February 15, 2018 -- A Quick Run Around the Web

"South Africa: Failed State 2.0"--Black Pigeon Speaks (15 min.)

This seems a good follow up to the videos that Lauren Southern has released, but takes a broader view than just the murders of Boer farmers. Black Pigeon indicates that South Africa has the world's highest rates of rape, but I think that distinction is actually held by Lesotho, a small country almost entirely surrounded by South Africa. In any event, the infection rates for HIV is astronomically high as well. The author ends by urging viewers to contact national elected officials (Congressmen or MPs, depending on your country) or sign petitions about allowing white South Africans to move to Europe, the U.S., Canada, New Zealand, or Australia. 

• Does it seem strange to anyone else that yesterday, the Florida high school shooter was almost universally identified as "Nicolas de Jesus Cruz," but today it is "Nikolas Cruz"? Even revisiting stories from yesterday, the name has been changed--that is faster than the Ministry of Truth was able to change items in the novel, 1984.  For instance, in this story, the named changed in the story, but you can still see the original in the html address: http://www.news965.com/news/national/who-nicolas-jesus-cruz-accused-gunman-florida-high-school-attack/f4nUMhismcSpZ0wqHi7GLK/ .

        In any event, this is another case of a mentally disturbed young male. According to the Daily Mail, Cruz "stopped getting mental health treatment about a year ago and recently suffered the loss of his adoptive mother." More interesting, however, is that Cruz was a "known wolf", so to speak. A different article relates: 

        YouTube vlogger Ben Bennight alerted the FBI to a comment shared by Cruz on one of his videos back in September, when the boy wrote: 'I'm going to be a professional school shooter.'

         Bennight revealed that the FBI was quick to respond to the concerning statement, arriving at his office the very next day to find out if he knew anything about the young man. 

         That was after he called a local field agent, revealing that his initial attempts to send in a screengrab of the comment failed when the email address he found listed on the federal agency's website came back with a domain error saying that it did not exist.

        He finally heard back from the FBI on Wednesday, when they called with some additional questions after 17 people were murdered at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School.

Of course, the media is concerned, not with mental health issues or the such, but that the shooter used an AR style rifle. And certain politicians are already jumping at the chance to pass gun control legislation. For the conspiracy theory types, the latter article indicated that "[Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck] Grassley told Feinstein -- a longtime advocate of tougher gun measures -- that he planned even before the shooting to sit down with her and Senator John Cornyn of Texas to 'see what sort of an agreement we can reach on legislation.'"

           It is telling to me the number of accounts we have heard of various teachers or administrators (including a security guard) that were shot while shielding students. While I respect and honor their bravery, think of how much better they could have protected their students if they had been armed. They didn't have to die, but because their right to carry a weapon was abridged, they did.

• Interesting factoid: worldwide, an average of 3,287 people die every day in automobile accidents.
• "The background of the new Kalashnikov AK-12/AK-15 and how they are Engineered"--The Firearm Blog. Other than caliber (one is in 5.45x39 and the other in 7.62x39), these weapons are virtually identical. The article has a nice photograph showing the weapon and, laid around it, some of the accessories. The primary things to note about these newer generations of AKs is that they sport a full length Picatinny rail on the top (the dust cover is more substantial and hinges to allow a rigid base for optics), the safety selector lever has been changed so there is a shelf near the trigger finger similar to the Krebs enhanced selector lever, and that the rifle can use AR style adjustable stocks. There are also a couple small side rails for lights or whatever, and a vertical foregrip available as an accessory. 
• "The Budget Plate Carrier"--Load Out Room. The author gives a generally positive review of the Flyye Industries Fast Attack Gen 1 Plate Carrier, which can be had as low as $60 according to the article. The primary complaint is that it is not comfortable for longer duration wear. 
• "Mossberg 590M vs. Remington 870 DM"--Range 365. A side by side comparison of the features and magazines between these new models sporting detachable box magazines. You all probably know the mechanical operation and layout of the base Mossberg and Remington shotguns, so there is no need to address that. On to the detachable magazine bit. One of the big differences between the two is that the Mossberg does not have a magazine well: "The magwell on the 590M isn't really a magwell at all, as it's cut right into the bottom of the receiver where the elevator would be and doesn't extend below the bottom of the receiver. The retention system and release button is a small unit located between the front of the trigger guard and the back of the magwell." The Remington, on the other hand, has a magwell, and the release is a nice big paddle lever on the front of the magazine. The magazines also are substantially different. The Remington magazines are single stack, are currently offered only in a 3- or 6-round configuration; prices are $35 each. The Mossberg magazines use a double-stack system (so they are more compact for a given capacity) and come in 5-, 10-, 15-, or 20-round capacities; but they will also cost an eye-watering $101 to $140 a piece.
• While we are on the subject of shotguns: "The Trouble with Trench Guns"--American Rifleman. Although shotguns were available to, and used by, American troops in World War I, it is hard to find photographs of troops actually using them. The reason, this article explains, is that after Germany complained about the use of the shotguns, the U.S. decided to censor them from photographs from the front lines.
• I know that corruption is playing a large part in this, but still: "After Four Months, Much of Puerto Rico Still Dark and Damaged"--The Atlantic.
• Paging Colin Flaherty: "Shocking moment five armed robbers with handguns and AK-47s open fire at a game room in Fort Worth before robbing patrons and shooting 18-year-old woman in the leg"--Daily Mail. They were stymied by an interior locked door to getting into one part of the facility, so their haul was probably less than television shows had led them to believe. Although they all wore masks and had hooded jackets, one of the perps pulled his hood back and mask down in order to make a wardrobe adjustment ... right in front of one of the surveillance cameras.
• "People Have Believed a Lie About Rabbit Domestication for Decades"--The Atlantic. The "lie" (myth, really) was that rabbits were first domesticated by French monks around 600 AD. The truth is that no one really knowns when rabbits were domesticated. I would guess that it is a pointless exercise since, as r-selected creatures, the rabbit will hang out with anyone willing to give them food. In any event, the following bit caught my eye because of the implications it has for similar genetic dating of other species or sub-species (emphasis in original):

         Theoretically, it should be possible to compare the genomes of wild and domestic rabbits living today, measure how different those genomes are, and work out how long they would have needed to acquire those differences. Using this approach, Larson estimated that the common ancestor of domestic rabbits split away from its wild kin between 12,200 years and 17,700 years ago. Those dates seem far too old, and there are two big problems with them.

        First, to make these calculations, you need to know how quickly rabbit DNA changes over time—and scientists have estimated four such rates that differ substantially from each other. Second, it’s possible that Larson and his team looked at the wrong population of wild rabbits, which don’t actually descend from the same group that gave rise to domestic ones. Larson thinks that probably is the case.

So, basically, figuring the rate of genetic drift is apparently subjective, and probably not constant.

• "Berserk leprosy bacteria are wildly mutating to become extremely drug resistant"--Ars Technica. From the article:

         Strains of Mycobacterium leprae—the main bacterium behind leprosy*—are hypermutating and becoming extremely drug resistant. Researchers made the alarming discovery in a survey of 154 M. leprae genomes collected from 25 countries. The survey, published recently in Nature Communications, offers a rare genetic glimpse of the ancient, yet cryptic, bacterium, which still manages to cause 200,000 new cases worldwide each year.

* * *

        The team also noted step-wise development of antibiotic resistance, particularly in some of the hypermutants. Since the 1980s, leprosy has been treated with a combination of two to three antibiotics, typically rifampicin, dapsone, and clofazimine, though it’s unclear how clofazimine kills M. leprae. Prior to that, doctors sometimes prescribed single antibiotics.

        For several strains that were resistant to three or more drugs (extensively drug resistant or XDR strains), the researchers looked back at the medical records of the patients from which doctors isolated the strains. The researchers noted that, in several cases, the XDR strains infected patients over decades, with resistance to individual drugs developing one by one as new drugs were tried.

• "Dino-Killing Asteroid Caused Magma to Burst From the Ocean Floor, Say Scientists"--Gizmado. From the article:

New research published today in Science Advances suggests the impact of the Chicxulub meteor spawned large seismic waves that coursed through the planet, reaching mid-oceanic ridges where tectonic plates rub against each other. This triggered intense volcanic activity across the Earth’s ocean floor, and the release of magma trapped beneath the crust. This happened around the globe, extending for tens of thousands of miles along the mid-ocean ridges. The lead authors of the new study, Joseph Byrnes and Leif Karlstrom from the University of Oregon, say the ensuing global volcanism was likely a contributing factor to the mass extinction that followed.

An unstated implication from this is that it may have accelerated continental drift. One of the primary mechanisms of continental drift is the eruption of magma along plate boundaries which serves to force those plates apart, such as the mid-Atlantic ridge between the Americas and Europe/Africa. Obviously, is the rate and size of eruptions increased, it should have further acted to force the plates to separate.

•  Evolution as an explanation for the rise of life is so statistically improbable that it might as well be impossible: "Intelligent Design Is Not a 'God of the Gaps' Argument — It's Science"--PJ Media. An excerpt (emphasis in the original):

         In a new book, former geophysicist and author Stephen C. Meyer, a senior fellow at the Discovery Institute, explains why intelligent design is not a "god of the gaps" argument, but a viable scientific theory.

          "The theory of intelligent design, unlike creationism, is not based upon the Bible," Meyer wrote in Four Views on Creation, Evolution, and Intelligent Design. Rather than a Bible-based theory, ID "is based on recent scientific discoveries and what we know about the cause-and-effect structure of the world — specifically, what we know about patterns of evidence that indicate intelligent causes."

          Intelligent design focuses less on Genesis and more on the complexity of DNA and genetic codes. It merely posits that the world — and especially life — has the kind of complexity that can only be explained by intelligence. It does not attempt to prove the existence of a God, or to identify a God, but to present the case for an intelligence behind natural phenomena.

         Meyer explained that "god of the gaps" arguments fail to convince because they are arguments from ignorance. Such arguments "occur when evidence against a proposition is offered as the sole grounds for accepting an alternative position." For instance: Evolution cannot explain this part of life, ergo there must be a designer.

        Intelligent design does not work like this, the author argues. "Proponents of intelligent design infer design because we know that intelligent agents can and do produce specified information-rich systems," Meyer writes. "Indeed, we have positive, experience-based knowledge of an alternative cause sufficient to have produced the effect in question — and that cause is intelligence or mind."

           ID proponents like Meyer point out that even the most basic forms of life are remarkably complex. ....

         Furthermore, Meyer points to the work of Douglas Axe, a biologist whose experiments revealed "that for every one DNA sequence that generates a short functional protein of just 150 amino acids in length, there are 10^77 [one with 77 zeros following it] non-functional combinations — that is, 10^77 amino acid arrangements that will not fold into a stable three-dimensional protein structure capable of performing a biological function."