Walking Alone with My Thoughts

How to pass the time in 2026

I like to walk for around sixty to ninety minutes a day.  I try to do it early, before the sun gets too high, but it is never as early as I would prefer.  First things first, we start with coffee and the news, and only after that, can I make it out.  Yes, I miss some days, but I try not to miss two days in a row.

If you are walking a new path, even the most mundane route will keep you occupied and entertained.  But after a while walking the same path, one does seek something to occupy the mind.

Now I pretty much live in my head.  And I can easily spend an hour, or a morning, just thinking about life, family, business, and the latest variety of Dairy Queen Blizzard.  And there are mornings when I do exactly that.  Particularly on weekends.

There are those who prefer to walk and otherwise exercise with music.  I get that, and the devices today are small enough to be carried along unnoticed.  But I was never one of these walkers, as I was more likely to listen to talk radio.

But there was another way that I used to occupy myself walking.  Phone calls.  I could and often did make phone calls for the entire walk.  Friends, co-workers, clients, no one seemed to mind.  I found it amazingly productive.  And the time flew by; before I knew it, my walk was done.

More recently, I have interrupted my walks with stops for photos, almost always landscapes or cloudscapes.  Above is a photo I took today.  While this may interrupt the monotony, you still have the distance to cover.  Photos just slow you down.  Not complaining, that's just the way it is.

Enter podcasts.  All of this changed three years ago, when I purchased a set of Apple AirPods.  Up until this point, I suppose I did watch some podcasts, but only on Youtube and only on my computer.  What's the difference between a podcast and any other Youtube video?  Until that point, I don't think I knew.  And I never downloaded Youtube videos to watch or listen while walking.  That seemed more trouble than it was worth.

But at some point I did become aware of how podcasts worked, and importantly, I realized that several Youtube channels, that I subscribed to, were also podcasts.  Which came first seems unimportant to me.

I think it is worth pointing out that far and away the Youtube videos I watch the most simply contain one or two people talking into a camera.  They are not girls in bikinis or some dude pranking strangers for clicks.  In other words, it is the sound that is important, not so much the video.  Your mileage may vary.

So anyway, today I walk with podcasts.  There are about five that I listen to regularly, though I am actually subscribed to quite a few more.  That's more than enough to fill my weekday walks with usually enough spillover to fill my weekend walks.  And if not, that's okay too.  At least once a week I walk alone with my thoughts.

Podcasts may not be my own thoughts, but I often stop the podcast and think about what I just heard.  It is not radio.  It is not phone calls.  It is not music.  But they are thoughtful.  I would argue that the DarkHorse Podcast is one of the most thoughtful broadcasts in all of media, old and new.

My podcasts have also replaced radio in the car, and fill most of my downtime.  I would love to tell you they are mostly about poetry, highbrow literature, and stoic philosophy, but no, sadly, they are mostly news and commentary about current affairs.

My walks may not go by as fast as when I was making phone calls.  But today, I find more value in the solitude, listening to a quiet podcast interspersed with a few photos.

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The Ultimate Excuse For Bad Behavior

It's their culture

It always seems to start with noise in public.  No matter what, public noise, the speakers, the smartphones, loud voices, whatever it is, well, it's their culture.

And because it is their culture, you are not supposed to complain.  And if you do have the temerity to complain, you are expected to accept it's their culture as a legitimate excuse; and let that be the end of it.

Well no, just no.

But noise is only the start.  Bad behavior in restaurants, undisciplined children running amok, cultural scams like the skin tax, praying en masse on the streets and sidewalks, the amplified adhan five times a day, the lack of daily bathing, the failure to respect lines (queues), elastic punctuality, the list is endless.

And don't get me started on table manners and eating habits.  Now I do not care what people eat.  Different cultures eat different things.  But I do care a great deal if your culture attempts to control what I eat.  No, that's really bad, and no, I don't care if it is your culture.  Not even a little.

Lately ghetto and racket behavior are ruining, or threaten to ruin, all public spaces.  But don't you dare complain; you see, it's their culture.

And notice this:  It's their culture is rarely applied to good habits.  Why?  Because few of us notice a culture's good habits.  Why would we?  Oh, he bathes every day?  I hadn't noticed.

So each of us can decide for ourselves whether cultural practices should be accepted.  But I do not accept, cannot accept, the cultural excuse for bad behavior.  Bad behavior is bad behavior.  And here is a dirty little secret that only gets revealed over time and only if you pay close attention.  People are fully aware that their cultural practice is bad.

Does anyone really believe that Pakistani rape gangs are unaware that rape is unneighborly?  The idea is absurd.

One final example that I like to use is people from Holland and Germany and Scandinavia, who love to tell others how direct, blunt, and frank, they are, as a culture.  But I have long suspected that what is really going on is that they use frankness as an excuse for rudeness.  And moreover, they are perfectly well aware that this is what they are doing.  Bad behavior is bad behavior; and rudeness is rudeness.

They all know.  Of course they know.  It's my culture is just the most efficacious excuse.

Remember, culture is what we tolerate.

If you want to improve your culture, do not tolerate bad behavior.
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Tucker Carlson Interviews Iuliia Mendel

At the end, she addresses Vladimir Putin directly.  Transcript below.



Iuliia Mendel (Speaking in Russian):

Vladimir Vladimirovich, with all your life experience I don't understand how you see this world.  But I'm not a NATO representative, not a Western representative, and I don't work for Zelensky — they're political opponents.  You're not a threat to me.  I'm a Ukrainian woman from provincial Kherson.

You say you're a man of God, but what's happening in Ukraine has nothing to do with God or humanity.  You say you want peace — the only right thing today.  It's the only way Ukraine and Russia can both win.  No victor.  Both lose.  Slavs kill Slavs.

Your army tells you only noble victories, but there's a drone safari on people.  My mom, a nurse, was talking on the phone going home — a Russian drone wounded her.  Another nurse, back from her grandson's birthday in my Kherson village, was killed by a Russian drone getting out of her car.  We see videos of old people evacuating, falling in blood and snow, shocked by explosions.

On frontlines, the oldest and poorest have no money to leave.  Your army posts videos hunting people with drones.  There must be limits of humanity.  One word, one order from you can stop this.

You want peace?  Stop.  No one may thank you, but people will know.  Peace is the only possible decision today.

[Grok translation]

Ordinarily I would not take such a speech seriously.  And I confess, at the beginning of this video, I did not really take her seriously.  Her English is imperfect and she is too pretty.  At first glance she comes across as a pretty Ukrainian woman who lacks depth and seriousness.  This is incorrect.

I'm telling you, set your stereotypes aside and listen to her.  If you watch the video, it becomes clear that she is a master of her subject, Volodymyr Zelensky, and she deserves our attention.  She describes Zelensky as a tyrannical child who simply does not want the war to end, because that would end his grift.  That sounds about right to me.

And this ending was completely unexpected, which I guess is what makes it notable.  Because I don't see Putin responding at all, even if he does see it.  I just wish she would have also addressed her fellow Ukrainians.  Message:  Arrest Zelensky before he plunders the entire country and gets us all killed.

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Random Spring 2026 Observations

Some thoughts on current affairs and culture

Pickleball is lazy tennis.

There is a shopping center in town that ripped out much needed parking spaces to install pickleball courts.

The tennis courts down the street are almost always empty.

Los Angeles mayor, Karen Bass is incompetent.  How much rebuilding has been done in fifteen months?

Seattle mayor, Katie Wilson, and New York City mayor, Zohran Mamdani, do not understand that billionaires can live anywhere.

In fact, most Los Angeles, Seattle, and New York City residents could live anywhere.

China is having a property valuation depression.

Everything about China is a scam.

Candace Owens scares the elites.

I hope Candace Owens has more than adequate security.

The US can open the Strait of Hormuz any time it chooses (see AC130 gunship).

The US has thirty AC130 gunships.

The foreign government of Israel wants Thomas Massie defeated.

So Trump wants Thomas Massie defeated.

The recent Met Gala only proved, again, that Anna Wintour has no class.

When I was a kid, the school cafeteria served peanut butter sandwiches, I'd say, round about once a month.  And, no one had autism.  It is worth asking what has changed?

Big Food and/or Big Pharma do not want us asking.

The engine of the international economy runs on...petroleum.

If you are paying through the nose for energy... Europe and California ...it is no one's fault except your own.

Regarding the ongoing Hantavirus outbreak, once again the public health apparatus, led by WHO, proves that it is entirely untrustworthy, and likely working against the interest of actual public health.  And once again, Bret Weinstein is on it.

Leather pants may be okay for a night club, but I cannot take anyone wearing leather pants seriously.

This seems obvious to me:  Volodymyr Zelensky is worse than Vladimir Putin.  Zelensky thrives on this war; why would he finish it?

Suicidal Empathy is killing the West at every level.

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Peter Boghossian Interviews David Seymour

"One thing we know about the state is that it's generally incompetent."

Nominally, this is an interview about New Zealand.  But David Seymour, the current Deputy Prime Minister of New Zealand, offers a case study in the kind of thinking we desperately need in every western democracy.

The biggest problem for New Zealand, and for all western democracies, is that the Jacinda Ardern and Kamala Harris and Angela Merkel types will be back in charge before we know it.  And while these three examples are all women, they are as power-hungry as their male counterparts.  Say Keir Starmer, Gavin Newsom, and Tim Walz.  These people only care about power; not good public policy.  They weaponize the suicidal empathy of their voters to achieve and maintain their own power.  That's the whole game.

And power-consumed leftists win because people on the right do not know how to fight.  The right believes that the fight is with the leftist politicians.  So they talk about how incompetent Tim Walz is.  But the real fight is with the people who have voted for Walz and would vote for him again.

Let's take an example.  Donald Trump loves New York City.  Of course he does; it is his home.  But last year, the good people of NYC elected a socialist mayor.  They need to pay for that decision.  They, the voters.  And it needs to hurt.  So when New York asks for the inevitable bailout, the answer must be no.  The same for Seattle and Portland and Minneapolis and California.  End the deduction for state and local taxes.  Or at least cap them.  The fight is not with Mamdani; it is with his voters.

So long as voters never pay for the consequences of their votes, they will continue to behave in an irresponsible manner.  Mamdani and newly elected Seattle mayor Katie Wilson are power-hungry fools; but we all know exactly what they are.  The people who voted for them also know what they are.  They, the voters, must pay dearly for their decisions.

But the right will not do this; has never done this.  They wring their hands, and complain about the slow but sure leftward drift of the country.  They criticize Zohran Mamdani and Brandon Johnson.

Stop trying to win over the suicidal empathy crowd.  You are never going to win them over.  Instead, start talking about how stupid they are.  And it is so easy to cite examples.  Think for example:  The Trump campaign ad about Harris is for They/Them; Donald Trump is for you.  More like this.  Much more.

How about:  Stop funding Somalia you morons.  Okay, clean it up a bit, add a little context, but that needs to be the message.  Or:  Wait, you want boys on the girl's volleyball team; what is wrong with you?  No, of course you will not win over someone who does want this.  Rather, you will win everyone else.

I would go max on voter ID.  Start with buying alcohol and cigarettes.  But find the most stupid thing that people need an ID for, and compare that to voting.  Also, voting machine manipulation compared to the numerous internet hacking cases.  High taxes are a bit more difficult, but not if you link them to stupid spending cases.  And if they want to confiscate the wealth of billionaires, remind the public that billionaires can choose where they live.  Billionaires choose where they live, you morons.

You get the idea; do not be afraid to point out stupidity.  Relish it, roll in it.  For God's sake, learn how to fight.  And learn who exactly you should be fighting.

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The Goals of Education

A teacher's final assignment

I think it is worth having a look at the actual text of the WHCD shooter's manifesto.  This guy sounds like any number of leftists that I have encountered over the last three decades.

And to be clear, at first this attitude could only be found on the fringes of leftist political thought.  But over this time period, I have watched this sort of thinking move closer and closer to mainstream left of center thought and argument.  Which of course meant that ever greater numbers of left of center types agreed with it.

Also, I am not sure what subject Allen taught, but let's hope it was not English or writing.  (More below)

Cole Allen’s manifesto in full:

Hello everybody!

So I may have given a lot of people a surprise today.  Let me start off by apologizing to everyone whose trust I abused.

I apologize to my parents for saying I had an interview without specifying it was for “Most Wanted.”

I apologize to my colleagues and students for saying I had a personal emergency (by the time anyone reads this, I probably most certainly DO need to go to the ER, but can hardly call that not a self-inflicted status.)

I apologize to all of the people I traveled next to, all the workers who handled my luggage, and all the other non-targeted people at the hotel who I put in danger simply by being near.

I apologize to everyone who was abused and/or murdered before this, to all those who suffered before I was able to attempt this, to all who may still suffer after, regardless of my success or failure.

I don’t expect forgiveness, but if I could have seen any other way to get this close, I would have taken it.  Again, my sincere apologies.

On to why I did any of this:

I am a citizen of the United States of America.

What my representatives do reflects on me.

And I am no longer willing to permit a pedophile, rapist, and traitor to coat my hands with his crimes.

(Well, to be completely honest, I was no longer willing a long time ago, but this is the first real opportunity I’ve had to do something about it.)

While I’m discussing this, I’ll also go over my expected rules of engagement (probably in a terrible format, but I’m not military so too bad.)

Administration officials (not including Mr. Patel):  they are targets, prioritized from highest-ranking to lowest

Secret Service:  they are targets only if necessary, and to be incapacitated non-lethally if possible (aka, I hope they’re wearing body armor because center mass with shotguns messes up people who aren’t

Hotel Security:  not targets if at all possible (aka unless they shoot at me)

Capitol Police:  same as Hotel Security

National Guard:  same as Hotel Security

Hotel Employees:  not targets at all

Guests:  not targets at all

In order to minimize casualties I will also be using buckshot rather than slugs (less penetration through walls)

I would still go through most everyone here to get to the targets if it were absolutely necessary (on the basis that most people chose to attend a speech by a pedophile, rapist, and traitor, and are thus complicit) but I really hope it doesn’t come to that.

Rebuttals to objections:

Objection 1:  As a Christian, you should turn the other cheek.

Rebuttal:  Turning the other cheek is for when you yourself are oppressed.  I’m not the person raped in a detention camp.  I’m not the fisherman executed without trial.  I’m not a schoolkid blown up or a child starved or a teenage girl abused by the many criminals in this administration.

Turning the other cheek when someone else is oppressed is not Christian behavior; it is complicity in the oppressor’s crimes.

Objection 2:  This is not a convenient time for you to do this.

Rebuttal:  I need whoever thinks this way to take a couple minutes and realize that the world isn’t about them.  Do you think that when I see someone raped or murdered or abused, I should walk on by because it would be “inconvenient” for people who aren’t the victim?

This was the best timing and chance of success I could come up with.

Objection 3:  You didn’t get them all.

Rebuttal:  Gotta start somewhere.

Objection 4:  As a half-black, half-white person, you shouldn’t be the one doing this.

Rebuttal:  I don’t see anyone else picking up the slack

Objection 5:  Yield unto Caesar what is Caesar’s.

Rebuttal:  The United States of America are ruled by the law, not by any one or several people.  In so far as representatives and judges do not follow the law, no one is required to yield them anything so unlawfully ordered.

I would also like to extend my appreciation to a great many people since I will not be likely to be able to talk with them again (unless the Secret Service is astoundingly incompetent.)

Thank you to my family, both personal and church, for your love over these 31 years. 

Thank you to my friends, for your companionship over many years. 

Thank you to my colleagues over many jobs, for your positivity and professionalism. 

Thank you to my students for your enthusiasm and love of learning. 

Thank you to the many acquaintances I’ve met, in person and online, for short interactions and long-term relationships, for your perspectives and inspiration. 

Thank you all for everything. 

Sincerely, 

Cole “coldForce” “Friendly Federal Assassin” Allen 

PS:  Ok now that all the sappy stuff is done, what the hell is the Secret Service doing?  Sorry, gonna rant a bit here and drop the formal tone. 

Like, I expected security cameras at every bend, bugged hotel rooms, armed agents every 10 feet, metal detectors out the wazoo. 

What I got (who knows, maybe they’re pranking me!) is nothing. 

No damn security. 

Not in transport. 

Not in the hotel. 

Not in the event. 

Like, the one thing that I immediately noticed walking into the hotel is the sense of arrogance. 

I walk in with multiple weapons and not a single person there considers the possibility that I could be a threat. 

The security at the event is all outside, focused on protestors and current arrivals, because apparently no one thought about what happens if someone checks in the day before. 

Like, this level of incompetence is insane, and I very sincerely hope it’s corrected by the time this country gets actually competent leadership again. 

Like, if I was an Iranian agent, instead of an American citizen, I could have brought a damn Ma Deuce in here and no one would have noticed s–t. 

Actually insane. 

Oh and if anyone is curious is how doing something like feels:  it’s awful.  I want to throw up; I want to cry for all the things I wanted to do and never will, for all the people whose trust this betrays; I experience rage thinking about everything this administration has done.

Can’t really recommend it!  Stay in school, kids.

End of manifesto

Less of a manifesto; more of a statement, I suppose.  And, am I the only one not surprised this guy is a teacher?  Does this episode not perfectly encapsulate where our education system has brought us?  When education becomes indoctrination, this is the result.  And this is one goal of our modern education establishment.

The left will never admit it, but God, they love it.  And Cole Allen is not alone; far from it.  Today there are millions of young people just like this guy.  If you doubt this, I would suggest you talk with recent college graduates.  You might start with a few teachers.

The ultimate goal of our modern education system is to create an army of leftists, willing to use any means necessary to remake the United States into a socialist utopia.  It is worth noting that Allen is 31 years old.  So not only is he a participant in the education establishment, but he is also a product of it.

We are not going to defeat these people in the war of ideas.  They are completely immune to logic and rational thought.  For them, it is a religion.

It is no longer a war of ideas; it is just war.

Stop pretending otherwise.

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Two Trump Supporters Grow Cold

When Trump lost the Carlson brothers, he lost the Right

Watch the whole thing, but the last twenty minutes are truly revealing.

Open questions:  Before his assassination, was Trump about to lose Charlie Kirk's support as well?  Why is the FBI only pretending to investigate Kirk's death?  Who wrote the now famous Tyler Robinson text messages?  Why all the subterfuge surrounding the Kirk assassination?  And most importantly, why does Trump allow Benjamin Netanyahu such latitude to prosecute the Iran war as he sees fit, even though Israel is clearly the very junior partner in this endeavor?

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On Ghetto Culture

Chad O. Jackson on ghetto culture

Now Jackson refers to this as black culture, and that is his prerogative, but I have met too many decent black people to refer to it this way myself.  I find the more appropriate term to be ghetto culture.  An interesting question for Jackson would be what percentage of black Americans subscribe to ghetto culture?

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An Hypothesis of Leftist Belief

Why do people on the left believe what they believe?

Bret Weinstein says that he believes communism stems from insurmountable bad luck.  And while there is some truth to this, it is not the primary cause.  Communism is primarily a function of envy.  And there is a class of people who stoke the envy, not for the good of society, certainly not the good of the working classes, but to accumulate power for themselves.

Has history not proven this time and again?  If this fact troubles you, just name one communist leader who lived a communist life?  Just one.

Weinstein goes on to argue that the best way to immunize people from communist impulses is to give people access to the market and the tools to compete in the market.

Excellent.  Left unsaid is that the left believes this can and should be done with some series of never-ending government programs.  They argue, who or what else is going to do it?  But the reality is that the best way to provide access to the market is to limit the burden of government on everyone:  Employer, employee, entrepreneur, investor, laborer, etc.

Further, Weinstein wants to hypothesize and test solutions to our various problems.  And that sounds great.  But who ends up controlling the process?  Again, the government.  And government is unwieldy and bureaucratic.  Hypothesize, test, fail, re-tool, try again differently.  This is not something government does.  It is not something government has ever done.  But you know who has always done this?  The free market.

One thing that pro-government types struggle with is the concept of incentives.  And without this understanding, government programs of any type, are doomed to fail.  Again, who gets this concept correct?  The free market.

When government is involved, they bring their bureaucracy and their group think and their politics and their power dynamics.  And their guns.  It is always worth remembering that everything government does, and every policy that it enacts, is at the point of a gun.  Group think with guns.  That pretty much sums up every government ever.

But that is not the worst of it.  Leftist power players care very little about policy.  They only care about policy insofar as it helps them achieve and maintain their own power.  They certainly do not care about the long term effects and consequences of their policies.  So Weinstein's experimentation process is never actually started much less accomplished.  The left's so-called solutions are only proposed to win elections.  To the extent that anything ever gets done, there is zero attention to efficacy.  The whole thing is a sham.

But then it gets even worse.  Because all governments lie with impunity.  Either to further their political ends or to hide their corruption and/or failures.  Yet the left seems to believe that if they could just get their imagined version of an honest, good government, then everything will work as they envision it.  But this never happens; has never happened in the history of the world.  But next time, they assure us, they will get it right.  Just in time to carry out Weinstein's experiments.

So let's keep government in a small box, doing only the absolutely necessary.  Yes, I realize this ship has sailed.  But this should be our goal.

This is so obvious that it begs the question, why do leftists believe what leftists believe?  Well there are two kinds of leftists.  The small group I mentioned above who lust for power.  And the more common useful idiots, some driven by envy, some driven by other emotions, such as an overabundance of empathy, who buy all the bullshit peddled by the power players.  Many of the useful idiots have turned away from faith in God and replaced it with faith in government.  And as with any religion, faith does not make it true.

Now let's consider Weinstein himself.  I like Bret, I really do.  And I have learned a great deal from him.  See capture; see Cartesian crisis; see Goliath; see the difference between complicated and complex systems; see his numerous Youtube videos produced during the Covid crisis and response.  In fact, I credit Bret and his wife Heather for largely guiding my thinking through the time of Global Covid Nonsense™.

So it is odd to me that in the video discussion above, Weinstein advocates for the use of complicated government solutions, yet to be identified, to solve highly complex societal problems; ignoring his own distinction between these concepts.  Why does he do this?  Yes, he is obviously smart enough to recognize that he is doing this.  So why?

Government can provide for basic societal needs.  Roads, bridges, parks, police, courts, military.  It can address, if not solve, some more complicated problems like social security, immigration, and antitrust.  So I think what happens is that pro-government types assume that it can also address complex societal problems like black family disintegration, climate concerns, drug abuse, and a falling fertility rate.  They advocate for and usually win the argument that government must act and spend vast sums of other people's money to address these and uncountable other societal problems.  But as with any complex system, government fiddling simply ensures new problems, greater problems, and/or perpetual problems.

Again, Weinstein knows this.  He is not a useful idiot and he does not lust for power.  I just cannot understand how anyone who knows this can remain on the left.

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Alphabet Rebellion

Odom:  There is a rising movement of regular gay people who are against all the nonsense

Back in January, I wrote about the gay show and how the time has come to take a considered look at the whole topic.  Well here is a gay man who agrees that the show is getting old.

I really appreciate Amir's honesty.  All the more so because of how rare it is in the alphabet community and among the left in general.

Gay fatigue is a real thing, and here I was thinking that it was just me.

In this video, Odom makes two important divisions.  Let me restate them here.  He does not make them in this order, but let me state them in a way that makes sense to me.  First, he divides the alphabet people between the LGB and the TQ+.  Then he further divides the LGB people between the normal everyday types and the gay show types.  These seem like fair divisions to me.

Now, I have no idea what percentage of alphabet people are normal gays.  And clearly, it is the gay show types that we all tend to notice.  How could we not?  Maybe the majority of gay people are normal and do not put on a show.  How would we know?

By the way, what is "normal" anyway?  Well normal people do not walk around shouting their sexuality so that everyone can see it.  That is not normal.

We are all sick to death of the show.
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