Original Hardy Boys E-Books

Here is something that home schoolers and those just interested in a bit of nostalgia might enjoy.  One of my sons stumbled across a site that has e-books of the original Hardy Boys books that have gone into the public domain in Canada (plus lots of other books). These are the original versions which started to be published in the 1920s and through the '30s, '40s, and into the 1950s before the publisher went back and edited and changed the stories, coming out with the blue spine copies that most of us are probably familiar with. I've read quite a few of these original stories: some are very similar to the blue spine versions; but others are very different stories. For instance, the original of The Disappearing Floor is a wholly different story, as is The Secret Of The Caves and The Missing Chums. Others have similar elements, but have been greatly changed such as Hunting For Hidden Gold and The Mystery of Cabin Island.

I believe the rewriting of the books in the 1950s wasn't just to update some of the technology and settings, but to also make the books align better with the prevailing attitudes of what books for children should be like, similar to the changes we saw as a result of the adoption of the Comic Codes Authority. While the Hardy Boys in the original books sometimes carried revolvers (and even used them on occasion, although never to kill a person) the updated versions have removed any such references. The original Hardy Boys were also a bit more rambunctious, had little respect for the Bayport police force, and were not above practical jokes and funny jibes. 

Project Gutenberg also has some of the books available.  

Weekend Reading #77

Some longer or more involved reading:

•  Jon Low has posted his mid-month Defensive Pistolcraft newsletter. A few points I found especially notable:

    First, Jon has some comments regarding an article I had linked to about trigger control, which I will repeat in full (the original in regular type and Jon's comments in italics):

     ". . . I don’t think exact digit placement matters so long as you can pull the trigger straight back with each shot."  

[I disagree.  Consistency is accuracy.  The center of the trigger should be in the center of your fingerprint.  Everyone has a whorl, loop, or arch fingerprint on the pad of their trigger finger.  The center of the trigger should be on the center of your fingerprint.  If your trigger is not in the correct position for this to allow you to press the trigger straight to the rear, get a gunsmith to move the trigger for you.  Yes, as a matter of fact, a competent gunsmith can move the trigger on any pistol.  (Moving the trigger position on 1911's is especially easy by replacing the trigger.)  
-- Jon Low ]   

I think there is a bit more nuance to this issue. It has long been recognized that while the center of the pad works the best for firearms with a lighter trigger, the distal crease (i.e., the crease at the first joint of the finger closest to the tip) is best for heavy trigger pulls such as you will get when shooting double action. Massad Ayoob calls this the "power crease". This is why I prefer a smooth trigger face on double-action triggers. 

    A second item that stuck out to me were some comments Jon had quoted from Gabe Suarez about striking versus takedown/ground fighting in a street fight. Suarez's comments were in response to a piece from Pete Blair at Tactical Science arguing that police should use take downs because they present better to witnesses or a jury; and Suarez taking the position that in fights on the street, take downs are too dangerous because of the environment or the possibility of the suspect stabbing or cutting you while you are tied up with him on the ground. Jon agreed with Suarez, writing: "I agree with Gabe.  Don't grapple.  You will pick up all kinds of nasty diseases, fleas, lice, feces, urine, and such.  They will bite you.  They will scratch you.  (Yes, it happened to me when I was working in the hospital emergency rooms.)  Strike and twist to disengage.  Separate and weaponize." I've been told and read the same from other sources as well. Leaving out the chance of your opponent having a weapon, the street or sidewalk or parking lot is not the same as the practice mats at a dojo: a street fight presents a hard surface with curbs, rocks and other debris (possibly broken glass or other debris that will cut), with only the Lord knows what else. And if you assailant has buddies, going to the ground leaves you at risk of being kicked or stomped by them. 

    Third, Jon links to a short video that I think is important for everyone, but especially for women, older men, and boys, on fighting against someone that has you in a grip (for instance, grabbing your jacket or shirt or grabbing one of your arms). Jon summarizes and comments:

     Don't fight the grip, fight the face [gouge eyes, finger through the ears into the brain (Oh yes, your finger is long enough to reach his brain, if you are a petite woman your fingers are thin enough to get through his ear canal.  And if you've got long sharp glued on finger nails, well . . .  Can't imagine yourself doing that to a human?  Well, I can assure you that he can imagine raping and sodomizing you, and will.  So decide.), or cup your hands and clap over his ears to break his ear drums with air pressure].  Don't wait for him to hit you.  Strike first.   

    Finally, Jon comments about a video Massad Ayoob recently posted about speeding up your pistol reloads, where Ayoob recommended using the slide release instead of pulling back on the slide (the sling-shot method) to release the slide. Jon raises a good point:

     I disagree.  The reason you MUST rack the slide instead of hitting the slide stop, is because the slide might not be locked back.  You must always use techniques that work in all conditions, not just the pristine conditions of your air conditioned indoor range.   

I can affirm Jon's reasoning, albeit from a slightly different factual pattern. I had been invited by a friend to go to a shooting match and, since I didn't have a handgun suitable for such matches at the time, my friend let me use a 1911-style 9mm he had. Up to that point, I generally used the slide release; but the problem I quickly discovered when I did my first reload was that I couldn't quite reach the slide release with my thumb, so I had to resort to the sling shot method (and thank goodness I had enough experience I could make the shift smoothly and quickly). I think the advantage of doing it the same way each time outweighs the marginal time savings from using the slide release--especially if you find yourself, like me, under time constraints and suddenly discovering that using the slide release is not a viable option. 

    Jon has a lot more, so be sure to check the whole thing out.

• It's the weekend, so that means that Greg Ellifritz has another Active Response Training Weekend Knowledge Dump.  Lots of good stuff this week, so it has been hard to pare it down to a handful that particularly stick out. But here goes:
• I've grown to like some of the African hunting stories, but Greg links to one that is a bit unusual: an African hunting guide that used a MAC-10 submachine gun to deal with a large troop of baboons that had killed a village child and otherwise become a dangerous nuisance. 
• An article with good advice for concealed carry shooters entitled "Top 6 Things Every Concealed Carry Holder Should Know." Because there is much more to concealed carry than just knowing how to draw and shoot your handgun.
• But you need to be able to shoot accurately when it comes down to it as the tale of the mad dog illustrates. 
• A detailed article on getting appendix carry to work for men (or women, for that matter) with big bellies. 
• A good article explaining the difference between competition shooting and tactical/combat training. Key bit: "Tactical training isn't trying to win a match. It's trying to solve a lethal-force problem while minimizing unnecessary risk to yourself and others. A doorway on a competition stage is simply part of the course design. A doorway in a hostile structure may be a fatal funnel requiring an entirely different solution." However, if you don't care about winning a competition, you can approach it from a more combat oriented perspective.
• A detailed article from Swift Silent Deadly on putting together a more realistic bug-out bag. 
• A piece from Off Grid on the many uses for a triangular bandage. 

• And now for something completely different: "How Did the Tesla Roadster Fly? Here’s How It Works"--Motor Trend. From the lede:

The most staggering technology introduced on the new Tesla Roadster is a propulsion system pulled directly from SpaceX—the rocket, satellite and artificial intelligence company also owned by Elon Musk. In the Roadster shown at the event, four metal nozzles sit just above the rear bumper and look for all the world like the exhaust tips on your standard supercar (think C8 Corvette but spread farther apart). But this is an EV, so those pipes are not venting exhaust gases, but high-pressure air, primarily nitrogen, that’s stored in a massive black spherical tank that sits behind the roadster’s two front seats. The ball is a composite-overwrapped pressure vessel (COPV), and it’s connected by two pipes that feed the four nozzles, which function as cold gas thrusters (CGT).

• "Edgar Rice Burroughs' John Carter Is The Archetype The Right Must Embrace To Counter Left Wing Nihilism And Degeneracy"--Fandom Pulse. Not the character presented in the Disney movie, of course, but from Burroughs' novels. An excerpt:

    John Carter is a chivalric ideal, a man who embodies all the masculine virtues in their perfect Aristotelian mean—or at least comes close to it. He embodies duty but not weakness. He embodies strength but not cruelty. He embodies adventure but not recklessness. To put it bluntly, John Carter is a masculine hero in the truest sense of those words.

    He’s a man who knows what he wants and takes after it with every ounce of his being. He does not shirk from battle; in fact, he’s a fighting man. Battle is in his blood, and he’s called to it as his vocation. He’s a leader of men, at all times honorable and fair. He’s the kind of man who can snatch victory from the jaws of defeat. You’d rather have no one else by your side and rather anyone else against you. John Carter embodies the archetype of the king, which I would argue is completely lost on the world today. 

    When was the last time you saw a man portrayed so favorably on television? When was the last time you saw a man like John Carter?

    Because I can tell you this, it certainly wasn’t in the John Carter movie.

    Now I don’t want to rag too harshly on this movie as he does still become the hero. But it does illustrate the trend media took over the 20th century. Our culture swung from strong men being strong men, to weak men becoming strong men, and finally to weak men being weak men. You can see this everywhere, even in Peter Jackson’s acclaimed Lord of the Rings movies. Aragorn is not a reluctant hero in the books. He doesn’t second guess himself. But for some reason, such a thing was incomprehensible to audiences (or rather Hollywood writers) in 2001. And it has only gotten far worse from there.

    You can visibly detect how masculinity has been increasingly portrayed more tragically as time goes on. When men are not outright evil, they’re to be demeaned as the fundamentally lesser of the two sexes. It is always the man who is less capable, less aware, less actualized. If the man is loving, he must also be bumbling and weak. 

[snip]

    Dissident literature, if it is to stand against Leftwing art, it must be uplifting to the soul—and especially to this masculine spirit. The heroic must awaken in men again. And while this does not mean all men are called to be warriors, all men are called to be as virtuous as John Carter, and as a man, to live life with that same vitality in whichever vocation he is called to. 

Read the whole thing. 

Dumb Firearm Training

In "Dumbest Ways We Train with Firearms," Richard Mann has some cutting remarks about popular drills and procedures. For instance, about the immediate action drills to clear stoppages, Mann writes: "I’m sorry, but if you’re in a gunfight and your pistol stops working, the most likely cause is that it is out of ammo. The standard immediate action of, tap, rack, and ready, will not sort this problem." 

A more practical approach to dealing with a pistol that will not go bang—while you are in the middle of shooting at something to save your life—is not to conduct some sort of action that requires you to determine the precise cause of the failure. Just reload the pistol. And by reloading the pistol I mean, eject the magazine that is in it, insert a new magazine, and fully rack the slide. If the pistol is out of ammo, this will fix it. If it has a stoppage, this will most likely correct it. If it is a type-3 stoppage, you will likely have to pull the magazine from the handgun, but you’ll realize that when it does not eject.

He also has some harsh words about scanning after shooting a target.  

The Great Replacement: Funded By Your Tax Dollars

Funded by your tax dollars going to liberal religious institutions. From the New York Post: "Two Christian groups were paid $62M to resettle tens of thousands of Somalis in Minnesota." The article relates:

    Two church non-profits have taken in at least $62 million to build the Somali community in Minnesota — leading to the rise of Ilhan Omar and the fraud scandals that have gripped that state, The Post can reveal.

    Catholic Charities and Lutheran Social Services were at the forefront of reshaping the frigid Land of 10,000 Lakes thanks to generous government contracts stemming back generations.

    “This is a very big pile of government money and a whole bunch of different groups have come to get their own slice of it,” Parker Thayer, an immigration expert at the Washington, DC-based Capital Research Center, told The Post.

    He added the total money pouring into Minneapolis resettlement programs alone is “in the hundreds of millions.”

    He noted that since 2021, the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, the body overseeing Catholic Charities, has received $140 million in migrant resettlement contracts from the federal government.   

[snip]

    The two church groups have resettled an estimated 29,000 Somalians into Minnesota since 1993, collecting a reported $2,500 per refugee to cover costs like food, initial housing and social workers.

    The population today is over 100,000 in Minnesota according to data, thanks to chain migration (also known as “family reunification”) and the state’s generous welfare system, which became a magnet for Somalis, including those initially placed elsewhere in the US.

    “They picked Minnesota because it had extremely generous state social safety net policies and welfare programs, which of course made resettling refugees there easier,” Thayer said. “Refugees from Somalia then moved to Minnesota after they were resettled elsewhere, in places like South Dakota.

The article includes some history of Minnesota being a dumping ground, noting that after WWII many refugees were resettled into Minnesota; and, later, the Hmong of Vietnam--who had assisted the CIA in the Vietnam war--were also resettled in Minnesota. It makes you wonder if the Somali groups being resettled now were, similar to the Hmong, also those groups which worked with the CIA.

Related:

• "Ilhan Omar Was 37 When She Entered Congress. Soon, She Became 36"--PJ Media. 
• "Why does an American state have Somali gangs?"--Washington Examiner.
• "Yes, Somali Immigrants Commit More Crime Than Natives"--City Journal. 

The SPLC And Debanking: Then And Now

On August 15, 2024, the Southern Poverty Law Center called "debanking" a "conspiracy theory". The SPLC's assertions did not age well. As reported by Yahoo! Finance: 

    The Comptroller of the Currency says the nation's nine largest banks denied financial services to customers based on their political, religious, or social beliefs, according to a regulatory review released Wednesday. 

 [snip]

    The federal banking watchdog determined that the banks' sweeping internal guidelines lacked objective, risk-based criteria, effectively shutting out legitimate customers and businesses based on ideological leanings rather than financial risk.

    The OCC said its findings reveal a systematic effort within the banking sector to restrict access for politically sensitive industries through both public and nonpublic policies.

    Federal regulators found that lenders restricted certain sectors' access to financial services, including oil and gas exploration; coal mining; firearms or ammunition manufacturing or distribution; construction or operation of detention facilities; and the manufacturing, distribution or online retail of tobacco or e-cigarettes.  

It is notable that, per this Life News article, the SPLC is indirectly implicated in "debanking" as at least some of the banking institutions relied on SPLC materials to discriminate against certain businesses. From the article:

    JPMorgan Chase’s WePay closed the account of a religious organization after it was designated an “extremist hate group” by the SPLC; internal notes described it as a “right wing religious conservative non profit with strong anti LGBTQ rhetoric.” WePay also closed an account used by a devout Christian to fund a legal challenge to anti-discrimination laws.

    PNC denied a line of credit to a media company in part because an owner funded Christian conservative groups the SPLC had labeled hate groups. Wells Fargo pressured a payment processor to end service to a religious nonprofit over its views on same-sex marriage.

    These actions followed the circulation of a report titled “Bankrolling Bigotry: An Overview of the Online Funding Strategies of American Hate Groups.” The Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network emailed it to leaders at major banks, including JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, and Citibank.

    Drawing on Southern Poverty Law Center designations, the report falsely listed pro-life and Christian organizations—Alliance Defending Freedom, Liberty Counsel, the Family Research Council, the Ruth Institute, and the American College of Pediatricians—alongside white nationalist, white supremacist, and Holocaust denial groups. It urged platforms to restrict their access and recommended that Congress consider stripping them of tax-exempt status. 

And from a New York Post article about the OCC findings:

Banks regularly used hate group designations from the Southern Poverty Law Center to debank customers. The SPLC was indicted in April on federal fraud and money-laundering charges, with prosecutors alleging it defrauded donors of millions of dollars. FBI Director Kash Patel has described the non-profit as a “partisan smear machine.” 

Idaho's Proposition 1

The big political fight in Idaho's upcoming election will be Proposition 1 which will largely nullify Idaho's restrictions on abortion-on-demand. Idaho currently makes it a crime for a person (i.e., a doctor or other abortionist) to perform or attempt to perform an abortion except (i) during the first trimester of a pregnancy; or (ii) to prevent the death of the pregnant woman. The act does not make it illegal for a woman to obtain an abortion, however, which means she is free to go to another state. So really, all it makes illegal are abortions in the second and third trimesters except when to prevent the death of a pregnant woman.

    But this law has really pissed off liberal white women, particularly those who don't want a handicapped child or child with medical problems. For instance, this article at The 19th relates the following about one supporter of Proposition 1, Lisa Wirsching:

    On some days, it seems as if the campaign to overturn Idaho’s abortion ban has taken over Wirsching’s life. But just a year ago, this grandmother living outside of Boise would hardly have called herself a political woman. She supported abortion rights, she said, and mourned the overturn of Roe v. Wade. Still, she never thought the issue could shape her own life so intimately. 

    That changed when her youngest daughter, Abby Nichols, was pregnant with her first child.

    Near the end of her first trimester, Nichols learned her fetus had trisomy 18, a genetic anomaly that stunts development. Only 10 percent of babies born with the condition survive to their first birthday. When Nichols decided to end her pregnancy — which she felt would spare needless suffering — she couldn’t get help in Idaho. After contacting medical providers in Colorado and Washington, she finally found an appointment in Seattle. 

Note well, however, that Nichols learned about the condition in the first trimester and could have at that point obtained an abortion in Idaho. It's not clear from the article why she couldn't get help in Idaho--whether she waited too long to make a decision, her doctor refused to perform the abortion, or she wanted to keep the baby but her mother convinced her to have an abortion. 

    The article from The 19th suggests that this is wholly a homegrown effort, although it goes on to note that supporters of the proposition had received a $250,000 donation from former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg; and a few days ago the local Public Radio station reported that "[s]ince Sept. 1, Idahoans United for Women and Families has brought in nearly $2.5 million to support Proposition 1, according to state campaign finance records." That may not seem much for most states, but for a state with as small a population as Idaho, that is a lot of money. 

    But as with most things that are supported by liberals, the image they try to create are at odds with what they are actually pushing. You can read the text of Proposition 1 here, but a few points:

• It goes well beyond abortion and impacts all aspects of health care for women related to contraception, fertility treatment, prenatal and pregnancy care, childbirth, etc.  
• It creates a right of privacy which would extend to minors seeking care, meaning that parents could be left in the dark about any pregnancy care or abortion services provided to their children.
• Its definition of "reproductive health care" could probably be stretched to include transitioning children to a different sex.
• It allows abortion up to the point of "fetal viability" which is defined as the point when the physician determines that "the fetus has a significant likelihood of sustained survival outside of
  the uterus without extraordinary medical measures." What are "extraordinary medical measures"? It isn't defined, but my guess is that anything requiring serious NICU care would qualify. 

So, under Proposition 1, healthy babies could be aborted up to about 25 or 26 weeks (i.e., almost all of the way through the second trimester which ends at 27 weeks) and babies with severe medical issues potentially longer, perhaps even up to birth. 

    In other words, although the Left is framing the debate around women supposedly unable to get an abortion to deal with a medical emergency, the intent of the bill is to allow unrestricted abortion up to the beginning of the third trimester; and to keep knowledge of teen pregnancies from parents. 

Ruger Guts Its Revolver Line

In addition to one or two models discontinued earlier this year, Ruger has announced it is discontinuing immediately or after the beginning of the new year an additional 19 models. Unfortunately, it sounds as though Ruger is gutting its revolver line up, with the video mentioning that Ruger is immediately discontinuing production of its LCR, SP101, GP100 and Bearcat revolvers; and, after the end of its 2026 production runs, discontinuing the Redhawk, Super Redhawk, Blackhawk, Super Blackhawk, Single-Series revolvers, and Vaquero revolvers. At that point, I believe that the only revolvers left in its line up will be the Wrangler and Super Wrangler revolvers. 

Ruger is also discontinuing some of its upper-end sporting rifles (the No. 1, 77-Series rifles, Hawkeye and Ruger Precision Rifle) and pistol caliber carbines.  

• See also "Ruger to Discontinue Several Major Models"--American Rifleman.

 As the cited article notes:

With this shift, Ruger's handgun product lines continuing into 2027 will consist of the company's LCP offerings, RXM, MAX-9, Security-380, Security-9, Ruger 5.7, Mark IV and 22 Charger. In its revolver line, Ruger will continue making its affordable Wrangler and Super Wrangler models. For rifles, remaining Ruger offerings will consist of the company's American Rifle and American Rimfire line, as well as the Ruger Precision Rimfire, Harrier, 10/22 and Mini-14 models. 

As for a reason, the Company indicates:

"These decisions reflect our review of consumer demand, evolving market preferences, manufacturing complexity and the long-term profitability of each product family," Clary said. "The goal is to focus our resources on the products consumers want most today while creating capacity for future product development and manufacturing modernization."

The producer/host of the video, below, floats the idea that most of the products--particularly the revolvers--take skilled workers that just might not be around anymore. Another issue might be declining sales, not helped by the fact that Ruger revolvers have become as expensive as offerings from other major players like S&W and Colt. And when you look at what remains in their lineup, it is primarily the budget and mid-price range offerings. If the Mini-14 had not seen a surge in popularity recently, I wonder if it would have been facing the chopping block as well. 

VIDEO: "Ruger Discontinues / Suspends Production of 20 Different Models..."
The Turkey's Opinion (10 min.)

Distance and Reaction Time

You all have heard of the Tueller drill. It presupposes an attacker armed with a knife rushing a defender with a holstered handgun. Through the drill, it was determined that the shortest distance the average police officer could draw his handgun and fire on the attacker was if the attacker was 21 feet. But what about shorter distances? 

    In "Understanding the distancing and reaction time continuum" by Brian K. LaMaster at Buckeye Firearms Association, the author notes that most attackers will probably be initiating an attack at 10 feet or less. "On the average," he relates, "reaction times can vary from .4 seconds to .8 seconds. This means you have very little time to perceive their movement and react to it. Alright, you have about three-fourths of a second to react to someone who is moving towards you at ten feet away. If your reaction time is one half to three-fourths of a second, that leaves you with little or no time to react!"

    Unfortunately, the author continues, lateral movement does not create as much additional space (and time) as you might think. He conducted some tests, the gist of which is that at distances closer than 21-feet, even when attempting to create space, the defender was generally able to react fast enough to draw his handgun. For instance, moving the attacker to a 10 foot distance from the defender:

... The attacker made the first move and within one second the attacker was on the victim and had cut him at least once. After that, we had the defender move laterally by sidestepping. About one-half second into the attacker's movement the defender started his lateral movement. On the average, the defender was only able to cover about four feet of ground. Moving laterally does not created distance away from the attacker fast enough in order to survive especially when using the sidestepping method of footwork. In some instances the defender drew their gun only after being cut multiple times by the attacker.

A more experienced gunman did better, able to get off at least one shot even with the attacker at 5-feet. This was because:

When moving laterally the defender used cross-stepping method of footwork which kept the defender ahead of the attacker and out of reach for the most part. The defender was able to create about ten feet of ground before finally getting cut. I might ad that for the most part the defender only received cuts on his free side arm since he was drawing and shooting one handed! All of this happened in just a little over one and one-half seconds and it took that long only because the defender was able to create so much distance by cross-stepping.

Also, the experienced attacker was familiar with pre-attack indicators which gave him an edge. 

    At 5-feet starting distance, none of the inexperienced defenders could even get their gun out and the experienced gunman could not get a shot off. The foregoing was in normal lighting conditions. In dim light, even if a handgun could be drawn, the defenders were not able to hit their target.

    What the experiments did show, however, is that if the defender resorted to unarmed combatives first in order to give them time to create distance, and then to drawing their firearm, they did much better. 

In short, responding with unarmed combatives [to a knife wielding attacker] will keep you in the fight longer than by going straight for your gun. Going straight for your gun most of the time is not going to be a wise idea. And, if you move laterally or other directions with a step-n-drag method of footwork, you will not create enough distance to survive!

Related: But what about someone armed with a firearm? "Get to cover? A requiem for common sense." by Aaron Cowan. A good discussion of what is or is not cover (along with illustrations) with an emphases on what cover is offered by different parts of a vehicle.

House Dems Announce How They Will Screw Us Over If They Win

From the AP: "House Democrats plan a first 100-days agenda if they sweep to power in midterm elections." Per the article:

Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries, who is in line to become House speaker if the party wins power, said the Democrats will be united “right out of the gate” on reinstating Affordable Care Act tax breaks [i.e., effectively subsidies for health insurers], reversing Republican Medicaid cuts [i.e., taxpayer funded health care for illegals], holding votes against the Iran war [i.e., posturing for the press] and undoing President Donald Trump’s tariff regime [i.e., helping out China and making it cheaper to ship jobs overseas]. 

Point Nemo

An interesting piece at Atlas Obscura entitled "The Most Remote Place on Earth Has Space Junk and a Sea Monster." The most remote place--i.e., the farthest point from any dry land--is called Point Nemo and is located in the South Pacific at 48°52.6’S 123°23.6’W. Because it is so remote, it became a favorite place for Russia and a few other countries to use as a crash site for decommissioned satellites and such, including the Russian Mir space station. Thus, the reference to space junk in the title. 

    And the sea monster reference? That has to do with Cthulhu and the fictional sunken city of R’lyeh. From the article:

    Decades before Point Nemo was named, and before satellites started raining down, H.P. Lovecraft used these lonely waters as the setting for R’lyeh, a “nightmare corpse city (…) built in measureless eons beyond history by the vast, loathsome shapes that seeped down from the dark stars”.

    In The Call of Cthulhu (1928), R’lyeh is described as “a coast-line of mingled mud, ooze, and weedy Cyclopean masonry which can be nothing less than the tangible substance of earth’s supreme terror … loathsomely redolent of spheres and dimensions apart from ours”.

    The sunken city is the prison of the giant monster Cthulhu, part octopus, part human, part dragon: “There lay great Cthulhu and his hordes, hidden in green slimy vaults”. His followers pray for his regeneration, repeating the phrase: Ph’nglui mglw’nafh Cthulhu R’lyeh wgah’nagl fhtagn (“In his house at R’lyeh, dead Cthulhu waits dreaming”).

    Remarkably, Lovecraft placed his lost city at 47°9′S 126°43′W, just 205 miles (330 km) away from Point Nemo. August Derleth, co-creator of the Cthulhu Mythos, placed Rlyeh at 49°51′S 128°34′W, also in the general neighborhood. Clearly, both were looking for the furthest place from land, but without the benefit of modern satellites and computing. 

Watergate As A CIA Operation

An interesting piece at American Greatness--"Long-Concealed Facts Exonerate Nixon and Require Sanctioning the Unethical Prosecution"--discusses the evidence that Nixon and his campaign staff did not know about or authorize the Watergate break ins, but that it was a CIA operation (which, frankly, ties in neatly with the Washington Post pushing the narrative that Nixon had ordered the break in). The key bits:

    The prosecution and the Senate had ample evidence that Watergate was primarily a CIA operation designed to gain ostensible authority for its prostitute-taping program. Howard Hunt was an undercover CIA agent who, in his criminal Watergate trial, was prepared to offer a “CIA defense,” which he pursued until pleading guilty at the urging of John Dean, Nixon’s White House Counsel, who turned state’s evidence.

    The prosecutors were well aware of this defense, while another CIA operative, burglary leader James McCord, told his Metropolitan Police friend on the morning of the burglary that this had been a CIA operation.

    Republican Senator Howard Baker published a detailed, persuasive 43-page, unpublicized minority report on July 2, 1974, detailing CIA participation in the burglary, but the Washington Post’s reporting of it concealed its findings, and the highly publicized 1,250-page Watergate Committee Report (also known as the Ervin Report), prepared by the Democrat majority, ignored this key evidence.

And:

    While the prosecution and congressional investigations premised the break-in as a campaign operation gone wrong, it was, beyond a doubt, about wiretapping prostitutes and their visiting Democrat johns.

    The Washington Post has been overheated in its rhetoric denying this incontrovertible fact, but this strenuous denial only shows its guilt for this gross concealment.

The question then becomes, why was the CIA interested in wiretapping the prostitutes visited by Democrat officials and politicians? The logical answer would be to collect compromising information about those politicians that the CIA could use to "persuade" those politicians. Really, not much different than what it is theorized that Epstein was doing. 

UK: 4 In 5 Jobs Go To Migrants

From The Telegraph (via Yahoo): "Migrants taking four in five new jobs." An excerpt:

    The analysis by the Centre for Social Justice (CSJ) found that the number of jobs recorded through PAYE increased by about 3.7 million between 2014 and the end of 2025.

    Just 734,000 of the increase was accounted for by British nationals taking the jobs. EU nationals represented a further 408,000, while the number of jobs held by non-EU nationals increased by around 2.5 million.  

Immigration: The Gift That Keeps On Giving

The New York Post warns: "Deadly, brain-liquifying fungus is on the rise in the US — and scientists don’t know why." Some items noted in the article:

• "Cladophialophora Bantiana is a dark or black mold and found in soil and decaying matter around the world."
• "C. Bantiana has been thought of in the past as a tropical infection associated with warmer climates and high average humidity — but is now acknowledged to be found worldwide."
• "While the number of cases [in the U.S.] ranged from one to five per year between 2009 to 2023, they rose to eight in 2024 — then jumped to 14 in 2025." According to another report, this represents an approximately fourfold increase from 2023 to 2025 and, per the same report, "[t]he largest numbers of cases originated in California (six), Florida (five), Texas (five), and Pennsylvania (four); the state of origin was unavailable for three cases."
•  "One study showed that C. Bantiana cases similarly jumped in France in 2022 ...."

The article suggests that its appearance in the U.S. and France is due to global warming because global warming causes everything, but the increase in occurrence tracks jumps in illegal immigration under the Biden Regime. And it is notable that illegal immigration into the EU increased dramatically between 2021 and 2022--up 59% according to this report. And, frankly, the ties to immigration--a well known source for the spread of pathogens--seems more likely an explanation than an imaginary climate crisis. 

Life Under The Biden Regime

The New York Post: "Major banks closed accounts of MAGA, pro-life and other conservative groups disfavored by Biden admin: bombshell report." From the lede:

    Major banks closed accounts and refused credit to MAGA merchants, pro-life causes, religious groups, conservative organizations and sectors disfavored by the Biden administration, such as firearms, oil and gas, and private prisons, a bombshell report from the federal banking regulator has found.

    The Debanking Review by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) investigated 100,000 complaints and scrutinized 50,000 internal bank records to reveal how customers were “debanked” based purely on their political, social, or religious beliefs.

    JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Citibank, Wells Fargo, U.S. Bank, Capital One, PNC, TD Bank, and BMO Bank were found to have discriminated against American consumers, citing “reputation risk” as a reason to deny service between 2020 and 2025. 

A Sad Reminder Of Hollywood's Hypocrisy

Hollywood types love to lecture the rest of us about needing to be more diverse, caring, inclusive, etc., but then we come across news articles like this--"‘Breaking Bad’ star RJ Mitte claimed Hollywood didn’t want him on screen in heartbreaking texts before death at 34"--and it again reminds us that Leftists are just a bunch of hypocrites.

If you don't know who is RJ Mitte, he played the handicapped son of the character "Walter White" in the show Breaking Bad.  Mitte reportedly took his own life a few days ago. The article relates:

    RJ Mitte was frustrated at having a hard time finding work following his success on “Breaking Bad,” his personal text messages reveal.

    The actor died Monday by suicide, Page Six confirmed. He was 34 years old.

    Mitte, who had cerebral palsy and was a disability rights advocate, said he was facing obstacles from landing meaningful acting gigs in text messages to a close friend obtained by the Daily Mail.

[snip]

    In a text message from April 2022, Mitte wrote, “Looking for interesting stuff to do, getting a lot of scripts where I would be a prop and they don’t want to give any depth, 3 lines if that. I’m writing my own s—t now.”

    The situation didn’t improve four months later, when he wrote, “Just doing animation, no one wants me on screen… it’s annoying as f—k.”

    He also detailed getting overlooked by casting directors because of his disability.

    “When I go for a part, they sometimes tell me that it’s not a character with a disability, and I’m like why can’t the character be disabled?” he wrote in April 2017.

    “They get real uncomfortable when I say that,” he added.

    He also called some casting agents “a—holes” who “won’t even look at me.” 

The Matinicus Rock Light

The New England Folklore blog has a ghost story for us. The author relates:

Matinicus Rock isn't very big (only about 30 acres), but there has been a lighthouse on it since 1827. For many years there were two towers with lights, one each on the north and south ends of the building. When Beck visited only the south light was in use. The north tower had been decommissioned and the door was locked tight.

As the telling goes, Horace Beck--from whose account the article was drawn--had asked about the reason the door was locked and was told that many years prior a lighthouse keeper had hung himself in the north tower and, ever since, his ghost would roam through the tower, but also broke dishes, slammed doors, and caused equipment malfunctions; and that the only way to keep the ghost under control was to keep the door shut and locked. Beck was further told that a few years earlier a Coast Guard officer inspecting the facility had ordered that the door be unlocked, and that night all the lights had failed. After that, the door remained locked at all times. 

Red Cross: "Nuclear Explosion and Radiation Emergencies"

The Red Cross has a page with checklists and advice on surviving a nuclear explosion and subsequent sheltering from fallout: "Nuclear Explosion and Radiation Emergencies." 

Although intended for emergency managers and first responders, you might find the following 105 page FEMA guidance to be interesting: "Nuclear Detonation Response Guidance: Planning for the First 72 Hours."

Clearing The Round Over Bolt Jam

 Those of you running an AR style rifle should find this useful. 

 VIDEO: "Clearing round over the bolt "Death Jam" under 30 seconds."
Modern Tactical Shooting (3 min.)

Soros' County-By-County Invasion Plan

About a week ago, I published a post concerning a "bipartisan" bill called The State-Sponsored Visa Pilot Program Act of 2026 (S. 5197), sponsored by U.S. Senators John Curtis (R-UT) and Mark Kelly (D-AZ). The purpose of the bill was, ostensibly, to make it easier for small businesses, farmers, and ranchers to import cheap foreign labor. But is there more to it than just that? Lawrence Person's Battle Swarm blog discusses "County-By-County Soros Invasion Plans," noting that part of Soros' plan to turn red states into voting Democrat involved  plans to “enable local governments and private entities to sponsor immigrants directly”--which is what it appears Sen. Curtis' and Sen. Kelly's proposed bill would do. 

Israel Becomes Involved In Spying Scandal In Poland

Anonymous Conservative mentioned this in today's news brief.  "Israeli producer had access to data harvested by Poland using Pegasus spyware, say prosecutors"--Notes from Poland. According to the article, in 2017, Poland, under the government of the Law and Justice (PiS) party, purchased Pegasus cell phone spy software from an Israeli company, NSO Group. PiS used the software to spy on Poles, including its political opposition. But it has been discovered that "[d]ata harvested from mobile phones by the Polish authorities using Pegasus spyware were transmitted outside Poland and were accessible to the tool’s Israeli producer, Polish prosecutors have revealed as part of an investigation into the use of Pegasus under the former government." Also:

Prime Minister Donald Tusk says that the case is “one of the biggest scandals in Polish history since the fall of communism”, and that it is “beyond any doubt” that the Israeli firm behind Pegasus, NSO Group, cooperates with Israeli intelligence.     

The article goes on to explain that "Pegasus is a powerful and controversial tool that allows the extraction of large amounts of data from mobile phones without users’ knowledge. A number of countries have been found to have used it to spy on opposition figures." 

    Today, the National Prosecutor’s Office released its latest findings, based on analysis by experts at the forensic research office of Poland’s Internal Security Agency (ABW).

    The experts confirmed that Pegasus allowed the harvesting of emails, instant messaging and text messages; the content of telephone conversations, both via mobile networks and internet calls; browsing histories, calendars and contact lists; photos, videos and other files; and location data.

    “Additionally, Pegasus allowed the use of the device’s built-in microphone and cameras to record audio and video in real time and take screenshots,” reports the National Prosecutor’s Office.

 It's bad enough that the Polish government was using the spyware against its political opponents, but the disturbing part was that NSO and, by extension, the Israeli military and/or intelligence services also had the data:

    The ABW experts also highlighted serious concerns over management and security of the harvested data, noting that Poland’s Central Anti-Corruption Bureau (CBA), which was responsible for using the spyware, “did not have full control over the Pegasus system”.

    “The CBA did not have passwords to access some accounts with administrative privileges and some system components remained under the control of the manufacturer [NSO],” wrote the prosecutor’s office. “The server module responsible for infecting mobile devices remained under the manufacturer’s exclusive control.”

    Data transmitted through the Pegasus system travelled outside Polish territory, through “servers located in various parts of the world”, in a network managed by NSO and “beyond the CBA’s control”, found the experts.   

 NSO is currently on a U.S. blacklist from U.S. government purchases (although this does not apply to other entities), but that hasn't stopped government agencies using other spyware. 

• See also: "What is Pegasus spyware, and how to detect and remove it"--Norton. 
• Related: "Georgia Bought a $954,578 Chevy, but Officials Won’t Say What’s Inside"--PJ Media. While Georgia officials are keeping mum about what it can do, it is believed to include equipment to surveil web activity, extract the contents of cell phones and track cell phone locations.
• Related: "Texas Police Bought Chevy Tahoes That Can Track Your Phone on the Highway"--Yahoo. An excerpt:

Four Chevy Tahoes do not cost $4.5 million. The vehicles themselves ran about $600,000 combined — roughly $150,000 each. The remaining $3.9 million bought something far more interesting: FalcoNet, an Israeli-built surveillance app from Cognyte that impersonates a cell tower and forces every phone in range to connect to it. Your phone can't tell the difference. Neither can anyone else's. This isn't about reading your texts — it's about knowing exactly where you are. 

(See also this article from The Drive). Undoubtedly, this information will also find its way to Israel. 

• Related: "Do Dealerships Put Trackers on Cars?"--GPX. The article also lists some of the common places dealerships will hide GPS trackers. 

The NFA Changes--Is It A Trap?

While the ATF's guidance indicating that it would no longer be enforcing certain NFA provisions is a welcome change, we all know that it could change on a political whim. So what happens if we get that SBR or sound suppressor using a standard 4473 form and a few years down the road a new administration changes its mind? Will we face criminal prosecution for having relied on the ATF's new guidance? In the video below, Washington Gun Law President and attorney William Kirk discusses the case law that suggests that we should be protected from prosecution based on reliance on the ATF's pronouncement.  

 VIDEO: "Are Gun Owners Stepping Into an NFA Trap?"
Washington Gun Law (13 min.)

Diversity Is Our Greatest Weakness

If you were to Google whether diversity is a strength or a benefit, you would find countless articles indicating that diversity improves efficiency or output or is otherwise beneficial. But a recent paper published in the journal Theory & Society debunks that claim. The paper is entitled "The diversity hypothesis: A rapid scoping review of diversity and scientific output and impact in the natural and social sciences," and the author conclude: "Based on over 100 scientific articles, we find that only between 15% and 28% of results reported in the literature are consistent with the hypothesis, with the balance of the results not being consistent with it. Based on this, the scientific evidence implies that the Diversity Hypothesis should be rejected." That is, studies that had considered diversity based on sex, nationality, race, age, LGBT, institution, and geography, overwhelmingly were inconsistent with the diversity hypothesis--that diversity is our greatest strength. The only type of diversity where it did not hold true--but even here showed mixed results--was diversity of disciplines. 

A Lesson Here For Those Who Open Carry

 The New York Post reports on a "Shocking video shows 2 women leap on top off-duty cop at gas station — before trying to snatch his gun." The officer, according to the article, was working his second job as a security officer at the gas station/convenience store when he was assaulted by two black women. The Post relates (bold added):

    The crazed brawl started when one of the suspects, 20-year-old Nayonna Griffin, threw items at the officer, prompting him to approach her, according to charging documents seen by KDSK.

    Fellow suspect Shaniya Lewis, also 20, then intervened and struggled with the officer before throwing him to the ground, according to the charging documents.

    Lewis repeatedly punched the officer in the face while Griffin stomped on his head, before Lewis reached for the officer’s gun but was unable to remove it from its holster, police said.

It's hard to tell much about the holster from the photographs other than it was a drop leg holster, but it must have had a good retention system. 

More Trans Violence

The New York Post reports: "Trans attacker fatally stabs man, breaks knife off in his skull after being mocked for using women’s bathroom at McDonald’s." To be clear, the man that Kelly Day murdered was not part of the group that had mocked him/her at the McDonald's. Rather, the fatal incident occurred hours later, after the murdered man--Larry Young--got into an argument with Day before walking away, crossing a street to a gas station. Day followed Young and started arguing with him again, before attacking him. "Surveillance footage shows Day holding a knife above Young as he lay on the ground, before allegedly stabbing him 13 times in the head, neck and upper shoulders, the Tribune reported." Day then apparently called 911, claiming he/she had acted in self-defense, before fleeing the scene. Day changed her story in a subsequent 911 call. She is being charged with first degree murder. 

An Evolutionary and Spiritual Dead End

    A frumpy feminist named Lindsey Harrington gives her excuses on why she is an old maid in "The Glorious Freedom of a Child-Free Life." There is a funny thing about this article. Harrington relates how she first began considering going child-free her whole life after meeting "Mandy, a Toronto filmmaker who moved to Newfoundland for cheap oceanside real estate" who regaled the author with her (Mandy's) "much less conventional existence, hitchhiking to Mexico with her blue heeler and eating fire in a travelling circus." Yet, having decided to follow in Mandy's footsteps, the article is completely devoid of any of the life experiences for which the author supposedly gave up children. Perhaps she mentions some in her book, from which this is excerpted, but the article seems bereft of details of her supposedly better life. 

    The other odd thing about the article is the author's cluelessness.  Harrington acknowledges the demographic decline as a result of childlessness, writing:

... Despite Canada’s comparatively rich social safety net and support programs, we have one of the lowest birth rates in the world: 1.25 children per woman in 2024. More of us are choosing differently. In this age of climate catastrophe, economic disparity and social unrest, not having children feels like the logical and ethical choice. As fascism, housing prices and sea levels rise, the future for any theoretical children looks bleak. It seems more and more possible you could end up raising them in some Cormac McCarthy–esque dystopia.   

Yet she ends with this idiotic observation: "We might be the first generation to widely question motherhood, but we won’t be the last." Yet, as far as Harrington's family line is concerned, she will be the last. And so it will be for many other families and nations. But perhaps it is for the best when it comes to people like Harrington: evolution in action, so to speak. 

Furor? They Should Be Shouting Approval

From the Daily Mail: "Furore as Marine commander who liberated the Falklands says: Machine-gun the migrants' boats." 

    The commander who led the land operation to liberate the Falklands has triggered a furore by saying that boats carrying migrants across the Channel should be machine-gunned.

    'I would shoot them,' Major-General Julian Thompson told a documentary about mass immigration to Britain.

    The Home Office warned today that anyone taking the law into their own hands would face 'serious criminal consequences', while the Tories stressed that 'opening fire on migrant boats would be completely wrong'.

Why do the Tories believe it would be wrong? Because, as Thompson points out, "They come over here and rape our girls." And that's what the Tories want.  

Almost Forget ... Happy Indigenous Peoples Day

Any normal, mentally healthy person knows today to be Columbus Day. But for Leftists, it is Indigenous Peoples' Day. So let's learn about one of those indigenous cultures for which the Leftists pine:

 VIDEO: "The Real Horror of Aztec Sacrifice"
Simple History (10 min.)

VIDEO: Speeding Up Your Pistol Reloads

In this video, Massad Ayoob discusses how speed up your pistol reloads focusing on issues of efficiency. But he also has some tips for those suffering from arthritis or other hand impairments. 

VIDEO: "Reload Like a Pro: Semi-Auto Pistol"
Massad Ayoob - Facts and Firearms (16 min.)

John Wilder's Latest: Vivek Ramaswamy And Indian Migrants

John's latest piece is entitled: "Vivek And Dinesh Crashout Over Lifting Children, Hilarity Ensues." The article begins by looking at Ramaswamy's so far failing bid to become the next governor of Ohio, and ends by looking at Indian tribalism and disdain for white people. An excerpt:

    So, Indians can’t yet really impact an election in Ohio.  But not if Ramaswamy has his way.  He wants to reform the H-1B visa program by removing the cap on the number of Indians that can get an H-1B, allow “meritocracy” (i.e., fake Indian degrees) set what “merit” is, and speed it all up.

    How fast?  Vivek wants the population of Ohio to go from 11.9 million today to 15 million by the time his first term of governor is done.  That’s nearly 30% in four years.  I’m betting he wants to use H-1Bs to do this, so he can have Kolkata on the Cuyahoga River, I guess.  Makes the place feel homey.   

Read the whole thing.  

France's Protests--A Harbinger Of What Is To Come

The New York Post reports: "France’s insane student protests are really about a growing radical Muslim population that wants to get rid of democracy." From the article (bold added):

    ... The French wrote the script of political street theater. One revolution was enough for the English and the Americans, but the French tolerance for mass disturbance is as high as their cholesterol.

    “What you’re doing is incredible,” Mélenchon said in an Oct. 6 message to the protestors. 

    Boyard, a k a Monsieur Non-Violence, was nothing if not faithful to this grand tradition when he led a mob of students at Paris-Est-Créteil University in singing France’s revolutionary marching song and national anthem, “La Marseillaise.” 

    But Boyard sang it surrounded by masked youths. And the flag he raised was not the red, white and bleu of le tricolore. It was the Palestinian flag.

    These riots are not just about France’s schools. They are the latest battle between the French state and the “New French,” France’s rapidly growing, poorly assimilated and heavily Muslim population. The French call them “immigrants” even though many of them are French-born.

    Long before Mayor Mamdani came to America and the DSA took out their student loans, the French saw the emergence of an Islamogauchiste (Islamo-leftist) alliance between the old radicals of the left and the angry youth of the banlieues, the peripheral housing estates.

    The same strategy created the voter base of the ruling Labour Party in the UK. In September, the strategy swung Sweden’s national elections and Berlin’s mayoral elections to left-wing parties that cultivate ethnic bloc votes. It has reshaped the Democrats’ ground game in states such as New York and Michigan.  

    Mélenchon may be happy to see the schools burn, but he knows his electoral math. The Immigration and Demography Observatory, a French think tank, predicts that on current trends, French citizens with no immigrant parent or grandparent will become a minority around 2050.

    Mélenchon, a 75-year-old ex-communist, is an old leftist but also a new immigrant. Born and raised in Morocco, he came to France in 1962, one among the millions who crossed the Mediterranean as Europe’s empires folded.   

The reality is that the new Left is not going to wait for the white European stock to peacefully die off.  

More: 

• "France school shooting: Pupil, 14, arrested after two teachers injured by shotgun fire"--The Independent. In addition to the shotgun, the student also had a hunting rifle. Authorities have no motive for the shooting, but nevertheless assure us that it had nothing to do with the riots.  
• "'Violent' fire destroys Enfants Rouges food market in Paris, officials say"--ABC News.  The market dates from 1615 and got its name from the red outfits worn by orphans housed at a nearby hospital, which closed in 1772. Nothing in the article links it to the riots, but burning stuff is the M.O. of the protestors. 
• "Protest on October 13: How many high schools closed in Paris and Île-de-France?"--Sortir à Paris. 

    In response to high school students’ demands, the Minister of National Education, Édouard Geffray, announced steps to improve coverage for absent teachers, including a plan to deploy 3,000 substitute teachers and extra resources for schools. Those announcements, however, did not quell the protest.

    Several union organizations, including FSU, UNSA Éducation, CGT Éduc'action, FO, CFDT and SUD Éducation, are urging people to participate in the mobilization on October 13. Students and their families are invited to check their high school communications and the digital workspaces to learn about the possible closures or timetable changes.

    The exact number of high schools closed in Paris and Île-de-France on Tuesday, October 13, is expected to become clearer as official announcements come in and the morning’s early tallies are updated. 

• "France’s October 17 Protests Seek to Unite Students, Unions and Yellow Vests"--Morocco News.  It reports:

    France is heading toward another day of social unrest on October 17, as trade unions, student activists, “yellow vests” and other movements seek to unite to protest against dysfunctions in education and public sectors, in addition to the cost of living. 

    The campaign titled “Yellow Vests and Youth, Our Struggles Meet,” calls on students, workers, farmers, firefighters, teachers, healthcare workers, climate activists, and pensioners to join forces. Organizers want to turn separate protests over education, wages, fuel prices, and public services into a broader movement against austerity and declining purchasing power. The campaign’s appeal also criticizes rising household expenses and what it describes as an unfair distribution of wealth.

    The General Confederation of Labour (CGT) has backed the high school and university protests, calling on its members to stand alongside young people during the October 13 mobilization. Its national leadership has also urged workers to organize workplace assemblies and build closer ties between student protesters and employees.

How Democrats Roll--In A Nutshell

In the New York Post's article, "Liberal California city plots doubling anti-American tax — as locals rage at where the money’s going," we learn that the city of Berkeley, CA, wants to double its tax on sodas at the same time there are questions concerning where the tax revenue is going. You would think that the city would be using the soda tax to provide city services of some sort. But if so, you would be forgetting that the Berkeley is in the thrall of Leftists. 

The reality, according to the article, is that the tax revenue is being distributed to NGOs including Healthy Black Families, a nonprofit that is the top recipient of the tax funds, which has been awarded more than $2.2 million in taxpayer money since the tax went into effect. But the New York Post had a couple of tax professionals review Healthy Black Families' tax filings and they concluded that whomever had completed the filings was "incompetent". I guess that is one way to describe it. From the article:

    Healthy Black Families listed more than $300,000 in miscellaneous expenses in 2024 — roughly a third of total spending — without the required itemization.

    In 2023, the nonprofit had almost $233,000 in unexplained expenses.

    “Expense allocations do not add up; officer compensation is reported inconsistently and changes in net assets do not reconcile,” Krausz told The Post. 

    From 2021 through 2024, the organization reported no independent voting board members, no tax-return review and no written conflict-of-interest, whistleblower or document-retention policies, Krausz said.

    “The governance disclosures are troubling,” he added.

    Healthy Black Families also reported $247,285 in legal expenses in 2021 and $170,187 in 2022 without explaining the underlying matters.

    The nonprofit’s CEO, Wilhelmenia Wilson, who draws a salary of roughly $120,000, did not respond to requests for comment.

    In tax filings, her name and title were misspelled multiple times. 

But I'm sure that it checked all the correct DEI boxes. 

Reflections on Columbus

Most every Columbus day, Glen Reynolds will post this excerpt from Samuel Eliot Morison’s Admiral of the Ocean Sea: A Life of Christopher Columbus: 

    At the end of 1492 most men in Western Europe felt exceedingly gloomy about the future. Christian civilization appeared to be shrinking in area and dividing into hostile units as its sphere contracted. For over a century there had been no important advance in natural science and registration in the universities dwindled as the instruction they offered became increasingly jejune and lifeless. Institutions were decaying, well-meaning people were growing cynical or desperate, and many intelligent men, for want of something better to do, were endeavoring to escape the present through studying the pagan past. . . .

    Yet, even as the chroniclers of Nuremberg were correcting their proofs from Koberger’s press, a Spanish caravel named Nina scudded before a winter gale into Lisbon with news of a discovery that was to give old Europe another chance. In a few years we find the mental picture completely changed. Strong monarchs are stamping out privy conspiracy and rebellion; the Church, purged and chastened by the Protestant Reformation, puts her house in order; new ideas flare up throughout Italy, France, Germany and the northern nations; faith in God revives and the human spirit is renewed. The change is complete and startling: “A new envisagement of the world has begun, and men are no longer sighing after the imaginary golden age that lay in the distant past, but speculating as to the golden age that might possibly lie in the oncoming future.”

    Christopher Columbus belonged to an age that was past, yet he became the sign and symbol of this new age of hope, glory and accomplishment. His medieval faith impelled him to a modern solution: Expansion.

 It is a reminder that it is possible to rejuvenate and transform a culture and civilization. Yes, the Medieval world disappeared, but it was not the hard reset we associate with the collapse of other civilizations. 

Gun & Prepping News #102

Some links that may be of interest: 

• Some history: "HAIL AND FAREWELL: The End Of The Much-Maligned M14 Rifle And The Introduction Of The M16"--Recoil Magazine.  This article is a re-print which originally appeared in the 1965 Gun Digest annual. An excerpt:

    The M14, which was originally projected as a “light rifle,” eventually trimmed less than a pound from the unwieldly Garand. There is little apparent difference between the M14 that resulted from 20 years of development and $130 million in expenditures, and the original Garand prototypes of 1920. Early publicity heralded the M14 as a full-automatic rifle that would replace such special-purpose weapons as the submachine gun and light machine gun. A major failing is its lack of controllability in full-automatic fire. Trained riflemen have told me the gun climbs so badly they can’t keep three shots in a silhouette at 25 yards. 

    Current issue M14s are semi-automatic. Officers control a supply of automatic selectors, which, it is said, could be placed in the guns when needed. Apologists for this policy say that full-automatic rifles in the hands of infantrymen pose an impossible logistical problem. Statistics say that it requires 50,000 rounds of ammunition to produce one “good Commie” in Korea. Compare this with an average of 29 round balls per British Redcoat killed in the Revolutionary War, using muzzle-loading rifles and muskets. Apparently, the soldier values his shots more if they come one at a time. 

• "The Fighting Rifle: Kyle Lamb's Guide to Building a Practical 5.56 Carbine"--Guns & Ammo. Lamb writes: "I intend to lay out 'Thee Rifle' that I use daily, carried for years, and would stake my life and that of my family on. Don’t be alarmed if it isn’t what you already have, as you can eventually get to the same end game with your current set up." The rifle (actually, carbine) he describes is 5.56 sporting a 16-inch barrel, collapsible stock, a red dot with 1 MOA dot, and a WML, a sling, and reliable Magpul magazines. Interestingly, his build does not include a magnifier or back up sights. Would his recommendation for a 16-inch barrel change with the ATF's guidance on SBRs? Probably not. He explains his choice of 16-inch:

The carbine I choose has a 16-inch barrel, because it’s legal and provides enough room for 5.56mm NATO bullets to get the speed they need to perform not just at 7 yards but at 200 plus yards as well. In most states the 16-inch barrel won’t require any special paperwork either. If you do choose a shorter barrel beware of the distance boundaries you are placing on your so-called Fighting Rifle. Terminal Ballistics are influenced heavily by bullet speed. End of story.

• "SB Tactical SBA6: Refining the Pistol Brace"--Shooting Wire.  The author writes:

    SB Tactical has been at the center of the brace market from the beginning, and its SBA3 has become one of the go-to designs in the industry. You’ll find it sold as an aftermarket accessory and installed on plenty of factory-built large-format pistols. There’s good reason for that. The SBA3 has clean lines, works well, and isn’t particularly bulky.

    It’s a solid design, but that doesn’t mean there wasn’t room for improvement. SB Tactical took feedback from the SBA3 and its other braces and incorporated it into the SBA6. While the new brace retains some of the familiar lines and basic format of the SBA3, it brings a number of updates and refinements to the design.

Given the recent ATF guidance on SBRs, this article may seem a moot issue. But there are still some reasons to consider a pistol brace, including, but not limited to the paper work issue involved with transporting an SBR or SBS across state lines. 

• "Quick Overview of Barrel Service Life"--The Firearm Blog.  An excerpt:

Advertised barrel life is a minimum acceptable estimated service life used under normal conditions. What does that mean? Used under normal shooting schedules per the TM and design parameters. If a gun runs faster and hotter than intended, a barrel can wear out quickly; you can even burn a barrel out in one day, but that is definitely outside its design parameters. Barrel service life is generally the minimum expected period before a barrel begins to show measurable degradation in areas such as accuracy, dispersion, erosion, or headspace. Barrel life doesn’t mean that when it hits that number it falls apart or has a catastrophic failure; instead, this is the minimum number at which the barrel should see any performance degradation, and the barrel can go way past this estimated number. Some weapons, like Kalashnikovs found in different hot spots around the world, are pushed far past their estimated service life and develop severe rifling wear. In certain parts of the world, it may only matter if it shoots, not if you actually hit the target, and others prefer to hit the target and desire a certain level of accuracy. 

• "Behind the Bullet: The .22 Long"--American Hunter. This is the predecessor to the .22 Long Rifle, and I still see it on sale occasionally. I try to keep a few boxes on hand because I have found that when shooting at steel or aluminum cans, the lower velocity seems to make the can jump. Also, it can be very quiet out of some rifles.
• Speaking of ammo: "Why You Shoot That Ammo: The Power of Hunting Tradition"--Rifle Shooter Magazine.  The authors claims:

It has long seemed to me that popular choices in rifles and cartridges are somewhat regional and usually based sensibly on traditional knowledge of local conditions. This is only a theory because I can’t claim in-depth knowledge of more than just a few regions. I can, however, cite some examples I’m reasonably certain of.

He goes on to discuss common or popular cartridges for deer hunting in southwest Kansas,  Texas, the California coastal region, and the Rocky Mountain West. 

• "Are Snub-Nose Revolvers Still Relevant?"--American Rifleman. A look at why manufacturers not only continue to produce snub-nose revolvers, but actually continue to come out with new models. The primary reasons the author goes over are simplicity of operation, reliability, interchangeable grips, and caliber options (everything from .22 through the .32 calibers to 9mm, .38 Special, and .357 Magnum ... or larger if you are particularly masochistic). 
• Something you might find useful: "Downloadable - Printable Targets"--Concealed Carry. 
• "4 Perfect Dry-Fire Practice Drills for Rifle Hunters"--Field & Stream. Not just for trigger control, but also practicing unslinging and mounting the rifle, operating the rifle (particularly the bolt-action which I still constantly see people drop from their shoulder when they operated the bolt), and shooting from supports.
• And some dry fire drills for handguns from Black Flag Arms.  
• "How M855A1 Changed AR-15 Magazine Design"--The Truth About Guns.  The author explains:

    Traditional aluminum USGI magazines and some older polymer magazine designs present the top cartridge at a relatively shallow angle.

    With conventional FMJ ammunition, that generally isn’t an issue. The cartridge moves forward under bolt pressure, contacts the feed path, and is directed into the chamber.

    M855A1 changes that equation.

    Its exposed steel penetrator is considerably harder than the aluminum receiver. If the cartridge is presented too low, the penetrator can strike the aluminum feed ramps below the barrel extension as the bolt drives the round forward. And M855A1 runs at higher chamber pressures than M855, around 61,000 PSI versus roughly 51,500 PSI, which contributes to chamber wear.

    Repeated impacts can gouge and wear the aluminum. Once enough material is displaced, the damaged area can cause additional feeding malfunctions with other ammo.

    The obvious solution is to keep the bullet from hitting that area in the first place.

I don't have any M855A1, but if do, you will want to get the Gen 3 Magpul magazines.  

• "How Much Ventilation Does a Buddy Heater Need Indoors?"--Modern Survival Blog. If you haven't heard of then before, Buddy Heaters are popular small propane heaters that can run off the 1 lbs. propane tanks or hooked up to something larger, that work well for small spaces: a tent, cabin, small garage, or a bedroom. The author goes over the recommendations in the manuals which describe both high and low openings, giving an area in square inches. He notes two important points on this: the choice is not only the upper or lower but upper and lower--i.e. you need both; and "[v]entilation requirements are given in square inches, not “open the window one inch.” The actual opening depends on the width of the window."
• Another from Modern Survival Blog: "Best Bread Machine? Why I Still Recommend Zojirushi After Years of Use." The author explains:

     My machine is the older BB-PAC20 Virtuoso, which has since been discontinued. The current BB-PDC20 Virtuoso Plus is its successor and keeps the main features that made me choose mine in the first place.

    Ours gets used for more than finished loaves. Sometimes we let the machine do everything. Other times Mrs. J uses it to knead and rise the dough, then finishes the bread in the oven. We also use it for pizza dough.

    That flexibility is one reason it has stayed useful rather than becoming another kitchen appliance sitting in a cabinet.

If this interests you, read the rest of the article because the author goes into much more detail on the specific features.  

• Speaking of baking bread: "Baking Bread The Way Early Americans Did"--Urban Survival Site. The article begins: 

 Have you ever thought about how people baked bread before the convenience of modern electric ovens? You might think they used a brick oven or maybe even a bake kettle. But actually, most American farmers of the 17th century didn't even have those luxuries. Instead, they used a large cast iron pot.

• "Inside the bizarre Las Vegas underground doomsday mansion that just sold for $4.5M"--New York Post. Reminds me of the bomb shelter in the movie, Blast From The Past. 
• "Russia Walks Back Plague Claims After Siberian Lab Employee’s Death"--Legal Insurrection. We'll probably never know the truth about what happened. 

RPG Saturday: Playing "Gamma World" 1st Edition

I've posted before about the first edition of Gamma World--the first post-apocalypse roleplaying game I ever played--but the videos I had linked to before were a review and how to create a character. The video below provides more of an overview of playing the game. From the video's description: "In this comprehensive look at the original Gamma World RPG, we examine the rules, combat system, character creation, mutations, Cryptic Alliances, exploration, and the deadly technological artifacts left behind by the Ancients." 

You can still order a copy through DriveThru RPG as a PDF, print-on-demand copy, or both a print and PDF. 

 VIDEO: "Gamma World RPG - The Grandfather to Fallout"
We Love TTRPGs! (22 min.)

Weekend Reading #76

 Some longer or more involved reading:

•  This week, we are starting out as usual with Greg Ellifritz's Weekend Knowledge Dump for this week. Some of the links that caught my attention in particular:
• Part 3 of a video series on terminal ballistics and tactical anatomy.
• An article discussing what is called the violin technique to reloading a shotgun, given directions for both right handed and left handed shooters.
• An explanation of the blank paper drill and how to shoot and score it--as well as its dry fire equivalent, the blank wall drill. The idea is to remove a specific target point so you can concentrate on sight alignment and consistency. 
• An explanation of height over bore and why your rifle shoots low at close distances.
• And a piece from the Daily Mail on protecting yourself from pickpockets and how pickpocket teams work.  
• In my long ago article, "Concealed Carry--No Elegant Solution," I noted that most of the concealed carry articles I saw in gun magazines were written by then-current and former law enforcement whose experience with concealed carry was working as a plain clothes officer, and concluded that "[p]eople with law enforcement backgrounds have little useful to say about concealed carry for the average person." I didn't mean this as a disparagement, but that the circumstances of being a plain clothes sworn police officer was different enough from that of private civilian carrying a concealed weapon that a lot of what they had to say just wasn't applicable to the normal concealed carrier. I guess I didn't expressly state it in my article, but I remember from the time I was first learning about concealed carry that the occasional article from someone that worked as a body guard or an undercover police officer were far more useful. So, with that long winded background, Greg has linked to an article entitled "Concealed Carry Considerations for the Law Enforcement Officer tasked with Close In Protection"--i.e., officers acting as body guards--that covers many of the aspects that you as civilian carrying concealed or wanting a weapon to protect your family will need to consider. I recommend reading it.
• I've seen a lot of recommendations for videos on the SKS pop up on my YouTube feed recently, so it was interesting to see that Greg links to an article from Guns America about the SKS discussing a bit of its history, the countries that produced it, and issues with parts interchangeability. However, there was a point that was so wrong that I have to comment, and that is the comparison with the M1 Carbine. This is incorrect on two levels. First, the SKS was intended to replace the Mosin-Nagant as the primary infantry weapon, unlike the M1 Carbine which was intended as a weapon for support troops. Second, the SKS is not small and lightweight such that it cannot easily be pressed into the same role as the M1 Carbine. 
• Speaking of the M1 Carbine, Greg links to an article that has an in-depth look at the M1 Carbine cartridge and what makes it so enjoyable to shoot. 
• Greg also has a new "free books" column with links to Kindle books that are (or were at the time he published it) available at no cost at Amazon with an emphasis on prepping and self-defense related non-fiction and thrillers for the fiction. 
• "In France And Britain, Multiculturalism Is Leading To Authoritarianism"--The Federalist. The article mostly focuses on the fact that "[t]he leaders of France and Britain are calling for censorship regimes because enforcing multiculturalism requires suppressing freedom." The author begins, of course, by noting the riots and protests in France, explaining:

    The rioters are not calling for education reform or protesting poor classroom conditions, despite what the corporate press has reported. These are not “school protests” but rather an intifada. The rioters themselves are the footsoldiers of a “Red-Green alliance” between the radical left and pro-Palestinian Islamist activists, whose shared goal is to clear the ground for a “New France” that will replace the actually existing French nation.

    This “New France” is largely a Third World horde, imported in successive waves beginning in the 1970s, when France scrapped its immigration regime and adopted a family reunification system similar to the United States’ Hart-Celler Act of 1965. In the ensuing decades, and especially since 2000, France has seen a massive influx of migrants from its former colonial holdings in North Africa and the Middle East. These people have for the most part refused to assimilate, and instead have formed discrete Muslim enclaves, retaining the ethnic and religious identity of their homelands. They are not French in any meaningful sense, and do not wish to be.

    The consequences of this failure of assimilation and acculturation are now apparent on the streets of French cities. For more than a week now the unassimilated children and grandchildren of migrants from the Third World have been  attacking police and firefighters (and teachers in some cases), burning schools and public buildings to the ground, and calling for the overthrow of the French Republic. They have done so in many cases while waving Palestinian and Algerian flags, and chanting Antifa and pro-Hamas slogans. 

    However, they are not doing this all on their own. French authorities said last week the riots were being organized by proxies of Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s far-left party La France Insoumise (“France Unbowed”), or LFI, which is, in addition to being a communist front organization, is also France’s “Great Replacement” party. Indeed, Mélenchon, who is running for president in next year’s national election, has been rather explicit in his desire to erase the French people and replace them with foreigners. On a recent panel, echoing remarks from Britain’s Jacob Rees-Mogg on how the English are a “mongrel people,” he derided the very concept of “native French people,” declaring that a “process of creolization has already taken place” in France, and that those wanting a “static world” are dreaming of something that is gone for good.

    No wonder, then, that Mélenchon has publicly supported the unrest, or that LFI politicians have been notably visible during the riots, in some cases appearing at the barricades around schools and urban centers, even as the party has officially denied fomenting violence. Simply put, there is broad crossover between radical-left political activism and pro-Palestinian, Islamist mobilization in France.

But, and this is the point of the article, the author then asserts:

    What is less well known is that mass immigration on this scale doesn’t just destroy a country and a people, it also ushers in forms of authoritarian government that become necessary as a way to manage the problems that arise from a population that includes significant unassimilated ethnic enclaves.

    This is why we now see the political leadership of western countries making hard turns toward authoritarianism, and especially against free speech. Freedom of expression is the one thing you cannot tolerate if the state is going to enforce multiculturalism and impose a large foreign population on a native one. Indeed, managing tensions between disparate ethnic groups, and each group’s relationship to the state, is a hallmark of imperial rule, not republicanism. It’s how the millet system of the Ottoman Empire operated.

He concludes:

    In the end, multiculturalism and authoritarianism are a package deal, and the global leftist leadership of the West is foisting it their native populations. There is only one way to avoid such authoritarianism, and it requires a total rejection of multiculturalism.

    What that means, in concrete terms, is mass deportations, denaturalization, and remigration. Anything less will not be enough to save these countries, assuming it’s not too late already.

•  And on that topic: "Virginia State University gave preferential treatment to Muslim student group while persecuting Christian one, lawsuit alleges"--Daily Mail.