Self-Defense Is Legal in North Carolina

But then I thought it was. Homeowner who shot attempted burglar in chest won’t face charges, Gastonia police say

On the morning of Sunday, July 12, a homeowner fired one shot at a man who was trying to break into his home, Gastonia police reported on July 22. The man, identified as 57-year-old Cedric Ford, was hospitalized for a gunshot wound in the chest and later arrested, police said.

Security camera footage shared by police showed Ford appear to open the window of a home and try to push through it. He then used his backside to try to push through the front door before returning to the window, according to the video.

The homeowner, an elderly person with disabilities, fired once through the window.

“The homeowner told investigators he did not know he had struck Ford, but he did know his actions stopped the attempted break-in,” police said on social media on Wednesday.

Gastonia, North Carolina, is about a 20 mile drive west of downtown Charlotte, North Carolina.

When he got to the hospital, Ford told a story about a drive-by shooting. That earned him an extra charge, obstruction.

Officials said Ford was taken into custody after his release from the hospital. Ford was charged with attempted first-degree burglary and felony obstruction of justice.

Self-defense is a human right.

Contrast the week that it took for officials to make a determination in North Carolina, with the two years it took officials in the UK to reach the same decision.

Leftist Violence

Andy Ngo of Ngo Comment has two stories of Leftist violence.

First up we have ties of ANTIFA to world communism. State Department Links Antifa's Lawyers to Decades of Cuban Communist Influence

The 100-page report, “Cuba: The Capital of 21st Century Communism,” released on Monday, details how Havana spent nearly seven decades cultivating left-wing American radicals, extremist organizations and sympathetic institutions to advance revolutionary leftism inside the United States.

The second story is Ngo: The Left’s Denial of Leftist Terrorism Is Empowering More Terrorists

On July 19, I joined GB News in London to discuss the significance of the U.S. State Department’s international summit on the growing crisis of left-wing terrorism.

The conference was met with ridicule from liberal media and Democrats. That reaction itself demonstrates how they play a key role in denying the existence of radical leftist violence.

Both are worth a look.

Chicago's Pension Are a Mess

Meep at STUMP has an update on the insanity. Chicago Pension Watch: No, There Aren't Many Choices

Let me round up the latest “discourse” on the “way out” for Chicago pensions.

But first — where the pensions stand.

In 2025 Chicago's pension debt rose to $36.4 billion. That according the city itself.

One of the things that comes up is a Detroit-style, Chapter 9 bankruptcy.

The principal difference is that Detroit owned a bunch of art, which could be sold. Chicago doesn't own any art, or not on that scale.

If you are not a finance person (and some people who are in finance) do not necessarily understand what Chapter 9 bankruptcy can and cannot do.

It’s a legal process in federal court. It doesn’t cause money to appear from nowhere. It doesn’t cause art that a city doesn’t own to come into being — people get confused when proposing “Hey, let’s have a Grand Bargain like Detroit had in its bankruptcy!”, forgetting that Detroit for some odd reason owned art it could hold ransom. As far as I know, Chicago the city owns no such art.

Chapter 9 bankruptcy, i.e., municipal bankruptcy, is not the same thing as bankruptcy for an individual or a company. The city is not going to liquidate. Creditors know that. The creditors have limits on what they’re going to get — they will not necessarily get zeroed out (but some might).

The funding rates for the various pension funds are sad. The national average for municipal pension funds of 82.5%. The police pension is funded at 25.5% of liabilities. The firefighters pension is funded at 25.2% of liabilities. When you include all of the funds, and all of the liabilities, Chicago’s pension funds were only funded at 28.1% of liabilities.

Click thru for the details.

“But you promised” and “It’s not my fault” don’t mean much when the money runs out.

Wednesday Link Roundup - 22 July

Wombat-socho is first with In The Mailbox: 07.20.26

Racket News: Anatomy of a Struggle Session
STUMP: Sports (and other) Gambling – The Modern Scourge

EBL - MAGA Kamala Kamalot 🥥🌴☀️

Instapundit: AoSHQ: Kamala is going to give it another shot
What could possibly go wrong?

Pixy Misa at Ambient Irony - Daily News Stuff 19 July 2026: Woolly Hippo To You Edition

China's Kimi K3 identifies itself as Claude, betraying its distilled origins. (WCCFTech)
You were saying, Bean?

The Glibertarians - Saturday Links of Even More Retardation

So who is more reliably retarded, Trump or the Team Blue cats chasing his laser pointer?
Seems like a lot for mediocre food.

Small Dead Animals - Saturday On Turtle Island

The Democrat Party’s America: The Trump speech. Dems find a worse candidate.
China Carney’s Canada: Forest fires. Carney creates jobs in Michigan.

Don Surber - HIGHLIGHTS OF THE WEEK

Homeland Security tweeted, “She entered the United States on April 14, 2024, on a visa set to expire on September 6, 2024. In violation of our nation’s laws, she overstayed her visa and failed to depart.”

Vlad Tepes - Canada finally finds way to tax the air, UK and Canadian media shape reality in predictable ways, health Canada hides deadly detail about mRNA shots: Links 1 for July 19, 2026

3. There was a murder in the UK of a prominent politician. But the bigger threat to civilization than the killer is the media. This has become the new normal. The media fabricates or enforces a state narrative in a way that the public is mentally disarmed

Again from Wombat-socho - In The Mailbox: 07.21.26 (Afternoon Edition)

Upstream Reviews: The Unexpected Enlightenment of Rachel Griffin
John C. Wright: Aition & The Honor of Poets

A View from the Beach - Flotsam and Jetsam - Trump Voting Speech Reactions Day 2

Mary Chastain at LI cites Mullin: ‘We’ve Identified 250,000 Noncitizens Registered to Vote’ in Four States, “We also worked with proactive states to identify 28,000 non-citizens on their voter rolls, plus 400,000 individuals that are still registered to vote that are deceased.”

Gates of Vienna - News Feed 7/19/2026

The United States added nearly 3.5 million new businesses in the first half of 2026, breaking previous expectations, according to a new report.

Political Hat - News of the Week (July 19th, 2026)

Mace, Norman still eyeing Senate bids despite Trump snub
Reps. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.) and Ralph Norman (R-S.C.) are both still considering bids for the U.S. Senate despite President Trump endorsing Darline Graham Nordone for a full six-year term.

Bacon Time!!!! - Sunday Linkange

Pirates Cove Bummer: Companies Are Blowing Off Their Climate Doom Commitments
Freedom Is Just Another Word.. .Saturday Memes…

Maggie's Farm - Saturday morning links

Expecting Tenants to Pay Rent Regarded as “Violence”
Trump Is Right About Voting Machines - And if you doubt that, just ask Obama-Appointed Judge Amy Totenberg.

J.J. Sefton at Ace of Spades HQ - The Morning Report — 7/ 21 /26

There’s nothing like seeing government waste and fraud firsthand to make you appreciate how pernicious it is.
Beyond Fraud: Citizen Journalists Unmask Crazy Government Waste

Doug Ross - Larwyn’s Linx: Deep State crawls out of the woodwork: Meet former FBI executive Nikki Floris

• The Vance-Rogan Interview - Dana Loesch • Netanyahu slams NYC mayor’s arrest threat - Joshua Marks

Anonymous Conservative - News Briefs – 07/18/2026

Is it a coincidence “Flock” is a term associated with herding Sheep? Does anyone think the Founders would have been down with the government grabbing this information about everyone, had it been around back in the days of the nations founding?

I leave you with Sunday Funnies For 07-19-26 from Stately McDaniel Manor, Sunday Funnies from Flopping Aces, Sunday’s the Weekend is almost over Meme Drop 7-19-26 from Midwest Chick's Place, and Gunday Monday from Bustednuckles.

Welcome to the Panoptican

FLOCK is not alone, of course, they are just the most well-known company building the surveillance state. When Every Streetlight Becomes A Surveillance Tower

For years, Americans were told that the greatest privacy battles would happen online. The debate centered around social media, smartphones, and internet tracking. Few imagined that one of the most controversial surveillance technologies would instead appear quietly on neighborhood streets, mounted atop poles at busy intersections and neighborhood entrances.

Today, those poles have become a flashpoint in a much larger debate over technology, artificial intelligence, and the future relationship between citizens and government.

Read the whole, disturbing thing, and the few signs that people have had enough of the creeping technology and are pushing back. (Hat tip to MaddMedic.)

And you vocabulary word of the day (Courtesy of Merriam-Webster): Panoptican

a circular prison built with cells arranged radially so that a guard at a central position can see all the prisoners

Periscope Up

Today we have a song that came to me by way of the Pandora streaming service, and a "radio station" based on the music of Buckethead.

Emancipator is the stage name for an American DJ/Producer. I know next to nothing about him.

This song is "Periscope Up" by Emancipator from the 2006 album Soon It Will Be Cold Enough.

The Chicago Weekend

HeyJackass! is on vacation... so we have to go with other sources. 3 dead, 15 hurt in Chicago weekend shootings, according to Chicago police - CBS Chicago

The don't say what the consider the weekend, but they do include Friday evening in the mix.

In the first shooting of the weekend, Chicago police officers responded to the 400 block of North Central Avenue around 7:47 p.m., where a 29-year-old man was shot while standing near the sidewalk.

The last shooting they include in the mix was from 3:43 AM Monday. Click thru for all the details.

Hat tip to Breitbart and Chicago: At Least 11 Shot Friday into Saturday Afternoon.

The Chicago-Sun Times noted that 228 have been murdered in Chicago thus far in 2026.

Don't Bring a Knife to a Gunfight

Things won't work out for you. Man armed with knife shot and killed by customer at Cerritos restaurant, sheriff's department says

[Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department] Deputies said a preliminary investigation found that the armed man entered the restaurant and ran through the kitchen/service areas, "frightening customers and staff."

A customer who was "lawfully armed and possessed a valid concealed carry permit" confronted the man and ordered him to drop the knife, according to deputies. That's when the man reportedly charged toward the customer with the knife, and the customer shot him.

There is more. He apparently had a stolen truck, and stabbed himself at some point. Click thru for those details.

A Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department source said an off-duty officer was present and witnessed the shooting, but did not fire their weapon.

Self-defense is a human right. We will have to wait to see what the LA District Attorney has to say about this incident. (Or why do you think the off-duty officer stayed out of it?)

U.S. Crime Rate versus Canada and Australia

When the Left actually talks about crime, as opposed to Social Justice of the courts and/or the police, they usually talk about "gun crime," and not crime in general. There is a reason for that. From John R. Lott Jr., at RealClearInvestigations: Mythbuster: U.S. Much Safer Than Many Peer Nations

The conventional wisdom is that Canad and Australia, thanks to their Draconian gun laws, are much safer than the US.

The data, however, undercuts this narrative. While the United States still leads in some categories, on the whole it has significantly less violent crime per capita than those two nations.

Regarding homicide, the most heinous crime of all, it’s true that in 2025, the U.S. murder rate was about four per 100,000 people – roughly twice Australia’s and Canada’s 2024 homicide rate. Yet it’s also true that homicides account for only a tiny fraction of violent crime. In 2024, homicides represented just 0.21% of violent crimes in the U.S., based on National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) estimates of rape/sexual assault, robbery, aggravated assault, and simple assault. Murder comprises an even smaller fraction of crimes in Australia and Canada.

Click thru for the data presented in nice graphs.

I will just leave you with this bit about Australia and the attitude toward rape.

In Australia, there are numerous complaints that “Rape is effectively decriminalized.” In New South Wales, of the 9,138 sexual assaults reported to police in 2022, there were only 1,016 convictions – just an 11% conviction rate. Indeed, during a recent lecture that I gave to college students in New South Wales in February, several women said there was no reason to report rapes and sexual assaults to the police because they believed nothing would happen to the criminal and it was personally embarrassing to come forward publicly.

As a result, an analysis based solely on police statistics can be misleading when comparing countries. Victimization surveys tell a different story.

Read the whole thing.

Shooting Spree Is Family Execution

What were you doing when you were 16? I'm guessing mass murder wasn't on the agenda. ‘I love blood’: Officials reveal texts between teens accused of killing 5 family members

This wasn't a mass shooting. As he shot people at different times.

At 16 years old, Ja’ymier Davis is facing 12 charges as an adult, including five counts of first-degree murder.

The other person arrested in connection with the mass shooting is a 15-year-old girl who faces charges in juvenile court.

He killed his aunt. Then he killed his cousin while cleaning up the 1st crime scene, because he walked in and discovered the cleaning. It goes on from there.

East St. Louis, Illinois, is directly across the Mississippi River from St. Louis, Missouri.

Click thru for the details, including the antics of the defense attorney.

I miss living in a civilized society.

Tuesday Links - 21 July

Pixy Misa at Ambient Irony starts us off with an AI story. Daily News Stuff 17 July 2026: Dwarves Are Back On The Menu Edition

1Password now lets Claude use your passwords - without giving it access to the passwords themselves. (Nerds xyz)

Claude sends a request to 1Password, the user approves it, and Claude ends up with access to the desired service without ever seeing the password. It's a pretty elegant solution to a situation set up mostly by crazy people.

Crime Research Org - Major Decision: U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit Strikes Down New Jersey’s semi-automatic rifles and large-capacity magazines bans. Copy of decision is available here.

As expected, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit, in an en banc decision, has struck down New Jersey’s prohibitions on semi-automatic rifles and large-capacity magazines. It is a major decision because he creates a circuit court split for the first time.

William Teach at Pirate's Cove - DHS Finalizes Rule That Means Students Can’t Just Stick Around

Before Obama and especially Biden just started letting everyone in roughly 45% of illegal aliens were people who overstayed their visas. If they are closely monitored than reapplying after undergrad and grad should be no big deal.

Bearing Arms - Is China Also Meddling in Second Amendment Fight?

On Thursday night, President Donald Trump took to (most of) the airwaves to announce some disturbing evidence regarding China and its attempts to meddle in the 2020 election.

Not the Bee - Bodycam footage shows The View host Sunny Hostin trying to convince cops not to arrest her son for trespassing

Here's the host of The View, Sunny Hostin, appearing to use her fame and position to get her son out of trouble.

Again from Pixy Misa - Daily News Stuff 18 July 2026: Accidental Umpires Edition

AWS is experiencing a wee spot of bother with its billing system. (The Register)

Speculation is that it's a unit conversion error in the cost estimation tool, but all we know for sure is that people who barely use the service are being alerted to cost estimates in the billions of dollars, and for businesses that have active applications the predicted bills run into the trillions.

AWS say they are looking into it.

Clayton Cramer - New Jersey Assault Weapon & >10 Round Magazine Ban Overturned by 3rd Circuit

To my shock and pleasure they broadened the ruling to protect all the militia appropriate firearms as well as the LCMs. And yes, this is a case on which i worked.

The Other McCain - Knife-Wielding Psycho-Tranny Is Former Arizona Democratic Party Official

Just a typical Democrat in 2026:

Wombat-socho - Rule 5 Monday: Redhead in Denim

Son of Silvercon IV ended yesterday – great success! Here’s a redhead in overalls.

Beautiful Lie

Evanescence released their new album on Friday 5 June. I had been waiting for this album's release since I first heard the single that they released in April.

Evanescence is a Rock & Roll band fronted by singer/keyboardist Amy Lee. They had a lot of trouble when they released their first album in 2003, because the tiny minds running the music industry and radio stations refused to even listen to their music. "A chick and a piano" was not rock. Even though guys with pianos, e.g. Elton John, Freddie Mercury, etc., were staples of Rock & Roll.

The band consists of:

• Amy Lee – vocals and keyboards
• Troy McLawhorn – guitar
• Emma Anzai – bass
• Tim McCord – guitar
• Will Hunt – drums

This song is "Beautiful Lie" by Evanescence from their 2026 album Sanctuary.

International Summit on Radical Leftist Violence

From Andy Ngo at Ngo Comment: U.S. Hosts First Ever International Summit on Radical Leftist Violence

Before we dive in, here is the subtitle, and it is not surprising.

The summit has infuriated Democrats and their allies in the liberal media.

Color me shocked. Here is the thing, though. I don't care about your feelings.

The conference is in Washington, DC, and is hosted by the State Department, which probably has the liberals in even more of a fit.

Sec. Marco Rubio is the first U.S. Secretary of State to openly confront the growing scourge of radical left-wing violence and terrorism coming from the likes of Antifa and trantifa militants, and other far-left extremists.

That’s why the left and its media are in full meltdown over the summit in Washington. Acknowledging the threat undermines years of minimizing, excusing, or supporting the violence perpetuated by their side.

There is a video report from Newsmax, that is less than 7 minutes.

Portland Police to Citizens - You're On Your Own

Imagine that someone is trying to grab your 7-year-old child out of your arms, and police take 40 minutes to respond. Some parents in Portland do not have to imagine, because that is what happened.

Fox News has the details. Family stopped alleged child kidnapper as police say staffing shortage delayed response up to 40 minutes. So here is what happened:

Portland police say a staffing shortage contributed to a 30- to 40-minute response to an alleged attempted kidnapping of a 7-year-old tourist at a downtown waterfront park over the weekend, with newly released police data showing the city typically has about 59 patrol officers on the streets at any given time.

Police took 30 to 40 minutes to respond because of staffing issues.

Hughes said the bureau was operating with 41 patrol officers across Portland that night, along with 10 officers working overtime, a roughly 24% reduction from planned staffing. He said there are no reserve patrol officers who can be called in immediately when multiple major incidents unfold at once.

This is Colion Noir's video Portland Police Just Told Citizens They’re On Their Own

This is the statement made by the Portland Police Department:

We don't have the appropriate amount of police officers to handle the amount of demand for police services.

Translation: "Don't count on us to be there when you need us, because there are not enough cops to go around."

The attempted kidnapping was not the only example cited in the video. The video is only 6 minutes.

People Helping People

Wendy Laubach from Chicago Boyz brings a story about community. Bootstraps still work

After a disaster hit my community ten years ago, it became instantly clear whose instinct was to step up and whose to bemoan the failure of outside saviors to show up immediately and fix everything.

Not that an astounding number of outsiders didn’t show up; they did. They just weren’t the federal government, for the most part.

Click thru for an account of Americans helping each other, and a link to a similar story.

There Are Forces Working to Destroy Western Civilization

The Other McCain has a story about the forces arrayed to destroy western civilizaton. Communism, the Palestinian Death Cult and the Pro-Terrorism Red-Green Axis

The Soviet policy of fomenting rebellion. The Red-Green alliance of the radical Left and hard-line Islamists. More.

There is a reason why you rarely see me jumping into these arguments to denounce people by name. Sam Francis got purged from the Official Conservative Movement™ as a result of foreign-policy quarrels in the 1990s, and the only reason we are where we are now — i.e., with the populist grassroots energy of MAGA now the dominant force in Republican politics — is because some of us were wise enough to keep our powder dry, to be discreet in our communications, and to maintain our focus on truly important issues.

Click thru for more details. It is an interesting story. I'll leave you with this.

Just because the Soviet Union collapsed did not mean that Communism was no longer a threat.

Italian Bureaucrats Convicted Over Infrastructure Collapse

The Morandi Bridge, which was located in Genoa, Italy, collapsed in 2018, resulting in the deaths of 43 people. Former Italian motorway boss among 32 convicted over Genoa bridge tragedy

The former head of Italian motorway operator ‌Autostrade per l'Italia was sentenced to 12 years in prison on Thursday for his role in a disaster that killed 43 people when a bridge collapsed near the city of Genoa in 2018.

Giovanni Castellucci was among 32 people convicted over the collapse of the Morandi bridge which sent vehicles plunging onto warehouses and a riverbed beneath the flyover during a summer storm.

At least some of the convictions are under appeal.

There isn't a lot of info, but the two sides of the debate seem to be that the collapse was either caused by the initial design, or the lack of maintenance. From my point of view, both can be true at the same time.

Here is a post from the 357 Magnum Archive: Everything Needs Maintenance – The Morandi Bridge Collapse. That post includes a link to a video of the explosive demolition of the remaining bridge structure, in preparation for new construction, and some info on the design of the new bridge.

This post contains more information on the replacement bridge. 357 Magnum Archive: Genova San Giorgio Viaduct Replaces Collapsed Bridge In Genoa, Italy

Some infrastructure collapse is clearly the result of negligence. The Fern Hollow Bridge in Pittsburgh, which collapsed on 28 January 2022, had received numerous warnings in the form of reports, photos, etc. before it collapsed. The bureaucrats and politicians ignored all the warnings, because maintaining infrastructure isn't sexy. It doesn't lend itself to ceremonies, and news stories. But it does keep people safe, and allow modern life to continue.

Some infrastructure can collapse as the result of a fire, such as the I-85 Bridge Collapse in Atlanta, or other external cause.

Maintenance you can plan for. Random acts of the universe, you cannot.

I'm not sure if these convictions in Italy represent Justice, or just the desire of the public to hold someone accountable, even if they aren't really the right person. I would like to see an incentive to make maintaining this stuff more likely, or we will continue to see bridges collapse, and dams collapse, and more types of infrastructure failure.

I Blame Global Warming

It may be summer in the Northern Hemisphere, but it is winter in the Andes. Ski Portillo Closes Indefinitely Ahead of Massive Winter Storm - POWDER

How does over 13 feet of snow before the end of July sound? That’s how much Portillo said could arrive, according to “reliable forecasts.”

This is after they had to delay the openning of the season for lack of snow.

After the snow hits, the slopes will be closed for "safety reasons." (How do you spell AVALANCHE?)

Hat tip to William Teach at Pirate's Cove: Over-Heated World Alert: Chilean Ski Restort Closes Ahead Of Blizzard

https://www.thepiratescove.us/2026/07/17/over-heated-world-alert-chilean-ski-restort-closes-ahead-of-blizzard/

The image above was stolen, shamelessly, from Pirate's Cove.

Why Men Left the Dating Pool

I first saw this short video from SmugAlana: Why Don't Men Approach Anymore? Which made me laugh, which isn't bad for less than a minute. (A woman complaining about men not approaching her, and - unintentionally - explaining exactly why they don't.)

So when this 2nd video showed up, I thought I would at least listen to a bit of it...

I always thought describing dating as a market, missed the point somehow, even back in the day when a lot of the clubs were described as "meat markets." But people do make rational decisions about how they spend their time, and their money. And the Pursuit of Happiness is something that we seem to have baked into the system. In this case, Gen Z, and maybe Millennial men, are making rational decisions about that dating market.

I'm older than dirt, so this is mostly of interest because I do know a handful of Zoomers, mostly kids of friends. But it is part of the fallout of late-stage feminism, and Woke. And those forces seem to be destroying society in new, and unexpected ways.

This is Kait Willett's video Women Are Starting to See The Damage