September 28, 2016 -- A Quick Run Around the Web

Video: "FBI Alaska SWAT team failed breach." This video is a comedy of errors. You can find more analysis of what they did wrong at The Firearms Blog.

• "Carrying a Pocket Pistol"--Handguns. Although this article addresses carrying a pistol small enough to fit in your pocket, including caliber choices and the pro's and con's to such small handguns, it also discusses some of the advantages and disadvantages to actually carrying a firearm in a pocket. The author writes, in that regard:

For those who may be considering carrying a pocket pistol, it’s important to have a thorough understanding of the pros and cons of this carry method. First, let’s consider some of the advantages to carrying a pocket pistol.

Pocket-carried pistols are lightweight, easy to conceal and convenient to bear. Pocket pistol carry doesn’t require the use of an over-garment, nor will you have to endure the discomfort sometimes associated with waistline carry, particularly with extended periods of sitting.

A small pocket pistol can be easily slipped into a pocket regardless of weather conditions and takes virtually no time to don. The convenience of pocket carry means you’ll probably carry your gun more often.

Even when carrying a pocket pistol, however, there are a few clothing-related issues to consider. First, you’ll want to wear pants substantial enough both to accommodate the weight of your gun and to mask the outline of your holstered gun to some degree. Jeans are ideal, dress pants might work, and fortunately, yoga pants don’t have pockets.

Wear pants with a pocket opening wide enough to allow you to access your pocket pistol easily. Even though you won’t need a belt to attach your holster to, wearing a belt with pocket carry is still a good idea because it helps prevent the weight of your holstered pocket pistol from causing your pants to sag, which could garner unwanted attention.

You can also tote a small pistol in a cargo pocket of your pants or shorts. Cargo pockets are larger, and therefore it is easier to get to your gun. But it’s also more likely your holster will move in your pocket in such a way that your pocket pistol is not properly oriented.

Also, since cargo pockets tend to be so much bigger than a front pants pocket, having the holster adhere to the pocket during your draw stroke is more problematic.

In cold weather, coat pocket carry may be a viable option. This is certainly a specialized carry method, often incorporating a double-action snubnose revolver.

If you’re using a snubnose revolver, you can get away without using a holster because of the heavy, long double-action trigger and because there’s no slide to get bound up inside the pocket. The idea here is you could actually shoot through your coat pocket without drawing because you can orient the gun parallel to the ground while in the coat pocket.

If you’re carrying a semiauto pocket pistol in that coat pocket, you’re going to have to use a holster, and of course, you won’t be shooting without first drawing the pistol out of the holster and out of the pocket.

• "‘In The Air’ With The CCI 9mm BIG 4 Shotshells"--The Firearms Blog. The author tries, and fails, to shoot a pigeon using these new shotshells with larger shot. The problem, of course, is that the rifling in the barrel destroys any tight patterning needed for killing a bird, and there just isn't enough pellets or propellant for the distances involved. In short, these types of rounds are only effective at a few feet or less. I know that, at least in the past, that there were those that believed that these rounds might be good for self-defense. If you are one of those, put the thought out of your mind. These shotshell rounds lack the power to kill small, thin-skinned animals beyond even a few feet: they will not work against a human. 
• "Reloading Techniques for Your Handgun"--Handguns. A primmer for reloading both a revolver and semi-auto pistol.
• "NEW Authentic Molot Factory AKs From K-VAR"--The Firearms Blog. Somehow they have figured out how to get parts in notwithstanding the current sanctions against Russia. Perhaps the sanctions don't extend to Molot? Small consolation for those of us that would like to see some of the new products from Kalashnikov be imported.
• R-selection at its worst: "Aid Workers Accused of Rampant Sex With Migrants in Calais ‘Jungle Camp’"--Heat Street. Interestingly, it appears that most of the aid workers involved in the scandal are women.
• "Don’t Look Now, but the Global Oil Surplus Just Tripled"--American Interest. The author of the piece notes:

... it’s worth taking a step back to look at the bigger energy picture here: the world is awash in oil (and natural gas too, for that matter), and those cheap hydrocarbon inputs will be welcomed by all sectors of the global economy besides, of course, the oil and gas industry. Moreover, it bodes well for future global energy security that after all the peak oil hand wringing, suppliers around the world keep finding and extracting more and more of one of civilization’s most important commodities.

• Related: "How Cheap Crude Is Hurting Saudi Arabia"--American Interest. According to the article, not only is the sharp drop in oil revenue resulting in job losses in the construction sector of the Saudi market (which is not that significant since most of the workers are foreigners), but also hitting the Saudi middle-class. How so? According to an article from Reuters on the same topic, two-thirds (2/3) of working Saudis are employed by the government, and the government is cutting their wages and benefits.

• "The ‘Fingerprint’ Of Global Warming Doesn’t Exist In The Real World, Study Finds"--Daily Caller. The article reports: 

Researchers analyzed temperature observations from satellites, weather balloons, weather stations and buoys and found the so-called “tropical hotspot” relied upon by the EPA to declare carbon dioxide a pollutant “simply does not exist in the real world.”

They found that once El Ninos are taken into account, “there is no ‘record setting’ warming to be concerned about.”

• "Panic, Anxiety Spark Rush To Build Luxury Bunkers For L.A.'s Superrich"--Hollywood Reporter. From the article:

 Gary Lynch, GM at Rising S Bunkers, a Texas-based company that specializes in underground bunkers and services scores of Los Angeles residences, says that sales at the most upscale end of the market — mainly to actors, pro athletes and politicians (who require signed NDAs) — have increased 700 percent this year compared with 2015, and overall sales have risen 150 percent. 

The article has some photographs of various features of some of the bunkers, including secret doors to access the bunker, living and recreation quarters, garages, etc. 

• "US owes black people reparations over slavery and has not confronted its history of 'racial terrorism', UN panel says"--Daily Mail. According to the article, "the UN working group on people of African descent warned that blacks in the US were facing a 'human rights crisis'," that could only be assuaged by reparations "including 'elements of apology' and a form of 'debt relief' to the descendants of enslaved people." Of course, there is no mention of reparations or apologies from the West African nations and tribes that captured and sold the slaves to traders because that would temper the divisiveness of the finding, which is its whole purpose: to further aggravate race relations in the United States. Not that making reparations would do any good. I think that Brett Stevens may have a valid point in a recent op-ed where he wrote:

There is no possible solution for African-American angst in America. No matter what we do — trillions in welfare, lawsuits, benefits, affirmative action and draconian civil rights laws — they will always know that this society was founded by people other than them, designed for people other than them, and that African-Americans are only here because they were sold in Africa to slave traders for use as farm labor here.

Even with a black President, and former black Secretaries of Defense and State, with black Supreme Court justices and Martin Luther King Jr. as our official American Gandhi, black discontent roils. It does so not because of poverty, but because of the denial of pride.

For African-Americans, or any other population, to have pride in their nation they need to know it was founded by them, designed for them, and ruled by them since its creation. They need to have a sense of belonging that comes only from being the group that is the nation, and not one group of many, especially not one whose original utility was as chattel labor.

No matter what we do in response to this latest shooting and the resulting riots, nothing can ever be done that will make African-Americans happy, because the condition of their unhappiness is created by diversity.

• Just a reminder that we live in the 21st Century: "Is there water lurking beneath Pluto's surface? Ocean could be 62 miles deep and as salty as the Dead Sea"--Daily Mail. Some more findings and puzzles from the New Horizon's flyby of Pluto.