March 13, 2017 -- A Quick Run Around the Web

"Mugging 1219 S Broad St Philadelphia PA 2017-01-10"--Crime Beat USA (2 min.)

Watch how fast this all unfolds. Although the video is nearly 2 minutes long, that is because it repeats the crime in slow motion and highlighting things. At normal speed, it was all over in 16 seconds.

Firearms/Self-Defense:

• "'Don't Move!' - Gunpoint Dialog"--Gabe Suarez. You've confronted a criminal, your firearm at ready. Now what? Suarez relates that in his law enforcement career, he yelled at a lot more people than he shot. But, as he notes, your commands have to be believable to the criminal, or the criminal may ignore them.

If the bad guy capitulates and either breaks contact and runs away…or surrenders, it is for one simple reason. He thinks you are going to kill him. If you convey compassion, or fear, or anything other than a hateful yearning and readiness to empty your magazine into his freaking face, he will not believe you…and he will test you.

He goes on then to describe the substance of your commands (following the KISS principle). Suarez points out, however, that if the criminal has a weapon in hand, "skip all of this and just shoot him." 

• "Fight on 6th street – what can we learn"--Stuff from Hsoi. Commentary on a surveillance video of a fight between women. Although the author raises various points, the basic takeaway is that the women violated "Farnam’s Law for personal safety: don’t go to stupid places, don’t hang around stupid people, don’t do stupid things (and be in bed by 10PM)."
• "Self-Defense Tip: Distance Determines Technique"--The Truth About Guns. If you have experience in martial arts, the concept of distance and controlling distance has been hammered into your head. Not only must you be aware of the distance at which you can strike, but also the distance that an opponent can strike or harm you. Hopefully, your distance is greater than his. Although the author discusses distance in relation to hand-to-hand, knives, blunt objects, and firearms, I am only going to excerpt from the hand-to-hand discussion that raises a good point: 

If an attacker is significantly larger than you, you have two options to gain an advantage. “Run” to remove yourself from the threat or improve your positioning (enabling a ballistic defense). Or approach your attacker as close as possible to neutralize the power that the length of their limbs can generate.

Of course, as the video of the mugging that I linked to above illustrates, you may not have time to worry about distance. 

Other Stuff:

• "'Carlos the Jackal' back on trial for deadly 1974 Paris attack"--Fox News. Ilich Ramirez Sanchez, "the Jackal," is already serving a life sentence for prior killings he committed in France in 1970s and '80s, but is now on trial for additional murders linked to him. It is interesting to contemplate that he was, at one time, one of the most feared terrorist assassins in the world, inspiring the novels The Bourne Identity and Day of the Jackal, as well as numerous others books and movies.
• Interesting question. "how big was the edge?"--West Hunter. "One consideration in the question of what drove the Great Divergence [when Europe’s power and wealth came to greatly exceed that of the far East] is the extent to which Europe was already ahead in science, mathematics, and engineering." But how far?
• "FBI Uses Geek Squad As Private Spook Army"--Anonymous Conservative. AC discusses the recent revelations of the FBI essentially outsourcing domestic intelligence to the Best Buy "Geek Squad"--computer repair and troubleshooting technicians. One point in particular:

Somewhere, the government has begun to grow uneasy with the populace, and now it is employing large numbers of private citizens whose sole purpose is spying on other law abiding citizens, maybe to control them, maybe to blackmail them into the network, I have no idea the underlying rationale. But it seems quite pointless in a normal American’s frame of reference.

• "So Let’s Talk About The States And 'Federal Compliance'"--Mason Dixon Tactical. The discussion of secure-ID, the states that have refused (or are dragging their feet) to comply, and the implications of having to use a passport for domestic travel.
• "PSYOP of the Mau-Mau Uprising"--PsyWar. A look at British psychological operations during the Mau-Mau uprising of the Kikuyu people in Kenya between 1952 and 1959. The article seems to pooh-pooh the idea that the insurgency was supported by the Communists. I would note that Obama's grandfather was supposedly imprisoned by the British because of his participation in the uprising; and Obama's father may have been tied to the movement, which, to me, suggests a Communist link. In any event, Obama's dislike of the British apparently derived from the allegations that his grandfather was mistreated by the British.
• "Revealed: Why sit-ups WON’T give you a flat stomach (and what you really need to do to get rid of that tummy)"--Daily Mail. According to the article, what you really need to do are the following: (1) build muscle (since muscle burns through the most energy--i.e., stored fat), (2) focus on compound workouts, (3) do regular planks exercise, and (4) focus on a good diet. And with that, I think I'll go grab a burger for lunch.