Firearms/Shooting/Self-Defense:
- "Why the Pistol is the Most Important Weapon"--Pistol-Training.com. The author explains that we, at least in the United States, do not live in perpetual fear of low-level war and raiding parties. Consequently, ...
... defensive civilian encounters in America are generally short-lived, spontaneous, and completely resolvable with a concealed carry handgun. It is mostly internet fantasy that you will get your truck gun and go save the day when the flag flies. In fact, way more guns are stolen from vehicles, than ever get to play a role in defending their owners. So, the plain ‘ol pistol, carried concealed (NOT carried openly), is the superior weapon for today’s defensive needs.
- Yes. "Is the .357 Magnum the Most Versatile Handgun?"--Firearm News.
Its high velocity, impressive terminal performance and deep penetration provides stellar performance not only in terms of self-defense, but also medium game hunting and steel silhouette shooting. Yet, in a duty-size revolver it was still controllable while also being capable of excellent accuracy.
And you can shoot less expensive and lower recoiling .38 Special for practice or hunting small game.
- "How to Clean a Rifle Barrel the Effective and Harmless Way"--Rifleshooter Magazine. An excerpt:
Choosing a good copper fouling solvent is critical to the health of your bore. Traditionally, the active ingredient in most dedicated copper solvents is ammonia. It works great on copper, dissolving it in pretty short order. However, it can etch the steel in your barrel, too, particularly if it’s left in for more than 10 to 30 minutes, depending on the strength of the solvent.Modern “gentle” copper solvents utilize chemicals that are harmless to steel, and won’t harm your bore even if left in for extended periods. They take a little longer to dissolve the copper, but it’s well worth it.It’s difficult to drive home strongly enough the risk inherent to ammonia-based solvents. Once, while touring the Norma Ammunition facility in Sweden, I had the opportunity to visit with one of the company’s lead product managers. This gentleman had qualified for four consecutive Olympics during his career. In other words, he knew shooting, and he knew rifle barrels.He told me he’d never use any ammonia-based solvent. I asked why. “It gets into the microfractures of the steel, and keeps on working, eroding,” he responded. “Eventually, like a crevasse in a glacier, the inside of those microfractures get hollowed out, leaving pockets in the steel.
“Plus, it’s very hard to get out,” my friend continued. “It migrates into every pore, and can’t just be wiped out with dry patches. And a coat of oil on top of it doesn’t neutralize it; it just traps it inside the pores of the steel.”
That wasn’t a pretty picture, particularly because I’d cleaned the bore of my favorite custom 6.5-284 rifle with an aggressive ammonia-based copper solvent just before flying to Sweden. “Can you get it out?” I asked.
“Yes…” came the response. “Flush your bore with hot water for 10 minutes every day for five days after using ammonia in it.”
The author recommends the following copper solvents: Sharp Shoot’R's Wipe Out and Patch Out products, and Bore Tech's Eliminator solvent.
- "Case Prep"--GUNS Magazine. Case preparation is, in my opinion, the most odious chore in hand loading. This involves depriming, cleaning, sizing and trimming the cases. The author describes the following steps:
- Clean the cases. He recommends a tumbler using stainless steel pins as a tumbling medium. The author relates: "I pour in the pins, the cases, about a tablespoon of Dawn dishwashing liquid, fill to the top with plain water and screw on the cap." He lets the tumbler run for one hour at this step. After separating the media from the cases, he lets the cases dry.
- Resize and deprime the cases. The author then uses a Lyman primer pocket uniformer to ensure all primers are seated to the same depth. "When brass cases are extruded and the flash hole is punched, there is usually some small ragged pieces of brass in the case. A Lyman flash hole cleaner reams out this excess brass evenly so a uniform burn of the powder is achieved."
- Next he trims the cases to make sure they are a proper and uniform length. He notes that he uses a Forster Power Case Trimmer which is designed to work with a drill press. It also chamfers the inside and outside of the case neck.
- Then put them through the cleaning process again before finishing the reloading process in order to get rid of any case lube, metal shavings, etc. The author indicates at this stage he adds to the cleaning media "a teaspoon of Lemishine (a hard water softener), a teaspoon of Dawn and a teaspoon of Armor-All Ultra Shine Wash and Wax. The results are a lustrous shine on the inside, outside and even the primer pockets."
- "Reloading On The Range"--American Rifleman. Frank Melloni has some tips for, where possible, taking some reloading equipment with you to the range as you work up loads, as well as discussing the advantages. The primary advantage is time. If you are working up a new load, even if you put together multiple loads, you only have those loads to test at the range. If you want to fine tune a load or explore something outside the range of loads that you tested, you have to leave the range, go home, and then come back out to the range to do your tests. This lets you fiddle with the loads while at the range to come up with the ideal load. I've always wanted to do this, and I actually have a portable stand for my reloading press that I could take out. But the problem for me is that there always seems to be enough breeze to kick up dust or to blow away powder while trying to weigh it on a scale. The author uses an electronic powder measure/scale with a cover, so it is not an issue for him.
- "SKS Collecting And Identification: A Buyer’s Guide"--Gun Digest. The author presents a basic overview of SKS rifles and variants produced in different countries and which you might come across at a gun show or in a gun shop. There is a lot more to this hobby, though, as there would have been different factories with different roll marks and even variations in manufacture.
- "When Hunting, Use Enough Gun"--Rifleshooter Magazine. The basic premise behind this article is that hunting is different than punching paper or ringing steel--you need a round that will be large enough to penetrate as needed and put energy on target. So, although the trend is toward smaller calibers (6.5 being a popular one currently as well as .223), it might not be powerful enough for game larger than white tail deer. The point I would add is that it is more than just having a more powerful or larger round, but also bullet selection. Rounds such as the .308 and .30-06 are only going to provide hydraulic wounding within 150 to 200 yards. So, for ranges longer than that, you need a bullet that will fragment after strikes a target, but still penetrate. If you are using an old fashioned open-tip design with a relatively heavy jacket, not only will it not deliver the hydraulic shock at longer ranges, it likely will not even expand beyond the 150 to 200 yard range.
Prepping & Survival:
- "Why A Sillcock Key Is The Secret to Survival" by Nicky Hoseck, Primal Survivor. The author outlines the problem for the urban survivalist: finding uncontaminated water. The key, pun intended, to solving this problem is a sillcock key.
Although not specifically designed for survival situations, a sillcock key is a handy item to have in your bug-out bag. Widely used by plumbers, contractors, and engineers, it’s a simple device used to open tamper-resistant sillcocks and hose bibs.
You’ll find these outdoor water faucets on almost every residential, commercial, and industrial building.
Also known as hose bibs, spigots, and valves, sillcocks are external water supplies that you can attach a hose to or use to access water outside. Even if the power is off, there will still be water in the pipes. For any self-respecting prepper, that means a vital step towards survival.
- I've been thinking of buying or building something like this: "Solar generator"--Prep Club. This article is a review of the Jackery Solar Generator, but I know there are others out there. The reason for something like this is not only can it provide emergency power if the lights go out, but it gives you an electricity option for the long term.
- Related: "How I built a power station in an ammo can"--The Prepared. In this article, Gideon Parker explains how to make your own charging station. "The project is simple enough," he writes, "you add batteries, a solar charge controller, and various ports to a waterproof ammo box so that you can charge and power small electronics like phones, tablets, laptops, lamps, and fans. And you don’t have to be an electronics whiz or have any soldering skills in order to make it. It is cheap and can help make future power outages more bearable." Per the author, the project cost around $180 for 198 usable watts hours of power in an approximately 22 pound package.
- Related: "The Best Battery for UPS Backup"--Power Electronics News. "Many people consider only two options for battery technologies in uninterrupted power supply (UPS) backup systems: the old workhorse lead-acid and the up-and-coming lithium-ion. But there’s another alternative for critical facilities such as data centers — nickel-zinc (NiZn) technology — that comes with a better set of tradeoffs."
- "A few Reasons Why Your Hens Stop Laying Eggs"--Prepper's Will. The reasons covered in the article include your failure to collect eggs, molting, stress, not enough food or the wrong type of food, calcium deficiency, dehydration, old age, egg binding, health issues, hot and cold, overcrowding, and harassment from other hens.
- "Garden Planning 101: Success with Preparation"--Mom With A Prep. The author begins by explaining why planning is so important to success:
Different plants have different needs. Those needs range from the amount of sun they get to the pH balance in the soil and the amount of water they need to flourish. It all takes careful planning.If you’re going to have a plentiful garden, you have to plan based on a few variables. That includes the amount of space you have and what kind of garden you want. Once you’ve narrowed that down, you can pick plants that will fit in that garden.If you have a busy life, it’s easy to bite off more than you can chew. You could end up with a giant garden and no time to take care of it.By making a plan ahead of time you can ensure that you have a garden that will be useful, and reasonable for your lifestyle. Over time you will learn exactly what you can manage.
With the right storage conditions and proper packing, flour can last a quarter century! The first step is to make sure your food storage area (whether it be the basement, the pantry, your friend’s house, etc) is kept between temperatures of 40 and 70 degrees. Once the temperature is right, you can prepare your flour for storage. You will need a few food grade 5-gallon buckets, ziplock bags, oxygen absorbers, and a measuring cup. The flour will be poured in bags, the bags placed in buckets, and the oxygen absorbers added to ensure long-term freshness.
- "'It's kill or be killed': Missouri mother, 38, reveals she has spent 11 years and $20,000 on doomsday preparations - from stockpiling two years' worth of food and loading up on WEAPONS to building a BUNKER in her basement"--Daily Mail. The article mentions her having a bunker in her basement, but neither the video she shot nor the photographs show such a room, unless she has a daylight basement. What we see appears to be an extra bedroom/bonus room in which she has put shelving units to hold food, water, and medical supplies. I have a set of the same shelving she is using, and I haven't been too impressed with it over time. Nevertheless, where the shelving is sitting on a hard wood floor, it probably is the best option to avoid marring the finish. Anyway, take a look to see if there are any ideas you can use.
- Glenn Reynolds writes that "Looming food shortages is the next ‘slow-moving disaster’ to hit world," due to the "shortages of food and fertilizer brought about by the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the sanctions enacted by the West in response." He explains:
The issue is that farmland without fertilizer is vastly less productive. Without fertilizer, corn and wheat yields in the United States would decline by more than 40%. But as prices promise to go much higher, farmers will either have to skimp on fertilizer or raise prices of their own products a lot.
Then, too, there are skyrocketing prices for gasoline and diesel, which are essential for today’s mechanized farming and for getting food to consumers. Add these increases in cost and decreases in production to the shortages likely to come from the Ukraine invasion, and we’re looking at really dramatic increases in food prices. In the West this will mean discomfort. Elsewhere it will mean starvation. Bureaucrats aren’t helping.
Some people want to put more land under cultivation. Scottish farmers and planners have asked the government to allow farmland programmed for “rewilding” to be put back into production in response to anticipated food shortages. But that’s too sensible for our green elites. Scotland’s Minister for Green Skills, Circular Economy and Biodiversity Lorna Slater — yes, that’s her full title — has flatly refused. According to Slater, “We are still in a nature emergency that hasn’t gone away … so it’s a no.”
Nature emergencies outrank human emergencies in the green world, so that’s not a surprise. Voters may feel differently as prices skyrocket.
People should. Biden and his flunkies should be at the least thrown out of office; as should every politician and government official that has supported this "green" nonsense.
It should be kept in mind, though, that we in the United States and Western Europe are not likely to see the food shortages that other parts of the world will see. At Lawrence Person's BattleSwarm Blog, Person discusses this, stating:
There are a lot of posts on Twitter postulating a food shortage due to the Russo-Ukranian War. The reasoning goes that, on top of existing supply chain disruptions, Russia and Ukraine were big wheat exporters, and Russia is the world’s biggest fertilizer exporter.
Those are concerns, and I think there’s a real good chance of food shortages…in Russia. That’s the sort of thing that happens when you unplug yourself from the world economy. And Europe might have some disruption, given that they’re net food importers.
But I doubt we’re going to have that problem in the U.S. of A. First, our supply chain problems were started easing when vaccine mandates started getting lifted due to the dread midterm variant. Second, America makes lot of fertilizer ourselves, and Russia isn’t the exclusive source of nitrogen, phosphorus or potassium. (Though a Canadian rail strike might impact the last.) Third, capitalism has a great way of supplying substitute goods if left to its own devices.
News & Headlines:
- Cause: "In blow to Biden, Saudi Arabia considers helping China unseat US dollar as world's reserve currency"--Washington Examiner.
- And effect: "Biden sends multiple Patriot missiles to Saudi Arabia to try and fix tense relationship and urge them to pump more oil to reverse surging gas prices"--Daily Mail.
- "Evergrande Investors Left Baffled by $2.1 Billion in Seized Cash"--Bloomberg (via Yahoo).
Investors in China Evergrande Group are still in the dark over just how $2.1 billion of deposits at its property-services unit came to be used as security for pledge guarantees and seized by banks.
In a call with investors late Tuesday, the developer’s officials reiterated comments from earlier filings that they were investigating the matter without sharing fresh details, according to people who attended and asked not to be identified. The third-party pledge guarantee wipes out most of Evergrande Property Services Group Ltd.’s cash holdings.
“It’s peculiar because investors expect Evergrande management should be aware of where the cash went rather than instead setting up an investigation committee to find out,” said Bloomberg Intelligence analyst Andrew Chan.
- "'New type of ultraviolet light' kills 98% of airborne microbes in a room and could help prevent the next pandemic, scientists claim"--Daily Mail.
Researchers say 'far-UVC' light emitted from ceiling lamps can kill bacteria, fungi and viruses, including coronavirus, without causing damage to the human skin.
In experiments, far-UVC took less than five minutes to reduce the level of indoor airborne bacteria by more than 98 per cent.
The article explains that far-UVC "has a wavelength between 207 to 222 nanometers (within the UVC range), efficiently inactivating microbes without harm to exposed human skin." This "means it can only travel a very short distance in biological material and can’t penetrate the layer of dead cells on the surface of our skin, nor the tear layer covering the surface of our eyes."
- Ok, Groomers: "Portland Children's Hospital Gives Kids Tips on 'Tucking' and Sex Shops"--PJ Media. Tucking apparently is a method of hiding one's testicles in order to more easily pass as female.
- Speaking of child sex groomers: "Woke Disney staff stage walk-out over firm's 'slow response' to Florida's 'Don't Say Gay bill' - despite CEO Bob Chapek vowing to produce more gay content for kids"--Daily Mail.
- "Woman outraged over ‘sexist’ mommy song taught at elementary school"--New York Post. Sophie Hill was butt-hurt because her daughter was taught a song praising mothers including their nesting and nurturing abilities. Hopefully she has a husband that fights patriarchy by letting his wife change the car tire and other masculine duties (video).
Analysis & Opinion:
- "An ACLU Observer With A Gun"--The American Conservative. You may remember from the Kyle Rittenhouse case that Rittenhouse blew a big chunk out of the arm of a man, Gaige Grosskreutz, who pointed a pistol at him. And as you probably know Grosskreutz was illegally carrying that weapon. What you may not know was that Grosskreutz was working as an ACLU observer. David Hines writes:
For the purposes of this column, however, what is really interesting is that Grosskreutz testified under oath that he was on the streets that evening as a legal advisor for the Wisconsin ACLU.Legal observers are so important to leftist movements that a friend involved in lefty organizing was shocked when I explained to him that right of center legal observers do not exist. ...Officially, legal observers exist to be impartial witnesses—on the scene to witness and record the actions of the police and protect the civil rights of the public. In the words of their ACLU training, they are there to “observe, educate, document, and deter.” In practical terms, legal observers are an arm of the demonstrators who launder their demonstrator-friendly recordings and testimony through a separate organization that provides a veneer of impartiality to media for complaints about police actions.
After discussing ACLU training and the ACLU's promise to help out their observers should they be arrested, Hines continues:
The tension between the appearance of impartiality and the reality that legal observers tend to come from the radical community also manifests in the training’s attitude towards breaking the law. On the one hand, legal observers are expected to refrain from breaking the law—no violence, no public urination (which can be a surprising temptation during lengthy protests), no theft; not even taking down an old poster to write on if you need paper (Slide 11, 15:32). There is an exception if someone is in immediate danger or hurt, but even then the trainer stresses a separation of roles: “If you feel you see something untoward—maybe there’s some sort of violent clash between protesters and counter protesters—and you have a moral obligation to step in, just take off your legal observer vest before you mix it up. But do what you need to do within the general parameters of the rules that we have set up” (Slide 76, 1:43:44).On the other hand, more than once the question comes up about what legal observers, whose job is recording evidence, should do when protestors may be breaking the law. The trainer reassures them that protecting the public from protestors is not part of their job. ...Legal observers themselves are not just told to be law-abiding, but unarmed (Slide 11, 18:06): “Don’t bring drugs, alcohol, or weapons. I don’t care what you do in your free time. I don’t care what you have the right to do or what you feel you have the right to do while we’re legal observing. Many people have different comfort levels with other—with many different issues. And we just don’t bring drugs, alcohol, weapons.” The trainer notes that “people have a right to demonstrate with weapons in Wisconsin,” but it’s important to respect the lead of the organizers—and, of course, the law.
To Hines this raises interesting questions--questions so interesting that no one in the MSM ever bothered to ask:
If Grosskreutz’s testimony was truthful and he was actually a legal observer for the ACLU-WI, did the ACLU-WI stand by Grosskreutz? Did he benefit from their offer of support? Given that he violated law and the ACLU’s rules by illegally carrying a firearm, is he still a legal observer for the ACLU?
- OMG! "30 Percent of Americans Still Oppose Same-Sex Marriage"--Reason. Who are the recalcitrants? According to the article, Republicans, black Americans, and white evangelicals. For instance, only 59% of blacks support gay marriage. That drops to 50% among Republicans. The article also observes:
Majorities of many major religious groups are also supportive. This includes Jewish Americans (83 percent), white Catholics (74 percent) and Catholics of color (80 percent), white mainline Protestants (76 percent), black Protestants (55 percent), Orthodox Christians (58 percent), Hindus (86 percent), Buddhists (81 percent), and Muslims (55 percent).The only major religious groups without majority support were Latter-day Saints (46 percent), white evangelical Protestants (35 percent), and Jehovah's Witnesses (22 percent).
I have to say that I was surprised to see that 46% of LDS supported gay marriage. That is extremely disappointing and spells trouble ahead for the Church and its members. After all, the Church has officially rejected gay marriage time and again, so this can only reflect a growing schism within the Church.
The article also notes that "[n]early eight in ten Americans (79%) favor laws that would protect gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender people against discrimination in jobs, public accommodations, and housing, including 41% who strongly support them." That would indicate that 79% of the population does not understand anti-discrimination laws and their impacts, including the minimal burden of proof required to show discrimination.
And Now For Something Completely Different:
- Oops: "Moment armed Peruvian mugger accidentally shoots dead his accomplice while the pair try to rob a frightened victim's bike"--Daily Mail.
- "There are more than 5,000 confirmed planets beyond our solar system, NASA says"--NPR. Those are just those confirmed to date.
- Another example of the great filter at work: "Astronomy's contribution to climate change rivals the emissions from some countries"--NPR.
A new estimate of the greenhouse gas emissions linked to all ground- and space-based telescopes, in the journal Nature Astronomy, says the annual carbon footprint of astronomy's research infrastructure is equivalent to about 20 million metric tons of carbon dioxide.
"Just to give you some perspective — 20 million tonnes of CO2 — this is the annual carbon footprint of countries like Estonia, Croatia, or Bulgaria," says Jürgen Knödlseder, an astronomer at IRAP, an astrophysics laboratory in France.
He and IRAP colleagues including Annie Hughes and Luigi Tibaldo got the idea to do this study while making an estimate of the greenhouse gas emissions from their own institute.
* * *
The most prolific emitters were the biggest, most expensive observatories, such as the new James Webb Space Telescope and the Square Kilometer Array, according to the report.
* * *
And that's just from using the telescopes — it doesn't include things like scientists' travel to conferences, supercomputing power and office heating. "For our lab, the total is actually about 50 tonnes of equivalent CO2 per year an astronomer," he says.
Hughes believes that astronomers need to set an example when it comes to action to mitigate climate change. "If we as scientists do not react to the reports and warnings from our colleagues," she says, "then it's a bit like your dad telling you that you shouldn't smoke, while he himself is smoking a cigarette. Why would you take his word seriously?"
I don't know why anyone would take an astronomer's word as to climate change anyway. That would be like asking your doctor for legal advice. Totally different field about which they wouldn't know any more than someone randomly plucked off the street.
- Another argument against masking: "Looking at a Human Face Triggers Activity in Our Brains Unlike Any Other Object"--Science Alert.
It may not feel like it, but our eyes are constantly making rapid, tiny movements called saccades, taking in new information as we focus our gaze on various things in the world. As we do so, our brains receive the input – and depending on what the object of our gaze is, it turns out the brain activity triggered can be quite unique.
The article then explains how researchers used epilepsy patients who already had electrodes implanted in their brains to examine how their brains reacted when they viewed a range of visual stimuli displayed on a screen, "including images of human faces, monkey faces, and also non-face imagery (pictures of flowers, fruit, cars, and so on)" while also using a camera based eye-tracking system which monitored what the participants were looking at.
When the participants looked at human faces, neurons fired and synchronized between the amygdala and the hippocampus in a specific pattern that was different to the results from the other stimuli – which the team interprets as evidence of how the brain handles memory encoding for important social information, distinct from other non-social objects.
The article continues:
It's long been known that seeing faces makes neurons fire in the amygdala more so than for other forms of stimuli, although the reasons for this have remained uncertain.
"One hypothesis is that these signals are transferred from the amygdala via strong projections to the hippocampus, where they elevate and prioritize hippocampal processing of stimuli with high social and emotional significance," the researchers write.
"This may serve hippocampal memory encoding for salient stimuli and events."
That could be what we're seeing here, with the researchers noting that the proportion of cells that were visually selective for human faces was substantially larger in the amygdala than in the hippocampus, suggesting that the amygdala plays a more important frontline role in identifying social stimuli in the first instance.
"We think that this is a reflection of the amygdala preparing the hippocampus to receive new socially relevant information that will be important to remember," Rutishauser says.
Another key finding was that long-distance communication between different parts of the brain was increased when social stimuli were present.
"When a fixation on a human face followed a saccade, neural communication between the amygdala and hippocampus was enhanced," the researchers write. "The same effect was not observed for saccades and fixations that landed on other stimuli."
However, when the participants looked at human faces they had already seen earlier in the experiment, the neuron-firing pattern in the amygdala appeared more slowly – suggesting learned and familiar faces don't spark the same level of neural excitement as new social stimuli.
- Health advances for mice:
- "Oral drug prevents death from COVID-19 in old mice by reversing immune aging"--Medical Xpress.
In the study, daily doses of BGE-175 (asapiprant) protected aged mice from a lethal dose of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. Ninety percent of mice that received the drug survived, whereas all untreated control mice died. BGE-175 treatment was initiated two days after infection, when the mice were already ill, a time-frame relevant to real-life clinical situations in which patients would receive medication only after becoming symptomatic.
The California-based experts have shown they can partially reset mice cells to 'more youthful states', using four molecules known as the Yamanaka transcription factors.
After injecting these molecules into mice of various ages, the animals' kidneys and skin showed promising signs of rejuvenation, while their skin cells had a greater ability to proliferate and were less likely to form permanent scars.
No comments:
Post a Comment