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Friday, December 4, 2020

A Quick Run Around The Web (12/4/2020)

 

VIDEO: "INFANTRYMAN'S GUIDE: Individual Movement Techniques (IMTs)"--Brent0331 (10 min.)

Firearms/Self-Defense/Prepping:

  • Active Response Training's Weekend Knowledge Dump has been posted for your enlightenment. Some of the articles that caught my attention were: an article on "shooting the Guillotine" which discusses techniques for aiming if your pistol mounted red-dot craps out on you; a tip on how to use an adhesive band-aid to prevent your mask from fogging up your glasses; a summary of an analysis of 133 military gun battles; a video on how to use the modern sporting rifle (sans bayonet) as an impact weapon; and a discussion of the top 5 items needed in a trauma kit. On this point, Greg Ellifritz notes that you should avoid using black nitrile gloves:

On black gloves it is difficult to differentiate blood from any other fluid.  When you are checking your patient for serious bleeding, you’ll have to run your hands over the patient’s torso and each limb.  Look for blood on your gloves as you do this.  If you see blood on the gloves, cut away the clothing in that area and look for the wound(s). 

I had recently purchased the NSN MARCH IFAK Resupply Kit from Kommando Store, and they (Kommando Store) had something similar to say about the black gloves included in the kit, warning that "the included heat sealed black gloves are uncomfortable, difficult to don, and hide blood and body fluids during exams. We recommend replacing them with high quality blue or brown nitrite [sic] gloves such as the NAR Bear Claw." (Kommando Store also didn't like the TMT tourniquet included in the kit).

    Greg also makes the following observation regarding a test showing how easily defensive pistol ammunition will penetrate interior walls:

Yes, high quality defensive ammo will travel through several walls before stopping.  The answer is not to go with a a cartridge that penetrates less, but to get good hits and lay out safe fields of fire within your residence.

  • You gotta be aware of what is going on around you, especially if you hear footsteps coming up behind you at a faster pace than what you are walking: "Boston basher bludgeons 10 men in three weeks knocking them out cold with a blunt instrument to back of the head in random attacks leaving the community living in fear"--Daily Mail. From the article:

    An apparently random string of at least 10 attacks in the Boston suburb of Waltham is frightening residents, angering city leaders and frustrating police.

    The attacks come after dark, without warning, usually from behind.

    The victims, all men, are hit so hard on the head with some sort of blunt object that they are often knocked to the ground and require medical attention.

Also:

    The victims have all been men, and all on foot, but they range in age from 20 to the mid-40s and are of various ethnic backgrounds, Police Chief Keith MacPherson said. 

    All have been ambushed after dark by someone wearing a mask or with a hoodie pulled tight around their face, the chief said.

    One victim was walking a dog. One was getting into a vehicle. A U.S. Postal Service mail carrier was also attacked.

    Some required hospitalization.

  • "10 Reasons to Consider the .22 for Personal Defense" by Ed Head, Shooting Illustrated. This article was obviously written prior to the current ammo drought as one of the selling features mentioned for .22 LR is that it is cheap and plentiful. In any event, the primary point is that the .22 LR has low recoil and noise and, therefore, is easy for someone (particularly someone not experienced with shooting) to shoot. 
  • "Fobus Evolution Holster Review"--Shooting Times. I know that some self-defense instructors do not like the Fobus because the design uses rivets instead of screws to attach the paddle or belt clips, and so it could be torn off in a scuffle. I don't doubt it, but mine has survived some pretty rough handling for the past 15 or 20 years. The primary advantage to Fobus is that they are inexpensive kydex holsters, and they are made in a much wider range of models than most other manufacturers. 
  • "The Sterling Submachine Gun Magazine: The Best Magazine Ever Designed?"--The Firearm Blog. It was designed to replace one of the worse magazines every made: the Sten's stick magazine. From the article:

Patchett addressed the STEN magazine’s shortcomings by designing his magazine with a curve which allowed the slightly tapered 9×19mm rounds to feed more reliably. He also replaced the traditional magazine follower with a pair of rollers which minimised friction and allowed dust, grit and dirt to be rolled out of the way improving reliability. Patchett’s magazine was designed so it could be economically stamped from sheet metal and folded and spot welded into shape. It was also simple to disassemble for cleaning and required no tools for disassembly.

But:

When Canada adopted the C1, a modified version of the Sterling, they dispensed with Patchett’s roller system and designed their own magazine which held 30, rather than 34 rounds, but could be used in all Sterling-pattern guns. This magazine proved to be just as reliable, perhaps suggesting that the key features of George Patchett’s magazine were the curve, double feed and circular spring rather than the rollers. 

    The .45 Long Colt round, itself, is one of the most versatile handgun cartridges on the market. There are loads in the 160-200 grain range that can be used for small game or target practice; 200 to 225 grains for self-defense; 250 to 260 grains for hunting game such as deer; and you can even choose bear-stoppers in the 300-to 325-grain spectrum.

    Now, couple the versatility of the .45 LC round with the new Redhawk’s ability to also fire .45 ACP and .45 Super. That’s a tremendous range of power, but it’s also a broad gamut of opportunity: In a real-world survival situation, ammunition may be in short supply, and it would certainly be useful to have a gun on hand that fires multiple calibers.

    While the .45 LC used to be a very popular round in its day, it’s nowhere near as common as it used to be. The .45 ACP round, however, is one of the most common handgun rounds you’ll come across in this country. With three available caliber options, whether you’re bartering or scavenging, you’ve got a good chance of finding rounds meant for serious work that will fire in the Redhawk.

In the summer of 1931, heavy snowmelt, torrential rains and seven different cyclonic storms combined to produce the most devastating flood in Chinese history. In the month of July alone, central China was swamped by as much precipitation as it typically received in a year-and-a-half. By August, the Yangtze, Yellow and Huai Rivers had all burst through their badly managed dikes and flooded an area larger than the size of England. Thousands died from drowning during the initial phase of the flood, but even more followed due to widespread famine and outbreaks of diseases such as cholera, typhoid fever and dysentery.

The author points out that this flood is believed to have killed as many as 3.7 million people.


VIDEO: "Are budget defensive lights even worth it?"--Armed Defender Videos (11 min.)
I have a light that looks like the one featured in the video, although with a different brand name slapped on it. I've taken it out and shot the pistol with the light mounted and it survived and worked fine, which is the real test. The light I have works well for what it is. I like the fact that it is easy to remove. The weakness is the switch, which is just a simple slide switch actuated by a slide that projects to either side of the light on the back. Obviously, with the slide for the switch sticking out on the side and so easy to turn on, this is not a light intended for either concealed or open carry. And I doubt that there is anything water proof about the light. But for something to have on a night-stand gun, it works. I've since upgraded to a higher quality light, but kept this one around.

Miscellany:

Remember, the Trump GOP is shorn of all ideological and philosophical pretense, and even when Trump leaves office, it’s not over. ‘His cultists’ reign of terror will shape elected GOP members as long as he and his foul spawn walk the earth unpunished. Only exposure, pain, humiliation, and (inshallah) incarceration will lead to a moment of reckoning for the GOP. It should start at the top and work down from there.

    ... the cosmopolitan elites of the media and academia establishment, like the presupposing college bound teen with seniroritis who has the world all figured out, fail to grasp the blinkered nature of their own world view; in doing so, they fail to comprehend the full complexity of reality itself.

    The world view to which I am referring goes by many names—rationalism, secularism, humanism etc. It is a view that emanates from what I call the Enlightenment Myth: the idea that we arrived at the modern world by wholesale jettisoning of religion, tradition, and custom. It’s the idea that modernity was built from the ground-up, through secularized reason. As the AP European History concept outline in my textbook uncritically puts it: “They [Enlightenment thinkers] sought to bring the light of reason to bear on the darkness of prejudice, outmoded traditions, and ignorance, challenging traditional values.” Of note is not this drab statement itself, but the fact that its authors, like my students and the pollsters who predicted electoral carnage for Trump this election, take it as a matter of fact as opposed to ideology-driven historiography open to debate.

    One can almost imagine the line I just quoted grafted onto the present: They [Democrats] sought to bring the light of reason to bear on the darkness of prejudice, outmoded traditions, and ignorance, challenging the traditional values of Trump voters in flyover country. The way this perspective plays itself out in my history classroom is illuminating, especially when we get to the Enlightenment. “Finally,” my students tell me, “something I can relate to.” For once the certitude of religious doctrine and cultural supremacy has given way to the recognizable and comfortable relativism of today. The rational, self-interested individual is finally free to achieve full autonomy and self-actualization. As the French Revolutionary document The Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen puts it: “Liberty consists in the freedom to do everything which injures no one else.”

    This is why my students find it so incomprehensible when they learn that the rebellion in the Vendee—a pro-monarchy and pro-church counter-revolution—was led not by aristocrats but by peasants who wished to protect their way of life from the homogenizing intrusion of “reason.” For in the name of reason, their churches were being desecrated, their streets being renamed, and even their work week stretched out from 7 days to the more “rational” 10. Why, my students nonetheless ask, couldn’t the peasants recognize their own liberators, the ones who had sought to banish backwardness to the past and free them from clerical tyranny and feudalism? ...

    We and many others were warning months ago that the Democrats were going to try to steal the 2020 election. When the counting, recounting, and lawsuits are done, they might well have succeeded. It’s simply in their nature to do whatever they believe is necessary to further their agenda.

    The belief in one’s own moral superiority eventually erases the conscience. After all, if one is morally superior to others, then no conscience is needed. All actions and behaviors are acceptable because they’re done in an effort to make the world a better place. ...

    The Complaint alleges that over 170,000 absentee ballots were accepted and counted in the two counties when the voter did not fill out an application for an absentee ballot.

    The Complaint alleges that over 5,500 absentee ballots were accepted and counted when a person in the Election Clerk’s office filled out some of the information required on the outside of the ballot envelope.

    More than 28,000 votes are claimed to have been cast by individuals who did not meet the definition of “indefinite confinement” and thereby avoided the otherwise mandatory voter identification requirement.

    Finally, it alleges that more than 17,000 ballots were received and later counted at “Democracy In The Park” events.

    The vote differential between Pres. Trump and Biden in Wisconsin ended up at 20,427 votes.  Any of the five bases for disqualifying ballots — other than the one regarding ballots where some missing information was added by Election workers — would, for the most part, overcome the entire difference.

    The world’s highest altitude river, cutting through the Tibetan plateau and rugged terrain along the Chinese-Indian border, carries troubled waters amid a new era of border tensions between the two Asian giants. 

    Those tensions are set to rise with Beijing’s aggressive new plan to build mega-hydropower plants and dams across the 2,900-kilometer Yaluzangbu River, or Yarlung Tsangpo, with work on the projects scheduled to take 15 years. 

    The projects are unlikely to break ground anytime soon but Beijing’s move has caused trepidation in New Delhi over water security in the downstream Brahmaputra River basin in its northeastern state of Assam and nearby regions.

    The strategically vulnerable Indian states border Tibet in the north and are connected to India’s main parts by the thin Siliguri Corridor, also known as the Chicken’s Neck, near Bangladesh. 

    With recent lethal border skirmishes with China still rankling, New Delhi has not taken lightly Beijing’s revived bid to harness one of the largest and most important international rivers in South Asia. 
    “Gaslighting” – The term originates in the systematic psychological manipulation of a victim by her husband in Patrick Hamilton’s 1938 stage play “Gas Light,” and the film adaptations released in 1940 and 1944. In the story, the husband attempts to convince his wife and others that she is insane by manipulating small elements of their environment and insisting that she is mistaken, remembering things incorrectly, or delusional when she points out these changes.

    The play’s title alludes to how the abusive husband slowly dims the gas lights in their home, while pretending nothing has changed, in an effort to make his wife doubt her own perceptions. The wife repeatedly asks her husband to confirm her perceptions about the dimming lights, but in defiance of reality, he keeps insisting that the lights are the same and instead it is she who is going insane.

    Today we are living in a perpetual state of gaslighting. The reality that we are being told by the media is at complete odds with what we are seeing with our own two eyes. And when we question the false reality that we are being presented, or we claim that what we see is that actual reality, we are vilified as racist or bigots or just plain crazy.

    You’re not racist. You’re not crazy. You’re being gaslighted.

    New York State has twice as many deaths from Covid-19 than any other state, and New York has accounted for one fifth of all Covid-19 deaths, but we are told that New York Governor Andrew Cuomo has handled the pandemic better than any other governor. But if we support policies of Governors whose states had only a fraction of the infections and deaths as New York, we’re called anti-science and want people to die.

    So, we ask ourselves, am I crazy? No, you’re being gaslighted.

    We see mobs of people looting stores, smashing windows, setting cars on fire and burning down buildings, but we are told that these demonstrations are peaceful protests And when we call this destruction of our cities, riots, we are called racists.

    So, we ask ourselves, am I crazy? No, you’re being gaslighted.

    We see the major problem destroying many inner-cities is crime; murder, gang violence, drug dealing, drive-by shootings, armed robbery, but we are told that it is not crime, but the police that are the problem in the inner-cities. We are told we must defund the police and remove law enforcement from crime-riddled cities to make them safer But if we advocate for more policing in cities overrun by crime, we are accused of being white supremacists and racists.

    So, we ask ourselves, am I crazy? No, you’re being gaslighted.

    The United States of America accepts more immigrants than any other country in the world. The vast majority of the immigrants are “people of color”, and these immigrants are enjoying freedom and economic opportunity not available to them in their country of origin, but we are told that the United States is the most racist and oppressive country on the planet, and if we disagree, we are called racist and xenophobic.

    So, we ask ourselves, am I crazy? No, you’re being gaslighted.

    Capitalist countries are the most prosperous countries in the world. The standard of living is the highest in capitalist countries. We see more poor people move up the economic ladder to the middle and even the wealthy class through their effort and ability in capitalist countries than any other economic system in the world, but we are told capitalism is an oppressive system designed to keep people down.

    So, we ask ourselves, am I crazy? No, you’re being gaslighted.

    Communist countries killed over 100 million people in the 20th century. Communist countries strip their citizens of basic human rights, dictate every aspect of their lives, treat their citizens as slaves, and drive their economies into the ground, but we are told that Communism is the fairest, most equitable, freest, and most prosperous economic system in the world.

    So, we ask ourselves, am I crazy? No, you’re being gaslighted.

    The most egregious example of gaslighting is the concept of “white fragility”. You spend your life trying to be a good person, trying to treat people fairly and with respect. You disavow racism and bigotry in all its forms. You judge people solely on the content of their character and not by the color of their skin. You don’t discriminate based on race or ethnicity. But you are told you are a racist, not because of something you did or said, but solely because of the color of your skin. You know instinctively that charging someone with racism because of their skin color is itself racist. You know that you are not racist, so you defend yourself and your character, but you are told that your defense of yourself is proof of your racism.

    So, we ask ourselves, am I crazy? No, you’re being gaslighted.
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1 comment:

  1. John WilderDecember 6, 2020 at 10:16 PM

    Ahhh, floods. Proving once again that Providence has a vote . . .

    ReplyDelete