October 28, 2018 -- A Quick Run Around the Web

"Chain Link Gate Forcible Entry" - Irons and Ladders (5 min.)

• "Pre-Assault Body Language Indicators"--Schafer's Self-Defense Corner. The list of indicators are: (1) Walking with their arms out of sync with their feet; (2) Lowering of their body; (3) Evasive eye contact; (4) Rapid or heavy breathing; (5) Visible eeffects of adrenaline; (6) Someone “Quartering Off”; (7)  Raised, hidden, or busy hands; (8) Visible signs of playing out the attack beforehand in their head. The author discusses each of these points in more detail, so be sure to read the whole article.
• A couple from Greg Ellifritz concerning surviving a riot: "Post Election Riots?" and "Post Election Violence Part II- Surviving the Flash Mob". The main point, as is often in the case of self-defense, is to be aware of what is going on so that you can avoid problems in the first place. As such, Ellifritz suggests watching for signs such as massing police, masked looters or protesters, violent behavior, or lighting fires. I would also add watching out for a change in the makeup of a crowd, such as a sudden increase in young people, change in racial/ethnic makeup, and so on. And, of course, the presence of protesters. Ellifritz also recommends:

        If, despite your best efforts to avoid problem areas, you find yourself surrounded by a  mob or overtaken by a riot, quickly get your back to a wall.  That way you won’t be surrounded and will only have to deal with a few people at a time.  I’ve found this tactic works very well.  If you fade back to a wall and stop moving, often the crowd will ignore you and pass right by.

        Once you get your back to a wall, organize yourself and plan your escape.  If you are wearing a backpack, bag, or purse, swing it around to the front side of your body where it can serve as a shield (a panel from an old ballistic vest carried in the back pocket of your backpack will give you even more comfort).  This also prevents thieves and looters from trying to take it from you.

         Then take a look at the crowd.  Look for gaps.  Your goal is to look far enough ahead and move from gap to gap, exploiting the openings in the crowd.  Holding both arms in front of you with your hands together in a wedge shape will help get you through the swarming people.  Move along walls if you can with your “wedge” out in front of you, deflecting people off to the side.  Turning your shoulders will also help.  If you are a larger or taller male the “swim” and “knife” technique you used on the defensive line playing football can also be used with great effect.

Ellifritz recommends having some sort of less lethal weapons, such as pepper spray or a baton, can be useful to dissuade a protester, in his or her attack. He also suggests that if you have to resort to lethal force, a knife may be a better option than a handgun in many circumstances because it is less likely to cause panic or attract the immediate attention of police. If you do have to use a firearm, do so discretely and from a retention position, which he describes. 

        If you are in a vehicle, Ellifritz recommends that you stay in the car, if possible, and keep moving.

Don’t stop and allow them to open your doors or break your windows to drag you out.  I wouldn’t intentionally run someone over (unless that person posed a lethal threat to me), but I wouldn’t stop either.  Pick a route (over the curb if necessary) and slowly drive through the crowd.  Your car will likely be damaged, but you will be out of the mess soon.

        Equipment wise, Ellifritz recommends pepper spray, a bandanna or similar to cover your nose and mouth should police use tear gas (but he suggests holding it over your face rather than tying around your head because the latter makes you look like one of the trouble-makers), protective glasses or sunglasses, replacement contact lenses (if you wear them) because tear gas will contaminate any lenses you are wearing, sturdy shoes or boots that you can use for running, and a flash light.

       He covers a lot more, so be sure to read both articles.

• Um, I don't think so: "Everything You Think You Know About an Active Shooter Situation Is Wrong"--Jeff Sanders at PJ Media. The author recommends that the sheep avoid firearms and, instead, take ALICE (Alert, Lockdown, Inform, Counter, and Evacuate) training. Sanders comments: "Very, very few people will dedicate the necessary amount of time and training to be able to shoot an attacker without accidentally shooting innocent people. And even if you are armed and trained, it would be incredibly difficult to react fast enough to track down the killer and eliminate the threat." But, as David French wrote earlier this year at The National Review about FBI data on active shooting events:

Armed citizens can make a difference, and as more Americans obtain carry permits, more Americans will be on-scene and able to react. Moreover, what’s missing from the data is any indication that armed citizens make the crisis worse. The stereotype of carry-permit holders spraying panicked gunfire is simply wrong.

• "Take Note: Great item for your First Aid Kit"--Modern Survivalist. The product is Chlorhexidine, a topical disinfectant. It is sold in various sizes, including by the gallon. 
• "First Aid Basics: Using A Chest Seal"--LDS Gunsite. From the article:

1. Sterilize your hands with soap and water.

2. Put on gloves or other hand protection.

3. Remove any loose clothing or objects covering the wound. Don’t remove clothing that’s stuck to the wound.

4. Keep a hand over the wound while preparing a dressing. Protect your hand with a glove or other hand protection. If possible, have someone else put their hand over the wound. If no one else is available, have the injured person cover the wound with their hand if they’re still able to do so.

5. Find a chest seal or sterile, medical-grade plastic, or tape to seal the wound. If you don’t have medical plastic, use a clean Ziploc bag or a credit card for the wound. Use your hands if you have no other option.

6. If possible, ask the person to breathe out to release any excess air.

7. Place tape, plastic, or a chest seal over any hole that’s sucking in air, including entry and exit wounds. Make sure no air enters any wound.

8. Secure the tape or seal with occlusive dressing or similar wrapping material that can create a water and airtight seal. Make sure the seal has at least one open side to let out air without letting air in.

9. Remove the seal if you notice symptoms of tension pneumothorax, or a buildup of air in the chest. This happens when a lung leaks air into the chest and builds pressure. This can cause extremely low blood pressure (shock) and be fatal. Symptoms include crackling sounds when the person breathes in or out (subcutaneous emphysema), lip or finger blueness (cyanosis), enlarged neck veins (jugular vein distention), short, shallow breaths, and one side of the chest appearing larger than the other.

Keep the person on their side unless this makes it harder for them to breathe. Let out as much excess air as possible from the chest while making sure that the person can still breathe.

"Preppers will become Outlaws after SHTF"--Survival Prepping for Normal People (17 min.)

The author warns that the biggest threat to prepper after SHTF won't be the federal government, but local and, maybe, state governments. Local governments are the one that are most likely to seek out "hoarders" and confiscate their stores.

• Odd that PJ Media would post (or, rather, re-post) this article on the heels of the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting: "Why Don’t Jews Believe in Original Sin?"--Avner Zarmi. From the article:

      Consider the terms tov and ra, conventionally translated, as I wrote before, as “good” and “evil.” At every stage of the world’s creation, G-d pronounced it tov before proceeding to the next stage. On the creation of mankind, He pronounced it tov me’od (“very good”), and there is no indication thereafter that He changed his mind.

        Ra does not actually mean “evil” in the English sense of the word. Some glimmering of its actual meaning can be ascertained from some of the other ways that the root is used. For instance, in Psalms II, 9 King David beseeches G-d to deal with his enemies: Tero‘em beshevet barzel (“You should smash them with an iron rod”), or in Isaiah XXIV, 19 the prophet begins his description of an earthquake: Ra’o hithro‘a‘a ha’aretz ("the Earth is completely shaken”). From these, we can see that it means something like “unstable, broken, dysfunctional” and therefore “bad.”

       Human beings come into this world innocent of anything, but possessed of a capacity for good (commonly termed the yetzer hatov) as well as a destructive capacity, commonly termed the yetzer hara. The yetzer hara presents all the physical urges, the needs and wants, of the physical body which, like everything else in the physical realm, is subject to entropy -- that is, it wears out and falls apart. But he is also provided with a soul, whose highest purpose is to control those urges and channel them into positive actions.

        To this end, children are provided with parents and other mentors, whose job it is to teach them right from wrong and self-control, so that his soul is capable of taking charge and leading a proper, sanctified life. Until that moment when he is capable of taking over, any “sins” that the child commits are the responsibility of the parent.

        So when does a Jewish individual begin to sin? At the age of bar or bath mitzva. These terms mean “son or daughter of the commandments” because on reaching that age, they become subject to the 613 commandments in the Torah, and their parents are no longer responsible for their actions. This landmark occurs when a boy is 13 years old and a girl is 12. One of the most emotional moments of the bar mitzva ceremony comes when the boy’s father pronounces the blessing, baruch sheptarani me‘onsho shel ze (“Blessed is He who has exempted me from this one’s punishment”).

       What is the Jewish concept of the satan? Well, we agree with the Christians that he is a mal’ach, conventionally translated “angel,” but there’s nothing “fallen” about him. He works for the same Divine Boss as all the other mal’achim. Think of the satan (the word means “adversary”) as the proctor of an exam. The proctor isn’t actively rooting for you to fail the test; to the contrary, he wants you to pass. But he administers a tough test, to be certain that it tests all your capabilities and that you’ve mastered the material, i.e. the life lessons available from one’s parents and other mentors. If you manage to pass the test, no one is happier than the satan.

• Some thoughts on the division sized "caravan" heading for our border:

Besides gang members and mobs of young angry men, the Central American caravan making its way into the United States also consists of Africans, Bangladeshis, Sri Lankans and Indians. Judicial Watch is covering the crisis from the Guatemalan-Honduran border this week and observed that the popular mainstream media narrative of desperate migrants—many of them women and children—seeking a better life is hardly accurate. Guatemalan intelligence officials confirmed that the caravan that originated in the northern Honduran city of San Pedro Sula includes a multitude of Special Interest Aliens (SIA) from the countries listed above as well as other criminal elements and gang members.

Tellingly, the members of the so-called caravan have rejected offers to stay in Mexico under refugee status. Also, a reminder that these putative immigrants come from some of the most violent and corrupt countries in the world, and will likely bring their problems with them.

•  "Matthew Shepard Is the World's Most Famous Gay Hate Crime Victim. But Was He Really Killed for Being Gay?"--Katie Herzog at The Stranger. Shepard was beaten and tortured and left to die near Laramie, Wyoming, on December 6, 1998, and died 6 days later. The media promulgated the story that he was killed because he was gay, and his killers were homophobes. His death provided impetus for extending hate crime designation to crimes against homosexuals because of sexual orientation. Herzog challenges the common belief about the incident, noting that Shepard was not killed because he was gay, but over a large quantity of crystal meth. For instance, a 2014 Guardian article noted:

      Jimenez found that Matthew was addicted to and dealing crystal meth and had dabbled in heroin. He also took significant sexual risks and was being pimped alongside Aaron McKinney, one of his killers, with whom he’d had occasional sexual encounters. He was HIV positive at the time of his death. ...

      Matthew’s drug abuse, and the fact that he knew one of his killers prior to the attack, was never explored in court. Neither was the rumour that the killers knew that he had access to a shipment of crystal meth with a street value of $10,000 which they wanted to steal.

Herzog explains:

       That's right: One of Shepard's killers was queer. Jimenez found through his reporting that McKinney had been Shepard's lover. Sure, it's possible that he had some internalized homophobia, but the narrative that Shepard was killed by bigot rednecks who targeted him for being gay is not, according to Jimenez, actually true. They killed him over meth.

       What's more, Jimenez argues that Laramie wasn't a hotbed of idiocy and homophobia either. It was a college town, home to the University of Wyoming. And like most college towns, it was, and is, quite liberal and even gay-friendly. That truth got lost as the story spread, and Laramie became a parody of white trash ignorance and bigotry.

       After Shepard's body was found, a couple of men in the local gay community contacted the press as well as gay rights groups, who connected the murder to the state legislature's recent failure to pass hate crime legislation. The story that this was a hate crime began to spread, and in the days immediately following his death, a vigil was held for Shepard on the steps of the U.S. Capitol. Celebrities like Ellen DeGeneres, Ted Kennedy, Barbra Streisand, Elton John, and Madonna all got involved, and his funeral was attended by over 1,000 people, with many of Shepard's friends dressed as angels.

• Some of you may already be aware of the lawsuit currently being pursued against Harvard over it's alleged discrimination against Asians in its admissions. The case is more important than most people realize because Harvard, along with a handful of other institutions, are a major gateway to entering the class of elites that run our government, large businesses, and other major institutions. However, there is more to the story than is being reported in the main stream media. Ron Unz, who did so much of the original research that exposed Ivy League bias against Asians, writes in his article: "American Pravda: Racial Discrimination at Harvard":

       The evidence of the recent NMS [National Merit] semifinalist lists seems the most conclusive of all, given the huge statistical sample sizes involved. As discussed earlier, these students constitute roughly the highest 0.5 percent in academic ability, the top 16,000 high school seniors who should be enrolling at the Ivy League and America’s other most elite academic universities. In California, white Gentile names outnumber Jewish ones by over 8-to-1; in Texas, over 20-to-1; in Florida and Illinois, around 9-to-1. Even in New York, America’s most heavily Jewish state, there are more than two high-ability white Gentile students for every Jewish one. Based on the overall distribution of America’s population, it appears that approximately 65–70 percent of America’s highest ability students are non-Jewish whites, well over ten times the Jewish total of under 6 percent.

        Needless to say, these proportions are considerably different from what we actually find among the admitted students at Harvard and its elite peers, which today serve as a direct funnel to the commanding heights of American academics, law, business, and finance. Based on reported statistics, Jews approximately match or even outnumber non-Jewish whites at Harvard and most of the other Ivy League schools, which seems wildly disproportionate. Indeed, the official statistics indicate that non-Jewish whites at Harvard are America’s most under-represented population group, enrolled at a much lower fraction of their national population than blacks or Hispanics, despite having far higher academic test scores.

       When examining statistical evidence, the proper aggregation of data is critical. Consider the ratio of the recent 2007–2011 enrollment of Asian students at Harvard relative to their estimated share of America’s recent NMS semifinalists, a reasonable proxy for the high-ability college-age population, and compare this result to the corresponding figure for whites. The Asian ratio is 63 percent, slightly above the white ratio of 61 percent, with both these figures being considerably below parity due to the substantial presence of under-represented racial minorities such as blacks and Hispanics, foreign students, and students of unreported race. Thus, there appears to be no evidence for racial bias against Asians, even excluding the race-neutral impact of athletic recruitment, legacy admissions, and geographical diversity.

       However, if we separate out the Jewish students, their ratio turns out to be 435 percent, while the residual ratio for non-Jewish whites drops to just 28 percent, less than half of even the Asian figure. As a consequence, Asians appear under-represented relative to Jews by a factor of seven, while non-Jewish whites are by far the most under-represented group of all, despite any benefits they might receive from athletic, legacy, or geographical distribution factors. The rest of the Ivy League tends to follow a similar pattern, with the overall Jewish ratio being 381 percent, the Asian figure at 62 percent, and the ratio for non-Jewish whites a low 35 percent, all relative to their number of high-ability college-age students.

       Just as striking as these wildly disproportionate current numbers have been the longer enrollment trends. In the three decades since I graduated Harvard, the presence of white Gentiles has dropped by as much as 70 percent, despite no remotely comparable decline in the relative size or academic performance of that population; meanwhile, the percentage of Jewish students has actually increased. This period certainly saw a very rapid rise in the number of Asian, Hispanic, and foreign students, as well as some increase in blacks. But it seems rather odd that all of these other gains would have come at the expense of whites of Christian background, and none at the expense of Jews.

Discussing the statistics further, Unz observes:

Based on these figures, Jewish students were roughly 1,000% more likely to be enrolled at Harvard and the rest of the Ivy League than white Gentiles of similar ability. This was an absolutely astonishing result given that under-representation in the range of 20% or 30% is often treated by courts as powerful prima facie evidence of racial discrimination.