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

"Israeli Bandage Demonstration"--ITS Tactical / Imminent Threat Solutions (4 min.)

As you probably know, an Israeli bandage is a compression bandage that can be wrapped around a limb and provide compression without someone having to manually apply pressure. This video demonstrates how to apply one to, for instance, a leg wound.

• I feel as though I should apologize for the break in posting. I thought I would have more time around the holiday, but the extra time disappeared. For instance, a few weeks ago, my ward (i.e., church congregation) had assisted with filling and placing sandbags to help prevent flooding. Well, at some point, sandbags have to be removed, and the local emergency authorities asked if we could remove the sandbags, take them to an empty lot a few blocks away, cut them open, dump the sand and put the bags in a dumpster. They would use a loader to remove the sand after that. So, I joined with other congregation members earlier this week in removing the sandbags. I will assure you that hefting sand bags in 100 degree weather was a good way to remind myself that I'm not as young as I used to be. Also, it emphasized the need for having dust masks available, since the sand in most of the bags had long dried out. After about 10 minutes of cutting and dumping, I wandered back to my rig to get a dust mask, which made things much more comfortable when I returned to my task. If you carry a "get home" bag, make sure to keep one or two dust masks inside it, or at least something that you could use in its stead.

So, on to more interesting things:

• "DEREGULATION OF SUPPRESSORS: New “SHUSH” Act Introduced to House and Senate"--The Firearms Blog. I guess you can teach the GOP some new tricks. A new bill has been introduced in the House and Senate (I presume to Committees) in competition to the Hearing Protection Act. Unlike the HPA, which would reclassify sound suppressors as firearms, the SHUSH Act would make sound suppressors firearm accessories and overturn any state laws prohibiting the purchase or possession of a sound suppressor. Thus, similar to the strategy that the liberals used for many years to ratchet up gun control, the Democrats and RINOs are being given a choice between the HPA (which would still require a suppressor to be treated as a firearm) or there being no regulation at all.
• If possible, it is advisable to include shooting from behind, through, or under a barricade (representing cover or concealment) as part of your training. One of the more useful training barricades is the one designed and used by VTAC (plans here in PDF). The problem is that although it is not the "walls" and barrels used in IDPA or similar competition, it is still a hefty size piece of wood and bracing that doesn't lend itself to portability. A company called GTG Consult is not now making smaller, portable barricades (that can even be assembled into larger or taller versions), and provide the same shooting options as the VTAC design. 
• "Portable Solar Generator on a Bike Trailer for Burning Man" by veggiecycle at Instructables (h/t SHTF Preparedness). The author used a 17 volt, 80 watt solar panel (scavenged from a solar lit street sign) because he was designing his system around a 12 volt battery. He also used an inverter, a charge controller (he recommends the Trace C40 or C12), and, of course, a deep cycle (marine) 12 volt battery. He assembled the whole thing on a bike trailer to make it portable, but notes that you could mount it on a balcony, a cabin, or trailer for towing behind an ATV or vehicle. The author claims that he has used it to power "such things as a small refrigerator, a skill saw, several drop lights, a Sawzall with a drop light, ghetto blaster and 3 strings of xmas lights all night, electric tea pot, and the list goes on."
• "Sailboats, survival, and SHTF"--Graywolf Survival. Another take on using a sail boat as a retreat and/or to bug out. The author notes that "learning how to sail will give you the opportunity to learn all sorts of self-sufficiency skills, emergency preparedness skills, and off-grid capabilities. As far as I’m concerned, the skills and knowledge required to sail a boat to a distant shore and live on the boat require almost exactly the same skills that preppers pursue." He also includes a list of books useful for learning to sail and getting the basic certifications necessary, and a couple blogs that follow sail boating.
• "A .338 Lapua for Under $1,700? Savage’s 110 BA Stealth Storms the Market — Full Review"--Guns America. The rifle has an MSRP of $1,622, but the author claims it has a street price closer to $1,200. He got 1/2 MOA or smaller groups at 100 yards and 1,100 yards. The scope he used was a Bushnell DMR II 3.5x21X with the G3 reticle. From what I found, the DMR II will cost about what the MSRP is for the rifle, which is a lot less than other long range scopes.
• The EU continues to fall apart: "Austrian Troops at the Brenner Pass?"--PJ Media. Michael Walsh observes that Austria is refusing to allow so-called refugees from Africa and the Middle-East to cross into Austria from Italy, which has made Italy quite irate. The Italians, "who essentially provide free ferry and naval escort service for any Libyan who steps a toe into the waters off Tripoli or Tobruk," are finally threatening to clamp down on immigration by closing their ports and impounding the ships belonging to "rescue" agencies. Nevertheless, Italy wants to get rid of those "refugees" it has taken in, but Austria is threatening to use troops to control immigration across the Brenner Pass--the main path from Italy to Austria. 
• The wages of sin socialism: "Venezuela’s Poor Rebel, Roiling Maduro’s Socialist Strongholds"--Bloomberg. The article is about how Maduro is loosing support among the poor because of the lack of food and poor services. The article describes the situation thus:

       Services are shaky in Caracas, particularly in the slums that surround the capital. Water pipes go dry for days at a time, trash sits rotting and lights go out due to an aging power grid. The flashpoint has been the failure of the neighborhood food program. Deliveries are sporadic and reports of corruption are rampant.

       “It takes us by surprise when it comes,” said Misleidy Gonzalez, a 21-year-old mother of two who cleans homes to get by. Barefooted children played on the cement floor of the wooden shack in the hillside Mamera slum, where she lives with her sister and niece.

        Years ago, the barrio boasted government food stores filled with subsidized staples.

       “Before you had to wait for hours, but you’d find something,” Gonzalez said. “Last year, I even waited in line pregnant. Now there is nothing. Only the bags.”

Meanwhile, the Daily Mail reports that Oscar Perez, the "Movie star revolutionary who attacked court with grenades dropped from a helicopter urges Venezuelans to 'stand firm in the streets' against socialist government in new video."

• Global warming alert: "Harsh winter took heavy toll on wildlife across western U.S." and "Record Summer Cold Continues At The North Pole." I'll begin to believe that a minuscule fraction of the atmosphere's chemistry plays a role in shaping the climate when the untampered evidence supports it. Meanwhile, Newsweek reports that "The Sun Is Getting Quieter And Is Displaying Some Very Weird Behavior" as it prepares to enter a solar minimum in the next couple of years.  
• "Means And Ends"--AntiDem. The author observes that liberals generally focus on the means of how to reach their utopia, but not on the ends the means will bring about. He writes:

Whenever you are confronted by someone who wishes to explain their beliefs to you – their philosophical system, the type of government they favor, their preferred social arrangements, and so on – there are a few questions that are always of tremendous value to ask: “Is what you propose an end, or is it a means? If it is a means, then what end is it a means to? If it is an end, what are its inherent benefits in and of itself, apart from those of any other end?” This will almost certainly throw anyone you ask off their guard, because most people pay precious little attention to these big-picture questions. They become so focused on the details of their favored system that they lose sight of them; and yet they are critical and must be answered if we are to avoid grave, even civilization-threatening mistakes.

And thus he turns to two of the current pet projects of the so-called Progressives in both parties: immigration and ethnic diversity. 

       Let us start by considering a test case: the issue of ethnic diversity. Is it a means, or is it an end? If it is a means, what are the ends, and do our observations of the world around us indicate that it is actually producing those ends? If it is an end, then what are its inherent benefits, and do our observations of the world around us indicate that those benefits are actually accruing? Does what we observe in reality around us square with what we were promised by those who supported increased diversity, without any appreciable amount of unintended bad consequences?

       My own observation of reality tells me this: I see no end to which increased diversity is acting as an effective means except for increasing the power of leftist political parties who want the guaranteed votes provided by the importation of millions of dirt-poor immigrants, and the profits of businessmen who want the cheap labor of illegal scabs. Since I do not support these ends, I must reject diversity as a means to anything beneficial. As for diversity as an end with inherent benefits, I say this: If diversity was working as advertised, with no serious bad side effects, then I would have no objection to it. But it visibly is not: the loss of social cohesion, the erosion of freedoms (such as freedom of association and even freedom of speech), the increased risk of crime and terrorism, the slide into socialism based on untenable debt brought about by the increased power of these leftist parties, the “slipping and sliding into Third Worldism” that the great Bob Grant so presciently warned us against – all of these and more present themselves to me in reality as disastrous effects of diversity that those who supported it did not describe as part of the bargain. Weighed against this are benefits – “enrichment” and “vibrancy” – the very unquantifiable vagueness of which testifies to their effective meaninglessness.

       In short, as they say on eBay: “Item not as described”.

• Related: "95 Per Cent of Gang Criminals in Stockholm Have a Foreign Background"--Breitbart.  The article reports that "[a]midst a wave of bloody, gang-related murders in Stockholm, and police warnings that the situation is likely to get worse, a report has found 94.5 per cent of people identified as being involved in the Swedish capital’s violent, organised crime scene have a migration background." Sweden, Yes!

• Related: "Clarion: Jihadi Cult Associate Arrested in NY With Firearms Stockpile"--Breitbart. The article reports that Ramadan Abdullah, "[a] long-time associate of a U.S.-based Islamist terrorist organization, Muslims of America (MOA), has been arrested in Johnson City, NY. Authorities discovered that he had a large cache of weapons inside a storage locker. A source inside MOA says the weapons were intended for the group’s 'Islamberg' headquarters in Hancock, NY." Interestingly, Abdullah had previously been arrested for his involvement in a robbery that resulted in a murder and for possession of bomb making materials. 

• Related: "Crime Drops In Phoenix After City Drops Sanctuary City Status, Former Cops Say"--Weasel Zippers. 

• Don't forget to check out this week's Woodpile Report.