August 25, 2019 -- A Quick Run Around the Web

"CQB - Part 1: Stop running into rooms!"--Gunfather Milsim (20 min.)

Although the intended audience is airsoft/paintball participants, the author draws on his experience in law enforcement, and clearly explains the basic concepts.

• "Michael Drejka found guilty of manslaughter in parking lot shooting that led to 'Stand Your Ground' trial"--CNN (via MSN). After the information that came out at trial, this is not really a surprise. Mark MacYoung actually has some good points that are applicable to Drejka's situation, including that a lot of people that are victims of violence assume that they can't can act badly without suffering consequences. For instance, he notes in his book In the Name of Self-Defense, about such people:

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.

• John Mosby discussing civilian response to active shooters has this to say about overcoming fear:

      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.

• "Getting Started With Concealed Carry"--Guns America. A pretty decent primer, overall.
• "Concealed Carry Corner: Carrying While Hunting – Why It’s Important"--The Firearm Blog. The author mostly focuses on self-defense against people or animals for why you should carry a handgun when hunting. But I've heard enough stories of hunters using handguns to take deer running through their campsite or before they got their rifle out of their truck, that a handgun is just a good backup to your rifle.
• "Expert Opinion: Biggest Mistakes Women Make When Buying a 1st Gun"--NRA Family. Most of these apply to men, as well. Some of the points:

• 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.

• I think I might have to check this out: "The 12 Lessons of ‘Guns and Self-Defense’ by Robert A. Waters"--The Truth About Guns. According to the reviewer, Waters' latest book looks at 23 incidents of self-defense in great detail in order to draw out the important lessons. From the review:

1.  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.
2. 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.
3. 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.
4. All guns involved were handguns, except for a shotgun wielded by a woman home alone.
5. 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.
6. 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.
7. Few of the defenders had much training, if any. Yet they all survived, and did not shoot any innocent bystanders.
8. 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.
9. Violent predators often work together in armed gangs that may require defenders to fire many shots to end the attack.
10. 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.
11. The underlying explanation for these violent assaults is that society does not deal effectively with the three main causes:  drugs, gangs and mental illness.
12. 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.

• "After Lengthy Wear Tests, Army Won't Issue a Jungle Boot to Soldiers"--Military.com. The Army tests came up with two good designs, but rather than make a final choice, the Army decided that soldiers should cough up their own money for the boots:

      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. 

• According to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (BATF), 8,669,259 new firearms of all sorts were produced last year, but of these, a little over 2 million were 9 mm pistols alone. .380 was the second most popular handgun caliber, at 715,000 produced. (Total handguns--pistols and revolvers--was about 4.2 million). To put this in comparison, only 2,846,757 rifles were produced in 2018. Of course, this is only domestic manufacture and does not include imports.
• "FIGHT, WIN AND SURVIVE: TECHNIQUES, TACTICS AND PROCEDURES FOR THE MULTI-DOMAIN BATTLEFIELD, PART 1"--American Partisan.  This is an excerpt from a white paper in which "the authors detail several critical needs at the small unit level as well as pointing out tactical deficiencies as a result of two decades focused upon counterinsurgency." A couple main points raised is that our forces are too dependent on radio communications, which can be used to locate an enemy force and subject it to artillery; and the need for mobility (via vehicles) even at the platoon level.
• "The Survival Retreat Facility: Design Planning Considerations in Theory and Practice, Part One"--The Mountain Guerrilla. Applying Green Beret doctrine to a survival retreat. An excerpt:

      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.

• "TFB Review: CZ Bobwhite G2"--The Firearm Blog. This firearm is a double-barrel side-by-side in 12 gauge and an MSRP of $655. It features a double set of triggers rather than a single trigger and selector. The reviewer liked the weapon overall, although he had complaints about the trigger pull being heavy and gritty. Still, for someone wanting a lightweight shotgun for hunting, or something to use for Cowboy Action Shooting... .
• "Gun Review: Colt King Cobra .357 Revolver"--The Truth About Guns. A 3-inch barrel and a full 6 rounds. Yet, according to the reviewer, "[o]n the ever-popular Smith & Wesson frame scale, the King Cobra sits right in the middle between the J-frame and the K-frame guns," and "[f]or those of you more familiar with Ruger double action revolvers, the six-shot Colt King Cobra revolver weighs in at a grand total of 1 oz more than the five-shot SP-101.  At 28 oz, it’s much lighter than the GP100, or the S&W Model 10, Model 19, or the 'Combat Magnum' 66."
• A classic pocket pistol: "Gun Review: Beretta 21A Bobcat 22 LR"--The Truth About Guns. I had one of these a couple decades ago when I was first trying to find an appropriate concealed carry pistol. I liked it for the most part: I liked the tilt-up barrel allowing you to load (or unload) the weapon without having to remove the magazine or rack the slide. The trigger was good. But it was loud, and I was never able to develop good accuracy with it--for me it was a 5 yards or less weapon. The author of this review was able to get better accuracy out of his, indicating that he could get groups of 2 to 3 inches at 10 yards. I wish I could have kept it just because of its small size, but I had to sell it when it came down to a choice between keeping it and paying for rent.
• "Century Arms to Resume Importing WASR Rifles Chambered in 5.56x45mm"--The Firearm Blog. 
• "Nikon M-Tactical 3-12x42SF Riflescope – Optic Review"--Ammo Land. It comes with a one-piece mount, and uses the MK-1 MRAD (second focal plane). Adjustments are 0.1 MRAD and the author found that the scope tracks very well when changing settings and then returning to zero. I didn't see the MSRP in the article, but it looks like its retail is going to be $450 to $500.
• MY EXPERIENCE WITH PRIMARY ARMS OPTICS"--American Partisan. While we would all like to put $2,000 optics on our rifles, it just isn't realistic. The author of this article has owned several Primary Arms offerings and discusses the one's that he thinks of as being "duty grade," including the Primary Arms 1-6X ACSS, Primary Arms Orion 4-14X ACSS, and the Primary Arms 1X Cyclops (in lieu of a red dot). Also, on an unrelated note, the author makes the following observation of using .308 M1-A SOCOM as a home defense rifle:

     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. 

• For you hand loaders: "38 Super and 9mm Load Data for Winchester 572 Ball Powder"--Shooting Times. 
• And another: "Blackpowder Shotshell Loading"--Shooting Times. 
• "How Accurate Are Today’s Rifles?"--American Hunter. Better manufacturing techniques, better triggers, and better ammunition means that most new hunting rifles can shoot sub-MOA groups ... or better than most hunters can shoot them.
• "What Causes Poor Trigger Technique?"--Shooting Sports USA. Checklists and diagrams to help you improve your trigger technique. The article is primarily intended for the rifle shooter, but should have application to shooting a handgun in single action.
• "Building A Shooter’s Ability – Slow Progression vs Taking Shooting Courses"--The Firearm Blog. There's a place for both. The author relates:

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.

• Of course, not all professional instructors are what they are cracked up to be: "California Concealed Carry Trainer Accidentally Shoots Student While Clearing His Gun"--The Truth About Guns. The trainer was apparently a sheriff's deputy who decided to check to see if the handgun was empty by pulling the trigger.
• "Defensive Accuracy: Can You Keep Your Shots On an 8.5×11″ Piece of Paper?"--The Truth About Guns. 

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.

• "Diatomaceous Earth For Long Term Storage Of Wheat & Grain"--Modern Survival Blog. Food grade diatomaceous earth can be used to protect grain from insects, and can absorb some moisture. More information and instructions at the link.

"Symbolism & Propaganda in Popular Culture"--Jonathan Pageau (11 min.)

• A different look at Spengler's ideas. There is a site called Atomic Rockets which has resources for science-fiction authors wanting to create hard sci-fi. One of the resources has to do with "future history," including various forms of cyclical history (I actually think rhyming history is probably more accurate) such as Spengler's theories. Check it out.
• "Exorcists to Jesuit head: Satan is real"--Catholic News Agency. Jesuit superior general Fr. Arturo Sosa, SJ, made headlines earlier this week when he told Italian magazine Tempi that “the devil exists as a symbolic reality, not as a personal reality.” The International Association of Exorcists (an organization of Catholic exorcists) rebutted this, saying: "The real existence of the devil, as a personal subject who thinks and acts and has made the choice of rebellion against God, is a truth of faith that has always been part of Christian doctrine." Sosa is either just a pencil pusher with no real experience as a priest, or a liar. There are malignant spiritual powers out there, but they are more than happy for you to think they are just myth or superstition.
• They are lying to you: "MICHAEL MANN REFUSES TO PRODUCE DATA, LOSES CASE"--Powerline Blog. Michael Mann is the climate researcher that came up with the famous (or infamous) "hockey stick" graph purporting to show a sudden and drastic uptick in global temperatures since the beginning of the industrial age. He is also one of the leading figures behind the Climate Gate scandal. He was called out on his fraudulent research, and sued his accusers for libel. Yet, when push came to shove, he wasn't able or willing to produce the data on which his climate predictions rested. Consequently, his lawsuit was dismissed, and the defendants have been awarded costs.

• 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. 

• Not our best or brightest: "Stanford pushes separate physics course for minority students"--Campus Reform. The article reports that "[i]n an effort to achieve 'diversity' within its physics department, Stanford University is offering a separate physics course in order to ensure retention of 'underrepresented' physics majors." Instead of force = mass x acceleration, they will learn that force is the tool of the oppressive white patriarchy. 
• "Globalisation, The Davosocracy and the Pushback"--Medium. From the article:

     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”.

• We didn't start the fire: "The Red Decade, Redux"--City Journal. The continued relevance of Eugene Lyons' 1941 book, The Red Decade. 

      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.

• "Jeffrey Epstein was accused of sex trafficking young girls on his mysterious private island. Over 40 years ago, a different millionaire escaped justice in a stunningly similar case."--Business Insider. The subject of the article is millionaire Francis D. Shelden who bought Lake Michigan's North Fox Island and created a camp ground for "disadvantaged boys" in order to abuse and exploit them. 

      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.

• "Special Report: Inside a Trump-era purge of military scientists at a legendary think tank"--Reuters. The current administration has stopped letting research contracts to the scientific advisory group, JASON. (According to the article, the military also cut ties with the Navy Research Advisory Committee, another private group). The contracts to the JASON group are managed by another private entity, the Mitre Corporation. JASON scientists have been key to developing crucial military technology. One of the possibilities for the termination may have been that JASON members select other members to serve in the group, but the DoD had been pushing for more say on who served in the group. I would note, however, that the group has been increasingly focused on environmental issues, including global warming. That this move has upset Congressional Democrats is probably a good sign that the JASON group was no longer working for the benefit of the United States.
• "Why Christian Women Don’t Need To Be Pastors To Be Equal With Men"--The Federalist. Money quote: 

      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.

• AIDS strikes back: "Alarming Surge in Drug-Resistant HIV Uncovered"--Scientific American. The article reports:

      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.

• Of course: "China Covertly Subverting Trump Reelection"--Washington Free Beacon. The article reports:

      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.

• Interesting: "Unseen 9/11 photos bought at house clearance sale"--BBC. A bunch of photographs of the World Trade Center site after the attack.
• "Violent warfare which led to the demise of Maya culture may have started as long ago as the 7th-century AD, study claims"--Daily Mail. 

      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. 

• "Statistical analysis is not Intelligent Design"--Vox Day. He explains:

       [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.

• "Noted Physicist Says Multiverse Theory Of Creation Is Religion, Not Science"--Hill Faith. The article doesn't provide any background, so let me do so. One of the problems facing cosmologists is the fact that there are many physical constants that, if they were slightly different, would make life impossible. In fact, the universe seems to be tuned specifically for the existence of life. This is known as the anthropic principle. But because the statistical odds of this is so unlikely, it raises the possibility that perhaps the universe didn't evolve naturally but its creation was deliberate. To get around this, theoretical physicists and cosmologists hypothesize that there is a multitude of universes, the majority of which are not conducive to life or even the creation of matter, and that our universe is only one of billions or trillions of possibilities. Of course, there is no way to detect these other universes or even prove that the multiverse hypothesis is correct. Thus, the hypothesis is merely a statement of belief or faith.