March 1, 2018 -- A Quick Run Around the Web

Source: "From crumbling ruins to fire-damaged forts: Haunting images show the world's most incredible abandoned castles"--Daily Mail. The article has many more photographs of the ruins of castles and fortifications from around the world. Check it out.

• "Scout Knives and Lessons Learned"--The Truth About Knives. For many of us, our first exposure to having our own knife and carrying one was a scout style folder. I remember the first one I received, a hand-me-down from a grandfather that featured a couple blades and an awl. I was 5 years old at the time. Sure, I cut my thumb within a few days while trying to whittle, but I patched it up without telling my parents and carried that knife through my high school years. One of my Uncles showed me how to sharpen it on a stone with a bit of spit. 
• I saw on the Survivalist Blog recently that Rural Revolution (a blog by a North Idaho couple) has added bunch of e-books on specific topics for those of you living on a small homestead (their country living series), as well as some bundles of books on related topics. The books appear to be short and address a single topic: e.g., basics of canning, water-bath canning, pressure canning. The bundles group related books: e.g., multiple books on canning.
• It looks like Walmart has decided to join Kroger (Fred Meyer in this area) and others in raising the age for purchasing firearms and/or ammunition to 21 years of age. Walmart's decision should go over like a lead balloon with their customers. 
• The stand-down order from the Broward County Sheriff's Office: "Dispatch logs reveal commanding officer initially ordered police to 'stage' and 'set a perimeter' outside Florida high school while the gunman was still on the loose"--Daily Mail. From the article:

        Police officers may have been ordered to 'stage' and set a 'perimeter' rather than enter and pursue the Florida high school shooter while he was still on the loose, according to new details.

        Dispatch logs from that day appear to show a commanding officers tell crews to stage and form a perimeter, prior to the time the shooter had been located, Fox News reported on Wednesday. 

       If true, this is in direct contrast to stated Broward County Sheriff's Office (BSO) policy on how to approach an active shooter situation.

       The BSO, which was the commanding agency on the scene that day, would not comment on allegations of any bad commands that may have been given, or on the timeline of the shooting.

But they all went home safely at the end of their shift.

• "'The time for reconciliation is over': South Africa votes to confiscate white-owned land"--New Zealand Herald. The article reports:

        South Africa's parliament has voted in favour of a motion that will begin the process of amending the country's Constitution to allow for the confiscation of white-owned land without compensation.

       The motion was brought by Julius Malema, leader of the radical Marxist opposition party the Economic Freedom Fighters, and passed overwhelmingly by 241 votes to 83 against. The only parties who did not support the motion were the Democratic Alliance, Freedom Front Plus, Cope and the African Christian Democratic Party.

      It was amended but supported by the ruling African National Congress and new president Cyril Ramaphosa, who made land expropriation a key pillar of his policy platform after taking over from ousted PM Jacob Zuma earlier this month.

       "The time for reconciliation is over. Now is the time for justice," Malema was quoted by News24 as telling parliament. "We must ensure that we restore the dignity of our people without compensating the criminals who stole our land."

       This reminds me of the beginning of the Soviet purges against the Kulaks--the wealthy and productive farmers in Russia at the time of the Communist Revolution.

        Key points to keep in mind: South Africa went through a "reconciliation" commission that was supposed to address past wrongs but that was apparently not enough for the black population (and it will never be enough); confiscating the land from the white farmers and giving it to those that lack the ability to successfully farm it will reduce agricultural production and lead to new crises and new demands; the description of the white farmers as "criminals" who "stole" the land is classic de-humanization of an enemy. This is all directly the result of white South Africans surrendering political power to the blacks, which have since voted tribally. Whites have largely given up their guns and are grossly outnumbered, so there is really no hope that they can stop what is coming.

       The key lesson from this is that Western civilization (which is a humanitarian based civilization) will always lose out to tribal societies when it comes to politics; tribal societies are, therefore, incompatible with Western civilization:

Recent agent-based computer simulations suggest that ethnocentrism, often thought to rely on complex social cognition and learning, may have arisen through biological evolution. From a random start, ethnocentric strategies dominate other possible strategies (selfish, traitorous, and humanitarian) based on cooperation or non-cooperation with in-group and out-group agents. Here we show that ethnocentrism eventually overcomes its closest competitor, humanitarianism, by exploiting humanitarian cooperation across group boundaries as world population saturates.

There are only two options available to white Westerners: (i) begin to act in an ethnocentric manner and abandon humanitarianism, or (ii) expel all those groups from the west that are ethnocentric in order to preserve our humanitarianism.

• Kurt Schlichter writes at Town Hall: "They Don’t Hate The NRA. They Hate You." He sees through all the b.s. about "its for the children" to the real movement going on here: the disarmament of Americans prior to some great social reconstruction. He explains:

         Your life means nothing to them, just as the lost lives in Chicago mean nothing to them. There are several Parklands a month in the Windy City, but the Democrats who run it don’t care. They know where the bad guys are. They won’t act. Instead, they feign concern over the children because faking outrage will help them do what they really want done. That’s why you had them arguing that the idea of a cop actually doing his job was crazy.

            They want you disarmed and disempowered, not the nuts, not the criminals, not the terrorist, not the illegal aliens. You. Why?

            Because they hate you.

            They hate that you won’t submit.

            They hate that you won’t obey.

            And they hate that you refuse to give up your only means of protecting yourself and preserving your rights. 

            They hate you.

Read the whole thing.

• A tale of disarmed populations: "London now more dangerous than New York City, crime stats suggest"--The Telegraph. From the article:

        London is now more crime ridden and dangerous than New York City, with rape, robbery and violent offences far higher on this side of the Atlantic.

         The latest statistics, published earlier this week, revealed that crime across the UK was up by 13 per cent, with a surge in violence in the capital blamed for much of the increase.

This is actually not new: the UK has for over a decade enjoyed higher violent crime rates than the U.S. The article blames the difference on the way policing is conducted: New York has heavily invested in more active policing (i.e., the unpopular stop and frisking), whereas London police have gone full politically correct. But I'm sure that the increased cultural diversity has played a part. It is not like London has been becoming more British in recent years.

• Those of you familiar with r/K theory or that follow the Anonymous Conservative's blog will recognize the significance of this immediately: "How a whiff of sweat can sway your vote: Donald Trump supporters are more likely to be disgusted by body odours"--Daily Mail. The literature will sometimes discuss this as part of the disgust response, or sometimes in terms of assigning a higher value to purity, but they are two sides of the same coin. The reason that liberals will tolerate body odours are the same biological and psychological reasons that they are tolerant of or embrace deviant sexual practices, sexualization of children, and gushing over third world hell holes. The article, of course, attempts to paint the disgust response in a bad light for conservatives:

        A study has found supporters of Donald Trump are more likely to be disgusted by body odours, including the smell of feet, sweat and someone breaking wind.

       The findings are linked to a deep-seated ‘defence mechanism’ to avoid infectious diseases, which are linked to bad smells, according to psychologists.

       The study’s lead author Dr Jonas Olofsson, from the University of Stockholm, said: ‘There was a solid connection between how strongly someone was disgusted by smells and their desire to have a dictator-like leader who can suppress radical protest movements and ensure that different groups “stay in their places”.

What the researchers contend are a tendency to want a "dictator-like leader" is nothing of the sort; rather, it is a sign of another K characteristic shared by conservatives: in-group loyalty. Liberals will betray their fellow countrymen on a whim; true conservatives, on the other hand, won't.