'A counterintelligence concern'

Matt Bissonette has seemingly been in demand since the day he stepped on the scene in the ‘80s. He lent his versatile bass chops to everyone from Joe Satriani to David Lee Roth to Ringo Starr to Elton John, proving his worth to every type of musician, in any situation. Now 64, and as active as ever, Bissonette remains humble. “The main thing for me is I have several ‘How did I get’ here moments. I honestly don’t believe I’ve put as much work into music as other guys, but I still have been blessed with many great opportunities.” “With The post Matt Bissonette: The ClassicRockHistory.com Interview appeared first on ClassicRockHistory.com.

1. The Breakfast Club (1985—huge in ’90s VHS culture) Even if it came out in the ‘80s, The Breakfast Club found its real audience later. Thanks to tapes you could play at home, teenagers in CONTINUE READING... The post Rewind: Iconic ’90s Movies Every ’90s Kid Loved appeared first on The Retro Network.

Looking back on your life is great for nostalgia and sentimentality, but reflection also serves a deeper purpose than simply remembering “the good old days.” Revisiting earlier chapters of your life can bring clarity, perspective, CONTINUE READING... The post 6 Reasons to Look Back on Your Life appeared first on The Retro Network.

In the early 1990s, Marvel Comics was riding high on a wave of speculation, foil covers and larger than life storytelling. It was a decade obsessed with the future. Virtual reality was on the rise, CONTINUE READING... The post Marvel 2099: The Future That Defined a Comic Book Decade appeared first on The Retro Network.

Author of Be Ready for Anything and Bloom Where You’re Planted online course A while back, when I was living in a different apartment in North Carolina, I did a radio interview about prepping in the city. It was a live show, and we took some phone calls from listeners. One particular caller stood out in my mind. He was insistent that I was not prepped at all and couldn’t possibly be, since I didn’t live like him. He told me about his acreage in Montana, Idaho, or one of those beautiful, spacious mountainous states. He said that he had a garden that was one acre in size, a generator he sustained with solar and wind power, two years’ worth of freeze-dried food, a cold mountain stream running through the land, and all manner of other expensive preparedness measures. He truly had an awe-inspiring set-up. But he couldn’t wrap his brain around the fact that there are many different ways to be prepared and many different situations for which there is not a one-size-fits-all answer. He wasn’t an overly pleasant caller, but he did get my wheels turning a bit. Actually, I thought of this fellow a few days ago when reading about the latest industrial accident that rendered an area at least temporarily unlivable. What happens to all that stuff when you suddenly can’t be there anymore for reasons outside your control? You can’t fight off an airborne threat the way you can potentially fend away an angry horde. You can’t outlast an invading army that drops a bomb in your area. There are always reasons that you might have to live your idyllic setup, and I’d argue that being able to survive without all the trappings is every bit as important as the trappings themselves. But what this all boils down to is that there is not just one way to prep. There are tons of variables. We all have different budgets, different lifestyles, different homes, and different skills. Trying to say that there’s only “one way” to prep is honestly ridiculous. We all have variables: We don’t all have unlimited funds. We can say all we want about allocating our money carefully so we can afford to prep. Sure, skipping the trip to Disney or the luxury cruise can provide you with some extra cash for prepping. I think you should prioritize your emergency fund, your physical preps, and being debt-free. But we can preach that til the cows come home, and it doesn’t change the fact that we’re living through an economic collapse and people are struggling just to buy this week’s groceries. Not everyone is physically capable of running a homestead. I’ve had a homestead, and it’s grueling work. I’ve lived off the grid in Canada, in the Algonquin Forest, and I did it without the luxury of a generator and all sorts of backups. I was 15 years younger then, and it was still utterly exhausting.  I’m a single mom, so it was just me and a young teenager managing all this stuff. While both experiences were extremely rewarding and educational, they were not how I wanted to continue to live.  And now, after becoming disabled, it would be darn near impossible. There are many, many people who are not able to do it, physically, mentally, or financially. We don’t all have a family who is on board. If you’re the Prepper-in-Chief in your household, you may have run up against the brick wall otherwise known as your spouse. You may have kids who think you’re crazy. You may be the person who stays home instead of the person who earns the money, and that means you don’t have access to the funds for a prepping free-for-all. You have to do what you can, discreetly, and not rock the boat. Chronic health conditions may limit your options. If you or a family member is dealing with a long-term health concern, you may be in an area that is less than ideal in a survival scenario but allows you to be closer to the medical care you require. Does this mean you’re foolish? Of course not. It means that you are prioritizing the imminent crisis over the “maybe” crisis. Trust me, this is a lesson I learned the hard way. We’re all getting older. The things we did when we were younger are not necessarily things that are feasible as we get older. Once my daughter was out of the house, was I, in my 50s, going to run several acres, a bunch of livestock, security, and other systems all by myself? Absolutely not. We don’t all have a family like The Waltons, where Jim Bob and Elizabeth build a house on the property, and we all live more-or-less together forever more. We might have reasons we can’t move. I’ve preached this particular sermon a million times. We live where we live for reasons. Perhaps we’re upside down in our mortgage and can’t sell and start over because we have no equity. Maybe we’re staying in a city for a family member who refuses to budge. We might have an awesome, high-paying job keeping us in a less-than-ideal area. If we have a supportive, wonderful group of family and friends, moving someplace where we have no connections doesn’t make sense. It doesn’t matter what the reason is. Moving is costly, difficult, and complicated. We can’t always do it. Are we supposed to say to people in all these situations, sorry, you don’t live the perfect prepper lifestyle, so you’re going to die? Absolutely not. We’re going to say, “Look at these potential concerns, make a plan to handle them, and live your life.” Here are the factors that really determine survival. Ever since I had control over it, I’ve always lived a rather eccentric life. I can’t say that every choice has necessarily been a good one, but that’s what life is all about. Living, experiencing, doing, and learning. I’ve returned to living a very mobile, nomadic lifestyle because that’s what suits my temperament and it increases my adaptability. My lifestyle would not be for everyone, but that’s okay. Why? Because there’s not just one way to prep. Here are the factors that I believe determine survival. Skills We’ve written at length about skills. You can find a couple of articles about it here and here. When it comes to preps, you cannot beat skills. Whether it’s growing food, preserving food, healing, hunting, repairing, sewing, or building (just to name a few things.) You could have all the medical supplies in the world, but if you have no idea how to use them, you may not be able to save the person you love. You could have enough food to last you for five years, but if you can’t defend it against those who would take it, you may not be able to use this particular prep. The great things about skills (and knowledge) is that it doesn’t matter whether you’re young or old, physically fit or infirm, male or female – they cross all boundaries. Even if you can’t physically do the essential things, a group having you and your knowledge of how to repair some vital thing is invaluable. Adaptability One skill I’ve honed over the years of trying all sorts of different things and traveling the world is adaptability. In fact, I wrote an entire book about the subject. I’ve learned to communicate (at least a little) in three different languages. I can navigate unfamiliar places with ease. I can make connections rapidly. I am able to grasp the rules of the place where I am without constantly comparing it to the place I was and resisting the change. These things make it far easier to operate. This is something that Selco has preached for decades. Your ability to understand that you are operating under a new set of rules and move forward with that can save your life. You have to let go of how things “should be” and see them as they are. This is something a lot of us struggle with. We’re bothered by the direction our country is going in and we resist the change. To some extent, this is reasonable. But there also comes a point at which we have to accept that everything is different now and operate accordingly. Adapting doesn’t mean you are A-OK with certain changes. It just means that you understand that accepting reality is the first step toward surviving it. This is a trait that’s easy to work on. Train yourself to work within your limitations instead of simply becoming angry about them. You can quite often achieve things even within a system that seems determined to prevent that from happening. Luck Nobody likes to think that, in the end, it all boils down to luck. But in so many cases, that is the determining factor. If you are at Ground Zero when the nuke hits, there isn’t anything you can do, no matter how skilled you are, how prepped you are, or how much you’ve prayed. Your number is up. If you’re on a plane that crashes into the ocean and immediately kills every person on board, then you have had the bad luck to be there. It isn’t because you’re being punished for leaving the homestead. It’s not because you weren’t prepared enough. A deadly crash is a deadly crash. This is just out of your control. Horrible things happen every day, and it may be due to genetics, bad timing, or the luck of the draw. If you happen to be in the way of the horrible thing, then it’s out of your control. (The good thing is that sometimes luck works in your favor, too.) The takeaway: the way you survive is just one way to do it. The fact that there is not just one way to survive can really work in your favor. No matter who you are, where you are, or what your situation is like, you have within you the ability to be better prepared than you were the day before. Don’t let anyone tell you that your way is the wrong way. Make your situation work for you. Wherever you are, choose to make the best of it. People have survived in far worse situations than yours since the beginning of time. If you need help figuring out where to start, check out my course on the topic, or take a look at this workbook. Spend some time delving into the articles on this website. Are you in the “perfect” situation? Do you feel that your way is the only way? If you’re not, how do you make it work? What advice do you have for others in similar circumstances? What words of encouragement can you share? What do you think are the most important factors in survival? Let’s discuss it in the comments. About Daisy Daisy Luther is a coffee-swigging author and blogger who’s traded her air miles for a screen porch, having embraced a more homebody lifestyle after a serious injury. She’s the heart and mind behind The Organic Prepper, a top-tier website where she shares what she’s learned about preparedness, self-reliance, and the pursuit of liberty. With 17 books under her belt, Daisy’s insights on living frugally, surviving tough times, finding some happiness in the most difficult situations, and embracing independence have touched many lives. Her work doesn’t just stay on her site; it’s shared far and wide across alternative media, making her a familiar voice in the community. Known for her adventurous spirit, she’s lived in five different countries and raised two wonderful daughters as a single mom.  Daisy is the best-selling author of 5 traditionally published books, 12 self-published books, and runs a small digital publishing company with PDF guides, printables, and courses at SelfRelianceand Survival.com You can find her on Facebook, Pinterest, and X. The post There Isn’t Just One Way to Prep appeared first on The Organic Prepper.

Stephen R. Lawhead’s retelling of the classic King Arthur story isn’t afraid to present the rise of Christianity in Britain, and the first two episodes of The Daily Wire’s new series, “Pendragon: Rise of the Merlin,” brings that story to life—and will leave audiences wanting more. From majestic views of Britain, to arresting scenes of Merlin’s mother “dancing” with bulls in the mythical city of Atlantis, to spiritual battles surrounding Merlin’s father, the first two episodes present a fantasy world on par with “The Lord of the Rings” or “Game of Thrones,” but more grounded in history. Merlin’s father Taliesin, played brilliantly by James Arden, emerges as a spiritual warrior, rejecting Britain’s pagan past and accepting the gospel of Jesus. Merlin’s mother Charis, brought to life by Rose Reid, unites an English clan with the survivors of a lost Atlantis. The Daily Wire brings out some of the best elements of Lawhead’s first book in “The Pendragon Cycle,” “Taliesin.” The first two episodes left me wanting more, but not always in a good way. World-Building The singular key to fantasy as a genre is world-building, and presenting a fictional world to an audience is a delicate and daunting task. A good storyteller has to trigger the audience’s emotion while slowly introducing new aspects of the mystical world. You can’t just give an “info dump” with ten minutes of boring exposition, but you also can’t present a battle or key defining struggle without sufficient context to explain why this matters. Lawhead’s book introduces mystical events with enough backstory to fill them out. When the book begins with the “unlucky” Elfin (played by Duran Fulton Brown in the show) becoming lucky by discovering a frozen baby Taliesin on the river, the book explains why this matters, and it resonates with readers. The Daily Wire begins the story with the same discovery, but the characters’ dialogue about Elfin’s luck falls flat because the series doesn’t take the time to show what it means. Similarly, the arresting scenes in Atlantis where Charis faces angry bulls in the arena lack the same emotional core that they have in the books, not because The Daily Wire failed to deliver a spectacle but because the show doesn’t give the audience a reason to get emotionally invested in the action. Pacing Struggles The show forces a lengthy book into two episodes, and the pacing suffers as a result. I loved seeing this story brought to life, because I remember enough of the book to appreciate these moments. But The Daily Wire can’t count on audiences reading the book first—the show needs to connect the fantastic spectacle it delivers with the audience’s emotions. The first two episodes come at a rapid-fire pace, and fail to give the great world of Stephen R. Lawhead time to breathe. The show tells us that Charis is the savior of her people without explaining why: her willingness to heed visions of impending doom led Atlantis to prepare for escape before their world sank. The show features a spiritual battle inside Taliesin between the powers of paganism and Christianity, but it doesn’t take the time to build up his pagan backstory, which makes the battle feel hollow. Lawhead’s rich presentation of paganism—with good and bad elements but ultimately fulfilled by Christianity—doesn’t emerge from the brief scenes we get in the first two episodes. While the actors gave solid performances and the cinematography rises to the challenge of high fantasy, the pacing undercut much of this excellent work. The first two episodes about Taliesin needed time to breathe, and would be far better as four episodes. I would love to see The Daily Wire re-release this part of the story, with new scenes revealing Taliesin’s past with paganism, showing what bull dancing means in Atlantis, and giving our characters a bit more time to resonate with audiences. One Other Quibble While the Daily Wire presents the show as family-friendly, some of the bull dancing scenes focus a bit pointedly on Rose Reid’s barely-covered posterior. Reasons for Optimism All that said, I remain excited and optimistic about the show. When The Daily Wire chose to adapt “The Pendragon Cycle,” writers focused on the character of Merlin, rather than Taliesin, for a good reason. Americans are familiar with King Arthur and his sorcerer, Merlin, and most of us couldn’t name Merlin’s father or his mother. The focus on Merlin (played by Tom Sharp) gives me reason to suspect that the show’s pacing will slow down in future episodes, and give the story of King Arthur’s future advisor more time to breathe. The Stephen R. Lawhead version of Arthurian legend deserves to be told on screen, and I remain optimistic that The Daily Wire’s final product will rise to the challenge. The post Daily Wire’s ‘Pendragon’ Series Brings Early Christian Britain to Life; Will Leave Audiences Wanting More appeared first on The Daily Signal.

A new meta-study — a study of studies — reveals an inconvenient truth about weight loss itself: Willpower still matters. Manufacturers of GLP-1 injectables like Wegovy and Ozempic would prefer we forget that, since forgetting it is profitable.The counter-claim — that diets and exercise are no match for our genes and environment — is one fat-positivity influencers have pushed for years. Now it has been eagerly adopted by companies like Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly to market their new, lizard-venom-derived blockbuster drugs.People who stop taking weight-loss drugs regain weight at an average rate of 0.4 kilograms per month — roughly 10 pounds per year. Business is booming. One in eight American adults have taken a weight-loss drug at one time — and this is only the beginning. Uptake remains far below its theoretical ceiling: More than 70% of U.S. adults are overweight or obese, including roughly 40% who are clinically obese.Shred-pilled?What comes next is obvious. Adoption will surge as delivery methods improve, especially pills. People don’t like needles. Pills are much easier to swallow.Just before Christmas, the Food and Drug Administration approved a pill version of Wegovy, imaginatively branded the Wegovy Pill. Pill versions of competing drugs, including Mounjaro, are expected to follow this year.Some time ago, I predicted that a weight-loss drugmaker would become the largest company in the world within a decade. I made that prediction when Novo Nordisk — the Danish maker of Wegovy and Ozempic — became Europe’s most valuable company, with a market capitalization of roughly $570 billion, more than $200 billion greater than Denmark’s entire GDP. (It has since fallen a few spots.) I now refine that forecast: The pharmaceutical company that perfects the weight-loss pill — balancing results, side effects, and cost — will be the largest company on Earth.There are already more than one billion obese people worldwide. There is no obvious reason why every one of them couldn’t be prescribed a daily pill.RELATED: Fat chance! Obese immigrants make America sicker Gilles Mingasson/Getty ImagesChubby checkersWhich brings us back to the meta-study. One of the central unanswered questions surrounding these drugs is what happens when patients stop taking them. Does the weight stay off — or does it return?In practice, many people don’t stay on them long. Roughly half of users discontinue weight-loss drugs within a year, most often citing cost and side effects, which can include severe gastrointestinal distress, vision problems, and — in rare cases — death.What happens after discontinuation matters enormously. If the weight returns, many users will be forced to remain on these drugs indefinitely — possibly for decades — to avoid relapse. Pharmaceutical executives have generally been reluctant to acknowledge this implication, though some have done so candidly.Habit-formingThe researchers behind the new meta-study asked a sharper question still: How does stopping weight-loss drugs compare with stopping traditional interventions like diet and exercise?The answer is stark. People who stop taking weight-loss drugs regain weight at an average rate of 0.4 kilograms per month — roughly 10 pounds per year. That is four times faster than the weight regain seen in people who stop exercising and restricting calories.Four times.The explanation is not mysterious. Pills do not build habits. Diet and exercise do. With drugs, appetite suppression is outsourced to chemistry rather than cultivated through discipline. Remove the compound, and users are left with the same reserves of willpower they had before. Evidence so far suggests that changes to brain chemistry, hormone signaling, and metabolism fade along with the drug itself.Even when people who diet and exercise relapse, the habits they developed tend to soften the fall. That counts for something.None of this is to deny that weight-loss drugs can be a valuable tool. For many severely obese people, they may represent the only realistic chance of meaningful weight reduction. If we want to reduce the burden of chronic disease, drugs like Wegovy will have a role to play.But their rise should not excuse the abandonment of harder truths. Sustainable weight loss still depends on choices, habits, and character — and on reshaping a food environment that makes bad choices effortless and good ones rare. Pharmaceuticals may assist that work. They cannot replace it.

Ex-CNN talking head Don Lemon joined other radicals in storming a Christian church on Sunday in Saint Paul, Minnesota.The White House and the Department of Justice indicated that those who disrupted the service, intimidated churchgoers, and screamed incessantly at the altar about Renee Good — a subversive who died driving her SUV into a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent — may soon face a reckoning.Rushing the altarRadicals from Racial Justice Network, Black Lives Matter Minnesota, and BLM Twin Cities assembled on Sunday for a so-called "ICE Out Action." Rather than interfere with ICE operations like the woman whose name was on their lips, they rushed into Cities Church and did their best to drown out sounds of worship.'A house of worship is not a public forum for your protest!'Nekima Levy Armstrong, founder of the Racial Justice Network and former president of the Minneapolis chapter of the NAACP, claimed responsibility for the disruption and indicated that Cities Church was targeted because "David Easterwood is a Pastor at this church and the Acting Field Director for the ICE office in St. Paul."Footage from an October Department of Homeland Security press conference appears to feature the same David Easterwood who is pictured on the church's website. Blaze News has reached out to ICE and Cities Church for comment."It's time for judgment to begin," said Armstrong.The mob refused requests from church officials to leave the premises and instead screamed and chanted in the aisles and pews.In one video of the mob action, Armstrong yells, "Someone who claims to worship God, teaching people in this church about God, is out there overseeing ICE agents. Think about what we experienced. The murder of Renee Good at the hands of ICE. A Venezuelan national shot by ICE."RELATED: Don Lemon calls for 'black people, brown people' to take up arms against ICE Photo by Arturo Holmes/Getty Images After alluding to two individuals who were shot, one fatally, while allegedly attacking federal agents, Armstrong yelled, "How dare you claim to be a pastor of God? ... You are involved in evil in our community."In another potentially incriminating video that BLM Minnesota shared online, radicals can be seen blocking the altar, yelling Renee Good's name, and pressing parishioners individually to answer whether they support ICE. One pair of visibly upset churchgoers can be seen in the video comforting one another while the radicals angrily condemn members of law enforcement.Don Lemon, posing as a journalist on the scene, advocated for the mob action, stating, "There's nothing in the Constitution that tells you what time you can protest. You can protest at any time. That's the whole point of it — is to disrupt, is to make uncomfortable, and that's what they're doing, and that's what I believe when I say everyone has to be willing to sacrifice something. You have to make people uncomfortable in these times."Lemon — who suggested in October that "black people, brown people" should take up arms against ICE — lectured lead Pastor Jonathan Parnell after Parnell said the mob action was "unacceptable" and that it was "shameful to interrupt a public gathering of Christians in worship."RELATED: Blocking ICE with 'micro-intifada': Good's group taught de-arrest, cop-car chaos before her death Photo by Jason Alpert-Wisnia/Hans Lucas/AFP via Getty Images "There's a Constitution and the First Amendment to freedom of speech and freedom to assemble and protest," Lemon told Parnell, excusing the mob's interference and intimidation tactics.Federal response"President Trump will not tolerate the intimidation and harassment of Christians in their sacred places of worship," said White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt. "The Department of Justice has launched a full investigation into the despicable incident that took place earlier today at a church in Minnesota."Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Harmeet Dhillon indicated that her office was looking into potential violations of the the Freedom of Access to Clinics Entrances Act "by these people desecrating a house of worship and interfering with Christian worshippers." Dhillon noted further that the FBI had been "activated too!"Although liberally and primarily used by the previous administration to lock up pro-life activists, the FACE ACT also prohibits the use of force, threat of force, or physical obstruction to injure, intimidate, or interfere with any person lawfully exercising or seeking to exercise their First Amendment right of religious freedom at a place of religious worship.Violations can result in prison time and hefty fines as well as civil lawsuits. — (@) Dhillon said in response to Lemon's defense of the mob action, "A house of worship is not a public forum for your protest! It is a space protected from exactly such acts by federal criminal and civil laws! Nor does the First Amendment protect your pseudo journalism of disrupting a prayer service. You are on notice!"After speaking with Pastor Parnell and Dhillon, Attorney General Pam Bondi stated, "Attacks against law enforcement and the intimidation of Christians are being met with the full force of federal law.""If state leaders refuse to act responsibly to prevent lawlessness, this Department of Justice will remain mobilized to prosecute federal crimes and ensure that the rule of law prevails," added Bondi.Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

An Army of Nightmares: Virginia Democrats Unleash a Torrent of Horrific Legislation for 2026