Friends Don't Let Friends Use Knives To Baton Wood

(Source)

In "Knife Maker Mike Stewart Discusses Thin Blades And Batoning Firewood" at Survival Common Sense, Stewart notes that batoning a knife to cut wood--particularly larger pieces of wood--is actually relatively recent phenomena.

Reviewers needed something to do to get attention and whoever the first guy was that did this started all of them doing it. Lots of people today actually think it is normal to crossgrain baton stuff – it was not until the last 25 years or so. Most skilled outdoorsman knew how to baton in an emergency but never actually did it because their skill prevented them from being in an unprepared emergency. Same with prying things with knives. It is a No-No. All the time.

While I'm no Cody Lundin, I don't think I'm completely ignorant of field craft and I'd never even heard of it until sometime after I started this blog. 

    But with people wanting knives that they can use for batoning, knife designers and manufacturers are producing knives suitable to the task. The results, however, are thicker, heavier knives that are not as quick or handy as their predecessors. Stewart notes, for instance, that "[b]owie knives were invented in the late 1820s. NONE of them were over 3/16ths-inch thick and most were closer to 1/8th-inch thick. Nobody thought they were a camp knife or a wood processing knife." He adds:

    Let’s look further back in history – to times when the knife was the only tool that most people in early cultures used – what do we see ?

    We see seven to nine inch blades (Sometimes a little longer) that are thin – usually 1/8th to 3/16ths inches thick. They vary in regional shapes but they are light – fast and very efficient. They were used for making shelters,  cutting kindling for fires, household chores and camp chores and even used to break down game to carry back to the village. They are all thin blades.

    Why are the big knives (called machetes) that are almost unique from Southern North America all through Central America to the tip of South America ALL thin ?

    It is because the thin blades work and work better for real time tasks than the thicker, slower and heavier knives. I have never seen a picture or a film or a video of any indigenous people from these regions batoning anything. They also know the difference between softwoods and hardwoods. When they encounter hardwoods, they go and get an ax or now – a chainsaw.

    People that actually know how to use large knives do not go smashing them around at trees or logs – it is just not done by skilled people.

POTD: Abandoned Shack In The Outback

 

Source: "These Incredible Photos Show the Beauty of Abandoned Places"--Redbook Magazine

POTD: Abandoned weather station on Kolyuchin Island in the Arctic Ocean

 

Source: Daily Timewaster 

Latest Bombs & Bants (Streamed Nov. 23, 2022)

 

VIDEO: "Bombs and Bants Live! Ep 62" (52 min.)

Meme of the Day: Don't Carry A Pistol With An Empty Chamber

 

Source: Western Rifle Shooters Association

The Docent's Memo (November 28, 2022)

 

VIDEO: "How Deadly is a Flintlock Rifle? The British hated this thing"--Garand Thumb (13 min.)

Devastating.

Firearms & Self-Defense:

• Greg Ellifritz at Active Self Protection published his weekly Weekend Knowledge Dump this past Friday, but he also had a couple guest posts last week by Darryl Bolke on the issue of revolver reliability (part 1) (part 2). The gist of the matter is this, from the first part:

    ... With a clean, properly functioning revolver with quality ammunition, they are incredibly reliable in actual street shootings through the initial load and likely the reloads typically carried. That means it will likely fire it’s first rounds under typical use while engaged with a criminal, and should have no issues with another pair of reloads if they are even possible. It does not matter if the gun has been sitting in a drawer for ten years or carried a lot.

    A proven quality service level revolver that is clean, lubricated and loaded with quality ammunition is in my experience far less likely to malfunction than a semi-automatic pistol in the conditions we find in street shootings. That means, non-locked wrists, poor grip, asymmetric firing positions, interference from clothing or barriers, body contact, disturbance to the gun during firing, impacts, improper administrative handling, etc. They are consistent in their performance in those conditions, which is what reliable is.

    Where they are not reliable is when subjected to tests of ruggedness. They do not work well when dirty and full of debris. They do not work well when abused, neglected or exposed to foreign matter. They do not work well when poorly maintained. They do not work well with modifications made by unqualified individuals, or used outside of the limits of the modifications. If these are factors, their consistency will suffer. They also tend to require a trained individual and tools when they break or stop working.

He also notes that because revolvers use a magazine (the cylinder) integral to the gun, they don't suffer many of the issues that come with a semi-auto magazine such as reliability issues from a damaged magazine (e.g., bent feed lips) nor is there a problem with a magazine popping out such as the author had with some deep concealment rigs. He also notes that the reliability issues that might pop up with a semiauto are magnified when using a small semiauto. Basically, then, the author recommends a semiauto pistol for a duty or primary concealed carry weapon, and a revolver for a backup or deep carry handgun.

• Even new shooters will pick up on the fact that caliber designations often don't actually match up to the caliber of a weapon, sometimes by quite a bit. Some of this is due to marketing. "30 Super Carry," for instance, rolls off the tongue easier than would ".312 Super Carry". Some of it derives from differences in how the bore diameter is measured: i.e., whether the distance is measured between opposing lands (used in most of the rest of the world) or between opposing grooves (most common in the United States). And then there are firearms like the .38 Special (which uses a .357 bullet) or the .44 Magnum (.429). This article from Mass Gun Ownership, "Why do they call it a 38 when it's really a 357?" addresses this issue and it comes from the transition from percussion cap firearms to firearms using a metallic cartridge. The author explains:

    After the Civil War, metallic cartridges took over. As you probably know, a metallic cartridge was a case of brass or copper, with a primer replacing the old percussion cap. The case was charged with powder, and a bullet was seated in the mouth and crimped. The early cartridge revolvers were simply modified cap and ball designs with the chambers drilled through so you could load from the breech end, a hinged loading gate on the recoil shield, and a hammer reshaped so that the nose would set off the primer. There was no longer a need for a rammer (that was used to pack in the loose powder on a cap and ball revolver), so this was removed, and an ejector (to eject the spent cartridge cases) was put in its place.

    There were now some new problems:

    The bullet must go inside the case, and the case must go inside the chamber. So the dimensional relationship between bullet, chamber and barrel is now out of whack. If the bullet was to fit inside the case, it would have to have a smaller diameter than the bore, and that wouldn't work. This problem was temporarily solved by using what were called "heeled" bullets (see below). A heeled .38 caliber bullet features a smaller .357" diameter base that is inserted in the cartridge, with a wider .38" bearing surface to fit the bore. This way, the dimensional relationship could remain the same as it did for a cap and ball revolver.

    Heeled bullets are still used today in .22 caliber rimfire rounds. Heeled bullets had their advantages. Revolver cylinders for heeled bullets were easier to manufacture because they could be drilled straight through, and didn't need a smaller diameter "step" to form the throat. also, when heeled bullets are used, you can fire cartridges of varying lengths with no loss of accuracy caused by freebore space (think about revolvers that can fire .22 short, long and long rifle).

    This left an unanswered question: How do you lube the bullet?

    At first, lube was simply was smeared on the exposed portion of the heeled bullet. This was called an outside lubricated bullet. Unfortunately, the lubes of the day were easily rubbed off, and were also sticky enough to pick up dirt, grit, and other contaminates that would harm the bore. An inside lubricated bullet (like we use today) would solve these problems, but simply putting a lube ring on the base of the bullet inside the case would not work because the base had a smaller diameter than the bore, and therefore the lube would not touch the barrel. The solution was to use a non-heeled, inside-lubed bullet that could be seated deeper in the case.

    To accommodate such a bullet, the revolver manufacturers had two choices: they could keep the bullet and bore the same diameter, then make the case larger, the chamber larger, the cylinder larger, and the frame larger... or they could simply make the bore and bullet smaller and add a bore-diameter throat in each chamber. The manufacturers chose the latter because it was more work to redesign and manufacture new larger frames than it was to redesign and manufacture smaller barrels and throated cylinders. The "new" .38s were made with the bore shrunk by twice the thickness of the case wall; which meant about .357" (.360 for the .38 S&W). Because of familiarity, the manufacturers kept the cartridge designation- .38 caliber - the same. The early loads for the "new" revolvers were made with soft lead bullets with hollow bases that when fired, would expand to fill the larger bore on older guns; so they would shoot fairly well in the older barrels as well.

    The same happened with the .44 caliber handguns.

• "Learn to Search Slow & Carefully" by Sheriff Jim Wilson, Shooting Illustrated. We're always told to not search our home for an intruder but the reality, as Wilson acknowledges, is that most of us will do so; partly because we often won't know whether that crash that wakes us in the middle of the night is a burglar or the cat knocking something over. He writes:

    First of all, let’s not just assume that it is the cat; take your defensive firearm with you. Secondly, you need to be able to see, so take that flashlight with you. In light of that, if I were designing a new home, I would have a master light switch installed in the bedroom that turns on every light in the house with one flip of the switch. You have to be able to see and if all that light scares the burglar away, you just won.

    Secondly, no one should be surprised in their own home. No one else knows the layout of your house the way that you do. You just have to make sure that you have checked everything in your immediate vicinity before moving on. And you’d be amazed at the places a burglar can hide when he is afraid of capture. I’ve found them in the cabinet under the kitchen sink, wedged between the refrigerator and the wall, and other places that you would swear no human could go.

    As you begin to clear a room go very slowly. Fast will get you hurt. Examine the room for every place a person could hide before going to the next room. Work on open doorways first, but don’t forget to come back and check those closed doors. Learn the safest way to open a closed door. Learn to cover a room, from the doorway, by pieing the area. And never just stop in an open doorway.

And he suggests practicing--even going so far as playing "hide and seek" with someone to test where someone could hide from you as you search the house. I use to play a lot of "hide and seek" with my kids and I can't tell you how many times I could successfully hide just by standing behind a partially open door or standing in the bath tub with the shower curtain partially pulled closed.

• "All About MIM–Part Three"--Revolver Guy. In this third part of a series, the author turns from MIM technology and to the history of Smith & Wesson's adaptation of MIM and why it didn't go with other casting technologies such as used by Ruger. 
• "DeSantis N.Y. Undercover Shoulder Rig: Comfortable, Reliable Concealment"--The Mag Life. The author begins:

    Sometimes it’s good to embrace methods that deviate from the standard that we are used to. In this case, we are talking about holster options for concealed carry. I’ve recently tried shoulder carry, and the DeSantis N.Y. Undercover Shoulder Rig meets a few needs in my life.

    First, when I carry my Glock 19X Outside The Waistband (OWB), my hip hurts after a while. It’s just a little too heavy for my comfort sometimes. Carrying full-sized handguns in a shoulder rig takes the weight off the waist and distributes it higher, making carry more comfortable in many cases. This holster gets the weight off my hip and distributes it amongst my shoulders and upper body.

    Second, during the cooler/colder months I can wear the rig under a flannel shirt or underneath my coat and it’s perfectly concealed. And lastly, on rare occasions when I wear a suit, it is difficult to conceal a handgun on my waist. For such times, the shoulder rig works perfectly.

    Despite the fact that I’ve been carrying a concealed handgun of one sort or another since the late 1980s, I never really used a shoulder holster before, having always carried on my waist. This has been a new experience and it does take some getting used to.

• "Why Choose A Double Action Only Pistol?" by George Harris, Shooting Illustrated. Unfortunately, the article doesn't actually address the question raised in the title, but instead discusses converting a DA/SA handgun to DAO.
• "Guest Shot: Ready vs. Prepare" by Dave Spaulding, Tactical Wire. A look at different ready positions (for a handgun) and a study by Force Science on the impact on speed for different finger placement and ready position. An excerpt:

    It is essential for the reaction/response time from ready be as fast as possible for obvious reasons. Recently the Force Science Institute undertook a study looking at various trigger finger and ready positions to see if one was faster than another. Their results were quite interesting. Here are the main points from this study. If you want to read the entire report, it can be found through their website.

    Force Science reported the results of the study in their newsletter. Their findings?

1. That trigger finger placement off of the trigger matters when the index finger is positioned to rest on the pistol slide- that’s slower, according to their study samples, than other options (index finger straight alongside the trigger guard, the same with finger bent against the trigger guard front, above the trigger guard along the frame and “high register” – finger straight resting on the slide.

2. Tactical ready positions were studied, including the following: pistol held behind the leg (“bootleg”), “belt tuck” where the gun is at navel level and pulled into the body, close-ready -where the gun is higher than the belt and pulled in with muzzle downward, high ready (slightly depressed muzzle), low-ready (aimed down at a 45° angle and “temple index” (high-guard, one-handed next to the head.) High ready was fastest, “bootleg” and “high-guard” were contrastingly slower – when aiming. Without aiming (!), the fastest was low-ready. Researcher Lewinsky noted, "the handgun timings indicate that the closer the ready position is to a final firing position, the faster the officer is likely to be in getting off his first round."

3. He also noted that “more important than improving the mechanics of weapon craft is teaching officers to read potentially hazard scenarios early on, so they can detect threat cues quicker and better anticipate an adversary's actions, thereby getting ahead of the reactionary curve before the crisis point. "Without that skill," he says, "they're likely to end up so far behind the action that things like the most desirable finger indexing and ready positioning won't really matter."

    As always, Force Science has done a thorough job but some of their muzzle positions do not differentiate between a ready and prepare which is of critical importance. What they call The Boot Leg (something I have never taught but seems to occur with many police officers regardless of training) is certainly a preparatory position and if I am reading it correctly so is the “Belt Tuck” which seems to be similar to SUL. Their “Close Ready” I call a Compressed Low Ready while their High Ready is also known as the Guard Position as made popular by Jeff Cooper. Their Low Ready is aptly named and is the most popular/utilized position while The High Guard I have always known as The Temple Index and is also considered a preparatory position.

The rest of the article discusses the different between preparatory positions and true ready positions.

VIDEO: "How Would a Nuclear EMP Affect the Power Grid?"--

Practical Engineering (17 min.)

Prepping & Survival:

• "How to Charge Your Phone When the Power is Out"--Modern Survival Blog. The author recommends the ANKER brand power banks for charging your phones and devices and, specifically, the ANKER Ultra-High Capacity Power Bank 20,000 mAh. And for charging the power bank when off-grid, he recommends the Big Blue – 28 Watt Folding Solar Panel Charger.
• And another from Modern Survival Blog: "Vacuum Seal Rice and Beans For Long Term Storage." The article is a how-to guide but I was struck by the author's use of plastic storage bins to store the vacuum sealed bags. This would probably be a great idea for someone in a small house or apartment with little storage as it would allow you to more easily store the rice or beans under beds, in closets, and so on, than trying to store the more common 5-gallon buckets.
• And a third from Modern Survival Blog: "Red Feather Canned Butter – Shelf Stable Butter In A Can."
• "The Survival Knife in your Pocket – Cold Steel Pendleton Mini Hunter"--Jerking The Trigger. A small (3" blade), inexpensive fixed blade knife for everyday carry.
• Related: "Small Knives for Field And Defense"--Mason Dixon Tactical.
• "How To Decrease The Cost of Use By 98% While Also Increasing The Brightness of Your Existing Tactical Flashlight"--ConcealedCarry.com. The author notes that the majority of tactical flashlights use the CR123a battery. He recommends switching those out with their rechargeable version--the 16340 battery--because it has a higher output (resulting in a brighter light from most flashlights) and, because it is rechargeable, has a lower cost over the long run.
• It's going to be a cold winter both in North America and in Europe: "Snow Extent in the Northern Hemisphere now Among the Highest in 56 years Increases the Likelihood of Cold Early Winter Forecast both in North America and Europe"--Severe Weather EU. The headline gives the basic information, but here is the author's summary:

Snow extent in the Northern Hemisphere at the end of November represents an important parameter for the early winter forecast. This year snow extent is running much higher than average and according to existing global estimates, it is now beyond the highest ever observed so far. Winter forecast, especially in its early phase and in Europe, might be strongly influenced by such a large snow extent, although many other factors need attention.

For you science nerds, the article goes into quite a bit of detail on the snow extent and its correlation with how cold a winter in Europe and North America could be, including discussion on albedo and the impact of snow cover on ground temperatures, the Siberian High, how snow forms, and more.

VIDEO: "NASA's Artemis 1 Orion capsule entering lunar orbit"--CBS News (4 min.)

From a few days ago.

News & Analysis:

• Last week, as Covid cases surged, China decided to lock down Beijing, Shanghai and other major cities. (See also here noting that these lockdowns represent 1/5 of the Chinese economy). However, this resulted in immediate protests in China’s industrial metropolis Guangzhou where protestors clashed with police. (See also here). Unfortunately for the CCP, the protests spread after a fire on Thursday that killed 10 people in a high-rise building in Urumqi, capital of the Xinjiang region, with many Chinese blaming the deaths on residents not being able to escape the building because it was partially locked down. As the protests spread across the country, "Videos shared on social media showed protestors openly calling for President Xi Jinping and the government to step down as pressure ramps up on the Chinese leader." "Many are now referring to the protest to as 'white paper revolution,' 'blank sheet revolution' or “A4 revolution.'"
• Meanwhile, back in the U.S.: "Thanks, Joe! 41% of small businesses can't pay their rent this month."
• "Highways to Utopia" by Roger Kimball, American Greatness. Kimball argues that the country is at a crossroads of sort, with one of the choices facing us being between, as Kimball labels it, "Dynamism and Deviancy." It's a long read, but worth it. A short (relative to the length of the article) excerpt:

    ... Perhaps this self-canceling aspect of the West is part of what James Hankins and Allen C. Guelzo had in mind when they noted in the first chapter of Where Next?: Civilization at the Crossroads that “Civilization is always threatened by barbarism, and the greater threat often comes more from within than from without.” The political philosopher James Burnham made a similar point when he argued that “Suicide is probably more frequent than murder as the end phase of a civilization.” That the pathology may be self-generated is more an admonition than a consolation. 

    The historian Arnold Toynbee spoke in this context of the “barbarization of the dominant minority.” When a society is robust and self-confident, Toynbee suggested, cultural influence travels largely from the elites to the proletariats. The elites furnish social models to be emulated. The proletariats are “softened,” Toynbee said, by their imitation of the manners and morals of a dominant elite. But when a society begins to falter, the imitation proceeds largely in the opposite direction: the dominant elite is coarsened by its imitation of proletarian manners. Toynbee spoke in this context of a growing “sense of drift,” “truancy,” “promiscuity,” and general “vulgarization” of manners, morals, and the arts. The elites, instead of holding fast to their own standards, suddenly begin to “go native” and adopt the dress, attitudes, and behavior of the lower classes. Flip on your television, scroll through social media, look at the teens and pre-teens in your middle-class neighborhood. You will see what Toynbee meant by “barbarization of the dominant [or, rather ‘once-dominant’] minority.” One part of the impulse is summed up in the French phrase nostalgie de la boue. But it is not “mud” that is sought so much as repudiation.

    The social scientist Charles Murray, writing about Toynbee in the Wall Street Journal back in 2001, noted how closely the historian’s analysis fit developments in contemporary America. To a large extent, it is a matter of failed or discarded ideals. “Truancy and promiscuity, in Toynbee’s sense,” Murray writes, 

are not new in America. But until a few decades ago, they were publicly despised and largely confined to the bottom layer of Toynbee’s proletariat—the group we used to call “low-class” or “trash,” and which we now call the underclass. Today, those behaviors have been transmuted into a code that the elites sometimes imitate, sometimes placate, and fear to challenge. Meanwhile, they no longer have a code of their own in which they have confidence.

    What we are talking about is the drift, the tendency of our culture. And that is to be measured not so much by what we permit or forbid as by what we unthinkingly accept as normal. This crossroads, that is to say, is part of a process, one of whose markers is the normalization of the outré. Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan described this development as “defining deviancy down.” It is, as the late columnist Charles Krauthammer observed, a two-way process. “As part of the vast social project of moral leveling,” he wrote, it is not enough for the deviant to be normalized. The normal must be found to be deviant. . . . Large areas of ordinary behavior hitherto considered benign have had their threshold radically redefined up, so that once innocent behavior now stands condemned as deviant. Normal middle-class life then stands exposed as the true home of violence and abuse and a whole catalog of aberrant acting and thinking. 

    Hilaire Belloc espied the culmination of this process in Survivals and New Arrivals (1929): 

When it is mature we shall have, not the present isolated, self-conscious insults to beauty and right living, but a positive coordination and organized affirmation of the repulsive and the vile.

Also: 

    This racial spoils system is one giant totem looming over the crossroads we face. Another is the anti-sexual sexual hypertrophy that has become such a curious feature of our cultural landscape. In 1994, Irving Kristol wrote an important essay called “Countercultures.” In it, he noted that “‘Sexual liberation’ is always near the top of a countercultural agenda—though just what form the liberation takes can and does vary, sometimes quite widely.” The costumes and rhetoric change, but the end is always the same: an assault on the defining institutions of our civilization. “Women’s liberation,” Kristol continues,

is another consistent feature of all countercultural movements—liberation from husbands, liberation from children, liberation from family. Indeed, the real object of these various sexual heterodoxies is to disestablish the family as the central institution of human society, the citadel of orthodoxy.

In Eros and Civilization (1966), the Marxist countercultural guru Herbert Marcuse provided an illustration of Kristol’s thesis avant la lettre. Railing against “the tyranny of procreative sexuality,” Marcuse urged his followers to return to a state of “primary narcissism” and extolled the joys of “polymorphous perversity.” Are we there yet? “Be fruitful, and multiply,” the Book of Genesis advised. Marcuse sought to enlist a programmatically unfruitful sexuality in his campaign against “capitalism” and the cultural establishment: barrenness as a revolutionary desideratum. Back then, the diktat seemed radical but self-contained, another crackpot effusion from the academy. Today, it is a widespread mental health problem, accepted gospel preached by teachers, the media, and legislators across the country. ...

• Related: "'Stop making everything sexual!' Americans slam Disney for trying to teach kids about sexual preferences in its first cartoon with gay main character - as $180M movie starring Jake Gyllenhaal bombs at box office"--Daily Mail. 
• Related: "'It's heresy!': Worshippers left 'in tears' as Cambridge dean claims Jesus may have been TRANSGENDER after row over Christ's wound having a 'vaginal appearance'"--Daily Mail.
• Related: "Evidence Grows Proving That Transgenderism Is a Social Contagion"--PJ Media. 
• Related: "Manhattan pharma heiress says her mom had to hire $300-a-day DEPROGRAMMER to help her unlearn crazed woke views after she was brainwashed while attending elite Mount Holyoke college"--Daily Mail. 
• Related: "S.F. Elections Official Blindsided by Decision Not to Renew His Contract Due to ‘Racial Equity’"--National Review. 
• Related: "In California, 10% of Legislature now identifies as LGBTQ"--AP. 

VIDEO: "Use These To Not Die"

 

VIDEO: "Use These To Not Die"--Administrative Results (13 min.)

Garand Thumb joins the host of Administrative Results to test various weapons against barriers to demonstrate the difference between cover and concealment. The first barrier tested was a barn stall wall made of what appeared to be 2x8 or 2x10 boards laid edge-to-edge. The second barrier was a reinforced concrete wall that looked to be 6 or 8 inches thick. As would be expected, all rifles (calibers were 5.56, .45-70, .30-06, and 7.62x39) tested against the wood boards easily penetrated, although the 7.62x39 did keyhole. The concrete wall, on the other hand, was able to stop everything shot at it, including some .50 BMG rounds, although the .50 BMG caused significant spalling off the backside of the concrete wall that would likely have resulted in injury. Prolonged shooting with a .50 BMG machine gun, however, would probably have quickly reduced the concrete to rubble.

Winter Field Tips

(Source)

I've had a couple posts recently with some tips for dressing for the winter (see here and here). I definitely got to put some of them to use this past weekend. 

    Between the wet weather we had earlier this month (which turns the ground to a thick, sticky mud perfect for getting stuck) and other activities, I hadn't been out shooting for a bit. This past weekend, though, with morning temperatures in the teens, I decided it was probably safe to try and reach my favorite shooting spot because whatever areas hadn't dried would have frozen. I was mostly right.

    I had two main reasons for going shooting (well, other than I hadn't been for a few weeks). First was to test out the 1911 on which I had swapped out the flat main spring housing for an arched one (I wrote about that here). Second, with Idaho having such a large budget surplus, the legislature had authorized an additional tax return. Like a good, responsible person, I could have put it into savings; but being a gun guy, that just wasn't going to happen. I decided to check another off my "bucket list" of firearms and purchased a Smith & Wesson Model 317 "Kit Gun". 

    For those of you unfamiliar with S&W's kit guns, it is in reference to the small .22 LR revolvers built on the J-frame with short 3-inch barrels: the idea is that these are revolvers small and light enough for a fisherman, camper or hiker to throw into his kit and use for taking small game, to dispatch snakes or other vermin, or for casual plinking. Barrel lengths have varied over time, but mostly have been in the 3-inch range.

    Tom Clapper has an excellent history of the developments leading up to the production of the first "kit guns" and its subsequent changes (link here).  The gist, however, is that the kit gun developed out of S&W's .32 hand ejector revolvers on the I-frame but chambered in .22 LR. After some starts and fits in the early 20th Century, but in 1936 S&W released its first .22 revolver labelled as a "kit gun": the .22/32 Kit Gun, still using the I-frame designed for the .32 revolver. In 1957, with S&W switching to a system of using model numbers instead of names, the kit gun became the Model 34. In 1958, S&W began production of the an "Airweight" kit-gun using a J-frame sized frame known as the Model 43. The steel framed kit gun was converted to a J-frame in 1960. In 1977, S&W released its first stainless steel kit gun: the Model 63. 

    Production has stopped and started again on different models, and changes have led to different model designations. As Dave Campbell reported in a 2018 article, "[t]he Model 34 was discontinued in 1991 though there were a few reissues. Today it exists in two more modern configurations, the Model 317 with an aluminum frame, 3" barrel and an eight-shot cylinder or the Model 63, with a stainless steel frame, 3" barrel and an eight-shot cylinder." 

    I've long wanted a kit gun, particularly after hefting the aluminum framed/aluminum cylinder versions. These weigh in at 11.7 ounces and have fully adjustable rear sights. Today's Model 317 also sports a bright green fiber optic front sight. This particular model is popular with hikers and backpackers because of its light weight. It is perfectly adequate for protection against aggressive dogs, raccoons or other critters, can be used for signaling, and if worse came to worse, could be pressed into use for self-defense. They are pricey--especially when compared to a .22 semi-auto--which is why I've held off buying one for so long. The MSRP is $839.00. I paid about $80 less for mine at a local gun shop. 

    Since my youngest son is supposed to be practicing his driving preparatory to getting his driver's license, after we got off the highway, I let him drive the paved country road from the highway to where we turn off onto a dirt path. He was going too fast trying to make the turn off, but I did learn that my SUV will drift without rolling. Anyway, after that bit of excitement and a few seconds to recover, I exited the vehicle and was glad to learn that the mud had mostly frozen, so off we went into the desert. 

    The one thing you can count on in a southern Idaho desert is the wind and we weren't disappointed. It wasn't terrible--it wasn't near strong enough to blow over targets which is not an infrequent problem--but it was a steady strong breeze that nevertheless seemed to find every opening in one's clothing. My youngest son had forgotten his gloves, but fortunately I keep a spare pair of cold-weather gloves in my vehicle. These are some insulated gloves made by Head that I picked up at Costco many years ago. I've since replaced them for regular wear because they got a slight tear in one finger, but the insulating and waterproofing layers are still intact.

    My oldest son and I both were wearing thin gloves conducive to shooting. These were also Head brand that I picked up at Costco years ago (are you sensing a pattern, here?) that are a thin polyester and intended for sporting activities. Importantly, they are thin enough to safely use when shooting and handling firearms. Better than bare skin, but still left us with cold fingers. 

    I started with shooting the Model 317. I wanted to test its function and reliability, but also had brought along some Federal Punch in .22LR to test. If I'm going to be carrying the kit gun hiking or camping, I wanted ammo such that the revolver could be pressed into a self-defense role. The weapon functioned fine--it went bang every time I pulled the trigger--and it pretty much shot to point of aim (POA) at 5 yards. It was cold and I still wanted to try the 1911 so I didn't spend a lot of time with the revolver. Besides, I figured, if your firearm functions flawlessly at 17 or 18 degrees F, it probably will work under most any conditions. I'll do a lengthier test later.

    We spent a little more time with the Remington 1911 mostly because my kids also wanted to shoot it. My oldest son, in particular, was interested in how the arched mainspring housing would help as his Kimber has a flat one. As I expected, it pointed more naturally for me and I was, therefore, able to shoot it more accurately at a decent pace of fire. It seemed to work better for my son as well. Instead of the paper target I'd used to test the revolver, we used the steel dueling tree I'd brought out. My sons shot against each other and I shot against my oldest son. He also tried the Remington on his own. After that I worked with my youngest son using the paper target so I could bring the target up close and help him with getting a proper grip and improve trigger control. 

    There were a couple times when the 1911 didn't fully go into battery, which probably was because of the cold. Years ago I was out shooting with some friends in temperatures that were even much colder, and the best we could do was 4 or 5 rounds from a semi-auto before having feeding problems. We'd then have to put the guns inside our coats for a few minutes to warm up and shoot some more. They were having more problems than me, which I put down to them typically using more lubricant than I do. They were also having problems with their ARs. I had an Mini-14 at the time that worked without issue, but I again put this down to differences in lubing practices. My pump action shotgun I'd brought out also worked fine. But I vowed after that trip--which had temperatures in the low single digits or perhaps even colder out on the flats in the desert--that I was never again going to practice in that cold of weather.

    But back to my recent trip. Did I say it was cold with a strong breeze? The main problems were my hands, because of the thin gloves, and my ears because I had not brought a hat that covered my ears. My kids were complaining of the cold as well, so we packed up early, I drove out to the paved road, let my youngest drive back to the highway, and then I drove the rest of the way back home. I haven't told my wife about my son "drifting" the car. That's a story for his friends.

    In my earlier post on cold weather tips, I mentioned some ideas from one of my readers. He has some more tips which I'd like to share:

    A small pc cut from an old yoga mat can be used to sit on in snow and keep your ass from getting wet.

We decided to call it a day before moving to shooting some rifle so fortunately I didn't find myself sitting on the ground (although I had a shooting mat with me). But this seems a more compact solution and would work if I found myself using a formal shooting range with shooting benches and chairs. My wife hasn't used her yoga mat for a few years so I'm sure she won't notice. 

    Also, he adds: 

    There are gloves, intended for use by auto mechanics I think, available at many hdwr stores that fit tightly/ have textured grips.  I often wear a pair of these under warmer gloves/ mittens.  If I need to deal w/ something that requires a degree of dexterity, I can ditch the outer glove/ mitten and even in extreme cold have a minute or two before my hands become so cold that I lose feeling/ dexterity.  Also, I can touch metal (ski bindings, a knife blade, gun barrel/ slide, etc.,) w/o freezing/ losing skin.

    If you carry a Bic lighter, pry the little "child protection" wheel off of it.  Child proof can become adult proof in cold weather as you lose feeling/ dexterity in your fingers.  Also, keep lighter in inside pocket next to your body, as this can make a big difference in getting flame in extreme cold.

He also adds:

I always keep a few feet of duct tape wrapped around my Bic lighters.  This means I (almost) always have duct w/ me.  Further, duct tape makes OK tinder.  Not great, but workable.  (Do you know the PJCB [ed: petroleum jelly cotton ball] in a milkshake straw trick?  I learned it from a guy who went by "curdog".  I know Ellifritz posted about this, but if it's new to you let me know and I'll explain more fully.)  Finally, w/ cold hands this makes the lighter easier to grasp. 

Finally, and something that I knew better and should have done:

    I carry a thermos w/ either hot chocolate or hot tea when I know I'm going to be out for a while.  Adding half a stick of butter to hot chocolate really bumps up the caloric value and tastes pretty damn good  on a cold day.

I haven't tried adding a stick of butter to hot chocolate. I think I'll dig out my large Thermos and give it a try for my next outing.

The Docent's Memo (November 21, 2022)

 

VIDEO: "DE-ESCALATION - Massad Ayoob examines the Curtis Reeves, popcorn theater case - Critical Mas EP 43"--Wilson Combat (7 min.)

Firearms & Self-Defense:

• Jon Low has a new Defensive Pistolcraft newsletter. Be sure to check it out. Among other things, he has some thoughts and links to a couple articles on safeguarding your (or someone else's) kids from being kidnapped. I would note, however, that the vast majority of kidnappings of children are by a non-custodial parent. Continuing, Jon has tracked down a series of videos showing (most of) Dave Spaulding's final handgun combatives class on the east coast. Another article that caught my attention was on topic of intuition versus logic and why you might want to trust your gut. This was the subject of the book The Gift of Fear. Whether you are a creationist or evolutionist, the fact is that the more basic parts of your brain are better designed and quicker to identify and react to danger than your frontal cortex, so it behooves you to listen to "your gut". Anyway, a lot more articles, excerpts and commentary there so be sure to go through it.
• "Polar Bear Attack Stopped with .500 Magnum"--Ammo Land. Warning shots with flares and firearms did not dissuade the bear, but the defender waited to shoot until the bear was 5 feet away! He is lucky that the bear immediately turned away rather than continuing to attack.
• "CCI .22 Long Rifle Mini Mag: You Can’t Go Wrong"--The Mag Life Blog. Although the article is mostly about the performance and reliability of this round, the author includes a bit on its potential use for self-defense:

    Although these are listed as Target bullets, I think the range of uses for these particular rounds could be a bit wider. I’m certain they could fit the bill for hunting small game. Another use that comes to mind is Self Defense. Penetration is a positive attribute when being used for self-defense, and the solid nature of these rounds will facilitate that.

    My friend, Terril Hebert, conducted some tests with these rounds in 10% ballistic gelatin and had some interesting results.

    From a revolver with a 2.5-inch barrel, shooting through a couple of layers of denim, the rounds penetrated around eight inches. Sure, that’s no house on fire, but still, a 40-grain projectile going up to 8 inches into the body is going to create some issues for the recipient. And let’s not forget the havoc wrought by John Hinkley, Jr. during his attack on President Reagan—several people, including the President, went down.

    When Mr. Hebert used a 16-inch barrel, things became more interesting. Shooting into the same type of gel through denim, he saw penetration in the 12 to 13-inch range. The FBI recommends at least 12 inches of penetration, so this meets their minimum penetration requirement.

• "TFB Armorer’s Bench: Things in My Portable Gunsmith Kit".  This is probably more kit than most people take with them to the range: I bring a set of screwdrivers, a pair of needle-nose pliers, set of the compact hex and torx head wrenches that fold up, and a cleaning kit (including one with a brass rod), but that is about it. The core of the author's kit (which the author does not suggest is the best choice, merely noting that is what he started with) is an NC Star brand "Essential Gun Smith Tool Kit" which retails for about $77 on Amazon to which he has added Allen wrenches, a small torque wrench, some additional screwdrivers, and a few other items. The base kit includes a small bench block which would probably be a good idea to have along--I may need to pick up an extra to throw in my range bag.
• "Taking A Tumble" by Dave Workman, Guns Magazine. An article on what the author does to clean and polish spent brass for reloading, mostly focusing on the benefits of wet tumbling using steel pins as a tumbling media.
• "World Standard: Why the 9mm?"--The Mag Life. Why, with all the other good handgun cartridges out there, did the 9mm become the de facto world standard for combat and pistol defensive ammo? The article goes through Mas Ayoob's reasoning. Some of the reasons listed are historical: the adoption of the 9x19mm by the German military in the run up to World War I, the wide spread availability of surplus 9mm pistols after WWII, and, more recently, better bullets for defensive purposes that have increased the terminal effectiveness of 9mm. He also notes that Hollywood has played a role with several popular movies with characters using "wonder-9s" (e.g., Die Hard). And, finally, since the most popular semi-auto pistol designs come from Europe and Europeans have a strong bias for 9mm, it has impacted tastes and availability in the United States.

    It may always be a mystery why some cartridges become so popular that they eclipse their competitors and others languish and pass into obscurity. Unfortunately, in many cases it has as much to do with the weapon that launched them into popularity as much as anything else, and in the case of the 9mm it had a lot to do with the popularity of the 9mm Lugar pistol, adopted by Germany as a military sidearm, which then led to other weapons being chambered in that round. But, even so, many other popular weapon and ammo combinations have come and gone, so the question really should be why the 9x19mm has hung on for so long. And I think that the answer to that is that it hits a sweet spot of performance, recoil, size, and price. That is, while not as lethal as other calibers (and isn't that the case with most .38 caliber weapons), it is good enough (even better now with better bullets). It's reasonably powerful but without the excessive recoil that people complain of with the .45 ACP and .40 S&W. And it comes in a size that can be fit into a magazine and pistol grip that can still be sized small enough for most people to grasp without sacrificing capacity: in fact, when the double-stack 9's--the wonder nines--hit the market in the 1980s, they had a surfeit of capacity compared to the .45 ACP. And, finally, the 9mm has typically been significantly cheaper than its main competitor, the .45 ACP.  

 

VIDEO: "The 2nd Coming - An Approach to the Timing"--Gospel Lessons (13 min.)

The author notes that there are a lot of things that have to happen, according to scripture, before the Second Coming; and it might be farther off than we might think (or hope).

Prepping & Survival:

• FYI: "Threat of crippling rail strike before the holidays: Unions representing 57,000 workers REJECT White House proposal and brings US closer to December 9 walkout that could cost $2billion a DAY."

    One of the country's largest rail unions has rejected a White House proposal to better pay, increasing the likelihood of an industry-wide strike just before the holidays that would kneecap America's supply chain. 

    SMART Transportation Division, which represents 36,000 of the country's rail workers, rejected the deal on Monday morning in an ongoing dispute over sickness and attendance policies. 

    BLET, the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen, has 24,000 members and voted to ratify the deal but said it would join the picket line with SMART if they continue to refuse the new terms. 

According to the article, this represents more than half of American rail workers.

• "What To Look For In A Good Knife"--Shooting Illustrated. Just some basic considerations on selecting the right knife for the job. I wish it had more detailed, but it really is just a starting point from which to do more research.
• "CPAP Battery Solutions 2"--Blue Collar Prepping. In a prior article, the author had gone over her power requirements, some ways to reduce the power requirements, and a few other considerations, but had not settled on a solution. This article addresses her choices. She has selected a Rockpals Freeman 600 powerbank for storing and feeding electricity to her CPAP machine, and is considering the Rockpals SP003 100W Portable Solar Panel for emergency charging. She acknowledges that one of the main reasons for the Rockpals powerbank was the cost: $500 normally through Amazon (she was able to save over $100 more due to a sale).
• "10 Ways to Use Up Expired Cooking Oil" by Bernie Carr, Apartment Prepper. Although I've been able to get cooking oil to store longer, the accepted storage life (absent freezing it) is generally considered to be 6 months. So, rather than throw that oil away, the author suggests different ways to use it, everything from lighting and pest control to various lubrication solutions. 
• "Learn What Is Gaslighting And How To Recognize It"--Modern Survival Blog. From the article:

    Because we are living in a perpetual state of gaslighting. It’s being used to brainwash the people. And most do not recognize it. Unfortunately that group is quite large, and the technique is quite successful. It is an extremely powerful psychological tool being used to influence one’s perception of reality.

    As someone who recognizes gaslighting, I see it predominantly used by the political left, their mainstream media, and their many influencers.

    Someone recently put it his way… “The reality that we are being told by the mainstream media is often at complete odds with what we are seeing with our own two eyes. And when we question the false reality that we are being presented, or we claim that what we see is that actual reality, we are vilified [and ridiculed, silenced, de-platformed, shunned, called racists, conspiracy theorist, or just plain nuts].” The thing is, you’re not any of those. Rather, you’re being gaslighted.

    “Being called a conspiracy theorist is perhaps one of the greatest tools in their arsenal for gaslighting the public. Any skepticism that goes against the establishment is deemed conspiracy theory, and they use their corporate media empires to label all dissent against them.”

Well, I think accusations of racism and bigotry have largely replaced being called a conspiracy theorist. E.g., when people noticed that fake fans were being used to fill the stadium in Qatar for the World Cup, "FIFA president Gianni Infantino claimed the suggestions were ‘pure racism’."

• Related: "You’ve Been Gaslighted – Democrats Just Stole Another Election" by Wayne Allyn Root, Root for America.

    Think of all the times in just the past few years you’ve been gaslighted. They lied to you about open borders…they lied about Hillary’s 30,000 deleted emails…they lied about spying on Trump…they lied about Russian Collusion…they lied about a perfectly fine Ukrainian phone call…they lied about massive Biden corruption in Ukraine and China… they lied about the Hunter Biden laptop…they lied about the origins of Covid…they lied about the need for lockdowns and masks…they lied about the need for Covid vaccines…they lied about the vaccines being “safe and effective”…they lied and covered up all the deaths and injuries from the vaccine…they lied about the success of miracle drugs Hydroxychloroquine and Ivermectin…they lied about the stolen 2020 election…

    You’ve been the victims of nonstop severe gaslighting for a decade now. You’re all part of a human psychology experiment in the limits that government and media can go in propaganda and brainwashing…while you can see they’re lying right in front of your eyes.

    And these are the exact same people now telling you Democrats just over-performed, and stopped a GOP red landslide, against all odds, without cheating and stealing the midterm election.

VIDEO: "China’s Xi Jinping Knows He Screwed Up"--China Uncensored (10 min.)

China's economy continues to slow.

News & Analysis:

• In for the long haul: "US quietly announces new Ukraine command with 3-star general."

    Lost in the whirlwind of midterm election news last week was an announcement that not only will Washington send $400 million worth of additional weapons to Ukraine, but it is pushing forward with a new joint forces command, to be stationed in Germany, to “handle weapons shipments and personnel training.”

    According to the Department of Defense, the new command, which was previously reported this summer, will be officially called the Security Assistance Group Ukraine, or SAGU, and will be based out of U.S. Army Europe and Africa headquarters in Wiesbaden, Germany. It will be a led by a 3-star general.

    The command will involve 300 U.S. military personnel but will likely work closely with U.S. Army Europe and Africa’s training center in Grafenwoehr and Hohenfels as well as the service’s garrison in Baumholder. In addition, “the thousands of U.S. soldiers now positioned at training areas in Poland and Romania … could factor into the plans,” Stars & Stripes reported.

• Related: "It’s Time to Speak the Truth About Ukraine" by Maurice Richards, American Greatness. A different take from what is in the popular media. An excerpt:

    Contrary to Western media disinformation, Ukraine has already lost the war. The fact is that from the start of the conflict, Russia has been fighting at a one-to-three manpower disadvantage. Despite the handicap, Russia has been inflicting a minimum of 600 to 1,500 casualties a day on the Ukrainian army, taken 20 percent of the country, and is dismantling its power grid. Ukraine has lost 100,000 soldiers so far. 

Now, because of its partial mobilization, Russia is drastically changing the odds—and in the coming weeks will deploy 300,000 army reservists along with 70,000 new volunteers. The Russian withdrawals in the Kharkov and Kherson regions, hyped by Western media as devastating Russian defeats—are nothing of the kind. These are instead short-term tactical realignments designed to minimize casualties by the still-temporarily-outnumbered Russian forces. Unless Joe Biden and NATO launch World War III with a direct military intervention—the remnants of the Ukrainian army will be destroyed by spring or summer. 

He also discusses the deep and pervasive corruption in Ukraine, how sanctions have backfired, and the totalitarian nature of its government.

• "Sam Bankman-Fried: The rise and fall of the Jewish king of crypto." Basically a background article from the Jerusalem Post on the crook.
• More: "Sam Bankman-Fried Is Not Alone: Some of History’s Greatest Monsters Were Democratic Megadonors." The other Democrat megadonors listed in the article are Harvey Weinstein, Jeffrey Epstein, Ed Buck (né Buckmelter), and Bernie Madoff. The article closes: "It's almost as if there is a pattern…". Well, there is another. 
• More: "FTX founder's Twitter meltdown: Over ONE MILLION victims of trading bankruptcy may never recoup their lost funds - while ex-CEO Bankman-Fried 'scrambles to raise new cash' and posts series of cryptic messages."
• And you thought FTX was bad: "FTX on Steroids: Is 'Tether' the Biden World’s Crypto BCCI?" This is a long article but worth the read as to what it reveals about how the world really operates. Short take:

The story you’re about to hear concerns the third-largest crypto-currency on the planet, which you’ve probably never heard of. It is a story of how a former Disney child-actor — a Jeffrey Epstein associate who was embroiled in an under-age sex scandal — bizarrely emerged as one of the world’s strangest crypto-currency moguls. It is the story that raises serious questions as to whether an entire cryptocurrency is a scam — effectively a private money-printer. And to top it all off, there is reason to believe that if this cryptocurrency is the scam that it appears to be, it will nonetheless be allowed to continue because of this particular cryptocurrency’s usefulness to intelligence agencies in funneling money to foreign rebel groups and jihadis with plausible deniability.

• As Greg Ellifritz noted last Friday, this story isn't getting the attention it deserves: "Vehicle hits 25 LA County sheriff’s academy recruits on run." Based on the details in this article and other sources, it sure seems the driver intentionally veered into the group of recruits. Basic facts:

    The driver of an SUV veered into the wrong lane and plowed through dozens of Los Angeles County sheriff’s academy recruits running in formation during a training exercise early Wednesday, injuring 25 of the cadets, authorities said. 

 

    The most serious injuries included head trauma, broken bones and “loss of limb,” said Sheriff Alex Villanueva. He said five people were critically injured, four had moderate injuries and 16 had minor injuries.

The driver, Nicholas Joseph Gutierrez, was later arrested for attempted murder, but it is my understanding that he was subsequently released from custody. Gutierrez had marijuana in the SUV and may have been intoxicated at the time of the crash. His attorney is now claiming that Gutierrez swerved and struck the trainees because he fell asleep at the wheel.

• Tolerance: "Young people who de-transition describe death threats, doxxing, intimidation and being accused of 'genocide' by members of the 'cult-like' transgender community they turn their backs on." It is a cult.
• If you want more of something, subsidize it: "SF launches guaranteed income program for transgender community." 

    The city's Mayor, London Breed, said the new program will provide low-income transgender residents with payments up to $1,200 each month for up to 18 months. 

    The city says the payments will help the trans community with financial insecurity. 

    The program will support 55 people. In addition to guaranteed income, participants will be provided with gender-affirming medical and mental health care, case management and specialty care services, and financial coaching. 

• "Look who's toking: America's cannabis advocates tend to be young, rich, suburban, educated, liberal, and secular, while older, rural, church-going conservatives and Hispanics put the brakes on legalization, survey shows." "Young, rich, suburban, educated, liberal, and secular" is code for "clever but stupid". 
• Related: "Marijuana smokers are MORE likely to develop lung disease than cigarette users, shock study finds." See what I mean?
• Related: "Study finds that marijuana and e-cigarettes can harm the heart as seriously as traditional cigarettes."
• Your tax dollars at work: "Ex-DEA agent who took $1million in kickbacks from the cartel - and spent it on cars, vacations, parties and sex - claims the war on drugs is 'unwinnable' as he begins his 12-year prison term for conspiring to launder drug money." Key point:

    The disgraced former narcotics agent met with The Associated Press for a series of interviews before he headed to prison this week, revealing that he wasn't going down for this alone, accusing some long-trusted DEA colleagues of joining him in skimming millions of dollars from drug money laundering stings to fund a decade's worth of luxury overseas travel, fine dining, top seats at sporting events and frat house-style debauchery.

    According to Irizarry, dozens of other federal agents, prosecutors, informants, and in some cases cartel smugglers themselves were all in on the three-continent joyride known as 'Team America' that chose cities for money laundering pick-ups mostly for party purposes or to coincide with Real Madrid soccer or Rafael Nadal tennis matches. 

    They partied in VIP rooms of Caribbean strip joints, Amsterdam's red-light district, and aboard a Colombian yacht that launched with plenty of booze and more than a dozen prostitutes.

    'We had free access to do whatever we wanted,' Irizarry said. 'We would generate money pick-ups in places we wanted to go. And once we got there it was about drinking and girls.'

    All this revelry was rooted, Irizarry said, in a crushing realization among DEA agents around the world that there's nothing they can do to make a dent in the drug war anyway. 

    Only nominal concern was given to actually building cases or stemming a record flow of illegal cocaine and opioids into the United States that has driven more than 100,000 drug overdose deaths a year.

    'You can't win an unwinnable war,' he said. 'The drug war is a game. ... It was a very fun game that we were playing.'

• The Ministry of Truth at work: "Outrageous! FDA Backtracks During Trial and Now Claims ‘Not Taking Ivermectin for COVID-19’ was Merely a Recommendation." Shan't be too long and we'll be reading that taking the vax was merely a recommendation.
• Would you like an extra helping of soybeans? "Spermageddon! Men's sperm rates have more than HALVED since the 1970s as experts warn trend could 'threaten mankind's survival'." According to the article, "Men's bulging waistlines are blamed for the worrying trend, as well as 'everywhere chemicals' in the environment." Yeah. Nothing to do with the widespread consumption of a food high in estrogen. Anyway, although the trend was initially noted in the global north, it is now worldwide. Also:

    Plummeting sperm counts are not just a symptom of reduced fertility, but will also be accompanied by higher levels of chronic disease, testicular cancer and shorter lifespans in men, they warned.

    Low testosterone, one of the physiological causes of a low sperm count, increases the risk of chronic disease, while testicular cancer can also cause declining sperm levels.

    Co-author Professor Shanna Swan, an epidemiologist at the Icahn School of Medicine, Mount Sinai, New York, said the fall could seriously harm men's health. 

    She said: 'The troubling declines in men's sperm concentration ... are consistent with adverse trends in other men's health outcomes, such as testicular cancer, hormonal disruption, and genital birth defects, as well as declines in female reproductive health.

    'This clearly cannot continue unchecked.'

    She previously warned that 'everywhere chemicals', such as phthalates found in toiletries, food packaging and children's toys, are to blame. 

    The chemicals cause hormonal imbalance which can trigger 'reproductive havoc', she said.

    Factors including smoking tobacco and marijuana and rising obesity rates may also play a role, Dr Swan said previously.

• "New study finds little to no health risks related to eating meat."

    A new scientific study claims to have found little to no health risks related to eating red meat. The study says previous studies that claimed there was a link between red meat consumption and health issues are based on "weak evidence."

    Researchers at the University of Washington’s Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) released a study titled: "Health effects associated with consumption of unprocessed red meat: a Burden of Proof study." The paper was published in Nature journal in October.

    The scientists declared, "We found weak evidence of association between unprocessed red meat consumption and colorectal cancer, breast cancer, type 2 diabetes, and ischemic heart disease. Moreover, we found no evidence of an association between unprocessed red meat and ischemic stroke or hemorrhagic stroke."

    The authors of the study noted, "While there is some evidence that eating unprocessed red meat is associated with increased risk of disease incidence and mortality, it is weak and insufficient to make stronger or more conclusive recommendations."

• The Daily Mail reports that "Having multiple sexual partners does NOT affect your marriage chances in the long-term, study finds," although it does concede that having lots of recent partners does decrease one's odds of getting married. Although, I have to say that is not what I get from the accompanying graph which shows significant differences (a 40+% spread) between the odds of a woman with one prior partner (with the best odds) entering into a first marriage versus those with 6 or more prior partners (with the worst odds). The article doesn't mention the back end, either: women with multiple past sexual partners are more likely to divorce, with a direct correlation between the number of partners and the likelihood of divorce. 
• "Major Disney shakeup: Struggling entertainment giant axes CEO, brings back Bob Iger." CEO Bob Chapek, who has led Disney since 2020, is on the way out. "The shakeup came just a week after the company announced hiring freeze and layoffs, signaling an increasingly gloomy economic outlook amid what analysts warn is a looming recession." The Daily Mail observes that under Chapek's "woke tenure" Disney lost a third of its market value. While Chapek may not have fixed the problems, the reality is that the problems Disney is facing, including its overweening wokeness, arose under Iger's tenure, so I'm not convinced that bringing Iger back will help anything. Vox Day similarly lacks faith, writing:

Here is my prediction. Iger will not only double down on Disney’s convergence, he will also attempt to buy Netflix. Growth through leveraged buyout is the only thing he knows, and the seeds of future failure are always planted in the flowering of success.

• Lies, Damn Lies, and the FBI: "SHOCKER! WaPo Update About Mar-A-Lago Raid Doesn't Fit the Narrative." Remember how the FBI raided Trump's home to recover stolen nuclear secrets and the main stream media blasted this story over and over? Well, the FBI has finally admitted that it found no nuclear secrets. Just another lie to justify a search warrant. 
• "Just Like Home" by Helen Andrews, The American Conservative. Andrews' commentary builds off the thesis advanced in Garrett Jones' book, The Culture Transplant: How Migrants Make the Economies They Move To a Lot Like the Ones They Left. Andrews' describes Jones' thesis thusly: 

    A country’s level of prosperity is in large part determined by its culture, specifically on key questions such as “frugality, trust in strangers, the importance of living near family, and opinions about government regulation.” These traits are even more important than whether a country has natural resources or whether it is a liberal democracy. They determine whether a country will be able to make good use of any natural resources it has or make the institutions of liberal democracy function successfully.

    According to Jones’s research, these basic values are resilient in immigrant populations even after generations. One study looking at social trust found that “46 percent of the home country attitude toward trust survived” in second-generation immigrants to the United States. The same 46 percent persistence was found in fourth-generation immigrants. No gradual assimilation to American trust levels occurred. Other studies found similar persistence in other cultural traits, such as attitude to the role of government.

Jones' conclusions, apparently, is that nations need to import lots of Chinese because they have cultural traits conducive to economic prosperity even if it results in occasional ethnic violence aimed toward the Chinese such as has happened in South-East Asia. But immigration has its down sides as Andrews explains:

    Living in a high-trust society is much nicer than living in a low-trust society. Sweden is nicer than Somalia. But what is best of all is to be a low-trust person in a high-trust society. It is like being the lone defector in a prisoner’s dilemma.

    One of the advantages of a high-trust society is that strangers cooperate easily. You assume the person you are doing business with will keep his promises, and if he doesn’t, the police and the courts can be counted on to offer adjudication and redress. In low-trust societies, people compensate for the greater possibility that strangers will cheat them with impunity by doing business within their own family or clan. (Jones notes this, too: “You might think that family-run companies are charming, but they’re often a sign that the firm can’t convince total strangers to invest in it. Why won’t strangers invest? Because the strangers can’t be sure they’ll get a fair shake of the firm’s profits.”)

    Many of the countries from which America draws Asian immigrants fit this description of low-trust familism to one degree or another. As Jones might have predicted, this clannishness persists even into later American-born generations. In 2000, Indian Americans were less than 1 percent of the population but owned more than 50 percent of the motels in the country, and the vast majority of those motel owners had the surname Patel and traced their origins to the same region of Gujarat. As social scientists found when they researched this phenomenon, the “Patel motel cartel” arose because the immigrants used their immediate families as staff, keeping labor costs down, and used their extended immigrant community as a professional network to expand their market share.

    Ironically, one of the reasons the Patels emigrated in the first place was that post-independence Gujarat was not friendly to capitalist entrepreneurs. It turned out that the traits they adopted in order to cope with rampant corruption and overweening government back home were equally advantageous, maybe more so, in free-market America.

Of course, it is not just Chinese and Indians which demonstrate this clannishness. It has long been the secret to the success of most successful, but insular, minorities: e.g., the Jews. (There is a certain irony that the Jews are losing control of the international diamond market to equally clannish Indian families because the Indians are reproducing faster). 

     Andrews also addresses a point that I raised recently when I noted another piece on Jones' book: what happens when we import a lot of people with less desirable traits?

    Is it possible that the traits that make immigrant minorities successful in America are the same traits that, in broad majorities, hold their home countries back? That would explain the paradox of why some immigrant minorities have higher incomes than native white Americans even though their home countries struggle to escape poverty.

    But the most important question is whether people from a low-trust society can, in sufficient numbers, transform a high-trust society into a low-trust one. Because if being a low-trust person in a high-trust society is the best of both worlds, being a high-trust person in a low-trust society is the worst. All the characteristics that made your country attractive to immigrants in the first place become maladaptive overnight.

    Much of the literature on immigrant assimilation looks at easily observable questions about subsequent generations, such as whether they are learning English, graduating high school, and moving up the income ladder. Jones’s book proves that these external accomplishments do not necessarily indicate assimilation at the deeper level of cultural values. This is of the greatest possible importance, because every day social science discovers further evidence that these cultural values, more than anything else, determine what a country’s politics and its economy will look like in the future.

• At least some things are going well: "NASA Moon mission 'exceeding' expectations." 

    Orion is already some 200,000 miles (320,000 kilometers) from Earth and preparing to perform the first of four main thrusts scheduled during the mission using its engines.

    This maneuver, which will take place early Monday morning, will bring the spacecraft as close as 80 miles (130 kilometers) from the lunar surface, in order to take advantage of the Moon's gravitational force.

    Since this will take place on the far side of the Moon, NASA is expected to lose contact with the spacecraft for approximately 35 minutes.

    "We will be passing over some of the Apollo landing sites," said flight director Jeff Radigan, although they will be in darkness. Footage of the flyover will be released by NASA.

    Four days later, a second thrust from the engines will place Orion in a distant orbit around the Moon.

    The ship will go up to 40,000 miles beyond the Moon, a record for a habitable capsule.

    It will then begin the journey back to Earth, with a landing in the Pacific Ocean scheduled for December 11, after just over 25 days of flight.