February 11, 2017 -- A Quick Run Around the Web

"Sanctuary Cities: Democrat Machine for Population Replacement?"

Black Pigeon Speaks (8.5 minutes)

Firearms/Self-Defense:

• Check out Greg Ellifritz's most recent "Weekend Knowledge Dump". Given the approaching hot Civil War 2, one article that really jumped out at me was this one: "Targeted Attack On At Least Seven Indianapolis Area Officer’s Homes In One Night" from Blue Lives Matter. The article reports:

Squad cars that were parked in front of homes had their windows broken and their tires were slashed.  Alarmingly, those whose cars weren’t home still had vandalism done to their property, including graffiti on their garage doors.  The graffiti included “F**k WPD (Whitestown Police Department).”  At this time only police officer’s homes are believed to be the target.

As Ellifritz observes, "[t]hat means that the cops targeted here have been under surveillance for awhile. Someone (or a group of someones) is paying very close attention to exactly who is a cop in that neighborhood."

• "Should You Red Dot Your Shotgun?"--Get Zone. Probably not if you are an experienced shotgun shooter using a shotgun for hunting or clays. But "[i]f you’re looking for an optic for your tactical or defensive scattergun then the answer is a resounding 'Yes!' You may very well find, as we did, that the optic is faster, more accurate, and easier to use than conventional bead or iron sights, especially in low-light conditions."
• "Bushnell Rounds Out Its AR OPTICS Line with Red Dots, Magnifiers & Reflex Sights"--The Firearms Blog. Bushnell is expanding its lines of electronic optics. It reminds that the choice of optics, and the price point for what is acceptable quality, is constantly changing. Like electronics and computers, if you wait 6 months, something better will come along. And that is the problem: it is too easy to keep waiting. At some point, you just need to pick one and jump in.
• "How To Make Gunpowder The Old Fashioned Way"--Bioprepper. Contrary to the main photo accompanying the article, the article is about making black powder, not smokeless powder. Also, it is a rather basic explanation: it gives only one recipe, and leaves out any discussion of the best woods or other materials for making charcoal for the black powder (which is a subject all of itself). You can read more in this article called "All About Gunpowder." And, although aimed at people who want to make fireworks, another article discussing different types of woods is "Charcoal Making Secrets" at Skylighter.com. 
• "What a Raid Can and Can’t Do"--Weaponsman. He defines raid as "a military operation in which forces sortie from a friendly position to attack, disrupt or destroy an enemy position, but make no attempt to seize and hold territory, and return to friendly lines." I would note that in primitive societies, or r-select societies that are unable to form effective militaries, the raid (and ambush) are the favored tactic. According to Lawrence Keeley, in his book War Before Civilization, such tactics were responsible for the vast majority of casualties due to violence, whereas "formal" warfare only played a small part. Something to keep in mind as we approach the hot phase of Civil War 2.

Other Stuff:

• "Common Weed In Florida Fights Antibiotic-Resistant Superbugs Without Killing Bacteria"--Tech Times. The berries of the The Brazilian peppertree have long been used to treat skin infections in South America. Recent studies have shown that an extract is effective in treating methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA). From the article:

       Researchers likewise discovered that the berries do not actually kill the bacteria but only stop them from doing harm. Refined flavone compounds present in the berries repress the genes that allow the bacteria cells to communicate with each other. Blocking these signals prevent the cells from taking collective action.

       "It essentially disarms the MRSA bacteria, preventing it from excreting the toxins it uses as weapons to damage tissues," Quave said.

• Diversity is our strength: "Man, 22, accused of plotting pressure cooker bomb attack in NYC pleads guilty to plans to help ISIS and the attempted murder of an FBI agent"--Daily Mail. The accused, Fareed Mumuni, could have been Obama's son. He was plotting with 4 other men in the New York area to use pressure cooker bombs in attacks here in the U.S., and to travel to the Middle-East to join ISIS.
• "Terror Threat: Venezuela Has Been Selling Official Passports to Anyone Willing To Pay...In Iraq"--Town Hall. It's been a very lucrative proposition: according to the article, the Iraqi embassy employees involved have made millions of dollars.
• "Evidence Shows ISIS May Be Forging Passports"--The Daily Caller. If only we had a ban on immigration from the countries where ISIS is located....
• Ann Coulter summarizes the legal reasoning behind immigration decisions:

-- When the president's immigration policy is to promote international communism: The president wins. 

-- When the president's immigration policy is to transform America into a different country: The president wins. 

-- But when the president's immigration policy is to protect Americans: Some piss-ant judge announces that his authority exceeds that of the president. 

• Pat Buchanan discusses why we need to reign in the power of the federal judiciary:

       That a district judge would overrule the president of the United States on a matter of border security in wartime is absurd.

       When politicians don black robes and seize powers they do not have, they should be called out for what they are – usurpers and petty tyrants. And if there is a cause upon which the populist right should unite, it is that elected representatives and executives make the laws and rule the nation. Not judges, and not justices.

       Indeed, one of the mightiest forces that has birthed the new populism that imperils the establishment is that unelected justices like Warren and Brennan, and their progeny on the bench, have remade our country without the consent of the governed – and with never having been smacked down by Congress or the president.

       Consider. Secularist justices de-Christianized our country. They invented new rights for vicious criminals as though criminal justice were a game. They tore our country apart with idiotic busing orders to achieve racial balance in public schools. They turned over centuries of tradition and hundreds of state, local and federal laws to discover that the rights to an abortion and same-sex marriage were there in Madison’s Constitution all along. We just couldn’t see them.

As I've noted before, one of the problems with our Constitution is that it is the most easily amended in the world: you only need a majority of the Supreme Court.

• Anyone with a modicum of knowledge of history knows that it is not immigration, but an invasion: "Bounty hunters chasing immigrants on horses, a 110-mile razor fence and bans on new mosques: ANDREW MALONE reports from the EU country whose brutal crackdown on Muslim migrants makes Trump look liberal"--Daily Mail. From the article:

       With locals in Asotthalom — a traditional farming town with a population of 5,000 — finding groups of immigrants sleeping in their gardens and outbuildings, and others watching aghast as thousands streamed through the centre of the village on their way through Europe, the mayor decided enough was enough.

       He has introduced a zero-tolerance policy against all migrants, saying that the very future of Europe is at stake because of people he calls Muslim ‘invaders’ and ‘future terrorists’, and has vowed to stop this movement of people.

       ‘It is very important for the village to preserve its traditions,’ he says. ‘We can see large Muslim communities in western Europe that haven’t been able to integrate — and we don’t want to have the same experience here.’

       He has announced new rules for the town he runs, and wants the rest of Hungary to follow suit, banning the building of mosques, making the Muslim call to prayer illegal, and banning the burqa and the ‘burkini’ swimsuit. He says the measures are key to preventing Muslims ‘causing fear, alarm and shock among the locals’.

• "Migration Linked To Promiscuity"--Anonymous Conservative. He observes:

       Migrants are r-strategists. Migrants tend to have high carriage of the 7r allele of DRD4, which itself is linked to promiscuity and infidelity. Also, migration is linked to novelty seeking, which is a stimulus-craving that makes the individual need the stimulation of a new partner to sufficiently stimulate the amygdala during sex, and thus render sex fulfilling.

       Of course, r-strategists have fewer morals, due to diminished amygdala capability. This makes it much easier to operate alone to optimize your own personal reproductive ability, since in r-selection loyalty to a group is actually disadvantageous.

• Mene, mene, tekel, upharsin."Is California overdue for biblical, catastrophic flooding? History says it could be"--SF Gate. California rather regularly has catastrophic floods:

       ... Geological evidence indicates that California endures massive flooding caused by atmospheric rivers every 100-200 years. And settlers who moved to California after the Gold Rush soon found what the native population had known for centuries: Northern California is prime flooding territory.

       The most prominent example is the Great Flood of 1862, a natural disaster that still ranks as the largest flood in the history of the American West. Between Dec. 1861 and Jan. 1862, the West Coast received a near-constant deluge of rain. Sacramento received a stunning 23 inches in that period, turning the city into a watery ghost town.

       "The people are leaving the city as rats would a sinking ship" the Red Bluff Independent wrote on Jan. 14.

       As flood waters rose, it took entire houses with it. Little two-story wooden houses were carried off whole and eyewitness reports in the local papers said the flowing waters were full of furniture and dead livestock. Thirty foot-tall telegraph poles, which had recently been installed between New York and San Francisco, were fully submerged.

       That was hardly the worst of it. A Tuolumne County paper reported that 1,400 Chinese migrants died in the flooding state-wide. One-third of the property in the state was destroyed and 800,000 cattle died, a mass die-off that marked "the beginning of the end of the cattle-based ranchero society in California."

* * *

       Although the 1862 flood was the biggest, it was hardly the only major flood. In 1850, the newly built city of Sacramento was nearly wiped out by floods. In 1907 and 1908, back-to-back floods submerged the entire Sacramento Valley. By the mid-1910s, Congress had authorized major flood control projects in the valley, the first flood control work authorized outside of the Mississippi Valley.

... The 1862 flooding was due to an atmospheric river, a long, narrow column of vapor that brings massive amounts of rain with it. 

The Bay Area is currently on its fourth atmospheric river of the winter.