This Week’s Show

Contents

• 03m16s Lunacy, Muslim-style
• 10m07s Imaginative warfare
• 15m12s Rumors of war
• 22m29s Trump and Musk
• 27m25s Valediction

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Transcript

01 — Intro.     And Radio Derb is on the air! Welcome, listeners and readers. This is your conclusively genial host John Derbyshire with the D-Day edition of Radio Derb. I know of course that most of you listen to the show on Saturday, which will be the 7th; but Friday is when I sit down to record it, so “D-Day edition” is valid.

Calendrical matters are at the front of my mind this week as Tuesday, June 3rd, was my birthday, my 80th birthday. I didn’t broadcast that fact in advance, so I was pleasantly astonished at the number of emails I got wishing me a happy birthday. How did people know? A moment’s reflection reminded me that my birth date is there for all to see on my personal website. It’s also on Twitter, if you go looking; and it’s on my Wikipedia page in between the descriptions of me as a hate-filled far-right homophobic racist misogynist full of hate.

Even after remembering all that, I was still surprised by the number of emails that came in: surprised, and stirred. I offer my sincere, heartfelt thanks to all who emailed, most especially to those of you who told me you’ve been following me ever since such-and-such, with some of the such-and-suches going all the way back into the 20th century. Thank you, thank you!

And yes, I had a very happy birthday. It was a lovely June day. I did some garden work and some undemanding household chores. For dinner my wife and kids took me to an excellent Italian restaurant in the village here and let me make a complete pig of myself. Life is good; all the better with a loving family and friends far and near. Thank you, again thank you!

I shall have more calendrical observations later. First, a glance at the week’s news. It’ll only be a brief one; I’m still in a holiday mood.

02 — Lunacy, Muslim-style.     Sunday last came another attack on Jews by an anti-Zionist lunatic. This was just eleven days after the murders of Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Milgrim by Elias Rodriguez in Washington, D.C.

Sunday’s attack happened in Boulder, Colorado. The attacker was a lone male, 45-year-old Mohamed Soliman, an Egyptian national. His target was a group of mainly-elderly local Jews conducting a weekly walk to remind us of the Israeli hostages taken by Hamas in the October 7th raid.

Mohamed Soliman is — please try to control your astonishment — an illegal alien. He came here on a tourist visa three years ago. After six months that visa expired; he applied for asylum. While waiting for a hearing, which could be years away, he applied for and got a work permit. That expired back in April, though, so he’s been here illegally since April. Nobody seems to know what kind of work he’s been doing, if any.

Soliman had been planning the attack for months. His initial idea was to just shoot the Jews, but he couldn’t get a gun permit because of his expired visa. He therefore went with Molotov cocktails after learning from YouTube how to make them. Fifteen of the Jews and one dog suffered burns. Twelve of the people were hospitalized, two in serious condition. I don’t know how the dog is doing.

Thursday afternoon Soliman was charged with 118 state criminal charges, including 28 counts of attempted murder. There will be federal hate-crime charges, too. His wife and five children, all here illegally, were arrested to be held for deportation, but a lefty district judge — a Biden appointee, of course — is blocking the deportation. There’ll be a hearing on the judge’s block June 13th.

From his nationality and name it’s fair to assume that Soliman’s particular style of lunacy is Moslem style. That at least makes his anti-Zionism a tad more comprehensible than Elias Rodriguez’s. Rodriguez was afflicted with woke lunacy, not Moslem lunacy, although the two seem to be inseparable nowadays.

Nasty as it undoubtedly was, this little incident did generate one memorable tweet.

News reports made much of the fact that the oldest of the Jews injured by Soliman, 88-year-old Barbara Steinmetz, is a Holocaust survivor. Strictly speaking, that’s not true. She was born in Hungary, which wasn’t systematically rounding up Jews for the camps until the Germans occupied the country in 1944. Her family had left well before that. They were on the run, though, and having a rough time until they got asylum in the Dominican Republic in 1941. However, I’ll give Ms Steinmetz a pass on “Holocaust survivor” on account of her age and those traumas of her infant years.

Well, a tweeter with the tag “Oilfield Rando” posted a tweet showing a news picture of Ms Steinmetz with a picture of Soliman alongside it. That latter picure was taken outside the courthouse where Soliman launched his attack. Above the door of the courthouse there is hanging a big rainbow-and-pastel Pride flag.

Ms Steinmetz, in her picture alongside, is wearing a jacket decorated with a big lapel button reading MY PEOPLE WERE REFUGEES TOO. That suggests open-borders sympathies. Nothing surprising there: Jewish Americans of her generation are almost invariably hostile to almost any kind of immigration restriction, for reasons suggested by that lapel button. When I’ve written about immigration myself — which I have, a lot — some of the angriest responses have come from Jews.

Well, “Oilfield Rando” picked up those details in the two pictures and ran with them, or rather tweeted with them. Tweet:

I had my doubts. I really did.

Then a turd world immigrant hate-crimed an open borders activist in a gun free zone in front of a courthouse flying a DEI-Pride flag, and at that moment I was 100 percent positive we’re in a simulation.

End tweet.

03 — Imaginative warfare.     There was another attack last Sunday: a military one, in the war between the world’s two most corrupt white nations. Ukraine pulled off a very imaginative operation, using drones to damage or destroy Russian aircraft parked at their bases.

Very imaginative. Apparently, unsuspecting Russian truckers were hired by undercover Ukrainians in Russia to deliver modular houses. Then, when the truckers got near to airbases, the lids of their cargo loads opened automatically, drones flew out and attacked parked planes.

This method of attack allowed the drones to penetrate deep into Russia. One of the bases attacked, the Ukrainka airbase, is way out east in Upper Manchuria on the Chinese border, four thousand miles from Ukraine.

A lot of planes were destroyed in the operation, including at least five TU-95 strategic bombers, the U.S.S.R’s answer to our own B-52. We don’t know the full tally yet, but it’s plain from satellite imagery that Russia lost a lot of planes.

Of course you don’t stomp on the bear’s tail and get away unhurt. Sure enough, the Russians have been pounding Ukraine. In the five hours from midnight Thursday to 5 a.m. Friday they launched 407 drones and decoys, nearly 40 cruise missiles and six ballistic missiles from land, air and sea at towns and cities across the breadth of the nation, the Ukrainian Air Force reports.

Kiev, Ukraine’s capital, was a main target. The New York Times report tells us of attack drones swooping in, quote: “their ominous buzz trailing over neighborhoods,” end quote.

I don’t want to sound heartless — Heaven forbid! — but this isn’t exactly the London Blitz. As the Times went to press Friday morning only four people were known to have been killed in Kiev and 22 injured. That’s like a bad night in the South Bronx. Although to be perfectly fair, Ukraine only publishes civilian casualties, we don’t know the tally for military targets.

Our President seems not to want to get involved, for which I give thanks. He’s compared the combatants to two boys in a schoolyard fight, who need to work out their differences before the fighting could end.

I just wish he’d say out loud what I myself believe: that the territorial squabbles of the Eastern Slavs are no business of America’s. Let ’em go at it. It’s Europe’s business, and the Euros need to get their act together. It’s nothing to do with us, though — or wouldn’t be, if we’d had the good sense to pull out of NATO thirty years ago.

I’m sure you’ve heard this quip, or some variation on it, quip: “Why are 500 million Europeans calling on 300 million Americans to protect them against 140 million Russians?” End quip.

It’s a good question. If, after defeating Ukraine — which they will surely do — the Russians roll West and occupy all of Europe, what would have been lost? Europe under Russian imperial rule would be better off than Europe taken over by Islam, which is the most probable alternative.

04 — Rumors of war.     Here again is that little passage from the New York Times report about attack drones swooping in, quote: “their ominous buzz trailing over neighborhoods,” end quote.

That really snagged my attention. It’s creepy. Drones are creepy altogether. They are a key component of modern warfare, though.

It is of course a cliché that generals always want to re-fight the previous war. With the advances in tech this past couple of decades, the difference between this war and any previous one is big indeed. Do the world’s generals understand that?

We don’t even really know how big that difference is. For example: What part will AI play in the next and future wars? I have no idea, but I am certain there are teams of very smart people in Russia, China, India, and I hope the U.S.A. cooking up plans.

And then, robots. Some of us have been consoling ourselves that no big old-style wars will be fought because, with the worldwide demographic implosion, there aren’t enough young men to fight them. The fact that both Russia and Ukraine have had declining fertility for decades casts doubt on that theory; but anyway robots might take up the slack.

Sorry, but that’s got me recalling once again that Philip K.Dick Cold War short story The Defenders. The Cold War goes hot; the entire populations of the U.S.A. and U.S.S.R. retreat to huge bunkers deep underground. They leave the fighting to robots up on the surface, monitoring the war via video that the robots send down to them. Then one day the humans send a team up to the surface to check. The Earth is a lovely, peaceful park; the robots quit fighting long ago. They’ve been having fun staging war scenes to film and send to the humans down below.

Hey, it’s possible. However it plays out, I feel sure that day when the human race ain’t going to study war no more is a long way off.

The more attention I pay to the news, the more I think that even a superpower war is very possible. I hate the thought — not on my own account: now in my eighties, what do I care? — but for my kids and my grandson. Uncle Sam spent four years and a lot of dollars training my son to be a warrior. Presumably my boy is on some kind of reserve list, liable for call-up. If that happens, I shall zip-tie him and smuggle him down to Uruguay in a boat.

People who make a living trying to figure out what the rulers of China have in mind seem to be in consensus that 2027 is the year Taiwan will be returned back to the warm bosom of the Motherland. That’ll be Year Three of the current Trump Presidency. Will Trump show the same restraint he is showing towards Russia today? Oh Lord, I hope so.

And then, nukes. They’re all over. Even some crazy nations are nuked up, nations you wouldn’t want to trust with your lawn mower: North Korea, Pakistan.

Iran? Last week I mentioned Iran’s nuclear weapons. Quote from me:

They don’t actually have any. At least, that’s what we’re told, and we can only hope the intelligence is good. Iran’s been working on nuke development for at least twenty years, and it’s not that difficult.

End quote.

Here’s something fortifying my skepticism: a report that came out last week from the International Atomic Energy Agency, the IAEA. Sample quote from today’s New York Post, quote:

The IAEA last week released a long-awaited comprehensive report on Iran’s violations of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

The report details Tehran’s failure to comply with a nearly eight-year IAEA investigation into the regime’s illicit nuclear-weapons work. It also shows an elaborate Iranian coverup that continues today.

End quote.

So yes: I’m betting, now with more confidence than before, that the Mullahs are nuked up, or could be at a day or two’s notice. They jeer at Israel, calling it “a one-bomb country.” The Israelis are ready for them with the Samson Option: “If we are nuked,” they say, “we’ll nuke back without mercy.”

I was born midway between V-E Day and V-J Day. I’ve lived a long life without ever experiencing war. As human history goes, that’s pretty unusual. I pray the peace will continue.

05 — Trump and Musk.     Sorry, that was pretty depressing. Realistic, I like to think, but definitely depressing. Don’t you hate reality?

For light relief, in today’s news we have Elon Musk breaking up noisily with Donald Trump. Is anyone really surprised? I sure ain’t. Quote from myself, Radio Derb last November 22nd, quote:

Some commentators have expressed doubts that the Musk-Trump bromance can endure for four years. I share those doubts. History doesn’t offer many examples of two strong-willed, energetic men sharing power amicably at a high level. “There can only be one Sun in the sky …” But we shall see.

End quote; and … we’ve seen.

If you have read Walter Isaacson’s biography of Musk you’ll know that Musk is a very volatile person. He’s a great man who’s accomplished amazing things, I won’t dispute that. He is also, though, an Aspergery nerd, deeply unskilled at relationships with his fellow human beings.

Those relationships aren’t just clumsy, they’re repetitively clumsy. Musk’s armory of insults is way too small. Example: the charge he made on Thursday that Trump is named in the so-far-unreleased papers on pedophile financier the late Jeffrey Epstein.

Readers of the aforementioned biography will recall the fuss back in 2018 when Musk referred to Vernon Unsworth, in a tweet he later deleted, as, quote, “pedo guy,” end quote.

If you don’t know the story, this all started when twelve schoolboys in Thailand, ages 11 to 16, got themselves trapped in a cave system in the mountains of that country. Heavy rainfall flooded the cave complex so the boys couldn’t get out.

The story went worldwide. Elon Musk heard it and had his engineers build a mini-submarine that he said was small enough to pass through the flooded cave system and get the boys out. He shipped the sub to Thailand and followed himself.

The Thai authorities decided not to use it, though. A British expert on cave exploring, name of Vernon Unsworth, lived in Thailand and knew this particular cave complex. He helped organize parties of divers from the American, British, and Thai navies to rescue the boys, which they at last did.

Unsworth scoffed at Musk’s mini-sub. He called it a, quote, “PR stunt,” end quote, which, quote, “had absolutely no chance of working,” end quote. Musk, Unsworth further said, could, quote, “stick his submarine where it hurts,” end quote. That was in a CNN interview.

Musk was not pleased. He tweeted out insults, calling Unsworth “pedo guy.” Unsworth sued him for that, but the federal jury in Los Angeles said he hadn’t proved his case so Musk walked free.

Perhaps President Trump and Vernon Unsworth should compare notes …

06 — Valediction.     That’s all the news I’m going to cover this week, ladies and gents. I shall now proceed straight to signoff, and this week’s signoff is somewhat out of the ordinary.

I have already mentioned — and please forgive me mentioning it again — that Tuesday this week, June 3rd, was my 80th birthday. As it happens, that wasn’t the only memorable milestone for me this week. Today’s Radio Derb — the one you are listening to or reading — is Number One Thousand. It’s my one thousandth podcast since the show began in May 2004. I think Radio Derb may be the oldest continuous dissident-right podcast on the internet.

I can hear arithmetically-inclined listeners muttering: “Wait a minute, Derb. May 2004? That was 21 years ago, plus a few days. There go 52 weeks to the year; this is a weekly podcast; and 21 times 52 is 1,092. How can this be only issue number one thousand? Where did the other 92 go?”

Answer: We took a while to settle down into a regular weekly podcast; and even when we had, I sometimes missed a week. In all those years there were only two years with 52 podcasts, four years with 51, and six with 50. All the rest had fewer than 50.

The total, first to last, is one thousand — trust me. Or if you don’t trust me, go to my personal website johnderbyshire.com, select “Opinions” from the navigation box, then “Radio Derb.” They’re all listed there, with transcripts. You can count ’em for yourself.

The audio is there, too, so you can listen to them all if you want to. It’s only fair to warn you, though, that while I don’t yet know precise minutes and seconds on today’s podcast, the previous 999 add up to 38,541 minutes and 41 seconds; or, if you prefer, 642 hours, 21 minutes, and 41 seconds. If you were to listen for 8 hours per day, that would keep you busy for 80 days, 2 hours, 21 minutes, and 41 seconds.

So: 80th birthday, podcast number one thousand. You’d think that two milestones in one week would be enough of a coincidence, but there’s a wee bit even more.

If you were following me back in 2007 you’ll recall from my monthly Diary in April that year that I have a harmless eccentricity: I count my days, from the day of my birth as day number one. Well, Tuesday this week — my 80th birthday — was day number 29,221; and that, ladies and gentlemen, is [drum roll] a prime number !

That’s not a sensational coincidence, but it’s against the odds. As numbers get bigger and bigger, the primes thin out. In the neighborhood of a decently big number N the frequency of primes is roughly one in log(N), where that’s the natural logarithm of course. The natural logarithm of one million is approximately 13.8, so in the neighborhood of one million, only slightly more than one number in fourteen is a prime number.

The natural logarithm of 29,221, my birthday day number last Tuesday, is 10.28264 and change; so in that neighborhood, slightly fewer than one number in ten is prime. Sure enough, 29,221 is preceded by eleven non-primes and followed by nine more.

The day number of my birthday being prime isn’t a miracle; but, as I said, it’s against the odds.

So: podcast number one thousand this week, birthday number eighty this week, day number of the latter a prime against the odds. Pondering these coincidences, I have concluded that the universe is trying to tell me something. What it’s trying to tell me is, it’s time to hang up my mike and my keyboard.

To be perfectly open about it, the numerical coincidences only served as prompts. I’ve been feeling for a while that I spend way too much time at my computer when there are other things I should be attending to. I have a hundred-year-old house I need to keep from falling down. I have a nearly forty-year-old marriage that needs time and attention, as all marriages do. I have a son and a daughter nearby to worry about, and a three-year-old grandson to fuss over, and a dog to walk.

There are friendships to keep up, church responsibilities to fulfil, books to read, jigsaw puzzles and crossword puzzles to do, shooting skills and my cribbage game to keep honed. I’m blessed with good health; but inevitably, entering my eighties, I tire more easily than I used to, and get less accomplished per hour of waking life.

So this edition of Radio Derb is the last.

I won’t be giving up opinionating altogether. I’m a chronic writer by nature, cacoëthes scribendi. I shall keep up my monthly column in Chronicles magazine for as long as they want me to, and I’ll do occasional book reviews for them and for any other of the dwindling number of outlets that still publish book reviews for the dwindling number of people who still read books. I may try to take full advantage of social media, which up to now I never have … although, as I said, I’m aiming to spend a lot less time at the computer.

This valediction, like the famous poetic one, forbids mourning. In these 21 years of podcasting I’ve engaged with a mighty host of listeners and readers. I’ve learned a lot from them that’s improved my understanding, and I flatter myself that they may have learned something from me. Like that poet and his sweetheart — I think it was actually his wife — whose love keeps them spiritually united even when physically far apart, those mutual improvements in understanding will keep me and my followers bonded together at some level above the everyday transactional.

My heartfelt thanks to all those who’ve engaged with me by following Radio Derb, the thanks doubled to those who’ve emailed in with wit and/or wisdom, tripled to followers who’ve blessed me with donations and gifts. And I must add my gratitude once again to the surprising number of listeners and readers who have emailed in since Tuesday to wish me a happy birthday. It was a happy birthday, made even happier by your kind thoughts. God bless you all!

There will be no more from Radio Derb next week, nor in any following week.