Notes from the edge of civilization: November 2, 2025
Wars, sky blenders, snakes and psychological berating. What could possibly go wrong?
Remember when Donald Trump said he’d end “forever wars?” Maybe what he meant was wars with better marketing and branding.
On Saturday, he announced that the United States would cut off all assistance to Nigeria if its government “continues to allow the killing of Christians.” (Forgive us for pointing out the obvious paradox, but now do Syria and Gaza, Mr. President!)
He added that the newly renamed Department of War — bonus points for honesty — has been told to “prepare for possible action.”
“If we attack, it will be fast, vicious, and sweet, just like the terrorist thugs attack our CHERISHED Christians! WARNING: THE NIGERIAN GOVERNMENT BETTER MOVE FAST!”
Don’t miss the subtext. Nigeria isn’t some random battleground — it’s Africa’s biggest oil producer, an OPEC member, and home to more untapped crude than most of Europe combined. When Washington says it’s defending “freedom,” there’s almost always a resource map somewhere on the table.
Trump’s threat to invade Nigeria over “Christian persecution” follows a familiar script: moral outrage on the surface, energy strategy underneath. It’s the same playbook used in Iraq, Libya, and soon Venezuela — all oil-rich nations that somehow end up needing “humanitarian intervention.” In spite of the attempt at rebranding, anyone who’s clear-eyed can plainly see the empire doesn’t fight for faith; it fights for the flow of commodities… in the hope that the faith extends to an increasingly moribund dollar.
Meanwhile, the US has officially RSVP’d NO to COP30 — the two-week global gab-fest on climate coming up in Brazil.
You know the meeting we’re talking about, right? It’s where bureaucrats fly private jets to warn the rest of the world about their increasing carbon footprints. But, instead of sending envoys to the Amazon, the US administration is busy negotiating new liquefied natural gas (LNG) deals with South Korea and the EU. The Department of War will handle Nigeria; the Department of Energy will handle the rest.
The irony is so thick, you can slice it with a knife and serve it with berry compote: While eco-elites gather in Brazil to trade carbon indulgences, Washington is signing contracts that guarantee fossil dependence for another generation. To say nothing of the massive ecological damage that comes from mobilizing and fighting wars.
And in case anyone still thought the climate crusade was about saving the planet — Bill Gates just said the quiet part out loud.
In his latest Gates Notes essay, he writes:
“Although climate change will have serious consequences — particularly for people in the poorest countries — it will not lead to humanity’s demise. People will be able to live and thrive in most places on Earth for the foreseeable future.”
Translation: don’t panic, keep consuming. Gates argues that climate investments are misdirected and should focus on “human welfare” — meaning vaccines, additives to reduce cow farts, electric cars, and (of course) more wind power.
In all honesty, what comes out of the mouth of Mr. Gates is a clear reminder that (to us, at least) snakes gonna snake. In Genesis 3, for all his deceptive, smooth-talking ways, the creator cursed the snake, saying:
“You will crawl on your belly and you will eat dust all the days of your life.”
Let it be so, Mr. Gates!
Here’s the plot twist no one at COP30 will want to discuss: those “save the planet” turbines Gates loves so much are actually killing the environment.
According to Nature, the blades of our clean-energy revolution are basically flying guillotines — shredding bats, birds, and entire food webs into extinction like a Ginsu knife, just so the chattering classes can charge their Teslas and feel morally superior.
But wait. There’s more!
The numbers read like a dystopian census: a million bats a year in high-turbine countries; vultures vanishing across Europe; golden eagles in California surviving only because new ones fly in to replace the dead. Even the soil suffers — the constant vibration drives away earthworms. The green movement, it seems, is literally shaking the life out of the ground.
Looks like hypocrisy really is the only true renewable resource.
Here’s a perfect metaphor for the modern, infantilized, mentally-defective West: a museum featuring a “grumpy guide” who yells at people for not knowing their myths. That’s right: “Step right up, get your ticket to humiliation, folks! Come one, come all!”
Düsseldorf’s Kunstpalast’s major attraction isn’t really about art or history — it’s performance therapy for a culture that secretly wants to be scolded. We’ve replaced religious confession with public shaming by a man in a ponytail and maroon blazer. Visitors pay €7 to be reminded that they don’t know anything and that their phones are ruining civilization — and they leave feeling strangely uplifted.
It’s genius marketing, of course. The museum gets relevance points without having to actually curate anything. The audience gets to cosplay as “ignorant unwashed masses” while congratulating themselves for being self-aware enough to enjoy the abuse. Everyone wins — except the idea that art is something transcendent, mysterious, and worth learning about.
Once upon a time, museums existed to elevate the mind. Now they’re just mood boards for existential anxiety: nudist nights, sock tours, and now guided derision. “Grumpy Guide” isn’t an outlier — it’s the logical endpoint of a civilization so obsessed with irony it can’t tell satire from normal life.