Inside Every Liberal Is A Tyrant Screaming To Get Out

From the New York Post: "Sen. Slotkin urges Dems to use prosecution to make young people afraid to serve in Trump admin." The article begins:

    Michigan Sen. Elissa Slotkin publicly called on Democrats to intimidate young conservatives who want to work for the Trump administration by prosecuting the president’s staffers.

    Slotkin (D-Mich.), a former CIA analyst, contended that Democrats must “go after” and make examples out of officials in President Trump’s orbit who engage in corruption to send a message to young people who may want to join the administration.

    “I want young people coming out of school to say, ‘Should I go work for the Trump administration? That sounds fun, I might get an opportunity,’” Slotkin mused at a University of Chicago event last week that has since gone viral. 

    “I want them to be like, ‘Lord, that might be buying myself a ton of problems I don’t want, and so let me avoid participating in that,’” the senator went on. “I want that deterrence message sent.”

Just last week we learned that the Jack Smith, the special-counsel for the Biden Administration, was even tracking information about people that bought MAGA merchandise. So we know that the ultimate goal is to go after the common people as well. 

VIDEO: Tips And Techniques To Conserve Your Energy When Hiking

 Tips and techniques to avoid getting tired out too early on a long hike.  

VIDEO: "How to Hike All Day Without Getting Tired"
On The Scout (16 min.)

Storing Vitamins Long Term

In "How to Store Vitamins Long Term (without Losing Potency)" by Diane Vuković at Primal Survivor, the author observes: 

    Foods like white rice, flour and pasta are great foods to stockpile for emergency preparedness because they have long shelf lives and are easy to store.

    The downside is that they (as well as lots of other emergency foods and meals) are lacking when it comes to nutrients.  To make up for this, you might want to store vitamins as part of your emergency planning. 

  

Her basic advice is:

1.  Choose vitamins in tablet form, come in dark-colored glass jars with screw lids and have a best-by or expiration date listed on them.
2. Store the vitamins in their original containers in a cool, dark place.
3. As an extra layer of protection, keep the vitamin jars in an airtight container or sealed Mylar bag.

Stored this way, vitamins should retain their potency for at least 2 years past their best-by date and could remain potent for 15+ years.

The rest of the article discusses shelf-life, identifying vitamin pills that have gone bad, and the different environmental factors that tend to degrade the different vitamins or vitamin groups.

Wilder: The French Riots

John Wilder's latest is "France In Freefall," where he goes over some highlights of France's fall to the barbarians and why he considers it an invasion: "Well, the murders and rapes is a data point.  That’s what conquerors do.  The riots are another.  The mass prayers that shut down streets is another, since they don’t do that in their own countries." The solution, he argues, is repatriation. Be sure to check it out.

Today's Anonymous Conservative also has some items about the riots in France, including reports that looters were now targeting homes in upscale neighborhoods. But the more worrisome aspect is that we may see this coming to the U.S. For instance, he cites an X post from Data Republican--who had obtain transcripts and recordings of DSA leaders--indicating that the DSA is planning on creating protests/conflicts bad enough to force the President to invoke the Insurrection Act in order to delegitimize the Federal government, give Democrat governors the excuse to ignore federal authority, and make the 2028 election a referendum on continuing the country "as is" or fundamentally changing it to appease the "young and brown" demographic. 

Gun & Prepping News #103

 Some links that may be of interest: 

•  "How Many Self-Defense Shots Are Too Many?"--The Armory Life. Exploring the line between needing enough shots to stop the threat but not shooting after the threat has ended, and why there is no definitive answer. The article concludes:

    The most important takeaway is that there is no “approved” number of shots because every self-defense incident has its own facts and its own unique issues. Whether one fires once or 10 times, the actions must be based on sound reasoning, in response to an imminent threat, and proportionate to the threat.

    “Once the threat is neutralized,” said Hamby, “Further shots create a risk that you can be faced with criminal and civil liability.”

• "Pistol vs Rifle Cartridges: There is a Difference"--Shoot On. The author looks at the odd behavior he has seen in law enforcement of relying on the handgun or PCC to deal with a problem more appropriately addressed with a rifle. An excerpt:

    What we see and have seen is that, despite the ballistic reality that a long gun is a superior fight-stopping tool when facing a deadly threat, there is also a very real, if subconscious, belief that handguns are for close combat and long guns are for distance shooting. Even people with education and experience tend to fall into that mindset.

    Yes, many deadly force scenarios are unexpected, and you might only have a handgun available at that moment in time. But what about the times when you have the option to grab a long gun?

    We should all understand that a deadly force scenario is deadly serious. Our goal should be to stop the deadly threat as rapidly as our tools and time will allow. Given the ballistic superiority of a long gun chambering a rifle cartridge, one or two shots from a rifle are far more likely to incapacitate the threat versus a historically less-than-effective tool launching pistol bullets.

    Just recently, during a discussion of “truck guns,” a person offered that if the distance was close, 25 to 50 yards, a pistol-caliber carbine could be just as good of a choice or better than a rifle.

    From where does this thinking arise? 

• "What Will Make Your Gun Fail (and Why)?"--The Armory Life. Some warning signs to look for telling you that your weapon is too dirty, the springs are weakening, extraction and ejection issues. An excerpt pertaining to the latter issue:

    Here’s another area where a shooter can usually see warning signs before the gun begins to present major problems. In tandem, the extractor and ejector work to get fired cases out of your firearm. Usually, the extractor is the culprit, since it depends on both geometry and spring tension to do its job (whereas the ejector is so often just a piece of metal for the brass to ram into under recoil).

     When something is amiss, you may first notice inconsistent ejection patterns and angles. If brass cases are dribbling out of the gun or coming straight back at the shooter, it often indicates that the extractor claw isn’t maintaining consistent and strong tension on the rim of the cartridge. It may only be a matter of time before the problem progresses into stovepipe malfunctions or double-feeds. These stoppages are annoyances at the range, but could be deadly serious if you need your firearm in that moment to defend yourself or your loved ones.

    The easiest fix is usually to brush out any gunk. Carbon fouling can stick onto and under the extractor claw and accumulate in the recesses of the breech face. There, the detritus changes the way that cartridges are held in place. Fouling in the chamber itself can also make it harder for the extractor to maintain grip and clear fired brass. Note, however, that if your gun has to be run totally clean for it to work at all, something more serious could be at play. 

    While you have the gun apart, it’s prudent to look for geometry changes to the extractor and ejector. Do these parts look like they should, or are there any chips, cracks, or rounded-over edges? If everything looks fine, it could be a sign that the extractor spring is weakening and needs replacement.

• "Marlin 30-30: Why I Learned to Embrace the Marlin 336 and Forget the 94 Winchester"--Breach Bang Clear. A lot of history of the .30-30 generally, and the Marlin 36's background and history, the introduction of micro-grooving; as well as his review of the particular Marlin 336 he bought. And in explanation of why the author went with the Marlin 336 over the Winchester 94 (despite the Marlin weighing more) the author relates:

The Marlin 336 was immediately appealing thanks to its stronger action and the retention of the 1893’s side ejection port. Winchester rifles ejected their hot brass skyward, ideally over your head and, wrongly, down your shirt. Side ejection also let the shooter mount an optic on top of the receiver. The first Marlin 336 rifles were not tapped and drilled for a Weaver mount, but that addition was quickly implemented. Curiously, until recent production, the 336 featured two plug screws on the left side of the receiver that allowed the shooter to mount a Williams-style peep sight, a feature immediately familiar to shooters used to the M1 platform of rifles from the war.

I've had a few opportunities to shoot a Marlin 336 and liked it well enough that I'd thought about getting one. I don't particularly like how the 94 drops the bottom of the receiver when operating the lever. I know that is what allows it to get away with using a shorter receiver, but it also seems another path for dirt or moisture to get into the action. But I don't have any experience with the 94 (other than handling them a few times at a gun store) so perhaps it isn't the issue I think it is. 

• "The Revolver Can Fail"--Guns Magazine. The revolver's reputation for reliability is based on (i) its ability to tolerate neglect better than a semi-auto, and (ii) that fact that it doesn't rely on the recoil impulse to cycle the action. The author of this article also notes:

    One of the great virtues of a revolver is its mechanical simplicity. There aren’t many external parts the shooter has to think about, and when something goes wrong, the solution is wonderfully simple: pull the trigger again.

    This is the primary reason revolvers have earned such a reputation for reliability. There’s no magazine to seat (or become unseated), no slide to cycle and, in most circumstances, no complicated malfunction drill to perform. If one cartridge doesn’t go bang, there’s another one waiting in the cylinder — just pull the trigger.

But that doesn't mean that nothing can go wrong. This article discusses some of the common and uncommon issues that can come up with revolvers: everything from not letting the trigger fully reset to broken parts. The problems I've personally experienced are: not letting the trigger fully reset when shooting double-action a bit too quickly, bullets pulling out under recoil and locking up the cylinder, a broken trigger spring, and some trouble with a new revolver where it would sometimes not turn the cylinder that I never was able to diagnose but want away after shooting a box of ammo through it. 

• "Galco's Combat Master 2.0 Lands for the Glock 17"--The Firearm Blog.  The Combat Master is a pancake style holster. The updated version includes a cutout for optics, but, the author adds: "Galco says the cutaway also allows 'the pistol to clear leather even faster,' which the company credits with promoting a quicker, smoother draw for shorter-waisted shooters."
• For those wanting to use wood furniture for an AR build: "WOOX Introduces New Vigilante Beavertail Walnut Grip"--The Firearm Blog.  From the lede:

WOOX has introduced the Vigilante Beavertail Grip, a handcrafted AR-platform grip combining premium walnut with an integrated polymer beavertail. The grip is handcrafted in Italy from American Claro walnut and features laser-engraved grip texture. The beavertail extension is engineered from high-strength technopolymer and provides an integrated reinforced design for control, stability, and comfort. The grip maintains an ambidextrous, symmetrical design compatible with AR-15, AR-10, M4, and M16 platforms. 

• "How to Survive a Riot"--Bone Tactical.  The author begins:

 I’m Greg with Bone Tactical, and I’ve lived through real civil unrest... rioting, looting, roadways blocked with burning barricades, and prison yard chaos. What I’m about to share is a simple, repeatable system that keeps you alive, keeps you out of jail, and keeps you anchored to your values. The goal is not to “win.” The goal is to go home.

Obviously, the first advice he gives is "don't be there." But you don't always have that option. A couple more points:

    Fourth principle: protect your people. If you’re with family, you’re the shepherd. Assign roles before you move: you lead, the strongest adult brings up the rear, kids in the middle, hand-to-shoulder chain, not hand-to-hand so grips don’t break. Use short commands: “With me.” “Left.” “Stop.” “Go.” Do not argue with the crowd; your energy belongs to movement, not debate.

    Fifth principle: if you’re grabbed or encircled, break the ring, don’t wrestle the crowd. Pick the thinnest seam, burst through it decisively, and don’t stop until you’re clear by half a block. If you are physically detained, being assaulted, and capable of using a weapon, this is the time to do so. ... 

• "Putting Leupold’s Storm Warden Rain Gear Through the Wringer"--The Truth About Guns.  The author relates:

Straight out of the bag, the Storm Warden set feels more like technical mountaineering gear than typical hunting rain wear. The 70D nylon-spandex face fabric has some heft to it without feeling stiff, and the four-way stretch is immediately noticeable when you move your arms overhead or take a big stride over a downed log.

Also:

    My first real test came on a late winter coyote hunt where the forecast called for scattered showers and instead delivered a genuine downpour by mid-morning. I set up on a fence line overlooking a cut cornfield expecting to be miserable within the hour. Instead, the StormShield membrane in the jacket did exactly what Leupold claims it does.

    Water beaded and ran off the shoulders and hood rather than soaking through, and I stayed dry through nearly four hours of calling and glassing. The two-point adjustable hood was a nice touch, since I could cinch it down enough to keep rain off my face without losing peripheral vision, which matters a lot when you’re watching the tree line for a coyote working in on a call.

• "Californians flee for off-grid safe houses in Montana and Idaho with doomsday bunkers"--New York Post. The article begins:

    Fed-up Californians fleeing the state are buying homes in safer states offering open rural spaces that come with underground doomsday-style bunkers stockpiled with weapons and ammo for added security.

    Relocation consultant and former US Marine Todd Savage told The California Post 80% of his clients are from the Golden State as they seek to escape “high taxes, high crime, low freedom and blue-haired liberals.”

    The 55-year-old said: “They are tired of it, so they are voting with their feet. My clients want to raise children in a city where people don’t get kidnapped and murdered, with drugs and all kinds of lawlessness. They say let’s go somewhere where we’re treated as a citizen and not a subject. 

Unfortunately, once they get here, they immediately start trying to make it more like California.  

Spicy Times In Europe

    France is still burning, we've seen "mostly peaceful" protests in Belgium, and now protests have spread to Italy. This is being coordinated at some level. 

• In France: "Moment French rioters attack shopkeeper and distraught woman begs them not to loot store as police admit they've 'lost control' of violent protests that saw 143-year-old town hall incinerated." An excerpt:

    Violent protesters have rebelled over the cost of living, education standards and Mr Macron's government, with police admitting they 'lost control' on Saturday. 

    More than 1,200 demonstrators were arrested as the streets of major cities were turned into a battleground, with widespread riots described as 'apocalyptic'. 

    Desperate business owners and horrified residents could only watch in fear as the mob went door-to-door, smashing their way into each business.

    A distraught woman was seen begging rioters in Paris not to loot a supermarket.

    She was heard asking 'why are you doing this' and screaming 'this is not the cause' as a group of young male rioters push past her into the smashed shop. 

    The footage then shows the crowd appearing to cheer as the balaclava-clad looters leave with arms full of stolen goods.

    The shop was one of many buildings and businesses to be damaged in the demonstrations, as roughly 550,000 protesters took to the country's streets. 

    Limoges Town Hall, which was built in 1883 and survived both world wars, came tumbling down in a blaze after it was torched by rioters in France's south-west. 

    A video seen by 1.4million X users showed the historic building – which played a significant role in the French Resistance during the Second World War – collapsing with its bell tower engulfed in flames. 

    In another shocking video from Nice, a comic book shop owner was seen trying to defend his business as looters appeared to have smashed their way in.

    He stepped out to confront a rioter and shouted to the crowd but was knocked to the ground by a looter who kicked him in the back.

    French police admitted they did not have the manpower to cope as 1,200 protesters were arrested across the country.  

Meanwhile, French President Macron and his wife "were accused of acting like the out-of-touch King Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette at the start of the 1789 Revolution after they were seen dancing in a private box at a Céline Dion concert on Friday night." President Trump had some advice for Macron:

He wrote on Truth Social: 'France is burning! The immigration of people from an entirely different world, people with hatred in their hearts, has shattered that once great country. Close your Borders and take control, before it is too late!' 

It is too late, however. France--and much of the rest of Europe--have pretty much reached a point of either fully succumbing and becoming Islamic societies or finding a strong man leader who will purge their countries of the invaders notwithstanding national and EU laws.

    As to the female shop owner from the article, there appears to be a bit more to the story than related in the Daily Mail piece:

 

And from Rod Dreher, who has always believed a piece of paper made one an "American" or some other nationality:

 

•  And in Italy: "Rioters loot stores, set fires in central Milan during cost-of-living protest"--AP. From the article:

    Rioters clashed with police, looted stores and set property on fire in central Milan on Saturday, emptying Piazza del Duomo and a luxury shopping arcade when the area would usually be teeming with shoppers.

    The march against wars and rising living costs began peacefully. But masked protesters threw stones, paving blocks and other objects at riot police and set fire to barricades made from bar tables. Images of the aftermath showed a severely damaged carabinieri car.

    Police used water cannons and tear gas to disperse the crowds.

    At least two police officers were injured and about 50 demonstrators, including many minors, were detained, the LaPresse news agency reported.

    Italian Premier Giorgia Meloni condemned the violence in a social media post.

    “Demonstrating is a right. Setting our cities ablaze is not,” she wrote, citing “hooligans who exploit demonstrations to sow chaos, attack those responsible for ensuring security and hold entire cities hostage.”

    Milan’s center-left mayor, Giuseppe Sala, said “the reasons for the protests were understandable. The violence against law enforcement and serious damage to the city are not justifiable.”

    The unrest coincided with nationwide demonstrations in neighboring France against rising living costs and in support of high school students’ grievances. French police used tear gas and water cannons to disperse violent protesters who joined the rallies.

 And the protests continued into Sunday. 

•  And in Belgium: "Belgian police fire tear gas at protesters"--Le Monde. An excerpt:

    Belgian police fired tear gas and water cannons to disperse hundreds of demonstrators in Brussels and Liège taking part in cost-of-living protests on Saturday, October 17, similar to violent rallies in neighboring France.

    High school students have staged protests in recent weeks against higher university registration fees, but Interior Minister Bernard Quintin blamed the troubles on "organized violence."

    Police in Brussels used tear gas against youths in the Bourse district who lobbed bottles and other missiles, an Agence France-Presse (AFP) journalist said. Police said about 10 arrests were made. Following calls made on social media, several hundred people gathered near the Belgian capital's central railway station earlier.

    A protest march was eventually authorized by authorities, but water cannon was used to disperse groups who threw fireworks and flammable liquids, police said. Garbage bins and e-scooters were set on fire, and a Socialist Party office was vandalized during the disturbances.

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.