October 31, 2017 -- A Quick Run Around the Web

"Aussie Wool Blanket"--Wilderness Outfitter (10 min.)

Dave Canterbury shows how to use a blanket (in this case, a Queen-sized 100% wool blanket) as a mummy style sleeping bag, and as a cloak or robe outerwear.  

Firearms/Self-Defense/Prepping:

• "Cardio for the Man Who Hates Cardio: The Benefits of Rucking"--Art of Manliness. One of the benefits is that it provides a similar cardio benefits as jogging, but with less stress or risk of injury to the body. It also helps build lower body strength and back strength, and improves posture.
• "IS LEVEL IV UNBEATABLE? Armor, Caliber, and the Problem with Tungsten"--The Firearms Blog.  Nathaniel F. notes that with decreasing cost, it is inevitable that U.S. forces will begin to encounter individuals using Level IV body armor (or its equivalent), even in small brush wars. The material currently slated for use to improve bullet penetration against such armor is a tungsten insert. However, Nathaniel runs the numbers and reveals that, if China were to cease supplying tungsten to the United States, we would not have enough stockpile or other sources to allow the military to issue tungsten core ammo as a general purpose ammunition to all troops. 
• "Building a Reloading Workbench – Do’s & Don’ts"--Ammo Land. If you are lucky enough to have spare room in a basement, spare room, or workshop for a dedicated reloading bench, the author provides some advice (and examples of things not to do) when building a solid set up that gives you easy access to your tools and materials. 

        I'm not that lucky, and while I could make room in my garage, it is too hot during the winter, and too cold during the winter (even using a space heater). So, what I needed was a portable unit: something that I can set up on the dining room table for one or two afternoons, and then take down again. What I use is a waist high stand to which I've mounted my reloading press, a smaller stand to put on the table to hold my powder measure, and then I bring in the tools, dies, and whatever, and use the table top for those. The stand I have was originally purchased from Dillon, but I don't see that it is offered anymore. However, I found free standing stands from Lee's and Frankford Arsenal. There are also plans for making your own stand (see, e.g., this table top version for a heavy duty reloading press). A friend of mine, who was only using a small reloading press, was actually able to fit a shelf for the press and the powder measure in a wood box about 2 feet x 2 feet with a hinged lid that completely covered the press and his tools when not in use.

• "Top Executives Leave Remington; Furlough Days Scheduled"--The Firearm Blog. Like other manufacturers, Remington is having to cut back in the face of a relatively stagnant market (at least compared to the Obama years). In this regard, a few executives have left the Company, and the Company is going to use "furlough days" to avoid laying off employees.
• "How to Roll Your Own Kit"--Dark Angel Medical. Instructions for putting together a tactical medical bag for dealing with gun shot wounds.
• "Father Uses .44 Magnum to Shoot Grizzly Bear off Son"--Ammo Land. The father used a Taurus Tracker revolver to shoot and drive off a grizzly bear attacking his son. Although the revolver carries 5 rounds, the father only had it loaded with 4 rounds so as to not have a loaded chamber under the hammer. My response: who the heck still does that and why? Any modern revolver is completely safe from being dropped or struck on the hammer; and, even ignoring the transfer bar system and blocks that modern revolvers now use, even most of the older designs used rebound hammers that largely corrected the problem. 
• "DFNDR Light Weight Composite Body Armor | Big 3 East"--The Firearms Blog. An inexpensive, but light weight body armor solution.
• “Let Us Be Self-Reliant and Independent”--LDS.org. A brief discussion on how preparation is more than just storing food or having money in the bank, but is important as to spiritual matters, including being able to serve others as Christ would have us do. From the article:

President Thomas S. Monson has taught: “Self-reliance is a product of our work and undergirds all other welfare practices. It is an essential element in our spiritual as well as our temporal well-being. … ‘Let us work for what we need. Let us be self-reliant and independent. Salvation can be obtained on no other principle. Salvation is an individual matter, and we must work out our own salvation in temporal as well as in spiritual things.’”

In other words, God helps those who help themselves--He carried the bulk of the burden of saving our souls through the atonement, and all He expects us to do is reach out and grasp His rescuing hand. What we have to do to grasp His hand is individual and unique--that is, our tests and trials are unique--but involves following principles and commandments of general application. Part of our reaching out to Christ to grasp His hand is to provide Christian service to others. Thus:

        Self-reliance is a means to a higher end, said Elder Robert D. Hales of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles: “Our ultimate goal is to become like the Savior, and that goal is enhanced by our unselfish service to others. Our ability to serve is increased or diminished by the level of our self-reliance.”

         Only when we become self-sufficient, Elder Hales added, “can we truly emulate the Savior in serving and blessing others.”

Other Stuff:

• Rocket Man is having a bad day: "At least 200 people killed after tunnel collapses at North Korean nuclear test site, claims Japanese media"--Daily Mail. 
• "Great America Increases Security After Chaotic Night Of Teen Fights"--CBS San Francisco. Last Saturday night, an estimated 100 "teens" or "youth"--depending on the story--engaged in flash mob style attacks and robberies in the Great America' Halloween theme park, with some of the attackers using stun guns. Although the news articles are careful not to list or suggest an ethnicity, the comments to one of the stories seem pretty clear that most people believe that they were blacks, and maybe related to the "youth" gangs that have been committing mass attacks and robberies on the BART train cars. (See also "Assaults, robberies turn Great America into real-life scare"--Mercury News).
• Ya think? "Bill Gates Tacitly Admits His Common Core Experiment Was A Failure"--The Federalist. From the article:

        “Based on everything we have learned in the past 17 years, we are evolving our education strategy,” Gates wrote on his blog as a preface to a speech he gave last week in Cleveland. He followed this by detailing how U.S. education has essentially made little improvement in the years since he and his foundation — working so closely with the Obama administration that federal officials regularly consulted foundation employees and waived ethics laws to hire several — began redirecting trillions of public dollars towards programs he now admits haven’t accomplished much.

         “If there is one thing I have learned,” Gates says in concluding his speech, “it is that no matter how enthusiastic we might be about one approach or another, the decision to go from pilot to wide-scale usage is ultimately and always something that has to be decided by you and others the field.” If this statement encompasses his Common Core debacle, Gates could have at least the humility to recall that Common Core had no pilot before he took it national. There wasn’t even a draft available to the public before the Obama administration hooked states into contracts, many of which were ghostwritten with Gates funds, pledging they’d buy that pig in a poke.

         But it looks like this is as close to an apology or admission of failure as we’re going to get, folks. Sorry about that $4 trillion and mangled years of education for American K-12 kids and teachers. Failing with your kids and money for eight years is slowly getting billionaire visionaries to “evolve” and pledge to respect the hoi polloi a little more, though, so be grateful.

• "Europe's Next World War Begins in France"--Sultan Knish.  Although the Eurocrats won't admit it, they are at war with Islam. As Daniel Greenfield writes: "France is at war. That’s why there are soldiers in the streets." Read the whole thing.
• "Collusion Collision"--Diplomad. He writes:

        The Clintons and Obama were dead certain Hillary would win the election, and all this grotesque corruption and selling out of the nation's interests would be buried and ignored. Hillary's campaign and the Democratic Party leadership paid millions to a shady outfit (Fusion GPS) to develop a narrative about Trump being the Ruskies' Pet Poodle. In violation of US election laws, the Dems paid millions to foreigners, including Russians, to cook up the salacious but very fake "dossier" on Trump and help ensure the election would go Hillary's way.

        It's all coming apart now, a massive train wreck. 

• To protect and to serve.... "Two NYPD narcotics detectives are indicted for 'raping 18-year-old woman in the back of a police van while she was in handcuffs after telling her they were "FREAKS"'--Daily Mail. According to the article, the officers don't deny the sex acts, but claim they were consensual. I presume by that explanation that the officers are indicating that they accepted a bribe. No matter how it turns out, they both should be fired and relieved of their pensions.
• A reminder that we live in the 21st Century: "NASA reveals record-setting tests of radical ion engine that could take man to Mars"--Daily Mail. Additional tests of the Hall Thruster.