The title is from an article by Brad Aaronson at Orthodox Union. I have come across articles and videos in my studies that indicate that the traditional timeline and dating of significant events in the Old Testament is incorrect. In fact, I posted on some ideas about how long the Israelites were in Egypt and when they left a couple years ago based on data on pollen counts that seemed to indicate a rough date when Israel entered Egypt combined with information from older versions of the Old Testament that used by most modern Bibles that indicated that Israel remained in Egypt for 215 years.
Aaronson takes a different approach, ignoring the official dating and instead trying to match (synchronize) events. While I believe that there are significant problems with his theory (see below) he does raise some interesting points and disputes in the archeological record concerning Israel.
Aaronson analysis really begins in a footnote where he asserts that the dates commonly given for events in Egypt are off by 166 years citing “Fixing the History Books – Dr. Chaim Heifetz’s Revision of Persian History,” in the Spring 1991 issue of Jewish Action. Thus, while the accepted dating places the Exodus in the reign of Pharaoh Thutmose III, believed by some to be the pharaoh at the time of the Exodus (in my post, cited above, I suggested that Thutmose's son, Amenhotep II, was the pharaoh of the Exodus). Aaronson observes, however, that nothing like the Exodus (or, more precisely, the plagues) occurred in the reign of Thutmose III or even Ramses II, another pharaoh that has been suggested as the pharaoh of the Exodus.
Aaronson goes on (footnotes omitted):
Both Thutmose III and Ramses II date to a period called the Late Bronze Age, which ended with the onset of the Iron Age. Since the Iron Age has been thought to be the time when Israel first arrived in Canaan, the Late Bronze Age has been called “The Canaanite Period,” and historians have limited their search for the Exodus to this time. When we break free of this artificial restraint, the picture changes drastically.
According to the Midrash, the Pharaoh of the Exodus was named Adikam and he had a short reign of four years. The Pharaoh who preceded him, whose death prompted Moses’ return to Egypt (Exodus 2:23, 4:19), was named Malul. Malul, we are told, reigned from the age of six to the age of 100. Such a long reign – 94 years! – sounds fantastic, and many people would hesitate to take this Midrash literally. As it happens, though, Egyptian records mention a Pharaoh who reigned for 94 years, and not only 94 years, but from the age of six to the age of 100! This Pharaoh was known in inscriptions as Pepi (or Phiops) II. The information regarding his reign is known both from the Egyptian historian-priest Manetho, writing in the 3rd century BCE, and from an ancient Egyptian papyrus called the Turin Royal Canon, which was only discovered in the last century.
Egyptologists, unaware of the midrash, have wrestled with the historicity of Pepi II’s long reign. One historian wrote:
Pepi II … appears to have had the longest reign in Egyptian history and perhaps in all history. The Turin Royal Canon credits him with upwards of ninety years. One version of the Epitome of Manetho indicates that he “began to rule at the age of six and continued to a hundred.” Although modern scholars have questioned this, it remains to be disproved.
While the existence of two kings who reigned a) 94 years, b) in Egypt, and c) from the age of six, is hard enough to swallow a coincidence, that is not all. Like Malul, Pepi II was the second to last king of his dynasty. Like Malul, his successor had a short reign of three or four years, after which Egypt fell apart. Pepi II’s dynasty was called the 6th Dynasty, and was the last dynasty of the Old Kingdom. Following his successor’s death, Egypt collapsed, both economically and under foreign invasion. Egypt, which had been so powerful and wealthy only decades before, suddenly could not defend itself against tribes of invading Bedouins. No one knows what happened. Some historians have suggested that the long reign of Pepi II resulted in stagnation, and that when he died, it was like pulling the support out from under a rickety building. But there is no evidence to support such a theory.
A papyrus dating from the end of the Old Kingdom was found in Egypt in the early 19th century. It is an account of an Egypt suddenly bereft of leadership. Violence is rampant. Foreign invaders are everywhere, with no one to hold them in check. The natural order of things has come to a crashing standstill. Slaves have disappeared and taken all the wealth of Egypt with them. Based on its literary style, it seems to be an eye-witness account of Egypt not long after the dissolution of the Old Kingdom. Its author, an Egyptian named Ipuwer, writes in the document below:
Plague is throughout the land. Blood is everywhere. (2:5)
The river is blood (2:10)
That is our water! That is our happiness! What shall we do in respect thereof? All is ruin! (3:10-13)
Trees are destroyed. (4:14)
No fruit or herbs are found . . . (6:1)
Forsooth, grain has perished on every side. (6:3)
The land is not light [dark]. (9:11)
Nile overflows [bringing the harvest], yet no one ploughs for him. (2:3)
No craftsmen work, the enemies of the land have spoilt its crafts. (9:6)
Gold and lapus lazuli, silver and malachite, camelian and bronze . . . are fastened on the neck of female slaves. (3:2)
Velikovsky recognized this as an eyewitness account of the ten plagues. His evaluation has been criticized on the basis that Ipuwer describes an overall breakdown of Egyptian society, and that the parallels to the plagues and the plundering of Egypt the night before the Exodus are not the central point of his composition. But Ipuwer was an Egyptian. His concern was the general state in which Egypt found itself, and what could be done to correct it. Had Ipuwer been a member of Pharaoh’s court, and witnessed the full drama of Moses and Aaron confronting his king, he might have written in such a way as to make the dating of the Exodus clear to even the most skeptical. As it is, we have an account of how the events of the Exodus affected Egypt as a whole.
He adds:
When the Bible tells us that Egypt would never be the same after the Exodus, it was no exaggeration. With invasions from all directions, virtually all subsequent kings of Egypt were of Ethiopian, Libyan or Asiatic descent. When Chazal tell us that King Solomon was able to marry Pharaoh’s daughter despite the ban on marrying Egyptian converts until they have been Jewish for three generations because she was not of the original Egyptian nation, there is no reason to be surprised.
The impact on the region outside of Egypt also supports a re-examination of the dating. Aaronson writes:
It was not only Egypt which felt the birth pangs of the Jewish People. The end of the Old Kingdom in Egypt preceded only slightly the end of the Early Bronze Age in the Land of Israel. The end of this period, dated by archaeologists to c.2200 BCE (in order to conform to the Egyptian chronology), has long puzzled archaeologists. The people living in the Land of Israel during the Early Bronze were the first urban dwellers there. They were, by all available evidence, primitive, illiterate and brutal. They built large but crude fortress cities and were constantly at war. At the end of the Early Bronze Age, they were obliterated.
Who destroyed Early Bronze Age Canaan? Before the vast amount of information we have today had been more than hinted at, some early archaeologists suggested that they were Amorites. The time, they thought, was more or less right for Abraham. So why not postulate a great disaster in Mesopotamia, which resulted in people migrating from there to Canaan? Abraham would have been thus one in a great crowd of immigrants (scholars of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries often felt compelled to debunk the idea of Divine commands).
Today, the picture is different. The invaders of the Early Bronze/Middle Bronze Interchange seem to have appeared out of nowhere in the Sinai and the Negev. Initially, they moved up into the Transjordan, and then crossed over north of the Dead Sea, conquering Canaan and wiping out the inhabitants. Of course, since we are dealing with cultural remnants and not written records, we don’t know that the previous inhabitants were all killed. Some of them may have remained, but if so, they adopted enough of the newcomers’ culture to “disappear” from the archaeological record.
And more:
... It is not only the period of the Exodus and Conquest which suddenly match the evidence of ancient records and archaeology when the dates of the archaeological periods are brought down:
1. The Middle Bronze Age invaders, after some centuries of rural settlement, expanded almost overnight into an empire, stretching from the Nile to the Euphrates. This empire has been termed the “Hyksos Empire,” after a group of nomads that invaded Egypt, despite the fact that there is no historical evidence for such an identification. History knows of one such empire. Archaeology knows of one such empire. The same adjustment which restores the Exodus and Conquest to history does the same to the United Kingdom of David and Solomon.
2. The Empire fell, bringing the Middle Bronze Age to an end. Archaeologists and Egyptologists are currently involved in a great debate over whether it was civil war or Egyptian invasions which destroyed the “Hyksos” empire. The biblical accounts of the revolt of the ten northern tribes and the invasion of Shishak king of Egypt make the debate irrelevant.
3. The period following the end of the Empire was one of much unrest, but saw tremendous literary achievements. Since this period, the Late Bronze Age, was the last period before the Iron Age, and since the Iron Age was believed to have been the Israelite Period, the Late Bronze Age was called the Canaanite Period. Strangely, these Canaanites spoke and wrote in beautiful Biblical Hebrew. Semitic Canaanites? Did the Bible get it wrong again? But then, coming after the time of David and Solomon, they weren’t really Canaanites. The speakers and writers of Biblical Hebrew were, as might have been guessed . . . Biblical Hebrews.
4. Finally we get to the Iron Age. This is when Israel supposedly arrived in Canaan. But it has been obvious to archaeologists for over a century that the archaeology of the Iron Age bears little resemblance to the Biblical account of the conquest of Canaan. There were invasions, but they were from the north, from Syria and Mesopotamia, and they came in several waves, unlike the lightning conquest under Joshua. The people who settled the land after the invasions also came from the north, though there is much evidence to suggest that they weren’t the invaders, and merely settled an empty land after it had been destroyed by others. The south remained in the hands of the Bronze Age inhabitants, albeit on a lower material level.
And:
What is most strange is that multiple waves of invasion followed by northern tribes settling in the north of Israel is not an event which has gone unmentioned in the Bible. The invaders were the Assyrians. The settlers were the northern tribes who eventually became the Samaritans, And if the people in the south were descended from the Late Bronze Age inhabitants of the land, why, that merely means that the kingdom of Judah was a continuation of the kingdom of Judah. The only historical claims which are contradicted by the archaeological record are those of the Samaritans, who claim to have been the descendants of the ten tribes of Israel.
There are some problems with Aaronson's thesis, not the least of which is that the dating on which he relies are contested. For instance, Pepi II is believed to have ruled for 64 years; the end of the Old Kingdom in approximately 2200 B.C. puts the Exodus as roughly 1,600 years before the destruction of Solomon's temple by the Babylonians, which is far outside the 910 years in common Biblical chronologies. (Although even the Egyptian chronologies and Near East chronologies are nowhere as exact as most scholars would like you to think and not everyone agrees on the dating). The text of Ipuwer Papyrus, which according to Aaronson's thesis would have been composed about the time of the end of the Old Kingdom or shortly thereafter, is believed to have been composed hundreds of years later, in the late Twelfth Dynasty of Egypt (c.1991–1803 BC) (the actual papyrus has been dated to 1250 BC) and certain of the events do not match up with the Exodus. There was no Hyksos Empire as Aaronsen describes: the Hyksos were immigrants that flowed into Lower Egypt and then overthrew the Egyptians (see here and here). The more likely explanation is that Israel was the part of this Hyksos immigration, with Joseph being one of the "Hyksos" that obtained power by marrying into powerful Egyptian families, rather than the Hyksos being the empire of David and Solomon. Finally, the 166 year correction that Aaronson relies upon is based on faulty dating.
Jon Low has posted a new Defensive Pistolcraft post with a roundup of articles and videos related to firearms and self-defense (and a little bit of radio related topics this time as well) and his commentary on each. This week, Jon has some advice to those using or thinking of using IDPA or IPSC matches to augment their training.
The general idea behind using such matches, as expressed by Ayoob and others, is that they provide a chance to shoot while under pressure which can give you an idea of how you might perform in an actual gunfight. Obviously the stress you might have at a match is not to the level of an actual fight, but it is more than you will get on a square target range. And that brings up a second advantage to attending such matches for many people is that it might be the only time that you can actually move and shoot around barriers, whether because you only get to practice at a square range and/or can't afford all the barriers and other accouterments that will be at an IDPA match.
But back to Jon's comments:
When we shoot the match, we will go very slowly to ensure we positively identify every shoot-target and every no-shoot-target. We will not be racing to win the game. It is common for the Safety Officer to inform the shooter that he failed to engage several targets, because he just ran past them without seeing them. Moving faster than you can see. Moving faster than you can think.
We will stay back away from corners, windows, and doors, because we understand that there is someone hiding behind the corner who will grab our pistol.
We will shoot at the first part of the enemy that comes into view, because we can do so without exposing our bodies. We can always get the A-zone hit later as we come around the corner. We understand that whoever gets the first hit will usually win the gunfight.
We will not muzzle no-shoot-targets. We will not sweep across no-shoot-targets when transitioning from one shoot-target to another shoot-target. Because unlike the other competitors, we are not playing a game. We are training for combat. Shooting the no-shoot target is shooting faster than you can think.
Do not do "walk throughs". Do not choreograph the scenario. Shoot the targets as they come into view. Do not count rounds. Do not plan your reloads. Shoot until empty, then reload. Planning a scenario is a training scar. Combat is surprising.
Remember, we are training for civilian concealed carry for self-defense. We are not playing the game.
Does this mean that you will not win the match? Probably. Most likely you will fall into the middle range if you are an experienced shooter because treating barriers and movement around barriers seriously takes time. If you are treating the scenario seriously you can't, for instance, simply race around a corner and stand in the middle of the faux hallway and blaze away at the target as you would if speed was your primary concern.
I'm of two minds on Jon's advice to avoid the detailed walk-through and planning how you will shoot the stage. First of all, you need to at least view the stage and objectives so you can safely complete the stage. Second, I'm not sure that the planning process is a bad thing; it may even be a good thing. Why do I think that way? Well, for one, I'm not going to be clearing random buildings. The only building I see myself clearing is my home for which I can plan in detail and even modify the environment to make it easier for me. So planning how to shoot a stage isn't going to cheat me out of valuable experience on clearing random buildings. Secondly, most of us haven't had any training or experience in clearing buildings so we don't have that background in thinking how to approach or react to a situation where we might have to move and shoot in a less familiar space. Having to think how you will solve an IDPA stage may, in fact, be the only chance you have to practice on evaluating a structure and coming up with a plan. Anyway, my two cents.
Back to Jon's comments. He relates this recent experience:
A couple of hours ago, I finished a Low Light Outlaw match at the Glock Store in Nashville, TN. I used my EDC (every day carry) gear (including a hand held flashlight).
Strobe lights are distracting. Use your hand or hat brim to block the strobe lights.
The guys using night vision goggles could not distinguish colors. They couldn't tell the difference between the brown shoot-targets and the white no-shoot-targets. That's a real problem.
My marksmanship ability in low light is degraded. Because I don't practice low light shooting enough. An operator must know how low light affects their ability to hit at given distances and adjust accordingly. If you can group in a 12 inch circle at 25 yards that's fine. If you know that you can group within a 30 inch circle at 25 yards in low light conditions. That's fine. You can charge in to get the group size needed. But if you don't know what your group size is at 25 yards in low light, that's a real problem.
There was a house clearing scenario in which the mission was to rescue the baby. There was a recording playing of a baby screaming and crying. I knew it wasn't real, but it was still very disturbing. The "baby" wasn't a life size doll as I had expected. It was a 3D cardboard "baby" that weighed what you would expect a baby of that size to weigh, and clearly labeled "BABY". I went slowly and carefully, and accomplished the mission. Others shot the baby. Others could not find the baby, complaining that it was buried under the blanket or the pillows. I was thinking, "That's stupid." You just keep searching until you find the baby. Never give up. But, they were pissed that they were taking so long that they would get a bad score on the stage.
A couple more points:
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| Sherden and Tjeker on Pylon of Medinet Habu (Wikipedia) |
Ilan Ben Zion has published an article in Archaeology Magazine on the topic of "The Philistine Age." Most of us are only familiar with the Philistines in their role as the arch enemy of the Israelites during the later period of the reign of the judges and during the period of the united Kingdom of Israel under Saul, David and Solomon. As Ben Zion observes: "The Bible’s pejorative depiction of the Philistines has so pervaded Western culture that, more than 3,000 years on, 'philistine' remains a byword for an unsophisticated person indifferent or hostile to artistic and intellectual pursuits."
Up until recently, the pervasive belief among archeologists was that the Philistines originated in the Aegean, were probably the "Sea Peoples" (or a major constituent thereof) that overthrew and destroyed the kingdoms and empires causing the Bronze Age Collapse, and forcefully invaded Israel and Canaan and settled there. Ben Zion argues that more recent and more extensive archeological digs of four of the main five Philistine cities paints a more nuanced picture.
Maeir and many of his colleagues suggest that the Philistines were an eclectic and multiethnic group of migrants, not a uniform horde of invaders. He believes it’s likely they hailed from various locations around the eastern Mediterranean and moved to the Levant over many decades between the late thirteenth and mid-twelfth centuries B.C. They settled, mostly peaceably, among the local Canaanites, creating a distinct hybrid culture that endured for much of the Iron Age. “What we’ve learned about Philistine culture at Gath,” Maeir says, “is that the process of its origins, formation, transformation, and development is much more complex than was originally thought.”
The article continues:
Like the Israelites living in the inland hill country to the east of Gath, the Philistines first appear in the historical record during the upheaval of the end of the Late Bronze Age, around 1200 B.C., when a period of stability in the eastern Mediterranean marked by long-distance trade and diplomacy came to a dramatic end. The Hittite Empire that had ruled Anatolia since about 1750 B.C. collapsed. The Egyptian grip over Canaan began a long decline, after which some Canaanite cities were destroyed. Scholars debate what precipitated this Late Bronze Age collapse. Maeir says there likely wasn’t a single root cause, but that a combination of environmental and social factors were to blame. Analysis of pollen and sediments from Bronze Age sites in Greece and Israel shows that the eastern Mediterranean experienced a period of severe aridity starting around 1250 B.C. Protracted periods of drought and famine likely fanned social unrest and may have triggered mass migrations and invasions that undermined the political stability of the Late Bronze Age.
Ben Zion then goes into more detail about Maeir's findings and his belief that the Philistines actually represented a vibrant cosmopolitan and migrant culture. That doesn't mean that Maeir's views are fully accepted.
Maeir’s vision of the Philistines isn’t the only one embraced by modern archaeologists. Wheaton College archaeologist Daniel Master, who codirected recent excavations at Ashkelon, the Philistine port 18 miles west of Tell es-Safi, believes Egyptian and biblical accounts should be interpreted more literally. He thinks that the Philistines likely hailed from Crete and conquered Canaanite cities during a brief window around 1175 B.C Philistine pottery resembling ceramics from Mycenaean sites was a product of a single stylistic moment, Master says. Those pottery types and decorative styles, he thinks, changed in parallel in Philistia and the Aegean during a single generation.
The 2013 discovery of a cemetery at Ashkelon, the first large burial ground to be excavated at one of the cities of the Philistine Pentapolis, has helped bolster Master’s view. This cemetery contained some 200 burials dating to the Philistine period in which individuals were interred separately. This is unlike Canaanite funerary practices in which the dead were cremated or buried collectively in pits or tombs. Genetic analysis of these remains, says Master, supports Egyptian accounts of the Philistines’ origins. He was part of a team that analyzed the DNA of 10 individuals found in the Ashkelon cemetery: three dating from the Bronze Age, four from the Early Iron Age, and three dating to the tenth to ninth century B.C. The team found that DNA sampled from the Early Iron Age burials had a European genetic component that set the people apart from the local Bronze Age Canaanite population and supports the idea that the Philistines originated in Crete.
But other researchers warn that the sample size for the DNA study are too small to be taken as definitive, and while there is a strong Greek thread in the styles of pottery and other objects, there are also elements of Levantine styles intermixed, and some Canaanite practices apparently continued into the Philistine period.
Hitchcock says the archaeological record doesn’t neatly match the traditional scholarly accounts of Philistine invasion and colonization. In particular, she points to the absence of evidence of violent conquest at Philistine sites, including Gath. “We go straight from early Philistine layers down into Late Bronze Age layers with no evidence of destruction,” she says. “This calls into question the whole myth of the Philistines as an invading force of Mycenaean colonizers sweeping in and taking over.” In addition, very few weapons have been found at Philistine sites, an absence that challenges the martial image of the Philistines presented in the Bible.
Maeir and Hitchcock propose that the people who became the Philistines were part of migrating populations who formed opportunistic pirate tribes. These groups may have roamed the Mediterranean, taking on followers from a number of different disrupted societies. “When Egypt loosened its grip on Philistia, these groups finally settled in among the local population,” Hitchcock says. The scholars believe that some of the peoples who comprised the Philistines were multiethnic groups of raiders possibly analogous to Atlantic pirates of the seventeenth century A.D., who are known to have come from many different nations.
The truth of the matter is probably somewhere in the middle. Egyptian paintings of the Sea Peoples show a rather polyglot group of invaders, and the two pharaohs that recorded battles with them listed a total of 9 groups: Shardana, Shekelesh, Lukka, Teresh, Ekwesh, Tjekker, Denyen, Weshesh, and Peleset. The Peleset are believed to have been the Philistines. The popular theories of the Sea Peoples suggest that they originated from several groups migrating into the Mediterranean and seemingly arriving at a time that the local populaces were unhappy with their rulers, with the result that there seemed to have been widespread war and uprisings through the area.
As for where they came from, the early Egyptologists were split in their opinion as to whether the Sea Peoples had come from the west, i.e., Italy, Sicily, and Sardinia, and traveled east, or whether they were from the Eastern Mediterranean and had fled west after being defeated by the Egyptians. Even today we still play linguistic games with the names of the individual groups whom the Egyptian pharaohs mentioned. Most (although not all) scholars would now argue that the Sea Peoples began their migration from the Western Mediterranean, and that there is a linguistic link between the Shardana and Sardinia as well as the Shekelesh and Sicily. However, when they headed east and overran various countries and areas, others joined in along the way, so that the Denyen and Ekwesh might be from the Aegean (Homer’s Danaans and Achaeans), the Lukka are almost certainly from Lycia in southwestern Turkey, and so on.
If that thinking is correct, then the two waves of Sea Peoples that crashed upon the shores of Egypt thirty years apart were composed of a motley crew from many different areas of both the western and eastern Mediterranean plus the Aegean and perhaps Cyprus as well. But all of that, plain and simple, is still just a hypothesis, for there are no other texts or even archaeological evidence at the moment to confirm the entire story.
What we have instead are bits and pieces of the puzzle, such as the fact that the Shardana (also called the Sherden) appear in Egyptian texts and inscriptions already a century or more earlier, fighting as mercenaries both for and against the Egyptian army. Individual texts from places such as Ugarit in north Syria report unnamed invaders and foreign ships, as well as famine in the Hittite lands. We also have sites destroyed during this time, but it’s not always clear who or what did it and why – perhaps foreign invaders; perhaps an uprising by the local populace; perhaps an earthquake. It can be difficult, and sometimes impossible, to tell what caused the destruction of a site, especially if no weapons (such as arrowheads, swords, or spear tips) or bodies are found in the rubble.
It is possible that Canaan was rapidly overwhelmed with migrants (i.e., an invasion) but that the local rulers either capitulated without a fight or realized that hosting bands of pirates might enrich their pockets (i.e., no evidence of a violent invasion). Or, as Ramses' inscriptions suggest, perhaps the Philistine colonization of Canaan was part of an Egyptian resettlement program after he defeated the Sea Peoples in 1177 BC.
Given that it is summer and Europe is having summer temperatures similar to what you see in the United States, The Conversation has published what seems a timely article on "How hot is too hot for the human body? Our lab found heat + humidity gets dangerous faster than many people realize." The authors first lay out what is the current consensus:
People often point to a study published in 2010 that estimated that a wet-bulb temperature of 35 C – equal to 95 F at 100% humidity, or 115 F at 50% humidity – would be the upper limit of safety, beyond which the human body can no longer cool itself by evaporating sweat from the surface of the body to maintain a stable body core temperature.
It was not until recently that this limit was tested on humans in laboratory settings. The results of these tests show an even greater cause for concern.
The article then briefly describes how the authors conducted their research before getting to their findings:
That combination of temperature and humidity whereby the person’s core temperature starts to rise is called the “critical environmental limit.” Below those limits, the body is able to maintain a relatively stable core temperature over time. Above those limits, core temperature rises continuously and risk of heat-related illnesses with prolonged exposures is increased.
When the body overheats, the heart has to work harder to pump blood flow to the skin to dissipate the heat, and when you’re also sweating, that decreases body fluids. In the direst case, prolonged exposure can result in heat stroke, a life-threatening problem that requires immediate and rapid cooling and medical treatment.
Our studies on young healthy men and women show that this upper environmental limit is even lower than the theorized 35 C. It’s more like a wet-bulb temperature of 31 C (88 F). That would equal 31 C at 100% humidity or 38 C (100 F) at 60% humidity.
The authors also warn:
Keep in mind that these cutoffs are based solely on keeping your body temperature from rising excessively. Even lower temperatures and humidity can place stress on the heart and other body systems. And while eclipsing these limits does not necessarily present a worst-case scenario, prolonged exposure may become dire for vulnerable populations such as the elderly and those with chronic diseases.
Firearms & Self-Defense:
More space equals more time equals more opportunity to solve the tactical problem. The converse is also true: Less space equals less time equals fewer opportunities to solve the tactical problem. How can you create and control the reactionary gap affording you a tactical advantage when bad things happen to good people?Referencing ballistic weapons (firearms), the capability of the gun (handgun or long gun) and the capability of the shooter determine the effective contact range. Long gunners, using a rifle, can strike far beyond or outside your line of sight using extreme distance, concealment, position, camouflage, etc.—which, of course, means you may not be able to see them, nor determine a specific distance.Employing reactive measures at longer distances and under these extreme conditions is to identify the impact area and immediately seek cover. Use your sensory input to confirm that it is gunfire. Take a second to orient to the direction of incoming rounds, as you do not want to inadvertently run into a hailstorm of flying lead.
The rest of the article covers a lot of different topics that relate to maintaining awareness and keeping enough space (and thus time) to react to problems. The author wraps it up:
Controlling the reactionary gap begins with situational awareness. You want the advantage of being able to apply proactive measures as opposed to reactive measures. However, applying good situational awareness is only part of the solution.
Once a potential threat has been identified, you must make an ad hoc plan on the move. After recognizing a problem, your next step is to solve that problem. What is the best solution? You can’t go wrong with creating more space as this increases the reactionary gap, which in turn increases your reaction time, buying you further options. In doing so, you may have increased the gap so much so that your attacker(s) may consider a softer target. However, it is possible that they may close the reactionary gap warranting an immediate solution to the problem.
Your options are either an exit plan—find a way out to get off that fateful ‘X’ and move to a safer physical position—or equalize use of force against the active threat. The safest of these two plans is to exit, which further increases your reactionary gap, allows for additional proactive measures and lowers your injury potential. The less safe of these two, and the option where you have no other choice, is to equalize against the threat; that is get something in your hands such as a ballistic or non-ballistic weapon with which you may effectively solve the tactical problem.
I don't know if he was motivated by this article or not, but the host of the Hard 2 Hurt channel released a video (embedded above) on the same topic titled "Situational Awareness is Not the Answer to Self Defense." (The discussion on reactionary gap starts about the 5:30 mark). But what he adds is different methods of building reactionary gaps out of things like angles, physical objects, and language, giving examples of each.
There is another point raised, sort of, in the article, and discussed at length at the beginning of the Hard 2 Hurt video, which is that we learn these skills so we can enjoy life without becoming a victim. As the author of the article asks, "do you really want to stay behind closed doors and live in fear?"
The 20 gauge can be an excellent home defense weapon. The problem, as my reader noted, is the availability of really high quality defensive ammunition. Double aught buckshot doesn’t pack neatly into a 20 gauge shell. Most companies load their 20 gauge offerings with numbers two, three, or four buckshot instead. As far as I know, no company is currently using an improved wad like the Federal Flight Control or Hornady Tap. That means if you choose the 20 gauge, you will be limited to what is essentially 19th century ammunition technology.
Thus, he writes:
For pests like raccoons, coyotes, and feral dogs raiding the hen house, my reader won’t be hampered by the ballistic disadvantages of the available 20 gauge loads. For self defense against humans, the 20 gauge may or may not be a good choice depending on the circumstances.
He goes on to discuss patterning with different shotgun loads, including test of various 20-gauge loads. Unfortunately, the 20-gauge loads produced the largest patterns, with unacceptable spread at just 30 feet. This was worse even than Wolf Buckshot loads! What this means is that "[f]or indoor home defense scenarios, the 20 gauge will probably be fine," but "[i]f your defensive encounter might occur at a longer distance, choose the 12 gauge."
There is no reason, of course, why 20 gauge loads can't be made to pattern more tightly. The key with 12-gauge seems to have been using specially designed wads and reducing the load from 9 pellets to 8 pellets. The ammunition manufacturers must not see a demand, however, for 20-gauge defensive shotgun. Which is weird because I see .410 shotguns (or shotgun like weapons) marketed for defense as well as specialty loads for self-defense loads. But manufacturers are heavily influenced by the top shooters and gun writers and don't seem to spend the time or money on market research. It probably will require either a lot of people writing companies asking for 20-gauge versions of popular defensive shotguns and defensive loads and/or some well-known shooters and writers championing the 20-gauge as a defensive weapon to get some change. This would be most effective, I suspect, if women-shooters were the ones to push the issue since the manufacturers have been very focused on this expanding market.
... Elmer Keith was a major proponent of cast hollow-points, but interest in this area has waned in recent years. This is really unfortunate because some really fine hunting bullets can be made, and in fact, the hunter can tailor the final expansion characteristics to his (or her) specific desires and needs.I feel that cast HP's are better bullets than their commercial jacketed counterparts. Undoubtedly, the personal pride of creating the cast HP's factors into this bias, but I feel that there is a solid, structural basis for this conclusion as well. Commercial JHP's, as good as some of them are, have a significant structural "flaw" stemming from the fact that they are made from dissimilar materials -- a hard (sometimes brittle) jacket and a soft, malleable core. Once the jacket opens up and exposes the soft core, the unsupported core can erode away, the jacket can fragment and the two distinct pieces can separate. The core must have the support from the jacket to withstand all the forces crushing it during the expansion and stoppage of a bullet. Therefore, the basic composition of a strong jacket/weak core requires a careful balancing act on the part of the manufacturer to get the jacket thickness and ductility to properly offset the core hardness, as well as cavity size, shape and depth. Obviously, these decisions require a certain amount of compromise, and the manufacturer's final choices may or may not suit your particular needs.The cast HP, on the other hand, is made of a homogenous alloy of moderate strength, that undergoes uniform and predictable deformation. The caster can easily dictate the degree of expansion to suit a particular application by varying the alloy composition and hardness.
... Bloviation and histrionics by politicians and the gun control industry are meant to deceive the public into thinking that if we just pass more “gun safety” laws, what happened in Highland Park can be prevented.That’s a cynical lie and they know it. It’s all an elaborate system of security theater meant to fool the public and make it harder for the average citizen to defend him- or herself from the kind of threats they’re most likely to encounter. And the web of gun control laws are administered by government functionaries on the public payroll who operate in a vast bureaucracy, sometimes with political agendas.In other words, the system is terrible. And always has been.Between Illinois and the city of Highland Park, all of the gun control laws that the Civilian Disarmament Industrial Complex calls for most often were already in place; gun owner registration, no sales under 21, a three-day waiting period, red flag confiscation orders, and, yes, even an “assault weapons” ban.How well did that work out?
People have pointed out that these shootings did not happen in the past, suggesting that something has changed. And it isn't easy access to semi-auto weapons using magazines of more than 10 rounds either as William Lawson points out in his article, "Stephen Hunter: The Assault Weapon Massacres of 1964."
Hunter recently made an astute observation in the wake of the anti-gun uproar of the last month or so, writing in a column: “Possibly you’re old enough to remember the great massacre spree of 1964? Classrooms shot up, strip malls decimated, Scout troops blown away, fast food restaurants turned into mortuaries. And all because, in its infinite stupidity, the U.S. Government dumped 240,000 high-capacity .30-caliber assault rifles into an otherwise innocent America.”
Remember when that happened? No? Me neither, despite being a historian. That’s because it didn’t happen, despite hundreds of thousands of M-1 Carbines being dumped on an unsuspecting public in 1963 for less than a hundred bucks apiece. NRA members could buy them for a 20-dollar bill. No background check either.
You could even have them shipped right to your door, complete with a “high capacity” 15-round magazine. Ultra-high catastrophic murder capacity 30-round mags were also available for little or nothing. .30 Carbine ammo was cheap and widely available. I’ll bet some of those bullet casings even had a shark’s mouth painted on it to make it extra scary and more able to blow lungs out of the body.
He muses:
Does that mean there were no bad people around in 1964? Doubtful. But maybe, just maybe, people are bad in a different way now. Could it possibly be true that something other than access to firearms could be driving these twisted individuals to kill innocent people? Even children? Gun owners are often pilloried in the media for not offering solutions to these horrific trends. But what have the gun controllers offered? Ban “assault weapons.” Ban “high capacity” magazines. Tax ammunition. Ban all the guns. Run a microscope up your ass and wait 30 days before allowing the sale. That’s literally all they have.
But 1964 exposes the lie. This is a relatively recent trend. There are multiple causative factors at work here. For instance, those of us who pay attention are aware of what some medications do to people susceptible to their side effects. I witnessed firsthand the complete loss of inhibition in a close friend. The consequences were ugly. Does that mean that medications are solely responsible? No, but I’d bet everything I own that some of them are part of the puzzle. Not to mention how quickly they’re pumped into kids at the first sign of the latest trendy diagnosis.
Others, including myself, have pointed at the destruction of the traditional family as a cause. After all, if fathers are the primary parent to teach restrain and self-control, what happens when kids don't have fathers or their fathers are too feminized to effectively act as a father. It's not a new idea; see the 1995 report, "The Real Root Causes of Violent Crime: The Breakdown of Marriage, Family, and Community" by Patrick Fagan. Fagan notes the following:
- Over the past thirty years, the rise in violent crime parallels the rise in families abandoned by fathers.
- High-crime neighborhoods are characterized by high concentrations of families abandoned by fathers.
- State-by-state analysis by Heritage scholars indicates that a 10 percent increase in the percentage of children living in single-parent homes leads typically to a 17 percent increase in juvenile crime.
- The rate of violent teenage crime corresponds with the number of families abandoned by fathers.
- The type of aggression and hostility demonstrated by a future criminal often is foreshadowed in unusual aggressiveness as early as age five or six.
- The future criminal tends to be an individual rejected by other children as early as the first grade who goes on to form his own group of friends, often the future delinquent gang.
On the other hand:
- Neighborhoods with a high degree of religious practice are not high-crime neighborhoods.
- Even in high-crime inner-city neighborhoods, well over 90 percent of children from safe, stable homes do not become delinquents. By contrast only 10 percent of children from unsafe, unstable homes in these neighborhoods avoid crime.
- Criminals capable of sustaining marriage gradually move away from a life of crime after they get married.
- The mother's strong affectionate attachment to her child is the child's best buffer against a life of crime.
- The father's authority and involvement in raising his children are also a great buffer against a life of crime.
The scholarly evidence, in short, suggests that at the heart of the explosion of crime in America is the loss of the capacity of fathers and mothers to be responsible in caring for the children they bring into the world. This loss of love and guidance at the intimate levels of marriage and family has broad social consequences for children and for the wider community. The empirical evidence shows that too many young men and women from broken families tend to have a much weaker sense of connection with their neighborhood and are prone to exploit its members to satisfy their unmet needs or desires. This contributes to a loss of a sense of community and to the disintegration of neighborhoods into social chaos and violent crime. If policymakers are to deal with the root causes of crime, therefore, they must deal with the rapid rise of illegitimacy.
He goes on to explain:
Propensity to crime develops in stages associated with major psychological and sociological factors. The factors are not caused by race or poverty, and the stages are the normal tasks of growing up that every child confronts as he gets older. In the case of future violent criminals these tasks, in the absence of the love, affection, and dedication of both his parents, become perverse exercises, frustrating his needs and stunting his ability to belong.
The stages are:
- Early infancy and the development of the capacity for empathy. Early family life and the development of relationships based on agreements being kept and a sense of an intimate place where he belongs. Early school life and the development of peer relationships based on cooperation and agreements conveying a sense of a community to which he belongs.
- Mid-childhood and the experience of a growing capacity to learn and cooperate within his community.
- Adolescence and the need to belong as an adult and to perform.
- Generativity, or the begetting of the next generation through intimate sexual union and bringing others into the family and the community.
In all of these stages the lack of dedication and the atmosphere of rejection or conflict within the family diminish the child's experience of his personal life as one of love, dedication, and a place to belong. Instead, it is characterized increasingly by rejection, abandonment, conflict, isolation, and even abuse. He is compelled to seek a place to belong outside of such a home and, most frequently not finding it in the ordinary community, finds it among others who have experienced similar rejection. He becomes attached to those who are alienated, for, like him, they have been rejected. Not finding acceptance and nurturance from caring adults, they begin conveying their own form of acceptance.
This atomization and feeling alienated may have played a part here. I think this headline from the New York Post says it all: "Family of Robert Crimo’s only friend: ‘It blows my mind,’ he was a ‘happy kid’." Well, maybe not all of it: the article also reports that his "only friend" died in 2017, so he effectively was friendless. (UPDATE: I don't want to give the impression that I am suggesting that the killer is blameless in all this. He's not. He had his free will. And there are undoubtedly millions of people out there right now that had childhoods as bad or worse and didn't turn into mass shooters).
Prepping & Survival:
I've suggested this before, and now I am telling you: get yourself into a house of worship of your choice and become active in it. I explain how you can do that in this piece. We need to be developing community with people who share our beliefs. Do not delay. Read that piece I wrote about how to do this. Then do it.
Hanging laundry is pretty simple stuff, and I’m not here to complicate it. Whether you’re new to it or an old hat like me, if you’d like to get the most out of it, here are a few tips I’d like to share from doing this a few years.
Towel the line — It’s warm out, and that means pollen is everywhere. Unless you’re into yellow stripes, take a minute to run a damp cloth down every inch of hanging surface.Double up — Hang a piece with two pins, then overlap it with the next piece and use the second pin to hold up one side of the next piece, so that they share it. This works best on thinner pieces, and keep in mind it will slow the drying process a smidgen. This, along with grouping like items, is also helpful when you have a lot of pieces to hang so you don’t run out of pins.Flip out — Remember what I said about the sun? That’s good on whites — leave them be. But, if you want your colors to last, protect their exteriors by turning them inside-out. This is also great for pants because it helps pockets dry faster. Pro-tip: turn underwear inside out. Don’t make me explain why.Whip it good — Give everything a good shake when you hang it. Helps get the dog fur and wrinkles out. If there’s not any wind, clothes dry in the shape they’re left in, so make it a good one.Fluff ‘n stuff — When finished, I like to toss the load into the dryer on the air-dry setting for 5-10 minutes; helps get the dust off and softens. Save this task for late at night or early in the morning before the temperature climbs.Bring it in — Don’t leave clothes on the line overnight, and don’t leave the basket outside all day; the sun dries and weakens the plastic. And if your clothespin bag doesn’t zip, best take it inside so critters don’t move in and surprise you next time you reach inside!Don’t be such a snag — If you have delicate fabrics (satins, laces, hosiery), consider investing in soft-grip plastic clothespins with rubber feet to avoid snags. For everything else my 50 or so wooden pins do just fine.Scoot yer boot — I hang my pin bag over one of the middle lines and move it down as I go so it’s always nearby.
Those are the general techniques and advice. She has some specific ones for certain types of clothing, as well as some other advantages to air drying.
Rachael explains that fat burning takes place when carbs and fat are turned into energy called adenosine triphosphate (ATP).
The body needs oxygen to convert fat into ATP and when you're doing low to moderate-intensity exercise, you're able to breathe easier so your body gets more oxygen than when you're doing high intensity training.
'The most efficient thing your body can do during lower and moderate forms of exercise is to turn to your stored fat into energy,' she said.
'So according to the fat burning theory, you should do long low-intensity exercises in order to use up fat storage and to burn enough calories in order to see weight loss.'
Rachael added that during high intensity training the body is more likely to burn carbs (glycogen) rather than fat as it doesn't have enough energy to burn fat.
'When you do a high-intensity workout, your body burns through your glycogen stores and may eventually turn back to fat burning depending on the length of the workout, and your body’s amount of stored carbs,' she added.
'But if you eat before doing a high-intensity workout (and especially if your diet is high in carbs), your body will most probably burn way more carbs than fat.'
News & Analysis:
The Russian company said that although it tried to source its potatoes from Russian suppliers, it had become impossible to import potatoes from external markets to make up for the shortfall in the domestic crop.However, the Russian agriculture ministry issued a combative statement on Telegram entitled 'There are potatoes - and that's it' disputing Vkusno i Tochka's account that it could not source domestic potatoes.'The Russian market is fully supplied with potatoes, including processed ones. In addition, crops from the new harvest are already arriving, which rules out the possibility of a shortage,' the ministry said.The Russian agriculture ministry's statement could be part of a state-wide propaganda effort to downplay or deny completely the impact of Western sanctions on the country's economy.However, it is not the first time that Vkusno i Tochka's ability to replace McDonald's operation in Russia has come into question.Supply chain issues that have plagued the company have been put down to the wide-ranging sanctions placed on the Russian economy in response to Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine.Earlier this month the fast food chain, which also translates as 'Delicious full stop', was caught serving mouldy burgers to fed-up customers, suggesting that it was struggling to source fresh burger buns too.
The fast food company and the Russian ministry could both be right: Russet potatoes, necessary for the french fries, could be in short supply while the overall supply of potatoes of other varieties generally used for cooking is fine. But it is a data point to consider that the Russian situation may not be as wonderful as some are pointing out.
Retail has had a tough few weeks recently. It began with Target announcing it would liquidate a massive amount of slow-moving inventory that was not selling as well post-pandemic, like home goods.Then retailers like RH, Bed Bath & Beyond and Kohl’s all revised earnings or issued warnings that second quarter performances would be well below expectations. Bed Bath and Beyond announced they were eliminating air conditioning to save money, and at least one analyst said they might go under.
Food commodities like corn, soybean, and wheat have collapsed recently, entering bear market territory as more than 20% was shaved off their recent peaks.Dennis Sweeney, CEO of Infinity Brokerage said the, “talk across all commodity assets is demand destruction. I believe funds are worried about a recession.”Prices of these commodities were skyrocketing earlier in the year as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine threatened to create mass shortages. But now they are coming back to earth, as investors are seeing previous fears are failing to materialize.Wheat is presently down 30% from its highs in March. Meanwhile, Corn and soybeans have lost all of their 2022 gains so far this year.Sweeney said, “Bids were scarce as funds tried to exit the last couple of weeks.”Also driving prices down is the recent plunges in WTI crude and Brent crude, as investors have always noted energy and agricultural commodities tend to travel in tandem in the market.In addition, as the Fed moves to tame inflation, that is strengthening the dollar which will also work to drive down the cost of commodities comparitively.
Stringency index studies find that the average lockdown in Europe and the United States in the spring of 2020 only reduced COVID19 mortality by 3.2%. This translates into approximately 6,000 avoided deaths in Europe and 4,000 in the United States. SIPOs were also relatively ineffective in the spring of 2020, only reducing COVID-19 mortality by 2.0%. This translates into approximately 4,000 avoided deaths in Europe and 3,000 in the United States. Based on specific NPIs, we estimate that the average lockdown in Europe and the United States in the spring of 2020 reduced COVID-19 mortality by 10.7%. This translates into approximately 23,000 avoided deaths in Europe and 16,000 in the United States. In comparison, there are approximately 72,000 flu deaths in Europe and 38,000 flu deaths in the United States each year.
The U.S. pandemic lockdown in 2020 caused a $2.3 trillion economic downturn which translates to a little over $143 million for each life saved. And that doesn't include the "stimulus" spending to counteract the downturn or the long term economic impact on young people that essentially missed out on education or job development during the lockdown.
