I chose to outfit this bandoleer with four magazines and a basic first aid kit. With this setup, you will have 150 rounds on tap (assuming loaded rifle) with a TQ for any limb injuries that could occur. The kit is basic, but by simply bringing this to the range with you, you are likely more prepared than 99% of gun owners. That’s kinda sad, but it’s reality.
Dry fire training can help you learn your gun’s operation, understand your trigger pull, learn your sights, and even help eliminate your flinch reaction–a pretty good deal for just a few minutes of training a day and no ammo expenses.
The bulk of the article deals with safety issues, specific exercises or drills, and the best time to dry fire (right after a session of live fire practice). While most firearms can be safely used for dry fire practice, the authors note (as you probably already know) that most rim-fire weapons should not be dry-fired, and:
Other firearms that may not be safe to dry fire include older guns, such as revolvers without a transfer bar or some older semi-automatics. Without a primer or a transfer bar in place, the firing pin can over travel and strike the sides of the firing pin channel.
Of course, even with such firearms, you can use snap caps. The author finishes up the article with a look at some dry-fire accessories out there.
- "Firearms For Freedom And Forage-Part 1, Long Guns For Defense." The author seems to prefer the .308 to 5.56, with his favorite being an M1A SOCOM. Just keep in mind that if you are using full metal jacket rounds, the 5.56 will be more effective than the 7.62/.308 within 150 yards because of its greater propensity to yaw or fragment with it strikes a target. But, since you are not military, you are not limited to FMJ.... The author also notes one of the downsides to the AR platform:
From a maintenance perspective, the AR platform is in “Armorer Speak” a “Depot Whore”. By this I mean it is very high on the preventative maintenance needs/parts replacement scale. As long as you replace certain parts regularly, you should have no issues with it’s reliability. Lacking those extra parts for the regular PMCS needed, will give you a rifle that could fail you at any moment in TEOTWAWKISTAN.
I definitely will recommend the AR to individuals and groups. That being said, it’s always with the caveat that you better have someone who knows how to work on the weapon (in perspective, it is a pretty easy system to work on) and have a ton of extra parts for the long term. BTW, I will not recommend the AR-10 systems to anyone, considering the number of military Armorers and “End Users” I’ve spoken with, concerning the AR-10/M110’s lack of reliability in the field. Also, given the lack of standardized design across the civilian industry in the AR-10 type rifle designs, it takes away from the reason many want an AR type rifle to begin with, which is “Commonality”.
- "Firearms For Freedom And Forage-Part 2, Defensive Handguns." On this subject, the author writes:
Most people who’ve read my posts know I’m a .45ACP fan for a Survivalist’s defensive pistols. My reasoning is simple. The .45ACP cartridge is the best auto pistol round made if you are forced to use the least effective bullet design, which is the the round nose lead or jacketed bullet. Without expansion, it is already almost half an inch in diameter.
He continues by discussing specific handguns that he likes.
- "Firearms For Freedom and Forage-Part 3, Hunting Long Guns." The author really likes combination guns (e.g., a rifle barrel over a shotgun barrel) for this purpose. He discusses the versatility of the .22 LR for hunting, and goes over some of his favorite hunting weapons.
I mentioned the issue of reaction time a bit with Michael Drejka and why he might have fired at his attacker even though his attacker had started to step away from him. Ellifritz explains this important issue:
It takes time for the brain to process information and make a decision. The more complex the situation, the longer it takes to make the decision. Here are some statistics:
– On average it takes .25 seconds to react to a threat cue and begin to act.
– If that reaction to a threat cue involves a decision (i.e. “Is the thing in his hand a gun or a cell phone?”) the reaction time time is increased to an average of .56 seconds.
– The average officer takes .35 seconds to process the fact that a threat no longer exists and to stop shooting.
– The average officer fires one bullet every .25 seconds after he begins to fire
Do you see the problem? Let’s say the bad guy is facing the officer and begins shooting. The officer starts shooting back and hits the bad guy. Bad guy drops the gun and spins away as the bullets hit him. It takes the officer .35 seconds to recognize that the bad guy is no longer a threat. He is firing a bullet every .25 seconds. That means the officer will generally fire one to two rounds AFTER making the decision to stop shooting. It’s very easy for those bullets to end up in the criminal’s back.
This is the BEST possible case scenario. Other factors can slow reaction time even more. ...
Similar delays can result if the suspect moves. For instance, he might fire and turn to run, before your brain has processed the information and you have already begun to fire. Read the whole thing.
What is the number one thing that comes up in all survival fiction? What are the characters always searching for, working on or struggling with when it comes to SHTF entertainment?
It’s food. It’s always food.
So what does it take to become an amateur radio operator? The licensing process has been established by the FCC however, the testing process is managed by fellow hams who volunteer to be test proctors through an organization called the Amateur Radio Relay League (ARRL). The multiple-choice test is not difficult and with a little study, pretty much anyone can pass it. Contrary to popular belief, there is no longer a requirement to learn Morse Code for the test. It’s just a written test now. As mentioned above, the technician class license is all that is required to use the 2-meter band. One test and you’re good for 10 years.
In almost any context, these organizations reflect the values of the Left, not of the Right. I specifically don’t use the label conservative here – the conservative movement has utterly failed in the United States (to quote absolutely everyone) to conserve anything. We live a country where adults telling four year old boys that being a girl is okie-dokie (and vice-versa) aren’t thrown directly in prison for a decade or more (after a trial, of course) for child abuse. The goals of the above organizations would be cause for mass revolt if they had been publicized in 1990, but now, despite no vote, no public acceptance, each point of the Left has been accepted as the new normal.
And telling a boy that he’s a girl? Oh, wait, that’s brave. Sorry.
Despite all of that, this is not a post about giving up. Screw that. Each day makes me more independent, not less, more wanting to tell the truth.
And if you’re reading this, no one is done here. Freedom is always the underdog. I really wish we’d just stop waiting until 2:00 in the fourth quarter to start playing.
Unfortunately, to restore the United States that true conservatives would like would require "the bloodiest war in the history of the country." Other options might be returning to a true federation of independent states, instead of the centralized government we now have. About as likely as winning the lottery in my opinion. A third option is secession. However, this didn't work out very well the first time it was tried. My own opinion is that this will only come at the cost of a war and/or economic collapse (e.g., the Soviet Union). The final outcome that the author sees is to go the way we are going, and eventually see new populations force old populations into gulags, reservations, or forced labor camps, or whatever you want to call it.
Marco Valerio Verni has threatened to display blown-up images of the victim, which left her unrecognizable, “To remind those in power of the catastrophic effects of illegal immigration.”
The original hearing into Mastropietro’s murder was held behind closed doors because of the extremely gruesome nature of the photos, but now Verni is vowing to go public with the images if Italy’s new government once again approves the arrival of migrant boats arriving at Italian ports.
“Every day we are bombarded with tearful images of barges loaded with migrants that the Left would like to receive without worrying about the consequences. The same Left that remained silent when Pamela was raped and murdered with unspeakable ferocity,” said Verni.
DARPA tweeted on Wednesday that within the next 48 hours it must find a “human-made underground environment spanning several city blocks with complex layout & multiple stories, including atriums, tunnels & stairwells. Spaces that are currently closed off from pedestrians or can be temporarily used for testing are of interest.”
For years, New York City has essentially maintained two parallel public school systems.
A group of selective schools and programs geared to students labeled gifted and talented is filled mostly with white and Asian children. The rest of the system is open to all students and is predominantly black and Hispanic.
Now, a high-level panel appointed by Mayor Bill de Blasio is recommending that the city do away with most of these selective programs in an effort to desegregate the system, which has 1.1 million students and is by far the largest in the country.
Actually, there are three levels: the gifted and talented programs (which are optional for the school district), regular classes, and the special education programs (which are mandatory).
A Cameroonian migrant, Esteban Azu, 37, said he paid human smugglers $8,000 to get him into the U.S. He said his journey took him from his home country to Turkey, Ecuador, Colombia, Panama, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras, Guatemala, and finally to Mexico, Animal Politico reported.
“I arrived in Tapachula a month ago. I left Cameroon and went directly to Ecuador. From there to Colombia. I climbed mountains, walked through the jungle, to find this shit,” Azu expressed. “This shit! They don’t feed me. They don’t give me anything. I am very angry with the government of Mexico. This is not normal. This is bullshit. We need a solution. We just want to get out of here.”
Just imagine if he had taken that money and used it to start his own business in Cameroon.
- Related: Building the wall: "CBP Unveils 60 More Miles of Trump's Border Wall"--Neon Nettle. And more is or will soon be under construction: "The agency says it's aiming to complete at least 450 miles of the new border wall by the end of 2020 and has projects underway in Texas, California, Arizona, and New Mexico."
Armed smugglers allegedly associated with the Gulf Cartel were responsible for the onslaught of automatic fire that endangered the lives a Border Patrol Marine Unit in early August, as it policed the banks for drug smugglers and human traffickers along the Rio Grande Valley River, in Texas.
- Flashback to Aug. 2, 2019: "Trump accuses China's Xi of failing to halt fentanyl exports to U.S."--Reuters (via Yahoo). Per the article, "More than 28,000 synthetic opioid-related overdose deaths, mostly from fentanyl related substances, were recorded in 2017, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention."
These recent cases provide just a small glimpse of the growing intelligence war that is playing out in the shadows of the U.S.-China struggle for global dominance, and of the aggressiveness and skillfulness with which China is waging it. As China advances economically and technologically, its spy services are keeping pace: Their intelligence officers are more sophisticated, the tools at their disposal are more powerful, and they are engaged in what appears to be an intensifying array of espionage operations that have their American counterparts on the defensive. China’s efforts aimed at former U.S. intelligence officers are just one part of a Chinese campaign that U.S. officials say also includes cyberattacks against U.S. government databases and companies, stealing trade secrets from the private sector, using venture-capital investment to acquire sensitive technology, and targeting universities and research institutions.
Some more:
U.S. political and business leaders for decades pushed the idea that embracing trade with China would help to normalize its behavior, but Beijing’s aggressive espionage efforts have fueled an emerging bipartisan consensus in Washington that the hope was misplaced. Since 2017, the DOJ has brought at least a dozen cases against alleged agents and spies for conducting cyber- and economic espionage on behalf of China. “The hope was, as they develop, as they become more wealthy, as they start being a part of the club of developed nations, they’re going to change their behavior—once they get closer to the top, they’re going to operate by our rules,” John Demers told me. “What we’ve seen instead is [China] becoming better resourced and more methodical about the theft of information.”
For the past 20 years, America’s intelligence community’s top priority has been counterterrorism. A generation of operations officers and analysts has been geared more toward finding and killing America’s enemies and preventing extremist attacks than toward the more patient and strategic work that comes with peer competition and counterintelligence. If America is indeed entering an era of “great power” conflict with China, then the crux of the struggle will likely take place not on a battlefield, but in the race for information, at least for now. And here China is using an age-old human frailty to gain advantage in the competition with its more powerful adversary: greed. U.S. officials have been warning companies and research institutions not just of the strings that might be attached to Chinese money, but of the danger of corrupted employees turned spies. They are also worried about current and former U.S. officials who have been entrusted with protecting the nation’s secrets.
It's worth reading the whole thing. My opinion is that government and business leaders knew the risk and either didn't care, because China offered such a huge potential market, or were paid for their cooperation. We know that the Bush family has had close ties with China, as have the Clintons. And former Vice-President Biden's family members had very lucrative business deals with Chinese entities. It's one of the reasons the media wants to focus on Russia. Distract with one hand, while the other hides the ball.
China seems to be playing hardball, trying to wait out the Trump administration in the hopes that a new administration will return to complacency toward China’s rampant trade abuses. But that’s a long time to endure the pain that Trump’s tariffs are already inflicting on the Chinese economy.
For example, the president’s recent delay gives American companies that are in the process of transitioning their manufacturing out of China more time to complete that transition. Big tech companies are already taking their manufacturing out of China. Retailers are pulling out as well.
According to the Nikkei Asian Review and The Wall Street Journal, Apple is considering moving 15% to 30% of its production capacity from China to Southeast Asia as part of “a fundamental restructuring of its supply chain.” When announcing the recent tariff delay, the president noted that Apple CEO Tim Cook made a “very compelling argument” for delaying the tariffs as they would aid Apple competitors such as Samsung, which manufactures its products in South Korea.
Once supply chains move out of China, it will be difficult to get them back. Moving production out of a country can be expensive and time consuming -- as can moving it back.
This flight out of China presents a severe long-term challenge for its totalitarian government, which relies on rapid economic growth and rising living standards to provide some legitimacy for its dictatorial rule. But, as the Chinese Communist Party has increasingly scaled back the free market reforms that got its economy going in the first place, it has been forced to prop up its economy with its escalating “techno-nationalism” and outright theft of technology from American companies.
Now, the party is scrambling just to keep the economy from further contracting in the face of tariffs in their largest export market, the United States -- and the longer-term impact of companies moving their supply chains outside of China. Beijing has already been forced to unleash a new round of subsidies in hopes of propping up their deteriorating economy until after the 2020 U.S. presidential election.
Unfortunately for China, that plan is not working. Our decision to finally get tough on trade with China is having far less of a negative impact on the U.S. economy than establishment American commentators and politicians predicted. The American economy remains strong, despite stagnating growth elsewhere in the world.
- Related: Don't believe them: "China announces it seeks 'calm' end to trade war, as markets tank and currency hits 11-year flatline"--Fox News. The article reports:
The yuan also slipped to 7.1487 to the dollar, weeks after the Treasury Department formally designated China a currency manipulator. The Treasury Department said it will work with the International Monetary Fund to try to rectify the “unfair competitive advantage created by China’s latest actions.”
"The gloves are coming off on both sides and as such yuan depreciation is an obvious cushion against US tariffs," Mitul Kotecha, an economist at Toronto-Dominion Bank, told Bloomberg News.
There are several reasons why China's central bank would want to allow the yuan to drop, including to help struggling local exporters who want their products to be less expensive for international purchasers. People’s Bank of China Governor Yi Gang, however, has insisted China does not "engage in competitive devaluation."
- Related: "China's Leaders Are Divided Over Trade War With U.S."--NPR. Military leaders want to play a game of chicken:
A cohort of hawks, many from China's powerful military-industrial complex, is rising to the fore on the issue. They argue a trade deal is unnecessary, in stark contrast to China's diplomatic and commercial ministries that publicly welcome an agreement.
"Today, China is fighting two wars on one battlefield with the U.S. — a composite of economic and military conflicts," Dai Xu, a senior colonel in China's air force and an outspoken current affairs commentator, wrote in an online article in May. "Trump will first take China's money and then take our lives," Dai wrote in a commentary in January.
Dai says Beijing's trade frictions with Washington mark the beginning of a "protracted war," a concept popularized by Chairman Mao Zedong during China's war against Japan and now increasingly used in state media commentaries to describe China's trade negotiation strategy. "Much as in the original 'protracted war,' in this case we can also send the seemingly invincible invaders to a hell for failures," Dai wrote in May.
Dai and his supporters are calling for a war of attrition, in which China outlasts its rivals, even at the cost of global trade. The idea is attractive among those who believe the country's one-party system and control over its most significant monetary and financial levers would allow it to beat the U.S. in a game of chicken.
"The result of the trade war between China and the United States is not determined by calculating how many chips the two countries have to play, but by their ability to bear the damage. You may have more chips but your damage tolerance is lower than mine," Shen Yi, an international relations professor at Fudan University in Shanghai, wrote on a state-run news site in June.
At least one camera in the hallway outside the cell where authorities say registered sex offender Jeffrey Epstein hanged himself earlier this month had footage that is unusable, although other, clearer footage was captured in the area, according to three people briefed on the evidence gathered earlier this month.But now Reuters is reporting that there were two malfunctioning cameras outside Epstein's cell, both of which are being examined by the FBI. "The two cameras were within view of the Manhattan jail cell where he was found dead on Aug. 10. A source earlier told Reuters two jail guards failed to follow a procedure overnight to make separate checks on all prisoners every 30 minutes."
It was not immediately clear why some video footage outside Epstein's cell is too flawed for investigators to use or what is visible in the other, usable footage. The incident is being investigated by the FBI and the Justice Department's inspector general's office, which are attempting to determine what happened and how to assess whether any policies were violated or crimes committed.
The footage is considered critical to those inquiries, and the revelation of an unusable recording is yet another of the apparent failures inside the Metropolitan Correctional Center, the short-staffed Bureau of Prisons facility in downtown Manhattan that held Epstein.
It's unclear whether the flaw in the taping affected a limited duration of the footage or whether it was a chronic problem in the beleaguered facility.
The handbook update took effect the first week of August, Woodruff said.The article also has a copy of the letter issued to local Church authorities in Texas, in case you wanted to read the whole thing.
The rules will be formally communicated to local leaders, who in turn will be responsible for sharing them with their members, he said, noting that “lethal weapons include a number of possible items including guns.”
While this policy applies to the 16.3 million-member worldwide church, Woodruff said, a letter referencing this section of the handbook was specifically sent to Latter-day Saint leaders in Texas. The church asked bishops there to read a statement in sacrament services Sunday as a response to Lone Star State legislation that takes effect Sept. 1.
Under the new Texas law, it is legal to carry concealed weapons in places of worship. However, churches can bar weapons on religious premises by giving “effective notice" verbally or thorough building signs.
“The decision has been made not to place written signs on our buildings,” an Aug. 22 letter to leaders in the church’s Southwest area states. Rather, “we are asking all bishops in Texas to read the following statement in the sacrament meetings of all units to give effective oral notice to members of the church and visitors that weapons are not permitted.”
The announcement "constitutes effective notice that it is not permissible to enter the premises of Latter-day Saint buildings with open or concealed weapons except as permitted by the church’s policy.”
If those not in attendance Sunday to hear the policy ever show up at church carrying a gun — open or concealed — “the priesthood leader should read the approved statement,” the letter says, “and kindly ask them to comply by removing the firearm from the building.”
Whether this church policy is legally enforceable will vary from state to state but at very least this leaves church members who want to follow the policy unable to protect themselves from bad guys intent on killing, who will undoubtedly not follow these policies leaving church members as soft targets unless they're a police officer. And, in fact, the argument can be made that soft targets are more preferred by bad guys who want to do harm, which is why places of worship are being targeted more and more by these sickos.A comment to Gillem's article sums it up pretty succinctly: "Why would they publicly announce this? The policy itself is stupid but it is more stupid to announce this to the general public. They might as well say come into our church and shoot us."
Members of the Latter-day Saints church ― whose history is steeped in the culture of the American West with its guns and its hunting ― tend to be politically conservative and share similar views with evangelicals when it comes to gun control.The Hill reported:
Matthew Bowman, the Howard W. Hunter Chair in Mormon Studies at Claremont Graduate University in California, told the AP the move reflects how the church has changed from its Western roots.The LA Times added: "The move is likely driven by rising awareness of gun violence in the U.S. Bowman said it also seemed to fit with the church’s attempt to adapt to being a more global religion, representative of cultures other than the American West that is steeped in hunting and guns." Fox News similarly reported that "[s]ome in the church see the move as a push to globalize the religion, which has more than half of its 16 million members outside the United States." Scott Gordon, president of the FairMormon organization, explained the policy change this way:
“It is illustrative of the church’s slow evolution away from being a largely Western rural church which it has been for a long, long time toward a more cosmopolitan, international organization,” he said.
A majority of the church’s members currently live outside the U.S., many in nations that do not have a culture of gun ownership like the U.S.
"In any organization, you have people who might desire to protect or take the law into their own hands, and I think the church in this policy is saying, 'Please don't. Church is a place of peace,'" Gordon said."Please don't protect yourself." That is a nice sentiment (sarc.).
“I know your hearts are heavy, as are [wife] Wendy’s and mine, as we contemplate those ruthless killings in Florida last week,” Nelson said. “I think of Alaina Petty, a 14-year-old Latter-day Saint whose life was snuffed out by that sniper’s bullet. It’s natural for you and others to say: How could God allow things like that to happen? Well, God allows us to have our agency, and men have passed laws that allow guns to go to people who shouldn’t have them.”
The United States Constitution restrains the power that it grants by the application of three tenets: the separation of powers, federalism, and the protection of individual rights. Power at the national level is separated and balanced between three coordinate branches. Power is further checked by dividing its prerogatives among the nation, the state, and the people. Finally, the Bill of Rights and the Fourteenth Amendment protect basic individual rights against violation by any level of government.Perhaps this should be a clarion call to action for members that support gun rights to petition the Church about its stance. We have seen others--feminists, ethnic groups, and LGBT activists--at least gain recognition of their concerns, if not some outright concessions. Surely there are a sufficient number of members that support concealed carry that we can make the Church take some notice of us.
Perhaps you’ve seen former Chairs of the Federal Reserve defending the central bank’s independence and foreswearing all political intentions. Fair enough. But then what are we to make of former Fed monetary Vice Chair William Dudley ’s marker that the Fed should help defeat President Trump in 2020? That’s the extraordinary message from the former, and perhaps future, Fed grandee in Bloomberg.
“Officials could state explicitly that the central bank won’t bail out an administration that keeps making bad choices on trade policy, making it abundantly clear that Trump will own the consequences of his actions,” Mr. Dudley asserts. We also think monetary policy should focus on prices rather than trade. But Mr. Dudley seems to be saying the Fed should do nothing to assist the economy even if it heads into recession. Then he goes further and essentially says the Fed should join The Resistance.
“There’s even an argument that the election itself falls within the Fed’s purview,” Mr. Dudley writes. “After all, Trump’s reelection arguably presents a threat to the U.S. and global economy, to the Fed’s independence and its ability to achieve its employment and inflation objectives. If the goal of monetary policy is to achieve the best long-term economic outcome, then Fed officials should consider how their decisions will affect the political outcome in 2020.”
Wow. Talk about stripping the veil. These columns wondered if Mr. Dudley was politically motivated while he was at the Fed, favoring bond buying to finance Barack Obama ’s deficit spending, urging the Fed to intervene in markets to boost housing, and keeping interest rates low for as long as possible. And now here Mr. Dudley is confirming that he views the Fed as an agent of the Democratic Party.
A key lesson of the Trump era is that every single allegedly neutral, nonpartisan, super-professional institution has turned out to be, in fact, a bunch of partisan hacks shilling for the permanent political party. Voters can be forgiven for adopting a “burn it all down” attitude in response.
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| Source: "Why did Jeffrey Epstein build a temple on his private island?" |
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| The Hammam Yalbugha in Aleppo, Syria, which was built in 1491 (Source: "Jeffrey Epstein: The True Ugly Face of the Occult Elite"--The Vigilant Citizen) |
A bath consisted of several parts: the changing room, the cold bathing area, the warm bathing area and the hot bathing area. Examples of Roman baths can be found in Palmyra, Bosra, Sirjilla and Shahba. The tradition was then continued by the Muslims, who built hammams in all cities with their own architectural and artistic styles. These baths also had a very special social function. There were two types: the public ones, which were run independently, and the ones that were integrated into the palaces and bimaristans (hospitals).As to the Hammam Yalbugha, the author states:
The Islamic hammam usually consists of four areas, all of which are covered by domes:
In the so-called ‘outer area’ (al-barrani) people changed their clothes. The hall, which was provided with a central well, was also a place for get-togethers, entertainment and exchange, even business transactions. For ladies it was also a popular place for festive occasions such as marriage and birth. Through this area one reached the next, the middle area (al-wastani). In this area the temperature is mild. The third area is called the ‘interior area’ (al-juwwani). It is the hottest room of the bath. The floor is covered with coloured marble slabs, the small domes that cover the room are interspersed with glass stones. Adjacent to the interior is the place of water heating (al-qamim), from where the water is fed directly into the juwwani. The last room of the hammam is a room for the heater (al-qamimi), who is responsible for constantly supplying the stove with combustible.
Among the Mamluk hammams, the hammam Yalbugha an-Nasiri, which is considered to be one of the most beautiful Islamic hammams of Aleppo, should be mentioned above all. It has an impressive façade with an alternation of yellow and black stones. The high entrance, decorated with Mamluk blasons, is framed on both sides by windows. Like many other Aleppine ‘architectural treasures’, this hammam was largely destroyed during the last war. The Hammam Bahram Basha shows a development of the hammam building of the Ottoman period in Aleppo. Its northern façade opens outwards, also characterized by the typical alternation of yellow and black stones (ablaq).(Note: Mamluk blasons, or blazons, were a form of heraldic symbols).
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| Another view of the The Hammam Yalbugha (source: "The Public Hammam – An Ancient Syrian Tradition"). |
According to the Bible, the Israelites were told to dye a thread on their tassels with tekhelet, a blue ink from a sea snail, "so that they may look upon it, and remember all the commandments of the LORD, and do them."Wikipedia notes that "[b]lue in Judaism is used to symbolise divinity, because blue is the color of the sky and sea. It can also represent equilibrium, since its hue suggests a shade midway between white and black, day and evening," and also notes that while white symbolizes purity and peace, it is also associated with death. And "[g]old was the symbol of the divine or celestial light, the glory of God."
In 1864, the Jewish poet Ludwig August Frankl named blue and white "the colours of Judah" in a poem not so surprisingly called "Judah's Colours." An excerpt: "When sublime feelings his heart fill, he is mantled in the colors of his country ... Blue and white are the colours of Judah; white is the radiance of the priesthood, and blue, the splendors of the firmament."
Blue and white come with universal associations, too. White suggests purity, peace, and light. Blue is associated with the sky, faith, wisdom, and truth.
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| An aerial view of the Temple (Source). |
Poseidon’s trident was the symbolic triple phallus, signifying his function to mate with the triple Goddess. It is also a statement about his sexuality and fertility. The carrier of the trident was expected to be a man who is the husband of the Maiden, Mother and Crone, who coexist in these ways: As her mate for life, he is husband to the maiden he married, then to the mother of his children, and in old age to the wise woman that she becomes.Another aspect of Poseidon mythology that impressed me was the following (quoting the Wikipedia article cited above):
A mortal woman named Cleito once lived on an isolated island; Poseidon fell in love with the human mortal and created a dwelling sanctuary at the top of a hill near the middle of the island and surrounded the dwelling with rings of water and land to protect her. She gave birth to five sets of twin boys; the firstborn, Atlas, became the first ruler of Atlantis.Each of the ten sons ruled over a kingdom within the Empire of Atlantis, according to the myths. This was interesting to me because of a New York Times article that "Jeffrey Epstein Hoped to Seed Human Race With His DNA." The article relates:
Mr. Epstein’s vision reflected his longstanding fascination with what has become known as transhumanism: the science of improving the human population through technologies like genetic engineering and artificial intelligence. Critics have likened transhumanism to a modern-day version of eugenics, the discredited field of improving the human race through controlled breeding.I doubt it will do any good to freeze Epstein's head, but it is possible that he believed himself to be part of a breeding program.
Mr. Epstein, who was charged in July with the sexual trafficking of girls as young as 14, was a serial illusionist: He lied about the identities of his clients, his wealth, his financial prowess, his personal achievements. But he managed to use connections and charisma to cultivate valuable relationships with business and political leaders.
Interviews with more than a dozen of his acquaintances, as well as public documents, show that he used the same tactics to insinuate himself into an elite scientific community, thus allowing him to pursue his interests in eugenics and other fringe fields like cryonics.
In her aspect of Athena Polias, Athena was venerated as the goddess of the city and the protectress of the citadel. In Athens, the Plynteria, or "Feast of the Bath", was observed every year at the end of the month of Thargelion. The festival lasted for five days. During this period, the priestesses of Athena, or plyntrídes, performed a cleansing ritual within the Erechtheion, a sanctuary devoted to Athena and Poseidon. Here Athena's statue was undressed, her clothes washed, and body purified. Athena was worshipped at festivals such as Chalceia as Athena Ergane, the patroness of various crafts, especially weaving. She was also the patron of metalworkers and was believed to aid in the forging of armor and weapons. During the late fifth century BC, the role of goddess of philosophy became a major aspect of Athena's cult.But it is possible that the owl statues have nothing to do with Greek or Roman mythology. Casting our search farther, there is another possibility which I find intriguing, which is the association of the owl with Lilith. This mostly is due to the Burney Relief, which is generally believed to portray the Babylonian demoness Lilith, who herself is winged, and with two owls on either side of her. The sole biblical reference to Lilith is often translated as screech owl or a night creature.
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| Burney Relief (Source) |
For 4,000 years Lilith has wandered the earth, figuring in the mythic imaginations of writers, artists and poets. Her dark origins lie in Babylonian demonology, where amulets and incantations were used to counter the sinister powers of this winged spirit who preyed on pregnant women and infants. Lilith next migrated to the world of the ancient Hittites, Egyptians, Israelites and Greeks. She makes a solitary appearance in the Bible, as a wilderness demon shunned by the prophet Isaiah. In the Middle Ages she reappears in Jewish sources as the dreadful first wife of Adam.From Wikipedia:
In the Renaissance, Michelangelo portrayed Lilith as a half-woman, half-serpent, coiled around the Tree of Knowledge. Later, her beauty would captivate the English poet Dante Gabriel Rossetti. “Her enchanted hair,” he wrote, “was the first gold.” Irish novelist James Joyce cast her as the “patron of abortions.”
Modern feminists celebrate her bold struggle for independence from Adam. Her name appears as the title of a Jewish women’s magazine and a national literacy program. An annual music festival that donates its profits to battered women’s shelters and breast cancer research institutes is called the Lilith Fair.
In most manifestations of her myth, Lilith represents chaos, seduction and ungodliness.
Lilith is often envisioned as a dangerous demon of the night, who is sexually wanton, and who steals babies in the darkness. Lilith may be linked in part to a historically earlier class of female demons (lilītu) in ancient Mesopotamian religion, found in cuneiform texts of Sumer, the Akkadian Empire, Assyria, and Babylonia.In Jewish mythology, Lilith was the first wife of Adam, but rebelled against having to submit to Adam and, thus, became a demon (she is now a favorite icon of feminists). Interestingly, several artists in the Middle Ages and Renaissance portrayed the serpent that tempted Eva as a woman, possibly in reference to Lilith. "The only occurrence is in the Book of Isaiah 34:14, describing the desolation of Edom, where the Hebrew word lilit (or lilith) appears in a list of eight unclean animals, some of which may have demonic associations." In the KJV, lilit is translated as "screech owl." However, other English versions have variously used "Lamia," "night hag", "night wraith", or "vampires." She was associated with killing new born children and lust (i.e., in particular seducing men).
Gerald Gardner asserted that there was continuous historical worship of Lilith to present day, and that her name is sometimes given to the goddess being personified in the coven by the priestess. This idea was further attested by Doreen Valiente, who cited her as a presiding goddess of the Craft: "the personification of erotic dreams, the suppressed desire for delights". In some contemporary concepts, Lilith is viewed as the embodiment of the Goddess, a designation that is thought to be shared with what these faiths believe to be her counterparts: Inanna, Ishtar, Asherah, Anath and Isis. According to one view, Lilith was originally a Sumerian, Babylonian, or Hebrew mother goddess of childbirth, children, women, and sexuality who later became demonized due to the rise of patriarchy.Also:
The western mystery tradition associates Lilith with the Qliphoth of kabbalah. Samael Aun Weor in The Pistis Sophia Unveiled writes that homosexuals are the "henchmen of Lilith". Likewise, women who undergo willful abortion, and those who support this practice are "seen in the sphere of Lilith". Dion Fortune writes, "The Virgin Mary is reflected in Lilith", and that Lilith is the source of "lustful dreams".What more appropriate symbol could there be on Epstein's island.
Churches are dedicated for the worship of God and as havens from the cares and concerns of the world. With the exception of current law enforcement officers, the carrying of lethal weapons on Church property, concealed or otherwise, is prohibited.The old policy (which appears to have been adopted in 1994--about the time Utah adopted "shall issue" concealed carry license laws) read:
Churches are dedicated for the worship of God and as havens from the cares and concerns of the world. The carrying of lethal weapons, concealed or otherwise, within their walls is inappropriate except as required by officers of the law.So, the policy has been strengthened from "inappropriate" to "prohibited," and the law enforcement exception has been tightened to "current law enforcement officers." Which should play havoc with church security teams. For instance, I know that there at least two of the "church security" members in my congregation were retired LEOs.
It's always a challenge to make radical proposals sound reasonable. Both O'Rourke and Swalwell aren't concerned about reasonableness as much as they care about gutting the Second Amendment. In order to make gun ownership illegal, you must first win the point that the subject is open for debate. Gun groups have successfully blocked that notion for years, but it's becoming harder to do so.But why is the risk worth it? What does it gain Democrats to lose more votes than they gain by pushing gun control? Moran does not answer those questions.
While the gun issue will surely fade into the background before the 2020 election -- as long as there are no more mass shootings -- Democrats appear willing to push programs that will lose them far more votes than they might gain.
But for Democrats, the risk is worth it.
It wasn't that they weren't aware of what they were doing. They knew exactly what they were doing--they were going for the win. It was the fact something worse could happen that never entered their minds. Without this knowledge, there was no incentive for them not to behave the way they did. This is where most people screw the pooch when it comes to their self-defense claims. Not expecting it to go physical, they engage in all kinds of behavior that creates and escalates the situation. When this behavior is revealed, it blows their self-defense defense out of the ocean.
- Related: On the other hand, some animals are more equal than others: "Youth who bashed two female cops walks free after saying he can 'get away with anything' because he's black"--Daily Mail. The PC crazy is strong in Australia.
More important, is the issue that guns are not ... magical talismans. Having a gun—even assuming you are actually dedicated enough to carry it—doesn’t suddenly give you the ability to do wondrous feats of heroism. There’s an article going around, from the Washington Post, back in March of ‘18, by Matt Larsen, of Modern Army Combatives fame, and LTC John Spencer. It’s titled “A Gun Won’t Give You the Guts to Run Towards Danger.”
This is a critically important reality that too many in the “tactical” and “preparedness” neighborhoods of the gun community don’t grasp. As the authors point out in the article, being issued an M4 or an M16 doesn’t make a soldier into a meat-eating gunfighter. It takes experience facing fear, and working through that fear.
* * *We need to build the same type of familiarity with potential situations we might face, if we are going to be able to overcome fear in a shooting situation we might find ourselves involved in. The biggest of these is simple fear and discomfort about interpersonal violence. The vast, vast majority of modern Americans have never even been punched in the face. To think that you are suddenly going to go from “I’ve never even been in a fistfight!” to “I’m gonna smoke check a motherf[-----]!” is beyond hubris. It’s ... retarded.
And yet, we have plenty of incidents of ordinary people doing extraordinary things in times of disaster. A few of you may remember the heroic actions of several "ordinary people" after the crash of Air Florida flight 90 back in January 1982, where men dived into the icy water of the Potomac to rescue passengers and crew, and one passenger kept assisting other passengers with getting to ropes from a rescue helicopter. And there were the men that thwarted the 2015 Thalys train attack, several of which may have never thrown a punch in their life. I'm not saying that Mosby is wrong, but that his statement, by being absolutist, is not necessary entirely correct, either.
- Buying a gun that is the wrong size.
- Getting a caliber they are afraid to shoot.
- Letting someone else (a spouse or the salesperson at the gun counter) pick out the firearm for her.
- Buying one with a safety and not learning how to run it.
- Buying a firearm without a safety for use in purse carry.
- Buying a revolver without the strength to pull the trigger (although, IMHO, this is sometimes a matter of not gripping the revolver correctly so as to obtain the best mechanical advantage).
- Purchasing a gun without the strength to manipulate the slide.
- Not shooting one like it first (borrow, rent, etc.).
- Mistaking “it felt good in my hand” for “it will FIT me when I am actually shooting it.”
- If a beginner: buying a handgun just for concealment—not understanding that it will NOT be appropriate or optimal for training/practicing.
- Almost all of these attacks on unsuspecting people involved substance abuse in some way. Either the attackers were flying high on drugs like alcohol, cocaine and meth, or they were trying to get money to buy drugs.
- Criminals can be extremely vicious and care nothing about the damage they inflict on others. Many of the victims suffered life-altering injuries as well as lasting emotional trauma.
- Violent criminals, much like predators in the animal world, prefer easy prey. Most of these victims were women, elderly or physically handicapped people at home. The few who were not tended to work in convenience stores or high value targets like stores dealing in jewels and precious metals.
- All guns involved were handguns, except for a shotgun wielded by a woman home alone.
- Many of the handguns used for effective defense were cheap weapons that are accessible to low wage earners and have sometimes been targets of gun control efforts.
- Since most of the assailants were drug-enhanced and were only shot with handguns, they often had to be shot more than once. So if you have time, reach for a long gun.
- Few of the defenders had much training, if any. Yet they all survived, and did not shoot any innocent bystanders.
- None of the guns used for defense were locked up. Due to the speed, shock and ferocity of the attacks, the victims would have been unable to deal with locks.
- Violent predators often work together in armed gangs that may require defenders to fire many shots to end the attack.
- All but one of the attackers had a long criminal history marked by repeated prison terms with early release. Some were on parole or on bail awaiting trial at the time.
- The underlying explanation for these violent assaults is that society does not deal effectively with the three main causes: drugs, gangs and mental illness.
- Criminals choose the time and place of their attack both to achieve surprise and avoid law enforcement, so prudent citizens must be prepared to defend themselves anytime, anywhere.
But instead of selecting a winning Jungle Combat Boot design for fielding to tropical units, the Army's senior leadership in July approved an Army Uniform Board recommendation to make the boot an optional clothing bag item that soldiers can purchase in Army and Air Force Exchange Service (AAFES) military clothing sales stores, Col. Stephen Thomas, head of Project Manager Soldier Protection and Individual Equipment, told Military.com in an Aug. 9 interview.
"That was probably the better approach to provide these boots through AAFES to let soldiers decide which boots they wanted to wear," Thomas said.
The Marine Corps isn't going to be skinflints, and will be purchasing 70,000 pairs. By the way, the top two designs were the 901 V2 made by Belleville Boot Company and the RKC 071 made by Rocky Boots.
US Army Special Forces, like the rest of the US military, has a set of doctrine regarding the establishment, maintenance, protection, and even closure, of tactical facilities, under field conditions. In current SF doctrine, those facilities are referred to as “Special Forces Tactical Facilities.” These can range from a small, partially developed patrol base for the ODA, all the way up to an SFOB (Special Forces Operating Base), or what used to be called an “A-Camp.”
Doctrinally, the role of the SF TACFAC is “to support special operations and function as a tactical and operational base.” That is, they serve as a defensive base for the operational detachment, a base for projecting offensive force outwards, and as a center for developing, improving, and maintaining relationships with the local national populace and host-nation forces.
“Over time, the TACFAC helps provide for establishment, restoration, and improvements of many local HN community and government services and systems. These essential support systems for the TACFAC and surrounding HN communities are best captured by the acronym SWEAT-MSS (security, water, electricity, administration, trash, medical, sewage, and shelter). Eventually, the SF TACFAC will be returned to the control of the HN government through a relief-in-place (RIP).”
Taking our holistic, Permaculture view of preparedness, that seems an awful lot like what our retreat locations—whether you are in a rural, suburban, or urban environment—should be, doesn’t it? After all, if we’ve realized that the idea of Ma, Pa, and the kids, all by their lonesomes, with a year’s supply of beans, bullets, and band-aids, is not such a sustainable plan after all (and, seriously, if you haven’t realized it yet….it’s really not), then we know we need “community,” either in the form of a close-knit group of friends and family—kith-and-kin—or a trusted, small village or neighborhood of people with shared values.
It's a long article, but worth the read for those of you with, or that plan on using, a rural survival retreat.
Some might think a .308Win is too powerful for home defense use. Normal mil ball would definitely be too much. I’ve found in studies that the 110gr Federal VMax retains plenty of .308 power, while not going through numerous walls in a dwelling. This rifle also has the added advantage of being very well suited for use as a blunt force weapon, due to the hand positioning on the stock. Setting the ACSS scope to 1X and turning on the illuminator helps it perform much like the M68 Aimpoint red dots I used in the military.
I've been using 110 grain Hornady V Max for .300 BLK loads and found it to be more than accurate enough for a short range "house gun" and, based on shooting water filled jugs, it dumps plenty of energy even out to ranges of 100 yards. I haven't chronographed it, mostly because I hate the hassle of setting up the equipment, but I will try and do so and give you some more information.
Probably one of the most common ways to learn how to shoot is by learning slowly over time. I learned by my dad taking me out to the range when I was 8. He showed me the fundamentals and basics and we practiced how to shoot. Learning with a family member or close friend can be a really natural and comfortable experience. You can become comfortable with firearms in your own time and can process failing drills easier when you’re around people more comfortable. I remember growing up and enjoying being able to learn at my own pace when I was comfortable. When you begin shooting in the very beginning, it’s important to be comfortable and take things slow to develop skills and confidence.
On the other hand:
The other option is to take classes from the start and be trained by a professional from the beginning. Typically in a learning environment with other new shooters, you tend to fully concentrate on fundamentals and shooting mechanics. Typically it’s more stressful for shooters but the shooter learns at a faster rate than if they were to practice on their own. Another positive of taking shooting courses is the ability to learn without developing major training scars or bad habits. One of the biggest issues with learning on your own is how easy it is to develop bad habits over time that are difficult to break.
Why does the National Rifle Association define defensive accuracy as the ability to hit that 8.5×11″ piece of paper at room-length distances [i.e., 21 ft]? Simple, really. First, blank paper is cheap. More importantly though, hold that piece of paper up to your chest. A hit anywhere on that paper will generally (dramatically) reduce the fighting efficiency of a bad guy. And often the will of an attacker to fight as well.
You should work at getting your hits onto a 3x5 card.
- Related: Actions speak louder than words: "Martha’s Vineyard Home Proves Obama Knows Global Warming’s a Hoax"--Breitbart. Despite his publicly expressed concerns about global warming and rising sea levels, Obama plunked down $15 million on an ocean front property in Martha's Vineyard.
Excoriating the globalist elites, whom Camus refers to as the “Davocracy,” an allusion to the annual World Economic Forum meetings in the Swiss town of Davos, where the rich and powerful arrive in their private jets to meet, enjoy fine foods, rare wines and high class prostitutes and make decisions like the one that is leading to the replacement of educated, intelligent Europeans who ask difficult questions with uneducated, illiterate third world immigrants who can easily be bought with free stuff, Camus claimed the global elites were advocates of the “Great Replacement” saying they supported “the change of people and civilisation for the sake of the industry of man, the economic system which produces the Undifferentiated Human Matter, the human Nutella, spreadable at will.”
Harsh words from Camus, but they contain more than a grain of truth one suspects.
The theory of the Great Replacement, which Camus states. not only refers to mass migration but to the easy and efficient interchangeability of goods as well as peoples (aka the throwaway society,) has been referred to by several prominent French figures including the Mayor of Béziers Robert Ménard, the Archbishop of Strasbourg Luc Ravel, and conservative politician Nicolas Dupont-Aignan.
Also:
“Davos Man” was coined by political scientist Samuel P. Huntington who described “these transnationals” as “[having] little need for national loyalty, view national boundaries as obstacles that thankfully are vanishing, and see national governments as residues from the past whose only useful function is to facilitate the elite’s global operations”.
Yet at least as troubling to Lyons as the reality of the Soviet paradise was the refusal to face it that he encountered in America on his return. To the contrary, he ran up against an almost perverse eagerness to embrace every fabrication in its defense and to cast doubters as hostile to all that was good and true. Stalinist methods, if even acknowledged, often met with tacit approval. Was it not true that foes of the Revolution were plotting on all sides—reactionaries, Trotskyists, other class enemies? As the New York Times’s Duranty famously summed it up, “you can’t make an omelet without breaking a few eggs.”
That during those Depression years, the legions of starry- and steely-eyed included a disproportionate number of what we’d now call millennials was unsurprising; for the idealistic, emotion-driven young, hard questions always have easy solutions, and even in good times, there’s no competing with the romance of the Left. But what Lyons found far more unsettling was the credulity of those in the vanguard of progressive thought: leading figures in academia, entertainment, publishing, media, and the highest councils of government, from New York to Hollywood and everywhere between. These were the powerful and influential, the men and women who shaped public attitudes and opinion. While among them were many convinced ideologues, more numerous still were the careerists, or those simply following political fashion, sentimental liberals drawn to causes by the magic words: “justice,” “democracy,” “peace.” Lyons well understood the seductive power of the call for fundamental social transformation, but he also knew, as did few others, that it invariably led to the naming of enemies and the doling out of retribution, and to unspeakable moral chaos—and, moreover, that it didn’t even work.
In The Red Decade, Lyons charted how so many in positions of power and responsibility had come to think and say idiotic and often dangerous things with great seriousness. How had America lost such faith in itself and its guiding institutions, leaving capitalism (for all its attendant faults) under siege as the collectivist ethos gained greater currency? His was a clarion call to sanity and a plea that totalitarianism be seen for what it was, before it was too late.
Not much has changed. I am reminded of an interview of Vladimir Bukovsky (a Soviet dissident) by J.R. Nyquist, earlier this year. In the interview, Nyquist asked Bukovsky how his "tale of Western complicity in communist crimes, and Western obliviousness" would be received in the English speaking world. Bukovsky replied that his was a lonely struggle, adding, "[t]he real problem is the elite in the West, the forces of ‘peace and progress.’ The Western elite is socialist. They were never serious about fighting Soviet power.”
- Related: "Notes from a nameless conference"--The Fifth Wave. The elites have created a mess, but have no idea of how to fix it:
Sometime this year, I found myself at a conference centered around the theme of “regaining trust.” For obvious reasons, I won’t name names, but it was a professional gathering of the old regime: the industrial elites. In their hundreds if not thousands, I was swarmed by people of good will who were also smart, articulate, and hyper-educated. They craved, sincerely, to help the disadvantaged and save the earth. The words “science” and “reason” were perpetually on their lips, as if they held the copyright for these terms – which, in a sense, they did. And if they were a bit defensive, a tad obtuse, their intentions were the purest I could imagine.
So why, by their own admission, do they no longer inspire trust?
I have met their kindred before, in other glittering places. They run the institutions that hold center stage in our society, but look on the world as if from a walled mountain fortress, where every loud noise from beyond is interpreted as risk and threat. They disagree about minutia, but mostly move in lockstep, like synchronized swimmers, with word and thought. They are earnest but extraordinarily narrow. In a typical complaint, one speaker blamed the public for hiding in an “information bubble” – yet it occurred to me, as I sat through the conference, that the bubble-dwellers controlled the microphones there.
The same unmodulated whine about present conditions circled around and around, without even the ambition to achieve wit, depth, or originality:
The internet is the enemy: of rationality, of democracy, of truth. It must be regulated by enlightened minds.
The public resembles an eight-year-old who is always fooled by tricks and lies. For its own protection, it must be constrained by a Guardian class.
Populism is the spawn of lies. Even if it wins elections, it is never legitimate, and must be swept away by a higher authority.
Climate change is a scientific mandate for torturous economic and political experiments, implemented by experts. To deny this is worse than error – it’s a crime against humanity.
Hate speech, offensive words, fake news, deep fakes, privacy violations, information bubbles, bitcoin, Facebook, Silicon Valley, Vladimir Putin, Donald Trump, Brexit: all must be controlled, criminalized, exploded, broken up, exposed, deposed, or repeated until the right answer is obtained.
None of this was up for discussion. None of it was uttered with the least semblance of self-awareness. In the same breath, a speaker called for the regulation of the web and the education of children in “tolerance.” If I had pointed out the contradiction, the speaker, I’m certain, would have denied it. Tolerance, for her, meant the obliteration of opinions she disliked.
In fact, each narrative loop I listed above ends with the elites happily in charge, and the obliteration of the wretched present. If we wish to understand why trust evaporated in the first place, consider the moral and political assumptions behind this rhetorical posture
***
The industrial elites have lost their way. In every major profession and institution, they once commanded vast, widely-admired projects that filled their lives with meaning and endowed the entire class with an unconquerable confidence. But the twentieth century couldn’t be preserved forever, like a bug in amber. The elites now face a radically transformed environment – and they are maladapted and demoralized. An inability to listen, an impulse to spew jargon in broadcast mode, a demand for social distance as the reward for professional success: such habits, which in the past placed them above and beyond the mob’s reach, now drag them down to contempt and mockery in the information sphere. Among the public, trust has curdled into loathing. The elites are horribly aware of their fall from grace – hence the conference – but being deaf to the public’s voice, they are clueless about how to respond.
Shelden was a descendant of Russell Alger, a lumber baron who served as the 20th governor of Michigan and the secretary of war under President William McKinley, and who illuminated Detroit through the city's Edison Electric Light Co. Alger's descendants continued to add to the family fortune, even developing Detroit's tony Rosedale Park.
In a 1975 Detroit Free Press profile, Shelden is described as having a hefty trust fund, a Yale degree, and a master's in geology from Wayne State University.
* * *Brother Paul's was a front. Richards told police that the organization had been set up to victimize children and dodge taxes, according to a 1977 hearing.
Shelden and Richards weren't the only two men involved in the alleged conspiracy, either. Dyer Grossman, a wealthy science teacher who taught at the Harvey School, near Katonah, New York, and "Adam Starchild," the alias of convicted fraudster, offshore-accounts expert, and former Boy Scout assistant scoutmaster Malcolm McConahy, were also accused of helping Shelden set up a number of shell companies, including the phony Church of the New Revelation and the oceanic educational group Ocean Living Institute, according to a 1976 Michigan State Police report.
* * *
J. Reuben Appelman's book "The Kill Jar" is the product of 10 years of investigation into the Oakland County child killings. His work also delves into the North Fox Island ring. Appelman said that Shelden served as a sort of "executive" of child pornography in the Detroit area in the '60s and '70s.
"There are very dark rooms in the homes of the uber-rich," Appelman told Business Insider. "There are dark corners in their minds. The Sheldens of the world are at home in those dark places. They don't think the way we think. It's true that money and power corrupt, but it's also true that the already corrupt gain money and power with much more ease than people who have consciences."
According to Appelman, the North Fox Island operation functioned essentially as a subscription service centered on the production of child pornography and the sexual abuse of boys ages 7 to 16. In exchange for their contributions, the camp's "sponsors" could receive pornography that police said was produced on the island, or even visit the island themselves, according to reports.
Shelden fled to Amsterdam where he is believed to have died in 1996.
If you want peace with God, and the eternal comfort that comes from being His forgiven child, Christianity offers you something that no one and nothing else can give you. If, however, you simply want to feel the bliss of earthly pleasures, Jack Daniels and money would do a far better job of satiating your desires than Jesus Christ and Mother Church.
The same is true of “equality.” Christianity offers countless joys to the lost and fallen sinners of this world. But if you’re looking for the joy that comes from receiving equal access to every aspect of the church’s ministry, you’re going to be disappointed.
The WHO conducted surveys from 2014 to 2018 in randomly selected clinics in 18 countries, and examined the levels of resistance in people who had started HIV treatment during that period.
More than 10% of adults with the virus have developed resistance to these drugs in 12 nations (see ‘Resistance rises’). Above this threshold, it’s not considered safe to prescribe the same HIV medicines to the rest of the population, because resistance could increase. Researchers published the findings this month in WHO report.
And:
Particularly concerning, says the report, is the high level of resistance in infants with HIV in sub-Saharan Africa. Between 2012 and 2018, about one-half of newly diagnosed infants in nine of the countries in this region had a form of HIV that was resistant to efavirenz, nevirapine or both.
According to Guo, who has known current Chinese President Xi Jinping for more than 10 years, the anti-Trump influence operation is being directed by Xi and Wang through the Communist Party of China (CCP) National Security Commission, a high-level body created in 2013 that since then has tightened control over all other security organs.
"For the 2020 U.S. presidential election, the security committee has given very clear instructions that it is not permissible for Trump to win the 2020 election," Guo said speaking through an interpreter.
By deploying its intelligence and influence resources in the United States, the CCP is working to exploit the harsh political divisions between Democrats and Republicans in seeking to unseat the Trump administration.
"President Trump has already caused a lot of damage to the CCP, so they have declared he will not be allowed to have another four years in power," the dissident said.
Previously, conflict during the Classic period (250–950 CE) has often been viewed as ritualised and not widespread.
However, scholars have long viewed the violent warfare in the Terminal Classic Period (800–950 CE) as something that catalysed the collapse of the civilisation.
The latest findings push the start date if this violence back to an earlier date, potentially as far as the 7th century.
[T]he number of fixed mutations that are presently observed to distinguish two species, whether we contemplate Man and the Chimpanzee–Human last common ancestor (CHLCA) or the dog and one of the therapsids, are considerably - CONSIDERABLY - in excess of the maximum amount of time that could have passed since the speciation process is believed to have begun. There is only one defense against this straightforward mathematical observation, and that is the idea that enough parallel mutations happened very, very quickly to significantly reduce the average time per fixed mutation to permit it to happen in the intervening time period.
The problem here, of course, is that the numerical gap that needs to be filled is so large that if that were the case, then these mutations would be have to be happening so rapidly, and fixing in parallel so quickly, that we could observe evolution by natural selection happening in real time all the time. Except we don't, so the Neo-Darwinian is forced to retreat to the absurd scientific equivalent of claiming that he does too have a girlfriend, it's just that she lives in Canada, and you wouldn't know her anyhow.
This is not a defense of intelligent design. It is a defense of math and logic, both of which have to be abandoned if one is still to take Neo-Darwinism or the theory of evolution by natural selection seriously.