March 6, 2017--A Quick Run Around the Web

"New CETME-L 5.56mm Rifle"--Military Arms Channel. 

Testing the CETME L from Hill & Mac Gunworks (HMG)

Firearms/Prepping/Self-Defense:

• "Why Chia Seeds Need To Be On Your Must Have Prep List"--Underground Medic. They are fairly inexpensive (especially if you buy them in the bulk food area of your local big box grocery store) and provide protein, fiber, and some essential vitamins and minerals. It is best used mixed in with other foods, and the author gives some examples from her experience.
• Cleanliness is next to Godliness. "Parasites And Foodborne Illness"--The Weekend Prepper. As the author notes, "[d]uring emergency situations, one of the first things to go is proper sanitary conditions. And that increases the risk of contracting a foodborne illness." The rest of the article is a primer on this important topic. 
• "Lactose Survival – How To Do Dairy All By Yourself"--Survival Life. This is another primer, but on dairy: how to milk and making cheese, yogurt, cottage cheese and butter. When I was a kid, my parents rented a house on a farm. The owners of the farm let us do the morning milking of their dairy cow and keep the milk. We didn't have a butter churn, but would simply put the cream in a jar until we had a jar full, and shake the jar to make the butter. It's not efficient, but it works, and is a great chore for a child.
• Greg Ellifritz had included this article in his most recent Weekend Knowledge Dump: "Bullet Points – 5 Tips and Tricks for .22LR"--Recoil Magazine. The five are:

(1)  Don't clean the barrel of a .22 rifle too often. According to the author, "[t]he wax, lube, copper and lead foul up the barrel and your rifle will eventually reach a steady point of impact.  If you clean your rifle regularly, your rounds will not consistently impact (i.e. the printing will change somewhat after each cleaning)." 

(2)  Drywall anchors will substitute for snap caps (just be sure to get the right size!). 

(3)  .22 rifles and handguns are picky about ammo--if you are having problems with accuracy or reliability, try a different brand or type of ammunition. 

(4)  "Wind is your enemy." The bullets are too light for any decent accuracy in a cross wind. 

(5)  Use golf balls as targets. They bounce around, requiring you to adjust for different distances, and are great for shooting games.

I've used the "resealable" plastic targets, soda cans and soup cans, even spent shotgun shells and tennis balls for dynamic targets for .22, but never thought about golf balls.

• "Throwsticks"--Functional Self-Defense. The author discusses some reproductions of Australian aborigine throwsticks (boomerangs) in particular, and then moves on to discussing throwing objects (e.g. books, bags) in a self-defense situation.
• "Alternate Concealment Methods; A Comprehensive Overview of a Few Popular Methods"--Concealed Nation. Pros and cons of using a pocket holster, ankle holsters, and belly bands.
• "The Late Training Update"--Priority Performance. The author describes the FAST drill: 

It is a 6 round drill that includes a draw to a low probability target, an emergency reload, and 4 quick shots to an 8” circle. It is shot at 7 yards, from actual carry gear, and the score is time plus penalties. A miss to the 3”x5” target cost an additional 2 seconds, and a miss to the 8” circle cost 1 second. There are rankings associated with the times. Five seconds or less is considered expert, less than 7 is advanced, less than 10 is intermediate, and over 10 is novice.

He cautions that the drill is intended as a test of skills, so you shouldn't be practicing the drill as it reduces its usefulness. He also goes over the Dot Torture drill (downloadable target at the link) and the 5x5 drill (5 rounds in 5 seconds to a 5” target from 5 yards, repeat 5 times--downloadable target here).

• Gun Nuts Media informs us that CapArms has Level III+ plates and plate carrier available for $200 at the moment.

Other Stuff:

• "After decades in America, the newly deported return to a Mexico they barely recognize"--Washington Post. This is supposed to be a sob story about the illegal aliens returning to Mexico, facing poor job prospects, high inflation, and some of them hardly knowing any Spanish. But here is the key item: "More returnees means lower wages for everybody in blue-collar industries such as construction and automobile manufacturing, where competition for jobs is likely to increase, economists say." As Glenn Reynolds points out, how can this be so when the narrative is that, when they come to the United States, they make all of us richer? 

• Related: "Illegal in More Ways than One: Identity theft in America goes hand and hand with illegal immigration"--City Journal. A 2008 article describing the epidemic of identity theft as a result of illegal immigration. From the article:

       As everyone knows, America is experiencing an epidemic of identity theft. In the last five years alone, complaints to the Federal Trade Commission from U.S. residents who have had their identity stolen have skyrocketed 60 percent, to 258,427 in 2007—one-third of all consumer fraud complaints that the commission receives. What’s less well understood, however, is how illegal immigration is helping to fuel this rash of crime. Seeking access to jobs, credit, and driver’s licenses, many undocumented aliens are using the personal data of real Americans on forged documents. The immigrants’ identity theft has become so pervasive that the need to combat it is “a disturbing front in the war against illegal immigration,” according to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

       The FTC’s latest statistics help show why. The top five states in terms of reported identity theft in 2007 all have large immigrant populations—the border states of Arizona, California, and Texas, as well as Florida and Nevada. People who pilfer legitimate identities in these states are much more likely than in other parts of the country to use them to gain employment unlawfully—the most common reason that illegal aliens steal personal information. In Arizona, for instance, 36 percent of all identity theft is for employment purposes, compared with only 5 percent in Maine, a state with far fewer illegal aliens. “To many law enforcement leaders in Arizona, this suggests that Arizona’s identity-theft epidemic is directly linked to the problem of illegal immigration,” says a recent report by Identity Theft 911, an Arizona company that helps businesses and individuals protect themselves.

• Related: "Illegal, but Not Undocumented"--Center for Immigration Studies. A 2009 article discussing the identity theft problem due to illegal immigration, with lots of statistics. One such example: "Children are prime targets. In Arizona, it is estimated that over one million children are victims of identity theft. In Utah, 1,626 companies were found to be paying wages to the SSNs of children on public assistance under the age of 13. These individuals suffer very real and very serious consequences in their lives." Further on it explains: "The true owners risk being saddled with the illegal aliens’ credit, arrest, and medical records. Victims may be denied jobs, unemployment insurance, Social Security payments, and Medicaid benefits. It costs victims hundreds of hours and thousands of dollars to undo the damage and recover their names and lives."

• Related: I linked to this just last week, but it fits here as well: ""‘False Documents’"--Victor Davis Hanson.

• "Mexico Launches Nationwide Effort In US To Help Migrants"--Associated Press. No, not migrants to Mexico. The article reports:

       Not only is the Mexican government not building a wall; it's spending $50 million to beef up its legal aid to migrants who fear deportation, a response to President Donald Trump's crackdown on illegal immigration.

       All 50 Mexican consulates in the U.S. on Friday launched legal assistance centers to form partnerships with nonprofit groups and tap lawyers to help those fearing Trump's policies.

The money being spent by Mexico is chump change compared to what they hope to get: an estimated $26 billion in remittances in just 2016.

• "Tancredo: Illegal Immigration Props Up Mexico’s Dysfunctional State"--Breitbart.

      Because of the relative ease of crossing the border and Mexico’s liberal definition of Mexican citizenship, we have the situation recently described by author Ann Coulter, who discovered that persons of Mexican origin now residing in the United States — legal and illegal– are equal in number to over 25 percent of the 130 million population of Mexico.  

       The Pew Hispanic Center says there were 33.7 million Americans of Mexican descent in the United States in 2012, and that figure is based in part on the official Census figure of 11.3 million illegal aliens, over 60 percent of whom are from Mexico. If you believe as I do that the illegal alien population of the U.S. is over 25 million, not 11.3 million, then the percentage of Mexican nationals now residing in the  U.S. — persons recognized as Mexican citizens under the Mexican Constitution — is considerably above 25 percent. 

       Few Americans are aware that in 2005, in recognition of the growing importance of remittances to the Mexican economy and thus the growing importance of maintaining a close connection with the millions of Mexicans who have moved north, the Mexican constitution was amended to bestow voting rights in presidential elections for Mexicans living abroad. In 2012, over eleven million Mexicans living in the United States voted in the Mexican presidential election.

       Let me put this in stark economic terms: Mexico’s national income grows in direct proportion to the size of the illegal Mexican population inside the United States. Does that help explain the Mexican fixation on U.S. politics? Mexico’s most profitable export to the U.S. is not oil or avocados or automobile parts, it is people. 

       Mexicans living and working in the U.S. send home over $20 billion annually in cash remittances — more than Mexico earns in foreign currency from tourism or any export commodity.

       In 1979, Mexico received only $177,000 (U.S. Dollars) in remittances; in 2016 it was $26.1 BILLION — over 90 percent of it from persons living in the United States. ...

• To protect and to serve whom? "Violent Alien Escapes After Attacking Border Agent, Tucson Police Refuse To Help"--Breitbart. 
• "San Francisco's withdrawal from national terror intelligence network hikes risks, officials say"--Fox News. City officials were worried that the FBI's Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF) spent too much time looking at Mosques and Muslims, instead of focusing their attention on what, I don't know: the Shriners or Boy Scouts?
• Diversity is our strength: "Two more bodies discovered in Virginia park linked to MS-13 gang following arrests of members around the country"--Daily Mail. "The group [MS-13] was started nearly 20 years ago in Los Angeles after millions of immigrants from El Salvador came to the United States after a violent civil war left over 100,000 dead."
• "CDC Concerned by H7N9 Bird Flu’s Sudden Spread in China"--NBC. The absolute numbers are low, but it is the pattern that is concerning: Since 2013, H7N9 bird flu has infected 1,258 people, the CDC said. But 460 cases (1/3 of the total) have been in just the past five months.