When Long Guns Are The Wrong Tool

 Greg Ellifritz's "Weekend Knowledge Dump" from this past Friday included an article from Reflex Handgun titled, "Long Guns: The Wrong Tool for the Job." Outside of hunting or recreation, the author noted that the use of long gun is rather limited for your typical civilian:

What are the uses for the long gun in civilian life?  I can think of three primary ones:

    1. If barricaded in the home in the safe room during home invasion, the long gun is excellent.

    2. When the shit really hits the fan and society collapses, the rifle is your friend.

    3.  When you must protect your liberty from overreaching government (as is the entire premise of the 2nd Amendment even though many shy away from talking about that fact) the rifle is the tool.

Outside of these uses, the long gun is limited in defensive use and the handgun is the primary. 

I agree. Way back in 2014, I published a post with the title "The Top 5 Firearm Myths Among Preppers" in which Myth #4 was "Your Primary Weapon is Your Rifle." I wrote:

    There are a significant number of preppers that seem to believe that when whatever earth-rendering disaster, financial collapse, or alien invasion occurs, we will suddenly be launched into a full-blown, "Mad Max" situation of kill-or-be-killed. They envision picking off bandits (or U.N. Peacekeepers) at hundreds of yards as they advance toward the particular prepper's retreat, all the while safely ensconced in a concealed location beyond the reach of the bandits' weapons. This is their focus for self-defense.

    Even moving into the mainstream of the prepper movement, there is an emphasis on tactics and weapons for post-SHTF/without rule of law tactics and weapons. For instance, there was this post earlier today at the Survivalist Blog, stating:

... Distance ALWAYS equals two things. Time and safety. The time aspect of this is quite simple. The further away an enemy is from a target the longer it will take to achieve their objective. The further away from your loved ones that you can engage a threat provides reaction time for your and your loved ones to initiate whatever pre arranged defense protocols you have established. This in and of itself provides an added level of safety. If you are trying to protect your family, and they are going to be in the home, than the defense should be started as far away from the house as is possible. A good shot with an AR style rifle can ruin your day from five hundred meters in. I am aware that it may not be possible to establish a perimeter at that distance, but that would be best. I suggest possibly establishing a forward outpost at this distance if possible. A forward placed rifle and a few well placed shots may well be all it takes to persuade someone that its better to go somewhere else.

I'm not criticizing the author of that post because the tactics, and reliance on a rifle, are sound ... when considering warfare, insurgency, defending against raiders, or other situations where you expect to be in combat.

    But when we prepare, we aren't only, or even necessarily, preparing for the end of civilization, but other disasters, big and small and in-between. We cannot overlook the here and now and focus on the post-SHTF to the exclusion of everyday preps. And this applies equally to weapons and our training. As Fernando "FerFal" Aguirre explains in his book, Surviving the Economic Collapse:

    Rifles are terrific but they are not your main weapon. Again, here's the difference between a soldier or a SWAT member and you. 

    A soldier carries his rifle because it's his job to do so while at war. SWAT guy has his rifle when doing his thing as well but both soldier guy and SWAT guy do NOT carry their rifles when they go pick up the kids at a friend's birthday party. And yes, the bad guys will attack you at that birthday party, or some other ridiculously unlikely circumstance. 

    That's the way it is my friend. Understand that while I'm writing this tonight there are thousands staying awake in their beds thinking about possible plans and ideas to rob people like you and me.

(Surviving the Economic Collapse, p. 155). Massad Ayoob similarly wrote:

    For you, it won't happen on a battlefield where the nearest Soviet soldier is 600 meters away behind a French hedgerow. For you, it will happen at point-blank range. Studies by the FBI show that the great majority of shoot-outs occur at a range of 7 yards or less, and more commonly at about 7 feet. And this is among police, whose statistics include running gunfights on the highway and long-distance gunfire exchanges with snipers and barricaded felons. 

    The civilian, almost always, will fight his opponent face-to-face. In that close space he won't be able to bring a rifle or shotgun up before the attacker can take two steps forward and stab, club, or disarm him, or fire his own illegal gun. ...

(The Truth About Self Protection, p. 346). Ayoob also discusses the downsides to using a rifle at close quarters, such as the lack of mobility, the overpowering flash and stunning noise, and the need for two hands.

    This is not to discount obtaining a rifle or shotgun. They have their place and, as I said earlier, I believe that this nation--the United States--will see another civil war. But I don't know when. It could be tomorrow, or 100 years from now. The burglar or mugger, though, is always with us.

    Looking at it another way, consider this. A soldier or a SWAT officer, or similar, relies on his rifle as his primary weapon as he deploys on a mission or operation. If something goes wrong with his rifle, he transitions to his pistol. For you, at least while we still have rule of law, may not have any warning of danger, and you most likely will not be carrying a rifle--even if you typically have one as a "trunk gun." You will have your handgun first, and then if you have time and ability and need, will transition to your rifle. Exactly the opposite of the soldier.

    Your primary weapon should be, where available, a good quality handgun, extra magazines (or speed loaders if you choose to use a revolver), a good supply of ammunition, and practice. Your rifle is secondary...at least for now. With that mind, if you are just starting out with putting together a battery of defensive weapons, my general suggestion is to first obtain a handgun and some ammo, and start practicing and learning to use it for self-defense. Then, as you expand your preps, look to get a defensive rifle.

    And for those of you that already have a small battery of firearms, don't neglect the handgun. To paraphrase one commenter, focusing on the rifle while ignoring the handgun is like skipping the first aid kit because there is a hospital nearby. Until the SHTF, loss of rule of law, the handgun is your primary weapon.

I still stand by those comments. 

Bombs & Bants (Streamed 12/22/2021)

 

VIDEO: "Bombs & Bants & Wednesday Rants" (43 min.)

The Modern Scout Rifle: ROAM Magnesium Receivers

Back in September of this year I decided to revisit the idea of Jeff Cooper's scout rifle ("The Scout Rifle - Another Look") after seeing a Springfield M1A SOCOM rifle sporting a 16-inch barrel. I've since been reading more about the topic and most recently came across an early article from Cooper outlining his ideas.

    Cooper's idea of a scout rifle was firmly attached in the late 19th and early 20th Century idea of a military scout. In fact, he begins his early article on the subject by quoting an Army definition of scout as "a man trained in the use of ground and cover, movement from cover to cover, rifle marksmanship, map reading, observation, and accurately reporting the results of his observation." Cooper than added that the scout "acted alone, not as a member of a team," and "[b]y choice he did not fight but he had to be an expert at the hit-and-run art of single combat." Such a person--the scout--would be best served by a general purpose rifle. That is, a rifle you would choose if you could only have one rifle. Cooper acknowledged that times had changed and the military no longer made use of true scouts, but believed that a general purpose rifle might still benefit the hunter-rifleman.

    Cooper initially dismissed the semi-auto rifle because, as he put it, they are "overly long, heavy, and bulky, and the volume of fire they afford is of little consequence to a true scout." One can disagree over whether a military scout might need more firepower than afforded by a bolt-action rifle, but it is no longer true that a semi-auto rifle needs to be "overly long, heavy, and bulky." The argument today is one largely advanced by author Richard Mann that the scout rifle is a universal hunting arm that can legally be used in any part of the United States or Africa or (with a change in caliber) anywhere in Europe. Of course, even that isn't true as there are areas of the United States that prohibit the use of bottle-necked cartridges such as the .308 favored by Cooper. And I see the ability to use the rifle in Africa as rather specious since the .308 is not large enough to legally be used to hunt Africa's dangerous game, and, perhaps more importantly, anyone that can afford to go on safari in Africa is not going to be someone limited to just one rifle.

    I do see Cooper's concept has having relevance to the prepper--especially one in a rural area that might legitimately want a hunting weapon that can be pressed into double duty as a defensive rifle. And so as I set out to build a modern scout rifle, I decided on the AR-10/308 style weapon (AR 308 is generally used to refer to the DPMS pattern weapons while AR-10 is generally used for the Armalite .308 rifles, so I will be using AR 308 for the rest of this article). 

    The primary difficulty is that Cooper believed that such a rifle should be approximately 6.5 pounds with sights and sling, but unloaded. As it was clear that 6.5 pounds was probably too restrictive, this requirement became a bit mushy, with the weight limit going up to 7.5 lbs, then settling around 7 lbs.

    Even using aluminum receivers, most AR 308 rifles weigh more than 7.5 lbs., so I would still need to put the rifle on a "diet." The easiest place to shed weight is the barrel. Since Cooper insisted on a barrel less than 19-inches, and this is a weapon intended to be carried much but shot little, selecting a short, thin profile barrel was a no-brainer. I originally was going to get the Faxon 16-inch pencil profile barrel in .308, but wound up getting Faxon's "Big Gunner" 16-inch barrel. My reasoning was that the "Big Gunner" was only a few ounces more but had slightly thicker material around the base of the barrel which would help with heat dispersion. I decided the trade-off was worth it.

    But beyond the barrel, loosing weight generally involves using exotic materials and/or special machining or cuts to reduce weight. And much of it costs. 

    I decided on a couple of requirements when selecting components. First, I did not want a rifle that was excessively expensive, so I decided that I would try to stick to components that cost no more than 150% or so of "normal" or "standard" components. Second, I did not want to sacrifice strength and reliability. 

    So, after selecting and purchasing a barrel, I decided to look at what I could do in the receiver department. Unfortunately, there is not the selection of lightweight receivers for the AR 308 as there are for the AR 15 style rifles. For instance, I was not able to locate skeletonized receivers. Not that I would have chosen one because it would have bumped up against my second criteria of not wanting to sacrifice strength and reliability. I found a company selling a polymer lower, but could not find enough information on its long term durability. Another company sold receivers that had lots of lightening cuts to lighten the receiver, but the price was above my 150% of standard components (using Aero Precision as a guide) and they were out of stock. 

    Then I stumbled across ROAM Rifles which not only sells light-weight AR 308 rifles but also sells receivers for the home builder. ROAM makes their receivers out of magnesium which makes them lighter than aluminum but largely retaining the strength of aluminum. The prices were also within my 150% criteria. 

    For instance, the ROAM lower receiver (which comes in Cerakoted black, flat dark earth, or tungsten gray) retails for $299.95 and weighs in at 7.3 ounces versus $204.99 ($224.99 for flat dark earth) and 12 ounces for the Aero Precision M-5 .308 receiver.

    ROAM offers uppers in both a slick sided and one that can accept a forward assist. I decided on the slick sided one which runs $259.95 and 6.8 ounces, versus $149.99 ($164.99 in flat dark earth) and 12.7 ounces for the Aero Precision. The ROAM receiver also came with an ejection port door included, so the price difference wasn't much more than the 150% price difference when including the extra cost for an ejection port door for the Aero Precision receiver.

    So, I spent about $200 extra for the ROAM parts over the Aero Precision, but saved (24.7 - 14.1) or 10.6 ounces. 

    Obviously, I haven't finished my project, so I can't speak yet as to how the ROAM receivers work in an assembled firearm, but the quality appears to be good. The two fit together tightly, but, like the Aero Precision receivers, there is a set screw underneath where the pistol grip fits that allows you to fine tune the fit between the upper and lower. 

    I purchased an AR-10 Armaspec lower parts kit, so I should have these put together shortly.

Joe Harold's "Prepare Today Survive Tomorrow"

 

Years ago, I posted a short review of Joe Harold's book, Prepare Today - Survive Tomorrow. This was the book that really introduced me to the world of prepping (or survivalism as it was generally termed at that time).  Although the type of prepping espoused by Harold would now be termed Rawlesian  (after James Wesley Rawles), Harold's book was published over a decade before Rawles started making a name for himself. 

       The hard cover version of the book, shown on the left, was published in 1984 by a company in Utah called Horizon Publishers & Distributors, and that was the version of the book I was given in the mid-1980s and read and read again. It's a great book and I wish there were a PDF version floating around the internet to which I could direct you. 

    I occasionally look around to see if I can find a PDF version, however. No luck yet, but as I did so this last time I came across several Amazon links to used copies, including some that mentioned it coming out in paperback. That puzzled me since I thought that there was only ever the hard cover version. I found a place selling a paperback copy for around $6 and ordered it out of curiosity, and the book on the right in the photograph is what came. 

    The major difference, besides the binding, is the cover. The 1984 version sported a dust jacket showing a nuclear burst over a cityscape with a man in a military style uniform carrying an SKS (a weapon that, ironically, is not discussed anywhere in the book). The same illustration, but in black and white, is on the cover underneath the dust jacket. The newer version was printed in 1999, also by Horizon Publishers. The cover is a reproduction of a painting that appears to show the Wasatch Front down in Utah. Although the 1999 cover is certainly more visually appealing, I think it was an unfortunate choice because it doesn't communicate what the book is about. That is, the older cover at least informs you that it has something to do with a nuclear attack. Just looking at the cover of the second book, you could not be blamed if you thought it was the cover of a novel.

    The back cover on the 1984 version advertises three other books put out by Horizon Publishers on survivalism topics. The back cover of the 1999 version has a summary of the book, reproducing the summary on the inside front flap of the 1984 copy. 

    The 1984 version runs 182 pages while the 1999 version runs 192 pages. The extra pages appear to be largely the result of the publisher switching to a slightly larger font which apparently required that the whole book be re-typeset.  There is a also a short publisher's note on why they hadn't updated the text to reflect the collapse of the Soviet Empire, and the biography of the author had been moved from the back flap of the dust cover on the 1984 version to the end of the book in the 1999 version. Finally, the publisher had corrected an embarrassing error in the original book where two captions had been switched around on the chapter about weapons. I would assume that the publisher probably took the opportunity to correct any other typographical errors in the 1984 version. Finally, a forward and dedication in the earlier volume that were given their own pages were crammed together in the later copy. Thus, the table of contents starts on page 11 of the 1984 version, but begins on page 9 in the later printing.

    Based on the table of contents and quickly flipping through the paperback printing, it does not appear that there are any substantive changes between the books. The topics covered remain the same: 

1. Our Crisis Today
2. Needs for Retreat Living
3. What's for Supper?
4. Shelter from the Storm
5. The Three "Rs"
6. Weapons for Defense
7. Defense Philosophies

And, of course, a bibliography and index. 

   Having been published during the height of the Cold War, it is only natural to compare Harold's book to Bruce Clayton's classic, Life After Doomsday. They both were early books on survival and prepping with heavy emphasis on surviving a nuclear war with the Soviet Union and rebuilding afterward. The books are certainly not copies of each other, but rather complimentary. Although Clayton discusses other disasters, he was very much focused on surviving a nuclear war. Harold, notwithstanding the extensive material on surviving a nuclear attack, gave me the impression that he was actually more concerned about an economic collapse and surviving the "golden horde" that would inevitably flow out of the cities. He certainly devotes more space to weapons, making booby traps, and basic tactics than does Clayton. This may simply reflect Harold's law enforcement background and exposure to criminal gangs.

    I also believe that Harold's writing style is a bit more friendly and approachable than Clayton's. Harold's book is a good introduction to the topic for that reason. And that is the final point: Harold's book is intended as a starting point and not as the end-all-be-all on the subject.

    There are plenty of books on prepping today, but far fewer that discuss surviving a nuclear war. And even those that consider a nuclear attack focus primarily on a high altitude blast intended to produce an EMP blast to kill our electrical system rather than an attack involving hundreds or even thousands of warheads being launched to destroy cities, military bases, and missile silos, with the resultant fallout. This is where a book such as Harold's Prepare Today Survive Tomorrow would be a good addition to your library.  It is also a good book for those interested in the history of the survival movement because it gives a peek into what were the main concerns of preppers in the 1980s.

    As a final note, I would also point out that there is a recent prepping book with the title Prepare Today Survive Tomorrow by L.G. Wellington. This is not Harold's book. I'm currently reading Wellington's book and hope to have a review up shortly.

Jeff Cooper's "Scout Rifle Idea"

Click on each picture to enlarge it, or download it for perusal: 

The Docent's Memo (Dec. 22, 2021)

 

VIDEO: "SUBSONIC 5.56??? You Mean .22LR? What Is Even The Point?"--AR15.com (9 min.)

Ballistic tests show that the bullet essentially destabilizes (yaws) while in flight and enters and penetrates sideways. Penetration seemed pretty good on bare gelatin, but accuracy would be terrible.

Firearms/Shooting/Self-Defense:

• "Cold weather shooting considerations" by Massad Ayoob, Backwoods Home Magazine. Ayoob brings together a collection of cautions, tips, and tricks of his own and from readers about keeping your and your firearm in working condition in cold weather. One of the big issues is using a gloved hand while shooting: many trigger guards are too small to admit a gloved finger (at least, not without the danger of inadvertently depressing the trigger), and so much of the the article relates to this topic, ranging from different types of gloves or mittens, to changes in hardware. Your solution will likely depend a lot on where you live. For instance, where I live and because I work in an office, I can most of the time get away with using a lightweight glove that will work with my weapons, even the pistols or rifles with smaller trigger guards. If I lived in other parts of Idaho where the winter weather is more like the upper plains states, I would have to use one of the other options discussed in the article. I will add, however, that you need to experiment and explore what works, and look to make sure that a glove doesn't interfere with the trigger resetting. For instance, I've noticed that the design of revolver triggers on S&W weapons can easily catch or pinch the fabric of a glove.

    Another issue is that lubricants thicken when cold, and could render a firearm inoperable, and so Ayoob recommends keeping the firearm inside a coat close to the body. But you also need to keep it easily accessible even while wearing a heavy coat. Ayoob solution is to use a shoulder holster, but he has collected ideas from others.

• "TFB Armorer’s Bench: AR15 Gas Rings and Their Maintenance"--The Firearm Blog. A detailed article on determining when your gas rings around the bolt (piston) in your AR15 need to be replaced and how to do it. My only quibble is that the author adds: "When installing new AR15 gas rings take special care to have their gaps randomized and not lined up. Have each of the gas spaced out on one-third of the circumference. If they are lined up then leakage will happen and performance issues may arise." This is a myth (see this Brownell's Smith Busters video). 
• Some firearms history: ".276 Pedersen And The 'Other' Garand?"--Armory Life. Some of you might not be aware, but following World War I, the U.S. Army became deeply interested in fielding a standard infantry weapon that provided better firepower than the bolt-action rifle. Concurrently, they also wanted a cartridge that would be smaller with less recoil, but just as or more lethal than the .30-06.  The article explains:

    It was already understood that smaller caliber bullets [than .30 caliber] had a higher “lethality index” at close ranges, but as of 1928 that knowledge operated on a theoretical basis only as there had been no practical test using a human tissue analog.

    Since that was the case, a ballistics study was conducted in June and July of that year that would infamously be remembered as the “Pig Board” because of its use of 18 anesthetized pigs as test subjects. Another board in 1930 used anesthetized goats. The outcome of both boards confirmed that smaller caliber bullets inflicted the most damage at 300 yards and that .30 caliber bullets inflicted the most damage at 1,000 yards.

(Strangely, the Italians had the opposite experience pitting their 6.5 mm rifles against 8 mm rifles used by the Ottomans in the Italo-Turkish War 1911-1912 as mentioned in this video). At the conclusion of the tests, a War Department board recommended adoption of the the .276 Pedersen cartridge. Both Pedersen's cartridge and his semi-auto rifle survived the initial trials. Garand's rifle submission also survived. But the Great Depression put an end to the .276 Pedersen. The military was afraid that Congress would be loath to fund both a new rifle and a new cartridge, so they decided to focus on getting the new rifle. Because Pedersen's design was not as amenable to alteration to use the .30-06, Garand's rifle was selected (it may have also helped that because Garand's design was "in house," the military would not have to pay a royalty to produce the design).

• "The .41 Magnum Story" by Wayne Van Zwoll, GUNS Magazine. The first half of the article discusses various .41 calibers used in the late 19th and early 20th Century before getting to the development of the .41 Magnum. Unfortunately, the .41 Magnum was a victim of timing. The .357 Magnum had been introduced in 1935. The .44 Magnum appeared in 1956. The .41 Magnum, which was intended to be give law enforcement something superior to the .357 but without the punishing recoil of the .44, did not appear until 1963. While it has never completely disappeared, and seems well liked by devoted revolver shooters, it has never enjoyed the popularity of the .357 or .44 Magnum. 

    The common argument concerning why to use the .41 Magnum is that it is a better big game cartridge than the .357 Magnum and a better defensive cartridge than the .44 Magnum. That may be a viable argument if you were only limited to one handgun, and you wanted to use it for both self-defense and hunting. But if you have no such limitation, you have to ask: is the .41 Magnum enough better than a .357 Magnum for self-defense to justify the extra size, weight, and recoil? And is its lower energy versus the .44 Magnum worth it to have a slightly flatter trajectory for handgun hunting? Although the .41 Magnum has hung on for decades, Richard Mann believes that the cartridge is dying and soon will be relegated to the dust bin of history.

• "The Ups & Downs Of Handgun Bullets" by Jeff "Tank" Hoover, American Handgunner. Key part:

    Typically, the faster a handgun bullet is driven, the lower the Point Of Impact (POI) will be on your target with the same bullet. This is the opposite of rifle impact, where the faster the bullet, the higher the POI. Add weight to a projectile traveling the same speed as a lighter one, and POI rises in the handgun.

    For example, zero your .44 Special revolver at 25 yards, shooting a 200-grain bullet, loaded over 7.5 grains of Unique, in a .44 Special case. Your group is dead smack in the middle of the Bullseye. Now, use your same 7.5 grains of Unique with a 250-grain bullet, with the same gun, sight setting and distance. Your POI will be higher than your original group using the 200-grain bullet by 2″ to 3″.

    Why, you ask? The reason is simple. Barrel time. As the bullet travels down the barrel, the muzzle rises in recoil. The more recoil, the higher the POI. The faster the bullet is traveling, the shorter the barrel time, hence, a lower POI.

• Springfield has announced two new .45 ACP pistols: an XD-M Elite 3.8” Compact OSP in .45 ACP and a very nice looking 1911 Operator pistol. The latter reminds me that Lucky Gunner recently released a video on the topic of why everyone either loves or hates the 1911. I figure I will provide my two cents on that topic. First, and foremost, the 1911 has a cachet that undeniable: it was invented by John Browning; it served the U.S. through two world wars, plus the conflicts in El Salvador, Korea and Vietnam; and it has been pushed heavily by generations of gun writers. Second, the 1911 looks like what a defensive handgun should look like. I don't know if there is some combination of ratios and angles, the clean lines, the fact that we've seen it in so many movies and television shows, or what, but it just looks "right." Third, it is easy to shoot. The trigger design, how the safety falls right under the thumb, the grip angle, make it an easy weapon for most shooters to use. You may not appreciate it until you actually pick one up and use it, but it just feels "right" for many shooters. However, if it doesn't "feel right" for you (whether due to grip angle, size, etc.), there isn't much that can be done. And it admittedly is not a very practical weapon when compared to more modern designs that may offer lighter weight, higher capacity, better reliability, and lower price. 

VIDEO: "How to Build a Home Surveillance Plan for a Post SHTF, WROL Situation"--City Prepping (13 min.)

Prepping & Survival:

• "ESCAPE: How to Evade Trackers and Tracking Dogs" by Kit Arthur, Organic Prepper. A detailed and welcome article on these two topics. You probably should print or save this one. An excerpt:

    Imagine that a dog sees the scent like a red fog that hovers over the ground where you just traveled. This will assist you in understanding how to evade one.

    If the wind moves at 3-5 MPH (a gentle breeze) the scent will travel with the wind about 5-15 yards. A stiff wind at 20-30 MPH the scent will travel 100-200 yards off the route traveled. Anything above 30 MPH, the handler ain’t even going to try because your scent has been totally dispersed everywhere and is just plain gone.

#1 Scent Massing

    Yes, you read that right. Run hard to open the gap between your pursuer and yourself. Then stop and start running in a circle. Slowly run in a spiral until the circle is approximately 50 yards in diameter. This is called scent massing. What you just did placed your scent everywhere. As the dog approaches, they just smell you in every direction. With no clear trail, the dog will simply give up. I actually did this during a training mission with a local sheriff’s department.

    Thirty minutes prior to the track, the handler had been bragging about how he and his bloodhound had just completed a week-old 26-mile track. (That’s NC state requirement to be certified as a bloodhound tracking handler/dog). Not even 15 mins into the track they hit my scent mass and both just gave up. They had no clue what to do or what had happened. Needless to say, the handler was super pissed at me.

    Side Note: Your scent flows off of you the hotter your body gets. That means that your head, sweat, clothing, detergent, etc. are all the scents that make up you as the target. So as soon as you can slow down, do it. Try not to sweat any more than you have to.

#2 Scent Masking

    I was running rabbit – in this case, I was giving the dog and his handler something to chase/track for training purposes – for a buddy of mine who was a bloodhound handler for a neighboring county sheriff’s department (it was a different agency from the last one.) I had just finished running about a mile when it started to rain. Not thinking anything of it, I threw on my poncho, walked 25 yards in the woods, and sat down.

    I watched for a hot minute while my friend and his dog walked by me about 3 or 4 times. Finally, he called me on the phone and asked where I was. I stood up and scared the crap out of him. When I told him what I had done, he explained to me that I had just taken my scent and put it into a ziplock bag. I totally just scent-masked myself.

    Side note: If you can smell someone without the aid of a dog, then you’re within 25 yards of them. (I figured this out also while stalking deer in the swamps of NC.)

    Whenever you find yourself evading a dog, be sure to use 2 or more tactics to throw the dog off your trail. Unfortunately, what works for a dog, will not work for a human tracker.

• "The Combat/Survival Smock, And Stocking It For Survival"--American Partisan. The idea here is that rather than a load-bearing vest to which you attach separate pouches, you use a covering garment (smock) with various pockets to carry everything. It reminds me of some of the Eastern European tactical vests or assault vests I've seen. The first part of the article is a review of a tactical smock made by Ml-Tec and sold by ASMC. The second part goes into what the author packs and why. The primary advantage I see is doing away with the weight associated with the MOLLE strap system. The downside is that it is not as customizable.
• "How Long Will an EMP Disaster Last?" by John Fahley, Modern Survival Online.
  

    When a nuclear EMP is created we begin at Phase E1. This is a short phase but an intense burst. This is the part that delivers the high voltage pulse and last one to five nanosecond(s)

    Phase E2 is the scattered gamma particles. We can also equate the E2 to lightning in terms of EMP production. This is the easiest to protect against. This lasts anything up to one second

    Phase E3 is different to the previous phases. This is a very slow pulse lasting anything up to hundreds of seconds. This is the one that can destroy power lines and shut down power plants as a result, because we use AC current they conflict with the pulse that is a DC current. Both a nuclear EMP and the sun produce an E3

    A Solar EMP does not produce Phases E1 and E2 when at ground level.

    The CME will hit Earth anywhere from 15-18 hours for fast pulses or last several days if they are slow pulses. Each CME lasts several hours. Each CME can last weeks, depending on the cycle and over a day the sun can produce up to 3 CMEs a day.

    So The Sun could bombard the earth with CMEs for at least a week. This means that anything not shielded from an E3 EMP will not be fixable as long as the pulses keep hitting the Earth. An CME can last as long as the sun is capable of producing the pulse during the event. As long as a continuous pulse is active there will never be any electronics as the pulse will stop any repairs to the electronics. This is also true for man-made EMPs.

    When the sun creates an CME things get worse. The sun is always giving off small amounts of electromagnetic waves – that’s how we see the “The Northern Lights”.

    However if the sun was to bombard the Earth’s magnetosphere with CME pulses, all we can do is move fast to shield our electronics before 18 hours are up. Why?

    It can take 18 hours to 3 days for the pulse to reach Earth when a warning goes out. A CME within the sun’s corona can last up to four weeks.

    While a nuclear-born EMP can keep happening as long as there are missiles to launch, that’s not to mention the radiation.

    After a nuclear explosion and resulting “mushroom cloud” we also experience the results of a nuclear-born EMP, it lasts anything up to minutes, but once over there is nothing to fear from that pulse, just the radiation.

    Now that we understand the different electromagnetic pulses, we should look more at the aftermath as this is also covered in the duration.

    The aftermath will last as long as years, perhaps decades, depending on what was damaged by the pulse, years and decades being especially true for power plants and modern conveniences that have lots of circuits and wires, perhaps we will never recover.

• "X-Mas List for the Apocalypse 2021" by Paul Helinski, Guns America Digest. 

    #1 in my book is always food, and I have covered this topic at great length. Do not waste your money on “survival food.” Even the most affordable companies are absolute scammers for how much you get for what you spend. Usually they work out to 100 to 200 calories per dollar.

    My repeated advice has always been to expect many many times that, and I will re-cover this topic again soon, but for now, if you are looking for true “survival food” that is cost effective, the Mormons are the best source. They sell cases of #10 cans. But instead of it being a little bit of cheese powder mixed with pasta, like say an Auguson farms cough cough, at 50 to 100 calories per dollar, you receive cans of flour, beans, rice, pasta, potato flakes, and other realistic survival foods at roughly 1,000 calories per dollar.

    If you are more of a do it yourself’er, Walmart flour is, right now, about 5,000 calories per dollar. Their 20lb bags of pinto beans are about 2,000, and their rice and pasta are over 1,500. Even Dinty Moore Beef Stew is over 400. For the dry foods, if you want to preserve them for decades, you can get giant mylar bags with ziplocks from Uline, and an impulse sealer on Ebay. I think time is getting short though.

• "How to Build a Small Town in Texas"--Wrath of Gnon. 

    ... I have anonymized all the details but the general idea remains: four guys (friends) with money have bought a suitably large piece of land in Texas and now want to create a car-free human-scaled town of the kind that I am always writing about.

    In this text I intend to set out the most bare-bone basic premises for how to start a good town, what is needed to build something anti-fragile and sustainable under the above mentioned scenario. I will go back to this text and edit it, add points, or discuss certain aspects deeper in future texts, especially those points that stimulate questions or controversy.

An interesting read on the practicalities of making a small town that will have the organic feel of an Old World town rather than a modern development. It should be of interest to anyone interested in how to rebuild following a civilizational collapse.

VIDEO: "Think Legal Weed Cut Down On Crime? Think Again"--America Uncovered (15 min.)

Cartels are using legalization as cover for their illegal grow operations.

News & Current Events:

• "Putin drops first hint at potential war in Ukraine as he warns of taking 'military measures' against the West and his propagandist says Russia is prepared to turn 'everyone to radioactive ash'"--Daily Mail. "Dmitry Kiselyov, a media mogul known as Putin's mouthpiece, yesterday threatened to 'put a gun to America's head' if NATO forces are stationed in Ukraine and warned the alliance to back off 'otherwise, everyone will be turned into radioactive ash.'" 
• Related? "New Russian stealth warship suffers £225million of damage after catching fire during construction"--Daily Mail.

    The warship has been almost totally destroyed by the fire - the latest of a spate of mysterious blazes at top secret naval shipbuilding facilities - with the damage running into hundreds of millions of pounds, say reports.

    Russia says there were no weapons or crew on board the stealth corvette when fire erupted, however, other reports said three crew were injured, with Military.com reporting that two required hospitalisation.

• Pay no attention to the conspiracy: Instapundit linked and excerpted from a WSJ piece on John Kerry's work to destroy the U.S. oil and gas industry. From Instapundit's excerpt:

    The president’s climate envoy has been pressuring banks and financial institutions to reduce their commitments to U.S. oil and gas companies and join the Net-Zero Banking Alliance, which would hobble the ability of oil and gas companies to increase production. Citi, Wells Fargo, Bank of America, Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan Chase signed on to the alliance this year.

    Mr. Kerry’s efforts didn’t go unnoticed. In April, members of the Senate Banking Committee sent him a letter expressing concern that he had “been pressuring banks to make extralegal commitments regarding energy-related lending and investment activities” that would result in “higher energy costs for American consumers.”

    In May, 15 state treasurers sent a letter to Mr. Kerry observing that he and other members of the Biden administration are “privately pressuring U.S. banks and financial institutions to refuse to lend to or invest in coal, oil, and natural gas companies, as part of a misguided strategy to eliminate the fossil fuel industry in our country.” They urged banks and financial institutions “not to give in to pressure from the Biden Administration.”

So why haven't the Fed's investigated the Net-Zero Banking Alliance as an illegal restraint of trade? The Alliance boasts of itself:

    The industry-led, UN-convened Net-Zero Banking Alliance brings together banks worldwide representing over 40% of global banking assets, which are committed to aligning their lending and investment portfolios with net-zero emissions by 2050. Combining near-term action with accountability, this ambitious commitment sees signatory banks setting an intermediate target for 2030 or sooner, using robust, science-based guidelines.

    The Alliance will reinforce, accelerate and support the implementation of decarbonisation strategies, providing an internationally coherent framework and guidelines in which to operate, supported by peer-learning from pioneering banks. It recognises the vital role of banks in supporting the global transition of the real economy to net-zero emissions.

    It was co-launched on 21st April 2021 with 43 founding banks and the Prince of Wales’ Sustainable Markets Initiative Financial Services Taskforce.

Currently, the group counts 97 banks in 39 countries as members. These are not small, insignificant banks. According to the group, these banks control $66 trillion in assets, representing 43% of total global banking assets.

    Section 1 of the Sherman Act provides: “Every contract, combination in the form of trust or otherwise, or conspiracy, in restraint of trade or commerce … is declared to be illegal.” 15 U.S.C. § 1. A consortium of banks agreeing to not loan or otherwise cripple businesses that are not deemed "green" should certainly count as a combination or conspiracy in restraint of trade.

• The science is settled: "Study can’t confirm lab results for many cancer experiments"--AP. 

    Eight years ago, a team of researchers launched a project to carefully repeat early but influential lab experiments in cancer research.

    They recreated 50 experiments, the type of preliminary research with mice and test tubes that sets the stage for new cancer drugs. The results reported Tuesday: About half the scientific claims didn’t hold up.

• Life in the blue zone: "Video shows 14-year-old open fire on robbery suspect in family's Philly pizza shop"--6ABC. The kid had some difficulty drawing his pistol from what appears to have been an AIWB position, but otherwise didn't do too bad. Shot the robber point-blank to the face, but did not kill him. The article doesn't mention the caliber, but it does state that--at least at the time the story was published--the kid hadn't been charged. Police followed the suspect's blood trail and made an arrest. The robber is believed to have been involved in the robbery of a nearby CVS store just before the pizza shop attempt.
• "Segregation is back and it's spreading: The 'woke' left is pushing racial separatism from high school classrooms to college graduations as a cure to hidden prejudice, writes professor Wilfred Reilly"--Daily Mail. This is only accepted because it bars white people from entering black spaces; the opposite would cause howls of protests and probably riots. Nevertheless, the key to eliminating this crap would be for white students to demand the same privilege, be denied by school or university officials, and then file a lawsuit based on disparate treatment and seeking injunctive relief (i.e., an order that the school/university provide the separate accommodations for whites). 
• "Charlottesville’s Robert E. Lee statue will be melted down by city’s African American history museum"--Washington Post. They wanted it destroyed:

    The city had for months been searching for a new owner for the 1,100-pound monument, which served as the focal point of the white-supremacist Unite the Right rally in 2017. After the city took the statue down over the summer, six proposals on what to do with it were submitted by arts groups, historical societies or individuals, some offering to pay the city as much as $50,000 for the bronze sculpture.

    But the Charlottesville City Council voted 4 to 0 to hand it over to the only local bidder: the Jefferson School African American Heritage Center, a Black-led museum that proposed repurposing the metal entirely.

• "Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot pleads with AG Merrick Garland to send ATF agents to the city for six months after it sees more than 760 murders this year - a 25-year high - after she slashed police budget by $60 million"--Daily Mail. Per the article, "[t]he woke mayor announced at a news conference in Garfield Park on Monday that she made a formal request to Garland to send ATF agents to Chicago for six months, a well as more federal prosecutors and federal marshals to help get illegal guns off the streets."
• "Baby smell blocks aggression in men — but triggers it in women: study"--New York Post.

    According to research led by scientists at Israel’s Weizmann Institute of Science, the human-made molecule hexadecanal (HEX) — which is found in large amounts on baby scalps — triggers aggression in women while blocking it in men. The findings were published this month in the journal Science Advances.

    “We found that HEX has no perceptible odor, but that when you sniff it, it affects the way you behave toward others — specifically, your aggressive responses to others,” Dr. Eva Mishor, who led the study, said in a press release.

    To determine this, the researchers exposed about half of the study’s 130 participants to HEX while the rest received a control. They then gave the test subjects the option to blast a game partner with unpleasant noises of varying intensity. While women exposed to HEX consistently went for the loudest and most unpleasant noises, men who were exposed to HEX consistently chose milder noises than their non-HEX-exposed counterparts.

• Related? "Killer Lesbians: British Couple Sentenced to Prison in Death of Toddler Daughter"--The Other McCain. 

The toddler died aged 16 months of cardiac arrest after being punched or kicked by Brockhill in September 2020 using “massive force” on a par associated with “a road traffic accident”, according to the judge. A postmortem revealed previous brain injuries, fractured bones and internal organ injury.

Although the author makes it clear that he is "not implying that all lesbians are murderers, nor even that lesbians are more likely than heterosexual women to commit murder," I would note that research does show higher domestic violence in same-sex relationships than in heterosexual relationships. 

• Going, going, gone.... "Italy's birth rate has dropped to its lowest ever because of pandemic lockdowns, with the country set to lose a FIFTH of its population over 50 years"--Daily Mail. "In just over a decade, births have dropped by one third in Italy, with 404,892 babies born in 2020 from 576,659 in 2008. Almost all of the decline is attributed to families with two Italian parents." Meanwhile, China is saying "hold my beer!"
• "China's birthrate just hit another record low. But the worst is yet to come"--CNN.

    There were only 8.5 births per 1,000 people in China last year, according to the latest yearbook released by the country's National Bureau of Statistics in late November. 

 

    That's the lowest not only since yearbook records began in 1978 -- but also since the founding of Communist China in 1949, according to official data.

 

    The birthrate, which has now fallen to single digits, is the latest troubling sign of China's worsening population crisis, as the country of 1.4 billion people begins to lose its youthful edge.

 

    The country's once-a-decade national census revealed in May that just 12 million babies were born last year -- an 18% plunge from 14.65 million in 2019.

• "Declining marriage numbers add to China's demographic conundrum"--The Business Standard. 

    The number of marriage registrations in China has fallen for seven consecutive years and hit a 17-year low last year, figures from the recently released China Statistical Yearbook 2021 showed.

    A total of 5.87 million couples got married in China in the first three quarters of 2021, down slightly from the same period of last year, according to the data released by the Ministry of Civil Affairs.

    It is expected that the number of marriage registrations in China will continue to decline in 2021, state-run China Daily reported on Wednesday.

Since out-of-wedlock births are rare in China, marriage rates are closely tied to birth rates; so declining marriage rates bode ill for China being able to reverse its demographic decline any time soon.

• Inside every liberal is a tyrant screaming to get out: "Liberals 3X More Likely Than Conservatives To Report People On Social Media"--The Federalist.  

    According to the Cato 2021 Speech and Social Media National Survey, of the 2,000 people polled, liberals, even moderate ones, were far more likely to encourage Big Tech-led censorship of their peers on apps such as Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.

    “This behavior is highly tied to political ideology,” the poll notes.

    While 65 percent of strong liberals, 44 percent of moderate liberals, and 32 percent of moderates testified that they reported another user for “sharing offensive content or false information,” only 21 percent of moderate conservatives and 24 percent of strong conservatives said they did the same.

    In addition to reporting people to Big Tech companies, 80 percent of strong liberals and 68 percent of moderate liberals said they have blocked or unfriended someone for their posts “about politics or science.” Only 48 percent of moderates, 44 percent of moderate conservatives, and 46 percent of strong conservatives reported doing the same.

    The survey also found that “altogether, conservatives are more likely than liberals to have personal or near personal experience of being penalized by social media companies for the content they’ve posted to their accounts.”

And then there is this:

    ... In a recent poll of 850 private and public college, university, and trade school students spread across the United States, Generation Lab and Axios found “Young Dems more likely to despise the other party.”

    While just 5 percent of young Republicans said they wouldn’t be friends with someone who votes differently than they do, 37 percent of the young Democrats polled said they would end friendships based on voting records. An even higher number of Democrats, 41 percent, claimed they wouldn’t support a business they knew had political allegiances to other parties while just 7 percent of Republicans said the same.

• Speaking of liberals and tyrants: "3 retired generals: The military must prepare now for a 2024 insurrection" by Paul D. Eaton, Antonio M. Taguba and Steven M. Anderson, Washington Post. The three retired generals write in their op-ed:

    As we approach the first anniversary of the deadly insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, we — all of us former senior military officials — are increasingly concerned about the aftermath of the 2024 presidential election and the potential for lethal chaos inside our military, which would put all Americans at severe risk.

    In short: We are chilled to our bones at the thought of a coup succeeding next time.

    One of our military’s strengths is that it draws from our diverse population. It is a collection of individuals, all with different beliefs and backgrounds. But without constant maintenance, the potential for a military breakdown mirroring societal or political breakdown is very real.

Unmentioned is that the only deaths at the Jan. 6 protests were at the hands of the Capital Police. But truth and clarity are not the purpose of this piece. Rather, it is fear that Republicans might do in 2024 what the Democrats did in the 2020 election:

    Imagine competing commanders in chief — a newly reelected Biden giving orders, versus Trump (or another Trumpian figure) issuing orders as the head of a shadow government. Worse, imagine politicians at the state and federal levels illegally installing a losing candidate as president.

    All service members take an oath to protect the U.S. Constitution. But in a contested election, with loyalties split, some might follow orders from the rightful commander in chief, while others might follow the Trumpian loser. Arms might not be secured depending on who was overseeing them. Under such a scenario, it is not outlandish to say a military breakdown could lead to civil war.

    In this context, with our military hobbled and divided, U.S. security would be crippled. Any one of our enemies could take advantage by launching an all-out assault on our assets or our allies.

The authors argue that to prevent Trump winning the 2024 election and being sworn in as president, the following steps need to be followed. First, that the members of the military be educated as to who is the "right" person to give orders. Second, military intelligence resources must be used to identify anyone who might stray from the accepted orthodoxy. Third, the DoD must wargame the next election to make sure the military can decisively step in and make sure that the "wrong" person is not sworn in as president. Okay, I paraphrased. But it is accurate when you consider that their recommendations are predicated on it being impossible that Trump or another outsider be elected president.

VIDEO: "Omicron"--Paul Joseph Watson (8 min.)

COVID News:

• "Biden’s Bounty on Your Life: Hospitals’ Incentive Payments for COVID-19" by By Elizabeth Lee Vliet, M.D. and Ali Shultz, J.D., Association of American Physicians and Surgeons. Some of the government incentives:

• A “free” required PCR test in the Emergency Room or upon admission for every patient, with government-paid fee to hospital.
• Added bonus payment for each positive COVID-19 diagnosis.
• Another bonus for a COVID-19 admission to the hospital.
• A 20 percent “boost” bonus payment from Medicare on the entire hospital bill for use of remdesivir instead of medicines such as Ivermectin.
• Another and larger bonus payment to the hospital if a COVID-19 patient is mechanically ventilated.
• More money to the hospital if cause of death is listed as COVID-19, even if patient did not die directly of COVID-19.
• A COVID-19 diagnosis also provides extra payments to coroners.
• "Covid's icy grip on Europe: Winter infections soar on the continent as Belgium rages with anti-lockdown riots, Holland enforces brutal new curbs and Germany bans tourists in desperate bid to slow the march of Omicron"--Daily Mail.
• "Scuffles break out at anti-lockdown protest in Parliament Square as thousands of protestors opposed to vaccine passports and Plan B rules clash with police while ministers consider more restrictions"--Daily Mail.
• "New York State Assembly Advancing Legislation to Create Involuntary COVID Quarantine Camps"--The Last Refuge. Also give them authority to require a person or group to undergo specified treatments--i.e., coerced vaccinations or who knows what else.
• Related: One of the main actors behind the Covid outbreak will be advising New York City on responding to this and future outbreaks: "Wuhan Lab Partner EcoHealth Alliance Joins New York’s Pandemic Response Effort."--The National Pulse.

EcoHealth Alliance – Peter Daszak’s controversial group with a long history of collaborating with the Wuhan Institute of Virology – is advising New York on pandemic preparedness and health “equity” as part of the city’s new Pandemic Response Institute.

 

VIDEO: "China Crashes Again! Another Evergrande Falls..."--Stoic Finance (14 min.)

And housing prices have been falling.

VIDEO: "China’s Economy Is Facing the Most Difficult Period in 40 Years, Hard Times Are Coming"--China Observer (15 min.). See also this article: "Jinping slashes CCP Members’ salaries by a third, a move that can be the end of the Dictator"--TFI Global.

Commentary & Opinion:

• "What's the Deal With All the Perverted Behavior at CNN?" by Robert C. Smith, Real Clear Markets. The op-ed is about the perversions that are increasingly coming out concerning the leftist elites and how the FBI seems to be covering for them. The author lists plenty of examples and reaches the following conclusion:

The radical Left simply does not adhere to the secular law or any sort of law that derives from a divine authority. The ends always justify the means. If the Constitution gets in their way, they trash the Constitution. If widely accepted Judeo-Christian values obstruct their plans, they ridicule the faith.  The Left wants to destroy everything that kindles their hatred. They want to be their own deity and sit on a throne of their own making where they are not shackled or feel the need to be obedient to anything but their own narcissism. I think this drives them to engage in the verboten. I think by engaging in the verboten, this solidifies their belief in their godlike status and their victory over the old God who they never wanted to obey.

Smith is not wrong. But the Left have long been this way, whether it was the "free love" movement of the late 19th and early 20th Century, the "sexual revolution" of the 1960s and 70s, and all of the way up to the present. What has changed is that such behavior now has the de facto imprimatur of the government. That is why the FBI knows about it but fails to act, or conveniently "loses" key evidence. But is the FBI's acts or inaction because they enjoy the ability to blackmail others, or is it because cliques of agents are involved in the same type of perversions and so they are protecting their own? It is certainly suggestive when we learned that one of the FBI agents involved in the Governor Whitmer case "was charged with beating his wife when they returned home from a swingers party."

• Related: "Project Veritas releases name of CNN producer involved in new pedophilia scandal"--The Post Millennial.  The person in question is Rick Saleeby, a producer on "The Lead with Jake Tapper."
• Instapundit linked to a piece by Freddie deBoer eviscerating those that think the Harvard's decision to no longer consider SAT scores has anything to do making it easier for poor kids to be admitted. deBoer observes that "You can’t make college admissions fair by getting rid of the SAT because colleges admissions can’t be 'fair.' College admissions exist to serve the schools. Period. End of story." It's in the nature of the beast: "Harvard exists to make sure our society is not equal. That is Harvard’s function." I don't think that deBoer is saying no one gets admitted to Harvard on merit, but that the "merit" is carefully curated so only those that advance certain goals are admitted. 
• "The ultra-violent cult that became a global mafia"--BBC. The article is about the Black Axe, "a Nigerian student fraternity which evolved into a dreaded mafia-group." It has quickly established itself not only as a major player in telephone and computer frauds and scams in its home of Nigeria, but as "a fantastically large criminal organisation," "spread throughout Europe and America, South America and Asia" involved in drug and sex trafficking and rapidly overtaking older criminal organizations. But the part I found most curious was their initiation process and how it binds recruits--even unwilling recruits--so strongly to the organization and each other.

    There are many reasons people join Black Axe. Some recruits are forced, others volunteer. In Makoko, a vast slum built on wooden stilts above Lagos Lagoon, we interviewed a number of Axemen, some of whom said they had joined against their will. Their loyalty, nevertheless, was strong - cemented by the spiritual bond of the initiation process.

    "We worship Korofo, the unseen God, and he has always guided us," the leader of the group told us, sitting in a small wooden building, surrounded by an entourage of Axemen. He said he was "proud" to be a member of Black Axe, despite saying he was forcibly recruited by a police officer. Another member claimed he joined after his father was killed by a rival gang. No matter how or why members join, many of them claim there are benefits.

    "Secrecy, discipline and brotherhood," a cult member told us proudly during another interview in Lagos in April 2021, when we asked why he had joined Black Axe. He claimed he made good money through the group's criminal enterprises - better than he would earn working in a bank.

    "Nobody will be able to touch you - once you belong to a cult, they will protect you," said Curtis Ogbebor, a community activist based in Benin City, who tries to stop young people joining groups like Black Axe. "The process of initiation - it's all about networking."

    Dr Stone says many Axemen join solely for networking purposes. Nigeria has the second highest rate of unemployment in the world, and within this challenging environment, he says joining Black Axe can provide protection and business connections. He claims not all members are criminals.

    "We have members in the Nigerian army, navy, air force. We have those in academia. We have priests, pastors," he said.

    This mutual support was key to Black Axe's original purpose. The group grew out of a student fraternity called the Neo Black Movement of Africa (NBM). It formed at the University of Benin in the 1970s. The NBM's symbol was a black axe breaking chains, and its founders said their aim was to fight oppression. The NBM was inspired by the anti-apartheid struggle in South Africa, but in structure, secrecy and brotherly commitment, it mirrored societies like the Freemasons, which had a presence in Nigeria during the colonial era.

    The NBM still exists today, and is a legally registered company with the Nigerian corporate affairs commission. It claims to have three million members around the world, and regularly publicises charitable activity - donations to orphanages, schools and the police, both in Nigeria and abroad. It holds huge annual conferences, some of which have been attended by prominent politicians and celebrities.

    Leaders of the NBM claim Black Axe is a rogue, breakaway group. Publicly they strongly disassociate themselves from the name and are adamant that the NBM opposes all criminal activity.

    "NBM is not Black Axe. NBM has nothing to do with criminality. NBM is an organisation that tends to promote greatness in the world," says Olorogun Ese Kakor, the current president of the organisation, in an interview with the BBC in July 2021.

    The NBM's lawyers told us anyone from Black Axe who is found to be a member of NBM "will be expelled immediately" and that they have zero tolerance for crime.

    International law enforcement have a different view. Statements by the US justice department, in the course of its prosecution of Black Axe members since 2018, say that the NBM is a "criminal organisation" and "part of the Black Axe". Similar statements have been made by authorities in Canada, who have said the NBM and Black Axe as "the same".

• More: "The Black Axe" by Sean Williams, Harper's Magazine.

 

VIDEO: "Is Jesus Historical? What Do The Romans Say About Him?"--Metatron (29 min.). An examination of non-Christian references to Christ that were near contemporaneous and support at the least the Biblical account of Christ being tried and executed by Pontius Pilate. 

And Now For Something Completely Different:

• "Revenge of the Apes: Monkeys in Maha's Beed On a Murderous Rampage After Dogs Kill One of their Infants"--News 18. After dogs in the town killed one of the monkey infants, the monkeys went on a killing spree by attacking dogs, hauling them to a high place, and dropping them to their deaths. Government wildlife officers were called in to do something, but couldn't even catch one of the monkeys. After the townsfolk tried to stop the monkeys, the monkeys widened their net of retribution by now targeting children (although no children have been killed). The article ends:

Monkeys have killed almost all the pups in the village and now, villagers say that there are hardly any pups left in their village. But monkeys have not stopped. Troops have started targeting small kids. School-going kids are being attacked by the monkeys and this has created panic among the villagers. 

• "Violent video games do NOT make players more aggressive in real life, study claims"--Daily Mail. It seems obvious this would be the case since violent crime rates dropped at the same time as first person shooters entered the market and became popular. 
• "Meteorites that produce K-feldspar-rich ejecta blankets correspond to mass extinctions"--Journal of Geological Science. The researchers were trying to answer the question of why some meteor impacts cause mass extinctions while others--even if larger, more powerful impacts--did not. The answer lay in what rock subsurface was struck by the meteor. Specifically, the researchers found that when the portion of the Earth's surface struck was rich in potassium feldspar, it cause mass extinctions even if the blast was smaller. The paper explains:

Kfs [potassium feldspar] is a powerful ice-nucleating aerosol, yet is normally rare in atmospheric dust mineralogy. Ice nucleation plays an important part in cloud microphysics, which modulates the global albedo. A conceptual model is proposed whereby the anomalous presence of Kfs post impact is posited to have two key effects on cloud dynamics: (1) Kfs reduces the average albedo of mixed-phase clouds, which leads to a hotter climate; and (2) Kfs weakens the cloud albedo feedback mechanism, which increases climate sensitivity. These mechanisms offer an explanation as to why this otherwise benign mineral is correlated so strongly with mass extinction events: every Kfs-rich ejecta blanket corresponds to a severe extinction episode over the last 600 myr. This model may also explain why many kill mechanisms only variably correlate with extinction events through geological time: they coincide with these rare periods of climate destabilization by atmospheric Kfs.

• "Stanford Professor Garry Nolan Is Analyzing Anomalous Materials From UFO Crashes"--Vice. An excerpt:

    Some of the objects are nondescript, and just lumps of metal. Mostly, there's nothing unusual about them except that everywhere you look in the metal, the composition is different, which is odd. It's what we call inhomogeneous.  That’s a fancy way of saying 'incompletely mixed.'  The common thing about all the materials that I've looked at so far, and there's about a dozen, is that almost none of them are uniform. They're all these hodgepodge mixtures. Each individual case will be composed of a similar set of elements, but they will be inhomogeneous. 

    One of the materials from the so called Ubatuba event [a UAP event in Brazil], has extraordinarily altered isotope ratios of magnesium. It was interesting because another piece from the same event was analyzed in the same instrument at the same time. This is an extraordinarily sensitive instrument called a nanoSIMS - Secondary Ion Mass Spec. It had perfectly correct isotope ratios for what you would expect for magnesium found anywhere on Earth. Meanwhile, the other one was just way off. Like 30 percent off the ratios. The problem is there's no good reason humans have for altering the isotope ratios of a simple metal like magnesium. There's no different properties of the different isotopes, that anybody, at least in any of the literature that is public of the hundreds of thousands of papers published, that says this is why you would do that. Now you can do it. It's a little expensive to do, but you'd have no reason for doing it. 

• Speaking of UFOs/UAPs: "Harassment Of Navy Destroyers By Mysterious Drone Swarms Off California Went On For Weeks" by Adam Kehoe and Marc Cecotti, The Drive (h/t Marcus Wynne).

    Earlier this year The War Zone exclusively reported about a series of 2019 incidents that involved unidentified drones stalking US Navy vessels over several nights in the waters off of Southern California. Our initial report also covered the Navy’s investigation into the incidents, which appeared to struggle to identify either the aircraft or their operators. Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Michael Gilday later clarified that the aircraft were never identified, and that there have been similar incidents across the service branches and allied militaries.

    Newly released documents obtained via the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) show that the full scope of these drone incursions was greater than it initially appeared, and they persisted well after the Navy’s investigation was launched. Deck logs indicate that drone sightings continued throughout the month of July 2019 and included events where drone countermeasure teams were called into action. One notable event involved at least three ships observing multiple drones. Uncharacteristically for unclassified deck logs, the details on this event are almost entirely redacted.