June 7, 2017 -- A Quick Run Around the Web

"Get Off My Lawn: Practical Tips for Home Defense"

Lucky Gunner Ammo (5 min.)

Firearms/Self-Defense/Prepping:

• Articles related to the video, above: 

• "How to Prevent a Home Invasion"--Lucky Gunner. In this article, the author (a metro police detective) discusses both targeted home invasions and random home invasions. The former are generally because someone knows or believes that there are significant valuables stored in the home. The latter are generally the result of thieves mistakenly breaking into a house that they believe to be empty. The author then goes on to discuss five ways to harden your home: (1) use a security system; (2) get a watch dog; (3) use lights around the exterior of your home; (4) reinforce your windows and door jambs; and (5), as always, pay attention to what is going on around your house and in your neighborhood. 
• "Responding to a Violent Home Invasion"--Lucky Gunner. In this article, the author presents a few "case studies," then moves on to selection and use of a firearm and its ammunition. Similar to what Mas Ayoob has noted in the past, the author here observes while handguns can be more difficult to use under stress:

Long guns are taken from victims more often than handguns, as they are easier to grab and more difficult to employ in tight confines. Particularly in apartments, I’ve had several victims lose their shotgun to an intruder during a struggle.

• Nit-picking: "The truth about lice and how to protect your kids"--USA Today. Lice are generally transmitted from head-to-head contact, according to the article, because lice can only crawl--they cannot jump or fly--and need to latch onto hair follicles.  The article goes on:

       Parents doing a head check on their children should look for live bugs living close to the scalp and small eggs attached to hair follicles.

       A scratchy kid is a good indicator of lice. People with lice also may have a hard time sleeping and may have sores on their head from scratching.

       Parents should look for such symptoms particularly after kids have been together, such as after a family vacation or summer camp. 

       The next step is getting diagnosed by a family doctor, pediatric nurse or at a lice clinic, which administer a lice removal kit. Removal includes rubbing a gel-like oil on the head, which kills the lice bugs and a special comb to pull the eggs from the hair.

Other Stuff:

•  The Ramadan celebrations continue: "Iran says Saudi Arabia was behind deadly Tehran parliament building attack claimed by ISIS that left 12 people dead"--Daily Mail.  According to the article:

       ISIS earlier said fighters armed with AK47s and pistols stormed parliament through the civilian entrance while disguising themselves as women by wearing burkas, shooting security guards before detonating a suicide bomb, killing at least five and wounding 25.

       Meanwhile two more suicide bombers attacked a shrine to Ayatollah Khomeini, the founder of modern-day Iran, as another suicide device was detonated, killing at least two and injuring another 10.

Iran is Shiia, while Saudi Arabia is Sunni. ISIS is generally considered a Shiite organization.

• Celebrating diversity: "Nursery worker is left with broken ribs and needing stitches after she was punched and kicked to the ground and slashed with a Stanley knife by three girls shouting 'Allah will get you'"--Daily Mail. According to the article, police are unsure whether this was a hate crime.
• Second Wave Colonialism: "Beijing has fully militarised its manmade South China Sea islands and will add new military bases in Africa and Pakistan, US report says"--Daily Mail. Besides the islands in the South China Sea, the article indicates that the Chinese are building an airbase near the Horn of Africa, and may also be looking at placing one in Pakistan. 
• "War On London Bridge"--Rod Dreher at The American Conservative. Dreher is a peaceable man, based on all his articles and book that I've read. So, it is interesting that even he believes that something more drastic needs to be done about Islam in Europe:

I hope the British find some way to imprison, expel, or otherwise smash all Islamic militants and their sympathizers. These people are no better than Nazi supporters in World War II. This is war.

He also quotes from an article by Sumantra Maitra, giving a stark warning to English authorities:

As someone, who originates from a country, at war with Islamist terrorism since the mid ’80s, let me tell you something which I have seen and which might come to the West soon. The primary duty of a state is to protect its citizens. Nothing else. Not policing alleged hate speech, not giving moral support to drug addicts, not investigating idiotic microaggressions. But to provide security to those who pay taxes. If and when a state fails to do that, the citizens take up arms themselves. And you can take it from me, you don’t want to see that in your country.

• I've written before about how harmful government health and dietary guidelines have been. This article focuses on the bad advice that has been given about consuming fat: "We’re All Guinea Pigs in a Failed Decades-Long Diet Experiment"--Vice. From the article:

      The US Department of Agriculture, along with the agency that is now called Health and Human Services, first released a set of national dietary guidelines back in 1980. That 20-page booklet trained its focus primarily on three health villains: fat, saturated fat, and cholesterol.

       Recently, research has come out strongly in support of dietary fat and cholesterol as benign, rather than harmful, additions to person's diet. Saturated fat seems poised for a similar pardon.

        "The science that these guidelines were based on was wrong," Robert Lustig, a neuro-endocrinologist at the University of California, San Francisco, told Tonic. In particular, the idea that cutting fat from a person's diet would offer some health benefit was never backed by hard evidence, Lustig said.

        Just this week, some of Lustig's colleagues at UCSF released an incendiary report revealing that in the 1960s, sugar industry lobbyists funded research that linked heart disease to fat and cholesterol while downplaying evidence that sugar was the real killer.

The article goes on to describe how this fake science was given legitimacy by the American Heart Association. 

• This would require the elites to acknowledge that they have been wrong, which isn't going to happen: "London Attack Indicates It’s Time To Stop Pretending Western Values Are Universal"--The Federalist. The author points out:

The fact is, many thousands of Muslims in Britain, as well as Muslims throughout Europe, do not share what Prime Minister May and Mayor Khan and the rest of the political elite consider to be universal western values. It is uncomfortable, even embarrassing, to admit to ourselves that a great many Muslims in Britain and Europe do not much care for the West as such. Things like gay rights and women’s equality and free speech and the rule of law simply do not demand their respect. They do not cherish western culture or seek to preserve western traditions. Their allegiances lie elsewhere.

Since some 2/3 of Muslims polled in England said they would not turn in or inform on a terrorist, it is fair to view this as an insurgency, and to respond accordingly. 

• The blue state blues: "Ratings Agency Calls Pension Returns into Question"--American Interest. Many public pension plans (including California's) expect returns on investment to be between 7 and 8 percent, and plan accordingly. "Fitch Ratings will now discount U.S. public pension plan liabilities at a 6% investment return assumption, down from the current 7%, according to a news release from the ratings agency."
• Global warming alert: "Solar Update June 2017–the sun is slumping and headed even lower"--Watts Up With That. According to the article, the current solar cycle has seen very low solar activity thus far, likely the lowest in 100 years ... and we are still 3 years from the solar minimum. The article explains:

Solar Cycle 25 started from the blocks looking like it was going to be very weak and fulfill the prophecies of those predicting a Maunder-like experience for the 2020s. Then after a couple of years it caught up with Solar Cycle 24. Looking back over the previous three cycles, the solar polar field strength at this stage, three years before minimum, has been close to the value at minimum. On that assumption, Solar Cycle 25’s amplitude is likely to be two thirds of that of Solar Cycle 24, and thus 60. Further climatic cooling is therefore in store.