Month: August 2025

The Lighter Side Of Dating, Mating, And Civilizational Collapse

“My job is to see that big, strong men like you get on these buses without getting lost.” – Stripes

The other day I spent the afternoon playing chess with senior citizens in the park.  Took me a while to find 32 of them.

Even thirty years ago, finding a spouse was as easy as grabbing a beer at a kegger.  You met.  Maybe at school, maybe at church, maybe at work, maybe some friends introduced you.  Hell, maybe at the kegger.  It was a straightforward and reliable process, and it was also often sweaty and fun.

Even before my time, though, it was even easier.  Take it back to the 1800s, and men brought home the bacon, women kept the hearth warm, and together they built a life, maybe a farm, maybe a picket fence.  Often, people would meet and spend their whole lives in the same location.

The process wasn’t perfect, but it worked for thousands of years.

Fast-forward to 2025, and the mating market is a dumpster fire.  A constant source of conversation is the baby bust, describing how women aren’t reproducing enough children to keep society going.

Part of the reason for that is that cultural shifts and technological disruptions have turned love from carnal creativity in the backseat of a Camaro™ to the swipe of a finger on the smooth glass of a screen protector.  The result?  A generation of lonely hearts, spinsters, and guys who’ve decided sweatpants and beer are a better deal than chasing women who don’t even see them as people.

Pro tip:  never yell “shotgun” when you’re boarding an airplane.  Apparently, TSA doesn’t appreciate that.

Culture and tech crashed the human mating economy, and why it’s tearing the family, the atom of society, to shreds.

For thousands of years, societies kept a lid on female promiscuity, not because of some patriarchal conspiracy (okay maybe it was, we’re still meeting Thursday night, right guys?), but because it worked.

People who tear down traditions often don’t realize exactly what they’re destroying until it’s gone, and then it’s too late because the fragile fabric that it was supporting has collapsed.  It’s sort of like playing Jenga™ with retarded monkeys on crack, but I won’t speak any more about how I know that.

Tradition knew what science later confirmed:  high rates of female promiscuity correlate with lower marriage rates and higher divorce rates.  Skanky women are horrible for society.  A 2020 study from the Institute for Family Studies found that women with more sexual partners before marriage are less likely to stay married.  They graph waivers after the big increase in marrying a woman who has had more than one sex partner to a big drop at around four sex partners (for some reason).  If you can’t get a virgin, four seems to be the lucky number.  But if you’re the 167th guy to tap into that action?

My math number was afraid of negative numbers.  He’d stop at nothing to avoid them.

The chances of you being “the one” are nearly zero, yet in 2025 she still wants a ring worth six months of blood, sweat and tears and a house and she brings . . . you being number 167.

Back when shame was a thing, women faced social pressure to be selective, and men had a reason to step up for a low-mileage woman.  Now?  Shame is as outdated as a Marvel™ movie.  Women are free to “explore” and “find themselves” and “live their best life” all while banging a neverending stream of potential Prince Charmings.

Then there’s money.

Historically, men were the breadwinners, or at least the leaders in the grind in the family business or farm, with Ma raising the kids and churning the butter while Pa tamed the back 40.  Women relied on men for financial stability, and men relied on women to keep the home and raise the children.

Enter the modern workforce:  women now make up nearly half of U.S. workers and 90% of the human resources department everywhere.  That leads to the dilemma of the Stunning and Brave woman:  she wants a man who makes more than her, yet demands equal pay.  A 2023 Pew Research study found 55% of women prefer a partner with higher income (and 45% of women are liars).  That’s fine, but men’s wages have stagnated since the 1970s while women’s have risen.  The math doesn’t add up.

Feminism is a broad issue.  (meme as found)

Worse, the government has stepped in as Husband 2.0.

Welfare programs, from food stamps to housing subsidies, act like a sugar daddy for single women, especially mothers.  In 2022, over 40% of single-mother households received some form of public assistance.  Why marry a man when Uncle Sugar’s got your back and they can still bang all the men they want and don’t have to listen to any man?

Women on welfare aren’t wives anymore; they’re concubines of the state, trading solemn vows for EBT and government cheese.  The family, once the bedrock of civilization, is now a casualty of games and prizes fueled by promiscuity and feminism.  But I repeat myself.

Not to brag, but my wedding reception was so beautiful that even the cake was in tiers.

And that’s not even factoring in divorce-rape where unhaaaaapppy or bored women can hit the eject button and blow up the marriage with no real consequences except getting to keep the house, kids, cash and getting a free ticket to ride on the Chad carousel.

That’s bad enough.  It’s actually worse than Madonna’s herpes.

If culture cracked the mating market, technology crushed it like a python on a peanut.  Enter Tinder®, Bumble®, and the swipe-right revolution.  Women, all women, are hypergamous.  They want the very best mate they can find.  Society used to keep them in check through societal pressure.  Oh, and soon enough they would have run out of random men to pleasure.  Now the apps give them a digital buffet of Chads, Brads, and Thads.

Is anyone named Thaddeus nowadays?  I digress.

A 2021 study showed women on dating apps rate 80% of men as “below average” in attractiveness, while men rate women more realistically on a bell curve.  The result? A 5 or 6 woman swipes right on a 10.  Call him Prince Charming the Senator’s son, complete with abs and a hedge fund, who might bang her once but won’t stick around for breakfast or be seen in public with her, let alone hang a ring on her.

I hear he’s from the bad side of his Italian hometown – he came from the spaghetto.

She walks away thinking, “He was the one, I could get him to marry me,” and now every guy who doesn’t match up to Prince Charming is . . . settling.  Yes.  Settling, even though Prince Charming doesn’t remember her and only picked her up because it was a Tuesday, and was just taking his father’s deathbed advice:  “go ugly, early” and picked her up just for amusement.

Spinsterhood beckons, with a side of cat and wine memes.

Men aren’t entirely innocent bystanders here, either.

Faced with an endless parade of women chasing the top 10% of guys, many men have thrown in the towel.  Why grind for a better job, hit the gym, or learn to dress like you didn’t just roll out of a laundry basket?

The odds aren’t good. (as found)

A 2024 survey found 30% of men aged 18-29 have given up on dating entirely, opting for porn, video games, or “monk mode.”  They’re not wrong to notice the game is rigged against traditional one-for-one sorting.  Now, Chad gets his choice, and, if they’re lucky, the might get the attention of a slagged-out woman who is still pining for Chad – a widow for a man that was only in her life for a night.

This isn’t just about lonely Friday nights.  This is about the death of the family.  Men want decent looks, monogamy, and a partner who’s kind—basic stuff.  “She can’t read but she’s faithful and hasn’t had sex with Baltimore” has become a passing grade for many.

And if you want to argue about Monopoly®, you have to wait until Thanksgiving like everyone else.

Women want the whole package:  money, status, looks, protection, and a guy who’s basically a football start with a corner office.

Wait.  Tom Brady didn’t work out for his wife.  Neil Armstrong’s wife became unhaaaapppy.  What chance does the average guy have?

Marriage rates are at historic lows, being down 60% since 1960.  Divorce rates hover around 40%.  Kids grow up in fractured homes or none at all, with single-parent households now at 30% nationwide and rising.  The family, the core unit, the atom that glues society together, is being eroded by individualism on steroids.

I could write a book about this topic, but you get the idea.

So how do we dig out of this mess?

Start with culture.  Bring back shame.  The scarlet-letter kind.  Encourage women to value loyalty over chasing Chad, and men to step up instead of checking out.  That starts with incentives, because I don’t think anyone has any shame left.

I got fired from the library today.  Apparently, putting books on feminism in the “dystopian fantasy” section was frowned on.

Let’s rethink current incentives.  Have a kid and no husband?  Tough luck.  No child support, no state support.  Same thing with divorce.  No fun and prizes for that, and if you’re at-fault, you lose the kids.  Sure, tax breaks for married couples or policies that don’t make Uncle Sugar a better bet than a husband are nice, but we don’t need a nudge, we need a nuke.

Will the norm come back?  It has to.  Two more generations of this, and civilization will cease to exist.  Perhaps G. Michael Hopf (LINK) got the old quote wrong and it should go more like this:

Bad times create strong men,
Strong men create good times,
Good times make women skanky,
Skanky women create bad times.

Don’t worry, nothing’s depending on this.  I mean, nothing other than the fate of civilization.

Making The Invisible Hand Visible: Psyops and the War for Our Minds

So, if you watch The Matrix backwards, it’s just the story of a guy who quits drugs and gets a job.  (most memes as-found today)

Back in 1995, I think, I saw an editorial cartoon.  One was a picture of an American G.I. holding a dead child in 1945.  Next to it was an American G.I. holding a dead child in 1995.  The message was simple:  Americans needed to go and fight in a place that Americans couldn’t find on a map.  Bosnia?  Why was this a picture in a newspaper, trying to get me, John Wilder, to be on board attacking Serbians?

Why Serbians?  I mean, it sounded like an alien race of creatures that spent their lives curb surfing.

Something felt off – I think the only thing of value in the whole country was the last thirty Yugo™ transmissions.

And, I wasn’t wrong.  This was propaganda.  I (and the rest of America) was caught in a psychological operation, or psyops, a calculated effort to hijack my thoughts and bend my will.  About . . . Serbia.

Did you hear about the group in the Balkans who think the world started 6,000 years ago?  Croatianists.

Psyops, per the Army’s FM 3-05.301 (LINK), are “planned operations to convey selected information and indicators to . . . audiences to influence their emotions, motives, objective reasoning, and ultimately the behavior of governments, organizations, groups, and individuals.”

What’s that in language that is less like The Terminator® is talking?  It is the art of making me think what someone else wants, without me ever spotting the strings of the puppetmaster.

The story doesn’t start with Edward Bernays, but he’s a pretty convenient on-ramp for discussion.  Bernays gets that distinction because he, more than anyone else, is why the world feels like a scripted reality show.

I guess the bridge had a Twitter account, but it’s now suspended.

Born in 1891, this nephew of Sigmund Freud took his uncle’s insights into the human psyche and turned them into a weapon. In his 1928 book Propaganda, Bernays didn’t mince words: “The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society.”

Translation?

The GloboLeftElites think Americans are too dumb to think for ourselves, so they’ll do it for you. Bernays called this “the engineering of consent,” and he was as good at it as a tick is at finding blood or as Zuck is at mining your soul with InstaFace™.  Take his 1929 “Torches of Freedom” stunt. To sell more cigarettes, Bernays paid fashionable women to light up during New York’s Easter parade, framing smoking as a feminist rebellion against stuffy norms.  The result?

The media ate it up, women started puffing, and tobacco companies doubled their market.  Women?  They traded motherhood and bras for Camels™ and lung cancer.

Bernays didn’t stop at commerce.

I sometimes wear a tinfoil hat.  I’m not nuts, it just makes it more interesting when I stick my head in the microwave.

In the 1950s, he worked with the CIA to paint Guatemala’s elected government as a communist menace (true, they president was buds with Castro later), justifying putting pressure on the president to resign.  He did, and United Fruit Company (a story for another time) got Guatemala back into their orbit.  Bernays proved that by tapping into the primal emotions of fear, desire, and identity, anything could be sold, be it a product, a war, or a worldview.

Bernays’ playbook became the blueprint for government and corporate psyops and I could spend a book describing them, but ain’t nobody got that kind of time this morning.  But one thing is clear:  psyops are cheap and effective.  Thankfully, we abandoned the use of such technology.

Whoops.  Guess not.

Here 2025, and psyops have gone high-tech and are used more than ever.  The core, though, remains Bernays’ emotional manipulation.  Here’s how they work now:

  • Framing and Narrative Control:  Words shape reality.  Calling illegal aliens “undocumented workers” or “asylum seekers” turns lawbreakers into victims.  Meanwhile, people who just want to live in their own country without unending streams of infinity third-worlders are smeared as “racists.”  Whoops.  Guess that word doesn’t have the power it did even two years ago.  This is also why control of every platform is important to them.  Just one kid saying that the emperor is nekkid is enough to bring the whole charade down.

I sometimes can’t tell which psyop is more fun to watch.

  • Emotional Manipulation:  Fear and identity are big guns.  During COVID, “flatten the curve” and “trust the science” were hammered into us day after day, justifying lockdowns and mandates and a not-vaccine while dissenters were silenced and fired.  On race, media amplifies the “man bites dog” rarity of white-on-black violence to stoke division, ignoring the reality that the violence is almost all one-way.  Emotional manipulation was also that editorial making me feel sad for dead kids in a place I’ve never heard of.
  • Social Media Amplification:  Algorithms on all social media are designed to boost outrage because clicks mean cash for Zuck.  Bots and influencers push phrases like Black Lives Matter, making manufactured narratives feel organic.
  • Astroturfing: Fake grassroots movements, like funded protests or viral campaigns, create the illusion of public consensus.  Remember the 2020 “defund the police” push?  It looked spontaneous but was backed by big money, just like the “no kings” protest against Trump.  There really isn’t a group supporting it, it’s a cause in search of supporters.
  • Gaslighting: The ultimate mind-screw, telling us what we see isn’t real.  Worried about illegal immigration’s strain on schools or hospitals?  We’re “xenophobic.”  Notice crime spikes in certain areas or that moslems are pretty rape-y?  We’re “bigoted.”  The goal? Make us doubt our own eyes, believe that no one else thinks the same way that we do.

Psyops in Action:  Race and Immigration

The American public is a prime target, especially on race and illegal immigration, where psyops fuel division and push GloboLeftElite agendas.  After George Floyd’s overdose in 2020, the media ran a relentless campaign framing police as systematically racist.  Every white-cop-on-black-suspect incident became proof of a grand conspiracy, while DOJ reports (like the 2014 Ferguson findings clearing Officer Darren Wilson) were buried.

The result?

I get the creeps because it seems like Sting is still watching every breath I take. (my meme)

Riots, “defund the police” mania, and corporations tripping over themselves to push DEI policies that pit races against each other. It’s Bernays 101: amplify emotion, ignore facts, and, in this case, watch society fracture because it’s always easier to destroy than to build.

Illegal immigration is another psyops goldmine.

Since the 2021 border surge, outlets like CNN and MSNBC have framed illegal immigrants as “migrants” fleeing persecution, spotlighting tear-jerking stories of families while ignoring the stunningly high costs that these people bring to our country.

Crime stats, like DHS reports showing 66% of released detainees reoffend, are swept under the rug.  Ignore that diseases that were eradicated are again showing up in our country.

The narrative?  Open borders are humane, and anyone who disagrees hates brown people.  This isn’t an accident.  This is a deliberate push to erode national sovereignty, weaken cultural cohesion, and make Americans feel guilty for wanting secure borders.

COVID was a masterclass in psyops too, as was the January 6 “Insurrection” and a thousand other public lies meant to manipulate you.  But never forget those who are in full service of the Lie:  The Court Jesters of the GloboLeftElite.

The Capitol was in less danger on January 6 than it was during the revolution scenes from the D.C. production of Lés Misérables.

Jon Stewart and John Oliver, among many others, are the smirking faces of psyops disguised as comedy. Stewart, helming The Daily Show from 1999 to 2015, and Oliver, with Last Week Tonight since 2014, aren’t just entertainers (and it’s arguable that they’re even entertaining).  Nope.

They’re narrative enforcers peddling DEI with a laugh track.  Their weapon?  Humor that makes their audience feel smart and superior while feeding them a script of what the Narrative wants them to believe.

Their techniques are pure Bernays:

  • Selective Framing: Stewart’s 2010 Tea Party takedowns painted fiscal conservatives as racist rubes, ignoring their legitimate gripes about government bloat.  Oliver’s 2020 border segments framed ICE as heartless, glossing over data like the millions of illegals flooding over the border.
  • Ridicule as Persuasion:  Mockery is their hammer. Stewart’s smirks and Oliver’s exasperated sighs make conservative ideas:  border walls, voter ID, traditional values seem absurd to their hand-picked audiences. Laughter shuts down critical thinking:  nobody argues with a punchline.
  • Moral Superiority: Both position themselves as the voice of reason. Oliver’s 2021 “critical race theory” bit dismissed critics as clueless, never engaging their actual concerns about divisive curriculums.  Stewart’s post-Ferguson rants leaned on emotion over evidence, amplifying the “systemic racism” narrative while ignoring the exoneration of the cop that shot the “gentle giant” that had just roughed up a convenience store clerk.

Their impact is insidious.  By blending humor with half-truths, they make progressive dogma feel like common sense.  Their audiences are urban, educated, and often young, who walk away feeling informed, not manipulated.  But it’s psyops all the same:  control the frame, mock the dissenters, and let laughter do the rest.  The GloboLeft couldn’t ask for better foot soldiers.

Seeing this is half the battle.  The other half is reflection.  Psyops work best when they’re fast and jump out at you unexpectedly, like that editorial cartoon did decades ago.  I remember it because it was effective at emotional manipulation, but when I realized that I had no idea what a Serb ate for lunch or if Bosnians wore special hats while they ate PEZ® I came to the conclusion that my opinion on the subject was the product.  I was meant to be mad at one side or the other, but, thankfully, I had no idea which side I was supposed to be mad at.

Does throwing the discus make you want to hurl? (my meme)

What I try to do now is to ask myself:  what are they trying to make me feel?  Why?  Why should I care about Ukraine?  I thought about it and did some research, and, made the conscious decision that I don’t care about Ukraine unless someone is asking me to pay for it or unless it’s the source huge corruption.

It is?  Well let’s stop paying for it and let’s arrest and try those who were paid off.  Simple.

The GloboLeftElite’s goals are at least partially clear:  they want a borderless, divided America, where the people are too scared, guilty, or distracted to fight back.

We don’t have to play along.  Question everything.  Dig for primary sources.

Be careful what you feed your head.

And if something connects in a particularly emotional way, ask yourself:  why should I care?

Then make your own choice, and if you’re lucky, you might get your hands on some cherry Yugo® transmissions.  I mean, if you have goats to trade because I’m not sure they use money.

Schlitz® and Shot Puts: The Lost Art of Failing

“For the genetic elite, success is attainable, but not guaranteed.” – Gattaca

I heard women are now allowed to join the SAS.  Thank heavens!  There’s no way those lads should be making their own sandwiches.

When I was a kid, life was a buffet of possibilities with a chocolate sauce fountain at the end.  I should know, because I was that greedy little guy piling my plate high with everything from wrestling to chess club to that four ill-fated years of track where I learned that that shot put was never going to go farther than 38’.

Ever.

But it wasn’t just me.  Back in the ‘70s and ‘80s and ‘90s, all of childhood was a sandbox—room to dig, build, and occasionally eat the sand just to see what happened.  Hell, in the 1970s I don’t think mothers stopped smoking while in labor, and then let their kids go free-range until the police brought them home from the kegger at the old gravel pit.  They said I was full of Schlitz®, but I would have differed if I didn’t keep passing out.

An original ad.  Back when ads were based.  And, probably a good enough cook for the SAS.

Outside of cheap watery beer, as a kid I could try everything, suck at half of it, and still have time to ride bikes with my buddies.  I mean, they were imaginary friends, but at least they would stop staring at me when I yelled at them, “stop staring at me”.

The point is, I had time.  Time to dabble, freedom to fail, and a real chance to struggle to find out what made John Wilder tick (spoiler:  booze, tobacco, and women).  I could dream of being an astronaut one week a Green Beret the next, and James Bond the week after.  No one demanded that I pick a lane and stay there, probably because they were too busy smoking and drinking and driving. For me, though, failure was a teacher, not a felony.

Kids today?

They’re not at a buffet.  They forced to pick their entrée at 12 and commit to it like terrier hangs onto a T-bone.

I remember a conversation with a colleague back in Houston, circa 2010.  His daughter, still in middle school, had to choose: volleyball, softball, or tennis.  One single sport, full commitment, no take-backs.

When his girlfriend asked if he was trans, he got so mad that he packed her stuff and left.

This wasn’t just signing up for the school team and seeing how it went.  This meant off-season practices, traveling squads, private coaching, and summer clinics that cost more than my first car.  All this for a kid who, statistically, had a better shot at being struck by lightning than playing at the college level.  In Houston’s mega-sized high schools (the nearest one had 5,000 kids and a football stadium that could shame a small college) only the top 1% even make the team.

The rest?  They’re sidelined, their dreams of spiking a volleyball or swinging a bat relegated to backyard pickup games, if they’re lucky.

Why this insanity? Two culprits: economics and elite overproduction.

First, economics.

Big school districts love their mega-schools.  They’re cheaper per pupil to run, since they have fewer buildings, fewer janitors, more bang for the bureaucratic buck.  Plus, a 5,000-student high school can field a football team that crushes smaller districts and draws 20,000 fans to a stadium that makes my college’s stadium look like a community rec center field for third graders.  In Texas, high school football isn’t a sport; it’s a religion, though they do have better concessions.

But our high school coach wanted us to have a small ghost.  He said he wanted us to show a little team spirit.

And it pays:  Bigger schools mean bigger revenue, bigger crowds, and bigger bragging rights for state titles, but you still only need 45 uniforms and helmets.

The second culprit is trickier:  elite overproduction.

Historian Peter Turchin (who I’ve written about before HERE) points out that societies often churn out more “elites” than they can sustain—too many people vying for too few top spots, whether in politics, business, or, yes, even high school sports.  We see it in our polarized Congress and bloated corporate C-suites, so why not in our kids’ lives?

Parents, schools, and even kids themselves feel the pressure to produce not just good students or athletes but exceptional ones.

The result of this is catastrophic.  It has produced a generation of tweens locked into one sport, one instrument, or one hyper-specialized path, all in the name of building a résumé for elite colleges that demand “well-rounded” applicants who’ve paradoxically had no time to be well-rounded.  Or, you know, they could just have a great DEI score.

Whatever.

Dogs have masters.  Cats have staff.

For the average kid, the stress this creates is brutal.  Kids today face schedules that would make a CEO sweat.  A 14-year-old might have 6 a.m. weight training, school, after-school practice, and a side hustle of “personal development” like SAT prep or violin lessons.

Free time?

That’s for quitters.

Social life?

Catch up on InstaFace® between reps.

The mental toll is real:   you can look around and see kids today are drowning in depression and hopelessness.  Part of this, I’d argue, comes from a life without failure.  Most kids in Houston won’t lose a football game or a wrestling match or a basketball game.  They’ll go and watch, sure, but they don’t get a chance to actually fail.  Without learning that failure is really an option and that tomorrow is another day, every little setback in their life feels like a catastrophe.

Without challenges that force them to fail, adapt, and push through, they hit adulthood brittle, unprepared for real-world setbacks.  I lost at sports in ways that made me want to cry when I was in high school.  I didn’t cry because I’m not gay, but I learned that I could get up in the morning after losing and see that I was still there.  My loss was temporary, but it really did help build may character.  Today’s kids, locked into elite tracks or locked out of actual competition, often don’t face meaningful failure until it’s high-stakes.

By then, the stakes are too high to learn gracefully.  They need safe spaces to crash and burn, like a JV wrestling match where you get pinned by a kid whose armpit smells like grape soda and Cheetos® or a debate club where your argument flops harder than a fish on a dock.

After the Little Rascals finished, Buckwheat became moslem and is now known as Kareem O’Wheat.

When we moved away from Houston’s mega-schools to Modern Mayberry, we did it mainly to escape this madness.  Our kids could try things.  They didn’t have to be the best to play, and they had room to fail without it defining their future or collapsing their ego.

That freedom let them discover who they were, not who a coach or a college admissions board thought they should be.  They’ve learned that the struggle is the goal.

Well, that and the booze, tobacco, and women.

Podcast? Podcast! Watch Because It’s Wednesday.

Streams will show up at 9PM EDT (click the link below), that’s in just a little over an hour!  (and we typically pregame for five minutes, so it really starts at 8:55PM)

Mrs The Mrs – YouTube

Funniest News On the ‘Net.

In this episode:

  • On This Day
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  • Conversation Street
  • Two Minutes of Guns in One Minute
  • ThinkRealFast
  • I Heard It On The X

Civil War 2.0 Weather Report: The Rising Fire

“That was Police Commissioner Jacobs, who just arrived on the scene here of a 4-alarm fire that broke out an hour ago.” – Fight Club

What did the terrorists use to burn down the ecommerce warehouse?  Amazon® Kindle™.

  1. Those who have an opposing ideology are considered evil.
  2. People actively avoid being near those of opposing ideology.  Might move from communities or states just because of ideology.
  3. Common violence. Organized violence is occurring monthly.
  4. Common violence that is generally deemed by governmental authorities as justified based on ideology.
  5. Opposing sides develop governing/war structures. Just in case.
  6. Open War.

Volume VII, Issue 3

Most memes except for the clock and graphs are “as found”.  I have kept the Clock O’Doom to 8., given the events in Los Angeles.  As I predicted, the GloboLeft would likely try to turn up the heat as things warmed up.  Racial tension is exceptionally high now, and can lead to violence in a heartbeat.  Beware: it can climb quickly.  Right now (as of publishing) we are dropping below Level Rittenhouse and it looks like we avoided Level Rooftop Korean.  For now.

My advice remains.  Avoid crowds.  Get out of cities.  Now.  A year too soon is better than one day too late.

In this issue:  Front Matter – The Fire Rises – Violence and Censorship Update – Misery Index – Updated Civil War 2.0 Index – STORY2 – Links

Front Matter

Welcome to the latest issue of the Civil War II Weather Report.  These posts are different than the other posts at Wilder Wealthy and Wise and consist of smaller segments covering multiple topics around the single focus of Civil War 2.0, on the first or second Monday of every month.  I’ve created a page (LINK) for links to all of the past issues.  Also, subscribe because you’ll join nearly 850 other people and get every single Wilder post delivered to your inbox, M-W-F at or before 7:30AM Eastern, free of charge.

https://wilderwealthywise.com/civil-war-weather-report-previous-posts/

The Fire Rises

Ballina (in the County Mayo) is up in the northeast part of Ireland.  It’s a small town of less than 11,000 souls, and has been continuously occupied for at least 4,000 years, all of those years by the Irish.

A rumor that a public housing project under construction in town was being built to house “immigrants” to Ireland was all it took – and the construction project was burned down.  The local government claims that it wasn’t for immigrants at all, rather it was for elderly residents.

But the location had no elevators, no outside parking spaces for emergencies or caregivers, and no place that a visiting nurse could park.  And also no parking for the residents.  Which certainly sounds to me like it would be for housing imported diversity.

Regardless of the truth, it got burned down.

And, in the U.K., there have been “widespread” riots led by what the newspapers call “far-right”.  What is far-right in the U.K.?  People who don’t want their country invaded and conquered by foreigners.  People who want the U.K. to be filled with and run by Englishmen, Welshmen, and Scots are also part of this far-right.

When a country gets to this point, when the stresses finally build up so that there is open violence, it won’t be just in one country.  On July 16, a mosque that was two days away from becoming a worship site in Catalonia (Spain) when it went up in flames.  On purpose.

As people get emboldened in one country, this will spread to others.  Europe has higher unemployment, and I’d expect that as misery increases, the violence against foreigners will as well, especially as the foreigners are reaching the proportion of population where they feel fine telling the Actual English that it was their responsibility to serve the foreigners, and that the foreigners would rule them.

We’ve seen similar here in the United States, where we had the spectacle of GloboLeftists protesting ICE arresting underage children in California harvesting illegal drugs (marijuana).

As the pushback continues, it will grow, and that’s why there is a desperate effort to keep the lid on the protests that are taking place as the invaders are named.  Expect more fires everywhere as this movement grows.

Oh, Canada, are you okay with this?

Violence and Censorship Update

Violence comes back to the forefront this month, first as ICE gets shot at (expect much more of this – this isn’t the only case.

Then as people attempting to abduct children are turned back out onto the streets because they’re too stupid to understand crime.

In what would send me straight to UK prison, an “elite” group of cops are now looking for badthink across social media.

And in Cincinnati, two are beaten.  And the media is silent.  Because?  It’s a story that doesn’t support the narrative that mainstream wants to discuss.

Speaking of the narrative – mainstream news only focuses on stories it wants you to think about, and ignores people getting fired at Microsoft™ so that they can be replaced by H-1B Indians.

Epstein.  This one isn’t going away, even though my guess is that the files aren’t even in the United States anymore.

Banning books is bad, says banned books group.  Except the books they want banned?

And I’m sure that they’d support this woman if they banned her book:

Misery Index

The new Trump administration is shown in red.  Results continue to be much better than Biden’s misery numbers as Trump’s policies apparently have been stunning at reversing the tide.  We’ll see.

Updated Civil War II Index

The Civil War II graphs are an attempt to measure four factors that might make Civil War II more likely, in real time.  They are broken up into Violence, Political Instability, Economic Outlook, and Illegal Alien Crossings.  As each of these is difficult to measure, I’ve created for three of the four metrics some leading indicators that combine to become the index.  On illegal aliens, I’m just using government figures.

Violence:

Violence indicators are down slightly this month.  I think, in order to make it into the public consciousness, something big will have to happen.

Political Instability:

Down is more stable, and it went up (more unstable) this month.  Thankfully, a judge has realized that she is more important than Congress and the President in deciding funding.

Economic:

The economy is up a bit this month, again.  But if you want to see a list of people who want to replace you with cheaper labor, here’s a list:

Illegal Aliens:

Still the lowest level since the Weather Report started.  Here’s a reminder that not every politician with an “R” is your friend.

The Turn

Stephen Colbert was funny when he wasn’t political, about 20 years ago.  Now?

He’s fired.

That’s good.  He was nothing more than an emotional propagandist for the GloboLeftElite.  His show, according to CBS, won’t be replaced.  The reason?  It loses $42 million a year.  A puppet show done by talented middle schoolers would be more entertaining and probably would make a lot more profit.

Perhaps he can add his estrogen-dripped sweat to The View.  Oh, The View?  It’s not cancelled, but it is on its usual summer hiatus.  Well, one can hope.

But people in government are being fired, and their positions aren’t being replaced.  Over 150,000 workers are being let go.  Many won’t be replaced.  One that will be replaced, probably, is James Comey’s daughter, Maureen, who was working as an attorney for the Justice Department.

I’d show a picture of her, but she’s not pretty and this meme is funny.

Since James Comey was probably involved in cooking up fake things about Trump, it’s not horribly surprising that they’re going after his daughter, especially since she has Maxwell, P-Diddy, and Epstein all over her.  But that’s probably not bad when compared to the possibility of her father going to jail for pushing the famous Steele dossier.

Also good.

But what we’re seeing is a fight between elites, and these are just the relatively rare casualties on the GloboLeft side.  This is a war that’s been going on for a while – why was Tucker Carlson fired?  This same war between Team A and Team B.  This is actually a sign that the split is getting worse, and the elites are still fighting.

But I’m enjoying it.

LINKS

BAD GUYS

https://x.com/canarymission/status/1948359733951250561
https://x.com/VividProwess/status/1949687664011268506
https://x.com/ScooterCasterNY/status/1941183882633908288
https://x.com/GuntherEagleman/status/1942677874676228561
https://x.com/devorydarkins/status/1942664787239862695
https://apnews.com/article/texas-immigration-detention-center-shooting-officer-ambush-f3782b689659270b10bd9b33bb48169b
https://x.com/CitizenFreePres/status/1942667680432930885
https://x.com/TiffanyFong_/status/1942303344569246052
https://www.facebook.com/reel/746527091439884

GOOD GUYS

https://www.tiktok.com/@hiisfbxfslw/video/7532458444423580959
https://x.com/Tr00peRR/status/1946654665904713991
https://x.com/Viral_vortex1/status/1946738624474824998
https://x.com/newschannel3now/status/1949303035219652895

ONE GUY

https://x.com/NY_Scoop/status/1945228137802899834

BODY COUNT

https://archive.is/GxL6J
https://x.com/NatHalberstadt/status/1951635776900415724
https://thefederalist.com/2025/07/25/american-birth-rates-rates-drop-to-levels-of-civilizational-suicide/
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/us-birth-rate-all-time-low-cdc-data/
https://cms.zerohedge.com/s3/files/inline-images/image%20-%202025-07-09T101008.305.jpg?itok=epJv_hnP
https://blog.exitgroup.us/p/mass-deportation-is-the-only-issue

 

VOTE COUNT

https://archive.is/DQEg9
https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/number-democratic-voters-extremely-motivated-214912271.html
https://lite.cnn.com/2025/07/17/politics/democrats-republicans-midterms-poll
https://polls.decisiondeskhq.com/averages/generic-ballot/national/lv-rv-adults
https://www.politico.com/news/2025/08/02/maga-future-young-republican-national-convention-00488361?cid=apn

CIVIL WAR

https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2025/07/23/canada-alberta-danielle-smith-trump-trade-interview-00469078
https://www.city-journal.org/article/civil-terrorism-anti-israel-radicals
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/youtuber-uncovers-soros-soldier-behind-color-revolution-operation-targeting-new-york-city
https://realclearwire.com/articles/2025/06/25/the_spiderweb_and_the_lion_subversive_infiltration_and_us_national_security_1118655.html
https://amgreatness.com/2025/07/25/dear-democrats/
https://archive.is/nzQ3K
https://www.theburningplatform.com/2025/07/30/war-phase-of-this-fourth-turning-has-arrived/
https://jonathanturley.org/2025/08/01/the-reveal-the-public-is-finally-learning-how-democrats-pulled-off-the-greatest-political-trick-in-history/
https://substack.com/inbox/post/169766681?utm_medium=web&triedRedirect=true

 

It Came From . . . 1995

“Man, there’s not a year that goes by, not a year, that I don’t read about some escalator accident involving some bastard kid that could’ve easily been avoided had some parent, I don’t care which one, but some parent conditioned him to fear and respect the escalator.” – Mallrats

Is that Neandergibson? Joe Piscopo?

While the 1980s allowed for gonzo productions of very uneven quality to become classics (Better Off Dead, for instance) the 1990s box office was much more crowded and the studios began to spend even more on the films. I’d say that a random movie from 1995 was more professionally made than a random movie from any year in the 1980s, but had a lot less heart.

As to the continuation of the series, I’m not sure if we’ll do 1996 or end it here. I think I’m done with the 1970s, though I have another idea that amuses me that we’ll try in late August. As always, I’m also willing to consider lists of genre flicks, but pretty soon that ends up with movies no one ever saw.

As usual, sequels are excluded on the list. I don’t consider Mallrats a sequel. Thankfully, I make the rules. You may appeal. It will be denied.

As an aside, I don’t think you can overestimate the propaganda impact of films. Just like listening to music puts your brain into a state of suggestable hypnosis (which is why I like to listen to kick-ass music rather than sad stuff most days) so does film. Film takes the next dimension above music by adding visual stimulus, making the hypnosis even more effective. What I take in does impact me, so I consider that more and more as I grow older and as it’s thrown in our faces with the last decade’s worth of propaganda films. I understand now why some don’t like horror films for just that reason. I do like them, still, but I’ve become much more selective as to what I let in the transom.

Speaking of which . . . .

That poster gives me tentacles. I mean tingles. And it looks like Ralph Macchio.

In the Mouth of Madness – I love good Lovecraftian horror. Cosmic horror is at its best when it sketches a universe of limitless expanse where we’re just nubs sitting in the darkness while titanic forces beyond our understanding play out around us. It’s like whistling through the graveyard, if you will. When I first saw In the Mouth of Madness I hated it, because I didn’t get it. Now? My opinion is that it’s great cosmic horror, and shows off Sam Neill as he unwittingly brings about the end of the world. With popcorn. Like most of Carpenter’s work, it has a large following, but was box office poison. But he gets the last laugh in this one.

I have a particular set of skills. Murder and guitar solos.

Rob Roy – Scots fighting to be fiercely independent, while being swindled and taken advantage of by rape-y foreigners? If only they would do that in 2025. Tim Roth steals the show in a perfectly creepy performance with hair appropriate for Isaac Newton if he played guitar for Queen®. It did okay at the box office.

If you’ve seen the movie, this makes a little bit of sense.

Crimson Tide – Another submarine movie because, well, why not? In this one, though, Tony Scott (same guy who cooked a Goose in Top Gun) gets the most out of Denzel Washington and the late Gene Hackman. To be clear, Hackman was still alive during the movie. The two are officers on a nuclear missile submarine that have to decide if they’re going to shoot off nuclear missiles after losing communications with Starfleet®. Me? I would have launched the missiles because that’s one way to get in the history books.

Should this one be called “Bravefelt”?

Braveheart – Tons of historical inaccuracy? Check. Mel Gibson with more hair than an 80’s glam band? Check. Ludicrously long runtime of nearly three hours? Also check. In spite of these things, this was a huge hit. Swords. Women. Bravery. Sophie Marceau at her peak Marceau-ness. What’s not to love?

I still remember when he outran Kevin Spacey to maintain his virginity in the climax.

Apollo 13 – This movie follows the life of a young transgender long-distance runner (Tom Hanks) who needs an older mentor (Kevin Bacon) to buy him shoes because he grew up in a third-world country that couldn’t afford to have a Nike® store or electricity or food.

I need to post this on Rob’s X® feed.

Judge Dredd – Some comic book purists don’t like this version because in the comic books Dredd never takes off his helmet, but Stallone wanted to show off his hair. The (much darker) 2012 reboot Dredd features a Dredd™ that always covers his hedd. I didn’t care, really, since I found this movie both stupid and hilarious and one of Rob Schneider’s best roles. Huge flop. I wouldn’t recommend it, but yet I enjoyed it. Does that mean I hate myself? Anyway, the 2012 version is a much better movie.

Wait, what if every suspect was Rob Schneider? That would be wacky!

The Usual Suspects – Cost $6 million, made nearly $70 million. This one gets the most out of fairly talented cast in a crime mystery, and I will admit that the ending did surprise me when I watched it on a rental VHS tape from Blockbuster™, because I did not know that late fees could get that high. I still don’t know how the tape ended up behind the couch. Maybe it was Keyser Söze?

Wow, those guys are more swole than I recalled. The 90s rocked!

Mallrats – A $6 million dollar budget. $2 million in ticket sales. I think the budget skips all the advertisement for this thing – you couldn’t go anywhere young adults were in 1995 without seeing ads for this movie months before it came out. This movie is a very stupid comedy that brings us Jason Lee (My Name is Earl) as a guy on a quest to get his girlfriend back. I think. It’s funny in a juvenile way, but was also the product of its time. Watched it with my boys, they thought it was hilarious, but were also fascinated, like anthropologists studying a world that existed a thousand years ago.

I hope it’s as good as the sequel to Hamlet.

Leaving Las Vegas – Darkest movie on this list. Watched it once, not sure I have it in me to watch it again. The guy who wrote the semi-autographical novel it was based on killed himself when he found out it was going to be a movie. Guess he really, really, really, really didn’t like Nic Cage.

Heat – I was debating if I was going to do “It Came From . . . . 1995” at all, but the meme above (as found) convinced me that I should. Big hit that I somehow missed and watched a few years ago after Aesop mentioned it. No weapons were injured during the filming of this movie, but not for lack of ammo. Thank heavens Sig® hadn’t introduced the P320™ yet or else half of the ammo fired wouldn’t have needed an actor fanning the trigger. Related news: I hear Alec Baldwin is going to be Sig©’s spokesman.

Four Rooms or Fur Rooms?

Four Rooms – An anthology film that I saw in an arthouse theater (the only time I’ve ever been to one) with a buddy. I guess being in an arthouse theater is with another dude is the gayest thing I’ve ever done in my life, besides that one time I had a wine cooler. Regardless, I enjoyed it, since each one of the four films was essentially a joke tied together by Tim Roth’s best comedic performance. The first film is by far the weakest, but, I can’t call it awful because, boobs.

“Waiter, there’s a rubber chicken in my soup.”
“No there isn’t.”
“Yes, there is. What is it doing there.”
“The backstroke, I believe.”
Now for something completely different.

12 Monkeys – Is he crazy, or is it time travel? Why not both? Terry Gilliam was generally the weakest member of Monty Python®, but he’s done much better as a director. Regardless, this movie brings together Bruce Willis and Brad Pitt in roles very much against the stuff they normally did, with Pitt even getting nominated for an Oscar™.

Not included? Seven. Species. Strange Days. Sense and Sensibility. Really, any movie starting with ‘S’ from 1995. I kid. Things to do in Denver When You’re Dead also nearly made the list.

What did I miss?