A Quick Run Around the Web--January 28, 2016

• The above video is a product review by Skallagrim entitled "Plastic knuckle dusters - legal in Canada!" The manufacturer/seller is Defiant Craft.
• This is interesting: "M-LOK Outselling KeyMod about 3 to 1"--The Firearms Blog. I agonized over the decision between M-LOK or KeyMod, and finally decided on M-LOK for a few reasons, the most significant being that it is the standard developed and supported by Magpul. Whether or not you use Magpul products, it has a very large share of the market for AR accessories and, thereby, a proportionate influence on the market. I suspect the end result of the competition between the systems is that KeyMod will probably gain (keep?) a certain cachet in the high end accessory market simply because of its origins, while M-LOK will be more mainstream. My concern, though, wasn't whether my firearm was sufficiently "cool," but to obtain a system that will be supported over the long term.
• "5 Tips to Get Your Body in Shape for Self-Defense"--PJ Media. The author writes that "[f]or self-defense, you must focus on four areas: endurance, power, speed, and flexibility." He also gives a brief description of his weekly workout.
• "The 50 most violent cities in the world are revealed, with 21 of them in Brazil... but Venezuela's capital Caracas is named the most deadly"--Daily Mail. The article's author tries to "redeem" himself by pointing out that it is not just Latin American cities listed, but that the U.S. cities St. Louis, Baltimore, Detroit and New Orleans are also named. (Cities from Jamaica and South Africa also make the list). The results were compiled using homicide statistics (number of murders per 100,000), with the author specifying that it does not include war zones.
• "You’re Either A Globalist Or A Nationalist"--Roosh V. The author observes:

It’s very possible to put a conservative and liberal in the room but have them completely agree on multiculturalism, immigration, democracy, and transgenderism, though disagree on more hot-button topics like abortion and gun rights. They can agree at least half of the time because they both share a primarily globalist belief system, even when they may see each other as enemies. On the other hand, if you get a globalist and nationalist in the same room, they will disagree on more than 80% of issues, even including the basics such as the proper system of government.

While mainstream liberals tend to lean globalist, and mainstream conservatives tend to lean nationalist, the dividing line between them is becoming more narrow as nationalist views are prevented from being properly discussed in the public sphere. Soon, it will be impossible to tell liberals and “conservatives” apart. The only true dividing line left is globalism versus nationalism, especially since nationalism has not yet been co-opted by the elite, and is seen by them as the only real threat that could sever their heads.

• Related: "Danish teen fought off her attacker - now she'll face fine"--The Local. "A 17-year-old girl who was physically and sexually attacked in Sønderborg [Denmark] will herself face charges for using pepper spray to fend off her assailant." The description of the attacker seems to suggest someone of Middle-Eastern or African ancestry. It seems that this would have been a case where the proper prosecutorial discretion would have been to not bring charges rather than use this girl as an "example" to all the other peons. 
• Related: If you haven't read it yet, please review Daniel Greenfield's "The Two Empires We Must Defeat," which describes the two faces of modern globalism.

• "African Bishops Against Sexual Liberation"--The American Interest. The article is largely an attempt to explain the coming schism among the Anglican faith, but, in doing so, illustrates why Victorian moral values are so important for raising people out of poverty (and, thereby, also explaining why socialists have a visceral dislike for such morals). The key part from the article:

As the Union Jack was ceremonially lowered and the flags of newly independent African nations fluttered in the breeze, the leaders of the resistance movements took over.... But the new African elites who celebrated the end of the Victorian Raj had been successfully indoctrinated with Victorian morals—and those turned out to be very functional to poor people trying to get out of poverty (if you will, the Max Weber effect), even if the elite (like elites everywhere) only paid lip service to moral principles while enjoying the hedonism supported by the privileges of power. But Anglican bishops are not part of the elites in Africa: When they uphold good Protestant values, in the best Evangelical tradition, this is no mere lip service—they really mean it! And so the Archbishop of Uganda may by 2019 excommunicate the Archbishop of Canterbury!

One way of looking at what is happening here is as an international extension of the American culture war. America is at the heart of the Anglican crisis. It is the Episcopal Church of the U.S. that is specially sanctioned by the angry African bishops; even the Canadians have thus far avoided sanctions (they have only allowed some local variations on same-sex marriage while the Americans have formulated a policy for everyone). The Church of England has offended the Africans by allowing women into the clerical hierarchy ....

The wider African cultural change is very relevant. Traditional African culture was certainly not ascetic, if anything hedonistic, but with men getting most of the fun. As long as this culture was polygamous, it put women into an inferior status, but even so it provided a certain order for them and the children. Modernization broke down this order, as it was based on kinship and tribe. This was enhanced by men employed in migrant labor in the cities, their families left behind in the villages for long periods of time–lives of these women certainly not enhanced by sexual liberation. Instead they wished, not for the old polygamous order (many of their men were already in serial polygamy), but precisely for the bourgeois family propagated by the good old Protestant ethic. Women play an important role in African Protestant churches in the cities, and they often succeed in “domesticating” their men. Using a lot of historical sources, Brigitte Berger has shown how what she calls the “conjugal nuclear family” (husband and wife living with their children in a household separate from wider kin) played an important causal role in European modernization (The Family in the Modern Age, 2002).  She also argued that the same arrangement has a modernizing effect in developing societies today, particularly in Africa. This is the real liberation for women and children in the slums of what used to be called the “Third World”, and the ensuing domesticity can be attractive for men as well in the midst of rapid and tumultuous social change, where all the traditional sources of stability–village community, tribe and extended kin–have weakened or disappeared. The British sociologist David Martin has shown in a series of studies how the Protestant congregation, especially in its rapidly growing Pentecostal version, fills this gap.

• "We have gone back to the Middle Ages and face religious war with the fascists of radical Islam"--The Telegraph. Speaking of globalists: "Isil provides a unique challenge to world leaders. Their new Islamic ideology appeals to the masses. This ideology crosses borders and, sadly, the Westphalian arrangements where countries do not interfere with the internal affairs of other countries has been rendered obsolete." (Underline added). The author believes that the solution to the problem of violence by Islamic migrants is to clearly identify "radical Islam" versus "moderate Islam." The flaw with his solution is that all Islam is "radical" when placed in proximity with a Western secular culture, as in Europe. 
• "WHO leader: Zika virus 'spreading explosively'"--CNN. My translation: "give us more money."
• "After Abbas: The coming Palestinian bloodbath"--The New York Post. A prediction that upon President Abbas' death, the Palestinian Authority will collapse into civil war. 
• "A predictable outcome"--Vox Popoli. Vox Day comments on the Oregon standoff, writing:

... I have no idea what these people were thinking they were going to accomplish by occupying a wildlife refuge center, but I can testify, from my father's experience, that no one is going to "wake up" and no one is going to be inspired to do anything as a result of it. They're just going to be vilified, jailed, and forgotten.

It's like a tragic parody. And notice that the moment the government took action, they tried to surrender. Never play or posture at violence. And never threaten violence unless you are fully prepared for your enemy to resort to it.

• Last, but not least, this week's Woodpile Report. Remus begins this week's edition by commenting on the history of import bans on firearms, and then states: "Don't be surprised if a ban on imported AR and AK style guns gets industry assistance, or their acquiescence at minimum. Very quietly, of course. I'd gladly be proven wrong about this, but their support for the Second Amendment has been highly selective over the years. The contemptible 'sporting purposes' standard comes from them. The full exercise of our right to keep and bear arms has fewer friends than you imagine." Similarly, firearms dealers, or at least a significant portion, will quietly support any move to require all sales to be completed via a firearms dealer.