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Monday, December 10, 2018

December 10, 2018 -- A Quick Run Around the Web

"The M1 Garand - Is Commercial Ammo Safe?"--InRange TV (14 min.)
The producers of this video explain why some commercial .30-06 ammunition could damage your M1 Garand rifle, and explains how an aftermarket gas plug could help with that issue.

  • "One dead and 385,000 without power as Winter Storm Diego pummels the south, causing travel chaos from Texas to North Carolina"--Daily Mail. The article goes on to state that the "National Weather Service said a 'prolonged period of snow is expected' until Monday, with the heaviest snow expected in northwest North Carolina and southern Virginia." While the article focuses on the snow falls from the storm, I would be remiss if I didn't also note that there was heavy flooding in Texas.
  • "A Cautionary Tale for CCW Permit Carriers"--Active Response Training. Basic story is this: a woman stole some expensive handbags from a store and was chased by a security guard who also happened to be an off-duty cop--so the officer is in plain clothes. The off-duty officer tackles the woman, who immediately starts screaming "rape." A CCW carrier hears the woman crying rape and comes up and points a revolver at the off-duty cop and threatens to shoot him. The off-duty cop announces he is a police officer, although he can't immediately get to his badge. He is not too worried, however, because he can see that the revolver is empty and the guy is so close that the officer could slap the firearm away. Other police arrive and the situation is brought under control. 
There are three takeaways from this: (1) Be careful of intervening into a situation where you don't have the basic facts. In this case, everything worked out. Mas Ayoob, however, has related a story of a similar incident where a trucker intervened and shot an undercover police officer attempting to arrest a prostitute who was screaming "rape." This takes especial effort when confronted with what appears to be a woman being assaulted by a man because our hind brain kicks in and we attempt to be the "white knight" saving the woman. (2)  If you are going to use your weapon, make sure it is loaded. And (3) don't stand too close to someone you are covering with a weapon.
        Nuclear reactors are designed specifically to handle a power loss, and their backup generators aren’t much EMP-affected anyway. Since the last major Coronal Mass Ejection caused 12 hours of fluctuations in Quebec in 1989, most substations have built-in faraday cages.

       USG tests of vehicles show modern electronic ignitions can usually withstand 100K eV of induced voltage with no major effects. Only about 5% of cars failed to operate after being shut down and restarted. Large diesel trucks were more affected, which would be a significant effect (about 15% of trucks failed to restart), but rail is unaffected due to the grounding effect of the rails.

       There’s a study by Oak Ridge that’s fascinating reading. Written with a non-technical audience in mind, and it lays out the details and exaggerations of an EMP pretty well. The appendix section on Myths is particularly good.
As a military force, the Scythians were very much like terrorists. Here are some points of comparison:
  • They were nomads, with no fixed location or base.
  • They had no set organizational structure (hierarchy) that could be leveraged through a decapitation attack (as Alexander used against the Persians by attacking Darius).
  • Their force was self-contained and therefore didn't present any vulnerable lines of communication or material.
  • The Scythians were very mobile horse archers that could could attack from a distance, swarm on vulnerabilities when exposed, and flee to safety when engaged.
The article also notes that Alexander was able to defeat them by taking away their mobility: he lured them in with a small military force and, while the Scythians were swarming around that force, Alexander brought up a larger force that was able to box in the Scythians between the smaller force and the larger force, resulting in the Scythians' defeat.
  • John Mosby at Mountain Guerrilla has decided to give up on processing and shipping orders for his books. He has announced that sales will now be processed through Lulu. He explains that he never expected his book sales to be as robust as they are, and, as a one-man shop, can't keep up with the volume. The new sales links are in his announcement.


"South Africa 2019: Beginning of the END"--Black Pigeon Speaks (11 min.)
South African politicians hope to have a law in effect early next year that would allow the government to expropriate lands owned by white farmers, without compensation, and redistribute it to blacks. Besides the possible threat of civil war and/or South Africa's abrupt economic implosion (as happened in Rhodesia/Zimbabwe), there are Boer groups that want to secede. There are many cautionary tales to take from this, but the greatest, in my mind, has to do with immigration. When the white Boers and English settled South Africa, there were very few Bantu blacks living in the area (the native population was mostly San, who are racially distinct from the Bantu, and the Bantu blacks were mostly concentrated in the east). However, in order to gain cheap farm and mining labor, the government allowed massive immigration of Bantu into the country. Now that population claims that the land was always theirs and seeks to impoverish the white population, at best, or kill them off, at the most extreme. 

       White South Africans could be forced to give up their own homes from next year as the nation's government steamrolls through plans for land expropriation over claims 'Africa's original sin' must be reversed.
          Land is a huge issue in South Africa where racial inequality remains entrenched more than two decades after the end of apartheid when millions of the black majority were dispossessed of their land by a white minority. 
            The National Assembly agreed to the establishment of a committee that will draft an amendment to section 25 of the Constitution – a law which will allow the government to take homes from the people – and refuse to pay them compensation.
               As many in the nation see the move as retribution for the 'original sin' when decades ago black people were driven off their land, it is believed white farmers will be driven from their homes immediately.
        Serbian Prime Minister Ana Brnabic told reporters that Belgrade is concerned that a regular army in Kosovo, which has a predominantly ethnic Albanian population, could be used to drive out the remaining Serbs from the country's north. That could, he added, provoke a Serb military intervention.
        The article indicates that relations between Serbia and Kosovo have been tense since Kosovo put a 100% tariff on Serbian goods. In other news, the Serbian Mission to the United States was destroyed by a fire.
        • "Ammon Bundy Quits Militia Movement in Solidarity With Migrant Caravan"--Intelligencer. According to the article, Bundy had posted a video in which he claims to have cut ties with the patriot movement, and then criticizes the President for not welcoming the Honduran caravan. I suspect that, for Bundy, this was never about the aims of limiting government, but only about not losing the grazing lease for his ranch. Now that all the lawsuits have petered out, he doesn't have any need for the patriots that were supporting him financially or otherwise.
        • No one cares about the Palestinians anymore: "Let’s Mobilize an Army of Stone Throwers on the Border"--American Greatness. Something peculiar has happened visa-vis liberal media coverage of the Palestinians:
                  In May of this year, The Economist reported, “Tens of thousands of Palestinians massed near Gaza’s border fence, threatening to ‘return’ to the lands their forefathers lost when Israel was created in 1948.” They wanted in.
                    Israeli soldiers responded not with tear gas, but with bullets. They killed over 60 protesters who threatened to breach the border. The number has since risen to 120.
                    Most of us, this writer included, would condemn such excessive force.
                      Yet surprisingly, The Economist—a liberal, pro-Palestinian, most excellent weekly—pondered but briefly and nonchalantly about Israel’s army having used excessive force, concluding almost callously: “Every state has a right to defend its borders.”
                        Come again?!
                           This from the very same editorialists who never tire of protesting any disruption in the holy quest of weary columns of Christ-like caravanners, planning to defy the U.S. government, by illegally entering the United States of America.
                    • "Are Ships in the Med Ignoring Refugees in Distress?"--Der Speigel. This article not only rehashes the fake news that the USS Trenton failed to respond to migrants who wanted to be picked up and carried to Europe, but also asserts that other, private vessels, have also failed to respond to migrants. The blame is being put on Italy for closing its ports to migrants. From the article:
                             The Dublin Regulation requires people seeking asylum from a European Union member state to file their application in the EU country where they first set foot. That is why Italy was long responsible for the vast majority of migrants who crossed the Mediterranean to Europe. Between 2014 and 2017, an average of 156,936 made the crossing each year and civilian rescue ships frequently unloaded the hapless migrants they had saved at Italian ports -- until June 9, 2018. On that day, the Aquarius set course for Italy with 629 survivors on board, but Italian Interior Minister Matteo Salvini of the right-wing radical party Lega, refused to grant the ship permission to land.

                                The Trenton crew was likewise aware that it wouldn't be allowed to dock at an Italian port and it ultimately took five days before the ship could transfer the survivors to the Italian Coast Guard. At roughly the same time, the crew of the Danish container ship Alexander Maersk saved more than 100 people from the Mediterranean and had to wait several days as well. Ruben Neugebauer from the organization Sea-Watch says that since then, freighters have regularly been sailing right on past boats in distress without stopping to help.
                        Let's be honest: most of these boats aren't really "in distress." As the article notes, these boats aren't, by definition, in distress if they can still move under their own power.
                          In my study of communist societies, I came to the conclusion that the purpose of communist propaganda was not to persuade or convince, not to inform, but to humiliate; and therefore, the less it corresponded to reality the better. When people are forced to remain silent when they are being told the most obvious lies, or even worse when they are forced to repeat the lies themselves, they lose once and for all their sense of probity. To assent to obvious lies is...in some small way to become evil oneself. One's standing to resist anything is thus eroded, and even destroyed. A society of emasculated liars is easy to control. I think if you examine political correctness, it has the same effect and is intended to.
                            In the months after the TSA was notified, five of the Investigators Association’s seven-member governing body were either terminated or reprimanded. In all, according to the suit, “nearly half of the district attorney’s investigative department — or about 14 staff members — “were either terminated or forced to resign under intense pressure within a five-month span,” the suit said.
                            • "France: More than 1,200 in custody after 'yellow vest' riots"--DW. The article reports that "[t]he government's decision last week to abandon the fuel tax rise seems to have done little to dampen the ire of protesters, who continue to call for Macron's resignation along with a motley assortment of other demands." Macron is supposed to be addressing the French people later today.
                                       What started as an antitrust lawsuit brought by states over just two drugs in 2016 has exploded into an investigation of alleged price-fixing involving at least 16 companies and 300 drugs, Joseph Nielsen, an assistant attorney general and antitrust investigator in Connecticut who has been a leading force in the probe, said in an interview. His comments in an interview with The Washington Post represent the first public disclosure of the dramatically expanded scale of the investigation.
                                       The unfolding case is rattling an industry that is portrayed in Washington as the white knight of American health care.
                                        "This is most likely the largest cartel in the history of the United States," Nielsen said. He cited the volume of drugs in the schemes, that they took place on American soil and the "total number of companies involved, and individuals."
                                          The victims were American health-care consumers and taxpayers, who foot the bills for overcharges on common antibiotics, blood-pressure medications, arthritis treatments, anxiety pills and more, authorities say. The costs flowed throughout the system, hitting hospitals, pharmacists and health insurance companies. They hit consumers who lack prescription drug coverage and even those with insurance, because many plans have high deductibles and gaps on prescription drug benefits.
                                    • "Trump is not capable"--Die Weltwoche. An interview with Tucker Carlson who expresses his disappointment that Pres. Trump has not been able to fulfill many of his campaign promises, but also notes that Trump's role has been to shift the Overton Window. From the interview, Carlson says:
                                               ... His chief promises were that he would build the wall, de-fund planned parenthood, and repeal Obamacare, and he hasn't done any of those things. There are a lot of reasons for that, but since I finished writing the book, I've come to believe that Trump's role is not as a conventional president who promises to get certain things achieved to the Congress and then does. I don't think he's capable. I don't think he's capable of sustained focus. I don't think he understands the system. I don't think the Congress is on his side. I don't think his own agencies support him. He's not going to do that.
                                                 I think Trump's role is to begin the conversation about what actually matters. We were not having any conversation about immigration before Trump arrived in Washington. People were bothered about it in different places in the country. It's a huge country, but that was not a staple of political debate at all. Trump asked basic questions like' "Why don't our borders work?" “Why should we sign a trade agreement and let the other side cheat?” Or my favorite of all, "What's the point of NATO?" The point of NATO was to keep the Soviets from invading western Europe but they haven't existed in 27 years, so what is the point? These are obvious questions that no one could answer.
                                        • "How to Build an Infrasound Generator Circuit – Creating a Synthetic Paranormal Environment"--Bright Hub Engineering. The article relates that "frequencies below 50 Hz especially around 15 Hz are found to be quite unique and intriguing with their features. The sound falling in this range is termed as infrasound. Amazingly humans subjected to these frequencies often complain of unexplainable uneasiness and a chilling experience. Areas infested with ghosts and paranormal activities have been also seen to be carrying these infrasound vibrations."
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                                        Weekend Reading -- A New Weekend Knowledge Dump

                                        Greg Ellifritz has posted a new Weekend Knowledge Dump at his Active Response Training blog . Before I discuss some of his links, I want to ...