Comments on: Open thread 5/19/2026

By: huxley

huxley — Wed, 20 May 2026 03:21:35 +0000

Re: 42% of 20-something males feeling like failures,

David Foster, HC68:

Society has treated our young men poorly. There will be a price and we are only starting to pay it.

May our young men find their courage to heal and to fight.

By: Cap'n Rusty

Cap'n Rusty — Wed, 20 May 2026 00:12:57 +0000

I’ve driven, or ridden a bus or a train, across South Dakota a dozen times, Nebraska and Kansas a few times, even North Dakota once. Shelter belts planted by farmers are relatively dense in order to stop the wind. From the video, one would expect to notice a shelter belt a hundred miles wide. Even on a transcontinental flight (below the clouds), one would notice that. I never did.

By: sdferr

sdferr — Tue, 19 May 2026 23:59:22 +0000

Welcome news Kate, thanks for that

By: Kate

Kate — Tue, 19 May 2026 23:50:22 +0000

Fox News shows Gallrein over Massie in KY by 8, and the Decision Desk at PJ Media calls the race for Gallrein.

By: HC68

HC68 — Tue, 19 May 2026 18:14:38 +0000

Regarding David Foster’s cite about 42% of 20-something males feeling like failures, there are multiple reasons for it. Some involve unrealistic standards of success, others are institutional failures. But it is a real problem.

Some of it involves the failed social attempt to make men and women socially interchangeable.

By: Jim Melcher

Jim Melcher — Tue, 19 May 2026 17:17:48 +0000

How does that wall of trees, placed in the middle of ND, SD and NE with the Texas and OK panhandles to its west, prevent continued erosion of topsoil to its west? Wouldn’t it still build up a dust drift a mile wide on its western side?

I’m going to have to keep my eyes peeled for this world-wonder wall-of-trees on my trip west through the Sandhills later this month. Funny, I missed it every other time I travelled that way!

By: om

om — Tue, 19 May 2026 16:49:57 +0000

huxley:

See T. Folse’s video reactions to “electroboom” on YouTube.

Electroboom is very funny and often shocking.

By: Cornhead

Cornhead — Tue, 19 May 2026 16:48:25 +0000

The Halsey National Forest is the largest man-made forest in the world. It is in Nebraska’s Sandhills and I’ve driven by it on my way to canoe Nebraska’s Sandhills rivers. I’m assuming that it was part of this plan.

The other part of the story is that farmers and ranchers in Nebraska have planted their own shelterbelts on their farms and ranches and it is not limited to just the area described in the vido.

By: huxley

huxley — Tue, 19 May 2026 16:25:52 +0000

I’m a boomer kid so I grew up terrified of nuclear war — not without reason.

I still worry about it. Several months ago I read Anne Jacobsen’s, “Nuclear War: A Scenario” which renewed those fears. According to Jacobsen nuclear war and nuclear winter remain apocalyptic.

Recently I’ve been reading a nuclear engineer’s takes on All Things Nuclear. He says that Jacobsen’s analysis is heavily, repeatedly weighted to worst-case scenarios.

–T. Folse Nuclear, “First 20 Minutes of a Nuclear Attack Debunked – Nuclear Engineer Reacts to Lex Clips [with Anne Jacobsen]”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tye8CV-izjA

I’m somewhat less pessimistic, though the possibilities of nuclear war remain quite grim.

I am glad to see debate in this area.

By: David Foster

David Foster — Tue, 19 May 2026 16:20:52 +0000

A recent survey shows that 42% of young men (18-29) view themselves as failures. This rather disturbing datapoint reminded me of Hans Fallada’s great novel of Weimar Germany and in particular the experiences and reactions of the male protagonist of that novel.

https://chicagoboyz.net/archives/76781.html