The US Navy operates a 50,000 acre forest in Indiana whose entire job is keeping one wooden ship from 1797 afloat.
The ship is USS Constitution, still a commissioned warship with an active-duty crew. Cannonballs bounced off her in 1812 because the hull sandwiches a wall of live oak ribs between two layers of white oak planking, nearly 2 feet of solid wood so dense it barely floats. British 18-pounders hit it and dropped into the sea. A sailor yelled "her sides are made of iron" and the nickname stuck.
Here's the problem with owning a 229-year-old wooden ship: you can't buy the parts. Hull planks run up to 40 feet long and 7 inches thick, cut from single white oak trunks. A white oak takes over a century to grow that big. No lumberyard on earth stocks it.
So the Navy grows its own. Constitution Grove at Naval Support Activity Crane holds trees over 100 years old, reserved exclusively for this ship. Foresters there are managing oaks today that will become hull planking in the 2100s. The maintenance plan literally runs on tree time.
Every 20 years or so she enters dry dock and shipwrights swap out rotted timber. After two centuries of this, estimates put original 1797 wood at maybe 10 to 15 percent of the ship. The Navy keeps replacing her plank by plank because Congress mandated her preservation and because she's the only active US warship that has sunk an enemy vessel.
Every other asset in the Navy has a decommission date. This one has a tree farm.
"We have cameras everywhere in that town and you cannot get a breath of fresh air without us knowing"
When police are admitting this out loud, it's time to admit the cage isn’t coming, we're already inside it.
The defense for Flock Cameras, etc, is simple: “You’re in public, so you have no right to privacy.” But have you considered the endgame of that logic?
If privacy stops at your doorstep, then it is perfectly legal for a police AI drone to meet you at your driveway, follow you everywhere, and record every interaction you have all day long. Every single person, followed by a machine, every single day.
If that physical reality makes your skin crawl, then you cannot defend the digital version. An AI camera grid on the streets is just a robot cop following you that you’ve been told to ignore.
I think it's important that we amplify videos like these as much as we possibly can. Don't report them when you see them online. Share them.
It's a very important lesson that people need to watch and absorb. They need to know how much White people are hated and maybe avoid ending up like poor Austin.
Over 94,000 CONFIRMED license plate readers across the US.
Look at that map. Those are all Flock Cameras openly tracking your every move while the government says you don’t have 4th Amendment protections on public roads.
Now they’re using AI to sort through all of that data.
1100s: "Meat is the king's property. Poach and you'll hang!"
1300s: "Meat causes lust. Fast or burn in hell!"
1500s: "Meat is for lords. Peasants get pottage!"
1700s: "Meat is for gentlemen. Workers get bread!"
1800s: "Meat breeds violent passions. Eat cornflakes instead!"
1900s: "Meat is wartime rationed. One ounce per week, be grateful!"
1970s: "Meat causes heart disease!"
1990s: "Meat causes cancer!"
2010s: "Meat causes climate change!"
2020s: "Meat causes pandemics!"
2025: "Meat causes antibiotic resistance!"
2030: "Meat causes whatever we need it to cause next!"
You: Noticing that the one constant across nine centuries is that someone in power wants you off it.
Once people realize these Data Centers have nothing to do with ChatGPT and everything to do with the Surveillance State, things might get spooky outside.
You can get mad at the strong words on Iran if you want.
But the Iranian regime and the Islamic fundamentalists who run it only understand one language: power.
They worship death and martyrdom. They want to go out in a blaze of glory on their own terms. Soft diplomatic language and veiled threats are seen as weakness, and they exploit it.
Your only chance at any semblance of negotiation must be spoke bluntly, credibly, and with bluster. This morning's message (among others) is proof of that. As uncouth as you think those words are... well.. you need to understand the language of terror. You must become it.
Either way, it worked for now. Iran quickly came back with a 10 point proposal and agreed to a two week ceasefire with safe passage through the Strait.
Hardline regimes don’t come to the table because you’re polite. They come when the alternative is made unbearable. Power is the ONLY thing they respect.
How do you bring an ideology to the table that only worships death? You somehow become more intimidating than death itself.
These words will offend some of you. I don't know what to tell you. It's dangerous out there. Take it from those of us who've locked horns with these people before. You don't have to learn fresh lessons on how they operate.
Your war veterans have learned them for you. And many of those scarred by GWOT advise the president himself today. Sabre rattling is the language of the middle east. Except we don't just rattle it.
America doesn't just bark without a bite.
Adversaries would do well to remember this going forward.