December 13, 2018 -- A Quick Run Around the Web

"The Bankrupt Welfare State: Coming Turmoil of the 2020's"--Classiarius (7 min.)

• Grant Cunningham's Hump Day Reading List for this week. One of the article to which he cites is the recent shooting death a homeowner who had used a weapon to defend his family, and then was shot and killed when police arrived on the scene.  Cunningham advises:

Remember that the police don’t know you’re the good guy (or gal). They can’t see the halo over your head. There are a couple of things you can do to avoid this negative outcome: first, tell the dispatch operator what you look like, including what you’re wearing. You want responding officers to be able to quickly differentiate between you and the bad guy, and a good description is one way to make that happen. Second, put the gun away as officers arrive. Put it back in its holster, on a table away from you, or simply on the ground (and step away from it). Don’t have it in your hands as the officers approach with their own weapons drawn.

• "Vehicle Preparedness: Winter is upon us, it’s time to evaluate what we have in our vehicles"--Garand Thumb writing at The Loadout Room. The 5 general categories he says you should focus on are:

(1)  Health (Psychological / Physical)
(2)  Personal Protection (Clothing, Shelter, Fire)
(3)  Sustenance (Water, Food)
(4)  Communication (Cell phone, GPS locator, Radio, signaling devices)
(5)  Travel

He also provides examples of what preps he has for each of those categories. 

• "The Victim Personality"--Rory Miller at Chiron Training. An excerpt:

       Distracted. Awkward in their physicality. Pleasers. People so domesticated to social norms that they will be predictable and nice even when it is time to be profoundly un-nice. People like this are targets, they are easy to victimize. They are often victimized. They are not what I mean by "victim personalities."

       Humans are incredibly adaptable. At the same time they, like all animals, tend toward homeostasis. They have an idea of "normal" and they move toward or attempt to recreate that idea of normal.

       Families have a very wide range of behaviors, widely different ideas of normal. Some are abusive, either because it is the pattern the adults were raised with and thus their homeostasis, or because someone is unskilled at raising tiny humans to be humans or because there is evil and one of the parents sees children as victims to be groomed. Other reasons abound, probably.

       A child who grow to adulthood in that environment learns how to survive in that environment. That may be the only place he or she does know how to survive. The habits implanted under adrenaline, or fear of death are really strong. They rarely change. The child raised in this environment has no reason to believe that other relationships are less dangerous... but he or she doesn't know the rules of other relationships. Doesn't know how to behave. And fears any error will be punished as severely as an error in his or her family of origin.

       This is the genesis of the victim personality. When you only know how to function or how to even survive by being in the exploited or victim role, you seek it out. You recreate the dynamics you know. This can sound like blaming the victim and maybe it is, but it is an outgrowth of human adaptability. If you only know how to function in a pile of shit, you will either seek out or create piles of shit to function in. It's a survival trait.

• "Start prepping! Electric grid ‘prime target’ of terrorists, ‘profound threat,’ says council"--Washington Examiner. The article reports: "In a new report that warns that the electric grid is the 'prime target' of terrorists, Americans are being urged prepare for the up to six months without electricity, transportation, fuel, money, and healthcare." You can download a PDF copy of the report from here. Note, however, that the six months period did not come from an analysis of what could happen to the power grid and how long it would be recover, but that the report assumed a catastrophic failure that would require two to six months recovery time as a starting point. The committee then looked at what the government would need to do to recover from such a catastrophic failure. (See p. 31 of the report). However, the report noted that it took 11 months to restore most power in Puerto Rico. (See p. 70 of the report).
• "Top 10 Reasons You Should Own An AR-15"--The Federalist. Reason No. 4: "The AR-15 is one of the most validated rifles in history." That is:

Over the last 55 years, the AR-15 has been improved more often and in more ways than the M16 and M4, and today it is the most versatile semi-automatic rifle in history. It is more accurate and, properly maintained, more reliable than the supposedly ultra-reliable AK-47 and the legendary M1 “Garand,” which, during World War II, Gen. George S. Patton called “the greatest battle implement ever devised.” Furthermore, some AR-15s exceed military specifications for the M16 and M4 in terms of accuracy and quality controls related to durability and reliability.

• "Where to Find Complete Libraries Online for FREE (and a New Website to Check Out)"--Organic Prepper. One site referenced in the article is the Survivor Library, described as "a library of about 15,000 books in PDF files that are all out of copyright or are otherwise in the public domain," with many thousands of books on mechanical or technological subjects. You can download individual files, or purchase a collection with the whole library. Another source referenced was the CD3WD library which consists of 36 DVDs containing some 651,000 files totaling 151 GB, broken out into eight categories. For these, you have to download a compressed disk image (ISO) file. The author indicates that you will the program 7-zip to uncompress the files. Most of these files are intended for use in teaching children. Finally, the author is beginning a separate web site entitled "Restarting a Failed Civilization." He has collected together his prior articles at Organic Prepper that are on this topic here.

        His efforts are reminiscent of the book, The Knowledge, which is intended to provide a road map as to how to restart a technological civilization, including areas that you can skip and move to more advanced technologies. I'm currently reading it and hope to have a review up soon.

• Wilder, Wealthy and Wise takes a look at Kondratiev cycles and economic depressions in "Recession? Depression? Oppression? At least there are Bikinis." An excerpt:

And now?  If Kondratiev was right, Winter.  The last Winter in the United States was the Great Depression, which lasted 253 years if you listened to my Grandma.  But the Winter was difficult – debt collapse, financial panic, bank failures, tariffs, plant closings, unemployment, greater government control of the economy, breadlines, and no bikinis at all.  Oh, and war brought about by the crisis.  If Kondratiev is right, this would last from (roughly) 2005 to 2025.

Read the whole thing. It goes nicely with the Classiarius video embedded above.

• "Senate Passes 2018 Farm Bill Legalizing Hemp, Ditching SNAP Work Requirements"--Breitbart. The revised bill goes back to the House for approval, and then on to the President for signature. It is expected to be passed and signed into law quickly. So, why is this important for preppers? One of the provisions of the bill is that it legalizes commercial hemp. Hemp, as you may know, is not only a great source of fibers for making rope or clothing (during WWII the federal government encouraged the growing of hemp to supply rope for the Navy), but there are some medicinal uses. One of the products being looked at closely is CBD oil, which doesn't contain THC (the chemical that gives the high), but does appear to provide pain relief, including for people suffering from chronic pain. 

• Related: "FINALLY: Feds Lift the Propaganda and Misinformation Based Industrial Hemp Ban"--Organic Prepper. The author explains some more about CBD oil:

        Due to the rise of chronic pain in the U.S. (and subsequent opioid addictions), the desire for CBD oil has exploded. CBD – which doesn’t get you high – is an oil made of concentrated hemp oil. The ingestible and/or topical oil has been recently attributed to alleviating issues such as inflammation, anxiety, and insomnia all the way down to seizures and Parkinson’s symptoms.

        Unfortunately, hemp was inaccurately mixed in with the nonsensical “reefer madness” smear campaigns that were driven by industry interest. The oppressive restriction on CBD oil – due to the deliberately fabricated misconception that it is marijuana and can somehow get people high – means that CBD oil is pretty cost prohibitive in America.

Something for you homeschoolers to do during the winter: 

"DIY Homemade Hydrogen (Aluminum + Water + Lye)"--Blueprint (7 min.)

• Let's have lots of broken windows! "Newly-Elected DA Vows To Stop Prosecuting Resisting Arrest And 15 Other Crimes"--Blue Lives Matter. In a bid to see which major U.S. city can most quickly become like Venezuela, the newly elected District Attorney for Suffolk County, Mass. (which is pretty much Boston), Rachel Rollins, has decided that her office will no longer prosecute a long list of crimes, including drug possessions, making threats (unless in the domestic violence context), resisting arrest, shoplifting or larceny under $250, trespass, disturbing the peace, disorderly conduct, simple breaking and entry (where no one is present in the home), or breaking in entry when someone is present so long as the criminal was "cold or tired, but don’t damage anything." Minor driving offenses are also on the list,  as are receiving stolen property, underage drinking, and the wanton or malicious destruction of property.

        So, basically, she is offering her constituents a license to riot, go into a business establishment and create havoc, and to vandalize to their hearts' content. And if you move out of Boston because of the resulting increase in crime, you are racist.

• "Black South African politician urges followers to 'kill whites', saying: 'We will kill their children and their women'"--Daily Mail. "Andile Mngxitama, president of Black First Land First (BLF), was speaking at a rally on the weekend in Potchefstroom near Johannesburg when he made the violent comments."
• Destroy! Destroy! Destroy! "NYC’s school diversity plan could lead to another ‘white flight’"--New York Post. The elite, in the form of  New York Mayor de Blasio, is pulling up the ladder after themselves. In this case, it is by destroying the magnet schools that were set up to nurture the gifted and talented in arts and the sciences. Rather, the City has announced that "[t]he District 15 middle-school diversity plan will remove screens from all middle schools and will prioritize 52 percent of sixth-grade seats for students from low-income families, English-language learners and students in temporary housing." The reporter writes:

         One Park Slope dad told me he sees the move as a “prelude to breaking up the specialized high schools.” He added that the plan would “put the academically struggling kids in schools where ‘magic dirt’ makes kids smarter.”

       News flash to our elected officials: Removing all education-based entrance criteria for middle schools won’t miraculously lead to great schools for all, though it’s unclear if that’s even the goal.

• Richard Fernandez observes that "[i]f France can't buy off the revolting Deplorables that means the global system is close to short on money.  Like a Hollywood star in a drug haze and spending habit it finally finds itself overdrawn."
• I was informed that the opioid crises was the result of over-prescription: "Fentanyl is now officially the deadliest drug in America, CDC declares: Overdoses involving the drug have risen 113% a year since 2013"--Daily Mail.  The Fentanyl is coming from China via Mexico. Something that The Wall could reduce. So, why did those in the know lie to the public concerning the opioid crises?
• "It was NOT just hysteria: Doctors claim cuba sonic attack victims WERE exposed to something that damaged their ears and brains - but the cause remains a mystery"--Daily Mail. 
• I came across an interesting patent issued in 1971 for a "method of producing locally occurring infrasound." The primary claim:

The method of creating infrasound waves in a localized region, which method comprises, transmitting from two spaced points a pair of intersecting beams of acoustical signal waves both being devoid of amplitude modulation at a rate of less than 20 Hz. and both higher in frequency than 20 Hz., and creating in the region of intersection of said beams infrasonic acoustical waves as a result of additive and substractive effects of the intersecting wave fronts of said acoustical signal waves.

• The problem with a lie is that as it gets more complex, it is harder to not contradict yourself:

• "Arctic's record warming propelling 'broad change' in climate: study"--DW. The primary concern is melting arctic ice.

• "NASA: Global Warming Promotes Arctic Sea Ice Growth"--Watts Up With That.

• Speaking of global warming: "North America sets all-time record snowfall in November"--Watts Up With That. Al Gore had promised that snowfall would be a thing of the past.
• "The Transgender Movement Is Not Interested In Compromise"--The Federalist. Citing to recent incidents where teachers were fired by not buying into the lie that there are definitive biological genders, the author warns:

       If there can be no dissent from transgender ideology, or even compromise with its adherents, then vast swaths of society are eventually going to be targeted by trans activists. It’s not just college professors and high school teachers who are at risk, but anyone who uses social media and dares express an opinion on whether a man can become a woman, or vice versa.

* * *

        The trend of aggressive trans activism is of course most pronounced in academia, where social justice mobs are becoming more frequent, while reason and objectivity are in precipitous decline. Recently, the notion that biological sex, like gender, is merely a social construct has gained traction on the editorial boards of magazines like Scientific Americanand prestigious academic journals like Nature, which published an editorial in October arguing against classifying sex “on the basis of anatomy or genetics,” and asserting that, “The idea that science can make definitive conclusions about a person’s sex or gender is fundamentally flawed.”

      Thankfully, there are still some academics willing to point out that sex does not exist on a spectrum, that it is in fact so binary in humans as to be among the most statistically verifiable phenomena in nature.

       For believing this, and daring to say so in public, academics are increasingly facing harassment and threats of violence. In Britain, a scholar on human rights law at the University of Reading who had the temerity to assert that sex is fixed at birth said she recently received an anonymous 3:30 a.m. phone call from someone who told her she “should be raped and killed.” The professor also reported that after a recent debate about changes to gender law, her office door was covered in urine and she was targeted online.

      These kinds of reaction to dissent—harassment, threats, mobs calling for people to be fired—reflect the fundamentally political nature of the transgender project, which is not about science but power. 

• "Perversion is love, and love wins."--Dalrock. Dalrock has lately posted several articles dealing with so-called Complementarians that have been pushing for acceptance of the LGBT lifestyles within Christianity. They are worth the read. In this particular article, he makes an important point that cuts to the meat of the matter: "Instead of framing being freed from sin as something gays should be thankful to God for, they frame gays repenting from sin as something straight Christians should be thankful to gays for.  What complementarians are doing here is framing perversion as something good, something gays deserve compensation for giving up."

        He adds: "From a Christian point of view gays are ensnared, trapped, in something awful.  Being freed from that trap is in and of itself a profound gift.  But Butterfield and her colleagues at the ERLC don’t see it that way.  They see being freed from the trap as a loss, at least in our earthly lives."

• Killed by political correctness: "BOY SCOUTS ON VERGE OF BANKRUPTCY"--The Daily Caller. This is what happens when you abandon your core mission in order to pander to the crowd. From the article:

       The Wednesday report comes in the wake of sinking membership and multiple controversies surrounding the 108-year-old organization, including sex abuse allegations and its controversial decision to change its program name from Boy Scouts to Scouts BSA and allow girls into that program.

       Chicago law firm Sidley Austin has reportedly been hired to assist in what would be a Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing.

       As the organization has made decisions deemed to be more inclusive, such as allowing openly gay scouts in 2013 and scoutmasters in 2015 as well as the 2018 decision to allow girls, membership has continued to decline sharply, from over 4 million members at its peak to a claimed 2.3 million members at present.

And this is before The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints leaves the organization at the beginning of 2020 with almost a third of the remaining members.

• For you Princess Bride fans: "Louisiana residents vs. 20-pound swamp rats in ‘Rodents of an Unusual Size’"--SF Gate. The article explains:

       The Louisiana shoreline is under a dire environmental siege.

       No, it has nothing to do with offshore drilling, climate change or hurricanes. We’re talking millions of 20-pound swamp rats eating away at wetlands, swamplands and forests, eroding shorelines and making them vulnerable to those other threats.

      It’s become such a problem that the state of Louisiana is paying private citizens to kill these rats, called nutria, in an attempt to win the battle for the shore.

• Evolution in action: "Man dies after getting stuck in a clothes donation bin he was trying to steal from in Texas"--Daily Mail.