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Wednesday, July 7, 2021

The Docent's Memo (7/7/2021)

 

VIDEO: "Shooting In Stressful Situations"--Paul Harrell (25 min.)
Good advice for learning the basics of defensive shooting.

Firearms/Self-Defense:

  • Jonathon Low sent out an email to his subscribers about the Tennessee Firearms Association 2021 Annual Event on Saturday September 4, 2021:
Doors open at 10am – Lunch around noon – auction to follow
https://tfalac.org/2021-annual-event/
I have donated a couple of systems (pistol, holster, belt, magazine and flashlight pouch, flashlight, and magazines that all fit and work together correctly.  Rear sight machined out by 2/100ths of an inch for low light conditions.  Sear bearing surfaces polished.  Grip contoured to prevent blisters in sesamoid bone at base of the thumb.)  So, come and check them out.  
  • "'Person with a gun' doesn’t mean what it used to"--Open Source Defense. The author argues that with so many gun owners, including concealed carriers, police can no longer just assume that when they show up at a scene that anyone holding a gun needs to be shot.

    So police have to navigate the difference between “person with a gun” and “person who I need to shoot”. And the only time that matters is when it’s hard — when a situation is at its most chaotic. Getting to that level of performance has to mean enforcing extremely high standards.

    There are two parts to making police better at this:

  1. Their training. Every ownership-minded department in the country should be incorporating this into their training scenarios.
  2. Our own work as gun rights people. Even when things are someone else’s fault, effective people think, “Ok, what can I do to make this better? How can I bring this into my control?” Well, the more we normalize gun ownership, the more exposure police will get to people both carrying guns and, yes, using them in self-defense on the rare occasions that the need arises.

If you work with police or in a police department, you can work on the first one. And all of us can work on the second one. Let’s go make it happen.

  • "Concealed Carry Corner: Different Ways To Carry A Spare Magazine"--The Firearm Blog. The author covers the pros and cons of carrying a spare magazine in a belt holster, NeoMag magnetic magazine carrier (essentially magnetically attaching a pocket clip to the magazine), the Wild Man pocket carry which is another product designed to allow you to pocket carry a magazine via a pocket clip, or just slipping the magazine into your pocket. Other methods not mentioned in the article are magazine carriers designed to fit into your pocket similar to a pocket holster, holsters (particularly some of the AIWB) that combine a holster and magazine carrier into a single unit, and shoulder holsters that often balance out the handgun with one or two magazines carried on the opposite side. For instance, the shoulder holsters that I have and use both have a double magazine pouch on the opposite side.
  • The firearm industry, with only a couple exceptions, seems to believe that .380 should be relegated to a backup pistol role, and so the norm for .380 handguns is to keep them pocket sized with only a small magazine capacity--typically 6 rounds. But the development of improved defensive ammo for the .380 and engineering improvements allowing for double-stack sub-compact or pocket 9 mm apparently convinced Ruger to jump the gun on the rest of the industry and introduce a double-stack .380 with 10+1 capacity (or 12+1 in an extended magazine), yet still tiny enough to easily slip into your pocket: the new Ruger LCP Max. And because it is from Ruger, reviewers that would have panned the idea of .380 as a viable defensive caliber are being forced to say nice things. A few articles reviewing this new pistol:
I remember back in the 1990s when "shall issue" concealed carry laws were sweeping the nation, and before small 9 mm pistols were available, the .380 was the most popular concealed carry round. The release of 9 mm handguns with the same or greater magazine capacity ate into that market. This tiny offering may start to claw back the market share for .380 pistols.
    Federal’s new Punch Personal Defense Ammo for .22 LR is unique. Dispensing with meeting the standard FBI ammunition tests — which no .22 LR (to date) would meet — Federal decided to focus purely on penetration. This makes sense as a .22 is woefully underpowered as a fight-stopper but it can be rapidly fatal if employed accurately to critical organs.

    In this regard, the flat-nosed 29-grain non-expanding bullet is claimed to have nearly 14″ of penetration in 10% ballistic gel while speeding along at 1,070 fps from a 2″ revolver. ...

MSRP is $9.99 for a box of 50, but since I haven't seen .22 LR of any sort for many months in any of the local stores, I don't expect to see any of this for a long while. 

    It has been said that the double-action revolver is easy to shoot, but it is difficult to shoot well. Of course, that’s because of the double-action trigger pull. This long trigger pull can easily pull the gun off target if the shooter has not mastered the technique. There are two solutions to this. The first is getting the action job that I have already mentioned. 

    The second is just lots of practice. And don’t overlook the value of dry practice. Dry practice, without the noise and recoil of using live ammunition, allows the shooter to concentrate on developing a smooth, continuous trigger pull that doesn’t disturb the sight picture. Nowadays, with the ammunition situation being what it is, I do far more dry practice than I do live firing.

  • What blasphemy is this!? "Check Out This Hybrid Direct Impingement AK by Tinck Arms from Polenar Tactical"--Guns America Digest. The article explains that "the rifle doesn’t use a true direct impingement gas system, but a hybrid system using a remote short-stroke gas piston." Nevertheless, "[w]hat Tinck Arms achieved with the combined gas systems is a free-floating barrel, to make an AK shoot without the characteristic barrel whip. And because the piston system is separated from the bolt carrier, it also produces noticeably reduced recoil." 
  • Weapon retention techniques for handguns--a compendium of articles. First, some comments. While there are certainly concerns about retaining a pistol as one is drawing it or has drawn it, most of the articles deal with persons attempting to snatch the weapon from the holster. These are further split into two basic scenarios: an attempt by a person to your front, and an attempt by a person to your rear. 
    Because police officers are routinely forced to interact at close or contact distances with criminal suspects, the majority of the articles pertain to law enforcement. But one of the consequences of this is that the articles almost universally assume that (1) the firearm is being openly carried and (2) the person is using a holster utilizing multiple retention systems making it difficult for someone to snatch the weapon in the first instance.

    Neither is the case with most concealed carriers. Holsters generally have some means of preventing a firearm from falling out such as a friction fit, a retention ("thumb-break") strap, or, if made of Kydex or similar, molded to hold the trigger guard. These types of holsters are intended to maximize speed of the draw stroke and any retention system in them is simply to keep the weapon from falling out of the holster. Some of these holsters, because of the angle in which they are carried, may be more difficult for someone to snatch, but are not really designed for that purpose.

    For these reasons, the best method for the civilian (i.e., non-law enforcement) carrier to avoid having his or her pistol snatched is to conceal the weapon. If the criminal does not know of the pistol, he or she cannot snatch the pistol. Moreover, not only does good concealment prevent the criminal from snatching the pistol, it gives the concealed carrier an advantage on when and how to bring a weapon into play, potentially providing the opportunity to get inside the criminal's OODA loop.

    Nevertheless there are instances, whether by exposing the weapon or in the midst of a struggle, that an attacker may become aware of the weapon, and then attempt to snatch the weapon or block the draw. Obviously, in such cases, it would behoove you to know something about weapon retention. And if you decide to openly wear a handgun in public you really should both invest in a retention holster designed to foil a weapon snatch and be proficient in countering a weapon snatch.

    And now for the articles:

VIDEO: "Younger Dryas - Lake Agassiz"--Antonio Zamora (8 min.)
A nice summary of the key events that probably touched off the Younger Dryas, suggesting that an impactor may have provided the means for Lake Agassiz to drain into the St. Lawrence seaway and divert the Atlantic Current.

Prepping/Survival:

  • "How People Survive (Or Not) in a Collapsed Economy"--Organic Prepper. More survival lessons from Venezuela. The author observes that "[t]hose wealthy enough, for sure, have no problems, even if that wealth is mainly invested in facilities within our borders, machinery, vehicles, real estate, and properties. However, I do notice many empty commercial rentals." Also:
    It is a skills-based economy. In our small town, the diesel engine and gasoline engine mechanics, car electricians, home electricians, plumbers, and non-specialized laborers are usually busy. Hairdressers seem to have enough customers to keep them more or less busy. (During the pandemic, they went to their customers’ homes.)
 
    Most people who repair things, whether they’re good at it or not, can make a living. We even have a pair of locksmiths, something unexpected in a town this small. 

    Of course, those who produce food always have consumers. Our traditional white cheese, grain coffee, and stuff like semi-industrial homemade cornmeal (flour) for arepas will find their way to the market. Those selling semi-processed foods (birthday cakes, fried dinner items), pastries, semi-industrial sausages, chorizo, and industrially smoked pork chops find a market, too.

Be sure to read the whole thing. 

If you ever have to bug out from your home during a major disaster, your car is one of the safest places you can be. And while living in your car may not be as nice or comfortable as living in a house, it can be done. There are three specific scenarios where you may have to live out of your car:
  1. If you are ordered to evacuate your area by the authorities during a disaster
  2. If you choose to bug out during a dangerous disaster
  3. You decide to live out of your car part or full time instead of a house or apartment

The article goes on to discuss why your vehicle is great option for bugging out; tips on living out of your car covering such topics as security precautions, handling personal hygiene, staying warm in winter or cool during summer, ideas for leisure time, food and food preparation, and storage; and provides an essential packing list for living out of your car. 

  • "The Lewis and Clark Packing List – What They Took With Them"--Modern Survival Blog. An interesting look at what the Lewis and Clark Expedition took with them and applying the same reasoning to modern prepper planning. The author also discusses what the typical pioneer packed for the Oregon Trail. At least for the pioneer's, the emphasis was on food. Lewis and Clark included quite a bit of gunpowder and lead (for making ammunition) as well as trade goods.
  • "Jack Lawson Sends: Not Just Your Everyday Pemmican, Part Two – An Ancient Answer?"--American Partisan. An excerpt from Chapter 14 of Lawson's two volume Civil Defense Manual. It describes how to make your own pemmican.
  • "Best Gardening Hats – Features That Matter Most"--Modern Survival Blog. Not as cool looking as a tactical bush hat, but probably more useful for most of us and better designed. The features mentioned include having a UPF rating of 30 or more (50 being preferable) and a wide (3-inch minimum) brim all around the hat. The author also lists some brands/models he likes.
  • "Dragoon Unlimited Poncho Liner Review"--Loose Rounds. The author really liked his model, the Multicam Trooper Woobie. It's features include:
    • More durable, more resistance to tearing
    • Water resistant
    • Wind resistance
    • Zipper around 3 sides to make it into a sleeping bag. It is a double zipper so you can open up the bottom for ventilation as well.
    • Longer and thicker ties
    • Warmer (although I don’t have a way to measure)
    • Head hole (closed with a zipper when not used)
    • Rectangle cut vs slight trapezoidal of GI
    • Comes with a pillow
    • Comes with a stuff sack.
And, he adds: 

The main feature that caught my eye was the zipper. When I’ve used the my old one in the past I end up out of it even if the ends are tied. So that’s the most valuable to me. In this vein the liner is cut in an even rectangle instead of the sort of trapezoid shape of the GI one. The corners are the same length so you still have essentially the same amount of room but now it is straight across when folded. 
VIDEO: "The Frankfurt School: From a Failed Revolution to Critical Theory" -- Tom Nicholas (27 min.)
Note that some of these Marxists were involved with the OSS, essentially contaminating the CIA from its beginnings.

The Coming Civil War:

The beatings and low-level constant riots in cities across the country continues.  The level of violence we face today would have been considered off the scale in 2000.  But today?  They are what we call “another Saturday night in Portland.”  How is everyone enjoying the new normal?
All of the crap we have been dealing with all of my life: "feminism", the forced acceptance and then adoration of homosexuality and other degeneracy, racial tensions and violence, cancel culture and Critical Race Theory, all of it has an origin in a small but powerful cabal of people who have been planning this for at least the last century. The architects of our destruction go by many names but one of the most prominent is the Frankfurt School ....
In short:
  • there is a violent race war against whites;
  • there is a predatory war to sexualize children;
  • there is an educational and media war to make Americans loathe our country;
  • there is a biological war by China on the world;
  • there is a war by our own government and media to prevent Americans from saving their own lives with simple supplements;
  • there is a democide being carried out under the guise of a “vaccination” program.
The government of the United States of America – by which I mean the bureaucracy, the other branches no longer matter – is the enforcement arm; big tech and social media is the intelligence agency; and establishment education and establishment media is the propaganda arm, of the deep state-new world order-great reset. “You will own nothing and you will be happy”, they say. But you will not own your mind, and you will be punished for following the dictates of your conscience.
    • More: "Please respect my borders"--Surak Blog. The author examines what a future United States of America might look like. But this is what I think is the key bit:
...  No commander-in-chief has chosen to deploy the military to protect our own country. Instead, the Border Patrol act as welcome guides, shipping invaders deep into America’s interior at taxpayer expense. In other words, we are subsidizing our own destruction.
 
If you have the opportunity to set policy for New America, and a column of invaders comes to your border, ignoring your warnings, what do you advise the border guards to do? If your response is anything less than “Shoot them”, then the new country will fail as surely as America has, and your concern for your family is less than your concern for a criminal. China, India, Japan, Russia, and every other self-respecting country protect their borders with force. New America must do the same.

    According to APD’s description of the incident, a car turned on Congress Avenue near 4th Street at 9:51 p.m. into where a group of protesters was marching against police violence. Protesters surrounded the car. Foster was armed with an assault-style weapon and was one of the protesters who surrounded the car.

    Perry’s attorney sent KXAN pictures he says show that protesters were beating his client’s car. He says damage was done by brick, fists and gunshot.

    Former Austin Police Chief Brian Manley said that’s when the driver fired five shots from inside the vehicle, hitting Foster multiple times. Foster never fired a shot. Another protester then shot at the car three times but did not hit anyone.

Other sources I've seen have noted (often deep in the article) that according to Perry and other witnesses, Foster first pointed the rifle at Perry prompting the shooting (see also here and here). Fellow protestors of Perry have disputed that fact, which may be why the prosecutor felt confident enough to pursue the case. Considering how many protestors are tasked with videoing the protests, however, if Foster had not pointed his rifle at Perry, we'd probably have already seen the video proving that. It is also telling that Foster had been interviewed while at the protest, but before the shooting, about why he was carrying the rifle and pretty much admits that it is to intimidate people.

John McWhorter has been saying for quite a while now that wokeism is a religion. He doesn’t mean that it is like a religion he means that it really is one. And that insight has made him pretty pessimistic about the chances of having a conversation with the people driving this. They don’t want to discuss, they want to gain adherents and condemn heretics.

He quotes McWhorter:

"We have to understand that you can not reason with people like this,” he said. “It’s very rare that you teach somebody out of their religion and this is a religion. And so to try to talk these people down doesn’t work. All they know is that you’re a racist and that’s all you’re going to get. So the idea is not to try to have a dialogue with them about these sorts of issues…I think we simply need to start telling people like this no.”

Two known facts, long since documented beyond reasonable doubt, need to be brought into the open and incorporated into the way we think about public policy: American whites, blacks, Hispanics, and Asians have different violent crime rates and different means and distributions of cognitive ability. The allegations of racism in policing, college admissions, segregation in housing, and hiring and promotions in the workplace ignore the ways in which the problems that prompt the allegations of systemic racism are driven by these two realities.

This, I believe, is the true reason for Critical Race Theory.

    In the 1960s and 70s, the theory was that the differences between white and black outcomes was the result of environment, primarily poverty and lack of educational opportunities. Thus, the War on Poverty, welfare, subsidized or free housing, food stamps and other programs to assist with food, Head Start, affirmative action in both schooling and employment, a plethora of government and private grants and scholarships for blacks heading to college, etc., etc. The goal, at that time, was to achieve a color-blind society. And, by and large, the U.S. had become color-blind by the mid-1980s. And to a certain extent it worked in that it helped build a black middle class.

    Nevertheless, racial outcomes still differed with blacks, overall, well behind whites (and Asians) in many metrics. When psychologist Richard J. Herrnstein and political scientist Charles Murray published The Bell Curve in 1994, it was already apparent that there was something very wrong in the black community, possibly due to lower average I.Q., although the book still maintained that environmental differences were significant. 

    Michael Levin's 1997 book, Why Race Matters: Race Differences and What They Mean, however, documented a considerable body of research and evidence that showed that environmental differences had far less impact than thought--that racial differences (i.e., inherited traits) were far more important to outcomes than environment. And the evidence just kept piling up even though researchers tried to downplay the implications of what they found.

    Now, after nearly six decades of government efforts to improve the outcomes of blacks--all of which has failed--the Left has run out of rational excuses and have resorted to magic: an invisible force-field of "white privilege" and "institutional racism" that in some undefined way keeps American blacks from achieving the same success as white Americans (or Asians, Indians, Arabs, second and third generation Hispanics, blacks immigrants, or pretty much any other group). 

VIDEO: "Humans are a Genetically ENGINEERED SPECIES"--Felix Rex (23 min.)
Although not about Covid, per se, it is about how politicized science is and can be.

Covid News:

  • The rabbits like their masks and endless vacations: "We Can’t Afford for Everyone to Have Their Own Opinion Anymore: It’s getting us killed." by Jessica Wildfire, Medium. The author argues for continued speech and movement restrictions because of Covid. She complains that "[i]n America, everyone must enjoy the right to their own personal opinion — no matter how lethal," before going on a tirade about how dangerous the delta variant of Covid is proving to be, even for those who have been vaccinated. Her employer must be forcing her to return to work because her main complaint is:

... Unfortunately, millions of us don’t get a say in whether we go back to work or not — which guarantees exposure to incredibly contagious variants. We don’t just care for ourselves. We have vulnerable, unvaccinated people in our lives. While everyone else talks about “personal choice” and “freedom,” what they really mean is the freedom for them to force us back into the office, and to shame us into a dystopian normal where we have no control. They want the freedom to turn their inconvenience into our personal risk.

From there, however, she goes off on anyone that isn't "social distancing" or wearing a mask: 

    They’re not going to wear a mask for a little longer. They’re not going to keep their kids home when they’re sick. They’re not going to get vaccinated. They’re not going to do anything helpful.

    A certain kind of person gets all huffy when we ask for small accommodations. They say, “You can’t spend the rest of your life in fear.” I’ve noticed something about this kind of person.

    They’re total assholes.

    I’ve met lots of them. They’re assholes to their friends. They’re assholes to their families. They don’t appreciate anything anyone does for them. They simply expect things. They say everyone’s entitled to their own opinion. What they really mean is that we can all think whatever we want, as long as they get to do whatever they please. Meanwhile, the rest of us have to play along with them, indulging their whims.

    This philosophy used to work fairly well in America, just letting people do whatever they wanted as long as it didn’t affect us. It kept us from tearing each other apart. Of course, the plan doesn’t work so well when it comes to a world full of pandemics and climate crises.

She's all ready for some strong leader to come in an force us into lockdowns and haul off anyone that doesn't like it to extermination camps. 

    • More:  "Put your masks back on, and don’t whine about it" by Robin Abcarian, Los Angeles Times. Robin relates how she had just barely worked up the courage to take off her mask when in Trader's Joe and Costco. "It felt transgressive — and a little germy — but so liberating." But it was only transitory. "Like a Prague Spring, no sooner had we gotten a taste of full-face freedom, when a new warning came down," she explains. 

    On Monday, Los Angeles County public health officials recommended that we put our masks back on in indoor public spaces such as stores, restaurants, theaters and workplaces. This is because the highly contagious Delta variant is not just spreading around the state but is expected to become the dominant strain, and although fully vaccinated people appear to have strong protection against it, we still don’t fully understand it.

    As health officials put it in a statement: “Until we better understand how and to who the Delta variant is spreading, everyone should focus on maximum protection with minimum interruption to routine as all businesses operate without other restrictions, like physical distancing and capacity limits.”

    I can live with that. Businesses will remain fully open, we can still gather with friends and family, but indoors, in public we keep using the masks. And I don’t resent health officials for changing their advice or contradicting themselves. This, after all, is how science works.

    When the coronavirus was thought to be transmitted by touch, we wiped down our groceries, scrubbed kitchen and bathroom counters, and polished our doorknobs with bleach. We washed our hands until they cracked, and spent plenty of time yelling at the kids to do the same. We still wash our hands (though not as obsessively), but now we know that the virus is transmitted primarily through respiratory droplets and is unlikely to survive for long on surfaces.

    For many, getting used to masking up was a struggle. Last year, I had unpleasant moments in stuffy places when I felt like I was being gently suffocated, or when the fog on my glasses made me feel like Mr. Magoo.

    Eventually, though, I was able to run three miles comfortably in a paper surgical mask.

The type of mask that even Dr. Fauci said were useless for protecting against catching the virus. 

    During a May 31, 2021 live-streamed video updating the public on the current COVID-19 restrictions, Premier Iain Rankin and Chief Medical Officer of Health, Dr. Robert Strang, responded to various questions.

    One telephone caller questioned the necessity for an injunction banning all in-person gatherings, saying, “I'm wondering about the injunction banning public gatherings and whether there really is a need for such a far-reaching one.”

    Strang responded, “So I mean, I think it’s still there. We still have uh, the, uh, bringing large numbers of people together, uh, it can present some risk. We will continue to look at that.”

    Stammering, he continued, “But I think the other purpose of the injunction is to, uh, is to, uh, prevent uh, you know, groups that are spreading, uh – deliberately spreading, uh, false information that... can actually create risk. The information itself if listened to creates risk to the public as well so, and…that certainly is a need to manage that misinformation campaign as well.”

    The theory was that if the coronavirus attached itself readily to an animal like a bat or a pangolin, it would have likely been the species that the bug used to make its leap into the human population. However, the modelling found that the coronavirus’s spike protein was best suited to attacking protein receptors in humans.

    “The computer modelling found the virus’s ability to bind to the bat ACE2 protein was poor relative to its ability to bind human cells,” said Flinders University epidemiologist and vaccine researcher Professor Nikolai Petrovsky. “This argues against the virus being transmitted directly from bats to humans.”


VIDEO: "China’s plan for the 'world’s riskiest' mega dam high in the Himalayas" -- ABC (Australia) News (6 min.). Somewhat ignored in this segment are the concerns of India and Bangladesh that China will use the proposed dam as a weapon--cutting off crucial water supplies at critical times. 

Miscellany:

    General McInerney, who served as the number three guy in the Pentagon, has spoken to contacts about this incident and understands why Dong chose to go to the DIA instead of other agencies that normally work with defectors.

    “The CIA and the FBI, the Department of Justice and other organizations are dirty,” he said. “And we have Deep Staters there that have their interest, not the nation’s interests.”

    Dong’s top focus was on the thousands of assets China has working inside the United States government and across all sectors of American society in general. General McInerney pointed out that Dong Jinwei defected to the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA). Historically, defecting foreign intelligence officers defect to the CIA or the FBI.

    “He went specifically to the DIA, which tells me in his analysis the DIA has not been tinged with dirt,” he said. As McInerney has stated on numerous occasions in the past, he detailed how anyone with knowledge of what drives the CIA, NSA, FBI, and other Deep State institutions would never choose them to engage with out of fear for their lives.

    Gen. McInerney believes that Dong Jinwei feared that he would be killed if he went to the CIA or FBI, as it was the leaders of those agencies who — under Obama’s orders — sold the signals-intercept capability known as ‘Hammer and Scorecard” to China, probably for at least $100 million. Adding to his fear is the knowledge he possesses of the U.S. Government-Democrat-CPP cooperation that delivered the Obama/Fauci-funded Wuhan Flu to the United States in what will soon be proven to be a direct biological attack on the U.S., a type of attack that normally would be considered a causus belli.

    I finally slammed the door on Afghanistan in 2011. I never went back. I continued going into combat, but not in useless, wasted combat.

    The idea that w e are there to promote women’s rights is at best naive. We cannot even keep Atlanta, Portland, Chicago, or one square mile around the White House safe.

    I just sent significant time in D.C. and witnessed up close the events on 06 January 2021.

    The three top US military ‘leaders’ are Biden, Austin, and Milley. Three overt racists more concerned about ghosts than about those who burned neighborhoods across America last year, and will do again this year. Watch. Write it down. Come back a year from now and check my words.

    2022 will be worse in the United States. I see no sign this is letting up. We have three racists in charge who are destroying the US military.

Before the Afghan army could take control of the airfield about an hour's drive from the Afghan capital Kabul, it was invaded by a small army of looters, who ransacked barrack after barrack and rummaged through giant storage tents before being evicted, according to Afghan military officials.

Now it is all downhill. The article reports that the Afghan army is collapsing across the country, including 1,000 forces that bolted across the border into Tajikistan. And the Taliban are now the beneficiaries of all the arms and equipment that we had left for the Afghan forces.

    There are mounting fears that the Taliban could soon march on major urban centres such as Kandahar.

    Fierce clashes in Kandhar province at the weekend resulted in yet more victory for the jihadists, who overran the district of Panjwai, formerly the home of its supreme leader Haibatullah Akhundzada, it's just over 20 miles from the provincial capital.

    The district could provide a platform for the capture of Kandahar, a city of 600,000, which acted as the Taliban's capital during the 1990s.   

No word yet, however, whether the Taliban will be using Bagram Airfield for all the F-15s and nukes that, according to faux-President Biden, are necessary to take on the United States.

    ... Marriage is definitely on the decline. But before women start asking where all the good men have gone, perhaps they should look at themselves first.

    I know. Women aren’t typically used to hearing that it’s their fault. To be sure, you don’t shoulder all of the blame, but in this case, you bear a lot of it.

    Not long ago, I wrote about how men are getting tired of the “hyper-sexualized woman” where I laid down a very brutal truth:

    Society doesn’t encourage women to be good partners, they’re encouraged to be consumers of what their partner produces. Sadly, these same women are being encouraged to go out and get high-paying positions and are very likely to succeed thanks to the current culture, and very often make more money than their male partners. Yet still, the male is still expected to make more for the family.

    It doesn’t just stop at the societal level either. Even in modern families, men are taught how to treat a woman, provide for her, and work hard to keep her happy. Women aren’t taught how to treat a man or how to make him happy; they’re strictly taught what to expect from a man.

    This, combined with modern feminist philosophy that encourages women to do away with traditional ideas, has produced an entire swath of useless women who value shallow sexuality over familial contribution and homemaking skills. They enter into marriages where they contribute very little and expect quite a lot, and these marriages eventually end.

    The sad truth is that many young women nowadays don’t know how to be in a marriage. As I said above, they’re not taught how to treat a man, but what to expect from him. Meanwhile, they’re flat-out dissuaded from providing anything but their presence to the partnership. They believe that offering their love to the man is sufficient and that men should just be grateful to have them. The idea that women suddenly make a man happier by their presence is a storybook sentiment.

    Still, more emphasis is put on being fierce in a “yas, slay queen! You’re a goddess and you deserve to be treated like one!” kind of world.

    So they offer nothing and expect everything. They’re useless within the bounds of their own relationships with the only thing they bring to the table is what’s in between their legs, and even that’s something that can’t be taken on a whim, and even then, the value of that fades over time.

    What doesn’t help — and what often isn’t discussed enough — is that women take an emotional toll on men. ...
    ... fomer [sic] LA policeman Mike Rothmiller has decided to reveal what he claims is the extraordinary truth: that secret documents he found in LAPD archives show that Marilyn Monroe was assassinated to protect the Kennedy clan.

    More sensational still, it was Bobby Kennedy himself who gave Marilyn the poisoned drink that killed her — while Peter Lawford stood and watched it happen.

    When Rothmiller put the facts to Lawford, 20 years later, the actor broke down and confessed. But the story has been suppressed for 40 years, because the cover-up went far beyond the Kennedys.

    The cop stayed silent for decades, fearing for his life as long as senior police officers from the era were still alive and able to threaten him and his family. Forty years on, he is still nervous about revealing what he knows, and he still takes precautions, still keeps his findings and documentation in safe places.

    But now, and with the blessing of his wife Nancy, he has decidied it is time the world knows what he has discovered. He says with confidence: ‘If I presented my evidence in any court of law, I’d get a conviction.’

    Rothmiller’s source material is as sensational as his claims. It calls on secret L.A. police files as well as eye witness testimony from a Beverly Hills traffic policeman. The story, he believes, nearly cost him his own life.

    On a hot night in August 1982 — just weeks, he says, after Lawford told him what really happened — the former policeman was the target of a mob-style assassination bid. A gunman on a motorcycle pulled up alongside his unmarked car and opened fire with a semi-automatic pistol.

    Rothmiller was hit in the back and side, and suffered spinal damage which he barely survived.

    Four years earlier, aged 27, he was the youngest detective in the city’s Organised Crime Intelligence Division [OCID]. With six years’ experience on the force, he was assigned to desk duties in the department’s information trove nicknamed Fort Davis — a bomb-proof labyrinth of filing cabinets in a downtown building with no windows.

    Tens of thousands of files were held there: rumour, fact, supposition and gossip on everyone from crime bosses to politicians, actors to rock stars, newspaper reporters to television presenters. Much of the information was unrelated to any crimes — it was simply background on anyone who had ever crossed the path of the OCID. Their sole job was to collect potentially embarrassing intelligence that might later be used as leverage in criminal investigations.
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Weekend Reading -- A New Weekend Knowledge Dump

Greg Ellifritz has posted a new Weekend Knowledge Dump at his Active Response Training blog . Before I discuss some of his links, I want to ...