A Quick Run Around the Web--October 28, 2015

Earth Science Picture of the Day: Ribeira da Janela, Portugal

• "An interesting idea: Using the Magnus Effect to control the path of a musket ball"--The Firearms Blog.
• "New Announcement: Remingtons RM-380 Pistol Is Now Shipping"--The Firearms Blog. But where is the R-51?
• "Bullet Points on Self-Defense When You're Disabled"--Michael Bane Blog.
• "Permanent unemployment?"--Bayou Renaissance Man. Comments on Europe's employment picture and the growing number of long-term (more than 1 year) unemployed. He writes:

I've seen this phenomenon in certain countries in Africa.  It's genuinely frightening - it can lead to the disintegration of social order and stability.  You see, employers will always hire the cheapest possible solution to their needs.  That involves not only those willing to work for the lowest wage, but those requiring the least training for a new position.  Very often, younger workers are cheaper than older;  and often, those younger workers have more up-to-date skills that can be adapted to the job than older workers whose exposure to, for example, computers or roboticized manufacturing techniques is much less than the younger generation.  As a result, those without recent work experience get 'shut out' of the job market.

When this happens often enough and for long enough, you get a class of people that's not only permanently unemployed, but is also basically unemployable.  Their skills and education have atrophied.  They no longer regard themselves as having any value to an employer;  therefore, they don't see themselves as having any value to their families, or even to society as a whole.  The result is a vast increase in criminal activity - after all, the new criminals reason, if they're of no value to anyone, why shouldn't they take value from those that have it?

• "Shotguns have 'virtually sold out' in Austria as citizens rush to buy arms amid fears of a massive influx of migrants, dealers claim"--Daily Mail. Apparently shotguns are selling particularly well because no permit is needed for them. However, the article notes that the demand for firearms licenses have increased so much that instead of license classes being offered only once every 5 weeks, they have been increased to once per week. And, as noted in a story I cited yesterday, women are driving the high sales. According to the article; "Broadcasters and local media say the numbers of refugees - coupled with a fear of break-ins as a result - is fuelling the arms race." Too little, too late?

• Related: "Germans Panic As Muslims March Through City ‘THIS IS OUR FUTURE’ (VIDEO)"--Gateway Pundit.“Look, when I walk through the streets of the city, it’s only foreigners!”

• Related: "A problem easily solved"--Vox Popoli. 

• "We saw a petty routine discipline issue become a criminal issue in just a matter of minutes”--Classical Values. Thoughts about the video of the resource officer turning over a students desk, and why routine disciplinary matters now require a call to the police. Money quote: "Pretty soon everyone will be calling the police for everything. Otherwise, what’s the point of life in a police state?"
• "DHS Offering Employers Cash If They Hire Alien College Grads Over Citizens"--Truth Revolt. Instituting hiring preferences for illegal aliens.
• "Obama pollster: Voters divided in 'tribes,' politics 'increasingly segregated, tribal'"--Washington Examiner. The left has pushed "identity politics" for decades; both parties have been captured by transnational NGOs and corporations that view the nation-state as passe, and citizens as mere economic units; so, of course people are going to resorts to tribes. Once you lose national homogeneity, all you have left are tribes.
• "Bacon Panic + Poor Math Skills = Easy Money"--Da Tech Guy. According to the article, even accepting the WHO report that you increase your risk of cancer by 18%, that only represents your overall risk of developing cancer increasing by less than one percent: from 4.8% to 5.7% for men, and from 4.5% to 5.2% for women. 
• "Ashton Carter: U.S. to Begin 'Direct Action on the Ground' in Iraq, Syria"--NBC. Boots on the ground in Syria. Somewhere, John McCain is rubbing his hands together with glee.
• "The plasma engine that could take humans to Mars on a single tank: Breakthrough in Hall thrusters could see them power deep space missions"--Daily Mail. According to the article, researches think that they have figured out a way to increase the useful life-span of Hall thrusters so that they can be used to propel craft for deep space missions. Current models only offer 10,000 hours of life, which is too short for deep space missions. Although this doesn't reduce the costs of launching something into orbit, it would make it cheaper and easier to get to destinations once in orbit.
• "How Dark Matter Gave Shape to the Universe: The mysterious particles may have indirectly paved the way for humanity—and killed the dinosaurs"--New Republic.

Paleontologists, geologists, and physicists have shown that 66 million years ago, an object at least ten kilometers wide plummeted to Earth from space and destroyed the terrestrial dinosaurs, along with three-quarters of the other species on the planet. Our proposal is that during the Sun’s passage through the midplane of the Milky Way—the stripe of stars and bright dust that you can observe in a clear night sky—the Solar System encountered a disk of dark matter that dislodged the distant object, thereby precipitating this cataclysmic impact—and possibly others on 30-35 million year intervals. We hypothesize that a less conventional type of dark matter collapsed into a dense disk (denser even than that of the Milky Way) and the disk’s gravitational influence diverts the trajectories of comets when the Solar System passes through.

• "What Will Be The Next Great American Perversion?"--Return of the Kings. The author does not believe that it will be polygamy (at least, the left won't support it) because polygamy is too "patriarchal." Rather, he writes:

So if polygamy isn’t the Next Great American Perversion, what is? There have been a few cracks in the firmament and a few rays of light have leaked through, giving us a glimpse into what the Left has in store for society. In the past few months, the Left has been testing the waters, gauging societal response to two new and exciting perversions: cuckolding [i.e., wives cheating on their husbands] and pedophilia.