September 12, 2017 -- A Quick Run Around the Web

"Rumors of Japan's Imminent Demise Have Been Greatly Exaggerated"--Black Pigeon Speaks (13 min.). According to this video, Japan has changed quite a bit since I was there, at least as to the people achieving a better work/life balance. However, the main points of this video are: (1) that Japan seems to be doing fine, even with a shrinking workforce, without importing immigrants; and (2) its central bank is successfully purchasing back and retiring national debt, relieving Japan of the substantial outlays for servicing the debt. Both of these concepts have been rejected in the West.

• A new Woodpile Report is up.
• "Irma: Why Florida avoided catastrophe"--BBC News. Irma apparently hit the sweet spot where it was over land sufficiently long to weaken it before it hit a major city, and just west enough to avoid the huge storm surge that otherwise would have struck Miami. This isn't to say that there wasn't substantial damage, but that the damage was far less than it could or should have been.

• Related: "25 arrested for looting in Miami during and after Irma"--Local 10 News (an ABC affiliate). Going for the important stuff, like high end athletic shoes.

• "TFB Lightning Review: Ranger Point Precision’s 1894 Extractor Claw: No Case Left Behind!"--The Firearms Blog. Ranger Point Precision has developed new extractors for the Marlin 1894 lever action rifle that is much stronger and has a greater area of contact than the factory extractor. 
• Snatching defeat from the jaws of victory seems an inherent trait of the Republican leadership: "Ryan Blocking Concealed Carry Reciprocity, Congressman Tells Armed American Radio"--Ammo Land. 
• "More than 100 'high risk' prisoners escaped on British Virgin Isles after hurricane Irma as islanders now fight over the last scraps of food and evacuated tourists weep with relief that their hell is over"--Daily Mail.

• Related:  "Apocalyptic News From The U.S. Virgin Islands"--Captain's Journal. He quotes the following from someone on St. John (underline is mine):

We hear help is on the way. Let’s hope so. We need the military. We need men and women guarding our streets with guns. Our police force does nothing. They sit in their cars and yell at people over the loudspeaker. I kid you not. They’re not even helping with traffic in areas where it’s needed. You know who is? Our homeless people. Our homeless people are directing traffic, and our police are not. Let that sink in for a minute. Several police officers can be seen constantly at Ronnie’s Pizza – our new cell phone spot – and they’re scrolling through Facebook rather than patrolling our streets.

• Related: "Hurricane Irma Survivors Face Looting And Violence"--Captain's Journal. A collection of reports from different news outlets concerning the looting and chaos in the Caribbean. 

• Political correctness run amok: 

• "Portland Police Ditching Their Gang Database Because There Aren’t Enough White Gang Members…"--Weasel Zippers. "A review by Oregonian/OregonLive reporter Carli Brosseau last year found that of the 359 'criminal gang affiliates' flagged in Portland’s database as of last summer, 81 percent were part of a racial or ethnic minority."

• "[British] Red Cross Chief Laments: We’re “Too White” To Be Effective…"--Weasel Zippers. Racist. 

• "Paris: Non-Muslims Get Special Terrorism Screening—by Muslims"--Sarah Hoyt at PJ Media. Here is what the security theater looks like in the Paris airport: Muslim immigrants who can barely speak French (let alone any other European language) in charge of the enhanced security screening, which, by coincidence, is only of those groups which are clearly not Middle-Eastern or North African.

• Another myth shattered: "Poll: More Americans Have a Gun in Home Than Ever Before"--Washington Free Beacon. The article reports:

The Wall Street Journal/NBC News survey of 1,200 adults found 48 percent of Americans said they or somebody else in their household owned a gun. That's 3 percentage points higher than when the same question was asked last year. It's 9 percentage points higher than when the question was asked in 2011, the low point of the poll's findings for self-reported gun ownership.

Per these survey results, there would be an estimated 120,000,000 gun owners in the United States. And these are only the people that would actually admit it. Again, however, if firearms are behind violence, it begs the question of why the United States has such a low violent crime rate given the number of firearms. 

• "Building an AR 15 Upper Receiver, Do-It-Yourself Guide ~ Assist Videos"--Ammo Land. 
• Looks like I may be buying another Strike Industries product: "Strike Industries Reflex Exoskeleton Protective Mount"--The Firearms Blog. Many (most) of the small reflex sights are not built robust enough to survive a direct impact, such as being dropped on concrete or dropped on a boulder. Burris offers a shell housing that fits around the Fast Fire sights, but it consists of two wings that only protect the sides of the device, and not the top. This new SI system is somewhat similar, but the wings are taller and bend in slightly at the top to provide better protection to the top. Also, it is less expensive than Burris' offering, and fits a number of sights: Trijicon RMR, Burris Fastfire, Vortex Viper and Leupold Delta Point.
• "In At The Deep End ...."--SHTF School. River crossing in the post-SHTF urban environment.
• "Venezuela About To Have Far Fewer HIV Patients"--Anonymous Conservative. The medical system can no longer afford the drug treatments. As Anonymous Conservative notes:

The thing is, all the free resources have allowed us to keep millions of people alive who cannot survive once the economic collapse goes down. There is no way normal citizens are going to want to spend $60,000 per year to keep alive human disease spreaders who will infect more people, and increase costs even more. Even regular people, with random diseases will be having trouble getting their medicines once the free money train comes to a halt. Helping those who brought their diseases on themselves will bebeyond imagination.

• "Handgun/Carbine Combo: 6 pistol caliber combo advantages"--The Modern Survivalist. FerFal discusses the advantages of having a handgun and carbine that use the same caliber, the biggest of which is the logistics: the common caliber for both. I think it is a viable idea, especially if you are not intending on engaging enemies at ranges in excess of 100 to 150 yards. However, as I've pointed out before, the largest ballistic advantages from a long barrel carbine come when using revolver cartridges such as .38 Special/.357 Magnum, .44 Magnum, and .45 Colt. 
• "Prepping: How Much Food is Enough (Updated for 2017)"--The Survivalist Blog. 
• "Fire and Stone"--Blue Collar Prepping. Advice for building a fire pit / fire ring. Hint: concrete won't last.
• Diversity + Proximity = War. "Apparent 'Ethnic Cleansing' Is Now Unfolding In Myanmar, U.N. Says"--NPR. In not so many words, when Muslim terrorists attacked military bases in Myanmar, the military responded energetically. The result is a flood of Muslim refugees pouring across the border into Bangladesh, and Myanmar has constructed mine-fields to keep them from coming back. As I've indicated before, when you are facing an insurgency, the only successful way to fight it is to get rid of the population on which the guerrillas rely, whether it is the British gathering up the Boers into internment camps, the United States moving Indians to reservations, or what Myanmar is now doing by simply expelling them from the country. 
• "Why tattoos could give you cancer: Toxins in inkings stay in your bloodstream for LIFE and accumulate in lymph nodes"--Daily Mail.