Exploring practical methods for preparing for the end times, including analysis of end time scripture and prophecy, current events, prepping and self-defense.
The Federal Reserve's system that allows wire money transfers crashed with intermittent disruptions for about two hours on Wednesday.
The outage impacted customers, which include banks, brokers and mortgage lenders, and their ability to transfer funds in large and small sums.
"A Federal Reserve operational error resulted in disruption of service in several business lines. We are restoring services and are communicating with all Federal Reserve Financial Services customers about the status of operations," Richmond Federal Reserve spokesperson Jim Strader said in a statement to FOX Business.
Systems were fully restored at 2:57 p.m. ET, according to a notification from the Fed.
"Processing of FedACH files has resumed and customers should receive acknowledgements for incoming files," the Federal Reserve Bank Services website reads. "Please note that the backlog of files may take time to clear and do not resend files."
More: "BREAKING: Entire Federal Reserve payment system CRASHES with banks unable to send or receive wires"--Daily Mail. This article indicates that the outage began at 11:15 a.m., meaning it was down for closer to three hours. The article also reports: "Other affected systems included FedACH, which generally handles smaller transactions such as paychecks, and The National Settlement Service (NSS), used by depository institutions with Federal Reserve Bank master accounts."
... The reasons for the collapse of the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) grid are still being debated, and it’s certain that there is more than one cause and more information will come out.
But one of the most contested issues is the role wind generation has played. Prior to the onset of the storm last week, Texas led the nation in wind power generation and depended on the wind turbines in West-Central and Western Texas, along with a smaller number of turbines along the Gulf Coast, for about 25% of its electricity. As wind power has increased, coal-powered generation plants have been taken offline around the state. Texas has abundant coal, oil, and natural gas, and also has nuclear plants near Dallas and near Houston.
Real-time data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration shows that wind power collapsed as the winter storm swept across the state.
The Green New Deal has come, believe it or not, to the state of Texas. How's it working out so far?
Well, the good news is all that alternative energy seems to have had a remarkable effect on the climate. Sunday night, parts of Texas got the temperatures that we typically see in Alaska. In fact, they were the same as they were in Alaska. So global warming is no longer a pressing concern in Houston.
The bad news is, they don't have electricity. The windmills froze, so the power grid failed. Millions of Texans woke up Monday morning having to boil their water because with no electricity, it couldn't be purified.
The ironically named Electric Reliability Council of Texas, which oversees the grid, had no solution to any of this. They simply told people to stop using so much power to keep warm. So in Houston, hundreds of shivering Texans headed to the convention center like refugees to keep from freezing to death. Some Texans almost certainly did freeze to death. Later this week, we'll likely learn just how many more were killed as they tried to keep warm with jury-rigged heaters and barbecues and car exhaust.
So, what happened? Equipment failure turned out to be a big part of the problem.
"Beginning around 11:00 p.m. [Sunday night], multiple generating units began tripping off-line in rapid progression due to the severe cold weather," said Dan Woodfin, senior director of system operations at ERCOT, the organization that manages the state’s electric grid.
What does that mean? Equipment literally froze in the single digit temperatures and stopped working.
Then, as reserves diminished, ERCOT asked transmission providers to turn off large industrial users that had previously agreed to be shut down. But the situation deteriorated quickly, requiring rotating outages that have lasted hours for many Texans.
Electric generating plants did not properly winterize their equipment, said Dr. David Tuttle in the latest episode of the Y’all-itics political podcast. Tuttle is a research associate with the Energy Institute at the University of Texas at Austin.
"There are things that can be done, but it will cost some money," he added. "About every decade we have these long-sustained periods. And then, you know weatherization is supposed to happen, and then, it doesn't because it costs money."
Texas, like so many other areas, has put up windmills and solar "farms" for the last 20 years, shutting down older coal-fired plants and not modernizing and improving their "fossil fuel" energy production infrastructure. At the same time on a national basis the natural gas pipeline operators, in service to the woke green mob, have replaced fuel-fired pumps (that run on the gas in the pipe, therefore are failsafe so long as the pipe has something in it and is intact) with electrically powered booster pumps because, of course, you can get the power for them from "green" sources instead of all that eeee-vile carbon.
I remind you that natural gas does not freeze at other than cryogenic temperatures and as such the problem is not the gas freezing and as for machinery you have plenty of heat source in the pipe. By putting up with and responding to the "woke mob" instead of immediately frying and eating their entire blood line these companies took an ultra-reliable and essential energy delivery system that other than by physical destruction would nearly-always continue to operate and turned it into a fragile system dependent on multiple outside elements where if any of those elements failed so does the natural gas delivery.
Weather data from the last few decades contains some trends in the mid-latitudes, implying that the warming Arctic could be messing with weather patterns there. However, this is a case where the mantra “correlation is not causation” serves well. Climate scientists don’t just hunt for trends and then blame them all on human-caused climate change. They study the mechanisms that could drive those trends to evaluate which hypothesis (sometimes among many) can actually explain them.
Some modeling has found plausible linkages between certain patterns in our weather and things like Arctic warming, sea ice loss, and even snow-cover decline. But more commonly—as detailed by Carbon Brief after another US winter chill in 2019—models fail to demonstrate a linkage. It’s certainly possible that the models aren’t getting it right, but this should at least give us pause regarding any connections.
A 2017 study, for one example, concluded that trends in the stratospheric polar vortex were likely to be the result of natural variability rather than human-caused sea ice loss. And an article published in the journal Nature Climate Change last November noted that observations and studies in the last few years haven’t strengthened the case. “The short-term tendencies from the late 1980s through to early 2010s that fueled the initial speculation of Arctic influence have not continued over the past decade,” the authors wrote. “Long-term trends in the Arctic Oscillation and [jet stream] waviness, updated to winter 2019/20, are small and indistinguishable from internal variability.”
IPCC reports, too, have evaluated the state of the science on this question. The 2019 Special Report on the Ocean and Cryosphere in a Changing Climate checked in quite recently. “There is only low to medium confidence in the current nature of Arctic/mid-latitude weather linkages because conclusions of recent analyses are inconsistent,” the report stated. “Overall, changes in the stratospheric polar vortex and [Arctic Oscillation] are not separable from natural variability, and so cannot be attributed to greenhouse gas forced sea ice loss.”
"Concealed Carry Corner: Tips For Winter Carry"--The Firearm Blog. There are two basic problems that face the CCL holder in winter: accessing the firearm which may be beneath layers of clothing; and, since handguns lack winter triggers, what to do about gloves. Addressing this second problem, the author suggests:
Picking the right set of gloves will determine 90% of your success or misery. One of the hardest things to do is firing and manipulating a firearm with big bulky gloves on. I tend to go with gloves that have less insulation and keep dexterity so you can still manipulate the firearm very easily. A few of my favorite gloves are the Viktos LEO Duty gloves, Insulated Duty Gloves, Outdoor Research Aerator Gloves, and The Oakley SI Lightweight gloves. These won’t be the heaviest gloves in the world, but typically I will wear these as an everyday glove.
The author also suggests using a firearm with a flat trigger to give you a bit more room. In any event, he has links to the gloves in the article in case you want to check them out. I decided on some thin multi-sport gloves from Head that are touch screen compatible so I can still use a smart phone. Why Head? Because that is what Costco sells and it had the features I wanted: thin and can be used with touch screens.
As for the first issue--accessing the firearm--the author's recommendation seems counterintuitive, which is to use a full size duty pistol. The reason, he explains, is that the weight and size make it easier to draw when dealing with heavy covering garments. I've tried this, but since I wear coats that extend past my hips, it doesn't really work very well to try and pull that much coat high enough to get to the firearm. You need to experiment.
On the other hand, I hear a lot people suggest carrying a small snub-nose revolver in the pocket of your outermost garment, and that is what I mostly do when forced into wearing a heavy winter coat. The potential problem with this, as Jon Low points out, is that the firearm can become too cold to work, especially if not properly cleaned or lubed. And I've experienced that as well, being out shooting on one occasion when it was so cold that handguns had to be heated up inside a jacket before shooting, and the only dependable weapons among the group with whom I was shooting were someone's Mini-14 and a Winchester 1300 pump shotgun I had at the time. The ARs apparently had too much lubrication to operate in that cold of weather.
In firearms training circles we constantly see people over preparing for low frequency events and neglecting higher frequency events. ...
In the same vein, take the example of carrying a spare magazine and refining the skills of the speed reload. I don’t doubt that somewhere in history, a civilian has been engaged in a fire-fight that expended enough ammunition that a speed reload was required. I just can find no documented case of one. (If you have documentation of such an occurrence, please let me know via the Outdoor Wire Digital Network). At any rate, it would be an extremely low-frequency event. On the other hand, there have been countless occurrences of magazines that have shot craps in the middle of shooting events be they competitive or combative. Therefore the probability of needing a speed reload due to equipment malfunction is high compared to the same need caused by ammunition expenditure. Probability-wise therefore, carrying a 17 round sidearm with no spare magazine is less prudent than carrying a 7 round sidearm with a spare magazine. You may be able to shoot holes in my logic, but it works for me.
I'm not so sure: "A Combat Rifle and a Prepper Rifle are NOT the Same Gun"--Readyman. The author suggests that the assumption that life as a prepper in the apocalypse will be like life as a soldier in war is not remotely true, "and the differences between prepping and war should drastically alter rifle selection for a prepper." He then goes on to list 5 differences between prepping and war:
(1)Unlike a soldier, who will likely not be armed except in the area of combat, the prepper will need to have his weapon on his person or ready at hand while performing other work or chores. Thus, the author notes, "[a] prepper rifle must be compact and light and fill multiple rolls," and "[t]he difference between an eight-pound rifle and a six-pound rifle would likely be the difference between having a gun and not having a gun on-hand when trouble showed up."
(2) A prepper will likely not have experience with his rifle, using it, carrying it, caring for it, etc., equal to the warfighter. Thus, he suggests that "[a] prepper rifle should be simple, and a prepper should settle into two or three weapon systems, probably for life." Strangely, however, he describes the AR system as complex. Not to be pedantic, but one of the criteria for selecting a military rifle is that it be so simple that a draftee or inductee with little or no experience in weapons can be quickly trained to competently use the system, and this included the AR which was going to be used by both South Vietnamese troops and U.S. draftees.
(3) A prepper will not be able to choose when and where a fight will occur, but could be attacked when and where someone finds the prepper. The author's primary concern here is that a prepper will likely need to be able to fend off an attack in dim lighting or at night and, therefore, "[t]hat may require an electronic sight or, at best, a laser or IR laser (with NVGs.) Or it might require a shotgun with a larger shot pattern that increases the chance of hitting a target in the dark."
(4) A prepper likely lacks the resources in manpower, ammunition, etc., to win battles. Instead, the prepper's primary tactic will be to break contact. Foremost, the prepper needs to avoid getting into fights. In this regard, the author suggests that the prepper have different weapons with different capabilities.
(5) A prepper does not have the ammunition to defend themselves like a warfighter. The prepper will have limited ammunition, whereas "[w]ar fighters essentially have limitless resupply." He continues:
The 5.56 round, in particular, is well-designed for suppression of enemy forces—where one soldier fires a high volume at the enemy while another soldier maneuvers. This application of firepower is usually beyond prepper scenarios because of limited supply, training and coordination. This one reality vaporizes one of the main reasons the Army likes the AR round. The 5.56 allows a shooter to carry more rounds, but one of the biggest reasons for carrying more rounds is to suppress and maneuver. During the Kennedy administration, a formula was used to determine how many bullets were being spent to kill “X” number of enemy. The more bullets a solider could carry the more enemy he could kill. This math does not pencil out in a post-apocalyptic, prepper scenario where “body count” does nothing to reduce the ambient threat.
Consequently:
Don’t count on fighting in a team. Count on fighting like an Old West settler, with limited ammunition for homestead defense. Rarely, if ever, will preppers train to fight like U.S. Marines, so don’t imagine that their service rifle will suit you as well as it does a Marine. Even if you were a serviceman, you won't likely be able to count on the rest of your survival community to fight like trained soldiers.
He offers some alternatives to the AR platform depending on terrain and budget, including the combat shotgun, a bolt action .308 rifle, or a .308 semi-auto rifle like the Robinson XCRM, SCAR Heavy, or M1A.
By the way, the author, who is a 28-year Green Beret veteran (8 years boots-on-the-ground just in Afghanistan) really hates the AR and thinks it is a terrible weapon for a prepper. Most of this is because he believes that the AR is too complex, fragile, and prone to breakage. Although I certainly don't have the combat and field experience as does the author, I do have some knowledge of other weapon designs (including building some from parts kits) and the history of how other weapons have fared, and can confidently say that the problems of complexity, fragility and breakage applies to most modern combat arms as well as the majority of historical examples. However, advantages enjoyed by the AR are parts availability and that it can be repaired by anyone with spare parts, a modicum of mechanical ability and a few hand tools. The same can't be said of other combat rifles.
A bigger issue I have is that I don't believe that the analogy of the prepper being similar to the Old West settler is accurate. While a major disaster such as a powerful hurricane, earthquake, or similar can and does lead to spikes in property crimes, it still presents rather standard self-defense scenarios. A nationwide SHTF event on the other hand, be it a Constitutional crises and collapse of government authority, an EMP attack, economic collapse, super-volcano, super-flare, etc., will result in relatively few initial casualties but leave over 300 million hungry and frightened people, half of which hate the other half and would like to see them exterminated, and which populations are thoroughly intermixed among each other. While for the first few days (or weeks if we are lucky) it will seem that the looting and killing is being done by unorganized mobs, these mobs will quickly organize and coalesce into larger groups and, eventually, armies that will be going out to rape, pillage, destroy and conquer. An individual prepper family on a farmstead, or even a group of like minded preppers, will be overrun. For survivors, the choice will either be to form their own self-defense groups and fight, or to flee (which may well mean fighting on the move) to those areas where there is still some sort of law and order. I would not be surprised if we were to see men abandoning their families, some to more easily flee, and others forming a rear guard to give their families time to get away. Thus, a lightweight defensive rifle of common use and design using lightweight ammo also in common use is probably the ideal prepper rifle.
A different take: "Why the AR-15 Is My Go-To Rifle for Survival Situations" by Richard Douglas, Cheaper Than Dirt Blog. His main points in favor of the AR-15 is that it is light weight and compact (at least as long as you are not hanging a bunch of crap off of it), it's lethal, accurate, has low recoil, versatile, easily repaired, highly customizable, and good ammunition capacity depending on the magazines you use.
When I was a young man growing up in rural Oregon, there was a term for people like me: “gun nut.”
By my 20s I had a sizable collection of firearms. Some people I knew had a “pre-64” Winchester, a rifle renowned for its quality. Or they had a Browning Auto 5, a beautiful shotgun. A friend had 10 of those in various gauges.
But gun nuts today are a different breed. They don’t describe graceful lines, tight grain wood or immaculate bluing.
If it makes Sexton feel worse, Auto-5 shotguns were used as "assault weapons" in WWI, WWII, the Malayan Emergency, Vietnam, and the Rhodesian bush wars. And the Winchester 70 was used as a sniper rifle in Vietnam. Anyway, Sexton continues:
At gun stores today what I hear praised is firepower that comes out of black plastic and steel. These weapons are assault rifles, sometimes called “modern sporting guns.” The kind of sport they’re good for is not spelled out.
It's so frustrating when the packaging doesn't tell you for what use is the weapon. Most of the time it is just a company logo, name, and some information describing the contents. The packaging for a 12-gauge shotgun, for instance, doesn't tell you the use: is it for hunting upland game birds, water fowl, deer hunting in thick brush, three-gun competition, skeet or trap, or killing people in a New Zealand mosque? I can see why Sexton would be so confused. Charles Whitman, the perpetrator of the University of Texas Tower shooting must have been confused as well: why else would he use a Remington 700, a deer hunting rifle, to shoot innocent people? In any event, hunting experts like Ron Spomer do cite to the AR-15 and AR-10 as popular hunting rifles, even as they note that semi-auto hunting rifles have been around since the early 1900s!
When it comes to home defense, a strong argument can be made that the best, the absolute best, weapon for defense against a home invasion is a compact semi-automatic rifle with certain, particular features.
Despite what Hollywood would have you believe, criminals often continue to function after being shot, often after being shot several times. “The dead man’s ten seconds” is a phenomenon well and long known (the phrase comes from the Civil War). The criminal may be effectively dead from the first shot, but they still have the ability to do a great deal of harm before they’re stopped. Thus, it may take multiple shots to stop them. Maybe they’ll spend their entire “dead man’s ten seconds” staring down at the hole in their chest. Maybe it’s easy for you to bet other people’s lives that that’s how it will go down but maybe instead they’ll use that ten seconds to hurt or kill the homeowner unless distracted by, oh, other holes being put in their body from repeat shots until they do stop.
We have repeated reports of people in military theaters shooting an individual multiple times and having them continue to fight.
And that’s not even counting that robberies are often committed by more than one person. Again, local news reports suggest that the majority of home invasions involve multiple attackers.
Now, maybe in the “average” it’s over after only a couple of shots. But one can drown in a stream that “averages” 6 inches deep if one happens to step in a hole that’s 8′ deep (the rest of the stream only being 4″ or so, so the “average” comes to 6″). But multiple attackers requiring multiple shots each to put down is one of the scenarios a “civilian” may face.
"Should You Get Involved When a Stranger is Attacked?" by Sheriff Jim Wilson, NRA Family. I had previously written about this issue in my article, "The Dangers of White Knighting." The main point, and one which Wilson addresses in his article, is that the situation can be complex and difficult to assess. Certainly, you can expect that not everyone is going to think that you are a hero. For instance, writes Wilson:
Of course, one of the most common assaults to be encountered is a male-on-female assault. Think it seems logical to go to the aid of the woman? Ask just about any veteran police officer about making those domestic disturbance calls. It is not at all uncommon to be subduing the male (clearly the bad guy, right?) and have the female start combing your hair with a skillet.
Massad Ayoob has related an incident where an out-of-town truck driver in NYC decided to intervene in an attack by a man on a woman where the woman was yelling "rape!" Except, it turned out that the "attacker" was a vice cop attempting to arrest a prostitute.
Wilson goes on to caution:
We seldom know what started an attack we might observe. We seldom get the chance to ask people what is going on. And, even if we get a chance to ask, we rarely ever get the chance to check what we've been told for the truth. And, to top it all off, the police won't be able to tell you from the bad guys. When they arrive, you are just another part of the problem–and you are holding a gun.
And he continues:
It makes far better sense to spend the time until help arrives by being the best witness you can possibly be. Since a cell phone is a critical part of your defensive gear, be the one who called 911. But you can also take photos and videos of the incident. Take the time to get license plate numbers, good descriptions of the bad guys and any other pertinent details. Don't trust your memory; write all of this down, or record it.
In the end, whether or not you choose to get involved in trying to stop a crime-in-progress is up to you. Be alert, be informed, and make the best decisions that your training and experience will allow. But, win, lose or draw, you can forget about the “hero” part.
"Pre-Attack Warning Signs" by Michael T. Rayburn, Police One. Although directed at law enforcement officers, most of the tips are applicable to the regular civilian. From the article:
What are the pre-attack warning signs? ... The most obvious ones are the verbal cues. The bad guy will tell you, "... I'm going to kick your a--."
Recognizing nonverbal preattack warnings signs is something we all need to work on, as they are not as obvious. It's said that between 60% and 90% of human communication is body language, or nonverbal communication. ...
Let's take a look at preattack warning signs you're likely to encounter on the job.
Unconscious Body Changes
There are many non-verbal cues signifying a potential attack that the subject might be unaware of exhibiting. One of them is conspicuous ignoring. You're asking this person some questions, and they just stare at you with this blank look on their face. ...
Body tightening or flexing of the muscles are other good cues to look for. Subtle ones include the muscles in a person's neck tightening up, or seeing a person's shoulders rise up slightly as the related muscles tighten up. Maybe you'll notice a clenched ja[w] as the subject's face tightens.
A change in breathing is something that's done completely subconsciously. It goes back to our fight or flight syndrome. The brain, automatically, is preparing the person for fight or flight by oxygenating the blood. The brain is telling the lungs to get that air in because something is about to happen for which the body is going to need it.
The Eyes Have It
Quite a few preattack warning signs involve the suspect's eyes. A big one, and it gets overlooked a lot, is target glancing. There are a number of videos out there where you can actually see the perpetrator glancing or looking right at the officer's weapon. Have you ever been talking to someone and noticed that they keep looking down? You probably thought they were just being rude by not looking you in the eye, but they could have been looking at your gun and trying to figure out how to get it out of your holster instead.
As you're questioning a subject he or she may start looking around. The person could be looking for a way to escape, for your backup, or for any witnesses or other people who may try to help you. They may also be looking to see if any of their fellow criminals or gang members are in the area to help them.
For preattack warning signs you'll also want to look at the suspect's eyes themselves. On most people you'll only see the white portion of their eyes on either side of the pupil. On excited or agitated people, you will see white on the top and or bottom of the eyes. Have you ever heard of the expression, "their eyes got really big?"
Persons with dilated pupils are in a state of great emotional excitement or anger and could potentially pose a real threat. Even if the person's eyes are dilated as a result of narcotic use, this person still poses a real threat, as the majority of subjects who assault officers are under the influence of narcotics and or alcohol.
Overt Movements
But not all body movements warning of an attack are so subtle. Squaring off or blading the body is a well-known and easily recognized sign. It's commonly referred to as a "boxer's stance." The subject's strong side foot will usually drop back, and they may crouch a little to lower their center of gravity by bending slightly at the knees and leaning forward a little.
Crowding the contact officer is another sign. If someone is going to assault you with their hands, an edged weapon, or some other personal weapon, they need to get in close to do it. They're not going to stab you from 21 feet away. They're going to close the distance and try to catch you off guard.
Also be on the lookout for exaggerated movements or ceasing all movement. They're stomping the ground, throwing their arms in the air yelling and screaming. Or, they're doing all that, and then immediately cease all movement and become totally cooperative. There may be some mental health issues going on there, but either way it's a preattack warning sign.
Any sudden movement, or any covert movement, should be taken seriously as a preattack warning sign. They could be ... reaching for a weapon. ...
Any attempt at distraction is another preattack warning sign. They could be pretending to look over your shoulder at something. Maybe point behind you to make you turn around. If you're dealing with more than one person, the other person could try to distract you in some way. You see that with gangs, especially in prisons. A small fight will break out; meanwhile, someone is getting shanked on the other side of the yard.
Hate crime or robbery gone bad? "PICTURED: Man, 27, who shot dead New Orleans gun store clerk, 47, when he was asked to unload his weapon – before being killed by customers in gunfight that left woman dead"--Daily Mail. Per the article, Joshua Jamal Williams, 27, reportedly walked into Jefferson Gun Outlet carrying an unholstered pistol with an extended magazine. When asked to unload the handgun, he fired a warning shot and then shot the clerk. In an ensuing gun fight between Williams and armed patrons, a woman was killed, and Williams was lethally wounded. The clerk and customer killed by Williams were both white while Williams was black. Williams family, of course, contend he was just there for target practice and blames the victims for his death saying he was murdered. However, if you watch the surveillance video, it is clear that Williams went in with the intent to shoot people.
"Covert comms for the urban/suburban dweller, by RomeoFox"--Brush Beater. The author lives in a suburban neighborhood with an active homeowners association, so he has developed covert methods for concealing his short-wave antennas which he shares in this article.
The Resilient Gardener is a solid guide for growing potatoes, corn, beans, squash and eggs in the Pacific Northwest. It reads like a visit with an older gardening friend. The book does a good job of addressing unique challenges met by Pacific Northwest gardeners.
If you want to grow crops that you can store with minimal processing, this book is a great choice. If you think you'd like to save seeds or breed your own varieties for the featured crops, it's got you covered. Want to know which varieties of potatoes, corn, beans and squash are best for which culinary uses? There are more suggestions and descriptions than I have found in any other gardening book. Want to encourage your ducks to forage, eat a diverse diet and help in the garden? Check out chapter 9. Carol and I might not agree on everything, but we still have plenty of common ground.
Some good info for reloaders: "Remington 1½ Pistol Primers" by Brad Miller, Ph.D., Shooting Sports USA. These primers are designed only for low pressure loads such as 25 Auto, .32 S&W, .32 S&W Long, .32 Auto, .380 Auto, .38 S&W, .38 Short Colt and .38 Special.
"Is Frangible Ammo a Good Option for Urban Gun Owners?" by David Lewis, Apartment Prepper. Although one of the fundamental gun safety rules is to identify your target, and what is behind it, as the author notes: "Unfortunately, people who share walls with their neighbors can’t follow this important rule to the letter. If you have to neutralize a threat to your safety within an apartment, condo, or even a suburban home, you typically cannot with 100 percent certainty ensure your bullet won’t penetrate a wall to jeopardize an innocent bystander." One option apartment dwellers might consider using some sort of frangible bullet. I know I did--I picked up some Glaser Safety Slugs while I was still living in an apartment. And Cor-Bon manufactures and sells the rounds, although, due to the ammo shortage, they currently only have them in 10mm and .44 Magnum. However, the author is talking about frangible ammo intended for training and shooting steel targets.
Does it work? Unfortunately, no, says the author:
Frangible bullets offer two key advantages for training: the virtual elimination of ricochets and splash-back when shooting at a hard backstop, and the elimination of toxic lead vapor and airborne particles. Unfortunately, these traits both impact a frangible bullet’s suitability for self-defense.
Because they lack lead, frangible bullets frequently weigh less than what is normal for a given cartridge. A lighter bullet carries less momentum, and is accordingly less equipped to penetrate deeply into soft tissue.
A frangible bullet may also disintegrate before it has reached a vital organ. Conversely, even 9mm frangible ammo is still capable of the overpenetration you would wish to avoid when defending your home. A bullet that is designed to disintegrate when it hits steel may still pass through soft tissue. It may potentially penetrate multiple layers of wallboard as well. In short, it’s not a sure thing.
A frangible bullet is also essentially incapable of terminal expansion. In addition to helping prevent overpenetration, a hollow point bullet is (A) designed to transfer most if not all of its available energy to a threat while (B) simultaneously boring a wider hole than its original diameter alone could account for. While getting hit with a frangible bullet would certainly be unpleasant – and very likely lethal – it’s just not poised to deliver as much damage as a hollow point.
When the NSW Police Force seized the guns, there were multiple barrels per gun, implying that the barrel was designed to be disposable and/or quickly replaced with another. This may be due to limited durability of the barrel itself (only firing one or two shots). Or it may be that the sleeve that holds the barrel may melt with too much use in a short period.
By switching out the barrel and let it cool, the assembly’s duty cycle is reduced by 50%, allowing for more durability. If one or two shots is all it takes to melt down, then replacing the whole barrel assembly makes a lot of sense.
"Open Source BPNVG (Bootleg Panoramic NVG) with TFB Reader Stubbs"--The Firearm Blog. The creator of these NVGs used a couple of night time cameras intended for drone racing. "As a final note, he wanted to add that he personally believes that the camera sensor, while not just as good as a PVS-14, gets pretty darn close." Total cost, if you already have a 3-D printer, is less than $500 according to the article.
"From The Wreckage: WRSA Hospital Series"--Western Rifle Shooter's Association. This is one to save for reference later. It recommends specific equipment for your post-SHTF impromptu medical clinic or surgery, as well as specific texts for training a new generation of doctors, nurses, and EMTs.
"Courage: The Biggest Present A Parent Can Give"--Wilder, Wealthy & Wise. I recommend reading the whole thing as it deals with courage, its importance, and articulating what constitutes courage. But John also discusses the importance of intact families to creating young men with courage:
I was fortunate. Even though I was adopted, my parents, Ma and Pa Wilder, were a common front. Pa Wilder knew he could enforce discipline with the same effect as Ma Wilder. That’s an aside, but it’s important. Men learn how to be men from their fathers. No matter how brave and stunning a Mom is, no Mother is, or ever will be, a Father.
There are two main points that he raises: first, that making someone "disappear" from social media is practice for eliminating someone in reality; and, second, that cancel culture is a form of "othering". This is essentially the same point made by Gina Carano that got her fired by Disney. In her tweet, she pointed out that "Jews were beaten in the streets, not by Nazi soldiers but by their neighbors ... even by children." (Ellipses in original). Then she added: "Because history is edited, most people today don't realize that to get to the point where Nazi soldiers could easily round up thousands of Jews, the government first made their own neighbors hate them simply for being Jews. How is that any different from hating someone for the political views?" And that's it. That was her whole post. And for that she was labelled as "anti-Semitic"--which is bizarre on its face since she said nothing disparaging of Jews--and fired. And for what? Pointing out where cancel culture was heading.
Based on what is happening everywhere what we are gonna see in the near future is simply a “slow-burning” SHTF, where there is no major event that we can clearly see. In reality, we have been experiencing those major events for last year or more, but it may not seem like that. That’s because we are those frogs in water that is being slowly warmed up over time.
We are living a “new normal,” but it is not normal. However, because it is stretched over a period of time it becomes the new normal.
It is kinda paradoxical, but the transfer from that slow-burning SHTF time to a full-blown SHTF will probably be caused by some minor event.
For example, we are living in lockdowns, very controlled societies, freedoms are being denied… and it has become the new normal. Then one day some small event, like a small town protest, will cause that huge transition to a full-blown SHTF.
People are on the edge, systems are on the edge... a small push is all that is needed for things to erupt.
The war on whiteness is not new but had its roots in counter-culture movement of the 1960s and 70s. In Days of Rage: America's Radical Underground, the FBI, and the Forgotten Age of Revolutionary Violence by Bryan Burrough, the author makes this point early in the book:
An even more prevalent myth, however, is that the radical violence that commenced in 1970 was a protest against the Vietnam War. In fact, while members of this new underground were vehemently antiwar, the war itself was seldom their primary focus. "We related to the war in a purely opportunistic way," recalls Howard Machtinger, one of the Weather Underground's early leaders. "We were happy to draw new members who were antiwar. But this was never about the war."
What the underground movement was truly about--what it was always about--was the plight of black Americans. Every single underground group of the 1970s, with the notable exception of the Puerto Rican FALN, was concerned first and foremost with the struggle of blacks against police brutality, racism, and government repression. While late in the decade several groups expanded their worldview to protest events in South Africa and Central America, the black cause remained the core motivation of almost every significant radical who engaged in violent activities during the 1970s. "Helping out the blacks, fighting alongside them, that was the whole kit and caboodle," says Machtinger. "That was all we were about."
"Race comes first, always first," says Elizabeth Fink, a radical attorney in Brooklyn who represented scores of underground figures. "Everything started with the Black Panthers. The whole thrill of being with them. When you heard Huey Newton, you were blown away. The civil rights movement had turned bad, and these people were ready to fight. And yeah, the war. The country was turning into Nazi Germany, that's how we saw it. Do you have the guts to stand up? The underground did. And oh, the glamour of it. The glamour of dealing with the underground. They were my heroes. ..."
Later, describing the events that lead to the formation of the Weather Underground, Burrough related:
Wars like Vietnam came and went, but it was only the brewing revolution of American blacks, [John Jacobs, one of the founders of the Weather Underground] prophesied, that had the potential to destroy the country.
"It’s Time To Let Classical Music Die"--New Music Box. The author, Nebal Maysaud--described in the article as "an award-winning queer Lebanese Druze composer based in the Washington D.C. metro area"--compares the love of classical music to an abusive relationship because, according to the author, classical music is "inherently racist." The author explains:
Western classical music is not about culture. It’s about whiteness. It’s a combination of European traditions which serve the specious belief that whiteness has a culture—one that is superior to all others. Its main purpose is to be a cultural anchor for the myth of white supremacy. In that regard, people of color can never truly be pioneers of Western classical music. The best we can be are exotic guests: entertainment for the white audiences and an example of how Western classical music is more elite than the cultures of people of color.
This spring, the journal Music Theory Online published “Music Theory and the White Racial Frame,” an article by Philip Ewell, who teaches at Hunter College. It begins with the sentence “Music theory is white,” and goes on to argue that the whiteness of the discipline is manifest not only in the lack of diversity in its membership but also in a deep-seated ideology of white supremacy, one that insidiously affects how music is analyzed and taught. The main target of Ewell’s critique is the early-twentieth-century Austrian theorist Heinrich Schenker (1868-1935), who parsed musical structures in terms of foreground, middle-ground, and background levels, teasing out the tonal formulas that underpin large-scale movements. Schenker held racist views, particularly with regard to Black people, and according to Ewell those views seeped into the seemingly abstract principles of his theoretical work.
But a musicologist and a songwriter, stars of Vox’s ‘Switched on Pop’ podcast produced with the New York Philharmonic, have been criticised for their new reading of Beethoven’s Fifth, which argues that white men embraced the work and turned it into a “symbol of their superiority and importance.”
Specifically, an article penned by presenters Nate Sloan and Charlie Harding titled How Beethoven put the classism in classical music, has got the Internet a little fired up.
“Wealthy white men embraced Beethoven and turned his symphony into a symbol of their superiority and importance. For others – women, LGBTQ+ people, people of colour – Beethoven’s symphony is predominantly a reminder of classical music’s history of exclusion and elitism,” Sloan and Harding write.
An increasing number of woke teachers are refusing to study the Bard — accusing his classic works of promoting “misogyny, racism, homophobia, classism, anti-Semitism, and misogynoir.”
A slew of English literature teachers told the School Library Journal (SLJ) how they were ditching the likes of “Hamlet,” “Macbeth” and “Romeo and Juliet” to instead “make room for modern, diverse, and inclusive voices.”
“Shakespeare was a tool used to ‘civilize’ Black and brown people in England’s empire,” insisted Shakespeare scholar Ayanna Thompson, a professor of English at Arizona State University.
Teachers also need to “challenge the whiteness” of the assumption that Shakespeare’s works are “universal,” insisted Jeffrey Austin, who is head of a Michigan high school’s English literature department.
Former Washington state public school teacher Claire Bruncke told SLJ she banished the Bard from her classroom to “stray from centering the narrative of white, cisgender, heterosexual men.”
"UIowa prof: Certain fields of study should be ‘dismantled and burned’"--Campus Reform. Per the article, "Sarah Bond, a history professor and director of undergraduate studies at the University of Iowa, made the argument that certain academic fields should be dismantled so that 'white supremacy can be smothered.'"
"D&D Must Grapple With the Racism in Fantasy"--Wired. Discussing why a game based on European mythology and lore is racist for not taking an Afro-centric view of the world.
Students were instructed “to be less white is to: be less oppressive; be less arrogant; be less certain; be less defensive; be less ignorant; be more humble; listen; believe; break with apathy;” and “break with white solidarity.”
Despite a history of violent terrorism by the Nation of Islam and its spinoff groups, its racist theology which believes that white people are subhuman devils who will be killed off, and its antisemitism and conspiracy theories, the hate group is also incredibly culturally influential.
Black Nationalist theology, politics and culture are built on the ideas of the Nation of Islam.
Raphael Warnock, the Senate Democrat from Georgia, said, “its voice has been important for the development of black theology.” He neglected to mention that he meant black nationalist theology of the kind trafficked in by Jeremiah Wright, Obama’s mentor, a Farrakhan supporter, and another ally of Warnock’s whose bigotry the Democrat politician had defended.
Culturally, a long list of musicians and other entertainers are fans of the Nation of Islam. The violent racism of Amiri Baraka (“dagger poems in the slimy bellies of the owner-Jews”), (“I got the extermination blues, jew-boys. I got the Hitler syndrome figured”), and (“Rape the white girls. Rape / their fathers. Cut the mothers’ throats”), distilled Nation of Islam theology into poetry.
“Jews double crossers stole our secrets crossed the white desert to spill them,” the former Poet Laureate of New Jersey wrote in The Black Man is Making New Gods. "The fag’s death they gave us on a cross… they give us to worship a dead jew and not ourselves.”
This is a brief summary of the narcissistic black supremacist theology of the Nation of Islam which believes that an evil Jewish mad scientist named Yakub (Jacob) used eugenics to create Europeans, Indians, and Asians from the original black master race after leaving Mecca.
That Baraka is remembered as a respected poet, that his hatefilled rants that would have made Goebbels blanch are taught in academic settings, is a tribute to how black nationalism mainstreamed hatred and the racist theology of the Nation of Islam into academia.
In Madison, Wisconsin, the famously leftist city government recently established a Police Civilian Oversight Board in response to activists concerned with police relations. The board’s mission is rather vague: “provide input,” “engage in community outreach,” and “make policy-level recommendations.” What the board is not vague about is who is allowed to participate.
Six of the board’s 11 members must be black. No Asians, American Indian, Hispanics or Latinos, or Whites can sit in those six seats: “Blacks Only,” to use the terminology of the City’s Alder Workgroup, which explicitly mandated “50 percent Black members.”
Another seat is expressly reserved for an Asian, and one for someone who is "Latinx". Another seat is reserved for someone from the LGBT+ community. None are reserved for whites. Whites (Non-Hispanic) make up 72.1% of the city's population.
Tired of this civilization thing: "Letter from a White Mom"--American Renaissance. (Underline added):
A teacher I had worked with for several years was alone in her classroom, sobbing. She said she ought to keep this private, but she trusted me. She went on to tell me that a group of black parents, with kids in her second-grade class, had demanded that she be fired as a racist, for not letting their kids “act black.” Kate had merely forbidden her black students to hit, call each other names, and use the “n-word.” I had also observed this behavior. Kate was further hurt that the parents had not even come to her before writing a 10-page diatribe to the College of Education’s black dean. The mother of the biggest, tallest bully (and thief) in the class was a prison guard. One would think that she would try to correct that behavior so that her daughter would not end up in prison!
This is not a ghetto school, but a “prestigious” laboratory/research K-12 school, which is mandated to reflect the demographics of the state; ethnically, racially, income, educational attainment of the parents, etc, etc. This school, around 2004-5, developed an “ant-racist education” model, based on the premise that non-whites don’t do as well in school, and later on, with jobs and income, because “whites hold everyone else down!”
Speaking of making America more amenable for blacks wanting to "act black": "‘Family Demands Answers’"--The Other McCain. The author relates:
Mychael Johnson’s life of crime ended last March after he and an accomplice stole a car and led Tallahassee police on a chase. When police broke off the pursuit, allowing the sheriff’s department helicopter to track the stolen car, Johnson’s accomplice tried to carjack another motorist. The chopper pilot radioed this information to dispatch and, because of the clear danger to the public, police resumed the pursuit. Driving at speeds upward of 80 mph, Johnson lost control and crashed into a light pole, then fled the vehicle on foot. Johnson again attempted to carjack a motorist, but was stopped by Officer Justin Davidson. A physical struggle between Johnson and Davidson ensued, during which Johnson attempted to take Davidson’s pistol from his holster. Fortunately, backup arrived, and Officer Zackri Jones fired one shot to Johnson’s head.
Yet Johnson's family insists he was a good person, and wants answers. "His family says they recognize Johnson wasn’t perfect and had some run-in’s with the law before, but he needed help." "I just know that there was another way for the whole situation to be handled, and it wasn’t for him to be killed. Not like that,” said Johnson's sister. McCain thinks differently:
There is no “right” to steal cars in America, nor is there any “right” for a car thief to fight the police when they try to arrest him. Mychael Johnson committed at least four felonies during the course of that pursuit in Tallahassee, and if he had been able to get hold of Officer Davidson’s weapon, he might have added murder to his list of offenses.
McCain adds the following comments directly to Johnson's sister: "Ma’am, if you want an answer, here it is: Your brother was a thug. He lived a thug’s life and he died a thug’s death. The citizens of Florida are safer because that cop shot your thug brother in the head."
And because it was true that China was the source of the China Class’ power, the novel coronavirus coming out of Wuhan became the platform for its coup de grace. So Americans became prey to an anti-democratic elite that used the coronavirus to demoralize them; lay waste to small businesses; leave them vulnerable to rioters who are free to steal, burn, and kill; keep their children from school and the dying from the last embrace of their loved ones; and desecrate American history, culture, and society; and defame the country as systemically racist in order to furnish the predicate for why ordinary Americans in fact deserved the hell that the elite’s private and public sector proxies had already prepared for them.
For nearly a year, American officials have purposefully laid waste to our economy and society for the sole purpose of arrogating more power to themselves while the Chinese economy has gained on America’s. China’s lockdowns had nothing to do with the difference in outcomes. Lockdowns are not public health measures to reduce the spread of a virus. They are political instruments, which is why Democratic Party officials who put their constituents under repeated lengthy lockdowns, like New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo and Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot, are signaling publicly that it is imperative they be allowed to reopen immediately now that Trump is safely gone.
That Democratic officials intentionally destroyed lives and ended thousands of them by sending the ill to infect the elderly in nursing homes is irrelevant to America’s version of the Thirty Tyrants. The job was to boost coronavirus casualties in order to defeat Trump and they succeeded. ...
"Cuomo aide Melissa DeRosa admits they hid nursing home data so feds wouldn’t find out"--New York Post. According to DeRosa, the state concealed the real number of nursing home deaths in order to not give ammunition to President Trump; in other words, to undermine President Trump's election chances. Nursing home deaths in New York are 43% percent higher than previously thought at nearly 13,000, versus the 8,914 previously reported.
"Marked for death"--Vox Popoli. "Forget the dangers posed by a potential reaction to the Covid 'vaccine'. The far more significant danger is that the pseudo-vaccine will provide the next virus with a marker to target." That is, the "vaccine" works by programming cells to produce the spike protein of the virus and, thereby, stimulate the immune system. But this spike protein then can become a target for a future infection.
"Imaginary and fictitious"--Vox Popoli. Citing to an article in which "[a] clinical lab scientist tests 1,500 positive Covid-19 samples and finds nothing but common influenza viruses."
From Instapundit: "Wuhan Lab Eligible to Receive US Taxpayer Funding Through 2024, NIH Confirms. 'The Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) is authorized to receive taxpayer funding for animal research until January 2024, the National Institute of Health told the Daily Caller News Foundation. The WIV is at the center of widespread speculation that COVID-19 could have entered the human population in China due to an accidental lab leak. Researchers at the lab were studying bat-based coronaviruses prior to the outbreak, a project partially backed by $600,000 in U.S. taxpayer funds routed to the lab through the nonprofit group EcoHealth Alliance.'" Keep in mind that Fauci allocated funds to the WIV to research "gain of function" research that was no longer legal to conduct in the United States.
Above-Top Secret contingency plans already exist for what the military is supposed to do if all the Constitutional successors are incapacitated. Standby orders were issued more than three weeks ago to ready these plans, not just to protect Washington but also to prepare for the possibility of some form of martial law.
According to new documents and interviews with military experts, the various plans – codenamed Octagon, Freejack and Zodiac – are the underground laws to ensure government continuity. They are so secret that under these extraordinary plans, "devolution" could circumvent the normal Constitutional provisions for government succession, and military commanders could be placed in control around America.
"We're in new territory," says one senior officer, the entire post-9/11 paradigm of emergency planning thrown out the window. The officer jokes, in the kind of morbid humor characteristic of this slow-moving disaster, that America had better learn who Gen. Terrence J. O'Shaughnessy is.
He is the "combatant commander" for the United States and would in theory be in charge if Washington were eviscerated. That is, until a new civilian leader could be installed.
What happens, government expert Norman Ornstein asked last week, if so many members of Congress come down with the coronavirus that the legislature cannot meet or cannot muster a quorum? After 9/11, Ornstein and others, alarmed by how little Washington had prepared for such possibilities, created a bipartisan Continuity of Government Commission to examine precisely these and other possibilities.
It has been a two-decade long futile effort, Ornstein says, with Congress uninterested or unable to either pass new laws or create working procedures that would allow emergency and remote operations. The rest of the federal government equally is unprepared to operate if a pandemic were to hit the very people called upon to lead in an emergency. That is why for the first time, other than planning for the aftermath of a nuclear war, extraordinary procedures are being contemplated.
In the past, almost every imagined contingency associated with emergency preparedness has assumed civil and military assistance coming from the outside. ...
"There might not be an outside," the officer says, asking that she not be named because she is speaking about sensitive matters.
In recognition of the equal vulnerability of military forces, the Pentagon has instituted unprecedented restrictions on off-base travel. ...
Mission essential in this regard applies to the maze of more than a dozen different secret assignments, most of them falling under three larger contingency plans:
CONPLAN 3400, or the military's plan for "homeland defense," if America itself is a battlefield.
CONPLAN 3500, "defense support of civil authorities," where the military assists in an emergency short of armed attack on the nation.
CONPLAN 3600, military operations in the National Capital Region and continuation of government, under which the most-secret plans to support continuity are nested.
All of these plans are the responsibility of U.S. Northern Command (or NORTHCOM), the homeland defense military authority created after 9/11. Air Force General O'Shaughnessy is NORTHCOM's Colorado Springs-based commander.
On February 1, Defense Secretary Mark T. Esper signed orders directing NORTHCOM to execute nationwide pandemic plans. Secretly, he signed Warning Orders (the WARNORD as it's called) alerting NORTHCOM and a host of east coast units to "prepare to deploy" in support of potential extraordinary missions.
Seven secret plans – some highly compartmented – exist to prepare for these extraordinary missions. Three are transportation related, just to move and support the White House and the federal government as it evacuates and operates from alternate sites. The first is called the Rescue & Evacuation of the Occupants of the Executive Mansion (or RESEM) plan, responsible for protecting President Trump, Vice President Mike Pence, and their families--whether that means moving them at the direction of the Secret Service or, in a catastrophe, digging them out of the rubble of the White House.
The second is called the Joint Emergency Evacuation Plan (or JEEP), and it organizes transportation for the Secretary of Defense and other national security leaders so that they can leave the Washington area. The Atlas Plan is a third, moving non-military leaders – Congressional leadership, the Supreme Court and other important figures – to their emergency relocation sites. Under Atlas, a still- secret bunker would be activated and cordoned, with government operations shifting to Maryland.
The three most compartmented contingencies – Octagon, Freejack, and Zodiac – call upon various military units in Washington DC, North Carolina and eastern Maryland to defend government operations if there is a total breakdown. The seventh plan – codenamed Granite Shadow – lays out the playbook for extraordinary domestic missions that involve weapons of mass destruction. (I disclosed the existence of this plan in 2005, and its associated "national mission force"--a force that is on alert at all times, even in peacetime, to respond to a terrorist attack or threat with the nuclear weapon.)
Most of these plans have been quietly activated during presidential inaugurals and State of the Union addresses, the centrality of the weapons of mass destruction scenario seen in the annual Capital Shield exercise in Washington. ...
* * *
According to another senior retired officer, who told me about Granite Shadow and is now working as a defense contractor, the national mission force goes out on its missions with "special authorities" pre-delegated by the president and the attorney general. These special authorities are needed because under regulations and the law, federal military forces can supplant civil authority or engage in law enforcement only under the strictest conditions.
When might the military's "emergency authority" be needed? Traditionally, it's thought of after a nuclear device goes off in an American city. But now, planners are looking at military response to urban violence as people seek protection and fight over food. And, according to one senior officer, in the contingency of the complete evacuation of Washington.
Under Defense department regulations, military commanders are authorized to take action on their own – in extraordinary circumstances – where "duly constituted local authorities are unable to control the situation." The conditions include "large-scale, unexpected civil disturbances" involving "significant loss of life or wanton destruction of property." The Joint Chiefs of Staff codified these rules in October 2018, reminding commanders that they could decide, on their own authority, to "engage temporarily" in military control in circumstances "where prior authorization by the President is impossible" or where local authorities "are unable to control the situation." A new Trump-era Pentagon directive calls it "extreme situations." In all cases, even where a military commander declares martial law, the directives say that civil rule has to be restored as soon as possible.
Some spooky instances where killers have behaved like vampires.
Miscellany:
"SHOCK POLL: 29% of Americans Support Dividing the United States into Regional Countries"--Big League Politics. That is, breaking the United States into several smaller countries completely independent of one another. This wouldn't even be an issue if we still followed the concept of federalism set out in the Constitution. The groups most supportive of succession were Southern Republicans and Democrats in California, Oregon and Washington states.
Residents living near homeless encampments, vandalized and abandoned warehouses, and lines of motorhomes and stripped-down cars say the police department isn’t doing enough, so they have formed vigilante patrols to clean up their East Oakland neighborhood.
Those living closest to the defunct plant owned by Owens-Illinois along Alameda Avenue say an uptick in crime has led them to keep watch over their streets and spend their own money to add lighting and security cameras to protect their properties.
"We’re can’t depend on the city to do it," neighbor Denise Gray said. "It’s just getting too far out of hand."
This is what civilizational collapse looks like from the inside.
The bill allows undocumented individuals to apply for temporary legal status, with the ability to apply for green cards after five years if they pass criminal and national security background checks and pay their taxes.
But that is not all (underline added):
Dreamers, TPS holders, and immigrant farmworkers who meet specific requirements are eligible for green cards immediately under the legislation. After three years, all green card holders who pass additional background checks and demonstrate knowledge of English and U.S. civics can apply to become citizens.
This is hardly different from the amnesty during the Reagan Administration, which was sold as a one-time measure in order to get Democrat support for stricter border control. The amnesty happened, but the stricter border control never happened. So, if this bill is passed, and just in time for the next presidential election, potentially as many as 30 million voters will be added to the voting rolls, further disenfranchising you and me.
Actually, attacks on churches have become “a familiar sight” all throughout Western Europe, wherever there is a notable Muslim/migrant presence. In France, which has one of if not the largest Muslim populations in the Western world, two churches are reportedly attacked every day.
Along with arson attempts, typically—and rather with diabolical intent—altars are desecrated, crucifixes broken, statues mocked and/or beheaded. In one instance, vandals plundered and used human excrement to draw a cross on the Notre-Dame des Enfants Church in Nimes; consecrated bread was found thrown outside among garbage. One week later, vandals desecrated and smashed crosses and statues at Saint-Alain Cathedral in Lavaur; they mangled the arms of a crucified Christ in a mocking manner and an altar cloth was burned.
The same situation prevails in Germany, which also has an immense Muslim population. In Bavaria and the Alps alone, some 200 churches have been attacked and many crosses broken: “Police are currently dealing with church desecrations again and again,” one November 2017 report noted before adding, “The perpetrators are often youthful rioters with a migration background.”
Moreover, the desecration of churches has for centuries been a Muslim trademark—a sort of “Islam was here.” As copiously documented in Sword and Scimitar: Fourteen Centuries of War between Islam and the West, whenever Muslims invaded Christian nations, untold thousands of churches were ritually desecrated and despoiled, their crosses and other Christian symbols systematically broken. Think what ISIS did but on an exponential level—and not for a handful of years but for over a millennium.
Despite all these telltale signs, Christian leaders in Sweden have responded with the usual cluelessness. “I do not know why anyone would want to do this,” said the church’s pastor, Jerker Alsterlund.
Perhaps because their religion teaches them to see and treat churches as “dens of iniquity … worse than bars and brothels”?
Yes. "Were 20 years of blood and treasure wasted? As US, UK and NATO allies prepare to pull out troops and hand Afghanistan to the Taliban, how conflict cost $825billlion and 3,500 dead troops"--Daily Mail. Nation building is an oxymoron and, therefore, doomed from the beginning. A "nation" is "a large body of people united by common descent, history, culture, or language, inhabiting a particular country or territory." You can't manufacture a common descent, history or culture where there is none, let alone impose an alien culture and value system. And for those of you that think a civil war is impossible in the United States, look long and hard at the definition of "nation" and consider whether its even possible to have a "nation" of immigrants or grievance groups who do not assimilate into the dominant culture and language, and accept its history as their own.
Security sources say a bomb blast at a mosque in Balkh province has killed at least 30 militants.
The 209th Shaheen Corps said in a statement on Saturday that 30 Taliban fighters including six foreign nationals who were expert mine makers had been killed in a bomb explosion this morning [Feb. 13].
According to the statement, bodies of the six Taliban affiliated foreign nationals could not be identified because of the blast.
The incident is reported to have taken place when a group of Taliban militants gathered at a mosque in the village of Qultaq in Dowlatabad district of Balkh province.
Taliban fighters had gathered in the mosque to get instructions and training on making bombs and IEDs.
Related: "Afghan peace process on the ‘brink of collapse’"--The Khaama Press News Agency. The article reports that the Taliban have kept up their attacks through the winter instead of the normal winter lull; and Taliban leaders have left the peace talks in Dubai in order to return to Afghanistan to prepare for spring offensives.
Something ignored in the news because of Trump Derangement Syndrome: "Pakistan Successfully Tests Nuclear-Capable Ballistic Missile: ISPR"--The Khaama Press News Agency. The missile, called the Shaheen III, has a range of 2,750 kilometers according to the Pakistan Army.
Fighting the System: "Kill Windows, Load Linux"--Men of the West. The author begins: "If you want to unplug from Windows, Linux Mint is the answer. Before anyone nerds out or spergs out, yes, I know Linux has its convergent issues, too. But Linux is open source, and Mint is easy an switch for Windows users. Once you get used to how Linux Mint works, you can explore other versions." The rest of the article discusses the specific steps to making the change.
Speaking about the event, Mckenna said: 'I fully understand the circle of life and that everyone has to eat, but the way the lion just walked up and broke the zebra's neck was brutal.
'I was in complete shock. I'm a huge animal person and I'm also a vegetarian. The idea of seeing anything die is just heartbreaking.
* * *
'The lion waited about thirty minutes, but he just couldn't resist and walked right up and ate the baby.
'I was mesmerised by how young the baby was, yet it still had the instinct to attempt to run away from the lion.
'The mother zebra walked back to where the placenta sack was and cried a cry that will haunt me forever.
'It was the most heartbreaking thing I have seen. it was really emotionally heavy, and we pretty much ended the safari for that day.'
The U.S. Navy has patents on weird and little understood technology. According to patents filed by the Navy, it is working on a compact fusion reactor that could power cities, an engine that works using “inertial mass reduction,” and a “hybrid aerospace-underwater craft.” Dubbed the “UFO patents, The War Zone has reported that the Navy had to build prototypes of some of the outlandish tech to prove it worked.
Dr. Salvatore Cezar Pais is the man behind the patents and The War Zone has proven the man exists, at least on paper. Pais has worked for a number of different departments in the Navy, including the Naval Air Warfare Center Aircraft Division (NAVAIR/NAWCAD) and the Strategic Systems Programs. (SSP) The SSP mission, according to its website, is to “provide credible and affordable strategic solutions to the warfighter.” It’s responsible for developing the technology behind the Trident class nuclear missiles launched from Submarines.
The patents all build on each other, but at their core is something Pais called the “Pais Effect.” This is the idea that, “controlled motion of electrically charged matter via accelerated vibration and/or accelerated spin subjected to smooth yet rapid acceleration transients, in order to generate extremely high energy/high intensity electromagnetic fields.”
Essentially, Pais is claiming to use properly spun electromagnetic fields to contain a fusion reaction. That plasma fusion reaction he claims to have invented will revolutionize power consumption. Experts theorize that a functioning fusion reactor would lead to cheap and ubiquitous energy.
One of Pais and the Navy’s patents described what the propulsion system and fusion drive would be used for—a “hybrid aerospace-underwater craft.” According to the patent, the craft could travel land, sea, and outer space at incredible speeds. Other patents invented by Pais and filed by the Navy include a “high temperature superconductor,” a “electromagnetic field generator,” and a “high frequency gravitational wave generator.”
It all sounds like science fiction, and the Navy has been skeptical too. Navy authorities called bullshit on Pais’ inventions and his patents went through a lengthy internal review at NAVAIR. The War Zone obtained emails about the bureaucratic fight between Pais and the Navy through a Freedom of Information Act Request and revealed that the mad scientist won. According to the patents, some of the technology is “operable.” That means the Navy is claiming some of Pais’ wild tech works and has been demonstrated to Navy officials.
The physics of what Pais is claiming are beyond theoretical and beyond the ken of the layman or lowly science reporter. But a paper about his compaction fusion reactor was accepted by the peer reviewed Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Transactions on Plasma Science and published in its November 2019 issue. “The fact that my work on the design of a Compact Fusion Reactor was accepted for publication in such a prestigious journal as IEEE TPS, should speak volumes as to its importance and credibility - and should eliminate (or at least alleviate) all misconceptions you (or any other person) may have in regard to the veracity (or possibility) of my advanced physics concepts,” Pais told The War Zone in an email.
Bragalia shared that the Nitinol had similar properties to the 'memory metal' found near the Roswell, New Mexico, UFO crash site of 1947.
Pages from the FOIA reply indicate that the Pentagon was exploring whether Nitinol could be integrated into the human body for the improvement of health, the researcher wrote in his blog.
Bragalia highlights that more than 40 witnesses to the Roswell crash mentioned that a metal-like material from the site could 'remember itself' when folded or physically altered.
American Airlines Flight 2292, an Airbus A320 flying between Cincinnati and Phoenix on February 21st, 2021, had a bizarre close encounter with what its crew described as a "long cylindrical object that almost looked like a cruise missile" moving extremely fast over the top of their aircraft as it cruised along at 36,000 feet and 400 knots. The incident occurred over the remote northeast corner of New Mexico, to the west of the tiny town of Des Moines.
