Marriage and the Fate of Nations

I recently read an article noting the inverse relationship between women's earnings and the rates at which they marry. The article, entitled "How Earnings Influence a Woman’s Decision to Wed" was published in The Atlantic, and reports:

Between 1980 and 2010, the proportion of American women who were married declined from 74 percent to 56 percent. There are plenty of trends during that 30-year span that can help explain the shift in women’s decisions to marry or not: increasing college attendance, growing labor-force participation, increasing rates of incarceration, and changing cultural norms, to name a few. A new study suggests that as their wages increase relative to men’s, female workers become less likely to marry.

There are many explanations as to why this is so, but its seems that, just as a man cannot have two masters, a woman cannot have two husbands: many women are married to the State (welfare dependents) or their careers.

But that is not the issue I want to address. Rather, it is the obvious inference that if women are marrying less, then so are men. Moreover, I would suggest that because of decreasing marriage rates, the number of men without sexual partners is going to exceed the number of women without sexual partners. The result of this imbalance will not just be a demographic issues of fewer children and more broken homes, but increased violence and risk of civil war.

I'm going to actually take these issues in reverse order because it will make it easier to understand my point. Perusing an article on what motivates young Muslim men to become terrorists, I followed a link to an article from The Economist entitled "Of men and mayhem." The general thrust of the article is that "[y]oung, single, idle males are dangerous. Work and wedlock can tame them." The article makes a particularly interesting point, though, about polygamous societies:

Any system that produces a surplus of single men is likely to be unstable. Polygamous societies suffer “higher rates of murder, theft, rape, social disruption, kidnapping (especially of females), sexual slavery and prostitution,” note Joseph Henrich, Robert Boyd and Peter Richerson in “The Puzzle of Monogamy”. 

The article expounds on the "idle hands are the tools of the devil" theme further:

... It is not simply a lack of money that spurs young men to rebel, he explains; it is more that having a job is a source of status and identity. 

Throughout history, men have killed men roughly 97 times more often than women have killed women. The reasons are biological. In all cultures, the appetite for mayhem peaks in the late teens or early 20s, “just when males are competing more fiercely for mating opportunities, as in other mammals”, notes Matt Ridley in “The Evolution of Everything”. In “Homicide”, Martin Daly and Margo Wilson put it like this: “Any creature that is recognisably on track towards complete reproductive failure must somehow expend effort, often at risk of death, to try to improve its present life trajectory.” Wars, alas, give young men a chance to kill potential rivals (ie, other men) and seize or rape women. From Islamic State to the Lord’s Resistance Army in Uganda, rebel forces often let their troops treat females as spoils.

(Underline added).

For instance, as the author of the article on the motivation of Muslim terrorists observes, if you have 10 women and 10 men, and one man has 4 wives, that immediately means that three other men will not have wives (sexual partners); if two of the men each were to have 4 wives, you would have 6 men without wives (sexual partners).

Our culture has programmed us to see this "polygamous" sorting (multiple female sexual partners to a particular man) as unusual, but it is, rather, natural. Because a woman's hypergamous nature draws her to the highest status male, males of high status have a choice of multiple female sexual partners. Males of a lower status, conversely, may have limited or no opportunities to find a sexual partner. (High school is a perfect example of where this natural sorting occurs: e.g., the high school football team captain with many girls pining after him, and the nerdy boy who couldn't get a date to save his life).

Many societies, and Western society in particular, solved the issue of surplus men through the carrot and stick approach of the institution of monogamous marriage, thereby limiting a man to one wife no matter his status, coupled with shaming women that sought sex outside the marriage. Simple economics and the harsh realities of life ensured that a woman had to seek the protection and support of a man to provide for her and her offspring. Laws and social mores that deemed a woman, by being married, to have consented to sex with her husband ensured that the husband would have his wife as a sexual partner.

Now all bets are off. Because of enhanced educational and career opportunities, and/or government benefits, women are no longer dependent on a male for support. Sex outside marriage is not only tolerated but practically expected in this day and age. Divorce is rampant. In short, monogamous marriage is in a dangerous decline, and the natural sorting of multiple females to a smaller number of high status men is reasserting itself. Even if a man is married, there is no guarantee that he will have a sexual partner. We are increasingly moving toward what, in effect, is a polygamous society, with the concomitant result that an increasing number of young men will be without sexual partners and, as the articles above note, will be idle hands to commit crimes and engage in violence.

I would suggest that we are beginning to see the breakdown of social stability--it certainly has long been apparent in black communities, and is rapidly spreading among lower and middle-income whites. And we have also seen the resultant rage and violence demonstrated by the so-called mass-shooters, which have a commonality of being males with low sexual status. The lure of the video game console can only delay things so long, before disaffected young men in the United States and Europe begin to act like disaffected young men around the world and throughout history.

In 1995, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints released its "The Family--A Proclamation To The World," which included this statement: "Further, we warn that the disintegration of the family will bring upon individuals, communities, and nations the calamities foretold by ancient and modern prophets." These calamities are beginning to happen right before our eyes.

The HK G-3 As A Big Game Rifle

Source: "A brutal, bloody end for the king of the jungle who refused to be imprisoned: Lion is shot dead after escaping from Nairobi National Park and attacking a man"--Daily Mail.

More photos and a short video at the link above.

Invite a Refugee to Dinner ... Or Not.

Invite a refugee to dinner:

Or not: "Liberal Teacher Takes In Muslim Refugee, His Colleague Finds What’s Left Of Him"--Mad World News. From the article:

A leftist professor decided to put into practice his own liberal “open doors” policy, feeding and housing a poor Muslim refugee in his own home. However, when his colleague showed up to find out why he wasn’t at work, he found a stomach-churning trail that’s enough for anyone to abandon their progressive “multicultural” beliefs. 

A high school math teacher from Celle, a city near Hanover, Germany, foolishly bought into the propaganda that Muslim asylum seekers can be won over with Western hospitality and tolerance. Mehdi Hushmand was not only popular with his students, but he had become an active volunteer in the refugee movement. 

Mehdi, a 55-year-old migrant himself from Iran, sympathized with the flood of Muslim asylum seekers flocking across the borders. He began bringing food, aid, and supplies to refugee centers, but he still felt he wasn’t doing enough. So, he made friends with the male refugees, even letting a few of them stay with him in his house. 

Celle Heute reports that when Mehdi didn’t show up for work, one of his co-workers went to check on him. After searching the home in February, he discovered what looked like a trail of blood leading to the basement. It was there that the colleague found Mehdi butchered and lying dead in a pool of his own blood. 

Murdered by the very migrant for whom he cared, Mehdi’s tolerance for the 58-year-old Afghan refugee came “full swing” when police say they got into an “argument,” according to Bild. Upset that Mehdi, the man who gave him everything, simply disagreed with him, the unidentified asylum seeker took a rock and a large metal instrument and bashed the teacher’s head to a bloody pulp. He then dragged the mutilated body down to the basement in an attempt to cover up his gruesome crime.

Let me first fend off some potential critical comments by stating that I'm aware that the feel-good video came from my own church (The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints). I'm also aware that what happened to the teacher, Mehdi, is an unusual outcome.

But I also understand that charity and missionary outreach do not require you to abandon your common sense. The person or persons you invite to your home will know where you live, see the property you have, know who lives there and what age, and so on.

They come from a different culture that may have very different outlooks as to honor (and what constitutes violation of honor), how to respond to perceived slights, ideas of proper/improper conduct and hygiene, different expectations as to gender or familial roles, and so on. What, to you, may be nothing more than a harmless difference of opinion might be a significant insult to their honor or otherwise inappropriate in their culture. Small talk between genders (such as a woman conversing with a man, or vise versa--especially if a man is talking to another man's spouse) may be discouraged or inappropriate. What are common courtesies in the West may be misconstrued. (For instance, when I was in Japan in the late 1980's, I was told by natives there that a man did not hold a door open for a woman unless there was a romantic relationship between the two).  And because of political correctness and multiculturalism, and its attendant contempt of Western Civilization, you cannot be sure that your refugee guests will respect your culture.

You likely will know little or nothing about their background. If they are here illegally, you are already dealing with someone that has violated the laws of the United States, and must consider whether there are other laws that may not matter to them.

Because of your overtures toward them, they may want to drag you into their problems as well, asking for financial assistance, assistance with immigration issues, sponsoring other friends or family members that want to come to the U.S. (or whatever country in which you live), wanting you to take sides in family disputes, and so on.

In short, if you want to invite a refugee to dinner, do not disengage your brain and admit a total stranger into your home. Find out about them, and try to build at least some bit of a relationship with them first. Finally, be careful of being sucked into issues and problems that do not concern you.

March 29, 2016 -- A Quick Run Around the Web

Work and home life has been crazy busy the last week, so I don't have as much as usual to offer today. But here are a few things that caught my attention over the weekend and past couple of days:

• First of all, if you haven't read it already, check out the "Weekend Knowledge Dump" for this past Friday at Active Response Training.
• Ol' Remus has a new Woodpile Report up for this week.
• "Mysterious Electrical Spike Continues To Jolt BART Riders"--Martinez Patch. It must be gremlins!

The voltage spike damaged electrical components in certain train cars and took about 50 cars out of service. BART crews have inspected every inch of the tracks in the area and the electrical systems serving it, but have so far not found the source of the problem.

A similar problem damaged cars between downtown Oakland and San Francisco starting in February, but BART crews didn't get to the bottom of that problem either -- it just went away and its cause remains unclear.

• "Socialist or Fascist"--Thomas Sowell at Townhall. From the article:

What President Obama has been pushing for, and moving toward, is more insidious: government control of the economy, while leaving ownership in private hands. That way, politicians get to call the shots but, when their bright ideas lead to disaster, they can always blame those who own businesses in the private sector.

The benefits flow both ways--at least for the large and powerful industries--because they receive special privileges and protections from the government. There was a reason that the big economic interests (banks and large industrial firms) supported Hitler.

• "What If Diversity Is Our Weakness?"--Rob Dreher at The American Conservative. 

Harvard political scientist Robert Putnam — famous for “Bowling Alone,” his 2000 book on declining civic engagement — has found that the greater the diversity in a community, the fewer people vote and the less they volunteer, the less they give to charity and work on community projects. In the most diverse communities, neighbors trust one another about half as much as they do in the most homogenous settings. The study, the largest ever on civic engagement in America, found that virtually all measures of civic health are lower in more diverse settings.

• "Slaughter at the bridge: Uncovering a colossal Bronze Age battle"--Science. Evidence of those pesky pre-Classical European civilizations keep showing up. From the article: "Thousands of warriors came together in a brutal struggle, perhaps fought on a single day, using weapons crafted from wood, flint, and bronze, a metal that was then the height of military technology." (Underline added).

(Update: took care of some typographical errors).

"Why seek ye the living among the dead?" (Luke 24:5)--Happy Easter!

John 20:11-18

Today we celebrate the resurrection of our Lord and Savior. With His sacrifice, the Lord atoned for our sins and shortcomings and, consequently, ransomed our souls from death and damnation. It was not an easy task, even for Deity. But while we naturally tend to think of Christ's sacrifice for us, we must not forget why He did so. I don't mean, by this, the purpose of the atonement or resurrection, but His motivation: deep and abiding love. The Lord suffered this because of His love for us; He wants to help and comfort us. We merely need to look to Him for assistance. (Of course, the Lord will not necessarily prevent or deliver us from our challenges and trials. These serve not only to help us develop, but also act as a sieve to separate the faithful from those that are not; and, by maintaining our faith in the face of adversity, establishes our testimony of the living Christ).

As we know, "it is by grace that we are saved, after all we can do." It is the gift of this grace which we celebrate today.

Happy Easter.

Garbage In, Garbage Out -- Progressives and the Response to Islamic Terror

It is disheartening, after the recent wave of terrorist attacks in Europe (Belgium stopped yet another bomb attack this morning), that the only solution being offered by the Eurocrats and other elites in American and Europe is more of the same old navel gazing of "what did we (i.e., Europe) do wrong?" For instance, an MSNBC terror analyst blamed Belgium society for the attacks. An article at The Conversation, "The bitter fruits of alienation: Belgium’s struggle is the problem of our age" argues:

There is indeed a police problem – one above all of capacity and coordination – but the solution to Europe’s security crisis can never simply be more security. That has to be combined with more imaginative efforts to look at the origins of the problems. And that of course means that Europeans need to look at themselves and the societies they inhabit.

But no word of blame is attached to the cultural or religious background of the terrorists or those that harbor them (and let there be no mistake, these terrorists are evading capture because there is a larger corps of sympathizers willing to hide, feed, clothe, and otherwise support them). The same explanations that the terrorists acted only because of feelings of alienation came after the Paris attacks, as well.

If there is alienation, it is because of the political correctness strangling the world. Assimilation requires that the immigrants become more like Europeans: adopting customs, world views, language, dress, and other aspects of culture. In the past, this would largely have been forced on the immigrants through social pressure and direct government action (for instance, not allowing use of native tongues or dress while at school; requiring language ability and citizenship tests). Public expression of the immigrants' culture would have been limited. There would have also been some effort to weed out those simply seeking free and easy resources, such as requiring employment before allowing entry.

This was not done ... because it would not have been politically correct.

But I question the basic premise that alienation lies at the root of the problem. In a separate article entitled "Brussels attacks: how radicalization happens and who is at risk," the author writes:

A recent report published by the Program on Extremism at George Washington University provides troubling statistics on Islamic State (ISIS) support in America:

As of the fall of 2015, US authorities speak of some 250 Americans who have traveled or attempted to travel to Syria/Iraq to join the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria.
The report goes on to say there are some 900 active investigations against ISIS sympathizers in all 50 states. As a result of these active investigations, 71 suspects have been charged for terrorism-related activities – and those charged share some interesting characteristics.

The average age of the suspects is 26 years, and the vast majority of them (86 percent) are male. About 27 percent were involved in a plot to carry out violence on U.S. territory. The suspects are diverse in terms of race, social class, education and family history. Forty percent of those arrested are converts to Islam. A large majority – 58 out of 71 – are American citizens.

(Underline added). The underlined portion is significant because, historically, left-wing terrorist groups have largely drawn from middle and upper-middle class, while right-wing groups are typically made up of working class or the working poor. This suggests that, at least in the United States, ISIS terrorists are not the socially or economically dispossessed, but must have another motivation. In this case, the obvious motivation is the tenants of Islam and philosophy of jihad.

In any event, Europe faces a choice, and it does not include the useless soul searching of what could have been. The reality facing Europe is "Jihadi Musab al Suri's strategy for fanning the flames of insurgency along the classic playbook. Kill the infidel and so provoke a response which can be used to recruit even more adherents. Create a European intifada, in a united front with the old continent's well-established Leftist radicals, and rip the continent apart." Also, "European security has collapsed, perhaps irretrievably. So many prospective terrorists are now operating in Europe that security services have lost the capacity to monitor potential threats. There is no historical yardstick against which to gauge the breakdown of law enforcement in Europe." David P. Goldman believes that the choice facing Europe, now, is "allowing humanitarian disasters to occur on its borders, or losing control of its own security." Which is just a nice way of saying that Europe has a choice of keeping the foxes out of the hen house, even if it means letting the foxes starve to death, or letting the foxes come in and suffer the slaughter of the hens.

In the case of Germany (and most of the rest of Western Europe, I would add), the choice has already been made: to let the foxes in. Now the foxes are in, to shut the door to trap the hens in with the foxes is only an incomplete solution. The foxes will have to be hunted and destroyed. Those that supported them, provided aid and comfort to them, will have to be hunted as well. Because Europe was lenient in the past, it now faces a future where it will have to be brutal. How brutal? Maybe something in line with the mass deportation of peoples from various countries at the end of WWII, which, distasteful as it was, probably was instrumental in establishing the long peace that followed.

I've noted before that liberals don't care about the consequences of their actions so long as whatever they are doing makes them feel good about themselves--part of their general addiction to "virtue signaling." Bringing millions of refugees into Europe made the liberals (especially the elite) feel good about themselves. But now the consequences of their thoughtlessness and selfishness have arrived.

Europe's political correctness has left them with horrible choices. Maybe the situation can be diffused without resort to the ugliness which seems to be approaching--I pray that it can--but I am not hopeful.

The Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation Is Going To Collapse And Destroy Civilization ... Or Not

The Atlantic has published an article entitled "The Struggle of Clear Climate Communication." A somewhat innocuous title that, ironically, serves to obfuscate the author's real message that we are all doomed unless something drastic is done now! In particular, the author focuses on a paper published by James Hansen, a climate scientist and the former director of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, who claims that even a 2 degree Celsius increase in global temperatures will cause the shut down of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) current. The article states: "Once this current is shut down, then the Atlantic near the Arctic will stay cold and heat will build up in the southern latitudes, creating the potential for extreme weather of mythical proportions." 

[The paper] warns that, by 2100, the planet’s natural system could change so dramatically that enormous “superstorms,” sometimes powerful enough to hurl ocean boulders hundreds of feet into the air, will form in the Atlantic Ocean. Seas could also rise so quickly that they will inundate coastal cities—including New York, Washington, and San Francisco—rendering them unlivable before the end of the century.

However, Hansen adds:

“Have we passed a point of no return? I doubt it, but it’s conceivable,” he adds. “But if we wait until the real world reveals itself clearly, it may be too late to avoid sea-level rise of several meters and loss of all coastal cities.”

Hansen's predictions are based on computer models. But, as they say, garbage-in, garbage-out (GIGO). Anthony Watts reports on a study showing "There is no real evidence for a diminishing trend of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation." That study notes that accurate measurements of AMOC are only recent, but even using other proxies, there is no evidence that variations of the strength of the currents are anything but normal variations.

Every approach proposed so far for the AMOC has indices that may or may not represent the long term trend in the AMOC depurated of the variability. Every approach interprets changes in the indices as supporting either no AMOC slowdown or a clear evidence for a slowdown. Either may be right or wrong, but they cannot both be right. Here we argue that there is no unquestionable evidence of any change in the AMOC signal if not variability. 

The long-term sea level variations along the east coast of North America appear to be different north and south of Cape Hatteras. And the differences in north-south sea level change can be argued to reflect changes in the AMOC which then adjust the sea surface temperature (SST) patterns that make up the Atlantic Multi Decadal Oscillation (AMO). A stronger AMOC should lead to warmer temperatures in the Atlantic marking a positive AMO so the AMOC and AMO should be linked. Long-term AMO oscillations then argue for an oscillating AMOC over the past 50 years without a long-term trend. 

There is no reliable measure of the AMOC direct or based on proxies that covers a sufficient time window to show a clear trend beyond inter-annual and multi-decadal variability. Claims of strengthening or reducing of the AMOC are therefore pure speculation.

 (Underline added).

There Will Be War

Solomon at the SNAFU blog has been warning that Europe will burn because of the immigration issues there. Yesterday's bombing, he believes, is the beginning of the end of the European Union, writing:

Drink it in men. 

You're witnessing the end of the dream that was the EU.  Free trade and people moving across borders without restriction?  Dead.   One contiguous Europe with laws that applied across the board?  Dead.  The idea that liberal societies could freely accept refugees that not only didn't accept the views of the nations that they were fleeing to, but despised them despite their hospitality?  That's setting the stage for open combat in the streets. 

The govts are and have failed their people.  Europe will burn.

Although not as succinct as Solomon, John R. Schindler makes the same point in his article, "Europe Is Again at War." Schindler states:

Simply put, Europe has imported a major threat into its countries, one that did not exist a couple generations ago. It can be endlessly debated why this problem has grown so serious so quickly—for instance, how much is due to Europe’s failures at assimilation of immigrants versus the innate aggression of some of those immigrants (and their children)?—but that the threat is large and growing can no longer be denied by the sentient. 

What, then, is to be done? Admitting the extent of this threat is the necessary first step, albeit one that the EU’s political class seems congenitally unable to address. Instead, the public is treated to the now-customary clichés about religion having “nothing to do with terrorism,” combined with ritual admonitions about “Islamophobia.” One wonders how much more of this organized dishonesty the European public can take. 

Europe is now at war again. The threat today is less terrorism than a low-grade insurgency, a guerrilla war of sorts, that hangs over much of the continent as thousands of jihadists, made proficient killers by ISIS in Syria and Iraq, return home with visions of killing “infidels,” their former neighbors. There will be no parley or negotiation with such mass murderers. Parsing the death-cult ideology that drives ISIS fighters, with the hope of making it less noxious, makes as much sense as trying to divine the finer political points of the Manson family. 

We should expect more guerrilla-like attacks like Brussels yesterday: moderate in scale, relatively easy to plan and execute against soft targets, and utterly terrifying to the public. At some point, angry Europeans, fed up with their supine political class, will begin to strike back, and that’s when the really terrifying scenarios come into play. European security services worry deeply about the next Anders Breivik targeting not fellow Europeans, but Muslim migrants. “We’re just one Baruch Goldstein away from all-out war,” explained a senior EU terrorism official, citing the American-born Israeli terrorist, fed up with Palestinian violence, who walked into a Hebron mosque in 1994, guns blazing, and murdered 29 innocent Muslims. 

When that violence comes, a practically disarmed Europe will be all but powerless to stop it.  ...

While on this point, I would note an article from David French on "In the Aftermath of Brussels, There Is a Mistake We Shouldn’t Make." The mistake is not recognizing jihad for what it really is:

... jihad is an eternal, all-encompassing unholy war against the unbeliever. It is waged in the mind of the believer, to fortify his or her own courage and faith. It is waged online and in the pages of books and magazines, to simultaneously cultivate the hatred and contempt of the committed for the kafir — the unbeliever — while also currying favor, appeasement, and advantage from the gullible West. Jihad is the teaching in the mosque. It is the prayer in the morning, the social-media post in the afternoon, and the donation to an Islamic “charity” in the evening.

There is jihad in predatory, coordinated sexual assault, there is jihad when Western camera crews are chased from Muslim neighborhoods, and there is jihad when Muslim apologists invariably crawl from the sewers of Western intelligentsia, blaming Europeans for the imperfections in their life-saving hospitality.

... [So] [w]hile not all Muslims are jihadists, jihad is so deeply imprinted in the DNA of Islam that the world will confront it as long as Islam lives.  

And so combatting [sic] jihad isn’t simply a matter of firepower — though that is certainly vital to the work — nor is it a matter of perfecting intelligence and police tactics. It’s the spiritual and intellectual effort of generations. And while the West currently enjoys unmatched military superiority, its mind and spirit aren’t just grotesquely decayed, they’ve been intentionally vandalized. Unless we can reverse that decline — and rediscover the eternal truths that defined our civilization — our guns, bombs, and magnificently-trained troops will merely constitute the rear guard, the force that delays the inevitable.

How Angry Are Americans?

Sigmund Freud is credited with the idea that depression is merely anger turned inward. Recent studies indicate that Americans are more depressed than they have been in decades. While I'm sure that there are many possible causes of depression, is the sharp increase merely the result of repressed anger?

March 22, 2017 -- A Quick Run Around the Web (Updated)

The big news story today is, of course, the terrorist attack in Belgium. Will Europe draw the connection between certain of the powerful Islamist sects (particularly Wahhabism) and terrorism? (Obviously not all Islam is implicated--we don't see, for instance, Yazidi terrorists). Also, Zika spreads to Bangladesh.

Brussels Attack:

• "Brussels attacks: At least 31 dead at Zaventem and Maelbeek"--BBC News.

At least 31 people have been killed and many seriously injured in attacks at Brussels international airport and a city metro station.

Twin blasts hit Zaventem airport at 07:00 GMT, killing 11 and injuring 81, Belgium's health minister said.

Another explosion struck Maelbeek metro station an hour later with 20 people killed, the Brussels mayor said.

• "Around 35 dead in Brussels attacks horror"--Expatica (BE).
• "Brussels Airport and Subway Explosions Kill 34"--New York Times. From the story:

A series of deadly terrorist attacks struck Brussels on Tuesday, with two explosions at the city’s main international airport and a third in a subway station at the heart of the city, near the headquarters complex of the European Union.

At least one of the two airport explosions was touched off by a suicide bomber, officials said. At least 34 people were killed — 14 at the airport and 20 at the subway station — and many more wounded, including 92 at the airport and 106 at the subway station.

“We were fearing terrorist attacks, and that has now happened,” Prime Minister Charles Michel of Belgium said at a news conference, calling the attacks “blind, violent, cowardly.”

On Twitter, he called on the population to “avoid all movement,” as the authorities braced for the possibility of additional violence.

* * * 

The Paris attacks showed that the scale and sophistication of the Islamic State’s efforts to carry out operations in Europe were greater than first believed, and analysts have also pointed to Europe’s particular vulnerabilities. They include the huge flow of undocumented migrants to the Continent from the Middle East last year, the movement of European citizens between their home countries and Syria to fight with the Islamic State, and persistent problems with intelligence sharing among European countries and even between competing security agencies in some nations.

Few countries have been more vulnerable than Belgium. It has an especially high proportion of citizens who have traveled to Syria or Iraq, insular Muslim communities that have helped shield jihadists, and security services that have had persistent problems conducting effective counterterrorism operations, not least in its four-month effort to capture Mr. Abdeslam.

The attacks on Tuesday put the Belgian capital in a state of virtual lockdown, with the threat level raised to its highest possible level. Frédéric Van Leeuw, the Belgian federal prosecutor, said that border controls had been strengthened and extra police officers mobilized.

All flights to and from Brussels Airport were canceled indefinitely, with flights scheduled to land there diverted. Subway, tram and bus travel was shut down. Eurostar canceled its trains connecting Brussels with London. Thalys, which runs high-speed trains linking dozens of cities in Belgium, France, Germany and the Netherlands, suspended service. Cellphone lines were jammed as panicked travelers and Belgians tried to make calls.

• "Chilling footage shows moment terrified passengers cower under desks and run for their lives after suicide bomb blasts rock Brussels Airport in series of attacks that killed 34 across the city"--Daily Mail.
• "BREAKING NEWS: Three American Mormon missionaries seriously injured in Brussels attacks"--Daily Mail. "The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints said Richard Norby, 66, Joseph Empey, 20, of and Mason Wells, 19, all from Utah, were caught up in the blasts while at Brussels Airport, where 11 people died."
• "Hunt for Brussels terrorists: Armed police arrest two men but more suspects are on the run as it's revealed security services already have CCTV of bombers"--Daily Mail.
• "Belgium warned of more terror before airport attack"--Chicago Tribune. "Abdeslam told Belgian authorities while in custody that 'he was ready to restart something from Brussels,' Reynders said. Belgian intelligence determined that Abdeslam had built a new network of support in Brussels in the four months since the Paris attacks, expanding to include criminal networks that worked with the terrorists to share apartments and leverage connections to procure weapons."

Other News and Items:

• "Bangladesh reports Zika virus in patient with no travel history"--Outbreak News Today. "According to the World Health Organization (WHO), from 1 January 2007 to 16 March 2016, Zika virus transmission was documented in a total of 59 countries and territories."
• "The U.S. military has a lot more people in Iraq than it has been saying"--The Washington Post. "The U.S. military has around 5,000 service members in Iraq, officials said on Monday, far more than previously reported, as the Obama administration quietly expands ground operations against the Islamic State."
• "No Doubt About It — We’re Back in a Ground War in Iraq"--National Review. "Without much fanfare, Obama has dramatically reversed his Iraq policy — sending thousands of troops back in the country after he declared the war over, engaging in ground combat despite initially promising that his strategy 'will not involve American combat troops fighting on foreign soil.' Well, they’re on foreign soil, and they’re fighting."
• A new Woodpile Report for this week.

Update: Some more stuff:

• "You’re Either A Globalist Or A Nationalist"--Roosh Valizadeh at Return of Kings.
• "Bombs in Belgium"--Bayou Renaissance Man. Peter Grant provides some analysis and reviews of past statements showing that authorities were aware following the Paris attacks that there was a larger network in Belgium providing logistical support to the Paris attackers.
• "Debt Is Building Everywhere"--The Anonymous Conservative. China and other countries are selling off U.S. debt in order to raise cash to stimulate their own economies. But it is not just central banks. The author quotes from one article: "Things have gotten so bad that in 2015, Chinese firms issued $1.2 trillion in new debt just so they could service their existing loans. In other words, China’s entire corporate sector is quickly becoming one giant ponzi scheme."
• "Shoot What the Banger’s Shoot"--Angry White Dude. A look at the types/models of firearms seized by the Chicago PD from criminals.
• "War and the Reshaping of Societies"--Sense of Events. Another article that notes that defeating an enemy requires one to destroy the enemy people's will to fight.
• "Male model Fabio becomes a naturalized US citizen and the long-haired 1990s idol declares it the 'happiest day of his life'"--Daily Mail. 

Alert: Critical Update for Older Kindle Readers

Amazon has warned that older Kindle's that do not have updated software may stop accessing the books saved on the Cloud, the Kindle store, or other services as of tomorrow (March 22, 2016). According to the notice, if you have synced your Kindle since October of last year, it is probably okay, but you may want to double check that you have the correct software version.

Thoughts On Unarmed Defense Against A Knife

There has been a recent spate of slashing attacks in New York City which piqued my interest in strengthening my knowledge of unarmed defenses effective against a knife attack. There are various techniques that are taught in martial arts or self-defense classes, or that can be found in books, articles or videos.  I decided to test/practice some techniques or common defenses to determine their effectiveness. Now, still with very sore wrists and forearms, I have some thoughts about unarmed defense against a knife attack.

The effectiveness of a knife is often dependent on surprise and/or being able to confine the victim. Since it is a contact weapon, simply keeping one's distance seems the best defense. However, backing away or retreating ("run away!" as King Arthur yelled in a Monte Python movie) may not be possible if the attack is sudden or if, for some reason, you are constrained against leaving. (It may not be a physical barrier that keeps you from leaving, but the need to protect a loved one. I would refer you to this article of an attack and attempted rape of an example of the latter situation).

For our tests we used training knives manufactured by Cold Steel, one being a facsimile of Cold Steel's Recon Tanto and the other was of a K-Bar style knife (the Leatherneck S/F trainer).

Initially, we practiced with basic stabbing attacks, holding the knife in a saber grip. The intent of the attacker was to deliver a stab to the midriff at approximately waist level (i.e., between the pelvis and the sternum), although it varied up to stabs at the area of the heart.

The first defensive technique we attempted was one that I had been taught many years ago. In that case, to defend against a stab with a forward grip, the instructor had taught a technique that required you to slap the back of the knife hand with one hand (your left hand if the attacker was using his right hand), while simultaneously slapping the attacker's wrist from the other side. The theory was combination of impacts would flex the hand, and cause the knife to fly out of the hand. Although not perfect, it worked well enough in the dojo with students using Sharpies and highlighters to stand in for knives. However, as expected, it did not translate well to the training knives and an aggressive opponent. Not only is the technique somewhat complex to successfully accomplish, but it requires you to place your body in line to the advancing knife. So a failed defense leads to a disastrous outcome. I would recommend against using this technique.

Next we tried standard blocks. The problem with these, we discovered, is that it is simple to disengage from the block, dip the knife hand under the blocking arm, and continue the thrust or initiate another attack. Not too surprising since this is a basic maneuver in fencing.

Next we tried various techniques for grasping or trapping the attacking arm. These showed more promise, but almost always degenerated to a "catch-as-catch-can" wrestle for the knife. Moreover, a grip on the knife arm using but a single hand was easily broken. Even if an arm was trapped, it was generally possible for the attacker to transfer the knife to his other (free) hand.

What seemed to consistently work the best was to use the hand opposite the attacker's hand (e.g., if the attacker was using his right hand, the defender would use his left hand) to grab the wrist of the attacker (grab slightly underneath so you can more easily twist the attacker's arm). This does two things: it requires the defender to move his body out of line of the stab (so even if the defender failed in the defensive maneuver, the knife would probably still miss the defender), and initiates control of the knife hand. Simultaneously, the defender grabs the attacker's arm with his other hand about the wrist of the knife hand. The attacker and defender are essentially, at this point, standing almost side by side. During the same maneuver, the defender's arm first used to grab the knife hand (in this example, it would be the defender's left arm) goes over the knife arm of the attacker (in this example, the right arm), with elbow into the side of the attacker's chest. The defender drops down which should drive the knife straight into the ground. At that point, the defender has a good lock on the attacker's right arm, the attacker probably cannot get his left hand over to the right hand, and the defender can force the attacker fully to the ground, remove the knife from the attacker's hand, or jump back up and run away.

So, in summary, assuming an attacker using his right hand as his knife hand:

1.  Attacker stabs with right hand;
2. Defender uses left hand to grasp the attacker's right wrist, sidestepping;
3. Defender's left arm goes over attacker's right arm, with the Defender's elbow going into the side of the attacker's chest (very painful if you happen to strike the right spot); 
4. Defender's right hand is also used to grab the attacker's right wrist;
5. Defender drops, diverting the attacker's forward momentum, and driving the knife into the ground. 

With an attacker using the left hand, the sides are simply reversed (i.e., the defender uses his right hand and arm).

We tried this technique against other types of attacks, such as slashing attacks where the knife was held in a reverse grip (edge out), and a reverse grip (edge in). In these, we tested it against a horizontal slashing attack, such as might be made against the torso, neck or face. The defense described above seemed to work well against the attack where the hold was a reverse grip (edge in), but appeared to be less successful against one where the hold was a reverse grip (edge out). In the latter case, we could successfully drive the attacker to the ground, but it was apparent that were a real knife used, the defender would likely suffer cuts to his arm or hand.

This technique was not well suited to an overhand, reverse grip stab straight downward. In that case, the classic technique of using both hands to grab and redirect the thrust was effective--actually, very much so since the natural arc described by the attacker's arm means that the trajectory of the knife will generally be into the attacker's own leg, groin, or abdomen.

I have not had an opportunity to test the technique against a diagonal slashing attack.

What I liked about this technique was that it was actually fairly forgiving of errors. As noted, even if you have failed to grasp the attacker's wrist, you have stepped out of line of the attack. If you don't get your arm over the attacker's arm, it is not as strong a lock but will still work. If you don't get your second hand around the wrist, you still very well may have enough momentum to drive the knife down into the ground or throw the attacker off balance.

I know that I've seen this technique illustrated before in books or in a video, but I cannot remember the source. Anyway, I welcome any comments, criticisms or suggestions.

It's Not A Theory If It There Is An Actual Conspiracy

(Source)

Pat Buchanan, in his article, "The Sea Island Conspiracy" describes a secret meeting between top liberals and Republicans to control the outcome of the nomination:

Over the long weekend before the Mississippi and Michigan primaries, the sky above Sea Island was black with corporate jets. 

Apple’s Tim Cook, Google’s Larry Page and Eric Schmidt, Napster’s Sean Parker, Tesla Motors’ Elon Musk, and other members of the super-rich were jetting in to the exclusive Georgia resort, ostensibly to participate in the annual World Forum of the American Enterprise Institute. 

* * * 

As revealed by the Huffington Post, Sea Island last weekend was host to a secret conclave at the Cloisters where oligarchs colluded with Beltway elites to reverse the democratic decisions of millions of voters and abort the candidacy of Donald Trump.
Among the journalists at Sea Island were Rich Lowry of National Review, which just devoted an entire issue to the topic: “Against Trump,” and Arthur Sulzberger, publisher of the Trumphobic New York Times. 

Bush guru Karl Rove of FOX News was on hand, as were Speaker Paul Ryan, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Sen. Lindsey Graham, dispatched by Trump in New Hampshire and a berserker on the subject of the Donald. 

So, too, was William Kristol, editor of the rabidly anti-Trump Weekly Standard, who reported back to comrades: “The key task now, to ... paraphrase Karl Marx, is less to understand Trump than to stop him.” 

* * * 

What we see at Sea Island is that, despite all their babble about bringing the blessings of “democracy” to the world’s benighted, AEI, Neocon Central, believes less in democracy than in perpetual control of the American nation by the ruling Beltway elites. 

If an outsider like Trump imperils that control, democracy be damned. The elites will come together to bring him down, because, behind party ties, they are soul brothers in the pursuit of power. 

Something else was revealed by the Huffington Post—a deeply embedded corruption that permeates this capital city. 

The American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research is a 501(c)(3) under IRS rules, an organization exempt from U.S. taxation. 

* * * 

This special privilege, this freedom from taxation, is accorded to organizations established for purposes such as “religious, educational, charitable, scientific, literary ... or the prevention of cruelty to children or animals.” 

What the co-conspirators of Sea Island were up at the Cloisters was about as religious as what the Bolsheviks at that girls school known as the Smolny Institute were up to in Petrograd in 1917. 

From what has been reported, it would not be extreme to say this was a conspiracy of oligarchs, War Party neocons, and face-card Republicans to reverse the results of the primaries and impose upon the party, against its expressed will, a nominee responsive to the elites’ agenda. 

And this taxpayer-subsidized “Dump Trump” camarilla raises even larger issues.

 Read the whole thing.

March 18, 2016 -- A Quick Run Around the Web

I'll start off with a bit in the self-defense department, but the rest are general interest or current events stuff for today.

• It's Friday, so time to check out Active Response Training's Weekend Knowledge Dump. Another slew of good articles. Two that jumped out at me in particular were "A Burglar’s Universal Search Pattern – How a Burglar Robs Your Home in 8 Minutes" and "Nobody Ever Recounts a Defensive Gun Use As, 'I Knew That Day Would Be Horrible.'" 
• "Three Most Common Firearms Stoppages And What To Do About Them: Guns for Beginners"--The Truth About Guns. The stoppages are, of course, (1) failure to feed, (2) failure to eject, and (3) failure to go into battery.

And now some current events and political commentary:

• "Mysterious white powder spills on Eric Trump's wife after she opened letter sent to their apartment which demanded his father drop out of the race"--Daily Mail. As Scott Adams has suggested, the MSM is trying to set up a situation of political violence. 
• "Breaking: Multiple Explosions Targeting Law Enforcement Officials In Indiana…"--Weasel Zippers.
• "France: Jihad Infecting Army, Police"--Gatestone Institute. Although apparently a small number, a report of Muslim police officers refusing to protect Jewish synagogues, some that have become radicalized, and incidents of military personnel "defecting" to terrorist organizations.
• "FBI: Student Who Went on Stabbing Spree at Univ. of California Campus Was Inspired by Islamic State"--The Blaze.
• "Did FBI Agents Lie About LaVoy Finicum's Shooting?"--The Atlantic. More information on whether the FBI agents involved in the shooting lied and removed evidence from the scene. According to the story, the four FBI agents involved in the shooting were part of the bureau’s elite Hostage Rescue Team (HRT). 
• "Syrian Kurds declare their own federal region in the north of the war-torn country in defiance of peace talks in Europe"--Daily Mail. More information at the American Interest, "Kurds to Declare 'Federal Region' in Syria." The Kurds are on the ascendancy, and I don't think there is much Turkey or Iran can do to stop it. 
• "Mass rallies as Brazil political crisis deepens"--AFP.
• "Hillary Has an NSA Problem"--Observer. Some of the emails from Sidney Blumenthal (not a government employee) to Hillary Clinton contained information--including whole paragraphs--lifted directly from NSA reports classified Top Secret / Special Intelligence and under the NSA's GAMMA compartment: i.e., some of the most secret information produced by the Agency. 
• "Immigration: the mother of all issues"--The Washington Examiner. In addition to being an issue wrapped with jobs, national security, law and order, and national debt, the author notes that immigration is an existential issue:

When politicians want to import tens of millions of new immigrants it can look like Washington is trying to remake the electorate. This isn't pure fantasy. In 1996, Bill Clinton's White House instructed the Immigration and Naturalization Service "to streamline the naturalization process and greatly increase naturalizations during 1996." Sure enough, Hispanics more than doubled as a portion of the electorate for Clinton's 1996 reelection, according to exit polls.

Conservatives won't win any fights — over guns, marriage, taxes, spending, health care, or anything — if the U.S. electorate is remade in the image of California.

Deeper than the issues, and even deeper than the structural political questions, is the nearly existential question that Trump raises. "IF WE DON'T HAVE BORDERS," Trump tweeted in November, "WE DON'T HAVE A COUNTRY!"

• "Ann Coulter: GOP Voters Deliver Subtle Message—Die, Donor Scum!"--V Dare. The majority of Republicans back either Trump or Cruz. "The combined vote for Trump and Cruz is a ringing chorus of what this party wants: a wall, deportation, less immigration and no job-killing trade deals."
• "How an obscure adviser to Pat Buchanan predicted the wild Trump campaign in 1996"--The Week. 

[S]ooner or later, as the globalist elites seek to drag the country into conflicts and global commitments, preside over the economic pastoralization of the United States, manage the delegitimization of our own culture, and the dispossession of our people, and disregard or diminish our national interests and national sovereignty, a nationalist reaction is almost inevitable and will probably assume populist form when it arrives. The sooner it comes, the better… [Samuel Francis in Chronicles]

• "The Power of the Purse"--Ricochet. The author writes:

... New initiatives are hard to push through. But it is not so difficult to undo things. One simply has to turn off the spigot by refusing to appropriate money for them, and that is what Mitch McConnell and his colleagues promised and failed to do.

One could respond that they could not risk a government shutdown (though they claimed, while running for office, the opposite). But this response makes no sense. It is the President who shuts down the government by vetoing the budget. “Never mind that,” one could then reply. “They would get the blame. They have gotten the blame every time they tried.”

This, too, is true – but it ignores one thing. Every time they tried they lost their nerve and backed down. Cowards who back down always get the blame. Think about it. Can you think of a single instance in which a man has taken a bold, brave stance and then later backed down in which he did not become an object of contempt?

This matter is more important than it might seem. The truth is that modern liberty depends on the power of the purse. All of the great battles in England in the 17th century between the Crown and Parliament turned ultimately on the power of the purse. The members of Parliament were elected at least in part with an eye to achieving a redress of grievances, and that redress was the price they exacted for funding the Crown. Our legislature has given up that power. Our congressional leaders claim – once the election is over – that they have no leverage. If that is really true, then elections do not matter, and a redress of grievances is now beyond the legislature’s power. Absent that capacity, however, the legislature is virtually useless. Absent that capacity, it is contemptible — and let’s face it: the President and those who work under him have showered it with contempt.

There is a lesson to be learned from the current mess: Congress needs to reassert in a dramatic fashion the power of the purse, and the Republicans need to start keeping their promises. To do that, however, they will have to show a bit of backbone.

And, finally, some other stuff:

• "Peel your banana backwards and other simple but surprising tips which will make YOUR life so much easier"--Daily Mail. Some useful life hacks.
• I missed this on Pi Day, but better late than never: "Pi pops up where you don’t expect it"--The Conversation. There is a certain beauty to mathematics. 
• "Picture of Pluto further refined by months of New Horizons data"--The Conversation. More than just a hunk of ice. "Pluto is geologically active! I doubt there’s a single person on Earth who would have expected to see that!"

March 17, 2016 -- A Quick Run Around the Web

Video: "ARES SCR Generation 2 Review"--The Firearms Blog channel. A positive review.

Firearms/Self-Defense:

• ".380’s Sales Surge…Again"--The Truth About Guns. Quoting an article at Fox News: “Production of the super-small handgun is at a 16-year high, with nearly 900,000 made in the U.S. in 2014, according to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.”
• "Choosing the ‘pool gun’ for your family and home defense: what’s best?"--Grant Cunningham. Some tips and suggestions for selecting a firearm that could be picked up and used by anyone in your family. One tip: "When picking a gun to fit all family members, remember that in general it’s easier for someone to deal with a too-small firearm than one which is too large; this is especially true if the person using the smaller gun is more highly trained or skilled."
• "Detecting Hidden Cameras: A Basic Introduction To Counter Surveillance"--Schafer's Self Defense Corner. First, deal with the obvious: "The first thing you should do is go over to the desk and find that notepad they leave for you, normally over by the phone, and tear off the top piece.  Take a piece of tape and tape that paper over top of the peephole in your door, if you don’t have any tape you should be able to ball it up and jam it inside, just make sure it doesn’t fall out." Next cover cameras on your smart phone, tablet, or computer, and unplug the television. Then move on to the less obvious. Read the whole thing.
• "The MAS-49 Was the Foreign Legion’s Favorite Rifle"--War is Boring.

Survival/Prepping:

• "How to Carve 7 Pot Hooks for Classic Camp Cooking"--Survival Sherpa. The primary topic of the article is how to carve and assemble hooks for hanging a pot over a fire or bed of coals. However, the author also discusses what makes a knife suitable for carving these items.
• "Surviving in a Refugee Camp: How to earn a living when you have nothing."--Modern Survivalist. No, not a discussion of the oldest profession, but what anyone can do. The top job seems to be selling prepaid telephone cards.
• "The Top 4 Bartering Skills You’ll Need When the Economy Fails"--Survive the Apocalypse. The essential skills that the author lists are: (i) effective communication skills; (ii) building credibility; (iii) developing a higher emotional IQ; and (iv) networking more effectively to influence others. In short, the skills necessary to be a good salesman. The article has links to more information on each topic.

Other Stuff:

• "Why female violence against men is society's last great taboo"--The Telegraph. The article mostly discusses domestic violence, and notes that more women are being charged and convicted for domestic violence against their spouses.

• Related: "Woman As Aggressor: The Unspoken Truth Of Domestic Violence"--Mint Press News. A 2014 article on this topic, which notes: "In fact, in the 71 percent of nonreciprocal partner violence instances, the instigator was the woman."

• Related: "Women are more violent, says study"--The Independent. An article from 2000 on the same topic.

• "Bullet casings disappear from LaVoy Finicum shooting scene, sources say"--Oregon Live. Oregon state investigators are disputing the FBI's account of the shooting, and suggest that evidence at the scene was removed.
• "Relatives Of Teen Shot While Robbing Home: ‘How He Gonna Get His Money?’"--The Daily Caller. "'You have to look at it from every child’s point of view that was raised in the hood. You have to understand, how he gonna get his money to have clothes to go to school? You have to look at it from his point of view,' Johnson’s cousin Nautika Harris said." The predator mentality.
• "Out-of-Work Chinese Government Hackers May Be Behind Sophisticated Ransomware Attacks"--MIT Technology Review. Exactly the type of thing about which the Anonymous Conservative has been warning.
• "Many scientific “truths” are, in fact, false"--Quartz. 

In 2005, John Ioannidis, a professor of medicine at Stanford University, published a paper, “Why most published research findings are false,” mathematically showing that a huge number of published papers must be incorrect. He also looked at a number of well-regarded medical research findings, and found that, of 34 that had been retested, 41% had been contradicted or found to be significantly exaggerated.

Since then, researchers in several scientific areas have consistently struggled to reproduce major results of prominent studies. By some estimates, at least 51%—and as much as 89%—of published papers are based on studies and experiments showing results that cannot be reproduced.

• "The 30% solution — when war without end ends: Spengler"--David P. Goldman at the Asia Times. "Nations do not fight to the death, but they frequently fight until their pool of prospective fighters has reached a point of practical exhaustion. In most cases, this involves reaching the 30% mark where casualties are concerned." The implications is that rather than attempting to reduce casualties among the enemy forces, the goal should be to inflict as heavy of casualties as possible.
• "Betting on Gray Sludge: What Fun"--Peter Grant. Grant considers and then discounts the idea that Americans will attempt to secede, start a civil war, elevate a dictator, or otherwise attempt to take back control of the government. Instead:

That leaves gray-sludge-and-twilight. The cultural level will continue to fall as waves of intellectually illiterate graduates pour from the universities. Schools of engineering and science will mostly resist enstupidation–the definite integral will prove an absolute barrier to affirmative action–but liberal studies, the heart of civilization, will remain dead. Hostility and perhaps mini-wars will erupt between Americans and the Somalis, Moslems, and Guatemalans brought in by the DC-NYC axis, but these will probably be inconclusive. Christianity will be reduced to a low level, though Judaism and Islam will flourish as their adherents have the will to prevent suppression.

The economy will continue its slide while the rich, no longer attached to any particular country, will become stupefyingly rich. (Someone recently paid $172 million for a Modigliani). If things go bad in Manhattan, they can easily move to the south of France.

I do not see how civil unrest (it won’t be civil) can fail to arise. Comfortable people, which white Americans still barely are, do not readily clash with others. But comfort dwindles. The young now often have to live with their parents. People with advanced degrees work as baristas at Starbucks. Universities use “adjunct professors,” academic migrant workers, to lower pay and avoid providing benefits. Many companies hire people as “individual contractors,” likewise to avoid paying benefits. Large numbers who want to work are on food stamps and unemployment.

Not parenthetically, I remember being in Italy at breakfast with a tour group. The restaurant had not ordered enough food for the buffet. These sophisticated and civil people began grabbing, reaching over each other, to get the yogurt and doughnuts. Civilization is a veneer, and not a thick one. Nationally, we are running out of doughnuts.

One thing is clear: America is no longer “one nation under God” (who is, I suppose, an undocumented alien).It is an unhappy land of warring tribes, of peoples who have nothing in common and do not like each other. Blacks, whites, browns, Syrians, Somalis, Southerners, Yankees, Christians, mostly detesting each other. The battle lines are drawn. The question is what kind of battle it will be.

 Updated: A couple additional items:

• "Mystery glitch’s return knocks out BART cars, snarls commute"--SF Gate. Have those responsible for disabling electrical sub-stations moved on to something else?
• "Protesters storm Brazilian capital after bugged phone call goes public which reveals President gave senior government position to her predecessor so he could avoid arrest over corruption"--Daily Mail. 

A Quick Run Around the Web -- March 13, 2016

Pianist and keyboardist Keith Emerson died the other day. Above is an excerpt from his "Piano Concerto No. 1" from Emerson, Lake & Palmer's Works Vol. I album.

• First up, of course, is Active Response Training's Weekend Knowledge Dump for this weekend. While you are there, also read Greg Ellifritz's article: "The Lisa Mearkle Police Shooting- 7 Lessons to Learn." Lisa Mearkle was a police officer that shot and killed a middle-aged drunk man that, while on the ground, nevertheless was not responding to all her commands. He was unarmed. She shot him twice in the back. She was charged with murder, but acquitted by a jury. She resigned from the police force, receiving a $120,000 severance payment. Mr. Ellifritz has provided his own thoughts about what led Mearkle to panic and use lethal force, which I encourage you to read. However, the take away is this: "As I have said many times before, you can’t depend on a competent police force.  You are truly on your own in a violent encounter."
• "IV8888’s Piston AR Meltdown"--The Firearms Blog. "The LMT [Lewis Machine Tool] upper receiver’s mechanism failed at a count of 833 rounds, suffering a bent operating rod and a heavily peened bolt carrier." The test was conducted shooting the weapon in full automatic mode. The author opines: 

The only theory I can grasp is that the heat from the barrel was close enough to the piston to damage its rigidity, causing it to warp, which subsequently deformed the bolt carrier extension. This seems like it could be a quirk of the gas operating rod AR-15’s “retrofitted” nature; the carrier extension is small, so a strike from the piston hitting anywhere other than its direct center could weaken and peen it. Likewise, due to the small space in the AR-15’s upper receiver – originally designed for a compact gas tube – once this deformation occurs, the firearm ceases to function properly.

• "All-Around Rifle Cartridges" and "Medium Bore All-Around Rifle Cartridges"--Chuck Hawks. 
• "Handgun Self-Defense Ammunition Ballistics Test"--Lucky Gunner. Covers .380, 9 mm, .40 S&W, and .45 ACP.
• "Thoughts on Camouflage Clothing"--Max Velocity. "You can have just as good a result with ‘earth tone’ clothing, some dirt and good fieldcraft, in reality."
• "How to Improve You Shooting Without Really Trying: Guns for Beginners"--The Truth About Guns. The author offers three tips for improving your acuracy: (1) load and shoot only a single round at a time (i.e., magazine dumps don't teach you how to shoot more accurately), (2) ask an expert for ONE tip, (3) move the target closer (when I've been assisting a new shooter, I, too, recommend moving the target closer because I believe success is important to the new shooter).
• The Anonymous Conservative has had several articles recently addressing how hacking and spying techniques that at one time would have been limited to only the richest countries, are increasingly available to lesser governments, organizations, or simply wealthy individuals. His articles:

• "CEO Drives Car Straight Into Embankment."

• "The Internet Of Things Is Dangerous."

• "Push Button Wet Work – The Internet Of Things Will Kill You."

And, although not pertaining to targeted assassinations, these are related:

• "Donald Could Lose – Voting Machines Can Be Reprogrammed."

• "Pirates Use Hacking To Target Shipping Containers."

He warns, in the first article cited above, that:

The real problem with the government taking so much control over everything is that they will not be the only people who will wield it. I could envision a future where the government’s tech-specialist wet-work guys quietly enter the private sector, hiring out to produce deaths like this for any hedge fund guy afraid of seeing his return diminished by an inconvenient investigation, or any rich executive who wants his CEO dead so nobody will follow the path of investigatory breadcrumbs that leads back to him. With this guy dead, who knows who will now escape investigation.

• Related: "Sidestepping Apple dispute, Obama makes case for access to device data"--Reuters. "U.S. President Barack Obama on Friday made a passionate case for mobile devices to be built in such a way as to allow government to gain access to personal data if needed to prevent a terrorist attack or enforce tax laws."

• "How Bernie Sanders Supporters Shut Down Donald Trump's Rally in Chicago"--NBC News.

Protesters interrupt virtually every Trump speech. But what made Chicago different were its scale and the organization behind the effort. Hundreds of young people, mostly minorities, poured in from across the city, taking over whole sections of the arena and bracing for trouble.

And as the repeated chants of "Ber-nie" demonstrated, it was largely organized by supporters of Sanders, the Democratic presidential candidate who has struggled to win over black voters but whose revolutionary streak has excited radicals of all racial demographics.

• Related: "‘We shut Trump down!’ Admitted terrorist [Bill Ayers] cheers on anti-Trump protesters in Chicago"--Twitchy.

• Related: "Billionaires Battle for America's Soul"--Roger L. Simon at PJ Media.

They are Peter B. Lewis of Progressive Corp., Linda Pritzker of Hyatt Hotels, and, of course, George Soros of practically everything.  These three billionaires are the principal backers of MoveOn.org, an organization whose devotion to our constitutional republic, specifically its first amendment, is somewhere between suspect and non-existent.  It is MoveOn that has instigated many of the demonstrations against Trump and may be inspiring "lone wolves," one of whom may sooner or later do what "lone wolves" are prone to do.

These supporting billionaires are fueled by a moral narcissism that knows no bounds, so convinced are they that they are "right" on practically everything.  They have enabled the (most often) young people at MoveOn who undoubtedly believe that they too are "right" and have the "right" to suppress the speech of those with whom they disagree.   They behave as if they think it their noble duty. This is the not-so-royal road to totalitarianism and is the tragic consequence of the miseducation of our young for which those billionaires are also, in part, culpable.

• Related: "Chicago"--Richard Fernandez at PJ Media.

Still, it is doubtful the Left has actually shut The Donald down.  They've most likely supercharged him. Saul Alinsky taught his disciples that confrontation -- of precisely the kind that just transpired in Chicago -- radicalized people far more efficiently than speeches, and exhorted organizers to seek every opportunity, not to "get along", but to let it all hang out.  By that standard the Trump supporters have been given a master class in radicalization.  Because the rally has merely been postponed or relocated, it's better than even odds that tonight's fireworks will attract as many people for the rematch as it repels.

Osprey Battlegrip and Magpul MOE -- First Impressions

Osprey Battlegrip. I ended up moving the position of the grip slightly further to the rear after this photograph was taken.

I have had an Osprey Battlegrip with green laser for some time, but only recently mounted it on a weapon. The Battlegrip is a one-piece front vertical front grip which incorporates a tactical flashlight (500 lumens according to Osprey), a "map light" (low power flash light) and a green laser for targeting. The description indicates that the Battlegrip is 20.2 ounces, but it weighed 21.4 ounces according to my scale.

The batteries for the unit fit into the vertical foregrip--there is a screw on cap at the bottom of the vertical foregrip section. At the base of the cap (i.e, the bottom of the vertical grip) is a push button for activating power to the unit. At the top of the vertical grip is a trigger switch. Ahead of that (i.e., at the back of the flash light) is a knob switch that allows you to switch to four different settings.

Going from left to right, the first position leaves the flashlights off, but allows the laser to be activated by the trigger switch.

The second position activates the primary flashlight. Pulling the trigger switch in this setting will cause the flashlight to go into strobe mode. My personal preference for this setting would have been to have been to forego the strobe feature; but, instead, for the flashlights to have been off until depressing the trigger switch.

The third setting activates the "map light," or secondary flashlight. Pulling the trigger switch will activate the laser. The flash light at this setting is bright enough to see by and move around inside a structure, but not overwhelmingly bright. I see this setting as the most useful for navigating inside a building if you need a light.

The fourth setting activates the primary flashlight. Pulling the trigger switch in this mode will activate the laser.

My original intent was to mount the device on an AR, but with a weight well over one pound, and putting it out far enough to not obstruct the light from the flashlight, I thought it really threw off the balance of the weapon. Of course, this was with an 18 inch barrel with a wide handguard. Consequently, I decided to mount it on an AK. However, to do so, I needed to replace my Arsenal handguard ...

Arsenal Handguard

... with a Magpul MOE AKM Handguard.

Magpul MOE AKM Handguard

The reason was not any defect with the Arsenal handguard. I had chosen the Arsenal handguard not only because of its traditional shape but because, at least at the time, it was the only polymer handguard on the market featuring a metal heat shield. A very good handguard, and I appreciate the thoughtfulness of the Russian designer that put the palm swell in the lower handguard.

However, to use the Osprey Battlegrip, I needed to be able to mount it to a Picatinny rail. Because the Magpul front grip has M-Lok attachments, I could install a rail section to the bottom to mount the Battlegrip. As a bonus, the Magpul handguard also features a metal heatshield. While the Magpul handguard is nice, I do not believe it is as comfortable in hand as the Arsenal unit. But the Magpul handguard is well made, fit well, and was easily installed. It is certainly superior to most other handguards I've looked at for the AK.

Obviously, because of the location of the rail section on the AK, I had to mount the Battlegrip much further back. Because the magazine for the AK must be tilted when inserting or removing it, the Battlegrip cannot be installed as far back as preferable. Nevertheless, because the barrel is narrow, it does not materially interfere with the beam cast from the flashlight. Obviously, with the Battlegrip mounted further back from the muzzle, the weapon also balances better. The setup makes a handy CQB style weapon system.