July 19, 2019 -- A Quick Run Around the Web

"Breaking Down "Civil War 2" - Part Five"--Forward Observer (26 min.)

This video discusses the likely role of the military in quashing any internal disturbance. One thing to keep in mind is that because of the Posse Comitatus Act, the use of military forces within the United States is largely proscribed. There would, therefore, be an institutional inertia in the military of taking part in any military style operation. As the video points out, the military's involvement will likely be limited to providing assistance to law enforcement, unless there is large scale rioting that cannot be controlled by local or state authorities. Nevertheless, I would also note that select federal troops were deployed to New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina to engage in combat type operations. So it is not outside the realm of possibility. And special forces are there own world, and would likely be employed for "counter-terrorism." 

• TGIF: This week's Weekend Knowledge Dump from Active Response Training. 
• "COIN Primer - The MANPADS Republic: An Effective Means to Establish Regional Sovereignty"--Small Wars Journal. Something to think about in the context of a civil war. The author discusses the role of man portable ground to air missiles in allowing an insurgency to deny air superiority to an opponent. An excerpt (footnotes omitted):

      What makes MANPADS the most effective tool for insurgents and freedom fighters alike is the versatility of the weapon to help fulfill several basic requirements for a successful guerrilla campaign.  Mao implies in his treatise On Guerrilla Warfare that  “there is very little hope of destroying a revolutionary guerrilla movement after it has survived the first phase” of development. To reach this goal, guerillas must establish remote bases which enables a sustained campaign of  sabotage, terrorism, and political manipulation.  The portability of MANPADS allows them to be easily trekked to isolated staging areas as a basic air defense layer. Through the denial of close air attack, which includes both rotary and fixed-wing aircraft, these shoulder fired missiles fulfill a critical need for the guerrillas. Examples of successful deployment in this manner has been demonstrated by Chechen rebels, Kurdish forces in Iraq, and the secessionist states in Myanmar. This platform afforded these groups air protection, which is necessary in establishing a safe haven for eventual self-governance.

       MANPADS are also effective in helping established insurgencies successfully overtake government-held areas. This was exemplified by their role in protecting mobile offensives during ISIS’s rapid spread by successfully countering exposed Iraqi and Syrian attack aircraft. In addition, MANPADS have demonstrated a capacity to disrupt airlifted aid to a conflict zone, as seen in Angola with the downing of a UN Transport Aircraft. This resulted in resources being cut off to the general populace, furthering dependence on the insurgency and delegitimizing the pro-government forces. Aside from directly supporting an attritional military conflict, MANPADS have the ability to achieve a significant political victory when targeting civilian aircraft that contain government officials. Such was the case in Rwanda in 1994, where the president of both Rwanda and neighboring Burundi were killed by militants seeking to destabilize the government. While a successful attack on a political target can prove devastating, international and domestic feelings of instability can come from even one attempted missile targeting of civilian aircraft. Thus, MANPADS serve many critical needs which are necessary for the establishment of a burgeoning rebel state in the modern world.

• Related: "Italian Police Arrest 3 Men, Confiscate Firearms and an Air-To-Air Missile"--The Firearm Blog. Apparently they were planning on having a really good time.

• "Coordinating chaos--The tactics protesters use to fortify the frontlines"--Reuters. An interesting look at how the Hong Kong protesters have used supply chains and hand signals to safeguard their protests.
• The Raconteur Report takes a look at some "outside the box" survival tools and focuses on the humble pencil sharpener. The good points:

1. Kept in a small plastic baggie ($3/100 at WallyWorld) it lasts everywhere, forever.

2. At some point, you may be called upon to make traps* and snares*, or weapons*. You have a tool that will produce, far quicker and easier than your knife or multitool ever could, spikes for traps, snares, spears*, fish- and frog-gigs*, arrow tips*, and all manner of pointy wooden sticks, near endlessly.

3. Most importantly, to get a fire started, you'll need tinder*. So let's imagine a device that can take small and large sticks, and create a highly flammable ribbon-thin strip of combustible tinder, even from wood that's wet on the outside.

4. It also sharpens pencils*.

While not as versatile as a small pencil sharpener, I think a good pair of nail clippers is important. Clipping broken nails, hang nails, and similar could be a life saver if it prevents infection or larger wounds.

• "BEST 380 ACP AMMO FOR SELF-DEFENSE"--American Partisan. The author considered penetration, expansion, and velocity. Final ranking (1 being the best):

1. Federal Personal Defense – 99 Grain HST
2. Winchester Ranger Talon – 95 Grain, Hollow Point
3. Barnes TAC-XPD – 80 Grain, Hollow Point
4. Remington HTP – 88-grain JHP 

While we generally think of super small .380s intended as pocket pistols, there are larger framed .380s available, and even a few with larger magazine capacity suitable for a "tactical" pistol: e.g., the Beretta 84 (still in production), the Browning BDA .380 (a variant of the Beretta 84 made for Browning that has been discontinued for some time but can still be found for sale on the used market), and the Bersa Thunder Plus (currently in production). The Beretta 84 and Browning BDA .380 both use 13-round magazines, while the Bersa has a 15-round magazine. For someone with a smaller stature and smaller hands, these are viable alternatives to larger double-stack pistols.

• Related: "My new love, the Beretta 84"--Suzanne Wiley at The Shooter's Log (a Cheaper Than Dirt blog).

• "KIRK COMMENTS ON THE 1986 MIAMI FBI SHOOTOUT"--Loose Rounds. The Miami shootout convinced the FBI that it needed better weapons, which led to the adoption of the 10 mm and, eventually, the .40 S&W. The author argues, however, that the real failure of the FBI agents was not their weapons but their mindset:

They knew that the subjects they were trying to stop were guys who had been conducting armed robberies of armored cars and banks, and yet their preparations were laughably inadequate for taking on a guy who’d been a Ranger in Vietnam. They did not know who they were targeting, that morning, and had not one clue that Platt was literally that “lion-in-the-morning”. They weren’t expecting the two to go “off-script”, and actually effectively return violent resistance with a rifle. Between the two of them, Matix and Platt damn near managed to eliminate 8 FBI agents that had surprised them, leaving only one unwounded, and nearly escaped from the situation. Whatever weapons were used were immaterial to the issue, because the whole thing was predicated on piss-poor training and unrealistic expectations.

The author warns that at some point the U.S. will experience a Mumbai-style attack that will catch American law enforcement completely off-guard.

• Related: "I’m a left-wing anarchist. Guns aren’t just for right-wingers"--Vox. The author writes: "I’m of the firm opinion that it’s time to not only arm the left but challenge the narrative that all leftists are anti-gun." And this is interesting:

In a stark contrast to its current bloodthirsty propagandizing, the NRA was once a firm proponent of gun control, and was a key component of the passage of 1934’s National Firearms Act, which imposed restrictions on machine guns. That began to change in the 1960s; the NRA continued to support gun control, but its members — who had begun buying guns more for protection than for hunting — started to protest.  

• I think this is a poor example: Sheriff Jim Wilson was recently writing about the danger of cocking a revolver when confronted by a criminal, and postulates the following situation:

      Imagine this scenario–you are confronted by an unknown man on the street who is approaching you, making threats with both hands jammed in the pockets of his jacket. You command him–and rightfully so–to stop and take his hands out where you can see them. He ignores you and keeps approaching. Now, he's getting into the range where bad things can happen quickly, so you draw your revolver and repeat your commands. He keeps coming and keeps threatening. It is at this point that you might be tempted to cock the hammer of your revolver, whether to emphasize the command to stop or just out of sheer nervousness.

      What happens, though, if at this point that the punk jumps you and makes a physical attack? Now, you are in the middle of a fistfight with a cocked revolver in your hands. The potential for a negligent discharge is very high.

Unless I've completely misinterpreted the scenario, I'm thinking at that point that I'm going to want to shoot the bugger anyway, so a "negligent discharge" might not be such a bad thing. No, the real danger, would have been if the "punk" obeyed your command and you had a negligent discharge and shot him. 

• Since we are on the subject of revolvers: "Much Ado About Ejector Rod Length"--Revolver Guy. The author admits that he has had a bias toward long ejector rods, thinking they are better for ejecting cartridges. 

       It is possible for an ejector rod to be too long and reach a point of diminishing returns. All other things being equal, an ejector rod that is longer is less rigid and more prone to being bent. An excessively long ejector rod may also be more difficult to operate for users of reload techniques that rely on a thumb to actuate the rod, like the FBI reload. These issues are small potatoes compared the real issue with overly-endowed ejector rods.

     Perhaps the biggest danger of a too-long ejector rod is an increased risk of brass or live cartridges falling under the extractor star. This can occur even with short(er) ejector rods when the user “pumps” the ejector rod several times. This is doubly true if the user fails to fully invert the gun, allowing gravity to act on the cases at the “top” of the cylinder.

      This condition is made much more likely when the extractor star travels further from the face of the cylinder than the overall length of the brass. While a hung piece of brass can easily be stripped away, clearing brass under the star requires a much more involved remedial action. Two hands are necessary – one to depress the ejector rod and one to remove the brass – and the process takes an unacceptably long time.

He also explains that ejector rod throw can be different from ejector rod length, noting that "visible length [of an ejector rod] is a largely superficial factor. What we’re really after is ejector rod throw. Throw is the distance the extractor star is permitted to travel when the ejector rod is fully depressed." And, "visible length of the ejector rod is often a poor indicator of its throw. Some guns with ejector rods that appear very short have impressive throws." Keep your mind out of the gutter!

• "Zucchini Is In Season: How to Freeze It, Pickle It, and Make Muffins With It"--Organic Prepper. Don't forget the zucchini bread! I've actually come to like it more than banana bread.
• "Pill Bugs: Good Bugs Or Bad? They Might Be Both!"--Epic Gardening. Pill bugs (aka rolly-pollies) generally eat decaying plant matter, and can be useful for keeping a garden healthy and can be great for a compost pile; but if they run out of their normal food, they will turn to eating live plants.
• "Ratio of White Vinegar & Water | Kill Germs on Fresh Vegetables"--Modern Survival Blog. The ratio is 1:3 of vinegar to water. For smooth skin produce, the author recommends keeping it in a spray bottle that you can use to spray the produce, let sit for 30 seconds, and then rinse with fresh water. Rough skin produce or stuff with lots of little parts (broccoli or leafy greens), you need to soak the produce for several minutes before thoroughly rinsing. Leafy greens need to have the leaves separated during soaking to make sure the solution reaches the whole surface.  The author also mentions that you can use a household bleach solution and has other recommendations and tips, so read the whole thing.
• Another reason you need a 30-round magazine: "Wounded Florida Homeowner Kills Two of Four Intruders With AR-15 Rifle"--The Truth About Guns. The 61 year old homeowner killed two of the intruders, and two other suspects were apprehended nearby. 
• Just don't: "PSA: Shooting .22 Long Rifle in .22 Magnum Cylinders"--Revolver Guy. If you have a revolver in .22 LR, or a single shot pistol or rifle, you can safely use .22 short and .22 long cartridges. But you can't do the same with .22 LR in a .22 Magnum revolver. The author explains:

     ... The WMR case is larger in every dimension, compared to the tiny LR case. It’s longer, has a thicker rim, is wider, and has a larger case head. The WMR cartridge was designed to fully enclose a full diameter bullet, rather than merely grip the reduced diameter heel of the bullet, as in the LR. 

      Therefore, if you place a .22 LR in a .22 WMR chamber, it will be a sloppy fit. If the LR cartridge is actually fired in the WMR chamber, the case may rupture and vent high pressure gases and particulates rearward, through the breechface. There is a significant risk of injury if you fire .22 LR ammunition in a .22 WMR chamber!

• "Kidd Rock"--NC Renegade. The author's thoughts and experiences with shooting .22 LR out to 400 yards.
• "Don’t forget about pets in times of emergency"--Mohave Valley Daily News. 

     The Arizona Emergency Information Network has a few simple tips to follow that will make preparing an evacuation plan with pets easy.

     AzEIN suggested to think about where you’ll go with your pet and how you will get there if you have to leave home during an emergency. 

     Arrange for family or friends outside the affected area to shelter your pet.

     Identify animal-friendly hotels/motels outside the affected area.

     Talk with your local veterinarian, board kennel or grooming facility to see if they can offer safe shelter for your pet during an emergency.

     Practice your departure plans to familiarize your pet with the process and increase his/her comfort level.

     Know your pet’s hiding places so you can easily find him/her during an emergency.

     Keep in mind a stressed pet may behave differently than normal and his/her aggression level may increase. Use a muzzle to prevent bites. Also, be advised that panicked pets may try to flee.

     Create a Go Bag for your pet or service animal such as a collection of items your pet may need in case of an evacuation. Discuss your pet’s Go Bag with your local veterinarian to see if there are any special items that you should include.

• "More Than Two Million NICS Checks Per Month In 2019"--The Firearm Blog. This is the first year to register such consistently high NICS checks.
• Mass killing in Japan: "‘Arsonist who burst into Japanese animation studio screaming “You die!” and set it on fire, killing at least 33 people’ is seen being treated for injuries after getting caught in his own blaze"--The Daily Mail. 
• Speaking of Japan: "Domestic abuse soars in Japan, and it’s men reporting women for the violence"--South China Morning Post. Or, as Kipling wrote, "For the female of the species is more deadly than the male." And in particular, the last two stanzas:

    So it comes that Man, the coward, when he gathers to confer 

    With his fellow-braves in council, dare not leave a place for her 

    Where, at war with Life and Conscience, he uplifts his erring hands 

    To some God of Abstract Justice—which no woman understands.

    And Man knows it! Knows, moreover, that the Woman that God gave him 

    Must command but may not govern—shall enthral but not enslave him. 

    And She knows, because She warns him, and Her instincts never fail, 

    That the Female of Her Species is more deadly than the Male.

• A good argument for the death penalty: "Inmate, 77, considered 'too old to be a threat' is freed from prison after serving 25 years for murdering his wife and goes on to kill a second woman in an identical knife attack in front of her children"--Daily Mail. It's actually worse than that, because he was released in 2004 then subsequently imprisoned again in 2010 for assaulting another woman. 
• "Bullets Matter in Handgun Accuracy – RMR’s 9mm 124 JHP MPR (.3555”)"--Guns America. This is a review of RMR's own bullets. They also sell bullets that have been "pulled" as part of the process of ammunition stores having been destroyed. I haven't used RMR's own bullets, but have ordered pulled bullets from them in the past. I haven't had any problems in my dealings with the company, and will probably be trying these in the near future.
• Gun control is a scam: "LA customs agent turned black market gun-runner, 56, who used his position to seize and sell illegal weapons is found with more than 40 machine guns after he's busted selling guns to undercover agents"--Daily Mail. Wei Xu, a former U.S. Customs and Border Protection watch commander, pled guilty to tax evasions, lying about contacts with foreign nationals, and illegally selling firearms, including NFA or other restricted firearms. 

"Who Will the Epstein Scandal Bring Down Next?"--America Uncovered (13 min.)

• "Washington Lays All the Ugly Cards on the Table—and at Last We Have Clarity"--Richard Fernandez at PJ Media. He writes:

     What a scene it presents. On the one hand is a group of people who think America is the source of all evil that should spend the rest of its historical existence atoning for the mischief it has loosed in the world. On the other hand is a group who believe that for all its faults it is the greatest country in the world and that those who want to destroy it should go back to Somalia. Whichever point of view you subscribe to (or neither) it's hard to deny that these factions have existed for some time and are only now coming to grips in the open.

     But this clarity has been bought at the cost of increased political risk. ...

     ... With the rout of the Republican establishment during the 2016 primaries and Hillary's loss in the general a few months later, the old center of gravity was annihilated. The hard left and the populists are gyrating through the wreckage of the parties threatening to upend them at every moment. The Free Twitter Effect is driving the media mad. In retrospect, the psychological center of American politics must have been fraying for a long time.

     How else to explain why the new controversy is who owns America. ...

     Maybe globalization has worked only too well. Time was when it was axiomatic that America belonged to Americans but those were simpler, more innocent times before Washington became capital of the world. That title -- the caput mundi -- once belonged to Rome before it moved on to Constantinople, then London and now D.C. Perhaps one day history will move on again and leave Washington once more the capital of the mere United States of America.

• "Civil unrest in Puerto Rico forces multiple cruise ships to alter routes"--Fox News. Protesters in San Juan are calling for Gov. Ricardo Rosselló to resign based on corruption charges, among other things, and these protests have caused cruise lines to skip a port of call at San Juan.
• "'We're leaving!' - Pakistani refugees are outraged after Denmark cut welfare benefits"--Politics Online. Sounds like they need to cut benefits further.
• "'I am legally married to one and culturally to another': How Ilhan Omar desperately tried to shut down accusations of bigamy amid claims she was briefly married to her BROTHER to 'commit immigration fraud' while she was still with her current husband"--Daily Mail. She's culturally married to her brother? Ewww.

• Related: More purported immigration fraud by Ilhan Omar: "DAVID STEINBERG: TYING UP LOOSE THREADS IN THE CURIOUS CASE"--Powerline.

      In 1995, Ilhan entered the United States as a fraudulent member of the “Omar” family.

     That is not her family. The Omar family is a second, unrelated family which was being granted asylum by the United States. The Omars allowed Ilhan, her genetic sister Sahra, and her genetic father Nur Said to use false names to apply for asylum as members of the Omar family.

     Ilhan’s genetic family split up at this time. The above three received asylum in the United States, while Ilhan’s three other siblings — using their real names — managed to get asylum in the United Kingdom.

     Ilhan Abdullahi Omar’s name, before applying for asylum, was Ilhan Nur Said Elmi.

     Her father’s name before applying for asylum was Nur Said Elmi Mohamed. Her sister Sahra Noor’s name before applying for asylum was Sahra Nur Said Elmi. Her three siblings who were granted asylum by the United Kingdom are Leila Nur Said Elmi, Mohamed Nur Said Elmi, and Ahmed Nur Said Elmi.

     Ilhan and Ahmed married in 2009, presumably to benefit in some way from a fraudulent marriage. They did not divorce until 2017.

• Mark Tapscott notes research showing that America is becoming more religious.
• Paper tiger: "China's growth has ground down to a 27-year low, and its economy probably can't go on like this"--Business Insider. From the article:

      China's GDP grew at 6.2% in the second quarter, its slowest growth rate since 1992. And while there was some positive economic news in the month of June — the last month of the quarter — this GDP print means that soon policymakers will have to act in order to keep the economy growing, according to analysts.

      In short, Q2 was bad. And there's a chance Q3 will be less bad, but it's not a signal that China's economy is stabilizing yet. For the past few months policymakers have been engaging in targeted easing. Instead of just spraying credit everywhere, they've tried to get it where it's needed most — to households and to the struggling private sector, for example.

       Analysts have been saying for some time now that those measures aren't enough to blunt the force of the trade war and China's own domestic issues working against growth though. And despite a few bright-ish spots in June's data, that still stands.

And that 6.2% growth is based on China's inflated numbers. 

• Related: "China Slumps Into Full-Blown Manufacturing Contraction Following "Awful" Asian PMI Prints"--Zero Hedge.

• Ever wonder how the 250 million man army mentioned in Revelation could travel from the East to confront the Anti-Christ? I think this is part of the infrastructure: "Russia approves 1,250-mile highway through its territory which will connect China to Europe under Xi Jinping's scheme to dominate global trade"--Daily Mail. Note that this is in addition to the railroad routes that have or will be constructed.
• "Walmart, Anthem, Boeing, et al: You Get What You Pay For"--The Burning Platform. Boeing has recently shown how effective using cheap H1B labor can be at destroying a business's reputation and effectiveness. According to the BBC, "Boeing takes $5bn hit over grounding of 737 Max." While Walmart stores can't crash killing hundreds of people, it, too, has been blinded by the idea of low up-front costs, announced that it will lay off almost 600 corporate employees in finance and accounting, and will instead outsource those jobs to Genpact, an Indian firm. The author of this piece has something to say about the H1B program:

     The H-1B, as defined by the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, “allows companies in the United States to temporarily employ foreign workers in occupations that require the theoretical and practical application of a body of highly specialized knowledge and a bachelor’s degree or higher in the specific specialty, or its equivalent.” Indian companies have dominated the H-1B program; they score 70 percent or more of the visas. The program has been bastardized, and now is “dual intent,” meaning temporary employees may become Green Card seekers, which has created a whole set of other problems with the U.S. immigration system.

      In the early days of American worker displacement, manufacturing jobs were offshored. The propaganda used at the time was encapsulated in the line, “There are jobs that don’t have an economic right to exist.” Then, other types of jobs, white-collar jobs, were offshored, for example, to Indian call centers. This body shop model has now been duplicated in the U.S. Initially, companies may have brought in a few workers on an H-1B, but as the outsourcing companies grew, they figured out how to use the H-1B program to offer companies lower-priced staffing via their now well-established foreign labor pipeline.

      As the outsourcing firms provided more workers and got larger contracts, they were able to staff more management positions. Then, hiring managers had the opportunity to hire more H-1Bs over American workers to where, eventually, contracts to outsource complete IT functions were won and filled with H-1Bs. With it has come a record of discriminatory hiring, now well established, but which has been difficult to prove in several lawsuits.

      But beyond the discrimination aspect comes the competency issue. These H-1B workers are not exceptional. In fact, they are quite ordinary with regard to their skills and education. As has been pointed out to me on several occasions, visit an office staffed largely by H-1Bs, and you will see the staff on the phones. They are on the phone with “job support” back in India getting assistance, because many lack basic programming skills.

     Stories of laid off American tech workers required to train their foreign replacements, or lose their severance, have been widely reported in The New York Times, Computerworld and The Charlotte Observer, among many other publications. And the Walmart layoff of employees in finance and accounting just highlights that the elimination of the U.S. worker is happening in virtually every professional class. For companies now, augmentation of the labor force with foreign workers is out, and full-on replacement of American workers is in.

There is a lot more, so read the whole thing. 

      The basic issue is that our immigration system is completely broken, and all to serve the purposes of undermining wages. A Breitbart article recently explained:

     Overall, the H-1Bs and the vast supply of legal and illegal migrants in American workplaces force down Americans’ salaries nationwide, even as they also create some extra jobs selling goods and services to migrants. Additional immigrant labor needs to eat and to sleep — so it serves as cheap workers, consumers, and renters for many companies and real-estate investors. The extra sales are doubly useful for Amazon, Wal-Mart, the construction industry, and landlords from Maine to San Diego. But it does little to raise American employees’ average productivity, skills, or wealth.

     The bottom line is that the flow of all immigrants and visa workers transfers roughly $500 billion a year in employees wages up to CEOs and investors. The $500 billion estimate is based on the formula used by a September 2016 study by the National Academy of Sciences. That huge economic transfer explains why investors and business groups fight so hard for extra immigration — and why so many investors and companies quietly pushed HR.1044 through the House this week.

      The economic transfer is so large that it helps explain why employees’ share of the new wealth in economy has dropped by 10 percent, or six points, since 2000.

• Related: "America is for everyone"--Vox Day.  Money quote: "If America is for everyone, if anyone can become American, then America does not exist. Which, of course, is the insidious objective of the entire exercise in redefining it."

• Related: "David French on Native-Born Ingrates"--Ricochet. French wades in on Trump's tweet directed at Ilhan Omar, stating that "Immigrant citizens don’t owe a special debt of gratitude of to this nation — a debt over and above the gratitude that native-born citizens should feel for their home country." The author of this article disagrees: 

People fight and work and die to make the country better. It seems to me that those sacrifices build up an inheritable equity and when we choose to share that equity with outsiders, the newcomers should be extra thankful to get a share. 

• Related: "MULTICULTURALISM VS. AMERICA"--Powerline. "Multiculturalism, identity politics, and political correctness constitute enemies of the American idea that, if not defeated on the intellectual battlefield, will destroy the United States." Also links to a podcast by the Claremont Institute’s American Mind. 

• Related: "Poll: Majority of Americans Want Mass Deportations of Illegal Aliens Following Congressional Inaction"--Breitbart. Elites: "yawn".

• Cultural enrichment in North Carolina: "Illegal Immigrants Drive Child Sex Crime Charges in North Carolina"--The Epoch Times (h/t Anonymous Conservative). "In North Carolina, during the past 18 months, more than 331 illegal aliens have been charged with 1,172 child rapes and child sexual assaults[.]"
• "Nike Defends Scrapping ‘Betsy Ross Flag’ Sneaker, Didn’t Want to ‘Unintentionally Offend’"--Breitbart. Translation: didn't want to unintentionally offend POC, but don't give a damn about offending "Deplorables." I'd say screw them, but I already buy my sports shoes from New Balance. 
• Anonymous Conservative pointed out how odd was this behavior: "Hunter Biden Reacts to Helicopter Over His Home: ‘F*ck you, Mr. President!’"--Breitbart. As AC points out, what must the real world of the elites be like if Hunter Biden assumes that a helicopter that happened to be flying by his house was being used to spy on him.
• The All Seeing Eye: "Report: Google and Facebook Are Tracking Porn Viewing Habits"--Breitbart. From the article:

      The New York Times reports that a new study by researchers from Microsoft, Carnegie Mellon, and the University of Pennsylvania scanned 22,484 porn sites and discovered that they are riddled with tracking tools feeding data back to third party tech firms such as Facebook, Google, and Oracle.

     “Our results indicate tracking is endemic on pornography websites: 93% of pages leak user data to a third-party,” the study concludes. The study scanned the sites in March of 2018 and found that 74 percent of trackers came from Google or its subsidiaries, 24 percent came from Oracle and 10 percent came from Facebook. The study claims that even enabling “incognito mode” on web browsers did not protect users from the trackers.

Maybe it is just part of the war on terror, given the well documented proclivities of Muslim terrorists.

• Hmm. "Attacking Command and Control Nodes: Two Examples Reveal a Change in the Face of War"--Free Range International. Concerning the drone shot down by Iran last month, the author suggests that the U.S. wanted Iran to shoot it down in order to gain intelligence on Iran's air detection and defense command and control nodes and/or activate a virus:

      In my last post I speculated that the drone, shot down by the Iranians, was an intentional baited ambush by the United States Navy. My theory is based on the pattern of events and the reported outcomes in current Iranian situation and, as I said in the last post, we may have have arrived here by accident, but we are here.

      “Here” is the destruction of the Iranian missile control systems by a cyber attack launched during an aborted air raid. Missile control systems are closed kimono, they are never connected to the internet, all inputs into the system come from filtered targeted data or humans. The system went down one of two ways; through the return from a targeted platform, or through the actions of a human asset.

      Given the historical record of the Central Intelligence Agency with human intelligence assets the chances they had an agent anywhere near Iran’s missile defense systems are remote. But it is possible and will cause the Iranians to launch a long, bloody, mole hunt. Mole hunts are an awesome tool to use against adversaries because a mole hunt will always turn up guilty people to be disappeared even when there are not guilty.

     The United States had a gigantic Mole hunt in 2001 when weaponized anthrax spores showed up in the congressional mail room. Robert Muller and James Comey oversaw the ensuing investigation hounding one man to suicide while bankrupting another. Neither of the suspects had anything to do with the Anthrax attacks and the one who survived won a 5.82 million dollar settlement  after he was exonerated. That’s how mole hunts work; they find “guilty” people regardless of actual guilt, and right now Iran is in the middle of a big one. What could be better than that?

      The simplest explanation for why a demonstrator drone, past its service life and headed for a junk heap, was sent over to the gulf and promptly shot down is the drone was serving a specific purpose that no other platform could serve. That service was (possibly) introducing a virus into the targeting systems. When we sent in a feint raid (pulling the planes back at the last minute) the virus the drone introduced was activated. The resulting damage was catastrophic for Iranian defense forces.

• "What That Giant Asteroid of Gold Would Really Do to the Economy"--Foundation for Economic Education. 

      Psyche has a lot of gold—about $10,000 quadrillion worth at current prices. The eye-catching headlines that claim it’s enough gold to make “everyone on earth a billionaire” are, of course, complete fantasy. Selling that much gold would cut prices nearly to zero.

     Harvesting Psyche would not cause an economic collapse.

      If gold was still used for money, that much gold would create massive inflation, resulting in a lot of economic hardship. No country uses the gold standard anymore, so that’s hardly a concern. Rock-bottom gold prices would certainly be devastating for gold mining companies and people who keep their wealth in gold bars. That’s really bad for them, but they’re a tiny part of the global economy.

      Perhaps the confusion rests in simple reverse causation. Recessions definitely cause lower commodity prices, but lower commodity prices cause recessions no more than umbrellas cause rain.

     Harvesting Psyche would not cause an economic collapse. If that much gold could cheaply be brought to market it would be a boon, not a bust. It’s impossible to predict what a world of cheap gold would look like, but the story of aluminum gives us a hint.

Aluminum, as you might know, used to be one of the most expensive metals despite how common were aluminum ores. The author notes:

Even though it’s the most abundant metal on the planet, most aluminum is trapped in bauxite and was difficult to purify for most of human history. Pure aluminum was incredibly rare, and there was once a time when the stuff of soda cans was more precious than gold. Aluminum bars were displayed next to the French crown jewels, and pure aluminum caps the Washington Monument.

But new methods of processing the ore to extract aluminum made it cheap. So cheap that we now make disposable containers out of it. So, what things could we expect if gold was cheap? Well, at a purely practical level, gold is a far more efficient conductor, which would benefit electronics. It would be more practical to make gold-titanium alloys, which can be as much as four times harder than existing steel or titanium alloys. Gold nanoparticles have shown strong potential for use in diagnosing and treating cancer. Heck, we could even infuse trees with gold nanoparticles to make their leaves glow and replace regular street lighting (at least in certain climes).

• Inconvenient truths: "Two new science papers strongly question theory of man-made global warming"--Behind the Black. One paper out of Finland, and the other out of Japan. The Finnish researcher concludes:

We have proven that the [climate]-models used in IPCC report AR5 cannot compute correctly the natural component included in the observed global temperature. The reason is that the models fail to derive the influences of low cloud cover fraction on the global temperature. A too small natural component results in a too large portion for the contribution of the greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide. That is why 6 J. KAUPPINEN AND P. MALMI IPCC represents the climate sensitivity more than one order of magnitude larger than our sensitivity 0.24°C. Because the anthropogenic portion in the increased CO2 is less than 10 %, we have practically no anthropogenic climate change. The low clouds control mainly the global temperature.

And as recent research has shown, one of the key producers of clouds are cosmic rays; and the amount of cosmic rays reaching lower altitudes has been increasing because of the Earth's weakening magnetic field. 

• Related: "Unsettled science: Scientists find hard evidence that cosmic rays influence climate"--American Thinker. 

• Related: "Intensified East Asian winter monsoon during the last geomagnetic reversal transition"--Nature. 

• Related: "Spotty coverage: Climate models underestimate cooling effect of daily cloud cycle"--Princeton University. 

• Related: "Coolest/Wettest January-June On Record In The US"--The Deplorable Climate Science Blog. 

• Related: "Surprising Summer Chill Baffles Global Warming Alarmists"--Watts Up With That.

• "Inspiration, Attitude, and Funeral Jokes"--Wilder, Wealthy & Wise. A good discussion on the uselessness of a negative attitude. And this:

If I were to give advice this Friday it’s this:  be of good cheer.  Be a spark in the darkness to help others.  Understand that, until the last moment of your life, you have the ability to change the world for the better, to help create that better future for all of us.

Now go away!