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Sunday, October 25, 2015

A Quick Run Around the Web -- October 25, 2015 (Updated)


One of the things I like about this painting is that the door lacks an outside handle or knob, indicating that only we can open the door to Christ; he will not force his way in. Although this is generally thought to apply to us individually, I have also wondered if it applies to us as a world--that the Second Coming won't be until we invite Christ back. (Source) 

The Revolution Underway:
  • "IRS' Lois Lerner Skates; An Ugly Precedent Is Set"--Investors Business Daily. "The Justice Department declined to file charges against IRS enforcer Lois Lerner, who singled out Tea Party groups for scrutiny on political grounds. With no accountability, it's now open season on dissidents." This is why Hillary was able to smirk through the Benghazi hearings--she knows that the DOJ won't pursue charges.
  • "The DOJ Is Wrong: Cops and Criminals Are Not Morally Equivalent"--The Heritage Foundation. Concerning a speech given by the acting head of the U.S. Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, Principal Deputy Attorney General Vanita Gupta:
Given the most charitable interpretation, the speech presumes a moral equivalence between the police and those arrested by them. On a less charitable reading, it displays hostility to law enforcement and makes a wrongheaded assumption that Americans and American culture are racist and discriminatory. More broadly, it accepts the progressive line that institutional racism is to blame for the ills in America’s inner cities and ignores entirely the possibility of a culture that encourages individuals to act irresponsibly.
I'm thinking the DOJ should be labeled a terrorist organization, with all that entails, including the prohibitions on Congress providing it funds and it doing business with American businesses.
    Except for the first one which took out the door and the fifth one, which spread a bit further, they were all set at the front door, not to cause any real damage, but it seems, set to go out, to be limited. The arsonist always set it in the early morning hours. The police have said the person behind it clearly wants to ‘send a message’.
      So the question is who would want to make it appear like black churches were being targeted, while not really wanting to hurt them with real damage? In St. Louis, near Ferguson?
        Well, we’ll leave the investigation to the professionals, but we certainly could have a few thoughts as to who would fit that scenario.
          In perhaps a coincidental incident, on Easter, the Black Lives Matter folks protested outside a couple of churches in the area. Their point was to ‘wake up’ the people in the churches, to come out and join them to ‘fight against racism’.
          [Black Lives Matter organizer Patrisse] Cullors detailed that the Black Lives Matter movement was no accident, but conscientiously crafted. “We built not just a hashtag. It’s important people know that Black Lives Matter wasn’t just this hashtag that circulated around the internet, but we actually built an organization, a platform and a project out of the hashtag so here we are a couple of years later and the hashtag movement has gone global.”
          The BLM panel members at Politcon also described contacts with Palestinians in Israel and other unspecified groups in Europe. 
          "Cullors also asserted, “Black-on-black crime is a myth.” She called comments on the phenomenon a “distraction” and “an unnecessary debate,” then encouraged the audience that when a conversation goes in that direction to “shut it down.”

          Firearms/Self-Defense:
          • "Venezuela: How's That Gun Control Working Out for You?"--Gun Free Zone. "Almost three years after the imposition of the most complete and draconian Gun Control laws on this side of the Atlantic (including no sales of new guns to the civilian population), Venezuela now is the second country in the world in murders, with a rate of 82 per 100,000 people or 24,980 murders (Venezuela’s population is 33.2 million, 10% of the US.)" Also, so far, 112 police and military have been killed in Caracas in 2015.
          • "Gun deaths down 30%"--Washington Examiner. "In a new report, Pew said that between 1993 and 2000, the firearm murder rate dropped by almost half, from seven homicides to 3.8 homicides per 100,000 people. It also said that all gun deaths -- murder, suicide, police and accidental -- have dropped 30 percent since 1993."
          • "Not All Penetration Data Is Created Equal"--Nathaniel Fitch at The Firearms Blog.
          • Some articles on the rifle as a home-defense weapon, offering different takes on the issue:
          The AR is very easy to shoot. Head out to the range and test my theory. Ask anyone who wants to join in on the fun to try shooting a scored event, under pressure, with a pistol at home-defense ranges. After you see their performance, try the same with an AR, I will bet money you see much better control of the system. Men and women alike just shoot better with a carbine than with a pistol. As long as the carbine is light enough for the shooter to handle properly, the learning curve will be straight-up. 
           Rifle bullets are going a whole lot faster and do a lot more damage than a pistol, (and keep in mind I’m keeping this simple, and not going into ten pages of argument about AP and SS109 and other esoteric information that will make a newbie’s head explode). When you shoot something with most rifles, you aren’t just poking a hole, but you are actually causing trauma in the tissue surrounding the hole, and most defensive bullets are designed to fragment or tumble and make even bigger, nastier holes in people.
          Except when they don't, which was the finding of the recent article I posted about results of a terminal ballistics study of the Stockton, California, shooting where the shooter used an AK-47 style rifle with FMJ 7.62 rounds.
           Although bolt-action hunting rifles may be ideal for taking large game, they make a poor choice for home-defense. These rifles are slow to load, slow to fire, and the high-power cartridges they shoot produce excessive muzzle flash, noise, recoil and are very likely to overpenetrate the target. If you want a rifle for home-defense, then consider a tactical semi-auto or pistol-caliber carbine.
          The only situation where this ranking (pistols best, then shotguns, then rifles) is reversed is if you have large swaths of land and expect the bad guys to be firing at you from dozens of yards away. In that situation, a rifle would come in handy. But considering where most people in the world live (namely cities and suburbs) it doesn’t make a lot of sense.
          While it may seem counter-intuitive, a 5.56mm carbine like the Beretta ARX-100 we used, is a great home defense option. A standard FMJ 5.56mm round tends to tumble and fragment when it hits things like walls inside a home. So contrary to popular assumption, over penetration is less of a concern than with pistols.
            Also on the benefits side is the fact that a carbine is far easier to aim accurately under stress. Also, addition of a light and laser is easy with most AR-type rifles available today. In most states (sorry NJ your not one), capacity can be at least 30 rounds, so the idea for a quick end to aggression is a series of rapid-fire shots. With a compact rifle like an AR-15, it’s relatively easy to make accurate hits with speed, much more so than with a handgun.
            Any long gun (rifle or shotgun) is fairly easy for an intruder to grab at close range and the long barrel gives a bad guy plenty of leverage to take the gun away from the homeowner. An experienced and violent criminal may turn a long gun on the homeowner. These facts mitigate against choosing a rifle or shotgun as the primary home defense weapon. 

            Other Stuff:
            • "DEA agents tied to sex parties, prostitutes rewarded $95,000 in bonuses"--Washington Examiner. "Drug Enforcement Agency officials linked to sex parties and prostitutes paid by drug cartels weren't fired but rewarded with $95,000 in performance bonuses, ...." And we know there had to be some quid-pro-quo for the cartels feting the agents. They should be in prison, not receiving bonuses. 
            • "Before you complain about 'patriarchy'"--Glenn Reynolds at USA Today. Noting that Western society is more matriarchal than patriarchal, but that will change as more Muslims immigrate to the West.
            • "New York governor inserts gender identity in anti-bias rules"--New York governor Cuomo bypassed the legislature to enact new laws granting special rights to transgendered persons. The citizens' input no longer needed or wanted.
            • "Orbanism Ascendant?"--American Interest. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban drew applause at a recent European People's Conference in Madrid. 
            “We are in deep trouble”, Orban intoned. “This is an uncontrolled and unregulated process. We did not get authorisation from [our citizens] for millions to walk into our continent.” He accused left-leaning parties of “importing future leftist voters to Europe” while trying to “hide it behind humanism.” “The German, Hungarian or Austrian way of life is not a basic right of all people on earth,” he continued. “It is only a right for those people who have contributed to it.”
            The United States has become a nation of weak, pampered, easily frightened, helpless milquetoasts who have never caught a fish, fired a gun, chopped a log, hitchhiked across the country, or been in a schoolyard fight. If their cat dies, they call a grief therapist. Everything frightens Americans.
            * * * 
             Individualism? America is among the least individualistic countries on the planet. The United States discourages everything reflecting difference, whether architectural, political, or cultural, often under heavy penalty. It is the land of indistinguishable shopping malls, of burger chains and tract suburbs of a hundred identical houses. Urban architecture means the office block. Casper looks like Des Moines looks like everywhere else. When a region like the South stubbornly tries to maintain its identity, the hive forces it to conform. I am reminded of what I believe to be a Japanese proverb: “The nail that stands up is beaten down.” We are more a nation less of nails than of thumbtacks, though.
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