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Tuesday, November 26, 2019

A Quick Run Around the Web (11/26/2019)

"Two Brazil Videos With Several Lessons"--Active Self Protection (7 min.)
As between a firearm and a car, the car is the deadlier weapon.
     The problem that I am seeing is that good will is waning. More than that, because people aren't getting punched for bad behavior anymore, it's escalating. People in certain Super-tribes are getting more emboldened about their words and behaviors, more self-righteous, more hostile. While those in other Super-tribes are getting pushed towards the point where 'keeping the peace' loses priority in light of the constant stream of insults, abuse and hostility.
          Which again, 'those rat bastards...'IS perfectly acceptable to say INSIDE your Super- tribe, but not in mixed company. You conduct yourself differently when you are dealing with folks from other tribes -- or, and this is something people tend to forget, in neutral territory. That may be acceptable behavior where you’re from, but in this area you don’t know how many of the people you just pissed off are armed.
            Another problem that I am seeing is that punching someone for lipping off has been banned. This low-level consequence used to teach people there were lines you didn't cross unless you were willing to pay the price. Two relevant points. There are all kinds of levels of striking and reason for striking. I tell you this so you can understand the first point, a hit is the level you use for people inside your tribe whom you don’t want to hurt. The second point: Violence between different tribes often involves weapons. That’s because the intent IS to hurt. Stop and consider the implications of what I’m about to say. Lower levels of physical violence can indeed escalate. However, they more commonly serve as a safety valve. A pressure relief that would go before the boiler blows up. That safety valve has been wired shut ... and pressure is growing. Worse, it seems there are some folks out there intent on stoking the boiler. 
        Lowell [the attacker] allegedly started “pushing or punching” the victim before walking away, according to the report. The victim, who had two stab wounds on her left arm and another one in her left abdomen, told police at the hospital that she didn’t know she was stabbed until she saw the blood. 
               When deputies arrived, they spoke with the victim’s upstairs neighbors: Trooper Landon Terry and Trooper Dustin Gross. Both stated they were in the field-training phase of their training with KSP.
                 According to the report, Terry told the deputies the shot was not intentional. Terry said he and Gross thought the rifle was empty, someone pulled the trigger, and the rifle went off because there was still a round in the chamber.
            The shot nearly struck a child in the apartment below the state troopers.
                   ... Buy waterproof boots, spend more time with dry feet. Dry feet blister less than wet feet. They’re less prone to fungal diseases. They’re warmer. And depending on your inclination, they range somewhere between “a little” and “worlds” more comfortable.
                     Bonus points: Waterproof boots also keep the interior of the boot more dry, not just the feet within. That can extend the lifespan of the interior linings. Deteriorating linings of boots generate blisters faster than a web browser generates ads, so it’s not an inconsequential point. Also dry feet are much less prone to frostbite, which is a Very Big Deal if cold weather travel might be necessary.
                As the officer spoke, Marsh cautiously searched him and removed a leather pistol holster from his hip. Inside was a P08 Luger pistol, 1939-dated with an “S/42” code on the toggle; the holster was also dated 1939. This would become one of Marsh’s most prized souvenirs, and he began to carry it along as his new sidearm. Marsh and his comrades would take turns shooting it during their down time at German helmets they set into the road for target practice. He noted that the recoil of the 9 mm Luger was more controllable than the .45 ACP M1911A1 and penetrated the helmets easier. He also stated that it was very useful for clearing rooms and cellars, where the 9-lb., 3½-ft.-long M1 Garand was not the most practical option. 

                "Demographic Change: Imagined or Inevitable?"--American Renaissance (9 min.)

                • Feminism success: men reluctant to white knight: "A bull elk teaches men about toxic masculinity"--Fabius Maximus. A woman got knocked over by a bull elk and none of the men standing around came to her rescue (although a man in a pickup truck did). The response from feminists was to call the men "cowards". As the author of the article notes, however, "Why should a man confront a bull elk – 800 to 1000 pounds, aggressive during the mating season –  to defend a woman he does not know?" Why indeed? The author observes:
                     Feminists have long worked to eradicate chivalry, and all aspects of patriarchal culture, from our society. The essence of patriarchy – male leadership and protection of women – has become not just illegitimate but repugnant or evil, along with its system of reciprocal obligations. We watch films in which women respond to warnings or offers of help by men with “I can take of myself” – no matter how overwhelming the danger. We see films of women easily beating up men. We see films of women hitting men – including their boyfriends – for trivial reasons (see some examples). These are our new social norms projected on the big screen.

                     Under our new system, why should men risk their lives for unrelated women? What is the basis for this moral obligation to act as unpaid volunteer defenders of strangers? That would be considered mad by most men around the world across history. It is seen as quite mad by many young men today. What these feminists and white knights call cowardice they call good sense – fair play in a world run under the rules of fourth-wave feminism (women’s quest for supremacy).

                      This is the problem with social engineering. Leftists change one part of society, but seldom consider how this change will ripple out and change other social dynamics. Which in turn change other things. The Left has changed many fundamental aspects of US society, and intends to change more in the next few years. Untended consequences will be the next chapter in America’s history.
                     Sweden is reeling from a wave of shootings and bombings with 268 shootings just this year so far. And that's in a country of 10 million people which has crime numbers on par with some American cities.

                      "Sweden may have the answer to America's gun problem," Vox declared in 2016. Or maybe not.

                     These shootings aren't being carried out with handguns, but with AK-47s. The weapon so often used as a boogeyman by gun control advocates, but rarely featured in everyday gun violence, is a staple of Sweden’s gang war scene. Along with hand grenades and other explosives rarely seen in America.

                     A call by the police last year asking gang members to turn in their grenades worked as well as expected.

                     There have been 187 bomb attacks this year. In just 1 week in August, there were three major bombings. Much of the violence is concentrated in Malmo which experienced 58 bombings in 2017.

                    Malmo has a sizable immigrant and Muslim population. And it’s a center of gang violence.
                • Related: "Abandoning Malmö to Its Criminals"--Quillette. From the article: "As Sweden’s national police chief put it last week, there is 'no equivalent' to this bombing campaign in any other Western country." The author also relates that after he suffered a 2017 burglary, he asked the investigating officer "how best to protect my family in the future, he told me the best solution was 'not living in Malmö: Things have escalated to a point where we can’t manage the situation.'"
                      The authors find in their new analysis of the National Household Education Survey (NHES) that, in 2016, about 24 percent of black elementary and high school students had been suspended at least once, while eight percent of white students and only four percent of Asian students had the same experience.
                      The researchers note the NHES shows “black students are far more likely to be living apart from their married birth parents in the home (72%) compared to white students (37%) or Asian students (26%).”
                        The China Law Blog (previously) reports on the kinds of questions that western businesses operating in China are raising; China's serious economic downturn and rising authoritarianism have turned the site's normally businesslike posts into a glimpse of a kind of cyberpunk stranger-than-fiction dystopia (for example).
                         A new post on the site describes the consequences of a sharp downturn in the Chinese economy: a new mood among many Chinese businesspeople that they are at the end of the long Chinese boom and that there's no reason not to burn their bridges with non-Chinese firms, because they're not going to be doing business with them for much longer no matter what.
                    Perhaps the most disturbing message this commercial is sending, as subtle as a sledgehammer through glass, is that parents should be affirming and helping their children hurt themselves. In one scene, a mother is helping to bind her daughter's breasts. This is a practice that can cause internal injuries and tissue damage. Telling parents they should assist their children in inflicting self-harm is the sickest thing I ever saw. Full stop.
                    Ed Driscoll contends that "Coca-Cola is using the left’s current zeitgeist, their obsession with transgenderism, in part to reposition Sprite away from its image as a strictly flyover country beverage, but primarily to illustrate to the leftists on Madison Avenue and in the Coke boardroom how woke the company is." 
                          The ownership’s of “big business” are largely intertwined with the agendas of a globalist system. They are not beholden to nation states. The globalist ideals/agendas fly in the face of a free society. Especially one which enables fighting back against tyranny (2nd & 1st Amendment for example).

                         So some of them actively participate in the destruction of this Republic. A chunk at a time. Break down the family. Destroy morality. Enslave the populous with debt. Remove their abilities to fight back.
                             The world’s first atomic bomb was detonated on July 16, 1945, in the New Mexican desert — a result of a highly secretive effort code-named the Manhattan Project, whose nerve center lay nearby in Los Alamos. Just 49 months later, the Soviets detonated a nearly identical device in Central Asia, and Washington’s monopoly on nuclear arms abruptly ended.
                             How Moscow managed to make such quick progress has long fascinated scientists, federal agents and historians. The work of three spies eventually came to light. Now atomic sleuths have found a fourth. Oscar Seborer ...

                          * * *

                                  Mr. Seborer was born in New York City in 1921, the youngest child of Jewish immigrants from Poland, according to the study by Mr. Klehr and Mr. Haynes and a C.I.A. document they cited. He attended City College of New York, studied electrical engineering and worked at Los Alamos from 1944 to 1946.
                                   In July 1945, the study reported, he was “part of a unit monitoring seismological effects” of the first detonation of the atomic device. His Soviet code name was Godsend, and he came to Los Alamos from a family of spies.

                                * * *

                                       From an examination of archival materials from the K.G.B., the Soviet Union’s main intelligence agency, Mr. Klehr and Mr. Haynes learned about a shadowy group of moles in the United States known as the “Relative’s Group.” Three of the faction’s members — code-named Relative, Godfather and Godsend — were brothers. According to the study, the archival documents said that Godsend was at Los Alamos and that he was providing secret information on “Enormous,” the K.G.B.’s code name for the American project.
                                         In 2012, Mr. Klehr obtained newly declassified F.B.I. files on informants who had successfully penetrated the Communist Party of the United States. Suddenly, he started seeing references to the Seborers, and major parts of the atomic puzzle fell into place: Oscar was Godsend, Stuart was Godfather and their older brother Max was Relative.
                                      The article does not even mention Julius and Ethel Rosenberg and their associates that were key in passing atomic secrets to the Soviets. "Julius Rosenberg was born on May 12, 1918, in New York City to a family of Jewish immigrants from the Russian Empire." Ethel Rosenberg (née Greenglass ) "was born on September 25, 1915, to a Jewish family in Manhattan, New York City." Ethel's brother David Greenglass was part of the spy ring, passing on secrets he learned during his work on the Manhattan Project. Another member of the group was Harry Gold (original name Heinrich Golodnitsky) who was born on December 12, 1910, in Bern, Switzerland to Samson and Celia (Ominsky) Golodnitsky, both Jewish immigrants from what is now Ukraine and was then part of the Russian Empire. The family immigrated to the United States when Harry was 4. Also part of the group was a chemist named Morton Sobell, who was born in New York City to Jewish immigrant parents Louis and Rose Sobel, who came in 1906 from the small village of Belozerka, Russian Empire (today in Ukraine). 
                                      • Related: "The Witnesses"--Popular Mechanics. More in-depth story of the 2004 Nimitz exercise that filmed the "tic tac" UFOs.
                                             As Mark Twain said, “Censorship is telling a man he can’t have a steak because a baby can’t chew it.”

                                           And that illuminates the real problem.

                                           The legitimacy of Big Science is in doubt.  The legitimacy of Government is in doubt.  People are also doubting:
                                      • The educational system.
                                      • The United Nations.
                                      • Mainstream news media.
                                      • Mainstream entertainment media.
                                      • The courts.
                                      • Silicon Valley tech companies.
                                      • Many (but not all) Fortune® 500™ companies.
                                      And it’s not just in the United States – it’s spreading.  Riots have broken out in Chile, which is the most prosperous nation in South America and has the least amount of income inequality on the continent.  Europe is facing Brexit, the Yellow Vest movement, and the national rejections from countries like Denmark, Poland, and Hungary to unfettered migration.
                                            The world is unravelling.  One possible reason is we’ve reached the end of the Fourth Turning (The Economy, The Fourth Turning, Kondratieff, and You.) where this sort of social chaos is to be expected.  Another is that we are seeing increasing polarity in public life.  While the Right has moved farther Right, the Left has gone very far Left. ...
                                            Politically we are flying apart.  Is part of this demographics?  Certainly.  Immigrants (legal or illegal) to the United States vote overwhelmingly Left.  Why?  It doesn’t matter.  They do.  Immigrants and their children are perhaps the single largest driving force of this polarity shift, but there are other factors.
                                      Read the whole thing. 
                                      • Related: "You Are The Resistance, Plus? Lots of Star Wars Bikinis"--Wilder, Wealthy & Wise. John Wilder mulls over why the new Star Wars movies begin with nullifying the victory of the Rebellion at the end of Return of the Jedi,  and why the new stories were so terrible and concludes it is because the movies had to advance certain leftist goals:
                                           ... After reflection of several years and several other movies, it has become clear – the producers of Star Wars® are leftists.  The ideology of Star Wars© becoming Leftist ideology was more important than the story.  It was more important than the money.  Star Wars™ had to be made to fit the narrative of the Left.
                                             The narrative of the Left has always been of a smaller force fighting a larger opposing force.  The story of the Vietcong, the story of the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia, and the story of Antifa© are all the stories of resistance to larger powers.  This is the myth that the Leftist leaders use for propaganda when they want to explain to the peasants why they don’t have any food, why they are poorer this year than last.
                                                The Resistance© is the narrative of the Left, and so Star Wars™ had to portray the good guys as the underdog no matter what.  The Resistance® is how they see themselves – at the mercy of large systems that will destroy them – it’s in the mythos of all of the Left’s literature and entertainment.  Thus, this curious choice:  taking the victors and making them the victim.  The only reason I can see this is because it was written about the Left, for the Left.  Plot?  Entertainment?  Nah.
                                                 The Mrs. and I talked for a while about why this was.  My theory was that the Left’s power was ultimately derived from being a victim – that’s why the language of the Left is the language of victimhood, and the conversations of the Left are about creating division based on that victimhood.
                                                  Hence, the Resistance™.
                                              Every one of these movies is a particularly hard nut to crack. There’s no source material. We don’t have comic books. We don’t have 800-page novels. We don’t have anything other than passionate storytellers who get together and talk about what the next iteration might be. 
                                              Ha, ha, ha! To me this just proves how ignorant Kennedy and the others involved with the films have been. There have been literally hundreds of books and comics published concerning the Star Wars universe, many of them set after the events of The Return of the Jedi.  No, she just didn't want to use the source material. "As of 2004, over 1,100 Star Wars titles had been published, including novels, comics, non-fiction, and magazines." 
                                                    Originally, Lucasfilm tracked the storylines and content of the Expanded Universe in story bibles. In 2000, Leland Chee was hired as Continuity Database Administrator for Lucas Licensing, and implemented a database called the Holocron, a term used within the fictional Star Wars universe for "ancient repositories of knowledge and wisdom". Lucasfilm's Holocron consists of over 55,000 entries for franchise characters, locations, species, and vehicles.
                                              * * *

                                                   Regarding the Holocron database in 2012, Chee said: "What sets Star Wars apart from other franchises is that we develop a singular continuity across all forms of media, whether it be the films, TV series, video games, novels and comics, and the Holocron is a key component to Lucasfilm being able to do this."
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                                              1 comment:

                                              1. John WilderNovember 28, 2019 at 2:31 PM

                                                No source material.

                                                (sigh)

                                                And, thanks for the kind words!!!!

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                                              Bombs & Bants Episode 149

                                               My "2 minutes of gun talk in 1 minute" segment was somewhat scrambled, so let me summarize the point I was trying to make. I was ...