Summer of 2001 me and my grandparents visited relatives in the US. Our stay first took us to Virginia for a week, before we were driven half way across the continent to the bustling small town of Newton, IA.
Over the years ive thought about going back, but not got around to it. But i figured id look the place up recently. Googling Newton, IA i got a rundown on the place. The Maytag factory, lifeblood of the community, shut down in the 00s as they moved to mexico or some other shithole. This left the people of Newton to face the recession already reeling. According to a reddit post Newton is known for being a place with nothing to do, except smoke weed and/or cook meth.
So how is the place doing now, must be a good place to score a cheap home being both a small town and not in the best economy
Looking up the house i stayed at in 01 on Zillow, its not currently on the market. Last listed in 2012 at 139k. It has over the last 5 years gone from a estimated 150k to now pushing 240k.
And its the same for every current listing in Newton, IA in the same price range.
This one was estimated at 100k five years ago, just sold for 239k https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/407-W-8th-St-S-Newton-IA-50208/86981175_zpid/
Estimated at115k in 2020, sold for 215k https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/1015-W-3rd-St-S-Newton-IA-50208/86982395_zpid/
Sold for 75k in 2022, then 250k in 2024. Hell of a house flip it looks like. https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/706-1st-Ave-W-Newton-IA-50208/86981045_zpid/
Im glad im not looking for a house in Newton, Iowa.
As most probably caught, Amouranth had a home invasion in an attempt to rob her crypto. Husband shot one robber and the rest fled.
Colion does a half hour rundown with them both, at their house and using security camera footage as well.
If nothing else this is the kind of stuff that can help mainstream 2A and self defense going forward. Also is an excellent illustration of how shit a defensive situation is, cause almost nothing went "right", but the outcome ended well.
News seems to be out, Ukraine has settled a deal with the US over mineral rights. Trumps opening offer of $500 billion was negotiated down to a more reasonable sum. And its telling that noone seems to have read his Art of the Deal yet.
But it made me think along new lines. The US through Vances speech clearly stated that there exist now no real ideological reason for the US to expend treasure through taxpayer money, or life through their children, in defending European nations that abandoned both the shared values and the ability to actually participate militarily in NATO.
But with actual value on the table, the military might of the US may be back in play. No longer will the US spend its men and money on defending nations that have left themselves helpless and fallen to rabid left wing politics, unless they pay for the privilege.
We are entering a new era, and it may become one that reflects history closer than we expected.
So following the semi-public fallout between Karl and Ian "Gun Jesus" Forgotten Weapons, it looks like Karl managed to fail the purity testing of the average liberal leftist.
The recent struggle session seems to have been kicked off when Hoplite Industries announced Inrange would soon publish a review of their DNV-9 digital NVGs.
Hoplite owner and employees having called troons out on their troonery, and refusing to sell gear to some particularly militant trans activists in the past set off the usual trans flag brigade. And while Hoplite ind. got it in the X comments, it seems to be Karl and Inrange who got it worse.
Culminating in a struggle session post where he ends off with a picture of Elon in his black MAGA hat, calling him a fascist and refusing to use X any more.
https://x.com/InRangeTV/status/1844742158055534950?t=Zpmg_o-fHGAQkV-y1FtOdg&s=19
I work in a independent book store in Norway. Ive had two calls from GW wanting to convince us to start selling Warhammer.
First time i fobbed him off, we barely have room for our product as is. But he insisted he wanted to talk to the owner. Shes rarely in the store, but i told him to call back later to talk to someone else. He called again today and got me again, he was still very keen on getting us to carry warhammer, and ended up taking the owners email to send her a pitch.
This is not the first time theyve called, they pitched us back around 2016 or so. At the time there was no local gaming store, but that has changed and a major one is now operating barely 15 minutes from where we are.
Simultaneously to this, we are not the only ones being pitched. We have a FB group of independent stores, and someone in there posted asking if anyone had any experience with warhammer, as they'd clearly had the phone call and received one of the little sample packages they send out.
The two most interesting things i got from the guy who called was
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GW doubled their sales 2022 to 2023. I assume that was the Norwegian market he was referring to.
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They were calling because they want to capitalise on this boom in sales and are pushing for more book and toy stores to carry GW products to "reach a wider audience".
My take is they are pushing hard to maintain or raise sales in 2024. Cost of living and inflation has hit hard everywhere, GW stock has been loosing value for 6 months and just now their CFO dumped two thirds of her stock as she's leaving the company. I dont think their sales this year will match 2023, and with the recent drama they might have alienated enough customers they'll be taking a serious hit.
I don't know the full details, but some shit has gone down over the last week around Karl/InRange and AR15.com & Brownells.
Karl did some woke shit, Arfcom went full boomer and it turned into a bitch-slapping fight.
Caught in the middle is Ian McCollum and Forgotten Weapons. Anyone whos followed Ian knows he stepped away from InRange and Karl a while back, allegedly for time issues.
The fallout from this is the What Whould Stoner Do rifle that was conceived by Ian and Karl as a InRange project, the lower was made by KE Arms and it was sold by Brownells. After the bitchslaps and harsh words were over, brownells who owns arfcom have decided to stop carrying the WWSD rifle and are selling out stock at 30% off.
Meanwhile you have Karl going full "brownells supports racism and transfobia" while Ian is quietly putting out announcements that hes staying the fuck away from all this, and 30% off is a great deal on a good rifle build.
Remember to vet your friends ans business partners, they might fuck you down the line.
No, its not the Imp. November 2018 HNoMS Helge Ingstad, a Norwegian frigate, collided with the tanker Sola TS and sank. Much criticism and many jokes were made on the Norwegian navy following this.
But as it turns, and this has only come to light in the last few days and appears to have been actively suppressed for 4 years now, the duty officer on the bridge was a female US navy officer under training, on a exchange program between the Norwegian and US Navy.
Its one thing that it happened, but this has been rumored for years and the only reason its finally come out is because she has been requested to testify as a witness during court proceedings currently ongoing against the watch chief of Helge Ingstad.
Pussy pass stamped and approved, and a male Norwegian officer is currently getting shafted for a fuckup in part caused by a US navy diversity hire.
So in the new round of fearmongering, Norway has seen a run on pharmacies, and people have been buying up all the iodine pills.
Now in peoples defense, our department for emergency preparedness has been encouraging "prepping" for years, including keeping iodine pills at home. Success of which has been piss-poor.
But now today ive seen two people on twitter reporting that schools and kindergartens are being told to inform their counties of student numbers, and inform parents of the existing program of iodine tablets for children in case of emergency.
People who lived through the cold war are baffled and even they who lived with MAD and through Chernobyl cant understand this over-night paranoia seemingly being fueled by the government.
Being unable to grasp what its for, and only being capable of two comparisons, they have made their complex calculation. Since it doesnt look like Harry Potter it is obviously Russias equivalent of the swastika. Also some are saying its related to Q as in Qanon.
https://twitter.com/kamilkazani/status/1500495309595725831?t=kp3vmidXVeemkG4e3cFVHw&s=19
