Happy Easter

He Is Risen!

He is risen! He is risen!

Tell it out with joyful voice.

He has burst his three days' prison;

Let the whole wide earth rejoice.

Death is conquered; man is free.

Christ has won the victory.

Come with high and holy hymning;

Chant our Lord's triumphant lay.

Not one darksome cloud is dimming

Yonder glorious morning ray,

Breaking o'er the purple east,

Symbol of our Easter feast.

He is risen! He is risen!

He hath opened heaven's gate.

We are free from sin's dark prison,

Risen to a holier state.

And a brighter Easter beam

On our longing eyes shall stream.

Cecil Frances Alexander, 1818-1895

Hymn No. 199 in the LDS Hymn Book

Gay Marriage--The End Game

Rush Limbaugh recently announced that when it comes to gay marriage, resistance if futile. (Although some people disagree). Limbaugh said:

... This issue is lost. I don’t care what the Supreme Court does, this is now inevitable — and it’s inevitable because we lost the language on this. I mentioned the other day that I’ve heard people talk about “opposite-sex marriage,” or you might have had heard people say “traditional marriage.”
... I maintain to you that we lost the issue when we started allowing the word “marriage” to be bastardized and redefined by simply adding words to it, because marriage is one thing, and it was not established on the basis of discrimination. It wasn’t established on the basis of denying people anything. “Marriage” is not a tradition that a bunch of people concocted to be mean to other people with. But we allowed the left to have people believe that it was structured that way.
I would go so far as to say that there are some people who think marriage is an evil Republican idea, simply because they’re the ones that want to hold on to it. So far as I’m concerned, once we started talking about “gay marriage,” “traditional marriage,” “opposite-sex marriage,” “same-sex marriage,” “hetero-marriage,” we lost. It was over. It was just a matter of time. This is the point a friend of mine sent me a note about.
“Once you decide to modify the word ‘marriage,’ then the other side has won, or at least they’re 90% of the way home. The best thing that ‘marriage’ had going for it was basically what they teach you the first day in law school: ‘If you hang a sign on a horse that says “cow,” it does not make it a cow,’ although today it might.” That’s where we are: 5 + 5 could = 11, if it works for the Democrats. A cow could be a horse, if it works for the Democrats. The thing is, discrimination has never been a part of marriage.
It evolved as the best way to unite men and women in raising a family and in cohabitating a life. It’s not perfect. The divorce rate’s what it is. But it evolved with a purpose. It was not a creation of a bunch of elitists wanting to deny people a good time. It was not created as something to deny people “benefits,” but it became that once we started bastardizing the definition. But discrimination is not an issue, and it never was. No one sensible is against giving homosexuals the rights of contract or inheritance or hospital visits.
There’s nobody that wants to deny them that. The issue has always been denying them a status that they can’t have, by definition. By definition — solely, by definition — same-sex people cannot be married. So instead of maintaining that and holding fast to that, we allowed the argument to be made that the definition needed to change, on the basis that we’re dealing with something discriminatory, bigoted, and all of these mystical things that it’s not and never has been.

 If it is not about discrimination, why are progressives so obsessed with gay marriage? Is it to distract the public from our slowly deflating economic system? Or to make us overlook that the Middle-East is about to explode into total war? That the EU is on the verge of collapse or China is teetering on the edge of a demographic, monetary, and pollution cliff?

First of all, because gay marriage is, at heart, a leftist endeavor, it is rooted in a desire for power. Daniel Greenfield explains:

The only question worth asking about gay marriage is whether anyone on the left would care about this crusade if it didn't come with the privilege of bulldozing another civilizational institution.
Gay marriage is not about men marrying men or women marrying women, it is about the deconstruction of marriage between men and women. That is a thing that many men and women of one generation understand but have trouble conveying to another generation for whom marriage has already largely been deconstructed.

The statistics about the falling marriage rate tell the tale well enough. Marriage is a fading institution. Family is a flickering light in the evening of the West.
... There are two ways to destroy a thing. You can either run it at while swinging a hammer with both hands or you can attack its structure until it no longer means anything.
The left hasn't gone all out by outlawing marriage, instead it has deconstructed it, taking apart each of its assumptions, from the economic to the cooperative to the emotional to the social, until it no longer means anything at all. Until there is no way to distinguish marriage from a temporary liaison between members of uncertain sexes for reasons that due to their vagueness cannot be held to have any solemn and meaningful purpose.
... Every aspect of marriage is deconstructed and then eliminated until it no longer means anything. And once marriage is no longer a lifetime commitment between a man and a woman, but a ceremony with no deeper meaning than most modern ceremonies, then the deconstruction and destruction will be complete.

... In the world that the deconstructionists are striving to build, there will be marriage, but it will mean nothing. Like a greeting card holiday, it will be an event, but not an institution. An old ritual with no further meaning. An egotistical exercise in attention-seeking and self-celebration with no deeper purpose. It will be a display every bit as hollow as the churches and synagogues it takes place in.
The deconstruction of marriage is only a subset of the deconstruction of gender from a state of being to a state of mind. The decline of marriage was preceded by the deconstruction of gender roles and gay marriage is being succeeded by the destruction of gender as anything other than a voluntary identity, a costume that one puts on and takes off.
Destroying gender roles was a prerequisite to destroying gender. Each deconstruction leads naturally to the next deconstruction with no final destination except total deconstruction.
Gay marriage is not a stopping point, just as men in women's clothing using the ladies room is not a stopping point. There is no stopping point at all.
The left's deconstruction of social institutions is not a quest for equality, but for destruction. As long as the institutions that preceded it exist, it will go on deconstructing them until there is nothing left but a blank canvas, an unthinking anarchy, on which it can impose its perfect and ideal conception of how everyone should live.
Equality is merely a pretext for deconstruction. Change the parameters of a thing and it ceases to function. Redefine it and expand it and it no longer means anything at all. A rose by any other name might smell as sweet, but if you change 'rose' to mean anything that sticks out of the ground, then the entire notion of what is being discussed has gone and cannot be reclaimed without also reclaiming language.

The left's social deconstruction program is a war of ideas and concepts. Claims of equality are used to expand institutions and ways of living until they are so broad as to encompass everything and nothing. And once a thing encompasses everything, once a rose represents everything rising out of the ground, then it also represents nothing at all.
Deconstruction is a war against definitions, borders and parameters. It is a war against defining things by criminalizing the limitation of definitions. With inclusivity as the mandate, exclusivity, in marriage, or any other realm, quickly meets with social disapproval and then becomes a hate crime. If the social good is achieved only through maximum inclusivity and infinite tolerance, then any form of exclusivity, from property to person to ideas, is a selfish act that refuses the collective impulse to make all things into a common property with no lasting meaning or value.
As Orwell understood in 1984, tyranny is essentially about definitions. It is hard to fight for freedom if you lack the word. It is hard to maintain a marriage if the idea no longer exists. Orwell's Oceania made basic human ideas into contradictory things. The left's deconstruction of social values does the same thing to such essential institutions as marriage; which becomes an important impermanent thing of no fixed nature or value.
The left's greatest trick is making things mean the opposite of what they do. Stealing is sharing. Crime is justice. Property is theft. Each deconstruction is accompanied by an inversion so that a thing, once examined, comes to seem the opposite of what it is, and once that is done, it no longer has the old innate value, but a new enlightened one.

To deconstruct man, you deconstruct his beliefs and then his way of living. You deconstruct freedom until it means slavery. You deconstruct peace until it means war. You deconstruct property until it means theft. And you deconstruct marriage until it means a physical relationship between any group of people for any duration. And that is the opposite of what marriage is.

The deconstruction of marriage is part of the deconstruction of gender and family and those are part of the long program of deconstructing man. Once each basic value has been rendered null and void, inverted and revealed to be random and meaningless, then man is likewise revealed to be a random and meaningless creature whose existence requires shaping by those who know better.
The final deconstruction eliminates nation, religion, family and even gender to reduce the soul of man to a blank slate waiting to be written on.
That is what is at stake here. This is not a struggle about the right of equality, but the right of definition. It is not about whether men can get married, but whether marriage will mean anything at all. It is about preserving the shapes and structures of basic social concepts that define our identities in order to preserve those very concepts, rather than accepting their deconstruction into nullification.

The question on the table is whether the institutions that give us meaning will be allowed to retain that meaning. And that question is a matter of survival. Societies cannot survive without definitions. Peoples do not go on existing through the act of occupying space. The deconstruction of identity is also the destruction of identity.
And that is what we are truly fighting against.

The Disappearing Rivers of China

From the Daily Mail:

An official report from China’s Ministry of Water Resources released its first ever national census of water earlier this week found that the number of rivers in China with catchment areas of at least 100 square kilometres has dropped by half compared with 60 years ago.

The official study, conducted by around 800,000 surveyors said there were 22,909 rivers in China which had catchment areas of at least 100 sq km – as of the end of 2011. This is less than half the government’s previously estimated figure of over 50,000.

The large fall in the number of these rivers has prompted fears that China’s rapid economic development has also caused considerable water and soil loss.

China isn't as cheap for manufacturing as people think.  A lot of the costs of manufacturing are externalized (i.e., the pollution and work injuries), and simply not captured in the price charged by the manufacturers.

"Vigilantes" Police Mexican Town

Sometimes self-help is the best help. From the Daily Mail:

Thousands of armed vigilantes have taken over a town in Mexico and arrested police officers after their 'commander' was killed and dumped in the street.

The self described 'community police' and [sic] arrested 12 officers and the town's former director of public security, who they accuse of taking part in the killing of Guadalupe Quinones Carbajal, 28, on behalf of a local organised crime group.

The 1,500-strong force has also set up improvised checkpoints on the major road running through Tierra Colorado, which connects the capital Mexico City to Acapulco, a coastal city popular with tourists less than 40 miles away.
A tourist heading to the beach with relatives for the Easter weekend was injured on Tuesday after the vigilantes opened fire on his car because he refused to stop at a roadblock.

The takeover comes amid a growing movement of 'self defence' groups in the region, which claim to be fighting against drug cartels.

Drug Cartels Are The No. 1 Threat To Texas

Texas law enforcement apparently doesn't agree with the Federal government's assessment of border security. From the Blaze:

The Department of Homeland Security and the other federal agencies can continue downplaying the threat that an unsecure border represents to the United States of America — but that won’t keep Mexican drug cartels from operating freely in states like Texas.

Contradicting Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano’s claim that “our borders have, in fact, never been stronger,” a new report released by the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) reveals Mexican drug cartels are operating in the Lone Star State and are the No. 1 threat to Texas.

“The threat to Texas is significant due to the prevalence of lucrative trafficking routes and smuggling networks throughout the state, as well as the state’s proximity to cities and towns steeped in cartel violence and influence just across the border in Mexico,” the report reads.

While Texas faces a full spectrum of “unique challenges to public safety and homeland security,” drug cartels are at the top of the list.

The Gulf Cartel, Los Zetas, La Familia Michoacana, Beltran Leyva and even the Sinaloa Cartel are all operating out of Texas, including Cameron, Hidalgo and Zapata Counties.

“These powerful and ruthless criminal organizations use military and terrorist tactics to battle each other and the government of Mexico for control over the lucrative U.S. drug and human smuggling markets,” according to the report. “The violence associated with this conflict has increased significantly since 2006. Some 60,000 lives have been lost, and cartel tactics in Mexico have escalated with the continued use of torture and beheading, improvised explosive devices, military-grade weapons such as grenades, and attacks against U.S. officials and diplomatic facilities.”

China & Brazil Agree to Drop the Dollar...

... and exchange each other's currencies when trading between the two nations. When the U.S. dollar ceases to be a reserve currency, its value will drop dramatically.

Was the Cyprus Depositor "Haircut" for Naught?

Reuters reports:

As new President Nicos Anastasiades hesitated over an EU bailout that has wrecked Cyprus's offshore financial haven status, money was oozing out of his country's closed banks.

In banknotes at cash machines and exceptional transfers for "humanitarian supplies", large amounts of euros fled the east Mediterranean island before and after Cypriot lawmakers stunned Europe by rejecting a levy on all bank deposits.

EU negotiators knew something was wrong when the Central Bank of Cyprus requested more banknotes from the European Central Bank than the withdrawals it was reporting to Frankfurt implied were needed, an EU source familiar with the process said. "The amount the Cypriots mentioned... on a daily basis was much less than it was in reality," the source said.

... No one knows exactly how much money has left Cyprus' banks, or where it has gone. The two banks at the centre of the crisis - Cyprus Popular Bank, also known as Laiki, and Bank of Cyprus - have units in London which remained open throughout the week and placed no limits on withdrawals. Bank of Cyprus also owns 80 percent of Russia's Uniastrum Bank, which put no restrictions on withdrawals in Russia. Russians were among Cypriot banks' largest depositors.

While ordinary Cypriots queued at ATM machines to withdraw a few hundred euros as credit card transactions stopped, other depositors used an array of techniques to access their money.

Companies that had to meet margin calls to avoid defaulting on deals were granted funds. Transfers for trade in humanitarian products, medicines and jet fuel were allowed.

Chris Pavlou, who was vice chairman of Laiki until Friday, said while some money was withdrawn over a period of several days it was in the order of millions of euros, not billions.

German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble said the bank closure had limited capital flight but that the ECB was looking closely at the issue. He declined to provide figures.

While we are looking at what the EU is doing to Cyprus' depositors, we should keep in mind that the theft of deposits in the United States is much greater.

Cyprus' Efforts to Prevent Bank Run

Cypriot banks have been shut for more than a week while the government worked out the bailout and will stay closed until Thursday to prevent a run. Meanwhile, Cypriots have been queuing to withdraw cash from automatic teller machines, with limits at some shrinking down to 100 euros a day.

(Full story here).

China Uses Military Exercises to Lay Claim to Spratly Islands

From the Associated Press:

China's increasingly powerful navy paid a symbolic visit to the country's southernmost territorial claim deep in the South China Sea this week as part of military drills in the disputed Spratly Islands involving amphibious landings and aircraft.

The visit to James Shoal, reported by state media, followed several days of drills starting Saturday and marked a high-profile show of China's determination to stake its claim to territory disputed by Vietnam, the Philippines, Taiwan, Malaysia and Brunei amid rising tensions in the region.

Sailors joined in the ceremony Tuesday aboard the amphibious ship Jinggangshan just off the collection of submerged rocks, located 80 kilometers (50 miles) off the coast of Malaysia and about 1,800 kilometers (1,120 miles) from the Chinese mainland, the official Xinhua News Agency reported Wednesday. China planted a monument on the shoal in 2010 declaring it Chinese territory.

Religious Persecution at Florida Atlantic Univ.

You may have read earlier about a student at Florida Atlantic University who objected to a class activity where the students were to write "Jesus Christ" on a paper and then stomp on it. The University had previously indicated that the student was not being punished. However, Fox News is reporting that the student is, in fact, being disciplined by the University.

A Florida Atlantic University student who filed a complaint against his professor after he was ordered to stomp on the name of Jesus has been brought up on academic charges by the school and may no longer attend class, according to documents obtained by Fox News.
The “Notice of Charges” against Ryan Rotela [who is LDS] is contrary to a statement the university released late Friday night saying no one had been disciplined as a result of the classroom activity.

“We can confirm that no student has been expelled, suspended or disciplined by the university as a result of any activity that took place during this class,” the university said in a prepared statement.

However, according to a letter written by Associate Dean Rozalia Williams, Rotela is facing a litany of charges – including an alleged violation of the student code of conduct, acts of verbal, written or physical abuse, threats, intimidation, harassment, coercion or other conduct which threaten the health, safety or welfare of any person.”

“In the interim, you may not attend class or contact any of the students involved in this matter – verbally or electronically – or by any other means,” Williams wrote to Rotela. “Please be advised that a Student Affairs hold may be placed on your records until final disposition of the complaint.”

Cyprus Solution May Be Used in Other Eurozone Countries

The Telegraph is reporting that "[s]avings accounts in Spain, Italy and other European countries will be raided if needed to preserve Europe's single currency by propping up failing banks, a senior eurozone official has announced." 

The euro fell on global markets after Jeroen Dijsselbloem, the Dutch chairman of the eurozone, announced that the heavy losses inflicted on depositors in Cyprus would be the template for future banking crises across Europe.
"If there is a risk in a bank, our first question should be 'Okay, what are you in the bank going to do about that? What can you do to recapitalise yourself?'," he said.
"If the bank can't do it, then we'll talk to the shareholders and the bondholders, we'll ask them to contribute in recapitalising the bank, and if necessary the uninsured deposit holders."
Ditching a three-year-old policy of protecting senior bondholders and large depositors, over €100,000, in banks, Mr Dijsselbloem argued that the lack of market contagion surrounding Cyprus showed that private investors could now be hit to pay for bad banking debts.

As an aside, the article also notes that banks in Cyprus will remain closed until Thursday. (See also here). My guess is that they want to avoid a bank run, and want the time to arrange the "capital controls" that will be imposed in Cyprus and, perhaps, throughout the EU, to prevent deposits being transferred to other countries.

Has the Red Line Been Crossed?

The Weekly Standard reports:

House Intelligence Committee chair Mike Rogers said this morning on CBS that "it is abundantly clear that that red line has been crossed." ...
"I think that it is abundantly clear that that red line has been crossed," said the House Intel chair, about chemical weapons being used in Syria. "There is mounting evidence that it is probable that the Assad regime has used at least a small quantity of chemical weapons during the course of this conflict."

President Obama has maintained that the use of chemical weapons in Syria would cross a red line. But he is not yet willing to say whether chemical weapons were used last week in Syria.

With all due respect to Mr. Rogers, though, the recent chemical weapon attack does not appear to have been by Assad's forces. The Telegraph observes:

Whatever happened last week in the town of Khan al-Assal, west of Aleppo, it achieved something extraordinary in the Syrian civil war: unity among Washington, Moscow and Damascus.

All welcomed the rapid decision by Ban Ki-moon, the United Nations secretary-general, to investigate an alleged chemical attack that reportedly killed 26, including Syrian soldiers.

Unusually, the request for that investigation came from the Syrian regime, which claimed that Islamic jihadist rebels launched a chemical weapons attack. Since then, precious little evidence in any way has come from the area despite an awful lot of diplomatic noise around the world.

However a senior source close to the Syrian Army has given Channel 4 News the first clear account of what he claims is believed to have occurred on Tuesday. He is a trusted and hitherto reliable source who does not wish to be identified.

The Syrian military is said to believe that a home-made locally-manufactured rocket was fired, containing a form of chlorine known as CL17, easily available as a swimming pool cleaner. They claim that the warhead contained a quantity of the gas, dissolved in saline solution.

 Obama's statement, if it can be trusted any more than anything else he says, was premised on Assad being the one to use chemical weapons, not the rebels.

Going After Ammunition

I was browsing through the print edition of "Wired Magazine" the other day, and noted an article suggesting that instead of focusing on controlling firearms, gun control advocates should focus on the ammunition--making it too expensive or difficult for the average person to obtain and store in any reasonable quantity.

Before Christ's Return and the First Resurrection

Just a reminder of what is coming, and why we need to get our food supply put up. From Doctrine and Covenants Section 29:

14 But, behold, I say unto you that before this great day [i.e., the Second Coming and the resurrection of the righteous] shall come the sun shall be darkened, and the moon shall be turned into blood, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and there shall be greater signs in heaven above and in the earth beneath;
15 And there shall be weeping and wailing among the hosts of men;
16 And there shall be a great hailstorm sent forth to destroy the crops of the earth.
17 And it shall come to pass, because of the wickedness of the world, that I will take vengeance upon the wicked, for they will not repent; for the cup of mine indignation is full; for behold, my blood shall not cleanse them if they hear me not.

18 Wherefore, I the Lord God will send forth flies upon the face of the earth, which shall take hold of the inhabitants thereof, and shall eat their flesh, and shall cause maggots to come in upon them;

19 And their tongues shall be stayed that they shall not utter against me; and their flesh shall fall from off their bones, and their eyes from their sockets;
20 And it shall come to pass that the beasts of the forest and the fowls of the air shall devour them up.

21 And the great and abominable church, which is the whore of all the earth, shall be cast down by devouring fire, according as it is spoken by the mouth of Ezekiel the prophet, who spoke of these things, which have not come to pass but surely must, as I live, for abominations shall not reign.

(Underline added).

Counting Our Blessings....

A couple days ago, my wife and I attended the funeral of the husband of one of my co-workers. He had valiantly fought a battle with cancer, but it recently had moved to his liver and, mercifully, he did not linger. His wife and family were not LDS; I think they were Quaker. The minister and several family members spoke at the funeral, which was very moving and touching. However, there was something missing. Although they spoke at length about God's mercy, and returning to be with God, there was nothing about being again with family in heaven or the eternities. I wanted to tell her that she would see her husband again, but I couldn't--they hadn't been married or sealed in the temple for time and eternity.  Instead, I told her to be strong and told her that we would help her in any way we could. I pray that God comforts her and her family in their grief. And I thank the Lord for the ordinances that bind us together in eternal marriage, and the opportunity to seal our ancestors to us in an eternal family unit.

More on the Syrian Chemical Weapon Attack

From the Debka File:

Western military sources have told DEBKA file that three chemicals were believed present in the Scud B rocket which exploded in the Aleppo neighborhood of Khan al-Assal Tuesday March 19: phosphorus, chlorine and Agent 15 or BZ. Although the Assad regime and the rebels charged each other with firing the rocket, which killed 15-31 people and injured more than a hundred, it was not possible to verify which side was actually responsible. The White House denied it was the rebels, while Moscow insisted that it was, in support of the accusation from Damascus.

The assumption in Israeli security circles is that either or both sides may have tried a one-shot use of a chemical weapon to test the limits of world-power tolerance. The incapacitating Agent 15 which causes choking is the least harmful of Assad’s chemical arsenal. A US army spokesman said the American armed forces had plans for intervening in the Syrian conflict if chemical weapons were used.

Cyprus' Plan "B"

From Yahoo News:

... The government said a "Plan B" was in the works. 

Officials said it could include: an option to nationalize pension funds of semi-government corporations, which hold between 2 billion and 3 billion euros; issuing an emergency bond linked to future natural gas revenues; and possibly reviving the levy on bank deposits, though at a lower level than originally planned and maybe excluding savers with less than 100,000 euros.

With Cypriot Energy Minister George Lakkotrypis also in Moscow, officially for a tourism exhibition, speculation was rife that access to untapped offshore gas reserves could be on the table as part of a deal for Russian aid.

Finance minister Sarris said talks with his Russian counterpart, Anton Siluanov, would continue, but there had not yet been any offers, "nothing concrete."

Cyprus is a haven for billions of euros squirreled abroad by Russian businesses and individuals - a factor, too, in the reluctance of Germany and other northern euro zone states to bail out Cypriots without a contribution from bank depositors.

The island's banking sector has been crippled by its exposure to bigger neighbor Greece. Athens said Greek branches of Cypriot banks would also stay shut till the weekend.

(Underline added).

Another Round in the Sunni-Shiite War

From the Daily Mail:

A wave of bombings tore through Baghdad today, killing at least 56 people in a spasm of violence on the eve of the tenth anniversary of the US-led invasion.

Most of this morning's attacks involved car bombs targeted on Shiite areas, small restaurants, labourers and bus stops in the Iraqi capital and nearby towns.

The attacks show how dangerous and unstable Iraq remains a decade after the war began - a country where sectarian violence can explode at any time.

The attacks that left 56 dead and more than 200 wounded came ten years to the day after Washington announced the start of the invasion on 19 March 2003.

Meanwhile today Iraq's Cabinet decided to postpone upcoming provincial elections in two provinces dominated by the country's minority Sunnis. Provincial elections are scheduled for April 20.

The prime minister's spokesman Ali al-Moussawi said the decision to postpone the elections for up to six months followed requests from the political blocs in the provinces.
The two provinces affected, Anbar and Ninevah, have been at the centre of nearly three-month-long protests against Iraq's Shiite-led government.

Chemical Weapons Used in Syria?

Syria has accused rebel groups of carrying out a chemical weapon attack in a suburb of Aleppo that is alleged to have killed 25 people.

The Russian foreign ministry said it also had information showing that the rebels had carried out a chemical weapons attack.
This afternoon the White House said it was "looking carefully" at allegations that a chemical weapons attack had taken place, with a spokesman saying there was "no evidence" yet to substantiate the claim that the rebels were responsible.

 However, the rebels have denied the attacks, and instead accused the Syrian government forces of carrying out the attack with a long range missile.

Neither of the accusations could immediately be verified, and a chemical weapons expert in the U.K. told CBSNews.com there was very little evidence to suggest any actual chemical weapons had been deployed. A U.S. official, speaking anonymously to the Associated Press, also said there was no evidence of a chemical attack. Also expressing doubts was the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, which reported no independent information of chemical weapons use.

At the White House, spokesman Jay Carney told reporters the administration had no evidence to suggest the rebels had used chemical weapons, but added: "We are looking carefully at the information as it comes in... This is an issue that has been made very clear by the president to be of great concern to us."

The Syrian state news agency SANA said "terrorists" had fired a rocket "containing chemical materials" into the area around the village of Khan al-Assal in the northern province of Aleppo. The regime regularly uses the term terrorists to refer to rebels fighting to overthrow authoritarian President Bashar Assad. Russia, one of the Syrian regime's few remaining allies, joined the Assad regime in accusing the rebels of carrying out a chemical attack, calling it an "extremely dangerous" development in the crisis. The Foreign Ministry in Moscow said rebels had detonated a munition containing an unidentified chemical agent early Tuesday in Aleppo province, without giving further details.

There are some no-so-obvious implications to this, if it is true. Both Israel and the United States have claimed to be carefully monitoring the stockpiles of chemical weapons to prevent them from falling into the hands of the rebel groups, or being used by Assad's regime. If this story is correct, it suggests that the U.S. and Israel have failed at passively monitoring the chemical weapons, and may not know where all of the weapons are located; or, that the rebels have been able to manufacture their own chemical weapons or obtained them from another source; or that the U.S. and/or Israel were unable to stop the capture or use of the weapons. The bottom line is that some of these chemical weapons may make their way out of Syria for use by Al Qaeda elsewhere.

The Truth About Knives

The Truth About Guns has spun off a new website devoted to bladed weapons called, naturally, the Truth About Knives.

Cyprus Deal Targets Private Bank Accounts

From Der Spiegel:

Euro-zone finance ministers and the International Monetary Fund reached a deal with Cyprus early Saturday morning on a bailout package for the country that has been the subject of dispute for months now. It will mark the first time that savers in a country in the euro zone are required to participate in a bailout.
The deal followed intense negotiations and the main sticking point during the 10-hours of talks had been the demand that savers at Cypriot banks also be required to contribute to the bailouts of the beleaguered financial institutions. Under the deal, any bank account holder in Cyprus with deposits exceeding €100,000 will be subjected to a one-off levy of 9.9 percent of their savings. Accounts with less than a €100,000 would be required to make a 6.75 percent payment. In total, the deposit tax is expected to generate around €5.8 billion.
Large sums of money have been deposited in Cypriot banks by foreign customers, particularly wealthy Russians and Brits. Russian oligarchs have billions in deposits in the banks, and almost half of the deposits in the country are believed to be from non-resident Russian citizens. Together, the country's banks hold close to €70 billion in deposits. Cyprus also agreed to raise the country's nominal corporate tax rate, the lowest in Europe, by 2.5 percentage points to 12.5 percent. But sources said the country would not be given a debt haircut.
The Cypriot government said Saturday it would cease electronic transfers to prevent savers from wiring money out of the country. And Jörg Asmussen, a German board member of the European Central Bank said that the amount of the one-time levy would immediately be frozen in all accounts in Cyprus. Banks in the country will also be closed on Monday because of a holiday. The Cypriot government is expected to pass a law this weekend approving the levy. "I assume that the levy can be applied before the banks reopen normally on Tuesday," Asmussen said.

One of the political issues here was that a lot of Europeans saw a bailout as simply funneling money to banks that were primarily used to hide or launder money from organized crime. The question is whether this will set a precedent for other bank bailouts, and further encourage the flight of money from the PIGGS into more stable economies.

China to Keep Digging Its Demographic Hole

The Financial Times has an article about the impact of China's "one child" policy. From the article:

China first introduced measures to limit the size of the population in 1971, encouraging couples to have fewer children. The one-child rule, with exceptions for ethnic minorities and some rural families, was implemented at the end of the decade.

Since 1971, doctors have performed 336m abortions and 196m sterilisations, the data reveal. They have also inserted 403m intrauterine devices, a normal birth control procedure in the west but one that local officials often force on women in China.

... The Chinese government has previously estimated that without restrictions, the country’s 1.3bn population would be 30 per cent larger.

... As China’s working-age population begins to decline, economists have warned that the family planning rules will pose an increasing drag on economic growth. China’s dependency ratio – which compares the potential workforce with the number of children and retirees – rose last year for the first time in 40 years.

“This makes China’s population look more like a developed country than a developing one, which is a key disadvantage in labour-intensive industries,” said Ken Peng, an economist with BNP Paribas who analysed the health ministry data.

The birth restrictions have also led to a severe gender imbalance because of a traditional preference for male children and the selective abortion of female foetuses. There are now 34m more men than women in China.

... The calls for relaxation [of the policy] are also meeting resistance.

After supervision of the one-child policy was given to the health ministry, the deputy head of the family planning unit rounded on critics of his department’s work. “The idea of easing the ageing problem by increasing the fertility rate is like drinking poison to quench thirst,” Yang Yuxue said.

China's rise has been spectacular. Its collapse will be equally spectacular.

The Battle Rifle--Part II

TTAG has posted its second article on the history and theory of the battle rifle.

New York Riots

There has been three days (so far) of rioting (small scale) over a teen shot to death by police after pointing a gun at them. (See here and here).

Antibiotic Resistance

Megan McArdle discusses the rise of antibiotic resistant bacteria and why we may not be able to anything about it. While she focuses on pharmaceuticals, however, future treatments may use nanotechnology to more effectively target bacteria.

(H/t Instapundit)

Handloads for Subsonic, Sub-MOA .243 Loads

TTAG has posted handload data for a sub-sonic .243 loading that produced sub-MOA results for them. The load info is:

Brass: .243 R-P New
Powder: Trail Boss 12.1gr
Primer: Federal 210
Bullet: Nosler 70gr Ballistic Tip
COL: 2.610
Barrel twist: 1:10

This has obvious use for someone with a .243 rifle with a sound suppressor, but note that the original purpose of the load was to reduce recoil.

My father-in-law gave me some handloads that his father had developed for the .30-06 that were extremely mild loads because they used handcast lead bullets. Firing through a Springfield 1903A1, I found the loads to pleasurable to shoot (compared to the shoulder breaking loads that my father liked to load for hunting) and very accurate at the short distance I was shooting. Given the low power, bullet drop is probably too much for useful long range shooting, but they were fun to shoot!

Aging Canned Goods

A reader sent me a link to an article on aging canned goods. The gist of the article is that some canned foods can take on different (or better) flavors and textures as they age. I thought the whole article is interesting, but here are a couple of points of interest to the prepper:

Standard canned goods aren’t generally deemed age-worthy [i.e., worthy of being aged like wines or cheese]. Food technologists define shelf life not by how long it takes for food to become inedible, but how long it takes for a trained sensory panel to detect a “just noticeable difference” between newly manufactured and stored cans. There’s no consideration of whether the difference might be pleasant in its own way or even an improvement—it’s a defect by definition.

Obviously, then, the "best when used by" date on products is not necessarily when the food becomes inedible (although my experience with saltine crackers is the "best when used by date" is generally overoptimistic).

And for those wanting to experiment:

The trouble with aging canned goods is that it takes years to get results. However, we can take a hint from manufacturers, who often accelerate shelf-life tests by storing foods at high temperatures. A general rule of thumb is that the rate of chemical reactions approximately doubles with each 20-degree rise in temperature. Store foods at 40 degrees above normal—around 100 degrees—and you can get an idea of a year’s change in just three months.

But it’s possible to go further. At 120 degrees, you get a year’s worth of change in six weeks; at 140 degrees, three weeks; at 180 degrees, five days.

Of course temperatures that high are cooking temperatures, and their heat energy drives reactions that would never occur in normal storage. But if we’re interested in the evolution of canned foods, which have already been extremely cooked, then why not treat them to a little additional simmering and see what happens? (It’s safest to stay a little below the boil, to avoid building up steam pressure in the can.)

The Battle Rifle, Part One

TTAG has the first part of an article on the history and theory of the battle rifle.

Glenn Reynolds Reviews LED Lanterns

Glenn Reynolds has reviewed a Ray-O-Vac and Coast brands  battery powered LED lanterns and an Energizer solar-charging LED lantern.

Fukushima Ghost Towns--2 Years Later

 Two years after the earthquake and tsunami that crippled Japan's Fukushima nuclear power plant, some villages still lie abandoned because of high radiation levels. Story and additional photos at the Daily Mail.

ATI Calvary Shotgun

I'm not much of a shotgun guy. First, I've spent too much time shooting handguns and rifles so the whole "point, don't aim" is hard. I can hit clays thrown away from me, but those coming across in front of me are still a challenge. Second, I've never had too much interest in bird hunting. But I have friends and a son who enjoy the shotgun, so I'm trying to learn.

Part of the problem is that a nice double-barrel shotgun is so expensive. If I were to spend a couple thousand or more on a gun, I start thinking "AR," "P-90," or "FN2000" not "over and under." However, The Firearms Blog reports that there is a company coming to the rescue with the ATI Calvary Shotgun, an over/under with blued steel barrels (chrome lined) and replaceable chokes, a stainless steel engraved receiver, and Turkish walnut stocks. All in all a respectable looking gun, and an MSRP of $489.99. They will offer both 20 gauge and 12 gauge models. (More details and photos at the link).

(Source: The Firearms Blog)

Saiga MK-107

The Firearms Blog reports that Saiga has released a civilian version of the AK107/108. This latest AK uses a "balanced recoil system" that drives a counterweight forward as the same time the bolt and carrier are driven back. There is a more detailed description at the link. In its current configuration, it can't be imported in the U.S., but hopefully Saiga will release a version that will comply with our stupid gun importation restrictions.

Airless Tire

Polaris has announced that they will be putting an airless tire (pictured above) on sale for the consumer market in 2014. (Full story here). From the story:

They allow heat to dissipate - something not possible with solid rubber tires which are also hazardous if a bit of the tire is chipped off.

They are also designed to let shrapnel pass through.

As well as helping motorists avoid the misery of the tire change, Polaris claim the tires provide smoother journeys over rough terrain and are quieter than their air-filled rivals.

'There is nowhere for the sound to pool, so there’s no humming or drumming like there is with a standard pneumatic tire,' Polaris business development representative Joaquin Salas said.

The firm claims they've put the invention through 'military grade testing'.
The tires have withstood gunshots and have been driven on for hundreds of hours and over 5,000 miles.
They say they continue working even if up to 30 per cent of the web is damaged, meaning motorists will rarely need to replace them.

Squatters Take Over Mansion

The Daily Mail reports on a family claiming to be "Moorish Americans" that have moved into a bank repossessed $3.2 million mansion in Memphis, TN. They have padlocked the gate to the property and posted "no trespassing" signs. Although the value of the property makes this notable, this is probably going to become more widespread.

Medieval California

The feudal system is alive and well in California. Coming soon to a state near you.

Water Crisis

Infowars discusses water shortages:

At this point, approximately 40 percent of the entire population of the planet has little or no access to clean water, and it is being projected that by 2025 two-thirds of humanity will live in “water-stressed” areas.

(See also this DOD report). However, the focus is on the Western United States:

Most Americans tend to think of a “water crisis” as something that happens in very dry places such as Africa or the Middle East, but the truth is that almost the entire western half of the United States is historically a very dry place. The western U.S. has been hit very hard by drought in recent years, and many communities are on the verge of having to make some very hard decisions. For example, just look at what is happening to Lake Mead. Scientists are projecting that Lake Mead has a 50 percent chance of running dry by the year 2025. If that happens, it will mean the end of Las Vegas as we know it. But the problems will not be limited just to Las Vegas. The truth is that if Lake Mead runs dry, it will be a major disaster for that entire region of the country. This was explained in a recent article by Alex Daley…

Way before people run out of drinking water, something else happens: When Lake Mead falls below 1,050 feet, the Hoover Dam’s turbines shut down – less than four years from now, if the current trend holds – and in Vegas the lights start going out.

Ominously, these water woes are not confined to Las Vegas. Under contracts signed by President Obama in December 2011, Nevada gets only 23.37% of the electricity generated by the Hoover Dam. The other top recipients: Metropolitan Water District of Southern California (28.53%); state of Arizona (18.95%); city of Los Angeles (15.42%); and Southern California Edison (5.54%).

You can always build more power plants, but you can’t build more rivers, and the mighty Colorado carries the lifeblood of the Southwest. It services the water needs of an area the size of France, in which live 40 million people. In its natural state, the river poured 15.7 million acre-feet of water into the Gulf of California each year. Today, twelve years of drought have reduced the flow to about 12 million acre-feet, and human demand siphons off every bit of it; at its mouth, the riverbed is nothing but dust.

Nor is the decline in the water supply important only to the citizens of Las Vegas, Phoenix, and Los Angeles. It’s critical to the whole country. The Colorado is the sole source of water for southeastern California’s Imperial Valley, which has been made into one of the most productive agricultural areas in the US despite receiving an average of three inches of rain per year.

The author goes on to discuss the draining of the Ogallala Aquifer in Texas. He notes that at least some scientists believe that there is nothing that can be done to save the Ogallala Aquifer, but the best that can be hoped for is a "soft landing."

He concludes by reviewing the water situation in other areas of the nation before moving back to specific issues in nations or areas of the world.

Read the whole thing.

Italian Elections as a Protest Vote

From Der Speigel:

He's called Beppe Grillo, he's 64 years old and he's the clear winner of the Italian parliamentary election. His "Five-Star Movement" emerged as the biggest single party in the lower house of parliament. The left- and right-wing party grandees -- Pier Luigi Bersani and Silvio Berlusconi -- only managed to muster more votes than him with the help of their respective allied parties. Grillo, who already brought thousands on to the streets in 2007 for his "Kiss My Ass Day," is the mouthpiece of Italy's disenchanted, angry voters. The numbers of these protests voters are growing dramatically.
Incompetent political leadership has been running down the country for years. The state education system is poor, as are the universities and the health system. Most of the state-owned enterprises are hopelessly inefficient. Antique World Heritage Sites like Pompeii are crumbling away. And all the while the members of the political class are enriching themselves and handing out jobs and overpriced contracts to their friends. Some dodgy deal or other is uncovered almost every day. Sometimes someone ends up in jail -- but the system doesn't change. Nothing will change, in fact, unless everything changes. That is Grillo's logic. And many Italians, especially younger ones, agree with him.