A Quick Run Around The Web (8/20/2020)

 

VIDEO: "Home Defense Protocols: Entering A Room"--Active Self Protection Extra (9 min.)

Firearms/Self-Defense/Prepping

• On the subject of striker fired versus DA/SA versus SA (with safety) pistols, a reader sent me a summary of his thoughts and experiences which he has given me permission to share:

       I understand [John Lovell's] points [in this video], but I'm a fan of a manual safety on a firearm.  I've been carrying a Glock 19 for over a quarter century, and still miss the manual safety.  I'd carried a BHP [Browning Hi-Power] for sev'l years and feel it's a better system.  I've considered going to either the CZP-07 or the S&W M&P w/ a manual safety.

      My reasoning is thus.  When transitioning from my BHP to my AR, I don't recall ever failing to swipe off the safety on the AR.  Since I've been carrying the Glock that's happened sev'l times.  Granted, training should mitigate that.  Still, once in a blue moon I forget.

       In an [Extreme Close Quarter Concepts] class w/ at TDI some years ago, during a gun grappling exercise, I got hold of my partners pistol, pulled it from his holster, got my pinkie inside the trigger guard and would have "shot" him but for the manual safety on his H&K USP compact.  Had he been carrying a Glock like I was...  A corner case, but for me a real eye opener.

       I read a comment attributed to Ken Good, then teaching at Strategos, that he'd noticed in shoot houses students who were using either handguns which had either a manual safety, or the longer first shot trigger pull on a DA/SA pistol, were markedly less likely to shoot a surprise "no shoot" target when one popped up.  He attributed this to the fraction of a second that [it took] to swipe off a safety / go through the longer trigger pull.  I've discussed this w/ some pretty squared away individuals and we all agree this makes sense and is consistent w/ our own experiences and what we've observed.

      Finally, the only AD/D that I've ever had would not have occurred had I been carrying a pistol w/ a manual safety.  Again, training should mitigate this (and I am NOT blaming the weapon for my own failure), but I train more than most people and still effed up.

• Baby, It's Cold Outside...
• *"Firearms and cold weather considerations" by Massad Ayoob at Backwoods Magazine.
• "How Cold Weather Can Kill Bullet Trajectory"--Outdoor Life.
• "Ballistics Basics: The Effects Of Air Temperature On Bullet Flight"--Gun Digest.
• *"Firearm Maintenance and Precautions for Cold Weather" by Adam S. Gubar at Chuck Hawks.
• "Cold Weather Shooting Tips For You & Your Gun"--Pew Pew Tactical.
• "The Cold Weather AR"--Modern Service Weapons.
• *"ARctic Proof: Optimizing Your AR for Sub-Zero Temps" by Denis Prisbey at Tactical Life.

I've marked what I found to be the most useful articles with an asterisk (*). Some of the basic points are that colder air is more dense, which will cause a bullet to slow down quicker after its left the barrel causing more drop at longer distances; while manufacturers have gotten better at making powder that is not as sensitive to temperature changes, lower temperatures means that powder burns slower (and may even impact the reliability of primers--I read somewhere that one of the reasons that the Soviets held onto corrosive primers for so long was that they were more reliable in cold temperatures than the alternatives available at the time); moving a firearm from a cold outside to a warm interior can cause condensation to form which can result in rust or, if you then take the firearm out into cold weather again, cause that condensation to freeze causing problems with firing pins and triggers working correctly, or a barrel obstruction in small caliber barrels; and lubrication can thicken also hampering the ability of parts to move. While some suggest cleaning the weapon and removing all lubricant in order to run it dry, there are some lubricants that you can use for cold weather (albeit, very sparingly): Powdered Graphite, Militec, Break-Free CLP in liquid or aerosol containers and Slip 2000 liquid. Note: don't use graphite with any other lubricant. Finally, there are the concerns for the shooter and clothing. Not just issues of the need to stay warm, but other questions such as "is your trigger guard large enough to accommodate a gloved finger?"

• Downloadable "Mil Dot Confidence Target" in PDF format, courtesy of Louis Charles Candell. He appears to have quite an extensive library of downloadable targets.
• You're going to shoot your eye out: "Penetration potential"--Bev Fitchett's Guns. A look at some different rounds/projectiles and their penetration potential in different materials. One example: "Steel BB or 0.177" lead pellet at 450 ft/s will burst a human eye." Most of the examples are of firearms. I wonder about the eyeball testing, though. Who volunteered for it, and what did they say if the first test wasn't conclusive? "Well, Little Jimmy, 400 fps didn't quite do it, so let's try 450 on your other eye." Probably used graduate students desperate for cash.
• You can't stop the signal: "Belt-Fed Bullpup Lever-Action Rifle Chambered in .44 Magnum"--The Firearm Blog. "Tony [the creator of this weapon] lives in the United Kingdom. Wait, what? How could anyone living in a country with such a restrictive firearms legislation create a weapon like this? Well, it turns out that this is a perfectly legal firearm in the UK. While belt-fed machine guns and even their semi-auto counterparts are banned in the UK, this ammunition feeding system itself is not. Additionally, this rifle is merely a manual repeater because it is based on a Ruger 96/44 which is a lever-action rifle chambered in .44 Magnum." The article goes into more detail on how this rifle was designed and built. 
• "Coated Bullets: The future of lead bullets for handloaders?"--Shooting Illustrated. The article discusses the use of polymer coating on cast lead bullets. It is supposed to provide the advantages of copper clad (not jacketed) bullets, but at essentially the same price as standard lead bullets. The disadvantages? Apparently none, other than you have to be a little more careful when reloading to avoid damaging the coating. From the article:

Generally, the coatings are good for velocities in the 1200-1500 fps range, similar to copper plated bullets, which covers the speeds of most handgun cartridges. Some polymer coatings can reportedly be driven to 2000 fps or better, such as claimed by Eggleston Munitions, which makes them a possible choice for some rifle loads.

• Deadliest for whom? "World’s Deadliest Fanny Pack: Galco Gunleather’s Fastrax PAC Reviewed"--Guns America. The basic method of operation appears that you use your gun hand to unzip the pack, use your off hand to pull up on a "ripcord" that pulls up the firearm so you can then grasp it with your gun hand. I don't see how this is an improvement because it adds an extra step. My fanny pack only requires me to pull it open with my off hand by grasping and pulling a tab outward and I can then grab the pistol with my gun hand.
• "The Pros and Cons of Purse Carry" by Tammy Bartels at Primer Peak. A woman's take on the subject. The pros, according to the author, is functionality--you can have a firearm with you when your choice of clothing otherwise would not accommodate it--and good concealment. The cons are pretty much all of those ever raised as to off-body carry.
• "Safety Tip: Avoid Cheap Chinese Knock-Off Gun Safes That Could Get Someone Killed"--The Truth About Guns. In particular, the author discusses the Vehipa handgun safe which is made of plastic that can be dissolved with nail polish remover, and which poppled open just bumping against the author's knee.
• "Firearms And Ammunition Manufacturers Don’t Want To Get Burned"--The Captain's Journal. They are leery of making capital investments in case demand suddenly drops off after the election, leaving them with too much excess capacity and/or having to lay off workers.
• "A Simple Method of Bluing You Can Do At Home"--Guns America. "Express Rust Bluing is a good way for a hobbyist to blue their firearms at home. It does not require a whole lot of equipment and isn’t very difficult to do. If you’re doing smaller parts, you can even use old pots or pans for tanks. One bottle of the solution will last you through a bunch of bluing sessions. So really the process is pretty inexpensive."
• "Century Arms C308 Sporter" a review by Pat Cascio at Survival Blog. His concluding comments: "I’m more than a little happy with this battle rifle – I needed it, wanted it, ok, I desired it – a good addition to my meager gun collection. Check one out – they are a bit hard to find – I checked around…seems like they are going around $700 price range. A genuine H&K Model 91 – will set you back at least $2,500 or a lot more – if you can find one."
• "Mass shootings: Limiting magazine capacity saves lives and doesn't infringe on gun rights"--by James Alan Fox in a commentary at USA Today (h/t KA9OFF). Fox writes that "it is hard to imagine a situation in which some law-abiding gun owner would need to shoot off dozens of rounds in defense of self or others. It is a stretch to conceive of a home invasion by a horde of armed intruders, so many that a rapid-fire response would be required to ward off the threat." I would say that Fox is lacking in imagination and Googling skills. 
• Flashback: "Texas Hero Reportedly Used His Own AR to Confront the Sutherland Springs Shooter"--National Review. 
• Flashback: "Oklahoma Man Uses AR-15 to Kill Three Teen Home Intruders"--NBC News.
• Related: "Uberti Yellowboy Rifle Saves Couple from Black Bear"--The Firearm Blog. Used all 10 shots in the magazine.
• Related: "Large Capacity Self-Defense: Alabama Man Shoots One of Four Home Invaders"--The Truth About Guns.

Or how about being pulled from your car by a BLM mob in Portland and being kicked and struck by 10 people? (Ironically, the man that kicked the driver unconscious has been identified as Marquise Love, who also goes by the name "Keese Love").

• "M-16: A Bureaucratic Horror Story"--James Fallows at The Atlantic (June 1981). This is an interesting look at how Army Ordinance tried to sabotage any efforts to select any rifle other than the M-14, as well as its attempts to sabotage or discredit its successor, the M-16. Among other things:

The next modification was to increase the “twist” of the rifle’s barrel (the spiral grooving inside the barrel that gives the bullet its spin). The rate of twist was changed from one-in-14-inches to one-in-12. More twist made the bullet spin faster as it flew, and therefore made it hold a more stable path; but it likewise made the bullet more stable as it entered flesh, and thereby reduced by as much as 40 percent, the shocking “lethality” that had so distinguished the AR-15s. The Army’s explanation for increasing the “twist” of the barrel was that otherwise the rifle could not meet its all-environments test. To qualify as “military standard,” a rifle and its ammunition had to show that they would perform equally well at 65 degrees below zero and 125 above. On the basis of skimpy test evidence, an Arctic testing team concluded that the AR-15 did not do well on the cold-weather portions of its test. Supposedly, the rounds wobbled in flight at 65 below. The Army’s reaction was to increase the “twist” and thereby decrease the “lethality,” even though the rifle was due for shipment to the steaming jungles along the Mekong.

• Here is a repost of a March 24, 1941, Time Magazine article on the Marine Corps' testing of the M1 Garand and their conclusion that it was unreliable. Makes for interesting reading. An excerpt to wet your appetite: "Sum & substance of the findings was that the Garand was a fair-weather rifle, excellent on the practice range but far from good enough for the Marines when the going got tough." Essentially, it boiled down to failing the mud and sand tests.
• "Mob Violence: Considerations for Personal Protection"--USA Carry. An excerpt:

        The truth is, the principles of self-defense remain in play and defending yourself and others against mob violence does not necessarily change under the law. Force is justified only when facing an imminent danger, as perceived by a reasonable person. Response to such danger must be proportional to the danger.

        Somebody throwing water in your face or knocking your hat off your head does not constitute a deadly threat, so shooting is not an appropriate response. But, such simple assaults may very well warrant a less-lethal response.

        However, a mob that surrounds your vehicle, beats on it with clubs, and tries to open the door, very well may constitute a deadly threat. Responding with appropriate force, like using your vehicle as a two-ton battering ram in order to escape, may be justified if it is your only recourse for safety.

 

The author goes on to discuss the importance of avoiding mobs, and goes into more detail that many actions of a mob, even if violent or threatening (e.g., spitting, being harassed or yelled at, etc.) may not justify a lethal response. However, something like pepper spray might be justified according to the author. Another article to check out is "Against A Mob: Surviving In The Street And In Court" by Schuyler P. Robertson at USCCA. Robertson examines a few instances of attacks by unarmed mobs against a person, including a couple instances where lethal force was found to have been justified. He notes that there is case precedence for the rule that “Where several are apparently preparing to join in an attack on defendant, his right of self-defense extends to each participant.” 

        However, there are actions you might take that will place you outside the box of self-defense. For instance, Robertson notes the case of Michael Strickland, a conservative blogger (reporter) who was surrounded by a yelling, aggressive Antifa mob in Portland in 2016. Strickland drew his firearm and swept the crowd with the muzzle in order to get them to retreat. Seems like he should have been justified in doing so--particularly because he had been severely injured in a similar mob attack in 2015--but he was found guilty of misuse of a firearm. Robertson notes three problems with Strickland's actions. First, Strickland did not call 911, which made the protesters who had reported the incident the "victims" in the eyes of the police. Second, Strickland had brought a large number of loaded magazines with him which allowed the prosecutor to essentially argue that Strickland was seeking trouble. Mutual combatants are generally not entitled to self-defense, Robertson explains. Third, probably as he was taught in the military or a firearms class, Strickland surveyed the crowd with his weapon at high ready (e.g., see "How to Search for Additional Threats — Self-Defense Tips" by Richard Nance at Handguns Magazine). Robertson writes:

The problem with this technique is that, when the gun is at high-ready as you scan, you can end up pointing your gun at people who are not threats. Strickland was convicted of menacing for pointing his gun not at the people threatening him but at bystanders who were trying to see what was going on. A more legally defensible option is to scan at low-ready, with the gun pointed at the ground. Yes, your reaction time to respond to a threat will be slower, but it sounds better on the witness stand.

• Flashback: "Proving Mob Violence Is Hardest of All" by Joseph P. Fried at The New York Times (July 31, 1983). Though hard to imagine now, the story begins by relating the case of three black men attacked and severely beaten by a group of up to 20 white youths. One of the black men died of his injuries. However, a problem came up at the murder trials on the issue of who could be blamed for the death:

         Lawyers and prosecutors say the problems posed by riotous crime begin with the difficulty in determining, with the specificity and corroboration required for prosecution, who did what. Even when evidence is developed detailing an individual's participation amid the chaos of a mob, it can be much harder to fit his actions to the closely defined categories and degrees of criminal culpability than if he had committed a crime alone or as part of an extensively planned group action. Concepts like ''state of mind'' and ''acting in concert,'' often keys in determining guilt and challenging enough to apply in orderly episodes, are even tougher in a tumultuous context.

       "'In those situations things happen so fast and human perceptions are so imprecise that it's difficult to assign blame in a manner which permits a prosecutor to prove a case beyond a reasonable doubt,'' said Richard Emery, a staff counsel for the New York Civil Liberties Union. On the defense side, he added, there is ''valid fear that prosecutors will charge people with minor participation in a serious event and because the jury is so outraged at the event, it will sweep those people into the guilty category.''

        Paul Callan, a lawyer and former assistant district attorney in Brooklyn, said burdens arise for prosecutors because ''the criminal law focuses on intent to commit a crime, and when a mob acts, in essence it becomes a beast with an intent of its own that is hard to attribute to any individual members.'' A defense attorney, he said, can ''confront a situation where a prosecutor tries to blame his individual client for what many other people did.'' Mr. Callan represented 18-year-old Gino Bova, the defendant in one of the two murder trials that so far have resulted from the Brooklyn assault that killed William Turks. In each trial, the defendant was acquitted of second-degree murder and convicted of lesser offenses. Mr. Bova was found guilty of second-degree manslaughter and other counts and has begun serving a 5- to 15-year prison sentence. Paul Mormando, 18, is scheduled to be sentenced Thursday for his conviction for thirddegree assault, second-degree riot and discrimination, all misdemeanors. He faces up to a year in jail. Three are still to be tried; second-degree murder is the most serious charge against one, who is a fugitive; first-degree assault is the top count against the others.

         To Mark Pomerantz, an associate professor at the Columbia Law School and a former Federal prosecutor, a ''basic problem is that the law evolved with the notion that crimes were committed by individuals or with the notion of conspiracy liability, and one can't really say that about people acting together in a mob.'' To Mr. Emery, ''it's extremely hard to prove'' acting-in-concert in a mob situation. ''It means having a state of mind similar to or compatible with another person's that aims toward a criminal goal,'' he said, and the actions ''must indicate there was this agreement, even a tacit one.''

        Just how hard was apparent at Paul Mormando's trial. The prosecutor, Andrew Plump, had not accused Mr. Mormando of inflicting any of Mr. Turks's fatal injuries. Rather, he argued that the defendant ''shares criminal responsibility'' for the death because he had been a member of the mob and had pulled the victim from the station wagon and tackled and fought with him, preventing his escape and enabling others, including the stick-wielding Mr. Bova, to strike the fatal blows. If the jury agreed that Mr. Mormando had performed those acts, Mr. Plump maintained, nothing more was needed for it to find that he had acted in concert with Mr. Bova and, therefore, was himself guilty of at least second-degree manslaughter.

       Judge Joseph Lombardo disagreed. He told the jurors in effect that to find Mr. Mormando had acted in concert, they also had to find that he had known that Mr. Bova would commit his assault. But the prosecution had not contended that Mr. Mormando had such knowledge and thus, a juror later said, the panel felt his actions did not warrant conviction on the manslaughter charge.

VIDEO: "The Great Kansas Grasshopper Plague of 1874"--The History Guy (17 min.)

The Rocky Mountain Grasshopper is now extinct.

Mother Nature Can Be A B****

• Floods continue to worsen in China: "Massive evacuation under way in southwest China as floods trigger unprecedented alert"--South China Morning Post (h/t KA9OFF).
• More: "Sichuan hit by China's biggest flood in 70 years, Three Gorges downstream"--Taiwan News.

      Sichuan Province, which sits on the upper reaches of the Yangtze River, on Monday (Aug. 17) braced for some of the worst flooding seen in over 70 years, likely to bring the "No. 5 Flood" downstream to the beleaguered Three Gorges Dam.

      After the "No. 4 Flood" of the year passed through the Three Gorges Dam on Saturday (Aug. 15), the Changjiang Water Resources Commission (CWRC) issued an orange flood warning for the Jialing River and its tributary Fu River on the upper reaches of the Yangtze in Sichuan Province on Sunday (Aug. 16). It predicted that the latest bout of flooding will likely form the "No. 5 Flood" of the year and could come only two or three days after the previous one.

• More: "China on alert for Yangtze River flooding as storms close in"--South China Morning Post. This article from August 17 relates: "Heavy rain is expected across China’s southwest, northwest and northeast in the next three days, raising flood risks and pressure on dams, weather forecasters have warned," and "[t]he Ministry of Water Resources urged local authorities to be on alert, particularly along the upper reaches of the Yangtze River and the middle reaches of the Yellow, Hai, Songhua and Liao rivers." In other words, flooding risks across much of the country.
• More: Some commentary from Tracy Alloway at Bloomberg on the disasters striking China:

Much of China's history has been spent trying to tame its wild rivers. This year, massive flooding has combined with other biblical forces including plague and pestilence (Covid-19, African swine fever, fall army worm, locusts) to hit crops and disrupt travel and logistics within the country. The triple threat of floods, pandemic and infestation has pushed up Chinese food prices even as factory inflation continues to decline. Prices of pigs, for instance, are drifting higher once again even after China's agricultural ministry said the restocking of pig farms following the swine fever outbreak had taken place "faster than expected." Meanwhile, President Xi Jinping has chosen to tackle the politically sensitive topic of food waste by encouraging people to order and prepare fewer dishes in restaurants and at home.

• "Mass extinction 359 million years ago may have been caused by 'one or more stars going supernova' just 65 light years from Earth"--Daily Mail. You can read the actual paper here, although much of it is a discussion of the type of radioactive material that would need to be found to confirm the hypothesis. But, even if the researchers are correct, there might not be any material to be found: as Ben Davidson explains in today's Suspicious Observers news video, recent modeling has shown that the magnetic field around a super-nova would prevent any particles from escaping the nova bubble. 
• "Sanitation union chief warns budget cuts could endanger New York City"--New York Post. Rats are running rampant, and there is no money for training new snow plow operators how to actually drive and use the snowplows. 
• "NASA tracks 'dent' in Earth's magnetic field caused by solar storms which could knock out computers on satellites"--Daily Mail. This article is about the discovery that the South Atlantic Anomaly is splitting into two lobes--i.e., spreading. The Anomaly represents an area where the Earth's magnetic field is peculiarly weak. Because of that, cosmic rays can penetrate more deeply into the magnetosphere, meaning that satellites aren't protected as well against cosmic rays as they pass over the Anomaly. The consequence is that satellites may have to be turned off while transiting the area in order to protect them.

VIDEO: "The Absolute State of the Comics Industry"--Critical Drinker (7 min.)

Postcards From The Revolution

• Peace is impossible: "The Singularity Is Near" by Malcolm Pollack at American Greatness. Pollack explains:

      “Red” and “blue” have profoundly different visions of the scope and structure of the federal government, and of the role of government in American life generally. They differ also on fundamental questions of religion, ethics, morals, and even human nature. Red believes that the American founding was a work of astonishing insight and inspiration and that it represents the best compromise yet struck by the minds of men to enable the possibility of ordered liberty and the individual citizen’s pursuit of happiness and prosperity.

      Blue seems to believe increasingly that the whole thing was a sinister power-grab by a cadre of rich white males, designed to preserve and consolidate their immoral supremacy, and that the whole thing is so rotten that it should be torn up by its roots and replaced with something fairer and nobler. (Blue has already revealed that it wishes to see the Second Amendment, the Senate, the Electoral College, and our nation’s borders abolished—and its grievances hardly end there.)

     We are fighting, then, not over who shall rule over the existing system, nor about whether the United States should be broken up into two distinct nations, but about whether the United States as currently constituted should continue to exist, or should be wholly replaced with an entirely new regime.

• Related: "This war can’t be civil" by Khaled Alqahtani at The Daily Californian. The author of this piece is writing from the perspective of the Left:

         I’m not dismissing the power or impact of peaceful resistance. You may want to lead a silent march instead of setting a police station on fire. Sometimes, that may work best. What I’m criticizing is the constant rejection of violent resistance on grounds of respectability. There is no socially “acceptable” way to protest the murder of women and trans and queer people around me every single day. There is no “civil” way to resist ongoing occupation and war. All of the expected standards these anti-oppression acts are supposed to meet simply ensure they work in favor of the powerful, those already inflicting violence. 

        “With the establishment of a relationship of oppression, violence has already begun,” writes educator and philosopher Paulo Freire in “Pedagogy of the Oppressed.” “Never in history has violence been initiated by the oppressed. How could they be the initiators, if they themselves are the result of violence?”

        I spoke with student activist and writer Furqan Mohamed for the Ward Reads book club about Angela Davis’ “Freedom Is a Constant Struggle.” When I asked her about violence and the destruction of property and other forms of protest, she said, “When we talk about violence, we often think about destruction of property. … People like Angela Davis encourage us to think much bigger.” Mohamed invites us to think of violence in terms of its effects on the oppressed rather than the oppressor, asking, “Isn’t violence extreme poverty? Isn’t violence people not being able to provide for themselves and their families?” 

• "Fight the Mob" by Thomas D. Klingenstein at The American Mind. An excerpt:

        I have some good news. But first, some very bad news. We on the Right are confronting an enemy that wishes to destroy our way of life. To make matters worse, this enemy does not have a name. At least, no one has agreed on one yet. Some call it “identity politics.” Others call it “political correctness,” or “multiculturalism,” or “wokeness.” But whatever we call it, we must be clear that it aims to destroy the American way of life. 

 

        I favor the term “multiculturalism” because it is a concept more comprehensive than politics. The term, with its emphasis on culture and the “-ism” in its suffix, suggests a particular way of life. To this extent multiculturalism is like Communism. It too was a particular way of life. As with Communism a generation ago, today we are engaged in a conflict between two incompatible ways of life. This is a regime-level conflict, which the Claremont Institute has framed: “Multiculturalism v. America.” 

         As I am using the term, multiculturalism is a revolutionary movement animated by a doctrine that sees society not as a community of rights-bearing individuals with a shared understanding of a national good, but as a collection of cultural identity groups all oppressed by white males. 

        How, you might ask, do whites oppress identity groups? By means of family, religion, education and community. These institutions and the values they promote are, say the multiculturalists, the means by which whites impose their racist, sexist, homophobic values on the rest of society. Thus, the goal of the multiculturalists is to destroy, or fundamentally restructure, these institutions. 

         The multiculturalists believe that restructuring them will result in outcome parity among identity groups. Each group will have, proportional to its size, the same income (hence the need for socialism) and the same power as measured by job titles; that is, the same number of CEOs, senators, marines, firefighters, college presidents, physicists, soccer players, etc. Outcome parity is the multiculturalists’ idea of a just society; hence the term “social justice.” 

         A society that seeks outcome parity cannot possibly co-exist peacefully with a free society like America, which is guided by nature’s laws. In such a society there will always be group differences—between men and women as well as among various sub-cultures. That is the natural result of freedom. 

        Multiculturalism requires crushing these natural differences and so demands a never-ending expansion of state power and social restrictions, including shutting up those who object to multiculturalism.

 Be sure to read the whole thing.

• Related: Vox Day, responding to a reader's concern about whether Day was becoming antisemitic, writes: "As the US empire spirals into breakup and the chickens of the largest invasion in human history come home to roost, the halcyon days of pretense and civic nationalism and ethnic propaganda and historical revisionism are over. It's no longer possible for anyone, however philo- or anti-semite, to pretend that people of one nation can also be part of another nation, or that political power in the hands of not-Americans is even remotely compatible with the unalienable rights of Americans."
• "Yet ANOTHER riot is declared in Portland on 83rd night of trouble: 200-strong mob of protesters 'rallying for BLM and the total abolition of prison system and police force' torch city's famous Multnomah Building"--Daily Mail.
• "DHS Investigates Alleged Antifa Protesters as Terrorists Trained in Syria"--Newsweek.
• "ANTIFA TERRORISTS IN AUSTIN, PORTLAND JUST RECEIVED A LARGE CACHE OF WEAPONS IN PREPARATION FOR COORDINATED MULTI-CITY “TET OFFENSIVE” AGAINST AMERICA"--American Partisan. "[T]heir new goal is to unleash so much chaos across America that elections must be suspended, allowing the Marxist media to roll out its 'Trump is a dictator' narrative."
• "ABR SIT-REP 2: ANTIFA/BLM/REVCOM TACTICS ARE EVOLVING AND ESCALATING"--American Partisan. Bracken writes: "Over the past week we have seen a shift in tactics by ABR, away from just attacking courthouses and police precincts, toward roving bands of violent vandals roaming downtown and suburban areas." Also, to those law enforcement that may read this blog, "ABR is attempting to exhaust and demoralize LE by using tactics that tread right up to the line that would provoke a live-ammunition response," hoping to provoke a lethal response so they can claim the moral high-ground or respond more lethally in self-defense. And, "ABRs are actively 'doxing' the home addresses of LE, then posting their photos and addresses on the 'dark web' for exploitation." Law enforcement may want to contact trusted neighbors to keep an extra eye out on the LEO's family and property.
• "New York BLM leader Hawk Newsome defends looters while comparing the US [Government] to 'terrorists' during heated exchange with Fox News anchor Martha MacCallum - after Rudy Giuliani urged Trump to declare group a 'domestic terrorist organization'"--Daily Mail. 
• Heh: "Students demand university offer 'safe' rides home at night after defunding police"--Campus Reform. The school in question is Binghamton University in New York.
• Funny how the protests and COVID-19 pandemic has worked out this way: "The Workforce Is About to Change Dramatically" by Derek Thompson at The Atlantic. Key part:

      Today’s Democratic Party is inefficiently distributed across the country. In 2016, Hillary Clinton won Manhattan and Brooklyn by about 1 million votes—more than Donald Trump’s margins of victory in the states of Florida, Arizona, Georgia, North Carolina, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania combined. In election after election, liberals dominate in cities, running up huge margins in downtown areas while narrowly losing in sparser places.

       As I’ve said, if Democrats abandoned liberal enclaves and spread into Red America, they could more easily win elections. And that’s happening now.

 And, he adds:

       This demographic shift could reshape American politics. A more evenly distributed liberal base could empower Democrats in the Sun Belt; accelerate the Rust Belt’s conservative shift; strengthen the moderate wing of the party by forcing Democrats to compete on more conservative turf; and force the GOP to adapt its own national strategy to win more elections.

VIDEO: "Rivers of Bengal"--Daughter of Albion (25 min.)

A look back on Enoch Powell's "Rivers of Blood" speech, and the hypocrisy of Leftists in decrying any restrictions on immigration into Europe while at the same time praising de-colonization efforts that forced European migrants out of their homes in Africa and India.

Potpourri 

• Grin and bear it: "Faking a smile and forcing your cheeks to form a grin tricks the brain into feeling happier, scientists discover"--Daily Mail. 
• This news story should be a reminder that immigrant populations may have loyalties other than to our country: "Former CIA officer charged with spying for China"--NBC News. The former CIA officer and FBI linguist is Alexander Yuk Ching Ma. Key part: "Investigators said Ma, who was born in Hong Kong, explained that he 'wanted "the motherland" to succeed' and admitted that he provided classified information to the Ministry of State Security and continued to work with some of its same representatives who were at the 2001 meeting." Significantly, in my mind, is that "[p]rosecutors said an 85-year-old relative of Ma's also worked for the CIA and later spied for China. But he was not charged because he suffers from 'an advanced an debilitating cognitive disease.'"
• Related: "UK: Huge Crowds Ignore Lockdowns to Celebrate Pakistan Independence Day, Attack Police"--Breitbart. Supposedly they are citizens of the UK so why are they celebrating Pakistan's independence? Because, in their hearts, they are still Pakistani, not British.
• Flashback: "The Painful Truth About Affirmative Action: Why racial preferences in college admissions hurt minority students -- and shroud the education system in dishonesty." by Richard Sanders and Stuart Taylor Jr. at The Atlantic. Short take:

         The single biggest problem in this system -- a problem documented by a vast and growing array of research -- is the tendency of large preferences to boomerang and harm their intended beneficiaries. Large preferences often place students in environments where they can neither learn nor compete effectively -- even though these same students would thrive had they gone to less competitive but still quite good schools.

        We refer to this problem as "mismatch," a word that largely explains why, even though blacks are more likely to enter college than are whites with similar backgrounds, they will usually get much lower grades, rank toward the bottom of the class, and far more often drop out. Because of mismatch, racial preference policies often stigmatize minorities, reinforce pernicious stereotypes, and undermine the self-confidence of beneficiaries, rather than creating the diverse racial utopias so often advertised in college campus brochures.

• Related: "Stanford scraps admission test requirement for medical students"--Campus Reform. Ostensibly because of COVID-19, but if not now, it will continue on the grounds that it makes it easier for minority students to be admitted.
• Related: "Campus black privilege, explained: History prof spells out what it is, why it’s counterproductive" by Jay Bergman at The College Fix. An excerpt:

        Of course there is what might accurately be termed “black privilege” in America today.

        It exists in academia in the form of preferences, euphemistically and misleadingly termed “affirmative action,” in faculty hiring and student admissions, of which blacks are the principal, though by no means the only, beneficiary.

        This is borne out by the simple and easily demonstrable fact that black applicants are admitted to colleges and universities with lower SAT scores than those of whites and others who are rejected.

         Indeed, there is virtually nothing universities will not do today to attract and to retain black students: provide separate dormitories and graduation ceremonies; prohibit so-called microaggressions, which are supposedly a manifestation of unconscious “implicit bias” in whites; establish special “black studies centers” and hire deans and vice presidents of “diversity and inclusion” at ridiculously inflated salaries, relative to those of professors, whose principal purpose is to make these students “comfortable” by shielding them from opinions that are different from their own; and so on.

         Preferences on the basis of race are inherently discriminatory and unfair. To give preference to some on the basis of race is necessarily to discriminate against others on the basis of race. These preferences are therefore violative not only of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, but of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution.

* * *

       But while blacks are undoubtedly the beneficiaries of these preferences, they come at a serious cost. Blacks with qualifications inferior to those of whites and Asians who are nonetheless admitted to universities in which they cannot fully compete tend to self-segregate. Hence the re-segregation of American colleges and universities, which makes a mockery of the noble objectives of the original Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s.

      Even worse, data have shown that unless there is grade inflation, many of these black students flunk out or leave voluntarily. What makes this especially tragic is that blacks who are admitted to universities with qualifications commensurate to their abilities perform very well, and enjoy graduation rates virtually identical to those of whites, Asians, Hispanics, and others.

• "Speeches made by US politicians 'have the reading age of a 13-year-old' and have been getting simpler since the 1970s, study finds"--Daily Mail. Well, to be honest, our politicians increasingly act like 13-year-olds.
• "‘The mystery is over’: Researchers say they know what happened to ‘Lost Colony’"--The Virginian-Pilot. You probably know the story the basic story of the Roanoke Colony. The Colony was the result of an attempt by Sir Walter Raleigh to establish the first permanent British colony in North America located on Roanoke Island in what is today Virginia. The initial attempt failed, and a second colony led by John White landed on the same island in 1587. Because of supply shortages, White was forced to sail back to England for more supplies. But his return trip was delayed for nearly 3 years. When he arrived at the site of the colony, all the colonists were gone and the only clue left was the word  "CROATOAN" carved into the palisade of the fort. White interpreted this to mean that the Colonists had moved to Croatoan Island, but he was forced to leave before he could make a search. The "Lost Colony" has since achieved legendary status because of the unsolved mystery of what happened to the colonists, ranging from more prosaic explanations such as the colony having relocated and been absorbed into local Indian tribes to extreme theories such as alien abductions. What this article describes are archaeological digs that show that the colony had relocated to Hatteras Island where they lived with Indian allies, the Croatoan tribe. The article relates that "Teams have found thousands of artifacts 4-6 feet below the surface that show a mix of English and Indian life. Parts of swords and guns are in the same layer of soil as Indian pottery and arrowheads." 

      The evidence shows the colony left Roanoke Island with the friendly Croatoans to settle on Hatteras Island. They thrived, ate well, had mixed families and endured for generations. More than a century later, explorer John Lawson found natives with blue eyes who recounted they had ancestors who could “speak out of a book,” Lawson wrote.

      The two cultures adapted English earrings into fishhooks and gun barrels into sharp-ended tubes to tap tar from trees.

• A reminder that we live in the 21st Century: "Scientists turn seawater into drinkable freshwater using metal compounds, sunlight"--UPI. 

       To create a new water-cleaning compound, researchers introduced a metal compound called poly(spiropyran acrylate), or PSP, into the pores of MIL-53, a well-studied MOF [metal-organic framework], frequently utilized for its ability to efficiently absorb water and carbon dioxide.

       In tests, the new MOF, called PSP-MIL-53, was able to produce 139.5 liters of clean freshwater per kilogram of MOF per day.

       PSP-MIL-53 successfully filtered salt ions and other solids from brackish and saltwater sources. Sunlight helped the material periodically clean and regenerate its porous, crystalline structure.