Police Loot Calgary Homes (Updated and bumped)

The Calgary Herald reports on systematic looting of flooded homes by law enforcement, who were specifically targeting firearms. From the article:

RCMP revealed Thursday that officers have seized a “substantial amount” of firearms from homes in the evacuated town of High River.


“We just want to make sure that all of those things are in a spot that we control, simply because of what they are,” said Sgt. Brian Topham.


“People have a significant amount of money invested in firearms ... so we put them in a place that we control and that they’re safe.”

So why do I describe it as looting?

First, they are not letting residents back in to collect their property:

About 30 RCMP officers set up a blockade at the checkpoint, preventing 50 residents from walking into the town. Dozens more police cars, lights on, could be seen lining streets in the town on standby.Officers laid down a spike belt to stop anyone from attempting to drive past the blockade.

 Second, they broke into homes to obtain the firearms:

Sgt. Topham ... did confirm that officer relied on forced entry to get into numerous houses during the early stages of the flood because of an “urgent need”....

Police are no longer forcing themselves into homes and the residences that were forced open will be secured, he said.

 Third, they didn't record what firearms came from which homes, and will require the rightful owners to prove that they own a particular firearm:

“We have seized a large quantity of firearms simply because they were left by residents in their places,” said Topham.


The guns will be returned to owners after residents are allowed back in town and they provide proof of ownership, Topham added.

In other words, if an owner can't prove it is theirs, the cops will get to keep it. They should be charged with burglary and/or receiving or transporting stolen goods.

Short lesson, if you have to evacuate, take your guns with you.

Update (June 29, 2013): An op-ed at Canada's National Post indicates that the RCMP keep changing their story about their looting.

Gold Prices Are Tanking

CNBC reports that, on Friday, gold prices fell below $1,200 per ounce, which is considered the production cost of gold. The potential result is that some producers may go out of business. The article states that once production drops, supply will also drop, and the prices will go back up. However:

"This fall in the price of gold is not truly based on supply and demand - It's based on expectations of what the Federal Reserve is doing," Su said. "I think that somewhere along the line the gold prices will simply start rising, because production will reduce supply significantly." 

Is South Africa On the Bleeding Edge of Genocide?

The Daily Mail reports on another deadly killing of a white farmer in South Africa by a black gang. The story notes that the killers were motivated by a desire to kill and terrorize, not steal. It then goes on:

The statistics — and the savagery of the killings — appear to support claims by these residents that white people, and farmers in particular, are being targeted by black criminals.

Little wonder that what unfolded on the Du Plessis homestead has sent tremors of fear through the three-million-strong white community.

Last month alone there were 25 murders of white landowners, and more than 100 attacks, while Afrikaner protest groups claim that more than 4,000 have been killed since Mandela came to power — twice as many as the number of policemen who have died.

It is not just the death toll, but the extreme violence that is often brought to bear, that causes the greatest fear in the white community.

Documented cases of farm killings make for gruesome reading, with children murdered along with their parents, one family suffocated with plastic bags and countless brutal rapes of elderly women and young children.

These horrors have prompted Genocide Watch — a respected American organisation which monitors violence around the world — to claim that the murders of ‘Afrikaner farmers and other whites is organised by racist communists determined to drive whites out of South Africa, nationalise farms and mines, and bring on all the horrors of a communist state’.

Indeed, a disturbing number of whites are terrified that Mandela’s passing will lead to an outpouring of violence from black South Africans, no longer contained by the sheer power of the great man’s presence, which endures today even though he stood down as president in 1999.

For its part, the ruling ANC party dismisses claims that such murders are part of any sinister agenda, pointing out that South Africans of all colours suffer violent crime, and that wealthy whites are simply more likely to be targeted.

Perhaps. But white nerves have not been soothed by the disturbing behaviour of Jacob Zuma, the ANC’s leader and the country’s third black president since Mandela.
At a centenary gathering of the African National Congress last year, Zuma was filmed singing a so-called ‘struggle song’ called Kill The Boer (the old name for much of the white Afrikaner population).

As fellow senior ANC members clapped along, Zuma sang: ‘We are going to shoot them, they are going to run, Shoot the Boer, shoot them, they are going to run, Shoot the Boer, we are going to hit them, they are going to run, the Cabinet will shoot them, with the machine-gun, the Cabinet will shoot them, with the machine-gun . . .’

A Couple Articles for the DIY Gunsmith

First up, Guns'n'Girls has posted an article on the DIY application of Cerakote (h/t The Firearms Blog).

Second, the Firearms Blog has been (slowly) publishing a series on building an AR from an 80% receiver. However, they mention today that EP Lowers is selling a polymer 80% lower that should be easier for someone to build at home with common tools. Of course, at $100 per pop, you are hardly saving anything over buying a complete receiver.

The Role of the Rifle After The SHTF

FerFal discusses the role of the rifle for preppers. He states, and I agree, that the primary weapon for a prepper should generally be the handgun simply because it is the firearm you are most likely to be carrying. The rifle is secondary--a backup for special situation--although I know that some people rely on rifles (or shotguns) for their go-to home defense weapon.

While you are at it, FerFal also recently published a post discussing the truth about the 2001 financial meltdown in Argentina. He emphasizes (as he did in his book) that even with the financial crash, cash was king--not gold, not food, not other trading goods--but cash. However, I would note that financial and economic turmoil can lead to food shortages. For instance, following the Russian revolution and in 1920's Germany, there were food shortages, and selling food was a good way to make cash. (A rather macabre example of this is Fritz Haarmann, a German serial killer, who is believed to have sold "meat" from his victims on the black market).

Book Review: No Easy Day by Mark Owen (Updated)

Source: Amazon.com

Book: No Easy Day by Mark Owen. (Amazon link).

Overview: This is an autobiography by a former Navy SEAL of different events while a member of SEAL Team 6 and, specifically, the mission to kill Osama Bin Laden.

Impression: This is an easy book to read--good writing, well-paced, and an interesting story. Having read several books by former SEALs, I have to say that it was nice to read one that didn't dwell on the selection and training process of becoming a SEAL. Instead, the author focused on a handful of memorable events or missions, finally leading up to Operation Neptune Spear (the name is a such a dead giveaway as to the SEAL's involvement, I have to wonder if it was the actual code name). The events sort of skip around, starting at the beginning of the raid, then jumping back to when the author was on "Green Team" (the selection and training to join SEAL Team 6), forward to a mission, back to his childhood, forward again, etc. At first, I thought this style of writing would be distracting, but it actually was very readable--coming across like a good friend or relative relating old war stories.The accounts were very sanitized, with identities changed, and abilities understated or changed. For instance, even though it has long been known that the team infiltrated into Pakistan on special, stealthy helicopters, the author refers to the helicopters as simple Blackhawk helicopters.There are no secrets spilled here. However, it was a good read, and I give it two thumbs up.

Notable Points: As mentioned above, the accounts have been sanitized. There is little to no discussion of  special tactics, equipment or training. Nevertheless, there are a few interesting points:

1.  Having read other books concerning the SEALs, Delta Force, and so on, it was interesting to note the evolution of tactics from hostage rescue situations to combating insurgents. Older accounts of CQB, based around hostage rescue and taking down terrorists, focused on sudden, rapid and violent penetration of building with widespread use of breaching charges, flash-bangs, and rapid progress through a building. This is still the basis of SWAT training. However, the author here details an evolution from this type of attack (which generally began with "landing on the X"--helicopter deployment to the target location), to missions where the team would land some distance off, approach the location quietly, and move through a target building slowly, carefully, and stealthily--similar to what Special Forces did in Vietnam and Rhodesia. In fact, one of the points that was memorable about the take down of bin Laden was that because of the location in an urban setting, the team had to make a "landing on the X" infiltration which, by that time, was unusual.

2. The author discusses mistakes or lessons learned. For instance, while on Green Team, he messed up on the kill house by forgetting to notify his teammate of a movement; in an early mission, several team members had not tested their equipment and had improperly secured it, so several vital pieces of equipment were lost. In another instance, an EOD specialist only used one detonator (the practice was to have a backup) which failed to work, emphasizing the "two is one, one is none" rule.

3.  If the account is accurate, bin Laden had some really poor security preparations and others that were not fully exploited. Because of roving blackouts, his compound did not have electricity during the attack, with the result that his guards had no lights to neutralize the SEALs' advantage of their night vision equipment. (Of course, we don't know if special weapons were deployed to knock out power to the area). Apparently bin Laden's guards didn't use flashlights or have any other method to see their attackers. There were no dogs or geese or other animals that could have warned of an attack (although, with two helicopters, including one that crashed, this may have been a moot issue). The use of steel doors and security doors, including an internal gate in the house, slowed the SEALs down considerably in taking the house. Yet, other than one guard, the SEALs encountered no active resistance; in fact, bin Laden's firearms in his room weren't even loaded. There was no emergency escape route, either out of his suite of rooms on the third floor of the building or the compound. Given his resources, I was surprised that there wasn't an escape tunnel. Bin Laden and one of the guards was killed when they poked their heads out of doorways to look.

Update (June 27, 2013): There were a couple other points that struck me from the book, that I would like to add.

4.  Depending on the weapons available, good internal security in a structure may only buy you some time. In one of the missions the author related, the team assaulted a building where the insurgents had built a sandbag "pillbox" on the second floor that prevented successfully taking over the building. However, Bradley fighting vehicles were called in and, using their 20 mm cannon, destroyed the second floor of the building.

5.  It was disturbing to see, by the end of the author's time in Afghanistan,  that insurgents were being afforded more rights than American citizens could expect from police here in the United States. The author related that the rules of engagement had changed such that the military forces could no longer do "no knock" raids on a house, but had to bring along someone with a bullhorn to announce the attack and give the people inside an opportunity to surrender or lay down their arms.

6. After the mission to kill bin Laden, Obama met with the team. The team members were required to go through a metal detector and couldn't even bring a pocket knife into the meeting. If the SEALs' training and screening cannot be trusted, why should we trust background screening to be effective in any other circumstance?

Brazilian Riots Systemic

Investors Business Daily explores the causes of the riots in Brazil. The problems are systemic:

"I talk to a lot of Brazilian business-people and their complaints are pretty uniform: high taxes, shoddy services, restrictions on trade, crime," wrote one Miami attorney who does business in Brazil on Facebook. "If they could only do one thing, they really need to embrace free trade, and drop restrictions on imports."

While special interests benefit from the carrots of socialism, the broader society gets the stick.

"We work four months of the year just to pay taxes and we get nothing in return," a protester told the New York Times recently.

They also deal with 6.5% inflation, police brutality, shoddy teachers and hospital unions, and rafts of regulations and bureaucrats.

All of this is not a bug, but a feature of socialism — a socialism by so-called experts. And just like Spartan aristocrats more than 2,000 years ago, Brazil's rulers now watch, dumbfounded, as the helots revolt.

What Not To Do When You Conceal Carry

APT Training has reproduced a training poster used by the NYPD on how to spot someone carrying a concealed weapon. It is a nice summary of all the things NOT to do when you legally carry.

Inside Abandoned Resort

The Grossinger resort, in New York's Catskill mountains, was abandoned in 1986. The Daily Mail has the story and photos of the rotting building.

Anti-Facial Recognition Glasses Developed

Fox News reports about glasses designed to combat facial recognition. The process is similar to videos I've seen for the last several years on the internet. Basically, you put a bunch of infra-red diodes right around the house (this example uses glasses, but I've seen some that mount them on a hat). The IR diodes, when lit, essentially blind or wash out a security camera, blocking the view of the user's face. This works great on security cameras that use infra-red, but, of course, will have no impact on regular cameras.

Imminent Military Coup in Egypt?

CBS News reports that Gen. Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi, the head of Egypt's army, has warned "the military is ready to intervene to stop the nation from entering a 'dark tunnel' of internal conflict." The warning comes a week before mass protests by Pres. Morsi opponents and counter-protests by supporters.

Spree Shooter in China Kills 6

According to ABC News, the man shot 5 people and beat a sixth victim to death. Also from the article:

Guns are hard to come by in China. Firearms are tightly controlled and private ownership is for the most part illegal. Citizens who have hunting permits may apply at their local police station for permission to own a hunting rifle.

One of his victims was a soldier apparently armed with a rifle.

Magnetic Pole Reversal NOT a Sign of Doomsday

EarthSky Magazine has an article on magnetic pole reversals:

Reversals are the rule, not the exception. Earth has settled in the last 20 million years into a pattern of a pole reversal about every 200,000 to 300,000 years, although it has been more than twice that long since the last reversal. A reversal happens over hundreds or thousands of years, and it is not exactly a clean back flip. Magnetic fields morph and push and pull at one another, with multiple poles emerging at odd latitudes throughout the process. Scientists estimate reversals have happened at least hundreds of times over the past three billion years. And while reversals have happened more frequently in “recent” years, when dinosaurs walked Earth a reversal was more likely to happen only about every one million years.

Of course, that doesn't mean that bad things might not happen. At a minimum it will mess with any navigation, by man or animal, that relies on magnetism.

Midwest Industries Mini-Red Dot Mount/Burris FastFire II Combo

A few months ago, I ordered a Midwest Industries Mini-Red-Dot mount from Primary Arms with a combo deal that included a Burris FastFireII mini-reflex sight to mount in my AK. Obviously, you can go to their respective sites to get more technical information and pricing on the product. Midway has information on the Burris FastFire II sight.

Left-side View

I had tried mounting an optic on this rifle--a 2-7X Nikon scope--using a side mounting plate and sight base. I found that the combination was heavy and unwieldy, while the scope was overkill for what the rifle was capable of in accuracy and range. Plus, it ruined the lines of the rifle, which for me was important.

What appealed to me about the MI mount with a small red dot sight is that (a) it didn't require gunsmithing, (b) it didn't need to be removed to conduct cleaning, (c) it co-witnessed with the front site while providing a back up rear sight, and (d) didn't significantly alter the appearance of the rifle.

The sight base, as you may be able to tell from the picture, is two parts. There is a steel section that fits into the existing sight base (you have to remove the old AK rear sight). There is a pin that goes through the pin hole for the sight, and then a vertical screw that tightens down on the pin. Then, in addition, there are two screws on each side of the piece that tighten down on the sides of the old sight ramp to prevent horizontal movement. Finally, there is a large set screw at the rear for adjusting the height above the sight ramp.

The second part of the mount is an aluminum piece that slides into dovetails at the rear of the steel section. The aluminum section is held in place by a set screw. It is this section which has a rear iron sight (to use as a backup) and the base for mounting the FastFire II.

The MI mounting kit comes with a small tube of lock-tite. You will need to use it on every screw. Once you have everything aligned as you want, back the screws out slightly one at a time and apply a small dab, and then retighten and repeat with the other screws. I neglected to do this with the set screw for holding the aluminum extension in place (thinking I would be able to adjust for windage), and it loosened up after a few shots the first time I used the sight. So, lock-tite all those screws.I bore sighted the rear iron sight before applying the lock-tite.

The FastFire II box came with a Picatinny mount which you won't need, although I held on to it in case I ever decided to move the sight over to another gun. One thing I want to point out is the FastFireII is very small and light--it is primarily designed to mount on handguns.

The FastFire II has a small rubber coated plate that mounts onto the base with four holes. You then put the sight over this, then tighten down with two screws. This plate is important because without it, water and dirt can get into the electronics. The two screws come with lock washers, so there is no need to use lock-tite here--and you don't want to because, unfortunately, you have to remove the sight from its base to replace the battery. Fortunately, the battery is supposed to last 2 to 3 years under normal use. You can turn the sight off, but if you prefer to leave it on, it comes with a cover to protect the glass and reduce power usage. It does not automatically shut off.

If you have a laser bore sighter, bore sighting is easy: simply line up the red dot from the Burris over the dot from your laser. Then tighten down the lock screw for the sighting and you are done.

Rear view

I haven't had an opportunity to really give the sights a workout, but here are my initial impressions from just handling the sight and my second shooting trip with it (after I had fixed the lock-tite issue). First, if you have correctly bore-sighted the backup iron sights, they are actually visible and usable. In fact, there is probably one condition where you will have to rely on them. The FastFire II automatically adjusts the brightness level for the sighting dot, which is fine with me. I can see it, outside in bright sunlight, or inside with dimmer lighting, without having to fiddle with brightness buttons or knobs. The only time this doesn't work is being in a dark location, while aiming through a window or doorway into an area that is brightly lit. The light sensor adjusts the dot for your dark location (i.e., by dimming the dot) so that it can be hard to see to use to sight in for the bright location of your target. At first this irritated me, but then I realized it is actually the ideal situation for using the iron sights on the weapon. So, if you have adjusted your iron sights correctly, this is actually not an issue.

Right side view

I set up a dynamic course where I had to move around and shoot targets. (I have an area with high berms on three sides).  I liked this sight because it kept the rifle light and handy. The dot was bright enough to see in bright, noon-time daylight. I recognize that this may not be the strongest, most durable mounting system or sight, but it works for my situation and my desire to keep this particular rifle looking "authentic" while giving me a modern optical sight at a reasonable price.

Santa Muerte and Narcoculture

Borderland Beat recently published an article on the worship of Santa Muerte as part of narco culture. From the article:

Since this conflict began, over 45,000 people have died in the fighting, and the areas of impunity have grown to include wide swaths of territory constituting hundreds of locales now under control of the cartels. The criminal insurgencies waged by the cartels and gangs, centered on a strategy of securing nongovernmental interference with their illicit narcotics and other criminal economic activities, have received much attention and debate. Far less has focused on some of the darker spiritualistic parts of the drug wars.
One component entails the rise of the cartel and gang narcocultura (drug culture) variant of the Cult of Santa Muerte (literally translated as “Holy Death”). This variant of the cult promotes greater levels of criminality than the more mainstream and older forms of Santa Muerte worship. Sometimes it can be so extreme that it condones morally corrupt behaviors—what many people would consider as resulting from an evil value system that rewards personal gain above all else, promoting the intentional pain and suffering of others, and, even, viewing killing as a pleasurable activity.
While addressing the rise of such dark spirituality requires a balanced perspective (e.g., avoiding a repeat of the Satanism scare of the 1980s), enough ritualistic behaviors, including killings, have occurred in Mexico to leave open the possibility that a spiritual insurgency component of the narcotics wars now exists.
Not all of the narcotics leaders, their foot soldiers, and assassins have remained religious or, alternatively, embraced secularism. But, evidence suggests that the numbers of defections to the cults that worship a perverted Christian god (e.g., La Familia Michoacána and Los Caballeros Templarios) and the various unsanctioned saints (e.g., Jesús Malverde, Juan Soldado, and Santa Muerte) have grown for years
This rise in deviant spirituality has not come as a surprise. Mexico still contains a significant population of persons living in poverty and feeling disenfranchised by a government system perceived as being based on patron-client relationships and the influence of wealthy ruling families. This underclass produces a disproportionate amount of unsanctioned (folk) saint worshipers—though only a small percentage of them end up as killers for gangs and cartels. Still, many of these men and women who brutalize, torture, and kill others need a way to rationalize their activities.

If not offered solace via mainstream Catholicism, they will seek comfort elsewhere. While the adherents of a more benign drug saint, such as Jesús Malverde, can engage in nonreligious killing, others who worship Santa Muerte increasingly appear unable to separate their criminality from their spiritual beliefs.

For U.S. law enforcement agencies, the rise of a criminalized and dark variant of Santa Muerte worship holds many negative implications. Of greatest concern, the inspired and ritualistic killings associated with this cult could cross the border and take place in the United States.

The article goes on to describe more details of the ritualistic aspects, including blood sacrifices and blood pacts, and lists some possible ritualistic murders in Mexico and the United States. Read the whole thing.

U.S. Troops Receiving Riot Training for Middle-Eastern Deployment

According to KCEN-TV:

A group of soldiers are preparing for their deployment to Egypt with riot training on post.

They're planning ahead for violent protests or riots and the possibility of protecting the country's border with Israel.

Soldiers encountered Molotov cocktails and other dangerous items in the training.

Is this to support Morsi's government in Egypt? Or to help control a flood of refugees into Israel when Egypt's government collapses?

WHO To Hold Emergency Meeting on MERS

MERS, as you may know, is a deadlier version of SARS--it has a 60% fatality rate, although it is not very contagious--that has appeared in the Middle-East and appears to be concentrated in Saudi Arabia (the probable source of small pox, interestingly). The Telegraph reports that the World Health Organization is convening an emergency meeting to discuss methods of preventing and treating MERS. According to the article, "The three-day meeting called by the World Health Organisation will look at developing guidelines for Ramadan. In October, more than two million people are expected to attend the Hajj pilgrimage to Mecca."

Bernanke Talks, Stocks Fall

CNBC notes that stocks fell after Fed Chairman Bernanke suggested that the Fed may reduce its purchase of government bonds--i.e., ease up on quantitative easing.  Since stock values have been artificially inflated due to the Fed's program, it should be no surprise that stocks would fall in value just on the mere whiff that the Fed may discontinue its program.

The Impact of a Carrington Event

From a Washington Examiner article on a proposed bill to harden the country's infrastructure:

He cited a new Lloyds of London report that determined that the area from Washington, D.C., to New York could be without electricity for up to two years in a major solar flare-up.

The legislation will be introduced Tuesday by Franks and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich at a meeting of the House EMP Caucus. Officials said that the legislation, provided in advance to Secrets, will include information from a recent EMP commission report that "contemporary U.S. society is not structured, nor does it have the means, to provide for the needs of nearly 300 million Americans without electricity.''

Gaffney told Secrets that there are some 300 huge electric transformers around the nation that control the grid and that have to be protected. "You are basically talking about surge protectors, of a somewhat exotic kind, but it is a means of interrupting the pulse," he said.

Tsunamis in Lake Geneva

I came across this article from the November 2012 Economist:

IN 563AD a tsunami devastated Geneva. ...

The tsunami of 563 started at the opposite end of the lake from Geneva, at the point where it is fed by glacial meltwater carried into it by the Rhône. Both accounts say the wave began with a massive rockfall on what was then called Mount Tauredunum (this has led to the tsunami becoming known as the Tauredunum event). Tauredunum is thought to be a mountain now called the Grammont, which is located near the river mouth.
In the past, one favoured theory was that this rockfall created a natural dam across the Rhône, which held the waters back until it could no longer sustain the pressure. When the dam burst, the resulting wave swept the length of the lake. A one-off event, in other words. But a paper just published in Nature Geoscience by Dr Kremer and her colleagues offers a different and more worrying explanation.

... Dr Kremer thinks that the rocks crashed down onto soft sediments which had accumulated at the river mouth because of the slowing of the river’s flow when it enters the lake. These sediments form an underwater delta that has several canyon-like channels. When the falling rocks hit the delta they destabilised the sediments and caused the canyons to collapse. It was this collapse that created the tsunami.

It is a plausible theory. What suggests it is true is that the sediment from such a collapse would have been propelled towards the lake’s centre, forming a large tongue of material on the lake bed. And, using sediment cores and an instrument called a pinger, which analyses the reflections of sound waves that can penetrate the material of the lake bed, Dr Kremer thinks she has found this tongue.

* * *

The crucial element in this explanation is the accumulation of sediment in the underwater delta. That is a continuous process. Once enough sediment is there, it just needs a trigger to set it going. That could be a rockfall, an earthquake (though this part of the world is not particularly seismically active) or even a violent storm. Moreover, Dr Kremer’s pinger shows evidence of four layers deeper in the lake bed which also look like turbidite. The formation of these might or might not have triggered tsunamis. But they are a worrying sign.

 The article also describes what probably happened in 563 AD:

Within 15 minutes of the collapse [of the delta], a wave 13 metres high would have reached Lausanne, a city on the northern shore of the lake. But Lausanne is built on steep slopes, so most of it would have been spared. The damage would have been much greater when, 55 minutes after that, an 8-metre wave reached Geneva, at the other end of the lake. Geneva is a lower-lying city than Lausanne and, to make matters worse, the lake narrows here, funnelling water to the point where the Rhône becomes a recognisable river again. It would similarly have funnelled the wave.

... The wave, they believe, would have passed over the city walls, and wiped out watermills and a bridge across the Rhône, just as the two accounts say it did. En route, as Marius wrote, it would have destroyed many lakeshore villages, “with humans and cattle and even churches”.

Obama Administration Specifically Targeted Christian Churches

The Examiner reports:

On Thursday the Examiner provided an exclusive report indicating that the Obama administration had implemented a covert program beginning in 2009 that was intended to spy on conservative, evangelical Christian churches.



That program involved infiltration -- sending in government operatives to join churches for the purpose of data collection. The government snoops would keep their eyes and ears open for criticism of the Obama administration, talk of Tea Party participation, conversations about gun ownership, and a number of other issues.



But a special report issued today by Fox News indicates that the program went far beyond infiltration and snooping. The IRS was used to harass Christian churches if they were identified as places where large numbers of anti-Obama citizens congregated for worship.



The Obama administration, according to the report, considered any public criticism of administration policies to be political in nature and should therefore impact whether or not these congregations were allowed to gain or keep their tax exempt status.



But pastors have long maintained that there are a myriad of areas where political and moral/spiritual issues overlap, and thus, the pastors feel obligated as the guardians of spiritual truth to speak out concerning these issues.



Abortion, for example, is both a political and a spiritual issue. Most conservative, evangelical Christians believe that Biblical principles are abundantly clear concerning the sanctity of human life. And many pastors thus feel constrained by their calling to condemn abortion as a hideous and barbaric assault on the sacredness of human life.



But liberal politicians such as Barack Obama consider the issue to be purely political since it involves civil law and Supreme Court rulings. And thus, churches should not be allowed to speak out about such an issue.

Further Signs of Conflict Spreading Outward from Syria

Voice of America News reports:

Former Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri says the nation’s militant Shia movement, Hezbollah, is risking the “fate of the nation” by taking on an expanded front-line role in neighboring Syria’s civil war.


The warning from Hariri comes a week after Hezbollah guerrillas from Lebanon, fighting beside Syrian government troops, led the attack on Qusair a strategic Syrian town on the main highway into Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley. The government’s capture of Qusair is considered a major blow to the Syrian rebel movement, which has been trying to oust President Bashar al-Assad.


Hezbollah, the militant arm of a Shia Muslim movement considered stronger than Lebanon’s own army, has been closely allied with Assad, whose Alawite religion is an offshoot of Shia Islam. Most Syrian rebels belong to the Sunni branch of Islam.


The United Nations estimated about 93,000 people have been killed in the Syrian civil war, which has been going on for more than two years. On Thursday, the Obama administration in Washington said it had concluded that Assad’s forces had been using chemical weapons in the fighting and that the United States would begin helping to arm the rebels.


Hariri said on Thursday the Hezbollah leader, Sheikh Sayyed Hasan Nasrallah, was [endangering] Lebanon by dragging it into the conflict next door. Nasrallah, He said, was acting as though he was Lebanon’s head of state by “allowing the borders to be opened for thousands of fighters to take part in the Syrian war.”


The fear is that Hezbollah’s prominent role in Syria will upset the delicate political and religious balance in Lebanon, where Christians and Sunni and Shia Muslims have maintained a fragile truce since ending a bloody civil war of their own 23 years ago.

All Your Emails Iz Ours--Putting the Scandals Into Perspective

Michael Walsh writes at the New York Post (h/t Instapundit):

As former federal prosecutor Andrew McCarthy has pointed out, the courts have held that, while the contents of phone conversation are private, the records — who called whom, when, from where and for how long — of such calls are not.


What makes the news scary are the revelations of what else Team Obama’s been up to. Follow the bouncing scandal ball:

* On Benghazi, the administration has simply clammed up, keeping suspicions alive that there’s much more to this story. A handful of intrepid reporters have bucked the tide, but others have stopped asking why no help was sent and where President Obama was that night. Because . . .

* In clear violation of the First Amendment, the administration — allegedly angered about national-security leaks — seized phone records from the AP and Fox News in a what looks like a transparent attempt to put the fear of God into them and keep others incuriously toeing the party line, which mostly amount to: Trust us. But can we? Consider . . .

* The strange goings-on at the Environmental Protection Agency, where recently-departed chief Lisa Jackson was using a fictitious e-mail account in order to communicate privately without all those pesky “transparency” requirements. How widespread is this practice? What to make of word that Health Secretary Kathleen Sebelius was also using “secondary” e-mail accounts?

* Then came the IRS bombshell — something every taxpaying American can relate to. That a supposedly neutral collection agency with powers far beyond what we entrust to law enforcement would cheerfully target Tea Party and other righty groups for special scrutiny is the stuff of Orwellian nightmares. And although the IRS has tried to blame “rogue elements” in its Cincinnati office, whistleblowers are coming out of the woodwork to point the finger directly at the White House.


All this adds up to a perfect storm of mistrust, now exacerbated by the fears of the surveillance state that has mushroomed since the panicky post-9/11 “reforms.” Thus Americans now fear a culture of suspicion among top law-enforcement officials, who treat more than 300 million overwhelmingly law-abiding Americans as potential criminals, subject to snoops and pat-downs.


And when that leviathan falls down on the job — as it did in failing to spot the Tsarnaev brothers — then the trade-off between liberty and security becomes a very bad bargain indeed.


No wonder sales of George Orwell’s dystopian classic “1984” are suddenly soaring.

 The thing is, the Prism program is just the tip of the iceberg. The Associated Press reports:

But interviews with more than a dozen current and former government and technology officials and outside experts show that, while Prism has attracted the recent attention, the program actually is a relatively small part of a much more expansive and intrusive eavesdropping effort.
Americans who disapprove of the government reading their emails have more to worry about from a different and larger NSA effort that snatches data as it passes through the fiber optic cables that make up the Internet's backbone. That program, which has been known for years, copies Internet traffic as it enters and leaves the United States, then routes it to the NSA for analysis.

* * *

Tapping into those cables allows the NSA access to monitor emails, telephone calls, video chats, websites, bank transactions and more. It takes powerful computers to decrypt, store and analyze all this information, but the information is all there, zipping by at the speed of light.
"You have to assume everything is being collected," said Bruce Schneier, who has been studying and writing about cryptography and computer security for two decades.
The New York Times disclosed the existence of this effort in 2005. In 2006, former AT&T technician Mark Klein revealed that the company had allowed the NSA to install a computer at its San Francisco switching center, a key hub for fiber optic cables.

* * *

The government has said it minimizes all conversations and emails involving Americans. Exactly what that means remains classified. But former U.S. officials familiar with the process say it allows the government to keep the information as long as it is labeled as belonging to an American and stored in a special, restricted part of a computer.
That means Americans' personal emails can live in government computers, but analysts can't access, read or listen to them unless the emails become relevant to a national security investigation.
The government doesn't automatically delete the data, officials said, because an email or phone conversation that seems innocuous today might be significant a year from now.


What's unclear to the public is how long the government keeps the data. That is significant because the U.S. someday will have a new enemy. Two decades from now, the government could have a trove of American emails and phone records it can tap to investigative whatever Congress declares a threat to national security.

* * *

Prism, as its name suggests, helps narrow and focus the stream. If eavesdroppers spot a suspicious email among the torrent of data pouring into the United States, analysts can use information from Internet companies to pinpoint the user.
With Prism, the government gets a user's entire email inbox. Every email, including contacts with American citizens, becomes government property.


Once the NSA has an inbox, it can search its huge archives for information about everyone with whom the target communicated. All those people can be investigated, too.


That's one example of how emails belonging to Americans can become swept up in the hunt.
In that way, Prism helps justify specific, potentially personal searches. But it's the broader operation on the Internet fiber optics cables that actually captures the data, experts agree.


"I'm much more frightened and concerned about real-time monitoring on the Internet backbone," said Wolf Ruzicka, CEO of EastBanc Technologies, a Washington software company. "I cannot think of anything, outside of a face-to-face conversation, that they could not have access to."


One unanswered question, according to a former technology executive at one of the companies involved, is whether the government can use the data from Prism to work backward.


For example, not every company archives instant message conversations, chat room exchanges or videoconferences. But if Prism provided general details, known as metadata, about when a user began chatting, could the government "rewind" its copy of the global Internet stream, find the conversation and replay it in full?


That would take enormous computing, storage and code-breaking power. It's possible the NSA could use supercomputers to decrypt some transmissions, but it's unlikely it would have the ability to do that in volume. In other words, it would help to know what messages to zero in on.


Whether the government has that power and whether it uses Prism this way remains a closely guarded secret.

Iran Votes In Moderate President

From the Daily Mail:

Newly elected president of Iran Hasan Rowhani called for 'rationality and moderation' after he won more than 50 per cent of the vote.

Thousands of supporters danced in the streets after Interior Minister Mostafa Mohammad confirmed his victory earlier this evening.

Rowhani was the lone moderate candidate in the race and supported by reformists in a race that once appeared solidly in the hands of Tehran's Islamic establishment.
In his first statement after the results were announced, Rowhani said that 'a new opportunity has been created ... for those who truly respect democracy, interaction and free dialogue.'

* * *

The vote brings an end to the eight-year era of the combative President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, whose 2009 re-election was steeped in controversy.

Candidates seen as hard-line loyalists included current nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili and Khamenei adviser Ali Akbar Velayati.

Tehran Mayor Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf, another conservative candidate who had been running far behind in second place, conceded defeat.


Rowhani has controversially vowed to follow a policy of detente and interaction with the outside world.

A victory by former nuclear negotiator Hasan Rowhani is seen as a setback for Iran's Islamic establishment.

I truly hope that he is a reformer. However, there are many types of reformers, and consequences to those that push for reform. Will Rowhani be a Gorbachev, who intended only mild reforms, but was fated to see the decline and collapse of the old system? Is he someone that preaches "reform," but in fact hasn't the ability and/or desire to enact reform? Will he be challenged and overthrown by hardliners in the Iranian military or Revolutionary Guard? We will see, probably very quickly.

4,500 U.S. Troops to Jordon

Multinational military exercise 'Eager Lion' has been launched in Jordan amid condemnation from neighboring Syria and its ally Russia. The US brings Patriot missile batteries to the Syrian border, which could remain deployed afterwards.


The exercises will last for 12 days, bringing together about 8,000 personnel from 19 countries, mostly Arabic, but also including the US and Europe. The maneuvers will also involve some 3,000 Jordanian and 500 British troops.


'Eager Lion' – which is being conducted only 120km from the Jordan-Syria border – is aimed at training personnel for the possibility of the Syrian civil war spilling into neighboring countries.

* * *

The organizers of 'Eager Lion' say that the troops involved will also train for the possibility of a chemical attack, as Syria’s neighbors fear that Damascus may lose control of its chemical weapons arsenal, which could then fall into the wrong hands.

Full story here.

Budget Deficit Over Next 30 years ...

... predicted to be $106 Trillion.

The government is like an obese, food and alcohol binging drug addict that just discovered meth. Little acts to control the deficit are not going to work. Either the government needs to cut its spending significantly (repealing ObamaCare would be a good first step), or ... well, there is nothing else. You can't raise taxes enough to cover that type of deficit, and any major tax hikes would tip us into a full fledged depression.

"Using Metadata to find Paul Revere"

An example of how metadata from phone and internet records can be easily used to identify key connections and people in a network, using simple data about Paul Revere and his membership in various revolutionary Boston societies.

And this from one of Instapundit's readers:

It appears to me that something is not being highlighted enough. Preston makes excellent points about the thoroughness of the Obama information on their own donors, and how to use that information. You yourself make the connection about the know-how to use what the NSA programs were doing and apply it to their own campaign.Are people yet making the connection between the data that the IRS was trying to compile on Tea Party groups and the NSA program structure? We have heard how the questionaires being sent to the 501(c)4 groups were asking for social networking contacts, donor lists, websites, etc…..

It seems to me that this targetted collection of networking data was being done explicitly to build up the same sort of deep database of their political opponents. Even the recent fun mental exercise of identifying Paul Revere as one of the lynch-pins of the American Revolution by using the same techniques, this data collection on political enemies is designed to do the exact same thing. Find those most crucial in either influence, fundraising, publishing, and education, and do………. what? I’m sure it isn’t to help, and if not, what is left?I think this needs to be pointed out repeatedly, the NSA programs and the IRS data collection are intrinsically tied together and this needs to be shouted from the rooftops.

Its About To Get Ugly

Doug Hagmann at the Canada Free Press has run a series of articles with interviews from someone who appears to be a mid-level DHS official. In the latest, this DHS Insider warns:

“If anyone thinks that what’s going on right now with all of this surveillance of American citizens is to fight some sort of foreign enemy, they’re delusional. If people think that this ‘scandal’ can’t get any worse, it will, hour by hour, day by day. This has the ability to bring down our national leadership, the administration and other senior elected officials working in collusion with this administration, both Republican and Democrats. People within the NSA, the Department of Justice, and others, they know who they are, need to come forth with the documentation of ‘policy and practice’ in their possession, disclose what they know, fight what’s going on, and just do their job. I have never seen anything like this, ever. The present administration is going after leakers, media sources, anyone and everyone who is even suspected of ‘betrayal.’ That’s what they call it, ‘betrayal.’ Can you believe the size of their cahones? This administration considers anyone telling the truth about Benghazi, the IRS, hell, you name the issue, ‘betrayal,’” he said.

“We know all this already,” I stated. He looked at me, giving me a look like I’ve never seen, and actually pushed his finger into my chest. “You don’t know jack,” he said, “this is bigger than you can imagine, bigger than anyone can imagine. This administration is collecting names of sources, whistle blowers and their families, names of media sources and everybody they talk to and have talked to, and they already have a huge list. If you’re not working for MSNBC or CNN, you’re probably on that list. If you are a website owner with a brisk readership and a conservative bent, you’re on that list. It’s a political dissident list, not an enemy threat list,” he stated.

“What’s that exactly mean, being on that list, that is,” I asked, trying to make sense of it all.

“It means that there will be censorship under the color of authority of anyone in the U.S. who is attempting to expose what’s going on in our name. It’s about controlling any damning information from reaching epidemic proportions. It’s damage control to the extreme. It’s about the upcoming censorship of the internet in the name of national security. The plans are already in place. These latest reports about ‘spying eyes’ have turned this administration and others connected to it into something very, very dangerous. They feel cornered and threatened, and I’m hearing about some plans they have to shut down the flow of information that is implicating them of wrongdoing. Time is short,” he stated.

“How are they going to do this? How is it even possible” I asked.

“First, they intend to use the Justice Department to silence journalists like in the Rosen case, but they won’t stop there. They will use a host of national security policies, laws, letters, whatever to take out the bigger threats,” he stated.

Next, they will use some sort of excuse, an external threat, and I believe it will be a combination of the economic collapse and a Mid-East war that will begin in Syria to throttle the information that is accessible on the Internet. And you know what? People will believe it!”

Why Three Degrees of Glory?

As just a brief background, LDS theology believes in "paradise" and "hell" as a limited, transitory state until resurrection and judgment. After that, people will be assigned or pass onto three degrees of glory: the telestial, terrestial and celestial. The names, as I understand it, merely reflect differences of magnitude between the three kingdoms. The telestial kingdom is describes as being a place of such joy that if people were to know what it was like, they would gladly commit suicide just to get there. Yet, it is the lowest of the kingdoms, where even murders and tyrants will end up. The terrestial kingdom is whole orders of magnitude greater than the telestial--like the moon compared to the starts; and the celestial is a whole orders of magnitude even above the terrestial--like the sun above the moon.

I have wondered why should evil people--even the most evil that have ever lived--be rewarded with the telestial kingdom. I have come across the answer in a book I have been reading called The God That Weeps: How Mormonism Makes Sense of Life by Terryl Givens and Fiona Givens. Their book is much more than just this issue, but since it is something that I've wondered about, it was extraordinary to find such a loving, just explanation of this particular point.

To understand the answer, you have to understand another point of LDS theology--that we existed prior to our mortal life. That is, all people are spirit children of our Heavenly Father, and existed with him in a pre-mortal existence. However, due to our nature as spirits, we were stymied in our growth and development. We needed mortal bodies and to pass through a mortal existence, to continue to grow and develop. The problem is that by entering this mortal existence, we would be subject to mortal foibles and sin. Thus, the need for a plan of salvation that would, at least potentially, provide us the ability to return to our Heavenly Father's presence and continue our growth and advancement. Two plans were presented. Without going into more specific details, there was a conflict--a war--in heaven. One third of the heavenly hosts followed Satan, and the remainder followed Christ and his plan. The key is that under Christ's plan, we had hope for greater glory, but we also faced greater consequences and responsibility.

What the authors of The God That Weeps demonstrate is that it would be unjust and unequitable for us to give up our pre-mortal existence and what we had there, following Christ, without at least getting back as good as we had before. That is, by choosing mortality, we did not choose or risk worsening our position, but only obtaining more. Simply by following Christ, we are entitled to an eternal existence at least as good as what we had before. Thus, even evil people such as Hitler, Stalin, and Moe, who are responsible for the deaths of millions, will obtain the telestial kingdom. However, for those people that are better--that follow the light of Christ and his commandments--there is the terrestial kingdom or, even, the celestial kingdom.

Ol' Remus--What Would You Do?

Ol' Remus at the Woodpile Report discusses partisan warfare:

In a post-collapse scenario, what would you do if mob of violent foragers came your way? Would you and your survival group stand your ground? Would you join with other survivalist groups to face the threat? If you did, what if your combined gardens, live stock and supplies were raided not by roaming looters but by desperate people who themselves had been looted, would you oppose them with force or accept them into your community? What if your combined resources were "requisitioned" by a nearby town for The Greater Good, meaning people who are no worse off than you? What if your firearms and ammunition were also to be 'redistributed'? What if they intend to draft some of your people for labor gangs or to man their defenses? Where do you draw the line?
History has seen a lot of this and it doesn't end well.

He then goes on to discuss WWII partisan warfare in more detail. He concludes:

This was in a different place, a different time. We're not occupied by a foreign military force, there is no liberation army needing sabotage and intelligence gathering and no left-behind military units or escaped POWs to act as a nucleus. Nor are there air drops of supplies and weaponry from allies, or slave labor and extermination camp roundups to evade. At present, notions of an armed American resistance are founded on hyperbole or too many video games.
That said, the Clinton, Bush and Obama regimes are startlingly similar to the path of tyrannies in times past. The US is more similar to the late and unlamented East Germany than to what it once was. The Third Reich attained power through the democratic process, then declared a state of emergency. "This time it's different" is one of those phrases you know are wrong as soon as they're said, but it's the main argument one hears from DC and their media sycophants.
Just as the Odyssey is the same story even when set in modern times, so too is tyranny the same regardless of how it presents itself. Just as the lessons of the European resistance are the same over time, so too are the conditions that bring them about. In the end it's the people who decide when serious resistance is warranted, not the historians or ideologues or political theorists or the press or the blathering class. Good decisions need good information. The real history of real resistance gives even the raving fantasists pause, as it should.


It's right for the survivalist to consider what's gone before, and to be wary of where present developments are leading. But in doing so the survivalist is wise to know exactly, without equivocation, where he will draw the line. In a true homicidal chaos, defending yourself and your community is a duty, and sometimes offense really is the best defense. But defense can metamorphosize into unceasing offense. Great Britain defended itself into a world empire.

Wars between national armies are bad enough. Partisan wars are worse. They're total war. There are no battlefields, no innocents, no bystanders, no noncombatants. Total war is literally "blood in the streets" . Nobody asks 'why', there is no 'why'. The Newtown Massacre compares weakly with everyday outrages in the partisan wars of occupied Europe. Consider this incident from Poland:

After blew the door of the building. We saw a room full of small children around 500, all with small hands in the air. Dirlewanger its own people even called a butcher, he had to kill them all. He ordered at the same time save ammo and kill them by rifle weapon. Blood and brain flowed streams of the stairs. 

Mathias Schenck at wikipedia.com

Partisan warfare consumes people and resources like nothing else, and the retirement plan is the worst on the planet. As an Eastwood movie put it, "dying ain't much of a living, son." Nor do resistance fighters have much to look forward to if they live long enough to see normalcy reestablished. Irregulars are understandably unwelcome by "legitimate" government, and usually purged soon after being honored for their service. Make no mistake about this, when the smoke clears the politicians will come out from hiding and "win the peace."


As said here many times, Rule One is: "Stay away from crowds." Violate it at your peril.

An 80% Polymer AR Lower Receiver

Full article at the Firearms Blog--note some of the comments that explain more about the not-quite-a-receiver.

Greece Sacrificed to Save Euro

(Op-ed here)

Reliability vs. Durability

The other day, I was sorting through some old gun magazines (the paper kind that you read) and happened upon an article from the March 2010 Guns Magazine called "Troubleshooting--Bringing back the bang." It was part of a regular column called "Up on ARs" that, as you can probably guess, if directed specifically at owners and operators of the AR rifles.

This particular article was about some things to check if a "once fine working AR-15 starts having problems...." The article focused on failure to cycle issues. It mentioned standard issues--broken extractor or extractor spring, failure to properly clean the chamber, and so on. He recommends the Mark Brown Carrier Scraper to clean carbon out of the bolt carrier. Some other issues I found interesting.

First, "[o]ne of the most overlooked and also more common causes for abated gas action is a loose bolt carrier key" that can cause a leak in the gas action. The author notes that if installed correctly, it should not loosen, but many are not correctly installed. "The key is held fast by two screws." He mentions that not only do these screws need to be tightened down tight--more than the specs of 30 to 40 lbs torque--but the screws also need to be staked so they do not loosen. The author notes that he has seen many that were not staked, but merely used thread-locking glue.

Second, "[t]he area inside the bolt carrier where the tail end of the bolt goes will--not can--get caked with carbon. That fouling is tough to remove, and it's the source of many malfunctions." The author recommends using GM Top Engine Cleaner and brushing to get rid of most of this grime.

Third, "[t]he gas rings on the bolt won't last forever and do break." He recommends keeping spares, and use the one-piece aftermarket rings.

Finally, he notes some possible gas leaks around the gas manifold or block due to misalignment or poor fitting.

Thinking about this, I realized that several of these are really issues with the AR-15--you won't find them with the M-1A or Mini-14, the AK series of rifles, the SKS, or other popular semi-auto rifles favored by preppers. But here is what I see as the difference: the AR is a direct impingement system (which is why the problems with carbon buildup and why springs even in the trigger mechanism can fail over time) and it is a high-tech, high maintenance rifle. I'm not knocking its reliability. The bugs in the original M-16, and the A-1 and A-2 models have mostly been worked out, and, properly maintained, it is a reliable rifle. But that is the key--"properly maintained."

It is a maintenance intensive rifle. And I don't know if that is a good characteristic in a grid-down, TEOTWAWKI scenario.

Of course, high-tech and high-maintenance don't necessarily follow one another. One example is cars. My father-in-law and I were reminiscing and discussing automobiles the other day and he made the following observation. Today, we can climb in our cars and, other than filling the gas tank, drive a couple hundred miles or more without really worrying about it. Yet, it wasn't so long ago that a long trip essentially required a check of the entire vehicle both before and after the trip. Most modern vehicles last longer than older vehicles did. In short, modern cars are both more reliable and more durable than vehicles built even just a few decades ago.

There are many products we enjoy today that are both more reliable and more durable. It is a factor of improved and more refined designs, more precise manufacturing, and better materials.

As preppers, we need tools that are both reliable and durable.

Goodbye Yellow Brick Road....

The Daily Mail has an article and photos of the decline and ruin of a "Wizard of Oz" theme park in North Carolina.