September 30, 2016 -- A Quick Run Around the Web

Source: "Hungry to know what earth would look like if humans left? Inside the abandoned mills hidden in a deep gorge that fed Italy's pasta industry"--Daily Mail.

• TGIF: A new Weekend Knowledge Dump from Active Response Training.
• "The Riotgun And The Bayonet"--Mason Dixon Tactical. The author suggests that this is the best weapon combination for dealing with mobs and rioters. The shotgun is impressive and quite good at close distances. And the bayonet? It is good for when you run out of ammunition, as well as having an effective psychological impact--no one wants to be cut or stabbed. In  his book, Fighting Submachine Gun, Machine Pistol, and Shotgun: A Hands-On Evaluation, author Timothy Mullin related the observation of an acquaintance of his that had served in WWII that a submachine gun with a bayonet was the best weapon for controlling prisoners. Apparently the only shotgun offering a bayonet lug, however, is the Mossberg M590A1.
• "Gear Review: Crux Ordnance GLOCK Extended Magazine Release"--The Truth About Guns. The author believes it is a much better release than the factory Gen. 4 magazine releases.
• "USPTO: FN Silencers, QD Pistol System And More"--The Firearms Blog. A look at some recent patent applications pertaining to silencers/sound suppressors.
• Boots: "Long Term, Hard Use Footware"--Loose Rounds. Recommendations as to specific brands of boots that will last the end of days.
• Blasphemy! "My Take on Bruce Lee"--Schafer's Self-Defense Corner. He begins:

There is no doubt the impact that Bruce Lee had on the martial arts world and cinema in general.  Even though he died in 1973 he still appears on magazine covers and people are still making movies and videos about him and his teachings.  There is no doubt that the practice of martial arts would not be so widespread and popular today if it wasn’t for him.  For that, we all owe Bruce Lee a debt of thanks.

That being said, I never cared for Bruce Lee.  Even though being a lifelong martial artist I’m not only expected to revere him but also get a partial erection at the mention of his name I have never been a Bruce Lee fan, in fact I’m more of a Jackie Chan and Chuck Norris guy.

• "Risk of big earthquake on San Andreas fault rises after quake swarm at Salton Sea"--Los Angeles Times. The LA Times reports:

“When there’s significant seismicity in this area of the fault, we kind of wonder if it is somehow going to go active,” said Caltech seismologist Egill Hauksson. “So maybe one of those small earthquakes that’s happening in the neighborhood of the fault is going to trigger it, and set off the big event.”

And that could set the first domino off on the San Andreas fault, unzipping the fault from Imperial County through Los Angeles County, spreading devastating shaking waves throughout the southern half of California in a monster 7.8 earthquake.

“The southern San Andreas is actually seismically fairly quiet. It doesn’t really make noise. So to have something right next to the main strand making a little noise — you have to pay attention to how it might be transferring stress onto the main strand of the fault,” said USGS research geologist Kate Scharer.

And the problem with the southern San Andreas fault — the stretch from Monterey County to the Salton Sea — is that when it goes, it’s probably going to go big, such as with a magnitude-7 or higher quake, Scharer said.

• "A Law Professor Explains Why You Should Never Talk to Police"--Vice. From the article:

James Duane doesn't think you should ever talk to the police. Not just, "Don't talk to the police if you're accused of a crime," or, "Don't talk to the police in an interrogation setting"—never talk to the cops, period. If you are found doing something suspicious by an officer (say, breaking into your own house because you locked yourself outside), you are legally obligated to tell the cop your name and what you're doing at that very moment.

Other than that, Duane says, you should fall back on four short words: "I want a lawyer."

In 2008, Duane, a professor at Virginia's Regent Law School, gave a lecture about the risks of talking to police that was filmed and posted to YouTube. It's since been viewed millions of times, enjoying a new viral boost after the Netflix documentary Making a Murderer spurred interest in false confessions. His argument, which he's since expanded into a new book called You Have the Right to Remain Innocent, is that even if you haven't committed a crime, it's dangerous to tell the police any information. You might make mistakes when explaining where you were at the time of a crime that the police interpret as lies; the officer talking to you could misremember what you say much later; you may be tricked into saying the wrong things by cops under no obligation to tell you the truth; and your statements to police could, in combination with faulty eyewitness accounts, shoddy "expert" testimony, and sheer bad luck, lead to you being convicted of a serious crime.

• Karma: "Mexico Is Worried About An Influx Of African And Asian Immigrants"--The Daily Caller.
• Evolution in action: "SEX ROULETTE Social media users fear terrifying orgy trend where mystery HIV carriers are invited to take part in unprotected sex parties may be spreading across Europe"--The Sun. 
• "Undocumented Shopping: Legacy of an African President"--Fred On Everything. Fred Reed begins by discussing the latest rounds of rioting and moves into discussing the implications. An excerpt:

It is coming. One day rioting blacks will try to loot the wrong store, burn the wrong house, beat the wrong white man, and hell will cut loose. Talking about law-abiding blacks, law-abiding whites, will make no difference at all. There were law-abiding Protestants, law-abiding Catholics in Ireland. Did that stop the violence?

Three solutions, or ameliorations, offer themselves: Repression of rioting and enforcement of the law. Segregation. And having it go on forever or blow up hugely. Choose. Refusal to choose selects option three.

The problem is not racist police. It is racist blacks. Whites are not burning the businesses of blacks. White people are not sacking the stores of blacks. White people are not calling for the burning of black suburbs. White people do not play the Knockout game.

We are blaming the victims. 

 Unfortunately, Reed sees no peaceful long-term solution, writing:

The bedrock problem, which most know but none dare speak, is that blacks cannot, or assuredly do not,  perform at the level of whites. Exceptions, yes, but the exceptions are exceptions. They never have performed, not in Africa, not in Haiti or Jamaica, not in Detroit. It is a frightful truth, but a truth. They know it. We know it. Liberals know it. Conservatives know it. No amount of pretending can change it. No amount of rabid ideological egalitarianism, of holding our breath and turning blue, will produce different results.

Read the whole thing.

• On the other hand, in "Tribes, by Robert Gore," Gore argues that Blacks have been done in by the devotion to tribal politics (i.e., identity politics) and its attendant call for collectivism. He writes:

Unfortunately, the individual rights basis of US law has been eroding since the ink dried on the Constitution, replaced by the only alternative: collectivism. By the 1960s, the legal right of the unproductive to exact goods and services from the productive was well enshrined. However, the war on poverty has actually been a war on the impoverished, including a substantial portion of the black population. Handing people the coerced fruits of other people’s labor makes the recipients parties to theft, and it’s all downhill from there. Incentives for self-improvement are destroyed, dependency takes hold, self-respect vanishes, and social pathologies effloresce.

Legal mandates justified by Orwellian newspeak treat black and other minorities as “more equal” that the unfavored. Based on statistical disparities and as a compensatory measure for “historical injustice,” standards have been lowered and preferences instituted: present discrimination as the remedy for past discrimination. Blameless individuals are penalized and beneficiaries compensated for sins committed before they were born. Risibly, proponents of these measures decry resentment harbored by the former towards the latter.

Receiving the unearned and undeserved hinders rather than helps the recipients, and renders them beholden and subservient to their patrons. Blacks have been the most doggedly loyal supporters of the Democratic Party and its collectivist tenets since the 1960s. As a group their status relative to other groups has not improved; by many measures it has deteriorated. These trends continued during the tenure of the first black president, which should come as no surprise. President Obama is a committed collectivist. Everything he has done, particularly Obamacare, has been consistent with his core philosophy and has had its characteristically destructive impact.

His opinion is that to succeed, Blacks need to abandon collectivism for individual rights (and responsibility).