 116 to 317 per 100,000 inhabitants. As bad as these statistics are, in the early 1850s the Pueblo of Los Angeles’s murder rate was 1,250 per 100,000 people. Historian John Bosessenecker believes that was by “far and away the highest homicide rate in American history.” Volunteers formed the Los Angeles Rangers to subdue the criminality.

• And some more firearms history: "The Beretta M1935: A Classic .32 Caliber Pistol"--The Shooting Wire. The author relates:

    The Beretta M1935 isn’t a fancy gun by any means. It’s a direct descendant of the Beretta M1934. The M1934 was a 9mm Corto (.380 ACP) Italian service pistol that served with the Royal Italian Army. The difference between the two is the caliber. 

    The M1935 is a direct-blowback .32 ACP pistol that feeds from a single-stack magazine. Like most guns of the era, it’s a hammer-fired, single-action-only pistol with a manual safety and heel-mounted magazine release.  

    The magazine holds eight rounds, which is one more than the M1934. The Italian Army already had the M1934, but the Navy and Air Force chose the .32 caliber M1935. The .380 had a bit more bite and nearly twice the free recoil of .32 ACP, so I imagine forces less focused on ground warfare wanted a little less oomph. 

    Beretta probably also had an eye on sales to police and external military forces. The .32 ACP was a popular cartridge amongst European police and military forces, and offering both made a lot of sense. Finland, Japan, and Nazi Germany all fielded the M1935. You didn’t have to redesign the gun to swap from .380 to .32. 

• And on to something more modern: "Meet the HK VP9CC: The New Micro-Compact With a Familiar Family Name"--The Truth About Guns. One thing that HK does now (not so much in the past) is get the ergonomics down (unlike another company whose name rhymes with "lock"). The author notes:

    Heckler & Koch did not skimp on the total package for the new pistol. The custom H&K-branded pistol bag includes six interchangeable backstraps, more than most other handguns on the market, to ensure you can get the exact grip you want on the VP9CC. The backstrap plays an important role in how you grip any handgun. If the backstrap is too elongated, it can prevent smaller-handed shooters from reaching the trigger.

    If the backstrap is too thin, it can give you “too much” trigger finger, where you’re having to curl your trigger finger uncomfortably outward to make a proper trigger pull. If shooting fundamentals have taught me anything, it is that building a good grip is the foundation of pistol shooting. If the backstrap makes or breaks a good grip, then you need the right one for your hand size.   

And look at the arch to the backstrap. You shouldn't be shooting low and left with this weapon.  

• "Concealed Carry Corner: Keys to Success"--The Firearm Blog. The first point the author raises is to know your limitations. He explains:

    One of the biggest issues I’ve seen with people in the concealed carry space is the concept of forcing a handgun to work no matter their body type or carry style. Some people are hell-bent on carrying a specific handgun, whether it's a full-size 1911 or even something larger like a Desert Eagle. There was an individual I met in the Detroit area who carried a Desert Eagle in 50 AE by having it in an OWB leather holster. I saw him walk into an indoor range where he proceeded to almost miss the target, hitting the D Zone 5 out of the 7 shots he fired. 

    If a firearm's too heavy to easily carry all day long and you can't shoot it accurately under pressure, why are you carrying it? ... 

• Think twice before getting involved: "Good Samaritan, 21, trying to stop robbery is shot three times before staggering down bloodied Seattle street where passersby refused to call 911 and FILMED him instead"--Daily Mail. From the lede:

    A 21-year-old man was shot three times while trying to stop a robbery in Seattle, and was left staggering through the streets as heartless passersby filmed his ordeal and his friend was left dying on the street.

    Matthew Lanske had just finished dinner with his friends in the city's Belltown neighborhood on September 6, when they witnessed an illegal street takeover, his family said.

    When Lanske and his friends then crossed the street near the intersection of 3rd Avenue and Clay Street, a man and two women tried to rob his friend, Isaac Elijah Rios, 20, at gunpoint. 

    Lanske immediately jumped in to help, bravely trying to grab the gun from the man, when he was shot three times – twice in the stomach while the third shattered his pelvis and struck a major artery, his sister Rebecca Garberding said. 

• "Why Boomers Grew Up Loving Guns"--The Truth About Guns. The author posits:

    The world these children grew up in was saturated with firearms long before any toy Colt reached their hands. World War II left behind enormous quantities of military arms and industrial capacity. As veterans returned home and factories shifted back to civilian production, the American firearm market absorbed both the surplus and the influence of wartime design. Affordable surplus rifles and handguns introduced many civilians to firearms, while Winchester, Colt, Smith & Wesson, Remington, Ruger, and Savage repositioned themselves for a peacetime market built on hunting, target shooting, home defense, and outdoor recreation.

    Popular culture reinforced the connection without needing to invent it. The number of American households with televisions jumped from a handful to more than nine in ten between 1946 and 1964. Westerns filled those living rooms with images of Colts, Winchesters, lawmen, and frontier justice. Even when the stories were fictional, they tied firearms to history and identity in the minds of the audience. So a Boomer child grew up with a father who may have carried a rifle in the war, a household that owned a hunting shotgun, and a television that ran cowboy dramas after dinner. The replica toy was a small part of a far larger picture.

The author also theorizes that the Cold War had its own impact on the Boomers. But the culture is an impact: I do not believe anyone could deny the impact that video games and GWOT had on Gun Culture 2.0.

• A different type of boomer: "Big boomer guns"--Backwoods Magazine. Massad Ayoob discusses the large magnum or express rifles, handguns and shotguns. An excerpt:

    I never did go after elephant intentionally, but being in elephant territory and knowing horror stories of humans crushed to doll rags by the giant mammals, it was reassuring to have a .375 and a .458 along. I later acquired a .416 Rigby caliber Ruger Model 77 Express rifle.

    Machismo value? About 9 out of 10. Practical value if you live in the “lower 48” United States and don’t have to worry about humongous bears of the Polar and Grizzly variety? Well, probably close to zero. But the ability to shoot these monstrously hard-kicking guns fast and straight? Well, in Macho Guy Terms, the value is probably incalculable.

    You’ll see alongside this article my friend Justin Schortmann shooting his brother-in-law Caleb Gunter’s .470 Express double barrel elephant rifle. Watch the muzzle rise. Watch the body rock backward. I can only say—YEE-HAW!

    If you aren’t in elephant country, do you need an elephant rifle? Well, heck, if you’re in a country with a 70 mile an hour speed limit, do you need a car that can race at over a hundred miles an hour? In a free country, it’s about what you want, not just what you need. Me, I kinda go with a point that Ross Seyfried first made when he was a professional hunter in Africa. I’ve owned .375, .416, and/or .458 caliber elephant rifles when I lived in New Hampshire, and when I lived in Florida.

    During all that time, no elephant has ever attacked me or my neighbors. One can only conclude that there is a deterrent effect at work here. You’d think my Yuppie neighbors in the New England suburbs would have appreciated more than they did, the fact that I, alone, obviously kept herds of elephants from trampling their Volvos into their rock gardens.

• A good argument for not allowing Flock cameras or similar automatic monitoring systems: "FBI’s Secret NICS Monitoring Tracked Lawful Gun Buyers"--The Truth About Guns.  From the article:

    For years, the FBI ran a program that let federal agencies watch what guns you buy — even when you’re perfectly legal to buy them. It’s called NICS Monitoring, and on September 15, 2026, FBI Director Kash Patel confirmed it exists.

    The confirmation came during a Senate Judiciary Committee oversight hearing. Sen. Ted Cruz laid it out plainly. Gun Owners of America, he said, “discovered a secret FBI program called NICS Monitoring, used to track firearm purchases of Americans who were legally eligible to buy a gun but were suspected of a crime. Is that right?” Patel’s answer: “Yes.”

    That one word ended a five-year fight. GOA has been suing the ATF over the program since a 2021 FOIA request first surfaced records the government has tried to bury under redactions and gag orders ever since. 

• Speaking of a police state: "Texas police department shut down for failing to provide ‘public benefit’ after arresting mom over dirty water Facebook post"--New York Post.  The woman was arrested because she made a post critical of the city's mishandling of the municipal water system. Apparently the State of Texas can shut down local law enforcement agencies, and did so in this case.
• The Conference of Catholic Bishops urge the Supreme Court to leave Americans helpless in the face of violent crime. One of the key groups that aided and abetted the invasion of the United States under Biden now urges the Supreme Court to uphold local and state AR15 bans. 
• "Unconventionality Reigns Supreme with the CRKT Mah-chete"--Gat Daily. So this is one of those blades that tries to provide the utility of a machete with a smaller blade--in this case, a 12 inch blade--giving you something big enough to chop, but small enough to serve other knife roles. The author reviews the tool and ends with this:

Not only does the CRKT Mah-chete perform like a true powerhouse outdoors, but it also offers a coolness factor that cannot be denied. Its untraditional design allows it to perform like a traditional machete, while accomplishing a lot more. It can slice and dice for meal prep, split wood like an ax, and puncture like a spear. The Mah-chete retails for only $80.00 and when weighing quality versus price, it’s no contest. The Mah-chete pays for itself with its unrelentless performance in the field. 

The blade shape and curve is very much like that of a parang, except with a more pronounced point; and the handle is slightly offset above the line of the blade which would, IMHO, increase the power of the cutting stroke.  Very similar to the now discontinued K-Bar Swabbie or Schrade's Decimate Parang. I have a Schrade Bush Sword (now called the Decimate Brush Sword) which is a similar concept (albeit with a longer blade) which I have found very useful around my yard. 

• If the grid goes down in the winter, you might not be able to do your business in a heated bathroom. "Pooping In The Cold"--Blue Collar Prepping. The author links to a video on YouTube. As the author notes, "While this video is about using outhouses in cold weather, the same principle applies in the woods; just find a log to sit on." And one of the comments notes: "Replace the toilet seat with a piece of rigid foam insulation with an appropriate hole. You will think the seat is heated!"
• "The Potato Hole"--Backwoods Magazine. A mini-root celler, if you will:

    We had talked of putting in a regular root cellar, but digging one by hand on our property would have been a daunting task. Just below the meager layer of topsoil which grew wonderful vegetables was a gigantic layer of solid concrete-like clay. So we got by with storing potatoes with the canned goods in the basement where the temperature hovered in the 50s. Unfortunately, sprouts were plentiful by spring.

    But one day a few years back, we decided we had had enough of a 15-foot chokecherry bush that was sending suckers into the garden several yards away, so my husband cut it down then dug the roots out — a task that required the pickax, saw, and shovel. The resulting hole looked like it wouldn’t take much to make it big enough to sink the 2 foot by 30 inch (inside diameter) concrete riser we had on hand. “Then,” I said, “we could store potatoes in it.”

Trump Obtains Big Military Deal Over Greenland

PJ Media reports: 

The United States, Denmark, and Greenland signed a permanent agreement Friday that hands Washington lasting military rights across the island while permanently shutting out China, Russia, and every other non-NATO adversary. The deal gives the U.S. permanent access, basing, and overflight rights in Greenland, along with the authority to build new military installations there whenever it decides it needs to, according to a senior U.S. official who briefed Fox News Digital.

This will make it easier for the United States to maintain dominance over the North Atlantic.