Exploring practical methods for preparing for the end times, including analysis of end time scripture and prophecy, current events, prepping and self-defense.
Black Pigeon argues that the Trump was never going to be able to deliver on Make America Great Again (MAGA) because (1) MAGA is incompatible with the U.S. status as an empire (and abandoning the benefits of empire would result in the loss of all the "benefits" we--or rather, the elites--enjoy from an empire) and (2) the influence that Israel wields over the U.S. government.
Just a couple quick thoughts. First, if his thesis is correct, and I believe it is, it underscores yet again how modern Leftism is, in fact, the opposite--the inversion--of what it claims to be. Because if MAGA is anti-imperial, then by necessity the Leftists opposed to MAGA policies are rooting for world imperialism.
Second, it would be worth it. The path of empire only leads to decline and dissolution.
HR Funk goes over the history of firearm grips leading to the thumbs forward grip, demonstrates the accepted correct method of the grip, and issues that can arise with the grip on particular semi-auto pistols and with revolvers.
Per the news release from the Church, Elder Gilbert has degrees from BYU, Stanford, and Harvard; and taught on the faculty at Harvard Business School before going on to fill roles in various media and educational positions in the Church or Church related entities, including a stint as President of BYU-Idaho and serving as the Commissioner of the Church Educational System. And somehow amidst all this, he and his wife had 8 kids.
A successful deuterium–tritium fusion test taking their reactor to full power for 10-seconds. The video notes that this experiment paves the way for Helium 3 fusion, a reaction that would fuse deuterium and helium-3 to produce energy, helium-4, and a proton. This 2022 article, "Helium‑3 from the lunar surface for nuclear fusion?" explains:
Since 1969, the return of a human mission to the Moon has never seemed so close. Although scientific interest continued to flourish, space programmes had for many decades abandoned it in favour of the International Space Station and missions to explore the solar system. Dominated by the growing competition between the United States and China, the return to the Moon is now motivated by a desire to study and possibly exploit resources that can be found there.
Of these, helium‑3 represents the most significant potential in the field of energy. This non-radioactive isotope is an ideal fuel for the operation of a fusion reactor; it consists of fusing helium‑3 with deuterium, with the advantage of not producing neutrons. Whilst it is still in its experimental stages, the ability to contain such energy in the reactor’s containment chamber could make it a viable energy source.
Gun Nuts media asks if we are in a golden age of handgun optics with a plethora of inexpensive but dependable optics. Quick takeaway: "So there’s the buying advice. Stay above $100 bucks, and get the dot from the company that you like most."
The lesson from the Alex Pretti incident: "When you carry a firearm, you do not get to fight anymore unless you truly believe the situation has reached the threshold of life or death."
Defense against "social engineering" (psychological or emotional manipulation) attacks.
Paul Martin warns us to prepare for the responses of the unprepared when SHTF, while offering some suggestions on how to be better prepared.
Federal has finally started producing a 20-gauge buckshot load using the Flite-Control wad that might very well be a viable self-defense load.
A couple real world examples of why you should always carry a concealed carry handgun.
A discussion about cross-draw carry. Although the article mentions the people that might benefit from a cross-draw style of carry (in which the author also lumps shoulder holsters and chest holsters) most of the article is about the downsides. And most of the downsides have to do with flagging yourself or others (although I don't see where appendix carry is much better) or retention issues from the front (there doesn't seem to be any consideration that the disadvantages to retention from the front turn into strengths in retaining the firearm from someone standing behind you, like in the check-out lane of a supermarket).
The story of South Africa demonstrates that the removal of one system (apartheid) does not guarantee the arrival of a better one. The empirical evidence suggests that for the average citizen, regardless of race, the safety, economic security, and public services provided by the state have deteriorated since 1994.
The “Broad View” of history tells us that European colonisation brought with it the engines of modernity: medicine, infrastructure, and the rule of law. When those engines are neglected or dismantled in the name of decolonisation, the result is regression.
Furthermore, the South African experience challenges the liberal dogma of multiculturalism and multiracialism. The friction between the various nations of South Africa, Zulu, Xhosa, Boer, English, did not vanish with the vote. It merely changed form. The violence of the Bantu expansion, the segregation of apartheid, and the reverse-racism of the BEE era are all symptoms of the same underlying truth: that diverse peoples with distinct histories, genes and competing interests struggle to coexist within a single political unit without one group dominating the others.
"Fables For Young Wolves"--Postcards from Barsoom. A review of the book of the same title, which includes fairy tales intended to teach lessons like those from Aesop and the historical fairy tales. The author begins:
Children’s literature has gotten soft. Disney turned every woodland creature into a cute little forest friend, and tacked a happy ending onto every dark fairy tale. The bloodstains were scrubbed out, death was swept under the rug, and the moral lessons became saccharine platitudes about being kind and sharing ... a helpful aid to management of kindergarten classrooms, perhaps, but worse than useless for the moral instruction of the young, who will one day need to navigate a world where the shadows of the human soul conceal sharpened knives, and the truth is not always what well-meaning young women with associates degrees in early childhood education might wish. Children go along with it, but deep down they know that they’re being lied to, that the adult are keeping something from them when they pretend that every story has a happy ending, that everyone can be friends and get along if they’re just sufficiently nice to one another.
Contemporary children’s literature has gotten even worse under the pressure of politics, with bookshelves filling with stories about antiracist babies who grow up to become boys who become girls, and girls who save themselves from dragons and therefore don’t need help from the boys who foolishly refused to become girls. This is less moral instruction than moral inversion, literature meant to turn children against their own natures, stories that deliberately deceive developing minds in order to neuter them, soften them, make them malleable and unthreatening for a managerial culture in which the socially acceptable lie is always preferable to the uncomfortable truth.
Fables For Young Wolves is not that sort of book.
"Confronting the Unspeakable Truth"--Aaron Renn. This piece springboards off Jacob Savage's piece “The Lost Generation,” describing how white men have been frozen out of many jobs because of discrimination due to DEI policies, providing more context and exploring issues not addressed in Savage's essay. Some of his strongest words are reserved for religious leaders:
I’ve talked before about how roughly 70% of divorces are initiated by women. While the exact percentage varies by study, this is one of the best attested statistics in social science. But I’ve never seen this statistic mentioned in sermon or book on marriage by a major evangelical pastor.
Similarly, have you ever heard one of them talk about discrimination against white men today? I haven’t seen it.
My observation from over a decade ago, from before I even started this newsletter, is that the average evangelical pastor is terrified of offending women. You can almost smell the fear on them.
Similarly, when it comes to things like what Savage discussed in his article, we see a lot of what looks like the fear of man.
Everybody has to pick their battles. I don’t think we are obligated to go around giving our take on every single subject, or even every nuance of every subject.
But when you talk frequently, and often loudly, about topics like marriage and racial justice, and never mention much less address very core and relevant facts, you are not being honest.
You also forfeit the moral standing to critique the people who are mentioning them. ...
The masked criminals, who posed as police, blocked a section of the State Road 613 in the Puglia region on Monday before setting a truck on fire.
Dramatic footage showed the bandits crouching behind a car as the armoured vehicle exploded on the road, with flames and debris billowing into the air.
Other clips filmed by motorists showed at least six masked suspects, some wearing white overalls and carrying weapons, moving between vehicles and exchanging fire with real cops as terrified drivers watched on.
Other drivers caught up in the ambush were also robbed, according to Italian media.
The suspects then fled, triggering a chase with the Carabinieri, during which a police car was hit by three gunshots and an unmarked vehicle was rammed.
The terrifying raid is the latest among Europe's growing list of violent heists, and serves as another example of how brazen gangs across the continent will stop at nothing, whether they are targeting valuable artwork, historical jewels and cash convoys, all while endangering the lives of those around them.
Since 2004, the Social Security Administration has provided a simple process to help States with verifying voter applications. It’s called the HAVV System. States send in the name, DOB, and last four digits of the voter’s SSN. The SSA then notifies the State if that person is deceased, alive, matches SSA records, or No Match Found!
A whopping 13% of all HAVV verifications processed in 2025 came back as NO MATCH. That’s 318,217 of the 2.37 million submitted. Since 2011, an astounding 28.8% of all HAVV submissions have come back as NO MATCH. For the past 15 years, the federal government (SSA) has been unable to match 28.1 million voter submissions from States, to the information in its comprehensive computer systems.
"For those unaware, SpaceX has already shifted focus to building a self-growing city on the moon, as we can potentially achieve that in less than 10 years, whereas Mars would take 20+ years," the billionaire wrote on Sunday afternoon (Feb. 8) via X, the social media platform he bought in 2022.
"The mission of SpaceX remains the same: extend consciousness and life as we know it to the stars," he added. "It is only possible to travel to Mars when the planets align every 26 months (six month trip time), whereas we can launch to the moon every 10 days (2 day trip time). This means we can iterate much faster to complete a moon city than a Mars city."
[snip]
"The priority shift is because I'm worried that a natural or manmade catastrophe stops the resupply ships coming from Earth, causing the colony to die out," he wrote. "We can make the moon city self-growing in less than 10 years, but Mars will take 20+ years due to the 26-month iteration cycle. That is what matters most."
He viewed a Lunar colony as becoming a mining, manufacturing and satellite launching hub.
And that is with $65 million in tax credits because they filmed it in the UK; without those tax credits, the movie would have lost $235M, writes Stephen Green at PJ Media. He also notes that "out of the 139 biggest box office bombs listed on Wikipedia (for losing about $100 million or more in today's dollars), 123 of them were made since 2000." This is what happens when you rely on tent-pole productions that need the widest possible audience in order to recoup the insane budgets, and then write and cast them in such a way as to alienate half or more of your potential audience.
The host of this video looked at the dominant terrain and vegetation types across the continental U.S. and divided the continental U.S. into 3 main zones: dense woodland, "grassland", and desert. The dense woodland is most of the U.S. east of the Mississippi river states to the Atlantic Coast, from the Gulf coast up to Canada; and the coastal area from Washington down into Northern California. It should have also extended eastward from the top of Washington into Northern Idaho (which even includes a bit of rain forest), but that is where your local knowledge comes in useful. Plus, there is so much farmland in those areas, I suppose "grassland" may fit depending on where you live.
"Grassland" would probably be better termed savanna because it is not just the great plains, but a lot of the scrub land and forest in areas considered to be high mountain desert. Basically, it is the great plains area west through the Rocky Mountains and Intermountain regions, but also includes central California. Most of Texas falls into this region.
And the "desert" area, no surprise, includes west Texas, the lower half of New Mexico, Arizona, and southern California, while stretching north into Nevada and southern Utah. (Although I would argue that the coastal area of southern California, which is considered a Mediterranean climate, would actually be better classified as part of the "grassland"--of course, you don't have to drive too far inland and you are in some of the driest, hottest deserts in the world).
For each of these three areas, the author has a primary pick and then offers a couple alternatives plus a photo realistic hunting camo pattern. The primary isn't just driven by what is the best camo for that terrain, but the availability of the camo and tactical gear in that camo. Thus, in some categories, better camo has been dropped to an alternative because the camo clothing is hard to source and/or other gear in that pattern is hard to find. So, for the woodland he recommends M81 Woodland; for grassland he recommends the regular Multi-Cam or similar patterns adopted by other militaries; and for desert he recommends 3-Color Desert. Keep in mind, this is not just the effectiveness of the camo but availability of gear.
Beyond the three main terrain types, the host also addresses special considerations such as camo for the snow (without buying a whole different set of gear in snow or white); consideration if you live in a transition area and discussing transition camo patterns; urban areas (which is basically "no camo" as he recommends you just dress as you normally do albeit perhaps in subdued tones); and, finally, for those that are cash strapped, he basically recommends that you buy UCP gear--which can generally be had for very low prices--and then dye it.
I would note that in many of the desert and high country desert areas, a mix of clothes in flat dark earth, coyote, tans, and other earth tones seem to work well.
