March 13, 2018 -- A Quick Run Around the Web

"Electroquake | From Crazy Idea to Settled Science"--Suspicious Observers (7 min.). Even 5 years ago, the idea that there were electromagnetic effects related to earthquakes was "fringe science." Now there have been numerous scientific papers on the subject, and China/Italy have collaborated on a satellite to monitor such effects. 

• Check out Security & Self-Reliance's PDF of the week for this week, which is on using herbs for first aid. As always, go to the S&S homepage and look up at the top left corner.
• Chicken Little alert: "Massive solar storm that will slam Earth TOMORROW could knockout power supplies, damage satellites and trigger stunning auroras"--Daily Mail. There is a CME headed our way, but it is only rated a G1. Things don't get really serious until we have X-class. In any event, it may elevate chances of earthquakes or volcanic eruptions, or health risks for heart attacks or migraines, but it is not the Carrington Event.
• A new Woodpile Report is available.
• "High-Tech Police Cruisers and Why Departments Are Choosing Them"--Tactical Life. The article primarily looks at The Ford Interceptor police line of vehicles which come in an SUV and sedan versions. The SUV is an upgraded Ford Explorer, while the sedan is based on the Ford Taurus. Ford's big selling point is that its has placed NIJ Level IV-rated ballistic panels in the Interceptor doors. I don't know what they have done to the engines on the SUV version, but the Taurus versions use the V-8 engine from the Mustang line of vehicles. I've noticed that most of the newer police vehicles being purchased by the local departments in my area are from the Ford Interceptor line.
• "Ricochet"--The Firearms Blog. This is a primer on the dangers of ricochet in self-defense situations. For instance:

        In a typical movie or a video game people hide behind building corners, cars, or other obstacles and they try to be as close as possible to it, just peeking out of it with one eye. That’s where the danger lies. Any shot made by the attacker hitting the wall in front of them (which is much easier to do comparing to hitting a partially hidden silhouette behind a cover) will ricochet into their face.

        The solution is simple – stand as far from the cover as you can without compromising your visibility and protection. It will give a greater chance for a ricocheted bullet to fly by without hitting you.

• "UNCOVERED: THE MYTH OF COVER FROM YOUR SQUAD CAR" (PDF) -- Combat Shooting and Tactics. While the prior article seemed to mostly concentrate on ricochet from walls or steel targets, this one looks at the dangers of bullets skipping off a car hood or windshield. The author writes of their testing: "I suggest not crowding cover and allowing the take off angle of the bullet to work in your favor. We found that three good steps to the rear gave enough angle to protect you in the kneeling position."
• "Ricochet Analysis Introduction"--Bev Fitchett's Guns Magazine. This article is more technical, discussing the mathematics and physics involved. However, again, the angle of ricochet was generally much less than the angle of incidence, particularly with lower velocity and soft bullets. 
• "Our Guide To Help Develop Proper Rifle Trigger Technique"--Shooting Sports USA. After discussing some of the mechanical and physiologic elements, the author discusses the mental aspects of shooting:

          Even today’s fastest computers would overload if they had to handle the amount of information our brains receive. Yet psychologists tell us the brain can really only consciously process a small stream of information.

         The human nervous system has developed to deal with this constant flow of information, handling the vast majority of it with the autonomic nervous system. You breathe normally without thinking about it, even while you sleep. Digestion, circulation and many other body processes are controlled in the same manner. Through training, the body and mind adapt to the point that it can handle the demands of shooting at the unconscious level.

         The second strategy is focusing on the most important information at the right time. In the final stages of the shot, the shooter should be concentrating on the ring of light between the aiming mark and the front-sight ring. After sufficient training, when that ring of white is right, the shot seems to fire itself. It takes regular and systematic training to develop and refine the distinctions between what is and is not important. The beginner will not recognize the small errors that a more advanced shooter would not accept.

        Another method to help in the data-flow problem is to deal with it sequentially. These three strategies form the basis for the shot plan. This process of firing the shot is a work schedule, in which all the necessary information gets checked off in order. As long as everything is right, each step follows until the shot is fired.

        To deal with the information flow, develop a shot plan. Next time you’re at the range, make a list of all the thoughts and observations that come into your head while you are shooting. Try to list every single item.

        Categorize these thoughts. Underline those directly related to the control of your performance: sight picture, muscle tension, grip, and so forth. Draw a box around thoughts that concern the outcome. Everything left over has nothing to do with shooting and just clogs the pathway. These are the “bad” thoughts.

        Evaluate the categories starting with the first group. Think about what is absolutely necessary, and how much time and effort should be devoted to each thought. Arrange them to make a script for a single shot. This is the starting point for your shot plan. The thoughts in the boxes are next divided into groups: those that are positive or motivating in nature, and those thoughts indicating fear, anger, doubt or other negatives. These thoughts are the reason the trigger sometimes feels so heavy.

        The next step is to censor your thoughts, allowing only those that are positive, motivating and constructive. Whenever you catch yourself having negative thoughts, interrupt them immediately. Some shooters visualize a big “STOP” sign to terminate the unwanted thoughts and replace them with something positive.

        Organize your positive performance thoughts systematically by developing and refining your shot plan or program until it becomes automatic.

• "The course of American empire"--Spectator USA. The Course of Empire (1833-36) is a series of 5 paintings by the famous painter, Thomas Cole. If you have read my blog for long enough, you will have seen images of these paintings, and they often show up on other news sites and blogs when discussing the future of civilization (or at least the American iteration of it). The five painting show, in turn, the progression from an idealized primitive life to settled village to city to destruction of empire and back to life among the ruins. This article discusses the paintings, offering some insights into some of the subtleties of Cole's work, and also offers some commentary on our day and age.
• "China’s parliament abolishes presidential term limits"--Breitbart.  Why even bother with the charade--just refer to President Xi Jinping as Emperor. 
• "Tillerson: China’s ‘Predatory Loan Practices and Corrupt Deals’ Threaten Africa"--Breitbart. "Why China's footprint in Africa worries the US"--CNN. Africans constantly bemoan European colonialism, even as they ignore the stability, peace, and relative prosperity it brought. But they, by and large, threw away the infrastructure that the Europeans left them, and now have gone begging to the Chinese to build new infrastructure. I hope they like their new colonial masters--I'm sure the new masters won't be as nice as the old ones.
• "Geek Squad Has Been Turning Customer Data Over To The FBI For More Than A Decade"--Huffington Post. From the article:

         Geek Squad employees have been working as FBI informants for more than a decade, newly released documents show, revealing a much closer relationship between the two organizations than formerly reported.

        While we’d previously known some of the Best Buy workers alerted law enforcement whenever they found illegal material like child pornography on customers’ hard drives, the new documents show that the FBI met with the Geek Squad team at least as early as 2008 and apparently viewed some workers as paid informants.

I'm sure it started because employees were snooping around on computers for financial information, incriminating emails or photographs they could use for blackmail, or for run-of-the-mill "dirty pictures." 

• This is the culture that is coming across the border: "MX dominates list of top-10 violent cities"--Mexico News Daily. 

• Related: "Cancun has a major murder problem"--New York Post.  And, according to the article, local officials are trying to cover it up so it doesn't frighten away the tourists.

• Related: "Jalisco: Truck abandoned with 8 dismembered bodies"--Borderland Beat. 

• Related: "Growing violence hits once peaceful BCS"--Mexican News Daily. The article reports that "[b]est known to the rest of the world as home to the Los Cabos beach resorts, Baja California Sur has experienced a surge in violence in the last year. As a February report from Justice in Mexico details, the number of murders in the state leapt to 560 in 2017, a nearly 300% increase over the 192 registered the prior year." The murder rate stands at 78.6 per 100,000. Good thing they have strict gun control so none of this violence happens.

• Related: "Viagra leader's "capture" causes unleashed violence in Michoacan...he then escapes"--Borderland Beat. According to the article,  authorities had captured Gabino Sierra Santana, the alleged leader of the criminal cartel of Los Viagras in Michoacán. However, "[a]fter [a] violent day of highway blockades and burning of vehicles in at least five municipalities in the Tierra Caliente, Lacustre and Meseta Purépecha region," Santana escaped. This is what WROL looks like. 

• Alexa morphed so slowly into Chucky that I hardly noticed: "Amazon has a fix for Alexa’s creepy laughs"--The Verge. The article relates:

As noted in media reports and a trending Twitter moment, Alexa seemed to start laughing without being prompted to wake. People on Twitter and Reddit reported that they thought it was an actual person laughing near them, which is certainly scary if you’re home alone. Many responded to the cackling sounds by unplugging their Alexa-enabled devices.

• "Police and MI5 WILL look at 14 deaths in Britain US intelligence think are linked to Russian activity, Amber Rudd reveals"--Daily Mail. Authorities don't know whether the deaths are the result of action by the Russian government or Russian mafia. 
• And more cultural enrichment news from England:"The BBC’s shameful silence on the Telford sex scandal"--The Spectator. The author writes:

         Last month, I wrote here about the BBC and ‘grooming gangs’. In particular, I speculated that it was unlikely that having once (after more than a decade) dramatized the mass gang-rape of British girls (and a man from Wales having partly been fired-up by it then ploughing a van into a crowd outside a mosque) that the BBC might not venture into such territory again. As I said, ‘nobody should be surprised if the BBC reverts to ignoring crimes like Rochdale in the future.’

          As so often the situation is worse than I imagined. ...

         The front page of yesterday’s Sunday Mirror read ‘Britain’s ‘worst ever’ child grooming scandal exposed: Hundreds of young girls raped, beaten, sold for sex and some even KILLED.’ Like the scandals in Rotherham, Rochdale, Oxfordshire and a growing list of other places, it seems that the victims are, once again, white British girls and the perpetrators men of ‘Asian’ background. Of course while in most other situations the word ‘Asian’ means ‘Asian’, for these purposes ‘Asian’ means ‘men of Muslim background, mainly Pakistani’.

         The details of the Sunday Mirror’s investigation once again make for exceptionally difficult reading. The paper describes how girls as young as 11 were drugged, beaten and gang-raped in Telford. It describes how:

        ‘One 14-year-old, groomed and abused after her phone number was sold to paedophiles, said: “I hated what was happening and my abusers made my skin crawl but I was told that if I said a word to anyone they’d come for my little sisters and tell my mum I was a prostitute. 

        “Night after night, I was forced to have sex with multiple men in disgusting takeaways and filthy houses. 

         “I must have been getting the morning after pill from a local clinic at least twice a week but no one asked any questions. 

        “I fell pregnant twice and had two abortions. Hours after my second termination, I was taken by one of my abusers to be raped by more men. 

        “The worst moment came just after my 16th birthday when 

        I was drugged and gang raped by five men. 

        “Days later, the ringleader turned up at my house and told me he’d burn it down if I breathed a word of what had happened.”

        We once again learn how, over the course of four decades, every arm of the state –  including council staff, social workers and the police – allowed the mass gang-rape of children to go on in their town. And we learn – once again – how fear of accusations of ‘racism’ meant that the identities of the culprits were hidden and cases were not investigated. 

        When the story broke yesterday it was covered across a range of other papers, including in all of the Mirror’s competitors. But the story clearly sent the BBC into a panic. As Ed West pointed out on Twitter, this morning the story was not even on the front page of the BBC’s website.... 

        Except that the story was not on the ‘England’ page either. 

         In fact, the mass gang-rape of underage girls in Shropshire didn’t even make it to the homepage of BBC Shropshire. Only after a fair amount of comment about this online did the BBC manage, this afternoon, to squeeze the rape of the area’s kids into their round-up of Shropshire news.

          So now, finally, there is a headline story about the case. ...

         That ‘My Telford’ could have been a really interesting and important video. Or it would have been if every single arm of the state plus the official state broadcaster hadn’t already decided that the children of Telford being gang-raped on an industrial scale (Telford is a town of just 170,000 people) is one big yawn-fest. Or that they basically agree with the very basic Labour MP Naz Shah who last year revealed her own opinions about all this when she re-Tweeted a (satirical) Tweet suggesting that the victims of the Rotherham sex abuse scandal should ‘shut their mouths. For the good of #diversity.’

          For it is now not just abundantly but repeatedly clear that most people in positions of authority in this country never did want stories like Telford, Rochdale or Rotherham to come out. Not just because they want to continue being allowed to negotiate between the facts and the public, rather than just reporting the facts to the public. But because such stories spoil – perhaps more than any other – the pleasant, transient, but for the time-being dominant narrative which a whole generation of people in authority have come to believe in, or at least preach. Don’t forget that, as the case of the MP Sarah Champion showed last year, you can still lose your job in this country if you say this is going on.

         It is easier to keep trying to cover it all over. And that is why there is now such a concerted effort online and in the non-online world to shut down, bar, silence, ban, deport and downgrade not the people who cover for these crimes but rather anyone who speaks out about them, highlights them, campaigns against them or does anything else other than join in the general silence. ‘For the good of diversity’.

As the saying goes, to learn who rules over you, simply find out who you are not allowed to criticize.

• Related: "Banned in Britain"--American Greatness. The article discusses the arrest and detention at Heathrow Airport of Brittany Pettibone and her partner Martin Sellner for the crime of wanting to speak the truth about immigration "at the famed 'Speaker’s Corner,' a little part of Hyde Park that Parliament had set aside to permit unlimited free speech all the way back in 1872." The article also reports that British authorities detained and banned the Canadian conservative activist Lauren Southern from the country on Sunday. Paul Joseph Watson has a video on this topic here; and here is one from Black Pigeon Speaks.

• You don't have enough ammunition for what is coming; and I'm not even sure that the military does either: "A Tidal Wave of Refugees Is Coming"--David P. Goldman at PJ Media. By 2095, it is estimated that there will be nearly 4 billion people between the ages of 20 and 30, worldwide; 3 billion of these will be from Africa. And as Goldman explains, they will be traveling by boats and planes across the Mediterranean into Europe; or across the Atlantic to Brazil and, from there, head north to the United States. Goldman explains:

        The problems of sub-Saharan Africa (as well as Pakistan and other troubled countries) are physically too large for the West to remedy: The sheer numbers of people in distress soon will exceed the total population of the industrial world.

          That means that there is a point in time at which the most devout pussy-hat wearing, virtue-signaling, politically correct liberal will pretend not to notice millions of starving children dying before his eyes.

         President Trump's reported comments about certain countries as sources of prospective immigrants may sound callous. He simply is ahead of the curve. The hour is already late to put a merit-based immigration system in place with effective enforcement against illegal immigration. Mexico solved its economic and social crisis of the late 1970s and early 1980s by exporting the poorest fifth of its population to the United States. With no prejudice to the Mexicans who chose to migrate, it is understandable why Americans feel put on. But that is tiny compared to what is headed towards us ten, twenty, or thirty years from now.

         The mass of human misery headed towards the industrial countries simply is too great for us to bear. It is hard to see how humanitarian catastrophes of biblical proportions can be avoided. The responsibility of an American president is to make sure that they don't happen to us.