January 14, 2017 - A Quick Run Around the Web

"Build Your Own Copper Coil Alcohol Burner Stove!"--Iridium242. From the description: "A Simple copper coil alcohol stove you can make yourself. Works great and would be perfect for cooking or boiling water, either in an emergency/disaster or while out camping!" 

• Don't forget to check this week's "Weekend Knowledge Dump" from Active Response Training.
• "Double Action Auto – The Long Pull"--Recoil Magazine. Recognizing that people are, well, human, the author suggests that the biggest advantage to a double-action trigger pull (at least as to the first shot) is that even the best shooters will still put their finger on the trigger before shooting. As the author describes:

In structured force-on-force training, it’s alarming to see the number of people who put their finger on the trigger when they get scared and amped up. Under extreme stress, people resort to putting their finger on the trigger when they shouldn’t, and the phenomenon of “finger checking” is well documented. The distance of the trigger travel is what helps keep people out of trouble with a DA gun.

However, as the author notes, there are disadvantages--namely, the heavy long trigger pull on that critical first shot.

My first handgun was a DA/SA Taurus PT-92, and I have to admit that one of the reasons I selected that handgun was for the reason cited above: I thought it would be safer to have a double-action trigger pull for the first shot. But the PT-92 had something that would ruin me for DA/SA: a three position safety allowing me to not just de-cock the hammer, but also carry it cocked and locked. At the time, it didn't seem a big deal, but after I sold that Taurus, I later owned a Ruger P-89 and Sig 226, which only had de-cockers. In almost every instance of actually using the DA/SA weapons, I would shoot the weapon in single-action mode, even if it meant manually cocking the hammer (which is a good reason to have a decent hammer on the weapon) rather than struggle through the long and heavy DA trigger pull. 

• "Russian and Argentine Collapse: Similarities, differences and lessons learned"--Modern Survivalist. FerFal's main takeaway is to make sure that you have cash on hand for bribes (i.e., grease payments) and purchases.
• "Death by Boomerang"--Archaeology Magazine. Archaeologists in Australia found an 13th Century aborigine's skeleton which showed evidence of the person having been killed with a boomerang. According to the archaeologists, "[t]he lack of defensive wounds to the man’s arms suggests he may have been attacked while he slept, which, according to nineteenth-century ethnographic accounts, may have been a common tactic in prehistoric Australian conflicts." This is also consistent with the evidence addressed by Lawrence Keeley in his book, War Before Civilization. That is, Keeley learned that when primitive peoples openly faced each other in battle, it was mostly just for show and intimidation; rather, it was in ambushes and surprise attacks that the real killing occurred. Something to keep in wind should you find yourself in a situation without rule of law.
• "Obama's Phony War on ISIS"--American Thinker. The numbers released by the Administration about the war on ISIS are phony. According to what we've been told, after nearly 41,000 combat sorties, the U.S. has dropped 24,000 bombs during its multi-year war against ISIS, killing 26,000 ISIS fighters. The problem is, according to the same intelligence sources, ISIS's overall strength in 2014 was only 25,000 to 31,000 men. So, either ISIS is the most incredible fighting force in the world (maintaining its fighting cohesion after suffering anywhere from 84% to 104% of its troops killed just by U.S. forces) or the numbers are bogus.
• Q: "Why Did the Bureau of Justice Stop Publishing the Data on Interracial Crime?" A: Because it didn't fit the narrative.
• This is why we can't win wars: "US military admits it killed 33 civilians in botched raid on the Taliban after fighters used innocent people as human shields"--Daily Mail. Unpalatable as it may seem, if we can't get over the fear of collateral damage, ISIS will always be in the position to pick the time and location of battle.
• The GOP elites have learned nothing: "Push to Protect ‘Dreamers’ From Trump Gains New GOP Supporters"--Bloomberg.
• Why are liberals such cultural imperialists? "Boots recalled after owner discovers swastika footprints"--Yahoo News. Each tread on the boots' soles had a swastika, so a bunch of special snowflakes were offended and the boots were recalled. The boots were made in China. Apparently special snowflakes are culturally illiterate and don't know that the swastika is a symbol of good luck in China (as well as much of the rest of the world).
• "Civil War Appears More Likely – The Intelligence Agencies vs Trump"--Anonymous Conservative. He writes: 

To [the liberals in charge of the intelligence apparatus], they are the ones who will be running things, and Trump is merely a speed bump they need to navigate, to maintain their control of the nation. This is the Deep State, and it is all liberals and cucks at the top, working together as a seamless machine to control the nation.

Part of the problem is that the intelligence agencies and the State Department draw so heavily from the Ivy League schools, so they come into their careers already indoctrinated as globalist progressives, and convinced that they are superior to every other human on the planet.

• Related: "PETER OBORNE: Why I fear Britain will pay a lethal price if MI6's meddling with Donald Trump backfires"--Daily Mail. Oborne writes:

    Trump is now engaged in a fight to the death with the CIA, the independent agency responsible for providing national security intelligence to the White House and senior U.S. policy-makers.

     Only one side can win. For either the CIA will be humbled or Trump will be humiliated and destroyed.

• "Trump’s Nationalist Vision vs. the Gospel of Globalism"--Breitbart. From the article:

[T]he feds have been interventionist on so many matters for so long, and yet they were  almost entirely hands-off when it came to good jobs and wages; corporations were free to come and go—mostly, go.  The message to employers was, in effect, Do whatever you want to your rank-and-file workers, but you must, at all costs, protect wetlands, spotted owls, and the feelings of “protected victims” and their free choice of bathrooms. 

Read the whole thing.

• Globalism at work: "A superbug resistant to every available antibiotic has killed a woman in the US"--Science Alert. According to the CDC report on the case, "[t]he patient was a female Washoe County [Nevada] resident in her 70s who arrived in the United States in early August 2016 after an extended visit to India." Even before I clicked on the link to the CDC report, I knew the infection was going to be a gift from the third-world, because those in poor countries use antibiotics like its candy. That is why the really nasty antibiotic resistant strains of various diseases show up first in the third world. 
• Europe's Immigration Crises:

• "The Great Migration 2011-2016: Trafficking Routes to Europe"--Gates of Vienna. 

• "Germany: 1.17m 'Official' Invaders"--The New Observer. These are numbers for just 2015 and 2016. As the article notes, "[t]hese figures are only for those who actually officially registered as “asylum seekers” and do not include the hundreds of thousands who moved on to parasite off other Western European nations or who just 'vanished' into the increasing number of nonwhite ghettos springing up in major urban areas across the Continent."

• "A coastal crisis"--Euroweekly News. Spain's refugee centers are so overcrowded that they are having to resort to using jails to house new refugees from North Africa. The problem? Per Spanish law, they can only keep them in jail for 72 hours without pressing charges. So most of the new refugees will simply be released.

At some point, Europe will have to resort to force to stop the boats and ships full of refugees from Africa. The population of Africa is expected to double to 2.4 billion by 2050, and most of these are going to head to Europe to escape the poverty and ruin of the Dark Continent. 

• "Czech Anti-Terror Plan: Arm Citizens to Battle Jihadists"--The New American. If I understand the article correctly, current Czech law only allows a person to defend themselves, not others. But the government is planning on relaxing this to allow civilians to engage terrorists, even if the civilians are not, themselves, in danger.

• More cultural enrichment: "Syrian Refugees Open Hookah Shop, Cops Discover Sick ‘Secret’ In Basement"--Mad World News. From the article:

Fria Tider reports that after Swedish police raided a hookah cafe managed by 2 Syrian Muslim refugees, 28-year-old Khaled Azez Hegrs and 23-year-old Tareq Bakkar, they discovered a kidnapped Swedish woman chained in the shop’s basement. The brutalized victim was being kept as their own personal sex slave and had been repeatedly raped and tortured by at least 7 Arab Muslim men.

• "Europe’s ‘jihadi capital’ is in lockdown as Belgian police launch huge anti-terror operation on the same street of Brussels suburb Molenbeek where Paris attacks mastermind Salah Abdeslam lived"--Daily Mail.
• "Davos Wonders If It’s Part of the Problem"--Bloomberg. The elites that attend the Davos conference wonder why the peasants are revolting. From the article:

For the 3,000 people who will convene in the small Swiss town from Jan. 17 to 20, the 2017 event could be a moment of reckoning. At speakers’ podiums, coffee bars, and the ubiquitous late-night parties, they’ll be asking themselves whether Davos has become, at best, the world’s most expensive intellectual feedback loop—and, at worst, part of the problem.

They say "intellectual feedback loop." I say "circle jerk."

• "How a Children's Toy Could Help Fight Malaria"--Smithsonian. One of the problems facing clinics in the third world for diagnosing malaria is that they lack operating centrifuges to separate the blood into its components. A biologist has come up with a 20 cent solution: a device based on the whirligig toy to spin test tubes. He came up with a design that spins at 125,000 rpm; it takes only 15 minutes of spinning to separate blood sufficiently to diagnose malaria. The device is made of a disk of paper coated in a polymer and the disk is attached to two pieces of wood or PVC pipe via string. "When the strings are pulled, the disc in the middle spins, acting as a centrifuge for a blood sample attached to the center of the disk." This may have some use for survivalists and preppers interested in intense medical preparations. (See also this article from Tech Times).

• Related: The inventor of the device described above has also come up with an inexpensive folding paperboard microscope for use by third world medical clinics and teachers anywhere. See here for the Kickstarter page. In addition to microscope, he offers complete kits including the microscope, slides, and tools.

• "Are Conditions Ripening for Iraqi Kurdish State?"--Steven Cook, The Council on Foreign Relations. The author predicts that the Kurdish Regional Government in Northern Iraq will gain more independence--possibly even push for statehood. This will encourage Kurds in Syria and Turkey to push for an independent Kurdistan. He observes:

After the Islamic State is wrested from Mosul, however, the Kurds may have less reason to remain within Iraq. Kurdish officials maintain that Iraq’s political system will continue to be dysfunctional, and thus incapable of ensuring Kurdish rights. Still, the Kurds have shifted their position on how the KRG should secede from Iraq. Rather than pressing for the unilateral approach implicit in Barzani’s declarations during the summer of 2014 and spring of 2015, Kurdish officials now indicate that they prefer a negotiated exit, reasoning that good relations with Baghdad will be critical to securing a prosperous and stable independent Kurdistan.

But he also warns of disagreements between the Kurdish region of Iraq and the Iraqi government over control of the rich oil fields in northern Iraq.

• "Scientists have figured out how to make wounds heal without scars"--Science Alert.
• "Culture etched on our DNA more than previously known, research suggests"--CBS News. From the article:

     In a study published in the academic journal eLife, researchers examined DNA methylation — fingerprints of DNA that can be inherited or altered by life experience and shape how our genes are expressed —among 573 Mexican and Puerto Rican children. DNA methylation reflects individual circumstances — for instance, PTSD stemming from traumatic experiences, air pollution from environmental conditions, after effects from maternal smoking, etc. 

     They identified 916 differences in methylation associated with Mexican or Puerto Rican ethnicity. Looking at that pool, the researchers identified that only three-quarters of the differences between the two ethnic groups could be explained by genetic ancestry. 

      This led the researchers to theorize that a large fraction, one quarter, of the DNA fingerprints likely reflect biological signatures of environmental, social or cultural differences between the ethnic groups. 

And the modern heresy:

     “It furthers our understanding of the whole concept of race ethnicity,” Dr. Burchard, who collaborated with Dr. Joshua Galanter and Noah Zaitlen, said. “It tells me there’s something biological to race. It tells me that we have a lot more work to do. Twenty-five percent of what we see is not due to biological differences, but things associated with the idea of race and ethnicity.”

* * *

     The research suggests that abandoning considerations of race and ethnicity in medicine — as some academics, who view race and ethnicity as social constructs, suggest — would be a grave mistake, and that these lenses carry valuable insights for more precise and culturally specific medicine.