From Not The Bee: "Barack Obama says yes, aliens are real. Interviewer asks zero follow-up questions." The specific quote:
They're real, but I haven't seen them. They're not being kept in Area 51. There's no underground facility, unless there's an enormous conspiracy and they hid it from the President of the United States.
But, as the title indicates, the interviewer had no follow up questions.
From the Daily Mail: "Eight severed human heads are found near a sign saying 'no stealing'." The article mentions:
It comes after five other human heads were found hanging from ropes on a tourist beach last month. The remains were left with a warning sign directed at alleged extortionists of fishermen in the small port of Puerto Lopez.
The article indicates that these incidents are related to disputes between gangs with ties to drug cartels competing over drug routes and territorial disputes, so I suppose it could be an example of gangs actually offering protection to those they extort. But the messages left at the scenes seem to me to suggest civilians that are fed up with criminal gangs.
The LDS Prepper channel recorded an 1.5 hour presentation on using Mesh networks for preppers allowing you to link devices or send short text messages. Although this presentation is fairly long, he has shorter videos on specific Mesh network topics. And here are some articles at Hackaday that covers Mesh networks.
VIDEO: "FREE GRID-DOWN TEXTING NOW AVAILABLE: LoRa, Meshtastic, MeshCore"
LDSPrepper (1 hr 30 min.)
As the video explains, it comes down to the metallurgy--specifically that the Japanese were treated to a very high hardness compared to the European swords which makes the Japanese blades more brittle. (This is why stainless steel makes a poor sword blade). Thus, on a blade on blade strike (or strike against any hard object) the Japanese sword would fracture and perhaps break whereas the European sword would not. The fighter using the longsword also has more leverage than the fighter using the katana if the swords get into a bind. And once in a bind, the longswordsman has more options than the samurai using a katana. And more.
VIDEO: "Why KATANAS Would LOSE to Medieval Longswords (The Physics They Don't Tell You)"
The Cutting Edge (9 min.)
Just some gun and prepping related links that I thought interesting or useful:
For me, one of my bigger challenges as an instructor has been helping people with a modest level of proficiency reach the next level. They may very well be safe gun handlers and capable of posting a satisfactory score on a course of fire, but are locked into their comfort zone and are not especially confident when it comes to pushing the gas pedal just a little bit harder.
By reinforcing combat shooting fundamentals such as grip, index on the target, and trigger management and slowly introducing them to a few different drills, I often see great improvement. The ultimate goal is to set each individual’s mental clock so they can strike that ideal balance between speed and accuracy.
What follows are a few exercises that I have used over the years to teach people how to shoot faster. Perhaps there is something you can use in this mix to improve your skills.
We’ve all heard the saying, “When your only tool is a hammer, you treat everything like it’s a nail.” The same is true when your only tool is deadly force.
Obviously, there are life and death situations in which deadly force is the only possible response if you want to live. When someone bursts into your home waving a gun screaming that they’re going to kill you, when someone in a mask is trying to drag you into a van with dark-tinted windows, when someone is clearly intent on beating the crap out of you until you’re dead – all of these things are situations in which your use of a lethal response is entirely justified.
But… a lot of situations require more finesse unless you want to risk a) spending the rest of your life in prison and praying you don’t drop the soap or b) waiting for bloody vengeance from your adversary’s friends or family or c) criminal prosecution and civil lawsuits forever and ever until you die.
This is an important topic so please read this.
... The MAT-49 was simple and rugged featuring a retractable stock made of heavy gauge wire. With its stock retracted the MAT-49 is just 18 inches long—with its stock extended, it is 28 inches (with a 9.1-inch barrel).
A unique feature is the folding magazine well, which tucks in neatly beneath the barrel—allowing a safe, compact carry that was particularly appealing for paratroops and vehicle crews. The magazine well could be quickly folded back into the firing position, and the well provides the forward hand grip. The weapon has a bit of heft, weighing nearly 9.5 pounds with a loaded 32-round magazine.
There is no manual safety on the MAT-49, rather, there's a prominent grip safety. The gun is blowback-operated, firing from an open bolt, with a cyclic rate of 600 rounds per minute. An experienced shooter can easily trigger single rounds. The MAT-49 uses a 32-round, double-stack, single-feed magazine—spring tension is tight, and the magazine loading tool is essential. There was also a 20-round, single-stack magazine, designed to be more resistant to sand and grit, and this was issued to troops in desert environments.
There are a number of ways a bolt-action rifle can be bedded. Bull barrels and heavy varmint/target barrels oscillate less violently than sporter-weight ones as a bullet accelerates down the bore and generally shoot just as well when free-floated as they do when bedded. Some competitive shooters, however, have been known to glass-bed the barrel and leave the action floating while others permanently bond the barreled action and stock together by not using release agent. Most sporter, carbine and ultralight hunting rifles, however, respond better to other bedding dynamics.
It makes sense to use multiple water purification methods, you can not be careful enough right? Purification tablets work best when they are paired up with quality water filters like the Lifestraw or the Sawyer Mini.
Specific protozoa species like cryptosporidium usually have a strong resistance to chemical purifiers, however, they are too big to go through many water filters including the two just mentioned above.
Always keep this in mind when choosing a purification tablet.
The bacterial disease leptospirosis was found in rats at encampments in the hippie college town of Berkeley, leading health officials there to issue an urgent warning to the homeless to clear out.
Per the article, "Flu-like symptoms such as fever, headache and vomiting appear between five and 14 days. If the infection isn’t detected and treated with antibiotics, it leads to organ failure, internal bleeding, meningitis — and death."
Officials told them to relocate at least a third of a mile from the “red zone” encompassing several square blocks as soon as possible. The warning comes as authorities attempted remove the encampment last year but were blocked by a federal judge.
I find it interesting that the judiciary had no problems with locking down the population for a largely imaginary threat, but suddenly find it objectionable to address a real public health threat.
Black Pigeon argues that the Trump was never going to be able to deliver on Make America Great Again (MAGA) because (1) MAGA is incompatible with the U.S. status as an empire (and abandoning the benefits of empire would result in the loss of all the "benefits" we--or rather, the elites--enjoy from an empire) and (2) the influence that Israel wields over the U.S. government.
Just a couple quick thoughts. First, if his thesis is correct, and I believe it is, it underscores yet again how modern Leftism is, in fact, the opposite--the inversion--of what it claims to be. Because if MAGA is anti-imperial, then by necessity the Leftists opposed to MAGA policies are rooting for world imperialism.
Second, it would be worth it. The path of empire only leads to decline and dissolution.
VIDEO: "Why Trump Abandoned MAGA and ALWAYS WOULD"
Black Pigeon Speaks (19 min.)
HR Funk goes over the history of firearm grips leading to the thumbs forward grip, demonstrates the accepted correct method of the grip, and issues that can arise with the grip on particular semi-auto pistols and with revolvers.
VIDEO: "Get a Grip! Is Thumbs Forward a Step Backward?"
hrfunk (25 min.)
Per the news release from the Church, Elder Gilbert has degrees from BYU, Stanford, and Harvard; and taught on the faculty at Harvard Business School before going on to fill roles in various media and educational positions in the Church or Church related entities, including a stint as President of BYU-Idaho and serving as the Commissioner of the Church Educational System. And somehow amidst all this, he and his wife had 8 kids.
A successful deuterium–tritium fusion test taking their reactor to full power for 10-seconds. The video notes that this experiment paves the way for Helium 3 fusion, a reaction that would fuse deuterium and helium-3 to produce energy, helium-4, and a proton. This 2022 article, "Helium‑3 from the lunar surface for nuclear fusion?" explains:
Since 1969, the return of a human mission to the Moon has never seemed so close. Although scientific interest continued to flourish, space programmes had for many decades abandoned it in favour of the International Space Station and missions to explore the solar system. Dominated by the growing competition between the United States and China, the return to the Moon is now motivated by a desire to study and possibly exploit resources that can be found there.
Of these, helium‑3 represents the most significant potential in the field of energy. This non-radioactive isotope is an ideal fuel for the operation of a fusion reactor; it consists of fusing helium‑3 with deuterium, with the advantage of not producing neutrons. Whilst it is still in its experimental stages, the ability to contain such energy in the reactor’s containment chamber could make it a viable energy source.
The fact that Helium 3 is abundant on the lunar surface may have as much to do with Space X shifting its attention to establishing a lunar colony over Mars as any other considerations. One company claims there is enough 3 He on the Moon to power the Earth for 10,000 years.
VIDEO: "Helion hits new fusion milestone: D-T fusion and 150M°C plasma temperatures"
Helion (6 min.)
Longer and more involved reading:
The story of South Africa demonstrates that the removal of one system (apartheid) does not guarantee the arrival of a better one. The empirical evidence suggests that for the average citizen, regardless of race, the safety, economic security, and public services provided by the state have deteriorated since 1994.
The “Broad View” of history tells us that European colonisation brought with it the engines of modernity: medicine, infrastructure, and the rule of law. When those engines are neglected or dismantled in the name of decolonisation, the result is regression.
Furthermore, the South African experience challenges the liberal dogma of multiculturalism and multiracialism. The friction between the various nations of South Africa, Zulu, Xhosa, Boer, English, did not vanish with the vote. It merely changed form. The violence of the Bantu expansion, the segregation of apartheid, and the reverse-racism of the BEE era are all symptoms of the same underlying truth: that diverse peoples with distinct histories, genes and competing interests struggle to coexist within a single political unit without one group dominating the others.
Children’s literature has gotten soft. Disney turned every woodland creature into a cute little forest friend, and tacked a happy ending onto every dark fairy tale. The bloodstains were scrubbed out, death was swept under the rug, and the moral lessons became saccharine platitudes about being kind and sharing ... a helpful aid to management of kindergarten classrooms, perhaps, but worse than useless for the moral instruction of the young, who will one day need to navigate a world where the shadows of the human soul conceal sharpened knives, and the truth is not always what well-meaning young women with associates degrees in early childhood education might wish. Children go along with it, but deep down they know that they’re being lied to, that the adult are keeping something from them when they pretend that every story has a happy ending, that everyone can be friends and get along if they’re just sufficiently nice to one another.
Contemporary children’s literature has gotten even worse under the pressure of politics, with bookshelves filling with stories about antiracist babies who grow up to become boys who become girls, and girls who save themselves from dragons and therefore don’t need help from the boys who foolishly refused to become girls. This is less moral instruction than moral inversion, literature meant to turn children against their own natures, stories that deliberately deceive developing minds in order to neuter them, soften them, make them malleable and unthreatening for a managerial culture in which the socially acceptable lie is always preferable to the uncomfortable truth.
Fables For Young Wolves is not that sort of book.
I’ve talked before about how roughly 70% of divorces are initiated by women. While the exact percentage varies by study, this is one of the best attested statistics in social science. But I’ve never seen this statistic mentioned in sermon or book on marriage by a major evangelical pastor.
Similarly, have you ever heard one of them talk about discrimination against white men today? I haven’t seen it.
My observation from over a decade ago, from before I even started this newsletter, is that the average evangelical pastor is terrified of offending women. You can almost smell the fear on them.
Similarly, when it comes to things like what Savage discussed in his article, we see a lot of what looks like the fear of man.
Everybody has to pick their battles. I don’t think we are obligated to go around giving our take on every single subject, or even every nuance of every subject.
But when you talk frequently, and often loudly, about topics like marriage and racial justice, and never mention much less address very core and relevant facts, you are not being honest.
You also forfeit the moral standing to critique the people who are mentioning them. ...
