A Quick Run Around the Web (7/2/2020)

"What Happened After The Bronze Age Collapse?"--Epimetheus (15 min.)

The Bronze Age Collapse saw the collapse of several civilizations, as well as centuries decline in the Assyrian Empire and the permanent diminishment of Egypt, but paved the way for some intermediate period powers and, eventually, a wave of new iron age empires.

• A reminder that a frontal assault is generally not a good idea: It appears that Seattle police and city workers have finally dismantled the Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone (CHAZ) Occupied Protest (CHOP), although armed militants were still seen patrolling the area in cars stripped of license plates. The triggering event for finally sending in the police seems to have been the shooting death of Antonio Mays Jr., a 16-year old black youth, and the injury of his 14-year old friend. The two had stolen a white SUV from a man and were fleeing, telling a friend over the phone that they were being chased. The friend suggested that they flee into the CHOP zone for safety. But when they did that, there were fired upon by CHOP security: over 300 rounds were fired. (Sources: Daily Mail, Breitbart, PJ Media).
• "Surviving the Mob"--Active Response Training. Tips on how to avoid getting caught up in a mob, and what to do if you do find yourself under attack. Obviously, the first thing is to immediately leave an area if a crowd starts forming. Ellifritz advises that you make sure that you and your family are wearing decent shoes (not flip flops), that you know at least two exits from the area, and that your family has a code phrase ("Emergency!") that alerts them to follow your instructions on what to do. Also, make sure your family knows what to do if you are forced to draw a gun. "If you are drawing your gun, you most likely are anticipating an armed attacker or attackers," he writes. "You will be the focus of their force. When the attackers see your gun or recognize that you are firing on them, they will shoot back at you. The most dangerous place for your family to be is anywhere near your location."

• Related: "Police arrest 2 after man shot during Provo protest"--Deseret News. From the article:

      The victim was driving a white SUV on University Avenue and was attempting to turn onto Center Street when a group of protesters began “crowding around the vehicle. A male protester ran to the SUV on the passenger side, pointed a handgun at (the) driver and shot one round through the window,” according to a synopsis of the incident by Provo Deputy Police Chief John Geyerman.

     The driver, who was struck by a bullet, “hit the gas trying to leave the situation,” Geyerman said.

    Cellphone video recorded by witnesses shows the SUV appearing to push through the protesters, with at least one person falling to the ground.

     As the SUV is speeding away, the gunman ran after the vehicle and fired a second round that went through the rear passenger window, according to police.

     After the shooting, video shows the gunman then “conceals the firearm and continues to protest,” Geyerman said. “This same protester later approached another vehicle at 500 North and University Avenue, striking and breaking the window with the handgun.”

The shooter, Jesse Taggart of Salt Lake City, was later arrested, as was another protester. Amazingly, there was a second protester that had also pulled out a firearm, but apparently not fired it. According to the article, that person has not been identified.

       For those unfamiliar with the area, University Avenue is the main thoroughfare in Provo, including the primary business area and route to and from BYU to the interstate highway. 

• "WHAT SHOULD YOU DO IF PROTESTORS SURROUND YOUR CAR?"--USCCA. What to do (or not do) if you are merely surrounded, as well as what to do when the mob turns violent. If you are in your vehicle when the mob becomes violent, and the vehicle is still operable (he also advice is the vehicle is not operable):

If the protest turns violent and people begin throwing objects, striking your vehicle, or attempting to overturn your vehicle, you have to act quickly. If you reasonably believe the protestors are going to attempt to enter your vehicle, drag you out, and injure you, the time to use force—perhaps even deadly force—has come. Young suggests the following:

• Immediately get your family to lie down in the car while shielding their eyes and covering their skin to protect them from breaking glass or hard objects thrown at or into the car. If possible, pull the back seat down and take cover in the trunk area.

• Get your car out of the danger area. Drive where you need to in order to escape. Avoid areas where your car might get stuck or hung up. If you can’t see effectively, driving “blind” is dangerous—but you have to weigh that danger against the danger of remaining where you are. If you have to use your car to push people out of the way or drive over people trying to stop you, then you must do it. Remember that you will be held accountable for your actions, so make sure you can prove that you believed you were in immediate danger.

• Get out of sight of the protestors. If you are in contact with the police, tell them where you are going. If not, call them immediately after you get out of the dangerous situation and be prepared to make a full report.

• Related: "When Your Car Is Surrounded By A Mob". A 2016 piece I did excerpting from The Truth About Self Protection by Massad Ayoob

• "Can Anything Defeat a Level IV Plate Body Armor?"--The Firearm Blog. The definitive test for Level IV plate is that it survive being hit by M-2 Armor Piercing .30-06 rounds (black-tipped). Consequently, it can generally shrug off strikes from most any commercially available rifle cartridge. But what of military cartridges? A YouTube armor tester got hold of M993 AP 7.62x51mm NATO (which uses a tungsten core) and B32 API 7.62x54mmR ammunition. The Russian armor piercing incendiary was able to penetrate the plat, but had very little energy going into the gel block. On the other hand, "[n]ot only was the M993 capable of perforating both plates, it carried a great deal of energy into the ballistic gel block and passed all the way through." 
• "Rural Defense Comms: TTPs Part I"--The Lizard Farmer. The author begins:

First up:  If you’ve served in any military or like environment and used tactical radios this is going to be all too simple for you.  And that’s the point here – we’re going to try and make it simple for the non-trained to pick up and use.  If it’s overly complicated chances are people will use bits and pieces and adapt the system to their own liking so let’s keep it simple and avoid any painful evolutions.  The first thing you have to stress to everyone that will use a radio is that clear, concise communications are critical to effectiveness.  If someone is screaming at the top of their lungs in a panic on the net it’s going to be a lot more painful than necessary to sort out what’s happening at their station.  Hammer this consistently.  Comms procedures are one area that has to be disciplined – hell even in regular forces comms discipline can be painful.  Work it, be persistent, be tactful, be the example, but most of all be unwavering.

He continues:

So we’re going to identify some necessities that we need to develop and implement.  Kicking it around I’ve come up with these necessities:

1.  We have to identify what elements of communication are critical to everyone understanding so they can effectively communicate on the net.

2.  Folks need to understand when to switch to the Emergency Net.

3.  We need callsigns.

4.  We need to be able to spell out complex words by using a phonetic alphabet.

5.  We need to use prowords.

6.  We need to assign frequencies.

7.  We need a Net Control Station (NCS).

8.  We need a procedure to ensure everyone is able to transmit and receive on our nets.

The rest of the article addresses these essentials.

• While we are on the subject of communications: "DELTA SEVEN SENDS: SDR PHONE COMMO IN THE CURRENT COLOR REVOLUTION"--American Partisan. The article looks at Software Defined Radios (SDRs) being used by protesters in conjunction with cell phones, and discusses how you could do the same using a second-hand android phone with no SIMS card or data plan.
• "EMOTIONAL COMPONENTS OF KNIFE DEFENSE" (Part 1) (Part 2) (Part 3)--by Alessandro Padovani. In Part 1, the author notes that people are generally more afraid of knives than firearms, and looks at some hypothesis on why this is so. In Part 2, the author looks at training ourselves out of that fear bias, writing: "The best way to change how we interpret and respond to a threat with a knife is to train through multiple successful iterations of probable scenarios so that our perception of the danger and our emotional and physical responses to it will adapt and be informed by templates of successful responses instead of negative emotional biases that may hamper our ability to protect our loved ones and defend ourselves." Finally, in Part 3, he explores "some psychological concepts and principles that can help students manage their innate reluctance to use violence."
• "Cross-Eye Dominance: How It Affects Rifle-Shooting"--Shooting Illustrated. 
• "Self-Defense Tip #85 — Using Flexible Weapons: Garrote"--Real Self Defense. The author notes: "The thicker the wire (or monofilament line), the stiffer and thus more controllable the garrote, making it more suitable for striking. On the other hand, the thinner the line the easier it is to conceal. It cuts easier, too. . . ."

• Related: "How To Make and Use A Garrote"--The Barbaric Gentleman. 

• "Rifle Accuracy for Home Defense"--Shooting Illustrated. Looking at shooting at distances inside a house or other building:

      Even if you have a longer span to cover, simple math provides some context for acceptable indoor accuracy. For example, the oft- referenced minute of angle (MOA) equals 1.0472 inches at 100 yards. At 50 feet, 1 MOA is just .17 inches. Therefore, even if you have a rack-grade 2-MOA or (gasp) 3-MOA gun, your potential “group” capability at this longer-than-normal distance is going to be .34 to .51 inch, respectively. Unless your house is being swarmed by armed micro drones, there’s a pretty solid chance that a half-inch variance in shot placement is going to get the job done. 

     It is important to remember that unless you zero for very close ranges, your line of sight (through optics or irons) will be higher than the line of bore when shooting up close. That means it will probably take more distance than you have indoors for your projectile to cross through your line of sight when using a typical zero. Therefore, should you be presented with a tough shot—such as a partial threat target exposure around protective cover—you’ll need to know where to hold in order to make an effective hit. The best way to figure that out is to spend time shooting at various close distances on the range.

In other words, the offset between your POA with a sight and where the bullet actually strikes will probably be greater than the group size.

• "TX2GUNS: EXAMINING GW TACTICS: FIRE AND MANEUVER IN URBAN AO’S"--American Partisan. 

      When one starts piecing together the Dallas attack, the “Shoot and Move” tactic used by [Micah] Johnson was one of the main reasons police thought there were facing MULTIPLE shooters, instead of just one shooter, as the fire was coming from many different positions. Gunfire echo in an urban setting combined with the chaos and high stress most likely attributed to this confusion.

     This is a very important lesson to learn, both in the study of Guerilla and Counter-Insurgency Warfare (COIN). The guerilla must use any and all “force multipliers” to his advantage to try to overwhelm the enemy (both mentally and physically.) One of the greatest force multipliers is the APPEARANCE that the Guerilla (or the Guerilla Force) outnumber the Conventional Force.

      This tactic most often manifest itself as a psych-warfare tool first. Keeping the enemy confused and fearful creates hesitation in how they will respond both tactically and strategically, which gives the guerilla more time to plan and attack. We can understand this point better as we listen to the Police radio traffic from that day of the attack in Dallas.

      Now that we have briefly touched on some of the offensive aspects of fire and manuever warfare, let’s talk about the DEFENSIVE aspects.

      The armed citizen must understand that regardless if it is you and a perp facing off at 10 feet in a gas station parking lot or you pinned down in an urban shootout like the one in Dallas, MOVEMENT = LIFE! I will be touching on some of the more detailed aspects of urban sniping and fighting in some later installments, but right now the key thing for you to remember is to ALWAYS MOVE TO SOLID COVER AND KEEP MOVING UNTIL YOU ARE OUT OF THE KILL BOX. 

     In Combat Shooting you will often hear the maxim: “GET OFF THE X!” (With the “X” Being the Kill box.) For those of you that understand how the OODA loop works (Observe, Orient, Decide and Act) when you MOVE In a fight, regardless if it is empty hand, stick, knife or gun, you force your enemy to RESET their OODA Loop. Even something as simple as a side-step can buy you 1/2 a second of reaction time in a fight and that half-second may be all you need to neutralize your opponent  or escape.

• "FBI: June 2020 Shattered Firearm Background Check Record"--Breitbart. "FBI numbers showed 3,931,607 NICS checks conducted in June, besting the previous single-month record of 3,740,688 in March 2020. This means June 2020 witnessed more background checks than any single month has witnessed in the 20 years background checks for retail sales have been required."
• "Oregon Trail preparedness: What supplies did the settlers carry?"--Backwoods Home Magazine. The typical "prairie schooner" wagon was only capable of carrying a maximum of 2,500 pounds of supplies, according to the author, which limited what could be taken, as well as whether anyone could ride in the wagon--most people walked beside the wagon. Although recommendations as to supply varied, the article mentions the following from one guide book:

"…Two hundred pounds of flour, thirty pounds of pilot bread, seventy-five pounds of bacon, ten pounds of rice, five pounds of coffee, two pounds of tea, twenty-five pounds of sugar, half a bushel of dried beans, one bushel of dried fruit, two pounds of saleratus, ten pounds of salt, half a bushel of corn meal; and it is well to have half a bushel of corn, parched and ground; a small keg of vinegar should also be taken."

The article goes on to relate that the "flour" was not the fine flour we are used to today, but would often be cheaper course ground flour called "shorts" or "middlings." Because there were no dry yeast products, the settlers had to do without yeast on the trip, instead using saleratus: 

      The answer to this lack of leavening was saleratus (a precursor to our modern baking soda), which was discovered by chemists in the late 1700s. Saleratus was a form of bicarbonate of soda that, when enfolded in the dough for baked or fried bread, released carbon dioxide upon heating, causing the bread to rise.

     While the initial saleratus carried by the prairie travelers came from chemists, the pioneers quickly found a natural source providentially located along the Oregon Trail near Independence Rock, Wyoming.

     Only a few miles from the Sweetwater River, pioneers discovered a number of small lakes with no natural outflow, where mineral salts washed down from the nearby mountains were concentrated by evaporation, leaving hard white crusts of nearly pure saleratus. With the pioneer practice of prosaic place-naming, the largest of these bodies of water became known as Saleratus Lake, a name it still bears today.

• Do you use gloves when you load your magazines? "Arizona Man Gets 13 Months for Selling Home-Loaded Ammunition to Las Vegas Shooter"--The Truth About Guns. Key part: "Haig’s fingerprints were found on unfired bullets in Paddock’s hotel suite, and ammunition also bore tool marks consistent with Haig’s reloading equipment, authorities said. Haig’s address was on a box that police found near Paddock’s body."

"China Censors Data On Dam, Amid Rising Floods; Xi’s Military Orders Suggest Breaks In the Party"--Cross Roads (26 min.). The first few minutes discusses the Three Gorges Dam and that fact that China has begun censoring some of the information traditionally provided for the dam, including numbers concerning inflow to the dam. The video goes on to discuss is some detail the Chinese efforts and tactics to subvert the West, including close ties to the financial elite in London, and closes with some other miscellaneous stories.

• This is a woman that was going to have been advising federal agencies: "Harvard graduate threatens to stab anyone who says 'All Lives Matter' and says for black people the slogan is like 'comparing a paper cut to a knife wound'"--Daily Mail. The New York Post reports:
  

        Claira Janover, who graduated in May with a degree in government and psychology, went viral after posting a short clip in which she attacked anyone with “the nerve, the sheer entitled caucasity to say ‘all lives matter.'” 

        “I’ma stab you,” the Connecticut native said, zooming in close on her face.

        “I’ma stab you, and while you’re struggling and bleeding out, I’ma show you my paper cut and say, ‘My cut matters too,'” she added.

The recent graduate is an Asian-American who lived the pampered life growing up in Connecticut as a star student, debater, and athlete at her high school, before going on to Harvard where she worked for Harvard's Undergraduate Advising and Support (Harvard took down the page listing her, but a cached version is here) and was a Peer Advising Fellow (although Harvard has also memory holed this as well). Per Harvard's website, "[a] Peer Advising Fellow (PAF) is a sophomore, junior, or senior at the College who has been specially selected and trained to offer advice and assistance throughout students’ first year at Harvard." She was also part of the staff of Harvard's Model Congress acting on the staff for Senate Finance as well as working on executive board for the HMC for the Middle-East (this page was working fine yesterday but appears to have been memory-holed) and a member of the HMC for Asia. The latter organization relates about her: 

Claira Janover is a senior at Harvard College from New Haven, CT. She concentrates in Government and Psychology. Claira loves political debate, civic organizing, and policy advocacy. She participated in various Model Congress conference all four years of high school and has continued her involvement with Harvard Model Congress throughout college. Outside of HMC, Claira is also involved Health Education & Advocacy throughout Harvard College, Harvard Political Union, and Running Club. Claira is incredibly excited to return to the conference this January!

At some point she had worked for Planned Parenthood of Connecticut. Janover had been hired as an "incoming government and public business service analyst" for Deloitte, an international accounting and consulting firm, but apparently has been fired. As for her job, I found this on Deloitte's site regarding its "Government & Public Services careers": "Whether its cybersecurity or sustainability, financial reform or health care transformation, the issues facing federal agencies are more challenging and interconnected than ever. Carrying out your mission will require fresh thinking, a creative approach, and new collaborations across the public and private sectors." In other words, she would have been advising government agencies, perhaps even the military, on how to better be woke. This is yet another demonstration of the deep state.

• No, not the Babylon Bee: "Citing racial bias, San Francisco will end mug shots release"--Associated Press. The fear is that if people can see how many perps are POC they may realize how many perps are POC.
• "Reparations bill gains steam following death of George Floyd"--The Hill. Currently, the bill only authorizes the formation of a committee to study the issue. If the Dems win the presidential election and take the Senate, this will happen.
• Another racist hoax: "Man charged with felony assault after attacking Macy's employee in viral video"--Disrn. You may remember recent news stories in which a black man, Damire Palmer, alleged that a Macy's employee had called him the dreaded "n-word," and that justified Palmer beating the crap out of the poor man. Turns out it was a lie--at least, the "n-word" part of it. The part where Palmer without provocation attacked the Macy's employee is true.
• The Left is not interested in facts: "Scholar forced to resign over study that found police shootings not biased against blacks"--College Fix. 

      Michigan State University leaders have successfully pressured Stephen Hsu to resign from his position as vice president of research and innovation after the Graduate Employees Union launched a campaign to oust him from his role.

     This came after the union, which represents teaching and research assistants, crawled through years of blog posts and interviews Hsu had conducted and criticized him for sharing content on genetic differences among different races.

    But the main thrust to oust Hsu came because the professor touted Michigan State research that found police are not more likely to shoot African-Americans.

Vox Day has repeatedly advised against voluntarily resignations but to make them fire you.

• "Beware the COVID-19 hype"--Bayou Renaissance Man. Grant starts this piece with a quote from H. L. Mencken: "The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary." The rest of the article looks at why Covid-19 is one of these hobgoblins.
• No. "Were COVID-19 Lockdowns Worth the Cost?"--Reason. 
• Cui bono? "US buys nearly all of the global supply of Gilead's remdesivir to treat more than 500,000 American coronavirus patients for the next three months"--Daily Mail. Per the article, this means that the U.S. has purchased all of Gilead's production for the month of July and 90% of its production for the months of August and September. It only costs $9 to manufacture a treatment of remdesivir, but the company is selling it for $2,340 to $3,120 per treatment, depending on who is buying. 
• "America’s current straits represent the victory of 1960s radicals" by Roger Kimball at the New York Post. An excerpt:

       America’s cultural revolution, launched in the late 1960s and never quite stopped, has always been a Janus-faced phenomenon. One face was the Boomers’ euphoric hedonism and disregard for the moral guardrails of tradition and authority — the “revolution” of easy sex and relentlessly bad taste that now defines our aesthetics and cultural arrangements.

      The other face was dour and vicious, masking a raw hunger for power under a preening moralism. This side of the revolution could be detected in many countercultural phenomena, not least the juvenile activism and noisy readiness for ­violence that were such conspicuous features of the age.

     Today, the revolution is presenting this second face to a complacent America.

     In the late ’60s and ’70s, hundreds of bombs were detonated as various radical groups carried out their campaign against “Amerika.” According to The Los Angeles Times, “in California alone, 20 ­explosions a week rocked the state during the summer of 1970.’’

     How many will we see in the summer of 2020? Not so long ago, the vicious radicalism of the 1960s seemed behind us. Now it seems to have come roaring back.

• "Do Deep State Elements Operate Within the Protest Movement?"--Unz Review. Money quote: "This isn’t about racial justice or police brutality, it’s about regime change, internal destabilization, and martial law."
• This should be fun: "LA City Council approves first step in replacing LAPD with community responders for non-violent calls"--Fox LA. I wonder who will be the idiots that volunteer to go into those situations unarmed.
• "Voting Isn’t Enough to Combat the Woke Left"-- by Adam Ellwanger at American Greatness.

But obviously, voting in November is no real response at all. If “enough” is truly enough, then simply resolving to take the trouble to cast a vote in November seems wholly inadequate to countering the excesses of the Left. Donald Trump can’t stop this. Only the citizens who have had “enough” can do it. Voting isn’t enough.

* * *

If you have had “enough,” I’m asking that you do something. Ask yourself: given my own gifts and my own limitations, how can I contribute? For all of us, this will require some sacrifice. This means you also have to consider what, specifically, you are willing and able to sacrifice. But if you’re unwilling to sacrifice anything—if you’re unwilling to respond in any way other than casting a ballot—then it doesn’t matter what you say: you haven’t had enough.

Doing something isn't enough, either. It takes organization, strategizing, planning. The Left is way ahead--literally decades--on this. They have infiltrated all branches of government as well as the media and large corporations. 

• "DHS Admits 600,000 Foreign H-1B Workers in American Jobs"--Breitbart. "The total number of resident H-1B workers has successfully been kept secret for decades, mainly because Fortune 500 companies do not want voters to recognize the massive outsourcing of jobs for themselves and their college graduate children." Also:

      Officials at the Department of State have provided little data about their visa programs, including the J-1 program, the huge L-1 program, or the potentially massive abuse of the B-1 business visitor program that allows foreign employees to visit the United States for up to six months at a time.

      In 2016, for example, the department provided Indians with 51,981 L visas (including multi-year L-1A and L-1B worker visas), 236,851 H visas (including three-year H-1Bs), plus 563,202 B1/B2 visas.

The article also notes that there is rampant fraud in the various programs so that many more are admitted than should have been permitted even under the lax requirements that exist.

• "Science Leaders Display Imported Lab Workers amid Jobless U.S. Graduates"--Breitbart. 

      The mass hiring of foreign labor has pushed many Americans out of science careers, just as mass migration and illegal immigration has pushed many blue-collar Americans out of jobs, homes, and careers.

      “Of the entire [American technology] workforce, only about a third of those with STEM [science, technology, engineering, or math] degrees are employed in STEM jobs,” according to testimony provided by Hal Salzman, a workforce professor, to a Senate committee on February 25, 2020.