September 30, 2017 -- A Quick Run Around the Web

"How To Clean & Lubricate A Remington 870 (12ga & 20ga) Shotgun In HD"--Mrgunsngear (14 min.)

• This week's "Weekend Knowledge Dump" from Active Response Training. Lots of good information, but a couple articles that stuck out for me were "Assaulter’s Guide to Stairways" from Recoil Magazine, and "Bag of Tricks — Use Your Gear to Stabilize Your Position" from the Guns America blog. 
• It is like a bad monster movie, where the monster just won't die: "Army Says 7.62mm Rifle Competition Isn’t Dead Yet"--Kit Up. The article reports:

       The commander of Program Executive Soldier today refuted recent media reports that the Army’s senior leadership has not killed a requirement to field a new 7.62mm Interim Service Combat Rifle capable of defeating enemy body armor.

       “It is not dead. The decision has not been made,” Brig. Gen. Brian Cummings (P) told Military.com.

• Related: "Are Long Range Infantry Calibers Just Marketing Smoke and Mirrors?"--The Firearm Blog. Nathaniel F. asks the important question about the Interim Service Combat Rifle program: is it just the result of histrionic sales hype in order to scare up new military small arms contracts?

• "Scopes For Beginners: Parallax Adjustment"--The Truth About Guns. The author writes: "The — and I mean THE — purpose of a riflescope‘s parallax adjustment is to put the reticle on the same focal plane as the target. The result of doing this correctly is that, should your eye move around in relation to the scope, the reticle doesn’t move around on the target." The author cautions that most scopes with parallax adjustments may not be quite accurate as to the range for a particular adjustment, and you will need to experiment to find the proper setting for you.
• "Firearm Records"--Blue Collar Prepping. An article on the importance of documenting your firearms in case of theft or other type of loss. The author recommends not just recording the make, model and serial number, but also have a photograph or two to show the firearm, and to keep multiple copies of the records in order to provide information to police and/or your insurer. Although not noted in the article, I would remind readers that while most home insurance will cover the loss of a firearms, they general fall within a category of personal property (such as jewelry and antiques) where coverage is limited to a rather modest amount ($2,500 or $5,000 are common limits) unless you purchase a special rider that increases coverage. 
• "How to grow garlic"--Backwoods Home Magazine. An article on planting, harvesting, and using garlic. If you purchase starts, fall may be a good time to plant garlic.
• "Lessons learned from Hurricanes Harvey, Irma and Maria"--Bayou Renaissance Man. The lessons are broken down into 6 categories: storage of emergency supplies; using transport or trailers for bugging out; cash is king; security and looting; generator issues; and a variety of miscellaneous points. I recommend that you read the article because he raises a lot of good points. A few highlights, however:

• Put your supplies in plastic totes both to protect against breakage, but to make it easier to move or recover the supplies.

• Use an indelible pen to mark cans with their contents, because the paper label might be torn off.

• Don't try evacuating using an RV or travel trailer in high winds.

• Generators will attract the attention of your neighbors, both from the noise and the use of lights. Early requests to recharge a cell phone or tablet will soon escalate to more forceful demands to share electricity even as your fuel supply starts to run out. Thus, he advises limiting the use of a generator.

• He also has a couple more warnings about preppers. First, he notes reports of preppers that have deliberately taunted neighbors with preps, such as cooking and eating stored food on front porches and otherwise rubbing in the fact that they were prepared and their neighbors were not. Also, he notes that when relief supplies have shown up, people have become angry at their neighbors who have prepped believing that the preppers already have their fair share of food and water.

• "How to stop your devices from listening to (and saving) what you say"--USA Today. The article focuses on Facebook, which has been accused or listening or recording what it hears:

       If you are an iPhone user, go to Settings >> Facebook >> Settings >> slide the Microphone switch to the left so it turns from green to white. That turns it off. Alternatively, you can go to Settings >> Privacy >> Microphone >> look for Facebook then do the same. Note that you can toggle the mic on and off for other apps, too.

        For Android users: Try Settings >> Applications >> Application Manager >> look for Facebook >> Permissions >> Turn off the mic.

• Big Brother: "Mystery Surrounds Metal Towers Popping Up In Tunnels & Bridges"--CBS New York. I don't know what is more disturbing: that the MTA is putting up towers with the obvious purpose of spying/tracking the public, or that the MTA board authorized $100 million for the program, but don't actually know the purpose of the towers. I am guessing that the towers include various sensors such as cameras to photograph license plates and the driver, radiation detectors, and probably x-ray devices to image the interior of vehicles. 
• Immigration is a net drain on the economy: "Record $135 billion a year for illegal immigration, average $8,075 each, $25,000 in NY"--Washington Examiner. From the article:

       The swelling population of illegal immigrants and their kids is costing American taxpayers $135 billion a year, the highest ever, driven by free medical care, education and a huge law enforcement bill, according to the the most authoritative report on the issue yet.

        And despite claims from pro-illegal immigration advocates that the aliens pay significant off-setting taxes back to federal, state and local treasuries, the Federation for American Immigration Reform report tallied just $19 billion, making the final hit to taxpayers about $116 billion.

         State and local governments are getting ravaged by the costs, at over $88 billion. The federal government, by comparison, is getting off easy at $45 billion in costs for illegals.

• Life in a Latin American country: "Well-heeled Rio gets worrying glimpse of favela violence"--France 24. From the article:

        When hundreds of Brazilian soldiers battled heavily armed drug traffickers in Rocinha last week, anxiety flared not only in Rio's biggest favela but also in chic neighborhoods just down the road.

        Residents in the swanky areas of Gavea and Sao Conrado, just a stone's throw -- or a bullet -- away, comtemplate the occasional spike in violence with a mixture of worry and resignation.

• "Russian troops are dispatched to the border of North Korea and China just days after Putin warned a war on the peninsula would be 'catastrophic'"--Daily Mail. For some reason, Russia doesn't seem willing to accept millions of North Korean refugees should a war break out.
• Muslims in England move to the "cross-burning" stage: "Dramatic video shows ‘Islamic protesters’ shouting ‘Allahu Akbar’ and playing the sound of EXPLOSIONS at full volume in east London street"--Daily Mail. This is still terrorism, through intimidation, just as the Democratic party burning crosses on the lawns of blacks back in the 1950s.
• We need more of this: "DOJ files suit against company for allegedly not hiring Americans"--Fox News. Per the article: "The complaint alleges that in 2016, Crop Production discriminated against at least three United States citizens by refusing to employ them as seasonal technicians in El Campo, Texas, because Crop Production preferred to hire temporary foreign workers under the H-2A visa program."
• Third world problems: "South Africa's cannibalism case widens"--Deutsche Welle. "Hundreds of people gathered in front of the courthouse in Estcourt in South Africa's KwaZulu-Natal province in the country's east. They called for harsh sentences for the seven men who are accused of cannibalism." The cannibalism was at the encouragement of a witch-doctor.
• He has a phone and pen: "Trump to allow people to buy insurance across state lines"--New York Post. While this should, in theory, allow more competition and lower prices, the real lesson here is that the Republicans in Congress are so hostile to the President that they can't even bring themselves to repeal Obamacare as they've been promising for 8 years.
• "Nazism and Fascism Are Dead"--William S. Lind at Traditional Right. Lind argues that the two -isms were the products of their times and, more importantly, their leaders. It makes no sense to apply these labels to current groups, no matter how much Anti-Fa resembles the Nazi brownshirts.
• Some interesting Cold-War history: "The Deadly Germ Warfare Island Abandoned by the Soviets"--BBC. "During the Cold War, Vozrozhdeniya Island was a top-secret testing ground for deadly Soviet super-pathogens. Despite over two decades of abandonment, their legacy lives on." An excerpt:

        From the 1970s, the island has been implicated in a number of sinister incidents. In 1971, a young scientist fell ill after a research vessel, the Lev Berg, strayed into a brownish haze. Days later, she was diagnosed with smallpox. Mysteriously, she had already been vaccinated against the disease. Though she recovered, the outbreak went on to infect a further nine people back in her hometown, three of whom died. One of these was her younger brother. 

       A year later, the corpses of two missing fishermen were found nearby, drifting in their boat. It’s thought that they had caught the plague. Not long afterwards, locals started landing whole nets of dead fish. No one knows why. Then in May 1988, 50,000 saiga antelope which had been grazing on a nearby steppe dropped dead – in the space of an hour.

• "Rewriting our history: DNA analysis suggests modern humans emerged in South Africa 170,000 years EARLIER than thought"--Daily Mail. This research is based on theories of genetic divergence, which predict that certain groups in Africa split from their relatives between 260,000 and 350,000 years ago. Of course, that means that humans could have left Africa much earlier and continued to evolve, so this is more evidence against the out-of-Africa theory.
• "Yet Another Major Russia Story Falls Apart. Is Skepticism Permissible Yet?"--The Intercept. No, the Russians did not hack the 2016 Presidential election.