May 9, 2018 -- A Quick Run Around The Web

"Sawyer Mini Filter | Wilderness Test 2018"--Survival Russia (17 min.)

The producer of this video tests the Sawyer Mini Filter, showing how it is set up, how to use it, and how to clean the filter. He also discusses some of the pros and cons. The primary con is that it is slow and, due to its size, only filters a small amount of water at a time. However, he notes that it works, whereas a Lifestraw that he had bought to test almost immediately broke.

• Grant Cunningham's Hump Day reading list for this week.
• "Buckshot Patterning in a Short-Barreled Shotgun"--Active Response Training. Greg Ellifritz discussing the need to test the shot patterns out of a shotgun, and reminds readers that the length of the barrel has nothing to do with the size of the pattern--it is mostly determined by the choke--and can be quite tight at ranges typical within a house or apartment. There are several reasons knowing the pattern of your defensive shotgun is important, but probably the most important is because you cannot guarantee that you will have a clear shot at a burglar--the burglar may be in close proximity to someone (your spouse or child, for instance), or even be holding them hostage, denying you to the opportunity to make a center of mass shot. You can learn to make shots to the head or extremities or one side or another of a target ... but to do so, you need to know how your shotgun will pattern with the loads you will be feeding it.
• "Mob Of Teens Allegedly Responsible For Water Tower Brawl Saturday Night"--CBS Chicago. A mob of 150 teens started attacking people and each other, and stealing smart phones and purses. From the article:

        A fellow rider told that officer what was happening in the train station.

         “They were running down the stairs. They were moving people, like pushing people out of the way, when they got to the turnstile, they just hopped over,” said the witness.

         As many as 150 youth hopped off at the Chicago red line stop. According to Alderman Hopkins, it caused major chaos between there and the Water Tower.

        “They started immediately making a lot of noise, shouting and yelling, pushing pedestrians,” said Hopkins. “So clearly this was designed to frighten people and intimidate people.”

         Hopkins says some of the young people stole cell phones and purses, and says with so many cameras in the area, police should have seen what was about to happen that night.

The article and accompanying video assiduously avoids any referencing or showing any physical description of the teens, so I presume that they were minority and, most likely, blacks. However, here is the telling line from the whole article, found at the very bottom of course:

Alderman Hopkins says police can’t prevent incidents like this one from happening, but they can respond more effectively.

(Emphasis added). But Chicago government is perfectly happy to leave the city's inhabitants disarmed and at the mercy of these mobs.

• "The biggest security risk to computers so far this century?"--Bayou Renaissance Man. Peter Grant notes an article from the German computer magazine CT that reports of 8 new flaws found in the Intel CPU design that are an especial problem for anyone running servers to store information in "the cloud." Some of these flaws are also present on chips from other companies. Grant notes: "This is an absolutely fundamental level of computer operations - in other words, any program (or hacker) gaining access to the central processing unit at this level can bypass almost every computer security program ever written.  Its implications for data privacy and control are absolutely horrendous." Also:

Most large corporations use so-called "cloud computing", keeping their data and critical software on third-party (i.e. remote) servers, which are not under their direct control.  Even the most sensitive organs of the US government, its security services, are doing the same.  Effectively, every one of those organizations is now vulnerable to hackers who can exploit the chips in the computers that run the "cloud", and access even the (supposedly) secure data in it.

Read the whole thing.

• Interesting. A couple articles indicating that SOCOM snipers and Department of Homeland Security snipers are ditching the .308 in favor of the 6.5 Creedmoor. The Marine snipers, as you may already know, are instead going a different route to push past 1,000 yards, which is their adoption of rifles using the .300 Win. Magnum.
• And more changes: "It's Official: Top Marine Wants 12 in an Infantry Squad"--SNAFU. Currently the squad has 13 members based around 4-man fire teams. The new squad will instead be based around 3 man firing teams. SNAFU has some tactical reasons for why he thinks the change is bad news. My thought is that the change will reek havoc with the buddy-system. We all know that groups of 3 are not socially cohesive.
• "Know your melee weapons: The Victorian Police Truncheon"--The Truth About Knives. The article includes embedded videos on the Victorian Police Truncheon specifically, and a second video on the use of nightsticks generally. 
• "Islamic State assassin: How I killed more than 100 people"--BBC.  An interesting article on how the subject of the article turned from a self-described "peaceful protester" to a hitman for ISIS. From the article:

         Khaled did not simply wake up in Raqqa to the smell of death and dust, and decide to become an assassin.

          He was sent a special invitation.

          Six men were ordered to report to an airfield in Aleppo, in north-western Syria, where a French trainer would teach them to kill with pistols, silenced weapons, and sniper rifles.

         They learned to murder methodically, taking prisoners as their victims.

          "Our practice targets were detained soldiers from the regime," he says. "They put them in a difficult place so you need a sniper to hit them. Or they send out a group of detainees and ask you to target one without hitting the others.

           "Most of the time assassinations are done from a motorbike. You need another person to ride the bike and you sit behind him. You ride next to the target's car - then you shoot him and he cannot escape."

          Khaled - not his real name - learned how to follow people. How to "buy" targets he could not reach through those close to them. How to distract a convoy of cars, so a fellow assassin can pick off their mark.

• "More Proof The Left Really Does Want To Abolish Legal Gun Ownership"--The Federalist. The author notes that the Left's current tactics is not just to ban so-called "assault weapons," but has much broader gun restrictions in mind, including requiring special liability insurance for firearms (while at the same time getting states to shut down such insurance), requiring background checks for ammunition purchases, use zoning laws to prevent gun retailers from being able to operate a business, waging an economic war against firearms businesses by eliminating their access to financial institutions, and socially demonizing gun owners:

Following Alinsky’s rule of “freezing, polarizing, and personalizing the target,” they’re also using the culture to attack gun owners. Gun owners are portrayed as racist and violent. Young people who learn how to shoot are interrogated by police and even suspended from school. Parents who teach their kids gun safety are demonized on social media.

Gun owners that are complacent about gun rights because they think that their favorite sport or hunting firearm will somehow be exempt will soon find that they are wrong. In the end, the only shooters left will be the wealthy with their $10,000 custom engraved shotguns.

• Another example of what a failure was Obama: "Trump: Secretary of State Pompeo heading back from North Korea with 3 released prisoners"--CNBC. 
• "The lone loser in Disney's big quarter: 'A Wrinkle in Time'"--Yahoo Finance. Taking a beloved children's book, ripping out its central Christian theme, and then overloading it with diversity apparently isn't a winning strategy. But the intent was never to make money, but to destroy the story.
• "Quit Acting Like Christ Was Accepting of Everyone and Everything"--Greg Trimble. Money quote:

... Too many people are looking for a religion that is easy. In the world, we are offered instant salvation and taught about a Christ that accepts everyone just the way they are. There is no difference between our day and Isaiah’s time when the people asked him to “Prophesy not unto us right things, speak unto us smooth things” (Isaiah 30:10) Instead of looking for a Church that teaches truth, many are on a quest to find a church that can satisfy their innate desire to worship God, and yet at the same time, live the lifestyle that they want to live regardless of how ungodly it really is. Some consider it a great feat to find a church that allows them to live how they want to live, and still feel like they are worshipping God.

• "Elder Uchtdorf Discusses Future Russia Temple"--LDS Newsroom. Although the Church has authorized construction of a temple in Russia, the location is still to be determined; and Elder Uchtdorf seems to indicate that it may be some time before construction is actually commenced.
• The LDS Church has announced that it will be quiting the Boy Scouts of America (now "Scouts--BSA") as of December 31,2019. Well, the BSA has lost it largest chartering organization, but it at least was able to keep its corporate sponsors happy.