This is meant to be a tactical analysis, and also to admit I was wrong about certain things a number of months (or years) ago when I discussed 5GW.

The notion behind the F-35 was communications, control of the sky, ability to leverage connection with MilStar Uplink with other air assets, command, and so forth.  That’s a simplification, and for the rest of the story you can find better explanations of it online.

True enough, the F-35 program has been disastrous and it would have been better in retrospect to have reengineered and retrofitted the F-22 which was a proven platform.  I also won’t hear of any talk of replacement of the A-10, which only an idiot would advocate.

However, it seems to me that the Russians are approaching the battle space as if they are fighting WWII.  Ukraine, on the other hand, is using modern anti-tank rocket designs to their advantage, as well as leveraging drones to kill tanks, refueling trucks and APCs.  Two things happen when the armor is found and Ukraine has the assets to attack.  First, the armor gets killed.  Second, the soldiers in the armor either die or quickly abandon the armor and scatter.

Russia is driving tanks and other armor in large, slow moving, laborious, lumbering columns, all of them susceptible to stand off weapons.  This makes them susceptible to enfilade fires.  If they break out of the lumbering columns, they splinter to the point that they are susceptible to defilade fires.  Some of the targeting is being done during the daylight hours, but a lot of it is being done at night, because as I read in one account, “They can’t see us at night.”  That report was specifically pertaining to civilian drones, as small as a couple of square feet, being operated by civilians, those same civilians working in military complexes and alongside military observers and tacticians.  Once again for emphasis, these are civilians, using small civilian-owned drones.  Frankly, I don’t think it would matter if they could see them in the daylight either.  They would be looking up in the sky all the time for something that looked like smaller than a bird.

The drone usage is for surveillance and intelligence gathering.  From their vantage, they can send ground pounders to use stand off anti-tank weapons or send weapons-carrying drones to perform armor killing functions.  Radar cannot see these small drones.

To be sure, Russia can still use large artillery and fighter jet strikes to damage infrastructure, and they are doing just that.  Also, when the battle is between ground pounders, it’s brutal, just as it always has been throughout history.

But a tank must be able to function within parameters: weight, ability keep from sinking into the ground, fuel consumption, and armor protection.  The turrets and rear ends of tanks are usually much less armored than the front.  It’s impossible to design a tank that has thick armor on all sides and the top.  It would be logistically unsustainable and wouldn’t move.  Engines would tear up, and mechanics would get shot while trying to make them work again.

It would be interesting to see how the M1A1 variants hold up under these circumstances.  They might do better than the older Russian designs because they move faster, have explosive reactive armor, and are more off-road capable than the Russian tanks.  But who knows?

But you can bet that tacticians in the Pentagon and at Leavenworth are today watching video very closely and asking some hard questions about heavy, lumbering warfare in light of the concepts of 5GW.

At the beginning of the discussions about 5GW, you could have colored me very skeptical.  Today I’m convinced.  With miniature drones the real-time intelligence and surveillance capabilities are endless.  The next barrier for these drones is the use of AI to let them all talk to each other and learn from their losses and successes, operating more autonomously when they perform proper enemy ID and surveil the area for unacceptable collateral damage potential.

Another thing this shows (and I was right about this prediction) is that the Marine Corps was stupid to have ever pushed the ridiculous EFV (Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle) to the point that the Senate had to kill it for them.  And they were smart to let it go when they were told no.  With drones and modern rocket designs, no EFV would have ever landed on any beach, anywhere.

One thing is certain.  The days of lumbering columns of tanks conducting near peer warfare on the field of battle is over forever.  No one will try it again, and if they do, they’re fools.

The two things most important in this war are ground pounders and control of the skies (and not necessarily control of the skies at tens of thousands of feet).

Andy at Practical Accuracy sends this video of shooting his RRA rifle at 1000 yards with iron sights.

Andy is a good shooter.  I can’t see a quarter that far without magnification though.  I’ll say again, Rock River Arms rifles are shooters.  We’ve discussed it many times before, but the 1:7 twist which is MilSpec was never put in place because of accuracy requirements.  Steve at RRA and I have discussed this before too, and they make their rifles 1:8 (some of them 1:9).

Of Exodus 31:4, John Calvin says this.

It was a disgraceful thing to prostrate themselves before a calf, in which there was no connection or affinity with the glory of God; and with this the Prophet expressly reproaches them, that “they changed their glory ( i. e. , God, in whom alone they should have gloried) into the similitude of an ox that eateth grass.” (Psalms 106:20.) For, if it be insulting to God to force Him into the likeness of men …

But men prostrate themselves before other men all the time, even today, looking for a savior in the form of man (or in this case, an animal).  God is jealous.  There is no more connection or affinity with God among world leaders as with the Ox.  It’s as disgraceful today as it was then.  Truly, this seeking after men as savior is as old as history.

The remedy is found in the Scriptures: “The name of the Lord is a strong tower; The righteous runs into it and is safe.” [Proverbs 18:10]

If you missed this over the weekend read Herschel’s: The Economics of Uranium And War

Artificial Scarcity is a weapon used by rulers and would-be rulers in the war for your future. Artificial scarcity is what the well-connected use via the power of government to regulate competition to enrich themselves. There’s no reason to name anybody in particular. What they do is create artificial scarcity by making competition much more difficult.

America needs the “Micro Reactors” to power small and mid-sized towns in America. It’s a great plan with a great way to keep the lights on outside the major hive cities. It’s been more than a decade since serious talk of this started. The idea has been around longer than that. We were discussing it in the DoD two decades ago to strengthen America’s national security posture by decentralizing the power grid(s). But centralization means central control, and most often, higher prices coupled with lower quality. We need the small reactors, but will we get them?

The coal industry in America has been all but shut down. It’s a story that is more than half a century old now. Rumor has it the Chinese will be getting this coal, probably through Mexican labor to extract it. It’s not much of a tale since some US coal is already being exported to China.

Things made artificially scarce through government power enrich particular interests driving costs higher. It’s the artificial limiting of the supply third of; supply, demand, and price signal. Both political parties in America do it. Who could blame them? They’re simply trying to be like the more prominent Global Oligarchs. It’s cute, really, the way they idolize Oligarchs as though they were the cool kids in middle school, and all the while, they wreck everything.

Of course, we could cite a raft of Bible verses in the Old and New Testaments that show, without a doubt, that this is sin and grave wickedness.

Oil is another. Ok, we’ll name some interests. By shutting down the pipeline from North Dakota to the refineries in Texas, Warren Buffet and Bill Gates (Yes, Gates is in the railroad biz with Buffet’s Berkshire Hathaway) cornered the market on the transport of crude from the upper tier to the Gulf Coast refiners. They own the railroad needed to move the crude. In fact, after shutting down the pipeline through government action, they got another law passed that tightened the regulatory requirements of oil rail transport cars. You guessed it; Buffet and Gates had the only rail cars that complied with the new specification. No, they don’t actually care about the “environment.”

The Utility Company in the county where I live has announced the near-term goal of 20 percent solar. The worst part of this idea is that it’s the wettest interior part of the country. They must not understand that high average annual rainfall amounts mean cloudiness? At any rate, it’s going to drive utility prices in a big way as low-cost, readily available, and reliable energy sources are no longer pursued. Last year they shut down a working hydroelectric plant. Not for repairs; they just shut it down. The dam is in no danger of breaking; they just turned off the turbines, poof, artificial scarcity. The price of utilities has been escalating sharply here for several years now.

Friends of Nancy Pelosi got an invasive fish in the San Joaquin Valley classified as endangered to stop competing farming operations from irrigating their land. Remember when the price of nuts doubled some years back?

If you can’t affect supply, create demand. We’re reminded of the shoe bomber and the instant materialization of the Airport Scanners that the then DHS head Chertoff had a deep investment in. Poof, a couple of weeks later, the scanners, which were already built, got fielded in major airports with medium and regional airports soon to follow. Chertoff got his money, and you got internal checkpoints. Papers, please! TSA has stopped zero terrorists. DHS hasn’t found any terrorists in America, so they turned their investigations inward and, yep, they found zero terrorists internally. The worry with DHS has always been that it will have to create artificial demand through the supply of terror.

Was artificial demand created for the COVID vaccine? You decide.

Government regulation has even driven artificial scarcity in shopping. Through regulation, every shopping area in every town in America has the same stores. There are a Lowes and a Home Depot. With a straight face, we’re told that’s; “free market competition.” There’s a Walmart and a Target, a chick-fil-a and Panera Bread, one of three car parts stores, an Office Depot and Staples, and the list goes. Mom and pops are shut down in favor of those with the funds to lobby Congress. It’s so bad that major corporations are now simply having their lawyers write legislation and handing it to Congress to pass. There are few interesting places left in America; artificial scarcity through government regulation has made every hamlet in the country ugly.

Incentivizing people to not work has created artificial scarcity in labor. But this fits perfectly with New Order’s religion of Replacement Theology. The border has to be left open; that’s just an added bonus if your people cease to exist.

Cranking up the printing presses isn’t the only thing that drives inflation, wrecking your future. So does artificial scarcity by purposefully misbalancing supply to enrich, let’s just call it what it is, the Central Committee and its partners in crime.

They always go too far, and the people like you and me starve or go to war or both for their willfully destructive behavior.

“Tell ye your children of it, and let your children tell their children, and their children another generation. That which the palmerworm hath left hath the locust eaten; and that which the locust hath left hath the cankerworm eaten; and that which the cankerworm hath left hath the caterpiller eaten.” Joel 1:3-4

There was a war in times past. One in the train of abuses that caused this war was that the king’s parasites were eating out our substance, destroying our posterity’s future. Tell your children.

EDIT: Forgot the links to the prior articles. Here they are: Part One  Part Two  Part Three  Part Four

The Temple and Jerusalem were destroyed in 70AD by the wrath of God. This destruction was indeed within that generation. These are the facts. Knowing this in hindsight, Jesus’ (along with others) repeated use of “this generation” is rather difficult to recon as some so-called Church Age. If the temple had been destroyed five generations later, or 500 years after Jesus spoke these increasingly vehement accusations, then we would have to consider what the text means. But, the text means just what Jesus said. These things did come upon that generation.

Jesus, again, declares the wickedness of that generation. Although sounding a little bit like the hewing down of the wicked fruit trees back in Chapter 7, this is a much more direct assault:

“34 O generation of vipers, how can ye, being evil, speak good things? for out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh. 35 A good man out of the good treasure of the heart bringeth forth good things: and an evil man out of the evil treasure bringeth forth evil things.” – Matthew 12:34-35

And Peter, full of the Holy Spirit of God, said in Acts 2:40: “And with many other words did he testify and exhort, saying, Save yourselves from this untoward generation.”

Bad things, terrible things were coming to that generation. Though persecution abounded, to be spared the wrath of God, one had to belong to Jesus Christ. This has been true since the Garden and remains true today. Peter is warning them that when the flood of judgment comes, don’t be taken away as they were in the days of Noah.

“But I say unto you, That in this place is one greater than the temple.” – Jesus Christ in Matthew 12:6

Although not a direct reference to the destruction of Jerusalem, Jesus’ point is very well taken, the necessity of the temple is ending. There is no further need for a temple. He is greater than any temple. To ensure proper worship by His church, He destroyed the temple during that generation in 70AD.

Referring to His crucifixion and resurrection: “Jesus answered and said unto them, Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” John 2:19

Any attempt to build another temple made with hands would be blasphemy.

Steven points out the end of the temple worship system in Acts. To see it all begin in Acts 6:8  through Acts 7:60. Steven, full of the Holy Spirit of God, lays out the history of his people’s temple worship system, concluding that the Christ of God has come; the days of the need of temple worship are over. For this, they killed Him. What great faith. (Note: the Jesus mentioned in Acts 7:45 is Joshua from the Old Testament.)

“48 Howbeit the most High dwelleth not in temples made with hands; as saith the prophet, 49 Heaven is my throne, and earth is my footstool: what house will ye build me? saith the Lord: or what is the place of my rest?” – Acts 7:48-49. Steven is referring to Isaiah 66:1-2. Also, see Acts 17:24-25, which is Paul on mars hill.

Christ Jesus and all we in Christ are the temple under the New Covenant brought to fruition in the first century. “Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?” 1 Corinthians 3:16)

So, we see the disciples and Paul saying that the temple was unnecessary. Also, read Hebrews 9. Only the blood of the Christ of God Almighty can save a man. And since He is come and shed His blood, no more sacrifice is required, therefore no more need of any temple other than the body of Christ.

The body of Christ, His church, is the temple of the living God. If you know people who promote the (re)building of some physical temple to re-institute animal sacrifice, steer clear of them; that spirit is not of Christ.

David Codrea writing at Firearms News.

That includes from the “right” as well as the “left,” and what that’s doing is diverting attention away from the one now-undeniable truth that destroys the “gun control” narrative: An armed populace is essential to a nation’s security. Citizen disarmament works to the advantage of a nation’s enemies.

So, instead of relentlessly hammering that point to where it cannot be ignored by that part of the electorate still receptive to reason, some “conservatives” are dividing into camps and descending into squabbles, with no small amount of name-calling, accusations, and vitriol.

[ … ]

Ehrlich interviewed Lira on YouTube and accepted his assertions unquestioningly when he condemned the arming of citizens and attributed the motive to the “Zelenskyy regime” wanting the Russians to commit “atrocities” (he never seems to say “Putin regime”). “This is clear,” he asserts as Ehrlich nods in agreement, “You don’t hand out weapons to civilians unless you want them to get killed.”

” … are dividing into camps and descending into squabbles.”  Dumb self-inflicted wounds.  Sometimes trying to talk to the patriot community is like trying to herd cats.  It’s an “us four and no more” mentality, with the four having to agree on literally everything if the peace is to be kept.

As for “You don’t hand out weapons …, I stopped right there.  I hate the controllers.  All of them.

Make sure to read David’s insightful piece this weekend.

Part One  Part Two  Part Three

As background to Matthew 24, we’re going to see how the word of God employs certain words. To rightly understand prophetic language, you must know these terms. These words are used in prophecy throughout the Scriptures, including some in Matthew 24 and Revelation. We’ll look at Cloud(s), Host, LORD of Hosts, and Flood.

A cloud can be a large body of people, and in the context of the judgment of God, it’s specific to armies of warfare. And this usually indicates the movement (maneuvers) of armies. The word cloud appears many times in the bible in several contexts. A very clear example of a cloud for our purposes is here in Ezekiel 38 and 39.

In verse 3 of Ezekiel 38, below, we see that Jehovah is preparing judgment. He says: “I am against thee” This is a threat. He goes on in verse 4 to explain His design upon this army and what nations these armies are of in verse 5. In verse 4, again, He uses the word company. This is a group of people, and since He just described a military outfit, we must conclude that He’s speaking of a military company of soldiers. In verse 6, He uses the word bands to describe these armies. Both company and band(s) are still used today, indicating military troops. Now read verse 9; cloud and band are used together with a band of soldiers covering the earth as a cloud moving with purpose at the direction of the LORD of Hosts.

“1 And the word of the Lord came unto me, saying, 2 Son of man, set thy face against Gog, the land of Magog, the chief prince of Meshech and Tubal, and prophesy against him, 3 And say, Thus saith the Lord God; Behold, I am against thee, O Gog, the chief prince of Meshech and Tubal: 4 And I will turn thee back, and put hooks into thy jaws, and I will bring thee forth, and all thine army, horses and horsemen, all of them clothed with all sorts of armour, even a great company with bucklers and shields, all of them handling swords: 5 Persia, Ethiopia, and Libya with them; all of them with shield and helmet: 6 Gomer, and all his bands; the house of Togarmah of the north quarters, and all his bands: and many people with thee. 7 Be thou prepared, and prepare for thyself, thou, and all thy company that are assembled unto thee, and be thou a guard unto them. 8 After many days thou shalt be visited: in the latter years thou shalt come into the land that is brought back from the sword, and is gathered out of many people, against the mountains of Israel, which have been always waste: but it is brought forth out of the nations, and they shall dwell safely all of them. 9 Thou shalt ascend and come like a storm, thou shalt be like a cloud to cover the land, thou, and all thy bands, and many people with thee.” Ezekiel 38:1-9

(Note: The readership here doesn’t watch TV preachers, but just to be sure, Ezekiel 38 already happened and has nothing to do with Russia.)

See also Ezekiel 39:4

A host is also a large body of people, and in the context of the judgment of God, it too is specific to armies of warfare or invading peoples.

The Lord of hosts is most often cited as Jehovah. The Captain of the host of the LORD in the book of Joshua is the Christ of God, acting as the head of Joshua’s armies to effect God’s judgments upon the earth against His enemies in the taking of the promised land. (Note: This is the land promise made to Abram that was fulfilled under David when his kingdom attained to the Euphrates River.)

“13 And it came to pass, when Joshua was by Jericho, that he lifted up his eyes and looked, and, behold, there stood a man over against him with his sword drawn in his hand: and Joshua went unto him, and said unto him, Art thou for us, or for our adversaries? 14 And he said, Nay; but as captain of the host of the LORD am I now come. And Joshua fell on his face to the earth, and did worship, and said unto him, What saith my Lord unto his servant? 15 And the captain of the LORD’s host said unto Joshua, Loose thy shoe from off thy foot; for the place whereon thou standest is holy. And Joshua did so.” Joshua 5:13-15

Another clear example is 1 Samuel 17:45

One more example, this one from Isaiah Chapter 19:1 “Behold, the LORD rideth upon a swift cloud, and shall come into Egypt…” In context, this refers to God using armies to judge Egypt. God is not literally riding a cloud into Egypt. At least we doubt that.

These terms are essential in both Matthew 24 and Revelation. And note much of the language between Isaiah 19 and Matthew 24. The Lord let loose the spirits of hell in each situation to confuse the judged during these separate incidents.

Clouds mean hosts, although not interchangeably. The Lord of hosts comes in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory in Matthew 24:30 and similarly in Revelation 1:7 and other places in Revelation; this is Jesus. There is no real break in the consistency of these uses from the earliest mentions in Scripture through to Revelation.

“And then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven: and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory.” – Matthew 24:30

“Behold, he cometh with clouds; and every eye shall see him, and they also which pierced him: and all kindreds of the earth shall wail because of him. Even so, Amen.” – Revelation 1:7

Also, the use of the word Flood by God is a purposeful alarm to get you to remember that great judgment. A flood is not by water anymore; it’s used to describe the overflowing of God’s will by implementing His great purposes in judgment at the hands of human instrumentation. See these verses and read their context: Isaiah 28:2, Isaiah 59:19, Jeremiah 46:8, Nahum 1:8, and Matthew 24:39.

A number of years ago, new fuel assemblies cost on the order of $750,000.  Today I suspect it’s more like $1 Million.  That’s for fairly low enrichment UO2 (5% or less), a 15×15 or 17×17 assembly.  Tomorrow’s microreactor designs will have up to 20% or even higher enrichment.

Now, the larger reactors need somewhere on the order of 70 – 80 feed assemblies to operate for a full cycle of 1.5 years.  The rest are reloaded assemblies, once- or twice-burned.  The smaller reactors won’t need quite that many.

There are still 93 operating reactors in the U.S., supplying a major portion of electricity for Americans.  If you can’t do the math yourself, this represents a staggering monetary gain for people who own the mineral rights to Uranium mines, who can get it out of the ground, and who can enrich it to the required (and future required) enrichments of U-235.

Remember that I told you this war in Ukraine was being fought over energy?

Yes, perhaps you do.  Now go and read these two articles, and when you’re finished, re-read them.  Study them.

ZeroHedge, “Uranium Stocks Soar After U.S. Signals Aid For Nuclear Power.”

Wired, “The Nuclear Reactors of the Future Have a Russia Problem.”

Now, go do what I said.  Read them again.  Don’t comment if you didn’t.  And also recall the WSJ article I previously linked when I told you this war is about energy.  I’m sure by now it’s behind a paywall, but if readers request it, I have the full commentary and I’ll put it up in another post.

Your rulers have sold you down the river, boy.  Sold you down the river, boy.  Sold you down the river.

Jimmy Carter made reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel into something usable again in reactors illegal (He wanted to be a shining beacon to the world, on what I don’t know).  We have no capability to do that today.

Hillary Clinton approved the sale of the mineral rights (Uranium) near the Malheur Preserve to Putin through a Canadian shell company called Uranium One.  She did that as secretary of state, an odd change of positions for the state department.  Right about that time, a very large donation was made to the Clinton Foundation.  That was what the standoff with the Bundy crowd was all about.  FedGov wanted the land there, so they approved a managed burn on a farm and then arrested the farmer and took his land for being “guilty” of arson.  Bundy’s crowd knew that.  Bet you didn’t hear that part of the story, did you?

We haven’t pursued nuclear in America in a very long time.  It was too woke and in vogue to fund solar power.  CEOs flocked to that because it was funded by subsidies and tax relief.  The environmentalists are getting sour on solar, and they will get even more sour when they learn about the toxicants, contaminants and other bad things in the panels and batteries necessary to make it all work (much less the huge pits necessary to dispose of them).  You’re going to see a lot of “Not in my back yard” coming up with those panels and batteries.  Electric cars are a fiction and fantasy – there isn’t enough electricity to power them all up.

We’ve waited far too long to start nuclear, and we haven’t ensured a reliable supply of Uranium to power reactors for the foreseeable future, not for the existing reactors nor the upcoming microreactors (and also consider the needs of the nuclear Navy).  I know what the articles above say about having some in reserve.  It’s price will skyrocket.  Mark my words, write it down today that I told you so.

Electricity is going to get a lot more expensive.  A lot.  Prepare now, and blame your rulers.

Oh, and one more time: This war is being fought over energy, no matter what the other pretexts are.

Police1.

“Of course this makes things much more difficult for our officers. It really limits the scope of the effectiveness in which we can do our jobs. If an officer needs to take a firearm from somebody, I can totally see the potential for that situation to escalate if the person isn’t wanting to and thinks that the officer doesn’t have a right to do that,” said Hanceville Police Chief Bob Long.

But at least someone makes some sense of this.

David Nunn, retired law enforcement officer and General Manager of Cullman Shooting Sports, says that the change in the law should result in little-to-no change in an officers day to day operations.

“Any officer worth his salt should already be treating every individual they come in contact with as if they are armed. They should approach people with courtesy and respect, but with the idea they are in possession of a weapon of some kind also.”

Cullman Police Chief Kenny Culpepper agrees for the most part, but says an important tool has been taken away from officers.

“Things shouldn’t look that much different as far as how officers conduct themselves, we are trained to be prepared for that worst case situation, although permits were a useful tool that we could use to make sure the guys that didn’t need to have firearms didn’t have them, and now we don’t have that.”

Oh blah, blah, blah, prattle and blather and drivel.

If someone is breaking the law, then arrest and disarm them.  If they’re not, whether they’re carrying a weapon is none of your business because it’s not against the law to carry without a permit now.  Whether they filled out Form 4473 or bought it in a person-to-person transfer is also none of your business.

See how easily I solved that problem for you?

As for the Alabama cops who are still moaning about this, here’s my message: go pound sand.

And what else would I expect to read at Police1 except blather like this.