May 3, 2018 -- A Quick Run Around the Web

"Create Your Garden of Eden"--The Professional Prepper (15 min.)

The producer of this video lives in Yuma, Arizona. His goal was to create a garden that would produce fruit or other edibles all year round and be able to prosper in the climate. Check it out for ideas.

• "DIY: Make a Bug-Out Kitchen in a MOLLE Pouch"--Baugo Blades. The large MOLLE pouches can be used to carry all the cooking utensils necessary for a basic cooking set using a basic Boy Scout mess kit and a Sterno stove and fuel, and a few other items. Don't forget the salt, pepper, and Tabasco sauce!
• The cultural war is still going strong: "Wells Fargo Rejects Union Demand to Act Against Gun Dealers"--Zacks. Wells Fargo has rejected a demand from the The American Federation of Teachers (AFT) to stop providing banking services to firearm manufacturers and retailers. The bank has taken the position that it isn't their role to dictate what products their customers buy or sell. 

• Related: "Banking On Disarmament"--Guns Magazine. A look at some banks, including Citigroup and Bank of America, that are attempting to use their financial clout to extinguish shooting manufacturers and retailers. The author makes an important point: "We’re not talking about free markets when the banks are in bed with the government. We’re talking about corporate beneficiaries of 'public/private partnerships' starving out another industry to achieve goals that politics cannot." The word to describe this is Gleichschaltung, which describes the coordination and alignment of government, industrial and financial institutions to achieve political goals.

• Related: SJW's always double down: "Dick’s Sporting Goods Hires Gun Control Lobbyists"--Washington Free Beacon. Lobbyists have to be disclosed, including the general purpose of their lobbying. The three lobbyists are: Joel Johnson, Christian Brown, and Andrew King. Notably, the latter worked at one time for Sen. Lindsey Graham, one of the biggest RINOs of them all.

• "72 Hours of Shortsightedness"--All Outdoors. The author of this article notes that the survivors of major natural disasters during the last few years, including the hurricanes that hit Houston, Florida and Puerto Rico, needed more than 3 days worth of food and water, and encourages readers to have at least a 6 day supply. He adds:

Now, to be fair to the current population of dedicated preppers, we have been advised, told and told again to have at least three days of emergency supplies on hand at all times. Even the emergency response and advice page at the FEMA web site still advises to have 72 hours of supplies to carry you over during a SHTF event. That is now on the drawing board for a re-think.

Now, to be fair to the people that advised a 72-hour kit, it was never meant to be the be-all, end-all of emergency preparedness. Rather, it was envisioned as a bare minimum to get you through most natural disasters until outside help could arrive, and no more. The LDS Church has for many decades encouraged members to have 72 hour kits--generally for purposes of evacuation--while also telling members to keep a year supply of food and other supplies. 

• With warmer weather, more of us will be heading into the woods to camp and hike. So ... "Health and Hiking: What to Add to Your Backpack"--Hiking The Trail. The author recommends the following essentials: sun protection (sun screen, hats, lip balm and sunglasses and, I would add, a long sleeve shirt); vitamins and supplements, including fish oil, probiotics, electrolyte supplements, and protein powder; foot care items including duct tape or moleskin to protect against foot irritation leading to blisters; and toiletries, including toilet paper, hand sanitizer (the alcohol based sanitizers can also be used to start fires), a small trowel for digging a "toilet," etc.

• Related: "Six Things Every Backpack Should Have"--All Outdoors. Yes, this is the article with the embarrassing typographic error that I showcased this morning (I'm not critical of the typos--heaven knowns how many I have in my posts--but that particular typo was funny). Nevertheless the author has a nice list of things to help make a hike more pleasant: (i) toilet paper, (ii) matches/lighter, (iii) compass, (iv) insect repellent, (v) rain poncho (although I used a plastic tarp on one trip that actually kept me drier than a friend using a poncho--I had the tarp to use as a ground cloth), (vi) cordage (paracord or similar). 

• "Crossing Divides: Stopping violence like it was a virus"--BBC News. An account of one group's attempt to stop the violence in Chicago between competing Hispanic gangs. From the article:

        Epidemiologist Gary Slutkin, who for years battled Aids and tuberculosis in Africa, founded the organisation [Cure Violence] after concluding that violence mimics the path of these infectious diseases. The work includes detecting conflicts and cooling people down, identifying the highest risk and changing their behaviour, and changing the norms and expectations.

         "Someone who's doing violence, whether they are a mass shooter or someone in a neighbourhood, has picked up that by contagion, by seeing others doing it," he argues, saying young people and gang members are "miscategorised" as bad people. "Frankly, it's medieval - it's the way we used to look at people who had leprosy or the plague."

Well, I don't know about that last paragraph. "Good" and "bad" are generally characterized by the actions one makes, and so a gang member that is dealing drugs and shooting rivals is, by definition, "bad." However, approaching violence as a disease (something that seems related to the idea of "memes" spreading from person to person) is an interesting approach to the issue.

• Speaking of evil people: was Alfie Evans murdered? "Alfie Evans was given 4 drugs just before he died: report"--Life Site News. (H/t Anonymous Conservative). From the article:

According to Italian newspaper La Nuova Bussola Quotidiana, a nurse entered the child’s cubicle after his father Tom had been called aside and gave him four drugs. A source close to the family told LifeSiteNews that these were injections that were administered to Alfie after Tom had been summoned for an unusual middle-of-the-night meeting with the hospital. The child died two hours later.

• "Lights and Lasers on Concealed Carry Guns?"--Range 365. A lengthy discussion of the importance of using lights with a handgun in order to illuminate and identify your target, as well as allow you to safely move around or look for things. The author also recommends lasers to aid in quick targeting, and finally talks about some recommendations about gear. 
• "Editor’s Notebook: PID, CTC-Style"--Tactical Wire. This is another good article on low light shooting, but with more of an emphasis of home defense rather than concealed carry. This author also emphasizes the need to positively identify (PID) your target. The author writes:

         While I rail against the inanity of using military concepts in personal defense/LE uses of force, the underlying concepts aren’t unique. “PID” – visual confirmation that the unknown is seeking to do harm (“jeopardy” in the elements of the circumstance that justifies homicide) and is capable of carrying out that intent immediately – is an absolute requirement.

         Shotgun Joe “Boom-Boom” Biden notwithstanding, you can’t legitimately shoot through an opaque barrier or even discharge firearms into the air. You have to see to form the justifiable intent to stop a deadly threat. It’s tough to see in the dark, but there are equipment solutions.

         Add to that, the verbal instruction set is a critical tool for threat remediation. Please, “verbal warning,” not a “challenge.” It’s not “pistols for two, coffee for one.”

         Staying quiet and shooting at a shadow is problematic. Putting aside the legal issues, the moral and ethical considerations absolutely forbid such idiocy. You have to look at that face in the mirror for the rest of your short, miserable life after shooting a family member “you thought was a burglar.”

         If you’ve not lost your voice, consider the lowly light switch. Inside a residence, one of the greatest force decision implements is lighting – ceiling fixtures, hall lamp, whatever. Turn on the lights. See before you decide if force is needed.

The author also writes:

For homeowners more than police, I think a gun-mounted light makes sense. We don’t “gunpoint” people, a bad idea for anyone including cops. At 0330, after the door is crashed in, I can justify arming myself, calling out “who’s there?” and lying in wait. Having a 500-900 lumen gun light directed at the floor in the doorway will light things up without muzzling anyone.

• Job 1:16: "India dust storms: More than 100 killed in Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan"--BBC News. The article reports that "[m]any of the dead were sleeping when their houses collapsed after being struck by intense bursts of lightning."
• "The Last Slave"--Vulture. The article notes that "[i]n 1931, Zora Neale Hurston sought to publish the story of Cudjo Lewis, the final slave-ship survivor. Instead it languished in a vault." Why was that, you ask? "There was concern among 'black intellectuals and political leaders' that the book laid uncomfortably bare Africans’ involvement in the slave trade, according to novelist Alice Walker’s foreword to the book, which is finally being published in May." In the case of Lewis (whose native name was Kossula):

Kossula had been captured at age 19 in an area now known as the country Benin by warriors from the neighboring Dahomian tribe, then marched to a stockade, or barracoon, on the West African coast. There, he and some 120 others were purchased and herded onto the Clotilda, captained by William Foster and commissioned by three Alabama brothers to make the 1860 voyage.

• A reminder that we live in the 21st Century: "Nasa successfully tests its 'Kilopower' nuclear reactor that will be sent to space to provide power for the first humans on Mars"--Daily Mail.