A Quick Run Around the Web (11/15/2019)

"Using the M1 Carbine for Self-Defense [M1 Carbine Series Part 3]"--Lucky Gunner Ammo (12 min.). Some thoughts on why you might want to use the M1 Carbine over another rifle, and some tips on how to make it a little better at the role (without destroying the collector's value of the gun)

• "Active Killer Response Options for Armed Citizens"--Active Response Training. The author notes that with more and more people carrying weapons, it will become more likely for more than one armed player be in motion in the wake of a shooting. The key point:

When someone starts killing people and you whip your pistol out to engage, there are likely to be other armed people in the crowd.  Have you thought about how those folks will perceive your actions?  Will they mistake you for the killer?  The cops are coming quickly as well.  Have you considered that they might shoot you by mistake?

• "HOME BUILD A RETRO AR"--American Handgunner. Remember when the AR was a light-weight, handy rifle? No, me either. But it apparently was once so.
• "Essential Components of AR-15 Barrel Installation"--The Captain's Journal. 
• "Colt King Cobra Revolver Review"--Guns & Ammo. This is Colt's 3-inch barrel version. The author writes: "The 9½-­pound double-­action (DA) trigger is, to me, the best DA trigger out there. The pull is very smooth and breaks crisply without a hint of creep or grit."
• "Smith & Wesson Performance Center Model 686 Raises the Bar Again"--Guns America. A revolver built for competition shooting.
• "The .45 Colt: A Wheelgun Classic"--Gun Digest. A look at some of the modern offerings in this venerable cartridge. Note, however, that the powerful hunting or defensive loads may be too hot for even modern reproductions of old SAA and Remington revolvers.

• Related: "The .45 Colt — From Cowboy to Action to Self-Defense"--K-Var Blog.

• Related: "Personal Defense 45 Colt Loads: Some Are Sedate, Others Sizzle"--Gun Tests.

• "Slings and Carrying Straps"--Chuck Hawks.

       The rifle may be slung over either shoulder either muzzle up or muzzle down. When hunting in the rain it is handy to sling the rifle muzzle down over the off shoulder. This keeps the weapon as dry as possible, particularly the inside of the barrel. Another advantage of this barrel down position is that the rifle may be brought up to shooting position quickly.

      To do this the right handed shooter should carry the rifle slung barrel down over his or her left shoulder with the left hand (under the sling), grasping the forearm of the rifle. To bring the rifle to shooting position the rifleman need only to lift his left arm straight out ahead of him and rotate his wrist counter-clockwise 180 degrees. The rifle will be right side up and ready to snug into the shooter's shoulder. (If you are left handed, substitute "right" for "left.")

• "Handgun Speed vs. Accuracy: What's the Right Balance?"--Shooting Illustrated. According to the author, the right balance will depend on how much time, resources, and money you can put into training and practice.
• No surprise here: "An Ancestral Genome of The Plague Has Been Traced Back to Russia"--Science Alert. "The precursor, the researchers say, came from Russia, specifically a town called Laishevo in the historical Volga region, based on the evidence of a sample known as LAI009."
• "The HoloSun HE403R-GD “Gold Dot” Review: Worthy of a Gold Star?"--The New Rifleman. The answer is a "yes." Writes the author:

      The Gold Dot concept is just as valid as red, or green dots… I appreciated the dot outdoors as it was bright and obvious against foliage. It may be weaker against white backdrops and bright weapon lights, but I was unable to wash it out until danger close distances to the target. Like any reticle/color choice, it has its ups and downs.

      I give this optic a recommendation for shooters looking for a solid red dot sight. 

• For you martial arts buffs: "Keeping Skills Sharp"--Recoil Magazine. The article is a brief introduction to Pekiti Tirsia Kali (PTK), a bladed weapon martial art from the Bacolod region of the Philippines. From the article:

At a fundamental level, PTK puts much of its initial focus on controlling distance and proximity, essential elements in a blade-focused system. This is accomplished through training footwork and body angling drills. Dictating proximity, or your position in relation to your opponent is seen as essential in controlling your opponent’s ability to attack and defend. Controlling distance is essential to accuracy, especially when wielding weapons of various lengths. The focus of many PTK weapon-based drills is to increase speed, power, timing, and accuracy. These attributes — among others — are considered essential to making a technique work in a defensive situation.

I think the basics of all melee combat arts is controlling distance, proximity and tempo.

• "A Potential Man-Made Disaster (part 3)"--Blue Collar Prepping. Thoughts on prepping for a civil war. Two key points that the author makes is situational awareness and being prepared to move. Sparks31 and others have written extensively about monitoring local radio traffic to gain local situational awareness, and since I know next to nothing about radio, I would refer you to those sources for more information. Unfortunately, Sparks31 opens and shuts down blogs and websites with regularity, so its hard to keep track of where to find him. However, you can download a copy of his book, Commo, here (large PDF). 
• "Emergency Radio Communication for when the SHTF!"--Alpha Survivalist. An overview.

• Related: "How to Build a Homemade Radio That Really Works"--Boys Life.

• Related: "Which are the Best Long Range Two Way Radios?"--Alpha Survivalist.

• "Costco Powdered Eggs review"--Commander Zero. Bottom line: "I find them to be acceptable, and certainly a better alternative to no eggs."
• "David Grasty’s School of Bushcraft and Survival"--The Mountaineer. A look at an up and coming wilderness survival/foraging expert.
• "Criminals and the Guns They Carry"--Buckeye Firearms Association. This is a 2012 article from Greg Ellifritz taking a look at the types of weapons carried by criminals based on weapons seized by the police department for which he works. As you would expect, the vast majority were handguns. Interestingly, 28% were unloaded; 10% were could not function, and another 20% had limited functionality because they had frequent malfunctions, were missing magazines, or other problems. 
• "We are not going to die from climate change"--Behind the Black. From the article:

      Tony Heller today published this quite thorough review of the failed climate predictions by global warming scientists/activists, while also providing a great summary of the real state of our climate.

     You can disagree or question him on one point or another, but the overall data once again illustrates the uncertainty that surrounds climate science. We really do not know what is going on, and any predictions that claim we do are hogwash.

"CHINA Accuses the CIA of DESTROYING ASIAN MASCULINITY"--Black Pigeon Speaks (12 min.). Effeminate male pop stars apparently a thing in Eastern Asia (Korea, Japan and China). In China, they are termed "Fresh Little Meat," which itself is suggestive. While the Chinese government (and even everyday Japanese) may blame the CIA, it seems that it is a natural result of the r/K cycle. 

• r-psychology at work: "Abortionist Testifies: ‘No Question’ Babies Being Born Alive To Harvest Organs"--The Daily Wire.
• More more r-psychology: "We teach boys that marriage doesn’t work"--Fabius Maximus. 

       In fact our time is shaped by Girls’ Game: romance the man, stage the party-of-her-life, marry, have kids, divorce when they are in school – then get community property, child support, and independence. The husband provides support during those first few difficult years raising the children, then is dumped. She then gets the children she wants without the bother of having a husband. It is the logical strategy for women raised to value their independence above all else.

* * *

      One result of Girls’ Game: in 2005/06 less 60% of US adolescents (11, 13, and 15 years old) lived with both birth parents (per the OCED Family Database), the lowest level in the OCED. Today probably even fewer do.

• Related: "Women embrace higher values, destroying their families"--Fabius Maximus. Some more analysis of how "girl power" and no-fault divorce is destroying the family unit.

• Related: "America’s families are broken. Dreams won’t build new ones."--Fabius Maximus. A discussion of how the old order, derogatorily termed "the patriarchy" was required to lure men into the chains of "the rat race" required to support an industrial civilization, and how the destruction of that old order is also disincentivizing men from entering the "rat race." Quoting from Allan Bloom's The Closing of the American Mind: “Of necessity, therefore, it was understood to be the woman’s job to get and hold the man by her charms and wiles because, by nature, nothing else would induce him to give up his freedom in favor of the heavy duties of family. But women no longer wish to do this, and they, with justice, consider it unfair according to the principles governing us. …"

It will come crashing down. In Isaiah 4:1 we read: "And in that day seven women shall take hold of one man, saying, We will eat our own bread, and wear our own apparel: only let us be called by thy name, to take away our reproach." Although this passage is generally cited as an example of how many men will be killed in the wars and disasters preceding the Second Coming, women have historically refused to marry down (i.e., marry someone of a lower social class) even in periods when there is a shortage of men due to war such as post-Civil War America. So, to me, this passage indicates that the social stigma of not marrying will be greater than the stigma of marrying down. (Unless this is an example of the Pareto Principle--80% of the women chasing 20% of the men--in which case, you can ignore the previous sentence).

• "In U.S., Decline of Christianity Continues at Rapid Pace"--Pew Research. 

In Pew Research Center telephone surveys conducted in 2018 and 2019, 65% of American adults describe themselves as Christians when asked about their religion, down 12 percentage points over the past decade. Meanwhile, the religiously unaffiliated share of the population, consisting of people who describe their religious identity as atheist, agnostic or “nothing in particular,” now stands at 26%, up from 17% in 2009.

Even worse among Millennials. 

• Vox Day notes the "the Boomer cluelessness that simply can't grasp the significance of a rise in tuition from 500/semester to 15,000/semester when wages have not risen."
• Another consequence of the swine fever epidemic in China: "China lifts ban on US poultry"--DW.

      US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer welcomed the lifting of the "unwarranted" ban.

      "China is an important export market for America’s poultry farmers, and we estimate they will now be able to export more than $1 billion (€0.9 billion), worth of poultry and poultry products each year to China," he said.

• "American Blunder: Throwing Open Our Markets To China"--Pat Buchanan. 

      Among the epochal blunders America has committed since the end of the Cold War, three stand out.

      The first was our disastrous plunge into the Middle East to create regimes oriented to the West. The second was the expansion of NATO to the front porch of Russia, driving the largest nation on earth, and one of its most formidable nuclear powers, into the arms of China.

     The third was to throw open America’s markets to Chinese goods on favorable terms, which led to the enrichment and empowerment of a regime whose long-term threat to U.S. interests and values is as great as was that of the Soviet Union during the Cold War.

It started under George H. W. Bush who had close ties with China. Of course, Biden and his son, Hunter, also have close ties with China.

• "The CIA falsely believed it was 'invincible' in China — here's how its spies were reportedly discovered and killed in one of the biggest blows to the agency"--Business Insider. The article blames a poorly written internet based communications systems used to communicate with new spies that apparently, when cracked, allowed access to a broader array of CIA communications. I, however, wonder how much of it was the result of Hillary Clinton's "private" email server.
• "ANNUAL FINANCIAL STATE OF THE STATES REPORT"--American Partisan. As we have come to expect, underfunded pensions are the Sword of Damocles hanging over the most liberal states. The author writes: "I don’t foresee public sector pensions being trimmed until the taxpayer looks like a Holocaust victim.  Expect a lot of internal migration and possibly emigration."
• "Is The British Empire Largely Misunderstood?"--American Conservative. Excerpt:

Black notes that “empire was in part supported and defended on the grounds that it provided opportunities for the advance of civilization.” Britain, which was “more liberal, culturally, economically, socially, and politically, than the other major European powers,” was central to ending the slave trade and slavery. British imperialism promised, and to varying degrees secured, rule of law, participatory government, and individual freedoms to many around the world. Imperialism also has a frequent tendency to protect ethnic minorities more than nation-states, because it de facto requires buy-in from everyone, while purist nationalist regimes (e.g. Turkey, Yugoslavia, Burma, Sudan) are often the ones engaged in ethnic cleansing.

• "America Is Running Out of White Children to Solve the Problems of Nonwhite Children"--Steve Sailor at The Unz Review. Liberals want to reintroduce busing to re-integrate schools (and boost test scores), but the problem is that the percentage of school kids that are white has sharply declined over the past two decades.
• "Aquinas on usury"--Vox Popoli. Money quote (pardon the pun): "To take usury for money lent is unjust in itself, because this is to sell what does not exist, and this evidently leads to inequality which is contrary to justice."
• They don't build 'em like this anymore: "NASA's Voyager 2 probe sends back its first discoveries from interstellar space 42 years after blasting off from Earth – providing 'valuable clues about the structure of the Solar System'"--Daily Mail. From the article:

      Researchers from various US institutions confirmed that Voyager 2's journey had taken it into the 'space between the stars' by noting a 'definitive jump' in the density of plasma — charged particles and gas — found around the probe.

     This change was detected by Voyager 2's instruments and is evidence of the probe making its way 'from the hot, lower-density plasma characteristic of the solar wind to the cool, higher-density plasma of interstellar space,' they said.

      The observed increase is similar to the plasma density jump experienced by Voyager 1 when it previously crossed into interstellar space, the researchers added. 

      Among many things, the astronomers are particularly  looking to gain a better understanding of how the solar winds — the stream of charged particles coming out of the Sun — interact with the interstellar winds, which are formed from particles coming from other stars.

• "How To Use a Digital Multimeter"--Popular Mechanics. Some safety rules and instructions on 5 common tasks: (1) testing batteries, (2) testing electrical outlets, (3) testing a wall switch, (4) testing extension cords, and (5) reading temperature (if your meter has this feature: mine doesn't). My most common use is to perform simple continuity tests.
• Another project for you electronics enthusiasts: "Build the long range Laser Spy system"--Lucid Science. From the introduction:

We will be starting with an ultra basic proof of concept test system that will show you how the Laser Spy converts vibration into sound and how careful alignment of both the laser and receiver are required for optimal performance. Ironically, the most basic configuration may prove to be the most useful, and the $20 you spend in parts could create a system that works as well (or better) than some of the ones that are for sale on the internet for thousands of dollars. As you will find out, the key to spying with a laser beam is in the alignment and reception of the beam, not some magical black box full of fancy filters and optical components.