August 31, 2016 -- A Quick Run Around The Web

Video: "Why I Don't Like Lever Actions"--Alex C. at The Firearm Blog. To fully understand the author's position, you have to keep in mind that Alex C. is a militaria aficionado, and so he is evaluating lever-actions as a military weapon, rather than as a "working gun." In that regard, he is correct that a lever action is definitely inferior to the AR, for instance, or even most of the older bolt-action military firearms. However, that is not why the lever action has remained popular. The lever action is popular because it offers a light, handy rifle that works very well as a brush gun or for hunting from horseback. In hunting, or home defense, shots will rarely be taken from a prone position, thus negating any objection that the lever interferes with the prone position. It is more intuitive for most people than a bolt-action, and therefore (for most people) quicker for follow-up shots. (Besides, the rapid bolt work possible with a military configured bolt-action is much more difficult to accomplish on a scoped hunting rifle). Since hunting bolt-actions are not loaded using chargers or clips, the difference in speed of reloading is not a significant factor. And, besides, lever actions are fun to shoot.

• A message from a socialist paradise: "Venezuela Prepares for Massive Protests By Arresting Activists"--Reason. From the article:

As Venezuela prepares for nationwide protests calling for the recall of its wildly unpopular President Nicolas Maduro scheduled for this Thursday, its socialist government is arresting activist leaders and opposition politicians.

Glenn Reynolds, commenting on the foregoing report, suggests that "protesters should have a contingency plan for such arrests, and it should involve killing mid-level security officials and their families." But it is ever the curse of freedom loving men to act honorably even while their enemies do not.

• Signs of the K-shift: "'Go naked in Saudi Arabia and see what will happen to you': French mayor vows to ignore burkini ban court ruling"--Daily Mail. The ruling was from France's highest court, so this would be like a mayor in the United States ignoring the Supreme Court. In any event, this particular mayor went on to express a modern heresy, telling immigrants that "If you don't want to live the way we do, don't come."
• The Praetorian Guard Gestapo Department of Homeland Security will be monitoring elections: "Homeland eyes special declaration to take charge of elections"--Washington Examiner. I wonder: will they require erstwhile voters to show a valid photo identification in order to enter a polling place?
• "Why 'One Gun' or 'Three Guns' for TSHTF Is a Bad Idea"--All Outdoor. The author suggests that as we go through various stages of a collapse, we will want or need different firearms (and skills). For instance, he notes that in Phase 1 ("Martial Law and Trigger-Happy Authorities"), authorities will attempt to maintain order, including arresting anyone openly carrying a firearms; during such times, he suggests that a handgun (perhaps with silencer) will be the best choice of firearm. (I would note that this matches with what FerFal has stated based on his experiences from Argentina). It is possible that a society could dip in and out of Phase 1. In any event, the Anonymous Conservative warns:

Do not do anything in the Apocalypse because you think the system has broken down, and you are now allowed to simply act according to your morals. You will never know who or what is watching and recording your every move.

Phase 2 ("Lawlessness and Die-off") is the stage where law and order has completely collapsed, and where openly carrying an AR or other defensive rifle would be wise. 

Phase 3 ("Long-Term Survival") is where traps, snares, or primitive weapons may come to the fore.

• "What Life Will Be Like After an Economic Collapse"--Survival Sullivan. The author writes that, like the death of Detroit, it may come so slowly that you do not realize it until it is too late.
• "What Comes Next"--The Z Man. He predicts that Trump will lose the election and the Progressives will clamp down hard on the opposition, including the alt-right. (He suggests that even if Trump were to win the election, it would not be enough to destroy the will of the Progressives, but that they would still double-down on the opposition). But it is that repression that will bring the next round. He writes:

Just as the Persian Awakening was crushed, the alt-right will probably be crushed, but these things don’t go away. They go underground and regroup. They learn from the defeat and come back better and more prepared to take the fight to the enemy. What comes next is always worse than what the ruling class imagined the first time. In retrospect, they always wish they had taken the first offer and loosened their grip every so slightly. Whether of not the Cloud People recognize what is on offer is hard to know, but the way to bet is they invest everything them have in crushing their opposition.

What comes next, however, will be much worse.

• "Chicago: The shocking numbers behind the violence"--CNN (Warning: video automatically plays). As always, the CNN writers insinuate that the rising murder rates are due to easy access to firearms, and tout a new law that will increase sentences for people bringing in firearms from other states. Occasionally, though, someone is willing to speak truth to power, as John Kass does in his article "Chicago gangs no longer know or fear the police, and bodies pile up" at the Chicago Tribune. Kass explains: 

Some call it "gun violence," a definition greatly appreciated by Democratic politicians like those at City Hall. They can point to guns and take that voter anger over homicide numbers and channel it into a safe space.

But there are plenty of guns in the suburbs, and suburbanites aren't slaughtering each other.

It's the gang wars.

Politicians know that the gangs are reason for the deaths. Calling it "gun violence" is much safer, especially in wards where gangs often provide political muscle.

"Have you ever heard a Chicago alderman call out a street gang by name?" O'Connor asked. "No? Me neither."

The "real police" are cops who make arrests and don't live out their careers as house cats. And those I interviewed for this column see stark differences between this August and the one of 1991.

Now, the police force is smaller in real terms, meaning the number of officers available to patrol. One North Side district had only three cars working during a shift the other day, police sources said.

Manpower shortages combined with too much overtime lead to exhaustion. And loss of morale from the mayor's botched handling of the Laquan McDonald fiasco have wreaked havoc with command, with street stops down markedly. Yet taxpayers don't have a true picture of how thin that thin blue line has become.

Kass also contends that dissolution of the old gang units has impacted the effectiveness of the police forces: residents of the affected neighborhoods knew the old cops and would talk to them, while they don't know the officers in the reformed gang units.

• Your kidz are ourz: "A Huge Victory for Same-Sex Parents in New York Shows the Ripple Effect of Obergefell"--Slate. The New York Court of Appeals (the highest court in New York state) has broadened the class of persons who can assert rights to custody of a child to those who are not genetically related to the child (or adoptive parents). According to the article, the Court's reasoning was:

The New York high court called Alison D.’s [an older case on the same issue] rigid standard of parentage “unworkable when applied to increasingly varied familial relationships.” The court emphasized that hard-and-fast rules on parentage “inflicted disproportionate hardship on the growing number of nontraditional families” across the state.

This is nothing more than the imprimatur of the state on dysfunctional families and a further declaration that children belong to the State and not the parents.

• "Ebola Virus Genetic Material Can Remain in Semen for 18 Months, New Study Shows"--ABC News. "More than 450 men from Liberia were screened in the months after they contracted the disease and officials found that 24 men had evidence of Ebola in their semen 12 months after they had recovered from the virus, according to the new report. One of the patients had virus particles in his semen 565 days after his illness. Previously, the longest time Ebola was documented to be present in semen was 6 months." Also: "Researchers found that older men over the age of 40 were more likely to have viral genetic materials found in semen 90 days after they left treatment centers."
• "Hepatitis A Outbreak Linked to Frozen Strawberries From Egypt"--ABC News. Most of the strawberries were distributed in Virginia.
• "The Same Microbe That Led to Black Death Also Caused a Huge Plague Centuries Before"--Gizmodo. Genetic confirmation that both the Black Death of the late Middle-Ages and Justinian's Plague of the 6th Century A.D. were both outbreaks of bubonic plague (Yersinia pestis or Y. pestis for short). Interestingly, though, the researchers indicated that the two plagues were caused by genetically different strains of Y. pestis. Interestingly, the strain from the Justinian victims also originated in China. The article goes on:

Naturally, more research is needed into these newly detected unique genetic features. At least some of those mutations might be linked to the virulence of Y. pestis. And this particular strain turns out to be much more diverse than scientists previously thought.

Frankly, to me, this is suggestive that Russian theories of varying virulence of bubonic plague may be correct. According to Russian researchers, different strains from different reservoirs have varying virulence: i.e., the more deadly strains coming from marmots in Central Asia and China, and the less deadly from rats.

• More here: "Reconstructing the sixth century plague from a victim"--Phys.Org.