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

Video: "UK : The POLICE STATE via Snoopers has ARRIVED"--Black Pigeon Speaks. Note: the producer of the video has links to resources for those wishing to anonymize their web or email traffic. 

Firearms and Prepping:

• "Our Pandemic Preps"--Security & Self-Reliance. The authors discuss what they have done to prepare for the possibility or eventuality that someone in their family or prepping group may be stricken by an infectious disease, including a dedicated isolation/sick room, equipment and other preps. They also provide some discussion concerning masks and links to sources for various masks.
• "Beachcomber, part 1"--Neo-Survivalist.  In this post, Mr. Otzen travels along the beach, foraging various items that can be used for survival. As would be expected, there are many plastic containers (i.e., water or soda bottles) littering the shore. However, there is also a fair amount of mooring ropes or lines (which can be unwound to provide a great deal of cordage) and pieces of fishing net (which, as Otzen explains, can be worn underneath clothing to improve its insulative properties). 
• "The Theory and Practical Application of the 'Walking Around Rifle'"--SHTF Blog. The author advocates a light weight rifle suitable for hunting deer or smaller game or for pest control, that is not conspicuous (i.e., not military looking), doesn't have a lot of protruberances to get caught up in brush, with provisions for both an optical sight and iron sights. His suggestion is a light-weight bolt action rifle in a .22 to 6 mm caliber (his choice was a .222 Remington). I would note that in wooded areas where ranges are short, a lever action would also serve this role.
• "The 22 Reloader Kit – It Works"--Loadout Room. The author reviews the reloading kit from 22 Reloader that contains a bullet mold for .22 rimfire bullets and instructions on reloading spent rimfire rounds. His experience is that the kits work (albeit, with a fairly high rate of dud rounds), but it is slow work casting the bullets and reloading the ammunition. It is not a replacement for buying .22 ammunition.
• "Watch: Emergency Sand Anchor for Getting Unstuck"--All Outdoor. What to do if your vehicle becomes stuck, and you have a winch, but no tree or other object to which to anchor the cable. Basically, you dig a hole for your spare tire and use it as the anchor.

• Related: "Watch: Using a Land Anchor to Get a Vehicle Unstuck"--All Outdoor. Or, if you don't want to use your spare tire, there is a device called a sand-anchor that you can use to get your vehicle unstuck.

• "Basic Rifle Marksmanship (BRM) Series for your AR15- Intro"--AZ Rifleman. This is another good article on basic marksmanship, including stance, sight picture, trigger control, breathing, etc. However, the mechanics of the sight picture is specifically oriented around the standard AR iron sights.
• "The Convenient Overlap of M193 and the 77 gr Sierra TMK"--The New Rifleman. If you have a BDC reticle or dope care intended for the M193 round, it will also work with the 77 grain TMK round out to about 500 yards.

Other Stuff:

• "Is this the first written mention of Jesus? 2,000-year-old lead tablets found in a remote cave ARE genuine, claim researchers"--Daily Mail. The tablets are sheets of lead bound together with rings that certain researchers are claiming date back to a period shortly after the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 A.D. While somewhat unusual for that time period, metal sheets were used for recording messages, or in books (codices) for at least 1,000 years prior to that date (examples have been discovered all around the Mediterranean). Lead was often used because of its low cost and ease of working, but other metals (up to and including gold) were used depending on the wealth of the person creating the document and importance of the documents. Unfortunately, there is no clear method for dating the tablets. However, the lack of a radioactivity from polonium (present in more recently processed lead), consistency between the individual leaves as to the lead and corrosion, and comparison with lead from other sources dating from the same time period have led the researchers to believe that the document is authentic (at least as to its age). The tablets were first discovered in 2008. The article goes on to explain some of what is contained on the tablets, but, unfortunately, without setting out the actual translated text.
• "Erdogan threatens to let 3m refugees into Europe"--Financial Times. According to the article:

As tension escalates with Mr Erdogan over his clampdown on opponents after a failed military coup in July, officials in Brussels are examining the allocation of €600m in annual financial aid to Ankara as a result of the purge.

Money has already been diverted from infrastructure projects towards judicial reform and human rights initiatives but officials warned that Turkey could expect a “pretty tough conversation” in a looming review of the aid scheme for countries in membership talks with the EU.

The Turkish leader lashed out at Brussels one day after the European Parliament called for a pause in Turkey’s EU accession talks in protest at Ankara’s “repressive” and “disproportionate” response to a violent coup attempt earlier this year.

* * *

Mr Erdogan responded angrily to the European Parliament vote, saying he could open the floodgates to Europe. “We are the ones who feed 3m-3.5m refugees in this country,” he said. “You have betrayed your promises. If you go any further those border gates will be opened.”

That Erdogan is so confident in his blackmail shows how impotent is the European Union.

• "Social Science Neglects Big Questions"--American Interest. The author observes:

The story of the year is that voters across the Western world are rebelling against the judgment of “experts” of all kinds. People with advanced degrees, whether they work at colleges, newspapers, or government bureaucracies, are facing a crisis of authority as trust in institutions plummets and politics moves away from technocracy and toward the seductive simplicity of populism.

The author suggests that one of the reasons is that "academic social science tends to fixate on number-crunching minutiae while giving short shrift to more fundamental questions about institutions, legitimacy, and political culture." I would agree that there is a crises of legitimacy, but I suspect it has less to do with a concentration on minutiae and more on the fact that the elite are unworthy of their lofty status. The "elite" or no longer "elite" because of their education or intellectual acumen, but because of their connections and positions; and many of those outside the major urban areas have awoken to a realization that the elites are like the scarecrow from The Wizard of Oz--certificated but still lacking in brains.  

There seems to be a consensus that Trump supporters, for instance, are nothing but ignorant, backward hicks. Well, Trump supporters are not limited to those lacking a college degree; many, like myself, have had as much or more formal education than the supposed "intellectuals" surrounding Hillary. And even when considering those without college degrees, the "hicks" are not ignorant as the elite assume. It is no longer 1890, where a specialist class could legitimately claim they are special because of being more educated. Rather, to paraphrase another American Interest article concerning Brazil, "[b]etter educated and more highly skilled than their parents and grandparents, [Americans] today are unwilling to put up with the corrupt political structures inherited from the past."

And then there is the shear arrogance--hubris, really--of the elite. Perched atop the social pyramid, they have only disdain for their supposed "inferiors." I quote from a piece at The American Conservative called "Great Chain of Contempt":

The non-progressives whom Obama described as clinging to their guns and religion, on the other hand—NASCAR nation, country-music fans, people accounted to be dumb as dirt—count for less than dirt in the eyes of the progressive elite.

If you don’t believe me, look at their policies, in which saving the planet takes precedence over saving ordinary lives. Malaria kills nearly half a million people a year, mainly in sub-Saharan Africa. This can be addressed by spraying with DDT, which never killed anyone. It does kill birds, however, and the progressive worries more about them than he does people.

They’ll tell you it’s because they love the earth. Don’t believe them. One can’t love something that can’t love back. That was the meaning of Cardinal Newman’s motto: cor ad cor loquitur, “heart speaks unto heart.” It’s why you can love your dog but not your goldfish.

One reads about people who’ve married trees, about “eco-sexual” students marrying the Ocean (the Pacific, naturally). It’s all nonsense. It’s as silly as people who tell you they worship an impersonal god. You might as well worship Euclid’s geometry. He might be the ground of your being, but if He’s not a personal God, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, not of philosophers and scholars, he’s not a God with whom one can have a personal relationship.

So what’s behind the earth lovers, if it’s not love? Just the opposite. Enmity. Contempt. Derision. The goal is to establish oneself in the pecking order by asserting one’s superiority over conservatives, sincere believers, “white trash,” placing them at a lower level than the plant and animal kingdoms. It’s the ultimate form of passive aggression. It’s the indignation of the social-justice warrior at Yale who asserts her own privilege by asking you to check your privilege. And it’s the product of our factories of hatred, the modern U.S. university.

• God, He's a really smart guy: "CDC Study Says Teen Virgins Are Healthier"--The Federalist. From the article:

The report’s two major conclusions are quite stark:

• The virginal students rate significantly and consistently better in nearly all health-related behaviors and measures than their sexually active peers.

• Teens who have sexual contact with the same or both sexes have remarkably lower percentages of healthy behaviors overall than their heterosexually active peers.

For those interested in r/K theory, it is interesting to note the overall "rabbity" behavior of the slutty students.

• "German Intelligence Official Arrested in Islamic Terror Plot"--PJ Media. "The suspect attempted to pass on 'sensitive information about the BfV (Germany's domestic security agency), which could lead to a threat to the office.'"
• "China as the New No. 1? Not Quite"--IEEE Spectrum. The article points out that not everything is rosy with China: average wages/wealth is still quite low, pollution is reaching a catastrophic stage, and the population is rapidly aging. As the author concludes: 

We’ve seen it all before. Compare the Japan of 1990, whose rise appeared to challenge the entire Western world, with the Japan of 2016, after 25 years of economic stagnation. This is perhaps the best insight into the contrast between the China of 2016 and that of 2040.

• Let the fireworks begin: "Trump administration will pressure foreign states to probe Clinton Foundation"--New York Post. I'm sure that many of the countries that contributed money to the Foundation for special favors once Hillary was elected will be anxious to help out. (H/t The Anonymous Conservative).