February 11, 2019 -- A Quick Run Around the Web

"Earth Catastrophe Cycle | Dig In"--Suspicious Observers (8 min.)

This video discusses underground shelters as possible protection from a global catastrophe and (very briefly) notes the many underground shelters built by ancient cultures. An example of this is the Derinkuyu underground city in Turkey that had been maintained and periodically used from at least the 8th Century B.C. through the 20th Century A.D.

• It's not too late to check out last week's Weekend Knowledge Dump from Active Response Training. 
• "Why a brace of snubbys beat a pistol for concealed carry"--The Street Standards. Marcus Wynne shares why he prefers a couple of snub nosed revolvers over a larger capacity semi-auto pistol. One point in particular that makes a lot of sense:

With ONE gun, if tied up with an attack directed at the gun (like a smothered presentation) your firepower is out of the fight till you get it clear.  You could carry a knife to protect your gun but with TWO guns, if somebody goes for one of them, you can get the other out and shoot them, instead of stab them or wrestle for control of the sole firearm.

• "What you need to know about lens coatings"--Birdwatching. An excerpt:

       When light is transmitted through a lens, some light reflects off its surface and is lost. Manufacturers deposit thin chemical coatings on lens surfaces to reduce reflective loss and improve light transmission. Binoculars and spotting scopes have a large number of lenses inside, so coatings can be as important as the quality of the lenses themselves.

      Without coatings, each lens may lose up to 5 percent of the light passing through it. Lenses with multi-coatings reduce light loss to tenths of a percent. A poor optic, therefore, may lose as much as 35 percent of the light entering the objective, but a high-end design may lose less than 5 percent.

While we are on the subject of binoculars, a reader writes: "I've had both bird watchers and cops who did a lot of stakeouts tell me that 6x is the sweet spot for 'watching' someone/ something as distinct from 'looking at someone/something.'"

• "Emergency potable water supplies - an update"--Bayou Renaissance Man. Peter Grant discusses using the 4-gallon "water cooler" jugs from Sam's Club for storing water, including sources for caps and inexpensive stands for using the water. 
• "Careful When Sealing Brown Sugar for Your Stockpile"--The Survivalist Blog. The problem is the brown sugar is a moist food, and so you can have issues with bacteria or mold. The author specifically warns against using oxygen absorbers and sealing a bag and thinking that it will be safe to consume 6 months or a year down the road. Instead, for long term storage, she recommends sticking it in the refrigerator or freezer.
• "CamelBak Unveils New Pack, Redesigns Two Favorites for 2019"--Kit Up! These are packs in their own right rather than smaller systems designed to hold the water bladder and not much else. 
• "Rethinking Rails: Cutting it Too Close"--New Rifleman. Free float handguards for the AR have gotten lighter and smaller. Perhaps too much so. The author reports instances where rails from top line producers have twisted or bent when dropped--generally when there is substantial weight (e.g., an IR laser unit) at the end.
• "Why There is No Such Thing as a “Cheap Gun” for Self-Defense"--USA Carry. The author isn't arguing that we need a $2,000 STI .45, but, on the other hand, we shouldn't sacrifice reliability and performance to save a hundred or two hundred dollars. The author explains:

It isn’t really necessary to make value judgments about how much performance is acceptable to sacrifice to save a given amount of money. At the point you have perceived any kind of real “sacrifice,” you’ve already likely made a bad choice in your purchase. The reason for this is simple: a gun is a durable good that will provide you with many years of service. If you intend to actually use and keep the gun for any amount of time and are doing even the minimum necessary training, the price differences of the guns themselves will quickly become the least significant expenditure you face [as you will need to purchase extra magazines, a holster or two, and ammunition for practice and for carry].

It is probably about 10 years ago now, but I seriously looked at getting a Bersa handgun because of the low price for the handgun for what, according to reviews I came across, was a pretty good quality firearm. But the magazines were a lot more money--$45 or $50 each as I remember--which quickly would have eaten up the savings of getting a Bersa over something else.

• "Priorities: Good tools or a willingness to show up and fight?"--Breach Bang Clear. The author discusses the obsession with gear over training, practice, or PT. An excerpt:

So now I think back to right before SHOT and the SAS dude* who said “Fuck it” and threw on his gear and moved toward the sounds of guns. I rolled my eyes numerous times on comments about how his PC was too low, his leg strap was gonna bind him up, his groin flap would slow him down, the balaclava is dumb, and so forth and so on. I don’t actually know any of the dudes that wrote those comments, they may be the hardest Mo’fos in the valley. But my guess is that if I had to choose someone to ride the river with, and my choice was SAS guy or one of his critics, I would without hesitation choose SAS guy. This is in spite of all his gear faux pas.

• "Florida’s Semi-Auto Rifle Ban Amendment Gaining Ground With Republican Donor’s Support"--The Truth About Guns.  The article reports that a group calling itself "Americans for Gun Safety Now!" is backing the Florida amendment. A short list of prominent Republicans in the group includes 4 generals and a former director of national intelligence.

"Liberty Lifesaver Waterbottle Filter System"--Dave Canterbury (10 min.)

A review and demonstration.

• 13 weeks and counting: "Yellow Vest activist's HAND is torn off amid horrific scenes of violence between police and protesters in Paris - after France's President of the National Assembly's country home is firebombed"--Daily Mail. The man's hand was reportedly torn off by a detonating police "sting grenade." The article also mentions that "[e]xtremists wearing black balaclavas have infiltrated the crowds and are intent on violence." Probably agents provocateur.  
• Evolution in action: "'It's ridiculous to reproduce on this overburdened planet': Meet the couples who are deciding NOT to have children because of global warming"--Daily Mail. The Population Bomb was bust, so now liberals have turned to their carbon footprint to call for fewer children.
• How's that gun control working for you? "Disarmed Britain: Illegal Gun Factory Arrests, Gun Crime at 10-year High in Four Counties"--Breitbart. The article reports that "Gun crime has hit a ten-year high in the English counties of Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire, Cheshire, and West Yorkshire, despite strict gun control laws."
• "UK: Homicides Highest for a Decade, Fatal Stabbings Highest Since Records Began"--Breitbart. The article reports:

In terms of race, two-thirds of stabbing victims were white and one quarter black — the highest proportion of black victims since data on ethnicity was first recorded in 1997 and disproportionate to the total population of black people in England and Wales (3.3 per cent, according to the last census). The sharpest rise amongst black victims was of youths aged 16 to 24 — a 78 per cent increase from 23 to 41.

The UK police have more important crimes to solve, however. Like arresting a mother for not referring to a transgender by his (her?) preferred gender.

• How's that gun control working for you? (California edition) "Police find underground shooting range, weapons cache at gang member's home"--ABC13.com. The article relates that "Officers located 'numerous' weapons and thousands of rounds of ammunition, including a 100-round drum for an AR-15 rifle...."
• Build the wall: "Some 42 million Latin Americans say they want to move to the US - and 5 million plan to do so WITHIN 12 months, new poll shows"--Daily Mail. 
• Why Democrats oppose border walls: "Democrats Winning 90% Congressional Districts with Large Foreign-Born Populations"--Breitbart. 

Among Brownstein’s findings is that nearly 90 percent of House congressional districts with a foreign-born population above the national average were won by Democrats. This concludes that every congressional district with a foreign-born population exceeding 14 percent had a 90 percent chance of being controlled by Democrats and only a ten percent chance of electing a Republican.

• It's not just the U.S. facing an invasion: "Tiny Turks and Caicos overwhelmed by Haitian influx"--AFP. From the article:

      "We have begged the UK to help. I don't think they realize how urgent the situation is," said the archipelago's housing minister, Goldray Ewing.

       "As a British territory we don't have our own defense force. We told them it's an invasion and a national crisis. There's no other way to describe it."

Hate to tell you buddy, but the UK government would rather see all you raped to death than be labeled racist for resisting a migrant invasion.

• "Migrants banned from Finnish schools and daycare centers after multiple child rape cases"--Voice of Europe. From the article:

      The Finnish municipality of Oulu announces that migrants are no longer allowed to visit schools and daycare centers.

      The reason is that parents have complained about so-called integration visits and feel worried about their children after the recent rape wave against young girls.

      According to the Finnish police, the alleged perpetrators are male migrants who have come to the country in recent years and most of the rape victims are girls under the age of 15.

       One of the places the media has highlighted in connection with the rape wave is the municipality of Oulu in North Ostrobothnia. In Oulu, the police are investigating at least ten migrants for serious sexual offenses against girls as young as ten.

        As a result, parents have complained and expressed concern about how the municipality can allow the integration project ESIKOTO to continue.

      ESIKOTO is an integration experiment where migrants visit schools and daycare centers to learn more about society through lessons and study groups. It is also supposed to promote multiculturalism.

• They really do hate you: "Should White Boys Still Be Allowed to Talk?"--The Dickinsonian. The author of this op-ed at the Dickinson College newspaper asserts from the depths of her tolerant heart that "I am so g****mned tired of listening to white boys." Why? Well, according to her, "white boys" "do not exist separate from the rest of the world. You do not speak alone, you speak with the weight of every other white man who has spoken over a woman, erased the contributions of queer people from history, or denigrated 'broken English' as unintelligent. You speak with the weight of policies and laws meant to forever define intelligence by how it measures up to the bros of America." I get the impression that somebody didn't do well on her final exams. Anyway, she suggests that during Black History month, "white boys" not be allowed to participate in classes.
• Apparently "white boys" is a new meme on the Left: "Yale editor chillingly urges fellow Yalies to act as a 'Stasi' to monitor white males"--American Interest. Writes a black female Yale editor: "I'm watching you, white boy.  And this time, I'm taking the screenshot."
• Oh, they mean as a religion: "NUMBER OF WITCHES RISES DRAMATICALLY ACROSS U.S. AS MILLENNIALS REJECT CHRISTIANITY"--Newsweek. From the article:

       Witchcraft and other pagan religious practices increased in the U.S. over the past few decades, with millennials turning to astrology and tarot cards as they turn away from Christianity and other traditionally dominant Abrahamic religions.

       The number of witches and Americans practicing Wicca religious rituals increased dramatically since the 1990s, with several recent studies indicating there may be at least 1.5 million witches across the country. A Trinity College study conducted in 1990 estimated only about 8,000 Wiccans in the U.S., but the increase has been led by a rejection of mainstream Christianity among young Americans as well as a rise in occultism.

      With 1.5 million potential practicing witches across the U.S., witchcraft has more followers than the 1.4 million mainline members of the Presbyterian church. 

I'm told that the Nazi's were apparently into pagan practices and the occult. Just sayin'.

• "Want Distopia?  Because this is how you get Distopia."--Wilder, Wealthy & Wise. John Wilder gives his take on John B. Calhoun’s experiments with mice and population. As the population of the mice increased, their social order disintegrated:

As the social structure dissolved, it led to violent, aimless females who didn’t know how to raise their young.  The male mice (that weren’t dominant) at this point became passive, and wouldn’t defend themselves when attacked.  Females that were outcasts and not reproducing just hid as far away from the main population as possible.  

And, he describes:

But the end state was always the same:  an entire generation rejected by mothers, unable to exhibit normal behavior, ceased to reproduce.  Those few offspring that were born in this phase of the experiment were born to mothers that ceased to have maternal instincts.

I've briefly touched on Calhoun's research and "behavioral sink" theory before (see here and here) as well as the issues of declining birth rates and declining interest among some men in sex (see here). Calhoun's research is generally referenced as a warning about overpopulation. The thing is, though, his mice populations never even came close to the designed capacity of the environments he created--there was plenty of room--and there was no issues with resources because the mice were given plenty of food. The problem, instead, was the lack of purpose and ease in which they found themselves. Life had become too easy. Wilder quotes from Calhoun's writings on the topic:

 If opportunities for role fulfillment fall far short of the demand by those capable of filling roles and having expectations to do so, only violence and disruption of social organization can follow.  Individuals born under these circumstances will be so out of touch with reality as to be incapable even of alienation.  Their most complex behavior will become fragmented. 

Wilder observes:

Why does Jihadi John® leave London to go fight with ISIS™?  Because free food, poor upbringing, and crowded conditions without fathers and with abusive mothers don’t make good men; those conditions make monsters.  Men want to be tested.  They want challenges.  They want purpose, and if they can’t find a good one and have no moral backing, they’ll make a bad one. 

Read the whole thing.