A Quick Run Around the Web (5/18/2020)

"The Scout Rifle Study: A Book Review and Critique of the Scout Rifle Concept"--Forgotten Weapons (19 min.). This isn't just a review of the book, but also discussion about the whole concept of the scout rifle.  

• It seems that every time I come across some discussion of Jeff Cooper's scout rifle concept that the requirements or purposes change slightly. The video above was the first that I had heard of the scout rifle including the role of an African big game guide's rifle. Before, I had heard it couched in terms of a military scout during the various American Indian wars in the United States. However, it is clear that Cooper was thinking of the exploits of Maj. Frederick Russell Burnham (May 11, 1861 – September 1, 1947) in frontier America and colonial Africa when he came up with the concept.

       For those unfamiliar with the concept, Wikipedia gives as good a summary of the basic purpose of the scout rifle as any I have read: "The general-purpose rifle will do equally well for all but specialized hunting, as well as for fighting; thus it must be powerful enough to kill any living target of reasonable size. If you insist upon a definition of 'reasonable size', let us introduce an arbitrary mass figure of about 1,000 lb (454 kg)." The entry also states: 

Scout rifles are typically bolt-action carbines chambered for .308 Winchester (or 7.62×51mm), less than 1 meter (40 inches) in length, and less than 3 kilograms (6.6 pounds) in weight, with iron and optical sights and fitted with practical slings (such as Ching slings) for shooting and carrying, and capable of hitting man-sized targets out to 450 meters (1,476 feet) without scopes. Typically they employ forward-mounted low-power long eye relief scopes or sights to afford easy access to the top of the rifle action for rapid reloading. Cooper was involved with the design work on the Steyr Scout.

Certain of the characteristics seem passé or irrelevant. For instance, the forward scope was to facilitate easy and rapid reloading whether by hand or by stripper clip, but is irrelevant if you have a rifle using a detachable box magazine.

       The key characteristic of the rifle is that it is supposed to be lightweight, but that has always been a problem with the requirement for an optic and a bipod; even the Steyr Scout rifle, as the video notes, was too heavy.

       It is also not clear what Cooper meant by requiring that the rifle be suitable for fighting. Does he mean something that could serve for sniping or a DMR? Or that it be able to be used in CQB or jungle warfare? I suspect that he was envisioning driving off an attack by a group of hostile natives or escaping from a Boer commando group, like Burnham would have done, which enemies would have been armed with spears or early Mauser bolt action rifles at the time. Today, the hostile natives or enemy forces would likely be armed with AKMs or some other type of assault rifle and backed up with machine guns, light mortars, rocket propelled grenades, or similar. 

      Chris Baker at Lucky Gunner has a pretty good discussion of the limitations of Cooper's concept, including its relevancy (or lack thereof) to modern gun owners. He notes, for instance, that the type of "general purpose" role envisioned by Cooper simply does not exist:

       If we take a cold, hard look at the place of the scout rifle in the modern world, it’s essentially a decent hunting rifle with some features that make it better suited for dangerous game, prolonged trips in the field, and about as good for protection from two-legged predators as a bolt gun can be.

     According to NSSF research, the overlap between avid shooters and avid hunters is declining. Some shooters hunt and some hunters shoot, but most people pick one or the other. When the guy or girl we would consider a shooting enthusiast goes looking for a “general purpose” rifle, hunting is going to be a secondary consideration at best. They want a rifle they can use to protect their home and family, and hone their skills on the range. Sure, you could use a scout rifle for any of those things, but if you’re not planning to sleep under the stars on your way to hunt mountain goats tomorrow, there are other guns that are better suited for those tasks.

And if you are going to leave the fighting part out of it, but focus on a back woods rifle, there are light weight "mountain rifles" that would be better than the scout rifle.

• "NRA Launches Free Online Refresher Hunter Ed Course"--NRA Hunters' Leadership Forum. Website is here.
• "Beretta 84 Fans Rejoice, SDS Imports Tisas Fatih B380 is Here!"--by Graham Baates at Ammo Land.  I gather that Beretta stopped production of their 80 series of handguns, including the Beretta 84, in 2017, which is too bad because it is actually a very nice handgun. (Although I still see them listed in their catalog). However, Beretta has apparently licensed the design to the Turkish manufacturer, Tisas, which version is now being imported into the United States at about half to two-thirds of the price new Beretta 84's are commanding. The final iterations of the Beretta 84 (the F models) had chrome lined barrels, but I doubt that is the case here. But my older BB model doesn't have a chrome lined barrel either. The trigger guard is interesting because Tisas seems to have taken a middle ground between the svelte curved trigger guard of the earlier 80 series, and the boxy trigger guard on the later models (copying that on the Beretta 92 service pistols), and gone with a larger trigger guard, but still rounded at the corners. Otherwise, looking at the video of the strip down of the gun and the test firing of the weapon, it appears to be a standard 84.
• "ARMED “CASTLE” DEFENSE: GO OUTSIDE ???"--Modern Service Weapons. The author writes:

A scenario I find quite often in my daily scan of nationwide use of force incidents is one which involves a resident (“defender”) who goes from inside to outside the castle. To investigate or otherwise respond to a noise or event, or to confront a suspected or actual burglar, vandal, trespasser, or personal property thief. The scenario often concludes with the defender’s use of deadly force. The defender claims resort to deadly force was necessary because of the malefactor’s response when discovered/confronted. The defender may or may not have brandished a firearm as a warning and/or gunpointed the malefactor, before using deadly force. The attendant dynamics and legal principles for this common scenario are often misunderstood and incorrectly analyzed [b]y drive-by lawyers (real and “keyboard”), “social justice” activists, and of course, journalists.

• "Drink Up: Learn How To Always Have Clean and Potable Water Using Filtration"--Imminent Threat Solutions. The author reviews three products: the Vapur Microfilter (designed to work with Vapur's collapsible bottles), the LifeStraw Personal Water Filter, and the MSR MIOX filter (which has been discontinued and replaced with the H2Go Purifier). One comment I would make is that the author tends to use "filter" and "purify" interchangeably, but they have different meanings. Filter do as the name suggest: they filter out nasty bugs and particulates, but there are limits to the size and effectiveness. Purifiers kill nasty bugs, but don't necessarily get rid of the dead bugs or particulates. And neither may work to remove hazardous chemicals.
• Not your granddad's hunting rifle: "Remington Unveils R2Mi Bolt-Action 50 BMG Rifle"--Ammo Land. $4,600 and it's yours.
• "Springfield’s 1911 Mini-Me: The 911 9mm"--Guns America. Following the example set by Sig Sauer, which beefed up their .380 P238 to the 9 mm P938.
• "Ammunition Science: Shotshell Ballistics"--NRA Family. Some basics on the ballistic limitations imposed by spherical shot, and lead versus steel shot.
• "A Guide to Low-Light Binoculars"--Mother Earth News. An excerpt:

      Exit pupil is the diameter, in millimeters, of the circle of light exiting from an ocular (eye-end) lens. By squaring the exit pupil, we arrive at relative brightness, as rated on a scale that peaks out at 49. (Forty-nine represents the maximum amount of light a healthy human eye is capable of absorbing when fully dilated.)

     While the exit pupil is listed on the bodies or packaging of some binoculars, it isn't on others. No matter, you can easily calculate it yourself: Just divide the magnification power into the objective lens diameter. For my little 7X25 minis, the exit pupil is 3.57 (25 divided by 7); for standard 7X35s, it's 5; for Ranging's 5X32s, 6.4; and for the big 7X50s, 7.1.

     Now, to determine relative brightness, simply square the exit pupil. Thus, 3.57 × 3.57 = 12.74 for the 7X25s; 25 is the relative brightness for the 7X35s; 40.96 for the Ranging 5X32s; and 50.41 for 7X50s. (These figures, remember, are on a scale that tops at 49.) From this we can see that while the 7X25 minis transmit only about a quarter of the light healthy eyes can normally admit in low-light conditions, and standard 7X35s about half, the Ranging 5X32s deliver better than 80%, and the 7X50s are so bright as to be completely off the scale.

If the exit pupil of the binoculars are smaller than the pupils of your eyes, then you are not getting the fullest amount of light that could be used by your eyes.

• "How to Carry and Use a Binocular"--American Hunter. One of the tips offered:

Many folks have better vision in one eye than the other. To compensate and make the binocular produce a sharp image for both eyes simultaneously, you must adjust the diopter on one to match the precise focus of the other. Do this by covering the objective lens of the barrel that has the diopter adjustment (usually the right side) and focusing on a sharp-edged object about 50 yards away while looking through the uncovered barrel. Next, switch sides but don’t touch the focus wheel. Instead use the diopter wheel to focus. Voilà. Can’t find the diopter wheel? Look for an extra ring on the eyepiece or focus wheel. From here on out, the regular focus wheel will adjust both eyepieces sharply for your vision. Unless your vision changes, you won’t need to do this again.

Other tips have to do with using a short strap or a harness so the binoculars don't bounce around when walking, foregoing objective lens caps (but using eye-piece caps), and tips on cleaning the lenses.

• "Saturday Snippet: A dog of war (sort of)"--Bayou Renaissance Man. Discussion and an excerpt from Mike Borlace's book, Spider Zero Seven--his memoirs of his time as a helicopter pilot in the Rhodesian civil war. A long read, but interesting and worth the time.
• "OPINION: EVERY SHOOTER/ SURVIVALIST/ PATRIOT A RIFLEMAN, BY BADLANDS RIFLEMAN"--American Partisan. A bit from the article:

As a Marine, I actually get offended when I witness poor weapons handling. Not poor shooting, but just the way someone handles the weapon itself. And not just because it’s a safety concern, but it’s just something you don’t do, it shows disrespect to the idea of being a rifleman, and by doing it you are not taking something serious that is a way of life to me. Imagine the outrage when you walk around in a mosque without taking off your shoes, while shaking everyone’s hand with your left hand and eating a 100% pork corn dog with your right. So yeah, I notice it.

• "Improving The Kneeling Position"--Shooting Sports USA. One of the five tips:

Have your coach or another person compare your kneeling position with the position outlined in this article. Alternatively, take video of yourself and review. In kneeling, the most important features to check are:

1. Having the body weight back over the kneeling roll.
2. The back bend and downward slump of the shoulders.
3. Balancing the body and rifle weight over the kneeling roll.

If you are having trouble getting your position to work out right, go back to the article linked above and review the second step on practicing the body position. Get into position without the rifle, then follow the other steps for developing a position.

• ".38 Special: What I’ve Learned After 20,000 Rounds"--The Truth About Guns. The author explains that "[t]he reason I love the .38 SPL so much is because it’s so elastic in function. Most people have one general power level for their semi-autos due to the fact that the guns won’t function with ammo that’s not energetic enough to cycle the slide. A revolver shooting .38 SPL only requires the power of your finger to make it fire and can thus be loaded with ammo that is extremely mild or hotter than hot." He gives a few of his reloading recipes if you are interested.
• Speaking of reloading: I get a lot of email advertisements for bulk ammunition from various companies, as well as warnings that ammo prices are increasing both from demand and from price increases for raw materials. I've also been doing a lot of reloading lately, including purchasing bullets, powder and primers. Since I already have a lot of spent brass that I've collected over the years, both from my own shooting and discards that I've picked up, I don't factor the cost of brass into my current costs. And what I'm seeing is that I can generally reload ammunition for about 1/3 and sometimes as little as 1/4 the price of purchasing comparable commercially loaded ammunition. 
• "RUGER PC CARBINE: FIXING IT FOR GLOCK MAGS"--The Mag Life. The author had an issue with the bolt not locking back on empty Glock magazines.

      The problem, as best I can tell, was likely due to tolerance stacking. This comes from the wide size range of each part; once you hit the extreme ends it can cause issues. When the forward bolt is torqued down the bolt hold open no longer functions (or that what’s happened in this rifle). This seems to have been caused by flex in the stock, binding the arm that lifts up and locks the bolt back when the last round is fired.

      In my case, the fix was very simple. I just used a tiny piece of cheap, clear plastic clamshell packaging — you know, the stuff that should open right up but really presents enough of a fight that you wind up manhandling it until it tears or just cutting it open so your prize drops out.

     I cut a small (roughly 1 in.) square hole, drilled a hole in it the size of the forward bolt, and used it as a washer.

     I chose to go with plastic because it is somewhat compressible under the torque of the bolt and because it could be made wider than a washer (thus spreading out the load).

    This allowed me to fully torque each bolt down and now the bolt hold-open works exactly as it should.

• "Holosun 503gu Review: Is it Solid?"--The New Rifleman. Short take: "The Holosun 503gu is a budget-friendly red dot option for those who want the best bang for their buck. It offers ridiculous battery life, multiple build options for any type of optic you need, and they have proven to be tough. Very tough. When you get the optic at this price point, I think it’s one of the best budget optics you can get."
• "Clear Your Cover Garment Quickly for a Faster Draw"--The Truth About Guns. Tips on how clear your cover garment whether open-front or closed-front.
• "Concealed Carry Corner: Top 4 Shooting Drills for Drawing Practice"--The Firearm Blog.
• ".44 Remington Magnum (Still the Best Big-Bore Magnum)"--Sky Above Us. The author opines that although "[t]he .44 Rem. Mag. has long since lost its crown as world’s most powerful handgun," it "remains the most popular handgun cartridge for hunting, and is the largest magnum any rational person can consider fit for self-defense against human assailants." He explains:

      The .44 Magnum is a true handheld powerhouse. Standard factory ammunition propels a 240 grain bullet at around 1200 feet per second at the muzzle which translates to almost 800 foot-pounds energy—adequate for most big game within handgun range. Even more powerful loads are now available on the market which can produce over 1600 ft-lbs! For comparison, a standard 158 grain .357 Magnum averages 500 – 550 ft-lbs. and a 210 grain .41 Magnum 700 – 750. While the much less popular .41 treads on the .44’s heels, it lacks the bullet momentum imparted by the .44’s additional weight and has a smaller bore. The .357 isn’t in the .44’s league when it comes to hunting. The fact any .44 Magnum will chamber and shoot milder .44 Specials gave it the final advantage over the .41 in the market place.

     .44 Caliber cartridges are also inherently accurate. There’s just something about .429-inch diameter bullets (the .44’s true bore size) which imparts excellent stability—a desirable trait for hunting guns.

• ".44 Special vs .357 for Concealed Carry"--The Snub Nose Files. A look at respective velocities and energy. His conclusion: "For out of the box performance it is a bit of a wash, the .44 having the edge with a bigger diameter by a third again as much," but noting that there is less recoil with the .44 Special.
• "Recover Tactical MG9 Angled Grip and Glock Mag Holder"--The Firearm Blog. More goodies to turn your 9 mm Glock into a PDW. "The MG9 is basically a slanted grip that doubles as a magazine holder for Glock mags. The MG9 fits their 20/20 Glock Stabilizer Kits as well as any standard Picatinny rail. It’s made out of lightweight polymer and  uses a locking push button system for quick mounting and removal."
• "Criminals Taking Full Advantage of Coronavirus Mask Mandates"--The Truth About Guns. Excerpt:

       In March, two men walked into Aqueduct Racetrack in New York wearing the same kind of surgical masks as many racing fans there and, at gunpoint, robbed three workers of a quarter-million dollars they were moving from gaming machines to a safe. Other robberies involving suspects wearing surgical masks have occurred in North Carolina, and Washington, D.C, and elsewhere in recent weeks.

      The problem isn’t limited to robberies. In the troubled Cook County Jail in Chicago, the virus has led to at least nine deaths and sickened hundreds of inmates and correctional officers. Staffers must wear masks and inmates are issued a new one every day — a policy that helped one inmate escape on May 2.

     Jahquez Scott, jailed on a gun charge and for violating his bond in a drug case, has tattoos of a small heart on one cheek and what looks like a blood-dripping scar on the other. But when he wore a mask, he posed as Quintin Henderson — who doesn’t have tattoos on his face and was scheduled to be released, authorities said.

     Scott made it out, though he was captured a week later.

     In addition to rare jailbreaks, the prevalence of masks in society has created other problems for law enforcement. Before life in a pandemic, masked marauders had to free their faces immediately after leaving a bank or store to avoid suspicion once in the general public. But it came with the risk of being photographed and identified through omnipresent surveillance cameras and cellphones.

     These days, they can keep the masks on and blend in easily with or without being “captured” in images.

"Why They Despise Us"--American Renaissance (15 min.). 

People of all colors risk their lives to get into United States, notwithstanding the endemic racism we all hear about. So why do the one's that succeed in America so hate America and white Americans?

• Speaking of those that hate Americans: "The case against Ilhan Omar, part 1 — 2018 Ilhan Omar documentary prints her father’s name as ‘Nur Said’ — three times"--The Blaze. More evidence that Omar married her brother as part of immigration fraud.
• Ditto: "Raping and Impregnating Infidels: 'Another Form of Jihad'"--PJ Media. While the article begins by noting that Muslims have stated that they intend on subjugating the West through immigration and out-breading the native populations, the subject is mostly in those third world countries where Muslims will actually kidnap and rape Christian girls. For instance, it notes in relation to such practices in Nigeria:

The incessant kidnapping of the Christian girls and the forceful conversion to Islam is another form of Jihad in the 21st Century. They have two major aims for doing that: To inflict pain on the parents of the girl and the Christian community; and to impregnate the girl to add to their claims that Islam is the fasted growing religion in the world. They are doing it on purpose.

Also: "In Egypt, countless Christian girls have been abducted for the very same reason—to bring them into the fold of Islam, diminish the numbers of the infidels, and increase that of the Muslims." The article then goes on to describe the efforts in Egypt, as well as problems in Pakistan and Indonesia. 

• "Swedish girl, 17, was decapitated 'by Iraqi-born boyfriend, 23, who wrapped her head in aluminium foil' after she broke up with him in case that has shocked the country"--Daily Mail. 
• "BREAKING: FBI finds cellphone evidence linking al Qaeda to gunman in deadly December shooting at Florida naval base"--Daily Mail. "Officials briefed on the matter said that [Mohammed] Alshamrani had been in contact with an al Qaeda operative prior to the shooting."
• "Fred Fleitz: Obamagate – How Obama administration apparently weaponized intel agencies for political attacks"--Fox News. From the lede:

     There is strong evidence that President Barack Obama’s administration improperly weaponized U.S. intelligence agencies in multiple and shocking ways against Donald Trump and other political enemies.

     It appears the Obama administration did this in a number of ways, including: fraudulently obtaining Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act warrants to spy on American citizens; promoting the Democratic National Committee-funded dossier assembled by former British spy Christopher Steele that was filled with lies about Trump; politicizing intelligence analysis; leaking intelligence; and spying on political opponents and journalists.

     In the period when he was a presidential candidate and president-elect, Trump and his aides seemed to have been the major targets of this misuse of American intelligence for political purposes. But they were not the only targets.

• Related: "John Brennan and the Plot to Subvert an American Election"--American Greatness. An excerpt:

       Let’s talk about John Brennan a bit. You remember John Brennan. He was Barack Obama’s director of the CIA. Once upon a time, he was an enthusiast for Gus Hall, the Communist candidate for president, for whom he voted in 1976. I can’t think of any better background for the head of the country’s premier intelligence service under Obama. In 2014, having put childish things behind him as St. Paul advised, Brennan spied on the Senate Intelligence Committee. He denied it indignantly. “Nothing could be further from the truth. We wouldn’t do that. That’s just beyond the scope of reason in terms of what we’d do.”

       But that was before irrefutable evidence of the CIA’s spying transpired. Then Brennan apologized, sort of. Senators were outraged. They shook their little fists. “What did he know? When did he know it? What did he order?” asked one of the Lilliputians.

      Guess what happened to John Brennan for spying on the Senate Intelligence Committee?

       If you said “Nothing,” go to the head of the class and collect your gold star.

      Nothing happened to Brennan for spying on U.S. senators.

      If he could get away with that, what else could he get away with?

      How about starting the bogus investigation into fictional “collusion” or “coordination” between the Russians and the campaign, and then the administration, of Donald Trump? How about that?

• Related: "EXCLUSIVE: The Treasury Department Spied on Flynn, Manafort, and the Trump Family, Says Whistleblower"--The Ohio Star.

• This is not meant as hyperbole: "In Tweet, Hillary Clinton Calls Armed Lockdown Protests 'Domestic Terrorism'"--Newsmax. But she was okay with the rioting in Ferguson and Baltimore. This should be a warning of how the Left will treat its political opponents if they get control of Congress and/or the Presidency, by unleashing the full power of the Patriot Act.

• Related: "Gretchen Whitmer: State Police ‘Monitoring All of the Conversations’ of Capitol Protesters"--Breitbart. Remember the Phantom product I mentioned in my last "Quick Run Around the Web" post? 

• Related: "The Masked Versus the Unmasked: How can Trump opponents take on people who will stop at nothing?" by Roger Cohen writing in the New York Times. Warning liberals that conservative protesters openly carrying firearms are but a prelude to civil war. This is Cohen's projection onto conservatives what he would do if he were in their position. "Psychological projection is a defense mechanism people subconsciously employ in order to cope with difficult feelings or emotions. Psychological projection involves projecting undesirable feelings or emotions onto someone else, rather than admitting to or dealing with the unwanted feelings."

• "Democrats Have Abandoned Civil Liberties"--Matt Taibbi. "... Democrats have lately positioned themselves as the more aggressive promoters of strong-arm policies, from control of Internet speech to the embrace of domestic spying. In the last four years the blue-friendly press has done a complete 180 on these issues, going from cheering Edward Snowden to lionizing the CIA, NSA, and FBI, and making on-air partners out of drone-and-surveillance all-stars like John Brennan, James Clapper, and Michael Hayden. There are now too many ex-spooks on CNN and MSNBC to count, while there isn’t a single regular contributor on any of the networks one could describe as antiwar."

• Related: "These Are The 37 Senators That Voted To Allow FBI To Look At Your Internet History Without A Warrant"--Right Journalism. Only 10 Democrats demurred. And, for readers in Utah, note that Mitt Romney sided with Democrats in supporting this.

• "Tesla picks Austin and Tulsa as finalists for new factory just days after Elon Musk vowed company would quit California due to clash with officials over coronavirus reopening"--Daily Mail. 
• "The Gift of Time"--The Dignified Rant. Key point: "Taking your time in a war--even one you are winning--grants your enemy time that they may use to change the course of the war. You may think being slow and careful is compassionate, but it is not." As George Friedman has pointed out, the strategy of modern wars is not to win, but to keep your enemy from achieving stability. That is, endless wars are the goal, not a quick win and get out.
• "A Farewell to Marine Tanks?"--Battleswarm Blog. The Marine Corps is paring down. Not only has the Corps announced that it is going to get rid of its tank units, but it is also shedding its law enforcement battalions and bridging companies. "It’s also reducing its number of infantry battalions from 24 to 21 and cutting tiltrotor, attack and heavy-lift aviation squadrons," according to the article. Supposedly this is in order to make the Corps more capable in a potential U.S./China conflict.

     I see a lot of talk from certain quarters about how the United States cannot compete against the Chinese or Russians if a war were to break out and, frankly, am finding it tiresome. I'm old enough that I remember pundits making the same claims prior to the first Iraqi/Gulf War if we were to try to invade Iraq, which at that time had the third or fourth largest military in the world. But the technological edge proved decisive. 

     We've seen the Israelis time and again using non-stealth American made aircraft to strike Syrian positions protected by some of the best air defenses Russia has to offer. Yes, that is more a factor of the electronic warfare equipment deployed rather than the aircraft, but I doubt that Israel has electronic warfare capabilities greater than the U.S. If Israel can sneak F-16 through some of the latest Russian air defenses, an F-35 isn't going to have issues.

      Turning to China, it may be debatable whether China can field electronic sensors and electronic warfare instruments comparable to the U.S., but it is clear that the Chinese aircraft engines are less capable than those used in our aircraft. (See this 2016 article and this December 2019 article). So, even if the F-35 is the piece-of-crap that its critics say, it probably boasts better aerial performance than Chinese aircraft.

      Another issue is the competence (or lack thereof) of the Chinese military. The last war that China fought was the 1979 Sino-Vietnamese War where China's front-line troops were repulsed when invading Vietnam by Vietnamese reserve troops--literally old men and young boys. Their current military, both leadership and the troops, literally has no actual combat experience. I've also seen numerous articles over the years showing up the basic incompetence and softness of Chinese troops. 

      But China's land forces are largely a moot point. A war against China would not involve an invasion of mainland China, but would probably be some form of naval blockade, and in that respect, they are ringed on all sides by American bases or friendly countries. Even taking it up a notch, a war with China would be a battle to take out their "aircraft carriers"--the islands in the South China Sea that they have transformed into air bases. It will be their immobile "carriers" versus our actual carriers, and whatever other sea, air, and land forces we can deploy. While the naysayers focus on the vulnerability of our surface ships, they ignore the capabilities of our submarine fleet. 

• "The Inside Story Behind the Pentagon's Ill-Fated Quest for a Real-Life 'Iron Man' Suit"--Military.com. The military has been trying to develop powered armor and exoskeletons since the 1960s, and this article looks at the various attempts and what (if any) actual advances or benefits were realized from each attempt. It's an interesting read and worth your time.
• "Army Designs New Camera Drones to Be Fired from Grenade Launchers"--Military Times. 

      The GLUAS has two variants. One is a small, paragliding system with folding blade propellers and Mylar paragliding wings to help it stay in the air, according to the release. The other variant is a helicopter-style that hovers on a gimbaling set of coaxial rotors.

     The grenade-launched drone has a two-kilometer range with a projected battery life that could top 90 minutes and is capable of operating up to 2,000 feet in the air, the release states.

• The suicide of expertise: "Study: Historic Drop in U.S. Reading and Math Scores Since Common Core ‘Debacle’"--Breitbart. Per the article, "[p]erformance in reading and math since the adoption of Common Core has especially declined in the nation’s lowest-achieving students – many of whom come from low-income families and failing public schools – widening the achievement gap and creating further inequality." Well, a good education was only ever going to be an unintended side-effect when the goal was to produce new federal and state bureaucracies. 
• Ditto: "The Unexamined Model Is Not Worth Trusting"--City Journal. A look at how Britain's Wuhan virus response was driven by faith in an unverified computer model and the reputation of its creator:

       As Ferguson himself admits, the code was written 13 years ago, to model an influenza pandemic. This raises multiple questions: other than Ferguson’s reputation, what did the British government have at its disposal to assess the model and its implementation? How was the model validated, and what safeguards were implemented to ensure that it was correctly applied? The recent release of an improved version of the source code does not paint a favorable picture. The code is a tangled mess of undocumented steps, with no discernible overall structure. Even experienced developers would have to make a serious effort to understand it.

      I’m a virologist, and modelling complex processes is part of my day-to-day work. It’s not uncommon to see long and complex code for predicting the movement of an infection in a population, but tools exist to structure and document code properly. The Imperial College effort suggests an incumbency effect: with their outstanding reputations, the college and Ferguson possessed an authority based solely on their own authority. The code on which they based their predictions would not pass a cursory review by a Ph.D. committee in computational epidemiology.

     Ferguson and Imperial College’s refusal of all requests to examine taxpayer-funded code that supported one of the most significant peacetime decisions in British history is entirely contrary to the principles of open science—especially in the Internet age. The Web has created an unprecedented scientific commons, a marketplace of ideas in which Ferguson’s arguments sound only a little better than “the dog ate my homework.” Worst of all, however, Ferguson and Imperial College, through both their work and their haughtiness about it, have put the public at risk. Epidemiological modelling is a valuable tool for public health, and Covid-19 underscores the value of such models in decision-making. But the Imperial College model implementation lends credence to the worst fears of modelling skeptics—namely, that many models are no better than high-stakes gambles played on computers. This isn’t true: well-executed models can contribute to the objective, data-driven decision-making that we should expect from our leaders in a crisis. But leaders need to learn how to vet models and data.

• Leftism isn't about helping people; it's about feeling morally superior to others: "Hey Cancel Culture: The Butter Maiden You Killed Was NOT A Stereotype"--The Lid. As you know, the woke Left forced Land-O-Lakes to remove the Indian maiden from the label of its products. Thing is, it was created by a Native American to honor his people.
• "The Social Justice Endgame: What do social justice warriors want?" by David Azerrad at the Claremont Review of Books. The author observes:

The manifold contradictions of identity politics invite us to look beyond the misleading kumbaya rhetoric and examine its actual goals. There is one question in particular the identitarians are careful to avoid, as it goes to the heart of their project. Identity politics has identified the most privileged, bigoted, and therefore problematic identity groups, who together prop up the oppressive American regime: whites, but also men and the non-LGBTQ (i.e., straights and so-called “cisgender” people who believe their biological sex aligns with their identity). These oppressor groups intersect to produce the straight white cis male, who is blamed for almost all of the world’s ills. Identitarian social justice, like all forms of justice, demands the guilty be punished. What, then, is to be done with this Great Straight White Cis Male Satan and the defining elements of his identity?

He continues:

      Identitarians increasingly permit us only one explanation for [any racial or sex] disparities: bigotry. Any other explanation—whether it be biological, cultural, volitional, or stochastic—is prima facie ruled out and denounced as racist, sexist, homophobic, or any of the other terms used to stymie inquiry and silence dissent. Ibram X. Kendi’s reductive treatment of this subject in his best-selling Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America (2016) is revealing of the broader identitarian mindset. Kendi, a historian at American University and the youngest person ever to win the National Book Award for nonfiction, opens his massive tome by defining as racist “any concept that regards one racial group as inferior or superior to another racial group in any way” (emphasis added). Readers are therefore forbidden at the outset from making comparative generalizations of any kind in any area, and Kendi encourages us to apply his dogmatic pronouncements on race to other protected classes.

      Kendi is, in effect, demanding that we silence our rational faculties. He wants to confine the mind to a chaotic world of particulars, never allowing it to ascend to the general where it might recognize patterns and aggregate differences. Not just reason, but humor too must be sacrificed at the altar of Kendian anti-racism. No Frenchman, Jamaican, and Chinaman—which is not the preferred nomenclature—may ever walk into a bar again.

      Kendi’s argument rests on two dogmatic assertions. The first is that race is in its entirety a social construct. There cannot be any genetic or cultural component to explaining racial disparities. His refusal to entertain such arguments is understandable. Discredited racial science has in the past been used to defend a hierarchy of races and, in the extreme, to justify slavery and genocide. But to acknowledge the biological dimension of race is not to endorse such sinister practices per se. Natural human equality is not based on natural human homogeneity. Natural rights are no more predicated on genes than they are on I.Q., height, birth order, or income. One can permit science to acknowledge the biological dimension of race, and social science to study the cultural dimensions of human diversity, while upholding the dignity of man and the civic equality of all Americans.

      Most Americans, myself included, would prefer not to talk about such matters. The findings of science are liable to misinterpretation. They are bound to offend some and stoke the pride of others. But the ever-more ubiquitous principle of statistical parity, and the ever-more draconian measures taken to enshrine it, leave us no choice. Science must be called in to defend the republican principle of equal rights under equal laws for all citizens, regardless of life outcomes. This can be done in a responsible way, making an allowance for nature while eschewing biological determinism.

     Kendi’s second unexamined and unproved assumption is that “All cultures, in all their behavioral differences, are on the same level.” They are all “equal in all their divergences,” in his Orwellian turn of phrase. Why, then, do they differ so markedly in life outcomes for their members? For Kendi, there can only be one explanation: racial discrimination. It “is the sole cause of racial disparities in this country and in the world at large.” As he told the New York Times: “when I see racial disparities, I see racism.” Oddly, nowhere in his 500-page tome does he ever see racial disparities between Asians and whites. If he did, he would have to conclude that America is in fact an Asian supremacist nation which, based on income and educational attainment, discriminates against whites—unless they are Ashkenazi Jews—and blacks—unless they are Nigerians.

Quoting from Kendi's book, the author notes what Kendi's vision of America would be:

[It] would not have Christianity as its unofficial standard religion. It would not have suits as its standard professional attire. English would not be its standard language or be assessed by standardized tests. Ethnic Studies would not be looked upon as superfluous to educational curricula. Afrocentric scholars and other multicultural theorists, lecturing on multiple cultural perspectives, would not be looked upon as controversial. No cultural group would be directly and indirectly asked to learn and conform to any other group’s cultural norms in public in order to get ahead.

(Brackets in original). In other words, in Kendi's mind, the ideal America would be a Balkanized America. Read the whole thing.

• Flashback: "White America's scary delusion: Why its sense of black humanity is so skewed"--Brittany Cooper at Salon.  This 2014 article was intended to justify black violence in the wake of Michael Brown's death and the grand jury decision in favor of Officer Darren Wilson. The author helpfully explains that expecting blacks to wait for the criminal justice system to investigate and try a person is racist, and whites that believe that "have never stopped to consider the fact that 'reason,' and 'evidence,' are not race-neutral concepts." Yup, the author is arguing that the use of reason and reliance on evidence is a white-thing. She continues:

For instance, to believe that Michael Brown charged at Darren Wilson in the midst of a hail of gunfire is to believe that black people are monsters, mythical superhuman creatures, who do not understand the physics of bullets, even as they rip through flesh. To white people, who co-sign Wilson’s account of events, this seems like an entirely reasonable assertion, one helped along by a lifetime of media consumption that represents black masculinity as magical, monstrous and mythic.

No, it had nothing to do with magic, monsters or myth, and everything to do with an angry black kid charging a police officer and trying to beat the crap out of that officer. It could have been a Samoan, Korean, Latino, Irish or some other race and the outcome--less the riots--would have been the same.

• "NFL Considering Boosting Draft Picks of Teams That Hire Black Coaches"--Breitbart. Why? Because blacks were "only" selected 20% of the time for the last 5 head coach positions that had recently come open. 
• "Ominous trend in American West could signal a looming 'megadrought'"--CBS News. From the article:

      Come spring, the American West's vast water reservoirs are supposed to fill with melting snow. However, this year, as in recent years, the large reservoirs of Lake Mead and Lake Powell in the Colorado River basin area have seen declining water levels — an ominous trend that a new study warns could signal a looming megadrought. 

      "The persistence of the drought conditions, in the Colorado River basin especially, is essentially unprecedented in human history," John Fleck, author of "Water is for Fighting Over," told CBS News' John Blackstone. 

     Fleck has spent years studying the Colorado River, a crucial source of water for much of the region around it. He said that Lake Mead and Lake Powell's reservoirs have what he described as "big bathtub rings" around them, left behind as the water declines.

The determination of a drought is subjective, based on a comparison of what water is available now versus what is considered "normal." It is the "normal" amount that is subjective. For instance, when the flow of the Colorado River was studied, the amount of flow split up between California and the other states, and the plans for the Hoover Dam (which created Lake Mead) drawn up, the Colorado River was going through a very wet phase with much greater water flow--but the flow at that time was determined to be the "normal." Everything since has, therefore, been drought. In addition, the region historically goes through wetter periods and dryer periods. The collapse of the Chaco Canyon Culture in the 13th Century is generally considered to have been the result of persistent drought.

• "Tying celestial mechanics to Earth’s ice ages"--Watts Up With That. A discussion of Milanković cycles and ice ages. From the article:

Milutin Milanković, a brilliant Serbian mathematician and climatologist, postulated in 1941 that variations in Earth’s orbit could push the planet’s climate in or out of an ice age. Vital to that idea is the amount of insolation—incoming solar radiation—at 65° N, a bit south of the Arctic Circle. At that latitude, insolation can vary seasonally by 25%. Milanković argued that reductions in summer insolation allow some winter ice to survive. Each year for thousands of years, ice accumulates around 65° N and eventually forms sheets large enough to trigger an ice age.

• "In 1110, The Moon Vanished From The Sky. We Might Finally Know What Caused It"--Science Alert. An excerpt:

      According to NASA records based on astronomical retrocalculation, seven total lunar eclipses would have been observable in Europe in the first 20 years of the last millennium, between 1100 and 1120 CE.

      Among these, a witness to a lunar eclipse that occurred in May 1110 wrote of the exceptional darkness of the Moon during the phenomenon.

      "On the fifth night in the month of May appeared the Moon shining bright in the evening, and afterwards by little and little its light diminished, so that, as soon as night came, it was so completely extinguished withal, that neither light, nor orb, nor anything at all of it was seen," an observer wrote in the Peterborough Chronicle.

     Many astronomers have since discussed this mysterious and unusually dark lunar eclipse. Centuries after it occurred, the English astronomer Georges Frederick Chambers wrote about it, saying: "It is evident that this [eclipse] was an instance of a 'black' eclipse when the Moon becomes quite invisible instead of shining with the familiar coppery hue".

     Despite the event being well-known in astronomy history, though, researchers have never suggested it might have been caused by the presence of volcanic aerosols in the stratosphere, even though that's the most likely cause, the new study suggests.

     "We note that no other evidence of volcanic dust veil, such as a dimming of the Sun, red twilight glows and/or reddish solar haloes, could be found during our investigations for the years 1108–1110 CE," the researchers write.

     If the timing is right, then what volcano was responsible for the sulphur cloud, given Hekla is now out of the frame?

    While it's impossible to know for sure, the team thinks the most probable explanation is Japan's Mount Asama, which produced a giant, months-long eruption in the year 1108 – significantly larger than a subsequent eruption in 1783 that killed over 1,400 people.

(Brackets in original).

• "Here Are The Navy Pilot Reports From Encounters With Mysterious Aircraft Off The East Coast"--The Drive. An alarming number of encounters with drones in restricted air space.
• "COVID-19 Cases Decline in States Ending Their Lockdowns"--Red State.

      We were told that states ending their lockdowns and freeing the people were going to see widespread infections and increased deaths. We were told that bringing quarantines to an end would bring doom.

     We were told wrong.

     According to a graph by Axios, states ending the lockdown have either stalled in COVID-19 case numbers or are beginning a decline. This includes Georgia and Florida, which according to Axios are seeing double-digit declines.

     “Florida’s new cases have actually declined by 14% compared to the previous week, and Georgia’s fell by 12%,” reported Axios.

• "No Spike in CCP Virus in Places Reopening, Says Health Secretary"--The Epoch Times.
• "How Communists Are Exploiting the Coronavirus Pandemic to Create Their 'Paradise'"--PanAm Post.
• "How Much Are We Spending To Prevent One COVID-19 Death — Millions, Billions, Trillions? Nobody Knows"--Issues & Insights. 

      We’ve learned since that Imperial College model is junk, and that the virus is far less deadly than previously assumed. The current estimate is that slightly more than 130,000 people will die in the U.S. from COVID-19 by August. Even that could be an exaggeration.

      This still leaves open the question of how many lives were saved by the lockdown. At $7 trillion in economic costs, the lockdowns would have to save 700,000 lives before they even met the government’s $10 million-per-life-saved threshold.

     That seems increasingly unlikely. In fact, the more we learn about the disease, the more it appears that the lockdowns didn’t save very many lives, if they saved any at all.

     Swedish infectious disease expert Johan Giesecke, writing in the journal Lancet, says “It has become clear that a hard lockdown does not protect old and frail people living in care homes — a population the lockdown was designed to protect. Neither does it decrease mortality from COVID-19, which is evident when comparing the United Kingdom’s experience with that of other European countries.”

     He goes on to say that “A lockdown might delay severe cases for a while, but once restrictions are eased, cases will reappear … I expect that when we count the number of deaths from COVID-19 in each country one year from now, the figures will be similar, regardless of measures taken.”

     Lyman Stone, an adjunct fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, looked at the available evidence and concluded simply that “lockdowns don’t work.”

     He notes that COVID-19 deaths crested in Spain, France, and the Lombardy region of Italy before the lockdowns could have had any impact on the spread of the disease.

     In the U.S., he found the death rate climbing after the lockdowns went into effect. “For every two weeks a stay-at-home order is in place, the death rate rises by one person per 100,000. For bans of gatherings of 50 people, it’s every 11 days.”