Panzers – Page 2 – Wilder, Wealthy, and Wise

Great News: Everything’s Going Wrong!

“If we can stop him, we shall prevent the collapse of Western civilization. No pressure.” – Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows

How many contractors does it take to screw in a light bulb? I’ll let you know when I get one to call me back.

Many times we look at a mess, and think, “Well, that’s just so broken that nothing, nothing will ever be okay again.” That would describe my first marriage. I don’t write more about that bad marriages because bad marriages aren’t all that interesting unless it’s in Florida and involves an alligator, meth, and a Clinton. Besides, it’s over.

So, did it really matter?

In my case, yes.

When I sat back after it was all concluded, one of the things that I did was really think about it, and try to figure out what (if anything) that I had done wrong in the marriage. On hindsight, there was plenty that I did wrong. Though I’d love to blame it all on her since , I certainly played my part. In the end, I knew I’d never find anyone like my ex-wife again. Of course, that was my goal.

There I was, recently divorced, in debt, underwater on my house, and with a stack of bills that were immediately due. It was the worst place I’d ever been in my life, with the exception of being married to my ex. Why are divorces expensive? They’re worth it.

Do divorcing stoners get joint custody?

I realize now that this wasn’t as bad as I thought it was then, but back then it looked like a jet had crashed into my life.

What did I do?

I put one foot in front of the other, met The Mrs., paid off my bills (that took four years), had first one kid and then another, and sold the house right as the housing boom was taking off. None of this was predictable to me at the time of the divorce.

But this isn’t about me.

What kind of eel hits your eye like a big pizza pie? That’s a moray.

When you look at, say, Japan in 1945, it was almost worse than my divorce. Almost. The land had been nuked, bombed, and about 4%, nearly one out of twenty, of the Japanese population had been killed in the war. Their industry had been devastated; their army dismantled, their anime undrawn.

So, they gave up.

No, just kidding. They didn’t give up. They buckled down and became the economic growth story, leading the world in the production of quality cars and electronics by the early 1970s, just a little over a generation after the end of the war and the devastation.

You could not have predicted that Japan would have been so successful that by the late 1980s people were expecting it to have an economy that many felt would soon be larger than the economy of the United States. Luckily, the Japanese discovered mascot suits, and have settled back into being one of the largest, most functional, highest standard of living places in the world who is also a bit crazy.

Why did U-Boats in World War II have dogs as mascots? So they could have a sub woofer.

The point remains – you cannot guess the end by the beginning.

As I look around the world now, I see a world that is filled with conflict, some of which is horrifying. Some of the conflict threatens to change the entire world balance of power. Some of the cataclysmic changes we’ve seen in society have ripped apart the basis for stability of the atom of society – the family and have created new structures that are actively against every virtue and celebrate their opposites.

All of that is true. And yet, I still am optimistic. Why? Because, when I look back through history, we’ve driven to the cliff, again and again and even tried to jump off. When the Roman Empire fell because of many of the same things ailing Western Civilization today, the game wasn’t over. Europe rebounded and eventually (after a lot of struggle) reached heights that had never been seen before in the history of mankind. The setback of the fall of the Roman Empire had been the catalyst for the rebirth of Europe.

Was everything the same?

No. But the foundations for a stable society that can create wealth, freedom, and exemplify virtue haven’t changed since civilization itself was formed. These things are necessary. Humans have changed since civilization started, but the basic things that motivate us and keep us going when it’s cold and dark out haven’t: the things that give us hope are family, religion, and the will to create – something far more than just the will to survive – amoeba and Leftists can do that.

These things don’t include so much of what we see being indoctrinated into the culture today, things that are anti-child, anti-family, and anti-life. These are now being celebrated as virtues, and it’s devastating and causes civilization to unravel.

Surely that burning oil could have created a full tank?

This unravelling, however, will end up being the basis of something new and wonderful: although all great civilizations rhyme, they don’t have to look exactly the same. I really believe that, perhaps, the greatest and most golden age of humanity may be before us, rather than behind us.

You really can’t see it now in a world that’s falling apart because of the absolute inversion of values, but I assure you, it’s there. We will win. Deep down, Kipling knew it over 100 years ago when he penned The Gods of the Copybook Headings (which I’ll trot out once more, full poem below).

We cannot lose because those values that make civilization worth living have nothing to do with the cultural change being forced down our throats. The irony is that, by weakening our culture they bring their defeat closer to them, faster. Hormone treatment of children has not, is not, and will never be a way to create a stable society. It is, in fact, a way to create a crushed number of people that are so broken and confused inside that there is no way that they can create any sort of civilization.

No, everything is breaking apart, and it will lead, inevitably, to the next stage, which is going to be wonderful, though the route won’t be easy. Be of good cheer. I’ll put it in better hands than mine to point out what’s coming:

The Gods of the Copybook Headings, by Rudyard Kipling

As I pass through my incarnations in every age and race,
I make my proper prostrations to the Gods of the Market Place.
Peering through reverent fingers I watch them flourish and fall,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings, I notice, outlast them all.

We were living in trees when they met us. They showed us each in turn
That Water would certainly wet us, as Fire would certainly burn:
But we found them lacking in Uplift, Vision and Breadth of Mind,
So we left them to teach the Gorillas while we followed the March of Mankind.

We moved as the Spirit listed. They never altered their pace,
Being neither cloud nor wind-borne like the Gods of the Market Place,
But they always caught up with our progress, and presently word would come
That a tribe had been wiped off its icefield, or the lights had gone out in Rome.

With the Hopes that our World is built on they were utterly out of touch,
They denied that the Moon was Stilton; they denied she was even Dutch;
They denied that Wishes were Horses; they denied that a Pig had Wings;
So we worshipped the Gods of the Market Who promised these beautiful things.

When the Cambrian measures were forming, They promised perpetual peace.
They swore, if we gave them our weapons, that the wars of the tribes would cease.
But when we disarmed They sold us and delivered us bound to our foe,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: “Stick to the Devil you know.”

On the first Feminian Sandstones we were promised the Fuller Life
(Which started by loving our neighbour and ended by loving his wife)
Till our women had no more children and the men lost reason and faith,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: “The Wages of Sin is Death.”

In the Carboniferous Epoch we were promised abundance for all,
By robbing selected Peter to pay for collective Paul;
But, though we had plenty of money, there was nothing our money could buy,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: “If you don’t work you die.”

Then the Gods of the Market tumbled, and their smooth-tongued wizards withdrew
And the hearts of the meanest were humbled and began to believe it was true
That All is not Gold that Glitters, and Two and Two make Four
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings limped up to explain it once more.

As it will be in the future, it was at the birth of Man
There are only four things certain since Social Progress began.
That the Dog returns to his Vomit and the Sow returns to her Mire,
And the burnt Fool’s bandaged finger goes wabbling back to the Fire;

And that after this is accomplished, and the brave new world begins
When all men are paid for existing and no man must pay for his sins,
As surely as Water will wet us, as surely as Fire will burn,
The Gods of the Copybook Headings with terror and slaughter return!

How Occupy Wall Street Led To The Current Woke Crisis

“Being a villain is such a waste of time!” – The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show

The way she set up the pieces, I think she might be planning on eating them, rather than playing a game.

Once in a while, it’s good to take a step back. Where are we?

First, it’s important to review that the economy is not the financial system. The economy consists of the stuff we make, and the people who make it, and their productivity. It’s matched with people who want that stuff.

Stuff can be anything people want to pay money for: PEZ®. Cars. Machetes. Beer. Zirconium nose hair trimmers. Video game software. Pictures of PEZ©. Gasoline. Streaming movies about PEZ™. Velvet Elvis™ paintings (I still need one, I prefer the “mid-carbohydrate, wearing sunglasses and a sequined jumpsuit” King). Houses. People to polish the PEZ® statues I keep in my yard. Did I mention beer?

Notice that the stuff is physical stuff as well as information and services.

What’s not required?

I have the heart of a lion! I have the eye of an eagle! I have the legs of a gazelle! I also have a lifetime ban from the zoo.

Money. Debt. Interest rates. These are fundamentally constructions of humanity, and are meant only to make transactions easier. They are not required. When Pepsi® wanted to do trades with the Russians, they traded cases of Pepsi™ concentrate for seventeen submarines, a frigate, a cruiser, and a destroyer. Think about how cool that was: for a time, Pepsi© had a navy that could have probably made France surrender in a fury of carbonated corn syrup. Again.

And how cool would it be for a soft drink company to stage a march down the Champs-Élysées while Parisians cried? Honestly, it probably would have led to a better outcome than they currently have.

But what happens when the tail (finance) wags the dog (the economy)?

I guess the best answer goes right back to France, but this time not to around 1990, but to around 1790. What did the masses see? They saw the upper class scamming and cratering the economy while eating piles of bacon-wrapped shrimp, or whatever passed for a delicacy in 1790s France. The system really was rigged, but it was so rigged that poor Marie Antoinette couldn’t imagine actual hunger.

I will admit, they had cutting edge technology.

Here, though, I think that the Powers That Be see the end coming. Remember Occupy Wall Street?

Yeah, it was a bunch of smelly hippies that mainly spent time arguing about who was in control of the collective, and it featured all of the woke crap that is currently being paraded, but back in 2011 only the smelly hippies took it seriously. Oh, my, to be back in 2011.

Anyway, what happened after 2011?

The media and the Powers That Be were scared. How scared?

A neutron walks into a bar. The bartender says, “For you, no charge.” The electron next to him yells “That’s discrimination!”

They upped the ante. If people were unhappy about the manipulation of the banks and the mortgage-led meltdown of the Great Recession, the answer was simple from the Powers That Be: “Look, a squirrel!”

They doubled down on every single thing that is Woke. And, why not? The seeds were simmering as the Leftists took control of the education system and threw children into sex education that was really indoctrination, often without the knowledge of the parents or their consent, was yet another thing that finance could get behind.

And when finance gets behind it? All the companies that require finance get behind it, too. The attempt is gone a bit farther – an attempt to regame the system so that the financial imbalances built on decades of mismanagement could be controlled. Every aspect of finance and money, if it were only in the control of the Powers That Be, well, then the tail (finance) could really control the dog (the economy).

Looks like the Woke want to refund the police?

But here is the salvation. The Powers That Be only understand the financial side of what’s going on – the shadows on the wall. They do not understand the systems that they need to survive. Remember Mike Bloomberg in 2016 saying, “I could teach anybody, even people in this room, to be a farmer. It’s a process. You dig a hole, you put a seed in, you put dirt on top, add water, up comes the corn.” This is the shallow understanding of a person whose feet have never left asphalt and concrete, and learned all he needed to know about farming by watching Green Acres.

Mike Bloomberg doesn’t understand where the food he eats comes from. He does not understand it, and cannot recreate it. No matter what Mike Bloomberg does, he cannot use his financial magic to create one kernel of corn, not one molecule of water. Financial magic encourages production of corn, but cannot make it.

Woke culture cannot produce prosperity, or a single PEZ®.
Printing money cannot produce a single steak.
Financial manipulation cannot produce a single velvet Elvis©.
The tyranny of the Left cannot produce a human civilization.

The regular person has spoken this week – Bud Light® is now off the menu for millions and I’ve heard that it lost up to 70% or 80% sales last week. Will it kill Bud Light™? I doubt it. Drunk people often don’t make the best decisions, but, then again, I’m here.

How to remove 80% of beer drinkers with this one simple trick.

I think bud light will manage to survive, but we are seeing the cracks in the woke agenda that showed up after Occupy Wall Street – at some point, regardless of all of the financial shenanigans, at some point someone has to want the crap that’s being produced.

To those that look at the mess that we’re in, I can assure you of this – it’s all going away. It’s merely a matter of time. The economy is not the financial system, and a bank cratering doesn’t destroy all the corn that Mike Bloomberg has no idea how to grow.

Or maybe he could teach me otherwise?

Watch How Biden Uses This One Weird Trick To Turn The United States Into A Third World Country

“Lawrence, Lawrence of Arabia. He was an English Guy. He came to fight the Turkish.” – The Hollywood Knights

I asked for a book on oil, and the librarian suggested the non-friction section. (you’ll be able to figure out which are my memes in this post)

This has been a very consequential week in American history, and though I see the seeds of (hopefully peaceful) revolt that will eventually end in a restoration, the other seeds I see this week show that rough times are up ahead. I’ll discuss Trump in conjunction with Monday’s upcoming Civil War 2.0 Weather Report, but today I’ll focus on a much more momentous development: the Collapse of the Dollar Empire.

This week several major moves happened, all of which are negative for the United States. Heck, someone did a meme of this – I’d quote them, but I just found this info snippet without attribution:

If there was a children’s book of Joe Biden’s Very Bad Terrible No Good Week, well, this would be it, but knowing Joe it would have to be a scratch and sniff.

The United States has had several things going for it in the Post World War II era:

Lots of nuclear weapons,
A monopoly on PEZ® dispenser licensing in the world’s biggest PEZ™ market,
The premier military force in the world,
The premier economy in the world, and,
The reserve currency of the world.

The first one is self-explanatory. We even used that threat successfully several times, especially when Kissinger convinced the Soviets (with Nixon’s permission) that Nixon was unstable and often flew into rages and just might decide that he’d trade Moscow for the East Coast. To paraphrase Teddy Roosevelt, the idea is to “act insane and have a massive nuclear arsenal”, or, as it is also known, “my ex-wife’s divorce strategy”.

The second one is just a reflection of the cultural dominance that the United States had. There were McDonald’s® restaurants calorie dispensing units around the world, but the most prominent foreign restaurant most Americans know is the International House of Pancakes®, which I assume is from Bulgaria or some place. Plus no one else could make Elmer Fudd™ PEZ™ dispensers.

They also don’t like tank tops.

The United States also had the premier military in the world. Period. We spent trillions of dollars emulating the successful bits of the Wehrmacht, so we were totally ready to fight World War II part II, if everyone agreed. Only one country wanted to play (Iraq) so we showed them what we could do if an enemy gave us six months to prepare along with the previously pre-staged equipment in Saudi Arabia. Not content with that L, they went for a rematch.

We also built the best economy in the world. Sure, it had ups and downs, and American cars manufacturers were stunned by Japanese quality in the 1970s, but we really did catch up, and by the 1990s were producing stuff that didn’t suck. We led in technological and information systems. By many measures, though, we peaked in 1973, and then the decline started. I might add that was around the time the Hart Cellar Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 started being felt.

Huh. Just a coincidence, I’m sure.

They hated Trump, yet the lines didn’t form up to head south . . .

More potent than nuclear weapons was the economic policy of the United States – it was called dollar diplomacy. Since the Soviet Union’s idea of diplomacy was sending burly Russian women to show foreigners how to use diesel tractor made in Tractor Collective Factory 231 that had all the charm of a T-34 tank and all the reliability of something made by workers that considered a hammer a precision instrument, who were fueled on vodka and cabbage. Obviously, a foreign head of state could choose those cool tractors that weighed in at 34 tons (45 kiloliters). That presented a problem. In no country that I know (outside of the Soviet Union) could you trade a behemoth tractor that could double as a tank for hot chicks and booze.

Foreign leaders therefore adopted the “take the Yankee money” attitude, because mistresses need more than what the Soviet tractor lubrication manual could provide.

The really weird and cool side effect of this dollar dominance is we could just print as many of these things as we wanted, send them overseas, and people would send us stuff. Heck, that was too much work, so we invented a computer payment system so that we could pretend we printed dollars, send people a receipt, and they’d send us booze, cars, compact disc players, and, well, anything. I hear cocaine was popular in the 1980s.

I’m no rube. I saw Scarface.

I was disappointed the first time I saw Scarface – he didn’t really know anything about scarves.

But there was one little, tiny thing that made the dollar so prominent. Oil.

That brings us to Saudi Arabia’s King Faisal. He got along okay with the West, hated commies, and tried to modernize (somewhat) Saudi Arabia. Faisal also led the Oil Embargo of 1973 and 1974 (related to U.S. support of Israel during the 1973 Arab-Israeli War). This generated a lot of money for the Saudis as well as economic chaos in the West.

Oddly, Saudi king Faisal was, um, ventilated by his American-educated nephew in 1975. And the new Saudi King agreed to buy and sell oil only in dollars.

Huh. Surely those things weren’t connected?

Likewise, through the 1980s, the Saudis sold lots and lots of oil cheaply at the request of Reagan to bankrupt the Soviet Union, make the dollar triumphant, and leave the United States as the sole superpower.

If Ice Cube and Snoop Dogg had a kid, would it be called Slush Puppy?

One major reason the dollar was the reserve currency of the world is that it was the only currency that oil was bought and sold in. It became the de facto settlement currency because of that and the highly developed financial systems that made the transfer of billions of dollars effortless and easy.

That’s the history lesson.

In 2017, one of Trump’s first official visits was to Saudi Arabia. They even had that weird moment where they put their hands on a glowing glow to power up some sort of Saudi CIA that would help fight terrorism. Relations were good.

In two years, Biden has conducted a stunning array of foreign policy missteps that has unwound all of the work done since 1973. One of the powers of the dollar as a weapon is that if you use it, maybe it isn’t so important, and if people feel really threatened?

I wonder if we’ll start calling our sanctions “Special Financial Operations”?

They’ll create a system where it won’t hurt them. Russia’s a case in point. Regardless of how their military is doing (I don’t trust either side to analyze this one) their economy really hasn’t been hurt in this conflict. It was hurt in 2014, but they planned for the disruption, and from the reports I’ve recently seen, they’re doing fine. For Russians, which wasn’t much to start with.

The point that Biden missed (and that your humble correspondent picked up on immediately) is that Russia doesn’t need dollars since they make their own stuff, with the exception of tracksuits, iPhones®, and porn. They can figure out how to make new Vodka-Pepsi® or Vodka-Starbucks™, but the world still needs their grain, fertilizer, oil, and natural gas.

Biden has done the near impossible in a little over two years as Resident of the White House.

He’s pushed China closer to Russia.
He’s pushed Saudi Arabia closer to Iran.
He’s created a situation where large-scale trades are going to be conducted in currency other than the dollar on a regular basis.
He’s drawn the Strategic Petroleum Reserve down levels not seen since 1984.
He’s working on maximizing inflation while spending everything possible.

In Saudi Arabia, all the bike thieves say, “Look, Ma, no hands!”

But Joe has shown that a previous statement by Barack Obama to be correct:

“Don’t underestimate Joe’s ability to fuck things up.”

And he’s got 581 more days to the election. And we’ve got 656 days until the next inauguration.

Funny Lessons From The Franco-Prussian War in 2023

“By the authority vested in me by Kaiser William the Second I pronounce you man and wife. Proceed with the execution.” – The African Queen

The Kaiser never smoked weed, because he had no idea where Fort Wenty was.

In high school history, I’m pretty sure that the Franco-Prussian War was never mentioned. Or, if it was, it was in World History when I was a freshman. That was my first class, and the teacher was the head basketball coach. His typical procedure was to tell us to read the chapter or watch a film. There were a lot of films. Then, he would wander down to the locker room, where he would make use of the coaches’ bathroom.

Coffee does that have effect.

I don’t remember the coach talking about the Franco-Prussian War, but, then again, through two semesters I don’t think he spent more than 10 minutes a day in the 45-minute class. Perhaps he needed prunes?

Recently, though, I saw a documentary about the Franco-Prussian War that I found to be fascinating. It’s long -6 hours, 8 minutes and 52 seconds, according to YouTube®, so roughly as long as Hunter Biden goes in a typical day without photographing himself with hookers and drugs.

The reason that this war happened was fairly simple – the French wanted to fight the Germans to look good with an easy win, and the Germans were, well, Germans, and invading France is as German as bratwurst, panzers, or invading Poland.

I think the blue could also stand for “reliable allies”. (meme as-found)

Napoleon III was Emperor of France, and his wife (really!) wanted to fight because she wanted to make sure that the country was united around her husband and son, so he’d inherit a kingdom strongly behind him.

Germany had other ideas, and Bismarck (the dude, not the ship) was trying to unite all the German countries. Hmm. I’m sensing a pattern here. But Otto von Bismarck’s goal was to turn Wilhelm from King into Emperor, or Kaiser. Bismarck was determined – you could say he was on a Kaiser roll.

It surprised no one when war broke out. The Germans reacted as Germans do – troops showed up at the right time in the right place and weapons, ammunition, food, and other stuff was already there, waiting for them when they mobilized. At the time, one person noted, “It is as if every cow knew which pot it was scheduled to be cooked in.” Or something like that. I’m not looking it up at 1:38 am.

Why do Germans drink beer? To convince them mating is logical.

The French reacted as French people do. Rather than go someplace logical, like toward the enemy, troops had to go to where their regiment was located. If you were right next to Germany, and your unit was in Algiers, you’d have to go to Algiers to get with your unit, and then go back as a unit to the site of the war.

Yeah. It doesn’t get better for the French. The war started on July 19, and by September 2, the Germans had captured Napoleon III and over 100,000 dudes. In previous years, this would be it. And, in fact, after Napoleon III had fallen into German hands, he was sent with his butlers and support staff to a fancy mansion to hang out.

War of king versus king was like that in that time and place.

Again, it being France, the first thing they did is declare a Republic, their “Third” – (they’re now on their fifth). Having seen what happens to French Empresses when things go south, Napoleon’s wife snuck out in the middle of the night and snuck away to England, which was thrilled to have a French person around they could make fun of.

I hear that Chinese probes are still doing stuff on the dark side of the Moon. Seems shady to me. (as found)

So, France’s army was shattered, surrendered, or besieged. Two weeks later, Paris was surrounded by Germans. The war had been as polite as war could be up to now, and the French armed forces had been as effective as an army of kittens attacking a velociraptor. The logical thing to do would be to surrender.

What the Germans were asking for was Alsace and Lorraine, two provinces that France had for a couple hundred years or so, but about 90% of the folks there spoke German as their primary language. The new French Republic was fairly scared that surrendering those provinces would make them look bad, so they refused. To be fair, the French wanted to annex a bunch of German land, too, but didn’t have the chance since they suck at war.

Their armies shattered, Paris surrounded and besieged, the French didn’t surrender. One thing I noted was that when it was a war of one king versus another, as noted above, war was, while still awful, not personal.

When the Republic was formed, it was no longer a war of one king against another – it was a war of the people of France versus Germany. The fact that the Germans were in France wasn’t really the fault of the Germans, both sides had wanted the war, and the French had, in fact, crossed into Germany before the Germans gave them a full hammerlock.

Hulk had to deal with anxiety about his career. I guess you could call it wrestle-mania.

Regardless, at that point individual French citizens fought harder after losing their Emperor, Napoleon. At first, this surprised me. But it’s categorically different when people fight for something they own – they fight harder and longer. Since they were untrained, poorly armed, and poorly lead, the effort was even less effective than the Afghanistan army, circa 2022.

The Siege of Paris lasted for four months and ten days. In 2023, the average supermarket in the average city holds enough food for three days. The average house has that same amount. After a week, people would probably be fairly hungry, and would trade anything but their cell phone for a bag of Cheese Doodles® or High Fructose Flakes™. In Paris of 1870, they didn’t run out of wine until late December, and I’m not sure the French have ever figured out that they could drink water.

Oh, wait, they did start drinking the water, leading to multiple epidemics that cost almost as many lives as the war itself.

Apparently, it’s now illegal to drink wine, shave, brush my teeth, and take a nap. Driving is awful in 2023.

Eventually, the French agreed to an armistice, and, being France, they immediately had a communist revolution, but only in the cities, primarily in Paris. This wasn’t a repeat of the French Revolution, since in this case, very few people were harmed, fewer than a thousand French dead. Oh, and up to 20,000 communists, but they don’t count. It also proves that the only war the French can win is against other French people.

The big reason that I’m writing about the Franco-Prussian War is that illuminates several things that are still important or true in 2023:

Governments have and still create wars to keep themselves in power.
The French are awful at war.
One big loss can destabilize an entire country if the people are demoralized.
I guess there’s a reason the French don’t drink water.
People fight harder when they have ownership, even if what they’re fighting for isn’t worth it.
I don’t have nearly enough storage food.
Commies always either gravitate to, or are made by cities. Another good reason to avoid them.

I’ve always loved history. Perhaps that’s why they ask the question about what’s the difference between a bad* basketball coach and a constipated owl – the coach can shoot but not hit.

*He was actually a pretty good basketball coach.

Want to win? Have a good wife.

“Are you drunk?” “It’s my birthday. Again.” – The Experts

I ate an abacus – it’s inside what counts.

So, it’s St. Valentine’s day. Again.

For this year, I decided to go into the deeply romantic box of ideas, and got The Mrs. a bottle of scotch. Not great a great bottle of scotch, because that’s what I always give her for Christmas (saves on thinking, gents). Well, this wasn’t a great bottle, but it was also not something you’d use for lighter fluid, either.

Not that The Mrs. won’t drink lighter fluid (don’t ask me about that story!), but because The Mrs. sounds like Kim Carnes afterward. Anyone else but me listen to Bette Davis Eyes and not think “Marty Feldman Eyes”?

Regardless, here is why I enjoy my time with The Mrs. As a part of our conversation, we discussed the evolution of modern warfare from the United States Civil War, and World War I. In it, I brought into play the idea that the Germans had totally melted the minds of the French.

Why do French ghosts smell so bad? They are covered in sheet.

Why? Let’s go back to the Franco-Prussian war. Not Franco-American®, because there were far fewer Spaghetti-O’s® back in 1870. And Chef-Boyardee™ was still Chef Notbornyet. Sorry for the digression – it turns out that I bought The Mrs. some scotch, but she bought us some wine. And by us, I mean me and her, not you and me and her.

Our conversation wandered, and I pointed out the reason the French were such wussies was because of the Franco-Prussian war. It seems, the French had a far superior rifle, the Chassepot (pronounced “frog hat spinner” because the French don’t even pretend that letters have meaning). This means that the German soldiers had to attack (they’re Germans, they’re always attacking) for 200 yards (17.3 kiloPascals) while being shot at with relatively accurate rifles before their rifles could shoot back.

You’d think this would mean an easy French victory. Nah. The Germans were surrounding Paris within weeks, because, always remember the first dictum: the French can only win a war in which all of their opponents are French.

Then, The Mrs. demanded (on Valentine’s Day) that we watch either a documentary on WWI or All Quiet on the Western Front (new version, which I had not seen yet). I bring this out not for any other reason than to brag. Chocolates? Flowers? Nah. Scotch. Rom-coms? No. The Mrs. demanded we watch a war movie. It’s like Christmas and we talk about the geopolitics of WWII and The Mrs. demands we watch Patton. Again.

I found a corpse along the road with no arms, head, or legs. The local police are stumped.

This isn’t entirely bragging, since this is Wednesday and we’re supposed to talk about money. How do war movies, moderately priced scotch, and romantic discussions about warfare have anything to do about money?

It has everything to do about money. Everything.

Women can make or break a marriage. Modern societies, especially in the United States, give women an out, and incentivize them to break up marriages for fun and profit. Don’t believe me? Here’s a Tweet® from a Twunt©:

When I first read this, I thought it was sarcasm. It’s not. I feel sorry for her wine and cats.

Yeah, she said that. It’s an awful sentiment that an elected official could say that and remain in office. I’m beginning to understand why they burned witches at the stake, and becoming much more amenable to that idea. After a fair trial, of course. I’m not suggesting that South Dakota do summary executions, but I am suggesting they bring back witch burning.

The economics of the love in 2023 are heavily skewed against those who would love. In my mind, love is the glue that holds the atom of civilization together. That atom? The family. And no matter how you slice it, there is no world where two women or two men can have actual children, so they cannot form the nucleus of the family. Unless cats are children.

The economic incentives right now are against child rearing. It’s amazing to see the number of criminals with no fathers in their lives. It’s amazing to see the number of children coming from “blended” (i.e., divorced parent) families. Here in Modern Mayberry, about (Pugsley’s guess) 65% of the kids come from intact, two-parent families.

In my mind? That’s a number that’s amazingly low. Sure, I was adopted, but I was adopted into a family where my Mom and Dad had been married for 26 years before I was adopted and The Mrs. family was stable for 61 years until The Mrs. father passed on. Sure, my family had ups and downs, but their marriage was approximately as stable as helium or the Democrat’s hold on counting votes. Neither of Ma Wilder or Pa Wilder needed nor wanted surprises.

What they call Frodo if he had lost a leg instead of a finger? A Hoppit.

Today? Husband won’t agree to a new dining room table? Divorce him. Most divorces are initiated by women. Because? They’re unhappy. I understand that’s a reason, but it’s not a good reason, since, until the caffeine kicks in around 11am each day, I’m unhappy, too, and you don’t see me firebombing Dresden.

But those are the women who even bother to get married. There’s a deeper pathology here.

What incentive to men use to improve themselves, to work harder, to get into shape, to earn money?

The prospect of wife and family. If that isn’t there, why bother? It’s easier to eat Cheetos® and play Call of Duty™: Ukraine™ on their PS3©. I’ll admit that this isn’t an attractive mate, but is it any different than a 34-year-old women who has had sex with 143 guys? Women think their value shouldn’t be based on the number of sexual partners they’ve had, but, dudes, who wants to own a pair of shoes owned by 143 other dudes?

Yeah. No one.

The structure of incentives is important. Right now, men are incentivized to eat Cheetos™ and play vidya games. Right now, women are encouraged to have sex with all the men, and then try to find someone after they’ve gone had sex with all the men, gone to graduate school, lost their fertility, and bonded with wine and cats.

Ugh.

Economics is about incentives. Give incentives to women to not marry and then divorce at the slightest provocation? Men will turn into Tostito® munching morons. It’s simple. And then both will be sad. The 45 year-old wine aunt? She’s not happy, she’s just out of options. The 30 year-old man-boy?

He’s just looking for a wife, children, and to make a place in society. That’s it.

Not pictured: The Mrs.

I’ll say this again – my Gen X road was easier than the Zoomer and Millennial kids. A young man faces women that are hostile. That turns him into a man that’s not prepared. If I might make a modest proposal, let’s bring back shame for women. And let’s bring back pride for men.

Seems like a fair deal. And, honestly, the best St. Valentine’s Day present that they could have. Unless their wife demands they watch a war movie before sending them out to smoke a Rocky Patel® cigar in the hot tub so they can finish watching the documentary about the Franco-Prussian War after having a few glasses of wine and scotch.

Hope you had a Happy Valentine’s Day!

Energy: The Big Picture

“Dr. Norman was experimenting with energy and mass. To make it brief, it got away from him. He found he had made a mass of energy that somehow came alive. It feeds on more energy, and it lives only to feed. I’m afraid it consumed Dr. Norman before he could stop it.” – Jonny Quest

I was once kidnapped by a gang of mimes. They did unspeakable things to me.

Apologies to all on missing the podcast tonight – The Mrs. was feeling great this morning, and then headed south about two hours before the show. Darn her for demanding that she have actual oxygen in her blood. So selfish! Should she feel okay, we’re looking at having a New Year’s Eve show (her idea) on, wait for it, New Year’s Eve. I’m thinking 9pm Eastern, but who knows – her blood is fickle.

So, on to today’s post, inspired by a reader’s comment on email . . .

The most fundamental economic and political choice of our lives is energy. I phrased that intentionally – the impacts of the energy we use as a society are economic. Energy has been political since the 1930s, at the very least.

The idea of energy might be economic and political, but the reality is pure physics. There is no law that Congress can pass that can create more energy – only allow that which exists to be used. And there is no amount of money that can be printed to that can make energy appear where none exists.

Some Leftists say truth is subjective, but let them try to pretend that their house at -40°F is actually 70°F. I guess that you could say that they’re trans-comfortable? No. They’re frozen. Reality is like that. And energy is like that, too. Unlike monetary policy or laws, energy doesn’t care what people want.

The story of energy, though, is the story of human culture.

Energy has been a part of human life since the first waggling finger (thank you, Rudyard, original poem below) burned itself on a fire. Meat tastes good, but tastes better once it has been cooked. It also heated the caves and tents that early man lived in. It was the original killer app – I can guarantee that at some point, a fire in a cabin or tent or cave saved someone who was your direct ancestor.

I hear you can get fired from the keyboard factory if you don’t put in enough shifts.

In the form of crude wood fires, energy did a few things for people, helping to tan skins, cure meats, harden wood, and eventually fuel fires that made the first man-made metals and ceramics. The demand was low, but the impacts were huge. Food, clothing, weapons, and the basis of civilization. You can’t have beer unless you have a beer bottle, right?

Romans used it even more – they had central heating in their villas in Roman Britain, heated baths, and used it in lots of other ways I’m too lazy to look up. One hint: those Roman shields and swords didn’t make themselves. And the iron nails in Jerusalem, circa 32 A.D.? Yeah, those required energy as well.

Romans were amazing at using energy, but most of the energy they used was human; they didn’t exactly have outboard motors on their ships. It was wind or oars. The Romans used fire, but the real energy source for Empire was animal and human. That source of energy was totally renewable – people are born every day, and they eat food that is raised every year.

There are huge implications to this: slave labor was the original renewable energy. Oops! That’s not politically correct, though the World Economic Forum® did take notes.

After the fall of the Roman Empire, people continued to innovate. That’s what we do. Dams provided water power for mills. Mills could grind grain, or they could operate pumps to pull water out of mines. And wind? Windmills could use wind to mill. Duh. It’s in the name.

If a former president didn’t like windmills, could we call him Donald Quixote?

All of that was a necessary predecessor to the real powerhouse: steam. Sure, steam-powered toys had been created 2,000 years earlier, but steam power was needed because of the mines that were needed to get the metals to manufacture electric guitars and iPads® back in the 1600s. Or whatever they did with them. Maybe banjos?

The Industrial Revolution came almost entirely based on the use of energy. The developments in the 1800s changed everything. Transport? Trains. Communications? Telegraphs. Cool products? Factories. Navy? Fast steamships. This is a wickedly small set of examples – the availability of energy changed everything. But at this point, the energy mix changed. Prior, it was mostly wood.

Now it was the age of coal and steel.

The biggest change it created was the ability to have a metric butt-ton of additional people. Energy changed agriculture and changed food distribution. After the Haber-Bosch process allowed for the fixing of nitrogen for increased plant yields (which required another metric butt-ton of energy) but this changed the demand. Coal was still pretty nifty, but it was no longer enough.

Now was the age of oil.

Cars were required to move products. Gas was required for fertilizer, and heating and chemical products.

Tesla® cars are expensive because they charge a lot.

The result of all of this was amazing – an explosion of the numbers of people living on Earth like never before, even in places that could never support them.

Wars were fought over energy. Why did the Germans fight at Stalingrad? Because they were trying to secure oil. There was no hybrid-panzer. The Allies won because there were lakes of oil underneath Texas, mountains of iron ore in Minnesota, and marksmen from Georgia. The biggest contributor?

The oil.

Without it, the Shermans don’t sherm, the Mustangs won’t must, and the carrier fleet are amusing, odd-shaped coral reefs. Oil won World War II. If the Germans had the reserves of Texas under Bavaria, Stalin would have been a minor footnote in history after 1942.

Oil was pretty plentiful as geologists wend around the world hunting for it after 1945. It was found in the wastelands of the Arctic, the scorching deserts of Saudi Arabia, and on the coast of California. Really, anywhere where people don’t want to live in 2022.

The lakes of oil in Texas weren’t infinite. In 1973, Texas removed controls on production. The straws weren’t dry, but the abundance was done. The Arabs also decided that, perhaps, oil was now (for the second time since 1943) the most potent weapon in the world besides nuclear bombs and Leftism was unleashed. The oil embargo showed how much the world depended on oil to make Big Macs™ and G.I. Joes©. One oil shock (combined with Nixon’s taking the United States off the gold standard) was enough to send the economy into the stagflation of the 1970s.

But I heard since he died, he’s a great cook. His pasta is Al Dante.

Oil is why the Cold War ended. Star Wars was an important initiative, but the bigger cause of the failure of the Soviet Union was that Reagan convinced the Saudis to pump oil like it was free. The Soviet economy, dependent on oil revenue to keep their machine going? Done. Oil killed the two out of three of the great empires of the twentieth century.

That brings us to today.

Almost all of the growth in oil production since 2008 was based on fracking. The previous pools of oil were still producing, but the oil companies had to go farther and farther afield, such as deep water miles deep in places like the Gulf of Mexico. Places where getting the oil was expensive – it’s not like we found another several billion barrels in the backyard behind the garden shed. Regular places where oil was were drying up. A game changer was needed. Something different.

Fracking was different. It was difficult, required new technologies, and grew by a factor of ten in only ten years, making the United States a net energy exporter for the first time since before John Kennedy did an afternoon drive in Texas.

Oil is an amazing fuel, and I bathe in sweet, sweet gasoline every night. But to meet the needs of the world, the struggle is difficult. Cheap energy takes huge investment, but that’s not all. It requires the energy source to be there.

The Mrs. says I’m cheap. I’m not buying it.

Our energy has been cheap since about 1920 or so. The idea that it will be cheap forever is magical thinking, unless oil is infinite (it is not). Our choice on energy isn’t economic, it’s based on physics.

And, with everything I’ve read, the physics of alternative energy solutions, especially the “renewable” ones that are touted based on political reasons, result in the energy cost doubling (at least) and that’s after the investment of trillions of dollars to build the necessary energy production facilities and infrastructure. This will likely be the subject of future posts.

I hate to break the Christmas spirit, but it is the single most important question facing humanity today. When the price of energy is low, freedom is high. When the price of energy is high?

Oh, yeah. Slavery.

As promised, here’s Kipling, Gods of the Copybook Headings:

As I pass through my incarnations in every age and race,
I make my proper prostrations to the Gods of the Market-Place.
Peering through reverent fingers I watch them flourish and fall.
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings, I notice, outlast them all.

We were living in trees when they met us. They showed us each in turn.
That water would certainly wet us, as Fire would certainly burn:
But we found them lacking in Uplift, Vision, and Breadth of Mind,
So we left them to teach the Gorilas while we followed the March of Mankind.

We moved as the Spirit listed. They never altered their pace,
Being neither clud nor wind-borne like the Gods of the Market-Place;
But they always caught up with our progress, and presently word would come
That a tribe had been wiped off its icefield, or the lights had gone out in Rome.

With the Hopes that our World is built on they were utterly out of touch.
They denied that the Moon was Stilton; they denied she was even Dutch.
They denied that Wishes were Horses; they denied that a Pig had Wings.
So we worshiped the Gods of the Market Who promiced these beautiful things.

When the Cambrian measures were forming, They promiced perpetual peace.
They swore, if we gave them our weapons, that the wars of the tribes would cease.
But when we disarmed They sold us and delivered us bound to our foe,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: ‘Stick to the Devil you know.’

On the first Feminian Sandstones we were promiced the Fuller Life
(Which started by loving our neighbor and ended by loving his wife)
Till our women had no more children and the men lost reason and faith,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: ‘The Wages of Sin is Death/’

In the Carboniferous Epoch we were promised abundance for all,
By robbing selective Peter to pay for collective Paul;
But, though we had plenty of money, there was nothing our money could buy,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: ‘If you don’t work you die.’

The the Gods of the Market tumbled, and their smooth-tounged wizards withdrew,
And the hearts of the meanest were humbled and began to belive it was true
That All is not Gold that Glitters, and Two and Two make Four—
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings limped up to explain it once more

As it will be in the future, it was at the birth of Man—
There are only four things certain since Social Progress began:—
That the Dog returns to his Vomit and the Sow returns to her mire,
And the burnt Fool’s bandaged finger goes wabbling back to the Fire;
And that after this is accomplished, and the brave new world begins
When all men are paid for existing and no man must pay for his sins,
As surely as Water will wet us, as surely as Fire will burn,
The Gods of the Copybook Headings with terror and slaughter return!

What World Do We Want To Live In? There Is A Choice.

“Is this the emergency services? Then which country am I speaking to?” – The I.T. Crowd

Why don’t Leftists like to talk about the future of what they’ll create? It’s two in tents.

We are on a course to a new country. Perhaps someone has a source for this quote (that I’m going from memory on): It’s been said that every man dies in a strange country. It’s not original to me, but it does contain a lot of wisdom. As our country is aging, it is changing. I’m just hoping it has better knees than I do.

But to illustrate the point, let’s take Pa Wilder:

When Pa Wilder was born, the income tax wasn’t even a decade old. The meaning of a “state” was stronger then than now, though it was subsidiary after the Civil War. Pa was born, grew up, and died living almost all of his time within a 30-mile radius, except for an all-expenses-paid trip to Europe from 1942-1945.

The rock band Flock of Seagulls never toured Iran. Why? Iran so far away.

When Pa Wilder passed away, the world had gone from the biplanes of World War I to a fully inhabited space station and regular flights to orbit, and occasional flights to the Moon. The dollar had gone from gold to gimmick, and the question of freedom had gone from “why can’t I?” to “may I, please?”

The world Pa lived in growing up was one that was difficult. If you had a child and couldn’t afford it, you had to find someone to raise it for you. It is undoubtedly a fact that people died of starvation in the United States, and some certainly died because they didn’t have any money.

After the war, though, his generation had optimism. It looked like there was nothing that mankind couldn’t do. The atom had been split. Rockets had touched space. The largest rivers had been dammed and tamed and the only foe to be concerned about was the Soviet Union, and it looked like all of those people ate a diet of potatoes, onions, sawdust, and sadness. A 1950s Hungarian joke went something like this: “Definition of socialism: the incessant struggle against conditions that would not exist in any other system.”

And, from the looks of him, he certainly could have nursed a drink.

The family had primacy. And culture was built on the idea of that family, and policies at the local, state, and national levels were built around supporting the family and keeping it strong.

It worked pretty well. Was there a cultural prohibition against being a tool? Sure. Was there an upper limit on the things that women could do in society? Yeah, certainly there were few CEOs at the time that were women, and there were demarcations between jobs women would normally do, and jobs that men would normally do. Men got the jobs that had higher stress, higher danger, and sure, higher pay. Women got the jobs that conserved the culture, raised the young, and, yup, didn’t pay nearly as well.

It was a bargain made not to punish women or men, but as a nod to societal stability based on family hierarchy.

This is the America that was, and more than a few people on the Right look to this as the model of a successful society that creates the ability for mankind to make good on the promise of individual freedom, individual responsibility, a role for religion and celebration of individual success.

It is a world where equal chance based on merit is the goal, and winners of fair competition get the rewards.

Yup, pretty hard to take that to dinner, since each one required its own nuclear power plant.

This goal is soundly rejected by the Left. They look for a model of America that can never be. Their world is an entirely made-up concept of what they think the world should be.

What do they think?

Like Lake Woebegone, all children in their Leftist Utopia are above average.
Diversity is actually a strength.
Every deviance in sexuality is celebrated.
Every outcome is equal, regardless of effort, talent, or merit.
People have whatever they want, regardless of if they work or not.
Society owes it to everyone to take from the successful and make them the same as anyone else – equity is the goal.

Whereas I can love the ideas they have as ideas, the truth is that the world cannot be that way. Some children are below average. People who live and work with people that aren’t from their culture typically have lower trust, disharmony, “cultural tension” and conflict.

Oops. Turns out that if you worship the Moon God Gorto and think child sacrifice is okay, Baptists might not be the best folks for the cubicle next to you. And most people won’t applaud if you have sex during Thanksgiving at the table – I won’t explain how I know this.

The Mrs. tried to tell me to not fix my rifle with Super Glue®, but I stuck to my guns.

And outcomes aren’t equal. There are winners, and there are losers. Merit matters. Talent matters. Work matters. If we remove the competition between winning and losing, and celebrate every loser like a winner?

You get a society of losers. You get a culture of losers. And who else but a loser would demand what Elon Musk has without doing what Elon Musk as done? It’s a culture that is built on envy of what others accomplish and greed for what others have.

It is a culture that celebrates and encourages failure. Even Leftists admit it. I had a discussion with an acquaintance. He’s a leftist. My conjecture was this, “So, should we wait a few years to start your socialist empire until we have a cancer cure and maybe some better technology? I mean, if you look at Socialist cultures, they aren’t really good at creating things.”

“You’re right, it would be better to wait a few years.”

Sure, there’s been corruption since the first human, but not every society is the same. And societies like the 1950s in America had less corruption than any communist society, ever. And, I would argue that society was far less corrupt than society today. The outcomes were better – in most places, a locked door wasn’t required. The outcomes of society have drifted negatively in many ways. You could name them, so I won’t go into what would be a very, very long list.

Who had the biggest gender reveal party ever? Japan. In 1945 they had a Little Boy.

There’s more to this, but now, the Left is attempting to drive this world towards a future that is based on nothing but a theory that is no more sophisticated than a three-year-old’s version of what the world should be. Is it any wonder that as we get closer to those fever dreams, things get worse?

As that author I can’t remember said, we all die in a strange country. I’m just hoping that it stops sucking.

Life Lessons From George S. Patton, Jr.

“Do you think it would cause a complete breakdown of discipline if a lowly lieutenant kissed a starship captain on the bridge of his ship?” – Star Trek, TOS

If Peter Sellers fought for Patton, would he have driven a pink panzer?

I have been a long-time fan of General George S. Patton, Jr. It started when I was a kid, and my history teacher even ordered a few extra Patton films for the World War II section of U.S. history because he knew I was a Patton fan. Probably the biggest accolade that he could have was from the Germans who he fought, one of whom said simply, “He is your best.”

For whatever reason, though, I had never read The Patton Papers 1940-1945. On a whim a week or so ago, I ordered a copy, and I cracked it open at lunch the day it arrived before I headed back to work. I’m not sure I’ve ever enjoyed a book more. I’m not sure The Mrs. feels the same way, since when I’m reading it, about every five minutes I’ll come up with a snippet to read to her. She keeps saying, “Thanks, but no tanks.”

The book itself is a compilation of diary entries, letters Patton wrote, and orders he gave in the period from 1940-1945. To have the ability to read through those are amazing, even when he just writes about the mundane aspects of his life or his son having trouble in math at school. I didn’t start at the beginning, I just picked it up and started reading at a more-or-less random spot, which coincided with his taking command of American troops in North Africa. And then I couldn’t put it down.

While many passages have resonated with me, I decided to write about one in particular today. It consists of his instructions that were provided to his officers prior to launching Operation Husky, where he and Montgomery launched a naval invasion of Sicily. Spoiler alert: he did pretty well. This is one passage I’ll make sure to share with Pugsley and The Boy because there is so much truth not only in a military sense, but in life to what Patton wrote on June 5, 1943.

Stuff in italics is Patton’s (from page 261 and page 262). My comments are in plain text.

Discipline is based on pride in the profession of arms, on meticulous attention to details, and on mutual respect and confidence. Discipline must be a habit so ingrained that it is stronger than the excitement of battle or the fear of death.

Discipline can only be obtained when all officers are imbued with the sense of their lawful obligation to their men and to their country that they cannot tolerate negligence. Officers who fail to correct errors or praise excellence are valueless in peace and dangerous misfits in war.

Discipline starts with a single individual. In my case, it doesn’t come from without, it must come from within. Getting up on time. Paying the bills. Having a sense of purpose in life. It has been my observation that people will do what you want when you’re looking if they fear punishment. If they are being judged, they might do it when others are around. When it becomes a value, however, they do it every time, all the time, even when no one is looking, and even when no one will ever know.

Officers must assert themselves by example and by voice.

People watch. And people listen. Letting things slide never creates excellence.

There is no approved solution to any tactical situation.

There is only one tactical principle which is not subject to change. It is: “To so use the means at hand to inflict the maximum amount of wounds, death, and destruction on the enemy in the minimum of time.”

Obviously, war isn’t a game, but the lesson for life outside of attacking Sicily in 1943 still exists. And it’s not to use Claymores (FRONT TOWARD ENEMY) and a mortar barrage to open a business meeting. But I have been involved in business and life situations where time was of the essence, and being polite just had to go out the window.

Never attack [enemy] strength, [but rather his weakness] . . .

You can never be too strong. Get every man and gun you can secure provided it does not delay your attack . . .

Casualties vary directly with the time you are exposed t effective fire . . . Rapidity of attack shortens the time of exposure . . .

If you cannot see the enemy, and you seldom can, shoot at the place he is most likely to be . . .

Our mortars and our artillery are superb weapons when they are firing. When silent, they are junk – see that they fire!

One thread that runs through Patton’s writing and actions is his devotion to attacking. Defending wasn’t something that he was interested in. In life, I think that attitude is required. It’s easy to give up, it’s easy to fall into the trap that there’s nothing more to do, nothing more to gain. It’s similar to having all A’s on my eighth-grade report card and deciding to coast on that for the rest of my life.

Potential can only be realized if we push ourselves, and we can only push on the attack. So, attack life like a poodle going after a pork chop, up to the very last breath.

Never take counsel of your fears. The enemy is more worried than you are. Numerical superiority, while useful, is not vital to successful offensive action. The fact that you are attacking induces the enemy to believe that you are stronger than he is . . .

A good solution applied with vigor now is better than a perfect solution ten minutes later . . .

IN CASE OF DOUBT, ATTACK . . .

Again, attack. But the additional thought is added: don’t listen to your fears. Fear is something that will paralyze even a strong man. And from my experience, the best way to get over fears and avoid the paralysis that comes with them is to take action. What action? Any action that leads you toward your goal. Even the smallest action often sets off a cascade of following actions that lead to . . . success.

Mine fields, while dangerous, are not impassable. They are far less of a hazard than artillery concentrations . . .

Speed and ruthless violence on the beaches is vital. There must be no hesitation in debarking. To linger on the beach is fatal.

We are going to run into problems. Some of them huge. Some of them of our own making. The idea is to push through. The Mrs. and I watched a kid on the local wrestling team that was just awful in terms of skills, experience, and well, brains. But, he’d get it in his head that he could win, and he would go out and win some very, very unlikely matches. Why? He didn’t hesitate. He jumped on the chances he made.

I’ll probably have a few more of these as I go through the book. And, as much fun as it is to read, I’m going to take my time to enjoy it. I’d best show a little bit of discipline . . . Patton might be watching.

What’s The Meaning Of Life? It’s Right Here.

“Well, that’s the end of the film. Now, here’s the meaning of life.” – The Meaning of Life

The dinosaur with the cleanest teeth is, of course, the flossiraptor.

What are we here for? It’s a big question, and one we have to ask now. Sadly, I think the answer for many people would be, “inexpensive Chinese-made throw pillows, new Marvel® movies, and the next iPhone®.”

For most of my life, it was a clear question that didn’t involve any of those things, except maybe affordable throw pillows, because they wear out so very quickly. At some point though, I figured it out. What was it? The meaning of life, or at least the abridged version. The existence of my generation, of any generation, was for two reasons:

First, to create the next generation. It’s the toughest and most fun work in the world. A family, working together, would do the best job possible at creating the best children possible.

Why do we need those children? Why do they need to be better?

The “why” is the essence of the second reason. There are more challenges, literally an infinite set of challenges, that are before us. There are more horizons for us to conquer – we may have been to the Moon, but we don’t live there. We have sent robots to Mars, but we haven’t visited. Humanity has a job, and it has always been clear to me that our job was not yet done, at least not until we have developed a reliable way to make the PEZ®/Anti-PEZ™ drive (LINK).

I was at a performance of Hamlet when there was an earthquake. It was a Shakesperience!

Both of those answers rely on optimism. I think that optimism is justly earned. Even though humans have created unimaginable horrors, they have created, time and time again, amazing wonders. As Shakespeare’s Hamlet noted:

What a piece of work is a man, how noble in reason, how infinite in faculties, in form and moving how express and admirable, in action how like an angel, in apprehension how like a god! The beauty of the world, the paragon of animals!

What I see today, however, isn’t the wonder of man, it’s the crisis we face with apprehension. It consists of multiple fronts.

Energy: Even though we are up against physical limits on the energy systems that we use, the idiocy of the Green Energy™ movement feels more like a mutual suicide pact. The use of energy, primarily since the Industrial Revolution has created the greatest amount of prosperity and well-being the world has ever seen. It is an absolute certainty that if the Leftists have their way, the amount of misery around the world will make World War II seem like a carnival ride. I mean, not a good carnival ride, but at least it would have Patton.

How did Patton celebrate November? He gave tanks.

Family: One of the primary reasons for civilization in the first place is that it creates the basis for making itself better, and that basis is the family. Children are not easy to raise. Any single parent working by themselves would have been my victim. It took both Pa Wilder and Ma Wilder (along with my brother, John Wilder) to make me a better person than Feral John Wilder would have become. Family is important, and you can’t make good and strong children without one.

Morality: Morality is crucial. We have moved away from the moral basics that have created Western Civilization, and inverted them. We used to celebrate the beautiful, and now celebrate the ugly. And Pride Festivals®? Pride was a sin. And it still is. Unless it involves lions.

Who are the enemies?

The Globalist Left: This is a big bunch, but they come in two flavors.

The Globalist Left – The Antifa Gang: These are people, who, generally despise themselves. They revel in ugliness, because they feel that they’re ugly inside. They look at society and hate it. They want to watch it all burn. They hate themselves, and want to make the world outside as horrifying as the world they old inside themselves. This probably describes everyone that works at CNN®.

I had dinner with a journalist, but he pulled the labels off his ketchup and mustard. He liked to keep his sauces anonymous.

The Globalist Left – The Elite: They always seem to exist. They were there at the fall of Rome, they were there when the Library of Alexandria was sacked, when Russia became a killing ground, and when China killed uncountable millions. They appear to be the parasites that are jealous of real achievement and seek to game society so that they can come to power. They also appear to gravitate to power for the sake of power, and delight in the destruction of anything as long as it brings them wealth and comfort, even if it kills the host society.

Technology: I could go on all day, but there are two that jump out – they are the two most destabilizing technologies that exist today. Technology is difficult, because now it moves so quickly, but humans don’t adapt to it very quickly at all. I mean, VCRs existed and no one ever figured out how to stop the blinking 12:00.

Technology Itself – The Pill: To a certain extent, one of the big foes of humanity right now is our state of technological advancement itself. Multiple technological advances have created stresses that have never been seen before in human history. The first of these, The Pill, was a disaster. Some of the oldest rules to make society stable were about marriage and reproduction. Why? The stability of the family structure was ripped apart by The Pill, and the divorces started not long afterward.

The most effective method of birth control I ever used was my personality.

Technology Itself – Social Media: When the printing press was originally invented, it opened a world where the knowledge of the entire history of mankind could be shared. When the Internet developed, all of that knowledge could be shared freely. Instead, the Internet has become a dopamine factory that is one of the most insidious narcissism trap in the history of humanity. What could have united us has, instead, created zombies of people who sit in restaurants staring at their phones rather than talking to each other and having authentic conversations. This has created a world with artificial closeness between people who have no connection, and artificial barriers between those who should be close.

Obviously, I could keep going. The enemies of that which is Right, True, and Good are legion. The methods they use are diverse.

I bet he gets tired in prison explaining he made more than one bomb.

If I were writing a screenplay, I’d be wondering how I write myself out of this predicament. Thankfully, the answer is that I don’t have to. Western Civilization has defeated enemies just like these for thousands of years. We have been at the breaking point again and again.

It is true, we won’t be the same after this crisis. There’s no guarantee that the crisis won’t last for decades. And I promise it really will be the most difficult thing that any of us live through. I mean, those of us that make it.

So, what are we here for? We’re here to carry the torch forward. To have wonderful children that exceed us in our capacity, because there are tough horizons, and more work to be done. We are building the people that will take us into the future. They are our children. We build them for the future, so that they can build the future, despite the obstacles and enemies of humanity.

And we’ll win.

We always have.

Being Happier: Two Ways

“It’s not the money I’ll miss. It’s just all the stuff.” – The Jerk

What’s the difference between my dog and Amber Heard? My dog has never made a mess on a bed.

Most of the time when people think about being happy, it’s about things that they want to add to their lives. They want to get a new car. To buy a new house. To get a new iPhone®.

That list is mainly about things: stuff. It’s not surprising. $285 billion was spent on advertising in the United States in 2021 (this sounds high to me, but I found it in two different sources). Digital ads alone were over $150 billion of that. And every one of those ad dollars was spent for one reason – to make the person who saw the ad unhappy.

Advertising, to work, has to create enough discontent to make someone pull a wallet out and make a purchase. “Oh, that looks like a great PEZ® dispenser! I’m sad I don’t have it.” And, yet, when I finally get that limited edition Sturmgeschütz (StuG) 40 Ausf. F/8 PEZ® dispenser, I can finally be really happy. Hey, I didn’t choose the StuG life, the StuG life chose me.

Would the StuG have looked better wearing a tank top?

The reality is, though, that it would briefly bring me some joy, and then I’d put it with my Founding Fathers PEZ© dispenser collection that The Mrs. got me for Christmas in 2012, and notice it from time to time. So, in one sense, (some) things that initially bring us joy also just end up cluttering our lives. Oh, I wear my grandfather’s ring daily, but how much do I need to have that Helix® concert t-shirt from 1994?

The purpose of advertising is to make the hollowest promise of all: money for joy. Sure, if I had the choice I’d rather be rich and unhappy than poor and unhappy, because the food is so much better. But unhappy is still unhappy.

Who steals from rich college students to give to poor college students? Ramen Hood.

So, the advertising and “stuff” is a problem. Since I haven’t watched commercial TV in almost three years, most ads I get are fairly poorly targeted online and spur very little discontent, since half the time I’m not even sure what the ad is for anymore. It seems like the current standard for naming companies is to take a noun or verb, mangle it, and add something silly at the end. So when I see an ad for Vomitorius® I have no idea if that’s a food delivery service or a shoe designed specifically for left-handed hermaphrodites.

So, I’m happier here not by addition, but by subtraction. It’s hard to be brought into a state of discontent by ads I never see. Or don’t understand.

What else is making people unhappy?

Another thing that’s driving us nuts is what we’re being sold in popular culture. Popular culture right now seems to be based on some sort of variation on a single, simple theme: if it feels good, do it. And it seems to be getting worse, especially in the last ten or so years.

I got surprised at work by an inspection of the leafy vegetables in the produce department. No one expects the spinach inquisition.

If it feels good, do it is, of course, is a just a version of what Aleister Crowley (a candidate for most unpleasant man, ever) said, “Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law.” And Crowley appeared to love the darkest sides of humanity. Heck, Crowley was a person that makes Hillary Clinton look like an amateur when it comes to the evil department.

This philosophy has been the driving force in culture for decades because it’s an easy sale – unlimited pleasure: all you have to do is ignore your values. This idea is implanted deep into the media: songs, movies, television, and even the news. Most of the time we don’t notice it for the same reason a fish doesn’t notice water – it’s all around us.

All of the behaviors that come from Crowley’s statement have had a horrible impact. It turns man from a person that reasons, delays gratification, and looks to a set of enduring values into a creature that is driven by the pleasures of the moment, no matter what form they may take or what consequences that might mean. So, I guess that brings Bill Clinton into the equation, too.

What do you get if you cross Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton? Found in your cell, unresponsive.

Though it might seem like doing whatever we want whenever we want should make people happy, the result is almost always the opposite. True happiness, deep happiness comes from the opposite of the pleasures of the moment.

I’ll give an example: kids.

Kids are awful. They start out as useless blobs of flesh that smell bad. They take too much time. And then it gets worse. The time and emotional investment I have in just my son Pugsley alone has probably cost years of my life. I know it has cost tens of thousands of dollars in food alone, and that was just this week.

And I wouldn’t change any of it, especially now since he’s dropped out of the “being a total tool” phase. Raising kids has been the biggest battle of my life, and has also provided me the biggest rewards and the most happiness.

There is a new workout – you knock on every door in the neighborhood and talk to each neighbor. It’s called, “Jehovah’s Fitness”.

The things that are worthwhile, the things that provide the greatest joy aren’t easy, and you can’t buy them at Amazon®. The important things are difficult. The important things require discipline. The important things don’t happen all at once.

And, generally, the most important things can’t be taken away from you. And no one will remember you for your iPhone©, or your house, or a car.

Well, unless it was a really nice car or house.