December 8, 2018 -- A Quick Run Around the Web

"Close Quarters Battle | Use of Barricades | Tactical Rifleman" (6 min.)

Some tips on shooting around cover/concealment.

• "Second-largest Ebola outbreak in history spreads to major Congo city"--New York Post. The city is Butembo, which has over 1 million residents. The article also notes:

        This Ebola outbreak is like no other, with deadly attacks by rebel groups forcing containment work to pause for days at a time. Some wary locals have resisted vaccinations or safe burials of Ebola victims as health workers battle misinformation in a region that has never encountered the virus before.

       A “fringe population” has regularly destroyed medical equipment and attacked workers, Health Minister Dr. Oly Ilunga Kalenga told reporters on Wednesday.

• "The ‘Ghost Guns’ That Time Forgot"--The Truth About Guns. A handy list of books in circulation that teach you how to make your own firearms.
• "Germany: Basic weapons licenses more than double"--DW. The basic weapons license isn't even for what most of us would consider weapons: the license allows the license holder to carry gas pistols, flare guns and other weapons not intended for deadly use. The author bemoans the increase in these licenses because it could lead to gun violence like in the United States. But that would require the importing of large minority populations with the concomitant drug gangs.
• Preaching to the choir: "President Trump’s Stealth Bump Stock Ban Is Illegal And Ignorant"--The Federalist. Money quote: "We need to remember that any time we want to ban something, it comes at a tremendous cost."
• Wipe your nose! It's not that type of powder: "The White Powder You Should Bring on Every Deployment"--Prolonged Field Care. The author discusses the use of Calcium Hypochlorite (Ca(ClO)₂) to disinfect equipment and surfaces, or cleanse wounds.
• "Canned Heat: How to Make an Emergency Heater"--The Parsimonious Princess. The heater is made using a new paint can, a roll of toilet tissue, alcohol, and attaching a box of matches and quarter to the side. The author explains:

       ... Simply remove the cardboard tube from the center of the toilet paper (that's the hardest part) - don't unroll the toilet paper; just bend the cardboard tube, and pull out. Stuff the tube-free roll of toilet paper into the can. Fill with 2 cups of isopropyl alcohol, leaving 1/2 inch headspace (you want it to have room to expand and contract with temperature fluctuations). This may take a little time since you have to wait for the toilet paper to absorb the alcohol. The toilet paper and alcohol should be below the rim of the can. Seal tightly with lid.  Tape the box of matches and the quarter to the side of the can. That's it.  If you prefer, you can store all the components of the heater in a plastic bag and assemble the heater when you need it. Personally, I like having it ready to go.

      When you want to use the heater, pop open the lid, using the quarter as leverage. Place the lit match or lighter carefully against the alcohol-soaked toilet paper.  A small flame will develop.  The flame only uses the alcohol as fuel -- the toilet paper shouldn't burn. If it does start to burn, that means you need more alcohol. To do this, replace the lid to extinguish the flame. Once out, add some more alcohol and light again. Once you've used this heater, the only thing that ever needs replacing is the alcohol since the TP doesn't burn. Assembling the heater is a one-time thing, really.

• "DSArms to Offer Israeli FAL Parts Kit"--The Firearm Blog. DSA isn't the only company selling the parts kits, but, the article notes, it will soon release a receiver with the appropriate markings.
• "Officer Killed in Thousand Oaks Bar Shooting Died From Friendly Fire"--The Truth About Guns. 

"Stealth Van Dwelling in the City and working Full Time" (6-1/2 min.)

An interesting look at how one man set up his mini-van to live in rather than trying to rent an apartment or hotel.

• "'Yellow vest' violence erupts across Europe: Paris riots spread to Brussels and Amsterdam as 1,400 are arrested, French police call up 8,000 reinforcements and rioters torch everything in their path"--The Daily Mail. The article reports:

         This evening, protests continue in Paris as rioters set fire to cars, burn barricades and smash windows in pockets of violence across the city centre.  

         Police reinforcements were boosted to 8,000 across the city, with armoured vehicles deployed in Paris for the first time ever.

         More than 650 protesters have been detained in the capital so far today. Many of them stopped as they arrived at train stations or meeting points carrying hammers, petanque balls and other potential missiles.  

        Nationwide, 89,000 police officers were on duty in towns, cities and on numerous motorways which caused havoc on France's road network, including a blockade of a border crossing with Spain.

The article also reports that "Police also clashed with protesters in the southwestern city of Toulouse, though elsewhere, such as Marseille, the demonstrations were peaceful."

        On a humorous note, the newspaper objected to Trump linking the protests to the Paris Climate Accord, stating: "The demonstrations are not linked to the climate agreement." Yet later in the article, it states: "Macron on Wednesday agreed to abandon the fuel tax hike, which aimed to wean France off fossil fuels and uphold the Paris climate agreement, but that hasn't defused the anger." The leftists are having a hard time keeping their narratives straight.

• Related: "‘Great Violence’ in Paris Anticipated as Police Staff Join Macron Protests"--Breitbart. Key bit: "The Police Union Vigi Ministère de l’Intérieur has not only expressed support for the Yellow Vest movement but has called on members to go on an indefinite strike starting on Saturday, and join the Yellow Vests."

• Related: And a group of approximately 1,000 Swedes protested outside their parliament over immigration and the cost and corruption related to it. 

• The fruits of China's one-child policy: "Thousands of Myanmar women forced into marriages in China"--DW. Because of the one-child policy, there is a gross disparity between the number of women and men in China, "result[ing] in men outnumbering women by around 34 million, fueling demand for trafficked women from neighboring countries."
• Cultural enrichment in Idaho: "8 arrested in connection to murder of Nampa 16-year-old"--KTVB. Four of those arrested are teens under 18.  The victim, Roberto Angel Gomez, was killed in an armed robbery. Although 8 people (7 with Hispanic names) were charged in connection with the murder, it was 16-year-old Menchaca Olvera who is alleged to have shot and killed the victim using a Highpoint handgun.
• Michael Walsh writes at American Greatness about "George H.W. Bush and the Failure of American Foreign Policy." Walsh explains:

          As we learned from the funeral of the non-president, John McCain, the leftist media has rarely met an ineffective Republican politician they didn’t want to celebrate when he passed, no matter what they’d said about him during his time here on Earth. In the interests of “bipartisanship,” “comity,” and “civility,” the years the dearly departed moved among us are seen retrospectively as a kind of Golden Age, when Republicans lost graciously to the designated Democrat, whether as a first-time candidate or (even better) a defeated one-termer sent packing so the Democrat Restoration could be implemented, and the natural order of American politics restored.

        In the case of Bush the Elder, however, Poppy’s defeat at the hands (sorry) of Bill Clinton was not only fully deserved—the man was a natural non-politician up against the best campaigner of his generation—but actually welcome. Not only did he—read my lips—betray the legacy of Ronald Reagan in his electorally fatal decision to welsh on his “no new taxes” pledge, not only did he cut the legs out from under the Reagan Revolution by calling for a “kinder, gentler America,” but he also egregiously mishandled the Gipper’s most important legacy: the defeat of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War.

• "Clinton Foundation whistleblowers have come forward with hundreds of pages of evidence, Meadows says"--Fox News. From the article:

         Three people have come forward with hundreds of pages of evidence of potential wrongdoing by the Clinton Foundation, including misappropriation of funds and allegations of quid-pro-quo promises made to donors during Hillary Clinton's tenure as secretary of state, Rep. Mark Meadows, R-N.C., told Fox News on Thursday.

        Meadows, the leader of the conservative House Freedom Caucus, is also the chairman of the House Oversight Subcommittee on Government Operations. The panel is set to hold an investigative hearing next week on the status of the Foundation case.

       U.S. Attorney John Huber was tasked to investigate the foundation last year by then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions.

• Related: "Feds received whistleblower evidence in 2017 alleging Clinton Foundation wrongdoing"--The Hill.

• Explaining why leftists hold the views that they do: "Narcissists don't support democracy and believe dictators and military rule are best for society"--The Daily Mail. From the article:

         Researchers say they 'tend to feel entitled and superior to others, which results in lower tolerance of diverse political opinions.'

• Related: "Poll Shows Huge Democrat Bias Toward Muslims Over Christians"--Breitbart.

• A reminder that the science is never settled: "How Earth was born: Neon trapped in planet's mantle suggests it formed rapidly from dust and gas swirling around the sun"--Daily Mail.

• Related: "These dusty young stars are changing the rules of planet-building"--Nature. The article begins by relating how when astronomers examined a 100,000 year old star in the Taurus Molecular Cloud, they discovered that the formation of planets in the dust halo around the star was well along the way. And this had repeated as researchers examine other young stars. The article continues by noting other evidence that suggests that planetary formation is both different than the theories predict, but also much faster.