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Friday, January 1, 2021

A Quick Run Around The Web (1/1/2021)

VIDEO: "Watch this BEFORE you buy a tent for backpacking"--Dan Becker (10 min.)
     The purpose of self-defense is to prevent the attack, preempt the attack. So, you and your loved ones don't get hurt, injured, mutilated, crippled, kidnapped, or killed. 

     Failing that, the purpose of self-defense is to stop the attack immediately and permanently.  So, you and your loved ones don't get hurt anymore.
 
     Killing the bad guys never enters your mind.  You were simply trying to stop the attack as quickly as possible.  Because, as John Holschen says, the shorter the fight, the less hurt you get.  The bad guys' death is incidental to your purpose of stopping their attack.  
 
     If the bad guys had wanted to live, they could have stopped attacking. The bad guys' death is their choice, not yours.  The bad guys forced you to kill them.  The bad guys are completely at fault.  Your conscience is clear.  You killing the bad guys is righteous.
  
     People with this mindset don't get PTSD (post traumatic stress disorder).  

I had read a book about snipers that had served in Iraq and Afghanistan, and it noted something similar: that snipers suffered far less PTSD. One of the snipers interviewed put it down to the fact that the sniper knew he was putting down a bad guy. 

    Anyway, there is a lot more, and most of it is commentary and advice from Jon, so be sure to check out Jon's whole post. (And, Jon, thank you for the shout out).

  • It's Friday which means that Greg Ellifritz has posted another Weekend Knowledge Dump. The links to articles and videos includes several that cover medical/first-aid/trauma care issues, shotgun weapon mounted lights, shooting a pistol from seated positions, a couple for concealed carry of revolver, gel tests of various 7.62x39 loads, and more. 
  • "Emily Ratajkowski On Heart Rate Variability, Brain Waves and Training Race Drivers" by Marcus Wynne. Continued discussion of using music in environmental design for neural based training, as well as using a metronome to slow your heart rate and calm or relax you. Wynne relates how he used a metronome as part of a team to enhance the performance of the BMW Professional Racing Team (Tour Car). An excerpt:
During the 24 hour races, there are programmed “rest breaks” for the driver of varying duration. The rest protocol involved stripping naked, ultra fast shower and towel dry, massage/shiatsu/chiropractic adjustment, then some minutes (20-30) of programmed sleep. The challenge I was presented was “How do we maximize the benefit of the short sleep period?” In addition to the aromatherapy solutions the massage therapist already provided (lavender extracts assist the brain to sleep, BTW) I added a metronome. Drivers are remotely monitored for bio-markers while driving: heart rate, respiration, body temperature. They may be monitoring EEG as well now that the tech has caught up with my suggestion back in the 90s. In consultation with the medical doctor, whose limited English was generally utilized swearing at me when he ran out of Italian, we identified the optimum resting heart rates for sleep, relaxation, and gradual awakening to full alertness.  Depending on the established medical baseline of the specific driver’s resting heart rate, we started around 40-60 BPM (beats per minute)  on the metronome to promote relaxation. ...

Read the whole thing. You may remember from a few months ago I had linked to a video on shooting faster where the recommendation was to use a cadence or "beat" to improve the efficiency of making shots.

  • A lot of gun articles this year have been directed toward the new shooter, including those asking for advice for what the new shooter should get. If your relatives, friends, neighbors or co-workers know that you are a gun guy or gal, you may even have to field that question yourself. Or you may be gifting a firearm to someone that is new to shooting or haven't filled out their basic battery of firearms. Thus, I will read articles addressed to the new shooter to see what those wiser and more experienced than me consider when answering that question. 
    The problem with some of the articles that I see is that the advice they give is so generic that it doesn't really answer the question for a new shooter. To the experienced shooter, the answer really is "it depends." But even though the new shooter is asking a rather general question, they want (and need) a specific answer. Certainly something more specific than "a shotgun" or "a pistol".
 
    Hopefully you can ask questions and actually get a look at the person to get a better idea of the reason they want or need a firearm, as well as their physical abilities or limitations, whether they can or will seek training, and so on, to narrow down their choices. But if you aren't able to get into such a dialogue, I would suggest that the worst thing to do is to muddy the waters by giving them a list of factors to consider and telling that they need to come up with their own weighting of the factors.

    Fortunately, people are not going to be coming to you to ask "what firearm do I need" with nothing more. They will ask something like "I want a firearm for protection" (or, less often, "I want to do some hunting"). So you have that at least. Hopefully you know something about that person that might also assist you.

    I would also suggest that since the new shooter is unlikely to be able or willing to invest in a battery of firearms, they will be better served with a recommendation for what I would term a generalist firearm--a firearm that that can do a lot of things pretty well even if it is not necessarily ideal in any one category. Something reliable and not outrageously expensive. 

    For instance, I've had a discussion earlier this year about a best hunting rifle--which typically is really a question of calibers--with a person that would only be able to afford one hunting rifle and was looking at hunting a variety of game such as deer, elk, etc. I tried the "it depends" approach and discussed the various factors and types of game, and the plusses and minuses to various calibers, but this person didn't really want a broad answer. He didn't even want a list of the top 4 or 5 hunting cartridges. He wanted something specific. So, the answer I finally gave was .30-06 because it can be effectively used on most everything in North America, with .270 as a runner up. 

    Greg Ellifritz takes this approach in his article, "The Firearms Manifesto Part One: Your First Gun." This is in response to questions from first time gun buyers seeking a defensive firearm. He first explains why a first time gun owner would want a handgun over a shotgun:

    For a first gun, you want something versatile.  You may only be interested in home protection right now, but in the future you may want to actually carry the weapon out in public.  Unless you are walking through the hunting fields, the shotgun doesn’t make a good public carry weapon.  Even if you never plan on carrying a weapon out in public, you may have to carry it around your house.  Trust me when I say that it is difficult and tiring to search for criminals inside a building while carrying a shotgun.  The long barrel makes it difficult to open and close doors and gives your position away when it extends around a corner before you do.
 
* * *

    If you are moving around or carrying the weapon in public, you’ll want a handgun.  I have nothing against the shotgun or battle rifle (and own several of each), but I think the handgun is your best choice for a first weapon.  It is also much easier to find quality handgun training than training with the shotgun or rifle.  Practice will be easier as well since many public shooting ranges ONLY allow handguns.

He addresses the choice between revolver and semi-auto based on the person's willingness to practice. Little or no practice, stick with a revolver; willing to get more training and more practice, then a semi-auto. Similarly, he quickly dismisses the caliber debates, noting that "[t]he middle ground calibers of 9mm and .38 special are ideal candidates for your first gun" because "[t]hey offer excellent stopping power, good concealabilty and minimal blast and recoil," and are less expensive than the larger (and, I would add, even some of the smaller) calibers.

    His recommendations as to specific models is also rather direct: "If you want a semi-automatic pistol, you can’t go wrong with a 9mm Glock (Model 19 or 26) or Smith and Wesson M&P."  You can get larger models, you can get smaller models, but these weapons (especially the Glock 19) fall into a middle ground where they are acceptable for home defense or daily carry. Similarly, for revolvers, he suggests "a mid sized Smith and Wesson (Models 10, 64, 19, 66) or Ruger (Security Six, GP-100, and SP-101) with a barrel length between 2 and 4 inches." He concludes with some specific recommendations as to lighter weight or lower recoil weapons.

    • Related: "Handgun, Shotgun, or Rifle: Which is Best for Home Defense?" by Sheriff Jim Wilson, Shooting Illustrated. Short synopsis: Embrace the power of "and". This is an example of the article which is too vague to be of much assistance.
    • Related: ".22 Magnum For Self-Defense" by David Freeman, Guns Magazine. A look at a couple high-capacity (for .22 rimfire, that is) .22 Magnum pistols for self-defense: the KelTec PMR30 (sporting a 30-round magazine) and the Rock Island XTM .22 Magnum (a 1911 style pistol using a 16-round magazine).
  • "A Critical Look At Police Pistol Cartridges" by Mike Boyle, Police and Security News. (When you go to the article, click on the title of the article to get a sidebar with the text in a larger font). You know that old saying concerning war that "amateurs study tactics, armchair generals study strategy, but professionals study logistics"? I feel like caliber debates are to the study of armed self-defense what "amateurs study tactics" is to the art of war. Nevertheless, like when driving past a car accident, I can't help but look. This article discusses the differences between 9x19 mm, .40 S&W, and .45 ACP for training and equipping law enforcement officers, some tests made by the author, and why 9 mm seems to have beaten out its competition. The author notes that the 10 mm, .357 Sig, and .45 GAP are completely out of the picture, and that at the 2020 Shot Show, most of the new handguns for law enforcement had no .40 S&W offerings. 
  • "Why The Rifle?"--Art of the Rifle. The author argues that while the Second Amendment enumerates our right to keep and bear arms, there is also an unspoken responsibility or obligation that comes with that right:
    Have you ever heard the phrase, “With rights come responsibilities”?  In our generation we have put a lot of focus on rights, but very little on responsibilities.  Do you think that it’s a coincidence that we’ve gotten this far off course while ignoring our responsibilities?
 
    So what might our responsibilities be concerning our right to keep and bear arms?  Read the 2nd Amendment again.  Got it yet?  No?  Maybe it’s because of late the 2nd amendment has been divided into a prefatory clause (the first part) and operative clause.  Groups like the NRA tend to dismiss the prefatory clause as just something to provide context.  We’ve been concerned with “What’s in it for us?”
 
    Read the 2nd Amendment again, but concentrate on the assumed vestigial “prefatory clause”.  It’s telling you in plain English that a well regulated militia is necessary to the security of a free state.  It’s not optional, or “if you’re into that kind of thing”.  No, it’s necessary- as in: can’t do without.
 
    If we’ve established that a well regulated militia is necessary, the next thing to determine is who is going to take on this task.  It’s always nice when a government “Certified Expert” takes over something that the rest of us would rather not do.  Then we can breath a collective sigh of relief and go back to our smartphones (Orwellian for “dumbing you down”).  But it’s not that easy.  The framers intended for all able bodied men to be ready to bear arms to protect the country.  Sure, you can always shirk your responsibility, but at least now you can feel guilty at the same time.  Or you could own a rifle, be skillful in its use, and be ready should your country need you.
 
    There is an urban legend that during WWII, Japanese Admiral and Commander in Chief Isoroku Yamamoto said, “ You cannot invade the mainland United States. There would be a rifle behind every blade of grass.”  Whether or not he actually said it, a country populated by people who are skilled in the use of the rifle would be a deterrent indeed.  At the present moment, the US population at large does not constitute much of a deterrent, unless the ability to walk while staring into a smartphone screen makes one formidable.
 
    I’m not saying that you should up and join the local bunch of camo wearing anti govt. fellas and plot to take down the man.  Absolutely not.  Anyone rushing to arms at this point is missing the point by a huge margin.  But we can be ready without being loony about it.
 
    Another way to put that is: Instead of trying to be a badass and increase machismo, ask the question, “Is my country a little safer because I am ready?”
  • "A Marine and His M1903: USMC Model 1903 Rifles" by Andrew Stolinski and Jonathon Krisko, American Rifleman. A look at the Springfield 1903 rifles generally, some of the characteristics unique to rifles issued by the Marine Corps, and a more specific look at the particular rifle that is the subject of the article and Kyle Elmer Mills, the Marine to whom the weapon had been issued during WWII.
  • "Stimulus/Appropriations Bill May Allow Import of Korean M1 Carbines"--The Firearm Blog. Apparently too-big-to-read bills can have some upsides. The specific section prevents federal agencies from prohibiting the importation of C&R firearms.
  • The Modern Hunting Rifle: "350 – Legend in the Making"--Guns America. Ostensibly a review of an AR style CMMG rifle offered in .350 Legend caliber, the article is actually about the .350 Legend cartridge and why it is one of the best deer hunting cartridges for the AR15 platform.
  • "How to Get the Best Accuracy with Shotgun Slugs" by Jeff Johnston, Shooting Illustrated. The author relates:
    First published in 1964, the all-knowing “NRA Firearms Fact Book” says: “Shotgun slugs should not be used at ranges greater than about 75 yards. Maximum-effective range is limited as much by the slug’s rapid decay of energy and velocity as by its poor accuracy.”

    It states that a typical 12-gauge, 1-ounce slug traveling at 1,560 fps loses 60 percent of its energy at 100 yards. Although its muzzle energy is 2,365 ft.-lbs., it drops to less than 1,000 ft.-lbs. at 100 yards. And, because slugs are made of soft lead so they will expand to fit the bore upon firing, they flatten out and become horribly inaccurate at ranges greater than 50 yards.

    Thankfully, throughout the past 60 years slug technology has improved. Using a specialized Savage Model 220 bolt-action, rifled-barrel shotgun, Winchester sabot slugs chosen for it and a 3-9X scope, I can shoot 2.5-inch groups at 100 yards. But, this deer-hunting rig has little in common with the tactical/home-defense shotguns upon which this column focuses.

    Fact is, shotgun slug accuracy varies so much due to combinations of individual guns, gun styles, chokes, barrels, slug design, load, optics and shooting skill, that any data collected would have little or no relevance to the accuracy you can expect from your setup. So, the best way to determine your maximum accuracy is to experiment enough with your shotgun and various loads to find the best for you, then practice with it. 

    As a general rule of thumb, a decent shooter using a quality smoothbore shotgun with cylinder choke, a single-front-bead sight and full-bore Brenneke- or Foster-style slugs can reasonably expect 10-inch groups at100 yards from a benchrest. Keep in mind, however, that it is a great shooter who can hold a gun’s benchrest group average to double or less from field positions. After all, you’ll not have the luxury of a benchrest in times of emergency, so your accuracy from field positions is the metric you should count. 

The author first suggestion to improve accuracy is to use better sights (e.g., a red-dot).  He eschews saboted rounds from a smoothbore, recommending instead "full-bore slugs such as Federal’s Truball, Lightfield’s Hybred, Winchester’s Deer Season load or others due to their consistency." He adds:

When testing a new slug gun, I’ll start at 25 yards, find its POI (if it wears adjustable sights or an optic, I’ll make adjustments) then walk the target back as needed now better knowing where to hold. Provided my setup is capable, I’ll eventually determine my POA/POI to hit steel targets from field positions at 25, 50 and 100 yards—if I had to—and that’s the point of this article. 

  • "Your Tactical Training Scenario…robbed with an airsoft gun"--Active Response Training. Ellifritz notes that "[c]riminals regularly use toy guns to commit crimes as they are far cheaper and easier to acquire than real weapons.  The smarter ones remove the orange tip or paint it black." Your ability to recognize a toy weapon can give you an edge when confronted by a criminal. But Ellifritz also warns that the criminal might be armed with another weapon (in the news story he references, the criminal also had a knife), and that the reverse may be true: a criminal trying to disguise a real weapon as a toy. 
  • "Editor’s Notebook: Extreme Concealment"--Rich Grassi, The Tactical Wire. Advice and holster recommendations for concealed carry when only wearing a shirt and slacks, or exercise clothing.
  • "Timesavers"--Guns Magazine. This article has tips on how to save time when hand-loading ammunition, but is aimed at the person that uses hand-loads for high volume shooting over precision shooting. From the article:
    The biggest time-waster in most rifle handloading is “uniforming” brass. It does make a difference if you’re a benchrest or long-range bull’s-eye competitor, but most of us aren’t. Consequently we don’t own super-accurate custom rifles with tight chambers. Instead we own factory rifles, or custom-barreled rifles with chambers cut to the standard dimensions listed by the Sporting Arms and Ammunition Manufacturers Institute. This is usually called SAAMI, an organization founded in the 1920’s to agree on approximate chamber and ammo dimensions, so ammo from any manufacturer would fit in a firearm from any manufacturer and not blow it up.

    This means SAAMI chamber dimensions have some leeway. As a result, spending hours prepping every one of your rifle’s cases is a lot like a Montana rancher putting on his scuffed boots and stained hat in the morning, then Windsor-knotting a pressed silk tie around his collar: It may delay heading outside to chase cows, and may look pretty nice (or weird, take your pick), but it won’t make any difference to the cows.

    I know this from years of experimenting with various rifles. It won’t make any difference in 99 percent of rifles if you sort cases for weight, “uniform” the primer pockets and flash holes. The only thing that makes any measureable difference in accuracy in most SAAMI-chambered rifles is uniform case-neck thickness. (It also doesn’t make any difference if you clean case or primer pockets after every firing. Or at least cleaning primer pockets doesn’t matter unless you fire a case so many times primers can’t be seated deeply enough. A friend reported that happened after he’d fired some .223 cases over 20 times without cleaning the pockets, but most of us don’t refire cases that much before retiring them.)

The author has more tips, so be sure to read the whole thing. 

    The biggest time suck IMHO is case cleaning and preparation. One way to reduce time--as mentioned in the article--is to process large batches of brass at a time to minimize the amount of time for set up and take down. Thus, for instance, I will bring in a container or two of brass, run all those through the resizing die and pop out the old primers, and dump the de-primed brass into another container. That brass will then be run through the ultrasonic cleaner, rinsed and dried before I start the next leg of the process.

    Unless you have carbide dies, which don't require lubing, you will need to lube the case before running it through the resizing die. Straight-wall cases can be quickly lubed using a standard lube pad, but for necked cartridges, I've moved to using a spray-on lubrication so I can quickly and easily lube the case body and neck in one step. My favorite spray lube is Hornady's One-Shot lube. The lube is a type of dry lube and cleans off easier in the ultra-sonic bath, and I haven't had the problem with the spray cans loosing pressure over time as I have had with other manufacturers' products.

     As for trimming, I use an inexpensive case length gauge with cutouts for multiple calibers (such as the Lyman E-Zee Case Gauge) to quickly determine which cases need to be trimmed and which do not. If you do not have one of these gauges, but have calipers, you can set the calipers to the correct length and lock it down tight: if the case fits between the jaws, you are good to go; otherwise the case needs to be trimmed. Straight wall handgun rounds rarely stretch, so you can probably skip this step for those, but necked cases--especially high pressure rifle loads like in .223/5.56--will commonly stretch the neck and should be checked. Also, 5.56 NATO has a slightly longer neck than .223 Remington. If you are using .223 Remington dies, you will need to trim any 5.56 NATO brass to .223 Remington case lengths or risk a bulge in the neck when seating the bullets.

    In any event, the cases of acceptable length go into one container and those needing trimming into another container. This is also a good opportunity to do a quick visual inspection of the cases.

    For actual trimming, I use the Lee Precision Cutter and Lock Stud in conjunction with a caliber appropriate Lee gauge and holder. These work well for standard SAAMI length cases. The Lock Stud gets chucked into a hand-drill, and I just go through the cases trimming them down to length until I'm through them all. If you have a case with a cracked neck, it will generally show up as you trim the die using a high-speed drill because the torqueing force will typically cause the crack to widen. While the case is still in the lock stud/holder, I will also quickly use the chamfer tool to remove any burring. After a case is trimmed, it gets dumped into the same container as the brass that didn't need trimming.

    At that point, I have brass that is ready to be primed and loaded.

  • "Destructive Devices"--The Intrepid Reporter. A look at the use of the the M18A1 Claymore Antipersonnel Landmine as well as some improvised substitutes.
  • Speaking of DIY: "The Rimfire Report: The Songbird 3D Printed Pistol with a Nylon Barrel"--The Firearm Blog.
  • A bump trigger: "New: The Rare Breed Triggers FRT-15 Forced Reset AR-15 Trigger"--The Truth About Guns. Works because the operation of the bolt with a mechanism in the trigger, forces the trigger to reset even if the user does not release the trigger. 
  • "Outerimpact: Red Dot Mounting Options Without The Hassle"--The Mag Life. Several companies (e.g., Burris) make plates for their mini-red dot sights to attach them to a handgun. These plates sport a dovetail that allows them to be attached via the dovetail for the rear sight. The product reviewed in this article is similar, but is universal: meaning, it can be used for many different models of red dots.
  • Another option: "Leupold Introduces the New DeltaPoint Micro Red Dot Sight"--The Truth About Guns. This red dot sight is designed to attach via the rear sight dovetail, but sits much lower by moving the battery compartment and other controls to sit behind the slide (go to the link to see the photos). Thus, not only is it compact, but it should co-witness with your standard front sight blade. It also means that it will likely work with many standard holsters. The anticipated price is $399. 
VIDEO: "An Honest & Unbiased Review of Olight Flashlights"--Texas Gun Vault (19 min.)
With different flash sales and ordering bundled deals, I've ended up with several Olight flashlights and firearm mounted lights (although my family made off with all my pocket flashlights!). I've like them overall. With the weapons lights and my latest purchase, a Freyr "tactical" flashlight, I've stuck with rechargeable lights that use the magnetic charging connector. I've been happy with the lights; I think they are a good value for the money if you get them on sale. On the other hand, in his December 4, 2020, Weekend Knowledge Dump, Greg Ellifritz linked to an article by Travis Pike pointing out some issues with the Olight weapon mounted lights. His primary gripe is that the high lumens advertised for the lights is when they are in a "turbo" mode that lasts less than a few minutes before the lights start stepping down in power. "I’d rather have one lumen count for close to the entirety of a light’s battery life," he writes, "than a rapidly descending one." 
    If you are what you consider a serious prepper and for communications you purchased a handheld “Ham” radio, I’m sorry to say you got taken. As I have explained in prior articles, and in the video here, those radios are great for local communications on a whole bunch of frequencies, but they are useless for long distance. Most handhelds, including the cheap and common Boefeng UV-5V, transmit UHF and VHF signals. Neither of them will bounce around the globe like traditional “Ham Radio” signals in the HF range.

    The problem with real Ham radios is that they are expensive if you want power and flexibility. ...

    That creates a seemingly insurmountable problem if you have kids spread out hundreds or even thousands of miles away. Assuming you can even get them to take the collapse seriously, the investment and learning curve are prohibitive. So I have been on the lookout for an answer, and though my answer isn’t perfect, it does work, and it is way better than nothing.

    Some time ago I covered some Chinese electronics kit radios that are still available under $20. They only send and receive Morse Code, but they will reach out to 200+ miles reliably, at all times of the day. You need a $25 antenna, a $25-$50 Morse Code key, and a battery with a connector to power them, but even then you are way under $100 per location. Those kits are still quite a find.

    This week I’d like to share with you an update. Since I wrote that article a guy named LiYou from China has taken several of those circuits and updated them with a Wifi chip. The radio, which is the same genuine Ham radio broadcasting on 7.023 megahertz, sends Morse Code from an Android phone and tablet ap. The Wifi broadcasts a network. You hook your phone to it, type your message, then the ap sends the translated Morse Code through the radio over the small private network.
  • "Biolite Stove Review"--Mind 4 Survival. This is a small pack stove designed to generate electricity as well as cook meals or boil water. An excerpt:

    •     I found the stove to be easy to use and that it heats up very quickly. If dry fuel is used, there will be little to no smoke. The battery pack has a small fan that forces air into the stove to get an efficient cook fire. Another advantage of the Biolite stove is its ability to support various sized pans and cooking needs.

        The grill that comes with the package is good size and channels the flame for maximum efficiency. Both the stove and grill are constructed of stainless steel for easy cleanup and corrosion resistance. 

        An additional benefit of the BioLite stove is that the stove also comes with a flexible light, which is handy while doing camp chores and cooking at night. 

        Commanding the stove is the battery pack that has three rows of indicator lights. One row is for charging the battery pack; the next is for fan speed, with the third being the fire’s strength. 

        Making the BioLite stove more useful is the ability to pre-charge the battery pack through a power outlet with the included cord to keep a full charge between outings.

  • "4 Corn Preservation Recipes to Make Shelf Stable Corn" by Tara Dodrill, The Survivalist Blog. A look at freezing, dehydrating, and canning corn.
  • "How To Treat Burns"--Survival Life. The author first explains:
Basic Burn Treatment
    For all burns, there are some basic steps you want to take to stop the burning, and then to prevent clothing and accessories from getting stuck in the burned area.

1. Stop the Burning
    Your first step is to stop the burning that is occurring. Put out the fire, and/or move the person away from steam or hot liquids. Get the person away from the heat source as fast as you can.

    If the person or their clothing is actively on fire, instruct the person to “stop, drop, and roll” to put out the flames.

2. Remove Items that are Hot
    Remove any items from the person’s body that are still hot. This includes clothing, jewelry, and belts.

    If the fabric is stuck to the skin, don’t tug or pull on it; cut around the fabric. Burns can swell, so remove anything that would apply pressure to the area as it grows.

The author then breaks out further first aid based on the type of burn: 1st degree, 2nd degree, and 3rd degree.
  • "9 Types of Axes for Survival"--SHTF Preparedness. A good look at axes used for harvesting wood, processing wood, fire-fighting, or for self-defense/combat.

VIDEO: "How To Find Car GPS Trackers & Hidden Wireless Video Cameras!"--electronicsNmore (13 min.)
    A 15-year-old boy has been arrested after a gang of 25 teenagers launched a brazen attack on a luxury SUV while the driver and his terrified 74-year-old mother sat inside fearing they would be killed. 

    Horrifying video shows a gang on bicycles smashing up Max Torgovnick's BMW on Manhattan's Fifth Avenue in broad daylight on Tuesday.

    Torgovnick, who hails from the Upper East Side, was behind the wheel when the mob started leaping on the vehicle and stomping on its windshield as his elderly mother wept beside him and screamed 'They are going to kill us'.

The article also mentions that:

    Recently, there have been various reports of teen bicycle gangs menacing and assaulting New Yorkers at random. Police are calling the practice 'bike outs'. 

    Bike outs are often organized on social media, and the large groups of teen troublemakers block off streets and fill parks, harassing pedestrians. Bike outs have typically been common in the summer, but with school closures still in effect, it appears the roving gangs are now out on the Big Apple streets more regularly. 

    She claims D.C. police supervisors are ordering investigators to downgrade crime classifications form more serious crimes to less serious ones to make the city’s crime stats look better.

    “The commanders and the captains get promoted, and they get awards, when the crime stats are low,” Djossou said.

    She says internal documents she handed over to DC Council, later obtained by WUSA9, suggest DC police commanders regularly instructed patrol officers to underreport crimes.

    Djossou, who calls herself a whistleblower, says that can come with serious consequences.

    “Some people are so comfortable walking in the district,” Djossou said. “They will walk down any block. You know headphones, jogging, because they feel like the crime isn’t as bad as it is.”

    Included in those internal MPD documents are two different police reports. One which said the victim had her throat slashed. A second, which reported a man had a knife held to his neck in a case of domestic violence.

    But instead of “assault with a dangerous weapon,” a felony charge that can get you ten years in prison, investigators classified both alleged crimes as a “simple assault.”

    “Simple assault” is a misdemeanor that only carries a maximum of 6-months in jail.

 

VIDEO: "5 Ways YOU'RE Being Conditioned to Accept the Mark of the Beast"--Nelson Walters (15 min.) The lesson to take from this is that when the Mark of the Beast system is introduced, many people--including erstwhile Christians--will accept the Mark as yet another hoop to jump through in order to buy or sell or conduct business.

    But STIKO chairman Mertens went further, telling Die Welt newspaper that he could imagine a world where businesses could demand proof of COVID-19 immunity before accepting customers.
 
    "These are private agreements made by the restaurant owner, the airline and the concert organizer," he said. "I could imagine something like that would be possible. I'm not a lawyer, and at the end of the day lawyers will have to decide."
          Several companies and technology groups have begun developing smartphone apps or systems for individuals to upload details of their Covid-19 tests and vaccinations, creating digital credentials that could be shown in order to enter concert venues, stadiums, movie theaters, offices, or even countries.
       
          The Common Trust Network, an initiative by Geneva-based nonprofit The Commons Project and the World Economic Forum, has partnered with several airlines including Cathay Pacific, JetBlue, Lufthansa, Swiss Airlines, United Airlines and Virgin Atlantic, as well as hundreds of health systems across the United States and the government of Aruba.
       
          The CommonPass app created by the group allows users to upload medical data such as a Covid-19 test result or, eventually, a proof of vaccination by a hospital or medical professional, generating a health certificate or pass in the form of a QR code that can be shown to authorities without revealing sensitive information. For travel, the app lists health pass requirements at the points of departure and arrival based on your itinerary.

      1.  Democrats are anti-science and anti-religious: "This year we learned Democrats aren’t the 'party of science,' and in fact don’t care about science at all—especially if it gets in the way of their policy agenda or the exercise of emergency powers."

      2.  Democratic politicians are hypocrites: "All over the country, elected officials—almost all of them Democrats—were spotted flouting their own pandemic rules and restrictions."

      3.   They don't care about small businesses: "Especially in blue states and cities, elected officials opted for pandemic restrictions that disproportionately harmed small businesses and working families, while giving generous carve-outs and exemptions to special interests."

      4.  Big tech wants you to shut up: "Another disturbing revelation in 2020 was that Big Tech doesn’t care about free speech or the free exchange of ideas, and will, given the right circumstances, censor what you can read and share on their platforms according to criteria they invent out of thin air."

      5.  Democrats are okay with violence as long as it is their own people behind it: "Because Democrats and corporate media agreed with the ideology and politics driving this violence, and approved of groups like Black Lives Matter (BLM) that were fomenting it, they excused it."

          A comparison of official county election results to the total number of voters who voted on November 3, 2020 as recorded by the Department of State shows that 6,962,607 total ballots were reported as being cast, while DoS/SURE system records indicate that only 6,760,230 total voters actually voted. Among the 6,962,607 total ballots cast, 6,931,060 total votes were counted in the presidential race, including all three candidates on the ballot and write-in candidates.

          The difference of 202,377 more votes cast than voters voting, together with the 31,547 over- and under-votes in the presidential race, adds up to an alarming discrepancy of 170,830 votes, which is more than twice the reported statewide difference between the two major candidates for President of the United States.

      And, as the author notes, this discrepancy--a clear sign of massive fraud--is only now being discovered? 

          Wild squirrels have been attacking residents living in the New York City borough of Queens since late November, leaving many afraid of venturing outside.  

          The wild attacks have occurred mostly in Rego Park, with the bulk of them happening on 65th Drive near Fitchett Street.

          One woman has even had to go to the emergency room, with others expressing their worry about even going outside.  
          Since she had at least eight bites and her pinky finger was “pretty chewed up,” physicians at a nearby urgent care center sent Frederick to the emergency room for rabies shots.

          Afterward, she warned her neighbor, Licia Wang, about the looming threat.

          Her message, however, was not sufficient: Despite being on the lookout, Wang too was brutalized by the animal.

          “I tried to shake it off but I can’t, you know — because squirrels have claws, cling onto your winter jacket. There’s no way you can shake it off,” Wang told ABC 7 of her own recent run-in with the fluffy madman, which may be the same one that attacked Frederick.

          Three other people — at least — have reported recent encounters with the blood-thirsty vermin near 65th Drive near Fitchett Street. It’s unclear if all the incidents were committed by the same single terror, or if a pack of squirrels is at work, but either way, residents now live in fear of being attacked.

      What is being promoted, you must understand, is the growing organization of youth everywhere against their mode of government; against their parental customs, against very often the religions in which they have been brought up. There is the insidious cult of permissiveness, there is the increasing cult of violence. Violence not as a means of gaining money, but violence for the love of violence. That particularly is stressed, and the reasons for it are to the people concerned one of the most important things and of the utmost significance.
      • In a similar vein is "The Origins Of Sexual Totalitarianism" by Carlo Lancellotti, First Things. In it, the author argues that the sexual revolution was not a mere loosening of morals, but an actual revolution of morality and philosophy, and that is why we are now presented with a "sexual totalitarianism" from the Left that abides no dissent from sex or gender politics. The author begins by stating:
      Recently, some social and political movements associated with sexual identity seem to have taken a “totalitarian” turn. Rather than calling for tolerance in matters of sexuality, these movements present themselves as defenders of absolute human rights, which cannot be called into question by competing interests—like those, for example, of religious schools. They maintain that disagreements with their vision can only be the result of “bigotry” or “phobias,” and must be banned from the public sphere or even legally sanctioned because they promote “hate” and (potentially) violence. Naturally, this has created all sorts of conflicts and contributed to the excesses of “cancel culture.”

      He goes on to explain (bold added):

          ... Looser sexual morality may have been [the sexual revolution's] practical result, and was probably how common people experienced it, but it was absolutely not how the sexual revolution was conceived by the many writers, filmmakers, therapists, journalists, and intellectuals who advocated for it. To them it was not a moral slackening but a moral quickening. It meant freeing people from irrational and oppressive taboos, harmonizing morality and nature, reconciling life and science. The revolution was “in its own way” intransigently moral—it just inhabited a different ethical universe. This is why, Del Noce wrote, “any ‘dialogue’ with the advocates of sexual liberalization is perfectly useless, simply because they start by denying a priori the metaphysics that is the source of what they regard as ‘repressive’ morality.” It was a waste of time to try to convince them of moral claims that made sense only within a philosophical framework they rejected, and did little to alert the rest of society to what was really at stake.

      * * *
       
          Circling back to our initial theme: Del Noce observed that Reich’s idea of “sexual revolution” contains in nuce exactly the totalitarian tendencies that have become more visible in recent years. Indeed, if “science” guarantees that mankind can achieve “happiness” by eliminating all forms of “repression,” how can “religion” (and “Fascism,” of course) be allowed to stand in the way? The following sentence from The Sexual Revolution sums it up nicely: “Religion should not be fought, but any interference with the right to carry the findings of natural science to the masses and with the attempts to secure their sexual happiness should not be tolerated.” Del Noce rephrases it as follows: “the Church is tolerated only to the extent that she does not take any stance on the moral assertions that supposedly derive from science, understood as the only valid form of knowledge.”

          Far from being morally lax, the sexual revolution advances totalizing moral claims. However, these claims are not based on a transcendent moral order, but on scientism and on its ethical translation, which Del Noce called the “ethics of the direction of history” (in Reich’s case, the “direction towards universal sexual happiness.”) The precise “science” that establishes the “direction of history” may change—psychoanalysis, for example, today is out of fashion. But according to Del Noce, the end result remains the same: Those who do not serve the direction of history must be “marginalized and reduced to second-class citizens. They will be imprisoned, ultimately, in ‘moral’ concentration camps. But nobody can seriously think that moral punishments will be less severe than physical punishments.”
      • No man can serve two masters: "A Spy All Along: Morton Sobell went on trial for espionage with the Rosenbergs. His devotion to communism fascinated me" by David Evanier, The Critic Magazine. The Rosenbergs, as you may remember from your history classes, were a married couple that stole nuclear secrets and gave them to the Soviets, allowing the USSR to quickly catch up to the U.S. in the development of atomic weapons. They were executed for their treason. For decades, Leftists argued that the Rosenbergs had been wrongfully convicted, but when the Soviet Union fell and some of KGB archives were released, Soviet records confirmed that the Rosenbergs and their associates were, in fact, the spies that delivered critical nuclear weapon technology to the Soviets. 
          Sobell was a third member of the spy group stealing America's nuclear secrets, but escaped a death sentence, instead being sentenced to 30 years in prison, although only serving 19. It was only in 2008 that he finally admitted his guilt after denying it for the previous decades. 

          The elephant in the room about the Rosenbergs' spy ring is that they were all first or second generation Jewish immigrants. Evanier does not ignore this, but instead relates how Jews viewed the execution through a tribal lens, seeing the execution of the Rosenbergs as an attack on Jews rather than justice served on traitors to their country:

      I was a boy when the Rosenbergs, young parents of two small children, were executed on 19 June 1953 and I remember that the sky seemed to darken. It especially darkened for the Jews, who remembered the gas chambers, stilled just eight years before. And once again there was the odour of burning flesh. 

          Pollard was welcomed at Israel's international airport by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who presented him and his wife Esther with Israeli ID cards granting them citizenship.

          'Welcome back. How good you've come home,' Netanyahu said, according to a statement issued by his office.

       A reminder that countries do not have friends, they have only interests; and, again, no man can serve two masters.


      VIDEO: "A tiny Indian archipelago makes China nervous"--Caspian Report (14 min.)

          China dominates Asia’s water map, owing to its annexation of ethnic-minority homelands, such as the water-rich Tibetan Plateau and Xinjiang. China’s territorial aggrandizement in the South China Sea and the Himalayas, where it has targeted even tiny Bhutan, has been accompanied by stealthier efforts to appropriate water resources in transnational river basins — a strategy that hasn’t spared even friendly or pliant neighbors, such as Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, Nepal, Kazakhstan, and North Korea. Indeed, China has not hesitated to use its hydro-hegemony against its 18 downstream neighbors.

          The consequences have been serious. For example, China’s 11 mega-dams on the Mekong River, Southeast Asia’s arterial waterway, have led to recurrent drought downriver, and turned the Mekong Basin into a security and environmental hot spot. Meanwhile, in largely arid Central Asia, China has diverted waters from the Illy and Irtysh rivers, which originate in China-annexed Xinjiang. Its diversion of water from the Illy threatens to turn Kazakhstan’s Lake Balkhash into another Aral Sea, which has all but dried up in less than four decades.

          Against this background, China’s plan to dam the Brahmaputra near its disputed — and heavily militarized — border with India should be no surprise. The Chinese communist publication Huanqiu Shibao, citing an article that appeared in Australia, recently urged India’s government to assess how China could “weaponize” its control over transboundary waters and potentially “choke” the Indian economy. With the Brahmaputra megaproject, China has provided an answer.

          The planned 60-gigawatts project, which will be integrated into China’s next Five-Year Plan starting in January, will reportedly dwarf China’s Three Gorges Dam — currently the world’s largest — on the Yangtze River, generating almost three times as much electricity. China will achieve this by harnessing the power of a 2,800-meter (3,062-yard) drop just before the river crosses into India.

          What the chairman of China’s state-run Power Construction Corp, Yan Zhiyong, calls an “historic opportunity” for his country will be devastating for India. Just before crossing into India, the Brahmaputra curves sharply around the Himalayas, forming the world’s longest and steepest canyon — twice as deep as America’s Grand Canyon — and holding Asia’s largest untapped water resources.

          As the logical corollary of an India-Pakistan war, which is staring us in the face ever since India’s PM Narendra Modi revoked  Article 370, stripping Jammu and Kashmir of its special status on August 5, 2019, New Delhi may unilaterally revoke the 60-year old “uninterrupted and uninterruptible” India-Pakistan Indus Water treaty, in which the World Bank is a third party.

          Such a consequence has well been discussed in the Indian media for quite some time now. The hawks in India had been advocating to firstly starve Pakistan of water by ‘stopping it’ and then flooding the country by ‘releasing’ it.

          But this plan seems to have run into rough weather, as China which has been equally irked by India’s move, and which in the past one year has taken the Kashmir issue to the United Nations along with Pakistan thrice, is now hand-in-hand with Islamabad.

          Their joint war against India has been brewing for around six months, after a skirmish occurred in which India lost 20 of its soldiers fighting against China on the Ladakh border on June 15.

          It is learned that if India goes ahead with its plan, then China would rescue Pakistan. While India tries to choke Pakistan by blocking the waters, China will flood India by releasing the waters from Brahmaputra Dam in Tibet.

      • Trump has been trying to pull us out of Afghanistan, but Biden will reverse this trend, albeit, by relying on forces provided by Blackwater according to this article: "AMERICAS‘Dangerous Time’ Stares At Pakistan As 'Blackwater' Could ‘Replace’ US Troops In Afghanistan"--Eurasian Times.
      • "A New Generation Of Unrestricted Warfare" by David Barno And Nora Bensahel, War On The Rocks. This 2016 article discusses a 1999 book by two Chinese generals outlining future methods of warfare. Looking back over the past year, you can see that the Chinese have successfully waged this type of warfare against the United States. In fact, with an "America-First" President voted out in an election that was visibly corrupted, and a President-elect whose family has close financial ties to Chinese companies, you might conclude that China won. From the article:
      Colonels Qiao Liang and Wang Xiangsui argued that war was no longer about “using armed forces to compel the enemy to submit to one’s will” in the classic Clausewitzian sense. Rather, they asserted that war had evolved to “using all means, including armed force or non-armed force, military and non-military, and lethal and non-lethal means to compel the enemy to accept one’s interests.” The barrier between soldiers and civilians would fundamentally be erased, because the battle would be everywhere. The number of new battlefields would be “virtually infinite,” and could include environmental warfare, financial warfare, trade warfare, cultural warfare, and legal warfare, to name just a few. They wrote of assassinating financial speculators to safeguard a nation’s financial security, setting up slush funds to influence opponents’ legislatures and governments, and buying controlling shares of stocks to convert an adversary’s major television and newspapers outlets into tools of media warfare. According to the editor’s note, Qiao argued in a subsequent interview that “the first rule of unrestricted warfare is that there are no rules, with nothing forbidden.” That vision clearly transcends any traditional notions of war.

      VIDEO: "The Last Time the Globe Warmed"--PBS Eons (11 min.)
      The Earth has experienced much higher CO2 levels in the past, as well as higher temperatures, and actually did much better than it is doing in this current glacial interstitial. In other words, the climate catastrophists are lying to you.
      • "Climate change: Extreme weather causes huge losses in 2020"--BBC News. Take note that these are not due to "climate change," at least in the manner that the author of the article means it--i.e., anthropomorphic induced climate change--but is the result of the weakening magnetic field which is allowing more solar and cosmic ray impacts inducing more cloud formation as well as increased electrical current flows in the atmosphere and oceans:

          While the world has been struggling to get to grips with the coronavirus pandemic, millions of people have also had to cope with the impacts of extreme weather events.

          Christian Aid's list of ten storms, floods and fires all cost at least $1.5bn - with nine of the 10 costing at least $5bn.

          An unusually rainy monsoon season was associated with some of the most damaging storms in Asia, where some of the biggest losses were. Over a period of months, heavy flooding in India saw more than 2,000 deaths with millions of people displaced from their homes.

          The value of the insured losses is estimated at $10bn.

          China suffered even greater financial damage from flooding, running to around $32bn between June and October this year. The loss of life from these events was much smaller than in India.

          While these were slow-moving disasters, some events did enormous damage in a short period of time.

          Cyclone Amphan struck the Bay of Bengal in May and caused losses estimated at $13bn in just a few days.

          "We saw record temperatures in the Arabian Sea and Bay of Bengal, straddling between 30C-33C," said Dr Roxy Mathew Koll, a climate scientist at the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology in Pune.

          "These high temperatures had the characteristics of marine heat waves that might have led to the rapid intensification of the pre-monsoon cyclones Amphan and Nisarga," he said in a comment on the Christian Aid study.

          "Amphan was one of the strongest cyclones ever recorded in the Bay of Bengal during the pre-monsoon season."

          Africa was also on the receiving end of extreme events, with massive locust swarms ruining crops and vegetation to the tune of $8.5bn.

          In the early 1990s, interviews with former Soviet pilots and access to Soviet archives revealed that “Soviet pilots covertly participated in air-to-air combat with American pilots during the Korean War for two years.” Subsequently and arguably more surprisingly, declassified U.S. intelligence documents revealed that U.S. officials not only knew of this intervention but actively sought to keep the Soviet intervention secret. In Secret Wars, Austin Carson seeks to answer two related questions deriving from this type of curious interaction between rivals: Why do states choose to limit such interventions to covert means, even after their opponents have discovered their inventions? Similarly, why do adversaries occasionally decide to maintain their rival’s secret, rather than revealing the intervention to the international community?

          To answer these questions, Carson lays the foundation for a novel theory to understand why national leaders choose to intervene covertly in certain situations and—more interestingly—how adversaries sometimes collude with one another to keep these interventions secret. Carson maintains an appropriately scoped and nuanced approach, developing an intriguing explanation for an unexplained phenomenon in international relations. Carson readily admits that his theory does not pertain to all limited conflicts or all covert interventions, but he does illuminate the potential utility of secrecy in mitigating escalation risks.

          Bellingcat can now disclose that it and its investigative partners are in possession of a recorded conversation in which a member of the suspected FSB poison squad describes how his unit carried out, and attempted to clean up evidence of, the poisoning of Alexey Navalny. The inadvertent confession was made during a phone call with a person who the officer believed was a high-ranking security official. In fact, the FSB officer did not recognize the voice of the person to whom he was reporting details of the failed mission: Alexey Navalny himself. 

          This 49-minute call between Navalny and Konstantin Kudryavtsev, one of the FSB officers who traveled to Omsk in the aftermath of the Navalny poisoning, provides a detailed first-person account that describes how the FSB organized the attempted assassination in Tomsk as well as the subsequent clean-up operation. The unintended confession adds significant new details to our understanding of the operation, including the exact manner in which, according to the FSB officer, the Novichok was administered. It also sheds light on Russia’s secret service’s efforts to destroy the evidence in the wake of what Kudryavtsev divulges was its failure to kill the opposition activist. Shockingly, the member of the suspected poison squad blames the fast response time of the pilot and emergency medical services for the failure of FSB’s assassination plot. 

      Source: "Renewed Calls For North American Union Based On Technocracy"--Technocracy News & Trends.

      Functional Geography

          He stated that to understand the internet communications you needed a map. There is Functional Geography (FG) mapping which is more relevant than the political maps that dominate our walls. FG shows how business comes together. Singapore is the capital of business in SE Asia because of its power of connectivity. Even though Singapore is an island of five million people, it is critical to the entire Southeast Asia connectivity. There are three hostile governments in that section of the world and yet they are all working together to master plan the economic future and crossing state lines. Tokyo is the biggest city in the world but the Pearl River Delta (PRD)is now the largest area of the world and has overtaken Tokyo. The PRD has 60 million people and a GDP of $2 trillion. How did this happen? PRD is one of the most densely connected places in the world. SEZ was an opening in China to allow certain parts of China to do business globally and to invest in U.S. real estate and finance. To build high infrastructure will be the way that we grow a country. It’s all about growing infrastructure and connectivity growth; not military growth.

          Asia has five billion people with 60 million in the Pearl River Delta region. Within a two hour flight, you can reach five billion people and there is one common factor. It has megacity archipelagos that define humanity. The growth is organic and irreversible because people want to move to the city. By 2030, there will be 50 megacities in the world. When you map economic connectivity, one city can affect millions of people. These cities are all capitals and not just business hubs. If you change the degree of connectivity then a city will be great because you can’t change your geography like Dubai. 

          Since the demise of the USSR, the “American Empire” no longer had an existential enemy and therefore no reason to exist. The attempt by George H. Bush (the father) and Bill Clinton to give the country a new life with the globalization of trade has destroyed the middle classes in the USA and in almost all of the West. The attempt of George W. Bush (son) and Barack Obama to organize the world around a new form of capitalism – financial this time – has been bogged down in the sands of Syria.

          It is too late to turn the tide. Donald Trump’s attempt to abandon the American Empire and refocus the country’s efforts on its domestic prosperity has been sabotaged by the elites acquired to the puritanical ideology of the “Pilgrim Fathers”. As a result, the moment so feared by Richard Nixon and his election adviser Kevin Philipps has arrived: the United States is on the brink of secession and civil war.

        • Related: "The Year in Monuments" by Tom Nash, Style Weekly (h/t KA9OFF). A timeline of the vandalization and removal of Confederate monuments in Virginia during 2020.

      My personal view is that the main initiation of collapse was under Barack Obama, a truly exceptionally weak President who would have made an absolutely terrific used cars salesman, but who as a President lost control of his own country and even his own administration. It was under Obama that we saw the vacuum at the top resulting in various agencies (DoS, DoD, CIA, Pentagon, etc.) all developing their own “foreign policies” which resulted in total chaos on the foreign policy front. Needless to say, having harpies such as Hillary Clinton or Susan Rice or Samantha Power involved did not help!
          A Washington school district removed Asian students from their “students of color” category after data showed they were doing too well academically. Instead, they were lumped in with white students. It dramatically skewed the overall academic outlook for students of color.

          The resulting data was used to imply students of color — minus Asians — were doing worse than white students. Those stats coincidentally supported the district’s progressive worldview, blaming a racist society for inequity.

      • Another article on secession, this one suggesting that if there are Blacks that believe that the U.S. suffers from pervasive systemic racism, maybe they should leave: "Blacks and Whites: We Need a Divorce" by Joseph Kay, American Renaissance. An excerpt:
          When blacks talk of overthrowing institutional, structural, or systemic racism, they are not referring to traditional civil rights objectives such as anti-discrimination laws. They are talking about American culture in general. A recent statement from the National Museum of African American History criticized the undesirable traits of “whiteness” that oppress blacks: This compilation included objective, rational, linear thinking (the scientific method, more generally), rugged individualism, self-reliance, the intact nuclear family, a strong work ethic and delayed gratification, respect for authority, following time schedules, Christianity, planning for the future, English common law justice, property rights and being polite. (In response to criticism, the museum took down this list but did not disavow it.)

          Thus understood, systemic racism cannot be ended by legislative fixes, let alone billion-dollar schemes to eliminate wealth gaps. It apparently can be ended only by whites abandoning every element of their own way of life. If those who drafted this list are to be believed, African Americans want to be more African and less American.

      After discussing the failures of attempts to assimilate incompatible cultures, and that some cultures may actually want to have a culture distinct from the dominant "white culture," the author continues:

      What is to be done if many blacks reject white cultural domination, which they see as institutional racism? To put it in PC terms, we can abandon what they may consider cultural colonialism: stress on paper and pencil tests, punctuality, self-reliance, marriage before child-bearing, and all the rest outlined by the National Museum of African American History’s expert. Let blacks do what suits them. It would be like ending an unhappy marriage through divorce instead of one party trying to impose its will on the other.

      The author then suggests geographical separation.  Black people that want to adopt "white culture" would live among other Americans, while blacks that wanted "black culture" could live in their own areas under a form of self-rule.

      • For my red-pilled readers, an interesting summary of research on racial intermarriage in the United States: "What Miscegenation Means for America" by Edward Dutton, American Renaissance. This part deals explicitly with sexual market value (SMV) and hypergamy:

      With regard to the racial marriage patterns noted, Genetic Similarity Theory would predict that whites and Hispanics would be attracted to each other, due to their relative genetic similarity. Also, there is some evidence that U.S. inter-racial marriages involve a trade-off of desirable traits, especially in black male/white female unions. In these unions, the black male tends to be of relatively high educational status compared to the woman, meaning that the female marries hypergamously in terms of education. It is proposed that this compensates for the fact that the female is marrying hypogamously (that is, socially downwards) in terms of racial status. In other words, she has engaged in status exchange.

      • I've argued in the past that car-seat requirements are a form of state imposed birth-control by making it too expensive and troublesome to have more than two children, so it was with interest to see some research supporting that position. From "The Case for One More Child" by Ross Douthat, Plough.

          Start with the car seats. They hulk in the back seats of any normal sedan, squeezing the middle seat from both directions, built like a captain’s chair on Star Trek if James T. Kirk was really worried about taking neck damage from a Romulan barrage. The scenes of large-family life from early in the automobile era, with three or four kids jammed happily into the back seat of a jalopy, are now both unimaginable and illegal. Just about every edition of Cheaper by the Dozen, published in 1948, uses an image of the Gilbreth kids packed into the family automobile, overflowing like flowers from a vase. Today, the car seats required to hold them would take up more space than the car itself.

          In his 2013 book, What to Expect When No One's Expecting, Jonathan V. Last described “car seat economics” – the expense and burden of car seats for ever-older kids, the penalties imposed on parents who flout the requirements – as an example of the countless “tiny evolutions” that make large families rarer. Obviously car seats aren’t as big a deal as the cost of college or childcare, or the cultural expectations around high-intensive parenting. But it’s still a miniature case study, Last suggested, in how our society’s rules and regulations conspire against an extra kid.

          Seven years later, two economists set out to prove him right. In a paper entitled “Car Seats as Contraception,” they argued that car-seat requirements delay and deter the arrival of third children, especially, because normal backseats won’t hold three car seats, so you basically can’t have a third young kid in America unless you upgrade to a minivan. The requirements save lives – fifty-seven child fatalities were prevented in 2017, the authors estimate. But they prevent far more children from coming into existence in the first place: there were eight thousand fewer births because of car-seat requirements in 2017, according to their calculations, and 145,000 fewer births since 1980.


      VIDEO: "China's Population Crisis Worsen: From One to Two and More Child Policy | Aging | Low Birth Rate"--China Observer (10 min.)

          A 300-year drought may have caused the demise of several Mediterranean cultures, including ancient Greece, new research suggests.

          A sharp drop in rainfall may have led to the collapse of several eastern Mediterranean civilizations, including ancient Greece, around 3,200 years ago. The resulting famine and conflict may help explain why the entire Hittite culture, chariot-riding people who ruled most of the region of Anatolia, vanished from the planet, according to a study published today (Aug. 14) in the journal PLOS ONE.

      * * *

          The ancient Hittite empire of Anatolia began a precipitous decline around 3,300 B.C. [sic: 1280 B.C.] Around the same time, the Egyptian empire was invaded by marauding sea bandits, called the Sea People, and the ancient Mycenaean culture of Greece collapsed. Over the next 400 years, ancient cities were burned to the ground and were never rebuilt, Drake said.

          But the cause of this Bronze Age collapse has been shrouded in mystery. Some archaeologists believed economic hardships caused the demise, while others proposed that massive tsunamis, earthquakes or a mega-drought was the cause.

          Past studies looking for drought typically only found evidence showing it occurred for short periods of time, making it hard to make conclusions about the whole period, Drake said.

      Mega-drought

          Toward that end, David Kaniewski, an archaeologist at the University of Paul Sabatier-Toulouse in France, and his colleagues collected ancient sediment cores from Larnaca Salt Lake, near Hala Sultan Tekke in Cyprus.  The lake was once a harbor, but became landlocked thousands of years ago.

          A decline in marine plankton and pollen from marine sea grass revealed that the lake was once a harbor that opened to the sea until around 1450 B.C., when the harbor transformed over 100 years into a landlocked lagoon. Pollen also revealed that by 1200 B.C., agriculture in the area dwindled and didn't rebound until about 850 B.C.

          "This climate shift caused crop failures, dearth and famine, which precipitated or hastened socioeconomic crises and forced regional human migrations," the authors write in the paper.

      You can download the full paper in PDF here. 

      If you look through the two articles above, the focus is on physical enhancements followed by cognitive enhancements. The Chinese have (actually for a long time, and little hints like the article above or the uproar over the cloned children they bred to experiment with HIV immunity indicate their research directions) focused on biological enhancement and a training program that starts in the cradle. The French are discussing a whole pallete of “enhancements to physical, cognitive, perceptive, and psychological capacities.”
      By at

      2 comments:

      1. John WilderJanuary 3, 2021 at 7:15 PM

        Okay, the Dr. Seusscraft book was amazing. Really well done.

        ReplyDelete
        Replies
        1. DocentJanuary 4, 2021 at 10:28 AM

          I would have read it to my kids had it been available.

          Delete

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      The Image of the Beast and the God in the Machine

       "The second beast was given power to give breath to the image of the first beast, so that the image could speak and cause all who refu...