A Quick Run Around the Web--January 24, 2016

• The video above is Epic How To's "How to Fight a Bear." Although presented in a humorous manner, it has some good information on surviving a bear attack.
• Some more humor: "Whatever happened to television’s most famous couples?"--Medium. Did Ross and Rachel survive the Apocalypse? You'll have to read the article to find out.
• I was little late getting to it this weekend, but here is the link to the latest Weekend Knowledge Dump from Active Response Training. There are a couple articles to which Mr. Ellifritz links that I want to mention in particular: an article by Grant Cunningham on tips for maintaining a pocket revolver; and an article on laser sights versus tritium sights on a handgun.
• "How To Choose, Buy, And Shoot A Shotgun"--Return of the Kings. A nice primer on shotguns, both for hunting and self-defense.
• "Winter Storm Jonas is OVER and now the clean-up begins: East Coast struggles to recover after 'storm of a generation' dumps as much as 40 inches of snow in some areas killing at least 29 people and turning New York City into a ghost town"--Daily Mail. "It was the second biggest blizzard since 1869 for the Big Apple where 26.8inches of snow was reported in Central Park and a record snowfall in Baltimore where residents got 29 inches of the white stuff. Glengary, West Virginia, topped the charts for the East Coast blizzard with an astonishing 40 inches of snowfall." And I thought snow was supposed to be a thing of the past.

• Related: "Tomb of the Unknowns still guarded by sentinels even during Winter Storm Jonas"--Daily Mail. Duty and honor.

• Related: "Tragedy as mother and her one-year-old son die of carbon monoxide poisoning in New Jersey after snow blocked car tailpipe"--Daily Mail. A simple mistake, but deadly. Something to keep in mind should you ever be stranded in the snow.

• Related: "Travel ban lifted in New York City"--Fox 5 News. From the story:

Gov. Cuomo had banned all travel in New York City because of the massive snowstorm that could dump 30" of snow on the city by the time it is over.

Cuomo announced a ban on roads in all of lower New York State.  Port Authority bridges and tunnels into New York City were also closed.  The travel ban started at 2:30 p.m. on Saturday.

The ban included Long Island highways.

The governor warned that if you are caught on the road during a ban you could face a large fine or arrest.

"We will arrest them if needed," Mayor Bill de Blasio said about any drivers still on the road during the ban.  On Sunday the NYPD said they did not have to arrest anyone but they did issue several summonses.

This was just for a snowstorm. I don't imagine that the authorities would act any differently if New York was facing some other disaster: make the peons shelter in place while the elites safely drive (or fly) away.

• "This Is What The Death Of A Nation Looks Like: Venezuela Prepares For 720% Hyperinflation"--Zero Hedge. "... the IMF, which until recently had predicted "only" 204% inflation for Venezuela, already higher than the 140% consensus, revised its numbers and now sees a mindblowing 750% hyperinflation in 2016: this means that the average price of products and services will increase over eight times over the span of the next 12 months." The fruits of socialism.
• "Don’t fear marriage and fatherhood, but beware those who are working to destroy your family."--Dalrock. He writes:

Men don’t just fear the responsibilities of marriage and fatherhood, they fear the way these institutions have been corrupted and assaulted by our laws, courts, Christian leaders and entertainment, and even attacked by Walsh himself. Marriage has been legally and socially replaced by a new family model.  While some men only fear taking on responsibility, wise men rightly are weary of the evil of this new form of family.  Under God’s family structure, marriage is for life and husbands are head of the household.  Under our new culture and legal structure, marriage lasts precisely as long as your wife says it will, and married fathers are either a punchline or a serious threat to the family and must be aggressively restrained.  It isn’t the responsibility that many men fear, but the contempt of society (including conservative Christians) that being a married father earns, and the loss of their family on a whim that best demonstrates this contempt.

• Open immigration is one of the surest signs of the decline and impending collapse of a nation or culture: e.g., Egyptians allowing the unfettered immigration of Canaanites (which resulted in the loss of Lower Egypt to the "Hyskos" and the end of the Old Kingdom); Rome allowing immigration of the Germanic tribes; Aztec dissidents throwing in with the Conquistadors. And now Western Civilization....

• "Gang of migrants arrested after 'sexually assaulting women and masturbating at historic German swimming baths'"--Daily Mail. Also defecating in the swimming pools. This is not something they would have done in their own countries, so why would they do this in Germany? Because they can.

• "Germans Ordered to Ban Alcohol and Not Dress Like Sluts By Muslim Group"--Anonymous Conservative. "... Muslims are baffled by the idea that a woman could wear a skirt, and men around her wouldn’t immediately rape her – the very idea is unimaginable." 

• "Mid-week news round-up of Muslim maniacs and Western wimps"--Carol Brown at The American Thinker. "I set about gathering reports on the Islamic advance across the West with the plan to write up one week’s worth of information.  However, at the mid-week point it became clear that the post would be much too long if I went the entire week.  So I stopped.  What you find below is a sample of overt and abject barbarism; stealth advance; and Western weakness, stupidity, and dhimmitude that unfolded in just under four days." Read the whole thing. (H/t Anonymous Conservative).

• "Council On American-Islamic Relations: Relax, Christians, You Worship Allah"--The Daily Caller. To Christians, Christ is deity; to Muslims, he was a minor prophet. See also, "Is Allah = Satan?"

• "Stand by for Collision"--Richard Fernandez. He writes:

When the problem was largely confined to Middle Eastern women it is easy to understand why it was ignored. Now that taharrush has come to Europe it is easier still.  Events are being covered up because it runs counter to the Narrative peddled by the Western left.  The Narrative is the source of their moral authority, the justification for their special graft.

What makes the pathological denial so catastrophic is that a vast, almost unstoppable torrent of refugees is already on the way to Germany, the fragments of collapsing Islamic countries.  Cologne is but a skirmish with the vanguard.  The main host is still on its way.

In belated mea culpa former senior adviser to president Obama Dennis Ross at last took his boss to task in an article titled: "How Obama Created a Mideast Vacuum". It's too late Dennis. What "too late" means was driven home years ago when one of the volunteer members of the Philippine Airlines cadaver recovery team described an accident which took the lives of 5 members of a university mountaineering club.  The party was trekking along a dry riverbed on the lower slope of an 8,000 foot volcano in Mindoro.  The weather was fine and the mountaineers were doomed.  Unknown to them a squall had dumped a slug of rain on the peak high above them.  The first warning they had of oncoming tons of water was a rumbling sound round the corner of the gorge.  Then the flood came and only those fast enough to clamber up the riverbanks survived.

In the same way the present calm in Europe can be deceiving. Even if its leaders were somehow to reconstitute its borders, a gigantic flood from that vacuum upstream of the old continent is already rushing with irresistible force upon it. The UNHCR says refugee numbers are expected to increase in 2016. Some estimates say as many as 10 million more are on the way.  From the beaches of North Africa to the overcrowded camps in Jordan and Lebanon; from every nook and cranny in MENA -- they are on the way.  One way or the other a terrible smash is now in train.

•  A lot of conservatives fear that the base don't place sufficient value on free markets. Free markets are great in theory--"all other things being equal"--but can face serious shortcomings in the real world where people lie, cheat, steal, and otherwise act unfairly. These can be controlled within a single nation-state, where rule of law evens the playing field. But on the international scale, there is no level playing field. As an example, "Corporate Espionage by China on 60 minutes"--Anonymous Conservative--about how China steals intellectual property and technology from companies that manufacture in China. Free markets are an ideal, something to be striven for; not an excuse to deliver ourselves into our enemies' hands.