May 16, 2018 -- A Quick Run Around The Web

"The Police During SHTF"--The Contingency Plan (4 min.)

The producer of this video speculates as to how police will act during any SHTF scenario. However, he focuses on a sudden SHTF scenarios, instead of slow-motion collapses which would allow law enforcement to adapt. My guess is that police will do what they always do: become corrupt. This will show up with both bribery and petty protection rackets (remember from the book Serpico, the author described officers as expecting free meals from restaurants, and some received bribes to keep a blind eye to organized crime activities), and perhaps, similar to Brazil, execution squads killing the worst of criminals. I'm not saying that every officer will be like this, but we will see it become epidemic.

• "RG101: The Universal Revolver Reload"--Revolver Guy. A description of one particular method for quickly reloading a revolver which uses the dominant hand to perform all the fine motor actions, while the non-dominant hand is mostly to hold onto the revolver. A step-by-step description and photographs.
• Quoted at Defensive Pistol Craft:

    The private citizen's rules of engagement are much better than the police officer's.  You don't have to warn the bad guy.  You don't have to ask the bad guy to surrender.  You don't have to attempt to arrest.  You don't have to pursue.  You can and should run away.   

     If you fear imminent death or serious injury to yourself or other innocent parties, you have legal justification to shoot the bad guy in the cranio-ocular cavity without warning from a meek countenance.  Which is correct.  Because if you give the bad guy any indication that you are a threat to him, he will shoot you first.

• "Why We Are Losing the Fight for the Second Amendment and What We Can Do About It"--Artvoice (H/t Maddened Fowl). From the article:

We are losing the fight for the Second Amendment.  We are losing it in the courts.  We are losing it in the legislatures.  We are losing it in the media, in the schools and with young people.  The approach we have been using to protect the Second Amendment for many years has failed, is failing and will continue to fail.  That approach has basically focused on lobbying, elections, voting and using the litigation process without any serious attempt to change the philosophical or ideological bent of the country or to change the ideological trajectory of the country to the left which in the last five years has been accelerating, and without any attempt to change the basic progressive mindset which has dominated American politics for many decades.  The tactics we have used are archaic, dated, spent, don’t work and there has been no attempt to use bold new innovative tactics and unless that changes, we are going to lose this fight.

The author proposes solution, the first of which is recognizing the problem:

          First, we need to recognize that gun control is a progressive idea.  If we don’t understand what progressivismis, then how can we understand the basis for gun control proposals and refute and defeat them?  It’s like trying to cure a disease when you don’t know the cause.  Progressivism has been the dominant political mindset for many decades, so failing to understand exactly what it is renders us helpless to respond to progressive policy proposals on any number of issues. In a nutshell, progressivism is the notion that there is a governmental solution to every human problem that can be executed without cost or harmful consequences.  Notice the underlying assumption after school shootings that there is some way to prevent them or at least make them extremely unlikely.  That is nonsense.  It’s like trying to make everyone above average in intelligence or wealth.  It ain’t gonna happen cuz it’s impossible.  Notice how this absurd assumption shapes the debate over school safety.  If our own proposals for school safety don’t guarantee that there will be no shootings ever, we have failed and our proposals will be rejected.

          Progressivism is not a rational political philosophy but is rather an irrational form of therapy whereby the progressive makes himself feel better by proposing some government action he thinks, without evidence or logic, will solve the problem.  That explains everything about how progressives react to mass shootings. Any role that government itself may have played in causing the event is ignored and the progressive must find a non-governmental scapegoat to blame.  Thus, in the Parkland Shooting, numerous government policies or personnel failed.  The shooter himself was the product of government schools and was bullied and ostracized there for years.  Yet, all we hear is that the NRAis to blame.  This is an obvious absurdity but perfectly understandable once you understand what a progressive is and how they think.

          The progressive is constantly blaming a non-governmental scapegoat for the inevitable failure of their own doomed policies. Why? The progressive believes that state gun violence or the threat of it will improve society.  This always fails because it is absurd.  Yet, the progressive can never admit failure since he needs the progressive fantasy to cope with life.  Hence, the progressive is in an endless search for scapegoats to blame for the failures of his own policies.  Guns are a useful scapegoat for many failed progressive policies including school shootings, terrorism caused by endless meddling in other countries, street crime, the failed war on drugs and even suicide.  Inert pieces of metal called guns are the cause of all these problems and need to be confiscated and then all will be well.  So, more laws are passed, the power of the state increases, no effort is made to actually solve any of these problems by identifying their root causes, so things get worse and the crazy cycle of endless government growth continues.

         Also, since the progressive instantly knows, without any investigation, the solution to any human problem, government action, the progressive shows little interest in doing a proper investigation of the causes of a mass shooting.  Yet, without such an investigation, such shootings are more likely to continue.  One commentator, Brad Wilcox, has noted how often mass shooters grew up without a father in the home.  If true, that fact might point the way to possible solutions that might make mass shootings less likely.  The progressive, judging from recent events blaming the NRA and private gun owners, shows no interest in a scientific investigation of the factsand thus, since they have dominated the debate, they make it more likely that mass shootings will continue.  Now, trying to get at the root cause of social problems is hard work, takes time and guarantees no immediate or perfect solution, so the progressive who craves an instant solution, is not interested.  They want therapy.  They want to feel good now dammit. They do not want to do the hard work of understanding the harsh and complex truth of the human condition.

        I could say a lot more about progressivism but time is short.  If we don’t clinically dissect progressivism and use that information to respond to their gun monopoly proposals, we will continue to lose.

He has more--8 general points and strategies in total. Read the whole thing.

• Refugees welcome! Yesterday I had noted reports of welfare fraud involving the Somali community in Michigan. Now there is another article with additional revelations: "Whistleblower reported daycare fraud and possible link to terrorism to DHS management"--Fox 9. From the article:

        Emails obtained by the Fox 9 Investigators show the Minnesota government agency was told millions of stolen tax dollars were going overseas and likely a portion of the money was being skimmed by terrorism organizations.

         Scott Stillman spent eight years managing the state's digital forensics lab, meaning he mined data from computers and smart phones.

         "I have never seen anything like this level or scope in my 27-year career as an investigator," he told Fox 9.

         When the state started going after daycare centers suspected of fraud, Stillman was directly involved in the investigations.

         Some of the businesses were gaming the system to steal millions in government subsidies meant to help low-income families with their childcare expenses.

         In many of the cases, parents would check in their children at a daycare, only to leave a few minutes later with the kids and sometimes no children would show up at the center.  However, it would still bill the state for a full day of childcare.

         Stillman was so alarmed by what he found that in March of 2017 he fired off a series of emails to his supervisors at DHS.

         "We are working on and overwhelmed by a significant amount of fraud cases involving organized crime, defrauding hundreds of millions of dollars annually in taxpayer monies," he wrote.

* * *

        According to Stillman, he alerted a number of people in DHS including the Commissioner's Chief of Staff with the following message: "Significant amount of these defrauded dollars are being sent overseas to countries and organizations connected to entities known to fund terrorists and terrorism."

        At a Monday press briefing, the governor told Fox 9 his office was not told about the warnings.

        Sources tell the Fox 9 Investigators people within the governor's office were told about the concerns a couple of years ago.

• The wages of sin socialism: "Kellogg pulls out of Venezuela due to economic crisis"--CNBC. 
• "A Guide to the Handheld Ham Amateur Radio Transceiver"--KA9OFF. From the article:

         This is a look at the Amateur Radio Hand-held Transceiver otherwise known as the HT. This is often the first piece of equipment that is purchased by new hams. This article will be emphasizing the basic parts and functions common to all major brands and commenting on some key features and accessories that we feel are important to consider.

        We highly recommend purchasing your new transceiver from a reputable U.S. dealer.

The article then goes into the 2 basic types of transceivers, and the parts and equipment you need to get going.

• What we are importing: "Thieves derail and rob freight train in Veracruz"--Borderland Beat. The article reports that "[d]uring the early morning of this Tuesday, it was reported that the Ferrosur locomotive with machine number 4713 was purposely derailed near Puebla. It was reported that a group of train robbers removed parts of the railway to cause the derailment. Subsequently, the thieves made off with the cargo that the hopper cars were carrying."

• Related: "Train robberies are a family affair overseen by gang leaders"--Mexico News Daily. The article says that gangs will recruit locals, in groups of several hundred, to stop trains (including several instances of derailment) and assist with offloading the cargo. These groups include men, women and children.

• Related: "Train robberies soared 476% in 2017 to 720 incidents in last quarter"--Mexico News Daily.

• A reminder that we live in the 21st Century: "Tom Bauerle Cracks His Surveillance Team?"--Anonymous Conservative. Bauerle had been accused of paranoia with his tales of stalking and spying. But it turns out he was right: he was being spied upon by “[g]raduate university students and people from certain entities, conducting supposedly ‘unauthorized’ research on state of the art cover and concealment technology, including invisibility techniques, such as non-linear optics, electronic cloaking and what is known in defense circles as ‘Phantom Bogey’ technology.”

• Related: "How Invisibility Cloaks Work"--How Stuff Works. This article briefly discusses some of the technology being worked on for cloaking objects, including optical camouflage using a system to project an image on a reflective material (clothing) to display what is behind the person.

• Related: "Want to Disappear? You Might Be Able to Have Your Own Invisibility Cloak."--Industry Tap.

• Related: "3 Mind-Blowing Cloaking Technologies That Exist Now"--Tech Blog.

• Related: "Metamaterials Promise Invisible Planes, Vehicles And Armies, And Protection From Earthquakes & Tsunamis"--International Defense, Security & Technology.