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 I started today with a routine eye exam.  Nothing much changed, but they dilated my eyes.  Crap.  I walked around blurry for most of the day.

I see that the Southern Poverty Law Center got indicted.  It couldn't happen to a more deserving bunch.  The SPLC was founded in the early '70s to combat racism.  Over the past 20 years they have become a far-left organization that tries to stretch the definition so that they can still be relevant.  Over the past decade they would put out lists of "hate groups" that included the Catholic church and Turning Point USA.

Over in Iran, it appears that the IRGC has taken over what little remains of the government.  The Gay Ayatollah is only a figure-head and the IRGC is running the place.  Vance and crew didn't leave for Pakistan because no one really knows who is in charge and the negotiators from Iran are a little squirrely.

Today is just Wednesday.  Who knows what is going to happen tomorrow.

SCOTUS Leaves Passengers Disarmed, Easy Prey While Traveling on Public Transportation [More] The good news is, if you successfully defend yourself and subdue a murderous attacker, a cowardly Only One will be glad to step out of hiding and take credit for the collar.

The post And Leave the Driving to Us! first appeared on The War on Guns.

How can you tell Daniel Rippion is lying? I guess we shouldn’t judge them until we’ve goose-stepped a mile in their jackboots… And remember, Back the Blue! [Via Jess]

The post We’re the Only Ones Tyrannical Enough first appeared on The War on Guns.

Border agents uncover RPG launcher, cache of rifles hidden in vehicle heading to Mexico… The driver, a woman, is being charged with smuggling goods from the United States, a crime that could carry a penalty of up to 10 years behind bars. She was accompanied by three minors who were released to the custody of … Continue reading "More Questions Than Answers"

The post More Questions Than Answers first appeared on The War on Guns.

Democrats win Virginia redistricting fight, threatening Republican House majority [More] There’s plenty more I have to say about this that will require research for an article, so I know what I’m doing this weekend.

The post The People Have Spoken first appeared on The War on Guns.

4/19/26 University Herald:

The U.S. Department of Education published a sweeping Notice of Proposed Rulemaking on April 17 that would — for the first time in the history of federal higher education policy — hold every postsecondary program at every type of institution to a single earnings-based accountability standard, with the loss of federal student loan eligibility as the consequence for programs that fail.

The proposed rule, the third and final of three rules the Department has issued to implement the One Big Beautiful Bill Act signed July 4, 2025, is now open for public comment through May 20, 2026 at regulations.gov. The Department may modify the rule in response to comments before publishing a final rule, which is expected to take effect July 1, 2026.


This is one of the most consequential higher education policy proposals in decades. Students, faculty, and anyone considering enrolling in a college or university program should understand what it proposes — and what it does not.
The Core Mechanism: The Earnings Premium Test

Under the proposed rule, every postsecondary program — from an eight-week culinary certificate to a doctoral program — must pass what the Department calls an "earnings premium test." The test compares the median earnings of a program's graduates against a benchmark based on the education level of typical workers in the broader labor market.

For undergraduate degree programs, the median earnings of graduates must exceed the median earnings of working adults aged 25 to 34 with only a high school diploma. For graduate programs, graduates' median earnings must exceed those of working adults aged 25 to 34 with only a bachelor's degree.

If a program fails this test in two of three consecutive years, it loses eligibility for federal Direct Loans — meaning students enrolling in that program can no longer borrow federal money to pay for it. Programs that fail cannot simply restart under a new name; the rule includes provisions preventing institutions from enrolling new students in "substantially similar" programs for at least two award years following closure.

Is there value in programs that do not contribute to a decent paycheck?  Certainly. But the government need not subsidize a program that satisfies your desire to learn about Victim Studies.

DC police officer facing child sex abuse charges after Harford sting [More] Where’s Chris Hansen when you really need him? [Via bondmen]

The post We’re the Only Ones Deviant Enough first appeared on The War on Guns.

Rep. Clyde Leads Coalition Urging Trump to Pick an A-G Who Will ‘Immediately’ Wipe Away Biden Gun Control [More] Good ideas, especially the part saying ” The DOJ should not be in the business of defending plainly unconstitutional firearms restrictions.” Too bad we rarely see such leadership when elections aren’t forthcoming, with sustaining momentum afterward … Continue reading "On This We Can Agree"

The post On This We Can Agree first appeared on The War on Guns.

Florida AG Launches Landmark Criminal Investigation into ChatGPT and OpenAI for ‘Offering Significant Advice’ to Alleged FSU School Shooter, ‘If It Was a Person, We’d Charge Them with Murder’ [More] So go after its creators. Frankenstein paid the price for the actions of his creature. [Via bondmen]

The post Partners in Crime first appeared on The War on Guns.

According to the Trace’s 2024 IRS for 990, the Editor-in-Chief was paid more than $280,000. A staff writer made more than $170,000. [More] There’s good money in having Daddy issues!

The post The Finest Anti-Gun Propaganda Money Can Buy first appeared on The War on Guns.

4/22/26 KOMO:

MEXICO CITY (TNND) — The gunman who opened fire atop one of the historic Teotihuacán pyramids in Mexico on Monday carried notes and materials related to past mass shootings in the United States, officials said Tuesday.

Julio César Jasso Ramírez, 27, shot into a crowd of tourists, killing a Canadian woman and injuring 13 others. Interior Secretary Rosa Icela Rodríguez said six of the injured have since been discharged, while seven remain hospitalized.

When security forces responded to emergency calls at the Pyramid of the Moon, Ramírez climbed higher up the structure before being shot in the leg by a National Guardsman. He then used a .38-caliber revolver to take his own life, officials said.

If "herostratic" is not in your vocabulary. Herostratus destroyed one of the Wonders of the Ancient World, the Temple of Artemis in Ephesus:

Herostratus, who by pure coincidence destroyed the world wonder on the same night Macedonian conqueror Alexander the Great was born [not correct], is a man about whom nothing is known. His social status was likely poor because he was either a former slave or the son of a slave, according to historians. The arsonist, who upon his arrest stated that he committed this unimaginable crime because he was seeking kleos: infamy, reputation, may have been best described by the Russian poet Semyon Nadson. Nadson hypothesizes that Herostratus' determination to destroy the Temple of Artemis was motivated by the sobering understanding that he was but a "maggot squashed by destiny, in the midst of the countless hordes," and that doing so was the only way for him to make his mark on history.

The Ephesian authorities believed that the death penalty did not adequately reflect the seriousness of the offense. Herostratus was sentenced to death as well as damnatio memoriae, which forbade mentioning his name in writing or conversation moving forward. This was done in order to severely punish the fame-seeking criminal.

See how well it worked? You have no idea who he was. This is not the first mass murder seeking kleos. My first peer-reviewed journal article discusses another such case and how news coverage encourages this, especially with guns. The 2019 El Paso mass murderer  consciously modeled himself after a Christchurch mass murder. 9/5/19 AP:

The El Paso massacre is the latest attack in which the gunman appears to have praised the March 15 shootings in Christchurch, where an Australian white supremacist is charged with killing 51 worshippers at two mosques.

Authorities are investigating the possibility that Saturday’s shooting in El Paso was a hate crime, and are working to determine whether a racist, anti-immigrant screed posted to the 8chan board shortly beforehand was written by the man arrested in the attack. Though he was targeting Latinos rather than Muslims, the first sentence of the online rant expressed support for the Christchurch shooter.

While the El Paso murderer seemed driven by hatred of Hispanics, the Christchurch murderer:

The attacks were mainly motivated by white nationalism, anti-immigrant sentiment, and white supremacist beliefs. [monster name redacted] described himself as an ecofascist and professed belief in the far-right "Great Replacement" conspiracy theory in the context of a "white genocide". 

Curiously he was an Australian immigrant to New Zealand. The news media's pursuit of clicks makes these monsters famous. If you are a sad little person who feels that your passing will leave no mark on the world, chasing your "everyone will be famous for 15 minutes" may make twisted sense.

I would have something to say about this nonsense but The Silicon Graybeard has it pretty much covered.

Miguel, too. 

Warner and Kaine Introduce Legislation to Safeguard Americans from the Scourge of Gun Violence [More] Here it is. 2% chance of being enacted — for now. Don’t worry– Mr. Trump and the Republicans are doing everything in their power to blow their majorities. And when the Democrats finally get the power to ram these into … Continue reading "The We’re Going to Keep Being Communist Traitors Until Somebody Stops Us Act of 2026"

The post The We’re Going to Keep Being Communist Traitors Until Somebody Stops Us Act of 2026 first appeared on The War on Guns.

 Nonetheless, this is the sort of nanny state behavior that shows a complete lack of trust in education of people to look out for their own good. I can also see how this is going to lead to a business opportunity for those born before 2008. 4/21/26 Guardian:

A bill banning anyone born after 2008 from buying tobacco in the UK has completed its progress through parliament in a move that ministers hope will create a “smoke-free generation”.

Under the tobacco and vapes bill anyone born on or after 1 January 2009 will never be able to be legally sold tobacco across the UK, in an effort to save lives and reduce the burden on the NHS.

The bill will become legislation when it receives royal assent next week. Its long journey through both houses of parliament began when it was introduced on 5 November 2024 and ended on Tuesday, when the House of Lords approved amendments made by MPs in House of Commons.

Ministers hope it will end the sale of tobacco products altogether over time and break the cycle of addiction and the disadvantages associated with tobacco.

Smoking leads to 400,000 hospital admissions and 64,000 deaths a year in England alone and costs the NHS £3bn in treatments for tobacco-related illnesses such as cancer and heart disease. It is estimated to involve total costs to society of between £21.3bn and £27.6bn a year in England, mainly through lost productivity.

The more the government does for you, the more excuses they have for telling you what to do. Can a ban on red meat or even meat in general be far off.

When I was young, outside liquor stores, young women would approach me to buy them beer. I never did it, but I can see how a greedy person or of low morals could have taken advantage of this. Tobacco is the same problem.

Forbes slammed for asking readers to play odds on gun control in mass shooting story: ‘Gross, evil, ghoulish’ [More] Yeah, it’s not dignified, like blood dancing. Hey, remember when Forbes Editor-in-Chief Steve Forbes was trying to con gun owners into thinking he was our pal? And can anyone figure out why the “single-issue” NRA mouthpiece asked him about … Continue reading "Schadenfreudian Slip"

The post Schadenfreudian Slip first appeared on The War on Guns.

Others have seemingly compared her to Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, meaning that she moves from being “extremely kind to extremely angry,” Hemingway writes. [More] Who better to judge what rights you should be allowed to exercise than a bipolar gun prohibitionist with anger issues? [Via Jess]

The post Lest She Be Judged first appeared on The War on Guns.

Bearing Arms contributor John Petrolino joins Cam with a first-hand report from the NRA Annual Meetings in Houston, Texas, including some new changes to the leadership structure. [Watch] It’s probably a good thing I couldn’t go. I’d have put every one of the “Voices of the Second Amendment” (and any officer and director I ran … Continue reading "After Action Report"

The post After Action Report first appeared on The War on Guns.

‘Martyrs’: Michigan Dems nominate Hezbollah-praising candidate after ousting Jewish regent [More] Keep votin’ Democrat, bagel brains.

The post Unuseful Idiot first appeared on The War on Guns.

Blanche said the SPLC was paying roughly $270,000 to a member of the leadership group that planned the Unite the Right protests in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017, that resulted in the death of one person and injured dozens more. He added that between 2014 and 2023, SPLC paid at least $3 million to eight people, … Continue reading "Salting the Mine"

The post Salting the Mine first appeared on The War on Guns.

The post M26 MASS (Modular Accessory Shotgun System) first appeared on Forgotten Weapons.

Woman opens fire on Maryland gas station clerk during attempted robbery… “At approximately 7:43 p.m. April 17 police were called to the Shell gas station in the 7200 block of Cradlerock Way in Columbia for a report of a shooting,” police said in a statement. [More] Maryland, eh? Shell, eh? “Unrelated charges in another state”…? … Continue reading "Shell Game"

The post Shell Game first appeared on The War on Guns.

According to the American Suppressor Associations (ASA), the official number of silencers/suppressors registered in the United States of America was 5,776,685 as of the time they Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firarms, and Explosives (ATF) responded at the SHOT Show in January of 2026. This correspondent obtained information from the ATF on January 22, 2026. At that time it was stated the information had already been released, and over 150K National Firearms Act (NFA) applications had been approved in January of 2026 to that date.

The graph for registered silence numbers has been created using the cumulative numbers for January of each year from 2011 to 2026. When numbers were not available for January, linear interpolation was used to approximate the January number. Each year had at least one reference number.  2017 had three reference numbers, none of them for January.

The number of registered silencers has been compounding at a rate of about 22.6% per year.  That rate is roughly the same as doubling every 3.2 years.  If such a rate continues, there will be about 50 million registered silencers ten years from now.

It is unlikely there will be 50 million registered silencers ten years from now. This correspondent believes the registration requirement will be removed well before 10 years. It could be removed within two years, given the lawsuits now in play. 50 million silencers in the hands of American gun owners, ten years from now, is plausible.

Silencers are very popular firearm safety accessories when they are not restricted by oppressive governmental policies.  Silencers can be made inexpensively with economies of scale. Even the best, most technologically advanced silencers/suppressors will come down in price as economies of scale come into play.  In New Zealand, silencers had, until 2019, been an over the counter commodity, similar to purchasing a rifle scope in the United States. Silencers were relatively cheap.  From a Gun Watch article in 2015:

Silencers are often referred to as suppressors. The best descriptive term is gun muffler. In New Zealand, which has a strong tradition of gun ownership, gun mufflers are unregulated and cheap. They are for sale over the counter or in the mail. The above ads or similar ones can be seen on the online buying and selling site for New Zealand, trademeco.nz. From trademe.co.nz . . .

This Silencer will fit any centrefire rifle with 17CM of exposed barrel with a diameter smaller than 19mm.

Takes away the loud crack (down to about a 22 magnum noise) and helps protect your ears from permanent hearing loss.

Super strong tooling grade alloy construction designed to withstand bursts of Full Auto fire, making it virtually indestructible on a hunting rifle and keeping the weight down to just 370 grams.

There is no licence required to purchase these in New Zealand.

Rimfire gun mufflers are commonly available for under $20. Consider that a New Zealand dollar is current valued a .65 U.S. dollars.

Silencer prices in New Zealand have increased, but they are still available through the mail.  The exchange rate is now about .59 USD to 1 New Zealand Dollar. At the current exchange rate, quality .22 rimfire suppressors can be had for about $36 USD, and quality high power rifle suppressors can be purchased for prices ranging upward from $120. The highest price showing was about $450 USD.  The New Zealand market is tiny compared to the United States. About 400,000 people in New Zealand are firearms owners, with about 1.77 million firearms.

Current prices for a silencer in the United States run about $350 to $2000. Those prices will drop with deregulation and economies of scale.

There are over a hundred million gun owners in the United States, with over 540 million firearms. A market for 50 million silencers in the United States, once the regulatory burden is removed, is entirely possible.

©2026 by Dean Weingarten: Permission to share is granted when this notice and link are included. Gun Watch

Houston police officers responded to a shooting call at a home in the 300 block of Truman Street around 2 a.m. According to investigators, the homeowner was awake and inside the house when a man broke in. The homeowner got a firearm from inside his home and shot the intruder once.

More Here

Officers responded to a house in the 5100 block of Rhett Drive just before 1:30 a.m. Saturday. Authorities said a woman had just arrived at the house with a friend when three to four men attempted to rob them in the driveway.

The woman’s son reportedly witnessed the altercation and fired a shot toward the suspects, but that gunshot struck the passenger in the shin.

More Here

By Lee Williams SAF Investigative Journalism Project Special to Liberty Park Press Chip Brownlee’s recent story about Emergency Risk Protection Orders, known as ERPOs, which was published online by the Trace is actually well written. It’s completely wrong and chock-full of anti-gun propaganda, but it is well written. Brownlee’s story is a great example of […]

The post Why the Trace Has Problems with Guns, Gun Owners and the Truth appeared first on Liberty Park Press.

On April 22, 1056 Supernova Crab (the Crab Nebula) was last seen by the naked eye. Pictured is a mosaic image assembled from Hubble Space Telescope imagery.  Now, nearly a thousand years later, the supenova remnant is still a spectacular sight for astronomers. — At noon, on April 22, 1889, by Federal decree, white settlers were allowed into Indian Territory, sparking a land rush involving tens of thousands in what became Oklahoma Territory. — We are running a two-week-long sale on all of our pre-1899 antique shotguns at Elk Creek Company, with deep discounts. This sale will end on Monday, …

The post Preparedness Notes for Wednesday — April 22, 2026 appeared first on SurvivalBlog.com.

(Continued from Part 1. This concludes the article.) Understand that applications are on you Appleseed events are threading a needle. They need to say that they are not fomenting rebellion or any illegal use of force. They have to say this because they are pointing to our American heritage of marksmanship…without which our rebellion against the brits would have failed. You don’t need to be a lawyer to see the tension. The only way you can survive that tension is by erring on the side of liability protection. They are not teaching hunting. They are not teaching self defense. They …

The post A Tale of Two Appleseeds – Part 2, by N.C. appeared first on SurvivalBlog.com.

Our weekly Snippets column is a collection of short items: responses to posted articles, practical self-sufficiency items, how-tos, lessons learned, tips and tricks, and news items — both from readers and from SurvivalBlog’s editors. Note that we may select some long e-mails for posting as separate letters. — Automatic Draft Registration Set to Begin in December. (Pictured above is peacetime draft registration in the United States, in 1940.) o  o  o Winter storm warning issued as 5 feet of snow, freezing temperatures barrel toward western US highways. o  o  o Blog reader C.B. sent us this: Suspects convicted for insurance fraud …

The post SurvivalBlog Readers’ & Editors’ Snippets appeared first on SurvivalBlog.com.

“European thinkers have long criticized America for remaining trapped in a Lockeian world with its weak decentralized government and strong individual rights. They say our 18th-Century declaration has prevented us from progressing to higher forms of government. But we were fortunate not to trade our Lockeian bonds for the supposedly enlightened world of Hegel, Marx, and their followers. Fascism, which after all was national socialism, triggered wars in Europe and Asia that killed tens of millions. The socialism of the Soviet Union and the People’s Republic of China proceeded to kill more tens millions of their own people. This is …

The post The Editors’ Quote Of The Day: appeared first on SurvivalBlog.com.

4/21/26 NPR:

 WASHINGTON — The Southern Poverty Law Center was indicted Tuesday on federal fraud charges alleging it improperly raised millions of dollars to secretly pay leaders of the Ku Klux Klan and other hate groups for inside information, acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said.

The Justice Department alleges the civil rights group defrauded donors by using their money to fund the very extremism it claimed to be fighting, with more than $3 million paid to informants through a now-defunct program to infiltrate white supremacist and other extremist groups. Prosecutors allege some of the money was used by extremists to carry out other crimes, but court papers did not include specific examples.

SPLC claims they were just getting information. Racism is so rare compared to my youth that this looks like funding groups that might otherwise wither on the vine. Remember the racist rally in Charlottesville in 2017? Guess who helped fund it,

 When even the Guardian goes after him. 4/21/26 Guardian:

Well, what would you do? You’re a top civil servant with more than 25 years of government service. You’ve worked for Tony Blair, Gordon Brown, David Cameron and Theresa May. You went through Brexit hell as a lead negotiator. You were sacked by Boris Johnson and were then brought back by Keir Starmer.

You land a plum job as permanent undersecretary in the Foreign Office and do your boss a favour by appointing his man as ambassador to the US. You’ve already got a knighthood; that peerage is only a matter of time away. Then it all blows up in your face and the prime minister sacks you and trashes your reputation in parliament.

Call it the revenge of the nerd. On Monday we had the case for the prosecution during Keir Starmer’s statement to the Commons. On Tuesday, we got Olly Robbins giving his defence before the foreign affairs select committee. And, in its way, it was quietly damning. Mostly of the government, occasionally – if inadvertently – of himself.

Throughout, Robbins presented himself as a fundamentally decent man. Someone who lived and breathed public service. The sort of man Starmer believes himself to be yet somehow isn’t. An ingenu for whom process is everything. A man governed by ritual. You would guess his sock drawer is pristine and numbered. Someone crushed by his recent sacking. Heartbroken at losing a job he loved.

At one point, he insisted that the two books he knew by heart were the civil service manual and the Book of Common Prayer. Blessed are the geeks. For they shall inherit the Earth. Just a shame that Olly never got to the bit in the prayer book about anything to do with Peter Mandelson always ending in a vale of tears. A shadow of darkness. And unlike previous misdemeanours, this time there shall be no resurrection for him. Possibly not even for Olly or Keir.

It’s the right of the people, not the right of special operators. [More] What may at first sound like a good idea is not one the Framers would have approved.

The post Nationwide Concealed Carry for ‘Elite’ Veterans Will Create a New Class of ‘Only Ones’ first appeared on The War on Guns.

The new “American Exceptionalism,” courtesy of Democrat rule… [More] Heritage Americans are loony, Vivek…? Mr. Adams would disagree. When government fails to fulfull its obligations under the Preamble, what’s a citizen it’s trying to disarm to do? Especially when that government breeds, nurtures, sustains, aids and abets the destroyers?

The post Wild in the Streets first appeared on The War on Guns.

Just so America knows, after two weeks in recess, John Thune is no longer considering the SAVE America Act. [More] Hey, the guy’s got a reputation to uphold.

The post According to His Nature first appeared on The War on Guns.

What the NRA, and clearly this applies to other gun advocacy groups as well, seems to not understand is that the link between gun ownership and 2nd Amendment advocacy is not uniform across races. [More] There goes the “just wait a couple generations” argument.

The post Culture Shock first appeared on The War on Guns.

Far Left Anti-Billionaire Group Linked to Bernie Sanders Endorses Billionaire Tom Steyer for Governor of California [More] The issue never really matters– those are just hooks to bring in disgruntled pawns. The cause célèbre always takes a back seat to the greater goal of conquest through subversion. When that’s won, the useful idiots will get … Continue reading "Tales of the Bizarro World"

The post Tales of the Bizarro World first appeared on The War on Guns.

 In the early years of manned flight, many considered the sound barrier to be a hard barrier, until Chuck Yeager became the first man to exceed Mach 1 in 1947.  Nowadays, we routinely fly faster than that.

Likewise, in running, the 4-minute mile was considered a hard barrier until Roger Bannister crossed the line in 1954. The 4-minute mile is still a laudable goal, but not considered a hard barrier in human performance.

This past Saturday in Georgia, I watched Jiles Wright, a shooter from Arkansas, set a new worlds record in CFDA shooting. Jiles hit a standard CFDA target in 0.278/secod in sanctioned competition. The CFDA has strict rules for recoding a world's record, and Jiles met all the criteria.

The CFDA considers a worlds record to be unattainable at anything faster than 0.267. (CFDA rules, page 25).  This is based on testing done in 2021 based on human reaction time and draw speed. I understand the reasoning and the intent.

I also understand that barriers are meant to be overcome and that records are meant to be broken. The CFDA may want to reconsider a hard barrier to human performance.

Congratulations to Jiles.  I was honored to be there to watch him set a new world's record.

I'm not sure why I enjoy the slow and hard look at things. Perhaps it's just the process of becoming slowly born that is those years leading up to middle age. Perhaps it's what I do for a paycheck. Maybe it was all the hours hiking up into mountains of the West as I grew up. You really learn to appreciate the slowness, the detail, the stillness of a day in the outdoors. The ascent may be hours or it may be days, but with a compass and a few tools, you simply gather your wits around you and head uphill. What you expect to greet you is up ahead of you, even when you can't see it. It's there in the blue, and it only remains for your body to reach it. Patience, one blister, one tear, at a time.

The wilderness gives you time, for the wild, though changing, is still eternal. That's what long road trips are like for me. I keep the horizon in my window but still look back, savoring the journey. It's time, my time, filled with the immaculate sameness of hours bathed in the sun's warm honey. Anything that requires detailed thought, the engine setting, a scan for traffic, occurs in brief, unhurried intervals. The miles roll by with the thoughts, miles of tears, of laughter I've not known since youth, of love, of mechanical, rhythmic memories of the past that I carried with me as I started this journey. 

Those memories are not always happy ones, which is part of the trip you will make. As the miles flow past, you realize that when you are young, no one tells you the truth about love, about life. About coming into your heart and your strength and what it means when you realize what you have beneath you.

Talking frankly about past relationships and lost friends seemed banal, like proving a right angle or finding the equal distance between two lines but it felt good  on that drive with my friend to share our joys and our griefs as we headed into our future. The two-lane highway rose slowly out of the Plains as I tried to navigate through words that carried with them both joy and pain, holding me back like the weight of a dead end. So, we talked, not in a great gush of words, but as friends do, in small bits of ourselves spread out on the table like a show and tell of things that troubled us, those hurts that built up over years of living. The miles and hours flew past, fields clutching onto the skeletons of flowers that long ago died, of bare, windswept trees, and clusters of burrs that stick to everything with a tiny pinprick of pain. Things that were sticking to us both.

All that was left were the words; and they flowed, like the laughter and the tears, until I opened the window to let the wind dry my face. The wind that would carry those old hurts to where they would simply bounce off the landscape as if they were a piece of discarded trash, delicate, crumpled tissue best left to be disintegrated by time. Better left behind as the sun began to relax on what would be a renewed journey; the road pulling away from discarded thought, the highway lines breaking up like Morse Code as we moved forward and moved away from that painful past, those roads best not traveled, till it was just a speck in the rearview mirror. 

I sit here tonight so many years later thinking back to that long drive. My friend has found her happiness, and I found mine, nothing left but the memories that I'm making now, moving into new skies, open roads. Time ticks past. The diorama of life unfolds in the window up ahead, the rush of the world, fast food, and fast life, suspended for a few hours. The truck still moves on, this time to find a place to rest for the night and I do, cleansing myself of the grime of the day. The hotel room has all the warmth of a doctor’s waiting room, and I can't help but wish I was instead at hunting camp, sleeping under a fluttering tent, canvas murmuring to the whispers of the rain. As I lay there, I think of Heraclitus, of whose writings are now just fragmentary remains, who said it better than I, expressing the nature of reality as a flux in words, the way I'd express them in motion today. 

The rule that makes

Its subject weary 

is a sentence

of hard labor. 

For this reason 

change gives rest.

Sometime it's time for a change of landscape, of thinking, a journey forward. No agenda but to see the day unfold before you up ahead. You need those moments alone, those miles of open road, and miles of open sky.

Mark Twain wrote in Huckleberry Finn, “We had the sky up there, all speckled with stars, and we used to lie on our backs and look up at them and discuss whether they was made or just happened.”  But I know they were made.  Made to serve as tiny points of light to guide a distant traveler back home.

 - Brigid

On April 21, 1864 the U.S. Congress passed the Coinage Act of 1864, which led to the “In God We Trust” wording on U.S. coins. The phrase was eventually added to all of our country’s currency. — And on April 21, 1961: USAF Major Robert M. White took the X-15-2 to the edge of space with a record-breaking flight to an altitude of 107,700 feet and a speed of 3,603 miles per hour. — SurvivalBlog Writing Contest Today we present another entry for Round 124 of the SurvivalBlog non-fiction writing contest. The prizes for this round include: First Prize: A …

The post Preparedness Notes for Tuesday — April 21, 2026 appeared first on SurvivalBlog.com.

I recently went to two Project Appleseed shooting events. I went to one with friends one by myself. One was in the south in the summer the other in the north in the winter. There was a lot the same at these two events and a decent amount was different. There was a more negative experience for the first one and a more positive in the second, though neither was entirely positive or negative. How were these events different and why? Those are the questions I’m asking and answering here. I want to answer those questions both for the clinics …

The post A Tale of Two Appleseeds – Part 1, by N.C. appeared first on SurvivalBlog.com.

This weekly column features media from around the American Redoubt region. (Idaho, Montana, eastern Oregon, eastern Washington, and Wyoming.) Much of the region is also more commonly known as The Inland Northwest. Today’s feature photo is a public domain image of Trout Lake at Yellowstone National Park, taken by “Always Shooting”. It was taken in 2014. The thumbnail image below is click-expandable:       Redoubt News Links Thermopolis Safari Club’s Big Game Trophy Collection To Hit Auction Block. Reported on April 10th: Giant Green Fireball Explodes Over Northeastern Wyoming on Wednesday Night. K2 News: Witness A Wild Wyoming Showdown …

The post SurvivalBlog’s American Redoubt Media of the Week appeared first on SurvivalBlog.com.

“There are 1011 stars in the galaxy. That used to be a huge number. But it’s only a hundred billion. It’s less than the national deficit! We used to call them astronomical numbers. Now we should call them economical numbers.” – Dr. Richard Feynman

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 So I understand that while I was gone to Georgia this weekend, a US Navy ship pumped a couple of 5-inchroundsintotheengineroom of an Iranian motor vessel who was trying to run the blockade.

I don't often say this, but Go Navy.

From what I understand, this particular vessel was a Bad Actor in the supply chain for Iran's WMD program.  Not that I care what this particular vessel, nor any Iranian-flagged vessel is carrying.  The US Navy is conducting a blockade. Any vessel trying to run it should be 1) warned, and 2) sunk.

It is time that Iran get themessage.

Sixteen (!) years ago I posted about how the climate databases did not show any warming since 1850:

So what does the raw data look like for all 4495 stations?

Other than a short term blip in the 1990s, we see no warming at all since 1850. None.

Let me say this simply: The raw (unadjusted) weather data from the largest historical data set shows no warming for the last 150 years.

Now Grok 4.1 has answered a query about the same subject:

When correlated systematic errors and the realistic treatment of infilling problems are properly accounted for, the global mean temperature curve before 1950–1970 (and partly even today) cannot physically be determined with an accuracy better than ±0.5–1 °C. Consequently, a claimed trend of +1.3 °C since 1850 is **not significantly distinguishable** from a zero trend. This is not “skeptical exaggeration”; it is simply what error theory and metrology **mandate**

I'll just wait quietly over here for my long-delayed Nobel Prize ...

By Lee Williams SAF Investigative Journalism Project Special to Liberty Park Press Things are moving very well in our efforts to free Patrick “Tate” Adamiak from prison, but we need your help. We need letters—tons of letters—that explain why President Donald J. Trump should pardon Adamiak. The letters will be included in a package we hope will soon […]

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The post Late-War Commercial K98k – Production in 1944 But Not for the Wehrmacht first appeared on Forgotten Weapons.

• High-resolution sonar images of the USS Monitor wreck.


• Russia's hacker unit known as Fancy Bear is behind the hacking of wi-fi routers.


• Panopticon-like surveillance isn't any better just because it's not the government doing it.

On April 20th, 1653 Oliver Cromwell and 40 musketeers forcibly dissolved the English Rump Parliament, after it failed to establish a caretaker government. In Cromwell’s words “You have sat too long for any good you have been doing lately … In the name of God, go!” — April 20, 2010: An explosion on the Deepwater Horizon oil platform, leased by BP, killed 11 workers and began spewing an estimated 200 million gallons of crude into the Gulf of Mexico for nearly three months, creating the worst known offshore oil spill. — April 20th is also the day that we remember …

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Dateline: The Swamp. I am writing this in the depths of winter, but I cannot rest from my labors. I must press forward with the ongoing campaign. The objective is to push back the tangled undergrowth threatening to swallow up our property. Only ceaseless effort can prevent the undergrowth from reclaiming our land for The Swamp. Without the protecting cover of leaves, my enemy is more vulnerable to my counter-attacks. I can better see to cut the various tendrils, stems, and saplings. The newest weapon in my arsenal is the Husqvarna 26 Inch Clearing Axe. The clearing axe consists of …

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The following recipe for Super Simple Traditional Skillet Asparagus is from SurvivalBlog reader Ellen H. This requires a large cast-iron skillet with lid. Ingredients Asparagus (1 to 6 servings’ worth) Butter Salt (to taste) Pepper (to taste) Directions Warm a large cast Iron skillet over medium heat. Add enough butter to coat the bottom of the pan. When the butter foam subsides, add the asparagus and shake the skillet to coat the asparagus spears. Cover and cook, shaking occasionally, until the spears are bright green but still crisp, about 3 minutes. Uncover and continue cooking until the asparagus is tender …

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Today’s graphic: Normalized product of inverse of Cost of Living and Human Development Index (HDI) based on 2026 Cost of Living data. JWR’s Comments:  Note that the Human Development Index has been criticized for a Scandi-centric view of health, wealth, and happiness. The HDI’s 0-to-1 ratings essentially assume that present-day Scandinavia is the penultimate in civilizational aspirations. I, for one, can imagine something a lot better than multi-generational welfare dependence. Also note that the current prosperity of Norway, the UK, the Netherlands, Denmark, and Germany has partly been artificially propelled by the cash generated by drilling North Sea oil. The …

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“The hour is fast approaching on which the honour and success of this army, and the safety of our bleeding country depend. Remember, officers and soldiers, that you are free men, fighting for the blessings of liberty… that slavery will be your portion… …if you do not acquit yourselves like men.” – George Washington, 1776

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